And now it's finally time for the end... of this battle.
No one was exactly sure what happened as everyone on Earth was too concerned with the small-scale war going on between the alien forces. Earthquakes had started to rock the whole planet and had gradually grown from occasional rumbles to frequent tremors that leveled the least secure buildings in cities and towns. Even still, the whole world watched as one as the stories came flooding in about how all of the invaders moved away from the cities towards a single point in the United American States. Satellite tracking found that the destination was a tiny town in Delmarva called Beach City which puzzled millions. What could some no-name town have that the aliens wanted so badly?
Then, shortly after the quakes became almost constant, they stopped entirely. Many were on guard waiting for aftershocks or some new catastrophe to take hold, but nothing seemed to happen. For a brief minute, they hoped the worst of it was over.
That relief changed when one final tremor rocked the world. It was far from the earthquakes as before, more like a slight bump, but somehow all of people of Earth knew it was a grave threat. Those that were back outside trying to clean up some of the damage ran back into their homes or took cover as an instinctual sense of dread took hold.
The battle between the Crystal Gems and Homeworld over the fate of the planet continued until the growing tremors from The Cluster spontaneously stopped. As strange as the revelation was, both sides had many more things to worry about. Alexandrite had to keep the defenses up as Homeworld's aerial forces never stopped. In Beach City, she helped hold back the larger forces so the Sun Incinerator could focus on immediate threats. At the hole, she managed the air while Sandstone now worked to cover the ground.
The smaller fusion, though still new to her powers, was proving absurdly effective as no enemy gem even got in sight of the hole leading to Steven. Controlling mud came as naturally to her as blinking her eyes and she found there was no shortage of things she could use it for. Tidal waves, sinkholes, weapons of every description, flexible armor that could change shape at will and even that was not the end of it.
She still had access to earth and water and just like she combined them into mud, she could still wield them separately. All of that water Lapis had been using before had gone to good use surprising a low-flying fighter that managed to get past Alexandrite only to be impaled several dozen liquid swords. Now, though, she could also separate and combine the two elements at will. Once that ship with all the water crashed, a new wave of mud emerged as it hit the ground. Multiple times now, she dried out several spheres of mud to create boulders that acted as wrecking balls against a particularly aggressive platoon of jaspers. Couple that with being several times larger, faster, stronger and tougher than her components and this was almost fun.
The only difficult part of the fight for her was deciding if she ever wanted to come undone. Even with all of this power and yet she still felt so natural and relaxed. Lapis's head was stunned at how different this felt from Malachite. There, it was so easy to just give in to her worst impulses and lose control but not here. Sandstone could easily make short work of an entire army, but her head was completely clear.
"What is that?!" Alexandrite said as a red streak appeared above them. Sandstone was broken out of her reverie as she saw it. She unleashed her wings and flew taking all of the thousands of gallons of mud she made with her. She condensed it all into one massive ball the size of a small skyscraper and flung it forward to meet the rapidly approaching object. Before it could hit what she presumed to be a meteor, a gigantic bolt of lightning tore right through her attack and struck Sandstone in midair. As the electric power wracked her body, she was soon split back into Lapis and Adamite who both fell to the ground only to be caught by Alexandrite.
"Adamite…" Lapis asked weakly, "You okay?"
"I… Officially hate lightning," her partner said coughing up some smoke.
Soon after, the massive object landed and sent the single shockwave that made the entire world tremble. The Alexandrites could scarcely believe their eyes when a massive silhouette became visible behind a hundred-foot tall dust cloud. Once the air was clear, it was obvious how Sandstone was beaten as Yellow Diamond glared right at the four-part fusion.
"Where is she?" she asked, her body not even scratched from the fall from orbit, "Tell me or I start annihilating this planet myself!"
While one Alexandrite still held Lapis and Adamite, the other five in the area were free to attack and all of them charged at the diamond with absurd speed. All five launched their fists, but the diamond just jumped into the sky with far more agility than her size would suggest. Two of them aimed their arrows at her, but Yellow surprised them all by suddenly flooring herself and kicking up another earthquake that sent them all staggering back. As she saw more blurs appear from miles away thanks to the other copies of Alexandrite rushing to meet her, she flared up her energy.
While the other Alexandrites were all still occupied, she pushed a wave of her electricity out and shocked all five of her first foes before they could counterattack. As the other copies ran to meet them, Yellow saw the one holding the other gems running away as more copies from behind them ran at her.
