I'm unnerved a bit because of the cryptic message Lapis sent us. The idea that actual Homeworld soldiers are coming to Earth… It's a little jarring. For awhile, we only were just dealing with corrupted monsters, machines and robots that they sent, but actual people?
I can't take this lying down, or get cocky, not when Lapis was so freaked out about the whole thing. We were friends for only a short time… we shared more with each other than anyone else I think. I guess I never really took into account of just how much of an impact Steven and I had with her when we saved her from the mirror if it meant she risked sending a message to us.
'Stay safe Lapis.'
Still with the message sent and all, and unless they have Warp technology embedded into their ships, then its going to be more than a few days before they get here so I need to get things squared away. For some of my mundane tasks, I managed to fix my TV after it fell, much to my relief. Sure I could have gone and got a new one, but I already had everything set up with that one so I'm glad I didn't have to do any unnecessary manual labor.
I also halted production on my home since whatever I can scrounge up on Earth to make the walls wouldn't be enough to stand up to whatever Homeworld has to offer. Right now, I need every available weapon at my disposal and any advantages to go along with it. Using the Replicator, thankfully still in the same place as its always been, I made a large abundance of ammo and magazines for all my weapons so I can have several for each gun. The plan is to take them and place them at key points all across the town so in case the fighting moves there, I can switch out to something more appropriate in case I need to. For now, I need to make sure everything is in tip top shape. By doing that, I go ahead and lay out all my arms and armaments on the floors of my home and instruct my droids to start repairing them of anything that seems out of place: A loose spring, worn-out firing pin, cracked frame, anything of the sort. Because of the intricacies of these repairs, it's not going to be completed anytime soon so while that's going on, I'm helping the others with another plan they've got going on in the works.
Albeit a little… reluctantly.
"Marcus, is the robonoid ready?" Pearl calls out to me once she picks out a nice spot to do her cruel experiment.
"Yes." I grumble as I stalk up to her with my droid under one of my arms and Amethyst and Garnet flanking me. "It's not a mere robonoid anymore! It's my droid."
"Yes, we know! You won't shut up about it and you've said that about a hundred times." Amethyst pipes up from behind me.
"Yeah, well… I still don't like this." I voice my discomfort again as we stop in front of Pearl.
"You've said that same number of times as well." Garnet points out.
"Well, it's true!" I say annoyingly. They decided that if Peridot were to use anymore types of robonoids against us then we would need some sort of way to disable them all in one go. And since I'm the only one of us who has the only working FORMER robonoids at his disposal, one of my little guys is going to make the sacrifice for the greater good.
"Regardless," She walks up to me and grabs my droid from my hands. I don't let go. We subtly struggle over the little guy before I'm forced to let go with a groan. "Ugh! We have everything we need for the experiment and Steven," She looks over at the temple. "Is home fast asleeeep?!" She begins to say but for some reason she freaks out bad at the last part.
"Pearl, what's wron—?"
"Hey guys."
"JESUS!" I yell out loud at the voice behind me. To all of our surprise, Steven is standing right here in front of us with a smile on his face. "HOW?! How do you keep doing that?" I ask incredulously. Seriously a lot of times, more than I can count I think, this kid has somehow appeared out of nowhere and surprised the crap out of me.
"… Mm-mmm." He answers with a shrug.
I let out a sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose, "Just… what are you doing here?"
"Yes, Steven! Its way past your bed time. You should really go back to the house!" Pearl advises him to do.
"What?" He asks, not alright with that bit of advice. "I don't want to miss... whatever this is. What is this?" He asks curiously.
"Yes, guys please. Tell him." I talk in a snarky attitude. "Tell him what it is your going to do and how you're going to do it? Go on. Go go." It should be pretty evident at this time that I don't like people messing with my stuff. Especially the ones that I spent weeks cracking their security coding, adding my own security measures, upgrading them and so on and so forth.
"Pearl got lonely, so she made herself a robot friend."
"Ugh." I groan as I slap my face with my hand at Amethyst's comment.
"It's not a robot friend," She begins to say in an annoyed tone. "It's a robot disruptor. It should produce a localized energy blast so when Peridot shows up to..." She freezes, remembering who she's talking too and tries to think of an excuse. "...Meet with us, we'll have something that can knock out all her robonoids." She drops my droid in front of the make-shift EMP machine she made and ushers us back. "Everything's as how it should be, correct?" She directs the question to me.
