Alright, go ahead. Make all the jokes about Chapter 69 being uploaded on Valentine's Day. And it involves Lapis... Get them all out of your system, I know I am.
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You good? Great! Onwards!
Word of Lapis's little breakdown soon got to the rest of the Crystal Beacon. Many were concerned, but Adamite and Cinnabar were relieved that she was now getting some genuine help to curb her worst impulses. They had some ways to go before they reached Satellite Beta and thus it was the collective hope of everyone that this would all be sorted out before their next conflict.
The air became uneasy again as they knew something was going to sprung and most likely something different than they faced at Alpha. Connie had once again volunteered to watch over Steven and Lapis in case the ship was infiltrated again, but her mother decided to head elsewhere this time.
As the ship neared closer and closer, Peridot kept a hand to walls so she could digitize and fix any potential hacking at a moment's notice. The crew on the bridge kept their eyes peeled for the slightest scene of a fight. Bismuth busied herself with maintaining the engine level to keep out the occasional dark thought floating around in her head. The rest of the gems simply patrolled the corridors waiting for the first sign of a problem.
Minute after minute crawled by until Captain Topaz saw the Beta's planet appear as a green speck on the proverbial horizon. She kept her eyes peeled as the celestial body grew larger and larger until her eyes caught something else to the side. A large gray rock the size of a pickup truck was hurtling at them.
"Rhodonite, fire on that meteorite!" the captain ordered. Her fellow fusion complied and readied the blasters, quickly blasting apart the oncoming projectile into smaller pieces. They thought they were in the clear until they saw the scattered rocks still flying towards them.
"Um, captain?!" Rhodonite yelled, "Pretty sure this isn't a coincidence!"
"Those meteorites aren't natural!" Padparadscha warned, "Something is controlling them!"
"Fluorite, boost power to the shields!" Topaz ordered, "Rhodonite, hit as many of those meteors as you can!"
The four-armed pilot did her best to shoot down as many oncoming rocks as she could while their engineer raised their defenses as much as possible, but the ship still was still rocked from a few collisions. This naturally got a few gems running to the bridge to figure out what was going on.
"Short version: we've got hostile meteors," Rutile summarized, much to the bafflement of Amethyst and Greg.
"Okay, so what, they've got huge catapults aimed at us?" the father said just as a meteorite even bigger than the last one came towards them.
"I've got an idea!" Amethyst said, "I'll get Adamite!"
"Good idea," Topaz said from her seat, "She'd definitely help repel these things."
Amethyst rushed off at top speed and found the earthbender of the group and quickly escorted her to the airlock. The second meteor soon found itself slowing down as Adamite used her powers to stop its approach and Rhodonite was able to blast it to near nothingness much more easily.
From her vantage point on the ship, though, Adamite felt a rock drop in her gut. Dozens of these asteroids seemed to be appearing from nowhere. She might have been able to control earth better than ever before thanks to her training, but this would be a strain even to her.
The only two people onboard the ship who were unaware of the oncoming meteor storm were Steven and Lapis. They were more preoccupied with both being stuck in a near pitch-black dome. For minutes now, they tried to find some way out but discovered little. All they learned was that the walls of this dome were made of rushing water down from some point several stories above them, Lapis could not manipulate any of the liquid for some reason and that trying to break through the dome meant getting stuck in a raging current that eventually spat them back out in their prison.
"Well, this stinks…" Lapis summed up. As she and Steven both tried to dry off, the boy was now examining the floor. He tried tapping a spot to see if there was some secret passage out, but it sounded solid. Try after try yielded no change and so he eventually walked up to Lapis.
"Doesn't look like we've got any way out of here…" he reported, "Guess there's only one thing to do."
"What? Punch our way out of here?"
"Nope." He then sat on the floor and patted the space across from him. Confused as she was, Lapis still sat down opposite to him and stared at him.
"Now what?"
"Now, I guess, we talk about you."
"What, that's it? Were the other gems' heads like this?"
