"Fire!" Garnet orders Opal to open fire on the descending ship. Without missing a beat, Opal lets loose her flurry of arrows towards the ship. They fly through the air and impact the ship on multiple areas on the front side of it. Even though the ship doesn't bother to switch to it defense stance like with the first attacks from both the cannons and rocket strikes, the arrows have no effect on the ship.

Steven dismounts Lion and pats the beast. "Stay here! If something happens, Dad'll need a new son!" He tells the animal, not really taking into account of just how cryptic that statement is.

Garnet and Opal watch as the ship continues down to the planet's surface without a hitch. Garnet sighs sadly at their futile attack. "At least Steven and Marcus are safe…" She mutters somewhat comfortingly to both herself and Opal at their friend's absence.

"Hey guys!" Unfortunately for her, they didn't listen.

"Steven!" Garnet cries out in surprise at seeing the kids presence there with them. The surprise of seeing Steven at the beach causes Opal to fluctuate and separate into Pearl and Amethyst. The recoil forces them to the ground like it does with all fusion at this point.

"How are you here?! You can't be here! You have to leave now!" Pearl frantically tells the young boy because it's too dangerous for him to be here on the potential battlefield.

"But—" Steven begins to reply but a new sound accompanies the slowly landing ship except it comes from behind them. Everyone turns around to see Marcus's truck drift around the side of the temple before speeding straight to where the others are. Before he gets too close, he hits the breaks and turns his vehicle to the side, drifting the rest of the way to them before coming to a stop a few feet behind them. Without a word, he slings his M4 onto his back and climbs out of the driver seat before climbing onto the back and manning is turret.

"GET DOWN!"

They take the initiative and cover Steven with their bodies. Marcus aims his gun straight towards the enemy ship and pulls the triggers.

Loud rapid thumping sounds permeate the air as the twin line of rounds impact against the hull of the ship similar to Opals arrow strike from earlier. Unlike the energy blasts of most of their attacks against the ship, the solid projectiles of the rockets and bullets of are enough to fracture the surface of the ship and leave nasty dents in it. Unfortunately, that's about all the attacks are capable of as they only barely damage the ship and not cause any significant damage to it.


"Damn. Didn't work." I was hoping that the close proximity of the ship would allow my bullets to impact it as opposed to the energy waves used by most of our arsenal but that didn't work either. 'Should have used armor-piercing.'

"You guys came back!" Amethyst says with a smile at seeing us bacl.

"What are you doing?! Get out of here!" Pearl yells for us to go we won't have it.

"Sorry Pearl but we are not leaving our friends to fight our battles for us!" I yell defiantly to her. 'I was a fool to think of that alternative was the best choice for me. Yes, it was logical but to hell with the idea of losing my friends. I love Steven to death but I feel the same for them as well!'

"Yeah!" Steven yells out as well and agrees with me.

"But you—"

"It's too late!" Garnet interrupts Pearl as the ships descent gets even closer. "Just stay behind us!" Garnet tells us all.

With a massive thud, the ship finally lands on the water with its palm facing upwards and the fingers on the beach. The force of the ship coming in from the atmosphere and hitting the ground so quickly kicks up a massive cloud of dust and sprinkles water droplets on everyone but a massive blast of air and force lightly slides everyone back to me, making them in line with me and my truck. 'Good, now I won't have to worry about friendly fire.' With that thought in my head, the ship remains still and nothing can be heard besides everyone's tense breathing, the waves crashing, and the ship activating something. Soon I spot a ball of some kind rolling up the palm to the index finger and stops there before it dissipates, revealing three people. The finger drops onto the beach and I get somewhat a better glimpse of the occupants. Two of them I feel are familiar but the tallest one is a complete unknown and leaves me uneasy. Despite that I keep the sights on my turret trained on the unknown individuals.

"That's them, alright." A familiar figure comes into clear view on the tip of the finger. 'Peridot. Obviously.' "They're the ones who keep breaking my machines." 'Not all of them Peridot.' I think with a smirk.

The tall unknown figure walks forward and steps past Peridot. "This is it?" She asks in an unimpressed attitude.

"Jasper! They keep interfering with my work!" Peridot complains at this Jasper.

She steps forward and lets out a sigh for some reason. "Looks like another waste of my time..."

"Mmmm." I growl under my breath and move my fingers over the triggers ready to unleash hell.

"Hey, get over here!" My eyes widen as Jasper grabs the third person from behind her and pulls her forward, revealing it to be Lapis. 'No…' "Grrrr." I grit my teeth as I reluctantly move my fingers off the triggers. 'So much for no friendly fire.'

"Ngh!" Lapis roughly jerks her arm out of Jaspers grip and turns to us. She gasps as she sees both Steven and I here.

"Lapis!" I hear Steven say to my right, surprised to see her here. I'm glad to see her nonetheless, but I do wish it was under better circumstances.

"This is their base?" Jasper asks Lapis.

"Yes…" She answers but she looks away in disappointment as she does so.

"You need to leave immediately!" Garnet commands them to do.

"Yeah, step off!"

"This is not a Gem-controlled planet!" Amethyst and Pearl pitch in their opinions as well.

