It was dark night-time.

The group was driving on a gravel road in a wooden area.

Pearl for once was driving, Garnet beside her while Greg, Steven and Amethyst slept in the back-seat. Bismuth sat in the luggage, trying to make sence of one of Steven's games.

When suddenly, something big slammed right into the van.

Everyone woke and and let out a scream, Bismuth flew from one wall to another and Pearl quickly tried to drive out of the way but ended up sliding side-ways before the van stood still.

"What the heck was that?!" Steven exclaimed, leaning out the window in a try to find the cause.

Meanwhile, Pearl tried to turn the engine back on. It made a weird noise at first, but nothing happened.

She sighed heavily. "The engine's dead."

"No!/ Aw man!" The inhabits of the car complained.

"Better go check how bad it is." Greg said as he removed his belt and stepped out the car.

"Good idea." Pearl agreed and stepped out as well.

Soon, everyone had stepped outside to see the damage of the car.

They were not pleased.

"Not good." Greg muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

The whole front of the car had been crushed back and one of the wheels had fallen off and laid next to it. One of the headlights was shattered and the hood was buckled up.

"Indeed." Pearl agreed, crossing her arms. Her gem was light up as a light, just like Garnet, Amethyst and Bismuth's.

"You think you can fix it?" Greg asked her.

"Please, I used to fix highly advanced spaceships back in my day." Pearl scoffed proudly. "Though, it's gonna take some time." She then noticed the oil running out beneath the van. "And we'll not be on our way until we've found fuel, either."

"You don't think you can magically summon a tank of fuel from your gem, right?" Greg chuckled.

"Hmm. Let me check." Pearl hummed as she dug her hand inside her gem. One after one she pulled out things. A violin, a cushion, a bike, an iron etc etc. "I'm afraid not." She apologized.

"I'm gonna see if there's a gas station nearby." Steven said as he picked out his phone. "Oh, here we have one!" He pressed the site. "And it's... five miles from here." He sighed heavily.

Everyone sighed.

"We better go check and look for the animal that crashed into us. If it's injured we have to help it." Garnet ordered before walking off to the other side of the road.

"My bars disappearred." Steven announced, looking at his phone.

"That means we have to push the van to the gas station." Greg put his hands on his waist.

"No problem." Bismuth grinned, pretending to pull up her 'sleeves'.

"Gems!" Garnet called from the other side of the road.

The gems and Greg rushed over to where Garnet was crouched down at the edge of the road.

"What is it?" Amethyst asked.

Garnet pointed towards a few foot-prints on the ground. They reminded alot of very big bird-prints. Only much bigger.

"Those are not from any earth-animal." Pearl shook her head. "Could it be a gem?"

"Just my thought." Garnet nodded.

She stood up and turned towards the group. "Steven, you stay here with Greg and Bismuth. Try to push the van to the gas-station. Me, Pearl and Amethyst will go out looking for the gem." She turned towards the gems.

Pearl and Amethyst nodded.

"You sure you'll be okay on your own?" Steven asked.

"We'll be fine, Steven." Garnet nodded.

Greg took a step forward. "Garnet, I don't wanna step on your toes or anything, but should you-." He could see his reflection in Garnet's visor as she turned towards him, and he silenced. "Uh, never mind." He blushed.

"Gems. Let's go!" Garnet summoned her gauntlets and Pearl and Amethyst summoned their weapons. They soon dashed into the woods.

They left the group of four in the middle of the road, looking at each-other uncertain.

Soon, they were on their way pushing the van along the road.

It was a bit difficult, considering the circumstances that the front was all twisted and one wheel was off. But it was nothing compared to Bismuth, who pushed it with ease.

"Just keep pushing. Just keep pushing. Just keep pushing." Steven sang as they pushed the van.

"Yes, Steven. We get it. We're pushing." Bismuth told him in slight annoyance as they pushed.

"But you're making a a good job keeping us going." Greg smiled, sweating in exhaustion.

"What do you think did this?" Steven asked.

"I don't know, Steven." Greg grunted. "Probably something big."

"I bet it was a giant... foot." Steven hummed.

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't a giant foot." Bismuth told him with a chuckle.

They continued walking for a few more minutes before Greg suddenly stopped, gasping for air.

"Hang on! I just need a second!" He breathed heavily, all wet from sweat. "Man, I should really hit the gym..."

"You okay, big meatball?" Bismuth asked Greg, crossing her arms.

"Just give me a second!" Greg gasped for breath, bending forward. "Maybe a bucket..."

Meanwhile, deep in the woods, the Crystal gem were on their look-out after the corrupted gem.

"It should be around here somewhere. My future isn't certain, but it shouldn't be far away from the road." Garnet stated, adjusting her visor, her gauntlets ready in hands.

