The Lich (2 page)

‘I love it!’ he intoned convincingly.

Princess Bubblegum put her arms around Finn and hugged him tightly. There might have been better incentives for going out and facing an ancient evil than getting a squeeze from a princess, but if there were, Finn didn’t know about them. He hugged her back.

‘Me, too!’ Jake said, not wanting to be left out of a group hug opportunity. He squeezed himself into the centre of the love fest, forgetting for a moment the seriousness of the mission.

Just then, the shutters on the room’s only window began to rattle. They burst open. The three friends gasped, fearing that the Lich was coming for them.

It wasn’t an ancient evil, though. It was a more common form of badness, the Ice King.

‘Hey, hey, hey,’ the Ice King greeted them. ‘So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and well, gosh, I’m so nervous. Finn and Jake, will you give me your blessing so I can marry Princess Bubblegum?’

‘What is wrong with you?’ Jake asked before he slammed the shutters shut.

Princess Bubblegum turned to Finn.

‘Quickly now,’ she said. ‘Track the Lich by his trail of death.’

‘Here I go!’ Finn called as he raced off.

‘Here I go!’ Jake echoed, following Finn.

Finn and Jake raced through the cotton candy trees in the Candy Kingdom forest, following the Lich’s path.

‘This is our first fate-of-the-world deal,’ Jake panted.

‘Yeah, man,’ Finn replied. ‘We have to shut this fool down hardcore!’

Jake began to get stomach cramps from running so fast. He slowed down, and when Finn turned to tell Jake to push through the pain, he ran straight into the Ice King. They tumbled down and landed in a pile of dust.

‘Oh my! How clumsy of me,’ said the Ice King.

‘What the heck, Ice King?’ Finn asked, shoving him out of the way.

‘Hey, wait, you guys,’ the Ice King called. ‘I’m serious about Bubblegum. Look! I wrote her name all over my arms and legs!’ He rolled up his sleeves and lifted his frock to show off his handiwork.

‘Yuck!’ said Finn as the Ice King pulled back his robe to reveal his ink-covered legs. They ran down the trail while the Ice King hovered in the air behind them.

‘Guys, it’s not fair,’ he whined. ‘She always hangs out with you. And it’s not like you want to marry her.’

Finn’s cheeks turned red. He picked up a rock and tossed it at the icy monarch.

‘Why are you
FOLLOWING US?
’ Finn screamed.

‘I told you already,’ responded the Ice King. ‘I want your blessing so I can marry Princess Bubblegum!’

Finn and Jake tried, but they couldn’t outrun the Ice King. Then the king lifted his arms and used his powers to trap them in an ice dome.

A doorway melted in the ice as the Ice King walked into the dome.

‘Come on, you guys. Give me permission to marry her,’ he begged.

‘
NO!
’ Finn yelled.

‘Come on,’ the Ice King pleaded. ‘If you bless our wedding, then maybe she’ll really love me.’

Finn held up his gauntlet-covered hand.

‘Ice King, go away, man,’ he commanded.

‘
I WILL!
’ the Ice King screamed. ‘
WHEN YOU BLESS OUR WEDDING!
’

‘No thanks, guy,’ Finn replied.

Finn held the Gauntlet of the Hero out in front of the king, but nothing happened.

‘Huh? How does this gauntlet work?’ Finn wondered.

Finn smacked the eye on the back of the glove, and a super-strong laser beam shot out of it. He struggled to control the beam as it seared through the ice dome walls.

‘Whoa!’ Jake yelled.

‘I can’t turn it off!’ Finn cried.

‘Punch it in the eye,’ Jake suggested.

Finn punched the gauntlet’s eye again. It worked. The laser disappeared in a flash.

‘Let’s blow this stand!’ Jake yelled as he and Finn escaped through an opening in the ice wall.

‘I tried to do this right, but you’ve driven me to this,’ the Ice King snarled. ‘Driven me to bad doing!’

