How It Will End

by Milo F. Waters

Steven barely escaped his trial on Homeworld. Soon after he returns, he starts discovering more new abilities. Although that might be for the best for him and the Crystal Gems because Homeworld is NOT happy with his departure...

99. Endgame Part III

I honestly can't believe its done. This chapter turned out longer than entirety of my first two SU stories. But, here it is.

As Stevonnie walked into the pleasant pink space, their eyes caught Rose. They could see her unease, no doubt wondering how they could be so calm. A slight smile tugged at their lip as they approached. Only twenty feet separated them when they stopped.

Their first order of business was to look up and notice something gargantuan missing. "Where's the Cluster?"

Rose just looked to the side, at least looking the least bit ashamed. Stevonnie's face fell.

"You have got to be kidding. So, you think maybe absorbing a bunch of corrupted gem shards was a bad idea?"

"I feel fine!"

"Hooray, the fact that you didn't turn into a raging behemoth afterwards means no side-effects."

"When did you get so sarcastic?"

Stevonnie just shrugged. "A mix of Steven's emotional intelligence and Connie's logical reasoning coupled with lowered inhibitions and a serious feeling of being done with this crud. Funny, I felt the same way taking down the diamonds."

Rose's stare hardened, letting her aura show. Stevonnie just closed their eyes and soon the ground beneath them glowed. Rose then watched as sand and ocean appeared before the image expanded to reveal that they recreated the entire beach. She turned behind her to see the familiar shops and quiet roads of Beach City proper.

"Why did you copy the town?" she asked, "That'll just make the room malfunction again."

"Not quite. There are two key differences. First off, the town is completely uninhabited so that'll be a lot less for the techno-magic to process. Second is the two of us. I have a feeling that with all the power both of us have, it'll make this place a lot more efficient."

"What do you mean, both of us?"

Stevonnie took up a stance, left leg planted behind them with the right pointed forward. Their left arm was tucked into their side while the right was pulled over their chest. "You're about to find out."

Rose was about to retort only to realize Stevonnie wasn't in front of her anymore. She looked around only to find half her face caved in from a devastating left hook that send her flying into the beach house and crashing through the place like a wrecking ball. She easily broke out of the planks and furniture on top of her but did rub her cheek in discomfort.

"You don't feel that much stronger," she bluffed only for the fusion to disappear again before she was even done talking. Rose looked around only to spot something above her. She squinted up to see Stevonnie wielding a massive sword, at least nine feet long and the blade almost a foot thick in width. Rose fired a ball of power to blow them down only to watch as her own attack was cleaved in half.

"WHAT?!" She then realized that Stevonnie wasn't stopping, the gargantuan blade gleaming in the light. She was about to move out of the way only to notice the strangest thing. Stevonnie's trajectory was cutting it awfully close to the cliff…

Her jaw then slowly surrendered to gravity as Stevonnie actually cut into the statue above the temple, slicing through the solid stone like it was nothing. Debris fell and the wall behind her rumbled, but she couldn't help but watch in terror seeing the monument she made so easily destroyed.

It was only when Stevonnie was a few feet away that she remembered she didn't want to be cut in half. She summoned an energy sword to block only for Stevonnie to leap out from the wall too early, a good two feet away from touching her.

"What… Why did you just do that?"

"Sorry, just wanted to test how sharp this thing is."

Rose was about to balk at that only for her to realize something. The sword was a mishmash of colors, like the weapon had been splashed with a dozen different dyes, but it didn't appear to be crystal. It looked just like a weapon summoned from their gem.

Then she recognized the shape and started to feel a sense of dread. "How do you have Zoisite's sword?"

"Oh, you noticed! Good, cool, I was hoping I didn't have to explain it later. I just took it from her."

"You… took it?"

"Yeah."

A moment, two, nothing else but a slight cough on Stevonnie's part. Rose wasn't getting more than that.

"Okay then, how did you get it?"

"That's not that important. What is, though, is that I can do a bunch more! Like this!"

Stevonnie raised their right hand and a sudden torrent of water rushed out, like they were a living hose. The liquid cannon sent Rose sputtering and drenched back towards the cave wall. She forced open her eyes expecting them to have somehow manipulated the ocean only to see that, nope, they were making the water!

Rose's mind tried to run through how this was even remotely possible when a shiver came over her. She looked down and saw ice crystals began to form as an icy rainbow haze surrounded Stevonnie's other hand and flowed into the massive water tentacle that now held her. The gem's teeth began to chatter as she was soon frozen to the rockface by a tendril of ice.

"T-That's Sapphire's power! And b-before was La-Lapis's!"

Stevonnie, their hands free again, clapped a slow clap that screamed of sarcasm before taking a long, deep breath. Rose was expecting a shout only to instead get a massive wave of flame that washed over her. The ice melted instantly but her face now stung from a light burn.

"How?! Now you have Cinnabar's ability?! You're making the room do all of this for you!"

"Actually, no, I'm not. I put in a specific parameter when I selected this environment to not let us change anything. It's as close a simulation to the real world as possible and the only way to turn it off? One of us is unconscious, dies, or gives up."

Now Rose was lost. First of all, how could her room even be given absolutes like that? She tried to summon something, any random object, but nothing happened. It's not like a purple parasol would have helped but it would have proven her point.

But beyond that there was another question. "Why make it that way?"

Stevonnie's face, for the first time since this illusion showed up, grew serious. "Because I plan on beating you, as fairly as possible. I don't need either of us changing the place to suit our needs."

"Okay then, but why not fight out there and let the gems stay in here in that case?"

Stevonnie closed their eyes, a creased brow marking their concentration, as the ground beneath them began to shake. Quiet at first but soon it made the already fractured cliff collapse and sent boulders raining down. She was about to attack but Stevonnie had that covered. With a single push of their arms, they unleashed a wave of gravity that pulverized the dozens of stones into rubble.

A tidal wave suddenly roared up behind them, only dozens of feet away but somehow fifty feet tall. Again, Rose was about to attack it only for Stevonnie to move as an actual blur and punch the colossal wave apart, only then making Rose realize they had summoned it.

Stevonnie took off into the air like a rocket and let out a yell loud enough to unleash a sonic boom, their voice echoing for hundreds of miles as their body was suddenly awash in an aura of power. Just like their gem, it was a collage of colors with nothing in the rainbow left out. They outshone the sun, the entire town bathed in an ever-changing spotlight that left Rose speechless.

Then, just as quickly, Stevonnie held up their left hand and gathered all that pretty power into a sphere the size of a bowling ball. It was too dazzling for Rose to focus on but Stevonnie didn't seem to mind. They simply threw it out, watching it fall towards somewhere in the middle of town…

…Where it exploded in a single massive, all-consuming explosion that swallowed the entire square mileage of the town in seconds. From the outer shops to the boardwalk, it was all consumed in an instant. When the light faded, the replica of Beach City was gone. A half-mile deep crater was all that was left, slowly being filled in with seawater.

Rose, for once, felt her knees shake and her face break out in sweat. Stevonnie simply floated down in front of her, entirely still with a stern glare. Once they landed, they touched onto the sand and pointed at the carnage they just made.

"That. That is why we're doing this in here. Because I don't want my real home to look like that when this is all over."

"B-But… Ho-How… Y-You…"

Rose got a stern slap to the face. "Wake up! I thought you wanted to fight me, right? You want to prove how right you are, how you're the strongest so people should listen to you? Well, let me tell you this. That thing I just did right there? It was easy, effortless. Like wiping sweat off my brow."

The mother did a remarkable job accidentally shapeshifting her face white as Stevonnie started pacing circles around her. "Ever since Steven started getting his powers, and then Connie learned to fight, there was always this fear they both had. What if they started misusing their skills, accidentally hurting people around them? Connie got a nasty dose of that with Jeff and… Well, you saw what happened with Jasper."

Stevonnie then stopped, knelt down to pick up a small stone the size of their fist. It crumbles in their palm without them even moving. "And like this? I'm stronger than I ever imagined, strong enough to do that little stunt a thousand times over and maybe get a little winded? If I really tried? I could probably blow up the whole Earth, maybe even more. I want to save the Earth, not smash it to the ground because I breathed wrong."

Rose managed to focus long enough to notice the dust swirling in their hand, a little dark grey cyclone that they dispersed with a wave. "And you know the craziest thing?"

"N-No…" she whispered, only to pale a whole new shade of white when Stevonnie chuckled.

"I'm excited. For the first time in my entire life, I want to fight. I want to push myself to see just how strong I really am, even just this once. I'll probably never get a chance like this again but that's okay. Because at least I'll know how it feels to cut loose, to let all this power out, to not care for just one day about hurting someone innocent! I can feel my blood pumping, all this energy just dying to get used up!"

That same kaleidoscopic aura came back, stronger than before, as it whipped around the fusion as pure thrill crossed their face. "I don't want you to hold back, Rose! I want to let out all my feelings, all this potential I have in one go! I'll always take the high road from now on but right now I'm ready to go! BRING! IT! ON!"

All that taunting, all the sheer excitement radiating off of them, finally snapped Rose out of her funk. She stared back at that face, the look of a warrior completely ready to throw themselves into the heat of combat.

She returned the look, firing up her own aura in turn. "As you wish."

(Cue Epic Theme Song: Undefeatable from Sonic Frontiers)

They both summoned a blade in an instant, one a rainbow rapier and the other a pink broadsword and clashed them together in another. They could feel the other's arm tensing, the ground starting to sink under them from the force they exerted. Rose managed to break the lock by channeling an extra burst of energy, making the weapon explode long enough to get in Stevonnie's guard and swing for their neck...

…And then pass right through it as if they were smoke.

"Surprised, right? I maaaay have upgraded all of the other gems in some way. Except the diamonds, they were always broken."

They then stretched an arm a dozen feet back like it was elastic before snapping it forward into a crystal-coated gauntlet punch that made Rose skip across several miles of ocean. Stevonnie ran after them, running across the water just like Amethyst did, and caught up to Rose around halfway over the Atlantic.

The mother then spread her arms and let two jagged shockwaves rush in a pincer formation from the left and right. Stevonnie stomped a foot to summon a ten-story tall pillar of water to rise up under them and take the attack. The fused fighter let themselves fall, their hands glowing with power as a bolt of power threatened to zap her.

She lunged to the side, watching it arc past. "I may not have a core, but I'm not taking any chances." Rose fired back with a shot twice as thick, forcing Stevonnie to use a bubble or get blasted mid-fall.

The fusion, however, summoned a pair of shimmering energy wings out of their back and proved more than agile enough to clothesline Rose on the way down. They then wrapped the entire arm around Rose like a rubbery cocoon as she was plunged underwater. The pinkette pried with all her strength but the coil doubled its grip, the arm somehow hardening to crystal even as it flexed around her.

Rose thought she could just generate a big enough blast to force them off when she noticed another Stevonnie, glowing bright.

"Oh, great, they got cloning from Pearl…" Rose fired twin eye beams but the duplicate blocked with a shield before suddenly summoning a spear to ram straight between her eyes. The mother managed a bubble of power that blew up between them, the briny blue water around them rippling from the force. It also gave her an idea, loosing jets of energy out of her feet to force herself upwards.

She smiled as she could feel Stevonnie dragged up with her, the clone hastily flying up to reach them both as the original was hauled miles into the sky where the world was a carpet of blue with drifting banks of clouds below them.

The mother stopped just as fast, releasing an explosion of power around her that finally threw Stevonnie off so hard their wings broke apart as they hurtled out of the atmosphere. The clone rushed up to continue the fight, two whips in hand and just as determined as the original. Rose dodged the lightning-fast cracks without issue but couldn't land a solid blast on them either.

That changed when Stevonnie suddenly let go of both lashes and stood perfectly still as Rose unleashed an energy ball the size of a normal person. The fusion simply traced a circle and then remained in place as a window to space opened up in front of them that swallowed the ball before disappearing.

"A portal?!" Rose gawked.

"Yeah, Topaz can do that now, she can open a second portal herself when fused or each half of her can open one a few feet around them. Neat, right?"

