[This Chapter is based off of the episode "Coach Steven".]

It had been over five thousand years since Ruby and Sapphire had first fused; over five thousand years since they had decided to exist as Garnet permanently. It was a bit frightening at first, for both the fusion and the residents of her mind, but the two parts of them worked together beautifully, and the whole was even greater than the sum of their parts.

The emotions quickly discovered that Ruby's Sadness, for example, did not always have the same reaction to everything as Sapphire's did, nor did Sapphire's Anger always get upset by the same things as Ruby's. So instead of having a mere five opinions as before, Garnet had ten, which allowed her to choose the very best way to react in a given situation. (Her future vision, though it wasn't as strong or as accurate as Sapphire's alone, certainly didn't hurt.)

Just like how Ruby's fire and Sapphire's ice were melded together into Garnet's powers of electricity, their individual personalities came together to create a balance between two extremes. Sapphire's reserved, melancholy complacency was infused with Ruby's passion, while Ruby's fretful outbursts were tempered by Sapphire's natural calm. The result was a Garnet who was confident and self-assured, able to create yellow, joyful memories simply by being.

Of course, when the two factions of emotions had strongly differing views on something, they reverted to their component Gems for a period of time before they could reconcile. But it also allowed them to overcome and adjust to tragedies more quickly. This was particularly comforting when Garnet had to deal with the majority of her comrades in the rebellion becoming corrupted by Homeworld, or when Rose Quartz, her leader, idol, and friend, gave up her physical form in order to give birth to the half-human hybrid Steven, who was currently panicking about the communication hub interfering with television.

"I don't think that's going to work," Sadness R commented as Steven attempted to topple over one of the pillars by hand.

"And that won't work either," said Disgust S, watching a bulked-up Amethyst as she started chipping her way through it. "Well, it would," she clarified, observing the future vision section of the monitor, "but it would take way too long."

"So," said Fear R, "what we need is some sort of strategy for dealing with—"

"Wait, I've got it!" Joy S exclaimed. "Sugilite!"

"Great idea!" Anger S said. "If we fuse with Amethyst, we'll be done in no time!"

Joy S ran over to the idea bulb basin. Neither she nor any other of Garnet's emotions had used it before Ruby and Sapphire met—there was no call for them to come up with original thoughts, but instead simply follow the commands of their superiors—but it had come in handy since then, particular after Rose departed and left Garnet as the de facto leader of the team. Joy S grabbed the appropriate bulb and raced back to the console to insert it.

Once Garnet announced the plan, Amethyst and Steven reacted with suitable excitement: Amethyst over getting to fuse with Garnet, and Steven over getting to see another giant woman.

"Wait!" Pearl interjected. "Garnet, think about this. You and Amethyst can be a little... er… unstable when your personalities combine. We need to be careful! Fuse with me, instead."

"She's got a point," said Sadness S. "Considering what's happened with Sugilite in the past… Fears, what do you think?"

"Well, you know that we can't really use our future vision to see what might happen if we fuse," Fear S replied. "

"On the other hand," Fear R said, "I don't think there's much to worry about in this situation. We just smash things and defuse right after. No danger of things getting out of control."

"Yeah," said Anger R. "We don't need to be careful; we just need to be huge!"

"Plus, I think Pearl has a bit of an ulterior motive," Disgust S commented wryly.

"Hey, who can blame her?" Disgust R said. "Sardonyx can be just as fun as Sugilite."

"True," said Joy R. "But for now, fusing with Amethyst is the right way to go."

So the two lined up across from each other and began dancing, gyrating to an unheard groove. Eventually, Amethyst leapt towards Garnet and—

The large control room of Garnet's mind became even bigger. Five more emotions—Amethyst's Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust—were seated at the console.

"Hey, guys!" Joy A yelled. "Been a long time, hasn't it?"

"It really has," said Joy S. "I kind of forgot just how good being Sugilite felt. We have a whole other island," (this referred to Sugilite Island, which could be seen out the control room window), "five more friends to hand with, and a clear task of demolition to perform."

"Yeah!" Anger A agreed. "This is going to be great!"

"If you don't mind, I think I'm just going to take this opportunity to relax," Sadness A said, hopping down from her seat. "It's sort of exhausting having to regulate Amethyst's anxieties all the time; but I'm sure you can handle this job without me."

"No problem," said Sadness R. "I don't think we'll need much sadness anyway." She looked back at the screen. "Wow, Steven's really excited, isn't he?"

"Well, he's never seen Sugilite before," said Disgust S. "We should make sure we make a good impression."

"Definitely," said Joy R.

Sugilite summoned her weapon, a combination of Amethyst's whip and Garnet's gauntlets, to Steven's delight. "You like that, little man?" she asked.

"Are you gonna smash stuff with your wrecking-ball thingy?" said Steven.

"That's the plan! Where should I start?"

"Do that one!" Steven said, pointing to a pillar. Sugilite complied.

"All right!" Anger A shouted as she viewed the destruction on screen. "The Sugilite party has officially started!"

"It is satisfying to be able to wreck a bunch of stuff and not have it matter," Joy S commented.

"Plus, when we're this big," Fear S said, "We don't need to be so careful about getting hurt! It doesn't even matter that our future vision is all but gone!"

