It's been a hectic couple of weeks for me to say the least. Most of my time has been used up by working on anything I could use to work to our advantage. I made sure all my gear on my vest was placed firmly on it and in no way would anything fall off anytime soon. I double checked my weapons placement every week to make sure they're there and accounted for. I also made a new addition to the back of my truck that I keep under my tarp since if the police were to spot it, they'd immediately move on me for it. Other than that, unless I want to start making my own landmines to place on the beach, which would be really really really stupid of me to since it's a public place and as much as I want to be prepared to fight our enemies, I do not want to risk any innocent people stepping on a landmine. 'There's too much of that crap happening already because of wars and skirmishes in the past.' Even so, I feel like I've got as much as I can do at this point so for now, I need to relax. The last couple of days have been spent being at ease in my home and waiting for the inevitable to happen. I make sure that I mentally prepare myself for the upcoming fight to happen.
Thing is, while I may seem capable when it comes to many fights that I take part in, one thing that I like to do before a huge event is going to happen is that I like to relax before it and soak up the information I have for it. While my body and the physical world are ready for what's to come, I take a few moments out of the day to do a recount of what my plans are, where they are going to take place, what I have at my disposal and where to get them. It's so I don't forget where anything is and I don't forget any little detail that could potentially save my life.
I am sitting on my couch with my legs crossed and hands resting on my knees, my breathing coming in calm breaths and steadying my mind because of it.
"Whoa!" I yelp as a loud rumbling noise shakes my entire home, throwing me from my thoughts and almost making me lose my balance from the couch. I almost fall off the couch but I quickly grab the back and the armrest to steady myself. After a few seconds of rumbling it stops. "What was that?" I question out loud about the activity. Before I can go outside, I quickly grab my M4 and head to the door. Just before I got outside, I see one of my windows in the front of my house is cracked. 'Good thing I had my droids strengthen my windows.' I smile at the thought before heading outside. As soon as I do, I look around for anything out of the ordinary. "Hmmm." I hum as I scan the horizon around me and at the sea. Houses in town have their windows broken but other than that, nothing is wrong. I look up, and that's where the problem is. A giant green hand is in the sky pointing at us. "Hell…" I flick the safety off and rack a round into the chamber. "It's about time."
"What's the situation?" I ask the others as I come from the Beach House after Warping in from my home.
"A ship has arrived in our atmosphere." Garnet gives me the sitrep.
"Peridot?" I take a guess at the arrival.
"We don't know. We can only guess yes." Pearl adds.
"Hmmm," I look through the scope of my rifle and while it's not sniper rifles standards of zoom, its still something. Besides, Garnet is holding the telescope like its nothing to her eye. "Other than its green, I see no other discernible marks that it's Peridot." I point out. So far since I've met her, I've only seen her deal with tech or items that have the color green hue to them. This is just a shot in the dark at best.
"Regardless, we still need to engage them. Are the light cannons ready?" Garnet asks me, to which I nod yes. While I was relaxing the last few days, I still did a check up on the cannons to make sure they were up to snuff and ready to fire. I still don't know what it takes to fire the thing since the others didn't bother to tell me what it was but besides that, both the cannons and the conveyor belt are ready for action.
"Guys!" We all look back to see Steven running up to us with his dad right behind him. "Did you see that thing in the sky?" He asks us.
"It's a ship. We have to assume it's Peridot." Pearl tells him.
"Lapis told us she'll be coming. With advanced weapons and reinforcements." Garnet reminds us of the message she sent.
'Thanks… your great for that.' I think fondly of the blue gem so long ago. I hope she's not mixed up in this. I don't want to see her get hurt because of us. "Strange." I muse to myself as I look back to the ship. "The advanced weapons I get but to be honest, I was expecting a lot more troops." I say out loud. 'Is Homeworld that cocky they only send one ship?'
"It's happening…" I hear Greg say.
"I wanna see." Steven says as he walks over to the telescope and peers through it. "Woah." He says in awe at the machine.
Garnet looks toward me with a determined expression. "Ready the light cannons."
With a nod, I pull out my phone and activate it. With a whir, the Quartizine Trio move out from under the deck at the beach house and Amethyst pushes out the fourth one they have onto the deck. Using a camera I built into them, I aim them straight to where the ship is using my phone. They told me the cannons fire a concentrated stream of energy towards the target so I don't have to compensate for wind or temperature variables. "Ready to fire." I notify them.
"Steven, light them up." Garnet signals to him.
"If every pork shop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."
"That's the signal to activate them?!" I ask the Gems incredulously. "What type of firing mechanism is that?"
"One no one would be able to figure out." Garnet answers.
