Chapter 20

The room was silent and still. The only sounds that could be heard were the weak mutterings of the princess and the queen. They had not yet regained consciousness. Soon, they would awaken, but not yet. There was still time. Time that was to be used setting up their next test.

Before them was a familiar device. It was a metal box lined with several circular saw blades. It was the device that had been used on Finn during his first game. Its purpose had been served, and now it would fulfill a new purpose. Aged but skilled hands caressed the metal of the device, as they took in every detail. It had been a very long time since they had last constructed something personally. They had been letting their followers build the devices for their games. But this time it was different. This time, the players had broken the rules. This matter needed to be attended to personally. After grabbing one of the many tools placed upon a medical gurney, they began to carefully deconstruct the device.

The haze of unconsciousness slowly began to fade as Princess Bubblegum began to stir and moan. Her head felt numb and her lungs ached. But with each breath her mind grew clearer. The room stank of oil and stone. With her eyes still clouded, Bonnie began to feel around herself to try to get a better idea of where she was. The clouds in her eyes quickly faded as her hands felt a thick metal shackle locked tightly around her ankle. Attached to the shackle was an equally thick chain that was bolted to the wall. Her shackle had a green painted padlock connecting the chain to the shackle.

"Marcy?" Bonnie asked weakly. "Marcy, are you there?"

Marceline awoke with a jolt at the sound of her name. She let out a hiss of pain as the stumps where feet once were throbbed violently. Upon further inspection, she found that her stumps had been covered in thick fabric with metal braces clamped tightly around the stumps and held in place with screws. One of her braces had a yellow padlock that was locked with a chain attached to the wall.

The clouds in the two prisoners' minds were cleared by a loud snap of metal from the center of the room. Standing ominously was a figure of average build, cloaked in a red and black theatrical robe. Before the figure was a metal podium with sinister looking device placed upon it. A medical gurney sat behind the figure and was covered in tools and the familiar pig mask that the other culprits wore so proudly. The figure placed their hands gently on top of the circular saw blades and moved them forward and backward thoughtfully. Without breaking their gaze from the device, the figure pulled back the hood of their cloak.

Now uncovered, Bonnie and Marcy could finally see who or what their jailer was. Much to their surprise, the figure was a human. A male in his early fifties with white hair buzzed short. His wrinkled face was pale and sickly in complexion with bags under his eyes. A thin white soul patch ran down from his bottom lip to his chin. Overall, nothing seemed too unusual about the man. But there was an aura around him that made their skin crawl.

The man slowly turned from the device before him and looked down at Princess Bubblegum. The moment his eyes met hers', a flash of images and sounds invaded her mind. The images were everything from newspaper articles to police reports. The man then turned and looked to Marceline. Her mind too was invaded by the pictures and sounds. Through the cacophony of sounds and pictures, two names always rose to the surface.

"Jigsaw" and "John Kramer".

As quickly as the images had started, they ended just as quickly.

"Hello, Bonniebel." John stated coldly. "Hello, Marceline."

Bonnie and Marceline were both shocked silent as they tried to make sense of what they had had been forced to see.

"John…?" Bonnie asked in a disbelief. "John Kramer?"

John slowly walked around the metal podium and slipped off his robe, all the while maintaining eye contact with the princess.

"You are about to play a game." He stated as he folded up his robe and placed it on the gurney.

Marceline was too dumbstruck too form words. There was no way that this was John Kramer, the real Jigsaw killer. He died before the mushroom war. How could he still be alive? It was impossible.

Panic suddenly flooded Bonnie's body as the reality of her situation finally sank in. She began to frantically tug and pull on the chain attached to her ankle.

"How are you alive?!" she screamed "What are you doing?!"

"It's a final test." John answered as he walked back behind the podium.

"We've had enough of your tests! Look at my fricking legs!" Marceline screamed angrily.

"That wasn't your test, Marceline. And that wouldn't have been necessary, if you had simply played by the rules." John spoke as he pointed to her bloody stumps. "But you don't like rules, do you?"

Marceline shut her eyes and let out a sob of despair as her strength left her body. Her sobs were ignored as John turned back to the device before him and began to remove several clamps that held the electric motors in place.

"You want me to show mercy, for you who just took a major step back from confessing?" John asked as he placed the removed motors on the gurney before looking back at the vampire.

"You, who is responsible not for one death, but for three?"

Once again, images and sounds invaded the two prisoner's minds. The images showed a younger Marceline, one that just only recently become a vampire. The ashes of the mushroom war still filled the sky, blocking out the sun. Marceline was skulking within the ruins of a once great city. She had grown tired of sucking the red out of anything she found. Her thirst was not quenched. She needed something more, something fresh. That's when her nose picked up a scent she had not smelled in a long time. Humans. Yes, she had tried early on not to partake in the blood of humans. But now, with so few of them left, when would she get this opportunity again?

