Disclaimer: Characters, settings, names from the cartoon television show 'Steven Universe' are creations and property of Rebecca sugar and Cartoon network. Any Non-steven universe characters, settings, names, Gems, Gem powers, beliefs, mythology are my own creation.
Author's Note: Forgive me readers for the late update, I've wanted to upload this chapter before the start of Season six of Game of Thrones. Which by the way, was a frieking amazing first episode. Now, i'm not going to try to sugar coat this, but I really want to end this story as quick as possible so I can work on other stories. I'm sorry If that came off very uncaring.
Story Tags: Steven Universe, Lapis Lazuli, OC's, Connie Maheswaran Pearl, Amethyst, Ruby, Sapphire, Bells, Whistles, Citrine, Peridot, Beach City, Gem Powers, Romance, Adventure, Comfort, Destiny.
Music Inspiration: "Dead to Me" By: Spineshank
Chapter 41: Our Dying Planet
Friday
August 29, 2016, 7:30 [Evening]
Planet Earth, Africa
flying as fast as a falling star, creating a beautiful glowing tail caused from extreme levels of air resistance. Soren flew across the Atlantic ocean and laid his eyes on the monster created as a last strike against the earth before Rose's rebellion succeeded in repelling Homeworld armies and driving out of the earth once and for all. And there it was! It had finally awaken from centuries of sleep. Soren wasn't sure if he would be able to handle this beast made from pure raw magic by himself. But he was a commander, a junior commander to be exact, but a commander nonetheless.
Soren stopped in his track and watched the Crystal Skull rampaging about. When the crystal skull raised its large mountain like legs and stomped its feet as big as hills, Mega Quakes rumbled under the entire planet, quakes that measured 10.0 on the Richter scale! Deep fissures branched out from under the stomping feet of the crystal skull. These fissures circled around the planet, the glow of flowing magma deep in the earth rose and mixed with Ocean, causing the worlds oceans to bubble and let out steam that filled the atmosphere.
The Crystal Skull's skull changed color from crystal clear, to dark brown. Halting it's wild stomping, it raised it top left arm and swung it in a 180 degree motion. The sheer force of the crystal skull's arm swing created miniature short lived hurricanes that formed on the western coast of the african continent that moved across the atlantic ocean, affecting europe, the east coast of the united states, the west indies and parts of the north of south America. But that was not its intended purpose, just an after effect of its primary purpose for it's acion.
When the crystal skull swung it's arm, it killed all of the nutrients the flora on the african continent needed to live and grow. The trees, the savannas, the fields and the rivers and lakes either died or dried up. The entire continent was plunged into permanent drought. Shaking what little fear he felt inside of himself, Commander Soren flew towards the Crystal Skull, intent on putting it down.
"Lava Method: Field of Blooming Dragon Heads!" Soren slid one armored hands on top of the other and rotated the positions of his hands so his palms were on top of each other. As a testament to his power and his title as Commander, Soren was able to fill half of the Atlantic ocean with Long dragon heads that rose up out of the surface of the ocean. these dragon heads were all made from magma oozing out from under the ocean. The dragons mouths opened up together at the same time and began to gather energy, forming blood red spheres in their open maws. At Commander Soren's order, the dragons waited until they were given the order to fire.
Soren watched the crystal skull continue to rampage, appearing completely oblivious of Commander Soren's presence or the long legion of magma dragon heads with spheres of energy floating in their open mouths, which all targeted at it.
"Fire!"
Blasting their collected sphere of blood red energy together, Soren watched the the spheres explode when they collided with the crystal skull, ten, twenty, thirty, one thousand, three thousand all the way up to ten thousand! Was the amount of explosions that rocked the the skies. But behind the all the billowing smoke, Soren was shocked.
"none of the explosions were the result from contact being made. The bastard wasn't even affected." Soren saw past the crystal skull's defenses and made out the lines of an invisible barrier that radiated one hundred feet away from it's body.
