Eight Days Since Finn's Rescue

Ice Kingdom

11:13 A.M.

Marceline

Her fanged mouth opened wide, yawning loud into her hand. Beneath her, a valley of white rolled past, embedded harshly with spearheads as blue as the sky which domed Ooo. They grew massive and started drifting by as she ascended closer to the ground.

Marceline was up late again, to be sure - her eyes heavy with the weight of another awful dream where her friends were dying - bloody, screaming, horrific... and Marceline was smiling despite it all, feasting among their remains, oblivious. She was alone, and she was happy - it was her worst nightmare, and it's plagued her every day. She didn't know what to make of them, but felt that her reaction was what mattered. It's clear her messed-up brain was trying to tell her something, and if Marceline chose to simply hole-up at Simon's until they came true, well, Marceline ought to just give up and submit to the way the world turns.

Heck no. She was a rocking undead Vampire Queen - and she'd wasted enough time feeling sorry for the past instead of living for the present.

That didn't stop the shame from gnawing at her, though.

Grand, twisting, turning; her insides stretched and pulled in all directions so bad she wished they weren't there at all. But Marceline didn't think beyond the ache, as it seeped into her black, unmoving heart - never acknowledged the source outside of a dark, oil-soaked corner in her mind where she'd stuffed it down.

It's not that Marceline couldn't bear the thought of it. But rather, it's all she'd done for the past several days; for her entire life, really. And because of that, Marceline didn't trust herself not to turn around, parasol poised above her, and high-tail it back to Simon's if she thought about it once again.

Her guts writhed ferociously, wanting, just for glancing in that direction. Marceline knew it wouldn't be easy, doing this; but the feeling passed moments later, as it had countless times before across her long, troubled life. Marceline didn't waste a second longer before pressing on at a more leisurely pace - albeit lacking the uncool urgency from before.

Of course, this was all to be expected when facing the catalyst of her darkest year head-on, a snap decision made the instant she'd woken up hissing and screeching her third consecutive morning. She'd been going to bed earlier and earlier - a little past midnight in fact, as opposed to sunrise like usual. She didn't even stay to entertain Simon over breakfast like she has been. After their first time doing this dance, Marceline couldn't get his strangely wise insight out of her head.

There is no cosmic fate in the Universe - just life. And in life, the bad are punished and the righteous triumph just as often as when bad things befall good people, and the evil are unjustly lucky. It's all just chaos, and Marceline realized those who walk this mortal plane simply have a penchant for trying to give it all meaning.

She knew this truth better than anybody who ever lived.

Simon... I love him. He's a selfless, kind, gentle person, and he lost his mind because he was the unlucky chump to put on a cursed crown.

Bonnie's kind, selfless... she gives her all for everyone she cares about and asks for nothing in return. She just wants that same love back, and she's too invested in other people's lives to realize it.

Finn... I don't even know where to start with him. Truly, Marceline didn't. And if she tried, as she had many times the last couple days, Marceline knew she would just get all weepy again. He's so good I can't even describe it. Of everyone I care about, Finn's the least... no, he doesn't even DESERVE to have anything bad happen to him. Yet... Glob was fine with mutilating him all the same, twisting that hero into something that wasn't him, all thanks to a pack of shortsighted, stupid, messed-up FUCKS, who were SO swallowed-up by their own crap, that they FAILED TO SAVE HIM IN TIME!

Marceline swallowed a lump in her throat, and exhaled shakily, her breast convulsing tiredly.

The sad fact is, she'd known this fact of life forever now; ever since she was granted this existence amidst her efforts to protect the last surviving Humans. Stuff just happens; life is what one makes of it, and Marceline decided she wouldn't live for her emotions to decide for her.

She'd only forgotten that these recent months.

In that moment, the snow beneath her stopped suddenly, giving way to green hills which rolled into a hazy, orange horizon. Looking ahead, she'd spotted a growing speck whose silhouette Marceline was distinctly familiar with.

