Of course. As soon as I say this story's onto irregular updates, I post one day later than I would have! AND right as Steven Universe Future comes out and FINALLY goes back to weekly releases. Enjoy this chapter while I clean the egg off of my face.

The warp pad glowed with life as Steven, Pearl and Rhodonite returned from their session at the Sky Arena. The day had completely flown by and the three only realized how late it was by the sun beginning to dip over the horizon. Despite how tired Steven felt, his spirit was still high.

"Thanks for helping, Rhodonite. You've gotten really good!"

"W-Well…" stuttered the fusion, "I do my best, but I-I still feel like I have so much to learn."

"Believe me," assured Pearl, "That feeling doesn't ever leave even with how long I've been doing this. I agree with Steven in that you've come leaps and bounds in such a short time."

The fusion blushed as she went off to tell the Off-Colors about her day, that left Steven letting his body relax while Pearl tidied up the few dirty spots in the house.

"I must also say, Steven, you've jumped back into it like it was nothing. Very impressive!"

"Heh, thanks, but I still feel a little rusty," admitted the boy as he took a swig of water.

"Well, your light physical activity during that slump kept your body in shape, but it's great to see you so motivated again."

"Thanks."

The enjoyed the quiet of their home, a rare occurrence as everyone else had other business to attend to, until Pearl spoke up.

"Steven, this might be a difficult question to ask but…"

"Huh? What is it?"

"When you talked to Rose… Did she say anything about me?"

The question surprised him, but he figured it would come sooner or later. "Not really… She did say something about she didn't know how much she hurt you, but that's about it."

"Oh… I suppose I should expect that. She did specifically appear to assist you, after all."

Steven winced as even though her back was turned, he could feel the sorrow coming off her. He did not know if he could call her on demand, but he felt the need to say something.

"Pearl, I'm-"

"No, there's no need to apologize," said the gem, "I brought it up so I should be ready for the answer. If you'll excuse me, I've been meaning to get some things done in my room. Have a nice night, Steven."

The boy was left to head upstairs by himself and pass the rest of the night reading, trying to shake the slight pit in his stomach left by Pearl's mood. Little did he, or any of the Crystal Gems know, this night would be far more than any of them expected.

Thanks to its small size, Beach City had pretty much no nightlife to speak of aside from the occasional rave. Once the clocks hit pass eleven, the only people out and about are the occasional insomniac or a tourist passing through on the way to a much larger town. Miles away from the town, though, a series of small spaceships began depositing gems onto the ground. Once the aliens were beamed in, they stealthily approached the houses and made their way to the nearest entrance.

A resounding ruckus ran through the town as dozens of doors and windows were broken down in unison. The chaos only grew as the gems stormed in, tearing apart rooms until they found the nearest humans. The people panicked and ran from their multicolored attackers, but found that the gems overpowered them easily. Screams of terror began ringing through the night as men and women were dragged from their homes and hauled towards the ships.

The only bright side to the whole affair was that the screams managed to reach the temple where, safe inside a pink force field, Steven would not have to worry about anyone infiltrating his home. He had other problems to deal with as he was startled awake.

"What the…?" the boy asked groggily, only to receive a call on his cell phone.

"Lars? Where's the fire?"

"All over town, Steven!" the teenager replied in a hushed whisper, "Gems are invading the place!"

"WHAAAAT?! How many?! What are they doing?!"

"There's dozens of them out here kidnapping people! I just watched my neighbors get their door broken in and two of them yanked outside! Get the Crystal Gems up and about right now or else they'll take the whole town by morning!"

The boy then hung up and sprinted to the temple door. He all but bashed the door in with his knocking, but it was enough to get everyone's attention.

"Guys, there's a Homeworld invasion! There's gems all over town abducting people!"

"What?!" gasped Pearl, "But why would they ever do that? The Diamonds see humans the same way we see animals…"

"Doesn't matter," finished Garnet, "The point is we've got a mission on our hands and Beach City needs us. Topaz, you and the Off-Colors get to the ship. Do a fly-by and give us an estimate on what we're dealing with."

"Got it!" the other fusion replied before darting off to find her crew. Thankfully they were all still watching their favorite show all together, so they were able to set out in a few minutes.

"The rest of us need to split up and intercept these gems. We've got a lot of ground to cover, but we've also got people in the mix. The last thing we need is someone getting hurt on our watch."

"No problem!" saluted Amethyst before running out at top speed, shaking the house with her startup.