"Your life of reckless indulgence started when you were young. And only grew worse."

The next series of images showed Marceline pouncing and biting the neck of a wandering human. Sucking them dry within seconds. They had been out gathering food and water. The images then showed two small children, hidden away in a bunker, waiting for their parent to return with food. Food that would never arrive. The two children starved to death, alone in the dark.

"Your thirst claimed the life of an innocent person, and stole the lives of two children."

Marceline lowered her head in shame. She knew what she had done was bad, but she had no idea about the two children. She was just so thirsty back then. She could only fight the thirst for so long before it took over.

"And you've only gotten worse over the years."

The next set of images showed Marceline quietly sneaking into Finn and Jake's tree house. In the dead of night, she would rummage through their garbage for Finn's blooded and torn clothing. It took everything she had not to drink from the slumbering adventurer. Rather than his fresh blood, Marcy would make do with the blood stained on his clothes.

Bonnie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had no doubt that Marceline had fed off of humans in the past, but to feed off of Finn, her champion and best friend? How could she?!

Marceline could feel Bonnies gaze burning into her. She felt so ashamed of herself.

"I did it. Okay, I did it." Marceline admitted shamefully. "But it was so long ago. I wanna live. I wanna live."

"As do I, Marceline. As do we all. But things happen." John stated as he looked down at the device he was disassembling. "Were it not for a careless mistake by a resident at the hospital I was in, my cancer could have been diagnosed a lot sooner. It was simply the wrong name on an x-ray." John paused as he removed a screw from the device. "It would have saved me a whole lot of hardship."

John fell silent again as he removed more screws from the metal frame of the device.

"And you, Bonnibel…" he stated as he turned his attention to the cowering princess.

Bonnie snapped upright and looked John in the eyes.

"John, please, let us go!" Bonnie pleaded. "My kingdom needs me! My people need me!"

John smiled and returned to the device.

"Please don't do this to me!" Bonnie pleaded.

"Your work was impressive, Bonnibel. In the years after the mushroom war, you took a wasteland and brought life and order to the land. Together, you and Finn both kept Ooo from collapsing. I thank you for that."

"Then why are you doing this to me?!" Bonnie sobbed desperately.

Once again, Bonnie and Marcy's minds were flooded with images and sounds. The images showed scenes from their many adventures. Bonnie asking Finn for his help, Finn and his brother Jake all too eager to accept it. Through their ups and downs they had remained friends. The images made Bonnie feel a sad nostalgic feeling. Seeing these old images from her past made her realise just how much she missed the way things used to be.

"Those were better days for you, weren't they, princess?" John asked calmly. "But your champion, Finn, I know you two didn't always see eye to eye. But the boy worshiped the ground you walked. That is until, he found another princess."

The images shifted to scenes of Finn and Flame Princess. Marcy could feel a sense of jealousy rise in Bonnie. There was no way Bonnie could be that petty.

"The fear of losing your champion drove you to your labs. Where your science became twisted by your jealousy."

The scenes showed Bonnie and several other candy scientists working with beakers and test tubes. Several of the tubes were filled with, hair, sweat, and blood samples.

"The science you once filled with love and life were instead filled with spite and jealousy."

The images sharpened and revealed that the test tubes contained hair, sweat, and blood from Bonnie's champion and friend, Finn the human.

Bonnie quietly sank back to the floor as the quilt of what she had done began to swell. No one was meant to see what had transpired in her labs. Marceline felt a spark of anger burn in her chest. What had Bonnie done that required Finn's hair and stuff?

"The machines that once gave birth to your subjects gave birth to one that was meant to be a replacement champion, should anything happen to Finn, isn't that right Bonnie?" John asked as he unscrewed several bolts and washers from the device. "But, the thing you created, didn't survive did it, Bonnie? To endure the loss of something you created, it's one of life's greatest burdens, isn't it?"

The images showed a sloppy, deformed creature dragging itself out of the vats in the labs. Missing both of its legs and one of its arms, the creature gurgled and cooed happily up at a visibly disappointed princess. She snapped her fingers and the unfinished creation was taken away to be locked up and hidden away from the world.

"I mean it's horrible, how horrible to live with such a thing." John stated with his voice laden with false sympathy.

The next set of images showed the unfinished creation fighting and clawing its way from several banana guards. Trying desperately to find the princess that gave it life. But not before Peppermint Butler used his magic to teleport the sad creature out into the barren wastelands. The images were suddenly filled with thick black smoke and buzzing flies.

"It could make a person go mad, couldn't it?"

The smoke suddenly was split by a loud pig-like squeal as the unfinished creation donned the black robes and the rotting pig mask that John had provided it.

