Ghosts of the Past

The sea had forgotten her name. The waves had carried her so far from the Land of Ooo that even her memories felt bleached and weathered like driftwood washed up on some alien shore. Princess Bubblegum stood at the bow of a shattered vessel — the last remnant of a ship that once belonged to the Candy Kingdom navy. The pink gum of her hair clung to her face in wild tangles, salted stiff from the years of endless water, ending in a long braid. Her clothes were little more than scraps, bleached from pink and purple to a dull, off-color, her coat fluttering around her like torn sails.

For a century, the sea had been her prison. Cursed storms had dragged her ship across the Endless Ocean, currents whispering of ancient forces long forgotten. Time had been cruel, gnawing away at her sugar body, leaving her hollow and brittle. Yet the moment she caught sight of Ooo’s coastline again, something stirred in her chest — a soft spark, an ember in the ash.

She stumbled onto the black sand beach, knees hitting the earth so hard her metaphorical bones rattled. The Land of Ooo stood before her, but it was not the land she remembered. Once, Ooo had been a chaotic, colorful sprawl, filled with beautiful and terrifying life. Now, it was hushed. The sky was veiled in soft grey, neither stormy nor clear. The forests were withered, stripped of the bright greens she had once known. In the distance, the silhouettes of ancient ruins pierced the sky — bones of castles and cities long collapsed.

She walked for days.

What had once been familiar paths were now overgrown with horned vines and strange, glass-like mushrooms that hummed when she touched them. The sky didn’t shift—there was no sun or moon, only a pale glow that never brightened or dimmed. Time felt uncertain, as though the world had forgotten how to move forward.

She passed the ruins of the Fire Kingdom, its volcanic heart burned colder. The ash along the borders had settled into thick dunes, hiding the mighty kingdom beyond ghostly drifts. But there were no signs of Flame Princess or her descendants. No lava hounds barking in the distance. Just silence.

In the distance, Bubblegum could see the scraping height of the tree in the spot where her friend died, her lover once lived, and her best friends after that. It was taller than last she saw it, far taller. It was a stark reminder of the time she’d been gone and how much she must have missed.

By the time she reached the Candy Kingdom, her legs felt like licorice stretched too thin.

The gates were gone. The towering candy walls, once so vibrant and sweet-smelling, were now melted into grotesque, jagged spires. The air tasted like old sugar left too long in the sun — stale and faintly rotten. Buildings lay in heaps, crushed under the weight of time or torn apart by unknown hands. The castle, once her home, stood partially collapsed in the distance. Its once pink towers were stained a sickly shade of brown, like caramel burnt to ash. The once beautiful tree was barren.

She stepped through the ruined gates, her heart hammering in her chest like the beat of a war drum. This had been her kingdom. Her life. Her heart.

Now it was a graveyard.

The streets were empty, save for the frames of dead candy citizens — limbs melted, eyes sunken into hollows. Some had fused into the ground itself, as though the kingdom had tried to pull them back into its candy soil. Bubblegum covered her mouth, but no scream came. There was nothing left inside her to scream with.

As she approached the castle, the air grew colder.

A figure stood in the courtyard, shrouded in a cloak as black as licorice root. Tall, lean, and poised, they looked like a predator about to strike. An axe of sharpened sugar cane rested in their hands, the blade glinting like glass.

Bubblegum raised a firm hand. “I’m not here to fight,” she said. Her voice was thin, cracked like old caramel. “I’m Princess Bubblegum. This is my home.”

The figure didn’t answer.

Instead, they lunged.

The axe swept low, aiming for her knees. Bubblegum stumbled back, arms raised defensively. Her years of surviving at sea had hardened her — she knew how to dodge an axe. Barely.

They fought in silence, the only sounds being the scrape of feet against stone and the sharp crack of the axe’s shaft against Bubblegum’s forearm. The figure moved with a grace that felt almost familiar. Their strikes were precise, and their stance balanced raw power and calculated elegance.

Bubblegum’s heart pounded in her ears. There was something about the way this person fought — something she had seen before, long ago.

“Who are you?” she gasped, blocking a strike with her forearm. “Why are you defending this place?”

The hood fell back.

A face stared at her — one that was both strange and hauntingly familiar. Sharp, elfin features were framed with soft pink hair. Fangs peeked from under her lips. Her eyes, though, were what stopped Bubblegum cold: brilliant magenta, like Marceline’s red ones, but a bit more pink.

