AN: Hello again ladies and germs. I promised more to come, and here it comes! Since last time we mixed exposition with action, this time we're mixing it with romance. Enjoy!

Chapter 12:

Monsters Under this Bed

Bzzzt.

"Mhh..." She rolled over, hugging the covers.

Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt.

Finally, Marcie relented, groping around for her phone and flipping it open. "Yeah?" Her ruby reds were barely open, bloody pools reflecting even in the pitch dark with a demonic inner glow.

"Hey Marceline, I'm sorry, I know it's early for you." It was Bonnibel, and the sun hadn't fully set. "But you should come over to the castle. He's okay, but Finn got kinda banged up. I figured you'd wanna be here when he wakes up."

"What...?" Marcie rubbed her eyes.

"He... I..." Peebs cleared her throat. "He charged a hilltop at the same time as I, well, bombed it."

Bloody eyes went wide as silver dollars. "What!?"

"Marvelous!" Doctor Princess exclaimed. "His blood has a powerful antiseptic property; it sterilized every piece of shrapnel we pulled out of him."

PB laughed. "I was waiting for you to catch that. If you think that's cool, take a look at his sympathetic nervous system." The gum girl touched a few keys on her console, highlighting the latice of nerves encasing Finn's spine.

"Okay, if you say so... Oh my."

"Count 'em," Bonnibel instructed. "His adrenal response has twelve individual layers, each stronger than the last." Before the doctor could respond, four red lights on PB's console turned green. "...And there's his digestive tract. Perfect. Bring everyone in, Peppermint."

A small group was allowed to amble in; Marcie in at the head, looking livid, next to Jake who was easily just as cheesed. The hound looked to the vamp out of the corner of his vision every so often, trying to measure the expression on the normally nonchalant vampire's face. Flame Princess and Guy were also there, as was Thoros.

"Finn is fully stabilized," Bonnie announced to the group, even as she met eyes with Jake, then Marceline. "We're ready to wake him up. Doctor Princess, if you would?" Marceline narrowed her eyes; it was an old trick Peebs would use, undertaking some matter of dire importance to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Old, but effective.

Finn was lost. Though he was on his feet, it felt inside his ears like he was swimming in deep water. There was light all around him, blindingly bright. He was surrounded by glittering spires, like great rods of prescious metals, studded with diamonds till they were spraying glints of refracted color across every surface. All about, there were trees, grasses and bushes, tickling the bases of the spires that drove up into the sky like the legs of a god's throne. The trees bore fruit and flowers as radiant as the reflections of the spires. Finn, enticed by the scents and sights, ravenous and tired, relaxed with a varied selection. It was a strong bounty, and before long he was both revitalized and intoxicated. Drunk, he swooned through this city of light, but before long, he came to a pane of perfect glass, invisible and immovable. There, he looked out on a bleak, snowy horizon.

Dread clouds loomed in the distance, sickly green. Hordes of fauna fled before the smog, until the woodland creatures were throwing themselves against the invisible barrier. Finn could only watch in horror as the billowing plague overtook the animals and rotted them where they stood.

With a gasp, Finn lurched from the deep water, bursting into consciousness. His head rolled on his shoulders, his whole body stiff and weak. The boy fell back, scanning the crowd as Doctor Princess helped prop him up seated. "Welcome back Finn," said PB, and the entire gang concurred quietly.

"Whoa," the hero wheezed, holding his head. "How long was I out?" He coughed for a fit, until Doctor Princess brought him a small cup of water.

"A day and change," the princess responded. "Your bonkers were pretty clonked."

"No kidding," Finn said, taking a glass as Doctor Princess offered it. He chugged the water, coughing once. "Jake was throwing me at some bots; they must have self-destructed when they saw me coming." The last human cracked a cheeky grin.

PB felt like she'd been thrown right back into the pan Marceline had nearly cooked her in. "Aha, about that..." she began. "That one was on me; I kinda near-missed you with some multipurpose air-to-ground micromissiles. Shrapnel and minor blast injuries."

"I guess that's what this whole deal is about," the human boy said, tapping his bandage-swathed abdomen. PB merely nodded. "Who were those guys, anyhow?"

Bonnie paled a tad. "That's... A long story, Finn. But it's about time you heard it." The princess steeled herself. "How much do you know about the Mushroom War?"

Finn wracked his brain for a moment. "Big honkin' war that killed all the humans, made the Lich, and eventually created Ooo as we know it?"

PB gave a wry smile. "That's just the tip of the iceberg, but none of it's wrong. Buckle up buddy, it's Exposition Time."

"Okay, sure," was the reply. "My head's still kinda drug-funny, but I'll try to switch to learn mode."

