Chapter Text
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“We need to track down Peridot.”
Garnet’s tone was stern and steady enough to catch everyone’s full attention. The kids sat alongside the Gems on the temple floor, all equally surprised by just how direct Garnet was about getting back to business. About getting back to tying up all of the loose ends the invasion had left behind.
“We have her pod,” she continued. “We know she’s out there somewhere. She came to Earth with a job to do, and odds are, she’s still going to try and do it. That’s why I’ve gathered you all here.”
“Whoa, so this is a super serious magical meeting, then?” Mabel asked. “Man, if I had known that, then I would have baked cookies for everyone!”
“I thought we were here so everyone could help me fold all this laundry,” Steven nodded down to the towering pile of t-shirts they were all sitting around.
“That too,” Garnet grabbed a shirt and folded it up. “The chore wheel idea you had fell apart fast.”
“Wasn’t me,” Amethyst looked over to the fridge. While most of the chores had once been evenly divided by the wheel, Garnet, Amethyst, and Steven’s names had all been crossed out and replaced with Pearl’s instead.
“I just really enjoy doing all of those things,” she said with a proud smile.
“It’s better if we do them together,” Garnet insisted. She shot Amethyst a look that was enough to get her to stop lounging on the floor and pitch in on the laundry. Still, she was nowhere near as enthusiastic or efficient in her folding as Pearl was.
“So… why are Mabel and I here then?” Dipper asked, confused.
“Oh, mostly for the Peridot thing,” Garnet shrugged. “Though more hands does make the folding go by faster.”
“Ugh, humans should just stop wearing clothes,” Amethyst groaned, annoyed. “Be a lot funnier.”
“Hey! I’m a civilified part human, thank you very much,” Steven said with a playful huff. “Clothing is a must.”
“Ok, but seriously, Steven, do you really have to have so many versions of the exact same shirt?” Dipper held up one of the pink star shirts to prove his point.
“Pfft, don’t listen to him, Steven,” Mabel said, grinning. “This is coming from the guy who wears the same clothes almost every day because he hates doing laundry.”
“Laundry is a waste of time,” Dipper turned his nose up at her. “I’m a busy guy.”
“Well, I happen to like all my star shirts,” Steven smiled as he finished folding one of them. “They’re simple, yet iconic! Still…” That smile widened as he stole an eager glance over at Garnet. “Like you said, Garnet, this goes by a lot faster when we have more hands to help. So… maybe we could finish even sooner if Ruby and Sapphire were here!”
“Oh my gosh, yes!” Mabel agreed with an excited gasp. “It’d be so great to hang out with those two! It feels like it's been ages since the last time we saw them!”
“Mabel, the ‘last’ time we saw Ruby and Sapphire was the first time we ever saw them,” Dipper pointed out. “And that was only a few weeks ago.”
“Well, it’d still be really cool to see them again!” Steven’s smile turned a touch more pleading as he looked to Garnet again. “So…? What do you say?”
“I’m sure they’d be glad to see you three,” Garnet said, smirking. “But I am not unfusing for laundry.”
“Aw…” Steven and Mabel heaved a disappointed sigh. It had been a longshot at best, but still, it would have been worth it to see the pair of Gems they’d only gotten to meet so briefly before. Before they could try something else, however, Pearl got the conversation back on track.
“Garnet, you don’t think Peridot would come looking for us, do you?” she asked, worried.
“She better not, if she knows what’s good for her,” Dipper muttered with a bitter scowl.
“We weren’t her priority,” Garnet shook her head. “She was sent here to do something in the Kindergarten.”
“Do you think she’s still going to try to reactivate it?” Pearl pressed.
“Mm… if she gets it back up and running, the injectors will turn back on…”
“Injectors?” Steven spoke up, curious. “What are those?”
“You’re already seen them…” Pearl let out a remorseful sigh. “Well, you’ve seen them disabled.”
She projected a hologram from her Gem, showing one of the many drill-like machines that dotted the Kindergarten walls. This one, however, was nowhere near as downed and dusted like the ones the kids had seen before. “If Peridot reactivates them, they’ll pick up right where they left off,” Pearl continued to explain. “Planting Gems in the crust of the Earth, where they’ll incubate and suck the life right out of the ground! We can’t let Peridot restart Gem production here. If we do, the entire planet will become…”
“Janked,” Garnet starkly finished.
“Garnet!” Amethyst let out a rowdy laugh. “That mouth!”
None of the others saw much worth laughing about, though. Not when the threat of the planet being drained from the outside in still loomed far too close to comfort. “So, uh,” Mabel uneasily piped up. “We should probably stop her from turning those injector thingies back on then, huh?”
“That’s the plan,” Garnet said as she stood. She stopped short, however, when she noticed the concerned look on all three of the kids’ faces. Concern that was well warranted, with what they were up against. Even so, Garnet offered them a small, reassuring smile as she said, “Don’t worry–we’ll stop her. Come on, everyone.”
“Coming!” Pearl hopped to her feet and hurried after Garnet to the warp pad.
“As long as we don’t have to fold anything,” Amethyst gladly tossed a shirt over her shoulder. The kids exchanged a surprised glance as they realized the Gems were simply leaving them alone to deal with all this laundry, to wait behind for them to save the world without them, until–
“Steven, Dipper, Mabel,” Garnet beckoned them over.
“C’mon! That means you guys too, right?” Amethyst asked with a wide smile. The kids soon shared that smile, filled with excitement, as they realized the Gems weren’t shutting them out of this one. They were inviting them to come along on a genuine, serious mission. Something that certainly would have never happened just a few short weeks ago, before the invasion. Before the Gems started to see them all as help instead of hindrances.
“Woo! Gem mission time!” Mabel readily rushed over to the warp pad as the boys quickly followed. “I can’t remember the last time we’ve been on one of these that didn’t involve all of us almost dying!”
“That’s because we’ve almost died on just about every one we’ve been on,” Dipper said, though he quickly changed his tune before the Gems could get the wrong idea. “N-not that we can’t handle that! We totally can!”
“Hm…” Pearl still shot them a doubtful glance all the same. “Garnet, are you sure we should bring the kids along with us? This could be dangerous.”
“Peridot’s got nothing we can’t handle,” Garnet confidently promised, shifting her shades.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Amethyst asked. “Let’s go mess her up!”
“O-or maybe we could just ask her nicely to stop trying to hurt the Earth!” Steven reasoned with a fretful frown.
“No, actually, I agree with Amethyst,” Dipper countered, his hands in tight fists at his sides. “If we have a chance to stop Peridot, then we might as well take it. No matter what we have to do.”
The sheer severity of his tone alone was enough to make the others take pause, just as much as what he just said was. Still, they didn’t get a chance to say anything to it before the front door suddenly burst open, catching almost everyone off guard as they turned to the unexpected interruption.
“Kids!” Stan shouted as he stormed in. His already annoyed scowl sharpened when he spotted the kids standing alongside the Gems on the warp pad. “What do you two think you’re doing up here?! I thought you were only coming up here to bug the Gems for a few minutes, not all day! We gotta get back down to the shack and restock the gift shop before people start thinking we’re having some sort of ‘clearance sale’. Ugh, just saying those terrible words makes me wanna barf.”
“Uh, actually, Grunkle Stan…” Mabel began, exchanging a glance with Dipper. “We’re kinda about to go on a super important Gem mission to save the entire Earth! So…”
“So restocking the gift shop can definitely wait until after we’re done with that,” Dipper finished much more firmly.
Stan, however, clearly wasn’t having it. “Oh, it can?” he raised an eyebrow as his gaze shifted over to the Gems.
“I’ll certainly say it can!” Pearl cut in, crossing her arms. “Like Mabel said, we have very important work to do. Work that, if not tended to, could result in the death of this planet and everything on it! Which means that we have no time to deal with you or your little… gift shop dilemma, Stan.”