"Let's see, Garnet had a weird volcano winter, Amethyst had a void full of gray goo, Pearl had a full-on city and Peridot just had a blank space with some portals. But none of them ever started out with us being trapped That usually comes up later."
"Heh, terrific…"
"I mean, at least you aren't pretending everything's great or running away."
"Yeah, all I feel like is a creep. I attacked one of my best friends and my girlfriend all because I don't want to be alone. How messed up is that, Steven? I sound like a psycho toddler!"
"Pretty bad, but I've heard worse."
"You're kidding, right?"
"It doesn't matter, really, because it's not a contest. Everyone has their problems, and everyone works through them differently."
"I… Guess you've got a point. But I've been dealing with this stupid junk for so long. You'd think being about, like, 7,000 years old would be enough to solve your problems!"
"Pearl is over 9,000 years old and she had tons of problems. Being some creepy gem's personal toy, learning to fight from scratch, the whole war business and then pretty much hating my dad for years and thinking she's worthless without my mom."
"Okay, that… Sounds pretty screwed up."
"If you want someone else to talk to about this stuff, go to her."
"What, can't you just astral-project yourself out of here and get her to talk to me?"
"That… I don't know," Steven admitted. He had never done a joint session like this before, but figured it was worth a try. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, but nothing seemed to happen. He strained and let out a small growl as he tried harder, but still nothing. When he opened his eyes, he was confused as to why Lapis looked like she was trying not to laugh at him.
"What?"
"It's just you looked like… You needed a bathroom…" she giggled.
Steven chuckled at that himself. "Yeah… At least you sound a bit better…"
"I guess… It's nice to know."
"What is?"
"That even after all this craziness, you're still the funny kid I first met all that time ago. I just…"
"What is it? Tell me."
"You've gotten better, everyone else had and I'm still… stuck. I still want to run away from all this…"
"That's not crazy, Lapis," he affirmed, but the gem suddenly stood up and grabbed on to his shoulders.
"YES! IT! IS!" she shouted, shaking him with each word before suddenly throwing him back. "I'm sick of being some weak-willed wreck that hates herself! Every time I feel fine, I have this voice in the back of my head that says-"
"What a loser you are?" a voice rang out from the air, "How much the others have to carry your sorry butt?
The pair in the dome looked around only to see a hole from the top of their prison opened to reveal a burgundy skinned woman on reddish-black wings with fiery orange hair and a dress with multiple shades of yellow. As this new being landed between the two, both of them gaped at seeing a clone of Lapis Lazuli but with her colors reversed. Even more uncanny than her appearance, complete with black eyes and harsh yellow pupils, was the noxious sneer on her face.
"Oh, are you gonna cry again?" the clone taunted, blood-red tears streaming from her eyes, "Go away and find a corner for your pity party, deadbeat!"
"Um, Steven?!" Lapis asked, slowly backing away from the double, "What's going on? Who is this?"
"Puh-lease, are you stupid too?!" the other Lapis barked, "I'm you! That needling little voice that's always there and always right!"
"Well, this is new," the boy admitted, "But hey, uh, other Lapis… Maybe you could tone down the bullying?"
"Why, and let this little weakling lie to herself?" the red gem insisted, "I'm not some evil clone made in a lab! I'm you! Only I'm the part that has the guts to admit how you're really feeling and thinking and not pretend like everything's amazing."
"Shut up!" the original Lapis demanded, "I'm not listening to you anymore!"
"Oh ho, that's adorable. You think you have a choice!" The black water wings sprung from her gem again as she flew into the air. She glared down at them as she waved of her arms to make a cyclone of water appeared from the wall of the dome spiral out and nearly plow into both of them.
The blue Lapis tried to exert any control over the liquid, but all she was doing was stretching her fingers. As the vortex stopped, they both stared up at the clone and realized they were both in trouble. How were they supposed to fight this thing? Even beyond that, how was Steven supposed to help Lapis through her mountain of baggage when her evil twin was trying to drown him out literally and figuratively?