"So, you can reform your duplicates at will?" she said to no one, "It's almost a shame you're a traitor…"
An Alexandrite managed to reach her and punch her face, but the diamond barely noticed the blow. She simply turned her head and sent her own fist clean through the fusion's body. She let a sadistic grin show on her face for a few moments as the clone poofed. The positive of this situation was that now she could finally scratch this itch for vengeance she has had for thousands of years now.
The main Alexandrite, as it were, was more concerned speeding off over the horizon as far away from the matriarch as possible. As she ran, she was messaging each of the other Crystal Gems.
"Connect to Peridot!"
"Hey there, big sis, what's up?" Ametrine said.
"YELLOW DIAMOND IS ON EARTH!"
"Oh, I can-, wait, WHAT?!"
"Yes, she crashed down near the entry point to The Cluster and now she's after me! Whatever you do, DON'T try to fight her directly. Stay in Beach City and try to hold off as many troops as you can."
"Roger that, ma'am!"
She then told the same thing to Topaz, who would no doubt inform the Off-Colors, and then to Greg and Cinnabar who made it clear she let Connie know. With everyone away from the carnage, Alexandrite saw that she had already passed the Kindergarten as was half-wondering she would go before a thundering noise behind her caught her attention.
Yellow Diamond was leaping from point to point, easily covering the distance with each jump. Any clones that tried to stop her were quickly dealt with. Alexandrite was already going full throttle, having covered several hundred miles in a few seconds, and yet Yellow was still on her trail.
Eventually, though, Yellow got tired of the cat-and-mouse game and decided to end the chase. She leapt into the air again, but this time started charging a ball of energy as she ascended. Once she was at her peak height, she launched it in front of the colossal fusion where it detonated like a lightning bomb and forced her to stop. Once she was stationary, Yellow all but flew down to the ground and sent her foot straight into Alexandrite's body. The massive force of the attack caused a sixty-foot deep crater to form as Alexandrite was finally overwhelmed and defused.
Yellow Diamond stood at the crater's rim and looked down to see five gems moaning in exhaustion.
"Garnet?" asked a half-dead Pearl, "Any chance there's a way out of this?"
"Not seeing one, sorry."
"Dudes," Amethyst said, even her hair feeling like it was on fire, "We need… to fuse again. We gotta job to do."
"Can't seem to move anything, sorry…"
"Lapis?" asked Adamite, "Are you alright? With… how I…"
"Yes," she answered, slowly moving her hand towards the green gem's, "I… feel the same way."
"So," Yellow interrupted, looking down on them, "Now that your disgusting fusions are gone, maybe now you'll be more open to conversation. Now then…"
All at once a flood of energy erupted from her body that caused the ground the shake and gems to shield their eyes from the blinding light. "WHERE IS ROSE QUARTZ?! KEEP ME WAITING ANY LONGER AND I WILL OBLITERATE YOU ALL!"
The gems all had one answer, but Pearl was the one to speak it. "You… need to get fused. Great stress relief…"
The diamond's eye twitched as she raised her hand and pointed at them, clearly intending to zap them all into their stones and then do who knows what to them. The gems all shut their eyes and waited for the inevitable…
"OW!" Yellow cried out as something hit the back of her head and nearly made her stumble forward. She was so surprised that her energy dissipated as she looked around for the cause. The Crystal Gems were all surprised to until they heard a gentle sound of footsteps behind them.
The gems all looked back to see a new figure and their jaws collectively dropped. It was Steven, but in a form none of them has seen before. The boy was now as tall as Garnet and just as well-built as when he first changed into a rampaging crystal golem, but that was where the similarities ended. Rather than being one solid hunk of gemstone, he still looked human with even his clothes expanding to fit his new body. There was a noticeable sheen to his skin, which also had a pink tint to it, that would make him appear to shine when the sunlight caught the right angle. The most striking details were his now vividly pink hair and his eyes which now had bright pink irises with black stars for pupils.
"Whoa…" gasped Amethyst.
"S-Steven?" said Pearl, alarmed both by the resemblance he had to his mother and the last time he had such a dramatic transformation, "Are you okay?"
The boy walked over to and then knelt down to Pearl, making her slightly back away as those new eyes looked into hers. Then he wrapped his arms around her weary body with far more gentleness than the muscled limbs seemed to be capable of.
"Yeah," he said, his voice much deeper but still kind, "I talked with Mom and The Cluster is safe now."