"No, I'm wrong. It's wasn't affected because of the barrier, that barrier is it's aura. It absorbed my attack, it nullifies all forms of magical attacks. I have to make sure that that assumption is true."
sticking only his right middle and index fingers out, Sore placed them on the top side of his left gauntlet which he had balled up into a fist. He slid his fingers up his forearm and upper arm stopping just below his shoulder. This caused a green spark which engulfed Soren's entire left arm in green fire. Cocking his arm back, he recited "Fire Method: Chaos Jester!"
throwing a power packed left hand outward, the green fired engulfing Soren's left arm fired outward and forward through his gauntlet. The green fire first looked like a speeding ball of green flaming energy, but midway into its trajected path, the ball of green fire expanded in size exceedingly quick. It took on human shape, with two arms, two legs and one head. The humanoid grew to be at least 1000 feet in height. As it kept flying towards the crystal skull, without losing any momentum, the giant jester in black and green flaming clothing punched, kicked and swung his mock scepter well over one hundred times in different way. It ended it's performance by stopping abruptly and bowing before vanishing into green fire and laughing hysterically.
One hundred glowing disembodied fists, kicks, knees, elbows and crescent blades of green fire jetted towards the crystal skull. One powerful explosion after another followed after the first attack made contact with the crystal skull's aura. Soren watched carefully with the refined and keen eyes of a commander, and noticed that despite his method landing on the crystal skull, the magic that powered his method down to the explosions and great heat were all being absorbed.
"Just as I feared, even the strongest magical attacks have no effect on the beast. If magical attacks won't cut it, perhaps raw physical power will do it." engulfing himself again in black fire with pure white outlines, commander soren entered his battle avatar, this time to do battle with the crystal skull. His avatar was a giant one thousand foot being of raw black fire with over one hundred arms. In each hand it had glowing white orbs, each orb packed more power than ten nuclear explosions combined.
But because the crystal skull absorbed magical attacks, Soren left out the glowing white orbs for now since they were purely magical in nature. The three eyes of Soren's battle avatar made contact with The crystal skull who finally seemed to notice the commander.
Taking off a near light speed, Commander Soren flew so fast that space behind him and beside him undulated and heated up the surrounding air up to 100,000 degrees, instantly boiling a massive the ocean around him. Soren cocked back all one hundred of his battle avatar's hands ready to strike the crystal skull. But getting within 100 kilometers of the crystal skull revealed something even more shocking.
Soren still managed to land one earth rumbling punch, but it was with his own fists and not with that of his battle avatar. The crystal skull was pushed out of the African continent, shaking it's head and smiling sinisterly at Soren.
"My battle avatar! It undid that as well? It not only absorbs magic, it's also able to nullify gem transformations and...possibly even fusions."
The Pacific Ocean
8:50 [Night]
The crystal skull had been pushed out of Africa, but not before plunging the cradle of humankind into perpetual drought and sapping all the life giving properties the land had to give to grow grass, trees, fruits and vegetables. One powerful punch to its head, one hill shattering elbow strike to its torso, a spinning kick to its back and a thousand different combos, Commander Soren did not let up his relentless barrage of attacks. The crystal skull did not react to the physical punishment it was taking, but it also wasn't fighting back. It was almost like it was gauging how much damage it could take before having to fight back.
"Sooorreenn! We're here!" shouted Steven who came flying in with Carlos and Admiral Bells beside him.
Just beneath them was Alexandrite who was running on water and Lapis who was inside of a large water battle avatar that seemed to be of a mix of shark, crocodile and squid. Soren heard Steven call out to him, and the moment he stopped attacking the crystal skull, he was caught off guard with four punches from the crystal skull's four fists. Each strike sounded like the world's loudest cannon fire shot.
"Soren!" Steven called out out of concern, so Steven went flying faster with bells and Carlos also picking up speed.