Peridot and Jasper don't follow through with what the others say but instead all three of them fall onto the beach with a few thuds. "And neither of you saw Rose Quartz? Oh, what a shame. I'd hoped to meet her. I was looking forward to beating her into the ground!" Jasper comments with a sickening sneer smile on her face.

"Euegh…"

I move my fingers back into position at the threat and Steven's uneasy moan.

"But this is all that's left of her army? Some lost, defective Pearl, a puny overcooked runt, and this shameless display?" She insults each of my Gem friends before glancing over Steven. "What is that?"

The Crystal Gems bare their weapons in preparation after she spots Steven. "It calls itself the Steven." Peridot informs her.

"He's just a human!" Lapis speaks up. "He isn't a threat at all! He's not one of them!" She tries to dissuade Jasper from finding a sort of interest in the kid.

"I know what a human is." Jasper sneers at Lapis before looking to me now. "And what about that one?"

*Cha-Chink*

The Homeworld Gems look in surprise as I pull the bolt handles back on my guns, for an intimidation factor and to make sure I don't have a jam. "Marcus." I growl out and train my sights directly on her. Seeing my action, Lapis takes a step away from Jasper.

"Tsk! Whatever. You don't need me for this. Just blast them with the ship." Jasper says as she begins walking back to the ship. 'The ship?!' My eyes widen.

"Ugh, fi—!"

"LAPIS MOVE!" I yell loudly and aim my gun several feet to the ground in front of them before pulling the triggers.

Once the first couple of rounds leave the gun, Lapis heeds my warning and jumps off to the side. My line of fire moves up along the ground towards Peridot and Jasper, who turns around in surprise at the loud sounds. The sand and dust kick up quickly as my bullets impact the ground and head straight for my targets. My rounds create a smokescreen effect on Jasper and Peridot but I don't stop there and keep the triggers depressed as I continuously open fire on them. My friends back up and move away from the point of where I'm shooting at. It takes a few seconds of continuous fire but I finally run out of ammo as the barrels on my guns run blistering red hot. As much as I want to keep firing, it's good I'm forced to stop, otherwise the barrels may very well get damaged and melt from the heat.

Once I stop firing, the sound of the dust settling on their side starts to settle and I don't see anything at first.

"HA!" A loud cry is heard and a stomp impacts the ground. The cloud of dust and sand is destroyed as Jasper stomps on the ground, the shockwave sending the cloud in all directions. She stands back up to her full height with an annoyed look on her face as scuff and black marks adorn most of her body.

Peridot pokes her head out from behind Jasper with a look of surprise. "What was that?!" She asks in surprise.

"Fa!" Jasper scoffs and stretches her neck side-to-side. "That… was nothing." Cracks can be heard from the movement as she gives me a snarky smile. "That all you got?" She challenges me.

Everyone looks between the two of us as we stare each other down. With a cross look on my face, I reach down and pick up a RPG-7 rocket launcher and aim at them. "No." I say in a low voice before I take aim at their feet and fire. Like plenty of rockets before, the back blast hits the open air behind me and I place my foot behind me to brace for the launch as the shot flies through the air. Steven and the others move behind my truck to shield themselves and Lapis moves further away before covering herself in sphere of water. Peridot quickly moves but Jasper remains rooted to her spot defiantly as the rocket hits.

In a loud explosion, a bright ball of fire engulfs the area where she was standing, blowing a gust of wind outwards in all directions. The others mush themselves lower to the ground for protection but I don't bother moving. My ballistic glasses protect my eyes from debris and allow me to look directly at the inferno ball as the wind whips my hair back and makes the pins on my grenades on my vest 'tink' as they hit the metal part of their ordinance. Soon, the blast wave dissipates and we are left with a small plume of smoke that starts to go as well.

All is silent as everyone else wait's to see how effective my attack was.

*Fwoosh*

"Fuck!" I curse loudly and jump off the back of my truck as a giant rock comes hurtling toward me. Just as I hit the ground, a loud tearing noise of metal can be heard right where I was standing. As I look back, my eyes widen in surprise as the boulder sheered my gun turret right off. "Son of a— I just made that."

"Alright enough of this!" My friends and I look towards the ship and to our surprise they both are unscathed. Peridot stands in front of Jasper with a shimmering lime green transparent triangle shield in front of her. One of her hands fingers has opened up and extended to make the shield in the first place. It slowly cracks before shattering all together, making her recoil in a small grunt of pain. Jasper sneers at me for my actions. "Blast them already." Jasper growls towards Peridot. The green gem tries to get her controls set back up after my shattering of her shield temporarily disabled her tech. "NOW!" She yells at the green gem for taking so long with activating their ships main cannon.

Peridot flinches at the outburst and stares at her commanding officer. The next moment her controls go back online and she activates the ship. "Fine." She grumbles from being ordered so harshly by her.

The ship lifts up with the index finger taking aim in our direction and when Peridot does some movements on the screen she created in front of her, the ship starts charging power. "Steven, Marcus! Get out of here!" Garnet orders the two of us to do.

"No!" Steven yells out, answering for the both of us.

"I won't let you risk your lives!" Garnet tells us as she looks towards us. While she and Steven are arguing I try to figure out some sort of plan against this thing.