"… Damn, that's good." I mutter as the cannons charge up. While it may seem a little… weird, to have that type of firing mechanism, or that type of voice activation, but when you think about it its something that not many people or Gems would be able to figure out because of how absurd and ridiculous it sounds. Not something that I'm privy to working with but damn would that work in some cases.
The cannons all fire their payload straight towards the ship. The blasts looks like bright version of Rose and the Quartizine Trio hold hands as they circle the fourth one. To our dismay, the ship hand reorients itself where instead of pointing, it shows it's palm to us and our attack hit it square on. Nothing shakes it as it moves back to pointing.
"No effect." Garnet says grimly at our failed attack.
"What now?" Greg asks.
"My turn." I speak up. With the laser light cannons ineffective, I move over slightly move the tarp on the back of my truck and reach in before pulling out a M72 LAW rocket launcher, an RPG, and a Javelin missile launcher. "Pearl, Garnet." I toss them the RPG and the LAW which they easily catch. "Arm up."
"You sure this'll work?" Garnet asks as she aims her RPG at the ship. She may not be privy to using conventional firearms but I made sure to at least show her the ins and outs of my explosive weaponry. Turns out she does like the explosions they bring out.
"No… but that's because the Laser Light Cannons failed." I reply and sprint over to the beach house. When I get inside, I warp myself to my house before climbing up the lighthouse to the top. Once I make it to the top, I pull out my phone and call Steven.
"Hello?" He answers.
"Put me on speaker." I tell him.
"Okay… go."
"But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try!" I yell into the phone, making sure everyone hears how determined I am on this. After prepping the rocket and setting it on the railing, I start locking onto the ship. "READY…!" I order my friends to do so. As I look down to the beach, I see Pearl getting into a crouched position and Garnet remains standing. "AIM…!" The lock-on signal turns green and tracks my target. "FIIIIRRRRREEE!" I yell out loud.
*PU—CHUUING*
The rocket leaves my Javelin, jumping out of the tube before its thrusters send the ordinance flying high into the air. Almost at the same time, Garnet and Pearl simultaneously fire their rockets as well. Unfortunately, while they only kick up the sand behind them, my rockets back blast blows out the windows on the lighthouse behind me, making me wince a bit but I still focus my attention on our attack. I spot three lines of smoke trails heading straight for the ship and like before it shows us the palm hull of its hand ship. While the RPG and LAW head straight for the palm, my Javelin missile however completely circumvents that part of the ship and comes in from the top. I watch the two missiles slam straight into the palm and they impact it with explosive force. So far the front has no residual damage from the attacks but my Javelin is still falling from up above. The ship isn't able to correct itself as my missile slams head first on top the top of the hand. "Yes." I mutter to myself and shut off my phone before heading back down to the others. When I jump down from the top of the cliff, I walk over to the telescope that Garnet is looking into. "Status?" I demand after I place my rocket in the back of my truck.
"Our shots had no effect but yours cracked the hull." Garnet answers.
"But?" I get the feeling it didn't do as much as I wanted.
"But that's it. It only splintered the hull and I don't see any other change in its descent."
"Damn." I curse under my breath, my fist tightening in frustration at the still failed attack.
"We'll have to take them head on." Garnet informs us since all our preemptive attacks failed. "The whole town might be in danger."
"I better make a call." Steven says as he pulls up his phone again. "Time for some… political favors." Looking over his shoulder, I raise a questionable eyebrow as I see him calling none other than the mayor.
"You have the mayor's number?" I ask confused.
"Yeah, I do. After I helped him out last time, we traded numbers so that way if he needs some inspirational speeches or needs to look good or I need some favors, we can call each other. Mayor Dewey!" He moves from explaining to me to talking with the mayor.
I shake my head and walk away from him. "I don't know if I should be worried about that or praise him for earning the guys favor." I mumble as I walk from the kid since he's so engrossed with talking with the political figure. "Hm?" I question as I spot both Pearl and Greg running to the temple. "What are they—?
"Marcus." Garnet plants a hand on my shoulder from behind. From the way she places it, and how she talks I get an uneasy feeling from her. "How come I have a feeling you're going to ask me something I won't particularly like." I reply.
"Steven's going to call for an evacuation of the town… and you know a lot of people are not going to stay and find out what happens next." She informs me… sadly. The tone is… steady and I detect something under it.
"What do you—" I begin to question but I'm interrupted as I see Greg and Pearl coming back from the temple. This time they both have a ton of stuff with them but what gets my attention is the cheeseburger backpack slung over her shoulder. 'That's Steven's. I know why Greg is going but…' It takes me a second but it clicks into my head. "Steven's… not…" I trail off, hoping she gets what I mean.
