After The Slinker fiasco, which is still at large by the way, much to my annoyance, things were relatively quiet for the next couple of weeks without much hassle. Unfortunately that meant that it was time for 'us' to make a hassle happen.

I will admit, it felt awesome and I was kind of ecstatic when Connie asked for us to train her in sword fighting. Pearl and I agreed to train her and since I still needed some slight pointers as well, the both of us trained under Pearl's tutelage while I helped Connie with moral support.

Everything was going well for awhile but as the lessons went on and on, Pearl's reasons for fighting sort started to project onto Connie and both Steven and I were concerned what Pearl was teaching the rookie sword fighter. After much talking and arguing, as well as some fighting with her holograms, she came to her senses and agreed that I would be the main instructor, with her correcting me in whatever needs correcting in terms of moves, stances and so forth.

Some days later, we got harassed by Ronaldo on more than a few occasions. Jenny and some of the others told me how he was asking about Steven, I and the Gems about weird things that were happening. I was a little concerned at first about his interviews or evidence gaining the wrong attention but in the end, it all worked out.


"Pearl, Marcus, NOW!" Garnet orders the both of us. Pear responds in kind by aiming at the giant crab monster and firing with repeated blaster fire from her spear and I pull out a full auto Glock pistol and the Mac 10 before spraying it as well. "Aim for the eye!"

"Aye-aye, Garnet!"

"You got it!" Pearl and I shift fire and focus our projectiles at the monsters single eye. Realizing what we are aiming for, it moves one of its claws to cover the eye.

"Where's Amethyst?" Pearl asks out loud.

"Don't know." I reply.

"Right here!" Said purple gem jumps down and slices the protective claw right off it with her hair, making it squeal in pain and scurry off.

"Nice one Amethyst!" I compliment her for her action. "It's running. Take it!" I shout and holster my weapons before flashing forward. Before it can get far, I grab the things remaining claw and force it to the ground. The monster drags me a little but I hold him firmly in place.

"He's got it! Let's finish the job!" Garnet shouts. Pearl and Amethyst nod in agreement and as one, all three of them jump high into the air and propel downwards straight towards it. With a final squeal, the crab monster tries to move but he was doomed as soon as I grabbed it.

With a massive crash and in a large puff of smoke, I'm thrown backwards as the claw I was holding disappears in my arms. I land on the sand on my back in a heap and take a second to catch my breath. I prop my head up and see Garnet holding the things bubbled gem. "Nice one." I comment from my position on the ground. Pearl comes over to me and extends her hand to me, which I take and she pulls me up. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Nice job back there." Garnet compliments me as well, making me smile.

"Hey, what's going on over there?" We look over to where Amethyst is pointing and we see Steven talking to Ronaldo, who sounds like he's angry about something and Peedee is nearby filming.

"Don't know. Let's see." I simply propose and we walk over to see what's going on.

"But all the monsters just come here to get you guys, and then wreck things and put us in danger!" Ronaldo shouts as we walk up before he points and accusatory finger at us." Beach City would be way safer if you guys weren't here!"

"Listen, Frybo, magic beings are indeed drawn to us, but we were here long before Beach City even existed." Pearl calmly explains to him about us while Garnet sends the bubbled gem away.

"Guess that explains why I haven't gotten any notifications anywhere else about monster sightings." I mutter to myself. Never did bother checking why since too much stuff came up that ate a chunk of my time.

"Who cares how long you've been here? Innocent people are in danger as long as you're hanging around!"

"Ugh." I moan in annoyance at the way he describes how things 'should' be. "Listen man, we are not—"

"Your right, I guess we'll just leave then."

"WHAT?!" I almost scream at Garnets surrender.

"Excuse me?"

"Really?"

"But, Garnet!"

The rest of my friends are slightly less surprised but still concerned none the less. "Put your buts away, Steven," She cuts him off and picks him up before placing him on the top of her gigantic afro hair. "You too, Marcus." She cuts me off as I open my mouth. "We're not wanted here, so let's just leave." She says as she walks away with my brother

"But- You- we- why- how—?" My words come out in garbled messes as I trail after her, trying to figure out WHY she's wants us to leave just like that.

"But Garnet, we'll have to move all the bubbles, a-and what about Steven's things? And Marcus just finished furnishing his new home." Pearl voices other problems as well.

"Maaaaaaan, ugh, I kinda liked it here!" Amethyst just moans annoyed.