"Ughhhhh, yes Pearl it is. I removed the upgrades, revoked my security measures, replaced the old ones, and set it back to its factory settings. It just as how it was when we first encountered them." I explain to her again about my work. She wanted me to set my droid back to the original robonoid settings and schematics so that way we have the most accurate representation of Peridot's robonoids as possible.
"They have factory settings?" Garnet asks confused.
"Surprisingly yes they do." I answer calmly, overall still a little stumped at them having that function in the first place. I expect it from a simple race, in comparison, like humanity but for something like the Gems, not really.
"Alright, now stand back everyone!" Pearl instructs with a mad look on her face as she gets ready with a remote in her hands. With a simple press of the button, the machine starts rumbling and shaking a bit before the little smiling ball on top of it grows until…
*POP*EEEEEEEEEEEEE*
"UGH!" We all groan out as the tiny thing pops a lot more loudly than I thought it was supposed and sends a wave of energy in all directions. The force of it sends us all flying onto our backs and sending a loud continuous ringing noise amongst the atmosphere around us. We are all dazed for a few seconds until we sit up and examine my unmovable droid.
"We did it!" Steven cheers loudly at the success.
My droid jumps up onto his feet and walks idly around.
"Woohoo!" I cheer loudly with arms raised. The Gems give me an annoyed look but I keep my grin. "Hey, if it was your stuff getting experimented on by someone else, you would be happy to see it's unharmed.
"Ugh." Amethyst groans however at seeing the failed experiment and flops down onto her bacl.
"Well, you knocked out all the lights in town." Steven points out in hopes of lifting their spirits about the failure. As I look to Beach City, he's right. The place was turned on just a second ago and now the entire place is completely shut down, like a ghost town. Usually in the dead of night you'll see street lights and some porch lights on some houses on but not this time. It's all dead.
"Wow, he's right. You took out the whole thing. Nice." I comment at their work. It may not have disabled my droid but I'm still impressed with the results. AND she used some hairdryers to make the damn thing! '… I should get the blueprints from her.'
"Steven, that was not the point of the—" She begins to point out what it was that was supposed to happen but sighs instead. "Alright, that was a start!" She tries to be chipper about it. "Now I'm going to need to take some parts out of the washing machine. Steven, Marcus, you might have to wear the same shirt for a while."
"Aw man." I groan.
"No problem!" Steven says casually, and in a flourish of movement, he takes off his shirt to reveal that he's got the exact same one right under it.
We all stare at him as to why he did that. "Whhhhhhyyyyyyyy?" I draw out the question.
Despite Steven's questionable actions, we all turned in since it was getting late and with the power out their wasn't much we could do to chill out or bide out time. When morning came, I found two other results of the city-wide blackout that irked and then astounded me. Firstly, all my electrical equipment was disabled as well. My phones, laptops, tablet, the scopes on my weapons, laser sights, flashlights, all dead and not working. I was annoyed at that revelation but thankfully my droids were all still operational so them working on fixing my stuff went uninterrupted. The second thing I noticed was that my house still had power. I was confused at first about how my place still had power but then I remembered what I was using to power the place. After I confirmed it, I was happy to note the shielded EMP potential that my home has because of the power source I salvaged from the Kindergarten. Even so, with not much for me to do there I kept the lights shut off so that way people won't be coming by and asking why my home still has power and theirs didn't. After all, my droids are still working on my stuff and I would prefer for no one to ask questions about them.
Still with not much for me to do right now, I've decided to work on my IED's to pass the time. It's been awhile since I last worked on them and I need to make sure their ordinance still work and not unstable in any way.
"Mmmm." I look up and see Steven barely waking up and trudging down the stairs from his bed.
"Morning Steven." I greet him.
"Mm-mmm." He barely regards as me as he goes over to the fridge, opens the freezer, and lets out a wide mouthed yawn as he pulls out some microwavable Crying Breakfast friends food item from it. The thing looks barely frozen as pieces of ice fall off and it looks slightly damp.
"Uh, Steven, the powers still— oh okay then." I begin to warn him about the power but he ignores me and places his desired food item in the microwave and presses some buttons to try to get it to work. When it doesn't work, he gets annoyed.
"What's wrong with the— Ow!" He yelps out as he accidentally presses the open button and makes the door swing open, smacking him in the face. "Ugh…!" He groans as he grabs his microwavable food item in annoyed anger. "What is the meaning of this?!"
