Sky Blue, Ocean Blue

by purplegirl761

When a reformed mad scientist befriends a stranger to Earth who's also haunted by the past, neither of them suspects that their blossoming relationship will carry them through everything from ice cream to intergalactic warfare. Welcome aboard a little ship I like to call Drakkis.

35. Homeworld

~Happy quarantine, everyone! Seriously, I hope you all are well and not going too stir-crazy. I'll be glad to get back to the library!~

There are planets that manage to pull chunks of dirt, rock, and ice into their gravitational fields and hold them, patterned so smoothly that from a distance they appear to be solid, graceful rings.

This is not what you see when you look at Homeworld.

Satellites – some natural, some forged steel, and all grotesque – litter the air around Homeworld for miles, a commotion of garbage. You wonder if your Emergence hole is even still here, or if it has detached and floated away along with everything else that once made Homeworld seem trustworthy. A thick murk the color Drakken's skin turned when he had the stomach bug blots away the planet's surface and descends, impenetrable, beyond view.

Worst of all, Homeworld has been split open, cleaved in two along its axis as though with one of Bismuth's axes, the halves orbiting in synchronization yet never to touch again. When you were last here, Homeworld was deteriorating, cracking, but now it has finally torn itself apart.

Homeworld. The name has never been less appropriate. This is not your home or your world; it is the gaping, unhinged mouth of a Centibeedle, filled with toxin and jagged teeth, ready to wring dry anything unfortunate enough to enter.

You have to turn away; the sight is a flame in your eyes.

Shards of fear and pain fuse together, and the resulting Cluster is enormous inside you, writhing, desperate to burst free even if it means tearing you apart. You want to be on Earth, on Kanatar – on any planet other than this one.

But you seize that Cluster and bubble it, one fragment at a time. You are here to salvage whatever beauty remains of this world. You are here to save Steven.

You are about to land on Homeworld, and you have never felt farther removed from it.

A lanky arm wraps around you and pulls you to a blue-clad chest. "Wow. That's Homeworld?" Dr. Drakken says. "I thought it'd be…prettier."

You snort against his coat-of-labs at his bluntness.

"Me too," Bismuth says. You glance forward again to see shock flash across her face; if her memories of Homeworld are not favorable, neither do they match this. "What happened to this place?"

"Don't ask me. I was stuck in a mirror," you say.

You refrain from adding Remember? or Thanks to you, and Bismuth's eyes notice it. She maneuvers the ship around a defunct Red Eye probe, set adrift when it had outlived its usefulness, and shrugs. "I was in a bubble."

"I hadn't been made yet," Peridot pipes up. She squints in thought, pressed up against the slanting window, and you can picture her trying to imagine a time when this was not what how Homeworld looked.

"Me either!" Dr. Drakken cries with excessive cheer. "Newbies!" He reaches out his free palm and holds it in the air, and Peridot slaps hers against it. You smile at the gesture he taught you on the beach and look down at the fingerprints unique to your hands, things the Gems on Homeworld have never been Taught.

"All right, hang on, guys." Bismuth's voice is no longer playful. "I'm taking us in."

The ship plunges beneath the murk to hover above Homeworld's surface. A shot of cold sears your back, and for the first time since you made the decision to leave Kanatar, you go numb. It is not an escape or a denial this time. There is simply no feeling that can adequately capture what it is to see Homeworld in this state.

Directly in the ship's line of sight, though still far off, a canyon has been gouged through the soil, straight down through the crust, into the mantle, and probably beyond. Emergence holes that you remember being placed at precise intervals are now crushed together, compressed until you cannot imagine even the smallest of Gems being comfortable in them. On either side of the gorge stands a rock formation higher than the Diamonds, the only remnant of the stone arches that once dominated this landscape. Boulders teeter carelessly on the peaked edges. There are no stars to be seen from here, only more of the grayish pall.

A gaunt, shaken bridge stretches over the canyon; with horror, you realize it is the Diamonds' Palace Overpass, once elegant and golden and now a dim, bitter yellow, supported only by two structures that look like narrow needles compared to the boulders that could fall at any moment or the blue mountain range you do not remember looming over them. At the peak of the tallest hill, just as you remember it, White Diamond's head-ship presides with an empty, dead stare. Replications of her hair jut from its sides, bearing no resemblance to Drakken's soft, bending spikes of hair. These cut cleanly, sharp enough to poof on contact, into the ill gray that has replaced the sky.

You have seen illustrations of people starving, slowly rotting away from lack of food, at the hands of some cruel ruler in the fantasy books Connie has loaned you. Drakken always averted his eyes from the pictures, covered his ears, and rocked back and forth, probably reliving how close he was to becoming that ruler. The stark lines of spindly limbs and wasted faces were riveting to you, though you too could barely stand to look at them.

If it is possible for a planet to starve, this is what has happened to Homeworld.

You rest your forehead against the window and close your eyes, your head full of the words you once spoke to Steven: I just…want to go home.

A hand, clumsy but gentle, rests on your shoulder, and you know it is Dr. Drakken without turning around. You can also feel him frowning somehow, even before he shouts, "What the ding-dong am I looking at?"

He points to the blue mountain range. Now that the ship has crept closer, you can see that the mountains no longer appear to tower over the bridge from behind. Rather, they seem to rest directly in the center of the bridge. They are also moving.

You are seeing stone all right, but of the sentient variety. A hood of cloth falls away from a face arched upward, Blue Diamond's mouth contorted into a scream. Mapped beneath her skin, a grid of yellow-green lines pulses. You recognize it as Destabilizing energy, though it seems to be having a much harder time breaking her than it did you or Peridot.

Your gaze darts beyond Blue Diamond, searching for whoever is foolish enough to use a Destabilizer on her, and it lands on what you knew you were going to see instead: Yellow Diamond with her hand outstretched and her face barren as her powers crackle, jumping from her fingers into Blue Diamond's body.

Everything else on Homeworld vanishes, and there are no more of your own words loose in your head. You hear her gentle laugh as she checked you over, reviewing your powers; you see her expression warp as the barn sails toward her.

"Stop," someone whispers in a tiny voice that might belong to you. "Stop it."

Fright batters you in hurricane waves, hot and fierce, but you are pushing through it, through Drakken's and Peridot's gurgled screams and Bismuth's harsh-faced silence, to a place where conditions are clear and calm, if only for a brief period. Yellow is volatile and foul-tempered, but she and Blue are allies in everything, like Drakken and Shego. What could cause them to turn on one another?

The answer comes in the form of two tiny figures at Blue Diamond's side. This far away, they are nothing more than specks of color – but you would know that shade of pink anywhere. It hasn't been seen on Homeworld for centuries.

You laugh through the gathering pressure in your throat. Of course. This is what Blue Diamond has done to warrant attack.

She has chosen to stand with Steven.

Peridot's thin fingers scrabble at the windows. "I wish we could hear what they were saying!"

You nod with her, although in truth you are grateful to be spared Blue Diamond's screams. You know what she sounds like when she is manipulating; you do not wish to discover what she sounds like when she is being tortured.

Drakken rocks back and forth on his heels, a ship tossed about in a storm, and then he straightens, pointing upward with the thrill of some new idea, petals framing his face once more. "I have an idea! But I don't know if it will work…" he adds uncomfortably, and you know how it pains him to doubt himself.

"Try it," you urge him.

Drakken closes his eyes. As a flowered vine sprouts from his neck, he jogs from the window to the fingers at the front of the ship. The vine stretches, tapers to a slender edge, finds the crack left behind where Peridot inelegantly reattached the thumbs, and slides through it.

Peridot presses her hand between yours. Under normal circumstances her care would pull a smile from you, but there is nothing normal about the flexing of Blue Diamond's back as her hands struggle to grip the bridge beneath her. A facet of you aches watching her. You are not sure if that facet loves her or if love is even something a Gem can feel for her Diamond, but she is the one piece of Homeworld that has retained any of its beauty and if something happens to her, you know the planet can never recover.

Drakken tips his ear toward the end of the vine still inside the ship, listening to whatever vibrates through it. His lips move in concentrated study, with none of the absent mumbling often on them, and when "No!" bursts from him you realize he must be quoting Steven, the boy intent on saving everyone.

"Why are you hurting her?" they continue. "She's your friend! She's your family. How can this be worth it?"

Filtered through Drakken's large voice, Steven no longer sounds young or helpless. The surge of pride in your gem cannot be contained by its edges, flowing outward until you regain feeling in your fingertips.

Drakken's voice abruptly grows sharp and frigid, and for an instant you wonder if that was how he sounded when he was a villain. It seems stilted to you, the buoy-words encased between two blocks of ice, trying to wrest their way free. "From the smallest Pebble to the toughest Agate, we must all make sacrifices for the sake of our perfect empire!"