Rose, now thoroughly kicking herself for giving Stevonnie such a power boost, summoned a pair of daggers and lunged in to take the fusion down. Once again, the slashes passed through Stevonnie like their body was smoke.

"And Cinnabar can do that. Isn't it fitting?"

"Wipe that smile off your face!" Rose snarled, punching Stevonnie across the face and sending them flying for miles. She took some solace that her foe had to make the intangibility happen instead of it being automatic. She also shook her smarted fingers. The whole "becoming crystal" thing was still automatic.

Stevonnie, however, was more concerned with getting up out of the mountaintop they just crashed into. Their back was sore and they could feel the bruise forming until their hyper-powered healing factor kicked in. Looking around, the fusion knew they only had so much time before Rose chased them down.

A quick flash went through their mind. The clone was blown up by Rose's energy ball in space, meaning there went their diversion but at least they knew the portals worked. The fusion looked over the horizon and saw a massive pink blast coming, easily enough to wipe the mountain off of the range.

Their head was abuzz with ideas. They could use Adamite's earthbending abilities as some form of counter. They could simply use one of the other elements to generate a wave of fire or water big enough to match Rose's. But, as Steven was always an anime fan, there was one thing they were just dying to try.

Stevonnie charged up their energy, feeling the power of all four diamonds within them. Yellow's electric charge that could poof normal gems, Blue's concussive bursts that could infect the target's emotions, Pink's burning blaze that could paralyze the mind and White's piercing plasma that assimilated any other gem's energy. It all came so naturally, the power simply growing the more they willed it.

"This is gonna be awesome!" Stevonnie cheered as they cupped their hands and willed all of the multicolored might into a single point. And unlike Steven's powers it all came so naturally like charging a blast capable of nuking an entire country was something anyone should be able to do.

Rose's attack was now in sight, a comet of pink pain bigger than a house, and Stevonnie was primed to stop it head-on. They fired their own massive blast with a yell and waited for the inevitable beam struggle.

An atmosphere-rattling kaboom shook the entire planer, two pillars of plasma making the clouds rip apart for miles, the sea beneath them boil and the land scorched. On her end, Rose was speechless. Just what the heck had Stevonnie become?! Was it because they entered her, thus copying her energy abilities? Or was it all just an intense fight or flight reaction to briefly dying. Whatever the case was, Rose knew that it really would take everything to end this fight.

Stevonnie, on the other hand, was far less philosophical.

"THIS! IS! AWESOOOOME!" they howled, astonished not only at the sheer power they had, but at how little effort it took. They could see the lightning arcing off of where the blasts met, feel the world beneath them shudder under their might, but Stevonnie was doing it all so casually. For once, they finally got it. How the Homeworld goons seemed to enjoy fighting. How the diamonds smiled as they lorded over their subjects. How Rose became so assured she was right.

When you commanded this much power, enough to do anything you could imagine, with no one to stop you, why now do whatever you want?

That, however, was the sobering thought that brought the high down. That was just the point. No one should have power like this, let alone two. In a sense this was all a horrible misunderstanding. It was only because nobody was getting hurt out here that Stevonnie could enjoy themselves.

After what felt like an eternity, the clashing energy finally hit its breaking point and detonated like the world's biggest bomb. The entire Pacific Ocean ended up dropping several dozen feet as an all-consuming blanket of steam rose up into the stratosphere. Several islands got drowned beneath tsunamis, several coastal cities were buffeted by hurricanes and neither of the combatants even noticed.

Stevonnie looked out at the gigantic white plume that acted as a thousand-miles-wide curtain between them and Rose and thanked the room. They may have thought that whole light show was cool but they really didn't want to know how many dead people and animals an ocean-spanning steam bath would have made.

They quickly charged into the cloud, meeting Rose over what used to be Hawaii. They both saw uprooted palm trees and the remnants of buildings floating among the cooling water.

"Well, I'd say I'm warmed up now," Stevonnie kidded. Rose paid them no mind, still more caught up in the destruction they wrought. The fusion wanted to approach them, hoping that the loss of so much energy might've restored some clarity but no. It was too soon, they knew. She didn't look the least bit exhausted but at least it was a start.

The mother eventually turned to see her opponent still waiting. With nothing else to do about the damage, Rose snapped her focus back just in time to dodge a gauntlet punch to the face. A pair of blasts shot out from her back, arcing around to try and catch Stevonnie off-guard only for a rainbow bubble to stop them instantly.

Soon the two were locked in an intense fistfight, every blow rattling the islands beneath them until they began a breakneck ascent to the sky. Soon they had both completely breached and were rushing through space, past the Moon and over Mars only for Rose to finally score a lucky hit and sent the fusion crashing into an asteroid from the iconic belt separating the red planet from Jupiter.

"Wait a minute…" Rose pondered, "How are they breathing in space?"

Stevonnie, already dusting themselves off, wondered if getting imprinted in rock was going to be a regular thing. They also thanked their stars that they could shapeshift their lungs or else the battle would be over.

"Hmm, what to do now…" they mused before turning around and seeing thousands of loosely bound meteors drifting along behind them.

Having missed their chance with the mountain for now, Stevonnie grinned as they reached out towards the belt. They found that the rocks moved with the slightest movement and stopped as soon as they willed it thanks to the lack of gravity.

They remembered that sobering feeling of the destruction they could leave on the world. They also still had that little voice giggling at how awesome this all was and wanted to milk the opportunity even more.

Starting with the same chunk of icy space rock they collided with, Stevonnie flew with airplane arms outstretched and several hundred asteroid trailing behind. Ranging from boulders as big as them to as massive as a three-story house, they all followed behind like a school of fish and kept pace even as they soared back towards Mars. Stevonnie quickly made a quartet of clones to scout ahead as the trail of asteroids followed the main one.

Meanwhile, the clones rushed through space at top speed and found Rose simply staring down at the Earth. The pristine ball of blue and green, dotted with bands of clouds and basking in the sunlight, captivated her so much that she only noticed the four Stevonnies when they each summoned their weapons and one spear caught the light just right.

"It's so beautiful, isn't it?" she asked them, turning to see their confused faces.

"The planet I worked so hard to protect, still turning like nothing has changed. Millennia have passed but look at it. Here to stay for millions more years…"

Stevonnie did indeed look, appreciating how none of the damage they made was visible from up here. A laser whizzing past the middle pair's heads got their attention back to Rose's dour face.

"Can you honestly tell me that you'd let the diamonds stay here? After everything they've done to so many worlds, just like this one? Who's to say this little lesson will stick?"

The fusion clones all glanced at each other before staring back. "I don't know."

Rose recoiled back, the flippant shrug striking her. "What?! What do you mean, you don't know? You intend to risk everything, billions of innocents, on a chance?!"

"What's the alternative, Rose? You taking over the planet like you tried to earlier? Is that what you really want, to be in charge of everything? What happened to humans getting a chance to live their own lives?"

"That isn't the point! It's about protecting the species I've sworn to keep safe from the diamonds!"

"And if the diamonds decide they just want to chill on the beach, then that means they should be allowed to stay. They aren't hurting anyone in that case."

"How can you be so calm about this?!"

The Stevonnies all smirked. "Someone once told me that humans were amazing because they made their own destiny. On an old video tape…"

Rose flinched again, the memory of that day coming flooding back. All of that optimism for the future and hope that her son would turn out better than her welled up, making her grip her head.

The mother suddenly took off, looping around them as a scorching pink contrail followed her feet, the Stevonnies on guard at once. They watched the plasma move and bend like fabric, bending and rippling only to realize too late it was wrapping around them. All four shapeshifted their arms into crystal swords only to find themselves getting stuck. The energy was somehow sticking to them like glue!

Rose, however, just flew faster and faster until she was only a rosy blur as dozens of bands started enveloping them. She stretched out her arms, letting more bands fly to intercept the foursome vertically as well. They found their feet wrapped up, their heads being yanked back, and soon being stuck together no matter how many jagged shards they tried to appear. The adhesive energy remained firm.

After a hundred or so loops, Rose cut the trails off with only a thought before clenching her hands together. The pink energy band ball burned bright for a moment before suddenly exploding. All that remained was empty space, but she didn't lower her guard in the slightest.

And right she was, turning around to see an absolutely massive meteor almost a mile wide roaring towards her. She could fire at it but who knew if Stevonnie would pop out with more clones. Instead Rose flew in to meet it head-on. As she got closer, it was clear that wasn't a single rock but thousands of asteroids held together. That's why she was prepared when the entire thing detonated like a country-busting grenade, a bubble protecting her from a swarm of shrapnel.

Once the explosion died down, Rose saw that the rocks were already flying back towards the source: Stevonnie, arms raised and entirely focused on the small planetoid they made. Rose again made a beeline for them but the colossal sphere quickly split apart and began bombarding Rose from every direction. She fired blast after blast, created blades that sliced through the stone like paper and yet they just kept coming.

They locked eyes once in this clash, neither of them flinching even as Stevonnie sent a meteor large enough to crush a city block and Rose flung it aside. Neither of them would give an inch, both still holding back despite all of their flaunting.

That all changed when Stevonnie rushed right at Rose, paying back at earlier punch with one that sent her crashing onto the surface of Mars hard enough to burrow half a mile deep into the red planet.

Rose, of course, started prying herself free immediately only to notice a quickly growing shadow covering up the tiny sliver of light from her entrance hole. She could guess that Stevonnie was going to seal her in with their rocks, but something felt too simple. Soon her route was plugged shut and Rose was half-curious what was coming next.

The answer came with a sudden rush of searing red lava rushed down to meet her, making Rose desperately hold it back with an energy shield. She could feel the air grow superheated and the very cavern above her start to melt from the liquid rock. The hyper-charged gem forced her way up, shifting her shield into an expanding bowl that stretched to the edges of the hole even as it melted.

It seemed like this would keep going on up until two rivers of magma rushed out to surprise Rose. With her hands full, she had split her legs and launch energy out of her feet to keep the scalding streams at bay. For any other gem, a splash of lava on their cores would be instant death and Rose wasn't eager to feel the results just because she would survive.

The cavern was soon alight with molten stone, Rose having to fly faster to avoid the pool rushing up to meet her. She thrust her arms forward, sending the bowl rushing back through the hole and hopefully stopping Stevonnie. In the few seconds she had, the mother rushed out at lightspeed to find Stevonnie had turned a chunk of Mars into a caldera.

"Man, you are fast…" they admitted before throwing the rest of the meteor, now reshaped into a skyscraper-sized chunk of earth, straight at Rose. The pinkette simply grabbed ahold of it and pried the column apart with her bare hands.

She didn't get long to relish in her flexing before Stevonnie charged back in with six arms each holding a different weapon. Rose held a sword in each hand and the two were soon trying to puree each other. Stevonnie's menagerie of daggers, spears, gauntlets and hands shaped into axe heads made for a dizzying display but Rose held firm. Drawing on millennia of armed combat, she parried, blocked and countered everything thrown at her.

Down below them, the sky of Mars itself was being torn apart by their struggle. Each strike whipped up a gale-force wind that tore through clouds and slammed into the ground. And considering that was the ground Stevonnie had half-melted earlier…

Both the combatants stopped for a moment when a cloud of soot suddenly blanketed them. They looked down and realized that the red planet was literally cracking at the seams. Stevonnie had the decency to look embarrassed before sucker-punching Rose in the jaw before flying away themselves.

"Turns out that spontaneously creating several tons of magma so deep into the planet's crust might potentially break through to the mantle…" They watched from a safe distance as the small planet started to quake and rumble, massive fissures forming as tidal waves of lava erupted from beneath the surface and soon the entire thing started to shake itself apart.

As massive geysers of molten rock erupted, quickly freezing back into a solid thanks to the cold vacuum of space, Stevonnie had mixed feelings. On the one hand, Connie might find it very awkward to become an astronaut now, becoming the first person to set foot on the planet that she had now seen blown up. On the other hand, there was something oddly thrilling knowing that they actually could destroy a planet.