The figure faltered, hand trembling on the axe. “Mom?” the girl whispered.

Bubblegum’s knees gave out.

The axe clattered to the ground.

Gwen — the daughter she hadn’t held in so long, the child she had only dreamed of seeing once more — stood before her, a ghost wrapped in flesh.

And just like that, the world shifted. The silence was no longer empty. It was filled with a century of questions, grief, loss, and untold stories.

Bubblegum reached out, fingers brushing Gwen’s cheek. Her daughter flinched but didn’t pull away.

“I’m home,” Bubblegum said, her voice barely a whisper.

Gwen’s eyes filled with tears. But she said nothing.

The silence filled not with answers but with a reunion too long delayed — a mother and daughter, staring across a chasm carved by time itself.

Gwen stood frozen, her knuckles white against the shaft of her axe. Her breath came in short, uneven bursts, like she couldn’t decide whether to scream, cry, or run. Bubblegum stared back, her mind spinning in a thousand directions at once. Daughter. Daughter.

She tried to speak, but her voice faltered. “Gwendolynne,” she finally managed, the name unfamiliar and sacred to her tongue. “You’re—”

“Don’t,” Gwen’s voice cut sharply through the silence, trembling with anger and something else — fear, maybe, or grief long-buried. “Don’t say my name like you know me.”

Bubblegum flinched. “I—”

“No,” Gwen’s voice cracked like brittle toffee. “You left. You were gone. You’re dead. Or you were supposed to be.”

The words struck deeper than any axe could. Bubblegum swallowed the lump forming in her throat, but it only seemed to grow larger. “I didn’t leave you,” she whispered. “I was lost. There was a storm — something ancient. I couldn’t find my way back.”

Gwen shook her head as if she couldn’t trust her own ears. “A hundred years, Mother.” The word sounded like a curse. “Do you know what a hundred years does to a kingdom? To a family?”

Gwendolynne was far grown when she left, but that didn’t mean it hurt her any less. Bonnie wondered about her daughter's adventures, the friends she’d made and lost, and the heartbreaks she had endured. She’d wondered if she’d ever find her again.

Bubblegum opened her mouth and then closed it again. There was no right answer, nothing she could say to fix a wound carved across an entire lifetime. She’d missed everything. All those moments had slipped through Bubblegum’s fingers like sea foam.

Still, Gwen was here. That had to mean something.

Bubblegum took a shaky step forward, but Gwen immediately stepped back, lifting her axe between them.

“Stay where you are,” Gwen warned. “You don’t get to just walk back into this place like nothing happened.”

Bubblegum halted, the sting of her own daughter’s distrust like acid against her skin. “I’m not here to claim the throne,” she whispered. “I’m here to understand what’s left.”

Gwen’s grip on the axe tightened, but after a moment, she gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. “Then you need to see what you missed.”

She turned and walked toward the castle’s crumbling entrance, not waiting to see if Bubblegum would follow.

The halls were darker than Bubblegum remembered, the candy walls now scorched and cracked. Sticky webs of caramel clung to the ceiling, and the air was thick with the scent of old sugar and rot. Once, these corridors had been alive with laughter — Peppermint Butler’s eerie chuckle, Cinnamon Bun’s bumbling footsteps, the distant melodies of candy citizens singing ridiculous songs. Now, only silence remained, broken by the soft scuff of Gwen’s boots against the floor.

They passed the old council chamber, its candy glass windows shattered, shards glittering like jewels on the floor. A mural depicting the history of the Candy Kingdom had been defaced, smeared with dark streaks — melted chocolate, or perhaps something darker.

Gwen moved with the confidence of someone who knew every inch of these ruins, but Bubblegum could see the tension in her shoulders, the guarded way her eyes darted to every shadow. This was a girl who had inherited a kingdom under siege.

They finally reached the throne room — or what was left of it. The throne was half-melted, its seat a pool of hardened syrup. The banners overhead were tattered, their colors faded to near-gray. At the center of the room stood a small altar made of fused candy and bone.

Bubblegum’s breath caught in her throat.

“What happened here?” she asked softly.

Gwen’s expression darkened. “You left,” she said again, as though that explained everything.

Bubblegum shook her head. “Gwen, I need more than that. I need to understand.”