At your side Peridot stiffens, as she rarely does.

"Does this look perfect to you?" You imagine Steven motioning to his tarnished, wasted surroundings. "My dad says if every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs!"

You frown. You have seen hot dogs before, when Steven and Greg cooked them over a closed fire last summer, yet you still can't fully interpret what he has just said.

"They're not saying anything right now," Drakken says in the pause that follows.

Apparently, you are not the only one left wondering. For a moment Yellow Diamond's eyes grow confused, and then they take shelter behind her fury once again. Her hand swings through the air. Though Drakken reports that she yells, "I don't know what that means!" you barely hear it; she has also relinquished her hold on Blue Diamond.

The Destabilizing energy fades from her, and Blue Diamond goes limp against the bridge. Steam outside of your control wafts from her head.

Steven's words come from Drakken's mouth again. "It means that if you're so focused on making sure absolutely everything is always perfect all the time, you miss out on all the little imperfect things that make life so wonderful! Like hot dogs!"

"Enough with the hot dogs already, Steven," you mutter to anchor yourself.

Blue Diamond lifts her head from the bridge, her hair almost the same color as the steam seeping up from it. Drakken turns his voice light and breathy as she speaks for the first time: "Or our sweet Pink."

Yellow Diamond's face changes, almost imperceptibly, and you are suddenly back on your first assignment, staring down solid rock resistant to the waves and whirlpools pummeling it from all sides. But every stone eventually surrenders, and the moment where that first break appears would be recognizable to any Lapis. She lifts an arm and then lowers it, weariness undermining the austere corners of her jaw.

Blue Diamond's eyes don't leave Yellow Diamond's. "Look at us, Yellow. Look at this. Can you blame Pink for leaving? She'd been suffering in silence for so long. Just like the rest of our Gems." She sweeps a hand toward the canyon scored with holes, each one the beginning of another Gem's story.

"Suffering?" The sound that comes from Yellow Diamond next, even tamed in Drakken's replication, has more in common with skin smacking against skin than with laughter. "What are you talking about?"

Bismuth gives a thick, moist hiss.

"Lapis Lazuli threw a building on my head today," Blue Diamond says, as if you are the only one of your kind. "An Elite. She never wanted for anything, yet her need was still so great that she felt she had to join the rebels."

You raise your hand to your mouth. Something warm washes down your back and briefly blurs the scene before you.

"If Lapis was that miserable, how much more are all the others?" Blue Diamond rests her immense weight on her elbows, and you almost believe she is looking right at Bismuth. When Drakken's words stumble, you are not sure if it is him faltering or Blue Diamond. "And even that doesn't compare to what we've been putting Pink's friends through for over five thousand years!"

Yellow Diamond pinches the widest part of her nose. "The war was devastating, Blue –"

"Yes, it was. And it's also over. Haven't those Gems suffered long enough?" You hear Drakken's kindness intermingled with someone else's, a kindness you feared lost, if it had ever existed at all. "You saw what happened to your Nephrites. They weren't rebels. They weren't traitors. They were delayed, that's all. Should they really be punished eternally for that?"

Yellow Diamond's eyes close. "Now you're being ridiculous," Drakken translates, though without the conviction he previously effected. Based on Yellow Diamond's sloping shoulders, it would appear to be accurate.

"Yellow." Blue Diamond no longer steams and her hand reaches out, though not far enough to touch Yellow Diamond's. "I know you've been suffering in silence too."

You tug Peridot closer and you wait, hoping you will not have to watch Blue Diamond be destroyed.

There is no answer. Yet the terraforming has proven successful; you see the hardness weakening at the places where it has been hit, its foundation impaired, its pigment faded, and its edges threatening to give.

Yellow Diamond's eyes do not open for what feels a long time. When they do, the tiny wet glints in them are almost indetectable. "Stars above! Stop using your power on me," she snaps at Blue Diamond.

Blue Diamond shakes her head, and Drakken mimics her. "I'm not."

She isn't. Blue Diamond can force a superficial mist over your eyes, but she cannot make your gemstone tender in the way that bruises on the flesh are tender, a deep and earnest ache. Her powers weigh a Gem's physical body down, and you are becoming lighter by the minute, almost as proud of her as you were of Steven.

Some of the dewy homesickness clinging to you rises and turns to vapor in the polluted air.

Yellow Diamond bends at the waist as if she has been kicked before jerking upright again. Most of her body does not move or reveal anything else, everything condensed into her elbows, strained at her sides; her fingers grasping at nothing; her lips crimped and silent. It doesn't make sense, and yet it does: the only thing strong enough to scratch a Diamond is another Diamond.

Drakken delivers a sigh, where Yellow Diamond's is probably narrower, less exaggerated, closer to the sound the ship made maneuvering around refuse that didn't vanish upon disposal. "Enough. You win, Blue. We'll talk to White," she says.

"That ol' clod," Peridot says between sniffles.

Blue Diamond finally lowers her glistening eyes. "But how can we be certain she'll listen?"

"You just leave that to me," Bismuth says. She no longer mutters; her voice is an iron strike. She turns toward Drakken. "You might wanna call your little plant friend back to you now."

Drakken nods. He jams his fingertips into his mouth, making the same shrill noise as the small, silver, strung jewel Peridot once found in the barn makes when she filled it with her breath. A string of saliva lands on his sleeve, although he doesn't seem to notice. The flower retreats from between the ship's panels back into the safety of Drakken's neck.

Bismuth levels the ship so that it hangs below the White ship's chin. Inside the control sling, her fist drives forward with increasing speed and resolve, aiming for the side of the other ship's head. You glance away. You know what she is going to do, and you do not fault her for it; neither do you want to see it happen.

It is enough to feel it happen instead: the impact of one Diamond's vessel against another's rattles the entire ship, shaking the lights off and back on again. Glass shrills, fighting not to break. Your feet, buffered and anchored by the gold cords that wind around your ankles, hold the ground and keep upright not only you but also Peridot and Drakken, whose arms you have grabbed.

The force knocks Bismuth from the top of the throne to the floor, a significant fall, though she shows no signs of injury. She raises her arms above her head as she stands again. "Whoo!" she cries. "Ohhh, that felt good!"

No one says a word. No one needs to. You watch in astonishment as Bismuth's cheeks flush. "Oops," she says. "I mean…"

You have the sudden urge to laugh.

Peridot pats Bismuth's hand, her own a green speck against the wide gray fingers, no more than a mineral deposit. "Let's work on that," she says kindly.

Bismuth blinks and nods. The blunt, heavy mannerisms that you still have not fully accepted hold no trace of the hate they once gave off.

You expect White Diamond to lash back at you, like some great Earth beast that finds itself hunted, or like you when a pronged crack separated you from your wings and people you still considered enemies surrounded the tower you had built from the ocean, but she has something else altogether planned. The ship's chin tucks so that its lower half rests at an argumentative slant, and then she waits.

Of all the things she could have done, none of them are as frightening as her waiting.

Bismuth sets the ship down on the front side of the canyon, and the lights switch off again. You know what is coming next, but you don't have time to warn Dr. Drakken, and as thick swathes of light in deepest blue surround each of you and pull you to the ceiling, you hear him whimpering through his teeth. Swiveling your head toward him, you shape the words, "It's okay," though they emerge without sound. An instant before you would phase through the ceiling, you remember his human body and wrap your arms around his waist, surrounding his frailty with the light that forms you.

It works, and soon all four of you are standing in the open palm of Blue Diamond's arm-ship. Yellow's ship bobs nearby. You shudder at the touch of the air you once believed to be superior to all others in the universe. It is probably no warmer than it is on Earth, but it feels closer and bulging, the stratosphere holding it back no more than a jagged row of sutures like the ones on Drakken's cheek. It is the opposite of a human being's friendly, nonaggressive body heat. Something else about it also burdens you, a set of cuffs that snaps around your exposed belly and will only pull tighter if you try to slip out.

None of that matters when the smallest figure on the bridge turns around and breaks into a smile unlike anything Homeworld has ever seen. "Guys! Over here! You made it!" Steven shouts. He cradles four gemstones in his arms: one white, one purple, one red, and one blue. It pains you to see Amethyst so still and quiet and to see Pearl in a situation where she is not in complete control. Yet most of all it pains you to remember how you stood by, silent and cowardly, as Ruby's and Sapphire's gems tumbled to the sand, before you were herded back into the ship with the rest of the prisoners.

You glance at Peridot. So much more than your common guilt unites you now. You toss her onto your back, snag Drakken's wrists, and fly all three of you out onto the bridge. Bismuth has already hopped to the ground and jogs along beside you.

"Hey, everybody!" Steven says. "I'm so glad to see you all!"

