On this day two years ago, I uploaded the first story of this chapter to AO3. Now to commemorate such an occasion, here is the chapter 50! I honestly can't believe how much support I've gotten for this story and I want to thank each and every one of you for reading this story. Whether you've just started or have been around since the beginning, I thank you and hope you'll be here once How It Will End actually ends. But that's enough showboating. To the story!
It was a happy reunion for Connie once she returned to Beach City. Even if her mother gave her the chewing out of her life for running away and giving them no clue, the others were all too welcome to let it slide. A repair crew would be working on her room for the next few days to make a new bedroom wall, meaning she would sleeping on the living room couch, until the job was mostly done. That was not the first thing on her mind, though, since now the Crystal Gems were interested in her powers.
Garnet pulled the Maheswerans aside to explain that now that their daughter was back, they needed to start training her properly use her powers.
"I know it's not what you wanted to hear," explained the fusion, "But we need every advantage we can get."
The mother wanted to protest, insisting her little girl was not fit for fighting in battles, but she knew all too well that was wrong. Connie told her some of the stunts she pulled off in her brief exile and now she was wondering if she even could ground the girl since she could easily bust down any room they put her in.
"Garnet…" said Doug, "I really don't like it, but I understand. We'd be selfish trying to keep Connie away when the whole planet could need her power. Plus we're pretty clueless on how this all works."
"Agreed," said Priyanka, "Just thinking of the sheer changes to her physiology makes my head spin. Almost a decade learning about the human body is pretty useless when your daughter can make herself into a crystal of mass destruction."
"I'm grateful you both see it this way," said Garnet, "And I wish that it didn't come to this. But believe me that all of us will do everything in our power to protect Connie. Your daughter is a Crystal Gem through and through and like Steven told her, we never abandon our own."
"Thank you. It's nice to hear, but can we at least bring her home now?" asked Doug, "We need to at least make sure none of her things are damaged."
"Of course. Give us a call if anything unexpected happens."
Once the Mahesweran family drove off for the day, the rest of the Crystal Gems spread out to return to their normal activities. The only exceptions were Topaz heading off with Garnet to train for the next few hours while Lapis stopped Adamite and Cinnabar on their way back to their respective rooms.
"Wait up," said the waterbender, "I wanted to say thanks. I don't think we would've gotten Connie back so soon if it weren't for you two."
"It was only a mission," assured Adamite, "I'm confident that anyone else could have accomplished what we did."
"Uh, I'm not sure about that," boasted Cinnabar, "Who else could have thought of a new tracking method on the fly like that?"
"Wait, what?" asked Lapis. As soon as she asked, Cinnabar was all too happy to tell her about their trip and how Adamite's concept of seismic scanning turned locating Connie in the mountains into a total breeze.
"Man, that's pretty impressive. It almost makes me wonder what else I could do with my powers."
"If you need any assistance with that…" said Adamite, though looking much shakier than usual, "You could ask me."
"Thanks. I'd like that."
With that, Lapis went into the house and off to her room to brainstorm new ideas. Although Adamite followed her soon after, Cinnabar was beginning to wonder what was causing her unshakeable friend to get so flustered these days.
"Hmmmm… I think I need to bring this up to Garnet. She seems like the right person to ask about love."
Once again, relative peace had returned to the temple but that did not mean the Crystal Gems were idle. Everyone was off accomplishing their duties from scouting trips in the Sun Incinerator to training. That included Peridot who was engrossed with her latest project in her lab room. The mysterious sphere she and Lapis found on their search mission was on an examination table of tangible holograms and the scientist was trying to crack it open.
"Now then, my prey," she muttered to herself, "Do yourself a favor and reveal your secrets. I spent hundreds of years toiling away with spherical drones such as yourself and I won't hesitate to crack you open."
"Knock knock!" said Bismuth as she entered through the special doorway from her workshop, right behind the mumbling inventor.
"Gah! Do not interrupt me when I'm talking down my prey!"
"Huh?"
"I mean, Bismuth, come right in!"
