Act 2: The Exciting Middle Part

Chapter 35: Gathering A Team

Edit Finished On March 20, 2019

Published On March 29, 2019

Author Note: It's been a year and 6 days since this story was first published! Wow, time flies! Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and thanks for reading this far!

Review Response

Wishmaker1028: Yeah, indeed they have...

For the entire night, Peridot and Lion stayed in the alleyway near Dimmsdale. Lion had fallen asleep almost a few minutes after he lied down, but it took Peridot a few hours to fall asleep herself, leaning on Lion. And yet, the sun seemed to rise far too soon for either of them.

As the sun started to rise, Lion began to open his eyes as he slowly woke up. He yawned, stood up, and stretched, accidentally making Peridot fall off of him, waking the green Gem up. Peridot shot up, instantly becoming alert. She paused.

"Oh, right." Peridot said, quickly remembering how and why she was there. She got out her tape recorder. "Log Date, 7 14 2, continued." She started to walk around while Lion tried to get into a trash bin. "Since the sun has started to rise, I have decided to continue my search for a way off of this gem-forsaken planet." She looked around, noticing how Lion had opened the bin and begun pulling things out of it.

"And with my new and brilliant disguise," Peridot continued, gesturing to the jacket wrapped around her forehead. "Nobody will ever notice that my Gem is cracked!" She giggled at her apparent genius. "Lion!" The pink animal stopped what he was doing and trotted over to Peridot.

"Alright Lion, you and I are going to search this town for a ship or something that can take me back to Homeworld. Understand?" Peridot quickly explained. Lion just stared. "Why do you just… stare?" Obviously, Lion didn't answer. "Creep."

Peridot walked out of the alley, Lion following behind. "So, I was thinking of trying a new course of action." Peridot begun to explain. "I am considering finding the first person I see and interrogating them until they tell me where a way off of Earth. I'm sure nothing will go wrong."

She looked around, noticing how seemingly nobody was around. "Why is there nobody here? The sun is coming up, so that should mean people are here!" Peridot looked around one more time, and then her eyes lit up. "Oh, there's one!"

Peridot pointed to a man sitting across the street sitting at a bus stop. The man held up a newspaper over his face as he read it, trying to conceal himself. But that didn't stop Peridot.

"Hey! You!" Peridot yelled to the man, pointing at him. The man either didn't hear her or chose to ignore her, because he kept reading the newspaper. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Still no response. In frustration, Peridot ran across the street, up to the man, and smacked the newspaper out of his hands, letting the newspaper fall to the ground.

"Hey, what's your problem, la-" The man begun before getting a better look a Peridot. He immediately paused.

"My 'problem' is that you were ignoring me." Peridot deadpanned. Lion walked up to her and sat down. "And I did what I had to do to get your attention. It's really simple logic." The man still stared at her. "What is with you all and staring today?"

"Are… are you…" The man tried to ask, but couldn't finish his question.

"Am I… what?" Peridot asked, a little confused.

"…Never mind." The man shook his head. "…Just… ugh! Why am I constantly seeing these… creatures everywhere again?"

"Uh… I don't… what?"

"Just a few days ago, I saw one of those… koopas." The man answered. Though Peridot didn't know what a 'koopa' was, she went along with it. "I've been staying in this town for a little while, and… wait, why am I even talking to you? No, I told myself I wouldn't, and here I am." He quickly stood up. "I have to go."

"Wait!" Peridot yelled, seeing the man run off, chasing after him a couple seconds later. "I still need to interrogate you!" Lion came running next to her a few seconds later.

Peridot and Lion ran after the man. Despite the man seeming to be only around 5'4 and thin, he was a great runner, managing to keep the distance between himself and Peridot, and even slowly getting away from her.

They ran down the sidewalk, going down several turns every so often. Soon enough, the man found Dimmsdale Park, thinking he could lose Peridot there. However, as he looked back, Peridot and Lion were still chasing him. So, he pushed himself to run faster.

