Summary: Some small stuff before everything goes nuts.
"So Ronaldo was right about the hollow earth theory after all." Jana said as she listened to the explanation of Steven's recent project. "And inside they put a frankenstein bomb?" Most badass way to die, ever.
"Yep, Marco managed to talk Peridot down with his evil therapy talk, and now we're working with her to blast the cluster before it has the chance to form." Steven explained as the sounds of clanking and explosions could be heard from the barn.
"Definitely going to be my most badass moment yet." Star smirked, wielding her wand up and down. "Just need to figure out how to best destroy it. It's gonna be a lot bigger than my normal spells."
"Ah Star...don't you remember the call that mom gave you this morning?" Steven asked his sister with a concerned look. "About the inspector that would judge whether or not you stay on earth?"
She laughed. "Relax, I've got this. Just need to show them the good old Narwhal blast and they'll give me a pass for sure."
"Did you clean your room!?" Marco shouted, grabbing a pile of bolts.
"..." The girl stared at him, before running off into the distance.
"Your sister's a riot Steven." Jana laughed. "So where's the evil little megalomaniac?"
"Put me down, unhand me you permafused abomination of nature!" A shrieking voice echoed as Garnet carried what looked like an angry leprechaun in her arms.
"You'll stay here until you stop bothering me." The fusion spoke, latching the mini greenie onto a fence before walking away.
Marco sighed, walking over with the box. "What did you do this time?"
"I did as you said. Be honest and upfront about what makes me uncomfortable and unsafe." The apparent Peridot said. "Her being fused all the time makes my skin crawl."
"Please don't tell me I was this bad before Quana." Steven asked the two humans in the area.
"You didn't hate the concept, you were just kinda apprehensive about it." Marco shrugged. "What's the big deal?"
"How would you like it if a walking war machine was armed all the time walking around!?" The gem waved her arms around.
"Right..I forgot fusion is a type of strength booster on homeworld." Steven face palmed. "Well, on earth, people…fuse for different reasons. Sometimes when we get stressed and feel overwhelmed, I fuse with Kelly to help ease the pressure we feel."
"Example right there, a strength boost of emotional levels." Peridot pointed to him as if to prove a point.
"Then anytime we just want to relax and have fun, we form Quana and let our imaginations run wild with playtime." Jana smirked.
"That sounds absolutely horrifying and I have no idea why." Peridot scooted away from the girl. Jana can now successfully say she scared a Homeworld gem with words alone … awesome.
"As for Garnet…they really care for each other." Marco explained. "As in really, REALLY care for each other."
"... So they fuse out of a desire for protection?" Peridot asked with a raised eye.
"No, I..I'm going to need an extreme example of this." Marco pulled out his phone. "I excluded showing this to Steven and Star because of how sappy it is, but this might be the only way you'll see what I mean."
"Hah." Peridot looked at what Marco showed her. "I doubt this 'camp pining hearts' can show me anything of value." Oh, that was gonna be fun to watch crash and burn. Maybe she should pick up a wrench and stick around for it.
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Lion watched 'Steven Jr' roll around on the ground. Yet another companion the boy picked up, and one so incapable of looking after itself. It was headache inducing, especially with the flaming one on hunt again. Lion gazed at the new scent, a cloud floating into the room before turning into a fellow beast of some sort, looking around and writing in a book. "Unkempt room, horrible architecture …" They stared into each other's eyes. "... Wild beasts."
"Mew." Steven jr. responded back lightly as she snuggled into Lion's thick mane.
"I would join you, but I have a job to keep." The flying feline creature responded as it kept writing down. "Hm, a rug with a suspicious set of legs under it, possible attempted homicide.."
"Don't be too late, don't be too…" The kin to the boy came through a portal, looked frantic and smelled super stressed. She should find a box to sleep in. "Late….hey…I totally don't keep my room like this all the time…just been super busy fighting aliens trying to blow up the earth."
They began writing inside of their book again. "Dangerous and unstable environment … hostile creatures of dimension …"
"I mean, it's totally nothing I can't handle, my magic still works when I need it to.." The girl fired off one of those super hard sweets. "..and I can even use my brother's powers somewhat frequently.." The girl showed off her opened palms, where a bubble struggled to flicker into existence.