"Okay then… You want any help with this thing?"
"Given your knowledge of metallurgy, it would be appreciated."
The dreadlocked gem walked over and looked it over, looking for any obvious faults in the casing. She casually walked over to one of the large tool racks and pulled off a handheld saw. She turned the appliance on and saw the blade harmlessly bounced off the object. She then took an ordinary chisel off another rack and then placed near the top of the sphere. With one hand shifted into a hammerhead, she took a great deal of time lining up the chisel to the exact right point before taking one swing with her hand. The sphere literally cracked in half like an egg with its insides completely untouched when she was done.
"What the… How did… I…" stammered Peridot.
"Trust me, if there's one thing Homeworld hasn't changed much," boasted the gem, "It's their materials. Same junk those clods had me making wall panels out of eons ago."
"Well then, all the better reason to have you on standby in these cases. But now it's my turn to work!"
Peridot pulled off several screwdrivers, a pair of pliers and what appeared to be a lead box used for radioactive waste from her endless shelves and quickly got to work sorting through the internal components until she got to her objective.
"There you are…" she grumbled as she delicately pulled out a glowing white cube with various gem-letters flashing on each side.
"Okay, they didn't have those in my day," said a curious Bismuth, "What is that thing?"
"The core geode. This has all the data I need to find out just what this contraption is for…"
She then placed the geode on the floor and then snapped her fingers. Bismuth had a double-take when a bolt of lightning from the walls suddenly came out and struck the geode and caused a ten-foot tall holo-screen appeared. Peridot then pulled out a pair of modified Puntendo power gloves and soon began scrolling through the mass of data in front of her.
"This is going to take a few minutes," insisted Peridot, "IF you want, pull up a chair and watch me work my magic."
"Oh my, how gracious," taunted Bismuth before pulling a metal folding chair from the wall rack, "Let's see if you're that cocky when I tell everyone how you work with your 'prey.'"
"Do that and I let it slip that you name all the weapons in your display case!"
"Go ahead, tell them. I'd love people to see Monado, Buster, Gun Show, and Rebecca."
Peridot kept her eyes closed. "Touché…"
The next day, training was in full swing for both Steven and Connie. While Steven's regiment was still more physically oriented, Connie's first lesson was in meditation. As the boy was off running a few laps around the town, Garnet spent the alone time with the girl to try and ease her into changing at will.
"Take a deep breath and find your center," said the fusion to her disciple. The studious girl, dressed in her blue gi, did as she was told. She could feel her body get more relaxed with each breath.
"Now try and visualize yourself in that form."
Connie remembered her crystalline body well, having spent over twelve hours in it, and tried to imagine her body become green stone again. After several minutes, however, she opened her eyes to find herself completely the same.
"Do not worry," assured her mentor, "Let's try something different. Try recalling the feelings you had when you transformed."
Connie's mind flashed back to that awful moment where a random gem goon threatened her father and was trying to make off with her mom. In an instant, her body shapeshifted into crystal.
"Well, that was simple," said Garnet, "I could've sworn I saw a path where this would take hours."
"I don't think it's a coincidence my powers are like this," commented the girl, "Since Steven's also has his emotions linked to his powers and it was probably his cure that woke me up from my coma that did this."
"Makes sense to me. Now that you're ready, I want you to start running laps around town like Steven is and don't stop until you drop. I need to see how your endurance is like this."
Connie ran off, but only a few minutes later her body changed back to normal. A quick think back to that night, though, and she changed back. As the girl tried to keep her mind focused, Garnet saw the rapid changing and realized she might have more work than she thought.
It took some time, but Connie eventually rejoined Steven and soon the two were running laps together. The townspeople of Beach City were so numb to weirdness at this point that they barely even noticed the girl who looked like the wall of a diamond mine run by and occasionally have to force one of her arms or legs to stay hardened.
"Are you doing okay?" asked Steven on their fourth lap together.
"It's just my body," she responded, nearly tripping because her right leg became flesh again, "I just need to focus more."
