Season Eleven
A few months had passed since the conclusion of the Gum War, and peace had once again returned to the land of Ooo. The day started out much like any in the Candy Kingdom, with seemingly nothing out of the ordinary, until something truly horrific occurred that left the candy people shaken. Someone had been murdered, and when Princess Bubblegum received the news she immediately rushed over to the scene of the crime to see it for herself. On her way there, Bubblegum towered over her citizens like a giant, her body having recently gone through a strange growth spurt that had caused it to gain more candy biomass than usual. This did not go unnoticed, as it attracted looks and stares from many of the surrounding candy people, who seemed just as intrigued by the sight of their ruler as they were by the murder itself. After Bubblegum made her way through the crowd of onlookers standing at the crime scene, she was met with the sight of a small creator in the ground, inside of which were the shattered remains of Peppermint Butler.
"What happened here?" asked Bubblegum, turning to ask Starchy who was nearby. "Why is Peppermint Butler in pieces?"
"Nobody knows." said Starchy, shrugging. "This morning we found him like this."
"Do you think it was an accident?" asked a Banana Guard. "We're right under the castle balcony. Maybe he fell form up there?"
"Peppermint Butler is made of hard candy." said Bubblegum, bending down to examine his remains in the crater. "A fall alone wouldn't do this much damage. It looks he was crushed to death by something landing on top of him."
"Was he murdered?" asked the Banana Guard, the nearby candy people beginning to whisper among themselves.
"It's possible." said Bubblegum. "Someone might have pushed him off the balcony, and then came down to make sure he was dead."
"Who could have do something so horrible to poor little Peppermint Butler!" said Starchy.
"I don't know." said Bubblegum. "Pep But has made a lot of enemies over the years. It could have been any one of them. I'll have to do a thorough investigation."
As the crowd of candy people began to disperse and leave, Bubblegum collected the pieces of her loyal butler and put them into a plastic zip-lock bag. It was then that she noticed a figure lurking in the distance and turned to see Sweet P, who quietly disappeared behind a street corner after leaving a patch of bushes.
"Sweet P?" asked Bubblegum, muttering to herself. "Was he watching me the whole time?"
Bubblegum walked away with the bag of Peppermint Butler's remains, ready to take them back her lab so she could put his body back together and revive him.
A few days went by, and now within the Candy Kingdom police station stood four people with their backs to the wall as part of a suspect lineup. These four people were Starchy, Lemongrab, Dirt Beer Guy, and the newly anointed Ice King Gunter, the individuals who Bubblegum had determined to be the four most likely suspects based on accounts that they were near the scene of the crime when it happened. A Banana Guard stepped forward and began to take photos of the suspects for the record book, but every time he took a picture it would only be ruined by Ice King doing some sort of silly gesture, causing Bubblegum to sigh and roll her eyes.
"You all know why you're here." said Bubblegum, speaking through a microphone from behind a two way mirror as she struggled to sit down and fit her legs under the table. "The four of you are suspects in the murder of Peppermint Butler."
"I didn't do anything." said Ice King, immediately asserting his innocence. "You only arrested me because I'm a wizard, didn't you? This is magical profiling!"
"Unacceptable!" yelled Lemongrab. "I demand a lawyer."
"I just want to ask you a few questions." said Bubblegum. "It won't take long, then you can all be on your way."
"If it means I can go home, fine." said Ice King.
"Alright, I'll start with you Starchy." said Bubblegum. "You were the one who discovered Peppermint Butler's body that morning. Can you tell me what you were doing before that?"
"I was just finishing up my nightly rounds in the city." said Starchy. "Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. I even saw Sweet P at the playground and said hi to him. A little while later I walked into the town square and that's where I found Peppermint Butler, smashed into a million pieces."
"So Peppermint Butler was already dead when you found him." said Bubblegum, writing down what Starchy had said into her notebook. "Alright Lemongrab, you're up next. So what were you doing the night of the crime? Were you watching the candy citizens sleep again?"
"I was doing no such thing." said Lemongrab. "Peppermint Butler and I were out for an early morning stroll near the edge of the Candy Forest. After that we parted ways and left for our respective homes. On the way back I nearly had a heart attack when some baby man came running out from the forest and almost trampled me."
"I see, so you were the last person to see Peppermint Butler alive, and after he returned to the city he was killed." said Bubblegum, writing down what Lemongrab had said in her notebook. "Now Dirt Beer Guy, what were you doing at the time of the murder?"
"I was getting ready to open the tavern." said Dirt Beer Guy. "After I took the trash out to the dumpster, I heard a loud scream come from the direction of the town square. Then I heard these heavy footsteps coming up behind me, so I got scared and hid in one of the alleyways until they were gone."
