"Connie!" Steven shouted.

The darkness within the red warrior's left forearm grew into a great, shadowy claw, and with a single thrust, the red warrior, the leader of the Shrekpire pursuit force, threw all this dark energy forward with overwhelming force.

-FWOOOSH!-

At the very last moment, Steven had thrown himself right into the brunt of the attack with his shield held forward, and just like that the attack dissipated into thick, black smoke.

If Steven had simply thrown his shield instead, the shield would have likely landed into Connie, or the red warrior would have simply dodged out of the way while he continued his attack from another direction.

Something told Connie that even if she had maintained her guard, that attack would have broken through it anyway.

So why did he…

But Connie already knew the answer to that question.

If Steven had not intervened when he did, Connie would be dead.

Connie may have only just recently been acquainted with keyblades and their powers, but even she could see the power that lay behind that attack.

Even as Steven's momentum drove him forward, the red warrior looked on dumbfounded shock.

"How in the world…?"

Since the red warrior had already committed himself to his attack, Steven's small yet heavy body collided straight into the warrior's arm, causing the two of them to tumble backwards, crash into the high-raised stools over by the counter, and then land near the sofa by the window.

"Way to go, Steven!" Peridot cheered from behind.

As the red warrior slowly began to pry himself back up with his keyblade, Connie cautiously stepped forward, briefly looking back to take note of Lea's currently frozen state.

Though when she looked back forward, she thought she could see a faint glow radiating from Steven's body.

"That attack was supposed to be unblockable!" the red warrior exclaimed. "How could a boy such as you… a bloody cartoon character… even…"

"You better check yourself…" Steven began to say, "before you Shrek yourself."

Although Connie could see neither the eyes nor face of the man who lurked behind that helmet's visor, she knew his face must have been apprehensive with horror.

"No… no…! This cannot be…!"

The navy warrior, still carrying the capsule in her arm, stepped back in through the door after knocking it down with her keyblade.

"Sergeant! Something's…"

"IT'S TIME TO GET RIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPEEDD!"

A voice loud enough to carry itself across ten football stadiums boomed throughout the house, with a ruggedness and tenor that could only be matched by the most hardened and ardent of professional wrestlers. Connie thought she could hear Steven's dad say "Holy shit!" or something along those lines, though it didn't fully register in her mind.

The two armored keyblade warriors briefly looked outside, where a hulking, muscle-bound figure the size of Opal or Alexandrite stood near the base of the hill leading up to the beach house.

Each of his muscles was about as thick as a full-sized SUV. His shirt had torn clean off, and his pants had inexplicably stretched to match his great size, but judging by his eyes and hair, it was still undeniably Riku.

Yet, looking deeper, something seemed different, besides literally everything else.

"Oh," was all the leader of the Shrekpire squad could utter.

As Connie felt her legs moving herself forward, she thought she could see Steven reach his arm out toward her.

"Take my lead," said Steven.

She saw Steven Universe looking at her.

"Uh, sure," she said, taking his hand without fully registering what she had done.

There's something about those eyes.

But that was not all there was to it. When Connie took Steven's hand into her own, there was something there that wasn't there before.

A certain magnificence.

Connie's trance was broken by the cries of the orange warrior outside, "You're going down!"

"Wait," Connie heard the green warrior say, "Barney, don…"

But the giant, extraordinarily buff Riku lifted both his muscular arms, which held his now relatively tiny keyblade, and then drove them towards the ground nearby.

"HAMMEEER SLLLLAAAAAAAAM!"

-KABOOOM!-

The sheer impact of the attack lifted the sand and soil around Riku up like an artillery strike. Shards of Riku's keyblade scattered amidst the debris, and a harsh, metallic crunch could be heard beneath the blast.

"We need to get out of here," the red warrior muttered in quiet shock.

Connie felt a tug on her arm, signaling that now was the time to act.

As Connie and Steven charged for the red warrior, the orange warrior outside leaped high into the air where Connie could see him, and then pointed at the hulking monstrosity of Riku.

