She thought it would hit; Pearl actually believed Sugilite's stone fist would smash that monster right in its hideous face. But even that proved too good to be true, for just as the shadow of the five-ton rock shrouded the Reaver's gawking face, and Pearl's heart threatened to leap from her chest, its feathered head jerked to the right with impossibly-quick reflexes, and it threw its entire body down unto what remained of its gem horde, landing on all fours. The only thing her fist managed to destroy was some of the stone wall and the flowers that grew upon it.

Still in position, the Reaver cocked its head at Sugilite all wolfish-like and let out a screech, its wide eyes betraying the intimidation it likely felt at seeing such an imposing foe enter the fray. With a single tug of its rope, the fist went flying back towards Sugilite and she caught it in her two topmost hands. A cocky smirk played across the fusion's plump lips. "You're a quicky, ain'cha? Don't worry, I'll go slow...keh keh keh." The Reaver let out another roar, the feathers around its neck bristling. Slinging her weapon over her shoulder, Sugilite leaned over a little and gestured her head to the mound of gemstones the beast was perched upon. "You got alotta mula, baby. Tryna compensate for somethin'?"

Normally, Pearl would huff and groan and roll her eyes like two pin-balls towards Sugilite's crude jests, but she actually did make a point. How many of those are actual Gems? Pearl shuddered to think; there were just so many, it was such a dizzying thought. Pearl almost lost her grip on the emerald tulips, she became so dazed. But once she shook her head, her eyes gravitated to Steven. He was way over yonder, dashing over the little stream and running to Sugilite with such energy that one would think he was going to the candy store.

Sugilite seemed to have finally noticed Steven herself, despite her eyes being hidden behind shades, the Fusion's head tilted ever so slightly down at the little speck crying out her name, and her cocksure smile broadened. "You know who this is, bozo?" she asked rather aggressively.

The Reaver let out a rather wimpy, almost hesitant-sounding bray, and shuffled a bit within its gem pile. What's it doing? Pearl watched the whole scene play out as she swung her whole body along the wall, grabbing at every vine and her foot jamming into every groove. It couldn't be...afraid, could it? Of Sugilite? No...no, Reavers fear nothing, even when on the brink of death they fight tooth and nail.

"This's my boy, Steven," Sugilite replied; her arrogance was amplified tenfold in this void of a cavern, and the Reaver continued to shuffle around a bit. "He's that number one fan of mine you were tryna eat. Tsk-tsk, baby. And now look, you're just a scared little pup now that someone your own size is here. I'm gonna enjoy pummlin' your ass into the ground," she mocked with glee.

Pearl froze upon the wall when she saw the faint glow emanating from the back of the Reaver's maw, so dull it was that even she would have missed it if it weren't the very thing she was keeping an eye on. But when Pearl saw the beast's eyes keep going back from Sugilite to Steven, a cold hand seized her throat.

And a scream tore through it:

"SUGILITE!"

"Huh?" For a brief second, behind those shades, Pearl and Sugilite's eyes met; only for a second, however. But in that instance, Pearl sensed a familiar animosity that she and the Fusion had shared not too long ago; in the one eye Pearl could see, nestled between Sugilite's brows, she actually felt the heat of that scathing fire rekindling, that lemon-bitter grudge for leaving her behind at the communication hub, and for defeating her with her own weapon. But this shared glance lasted for only an instance, for a brilliant amber glow blazed forth from the opposite end of the cavern, and Sugilite's full attention was snapped back at the Reaver, her face for once displaying shock and surprise, as opposed to hatred and conceit.

The energy blast came full-force, a locomotion of pure energy that whined so loud Pearl thought her ears were to burst at any moment. The air around it became distorted as it rammed so heedlessly towards the oblivious little boy. Sugilite had to act quickly, both she and Pearl knew, and act she did, to the best of her ability. When Sugilite hurled her stone fist into the beam, Pearl was sure that the ensuing explosion would result in the ceiling raining down on top of their heads. But even she had to gasp, in both awe and sheer horror, when the blast dissipated just inches away from Sugilite's stone fist, and in the blink of an eye the Reaver was right in front of it, snatching the thing in its angled forelegs as a mantis would its prey, and tugged at the fist hard. Sugilite went flying forward, but she was still prepared for the headbutt the Reaver tried to land on her skull; she grabbed the monster by the lower jaw with her upper mitts, and then slammed the lowermost set into the beast's unprotected gut. The monster went soaring back and crashed into the pile of gemstones that still remained, dashing the rest into every direction of its vicinity in a tidal wave of colored stones.

