And now it's time for a clash between our heroes and two new elemental gems who want to capture Rose Quartz! Cue the action scene!
There were many thoughts running through the Crystal Gems' minds as Adamite and Cinnabar cornered them. Some were analyzing possible weaknesses in the enemies' stance and logic. Some were simply dying to break the unease forming in the air as both teams remain silent. Steven was trying to do both of these while mentally pounding himself for ever assuming his mother's identity. He even swore to himself that he will change his voice mail for every single contact to "Hey, this is Steven. Sorry I can't talk to you now. Please leave a message. I'M NOT ROSE QUARTZ! Hope I can get back to you soon, bye!"
Both of the new gems scanned the small crowd for their targets. While Adamite looked impassive as she stared them down, Cinnabar was getting restless and ignited two large fireballs in her hands.
"Where's Lapis?! We know she's around here somewhere! Tell us NOW!" The flames grew even larger and the gems could feel heat radiating off of their backs.
"Calm down, Cinnabar! Roasting them isn't going to get us answers…yet," commanded Adamite. Her order seemed to penetrate the frenzied fire gem and the blaze died down, but her body language made it clear she wanted to disobey.
"Whoa, there Hot Shot!" remarked Amethyst, turning to face Cinnabar trying to defuse her nerves "If you want to get fried, just ask and I'll serve you up!"
"Ha, that threat might mean something if you could stand up to me. Now be quiet, unless you want to get whipped," retorted the scarlet invader, earning a boastful smile from her purple adversary. This may be a serious moment, but Amethyst respected trash talk as an art form and this one clearly had skills.
"Enough! We'll give you one last chance, release the human and leave or fight!" shouted Garnet, her rage overwhelming her reason as she once again felt responsible for night foreseeing this encounter.
"I can understand why you would be so protective of Rose Quartz given that she is your leader. Even so, I doubt you all have the capabilities to defeat us. Our abilities are far and away from what most gems are capable of," remarked Adamite.
"Well then…" whispered Peridot as she raised and bent an arm, "You're not the only one!" She snapped her arm straight, causing the doors of one of the half-submerged trucks to fly off its hinges towards Adamite. She only showed the slightest bit of surprise as the projectile flew closer. With a flick of her own arm, the sand beneath her feet rose into a crude wall, stopping the door only inches from her form. Despite its force, the wall held firm and caused the improvised metal missile to break apart leaving Adamite unharmed.
"Interesting," remarked the unharmed Adamite, her tone as patronizing as before, "You do have some unique abilities of your own." With a stomp of her foot, a spire of rock launched Peridot twenty feet in the air, the formerly smug analyst screaming as she flew. "A pity they are useless against me."
As Peridot ascended higher into the sky, desperately missing her limb enhancers for the first time in ages, Cinnabar readied a long spear of flames to pierce her as she began falling back to the ground, grinning as she took aim, eager to finally have some and action…
"NO!" shouted Lapis, finding the courage to enter the fray. She swooped down at lightning speed, grabbing Peridot mid-flight and sending a large wave right at Cinnabar, dousing her blazing halberd and taking everyone by surprise.
"Stop this right now! I won't stand by while you hurt everyone! Either go away or we'll make you…" demanded Lapis. The other Crystal Gems could hardly believe the sight of the normally meek Lapis willingly picking a fight, but her piercing glare and raised fists backed up her words.
Cinnabar, after recovering from her surprise deluge, stepped forward with an unusual timidness as if approaching a wild animal. She looked in utter disbelief as she walked closer, right past all of the gems she was just intimidating a second ago.
"Lapis…?" asked the mystified red gem in a voice so quiet even Adamite was shocked, "Is that really you?"
Lapis turned around to face her new opponent, but her fury dissipated when she laid eyes on Cinnabar. The other Crystal Gems were all caught off guard as well upon seeing the two together. Their faces were exactly the same, as if someone literally copied Lapis' exact image onto another body. And on another glance, Adamite was the same too! Even gems of the same type were not spitting images of each other as these three.
While Lapis was as disturbed by this as the others, there was even more apprehension for her as she felt a hunch that she really did know who this madwoman was. Of course she had no actual memory of her, but something deep down told her otherwise.