Soren was propelled into the ocean, but quickly regained himself and flew out of the ocean. "Steven Wait! All of also!"
on his command, Steven and the rest stopped in their tracks and flight path. Steven flew over to Soren who levitated by way of conjuring of jet fire booster from under his sabatons. The water beneath him boiled and rippled, letting off steam.
"Everyone listen to me. That behemoth over there is called the crystal skull. It's body is composed of homeworld crystal called 'Eternamente.' its nearly impossible to crack using physical power alone. It's skulls changes color as do those glowing dots in its eye sockets, it does so to let its enemies know what element it's going to use. And to make things worse, it was created with the abominable ability to undo fusions if you get close enough to it and absorb all forms and levels of magical attacks. Alexandrite and Lapis, if you confront the crystal skull now in your current states, you will be turned to dust. Only physical attacks, purely power packed physical strikes and blow do any real damage to it.
Even if you fire long range attacks at it, it will either be absorbed or put down before it can hurt the crystal skull. The tall body of alexandrite began to unglow and pearl, amethyst and garnet appeared. Lapis gave all three of her crystal gem partners a pair of 'water boots' to allow them to walk on water and keep them from sinking into the ocean. Pearl fell on one knee and placed a hand over her stomach area. Carlos noticed this and went to her while Steven spoke to Soren.
"Pearl! See this is why I wanted you to stay back at the temple with Peridot, Whistles, Lion and Citrine. You'll be putting 'Polyphony' in danger If you participate in this battle."
"Polyphony!?" said everyone in unison, even Soren.
Carlos brushed the back of his head and smiled at everyone, "Yeah, I chose that name for our baby girl"
"GIRL!?" everyone said in shock.
"Pearl has baby girl inside of her?" Amethyst chimed, "oh I can't wait to teach pollie, polo...what was her name again?" Amethyst asked Carlos.
"Its Polyphony Amethyst. It means a style of of simultaneously combining a number of parts, with each part forming an individual melody and harmonizing with each other. Me and Pearl both made 'music' so to speak and now our parts have harmonized with each other.
"That's so sweet Carlos, I like the name you chose for your and pearl's child" Lapis put in. Lapis helped pearl get back up to her feet.
"Lapis can you take pearl back to the temple, in fact, I think all of you except for me, Steven, bells and Soren should stay behind. If Soren is right about that thing's ability to undo fusions, then it's better left to us who don't rely heavily on fusing. You could be of help to us back on land, look after Beach city."
"Carlos is right, it's not that we don't need you, we do. But this enemy is not like any you have ever faced before. It's height alone makes it impossible to confront unless you can fly or you're half the size of it. We got this covered, trust us."
Carlos held Pearl in his arms and placed a kiss on her lips, Pearl's eyes glowed with joy and pain, she looked into the eyes of her child's father and spoke, "I'll do my best to do what I can, I guess I should have thought about getting pregnant later, huh honey"
"nonsense, none of us could have seen all of this shit happening. The sooner we handle this big doofus and yellow diamond, the sooner we can start taking care of our baby girl, ok? I love you pearl."
Garnet and Amethyst shapeshifted into birds and took off first, with Amethyt wishing Soren good luck. Lapis bubbled Pearl in a giant water bubble and took her with her back to beach city. When the crystal gems were out of sight, Soren turned to Carlos and spoke, "Congratulations Carlos,when this is all over, I would love to pass on some of my power to Pearl so you both could be in your child's life."
"Commander...i...you..."
"I know, I honor you with this offer. But you'll have plenty of time to thank me after this creature of magic is destroyed and when mother has been eliminated. Now gentlemen, brace yourselves, harden yourselves for a fight!"
The crystal skull turned to face the three warriors and one commander and grinned evily at them, the color of it's skull and glowing dots in it's eye sockets changed from brown to gold. It raised its four powerful arms up above its head. Behind it, four large circular golden portals appeared.
"It's attacking boys!" Soren warned his team.