"All the more reason we're in here and not tearing up the real world…" they sighed before turning around, perfectly aware that Rose was already behind them. The mother's face was much more melancholy as she watched what used to be a world start to drift away, the rest of it a half-melted mess.

Stevonnie caught her eye, silently hoping that something this drastic would win her over. She wouldn't want the same thing to happen to the real Mars, would she?

She held up a glowing hand, ready to send a blast out of her palm. The fusion shrugged. Guess more "persuasion" was in order…

Stevonnie promptly disappeared from sight, rippling into nothing while Rose's blast soared through where they were.

The mother did a double take, whipping her head around in panic. "What?! You can turn invisible too?!"

"And so can Kunzite! She's probably gonna prank Zoisite sooooo much after this."

She was then answered by a kick across the face that sent Rose hurtling through space like a shooting star with Stevonnie racing after her. Stars blurred by as they flew, completely unfazed by the frigid cold or total lack of air, until Rose crashed onto a small moon, about the size of Earth's own. Unlike the familiar satellite, this one was a mossy green and had several gray clouds swirling across the surface meaning some kind of atmosphere.

As Stevonnie passed into the atmosphere, they could feel a huge gravitational pull, only unbothered by it thanks to their super-strength. A normal person in a spacesuit would've been crushed by the pressure instantly but that was the least of their worries. They needed to locate Rose before she could plan anything.

Even still, they couldn't help being awestruck. The moon's color came from the deep green moss covering just about everything in sight. The ground had a slight sponginess, implying some more solid rock beneath it. Towering trees as thin as telephone poles stretched for dozens of feet into a sky covered with pale teal clouds, the moss shifting to lighter greens with patches of brown.

And with the planet so flat, no real mountains in sight, they could see for miles around the few signs of animal life. Holes in the ground from something burrowing below, clumps of moss in between the branches that might have been some kind of nests. It made them gasp at the thought that this was a real alien world.

Stevonnie could have stood there marveling the place for hours except for the oncoming pink light on the horizon, sticking out like a sore thumb given the general green color. The fusion summoned half a dozen copies, their hands all glowing.

Even as hundreds of scorching hot plasma bolts raced down at them, the sevensome stood strong as each let loose a massive blast of multicolored power big enough to blow away a city. The powers met in the sky, the very atmosphere catching fire as they met and detonated in another all-consuming explosion.

The Stevonnies watched as the moss caught fire under them, the heat barely registering but they wanted it to end differently. They couldn't just keep deadlocking like this, matching might for might would only get them so far.

As the clones kept up the barrage, the original Stevonnie made three more clones. Those three wasted no time jetting off into the sky directly into the firestorm, the air growing superheated. From here they could see the surface itself was burning for miles around. Thankfully, they had just the thing for this…

Two Stevonnies concentrated on the waves of flame roaring across the landscape and used Cinnabar's power to gather it all above their hands. The blaze was soon pulled up off the ground and into a titanic ball hundreds of feet in the sky. The ground beneath was charred but intact gray rock, making the only spare clone smile until they noticed a few rosy missiles rushing towards them.

This Stevonnie called on their new portal abilities to conjure a dozen-foot wide gate with one hand and then another one a few feet up. They had to chuckle when Rose's shots went in the bottom and flew out the top, zooming right back towards the sender.

Just when those were halfway through their path, the other two Stevonnies threw their massive salvaged fireball that was now bigger than an apartment building. As it rocketed away, the third copy tapped into another new power shared with Rhodonite.

They took as deep a breath as they could, filling their lungs to bursting, before shooting a gust of wind on par with a category five hurricane to both stoke the flames and speed up their attacks.

From her side, Rose's mind was officially at the breaking point. First Stevonnie was proving to match her point for point in energy. Fine, that made sense taking powers from all of the diamonds. Sending her own blasts back at her. Annoying but still made sense, they pulled that off earlier. Controlling all of the fire the clash made and turning it into a massive bomb?

Okay, even she had to admit that was cool.

But now here Stevonnie was somehow manipulating the air itself, fanning the orange-red mortar so hot that it was turning bright blue?!

"How many powers does this freak have?!" she shrieked, trying to reassert control of the blasts Stevonnie sent back only to get a splitting headache. And those few seconds cost her dearly, her own blasts smacking into her in the face followed by getting swallowed by a scorching sphere of bright blue pain.

All ten Stevonnies, once again, rushed in to dogpile Rose in her moment of weakness all armed with Kunzite's dual daggers. The lead rebel armed herself with dual swords but quickly found herself completely outflanked, firing off blasts to try and break the pack apart. Unfortunately for her, the clones had learned to channel energy through their blades to slice apart her shots with complete ease.

The mother tried to release a sudden burst only for the gaggle to throw themselves back. All ten formed a straight line before each cocking a fist back, the limb stretching for hundreds of miles. Rose tried to fly away only to find herself trapped in a bubble ten layers thick, more than enough to contain her depleted energy.

She tried blasting, punching, slicing but nothing phased even the innermost sphere. Trapped in the dead silence and pitch dark, Rose suddenly felt so small. So completely helpless from the oncoming strike that it made her shiver… And then the fog lifted from her mind.

"What am I doing here…?" she wondered aloud just before the bubbles all burst, in time for almost a dozen supersonic fists to pummel her. And then to add insult to injury, each one was sparking with power that zapped her body into feeling like dirt.

The Stevonnies merged back into one as Rose went flying clean off the planet, twinkling in the distance. As much as they wanted to explore the now peaceful world, they had a fight to finish. For a little extra speed, they summoned a pair of wings out of their back. Unlike the source, these wings were made of pure polychromatic energy instead of water and shimmered even in this world's cloudy atmosphere.

With only a few flaps, Stevonnie had flown across half the galaxy, planets and stars blinking past them before catching up to Rose now sitting along on the dwarf planet Pluto. She was lying down on her back, gazing up at the dark abyss above her. Even seeing their opponent sporting a prismatic plumage behind them didn't get a reaction.

Seeing her truly still for the first time since this fight started, Stevonnie settled down next to her as Rose kept looking out into the final frontier.

"It all seems so massive, doesn't it?" Rose awed, "I'm almost ten thousand years old and I haven't seen close to one percent yet."

"Why do you think Connie wanted to be an astronaut?" they chuckled, plopping down next to her.

"So many worlds out there, filled with endless lifeforms beyond what we could imagine. I very rarely sleep but when I did? I'd try to picture what kind of new planets were out there, if we could somehow establish peaceful relationships."

"I thought the plan was just to protect Earth?"

"Well, once the diamonds were dealt with, I always had that question: now what? What do we do once humanity is safe and running? I remember Pearl and some of the others having wanderlust, so I thought we'd try and venture out to find a kindred spirit out there."

Stevonnie blinked at that. They were fully expecting a rant but then something clicked. "You said when the diamonds were 'dealt with…' Do you mean shattered?"

Rose glowered but didn't flinch. "Down the line… Maybe? I couldn't amass a force big enough on my own so… I more wanted to make sure that another planet wouldn't fall to them."

"Look, I get that you cared but why didn't you ever tell them the truth?"

"Are you insane?! They would've redoubled and blown up the Earth on sight!"

"Would they?"

Even as Rose whipped herself upright, stared down at them in blistering anger, they didn't flinch. Stevonnie kept their eyes locked on her furious glare with all the effort of watching a TV.

"How do you know?" they dared, "Can you tell me, with absolute certainty, that they wouldn't have considered just a little bit that Pink turning on them could've changed their minds?"

"It took you beating all three of them into submission and then springing the truth of them to get them to see reason. Anything else, they just overpower and stay holed up in their little world."

"Really? Cause I'm pretty sure Pink gave them all a serious talking down when she first came back and it made them all sorry pretty darn fast."

Stevonnie lazily raised a hand, their energy taking on the shape of burning fire. Rose backed away, not needing her migraine to get worse from a dose of that.

"So, you can take on the individual properties of each diamond's energy as well…?"

"Yep." Stevonnie flicked their wrist and the energy stayed the same color but now sparked like electricity. Another flick and floated like air bubbles. A third flick had it become a piercing glow that made Rose's eyes hurt.

"And now you can manipulate all four elements…"

Stevonnie chuckled. Just wait until some of Connie's friends heard that. Or the creators of their favorite show…

"Plus you can clone yourself, stretch yourself on top of shapeshifting and becoming crystal, you can just turn invisible apparently, you can release bursts of gravity…"

"Yeah, long story short, I kind of just took a piece of every Crystal Gem and diamond when you, you know, tried to kill me?"

Rose's glare became much more suspicious at that, even though Stevonnie dialed their power back.

"You sound oddly calm about that…" the mother ventured.

The fusion just shrugged. "Eh, it happened. Wasn't the first time, anyway. After this, Steven and Connie can both see therapists if they need them… Although the fact that I can casually list the dozens of times either of those two were almost dead might be a problem…"

Rose squirmed in place, a sudden wave of guilt coming over. Stevonnie lazily stood up before waltzing up to her and looking down at her expression.

"Didn't want either of them to go through all of this, huh?"

She paled. "Is it that obvious?"

"You told Steven how you wanted him to have a normal life, remember? He still has that video tape for a reason. Plus it's also apparent that you feel partly responsible for all of the other Crystal Gems being lost."

They kept a close eye on Rose's hands as they curled into fists. "The problem was I didn't act decisively last time. Our whole gambit backfired and then I didn't have the heart to tell Pink the truth… I can't imagine how the rest of the team would take it now."

She was snapped back to the present by Stevonnie standing next to her, standing tall as they stared into literal space.

"You know one other thing I have? Garnet's future vision."

"Wait, what?! You can actually see the future now?!"

"Yep. And it feels pretty weird. All I have to do is close my eyes…"

They did just that as their gem began to glow, a holographic screen appearing before the pair. Rose's mouth dropped open, not guessing that they picked up every minor ability from the gems too. That could wait, though, as the screen of light quickly displayed a number of scenarios playing out.

"…And I can visualize about a dozen different ways this fight could end. You knock me unconscious and then steal my light again, I strangle you with your hair until your neck snaps, or we could just talk this all out and go our separate ways. The only tricky part is asking which one of these is the most likely. I guess that's where Garnet being over a thousand times older than me pays dividends."

Rose watched all of this and more play out, baffled not only at the scope of Stevonnie's new power but at how calm they sounded. She saw multiple scenarios where the fusion lost or was even killed and yet they didn't bat an eye. It made her wish all the more that she could just snap her fingers and fix everything.

Stevonnie cut off the screen, glancing over at the mother's sorrowful look, and put their hand in hers.

"Look, I get it. You may think you're the only one who's got a hill to climb, to fix everyone's mistakes yourselves because no one else can. But you know what that does? When you put the entire world on your back, all you're gonna do is snap under the pressure someday. I should know."

Rose looked into their dark eyes, looking so much wiser than anyone who combined wasn't even thirty yet. She searched for any sign of them being manipulated but she kicked herself for it.

"I'm sorry about that. All the fights and grudges I ended up starting. I guess… I just wanted to leave something better. Something you wouldn't have to clean up later."

"Hey, Steven's life has gone pretty darn well!" they cheered, "He's got a good family, study friendships, hobbies, a roof over his head and Cookie Cats in the fridge, and now he has a laundry list of superpowers! You'd find a lot of kids who'd wish they could have one of those things. And you know what else?"

"What?"

"A lot of those kids that only have one parent? They don't get to meet the other one. And for what it's worth, it meant the world to Steven having you around for just a day. It was all he asked for."

Rose, for the first time in weeks, finally felt her shoulders lighten and her head felt totally clear. She still didn't like the diamonds but the sudden urge to end them was gone. She could clearly remember where she was, focus on what she was doing, appreciate the fact that her son didn't hate her.

She turned around, expecting a door back to Beach City to open up, but none came. She was about to ask why only for the fog to settle back. Anger, resentment, regret, and many more bubbled back up and made the energy still roiling in her grow like a stoked flame.

"We're not done yet," Stevonnie simply said, working the kinks out of their neck and summoning a sword.

