It's been a long time coming, but the journey is finally over.
The Crystal Gems were briefly over the moon after successfully escaping Satellite Gamma, freeing the captive humans, officially bringing the Famethysts into their fold with Mercury telling them they were all too happy to stay on Earth and look after the zoo residents and even trouncing Blue Diamond in combat. Soon, however, the gravity set in. They were only days away from Homeworld and their latest stunt was going to make Homeworld extremely angry.
A few hours later, the scanners picked up a few stray fighters incoming. Figuring it could easily be a bit of retaliation, Lapis and Cinnabar flew outside to meet the threat. Almost as soon as they flew outside, they had to counter laser blasts with their respective elements as the speedy ships were trying to flank them. When the ships got too close for comfort, some highly pressurized jets of liquid or bursts of flame reduced the enemy crafts to pieces.
The others watched as much as they could from inside with a bad feeling that this was far from the only resistance they would face. Once the duo managed to stop the onslaught, they went back inside, and the crew went about their business.
Only minutes later, however, another rush of fighters now backed by a carrier flew in from their right forcing Opal to leap into space and shoot them down with energy arrows before they could shoot the Beacon down. Two attacks so close to each other made it painfully clear that Homeworld really was cracking down on them.
It was decided for everyone to gather in the central meeting room to set up a proper defense plan. Thankfully, Steven was refreshed from some rest and quickly joined the others. They were making some sensible suggestions with a rotating guard or boosting the radius of the scanner with the occasional goofy suggestion thrown out. As nice as it would be to turn any enemy craft into chocolate pudding, Peridot said that would be stretching the laws of physics even for her.
The whole team laughed at the suggestion including the jasper that had appeared behind Steven. Before anyone else could blink, the teen boy sent the intruder flying into a wall before bubbling her.
"Okay, you all saw her too, right?!" Lapis panicked, only slightly relieved to see everyone else nod.
"And she's not the only one!" Cinnabar called as she and others saw more Homeworld gems march into the meeting room from nowhere. A fistfight broke out with the gems soon corralled but the tensions were now running high.
"There's another portal sending gems in!" Peridot reported, pixelated out of the floor.
"Well, just reverse the polarity then and send them back like you did last time!" Pearl told her.
"I'm trying, but this one is more advanced. They must have custom-designed this one to resist my powers! I can't even locate it!"
"Work on it as fast as you can," Garnet cut in before turning to everyone else, "Split up and halt any intruder you see! We can't let them plant anything else!"
The whole ship soon devolved into a tense battleground as enemies seemed to materialize out of thin air from no singular room of the ship while the Crystal Gems were strangers in their own home away from home as their sanctuary was infested. Thankfully, the group had gotten used to acting as a coordinated team to stop the more disjointed offensive.
Pearl went straight to her maximum of twelve duplicates to control numbers in as many places as possible. Garnet further kept crowds under control by freezing platoons or setting them on fire to distract them. Amethyst super-sped down halls to slice apart gems while her teammates fought them. Lapis flooded whole rooms with water to make them easier pickings. Bismuth literally wrapped gems up in her elastic limbs or flung flunkies into each other like cannonballs.
Just because the rest of the team had no unlocked powers, that did not mean they were helpless either. The Off-Colors charged off of the bridge to help with Rhodonite slashing down any attacker, Rutile using her gravity to fling people into walls, Padparadscha pulling sneak attacks with her dagger and Fluorite popping up from the engine room to surprise gems planning an ambush with one of her own.
Topaz, offended to see her own ship getting shanghaied, was barging through every hallway with her double-ended mace ready to clobber anyone who got too close. If another got smart and tried outmaneuvering her, she was in for a rude awakening as Topaz suddenly split off into two and now had to contend with two attackers who could re-fuse at any second.
The humans and sole hybrid members of Crystal Gems were also charging ahead to keep the ship under control even as gems kept warping in. Greg and Priyanka took the stealthier approach of finding Homeworld gems already in a scuffle and shooting them in the back while they were distracted. That did not mean they were defenseless if confronted, however, since one was capable of making energy blades and the other was a super-strong former gymnast.