"Maybe not…"
"Huh?" Steven brought them both a stop for a moment and turned to face her.
"Maybe the problem is that you're thinking too much. Using your powers is a skill, but it doesn't come through thinking. I always just kind of let it happen and it usually turns out fine."
"Isn't that how the whole cat fingers debacle happened?"
"Ehm, like I said, usually turns out fine. We all have our mess-ups. But Connie, try not to think about it too much. Just trust your feelings and you might be surprised."
Steven soon started jogging again and Connie tried her best to simply focus on running instead of her powers. Pretty soon the boy ended up jogging backwards and blew a raspberry at her, clearly trying to goad her into a race. Much to her surprise, the girl found it easy to keep up with the half-gem and soon they were laughing and taunting their way to over a dozen laps. While it was a pleasant jog to them, the bystanders were surprised to see two kids running around town at nearly forty miles an hour.
Eventually, all the running began catching up to them and both were panting for breath in front of a very pleased Garnet.
"Twenty-seven laps. An impressive start."
"Heh, thanks," said Steven as he gratefully took one of the water bottles Garnet brought.
"And Connie, it seems like your maintaining your form much easier."
"Huh?" Connie only just then looked down and realized she did in fact stay in her crystal form for nearly an hour.
"I guess I just got a feeling for it?" she said, eliciting a chuckle out of both of them. Now that she seemed to have a better handle on things, Pearl stepped in to iron out the finer points of Connie's new style while Garnet resumed her usual work with Steven. The rest of the day passed in relative peace with the two trainees enjoying the sunset on the beach and many of the Crystal Gems out and about until Peridot emerged from her room.
"Everyone, I have urgent news!"
"You've found out what that bizarre device you located yesterday does?" guessed Pearl.
"Indeed, and I must say it's disconcerting. It turns out that it is a form of orbital surveillance device that we only found because it malfunctioned."
"Oh great," groaned Amethyst, "Now those Diamond creeps are spying on us?"
"And, according to the core geode, not just us. The data shows that it is one of forty that were sent from a nearby colony."
"And if the one we have here is broken…" dreaded Lapis.
"That means we've got 39 more of those things to take care of!" assured Bismuth, "But luckily, Peri has a solution for that."
"All of these satellites are linked by a data network not unlike your Internet. I've done some programming to turn the device in our possession into a tracker for the others."
"Great!" said Cinnabar, "Now all we have to do is smash them up so let's get in our spaceship and head out!"
"If we're going to do this, we're going to need a formal plan," said Garnet.
"True," agreed the inventor, "I've taken the liberty of printing out the last known coordinates of all the satellites and configuring them to read in Earth's latitudinal and longitudinal standards."
She then held up a printout which Pearl, having the most experience with traditional map coordinates, took and quickly began running the numbers through her head.
"So, where's the nearest satellite?" asked Connie.
"Positioned about… three hundred miles from here."
"What?" asked Steven, "Wouldn't they all be aimed at us?"
"From analyzing the technology," added Peridot, "The satellite can record footage or take a still photograph of any point within a ten-mile diameter from a point set to its targeting system. That means whatever they're aiming at, it's still far away from us."
"I mean, they know exactly where we are from the two different attacks they've launched here," commented Pearl, "But I'd have to cross-reference these with a map to understand what exactly they are looking at."
"Pearl, get to work on that ASAP," said Garnet, "Topaz, have the ship ready to depart as soon as Pearl is ready. Peridot, keep working on that data and see if you can pull anything else out of it."
"And what about the rest of us?" asked Steven.
"Not much else we can do. We need to take those satellites down, but I wouldn't put it past the Diamonds to have another plan like they did with the abduction plot. In case they try anything here while the ship is gone, the rest of us need to stick together."
A quiet dread took over as the selected gems followed Garnet's orders while the others stood ready for the unexpected. Bismuth was the antsiest of the bunch and soon decided she needed to unwind and headed for the Warp Pad.
"Where are you going?" asked Steven, catching Connie's attention.
