This chapter is a birthday gift to my best friend Vickyt36. Vicky I worked overtime through Covid and sleepless nights to get this ready for you, hope you like it
(Litwak city space, decommissioned Lucrehulk battleship Vanellopes wits, September 2036)
Up in litwak city space, school was in session for kids of Litwak city. Instead of the castle or different buildings, it was now held aboard a decommissioned droid freighter. In one of the classrooms, a 5 year old Zack Shaw, son of citizen and hero Honey potts, was listening to queen Vanellope talk.
"And that is how me and Ralph founded our fair city, as well as started some of our traditions and holidays" said Vanellope
Vanellope walked out as the kids clapped and the teacher, a purple unicorn named twilight, stepped up.
"I hope you all enjoyed queen vanellopes visit. Now for your assignment, by Friday I want you all to write a paper about one of the royals, it can be anyone you want, and give a small presentation about them like why you admire them or what you like about them, get your parents help if needed" said Twilight
The kids started discussing which royal they would do, a lot of Ralph's and vanellopes, some for Rancis and even a couple for Kevin. Zack discussed this with his best friend, a yellow fox named Miles jr.
"Why don't you do princess Lucy, isn't your sister her friend?" Miles asked
"Yeah, but I don't really know a lot about her" said Zack
"Well I'm doing her, my daddy works for her navy. Plus she's gotta be pretty cool, she made this ship herself" said Miles
"Wow really? Maybe she would be cool to do a report about her" said zack
Zack visited the school's library with his class afterward for any books about the city's leaders. He skimmed through some before coming across one with an interesting title.
'Simple world designer history for kids: The Lucy conflicts'
Intrigued, zack checked the book out and took a seat to read before he had to go home.
'Self proclaimed queen Lucy of the stars, who was only 7 years old at the time, created the Lucy empire in what she described as a way to get people to see she was a good ruler. Using an army of separatist battle droids she copied code from other games, she found herself with a large army and navy to serve her. The use of battle droids proved extremely unpopular as memories of criminal General Grievous still lingered in citizens minds and brought terrible memories of the first battle for litwak city'
Zack turned the page and found some facts about Lucy's castle and saw a picture of her as a young child. She didn't look that much different from queen Vanellope.
'Lucy 1, the flagship and castle for queen Lucy, was inspired by Lucy's lifelong fascination with space and family visits to Disney parks around the internet. Modeled after a ride called space mountain, which the princess claimed was a favorite of hers'
"Huh, so that's where that name comes from" zack said to himself
Zack continued reading, landing at the first major battle of the first war, the battle for equestria. The book showed pictures of battle droids destroying everything. Zack looked at a small article in the corner titled I was there.
'I was there: Diamond tiara. My family were some of the original 50 colonists on equestria when it was created. The night the droid army tried to destroy us, it was a nightmare. I watched my mom get killed and my daddy wounded. All the queen wanted was food, I don't remember why we didn't give it to her. The sounds of blaster fire and the glowing red eyes of the supers haunt me. When the imperials showed up, I felt safe. It's because of them I survived'
'The empire saved her? But I thought mommy and daddy said the empire was bad' zack thought to himself
Zack read up until he landed on a page talking about a great disaster that hit the city, scared and horrified. It was the crash of the super Star destroyer Ravager, which caused a tsunami. Zack remembered his mom mentioning it, how much it scared her.
He didn't have much time to think more about it, as he had to go home. But upon getting home, he couldn't shake the feeling that Lucy was bad. But how could she be bad, his mom and sister always said she was good. He read the little interviews with the imperials, and they all mentioned she was crazy, even the grand Moff. Zack didn't know what a grand Moff was but he knew enough to know he was important to the empire. And it seemed to the city, they were considered heroes after Lucy was overthrown. But if she was overthrown, why was she still in power. He had to talk to his mom, luckily she and his big sister Sophie were in the kitchen helping make dinner.
"Mom, Sophie, can I talk to you please?" Zack asked
"Of course sweetie" said Honey
"That girl with the yellow hair who visits sometimes, that's princess Lucy, right? And you're friends with her?" Zack asked
"Of course" said Honey
"She's a good friend when she wants to be" said Sophie
"Can I ask why you're friends with her? I have this thing I'm doing for school, and I wanted to do my report on her, but I got this book from the library, and she seems to be evil" said Zack
Zack showed them his book, and honey noticed something.
"Well Zack, I see you haven't even finished this book for one thing. And you can't trust everything you read. The neighborhood learned that with the anti transformer league" said Honey
"But the empire, they say in this book-
"The empire is evil zack" said Sophie
"They did their fair share of bad things. I was there when they tried destroying our home. Everything Lucy did for this city, trying to protect it, she did it for people like us. She sacrificed so much so you could live comfortably" said Honey
Honey saw her son still wasn't completely convinced
"I know, why don't you talk to Lucy in person, let her explain her side of the story to those bad things you read. She's actually pretty nice when you get to know her" said Honey
Zack agreed, and a meeting was set up at Adorabeezles ice cream shop after dinner. When the time came, zack went to the shop with his mom and sister, and to his surprise, king Rancis was there with Lucy, now 14 years old.
"Hi Rancis, good to see you again" said Honey
"Good to see you too. Nice to see you again zack, it's been a while" said Rancis
The group had a seat and ordered ice cream.