"…overactive imagination…uncanny development of magic…broken wand...suspicious looking closet…" Lion turned to a door, where it looked like something was trying to pound its way out. "…imprisonment of dangerous creatures.."
"I should just stop talking, shouldn't I?"
"I'm here to evaluate everything I see and hear, so you actually make my job easier by blabbing everything out loud." The flying cat did sound like she needed a break.
"So would it be a good thing to tell you I'm making my own spellbook?"
"It certainly tells me that you've basically lost all faith in recovering the original." The cat groaned, before poofing an apple to a nearby table. "Use your magic to give me that apple."
"Not a problem, baby! Narwhal blast!" The blonde one fired off those tasty looking fish, which pinned the apple to the wall.
"I want the apple whole…not an apple with a hole." The cat sent a dark cloud towards the fruit, and zapped it back to the table completely intact.
"Okay them, magical table legs!" The table grew legs, doing a jig as it spun around and did a jump, before landing with a bruised apple. Steven jr. took it as a sign for a free meal and began gnawing on it.
"So do you want me to give you the final verdict now or.." The flying cat began to ask.
"Don't worry! That was just a warmup! Centaur Seevent carrier!" A cow like creature standing on its hind legs carefully picked it up with its hooves, making it slip and turn to mush when it accidentally stepped on it. "I can get this, don't worry, no matter how many tries it takes!"
"Desperate …" Lion went to sleep as Steven Jr climbed on top of his mane, this didn't seem like a big deal.
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Peridot walked through the Kindergarten with haste. "Come on now, we need to hurry back and finish Camp Pining Hearts!" She shouted to the clods. "I need to know if the paint war will finally drive Percy and Poulette away from each other! Their opposing factions should make it a no-brainer, but I want to see them not alone for some reason!"
"Congratulations, Marco, you introduced the concept of shipping to an alien." The one known as 'the Jana' spoke with a somewhat insincere voice as the Steven and Amethyst walked beside them.
"It was either that or constantly have her insult people without knowing about it. This is the lesser of two evils…even if it isn't by much." Marco explained his logic.
"Why did you even bring the organics?" Peridot asked Amethyst. "They need breath cleansers just to survive this environment." She gestured to the things on their faces.
"Garnet still doesn't trust you to be off on your own, and Pearl doesn't trust me to watch over you alone." The purple Quartz gem rolled her eyes. "Figured they might make things a little more fun while we break apart those injector doohickies."
"A Pearl ordering an Amethyst, isn't that something." Peridot snorted. "I'm more surprised the Steven isn't the one giving orders, they're the ones with the Rose Quartz gem, right?" She asked the group. "Aren't you the one that started this whole rebellious faction of renegades?"
"I'm actually Rose's son." He explained, causing Peridot to stop.
"… Her what?" She asked with a raised vision scope.
"A biological offspring." The Marco clarified.
"I'm a half gem, she gave me hers." He pulled up his shirt, revealing a pink gem within the naval region.
"How does-that doesn't-you are either a scientific impossibility or an abomination far stranger and grotesque than the cluster." This planet really was insanity inducing.
"Believe me when I say that's not even the strangest thing about me." The Steven gave a light laugh. "Technically I'm also Mewman due to some magic thing I have with Star. I try no to think about it too much though."
"So 'magic' lets you alter organic atoms." Truly fascinating technology to observe. Peridot looked around, finding an injector. "Perfect, this will be the drill we use to reach the cluster."
"Alright." Amethyst grinned. "Stand back everyone, let me show you how it's done!" The quartz effortlessly wrapped her whip around one of the injectors hanging from the rocky wall exterior, and pulled it down with one or two nudges.
"A bit messy, but nonetheless effective." Peridot approved of the sight. "You know, with 'the steven' being the hybrid enigma that somehow can exist without imploding on itself, it really should be you incharge."
"Haha, and they say nerds can't be funny." The Jana felt that amusement was the best way to respond to the simple fact of life.
"I'm serious." Peridot insisted. "The Pearl is a, well Pearl. The Garnet is a war machine, and the rest are all organic." Peridot chuckled. "If you weren't overcooked you'd be the most perfect one out of any of us."
"Ah..ha….what do you mean 'overcook'?" Amethyst slowed down her laughter and looked at her with mild curiosity.