"So, you finally showed up…" Yellow Diamond said, "And you've altered your form again. At least now you do resemble your old appearance, but it matters not. You are finally going to-"
"Stop," he said as he helped Pearl to her feet, "And just go home."
"W-What?! You're giving me orders?!"
Steven did not even focus on her as he helped everyone up and out of the crater before finally facing the incensed alien queen. "No, not orders. I'm just saying you should go home. You won't activate The Cluster so there's no point in staying here."
"Oh, there's definitely a point! I'm going to finish you off once and for all!"
Yellow expected some defiant threat or declaration out of her nemesis's throat, but instead "Rose" just sighed and looked sad.
"Don't you ever get tired of this? You've been trying to blow up the Earth for months now and what have you accomplished?"
"Steven, I wouldn't mess around with her," warned Lapis, "She tanked Sandstone and Alexandrite like it was nothing!"
"Who's Sandstone?"
"Adamite's and my fusion?"
"Really? That's amazing!" Steven smiled, "Can I meet her sometime?"
"Um, sure, but…"
"ENOUGH!" roared Yellow, "You've ruined my plans, had your lackeys destroy hundreds of my troops and now you're treating me like a joke!"
Steven ignored her once again as he spat into the palm of his hand and lathered it on Lapis's back to restore her energy.
"Steven, why are you…" Adamite asked before he did the same thing to her and the other four.
"Get back home. I'll deal with Yellow Diamond."
"Steven, that's crazy!" Garnet argued.
"For once, the war machine is right!" the diamond agreed, "I could ravage your entire planet myself and you would be powerless to stop me!"
"It won't bring her back, you know."
"W-What?"
"Pink Diamond. All this destruction won't-"
He was cut off when Yellow's foot stomped him into the ground. The others all gasped in horror as Yellow's anger was boiling over.
"How DARE you speak her name! You shattered her and yet you have the gall to act like you knew her?! I hope you enjoy being a pile of shards-"
(Cue Epic Theme Song: Hopes and Dreams/Save the World from Undertale)
Her words stopped dead in her throat as she felt her foot start to lift. It was not because of her leg, but because of Steven prying himself out from under her foot with his bare hands. He groaned a bit from the stress, but soon he managed to throw the matriarch off of him and glared up at her.
"Still not listening… Fine. Let's do this your way then."
Steven leapt into the air so fast all the Crystal Gems saw was a pink blur and rammed a fist into Yellow Diamond's gut. Despite the size of his punch compared to her body, the queen's whole form bent as she wheezed in pain and her eyes nearly bulged out of her head.
"Guys, get out of here!" Steven said leaping away from his foe, "I can't go all out with you all in the way!"
"Steven…" Pearl hesitated before her eyes set, "Make us all proud." The others all nodded even as Adamite open a hole in the ground and Lapis deployed her wings. If there was any fear that this new warrior was not the Steven they knew and loved, it left when he gave the same jovial grin that always managed to warm their hearts.
"Of course! I've gotta be the best Crystal Gem I can be!"
The others all left as Steven stared down one of the leaders of Homeworld on a now barren field. As angered as Yellow was by the surprise attack, she blocked the pain in her midsection and forced herself to focus on finally accomplishing her mission.
Soon they both rushed at each other, both of their steps shaking the ground nearby. Yellow tried smashing her fist into Steven, but he countered with a hexagonal pink barrier that stopped her blow. With her distracted, he moved to the side and revealed a whip which he wrapped around her foot. She tried to shake it off, but he gave the line a sudden tug and soon Yellow's stance was broken. He then took off at near sonic speed and dragged Yellow Diamond behind him. He ran for several miles making a massive trench in the ground until the diamond finally got a hold of a large boulder which let her stay still and the sudden movement caused the whip to snap.
"You're going to regret that!" promised Yellow as she fired a bolt of lightning as Steven flew through the air. Just as the bolt was about to strike him, though, he suddenly changed position in midair and jumped out of the way. Yellow leapt into the air herself to meet him, but Steven took off like a rocket soaring hundreds of feet into the sky.
"You think you can escape me?!" Yellow pushed herself up right next to him only for Steven to form a massive gauntlet over his right hand and slug the queen across the face.
