(Visit true-quartz on Tumblr to see the amazing illustration of Mystic Quartz by noordledoordle! They did an incredible job.)

It was difficult to determine whether the acid was coming from the maw of the gem mutant or from the spitting vents scattered around the igneous valley. Both the mutant and the vents glowed with a noxious green, and both had a similar spiral pattern etched around them. But unlike the vents, the mutant had begun to charge directly towards Steven and the other Gems.

Its lower jaw split down the center, and its tongue dragged in the dirt, leaving a trail of glowing spit as it ran. The thrashing tail swept the blackened dirt behind it, spine-fins erect, scales hardened and ready. All four legs pounded against the ground like the terrible beating of a war drum.

"Brace yourselves!" Pearl steadied her spear, her grip tightening.

The three warriors held their positions, with Steven readying himself in front. His sandals slid around underneath his feet, moving with him as one arm, caked in volcanic dust, raised up before him. Amethyst stepped back, winding up her wrist, and Garnet raised her gauntlets on the defensive, bracing for the worst.

The monster lunged, its hiss turning to a roar as it descended upon the Gems. Steven's field of view filled with a burst of pink. This was a bigger shield than usual, but it needed to protect all of them if they were going to catch this thing. A crash of claws scratched at the surface but didn't make a single line in the shield's face. One thrust of the boy's arm sent the beast flailing backwards into the dirt.

"Now!"

Amethyst leapt forwards and over the shield, slamming the whip over the beast's throat, turning its roar to a gurgle. As much as it thrashed, the studded tendrils kept the mutant restrained. Pearl's spear spiraled precisely into the malevolent teardrop-shaped stone in its flesh, and both speartip and stone were embedded for one split second. A burst of clouds and one last frantic shriek sent the gem mutant into recession, and the gemstone fell to the ground harmlessly.

Steven's shield receded with the glow of his gem. Garnet stepped forwards and picked up the stone as the other Gems' weapons were sent back. The mutant's stone was the same virulent green as the acid it spat, but subdued and blackened, like oxidized blood.

"Good work, Steven," Garnet said, reaching down to run her fingers through the child's curls. Steven beamed up at her, volcanic dust billowing out of his hair in poofy clouds.

Pearl gripped her spear and clicked her tongue in disdain, turning from acidic puddle to acidic puddle. "This must have been terrible for the local wildlife," she murmured, "and who knows how long it's been living here? Bubble it, please – it needs to be secure."

Pinkness enveloped the teardrop, and with a flick or her wrist, Garnet sent the mutant's gem back to the Burning Room. Midafternoon sun shone on the Crystal Gems as they walked past craters of green bile back to the warp pad. Though dormant, the puddles still hissed with postmortem rage, and Steven jumped back as a tiny green tentacle appeared to sprout from one and stretch towards his bare toes.

"Pearl?" he asked. "Are you sure that bubble's gonna be enough? These puddles look like they want to get at us a bit."

Pearl brushed a tentacle aside with her spear, its angry burbling disappearing as it splashed back into its ooze.

"These are just manifestations of that gem's dormant energy," she explained. "Like when your muscles tense in your sleep if you're running in a dream. They'll be gone in a few minutes."

"Wait, bubbled gems are just asleep?"

All three Gems paused as the group stepped back onto the warp pad

"Yes," Pearl said. "Just…asleep."

"How come Peridot – "

Behind them, the fading sound of boiling acid turned into a sudden cacophony of hisses and tiny frustrated squeaking. All of them turned to see a writhing coil of mouthed tentacles slithering towards them with the last desperate energy of a hungry, ireful monster. Each puddle fed into the vine of squirming eels-like mutants. An opening appeared near the 'head,' and the newly formed being managed a guttural roar.

"Pearl, just this once, I wanted you to be right about this!" Amethyst yelled, pulling out her whip once more.

The creature leapt up with a snarl. Garnet's right hand swept in front of everyone, grabbing it by the neck. With a squeal, it thrashed about in between her fingers. But instead of poofing, the monster merely dissolved, turning to slime in Garnet's hand.

"Aaaugh!"

"Garnet!"

Garnet stumbled backwards onto the pad, clutching her wrist. Steven had never seen her this disoriented. As the columns of light shimmered around them, the smell of burning slag made Steven's skin crawl. He reached up for Garnet, but the hissing sound of the acid droplets falling through the cracks into warp-space made him hold back. There was still danger.

Pearl, eyes wide, made no such reservation. As they landed back inside the house, she already had her arms around Garnet's shoulders.

