If Garnet knew one thing about herself, it's that if she clobbered something under her fists, it would shatter into pieces. She considered it both a blessing and a curse. Though Rose was good at boosting her self worth by letting her know how amazing she was.

But Garnet was not about to cease impressing her teacher this time.

"Here, let's stop and examine this area. Garnet, please come here." Rose called to the muscular girl. They had stopped over a long stretch of dead dirt in the middle of the woods. They stopped at a few other places deep in the forest to check out, and Rose had deducted before- hand that the origins of the newly resurrected Diamond Gems must be hiding underground where they wouldn't be spotted. She wasn't completely sure, but it was their best chance at the moment. But, much to Pearl's suspicion, Rose was becoming more and more hesitant to continue. She noticed it even when the teacher had told the stories of the Diamonds in her room.

Garnet walked over to Rose, and the pink-haired woman put her hand on her shoulder.

"Okay, Garnet. Just like before, I need you to use that amazing gift of sight you have to try and sense any disturbances in the ground." She explained.

Pearl looked around the forest, slightly anxious. She had her spear out and ready just in case they ran into any other rogue Gems. She wouldn't want to reenact what happened to her before when she came across them. She didn't want to freeze up in fear, or simply talk a big game, she wanted to stand her ground and fight with Garnet and Rose. She looked back at the two women just in time to see Garnet lightly press her gems against her head to help heighten her senses in her third eye.

Garnet concentrated deeply.

She cleared her mind, looked deeper and deeper, until she could see small flashes of light and the vibrations of both movement and organic life. She saw slight movement in solid humanoid objects moving through dark spaces. Everything was a solid color, flowing around the surface of the dirt like water. Much of it was blue and could also see the rhythmic beating of human hearts through those very dark spaces. She opened her eyes, almost dazed.

Rose looked at her in concern, but also anticipation.

"There is something there."

The Quartz Gem sighed deeply, almost in distress. Now both the girls noticed it. Her hesitance.

"Good work. Do you know what you saw, or was it not clear enough?" She asked.

"It wasn't very clear. But I know that there are people under there," Garnet tapped her chest with the side of her fist. "I could hear their heartbeats."

"This...this is good. that means we might be onto something." Rose stuttered slightly.

Pearl caught the sound of Rose's slightly fearful voice.

"Are you okay Miss. Quartz?" she asked.

Rose looked at her, and then she sat down on the ground, ignoring the dry dirt that might cover her clothes. She sat quiet for a moment. Then gave Pearl a light-hearted smile.

"It's nothing, really. Please don't worry over it, Pearl. I've just...Always been more of a...lover. Not a fighter." Rose's eyes started to water a little.

"I just love this planet so much. It's so beautiful. Did you know that moss could blossom? That green gooey stuff under shallow waters? it can blossom into beautiful flowers. Absolutely incredible." she said through a shaky voice.

Garnet and Pearl looked at each other in confusion.

"Uhh...That's...nice and all, but what does it have to do with what we are doing?" Pearl asked cautiously. Rose chuckled.

"Nothing, nothing. It just dawned on me that creatures with faces, and names, and personalities...they might get hurt or even killed. The large red sphere in the sky we fought was one thing, but these are fellow Gems, intelligent creatures. I just don't want that. I'm sorry, girls."

Garnet looked down at her in disappointment.

"So are you giving up?"

Rose looked up at her, her cheeks rosy red. "What?"

"Are you just going to give up when you were the one that tried so hard to fight against it? Is this really it for you? Is this honestly your breaking point?" Garnet asked with flared nostrils.

Rose stared at her, unable to answer. Garnet continued.

"That's ridiculous, Rose. What happened to saving the day? What happened to giving a damn about what happens to us all?"

"Garnet, maybe you should lay off a bit…" Pearl lightly suggested, but jumped slightly when Garnet whipped her head around to look at her.

"Why should I? If I knew she was going to quit on us like this already, I would've just gone solo, looking for the Diamonds." She growled while bringing a gauntlet forth and scooping up stones of dirt, and tossing it aside. "At least we care enough about the world to try and protect it against threats."

She suddenly felt a large amount of dirt hit her in the face. She quit digging and wiped it off. She turned her head towards pearl, who was recovering from her throwing position she was in. Furious was an understatement for her expression.

"How DARE you! You're one to talk miss, "I used to beat the living crap out of people because they hurt my feelings"! If you had nearly a quarter of respect for this world like Rose does, you'd be just like her! But you don't! That woman brought you into her home, taught you everything she knows, and this is how you repay her? By telling her she's a coward? I don't think so! How about instead of being a complete ass to her, you try and convince her to continue." Pearl spat and hissed.

