"DAMNIT!" I yell as a bullet nearly takes my head from behind. I turn the wheel of my car and skid around a corner but that doesn't stop my pursuers. "Son of bitch! Can't believe this is happening!" I shout out loud as I recall what the hell happened a few minutes ago.


A few minutes ago…

*…Bang*

"GET DOWN!" I yell as loud as I can after I fired. The man that missed me goes down when I put the third round into his body but other guys start pulling out weapons too. People begin screaming and running all over the place as bullets fly through the air and while my opponents aren't worried about collateral damage to civilians, I am. I have to time my shots carefully for the fleeing hotel staff and civilians but I still manage to put down gunman after gunman. Lapis and I move to the far side of the ball room where Pearl has already overturned several tables as makeshift cover. "Pearl!" I shout her name as Lapis rounds the cover. She takes a quick look to me as I pull out my second Beretta and toss it to her. She catches it easily enough and returns fire as I dive over the cover and roll behind it just as a flurry of bullets narrowly avoid me.

"Dad! What's happening?!"

"Stay down son!" Greg tells his son as he covers him with the entirety of his body behind our cover. As soon as I lay myself against our cover does Greg notice me. "Marcus! What's going on?! Who are these people?!" Greg frantically and scared beyond belief asks me, barely lifting his head to ask me and instead favoring to cover his son as much as possible.

"I don't know!" I reply before quickly peaking over and just as fast bringing my head back down when some bullets nearly hit me. It was quick but it was enough for me to see that all the civilians are gone and its just us and the gunmen on opposite sides of the room. "I can hazard a guess but I'm not sure!" I reply to him before I aim and blind-fire over my cover. I counted over a dozen guys with small arms firing on us so I can barely aim out of cover to accurately place shots on them.

"The Iron Kings?!" Pearl throws out the suggestion before quickly leaning over and putting only one shot downrange but that's about it before going down. The cry of pain is evident that she hit one of them.

"Best guess!" A quick lull in the fire allows me to pop out and send several rounds downrange. Hitting a few but not killing.

"I thought you took care of them?!" Greg shockingly and loudly asks. After all it was before that I had told him and everyone else that they wouldn't be bothering us anymore. If this is them, then I wasn't as effective as I thought.

"I thought so too! God damnit why here now?!" I yell loudly and angrily to no one in particular. Just beyond pissed right now.

"Magazine!" Pearl calls out.

"Here!" I quickly toss her a spare, allowing her to expertly reload it while I blind-fire some more before having to reload myself. As I do, I hear some cars screeching outside and glancing to the enemy's side windows, I see more guys moving and joining them. "Damn!" I yell out as more bullets fly at us. While I'm still in cover, I take a quick look at the others. Steven and Greg are holding each other tightly, eyes closed with Greg covering his son as much as possible, Pearl is trying to get a bead on more of them but can't seem to, a look of concentration and frustration etched into her face, while Lapis looks around frantically, unsure of what to do and completely confused about the whole thing. 'This is not good.' The unease in my thoughts of our current situation is even more evident as I do a quick check of my ammo count, including the ones in out guns. 'Not enough. Not enough.' "We can't stay here!" I tell the others.

"Obviously!" Greg crossly states from his huddled position.

"But what's the plan?!" Lapis asks over all the noise.

Several thoughts go through my head as I try to come up with some kind of plan to get us out of here safely. I look around for anything that could possibly be used as a shield for or to be used to safely transport us back to our rides. "Wait, shield?" The thought sticks and I look down at my brother. "Steven!"

"Yes?" Steven replies in a slightly muffled tone from under his dad.

"I need your shield man!"

"Nya. Okay!" He pokes his head and arms out from his dads embrace and holds his arm out to me. It takes a second for him to concentrate, what with the bullets flying and all, but eventually his shield appears between us.