"It still can't be that close. A creature of that size shouldn't be that quiet." Pearl added from behind her leader, holding her spear.

Amethyst was in the back, walking behind all bored.

"Ugh, this is so boring. Nothing happens." She whined.

"It's not supposed to be funny, Amethyst." Pearl told her in a hushed tone.

Amethyst rolled her eyes and kicked a rock on the ground. "So, uh, G." She began. "What was your deal?" She suddenly asked.

Garnet stopped in her tracks, turning her head. "Your question is a bit un-clear." She said.

"Oh, you know. The black-outs, the hospital." Amethyst said, crossing her arms as she walked up next to her. "Something you feel you need to tell us about?" She asked.

"Nope." Garnet responded as she continued forward.

Amethyst was taken aback by the answer and then rushed to her side, walking alongside her.

"Come on! Something happened at the facility! Admit it!" She argued.

"Amethyst! That's none of your business!" Pearl scolded at her, walking behind them.

"We are out of the facility." Garnet began speaking. "'What', and 'if' anything happened back there, it's not important."

"Yeah right." Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Just something 'bad' enough for you to try and bail from that creepy place." She scoffed.

"Your reaction towards it is a little bit off scetule." Garnet muttered.

"My reaction is great!" Amethyst shouted.

"Amethyst. Keep your voice down." Garnet hissed at her, stopping in her tracks and looked up, as if searching for anything nearby. "The creature."

"No way! I don't care if the whole galaxy hears this!" Amethyst yelled at her. "You said you were under surveillance. Why?"

Garnet had turned towards her. "I..." She stammered, but stopped and grit her teeth. But then, she calmed down and found her 'cool' again. "It's none of your business.."

Amethyst's eye had almost started twitching. "What?!"

"Amethyst, be quiet. You're making yourself ridiculous." Garnet hissed, crossing her arms.

"Ridiculous?!" Amethyst exploded with anger. "First you're gone for three days, then when we come to get you, you run away for no reason-!" Garnet grit her teeth. "Then tell me! How am I the ridiculous one?!" She shouted.

For that, Garnet had no response. She looked down and then turned on her heels to walk away.

And this only aggravated Amethyst more. Her gem started glowing and she picked out her weapon. "I am not ridiculous!"

This time, Amethyst swung her whips back so that they grabbed one big rock.

"So why don't you just SHUT UP!" She swung her one whip, and it waved in the air and she launched the rock.

It flew towards Garnet. She lifted her gauntlets to block the rock, but it ended up with her slipping backwards a few feet, making two craters after her feet in the ground. She slammed the rock back with incredible power, shooting it back at Amethyst.

Amethyst jumped over it and when she landed, she summoned another whip mi-air and flung it around Garnet's leg, pulling until Garnet fell to her back. Amethyst swung the second rock at her.

Pearl stood by, too scared to step in.

Garnet had only now come up to her feet.

Amethyst glared in anger at her when-

Garnet held up her gauntlet, but instead of slamming or hitting the rock, she was holding one hand forward as if to shield herself.

"Don't hurt her!" She roared out. But this time, in both anger and frustration.

"Huh?" Amethyst did barely have time to react when she bend her arms and pulled the rock back and launched it another direction until it crashed into a buskage.

This time, Pearl had stepped forward to watch the scene. And the both of them watched the fusion bend over slightly.

Garnet protectively wrapped an armored arm around her waist.

Pearl and Amethyst's eyes widened to confused distrust.

"You said what now?" Amethyst asked, grimacing.

Meanwhile, back at the road, Bismuth, Greg and Steven still pushed the van.

Only this time, Greg sat in the front-seat while Steven and Bismuth pushed.

"You're doing great guys!" Greg called out, sticking his head out the window.

"So... what used to be your work?" Steven asked the bismuth.

"Huh?"

"You know, work. My dad used to own a car- wash. But he had to shut it down when we moved." Steven explained. "What was yours?"

Bismuth frowned. "I was a builder for the elites." She answered his question.

"Oh yeah? That sounds cool."

"It wasn't cool." Bismuth muttered. "I was made for it, and I was good at it. But I didn't enjoy it." She told him. "When I was supposed to join the Crystal Gems, I was supposed to become a blacksmith. Can you believe that? A blacksmith!" She laughed in joy of the memory. "But... I guess it never happened."

Steven watcher her sadly.

"It was your 'mom' who told me I could be that." Bismuth smiled down at him. "She was the one who told me I could become whatever I wanted. And I chose that."

"The gems don't talk that much about my mom, but I think that's just because it's hard for them, you know?" Steven began speaking. "My mom fought with them for thousands of years. And one day, I was there instead."

Bismuth smiled. "Then I guess that was a good case of 'give ten knives away, get twenty knives back." She winked at him with one eye.

