Garnet and the other Crystal Gems were hiding in the barn. A squad of Homeworld Rubies was outside, searching the area for a Gem as Peridot, inside, freaked out about being captured.

"Well, we won't let that happen!" Anger R exclaimed.

"Yeah!" Joy R agreed. "Except… how do we not let that happen?"

"Well," Fear S said, "they're all Rubies, right? So we just need another Ruby to infiltrate them."

"So what, we should shapeshift?" Fear R asked.

Disgust R rolled her eyes at this statement.

"Oh! You mean unfuse. I get it."

They did so, and were greeted by the others.

"Just act casual," Sapphire said, kissing Ruby on the cheek.

"Right!" Joy R said. "Casual."

The others watched as Ruby sauntered out to meet the squad.

"I'd better check the future vision to see how well this plan goes," Fear S said, fiddling with the controls.

"Look!" Joy S said excitedly, pointing at the screen. "In that scenario, Ruby's able to convince the others to leave, no problem!"

"But in this one," Sadness S said, "the plan fails, and we're forced to fight them."

"And in this one… we play a game of baseball with them?" Disgust S said quizzically. "Okay, there's no way that will actually happen."

"We've got this," Joy R said as Garnet's Ruby strolled up to the ones from Homeworld. "We just have to act casual."

"Wait," Fear R said. "What is casual? I mean, we haven't seen Homeworld society in thousands of years. Maybe their idea of casual has changed!"

"There's no way to know," Sadness R said. "The best we can do is to subtly find out what they're all doing here."

"Hey!" Ruby said nervously. "What are we all doing over here?"

The other Rubies looked at her.

Disgust R groaned. "Great."

But luckily, another of the scouts had the same question, so the leader answered it. "We're here to retrieve the leader of the Earth mission!" she said. She observed the rubies lined up before her. "Hey, wait a second. It seems like there are more of us than usual!"

"Oh no," Fear R cried. "This is it! We'll be found out!"

But as the leader double-checked, she forgot to count herself, which left her with the correct number of five. "Never mind," she said. She continued her briefing. "The leader of the Earth mission should be around here somewhere."

"Okay," Fear R said, "We have to make sure they don't check the barn."

"She's definitely not in that barn!" Ruby blurted out.

"Woah," the leader said, "I didn't notice that before. Maybe we should look around in there."

"Um, I'll go! By myself!" Ruby ran into the barn to inform the others. "They want to search the barn!" she stammered. "I'm scared!"

"Wow," Disgust S said, observing Sapphire's partner through the viewscreen. "I forgot how jittery Ruby could be."

"Well," Fear S replied, "She no longer has access to Sapphire's future vision, so to her, her fate—particularly in such a sensitive mission of espionage—is precariously uncertain."

"Let's ambush them!" Amethyst yelled, holding up a bat.

"No need for that yet," Sadness S said. "We just need to keep them away from the barn."

"Right," Joy S said. "We can just say that the barn's a place for humans. And it wouldn't even that much of a lie."

Sapphire related the plan.

"I don't want to go alone…" Ruby whimpered.

"Ooh!" Steven said enthusiastically. "I'll come!"

"I was sort of hoping Sapphire would come," Sadness R said.

"Well, this is probably better," Joy R said. "Steven's a human—or at least, half-human—so we can use him as an example of the humans in the barn."

"Sapphire could have pretended to be a human…"

Nevertheless, Ruby escorted Steven out to the Homeworld Gems. "I checked the barn," she said, "and I just found a bunch of humans!"

"Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it!" Fear R said.

"I think we'd better double-check," the leader said. "You remember what happened last time."

"Last time?" Ruby inquired.

The other Rubies laughed. "Oh, Ruby," one of them said. "You're so forgetful."

"Alright," another said, "let's search the barn!"

"No!" Fear R screamed. She turned to the others emotions. "We have to come up with some way to stop them!"

"Like how?" Anger R grumbled.

"Yeah," said Disgust R. "It's not like we're that great at strategy, and especially not on the fly."

"Maybe Steven could think of something?" Sadness R suggested.

Ruby glanced nervously over at him.

"You have to play baseball!" Steven said.

The Rubies looked at each other.

"It's a human thing," Steven explained. "If you win, you can go inside, and if you lose, you gotta leave forever."

"Well," Disgust R said, shrugging, "it's still better than anything we could have come up with."

"Huh," Fear S said. "I didn't expect for this scenario to be the one that would actually happen."

"Why couldn't they have picked a contest we were guaranteed to win?" Anger S complained. "Or at least one that wouldn't take so long?"

But it was too late to back out; so Sapphire and the other Gems, disguised as humans, competed against the Rubies, including Garnet's.

"And this way," Joy R said, "Ruby will be able to sabotage out own team's chances of winning!"