Flying out of these golden portals were six foot tall miniature versions of the crystal skull, each with half of the physical power of the original but with all of it's elemental abilities. They came out like bats that flew out of their caves or a swarm of angry hornets coming out of a hole in a tree. There were ten, twenty, thirty and finally finishing at forty. There were ten mini crystal skulls for all four of them.
"Admiral bells, Steven and Carlos, split up right now so we can get as much distance between all of us as possible. We don't want to get in each other's way, GO!"
On Soren's order, all three of them split up and got as far away from the other as possible. With the commander and the rest busy fighting ten mini copies of itself, this gave the Crystal Skull time to kill life in the Oceans. It did so by changing the color of its skull to toxic green. The ocean below started to bubble and turn green. A putrid smell of death and rotting fish exuded out of the surface of the ocean.
"HEY! LEAVE MY PLANET ALO...AGH!" Steven shouted before taking a hard right jab to his face by one of the mini crystal skulls.
[Steven vs mini crystal skulls ]
Taking a hard jab to his face, Steven stepped back a bit, but did not fall after taking a punch with as kinetic power as 100 bullet trains colliding. The punch was also packed with so much power, a spherical blast of air and kinetic energy created a deep watery crater beneath and around Steven, which quickly filled back in with water.
As loud and as painful as the punch sounded, it was something Steven shrugged off. Quickly, he grabbed the mini crystal skull's forerarm, and pulled it in and cocked his own fist back and recited, "Magick Method: Kinetic Volley" like a crack of thunder that echoed all around them, the mini crystal skull that hit Steven, was bombarded with a volley of unseen attacks exactly one thousand times. Each shot fractured the hard body of the mini crystal skull little by little, but at the end of the merciless attack, Steven landed the final punch which shattered the mini crystal skull into crystal dust.
"Guys! These little ones don't have the magic absorption ability of the tall one! Unleash your inner beasts!" he told them all with optimism.
[Soren vs mini crystal skulls]
Soren smirked and ignited his gauntlets in royal blue fire, which burned hot enough to bore into the earth if he so wished to. Soren was just as much a master at unarmed combat as he was a master of the element and its secrets he represented. Left and right he landed punches to two mini crystal skulls who tried to flank him, they had holes burned straight through them, but slowly regenerated from it. Soren flipped backwards when a crystal skull tried to grab his legs from underwater. Lifting his hand up, the mini crystal skull was shot up out of the ocean from a pillar of lava Soren raised. Falling back down and glowing red hot, Soren punched the mini crystal skull while in mid-air with a volley of quick,single handed punches from his right fist.
The punches were so fast and so powerful, Carlos, Steven and bells could only see glowing hot blue blurs from their peripheral vision. And the punches were so powerful, the 'crackle of thunder' from Steven's earlier magick method was nothing compared to the sound small multiple volcanic explosions going off at the same time. Carlos had to negate the sounds by cutting up the air around his head, bells blocked the sound by means of temporarily shutting down his auditory senses by way of self imposed telepathic control. And Steven created 'the worlds best earplugs' using magick whilst in the middle of fighting off his own batch of crystal skulls.
[Carlos vs mini crystal skulls]
Although Carlos wished Pearl could be here to admire his power and his fighting prowess, fighting alongside his friends and mentee/ little brother made up for it. Five crystal skulls to the right of Carlos's side changed the color of their skulls to blue, while the ones to his left changed it to yellow. The ones on the right using their combined magical might raised their arms and hands up above their heads and erected water snakes which became less snakelike and more water dragon like. The ones on the right seemed to move together in a circle, almost like they were dancing. They changed the clouds above them and formed thunder clouds.
First the mini crystal skulls conjuring up water dragons went first and fused the five smaller water dragons each had made, into one very large water dragon, the size of a tornado. Carlos acted quick and knew just how to deal with water based attacks, doing the sign of the cross over his heart, he uttered the words, "Holy Air Method: Clouds of Mercy!" just before the roaring gigantic water dragon could crash into Carlos, a ring of pearly white clouds that took on the appearance of a circle of humanoid cloud females in puffy white dresses. These humanoids hands their hands together in prayer.