As the man ran toward a set of swings, Lion roared toward the swings, causing a shockwave that knocked the swings over right in front of the man. Somehow, the man reacted in time and rolled out of the way to the right, and then continued running.

Peridot and Lion continued to chase him, and did so throughout several locations. They ran through the Dimmsdale Auto Show parking lots, maneuvering around several cars. They then got to the Cake 'N' Bacon where the man quickly ran in and then ran out through the back exit, trying to throw off Peridot and Lion.

The man's evasive maneuvers only seemed to help him a little. The next place they ran through was Dimmsdale City Hall, and then Adrenaland, Dimmsdale Skate Park, and finally Dimmsdale Jail.

Because the man had been taking roundabout routes, Peridot and Lion slowly were catching up to him. The man saw a tall chain-link fence ahead of him. When he was close enough, he grabbed it and started climbing it as fast as he could.

When he got to the top, he tried to go down the other side gently, but ended up falling and ripping a part of his shirt off, before picking himself back up and started running off. Several seconds later, Peridot got to the fence and tried to climb it, only to fall down each time she attempted.

Then, Lion rammed the fence, knocking it down completely. But by the time he did that, the man was already long gone. So, Lion walked off the fence and lied on the ground.

"Well, this is just perfect!" Peridot yelled, sarcasm laced in her words. "I spend at least a half-hour chasing that guy so I can interrogate him, and he just… gets away!" She began to pace near the fence. "I don't even know what he was talking about, with those 'koopas', and 'creatures'…"

She paused, seeing Lion roll onto his back. "And it's just… who was he?" Peridot continued. "This entire thing was just a whole waste of time! Who knows how much time is left before the Cluster emerges and destroys this whole planet! I don't know where I can find a ship, I don't know that even if I can find a ship, I don't know if it'll be able to go to Homeworld, and…"

Peridot tried to think of a third and last complaint. "And… I didn't even get to know the guy's name! He never told me!" Peridot dramatically went to her knees near the fallen chain-link fence. She looked at the fence, and noticed something that had been ripped sticking to it.

"What's this?" Peridot asked, standing up and walking to the fallen fence. Upon further inspection, she saw that what had fallen was a small piece of paper attached to a tiny piece of clothing. Peridot picked it up and looked at what the paper read.

"My… name… M?" She raised an eyebrow. "M? Seriously? What kind of name is M, that's so stupid!" Peridot paused, and quickly shoved the paper into the jacket she wore around her forehead. She sighed. "Come on, Lion, I guess we should search the rest of this town for a ship or something."

Peridot slowly walked off, and Lion soon stood up and walked after her. Though the name "M" seemed weird for a name that someone would have, that would have to be what Peridot would have to refer to that man as…

If she ever saw him again.

Mark and Timmy had gone to the Dimmsdale Dump. Mark remembered that his ship should be in the dump. At least, that's what he thought.

"This should be a piece of cake." Timmy said, walking through the trash to where Mark's ship should be. "All we have to do is go into your spaceship to get that second wand and where's your spaceship!" Timmy yelled, upon getting closer and seeing that there was a huge crater where Mark's ship should've been.

"What?" Mark asked. Timmy glared at him. "Oh, right! I sorta left it on Yugopatamia, which is, of course, gonzo!" Mark explained. "But, the good news is, I have no idea where this blue moon is that we seek!" He paused. "Oh wait, bad news, yeah, I meant to say the bad news is I have no idea where the blue moon is."

"Okay, so we have no ship," Timmy began listing off. "We have no idea where the blue moon is, and there's no one to help us because The Darkness has captured all my friends and loves ones!"

"Uh, is there anyone that hates you or is a villain in general that can help us?" Mark asked.

Timmy paused for a moment. Then, narrowing his eyes, he smirked, a plan formulating in his head.

Lightning bolts struck as yet again, as Abracatraz gained several new prisoners. Those prisoners were being led through a hallway by several Eliminators behind them, pointing their laser blasters at the prisoners as a threat so they wouldn't escape.