Her chest ached again, so fiercely it did the vampire paused mid-flight, clutching at it, umbrella poised to shadow her uncovered face.

"C'mon Marce," grumbled the Vampire Queen, eyes upon her own hand. "Jake's a laid-back guy, he... probably didn't even mean what he said!" she said as she looked ahead, fist clenched and smile self-assured. It was a line of thinking that sounded wholly illogical to Marceline, so much so that she would never allow herself to entertain such fantasies, had this been an earlier time in her life - a time from before she met those two.

But Jake was just like that: illogical, as was Finn. They were quick to forgive and quicker to forget (for better or worse), and for the better part of their friendship, in its earliest days especially, Marceline often found herself staring into her ceiling, wondering what game Finn was stringing her along for. It wasn't until the whole Ash affair that she begun to realize there simply was no game - Finn was real, probably the realest person she'd ever met.

Even Jake had come around. And Marceline knew him well enough to realize he was being his hasty, reactive self that night they traversed Finn's dreams. Of course, he was totally justified, and understandable, and definitely far, far kinder than Marceline deserved, but... she had a feeling Jake felt pretty crummy for blowing up at her like that. Flipping out on her like that, she'd never seen him this way before, and for good reason, too.

Wouldn't blame him for telling me to beat it. These self-assurances were things Marceline tricked herself into outright believing, if only because it would ease some of the turmoil Bonnie'd spent the better part of a year trying to quell while simultaneously trying to find Finn in addition to ruling her kingdom.

Bonnie...

Marceline aborted that train of thought immediately. It was a 'hot memory-stove' she had little desire to touch ever again.

Or at least right now - her world darkened as the Tree Fort loomed ahead, still and silent.

And Marceline immediately knew something was wrong.

Even before Finn's disappearance, she had a habit of sitting upon their roof and just... listening, really. She didn't consider it spying, for that would imply Marceline intended to discover something for her own gain - and she had little use for her friends' musings on life, or their banter while co-oping on Beemo. Even from the roof, her pointed, bat-like ears could home in on the faintest of utterances, from anywhere in the house.

It was so quiet, Marceline couldn't hear a thing - the world was on mute. No wind blew, her heart ceased pumping centuries ago, and the Tree Fort's typical commotion was utterly nonexistent.

Like they've abandoned it.

Worry suddenly feasted upon her guts, no longer because she was anxious to see Finn and Jake. Marceline wondered, as she ascended to their bedroom window, if they were out somewhere else - an adventure, perhaps. She pressed to the window with a grimace toward her naive, wishful thinking, as Finn definitely wouldn't have the spirit to want to go on such an excursion, nor the ability to do so, and surely Jake wouldn't want to take him anywhere, but if that was the case, then where could those boys possibly be!?

Marceline's ears pricked out from her curtain of raven-black hair. She cupped it to the window, listening hard, and heard... absolutely nothing, not even any breathing. She sniffed at the air, a couple of urgent snuffles - she smelled Jake's overwhelming dog-odor, and faintly the new fear-soaked one of Finn, but if they left this morning then surely it'd be stronger, more obvious...

Peering inside revealed an empty bedroom - they weren't asleep. Finn's bed was made, unusually, and Jake's drawer closed shut.

Marceline schooled her face into a blank stare. "Beemo?" She rapped her knuckle against the window. "You home?" When there was no instant response, Marceline flew down and around to their front door and did the same. "Bee-mo!" she sang.

Three seconds of utter silence filled the space between Marceline speaking, and a soft patter scurrying down the ladder to Finn and Jake's entrance hall - which doubled as their treasure room.

Marceline had long forgotten what the beat of her own heart felt like, but she was intimately familiar with the twisting in her chest. It twisted promptly until snapping from the tension, all in a single instant, the moment their front door cracked open, and a little box leapt from the darkness, latched itself unto her sweatpants-clad leg, all while crying in a computerized, stilted accent, "MAR-CEH-LEE-HEE-HEEN!"