The water dragon crashed against them, but instead of taking half of them or so, the humanoid clouds absorbed the rushing torrent of water and grew bigger and taller. With the water dragon dealt with, now it was time to deal with the crystal skulls manipulating lightning. He turned them with his circle of protection ready. At the end of the mini crystal skull's dance, lighting flashed and thunder rumbled above all of them. Then, poking out from a thunder cloud was a giant lightning bow and arrow with two disembodied hands holding the bow, and pulling back on the arrow. The hand holding the arrow back let go after locking onto Carlos and unleashed a brilliant and powerful lightning arrow, which was accompanied by a crack of thunder loud enough to rival commander Soren's volcanic explosions.
"Holy Air Method: A Marriage made in The Clouds" Carlos recited.
The giant feminine humanoids clouds surrounding him in a protective ring swirled around him together, forming one giant beautiful cloud woman in a long white dress, long white veil and even longer white hair that reached the surface of the ocean. The giant cloud woman lifted carlos up, curtsied before him with Carlos bowing for her. When their lips touched, Carlos was temporarily imbued with all of the might, speed and intangibility of the planet's wind currents. His hands and arms, in fact his whole body was covered in tiny ice crystals or the very stuff clouds are made of. No physical or facial details could made out, apart from his limbs and head. Carlos cocked his right arm back and locked on to the giant lightning arrow coming at him. With his sights locked on, Carlos unleash a giant fist the size of a medium scale island at the lightning arrow. When both these attack collided, a blast wave rippled across the pacific ocean several times before dying down and causing a downpour.
With four minutes left before his Holy Air Method ran out, Carlos made easy work of the mini crystal skulls who still came at him. With one punch, Carlos blew holes through the bodies of the mini crystal skulls which expanded into short lived tornadoes that dissipated into the air. While his punches created super tornadoes, his kicks, specifically spinning kicks created winds greater than hurricanes.
[Admiral Bells vs mini crystal skulls]
While Soren, Steven and Carlos were all blessed to be a commander or have the power of magical gemstones inherited from gem parents, Admiral Bells was more than just a talking bi pedal black cat. He was a super Telepath, with the skills and abilities far above his average fellow martians. Those abilities were teleportation, telepathy and telekinesis. Normally the average martian could only teleport a few miles, lift no more than an excess of 1 ton and communicate telepathically within a radius of 3 miles. But Admiral Bells through hard work broke his natural limits.
With several natural abilities like claw retraction, enhanced speed, reflexes and a mystical power called 'nine lives' Admiral Bells was not to be underestimated. Using telekinesis to allow him to fly and form a near impenetrable barrier inches away from his body, Admiral bells fought with all the spirit and tenacity of all the great big cats of earth, extinct and still living. Greatly increasing his natural enhanced speed with telekinesis to make himself as light possible and strong as needed, the admiral breezed by his enemies and slashed at them, cutting deeply into their hard rocky crystalline bodies.
The admiral easily dodged lightning bolts, fire pillars, water chains and lava shots from his mini crystal skulls. Getting around one skull's uncertainty as to where the admirals would appear next, Bells unleashed a fury of slashes that cut one mini skull down into crystal shards. Using his telekinesis, he compressed the glass shards still in mid air with so much pressure, they broke down on the atomic level.
Almost finished dealing with their miniature crystal skull enemies, a surprise guest came over to lend the boys a hand. The fellas saw a glimmering blur speed above them. "Is that...Connie?" Steven asked himself.
"I was beginning to wonder what was keeping the lord of earth so long, good to see you your ladyship!" Soren called out to her.
"Hiya guys! sorry I'm late. I was busy erecting barriers around Palmyra and surrounding towns. But no need to fear because Connie's here!" Connie replied sounding all heroic.