I still didn't forgive Garnet so easily when she told us a little while later that she was just kidding. She especially confirmed that when Ronaldo came over and almost begged us to stay.

Then later when Steven showed us the video he uploaded show casing our activities to the entire world, even my droids he caught on tape, I was debating hacking into his account and taking down the video or blocking access to it altogether, but seeing the absolutely no views it got, I didn't need to take drastic actions. And bless Steven's heart for the like he gave the video.

However despite the problems with Pearl and Ronaldo, I worked on my base regardless. Everything is coming along nicely and the whole place is nearly complete. First though, after everything with Connie's sword fighting, I found I am still reluctant to pull out my swords. All the drama with my… mom, and my other self, I both don't want and can't pull them out. With that in mind, I found I need a new weapon. Something to call my own that is not a hand-me-down and I can have a deeper connection it since its mine.

That's where, my forge comes into play. Before we went up against that crab gem creature, I was working on my new personal Katana sword. Using both types of ancient and modernized forms of techniques and materials, from both Tamahagane steel and High-strength low-alloy steel, I have made my sword.

The sword has the same lengths as a regular katana but has pieces of it that are my own design. The blade shines brightly when pulled from its sheathe and the length of the blade has a wave pattern going along it from the guard to the tip of the blade. The spine part of the blade that's blunt is colored black while the sharp blade part shines brightly with a steel silver color to it. The hand guard itself is an oval shape to it with a gold color to it, and the handle is red with a black tsukamaki cloth pattern wrapping on the handle itself.

The sheathe itself isn't anything overly complicated. I bore the wooden sheathe myself and matched it perfectly to my new blade. While it was in construction, I lined the insides of the wood with metal so I can use the sheathe for some sort of blocking instrument in a desperate situation and so my sword won't be damaged while it's sheathe. I lightly burned the outer part of the wood to give it a blackened look to it and gave it a protective coating to protect it from the elements. The strap I have equipped onto it is some heavy duty stuff so it won't be ripping any time soon and it's colored dark green.

I'll admit, not having the ability to pull out my sword at will from my gems and the slight weight might take some getting used to, but after hours upon hours of constantly working on it, doing the research needed on metal forging and sword making, I can't even begin to describe how ecstatic I am on testing this new weapon.

Unfortunately before I can do any Gem monster hunting, Garnet asked us all to meet.

"We need to track down Peridot. We found her pod. We know she's out there somewhere. She came to Earth with a job to do and odds are, she's still gonna try to do it. That's why I've gathered you here." She tells us as we all continue to fold a lot of Steven's same design t-shirts.

"Seriously Steven, how many of these shirts do you have?" I question in disbelief. I'm counting over a couple dozen of these shirts and I'm pretty sure these are just the ones we recently washed.

"Mm-mm." He shrugs his unsure answer as he places a folded shirt down and picks up another to fold. "I thought we were here so you can help me fold all this laund-a-ry!"

"That too. The chore wheel idea you had fell apart fast." Garnet comments.

"Wasn't me." Amethyst pipes up, thinking we would automatically turn to her for the cause of why it failed. That was not on our minds at all as we all look over to the fridge where the chore wheel is and see all our names on it. The only difference is that all but one name has been crossed out, leaving the name 'Pearl' to be the sole person to do all the chores. We turn back to the Gem in question.

"I just really enjoy doing all of those things." She says happily, making me chuckle and shake my head.

"If you were human and someone's daughter, you would make your parents very, very happy." I say. It's not often that a kid would be so inclined to clean up pretty much everything so if Pearl was a kid, man would she be a model child in the eyes of the parents.

"Regardless, it's better if we do them together." Garnet says.

"Humans should just stop wearing clothes, be a lot funnier."

"No… no it would not." I sternly tell her.

"Hey! I'm a civil-i-fied part human, thank you very much." I smirk at Steven's way of pronouncing civilized while I fold another shirt. "Clothing is a must."

"Thank you Steven." I thank him for his support on clothes as I place down a folded set.

"Hm... this is a lot. I bet this folding would go faster if Ruby and Sapphire were here." Steven proposes. Pearl and Amethyst look tensely at Garnet while I look at her curiously.

"I'm sure they'd be glad to see you Steven. But I am not unfusing for laundry." She replies.

"Aw." Steven looks down sadly.

"You sure?" I ask. All eyes turn to me, making me feel a little nervous. "I get you don't want to unfuse, it's just… I know you said Ruby and I are cool but… I still want to apologize to her face about putting a blade to her throat."