"Garnet?" she cried. "Stay with us. We'll get you – "

But the white light had already started to emanate from underneath Pearl's hands, and Garnet's entire body lit up before two halves severed themselves. Ruby tumbled to the ground, unhurt and scrambling to get back up onto her feet again. Sapphire floated to the floor on her back, her right arm outstretched. Her fingers twitched around her gem, the once-polished surface cracked, cloudy and bubbling. She whimpered in pain, one tear sliding down her cheek.

"Sapphy!"

Ruby and Steven were on either side of her instantly, comforting her and staring down at her face and her injuries. Her breathing was labored, teeth grit, tension laboring her body. Amethyst came behind them, pushing in next to Steven.

"We gotta get her to Rose's fountain, stat!" she shouted.

"N-no, there's not enough time…" Sapphire said. "And the overgrowth will take too long to cut through, since we haven't been there for – two years? More? We shouldn't move…"

"What's happening to her?" Steven asked.

Pearl knelt beside Ruby, taking Sapphire's hand and exposing her ruined stone. Each motion sent a tremor down the smaller Gem's arm, and she gasped as Pearl examined her.

"It's eating at her gem from the outside," she whispered, covering her mouth. "The acid is sinking into her being. I've never seen anything like this before."

"How do we stop it?"

Amethyst grabbed Steven's wrist, putting it in front of his mouth.

"Spit, dude! Spit for your life!"

But Pearl reached forwards before Steven had a chance to get his tongue out.

"That won't work, not for this," she said. "Even if it heals the outside, the acid will have gone inside to the core, and the healing powers won't stop it."

"Then we gotta do it from the inside!" Ruby yelled.

"Well, how?"

In the silence, Sapphire's breaths and pained moans filled Steven's ears. This was such a small mistake, such a random chance. And he wasn't about to let another Gem die on his watch. The idea that came to him was sudden and unreasonable, but there was a chance. There was always a chance.

"I know how."

Everyone looked at Steven as he held onto Sapphire's wrist, bringing her hands together. She looked up at him with wonder, then her eye widened as she began to understand. In this state of pain, future vision was too painful to be accurate, but Steven knew that she knew the chances as well as he did.

"What are you doing?" Ruby asked, keeping one hand on Sapphire's shoulder.

"Steven and I are going to try to fuse."

The reactions were pretty much what Steven expected – silent, stunned, and dubious at best. But Pearl, after a beat, stood up and back, her brow furrowed.

"Steven's healing powers work in his body, from the inside. It's…possible that this could help heal her, but I don't know exactly how that works. This is all experimental, certainly. But what if it gets into your body, Steven? What if it hurts you, too?"

"Yeah, I could get hurt, but I don't care!" he cried. "Sapphire could get hurt more if we don't do anything, and if we don't try something then – "

He couldn't finish. Ruby's hand slid away as the child raised the blue Gem to a standing position, balanced with Steven's shoulders stabilizing her. There was the sting of acid through his shirt as her hand gripped him. Ruby, Amethyst and Pearl stepped back, a circle around the two.

"Are you ready?" she whispered.

"Are you?"

Their dance was labored by staggering and weakness in Sapphire's body. Steven held her as they spun, their bodies twisting on the floor. It wasn't working; the small blue Gem couldn't bear her own weight, holding on and pulling Steven down, forcing him to grip her tighter as she stumbled. Ruby bit into her fingers from the sidelines, unable to stop from crying. Finally, Steven swung Sapphire around, making her cry out before he pulled her close, digging his hands into her as if he was stifling the sobs from his own throat.

"Stay with me," he pleaded, "and I'll make you better. I promise!"

A swirl of pink sprang from his back and enveloped the pair in the light. The Gems watching them stared in awe as the blueness of the clear sky broke through. An opalescent series of sparks exploded from the sphere throughout the room, blowing books and papers aside in its wake. Petals and waves alike descended from the spire that emerged from the center of the blast, radiating in perfect patterns around each other, a cyclone of color that wilted away to show the figure within. The clouds cleared, and the observers uncovered their eyes to the sight.

They stood firmly on bare feet, skin of perfect lavender glistening in the afternoon. Curls of unkempt blue hair twisted around their face, three eyes staring at the unknown form – black, then navy, then cerulean. A sky-blue cloak drifted over them, covering a tight maroon shirt with a sparkling rainbow star-like shape in the center. Over the jeans, a dark sarong twisted as they stretched to their full height. The white gloves clenched and unclenched, and the new fusion looked at their left hand and the slightly damaged gem in the palm.

