Summary: A warning to our heroes
Ponyhead took a bite of the glitter special of the day. "I've gotta say, I thought B-fly was exaggerating when she said these donuts were the best. But now, they're the second best in the multiverse."
"Thanks." The female worker laughed. "… She said to the talking floating unicorn head."
"Hey, no sweat. I know not everyone can handle my beauty so close and personal." She smirked and posed.
"Never mind, now you just have the ego of Lars."
"I resent that!" The boy shouted from the back. "And if any of them cause damage to the shop, THEY'RE PAYING THIS TIME!"
"Eh, just put it on Earth turd's tab. He's loaded nowadays." Ponyhead shrugged.
"She means Marco, just fyi." Kelly explained to the two humans in the shop.
"Marco's tab …" The boy with big earlobes looked out from the back and gave a smile. "Feel free to order as much as you want then."
"Great, now you got him going." The human girl rolled her eyes as Ponyhead helped herself to about a dozen or more of those sparkle donuts. "You shouldn't have said that."
"Eh, if he can't pay, I'm sure Qua-Steven will make Star pay up." Kelly said with a shrug. "What's the deal between Lars and Marco anyways? I never see him enter without cracking a few teeth from gritting.
"It was this thing they had with each other and Ronaldo." The worker explained, pulling out a chair. "They all used to be friends and do stuff together, but life came up and they started to want different things, they argued more, and eventually … here we are."
"So Earth turd sucks at both parties and friendship, what a surprise." Ponyhead said sarcastically. "It's only a matter of time before I reclaim my top spot as best bestie."
"You do realize Steven is basically half of an 'earth turd, right?" Kelly gave her a raised eyebrow.
"Exactly, half, which means that earth turdness isn't corrupting the awesome side of Q-fly." Pony swallowed another donut whole. "I mean, that's why you like him, right?"
"Duh, he's my friend." Kelly responded with her bs response. "Probably the best friend I have."
"No, I mean, like him like him." She smirked.
"What no, that's … complicated." Kelly sighed.
"How's it complicated girl? Everytime you ditch the dead weight living in your hair, he's the guy you go to..the first person you go to in general." She saw her enjoying herself during that date at the bounce lounge.
"I know that but … it's …" She groaned, planting her head into the table. "This is gonna sound wrong to say but … I like him as a friend … and love him as a fusion."
The donut girl, who was drinking coffee, suddenly spat it out. "Oh..so it's a 'friends with benefits thing'? Didn't think Quartz was the type.."
"No! That's not it, it's a magic thing we can do together, where we merge and become one person." Kelly explained frantically. "When we're like that, I feel so secure and confident, like a warm blanket that's always wrapped around you, and I feel capable of doing almost anything." She leaned back in her hair, hugging herself. "I'm like that whenever Tad talks to me, but whenever we're Kurtz it's … special … connecting."
"Girl…I have no idea what to say but, quoting the earth turd himself, you need therapy." Ponyhead felt her head split for a second. "You like it when the hairball talks to you and you love my little bro bestie for his body…just know I'm going to ram my horn through you if you hurt him."
"I know I know, we're apart at the moment." Bush girl waved off. "The last time we fused it was … violent." Kelly shook her head. "What about you Sadie? A love like to take our mind off this?"
"Nothing there sadly. I've run into a wall on that front." She rolled her eyes after sending a glare at the donut boy.
"I don't know, you and Marco worked pretty well when we were on that island." Kelly giggled.
There was a rumble in the back … but the earlobe boy said nothing, just staying quiet back there. "I mean, I wouldn't…exactly object to the idea, but would he even be interested? He hangs around Star a lot."
"Girl, if there's anything I know about Earth turd, it's that no one's lining up to date him. As far as I know, he's fair game." If Star wanted to make a move, she would've by now.
The shorter girl smiled, before the moment was interrupted by a horrendous sound echoing in the air.
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Star hummed playfully as she pet the adorable little critters. "Don't you have your own house?" Pearl asked. "Not that I'm against monsters, but the temple is no place for … infants." She said, looking at the little tadpoles as one tried to climb her.
"The Diaz's are doing a massive clean up of the entire house, I didn't want to get in the way." Star looked at the little monster babies. How could she ever believe monsters were evil if they started out this cute?
"Pearl might have a point." Ruby spoke up. "Lion's been staring at them for an hour now." She looked, watching the pink creature watching the tadpoles intently.
"Don't worry, I got something covered for that." Steven took out a bag of his least favorite food in the world. "Lion, I'll give you ten whole Lion lickers if you stay at Heckapoo's for the rest of the night." The animal grabbed the bag with its mouth, running off into the distance. "I know how to handle wild animals by now."
"I still wonder what Rose was doing with an earth feline to begin with." Pearl grumbled before the frogs started to get a little jumpy. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to lull these infants to sleep, do you?"
"Hold on." Star pulled out Marco's phone, plugging it into her wand. "Marco's cute ringtone works wonders."
"It's supposed to be ironic!" He complained helplessly.
"Space Unicorn, soaring through the stars, delivering the rainbows all around the world."