"MEGAA FLAAAAAAARE!"

The visor of the red warrior turned towards Connie and Steven.

-FOOOOSH!-POW!-

A great explosion, followed by a hard slam, erupted outside, engulfing the front side of Steven's house in flame.

"Ow!" the orange warrior screamed from outside.

"SOLAAR SPEAAAAAR!" Riku's now unusually gruff and baritone voice shouted.

-FWOOOSH!-

Just at the last second, the unknown red warrior tried to dash out of the way of Steven and Connie's combined attack, though Steven was quick to smash his shield into him just as he began to move.

"Guh!"

"Sergeant!"

The navy warrior held her keyblade out and then made a quick fling of it.

Another black hole-like sphere formed in the air, and Connie felt herself being lifted up towards it.

"Hang in there," said Steven.

Just as the navy warrior was about to take aim with her gauntlets, Steven threw his shield right into them.

"Agh!" she shouted, "Ggh! That shield!"

The room began to spin around as Connie clung to and rotated around the strange sphere, which gradually began to stretch her body apart.

"Ungh…"

Connie lost consciousness.

There was a face

Smiling down upon her

She knew that so long as she kept on looking at it

So long as its light continued to shine down upon her

Everything would be alright

Connie awoke sometime later in a hospital bed.

"Connie, you're up!"

That voice, it was Steven's.

"Huh?"

Something about the room looked familiar.

This is my mom's place.

She wasn't sure how she was able to recognize this place just from the look of it, since hospital rooms tended to look kinda similar, but somehow she knew.

What happened?

There was supposed to have been a few other people with them. Not the gems, though it was unlikely that they would show themselves in this place.

Didn't something happen to them?

That's right, that lady poofed them.

There was that fight.

Mom's gonna kill me.

Although Connie could have easily said that aloud, she didn't really have enough energy to do so. She was feeling kinda sleepy as is.

"You're still sorta out of it," she heard Steven say.

Steven must have been trying to say something while she was still trying to collect her thoughts. The painkillers must have been having that effect.

"Did we… win?"

"Not really…" said Steven. "They've got Pearl and Amethyst, and the guys are still looking for them."

"What guys?" Connie said.

"You know, Agent Thompson and those guys.

"But… at least a few of us are alright. Lea's back up, though Lapis is still regenerating. If it wasn't for Riku, I'm not sure if we would have been able to survive this."

He's not the only one…

Then she remembered how the whole fight had started, when Riku rushed at the orange fighter.

"Why did he do that…?"

"Do what?"

"Do you think all this could have been avoided somehow?"

"I don't know. All I know is that, now that they've got Amethyst and Pearl, we'll have to fight them."

"They're gone, huh," said Connie.

Now that she thought of it, there was a brief moment during that fight where the gems seemed to have disappeared.

"Yeah," said Steven. "But on the bright side, we got a few of them."

"You mean Riku defeated them?"

"I guess so. The government guys were dragging them into their van."

Wait, but then that means only one of them escaped, and somehow we managed to defeat the other guys.

"What happened while I was… out?"

"I'm not actually sure. I sorta blacked out too. All I remember is that the red guy was about to do that move, and I just had to protect you from him. The next thing I know, I'm outside, with the house on fire. I don't know what happened, but you didn't look so well."

He doesn't remember either.

Something seemed different about him back then, like there was someone else inside him.

Was that Rose?

But why would she have said something like that?

Why would she invoke the god of their enemy?

Riku must have experienced something similar as well, something that transformed him into whatever that was.

Whatever it was, it was thanks to that they were still alive.

"I tried healing you with my spit, and it seemed to have worked," Steven continued. "Then the government guys showed up and took us all here."

"Did Riku or any of the others say anything?" Connie asked.

"Riku didn't say anything, though I think the others said something about Riku turning into a giant. I guess it explains why his clothes were all torn up. Lea says he's never seen anything like it before, so I don't really know how he was able to do something like that without something like fusion."

