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Ancient Sky Arena
The air is quiet as the two opponents stare each other down. On one side of the arena is Stevonnie, Sword at the ready and shield on standby. The other, a large Holopearl, dual scimitars in hand. In the middle is Pearl, flag at the ready.
"Stevonnie! Are you ready?" Pearl shouts to her student. Stevonnie gives a quick glance over to Garnet and Amethyst in the stands. Garnet smiles and gives a thumbs up as Amethyst simply shouts "You got this!"
"Begin!" Pearl's words ring through the air as the Holopearl charges, scimitar forward. Quickly thinking, Stevonnie redirects the sword swipe with her shield, and quickly backflips over the second swipe. Holopearl is relentless as Stevonnie dodges or blocks them. Seeing an opening, they go in for the attack, a quick overhead strike overpowers the Holopearl, one scimitar disappearing as it flies from its hand.
Now on the offensive, Stevonnie pushes back their opponent with a flurry of blows; overhand, left, right, left, thrust, each blow pushing their opponent closer to the edge of the arena. Stevonnie got a little too overconfident however, and was caught off guard when a wayward punch sent them flying to the other side of the arena.
Gathering themselves, they formulated a plan to finish this fight. With lightning speed, each opponent charged, ready to end it. Stevonnie leaped into a front flip high in the air, glowing with pinkish energy. In a flash Stevonnie unfused. With the front flip's momentum, Steven hurled Connie forward, behind the Holopearl, and Steven dove down, ramming into the foe shield first. The Holopearl was dazed from the blow, and couldn't recover in time to stop the sword impaling it from behind. The hologram exploded into a million shards of light. Steven and Connie's breathing slowed with a sense of satisfaction, knowing they won.
Grand Cathedral
The catacombs shook violently after he landed a solid hit, Big Band watched as most of the skullgirl's form withered away.
"We've almost got her!" he wheezed, the fight taking a lot out of his systems. "Finish her off Peacock!"
With a small nod, the living cartoon whipped her hat off and Avery charged up Argus Agony.
"See ya around, Marie." Patricia said solemly, she bowed her head as Avery let rip, finishing off Marie for good and ending the whole ordeal.
Silence filled the catacombs as the skull heart floated there, helpless and waiting to be finished off.
"Are you going to be alright P?" Big Band went to comfort Peacock. After all, she just lost a friend.
"Yeah, we had to do it. How about you Woodwind? Marie roughed ya up quite a bit back there."
"I'll be fine, I've been through worse. Now lets finish the- What!" Big Band turned only to find the Skull heart was no longer there. "Where'd it go!" He looked all around the room, but just as he was about to start a full on search, the room started to shake. Stone rained down from the ceiling of the Catacombs as they started to collapse. "We'll worry about it later, come on P, let's boogie." He grabbed Peacock and sat her on his shoulders before blasting off to the exit.
Outside the Grand Cathedral, The nun watched as the catacombs collapsed, sending a good portion of a city block with it. She opened the small chest she carried with her and started to speak. "It seems that relying on people with personal vendettas has only led to failure. Perhaps we need to look elsewhere for a candidate, a place with no ties to our world." Nothing more was said as a sickly blue light poured from the chest.
Ancient Sky Arena
"I'm very proud of you both. You fought very well today!" Pearl praised her two students as they walked out of the arena.
"We couldn't have done it without such a great teacher!" Connie enthusiastically thanked Pearl for training her.
"Well thank you Connie!"
"That move you guys did unfusing like that! That was so cool!" Amethyst reached out to the two for a high five. Connie and Steven happily obliged.
"You both did well, great job" Garnet said with a smile. Connie and Steven both felt pride in their accomplishments, they knew that not even a year ago, they couldn't have imagined how well they can fight now.
The conversation continued as the 5 stepped onto the warp pad, the shining beam rapidly descending upon them and carrying them away. It was an odd feeling, flying through the warp. Connie wasn't sure she'd ever get used to it, even though she's traveled this way many times in the past.
She didn't realize that this trip was going to be nothing like any of the others.
She felt a force start tugging her from the warp. Steven was the first to react, noticing the sickly blue glow around Connie, he grabbed her hand, but she didn't stop moving. The force started pulling harder, her hair clipped through the side of the stream. Garnet grabbed on to Steven and pulled, but it seemed to have the opposite effect, dragging Connie out farther. Pearl reflexively grabbed Garnet, and Amethyst Pearl, but to no avail. All of them; Connie, Steven, Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst were drug from the warp into the void. They started accelerating, faster and faster.
"Don't worry Connie! We've got you!" Steven cried out, but he could feel his grip slipping. Ahead of Connie was a light. A small tear in the void that they were being pulled to.
"Just… Hold… On!" He cried, but to no avail, his grip slipped as they all tumbled into the tear.
Maplecrest
Filia sat on her porch, staring into the night sky. "It's such a beautiful night, Isn't it Samson?"
"Yeah, It's pretty nice out here… Well would you look at that!" Samson pointed up into the sky, as five shooting stars flew overhead.