"You did what?!" Pearl and Amethyst ask loudly in surprise. 'Oh right, we never told them that. Whoops.'

"Like I said Marcus, you're cool." She casually replies, ignoring the bewildered looks of our friends.

I stare at her for a few moments as she continues to fold clothes before I let out a sigh and fold as well. "If you say so."

The others look between the two of us a few times, expecting answers but since we don't acknowledge them, they shake their heads and go back to folding. Pearl perks her head up and looks at Garnet. "Garnet, you don't think Peridot would come looking for us, do you?" She asks her.

"We weren't her priority. She was sent here to do something in the Kindergarten."

"That's true. I still remember what she was talking about when we first saw her appear at the Galaxy Warp." I unconsciously rub my chest. "Really should have not left my gun laying around."

"Still, do you think she's still going to try to reactivate it?" Pearl asks.

"It's not like she has anything better to do, what with being stranded here and all." I point out.

"That's true. And if she gets it back up and running, the injectors will turn back on."

"Injectors? What're those?" Steven asks.

"You remember those machines you and the others helped me salvage some equipment from?" I ask him. He nods. "That's them."

"He's right." Pearl says then begins explaining. "You've already seen them. Well, you've seen them disabled. If Peridot reactivates them," She then projects a hologram from her gem about the Injectors. "They'll pick up right where they left off, planting Gems in the crust of the Earth, where they'll incubate and suck the life right out of the ground, we can't let Peridot restart Gem production here, if we do, the entire planet will become..."

"Janked." Garnet finishes Pearl's sentence.

"Garnet, that mouth!" Amethyst shouts in slight elation at Garnet's use of language before laughing. I smirk as well. 'C'mon, I use a lot more… extensive language than that.'

"Don't worry, well stop her." Garnet assures us before she gets up and heads over to the Warp. "C'mon, Crystal Gems."

"Coming!"

"As long as we don't have to fold anything." Amethyst

"He-yup!" I roll onto my upper-back, planting my hands on the floor above my head and fling myself onto my feet. Grabbing my jacket, then strapping my sword to my left hip, I walk with them to our mode of transportation. As I stand next to them, we notice Steven is still trying to fold laundry. I let out a sharp whistle, which gets his attention. I nod my head towards us on the pad.

"C'mon, that means you too, right?" He gets a massive grin on his face and takes off towards us. Once he steps onto the pad, Garnet tussles his hair.

"You're a civilified part-gem too after all." She tells him with a smile.

"He sure is." I nudge his shoulder playfully.

"Garnet, are you sure we should bring Steven? This might be dangerous." Pearl asks worriedly to the fusion.

I give Pearl a questioning look, complete with eyebrow raise, "And the rest of the things we do isn't?"

"Well, uhhhhh…"

"It's fine Pearl. Besides, Peridot's got nothing we can't handle." Garnet tells her and activates the Warp.


"Log date 6 5 2." I hold my hand out to Steve, to indicate for him to stop at the sound of the voice. After we made it to the Kindergarten, we all split up in hopes of finding something that indicates what it is that Peridot is looking for. Not long after, Steven and I came upon the hole that the Plug Robonoid made when Peridot first sent it to earth.

I pull out my new Beretta's that I heavily modified. Now they are Beretta 92FS Inox's with stainless steel finish, extended barrels so I can add silencers or other muzzle brakes to them, green glow in the dark iron sights, extended magazines, and hair triggers. With both of them out, I aim them towards the holes as I hear what for some reason sounds like helicopter blades. Not long after, Peridot rises out of the elevator hole with her hand transformed and performing like some sort of helicopter like instrument.

"This is Peridot, updating status." She says while landing on the ground as she fiddles with her touchscreen, completely oblivious to Steven and I. "Still stuck on this miserable planet... The fusion experiments are developing properly. The location has been heavily stripped of materials for reasons I have yet to determine why. Still, a few of the fusions have even emerged early. AEEE!" She lets out a loud shriek upon seeing the both of us. I remain aiming at her but after a few tense seconds of both parties doing absolutely nothing, besides staring awkwardly at one another, I lower my firearms. Seeing as how I'm not going to shoot her in an instant, she glances around. "Are... the other ones... with you...?" She whispers to us. I take a quick glance around to see if I can see any of the others. I don't see them while Steven for a second shakes his head no but then it turns to repeated nodding, then shrugging. "Of course! Why not…" She groans as she turns off her touchscreen and facepalms.

"Sorry to disappoint." I sarcastically say with a smirk, which makes her glare at me with a pout. I suddenly remember something. "Hey! Where's my gun?"

