And now it's time for more mental shenanigans and Blue Diamond finally standing up for herself! Its good to be a writer...
While all of the chaos was going on outside, Steven and Bismuth woke up at the same time in what appeared to be the pocket dimension within Lion's mane. Everything from the massive field of pink grass to the two hills appeared the same but there were a few key differences. For a start, Steven quickly learned he could breathe perfectly here.
"Well, that's good to know," he said to Bismuth, "Otherwise I'd have to do this silent."
"Heh, lucky us," the gem shrugged, confused as to what all of this meant. She looked at the hill that was supposed to have all of Rose's keepsakes but found there was nothing but aside from a massive pink bonsai tree. She walked underneath its branches, unsure of what she was looking for.
"Hey, there's another one!" Steven said, pointing to the second hill with a pink oak tree. He ran over to check that one, but also found nothing out of the ordinary. The Crystal Gems then both walked to the grass between the two mounds and wondered what the point of all this was.
"I mean, I know why I'd be imagining this," Bismuth said, "I spent enough time in here."
"Yes, you did," a third voice said, making Steven and Bismuth whip around to find it. And they both immediately assumed they must have seen things wrong.
"Rose?!"
"Mom?!"
"What are you doing here?!" they both said, but they could both tell something was off about this Rose. Her eyes were hidden by her hair and her voice sounded cold, almost lifeless.
"Bismuth… Wants me here. She wants to make me suffer…"
"What… I… No, I don't!"
"She's right," another voice, this one fragmented and vile. Steven and Bismuth turned the other way to see a gem that could never exist in reality. In shape, it was similar to a jasper but smaller than the orange powerhouses. The similarities ended there, however, as this gem was a conglomerate made of dozens of different gem pieces of every color and texture hobbling forward. As she limped with each pace, pieces fell from her body yet somehow she remained whole.
"You want her to die…" the unholy fusion said, a hundred voices speaking in unison, "Like you want us to die…"
"Shut up!" Bismuth shouted, "I don't want that anymore!"
"But we're still here, Bismuth," the copy of Rose said, "You hate me so much that you betrayed me. You hate Homeworld so much that you want to shatter every gem."
"Not all of them! I…"
"And who gets to say?" the fusion cackled, "You? You presume to know who should live and who shouldn't?"
"Will you both just shut up?!"
"You tried to shatter him!" Rose yelled, pointing at Steven, "Is that how you work now? Anyone who disagrees with you dies?"
The dreadlocked gem was about to protest some more only to have the shambling Frankenstein gem run up far faster than her decaying body would suggest and hit Bismuth under the chin with an uppercut that sent her flying clean over the right hill and into the grass somewhere in the distance. Steven quickly ran to check on her only for the zombie gem to stop him.
"You don't want to be around her," she rasped, "She still made the Breaking Point. She tried to-"
"I don't care!" Steven cried, pink gauntlets materializing around his fists before he punched the shambling gem to pieces. He ran to find Bismuth while the apparition of Rose disappeared, and the piecemeal gem literally put herself back together again before running after him.
Back in the real world, the bulk of the Crystal Gems were now being led down through elevators as endless corridors until they were broken up and thrusted into energy. Garnet, Rhodonite and Fluorite were all forced to defuse, much to everyone's discomfort especially as they heard comments along the lines of "war machine." Once they were inside the cell block, the gems who visited the zoo were saddened to see the other Earth-made gems awaiting their fate.
As she passed many of them, Amethyst made sure to mouth something through the doors cutting her off from them. "We're going to save you. Just play along."
There were two exceptions to the group. One was Steven who was already sitting in the central command for Satellite Gamma in the deepest recesses of the base. Considering it was only accessible from an elevator hidden behind a fake wall that only two gems currently there had access to, Holly Blue was content to simply stand there and appreciate the fact that the nuisance that escaped her and sullied her reputation was finally in her grasp. Soon, she would call White Diamond, he would be picked up and she would get that blessed promotion after so long.
Elsewhere, Connie and Priyanka were brought down a separate pathway into a large central chamber that resembled a small, empty warehouse with the same silver metal making up the walls, floor, and ceiling. Lining the sides of the room were gems who were keeping constant watch of the terrified mass of humans cowering in the center and praying for the voice to save them.