"Steven," He finally looks up as he notices me at the counter with one of my monster truck RC IED's in front of me. "The powers still out bro. No microwavables for you." I inform him with a head shake.
"Still?" He questions, and I nod. "Aw man."
"Don't worry, I'll go into town and see if there's anything else we can eat that wasn't spoiled by the power outage." I offer to him, which he smiles at me for.
"Thanks Marcus." He says and I go back to working. "Huh?" I hear him say in confusion but that's followed by a few knocks at the door. Looking in the same direction as him, we see that it's Mayor Dewey at the door. 'What's he doing here? And why does he look like he's about to have a freak out?' I think as Steven walks up to the door and greets the distraught human. "Mayor Dewey?"
"Hello there young Universe. Any of your sisters home?"
"Sisters?" I mutter to myself at his question. 'Does he mean the Gems?'
"My… sisters?" Steven asks in confusion as well.
"Your caretakers! You know...the tall one, the purple one, the hot one."
"THE WHAT HOT WHAT?!" I exclaim loudly in confusion at the mayors words. 'The tall one… Garnet. The purple one… Amethyst… The hot one… Pearl? I mean I know she is hot and all, but I guess I'm really surprised that someone else thinks so other than me. Let alone hear it like that.'
Thankfully, they ignore my outburst and continue on with their conversation. Steven probably doesn't know the significance of that statement and I think the Mayor is a bit more preoccupied with the power situation. "Look, the power is out and I've been mayor long enough to know they had something to do with it." 'I was right. Still, out of all the people, HE thinks Pearl is hot? Wow.' I shake my head of the thought and solder a wire to the explosive. Good thing he's not paying me much attention.
"My sisters?" Steven is still confused about the whole thing.
"Is there anyone else I can talk to about this?" The mayor asks him.
"…Marcus!"
"Crap." I groan at my name being called by him. After placing my tools down, I get up and walk over to the door. "Yeah?"
"You! You live here?!" He finally acknowledges me and exclaims in confusion. "But I thought your house was finished being built?"
"Yeah, it is, but I still need to buy furniture for the place. So I'm crashing here until I find the best ones for my place." I explain. A bit of a lie since I CAN sleep there now but he doesn't need to know that. "Anyway, what do you want?" I ask impatiently because I reaaaallly don't like politics.
"Yes, well, the city is still without power and I've come here to find out how long until it comes back on? And don't try to deny anything! I know for a fact that whenever danger or odd things happen, it usually ends up here." He points an accusatory finger at me.
I stay silent for a few seconds as I stare at the finger in front of me before calmly pushing it down. Once that's out of the way, I turn back to the inside of house. "Hey Pearl!"
"Coming!" She replies and steps out of the temple from her room carrying my droid. As I look back to the mayor, I raise a brow of confusion as he seems to blush and tries to fix his collar. "Oh, can I help you?" Pearl asks as she walks up to us, standing next to me and behind Steven.
"Yes." The mayor says in a dumbfounded tone. 'Geez dude, chill out.' Evidently he does because he tense up. "Oh hi!" He places himself in a more business-like stature. "Beach city is currently experiencing a wide spread power outage—"
"Oh, don't worry about that," She interrupts him. "The power should be back on as early as tonight or as late as... never."
"What?"
"Never coming back?!"
The both of us say in confusion, some a lot more loudly than others, at the idea of the power never coming back on. I have my own power supply so that's taken care of at my place but I don't like the idea of my electronic devices now defunct. Not when I have so much data and functions on them that would be a pain the ass to recreate on new ones. "Yyyeeeessss?" She phrases her answer as more of a question at the awkwardness.
"No, no, no! It has to come back!" 'And there's the freakout.' "The people of Beach City can't handle a situation like this, they need their electronic distractions so they won't know that this town is a magnet for disaster!" The mayor hysterically says.
"Oh, don't be dramatic. I saw humans get on fine without power for millennia. You used to hunt and gather, ha ha, what happened to that?" She asks harmlessly.
I place a hand on her shoulder, making her look at me. "We got smart Pearl." I pat her. "We got smart… and we got lazy. We used our intelligence to make our lives easier and because of that, lazier. It's a shame really." It does suck when you think about it. We have all this potential and all this intelligence going for us, but a lot of times when the opportunity to be lazy or have an easy life presents itself, more often than not people will choose the easier part.
"That doesn't make sense. I've barely seen you become lazy since you've been here." Pearl points out. True, a lot of time's I'll be working on one thing or another without much time for me to laze about but that's because I sometimes get antsy doing nothing.