Stan caught the clearly condescending glance she sent his way. And while he normally would have shot one right back at her, this time, he decided to go an entirely different route instead. “Fine,” he said, calm and collected. “If this ‘mission’ is as important as you say it is, then I guess I’ll just have to come along.”
A round of confused “Whats?” sounded from the kids and the Gems alike. Their surprise only grew when Stan nonchalantly started to head for the warp pad.
“You heard me. It's about time I go on one of these nutso Gem adventures with you kids. After what happened with that whole hand ship thing, I think I oughta make sure you two don’t get beat up by any more of those ‘Homeworld’ jerks.”
“Aw, yeah!” Amethyst exclaimed with an excited grin. “I’ve always wanted you to come on a mission with us, Stan! It’ll be just like a Revenge Trip, only with like, higher stakes, I guess. Still, it’s gonna be awesome!”
“Yeah, it will be!” Steven gladly agreed. “Finally, all seven of us, going on a mission together! I’ve dreamed of this day for so long now! We’re like one huge, super team!”
“We should call ourselves the ‘Crystal Pines’!” Mabel brightly chimed in.
“Whoa! We should!” Steven gasped, stars in his eyes. “We can make matching team t-shirts and everything!”
“Please, no more t-shirts,” Dipper frowned down at the pile of unfolded shirts they were about to leave behind.
“Now, hold on just a minute!” Pearl spoke up. “Stan, you are not coming with us. We’re going to track down a Homeworld Gem with intel and resources far beyond our own. This could be incredibly dangerous, and the last thing we need is for our attention to be divided because we have to keep an eye on you.”
“Keep an eye on me?” Stan echoed, scoffing. “Oh, that’s rich. Maybe you don’t remember how I was the one who saved you three from that horde of zombies?”
“Well… yes, but-”
“Or that you apparently had to be saved from those ‘dangerous Homeworld Gems’ by three kids?”
“Alright, b-but that wasn’t-”
“Seems to me like you three could use all the help you could get,” Stan concluded with a smug grin. “And luckily for you, I’m nice enough to offer that help, so you might as well take it.”
“Ugh, like we even need your-”
“You can come,” Garnet suddenly interrupted before Pearl could protest any further.
Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. “But, Garnet-”
“Hey, P, no butts except Stan’s up here on this warp pad!” Amethyst cut in, laughing.
“Yeah, you heard her,” Stan shot a triumphant smirk Pearl’s way. “Move over and make some room.”
“I can’t believe this…” Pearl grumbled as Stan made a point of squeezing onto the warp pad along with all the others. As much as she wanted to continue arguing against it, Garnet had already made it clear this was a fight she wasn’t going to win. “Still, if we have to have one more along for this mission, I suppose it's best to take the necessary precautions…”
She sighed as she reached up to her gemstone and she pulled an elegant silver rapier from it. And, to everyone’s surprise, instead of arming herself with such a beautiful blade, she handed it over to someone else instead. “Here, Dipper,” she passed it to her pupil, smiling when she caught the awestruck look on his face as he carefully took it. “This is the Ancient Sea Blade. I stole it off a Homeworld Gem during a fierce underwater battle back during the war. But I don’t have much use for it nowadays, and since this is your first real mission since you’ve been training under my tutelage, it only makes sense that you go in properly armed.”
“Whoa…” Dipper held the sword up so Steven and Mabel could get a better look at it. “This thing is so cool! Thanks, Pearl! I promise I’ll be super careful with it.”
“I trust that you will,” Pearl warmly nodded her approval.
“Oh, wow,” Stan sent her an unimpressed glance. “So you’re just gonna hand some deadly weapon over to my nephew while I’m standing right here? Real classy.”
“Is there a problem with that?” Pearl crossed her arms and returned his scowl.
“No, not really. But would it have killed you to give the kid a sword that isn’t so, ya know, girly?”
“Girly?” Dipper frowned down at the Ancient Sea Blade’s sleek, graceful craftsmanship.
“I’ll have you know that sword is a steadfast, sturdy weapon that requires a skillful hand to wield and demands respect from all those in its path,” Pearl sternly asserted. “Which, of course, is something that you would know nothing about, Stan.”
“Oh, I’ll show you ‘respect’,” Stan rolled up his sleeves. Before things could escalate any further, however, Garnet swiftly put a stop to it.
“That’s enough,” she said, pushing the feuding pair apart. “We’ve already wasted enough time here. Let’s get going.” Once again, she got the last word as she got their latest mission going and warped them all away to the Kindergarten–
And whatever might await them there.
The Kindergarten’s hallowed-out walls were just as lifelessly silent as ever as the group warped in. Their voices and footsteps seemed like the only sounds for miles as they began combing the canyon for any signs of Peridot. A search that, so far, wasn’t showing any real results.
“So, Stan,” Amethyst smirked as she elbowed his knee. “Does this place still give ya the ‘heebie-jeebies’ just like it did when I brought you here all those years ago?”
“Pfft, are you kidding me?” Stan scoffed, unbothered. “This place never freaked me out. I’ve seen plenty of dead, barren wastelands in my day.”
“Suuuure, you have,” Amethyst goaded as she strolled on ahead. “Just be sure to keep an eye out. You never know when something’s gonna… jump out at you!” Without warning, she turned back around to reveal her face–shapeshifted into a grotesque monster. On top of their already eerie surroundings, it was enough to startle Stan–not that he was about to let her get away with it that easily.
“Hey!” he snapped, already giving chase as Amethyst ran off laughing. “Amethyst!”
“Ha! Try and catch me, ‘old man’!” Amethyst teased, vaulting over a rock as she hurried through the Kindergarten.
“Could you two please be quiet and try and take this seriously?!” Pearl fussed after both of them. “If Peridot hears either of you, she’ll be able to tell we’re coming from a mile away!” Neither of them bothered listening to her, as caught up in their noisy fun as they were. Pearl could only let out a frustrated sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, this is already a disaster…”
“Calm down, Pearl,” Garnet advised with an easy smile. “Everything will work out, you’ll see.”
“Ugh, I hope so…” Pearl groaned as she trudged on ahead.
The kids dutifully trailed after the Gems, or at least Dipper did as he practiced with the sword Pearl had given him. While he worked on getting a good handle on it, Mabel snorted out a soft laugh as she began to mimic his overdramatic swings and swipes. It wasn’t long before Steven noticed and let out a laugh of his own, one that Dipper clearly heard. Suspicious, he glanced over his shoulder, only for Mabel to quickly stop and put on an innocent act–one he wasn’t buying in the slightest.
“Didn’t you guys hear what Pearl just said?” he asked, scowling. “We’re supposed to be taking this mission seriously.”
“Oh, we are taking it seriously!” Mabel protested as she pulled her grappling hook out. “In fact, it's so serious that I even brought this along! You’re not the only one around here with a fancy-smanzy weapon, bro-bro. If Peridot tries to mess with us, I’ll bop her with this!” She proudly fired the hook, only for it to just as quickly land in the dirt with a dull thud.
“…I think we should just stick to letting my sword do all the fighting, if it's all the same to you, Mabel,” Dipper deadpanned, unimpressed.
“Well, I still think we’re being pretty serious about all this,” Steven confidently proclaimed. “Don’t you think so, Garnet?”
“Sure,” she grinned as she ruffled his hair.
“Hm… Well, nothing looks activated…” Pearl mused. The light from her gemstone was enough to give them a clear look around–not that there was really all that much to see to begin with. “In fact, it doesn’t look like anything’s budged since the last time we were here…”
“You’re right,” Garnet said, hands on her hips. “But just because Peridot hasn’t been here yet, it doesn’t mean she won’t come.”
“Hm,” Steven tersely nodded his agreement. Just another way to show how “serious” he was about such serious business.
