Steven and the other gems appeared on a warp pad on an island Steven had never been to before. It looked relatively barren and sand filled, save for the massive tower made of many pillars pointing up into the sky. There was a strange blue energy flowing from the inside of the tower and up into space.

"What is this place?" Steven asked, looking up and finding that he couldn't even see the top of the tower. "This is the gem communication hub," Peridot said, looking up at the tower with a similar form of wonder to Steven, which was something usually reserved for Lapis, who didn't seem to care, "A long time ago it was used for communication across countless galaxies, a marvel of gem technology. It's been dormant for several millennia, but recently it's started releasing waves of electromagnetic energy that are disrupting human technological frequencies."

Steven looked up at her blankly, having no idea what Peridot had just said or how to decipher it. He turned to Jasper, who said, "It's like a big gem computer. It's hurting the TV." She explained, Steven gasping in shock.

"I'll save you TV!" Steven shouted, running at the tower and kicking it, doing precisely nothing to the tower and hurting his foot from how solid the tower's pillar was. Lapis snorted, walking over and bringing a bubble of water from the nearby ocean along with her. "Sorry Steven, to wreck this thing up, we'd need a Steven," She held out her hands, the water taking the shape of a water double of Steven, but taller with cartoonishly large muscles, "At least this strong!"

Lapis puppeted the strong man Steven water clone over to the towers pillar. It started punching the pillar, and while it was actually doing damage, punching off small chunks of the pillar, it was clear that it was not doing nearly enough damage, and it could have been hours before they made it through even the first of what must have been dozens, maybe even hundreds of pillars making up the tower.

"We could be here all day if we try to take these pillars out individually." Peridot said, her finger screen forming to scan the tower. Lapis sighed, the water Steven dissipating, "I hate it when you're right, you get that look on your face." She said, indicating the smug grin that had already formed on Peridot's face.

"Mock me if you want, but we need a well executed plan in order to-" Peridot was cut off by Jasper, "That sounds like it'll take forever and be boring the whole way through. What we need is Malachite. Lapis, fuse with me."

Lapis and Steven both gasped, Lapis grinning ear to ear, "Oh yeah!" She said, rushing over to Jasper. Peridot looked worried, "Um, Jasper, that might not be the best idea. You and Lapis can be a bit… Unstable when your personalities combined. You should fuse with me instead, that way we can be more careful and-" "We don't need to be careful," Jasper said, "We just need to be huge. Let's go Lapis."

Steven grinned excitedly as he watched Lapis begin dancing towards Jasper, who was took ahold of her hand and twirled her and dipped her down before they're bodies began to glow, merging together into a new body.

Steven's eyes widened into stars as Peridot took a few nervous steps back. The fusion gem, Malachite, stood at least three times taller than Aventurine was, and was sort of like a centaur, with four legs and two arms, though all four legs and both arms all ended in hands with no feet to be seen. Her skin was a lighter blue than Lapis', with darker bluish green stripes across her body like the orange stripes on Jasper's body. Her had a giant mane of bright white hair and four eyes and all looked down at Steven and Peridot.

"Woah! You must be Malachite!" Steven said. "That's right little man," Malachite said with a toothy, fanged grin, "Wanna see something cool?" She questioned. "Definitely!" Steven shouted up to her.

Jasper's helmet appeared on Malachite's head, though it was the same bluish color as the rest of her, and Lapis' wings sprouted from the gem on her back. She reached back, plucking the wings off and raising them up, placing her on her helmet, where they solidified, sharpened, becoming horns on the helmet.

"Awesome!" Steven shouted, "Are you gonna wreck stuff with your horns?" He asked, Malachite nodding, "That's the plan, where should I start?" "Do that one!" Steven pointed to the pillar that he and Lapis had been attacking moments before.

Where even Lapis had been unable to do more than chip away at pillar, the entire thing was shattered when Malachite's horned helmet smashed into it. Malachite lifted her hand, pulling a giant hand of water from the ocean that came over, grabbed the rubble that had been made by the first pillar and threw it out into the ocean.

Malachite repeated this process with the next pillar, and the next one after that, sending chunks of debris in all directions with zero awareness of the fact that a few of them were coming down towards Peridot and Steven. Peridot blasted one chunk that would have crushed them both with her hand cannon, though a smaller piece broke off and hit Steven in the side of the face.

"Ugh, this is exactly what I was talking about." Peridot grumbled, holding up her hand to form a forcefield around her and Steven, "You're just too much!" She shouted up at Malachite. "Maybe you're just too little." Malachite laughed, headbutting another pillar that gave way immediately under the force of the attack.

