Ch. 14: Hidden in Plain Sight

It was nighttime in Beach City, though there remained an air of tension from within the Crystal Temple; following their brief argument with Emerald, Topaz and Pearl sat in silent in Pearl's room to think about what happened, both looking uncomfortable on the bed, reflecting on the disturbing turn of events. What had prompted Emerald to say such horrible things?

"Emerald…" Topaz began, breaking the silence between them. "How could you not know that would hurt Steven? Rose taught you better than that."

"There has to be a reason for him acting like this," Pearl insisted. "I'm just as bothered by his demeanor as well, Topaz, but maybe his experience from the Nihil could be the reason for his behavior."

"Maybe," Topaz sighed, knowing that he doesn't have a good explanation right now, but it did nothing to make him feel better about it either, before he and Pearl left her room. "It just doesn't seem like he would say something like that to Steven. The Emerald I know would never behave like this. I just need to find out why."

But Topaz wouldn't find his answer right away, as Garnet suddenly entered the temple, garnering his and Pearl's attention, with Garnet turning her attention to the former.

"Topaz, care to explain what happened?"

Topaz took a deep breath before answering her question.

"According to Steven, Emerald said that he would never be a true Crystal Gem and that Greg is the reason Rose is gone; Emerald denied that he said any of that, but Steven came to us crying his eyes out, so something definitely happened. We called him out on his actions and it turned into a shouting match that you came and broke up," Topaz spoke in an exasperated tone with the event.

'That confirms part of Pearl's story,' Garnet thought with serious intent. "I'll talk to Emerald about this."

"I'm sorry if my explanation isn't very good. I'm still lost on the context of everything," Topaz added, getting a nod from Garnet.

Just then, however, Obsidian poked his head from the hallway, prompting all three Gems to turned their attention.

"I don't want to be rude, but another Nihilian popped up just now," Obsidian informed the trio.

"In the middle of the night?" asked Pearl, irritated as the day just didn't seem to want to end.

"It's always a fun time whenever they're involved," Topaz commented. "At least it's a distraction from our own problems."

"Agreed," Garnet simply nodded. "Let's move."

Their minds made up, the Gems headed out to Beach City to deal with another threat from the Nihil.

Most of the time, the citizens of Beach City were normally asleep in their cozy homes. Sadly, this wasn't one of those moments, when they were rudely awakened by a giant, six armed, red scale alligator, with someone riding on its head; the moment it made its presence known, the giant gator began to cause mayhem chaos around the city, forcing everyone to flee for their lives, as the towering monstrosity began to lay waste on one building after another and even trying to bite anyone unlucky enough to crossed its path. While it continued its path of destruction, the Gems showed up to survey the damage right in front of them.

"Whoa!" Obsidian exclaimed. "That's the biggest Nihilian I have ever seen."

"We've fought bigger…and weirder," Topaz simply stated, in an almost annoyed tone. "So Pearl, any ideas on how to take this behemoth down?"

"I think I do," Pearl answered. "Garnet, Obsidian and I will keep the monster at bay and defeat it; you and Emerald need to get up on its back and defeat its commander."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Obsidian approved.

"That's settles it," Garnet agreed, as she and her friends summoned their respective weapons and head directly towards the Nihilian gator. "Let's do this."

Garnet, Pearl and Obsidian made their way to the front of the Nihilian gator, as they pummeled, stabbed and slammed its legs, gaining its attention and started to attack the three with its feet and jaws; the Gems, in turn, countered its attacks with great ferocity. While they were busying distracting the Nihilian gator, Topaz and Emerald leaped onto the beast's back, slowly scaling their way up to it's commanders, occasionally clinging on whenever it started to act up, before they resumed towards its head. Eventually, the duo made it their destination, the commander not paying any attention from behind, no doubt his attention was focusing on the three Gems.

"At least we know he won't be turning around any time soon," Topaz commented, as he positioned his bow at the commander and an arrow formed. "One quick shot should do it."

Once he made sure he locked onto his target, Topaz shot the arrow at the commander; the arrow, though, only grazed his shoulder. "Nice shooting there," Emerald joked, before the now stunned commander lost his balance, falling right off the Nihilian gator's head.

"Oh I'm sorry; what was that?" Topaz asked with a cheeky grin. Then, without warning, Emerald unexpectedly ran right after the commander, much to Topaz's surprise. "Emerald, what are you doing?!"

