Garnet herded the other Crystal Gems into the house, not responding to Pearl and Amethyst's insistence that they should go after the intruders. Centi was so wrapped up in her drawing that she almost didn't notice until the protesting crowd reached the porch. Then she scurried inside with all the rest of them, her open sketchbook smooshed flat against her chest, her fingers squeezed rigidly around the pencil with its comical monster head.
"What are we running away for?!" complained Amethyst. "A couple of Rubies are no match for us!"
"And if we let them get away, we might never get another chance to figure out what they're up to!" added Pearl.
"No," said Garnet. Her lips were pressed very close together, barely parting to allow a word to pass between them. "I can see that nothing good will come of it."
The door slammed shut behind Centi, and she ventured another peek into her sketchbook. She understood the panorama into which she'd arranged the haphazardly scrawled figures…but would anyone else? She began to scratch in a few adjustments. Luckily, none of the other Crystal Gems had taken notice of her just yet.
"They kidnapped a corrupted gem!" cried Steven. "Who knows what they're gonna do to it?! We have to go back for it…!"
"No," repeated Garnet, fixing him with a glare from behind her visor. "You don't know what's at stake."
Centi peered up from behind her sketchbook. "Um, what happened back there, exactly?" she asked timidly.
"Didn't you see?!" exclaimed Amethyst.
"I saw, I saw! I just couldn't hear. What was it…?"
Pearl huffed out a sigh and crossed her arms in a way that made her elbows and shoulders jab at the air. "We had just poofed the monster when we were ambushed by two Rubies," she explained.
"Rubies?" repeated Centi, her head tilting slightly. "You mean, foot soldier Rubies?"
"The very same," Pearl replied with a sharp nod. "One of them caught the corrupted gem, and we went up to them to tell them to hand it over. Then they said – "
"Hold on a moment," interrupted Garnet.
Everyone's eyes snapped towards her like she'd screamed instead of making a quiet statement.
Garnet reached down until her fingertip almost touched the cover of Centi's sketchbook. "What's this drawing?" she asked.
Instantly, Centi felt a hot tingle of self-consciousness. "This? Um, well, like I said before, I could see what was going on, so I just…" She averted her eye and held the sketchbook in Garnet's general direction.
For almost a minute, Garnet examined the drawing closely, holding out of the view of everyone else. Then she took a few steps further into the house and spread the book out on the living room coffee table. "Centi, could you please explain to everyone what is going on in this image?" she said, not sounding judgmental, just curious.
Maybe Centi should have made a few more adjustments if Garnet couldn't tell what it was…but she obeyed nonetheless, her hands wringing together as she stepped forward. "Um, well, these are the two Rubies…all I could see was that they were small and square, I couldn't see what gems they were. And this one has the corrupted gem inside a bubble…" She pointed to where she had drawn a small figure holding up an orb with both hands. "And this one is going like – " Withdrawing her hand, she twisted both arms into the Diamond salute, a motion that was still as natural to her as walking. "I didn't have a good way to draw that when they're not stick figures. But, um, she's saluting this other gem here…"
She didn't need to point this time: everyone was already staring at the third, much taller figure that Centi had depicted in her drawing. Peridot leaned over Garnet's hip to get a closer look. "Who's that?" she demanded. "I didn't see anybody else on the beach…!"
"Neither did I!" exclaimed Amethyst.
"Well, she was very far away," admitted Centi. "But I can see things that are far away. So…" Words failing her, she flapped her hand over the picture demonstratively.
What she had vaguely sketched in next to the two Rubies was a tall, angular gem; the majority of her features had been left blank, as even Centi's distance vision hadn't been able to pick them out. What she had seen, though, was the tall figure placing her hand on the bubbled gem to whisk it away, and Centi had depicted the event as best she could.
"She pushed down on the bubble. And then, whoosh!" She spread out her hands. "It was gone. I guess this other gem must have been the leader, because the Rubies were saluting to her."
"Yes," agreed Garnet. She turned back to the rest of the Crystal Gems with her hands balanced on her hips. "And this is why we didn't go after the Rubies. Because we have more than just the Rubies to worry about, and we can't go making a target of ourselves."
Steven placed his hand against her leg, which was about as high as he could reach. "Did you see this happening with your future vision?" he asked softly.
"I saw that it was a possibility," she responded. "A possibility that Centi has just confirmed."
