Chapter Text
When they heard the massive crash from overhead, no-one wasted time looking up to see what it was. They ducked for cover, taking shelter under the nearest solid structures – sturdy tables, countertops, metal scaffolding. Chunks of rock and plaster rained from the ceiling. Through the hole that had just been broken in their shelter descended a spaceship. It was round with small fins on the back and a big viewport in the front, making it look sort of like a giant eyeball. Its white paint with blue and pink accents glowed in the lamp-light. Making an odd humming sound, the spaceship touched down in the middle of the crowd.
“Spaceship,” Benny said, entranced by it. He started approaching it and had to be reigned in by Scribble Cop holding on to his arm.
“Do you think it’s friendly?” a bunch of people were asking. Some argued that it “looked friendly enough” based on its shape and colors, while others declared its smashing through the roof to be a clear sign of hostility. They all held back, waiting for the moment of truth.
The viewport panel in front lifted up, releasing a wave of pressurized air. Slowly and cinematically, the spaceship’s occupant emerged. The minifigures’ eyes widened at the sight of her. For she looked nothing like them. Unlike their boxy bodies, she was slim and smooth around the edges. At least, they were pretty sure she was a she. Her face was hidden behind the black visor on the space helmet she wore.
“I am General Mayhem,” she introduced herself in a deep voice with an electronic overtone. “I come from the Systar System. Bring me Emmet Brickowski.”
“Wait a minute!” Lucy said. “How do you know his name? We’ve never even seen you before.”
“I said BRING HIM TO ME.” The alien’s voice dropped another two octaves as she repeated her demand. The dual laser blasters in her hands whirred to life.
Lucy grabbed on to Emmet protectively. “If you want to take him away, you’ll have to go through us first.”
Kind of a lame threat, definitely not the most original one, but it was all she could think of in the moment. She put on a tough guise, but she was seriously afraid of losing Emmet again. She thought she’d lost him forever back when he sacrificed himself in the Octan Tower. Not happening again. He might have been weak and naive and annoyingly happy-go-lucky when he should have toughened up to get with the times, but he was her Emmet. She wasn’t going to let go of him.
“Lucy?” he asked, so nervous his voice went pitchy. “What does she want with me?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, “but I don’t think it’s anything good.”
“Hand over the Special, your fiercest leader,” the alien lady demanded, blasters at the ready.
There was a slight pause. Then a couple people giggled, prompting General Mayhem to scowl.
“What is so funny?”
“Emmet? Tough? Ba ha ha ha ha!” some bystanders cackled. “Emmet couldn’t beat up a turkey sandwich. He’s too soft!”
“Don’t take it to heart,” Lucy whispered to Emmet. “But play along for now. Otherwise this ‘General Mayhem’ might try to kidnap you.”
“They don’t think I’m tough? Or strong? At all?” he asked, sounding really hurt.
“Hmm.” General Mayhem took a few steps forward, staring intently at Emmet. “My readings are telling me that he is weak, plain, and not particularly special, with limited skills and a vulnerability for tacos and waffles. But my superior told me to bring this particular Emmet to him. Therefore, he goes.”
“Wait! Who?!” Lucy shouted. “Who sent you?”
General Mayhem didn’t answer. She raised her blaster and fired. People ducked for cover, but instead of bullets, lasers, or energy, out came stickers. Emmet jumped out of the way, and the guy standing behind him got two large stickers (one of a watermelon, the other of a mustache) to the face.
“I’m hit!” the bystander cried, crumpling to the floor. He tried vainly to pull off the stickers, but they held fast. They were almost as effective as Kragle at immobilizing people.
Missing Emmet the first time didn’t stop General Mayhem, though. She kept firing at the construction worker, who ran around screaming. If Emmet moved any slower (and he wasn’t the fastest runner to boot, anyway) she would have nailed him head-on with one of her stickers. She had good aim. Lucy pounced at Mayhem, hoping to take her out.
“I don’t think so, sister!” Lucy shouted, getting a roundhouse kick ready for the attacker.
General Mayhem misunderstood that and corrected her with an angry “It’s Systar!” while wheeling around to shoot at her instead. Lucy was already in midair and couldn’t change trajectory in time. Pow. Down she went with a heart-shaped sticker affixed to her face and torso. She writhed on the ground, clawing at the sticker to free herself. The thing, being technically a relic from the Outside, was adamantine to her. She couldn’t see anything at the moment, but she could still hear Mayhem’s blaster firing and Emmet bellowing. Well, that was at least sort of good, because it meant he hadn’t been captured yet.
“You are resisting an order of the High King of Systar!” the alien woman said to Emmet. “Your compliance will make this much easier for all involved.”
“The high WHO?” Lucy managed to peel the sticker off her face (ouch, that hurt), but it was still stuck to her body, and she struggled to get up.
“King? Who?” Emmet gasped. He didn’t exactly have great stamina and looked kind of red in the face from running around in circles while getting shot at. Also, he tripped un-heroically on a carelessly tossed milk carton and went down.
“Ow! Who left that milk carton there?” he complained. As he attempted to get back on his feet, Mayhem took advantage of the moment to fire her sticker blaster at him. Within seconds, Emmet had been immobilized by stickers depicting foxes, sunshine, and rainbows. Mayhem holstered one of the blasters and whipped out a different gun. This one was bigger, more of a rifle than a little blaster, and it had what looked like a tiny toilet plunger poking out its barrel.
“Don’t shoot!” Emmet rolled out of the way. Mayhem fired the gun, but a second too late. The plunger fired out, with a string attached to it, and stuck to a hapless bystander’s face instead. They stumbled about blindly.