"I bet," you say, ruffling his hair.

"What in the cosmos…" Yellow Diamond murmurs.

Peridot cranes her neck so that her shorebird-squawk will reach the Diamonds. "We fixed your ships!"

The poorly constructed thumbs break loose and topple down into the ravine, which thankfully appears empty.

"Oh. Well…who needs thumbs anyway?" Peridot says with a shrug. Her hands do not form the Diamond salute, but her eyes don't recoil at the prospect of being Destabilized, either, as though everyone has been at peace for much longer than the past few minutes. You take a step forward and press a hand on her shoulder, more cautiously, and yet you have never seen Blue Diamond's face look so gentle nor so remorseful.

The urge to trust her, which you thought had sunk, lifelessly, to the seabed of your consciousness, begins to bubble and foam once again.

A look passes between Yellow and Blue Diamond, a message viewable only to the two of them. With long, powerful strides they approach their restored ships and climb into the palms. In unison, they close their eyes.

Beside you, a shiver ripples Dr. Drakken's large, bagging sleeves. "My first steps onto alien soil! Scientifically speaking, this is so far beyond the bomb-diggity!" he says, using a phrase you recognize from conversations with Ron Stoppable. Drakken spreads his legs far apart, his brow pleated in concentration as he drags his feet along the ground. "Remarkable! Simply remarkable!"

He slaps a precariously leaning boulder, which creaks and then quickly joins the thumbs at the bottom of the ravine.

"Whoopsy doodles." Drakken's hands converge behind his back. "Ehh…heh-heh. Somebody broke that."

You roll your eyes at him. "Yeah. Somebody who looks a lot like you. Sorry about that!" you call to a group of passing Bixbyites, who stare at you in confusion.

By now, Yellow and Blue Diamond have lined up their arm-ships with the shoulder hollows on White Diamond's ship. The arms slip into place as easily as a barnacle attaches to a whale. You squint into the sudden brightness, one hand in Drakken's and the other in Peridot's.

The White ship's eye sockets appear to startle and her shoulders buck, but she is alone no longer. The Great Diamond Authority is complete – as complete as it will ever be now – and Yellow and Blue collaborate to lower the arms, letting them hover just above the bridge, a mere jump away. Steven, as trusting as ever, clutches his friends' gems tighter and pulls himself up.

You aren't sure whether eight thousand years of instilled loyalty draws you to Blue Diamond's side or whether two years of genuine loyalty beckons you to Steven's. Nevertheless, you know where you belong, and with a tug at Drakken's arm, you climb up and stand between them. Peridot, Connie, and Bismuth follow behind you.

"White!" Yellow Diamond's golden voice rings out. "We need to talk!"

The head-ship swings forward as though offended. A deep cold travels the length of your back.

Yellow Diamond manages not to flinch, her fingers bowed in front of her. "About us. I've conquered so many worlds for the sake of the Empire. I do everything you ask, and I do it all perfectly. But your very high standards put us all under enormous pressure." Every word is like an airlock hissing shut, and her unwavering lips try to maintain cruelty but can't. "A Gem could crack under that kind of pressure. We Diamonds may be hard, but we're also…brittle."

If anyone else had spoken those words, you would have told her she was wrong.

Blue Diamond takes one step forward, her cloak hovering graciously around her enormous form, and wraps an arm around Yellow Diamond, edging her friend closer to her chest. Her gemstone peers out from between two drapes of icicle-blue hair. "White, we used to be close. Don't you remember?" she asks, her voice thick. "When Pink would make us laugh? All those silly things she did for no reason – there was a reason. She wanted us to be happy together.

"But we weren't, and we're still not." Blue Diamond turns an apologetic gaze up toward the white ship. "I know my Purpose isn't to be happy, but I find it harder and harder to enforce your rules when they make me miserable. When they make us all miserable."

Tears swim in Blue Diamond's eyes, and she wipes them grimly away. A soft pool forms in your throat, but your hands harden into fists at the sound of her pain, bare and truthful with no contrivance behind it. In your millennia in service to her, that pain has always been a weapon aimed at any who oppose her, maneuvered so skillfully that it had ceased to matter whether or not it was sincere. Now her hands tremble as she clasps them and her head lowers in respect. You can feel the cinders of her pain on your back, a place her powers could never reach, and it is not because she has projected them on you.

It is because you understand them.

You keep your focus on White Diamond's ship. It is easier to look at it than at Blue Diamond's anguished expression. Although you attacked Blue Diamond yourself less than two Earth-days ago, you want to tear the palace from its foundation and strike White Diamond in the head for bringing her to genuine tears.

Steven steps in front of Yellow and Blue Diamond, scarcely visible between them. "White, please," he says. "Why don't you let us all into your head? We could come up with a plan to help everyone. You could start by helping Yellow and Blue." He speaks with strength, courage, and compassion.

He receives no reply. Possibly she hasn't even heard him. You consider taking to the air again and coming up with a new strategy when she makes it clear she has heard.

The head-ship tilts forward, and the empty eye sockets expel beams of white light. You duck, though there is clearly no need. The beams are aimed far above your head, and you know instinctively that White Diamond never misses.

She does not miss today, either.

The rays of light hit Blue and Yellow in the chests. In the gems.

Blue Diamond's gemstone rapidly changes in the same way Homeworld's sky changed, from soft blue to murky. The haze grows and travels, each sharply etched point when her diamond meets skin now a canal carrying this murk to her physical form as her mouth flails open in a scream without sound.

The first sensation you were ever aware of was her life flowing into you, and now you watch it drain out of her.

Blue Diamond's body, always so graceful and noble in appearance, slumps with precision at the waist, her fingers hanging parallel to the hem of her cloak. A series of spasms, each smaller than the one before it, flogs her back.

For a moment, all is still and silent in your mind, even though nothing around you agrees. Bismuth gasps, and Drakken implores his God to have mercy. Steven yells, "Guys! Guys! Guys?" as though if he screams loudly enough he can penetrate the spreading fog. Peridot's sob makes you realize that Yellow Diamond also spasms, yet you can only see Blue.

When she lifts her head, there is no more a Blue Diamond than there is a Pink. Her lips smile, but it is not her smile; they move and speak words, but it is not her voice. It has been an era since you last heard that bland, colorless voice, but you know it can only belong to White Diamond herself.

"Why, Pink, what a marvelous idea." The voice sounds strange, doubled, and you know it issues from the mouth that used to belong to Yellow Diamond as well. "I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. Look how much I've helped them already."

A great cold envelopes you. This time, however, it does not freeze you nor pretend that it will stay forever. It only keeps the emotions this scene deserves at a distance, pushing them farther and farther back until you are made of an alert immediacy.

When the ground begins to slip from under you, it is not your imagination. The hand-ships that hold you and your allies are slowly tipping downward, the fingers now pointed at straight, ramp-like angles toward the ground so far below. You feel strangely calm as danger changes from a fear to a fact.

"Time to go!" you say, summoning your wings and snatching Drakken by the wrists. You already carry Homeworld on your back and its withered colonies on your shoulders; his weight is inconsequential. Steven and Connie have already climbed with Peridot onto what you recognize as a metal trash can lid she must have brought with her from Earth. Sadness gleams in Steven's eyes, eyes made to sparkle and see only the best in everyone. Peridot squints for a moment, concentrating, and then sends the lid spinning to catch up with you. Bismuth moves in the opposite direction, hurling herself directly onto the white ship's chest.

Never one to back down from a fight, you muse. You beat your wings in a movement that is both propulsion and rallying cry, and emptiness answers you. Only then do you figure out what else is wrong about Homeworld.

There is no more water.

You reach out once more to make sure you are not mistaken and find only deadened, clotted spaces you have no power to fill. The supply had dwindled drastically upon your first return; now it has run completely dry. It makes sense, of course, for no Gem needs water to survive.

Except for me.

"Lapis?" Drakken calls from beneath you. "Um…is everything all right?"

"We're good." You give your head a shake and tighten your fingers around Drakken's wrists, which felt so much hardier back on Earth than here on Homeworld where you now find yourself weaponless. Your thoughts distill as you fly away from the palace, your Purpose clearer than on any terraforming mission: holding him and saving him. Beyond the bridge looms a drop that must be a thousand feet deep and so wide you cannot locate its sides. There is only a maze of interconnected, unsightly tubes, more of the technology that has defaced the Homeworld you remember zigzagging through the air and a substantial outcropping of rock that rests at the bottom, surprisingly still a rich shade of purple.

You plunge for it, securing first Dr. Drakken's feet on it and then your own. Only after you land do you register that the surface on which you stand is slick metal rather than sleek stone. You roll your eyes.