'Don't know how much power it'll give off but standing here we may be able to brace ourselves against the attack! Then again leaving is another option but running by foot or in my truck would leave us vulnerable to the attack. How do we—"

"But this is my home! And you're all my family!" Steven yells passionately, interrupting my thoughts. I look at him to notice his gem is glowing but before I can question it the cannon starts increasing power, pushing more air against us and becoming that much brighter, forcing me to bring my hands up to block the light. "I-I'm a Crystal Gem too!" I manage to hear Steven over the roaring of the ships blast as he moves in front of us.

"Steven! Ahh!" I yell out his name and go to grab him but a sudden bright blast of light forces me back and to cover my eyes again with my arms.

It takes a few tense seconds but I manage to feel the force of whatever blast dissipate away from us so I can see again. Bringing my arms down, my eyes hurt from the flash but they adjust soon enough, allowing me to see a surprising sight in front of everyone.

Steven stands in front of us with his gem uncovered and his arms outstretched in front of him with his shield. Unlike the previous times when he's pulled out his shield, this one is by far the most powerful and biggest I've seen ever. The shield is the same design as the ones before but this one spans as tall as the ship itself and stands firm in front of us. "Steven…" I breathe in awe at the sheer power he exhibited in stopping the ships blast in its tracks. The shield begins to fold in on itself before disappearing all together, making Steven collapse from the exertion. "Steven!" I call out his name in worry as he falls. I move forward and kneel next to him. "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah I am." He manages to tell me as he catches his breath.

"Dude," He looks up at me, "Nice… job." I compliment him on his action just a few moments ago.

"Thanks." He gives me a tired smile and I help get to his feet.

"You!" We look up at Jasper's outburst. "You have the power of Rose Quartz!" She demands of him.

"Oh crap." I mumble at her demanding tone for Steven. 'This can't be good.'

"Now do you believe I needed an escort?" Peridot asks of Jasper matter-of-factly about the situation.

"Fire a barrage! Widespread!" Jasper orders. Peridot complies and inputs some more commands on her screen before activating it. I quickly grab Steven and push us forward as a beam fires out of the finger of the ship and goes along the ground behind us. At first there's nothing but it's a delayed effect as the line on the ground explodes outward, sending the Gems flying in all directions and sprinkling Steven and I with sand.

"Ble." I spit out some sand before standing up and looking around.

"Rose, why do you look like that? Why are you so weak?" Jasper questions Steven as she starts to make her way to us. I pull out my rifle and aim it at her while getting in front of my friend.

"Stay back!" I order her to and she does but only to smirk at me.

"What? You think you can stop me?"

"Don't hurt him!" Lapis demands of Jasper as she walks up to her.

"You knew about this!" Jasper says to Lapis.

"It wasn't relevant to the mission!" She makes up the excuse but the angry Gem won't have it.

"Forget about the mission!"

"What!?" Peridot asks in surprise.

"Yellow Diamond needs to see this… thing." Jasper menacingly says as she walks up to us.

*Bang*

I fire one shot at her, stopping her in her tracks. We both stare each other down until she looks at the spot where the bullet hit.

The projectile was almost completely flattened against her skin. It simply falls to the ground with a light thud.

She smirks.

"Crap." I groan at the ineffective shot and she advances.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

I fire more rounds in quick succession in a futile attempt to stop her but she just keeps moving forward. 'Son of a—! She's not stopping! I need to—' Before I can come up with another solution, she gets close enough that she dashes forward and kicks me in the stomach, sending me flying back. "Marcus!" Steven cries out as I'm sent flying over him. I roll on the sand a few times before coming to a stop on my stomach and groaning next to Pearl and Amethyst.

"Now come here you." I look up to see my gun in front of me and Jasper reaching down to grab Steven.

"Uh…" Steven says uneasily.

Before I can get up and attack her, Garnet pulls herself out of the sand behind Steven and charges at Jasper with an angry look on her face. "Oh good." Jasper smiles as she sees Garnet charging towards her past Steven. Jasper pulls out her Gem weapon, a hammer-like helmet that encompasses her head and she head butts Garnet's gauntlet strike. This creates a powerful draft that pushes back Garnet, Steven, and Jasper.

"Steven, run!" Garnet orders the kid to do as she recovers from the attack and charges yet again.

"Priming Gem Destabilizer." Jasper says as she pulls out some kind of electrical wand and charges Garnet.

'Gem Destabi—!' I look on in horror as the two of them get close. "Garnet wait!" I try to warn her as I get onto one knee but it's too late. Jasper thrusts the wand straight into Garnets chest, shocking her for a second before bright yellow lines appear all over her body and continue to grow as pieces of her body start to detach. As she falls backward, her visor falls off and both Steven and I look on in horror as we see the saddened expression on her face. She blows up in a cloud of dust. The others gasp around me but I pay no attention as images flash through my mind.


"Steven, its's okay. I'm gonna be just f—"

*Poof*


The monsters I remember fighting, attacking… killing.

But… Pearl's stuck… most of all. I remember the sword all to well going through her chest.

But that was an accident.

This… Bitch! Attacked and almost destroyed my friend.

My… Family!