"You're right. I still want to see what you can do," she floated herself off the ground as the two shared a more compassionate, but still determined look. Both of them had their goals but only one of them was leaving this room.

(Cue Epic Theme Song: It Has to Be This Way from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance)

Stevonnie swung the blade down but Rose caught it between her hands, wrenched it to the side and then roundhouse kicked the fusion off of Pluto in one fluid move. Rose flew off after them, summoning a few dozen energy bolts ahead of her.

Seeing the oncoming barrage, Stevonnie released a gravity wave that detonated the pink plasma early before righting themselves and flying upwards. The soared past stars faster than the speed of sound, looking back to see Rose trailing behind. They could've summoned more clones but she had seen that trick before. Instead, she decided to use the new trick she picked up and gave to Zoisite.

Rose, meanwhile, was pushing herself to fly faster and faster, only a few feet behind Stevonnie, when the fusion's feet suddenly lit up like a solar flare. The mother forced her eyes shut as the sudden glow pierced her eyes and made her lingering headache pound to life. And that got much worse when Stevonnie took her blindness as a chance to give her a fiery hammer-headed blow to the face that would've snapped blown a house down.

And from there, Stevonnie decided all bets were off as they summoned their full capacity of a dozen clones. And then said that limit could kiss their butt and doubled that number to twenty-four. Then decided to go for an even fifty. With each new body summoned, they each brandished a borrowed gem weapon, a shapeshifted limb, or a crystalline blade ranging from hunting knives to gigantic zweihanders.

When Rose opened her eyes again to see the oncoming army, she felt a thrill of her own. She could finally cut loose herself.

While the pink powerhouse couldn't make exact clones, she could shape her energy into mirror images of her bodies connected by wire-thin plasma strands. She connected four from each arm and soon they charged ahead to meet the Stevonnie brigade.

Stevonnie knew better than to think the number advantage would guarantee a win as each puppet of Rose was just as dexterous as the master. The two met in a chaotic dance and the dark matter around them was illuminated by every clash.

Even when outnumbered more than six to one, Rose's puppets held their own as the made barriers, giant fists and even made fluid blasts solid out of nowhere to throw off the mass of the clones. The army of fusions fought back with their own arsenal of powers from bursts of flame, their own energy constructs and summoning portals to redirect the Rose army into each other.

And as the masses of copies fought, the original Stevonnie watched all of this happen. They wanted to see how long this little gang war would go on for, taking note of every time one of their duplicates was beaten. With each fallen self came a rush of experience, Stevonnie started to formulate a plan with a little help from Padparadscha's new power.

They could clearly picture the little psychic telling about how she was cast out for being defective. Now, in a grand twist of irony, she had an immensely useful ability to predict the next few seconds before it happened. Maybe it'd be useless to a tactician but in the heat of battle…

Stevonnie leaned their head aside just before a laser beam could fly through it, their eyes still closed. Unlike with Garnet's future vision, Padparadscha's battle vision (the fusion sincerely hoped Pap liked the name) was only a quick flash instead of a meandering stream. Like a camera flash bursting in front of their eyes, Stevonnie moved ahead nimbly dodging the two puppets who tried to hold the original back before they summoned ten more clones to clear the way.

And Rose, from the other end of their battlefield, watched as Stevonnie managed to bob and weave between dozens of blasts or use tiny daggers to block anything thrown at them.

"Okay, there's good instincts and then there's cheating…" she grumbled before spontaneously making all of her puppets detonate. Dozens of Stevonnie clones were caught in the blasts, blown apart by the force. The original only put up a shield behind them before opening their eyes.

"Yeah, but it only works if I shut my eyes. Go figure, right?" they shrugged as the fifteen remaining clones all began charging their energy. They all glowed brighter than multicolored stars before letting out a torrent of blasts. Rose naturally flew away but each blast began breaking into smaller sections until each copy was controlling dozens of lasers.

And that left Rose scrambling like mad to handle all of it, wave upon wave of beams to either dodge or counter with her own. Even with her enormous range, her dress was getting peppered with holes and her curls were starting to get frayed. She tried to make a bubble but that was where the original came into play. The prime Stevonnie flew in at top speed, a gauntlet with crystal knuckles for extra power, and hit Rose at full power.

Rose ended up launched thousands of lightyears away, her bubble popping like it was made of actual soap. Stevonnie looked down at their fist in awe.

"Wow, so that's what my full strength is…"

On the one hand, punching your mother was a very wrong thing to do. But slugging her so hard she turned into a comet just like Greg's old song? Something about that made it a lot easier to swallow. But there was time to dwell on that later. Stevonnie dispelled all of the clones and brought out their wings, once again flying so fast that they blurred past galaxies by the minute.

They then notice the miles-wide crater made on the surface of a dusty yellow Moon and floated down to see the imprint Rose made when she collided. The cracks alone went on for miles themselves and the hole she made looked bottomless.

"Oh man, I knew we were gonna do something like this…" Stevonnie sighed, now very grateful that this planet was uninhabited.

They peered down the miniature chasm to see a pink glow that went from faint to frightening in seconds. Stevonnie took off and flew back to see the entire crater turn into a rosy supernova and a chunk of the planet itself was blown to pieces.

"Okay, she's still not done…" they mused. The planet went from about the size of Earth's moon to almost half its size, new meteors floating around as Rose came flying out to slug Stevonnie across the face that sent them flying away. They only stopped by summoning two clones to fly past the original and catch them and even that kept the three moving back a few thousand miles.

The trio then looked to see a storm of shooting stars heading at them only to realize, nope, that was an energy barrage capable of pummeling the Earth to nothing a dozen times over. As the pink wave of death came closer, the three Stevonnies kept making duplicates until they were at a solid one hundred. All of them deployed their wings and began flying in a circle, a rainbow-colored ring quickly forming around their bodies.

And as Rose watched from half a lightyear away, she saw a pinprick of a hole appear and somehow swallow up her blasts, each one the size of a skyscraper. She fired off a few more as she rocketed closer and only now realized that Stevonnie had managed to make an Earth-wide portal to swallow up the attacks.

"Hm, creative…" she nodded before noticing that all of the fusions were racing towards her. And when you had one hundred opponents charging at you all at once, what was the best option? Fight dirty, of course.

The instant the first Stevonnie got in range, Rose grabbed them by the shoulder and sucker punched them hard enough to bowl into a dozen other copies. The next one got a laser beam through their foot before being sliced in half when their guard was down. Several more ended up getting their hair ripped out, getting shot in the back and one extremely unfortunate clone got hit in the kidneys.

Stevonnie, the original somewhere amidst the cloud of dozens, decided to respond in kind. They and several others turned invisible to start slashing and slugging the mother before she could react. Rose ended up losing one of her arms at one point, having to hastily fire an exploding plasma net out of a stump to stop a trio of Stevonnies from freezing her solid.

Even once she had both arms again, the rebel extraordinaire was forced to make a bubble a few dozen feet around just to get a moment to breathe and recuperate. The Stevonnies, about fifty left at this point, all changed their tactics to try and break through. Several of them morphed their arms into drills, lining them in crystal for extra penetration, while others summoned gauntlets and punched with the same continent-shattering force that sent Rose into another galaxy before.

By now, Rose was starting to feel the mental fog dip in and out. That voice in the back of her mind was still loud but not all-consuming. Killing the diamonds now felt like "Plan A" on a list as opposed to the only option. Maybe it was just the strain of keeping so many powerhouses at bay, but she was seriously starting to think maybe that whole ceasefire agreement was a better deal than she thought…

And that momentary lapse let the Stevonnies push through, the bubble silently falling to pieces. Rose was blindsided by a hammer-shaped blow under the chin, followed by getting spiked like a giant volleyball by a pair of hands that were literally on fire, then crashing into several dozen energy walls that she barreled through like a cannonball.

Rose righted herself, again, felt the singed part of her, and was ready to fight back… Just in time for four Stevonnies to each rope a limb in a rainbow-colored whip and hold her taut. That gave twenty other copies the cue to flare up their aura, each one shining like a miniature multicolored sun, and let loose a blast of plasma as big as they were. Then they merged into a single, swirling attack that looked big enough to blow Empire City off the map.

Naturally not wanting a face full of that, Rose strained against the ropes around her with all the herculean strength that could rip open tectonic plate. The Stevonnies pulled harder. She tried using thin lasers to cut through the whips. She managed to get one to snap after several seconds and it was literally replaced in the blink of an eye.

By the time she looked back, the blast was seconds away. She had no choice but to turn into pure light and bolt out of the way fast enough. Her body dissolved into pure pink power and arced away… And was met with three massive portals opening up. And out of those came all of those massive energy balls she made earlier.

She actually grinned, this being the perfect opportunity. All of that energy was still a part of her, so it'd be a simple matter to redirect it all. Even if there were the several dozen clones who made the portals coming at her, they'd all just be targets.

If she had been paying closer, she might have noticed all of those Stevonnies smirking. They still had one more power to utilize from the Off-Colors. They already showed off Rutile's gravity waves, Padparadscha's new battle vision and Rhodonite's wind manipulation which would do them jack all in the middle of space. But Fluorite's ability? That would be quite handy here.

The clones simply watched as Rose brought over a dozen already massive energy balls together into a colossal sphere big enough to match Stevonnie's oncoming blast. The clash was averted as Stevonnie's attack spontaneously swerved aside while half a dozen clones flew in to catch Rose's attack.

Her eyes rose in confusion, wondering what they up to especially as they all kicked her projectile to the side. She moved to detonate it with a simple closing of her hand only to get doused by a waterfall thanks to three more clones. Though most of the liquid floated off of her, she was still unamused.

"Really?"

The trio just shrugged before moving in to attack, frustratingly using their new intangibility to make the mother waste most of her moves before she managed to blast two of them through the face. She caught the third in a chokehold only for the clone to smirk again.

"What, another new trick up your sleeve?"

"Not exactly. It's in my hand."

Rose felt them touch her waist, confused until she began to feel total numbness spreading through her. She looked down in a gaped in horror as the cloth and under Stevonnie's hand was turning to stone.

"Let me guess, Adamite?"

"Aren't they all so fitting?" they chuckled before lashing their arm back to smack Rose away. The mother released a burst of energy to unpetrify herself. The clone naturally made four more and soon she was dealing with a quintet of attackers wielding whips, gauntlets and crystalline swords. They also happened to pull out more tricks like invisibility, blinding light and even catching her energy ball before throwing it back at her.

"Wait a minute… Where is that giant one I made?"

She looked around for it only to get a blast of flame to the face, making her yowl in shock before turning back to fight the clones. It didn't take long for Rose to realize the clones were distracting her but from what? It's not like she could miss a blast that gargantuan detonating.

If she were allowed to pay attention, Rose might have felt that Stevonnie was slowly imbuing her attack with their own power instead. That wasn't the part they borrowed from Fluorite. The six-gem fusion could now repel any foreign energy away from her. If any of the diamonds decided to go back on their word about fair treatment, Fluorite could easily bounce Yellow's lightning back at her and finally give her a taste of her own medicine.

But with Stevonnie, she knew that wouldn't work. Rose held absolute control over her energy. If they sent it back at her, she'd just absorb it with no harm to herself and in fact get her strength and stamina restored. No, they would have to pull some more trickery to make this work.

With each time they deflected the pink sphere of death, they added more and more of their own power. Like trying to fill an already full balloon with new air, it was a tricky act that was only doable because of ample time and having dozens of hands. Each copy of Stevonnie had to subtly tweak the frequency on a very minute level until they found the proper wavelength. Even then it was a balancing act so they didn't tip Rose off or make the whole thing literally explode in their faces.

But after much trial and error, and many dozens of clones taken down, it was done. Rose's giant energy ball was now theirs and now it was time for a very big surprise.

For the mother rebel, she was beyond fed up. She had been partially turned to stone, drenched, burned, flung around like a ping-pong ball with gravity waves, chucked through portals directly into asteroids and lost all of her limbs at least twice. There was only a tiny part of her that admired how creative and resourceful Stevonnie was being. Now she was begging for this game to be over by now.

