Before this chapter gets underway, I'd like to formally thank each and every reader because this story now has 10,000 hits! I never imagined this story would get this much of a backing behind it and it's all thanks to you! And with that, onward!
Within five minutes of White Pearl's departure the force field was reactivated and coded so the Off-Colors could all enter. Peridot wanted to expand the range so Fluorite would not be left out in the open, but the six-gem fusion insisted she would be alright and they had greater problems to worry about. They all agreed to leave it active at all times until the imminent threat was dealt with.
Peridot and Bismuth became focused on getting a proper security device for the warp pad and to ensure that Homeworld would not be able to send any more surprises into their base of operations. Thanks to all the crashed Homeworld ships and dozens of dropped destabilizers they had the perfect building materials. The Off-Colors all agreed to monitor the skies from the Sun Incinerator for any incoming threats. While they were somewhat shaky about piloting their ship without Lars, they all understood he wanted to get back to his normal teenage life. That got a chuckle out of Steven that for once he might actually be excited to go to work at the Big Donut.
Pearl and Garnet redoubled their efforts on training Steven. The two decided to start pushing him harder since he had proven himself in what they all decided to call the Battle for the Temple. Anytime he was not sparring with them to improve his skills he was running laps around Beach City, lifting weights (purchased by Greg in an effort to get himself into better shape along with his son), and occasionally helping Connie with her sword training. The rare moments he got to himself were either spent simply unwinding with Connie or reviewing what he had already learned so he would not get rusty.
This left the remaining gems to their own devices. Lapis Lazuli, Adamite and Cinnabar all became guards for the temple and surveyed Beach City on regular patrols along with refining their own fighting abilities with Pearl and Garnet. Topaz was reluctant at first, but she actually found her place with the Off-Colors on their ship. With her centuries of experience shuttling Aquamarine around, she took to the captain's chair in no time and began to settle in to her own place. Amethyst, however, was the odd one out of the group as she seemed bizarrely disinterested. She was clearly distracted during any training sessions she showed up for, did not even bother with her surprise attacks on Steven anymore, and any and all attempts to console her were met with her blowing someone off and then literally running in the other direction.
To say that tensions were starting to run high at the temple was an understatement. While White Pearl's blatant hubris and flagrant bigotry got the group fired up, she also dropped some information that did not sit well with the team. One particular instance of this strain came as the elemental trio returned to home base from one of their rounds.
"Lapis, I have some concerns I need to address," asked Adamite as they walked into the temple past a still-forlorn Amethyst.
"What's up? You felt something underground?"
"No potential hostiles, but I was mulling over some of the information that pearl gave out. She mentioned the shattering of Pink Diamond?"
"You mean you didn't know?" Lapis looked at her green-skinned near-double only to find a solemn glance.
"Cinnabar and I spent millennia on this planet with no contact from Homeworld. We were aware the rebellion was over when we noticed the distinct lack of fighting, but we were never sure how."
"Plus the giant beam of light sweeping over the place was a clue that something bad happened," added Cinnabar as she took a seat on the counter idly twirling a flame between her fingers.
"Wait, you were here during the corruption?! How did you guys survive?"
"When we saw the insignia of the Diamond Authority in the sky and the massive light that came with it, I admittedly panicked and pulled Cinnabar as far underground as I could manage in my haste. It appears the weapon affected only the surface of the planet."
"We were down there for hours and I couldn't burn ANYTHING! It was the worst!" whined the pyrokinetic goofball. She briefly looked over towards Amethyst, sitting by the window as glum as could be, and pouted. Her attempt at getting another scrap going and potentially raise her buddy's spirit failed.
"Anyway…As she said, we remained down there for an extended period of time until we emerged and suddenly found ourselves stranded on this planet. We more or less spent our remaining time wandering around, though we did find several wailing stones in our travels. We made some efforts to contact Homeworld, but we never received a response."