"GARNNNEEEEETTTT! RAAAAAHHHHH!" I scream as loud as I can and run full sprint towards Jasper, picking up and firing my rifle as I go. The others call out to me but I focus on my target. The rounds fly out faster than I run and Jasper is forced to bring her arms up to defend from the onslaught of rounds hitting close to her face. Unlike the ones from before, they were centered on her chest and stomach region. Now I'm aiming entirely at her chest and head because I want to gauge her eyes out.

I move past Steven and when my gun runs out of ammo, I toss it straight at her but continue to run. The butt of my rifle softly smacks her in her head, making her grunt a little. When she recovers from the apparently useless hit, she is surprised to see me jumping straight at her with my right arm brought back in a punch. "Haaaaa!" I yell as I try to punch her in the face but she brings her arms up in defense. The force of my punch sends her sliding back a little. I press the attack and move forward to attack some more. Instead of going for a punch, when she brings her arm up to punch me, I go low and tackle her. The action surprises her and doesn't give her the chance to hit me as it puts her off-balance so I force her to the ground. As we land, I come up and start landing as many punches as I can straight to her face. I get a few good shots in but she quickly brings her arms up and defends against my rage induced onslaught. When I reel back for another punch, she swings her arms outwards in an attempt to swipe me against my head but I lean back, making her miss me. Unfortunately, she expected that because she reels back and hits me with her helmet. The force of it hits me hard in my stomach, knocking air out of me long enough for her push me off of her. I stumble back from the hits and she jumps onto her feet and rushes me. Before I can recover, she rears her head back and brings her gem weapon down to hit me. I barely have enough time to cross my arms over in front of me to defend myself from her attack. It hurts like hell from the force and weight of her attack and it forces me to my knee but I remain firm, at least until she brings her leg up and kicks me away from her and Steven.


"Oh no. Marcus!" Steven cries out as his friend is sent flying back again, this time further away and past the other Gems.

"I was there, you know." He looks back to Jasper as she walks toward him and starts talking. "At the first war for this garbage planet. I fought against your armies. I respected your tactics. But this... ?" She questions as she picks the helpless kid by his shirt. "This is sick!"

"Unhand him!" Pearl yells as both she and Amethyst charge towards Jasper in hopes of preventing her from harming Steven.

"I don't get what you're planning, Rose. But look! Your base is taken." Jasper waves to the statue he and the rest of his family of Crystal Gems have been living for nearly all their lives, some more than others. "Your armies are ruined!" She waves to the rapidly closing duo of Gems charging towards her. "You have failed!" She tells him with a smile before taking off her helmet weapon and bringing her head back.

A flash of darkness moves past Pearl and Amethyst, heading straight for Jasper as she brings her head down."RAH!"

"Uh!" Jasper yells as a force comes out of nowhere and punches her straight in the side of the face, forcing her to let go of Steven and away from him. She is sent sailing through the air for a moment before she lands roughly on her back and slides for a few feet before coming to a halt. She groans as she gets up into a crouch and looks at the person with hatred that actually sent her flying with. Marcus stands tall in front of his hybrid friend, breathing heavily at the sudden rush of adrenaline from seeing the person he cares about so much in danger and looks at her with anger.

"STAY AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" He yells defiantly to the heavens and at her. In a flourish, he pulls out both his signature katana sword, griping them tightly to the point his knuckles turn white as Pearl and Amethyst run up to him as well.

Unfortunately, his intended opponent recognizes the weapons all too well. "Wha… No… N-no! It can't be! It can't be you!" Jasper cries out hysterically at the summoned weapons.

"Huh?" Marcus says confused as Jasper looks at him with widened eyes.

"You can't be her! They told me you died! They told me you failed and you were shattered!" She yells at him, before closing her eyes and clenching her fists. They clench and unclench harshly, evident of her anger for what it is that she's feeling. "So why… ARE YOU HERE?! WITH THEM?!" She yells loudly, demanding answers.

Marcus looks at her confused, unsure of exactly what's causing her outburst. He looks to his friends for answers but they don't have any. Amethyst, Pearl and Lapis are just as confused as him. When he looks behind him to his brother, Steven shrugs in confusion as well but as soon as Marcus lays his hands on Steven Gem, it clicks. 'Wait… she doesn't want me… she freaked out when Steven pulled out his shield… now that I've got my swords out… mom?' Marcus thinks and turns back to his enemies.

His eyes widen. "Look out!" He quickly pushes his arms outwards to his sides and throws Pearl and Amethyst away from him. "GRrrrrrr Aaaaahhhh!" He grunts in pain as a thousand volts of electricity go through his entire body and propels to just behind his friends. The Crystal Gems and Lapis stare in horror as he convulses on the sand behind Steven, sparks shooting off his body before looking to see who attacked. Peridot stands a little ways behind Jasper with her right limb enhancer glove transformed into a sort of shock blaster. Her fingers moved back to attach to the sides of her glove before aiming towards and feeding electricity to the central transparent ball jutting out of the middle of her glove. She's crouched with her other arm supporting her transformed one, a teeth gritted firm expression on her face.

"Ha!" The others turn back to Jasper who looks pleased at seeing Marcus take a hit like that. "Well, that's one problem dealt with. Time for the rest." She says and stalks up menacingly to the others.


"Pah!"

"Ooh!"