And as for the gems gunning for Steven, they usually found themselves defeated in no time considering the boy had a small armory worth of weapons and had gained more than enough experience in using them all, shields that could withstand nearly anything and relentless backup in the form of Connie. The girl stayed glued to him the entire time, decapitating and slicing off limbs of any attacker with her assortment of blades.
Outside of the ship, another battle was going on as the half a dozen carrier ships bringing all of these gems were being escorted by a few hundred fliers that tried ramming into the ship. Thankfully, Peridot monitored the damage and sent Adamite and Cinnabar outside to deal with the platoon. This, naturally, meant it was Brimstone's job.
"Ah, finally a worthy test!" the fusion boasted, all four hands glowing with fire, "Let's see how many of you peons I need to immolate before you comprehend how powerful I am!"
The fusion was a flame throwing machine, shooting down ships by the second even as some got desperate attackers tried kamikaze tactics. One particularly unlucky gem tried this and Brimstone sent a fist into the cockpit to rip the nephrite out, holding the terrified gem in her grasp while her other arms still blasted down oncoming spaceships.
"You are very lucky we have Lapis," she warned, all of the confident mirth suddenly gone from her voice, "I have this voice in the back of my mind urging me to melt you and every last one of your comrades into slag for even trying to hurt her. But alas, she's quite insistent on no lethality so count your blessings I'll stick to annihilating your equipment instead."
The utterly horrified gem was sent hurtling through the cosmos with a flick of Brimstone's wrist and the fusion wasted no time resuming her annihilation of the fleet. This left Peridot as the only non-combatant in the team as she was scrambling to figure out where the gems were being beamed in from. She knew for a fact there was no portal device anywhere on the Beacon. And yet as she darted through the circuits as a collection of pixels, something felt inherently off. It was almost like the electricity itself was different.
"THAT'S IT!" she exclaimed after several hundred trips at lightspeed before appearing outside on the hull just as Brimstone was rocketing around the ship to kick two ships into another quadrant.
"Tch, amateurs," she scoffed, "Try a pincer formation with twenty next time and maybe you'll-"
"Can the grandstanding!" Peridot interrupted her, "I've got the solution! IT turns out Homeworld has developed a long-range version of the portal most likely through molecular condensing and-"
"If I can't boast, you can't spout technobabble to make yourself feel smarter," Brimstone rebutted, "But hurrah, you've found out the problem. Now how do we get them to stop?"
"Fastest way? Smash the transmitter?"
"Really? And where might that be?"
"Let me hijack a ship and I'll escort you. Just please don't fry me…"
"But what about Lapis? I can't just leave her unprotected!"
"And the others too, right?"
"Well, naturally. Them getting hurt would upset Lapis…"
Peridot had to save the eye-roll for later as she quickly informed Lapis of what was happening and that she needed to take over protecting the perimeter. The aquatic gem had no problem obliging considering she could now make her own water although it was a far tougher task for her than Brimstone.
At long last, the titanic firebender managed to blow up the ship responsible for beaming the Homeworld gems inside and thus the Crystal Gems found it almost easy to clean up the last of them and the team was soon reunited. Once everything had calmed down, it was quickly decided that they needed a proper protection system in place.
And thus came the idea to have different fusions rotate as official bodyguard of the ship while Peridot tweaked the ship's circuits to it harder for Homeworld to pull the same transmission trick again. She did, however, warn them all that the peridots working for the other side could bypass her changes so they should all remain vigilant.
The shocks from blaster bolt hitting the hull of the ship became so mundane that they were all but ignored by the passengers on the Beacon as Homeworld kept throwing more and more at them but the revolving door of fusions were more than enough to push them back.
Opal summoned her clones and fired off volleys of arrows at any attackers, sniping them from afar even as they flew away to get reinforcements. Sugilite sent blasts of fire and ice while knocking any intruders away with her flail. Sardonyx did much the same with her hammer albeit with an emphasis on finesse as opposed to brute force.
The original three fusions were not the only defenders, either. Turquoise went out to literally melt ships and add them to Peridot's stockpile of materials in her lab. Sandstone showed that she could now create her own mud and thus became infinitely more useful for fighting in space. Brimstone also returned and was just as effective even if she could not generate her own lava.