Topaz watched on as Emerald chased the Nihilian into a nearby alley. Topaz was about to run after him, but went against it, knowing full well there was much bigger game to shoot at. Specifically what he was standing on.

With Emerald taking care of the Nihilian commander, Garnet, Pearl and Obsidian noticed that the Nihilian gator began to act in a rather erratic and confusing state. Apparently, without its commander, it had no one to guide it. It was shaking its head back and forth as if looking for something.

"It's blind," Pearl spoke, witnessing the gator smashed its head into a nearby building, taking out the whole top floor.

"This is our chance," Garnet noted, with Pearl and Obsidian nodding their heads, as all three leaped towards it, severely injuring the monster with their respective weapons, as it let out a final growl and turned into dust, leaving no presence of its existence behind.

"That's that," Obsidian simply said, as he, Pearl and Garnet regrouped with Topaz and Emerald.

"You guys arrived just in time," said Emerald, before he revealed the grey pad on his hand. "Look what I found."

"...Where did you get it?" asked Garnet, becoming interested in the grey pad.

"I discovered it on the commander's body right before I killed him," Emerald nonchalantly replied, much to everyone's surprise.

"Just like that?" Obsidian questioned.

"Now's not the time," Garnet stated in a serious tone. "We need to head back to the Crystal Temple now."

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and all five Gems immediately head back to the temple.

Everyone arrived to the Crystal Temple at Garnet's insistence, before she informed Amethyst, Sapphire, and Citrine on Emerald's discovery back on Nekola; they were able to make to the temple as fast as they could, once they were sure that Citrine's homeworld was safe from a future Nihilian attack.

"We got here as fast as we could," said Amethyst. "So what's the big deal about this grey pad anyway?"

"This is more than just a pad, Amethyst…" Emerald started his explanation. "This pad can allow us to gain entry into the Nihil. We can take the fight to them once again."

"So it's like that weird portal gun you used last time?" Amethyst asked as he looked over the pad. Emerald nodded with earnest, confirming her answer. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

"Count me in then!" Obsidian added.

"Wait!" Pearl shouted, prompting the two to turned their attention to her. "We can't just go to the Nihil unprepared."

"She's right," Sapphire agreed. "Our lack of preparation is the reason why we barely survived to begin with."

"What we need is a well thought-out plan to prepare ourselves for the worst, before we faced our enemies in their homeworld," Pearl suggested.

"I agree. We need to make sure history doesn't repeat itself," Topaz added.

"Please, who needs a plan?" Amethyst dismissed the idea. "All we have to do is go to their home and show them who's boss!" she exclaimed.

"Amethyst…" Topaz spoke with a slightly dark tone. "You have no idea what was there. You can't just take it to them as if it was nothing."

"We've been fighting them non-stop lately. I'm sure they'll quake in fear the moment we showed up in their footstep," Amethyst replied.

"Like she said," Obsidian sided with her.

"That's not how it works!" Pearl shouted. "You two would just cause more chaos the moment you gain the Nihilians' attention."

"Not to mention endangering the imprisoned Gems," Sapphire pointed out.

"Oh! Oh! Are we playing a game or something?" Citrine happily asked, having not paid attention to their conversation. "I spy with my little eye…"

Soon, all the Gems began to argue with one another, each countering the other's claims on how to handle the Nihil situation, as well as saving the imprisoned Crystal Gems. But just when things are about to get intense...

"ENOUGH!" everyone ceased their argument and turned their attention to Garnet, who no doubt was the one who shouted. "We're not here to argue! We need to stay focused!"

Everyone nodded their heads, agreeing with Garnet's statement.

"Be fully prepared for the Nihil tomorrow. It'll be our biggest fight yet."

With those words spoken, Garnet, along with everyone else, left the meeting room, intending to get themselves ready for their biggest challenge of their lives. Emerald was about to leave when…

"Emerald, we need to talk," Emerald stopped in his tracks and faced Topaz, the latter looking at him with suspicion.

"What's there to talk? It'll be just like last time," Emerald remarked.

"Yeah," Topaz simply said. "We can't have it like that incident that made Pearl and I break up."

"What about it? That's ancient history now." Emerald spoke with an unnatural calmness, almost as if he didn't care about a twelve year old incident.