Connie tried to recall just what she had seen. Riku was usually stoic like Garnet, but somehow he had turned into a gigantic, ham-fisted wrestler during that fight.

Those Shrekpire folks had said something about being able to simulate the properties of another universe, but to be able to do that, they must have known what those properties were in the first place.

They said that, because of whatever that thing was, stories in books, TV shows, and cartoons became real for them.

A cartoon character.

What did these people know?

There was that show Connie, Steven, and the gems saw earlier. The one about Giantdad.

Didn't Riku kinda act like that superhero?

Maybe he didn't use the same phrases, but during that fight, Riku seemed just as bombastic as that guy. Connie didn't see what happened, but something about that last fight they watched seemed unusually similar to what Connie and the others had just experienced. Just when almost everyone else had been defeated, Riku ascended into that form.

A giant.

Was that show trying to tell them something?

Connie's mind seemed to drift in this train of thought, until the door finally opened.

"Connie, thank goodness you're alright!"

As Connie sat upright, she felt the form of her mother wrap around her body.

Although she was an experienced doctor, there were probably ethical reasons why Connie's mother didn't operate on her, assuming that was the case. Connie couldn't quite remember at the moment.

"I know you sorta have saving the world things to do, but could you be a bit more careful next time?" said Connie's mother.

"I know," said Connie, unable to muster up the thoughts to explain just what had happened.

"The actual mission wasn't that bad," said Steven. "It's just… we sorta got attacked in our own home."

"But don't you have the gems to protect you?" protested Connie's mother.

"About that…" Connie began.

"They're gone," said Steven.

"Yes Dr. Maheswaran," said Agent Thompson as he filed into the room, "the foes these kids faced today were on an entirely different level. It was only thanks to a miracle that they were able to stand a chance, but it is thanks to that very miracle that we now have the upper hand."

Lea walked in through the door behind Agent Thompson.

"Oh," replied Connie's mom.

There was a strange silence over her, as her mother would usually ask more questions.

"Uh, sup?" said Lea.

"Where's dad, and Peridot?" Connie asked.

Connie didn't bother asking about Riku, as the government guys were probably asking him questions about what happened at the beach house.

"Your father is here, though he's talking with some of the other F.B.I. folks," said Connie's mom.

"Yes," said Agent Thompson, "he seemed very interested in the circumstances that have happened over the past few days."

"What about Perdiot?" Connie repeated.

"Dunno what she's up to," said Lea.

"I think she needs some time to herself," said Steven.

"If it's of any interest to you," said Agent Thompson, "we've also brought Garnet here."

The house did kinda burn down after all.

Though now that there were so few of them left, who would be left to protect the temple and Beach City?

"So what do we do now?" said Connie.

"It would be wise for you folks to rest for now. Our analysis on those energy signatures in the Ozarks should be finished sometime soon, and we may be able to yield some new information by analyzing the alien battlesuits. I know these past few days have been taxing on your minds and bodies, but I'm afraid we've found ourselves in strange times. I hope the day will come when we will no longer require your services."

"But what about Pearl and Amethyst," said Steven. "We have to go out and find them!"

"I'm afraid there's not much we can do right now without further information. Until then, we will just have to wait, and find out what we can about this new menace. To think, first it's the Heartless, and now these warriors from a whole 'nother dimension.

"These are strange times indeed."

Private Indigo Black had been propelling herself through the thick forestry, careful to conserve what ammunition she had left.

To think, even someone like Seymour would be taken down by that… monster.

How could a young boy gain so much power in such a short span of time?

There were stories, of warriors with such raw strength and speed that they could glide through the air as if they were teleporting. Riku didn't quite match the description, but Indigo had witnessed that sort of power through the movies of ancient times.

All legends and prophesies have truth buried within them. It's only a matter of finding where that truth applies, that we can truly understand them.

This was the truth behind all things. The truth that Shrek made reality.