Inside, the others did whatever they could to occupy their minds and stayed on their toes. The issue was that Peridot's solution to the gem incursions was not perfect. Homeworld learned how to tweak the signal themselves and thus gems managed to slip in once in a while. Connie had one particular scare where she was trying to use the pocket dimension as a restroom only for an obsidian to nearly take her head off while she was on the toilet.
It was exactly what the Crystal Gems feared years ago: a war of attrition. Homeworld was finally throwing away the illusion that they were minor threats or that sending the bulk of their forces was overkill. Hour after hour they made forward progress, but it was like swimming up a waterfall. Every movement was a struggle and it was whittling them down bit by bit the longer they went.
It became harder to tell what time it was. The Off-Colors had to start operating in shifts since they were falling asleep on the job manning the bridge 24/7 and responding the occasional interloper popping up. When the components of fusion were not outside playing defense, they were trying to unwind however possible. Pearl practiced her violin, Garnet meditated, Amethyst did laps around the ship, Lapis and Adamite canoodled wherever they could manage it, Cinnabar went into the pocket room and lit things on fire for fun and they were not the only ones trying to stay calm.
The one who had the worst of it, however, was Steven. Time and again, he wanted to contribute in some way to keeping the ship safe but was shot down every time. Unless a gem happened to pop in front of him, he was dead weight. They kept saying space was off-limits, conveniently forgetting that he held off Blue Diamond in the vacuum a few days ago and kept two of the other humans on board from suffocating. Summoning a bubble-helmet was as stressful as looking out of the corner of his eye and they would not break unless White Diamond suddenly popped out of nowhere and sucker punched him!
This made the usually peppy optimist become reclusive and either spent all his time "resting" or holed away in the training room. Eventually, however, he woke up in his room to find Greg, Connie and Priyanka waiting for him to wake up.
"Um, hey guys… Can I help you?"
"Kiddo," Greg started, "I'm not one to normally judge, but you've seemed pretty the past day or two."
"Heh, sorry. I just don't like feeling like getting pushed to the side all the time again, that's all."
"We know," Dr. Maheswaran assured, "We're all going a little stir-crazy."
"You want something else to do?" Connie asked him, offering a hand which he quickly took and got out of his bed. He followed them into the meeting area where four lunchboxes were sitting on the table.
"You made us lunch?" Steven asked, "Where'd you get the boxes?"
"Pearl," his father answered, "I dunno why she had them, but I wasn't complaining."
Deciding to roll with it, Steven took a seat and found that the boxes were even labeled with all of their names. He opened the colorful pink package and actually felt his jaw drop. Inside was a sandwich, some fry bits, a juice box but beneath them all was something he had not seen in months.
"A Cookie Cat?!" he gaped, starry eyes and all, "Where?! How?!"
"The food-generating machine is a bit tricky to work out," Connie said, "But Peridot actually put in an internet connection so I could just search for the recipe for them. Then all I had to do was push a button and wait. I knew it'd be the perfect thing to cheer you up!"
Even if he knew dessert first was wrong, Steven could not help himself and nobody stopped him from prioritizing his long-lost favorite treat over the rest of his food. All of the sudden, he was like a giddy child enjoying every single bite. The other three could even hear he was humming an old jingle as he ate until he finished.
The two parents and his friend simply started eating themselves while Steven savored the ice cream delicacy. Only when he was done did he return to the same plane of existence as them and was in a far better mood.
"Wow, Connie! I can't believe you did that! Thank you!"
"Well, I couldn't have done that without your dad," the girl shrugged, "He's the one who told me you used to go gaga over them."
"I can't believe it didn't hit me until today!" Greg chuckled, "And I'm guessing you're gonna want to keep this thing around when we get home."
"Hehe, I don't know, unlimited Cookie Cats sounds way too tempting…"
"If I had something like that as a kid, I know I wouldn't be able stay away from it," Priyanka admitted, much to Connie's surprise.
"I thought you said you always ate your vegetables and only had dessert when you got an A on tests," she kidded.
