Review Responses:

JohnDeanWinchester 2.0: Wow, thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

Messiah-Emperor: There will be some interesting moments to be sure. There will be one love triangle that gets pretty dang messy as well.

Desperado558: Thank you! This one is odd because it's kind of a mix between humor and serious moments, and while that's usually how I like to write, in this case it's a bit more polar. Ice Prince can really flip between sickly sweet and insane in a moment's notice.

Guest: Sorry for the delays! I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 4: In Line Is Where The Party Happens

How many chance meetings occur through our lives? For all you know, the difference between meeting your soul mate and remaining alone for your life is your favorite coffee shop messing up your order, and in those two minutes you meeting your Venus (or yo Apollooooo).

"Prismo, that example sucked!" Jake muttered, but his pal gave him no mind.

Perhaps, in the line of a fantabulous ball, love can be found. Alongside massive, massive amounts of aggravation.

Ice Prince hated everything about Cinnamon Bun. He hated how pudgy she looked, he hated how she… leaked, he hated how sometimes he couldn't but imagine how she tasted SWEET WINTER WINDS OF FATE… how did… how did his angel put up with THAT?

He knew he should have brought Gondor to keep himself from getting bored and to show off to the hotties in line. Instead, here he was, standing behind Glob damned—

Cinnamon Bun's subsequent flatulence raised Ice Prince's murder lust to planes unseen since Gondor had broken his chandelier by swinging on it like he was Montana Steve (or whatever the hell the name of the movie had been).

Flame Princess whistled gently, laughing as she slowly turned the chocolate dirt beneath her feet into that of a more melted variety, and every other variant of ground she walked across into tasty candy syrup. She noticed a few people appreciating her efforts, and as strange as it was to see people eating the ground, she waved jovially.

Several waved back, including a large gummy snake that proceeded to hiss, "You are the best thing to happen to this place since I hatched!" Several more cheers erupted, and Ember blushed so hard that her hair flared upward, enveloping an already lit marshmallow lamp into a glorious s'more. Immediately every candy citizen in the vicinity, sensing the inherent awesomeness of the moment (and also eager to eat a ruined marshmallow-lamp, as there had been a marshmallow shortage caused by their creation), leapt forward to try to pull it out of its holster.

The winner was Marceline The Mutha' Lumpin' Vampire Queen, who swooped down effortlessly and slipped it away from everyone else's arms with her own slender, lithe and lightning fast limbs.

Flame Princess gave her a wave as well, embarrassed about all the attention she was receiving and aware her that father had started to notice, and Marceline winked before shouting down, "Hey, skirt! You're hot, babe! Whooo!" The Flame-Girl's eyes latched onto the startling beauty of Marceline's beautiful, silky black dress that fell in shiny, murky laces, and her heart nearly fell, unable to believe she would have to compete with such amazing women to find her own "hero".

Slight amazement quickly morphed into shock as the Vampire continued, "We should hang out a bit at the ball, girl! Just don't light me, or any of the other guys here on fire!" The grey girl winked and whipped her tongue through the air with luster before floating back down to Jake, who had watched the entire affair with bemusement.

Ember about fizzled out, collapsing into her father's arms, who lifted her onto his shoulder without missing a beat and then mentioned something about female Flame Elementals being as ridiculous as tap dancing eels under his breath.

"Congratulations. Here I thought you were going to make only one Princess faint, and you've already knocked out one who isn't your main target," Jake replied, stroking his jowls as Marceline grinned heartily, the sheer high from making someone FAINT with her sexual prowess (let alone because it was a girl and BONNIBEL BUBBLEGUM WAS ONE OF THOSE) when she hadn't even met HER Princess at the party yet was just knocking her out.

"Woof. Woof. Bark. Roof. Erargh. Awooooo!" Jake bombarded his friend with dog noises, attempting to get her attention, but to no avail. "Wow. You're freaking out of it Marceline. You drop anything today?"Jake asked, trying to gain the Vampire's attention

"Wha?" Marceline said in response to Jake's voice, her ears ringing slightly from his shouting and her mind still elsewhere.

"Did you drop something on your head? Or drop yourself? Or… heck, drop your head? Is that detachable? Gawsh, you could do some kinky ish with that," Jake rattled on, Marceline growing bored of his ramblings (though probably would have been more interested if she had paid attention to that last part) and imaging how deliciously pink her Princess would be.