"But we shouldn't make it too obvious," Fear R said. "Otherwise, they might suspect that she's not actually—"

"Oh, knock it off, you worry-wort!" Anger R said. "Don't overthink it and just play poorly!"

So Ruby deliberately missed all three pitches, demonstrating how it was three strikes and you're out.

Eventually, Team Ruby got two more outs and took the field, with Garnet's Ruby positioned as catcher. After a close call with Amethyst using her super-speed, with the Rubies' ignorance of humans preventing them from becoming too suspicious, it was Sapphire's turn to bat.

"Kind of funny, isn't it?" Joy S said. "Here they are, as close as two Gems could possibly be, playing on opposite teams but still working together… and none of the Homeworld Rubies even know it!"

Ruby's Joy, in her own mind, had the same line of thinking.

"Wow," Joy R said. "That uniform's pretty adorable on her."

"It is," Sadness R said. "It's a shame she's not able to wear it all the time. You know, both because of the game and because we're always fused."

"So we should enjoy it while we can!"

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" Ruby asked with a grin.

"I don't know," Sapphire replied. "I don't get off-planet much."

The two of them giggled.

"Strike three!"

They had been so focused on flirting that Sapphire had forgotten to hit the ball; Team Human received their first out.

"Whoops," Joy S said.

The innings progressed, and the game remained neck-and-neck, thanks in part to how Ruby and Sapphire were unable to concentrate on the game, resulting in errors on Sapphire's part and a lack thereof on Ruby's.

"This is all your fault!" Anger S yelled at Joy S. "Your emotional inputs about Ruby are distracting Sapphire!"

"Well, how am I supposed to ignore something so cute?" Joy S retorted.

Things weren't going any better in Sapphire's mind.

"Why is this so difficult?" Sadness R sobbed. "We were able to keep apart in Keystone, no problem!"

"Yeah, but that was because Ruby and Sapphire were mad at each other," Disgust R said.

"That's it!" Joy R said. "Anger, think up a reason to get mad at Sapphire!"

"Okay," Anger R said. "Let's see… A-ha! I hate that she came up with the idea to split up!"

"Not what I had in mind."

It was the bottom of the ninth, and Team Human was down by one with two outs. Lapis was on second, so they needed a home run in order to win; unfortunately, Sapphire was up at bat.

Steven called a time out so he could talk to the batter and catcher. "Listen, you two. I know it's hard being separated, but we have to keep them out of the barn or they're gonna find Peridot, remember?"

"He's right," Sadness R said. "We have to get a grip. For our friend."

"Except it's not on Ruby; it's on Sapphire," Fear R said. "I hope she'll be able to do it."

"Of course she will," Joy R said. "We know Sapphire. We know her emotions. They'll find a way to help her through this."

Two pitches were thrown; two strikes were caught. "Come on, I know you can do it," Ruby said. "Just look at the ball."

"I'm trying, but all I want to look at is you."

"Don't worry, you can look at me when you're running for home."

"And she'll look so proud of Ruby," Joy S said. "Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

"So we'll make that her motivation," Disgust S said. "I mean, Peridot's okay, but Sapphire's the one we really love. So we'll concentrate and hit a home run, utterly decimating the other team! For love!"

"Alright!" Anger S yelled, hand on a lever. "I'm gonna give Sapphire a blast of fierce determination!"

So when the ball was pitched for the third time, Sapphire connected, gripping the bat so tightly that it began to freeze over, swinging so hard that the ball disappeared into the sky.

"Yes!" Joy S cried. Sapphire rounded the bases and headed for home, leaping into the arms of the awaiting catcher.

"We did it!" Joy R yelled. All of Garnet's emotions laughed and cheered. Joy S and Joy R embraced and spun around—until they suddenly recognized what had happened.

"Uh-oh," Fear S said.

The Homeworld Rubies, realizing that they'd been tricked, fused into one huge form, poised to fight the others.

"Wait!" Peridot yelled, stumbling out of the barn. "It's me you're after, right? I'm not gonna stand by and let my friends fight my battles!"

"Sacrificing herself to save her friends?" Sadness R said. "How noble!"

"We probably could have fought them off," Disgust S said.

"It's the thought that counts."

"Are you the Peridot assigned to the failed Earth mission?" the Ruby fusion bellowed. "Where is Jasper?"

"Wait," Fear R said, "they're looking for Jasper? Not Peridot?"

"Makes sense," Disgust S said. "She does have a tendency to think herself more important than she actually is."

"Um, we know where Jasper is," Peridot told the Ruby fusion.

"WELL?"

"Neptune!" Steven interjected. "She's on the planet Neptune!"

Everyone fell silent.

Disgust S shook her head. "There's no way she's going to actually fall for—"

"Well, why didn't you say so?" the fusion said. They split apart, entered their ship, and departed.

"Man, Rubies are dumb," Amethyst said.

Joy S placed her arm around her counterpart's shoulders, nuzzling her cheek with her own. "Not all of them," she said.