"This certainly matches up with what we heard," remarked Pearl.
Centi frowned down at her sketchbook, still trying to process how one scribbly drawing had produced so much discussion, so much emotion. Pearl's comment, though, brought her attention back to how much she didn't know. "What did you hear? You still haven't told me…"
Steven took initiative this time, scooting out from behind Garnet. "When we caught up to the Rubies and told them to give the corrupted gem back, they said no, of course. Then one of them said something about us – running experiments on other gems, and 'harvesting' them…"
"Their exact words were, and I quote, 'Now we know for sure that you rebels have been harvesting innocent gems for your experiments!'" This came from Peridot, who even spoke in what was probably meant to be a mimicry of the soldier gem's voice. "To be honest, I had always heard that, too, about the rebels harvesting us. Because I didn't realize what corruption was or that Homeworld had caused it."
"And then," Amethyst interjected, "I was like, 'We're gonna kick your red butts if you don't give that back to us!' and they were like 'Just try it! After those other Rubies disappeared on Earth, we're prepared for anything!' Then G wanted to know what they were doing on Earth in the first place, and…"
"They said 'We're here to help one of our own'," finished Steven. "And…then they ran off."
Centi glanced around uncertainly at the grim faces surrounding her. "So…what do you think that means?" she finally ventured.
Pearl rested her chin on her hand. "Both other times that the Rubies came to Earth, they were searching for Jasper. She would certainly count as 'one of their own.' Oh, I'm sorry, Centi; how much do you know about what happened after Steven healed you?"
"I know most of it," Centi assured her. "Steven told me whenever he came to visit. He said that there were these Rubies, but the first time you made them leave by playing baseball, whatever that is, and then they came back again but Amethyst pretended to be Jasper and you all went to the moon and the Rubies got lost in space." She paused. "Um, it sounds really confusing when I say it, but I understood it better when Steven told me. So, those were the same Rubies that were here before?"
"No," answered Garnet stiffly. "They were different ones. There are a lot of Rubies, and I don't think that Homeworld would bother to search for a few who had gone missing."
Centi didn't say anything to that. She was no Ruby, but she certainly knew how it felt to be abandoned by Homeworld…
"You say that, but I think that Homeworld might be suspicious of what happened nonetheless," Pearl pointed out. "As far as they know, five Rubies, one of their strongest quartz soldiers, and a Lapis Lazuli have all disappeared without a trace. And they made those comments about us 'harvesting' and 'experimenting'! Doesn't it seem to you like they think that we might have done something with the Rubies and with Jasper?"
Peridot nodded eagerly. "Jasper is one of the most valuable soldiers on Homeworld! Even if Rubies are disposable – sorry, I mean, even if they think that Rubies are disposable – they would never just leave her here. Why else do you think they sent out a search party just devoted to rescuing her? They must believe that us rebels are preparing to harvest her and assimilate her power!"
"Nobody's going to be assimilating power from Jasper anytime soon," said Pearl dismissively.
Privately, Centi couldn't help wondering what would happen if they just turned over Jasper's gem and were done with it. Steven had said that he, Amethyst, and Peridot had poofed and bubbled her, and she clearly hadn't wanted to be on Earth in the first place, so what was the harm in sending her back home? But at the same time, Centi knew that handing Jasper over would be a temporary solution that would cause a whole slew of problems later, like sticking a piece of tape over a ship's gas pipe and waiting for the slow leak to blow you up. Jasper had already proven to be a powerful force that could help eliminate the Crystal Gems for could. And aside from that, Homeworld was bad, and nobody deserved to be stuck in their hierarchy. It was easy to imagine Steven hoping that Jasper would pull a one-eighty the way that Peridot had.
"We don't even know for sure that it's Jasper they're looking for," Garnet reminded everyone. "Let's not jump to conclusions so soon. At any rate, I'm glad that Centi was able to confirm that the Rubies aren't alone this time."
Centi raised her eye. Had she actually done something useful?
"And," added Garnet, her gaze swaying between the Crystal Gems, "any leader from Homeworld won't be fooled by cheap trickery. Which means that every move we make must be exceptionally careful."
Pearl nodded. "No disguises, no shapeshifting, and no baseball."
"Hey, that was an accident!" protested Steven.