Drakken bends in half, his hands on his knees. You cannot see his grimace through the flowers burgeoning on his neck but you can imagine it dragging his face down, a face that has seen more sadness than Steven's but isn't any better suited to it. "I take it…that…was…not…normal?" he pants.

"Not even close. Not even for Homeworld," you say.

As soon as you look to the sky, even from this depth, the ships are visible; they form the entire upper half of an enormous body. A bluish speck clings to it with one hand and hammers at it with the other. You have never seen Bismuth look small before. The arms grope the air for a moment before swinging down, plucking her from the white chest with less force than Drakken needs to use to pluck spare threads from his clothing, and flinging her backward.

"Holy frijoles!" Drakken cries.

There is no temptation on your part this time. You shoot into the air and head directly for her. Bismuth is falling and you are going to help her, and for a moment you let yourself believe nothing else exists. You slant your wingspan close to your body to match Bismuth's dive until you are immediately above her and then, in motion, seize her arm and widen your wings. Both of you bob to a stop like a storm at sea petering out.

Bismuth lets out a breath of relief. "Nice catch, Wings!"

Wings.

I have a nickname.

She says it casually, yet after everything that has happened, it is this that brings a ferocious stinging to your throat and the backs of your eyes. You blink several times, clearing your view of the drop, Drakken standing on the ridge of purple metal. There is no time to understand what you are feeling. White Diamond has taken control of the arm-ships. She will come for the legs next.

That is when Steven screams, Connie and Peridot crying out with him. The sound of his terror breaks through your layer of ice, and you whip your head around, barely keeping your hold on Bismuth. Steven stands at the slimmest edge of the trash can lid, Connie gripping the back of his shirt, as his fingers clutch helplessly at the air.

Those fingers are empty.

It is no small wonder he screams. He has dropped the Gems who loved him long before you knew how.

Before the sound has even faded into the air, Steven plunges from the lid after his friends. Together, they tumble through the menagerie of tubes toward the pit – a pit whose bed lies well beyond the brief interruption of metal where Drakken stands.

Steven's arms pull him forward, swimming through the air, and you swoop down behind him, still carrying Bismuth. If the movements of your wings are not languorous, they are not frenzied, either. You will never forgive yourself if you don't stay close, but Steven is now far more than the little boy who made the foghorn noise on his hand and laughed uproariously when your mirror replayed it. You have seen him float; you have seen him bubble himself; you have seen him raise objects several times his size.

You have seen him develop a Diamond's powers and use them solely for healing and protection.

Steven's chubby pink hand catches up with Amethyst's gem, curls around it, and draws it to his chest. Although you see him only from the back, you can imagine his eyes wrenching shut, his lips racing as he speaks to her.

Whatever he says must be especially convincing, which does not surprise you. What does surprise you is the prompt reaction. The round purple gemstone rises and takes on a glow which reaches in every direction until, with a flash of brilliant light, it engulfs Steven as well. He disappears, replaced by a stocky blurred figure that continues to drop. You have never seen them before, but you glimpse mauve skin and mole-pelt hair and, remembering Dr. Drakken's description of the battle in the desert, you understand who they are.

"Yo, what up, Homeworld?" Smokey Quartz calls. Without waiting to be acknowledged, they reach into their shirt and retrieve their weapon: two discs, their flat sides facing each other, linked at one end of a long, hardy piece of wire, with Smokey holding the other end. They swing the rope around and around above their head and then heave the remainder of the weapon sideways. The disks catch on the nearest extension of tubing and the wire wraps around its length, jerking Smokey Quartz to a stop so that they dangle like a piece of bait at the end of Greg's fishing pole. "Peace!"

Light flashes again, seeming to billow inward this time rather than outward, and Smokey Quartz splits into Steven, who stands atop a tube wider than his father's vehicle, and Amethyst, who immediately transforms herself into a night-bird with tall, tufted ears. She gives a joyous hoot and flaps her wings to keep herself afloat, and then she dives downward to seize Ruby's and Sapphire's gems in her gnarled claws. "Hey, look at that. I just caught two stones with one bird," she quips, and although you do not understand enough about Earth culture to know why that is funny, you let out a shaken laugh anyway.

Only one more Crystal Gem remains in danger. Her pale, smooth oval spins out of the reach of Amethyst's claws, its path light and limber even without her body to support it.

Bismuth writhes in your arms, and for a moment you are afraid she will break away and throw herself at the gem, substituting her love of Pearl for a plan. An image flickers into your mind of Percy on lifeguard duty at Lake Pining Hearts, holding a red float under his arm: "Not, like, on my watch, man!"

"Let's go get her," you say to Bismuth. You pin your wings close to your back and shoot after Pearl's gem. In freefall, your view of the sky is restricted, and you can forget what it has become, dimmed with pollution and so ugly compared to Earth's sky with its translucent blue or even its indigo thunderclouds.

Pearl belongs under that beautiful sky.

You pass the gem where you spent so much time stored among other discovered objects and swing beneath it. Your wings release, halting you as you swing Bismuth forward. Pearl's gem falls directly into Bismuth's waiting hands, and despite the absence of water you feel potent.

"Woo-hoo!" Amethyst cheers.

"Way to go, Lapis and Bismuth!" Steven adds. You cannot spare any time or effort to blush.

Bismuth lifts one palm and rests it over the other to shelter Pearl. "Don't worry, Pearl. Ol' Bismuth's got you," she says. Even together, the two of them are not the burden they would have been a few short centuries ago.

For now everyone is safe, yet you know better than to let yourself become comfortable. You focus on Dr. Drakken's long narrow figure perched on the purple metal, waving his arms as though he hopes he too will take flight, as you lower Bismuth until her feet touch the ground. She skids to a halt, keeping Pearl clutched to her, and actually chuckles after regaining her balance.

You glance upward and see Peridot steer her trash can lid up to the tubing plank where Steven waits; he hops on and wraps his arms around Connie. From there, you watch Peridot's prideful grin grow larger and larger until the lid touches down on the metal and she, Connie, and Steven spill off like a rush of water. Softness transforms Bismuth's eyes as she places Pearl's gem in Steven's outstretched hands. Amethyst, still in her owl-form, hovers around Steven's shoulder and gently deposits Ruby's and Sapphire's gemstones next to Pearl's. Steven lets out a long breath and lowers his head, nestling his face against the gems, three fountainheads from which his friends have yet to flow.

Peridot scampers to your side, and Connie starts to rush to Steven's, but Bismuth catches her by her sleeve. "Whoa, there," she says. "I whipped up a little something for you before we left home." From her own gemstone, she pulls a bundle of cloth and unwraps it to reveal Rose Quartz's sword, which you know she forged thousands of years ago.

You frown, and Peridot notices. "That's a replacement sword," she says, her voice flooded with importance. "I watched her make it while I assisted in the repair of the ship. The original was destroyed in the battle against the Diamonds before you returned."

"Right. What she said," Bismuth says with a nod. She lifts the sword from its position atop the cloth and hands it to Connie. "Forged specifically to Steven standards."

Steven and Bismuth exchange a knowing look. Its meaning is not fully clear to you, but you can guess: this sword, like the one before it, does not have the power to shatter. How smoothly Bismuth has switched from citing Rose's name to citing Steven's, as though her respect for him has already surpassed her respect for his mother.

Of course it has, you realize. They both hid her away in a bubble when she became a threat. Steven alone was willing to give her another chance.

"Oh, Bismuth, it looks awesome! Thank you so much!" Connie says. The look she gives the sword is almost loving. You take a step back as she unsheathes its blade, which manages to glint even beneath the overcast sky. Water can be used for many things; a blade is only for battle.

The thought is dark in your mind, matching the umbra that abruptly sweeps in, separating you, Bismuth, and Peridot from Connie and Drakken, blackening the ground around you. This shadow, however, does not herald a lunar eclipse. It is one of the feet on Pink Diamond's leg-ship, and you know without looking up that it has attached to and is now controlled by White Diamond's monstrous perfection.

Unsurprisingly, the foot begins to descend.

None of you can escape. The shadow is so long and so wide that, even if you flew, you would never be able to leave its path before it reaches the ground. Your arms and legs cramp, recognizing their uselessness. Your gem will be crushed no matter what position you assume, yet you still reach backward on instinct, trying to protect it for even the briefest time only to remember how your fingertips have always missed it by centimeters.

You whirl around, searching for the other Crystal Gems, knowing you will find them trapped in the shadow of Pink Diamond's other foot. Steven's fingers begin to shake, and the three gemstones he is holding clatter to the ground. "No!" he says. "No, no, no, aw, come on, nooo!"

In that suspended raindrop of a moment, Ruby's and Sapphire's gems begin to shine. Two short silhouettes appear, and they immediately join hands, the shine intensifying as their outlines meld.

"Garnet!" Steven cries.