“Let’s do a thorough check of the perimeter,” Garnet continued.
“Hm.”
“That way, we can monitor any further entry.”
“Hm,” Steven offered a resolved thumbs up. “Sounds good to me!”
“Oh! Let’s all split up–with search buddies and everything!” Mabel exclaimed. “Dipper, you should be mine. That way, when we find her, I can deflect my grappling hook off your sword and we can knock her out clean before she tries any of her sneaky shenanigans!”
The most Dipper could do was exchange a baffled glance between his sword and his sister before he asked, “Mabel, do you understand how physics work? Like, at all?”
“Yo, if we’re choosing search buddies, I call Stan as mine!” Amethyst shapeshifted her arm up to steal Stan’s fez off his head so she could plop it on her own.
“Yeah, you would,” Stan grinned as he reclaimed his hat.
“You two teaming up is a catastrophe just waiting to happen,” Pearl muttered, rolling her eyes at the pair.
At the same time, Steven had already started wandering off from the others, without giving too much thought about his own “search buddy”. He didn’t expect to find much from his peek around the nearby canyon wall. He certainly didn’t expect to stumble across Peridot herself–
Until that was exactly what happened.
“Log date: 6.5.2.” Steven stopped dead in his tracks the second he heard her voice. He stayed stiff, watching with wide eyes as Peridot rose up on a platform emerging from underground. Thankfully, she didn’t notice him, as distracted with documenting her latest report on her finger-formed screen as she was. “This is Peridot, updating status. Still stuck on this miserable planet… The fusion experiments are developing properly. A few have even emerged early-”
She cut herself off with an alarmed gasp when her gaze finally drifted off her screen and over to Steven. At first, neither of them said so much as a single word, each of them equally unsure about what to do about the other. Peridot was ultimately the first to break the silence as she quietly, anxiously asked, “Are the other ones with you?”
On impulse, Steven shook his head no. Still, it didn’t take him long to cave into telling the truth as that shake soon shifted into an honest nod and awkward shrug. “Of course,” Peridot’s screen dispersed as she facepalmed with a frustrated groan. “Why not?”
“Peridot!”
Her annoyance quickly turned to fear as she heard Garnet’s angry shout from across the Kindergarten. As sure a sign as any that all of the foes she’d spent the past several weeks evading had found her at the exact same time.
“There she is!” Pearl exclaimed, her spear already in her hands.
“Let’s get her!” Amethyst rushed forward with her whip at the ready.
Peridot didn’t hesitate to turn and flee through the Kindergarten corridor, even with the Gems and the Pines all hot on her trail. To their surprise and confusion, instead of running for the warp pad, she ran right for one of the canyon’s towering, impassable walls.
“Give it up, Peridot!” Dipper shouted, his sword raised high. “You have nowhere to run!”
“Yeah! We’ve got you cornered!” Mabel added as she took aim with her grappling hook. “I’ve always wanted to say that!”
“That’s what you think!” Peridot snarled back at them over her shoulder. Without skipping a step, she continued on to the cliffside, but instead of running into it, she started running straight up it instead. Her laughter echoed through the canyon as she glanced down at her pursuers, who were all forced to stop short far beneath her. “Try and catch me now, you filthy rebels!”
“So that’s this ‘big, scary Homeworld Gem’ you guys are so afraid of?” Stan asked, raising an eyebrow up at Peridot. “She just seems like a loudmouthed nerd to me.”
“She is,” Amethyst shrugged. “Her being able to run up walls is new though.”
“Aw, I can’t do that!” Steven pouted, at a loss over what to do now.
“Neither can she!” Pearl sharply tossed her spear straight up.
Peridot ducked out of the weapon’s path as it sailed straight over her head. She shot a grin down at the group below, still smugly snickering all the while. “Ha! Missed!”
While Pearl’s spear didn’t hit her, it did hit something. It struck one of the deactivated injectors hanging high from the Kindergarten wall, one that was already only barely hanging onto the earth it had been left in. The sudden impact was more than enough to get it to detach, and it wasn’t long before the machine began tumbling down–straight toward Peridot. She squealed, terrified as she turned and started running back down the cliffside–away from one threat, and straight toward another one entirely.
“Oh! I got her! I got her!” Pearl held her arms out wide to catch her.
“Please,” Stan stepped in to shove her aside. “At the rate she’s bookin’ it down that wall, she’d knock you down flat the minute she runs into you. I got her.”
“Then what makes you think you’ll have any better of a chance?” Pearl countered as she pushed him right back. “Why don’t you just step aside and let those of us with actual experience handle this?”
“A lot of good that ‘experience’ is gonna do when that green freak there pummels you into the ground and gets away!” Stan argued as they both grappled for space. Whatever fight was about to break out was quickly broken up when Garnet pushed them both away. The injector struck Peridot squarely, before it finally crashed down into the ground, mere feet away from where they’d been standing before Garnet saved them.
“Both of you, pay attention!” Garnet snapped at the pair as she summoned her gauntlets.
“Hmph, he started it,” Pearl scowled, crossing her arms.
“Yeah, and I’m gonna finish it too,” Stan shot back with a surly glare.
“Do you think Peridot’s hurt?” Steven took a step forward as the dust from the crash began to settle.
“Hopefully,” Dipper scowled as his grip on his sword tightened.
Surprisingly, Peridot was apparently much tougher than she appeared to be. She pulled herself out of the wreckage, no worse for wear, with only an exasperated groan as she shoved bits of broken metal off of her.
“Nope, guess she’s ok!” Amethyst grinned as she pulled her whip back out. “But she won’t be for long!”
Before Peridot could even pull herself out of the wreckage, Amethyst’s whip coiled around her, pinning one of her arms to her side. Dipper took the opportunity to strike her free arm with his sword, only for his blade to bounce clean off of its seemingly metal surface. As surprised as he was, he went right back in for another hit, only for Peridot to push back against him this time.
“Augh!” she yelled, seething. “You clods don’t know when to quit!”
“Apparently, neither do you!” Dipper returned just as harshly. He brought his sword back just in time for Mabel to come in with her grappling hook. It hit Peridot squarely in the face, sending her stumbling as she reeled back in pain.
“Ow!” she growled as she went on the offensive. One of her fingers sparked with an electrical current, which she pressed down onto the whip keeping her bound. That current spread through the weapon, back to Amethyst, forcing her to let go of it altogether.
“Whoa! Hot whip! Hot whip!” she shouted as her hands flew away from it. Peridot took her chance to wriggle free, and the second she did, she started to make her escape all over again. At least until Stan got in the way to stop her.
She ran straight into him, backpedalling as he offered her a warning scowl. “And where do you think you’re goin’, greenie?”
“Oh great… another meddling human to deal with…” Peridot grumbled. She was quick to retaliate as one of her fingers shifted into a laser, aimed straight at Stan’s head. He had no time to react to it before a spear came hurtling straight at them both. As Stan frantically ducked under its path, Peridot avoided it altogether as she gladly continued on her way, undaunted.
“Hey, Pearl!” Stan shouted as he picked himself up off the ground. “You wanna try that again without aiming for my head like it's some kinda target!?”
“I was trying to hit Peridot!” Pearl shot back. “And what do you think you’re doing just letting her get away!?”
“Uh, looks like we’re all letting her get away now!” Amethyst nodded up to Peridot, already far out of their reach.
“Go ahead, you Crystal Clods!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Wreck this place! See if I care! I already got what I needed!”
“Get back here!” Pearl yelled as she ran after her. Stan and Amethyst also gave chase, but this time, Peridot was prepared to give them the slip. She lifted her hand as her fingers began to spin, and soon enough, she had enough momentum to propel herself up into the air. As soon as she was in the clear, her relieved grin turned into a haughty laugh when she looked down at her foes, still trying in vain to catch her from the ground.