"Yes, and I want you to go with him." I turn back and look at her. "I know you don't want to. I get that. Not after all the preparation and planning you did to help prepare us for this… but you and I both know this isn't the most well-defended place on earth, now is it." She says truthfully.
I stare at her for a few tense seconds, still in slight shock that she's asking me of this, but in the end I sigh. "I know." I look towards the ground.
"That's why we can't have Steven here. It would be too dangerous for him to be here and we still don't know exactly who we'll be up against." She says as she looks toward the ship. "And that's where you come in." She says with a bit more confidence as she looks back to me.
We stare into each other's eyes, neither of us saying anything for a few seconds but the both of us have some contemplating to do, me more so. I have a choice: Stay here and help out my friends in the fight, or go with Steven to fight another day should they fail.
There are advantages to staying and fighting. We could throw everything we have at them right now and try to stop them cold before they could get far on the planet, but that means we'd be working on information that is given in the moment; information that would be near useless for us to use or take advantage of.
If we go, our forces would be split off. I'd lose some friends… but I'd be able protect Steven. I can prepare him. I can learn from the enemy. I'd be able to use the planet to my advantage and build up my arsenal a lot more than what I have now.
There are pros and cons to both but I can only choose one.
As I spot Mayor Dewey coming into town in his van, I let out a breath of air.
"What do you need?"
"Get Steven out of here. Protect him and come up with a better plan should we fail here."
Those were Garnet's words to me just before Steven noticed his backpack and questioned why they had it and were loading it up in the van. Right now, I'm riding behind Greg's van in a convoy of vehicles heading out of Beach City. As I drive, my steering wheel gets new finger grooves in it from my constant tight gripping of the wheel. Tears are also threatening to fall from my eyes at the idea of leaving the others but its what they want and even though I really hate it, they still know Homeworld better than I and if there's a higher chance we will all lose if we go up against them right now, then logically speaking we would need to use some of our forces to gauge their strength and weaknesses and use the rest to capitalize on that information.
It may be the logical approach but damn do I feel like hell.
"Uhhhh…" I groan as I rub my hand on my face in frustration. 'Please be alright girls. I really don't want to lose anyone else, or have to start planning another rebellion.' I think as my hand goes over my eyes before I remove it. "Son of a—!" I yell as the van in front of me swerves. I spot a familiar pink bubble get launched out of the van while Greg hits the brakes. I swerve off the side of the road and head into the ditch lower ground area on the side of the road. "Shit!" I curse as a boulder comes into view in front of me. I hit the brakes and swerve to the right but it's too late.
*CRASH*
"Cah!" I yell as the front left side of my truck slams into the rock, making me jerk my head forward and impact my head on the dashboard. For a few moments of only the sounds of my engine rumbling, I weakly grab my keys before turning off my engine. "Ow." I groan as I sit back up and press a hand to my head. "Ahhhh!" I hiss from the impact on my head as wound area is tender from the hit. "Mmmmm… Oh! Steven!" I yell, suddenly remembering my friend in the pink bubble. I jump out of my truck, not bothering to close the door as I see Steven talking to his dad.
"I have to go back. I have to!" I hear him say as I crouch next to them. "They don't have my shield, do you understand?" He says sadly to his dad with tears threatening to break through his eyes.
Greg looks at him for a moment, his own tears threatening to flow forth as well before he smiles. "Yeah, okay. Just… be careful, or I'm gonna run fresh out of family." He says to his son before looking to me. "Take care of him… will you?"
I return the smile and stand up before extending my hand to the both of them. "I wouldn't want it any other way." They both smile and take my hands, allowing me to pull them both up.
"Thanks Marcus." Steven thanks me for my support before turning back to his father. "Stay with everyone and keep them safe. We'll figure out some way to get back to Beach City." I open my mouth to say something but a familiar pink paw places itself on top of Steven's head before the animal connected to it lets out a low growl. "Oh, this'll work!"
"Where did you come from?" I question at the sudden appearance of the pink lion but he simply sniffs at my direction. Steven gets on Lions back but looks confused when he notices than I'm not making a move to get on him.
"What's wrong?" He questions.
"You got your ride…" I begin to say as I back up towards my truck, "I got mine!" I yell back as I make it to the front of my truck and quickly inspect the damage. "After Lapis and Greg totaled my truck…"
"Hey! It wasn't my fault I was thrown into the air!"
"…Pearl's repairs made this thing more durable than before." I inform them as I'm satisfied with the inspection and see that nothing will inhibit its ability to drive. The only problem is my left head and signal light are destroyed but I'm not worried about being pulled over right now. "Besides!" I climb onto the back as everyone from the convoy start coming down to see if they can help and I start unhooking the tarp. "Ain't no way I'm leaving… this behind!" I grunt out loudly as I tear the tarp away.
