So there was a bit of a delay to this chapter and I apologize, my stress and anger lately has gotten a bit out of hand and it interfered with my writing. Another thing to add to my stress, was that someone stole my credit card number and went on a bit of a shopping spree. Thankfully I was able to get that settled. Okay, here we go. A major part of Lapis's journey is about to begin that will set up the climax to her mini arch I've created in this chapter. College has been seriously going crazy lately so forgive me for sounding a little rushed and stressed. The events of this chapter take place during the events of the previous two chapters and is a direct continuation of chapter 63 for context. *POKEMON AND STEVEN UNIVERSE ARE NOT OWNED BY ME*
Lapis and "The Crystal Gems Two" had finally reached the top of Mount Coronet, where Cynthia directed them to a dark cave hidden from the main path. Towards the end of the cavern there was an opening that lead to an enormous plain exposed to the opening. When they heard voices, they all took cover behind a large rock.
The plain was decorated with the ruins of what appeared to be marble columns from ancient times, as well as a massive warp pad from Homeworld located in the center of the ruins. Deadset in the center were two large containers of sorts, and standing around the warp pad, was Hessonite and about two Team Rocket agents.
"The Spear Pillar" Lapis heard her mentor Cynthia whisper next to her.
"Looks like Team Rocket and Homeworld picked up where Team Galactic left off." Looker concluded ,recognizing the technology as the same that Cyrus and Team Galactic used to try and travel between worlds before they were stopped by Ash.
"Clemont must've perfected it to work with Homeworld's warp pads." Lapis finally concluded.
"And that's what we're taking out" Looker decreed, "get me and Conway to the main control pad. We'll download the schematics to Conway's pokefinder to hopefully turn it against them, and then we'll destroy it."
"But how?" Barry asked, "there's no way that you'll be able to get you guys to the controls. Only a Team Rocket member or a Gem would be able to get to it."
"Good thing we've got a Gem then." Lapis immediately volunteered.
"No." Cynthia sternly protested "I'm not allowing you to put yourself or the baby at risk."
"Cynthia, I have to do this. I'm the only way Looker and Conway can even get close to the main consul board."
"How?" Cress asked.
"Easy, I'm a Lapis Lazuli escorting prisoners to the portal, sent by Jasper herself."
"No, you'll be escorting me." Cynthia volunteered. "You and I will distract Hessonite and those other Team Rocket agents while Looker and Conway do what they need to do. The rest of you will cover us in case something goes wrong."
Before everyone could even agree, Looker and Conway were already crawling down the cliffside to the opposite side of the Spear Pillar.
"Are you sure about this?" Lapis asked her mentor as she restrained her in makeshift handcuffs from water.
Cynthia smiled, "So long as you are. Besides, I've got the biggest Cubone to pick with that Hessonite. I'm ready."
Lapis nodded as she escorted the champion directly down the cliffside towards Hessonite and the two Team Rocket agents.
The two female agents alerted Hessonite of their presence, Lapis saw that one of them was reminiscent to the description James gave her of his partner Jessie, as well as the cat-like pokemon standing beside her.
"State your purpose" Hessonite commanded, pointing her sword at her neck. Jessie and the other Team Rocket agent pointing their weapons at them as well.
After she took a moment to collect herself, Lapis knew what she had to do. "I have a present for Homeworld, I believe your familiar with her?"
Hessonite walked up towards Cynthia in her liquid restraints. "Oh yes, just as Jasper has that Lazuli, and Emerald has that human to drive them mad, I have the one who got away. Where did you catch her?"
"Jasper found her, sent me personally to put her back into custody."
"You're in Jasper's posse?" the cat pokemon unexpectedly asked. "And you're a Lapis?"
She nodded.
"Boy do I not envy you honey" the golden haired agent told her with a disinterested look. "If Jaspers crazy enough to be chasing this Lazuli across two different worlds, I'd hate to see what she's doing to the likes of you."
"Shut up Cassidy" Hessonite scolded her before turning back towards Lapis. Then she looked down and she looked perplexed. "What's wrong with your form soldier?"
Lapis and Cynthia both followed Hessonite's gaze to Lapis's lower body. Her baby bump was showing.
"Oh, um." she began to blunder. In the corner of her eye, she saw Looker and Conway had finally reached the motherboard and had begun to work their magic almost right behind the guards. She knew she had to continue stalling. "My form hasn't adjusted to this new environment yet."
Just as she thought Hessonite began to believe the lie, the warp pad turned on, and two new Team Rocket agents, Attila and Hun, appeared.
"Hey! What are you-" Attila exclaimed when he saw Looker and Conway before he was interrupted by a thunderbolt strike from Zoey's Glameow to defend her friends. Zoey, Barry and the triplets jumped down from their hiding spot and began to attack.
