Chapter 5: Three Gems and a Stand, Act 2
Had they been in a less serious situation, Garnet might have been slightly amused by the face Amethyst was making as she stared at Garnet's hand. It went from confusion to disbelief, to shock as the realization hit her. Their leader hadn't just picked this moment to start pulling jokes on them. No, they were indeed under attack.
Or perhaps attack is the wrong word to use. An attack implied that there was someone actively trying to cause them harm. Traditionally, through physical means, though psychological warfare wasn't unheard of either. This didn't fit any of those criteria.
To be honest, it was hard to tell if it was even supposed to cause any damage at all. Whatever was happening to Garnet's right hand… well…
It had started as a weird feeling. It wasn't quite her ordinary senses, nor her future vision. Something in-between. Call it a gut feeling. Then, the outer layer of the gem on her right hand, Sapphire's gem… had lost its color. Or rather, it had lost the maroon color of the garnet stone and gotten back it's sapphire blue.
Next, something had happened with her fingers. On the very fingertips, a grey layer had appeared. No, not appeared… growing. Yes, looking closer, Garnet could see the grey mass growing from her fingers.
She was reminded of when Amethyst and Steven had shown off their new fusion. Since Steven had a human body, the way it acted during fusion was a little different from an ordinary gem's. When they unfused, his body didn't glow or reshape itself from a mass of solid light. It sorta just 'plopped' out from the shinning mass that was Amethyst reforming body.
That didn't fully describe what was happening to Garnet's hand, but it's what she was reminded of. Rather than 'plopp' out of her, the grey mass was being slowly pulled out. By now, it had gone from looking like nails on her fingertips. It covered about half her fingers, with the edges at her fingertips poking out a bit more.
The most unsettling part was that she didn't feel anything. If she hadn't looked at it, she wouldn't have realized it was happening. It was unsettling. Garnet was a warrior. She was used to pain and danger. This… 'attack' was unfamiliar territory. She didn't know how to react.
"Okay," Amethyst said after a while. "Just what the hel…" she caught herself a stern look from Pearl. "…heck is that?" she corrected her words.
"I don't know," was all that Garnet could answer with. How many times had she said that today? Too many.
"It looks kinda like some tumor-thing," Amethyst said. When this earned her a raised eyebrow from Pearl, she was quick to explain: "I saw it on some documentary with Steven once. There's this human disease called 'kanser' and it makes their, uh… things grow like really fast. And it forms tumors, which are like these gross…" Lacking the words to explain what she meant, Amethyst decided to show them. She shapeshifted a small bump on her arm, and then slowly let it grow in size.
"It's apparently very dangerous," she continued her explanation. The bump on her arm was joined by several more all over her body. Within seconds, she was almost unrecognizable, covered in disgusting… tumors? "They have cut them out and stuff." She reverted back to her usual form.
"Well," Garnet said. "That's an interesting theory. But we're not organic so…"
"Amethyst!" Pearl interrupted her. "Exactly what have you been showing Steven?"
"Ah, well…" Amethyst quite audibly gulped. "I didn't show it to him, he was already watching when I came and…"
"No excuses! You should have known better than to show him scary stuff like that!"
"Pearl…" Garnet tried to step in to stop them. Amethyst, however, was already in defensive mode.
"Yeah, irresponsible me. It's not like, oh I don't know… we kinda drag him on all these dangerous missions all the time, you know? With scary monsters."
"Amethyst…"
"That's not the same thing!" Pearl shouted back. "Showing him other humans getting cut up…" She didn't even finish the sentence. The mere thought disgusted Pearl to such a degree, she had to hold back a gag reflex. And she didn't even eat.
Amethyst ignored her, and simply continued where she left off.
"Or how about that time he got kidnapped by a bunch of evil Homeworld gems and taken to court all alone and…"
Pearl's eyes went wide in shock and anger. A sore nerve had been struck.