"Peridot!"

"There she is!"

"Damn." I grumble under my breath. I was hoping since it's just the three of us, she would at least give me an answer but since the others tend to punch/slice/whip homeworld targets first and ask questions later, chances are she'll be more inclined and there she goes.

As soon as the others got close enough, she gasps and flees from us. The others immediately moved past me and Steven and chased after her. With a shake of my head, Steven and I follow them. We don't get very far as Peridot seems to have cornered herself against a rock wall. "Nowhere to go!" Amethyst calls out about Peridot's predicament.

"You're cornered!" Pearl adds as well.

All that doesn't stop Peridot however as somehow she starts running up the rock wall with such ease, like she was running along the ground. "How…?" My question draws out.

"Hey! I can't do that!" Steven cries out.

"Neither can she!" Pearl yells and throws her spear directly at Peridot. Her shot would have wrung true if she didn't duck.

"Ha! Missed!" Peridot taunts us.

"I'll show you missed."I grumble and using my left arm to stabilize my aim, I look down my sights, ready to shoot her finally.

*Crrreeeeaaaak*

"Oh." I mumble as I bring my guns. As it turns out, Pearls spear did hit something because once it flew past Peridot, it impacted the leg of one of the injectors, making it fall.

"OOHH!"

And hit's the fleeing Gem on the way down. We immediately move back and far away from where the falling debris is supposed to hit. As expected, the large defunct injector crashes into the ground and I'm pretty sure Peridot too. "Do you think she's hurt?" Steven asks.

"She just got several tons of rusty metal and glass dropped on her. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's hurt." I point out. There is some rustling however and a piece of the injector falls away, revealing Peridot. "Whether she got poofed however…" I leave my sentence hanging in the air.

As she emerges, she growls at us and aims one of her hands at us. It transforms before it rapidly fires a bunch of energy bolts at us. "Look out!" I warn my friends of the attack. Garnet grabs Steven and everyone jumps away in different directions from where we were. I jump back and bring my arms up to protect me. I didn't however find where I stepped to exactly because as the energy shots graze my arms, one hits where my feet were standing, crumbling the ground me, right in front of the hole that Peridot came out of. "Wha-! Arh!" I shout as I lose my footing and begin falling.


"Marcus!" One of his friends shouts as he began tumbling down the slope. He rolls end over end down the incline but soon starts rolling horizontally down it too. Not wanting to get too far, he thrusts his arm outward and slams his fingers into the dirt. With a grunt, his body gets twisted straight as he's halted his progress with his fingers dug deep into the earth. He slides a few more feet until finally coming to a stop with both hands and feet in the ground. "Marcus!" He looks up and realizes that he rolled a lot farther than he thought. A couple faces look down the hole to him. "Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine!" He replies back. "Get at her!" He tells them to get Peridot. They nod and pull back away from the hole. With a sigh, he looks around and finds that he's in the hole the Plug Robonoid made that time he and his family came to the Kindergarten. "What was Peridot doing down here? I cannibalized this place of almost any useful scrap and gear I could find. Unless…" He trails off as he looks down the expanse. 'I know the terminal is still down here, so is the walls and maybe a couple wires but that shouldn't allow for anything to be used.' He thinks from his time being there. "Unless I missed something." He eerily says at the idea. With his decision set in mind, he straightens himself out and slides the rest of the way down the hole. It doesn't take him long to slide the rest of the way down and as soon as his feet hit the solid ground, he steps forward a few more steps and pull out one of his pistols. Before he can look around however, the light from the outside from the hole completely closes up. "Aw man." He groans and pulls out his flashlight to light everything around him. Using them together, he scans the area and see if there's anything that immediately comes off as different.

A lot of it does. Around a dozen pieces of cylinders of metal and dirt stick out from the ceiling and litter the area around where the console is. "Hm?" He question out loud at the odd looking objects. He shines his light on them and they don't come off or jump at him that there a threat but he's been wrong on that regard before. More light illuminates everything around him all of a sudden followed by some voices. "Is the strong part of you Ruby and the wise part of you Sapphire?" Steven asks Garnet.

Looking at the source, Marcus sees that the entrance was uncovered and two bodies are sliding and talking towards him. Well, more specifically one is sliding and carrying a much smaller body with her. "It's all of both. When two gems combine, it creates something greater than the sum of their parts. That's why I'm so great." She answers the kid back.