Shrek is love, Shrek is life.

Yet evidently, the four of them had misjudged the foe they faced. Barney and Chester fallen in battle, and their keyblades and armor had shattered. The Sergeant let his pride overtake him, and as such, he had been crushed.

Indigo fled the first moment she could, without sparing a moment to try and rescue her comrades.

There was no saving them.

She had expected that the fight against Riku would have been difficult, she had known as much from her training simulations, but nothing had prepared her to take on this kind of foe.

Now, she was on her own.

She didn't fear the consequences of reporting the pursuit squad's failure, though trying to find her way back into the Shrekpire's borders would prove a challenge all on its own.

She had no idea where the gate to the previous world even was, and their exit points didn't always correspond to where the gate back would be.

So far, she hadn't found any rifts, though she didn't expect she would have to go around looking for them.

Private Black had taken the precaution of removing the suit's in-built computer and signaling system, on the off-chance the locals figured out how to isolate it from the billions of other devices that probably existed in this world.

Now all that was left to do was wander and survive.

Speaking of the equipment Indigo had on her, she was still carrying that pressurized capsule the Sergeant had her hold onto, after Chester had left it behind during the fight. Indigo had no idea what was supposed to be in this thing, but whatever it was, it seemed to be important.

Sergeant Seymour obviously knew a lot more about this "Steven Universe" universe than she did.

Indigo half wanted to see what was inside it, though it could also contain something dangerous. She'd have to wait until she could get one of those rigs that could see what was inside this thing.

Though… it might not hurt…

"Going somewhere?"

A voice she did not recognize.

Indigo dropped the capsule, and then summoned out her keyblade, a standard Oblivion model. It could be a bit cumbersome to use at times, but it had its uses.

"Who's there?"

When she turned around, she saw a black-coated figure. From what she remembered from Kingdom Hearts lore, the coats were supposed to shield their users from darkness, though the armor suits used by most Kingdom Hearts Invasion personnel were more suited to general combat.

The woman standing before her had long, wavy black hair which flowed over her right shoulder, and her blue eyes had a certain intensity behind them.

"You must be one of the goons tasked with capturing Riku and the other boy."

She must have been somewhere higher up on the Shrekpire's chain of command. Otherwise how would she know about the mission?

"Where's the rest of your squad?" said the woman.

"Defeated in action," Indigo said bluntly. "I couldn't verify their deaths."

"Ah yes, that's a shame isn't it," the woman said nonchalantly. "Had a bit of trouble by the beach, didn't you?"

Wait, how did she know about what happened? Where would she have seen the battle from?

Though, if she knew that, why did she ask where the others were?

Furthermore, how did this woman even get into this dimension? Riku was the one who opened the initial rift; only Sergeant Seymour's team and those with Riku would have known about this.

"I see you don't quite trust me," said the woman. "Don't worry, I'm on your side. If I wasn't I would have killed you without second thought."

"Who are you, anyway?" Indigo asked.

"I go by Maelstrom. Who I am and what I do are not things you need to concern yourself with."

So you're some sort of spy.

Although Maelstrom did not appear to be wielding a keyblade currently, she would likely have some sort of equipment that allowed her to breach into other dimensions, similar to what the Shrekpire used forming gateways to other worlds.

It was not equipment to be taken lightly, as it could be dangerous in the hands of those who would oppose the Shrekpire and everything that the Ogrelord stood for.

"Now that I've introduced myself," the woman continued, "I suppose I ought to have the right to know your name as well."

"Private Indigo Black, sir!"

Maelstrom seemed to smile upon hearing this.

"Good. Now, I have some information that might be pertinent to your mission."

Indigo nodded, and Maelstrom continued.

"I have noticed some strange things about this world."

"How so?" Indigo asked.

It wasn't that unexpected to see strange things while traveling through the multiverse. Heck, even the whole mechanics behind how hearts and memories worked in the Kingdom Hearts cluster world could seem a bit alien at times.