"Those clods will pay for this!" assured Peridot as she hopped on Lapis' back while the other gem sprouted her wings and flew out the door.

"I'll stay with Cinnabar," said Adamite, "She's not used to fighting in delicate situations."

The fiery gem did not object to her restrictions for once. Once they were outside, the earthen gem sent them both underground off they went. Bismuth was already gone, too angry at the situation to say anything. That left Garnet, Pearl and Steven heading out last. As they ran down the beach, they each had their own thoughts on the situation.

"I may not have seen this coming," thought Garnet, "But I won't let them down. No more people are getting dragged into space while I'm here!"

"I really hope Dad and Connie are okay," fretted Steven, "But there's so many others to check on… I guess I'll just have to improvise and do my best."

"This is a nightmare…" dreaded Pearl, "It's only going to escalate from here… We've never had them actively going after people before, even Rose wouldn't know! I wish she was here right now… I'm not sure how I'll make it through this…"

As soon as they came into view of the town, they spotted three enemy gems running in a line with a helpless man being carried in the rear. Steven wasted no time leaping into action, summoning his shield and slamming into the one in the lead. She was sent flying into asphalt and before the other two could regain their bearings, Pearl snuck up on the middle gem and stabbed her through the chest with her spear. That left Garnet to freeze the man-toting gem to the pavement and grab the hostage before pounding her into her gemstone.

"Aw, what hit me?" asked the gem Steven slammed, trying to clear her head. She did not get much of a chance as Steven summoned a gauntlet and smashed into her gut. She barely got a chance to wheeze before being sent back into her stone. Once the foes were dealt with, Steven immediately checked on the captive.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thanks to you!" he congratulated, "But what do I do now? Those things are everywhere!"

The boy thought for a moment before getting an idea. "Our home has a force field around it that these other gems can't get into! You could go there and be safe.

"Good idea," complimented Garnet, "You lead him there while Pearl and I start cleaning up the town. Once you're done, start looking for other people and bring them to the temple."

With a firm nod, Steven was off with the grateful townsman in tow. That left the two veteran Crystal Gems to literally leap into action as they bounded off into town to stop more abductions.

Amethyst, thanks to her speed and a touch of anger, was already well on her way. It turns out that combining the already impressive strength of a gem, even a literal defect like the speedster, with insane amounts of velocity made it so she could effectively trounce any Homeworld gem as long as they did not see her coming. That proved even easier when she could literally tie them up with her whip faster than they could blink. By the time Steven found her, the purple scrapper already had half a dozen people saved and quickly sped off once she knew they would all be safe.

The farther reaches of the town were being covered by Peridot and Lapis, the latter flying around the few suburbs outside of Beach City with the former hanging on Lapis' back. The duo made an odd pair, but the unlikely friends were a force of their own. Many Homeworld gems immediately mocked Peridot for her stature and weakness, only to be surprised when she slammed the nearest garbage can, car door or mailbox at them with enough force to make them see triple.

Lapis, though, had to restrict her usage of water so as to not flood the houses. She kept herself to a glob the size of her body that she grabbed before flying off, but it was quickly proving effective. She formed chains, hands, even a literal clone of herself to double-team any gem who tried escaping her. One jasper was even low enough to try using some pre-teen girl as a human shield, thinking that the aquatic gem could not use her powers with a hostage in the way. Several watery knives to the back, including two to the neck, proved her wrong and she happily received a hug from the grateful child she saved.

Bismuth, still patrolling the main streets, did not need a partner as her rage made her seem like a one-gem army. Every time she saw a group of amethysts touting another flailing person away, she got a nasty case of tunnel vision and charged in screaming her head off. Fortunately for her, the other gems underestimated due to seeing her as a simple architect rather than a lethal revolutionary. Her hands shapeshifted into every form she knew and soon many more gems were bubbled along with a great deal of collateral. Several potholes would need to be refilled, a few walls now needed repairing and one poor sap would have a very fun time explaining to his car insurance provider what Bismuth did to his truck.

The only other ones were the Off-Colors who were making the rounds and quickly noticing how much of a coordinated attack they were dealing with. Before they were halfway done circling the perimeter, they had found three Homeworld starships and quickly saw the scale of the attack they were dealing with. They were soon distracted, though, by noticing a man in a familiar coat waving down their ship.

"That's Captain Lars!" shouted Rutile, both of her heads speaking in unison.

"It looks like he wants to talk to us," said Rhodonite, "I-I think, at least."

"I… hoped… he was safe…" added Fluorite, looking up from the engine room.