"I'm just gonna take a quick trip to my old forge. Bring back a couple things in case things get hairy."
"Not a bad idea," approved Garnet, "You never know when we might need a little extra artillery. But…"
"But what?"
"Only five things."
"Aw, that's not fair! All my masterpieces deserve a moment to shine!"
"Maybe, and your handiwork is always impressive, but we only have so much room here. I don't need Steven tripping on a battle axe on a midnight trip to the bathroom."
"Oh fine…" pouted the blacksmith.
"Can I come?" asked Steven.
"May I as well?" joined Connie, "All this standing around has me twitching like crazy."
"Sure," agreed Bismuth, "I'm always happy to show off my collection."
The three quickly warped into Bismuth's old mountainside forge. Even now when she did have an in-house workshop with the others, she still came here to do her work out of nostalgia. Given that she could easily bring them into the temple now. It, admittedly, was also a reminder of a certain other project she made once, and it was a good reminder that she would sometimes need to reign in her creativity and anger.
It was not long before the trio made it into the cave entrance to the blacksmith's private workshop… and found that someone was already in there.
"HEY!" roared Bismuth, feeling especially violated, "What do you clods think you're doing here?!"
"Stealing your weapons!" bragged a ruby trying to crack open a chest filled with gem weapon enhancements, but she was quickly stopped when a thrown crystalline sword nearly shanked her.
"You get one chance," said Steven while readying his shield, "Get out now and drop everything or we have to fight you."
A jasper outfitted with a visor, the apparent leader of the dozen gems storming the place, simply grinned as she summoned a flat-bladed execution sword. That was all the answer Bismuth needed before charging in with her hands shapeshifted into sword blades of her own to charge and start hacking away. Steven and Connie quickly joined the fray as each were swarmed by several smaller gems.
Steven was the prime target of the two, still seen as the legendary Rose Quartz, and quickly found himself stuck in a bubble with half a dozen angry fire-throwing rubies demanding his hide. They assumed they had him cornered, but they could not have been more wrong as the hybrid suddenly burst his shield and sent one flying into the wall behind her with a left hook. The other five all spread out and he summoned his usual shield to prepare for whatever they wanted to throw at him.
Connie had three of the pint-sized powerhouses to deal with. While she nearly caught one by surprise, they seemed to have wised up and were trying to rush her. After a few close calls, she decided to take them surprise by changing into her crystal form. The trio of attackers all stood back at the sight of girl's strange power, but that did not stop them from coming at her again. Connie's body sprouted three floating swords from her back and the girl had little choice to see what her new form could do.
While Bismuth also had three to deal with, she had gotten the lead jasper and two unruly amethysts who immediately went after her being the biggest threat. Although outnumbered, she made up for the difference in ferocity. Seeing her private sanctuary broken into and them trying to steal her handmade works of art brought out the same Bismuth that Rose had to control at times. With no one to stop her, Bismuth held nothing back as she fought as dirty as possible from using one amethyst as a meat shield for her compatriot to stealing sword straight out of the jasper's hand and going straight for her gem with it.
By the time the dust cleared, all twelve gems had been dealt with but the blacksmith wanted to be absolutely sure. She activated the secret lock that reveals the other half of her workshop and checked every square inch of the lava-filled basement for any sign of the invaders. It was only when the coast was clear that she returned to where Steven and Connie were finished bubbling the hostile Homeworld forces.
"Guys, go back and tell them about what's happened here," insisted Bismuth, "I'm gonna stay here and work off some steam."
"You sure?" asked Steven.
"Trust me, I don't think I'll be doing much good just bottling all this up. It's better for me to put it towards something positive."
When the teens returned, they saw the group was alarmed at seeing Bismuth nowhere in sight. It only took a few seconds for the two to explain, but several minutes for the Crystal Gems to process it.
"They just… attacked us," said a terrified Lapis, "And we wouldn't have known if you three weren't there. Guys… What do we do?"
