AN:

Hey there lovelies. I know it's not exactly Monday like I said it'd be, but here it is. A lot of things piled up this week that separated me from my deadline, but to be honest, I'm still quite pleased with how it came along. Consistancy will come with repetition, I think. I hope.

(oh god how will I do it aksjdhalkjdsfhald)

ANYWAYS thanks for the praise, you beautiful boys and girls. We're moving things right along with this one. Last update was warm, but now we're gonna start cooking with fire. Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Hero Boy

Marceline slid the key into the lock, yelping a bit and stepping back as several loud clangs sounded from within the thick iron slabs. Massive mechanisms, hidden from view within the door and the surrounding rock, ran through their functions, half-ton deadbolts falling into their recesses in a series of resounding booms. It was a long two minutes before the cacophony was done. Marceline issued a short giggle. "You know you're doing it right when the door stops you longer than the guys guarding it, huh Finn?"

The human boy nodded as the massive slab of iron split down the middle, the two pieces swinging inward smoothly. "Yeah, I was honestly hoping for more," he agrees. "Though those blades of theirs are hot hot hot. I saw that you got cut a little; are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm just fine wild-child," Marceline insists. "Not much hurts me when I'm transformed, and even less hurts me for long."

"Riiiight, because you've got your vampire regeneration bit. How's that stuff work, anywho?" Finn seems oddly unperturbed, to Marceline. Even most of the people she called friends weren't really willing to straight up ask about that sort of thing; Jake certainly wouldn't. Sometimes, she wondered what the dog felt more towards her, friendship or fear. Honestly, she found his forthrightness to be refreshing. It made her feel normal.

"Well… In vampire circles, purity of blood is very important. They say that the first vampire was made by a guy whose blood was so pure, it allowed him magical properties. He went through a bunch of really nasty rituals, until he reached immortality. So the less things in a vampire's blood that separate him or her from the progenitor, the more powerful the vampire is. It's all blood magic."

"Ok, I think I get it…" Finn 'hmmm'ed for a bit. "And the whole eating red thing?"

"Well, most vampires drink blood in search of the good stuff; a vampire who's been drinking good, thick, pure blood for a long time can grow stronger. As for the red, well I've always figured that's just coming from the demon side of the family."

"Right. Way rad, man. If you didn't have such a freaky dad, I might be a snack right now." Finn seemed quite pleased by that, and Marceline tittered a bit.

"Well that still isn't completely out of the question," she said, treating him with a hungry gaze. The Last Human gave a bit of a yelp, and hopped up a few steps deeper into the cave, a bit more distance between them. Marceline just laughed.

"Such a mush," she said to herself, smiling softly. "He's like a little puppy, I swear. Just bouncing around between toys and games and friends."

"And what about 'cute, mushy, and innocent' is so appealing to you?" Another voice asked in whisper, like a little thing gnawing at the back of her head. The immortal scoffed a bit, internally.

"It's… Not appealing like 'that'. It's just… Well, he's endearing. Worms his way inside your heart, no matter how hard you try to lock him out. And he doesn't fight his way in. It just… Happens." Marceline looked about, feeling suddenly quite self-conscious. "How long has it been since I opened up? Like, really opened up? Five hundred years? Six?"

The Vampire Queen watched her human friend walking along, scanning the faces of the cave for traps or treasure, occasionally pausing to listen for the approach or an enemy. Those deep blue eyes cast back to her momentarily, and he offered her a smile. It wasn't the cheap, sycophantic grin she was used to from others of her kind. It came from the eyes, a gesture of genuine affection. She felt something pluck at her heartstrings, a wonderful ache in the center of her chest. "How long has it been?" she asked herself. "Since you found someone you thought you could trust?"

The other voice answered her: "Long enough for you to know it's a pipe-dream. Nobody wants to see the things you keep trapped up in your head. You're a monster. A freak. Nobody should have to share the things you've seen. Nobody deserves that fate." And sadly, Marceline agreed, as she always did. She was an alien, twisted thing. As much as she despised the rest of her kind, at least they understood what it was like to live forever, if you could call it anything but a mockery of life. And there was no bright-haired, blue-eyed boy who could ever understand something like that.

But at least she could enjoy the view.