"Look at them all," the doctor lamented, "They're acting like scared children crying for the parents."
"They pretty much are children," her daughter answered, "Steven told me all about them. They live every day with the same routine with no danger and no changes. Their whole world has been ripped away from them."
"I can see why Greg would want to get away from all this…"
"And if you think that's bad…" Connie then whispered the details of the choosening into her mother's ear. The doctor suddenly had to hide her blushing cheeks and tiptoed around the crying zoo inhabitants before being plopped down by their guards and told once again to not cause any trouble.
Back on the ship outside, Greg was keeping one of his blasters ready at the door separating him and Bismuth from the rest of the ship. Peridot was doing her part staying within the ship's wires with her technopathy and watching in case any gems came by to infiltrate the Crystal Beacon.
It turns out that Peridot's hunch was right as only a few minutes after the rest of the Crystal Gems were taken inside, a squad of amethysts were moving out towards the ship. There was a reason Onyx left the landing dock open when she took the group inside.
Peridot watched from inside the ship as the hostile gems entered and started snooping around for any suspicious activity. When they came across the door with Greg inside, they quickly tried to pry it open even as the technopath activated all of the emergency locks.
"Hey, what gives?!" one of them shouted, pounding on the door, "Someone find a way to unlock this!"
Two of the six gems broke off to the bridge while the others continued perusing the corridors for anything else of note but mostly found either locked doors or rooms with nothing valuable in them. From her vantage point, Peridot knew she had to do something. As one of the amethysts reached for the holo-screen, the technopath forced the system into a sort of lock. The soldier quickly grew impatient and started mashing buttons, thankfully not damaging any of them beyond repair.
Back in front of Steven's room, two of the quartzes got impatient enough to try ramming down the door with their shoulders. Little by little, the crystalline metal gave away until the door crumpled, and they entered the room. They did not even have time to look around as Greg shot both of them in the gem and poofed them instantly.
While thankful for all of the target practice, he knew it would only be a matter of time for the other gems to notice. He scrambled to bring the gemstones inside the room where Peridot could bubble them later except something broke his plans. Another gem saw him from down the hall and was already running towards him. Figuring he had nothing to lose anymore, Greg ran out and fired one of his grappling hook into the gem's leg mid-run to stop her before shooting her over and over until she was poofed.
"Peridot, help!" the father called. He heard a commotion go on through the deck and soon the technical whiz of the ship ran up on all fours from two angry purple Homeworld gems.
"Help me first!" she cried. Thankfully, Greg obliged as he had a blaster in his right hand and a light blade on his left. When the first gem tried swinging at him, Greg blocked with the sword and pushed her back long enough to shoot her friend in the gem on her stomach. That also distracted the other gem long enough for Greg to shoot her in the foot, throwing her off long enough to slash off her head. With both defeated, Peridot quickly bubbled them both.
"Okay, there's that taken care of," she sighed in relief, "Now, there should only be one… left…"
Greg wondered what made her look so spooked before turning around to see he last hostile amethyst was holding the unconscious Bismuth by her dreads.
"Alright, both of you freeze!" she yelled, "Or your rebel friend here gets it!"
Greg raised his hands while Peridot took a different approach and placed her hands on the floor which gave her the chance to glitch into the ship's wires. The amethyst gasped in shock, now demanding to know where the smaller gem went. She even shouted how Bismuth would be getting damaged if Peridot did not show herself but soon she got her wish.
Peridot appeared directly behind the Homeworld trooper with a gem destabilizer in hand. The electrified weapon was then jabbed into the amethyst's side and thus brought the last invader down.
"Good thinking, Peri," Greg thanked her, "But where'd you get that?"
"Oh, this is just one of the toys I snatched from Alpha. I've got a mini lab set up in one part of the pocket dimension. I just glitched in front of the room, went in, grabbed this, and came back. I guessed you needed something practical instead one of my more experimental designs."
"Yeah, I don't think we need something that could've blown up half of the ship. What do we do about these guys?"
"Odds are someone will call for a status report inside. They'll be sending more once they don't get a reply."