"Okay, maybe I… exaggerated how studious I was at that age. There might have even been a point where I… rebelled."
"Really?" Steven asked, "Connie told me all about how you were a straight-A student and then flew through med school."
"Oh, I was eventually. But from about ten to thirteen, I probably gave my parents more migraines than I could count. Skipping school, spending more time with the 'cool kids' than my work, all that jazz. It only stopped when I got driven home in the back of a police car."
"WHAT?!" Connie gasped, "What did you do?!"
"Connie, you're not old enough to know."
"Oh, come on! How bad could it be?"
The mother moved up to her daughter's ear and whispered something that neither Steven nor Greg to make out. Whatever she said, it made Connie immediately drop the subject and turn her focus on her sandwich. The only thing she would say was that as soon as she started high-school, she got her act together and became the athlete-turned-doctor that she is today.
"I never would have guessed you were like that, Dr. Maheswaran," Steven noted, "But I guess people change a lot from when they were kids."
"You have no idea, sport," Greg patted him on the shoulder, "But you know what? You've got plenty of time to decide whatever you wanna be."
"Actually, I've been thinking about what Connie said a while ago. I still want to help people when this is all done. Just, you know, with less punching."
"Well, there are plenty of fields for that," Priyanka said to him, "That's what every brand of doctor has in common – we want to see people get better so they can go back to living."
"You know, I guess I should rethink things too," Connie noted, "I don't think my old career path is going to work."
"Space seems blasé to you too, huh?" her mother joked, "I'm sorry about that, honey, but with a brain like yours you could take up just about anything?"
"Really? Anything?"
"Absolutely!"
"So I can really go to a conservatory and join a philharmonic?"
"Go right ahead!"
"But what if I don't like music? What about sports?"
"You still have your tennis experience. Do you want to pick it back up?"
"Nah, I think I want to try something else… Like rugby!"
"Wait, what?"
"Or maybe I won't do sports like that… I could go into professional gambling!"
"Um…"
"Oh, I can just see it now! You said I've got the brain for it, right? There's a lot of strategy to poker and all that! I bet I'd be great at it!"
Steven and Greg were speechless from what they were hearing. Priyanka was too until something suddenly clicked in her mind and her brows flattened.
"You're just saying all of this to get back at me for that one time I said playing cards was too risky, aren't you?"
"Did it work?"
"Yes…" she sighed while Steven and Greg laughed their heads off, having completely fallen for it until Steven spoke up.
"Wait, how is playing cards dangerous?"
"I thought it would be a bad influence, I know, I know I was wrong!" the mother moaned, "Frankly, hindsight makes everything too clear. It turns out keeping your kid a bubble their whole life is pretty bad too…"
Greg could only nod, much to Steven's confusion, and the rest of their time together was uneventful. Or at least as normal as eating lunch on a spaceship while alien warriors fought off hordes of spaceships outside and the occasional intruder teleported in could be but they were pleased nonetheless.
The hours continued to trudge by as the Crystal Gems flew forward until, after days of constant attacks, they seemed to catch a break. Few ships happened to cross their path and no more enemy gems were beamed in. While they did enjoy the reprieve, they also had a sneaking suspicion that something big was coming.
Even still, they pushed ahead faster than ever until they finally came within sight of their goal. Topaz announced that they were only thirty minutes away from Homeworld and that everyone should ready themselves immediately. As soon as she was done, the captain collapsed into her chair.
"Something wrong?" Rhodonite asked her.
"Yeah, this churning in my gut that I don't have," the fusion snarked, "I mean, we knew this was coming, right? So why-"
"You're not the only one," Padparadscha stopped her, "We're all scared somewhere."
"Captain, did it always look like that?" Rutile asked, pointing out at the multicolored, fractured planet and its overlapping black rings, "It looks like it's broken."
"It is broken," Topaz said, her fear slowly fading into anger at her long career under Aquamarine's thumb, "The sooner we give Pink Diamond back, the sooner we leave and never see it ever again."
Now more resolute than ever, the captain had the ship approach quickly with plans to land as close to the Diamond's personal bases as possible. That quickly got dropped, however, when Rutile picked something up on her scanners and made both her sets of eyes all but pop.
