Another Steven Bomb, another chapter comes out to greet it.
Let's see, how am I going to do an episode that introduces the concept of fusion without piggybacking on the development of Pearl and Amethyst and without stealing the spotlight from the other characters or directly copying the plot?
… I have no idea!
"Okay, let's do this." Onyx said to herself.
She created a crystal totem in front of herself, and then she reared back and punched the totem as hard as she could. The force of her blow caused it to shatter into dozens of fragments and scatter across the floor.
Unfortunately, this isn't what she wanted. Onyx had trained her muscles a lot recently and she could definitely feel herself getting stronger and faster so she decided that instead of working on her physical strength she would start working on the strength of her crystal shards.
She could throw them precisely, she could create some crystal around her extremities, and she was able to generate crystal on a surface from her hands or feet, but they usually broke under great force. Onyx tried to see if she could create a crystal strong enough that she couldn't break it but so far she had no such luck.
She summoned another crystal totem and prepared to punch it again. She charged at the thing and once again she cracked into dozens of pieces.
Her hand hurt from doing it, but the crystal still shattered.
"I need these things to be stronger! Why can't I make them stronger?" She said to herself.
Deciding that she had enough frustration for one day she started walking towards the temple door.
"Stupid crystals with their stupid breakable form, all I want is-"
THWACK!
"Ow!" Onyx shouted as she felt something hit her hard in the back of the head. She turned around to see what hit her but when she looked down all she saw was another one of her crystals.
She picked it up and examined it, trying to see if there was something that she was missing.
"How did that happen? I didn't throw it and no one else is in here."
She decided that it probably wasn't worth thinking about and so she opened up the temple door and stepped outside.
She saw the four crystal gems talking amongst themselves and Garnet seemed to have something over her visor, Onyx couldn't identify what it was.
"Hey guys, am I missing something?" She asked.
"Nope, Garnet's going on a solo mission and Pearl's got a stick up her butt. All is normal." Amethyst replied.
Onyx chuckled at her commentary as Pearl stared at Amethyst annoyed.
"That sounds painful." Onyx said.
Pearl groaned. "It's an expression; it means that Amethyst is confusing maturity with boringness."
"Nope, that's just you being you."
Pearl groaned again, Onyx could feel how frustrated she was getting.
"We're going to retrieve the heaven and earth beetles. I'm going to retrieve the earth beetle located in a lava lake near the earth's core, Steven Amethyst and Pearl are going to retrieve the heaven beetle at the top of the sky spire."
"Should I tag along?" Onyx asked.
"No, I'm the only one strong enough to survive lava and the three of them should be enough to get the beetle."
Hearing this disheartened Onyx a little bit.
"However… I do have another task that I think you'll be able to do by yourself."
That brought Onyx's spirits back up. "Alright! What can I do?"
"There's a gem monster in a cavern to the northeast. It's difficult for us to track but I think you'd be perfect finding it and brining its gem back to the temple."
Onyx nodded. "I can definitely do that."
She walked up to the platform and stood on the warp pad.
"We have a warp pad right outside so you won't have to travel far. But if you can't find the monster make sure you tell us, it could be a serious danger."
Onyx nodded. "Understood, Onyx out."
She surrounded herself in the warp pad's bright glow and was whisked away to her far off destination.
When she landed she was on a high up cliff, she was overlooking vast expanse of deep blue sea and right behind her there was an entrance to the cave that Garnet had mentioned. Onyx made her way inside and began to search.
The cave was dark so Onyx needed to use the light from her gem to illuminate her surroundings, but not only was the area dark it was eerily quiet; she couldn't even sense any gem energies. Wherever this monster is that Garnet described it was either gone or it really didn't want to make itself known.
Onyx went through the cave as deep as she could, because it was so dark that it was hard to tell where she had been before and where she hadn't explored yet. It made searching very difficult, but she persevered.
She had been walking around for at least an hour now but she hadn't seen anything. Taking a moment to rest, Onyx leaned up against one of the stone walls.
"I don't get it. There are no gem creatures here, I can't sense any monster, and there are no signs that anything lived in this cave either. What am I supposed to be looking for?"
Suddenly Onyx felt something drop on her shoulder; she looked at it and was some sort of green liquid. It dropped from… the ceiling; she looked up to see if something was there but was just met with more darkness.
The only thing that gave Onyx any indication that something was here was when she a stream of something attach itself to her and start pulling her up. She struggled in its grip but this material wouldn't budge; she was forced to summon her scythe and cleave it off.
She dropped back onto the ground with a bit of a thud and landed in a crouched and ready stance.
"Why am I getting hit by things I can't see today? What even was that?"
Deciding not to take any chances, Onyx kept her scythe close and started walking around cautiously.
"If there's a gem monster here I should be able to sense it… why can't I sense it?"
If only she could see this entire cavern, maybe it wouldn't be so hard. Onyx had to articulate her body so that she could use her gem as a flashlight to scan the walls for signs of the monster that attacked her.
