History Report
Summary: In a bout of anger-induced homework, Miss Skullnick gives the whole class a history assignment: A theatrical reenactment of any point in world history, DUE TOMORROW! Marco and Star immediately jump on this task with vigor... or they would, had Star not scheduled their weekly Random Movie Marathon for that night. Enjoy, as the pair give you a not-very-accurate take on Star's history of Earth!
A/N: Back with my second SVTFOE story! I got a lot of positive reviews for the first one, so here's another! Once again, I'm trying to imitate the show's style as best I can. Like in my last story, this is made to take place somewhere in the middle of season 1, after Skullsies turns into a troll, but presumably before she finds out how friggin cool that is. Leave me a review if you enjoyed, or if you think there's something I can improve on!
"Alright class, listen up!" Skullnick croaked from the front of the room. "I'm in a very bad mood today, because this is the three-month anniversary of me BEING A TROLL!" She glared at an oblivious Star so intensely that it might've melted her desk had she not been sitting there. "In honor of this occasion, I've decided to give you all a homework assignment worth ONE THIRD of your final grade, DUE TOMORROW!" She slammed the assignment papers down on the front row, who immediately began distributing them in a fear-fueled flurry of activity.
Marco's eyes widened at this news, his pupils dilating. Star sat in her own seat, poofing butterflies with her wand and totally ignoring what was going on. "Miss Skullnick, don't you think -" Marco began.
Before he could make his argument, the bell rang, sending the entire class out into the halls. School was over for the day, and Marco and Star had a bus to catch.
Marco scanned the homework packet as they walked out of the room. "Looks like it's a... reenactment of our favorite history moment?" He shrugged. With his momentary panic out of the way, reason had set into his mind again. It was just another assignment, after all. "Should be easy. What's your favorite part of Earth history, Star?"
Star, who had been bouncing along beside him, snapped back to reality. "Hmm..." She thought about this for a moment. "Well, my favorite part was when Thomas Jefferson fought those werewolves during the civil war!"
Marco stared at her for a moment. "Wasn't that the plot of that movie...?" He asked her.
Star looked at him as they stepped onto the bus. "No! Marco, that was a documentary." She sighed, exasperated at her friend's ignorance as they took their seats in the back. Marco groaned back, his hand sliding down his face. This was looking to be more and more of a chore.
"So what are we gonna watch tonight, my movie-bestie?" Star asked Marco as she bounced into his room, later that evening. He was sitting at his desk, scribbling down notes for a script. Her wand had poofed up a big bucket of popcorn under her arm that seemed to be popping itself full as she talked.
"Sorry, Star, no movies tonight!" Marco's frantic scrawling sputtered to a halt as he turned and held up his paper for her to see. "We've got a report due! Tomorrow! And it's woooorth athirdofourgrade!" His eyes were wild as he swung back to his desk and continued writing.
Star frowned. She hadn't seen him this crazy since she'd turned their home into a haunted house for Halloween. But then she shrugged it off, trying to keep an upbeat attitude. "Psssh. C'mon Marco, you're not really going to miss our movie night because of some stupid assignment?" She lowered her head over his as she stood over him, so she was standing on her tiptoes and her hair fell down to obscure the paper. She looked at him anxiously. "...Right?"
Marco sighed, coming back to himself for a moment. As much as this grade meant to him, he really did want to watch movies with his "movie-bestie." But still, he swept her hair aside and continued writing. "Sorry, Star." He said sadly.
Star looked at him, now hunched over and writing once again, and her mouth drooped even further. The popcorn bucket dropped from her arm and rolled away. Slowly, dejected, she walked towards the door.
"Oh hang on," she suddenly perked up. "I've got magic! Duh!" To emphasize, she hit herself on the head with her wand, spawning a butterfly and igniting a small flame in her hair.
"Can you even do that?" Marco asked her absentmindedly. He hadn't looked up.
"Of course I can!" Star said enthusiastically. Her hand reached up to pinch out the flame on her head. She jumped back into Marco's room and onto the back of his chair, her wand outstretched.
"Ultimate amazing HISTORY REPORT FINISH!" She shouted, casting the spell. The wand emitted a blast of bright light and with a sound like a nuclear bomb, the room exploded.
The smoke cleared. The two rode Marco's swivel chair as it rolled lamely across the floor, still in shock. The walls, bed and desk were completely scorched, with small fires burning on the rugs.
Marco and Star were not spared, their faces blackened by the explosion and their hair blown back into ridiculous spikes. But what caught their attention was what was on the desk.
The report floated into the air, now with a rainbow sheen and giving off a white light. It sparkled faintly as it spun, and made a faint whining sound. On the front, Marco could see the title, except it looked like it had been typed: "An Improved History of the World, by Star and Marco."