For a moment, Gwen just stood there, fingers flexing and curling around her axe like she was trying to crush it into dust. Then, with a deep breath, she spoke.

“When you disappeared, the Candy Kingdom mourned,” Gwen said. “Marceline searched for you — for years. She crossed every sea, every ruin, chased every scrap of legend that even whispered your name. She nearly tore herself apart trying to find you.”

Bubblegum’s heart twisted at the thought of Marceline alone and grieving. “Marcy...”

“But time didn’t stop for Ooo,” Gwen continued, her voice hardening again. “Without you, the other kingdoms started falling apart. The Fire Kingdom collapsed first — their royal line broke after Flame Princess’s descendants turned on the rest of Ooo. The Ice Kingdom consumed more land. Wars broke out.”

Bubblegum squeezed her eyes shut, grief washing over her like a wave. She could picture it too clearly — her friends, loved ones, all experiencing the turmoils of war without her help or guidance.

“And the Candy Kingdom?” Bubblegum asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Gwen glanced around the ruined throne room. “We tried to hold it together,” she said. “Peps ruled for a while, but he... he wasn’t you. He tried his best. Marceline tried for a while, but she was too heartbroken to lead.”

“What happened to her?” Bubblegum braced herself.

“She’s gone.”

The words were a knife. “Gone?”

“She left. No one knows where. Maybe she’s dead; maybe she’s still out there somewhere, chasing your ghost. Either way, she’s not here.”

Bubblegum staggered back, pressing her hand to her chest as if that could hold the broken pieces together.

“But you — you were there,” Bubblegum said, trying to latch onto something good. “Marceline had you.”

Gwen’s jaw clenched. “She was all I had left. Marceline and I stayed here, trying to keep the kingdom alive while also protecting us, protecting me.”

Bubblegum’s throat tightened. “She didn’t have to do that alone.”

“But she did,” Gwen snapped. “Because you were gone. And after she left, all I had was this place. This broken, haunted place.”

Bubblegum stepped forward despite the axe still clutched in Gwen’s hand. “I’m here now,” she said, voice trembling. “I know it’s not enough, but I’m here. I want to know you. I want to help you rebuild.”

Gwen’s grip loosened slightly, but her expression remained guarded. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “There’s no kingdom left to rebuild. There are only ruins and monsters now. The world moved on without you.”

Bubblegum looked around at the wreckage of her once-great kingdom, the shattered throne, the empty halls. She felt like a ghost haunting her own life.

But still — Gwen was here. And as long as her daughter still stood, there was hope.

“Then we start from scratch,” Bubblegum said softly. “Together.”

Gwen’s eyes flickered with something almost too brief to catch — hope, maybe. Or longing.

“We’ll see,” Gwen said. But she didn’t turn away.

The silence between them felt heavier than the kingdom’s ruin. Bubblegum followed Gwen through the broken halls, every step scraping candy dust into the air. The sound of their boots was a poor replacement for the voices that had once filled these halls.

Now, the Candy Kingdom felt like a mausoleum.

They walked side by side, the distance between them not just physical but measured in generations lost. Gwen’s axe occasionally tapped against her leg in its holster, an unintentional rhythm that kept Bubblegum’s mind anchored in the present. Without it, she might have dissolved into memory entirely.

“Who trained you?” Bubblegum asked at last, breaking the silence.

“Marceline,” Gwen said, her voice clipped. “At first. Until she left.”

Bubblegum frowned. “And after that?”

Gwen hesitated. “I taught myself. From scraps of books, old war manuals, the things Marceline left behind. The things she told me about you.”

Bubblegum’s breath caught in her throat. “What did she tell you?”

“That you were brilliant. That you built this place from nothing. That you always had a plan. That you were trying your best to get back to us.” Her voice darkened. “And I believed it, for a while.”

“I told you I didn’t choose to disappear,” Bubblegum said, voice trembling. “The sea took me.”

“I don’t care what took you,” Gwen snapped, spinning to face her. “What matters is that you didn’t come back.”

Bubblegum’s throat tightened, but she forced herself to hold Gwen’s gaze. There was so much of Marceline in her daughter — the sharp edges, the guarded posture — but there was also something else. Something unmistakably Bubblegum. That stubborn tilt of her chin. The scientist’s hunger to understand, even through her anger.