"Probably because they didn't want us back…" grumbled Cinnabar.
"Well, sorry about you guys getting dumped like that," apologized Lapis, but Adamite moved closer to her and rested a hand on shoulders.
"My past is irrelevant at this point. In the end we are not only reunited, but now share a common goal. While I may not be entirely sure of what these Crystal Gems had to do in the past to achieve independence, these recent encounters with Homeworld have proven to me that I am fighting for a just cause. My greatest regret is attacking you and your allies in the name of rejoining a corrupt regime. I do hope you can forgive any harm I may gave done, Lapis Lazuli."
"Uh…yeah, I get it. I…pretty much did the same thing when I first got out," stuttered Lapis as she felt a twinge of anxiety in her gut.
"I see. Your incarceration no doubt left you paranoid about any potential threat, so acting rashly would be logical. I am grateful, however, to see you have become more like your past, more adventurous self. The same gem that would routinely take the longest route on any mission just to take in more of the scenery."
"Shame I can't remember it…"
"I will make it a prerogative of mine to assist you in restoring your memory once this conflict has ended. Until then, focus on the present and stay vigilant. It is apparent we are facing an uphill battle, but these Crystal Gems have clearly withstood the might of Homeworld before."
Lapis smiled at her confident words, though also looked over and saw Adamite's bulky hand on her shoulder. She felt a brief tingling at the touch until the larger gem walked up to the warp pad, looking to join Garnet for a round of hand-to-hand training. Lapis and Cinnabar followed not long after.
Amethyst knew she could have been doing dozens of things to help the team or even herself. She could have been keeping Steven on his toes with her unique brand of training. She could have been keeping watch for any signs of Homeworld's next attack. Heck, she could even be cracking jokes and quips to lighten the mood and keep everyone from getting down in the dumps.
So why had she not moved from the spot she had taken once White Pearl left and Garnet confirmed that another attack was imminent? She had asked herself that over and over again and each time the answer left a terrible feeling in her metaphorical stomach.
She was afraid. She was honestly more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life. She had faced literal monsters before, gone toe-to-toe with Homeworld in the past, and even faced her own inner demons and came out better at the end. She had long since accepted she was imperfect, but the last thing she ever wanted to be was a coward.
And yet no matter how hard she tried, she stayed put.
Every argument she made to herself to get up and be productive was met with a bolt of fear. Fear that she would let her family down, fear that all her efforts would be for naught, and fear that the others would chastise her for her weakness. Even when she told herself that last thought was ridiculous, that they would instead encourage her and push her up she could not budge. It was quite a destructive cycle with her pushing herself down further and further only to find more and more reasons to get up and do something about it.
In the end, though, no one disturbed her. They all passed by her either too busy to spare her more than a glance or decided she was capable of settling her own problem. That left Amethyst with plenty of time on her hands to wonder why she felt like there was nothing she could do. It even tempted her to just close her eyes and hope that this would all be over when she opened them again.
Topaz was honestly impressed with how she was fitting in with the Off-Colors. With Rutile piloting the vessel, Rhodonite acting as an advisor and Fluorite and Pap to work the engine room together, she found herself slipping into the role quite comfortably. She wondered if spending so many years under Aquamarine's comically undersized foot made her crave to be the leader for a change. That and doing all the actual work on their ship while the pint-sized brat merely barked out orders also helped boost her confidence.
Right now the five were gently making a final run of the planet before docking for the day on the beach. Despite her knowing they were flying at breakneck speeds, Topaz found the job oddly relaxing. She especially enjoyed the personalities of her new crew with their quirks and charm quickly making her far more comfortable with them after a day then with anyone from Homeworld after several centuries. She was snapped out of her pleasant daydream by the ship's scanners suddenly going crazy.
"Rutile, what's the problem?" asked Topaz from the captain's chair.
"A small fleet of gem fighters just came into our range!" reported the left twin urgently.