"Um..." Marco blinked, not sure how to process what had just happened.
Star was still on the back of his chair, transfixed by the glowing paper. "Oooohhh..."
"Kiiids!" Mrs Diaz called up the stairs from elsewhere in the house. "I heard something explode! Are you okay?"
Marco shook his head to clear his shock. "Uh, yeah mom, we're cool!" He shouted back.
Star, for her part, had dismounted the chair. As Marco made to look away from the door and back at the report, he met her eyes. She had her wand held by both hands under her chin, and was bouncing up and down slightly. "Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie."
Marco gave a brief moment's thought to this, looking at the new script on his desk. It was still glowing and giving off a faint whine. Magic.
"Do I really trust Star to write a paper on the history of Earth?" Marco thought to himself.
"Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie. Movie." Star's voice was creeping closer as she moved towards his ear.
He turned and looked at her, their faces only a couple inches apart. He stared her straight in the eyes. He'd made his decision."I got the movies. You get the popcorn."
Star shrieked with excitement and immediately sprinted from the room. Marco, followed, more slowly. He gave a last glance to the report still floating above his desk before closing his bedroom door.
It'd be fine! Probably.
Marco was accustomed to a certain order in his life. He'd get up at an exact time, get dressed, shower, and have breakfast, all according to schedule. He'd get on the bus and get to school at the correct time to lean against the locker and say hi to Jackie Lynn Thomas as she walked by. There was a quiet dignity in his schedule, one he didn't like having disrupted, even by interdimensional princesses.
So, he was slightly panicked when he woke up the next morning to his mom's voice, rather than his alarm clock.
"Marco, Star...!" She whispered. He slowly blinked his eyes open to see his mother looking at him, smiling. He was sitting upright with his head leaned over, and his pillow was really bony, and there was some hair that wasn't his...
"Agh!" He shot upright, removing his head from Star's shoulder as he realized that they'd fallen asleep in front of the T.V. The blanket that had been covering the pair's legs flew up and fluttered down on top of it.
"Gonna be late! Late late late late late! I've never been late before! Agh! What do I do?!" Marco was all at once in a flurry, running back and forth. He had a toothbrush between his teeth, then he was putting on a hoodie, then he was hurriedly scooping pancakes into his mouth. "Star!" He shouted at her.
"Wuzzap...?" Star drearily responded, her own eyes slowly opening as she, too, came to terms with what was going on. "Oh! School! Right!" She bounded up off the couch and upstairs. A few poofs of magic later and she'd changed her dress, combed her hair and was ready for the day. Marco spared her an envious glare as he passed her on the way back up the stairs. It was so easy for her.
"Script! Need script!" Marco sprinted past her with a half-full backpack as Star casually walked towards the door.
"So, how was movie night?" Mrs Diaz asked Star as the two waited for Marco.
Star opened her mouth to respond, and then Marco was back.
"Okaymomwe'reofftoschoolseeyoulaterbye!" Marco hurriedly informed his bemused mother as she watched the pair scramble out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
They sprinted to the stop, but still missed the bus, treated only to the exhaust fumes of it puttering around the corner as they ran towards it. Luckily, Star was able to conjure them a magic bunny rabbit to ride to school on. Though, while entertaining, it was not exactly the most comfortable alternative to public transportation. Once they were in school, the pair rushed into their classes, out of breath. It wasn't until lunch that they finally had a chance to talk about their upcoming play – which used a script that neither had read.
"So, you ready for this, Star?" Marco said. For all the rush of that morning, he didn't look any worse for wear. As the two walked to Skullnick's classroom, he pulled the script out of his backpack. "I mean, we haven't even looked at it, but no one else had any time to prepare either..." he rationalized.
He made to open the pages and take a glance, and Star stopped him. "Woah! Marco. It's a magic script. Once you open it, we're gonna get sucked in! And we'll have to do the whole thing. So let's wait until we're in the classroom."
Marco began to respond, but it was pushed from his mind as he opened the door to the pair's next class. The two stepped into the classroom to find mass panic as the other students tripped over themselves trying to be presentable. It was fairly apparent none of them had anything solid to go on, either.
As Marco and Star took their seats, Miss Skullnick lumbered in, each of her steps shaking the room just slightly. "Hello, Class." She croaked, plopping down in her chair. "Today is history day! Who wants to go first." She was rather unenthusiastic about it, considering how she was the one to give the assignment.
As the first two students walked up to the front of the class and began stammering through their presentation, Marco tried to ignore the glowing, sparkling, humming packet of paper on his desk in front of him, but it had an annoying way of drawing his eye to it.