“Ha! Face it! You simple lumps are no match for my superior technology and intellect!” she triumphantly teased. “You’ll never catch up!”
“You wanna bet, you nasally little punk!” Stan shook his fist up at her.
“I’m gonna bop her good!” Amethyst growled, leading the charge.
“I’ll help!” Pearl fiercely agreed as they all rounded a corner in the Kindergarten to continue the chase. The kids were eager to follow them, to put a stop to whatever problems Peridot might pose once and for all. But then-
“Wait,” Garnet calmly stopped them from her spot near the fallen injector.
“Wait? Wait for what?” Dipper reeled back around to face her. “Peridot’s getting away! We have to go after her!”
“Yeah, come on, Garnet!” Steven urged as he started to run ahead. “We gotta hurry!”
Garnet stopped him yet again, holding him back by his shirt as he continued running in place. Ultimately, he gave up, and so did Dipper and Mabel, when they noticed just how serious Garnet seemed to be about this.
“If Peridot’s mission was to reactivate the Kindergarten, the injectors would be on. Look,” she nodded over to the nearest injector, just as still and silent as ever. “They’re not.”
“Oh?” Steven frowned, confused at first, until he started to get the picture. “Oh!”
“So that means… She was trying to do something else?” Mabel guessed.
“Exactly,” Garnet nodded. “Let’s see what she was actually doing-” She easily lifted up the broken injector and tossed it aside to reveal the underground passage Peridot had come out of earlier. “Down here.”
“Ohhhhh…” Just like that, all three of the kids finally understood. Even so, there was still something–or someone–left up in the air for them to consider.
“But wait, what about Peridot?” Steven glanced over his shoulder where the others had taken off.
“Pearl, Amethyst, and Stan can handle her,” Garnet assured, adjusting her shades. “If they can manage to get along.”
“Well, then I think it's safe to say they’re pretty much doomed then,” Dipper deadpanned. Even so, the kids knew they had no choice but to leave the trio to it as they began to follow Garnet into the dark depths below.
Into the darkness and into the unknown.
As distracted as they were, Stan, Amethyst, and Pearl hardly noticed they were alone in their chase. They kept tailing Peridot, even as she flew high above their heads, mocking them as she easily dodged Pearl’s spear and Amethyst’s whip. After what seemed like an eternity of this standstill, they finally lost sight of her when she flew behind one of the many injectors along the canyon’s edge.
“Aw, great!” Amethyst huffed as they all came to a stop. “She got away!”
“Oh, I’m sure she didn’t get too far,” Pearl said, staring up at the injector. “After all, if her primary objective–whatever it is–is here in the Kindergarten, then chances are she’s not going to just leave it behind so soon. I’m sure if we remain diligent, we’ll be able to find her, capture her, and put an end to her mission once and for all!”
“Well, we would have caught her sooner if somebody had just let me nab her instead of hurling spears like a nutcase,” Stan sneered as he fixed Pearl with a critical glare.
“Well, maybe we would have caught her even before that if somebody hadn’t tried to interfere with me catching her when she was running down the cliff!” she countered just as bitterly.
“Oh, what? So you’re saying this is all my fault then?” Stan asked. He hardly even noticed the growing concern on Amethyst’s face, and neither did Pearl, as she stood between them, watching things get even worse than they already were. Even worse than they’d already been for a long time now.
“Yes!” Pearl exclaimed. “The only thing you’ve done since this mission began is make an absolute mess of things! Why are you even here in the first place?! It’s not like you had to come along with us!”
“Hey, I already told you,” Stan said, crossing his arms. “I’m here to keep an eye on the kids, remember?”
“Oh, and what a wonderful job you’re doing of it too!” Pearl threw an arm out to the empty Kindergarten around them. “But have you noticed something? Oh, that’s right! They’re nowhere to be found!”
Before Stan could get another word in edgewise, Amethyst abruptly cut in. “I’m sure they’re probably just hanging back with Garnet. For now, we gotta get our heads back in the game! P-dot’s hiking it away from here, and all we’re doing is standing around here yelling at each other about it!”
“Well, Amethyst, how do you purpose we find her?” Pearl asked, hands on her hips.
“Uh, I dunno, actually come up with some kinda plan instead of biting each other’s heads off,” Amethyst huffed as she looked between the pair. She stopped short, however, when she noticed a particularly large hole among the many others dotting the nearby Kindergarten wall. Along with a plentiful pile of rocks resting on the cliff’s edge high above it. “And you know what…?” she said as a sly smirk slipped onto her face. “I think I might just have an idea. But, uh, if it’s gonna work, you two will need to, um… get along? Just for a little bit?”
“Get along? With her?” Stan scoffed at the very idea. “C’mon, Amethyst, you know me better than that. I don’t work well with snooty airheads.”
“Well I don’t work well with miserly charlatans,” Pearl turned her nose up at him.
“Well, I also don’t work well with people who use big words nobody knows the meaning of!”
“Well, could you guys at least try to work together?” Amethyst pressed. “At least until we catch Peridot? Then you two can go right back to hating each other as much as you want.”
Stan and Pearl exchanged a distrustful glance, neither of them too keen on working together for any amount of time at all, no matter how small. Still, as they both met Amethyst’s sincere, almost pleading gaze, they both found they had no choice but to fold. If for no one else, than for her.
“Ugh, alright, fine,” Pearl begrudgingly agreed. “But only until we capture Peridot, and not a moment after that.”
“Yeah, and this doesn’t mean we gotta be all buddy-buddy about it either,” Stan said just as sternly.
“Oh, believe me, I have no intentions of being anything of the sort.”
“Uh… well… that’s fine, I guess,” Amethyst frowned. “But shouldn’t we at least all shake on it just to-”
“No!” Stan and Pearl quickly, sharply rejected the idea.
“Oh boy… I can already tell this is gonna be a pain in my gem….” Amethyst could only groan as she ran a hand through her hair. She had no idea how she was ever going to make this work out–both this mission, and the pair of polar opposites she was stuck on it with. A pair that could only seem to agree on only one thing: just how much they couldn’t stand each other.
With its elevator disabled, Garnet and the kids had no choice but to make their descent through the passageway on foot. They’d tread down this same shaft before, back when Peridot had first arrived on Earth weeks ago. It was no less ominous now as it had been back then. Especially since they had no idea what they’d find at the end of it this time around.
“So what do you think Peridot was even doing down here?” Dipper asked Garnet. At the very least, he hoped her future vision could give them some intel about what they were heading into. Even so, she seemed stumped as she stared into the deepening darkness ahead.
“It’s hard to say,” she said, as levelheaded as ever nonetheless. “But no matter what she’s up to, if Homeworld sent her here to do it, then we need to put a stop to it.”
“Oh, that’s such a good point, Garnet!” Steven nodded his agreement. “You’re brains and brawn. The whole package!”
“Thank you,” Garnet said, chuckling.
“It’s gotta be ‘cause you’re a fusion, right?” Mabel asked, eager and curious. “Fusions can do like, anything. Believe me, I know from experience!”
“So do we!” Steven caught Dipper off guard by taking his hand and holding it high. “Well, I guess I have even more experience–three times as much!”
“Fusions can do a lot,” Garnet confirmed with a chuckle. “But I have to keep some of my secrets.”
“Aw, please?” Steven pleaded. “We wanna know! Is the strong part of you Ruby and the wise part of you Sapphire?”
Garnet paused to consider the question; sure enough, the answer she offered up was every bit as enlightened as the kids were expecting. “It’s all of both. When two Gems combine, it creates something greater than the sum of their parts. For instance,” she glanced over at Steven and Mabel. “When you two fused into Maven, you each brought something different to the fusion.”
“Oh, that's so true!” Mabel nodded. “I brought my impeccable fashion sense, great social skills, and my award winning smile! Oh, and I also brought glitter, lots of glitter! We were basically covered with it the entire time we were fused. It was great.”