"Peridot," said Garnet, "I want you to come with me to see if we can gather more information about who has come to Earth this time. Your technical knowledge makes you our best hope for hacking into Diamond control systems."
Peridot pounded her fist into her hand. "You're right, it does!"
"Everyone else, carry on with your training," continued Garnet. "Our quest will become even more difficult if Homeworld is truly about to get involved. We all need to be prepared."
"Hey, are you saying that I need to go back to training?!" griped Amethyst.
"Everyone needs practice," Garnet told her. "But I was thinking that you could help Pearl work with Centi. I believe they had a bit of trouble yesterday."
Amethyst brightened immediately. "Ohhh! Yeah, I can totally do that! C'mon, my corrupted homegirl, let's get you ready to kick some butt!"
Centi stifled a groan. With all the excitement resulting from the scuffle on the beach, she'd been hoping that she might be able to wriggle out of training for today; her mind was so consumed with recent events that she knew that her chances of actually concentrating would be slim to none. And now Amethyst would get to see her fail as well! The one gem who'd actually encouraged her yesterday, finally realizing that her 'corrupted homegirl' was a total failure…
The fact that her drawing had helped was definitely a fluke, she decided as Pearl ushered her towards the Warp Pad. She didn't expect that something like that would happen again anytime soon.
…
The training session was long, exhausting, and frustrating.
If there was one good thing about it, it was that Centi didn't have to fight Holo-Pearl with its nerve-grating voice, instead sparring with Amethyst and Steven. However, her lack of skill compared to them dampened her spirits pretty rapidly. She tried just about every weapon in Pearl's bag of tricks – a dagger, a nunchuk, a hammer, an axe, plus some that she didn't even know the name of – and seemed to get worse with every new attempt. Even her opponents going easy on her didn't help. Her combat skills were beyond salvaging.
As she got wrapped by Amethyst's whip for the two dozenth time, finding herself overpowered and flicked to the ground the way any human would flick a bug off of their arm, she felt a new sensation bubble in her chest…something she didn't often get a chance to feel. This time, she wasn't just frustrated by her lack of progress: she was full-on angry.
A growl rose up in her throat, and Centi tore herself free from the clutches of the whip, scrambling to her feet. "This is hopeless!" she shouted, her voice cracking and splintering from sheer rage.
The words rang out across the ruins, much louder than she'd thought they would be, and everyone froze and stared at her.
Amethyst lifted her hands, letting the whip dissolve into a flash of light. "Woah, hey!" she said soothingly, striding a little closer to Centi. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"No!" Centi bunched her hands in her hair, her mind hurtling dizzyingly under the strain of her emotions, pushing the words out. "I…I hurt me! I'm…hurting myself! Because I can't do anything right…!"
In the distance, Pearl reached out a hand briefly, but evidently decided that any attempts at comfort would only make things worse. Steven, with no such reservations, came forward, and Amethyst frowned sympathetically. "Hey, are you crying…?"
Sure enough, Centi felt thick tears sliding down her cheeks and dripping from the tip of her nose. She turned away with a wordless infuriated sound. "I-I'm crying because I'm mad!" she spluttered out. "Because I'm the worst!"
She yanked at her hair some more. It was hard to tell over the roaring pulse of her own distress, but she could have sworn that she heard Amethyst murmur, "The worst, huh…?"
Then Steven came up behind her and insinuated his hand with hers.
"I'm sorry, Centi," he said, leaning against her briefly. "I know you're really upset right now. But don't give up, okay? You beat corruption, I know you can beat this too…!"
Her hand spasmed in his. "I can't beat anything!" she cried. "I never beat corruption! I'm only a little bit better because of something that you did, not because of me! I'll never be able to do anything like that on my own!"
Another spasm, this one running all the way down her torso. Centi jerked away as she felt her form quaver, and in the next moment, two malformed arms sprouted from her side – almost humanoid in appearance, but too shrunken and twisted and angular to be of any real use.
This reminder of her failure to even exist properly was the last straw. She took off running, her head bowed, leaving the ruins behind her dotted with free-falling tears. She got as far as the Warp Pad before realizing that she could go no further, that gem technology would always acknowledge the ugly truth about her, even when everybody kept pretending that she was completely okay.
She plopped down on the Warp Pad and hugged herself, ugly tears oozing from her eye and ugly extra arms dangling uselessly by her side, wishing that she could just be home.