He hated going into assignments blind, and this one in particular – as much as he knew Star would try to do the right thing in her interpretation – gave him some pretty severe doubts. "Maybe if I just sneak a peek..." he muttered to himself, sliding his fingers in between the pages. Like Pandora's Box, the script was just too tempting. He slid the script open just a tiny amount, and bent his head down to look at the text...
There was a gust of wind, and a sound like a gunshot, and the script blew open. Marco didn't even have time to give a scream of terror before he was sucked in, Star with him, the rest of the class behind them.
He did, however, have time to give a scream once they'd "landed." And scream he did, for a few moments, before he realized that his feet were on solid ground and Star was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. He stopped, and cleared his throat.
"Well, that's, um... humm." He blushed slightly.
"You looked at the script, huh?" Star looked at him, smirking at the idea that her normally "perfect performance" friend had once again "Starred up" one of their ideas.
He sighed. "Yes..." he muttered, and looked around. "Now... where the heck are we?"
As the two turned around in wonder, their surroundings could only be described as some sort of science fiction movie, crossed with ancient Rome. The street itself looked as though someone had built a city in the middle of a jungle, and the jungle had grown back with a vengeance. Old Roman houses and shops lined the street the duo was standing on, front yards and side fences overflowing with brambles and ferns. Marble columns adorned every building. But the bizarre part was the contrast in technology. Chariots were being pulled along by futuristic robot-horses. The sky was full of Zeppelins.
And everyone on the street seemed to be wearing a collage of futuristic power armor and roman togas. Including Marco and Star, who were wearing a red toga with a hood, and a teal one resembling a dress, respectively. Star's toga had a big yellow star emblazoned on the front of it.
"...wow." Marco said in awe, before looking back at Star. "You made all this?" He asked her.
"No! This is the Roman Empire, silly!" Star beamed at him.
Then Marco remembered the context for their current scenario. He groaned. "Auuugh. Star, this isn't the Roman Empire, this is that movie we watched the sequel to last night!" The words seemed to deflect off of her smile. "You know, Romans in Space?"
Star's grin faded. "You mean that wasn't a documentary?" She asked.
Marco looked at her, his expression a total deadpan. "No."
"Oooohhh... oops."
As if on cue, there was an explosion loud enough to make the two jump in fright. Air-raid sirens sounded. Blimps were in flames and slowly falling out of the sky.
"The invasion!" Star shouted. She sounded panicked. "We have to find the rest of the class!" She sprinted off, Marco in tow.
"Star, where is the rest of the class?!" Marco asked as he ran after her.
"Marco, it's a magic script!" Star explained. "Everyone who got sucked in has to play a part, and it looks like the class got turned into -"
They halted over a ledge. It looked as though something had caused the entire section of city in front of them to drop down ten feet, and in the center, wearing the same garb as the rest of the city and not looking too thrilled about it, was the class.
"Soldiers." Star finished.
"Oh no..." as the two finally reached the bottom of the cliff and made their way towards the class, Marco couldn't help but take in the scenery. The destroyed statues, the burning chariots, the marshaling troops, all looked too familiar.
"Star, I recognize this scene! This is the part where all the troops except the main characters get captured! We have to get the class out of here!"
"I know!" Star shrieked back. In front of them, there was a sound like a war horn, and a descending spaceship appeared from seemingly nowhere. A ramp deployed, and nameless cyborgs began marching out.
Ahead of them, the soldiers surrounding their classmates were readying their own weapons, each armed with a bizarre combination of trident and laser rifle. The class was still confused and disoriented, and now, verging on panic.
"RUN!" Marco and Star both screamed at them as they sprinted forward, dodging Roman troops. The class turned to their voices, but the rest of the forces paid them no mind as combat began. Lasers fired over their heads as the battlefield descended into complete chaos.
The class dissipated into the crowd as soon as the battle began. Some ran towards the duo, others ran away. A couple ran straight into the line of fire. Skullnick was nowhere to be found.
The cyborg front line was advancing, and nearly on them once the first kids had reached the duo. The presence of the rest of the class was obvious; anywhere a student went, there were cries of confusion by both Romans and cyborgs as they scurried about underfoot and generally got in the way.
"Star, get everyone to safety!" Marco directed. "I'll get the rest!"
Star couldn't formulate a response fast enough, constant spells from her wand the only thing keeping their little bubble of safety from being overrun by the battle. Marco assumed she'd heard him, and then he dove headfirst into the battle.
The Romans were losing, as planned. The army of cyborgs was pushing them back, and as Marco pushed his way between the faltering soldiers, he planted a few well placed karate moves into the occasional enemy that broke through.