"Thanks!" I thank him and quickly grab it before holding it in my left arm. The benefit to this is the fact that his shield is semi-transparent so as I carefully poke myself up and out of cover with his shield in front, I'm able to see just what our opposition is. I see over a dozen guys on the other side shooting at us with more behind the glass and getting ready enter once they've broken it down. I have absolutely not enough ammo on me in order to take them from a distance and the sheer volley of their bullets and how many of them there are shows none of us can move in close to engage them. Especially not with Steven and Greg here. They're top priority. "Alright here's the plan!" I crouch back down and the others listen in. "Steven! When I give the word, create a bubble around yourself and your dad! Pearl, Lapis! When they do, put the bubble between you two and the gunfire! We're going to roll the bubble to the entrance and get to vehicles and get the hell out of here! Got it?!" I quickly do what I can to relay the plan to them of what needs to be done. I've seen how powerful Steven's bubble can hold out under duress and I'm pretty sure some bullets will not be enough to pierce it. All of them nod at the plan and while Pearl and I quickly put down a burst of fire against them, the others get in position. When we've hit them enough, I turn back to them. "Alright! Steven do it!"

"Go it!" He replies and soon after, the large pink bubble appears right over himself and Greg. Much to my relief, the bullets that hit it easily bounce off without any marks appearing on the construct at all. "Perfect! Get behind them!" I order Lapis and Pearl to do and they do it without question. Now that they have mobile cover between them and the oncoming fire, I ready myself with my shield. "On my mark, run and roll!" I hold up my fingers for the countdown. "Three… two…" My fists tighten on my gear and everyone gets ready to bolt. "ONE!"

Pulling my shield up, I take the brunt of the shots first before Steven and Greg roll the bubble straight towards the main exit with Pearl and Lapis behind them as cover. The occupants inside flinch as the bullets impact the bubble but focus on rolling when they see nothing is getting in. I follow behind them as Pearl and I expend as much ammo as we can against our assailants as we move. Their rounds ping off the shields and I move fast enough where they can't accurately place shots on the rest of my exposed body. Soon enough, we manage to make it to the main double doors where Pearl grabs one door and slams it closed. As soon as I pass through the other open one, we fire a few more rounds into the room before closing it and jamming the shield where the handles are, locking the doors together. "That won't hold them long." I quickly inform them before Steven drops the bubble and we run to our vehicles. "Everyone get in the van and get back home ASAP! Don't stop for anything." I quickly tell them as I begin getting into my car.

"Wait, Marcus! What about you?" Steven asks worried at what I am implying.

"They want me Steven! I just know it. I'll lead them away and catch up with you later!" I tell him my plan. Their would be no other reason for these people to attack than to get to me since the Crystal Gems aren't exactly widely known.

"But—"

"Go! Now!" I shout back and turn my car on, making the engine rev up loudly.

Steven continues to look worriedly at me until Pearl runs out and grabs him. "Steven, let's go!" He protests a little but he and Pearl get in the back while Greg starts up his van.

Seeing them ready to go, I sigh mentally prepare myself for what's going to happen. 'Okay. This is going to get hairy. But as long as I keep cool then I should be able to—' My thoughts are broken as the passenger side door opens up, much to my confusion. I'm even more confused as Lapis steps in and sits next to me. "Wha- Lapis?! What are you doing here?! I told you to go with them!" I lightly yell to her, more than a little ticked off at her disregard of my orders.

"I'm going with you. You can't take them on alone. Not when your underpowered now. I want to help." She sincerely tells me and firm in her want to help.

While I can appreciate her willingness to help me, this makes things more complicated as I now have to worry about her too. "Wha- No! I can do this and survive better on my own! You need to get back into Gregs van and—" Before I can finish, I glance into the rear-view mirror to spot the guys coming around the corner and spotting us. At the same time, Gregs van peels off. "Damnit!" I curse before hitting the gas, making my tires screech and we fly forward onto the main road.


So now here I am, speeding off to escape my enemies with Lapis in tow and clearly involved. Not really something I wanted to happen but nothing I can do about it now.

"Alright fine. You're here. You do exactly what I say understand me?!" I ask of her in as serious a tone as I can muster. This was not the plan at all but its too late for me to change it. I especially didn't want her to be involved with this because this would be her first time engaging human enemies and this is something that I was hoping to avoid.

"I understand." She nods, fully willing to follow my lead. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just… keep an eye out while I think." I say as I continue to drive us around. I'm putting as much distance between us and the hotel as I can while also trying not to arouse suspicion. Already I can hear a bunch of police sirens head towards the hotel. "Keep cool. Try not to let them notice us." I quickly tell her as the police come speeding by us. We both lean down in our seats until they pass and relax when they do.

Lapis looks back as we continue to coast through the streets. "I think we're in the clear." She states with a smile, allowing me some relief.