"Well, I'm not fully human, remember?"
"Oh yeah."
"HELLO?!" We tear ourselves from our small conversation to see the mayor really ticked off. Probably about how casual we are despite the situation with the town.
"Hello."
"Hey." Pearl and I greet him.
"Listen, you don't understand, sure things seem calm now in the light of day but when the sun goes down so does the town!" He says the last part in a more serious tone.
"He's right." Steven sides with the mayor on the subject at hand. "Mayor Dewey, this is our responsibility, we'll help you clean up this mess." He completely ropes us in dealing with the situation.
"No we won't!" I hear Garnet call out behind us. With that declaration, Pearl turns around and walks back in.
"We'll help you—"
*Slam*
And I'm gone too.
"I'll help you clean up this mess."
"Well, that'll be an interesting adventure for him." I say as I walk with Pearl to the others who are now chilling on the couch.
"What was that about?" Amethyst asks as she sits down on the couch upside down.
"The mayor came by to ask for our assistance in repairing the towns power problem." Pearl explains to them.
"And Garnet here was gracious enough to deny the man our assistance outright." I add with a sarcastic smile about the magenta gem.
"Do you want to help?"
"No. I don't like him." I reply to her question.
"But you let Steven go along with him?" She answers but it's phrased kind of like a question.
"He he, I may not like him but the guy's harmless. Plus he won't let anything happen to Steven, not if his reputation counts on it." I point out. The guy may annoy me, but he's a stickler for when it comes to his reputation so if he lets a kid like Steven get hurt, not only will he have to deal with me and the Gems, but his rep will inevitably screwed.
"I guess." Amethyst says.
"Anyway, need anything else for me to do?" I offer my help to them since my IED's was just for me to kill time. They look at each other for a second before they start thinking their own plans.
"I have an idea." Pearl comes up with one.
I never saw those laser light cannons in action but from the description of the Red Eye that the others told me about and the power one of those things have, I feel comfortable having the Quartizine Trio with us. Pearl thought up the idea of us to use the laser light cannons we have in storage at Rose's armory as sort of artillery pieces to use against their ships when they arrive. I also spent some time strapping the Quartizine Trio into a sort of metal conveyor belt I have set up under the balcony so that way when our enemies arrive, just a simple press of a button and they move into firing position.
I couldn't stay long after because I with how they others seemed, they were really starting to get worried about the upcoming battle that could take place from now to the next few weeks. That's a lot of time to be anticipating the inevitable when something will pop up out of nowhere and try to wreck us. With that said, I started my plan to start placing my weapons around town. After putting a large majority of my guns in their respective cases or what can fit for them in the loading area of my truck, and the rest that couldn't be in the back in the backseat of my vehicle, I drove around town to places I think that have adequate spots for me to place them around and to make sure their well hidden from the civilian population. After all, I don't want some random person finding my gun and either get hurt playing with it, or call the police and that's something I do not want to deal with right now or ever for that matter.
While a lot of the assault rifle, shotgun and SMG variety's were obviously placed on the ground level and where I could easily grab them, I had to be a bit more creative as to where some of my more destructive weapons could go. For instance, I hid the KIVARRI sniper rifle near the Ferris wheel so if need be, I can scale the thing and take out my targets from a distance. My Barrett .50 cal is on top of the water tower since that has almost a complete clear sightline in all directions. I also moved around to place a couple of my LMG's in good cover firing positions and my pistols were littered all over the town as well.
It took the majority of the day since by the time I could get most of what I have set up, the sun was already starting to set. "Man, that took a good chunk of time." I say in a tired tone as I drive calmly through the town towards home. "With the first line of defense set up, and the second done, I still need to place some explosives as well. If conventional rounds don't cut it, then I need to use things with more Oomph to them." I mutter. 'Don't know if I'll get the chance to actually use these in the fight, but I think I'd rather have them there now and not need them, than not have them there when I really really need them.'
As I start making my way home, the soft sound of my truck trudging along the pavement is accompanied by loud angry distant voices and banging metal. When I turn the corner to go over the wooden boardwalk and down to the beach, I look and see that I am behind a large crowd of people that have gathered in front of that Mayor Dewey campaign van with a big head, 'Much like the real guy.' And are pushing against it, making it rock back and forth. I stop and watch with wide eyes as they tip over the large vehicle with the guy the head depicts inside. "Wow. I know the guy was annoying, and an idiot, but damn. What did you do to make the people that angry they want to— Is that Steven?" I interrupt myself from my rant as I spot a small figure running up to the tipped over van and climbing onto it while the crowd cheer at their successful action. "Oh man." I quickly shut off my trucks engine and get out before I start jogging towards them in case in the crowds excitement, they attack Steven.