Grumbling, Peridot kept her forcefield up as she and Steven walked back over towards the warp pad. "What about Malachite?" Steven asked, "She can find her own way back." Peridot said in annoyance, activating the warp pad and teleporting back to the temple with Steven moments before a giant piece of debris landed on the warp pad, shattering it into many pieces.


It had been almost a full day since they had left Malachite to destroy the communication hub. Steven had been super hyped up when he had returned to the beach before, seeing Malachite's strength having gotten him into the spirit for training and improving. When summoning his shield to practice with hadn't worked, he had settled for just training his body the old fashion way.

And realized, quite quickly, that he sucked at it. Granted, he did still have natural quartz strength, but actually exerting it seemed to have adverse effects on his body. Peridot seemed to notice this, and had tried to convince him to slow down, but he was too excited by Malachite's strength.

"Steven, physical strength isn't everything you know," Peridot said, "If it were, I certainly wouldn't be of much use." She muttered quietly to herself, not knowing that Steven had heard it, "There are other ways to be strong. There's courage, there's charisma, not to mention intelligence and strategy. There's a reason we almost never use Malachite in a battle, she just doesn't know what to do anything but break things. Sure, she's good at it, but that's ALL she's good at. You need to learn to be strong in the real way."

Steven had thought on this matter, and as he spoke with the other people who had started working out with him, realized that what he lacked as a bodybuilder himself, he more than made up for in his skills to inspire others, driving the other people to keep going long after they would have stopped on their own.

Things seemed to go well for the rest of the day, until the tide seemed to go out early, drawn away from the shore by some mysterious force. Looking over, the crowd of people was shocked to see that it was coming from Malachite, who was making her way towards the beach with scowl on her face. "Malachite!" Steven shouted excitedly as she stepped onto the shore, the water all being held behind her, "Good to see you're back." Peridot said through her teeth.

"You left us behind." Malachite said accusingly. "You were wrecking the place, we couldn't exactly stay there," Peridot said, "It was a logical choice to stay out of the debris ra-" Peridot was cut off by a fist firing out of the water and sending her flying into the side of the cliff. "Ow." She grumbled. Steven's eyes widened nervously as he realized that Peridot had been right about Malachite being too aggressive.

Peridot stood, glaring up at Malachite. "You've been fused too long, you need to separate." Peridot said calmly, Malachite letting out something like a growl, "I don't want to. I'm suck of being split up!" Malachite stepped forward, trying to step on Peridot. She jumped back to avoid it and held out her hands, drawing in metal from the equipment that Steven and the others had been using to work out with and sending the weights flying at Malachite. The water washed over Malachite like a shield, blocking the weights and sending them out to sea. Peridot took a few steps back, forming her hand cannon and firing several shots up at Malachite. All the shots hit, but none of them seemed to do anything.

"Oh, so you wanna go now huh?" Malachite questioned, one of her hand-feet grabbing Peridot and sending her flying into the air. Peridot corrected herself in the air, her fingers starting to spin and allowing her to float. Her floating was stopped when Malachite brought her horned helmet down on Peridot, hitting her and sending her spiraling into the ground, where the water crashed into her.

Peridot washed up further up the beach, groaning in pain. "I'm sorry Steven, she's too strong for me. She was right..I'm too little.." "No!" Steven shouted, "I know you can beat her Peridot, you were right when you said she doesn't think, but you're strong and you can think! Show her that you're strong, strong in the real way!"

Peridot looked over at Steven, then back at Malachite, her expression becoming determined as she forced herself to get up. "I..I'm not done yet!" She shouted up at the fusion. "You want more huh?" Malachite lifted up too more waves. "Oh sure you're real strong right next to the ocean," Peridot shouted, "If you were actually tough, you'd fight me without it, or are you just scared of how bad you'd lose?"

Malachite growled, dropping her control of the ocean as Peridot took off running. Malachite followed Peridot across the beach and up a trail to a hill. She jumped off of the cliff, using her finger-copter to float off. Malachite roared up at her, standing on the edge of the cliff, and not realizing the problem with that until after Peridot's hand cannon sent a blast at the cliff, causing her to fall off of it.

Malachite's horned helmet flew off of her head, Peridot's metal powers letting her lift it up, though the size and weight of it was causing some strain. As Malachite landed, Peridot re-positioned the helmet before sending it flying at her, the horns slamming into her. Malachite's expression turned to one of unhappy realization as her mistake occurred to her, then she poofed in a burst of greenish blue smoke, Lapis and Jasper falling to the ground.

"Lapis, Jasper!" Peridot rushed over to them, "Are you two okay?" "Yeah," Jasper grunted, "Malachite just overworked us a little bit, it kinda hurts, but we'll live." "Thanks for stopping her, we kinda lost control for awhile there. You were right." Lapis groaned as she struggled to move. "Yes, yes I was." Peridot said, a triumphant smile spreading across her face.