“I’m here now,” Bubblegum said again. It sounded weaker every time she said it, like a lifeline fraying with each tug.

They passed into the heart of the castle — the old laboratory. Bubblegum felt a pang of longing just seeing the melted equipment, the shattered beakers, the chalkboards half-buried under candy rubble.

Bubblegum’s hands trembled as she reached for a half-melted microscope. Her fingers fit the knobs perfectly, muscle memory stronger than time.

Gwen leaned against the doorframe, eyes distant.

“At first, people thought you’d come back. They kept the streets clean. They kept the factories running. The candy citizens believed in you — like you were some kind of immortal sugar god. But years passed. Then decades.”

It was clear by now that Bonnibel’s daughter was stubborn in not letting her mother forget her mistakes. It was a family thing, Bubblegum guessed.

“She didn’t want it, you know. She hated politics. Hated meetings. She just wanted to find you.”

Bubblegum’s heart cracked a little more. “I never wanted her to carry that burden.”

“Well, she did,” Gwen said sharply. “And when the other kingdoms fell, the Candy Kingdom became a target. Armies came. The monsters came. Even the weather turned against us. We had to get as many candies as possible in the emergency Prize Ball Guardians, but even they couldn’t defend us from every threat.”

Bubblegum wiped at her eyes. “And Marceline fought them all?”

“Every single one.” Gwen’s voice held a note of pride. “But she had me, too.”

Bubblegum’s hands curled into fists. “You shouldn’t have had to do that alone.”

“But we did.” Gwen’s voice was icy, but her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

Bubblegum hesitated. “You said Marceline left. Why?”

Gwen’s expression darkened. “One day, she just couldn’t do it anymore. She wouldn’t say it, but I knew. She still thought you were out there. She couldn’t let you go.”

Bubblegum’s heart shattered.

“She told me to stay. To protect what was left.” Gwen’s jaw clenched. “But I knew even then — she wasn’t coming back.”

Bubblegum reached out, but Gwen took a step back. “Don’t,” Gwen whispered. “You can’t fix this with a hug. You don’t know what it was like being in your shadow.”

Bubblegum’s hand fell to her side. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I don’t. But I want to know. I want to hear everything — the good and the bad.”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “Why? So you can play the hero now?”

“No.” Bubblegum’s voice was quiet but firm. “Because I’m your mother.”

They spent the next hours walking the ruined city together. Gwen narrated its fall like a grim tour guide, pointing out battle scars, collapsed towers, and melted statues of heroes long forgotten.

Here was where Cinnamon Bun made his last stand — holding off a wave of molten creatures until the walls fell.

Here was where Peppermint Butler disappeared into the shadows, muttering something about debts unpaid.

Here was where Finn and Jake’s memorial once stood, though it too had crumbled into the earth.

Bubblegum listened, each story a dagger in her skin. This was her legacy — not the bright, thriving kingdom she’d built, but a shattered monument to loss.

Yet Gwen carried it all. Every story, every scar, every memory.

“Where’s your uncle?” Bonnibel asked.

“Uncle Neddy? He disappeared a while ago. I don’t know where he is.”

That answer didn’t comfort Bonnie, but she at least knew he was alive. She could feel him in her mind; he was far, but at least he was safe.

“You’ve been so strong,” Bubblegum said softly as they stood atop a broken tower, looking out over the kingdom’s bones.

Gwen’s expression flickered — pride, anger, sorrow — then settled back into guarded neutrality. “I had to be.”

They stood together as the pale sky darkened — the first sign of true night Bubblegum had seen since her return.

“What comes next?” Bubblegum asked softly.

Gwen’s knuckles whitened around her axe. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I’ve spent a century surviving. But I don’t know how to rebuild.”

Bubblegum reached for her daughter’s hand — and this time, Gwen didn’t pull away.

“We’ll figure it out,” Bubblegum said. “Together.”

For the first time, Gwen’s expression softened. Just a little.

“We’ll see.”

That night, for the first time in a century, stars appeared over the Candy Kingdom.

Bubblegum lay awake, curled in a ruined corner of her old bedroom, watching them twinkle through the broken ceiling. Beside her, Gwen slept fitfully — too used to sleeping with one eye open.

Bubblegum knew the road ahead would be long. Gwen didn’t trust her. The kingdom was more ruined than a kingdom. Marceline was still a ghost between them.

But the stars were back.