“Hm…” Steven tapped his chin in thought. “I guess that means I was everything else Maven had to offer.”
“Which was a ton because Maven had just so much to offer!” Mabel brightly concurred.
“True, but those things weren’t all that Maven was,” Garnet said, still pushing on ahead. “They were everything that you two were, and more. They were a symbol of your friendship, your bond, the perfect image of your relationship and what it means to each of you.”
“Relationship…” Mabel muttered, her cheeks turning red as she stole a glance over at Steven. “Wow…”
“Another good example would be Stepper,” Garnet looked to Steven and Dipper this time. “Tell me what parts of each of you made him who he was.”
“Oh, well, he, uh… Hm…” Steven paused, frowning. “I don’t… really know.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Dipper shook his head. “I guess it’s because Stepper… wasn’t really much of anyone the first time we fused. He was just… us.”
“But not after you found harmony between each other,” Garnet countered knowingly. “So after that…”
“Oh, wait a second!” Steven filled where she trailed off. “The way we tricked Peridot when we were fighting her robots! Dipper, that was definitely your brains at work there!”
“Oh, y-yeah, I guess,” Dipper rubbed the back of his neck, blushing. “But we never would have been able to come together again if it hadn’t been for you, Steven. You were determined to make Stepper work, and even if I wasn’t at first, you… you made me want to. And I’m so glad we did.”
“O-oh,” Steven’s eyes grew wide, his heart skipping a beat when he met the soft, warm smile Dipper was sending his way. “Y-yeah… I… I am too…”
“Stepper was smart, and he was determined,” Garnet acknowledged, grinning proudly. “And he was more than that too. His existence told the story of you two growing closer, and the moment you found the harmony between each other was the moment you finally came together.” She paused, her smile growing as she adjusted her shades. “In the same way, that’s what I am. The symbol of our—of Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship, their devotion to each other. I’m both of them, and so much more than them, all at the same time. That’s why I’m so great.”
“Wow…” All three of the kids were equally amazed as they finally started to understand. Still, they didn’t get much of a chance to learn more before they reached their destination.
“So what’s it like to be a fusion all the ti-” Steven stopped short as he took in the wreck before them. The control room was just as damaged as they’d left it during their first encounter with Peridot. The power was still cut, leaving the chamber dark and dim. Strangely though, there was a new addition–numerous pillars hanging from the floor and the ceiling alike, seemingly made up of tightly compacted dirt. They stood in lonely silence, yet somehow, the shadows they cast felt oddly sinister in a way nobody could quite place.
“I don’t know how… but this place is even creepier than the last time we were here…” Steven said, ignoring the shiver that ran down his spine as his voice echoed back at him.
“Yeah…” Mabel frowned as she approached one of the pillars. “What’s the deal with all these tubey things?”
“Mabel, don’t touch those! We don’t know what they’re for!” Dipper cautioned. His hand already rested on the hilt of the Ancient Sea Blade, just in case. “You know, I’m suddenly really glad Pearl gave me this sword…”
“There’s clearly something different here this time,” Garnet spoke up, glancing around. “I don’t like it.”
“The power’s not on…” Steven looked back to the broken power cell on the back wall. “What was Peridot doing down here?”
“W-what if she was just collecting dirt for some reason?” Mabel suggested with an anxious smile. “Not sure why anyone would do that, but maybe she just has a weird hobby?”
“It looks like she pulled these out of the Kindergarten walls,” Garnet looked up at the pillars hanging above their heads. “Something strange is-”
She stopped short as a soft, sudden rumbling caught her attention. She turned to one of the pillars on the far side of the room, lightly trembling where all of the others stood perfectly still. Garnet carefully started to approach it, on high alert for anything threatening–
Even if nothing could have prepared her for what was about to happen next.
“Garnet?” Steven called over to her, curious. The kids exchanged a worried look when she didn’t answer, but they wasted no time crowding behind her all the same. Slowly, Garnet reached out to the pillar, only for it to start shaking even more the second her fingers so much as skimmed it. Mabel and Steven tucked behind her legs for cover while Dipper drew his sword, even if it was slightly shaking in his grip.
“Y-you don’t think there’s something in there… do you, Garnet?” Mabel asked as they all began to back away. Garnet still offered no answer as her gauntleted hands curled into tight fists. The pillar only shook even more violently by the second, and yet, nothing emerged from it.
Instead, something dropped down from above. It hit the floor right behind the group, spooking them enough to spin around and face it. But as for what “it” was…
A hand and a foot, both detached and different colors, somehow stitched together as they wriggled around aimlessly. The kids could only watch, bewildered, as Garnet carefully picked the strange creature up. She only had a moment to examine it before several more began falling from the pillars on the ceiling. Hands mixed with feet, arms connected to legs, two arms connected by their joints, legs linked at the knees. Any and all combination of mismatched limbs rained down, slowly slinking across the floor to the startled group watching on in rising horror.
“O-ok! So I guess Peridot wasn’t just collecting dirt down here!” Mabel exclaimed as she quickly pulled her grappling hook back out.
“What the heck are these things?!” Dipper asked, his eyes wide as he held his sword out in front of him.
“And why are they—Ah!” Steven was cut off as the creature Garnet was holding slipped out of her hand and onto his face. He yelped in terror as it grabbed him, but Garnet was quick to take it out with a swift strike. It disappeared much like a Gem monster would, and all that was left in its place were its jagged, crystalline remains.
“It looks like… two Gem shards… stuck together…” Steven frowned as Garnet held it up for them all to see. It was true; a fractured pink gemstone and a broken blue one, somehow mangled together into an uneven, unnatural shape. The second she realized that’s what it was, Garnet gasped in disgust as she practically threw the shards away from her, back to the other writhing limbs still dragging their way toward them.
“Gem shards? As in… broken Gems?” Mabel asked, deeply unnerved. “So these things are basically like Gem zombies… if they were stuck together…”
“Are you kidding?! These things aren’t anything like the zombies we’ve been up against before!” Dipper’s voice hitched in fear as he brought his sword down on one of the creatures that got too close for comfort.
“Stop!” Garnet suddenly ordered. Her expression was awash in enough alarm to catch all three kids off guard–even more than they already were, anyway. “Don’t hurt them!”
“Why not?” Steven asked, but Garnet stayed strangely stiff and silent. “G-Garnet?”
She didn’t get a chance to explain–not that she would have been able to against her rising distress. Because soon enough, the onslaught of smaller shard creatures was quickly forgotten when one of the larger pillars let out a sickening crack. It tore itself wide open, bright light pouring from the growing crevice as something rose from the earthen shell–
Another cluster of gem shards, far more than any of the others, all jumbled together into a grotesque shape. One that emerged to form an even more grotesque Gem–if it could even be called that at all.
The silhouette of four individual Gems surrounded it, attached by the torsos, each shrieking in unspeakable pain and terror. Their screams soon shifted into something much more feral, but no less agonized as their forms glitched and changed. The shape of a massive hand emerged, its fingers made up of flailing arms and legs all conjoined together. Its hulking “body” crashed to the floor, faceless and mindless, as it began to clumsily creep forward.
The kids crowded even closer to Garnet, terrified of such a mangled, monstrous creature. But none of them were more frightened than Garnet herself as she realized exactly what that creature really was.
And who they used to be.
“Ok, so here’s how it's gonna go down,” Amethyst laid out her plan with a mischievous grin. “I’ll go track Peridot down and chase her back here. That’s when you guys make sure she runs into this hole,” she nodded back at the large hole in the wall behind them. “And then you pull those rocks up there down using this whip.” She held up the other end of the long whip she’d lassoed around the pile of rocks high above them. “And we’ll trap her inside. We all good on what we’re supposed to be doing or what?”
“Of course, we are, Amethyst,” Pearl nodded.