When twirling the rope around one of her arms, Sugilite looked down at her weapon and realized it had been severed from its stone fist amidst the stuggle. Sugilite howled all warlike, beating her fists against her chest as she cast the rope aside. "C'mere you little bitch!" Sugilite charged at the monster with all the rage and raw power of a stampeding rhinoceros.

"Sugilite! Sugilite! Kick that thing's butt!" Steven cried, fists pumping in the air. At the opposite end of the cavern, the nasty fight between Sugilite and the Reaver raged on; at that moment, the Fusion had all four arms hugging the beast from behind, with the uppermost hands pulling its forelegs back. The Reaver's screeches and brays howled throughout the vastness of the cavern, every one punctuated with the mighty creature slamming its entire body with Sugilite on it into the walls. Tremors and falling debris joined the chaotic harmony of battle.

Pearl had finally rejoined with Steven; she was breathing heavily from her frantic climb to get to him. "Steven, we're going!" She urged him on with a tug of the sleeve.

Steven complied, though he still whined as he ran by her side hand-in-hand, "But I want to see Sugilite take that big guy down!"

"No you do not!" Pearl and Steven passed through the mouth Sugilite had created in her entrance, dancing around the boulders and debris scattered about the area leading up to it. Purely by instinct, a cold, maternal instinct, Pearl scooped the boy into her arms and ran faster when she heard the Reaver scream, followed immediately by Sugilite howling in pain. She dared a glance over her shoulder.

Sugilite was stumbling back, her big mitt groping at her own face. "Augh!" she groaned. Sugilite pulled it away, revealing on her face a huge gash that ran from her temple, all the way down the right side of her face and crossing over a pair of eyes. There was no blood, of course; Gems don't bleed, but the pain was still there, and the rage glowering in her three remaining eyes was as clear as the snarl printed on her mug. "Those were my favorite shades!" Sugilite channeled her rage into a dual punch into the Reaver's mug

It opened its beak wide and champed down on both hands before the attack could connect, but Sugilite still had two more, and as she grimaced and groaned at the pain of its clamped jaws, she used to crush the beast's head in between the two that were still free. It cried out, releasing her hands in doing so, and Sugilite used this opportunity to slam them into the beast's gut, and then smash it overhead with the upper set. The Reaver was on the floor, pushing itself up slow, weakly. "You think you're somethin'?!" Sugilite did not give the beast time to answer, for she brought her knee up for a mighty crack upon the Reaver's jaw.

"You ain't nothin' but a waste o' skin!" Sugilite dropped herself unto the monster's back, making it cry out, and grabbed a fistful of its sandy-brown plumage to tug its head closer to her; watching it bent back like that, one would be forgiven for cringing at the torture the Reaver was likely feeling in its neck. Sugilite, ugly face twisted into an even uglier snarl, said to the the beast, "And you deserve to be creamed like one," before two hands grappled the Reaver's beak. Sugilite's teeth grit and frothed and gnashed as she forced it open like the jaws of Pandora's Box; her hands quivered and trembled against the Reaver's iron-willed hindrance, veins along her forearms bulged so big they ought to burst, and her face attained an even darker shade of purple the more muscle she put in. All the while, the feathered scaly mass beneath her burly figure wreathed and fought and kicked and scraped, doing all it could to fight back. Sugilite gave it the occasional knee into the kidneys, or tightened her second pair of arms around its throat; doing so made the beast cough up some green phlegm in between howls.

When its beak was just partially opened, Sugilite saw a chance and pressed down upon her foe's face. A stomach-churning SNAP! cracked through the cavern like a whip, immediately followed by the Reaver screaming in its unintelligible language. Sugilite leaned one knee into its stomach, looking down at the crazed beast with contempt. "You got a purdy mouth!" she said, eyeing the Reaver's snapped maw. With two still holding the Reaver's jaws in place, a third hand plunged into its black pit of a throat with the deadly precision and quickness of a missile. Squashing flesh and bones snapping replaced its horrible song.