The night air was colder than Bubblegum remembered. The wind hummed through broken candy towers, weaving through shattered windows and collapsed bridges, carrying whispers from a past she could barely recognize.

Bubblegum couldn’t sleep. Her mind spun with everything Gwen had said, everything the ruins silently screamed. This was the legacy she’d left behind — a daughter trained in battle, a kingdom turned to dust, a lover who walked into the dark alone.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She rose carefully, stepping over the rubble of her room. The walls were still faintly pink, though cracked and scorched. Some scrawls were still visible on her desk — notes she’d made centuries ago, back when ruling was her priority and science was her only love.

At the window, she gazed out over the husk of the Candy Kingdom. In the distance, she could just make out the broken husks of the citizens who couldn’t escape, their sweet forms slumped, crumbled, and melted like fallen statues. Their eyes no longer glowed with the innocent wonder all her beloved citizens shared.

“I failed all of you,” she whispered.

As dawn stretched its pale fingers across the ruins, Gwen stirred. Her hair stuck out in wild tufts, and her eyes were heavy with exhaustion that went beyond sleep.

Bubblegum knelt beside her, brushing a strand of hair from her face before she could stop herself. Gwen’s eyes snapped open at the touch, instantly alert.

“Relax,” Bubblegum said softly. “It’s just me.”

Gwen sat up, rubbing the heel of her hand against her eyes. “You talk in your sleep,” she muttered.

Bubblegum froze. “What did I say?”

“‘Marceline,’ mostly.”

Bubblegum’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry.”

Gwen shrugged, but her shoulders were tight. “You don’t have to apologize for missing her. I miss her too.”

They sat in silence for a moment, neither knowing how to bridge the gap between them.

“Tell me about her,” Bubblegum said suddenly. “How was she? While I was gone?”

Gwen’s gaze drifted into the middle distance, caught somewhere between bitterness and longing. “She was...complicated.”

Bubblegum smiled faintly. “That sounds right.”

“She never wanted to be regent. She hated it. She used to tell me stories about how you handled politics — how you could sweet-talk a Fire Kingdom general while also calculating chemical equations in your head. She said you made ruling look easy.”

Bubblegum’s throat tightened. “It wasn’t.”

“I know.” Gwen’s voice softened slightly. “Marcy wasn’t like you. She ruled with instinct, not plans. She made mistakes — a lot of them. But she loved this place, even when it hurt her.”

Gwen stood abruptly, brushing the conversation aside. “Come on. There’s something you need to see.”

Gwen led Bubblegum down a staircase so worn it barely held their weight. It spiraled deep beneath the castle, into chambers Bubblegum hadn’t walked since her earliest experiments.

The air grew colder with every step, the sweetness giving way to something metallic, something ancient.

At the bottom, Gwen produced a fire from her finger, its purple light casting jagged shadows across the chamber. Rows of rusted machines stood like silent sentinels — Bubblegum’s forgotten projects, half-finished and long abandoned.

“What is this?” Bubblegum asked.

She ran her fingers over a broken console, wires spilling out like candy entrails. “After Marceline left, I came down here every night. Reading your notes. Studying your blueprints. Trying to figure out how to be a queen — how to be you.”

Bubblegum’s heart ached. “You shouldn’t have had to do that alone.”

“Yeah, well,” Gwen shrugged. “I did.”

A deep rumble shook the floor, dust raining from the ceiling. Bubblegum’s breath caught in her throat.

“Earthquakes?” she asked.

Gwen’s face was grim. “Worse.”

She led Bubblegum to a rusted monitor, flickering with static. After some careful manipulation, the screen burst into life, showing the Cursed Plains — a dead zone beyond the borders of the Candy Kingdom.

And there, rising from the earth like nightmares given form, hordes of undead creatures awoke.

“Zombies,” Bubblegum whispered.

“They’ve been stirring for years,” Gwen said. “They’re why no one lives here anymore.”

Bubblegum’s stomach turned to ice. “Why didn’t you leave?”

Gwen’s eyes flared with defiance. “Because this is my home.”

Bubblegum felt a mix of pride and terror swell in her chest. This was her daughter — brave, stubborn, and reckless. So much like Marceline. So much like her.

“We’ll stop them,” Bubblegum said.

Gwen raised an eyebrow. “We?”