As he found his classmates, he herded them towards Star. Some were faring better than others. Justin had taken to the "warrior" role with gusto, taking every opportunity to punt a cyborg head or spear something with his trident. Marco gave him a group of students to watch and sent him on his way. Alfanzo and Ferguson were alternating between cowering in fear and running for their lives, any sense of fighting spirit long forgotten. Towards Star they went.
And finally, there were only two left: Janna and Jackie. Marco could see them across the battlefield as he roundhouse kicked yet another cyborg into it's buddies. The two were duoing a trident, both of them holding it like an artillery piece, firing lasers at anything that came too close. Marco could barely hear Janna's voice over the commotion: "this is so cool!"
As he approached, Marco found himself having trouble breathing. It's okay! He forced himself to think. We're in the middle of a battlefield, the last thing you need to be worried about is your crush on Jaaaaaa "Jackie look out!" He screamed at the pair as one of the machines jumped over a Roman flank and directly onto them. Marco launched himself forward, tackling it around the midriff and sending both him and the bot directly into the ground.
"Don't, you, touch, her!" Marco shouted at it, planting blow after blow into the human half's softer skin. A few well placed punches and wire pulls, and it had stopped moving. Pain shot through his knuckles as he observed firsthand what punching a metal skull did to a person's hands. He shook it off.
He stood up, panting, eyes a little wild, before he caught sight of the pair of girls. They were both standing stock-still, mouths agape. "Woah..." Janna gasped.
"Um... thanks Marco?" Jackie managed.
Marco stomped past. Somehow, all the tension he had surrounding this girl had temporarily been forgotten. "Don't mention it. This way."
Outside, the Romans had lost, as planned. The cyborgs were rounding up survivors and returning them to the ship as captives, also as planned. Unlike the script, however, the two main characters were not the only ones left. An entire platoon of Roman infantry in the form of an Echo Creek classroom was still crouched and cowering in a building in town, eyes glued to the windows as cyborg infantry marched past.
"Okay." Marco had somehow become the de facto leader of the class, presumably because with all the monster fighting, he had enough experience with these things to comfortably deal with them. Plus, he was a Romans in Space super-fan. As he paced back in forth at the back of the room, he laid out the key points to an audience of frightened teenagers.
"Good news is, everyone is here. Except for Skullnick." Marco said. "We're all outside the script now, so hopefully, everyone will just ignore us." A little bit of the tension dissolved at this, the students beginning to relax as they realized they were no longer in mortal peril.
"And the bad news..." Marco grimaced as he thought about it. "We're gonna have to complete the script to get home."
There was some muttering among the class. No one seemed too panicked, yet – presumably because they hadn't seen Romans in Space. This was a movie that starred Vinvestold Van Stalwartsel, and like all of his movies, the key plot point was that everyone died in explosions.
"Me and Star are probably the main characters." Marco reasoned, "Since we were the ones that made the script." The real Romans in Space starred Stalwartsel as an extremely masculine "tragic hero" type without a family, with a pretty female costar as his "best girl."
"So that means we have to go finish the movie." He continued. There weren't any complaints from the rest of the class. Presumably, nobody really had a problem with sitting back and not getting shot at.
"The rest of you, stay here." Marco continued. "Janna, Justin and Jackie will keep you safe."
On the other side of the room, they were the only ones still with weapons, Justin wearing a cobbled-together set of armor over his toga, and a newly-acquired necklace of cyborg parts.
Star raised her hand. "Um... should we be worried about Skullnick?"
Marco thought about it, and shrugged. "She probably just found a better place to hide. Now let's move out!"
Creeping through the battle-wreckage proved to be pretty easy for the pair. As they jumped and rolled between obstacles, Marco whispered to Star, "let's just follow the path that the movie does..." He was thankful that they'd rewatched it so many times – anything less and they would likely have been discovered a dozen times.
Quickly running up the ramp of the ship behind the last squad of cyborgs, the two ducked behind cover in time to see cages full of Roman soldiers. The ramp behind them closed with a mechanical whine, and the ship rumbled as it took off. All according to plan.
"At least the script's back on track..." Marco muttered.
Star's eyes had glossed over. "We have to free those prisoners. My brother might still be alive!" She muttered.
Marco blinked. "Star?"
She shook her head and the lights disappeared from her eyes. "Woah. Script must have got me. Hah, no worries, right Marco?" She smiled.
Just as the script said, they were too off guard to notice the cyborg commandos that had surrounded them.
"Free the prisoners." Marco nodded to Star as they were taken captive. "Just like the movie. I'll head to the bridge and confront the Emperor."