"You know, incubated too long." She clarified. "It messed with your process and caused your form to be flawed, even if you still have the same compacted power."
"So..you're saying that the way that I am…is wrong?" The quartz asked again in a much more serious tone.
"Exactly." She nodded with a smile, happy to teach. "Amethysts are quartz soldiers, meaning they're supposed to be as tall as The Jasper I came with." For some reason, the Amethyst began turning away with a downward look on her face while the organics were sending Peridot looks of…anger.
"Hey, that doesn't mean anything in the long run, Amethyst, so what if you're not tall.." The Marco patted the purple one on the back, before sending a glare of disappointment.
"What?" Peridot asked. "I was just stating the truth."
"You don't just say…ugh…" Marco groaned, pressing his face against his hands. "Saying that to Amethyst is basically all of us laughing at you for being short. To us, you could be the flawed one here."
"Oh, I am flawed." Peridot shrugged.
The organics looked at her. "What?" The Steven asked.
"Yeah, Era Two had a different structure due to lack of resources, so I was born with less material. I need limb enhancers because other than my vast intellect, I have no ability whatsoever for anything."
"So you…don't have gem powers like the Crystal Gems?" The Jana asked. "No weapon out of your gemstone, no shapeshifting…?"
"Nothing." Peridot answered. "Speaking of, someone's going to have to carry the drill bit, I don't have any strength either."
"Sure thing, Peri-dope." The Amethyst snickered, wrapping her whip around drill bit and bagan dragging it. "Someone's got to pick up the slack for your noodle nerd arms, might as well be me."
"PeriDOT." Everyone just laughed, the previous negative expression on their faces having faded like nothing had happened. "What just occurred?"
"You made fun of Amethyst, but made up for it by talking about yourself…inadvertently on both accounts, but you still made up for it." Marco answered. "That means you're learning."
"Learning what?"
"How to talk to people normally." The Steven responded. "There's a lot of people I know on Mewni that can't even do that." Peridot DID talk to people normally, it's everyone else that was insane about it.
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Baby watched as the latest attempt caused the apple to explode. Baby sighed, writing in her notebook yet another failure. "I can do this, I can-"
"Enough." Baby interrupted. "I have seen enough. You've had multiple chances but all you've done is fail more incompetently each and every time." She was far too hungry to deal with this.
"No, I got this, I just need a little more time-!"
"Time..Time!? Star Butterfly, you've spent several months in this dimension, given all the time in the WORLD to practice your magic at your own pace! That's not an opportunity most princesses get, especially at your age!" Baby shouted, showing off her notebook. "And do you know what I've observed from what you've 'learned' from all those months?"
"Wha…?
"It's that you like to keep secrets and choose to push away problems instead of dealing with them, you revel in being in dangerous situations, and your magic is so unstructured, so undisciplined, that you can't even use it to hand me a simple apple!"
"For your information, I do not keep secrets! I've been honest with you this whole time and have been hounding my family and gems for secrets they don't share with me!" Star butterfly had the audacity to snap back. "And I deal with problems every day and they keep piling up, I just choose to deal with the important ones!"
"But they keep piling up! Right now, you got a dozen or so pounding at the door of your 'secrets closet!'" The screams of terror from said object only emphiszised her point. "Do you even know Levetato would have been perfect for this!? The most BASIC spell in your arsenal!?"
"I..ah…I just have…it's just never…" The girl had no defense for this one. "My magic's so crazy because of this stupid fritz…"
"That's been occuring ever since YOU blew up the wand, your family's most precious heirloom!" She pointed at it. "You are a waste of a legacy that should have never inherited this crown. I will report you as a failure now." Baby was pissed beyond belief today, and hungry as well.
"No! I'm not giving up!" The girl's face was glowing a slight pink hue as her cheek emblems glowed white. The girl dipped down, before focusing her wand at the first, and a swirl of pink and green fired at it…splitting it in half.
"Goodbye, Princess." Unimpressed, she started to make her way out the window…only to be stopped by the sudden appearance of an apple right in front of her. "What the.." She looked behind her…and saw a fully grown, vibrant tree having emerged from the split core of the broken fruit. "It's…perfect." She grabbed the apple, and took a bite out of it. It was the juiciest and most crisp apple she's ever tasted in her life.
"So … I passed?" Star asked tentatively.