"Oh, don't you dare…"
"Pearl! Amethyst! Focus!" Garnet didn't often shout. But when she did, you paid attention. Safe to say, the two bickering gems' attention immediately snapped back to Garnet and her… predicament.
And what a predicament. The 'tumor' (for lack of a better word) had kept growing during their argument. No longer was it just a thin layer of grey on Garnet's fingers. It had spread to most of the hand now, the entire back and some of the wrist. More alarming, however, was the fingers.
From Garnet's knuckles, five brand new fingers now protruded. Five grey fingers rose above the original ones, from which they came. And they were moving. Slowly, the fingers flexed, as to try if they worked properly.
"Okay, but seriously, what the hell is that?" This earned Amethyst a sharp elbow in the side.
"It's no 'tumour,' that's for certain," Pearl scoffed. "We're not organic, so human diseases can't affect us…" She grabbed Garnet's hand to have a closer look. "Hm, it looks almost like a…"
"A hand," Garnet interrupted her. Yes indeed, a second hand was growing out of her's. Like lightning from clear sky, a vision had come to Garnet. A clear vision of the future. In it, the grey mass kept growing, until she had a second arm… and then it kept growing. An identical copy of herself, but grey had grown out of her. And then… blank. The future showed nothing more.
That could mean many things. It could be that she simply lacked information; unless they could find out more about this phenomena, her future vision could only show her so much. However, there was another possibility.
That, if the copy was allowed to grow to full size, it would kill her, and she couldn't see past that.
"I saw something," Garnet declared to the others. "This," she made a gesture with her hand. "… will keep growing until it's a full copy of me."
"And then what?" Amethyst asked quietly.
"I don't know." Somewhere inside Garnet, something (most likely Ruby) swore that if she had to say that line one more time today… she would get really angry.
Better make sure she didn't have to get angry then.
Garnet looked back into the vision. There was one small detail she had noticed. Something that was off. It was true she could only see up to a certain point, and only herself and the copy in the vision. Except…
There! They were nearly invisible. Connected to the copy's back was a series of strings like it was a puppet. Going backward in the vision confirmed her suspicion. The copy wasn't growing from her. It was being pulled. Pulled out of her by small strings that were now connected to her back.
Back in the present, Garnet let her hand run over her hand, and then to her back. No strings. But still… now that she knew they were there, Garnet could have sworn she saw them in front of her as she stared at her hand.
"Pearl… you said that if you beat the user, the effect will stop, right?" The entire hand had emerged now. An exact replica in every way. Aside from the grey color, of course.
"Yeah," Pearl said. " How come? Do you have a plan?"
"Yes," Garnet said. The grey hand suddenly jerked, and forcibly grabbed Garnet's real hand, restraining it. With strength that could match the original, it began to try and crush the Crystal Gem's hand. Not that it did it any good. Garnet had foreseen it and locked the copy's fingers in-between her own.
"We find the user and beat them."
xxXXxx
"We find the user and beat them."
Of course, she heard that one clearly. The winds from the sea had drowned out all other words from the… um, Crystal Gems? Only indistinct chatter had reached her ears before. But the part about them beating her up? That part reached her perfectly fine! Seriously, was the world against her or something?
It probably was.
Upon the hill that ran alongside a good part of the beach, a young woman was hiding. Her name was Katey. And she was currently attacking the… cosplayers? Body paint cultists? Aliens? Whatever, the women with strange colors. Long strings extended from her hand and reached all the way down to the tall one with the cube helmet. Or at least Katey thought it was a helmet.
Mind you, she didn't want to attack them. She was forced to.
Katey P. had always been a normal girl. Not boringly normal, but not outstanding either. She had been visiting Beach City along with her family. They were currently on a one and a half week vacation. A well deserved one, if you asked Katey. Her family was a hard-working one, everyone always did their best. They deserved to take a week off, just relax and visit some new cool places. Beach City was a stop on the way, they had just arrived that morning.
