Chapter Ten: Failed Invasion
Vegeta and Blue Diamond went toe to toe, exchanging powerful strike after powerful strike, neither of them landing anything cleanly. They locked hands, Vegeta forcing Blue Diamond backwards, ever so slightly. "I've never met anyone like you before." Blue Diamond spoke through clenched teeth as she tried, unsuccessfully, to force Vegeta backwards.
This earned a laugh from Vegeta, who with a small push forced the Diamond even further back onto her heels. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." Vegeta yanked Blue Diamond into him and simultaneously flattened out, driving his knee into her stomach. And with a swift kick he sent her high into the sky, gripping her stomach in pain still trying to regain her bearings. Blue Diamond recovered and searched the beach for her adversary as she slowly descended. "Looking for me?" Her eyes shot up to Vegeta, just a mere feet above her. He powered up to super saiyan, narrowing his sites on her he clasped his hands together and brought them down onto her head, cracking her diamond plated helmet.
"General!" One of her Pearl's sprang into action, but was met with an energy blast, destroying her physical form, leaving a small cracked gem on the sand.
"You can't beat me," Vegeta spoke to the general in a mater of fact tone as she tore the now useless helmet from her head. "Give up." Blue Diamond chuckled and stood from the sand, cracking her neck, a defiant grin on her face.
"This fight's not over yet." The Diamond smiled, her face already battered. Vegeta exhaled sharply and shot forward to finish her off. With a swift side step she drew her sword and nicked his shoulder.
"What the hell...?" Vegeta swore under his breath as the intense pain in his shoulder radiated to the rest of his body. He was out of breath, in fact the very act of breathing was difficult, and he couldn't hardly move. Even his super saiyan strength seemed to be sapped away as he lost the transformation. "What have you-" Vegeta collapsed to one knee.
"You didn't think you're the first being I've met that's stronger than me, did you?" Blue Diamond laughed. "No, in fact I've met numerous beings whose physical strength exceeds what I could ever accomplish, so I had to find ways to best them." She lifted her blade, the blade a dark blue and it had a slight amount of the saiyan's blood on the tip. "Poison." She stated simply. "Well, a bio engineered neurotoxin if you want to be technical." Everyone looked on in horror as Vegeta was struggling to get back to his feet. "What's going to happen is your body is going to shut down, the cut on your shoulder will seer as if you were being burned, and you will look on helplessly as I kill everyone here." At that Vegeta tried to power back up, but he let out a scream of agony as it sent shock waves of pain through his body. "Don't bother fighting it. I'd prefer you didn't suffer." She threw her head back in laughter as she turned towards everyone else.
"Open fire!" Captain Dunn screamed, raising her weapon and popping off round after round. The Pearl's that remained took action, going after the infantry men, using the energy blasts from their spears to make short work of the small artillery on the beach.
"Release the hounds." Blue Diamond turned towards Coral who hung back away from the fighting.
Coral nodded and tapped a few things on her tablet and the warships came down towards beach city, releasing nearly 250 troops before ascending back into the sky. "Lapis, go deal with her ground troops. Keep those people safe." Jasper ordered turning towards her former commander, her crash helmet materializing. "Pearl, Peridot, Amethyst, help those soldiers." The three went into action immediately, Pearl engaged two younger gems and quickly overwhelmed them. Peridot fired shot after shot at the enemy forces, scattering them like rats. Jasper marched towards Blue Diamond who had an evil grin on her face. Garnet and Stevonnie hot on her heels.
"A fusion, a Jasper, and and two children fused together?" Blue Diamond scoffed. "Certainly I have more competition than this." They didn't respond to her, just rushing into the fight none of them were sure they could win.
Lapis flew high into the sky above Beach city for a better vantage point. The ocean gem made short work of the dozens of troops that were storming beach city. Water hands sprang from the ocean and latched onto the gems, crushing their physical forms into helpless gems. the commanding Pearl fired a few energy blasts at her, but it was futile, their spears weren't meant for long range combat. A water hand came crashing down onto the Pearl, flattening her onto the cement. The warrior didn't retreat into her gem, despite her instincts screaming at her to return to her gem. "Killing me won't stop us." Another water hand tore the spear from the Pearl's grip.
"Maybe not." The spear came crashing down and pierced her armor like paper. "But I'm going to take a lot of you with me." She smirked as her opponent retreated into their gem. With another water hand wiped a small squad of HomeWorld soldiers off the boardwalk, along with a few cars.