Garnet's arm whips out and catches hold of Steven's. It is the last thing you see before all light disappears.

Fear doesn't even manage to chill most of your facets before an arm heavy with armor tosses you to the ground and spreads on top of your back. In the blackness you smell metal, your nose crushed to the purple ledge. You can feel the individual crevices in the armor that you have no choice but to trust.

Dr. Drakken screams at a pitch you would not have imagined he could reach.

The darkness lifts and so does Bismuth's arm, swinging a fist at the retreating pink foot, an ending before you have even grasped the beginning. "All right. Now she's just making me mad," she snarls.

You turn and your eyes alight on Peridot, peeking out from beneath her trash can lid; on Drakken, who stands a few meters away gawping; on Connie, whose terror shines on her face; on Amethyst, who has hurled herself to the ground, stomach down, her hands clutching something so tightly that you know where Pearl's gem is; on the figure in front of her, warding off the other shoe with a sheer pane that has the same whispers of pink as Steven's shield, too wide for the footprint to crush. Enormous gauntleted hands rise from either side of it. Together, they grab the flat spread of the pink foot and push at it until the entire ship hurtles to the side, its legs losing the ground. A great rush of air pulls your hair back.

The arm-ships lift and press against the head-ship's temples, as though it is pained. For an instant, you want to laugh: why, you wonder, did White Diamond think Pink's powers would not be able to stand against her own ship? Perhaps Dr. Drakken was right about her. Perhaps she has grown cocky enough to be defeated.

Drakken skitters up to you now with wide eyes, eyes that seem to be wobbling as they search for yours. "Lapis, I – I – I –" His knees fold and his body falls.

You catch him in your arms, just as he would for you if your bravery had just fragmented. Sweat clings to his clothes and seeps on to your skin, a welcome reminder of Earth.

The pink pane disappears. The figure turns to look at you, and you know at once that you are seeing a fusion. They are taller than anyone else on the metal slab, including Bismuth, their head round and white as a dwarf star, rays of flame winnowing from its sides. A pair of dark-shaded glasses rests on an otherwise featureless face that might disturb you if you didn't know of the kindness and wisdom that lives inside. They put up a thumb to indicate success.

"Heck yeah!" Amethyst says, pushing herself off the ground.

"I don't believe it!" Peridot yells.

The fusion gently pokes Peridot on the head. "Believe it."

Peridot shrugs happily. "Okay," she says, earning a chuckle from Drakken. The sound has regained its strength and soon, too, his body straightens and draws away, able to support itself once again.

"Now that right there – that is a bully." The fusion points to the ship that still lurches through the sky, listing to the left, its feet struggling for balance. "And kids – that is what happens to bullies."

"Who is she talking to?" Peridot whispers to you.

Now you shrug. It would not be the first time you and Peridot have been mistaken for "kids."

The fusion seems to let out a big sigh of relief and releases Garnet and Steven to stand hand-in-hand. Amethyst's gasp catches your attention, and you look over in time to see her hands unfolding. Pearl's proud, luminous gem floats upward and hangs in the air, unafraid despite where she is and what role she will be expected to assume here.

You wonder if your gem looked like that when you returned.

Slowly, the glow takes on Pearl's shape: the lissome body, the arms and legs as long as yours but not nearly so clumsy, and even the sharp dignity of her nose. She lilts to the ground as smoothly as if she had wings herself and stands there stretching her limbs for a short time before smiling at everyone. "Hello, all," she says, her voice as musical as before.

Amethyst runs to her. "Hey, Pearl! Nice new form!"

You give her clothing another glance. She wears pants, too, a pair that tucks closer to her legs than yours does and in a far lighter shade of blue. Above it, she wears a simple white tunic, and around that flows a second-layer shirt, oceanic in color and silken in texture, its sleeves short but spacious.

"Thank you!" Pearl tugs at the tented folds of her second layer, where they just miss meeting at her waist. "I'm especially excited about the jacket."

Jacket, you think. It is not a word you have time to memorize before Pearl says, "All right, what's been going on? Someone tell me everything!"

Dr. Drakken, who never misses an opportunity to explain something, bounds over to Pearl, his small hands and buoy-words rustling at a speed that outpaces any other human you have ever met. "Well, Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond came over to our side, but White Diamond didn't like that, so she turned them into zombies, so we're still fighting all three of them, but it isn't their fault anymore!"

Pearl blinks. "Dr. Drakken?"

You come to stand beside him. "Oh, yeah, and we're here now too," you say.

"Hi!" Peridot calls, waving.

Above, the fusion-ship has righted itself and now hovers threateningly over the gorge, its eye sockets slanting forward.

Garnet puts a hand on Pearl's shoulder. Her other hand rests on Amethyst's head, and she catches Steven's foot under her own to include him as well. "I think you all know who we need right now," she says.

A sheet of ice claims the feeling in your back.

Amethyst's eyes light up. "You mean –?"

"Yes," Garnet says. "We need Obsidian."

Beside you, Drakken scowls. "Why didn't they tell us that before? We could have picked her up on our way here!"

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven arrange themselves in a perfect square on the metal slab. They bow to each other, extend their arms, and begin to swivel, in unison, to a pattern known by all. No, it is not a pattern, but a rhythm – a melody only the four of them can hear.

"I think she's already here," you say. You snap your face away, folding your arms across your bare middle, and stare at something you do not see. You do not want to watch the dancing and remember how the burning sand sparked beneath your feet; you do not want to watch the clasping of hands and remember the hand the size of your head demanding contact; you do not want to watch the tremendous flash and remember being dazzled by light for a brief moment before darkness beyond your imagination poured into you.

"Wha?" Dr. Drakken says.

"Her components are," Peridot informs him. Her footsteps move away, and you imagine her watching the process with curious, inexperienced eyes.

Drakken's response is "Hmmm"; you can hear him not understanding.

A minute later, however, a gangling arm goes around your waist and pulls you up against a rickety side tight with indrawn breath. The Lapis who swore loyalty to Homeworld would never have crumpled against it, but you have all but forgotten her. "Let me know when they've fused, okay?" you say into his coat-of-labs.

"Okay." Drakken's ribs rise and fall. "All right, they've fused. Sweet baby Gherkins, have they fused," he says, using a phrase that you know is not meant as a question. You raise your head and look.

The creature standing on the metal slab across from you is worthy of the name Obsidian. They are a pure solid hue of black except for the slender lines that crisscross their body like the markings that divide Earth sidewalks, through which you can see glimpses of volcanic rock pulsing within. Their head towers at least halfway up the drop-off, hair rolling down their back in waves black and more voluminous even than Shego's. With a start, you recognize them: they are the Gem whose image is carved into the cliff face at the Crystal Temple, holding Steven's house. Nothing on Earth could match them.

You wish you were on Earth right now.

Peridot squeals and stamps her feet. Obsidian places their hand on the ground in front of Connie, who hops seemingly without fear into their palm. Every move they make scatters Bismuth's ropes of hair in all directions. "You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" she asks.

Drakken and Peridot shrug.

Yet you look into Bismuth's eyes and can see your reflection in the black parts, and you understand what she means. The understanding is so stunning and keen that you reach out and curl your hands around one blockish finger. Its roughness reminds you of the scratch of the barn walls, not of Jasper's touch.

"Distraction time," you say.

"Ohhhhh," Peridot says.

"Yes, of course!" Dr. Drakken cries, bobbing his head as if he knew all along.

Bismuth smiles at you. "Lead the way, Wings."

You reach down and grab her at the same moment Obsidian tenses and then pounces, a great black thundercloud against the polluted sky. In one jump, they hurl themselves above the tubes and latch on to the front of the white chest-ship, Connie now riding on their shoulder. Before White Diamond can strike out against them, you fly directly between her eye sockets, dangling Bismuth tauntingly in front of her.

Peridot joins you on her trash can lid, her arms raised above her head. "Behold, Homeworld!" she crows. "I have returned – not as your servant, but as your savior!" As she cackles into the air, the yellow arm-ship thrusts forward.

"Peridot, look out!" you cry, but you are not quick enough. The yellow ship hits the trash can lid with the back of its hand, sending the lid and Peridot spinning far beyond eyeshot.

Her strident scream would be amusing in any other circumstances.

Obsidian lunges for the head component of the ship now. The lower component begins to buck and twist like the untrained horses on Camp Pining Hearts, trying to shake them off. Their mouth opens to reveal a second jaw that also flips open and displays a set of pointed teeth, just like the magenta fusion you vacantly remember from the day when your powers fought, weeping, under someone else's command. If anything, the fangs are only more intimidating on Obsidian.

Bismuth lands a jab on the side of the head-ship. You doubt White Diamond even noticed it with Obsidian crawling up her front.