Those prisoners happened to be Terrance, Tamara, Chester, AJ, and Trixie.

"Where are we again?" Tamara asked, unsure of where exactly they all were.

"The last thing I remember is that we were about to take a look at Timmy's permanent records before I sucked into the face of a man who looked like me!" Terrance explained.

"Wait, you were going through his permanent records?" Chester asked. "Did you get to the part where he only ate cheese in the fourth grade?"

"Wow, really? No wonder he was always so constipated around then!" Terrance responded.

"I'll just get it out so I can find that page." Tamara said, reaching into her pocket to find Timmy's records. However, when she expected to pull out the records, she just had an empty pocket. She checked her other pocket, and it was empty. "That's strange, I could've sworn I had it!"

"You know what's even stranger?" Terrance added. "I could've sworn I just had my camera before I got here, but now that's gone too!"

"Hmm…" AJ thought out loud. "I surmise we've been abducted by an alien super-race that can shapeshift into any form they want!"

"Aliens?" Chester asked. "Then that blog, "Keep Beach City Weird" must be true!"

"Seriously?" Trixie questioned. "Because some guy on a random blog wrote it, you're going to believe it?"

"The kid's right. We're aliens." One of the Eliminators explained.

"Riiight." Trixie said, not believing it. "What are you going to show us next? Fairies? Other aliens?"

"Well, I could believe that fairies exist…" Tamara said.

"But there is no way that other aliens exist!" Terrance added with a laugh. "I'd need a batch of weenies even worse than the one I ate before I came in here in order to believe that!"

Chester looked at the cells they were walking past. While the previous ones held fairies, the inhabitants of the newer cells contained various people that seemed to be in a blocky shape, almost as if they were from a different dimension.

But before Chester could question it, they got to the cell where they would be forced to stay in. One of the Eliminators opened the cell door, and the other one pushed the prisoners in and locked the door behind them.

And what the five prisoners saw when they were forcefully pushed into the cell were the other occupants, all of their eyes now drawn to the prisoners. Those other occupants were Jorgen, Timmy's fairies, the Crystal Gems, and Steven.

Terrance and Tamara, at finally seeing Cosmo and Wanda for themselves, finally proving that fairies do exist, promptly fainted on the spot. Chester, AJ, and Trixie momentarily fainted at seeing the other aliens.

"Awesome! A fainting party!" Cosmo said, misunderstanding why they fainted. He then fainted himself.

"I'm down for that." Amethyst said, also fainting, which caused Pearl to sigh in exasperation.

It wasn't too long for the five that had just entered to wake back up. But right as they woke up, several Eliminators walked toward the door, carrying even more prisoners. The door opened, but only just long enough to get all six additional prisoners inside.

The first of them was Merlon, who had been beat up due to other Eliminators. The next three were Violet, Junior, and Peach. The three of them were all heavily exhausted after their onslaught of constant battle after battle.

And the last of the six were… Mario, with Tippi resting on his hat. Mario wasn't even awake. He was still passed out. The yellow gauze on his right arm had started to become red due to previous events.

The six of them were pushed into the cell, and it was locked a moment later. No words could be spoken. In the span of a couple minutes, the size of inhabitants in the cell had increased by 11.

"Well, this is… awkward…" Steven said, voicing the thoughts of everyone in the cell.

Inside of the Crocker Cave, which was located under Crocker's house, Crocker sat at a desk. He used a toothpick to grab one of several weenies on a plate. "Yes!" He ate the weenie.

"After thirty-two years of searching," Crocker began to list off. "Thirteen nervous breakdowns," Crocker flicked away the toothpick. "And four thousand cocktail weenies, today's the day my atomic magic seeking magnoscope will locate the legendary Fairy World!" Crocker walked up to said magnoscope, which was huge, that he had been working on for a long time.