My head throbs painfully so and my muscles are stiff and feel like they're on fire but I manage to make out the sounds of others, possibly fighting. Slowly, I lean my head upwards and try to see what's going on but my vision is blurry. Achingly, I twist my body onto my stomach and rub my eyes to try and do away with the blurry vision.

"Rah!"

"Cah!"

"Ah!"

"…"

'Wait, what happened?' The sounds of fighting and combat is completely silenced all together. I move into a crouch and turn back to see what's going on. 'What the hell is—!... No…' My eyes widen and my mouth parts open as I stare at the scene before me.

My friends lay on the ground not moving with Jasper standing over them. She stares at them for a second before training her sights on me.

"…"

"…"

We stare at each other for a tense few seconds before she starts walking towards me. 'Damnit.' I pull out one of my pistols in my left hand and fire at her. I don't have any special rounds equipped onto my Berettas so my rounds simply ricochet off her. They don't stop her in the least bit as she stalks towards me. 'Fuck.' I pull out a frag grenade in my right hand and after pulling the pin, I wait. 'One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three…' I chuck the grenade at her and as it lands at her feet, she looks down at it before stepping on it, crushing it into the sand and walking forward.

*Boom*

In a small muffled explosion, the grenade goes off, splashing sand and dirt all over her she remains undeterred. "Uhhh." I groan at the failed attack before grabbing a flashbang. I fire a couple more times before tossing the grenade several feet in front of her. Its dangerously close to me but I wrap my arms over my eyes and cover my ears as tight as I can.

A muffled pop manages to run through my hands and allows me to hear the grenade going off. After waiting a second, I lower my arms and prepare to attack her dazed form. "Guh!" I choke out as a large hand grips my throat and almost crushes my larynx in one go. I drop my gun and try to tear the arm off from choking me but it's too strong. Despite being choked, my attacker is still Jasper with her helmet weapon equipped. 'Of course. That god damned visor of hers.'

"Was that it?" She asks, bringing me close to her face. "Is that everything you could possibly throw at me?"

"Guh… ha." I try to speak but her grip prevents it from happening.

"After everything that you were made to be, after everything that you strove to be, this is it?" She says in a disappointing tone. She brings her weapon down on me and hits me right in the face, jerking my head back roughly, making my head throb and shattering my glasses easily despite them being made of ballistic materials. With that, she roughly tosses me away from her.

"Puh!... Ahh." I groan as I land roughly on my back and take in deep breaths. Once I gain my breathing back, I look up to see Jasper looking down on me with a sad expression.

"Pathetic." She tells me before she starts walking away from me.

'Pathetic?... Pathetic!' I move into a crouch. I grit my teeth in anger and my fists. "Don't you walk away from me! Rah!" I yell at her and charge her from behind. When I get close, I bring my right fist back and go to attack her. I move in closer and closer until…

*SMACK!*

In reverbating noise, she catches my fist in her hand, halting my powered kinetic strike in its place, making a wave of force shoot out in all directions around us. I look at her with surprise etched on my face at the sheer ease she just stopped my attack cold. My fearful expression meets her neutral look.

She smirks.

*Snap*

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" I scream in pain as she twists my wrist sharply in the wrong direction, snapping the joint. She lets go of my hand and I collapse onto my knee, cradling my broken, limp and useless hand. Anger wells up inside me and I go for another punch using my left hand. She grabs my wrist before pulling back, out stretching my arm and bringing her other arm back.

*Snap*

"Aaarrrghhh! Damnit!" I yell in even more pain as my forearm is snapped in half, the bone sticking out of the skin. I collapse onto my knees as I look in horror at my broken limbs. I look up to see her bringing her leg up.

*SNAP!*

"Uhhh! Uhhha! Aaah!" I groan through gritted teeth as my knee cap is shattered, forcing me to fall onto my back as I writhe in agony from my injuries.

Jasper looks down at my beaten bloody form before she sighs. "I can't believe I used to look up to you." She turns back and begins walking away from me. "Get them onto the ship. We need to report this to Yellow Diamond now." Jasper orders Peridot to.

"What about him?" She asks while nodding her head towards me.

She looks back to me and I look at her with pure fury welling up inside me. Right now she just incapacitated me like it was nothing and now she's not bothering to finish the job or knock me out. The anger I feel is on par and being fueled by the extreme amounts of pain I feel throughout my body. "Don't bother." She scoffs at me before walking off, her summoned helmet weapon disappearing. Peridot uses some sort of levitation beam to from her gloves to lift all my friends away and towards the ship.

I look at Lapis to see a look of horror on her face. Seeing me beaten and destroyed like this is exactly what she didn't want to see happen. When our eyes meet, she looks away. 'Lapis…' I groan as even the slightest movement sends pain flaring through me. My anger deepens even more and I grit my teeth as Jasper casually picks up Garnets gems and continues walking. 'No… No. I can't let this happen. I can't let them leave. I can't let them take the closest thing I have to a family! But what the hell can I do?' I glance down and wince when I see my bare bone peeking out of my flesh. 'I can't heal… I'll be knocked out for a day… They'll be long gone before then. Oh god this hurts.' I try to stand but I end up collapsing again, the pain flaring more harshly. 'God damnit Marcus! You can't stop now after all of this! Not after all this work. You can't let your family be taken so easily! Fucking FIGHT damnit! Fi—'

*Thump-Thump*

'Wha-what?' Everything goes deaf as I can hear my heart throb loudly.