Both Garnet and Rose were more than surprised at the outburst. Pearl was beyond angry. She expected more sympathy than this from Garnet. Especially after all her and Rose have worked on. Once Pearl took a moment to collect herself, she looked at Garnet in disappointment.

"You don't really mean that, right Garnet?" She asked.

The red Gem took a moment to answer, but eventually did.

"Yes. I meant it."

Another scoop of mud was launched at her, but this time, she managed to dodge it.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Pearl shouted. Bits of spit flew out of her mouth as she yelled her anger out.

Pearl could've easily admitted that before she spent so much time working with Garnet, that she was horribly scared of her. She knew of Garnet's antics before meeting her. She would walk past the posters and the crowds of people complaining about her. She figured it was just a foolish human child with nerve, but when she found out she was a Gem, she felt a small connection to her. While she did feel a little more respectful toward her, she was still terrified of the hot-blooded Gem.

She knew Garnet had anger in her, and it frightened her. But now, after everything the three women have been through, Pearl could only hiss at how Garnet was acting. She needed to prove that the student could be the teacher, not just the traditional way.

"What will throwing mud at me accomplish?" Garnet asked.

"It'll hopefully snap you out of your foolish mood!" Pearl snapped.

Rose looked back and forth at the two bickering. She felt like intervening, but she somehow felt like they needed this. Garnet and Pearl had to learn to work together, and getting their frustrations out might be good.

Pearl bared her teeth. "Why on earth would you ever feel like it was necessary to scold Rose? She, of all people, you chose to scold. Why would you do that? Just because she's afraid-"

Oh.

"What is it?" Garnet asked. Pearl blinked a few times.

"Are you afraid?"

Garnet straightened up upon hearing her question.

"No."

"Don't lie to me. I know from experience that when people are afraid, they do things they don't mean. Are you afraid?" She strongly asked, her eyes focused on Garnet's goggles. The larger Gem didn't say anything else. She just stood there staring at Pearl.

"You are, aren't you."

Garnet looked away. Her face focused on the ground beneath her.

"Garnet, it's okay to be afraid-"

"Not for me it isn't." She interrupted. Pearl was about to say something else, but thought against it when Garnet flared her nostrils. She was getting angry.

"I can't afford to be afraid. I can't afford to lose a fight because of ridiculous emotions. Because I now know that if I do, People I care about could die."

Pearl's undying sympathy for her friend came flooding back. Garnet will most likely remain mysterious to her, but she's glad to know the details that matter. For she now knows that garnet responds with every feeling with anger and distance. They all revert to old feelings to feel better, and Garnet's anger has been there almost her whole life.

Though she would admit that she never thought Garnet could get scared.

Rose stood up on her feet again and put a hand on Garnet's shoulder.

"I'm scared too, Garnet. Pearl must be nervous also. How about we-"

A large rumble came from under them. It startled everyone into defense. Pearl readied her spear, and Garnet bared her gauntlets.

"What's happening down there?" Pearl exclaimed, eyes wide and too the ground.

"We might have been able to find out had we not sat around and talked. We need to move!" Garnet shouted at them. They weren't about to argue, and all three women ran away from the dirt beneath their feet. Once they were a good 30 yards away, they stopped to look back at what was going on. Suddenly, the dirt had bursted open, dust and rock flew everywhere, and a group of skulls came pouring out of the crater. They were screeching and howling in every direction. The look of them made Pearl want to cry. She also realized she dropped her spear. No going back for it now.

"What are those things!?" She screamed. Rose looked at them with great discomfort. She had a hunch of what those were, she just hoped she was wrong.

"Whatever they are, they look dangerous. I say we attack them." Garnet suggested. Rose shook her head.

"Those things most likely are dangerous, but there's too many of them to fight by ourselves, we need to...Garnet!"

She was cut off by her own voice once she saw Garnet run head first toward the crater of skulls. Once Garnet was in proximity, she jumped up in the air to give a floating skull a huge punch. The skull screeched, and a bolt of lightning shot out of its mouth. It hit Garnet in the shoulder, and knocked her off balance. She fell to the ground, and quickly tried to get back up, but more lightning was shot at her. It hit her in the back, and kept her down on the ground, bracing the impacts.

The screams and laughs from the monstrosities were disgusting, and Pearl thought as much. It terrified her. But she couldn't stand around as they were beating around Garnet. If her Gems cracked and broke, she would die. She tried to move her body, but she couldn't. She was paralyzed with fear.

She looked at Rose, who was watching intently at the sight. She looked as though she was analyzing the best way to avoid the skulls, but still get Garnet to safety.