"I'm done running from you!" he said making a second gauntlet and sending it into her eye. Blow after blow smashed into the diamond's face until Yellow nearly zapped him with electricity from her eyes. Yellow then grabbed him in both her hands and immediately aimed herself towards the ground with her arms outstretched towards the rapidly approaching Earth. An almighty crash rang out for miles as Steven was forced to cushion the fall and soon, he laid in the dirt as Yellow stood over him.
"What, that's it?!" she demanded, her bloodlust not satisfied, "All this buildup, this transformation, and you're defeated like that?! GET UP!"
"You could at least say please," he quipped before getting back on his feet without any physical injury. Enraged by his attitude, Yellow pointed her finger and planned to fry his form. Before she got the chance to fire, though, he pulled out the gauntlets and whip before tossing them into the air and leaping behind them. She tried blasting him as he rose, but more barriers blocked the shots as the two weapons together into a gigantic pink flail even bigger than his body. He wasted no time smashing the weapon into her outstretched hand, forcing her whole arm down, and then slammed it into one of her legs forcing her on a knee.
"See?" he said, "We could have avoided all of this if we talked this all out…"
"The only talk I want to hear from you…" she growled, smashing her hand into Steven like he was a bug, "Is your last words!" She then sent a pulse of her energy through her palm, hoping that would finally put an end to the fight, only for a rapidly expanding pink bubble to shield Steven and start forcing her hand away. It then kept growing, pushing Yellow Diamond down as it kept growing until the entire sphere was a hundred feet tall with Steven floating in the middle with his arms outstretched.
As she stood to get up, Steven clapped his arms together and suddenly the enormous bubble started splitting into thousands of the pink hexagons from before. Yellow got to her feet just in time to see hundreds of them rushing her all at once, but she was far from intimidated. She sent her fists straight at the barrage and shattered dozens of them with one blow and kept pounding away for almost a full minute until they were all broken. She was about to fly at her enemy again only to realize Steven was nowhere to be seen.
She kept her eyes peeled for any detail that could give "Rose Quartz" away the sound of rushing wind caught her attention above her. She saw a pink blur rapidly falling towards her and leapt out of the way just in time since Steven had Sardonyx's hammer with him. The blow he landed to the ground caused another small-scale earthquake that sent trees falling miles away and made a massive spiderweb of cracks in the soil beneath his feet.
"H-how?" Yellow finally asked, "You couldn't possibly jump that high… And where is all this power coming from?"
Steven actually obliged with an answer. "One, it's because I didn't jump. I flew. And two…"
He got rid of the hammer and summoned the gauntlets again as he barreled towards her. She sent out more energy blasts to stop him but soon he was in striking distance. She met his first punch with a giant kick as he spoke. "I'm not Rose Quartz!"
"You keep saying that, but it never makes sense!" She tried to kick Steven down with her other foot, but he flung himself to the side and tried punching her waist.
"That's because you don't listen! Could Rose Quartz do this?!" She blocked the blow by twisting around and nearly floored him with another punch, but he dodged again.
"Then tell me who or what are you?!" Yellow and Steven started rapidly changing blows, neither of their guards lowering until something stopped the diamond's fists. Steven caught one of them and he suddenly began flinging her over his head as he shouted, "I'M STEVEN UNIVERSE AND I'M HALF HUMAN!"
Yellow landed in a heap, but quickly recovered and sent out a shockwave of energy to give herself time. "Half… human?! And you keep saying that name… You really are something else?! Some sort of hybrid?!"
"And that scares you, doesn't it?" he said, suddenly sounding much calmer, "Just like everything else does."
"You're calling me afraid?!" She leapt into the air and started glowing with so much energy Steven had to shield his eyes, "I make planets bow to my will! I command an army hundreds of billions strong! I am the enforcer of the Great Diamond Authority! And now, I will FINALLY rid gem-kind of its greatest flaw… YOU!"
The queen threw her arms forward and creating a beam of electric energy even taller than she was crashing right towards Steven. A massive explosion rang out that engulfed miles of landscape, frying all of the fauna it touched and soon Yellow floated back down expecting to see nothing left of her adversary. Instead she saw a single massive pink shield held aloft by Steven who looked completely unharmed.
"Yikes…" he muttered, "You seriously have anger problems."
As much as Yellow Diamond wanted to scream to the heavens, she refused to give into the urge. Instead she ran in and tried kicking Steven into the air only for the giant shield to stop her foot. Steven then disbanded the shield and replaced with a spear which he used when Yellow tried kicking him again, shoving the point right into the bottom of her foot. She yelped in pain and quickly tried to remove the weapon only to be caught off-guard when Steven formed a second one and thrusted it in right next to the first one. As more pain stabbed through her leg, her focus was gone and that let Steven grab both of the weapons lodged in her. With her dragging behind him, he flew thousands of feet into the sky before twirling around several times in the air and flinging Yellow back down to Earth.