"Cover's blown" Cynthia announced freeing herself and summoning Garchomp. "Keep them away from Looker and Conway!"
Hessonite drew her quick claw and prepared to ambush Looker, but was grabbed by Garchomp
just in the knick of time. As she struggled in Garchomp's grip, Attila took matters into his own hands and attacked Cynthia with his Muk.
"These are the punks who set me on fire! Hessonite! That's our Lapis!" Attila screamed pointing at her. "Muk use sludge bomb! Keep her from running away this time!"
"Oh no you don't!" Lapis said summoning Kingdra. "Counter with ice beam!"
The poison and ice type attacks collided with each other, and as the dust settled, Barry's Heracross took Attila's attention away from Lapis. But before she could come to Cynthia's aid, she screamed in pain as a blade struck her in the shoulder. As she collapsed to the ground in pain and terror for her child's safety, she saw Cassidy, Jessie and Meowth had snuck up behind her, and that Cassidy was the one who impaled her.
"Going somewhere?" Cassidy evilly asked as she turned to Jessie, pulling the blade out from her shoulder. "I don't want to get my hands anymore dirty." she explained turning towards her red-haired companion. "You do it.
Jessie looked down at her, a torn look on her face. But she then summoned her Seviper, her face now looking as if she had made a painful decision. "Seviper, use bind".
Lapis closed her eyes as she anticipated the strangling grip of the snake-like pokemon, which she also knew would inevitably cause her baby's demise. But then something happened she didn't expect. Instead, Cassidy screamed in pain and shock, and she heard a body drop to the ground. She opened her eyes to see Jessie had ordered the attack not on her, but on Cassidy. Jessie meanwhile, had her arm extended towards her.
"Well don't just stare twerpette," Meowth demanded out of her, "we're not out of the woods just yet!"
Lapis took Jessie's hand and stood up, Jessie and Meowth then both ran with her towards a larger column that had fallen as Hun began firing on the group using an automatic mini gun. Looking across them, Lapis saw the triplets, Barry and Zoey had the same idea and hid behind the column next to them. Cynthia quickly joined them.
"I thought you were with Team Rocket?" Lapis asked Jessie and Meowth, "why did you save me back there?"
"James is our friend. And if you mean a lot to him, you mean a lot to us!" Jessie exclaimed.
"Can we talk about this later?! We've got bigger problems at hand!" Meowth screamed pointing to their attackers. Hun had summoned they're Steelix, and had mounted their mini gun to the top of the massive pokemon's back.
Hessonite on the other hand, burst out from Garchomp's grip and ordered the others to open fire on the area they were all hiding. "Bring in the big guns Attila!"
"I thought the Steelix was their big gun" Zoey shouted amid the explosions around the others.
"Oh no," Jessie answered her, "the big brute shooting at us is a knife in a gunfight compared to what is about to emerge from those two containers!"
Attila punched a button on a remote and the two containers opened, releasing a cloud of dust from the airlocked cells. As the dust cleared, Lapis saw a person emerge from each one. And when she turned to Cynthia, she saw her mentor look horrified at the two.
"Surge? Flannery?"
The artificial Gem that was once Lieutenant Surge had an enormous Topaz in his shoulder, sticking out from his bulky jacket, and he drew a club as his weapon. Flannery on the other hand, had a Ruby on her right hand, quickly turning into a gauntlet like the Ruby that was part of Garnet. Both had expressionless faces as Surge literally took the attacks from the other's pokemon while Flannery began to advance on Looker and Conway.
Lapis began to look around the entire area in search for any sort of water to defend herself, and Cynthia saw it.
"Lapis, the human body is almost seventy percent water!"
Lapis heard this, and honesty considered utilizing this newfound information on their adversaries. But before she could strike, she considered what Ash and Steven would say. "Using the water in the Team Rocket member's bodies would most likely kill them," she told Cynthia as she summoned Kingdra, "and killing isn't the Crystal Gem, or Ash's way! Kingdra, use hydro pump on the ground!"
The aquatic pokemon followed her instructions and shot to the ground, creating a thick layer of watery mud across the entire ground. "Cynthia, take care of Surge, I'll take out the armed Steelix! Kingdra help her with ice beam!" Kingdra obeyed and froze Surge in a chunk of ice, allowing Cynthia to attack. Lapis on the other hand, used the liquid mud to her advantage and created one of her signature water hands. She grabbed Hun's Steelix and pulled the pokemon to the ground, knocking Hun off their perch on top of it.
As Steelix fell, Flannery drew her gauntlet and prepared to attack Looker.
"Excuse me" she heard Conway from behind her. Turning around, she was struck by a shadow punch from his Dusknoir and was sent flying.
"Keep them all off my back" Looker ordered him. "I'm almost done, but I need more time."