At first, Katey hadn't been too impressed. A small, boring town, with the most unoriginal name ever. But over the day, it had grown on her. The beach was pretty beautiful, and there was a lot of fun people in the town to chat with.
One of the boys, in particular, had caught her eye. Now, Katey didn't think of herself as shallow… but what a hottie!
And then she got stabbed and blackmailed into attacking whoever these people were. Seriously, the white one looked sickly, she was so thin.
Speaking of which, the women had started moving. Katey didn't even bother swearing or berating her luck. She has already done that. She had no time for it either. She didn't understand fully how this weird power worked, but she knew she needed to keep within range, or else… something bad would happen.
She felt how something started to pull at the strings on her hand. Katey was doing her best, but a teenage girl crawling through the grass can only move so fast, and the three women were simply walking too fast for her to keep up. Thankfully, she could afford a couple of meters… The strings weren't pulling on her fingers just yet.
Katey felt her breath get faster and uneven. One of them. She only needed to kil… take down one of them, and the scary man would let her go. He would let her and her family go.
"Sorry," she whispered. To whom? The strangers she was attacking? Herself? Her family? Did it really matter?
She stood back up. The three women all had their sights turned towards the city. They wouldn't notice her now. Back on her feet, she could better keep pace with the three of them.
A morbid thought passed through her head.
'Let's play hide and seek. I'll start hiding. The loser dies.'
She ran behind the donut shop she had passed by earlier. The women were continuing on the boardwalk. Katey figured she had about thirty-five to forty meters range on her strings. And they would phase through any object that wasn't herself. So she could just keep hiding behind the buildings and they wouldn't ever find her.
The game was on.
xxXXxx
[Garnet]
The current leader of the Crystal Gems. The first ever cross-type fusion, between Ruby and Sapphire.
Gem Placement: Right palm (Sapphire), Left palm (Ruby)
Weapon(s): Gauntlets
Notable Powers and Abilities
•Strength-Despite her components being relatively physically weak, their strong bond gives Garnet immense strength. Currently the physically strongest Crystal Gem.
•Electrokinesis-Can generate powerful electrical currents and charges from her gauntlets.
•Thermal Resistance-Garnet can withstand high temperatures, being able to swim in lava (ca. 700-1 200°C)
•Rocket Gauntlets-Gauntlets can be launched like rockets for long range attacks. Need time to regenerate.
•Future Vision-Garnet can see and perceive possible future events and timelines. This ability can temporarily be transferred to another person.
Stats
Destructive Power: A
Speed: A
Range: D
Durability: A
Skill: A
Rarity: N/A (cross-type fusion)
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One of the difficulties with writing crossovers like this, I think, is to make sure you represent both sources. While JoJo-ing up SU is important, I also gotta make sure to Steven Universe-ify JoJo. Thing is, I find JoJo and SU fit strangely well together. For example, in this chapter, when Pearl and Amethyst start arguing while Garnet is under attack; I could see that happen in both series.
For that scene though, I did try my best to make it lean a bit more towards the SU end of the spectrum. I do feel like we've been missing some of that "oh, that's so Steven Universe!" feel. I'm a little mixed on it... I think it lacks a bit of energy, you know? It might have benefitted from a re-write. On the other hand, I did sorta promise to get a chapter out by today, so here we are.
Speaking of today, today is my birthday. Y'all better give some congrats, or else I might make you wait an entire week for a chapter.
Ah, yes, next chapter when?
...
Don't know. As I mentioned last time, writing's been a bit slower recently. For that, you can thank a combination of putting a lot of energy into finishing a big school project, and suddenly getting inspiration for another project, which consumed my writing fuel for a few days.
I'll try to get something out by the end of the week.
But until then, take care of the planet Earth, and remember that anything can happen in space!
PS. Any guesses as to what the new stand is called? I made this one pretty easy, I think.