"Rose, we need to get Garnet! She'll die, and I can't, I mean…" She stuttered as she was trying to organize everything in her own mind. She hated the fact that she was easily flustered. Rose looked at her, and then back at the sight. Garnet was up on her feet now, trying to punch the skulls above her head. One had shot electricity at her face, and hit her in the cheek. She hissed in pain, and groped her face, while trying to block their powerful attacks. Rose couldn't keep track of how many there are. She whipped her head at Pearl, her thick pink locks waving in place.

"Pearl, I can't count them all. Can you tell me how many they're are?" She hastily asked.

Pearl turned to look at them; they were flying all around, hissing and screaming.

"There are twelve of them. Two of them have hair that they use as a whip, six of them use electric power surges, and the rest don't do anything, they just scream." She said at the end of her analysis.

"Perfect." Rose said, and used her gem to release pink shield bubbles. She launched four of them at the cluster of skulls, and stationed them at the more powerful ones.

She then clapped her hands together, and those very bubbles blew up in a large, spiteful explosion. It blew the stronger skulls to pieces, while the other ones were startled and screamed in anger. Garnet raised her head passed her gauntlet to see what happened, but quickly ducked again while the skulls came down on her once more. The pain wasn't nearly as much though, now that the bigger, more powerful monsters were destroyed. She quickly stood up, her gauntlets still protecting her head, and quickly grabbed the nearest skulls, crushing them in her grip.

"That worked! Rose, do that again!" Pearl exclaimed with hope.

"I can't. If I release to many of those bubbles, it could blow Garnet up as well."

"Can't you shield Garnet with a bubble then?"

"No, I believe Garnet can handle the rest by herself now. If she feels the need to rush in carelessly, then there's nothing I can do about that. I think I know their weakness though. See those crystals in their eyes? If those break, they die, just like a Gem." Rose looked at Pearl with pain in her eyes.

"I really hoped it wasn't what I thought they were. But It's true. Those skulls are human skulls mixed with Gems. It's definitely the work of Diamond Gems." Rose breathed. Her stomach felt hot from her Gem's use of explosives, but it also hurt from the realization.

"Thank you, Rose." They heard Garnet say as she was stomping her way toward them. Her body was covered in burns, and her hair fizzed with smoke from the electricity. They looked passed her and saw a cluster of broken bones and gems everywhere. She managed to destroy them all. Once she made it to them, Rose grabbed her by her strong shoulders.

"Garnet, fear and anger is not a reasonable excuse for recklessness. You could've died! You need to think before you do things, or it could have terrible consequences. Do you understand?" Rose loudly asked her. Her pink eyes were filled with worry. She couldn't help Garnet if she would continue to rush into things.

"But I did think, Rose. I saw the possible outcomes of me rushing the monsters."

Rose blinked. "What?"

"I saw the possible outcomes of me dying, me being able to overcome them, Pearl jumping in too help me, or you using your bubbles to help me. I figured the two latter outcomes was more plausible." The Red Gem explained.

Rose blinked a few more times. Garnet looked down slightly.

"I was scared, but in that moment of weakness, I had time to observe the future."

Rose blinked some more, and then smiled. Will this child ever cease to impress her?

They heard another loud explosion, but this time, they also heard the cries of innocent people. Pearl's eyes widened. "Oh no. Something's happened in the town!"

Without a second thought, they all ran their way back into town.

"Oh my god."

Dozens upon dozens of the skulls were terrorizing the town. The painful wails from the people mixed with the horrid high-pitched screeches of the creatures as they blasted lightning every which way. Many people were already shocked dead.

Pearl clasped her hands over her mouth in horror. Garnet readied her gauntlets again, but this time she waited until Rose gave her the order to attack. But Rose herself was in a state of panic. Her breaths came out short, and her stomach burned. All this death and destruction. She hated it. HATED it.

She looked at Garnet, who looked back in patience. She could tell Garnet was waiting for her to tell her what to do. Rose sighed.

"Go nuts." She finally said. Garnet didn't hesitate.

She ran into the mess of chaos, grabbed a skull out of the air, and slammed it on the ground. After that, she went after other skulls, who were frantically shooting lightning everywhere in disorientation.

Rose had seen wars, she had seen death and suffering, she had seen good souls die in vein. But that was always humans and other humans. She had figured out that humans love to fight each other, and she was okay with that. Because she knew that these good people of the planet Earth could work out their own issues. But this was different. This was her own kind fighting humans. She couldn't stand for this.

But she didn't know how to handle it either.