"I see, so you heard Peppermint Butler scream and then his attacker flee the scene of the crime." said Bubblegum, writing down what Dirt Beer Guy had said in her notebook. "Alright Ice King, what about you? What were you up to that morning?"
"I was at the laundromat returning all those old coat hangers I borrowed." said Ice King. "On my way out of the city some big guy plowed into me right as I was crossing the drawbridge. He looked like he was in a hurry."
"That must have been the same person Dirt Beer Guy heard running behind him, and you witnessed them fleeing the city." said Bubblegum, writing down what Ice King had said in her notebook. "It's all starting to come together now."
"That sounds just like the baby man I saw come out of the woods." said Lemongrab.
"So all three of you saw the suspect then?" said Bubblegum "What about you Starchy?"
"The only other person I saw that that morning was Sweet P." said Starchy.
"Wait a minute, Sweet P?" said Bubblegum, now seeing a connection between all of their stories. "The descriptions you all gave sound just like him. You don't suppose he had something to do with it, did he?"
"There's no way he did it." said Starchy, offended by the notion. "Sweet P wouldn't hurt a fly. He's just too sweet."
"I don't want to believe it either, but the facts are all starting to point towards him being involved somehow." said Bubblegum. "I hate to say this, but Sweet P is our number one suspect right now."
"I won't believe it until I see proof." said Starchy, refusing to accept it.
"We'll know soon enough." said Bubblegum. "I've just finished putting Peppermint Butler's body back together. Now all that's left is for me to revive him with my decorpsinator serum ask him about what happened. You're all free to go now. I'll continue the investigation on my own."
As the four of them left the interrogation room, Ice King took notice of Bubblegum's size wen passing by her.
"Wow, you've gotten really big princess." said Ice King, seeing that Princess Bubblegum was now twice her usual size and height. "Have you been packing on the pounds lately?"
"Just go home already Ice King." said Bubblegum, not in the mood to chat with Ice King. "This is just a natural part of my biology that all gum people go through once they reach a certain stage in their lives."
After Starchy, Lemongrab, Dirt Beer Guy, and Ice King had all left, Bubblegum made her way to her lab where she was keeping the body of young Peppermint Butler after putting it back together. All that remained was for her to revive him with her perfected decorpsinator serum.
"This feels nostalgic." said Bubblegum, smiling as she grabbed a test tube of decorpsinator serum. "Hopefully there's no zombies this time."
After pouring some of the decorpsinator serum onto Peppermint Butler, the color returned to his body and he was revitalized. Upon waking up he took a large gasp of air and began to scream.
"No, get off of me!" said Peppermint Butler. "Help! Help!"
"Calm down Pep But, everything's alright now." said Bubblegum, hugging the young Peppermint Butler. "Can you tell me what happened? Who did this to you?"
"It was, it was..." said Peppermint Butler, now sobbing. "It was the big scary baby man!"
"You mean Sweet P?" said Bubblegum, her suspicions now confirmed. "Why would he do that? Has "he" returned?"
Bubblegum stood there for a moment, considering what her next course of action should be, and then came to the decision that she would need to confront Sweet P.
The next day Princess Bubblegum set out to go find Sweet P, searching the city for signs of the baby man. She now had strong reason to believe that Sweet P was the one responsible for Peppermint Butler's death, but she had not yet told anyone else of this for fear of causing an uproar among the candy citizens. She still needed to know why Sweet P had done it, and to do that she would need to track him down and ask him herself. Bubblegum watched and waited in the town square, and finally caught a glimpse of Sweet P turning a corner and immediately began to follow him. She made sure to keep her distance and be as discreet as possible, carefully watching Sweet P from afar. At some point in her pursuit, Sweet P must have caught on to the fact that he was being followed, and his movements and actions became much more erratic, as though he were trying to throw her off his trail. It came as no surprise that Sweet P had noticed Bubblegum following him, given how the large size of her body made her stick out like a sore thumb within the crowds. Bubblegum was persistent however, and the chase quickly turned into a subtle game of cat and mouse which took them to various locations in the city. The more that Bubblegum watched Sweet P's actions, the more apparent it became to her that he was much smarter than he was letting on, leading her to wonder if Sweet P was really the one in control.
Along the way there were many close calls where it almost seemed like Sweet P was going to do something dastardly and evil, only for it to then turn out to be a false alarm. At one point Sweet P approached an old candy lady standing by the side of the road, and just as it looked as though he might push her into the oncoming traffic he instead kindly offered to help her cross the street. At another point a group of candy children approached Sweet P after their ball had rolled over to him, and it seemed as though he might crush one of them with his bare hands, until he picked up the ball and simply handed it back to them. Finally, there was an instance in which Sweet P approached Chocoberry with his hand held behind his back, almost though he were hiding a weapon behind it, only for him to reveal that it was actually a handful of flowers that he had picked for her to put into a new vase. This went on for a while, and eventually Bubblegum followed Sweet P all the way to an empty playground where she finally caught up to him.