"Alright, guess we better hunker down and get ready. Any chance you can fix the door to Steven's room?"
"Probably going to need Turquoise for that…" The two grabbed all of the fallen gems with Peridot bubbling them all and sending them back to the Burning Room on Earth. After that, they planned on what to do next on the bridge only for something else to take up their attention. A humungous blue hand was slowly coming into view. And now there only priority was pray that they could survive whatever happened next.
As Blue Diamond piloted the ship herself, she kept repeating one thing to herself: she did not care. She did not care if her entire court and all of her attendants asked where she was going. She did not care that White would try to make an example out of her. She did not care that Yellow literally begged and pleaded to stop what she was doing and see reason. All she cared about what getting Steven and then breaking him in every conceivable way, then devising several new ways of breaking him, and then doing those until even there was not any trace of him on the molecular level.
Before she knew it, Satellite Gamma was coming into view and she prepared to dock only to be interrupted when a message came through on her personal line. Knowing that her pearl still had the communicator itself, she knew it could only be one of two gems on the other hand and decided to get this over with. And soon the stone-faced visage of White Diamond was in front of her.
"Blue… What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm fulfilling my promise. I swore that I would finish Pink off myself and that's what I'll do."
"…You do know what that means, yes?"
"I do. It's just that I don't care."
Blue had to fight a small smirk at seeing one of White's eyes twitch. The larger monarch just sighed.
"Very well. I'll be sending a Red Eye to the zoo then."
"You wouldn't… Oh, who am I kidding, yes you would."
"I really don't appreciate your tone-"
"AND I DON'T APPRECIATE YOU!"Blue shouted, all of her sorrow and mourning flaring up, "You're so beyond selfish it's obscene! Your ego is so overwhelming it dwarves every star in this quadrant! You-"
"That's enough, Blue! Keep quiet or-"
"SHUT UP!" Blue yelled, energy suddenly boiling off of her body and started to erode her throne, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! That's all you do is talk! Enough already! You cannot just throw Pink's entire legacy away! And if you want to, then throw whatever you can at me too! I'll fight you on it and I won't let you bully me into complying! Not this time!"
White's face was frozen in a look of utter disbelief. No one. No one had ever talked back to her before like that. And Blue was not even hiding the smirk at it.
"Now then. I'm going to save the zoo and then I'll be back for Steven. If you're scout knows what's good for her, tell her to run and hide or else. That will be all, White Clod."
Before the grand monarch could rebut, Blue shut off the channel and actually felt a sense of calm overtake her. Part of it was catharsis at actually shutting White up for once but it was also acceptance. She knew full-well that she was in for the punishment of a lifetime but why let that stop her? She did not care.
Blue then moved through to the airlock and forced the door open, letting herself float into the vacuum of space. She then looked around to get her bearings before pointing in the direction of the zoo and proceeded to kick off from the rear side of her ship. Once her momentum started to slow down, she channeled her immense wells of energy through her feet and soon she was a living rocket ship blasting through the cosmos almost as fast as her ship outside of hyperdrive.
Before she even knew it, Blue was several hundred lightyears away from Gamma and was nearing Pink's Zoo. She could not see her target yet but knew it was coming. She perched herself on top of the highest point of the station and waited. She had no idea how long she stood there, but soon it was in sight. The crimson hull of one of the gem empire's most common orbital weapon. Normally it was for terminating outposts that proved too much for conventional ground forces to take care of but Blue still did not care.
It was going to annihilate the zoo and that was enough grounds for her to annihilate it.
She held both her hands in front of her, concentrating her energy to form and condense. A bright blue ball of pure power soon appeared and only grew brighter as the eye approached. From a distance, it looked like a twinkling azure beacon was lighting up and was soon as luminous as an actual star.
Blue thrusted both of her hand forward, the sphere of energy flying straight into the Red Eye. Seconds of silence passed before a gargantuan flash happened. When the light died down, the eye was gone. No shrapnel remained whatsoever.
Satisfied with her work, Blue kicked off from the top of the zoo before jetting off back towards Gamma. She hoped White got the message this time that nothing was going to keep her from her justice.