"Sapphy?" Ruby whimpered, staring up at the new figure.

They turned, and the smile was both familiar to all and unknowable. Amethyst was grinning, pretending that she wasn't wiping a tear away from her face. Pearl watched them stumble, her hand twitching, resisting the urge to help them stagger to their full potential.

"She'll be back," the fusion said in a voice with the brightness and the calmness of the first star at dawn. "But for now, it's just me. Us, I… We're here now. And it feels like it's working!"

"Working how?" Pearl said.

"The healing! I can feel it inside, slowly, in a way that Steven can't feel. It was always inside of him, always mending him from the inside. But I can feel it now, and it feels incredible!"

"Man, that explains what that was," Amethyst remarked with a smirk. "So whaddaya gonna be? If Steven and I are Smoky Quartz, you gotta be….uh…"

But they raised a hand, winking at Amethyst.

"Way ahead of you. You can call me Mystic. Mystic Quartz."

They smiled, but when they looked to Ruby, she was still staring, wringing her hands together. Mystic knelt down, trying to give a comforting grin. The little red gem chewed her lip, arms crossed behind her back.

"I know it's weird, Ruby, but this is for Sapphire. She'll be back before you know it, and you won't ever have to be apart again," Mystic murmured.

Ruby tried to force a smile.

"It's weird, still," she chuckled. "To be together for so long, and then it's like – just – like, fusion can just happen like that, and it means something so different? It's not like when we form Sugilite, or Sardonyx or Alexandrite. It's…"

"A different love?"

"Yeah."

Mystic stood with a smile to their full height. They were only slightly shorter than Pearl, firm but without Steven's pudgy boyishness or Sapphire's frozen aura. They were sublimated – the perfection of heat and cold, the past and the future.

The fusion looked at all gathered. "It's always a different love, Ruby. We can never have the same kind of love for everyone we know, because no two of us are the same, and we can never be. Sapphire's love for you will always be yours alone, and it can never change."

Stretching her arms into the air, Amethyst made it more than a little apparent that she was too antsy for all the emotional talk.

"What're we gonna do now, though?" she asked. "Do we just sorta wait for them to finish healing up? Or should we go to the fountain now that they're stable?"

"That's a good plan!" Pearl agreed, offering a hand to Mystic Quartz. "That will help it in both directions, with Steven on the inside and Rose on the outside, and there shouldn't be any ill effects if everything's working properly."

Mystic and Ruby exchanged a smile. They opened their mouth to reply, but their pocket inside their jeans started to vibrate. Everyone stared as they pulled back the sarong, bringing out Steven's phone.

"Huh. Looks like that's still there."

"I told Steven not to bring that along on missions."

"Pearl, you also tell him not to bring in stray cats. Lots of good THAT does."

"What?"

Mystic turned on the video call. "H'lo?"

"STEVEN!"

Peridot's screech made everyone simultaneously rush to gather around the screen. The shaky, fuzzy call was filled with the noises of water, the ground shaking, and horrific, yet familiar sounds in the background.

"They're back up!" Peridot continued. "Right out of the drill hole, they must've found a way through the loosened earth, and they're coming up! Lapis is holding them off, but – wait, who are you?"

"Oh!" Mystic cleared their throat. "Sapphire got hurt, so Steven fused with her to – "

"WHAT IS IT WITH YOU CRYSTAL GEMS AND FUSING."

"We needed the healing powers to – "

"Never mind! We need reinforcements now!" Peridot yelled into the screen.

Behind her, Lapis backed up to the entrance to the barn, manipulating a wall of water. The Crystal Gems gasped as they saw the horrifically twisted outlines through the shield.

"The gem mutants," Mystic murmured, eyes widening. "Peridot, we'll be right there!"

They shut off the call and started to sprint towards the door, but Pearl grabbed their arm. They twisted back, incensed and glowing with righteous fury.

"Mystic! You need to go to the fountain!" Pearl shouted. "We can help Lapis and Peridot on our own. If you exert yourself too much, then you could end up hurting yourself and something even worse can happen!"

But Mystic Quartz pulled away from Pearl with a strength that made her step back. The fusion made eye contact with the anxious Ruby, pausing for only a moment.

"I'm sorry, Pearl," they declared, "but I have to do this. If anything bad happens to you, then I couldn't ever let it go. And you know what us fusions are like…"

Ruby and Mystic shared a smile.

"We're always stronger together."