Steven gazed up at her, and noticed that her whole body had changed to reflective copper. Soren kept Steven back when he wanted to give Connie a hand in dealing with the main crystal skull.
"Steven stay back for now! I know you want to help your friend out, but your not the only one whose been working your butt off to become strong. I've noticed and knew Connie had ascended to new levels of Commander Smoky's gem power. I wish to see what her ladyship is capable of"
Connie flew faster than any fighter jet invented, leaving a copper colored blur behind her flight path. With the crystal skulls big dumb face in her sights, Connie cocked back her right arm, balled up her hand into a fist and tightened it as much as she could. Befoe the crystal skull could feel the ancient gem presence of the the most feared and renowned gem commander, it was already to late. With all of the power her 'copper form' would give her, Connie smashed her fists against the right side of the Crystal Skull's skull.
Connie's punch created not one, two or three, but seven visible ripples in the air in addition to one very loud and powerful explosion. This attack only managed to make the crystal skull stumble back a bit, but quickly regained his balance.
"Soren you said That big bully makes transformations impossible, so how is Connie able to stay in that form?" Steven asked the commander.
"Commander Smoky's power is different that mine, your mother's and the rest of us, with the exception of the admiral, in that his power does not require magic to manipulate earth and it's different variations or to keep transformations going. You don't get to become the most feared and most respected commander in all of Gem history by being limited to only having Magic as your one and only source of power. No, you become known as The Lord of the Earth, or in this case, Lady of the Earth by commanding earth it self with nothing more than your own sheer force of will. And when the earth itself gains respect and love for you, well, you could not ask for a greater ally than the cradle gems are grown from."
Moving its head in a motion as if to ask itself what just happened, the Crystal Skull glared at Connie who was levitating a feet miles from its face. The color of its skull went back to normal clear including its glowing dots in its dark eye sockets.
Raising it's four arms and crossing them in front of its face, Connie felt something terrible coming and summoned a giant two and a half mile tall Stone Golem clad in copper armor, which raised its right forearm up and lifted up a round stone shield one mile wide in diameter reinforced with 500 millimeter enchanted copper. Spreading its arms out beside its body, The crystal had amassed Ten thousand unseen portals behind him that fired sphere of kinetic energy at Connie's shield and Golem.
Using her Copper armored stone Golem as a medium, Connie connected her mind with her over sized stony dummy and controlled all of it's movements. fortunately with her earth sight, Connie saw the spheres that flew out of the portals behind the crystal skull.
Ping* Ping* Ping* Tiink* tiink* clink* clink*
the sound of metal being struck hard and violently filled and rattled the skies over the pacific. That soon gave way to the sounds of rock and stone cracking and crumbling. Soren, Steven, Carlos and Admiral Bells watched together as her giant stone Golem had lost most of it's shield and was now using itself to protect Connie, like it's now gone shield, it's copper armor had been chipped away and now only it's tough stone body was the only thing standing in the way between the crystal skull and Connie.
"Her Stone Golem is almost gone Soren!" Steven told the commander, worried for Connie. "She's not a damsel in distress Steven, she can handle this!" Soren reassured Steven with a more forceful tone.
Just as Steven predicted, Connie's stone Golem had been destroyed, and now Connie was being bombarded with thousands of kinetic shots of energy. She kept her arms crossed over her face, but the longer she stayed in a defensive position, the more damage she took. The mounting pressure of the kinetic shots crashing against her body suddenly became too much for her even in her copper form, and floated in the sky taking barrage after barrage of invisible kinetic shots.
"AAGGHH! AAGGH! AAGGHH!" Connie shouted from the pain of sustaining a broken right arm, her entire left rib cage breaking and both her legs breaking. She went propelling down into ocean.
"Move Soren! Now we need to help her!" Steven ran past Sore, but tripped when he felt something wrapped around his left ankle and trip him.
"What the!?"
"Steven wait!" Carlos spoke up, revealing that he was the one who tripped him up with a chain made of clouds, "Soren's right about Connie. She can handle herself, I promise the next time Connie takes a beating, we'll all go to her aid."