Pearl made sure to hug Steven's head close to her chest, to block as much sight and sound as doing so would permit. Only when a sharp whoof filled the cavern, like the sound of one blowing out a candle, did Pearl and Steven gaze upon the carnage. Sugilite was walking towards them, her trademark smugness on proud display. Behind her, was nothing. No Reaver, just gemstones that scattered about the place amidst their battle.

"Alright! Sugilite!" Steven whooped in Pearl's arms. The prim and proper Gem had to allow herself a smile as well; when Sugilite did a job, she did it well.

The massive Fusion was rolling her head and shoulders as she walked, several loud pops emanating from within. She did look quite beat up, as the bruises on her face and the the scar going down it would testify, and her outfit was a tad more ripped than usual. Her lower set of arms folded across her breast, lilac skin tarnished into a dusty grey from rolling around with the Reaver, and their forearms' wide girth etched with dust and hundreds of little red cuts made it look like she was just wrangling a lion. Sugilite put a hand to her face, and much like Garnet, a bright flash materialized a new set of shades over her four eyes. The scar gashed down over a pair, now partially covered, gave Sugilite the illusion that she was crying. But the smirk on her plump lips said otherwise.

"Ain't no one better than me," she announced proudly.

Steven wriggled out of Pearl's grasp and galloped towards the Fusion, whose fifth eye was looking down right at him. "Sugilite! You were so cool! The way you charged at that guy, like BOOM! That was a-maz-ing! And-And when you said, 'C'mere you little bi - '"

"O-kay, Steven! That's enough!" Pearl cut in with a nervous titter. Way above, she swore she could hear Sugilite snort and saw her eye roll, but she said nothing about it. "Sugilite, did you retrieve the Reaver's stone after besting it?"

Sugilite's tongue ran across the surface of her topmost teeth, and she was looking off to the side, giving the impression that she was deep in thought. After several seconds, she said, "Sorry, what? Stone?"

After all the terror and screaming and fighting and now this, Pearl felt her own gem was to pop off at any given moment. "The Reaver's stone, where is it?" A cyan flush slowly crept up her neck.

The Fusion simply shrugged her massive shoulders. "Sorry, baby. I was too busy giving the thing a tonsil checkup to remember its stupid stone."

Pearl's eye twitched; she immediately thought of Amethyst. Steven's little voice suddenly cut in, whiny and childlike: "Aw, does this mean we gotta look around all these gems 'till we find the Reaver's?"

Pearl burst out with a lighthearted chuckle. "No, no, thankfully Steven - "

"The animals of our home planet don't got gemstones, baby. They got rocks instead, and Reavers got granite," Sugilite explained; Pearl stared daggers up at the Fusion, though she knew they wouldn't even pierce her exterior.

"That is why," Pearl continued slowly, "we need to find its stone and destroy it. So Sugilite, thank you for your assistance, but if you could split back into - "

"Wait!" Steven interrupted. "'Destroy'? We're gonna destroy it instead of bubbling?" Pearl looked upon his face, suddenly so hurt, so confused, so innocent; a gripping burn in her bosom flared when he asked, "What if we can help it, like I did with the Centipeedle?"

He's so much like his mother, Pearl thought mournfully. She walked over to Steven in just a few long strides and knelt down to his level; she put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and explained gently, "Steven, Reavers aren't like the corrupted Gems we've been fighting; they're monsters, animals acting purely by instinct and nothing more."

"Like bears?"

Pearl chuckled. "Yes," she answered, smiling warmly, "like bears. But Reavers are among the most dangerous creatures on our planet, maybe even the galaxy. There's no way to tame them, no way to understand them. All's we can do, sadly, is put it down."

Pearl was amazed that, despite being nearly killed numerous times today, Steven's face still looked stricken with hurt when realizing what must be done to the Reaver. He really is like his mother. "Okay, I understand," he mumbled.

An obnoxious personality cut through the silence. "Ah, c'mon Mom!" Sugilite knelt down, slowly easing herself unto her belly and propping herself up on a set of elbows so she was at eye-level with the two smaller Gems. "Let the kid keep his pet; what's the worst that could happen?"

He could die you lunatic! "Absolutely out of the question," Pearl snapped firmly. "Now Sugilite, we'll get this done much faster if you would be so kind as to split back into Garnet and Amethyst, so...please do that." Pearl couldn't ignore the anxiety writhing about in her gut; she just did not have the energy right now to drop a rock on the Fusion's head.

Sugilite rested one cheek in her hand, the other drew a big meaty finger along the stone before her. "Nah," she answered.