Adamite hoped that Lapis was doing well because her job as the Crystal Beacon's new meteor-defense system quickly wore her out. She had no idea where these projectiles were coming from, but it was only thanks to her that the ship was not being bashed into oblivion. As the minutes wore on and Satellite Beta drew closer, she could swear she could make out the complex of buildings when she felt something off.
She turned to her right only to find that a column of fire was heading right for the ship. She had no idea how to warn anyone or stop it so all she could do was brace herself as the conflagration rocked the ship and left part of the hull scorched black.
It did not take long for Peridot to glitch her way next to the earthbender and investigate. "What was that?! Did Cinnabar go rouge or something?!"
"Doubtful. What bothers me is that attack came from nowhere. Is there any Homeworld weaponry capable of spontaneously generating that much fire?"
"Weaponry, no. The only thing I could think of would be orbital terraforming equipment…"
The scientific gem then hit a realization and suddenly glitched back into the ship before reappearing a few minutes later with Cinnabar in tow.
"Um, what am I doing here?" the red gem asked only for the glow of another fireball roaring towards the back end of the ship. Seeing the immediate threat, she raised her fists and sent her own gigantic fireball to match the oncoming attack. While the two bursts of flame collided with each other safely away from the ship, the gem also felt winded.
"What… Was that?!" she gasped.
"I might have an idea," Peridot supplied, "Aquamarine told you that your castes of gems are no longer used for terraforming, correct?"
"Pretty much… She said we'd be better off getting harvested."
"As much of a callous moron as she was, she wasn't wrong that the Diamonds decreed that the resources that went into your gems would be better used elsewhere. They've since designed machines to replicate your pyrokinetic and terrakinetic abilities. If memory serves me right, the ore of these machines even had your gemstones' components imbued in them."
"So that vicious pixie was going to have us melted down to help make the robots that replaced our jobs?" Adamite clarified. When Peridot nodded, another thought came to her mind. "And what about Lapis Lazulis?"
"Same fate. Hydrokinetic devices exist as well. Our Lapis was only spared from the process because of her unique intel she had on the Crystal Gems."
The group was cut off, however, when another barrage of attacks came. Fireballs soared towards them and meteors the size of trucks hurtled towards from who knows where. The two elementals went to work trying to stop the oncoming attack, but the ship still took several hits. Once the next wave was done, Peridot placed a hand on the hull and tapped into the shields to check that they were losing power and fast. She could try to tinker with the generators, but she would definitely need to coordinate it with the bridge crew, so they did not step on each other's toes.
The attacks were getting more frequent as they got closer, the ship slowly losing steam as the onslaught of rocks and flames came from nowhere. Peridot could only guess that the base's adapted weaponry had the ability to spawn it around whatever vessel it was targeting instead of launching it from a single point. According to her, it would take storming the base itself to reach the controls and shut them off.
"We'll never make it that far," Adamite insisted, "We're just facing too much resistance. And that's assuming that they don't call for any reinforcements."
"We need Lapis!" Cinnabar insisted, "She could just fly over there and sneak in."
"And do what exactly? No offense to her, but she can't spontaneously generate her element for manipulation like you can. What we'd need is someone else who could fly."
"Unfortunately, Amethyst is the best at speed but she needs solid ground," Peridot thought, "She wouldn't get far in minimal gravity like this. Cinnabar, can't you propel yourself?"
"And let the ship get hammered by attacks? You'd be fried without me!"
"Darn it… We need more options!" Peridot racked her brain trying to think of something until she noticed Adamite's face looking like she had come upon an idea. Judging from her vacant stare, though, it was a risky one.
"What is it?"
"Brimstone," the other gem answered. While Peridot had no idea what that was, Cinnabar's face paled upon hearing that.
"You can't… We can't…" she stammered, "The last time we…"
"Let me guess," Peridot stepped in, "Unstable fusion?"
"The epitome of unstable," Adamite answered, "We've only done it once. She rampaged until she was exhausted from sinking a mountain range on your planet. But, being a combination of our elements, I dare say she's perfectly suited to handle this."