It took even less time for her to be gathered in the Vampire Queen's arms, umbrella tossed inside as she entered the loot-filled space. BMO wept into her bosom, even as the back of her chassis was patted lovingly all the while. She was shushed, even as she tried to tell Marceline something she could not discern between the panic, gasps, and sobs.

"Calm, baby," she cooed to the machine. "Calm..." She started humming - nothing in particular, just loud, lovely sounds begging to calm the infant-like machine.

While all of this was happening, Marceline made a hasty ascension to the depths of the Tree Fort, eyes flitting about until she found where Jake had moved the sofa, and then plopped down upon it. She shouldered off her leather jacket before realizing she would have to let go of BMO - her forearms would remain covered, then. Like a babe BMO sought and buried herself in the grey, fleshy bed of Marceline's bosom, plastic little hand clawing pathetically at one of her white spaghetti straps.

Her humming subsided as did BMO's tears.

Throughout it all, behind a blank face where only her wide, wide eyes told the truth, Marceline contained the question smoldering in the back of her throat: What the heck is going on? followed up by, Why didn't anyone come find me? which just resulted in a gross, guilty feeling as she realized, I ran away to ensure no one would find me if they wanted to. Of course I didn't hear about this.

And whatever "this" may be, Marceline was nigh-absurdly terrified to ask outright, but she wouldn't be where she is now if she wasn't brave.

"Beemo," she uttered.

The little console sniffled, picking herself up from Marceline's bust with a wipe across the screen.

"What happened to Finn and Jake?" she asked, enunciating every word.

Marceline was starved for answers as badly as the day Finn went missing, and a thousand times more terrified, too.

Eight Days Since Finn's Rescue

Desert of Doom: One Mile from Cretins' Encampment

11:13 A.M.

Bonnibel Bubblegum

He... He actually did it...

Bonnie truly shouldn't have been so shocked, and yet she was - and worse still, it was proof that she wasn't untouchable. Not anymore. Not while her hands bounced against her shoulders, a grotesque necklace that left bile stewing in the back of her throat. Ricardio had slung them around her neck seconds after it happened, herself gasping raggedly, blind to anything but her missing hands, deaf toward all but the thrumming of pain which pulsed like a heartbeat. She felt him still, shivered as she did so - felt him pat her on the cheek after. That hand suddenly pinched it hard, yanked Bonnie into making a pitiful, throaty sound as he forced her to face him.

"I hear you have trouble learning from your mistakes," he'd told her, smiling grimly. Bonnie didn't care how she looked - she cringed in three different ways as her wrists sensed screamed in harmony. "Do your best to attain this lesson. Next time it will be your feet, and if you still hadn't learned after that, Funn will be the one to suffer for it."

They'd been walking nonstop since - for hours, it seemed, judging from the sun's position. When they finally stopped, her feet were sore, her thighs burned with exhaustion; Bonnibel's throat was dry, and the black hole writhing in her gut was all-consuming. This feeling amplified the instant they'd stopped, for she knew what that meant before overhearing the King Worm "kindly" send a couple brainwashed Bananas to fetch an escort.

Ricardio must have broken her already - Princess Bubblegum actually felt relief before, when he told his Master they were a mile from camp.

Be strong, she urged herself, as Bonnie whimpered like a little girl, her face twisted in pain indescribable from that which she felt hours ago.

From when she made yet another stupid, terrible mistake in a long, sordid line of miscalculations - when finally, after years of skirting karma, giving its overseers the slip, Bonnibel suffered for her arrogance. In more ways than one, writhed the pain inside; Princess Bubblegum's eyes went from the nubs of her wrists, to her beloved guards, to over her shoulder, back, into the heart of Ooo, where Morrow was feed for carrion, and where Lemongrab was out there, somewhere, coming here right now with Jake and Lady Rainicorn and salvation for them all.

Bonnibel felt as though her heart were to explode, never feeling something so horrible in her life; it truly should have, had she possessed one in the first place. It hurt more than her last mistake, hours ago, when she struggled to stand. When she staggered to one foot, then her other, but the sand gave out neath her slippers and twisted, tumbling the princess back to one knee - plunging the results of her recent miscalculation into the sand, hard.