Steven rose back up to his feet and stood and waited for Connie to re-emerge. Down in the ocean, Connie copper form had gone away with her gemstone pulsing with light. Inside of her, the areas where she had sustained the most damage began to heal at an accelerated pace. The bones in her legs, her entire left ribcage and her entire right arm had healed.
Connie rose up to her feet and held her breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated. The gemstone on her chest emitted a powerful brown light, the light covered her entire body for a minute. After sixty seconds, the light began to recede back into her gemstone. When it was gone, Connie ascended into the next level of her gem's power; Nickel Form.
Flying out of the ocean, Connie flew straight for the Crystal Skull who seemed to be waiting for her return. Connie perception had increased by 15 times including her strenght, speed and reflexes. She using a greater form of Earth sight now improved to 'Atom Sight' Connie was able to effortlessly evade all invisible kinetic shots by noticing the slightest disturbance in the atomic structure of the atmosphere. Zipping left and right like a super super fast house fly, Connie closed the distance between her and the crystal skull so much that she landed one powerful punch across its face.
When her fist made contact with the crystal skull, the sound was reminiscent of a boxing ring being struck. One punch across the crystal skull's face chipped a piece away, and made the crystal stumble back. But Connie kept punching and just kept punching, left and right, uppercut and overhand. Pieces of the crystal skull's face and head began to show damage, but it was that moment the crystal skull showed it's true physical power and speediness.
Before Connie could landed another fracturing blow on it, the crystal skull grabbed Connie far more faster than Connie could avoid it and striked her with one cloud parting punch that fractured her entire skeleton upon impact, and sent her flying and crashing in the himalayas.
India, Asia
9:50 [Night]
Watching Connie getting punched and sent flying and crashing in the Himalaya mountains, Soren and the rest of the boys went to her aid. The crystal skull marched into India, changing the color of it's skull from clear to ruby red. Doing so made large pillars of magma shoot out from under the earth, this in turn caused massive plumes of toxic smoke which made It impossible for birds, insects and all life in the skies from continuing to thrive in the skies.
Cities around its feet began to catch on fire and became dotted in explosions from power plants, oil refineries and other buildings with highly flammable or combustible things and places. A sea of flames blew down from the palms of the Crystal Skull's hands that scorched India and all of it's provinces.
Soren, Carlos, Admiral Bells and Steven came at the crystal from four directions, but that didn't matter. Moving at near the speed of the light, it punched all four of them, one fist for each of them. The motion and speed of its punches were so fast, it seemed like it never once moved. The strength of the punches sent all four of them either crashing on land or in the ocean. Soren's armor had been cracked and went flying off.
Admiral Bells strongest physic barrier was like paper to the crystal skull and the poor martian endured a punch that broke all of his bones and shredded his muscles. Similiarly, Steven's own skeleton had been broken in a few locations, but his acquired ability 'Impervious Skin' which granted Steven partial invulnerability, prevented the damage from being greater. Carlos, who underwent training in Chicomoztoc long before Steven's arrival, also shared much of Steven's newer abilities. But due to being more battle experienced, Carlos managed to whip up a weak air armor that he blew out of his mouth in front of his body which took most of the brunt of the damage before he took of to confront the crystal skull with his team.
That did not mean Carlos did not sustain damage, his entire left arm and shoulder was mangled and sixty percent of his body was badly burned, second degree burns to be exact. it was the result of the sheer speed of the crystal skull's punch which heated up the air at an excess of 60,000 degrees! Twice as hot as the surface of the sun.
and lastly was Commander Soren who perhaps took the most damage, using his arms to block the crystal skull's punch, Soren's armor endured much of the sky shattering punch, but he also lost his entire armor and...half of his upper body. While Steven and Carlos healed on their own, the crystal skull's red skull turned blue and waved it's left arms over to direction of the united states in t he direction of the pacific ocean.