Mystic Quartz led the charge out the front door, throwing it open and hurtling over the porch railing to the beach. The three others followed behind, drawing their weapons and preparing for the worst. The battle at the barn was going to be fought together, or not at all.

The group reached the barn in record time, sprinting over the hill to the newly unearthed battleground. Mounds of freshly unearthed soil littered the landscape from where the mutants had shifted through the soil. In the sunlight, the wriggling limbs and monsters made a chromatic tide of body parts. Peridot's attack drones buzzed and zapped as they flew around, eliciting roars of pain from the invaders, lifting their limbs to swat at the robots. Lapis's fists punched through the wall of water, an enlarged version emerging on the other side to beat back the invaders.

Peridot had climbed to the roof, working with a remote to control her drones. Upon seeing the reinforcements arrive, she waved frantically, mashing buttons on what appeared to be one of Steven's old controllers. An arm with two hands on either end climbed up behind her, and she swung it off onto the ground where it twitched and gurgled at her in agitation.

"Alright! We just need to maximize the area and get as many of them as we can" Pearl shouted, swirling her spear as it manifested in front of them.

Amethyst drew her whip, swiping at the attackers. But there were too many hands, and they grabbed her weapon, tugging her towards the tide of bodies.

"Hey! Hands – feet – limbs off!" she yelled.

"Hwaaaa!"

Ruby was already charging forwards, fists raised, grappling with amalgams twice her size. Punching and kicking frantically, she beat away the brutes, but they came out of the ground around her, grabbing at her furious fists. Pearl was in the same situation, pirouetting around the landscape, dodging the mutants as they emerged from the underground.

Mystic stomped down on one of the limbs crawling towards them, poofing it in a cloud of orange.

"This isn't working!" they shouted. "We need to be taking them out, not just slowing them down! Before they emerge!"

What would Sardonyx do? Her hammer reminded Mystic Quartz of some sick Whack-a-Mole game, perhaps pounding the Gems back into the earth. But again, she wasn't here right now. The moles, the mutants, were moving too fast. What could stop them from –

The new fusion smirked coldly.

"Time to experiment."

Steven's shield emerged from their stomach, and their right hand raised as it spun in the air. As it swirled, coldness spread over its surface, turning the pink covering an icy blue. Cracks of frost appeared on the shield's surface, and on its edges, it spun and spun until razor-sharp icicles appeared, a deadly augur readied on Mystic's left arm as they readied the throw.

Leaping back, they readied their weapon, all three eyes glowing with the future calculations, the impossible perfection for the impossible throw, how to hit as much as possible as hard as possible.

The release made the shield sing as it spun, a sky-blue whirl of power and pain that blazed over the battlefield. It sliced into the flesh of a mutant made of too many arms, towering over Amethyst with its fists raised. The monster screeched as the shield cut straight through its body, severing it in a searing light before it exploded into dust, its misshapen gemstone falling to the grass.

Ricocheting off of that body, the shield hit with expert precision, bouncing off of the different mutants like a pinball off of bumpers. Mystic Quartz ran for the barn door where Lapis was struggling.

"Lapis!" they shouted. "Push back as much as you can! Flood the field!"

Even though the encouragement was helpful, Lapis was still dealing with some of the smaller fusions who forced their way through the wave. Peridot jumped back into the safety of the barn, a drone flying in behind her to clear off the stragglers. The blasts of energy sent the little mutants back into the wave, where they wriggled in fury. With one final shove, Lapis reeled back and sent the water washing over the lawn.

The mutants thrashed in the wave as Mystic jumped over, pumping their legs furiously as they floated to the center of the shallow spread.

"Everyone get out!"

On the command, Amethyst, Pearl and Ruby broke as best they could from their entanglement and shoved their adversaries towards the water. Landing on one knee, Mystic punched the surface of the water with their right hand in a frozen fist. Waves of ice spread over the surface, immobilizing all trapped within. Dozens of mutants were frozen in the wave, and more were yet struggling, their limbs and body parts trapped in the ice.

In the center, Mystic Quartz pulled up, standing tall with their handiwork solid around them. The ice shook as they stretched their open hands out over the sheets to either side of their torso. From the sidelines the Crystal Gems watched as the fusion closed their eyes, and in one motion clenched their fists.

A shattering spree radiated from the center of the ice, cracking and contracting in horrific tension with the Gem mutants trapped within. The entire hill shook as the Gems poofed, the multifaceted monstrosities exploding in their respective colors. Clouds of pale and pastel drifted down, and shimmering vapor lifted from the dampened earth. It was as if the ice had sublimated, leaving in its fog a crowd of poor, mismatched gems. Mystic bent down, scooping one of them up into their cupped fingers.