Steven smiled back at her.

When suddenly, the car launched forward, making them both fall forward and slam against the ground.

"Hey!" Bismuth shouted.

"Dad! What was that about?!" Steven shouted, spitting out some dirt.

"It wasn't me!" Greg shouted.

After some time, Steven joined him in the front-seat.

"What happened?" Steven asked him.

"I don't know! The car just... started all by itself!" Greg answered in complete confusion.

He put the key in and turned it.

The engine made some sounds but nothing happened.

"See? I have no idea what happened!" Greg said in confusion, running a hand through his hair.

When suddenly, the van hurled forward again, jolting everyone onboard.

"What was that?" Steven asked, holding his seat.

And then, the van hurled forward again, jolting them even more.

"Alright, this isn't even a little funny." Greg muttered.

When suddenly, the van hurled forward, only this time... it never stopped.

"Whoaoaaa!" The duo shouted as the van started rolling 30/h down the downhill.

Bismuth stood up, turning around and watching the van drive away from her.

"Hey! What about me?!" She shouted.

"Help!" Greg shouted.

Bismuth tensed. "I-I'm coming!" She shouted and started running after.

"Hit the breaks! Hit the breaks!" Steven shouted as they were driving away.

Greg pressed down on the breaks as hard as he could. But nothing happened.

"It's not working!" He shouted through gritted teeth.

Meanwhile, back in the woods with the gems, they were still looking for the monster.

Pearl accidentally walked into a puddle of goo. She frowned and lifted her foot up. "Ugh. Stupid earth-forest. I did not recall assigning to this when I promised to protect earth." She grunted in disgust, pulled off her shoe and threw it away, summoning a couple new, identical ones on her feet. "This place is starting to drive me crazy."

"Yeah, we don't need any more crazy heads here." Amethyst mumbled, pointing her thumb backwards over her shoulder.

Garnet frowned, although it wasn't seen behind her visor. "I am not crazy." She told her strictly.

"Yeah, crazy-heads always turns down their only way of escaping. It's all natural." Amethyst ironically rolled her eyes. "You can convince me that you're not crazy when you tell us the real reason you're acting weird."

"I'm not crazy. I'm pregnant!" Garnet didn't raise her voice, but the way she gritted her teeth made it clear that the conversation brought up the worse in her.

"No! You're not!" Amethyst turned around and yelled, almost laughing about how stupid it sounded coming from her. "How can I make it go through your thick hair?!"

"Amethyst, this is not the time-." Pearl stepped up beside her, trying to calm her down.

"Do you believe her?!" Amethyst burst out to the pale gem.

Pearl looked up at Garnet. Garnet just looked at her, no particular emotion shown. Pearl looked down, like in defeat.

"Tell me. How do you know?" Amethyst continued arguing. "Tell me how you, a gem, in all the universe, possibly think that you're pregnant?!"

"I-I just know." Garnet almost stammered, sweating slightly from the lack of answers.

"That's not an answer!" Amethyst squealed. "Did they, like, zap your head or something?!"

"Amethyst-." Garnet warned her through gritted teeth.

"Tell me!" Amethyst blurted, her eyes almost popping out of her eye-holes.

When suddenly, they heard screaming, sending them off-guard.

"Steven!" They gasped.

Garnet adjusted her visor, gazing into the future. "This way!" She ran off into one direction of the woods, Amethyst and Pearl not far behind.

The car was continuing to roll on it's own, now come up to rolling 60/h.

Greg and Steven was panicked inside, trying to do anything in their power to make it stop.

"Dad! What are we going to do?!" Steven shouted in terror.

"I don't know Stu-Ball! I've never driven a haunted car before!" Greg responded in panic, pressing all buttons, pulling all levers.

"We need to make it stop!" Steven shouted.

Greg's eyes widened. "Don't wish too much, son..."

Steven looked ahead.

They were heading right towards a ruin wall ar the end of the road.

A dead end.

Steven and Greg screamed, now even quicker trying to make the van stop.

They were approaching the wall even faster, the speed increased by the second.

Steven and Greg embraced each-other.

"I love dad!"

"I love you too son!"

When suddenly three familiar figures appeared at the end of the road.

"Steven! Greg!" They gasped.

"Pearl!" Garnet demanded, turning towards the gem.

The next thing they knew, they grabbed hands and legs of the smaller, purple gem.

Garnet held the legs, Pearl held the arms.

Amethyst's body glew up and began stretching as Pearl crossed the road to the other side.

Now there was a rope made out of Amethyst crossing the road.

"This is gonna hurt so bad, man." Amethyst whined.

The van drove right into the legs of Amethyst, and just like a sling-shot, it bounced back and fell hard to the ground on it's side.