Like usual, the babies gathered together in one place and were out in no time, except little Katrina, the one with big beady eyes. "Aw, someone's growing up too fast. Bro, we're gonna need the big guns. Show us what you got!"
Steven nodded, pulling out his ukulele. "Sit around kids, uncle Steven is gonna tell you all the tale of a friend that went to space." He strummed, gathering their attention.
"She was trapped in a mirror
But it couldn't be clearer
She wanted to leave this place
And get back to space."
And I know some of you think she's a criminal
But her friendship comes through subliminal
Lapis Lazuli,
you fled into the bottom of the sea
Lapis Lazuli,
We fought but you then came around to me-"
SCREEEEEEEETCCCCCH!!!!
The most unholy of noises originated from a small object next to the kitchen, interrupting the song and sending the kids running rampant. "WHAT THE HECK IS THAT NOISE!?" Star yelled to the gems as Marco and Steven did their best to gather up all the running babies.
"That's the wailing stone! But that should be impossible!" Ruby shouted, using her gauntlet to press down on a little yellow button that was on top of some strange looking doohickey, to little effect. "It shouldn't be going off at all!"
"Make it stop l, I can't take it!" Amethyst rolled down on the ground.
"Here, let me." Pearl got down and bubbled it, letting it float just above her hands as she lifted it up. "Hah! It actually…"! The bubble exploded with a wave of sound that sent everyone back.
"Guys, someone has to do something! It's freaking out the tadpoles!" Steven did his best to protect the precious little ones by covering them with as many blankets as possible.
In a fit of maternal instincts, Star shoved her hand inside of the hole, plugging it up. She sighed in relief at the quiet, before her body began to rumble. "Ummm…" And she wailed. "MY INSIDES ARE MADE OF JELLO!!"
"I got it!" Sapphire shoved her arm out of the hole and replaced it with a pillow, where the sound finally muffled. Taking advantage of the silence, the rest of the gems grabbed all the beanbags they had in the temple and planted them on top of it.
"Peace …" Marco spoke, noticing the wild babies. "Me and Star will round them up, the rest of you figure out what's going on with this … wailing stone?"
"That's what it's called, yes." Pearl nodded. "It's was our way of communication during the rebellion, but it should be completely silent! No one on earth should be able to access them."
"Communication?" Steven asked, looking at the thing. "In what language was someone trying to murder us in?"
"It's not supposed to sound like that, it should be just a normal voice." Sapphire looked at the object. "If it's creating this type of disturbance, then it is too advanced of a signal for the wailing stone to receive the audio."
Audio huh? "Isn't working with audio the whole job of a musician?" She asked out loud, before turning to her brother. "That's like, Mr. Universe's whole deal, right?"
The gems all looked at each other. "I mean … It's Greg." Pearl spoke like it was an answer.
"But music is his thing right?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah but he and Gem tech tend to be a disaster zone." Amethyst shrugged.
"I'm going." Steven spoke up. "If it's a message it's probably about Homeworld, and we need all the info we can get."
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"Findin your home … Nah, that's not right." Greg fixed up the small section of his latest hit. "You don't need these depressing songs anymore … you can do something fun and right."
"Dad!" Fortunately, a reminder of actual good and happy things came running up to him before he could go down that dark rabbit of negativity. "You're good with working with sound, right?
"Tell me if this answers your question." He smirked, pulling out his guitar and letting out a riff.
"… No, I was talking about adjustments and cables." The boy explained. "We got this weird signal we can't translate, and we could really use your help."
"Oh..you want my help with a gem thing?" Greg was flattered his son would think about him even with stuff like this, but that was probably out of his depth. "I don't know, the gems never really wanted me around that business when Rose was around, and it might interfere with what remains of my hair."
"Hey, I know plenty of people that can pull off the bald look." Steven smiled. "There's Ludo … who's evil. And Glossaryck … who's a jerk." Steven winced at his examples. "Oh, and Rhombulous, who just has a crystal for a head, and he's usually been pretty cool with me."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but this might be out of my depth." He really didn't want to disappoint his own kid, but there were limits to what he was capable of.
"But it's not though!" Star shouted, dragging some giant pillow. "We just need you to plug in some stuff so we can understand this." The girl removed a few pillows-
SCREEEEEEEETCCCCCH!!!
"PUT IT BACK!" Steven yelled at his sister.
"Don't worry, I actually got something for this!" Looking through his van's endless pile he needed to clean up later, he picked up a giant foam microphone and stuffed it into the hole, silencing it. "So … that's a bit of a conundrum."
"Yeah, it's supposed to translate, but the gems think the Audio is too advanced or something." Steven said as they looked at the thing. "Right now they're helping Marco keep the babies to sleep."
"What babies?"
"Oh, I babysit Buff Frog's tadpoles from time to time." Star explained. "I used to beat him up a lot, but now I give him corn."
"…Congrats kids, you managed to outweird the gems." Greg smirked. "Alright, start unloading, we're gonna need a lot to try and figure out what's going on here." He wasn't confident, but he'd do what he could.