Bonnie sat in bitter silence. One of her darkest, shameful secrets had been let out.

Marceline couldn't even look at Bonnie. She was so disgusted. But she knew she had no right to be disgusted. Finn trusted them both, and they both took advantage of that trust. Maybe, this is what they deserved.

"What are you gonna do to us?" Marcy asked weakly.

John chuckled and shook his head as he leaned over the device and began to unscrew more bolts.

"Me? I'm not going to do anything." He stated coldly. "You simply have to assume responsibility..."

With a fluid motion, John removed the metal box cover of the device, causing Marcy and Bonnie to flinch.

"...for who you are."

John gently lifted the exposed saw blades and gear shaft off of the two metal clamps that held them in place and placed them onto the gurney.

"Please, I'll do anything you want, John, just please let Bonnie go." Marceline pleaded.

John's eyes looked up to Marcy before moving down to the pig mask that sat on the gurney.

"Did you know that pigs are highly compassionate animals?" he asked as he ran his fingers through the black hair of the mask.

Marcy shook her head and let tears roll down her face. She was an idiot for thinking she would be shown mercy.

"They show distress if they see any other animal, including humans, suffering." John stated as he placed the mask onto of his folded robes.

"What about you, John?" Bonnie asked coldly. "Where is your compassion?"

John turned and looked down at the forlorn princess, his gaze unchanging.

"We all have a thumb on the scale, Bonnibel." He stated firmly. "For good or for evil. You've been weighing in on the wrong side of the scale. Both of you."

John paused as he walked back behind the gurney.

"Now if you want to achieve your freedom, you have to learn, you have to realize that you've been doing it backwards." John spoke in a manner similar to a teacher trying to get their students to understand their lesson.

Marcy and Bonnie gave confused looks as John's words sank in. They had done everything his games demanded, and now he was telling them that they had been playing them wrong?

"So, I'm going to give you an opportunity..." John reached underneath the gurney's cloth and withdrew a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. "...to turn it all around."

Bonnie and Marceline's eyes both widened in sheer terror as John revealed the weapon. Whatever danger they thought they were in, just became so much worse and much more real. There was nothing special or high tech about the old shotgun, Bonnie could tell that much just by looking at it. It was simple and primitive, yet still just as deadly as it ever could have been.

John steadily made his way back towards the metal podium and with a loud snap, opened the shotgun and exposed the two empty barrels. With the shotgun held in one hand, John reached into his back pocket with the other and withdrew a single twelve-gauge shotgun shell. John held the shell up in front of him to make sure that both players could see it. Marceline's nose could smell traces of ash wood and silver nitrate within the shell. Much like his other games, John had made sure that this one would be able to kill her or anyone else.

"Here is your key to freedom." John stated firmly as he looked at both Bonnie and Marcy's horrified faces.

John then slid the shell into one of the barrels and then snapped the gun shut before gently placing it upon the two metal clamps that once held the saw blades in place. With a loud click, John pulled the firing hammer back, arming the weapon and starting the game.

"It's all up to you." He stated coldly as he walked around the podium back to the gurney. "Now the game is simple. The best ones are."

John stood looked down at the shotgun and looked back to his players.

"You have one shotgun." He stated while motion towards the weapon. "You have one shell."

John then reached over and grabbed the handle of the gurney and began to drag it behind him. His roll in the game had come to an end. Now it was they players turn to fulfill their roll. The wheels of the gurney squeaked as John steadily made his way towards an opened sliding metal door. Marcy and Bonnie watched in horrified silence as John turned his back to them. The game had just started for both of them. And both of them knew that only one of them would be leaving.

"Like I said, it's all up to you." John repeated as he pushed the gurney out into the dark hallway.

Marceline's kept darting from John to Bonnie and finally to the gun as she tried her best to take everything in. Bonnie on the other hand couldn't pull her eyes away from the gun, her mind was working on something, she just didn't know quite what it was yet. With nothing left to be said, John stepped out into the dark hallway and slammed the door shut behind him.

Despite the silence that now filled the room, John's words kept echoing in both Bonnie and Marcy's heads. The dread and tension in the air was suffocating. It didn't take long for the rules of the game to become terrifyingly clear.

"He wants us to shoot each other…" Marceline stated in a defeated tone.

The gears in Bonnie's head were turning so fast that she could hardly keep up with them. The only time she ever got into such a state was when her kingdom was threatened. It was a terrible cold feeling. It was her locking out all others so that she could make the most painful decisions of all. The kind of decisions where not everyone gets to walk away. The last time she felt this way was when her kingdom was overthrown. Finally, the gears slid into place. Bonnie's mind had been made up.

"He want's me to kill you." Bonnie stated in a cold, deadpan voice as she pushed herself off the floor.