No, seriously, Ice Prince wanted to LOBOTOMIZE Cinnamon Bun. The stench of liquid cinnamon was starting to make him nauseous, and it was all because of that mumbling, bumbling… Ice Prince faded into sheer anger as he slowly formed an ice dagger, edging closer and closer to Cinnamon Bun, until at the last moment he caught himself and pocketed the frozen blade.

Ice Prince stopped moving for a moment and got his bearings. He had almost completely lost it there. Whoo.

He shook it off and kept walking. Little did he know two people soon to make his life very complicated – a dueler for his Princess and a beautiful girl he'll soon long to touch – were in that line with him.

He had no idea, of course. Ice Prince? Heck no. He was thinking about where he could get a Gyro from around here and slowly and sadly realizing they probably didn't have them for miles. And that they might not exist anymore even. What the fudge was a Gyro, anyway?

Distracted by his stomach's desire (and mind's confusion regarding it) for Greek cuisine, Ice Prince was not watching where he was walking. Cinnamon Bun had mistaken a manhole for a trampoline and have leapt up to butt-bounce onto it and as such had landed on her mushy tush. Ugh.

Perhaps, if the frosty youth's eyes had not then been drawn by a small flicker in the crowd, he would have been able to avert the coming atrocity. But instead he squinted, his heart, for so long only able to be thawed by the pink girl he had stolen a kiss from just minutes ago, began to melt slightly.

Yeah, she was on some other guy's shoulder, which was weird, but she looked so radiant. So beautiful. So splendid. After years of worn eyes glossing over the light blues, such flickering oranges, glowing yellows, and her red dress that looked scalding to the touch filled him with life anew.

The culmination of his fascinating glimpse was the Ice Prince continuing to walk forward with no perception of where he was going, and his foot plunging into the depths of the candy woman's body. The horror, Finn Mertens realized, deep within his tiny barricade from the crown, could not be measured. It was so significant that he could only wince at his now wretched form screaming in terror.

"Hey… uh… is that somebody screaming?" Flame Princess whispered, dimly wondering why she upon her father's shoulder. Even if it was nice and warm.

"It's not a kingdom if somebody ain't screaming, baby," Flame King replied crookedly, Ember wishing not for the first time that her mother was still around to corral her father and provide him some kind of moral compass. One that would make him less prone to locking his only child in a lantern and ordering assassinations on everyone in the kingdom who looked at him funny.

"Dude, I don't believe it," Jake muttered suddenly, complex feelings digging their way into his heart guts. "Marcy, it's him." His trembling arm slowly stretched out.

"Who?" Marceline followed his pointing, and was well aware of her knuckles cracking like thunder at the sight of Ice Prince, so tense did they become. "Oh Glob, Jake. He's…?"

"Here, obviously. And judging by the look on the faces of these tasty folk, I think he's been bothering them for awhile," Jake replied grimly.

"Mang, if this is too hard, we can leave," Marceline began, placing her cool hand on his fuzzy shoulder, and then thinking better of it and beginning to rub his ear. "I know it's been awhile, but it still has to be so, so hard…"

"You knew him too, Marcy," Jake reminded her, but she only shrugged.

"But there are gaps; I don't even know when I met him, thanks to my Dad wiping out my memory," The Vampire murmured with more than a little anger, her voice rising to a growl as she finished.

"Mine's a little fuzzy too, considering I was such a simpleton before I nearly died," Jake replied, his eyes beginning to water from a lack of blinking. "We should stay. Monitor him. Make sure he doesn't do anything whack. Besides, we have ladies to serenade, and balls are when you win 'em over."

"…Do you think he remembers any of it?" Marceline whispered her eyes glowing a dim red as she watched Banana Guards pull the shaking and screaming lunatic out of Cinnamon Bun.

"My master was a good dude, and maybe he's somewhere in there," Jake the Dog muttered darkly, turning his head away from the scene. "But I think we both know the Finn we knew is never coming back."

Marceline sighed, hugging Jake tightly from behind, whispering calming words in his ear. The dog thanked her and wrapped his own squiggly limbs around her from behind, embracing her tightly, both trying to block out the shrieking of the boy they had once known.

Writing this is generally the highlight of whatever day I do so. Playing around with the characters in their different positions within the universe just makes me giddy.

I had a lot of fun in particular with this chapter too. Thanks for reading!