"They'll be in Earth's orbit any second now!" added the right twin with a twinge of panic.
"Oh no, they're here already! There could be as many as twenty of them and we may outpace them, but they'll overwhelm us with numbers!" fretted Rhodonite, though making a fair point. They could only hit so many with their blasters and Topaz knew that there would be larger ships with heavier firepower not long behind them.
"What about the Star Skipper? Couldn't that help?" asked Topaz, only to be met with Fluorite poking her head out of the engine room.
"Too many of them for that. We need to outmaneuver them."
"Look out! Thirty gem fighters and three warships are incoming!" shouted Padparadscha, inadvertently giving away just how many enemies they were facing.
"We need to alert the others! Rutile, set us for an immediate retreat" ordered Topaz, only to find them cut off by several of the fighters. The twins instead had to focus more on getting them out of the enemy fire rather than heading home.
"We need to dodge! The shields can only take so much punishment!" fretted Rhodonite, already hating the situation.
"You don't think one of those warships is Emerald's, do you?" asked the right Rutile, much to Topaz's confusion.
"The gem Lars swiped the ship from. Now she hates us," explained the left, getting the fused captain up to speed.
"But I thought she loved this ship…" muttered Fluorite, making a good point to the other Off-Colors. Emerald may have been relentless in chasing them across the galaxy, but she also loved this vessel with as much of a heart as any of them had. Padparadscha, unfortunately, gave them the answer.
"The fighters are a decoy for us! The warships are descending onto Earth!"
"WHAT?!" panicked the rest of the ship. Rutile checked and found that, indeed, the warships were flying past them and towards the blue planet as they were still evading the hoard of fighters trying to blast them to bits.
"We need to tell the others about this! Doesn't this ship have a communicator?" asked Topaz, only to be met with more bad news from Rhodonite.
"Yes, but the Crystal Gems don't have any devices that can receive communications from this ship. We might as well be stranded out here!"
Topaz racked her brain for a solution, but found herself being distracted as the ship was jeering every which way trying to evade the swarm of ships. She could tell that Rutile was trying to fight back, but was more preoccupied with keeping them in one piece.
"One piece…" muttered the yellow fusion, before hatching an idea, "That's it! We could use the Star Skipper to get one of us back to Earth and warn the others!"
"That…could actually work!" agreed Rhodonite as she felt a weight lift off her shoulders, "Those fighters are specifically looking at us. As long as the scout ship is discreet, we should be able to make it back with no problem."
"Topaz will come up with an idea to save us!" cheered Padparadscha, further bolstering their confidence.
"Alright, then it's settled. So who wants to go then?" asked Topaz. Rutile knew they were needed at the controls, Fluorite simply could not fit in the ship and Padparadscha was far from a skilled flyer. She figured she could split up, but then Rhodonite made a surprising announcement.
"I'll do it."
"Really?" asked both the Rutile twins in unison. The shaky fusion merely stood her ground.
"Let's face it, everyone else here is too important or simply can't fly the ship. I'm not very experienced, but I think Topaz needs to stay together to lead us to the best of her ability. As long as you can get Homeworld's attention, I should be able to make it back undetected."
"I think we can manage that," smirked Rutile as Rhodonite ran off to jump in the scout ship and begin her gambit.
"You think you can distract them long enough to let her get back to the temple?"
Before she could answer, four more fighters began flying at them from all directions. Rutile guided their thrusters as far up as they would allow and nearly caused a four-way collision.
"I think we'll be just fine, Captain Topaz."
And with that, the dogfight was on as Topaz kept a keen eye on the horizon for any additional surprises Homeworld might have up their sleeve while Rutile handled the flying, Pap kept their spirits up and Fluorite made sure everything below deck was in order. Even with the imminent danger, Topaz felt a sense of comfort and hope having such a dedicated crew behind her. It sure beat hearing a microscopic egomaniac bark orders at her while she did all the actual work.