"I don't think this will surprise anyone," said Pearl as she peered over several maps and tablets on the kitchen island, "But the coordinates for one of the satellites is positioned right above the volcano where the forge is located."
"Have you managed to locate any other definitive points?" asked Adamite.
"Unfortunately, yes. Rose's Armory, the Lunar Sea Spire, the Sky Arena, the Galaxy Warp, the former Communication Hub, and many other places we've been to or continue to use. It's obvious they're trying to monitor us from every possible angle for possible intelligence."
"Then we need to get up there and shoot down those things!" yelled Amethyst, "I don't want those creeps watching the planet 24/7!"
"Agreed," said Peridot, "And thankfully now we have the technology to do it with. Those satellites aren't equipped with any weapons systems or shielding as far as I could tell."
"Then we've got nothing to lose!" said Topaz, "The ship is primed, and my crew is ready. We can leave whenever we want."
"Good to hear," approved Garnet, "Everyone, get ready for a mission into the skies. Before we go, though, there's one thing I need to take care of. And Steven, I'll need your help with it."
"Sure! What are we doing?" asked the boy as Garnet walked towards the warp pad.
"You'll see soon enough."
The two flashed away, but Steven was confused when he saw they were right back at Bismuth's forge. The fusion pressed on as she went inside and began stomping on the floor as hard as she could.
"Bismuth, get out here! We need you for a mission."
A panel soon rose out of the ground with the blacksmith holding a piece of rolled-up parchment in her hand. Steven was more focused on her face and how irate she still appeared.
"Garnet, can you guys handle this one? I've got something really important here and-"
"Out of the question. I know what you're doing and I'm not falling for it."
"Wha? What's going on?" said Steven, now completely lost, "What's the big problem? I thought Bismuth was just angry that those gems came into her place to steal stuff."
"Exactly!" assured the dreadlocked gem, "And if you all need me, give me five minutes and I can finish my work. Then I'll be set to go do my Bismuth!"
"Nice try," said Garnet, crossing her arms, "But you're not fooling me."
"Garnet, calm down!" tried Steven, "What's got you mad?"
"Go on," she said to Bismuth, "Show him."
Steven was about to demand answers, but he noticed Bismuth backing away from the two. She was clutching the paper in her hand like her life depended on it and tried to hop on the elevator back down to the lower level. She did not make it five steps before Garnet froze her feet to the ground and held out her arm.
"Show Steven that paper, Bismuth, or I'm doing it for you!"
Now looking like a cornered animal, the blacksmith had no choice but to drop the paper and let a very intrigued Steven pick it up. It turns out it was a set of blueprints for one of Bismuth's weapons and while the boy was no expert on the components or how the schematics worked, he recognized the final product.
"The Breaking Point?!" he shouted, looking half ready to rip the paper to shreds, "What are you doing with this?! Why do you even have this?!"
"Steven… I… I'm sorry…" she choked, "I didn't want it to come to this…"
"It doesn't have to," interrupted Garnet, "And yet here we are. Because you chose to bring it to this point."
"Can you blame me, Garnet? Those clods broke into my forge, planning to make off with my hard work, and I wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for dumb luck. It's obvious Homeworld isn't going to play fair here."
"We all know that, Bismuth, but that doesn't change that what you're thinking is wrong. We don't have to stoop the levels of shattering our opponents just to win."
"Really? That's what they did to us…"
"Bismuth?" said Steven trying to cut her off, but the gem was having none of it.
"The Diamonds stole all of the gems from the Burning Room and sent them into a sun. That was where every other Crystal Gem was… and now they're ashes!"
"Bismuth, I understand," said Garnet, "And we won't let them get away with that. Those were my friends, too."
"Then why are you stopping me?! Those were our comrades, Garnet, and now they're stardust floating around in space!"
"Rose wouldn't want you to-"
"Rose. Isn't. HERE! And don't you dare repeat that with me because trust me, I remember the last time I had this conversation with her."
"Then you know what will happen if you keep this up."
The air was dead silent as the two gems stared at each other, each one daring the other to try something, until Steven finally spoke up.