“Oh, Emmet!” Lucy said admiringly, about halfway free from her sticky pinion.
“Huh?” Mayhem grunted. Then she flicked a tiny switch on the side of the gun, which made the plunger detach and retract back into the barrel.
“Nice shot!” Emmet was just the sort of fellow to compliment his opponent mid-battle. Mayhem was a lot less sportsmanlike, because she immediately shot him with the plunger gun again, this time not missing. The toilet plunger and its string wound about Emmet’s entire body, tying him up in a snap. It pinned his arms and legs together even more than the stickers could.
“Argh...can’t..move...” he grunted dramatically.
“Oh, Emmet,” groaned Lucy.
“You will come with me, as is ordered by my superior. Your volition in the matter is immaterial.”
“I don’t understand what she’s saying,” he cried.
“Ooooooh! Don’t even think about it, alien lady.” Lucy managed to tear one arm free of the heart-shaped sticker. “If you think you’re going to run away with Emmet, you’ve got—“
Mayhem still had the other blaster in hand, and she used it to zap Lucy with a fresh round of stickers. The punk masterbuilder went down, coated in glitter stars and kissyface emojis. As other Apocalypseburgers ran in to rescue Emmet and/or Lucy, Mayhem shot them as well. She had deadeye aim now that she was able to warm up on Emmet. With a flick of the lever on her grappling-rifle, she dragged Emmet towards herself and her ship as well.
“Lucy, help!” he cried. “I don’t want to go with her!”
“It’ll be okay, Emmet,” she reassured him, even as she struggled for freedom. “I’ll save you.”
“This is getting out of hand,” General Mayhem said, trying to lift Emmet and stuff him into her ship. (He was heavier than she expected.) “None of this would have been necessary if you had only complied with the directives of the High King of Systar.”
“Who is that?” Emmet whimpered. “I don’t like him—he sounds mean.”
“Be quiet.” Mayhem managed to fit him into her ship, and she climbed in as well.
“She’s getting away!” Lucy called to her friends. “Stop her before she makes off with Emmet.”
Benny was the first to jump to the rescue. “Super Emergency Spaceship Attack!”
He masterbuilt a small spacecraft in maybe three seconds and flew it at Mayhem’s spaceship, laughing like a madman as he fired lasers at it. But it was a no sell. The lasers bounced harmlessly off the spaceship’s radiation shield. Also, Mayhem activated some kind of defense mechanism; the ship’s fins extended suddenly and batted Benny out of the air. The spaceship sailed dizzily over the crowd and crashed somewhere in the back of the cave. Benny was okay, but he was in no shape to keep fighting.
“Hot dogs,” he said woozily.
“Yarr, lassie, no-one be kidnappin’ the Special on MY watch!” Metalbeard jumped in, cannons blazing. But the antique cannonballs he fired didn’t so much as scratch Mayhem’s ship. They rebounded off like they were rubber bouncy balls, and the crowd took cover. Mayhem unceremoniously zapped him with a laser. Down he toppled like a felled tree.
“Metalbeard!” Lucy cried, having just witnessed that.
“Arrgh,” he groaned. “I be all right, little miss. But this pirate is just as pooped as a ship out of a storm right now. Sorry, me lassie.”
He promptly passed out.
“Hiiiiieeeee!” Unikitty, still in her ‘angry’ form, leapt at the spaceship. “That’s not very nice of you. Give me my friend back, or I’ll be the OPPOSITE OF HAPPY.”
Mayhem answered that threat by summoning an attack that seemed to be tailor made for Unikitty. A cartoonish metal arm holding a spray bottle reached out and spritzed her with water, saying “BAD KITTY” in a robot voice. Unikitty sprang back, hissing. She got sprayed a few more times and then decided to cry uncle, scurrying off to the back of the cave.
“Oh, no,” Lucy said. “Is she really too much for us?”
Having taken out four of Emmet’s best friends without much effort at all, General Mayhem shot the crowd a scowl before slamming the spaceship door shut. And yes, somehow they could all tell she was scowling at them even though her face was hidden by her helmet. They could just feel the disapproval. The engines roared and flared pink, and the white spacecraft lifted off. Lucy watched it in horror, helpless to do anything while her super-special best friend got taken away.
The pod door cracked open a bit, enough for Emmet’s sad face to appear and his little claw hand to reach feebly to her.
“Lucy!” he wailed. Mayhem appeared and pulled him back inside. She slammed the pod door shut again.
“Emmet...” was all she could manage before the engines went full blast. The spaceship shot away into the sky, leaving just a sparkle in its wake. General Mayhem had gone and taken Emmet with her, and it was anyone’s guess as to where.
A few people rushed up to Lucy and helped her peel off the stickers. Others roused Benny and Metalbeard, and someone else went to look for Unikitty. Once she had been freed from the stickers, she jumped to her feet.
“All right, everyone!” she called to the crowd. “You saw what just happened. We need to track down General Mayhem and stop her before she gets back to whoever this King of Systar guy is. Who’s with me?”
Two seconds later, the crowd dumped her outside, along with Benny, Metalbeard, Unikitty, and GCBC. She sighed and picked herself out of the dirt.
“I’m sorry, guys,” she said. “But you’ll come with me, right?”
She got affirmations all around.
“Awesome. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us,” Unikitty said. “We’re Emmet’s friends too. We have to help him.”
“Right, and help him we will. First, we need a spaceshi—“
A loud squeal interrupted her. Benny vibrated in place, grinning so wide his mouth took up most of his face.
“You know what to do, Benny.”