"Okay. Still keep an eye out." I remind her as I think. 'Okay. If anything, hopefully the cops will find them and take them but there were a lot of them from what I remember. We need to be careful in case—'

"Look out!" She suddenly yells out. Followed by her warning is a flurry of bullets that impact my side of the car. Normally a regular bullet like a 9mm would be able to pass through the frames of most cars but thankfully, I've heavily modified my car after all the abuse its taken so besides a couple cracks in the window, we're still alright. That still doesn't detract from the both of us flinching and ducking in our seats as I slam the pedal all the way down. A black car comes speeding out from a side street with someone leaning out the window and firing on us. Several more cars come speeding out from other side streets and promptly join in chasing us.

"I knew we weren't out of it yet." I angrily state before I begin focusing on my driving and making sure we don't crash. A quick check in the mirror shows we are dealing with well over a dozen cars and trucks following us and filled to the brim with guys trying to shoot us dead. While I pass by cars with relative ease, they sometimes impact and crash into them but they are tougher than most so those civilian cars are tossed into the side walk. It's still night out so while there are some people still walking, its not near as much as in the day. "They just never god damn quit." I growl out before with a grunt I turn us around a corner and head down another road.

"Who are they? Why are they attacking us?" Lapis asks as she looks back at our pursuers.

"I have enemies on both species Lapis. Gems, AND humans!" I answer with another street turn. "And I was hoping I was done with them but apparently not." I growl out as one of the more faster cars of their attack squad pulls up to my side and guys from both the passenger side front seat and backseat aim SMG's right at me. "Fuck!" I yell and reach above me. Just as I do, they open fire and the bullet proof glass I have equipped on my car immediately starts to splinter and crack from two rapid firing SMG's on its surface especially in close proximity. Thankfully I have a backup plan for protection all around to protect the people inside and that's a considerably tough piece of metal that I slide down before the window breaks. As soon as it goes down, I can hear my window break and the bullets impacting the metal. It holds true and besides the loud ricochets against the metal, nothing breaks through. "Damn that was close." I groan and pull out my pistol. I quickly reload it now that I have some spare magazines in my car before I go back to driving when I place my pistol to my side. Before I try to return fire, to the side I spot another car coming up on Lapis's side with the driver and backseat passenger pulling out handguns. "Lapis!"

She looks to the side and her eyes widen when she sees them aiming at us. Quickly following my example, she grabs her side of the shutter and brings it down for protection. "Marcus this is getting bad. They're has to be something I can do." She offers her and help and to be honest it's something I need to do. Right now we're simply running from them and I don't know how effective I'll be in shooting and driving with one hand each, and certainly not backwards.

With a loud groan, I give in. "Alright alright. In the glove compartment, theirs a gun in there. Take it and shoot the guys on your side." I instruct her with a wave to the compartment in front of her. She points at it for emphasis and I nod. She opens it up and pulls out a Skorpion SMG before she quickly looks it over. "That is a Skorpion vz. 61. It has full-auto capability and you should have plenty of ammo in there to completely riddle these cars with bullets. Becareful when firing it. Submachine guns like that tend to go all over the place when firing on full—" Before I can finish speaking, she pushes up her metal cover to reveal the enemy car and the guys reloading. They look up as they see her and she's the last thing they see before she aims her weapon one-handed and sprays the entire inside of the car, even swinging left and right a little to get at the front and backseats. Her shots don't even go off target as she keeps the weapon leveled and completely perforates them with an entire magazine. The driver slumps forward dead before his car drifts to the side and crashes into a parked car. "…Auto." Finally I manage to finish what I was saying.

"Like that?" She asks me, smile on her face and a smoking gun her hand.

"…Y-yeah. Just like that." I stammer out in saying just a little. 'Holy crap I have never been so turned on in my life than right now.' My throat suddenly feels dry. Before I can continue to… linger on my feelings, more shots go off against my cover, reminding me of our other threats. "Crap." I groan and not wanting to keep going down a straight line, I turn into anther right street. Because of how many there are after us, some of them end up crashing into each other as they take the tight turn but most continue to pursue us. Some of them even going down other side streets. I pull up my cover and look in the rearview to see them gaining and the car from before coming up to shoot. "Not this time." As soon as they get close, I ram their car in the side before they can fire. The guy in the passenger seat drops his Uzi right into my lap from the ram so I pick it up and fire at them without even looking. Already I can hear some of them cry out from being shot but I quickly shift my aim to their tire. Once the last bullet runs out, I drop the weapon out the window and gun it before the driver loses control.