Garnet steps onto the green floor that Marcus is on and places Steven down. "What's it like to stayed fused all the— Whoa." Steven says in awe at the atmosphere of the place.

"I know right?" Marcus agree with him.

"Yeah, I don't know how but... this place is even creepier than the last time we were here." He comments.

"Yes. There's something going on." Garnet says as the two of them look all over the place. They simultaneously look at their friend. "What's going on?" She asks.

He shrugs his shoulders in response, "Not a hundred percent myself." He says and shines his light at where the power was. "No power means she didn't access the console but I don't think that was what she wanted." Next he shines the light on the cylinders. "These are the only new additions to this place since we salvaged what we could from here. I've never seen them before." He informs them of his best hypothesis of this place.

"Your right. This is something strange." Garnet replies as she takes a closer look at one of the ceiling cylinders.

Suddenly a small rumbling noise gets all of their attention. Marcus trains his flashlight and pistol on one of the more intact dirt pillars on the ground and walks closer to it. Garnet walks close to examine the thing while Marcus examines it from behind. "Uhh, guys?" Steven says in worry at the rumbling noise and moves behind Garnet. The pillar shakes, a few bits of dirt falling off it from the illumination of Marcus's light. "Is there… something in there?" He asks.

"It… kind of looks like- Ah!" Marcus's question turns to a shriek as something lands on him, gripping him tightly. "Gah! Grrr! Get off!" He shouts while flailing around, his flashlight shining all over the place as more of what landed on him lands around everyone else as well. He drops his pistol and manages to grab a firm hold of what it is that's got him and he yanks it off. Holding it in front of him, he shines the light on it, revealing some sort of mismatched hand thing with different colors. "What the…?"

"What are they?" Steven asks from nearby. Before Marcus can inquire, it's fingers curl and tries to lunge at his face, making him grunt and Steven to shriek. He throws the thing onto the ground as hard as he can. It hits the ground with a soft 'smack' and lies still for a second before it tries to crawl to Steven. "Aah-Aaaaah!" He shouts and crawls away from it.

*Poof*

With a loud stomp, a black boot crushes the thing in an instant, making it poof into a small cloud of dust. Marcus stands there after curb stomping the thing and clears away the smoke, revealing what was left behind. He reaches down and grabs the item. "What is it?" Garnet asks walking up to them. Marcus holds up the item he picked up, showing its actually some gem shards.

"Their… Gem shards. I would know…" He grimly says in memory of his past. After shattering over two dozen gems, he kind of knows what Gem shards look like. "But what are they doing here?" He asks in confusion. Garnet however starts to get a look of disgust about her as she sees just what's wrong with these two particular pieces of gems.

"It looks like... two gems shards, stuck together." Steven points out.

"Guuah!" Before Marcus can properly examine it, Garnet cries out in horror and disgust before she swats the piece out of his hands, as well as his flashlight, where it rolls and shines on the dirt pillar they were looking at earlier. Marcus is about to question why but at the distressing look she has about her, his question goes unasked.

"Is that what all these things are? Gems... stuck together?" Steven asks. Unbeknownst to him, he doesn't see the horror that is plaguing Garnet at the information.

"Garnet?" Marcus asks her but she doesn't respond, staring at one of the creatures crawling to her in front of the dirt pillar. "Gra!" Marcus shouts and stomps on it, reverting it back into its gem form to reveal indeed two gem shards fused together. "Garnet!" He yells her name while looking at her. "C'mon snap out of it. I need you—"

"Wait, what was that?" Steven says, interrupting Marcus from his actions. True to what he says, they hear a slight rumbling sound and dirt cracking.

Very slowly, Marcus turns around and stares at the dirt pillar they were examining earlier start to break apart. A large chunk of the ground breaks away, revealing a large Gem fused together from over half a dozen other Gem shards. "Wha- Ah!" Marcus begins to say but shouts in surprise as his foot steps on his flashlight, cracking the frame. The light begins flickering like a strobe light on the dirt pillar as the Gem begins to form its body. The multiple piercing cries of anguish the glowing gem form gives is accentuated by the flickering broken flashlight and the multiple gems fused together trying to each make their own body but fails. As they fail, they form together into a massive much more horrific looking gem monster. It's long, large and has many many arms about it. The creature begins walking forward towards us menacingly. He glances back to see that Garnet is completely frozen. "Son of a…" He mutters and brings one of his pistols up to bear with both hands.