She was about to scoff, thinking that a fall from this height would do next to nothing to her, until she caught sight of something glowing out of the corner of her eye. Before she could even comprehend what it was, though, the massive energy arrow from Steven's new bow smashed into her back and greatly sped up her fall. She hit the ground and make another seismic wave ring out and was about to get back up until she realized she had no idea where Steven was. Her answer came as the half-gem slammed the hammer from before right into Yellow's back with enough power to splinter a mountain.
Yellow Diamond screamed in pain as the two massive sheets of rock were raised around her body from the blow. Soon the noise died down as Steven flew up and saw the diamond lying face-down in the dirt unmoving along with all the damage they caused. He hoped Adamite would be able to fix all of this only to be shaken out of those thoughts as he heard something.
The diamond began to stir, slowly getting up to her knees and then to her feet. Once she stood, although with some obvious cuts and scrapes dotting her body, she turned and faced Steven and made the boy flinch. If he thought she had anger before, the look in her eyes now was nothing. Up until this point, Yellow had clearly been angered but she clearly still thinking. She was not some mindless brute who threw her strength around for the sake of it. She was still a strategist who prided herself on being able to outsmart any opponent no matter what the circumstance.
But now, with that last hit, that all changed. She had been injured, almost gravely, in what should have been a simple fight. This whole ordeal should have been simple, but somehow it was all ruined. Time after time this gem kept demolishing her plans, setting her back and making her look even worse to White Diamond. And now she had managed to get seriously hurt for the first time in eons. Now all bets were off. That rational part of her mind shut down from the stress leaving only her anger to drive her forward. Her teeth were bared like an animal, her brow furrowed so much it looked like it could snap in half and her energy started acting up again with sparks hissing along her whole towering form.
The diamond all but roared as she stampeded towards Steven, randomly flinging bolts of her energy with her hands as she ran. The boy leapt away from each attack, his eyes darting around constantly to keep track of her erratic movements. When she suddenly hopped into the air, her feet glowing with more power, he soared into the air just before she crashed down on the ground with a wave of energy sweeping the landscape for miles around.
As he looked down, Steven could see bords flying away dozens of miles away and could even feel the rumbling from her attack in his teeth. He was about to try another strategy when Yellow suddenly plowed into him elbow first. He zoomed towards the ground again, wondering where she learned to move that fast, and soon plowed straight into the side of a small mountain dozens of miles away. He woozily got up and even from that distance could see Yellow was far from sated.
The matriarch, however, had no such thoughts on her mind. Having never truly been threatened before in her eternal life, Yellow Diamond had never once tried training or pushing herself to any physical limit. Now, though, the very first arrival of the fight-or-flight instinct had caused her to tap into an immense well of strength she never imagined possible and a part of her mind adored the feeling. No more having to think reasonably, plan complex stratagems or even talk. She simply dove deeper and deeper into this never-ending fountain of might and her drive to crush Steven once and for all.
Cackling like a madwoman, Yellow started collecting all of her energy into one massive sphere above her head. In only a few seconds it was as big as her, but she willed it to grow. In the distance, Steven watched in horror as it grew to hundreds of feet tall and was still expanding until the diamond was just a miniscule shadow under its expanse. The afternoon sky began to darken as it began to draw in actual lightning from the atmosphere and soon it began swallowing Earth's natural electricity. Although neither of them knew it, electromagnetic tracking equipment was obliterated in every laboratory in the world and every electronic device in North America was rendered useless. After what felt like forever, it finally stopped but now Steven feared for the whole world again. It was half as big as The Cluster but Yellow was still laughing insanely as she threw it.
Having no idea what that much energy would do to the planet, Steven wasted no time flying at it. He knew there was no way he could bubble it like the monstrous fusion. As he drew near it, his hair stood up on the back of his neck and got the feeling that one touch would zap him into oblivion. Having no way to directly attack it, he settled for forming the biggest shield he could manage and hoping it was enough to hold off the impact. While his shield was several times larger than the statue outside the temple, it was still dwarfed by Yellow's gigantic attack and he only barely slowed it down.