“Yeah, we’re not stupid,” Stan agreed as he shot Pearl a wry smirk. “Or at least I’m not.”
“Hey!”
“Ok, so we’re all ready, then!” Amethyst cut in before another fight could break out.. “I’ll be back in a few; you guys be ready to bring those rocks down on Peridot’s stupid triangle-shaped head. Oh, and try not to kill each other until I get back, k?”
“No promises…” Pearl muttered as she shared a scowl with Stan.
Amethyst hurried off into the Kindergarten, leaving the pair entirely on their own. Neither of them had much to say to each other as they waited in the wings for Peridot to show. And under such oppressive silence, it wasn’t long before Stan broke through his growing boredom by whistling. Something that set Pearl off so much as the second she heard it.
“Could you please stop that infernal whistling?”
“Oh what, is it getting on your nerves?” Stan paused to glance her way.
“Yes.”
“Great!” He grinned before he started whistling again, even louder than before. Even so, Pearl didn’t let it last for long.
“You do realize that our plan is never going to work if Peridot hears you, right? If you wanted to be obnoxious and cause a ruckus, then you should have gone with Amethyst.”
“Yeah, I should have,” Stan crossed his arms. “At least then I wouldn’t have to hang out with a boring, stuck-up killjoy.”
“Well, if you had, at least I wouldn’t have to stand here babysitting a grown man.”
“Hey, I don’t need you to babysit me. I can handle myself out here just fine.”
“Clearly,” Pearl scoffed. “That’s why you just let Peridot get away earlier, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t let that green weirdo get away,” Stan shot back. “That was all you, Pearl.”
“It was not!” Pearl protested, her hands curling into fists at her sides.
“Was too,” Stan returned just as harshly as they both took a step closer.
“Was not!” Pearl hissed as their anger equally grew. By now, they were both in each other’s faces, neither of them backing down when they knew they were both right. The tension between them had been rising for most of the day–honestly, for far longer than even that. And clearly, it was about to reach its breaking point.
Until–
“Was-” Stan stopped short as a sudden rumbling echoed through the canyon. They both froze, slowly looking up to see the first few pebbles starting to rain down on them from above. It wasn’t long before that rain turned into a storm of boulders–the very same boulders they were hoping to trap Peridot with.
Only now, they were coming down to crush them instead.
“Look out!” Stan shouted. He acted on instinct, pushing Pearl out of the path of the falling rocks. They both tumbled straight into the hole in the wall, mere seconds before the boulders slammed straight down to the ground they’d just been standing on. There was barely time to glance back before the rocks completely covered the hole’s entrance–and their only hope of escape. They didn’t have to think too long about how this could have happened before an all-too familiar laugh echoed from the other side.
“Ha! You must have thought that your little ‘plan’ to apprehend me was so smart and so foolproof,” Peridot grinned as she leaned against the stoney barricade. “But what you didn’t count on was that I actually overheard your all futile scheming. And look at you now–caught in the very same trap you intended for me. How could this possibly get any better?”
“I’ll tell ya how,” Stan glared through one of the thin gaps between the rocks. “If you let us outta here so we can beat that dumb grin off your green face.”
“As if I’d ever do that,” Peridot huffed, rolling her eyes. “No, instead I think you’ll both stay right in there… stuck forever with no way out while I make my daring escape! Enjoy your new home, you clods!”
Her smug laughter only echoed as she hurried off, leaving her foes to languish behind her. Both in their cramped captivity and even worse yet–in each other’s company.
“Oh, this is just perfect!” Pearl growled as she tried prying the rocks apart with her spear. “Amethyst’s plan to capture Peridot could have actually worked, if you hadn’t had to go and ruin it completely, Stan.”
“Oh yeah, go ahead and blame me,” Stan crossed his arms as he leaned against the back of the hole. “You know, the guy who just saved you from being crushed by a bunch of rocks. Who knows? Maybe the plan would have worked if I hadn’t.”
Pearl let out an indignant huff when she realized her spear was getting her nowhere. Clearly, they’d have to come up with something else instead. “Well, regardless of who’s fault it is, we’re still trapped. Any ideas about how we’re supposed to escape? Or should I just assume that the limits of your imagination only extend as far as creating new shams to put on display at the Mystery Shack?”
“I dunno, why don’t you just yell at the rocks until they fall down?” Stan sullenly shrugged. “You’re full of enough hot air that it would probably work pretty quickly.”
Pearl flinched, her face flushing blue with a furious blush as she reeled back around to face him. “You know what your problem is, Stan?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“Your problem is that you never take anything seriously! You act like everything is just one big joke!”
Stan shrugged, still not budging from his spot against the wall. “It beats acting like every little inconvenience is the end of the world like some people do.” He glanced away, unable to stop himself from bitterly muttering under his breath. “God, you remind me so much of him sometimes–it makes me sick.”
“So much like who?” Pearl raised an eyebrow at him.
Stan stiffened, his eyes widening as he coughed to clear his throat and catch himself. “L-like somebody I used to know, I guess. Whatever, doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we gotta find a way outta here,” he finally stepped forward as he rolled up his sleeves. “And fast.”
“Yes!” Pearl let out a frustrated huff. “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying! You’d have known that if you would bother to just listen for once.”
“Maybe I would if you actually said somethin’ worth listening to for a change,” Stan said as he skimmed a hand against the rock wall keeping them trapped.
“Somehow I doubt that,” Pearl shook her head. “You’ve never been one to pay much mind to genuine reason in favor of following whatever unethical and unscrupulous code of conduct you seem to adhere to.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep on yappin’ every word in the thesaurus at me, why don’t ya?” Stan gave one of the rocks an experimental push; unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge in the slightest. “While you’re at it, do ya mind giving me a boost here?”
“Oh, of course, why not?” Pearl complained, though she got low to let him step on her hands regardless. “Seeing as how I’ve been doing all the heavy lifting during this entire mission anyway, it only makes sense.”
“Don’t see how you have time to do any ‘heavy lifting’ when you’re so busy nagging about every little thing I do,” Stan pressed against the wall to steady himself as Pearl hoisted him up a bit. “Let me borrow one of those spears of yours for a sec?”
“Ugh, fine…” Pearl grumbled as she summoned one and passed it up his way. She barely even glanced up to watch as he began wedging it into the cracks near the very top of the hole. “I do not ‘nag’, by the way. I just think someone ought to tell you the truth about just how… how insufferable you can be!
“Tell me something I haven’t already heard a hundred times over,” Stan barely skipped a beat as he continued fiddling with the spear. “Last time I checked, Pearl, I didn’t ask to hear just how much you hate my guts and I don’t care.”
“Oh, please, Stan,” Pearl scoffed as she kept him up and steady as best she could. “I don’t hate you-”
“Yeah, you do,” Stan countered, hardly phased at all. If anything, he was resigned to it, just like he had been for the past three decades. Resigned to something he knew was never going to change, something he knew would never get better, something he knew he only had himself to blame for. “You’ve never been able to stand me, even as far back as when Rose was still around. Heck, I get the feeling you might hate me even more than she ever did, just for havin’ the nerve to be a bit too close to your ‘perfect’ little temple and your ‘perfect’ little lives.”
A long beat of silence passed when Pearl heard that. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much, but it did, to think that’s what he’d spent so long believing. It bothered her so much, to the point that she had to set the record straight. Her frustration quickly fizzled out into something else altogether as she finally spoke, her voice a touch softer, a touch more gentle as she said, “...Rose didn’t hate you.”
That was enough to get Stan to stop, to fall into silence himself as he looked back down at her. Pearl didn’t meet his gaze and he didn’t let her before he forced out a doubtful sneer. “Sure, she did. Why wouldn’t she? After all, it’s ‘cause of me she lost-” He cut himself off, almost choking up out of grief and fear alike. He had no idea why he was struggling to keep quiet about that, in front of her, no less. Miraculously though, this was one slip-up Pearl didn’t seem to notice.