You are wrong. The two of you are the perfect distraction.

A blue arm lashes toward you, the movement hasty and callous – so unlike Blue Diamond that it takes you a second longer to react than it ordinarily would. As the ship swings forward, you catch a glimpse of Blue Diamond's face at the controls, streaked with a blank grin, eyes wide and unseeing. She is nothing more than a husk, like the skins Earth's noisiest summer-insects leave behind on the undersides of tree branches.

The sight makes you feel as if the center of your gem has been pried loose, but you don't get the chance to mourn. Cobalt fingers crash into you with the force of a typhoon. You don't mean to drop Bismuth, but you can't catch her.

You can't even catch yourself. Your wings have tangled around your arms and crept wetly across your midriff to surround your legs. Backward you soar, essentially limbless and unable to stop your flight.

Only one thought finds you: You cannot afford to land on your back. Inhaling harshly, you suck your spine in as far as it can go and jerk your head farther back to meet whatever is about to happen to you.

With the sound of a bat hitting a baseball, your head collides with a stone much stronger than yours, and you disconnect from your body of manifested light.

"Oh no! Lapis!" Connie cries. "Bismuth!"

And all Dr. Drakken can think is, Bismuth? Who the heck is THAT?

He just watched a glassy blue version of a Godzilla-arm swat his girlfriend away. Watched her spiral out of the air, entangled in her own wings. Watched her smack into a thin rocky spire and, because of the steep angle where he stands far below her, vanish from his view.

Not from his brain, though. It's already conjuring up dozens of potential fates for her, each grislier than the last.

If he had slammed a car door on his heart, it couldn't have hurt worse than this. And if someone asked him where he was and why he was there, he'd have to get back to them on that.

Drakken squeezes his eyes shut. Little flecks of chili powder burn inside them, except the chili powder is liquid and mutating and sliding down his face without so much as a sizzle but plenty of gasps and shudders. What on Earth – what on Homeworld?

Oh. He's crying. Drakken blinks through a layer of water. Fancy that.

Someone's falling from the sky – is that Bismuth? The giant fusion as black as obsidian – whose name also escapes Drakken at the moment – swivels backward, catching maybe-Bismuth on her shoulder – their shoulder? Steven is in there, after all.

That's right. Steven. Garnet. Amethyst. Pearl. Connie. Bismuth. Peridot. Lapis.

No comfort in that thought.

Somebody lets out a scream – a verdant, leafy scream that Drakken's pretty sure no one can hear but him. Its non-voice spins up to a pitch that rivals Peridot's, rising to capture Drakken's pain.

And it's not the only thing rising.

Drakken glances downward, calm in a way that surprises even himself as he notices that, for the second time in his life, he is hovering oddly above the ground, tugged upward by a force that doesn't allow him to refuse. Both times he's been pulled up toward aliens. This time, though, it's his own choice – a subconscious choice, but a choice nonetheless.

A vine has leaped out of either side of his neck and shot skyward, bulking up as they rise until they are longer and thicker than the ones that destroyed the Lorwardians' attack force. They've wrapped – in unison – around a tube thirty feet off the ground and they hang tight so that Drakken dangles above the gorge like a kid in the stereotypical over-the-river tire swing he's seen in so many pictures.

Or. . . or like a brainiac superhero with his webs – webs which different comic book series argue about, whether they're synthetic or natural in origin, but all continuities are in agreement regarding their end result.

Drakken can't contain his inner seven-year-old's whoop. Hang on, Lapis! I'm coming for you!

He squints the world into a blur. With the right vine still monkey-clinging to the tube, its companion lets go and snags another tube high overhead, and the blur tips sideways. Before Drakken's senses can dizzy, the vines reverse roles and reel him in so he looks down at the tube he just had a hold on.

I guess I'm left-vined, just like I'm left-handed.

The thought microwaves Drakken's blood and liberates his limbs. Without any trace of his accursed clumsiness, his left vine makes a grab for an even-higher tube. If this is a dream, he doesn't want to wake up anytime soon.

"I had no idea I could do this!" Drakken calls up to Obsidian – yes! That's their name! He laughs aloud. He was just overcomplicating things, the way Shego always complains that he does.

No more, though. Drakken swings himself higher through the zigzag of tubes that remind him of the underground tunnels Global Justice drags new recruits through when it has to collect them right where they stand in an emergency. Except these tubes are magenta, a bold decision that still remains eye-friendly. They rush forward at him, taunting him with their proximity, as if any moment they will smash into his face and break it. But he's too wired to distrust his vines, and in the end their accelerative friction pulls through without fail. His feet dance in midair as he soars, no longer restrained by their need to rest on something.

Throughout his entire homage to his favorite superhero, his thoughts are monopolized by Lapis.

(Well, okay, he does consider writing his own theme music, but that disappears quickly. Not much rhymes with Drakken except "Hack Kim," which is something he doesn't even want to do anymore.)

What could be seconds or minutes – or hours – or days – later, Drakken makes it to the top of the tube-maze and promptly runs out of tubes. But it doesn't stymie him or his vine-buddies the way it might have back when he was powerless and had to brag his ego into healthy shape at regular intervals. His left vine stretches and swirls, flowers breaking out along its length like gorgeous pimples, and snags on the lowest of the spires. Drakken gets a good look at them as he hurtles toward his targeted one and then jerks to a stop to give his right vine a chance to catch up. Each one resembles the remains of some kind of building support, reinforced by a small slab of orchid-colored rock running perpendicular to its base. Haphazard, he wants to call them at first, but as his vines jump from one to another, he begins to detect some form of crooked pattern in the measurement of their gaps. He's convinced there used to be more of them and that they used to be prettier, though they're still pretty darn nifty now arranged like flaps in a pinball machine.

After being hauled onto yet another spire, Drakken pauses for a breather – not easy for a person who's currently defying gravity. He glances down at the slab of stone before preparing his next vine and sees, out of the corner of his eye, a speck of blue that doesn't belong to him. Limp on the slab.

Drakken shivers in midair, going woolly-minded with fright. No, fright doesn't begin to cover it. Frightened is what you are when thunderstorms blow through or when Kim Possible cocks her hip to throw a kick at you. This is that feeling amplified, hit with a growth ray until it swells large enough to fill the entire gorge below. Drakken releases the vine and drops beside Lapis, his chest convulsing with a rhythm that hurts all the way to the roots of his teeth. He taught Lapis and Peridot about baby teeth just today…

The scene in front of him doesn't match up with the worst of his imaginings, but it's no Norman Rockwell painting, either. Lapis lies facedown on the rock, nothing peaceful about the posture that also sets Drakken shivering, remembering all the concussions he's rammed his way into over the years. A dark gash on the back of her head leers up at him, and Drakken hits the rock himself, only his hands and knees keeping him from mimicking Lapis's position.

But her back stares defiantly up at the sky, the stone between her shoulder blades strong and healthy. That means she's okay, right? Right?

Breathe, Drakken. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Yes, well, he's working on that, but the air is slow in coming – and then all too fast, zooming in before his lungs are ready and he coughs. He can't quite get himself to stand, but he manages to crouch at Lapis's side. His fingers ache to stroke the rumpled ragamuffin hair, but he's too scared to try, too scared that the graze of his fingertips will burst her into a million violent pieces right here. She's looked less delicate, less fairylike, since she came back in her new outfit, but right now she might as well be Tinkerbell.

Obsidian must lean back toward the slab, because the next thing Drakken knows, Bismuth hops on to stand beside him. She crouches down and examines Lapis with a doctor's clinical eye and then bobs her dreadlocks in approval. "Oh, good," she says. "She hit her head."

Drakken snaps his head around so fast his neck pops. "WHAT?" Turns out the ferocious growl he spent twenty-plus years of villainhood perfecting hasn't died after all – it returns with a vengeance, like a weaponized security blanket.

Bismuth raises her hands in a surrender better and faster than anything Drakken got as a villain. "Sorry. I meant instead of her gem."

"Oh," Drakken says, sheepish. And then worse than sheepish as he gazes at Little Limp Lapis again. If her head hadn't absorbed the blow, her gem would have for sure, and that would – that would –

The thought turns to acid in his throat, and Drakken presses his wrist to his mouth to keep himself from gagging it out.

Bismuth reaches over and pats his shoulder. How her big destructive hand can ease his reflux is a mystery to him, one he doesn't have the time or resources to investigate. "She's gonna be just fine," she says. "Look."

She nods toward Lapis's head. Even as Drakken watches, the gash narrows, its ends pinched closer together, the drops of blood drying and flaking away. For once, Drakken feels no urge to further analyze the miracle he's just witnessed, much less harvest a sample or channel it into an invention that will further confirm his eminence in the scientific community. He's just really, really ultra-glad it exists.