"Everyone, please!" I stop running as he pipes up over the crowds wailing, silencing them and getting their attention. I move over to a nearby alleyway and peek out of the entrance and around the corner so I can see. "The power might not be back on tonight. It might not even be back on for even a year!" He shouts out loud, giving everyone the blunt truth about the power.
The crowd starts get rowdy and are overall shocked and dismayed at the idea of that possibility. "But I know that you're all going to be okay because I know each and every one of you." He continues his little speech, getting the crowd to calm down again as he gives them a smile. "You're smart, you're tough, and you're resourceful. And you all care about each other more than you care about microwave dinners or video games or being able to see in the dark. I know it'll hurt your businesses, I know it'll hurt your lives. But are we really going to hurt each other?"
'Damn dude, that's some deep stuff right there.' I think as I smile at his words. From the mood of the crowd, and how awesome I feel too, his words are having quite the effect.
"Of course not! We'll face the night together and we'll survive because we are the light of Beach City!" He shouts with renewed vigor. The crowd starts to talk amongst themselves and from what I hear, it's good. At least until the mayor gets out of his van and stands next to Steven.
"Yes! Thank you, Steven. I couldn't have said it better." He tries to act dignified but the others won't have it.
"Don't try to worm your way out of this!"
"He he, spunky old woman." I chuckle at the old woman's words from Fish Stew Pizza.
"It's okay! It's okay!" Steven manages to calm down the crowds rising anger. "Mayor Dewey was hiding things from you but he did it because he didn't want you to worry!" The crowd starts murmuring in agreement with the statement. 'I guess they understand why he apparently lied to them. Good.' "He was just sheltering you from the truth because he... He loves you."
I smile and lean against the outside of the walls, crossing my arms as I take note of my friends pause. 'And it looks like Steven, you understand why the others did the same.' As the crowd starts cheering the mayors name, Steven jumps off the van before running towards the temple, but changes direction once he sees me. As he stands in front of me, he doesn't say anything but from the look on his face, I know what he wants. "Let's go." I wave my hand towards my truck. "It's time you got your answers."
As soon as I park in front of the steps leading to the house, Steven immediately jumps out of my ride and bonds his way up the stairs. After turning off my truck, I follow the kid up the stairs to the top and we see the others inside. Garnet is sitting on the sofa with Amethyst lounging beside her and Pearl is working on her machine in front of the coffee table with the fireplace lit up. This time Pearls device doesn't have any blow dryers on it but I'm pretty sure the washing machines engine is in that. We walk up to them, making Pearl take note of us.
"Oh, hey, you two." She idly greets us before focusing back on her EMP device. "If I could just concentrate the—"
"Um… Do you guys wanna talk?" He nervously asks them.
"And why would we need to do that?"
"Oh Pearl." I murmur to myself as I rub my forehead at her bad acting, especially when it looks like she almost breaks her device. Actually she broke off one of its antennas.
"Hey, Steven. You still owe us a game of cards." Amethyst says to him. Looking to the table, I see a deck of cards in the middle of it with several cards strewn about.
"Yeah, get in on this." Garnet voices her want for playing cards as she picks up a hand of cards. "You too Marcus. We could use another player."
Before I can say anything, Steven cuts in. "N-no. I don't wanna play cards. I wanna talk about Peridot." He tells them, firmly set on it.
"Oh, well, yes. Everything is fi—"
"Pearl." I interrupt her. "It's time to stop. He's… better… than you guys think he is." I say as I place a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at me with a smile.
"Yeah, I know it's not fine. I know you just don't want me to be scared but just tell me the truth!" He demands of them, slightly raising his voice.
For a second, they look at each other, quietly contemplating what it is they should do. "Sometimes," I speak up, "Not knowing is even worse than knowing… no matter what it is about." I let out a sigh as I aim my head towards the ground. "I would know." And that's the truth. Through most of my life, I didn't know who or what I was and that absolutely killed me for the longest time. Even more so when I saw those monsters and the corrupted gems. Meeting The Crystal Gems and getting the info, I was at peace.