Princess Bubblegum sat in her secret room, snacking on ice-cream and worrying about her friends.

‘Oh, Finn and Jake, please be okay,’ she wished out loud. ‘Please be okay…please be okay…please be okay.’

The princess’s meditations were interrupted when she heard a banging at the window. Someone was trying to sneak into the secret room! It was the Ice King, and he wasn’t going to accept ‘no’ for an answer to his marriage proposal.

‘Ice King!’ Bubblegum yelled. ‘Get out of here!’

‘I didn’t want to do this,’ the Ice King said as he crawled through the window. ‘But by not blessing our wedding, Finn and Jake have forced me to kidnap you.’

He sent an icy blast toward the princess. Her feet and arms were soon encased in ice blocks.

‘That’s insane!’ cried Princess Bubblegum.

‘I know!’ agreed the Ice King, misunderstanding the princess. ‘But I’ll show them.
I’LL SHOW THEM HOW THEY’VE HURT US!

’ The Ice King grabbed the ice block that surrounded the princess’s wrists and dragged her out of the castle.

Meanwhile, Finn and Jake had tracked the Lich’s trail of destruction to Iceberg Lake.

‘There! Out over the lake!’ Jake said to Finn as he pointed to a black streak of evil darting through the water.

Suddenly, the Lich rose above the surface, moaning his evil moans and glaring at them.

‘After his butt!’ Finn called in an effort to put himself and Jake in a butt-kicking state of mind.

Jake transformed his body into the shape of a dinghy and Finn climbed aboard. Finn wanted the help Jake move faster, so he placed the gauntlet into the water and stroked its eye.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ he said softly to the glove.

The eye looked back at him suspiciously.

‘Aw, come on,’ Finn apologised. ‘I’m sorry I punched you.’

Finn leaned over and gave the eye a kiss.

The gauntlet accepted his apology and began to paddle through Iceberg Lake at warp speed. Soon, they were right in the Lich’s wake.

‘Closing in!’ Finn cried. ‘Going to get you, man!’

Finn held out the glowing gauntlet, ready to smite the Lich with it.

‘Closer, Jake,’ Finn called. ‘Closer…closer….’

Just when it looked like Finn might soon be within smiting-distance, an interloper jetted in between them. It was the Ice King, interfering again!

‘Princess?’ Finn asked, confused upon seeing her royal highness locked in ice. ‘No!’

A geyser spouted up from the lake, taking Finn and his dinghy dog on a high ride. Finn was furious when they finally washed ashore.

‘
ICE KING!
’ he screamed.

‘Look!’ the Ice King screamed back. ‘
LOOK

WHAT YOU MADE ME DO TO HER!
’

‘Guys, don’t let the Lich reach his well of power,’ the princess warned.

Too late! An eerie green glow filled the sky as the Lich released a horde of evil souls from the well.

‘Oh, no!’ Princess Bubblegum cried. She watched the Lich’s evilness unleashed upon the world. ‘He’s made it!’

‘Don’t worry, Princess,’ Finn called to her.

Finn and Jake set out to undo the Lich’s evil. They raced down stairs that led to the well. Undead evil skeletons rose up to fight them. Finn blasted each of them with the Gauntlet of the Hero until the ground was littered with their bones.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ Finn huffed.

‘Then let’s go!’ said Jake.

As Finn raced away, the undead creatures grabbed his backpack and ripped it open.

‘My backpack!’ Finn cried.

Jake leapt on Finn’s back and morphed into a backpack shape.

‘It’s okay,’ he reassured Finn.

An enormous skeleton rose from the floor, lifting Finn and Jake to a perch at the top of its skull. Finn raised the gauntlet to blast the skeleton, but he also blasted a hole in the ground. Finn and Jake fell for what seemed to be an eternity.

Before they crash landed, Finn grabbed onto a pipe and held on for his life. Then he jumped down to a safe surface and peered through the hole. At the bottom, he saw a pool of bubbling evil with a dark figure crouching over it.