The car swerves to the left and the left corner of their car completely crumples as it impacts into a light pole. The backend goes high into the air before it tips upside down and crashes into the middle of the road. One car crashes into it and is knocked out but a big burly truck completely tears through and pushes them out of the way, allowing the rest to pass after us. "That's not good." Lapis comments and I can't help but agree.

"No kidding. Lean out a little and shoot them as much as you can. Try to keep them from getting close. Either aim for the driver or the tires." I quickly instruct her to do.

"Got it." She finishes reloading her weapon and starts firing back at them. She twists herself around a little so only her head and left arm are out and firing at the enemy. The truck isn't fast enough to catch up to us but its armored up a lot more so her shots don't do much against it. The cars though aren't and she manages to either take them out of commission or forces them back behind the armored trucks as cover. "They're pulling back." She tells me as she comes back into reload.

"That's good. We need to get them off of us before we can even think to return—" A flurry of bullets impact the back of my car, making us flinch a little. It seems now they're starting to wise up so instead of taking us out directly, their opting to tear my car apart with continued fire. Good thing I armored it then or things would be a lot worse. "Damn. This is getting worse and worse."

"What do we do?" She asks me and tries to lean out to fire but their shots also go along the sides of my car, so she's effectively pinned from shooting back and shooting through the bullet proof glass I have in the back is not an option.

I look around for anything that we can use to our advantage until I spot an on-ramp. I smile and get ready. "Hang on!"

"What? Whoa!" Lapis yelps out as I twist the car suddenly to the side and drift into the on-ramp of the cites highway system. My car catches a little air as I make it onto the main roadway and we grunt as I land a little roughly. Albeit it would have been a lot worse if I didn't install shocks as an added measure. "They're still following us." She calls out and true to what she says, they follow us up.

"Expected." I knew they were going to follow us up.

"And more company." Other ramps up here, including those on the oncoming traffic side, have several more vehicles bring up more of our enemies to us.

"Unexpected." I groan at the sudden influx of them chasing us. Like I said before, its night so not many cars on the roads to get in our way. There are still some but pretty much everyone manages to avoid them well enough. Some of them even do manage to get out of the way when they see either the oncoming cars or the massive wave of cars speeding up from behind them.

"Do you want me to keep shooting them?"

"Not yet. Wait for them to get close and open fire. I'll try to take them out myself." I propose.

"And how are you going to do that?"

My answer comes in the form of one of the cars on the oncoming side getting ready to hit me as a break in the center barriers comes up. Staring as the car gets into position to turn, ready to ram me, another car comes up to our right and its occupants prepare themselves to fire. 'Perfect.' With both of these, I can't help but smile. Before Lapis can fire at the car, she has to brace herself against the dashboard just as I suddenly slam the brakes on my car. At the same time, the barrier breaks and the car swerves right into our side… right into its ally. I think I hear some yell go out but I simply watch as I gun it again as both cars crumple together with the right-most car slamming into the barrier edge of the highway, crushing it and sending it flying into the air and over the side. "Like that." I simply answer and continue driving.

"Huh, okay then." She accepts the response and we get back to surviving by our own means.

Because of the expansive highway system there is plenty of room to maneuver around but the same is said for the enemy. They keep trying to push get close enough to do some damage but are forced back by Lapis's fire. Any that try to go on the left side and hit me are taken out by me ramming them before they can prepare, or me simply shooting their tires and forcing them to crash. A couple even decide to try to ram the back of my car to push me off but they are destroyed as I suddenly turn to the side, giving them no chance to avoid the car that was coming up or the barrier. Eventually, things continue to not look up so I take the off-ramp and get back onto ground level. "Jeez, how many of them are there?!" I angrily state as they seem to be never-ending and just don't know when to quit. A round of bullets impact the back of my car, further cracking the glass in the back.

"Arh!"

"Lapis! Are you okay?" I ask her in concern as she suddenly yelps out in pain. She pulls herself back in, gripping her hand.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine. One of them almost hit me and I dropped my weapon. I'm sorry." She apologizes but I wave her off.