Everyone gasps in awe as I reveal to them the object I've spent days refurbishing and remodeling to my specifications. The two Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns I obtained from The Iron Kings were both using the same direction of feed system, both a strip of bullets from the left from a box, but I changed one of them to feed from the right so I can do the second thing I want. Using several strips and pieces of metal, I connected both guns together so they'll be side-by-side and facing and firing at the same target as well. Not only that, but I basically also turned my truck into a technical by using a rivet gun and bolting a large metal stand to the back of it and welding the gun to the stand. Now I can turn the gun in any number of directions and open fire on anyone I wish. The weapons would be too heavy for me to use bare-handed and with the incendiary rounds I have equipped as ammo for these beasts, I needed the stand to make sure this things aim won't go all over the place. I begin placing the boxes of ammo onto the sides of the guns and feed the strips throw the gun.
"What is that?!" Greg asks in surprise at the massive weapon I am currently arming.
"Two Browning M2 .50 cal machine guns equipped with incendiary rounds and bolted onto the back of my truck for stability." I answer as I finish loading the guns.
"W-what are you going to do with that?" Greg asks hesitantly.
"What does it look like?!"
*Cha-Chink*
I pull the bolt handles back, loading in the first rounds of my weapon. "Defending our home!" I yell and jump off before getting into the driver seat and turning my truck on. It revs up to life without any difficulty. After checking my rearview to make sure everyone is out of the way and I'm clear, I kick it into reverse aim my ride towards Beach City. "Let's go Steven!" I call out to the kid.
He nods with a determined expression on his face before waving to everyone. "See you later everyone!" He says to them all before Lion and I take off, not bothering to hear what everyone else has to say. After a few seconds of driving alongside Steven and Lion, I see my friend pull out his phone. "Hey, Connie, it's Steven. Just... seeing what you were up to. Don't know if you knew, but there's some crazy stuff going on with a giant space hand and we all might die, so, uh, I guess call me back when you get this and talk to you soon! Uh, bye!" Once Steven hangs up the phone, Lion opens a portal that the two of them jump through.
"Seriously." I grumble at their shortcut before turning onto the road. My vehicle gains a little air as it goes onto the road and slams onto the paved roadway. Once I reorient myself, I kick my truck into high gear and speed towards the Temple.
Right where the battle is going to take place. For everyone.
Hope you don't mind the split chapters here. I have no idea how many words exactly the conclusion to "The Return" will have and that's why I decided to split the chapter up at this point. I'd say this one has a pretty good chunk of words about it. I'm also pretty sure I'll be bouncing ideas around and possibly thinking hard on how to flesh out or connect some scenes. So I don't want to accidentally backlog this chapter just because I'm scratching my head trying to connect one scene. Hope you guys don't mind.
Hopefully the second part won't take long. One reason for that possibility is because I'm sort of binge watching episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh. Normally I'm not really up to snuff with the series and I don't collect cards anymore but when your cleaning out a cabinet filled with crap since a dozen years ago and find a box filled with over a hundred cards that you collected when you were like five or eight, you kind of get a bit of nostalgia feel to it and feel the need to reminisce you know?
Still, don't worry I won't be watching every single season and every single episode of the entire series, only the ones that interest me or remind me of my younger days like the original or GX.
Also another thing I'm gonna do is give you guys a small basic recap of my character since sometimes of my description in chapters flows over your guys head. And to be honest… I'm the same. Occasionally when I read a story, I'll skip over a few lines here and there just so I can advance things along and it would just so happen that I potentially miss important facts of information.
Marcus is a Gem-human hybrid with two Jade gems on his shoulders, having a gem mother and a human father. His father wasn't a good guy and in his depression of losing his wife to make Marcus, hurt him many times. Marcus left and traveled before meeting up with the Crystal Gems and joining their ranks. He has powers of extremely fast shadow movement speed, kinetic strikes that he uses to overpower his unarmed attacks or create shockwaves, and he has the power to regenerate any wound or injury on his body but the result afterward leaves him in a dormant vulnerable state for a full 24 plus hours. Marcus's mother, Jade, was a prototype soldier made by Homeworld but when she failed, they threw her away. Only Homeworld knows exactly how it was that made Jade and why she has two gems without the aid of fusing so both he and the Crystal Gems are in the dark about that subject.
Well, with this chapter wrapped up, time to get started on the next part because I'm sure a lot of you are anxious to find out what happens next.
As always, have a great day and have fun reading.