Disclaimer: I don't own AT, too lazy right now to think of anything else

Chapter 20: A Little Chat

Finn POV

"What am I doing here," I thought to myself. "Why am I at the Fire Kingdom? Am I really here just to prove something? That I'm not one who runs away from his problems."

"Why can't life just stop torturing me," I said. What did I do to deserve this endless cycle of constant torture. Better yet, why did I allow others to get involved in what should have been my business and mine alone?"

"King Finn," said a nearby fire guard that had spotted me and interrupted my train of thought. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see Flame Princess. Can you tell me where she is?"

"You may not know this, but right now she is in no condition to see anyone," he answered hesitantly.

"You don't think I know what condition she is in," I shouted. "I know that she was poisoned and is in critical. So either you let me through and tell me where she is or I'll fight my way through if I have to."

"No worries," he answered scared out of his wit. "I'll even take you to her, so please don't hurt me."

"Thank you for not making this more difficult then it need be. And I'm sorry for how I reacted; I'm just really worried about Flame Princess right now."

"I understand. We're all worried about her. It's good to know that you to are worried about her. It's no secret here that she loves you Finn."

"Yeah," I said while I was dealing with my own inner turmoil. Truly I didn't know how I felt about all this. I was still angry about everything that Cinnamon Bun told me, but I knew a part of me was very concerned about Flame Princesses wellbeing. That part of me has always no matter what, always cared about Flame Princess. Many times I just wish it would go away, but it just never has no matter how deep I try and bury it or how hard I try to get rid of it. And that part of me was now screaming to take control at what I was now seeing.

There lied Flame Princess on her bed looking as beautiful ever. At first I only noticed beautiful sleeping face and I wanted to go up to her so that I could tell her that I'm here for her. Yet I now realized that she was unconscious and looked to be in pain. She even possessed a deathly blue hue and her fire looked almost extinguished. Surrounding her were fire elementals chanting something weird and some medical looking ones to.

"What's going on here," I asked one of them. "What are you doing to help her?"

"We're keeping her alive by transferring a constant stream of heat into her," he answered in a matter of fact tone.

Straight to the point and no questioning why I'm here or my questions. Good.

"Will this save her?"

"It doesn't look like it. We were hoping this surplus of heat would cause her to outlast the effects of the poison in her body and cure her. Yet this seems to be only stalling the poisons effects and we don't know how long we can keep doing this. We are hoping to find some way to cure her before time runs out, but nothing we do seems to work."

"Well something has to work," I yelled. "We can't just give up."

"And we won't, we are doing everything that we can to save our rulers life. We just haven't found any way to make it possible as of yet and thus worry if we will make it in time."

I then went over to Flame Princesses bedside and knelt down to where she was laying. I then took ahold of her hand.

"Don't worry Flame Princess," I choked out "I won't let you die on me. There has to be a way to fix this and I won't rest until I find it."

"Finn," she let out while she also began to squeeze my hand. She heard me and knew that I was her for her.

At that I began to cry and turned my head away from her so that my tears wouldn't fall on her and end up putting her in anymore pain then she need be.

"You'll see Flame Princess. I'll find a way to fix all this. Me and Cinnamon Bun will… Cinnamon Bun," I realized.

Looking around I saw that he was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Cinnamon Bun?" I growled.

"We don't know," he answered frightened.

"What do you mean you don't know? He's the one who's supposed to protect her and even though he failed at it. The least he can do is show his face."

"Nobody knows where he is. He vanished soon after Flame Princess drank the poison. We don't know where he went to or where he could have gone."

"Somebody has to know where he is," I said through gritted teeth. "He must know something if he would up and vanish like that."

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," said a new voice.

A voice that I knew belongs to a certain Vampire Queen. I looked over to where the voice was coming from to see something interesting. There stood Marceline holding an unconscious Cinnamon Bun. Talk about perfect timing.

"I saw this guy running away from The Candy Kingdom and knew that something was up. So I brought him here so that we could figure out what's going on."

"Good thinking Marceline," I said proudly. "Something is defiantly going on if he was running away from The Candy Kingdom."

"So what do you want to do with him?"

"Let's just start by asking him a few questions. So put him down on that empty chair right there."

"Ok," she said as she put a still unconscious Cinnamon Bun down.

Walking up to him, I slapped him across the face to wake him up. Luckily it worked and he began to stir.

"Uhh, my head. Where am I," he said confused.

"You're back in The Fire Kingdom Cinnamon Bun. So mind answering a few questions."

"Like what," he groaned.