Finn kept on trucking, watching warily for traps or ambushes. He didn't know how deep they'd be going before they started their accent towards the chamber where the bass was held; it felt like he had been walking for hours already, with no break in the monotony for combat or problem-solving. Thoughts that he had been holding before came seeping back in, but slower and gentler. Finn could have sighed in relief; whatever that crazed panic had been, the fights since seemed to have blown it over.

When he looked back at Marceline, he got the same impressions of her that he had of Flame Princess, all those years ago. Sure, it was a more intense impression, that was immediately apparent, but it was of the same ilk. That made the Last Human significantly more comfortable with it. "You like her, bud!" he could hear Jake telling him. "And there ain't nothin' wrong with that. Peeps are gonna like peeps, and that's just how peeps are."

"Alright then. So you like Marceline now." He thought hard on that for a while. "Like, not love. Definitely not love." There was definitely no doubt about that, in Finn's mind. He had loved FP. They had shared things that were sensitive to the both of them. Flame Princess had been bright and clear, letting no doubts stand that she was being honest about her feelings for him.

Marceline seemed to be on the opposite side of that spectrum; she was dark and mysterious, a sassy, saucy enigma cloaked in secrecy. There was nothing to her but the things she told you, and while you knew that wasn't all there was to it, she made you feel like asking for more was a very bad idea. She was Finn's friend, sure. That wasn't up for debate. But beyond that and a few snips and snipes here and there, Finn realized that there was an awful lot about Marceline that he just had no idea about. And that was that.

"Of course, that's all in my head. I may not be the wisest guy about all this romeo biz, but…" He took what he hoped was a covert glance back at his immortal friend. "…Yowza, she's smokin'. Her hair is… So pretty. Come on Finn. Peebles? FP? You've always had a thing for ladies with long hair. And her eyes are intense. I think I could look at that red forever…"

Of course, there were other things he was thinking now, that hadn't quite crossed his mind when he was dating Flame Princess. Like the way her waist curved inward delicately, before flaring out into her hips. Or the way her top swelled gently over her chest, while leaving her smooth, slender shoulders bare. Or the way her legs seemed to go on for ages… Things then turned in a direction that Finn would rather that it didn't, and he shook his head vigorously, terminating the line of thought. "You like Marcie now," he said. "That's definitely clear... You're gonna have to talk to Jake about it. Ugh, that guy always gets all annoying and tease-y when you do this, like I don't have enough to worry about without him making fun of me."

He heard Marceline say something but didn't quite catch it in time. His face smacked into hard stone and he stumbled back, grasping at his nose. "Eeeeeeyouch…" He hissed, looking up.

"I told you to look out," the vampire said, catching him and holding him up for a bit. "Some adventurer you are." She added that with a teasing tone, giving his shoulder a playful squeeze. Finn grumbled something about 'disappearing walls', before putting his feet under him and leaving Marceline's grasp. He could feel her cool hands through his sweatshirt, leaving little men doing backflips in his gut.

"I'm guessing this is the next part of the trip," he said, eyeing the thing he had walked into. It was a door, with a quite peculiar symbol carved into it; a blazing bonfire surrounding what appeared to be a chunk of crystalline ice.

"Yep. It's one of the primary access shafts, runs up and down the entire mountain. That's the whole fire-and-ice thing; you can use one of these to go from top to bottom, straight line," Marceline explained, reading it out of Ash's journal. That thing sure was coming in handy. "More useful than the guy who wrote it, that's for sure," she thought to herself, filled with derision. Seriously. What a wad.

"Hm. Well it's a good thing that Thoros made the place so well; most of the times that I do this, things are like crazy complicated. Makes you wonder how people even live in these places. Like, 'do these lizard people really do the gem puzzles and jump over the lava pits every time they come and go'?"

"Oh, come on Finn. Lizard people love lava pits because they can just crawl past on the ceiling," the vamp said with a laugh. "Now get on over here, baby-face. No tell what he's got guarding this thing."