How could she, when she was caught up in just as many regrets of the past as he was?
“Rose didn’t hate you,” she echoed, much more intently this time. The look on her face was completely serious as she glanced up at him, as she finally, genuinely told him the truth. “She didn’t hate you, and neither do I.”
Stan barely knew what to do when he heard that, much less what to say. As shocked as he was, he absently leaned against the end of the spear perched into the rocks. And the second he did, it sent a chain reaction into motion.
The tip of the spear abruptly dislodged one of the smaller stones, sending it plummeting to the ground below. Several more loosened around it, and Stan didn’t hesitate to start shoving them out of the way until he created a sizable opening for them both to squeeze out of. He climbed out first, essentially leaving Pearl on her own in the darkness below. She wasn’t too surprised–she didn’t even really blame him for it. Even if she didn’t hate him, she had a feeling she knew where he still stood when it came to her after all these years, except–
Except Stan reached his hand back in to help her out. And as he did, he finally offered her a ghost of a smile as he said, “I don’t hate you either.”
Pearl couldn’t help but laugh as she took his hand and let him hoist her up and out of the hole. They both landed safely on the other side of the pile of rocks, finally free–both from the trap and from something else entirely, it seemed.
“I-I can’t believe it,” Pearl exchanged a relieved smile with Stan. “We actually did it!”
“You sure did!”
They turned to find none other than Amethyst, casually reclining atop a rock not too far away as she sent the pair a proud grin. “Amethyst?” Stan raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you doing out here?”
“Oh, not much,” she shrugged as she hopped down from her perch. “I couldn’t find Peridot, so I came back when I heard those rocks fall. For a sec, I thought the plan had worked until I heard you two screaming at each other in there instead of her.”
“W-what?” Pearl asked, aghast. “Amethyst, if you knew we were both in there, why didn’t you try to help us?!”
“Well, I was gonna,” Amethyst hung her hands behind her head. “Until I thought, ‘hey, this is just the sorta thing those two need to iron out all that bad blood between them’. So I decided to hang back so you guys could talk things out. And what do you know? You did! And you even-”
“Amethyst, are you nuts?” Stan angrily cut in. “We could have died in there.”
“Exactly,” Pearl agreed, crossing her arms. “Not to mention the fact that Peridot got away again because of all of this.”
“Aw, whatever,” Amethyst waved their concerns off. “We’ll catch her sooner or later. But you guys are missing the point here! You didn’t just talk things out; you even managed to accidentally work together to escape! Who could have guessed you two could actually make a pretty good team when you’re not tryin’ to ring each other’s necks?”
Pearl and Stan exchanged a stunned glance; as much as neither of them wanted to admit it, Amethyst was right. When push came to shove, they truly had managed to work together–without even realizing it at all. An impressive feat for the two of them, to say the least. “Huh. I guess we do,” Stan offered Pearl a small smile, one that she was more than happy to return. Still, he quickly caught himself, brushing the dust off his suit as he let out a gruff sneer. “B-but, uh, just ‘cause we did, that doesn’t mean we’re ‘friends’ or anything like that now.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” Pearl let out a sly chuckle. “Perish the thought of the two of us ever doing anything together willingly.”
“Yeah, keep it up, you two,” Amethyst grinned. “Keep on ‘hating’ each other till ya can’t anymore.” She laughed, catching them off guard as she pulled them both into an unexpected hug. And surprisingly, neither of them were in too much of a rush to pull themselves out of that hug. Instead, they shared another smile as thirty years’ worth of tension finally began to fade into something else entirely.
Into something that almost felt like friendship after all.
Another ravenous roar echoed through the control room, all but rattling the kids’ bones as they huddled close together. The smaller Gem monsters continued inching closer, but the largest and most gruesome of the group was by far the most concerning. They had no way of knowing what it wanted, what it might do to them if it reached them.
And worst of all, no way of saving themselves did.
“G-Garnet?” Steven tried his best to get her attention. But instead, it remained entirely fixated on the approaching creature. “Garnet, what do we do?!”
He barely finished speaking before one of the smaller creatures, made up of a knee and a few fingers, jumped on him from behind. Mabel rushed to pull it off of him, and as soon as it hit the ground, Dipper plunged his sword into it, poofing it away.
“What are you doing?!” Mabel shot him a horrified glance. “Garnet told us not to hurt them!”
“If we don’t, then they’ll end up hurting us!” Dipper protested, his sword still at the ready for more.
“Garnet, we need your help!” Steven pleaded, spinning back around to face her. Only to find that the largest monster already had a tight hold on her. Its “arms” grabbed her arms, hip, and head in a vicious grip, one that she was every bit as powerless to escape from as she was to stop this. “Please! You’ve gotta talk to us!” Steven begged. But she hardly heard him above her own short, panicked breathing.
“Watch out!” Mabel warned as another creature pounced for Steven. He turned, his shield forming over his arm to block it, though it hardly let up as it continued pushing against it.
“I don’t understand!” Dipper slashed through another mutant clamoring for Steven. “Why do these things only seem to be going after you and Garnet?”
“I don’t know!” Steven shook his head. Once again, he glanced back to Garnet for answers–answers she wasn’t able to give.
Without warning, one of the monster’s arms slammed into the side of her face, shoving her shades off to reveal all three of her eyes–each blown out with untold terror. She hardly noticed the kids trying their best to beat back the smaller creatures, only for more to keep coming out of the walls and ceiling alike.
And then, somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, Garnet finally found her voice again.
“T-these… these were Crystal Gems…” she choked. Tears streamed down her face as she stared at the monster, at the mutilated shards at its center. “S-shattered into pieces during the war… They were buried together… T-they were forced together… They were forced to fuse!”
All at once, the kids finally understood exactly why Garnet was so distraught. She had every reason to be, faced against the broken, barely recognizable remains of her long-lost friends. Friends who had been twisted into such terrifying forms, into frightening fusions they’d never even asked to be part of in the first place. Friends so far beyond saving that they barely had any shred of sentience left to spare as they acted on pure, desperate instinct alone.
Instinct that drove them to find a way to complete their mangled, mismatched shards–in any way they could.
“T-this… this is wrong…” Garnet’s voice was little more than a heartbroken whisper. It only grew more frail and frantic as she choked on a sob, on an apology that would never be enough to suffice for all of the suffering they’d been forced to endure. “I… I-I didn’t… None of us knew you were… t-that they would… None of y-you deserved… I… I’m sorry!”
The grief, the guilt, the sheer, sickening wretchedness of it all–it was all far too much to bear, to the point that it started to tear Garnet apart–literally. White light overtook her form, still shaking as the fusion mutant continued clinging onto her all the while. Even as she began to fall to pieces right in front of them.
“Garnet!” The kids gasped, shocked, as a gaping hole spread straight through her, intent on ripping her in half in more ways than one.
“No!” Steven cried. He shuddered as another mutant struck his shield, though that was the least of his worries right now. “Garnet, you’re coming undone! This isn’t like you!”
“T-that’s right!” Mabel pleaded just as anxiously. Just as soon as she did, she took out a smaller creature with her grappling hook before Dipper covered her by stabbing through another one. “This is all really messed up, yeah, but remember what you told us! You’re way more than any of this! You’re Garnet!”
The second she heard this, all three of Garnet’s eyes flew wide open. It was true–she was Garnet. And as part of Garnet, both of the halves that made her whole knew exactly what they needed to do.
They needed to keep it together.
Their voices united into one single shout, raw with fury for what had been done to her friends who had fought so hard for the Earth, for each other, for the future they never got to see. She pushed back against the limbs keeping her bound, her own body still engulfed in light as she fought to stabilize herself. And as soon as she did, she shoved the fusion mutant away just shy of rushing for it once more, this time on the offensive.