*Bang*Bang*Bang*

Firing three shots in quick succession, the creature shrieks in pain and recoils before it charges forward. Marcus runs forward, firing the rest of his ammo as well but it isn't deterred in the least as she crash into each other. Marcus tries to tackle the thing away from his friends but the creatures mass stops him from pushing back. The arms on the creature fold in and grab Marcus along his back and arms before hoisting him up. "Marcus!"Steven cries out his brothers name as he is lifted into the air with ease. As the hybrid struggles a bit, he is suddenly thrown to the far side of the room.

"Pah!" Marcus lets out a strangled gasp as his body thrown roughly against the wall. He lands on the ground in a limp mess and falls unconscious.

"Marcus? Marcus! Ah!" Steven shouts in surprise as one of the other smaller clustered gems jumps and tries to grab him. "Garnet. What do we do?" Steven asks the fusion and summons his shield to push back the other monsters attacking. "Please talk to me! Ah!"

The giant clustered gem monster, after tossing the person that tried to attack it, menaces forward toward the last two. Steven is still focused on the smaller monsters while Garnet is frozen still in fear and horror. "Ugh!" She cries out as the monster grabs her, one of its arms smacking her glasses off her face, fully revealing her face to everyone and the tears pooling under all three of them. "These were Crystal Gems, shattered into pieces. They were buried together." She says in disbelief.

"Why aren't you moving?" Steven asks her from behind with worry, still trying to push back more of the small monsters.

"They were forced together... They were forced to fuse! This is wrong!" She grunts as she seems to be having some sort of inner turmoil. "Uh, uh, I'm sorry." She apologizes. To the two's surprise, Garnet begins to glow and her body begins to break apart.

"NO! No, Garnet, you're coming undone! Garnet! Garnet!" Steven cries out, afraid of what's going on. He grunts as he pushes another fusion hand away with his shield. "Marcus help! Garneeet! Please, what's the matter?!" He cries out scared for his caretaker. As she begins to further unfuse, his eyes widen. "Marcus, help us!" He cries out one last time in hopes of getting his brothers attention.

*SHINK*

A blade is thrust and ends just before stabbing Garnet's third eye. The fusions form stops separating and blinks back its tears, now confused at the blade. Her vision travels the length of the blade and shows it jutting out of the Gem of the clustered gem monster. The monster lets out a final strangled cry before it breaks apart in a loud and heavy cloud of dust. With Garnet no longer held or being forced apart, her body pulls back together and stops glowing. The smaller monsters attacking Steven are forced back from the explosion and he turns around at what happened. The dust starts to settle and reveals to the exactly what happened.

Marcus stands with his arms stretched forward rigidly, his new sword kept tight in his two-handed grip with the clustered gem stuck on his blade. Garnet's eyes widen at seeing the damage he caused while the hybrid himself has his face remain impassive. She slowly reaches forward to touch the mismatched gem.

*Clink*

The pieces of the gem all separate, breaking off from each other and fall to the ground in a small cascade of crystals. Garnet takes a step back and looks down at the pieces with a look of horror on her face. "You… you… you…" She stammers.

Marcus lets out a deep breath of air he was holding and lets his sword fall to his side. "I'm… I'm sorry Garnet. I know you don't like it when I do stuff like this," He says as he looks and motions to the pieces on the ground. "But I saw you frozen and unfusing and I never saw you do that before so I didn't have much choice to—!"

*SLAM*

"GUH!" Marcus's sentence is cut off as an unmovable force slams him against the wall. The force lifts him off his feet and slams him against one of the walls, making him drop his sword as well. Something immediately closes around his throat and cuts off his airway, making him choke. Through his slightly but rapidly blurry vision he manages to make out what it is that's got him in a vulnerable position. Apparently, Garnet didn't like him intervening like he did.

"Garnet! What are you—?!" Steven begins to shout in surprise and worry at the fusions brash action towards his brother but his worry goes largely unheeded.

"You shouldn't have done that." Garnet tells Marcus in a low and threatening voice. The hybrid can't respond properly, letting our strangled gasps, as the big bulky weaponized gauntlet keeps a firm grip on his throat as he grabs it to force it off him. He doesn't have the leverage to force it off him. "These were Crystal Gems from the war and they're scared. They were just scared and you just shattered them like you always do!" She yells in his face in anger, tightening her grip.

"Gah! Cruh!" He tries to speak but he's still unable to.

"You didn't have to shatter them like that! They were scared Marcus! AFRAID! YOU SHOULDN'T—!"