"Peridot is coming." Garnet finally admits out loud. She calmly sets her cards on the table. "And we don't know who or what she'll be coming with. She's a modern gem with modern gem technology that's bound to overpower us. Even with some modern gem tech on our side," She looks to me, "We're still at a disadvantage." From her words, Steven is no doubt shocked at the depressing but hopeless tone she has with her voice. "Steven, Marcus," I look up at her mention of our names. "The truth is… we're scared." With the truth revealed to us, they look down in sadness. For awhile, I knew how bad things seemed. Outnumbered, outmanned, outgunned, the whole situation seemed hopeless I get that, but to actual hear from some of the most powerful warriors I know, and my friends for that matter, that their scared… its depressing… and makes me worried too.
"We've been scared before, right?" Steven asks, bringing everyone out of their slump. "None of us know what's going to happen, but... that's okay. We can figure things out… together."
The Gems and I look at each other and take in the words this kid says to us. It's true, a lot of times we're always in the dark when we go into battle, whether it's a corrupted monster or Homeworld tech… or humans… we're always in the dark and surprised more times than I can count. To the Gems, they never thought to have ever met someone like me and I never thought to ever meet individuals like them. When Garnet and Amethyst formed Sugilite, they had no idea she would run ramp to the point she nearly killed me and Pearl. When I was walking home from the disastrous space mission Pearl tried to bring me and Steven on, I had no idea I would get kidnapped and nearly killed. The same could be said about the Kindergarten, Lion, fusing, we've always been in the dark and now is no different.
… Sort of. We know they're coming now and the best thing we can do now is be ready and prepare as much as possible. The thing is… despite being in the dark, we've always come out on top. We managed to break apart Sugilite, I escaped The Iron Kings, we defeated them at the Kindergarten, Lion's been a valuable member to our group, and the fusing has been a welcomed experience for both me and Steven.
We all silently nod in agreement at how things seem to be bleak for us. Suddenly the lights turn on.
"Ah!" The others say in slight elation at the power being back on. Now with the power finally being back on, I think its a good omen to have on our side.
Still, with the power back on, I still feel a little grim about the situation.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." I mutter another one of my favorite quotes.
"What?" Pearl asks in confusion, obviously not fluent in human latin.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." I repeat myself. I get up and head around the wall to where I used to keep my gear before moving to them to my house. I still have one other case I was going to transport… but now's a good time as any. "If you want peace…" I say as I round the corner and open the case. All the others hear when I go silent is the rustling sounds of Velcro and fabric being moved and the case closing.
I walk back out and their eyes widen. I have my jacket wrapped up in one arm, and a military issued bulletproof vest adorning my chest. It's black with several pockets fitted for carrying many magazines for me use. I've also taken out my Beretta's and equipped them in their holsters to the sides of my vest. Several grenades of both fragmentation and flashbang cover the front of my vest for quick access as well. I've also placed small metal plates in front of my vital organs to add extra protection without weighing me down as much.
To top off the look, I'm wearing a set of black polarized sunglasses with the addition that these ones are made of ballistic glass, further increasing their durability.
"If you want peace," I repeat the first verse as I grab my M4A1 Carbine, equipped with foregrip attachment, laser sight on the side, strobe light on the other side, 4x Red dot scope, fixed stock, an extended double taped magazine carrying 5.56mm hollow point rounds. I hold the gun in hand, aiming it to the ceiling with the safety on.
"Prepare for war."
Happy New Years everyone! Officially!
Feels good to actually get this out to you all on the actual day of New Years. I was hoping to get this out at least a couple hours after midnight but I didn't get the chance. Aw well, it's still the same day so I hope it works for you all.
While I was doing this chapter, I felt the need to chunk down some unnecessary moments so I could get this out to you guys for New Years day. Actually I only took out one scene and that was Marcus scolding the gems after they laid to Steven about cards the first time before he took off to the town to save Mayor Dewey's ass from getting completely getting destroyed by the towns people. It wasn't anything major, just some words spoken, the Gems standing firm with their decision and disappointed head shaking from Marcus before he left to go place all his weapons. Even so, hope you guys still like this.
As usual, getting close to the midway point here folks. (At least it's a midway point for me.) We're getting close to some great episodes and I can't wait to take a crack at what I come up with for them. Jasper and Peridot's arrival to earth were a major stepping stone in the Steven Universe plot line and you know what, it's going to be a major one for Marcus as well. New enemies, new salvage, new tech, new opportunities.
Man this is gonna be good.
Hope the new year is gonna be a good one for you all, and as always, have fun reading.