Bismuth slides down the smooth end of the spiral to the ground on the other side of the cliff. "You stay with her." She doesn't bark it as a command – she says it softly, gently, as if she knows he would never dream of doing anything else. "I'll go try and find Peridot."

A moment later, she's gone and Drakken is left to stare at Homeworld for the first still moment since they've arrived. How a place can seem ancient and modern at the same time is a mystery, too, right up there with Bismuth's soothing presence. It has definitely gotten the worst of both sides.

Everything about this planet is a contradiction. It screams of winter on Earth, only not the snowy winter where you get to wear fluffy socks and reindeer sweaters and flannel PJs. Brown winter. Shriveled winter. Lifeless winter, without so much as a bare, emaciated tree for decoration.

The architecture is beautiful – "ornate," Drakken thinks is the word for it – but it's also beauti-flawed. (Ooh, good phrase! He should trademark it.) Lush tall buildings with high-arched belfries, empty of bells, the walls barely propping themselves up. Intricate detailing on edging stonework, the multicolored stones themselves rubbed to white at the corners and cracked along the circumferences. Geometrically-fascinating structures dented or caving or, in a few cases, seemingly tipped over on their sides, sporting only a few dull, shoddy hints of the shine Drakken can tell they were meant to have.

Not to mention, the entire place is cluttered with enough discarded tech to keep a mad scientist in stock for the rest of his life. Even the pieces that appear to have been put in yesterday, like the maze of tubes, also look like they were installed by the inept handyman who installed the cable back in Drakken's old lair – not a day he likes thinking about.

He doesn't see anything here that he could imagine making Lapis happy. Even the Lapis he never knew, the one she claims he wouldn't want to have known.

Drakken drums his fingers on his knees because they need to move. The next step of his anxiety would be for his body to tighten up until he can barely stand to remain inside it. . . only before his skin can start shrinking, he hears a moan.

It's a soft moan, but definitely not a dainty one. Groggy and snorty. Drakken doesn't doubt for a second that it comes from the form sprawled beside him.

That form twitches one arm, sits up, rests her weight on petite elbows. Her eyes blink open.

Drakken's are filled with chili powder again, but who even cares?

You open your eyes to a sky that was meant to be blue but isn't and a face that wasn't meant to be blue but is. The face is significantly more of a comfort than the sky.

"Welcome back," Dr. Drakken says with a shaking smile.

You realize immediately and with a sort of defeat where you are: one of Homeworld's forsaken stone structures. You feel its dryness like a deep chasm into which your powers have tumbled. The events of your time on Homeworld – Yellow and Blue Diamond disappearing from the inside out, the forming of Obsidian, Blue Diamond's empty face as her ship struck you from the sky – gush down your back.

"What happened?" you say, reaching up to feel the back of your head. Underneath your hair, the flesh feels tender and new, the texture of a recent healing. "I know I didn't poof, because I wasn't in my gem…" You trail off.

"You got knocked out," Drakken says.

"Yeah, out of the sky." You are grateful for the annoyance you hear in your voice; it restrains a tumult of things far uglier and less useful.

"No. Well, yes, but also not. 'Knocked out' is what we humans call it when someone loses consciousness. Badly – nastily – violently! Loses consciousness violently. I didn't even know that could happen to Gems."

"Neither did I," you say. You suppose that is just one more in the long series of secrets the Diamonds have kept from the rest of your people.

"So if you weren't in your gem, where were you?" Drakken asks.

You squint, and all you can recall are compressed shallows the shade of Drakken's clothing, peaceful and vague. "The same place I am when I fall asleep, I guess."

"Fascinating." Drakken leans forward, tapping his plump jaw. "I'd love to do further research on this…" Just as suddenly, a storm passes over his face and he begins to shake his head vigorously. "No, on second thought, no, I wouldn't! Because that would involve you getting hurt over and over again, and I don't think my nerves can take that!

"It's been a day." Drakken glances toward the thick, swollen sky. "Um…it is still daytime, right?"

"Yeah." You keep your gaze on him, not wanting to follow his eyes up to the clouds that were once gentle companions as you flew and explored your new world. "Believe me, it gets even darker at night."

A vine creeps out and pats your arm.

The space on your other side is far too wide and quiet. You shoot to your feet, Drakken like a shadow behind you as though worried you might fall back down the way he does. "Where's Peridot?" you say. Whatever you may still feel for your first home, you will not entrust Peridot to it.

"Not entirely sure yet." Drakken squirms and tugs a petal. "Bismuth went to go find her."

"Good," you say, surprised to find it is the truth. Today you watched the Diamonds turn on each other; your fear of Bismuth is a trickle. Peridot will undoubtedly be safer with her than with anyone else she could run into on Homeworld.

Drakken slides his hand into yours and squeezes. You squeeze back.

Above you, the atmosphere feels like a fruit that has become too moist to eat, a fruit kept around too long, and you switch off your breathing so that no more of it can invade your chest. You shut your eyes, too, for there is nothing to see but the ruined scraps of your home planet, as far removed from their previous glory as the Corruptions are from their original forms.

For a moment, in the darkness, you are safe and steady; then Drakken cries, "Oh, there she is!" Your eyes snap open to spot Bismuth's brawny shape striding across the plain on the other side of the drop-off. The tiny person she carries lunges forward and flails both of her arms above her triangular head in greeting.

The safety dissipates, but the steadiness remains.

"Let's go," you say. You snatch Drakken by both wrists, eliciting a whoop that seems equal parts terror and delight, and fly him down to the plain beside Bismuth and Peridot.

Before Peridot can open her mouth, you hold up a hand. "Yeah, I'm okay, Peridot. How about you?"

"Likewise," Peridot says, her eyes green moons. "I was headed right for a pile of used spacecraft parts – and guess what? Those are metal, so I was able to rearrange them into the optimal position to break my fall!" A cackle follows.

"Did Obsidian make it?" you say.

Bismuth nods. "Yeah. They got up to the head-ship. Had to un-fuse to get inside, though."

For the first time since you have known her, even in her stoic tears as she steered the ship to Homeworld, a shudder runs through Bismuth's burly shoulders. She jerks her head to one side as if to anchor herself and stays there, fixed on whatever she sees over her shoulder. "Uh – guys?" Bismuth says. "Looks like we got company."

She points to two figures only slightly taller than you hurrying your way from the direction of the palace, one blue and one yellow, both in the subdued pastel hues of servitude. They are slim as swords, their noses blades. You jump in front of Drakken before you recognize them as Yellow Diamond's excessively loud Pearl with her dramatic gestures and Blue Diamond's excessively quiet Pearl with her wispy top and lacelike skirt. Bismuth runs toward them, you, Peridot, and Drakken following as though tethered to her. Her footfalls jar small rocks free from the path and yet are also somehow light.

When your group stops in front of the Pearls, they both instantly bow at the waist until all you can see are hair and necks. You look over both shoulders, searching for the privileged to whom they are pledging their deepest respect, but the six of you are alone on this side of the canyon. That is when you understand, and the knowledge seems to give way under you like water under human feet that can't instruct it to hold them: It's me.

Though your face never heats, discomfort scrapes every one of your facets. "Oh. Guys." You wave a hand. "Please – please don't do that."

Beside you, you feel Drakken beam.

Yellow Pearl stares at you as though you are part of a species she believed was destroyed ages ago. In a sense, perhaps you are. She claps a hand to her cheek. "Oh, my gracious! Oh, my stars! What is going on? Where's my Diamond?" Her other hand flaps to indicate Blue Pearl. "Where's her Diamond?"

"White Diamond took control of them," Bismuth says, her words heavy but not hard as she looks Yellow Pearl straight in the eye. "But we're on our way to take her down." She nods toward the head-ship, which has gone disturbingly still. "You guys are welcome to come if you'd like."

Yellow Pearl's hand flutters from her cheek to her forehead. "Us? Oh, stars! We have no combat training!"

Blue Pearl shakes her head in confirmation.

Peridot tilts her head and surveys Yellow Pearl. "It's okay to be scared," she says in her silly, kindhearted way.

Yellow Pearl continues to sputter and shriek, but she fades from your mind, as do Bismuth, Peridot, and even Dr. Drakken. You only watch Blue Pearl, her hair even wilder than yours, meeting over her pointed nose like the drapes on the ends of Blue Diamond's palanquin where you have both ridden, you in front and her in the back. You remember stealing glimpses at her when the other Lapises were not looking, thinking of how pleasant and considerate she seemed – certainly more pleasant and considerate than those who were viewed as your equals – and wondering what might have been if you were not an Elite and she, an ornament.

You grab your soul and wring your regrets out. Your hand reaches forward with such conviction that you'd think another Gem controls it, yet you feel no disconnect, only strength. Your palm drifts onto her shoulder, and your fingers curl in reassurance.