She then got her wish as all of the clones spontaneously flew away, putting her on edge. Rose glanced around and saw that same gigantic blast coming at her.

"Seriously, that's your plan?" she wondered, "What's to stop me from blocking that with…"

She was about to recall her energy from before. She knew it would respond the instant she willed it. But it did not. Rose's eyes darted in panic. That meant that either her powers were fading or Stevonnie found a workaround.

The leader turned mother was about to fly away only for something behind her to catch her eye. A kaleidoscopic ball of energy was hurtling right at her! But how could that be?! How did Stevonnie prep an attack like and what happened to her energy ball?! If it exploded, the shockwave should have rang out for millions of miles! It's not like they could just make it their own…

And in that one moment, Rose felt many different feelings all at once. Foreboding about the oncoming cataclysm barreling down on her from two ends. Humiliated that she had been so thoroughly outsmarted. Dread at learning just what else the fusion could possibly do. And, more than that, a sense of pride.

Almost like it was a sign, a dozen Stevonnie clones slammed into her and gripped her in a bear hug. Her entire body started going numb as she was petrified from every angle, the clones becoming rock along with her. In any other case, this would be suicidal but the original would be unscathed.

The pride in her welled even more. This was the next generation of the Crystal Gems. The Earth wouldn't have a thing to worry about with Stevonnie on the case.

As nice as it would have been for her to tell the original Stevonnie to hear this, they were wisely half a galaxy away. They really didn't want to be too close when their little gambit went off. Even now they could see two radiant waves racing towards a single point, a hopefully trapped Rose stuck in the middle.

Stevonnie, only now, was starting to feel tired. Their muscles ached, a light coat of sweat was running down their face and a light headache was thumping away in their skull. And they would get several firsthand examples of petrifying themselves so that would be something else for the therapist.

They were so busy mulling this over that they just caught the impact. The two transcendent lights crashed into each other, their meeting point becoming a blinding supernova before a wave of pure force ripped through space itself. Planets were pushed out of their orbits around suns, many smaller moons were broken in half from the force. Even some actual stars began to ripple and flicker under the monstrous power, thankfully none of them collapsing. And from their little vantage point, Stevonnie saw a nearby moon that had just gotten cracked and gulped.

"Whoa…" was all they could say. Was it wrong to be proud of that? They were still beyond grateful that they were the only two people in here, and that the room didn't overload from all their combat, but pulling off something like that? It still made them feel incredible, like they could accomplish anything!

"And that's probably why Mom went crazy," they muttered before flying back to the impact point. They might have been flying through empty space, but it almost still felt like the atmosphere was off. That might have just been the reality of committing matricide setting in… That could be saved for the shrink.

They soon arrived to find a pink bubble several feet wide, opaque for a change, making Stevonnie both sigh in relief and clench their teeth. They floated up and knocked on the sphere hoping they wouldn't get an energy blast to the face.

Instead of that, the bubble faded to reveal another, just barely smaller one beneath. This repeated multiple times over to reveal Rose, gasping for breath and looking haggard herself.

"How many bubbles did you make?" Stevonnie asked.

"Don't know… I just needed… As many layers as possible between me… And the two-pronged cataclysm."

"I saw my clones petrify you!"

"Nothing a spontaneous… Combustion couldn't get rid of. Granted… It's only because I'm pure energy… That I could survive that. Anything living… Would have near instantly… Suffocated and a normal gem would… Have died once their core was rock."

She may have been still occasionally pausing for breath but she talked about her near-death experience like it was nothing. Stevonnie felt a whole new level of respect, and a twinge of fear, for the timeless woman now.

And, since she was clearly still standing, Stevonnie knew it was pointless to ask if the fight was over. The door outside still hadn't appeared yet, so there was only one choice. Stevonnie did wait until Rose had her breath back before raising their fists. The mother, though thinking much clearer, still wouldn't back down. The Earth may have been safe going forward but today she wanted to push herself.

She fired a laser from each finger, Stevonnie ducking beneath the wave and sending an elastic punch to Rose's jaw as they moved. Once her head snapped back, she got surprised with five Stevonnies each firing off a wave of gravity that sent Rose tumbling back like a weed. She kept trying to get up only to be dogpiled each time. The onslaught only stopped when Rose managed to spontaneously twist herself around and catch two of the clones with a blast out of her foot.

The remaining three fusions tried to counter only for Rose to blink in front of them and gut one with another sword. The other two shapeshifted their arms and tried to push through the mother's guard but to no avail. She had millennia to master the blade thus even four weapons on one was barely a challenge.

As one clone was cut down by a surprise slash to the head, the lone Stevonnie knew they needed a new plan. What could give them an edge here? They looked around and saw plenty of blackness, stars twinkling in the distance, some planets looking pretty wrecked…

"That's it!" they gaped before releasing a blast of freezing cold to distract Rose long enough for another clone to be made and jet away. The problem was all this space, it gave Rose all the opportunities to jet around. They needed a world, one where they could use all of the elements to their fullest.

The hitch in that plan came up pretty fast as Rose, already thawed and back on their tail, wasn't just going to let them scope out planets until they found one. She wanted to keep the fight going, to keep them off-guard until just the right moment where they couldn't make a clone to save themselves at the last second.

Right as they pondered what to do, they spotted something. A planet that seemed to literally be falling apart, pieces held in place only by its own gravity.

"A gem colony?" they wondered. That gave them an idea. If the diamonds set up shop, then that means they could've been looking to move in nearby.

As they flew towards the desiccated gem world, they peaked back to see that Rose was still tailing them. Some clever work with their shield saved them, but they had to turn this around somehow. Then, just as a laser grazed their cheek, they spotted the perfect place. A world far larger than the abandoned colony, swaths of green covering much of the surface with a murky orange atmosphere visible around it.

They poured Amethyst's super speed and blazed towards the jungle moon, forcing Rose to pick up the pace or get ditched. She never noticed the chase was getting turned towards a giant ball of foliage even as they breached the atmosphere. They were finally surrounded by air again, humid orange air that smelled of ozone spiked with chlorophyll.

And with actual air around them again, Stevonnie could generate a gust of wind to slow Rose down long enough to give themselves a break. While they still made a small hurricane to stall Rose, the fusion made half a dozen clones to survey the land. The thrill of actually seeing an alien world was incredible but they had to remain focused. They could go out on excursions when they could see the real thing.

For now, they took notice of as many details as possible. The abundant flora ranging from massive green roots piercing into the sky to pink flower buds as big as they were before powering up, the pliable soil underneath a wide blanket of orange moss, the peach-colored water that collected in small lakes all over the place, and the occasional cliff and hill that made for uneven topography.

All of the clones smiled. This was perfect for what they needed. And thankfully they had a diversion set up as Rose had long since poofed the Stevonnie keeping her at bay. All of them had now reached different corners of the planet but that would only buy them a few minutes. All six copies planted their feet on the ground and concentrated.

With so many gems contributing to Stevonnie's current lineup of abilities, it took even them a second to remember where they started. Steven had been so busy learning how to use different weapons alongside his shields and bubbles that he actually forgot one: plants. He never truly wondered just what he could do beyond making sentient watermelon people. And given this whole simulation was a free excuse to use their powers however they wanted…

One clone was down already, no doubt making Rose suspicious why her opponent would just be standing out in the open. The other five got the fallen sixth's experience, now feeling the grass tingling beneath them. It felt more like shag carpeting than the green blades common on Earth.

Four clones now, a bit more experience. Each of them could start to feel a sixth sense forming, an inherent awareness of the planet's surface. Every bend in the land and every body of water was noticed.

Three clones now, a complete map was made. They had seen the entire world, now the question was how to use it. Stevonnie had never tried to directly control plants before and this world was one colossal jungle!

Two clones left, they better figure it out. Since everything was connected by vines and roots, it was almost like a strange version of Peridot's technopathy. To travel directly into electronic circuits and data to control it however she wanted. It was just the same principle but with nature instead.

And then there was one. The last Stevonnie opened their eyes, knowing that Rose was coming at them from the southeast. They turned to face her, the ground rumbling under their feet. She would be just in time for a big surprise.

Rose got about two hundred feet away before a wall of vines ripped out of the ground and blocked her path, stretching up for a hundred feet in either direction. She stopped, wondered what the heck just happened as several purple flowers blossomed off the top of the wall.

Well, that was no big deal, she could just easily fly over it. She moved to just that before looking down and noticing that those same flowers were glowing. Almost on instinct she darted forward just in time to see bolts of crackling rainbow plasma shoot out from the plants.

Now that was enough to make her stop and shout "What the heck is going on?!"

"Oh, just me trying something different," Stevonnie called, their feet now embedded in the ground. That same ground rose up to make a twenty-foot-tall pillar with them on top as the fusion stretched their arms, the vines all swerving to target Rose. As she dodged the energy storm, she didn't notice several of stalks nearby start to lurch as they were steadily getting bigger.

For Rose, she was far too busy as the vines began trying to ensnare her whenever they weren't trying to blast her. Sure, she could slice through them easily enough, but this was a matter of quantity. Cutting down one meant nothing when Stevonnie could effortlessly make a dozen more spring up to attack her. The entire ground around her was a writhing pit of vines for hundreds of feet around, barricaded in by stalks that towered for hundreds of feet.

She was just about to blow the entire area to kingdom come when the barricade suddenly fell, the vines suddenly going limp. The mother kept her guard up, a sword already drawn as she noticed those stalks were now far taller and swollen like pods ready to open.

And then an idea hit Rose. The only thing they did before was the watermelon Stevens. They wouldn't try that again, right?

The nearest stalk split down the middle, the makeshift egg peeling open to reveal exactly what Rose thought. Inside was a plant in the shape of a person, in this case Stevonnie complete with a leafy purple hedge in the shape of their hair. Unlike the original, this treant had green skin textured like wood, was over fifty feet tall and looked bulky enough to stop up to a runaway train. Then Rose noticed several more pods open and reveal more of the colossal constructs, all of them eyeing her down.

Rose turned to Stevonnie, looking rather impressed with their own handiwork, before nodding in approval. She had to give kudos to a good idea where she saw it.

After that, it wasn't time for pleasantries. Rose flew towards the nearest giant and slammed her fist into its chest, cracking through its wooden exterior to find the gooey center. Its face didn't change, but the creature flinched in pain and desperately grabbed at Rose. She lurched back out of its grasp only to be surprised as a jet of orange water rushed out and crashed into her.

As Rose spluttered from the fresh tidal wave, she turned to see two more approaching. One held out its hands and generated a massive crystalline club, easily large enough to flatten cars. The other shapeshifted its limbs into lengthy wooden scythes, the edges razor sharp even from a distance.

"And they also hold all of the original's abilities…" Rose gaped, now a little nervous, "This just got far more difficult…"

She fired off several energy bullets, the giants just powering through them as they charged. Rose had to pour on the speed to avoid getting skewered or flattened. Despite their size, they were both just as dexterous and skills with their weapons as their creator. Even if they were much slower, she was still outnumbered.

And speaking of that, that third construct had to wait for the gaping hole in its chest to close but it managed to survive. Once healed up, it barreled ahead with both fists coated in crystalline gauntlets. Stevonnie, watching all of this from their perch, was trying not to laugh. This was the most fun they'd ever had!

While they could just mass produce the treants to dogpile Rose, they needed something else… Oh right, they could also make clones of themselves. It was honestly starting to get tricky remembering all of their powers. Ten more Stevonnies soon appeared, and flew into the fray to really give Rose a hard time.

Rose, having just sliced a plant giant in half, was caught off-guard when the Stevonnie brigade flew in firing off jets of wind and water. Though she could easily block them, she wasn't ready for two clones to appear behind her and twist their entire bodies around her like snakes and hold her in place. She was about to let off an energy burst to free herself, only to look up and see the club-wielding giant aiming to smack her into the ground.

"Oh crap…" she moaned before getting hammered, being lodged dozens of feet into the ground. The Stevonnies acting as her straitjacket let go but not before firing off energy blasts directly into her face, leaving her blinded. Once her eyes cleared, she could clearly see the orange sky above her but she didn't fly out. She just knew there'd be another trap.