The only ones oblivious to the growing chaos that was going on outside were Steven and Bismuth. Instead they dealt with an entirely different brand of insanity as a vengeful copy of Rose Quartz and a walking mass of gem shards tried to attack them both. The only plus side was that Steven's powers were working but that meant little when he was dealing with a version of his mother who was just as powerful as the real one.
The composite corpse seems just as strong and with the nasty tendency to come back almost immediately after being punched apart. Even if it took little effort to reduce her to pieces, it took even less time for her to come back. Neither of them had more than a few seconds to think before one of the two kept hammering away at them. To make matters worse, neither of them ever shut up.
"You betrayed everything I stood for! Why are you still alive instead of me?"
"Why are you fighting me, Bismuth? I thought this was what you wanted!"
"Steven, stop supporting her! She'll turn on you the minute the second you don't agree with her!"
"Steven must die! He forced you to destroy the plans for the Breaking Point!"
Soon, both Crystal Gems were getting injured, tuckered out and thoroughly annoyed at the chatter being lodged at both of them. Yet no matter how hard they hit or how many strategies they enacted, they were getting worn down minute after minute.
Realizing that they were not getting anywhere on their own, Steven decided to try and stay by Bismuth as much as possible. He summoned his bubble and charged through Rose's attempt to knock him out, but his bubble popped suddenly thanks to a pink blade appearing out of the ground. He then tried jumping up to reach his friend as she was fighting the shard-gem but more swords flew from the ground.
When one nearly impaled his face, he saw it was a replica of Rose's old blade that was smashed weeks ago. The thought that it could not cut through gems somehow did not make him feel better especially as the distraction allowed for not-Rose to leap up behind him before pile-driving him hard into the grass. He tried standing up from the crater he ended up making, but the copy of his mother placed a foot on his head.
"Bismuth!" she yelled, "You have two options. Either you pay for what you did…"
She reached down towards her gem and slowly pulled out her blade. Unlike the ones that nearly cut Steven, this one had the entire edge serrated. The jagged metal was slowly lowered to be right in front of Steven's face. "…Or he'll pay for you."
"No! NO!" the gem wailed, "Not him! He didn't ask for this!"
"Actually, he did," the fusion corrected, grabbing Bismuth by the hair and forcing her to watch, "When he freed you."
"I'm begging you, please!"
"Bismuth, none of this is real!" Steven urged before his cheek was nicked and a small red droplet came out.
"I'm afraid this is very real," Rose corrected, "If you won't accept your crimes then I suppose he will. Is that what you really want, Bismuth?"
"What else do you want me do?!" she yelled back, "Go back in time and stop any of this from happening?"
"That'd be about the only way you could fix this… Better think about how to do it fast or else Steven here will-"
"Wait a second…" the boy interrupted, "Bismuth, you think this is all your fault?"
"It was her inventing the Breaking Point that made Rose put her away," the shard-gem insisted, "And that led to Rose here fraternizing with Pink Diamond."
"Fraternizing? You mean making friends with her?"
"She should have shattered when she had the chance!"
"Oh, you think so?" not-Rose shouted, "I'm sorry, but how would that have changed the tens of thousands of gems lost before any of that happened?"
As the two bickered, thankfully taking their attention off of Steven and Bismuth, the boy slowly got up and realized what was really happening here. If Lapis had one negative voice drilling into all of her faults into her head, Bismuth had two that were screaming at her and each other. Pushing down all of the regret and anger he felt radiating off of his friend, Steven slowly trudged forward.
"It's a lot, isn't it? You still hate Homeworld, you're angry at Rose and you're still kicking yourself over me, huh?"
The gem just groaned. "Steven… How do you do it? How do you just… forgive everyone?"
"I don't really know, Bismuth. There's not some big secret I can let you in on."
"Great… But, kid, don't you ever get mad at anyone?"
"Yes," Steven said bluntly, "I was mad at the Crystal Gems for hiding stuff from me all the time, mad at Peridot when she almost sold us out to Yellow Diamond, mad at you for trying to attack me twice, mad at Connie for almost skipping town on me."
"But not the Diamonds?"