Bubblegum straightened, her old confidence returning. “Yeah. We. You said I always had a plan, right? Well, let’s make one.”

They spread old maps across the floor, lit by Gwen’s fire. Bubblegum’s handwriting covered every inch — chemical formulas, defense blueprints, emergency strategies.

Most of it was useless now — technology too broken, allies long dead. But some ideas could still work.

“What about the old guardian system?” Bubblegum asked. “Could we reactivate the defense network?”

“Maybe,” Gwen said. “But the core reactor’s been dead for decades.”

“Then we rebuild it,” Bubblegum said. “We rewire, we improvise, we make it work.”

Gwen’s skepticism softened into a small smile. “You really don’t quit, huh?”

“Never,” Bubblegum said. “Especially not when my daughter’s life is on the line.”

By the time they emerged from the vault, the sun was rising — the first true sunrise Bubblegum had seen over the Candy Kingdom in a hundred years.

Gwen tilted her head toward Bubblegum. “So what’s the plan, genius?”

Bubblegum grinned, the weight of the past not erased but no longer crushing her shoulders. “We rebuilt. We fight. And this time, we will do it together.”

And as the sun climbed higher, Bubblegum realized something — for the first time in a century, she didn’t feel like a ghost.

She felt alive.

The sun rose pale over the Candy Kingdom, its light catching on shattered sugar glass and broken caramel streets. The world was quiet, save for the wind through the ruins. But this silence wasn’t peace—it was the silence of something watching.

Bubblegum squinted at the horizon, where the Cursed Plains pulsed faintly with green rot. “How long until they move again?”

Gwen shrugged, adjusting the strap on her axe. “They don’t have a schedule.”

The weight of it pressed down hard, but Bubblegum straightened her back. “Then we need to get started.”

The first step was reclaiming whatever technology still worked. They moved through the ruins like scavengers, Bubblegum recognizing her work under layers of rust and candy rot. Gwen carried her axe like it was part of her arm, her eyes constantly scanning for threats. Even now, she didn’t trust the quiet.

They broke into the old Power Core beneath the castle, where Bubblegum’s greatest inventions had once thrived. Now, it was a crypt of dead machines, flickering screens, and cracked reactors. Bubblegum’s heart clenched at the sight—this was once her masterpiece, the beating heart of her kingdom.

Gwen kicked over a broken panel. “Anything salvageable?”

Bubblegum knelt beside the reactor, fingers tracing familiar seams. “If we can find a working Power Crystal, we could jumpstart the defense grid. The old guardian system might be fried, but the perimeter turrets could still work.”

Gwen raised an eyebrow. “Where do we find a crystal after a hundred years of apocalypse?”

Bubblegum stood, brushing dust from her knees. “We dig.”

The lower levels of the kingdom were more intact, preserved under layers of collapsed debris. They passed through abandoned storage rooms, old laboratories, and even a long-forgotten candy vault where treasure lay half-melted into the floor.

They dug through collapsed walls until they found what Bubblegum needed: a Core Spire, still flickering faintly. Encased inside was a Power Crystal, dim but not dead. Bubblegum’s fingers shook as she extracted it.

“Will it work?” Gwen asked.

Bubblegum smiled faintly. “It’s old. But so am I.”

While Bubblegum worked to resurrect the Power Core, Gwen insisted they train. “The undead won’t wait for you to finish soldering wires,” she said. “If you’re staying, you need to fight like you mean it.”

Bubblegum’s combat skills were rusty, her muscles softened by a century adrift. Gwen did not go easy on her.

They spared in the ruins of the Throne Room, the cracked candy tiles littered with debris. Gwen moved like a liquid shadow, her axe a blur of silver. Bubblegum countered with calculated precision, her movements from centuries of martial arts training, sharpened by countless crises.

“You’re holding back,” Gwen said after Bubblegum pulled a punch. “Don’t.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Bubblegum said.

Gwen spun her axe and knocked Bubblegum flat on her back. “Then you’ll lose.”

Bubblegum coughed, staring up at her daughter, haloed in morning light. “You fight dirty.”

“I learned from the best.” Gwen offered her a hand.

The first tremor came at dawn. The earth cracked open at the edges of the kingdom, and from it poured rot—not just earth decay, but candy death. Sugar turned sour, caramel curdled, and the air itself stank of ancient fear.

Gwen was already armored when Bubblegum stumbled from her room. “They’re coming,” Gwen said simply.