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Hekapoo watched as the supposed ruler of space-time cried their eyeholes out, drinking booze that would kill mortals with a drop. "I just … I can't get a break man … what am I supposed to do here?" He hasn't looked depressed since learning about how cruel the great Koala above all really was.
"You're telling me. Not only do I have to track down whoever's been making unlicensed dimensional chainsaws, I have to deal with the pink menace for who knows how along again." She pointed to the lion, who for the moment was eating some kind of ice cream out of a bag.
"Baaahhhh." Leckmet was right, it was strange how he came across so many of Rose's trusted objects.
"Not true." Omnitraxus said. "He hasn't come across whatever Rhombulus was trusted with, right?" They all turned to the snake armed member, who was sweating suspiciously in his corner.
"Yeah, totally didn't give him anything belonging to nobody because I thought it was a random piece of junk no one cared about." Rhombulous said fast. "Let's go back to what you were saying, Omni, you said all versions of Quartz had the same father?
"Yeah, a 'Greg Damayo'." The guardian of space time spoke. "And two of them had gems embedded in their bodies …"
That got everyone silent. "Gems? As in the alien race that's been hunting Mewni for milenia, who barely understands how organic life functions at all?" Heckapoo asked
"Yeah, a White point in one head that looked like a Quartz type of gem … and a Blue Diamond." That shut everyone up. "And our Quartz turned pink when angry."
"Baaagh." Leckmet was getting on to something.
"Have we ever confirmed if the kid was biologically a Butterfly, or even Mewman at all?" Heckapoo asked out loud.
"Well it wouldn't have mattered." Rhombulus stated. "Unless my gem buddy had a tail, claws, fangs, slit eyes, it wasn't a monster, and that was all that mattered."
"Baaaahhh."
"Why do I call him my gem buddy? He's the only one in the entire universe that hasn't called me stupid."
"It's true." Rhombulous left arm added. "We've been keeping track, everyone calls him a moron at least once in their lives."
"So what?" Hekapoo asked. "Do we check to see if he has a gem? Walk up to the kid and give him an x ray?"
"We've done more thorough and invasive tests before, but for now, we'll wait until we can guarantee Queen Moon won't retaliate against us."
"It's Rose Quartz." Hekapoo reminded him. "The fact we already have them supporting the queen without question is a huge plus in the previous arrangement." Where the gem just did as she pleased. "Onto the next topic of business, have we been getting any leads on what's been causing the fritz?"
"None that we can identify right away, only that it works like a virus, slowly infecting all the magic in the universe."
"Baaaaahhhh?" Leckmet's suggestion was a troubling one. How did you get rid of a problem in a realm only Glossaryck could navigate.
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"Okay, so I think we finally found the problem." Steven told the gems and Marco. "Dad thinks it's a video signal, not an audio one. Which is why it won't translate."
"That does makes sense, surprisingly."' Pearl looked the most astonished. "If homeworld has advanced their technology, they probably updated how they convey messages."
"Which means if your Gem tech will accept an aux cord …" Dad started working on the TV. "We can work on figuring out the message with some popcorn to boot."
"Oh, that was for everyone?" Amethyst and Ponyhead already ate through all five mega buckets for everyone.
"Ponyhead, I thought you knew better!" Star complained.
"I'm sorry, B-fly, but with short and purple here eating half of it in five seconds, it was everyone man for themselves and all that." Too bad Saint Olga's was a terrible place, he wouldn't have minded a pony with a little more manners.
"Okay, it's plugged in. I'm going to start adjusting now." Dad turned the tv on, filled with a loud static as he messed with a pad, the image warping into colored rainbows. "Come on baby … don't fail me now …"
"You can do it, Mr universe!" Star cheered his dad on. "Show them why you're my amazing bro's amazing dad!"
"Almost … just a few more notches …" The man sweated, until the image finally settled on …
"Lapis!" Everyone who saw the Gem shouted. "She's the one contacting us!"
"Quartz, Quartz, I don't know if this message is getting to you, but I hope it does. Homeworld is so different now! The technology, the culture, I can barely understand any of it now! It's all so advanced!"
"They've definitely improved I'd say." Pearl muttered. "Hopefully this can give us some insight."
"They're coming for you and Star. I don't know who blabbed to Peridot that you guys were here, but when I find them they're dead!" Lapis growled. "I'll find who ever this 'space unicorn' is and drown them into the depths!"
"It's supposed to be ironic!" Marco cried out.
"And now you're in danger of being murdered by the ocean." Star deadpanned.
"They're sending a warship to earth, it has enough firepower to destroy the coastline." That did not bode well. "Quartz, if your listening, get yourself, get your friends, get anyone you don't want to see dead to Mewni, to any dimension that isn't this one, homeworld won't be able to follow you."
The message cut off, leaving the group in horrified silence. No one had any response to the situation at hand.
"So…the party at the bounce lounge is canceled?" Everyone except Pony.
"Absolutely." Steven clenched his fist. "Because we … need to prepare some sort of defense against a warship." He would fight for his sister's second home…for his second home…for all of his family.