"Well, you all know him better than I do," spoke Topaz from the helm, "Bring the ship down so we can meet him."

On any other day, a spaceship landing in an ordinary suburb would have been cause for alarm. Now, everyone on the block had either vacated their homes, boarded themselves up in their basements or were out in this chaos. Lars, however, did not bat an eye as he strode onto the Sun Incinerator as soon as the door was open.

"Well, nice to know this baby is still running well," he said to himself wistfully before getting down to business, "What do you all know?"

"We're dealing with a full-blown invasion," reported Rhodonite, "The other Crystal Gems are dealing with the main forces while we're doing recon."

"Any reason they've decided they just want humans?"

"Well…" Topaz admitted, suddenly feeling very awkward "This isn't the first time they've tried… Sorry about that, by the way."

"Eh, I was still a tool, and if there's anything I've learned is that your society is whack."

"Tell me about it…"

"Lars has important information!" interrupted Padparadscha, "We need to hear him out."

"Oh, yeah, I was wondering if I could take over."

"Really?" asked Rutile's right head.

"I mean, we'd love yo have you, but why? Topaz is right here," questioned the left head.

"True, but between the two of us, one of us is a much better fighter who can go toe-to-toe with gems and the other is a scrawny teenager who's like an ant compared to them."

Topaz started to look away, only for Lars to pull her into looking him in the eye. "Don't take this personally, I don't doubt you as a captain. This crew only follows the best, but Steven and the others need you more. With an extra person out there, that means less people getting abducted while we take the fly-by."

As she took in his words, all of Topaz's doubt melted away. Suddenly, she felt like she could tackle the entire Homeworld horde by herself. It was also then that the fusion realized how someone like this managed to steal a highly-guarded starship and turn four refugees into the airtight crew she had come to inherit. She made a note to thank him sincerely for that later, but now her eye was on the battle as she answered only with a confident nod of the head.

"Good luck out there, Captain Topaz!" cheered Padparadscha.

"Show those upper-crusts what we've got!" added Rutile.

Fluorite and Rhodonite did not answer, but made it clear from their expressions they had no doubt their new leader would triumph. As Topaz ran into the fray, Lars took his old seat and immediately fell back into his role.

"Alright, crew, resume flight and let's finish that recon! Once we have all the intel, we report back to Steven and then prepare a counterattack."

"Yes, Captain!" spoke all four at once, a sense of nostalgia coming over them. Between their old leader back with them and their new one giving the dregs of Homeworld their comeuppance, they almost wished Emerald were still after them. The look on her face seeing her prized ship being used to fight off an invasion of this scale would be priceless.

Elsewhere, in one of the suburbs outside of town, was the Mahesweran household. What had been a pleasant night with Connie relishing being in her own bed and the parents hitting the sack for the night turned into chaos. Multiple houses down the street had suddenly been broken into, but when Priyanka went out to investigate, she quickly learned it was no ordinary burglary.

"Doug! Connie!" the mother screamed as she ran upstairs, "We need to leave! Gems are ransacking the neighborhood!'

"Start the car," ordered Doug, his protective instincts taking over, "I'll go wake Connie and pack everything we need."

The mother did as told, but when the father ran upstairs he found Connie already half-dressed.

"Connie? Were you still awake?"

"No, but I can't sleep through four houses being broken into. I need to call Steven, though."

"Why? Does he have anything that could stop these guys?"

"Well, maybe, but also because my sword's still at his house. I need to get it so-"

"Hold on, hold on, I'm sorry," interrupted Doug, "But that sounds like you're planning on fighting those things out there."

"Of course I am! What am I supposed to do, run and hide while they take over the town?"

"Seeing as how the last time you tried you ended up in a coma which you recovered from yesterday, then yes! Steven and the Crystal Gems will take care of this, but we need to do the smart thing and evacuate!"

"Dad, I get it, you're worried about me, but I can't just stand by and do nothing!"

Before the two could argue further, a scream came from the front yard as they heard a gruff female voice call out.

"Hey, I found another one!"

"Let go of me, you mongrels!" shouted Priyanka as she was hauled away in plain view of her husband and daughter.

"MOM!"

"HONEY!"

Both of them stormed down the stairs, all the logic they had completely forgotten, as they saw two amethysts running off with her. Doug quickly ran back inside the house while Connie stared at the kidnappers.