Bonnie had gasped soundlessly, the world searing agony which tore across the length of her forearms like wildfire.

Get a grip, you weak little baby! Tears that'd beaded the corners of her eyes trickled down. You shouldn't even be feeling ANYTHING, you're GUM! Get the stuff UP! She felt her cheeks dry in the desert sun instantaneously - quick as the pain dissipated altogether, and all sensations left her forearms. It was so abrupt and sudden that Bonnie sighed in relief, trembling, before she grit her teeth hard and pushed both stumps into the sand.

And Bonnibel Bubblegum rose, rose, until she stood taller than Ricardio.

She peered down upon him with an expressionless mask - she was too tired to make a face, even if she wanted too. But her eyes were hard, and told the Heart Guy, It'll take more than that to break me. To this, he looked pretty annoyed.

"I don't even have blood," she explained to him faintly. "You did know that, didn't you?" Bonnie hid her wince toward seeming so impetuous. Do I always sound like that?

The princess hoped Ricardio didn't see her throat bob sharply as he stepped forth, Scalpel clenched in his little red fist. "I did," he purred, "and that didn't stop you from shrieking loud enough to reach Mars and back." Bubblegum didn't let her relief show, kept her shoulders squared neath her own hands when Ricardio didn't step forth to chop her feet off... though Bonnie's slippered feet sunk backwards into the hot, warm sand.

She could be read like a map, but this never occurred to the princess. With Morrow on her mind, as well as Finn, her Banana Guards, Jake and Lady, Lemongrab, Ricardio, and King Worm - on top of Grand Master Wizard's betrayal, and this horrible heat, and and Oh Glob, my hands, my hands are right there and not on my body he actually did it he just came and chopped them off like he didn't care at all about the consequences because -

"I'll make sure you feel everything when we reach camp, Princess." Ricardio smiled knowingly - he'd done his job. Bubblegum was now afraid of him. Not a pregnant silence passed before Ricardio was saddled on Cassidy once more, and they resumed their march.

The last words spoken to Princess Bubblegum, were from before he took off: "Don't speak up again."

He knew she was smart enough to ascertain why - and Bonnibel was silent for the duration of the journey.

Be strong, she told herself throughout, as her gut writhed like a pit full of snakes. Bonnibel hated everything - hated what Ricardio had reduced her too, stripping her of all her agency, and reducing Ooo's brightest mind into a beaten dog in the span of a single morning.

And Finn lived with these people for six months... Bonnibel hated herself most of all: she should never have let Finn leave the Candy Kingdom. Phoebe wouldn't have caused all this had she just listened to her gut and kept her hero close.

At least then, Bubblegum wouldn't suffer from a pain she could not ignore. Across many centuries, her psyche had grown accustomed to mimicking those around her - replicating sensations of touch, as though she truly were comprised of flesh and bone, and wrapped in a nervous system. A subconscious effort to fit in, to be normal. Ignoring physical pain was an effort, but Bonnibel had the mind for it, but not the heart to dull the rest of her. She couldn't bear to detach herself from the world completely - couldn't risk forgetting how to feel altogether.

But Bonnie still whimpered - that distinctive ache in her bosom could not be thought around, for it truly was in her head, and there was no outsmarting herself.

Be fearless, she told that girl anyway, as Bonnie's mind filled with the flashing blade of Scalpel, and her hands bounced in her vision, and Cassidy's shadow snaked along the sand like a serpent of darkness beside her. Be fearless, she reaffirmed, stronger in her head, when Bonnie reminded herself she couldn't even feel pain; when she reminded herself that this was a scare tactic; when Ricardio made it very clear that Princess Bubblegum was nothing more than a mask for scared little Bonnie, a teenager desperate to keep her loved ones safe at all costs.

BE FEARLESS! Bonnie's heart roared, fire burning bright in her bosom, ...Be fearless.

Be fearless...