Bubblegum’s fingers trembled—but not with fear. With purpose. “Good. Let them come.”

They activated the Power Core just as the first wave of corrupted creatures breached the outer walls. Old turrets sputtered to life, spitting caramel napalm and peppermint shrapnel into the night. The air was thick with the smell of burnt sugar and something darker—something necrotic.

Gwen fought like a storm, her axe dancing between monsters, her fangs bared in primal fury. Bubblegum held the front line, her scientific mind calculating weak points in real time. Acid gum grenades, flame-retardant licorice whips—everything she had ever invented became a weapon.

The air itself turned sour as the dead stepped into the light. Their bones were no longer just withered remains—now they were fused with corrupted candy, twisted jawbreakers, and melted taffy bonded to his skeletal frame. Melted eyeballs leaked from their eye sockets, and their voices groaned, tired and coarse.

The battle raged until dawn, the remaining zombies retreating into the mist, wounded but not gone. Bubblegum slumped against Gwen, both bloodied and breathless. Gwen’s axe broke from the constant battle. Around them, the kingdom still stood—barely, but standing.

Silence returned to the Candy Kingdom.

Gwen collapsed beside her mother, shaking with adrenaline. “Are they…gone?”

“No,” Bubblegum said. “But we’re okay—for now.”

“You did good, Mom,” Gwen whispered.

Bubblegum, tears streaking her face, pulled her daughter into a hug. This time, Gwen didn’t pull away.

“We did good,” Bubblegum corrected.

And as the sun rose over the battered Candy Kingdom, mother and daughter embraced—queen and heir, scientist and warrior, past and future—ready to rebuild and fight.

The next day, the sky over the Candy Kingdom had turned soft lavender, the first hints of sunset stretching over the broken horizon. The air still carried the scent of burnt sugar and scorched earth, but for the first time in a hundred years, the silence wasn’t so heavy.

Gwen sat on the edge of the crumbled candy wall, her knees pulled to her chest, her axe now a splintered reminder in her hands. Bubblegum sat beside her, exhaustion written deep into every line of her face. Neither of them spoke for a long time. There wasn’t much to say after a fight like that.

Finally, Gwen broke the silence. “So…what now?”

Bubblegum’s gaze drifted out across the ruined kingdom—her kingdom—before she closed her eyes and shook her head softly. “I spent a hundred years thinking I would never see this place again. But it’s still mine, even like this.”

Gwen’s fingers traced the jagged edge of her broken axe. “It’s not just yours. It’s ours.”

Bubblegum smiled at that. “Then I guess we'll rebuild.”

“Yeah,” Gwen said, though her voice was distant. “But…”

Bubblegum glanced at her daughter. “But what?”

Gwen didn’t answer right away. She stared down at the ruined ground, her expression caught between hesitation and longing. “Marceline,” she said at last. “If we’re rebuilding…she should be here too.”

Bubblegum’s breath caught in her throat. Marceline. The name still hurts, even after all this time. A hundred years at sea, a century apart — the thought of her could unmake Bubblegum in an instant. She thought about the letters she had written but never sent, the songs Marceline might have sung to Gwen when no one else was around.

She thought about what Gwen deserved—two mothers, not just the memory of one.

“You don’t know where she is?” Bubblegum asked softly.

Gwen shook her head. “She left a long time ago. After…after you were gone. She didn’t want me to see how much it broke her.” Her voice wavered just a little, but she swallowed it down. “I think she thought it would be easier if she disappeared too.”

Bubblegum swallowed hard, her fingers clenching into fists. “I was a fool to leave both of you.”

“Yeah,” Gwen said, her voice blunt—but not cruel. “You were.”

Bubblegum laughed softly, bitterly, and real. “You’ve got her honesty.”

“And your stubbornness,” Gwen added.

They sat there a moment longer, bathed in the first golden threads of morning light. And then, with the ruins of the Candy Kingdom spread out before them, they decided.

“We find her,” Bubblegum said firmly. “Whatever it takes.”

Gwen’s shoulders relaxed as though she’d been holding her breath for years. “Okay.”

Bubblegum took her hand, standing beside her daughter, the sun rising behind them, their shadows stretching long across the broken kingdom.

“We’re coming for you, Marceline,” Bubblegum whispered, her voice swallowed by the wind. “No more running.”