*Thump-Thump*

All the pain starts to fade and everything goes…

… Quiet.


*Ca-Crack*

Jasper stops walking at the sickening cracking sound she hears. Everyone looks back to see Marcus's body convulse and contorts gruesomely. He grunts and groans loudly that they can hear him and the spasms plaguing him before his body does what surprises them all. His left arm with the broken forearm thrusts into the air before it straightens out, the bone slipping back under the skin before his nails start to elongate and slams palm first into sand. His broken wrist on his right hand snaps back into place as well before holding himself up with both hands on the ground. He groans loudly as his broken leg jerks back horribly, the sounds of bones crunching before it reforms and fixes itself back into the proper place.

But it doesn't stop there.

On his hands and knees, beads of sweat travel down his entire body as his clothes suddenly feel too tight for him. Right before their very eyes, his chest starts to expand outwards, not from the breathing heavily but his body's mass grows. The military vest he is wearing strains to remain intact and compensate for the expanding body it's trying to protect but its futile.

The stitching, straps and Velcro pop and tear right off from each other, the vest falling to the ground haphazardly, revealing the much larger and more broadened body Marcus now possesses. Those that are watch as everything goes silent, and he freezes… before slamming his fists into the ground and growling… like an animal.

"Grrrraaaaa!" Marcus has his eyes closed as his body starts transforming, but unlike the glowing transformations and shapshiftings that all Gems are known for, this is more… real. Black hair starts growing all over his body in single strands at first but soon patches of the stuff grow all over. He groans as his muscles all over start growing as well, his arms and chest stretching the fabric of his shirt before it tears off as well. His pants stretch and fall away as well before leaving his shoes as the only piece of clothing left on and even that doesn't last long. A sudden shift in his feet tears off the fabric of his shoes and socks, revealing a surprising sight.

His feet begin to lengthen and grow claws, resembling that of wolves. "Raaaaaaa!" He lets out a beastly growl as his head starts shifting. His jaw and the frontal part of his head push out roughly until it too resembles that of a wolves jaw and snout. His body convulses and jerks from the shifting changes but still he manages to get onto his knees. The hands start growing bigger as well as the nails as they thicken out and become deadly sharp 4-inch long claws on each of his fingers.

By this point, black as the night hair has already grown on nearly every point of his body, taking away the once human appearance he had, into the sort of… wolf monster-like appearance he has now. Finally what ends this brutal and rough transformation of his, is these black misshaped crystals that grow out from under the fur. The bigger and grotesque looking ones appear prominently on his back but his chest and face remain unscathed.

As the last of whatever transformation has gone on with the human-gem- hybrid, now what kneels is a sort of a monster like creature that is the stuff of nightmares, especially with the black wispy smoke that comes off the crystals on its back. Very slowly and carefully, it stands on its feet until it finally stands to its full height, making its height on par with that of Jasper.

A cold quiet silence falls upon everyone as they witness the horrific transformation that has never before been seen by Gem kind except for only one form of instance. Lapis visibly flinches as the monster opens its eyes; blood red eyes replacing the usual milky white part stares at the Gems in front of it. As soon as its eyes land on Jasper does the monster bare its teeth and snarl at her.

"Oh… now this is going to be good." She smiles at the new form of enemy in front of her.

"RAAAAAAAWWWRR!" The monster lets out a roar of defiance and slowly starts stalking towards Jasper, baring its claws away from it.

"Finally, a challenge." She sneers and forms her helmet. "Let's go then!" She challenges her opponent and dashes forward. Seeing his challenge answered, the creature sprints forward as well to meet her head on. As soon as the two of them get close, they both bring their heads back and head butt each other. Despite having a powerful weapon designed to use the head to attack, her opponent doesn't flinch from the impact and takes the blow, holding her back before it swings its right claw at her. "Uh!" Jasper grunts as the claw cuts her stomach, forcing her to slide back from the hit. She looks down at the cut before looking up to see her opponent smirk and charge her. The creature swings its claws from left to right repeatedly, trying to eviscerate its opponent but Jasper either deflects the attacks with her weapon or dodges it all together but the strength and speed of the attacks forces her to backpedal away from the fight.

As soon as it goes for another slash, she deflects it with her helmet and follows up with a punch to its face, forcing it to step back from the dazed hit. As it takes a step back to regain its senses, it brings both its arms up to defend against another attack from Jaspers helmet. She hits it multiple times, forcing it to slide back with each consecutive hit. She presses her new advantage by following up with punches as well. Now it's the monster that's forced to go on its defense and backpedal from her onslaught. Like before, the creature uses its claws to deflect her helmet strikes but dodges away from her punches. Soon, Jasper adds even more variety to her attacks by pulling out the Gem Destabilizer and swipes at her opponent. The creature regards the weapon so it manages to dodge the weapon fairly well. As Jasper tries to hit it at its head, the creature ducks down to dodge before coming back up with a swipe of its claws. Jasper dodges the attacks as well before the two go back and forth in hopes of landing another hit on the other.