The pair of intruders looked back and quickly started stalking towards her, even as Priyanka squirmed in the grasp of one of the aliens. Connie, only now, realized that maybe confronting two extraterrestrials with superhuman abilities without a weapon might be a bad idea.

Even still, Connie tried to swallow the panic rising in her throat. "Let my mom, go! She hasn't done anything to you!"

"Yeeeeeeeeah," said one of the aliens, rolling her eyes, "We're under direct orders to grab as many of you organics as possible, so you can either come with us or we'll just take you against your will."

Connie also had to fight off the creepiness that came from these amethysts sounding exactly like the Amethyst she has known for months now. Priyanka, though, was preoccupied as she tried to barter for her child.

"No, please! Not her! She's just gotten her life back, let her go! I'll-"

But before they could go much farther, a deafening bang rang through the street as the amethyst not holding the doctor felt a sharp pain in her arm.

"OWWW! What was that?!"

Everyone turned to see Doug holding a literal smoking gun as he leveled the weapon straight at the pair of aliens.

"I don't know if bullets can kill you, but they clearly hurt you," he growled, "Now put my wife down and leave."

"Dad?!" shrieked Connie, "Where'd you get a pistol?!"

"Security guard, remember?"

"Oh…"

"Doug?!" yelled Priyanka, "Are you completely insane?! Take Connie and run!"

"And just leave you?! How would I live with myself?"

"Oh, I think you'll live," snarled the purple gem as she readied herself for a charge, "Until White Diamond gets a hold of you!"

Doug fired another round, but this time the gem saw it coming and managed to dodge. She ran at him and quickly caught up to him. She then yanked the gun out of his grip and crushed it in her hands like it was made of paper before slinging him over her shoulder.

"Grab the other one," she ordered her partner, "I'm gonna tell Silver that this one hurt me and needs to be treated special."

Connie's pupils turned to pinpricks hearing that. She had no idea what "special treatment" was for Homeworld prisoners, but she had no desire to find out. As the other gem came close to grabbing her, the girl felt a sudden warmth in her left hand. She grabbed hold of a sword made of bright green crystal and thrust it straight into the unsuspecting amethyst's chest. The alien let out a brief gasp before poofing into a harmless purple stone.

The other gem had no time to process this new development, though, as Connie started charging right at her. Her fighting instincts had completely taken over and made her laser-focused on saving her father. The amethyst tried to fight back, but with one arm still holding Doug in place and being completely surprised by this new development, she was quickly sliced in half and defeated.

"C-Connie…?" said Priyanka once the three were alone once again. Even with the two gems gone, she still looked ready to panic.

"Okay, Mom. I know this looks really weird, but-"

"Look at your hand."

The daughter looked and was dumbstruck by what she saw. In her hand was still the mysterious sword made of green crystal, but even more than that was her hand itself. It too was made of a bright green crystal, but still completely smooth and followed the contour of her hand. The crystal continued up to her wrist which was still normal looking skin and the two melded seamlessly.

"Okay… This is going to take some getting used to. And first things first after this is all done is to tell the Crystal Gems about this."

"Agreed," sighed Doug, his brain pounding at the surreal nature of this night, "For now, though, can we all just leave town in peace?"

"But-"

"No!" yelled her mother as she started to get head back together, "Crystal hand or not, young lady, you've been in danger too many times and I would rather be shot into space myself than let that happen again! We are going out of town and that's final!"

"Okay…"

"Listen," said Doug, "I know you want to help and you can. You can still call him and make sure he's fine and tell him that you're okay. He's got all those other gems to help him with the fighting. I'll bet he'll be much better out there knowing you're safe."

The girl begrudgingly admitted her parents had a point and, even as she felt the itch to run into action, got into the family car after grabbing a few essentials from inside. The girl only hoped that her father was right and everything would be fine without her.

Bismuth eventually found her way towards one of the quieter suburbs of town. While there was still some anger simmering in her, she had mostly maintained her composure. Seeing the grateful faces of the men and women she was rescuing helped keep her mind in a positive place. She soon spotted a topaz and an amethyst outside a relatively familiar building. She could not put her finger on it, but the car wash she saw looked familiar…

"Bismuth!" whispered Amethyst from behind her, startling the larger gem.

"Gah! Jeez, for being so fast, I'm amazed you can be so quiet. What's up?"

"We need to stop those two! It looks like they're going after Greg!"

The pieces clicked. She saw the brightly painted van sitting outside and knew she had to stay calm for this. "Got it. I'll draw them over here and you wrap them up."

"Aye-aye!"