"No retreat!" Captain Dunn ordered her men, slapping another magazine into her assault rifle. "We couldn't stop them." Captain Dunn said quietly into her radio, knowing this battle was decided. "Do it."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Captain!" One of her men laughed, unloading on Blue Diamond as she easily dodged all of their attacks. The bullets were more annoying to Blue Diamond than anything else, but it did distract her long enough for Jasper to land a clean punch knocking her off balance. Stevonnie tried to capitalize on her but was thwarted by an energy blast from her sword, sending them flying into the side of the temple.
Jasper and Garnet panicked and began to throw a flurry of punches and kicks, anything to slow down Blue Diamond. The difference in strength and skill between her and her two adversaries quickly became apparent. The commander of the gem forces caught Garnet around the neck and used her as a weapon, smashing her into Jasper, their skulls connecting, before kneeing her in the face.
Garnet was limp in Blue Diamond's grip. "Hmph. So fragile." She stated coldly, slamming her body into the sand and pressing her foot onto the fusions head. Before she could destroy Garnet's physical form she was knocked backwards by a sudden burst of energy. Vegeta had managed to stand, shakily he advanced towards her, the pain he was in was obvious by the look in his eyes. "You're much stronger than I, but your body can only fight off my toxin for so long. And it'll stop you from transforming." Blue Diamond raised her sword. "You carbon-based life forms have always been susceptible to toxins."
"I don't need to be a super saiyan to kill you."
Blue Diamond charged him, Vegeta dodged her sword over, and over again. Vegeta was able to predict her attacks, but the toxin that was slowly shutting down his body was preventing him from landing anything himself. Vegeta caught her wrist, but before he could follow up with anything she elbowed him back down into the water. Vegeta struggled to stand back up, the toxin was now causing his vision to become blurred.
With a knee to his face she knocked him back down. "I admire your will power." Blue Diamond pointed the tip of her blade at the saiyan.
Clink
A sword smashed into her left shoulder, shattering her armor and nearly knocking her down. Turning to see Stevonnie standing, their shield raised, sites set on Blue Diamond. "You are becoming quite the pest." Blue Diamond snarled at the fusion. Rushing the general with great haste they rammed her away from Vegeta. Blue Diamond engaged them quickly forcing Stevonnie backwards, with nothing a but a shield. Stevonnie's inexperience quickly became apparent, being quickly overwhelmed by the much older, much stronger Diamond. She knocked the shield from Stevonnie's grasp and wrapped a gloved hand around their throat and crushing until the children separated and fell to the ground, disoriented. "It's sad, really, to waste a gem with such potential." Blue Diamond seemed genuinely displeased with what she was forced to do.
Captain Dunn had buried her combat knife in the general's thigh and was attempting to push her away from Steven. "You're a brave little human." She laughed kicking her away, with ease. She raised her sword, prepared to end this young woman's life. But something stopped her, there was a sound coming from her. "Is she laughing?" Blue Diamond tried not to seem overly frustrated with such defiance as what was a small chuckle turned into hysterical laughter. Blue Diamond examined her for a minute, recognizing the two bars on her caller. "What's so funny, Captain?"
The laughs grew louder, hysterical even as the woman sat up and removed her helmet, tossing it to the side. "Nothing.." She stifled another laugh. "You're just stupid, is all." At that Blue Diamond shot forward and pressed the blade of her sword to Captain Dunn's throat.
She shook her head. "Would you like to rephrase that?" Captain Dunn laughed and shook her head.
"No, killing me won't change anything. Because we're all going to die here." Blue Diamond joined in the laughter, as Jasper drug herself to Garnet and shook her ever so slightly. "There's nothing that's going to stop what's coming."
Blue Diamond smiled and leaned in close to her, smiling. "And what might that be?" She inquired but seemingly on cue a missile soared overhead and far out to sea, striking one of the warships in the sky.
The flash of light was blinding and that shock wave that came after shattered the every window in beach city. Blue Diamond looked on in shock and horror as three of her warships were engulfed in the nuclear explosion far out at sea. "Did you think they'd let ya win?" Captain Dunn threw her head back in laughter. "No, they're going to make sure no one survives this." Another two missiles came screaming by and into another two warships as they began to scatter like roaches. "Not me, not my men, not them, and certainly not you."
A massive wave came rushing towards the coast but was stopped before it hit the shore by Lapis, who could only half focus on holding the tides as she looked on in awe.
"They wouldn't drop a nuclear bomb here, they have soldiers, and civilians here." Captain smirked and tilted her head staring at Blue Diamond.