"I'm sorry," they whispered. "But you can't hurt anyone right now. Especially not yourself."

Cheering from around them snapped Mystic Quartz back to reality. Peridot was hugging an exhausted Lapis around her waist, as the blue Gem gave the new fusion a thumbs-up. Mystic returned the gesture with a shy grin. The other three came running up, bruised and dusty, but perfectly safe.

"That was awesome!" Amethyst shouted. "With the ice, and the phwoosh, and the SHKHKKH, and the everything! You gotta fight like that more, beat up some monsters like that."

"Well – "

Pearl interrupted, "Mystic, that was such wonderful strategy! Sapphire's ice, and Steven's projectile – graceful, even, if I do say so myself."

Mystic Quartz tried to smile, but they saw Ruby, and their attempt was brought back down to reality. Raising their hands, they put one on Pearl's shoulder, and the other on Amethyst's.

"I can't say that being me isn't wonderful, but there's someone who needs to be herself. We need to do what we need to do. For her."

Ruby had been rubbing her arm, eyes downcast until the last emphasis. Mystic looked down and truly smiled, with an understanding that only Ruby could ever know. Everything from the dance to the ice explosion had been for her sake, for the sake of the Crystal Gems. Garnet was going to be back because of Sapphire's precision and Steven's love. There was no other way, and there was no other goal.

"The barn lives another day!"

Peridot's screams brought the group back around. The little green Gem was riding her drones around in victory as Lapis watched from the inside door of the barn, leaning against the frame. Glancing towards the fusion, Lapis took a second glance, but she knew who they were. The smile was cautious and understanding all at once.

Mystic Quartz took the deepest breath.

"Let's go home."

The fountain at night was beautiful to behold. Moonlight poured in through the ceiling onto the rose bushes, the valley covered in the smell of the sanctuary. Mystic and Ruby sat by the edge of the water, the moonlight's reflection turning the pink pool into a beautiful lilac color, almost the same as Mystic's skin. Amethyst and Pearl had left them at Mystic's request.

"Is this how it's going to be now?"

Ruby's voice was low and confused. Mystic Quartz looked at their reflection, brushing the hair from their face. It was a valid question, one which nobody could answer.

"I don't know," they finally answered. "Healing doesn't always work like this, and goodness knows that we had a controlled situation. If we were on the battlefield, then things might have ended up far worse. Fusion with the Rose Quartz gem is different. It's not normal, especially because of…him."

"Steven? What about him?"

"He's still so different, something that nobody knows what to do with. Inside his mind are so many mysteries, so many questions. And all we can do is hope that one day, they'll be answered."

Mystic paused.

"Perhaps not by him, but by time itself."

Ruby stared at the water, at her own reflection. Both of them, unknown to the other, wondered how long it had been since she had seen her own face like this. The experience was like seeing one's self for the first time – and even now was she really herself?

Mystic looked at the blueness of their right hand, the gemstone embedded in the flesh. Closing their fist, the fusion let it down into the water, feeling the concentrated power of the long-lost warrior flowing in and through the last little impurities in the sigil. The flickering on the inside stopped after mere moments. No more poison, no more acid. Everything was normal again with the exception of one thing.

The purple split from the center of the fusion's body, and the pair twirled back down towards the earth. Steven's hand rested on Sapphire's shoulder, and hers on his hip, their other hands held together. On the marble around the fountain, Steven and Sapphire bowed towards each other in a fit of giggles.

"Sapphy!"

Ruby and Sapphire turned towards each other as if magnetized. Ruby's body slammed into the other as they tumbled back into their fusion. Garnet stretched as her body reformed, billowing light solidifying into the giant woman Steven has come to know and love.

"It's good to be back, Steven," she said, kneeling and facing the child. "Thank you so much. I was worried back in the beginning that I wouldn't get to see you again."

Steven hugged Garnet tightly, his little fingers clutched around her torso.

"I love you too, Garnet," he sniffled into her shoulder.

The two Gems hugged in the light, and Garnet picked the child up in her arms as the pair of them walked towards the warp pad. Once more she felt a sudden surge inside of her, a pulse of love for the life of this human child and the destiny ahead of him. But in her mind, reunited, there was another kind of love, no stronger or weaker, but still so distinct. All the flavors of love lingered in the air as they warped away, leaving a landscape of roses under the stars.