She focused her strength on the area surrounding its jumbled gemstone, just as four wide eyes opened all around it. In those eyes, she could see everything they couldn’t say. They were begging, pleading for this to end, for a reprieve, a release. And that’s exactly what Garnet gave them as she swiftly tore through the creature, all but ripping the forced fusion apart at the seams. Its grotesque form exploded into a massive plume of smoke, leaving only its gemstone behind to hit the floor in its wake.
Garnet didn’t hesitate to bubble it, bringing it close as the kids finally allowed themselves a sigh of relief behind her. True, plenty of the smaller mutants still remained, but they were nothing compared to the much more massive monster Garnet had just put out of its misery.
“So… is it bad that all of this somehow isn’t the most disturbing thing we’ve seen this summer?” Dipper asked stiffly. Even so, his sword was still drawn just in case any of the other mutants got too close. “Because even if it's not, it’s… pretty up there on the list…”
“But we did it!” Steven exclaimed. “We beat them back!”
“And it's all thanks to you, Garnet!” Mabel chimed in. Still, their smiles were quick to fade as they turned to find her back still facing them all. “Garnet?”
“So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion…” Garnet suddenly growled. There was an edge of fury in her voice, the sort of ferocity that could only belong to Ruby as she glared down at the gemstone hovering over her palm.
“W-we couldn’t have known they would do this…” she said to herself, her voice softer, sadder, much more like Sapphire’s–
Until she exploded with anger all over again. “This is where they’ve been. All the ones we couldn’t find. They’ve been here the whole time! And Homeworld’s been doing… this to them!”
“Rose couldn’t have known… We couldn’t have known…”
“This is punishment for the rebellion! We could have stopped this! We could have saved them!”
“It’s not our fault!”
“Garnet!” Steven finally cut in, just in time for Garnet to let out the sharp sob she’d barely been holding back. She glanced over her shoulder at the kids, her eyes still wet with tears that she was quick to dry. They needed her now, she knew. They needed her–
Just as much as her poor, fallen, forcibly-fused friends did too.
“...Kids…” she sighed as she sent the bubbled gemstone away. She scarcely knew where to even start, how to comfort them, or herself for that matter. Not that she had a chance to as they were suddenly interrupted–and to their relief, it wasn’t by fusion mutants this time.
“Yo!” Amethyst called as she slid down into the control room. Pearl and Stan weren’t far behind her. “We’re back!”
“Garnet, we lost Peridot,” Pearl regretfully reported. “We had a plan to catch her but it…”
“Let’s just say it fell through,” Stan smirked as he crossed his arms.
“Whoa!” Amethyst gasped as she caught one of the remaining mutants crawling onto her. “Check out those freaky things!”
“W-what are they?” Pearl asked, unnerved, as she picked the pair of conjoined hands up.
“I’ll tell ya what they could be,” Stan’s smile widened as he grabbed another stray creature. “The Mystery Shack’s newest headlining attraction! People would eat these creepy little suckers right up!”
“Put them down!” Garnet suddenly ordered. “We need to poof and bubble all of them. We can’t let any escape.”
The fierceness of her voice alone was enough to startle Stan and Pearl into doing as she said. Still, the kids knew where she was coming from when she raised her gauntlets high above one of the mutants before she brought them down in a decisive swing. It was the least she could do to end their suffering–
Even if she wished she could do so much more.
Though a day had passed since their harrowing trip to the Kindergarten, the kids were still left shaken. Images of horrific, hulking forced fusions were bound to haunt their dreams for countless nights to come. With such troubling memories in mind, the twins joined Steven to try and take their minds off of it by helping him finish up the last of his laundry. Even so, it was hard to talk about anything else after everything they’d seen.
“So… what do you think Peridot wanted to do with all those fusion monsters from yesterday?” Mabel asked the boys as they all headed for the warp pad.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Dipper said, scowling. “She probably wants to use them as weapons and sick them on all of us like they’re her attack dogs or something.”
“I don’t know… Those Gems… they didn’t really seem to know what they were doing…” Steven solemnly noted as they gathered on the warp pad. “If anything, they were all acting like they were really… scared. And like Garnet said, they used to be Crystal Gems! So I don’t think they’d want to attack us on purpose…”
“Uh, speaking of Garnet, how’s she doing?” Mabel asked, frowning. By now, Steven already activated the warp to get them up to one of the temple’s massive hands, where his washer and dryer awaited.
“Oh, well, she’s-” Steven cut himself off when they arrived. “Right here, apparently.”
Sure enough, Garnet stood leaning against the statue’s thumb, staring off into the forest far below them. Even so, Mabel still greeted her with a small smile all the same. “Hi, Garnet. How’s it going?"
“Still damp,” she nodded over to the dryer.
“Oh, right, the clothes,” Steven headed over to take care of his laundry. “I guess that makes sense. There are towels in there.”
“Wait a second, how does the washer and dryer work all the way up here?” Dipper asked, confused. “Is there like, some kind of special plumbing system or does something else make them run?”
“It’s magic,” Garnet offered up a small, joking smile. The kids shared a laugh, but it quickly died out when they saw her look away again. As they realized something was still clearly wrong here.
“Um… are you… alright?” Steven asked her, worried.
Garnet stayed silent for a beat or two before she let out a long, remorseful sigh. “I wish you three hadn’t seen that.”
“It’s ok,” Steven was quick to reassure.
“Yeah, I mean, we were all kind of freaking out down there,” Dipper agreed. “And given what we were up against, I think we had every reason to.”
“It’s not ok,” Garnet sternly countered, shaking her head.
“…Why not?” Dipper asked.
Garnet’s expression darkened beneath her shades and her voice did much of the same.“What Homeworld did–taking the shards of fallen Gems and combining them. Those Gems weren’t asked permission to be fused together like that. Fusion is a choice; those Gems weren’t given a choice. It isn’t right. It isn’t fusion!”
Fury lingered like a storm cloud over her face as she fell back into silence. Still, it all made sense. Fusion wasn’t just important to Garnet–it was who she was. And to watch the very idea of it being so viciously twisted and tarnished right before her eyes? None of the kids could even imagine what that must’ve felt like.
Still, that didn’t mean Steven didn't want to know all the same. “W-what’s it like?” he asked, curious and anxious all at once. “Being a fusion?”
Garnet glanced back over at the kids, her rage quelling as she tersely replied, “You all have fused.”
“I mean, like, all the time,” Steven clarified. “Do you forget who you used to be when you’re together?”
Somehow, despite it all, she managed to smile as she glanced down at the gemstones on each of her palms. “You forget you were ever alone. You all know that when you fuse, you don’t feel like two people. You feel like one being. And your old names might as well be names for your right arm, and your left.”
“So… when you split up, is it like you disappear?” Mabel pressed, frowning.
“I embody my—I mean, Ruby and Sapphire’s love,” Garnet assured. “I’ll always exist in them, even if they split apart. But the strength of that love keeps me together, so I can stay Garnet for a very long time.”
“That’s why you’re so great,” Steven finished with a warm smile.
That proved enough to finally get a laugh, albeit a small one, out of Garnet. Because no matter what they might’ve seen yesterday, one thing was clear: Garnet was still there, still keeping it together, still every bit the fusion both of her halves were so proud to be. And try as they might to pervert everything fusion stood for, at the end of the day, that was something even Homeworld would never be able to destroy.
A sudden gust of wind blew over the temple, sending a blue and white sock flying out of Steven’s laundry basket. It nearly slipped over the edge of the statue’s hand entirely until Garnet caught it just in time and passed it back over to him. “Don’t want to break up a pair.”
“Yeah,” Steven was more than happy to return that blue sock to its pink partner. He folded the two, so very different, yet still so inseparable all the same. “They belong together.”