"Would that stop you?" Blue Diamond stood and turned towards the sky without a word. "I didn't think so." There was silence across the beach as the fighting ceased. She pulled a cigar from her vest pocket and held it in her lips, looking back to the general who was now watching the sky. "You came here with advanced technology that our military's wouldn't have had a chance against but you let your ego get the better of you," Blue Diamond turned and glared at this defiant young human. "You decided to fight it out with them, giving us adequate time to arm 75 nuclear warheads." Captain Dunn stood, a small smile on her face. "You're going to die here because of your own arrogance, General."
"You don't seem afraid." Blue Diamond hissed at her.
"I guess that's because I'm not." She shrugged, her eyes fixed on the sky, awaiting the detonation of a warhead that would surely be on it's way. Pearl listened to her speak, her mind rushing a mile a minute as she tried to think of someway she could save her friends. "Congratulations, everyone!" She shouted, turning back to her remaining men. "We've made it too the end." The remaining 20 men howled in excitement, a few even fired off some shots into the air.
"Is there anyway for you to call this off!?" Pearl half begged the Captain.
"The only way they'd call off the bombs is if they knew she was dead," She nodded to Blue Diamond who was watching her once her fearsome armada being engulfed in atomic fire. "And even then, they may rain hell down on this place for good measure. The military likes to be certain." There was a solemn silence on the beach. Lapis landed on the sand, she'd easily overwhelmed the under prepared HomeWorld gems. Forcing most of them to retreat into their gems, and the ones who hadn't, retreated to the beach.
Vegeta stood and staggered over to Steven, before collapsing next to the boy. "Steven," He gasped slightly as his respiratory system began to fail. "You need to put a force field around the city." Steven stared wide eyed at the saiyan.
A barrier around ALL of Beach city?
"I can't do that!" Steven said with an exaggerated sigh. "I've never made one that big, I'm not strong enough!" Vegeta chuckled slightly, resting his hand on Steven's shoulder.
"You just can't access that much of your power, at least not yet. So borrow mine." With a smile, you gave up what was left of his energy to Steven, whose hair stood on end as he felt the incredible power surge. "You can do it, Steven. You are far more powerful than you know." Vegeta assured his young companion as he faded into unconsciousness. With a determined nod Steven stood and faced the sea, after a small bang came from far off shore.
There were sobs coming from many of the HomeWorld troops as they waited for their seemingly inevitable annihilation.
Steven took a few deep breaths as the the light in the sky began to ark and make its decent towards Beach city. "I can do this. I have to do this." Steven felt the almost incomprehensible power that was surging through his body. Time seemed to slow down for him as threw his hands into the air and created by far the biggest bubble shield he'd ever made as it surrounded all of the temple and Beach city.
Sweat ran down Steven's face, the stress of creating such a large bubble and releasing more energy than his body could produce on its own was evident.
"What are you doing?" Blue Diamond questioned, amazed by his strength.
Steven glared at the Diamond. "Stop talking." He hissed through clenched teeth.
The warhead connected with Steven's barrier, the shock wave from the massive explosion rocked the town too its core. One of the already weakened arms of the Temple gave way and came crashing down atop the Beach house. Steven winced as he tried keep the bubble up, but the stress on his small body was almost unbearable. The bubble flexed under the pressure of an atomic explosion, but still, Steven fought to keep up the bubble shield.
"That's it, Steven." Garnet smiled, dragging herself to her feet. Looking through the rose tinted bubble there was no longer a visible through the dark grey smoke of the mushroom cloud, the stretched high into the sky.
The bubble shield flexed even further and stress lines were visible on the rose colored dome as "You can't keep this up, kid." Blue Diamond brushed this off as him buying them mere minutes. "A valiant effort, nonetheless."
"Watch me." Steven exhaled his response as he expanded the bubble shield. The stress fractures disappeared and the black cloud of the nuclear bomb began to dissipate.
One of Captain Dunn's wounded soldiers limped to her side. "Captain, if she's still alive, won't they level this area anyway?" The young soldier questioned.
Captain Dunn thought about the question for a long time, though she knew the answer already. "Yes," She tossed the butt of her cigar into the sand and stamped it out with the heel of her boot. "But that's not going to happen. Hamilton, get the C-4 charges from my Humvee and arm them, then bring them to me, along with detonator." Captain Dunn was calm as she set her eyes on Blue Diamond.
"C-Captain, you aren't thinking-" Her subordinate began.
