Chapter 11: We'll be back (part two of "The Dance")

On the road:

Pearl put the pedal to the metal and sped down the road towards the temple. "Pearl, please slow down, you're scaring me!" Steven pleaded from the back seat.

"Absolutely not, you bubbled a human to the temple, what if they let something out? The earth can be put in some serious danger, and so could you!"

"Hey P., I'm not one for history, but aren't dragons like, not supposed to exist?" Amethyst nudged the slim Gem's arm.

"What are you talking about, of course no-OH NO!" Pearl looked up to see two dragons flying towards them, one green and the other blue.

"Whoa! Cool!" The boy looked up at the airborne reptiles, the pale gem pulled the car over. "No, not cool! That's Peridot and Cobalt from the Black Diamond Tribe!"

"What's that?"

"Only the most dangerous group of gems in the universe! A hundred years ago, they captured an old friend of ours and tortured her until she agreed to join them." The purple gem explained, hopping out of the car.

Everyone else followed and readied their weapons, Pearl stopped Steven, "Oh no, you are staying in the car, I don't want you fighting these guys, you're not strong enough!"

"But...OW!" The young gem held his cheek that now burned with pain, the tall gem had slapped him.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to lose you to them..." She then bubbled him and then ejected him back to the temple.

"Well, well, well...look what we have here..." Cobalt chuckled meniacly as he and his teammate glided down to the street returning to their base forms.

"Keep it to yourself, blue, what do you want?" Amethyst spoke through gritted teeth.

"Your gemstones...we already got Garnet's, now all we need is yours and Rose's."

Pearl and Amethyst exchanged looks with each other and then leapt into action.

Temple

Steven found himself not in the burning room but outside in front of the temple. He noticed that the house was completely destroyed, he quickly popped the bubble and dropped safely to the sand. The boy ran to the crumpled house, throwing aside large pieces of the walls and roof, once he finally made it inside the temple, he came across the broken door leading to the burning room. A groan was heard from inside, Steven entered with caution. As he walked down the channel his foot hit something, he bent down and picked up the object, revealing that it was a cell phone. "Brad..." He mumbled, eyes widening. Suddenly, Steven heard someone say his name, whoever it was sounded very weak.

"Steven..." The boy went closer to the voice and was surprised at what he found.

"Garnet!" The young warrior found the leader slouched against the wall, he ran to her side.

"What happened?"

"T-the Black Diamond tribe...Peridot...C-Cobalt...hnnnnn" After each word Garnet spoke, her physical form "glitched", Steven wasn't sure what was wrong, he helped the gem to her feet.

"Steven...you have to...heal..."

The boy looked at her with a worried expression as she held out her left hand, the red gem that rested within her palm was fractured. Steven immediately licked the palm of his own hand and set it on top of the broken gem, they both waited and sure enough, the crack sealed. Garnet sighed in relief as her body went back to normal, the shorter gem glanced up at her, "How did you know that I could heal?"

"Your mother could do it, and I know that power would be in you too...now, let's go help Pearl and Amethyst..."

4 miles away:

The four gems fought Viciously, both opposing teams were nearly equally matched, the Black Diamonds were stronger and more aggressive. Amethyst threw her whip and it wrapped around Peridot, who had been charging towards her, she then levitated high into the air and launched him into the ground. The villainous gem pulled himself up and ran back towards the purple gem, the ground below him began to lift up and soon he was riding on a chunk of earth. Amethyst gasped and flew away from Peridot, he smirked and followed.

Meanwhile, Pearl was having her own issues with Cobalt, they fought more with elements rather than their weapons. Appendages made from sand and water crashed into each other creating a soggy mess, Pearl used the wet sand to blind her opponent. Cobalt yelled and wiped it out of his face, and just as he opened his eyes, he got the sharp end of a spear thrust against his cheek leaving a deep gash.

"Okay...kid gloves are off, now I'm gonna kill you!" The blue gem summoned his halberd and charged at the pale gem, only to be knocked down by Peridot being thrown into him. Pearl looked up as Amethyst glided down next to her, both of their dresses had been torn from the battle and neither of them were happy about it, the two disoriented gems rose from the asphalt and faced them.