"So you're saying that you no longer mad that I punched Pearl in the face?"

"Yeah," Emerald said with a smile. "Just be careful next time."

"...Yeah, sure," Topaz half-heartedly accepted, as he watched Emerald leave the meeting room. As soon as he left, however, Topaz dropped the act as his face filled with shock, replaying Emerald's answer in his mind over again, as well as increasing his suspicion on him.

'I need to tell everyone about this!' Topaz thought, before he finally left the meeting room.

Topaz quickly made his way to main hall of the Crystal Temple, where everyone was getting themselves ready for tomorrow's trip, too busy to even notice his presence, until he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Guys we need to talk!"

Once Topaz shouted as loud as he could, everyone, even Citrine and her ball of yarn, stopped what they were all doing and turned their attention to him, listening to what he had to say.

"I know I'm going to sound crazy, but I'll get straight to the point…" he began. "Emerald isn't who he claims to be."

As expected, everyone was stunned to hear this, but also unsure what to make of his claim. A certain young boy, however, was the first to speak up, breaking the silence in the air.

"I knew there's something wrong with Emerald!" Steven exclaimed, his mind made up pretty quickly.

"Now wait just a minute!" Pearl protested. "What are you talking about?"

"I think he's an imposter," Topaz said with a straight face.

"WHAT?!" Everyone shouted in shock of this bold claim.

"Are you sure?" Garnet calmly asked. Topaz nodded, confident that he was right.

"Garnet, you don't believe this, do you?!" Pearl was shocked that her friend would believe this.

"After last night, I'm starting to have doubts," Garnet said, before facing Topaz. "Do you have any evidence?"

Topaz didn't answered right away and started to think of one as hard as he could. He knew he had something, but he had to be sure it's the right one. But then, it him: his conversation with Pearl last night. There was the answer right in front of him.

"Pearl…" Topaz began. "Do you remember our conversation from yesterday?"

"What about it?" Pearl asked. She didn't know what Topaz was getting at.

"When we talked about Emerald shortly after he came back, we've noted how he didn't know Rose was going to have Steven, even though he was there with Rose twelve years ago before he left for the Nihil. He should have known that she was going to have a kid. There's also the fact that not even five minutes ago, I told him I punched you and he didn't correct me. Even you have to think that's suspicious."

Pearl continued to look at Topaz, though slowly, what he said to her was starting to make sense. Emerald should have known that Rose was about to give birth to Steven and he damn well better know what happened to his own sister. But even if this was true, something else still weighed heavily on her mind.

"How do we know for sure Emerald is an impostor?"

"...We stab him," Topaz calmly answered. "If he retreats into his gem, then he's real. But if he doesn't, the imposter will dies from his wound and we'll know the real Emerald is at the Nihil."

"That sounds nice and all, but how are we going to convince Emerald to let us stab him?" Amethyst pointed out.

"We're not," Garnet responded.

"What's going on around here?" Everyone stopped and turned to see Emerald heading right towards them, curious on what they were talking about.

"Oh, Emerald! We didn't notice you until now," Pearl tried to tone down the situation. "It's not a big deal…"

"We were talking about how you aren't the real Emerald and how we want to test you to see if you're really a Gem or not!" Steven bluntly spoke, cutting Pearl off.

"Steven!" she scolded him.

"Is that what's about?" asked a surprised Emerald, seemingly offended by this idea, as he turned his gaze at Steven. "You shouldn't have such shallow ideas in your head."

"Actually, I thought of those ideas," Topaz corrected him, prompting a stunned Emerald to turned his gaze at him.

"What?! Why would you do that?!" Emerald demanded an explanation.

"That's simple…" Topaz began. "I brought up that incident between me and Pearl back in the meeting room and your response to it just didn't add up. That and your lack of knowledge that Rose was pregnant with Steven didn't help out either."

"Let me explain-" Emerald attempted to speak up, only for Topaz to counter back.

"If you're really Emerald, you would have known about them like it was yesterday. Especially if you were going to chew out Rose's child because of it."

Emerald opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't think of a single word to counter Topaz's claim. Out of desperation, he turned to the only Gem who can vouch on his behalf.

"Pearl, please back me up on this," Emerald pleaded.

"I would, if you really are my brother," Pearl simply said with a frown.