Unfortunately for her, she was so busy looking up that she missed the earth around her rumble to life. Several stones the size of baseballs flew out from the cavern's sides to bombard her, forcing Rose's attention as she punched them apart. Vines began forming a net over her only escape, forming a net without her noticing.

As the storm of stones kept up, keeping Rose's focus on pulverizing them with her fists lest she risk a cave-in, she suddenly felt something brushing past her foot. She sent a quick laser down to cut the vine, only to get smacked from below by a burst of wind. And then getting a few dozen rocks to the face while she was distracted.

And if that all wasn't bad enough, she just now looked up and saw the net blocking her escape. True, she could easily just knock down the walls but who could tell what Stevonnie would respond with? They could make giant vine versions of themselves so what would happen if she ended up running into the roots of all those plants above ground?

She then summoned her sword, slashing through the barrage still hitting her to reach the walls. The vines draped around her were humungous, as thick as telephone poles, gleaming under the sun from a chitin to protect them.

Rose sliced through dozens in a single swing, a loud thud resounding from above. She grinned, having finally found a weakness in Stevonnie's plan. The vines trapping her below suddenly receded and the mother wasted no time flying out to see one of the colossi had fallen along with an entire swath of stalks and trees.

She turned around to see Stevonnie, glaring as they stood in the same spot. The ground beneath Rose rumbled but she wasn't deterred. A few more plants weren't going to dissuade her.

A shame that she didn't account for a rushing geyser, the planet's orange water rushing up like a rising tidal wave to sweep her away. All she could do was sputter in surprise and try to catch her breath, wondering where the hell that came from before a chill filled the air. Rose's eyes bolted open.

"They're going to freeze me!" she panicked. She let off another burst of energy to shatter the ice crystals already forming on her body. That might have worked if only those same plant titans from before hadn't leapt up and grabbed her. She totally forgot about the two still left up until they crushed her between their grip, four hands clutching her from the neck down as the freezing water swirled around her.

Though her hands were pinned to her side, Rose knew she could get out of this. A surprise explosion of energy could get work wonders, she learned. She was about to do just that when a sharp pain shot through her shoulder, from back to front like something piercing her.

"Is that crystal…?" Rose thought idly before trying again only to feel another stab. And then more and more as Rose realized in horror what Stevonnie was doing. It was the exact same tactic they used while they were fighting in the ocean but magnified. They were sticking her with dozens of crystal barbs, now as thin as cactus needles, but so many that she couldn't possibly react to them…

And that was Rose's last conscious thought before a water rushed back in, freeing her and the colossi's arms in a ball of solid ice a dozen feet around. Stevonnie breathed out in relief before detaching themselves from the soil. They summoned a sword and aimed the tip at the frozen target.

"This ought to do it," they said to no one. If blasting Rose apart wouldn't work then maybe this will.

Stevonnie shot off like a rocket, closing the distances in seconds before swinging through the ice with all their might. They floated back to the ground and turned to face the icebound rebel. A few seconds later, the frozen globe was split in two down the middle. In each half was Rose Quartz, cut clean down the center with a look of horror on both halves of her face.

"Well… Guess I win…" Stevonnie droned, wondering what they would do now. Their stomach lurched at the sight of the Crystal Gems' founder and Steven's mother being bifurcated but this was what she signed on for. She wanted a final battle, proof that Stevonnie could hold their own even if the diamonds went rogue again.

They put the weapon away just as a doorway appeared behind them, confirming the truth. Still, it would feel wrong to just leave her in this simulation as an avant-garde ice sculpture. The least they could do was give them a proper burial.

Stevonnie opened the hands and let a wave of fire wash over the ice, melting their trap in a cloud of steam. Both halves thudded to the ground. Stevonnie then walked up to pick them both up, trying to piece together what they could possibly say to the Crystal Gems, tears coming despite the need to stay focused.

It wasn't until Stevonnie picked one up that they noticed that the corpse they picked up was starting to glow pink, rapidly turning into an amorphous blob of plasma. Stevonnie turned around to see the other half gone.

They had been played.

"DAMN IT!" they yelled before booking it at Mach-they didn't care away from the jungle moon, escaping the planet's atmosphere in seconds and kept going as the world shuddered from an explosion that blew half of its mass off. Stevonnie didn't look back at how half the lush satellite was now a lifeless crater. They needed to get out of here and-!

Wait… Where was the door? Stevonnie tried to summon it but nothing happened. And that, hopefully, meant that Rose wasn't able to leave either. Now the only problem was that Rose could be anywhere in this full-scale replica of the universe and Stevonnie had no way to track her down.

Stevonnie was starting to wonder what to do until they remembered the planet nearby. A quick trip to the desolate colony revealed exactly what they needed: a warp pad. Thankfully the diamonds made sure their devices never seemed to decay or require maintenance so all Stevonnie had to do was use Peridot's technopathy to merge with the nearest piece of circuitry.

The superpowered fusion disappeared into a stream of rainbow pixels and soon found themselves in a digital tunnel with beams of energy rushing all around them. Stevonnie gaped in awe, having never once asked Peri what this experience was like. But they shook their head, needing to get focused. They could gawk and literally surf the web when all this was over. Now they had to activate the warp pad so they could get a move on!

"Um… How do I do that?" they asked the empty space. Peridot had literal millennia of experience using gem tech while Stevonnie's combined experience mostly meant trying to break it or avoid being killed by it.

Thankfully, a menu popped up in front of them. And it was written in plain English instead of whatever the gems called their language.

"Huh. Convenient!"

One series of commands later and Stevonnie found themselves back outside in front of a working warp pad and beamed directly to the one place they knew they could get Rose's attention: Homeworld.

In a matter seconds, they were in a galaxy millions of lightyears away. They beamed in on the massive central warp pad out in the main plaza not far from where the diamonds' palaces were. And true to form, they were all still completely wrecked with debris from the Crystal Gems' insurgence still littering the place.

"Points for realism," Stevonnie supposed before heading over to the nearest functioning device and beaming themselves was a cinch to then deactivate all of the security measures and enter the diamonds' private network and then find the exact option they wanted. And with the touch of a button, Stevonnie then appeared outside and waited on the metallic planet for Rose to take notice.

After all, it would be pretty hard to notice every single Homeworld ship in the entire universe converging thanks to White Diamond's manual override code that she apparently installed as a final backup measure in case anyone attacked the mother planet. When Stevonnie was done here, they were going to have a nice, long chat about not making secret programs like that anymore.

Stevonnie then waited for several minutes, working out the kinks in their muscles and unwinding a bit as thousands upon thousands of metal ships started flying in and clouding over the broken world's surface. The fusion waited in the heights of the atmosphere, knowing that any minute now they would see a pink comet tailing one of these ships. It helped that they could have sixty sets of eyes stationed around the planet thanks to clones.

And sure enough, racing down towards the southernmost chunk of Homeworld was Rose racing after a pair of battleships. The nearest Stevonnie then flew out to met their foe, reaching out with their metal powers to force the ship to stop.

Rose, undeterred by the ship suddenly halting out of nowhere, punched straight through the metal and out the green wrist the other side. She slammed into Stevonnie's wall of barriers like a cannonball, shattering the pink panels apart even if it made her fingers twist backwards. The fusion took the chance to advance with a spear and shield, Rose weaving around all of their stabs and blocks with a blast out of her mouth to end the clone.

She turned around expecting some kind of ambush or attack. Instead, she watched more ships pour in to join the fleet, the planet almost hidden behind a wall of cruisers and fighters. Rose squinted her eyes. What the heck was going on?

That was when she noticed several dozen ships getting melted down into multicolored metal liquid, already forming a sphere several hundred feet around and only growing bigger as it absorbed more spacecrafts.

Whatever was going on, Rose knew she had to stop it now. She summoned a colossal ball of power and flung it at the lustrous lump only for a brigade of Stevonnies to emerge and fire back with a barrage of energy until Rose's bubble burst. The mother summoned a sword in each hand, determined to get to the bottom of this.

By now they had both grown accustomed to their rival's style, able to see every slash and feint seconds before it came. Even ignoring how Stevonnie could glimpse at Rose's next move, that meant nothing if Rose could move faster than them. And it didn't matter of Rose could overpower them if an underhanded trick or surprise assault came to disrupt her. It was as much a stalemate as possible.

"That's it, keep fighting the pretty clones," the prime Stevonnie thought, floating in the massive bubble of melted gem crafts that was still expanding by the second. They were focusing entirely on using their metal powers to draw more starships to liquify, the bubble now miles in size. A miniature planetoid of rainbow alloy juice that they could freely shape into anything they wanted.

And it wasn't until Rose was almost hogtied by a pair of doppelgangers that she noticed the colossal sphere, realizing just how Stevonnie had played her. She released a whirling dervish of lasers to give herself the space she needed to take off, racing towards Stevonnie's latest gambit with the intention to slice it in half.

The mother could literally see the ball growing now, slowly creeping towards her as it ate up more and more hardware. She gripped her sword in backhand, ready to attack, only for the metal to ripple. She stopped just as a train-long arm emerged to smack her away. Rose met the new limb head-on, her teeth rattling from the impact that could have easily flattened a city block.

"Man, she's still kicking…" Stevonnie mused, more impressed at this point. As exhaust was now firmly creeping up on them, they had to make this move count. They refocused on the hand still trying to push away the rebel gem, sending a charge of energy through the arm like a massive taser.

Rose, too busy trying not to get slapped to another galaxy, didn't move away in time to avoid getting shocked. Her pink hair stood on end as her body seized, the lightning frying everything at once. And with her frozen, the arm shifted itself into a bat big enough to demolish a baseball stadium and knocked Rose halfway back to Earth.

Stevonnie breathed a sigh of relief. Now they had some space to work but it had to be fast. They flexed their ferrokinesis as much as possible, the gargantuan globule rapidly sucking up every ship and quickly exploding into a ball that could rival Homeworld itself in size. Thousands of ships, millions of tons of alloy, all combined into one ball so large it actually had a minor gravitational pull.

And that made it very easy for Stevonnie to expand their powers further and began ripping all of the metal off of Homeworld's surface into their bubble. Entire buildings were sucked in and the planet's surface was ripped apart, only long-dead soil left behind. The blob of alloy touched down, quickly stretching into a continent spanning web to absorb every last ounce of metal.

As they continued, Rose was flying back as fast as she could only to notice Homeworld was looking different. The glimmering surface of the planet was turning a desolate gray like something was actively soaking up all of the machinery covering it, coalescing into a single glossy shape reaching across the world's fragments.

"What are they doing?" Rose asked herself, scratching her head. It was one thing to summon all the spaceships but why go so far as to assimilate all of Homeworld? The only thing there was a bunch of rubble and material… And heaps of technology and weapons.

Rose bolted down to the surface, landing on the already picked clean land. She gawked at just how barren the planet was, its metal coating stripped back to reveal nothing underneath but frigid dirt. As cathartic as it was to see the diamonds' world destroyed, it was still a chilling sight and the freezing cold she was walking on did not help.

It was about now that the veteran gem got a feeling of dread in her gut. That instinct that only comes from dodging death far too many times, even for a being that can only truly perish in one particular way. She looked around for any traps or clones masked by invisibility, but none showed up.

That was when Rose noticed a gargantuan shadow spreading over the wasteland. The metal mound was lifting itself off the ground but not moving towards her. She watched the marbled monstrosity gradually shape itself into a miles-high spire with absolutely massive arms emerging out the sides and the base splitting off into mountainous legs.

Rose looked up and up at the titan before her, suddenly flashing back to Stevonnie's fight with the diamonds. They had taken the same idea of the crystal colossus that demolished the Mega Diamond and made that little construct look like a toy. She began to tremble, in fear or in amazement she couldn't tell, as the top of the colossus became a replica of Stevonnie's face.

And standing at the very peak of this behemoth was Stevonnie, able to see the blackness of space as their construct came close to breaching Homeworld's atmosphere. While tiring to make, they couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction. How often was it you got to reshape an entire world into your own personal giant robot?