...Please, Bonnie.

She was always used to having all the cards, possessing an everlasting upper-hand from the safety of her kingdom. And that was just it: Princess Bubblegum is a smart, strong princess on her own, but that could only get her so far. Even a year ago, at her most powerless - stripped of her gadgets and her friends - she only had to deal with Ricardio. Now it was him and an army of like-minded depravity.

But Jake and Lady and Lemongrab were coming to save her, along with all the Banana Guards who loved their brothers and their mother-princess. I'm not alone, I have nothing to fear. I am Princess Bubblegum, and no matter what they do to me, they can't hurt me.

This was before they arrived at camp, though.

Bonnibel didn't realize it, but her feet started moving once again when their march resumed up the face of a particularly large, albeit squat sand dune - two Fire People meandered on either side, astride huge smoldering wolves slavering at the lips with magma. Bubblegum wondered how quick it would be - if Ricardio ordered them to bite her head off right there, and nothing in the world could stop them because they simply didn't care.

And that, perhaps, was the scariest part out of all this.

"Ah," she heard King Worm sigh, poised at the crown the hill. "Home again."

Princess was given a start, the world returning to her senses - hot, and the sickly-sweet tang of melted chocolate from the Banana Guards' heads, running in cracked, brown fingers down the lengths of their broad bodies, filled her nose. Bonnie's stomach turned, it was noxious - but her mind was on the clamor heard from beyond the hill she'd only partially scaled - there was laughter and voices, hundreds speaking at once, the occasional whine of some various beast. It was like being at a Candy Kingdom sleepover, except the cacophony pounded her ears despite the lack of a closed space around them.

She heard the faint tunes of music among them - flutes trilling and guitars on amps rumbling, drums pounding and even a piano. It was just a mishmash of noise from her left, louder on her right, and further right a rap battle was thumping away in the distance.

How can anybody like this? Bubblegum wondered, pumping her aching thighs the rest of the way. They must barely hear their music, let alone themseh... them...

She forgot to finish her thought altogether after scaling the hillock's face. Bonnie forgot what she was even thinking about - her heart plummeted and her gut felt like Ricardio had plunged Scalpel into it, and her first and only thoughts were, There's no way...

Her lips parted slightly - it was all she had strength for.

No way, that my guards, my heir, Jake, Lady, could possibly...

Be strong, be fearless, Bonnie told herself anyway, willing her dumbstruck despair into outright shock the longer her eyes beheld the ocean of colored tents. There were so many, she saw every color there was, every size and shape imaginable, crowded together into the sandy horizon - at least, that is what she assumed. The tents numbered in the hundreds, easily, obscuring any evidence of the Desert of Doom from sight. Pillars of smoke rose into the sky, a sparse grey forest: thin and wavy and smelling of seared meat. Every kind of person she could think of was somewhere, in that crowded mass.

The voices and music were louder now, Bonnie could hear it as clearly as she could see it: the camp was simply large enough to isolate oneself.

This is no camp. This is a city.

"There's... so many..." she mumbled, half in thought.

King Worm hummed beside her. "Isn't it fantastic? I have so many friends now..."

Cassidy landed beside Bonnie, Ricardio dismounting with a hop as her eyes devoured them all, heart sinking by the second. "I presume half of Ooo's population is here," he observed.

His master inched, or footed, his way down the dune. The brainwashed Bananas and the fire wolves started moving as well, as did Cassidy, and Bonnie had no choice but to follow too, skidding down the sand beside Cassidy Rainicorn's bobbing figure.

Bonnibel said nothing - she couldn't anyway. How could we beat this? she wondered, as they passed the outer guards - a fact that was more of a guess than an observation, albeit an educated one. They were just normal people wielding pikes standing on its perimeter, stretching endlessly into either side of the her.

How could we possibly beat all this? The princess grimaced quietly, purging these thoughts from her head and the crushing dejection that'd pressed its weight upon her so suddenly. Get a grip Bonnie, she told herself. Lemongrab is odd, but he's actually quite intelligent. Of course he's aware of the size of this 'brotherhood' he was a part of.