Crocker inputted coordinates into a computer, and then looked into the magnoscope. Outside, the magnoscope emitted a large, pink beam into the sky. On the magnoscope viewfinder, it only showed space.

"Fairy World not detected." The magnoscope robotically said in a feminine voice.

"Curses!" Crocker yelled, shaking his fist in the air at his failure. He decided to turn around, and screamed because he saw Timmy and Mark. "I didn't steal anything! I mean-"

Crocker screamed as Mark picked him up and shook him roughly for several seconds. "Bad news," Mark began as he let go of Crocker, letting the teacher fall to the floor. "He's not a black hole sucky dude. Oh, I mean good news!"

"Turner, what's going on?" Crocker questioned as he stood up. "And how did you smuggle the squid past mother?"

"Long story short." Timmy began. "I'm being hunted by a big black hole in space and I need you to help me find a mystical and magical dark blue moon."

"Tell me you have fairies and we have a deal!" Crocker smirked evilly.

"I have fairies." Timmy dully responded.

"No use in denying it-" Crocker started to scream, until he realized that Timmy actually confessed. "Well that was anticlimactic. But I am a man of my word." Crocker straightened up and walked to the magnoscope.

"On my many failed attempts to find Fairy World, one of which ended in me finding a while planet that was broken in many pieces," Crocker began to explain. "I did find this blue moon in the Vegan System." He focused on the moon in the magnoscope. "It gave off a large magic reading, but I detected no life on the planet."

"Let me see." Timmy said, running over to the magnoscope. Crocker moved out of the way so Timmy could look. "The star crate! That's it!" Timmy said. He turned around. "I need to get to that moon. Fast!"

Crocker walked over to a purple button and pressed it. The entire floor of the Crocker Cave split in two as a giant red and white rocket slowly rose. Smoke filled the cave for several seconds before it was cleared.

"Dude, aren't you a teacher?" Mark asked. "How can you afford this stuff?"

"Remember the funds that went missing for the new school science wing?" Crocker answered with his own question.

"Yeah?" Timmy responded.

"You're looking at them." Crocker answered. By now, the rocket had fully emerged.

"And this will get us to the blue moon of Vegan?" Timmy asked another question.

Crocker pulled a small remote with an antennae and a singular button out of his pocket. "Does this answer your question?" He pressed the button. The entire cave started to shake as the rocket begun to quickly take off. The roof to Crocker's house opened as to let the rocket out, and then the rocket soared out of the atmosphere and into the depths of space.

"We probably should've been on that." Crocker realized way too late.

Mark screamed as another chance of saving his planet got away from him. "What are we gonna do now? I need to save my planet! And I cannot pull a spaceship out of my pants!"

"Calm down, we know where the second wand is, and I can get us a spaceship." Timmy assured. "All I need is a high-speed internet connection, a laptop, and a whoopee cushion."

Mark reached into his Fake-I-Fier. Several seconds later, he pulled out three things: a long, yellow wire, a small laptop, and a pink whoopee cushion. Crocker and Timmy looked at each other, and then at Mark.

"What?" Mark asked. "I said I couldn't pull a spaceship out of my pants."

Connie and Greg continued the long and slow journey toward Dimmsdale. As of right now, they weren't too far from their destination. They only had a few more miles to go.

"Geez, is it sunrise already?" Greg asked, looking at how far the sun rose. "We've gotta hurry!"

"Well, I'm sure Steven is safe… I hope." Connie said, very worried. "…Can't we get there any faster?"

"I'm going as fast as I can, Connie!" Greg responded, pushing the gas down as hard as he could. "I sure hope there's a gas station soon, cause-" The car suddenly started to slow to a stop. "I'm out of gas."

"Oh no!" Connie said. "We were so close!"

Greg sighed. "Let's just get out of the van." He got out of the van, followed by Connie. "I guess I'll just have to call someone." He got out his phone. "…And it's dead."

"Mine's dead too…" Connie added. "What are we going to do?"