"Let's start with why you gave Flame Princess a poisonous drink."

"I'm sorry. I forget to check to see if the drink was poisonous," was his answer.

"Uh huh. And why where you at The Candy Kingdom."

"I was investigating Princess Bubblegum."

"You said you quit doing that."

I know," he said trying to hide the worry in his voice. "I just heard new things concerning her and went to investigate because of it."

"You're lying. I can feel it. What's really going on here Cinnamon Bun and this time don't lie to me," I said with soul piercing eyes.

"I'm not lying," he said with fear written all over his face.

"Stop wasting my time," I yelled at his face. "Unless you want to be sent to The Nightosphere where Marceline will see to it personally that her father gives you the worst punishment possible, then I suggest you tell me what's really going on here."

"O-O-Ok."

After going through the whole story, I was left horrified at what I had just learned. Not only did he deliberately poison Flame Princess in an attempt to kill her, but this thing wasn't even the real Cinnamon Bun. He said he was a clone created from the real Cinnamon Bun and that it was Princess Bubblegum who made him and had him do all this. He even went so far as to say that she was the one behind The Goo Monster attacks and is using an imprisoned Lich as a power source for her Goo army.

"You're lying again," I said in disbelieve.

"No I swear." He cried out. "Everything I just said is true, she really is the one behind all this and is the one who made me do all this. You got to believe me."

"Let's say this is true. Just what would she hope to achieve from all this. What could she possibly gain by killing Flame Princess and destroying my Kingdom."

"For you to become the Hero of OOO again," he whimpered. "She wanted to destroy your kingdom so that you would have nowhere else to go and would thus most likely end up returning to OOO. This also involved killing Flame Princess so that you wouldn't have something like romance distracting you when you obviously retook the mantle of OOOs Hero."

"Impossible."

"I swear I'm not lying. All she ever talked about to me was how ever since you left, she had lost her complete hold over OOOs Kingdoms. To her you were the ultimate bargaining tool and that it allowed her to hold the real power in OOO. Whenever someone needed your help Finn, they would also come to her and tell her about it so that she wouldn't interfere in whatever you were helping them with. Since you lived closest to her kingdom and were so blind fully loyal to her, you would do whatever she said. This gave her ultimate power. The Kingdoms of OOO were so dependent on you that there were certain things that they couldn't hope to achieve without your aid. They all knew never to get on her bad side and would always live in fear of her hold and influence over you. Thus no would dared oppose her until you left and they started to become more independent."

I could only stare wide eyed at what he just said. Everything he just said seemed to be so unbelievable, but at the same time there was a certain believability to it. I always knew that I was important to the many people of OOO, but not this important. And after thinking back to some of my past experiences with Princess Bubblegum, I knew that she did have a certain darkside. But to this level of insanity was just too much. This has to be a lie.

"There's no way something like this can be true."

"I'm not lying," he said as tears began to fall from his face and fear poured forth from his voice. "Everything I just said is true. You got to believe me."

"Finn," said Marceline as she put a hand on my shoulder.

"Maybe he isn't lying."

"And just way are you supporting something as ridiculous as this Marceline. Bubblegum has done questionable things in the past, but never to this degree."

"Because I have known Bonnie for a long time Finn and I know how she thinks. If what he says is true then right now she is most likely in a state of mind where she has convinced herself that this is all somehow for the greater good."

"How can she think that any good can come from something like this," I shouted.

"She spoke of that to Finn," said the supposedly fake Cinnamon Bun. "She said that with the power that she once held now having been lost. That things had become chaotic and would eventually lead to complete and total destruction. She said that with power now in the hands of the many, that people would begin to become arrogant and would wage war with one another because of this arrogance. She said that you kept peace in OOO not only from constantly beating bad guys, but from also reminding the Kingdom of OOO that their not as powerful as they would like to think. Now that you're gone, she says that they are beginning to think this way and will thus wage war claiming that they know what is right for the rest of OOO."

"Enough," I shouted. "As interesting as this is, right now I have more important things to deal with then some made up story. I have to save Flame Princesses life. Marceline," I yelled.

"Yes," she answered surprised at my sudden outburst towards her.

"I need you to take me to see Death right now."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because right now he's the only one I know capable of saving Flame Princesses life. So take me to see Death," I said using all the authority and confidence that I could muster.

"Ok Finn," she said clearly understanding that I wasn't messing around.

"Good. It's time to make a deal with Death once again."

I feel as though this has some of the best tension I have ever written. This has to be one of the best chapters ever for me. Please tell me what you thought and where I could go with this.