"No!" he grunted, willing the shield to get bigger, "I can't… let this happen! Everyone… back home… needs me!"
He felt his gem heat up as he pushed his barrier to grow, expanding little by little but the collision was still drawing closer. The tectonic plates beneath him rumbled as the doomsday ball of electricity drew closer to the surface of his home planet. If he strained his ears, he could hear Yellow Diamond howling with laughter, sounding like she well and truly lost her mind.
Steven looked down and he was only a hundred or so feet from the ground. His shield had stopped growing and was still several times smaller than the gargantuan bomb. Bolts of lightning the size of skyscrapers arced off of its surface and tore up acres of forest and ravaged the fields beneath it.
"Dad… Connie… The gems… All of the people…" he lamented, his head hanging low, "They needed me…"
"Steven Quartz Universe, don't you dare think like that!"
"Huh?" Steven looked around for the voice only to see a familiar figure next to him. "MOM?!"
"Remember where this power came from, Steven! You're not like the Diamonds! All they do is destroy, you're here to protect!"
Seventy-five feet was left between the mega-attack and the Earth as Rose continued. "Think of everyone here! Billions of innocent lives and then your family! All of them live here, Steven!"
Sixty feet was left as Steven looked up at Yellow's attack. "Garnet… Amethyst… Pearl…"
"Peridot, Lapis, Bismuth…"
"And Topaz, Adamite, Cinnabar…"
"Greg and Connie and all the people of Beach City…"
A new fire was lit in his eyes as his shield exploded in size. "THEY NEED ME!"
"That's my boy…" Rose whispered as she faded away. As touched by the words as he was, Steven put all his focus into his powers. He screamed at the top of his lungs, worsening the earthquakes ravaging the area, as his shield grew to match the size of Yellow's attack. Rather than just blocking it, though, it was also moving towards the very bottom of the massive sphere. He lifted his arms, the strain of keeping the attack back feeling like he was lifting up a mountain range, and the ball was soon lifted away from the ground and into the sky slowly at first until it nearly faded from sight.
And then, almost a full two miles above the Earth, Yellow's attack exploded into an electric maelstrom that cleared every cloud in the sky for hundreds of miles and was visible to the entire western hemisphere of the planet. A deafening crack like the world's largest lightning strike rang out that every person on Earth could hear.
With the threat finally gone, Steven fell to the ground feeling utterly exhausted but with a smile on his face. The sun shone down on him and made him feel slightly better until her heard a loud thud in the distance. He sat up and soon saw Yellow Diamond lying on the ground miles away.
"Well…" he said to himself, "Maybe she'll feel like talking now?"
He slowly got up and jogged over to her. She was panting for breath and dripping in sweat, apparently exhausting herself with that last attack. It took him jumping on top of her for her to even notice he was there.
"Oh great…" she groaned, "All that effort for nothing."
"Look, I get you're really upset about Pink…"
"I said… Don't talk about her…"
"Well, maybe you she'd like to know that you cared about her then."
Yellow's breathing leveled as she looked up at him sitting on her chest. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well… I heard you all didn't treat her very well so-"
Whatever else he had to say was cut off as Yellow grabbed him in her hand. He tried to break out with a bubble, but she poured all of her remaining strength into crushing the life out of him. The frenzied look was back in her eyes as she glared through him but at least she managed to retain speaking even if it sounding like she was grating out every word.
"Shut. Up. Pink Diamond was the light of our lives… Without her the Diamond Authority is a mess! Every day I walk into our throne room and see her empty spot makes me miss her!"
"R-Really?" wheezed Steven, even as his vision started to darken, "But… I…"
"It's a lie! Pink may not have been a leader, but she was what held us all together. She always made me relaxed, always put a smile on Blue's face and even White Diamond could never stay mad at her. And now you have the gall to say we abused her?! If you're not Rose than how would you know that?!"
"I… I'm sorry…"
"SORRY?! You think that fixes anything?!" Yellow placed her other hand around the first one and started squeezing even harder, "Our empire is in shambles! Blue's a wreck, I have to manage over ten galaxies myself and White will snap if either one of us so much as speaks out of line and it's all! Your! FAULT!"
With one final press, Steven's strength finally failed him and unimaginable pain shot through him as cracks appeared all along his body. He passed out from the agony much to Yellow Diamond's disbelief. She stood up with him still clutched in her hands and eventually dropped him to the ground with a thud. As she looked down on his broken form, the realization finally hit her and she laughed. Her one laugh turned into a frantic, half-mad cackle as a swell of pride from her victory filled her.