As the two were escorted away from each other, the events of the movie flashed back into Marco's mind. In it, there was a brief scene where the female lead took out all of the guards surrounding her and rescued her brother. The Romans then took the ship down from the inside.
Meanwhile, he was being shown to the bridge...
The scene was just as it appeared on the big screen. Lots of big windows, overlooking the Earth as the cyborg fleet in front of them prepared to obliterate it. And standing in front of it all with his back to the door was the Cyborg Emperor.
He was just as large as in the movie, a hulking figure that was at least twice the size of Stalwartsel. But something was off...
"Scout Dameson." The Emperor's voice was deep and distorted. "The only Roman that I could never thwart. Your defense fleet has been destroyed, your army defeated. All that's left now, is surrender."
"I'll never surrender to you!" Marco allowed the words to flow from his lips, as planned. "You killed my father!"
"No, Dameson." The Emperor turned. He was a lot more pudgy than in the movie, the black threads of his suit barely containing his huge mass. He reached up and began detaching his helmet. "I..." the helmet hissed as it came off, revealing green skin and vividly red hair. "Am your father." Skullnick finished.
Any embrace that the script had on Marco was totally shattered at this revelation. Seeing Skullnick there, forced into clothes that were half her size, claiming she was someone's "father," was all too much to handle. He burst into laughter, falling to the floor, holding his sides and kicking his feet.
"Miss – Miss..." he attempted between bouts of laughter. "Ah hah... whew!" He chuckled, and stepped back to his feet, catching his breath.
"Skullnick! We were wondering where you were." That was a lie. He hadn't really been wondering where she was. "Come on, let's go. The script says that the Emperor has to realize the error of his ways and destroy his fleet before they can blow up Earth. Do that, and we can all go home!"
"Destroy my fleet? Betray my people? How dare you!" Skullnick shouted at Marco. He could see a familiar gleam in her eye... uh oh. "You may be my son by blood, but you rejected everything I had to offer! Prepare... to be destroyed!"
The cyborgs that had escorted him raised their weapons and Marco gulped. "Um... Skullnick?"
"Die!" She pointed at Marco.
Just then, the doors to the bridge exploded.
Star charged in, with a roman battalion behind her, who summarily began wrecking the place. "Marco!" She shouted, and quickly jumped into a hug.
"I freed the LOOK OUT!" She pulled the boy out of the way as the Emperor's battleaxe came crashing down onto the floor where they'd been standing, hewing the metal at their feet like butter.
"She's under the play's spell! We have to get her to hit the button!" Marco cried, pointing. The two jumped back in unison as Skullnick's axe swung through the air in front of them.
Across the bridge, through the battling Romans and burning computers, was a big button labeled "self-destruct."
"C'mon!" Star shouted, pulling her friend along as they sprinted towards it. Skullnick lumbered after them, still shouting about her eternal empire and how great things could've been if they'd just surrendered their humanity and become cyborgs.
"Umm, umm..." Star pranced in front of the button as Marco distracted their teacher, weaving between her axe-blows like only a trained green-belt could do.
"Star, incooomiiing!" Marco shouted. He pushed her out of the way, just in time for Skullnick's axe to split the self-destruct button clean in two.
"Countdown initiated!" A cool female voice rang out. "Please man escape pods! Five, four, three..."
"What... have I done..." The traces of the Emperor's distortion faded from Skullnicks voice and her eyes cleared. "Wait, what? What's going on?"
Just as the ship was engulfed in white light, there was a sound like wind rushing past the trio's ears, and the script flung them back out into the classroom, with all of their classmates around them. They were back into their desk chairs, back into their normal clothes – except for Justin, who still had his cyber-part necklace for some reason. And Skullnick was back at the front of the class, seemingly stunned.
"What...?" Skullnick asked, bewildered, as the script fluttered shut on Marco's desk. "What just happened?" She shouted at the pair. "What did you do? Why do... I..." She made to take a step and fell flat on her face, causing the classroom's desks to jump a few inches into the air with the impact.
From over the door, the bell rang. School was over. The class quietly grabbed their things and filed out, some heading for the bus and others walking, like nothing had happened.
Marco and Star were still sitting at their desks, trying to process what just happened. "I, uh..." They looked at each other. Then Star asked the important question:
"So do you think we got an A?"
Ended kinda suddenly, but oh well. It was getting long and I didn't want to split it into two parts! Once again, I considered including Ludo, but eh.
So there it is! I'll get to work on the next one soon.
Reviewing encourages me to keep writing, and gives me ideas for what I should do next. Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know why!
And as always, if you like what you see here and you wanna see more, click right here: u/2820627/ to see more.