Back down on Earth, oblivious to the impending danger, Steven was in the middle of a training session with Pearl, Adamite and Cinnabar in the field near where the barn used to be.
With his skills continuing advancing, Pearl felt it was time to test him with something less predictable and the elemental gems provided the perfect opportunity for the boy to learn how to expect the unexpected. His endurance was also leagues beyond when he started as the boy had going for almost half an hour straight and barely showed any signs of slowing down. The goal was for Steven to avoid being cornered by the three for as long as possible. So far he had only been pinned twice and insisted he had the energy to keep going.
The three gems were surrounding Steven, planning to surprise him at any moment. Now that he has shown his skills in actual battle, they had to take the training up a notch and being more sporadic with when and how they were attacking. As such, Cinnabar lobbed several fireballs at him to start things off with no formal warning. Rather than panic or dodge, he summoned his whip and snapped at the flaming projectiles long before they could reach him.
This turned out to be a distraction, though, as Adamite tunneled up to right behind him and made to grab his ankles. Steven looked down in the nick of time and leapt several feet backwards with a single bound, but found himself face-to-face with Pearl charging at him with her spear at the ready. He brought out his own spear and the two began matching each other blow for blow, dodging stabs and blocking with amazing precision. Despite being less experienced, Steven was proving remarkably agile despite his portly build and even managed to get his weapon under Pearl's feet and knocked her to the ground.
That's when Adamite and Cinnabar surprised him by rushing at him from both sides. The boy tried jumping out of the why, but Pearl was one step ahead of him as she pretended to be more out of it than she was. The elemental gems sent rocks and flames up after him as Pearl charged at him with a super-jump of her own. Steven quickly summoned a bubble to protect himself from the rudimental missiles, but was still knocked back as Pearl whacked him down to Earth resulting in him tumbling around in his own bubble.
As soon as he reached the ground and let down his defense, though, a stone hand emerged from the ground and grasped him by the waist.
"Got you," smirked Adamite, pleased to see she was getting better at anticipating her opponents. Pearl and Cinnabar both made a dash for the trapped boy to make him tap out, but Steven had other plans. He flexed his arms, pushing the limits of his superhuman strength. As his two opponents got closer, he finally managed to crack and then break his earthen restraint. He then grabbed two chunks of broken rock and chucked them at the incoming gems, remembering to use any advantage he could get in a fight. Cinnabar got struck in the knee and tumbled while Pearl merely dodged. The two came face to face again with Steven summoning a gauntlet in one hand and his signature shield in the other as Pearl formed her spear once again. The pair clashed with an intensity that would worry anyone unaware that this was a common sparring match. Pearl may have had the better reach and experience, but Steven had better defenses and versatility with his combo of weapons.
It is a shame he was so caught up with Pearl that he did not notice Cinnabar blazing a path behind him with both her arms wreathed in flames. He ended up getting a scorching hug that shocked him out of his fight and made him cry out in pain. He fought the burning around his midsection, though his trademark shirt was not so lucky, and stomped on the gem's foot as hard as he could to free himself.
"Steven!" shouted Pearl as she instantly dropped the act as she saw burns form on both of his arms. Adamite walked up to her long-time companion and glared at her while crossing her arms.
"Heh heh, oops," chuckled a very embarrassed Cinnabar, "Too much?"
Adamite responded by making the fire-starter sink up to her head in the dirt. While that was going on, Pearl was inspecting the nasty burns forming on Steven's forearms.
"And this is why I started packing more supplies. I knew I should have grabbed that defibrillator when I had the chance…" she mumbled to herself as she pulled a vial of pink water from Rose's fountain out of her gem and poured it all over the afflicted areas before it could blister. After only a minute, the boy's arms were as good as new.
"Thanks Pearl! Now let's go again!" the boy assured, but Pearl simply shook her head.
"Steven, I think that's enough for today. But you did an excellent job considering we weren't holding back much. Next time, I'll have to start you on how to incorporate fusion weapons into your repertoire."