The incendiary intruder stopped two feet from her maritime twin, studying each other's faces. Then, without any warning, Cinnabar wrapped Lapis in a warm hug, crying tears of joy proclaiming "It IS you! It's been so long! Where have you been all this time?!" as if reuniting with a long lost love.
"What are you talking about?! Get off of me!" shouted a now confounded Lapis, throwing off her red counterpart, "I have never seen you two in my life! All I know is you attacked my home and nearly hurt one of my friends! Stop acting like you know me!"
The other gem looked heartbroken at her harsh words, but Adamite appeared behind her by tunneling through the earth to put a hand on shoulder. As her companion began to weep, the stern gem looked Lapis in the face.
"Lapis Lazuli Facet-1KYC Cut-1XI? Terraforming Brigade 7-Delta? We went on 147 missions together?" The gem in question returned with a confused look, forcing Adamite to hide her own sorrow by looking down until she could regain her composure.
"Pearl, what's going on? Have you ever seen gems like these two before?" asked Steven, his guard lowering as their once fearsome invaders were unraveling.
"No, I was surprised enough by Lapis' abilities, but seeing two more? I don't know what to make of it…" answered Pearl, still waiting for the fight to commence.
"Judging from that designation though, Lapis is rather old in the line. Actually, I don't recall seeing any other Lapises on Homeworld…" muttered Peridot, silently wondering if she could catch them by surprise with another truck-door sneak attack.
"Very well then…" muttered the distraught Adamite, "If you refuse to side with us, we will give you a chance to flee while we collect our other objective."
"No. I said I won't stand by and let you hurt everyone and I meant it! I saw you attack Peridot and you are never doing that again while I'm around!"
And with that proclamation, all hell broke loose as Adamite and Cinnabar began their true assault on the Crystal Gems.
Steven's shield was put to good use as the scarlet arsonist launched a torrent of fire right at him, though the heat was unbearable and his sandals were melting under the onslaught. It did serve as an adequate distraction as Garnet clocked Cinnabar across the face with a nasty punch with her gauntlets. Pearl followed soon after with a series of swipes with her spear that forced her opponent into dodging until she released a wave of flame that forced Pearl to dodge or get incinerated. Amethyst picked up the slack by roping Cinnabar with her whip as Peridot sent a barrage of metal shards from her failed attack at her while ensnared. Unfortunately, the group soon learned Amethyst's whip was not fireproof as it crumbled into ash under her continued conflagration.
With a three-on-one battle in full swing, Steven and Peridot turned to Adamite while the main three continued their brawl with Cinnabar. As of now, Lapis was holding her own against the geokinetic gem. The two were trading blows on equal footing, even if it was clear Adamite had the advantage in experience versus the more pacifistic Lapis. Each volley of stones was met by a massive wall of water, a torrent made to surprise collided with a shield of sand that stopped the blow, and neither gem was gaining or losing ground. Seeing an opportunity to change the flow of battle, Peridot scanned the area for more possible ammo while Steven charged headfirst into the scuffle. He summoned his full bubble for extra protection and rolled even as rocks the size of his fist grazed the sides of his defenses. He pushed ahead until he literally rammed into Adamite, finally eliciting genuine shock from her, before she tumbled away in a heap. The young boy did not give her the chance to stand though, as he leapt above the air, focusing his floating powers to keep him off the ground, and readied another charge. Adamite tried summoning another sand barrier to stop the impact, but Steven blasted right through it and sent her sprawling again.
"I don't understand!" screamed the frazzled Adamite, her calm eroding as Steven plowed through more shoddy sand walls, "You are clearly a human, but you have the powers of a gem?! What are you?! How are you so durable?!"
"My name is Steven Universe, a Crystal Gem and a kid really sick of people hurting my family! Now stop attacking Lapis, let my dad go, and LEAVE!" In his boasting, Steven had dropped his bubble and summoned a pair of pink gauntlets just like Garnet's. Adamite braced herself and summoned a much thicker ring of sand to halt the blow, but Steven's punch still made a massive crack in her defense. As the furious hybrid wailed on it with his armored fists, Lapis summoned a hand of water to flatten the gem inside. Under the combined weight of Lapis' marine constructs and Steven's punches, her attempts to reinforce it meant nothing and the wall came down, only to reveal nothing inside. The two of them plus an awestruck Peridot were ready to celebrate only for Adamite to reappear by the rock wall via tunneling.