"Why do you keep following me?" asked Sweet P, frightened as Bubblegum approached. "Am I in trouble? I've been a very naughty boy lately. Are you going to eat me as punishment? Is that why you're so big now? Because you've been eating naughty children like me?"
"I just want to talk Sweet P." said Bubblegum, trying to reassure him. "I know you were there when Peppermint Butler died. I need to know what happened."
"He saw us doing something in the woods." said Sweet P, struggling to remember. "He was going to tell on us, so the "other" me took over and chased after him. When I woke up, he was dead."
"The "other" you?" asked Bubblegum, this statement worrying her. "Is this "other" you making you do bad things?"
"Lately, I've been blacking out a lot." said Sweet P. "Whenever I'd wake up, I'd find out that I did something bad that I don't remember doing. Then I'd get scared and try to hide it so I wouldn't get in trouble."
"How long has this been going on?" asked Bubblegum, afraid of where this was going.
"It started when those big scary monsters attacked." said Sweet P, recalling the day Golb's mutant creations had wreaked havoc on the land. "I hid with my mommy and daddy behind a tree until they went away, but the whole time it felt like they were calling out to me. I did my best to ignore them, but since then it's like something has woken up inside me. When I woke up the next day, I found this weird mark on my tummy."
Sweet P lifted up his shirt to reveal that there was now a strange comet-shaped mark on his torso which had not been there before.
"Strange..." said Bubblegum, getting a good look at the mark. "I feel like I've seen this mark before"
As Sweet P expressed regret for his actions, his subconscious began to recall the events that had led up to the murder of Peppermint Butler and his involvement in it.
That night, Peppermint Butler had just finishing saying goodbye to Lemongrab when he began heading down the path that cut through the area of the forest where Tree Trunks lived. As he did he noticed a green glow coming from behind the trees, and being the curious youngster that he was he decided to check it out. Following the glow, he discovered that its source was an ominous black cauldron, beside which stood Sweet P, his eyes filled with the Lich's evil glow as he stirred the liquid and chanted magical words of power.
"Hey there Sweet P." said Peppermint Butler, causally walking up to Sweet P. "What are you up to?"
Sweet P's head shot up in surprise, and he immediately walked out in front of the cauldron and attempted to hide it behind his large body.
"Nothing of importance." said Sweet P, his voice mixed with that of the Lich as he tried to cover up what he was doing. "Mind your own business and move along."
"Isn't it a little early for you to be up?" asked Peppermint Butler.
"I would say the same for you as well." said Sweet P, avoiding the question.
"What's that behind you?" asked Peppermint Butler, walking around Sweet P to reach the cauldron. "Wait, are you doing dark magic? I love dark magic! Can I join in?"
"You are mistaken." said Sweet P, attempting to deceive Peppermint Butler. "This isn't dark magic. It's just some leftover stew from last night's dinner."
"There's no need to hide it Sweet P." said Peppermint Butler, smiling and taking on a playful tone. "I know dark magic when I see it, and that right there is definitely dark magic. I never really took you for a fan of the dark arts. We should totally hang out sometime."
"Perhaps another time." said Sweet P, hoping that Peppermint Butler would leave.
"Let me see what you've got so far." said Peppermint Butler. "You'll want to make sure you do it right, otherwise who knows what might happen."
"There's no need for that." said Sweet P, trying to stop Peppermint Butler from looking into the cauldron. "I've already taken all of the necessary precautions."
"Hmm, it seems you did." said Peppermint Butler, congratulating Sweet P as he examined the green ooze in the cauldron.
"Good, now go away." said Sweet P, now starting to lose his patience.
As Peppermint Butler looked into the cauldron one more time, he saw Sweet P's reflection in become that of the Lich, much to his horror.
"Wait a minute, you're not Sweet P, you're..." said Peppermint Butler, realizing what was going on.
"You should have walked away when you had the chance." said Sweet P his voice now fully becoming that of the Lich. "You've just seen something you weren't meant to see."
"You're a bad guy that's up to no good!" said Peppermint Butler. "I'm going to tell my mommy!"
"You will do nothing of the sort." said the Lich, attempting the grab Peppermint Butler as he attempted to flee.