"We've got company! And a LOT of it!"
"How many ships are we talking?" Topaz asked but she did not need to hear the answer. She saw thousands upon thousands of ships of varying sizes ranging from the small fighters to eyes carrying troops to several dozen arm-shaped warships appear out of hyperdrive.
"Attention, everyone! There is no polite way for me to say this: We have EVERY ship Homeworld has in this sector in front of us! Get out here and fight or we are royally CRACKED!"
Hearing the usually stalwart head of the bridge panic made everyone snap to attention with Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl immediately heading outside. As the three stared at the literal swarm of machines, they took a moment to breathe before the inevitable clash.
"So, anyone got anything they wanna say?" Amethyst started.
"I've got an entire thesaurus full of words I'd like to say to the Diamonds, but I refuse to use that kind of language when Steven is around."
"Um, he's in the ship?"
"Pretty sure with how loud I'll get, he'll hear me."
"Ditto," Garnet said before looking to each of them. After getting a nod from each of her lifelong friends, the three quickly ran into each other and their bodies seamlessly joined into the colossal figure of Alexandrite once again. As the first wave of starships came at her home, she let out a furious yell before leaping off the Crystal Beacon and flying into action.
Acting as a medium between grace and brute force, each of her six arms worked in tandem to destroy everything in her path and left nothing to chance. Blasts of fire and ice large enough to scorch or deep-freeze all of Beach City in one go. Energy arrows being fired in every direction except towards her ship with frightful accuracy. Hammers, gauntlets, flails, spears, whips. All of them being used to devastating effect like a killing machine. And there were twelve of these taints leaping in space from place to place annihilating anything in their path.
As the six-armed menace took on the bulk of Homeworld's defense by herself, the back of the Crystal Beacon was soon beset by its own wave. Homeworld had planned a pincer maneuver to really crack down on the rebels. This time, Lapis and Adamite looked out and saw the force they were up against.
"So, still happy with the choice you made?" Lapis asked her love, slotting her blue hand into her green.
"You know the answer already. I followed you for thousands of years for a reason."
"Thought so. I just wanted to hear it again."
Adamite rolled her eyes right before the two embraced, their bodies flashing to white before melding and reforging into Sandstone.
"This would have been a very awkward situation about a week ago…" the fusion muttered to herself, "But now? This will be fun."
Sandstone raised all four of her arms as gallon after gallon of mud rushed out of her limbs and into the space around her. Even as a barrage of ships fired on her, she simply held a literal wall aloft and soaked up the shots with one pair of arms while the other prepared a volley of a few thousands knives to get herself warmed up.
As the fusions battled on two fronts outside, inside the ship was once again a mess. Homeworld had resumed teleporting their troops within the walls of the ship and with more gusto than ever. It was practically packed to the gills in there as the strategy seemed to be to just mob the ship with so many soldiers that sheer quantity would suffocate them.
The problem for them was that they never considered that would only give the Crystal Gems inside more targets to hit. Everyone inside proved more than capable of either barging through the crowds or sneaking their way through. Whether it was Steven showing gems down with his shield for Connie to quickly poof them while they were down, Rutile and Bismuth flinging gems into each other and even Padparadscha wading through to suddenly stab intruders in the back with her dagger.
It was all out chaos in a sense, but the ship kept flying forward. Granted, that was easy to manage with Peridot mostly staying within the circuits to pilot the vessel herself while Topaz and her crew laid the beatdown on intruders.
And as the fight raged on, White Diamond was spectating the entire thing. No one, not even her own pearl, was in her chamber with her. She kept her eyes peeled on the clash going on so she could report the instant that the rebel's ship was destroyed, and they could finally claim the victory they deserved.
There was only problem with this plan: the Crystal Gems were still pushing ahead. Even when the ship began getting overwhelmed by a new fleet of fighters arriving off the east, Alexandrite and Sandstone did not have to stop as a third fusion stepped outside to meet them. Much to the diamond's confusion, and revulsion, it was some odd cylindrical-shaped gem that had six visible stones on her body. The sight of it was almost enough to make her gag on sight until the newcomer started changing into a multi-armed warrior on the same size as Alexandrite.