Emerald was stunned to hear this from Pearl, but looked around and noticed that everyone else had the same suspicious thought. It was clear that they were siding with Topaz.

"It's nothing personal, Emerald," Amethyst attempted to calm him down, as she and everyone else started to approach him. "Just stay still so we can stab you in the gut, that's all."

"You want to stab me? Then…" Without warning, "Emerald" quickly turned around and fled from the Crystal Temple as quickly as possible on foot. "Catch me if you can!"

"After him!" Garnet ordered, as she and the others tracked down "Emerald" to Beach City.

Going after the Emerald impostor was far more challenging than they all thought; whenever they caught up to Emerald in one alley, he would suddenly disappeared and be in another part of Beach City. Attacking him head on didn't work either, as "Emerald" simply dodged them with ease like a dancer, having anticipated their every move and know exactly how to counter them.

"Jeez! Stay still, will ya?" Amethyst asked out loud, as she attempted to whip "Emerald", to no avail. "Argh! He keeps dodging us!"

"So how do we catch him then?" asked Obsidian.

"Let's split up," Sapphire suggested. "That way, one of our groups could have a better chance in cornering this impostor. Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Steven should cover half of Beach City, while Topaz, Obsidian, Citrine and I cover the other half."

"Sounds like a plan," Garnet accepted this. "Everyone, split up!"

Soon, Garnet took her group to one part of Beach City, while Topaz took his group to the other side, in order to track down "Emerald"; in fact, he spotted the impostor right in front of them.

"There he is!" Topaz yelled, with him and his group going after him.

"Try and keep up," "Emerald" spoke in a mocking tone, leading them to run in circles once more in the alley. As far as he was concerned, he can do this all night.

But then something unexpected occurred; as he turned around, expecting to see the four of them behind him, he only saw Topaz and Sapphire instead, causing him to look for the others.

'Where the hell are they?' he wondered.

"Looking for us?" "Emerald" turned and saw Obsidian and Citrine at the other end of the alley.

Undaunted, "Emerald" leaped upwards to another part of the alley to avoid getting himself cornered. However, upon arrival, he saw Garnet and Amethyst had already shown up, prompting "Emerald" to quickly leap to another portion, only to see Topaz calmly waiting for him. One leap after another, "Emerald's" effort to outrun them was starting to put a strain on his body. He just recently made his way to yet another portion of the alley, but by now, he was completely worn out.

"Those damn Gems!" he cursed out loud. "I don't know what's going on, but it won't matter because I'll-"

Suddenly, "Emerald" croaked in pain, feeling something sharp passing right through him and looked down and saw the tip of the spear in full view; he then slowly turned his head around and saw who was responsible for this.

"Got you where we wanted, you impostor," Pearl darkly said, before she pulled her spear out, her "brother" letting out a terrible screech that echoed the night, his body reverting to a chameleon-like body with red scales covering it.

"Pearl, did you managed to-WHOA!" Amethyst shouted, as she and the others finally caught up and saw the red chameleon in front of her. "Is that a...Nihilian?"

"I'm afraid so," Pearl sadly admitted, almost sounding choked up. "Topaz was right all along. It was never Emerald to begin with." Pearl dropped her spear as Topaz wrapped his arms around her.

"I can't believe all this time a Nihilian was living among us," a shocked Sapphire spoke.

"Anyone who can be so mean about me and my dad couldn't have been the real Emerald I heard about at all," Steven added, just as shocked as everyone else.

"Heh heh! You think you won?" a voice none of the Gems were familiar with, as they turned and saw that the Nihilian chameleon was still alive, despite being fatally stabbed. "My death doesn't change a thing."

"What do you mean?" Garnet demanded an explanation, prompting the Nihilian chameleon to use every ounce of breath he had on him.

"It doesn't matter if you kill one or ten million of us. Thanks to the Gems we have captured, we will harness their energy and used them to wipe this universe out of existence and there's nothing you can do about it. It'll be our final victory!"

The Nihilian chameleon let a creepy laugh following his taunt, before he finally croaked for the last time and turned into dust right in front of their own eyes, leaving everyone deeply disturbed of this newfound situation.

Everyone made their way back into the Crystal Temple and gathered around in the meeting room, though none felt like they had achieved victory. If what the Nihilian chameleon had told them was indeed true, then their situation was more dire than they all have imagined. Using the Gems' own energy against them and wiping out an entire universe could left anyone with dreaded thoughts.