"I mean, yeah, but…" Cinnabar protested, "What about Sandstone? Won't she feel, I dunno, cheated?"
"This is an emergency! We don't have any other options! Either we risk it now, or our entire ship and family get eradicated!"
Swallowing her fear, the arsonist could see they had no other options. She could not bear the thought of Lapis, Steven, or anyone else falling prey to Homeworld now after going through so much. She held her hand out and soon she and Adamite twirled around until they changed into light that quickly turned from white to yellow as it expanded.
Soon, Peridot stood in front of gem that looked very different from how she pictured. The gem was somewhat intimidating being over twenty-feet tall, having four muscled arms attached an even thicker frame that Adamite's and Cinnabar's legs. What she did not expect was the gem to be bright yellow, even brighter than Topaz, wearing a brown duster jacket over a gold version of Cinnabar's track outfit or have blonde hair that both ran down her back and came up to a point at the top of her head.
And yet perhaps the strangest detail of all was the fact that this Brimstone had both of her eyes closed. The scientist was about to ask if she was asleep when another massive fireball came from the west. The smaller gem braced for impact until she noticed the new fusion throw a punch with two hands in the same direction and an even bigger jet of flame erupted and blew the attack back long before it torched the ship.
"At long last," the fusion said to herself as her eyes opened, "I am risen once more. It's been far too long."
More meteors were soon hurtling towards them, but Brimstone merely scoffed and clasped her hands together. The rocks soon stopped in their tracks and she slowly wrung her hands. Peridot was then thoroughly stupefied as the meteors began to bubble and steam before turning red-hot and melting.
"Are you kidding me?!" she squeaked, "You can melt rocks into lava?! How is that not cooling in the vacuum of space?!"
"Because I'm just that exceptional," the fusion replied, "And I'm so flattered by your shock. It's been ages since I've gotten to flex my power and prove my superiority to the cosmos!"
When another barrage of asteroids came, Brimstone just began waving her arms like a maestro composing a symphony. The lava under her command seemed to swim through space and cut through the oncoming storm with no effort. Peridot even gaped as she noticed the lava stream slowly grow bigger until it was the size of the Sun Incinerator. Then the fusion rocketed off with her cargo in tow, surpassing Cinnabar's top speed as she turned her pool of lava into a boulder that expanded to several times its size before launching it straight into the base.
The mass of chilled volcanic rock crashed right into the center of the station, much to the utter shock of everyone watching from the bridge of the Beacon. Even Topaz and Garnet were both stunned by the sight as they watched the distant tower of the base collapse, but something seemed wrong.
"That was it?" the captain muttered, "That seemed way too easy."
"Agreed," the other fusion said, "There was no shield or counterattacks to that. True, that attack from above was rather fast but it doesn't quite add up."
Meanwhile, Brimstone crossed both her arms and actually pouted while Peridot was trying to learn how to close her mouth and how proper speech sounded again.
"Y-Y-You…" she stammered, "You just destroyed…"
"Yes, yes, your little target is destroyed, big deal," Brimstone shrugged off, "But that was it? All of this buildup for my return and that's all I get to handle? A few weaker versions of my elements and then an unshielded base? It's almost a farce!"
"Wait… Unshielded? Why would they…?"
Peridot's musing was cut off as she turned to see two Homeworld freighters like the one she piloted to Earth months ago and several dozen fighters and eyes approach from their right flank. While Brimstone actually appreciated a better challenge, Peridot glitched herself into the control room and was about to tell everyone when Padparadscha beat her to it.
"That base is a decoy! The real one is calling for reinforcements!"
The rest of the Crystal Gems, for as many problems as they had, did not have to worry about being flooded. Steven and Lapis, on the other hand, had to deal with the evil twin of the blue gem who seemed to get all of the power between the two. She pulled no punches as she sent aquatic projectiles of every shape and size at her two foes.