Unfortunately, Jasper manages to find a break in its defenses. When it goes to slice her with its right claws, she blocks it with her left arm and brings her helmet down on the limb. The attack doesn't break it but the force exhibited pushes the body towards the right, leaving it open to attack. "Perfect." Jasper mutters as she brings her right arm holding the Gem Destabilizer straight towards its head, eager to destroy her old comrade's odd body shape choices, just like Rose.

"Ragh!" Before she can thrust the tip of her destabilizer straight to its head and destabilize the body like she did with that first Gems, her opponent jerks its head back and opens its maw wide before clamping them down, catching the weapon in its teeth.

A eerie form of silence falls over the two combatants as Jasper tries to push the destabilizer closer to its body while the creature uses its jaw to keep the weapon from directly touching against it. However with the electricity arcing off the weapon and the weapon still touching its intended target, the familiar yellow lines that appeared and traveled along Garnets body just before she was poofed start racing along the creatures face as well. It flinches and winces as the lines travel along its face but at a much slower pace. Since the weapon was designed to destroy a Gems physical manifested body, it's having a hard time trying to destroy a body made of human flesh, no matter how deformed it may have changed. The two are at a stalemate, trying to overpower the other until one of the lines snakes its way to one of the monsters red eye. The organ quickly turns completely glowing yellow.

*SNAP!*

With fierce force powered by pain and blind anger, the creatures menacing maw clamps down with the force of a crocodiles bite and breaks the weapon.

"What?!" Jasper asks in surprise as she stares in surprise at the broken weapon in her hand. As she looks up, her eyes widen as the monster she's been fighting appears in front of her with its right arm raised up. Before she can react, the creature swipes at her head roughly with enough force to send her flying away from it. She doesn't poof from the hit and instead goes tumbling through the air, hitting the ground a couple times before she slides along the sand in a heap and remains still.

Her attacker lets out deep breaths of air, exhaustion starting to wane on it after the intense fighting it just went through. Its opponent however remains still on the ground and doesn't move. It starts walking forward, intent to end its enemy's life.

*Zzzzzzzttttt*

"Raaaaaaawwwww!" The monster roars in pain as another stream of electricity is sent through its body, making it convulse right where at stands. After a few second of all its nerves flaring up at once, the pain dissipates just as quickly, leaving it to breathe deeply as it stands still. "Rrrrr." It growls lowly and menacingly turns its head to the side, looking to see who dares attack it.

Peridot stands several feet away to its right with her glove transformed to its shock blaster mod. She looks on in surprise as her attack only looks like it just annoyed the creature.

The monster turns to her and bares its teeth and claws.

"Oh clod." Peridot mutters at her failed attack. The monster starts walking towards her. "Stay back!" She demands of the thing and fires another shock blast at it, which only stops it for a second before it continues walking to her but with slightly increased speed. "Oh clod oh clod oh clod!" She frantically says as she backs up away from it and changes her blaster but it continues to gain ground. The shock blaster transforms out and replaces itself to a rapid fire blaster instead and she makes use of it. "Stay back! Stay back!" She continues to yell to the monster as it gradually gains more and more speed, the blaster shots ricocheting or disappearing all together as they impact the body. It's futile for Peridot to keep shooting at it but after seeing how menacing it is and how it was able to go on par with Jasper, she's not thinking straight. Soon, it comes close enough that it stands straight up in front of her and raises it's right arm upwards toward its left. Peridot looks on in fear as the limb comes crashing down and backhands her. Since she doesn't have nearly as much muscle mass as Jasper does, she's thrown away quite easily but not as brutally since it was done without the use of its claws. When Peridot is left on the ground in a heap, groaning, the monster that devastated her and Jasper looks behind where Peridot was last standing and stares at the cowering Gem.

Lapis Lazuli looks on in pure fear as the monster that was once someone she truly cared about trains its eyes on her. She flinches as she stares into the red eyes leading to oblivion and falls to the ground. Instead of walking on two legs, the monster gets down on all fours and stalks menacingly towards her. "Marcus… no…" She cries out as the beast continues moving, not at all deterred by the mention of that name. "Please no… don't… Don't you… don't you remember me?" She tries desperately to talk it down but the creature doesn't listen, it just continues moving closer and closer with saliva dripping down its maw. "I don't… I don't… You can't…" Lapis's words start to become mismatched and she closes her eyes as it starts crawling over her, its limbs being placed on each side of her, trapping her.

The monster lets out a low growl as it's jaw opens, all of its razor-sharp and serrated teeth free to be seen by all with a hot mist flowing from its mouth, making Lapis cower even more from the heat. She wraps her arms around herself, prepared for this… thing to crush her… and possibly end her.

It leans back, like a panther ready to pounce on its prey, and ready's itself to completely destroy this Gem in front of it.

It pushes forth.

"HEY!"

*Smack*

"Arwo!" The creature yelps as something hard smashes against the left side of its head, the rock used having broken apart from the force of hitting against the side of the head. It's dazed for a second but quickly turns to the direction of the object and snarls loudly before opening its jaw, catching another rock in between its teeth before promptly crushing it into dust. With the new voice and no longer expecting to be destroyed, Lapis slowly opens her eyes and looks at what's happening.