Thinking this brought forth the beginnings of a dark, noxious musing that Bonnibel had long denied herself from thinking about - for the sake of her misguided creation, and her love for him. But now, seeing so many people not even look in her direction, Bonnie couldn't help but wonder. "How can anybody be okay with this?" she asked, not taking any care to keep her volume down - she wanted everyone to hear who they've captured. "Why is half of Ooo's population okay with what you are? What you've done to Finn?" Her eyes flitted to every person, not one of them sparing her or her dangling hands more than a passing glance.

King Worm chuckled, though Bonnie could only faintly hear it amidst the smelly, sound-polluted air. "Most Cretins don't even know who I am, let alone Funn. Those who do are of my own private circle. They hate what Funn used to be."

That explained why nobody seemed to give them a second glance. Although she loathed to understand it, Bonnie couldn't blame them for not recognizing her. Not without her crown, which Ricardio claimed for himself. It had been years since Bonnie made any public excursions outside of her kingdom, after all. Ooo only knew Princess Bubblegum for what she was, not whom. Not even her fellow princesses, who she saw on a monthly basis, could claim that.

"You're surprised, I know," said King Worm, and when she looked up Bonnibel saw his milky-white eyes pointed towards her from the corner of his vision. "Much of Ooo's populace can fit the description of a Cretin, and that's all the certification they need. As a Cretin of Ooo, they seek companionship. Brotherhood, when they have no one else. That is what we are to most people: a family. You'll come to understand, over time."

"And do they know what you've done to Finn?" Bonnie snapped. Lemongrab must have told me the moment he found out.

She felt relief when her thoughts were all but confirmed, by a dry little chuckle from the King Worm. "Doubtful. None are privy to the dealings of my personal encampment. Finn is missing, and most couldn't care less. Only you and your petty princess friends care." It was hard to tell his true feelings, with how King Worm spoke of everything with a cheerful inflection, no matter the topic. "Funn is no longer recognizable as the boy he once was. And as far as my family goes, nobody knows if I even exist! Just as I am unaware of the Grand Master's identity."

There's that name again. Bonnie didn't know if that meant there was a bigger threat than King Worm, the real monster pulling all their strings. It could even be a trick, to psyche me out. It's clear King Worm knew who he was dealing with - perhaps this was all a ploy to outsmart her.

They lapsed into silence after this, and after minutes of endlessly wandering this maze of a camp, their retinue was finally given recognition when they breached a wall of roughhousing marauders whose eyes lit up at the sight of King Worm and the rest. Entering, they were assaulted with roars of victory and greeting and pats on the side from King Worm. Bonnie didn't care to discern the mild little compliments and hellos King Worm offered to his men as they surrounded him, but she did see how he manipulated her guards to patting them each on the shoulder or something. Grand Master Wizard finally descended from the sky - his massive form on the far side of the sandy clearing, away from everyone else.

His squatted stature and emerald-eyes drawn shut told Bonnibel he was meditating, and she had half a mind to mimic him - from the other side of the camp, of course.

The Princess meandered, stumps at her sides, painfully aware of how no one cared to watch her anymore because there wasn't anywhere for her to go. In seconds she counted forty tents encircling this private, guarded area of the Cretins' encampment, all of them fitted with a small tunnel-like structure the opened into this sandy clearing. She saw three open fires stakes with seared meat, four water troughs, and between every tent there was a small space set with a marauder grasping some glaive, halberd or pike.

In the center of the camp, there was a stockade: abandoned at the moment, but Bonnibel didn't need to think long about why it was there, when Ricardio's words filled her brain and cursed her to never forget them: 'He is at our camp right now, being raped over and over again, like the little whoreson deserves!'

Bonnibel's stomach did several backflips - constant backflips without ever touching the ground. She winced and breathed and did everything she could to calm herself, even wander the perimeter of the perimeter while King Worm and his men filed into their tents, or went off to chat with one another, laughing occasionally. Was Finn in one of these tents? The distant clamor of the camp surrounded them - an island of partial quiet within a smelly, stormy sea.