"Its fine. As long as your okay. Now we just need to focus on losing them."

"But how?" She asks.

'How indeed.' I look around for anything that might be able to completely block them from pursing me. What makes matters worse and complicated is I think I can hear more sirens coming towards our direction and I think there are some helicopters already in the air. Even so, it's when we pass into a more slightly open area that I spot something that may work. A section of the city has been placed under construction so we see a lot of dirt ground mixed with the outlining girder structures, cranes and construction equipment. "There!" I turn anther sharp corner, drifting into construction and as usual our enemies follow me in. "Hold on tight and tell me where they are." I instruct Lapis to do and she nods. The road is a little bumpy but nothing that I can handle. I have to honk my horn a few times to make sure any workers in the area get out of the way in time and they manage to. Seeing all the hazardous stuff around, already I can tell there are going to be plenty of opportunities to take out more of our enemies.

"On your left." Lapis calls out and a car comes up next to us. After pulling my cover down, I slam my car into the other and we begin to tear into each other as both of us try to overtake the other. Of course my car is still more powerful than theirs so its no contest when at the right time I slam into them hard, forcing them to swerve off and go up a small dirt mound at a wrong angle. They twist into the air until they slam into the ground upside down.

"That ones down." I comment before I pull up my cover.

"Truck!" She loudly calls out in a slight panic. Now to our right, a truck comes barreling in and slams into us in the side. We let out loud grunts from the crash as the blow dents my cars frame but otherwise Lapis is alright. Even so as we continue to move drive forward, the sheer size of the truck manages to overtake my car in brute strength so I have no chance in pushing back against it.

'Okay! Need a new plan.' A quick look around this place and I spot what I need to take this thing down. I have to time it right because its coming in fast. 'Almost… almost…' The truck continues to push us and start to damage my car but before it can completely cripple my car, my opportunity is here. "Now!" I shout and turn as hard as I can to the left. Just as I do, the giant swinging wrecking ball of metal comes right where I would have been before, my car passing just behind it, and crashes head on into the trucks side. No matter what type of material or armor you would have, there is nothing that could stop you from the swinging ball of metal. That much is evident as it completely crushes the driver side of the truck, bits of metal and glass flying all over the place, and sending the husk of it flying into the air where it lands and crashes against a vertical steel girder, crumpling the truck in half and most likely killing its occupants. "And finally, he's gone." I breathe in relief.

"But we still got more of them behind us." Lapis states the obvious again. "What do we do about them?"

"Hmmm." I hum in thought on what to do and thankfully I spot a big pile of large metal pipes being held together by some thick metal cables coming from up ahead. "That could work." I grab my gun and get ready. "Grab the wheel and hold it steady." I quickly order Lapis to do before I lean out my window slightly and get ready to shoot. She does what she's told and grabs the steering wheel and holds it steady for us to go forward while I focus on shooting. The cars movement and bumpy road makes my aim go all over the place but at the right time, I open fire and shoot as many bullets as I can right at where the cables are. Many of my bullets miss but the closer we get, I get more accurate until my shots cut a few of the cables, making them snap in two with a loud 'ping' sound. We pass by just as the rest of the cables snap from the weights stress on them and start tumbling out into the path. It works out perfectly as one car is crushed and buried under them and the rest are completely blocked off from a direct path to us, some crashing while others are forced to stop altogether. "Yes!" I shout happily now that we've effectively stopped.

"Awesome!" Lapis is happy too at the destruction. Not wanting to be in this place anymore, I drive off out of an exit and back onto the main road. "We did it!" She breathes in relief and I do too.

"Yeah, we did. That was way too close. We took out the bulk of them." I begin to say but looking in the rear view I see just a few more cars coming. "But we still have more on us." These ones seem better armed because some of the lead cars has guys leaning out with assault rifles. I quickly turn a corner to disrupt their aim but the new road is a straightaway and their still on us. "Crap. Lapis I'm gonna give you my pistol and you—" I'm interrupted as they light up the back of my car.

*BANG*

*CRACK*

"Damnit!" I shout as the window behind us completely breaks and shatters. "This getting bad. We need to end this now! Lapis do you see anymore around us?"

"…"

The silence is not comforting. "Lapis?" I ask as I turn to her. She seems to be sitting straight up, her body completely still as she stares forward with her mouth parted open. "Lapis what's wrong?" I ask her in concern. The way how she looks and is not responding is making me feel more worried.