"Sugilite!" came Steven's voice.

The Fusion turned her massive head towards the little boy and grinned. "What's up, Steven?"

"Sugilite, can you please turn back into Garnet and Amethyst?"

"Sorry, Junior. That ain't gonna fly." Already Sugilite sounded disinterested in the conversation.

Steven, however, wouldn't let her off that easily. "But I said 'please'!" he pointed in his own childish way.

Now all of a sudden, Sugilite sounded like Amethyst, playing along with the child's games. "Kid, I got nothin'," she said, throwing a hand up. "The Magic Word just don't got an effect on me; I had shots, man. I'm immune to that word. You know, science and junk. Bird-Nerd knows what I mean, right Nerdy?"

Pearl crossed her arms and scowled at the Fusion. Sugilite snickered a bit behind a close-lipped sneer; she knew just how to get under her skin.

"But Garnet and Amethyst are my friends!" Steven insisted. "Come on, Sugilite. Be cool."

"What?!" She pouted, which slunk into a nasty scowl. "You know, you're bein' a pretty lousy number one fan right now. So you'd better watch your mouth, baby, cuz I'm totally cool; cooler than you'll ever be."

"No, you're not!" Steven had the gall to snap back. "If you were cool, you'd let my friends go instead of being a big jerk. Well if that's the way you want it, then I'm not your number one fan anymore!" With that, Steven turned his back on the massive Gem, arms folded and face stuck in a firm grimace.

"Dude, really?" Sugilite deadpanned.

"Not talking!"

Pearl stood far back and looked on the display, her lips slightly parted but with no words coming out; she couldn't help but be hopelessly confused - were they actually fighting? Why were they speaking like a couple of good friends? When did this relationship even become established, and why would Garnet ever agree to fuse into Sugilite for anything other than a dire emergency? All these questioned race round Pearl's aching mind, to the point where she started to become a little angry at the many implications this carried.

Sugilite ran a hand through her bush of a hair. "Steven, buddy, you're killin' me over here."

Steven began to rock back and forth on his heels. "Nope! I'm never speaking to you ever again!"

The Fusion rubbed a hand across her perspiring forehead, then sighed into it deeply. "Alright Steven," she finally said. "I'll split, but only because I think you're cool."

"Thanks, Sugilite," Steven said, turning with a smile. "And I promise, next time we'll totally lift or something."

"Sounds like a date, little man," she purred. "Don't worry, I'll go slow for you, since it's your first time with me."

Steven showed no break in his smile, ignorant of the Fusion's dirty saying. But Pearl did, and she was growing increasingly annoyed by this banter. "Sugilite."

Sugilite thrust a giant, sugilite-crusted fingernail at her. "You, Bird-Nerd, shove it." Sugilite whipped her face back to Steven and held out one massive paw to him. "'Kay Steven, I'll catch ya later."

"Later, Sugs." Steven smacked her hand with his own, which to anyone else would've looked utterly ridiculous given their size difference.

Sugilite's entire person emanated a brilliant lavender glow, then lost its shape, though an amethyst and two garnets still remained. The mass separated, and in a final burst of light Amethyst and Garnet sat where Sugilite once was.

"Guys!" Steven cried.

Garnet was the first to push herself to her feet, then she held out a hand for Amethyst and helped her up. "Good work, Steven," the taller Gem said. "You actually talked down Sugilite."

"Yes, indeed," said Pearl, approaching the group. "Steven, that was incredible! How did you do it?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders in his own Steven-y way. "I just...talked to her, I guess. I don't even know what I'm doing half the time."

But I do, Pearl thought behind a smile. She thought back on the Centipeedle, and Lapis, and now Sugilite. All of them, he only spoke to them, no violence necessary. He really, truly is like his mother.

But from the corner of her eye, her teammates' voices becoming just muffled noise in the back of her head as she turned, Pearl saw a small figure move in the back on the cavern, sliding down what remained of the gemstone horde. Her eyes widened, and breaking into a sprint faster than a bat out of Hell Pearl called out, "After her!"

"Wha-What? Who!?" Too slow to keep up on his own, Garnet allowed Steven to hitch a ride on top of her hair.

With a skip over the stream, her swift pace unbroken, Pearl only called out, "Another Gem!"


Can I just say, I had a freakin' BLAST writing Sugilite?