"So...what do we do now?" Amethyst asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Staying here and doing nothing is certainly not an option," Topaz commented. "If we stay here, we die; we go to them against improbable odds with no guarantee that we'll get very far and probably die, we'll at least say we've tried."

"He's right," Garnet agreed. "We'll leave for the Nihil by tomorrow, just as we had planned."

Everyone else nodded their heads in agreement, before Citrine spoke out of the blue.

"I don't want to be a downer, but what about those nasty Nihilians?"

"Yeah, how do we make sure they don't keep bothering us after every Gems been rescued?" Obsidian added.

Everyone looked at one another, hoping if one of them have a good idea on that particular situation. Then, Pearl spoke first, with everyone now turning their attentions to her.

"There is one…" she began. "If I recall, our friend mentioned on using our energy to wipe our universe. What if we can use the same energy and redirect them to their universe instead?"

"That's rather dark of you," Amethyst noted.

"Better than our universe getting wiped out," Obsidian stated.

"That might actually work," Garnet accepted Pearl's plan.

"So it's settled then," said Topaz. "Looks like tomorrow is going to be one big epic fight for the fate of the universe."

With everyone on board on what to do for tomorrow, they are about to leave and head to their respective rooms for preparations, when suddenly…

"Hold on! What about me?" Steven asked out loud. "Can't I come with you guys to the Nihil?"

"I'm afraid not, Steven," Pearl replied. "You haven't properly summoned your weapon and it would simply be too dangerous to take you to somewhere where even fully train Gems had problems," Steven couldn't argue with that logic. It's kind of hard for him to fight with them without a weapon to protect himself.

"...I understand, Pearl," Steven accepted her explanation, much to her surprise. "I understand that I won't be able to see you and the others again. Don't worry, I'll stay behind this time and I wish you guys the best of luck."

Pearl was still surprised that Steven had accepted, but pleased that he at least understood the situation, as she and the others left the meeting room to get ready for their biggest fight yet. A sadden Steven is about to head back into his room when Garnet unexpectedly gave him a hug.

"It'll be alright, Steven," Garnet softly whispered into his ear, as Steven hugged her back in return, both giving other comfort. "We'll be back before you know it."

"Group hug!" Citrine shouted as everyone else got in on the hug, making Steven feel special.

"Thanks guys!"

"We'll be fine, Steven. Just keep smiling and wait patiently."

"You got it, guys!" Steven responded with a wide smile, as the group hug went on for a little while longer.

Dawn finally arrived in Beach City, but for the Crystal Gems, there was no time to waste; they needed to get to the Nihil, rescue the imprisoned Gems and defeat their sworn enemies for good. They were just glad that they still have the grey pad with them that Nihilian chameleon had the night before. With this, they can finally head to the Nihil and dealt them a final blow, as they gathered around the return pad, with Steven, Greg and Connie all their to wave their farewells to them.

"So long, you guys," said Steven.

"Be safe when you get there," added Connie.

"And make sure you return home when it's over," Greg called out.

The Crystal Gems happily accepted their farewells, with Garnet turning to Topaz, who was holding onto the grey pad.

"Do it," she ordered.

Nodding his head, Topaz pressed the button on it, activating the return pad, sending them off to a one way trip to the Nihil. But before the pad can be fully activated…

"Wait for me, you guys!" The Gems saw Steven rushing right towards them, completely taking the group by surprise.

"Steven, what are you doing?!" Pearl demanded, as Steven glomped tightly onto her.

"Steven, you liar!" Amethyst shouted. Before they could move to get him off, the return pad activated, warping everyone to their destination, with only a stunned Greg and Connie left on the beach, both in awed by what had just occurred in front of their eyes.

A/N Okay so here's the deal: I wrote the lemon but when I read it back to myself, I didn't like it at all. I revised the thing like five times and I still don't like it for some reason. It just gives me a really bad feeling so I think it's for the best that I just keep it to myself. I might change my mind later but for now I'm not releasing it. Don't want any old shame later.

Since I can and have no shame whatsoever, check out Sole Survivor, the SU story I'm writing alongside this one! I really would like some feedback on it to know how I'm doing. More opinions mean a wider idea of how it's going.

Till next time, Sal out!