Stevonnie focused on the miniscule pink speck down by the machine's base. They lifted a leg and the colossus beneath them followed, raising a city-sized foot that moved to squash Rose like a bug.

Now this time, Rose knew better than to try and block that. She darted aside as the world buckled beneath the footfall. She tried to blast the limb but the energy plinked off without leaving a mark. As if that wasn't enough, a compartment on the leg suddenly opened to reveal three Stevonnie clones. All of them fully crystallized and fully armed.

Rose grit her teeth, trying to shatter the new enemies as the colossus above raised its left arm. She looked up, just as she managed to decapitate one of the three duplicates, and watched as the titan's palm opened to reveal a massive laser cannon with a familiar two-pronged tip and a gemstone the size of a plane between them.

"Is that a destabilizer?!"

"Yep," one of the clones answered, socking Rose in the face and then parrying her slashes, "Stevonnie can make that thing replicate and assimilate any of the tech it absorbed. Isn't that awesome?!"

As hilarious as it was to see the fusion's face light up, treating this entire thing like it was some game, Rose remained focused as a deafening crack of plasma rushed out to fire at her. Rose summoned as big an energy ball as she could make, dozens of feet wide, to stop the blast cold. The two met in a space-rippling clash, bolts of lightning ricocheting (taking one of the clones by chance) until they both exploded with enough force to level the ground for miles.

While the other Stevonnie clone was lost in the burst, Rose summoned a bubble to protect herself as she bounced and skidded away. Each impact could have easily shattered her gem if she still had one, finally plopping to a stop miles away.

"Yep, starting to seriously wonder what I'm doing…" she groaned, slowly lifting herself up as the bubble faded. The colossus still stood tall in the distance, easily visible even now. Well, at least there was now plenty of space between her and that doomsday weapon.

Stevonnie thought the exact same thing, before grinning. They concentrated on the machine's back and feet, both revealing exhaust panels before glowing with energy. The ground shuddered as a thousand thrusters from Homeworld's armada launched as one and brought the colossus into the air to chase down Rose headfirst.

"You have got to be kidding me…" Rose moaned, wondering how the hell something that size could even move. Maybe the room was busted and letting unrealistic stuff happen again. She closed her eyes and tried to summon gasoline-flavored ice cream.

A few seconds later, she opened her eyes. No petroleum dessert, and for once that was a bad thing.

Figuring that thing had to have a weakness somewhere, Rose took off towards the giant mecha and started circling around it. That quickly became a problem when dozens of metal spikes emerged to try and impale Rose when she got ten feet of the thing. She did manage to break off a few but each punch made her hand throb in pain. And, to add insult to that injury, the metal bits that broke off just flew back to merge with the rest of the colossus.

"Oh, this just isn't fair…" Rose moaned. At this point, she'd almost rather fight the diamonds. They didn't have this many broken powers up their sleeves!

She tried focusing her energy into a piercing beam to try and slice the machine down, but that still didn't help. She then had to dodge a barrage of her own as half a dozen blasters lifted from Homeworld ships opened fire all at once.

And how was Stevonnie treating this epic struggle? Whooping and hollering as they steered their mecha away from Homeworld and soaring through the stars at thousands of miles per minute. They could sense where Rose was trying to strike and the colossus was holding firm, not even scratched. It was also clear that just the repurposed weapons weren't working. Time for a little change of plans.

As Rose looped around the mech's knees to attack there, she was surprised to see something rushing at her. She expected more clones only to find a wave of fireballs and water streams coming her way. They may have been easily deflected but that was what she expected. Clearly that was just a diversion for something bigger…

Her head then got smacked in as a gigantic crystal pillar erupted from the machine, sending her off course. Stevonnie then worked to divide up the megatons of metal into small cubes that rushed after Rose before she could recover.

The mother, for once, was not happy to see an oversized weapon not aimed at her. Now she had thousands of polymer prisms coming in like a swarm of ravenous bugs. She tried to shoot them down but that was like shooting down one bird in a flock. The rest just kept at her, swirling around her in a dome.

She reacted just in time as one cube, suddenly morphed into a spear, almost gutted her through the back. Then a gauntlet smashed into her knee, a barbed whip snapped at her face and even a barrage of bullets fit for a hand cannon hit her in a blitzkrieg off the side. Rose summoned a bubble to give herself some space but proved to be a bad idea.

All at once, each of the thousands of cubes turned into a replica of her own sword and thrust at her defense. It was only a last-minute shift into pure light that saved Rose from being turned into a pincushion.

But though she was safe for the moment, her chest seized in pain. She looked down at her hand, and swore her fingers were starting to look less solid.

A solemn smile came to her face. "So, I'm really at the end of my rope, huh?"

She turned around to see Stevonnie fighting robot, only missing its right foot. They could have easily made hundreds of thousands more cubes to attack her and leave her absolutely cornered.

"Stevonnie!" she shouted, "I'll admit it, you have a good point. You're more than strong enough to beat the diamonds now. Heck, nothing short of a black hole could possibly end you now."

"Thanks!" they replied, "So, does this mean you're done?"

"Not quite… I plan on carrying this out to the end." Rose flared up all of her remaining power, becoming a dazzling pink star visible for lightyears to come, "And I want to end this battle like a proper Crystal Gem!"

Stevonnie smiled. There was no more malice in her voice. She might have been powering up but it was also a clear sign. An invitation to a final duel. The fusion charged up their energy, a collage of colors dancing around them.

"You want some more?! I'm ready to finish this! Let's go!"

(Cue Epic Theme Song: The Weight of Life from Xenoblade Chronicles 3)

Stevonnie leapt off of the mecha and flew right at Rose, their fists meeting in a clash that rippled space. Their limbs turned to blurs as they threw everything at each other, full strength and speed. Stevonnie's limbs changed back and forth from crystal to skin as easily as water passing over them. Rose's blows were lined with plasma for an explosive burst with each hit. On and on they went, neither of them giving an inch until something came between them.

That something, of course, being a wave of metal cubes. Stevonnie didn't forget their superweapon in all of this. In fact, they had a clone off on their own breaking down the rest of their mecha to create millions more little metal squares for this. Rose was suddenly met by a blockade of oversized rainbow dice.

She raised an eyebrow, intrigued. Rose used a bit of shapeshifting to giver herself six arms, each one holding her sword. Now it was Stevonnie's turn to look impressed. The fusion commanded the cavalcade of cubes to advance. The mother moved like a gem possessed, arms slashing through hundreds of cubes out a time and with such force the pieces were flung away.

Stevonnie circled her, gathering all of the dazzling debris and decided to borrow a trick from Ametrine. They stretched their punches out through the metal shards, forcing it to contour to their hands and arms until they had two limbs coated in a solid layer of armor. They were put to good use giving Rose a brutal, armored double sucker punch that stopped her fencing flurry dead.

The rebel leader was flung through space, coincidentally flying through several pink barriers along the way. She then remembered just how many cubes were still around her and flipped around to see a stack of spikes waiting for her. She arced around just in time to meet more clones, poofing them both in short measure.

Rose then lobbed several energy blasts, but Stevonnie was more than ready. Not only did they catch them all, they imbued them with their own energy and flung back at the pinkette. She kicked and knocked them all away but she failed to notice something… None of them exploded.

It was only after about the seventieth that Rose caught something glimmering nearby. She looked around and saw everyone of her own shots, shining like rainbows and floating idly in the darkness. Stevonnie clapped their hands together and soon all the blasts converged on the mother at once. A resounding kaboom rang out in the vacuum.

Stevonnie patiently waited for the light to clear to reveal Rose, her hair frazzled and shaking slightly. Looks like she didn't block that one in time. They turned and no door appeared when they thought of one.

And in that split second, Rose swept Stevonnie's feet and delivered a haymaker strong enough to send the hybrid catapulting past planets. They came to a stop close to a purple gas giant orbiting nearby. A pink comet was flying in so they had to act fast. Stevonnie flew closer towards the massive planet and could feel the gravity trying to pull them down, dozens of times stronger than the Earth.

Rather than be pulled down, Stevonnie pushed themselves free and used it to slingshot around. And with their new momentum, they slingshot back to swing a kick in Rose's face. Now it was her turn to get sent flying past several planets. Unlike their rival, she ended up landing on a desolate, muddy moon with no trace of life. Her landing shook the entire planetoid, a deep crack implying that some tectonic plate just got broken in half.

Rose, though groaning all the while, stood up and was ready once Stevonnie flew into sight. What she didn't count on was the mud around whipping into a frenzy, a whirlpool of liquid dirt surrounding her.

"Oh right, Sandstone's powers…" she thought, "Are they actually checking them all off in their head?"

"Is this overkill?" Stevonnie wondered, "I could just launch a bunch of mud missiles… Nah, might as well go crazy! Never gonna be able to do this again!"

The cyclone quickly grew until it was a dozen stories high, the murky sky hidden by the torrent. Rose knew it was pointless to try and fly out since the mud would just rise up to get her. What she didn't expect was for it all to rapidly condense into a twenty-foot-tall dome and turn into solid rock in an instant. Rose, naturally, chose now to blast off to escape.

A shame she didn't realize that all that mud turning to earth meant Stevonnie siphoned out all the water. Thousands of gallons' worth which the fusion used to form a plane-sized fist and deck Rose once again. Stevonnie then dropped all the liquid back to the moon's surface before giving chase once more.

This time Rose managed to at least stop herself from another crash, looking around and being awed at the shimmering nebula around her. Even now, the natural beauty of the universe amazed her after all these years. She was happy to see Stevonnie floating up slowly, clearly taking in the sights as well.

The two just stood there, taking in the scenery. Neither of them said a word for the longest time or moved anything other than their heads. It was a nice bit of relief from all of the constant action. Stevonnie, however, looked over at Rose and noticed how she wasn't all there. Not that she seemed unfocused, but that she almost looked translucent.

"I think that's enough of a break," Rose said calmly, "And, if you don't mind, could we finish this back on Earth?"

The fusion blinked in surprise but still nodded. They didn't see any reason to disagree. Stevonnie actually had the cubes come back, reassembled them all into the mecha which had a diamond-sized warp pad in its stomach. And with that, the two warped back in front of the destroyed beach house where their fight began.

"So, is there any particular reason for this?" the fusion wondered.

"Oh, it just feels right somehow. You know I've always had a flair for the dramatic…"

Stevonnie wanted to add that flair mainly came from being drunk on stolen gem energy but they held their tongue. At least Rose was being civil and friendly instead of a bloodhound. Both of them flew up past the wrecked temple and onto the cliff, the replica of Beach City being nothing more than crater filled with seawater.

"Thank you," Rose said before firing up her aura one more time and releasing a massive point-blank blast in Stevonnie's face. The fusion managed to duck aside just in time before readying a massive fireball right back at Rose. The gem also dodged; the horizon blinded as their powers rushed past one another. Somewhere miles away, a chunk of ocean was vaporized by Rose's plasma and a few hundred square miles were set ablaze by Stevonnie's flames.

Rose didn't get any time to breathe as a resounding crack caught her ears. She looked down to see the entire cliffside that was once the temple rising out of the ground. Stevonnie was down on the beach using Adamite's earthbending to raise the massive structure out of the ground, thousands of tons of rock hoisted above them.

And underneath the now portable precipice, Stevonnie began waving their arms around like a maniac in order to break down the entire thing into a few thousand boulders. And since they were also hidden from her view, Rose didn't see a dozen clones being made or all of them turning invisible.

What Rose did see a boulder the size of herself being shot at her like a cannonball, but she didn't move. She simply summoned her sword and sliced the stone in two with a single swing. Even as dozens of them came at her, at angles or even dropped on her, she pierced them with one stab or rent them in half.

That didn't work when something she couldn't see punched her in the face. And thanks to that distraction, the next boulder slammed into her and sent her flying over half of Delmarva.

"Alright, move out!" one of the Stevonnies called. The clones all took off, each carrying several dozen boulders behind them. They quite easily spotted the trench Rose dug into some cornfield. Once there, all of them chucked down their rocky ammunition like rain to pile onto her.