"Too bad time isn't on your side human!" Hessonite declared, drawing her sword again and charging at them. Cynthia saw this, and pushed past the still frozen Surge into the Gem's path. She collided with the general just as she was going to strike Conway down, and the two fell to the ground. Before she could continue her attack, Flannery returned and threw her off Hessonite.
"It's me Flannery. I'm your friend!"
But Flannery simply ignored her, and threw the champion against the nearest pillar with a deafening thud.
"CYNTHIA!" Lapis screamed, turning the mud hand against Flannery, sending her flying across the Spear Pillar. "Cynthia, are you okay?" she asked helping her teacher to her feet.
"I'm fine, just keep them away from Looker."
Being one of the last of the agents up, Attila was at another panel on the other side of the Pillar punching something into the motherboard. Lapis knew that he was most likely calling for reinforcements, and with them, probably Jasper as well. Taking quick action, she used her mud hand and smashed the consul.
"Oh oh," Looker said a loud behind them.
"What's wrong?" Cynthia asked.
"It would seem in my haste to download the schematics, I might have accidentally triggered the warp pad's failsafe."
"In english please?" Barry screamed from his battle between Hun.
"I've activated the self destruct button. We've got less than four minutes to get out of here. The problem is, I haven't finished the download yet. And if we're gonna ensure Lapis is able to get back to her own universe, I have to finish this."
"This is going to take us to the literal last minute," Conway added, "there's no way we can both get this download and escape."
"Good thing we've got a ride then" Meowth explained. "Give Jessie and me two minutes and we'll be able to get all of us out of here, but you've gotta trust us!"
Lapis and Cynthia both looked at each other before nodding in silent agreement. "Alright, we're gonna trust you guys."
Jessie and Meowth both ran across the battlefield and exited the pillar. Hessonite then regained her consciousness and returned to her attack on Cynthia.
"You won't escape from me this time!" She declared charging at the champion sword in one hand and quick claw in the other. Garchomp leapt in front of his master in fierce loyalty and took the blunt of the blade for her.
Just as Lapis was about to act to help her, a large, cold hand grabbed her by the chest from behind and lifted her in the air. "No" she thought as she felt the grip squeeze her painfully. "Jasper must have me. I'm a goner."
The grip tightened.
"Ash" she confessed in her head "I'm sorry."
But her panic and worry was put to rest, as she heard the person squeezing her exclaim "Topaz crush blue lady!". It was then she realized that it was actually Surge who had her in his grasp, and not her feared former comrade.
"Pansage, bullet seed!" Cilan commanded his pokemon once he saw Lapis in danger.
Surge let out a cry of pain as he dropped her and turned his attention to Cilan. As the brute charged with his staff, Cress and Chili came to their brother's aid.
"Panpour, cool him with water gun!"
"Pansear, bring it to a boil with flame charge!"
"Passage, complete the recipe with bullet seed!"
The trifecta of grass, fire and water overpowered Surge and he fell to the ground.
"Are you alright?" Cilan asked helping her to her feet.
"We've got two minutes till we're blown to the distortion world!" Conway exclaimed. He then looked over towards Looker, whose normally swave and confident face had turned to worry. Without warning, he suddenly grabbed Conway, and took his pokefinder from his pocket.
"What are you-"
"I'm sending the final, uncoded, schematics to your pokefinder. This will allow you and the others to escape."
"What do you mean, "you and the others?" You're not coming with us?" Zoey demanded to know.
Looker grimly shook his head "no. I will have to continue plugging in the encryption manually to ensure it will reach you all. I'll buy you all some time, just get Lapis out of here!"
"NO!" The gem protested, "we're not leaving you! I've already abandoned just about everyone I care about! I'm not abandoning you too!" As she screamed at him, tears began falling down her face.
Looker gently smiled and caressed his hand on her face, finishing by pulling her into a trusting hug. "Lapis, my job job now is to ensure that you are safe. And this is exactly how I'm going to do it. My sacrifice will hopefully be the last necessary to protect both our worlds. Have a good life with him Lapis. I wish I could be there to see it through." He then let go of her and handed Conway a file drive. "Download this to your pokefinder and I will make sure the file is sent."
"Looker please!" Lapis made one final attempt to plead with him.
"GO! You have less than a minute!"
"How are we gonna get out of here in less than a minute!?" Barry screamed in panic. His question was immediately answered by the site of a massive hot air balloon shaped like a Meowth appearing from the opening of the roof of the pillar.
"What are ya waitin for, Christmas?" Meowth sarcastically asked from the basket as Jessie piloted it. "Get on!"
Attila, Hun, Cassidy, Flannery and Surge had all taken advantage of the chaos and escaped. However, Hessonite hadn't left yet as she was too busy battling with Cynthia and Garchomp to even think of getting out. And once she saw exactly what Looker was doing, she knew she couldn't let him do that. "Get away from there!" She screamed charging towards him.