Marcy's eyes snapped from the gun to Bonnie in disbelief. There was no way she had heard that properly. But the empty look in Bonnie's eyes told Marcy that she was all too serious.

"B-Bonnie, y-you're not serious, right?" Marcy asked with a tremble of fear in her voice.

Bonnie took an uneasy step forward and reached her hand out towards the gun.

"It's the only answer." She stated in a shaky, unnerved tone.

Marcy couldn't believe what she was hearing or seeing. Princess Bubblegum, her best friend and lover was actually considering killing her?

"No, No!" Marcy screamed as she threw herself forward only to be snagged by the chain locked onto her stump. "No, Bonnie! Don't you touch that! No please, t-that's what he wants us to do, okay?! Think about it!"

"Thumb on the scale…" Bonnie stated emptily as she held her hand over the shotgun handle hesitantly.

"No, no please, Bonnie please. I love you. Please don't do this!" Marcy begged as she tried her best to talk some sense into her princess.

"Good or evil…"

"No, please, Bonnie! Please don't do this!"

"…that's what he said."

"L-lets just think about this for a minute, okay? Please, just think!"

"He said we had to follow the rules. We have to play by the rules." Bonnie rambled as she steeled herself for what she was about to do. "My only key to freedom…is in this gun."

With a terrifying look in her eyes, Bonnie grabbed the gun with both hands and aimed it a Marceline.

"No! No!" Marcy screamed as hot tears spilled down her face. She coiled herself into a ball and covered her head with her hands. "Bonnie please don't do this! I love you, please don't do this!"

Marcy shut her eyes and braced herself for the one-way trip to the Nightosphere that was coming.

How could she do this? After everything we've been through, how could Bonnie do this?! Maybe, this is what I deserve. Finn, little buddy, I'm so sorry for everything I've done. Please, you have to survive this!

Marcy's ears twitched at the click of the firing hammer being slowly lowered back into a safe position. With a loud snap, Bonnie opened the shotgun and pulled out the shell. The shotgun fell to the floor with a loud clatter as Bonnie tried to break open the shell with her teeth. Marceline watched in slack jawed silence as Bonnie bit into the shell. What was she doing?

Finally, Bonnie spat out a mouthful of plastic and poured the shell out into her hand. Black powder and silver pellets fell through her fingers as she held her hand open for Marcy to see. Shimmering in the dull lights of the room were two metal keys.

Marcy's mind was blank. She couldn't understand what she was seeing.

"B-Bonnie? W-what…?" she stammered incoherently.

Bonnie looked back to Marceline with an exhausted expression.

"He said it himself, Marcy." The tired princess explained. "We were doing this backwards..."

Bonnie tossed one of the keys over to Marceline, who caught it nimbly.

"This shell was designed to kill the user should the trigger be pulled, and in the process, destroying the keys." Bonnie explained. "He expected us to kill each other, but made it so that there was a way for us to escape. We just needed to stop and think and look at the problem from a different angle."

Bonnie couldn't believe she was actually thinking this, but the trap was very ingenious. John had planned this from the very beginning. He had calculated their actions and took steps to account for them. He had planned it so thoroughly that it was stunning. Terrifying, but stunning.

After freeing herself, Bonnie rushed over to Marceline's hobbled form and helped her with her shackles. Once her shackles were free, Bonnie threw her arms around Marcy and hugged her tightly. Tears ran down Bonnie's face as she planted tiny wet kisses all over Marceline's dirty face. But the silence and cold feeling Bonnie felt in return made things painfully clear that something was wrong.

"We aren't good, yet, are we?" Bonnie asked with dread in her voice.

Marcy was quiet as she stared bitterly up into Bonnie's eyes. Her eyes were filled with pain, anger, shame, and disgust.

"No, we are not good." Marcy muttered weakly as she shook her head. "Neither of us are good. And after what we have both done…to Finn…we won't be good for a while."

Bonnie sniffled and wiped the tears from her face. She knew that Marcy was speaking the truth. After what John had revealed to them about each other, neither of them was in a very loving or forgiving mood.

"Should we come clean and tell Finn?" Bonnie asked as she hoisted Marceline onto her back.

"We need to." Marcy responded as she clung tightly to Bonnie. "If you and me, or anyone is to be okay again…we'll need to tell him what we did. I just hope he forgives us."

"We can worry about forgiveness later." Bonnie stated as she walked towards the sliding door. "Right now, we need to get out of this room."

Just as Bonnie's foot touched the floor, the tile slid open into an empty abyss.

"Are you kidding-" was all the two could speak before plummeting down into the howling darkness.

There game was over, but there part in another one's game was just only beginning.

Happy 2020!

I haven't forgotten you.

This chapter was based off my favorite scene in the entire Saw franchise.

I hope I captured the feeling that John Kramer gives off whenever he is on screen.

One final game remains.