"That is an order, Sargent." She cut him off as she stripped out of the heavy body armor she wore, and removed her dog tags. The man bowed his head slightly and ran off towards the Humvee. The bubble shield vanished and Steven collapsed panting and laughing slightly, amazed that had been able to create a bubble shield strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast. "He won't be able to stop another," Captain Dunn speaks to herself as she awaits the return of her soldier. "Hm. Wouldn't be fair to even ask him to try." She laughed as her Sargent appeared at her side. A bag full of plastic explosive in hand and his eyes to the sand.
Captain Dunn had to pry the bag from his grip, his teary eyes begging her not to do this. "There's no guarantee this'll be enough to kill her." His voice shaky as he tried not to beg her.
She laughed slightly, placing her dog tags in his hand and curling his gloved fingers around it. "I need to try." Her hand gripped the back of Sargent Hamilton's helmet. "Radio in that we're alive, but the mission was a success." Sargent Hamilton nodded, slowly, backing away from her and wiping his face on his blood stained sleeve.
With long confident strides Captain Dunn began her walk towards Blue Diamond who was still fixed on Steven. "What are the explosives for, Captain?" She stopped and turned to see an injured Jasper, standing over her.
Captain Dunn laughed slightly. "You know the answer to that question." There was silence as Jasper closed the already small gap between them. "Do you intend on trying to stop me from destroying her?" Her thumb slid over the detonator, ready to end them both.
"Not from destroying her, no." Jasper smiled. Captain Dunn nodded and turned away from her. "But you're not the one that's going to carry this out." The smile disappeared as she spun Captain Dunn around and kneed her in the liver, breaking several of her ribs in the process. Her small body collapsed face down in the sand, gloved hands grasping her stomach as Jasper tore the bag away from her.
"Wait..." Captain Dunn tried to grab the bag, but her body refused to respond to her brain's commands. "Don't... Do this..." Jasper inspected the bag of explosives, and the small detonator that would surely break or set off the bombs prematurely if she attempted her comet charge. "You won't," She gasped for air. "Survive." Jasper laughed slightly, looking down at her.
"And you would have?" Jasper laughed off Captain Dunn's pleas.
She glared up at the massive orange gem. "Why are you doing this?" Her body began to recover from the shock of such a powerful blow.
"I can make amends for what I've done." Jasper looked away, her face showed anger but her amber eyes betrayed her, showing nothing but regret. "I led them to your home. And now? I can make sure they never return." And without another word Jasper leaped high into the air and dive bombed Blue Diamond, smashing her face first into the beach.
Blue Diamond was dazed by the sudden attack, her face was being shoved into the ground and there was a knee in the small of her back. From the corner of her eye she found Jasper to be her attacker. "What are you doing, fool?" Blue Diamond struggled against Jasper's grip, before freezing up seeing the bag in Jasper's hand.
"Plastic explosives." Jasper stated, with an evil smirk. "Primitive, but effective nonetheless." Blue Diamond stared at her, dumb founded.
"You wouldn't." She hissed. "You wouldn't destroy your gem in an explosion you can't guarantee will destroy me as well." Jasper laughed slightly, her thumb over the detonator. Lapis carried Steven, kicking and screaming, away as quickly as she could.
"That's the difference between you and I, General. You're only willing to allow others to die for your cause." With that her thumb pressed down on the button and they were engulfed in a massive explosion which also engulfed Coral and two near by Pearls.
"NO!" Steven screamed as tried to struggle free from Lapis and Pearl. "Let me go!" Steven continued to squirm but couldn't shake Lapis grip. The beach was again silent, aside from radio chatter from the military left on the beach.
"It's already over, Steven." Pearl spoke in a solemn tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. Steven didn't speak, his body collapsing into Lapis who held him tightly as a tears worked their way down his cheeks.
"You saved us, Steven." Lapis whispered, pressing a tender kiss to his dirty cheek. "We're so proud of you." She assured him, but that only seemed to make Steven feel worse as his body quivered.
"I didn't save Jasper."
Sargent Hamilton was on the damaged radio with the Military, doing his best to explain how the nuclear bomb had been stopped. A challenge since he didn't have any clue how the boy did it either. "Affirmative, the beach is cleared. Send in the gunships to help us secure it." Sargent Hamilton spoke into the radio, reloading his weapon in case any of the HomeWorld forces decided to make a last ditch attack. Sargent Hamilton rushed to his commander's side as she tried to stand.
Captain Dunn shoved him away as hard as she could. "Don't," She breathed heavily. "I can do this." Sargent Hamiltion laughed at the stubbornness of his Captain, but allowed her to stand under her own power. The shame of allowing Jasper to die in her place almost overshadowed the feeling of pride for their over HomeWorld.