What the crystal skull had done was raised an army of water beings wearing coral armor and wielding sharp sea weed swords. The rose out of the ocean and made their way to the crystal temple where the crystal gems had been wiating for something to happen.
Beach City, Crystal Temple
10:30 [Night]
Waiting for the water beings to come closer, the crystal gems took their positions. Peridot was inside of a four armed robot she had constructed prior to the events taking place currently. Citrine, Admiral bells gem wife accomplished something unique with their hybrid son. Gem mother and hybrid son managed to fuse to created fifty foot yellow transparent bi pedal Jaguar with an electric blue mane, eyes and tail hair. They formed a fusion Citrine called 'Panthera Amarillo.'
Pearl who couldn't participate in this battle due to her pregnancy, hanged back inside of the temple. Garnet and Amethyst however, had fused awhile back and formed Sugilite. With Lapis's help and sheer mastery over water and all of its variations, were ready to play their part in this battle for the survival of earth.
Asia, India
Having healed first before Steven, Carlos flew and found Steven via his gem signature in a burning forest and helped sped up his healing process. Together, they located Admiral Bells unconscious in the ocean. Together, Steven and Carlos fixed admiral bells broken bones and grew and mended his entire musculatory system. Erected a physic barrier around his head, Bells flew together with Carlos and Steven to locate Soren.
Soren had landed also in the ocean, and his missing upper body began to let out glowing sparkles, slowly his destroyed upper body was beginning to reconstitute itself.
As the Crystal Skull marched upwards into Tibet from a burning India, Connie had re-emerged with dried blood around her face, neck, arms and hands. Her shattered skeleton was fully healed and Connie was back with a third and even more terrifyingly powerful form.
"Zirconium...Form...you big...bastard" she said in between pauses, catching her breath.
In her zirconium form, Connie's hands, feet, forearms and shoulder all emitted heavy gray smoke and steam. Flying towards the crystal skull at the speed of lightning, Connie was set on revenge for the damage she took and for the damages her friends took also. But the crystal skull vanish in glitch of colors, making Connie stop in mid-flight, surprised.
Steven, Carlos and Bells found Soren in the ocean fully regenerated and telling them to join him above the surface, but just before they could leave, the crystal skull's gargantuan hands appeared beside all four of them and sent them all away.
The Crystal Skull's Pocket Dimension
Appearing in a world of swirling colors and lights, Soren and his team huddled together with their backs against each other. All around them, were perhaps an excess of 10,000,000 miniature crystal skulls that all had their eyes on them.
"Don't tell me the bastard has sent us into a another world!" Carlos shouted
"He didn't he sent us into a dimension within himself," Soren spoke, "it's trying to buy enough time for itself so it can deal with Connie without interruption. It know it can deal with all five us at the same time, so it sent us here to weaken us and or kill us. Right now Connie's the only one who can stand toe toe with it. Right now we need to concentrate on fighting off as many of these bastards as possible!"
"But how do we get out Soren!" Steven asked.
"This area is all magic, which means we can feel free to transform to level the playing field in our favor. Steven, when we've cleared enough of these cretins, it's your job to create a portal that will serve as our exit."
Connie looked around for the crystal skull, wondering if Steven or Soren did something that made the crystal skull vanish. Her theory was shattered when she felt the Crystal Skull reappaar behind her. She turned and avoided it's near light speed punches with some difficulty, but managing to punch and kick back. In her zirconium form, Connie shattered the crystal skull's arms when they clashed fists. But for each lsot or shattered armor chunk of itself, another grew instantaneously.
Connie would need to punch and kick as fast as her suffering body would allow her, because the more time she spent in each form or pushed it to the next form, she played with her own life. Either her heart would stop beating, or her muscles would turn to jelly or all of her systems would shut down. but none of that mattered right now, all that mattered now was that Connie was not just matching each of the crystal skull's attacks, but she was shattering him, chunk by chunk.
Next Chapter: The Longest Friday