"Come on, Pearl, I'm fine! I know I can keep going until-" was all he got out before he suddenly fell on his face, completely out cold. Pearl immediately flipped him on his back and looked him over.
"It appears you were right to stop when you did. He has does not have the energy to stand let alone keep working."
"This isn't right," Pearl fretted, "He doesn't just fall unconscious like this! We need to get him back to the temple!"
Pearl hefted the boy into her arms and dashed towards the warp pad with Adamite close behind. Cinnabar was horrified to see them leave without here.
"Adamite, can I at least be let out? This is starting to itch!"
She was unceremoniously launched out of the ground by a pillar of rock from underneath and landed flat on her face.
"Thank you…" She eventually dusted herself off and made her way back after Pearl and Adamite had already beamed back to home base.
Not long before the gems warped in, Peridot and Bismuth put the final touches on the brand-new warp pad security system. While rather unorthodox device as a two-foot tall set of metal spires interconnected by conduits at various intervals with three pillaged gem destabilizers sticking out of the top, the duo assured that they could now stop any more unwanted visitors with a press of a remote control Peri had wired up to the device.
The new upgrade, though, was the last matter on everyone's minds as they gathered around an unconscious Steven laying in his bed upstairs.
"You must have really done a number on him with training…" muttered Lapis as she looked down at the now-helpless hybrid.
"He was just fine up until that point! This doesn't make any sense! What could just make him black out like this?" asked Pearl wringing her hands in worry.
"Well, there was that time he got knocked out when we... kidnapped him," admitted Cinnabar with a heavy amount of shame in her voice.
"You said you never laid a finger on him," commented Garnet, remembering the terms of Steven and the gem's agreement from when they were enemies.
"We never harmed him directly. While we were traveling, though, he stumbled on a large cliff and was unconscious when we checked on him. From there I carried him the rest of the way and he was awake by the time you confronted us," informed Adamite who could not ignore a small jolt as she remembered the ticked fusion electrocuting her into submission.
Before the group could piece together this mystery, though, a massive crash came from outside. The entire group left Steven on his bed and rushed outdoors to find the scout ship for the Sun Incinerator half stuck in the sand from a poor landing. Rhodonite, shaking like a leaf, climbed out of the ship's hatch and stumbled onto solid ground.
"Rhodonite, what are you doing here? Where's Topaz and the main ship?" asked Peridot, miffed at the thought that the vessel was damaged on impact.
"W-W-We're under attack! Dozens of H-Homeworld fighters are a-after us and t-this was the only way we could tell you about it!"
"WHAT?!" shouted everyone present, even Garnet. To make matters worse, but she was still stammering and shaking with the even worse news in mind.
"A-A-A-And there are three w-warships heading for the temple! W-We needed to let you know so they sent me!"
Now the group was in a full-blown panic. They rushed the frayed gem inside to the safety of the temple, and noticed that Amethyst was still sitting by the window, watching the waves go by without any sort of care or concern. Bismuth went over to her.
"Hey Amethyst, up and at 'em, let's go!" Despite talking right into her ear, the scrapper did not budge.
"Come on, we can mope around later, we've got a serious problem!" She then pushed Amethyst, but found her fall on her face with no resistance. The now-confused Bismuth flipped her around and noticed that the smaller gem was out for the count, but that quickly faded from her mind when she saw Amethyst's gemstone.
It had no color whatsoever.
"Guys, we got another problem!" shouted Bismuth to get the attention of everyone, panicking inside about how they were going to deal with this on top of the oncoming attack.
And now, we've got a triple whammy! A Homeworld attack, Steven's down for the count and Amethyst is knocked out too! How will the Crystal Gems get out of this one? Tune in next time, same Gem-story, same Gem-site!
Thank you all so much for reading! Please feel free to leave your questions or comments in review section and here's to the next milesone!