Yellow Pearl gasps as if from afar. On Earth, this would not warrant a response, but on Homeworld, it is unheard of for an Elite to touch a Pearl. You devoted yourself to that Homeworld tradition, and now you bring it to an end. If you win this battle, these divisions will no longer matter; if you lose this battle, you are all doomed anyway.

"It's okay," you say to Blue Pearl. "We'll get our Diamond back."

Your voice is quiet but clear, and the energy inside your gem sings. You know you will never address anyone as "my Diamond" again, despite everything you were Taught, yet there is something different about saying "our Diamond," something that honors without bowing. Blue Diamond gave you life. This does not mean you belong to her anymore, but you are connected to her still, whether you want to be or not.

Blue Pearl has frozen beneath your hand. You release her and turn to focus on the ship, which has settled back against the hill, arms at its sides and pink legs crossed beneath it. There are no signs of a struggle, and the silence screams more loudly and more horrifyingly than anything else could.

That white ship, as you look at it now, is no longer the perfect representation of Gem purity. It is filth; it is a vortex that your powers cannot influence. It represents the destruction of everything you ever valued on either planet you have called home, and you are going to stop it. It is not going to take any more than what it has already taken.

"Is it just me, or is that ship being a little too quiet?" you say. You frown as you glance up at the hollow placid eye sockets. "I mean, shouldn't we at least hear Amethyst?"

"M-m-maybe they're all sitting d-down and having a nice, calm, r-r-r-reasonable conversation," Peridot suggests, but you hear the tremble in her voice, superfluous letters added to words she struggles to believe.

Bismuth raises one arm and pulls it back. The memory skims the surface of your stomach but does not travel up to your gem; there is no time for it. "Aluminum oxide – don't tell me they're all poofed again!" she says.

Dr. Drakken's eyebrow wrinkles, the expression so normal, so recognizable, and so precious to you. "I sure hope not! I was just getting used to their new outfits."

There is nothing for you to say. You only let your wings unfurl, spreading them wide so they can bear the brunt of your growing unease. They need not so much as a conscious thought from you to lift you from the ground; they live in deeper waters than that, wrapped around your essence, sensitive to every shift and sway of your currents. Together you fly past the leg-ship, past the arm-ships, and past the white part of the ship with the name Drakken couldn't recall. You hover there before the head-ship, wishing upon the Crystal Gems the good fortune of only being separated from their bodies again, tensing in preparation for another strike from one of the arms. When it never comes, you tense further.

The ship is silent…and yet preoccupied.

Yellow Pearl yelps and jumps away from you when you land abruptly beside her. "Something's wrong," you say.

You expect the words to deplete you, but instead you find your shoulders setting and your chin hardening. The pressure on your back creates fierceness from your concern.

Drakken nods at you, though his face is pale, his skin closer to White Diamond's than Blue's in color. "Should we – should we go check it out?"

"Um, abso-lute-ly yes!" says a growling whisper on your other side. "I think it's time we got down to some serious Bismuth."

"It's what we're here for, isn't it?" Peridot pipes up. She glares at the ship which still has yet to move. "Look at us: the heroic supporting cast, called to step up in the protagonist's hour of greatest need, leading a stealth mission against the greatest enemy he will ever face! And then –"

You hold up a hand. "Yeah, and Peridot? You remember what you're not supposed to do a lot of during a stealth mission?"

She blinks. "Experimental molecular bondage?"

"No-o." You roll your eyes and exaggerate the movements of your mouth. "Talk-ing."

"Oh. Right." Peridot's voice neither stops nor slows but lowers, the faded hum of the great noisy bugs toward the end of summer. "Lapis, fly me up to the ship! No, wait – I can ride my trash can lid, so you can grab Drakken, and I'll take Bis – no, wait – Bismuth's too big for my trash can lid, so – oh my stars, I have a brilliant idea!"

You cut her off; you do not have a moment to spare, not even for Peridot's self-esteem. "I'll fly Bismuth up there, and Drakken can ride on your trash can lid with you."

"Well, yeah. That's what I was going to say," Peridot says, her arms stubborn across her chest.

"Good luck," Blue Pearl murmurs from under her hair. You tilt your head in her direction, not trusting yourself to speak.

Peridot leaps onto her trash can lid like one of the small Earth frogs that used to make their home around your smaller-than-average lake. Drakken's slight frame hardly has to squeeze onto the lid beside her. He exchanges shaking smiles with you as you slide your hands under Bismuth's arms and hoist her into the air. On fleet wings you rise to the head-ship, keeping your face away from Bismuth's below you – you don't want to see how hers cries out for war.

You reach the ship's eye level and duck out of sight behind its temple. Bismuth is a pendulum in your arms; for all her impatience, she rocks gently back and forth until Drakken and Peridot have caught up with you. Peridot meets your eyes and taps her finger against her lips to show how quiet she plans to be. A vine ripples from the side of Drakken's neck, and he swallows, the bump in his throat bobbing.

With a soft flick of your wings, you swing around to the ship's face again. Bismuth lunges from your grasp directly into the ship's cavernous eye, her fist already drawn back, though she stands in the entrance and waits for the remainder of your group to catch up before charging ahead.

On the ground below, the Pearls are no more than specks of color. For a moment, you think you can see someone else you know down there with them – the Lapis in her Diamond-printed skirt and top who did exactly as she was Taught, the Lapis who saw other planets for their use, not their value.

You turn and enter the eye, leaving her behind.

What appeared a vacant socket from outside the ship turns out to truly be a long cylindrical shaft, positioned at such an angle that White Diamond could only glimpse you inside should she lie down on the floor and crane her neck. The four of you together still come nowhere close to filling it. You shake off the numbness that threatens in your spine at the thought: it will be good for Drakken with his fear of closed-in spaces, and it will keep you hidden from White Diamond until you are ready to make yourselves known.

You pull back your wings and fly down the tunnel. Beside you, Drakken sprints and Peridot jogs to keep apace with Bismuth.

It is you who reaches the end first. You are about to take your first peek into White Diamond's head-ship, a place where even Elite have always been sternly forbidden to go. You shapeshift a human heart and allow the wave of fear to crest in you for the span of one of its beats before letting go and sticking your head through the circle at the end of the shaft.

What you see carries your heart downstream.

It is a dark room, although unremitting white light sears from every direction. It surrounds you and crushes against you, reminding you of the weight of the sea when you pinned Jasper to its bed; just because it couldn't hurt you did not make it harmless. White Diamond sits in a way prim yet relaxed on her lordly throne, one leg crossed casually over the other as if they are having the pleasant negotiation session Peridot predicted.

"It feels good, doesn't it, Pink?" she says. "Dulling your power, hiding your face, blaming everything on someone else. You became Rose Quartz to deceive your pathetic friends. And now, you've improved on that – because you're even deceiving yourself."

Steven stands in the center of the room, breathing in the manner of someone whose inhales and exhales have long since fused and will not separate. Beside him, Connie holds her sword out but does not swing it, her face puckered as if she is in pain. Gray forms of all sizes form a ring around him. Blue Diamond and Yellow are the biggest among them. You also see White Diamond's Pearl, the one taken from Pink so many thousands of years ago, and next to her, almost matching her, is another Pearl.

Your confusion doesn't last long enough for you to miss the white stone on her forehead and the sag of her jacket's sleeves. You don't have the luxury of wondering about this Pearl's identity. She is the Pearl who sword-fights and keeps interesting artifacts in her head – the Pearl who you only now realize you think of as your friend.

Standing to one side of her is a much shorter figure, a Quartz's powerful build compacted to form rounded strength. The figure on Pearl's other side, towering over her but small in comparison to other fusions, wears a gem on each palm.

Now you understand why Connie does not want to fight.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl stare down at Steven, not seeing him. Their eyes are silver buttons, lusterless, and unlike haze that hung over your eyes when you were cracked, no life lies behind it. Their mouths move with White Diamond's words as they stand straight and tall, finally purged of everything that offended Homeworld.

~So...you may have noticed that Garnet's and Pearl's returns were slightly different than they were on "Change Your Mind." I kind of felt like the bring-them-back-through-fusion technique was kind of a rush job meant to show these new fusions to the fans (which I can hardly blame them for, if they thought they might not get renewed). I was okay bringing Amethyst back that way because Smokey Quartz is already an established fusion, and Sunstone I felt could work if I tweaked a few things. But Rainbow 2.0. . . I felt like that would have been an extremely emotional experience for Pearl, and one that I shouldn't stuff into the middle of a battle on Homeworld.

Long story short: I plan on writing a companion short story where Steven and Pearl fuse for the first time. So please don't feel you've been cheated in the Pearl-feels department! ;)~