"GARNET!" The fusions furious face softens at the voice. Her grip is near crushing at this point and Marcus's eyes are starting to droop from lack of oxygen but his grip is near crushing as well on her arm. She feels something on her leg and looks down to see Steven grabbing her leg, desperately trying to pull her away. He looks at her with tear filled eyes, which makes her grip lighten up. "Please… stop… let him go. He didn't mean to." He tells her, almost completely falling breaking down and crying. Her eyes widen and her mouth parts open in surprise at how he is and looks at the person in her grip. Without being choked Marcus stares at her with an impassive look with his hands still gripped firmly on her arms. After a few more seconds, she lets him go. He falls to the ground in a heap and grabs his throat as he breathes in as deeply as he can. Steven runs over to him as he breathes in and out in deep strides. Steven hugs Marcus as he manages to regain his breathing. "Marcus! Are you okay?" Steven asks him worriedly.

Marcus in return breathes in deeply a few more times before finally coming to his senses. "Uhhhh… yeah, yeah I'm alright." He manages to tell him as he rubs his neck. Steven hugs him again and Marcus pats his back.

"So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion!" The two of them look up to Garnet as she talks. She is staring down at the pieces of the Gem that Marcus shattered and has her back to the others.

"We couldn't have known they would do this..." The Sapphire part of Garnet tries to reason.

"This is where they've been. All the ones we couldn't find. They've been here the whole time!" Ruby says in slight anger.

"Rose Couldn't have known."

"This is punishment for the rebellion!"

"It's not our fault!:

"Garnet." She stops talking to herself at the voice. She turns around to see Marcus standing with Steven right next to him, his sword in hand. He doesn't look angry at her, just concerned.

With the gems in hand and bubbled, she sends them back to the temple and turns to her family. "St-Steven… Marcus…"

"Yo." Before they can talk anymore, Amethyst and Pearl come into the control room.

"We lost Peridot." Pearl informs them. "Her fingers were too fast for us." A two handed fused monster climb up on Amethyst, much to Pearl's confusion as she grabs them. "Um... What are these things?"

"Put them down!" Garnet's loud voice makes Pearl and Amethyst flinch.

"Wha…" Pearl reluctantly does what she's told and tosses it away.

"We need to poof and bubble all of them. We can't let any escape." She tells them all to do. She punctuates that by bringing her arm down and poofing the hands Pearl was holding. Once the gem is revealed, she bubbles it and sends it away.

Pearl, wanting a slightly more detailed explanation, walks over to the hybrid brothers and opens her mouth to talk but closes it abruptly. Her eyes look on Marcus's neck. "Oh my! Marcus what happened to your neck?!" She says out loud in worry.

He brings his hand up and places it on the side of his neck. He flinches a little at the raw feeling his bruised skin has as he steps away from her. In one stride he quickly glances to Steven's scared face, to Garnet's slightly surprised look, before looking away. He rubs his neck for a bit before bringing his arm down and glancing from the side to Pearl. "I… I got snuck up on. One of those hands grabbed me… and tried to choke me out." He lies to them. Steven has slightly relieved look on his face and Garnet's confused. "Garnet… helped me out before it could get worse." He finishes saying and slices a fusion monster crawling on the wall.


The wind bristles against me as I stand with my sword drawn. The slowly descending sun is on the water as I stand in the Ko Gasumi No Kamae stance with my sword ready.

Sweat slowly rolls down the side of my head as I just stand there, my hair lifting just slightly from the wind.

I can hear my heart thumping in my chest as I wait for the right moment.

*Thump-thump*

*Thump-thump*

*Thump-thump*

"Heya!"

*Shink!*

After the third heart beat, I struck. My sword slices through the air in the blink of an eye, cutting through the air with ease as well as the bamboo mat dummy I purchased. The item in question, slices in two at an angle. Once the mat hits the ground, I twist around and slice another in half. Using only one hand, I do a 360 degree turn and slice two more mats on opposite sides of me with my outstretched arm. I bring the sword down to the ground in one hand, pointed towards the ground. My breathing comes in deep strides and gasps.

*Snap*

My eyes widen and turn around, bringing my arm in an overhand angled strike. "Haaaa!" I yell as I strike down.

My attack doesn't connect, the blade stopping just an inch from Garnet's neck. "Marcus." She says my name calmly, not at all affected by the razor sharp blade nearly against her neck.

With a huff, I bring my sword back and away from her. I twirl it a couple times in one hand before sliding it home in my sheathe on my hip. Once the blade clicks home, I stand straight. "Garnet." I say her name in return. Walking over to the table I have set up, I place my sword down on it.