And before Bubblegum could wonder and wander further, a polite little voice startled her from behind.

"Excuse me, Miss? My Master would like to see you."

The voice alone whipped her head in its direction, hands swishing upon her shoulders. Bonnie didn't quite register what was said to her until she got a look at her face: it was a Flame Person in heavy, retardant rags that frayed midway down her calves, wrapped in a thick, baseball-sized knot at one shoulder. Distinctive silver bracelets latched upon each of her wrists. Bonnie didn't think much of those, eyes stuck on her smoldering hair. It barely fell past her neck, resembling a rushed cutting job handled with little care and no finesse - like someone hocked it off with a knife.

Her skin was an innocent, soft-radiant orange, her face round and slightly plump like the rest of her. The inklings of recognition loomed upon Bonnibel's mind, and for the life of her she didn't know why. She had trouble recognizing this individual, for she would surely remember anyone with such a distinctively scarred face: like rot upon an apple, over half of it was consumed in cold, black stone, mauling what was surely once a pretty little face forever.

She wore a sweet little smile, but Bubblegum could tell at a glance that she had a knife to her throat.

"Are you another poor soul who'd crossed the wrong people?" she asked the girl. Bonnie's heart cried out for whatever horrors befell this child.

And then the girl's eyes shone - shone with fire and passion and heartache and a silent plea that screamed the truth fiercer than Bonnie'd ever seen from her before. And she knew who it was before the girl croaked in a shaky, terrified voice, "PB, please... Please get me out of here..."

And scared little Bonnie couldn't even say the words, What did they do to you, Flame Princess? She hoped the heartbreak and shock upon her face told the truth, not realizing she'd regarded Phoebe with her typical look - the same look she always had when overwhelmed with sudden, extreme emotion.

When Bonnibel was so overwhelmed, so utterly aghast, her face did not show anything at all.

Next Time: Chapter 19 - Broken

Bonnibel struggles to remain defiant, while Marceline reconciles with past sins. Lady meets her fate.

This chapter was light on plot progression, but it took a while to get our characters to where they need to be. Next chapter there will involve more stuff happening.

Updates are going to be slow from here on out people. I have obligations to my college duties, work, and my friends first.

Shadowmaster91 - I suppose that's the real tragedy in all this - everyone is a person and they have their own misguided arrogance to deal with. But look at it this way: revenge will be so much sweeter when we get to it.

Nine90 - Hope you liked this chapter too! We'll be getting PB in almost every chapter for this portion of the story, as she is more or less the reader's inside look into the Cretins, and this experience is a terrible one that we have to follow her through. Lemongrab is coming up soon though!

Guest - Please don't call my story torture porn, putting it on the same level as Saw. I understand this is a shift from what you wanted! But it's necessary for the point of my whole story. It's still about Finn's friends trying to help him, but now we're seeing just what they're willing to go through in order to do so. If this story was torture porn, I'd be reveling in the suffering of these characters and hurting them for no reason except for the sheer act of hurting them. I'm actually trying my best not to come off that way, and instead focus on how these things affect them. I hope you aren't discouraged by this story, because all this suffering has an endpoint to it - trust me. As for Ricardio, well, we saw at the end of last chapter that he really did do something, that he wasn't all bark and no bite like Bubblegum thought he was - so his threats and promises actually have weight to them after that.

Dahbakon - Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoy it further.

Anarchist - Here's hoping this story continues to kick you hard in the guts, and heart-guts.

EndhazomGurl - That occurred to me, but if they were to do that then they would literally be erasing half a year out of Finn's life. Susan would still be dead. And even though he'd forget about what he went through, what he feels would still remain. In Memory of a Memory, Finn and Jake just removed a single moment from a day in Marceline's entire life. This is something a lot bigger and harder to erase than that!

Kingkong101 - You likely aren't seeing this, but I wonder what your opinion is now if you are.