"Steven! Greg!" Pearl and Garnet gasped, simply dropping Amethyst to the ground and rushed over to the van.

Pearl jumped up onto the van's side and opened the door, helping Steven and Greg up.

"See, Steven. This is why we use seat-belt." Greg spoke dizzily as he climbed out of the car.

The next thing they knew, Garnet and Bismuth pushed the van back to it's wheels.

"It drove all by itself?" Pearl asked in surprise.

"Yes! And it almost crashed us to a wall!" Greg exclaimed.

The engine was starting to give a sound, and the van started rolling.

But Garnet simply stopped it with on hand.

She frowned.

Pearl opened the hood and they all stood back with a gasp.

Inside was a creature, not bigger than really big dog, that looked like a really cute octopus. It was dark-blue and had some green spots here and there.

It was playing around around the engine.

"It lived inside the hood?" Pearl hummed.

"That explains the ghost-van." Garnet added as she bend down and picked the creature up by a tentacle, letting it dangle in her grip. "It must have slipped inside during the collision."

"But this can't be the creature that ran into the wall. This one doesn't have feet." Pearl gestured towards the gem's tentacles.

When suddenly, the corrupted gem began glowing.

Garnet grimaced and let the creature fall to the ground.

Within seconds, the octopus was replaced by a weird-looking bird with big feet and no eyes.

"Can corrupted gems shape-shift?" Steven asked in amazement.

"I guess so." Pearl hummed in thought.

The creature was starting to make a run for it, but Bismuth crushed it beneath her shape-shifted war-hammer.

The gem disappearred in a cloud of smoke and the blue gem fell to the ground.

Amethyst quickly ran over and bubbled it.

"Almost driving you to a wall was a complete accident. It had no eyes." Garnet stated plainly.

"Well, that's a relief that it didn't try to kill me on purpose." Greg shrugged ironically, still kind of traumatised by the previous event.

"We should not be far from the car-station. Let's move!" Garnet ordered and walked back to the gem. "Amethyst! Bubble that gem!" She ordered strictly as Bismuth and Steven joined her.

Amethyst rolled her eyes and send the bubble back to the temple, frowning deeply

"Did you guys walk on an emotional land-mine or something?" Greg asked her in confusion as Pearl walked up to them, feeling the tension.

"Ask Garnet." Amethyst shrugged, crossing her arms. "She started it." She rolled her eyes. "Talking 'bout being 'preggers' and comes up with stupid excuses and..." The next few words she just muttered to herself in annoyance.

Greg recognized this immediately. "Oh, geese..." He muttered, scratching the back of his back un-comfortably.

"Look, guys. I'm not really sure I should be the one doing this. But..." Inconsistently, he picked out his wallet and un-folded a piece of paper. He then handed the paper over to Pearl.

Pearl grabbed it and looked at it in confusion, Amethyst shape-shifting her legs to see the picture as well.

"What's this?" Pearl asked.

"It's the X-ray they made when we were at the hospital." Greg explained.

Pearl and Amethyst stared at the piece of paper for a long time, not really understanding what it meant.

"You should talk to her." Greg told them and the duo looked at Greg, looking at them.

As he left, he left Pearl and Amethyst trying to understand the picture he just had handed them, frowning deep in confusion.

At dawn the next morning, they had finally reached the gas-station.

Steven was happily munching on a hot-dog, Bismuth had done a pretty good job slamming the front of the van back to normal.

Greg was filling the tank with a soft smile on his face, every now and then sharing a word with his son.

But every now and then he couldn't help but help but look a at the three gems having a violent discussion behind the parking-lot.

He couldn't hear them, but he could see their body-language.

Pearl flew her arms to the sides, her mouth probably implying she was speaking louder than just 'speak' tone.

Garnet crossed her arms and said something.

And this time, Amethyst stepped forward, looking angry and pointing an accusing finger towards the fusion as she seemed to be shouting at her.

Garnet wrapped her arms around herself. And the small tears running down her cheeks caused the anger of her team-mates to turn into worry.

If Greg's smile could get more invisible, it would.

Amethyst had by now stepped forward and hugged Garnet's thigh, the highest she could reach. Pearl's hands had met the fusion's shoulder and the other hand wiped away a tear with it's thumb.

Greg smiled.

Later that day at close dinner-time, the gems and humans had a blast singing to a song.

"Cam's Camshafts is the place to bring your wreck

Get your car repaired for cheap and fair-:"

Meanwhile, while Bismuth, Greg, Steven and Pearl sang that weird song, Amethyst took the time to un-buckle herself and leaned over to the passenger's seat.

"Sorry for... Sorry..." She mumbled to the tall gem to her right.

"Same here." Garnet responded, arms crossed.

-"Without risking your neck

Cam's Camshafts!"

Everyone ended the song with a big laugh.