Then as she scanned one of the walls she was only a foot away from what had attacked her on the ceiling: it was a crystal spider monster, with a sickly yellow body, eight spiky legs, and four large reflective eyes. It roared at her and Onyx could see the gem in its mouth.
Frightened by the monsters sudden appearance, Onyx back flipped away from that monstrosity. Then she threw some crystal shards at it to see if that would do some damage.
"It was right in front of me, how can I not feel it?"
Her thoughts were interrupted by an evil hiss and through her limited light she could see the spider jumping at her, Onyx rolled to the side then tried to slice into the spider's hide to end this fight. She put all her strength into it but her blade just seemed to bounce off.
She growled. "Why won't you stupid things die!"
Her gem glowed brighter and she shot a torrent of crystal shards at the spider, but all they did is bounce off harmlessly.
Once the spider was done defending itself it jumped on top of Onyx and had her pinned to the ground, it had some kind of shell around it that was extremely heavy. Onyx couldn't even reach her weapon to try and get this thing.
The spider opened its jaws and moved menacingly closer, Onyx turned her head to the side unsure of what to do and tried to think of something, anything that could save her.
And then her hopes were answered, the roaring of the spider monster stopped and its jaws didn't move any closer to Onyx's head. Curious what happened Onyx faced the beast and saw that there was a gem shard that went through the back of its head and poked the gem out of its mouth.
Onyx pulled the gem out of its mouth and then its whole body dissipated and that crystal shard fell to the ground.
Onyx picked up the spiders gem and the shard that had impaled it.
"This is a shard I created, just like back in my room. It hit me in the back of the head when I got angry and now this one came to save me when I was in danger. I wonder…"
Onyx concentrated really hard and she could see the gem shard lift a bit, then when she stopped concentrating it fell back into her hand.
"I can control my gem shards! Maybe this will come in handy in the future."
With her mission completed, Onyx managed to find her way out of the cave and back to the warp pad. When she got back home she saw that the sun was beginning to set and the house was empty.
"I guess no one is back from their missions yet."
Then she looked down at the gem she had captured.
"What am I going to do with you? Whenever the gems capture one of you they place you in a bubble. I wonder if I can do that?"
Onyx put her hands around the gemstone and focused her hardest to try and create a bubble, but all that happened was the gemstone was surrounded in her onyx crystal shell.
Onyx shrugged. "Close enough."
She placed the gem on the counter top and then laid down on the couch, her eyes began to flutter between open and closed. She hadn't rested in a couple of days, perhaps she deserved one now.
Later…
Onyx awoke from her rest as she heard the warp pad activate, she opened her eyes but she only saw Steven and another gem who was much taller than even Garnet.
"Who is that?" Onyx asked out loud.
"Opal…" Garnet answered, just as surprised herself. "What a pleasant surprise. How was your mission to get the heaven beetle?"
The amazon known as Opal gasped. "I don't have it!"
Then her body glowed with gem energy and whole body began to ripple and loose shape. When it couldn't hold itself together any longer the form split and it spit out the forms of Amethyst and Peal.
That really took Onyx by surprise. "That gem was Pearl and Amethyst?"
"Yeah!" Steven replied excitedly. He jumped down from the e platform to talk to Onyx "They fused into a giant woman, and they killed a giant bird to save me. It was so cool!"
Now that the room had calmed down everyone was starting to go off on their own directions.
"Come on Steven, it's time for bed." Pearl said.
They both went off somewhere while Amethyst walked up to Onyx.
"Hey Onyx, you got a minute?" Amethyst asked.
She nodded. "Of course, what's up?"
"Well…you seemed like you missed out on a great adventure today so I thought you might like to hear about what we did."
Onyx smiled. "Sure, that sounds nice."
Amethyst led Onyx to the temple and then she opened up the door to her room. This was the first time Onyx had ever been in Amethyst's room so imagine her surprise when she saw the piles and piles of stuff all over the place. There was no order to the mass of garbage piles.
"What is all this?" Onyx asked.
Amethyst shrugged. "Just some stuff I've collected since we came here to Earth, no big deal."
There was so much to tackle here Onyx decided to just ignore it. Instead she decided to address the original elephant in the room; Amethyst wasn't very good at hiding her true emotions.
"So… you wanna hear about my day?" Amethyst asked.
"You just want an excuse to talk about Pearl don't you?" Onyx said coyly.
Amethyst groaned. "You knew?"
Onyx tapped on her gem. "I had a hunch. But I said I would listen and I will; so please, tell me what's wrong with Pearl?"
Amethyst lay against one of her piles and began to talk. "Where do I start? Recently Pearl decided to become a total butt. I mean she was serious before, dedicated, but now she's taken it to a really extreme degree; it's like all she cares about is a super high standard that she put herself to and none of the rest of us even matter."
Onyx nodded. "I see."