Pearl was just as dazed and confused and scared. She still couldn't move. She didn't want to die. She didn't…

Someone had grabbed her leg. Pearl screamed and tried to pull her leg away. But when she looked down, it was an injured man. He was holding his side, and blood was pouring out of his mouth.

"P-please...You've got too...too...help me…" He died right there.

Pearl looked at him for what seemed like forever. his lifeless body suddenly made her think of her dad. She remembered his body, and the Gems behind it. Her fear turned to anger as she figured out that those Gems could have been the cause of all of this destruction. She removed her spear from her head once again, and readied herself in a fighting position.

"Pearl, what do you plan to do?" Rose asked her, noticing the change in position.

"Do what Garnet's doing, go nuts."

Pearl thrusted herself into the madness and started jabbing skulls in the eye sockets with her spear, and getting hit with lighting while she did it. Rose felt as though "go nuts" wasn't a good idea. Who's to stop the girls from accidentally hurting the humans as well with their incredible power? She suddenly remembered the ship, and her cannon. Was it still their?

She looked back at the girls, and the skulls, and the destruction, and then she took off to the beach to retrieve her cannon.

Pearl was beaten and bloody, she wasn't sure how much more of the fighting she could take. Much of the town was destroyed now, and the people still alive either took shelter underground, or they ran toward the back to hitch a ride on Rose's ship. She wasn't sure where Rose herself was, but she couldn't think of that right now. Many of the skulls were destroyed, but it still wasn't enough. Garnet was also beaten down, but she kept fighting, kept breaking the limits on her abilities. She was fast, but the sheer quantity of the skulls overpowered that.

"Garnet! Where's Rose!? We need her!" Pearl yelled at Garnet, who was blocks away from her, fighting her own battles. Garnet didn't take her eyes of the enemies, but responded none the less.

"I'm not sure. If I had to guess, I'd say she was at the beach, reconstructing her cannon to to fight off the skulls."

"That's oddly specific. How did.."

Oh yeah. Future sight.

A skull bit the skinny Gem in the nose, screaming while doing so. Pearl yelped, and stabbed the skull through the back of the head. It fell to the ground, and Pearl stomped on it to break it to pieces. She turned back to Garnet. The Red Gem looked horribly exhausted.

"Garnet, this isn't working. We're just getting beaten bloody, and they won't stop coming. I'd say we'd have a better chance of winning if we help Rose with her cannon!" She shouted while dodging incoming skulls.

"I agree."

Garnet quickly darted out of the way of incoming lightning, and ran passed Pearl to the beach. Pearl was more than glad to follow. Once she caught up with Garnet, the Blue Gem asked her a question.

"Hey, what exactly will happen here in the near future? Do we win?"

"Well...I see 3 possible outcomes. Rose finds a way to isolate the skulls and blasts them. Me and you continue to destroy the skulls until we both die, or Rose puts a timer on the cannon that blows this entire geological region to bits."

Pearl snorts, followed by a chuckle. "I'm pretty sure the first outcome is what will happen."

Garnet was quiet for a long while, and then simply said, "Yeah, sure."

Dang finally got to this. Sorry this took me so long. It's been a rough few months for me, but I managed to get to it.

Thank you all so much who have stuck with this story even though I've been taking forever to update.

I hope this chapter will satisfy until the next one. Oh also, I know I promised this chapter would be the big climax, but I was wrong. That won't be for another couple of chapters. sorry bout that. My deduction skills are terrible.

But enough of that. How bout some replys ehh?

Applebucker77 - Thank you! I figured a pace change with the people of beach city would have been a nice relief. Also, on the "Garnet with autism thing" It's possible! But I feel like the only reason she seems autistic is that she's not familiar or "with" Earth's customs. Many Autistic people struggle with the typical social customs of "regular" people. Garnet does, but she's also an alien XD On that note, all three Gems (and maybe even Steven) seem to show symptoms of different "mental disorders", like Pearl and her organizing could be deemed as OCD. Amethyst and her hyper, messy attitude could be considered ADD, Garnet's distant, and sometimes unresponsive way could be autism, and Steven could have a mixture of different things. But he's just a kid, so that could be it. but too me, they're just strange because they aren't human, so they don't get human customs. :D

SpaceWonder368 - Oh thank ya kindly! I hope I continue to deliver!

Sumzy44 - YOU ARE WELCOME FRIEND!

Dalekz universe - Thank you!

Thanks again for your patience! I'm not sure when I'll update the next. Like I said, i've been having a rough time with things, and my chapters may reflect that(aka not very stellar) but I won't forget this fanfic don't worry! See ya'll in the next chapter!