The others clustered closer. Bonnibel had accounted for each of them; as a rule she shared secrets as rarely as possible, but even now she knew this circle would eventually widen again. By now, it was unavoidable. The truth of Old Earth would soon be known to all. "It began at... Well, the beginning. War is the oldest trapping of civilization on earth. Before the first farms and towns, before writing, reading, and roads, there was war. War against the elements and animals, war against other tribes, even war between species of hominids. And war has a way of favoring escalation. So it escalated. There were four great wars that occurred at the height of human rule over the Earth. And in each war, the scale of violence and the depths of the horrors unleashed only grew. Each reached further across the planet, and ravaged it more savagely. The first war birthed chemical weapons, the second war birthed fission. The third introduced death through fusion, after a long and shaky peace brought to an end by the depletion of Old Earth's resources."

PB took a breath. "The general who won the third war eventually came to head an alliance, a while after its conclusion. When his alliance collapsed and the fourth war came around, he ordered the development and use of the mushroom bomb, destroying what was then the heart of the European continent. That bomb fractured reality by pulling energy through a temporary interdimensional rift, creating magic on what would eventually become Ooo."

"And the Lich!" Jake called out.

"Yes," PB agreed. "And the Lich. The Lich was born of the old weapons; nuclear devices, poisonous chemicals, lethal bacteria. He made his essence from those things that kill humans, and used his power to create the undead. The hero, having accidentally destroyed what he'd sought to save, gathered up his people into a fleet of huge starships and fled into space, as the undead plague overran the planet."

"But hold on just a Gobdarn second," Finn said. "If that guy ran off with all the other humans, how'd I get here?"

"I believe I can answer that," Thoros said. "Finn, the hero of the third war was none other than your father, Martin Mertens. After he dropped the Mushroom Bomb, your mother stole you away from him, and hid where your father could never reach you. It was there, as an infant, that you were frozen in cryogenic hybernation, until such a time when the world would be safe for you to live in."

"It was his forces that attacked you," PB added. "How, we're not quite sure. He's supposed to be at the edges of the solar system."

Before Finn's dumbstruck eyes, the image of Thoros faded, revealing a gleaming gem that pulsed gently with soft silver light. Rather than old and kindly, his voice was clear and consistent, a mechanical tone."I am Thoros; this is my true form, the one I took when I was created. This world is very different from the one I was born into. I was created by your late mother, as a caretaker to your domain, to serve you when you became of age."

Finn looked from one to the other, speechless. "But... Hold up, a sec, how long have you known all this?"

PB gave him a sunken look. Silently, she handed him a thick manila folder.

The door hung on one hinge in Finn's wake, the boy staying only long enough to dress before storming out.

"You'll open up your wounds!" Bonnie called after him, but Finn soundly ignored her. Jake sighed once.

"You," he said to PB, "...Have so much to answer for right now. I'm not going to pass judgement; that's up to Finn. But you better know that if it were up to me, you would be done." The dog turned and walked out. "I'll be at my place. That's where Finn is going to end up when he's done with the mountain of soul-searching you just dumped on him. Ya butt."

"Urgh..." the princess scowled. "We don't havetime for soul-searching!"

There was a firm hand on her shoulder. "Easy Peebs," Marcie said. "You should sit this one out."

"Marceline..."

"I'm... Pretty sure I've been where he's at right now." The vampire queen turned to leave. "I'm gonna take a swing at it, wish me luck."

"Bring him back safe," PB called after her. "Don't let him do anything dumb."

"Bio-mechanically enhanced... Cybernetics, 3D printed organs... What in grod's name is all this?"

Finn lay up in the lookout, reading PB's folder by candle-light. He would lie back and look at the stars when it became too much to handle. How long he did that for, he had no idea, but eventually a peculiar whistle blew in on the breeze.

"Hey there bright eyes," Marceline said with a jaunty wave. She stood in mid air, hands in her pockets, about twenty feet away. She had a duffelbag hanging from her shoulder. "Why the long face?"

The Last Human couldn't help but chuckle. "You weren't paying attention?" It came out harder than he'd intended, but if Marcie was fazed, she didn't show it.

"Oh, I was," she said, taking a walk over to his boat. "Permission to come aboard, captain?" The vampire girl snapped a smart salute, a Cheshire grin on her face. "I come bearing booty."

Marcie waggled her eyebrows, and Finn chuckled in spite of his dire mood. "Aye, and bring the loot with ya," he ordered pirately. It sounded stupid in Finn's head, but it earned a low laugh that plucked on his heartstrings. Marceline boarded the little dingy on the lookout, one boot, then the other, sitting across from him.