"She keeps trying to make us part of her perfect world or push us to the side, but… it's just not like that. Things aren't perfect, they might even be great, but they are good; I just don't see why she insists on trying to control everything."
"Maybe she's just trying to look out for you guys?" Onyx suggested.
Amethyst snorted. "Please, there's only one person that Pearl cares about pleasing: Rose."
Onyx was confused. "But… Rose is gone."
"Well Pearl sure as heck doesn't act like it, she's still tries to be Rose's little attack dog, she's loyal to the point of being ignorant and if something comes by that she doesn't like she snarls at it until it goes away."
Onyx thought about all that Amethyst had said. Her words definitely had merit to them; she hadn't known Pearl for very long, but she was easily her least favorite of the four gems. They constantly budded heads about ideas
"I suppose all you can do for now is try to get Pearl to see things in a different perspective and try to get her to act differently, but don't push her too hard or she may go back to a safe places."
Amethyst sighed. "I suppose." She got up off her pile and started walking around a bit. "Thanks for the chat; it's nice to talk to someone about this instead of just kinda letting it fester."
"No problem. Just trying to be helpful."
"Well then…" Amethyst's gem glowed and she summoned her whip.
Onyx wasn't paying much attention, but when Amethyst raised her arm in the air Onyx rolled out of the way before she came down on her head with her whip.
Once she safely dodged she was confused. "What was that Amethyst?"
"You said that if I needed to talk you would be my listener and my sparring partner. You listened-" Amethyst stretched the whip in her hands. "Now get ready to spar."
Onyx chuckled slightly. "Alright, I'm in a good mood so I'll indulge you. I won't even use my weapon."
"Your funeral."
Amethyst tried to attack Onyx again, but her attacks were too wide and Onyx found easy to duck or dodge them. Then Amethyst took a different route and curled up for what looked like a rolling spin dash, instead of dodging this attack Onyx ran towards it and punched it square on the top which caused Amethyst to tumble down.
She got back up quickly to keep going but Onyx began pelting her with crystal shards, they didn't hurt her very much though. When it looked like she was done Onyx clenched her fist and large mass of crystals formed and smacked Amethyst in the back of the head.
"How did you do that?" She asked, while gripping the back of head.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Onyx charged at Amethyst, giving her no time to prepare with a whip attack, so Amethyst dropped her whip to the ground and when Onyx came close enough she gripped her fists in her hands and both gems began pushing against each other to fight for dominance.
"Give it up Amethyst; you should know by now that I don't give up easily."
Amethyst smirked, cocky as ever. "Oh yeah? Well you should know that I can pretty scrappy when I want to."
They were both very strong and it seemed like neither would get an advantage over the other, so they broke away and prepared to punch each other but since they had the same thought their fists met against each other again and again.
But the strangest thing was that as they matched each other's blows their bodies were surrounded by a bright white light unknown by either fighter, it all culminated when with one final punch their whole bodies converted to light and all you could see was their gems.
The masses of light moved closer together and it looked like they were going to combine for a second, but before that could happen they repelled each other and both Amethyst and Onyx's bodies reformed themselves.
Both gems felt very thrown by the reaction and rubbed their heads from the impact.
"What just happened?" Onyx asked.
Amethysts eyes were wide as she realized what happened. "We almost fused…"
"What?"
"We were fighting and somehow we almost fused together. I… I don't believe it."
Amethyst started spacing out a little bit, thinking about how this could be. Sensing an imbalance in her fellow gem Onyx walked up to her and tried to talk it out.
"Is this normal? Is fusion normally easy?"
Amethyst shook her head. "Not really. When I fuse with Pearl it's really hard because we're never on the same page and she forces me to play by her rules. When I fuse with Garnet it's better but I also feel like I'm… unstable, like it's great but things get too wild. That was the easiest it's ever been for me."
Onyx was lost. "I don't know much of anything about fusion so I don't really know what to make of this. Any idea why it would be so easy?"
Amethyst shook her head. The two gems were silent for a time, just standing there in thought until finally Amethyst broke the silence.
"Hey, I kinda wanted to get some rest so…"
"Oh I understand, I'll give you some space."
"Thanks."
Onyx began to walk towards the temple door, but then she turned back and looked at Amethyst.
"Hey Amethyst…"
Amethyst looked at her with curious eyes.
Onyx gave her a thumbs up. "You're doing great out there, keep it up."
Amethyst gave a shy smile and then repeated the gesture, then she went her own way and headed deeper into her cluttered room.
Onyx stepped outside the temple and when the door closed behind her she leaned against it and exhaled.
"Another day, another mystery that I have no clue how to solve."
And that just about wraps everything up and leaves you with more questions to ask. What could possibly cause fusion to be easy for them that didn't need to dance? Believe me when I say that is a convoluted answer.
See you all next week after Sardonyx week.
I have to say though I am really upset that they are putting in a character called Sardonyx, I had plans involving a character with that name. They were going to be… whoops spoilers!