As she looked up at the wave facing her, Fluorite had a rare grimace on her face. With one smooth movement of her legs, she leapt off the Beacon and flipped around to kick the nearest ships out of sight. Once it was obvious they were under attack, the other fighters all tried to laser this new threat out of existence only for her to dodge and weave out of every shot. Several Homeworld gems cursed as their blasts missed their target and instead shot their own comrades down instead.
A small part of her felt pity for all of the peons getting caught in this fight, but Fluorite did not stop her dance as she used only her arms and legs to smack foes away and disorient the masses more into firing on each other instead.
With the Beacon safe on almost all fronts, it pushed ahead faster as Homeworld grew closer and closer. The fusions outside decimated anything that got too close while the gems inside poofed gems by the hundreds as they kept pouring in. Soon, however, the chassis of this ship began to heat up and glow as it officially entered the planet's orbit. As soon as she noticed it, Peridot sent a message to everyone's communicators.
"We're officially landing! Everyone get inside and brace yourself!"
The three guardians in space took the hint and booked a hasty retreat into the Beacon. White Diamond was cursing herself for them making it this far but they had made a critical error! They had to retreat inside since those infernal fusions could not survive planetary reentry! All of her ships could, though, and now they would dogpile the Crystal Gems and finally end them!
Inside the ship, turbulence began to rock everyone inside as they hit the atmosphere. True to White's ideas, the other ships never let up and rained laser fire down on the hull. Peridot, however, had just such a toy for the occasion. She would have to thank Emerald and her base for letting her into the armory for all the toys she had been tinkering with this whole time!
Flipping on a new device from her lab, Peridot activated what could be described as an EMP of epic proportions as a pulse of pink lightning erupted from the ship and made thousands upon thousands of ship lose all of their power. Including their shields and propulsion systems.
Down on the surface of Homeworld, the mood was tense as everyone knew the rebels were coming but they had nothing to fear. Their Diamonds were the most flawless, capable beings in existence! They would have the perfect plan to destroy those blights and keep their empire safe…
…That sentiment went right out the window as dozens upon dozens of ships in the sky turned into fiery debris that began raining down on Homeworld's surface. Gems suddenly ran for their lives as they risked being shattered, or seriously hurt at the very least, by a sudden storm of meteors made by their own hardware.
None, however, took this development worse than the Diamonds. They could see the destruction from their own palaces. Yellow's temper boiled as all of the work she put into her home, her equipment, was so callously destroyed. Blue's eyes threatened to overflow as she heard the terrifying screams of her people, rekindling her fire to destroy Steven. White, on the other hand, actually felt a pang of shock. They outsmarted her. They turned her plan on its head. The twinge of genuine respect this gave her soon gave way to unyielding rage as she sent out a simple order to everyone.
"DON'T LET THEM EVEN LEAVE THEIR SHIP! SHATTER THEM NOW!"'
The Crystal Gems, while glad Peridot's device worked, were not happy to see the destruction they caused. They distinctly wanted to avoid collateral since they did not need to further the perception that they were monsters out to destroy all of gemkind. The inventor of the device apologized but pointed out that running too many tests on something meant to shut down spaceships on a spaceship might have caused problems.
With all of the intruder gems being beamed away thanks to Peri's experiment thanks to it somehow reversing the polarity, there was nothing to stop them from walking outside. Those who had never been to Homeworld marveled at the technology around them, albeit they had to look around the damage their entrance had made. They also found Homeworld's atmosphere was similar enough to Earth's that the humans of the teams could breathe without issue.
Their sightseeing was quickly ended as the ground began to tremble. It was the literal horde of gems running up by the thousands, all of their weapons drawn and looks of sheer rage on their face. As much as they wanted to talk them down, they could see White Diamond's palace a few miles away. If they could convince her, all of this bloodshed would finally be over.
With Steven leading the charge, the Crystal Gems all stormed out of the ship and met the mob head on.
Next time on How It Will End, the title will speak for itself: All-Out War.
Thank you all so much for reading! Leave any questions or comments in the reviews.