"Bismuth, I get it," he said, startling the larger alien, "It hurts seeing someone you love die. And it's even worse when there's nothing you can do to stop it."
"Kid… Don't go there. You don't know what it's like and-"
"Yes, I do! I've done it, remember?"
Bismuth paled as she very quickly remembered the Jasper Incident. Seeing Steven admit to it so openly, though, sent a chill through her.
"And at first…" he continued, "I felt happy. Shattering another gem… made me feel better. And then I realized what I'd done. I remember every second of it even if it was almost a month ago."
He stepped closer to her as his mind flashed back to that moment. "When I looked down at my hand after ending Jasper, I couldn't recognize it at first. Then it sank in. Jasper is dead because of me, regardless of what she did, and nothing can ever bring her back. I couldn't look at myself for days. You saw me get depressed, Bismuth. Is that what you want to be when you finally finish and use that weapon?"
Both gems were stunned at what they were seeing. Bismuth was shaking from head to toe and even Garnet felt like she could barely recognize the boy in front of her.
"If you want to take your fighting that far, be prepared for the consequences. After all, Homeworld will just take that as a sign to escalate things further. They already went after all of Beach City so what's next? The entire country? All of Earth? Maybe they'll just go after the whole solar system? And all the while, the face of your victim is in your mind even when you sleep. There was even once or twice… where I wondered if I deserved to wake up."
The two gems gasped in unison. Steven barely reacted outside of looking Bismuth in the eye and breaking the ice blocks around her feet with a kick.
"If you make the Breaking Point and use it, you will never go back. And since you live forever, you live with your guilt forever. Can you do it? Do you want to live like that?"
Having been trembling for the past several minutes, Bismuth finally lost it and crumbled to her knees as the waterworks started and her emotions poured out. Steven simply embraced the sobbing gem in a hug, telling her it was okay to let out all this bottled-up pain and sadness. Garnet, having expected this to go very differently, was surprised but thought this was for the best. After a few minutes of letting her emotions out, Bismuth stood up and picked up the blueprints again.
"Guys… I can't tell you how sorry I am. I guess I forgot I'm not the only Crystal Gem."
"Mistakes happen," assured Garnet, "But the important thing is we grow past them. Now then, those papers."
The blacksmith nodded and wordlessly chucked the plans into one of the lava pools around them, all three feeling at ease seeing the last evidence of that damned weapon turn to ash. Soon enough all three headed back to the temple ready to focus on their newest mission.
Yellow Diamond was given the task of surveying all of the spy satellites White had set up to monitor the Earth. And so far, the job was boring her to tears as she looked at all forty feeds at once and saw absolutely nothing happening. Each location was as desolate as the last with no sign of any activity. That all changed when Yellow Pearl walked in.
"My Diamond," she greeted with her usual salute, "I have some potentially interesting information from Earth."
"Hm?" asked the Diamond, barely even paying attention.
"Blue Diamond sent a small squadron to infiltrate a Crystal Gem location and has found something you might like to see."
Shaken from her boredom hearing that Blue would launch any kind of offensive, Yellow looked down and saw her servant opening up a holo-screen with some footage of Rose Quartz and two of her soldiers talking.
"The gems were defeated," explained the pearl, "But the lead jasper managed to plant the surveillance devices as planned."
She then began editing the footage to focus on a paper that "Rose Quartz" was holding in the direction of one of the cameras. Yellow immediately noticed it was a set of blueprints for a new weapon and her genius mind began buzzing with possibilities.
"Very interesting design," approved the matriarch, "Pearl, report to Blue that I am very pleased with her findings. I'll have my technicians get to work adapting this design. That will be all."
And so with that milestone out of the way, it's time for the latest mission to begin. Tune in next time for a high-flying adventure!
Thank you all so much for reading once again! I never imagined my little passion project would be going to nearly this long but it's amazing to see how many people have enjoyed it! As usual, please feel free to leave a review with your thoughts and here's to reaching chapter 100.