Tendrils from the walls and tacks on the floor, stars thrown from her hands and spikes raining down from the ceiling, it was only because she was playing with them both that the Crystal Gems were still alive. While Steven was still keeping up with most of the onfall, Lapis had to deal with her doppelganger throwing verbal attacks as well.
"Oh, what a shocker! Running away again! No wonder you don't wear shoes, you'd wear them down being such a pansy!"
"Should we try fighting in a bathroom? I know you're pretty good at flooding those!"
"Man, I wish your girlfriend was here to see this! She'd finally get the idea to dump you and hook up with someone who isn't worthless!"
The harsh words coupled with all of the attacks made it so Lapis was getting hit more and more the longer the slog-fest went on. Steven tried sticking by her, but the red bully literally put up walls between them. He tried to shout encouragement, but that only meant now Lapis was being taunted that she needed her precious hero Steven to solve all of her problems.
With the boy being soaking wet, slightly battered, and feeling a mix of crippling depression and self-loathing, he finally snapped. "WILL YOU SHUT UP?! You're not helping anything!"
"Oh, but I am!" the black-winged Lapis boasted, "I keep this blue sack of issues grounded. We can't have her getting delusions of grandeur, can we?"
"What delusions? Like that she doesn't hate herself? That she isn't worthless?!"
"No, that she isn't perfect. That she isn't above making mistakes!"
"I…" Lapis sputtered, "I know that… But…"
"Exactly. And you hate all of the self-centered snobs on Homeworld who think they're never wrong, right?" The red Lapis finally flew down to the ground and stood behind her blue counterpart as she spoke more. "The Diamonds who literally think they own everything? Those clods who wouldn't listen to you when you wanted freedom? That Jasper who just wanted to use you and didn't care what you thought? You despise them all. We wish they could all suffer and die."
"Okay… But…" Steven started, "Not being perfect and treating yourself like garbage are two different things!"
"How different? Maybe Jasper wasn't always a self-absorbed blowhard. Maybe even the Diamonds could get their heads out of their butts long enough, but do you know what no one ever told them? They're wrong. They can have the wrong ideas, do the wrong things, anything like that! All they've been told is how amazing and wonderful and flawless they are and now they believe it!"
"Well, um…"
"We wouldn't want that, now would we? I mean, we are talking about a gem who can casually steal a planet's worth of water! It's really for the best that she doesn't get too big of a head on her shoulders. Otherwise… Well, can you imagine a Diamond being able to pull that water tower to space stunt on a whim?"
Steven wanted to retort, deny that Lapis could ever be like that, but his lips felt tied. Not only did he see firsthand just how narcissistic the monarchs of Homeworld were, but how they convinced countless other gems to believe that illusion. And part of that was how powerful they were. They truly thought nothing could touch them. He even remembered when he first met Lapis and how those water clones of hers matched the Crystal Gems blow for blow. He thought back to Malachite and how it took both Alexandrite and a timely distraction to stop that disaster.
"You see it now, don't you?" the red Lapis said, "You don't want Lapis to get too big for her britches, so she needs me. Heck, you need me so you won't be fighting her in the future."
Steven tried opening his mouth, but any words of his died when he saw Lapis. She was literally on her hands and knees, sobbing and bowing to her own darker thoughts at the same time. That was when the reality really hit the boy. There was not any brainwashing going on. This was what Lapis Lazuli really thought of herself for he had no idea how long. And he had to admit, she had a point.
Outside of the aqua dome, the Crystal Beacon was now turning away from the false Satellite Beta and towards the oncoming attack force with Brimstone leading the charge. The fire blasts and meteors stopped as soon as Homeworld realized that was only giving the fusion ammo to melt their ships, but she still found ways to attack. She still had Cinnabar's pyrokinesis powered up to an even greater degree and many ships found themselves being burnt to near-nothingness.
The rest of the Crystal Gems watched as a few of the eye-ships and jets made it past her and focused on the saucer. Without any more elemental beatings, the bridge crew could focus all of their efforts on repelling the invaders. The rest of the team simply stood and watched, hoping that they did not hostile aliens clogging the halls again.
