The Lich Read Free

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.

    ‘Uh…oops!’ the Ice King mumbled. ‘I’ve got the dropsies!’
    Finn looked on in horror. Just when it had looked like he had reached the heights of hero-dom – defeating an ancient bad guy and stopping the Lich from destroying all of Ooo – all seemed lost. Now it looked like all his hopes and dreams had been dashed. The like-a-lot of his life was drowning in the Lich’s Well of Power. The Land of Ooo just wouldn’t be the same without Princess Bubblegum around, and neither would her devoted hero, Finn.

After Finn and Jake rescued Princess Bubblegum, they rushed her to the Candy Hospital, where Dr. Ice Cream and Nurse Poundcake tried desperately to stabilise her condition as she was rolled into the ER on a stretcher.
    ‘What’s her condition, Dr. Ice Cream?’ Nurse Poundcake asked nervously.
    ‘She’s totally gross over 90 percent of her body,’ Dr. Ice Cream reported. ‘The other 10 percent is crazy nasty.’
    ‘Will she make it, doctor?’ asked Nurse Poundcake.
    ‘I don’t know, Nurse Poundcake,’ Dr. Ice Cream replied honestly.
    Finn, Jake, the Ice King and the medical staff wheeled the stretcher into the operating room. The pretty pink princess now looked like a blob of featureless purple goo.
    ‘Put sugar on her – two scoops!’ Dr. Ice Cream ordered.
    Then, suddenly, the steady beep on the monitor stopped and the green line went flat.
    ‘We’re losing her!’ the doctor shouted.
    ‘No!’ the Ice King wailed. ‘Not my number one! Princess, if you die on me, I will never forgive you! I’ll be lost, lost in my own emotional labyrinth….’

    Finn couldn’t take it anymore. The Ice King was responsible for Bubblegum’s condition! What was he talking about?
    Finn jumped across the