Sweet P chased after Peppermint Butler, determined to silence him before he could alert Princess Bubblegum to his plans. As he ran through the forest he crossed paths with Lemongrab, who he nearly trampled over. Sweet P kept up the chase until they eventually made their way into the dark and quiet streets of the city. Peppermint Butler was the first to reach the entrance to the castle and began climbing the stairs to one of the towers leading to the upper levels. Sweet P took a different route and was able reach the upper levels before Peppermint Butler could and cut him off at the end of the hallway leading to Princess Bubblegum's bedroom. He charged at Peppermint Butler and tackled him to the floor, their struggle becoming violent and leading them out to the tower balcony.
Seeing an opportunity, Sweet P pushed Peppermint Butler off from the edge, but in the process Peppermint Butler grabbed hold of his ankle and threw his balance off, causing Sweet P to fall down with him. As they both fell Sweet P put himself on top of Peppermint Butler and prepared to use him as a cushion to break his fall. Peppermint Butler screamed before hitting the ground, the force of the impact from Sweet P belly flopping on top of him smashing his body to pieces and creating a small creator in the ground. Sweet P got up and looked down at what remained of Peppermint Butler, his personality briefly reverting back to that of his sweet and innocent self, who was horrified by the sight of what he had done.
"Oh no, I've been bad again." said Sweet P, his voice returning to that of a child. "I'm a criminal now."
Afraid of being caught, Sweet P fled the scene and headed down one of the streets, where Dirt Beer Guy was taking out the trash. As he heard Sweet P approaching from behind he began running as fast as he could to escape, jumping into an alleyway to hide. After running through the city for some time Sweet P eventually slowed down and took a moment to sit down and rest at one of the swings in the playground.
"Hello there Sweet P." said Starchy, waving to Sweet P as he passed by on his rounds. "You're up early."
"Hello Starchy." said Sweet P, innocently waving back to him.
When Starchy was gone, Sweet P got up and began heading down the road that led directly out from the city. As he approached the city gates he saw a group of Banana Guards coming out for their morning shift and started to book it, fearing that they would try to arrest him. Sweet P sprinted to the drawbridge at an incredible speed, but failed to notice Ice King and ended up plowing into him.
"Sorry!" said Sweet P, apologizing but continuing to run without looking back.
Before Ice King could process what had just happened, Sweet P had already disappeared from into the forest, running back home and hoping nobody had seen him.
As Princess Bubblegum continued her questioning of Sweet P in the empty playground, she began to fear that the Lich inside Sweet P had resurfaced once again and was influencing his actions.
"Sweet P, I think the Lich inside you might be acting up." said Bubblegum, acting cautious now. "This could be dangerous. I need you to come with me to my lab so I can run some tests."
"No point in hiding it anymore." said Sweet P, his voice changing to that of the Lich as he took over. "I was hoping to continue this ruse for a little while longer, but unlike these dimwits of yours, you will not be fooled so easily."
"So it is you." said Bubblegum, taking a step back. "How many times are you going to keep coming back? You're like a cockroach that just won't die."
"As many times as I wish, though I have recent events to thank for this sudden resurgence of mine." said the Lich, touching Sweet P's newly healed right horn.
"What are you planning Lich?" asked Bubblegum, remaining steadfast. "Let me guess, wiping out all life on Ooo? Why can't you just leave Sweet P alone?"
"Oh I intend to." said the Lich. "I'm tired of this vessel and its childish whims. I want out."
"I won't let you do as you please." said Bubblegum. "You're going to pay for killing my butler and making Sweet P be naughty."
"And just how will you stop me?" asked the Lich. "You are alone. Your precious comrades won't be here to save you this time. I've made certain that they'll be occupied. It's just you and me now. No Finn, no Jake, no Marceline... and no Billy."
"Then I'll just have to take matters into my own hands." said Bubblegum, preparing herself for battle. "You should know that I'm not the same weak little princess I was when you attacked first the Candy Kingdom all those centuries ago."
"We shall see." said the Lich, glaring intensely at Princess Bubblegum as he prepared for battle as well.
Bubblegum could feel the Lich's intense evil aura beginning to emanate from Sweet P's body, and right away she could tell that she would be in for the fight of her life.
I was originally going to call this chapter Pepper Mort, referencing the death of Peppermint Butler that occurs in it, but I felt that sounded kind of weird and changed it to Whodunit, after the genre of mystery novels, because I thought it would fit more with the mystery element that was present. In the original version of this chapter, which I released before the finale came out, Peppermint Butler was still an adult and I actually had him stay dead after being killed in it. After Peppermint Butler was reverted back to his child form in the show, I started to feel bad about killing him off, especially in the brutal way that it happened in the original version of this chapter, so I toned it down a bit and had Princess Bubblegum put him back together and revive him. At this point in the story he is still a child, much like he was at the end of the show, but he has grown up a little since the end of the Gum War and can even speak again, but he now has the mindset of a child rather than an adult.