The two Crystal Gems lunged at them, but they found themselves face planting into a large wall of ice. They shook it off and then realized that the wall of ice was part of a giant frozen cube. Very faintly through the ice they could see, three glowing lights, two green one blue, they seemed to orbit each other erratically. Amethyst squinted to get a better view, the lights became brighter and came together. Pearl and the shorter gem quickly pushed away from the box, it burst open and cold fragments of it rained down on them, they looked up to a giant fusion gem that was about half as tall as Fire Opal.

The gargantuan being had teal hair tied up in a ponytail with his bangs over his right eye, his skin was a darker shade of blue. He had Cobalt's cape and boots, also Peridot's vest and pants ( Though all in a matching shade of green-blue). Painted on his left eye was a black diamond, similar to the one Lapis had on her outfit, three indicolite gemstones protruded from the elbows and throat.

"We're in deep doo-doo..." Amethyst stated, Indicolite pulled out his weapon: a battle axe that split into two separate axes.

"Amethyst, RUN!" Pearl grabbed her arm and sprinted down the road, the Fusion gem chased after them, chucking one of his axes at them. The purple gem stopped and used her whip to fling the large weapon back, Indicolite evaded it with ease and continued his pursuit on them. Just then, a band of plasma wrapped around the fusion's neck followed by multiple vines. Steven, Lion and Garnet stood a distance away from them, Pearl and Amethyst ran over to their teammates.

"Okay, Garnet I need you and Lion to distract Indicolite while Amethyst and I fuse with Steven." Pearl ordered, they both took off, Steven looked at the other members, "Pearl, I thought you said you didn't want me fighting these guys...and that I wouldn't be fusing for a while.."

"I know what I said and I was wrong, you are strong, Steven...you and your mother are stronger than any of us..." And with that he nodded and they all began a fusion dance.

Garnet and Lion raced toward the teal colored gem who swung down with his axe, they dodged it and ran up his arm. After ducking and scaling over three other arms, Garnet found herself riding on Lion's back, she shrugged and summoned one of her gauntlets as they came to the top of the shoulder. She then punched Indicolite in the face and bailed, the fusion stumbled back and was then knocked off of his feet when a giant magenta star was shot into him.

That star had come from a slingshot that belonged to a fusion gem called Ruby, she was equal in size to Indicolite, that same pentagon wrapped around her body as her dress and her wild red hair came down to her third set of shoulders.

Indicolite got back up, Ruby fired another star and aimed for the throat, the point of the projectile made its mark and the giant fusion crashed to the ground and disappeared in a puff of smoke. There laid Peridot and a cracked cobalt gemstone, the green gem quickly rose up and bubbled away his teammate, he jumped when someone behind him tapped his shoulder.

The villain turned to meet a four armed tiger eye gem, also known as Garnet and Lion. The fusion had turned the lion into a tiger with four eyes, on his lower set of hands were clawed gauntlets.

"You're not going anywhere, are you?"

Peridot knocked Tiger Eye back a few meters and then encased himself in a bubble, before ejecting he said, "We'll be back, Stars...all of us..."

The tiger lunged at him but was too late, Ruby separated and joined the other fusion on the side of the road, they too separated.

"We need to prepare for the return of the Black Diamond Tribe..." Garnet stated, Steven interrupted her.

"Wait guys, there's something else you need to know..."

Lars' house:

Lars had just fallen asleep when there was a knock at the front door, he groaned and got out of bed and walked downstairs to see who it was. He rolled his eyes when he saw Steven and the gems behind the door.

"Ugh...what do you waaannnnnt?"

"Lars...there's no easy way to say this..." The boy started to say.

Well I hope you guys loved that chapter as much as I did! Amethyst can fly, what? And a whole bunch of fusing happened...but what was up with Pearl slapping Steven, was it really necessary? Leave a review on what you think will happen next!