Baby had no verbal response, only giving the girl a slight nod, before forming her cloud, and took the quickest route back to Mewni, where Queen Moon was waiting for the results.The Queen in question looked just as tentative as her daughter, visibly sweating at the brow from nervousness.
"What are the results?"
"Her magic has grown to ludicrous levels so rapidly that she's incapable of performing simple magic." Baby replied as she took another bite out of the tasty apple. "She's also tapping what she called her 'brother's power', which takes it to another extreme I didn't know was possible." She wished she had more of these apples to make a whole pie. "Add in reckless and stubborn, and it's almost like I'm looking at Eclipsa all over again."
"Eclipsa …" The queen looked at a portrait of the dark one with a sigh. "It seems the Commission was going to be involved regardless, weren't they?"
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Glossaryck watched as the latest student came back to him. While yes, he did enjoy someone that didn't question his methods and just trained like he said to Moon … maybe this was what they said by 'the grass has more dots on the other side' or something. It was like an obsessed child.
"Come on, come on, let me see what's in this chapter!" Ludo said eagerly like he has every night, constantly asking to review each chapter thoroughly, and tonight was the big one, as he pointed next to the one he's tried to avoid opening again.
"That one is Solaria the Monster Carver, who killed all-"
"Yes, I read that one." Surprising, considering the book detailed how to kill a Kappa like him.
"Then there's Festiva the Fun, who had spells made for merriment." He let off a mini firework.
"Oh, that'll be fu-" He paused, looking at his wand. "What, no, he wouldn't do that." More staring. "He's the best guy I know, he wouldn't hide a chapter from me."
"Well, there is a chapter that is hidden within the book, I just can't say anything about it until someone asks." That was the deal with being neutral after all. "I am advised to not just show you the pages, but I also can't stop you from wanting to read it."
"Hidden within, tell me about it then!" Ludo laughed. "I want to learn everything there is!"
"It's something really advanced, real dark stuff hidden inside it.."
"Did Star read it?" Ludo asked accusedly.
"Oh yes, she did, pretty early in her training in fact, even let her brother use one of the spells inside."
"If they can learn it, so can I!" Ludo shouted. "Now open the chapter!"
"Alright." He flipped the pages to the skull. "Last warning, this chapter is pretty dark, it could mess with your head." And honest warning beforehand.
"I've spent months in the abyss staring into the vast expanding nothing of the universe, this isn't anything worse than I can handle." The kappa scoffed.
"Okay, here we go." He unlocked the pages, and let the little monster man read to his hearts content.
Ludo stared inside of the pages, flipping them a bit. "... Hmm … I was expecting a bit more of an oomf or somethi-" They were cut off by the tidal wave of screams and darkness that enveloped them into a vortex.
Ludo's body floated above Glossaryck, showing off green swirling eyes, and a smirking look that was filled with a confidence that could never be found in an insecure man like Ludo. "Hello, Glosseryck."
"Hello Toffee." Nice to finally have a chat with the mastermind … well nice was the wrong word, more like desperately waiting to talk with a fellow asshole. "You've certainly gone to great lengths to get where you are. Not sure how much of it is planned or coincidence."
"Oh I planned a lot of it, but there was one thing that caught me off guard." They smirked. "I never realized how powerful Quartz truly was until it was from here." The Lizard man hidden within the Kappa laughed. "Rose really did know how to keep a secret, didn't she?"
"It was the one thing we actually got along about." The blue man shrugged. "Well that and all our families are xenophobes. But I guess that's a bit funny to hear considering you're one too."
"Call my actions what you want, I'm only guaranteeing that the monsters win out in the end. " Toffee laughed. "And you can't tell me you wouldn't just love a universe where those accursed Diamonds can't rip apart any world they so please."
"It's funny you think any of us have the power to stop those crazy broads." Glossaryck laughed. "The only woman scary enough to match them was Solaria."
"On that last point, we can agree. Anything else you think doesn't matter, I've already spread the fritz to the Crystal Gems, it's only a matter of time before homeworld begins feeling the effects as well."
"No, I think that's all of it on my end." He shrugged. "Well except that you'll have to share that body."
"It'll last. I just need it until I can get to Star … and it'll all be worth it in the end." They chuckled ominously before Ludo hit the ground, unconscious. Glossaryck really needs some more pudding.