"So zack, my dad tells me you think I'm evil. I can assure you I'm not. Have I done bad things? Yes, but I can explain some of that" said Lucy
"Ok. My book says you tried to kill the ponies, why?" Zack asked
Lucy sighed and looked down
"When I made my kingdom, I made a few simple laws that the planets had to follow. All I wanted was food from the ponies. One day they didn't deliver, saying they had a bad harvest. I sent immediate aid so they wouldn't starve, but my spies told me they were holding back. They didn't feel a 7 year old girl was a fit ruler. They harassed and beat up my droids for weeks til I finally snapped. I'm not proud of what I did" said Lucy
"Ok. Why the droids? Why not recruit people to work for you, you're the princess after all" said Zack
"I used droids because I sympathized with them. Plus nobody exactly trusted me then, I needed to earn it. Seemed simple at the time. I thought long and hard about using the droids, just like how your mom was wanted by the empire, so was I once. I hid in a hole for 2 weeks, scared to death, not wanting to be found. I spent that time planning my kingdom" said Lucy
"My book also says you nearly destroyed this city with that huge ship, explain that" zack told her
"I was trying to survive. We may be able to regenerate when killed, but dying still hurts, a lot. I never wanted that ship to crash where it did. Being overthrown was the worst experience of my life. I was the most hated person in this game" said Lucy "Maybe the whole internet. My life was so bad at times I didn't want to live anymore"
"Yet despite those setbacks, you've more than proven yourself. You may only rule half the games galaxy, but you do keep your promise to protect the game" said Honey
"Plus Lucy does know how to have fun and isn't as strict as you might think she is for a princess" said Sophie
Honey giggled
"Remember when she tried to be a mud monster?" Honey asked
"Mud monster?" Zack asked
"Please don't tell that story" said Lucy
"Oh I'm telling the story" said Sophie "you see Zack-
On the forest world of Stavos, a couple years ago, Sophie was on one of her yearly camping trips with her mom and a few friends. Lucy was alone in a nearby tent with Reese while Sophie roasted some marshmallows over the fire. She heard a small scream and the group turned to Lucy's tent. Reese's head was morphing into some kind of weird fruit, most likely from a gusher, and lucy was running scared into the woods with Kevin running after her. Reese fell on the ground from her heads big weight, laughing.
"Reese, what did you do?" Sophie asked
"I told a scary story about a mud monster, and lucy was totally scared" said Reese
"And the head?"
"Mystery gusher" said Reese
While Sophie got a quick chuckle, honey wasn't happy.
"That wasn't very nice. How would you like it if I scared you to the point you'd run alone into the woods?" Honey asked
Reese ate another gusher and her head morphed back to normal. She brushed her braided ponytail back and stood up
"She'll be fine, Lucy's tough and can take a joke. Give her 5 minutes and Kevin will bring her back" said Reese
But 5 minutes turned to 20, and honey was getting worried.
"Kids I'm going out to look for the twins, stay here and don't leave the camp" said Honey
"Dang it Reese, why'd you have to scare her?" Christie asked
Suddenly, Kevin came running back, scared.
"Guys, there's a monster, it got Lucy" said Kevin as he caught his breath
"Kevin, there's no monsters out here" said scoop
Suddenly, the monster came out of the woods, made entirely out of mud.
"The monsters real?" Reese asked
"Hang on kids" said Honey
She went to her bag to get a weapon, but Christie froze the monsters feet and norville held its arms back.
"Like to eat kids huh? Well let's see how you like eating mud" said Reese
She grabbed dirt and mud off the ground and began stuffing it in the monsters mouth
"Here, you like it. EAT IT, mud in your face monster"
It was then Sophie noticed something on the monsters arm, a dangling silver heart. It clanged against something, like a bracelet.
"Guys stop, you don't understand" Kevin begged
"It's ok Kevin, we'll take care of this" said Reese "This is for eating Lucy"
"Guys stop, that's not a monster" said Sophie
Sophie and honey went up to the monster with some water and towels, and the mud washed away to reveal an infuriated Lucy who tried to spit mud out of her mouth.
"Sorry sis, I tried to tell them that was you" said Kevin
"You were in on this?" Sophie asked
"You know I hate these camping trips, and being forced to go on them. Reese's story frightened me til Kevin comforted me. He said this'd be good revenge, now I'm cold and wet, I just wanna go home" said Lucy
"I think I can arrange that, but let's get you dry" said Honey
Zack laughed at the story, finding it amusing Lucy was forced to eat mud.
"Zack the point I'm trying to make is Lucy's not afraid to get dirty and have a little prank or fun if need be" said Sophie
"I get it" said Zack "Maybe you're not so bad. But my class thinks otherwise"
"Well, perhaps it's time Lucy changes that" said honey
"I have school too, I can't just give a speech to his class when I feel like" said Lucy
"Doesn't twilight teach zacks class, she used to be your teacher, Lucy. I'm sure I can talk to her" said Rancis
Through the rest of the week, honey helped zack with his report, and on friday, before zack gave his report, Lucy talked to the class about her experiences ruling.
"The empire wanted to destroy everything, in the name of peace and security. They wanted to destroy everything my mom and grandpa worked to build. But after the wars, I've learned to coexist with them. My boyfriend tells me they're a necessary evil, though he won't tell me why. A lot of you might fear me, and I understand, but know as long as my castle stands and the droid army runs, I will protect each and every one of you. You'll all sleep well knowing I'm your first line of defense"
This got applause from the class. As Lucy left, zack got up to read his report.
"Princess Lucy, queen of the stars. When I first researched her, I thought what others thought of her, that she was crazy, insane, like a monster under my bed. But I'm proud to say she's not. She may have done bad things, but she does care about all of us. She risked her life to fight the empire when they wanted to destroy us all. She built this kingdom so others could have homes they lost back. She and her brother make sure no kid goes without a Christmas present under their trees every year. She made my mommy rich. She gave her support to run her store, to be brave, to the point she became internet famous. She's helped others too. And I've learned to appreciate that. While I'll never know how bad her life used to be, I'm glad she's willing to change, and I'm glad to have her as a ruler, even if I still don't know too much about her." Said zack