Jasper stands a bit away from the others, holding a rock large enough to fit in her hand and tosses it a few times in the air before catching it again. Her summoned weapon is still on her head but the visor and hammer part of her weapon have deep nasty claw marks along them. She looks at the monster with a scowl before gripping the rock tightly in her right and pulling her back like a baseball player would. "HA!" Jasper yells out and throws the rock at near supersonic speed, a blast of air kicks outwards from the point the rock leaves her hand. To the untrained eye, it looks like it disappears but the monster swipes its left arm from right to left, breaking the rock in mid-flight before it can hit. The monster gets up off of Lapis and turns towards its first opponent. "We're not done yet!" Jasper challenges it and gets into a combat ready stance. Accepting the challenge, the monster steps onto two legs and bares its claws outwards away from it.

"Grrrrrrr… RAAAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRR!" The monster lets out an inhumanly loud roar of anger before it peters off into a loud growl.

"Come on then! Let's finish this!" Jasper yells at it, antagonizing the beast further.

Both combatants ready themselves for one last fight against one another. The both of them had a small lapse in their fighting with each other but now…

Now they intend to finish this.

The monster crouches low to the ground, ready to sprint forward and meet its enemy head on with claws ready to strike.

Jasper's fists tighten considerably, anger flowing through at how much this thing was able to almost beat her, as well as play with her subordinates.

The two tighten their stances… and charge.

*BANG*

A shot rings out.

Both of them stop at the sudden noise.

An uncomfortable silence falls onto the two of them at who shot.

A trail of blood flows down the monsters chest.

It looks down at a small hole that formed on its rapidly reddening fur. It brings a clawed hand up and places it on the wound before taking it away, seeing the red transfer to its furred clawed hand. It looks up with widened surprised eyes at Jasper at the turn of events, who is surprised as well.

*BANG*BANG*

Two more shots in quick succession rip through the monsters chest, blood flying out its front and staining the sand in a stream in front of it. As it's body settles from the shots, its legs give out, falling to its knees, before collapsing forward onto its front, revealing the person who fired.

Peridot sits in a crouched position with one knee on the ground, her visor cracked from the attack she sustained along with a bruise on the side of her face. Both hands clutch the Colt Anaconda she took from the Homeworld Warp pad the first time she came to earth. After the brief description Marcus gave her about human firearms when she first talked to him at the Prime Kindergarten, and from seeing how he operated his own firearms, she used the gun on this monster that nearly killed her and everyone else.

Although archaic in comparison to Homeworld technology, the hard metal rounds rip through the enemy with ease, making it fall to the ground and lie still. Very carefully, she stands up and makes her way to the body past Lapis as Jasper does the same, not taking her guns sights off the creature in case it attacks.

As the two of them get close, nothing happens, not even when Jasper kicks the body. "What… what was that… thing?" Peridot gasps out, out of breath from the engagement and near death experience most of them nearly suffered.

Jasper looks at the body for a second before looking at Peridot. The two of them share a glance but before Jasper can answer, the body suddenly glows. She remains rooted to her spot but Peridot yelps and backs up in case anything else happens.

The body that was a monster starts to shift until it turns back to the person it was before, Marcus. All his clothes are back on except for his military vest and the bullet holes he suffered have repaired as well.

Jasper looks down at the Gem in front of her with pity. "That thing… is a mistake." She says out loud, answering Peridot's question and not taking her eyes off it. "She was the best… she was something I wanted to be… but now…" Marcus groans as his body curls up. "She's nothing." He weakly places he hands on the ground and tries to get up. "She's broken."

He shakingly looks up at Jasper in front of him.

"She's… corrupted."

With that last statement, she thrusts her head downwards, impacting her Gem weapon right on Marcus's face, knocking him out.

Did I go overboard? I have no idea if I did so I'll let you guys tell how well or horrible I did. If some of you were expecting more enemies, new characters or a fight in the city… sorry to disappoint.

As I've stated in the past, I don't like the idea of adding new Gems that could be contradicted by the shows reveal of their own versions of the Gems. I know this is my story and I can make things to make everything more interesting but it kind of irks me, and I imagine some of you, if some of the stuff I add isn't in line with the show I'm basing this story along. This is a fanfiction story for a reason.

If you were expecting a fight in the city, sorry about that too. Marcus was paranoid that an army was going to attack Beach City so he prepared for that, not barely a squad sized force instead. He certainly wasn't expecting someone as tough as Jasper or resourceful as Peridot in being his opponents.

At first I was unsure about splitting the chapters up but since the previous one was over 4,000 words, and this one is way over 7k, then I imagine it would be tense or difficult for some to be able to read over 10,000 words in one sitting. At least that's what I think anyway. It usually takes me around two to three hours to completely read through 8,000 words alone.

In any case, I hope this chapter was good for you all as it was to me. Some of you were expecting and really wanted to see him get his ass-kicked and some of you were just anticipating the fight in general. I hope I satisfied both parties with how things turned out. As you read, it seems Marcus doesn't know everything that there is to know about his mom and that nearly costed him almost everything now he has. Now all I have to do is get started on the next episode and hopefully, take us on from there without too much trouble.

Thank you all for your patience and as always, have fun reading.