"I'm sorry." I freeze at her apology. For a second I don't do anything until I let it go and look at the wall of my house. I turn back to the Gem and nod.

"I know you are."

"I shouldn't have attacked you like that."

"Yeah you shouldn't have."

"I hope you understand why I… I did what I did." She tells me hesitantly. I offer her a comforting smile.

"From the… inner discussion you, or more specifically, the both of you, were having… yeah I have a fairly good idea why you were so angry." I explain to her.

"That's good." She tells me with a hint of relief in her voice.

"And I hope you understand why 'I' did what I did." I say to her. She flinches at the memory of me stabbing that Gem that was causing her so much torment and nearly unfused her. "Seeing you almost unfuse like that was kind of unsettling to say the least. It was after you almost choked me to death," She looks down at that mention, "That I understood why you were so distraught but at the time… all I cared about was getting rid of the thing that was causing you so much grief so quickly." I explain to her my reasons for my actions.

She looks down for a second before looking up and stares towards the sun. I walk up next to her and we both look out towards the sun together, neither of us saying anything as we stare. "I guess I can't fault you for actions. In the moment, to see you having shattered that Gem like that… it seemed too much to believe." She says sadly.

"To be fair, they were already shattered and it looks like my attack just separated them again. I hope at least I didn't cause any more cracks than were already there."

"Hm, yeah I guess so." She says with a smirk. With that, we turn to each other. "So, no hard feelings?" She asks me as she holds out her hand.

With a smile, I take her hand in my own and we shake. "Yeah, no hard feelings." I agree with her.

She smiles as our hands before we let go. "Hey Steven! We're good!"

"Great!"

I turn around to one of the hands on the statue and right over where we have the washing machine set up, I see Steven with a bundle of clothes next to him. Looking at him with a confused look on my face as he keeps the wide grin on him, I look back at Garnet who smirks. "After we talked, he said I should come over here to apologize to you. Seeing you train with your sword kind of gave him that idea."

"Ohhhhh." I say in understanding. Looking towards Steven, I give him a wave and a thumbs up, who returns it. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah it was." She agrees with me and walks over to the table. "I see you made a new sword."

"Oh yeah. It may not have the ease of accessibility like the summoned ones," I say as I pick it up and unsheathe the blade. The sound of the metal grinding and sliding as the blade is revealed to the open air is a sound and feeling I absolutely love. "But there is something about having made this by hand with my own skills, makes it that much more satisfying." I calmly explain to her with a satisfying smile on my face as I slowly twist the blade around.

"Nice." She comments. Her hand reaches out and she glides her fingers on the edge of my blade. "Ow." Not even a centimeter down the blade, she says. She brings the cut finger back and places it in her mouth.

I give her a sheepish grin, "Sorry. As it stands," I slide my sword into its sheathe. "I do good work."

Seeing as how big of an impact the whole clustered fusion Gems things is to Garnet, I think I did alright on how… strong she feels on Marcus's choice of action. After my less than, stellar work on the last chapter, I wanted to go ahead and give this to you all. I'm no longer going to be restricted to having Marcus get hurt just so I can advance the story along and skip some episodes. I'll go ahead and skip them with a brief, sometimes flashback, description of the previous episodes on how everything went.

If there are some episodes that you guys feel would be great material for me to use, or you think it necessary for me to work with, say so and I'll see how it plays out. For now though, still expect these long periods of time between chapters okay. Both school and my games are eating at me. I'm having a lot of fun playing with my friends on Halo Wars 2, and I find I like the Viking Valkyrie in For Honor as well. Officially both her and the Samurai's Orochi are my favorite classes to use.

I also want to tell you all that I sort of got sick for about a week so that kind of screwed me up as well on getting stuff done for you all. Already I've got a couple more games preordered and excited to grab when they get out: Mass Effect Andromeda, and Lord of the Rings: Shadow of War. Saw the gameplay and whatever I can find for those two and I am pretty excited for them.

I'm doing alright in my classes currently so I'm not killing myself over studying and worrying about what I'm going to get as a grade and such.

Also I saw the new Kong movie. It was alright. The actions scenes were pretty good to me. As you guys may have noticed from my work, the sword scenes were my particular favorite.

Sorry for the intense delay everyone and for the missing chapter title on the previous chapter. Its fixed now. I'll do what I can to not let this next chapter be as far off as this one. Thank you all, have a great day and have fun reading.