This was true; the already-weakened power inherited from Sapphire had been further reduced to just some vague general intuitions about what might happen; generally, it made no difference whether Sugilite heeded them or not.

So Sugilite swung her flail, sending showers of debris raining down, caring not where they landed.

"You're just too much!" Pearl said crossly.

Disgust R rolled her eyes. "Eh, she's just jealous because she's still so little."

"Yeah!" Disgust A said, laughing.

So Sugilite continued her rampage.

After about an hour, all the pillars were destroyed. Sugilite turned to face the others, but they weren't there.

"Hey, where'd they go?" asked Anger A.

"Didn't Steven like us?" Sadness R wondered.

"Bah, Pearl probably made him go home 'cause she was too jealous," Disgust R said.

"So Steven didn't get to see the full show?"

"Hey, don't worry," said Joy A. "We can just warp back and show him our moves there."

"Will we fit in the house like this?" said Fear S, but nobody paid attention to her. It didn't matter anyway, since they found that the warp pad have been broken.

"Oh, great," said Anger S. "They left us behind, and so now we have to walk all the way home."

So the next day, Sugilite returned to the Temple beach from her trek across the sea and announced in a loud, clear voice, "I'm bored!"

"Yeah, walking across the ocean was no fun," Sadness S remarked.

"Ugh, definitely," Disgust A added. "Stuck in a fusion underwater… it's a good thing it was just for a few hours, or else I might—"

"Hey, look! It's the Gem that forced us to do that!" Anger A said as Pearl approached.

"Yeah!" Anger S said. "She left us behind!"

"We just thought you didn't need any help," Pearl said, somewhat obsequiously. "Now why don't you separate, and we can all sit down and relax?"

"How about… no!" Anger R slammed her fist down on the controls; onscreen, Suglite kicked Pearl away.

"Ha!" Joy A laughed. "Good show, Anger! High-five!"

The two emotions shared the high-five as the others seated at the console nodded approvingly. From behind them, Sadness A made as if to say something, but was too timid to actually do so.

"Listen to me!" Pearl said crossly. "You've been fused for too long! You're losing yourselves!"

"Losing ourselves?" Joy S said, looking around at all of the emotions seated at the console. "Ha! This is us! It's great!"

"And being apart would not be great," Sadness R remarked.

"Yeah; I don't want to get split up again," Fear A said.

"So she'd better get used to us," said Disgust R.

"She'd also better get that junk off the beach," Disgust S added. She flicked a switch and Sugilite stomped on a bunch of gym equipment that was laying around for some reason.

Pearl strode up to her and summoned her spear.

"So, she wants to fight, huh?" Anger S asked rhetorically.

"You'll thank me later!" Pearl cried as she leapt at Sugilite, moments before getting swatted back to the ground again. But she persevered and tried again, this time managing to knock off Sugilite's shades.

"Hey!" Anger R shouted. "She knocked off our shades!"

"I bet she thinks she's something," said Disgust A said. "Well, I've got three words for her—"

"You! Ain't! Nothing!" Sugilite said as she beat up on Pearl. This left her despairing, tattered and bruised, in the sand.

"All right!" Joy A exclaimed. "We sure showed that weakling."

But Steven shouted words of encouragement through a megaphone and Pearl staggered to her feet once more.

"WHAT?" Anger R yelled at the scream. "YOU WANT SOME MORE?"

"Anytime!" Pearl retorted. "You're no match for me! Not even close!"

So the two Gems began to fight again, with Pearl eventually leading Sugilite up the hill and leaping off.

"She's not going to get away that easily," Joy S remarked smugly.

Sugilite swung her flail, intending to take down the pesky Pearl for good; but she, in turn, tossed her spear at Sugilite's feet, causing the cliff to crumble and her to lose her balance.

"Oh no!" Fear R cried, scrambling with the controls. "We have to—" She stopped as Sugilite hit the ground and remained unharmed. "Oh. Never mind."

"Is that all she's got?" Joy S gloated.

"Yeah," Anger A added. "It'll take much more to beat—"

She was cut off as the flail came down after them and hit Sugilite on the head. The control room shook; the emotions from Ruby and Sapphire's minds had barely enough time to cling to each to remain fused, while Amethyst's emotions got sent back to their original body.

So Garnet lay on the beach. "Well… that was… not optimal," Joy S said.

"We're sorry," said Sadness R. "Sadness S and I… we should have stepped in once things began to get out of hand."

"Yeah, but the rest of us are the ones who let it get out of hand," Anger R said.

"We were so wound up in being Sugilite, and having a good time with Amethyst's emotions, we didn't consider anyone else," said Joy R.

"And we let Sugilite overwork our body," Disgust S mentioned. "So now we have to lie here in pain."

A worried-sick Pearl rushed over and hugged the two Gems before quickly realizing that they were in no condition to be hugged and letting them drop again.

"Like that," Disgust S said.

"We should have listened to her," Fear R said. "She was right."

"Yeah," Pearl said proudly. "I was right." And this, along with Steven's continued motivations, filled her with confidence. "Come on! I feel great! Who's up for a mission?"

"How long is she going to keep this up?" Amethyst groaned, perhaps inquiring of Garnet's future vision.

Inside the control room, Sadness S shrugged. "Eh, we deserve it."