"Croagunk! Brick break!" He ordered his only pokemon.
Lapis watched from the basket of the balloon as Hessonite struck his attacking Croagunk dead with her blade.
When she saw the timer was at thirty seconds, Hessonite ran to the warp pad and tried her best to get back to Homeworld safely, only to see the pad was deactivated. Before she could use her teleportation ability to escape and continue her assault on Lapis and the others, Looker charged her himself, taking her by surprise and stabbing her with his pocket knife, rendering her power worthless as she couldn't teleport other people with her.
"No! Let me go!"
"Looks like we're both going out in the line of duty." He joked. "Think of it as a warrior's death." He looked up to the balloon and a charismatic smile, he yelled, "Take care Lapis!" Before the timer hit zero.
The entire Spear Pillar erupted into a ball of orange flame and smoke. The explosion itself had enough force to propel the balloon out from harm's way, but the same could couldn't be said for Looker and Hessonite. From down below, the group watched in horror as Looker was devoured by the flame. The intense heat and pressure also got to Hessonite, causing her Gem to explode as she died screaming.
"LOOKER!" Cynthia screamed for her friend heartbroken.
Before anyone else could have time to grieve, the entire mountain began to shake, and Mount Coronet began to crumble from the intense explosion as if it were a volcano. The group watched the Sinnoh landmark fall in complete silence as they floated away devastated from the loss of their friend.
About two hours flew by of the entire group floating around aimlessly before Conway finally broke the silence.
"Damn it!" He screamed looking at his pokefinder.
"What's wrong?" Lapis asked sounding depressed.
"Looker was able to get us the blueprints to the interdimensional warp pad, but it's encrypted."
"So?" Zoey asked annoyed and sadly, "you're the smart guy. It shouldn't be that big of a problem for you."
"Unfortunately, these codes aren't easily cracked. Alone this would take me nearly four months to hack into given the limited technology we have. And if Looker was correct, they're probably already tracking us using this signal. This, combined with the time required to a actually build a warp pad of our own to return Lapis to her Earth, puts us at an estimated time frame of I'd say nine months."
Upon hearing this, combined with the pain she still felt over losing Looker, Lapis finally snapped. Within the blink of an eye, she grabbed Conway by his shirt collar and held him over the edge of the balloon basket furiously. "I DON'T HAVE NINE MONTHS!"
"Lapis!" Cynthia scolded her, having finally snapped out from her own depression. "This isn't what Looker would want. Conway, couldn't there be any other possible solution?"
"Perhaps." He explained out of breath. "Alone it would take me so much time. But I am aware of a man who, I dare say, is far superior in the art of computers than even myself. He is, well, a friend of mine."
"Conway," Barry interrupted doubtfully, "I've known you for three years now and never once have I ever seen you being friends with an actual human being."
"Oh not in person, of course not." He explained taking his computer out from his backpack. "My social awkwardness and introverted personality make face-to-face human interactions difficult for some someone such as myself. But the use of online chat rooms however, provides me with the comfort I require to have human interaction. Now I do not know his real name, but he goes by the username THEPokemonMaster12 on chat rooms. I also know he lives in the Hoenn region."
"What makes you think we can trust this guy?" Chili asked doubtfully.
"We can't. But it's our only hope." Cynthia rationalized. "Lapis, we're following your order, should we?"
Lapis looked from person to person to Meowth. She then felt her lower torso as if she were asking the baby for it' opinion. "Looker gave his life to get this. We can't let his sacrifice be in vain. Let's do it."
"I just received a message from him." Conway announced, "he said he's more than happy to assist us, but we must meet face to face."
"Then it looks like we're going to Hoenn."
"Of all the crummy times to have visited home" Kenny thought to himself as he ran through the burning ruins of his home of Twinleaf Town. The attack came out of nowhere, and he was lucky he was on the outskirts if the relatively small village, otherwise he'd probably be dead. A home behind him collapsed to the ground, revealing the enormous, orange skinned woman chasing him.
"Empoleon, hydro cannon!"
The orange woman was struck head on by the water attack. But she almost just brushed it off as if she was enjoying it. Behind her came a Team Rocket agent wearing an iron mask, and a short, blue skinned woman.
"Is that Kenny?" the orange woman asked the blue woman.
"Yes general Jasper." she answered.
Jasper advanced towards Kenny, being retaliated against by Empoleon with a metal claw attack. She answered this with a single strike to the pokemon's beak. When she finally got to him, she grabbed the pokemon coordinator by his shirt collar and lifted him to make eye contact with him, an insane smile on her face.
"My name is Jasper. My Sapphire here has told me that something I'm looking for will be coming here soon. And you my friend, have a part to play in me getting her back. Let's have a chat."