"…I guess we'll have to push the van to a gas station in Dimmsdale." Greg answered.

"We can't push the van that far!" Connie argued.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Greg asked. "It's not like I'm rich and I can just call a helicopter whenever I want!" There was a pause. "Hmm… let's just look and see if there's anyone around here that can help us."

"Okay, I'll look over here." Connie said, pointing to a bunch of trees that led to a forest.

"And I'll look in this direction." Greg said, pointing to other trees on the other side of the street.

Connie and Greg temporarily went their separate ways, looking for anyone that could help them. For several minutes, Connie didn't see anything. But she did, however, hear something rustle in a tree. She paused, and stood silent to listen.

After around a minute, there was another rustle. Connie drew out her sword. "Hello?" She cautiously called out. No response. Connie walked closer to the tree that the rustling had come from. When she walked closer, it rustled again.

Connie paused. "Who's there?" She took one more step toward the tree.

And then, there was a scream, and the occupant of the tree fell onto the grass.

"Ugh, that's the last time I hide inside a tree…" An old, feminine voice said. She was Kammy Koopa. Kammy picked herself up to stand. "Now, where was I…"

"Uh… who are you?" Connie asked, very confused.

"Oh, it was you!" Kammy yelled. "You're the one who woke me up and scared me out of the tree!" She pointed her wand at Connie.

"Well, I'm sorry! Now, may I ask again, who are you?" Connie repeated.

"Ugh, you young whippersnappers don't know anything!" Kammy then coughed. "Very well. I am Kammy Koopa, and I am a part of Bowser's army. And, I-"

"Wait wait wait." Connie interrupted. "Just who the heck is Bowser, and what even is a "koopa", and how'd you even get-"

"You young people always interrupting your elders and constantly asking questions!" Kammy yelled. "People like you need to be taught a lesson!" Kammy aimed her wand at Connie.

"And what does "being taught a lesson" mean?" Connie questioned, aiming her sword at Kammy.

"Connie, have you-" Greg said, had deciding to check the other part of the woods. And when he did, he saw Connie and Kammy, both of them looking like they were about to fight. "What the heck is going on here? Who's that lady?"

"Mr. Universe!" Connie exclaimed. "Um…"

"Well, well, well…" Kammy said with a small smile. "And just who is this fine man?"

"Oh no no no, I'm not… available right now." Greg quickly said before Kammy got any wrong ideas.

Kammy frowned. "Oh…"

There was an awkward silence.

"So, you were thrust from your own world when your leader and an unwilling princess were married by an evil Count Bleck, and unleashed an evil force that could take over the world!" Connie recited. Her, Greg, and Kammy were walking back to the van.

"Doesn't that sound at least a little dangerous?" Greg asked.

"Well yeah, but it could make for a great sequel to the Unfamiliar Familiar series!" Connie argued. "The ending of Destiny's End was a little disappointing to me, but if the series was continued, there are so many new possibilities that could be explored!"

Earlier, after Greg had accidentally walked in on Connie and Kammy, they had all calmed down and started talking to each other, explaining their respective stories. After a little while, they agreed to team up and help each other out. Soon, they got to the van.

"So, your magic can really put gas in the van?" Greg asked Kammy.

"And it can charge both of our phones?" Connie added.

"Yes yes yes!" Kammy answered. "Stop yapping and just watch!" From Kammy's wand shot out various shapes of different colors, aimed at Greg's van. When the magic hit the van, it glowed many different colors. When more magic hit Connie and Greg's phones, the same thing happened.

"Hey, my phone's turning on!" Connie said, excited. "And it's at full battery!"

"Hey, so is mine!" Greg added. "Okay, let's check this van out!" Greg got in the van, and it soon started up. "Alright guys, get in! Let's set a course for Dimmsdale!" Connie and Greg soon got in.

And then as the van left, a new passenger in tow… Another bush shook. Other bushes started to shake, each one getting further and further away from Dimmsdale…