Finn nodded, eyes narrowing, hands resting on the hilts of his swords as Marceline opened the door and floated through. "Ah… Marcie? I've got a real bad feeling about this…" He said, looking about cautiously as they passed through the door. He was getting one of those hero-feelings, and it wasn't a good one. The back of his neck itched something fierce. Constantly, his gaze was whipped about by a perception of motion, but when he fixed his eyes on the spot in question, there was nothing there but the stone of the shaft around them. It was a long, sloping, spiral staircase, all along the edges of the massive chamber. A deep, warm glow emanated from down below, and a look over the edge revealed a mindbogglingly long way down, up from which came the sounds of steel striking steel; a thick, heavy, rhythmic clang that made Finn's teeth rattle and his ears ring with each and every stroke. Then, deep down in the fiery depths, the hammer's fall stopped.

"Um… Marcie?" Finn barely dared to whisper his companion's name, such was his level of nervousness. "Something… Something is coming."

Marceline could barely utter the words 'I know' before the air around them seemed to jump ten degrees hotter. What was a temperate cavern with wisps of heat rising from below became something like a sweltering desert, with scalding thermals spiraling upwards from deep within.

"I was wondering when you'd show your little faces," boomed a deep, terrible voice. Gusts of hot air accompanied it. "My children told me of your arrival. Who are you to march so rudely into my home?"

Finn took a few seconds to catch his breath, and then stepped up to the ledge, casting his words out into the updrafts. "I'm Finn, a human boy!" he yelled. "And this is Marceline, the Vampire Queen!"

"Hmmmm…" the voice responded. "The Vampire Queen, and a human? My, this is odd… One, I was expecting, but the other… How quaint. Quaint indeed."

"W-wait…" Marceline sputtered. "You knew I was coming?"

It had been said so quietly, the immortal was unsure how it had been heard over the moanings of the heated flow that rose from below, but indeed it had been heard. "Your name has passed in these halls before,"the voice intoned. "First, once, from the lips of the buffoonish mage you sent here. He was sent off, of course, but now his master has returned for her prize, just as I had thought she would."

"No, no, you've got it all twisted," Marceline began, but she was silenced by a column of roaring, hissing, molten steel, which roared up from the bottom of the shaft and hung before them in a raging sheet of liquid metal. The metal took a face, two slashes for eyes and a gaping maw of fire and steel.

"SILENCE!" the mouth howled, and the sound felt like the roaring of a firestorm. Splashes of the molten metal spattered around the two adventurers. Finn leapt to the side, rolling along the floor to avoid being struck by the super-heated soup. "You have come here to take that which is not yours to take. You ignored the rebuke, attacked my children, and forced your way through my doors. My Forgelings will be remade. The doors of my domain shall be sealed again. The nuisance you have caused me will be mended."

The face took an even more fearsome shape, could that ever be possible. It grew spiraled horns from its head, and four long, scything tusks from the top and bottom jaw. "But there is no one here who will remake you."

The mass of molten steel then lost its shape, plummeting back down into the depths of the mountain. After it was gone, there was silence again, and the clanging of steel struck between hammer and anvil continued. Then, the door behind them clanged and clattered, and when Marceline moved to open it, the portal held fast. Even with every ounce of her vampiric strength behind her, she could not budge it.

The sounds of chains and gears came echoing down from above, tearing Marceline's gaze upwards, a shard of panic in her blood-red eyes. "Oh…" she whispered in dread. "Oh no…"

"Marcie," Finn said cautiously. "What's going on?"

"He knew I was coming," she told her human friend. She gave him a look that made his stomach drop. It was fear. "Finn, he knew."

With the grind of stone moving against stone, lines in the rock tore around the walls of the cavern. Thoros had known Marceline would come for the bass. Ash, that imp, had told him the instrument was for her. So, knowing that the Vampire Queen was coming for his greatest creation, he had prepared, cutting free entire slabs of stone, installing mirrors of polished steel, creating mechanisms both to both fine and gross scales. Preparing his domain in his visitor's honor. And now, those preparations came to their purpose.

The mountain opened up, and the sun came pouring in.

Once, Finn had seen what sunlight would do to his immortal friend. She opened a door, and though she was safe in the dark on one side, the other side shone with damaging brilliance. It had only been a moment's exposure, but her face blistered as though someone had pressed a clothes iron against it. She had hissed in pain and rage, retreating back into her home, and the damage had healed almost at once. Yet it was unlike the way it mended cuts from blades of red-hot steel. The light had stunned and weakened Marceline, and it took her several minutes to fully recover her composure. That was just one taste, a scant glimpse. Now, through Thoros' ingenious contraption, there was no retreat back into blissful darkness.