If so, how was this world different from any other?

"Have you noticed that this world's inhabitants seem unusually resistant to the Heartless?" Maelstrom continued.

"Can't say I've met that many people here."

Now that she thought of it, there seemed to be an unusually low number of Heartless when they traveled through the area. It didn't seem like there were that many in the first place, as they were likely filtering in through the rifts Riku opened up, but usually the locals had more trouble with them until someone got involved.

Well, except for that "Boss Heartless" type, though that was likely created by someone already attuned to "darkness" or villainy.

"What exactly are you trying to say?" said Indigo.

"You noticed something, didn't you?"

That shield.

Even though it looked just like your average magical shield, it was strong enough to break through her block. Come to think of it, it also managed to break through Chester's lighting roll, even though he could dodge most techniques with it. If it wasn't for her armor, it would have broken through her layers.

"I did," Indigo replied.

"The boy possesses a strange power within him, though I cannot fathom what it is," said Maelstrom. "It seems likely that, if Riku had not met Steven Universe, he would not have been able to take on that form."

"You think Steven was the cause of… that?"

Even as strange as these circumstances were, it was still strange to think a boy like that, even with that strange power of his, would have allowed Riku to take on that hulking, ogre-sized form.

"I do," Maelstrom seemed to reply with disinterest.

As skeptical as Indigo was of these claims, there was not much she could do but accept them as face value, as it was clear this Maelstrom person knew more about the situation.

The black-coat woman then turned around and began to walk away.

"I would keep an eye on the boy if I were you. The local authorities of this world will likely be trying to track you down, so I shall play my part and help you escape, or at least distract them long enough for you to get your bearings."

"You're willing to do that?" said Indigo.

"Why not? I've got time to kill. And besides, you might need my help if you wish to survive," Maelstrom paused. "I'll be sure to stop by High Command and ask for reinforcements. Until then, you might want to check out what's in that capsule. She might come in handy on your mission."

Indigo looked down at the capsule and picked it off the ground.

She might come in handy?

So there was a gem-person inside this thing. But, how was Maelstrom able to see what was inside it? It was possible she had some power that allowed her to do such a thing, though it seemed oddly convenient.

Maelstrom turned around, "Oh, speaking of which, you have the gems for Pearl and Amethyst, right?"

If Sergeant Seymour hadn't informed her about each of the gem's identities, she likely wouldn't have known what Maelstrom was referring to. Fortunately, Indigo had no trouble understanding.

"I do, why?"

"Could I see them, please?"

Indigo brought out the two gems from the suit's built-in storage and then held them out.

Maelstrom took a few steps forward, took the gems from her hand, and then lifted them up to examine them.

"Ah, excellent. I shall bring these back to the core worlds for analysis. The gems are a manufactured species, so once we learn the means and methods for their construction, we should be able to bolster our own armies with our own gem soldiers."

So they're basically like androids or robots.

The woman made a slight curtsy. "You have the Ogrelord's grace."

"Thank you," Indigo bowed.

"Now come this way. If we wish to elude our adversaries, there are a few things we should take care of first."

"Yes, sir."

Indigo Black obeyed, for now that her squad was either dead or captured, she would have to place her trust in Maelstrom's guidance.

A/N: So, now you may or may not know part of the reason why I decided to cross this over with Kingdom Hearts.

I'm not sure whether I cut off too early during some parts of this chapter. I was originally planning on writing the whole fight scene, though complications sorta happened. It probably wasn't necessary to include the whole fight, as most of the events are sorta relayed later. I probably could have expanded a bit more on the post-fight scenes, though I don't really feel like there was much else I needed to cover this chapter.

Anyway, I hope you all are still keeping up with this, despite my haphazard update schedule. Next chapter might be kinda short, depending on how far I decide to go with it, but it'll mostly cover the transition into the next story arc (and more semi-plot related stuff). Anyway, stay tuned and be sure to share your thoughts!