‘The Lich,’ Finn gasped.

The ancient evil dipped his skeleton hands into the pool and groaned.

‘He’s getting his powers back!’ said Jake. ‘Weird.’

Jake held out the Gauntlet of the Hero and directed its beam at the Lich.

‘No!’ he yelled, as the Lich jumped out of the way of the blast. ‘Prepare thyself to get smote in the name of Bubblegum!’

Jake stretched his ears into wing-like shapes, and then Finn and Jake glided down toward the Lich. Finn held out the gauntlet, ready to give the Lich a beat-down, but the Lich just grabbed the gauntlet and held Finn in midair.

‘Shhh,’ the Lich whispered, holding one bony finger in front of his mouth.

The Lich squeezed, and the Gauntlet of the Hero crumbled into a million pieces. Then he tossed Finn and Jake to the ground. The Ice King and Princess Bubblegum gasped. The king had followed Finn and Jake into the well and was hovering with the princess in the air, watching the whole time.

‘Look out!’ Jake shouted as the Lich hurled green orbs of evil their way.

‘That’s it!’ he yelled in frustration. ‘I’m going to bark him!’

Jake rolled over and traded positions with Finn, so that now he was carrying Finn on his back like a backpack. He stretched his torso across the pool of evil and barked ferociously at the Lich. While most people would have run off in fear, the Lich did not.

Instead, the Lich picked up a ball of evil and tossed it into Jake’s face. Jake fell to the ground, his face burned. Finn’s protective headband fell to the floor and the jewel shattered. Princess Bubblegum screamed.

‘Finnnnnn,’ the Lich snarled. ‘Come!’

Finn struggled to fight against the Lich possessing his mind. But the evil was powerful.

‘Stop!’ Finn called to the Lich.

‘Aren’t you cold, Finn?’ the Lich asked. ‘Walk into the well, Finn. Aren’t you cold?’

Finn, now being sucked in by the Lich’s evil, stepped toward the well. He was balanced on the edge when his hero self triumphed over the evil possessing him.

‘
NO, I’M NOT!!!
’ he cried. ‘
I’VE GOT A SWEATER ON!
’

‘You are a joke to me,’ answered the Lich.

He sent a green beam of evil toward Finn, but the sweater Princess Bubblegum had knitted seemed to have magical powers, just like the headband.

‘This sweater,’ Finn gasped. ‘It’s keeping me safe!’

Finn suddenly remembered that when the princess had given him the clothing, she’d told him that she cared about him.

‘This is it, the ultimate weapon against evil,’ Finn realised. ‘The power of…l…l…liking someone a lot.’

Finn pulled off the sweater and waved it in front of himself like a weapon.

‘Lich!’ he yelled as he rushed toward the ancient evil.

Finn jumped onto the Lich’s face and attacked him with the handmade pink knitwear. The Lich laughed demonically and swayed back and forth. Then with one final tug, Finn used the sweater to pull the Lich’s skull apart. The ancient evil crumbled into a pile of bones that then vanished in a puff.

Finn fell to the floor, the sweater covering his back like a blanket.

‘Finn!’ Jake cried, concerned. ‘Buddy!’

Jake slapped his best friend’s face until Finn responded.

‘Jake?’ Finn asked groggily. ‘Jake!’

‘Oh, Finn,’ gushed Princess Bubblegum. ‘You did it!’

‘We did?’ the Ice King wondered aloud. ‘Hey, yeah, we did it! Oh, you guys, this experience has brought us all so much closer together.’

In the spirit of the moment, he turned to his love and said, ‘Princess, I’m sorry for all of this. I love you, and I’ve decided to set you free.’

With a magical wave of his hand, the ice blocks that held Princess Bubblegum’s hands and feet melted away.

‘Go free!’ the Ice King cried.

He let go of the princess and she dropped out of his arms and into the Lich’s well of evil.