"…"

"LAPIS SAY SOMETHING!"

"…"

*Zzzztt*

My breathing becomes heavy as her entire form fizzles a little. It lasts only a second but when she's normal, she looks… darker than before. Slowly, she turns to me… and I almost cry, just as she's doing. "M-M-Marcus?" The way she calls my name is more a question but it hurts even more the way she says it in a truly scared tone.

The completely white orbs that are her eyes makes my heart beat faster and harder. "L-Lapis?"

*BANG*

The image will forever be burned into my mind as I watch a bullet pass through her headrest, into her head and embed itself into the front windshield. The world slows for me as I watch her body slowly slump against the dashboard.

*Poof*

She's gone. Her form destroyed and all I find in her seat is her gem.

Her… cracked gem.

"Lapiiisss!" I yell in anger mixed with anger at what I see before me. I reach over to grab her gem.

*CRACK*

"AAAAAAHHHHH!" I yell bloody murder as my body feels like its burning up. Pain shoots through every course of my nerves and I feel like I'm dying. Pulling my arm back, I freeze up as this whole time I wasn't watching where was going.

Right into a tanker truck.


The attackers continue to open fire with their assault rifles, barely bothering to aim and just trying to put as much lead into the driver seat of the car they are chasing. Many of their bullets pass right over and crash right into the fuel tanker coming up ahead. The drivers all brake while their passengers continue to open fire. It was a smart move too because their shots puncture the shell of the tanker and fuel starts leaking out. Its just as the car is about to ride under the tanker that it happens.

It explodes.

In a massive bright light of force and fire, the tanker of fuel goes off, completely engulfing their quarries car in burning hot fire and metal. It takes a little while for the fire to die down but once it does, they watch and see nothing there to indicate their target could have survived the explosion. As a helicopter passes over, they find its high time to get out of there. The three cars immediately turn around and go in three separate directions and as far away from each other as they can, and the scene of the crime.

Their mission done.


Steven grips the metal of the van tightly as he spots the mini explosion cloud just as they are passing over a hill overlooking Empire City.

"Anyone following us?" Greg calls out from the driver seat, his vans speed having picked up and going just a little above the allotted speed limit in their section of the road.

"No Greg. Your good. You can relax now."

"Phew. Good." He sighs in relief and just slightly eases up on the gas. He's still going over but its not to the point where he'd get pulled over, just enough for him to feel comfortable in getting the hell home as soon as possible.

Despite all this, Steven continue to stare out the window. A pair of pale arms wrap around him and hold him tightly against the body from behind while they stare out the back windows. "He'll be fine."

"Do you… you think so Pearl?" Steven asks Pearl, making sure he heard her right.

She nods and places her head on top of his, a hopeful look on her face and now Steven's. "I am. He's like those insects that tend to show up a lot. Those… cockroaches?" He nods at her. "Now normally I wouldn't like to compare him to an insect but if theirs one thing that I've seen that he shares a similarity to them… it's the fact that time and time again, he will take a lot of abuse but keep getting back up." She looks at him from the left and smiles. "Besides, he has Lapis with him doesn't he? Remember how powerful she is?"

"Oh yeah." Now remembering that in this instance he's no longer alone in his fight, a feeling of hope and relief courses through him. "She almost kicked your guys butts back when she took the ocean." Steven comments at that memory.

"It was a fluke." Pearl replies with a miffed expression. Still, Steven has a smile as he now just sits back and enjoys the ride home.


Pain.

Lots of pain.

I trudge through the alleyway of with slow, uneasy steps. My body feels on fire. Actually it almost was earlier but the armored exterior saved me from the most of it. Most. Burns still line small parts of my body but that's not the worst of the pain I'm feeling and I have no idea why.

For god sakes I don't even know how I got here in the alleyway, or where my car is. Everything is starting to blur. Both my senses and my… self-sense.

What?

"Fuck." I breath out as I collapse on the ground. My right arm and knees brace me as I fall while my left arm remains tucked against my chest. Soon I fall the rest of the way onto the ground and roll over on the dirty floor until I am on my back and staring at the sides of the buildings and into the sky. 'Why does it hurt so much?' That's the one question I can't wrap my head around as I can't find any other injuries besides the burns, and those are still minimal at best, even with the growing cold.