Marceline screamed as she wilted under the inescapable beams. Her powers fled from her body, dumping her to the ground where she writhed, the glaring light scouring her. Her ashen skin crackled and hissed as the sun beat down on her, falling away in smoldering clumps like burning paper. Her long raven hair set fire, the tongues of flame climbing their way up her once-silky tresses towards her scalp. No matter how she rolled or thrashed, there was no escape from the killing rays, and she spent every moment in terror and agony.

Finn couldn't bear it. The sounds grated on his brain like rusted nails on a chalkboard. The sight made his heart hurt and his limbs tremble as he rushed over to his fallen friend. Hands scrabbling for the tab, he tore down the zipper of his sweatshirt, pulling it from his body as quickly as he could, before draping the white and blue garment over her.

The screaming stopped. And so did the sizzle and pop. Finn, heart hammering so hard against his sternum that he thought it might just pop, sat for a moment with the thoughts of what he had just witnessed. "Is she dead?" a part of him wondered. The rest of him didn't dare check. She didn't move. For what seemed like an eternity, Marceline lay without movement or sound, and Finn simply sat there next to her, too terrified to change the situation.

After a while, there was a weak, whimpering moan from beneath the fabric of the makeshift cover. A single hand, the skin burnt raw, wormed its way out from under, back into the brilliant scourge. Finn covered it with his own before more damage could be done, his mind pulled back into function by the barest signs of life. "Roll over," he told his friend. "Marcie, you've gotta roll over. Under the sweatshirt. I'll hold it in place, just roll onto your front."

It took a great deal of coaxing, but eventually Marceline managed to lie on her belly, Finn making sure that her exposed arms, face, and shoulders never left the cover of his sweatshirt. "Alright, there you go," he whispered. "Now put your arms into the sleeves…"

Finn tugged, pulled, pushed, and manipulated his companion, until his garment was properly set on her frame. It surprised the human boy how big it was on her, since she spent most of her time floating several heads above him, but there were no complaints at all; bigger would make this easier for everyone involved.

Careful to keep his back between her and the mirrors, Finn lifted Marceline's fallen form, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees. "I'm taking you somewhere dark," he said to her, though he wasn't sure if she could even understand him. Her fingers curled weakly against his chest, her only response. Finn scanned the surrounding cavern, eventually noting a half-ruined column on the far side, two flights up. He immediately set out, holding her tightly. Those two levels seemed to take forever, and every moment Finn was sure they'd be waylaid by more Forgelings, or some other threat. Yet it never came, and when they arrived before that half-broken pillar, tucked up against the inner edge of the stairway, Finn was relieved to find that it cast a long shadow. Carefully, he set Marcie down, propping her back against the stone.

"She's safe," he told himself. "Barely… But for now, she's out of danger…"

The boy stooped over the vampire, dropping down to his knees in front of her. Reaching out carefully, he placed his fingers under Marceline's chin, tipping her head up off of her chest so he could get a look at her face. It was definitely still her, that could never be mistaken, but her skin was ravaged, her face covered in deep, raw burns. "Marcie…?" he whispered. "Are… Are you alright?"

Slowly the eyes opened, deep ruby red. They blinked, vacant and confused, before focusing in on Finn's own baby blue. A small, weak smile parted her cracked lips. "H-hey there…" she rasped. "Why… Why the long look, bright eyes…?"

Finn just shook his head, his shoulders slumping in relief. Marceline brushed the back of his hand with her fingers; it was about all the motion she could muster. "I thought… I thought I was too late…" he mumbled. If he spoke any louder, he thought his voice might crack. "You're all jacked up and I… I thought I wasn't fast enough and you…" His voice trailed off. The boy couldn't say it.

"No such thing, baby…" Marceline brushed his hand weakly again, and he finally took her fingers in his, holding them loosely. "You came along just in time… Hero boy…"

It was far too deep in, and she was far too feverish to notice it, but in the back of Marcie's mind, out of a mouth she was certain would never speak again, a little voice echoed her words.

"My hero boy…"