Rose formed a shield to save herself, but she could feel her arm buckling under several hundred stones. She might not have had a core to lose yet getting flattened into a pink pancake wasn't a nice thought.

Once the rumbling stopped, Rose dropped the shield and turned into light for the precious second she needed. It felt far more strenuous than before but it did the trick as she appeared outside the rubble pile with a dozen clones waiting for her.

"Good trick," she praised before making a pink energy sawblade and throwing it through half of the Stevonnies.

"Same to you," one of the fusions said before they all attacked again, another barrage of attacks that hit Rose from all sides. As it went on, though, it was starting to get quite clear. Rose was taking more and more hits, blocking and dodging far slower to the point and only barely getting in any counterattacks.

"I'm whupping her butt," Stevonnie thought, "So why is she still going? She could just give up."

She could have but did not. The clash stopped not because Rose made a decisive strike, but when one clone grabbed the mother around the neck. Even as the fusion stretched their arm back for hundreds of feet, sending Rose through several hills, houses and an interstate bridge, and then launched her like a shot put into the sky, Rose barely tried to escape.

As bizarre as it was, all the Stevonnies followed behind and found Rose halfway across America and having holes through several buildings in whatever Midwest city she landed in. And yet when they approached, the clones were all greeted with an array of lasers that caught several of them off-guard.

"And now she's fighting back?" the lead wondered anew before shrugging. The door still wouldn't appear so they might as well push on. The lead poofed the clones before rocketing down, manipulating the wind to create a barrage of air bullets that nearly caught Rose unaware. She leapt aside as the asphalt exploded in buckshot, lobbing any nearby cars at them for good measure.

The flying vehicles were easily swatted aside, but Rose's energy ball was not. Stevonnie ended up taking that straight to the gut, making their knees buckle and a sickening dread move through them as their core shook. On instinct, Stevonnie borrowed a trick from Rose and released a sudden burst of energy. The only difference was their blast being so big that it swallowed up several city blocks, demolishing everything around them.

"Heh, whoops…" they muttered before Rose crawled out of what used to be a four-story apartment complex. She moved in once again but her punches were still slow and easily predictable. Stevonnie just summoned their shield to block, swung around to bash Rose in the head with it and then uppercut her back into the sky. She landed with a thud miles away and though Stevonnie waited, nothing came back.

"I guess she must be on her last leg…"

Then the entire horizon went pink, making Stevonnie tense. They watched a ball of energy grow bigger and bigger until it gave them flashbacks to Yellow's last-ditch effort to destroy Earth.

"Yep, she's out of options…" Stevonnie bit back that tiny bit of fear. They could just redirect it like before but Rose would be fully expecting that. They needed something big, completely out of left field that would catch Rose off-guard.

And then a small smile lit up, realizing they had exactly that. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

"Alright, let's go…" Stevonnie charged up their energy one last time, drawing everything they possibly head and channeling it all above their head. Their own energy ball grew to massive size, more than large enough to swallow up all of Empire City. The only real difference was the color, one death orb being solid pink and the other a mix of the entire rainbow.

And with so much energy being gathered in one place, the planet reacted. The ground shook for miles, gusts of wind fit for the harshest hurricane cleared away the clouds, the sun that was just starting to set off to the west was outshined.

The reaction only got worse as the two colossal spheres came together, the air shuddering as they grew closer and the quakes worsening. The rest of the city around them quickly started falling apart as skyscrapers collapsed on themselves and cars were tossed aside like tumbleweeds.

Neither of the fighters noticed any of this carnage, however, since they were absolutely focused on overpowering the other. The moment the two met, the entire world began to quake as the entire continent of North America shook. Tsunamis with hundred-foot waves began to pelt the other landmasses. The friction from their two plasma balls generated lightning bolts that rocketed off to every corner of the world and obliterated whatever they touched.

It was almost a shame that neither of them noticed, too busy trying to push whatever reserves of energy into their final attack. Through gritted teeth and their bodies screaming at them to stop, Stevonnie and Rose's energy orbs grew even larger until they were half a mile around.

They had no idea how long they were like that but for Stevonnie it was only a matter of time. They kept one eye trained on the sky behind Rose to wait for their ace in the hole. Rose, on the other hand, was entirely focused on stopping the gigaton-weighing energy bomb in front of her from going off. She might have been hundreds of miles away, but she could still feel the heat and pressure trying to wear her down.

As the rumbling grew stronger, Rose clamped her eyes shut to try and maintain her concentration. Eventually it grew so strong, enough to rattle her eyeballs even while closed, that she wondered what was going on. She caught something rushing at out of the corner of her eye. Something massive, multicolored and aiming right at her.

"STEVONNIE'S MECHA!" she shouted, completely mortified. How in the blazes could she have forgotten about that?! Rose never destroyed it, Stevonnie never had it deactivated, it was how they warped here on a moment's notice! Of course they could just leave a clone to pilot the thing back to Earth manually! She even saw it had propulsors strong enough to carry it, and no doubt had warp capabilities…

The giant grew closer, its fist outstretched and wreathed in fire as it effortlessly breached the atmosphere. Rose could feel she was well and truly spent, barely an ounce of energy left in her. She wore a relaxed smile as she finally said the magic words to stop all of this.

"I give up."

The room instantly understood, reactivating its manipulability and thus obeying Rose's command to freeze everything in place. Stevonnie's breath hitched, hustling across the devastation their clash had wrought to find Rose. They could now simply ask if Rose left and when told no, they rushed east to find her.

The fusion floated to a stop at a very familiar looking beach, touching down right next to Rose who was serenely watching the rising sun. Stevonnie could have sworn it was evening when they got back here.

"I hope you don't mind," she apologized, "But I've always been fond of dawn breaking."

"It's pretty," Stevonnie agreed, sitting down next to her.

"It was such a simple thing, but I looked forward to it every morning. Even when it was blocked by the weather, I cherished it. The world was still turning, still alive."

The two silently beheld the sky turning into a vibrant blossom of orange and pink, clouds above them turning purple from their own shadows. Not a word was said until Stevonnie cleared their throat.

"So, I won?"

"Well, I'd hope so. Otherwise, the room is broken and the last time that happened…" She shuddered at the memory. Stevonnie guessed that was one story even Pearl wouldn't be telling.

"Soooo, now what?"

"Now you can leave and tell everyone the news. My little empire is over."

"Well, yeah, but what about you?"

"I'll just stay here, enjoying this as long as I can."

The fusion blinked, wondering why she sounded so resigned. Rose's entire body flickered like a hologram before snapping back and the fusion's stomach lodged in their throat.

"You… Wait, you can't be!"

"I am. I've exhausted everything I had, all of the energy I stole from the gems. And without a core, there's nothing to keep a gem together."

"But why, you-you can't just die! We could find some way to-"

Rose turned to face them, looking even more peaceful than the portrait that once hanged over the beach house's front door. "It's okay, Stevonnie. You are far more capable at protecting the Earth from anything that comes its way. And with the diamonds no longer a threat, that should be much easier."

Stevonnie gaped, finally hearing her admit the truth. "So… You're not mad anymore?"

"Oh, I'm plenty mad. And disappointed. But not with the diamonds, it's at myself. I got so wrapped up in my past and my mistakes that I became the very thing White Diamond was – a megalomaniac who saw her vision as the only worthwhile one and willing to destroy anyone who didn't agree."

"Well, yeah, but… That doesn't mean-"

"Stevonnie, I lied before. The energy I stole from all those gems? There was only one way for me to release it. I had to use it all up. And it became so integrated into me that losing it all meant my own essence with it."

The fusion's lips began to tremble and their breaths became erratic. "But… But…"

"I've lived a long life, with more ups and downs than anyone could count. But do you know what makes this feel right?"

"W-What?"

"That I have a more than worthy successor. Not just in strength but in character. You never abandoned your ideals, your desire to protect everyone. You managed to make peace with an enemy I assumed nonnegotiable. You've proven me wrong and that is for the best. It means the peace I and the others always wanted will come."

"S-Stop sounding so reasonable!" Stevonnie cried, the dam breaking as tears spilled over, "I don't want you to go! The gems, Dad, they all love you!"

"And I love them all too. But the only option for me to stay would be to steal light from other gems. I would be more of a parasite than the diamonds ever were, literally leeching off of others. I couldn't stomach that."

"Then take some of mine! I-I have p-plenty!"

Rose's smile turned sad as she wiped away the drops staining their cheeks. "Yes, you do, but how long would it be before my doubt and loathing came back? I want you to keep moving forward, to keep bringing peace wherever you go. That will do me more good than keeping me on life support."

"Mom, I… I…"

They shuddered for a bit before breaking apart, Steven rushing to Rose's side and crying into her dress while Connie stayed where she fell. She decided to open a door for herself and let the two have their privacy. Plus, she had plenty of explaining to do.

"Steven, it'll be okay," Rose assured him, running a hand through his hair, "You'll grow up to be a wonderful man, doing whatever makes you happy. Exactly like I hoped."

"Bu-But I'll m-miss you! I-I always have and now w-we could act-actually be together!"

"Perhaps, but I can't take energy without turning corrupt. I raised a hand against you and that sickens me, Steven. I love you more than anything else and I tried to kill you."

"I-it'll be okay!" he swore, "J-Just please d-don't go-ooo!"

Rose wrapped an arm around him, making the gentlest shushing noises she could. Steven nestled into her, letting out all of the grief. He swore he could feel Rose fading away, her body less solid than before.

"Steven?"

He looked up at her. "W-What?"

"Have you ever heard about what happens when people die? How their souls carry on to somewhere else?"

"Y-Yeah…"

"I always wondered where I would go. Some say its an endless limbo. Others say it's a paradise that rewards you for your good deeds. Many said there's nothing at all, or we become part of something bigger. I'll find out soon."

Steven sniffled one last time, the room conjuring up a tissue for him, but it seemed he finally calmed down. He wanted so desperately to help, to tell her everything would be alright like when he was little and the gems would make him feel better. But he could see her starting to fade, her dress turning to motes of pink light.

"Do you want to… Say goodbye to the others?"

"I'll leave them something, don't you worry about that. But I want to enjoy this sight one last time."

As hard as it was, namely because the massive battle he just went through was catching up to him at last, Steven stood up bit by bit and gave his mother one last hug.

"I love you, Mom."

Rose let a tear of her own fall. "I love you too, Steven. Thank you for helping me."

Steven turned around, a simple pink door appearing. He made his way towards it, knowing he couldn't look back or else he'd stay longer. Rose kept her eyes on the rising sun as he left, before using the room to summon an old camcorder. She emptied out everything she was feeling, leaving nothing out, before turning the old camera into a VHS tape. She then placed in hair where it disappeared into the pocket dimension within Lion's mane.

She had to film herself from the waist up, her lower body having dissolved into nothing. Glimmering pink dots floated up into the sky around her, the last iotas of energy she had taken. The room was set to release them all once she was fully gone, hopefully reviving the gems she had rendered inert.

Piece by piece of her floated away, Rose feeling nothing but a lingering curiosity for what was in store for her next. It was time, after thousands of years, to finally go somewhere new.

"Take care, everyone," she said to herself, "I'll always be watching over you…"

And with those final words, the last of Rose Quartz split into fluttering motes of energy. The Earth was safe, the diamonds were reformed, and Rose was content to know that the planet she worked to save would have a long future ahead.

And so, after over four and a half years, over 950 pages of Word doc and I don't know how many hours, it is done. It feels unbelievable to get to this point and I hope this finale was worthwhile. All that's left is a brief epilogue to bookend the story.

I know this might be a cliché at this point, but I want to sincerely thank everyone who has been reading this. Whether you've been here since the beginning or picked this up last week, I have been nothing short of amazed at how much support and appreciation I've gotten for this. Over 20,000 hits on AO3 and nearing 90,000 views on this site, and a few genuine friends that have further my creative endeavors. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading and all of the feedback over the years. Please tell me your thoughts in the comments below and take care.