"So, what're we up to, skipper?" Finn barely heard it, confuzzled momentarily by moonlight bouncing off Marceline's hair. He weakly sighed, handing her the folder.

"Reading PB's notes on me," he said, his voice a touch rough after not speaking for a while. "Basically from the day we met."

"Oof. Yeah, she does that." Marcie frowned slighly. "I should've warned you, but I figured..."

"...That I knew," Finn finished. The last human laughed at himself, hiding his face by gazing up at the stars. "Funny thing is, I always suspected. I just never thought there'd be this much she was hiding from me."

"Trust me, babyface," the rocker said, tugging on his sleeve till he looked her in the eyes. "I get that one. She's not exactly the sharing kind. She needs to feel in control." Finn opened his mouth to concur, but Marcie put her finger over his lips. "...But, she means well."

Finn gave the vampire queen a cautious look, one she didn't meet. Instead, she reached into her bag, pulling out a small wooden bowl and a bag of long, thin twigs. She floated over, holding a twig under Finn's nose. "Incense?"

Marceline smirked. "I know a dude who knows a dude who makes it," she said, producing a matchbook. "This stuff's my favorite, it's called Dragon Blood."

Finn's nose filled with the now familiar scent as his vampire friend set the burning stick in the bowl, setting the bowl between them. Soft curls of smoke rose into the night, smelling of pine needles, sandlewood, and musk. Finally Marcie met his gaze, reaching out to grab his hands. It was only then he realized they were trembling "None of it makes any sense," he said. "You try to fit it in, but nothing makes any sense with it, so you try to look at it from another angle, but it never helps, and... Ouch!"

"Finn,stop," came the command, as Marceline tugged his ear till he stood up and the pulled his arm till he sat down next to her. "There's no sense in beating yourself up with this."

"Why didn't she flippin' tell me?" he lamented, holding his head in his hands. The rocker draped an arm across his shoulders.

"Would you have prefered to have never gotten to be a human boy at all?" The question hit Finn like a ton of bricks, and he turned, finding her red eyes unbearably close.

"Well... No." The hero wore a tired frown in place of his previous panic. "Not when you look at it that way."

Marceline smiled knowingly. "You know, when I was first turned into a vampire, I was about your age."

Finn gave her an exasperated look. "I'm not a little kid, Marcie."

"No, you're not," she returned calmly. "Finn, we all eventually run into something that changes us forever. Some of us quit our jobs some switch majors in college, some get turned into vampires, and sometimes someone finds out that he's a..." She opened the folder, clearing her throat and taking a professorly tone. "Heavily augmented post-human megadude," she finished, mimicking glasses with her fingers. It earned her a brief chuckle. "The point is, no matter what we become, we don't have to change everything with it. You don't need to be anyone other than the Finn you're being right now."

Finn looked to the sky again, searching himself. "The Finn I am right now isn't sure if he can handle all this," he confessed. He would have confessed further, but Marceline in caught his words before they could clear his lips, leaving behind an intoxicating flavor. She pressed her forehead against his, ruby reds locked to baby blue.

"That Finn doesn't need to," she insisted. "Not alone; he's got plenty of friends."

"Friends?" the hero asked, stunned. Marcie nodded once, leaning into him.

"Friends," she whispered low, kissing him again until he remembered he had hands to hold her with. "And... Others?"

"...And others," he said haltingly, gazing off at the stars till she pulled his eyes back to hers.

"What's wrong?" she asked, and Finn chuckled.

"Not trying to kill the mood," he said. "But the last time we went here, you were pretty empathetic about how you weren't interested."

"Well," Marceline whispered. "Let's just say that I had my own baggage, and you had a little growing up to do."

"And now?" Finn's sharp blue eyes searched her face, even as his broke in a quiet smile.

"Like I said," the vampire answered softly. "Last time I was keeping count, I was about where you're at." She nibbled the corner of his jaw, derailing whatever train of thought Finn had going. "Finn, I'm still not the easiest girl to be around. There's plenty of monsters under this bed."

Finn's smile only grew. "Those monsters don't scare me," he said. "If mine don't scare you."

She laughed, before kissing him again, waiting until he kissed her back to break away. "Here," she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a thermos and two cups. She poured the cocoa, handing one off to Finn. The two sat silently for a moment, looking up at the stars above.

"Somewhere out there is someone I thought I'd never get to see. Who despite that is going to be nothing like I ever imagined." The boy took on a forlorn expression. "Dad. Did he make me this way? And what for?"

"Thoros and PB have the answers," Marcie said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "But tomorrow is another day."

They sat under the stars until Finn's eyelids grew heavy again, and he was drawn back into slumber by midnight whispers against his cheek.