Once she finally got the feelings out of her system, she raised her foot and prepared to stomp Steven into pieces. She brought it down, but she jumped back when Steven's body suddenly began vividly glowing. Once it died down, the boy looked none the worse for wear as he stood back up and stretched his neck.
"W-What?" stammered Yellow, "H-How did… Why…?"
"I've always had healing powers, but I guess they're way more potent when I'm like this. I feel good as new!" He even hopped from foot to foot to prove his point. Yellow could almost feel that he was back at full power. Her shoulders slumped and it was all she could to not collapse. She was even more surprised when, rather than attack when her guard was down, Steven approached her.
"Now do you get it?" he asked, "Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere. I can't fix your problems, but throwing more and more troops at us isn't going to help."
"Why? Why do you keep talking?! I've never listened to anything you've had to say!"
"You believed me when I said I wasn't Rose this time."
"That's only because you've demonstrated abilities that no gem should have except for diamonds! And why do you care about my problems?! I've spent the past few hours trying to shatter you and blow up your precious planet!"
"Maybe, but now I know why or at least a little bit," Steven said walking closer, "You really do miss Pink Diamond. You're just trying to act through the pain."
"Get away from me!" Yellow said, backing away but the half-gem still moved forward.
"Violence is only going to solve so much. Have you ever tried talking to the other diamonds about how you feel?"
"Stop that! Stop talking like you know me!"
"I don't know much about you, Yellow, but I can if you're willing to talk. Please, if you've got something on your chest, stop holding it back. It might take a while, but I can listen too."
Yellow could not believe what she was hearing. Steven Universe, the apparent protégé of Homeworld's greatest enemy, who has demonstrated the power to fight a diamond on equal footing and is clearly in peak fighting shape, wanted to help her?! He was even holding out his hand for a shake, nothing in his body language or tone from before hinted at an ulterior motive. The craziest thing of all was some small part of her mind actually wanted to believe him.
She let out a defiant scream, firing all of her remaining energy into a final blast that she hoped would catch Steven off-guard. Instead the boy summoned a pink shield in the blink of an eye. Rather than just block her attack, though, he threw it in one clean motion so that it sailed right through her attack and smacked her hands back down to her side.
"Dang it," she heard him say, "I tried… Guess I don't have any other choice."
He caught his shield after it bounced off of her and threw it into the air. He then summoned his whip, his spear and his gauntlets in that order before rushing up to catch them all. The weapons all hung in midair for a moment as Steven flew up and smashed them all together with his hands into one big ball of light that soon reformed into a massive sword hilt. A simmering pink blade popped up soon after as Steven propelled himself back down to Earth and right on top of Yellow Diamond.
The queen could not make out exactly what he was doing, but she knew it was some kind of attack. Feeling that she could barely summon a spark to defend herself, she considered running away but her ego shut that down. The day she ran from her enemy was the day her empire collapsed around her. That left her only option being to raise her hands and block.
Steven brought his new sword down in one clean diagonal swing and landed on the ground without a sound. Yellow Diamond looked down at him, confused at why nothing had happened. As she stared into Steven's starry eyes, she wondered why he looked so sad instead of why the whole world was going sideways. Her head then fell to the ground along with her left arm above her elbow and her entire right arm and shoulder. Then a massive rush of wind like a contained hurricane hit Steven as a yellow stone as big as his usual body fell to the ground.
He breathed a sigh of relief seeing that the gemstone was untouched. He was going to slice vertically but realized that might damage the matriarch's core. Either way, his mission was accomplished, and he thought there was only one fitting way to end this. He summoned a bubble around the diamond and flicked his wrist.
Beach City was a chaotic scene for the longest time. Spaceships being held back by the lone craft of the Crystal Gems in a dogfight that would make any pilot on Earth proud. On the ground any stragglers from the alien forced were being combatted by a four-armed trash-talking metalbender, a guy in an armored suit dual-wielding laser weapons, a bright-red walking flamethrower, a girl made out of shapeshifting crystal and a pink lion hopping through portals.
A little while ago, five more of team, including the three that were most familiar around the town, returned and helped keep the streets clean. Several tremors rang out from the countryside, a massive blackout happened followed by the sound of the world's largest bomb exploding, and then suddenly the distant noises were gone.