"Heh…impressive." She cracked a genuine smile for the first time years as she renewed her attack, forcing columns of stone to jut out from the cliff-side behind her.
While a new clash between the newer Crystal Gems emerged against Adamite, Cinnabar had to contend with the three longstanding members who were quickly seeing through her strategy of burn everything. She quickly learned that Garnet was constantly one step ahead of her, forcing the bellicose gem to change her tactics. She put all of her pyrokinetic tricks to the test as she summoned flames of every shape and size, even mimicking their three weapons to fight on a more even level. Unfortunately for her, the three of them were proving more than capable as their prowess and teamwork overwhelmed her. Every time she would dodge or outmaneuver one, another would be ready to strike.
After dozens of hits, Cinnabar was quickly losing her patience as she had to truly concentrate to avoid being poofed by her opponents. Now her agility was fatigue was setting in, forcing her to get desperate. She dodged another brutal punch from Garnet, but Pearl came and swept her off her feet with her spear. Amethyst was readying a blow with her above to force her into the sand, only for the flaming gem to get a truly diabolical idea. She sent a stream of fire straight towards the beach house where Greg had been watching the battle (mostly gaping as his son proved his own against such a tough adversary) and set it ablaze. Even with the moisture still in the boards from Lapis' flood and the proximity to the ocean, it was ignited in seconds and soon blazed into a house fire with him at the center. This caught everyone's attention and the fighting stopped instantly as Greg to find a way through the flames, but doubled over coughing and sweating from the smoke and heat.
"DAD!" Steven screamed in terror, his anger forgotten in a rush to save his father. Lapis readied a rush of water to stop the blaze, only for Adamite to step forward.
"Enough of this. It is obvious we cannot overpower you, so perhaps negotiations will be more effective. Now either hand over Rose Quartz or disclose her location. Otherwise the human you seem to care for will suffer."
Lapis grimaced as she sent a torrent of ocean water forward, only for a massive wall of sand twice the size of the house to rise to block the attempt. Again and again Lapis tried putting out the fire, but every attempt was met with the same as Adamite shifted the wall to block every wave. All the while Greg was losing consciousness from the intense heat, made worse by the wall enclosing him in an oversized oven. The other gems considered rushing in, but figured Greg only had minutes. His body just could not handle such extreme conditions. Finally, as he heard father's coughing stop in the inferno, Steven could not take it anymore.
"STOP! I'll tell you if you just let him go!" He lowered his shield and stepped forward, looking Adamite in the eyes. The other gems were less than pleased with this.
"Steven Universe, don't you DARE do this again!"
"No… No…Not again…"
"Dude, really?! There are better ways around this!"
"Please don't do this Steven…We can't let this happen again."
"Well crud, does anyone have another pile of random junk so we can build a spaceship?"
He did not waver from their outcry and stood tall. "I am… Rose Quartz's son."
Both groups, friend and foe alike, were taken aback by his confession. While the Crystal Gems were grateful Steven was learning from his earlier mistakes, the newcomers were confused.
"Sun? You are her giant star in the sky?" asked Cinnabar, her head still swimming from taking one too many blows to the head.
"No, I'm... someone she cares for, a lot. If I'm gone, she'll definitely come to look for me. She might even go back to Homeworld if it means I'm safe."
"So you are offering yourself as a hostage?" inquired Adamite.
"Yes, but you can't hurt me. If you do, Rose will be super mad and just fight you instead of surrendering. I don't know when she'll come back either, but as long as we stay on Earth it won't be a problem for her to find us."
The stoic gem weighed her options and although she found it strange the boy was sweating profusely and staring at his gravity connectors the whole time, she could not come up with anything better and lowered the wall. She then pointed to Cinnabar who absorbed the flames, leaving a disoriented Greg mostly unharmed aside from his chafing wrists.
The five Crystal Gems were stupefied by what had occurred. They all wanted the fight to continue, but knew they could just put Greg in the same position if they resisted. Cinnabar and Adamite stood behind Steven and led him past his friends as he looked back and smiled, scared but hopeful that they could find him without too much trouble. He was led away from the beach and forced to walk past the borders of his hometown with no idea where these two would take him.
And now Steven has to play hostage to these two! What will the Crystal Gems do? What will Steven do to get out of this situation! Tune in next time to find out!
Thank you all so much for reading! Please feel free to leave a review!