"HEY! Looking for Crystal Gems?"

The two Homeworld soldiers quickly turned their attention onto Bismuth as she literally waved them over and kept throwing taunts at them.

"Man, if this is what Homeworld considers fighters nowadays, they must really be sucking mud! I've seen more threatening things in my forge! You sure you don't want me to fight you with my hands behind my back?"

The other two pulled out their weapons, a short sword for the amethyst and a mace for the topaz, and ran at her. They were quickly blindsided, though, when Amethyst came tearing the street at several hundred miles per hour and tied them with her whip before they could blink.

"Ha-ha! Nice try, losers!"

"You think so?" smirked the topaz.

Now it was the Crystal Gems' turn to be blindsided when a second amethyst jumped off the roof of a building behind them and kicked them both down. She then ripped off the bindings from her two cohorts as Amethyst and Bismuth got back up and prepared for a fight.

"Alright, guess we gotta do this the hard way," grumbled Bismuth as she turned her hands into hammers.

"Trust us," boasted one of the enemy amethysts, "Just lying down and being shattered is easier."

Before they could get to tussling, though, all five of them heard a clanging sound coming from inside the van.

"What? Is one of those humans in there?" asked the lone topaz.

"So what if there is? You're gonna have to get past us first!" declared Amethyst as she zoomed around to put herself between the three hostile gems and her friend.

"Don't be so sure about that!" boasted another topaz, having heard the commotion from up the road. Before any of them could interfere, the yellow bruiser ripped the back doors off the van and looked in to find the next hostage to bring back to Silver.

She found something much worse instead. A flash of light came from the van and suddenly the topaz yowled in pain as something blinding struck her in the face and forced her back.

The other gems were all baffled until a lone figure stepped out of the vehicle. A middle-aged man with a bushy beard and a long head of hair flowing behind him despite the top of his head being completely bald. What really grabbed their attention, though, was what he was wearing. His entire body from the neck down was covered in a black crystalline suit with white lines resembling electric circuits running down his entire body stemming from a bright white star in the center of his chest. In one of his hands was what looked to be a laser gun made of light that he now pointed straight at the fallen topaz.

"Sorry, but this is my only van."

"You little-!"

That was the last thing she got out before Greg pulled the trigger and shot her several times between the eyes until her gem could not take it anymore and she was poofed.

With the other three soldiers caught off guard, Bismuth took her chance and tackled the other topaz to the ground before wailing on her once she was down. Amethyst took to fighting the two much larger versions of herself, rapidly punching one before leaping to the other and repeating the process.

Both of them, however, ended up getting further help as Greg's new suit also let him hover a few inches on the ground. With this, he quickly sped over and surprised one of the amethysts by summoning a hard light saber in his hand and ambushing her from behind. With one of them dealt with, Amethyst quickly poofed other one by kicking her a good eighty feet into the air and letting gravity do the rest of the work.

That left only the topaz still wrestling with Bismuth on the asphalt. The two were neck in neck in terms of strength, each one to push the opponent into submission while also trying to get free so they could make a proper attack. There was no telling how long they would be deadlocked, but someone else decided to break the tie for them. Greg summoned his light gun again and shot the topaz straight at the gem and poofed her instantly.

"Huh," observed Greg, "So a shot to the gem is a one-hit kill. I'll have to see about target practice…"

Once all the gems were bubbled and locked away in the temple, Amethyst started fangirling.

"That! Was! AWESOME! When did you get to be some kind of awesome gem-assassin?!"

"You can thank Bismuth and Peri for this suit. I wanted to have something so I wouldn't be on the sidelines the whole time."

"Yeah, it's pretty great work," said Bismuth, "But all I did was make the armor. Peridot's the one who made it hover and project weapons like a gem can. I've made some awesome stuff, but I'm clueless when it comes to software like that."

"I really can't thank you both enough for this. Even still, I don't think I should be charging in to any huge fights since I've had this thing a week."

"Maybe, but you'll be excellent at stealth with those blasters. How about you come with us, we'll draw them in and you be a stealth agent?"

Greg looked down at his suit, realizing the danger he was putting himself in. A few months ago, he would have never even considered something like this. But now?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Alright!" cheered Amethyst, "Let's teach Homeworld to stay out of our town!"

So let's see... Connie has new powers, Greg has a suit of power armor, Lars has his ship back and Homeworld has dozens of soldiers. Sounds like even odds to me! Tune in next time for a full-on battle!

Thank you all so much for reading! Please feel free to leave a review!