"Honestly, I just pity them."
"Huh?! Pity?"
"My mom, I mean my real one, told me something. Can you imagine how scared you must be to act like they do? To be frightened of literally everything that isn't like you?"
Bismuth slowly got up as she never once considered the Diamonds as anything less than monsters. Once pity entered her thoughts, however, she had to chuckle. Lapis once compared them to children throwing a tantrum and now it made even more sense.
"You see? You don't have to be like them either!" Steven bolstered her, "All they can think of the past too! It's all Pink this and revenge that… It gets really old after a while, you know?"
"No kidding… I mean, I guess one weapon isn't so bad compared to blowing up a whole planet!"
"Right? And you feel bad about it too! They're probably still trying to find some way to make a planet turn inside out! See, you're already better than them!"
Bismuth actually laughed at that, grabbing the attention of the two bickering inner demons who were more busy trying to beat each other up than staying on topic. They tried getting back on them, but Steven summoned a ten-foot wide bubble around him and Bismuth and simply went on.
"It's not wrong to be angry, Bismuth. Your problem is that you won't let things go and move on. And I'm not saying it's wrong to miss your friends or hate how the Diamonds treat gems, but you don't want to stoop to their level."
Before he could say anything else, their foes decided to punch the bubble at the same time. The dome protecting the two Crystal Gems shattered and soon were held up by their necks by the copy of Rose and the unholy fusion.
"You think it's that simple to get rid of us?!" the duplicate mother shouted, finally revealing her eyes were black voids, "I've festered in her mind for thousands of years ever since she was locked away! You can't simply talk me to death!"
"And I've existed since even before the war!" the fusion insisted, "You've hated Homeworld since the day of your creation when they tried to force you into being another architect. You still wish to see the Diamonds dead at your hands! You can't deny me!"
"Steven, what gives?!" Bismuth muttered, "I feel better, we've made nice, why aren't the creepy clods here going away?"
"Don't know… This did wrap up way faster than usual. Maybe we really do have to beat them first?"
"Kind of hard to do that when I can't even move…"
"You will never be rid of us!" both apparitions commanded, "We won't let you stop fighting! You'll make another weapon and won't let anyone stop you!"
Steven looked over at Bismuth. While she said that she would not act like this again, he could feel the slight temptation in the back of her head. A part of her still thought this was the right way to deal with Homeworld. If that was the case, then Steven needed some way to show how wrong that was. And he soon had an idea on how to just that which is good because he could also feel his windpipe closing.
"Bismuth…" he choked, "I know we can win… Without being like them… We just have to… Stay together…"
He then slowly extended his hand to the gem being held aloft at his side. She was perplexed by what he was doing until she formed the same idea. She moved her own hand up to meet his. As soon as they touched, both changed into blinding light. The hostile gems lost their hold on them and stood back as a new figure soon stood before them.
While the latest fusion's complexion was a dull blue to the point of almost being gray, that was the only subtle part of this gem. Their hair was a short but puffed-up afro with kaleidoscopic colors being mirrored on each side started from a bright pink center. Their four-armed body was garbed in tie-dye overalls worn underneath Bismuth's blacksmith robes now recolored to a deep purple with pink trim. The gems on their naval and chest were both colored in multiple shades of vibrant pink. A black cape was also added to the fusion's back, billowing in the wind despite no gusts blowing in the mindscape.
When this new gem opened their eyes, they exuded a sense of laidback confidence. One pair of muscled arms rested by their head and the other was perched on their hips as they gazed at the two corrupted gems, clearly primed for an attack.
"Man, get a grip already!" they said brazenly, "I know everyone wants a piece of Quartzite but y'all are gonna have to buy me dinner first!"
Both hostile gems were taken aback before quickly looking angered. Despite the incensed looks they were getting, Quartzite simply stretched their arms like they were going for a light workout as opposed to a battle against the manifestations of Bismuth's worst qualities.
And now presenting Novie Edwards as the latest OC in Quartzite! Gotta spice these up somehow so they don't get repetitive! Their battle in the mind and the finale of the trips to Homeworld's satellites are coming up next time!
Thank you all so much for reading! Feel free to leave a review!