And all the while, Emerald watching the battle from the center of the real Beta on the other side of the planet between the two moons. She had to admit that this new fusion was giving her forces trouble, but she refused to lose her composure again. White Diamond had made it very clear that one more outburst and she would not be getting another chance.
She turned her only eye to the monitor of the battle and noticed that Brimstone was getting awfully close. She was flying straight towards the two main warships of the fleet, all four hands ablaze and the same confident grin on her face.
In space, the fusion was almost pitying how simple this challenge was. She had gotten hit maybe once or twice from a stray blaster shot, but it barely fazed her. And while she did feel the slight urge to fly down to the planet, turn a chunk of it into molten material for her and reduce these worthless opponents to slag, she kept her mind on Lapis. It was the only thing holding the fusion's darker desires in check. No matter how simple it would be to just wipe these forces away, she would not abandon her closest friend and she knew the flier would never want to be around a casual shatterer.
Once she was close enough to the warship on the right, she charged a fireball between all four of her hands and launched it. An orange and red explosion rocked the front of the ship, but the hull was barely damaged.
"Hmm, finally something more worthwhile!" Brimstone approved, "I might just need some lava after all. Should probably warn the others, though…"
Her musing was cut short, however, when she noticed both of the warships start to glow with an ominous green light. Combative as she was, the arsonist could tell something was coming and thus rocketed back towards the Beacon to warn the others that she would need time to gather lava before whatever that light meant came.
Time, however, proved to not be on her side. As soon as she touched down on the Beacon, she turned around to see an utterly enormous wall of green lightning shoot out from between the two hand-ships and blaze a trail through all of the other Homeworld vessels on a warpath to the Crystal Gems' ship.
Brimstone considered making a break towards the ground, but an image of Lapis flashed in her mind. The fusion stood tall and pumped all of the fire she could out of her outstretched fists, making a forty-foot tall column of pure burning power roar through space to stop the attack. The inferno met the lightning web head on, but the attacks simply passed through each other. While she did shoot down several unlucky ships, the Beacon was soon consumed by the electric weave.
Before she even knew what happened to the ship, Brimstone's gems on her naval and the back of her neck suddenly glowed and the fusion was gone. A thoroughly baffled Adamite and Cinnabar now stood where the yellow arsonist once was.
"Oh sure, NOW we get her under control, and this happens!" Cinnabar griped, crossing her arms and pouting. Adamite tried to speak but all that came out a completely stumped whimper.
They were about to make their way to the air lock, but Peridot beat them to it as she glitched up through the hull. "Oh no, it hit you both too!"
"What did that attack do?" Adamite wondered, "Is the ship damaged?"
"No, it's in perfect working order but our crew sure isn't."
The tech buff decided it was best to just show the pair. After bringing them to the control room, they quickly saw they were not the only ones forced apart. Topaz was standing by the captain's chair were the other Topaz was trying to get her bearings together. By the bridge, a trembling ruby with a gem on her stomach was being comforted by a skirted pearl with a gem on her chest. The panel to the engine room was open where Bismuth was trying to shout over a cacophony of voices who were all in an uproar.
When they looked towards the door, they saw something that made them gasp in shock. Ruby was smoking in rage while Sapphire was trying to urge her that shattering was not the answer no matter how tempting it felt.
"They… They made an anti-fusion weapon…" breathed Adamite, "How did they even manage that?"
"Way too much experimentation if I had to guess. And those two tried refusing into Garnet half a dozen times already to no avail."
"We're in a serious jam," Topaz said as her right-half tried to comfort her. A dark blue planet was now in sights, but between it and their ship was dozens of fighters remaining. The only question was if that weapon would wear off fast enough to let a gem who could turn the tide appear.
And now we can add Grey DeLisle to my fantasy voice cast for Brimstone! Who better to play a potentially unstable pyrokinetic, eh? Time keeps ticking on and the gems get closer to Homeworld. How will this debacle end? Find out next time!
Thank you all so much for reading! Feel free to leave questions or comments below.