Meanwhile, in the various ships all being monitored by Yellow's commanders, they remained on the battle even as their leader personally engaged Rose Quartz. They had someone keep an eye on it the entire time, but they knew with the queen's immense power that trying to intervene in any way was pointless. Rose Quartz would be crushed in five seconds and then this whole miserable planet would get blown up.
Except, as the peridots managing the footage saw, that did not happen. What should have been an easy victory for their diamond turned into a slugfest that had both sides trading blows. Then their leader seemed to mentally snap and threw a ball of energy that nearly fried all of their communication systems and Rose somehow managed to actually deflect it herself. No one even noticed that The Cluster was now several minutes late on emerging.
And just now, Yellow seemed to finally land a winning blow and disabled Rose Quartz only for her to suddenly get back up like nothing happened. And then the unthinkable happen: Yellow Diamond was poofed. In a single hit. The footage was sent straight to all of the commanders and then even to the diamond's flagship where her still sobbing pearl confirmed that she left and had yet to return. It was no lie. A diamond has fallen in combat and was now in Rose Quartz's clutches.
Two things ran through the mind of every Homeworld gem there. One was that Yellow Diamond was as good as dead. The second was an order that was relayed to every single troop.
"RETREAT!"
The gems all wasted no time flying the schist away from Earth, literally believing their lives depended on it. If Yellow Diamond fell to that monstrous rebel, what chance did any of them have? No one tried taking any prisoners, any that were cornered by the Crystal Gems happily surrendered, and soon an invading force in the thousands all fled en masse.
The Crystal Gems, as grateful as they were for the break, were all tense. They immediately tried to pick up some of the debris made from scuffles over town. Topaz and her crew kept their ship ready on the off chance this was all another diversion.
"Garnet, are you there?" said Steven's voice through the fusion's communicator. Hearing this, everyone immediately dropped what they were doing to listen to his voice.
"Steven! The whole town's clear, but the house was destroyed. I'm sorry."
"Eh, it's okay. Dad can just build another one."
"And… Yellow Diamond?"
"She's in a bubble."
The whole group was stunned silent. They also just noticed that his voice was back to normal. Pearl, however, shook off the shock first and asked something else through her own link.
"And… where are you now?"
"Walking home. I'll be there in a little bit. Could you make sure Lion's around? I need him for something."
"Sure thing," answered Garnet before the line was cut off. Hearing the conflict was officially over, Ametrine suddenly split back into a winded Peridot and Bismuth.
"Wooooo…" moaned the latter, "At least that's finally done…"
"Yeah," Lapis said, scarcely believing what she just heard, "Now what do we do?"
"If I had to guess," said Pearl, "Homeworld is going to finally get the message that we aren't pushovers, but they'll be back. Nothing can keep them down for too long."
Even with that grim reminder, the fact that they had won the day helped brighten their spirits. They busied themselves with cleaning up the town and assuring the people it was safe to come out again. It took almost an hour, but soon Steven was walking up into town in his normal form. The Crystal Gems all wanted to welcome him back, but he politely declined any kind of celebration until he saw Lion first. A few of them noticed the pink metal key he was holding in his hands.
At long last, Steven found his feline companion who actually ran up to greet him.
"Good job out there today," he said as he embraced the fluffy animal, "But I've got something to take care of real quick. I'll be right back…"
Lion got the hint and lowered his head so Steven could easily get inside his mane. As he walked across the placid field of flowers, he looked down at the key finally in his possession. It turns out Rose was right in that he could summon it no problem before he finally went back to half-human again.
The thoughts cleared from his head as he approached the treasure chest. He would normally be jumping at the chance to see something like this, but compared to fighting for his life against a sixty-foot tall alien warrior he just felt like taking a nap. It was only the curiosity in the back of his mind driving him at this point. He turned the key in the lock and soon opened it.
When he laid his eyes on it, they all but popped out of his skull. He started trembling far more than any fight or bout of panic he ever experienced in his life. If it were not for his inability to breathe in this pocket dimension, he would have screamed until his throat broke. His shaking hands reached out and held the pink bubble in his hands.
Inside that bubble was a single gem almost the same color as its prison. A large pink stone as big as his hand. It was a brilliantly cut diamond.
Anyone else hear the Doctor Who ending credits theme here? Pick your favorite version, they're all great but it feels so appropriate here. But with that, it's pretty obvious that Steven'll be wanting some answers next time.
Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave your questions, comments or shocked reactions below!