"And then he told me that I wanted a bad boy!" Fionna ranted, pulling off her boots. "And then a whole bunch of other stuff that was basically the same thing."
"Sounds like you certainly had an adventure." Cake commented. "Are you sure that you don't like this boy, though?"
Fionna shot her sister a look. "No, of course not."

"I'm just worried that you're still hung up on your curator friend."
"I'm totally over him." Fionna promised.
"And the pyromanic guy?"
"He was not a pyromanic! He just really, really liked candles. And matches. And fire, in general."

Cake raised an eyebrow. "Babycakes, you attract the weirdest guys."
Fionna flushed. "It's not like that. I don't actually like The Demon. He's terrible!"
"Then deal with him. You're a hero, and he's a villain. What are you waiting for?"
Fionna rubbed her arm awkwardly. "He's... he's not actually that bad. Bad enough for me to kill him, anyway. Or at least, he wasn't. But he basically spelled out that he needs constant attention and that he's a dangerous guy."

"Yeah, I'll say. He threatened to hurt people just because you didn't pay attention to him. Take him down. You can do it."
Fionna shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know..."
"The man is a menace." Cake commented. "Anyway, what about your new friend at college?"

"Marshall? What about him?"
"Do you like him?"
"Yeah, but not in that way."
"Seems like he's a better person than this Demon guy."

"Yeah, he is. But Gumball told me not to trust him."
Cake raised an eyebrow. "Oh, now Mr. Pink Hair Curator is interested?"
"No, it's not like that! He just doesn't want me to get hurt, because we're friends."
"Personally, I think he's better than your first boyfriend and your new university friend." Cake muttered.

"I am not dating Marshall."
"Fine, fine. So, when are you having him over?" Noting her sister's look, Cake added, "As friends?"
"I don't know... I don't think..."
"Okay. But in any case, I want to meet this tall, dark friend that you talk about so often."

"I don't talk about him that much..."
"You talk about him more than I talk about Mochro." Cake pointed out.
"That's because I already know things about Mochro. I've met him."
Cake rolled her eyes. "Mm-hmm."
"Really!"
"And you kiss this guy pretty much every day just because he shows you a tunnel?"

"It's not... urgh, I'm going to bed."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Hey, Fionna!" Marshall jumped out from behind a tree, trying to scare her.
"Hey, Marshall." She yawned.
"You look like you're about to fall over." He remarked bluntly.

She rubbed her eyes. "I had a rough night. I stayed up talking to my sister until about an hour before our alarms went off, and before that..." She trailed off, and he wrapped an arm around her. "You need coffee. What were you and your sister talking about, anyway?"

"A lot of things." Fionna yawned. "The Demon. My last boyfriend. Gumball. You. Her boyfriend."
"Oh? And what did you say about me?" Marshall asked, though inwardly he was on edge at the mention of The Demon. Fionna wasn't supposed to know about that. Granted, he wasn't sure if he didn't want her to find out because the Shieldmaiden was his secret (kind of, anyway), or just because he knew that she wouldn't approve of The Demon. At all.

"We talked a lot about how you're my friend, and..." She trailed off, looking up at him. "It's not that important, anyway."
"You said you mentioned The Demon? Personally, I prefer the Shieldmaiden." Why did I just say that? The Shieldmaiden is known, sure, but not THAT well known.

Fionna shrugged. "I guess I agree... I dislike The Demon's actions, but at least he's never hurt anyone so far."
"I don't think he would." Marshall agreed. "His bark is much worse than his bite... at this point, anyway."
"What do you mean?" Fionna asked him.
"Rumor has it," Meaning, Marshall was the only one who knew, "he's got special powers, which is why he classifies himself as a supervillain and not just a trumped up version of Aladdin. There's shape-shifting, necromancy, and on special days, telekinesis and pyrokinesis."

Fionna raised an eyebrow. "Why hasn't he used any of it?"
"He hasn't really had a need to. Why have an army of the dead when you can just go steal that stuff yourself?"
"I guess that makes sense... but what about the Shieldmaiden? She's just a human."
Marshall frowned, but held his tongue. No one knew about that first encounter except him and The Shieldmaiden.

Fionna walked along obliviously.
"Don't diss the Shieldmaiden." Marshall said smoothly.
Fionna looked suprised. "I would never. It can't be easy what she does, and it seems like she's helping, at least a little."
"Do you think she should put The Demon behind bars?" Marshall asked nervously.

"...I think The Demon needs to stop. I don't necessarily think he needs to be put in jail, but he can't just wander around freely. What if the Shieldmaiden got sick or something? He'd pop up outside her window saying, 'I notice that you have a really bad cold, but I just stole this priceless artifact, so please come chase after me?'"
Marshall laughed. "What, you don't think he'd take advantage of the situation?"

"Meaning preying on the Shieldmaiden while she's bedridden? She'd punch him out the window." Fionna snorted.
"No, I meant stealing more artifacts."
"I don't know... I don't think that he does it for the money." Fionna pointed out. "It's almost certainly for the attention."

There was that word again. Marshall would have hated being called an attention-seeker again, but she hadn't actually said anything nasty, and... in a second, it clicked in his mind. Blonde? Check. Curvy? Check. A good deal shorter than him? Check. Intriguely good? Definitely. And most importantly, that opinion about The Demon.

Fionna's the Shieldmaiden! And with that, Marshall began to internally panic.

*Author's Note*

When Marshall talks about his powers, those are all real powers that Marceline has. However, Marshall is mostly demon in this, with no vampire in him, and I'm not completely sure how many of those powers are inherited, and how many are from Marceline's vampirism. I think Hunson mentioned that she inherited the shape-shifting from him at one point... it may have been in the Encyclopedia, but it was there.