Slowly, I crawl my way to the side until I touch the wall of the building. My nails scratch the concrete wall as I desperately pull myself up until I am sitting with my back to the wall. "Son of a bitch." I breathe out in frustrated anger as I try to make sense of what's what… kind of. I bring my left hand up and find myself clutching the blue gem belonging to Lapis Lazuli in my grip. She' cracked… but she's safe… I think. 'I need to fix myself up if I want to have any hope of getting out of here.' I close my eyes and concentrate in trying to fix myself up.

"Aaahhh!" I suddenly yell out as pain spikes through me again. "Damnit!" I angrily breathe before it subsides but the pains still there. "Damnit… why…? Why?" I keep trying to make sense but… nothing. Fucking nothing! 'Why?!'

In my anger, I begin to notice that the pain seems to be originating more to my… to my right. Slowly, very slowly with agonizing slowness, I crane my head to my right. My eyes soon lay on my right gem.

It's cracked.

"Fuuu… uhhhh…" I collapse on my side and everything goes dark.


Well, that was unprecedented. All the times that Marcus has been fighting, pushing himself to fight and retaliate against all his enemies, now it seems his trump card as been all but taken from him.

His gem is cracked. His lifeforce has been damaged… and he has no idea where he is while his family is driving away, expecting him to make it to them eventually. The only other person who knows where he is and can help… is stuck in her damaged gem. Things are not looking good for him at the moment.

Actually, it looks like things are still not looking good in the outside world either. Tomorrow is supposed to be the date for the limits placed on the internet and to me it doesn't look like things are going to change. That's just me so I really hope I'm wrong and the internet is still going to be alright but I guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Not much else I can really say to you all as nothing new has happened to me but I guess I can say I'm pretty hyped for the presentations going on for E3. Already caught the EA one and it was alright. Still curious for more information for Anthem and how that's going to go but so far it looks alright. We'll see just how things go for it and the rest of the conferences.

Reviews

MADMatt6: I'm very sorry to hear that. I don't have any pets so I don't know the feeling but at the very least if my uploading of the chapter helped even a little, I'm glad to have done so.

ChimaTigon: I'm not sure what exactly she's in reference too, maybe the question asked before about possibly my favorite fairy tale but I don't know.

Zcdragon64: Yeah, such a tease. In any case as much as I would have liked to try to incorporate some moments between Marcus and Pearl during their trip, I couldn't really come up with anything that wouldn't overshadow her moment with Greg. This whole episode and issue was focused more so around them so I let that be. Still this was the perfect opportunity I feel for Marcus and Lapis to have some moments together and not have to be dealing with anything or anyone else at the moment. Even though the moment was somewhat ruined at the end there, the follow-up I felt was nice.

Light Seeker 001 (Ch.66): Yeah, a little on the review for this part but thank you nonetheless. We'll see how Bismuth reacts to seeing Jade or at the very least her gems now after so long and in a completely different form no less. (Ch.67): Sorry. Couldn't really come up with anything as much as I would have liked to. Jasper will be veeerrry pissed, and so will Marcus.

xXSpades231Xx: Glad to hear that. It feels good to me whenever someone tells me they didn't like this or that episode and my work improves it if only a little. And for your previous preview I didn't feel disrespected. You reviewed and I answered as best I can. I try not to make every single chapter in a super serious tone and at some points will things of course be tamer than usual. Still, thank you for the reviews.

NJred2000: You'll just have to wait and see. In terms of a rival, I have some ideas for a Gem but a human… I'm not too sure. An omake of Marcus human history? Oh my god I can only imagine the yelling. The date of the fic as being used for his birthday, maybe. We'll see how things go.

Patriota1993: Thank you very much. Glad you loved how it went. Whether or not who its going to be that just interrupted their small vacation time, the fact is there is going to be a lot of destruction.

JackoManter31: Yeah, I know. I'm a dick like that. I didn't want to but I just had to.

DatXeno91: I play on your feelings like that because it gives me sick joy to see you all squirm when you expect something and don't get it. Hahaha! Just kidding. Sorry for the tease but it's just how it went. And now they have an enemy to contend with in the middle of a big city.

Thank you all for your support and reviews. Hopefully things continue to be alright for everyone from here on out. Fingers crossed. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever it is you want to do, and make sure to have fun reading and have a great day.