The dust from the explosion finally settled, and there, half buried in the the crater was a Blue Diamond. Amethyst limped into the crater and lifted the softball sized gem, inspecting the small crack that was visible on the gem's face. There were shards of Jasper's gem scattered about, the sun reflecting brilliantly off the orange slivers of shattered gem.
"Round up the remaining invading soldiers." Captain Dunn spoke softly, as she limped towards Steven. Captain Dunn sat down, slowly, a gentle hand on her broken ribs. "You can't save them all." Captain Dunn's voice was low and cracked slightly when she spoke. Steven raised his head from his hands to look at her. "Death is the cost of war," She quickly wiped the tear away as it dripped onto her cheek. "But you saved the lives of your family, and the lives of everyone in two towns, and the lives of my men. But that doesn't mean we forget the ones we lost. We just have to make sure we never forget them." Captain Dunn began removing her gloves with her teeth. "I'm proud to have called you and your family my allies today." Captain Dunn held out her hand for Steven to shake, but instead Steven leaped into her wrapping his arms around her neck.
She gratefully accepted the embrace, allowing herself to get lost in the warmth of the embrace.
"Here." Amethyst's voice drew Captain Dunn's attention. In her outstretched hand was Blue Diamond's gem. "I'm sure the military wants this." Captain took the gem, inspecting it as she climbed to her feet.
"What'll happen to her?" Lapis questioned.
Captain Dunn shrugged slightly. "She'll probably be destroyed. Though I can't guarantee anything." There was a long silence between them as they watched the helicopters descend on the beach. Troops stormed the beach, rounding up the gems that were scattered across the beach and helping load wounded into medi-vac helicopters.
One week later
Vegeta woke on a cot, wrapped in blanket inside of some sort of triage tent. His body felt heavy and aches and pains covered his whole body. "Take it easy," Captain Dunn put a calming hand on his shoulder. "You've been out for a week, take a minute to relax." Vegeta laid back down.
His eyes worked their way around the room. Garnet, Amethyst and Steven were stretched out on their own cots, he caught a sly smile from the usually stoic Garnet. "Captain?" Vegeta got her attention.
"Anna." She corrected as she eased herself into a chair. Broken bones, and in particular broken ribs don't heal nearly as fast for a normal person as they do for a being such as Steven.
"I'm surprised that I'm still alive." Vegeta laughed slightly, remembering the feeling of his body shutting down from the toxin that Blue Diamond had used against him.
"You wouldn't be, but Blue Diamond's personal assistant made it through the battle." She laughed thinking about it. "You'd be amazed what you can get someone to tell you with the threat of violence." Vegeta laughed, again as he searched the room for the rest of his companions. "What happened to Pearl, Lapis, Peridot and Jasper? Did they survive?" He tried to hide the concern in his voice.
The smile slowly disappeared from her face as she bit her lower lip. "Pearl and Lapis are helping my men repair and Peridot is helping the government clean up the radiation from the 37 nuclear warheads we used." Vegeta sat up slightly, catching on to her leaving out Jasper.
"What happened to Jasper?" Anna sighed and slowly pulled a shard of orange gem from her pocket.
"I was going to blow up Blue Diamond and myself," She set the shard on the bed. "But Jasper didn't give me the chance; she stole the explosives, took me out of the fight and destroyed herself stopping Blue Diamond." Anna twiddled her thumbs. "It was supposed to be me." The tone in her voice carried regret, that was mirrored by her eyes as they filled with tears.
Vegeta picked up the shard of Jasper's shattered gem. "Jasper made the decision herself, and there's no way you could have ever hoped to stop her, Anna. " Vegeta sat upright, gently setting the gem shard on the table next to his bed. Anna kept her head down and her eyes averted from Vegeta's. "There isn't any sense in dwelling on the things that are beyond our control." Again she stayed quiet. With a sigh Vegeta sat up leaned closer too her. "How many men did you lose?" Anna exhaled heavily.
"79 killed. 17 wounded." Anna's voice quivered slightly.
"Worry up you injured," Her eyes finally came up to meet his. "Worry about the men who gave their families. Don't lose sight of what's still here dwelling on what's gone." Anna laughed slightly, brushing away the tears that had fallen onto her cheeks. "And get some sleep, you look exhausted."
That does it for Chapter 10! Ill have one more chapter that tie up some loose ends and that'll pretty much do it! (: I just want to thank everyone who took the time to review and has shown me support over the last 7 months. Writing this was a ton of fun and Ill definitely write more stories soon. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it and if you have time drop another review! Happy late new year!