Summary:
In a very bad way
Star stayed inside of the gem as they traveled, no window to actually see the universe around them. Despite the absolute horror of the situation, there was only one thing on Star's mind. "How long is this gonna take?" She asked. "Because we didn't bring any cards and I doubt you have anything to entertain us."
"Oh no, the prisoners are bored. How will I ever fix such a travesty?" Aquamarine snorted with an eye roll.
"You do realize if we're bored we're just going to spend the entire trip complaining to you, right?" Steven asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I know, but the thought of the Diamonds getting their hands on you makes it totally worth it." The bratty bitch kept mocking them. "If you think shattering is bad, just wait until you experience six thousand years of grief and rage unloading into your mind all at once, and that's only the beginning for you, traitorous Rose Quartz." She turned towards Star. "I hope you're not too attracted to your limbs, or eyes, or any other body parts for that matter."
"No, because then I won't have to see your ugly face." She smirked.
"Ooh, you got jokes now. It's so hilarious that you can manage to muster any bravado when your demise will come in..roughly two hours or so."
"Wait, this thing is getting there in two hours?" Steven said with surprise. "It took the Ruby ship a whole week."
"Do I look like a Ruby to you?" Aquamarine looked insulted. "I'm the best of the best, so it's only fitting that I'm provided with the best." The blue one got a distant dreamy eyed look on her face. "I wonder what my reward will be for bringing in the elusive Rose Quartz AND a Mewman? Another Pearl for recreation? A small colony all to myself? Ooh, I can hardly wait!"
"Congratulations." Star muttered. "You've upgraded yourself to the most annoying villain. Take pride, that was a list Ludo was at the top of for a long time."
"Wait, didn't Ludo reform?" Steven asked. "Also, I'm pretty sure we had more annoying villains."
"No, we had more dangerous villains. Peridot was the second most annoying." Star clarified. "Third would be the Mewman public as a whole, because I can't even deal with them anymore."
"Can we count civilians as villains?"
"It's a debatable subject." She would definitely count Tad among them.
"I should have invested in earplugs." Aquamarine muttered, before they heard a clang. "Then again … it does help to hear someone crawling about." She shot her knock off wand at some metal, revealing …
"LARS!?" The two of them shouted in shock and confusion.
"Oh look, one of the Beach workers got left behind, bonus!" Aquamarine laughed as she caught Lars in her beam. "This day just gets better and better."
"Everyone else jumped off the ship! What the hell are you doing here!?" Steven shouted, frustrated beyond belief.
"Trying to hide from the space aliens like any normal person would, duh!" Lars defended himself. "How else would I have gotten off…the spaceship….they were trying to trap us..on.." Lars slowly realized the flaw in his logic and slapped himself in the head.
"This is why organics are so pathetic." Aquamarine smirked, trapping Lars with the wand. "I guess that's one more for us, since he was the one that stayed."
"Of course, because corn forbid our sacrifice actually saved everyone." Star grumbled.
"Oh shut it, I wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you weirdos in the first place!"
"At least everyone else was smart enough to not stay behind!" Steven yelled back.
"So you two must be pretty stupid if you're still here!" Lars countered.
"Oh you ungrateful dough headed jerk!" Star joined in on the shouted
"Hey now, let's be realistic." Aquamarine smiled. "You're all morons in the long run."
"Great, as if we needed to be reminded you exist." Her brother sighed as Lars was tossed into Topaz's arms. "Is there any way we can speed up our impending doom?"
"Well it would've taken one hour instead of two, but SOMEONE was banging on my ship violently, so we all got to suffer for it!" Aquamarine said, finally looking as annoyed as the rest of them.
"Oh, it's making you suffer? Then by all means, let's make it ten." She was proud of the sass her brother developed.
"Ugh, this conversation is so beneath me." The blue gem groaned once again before flying into that little chair of hers. "Topaz, secure the human and check on the engine's operating system. I shall be making my report to the Diamonds.."
The giant gem they were stuck inside nodded, doing their weird fusion trap as the three of them were taken downstairs
"Star…this is officially my worst experience with fusion." Steven groaned.
Star couldn't help but agree. "Same here bro..same here." Great, this was her last moments in life… the others better be having a better time.
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Kelly smiled as she walked through the portal. After spending so much time in the land of ooo, she had finally found herself. Romance wasn't for everyone, and that was fine. It wasn't what made you happy, only you could make you happy. Thus, she was ready to return with Steven as just friends.
No Tad, no nothing. Look out Mewni and Earth, single Kelly is rocking the land! She opened the door … to utter chaos, massive panicking.
"Damn it, damn it damnit!" Amethyst shouted as she was kicking a bunch of papers on the ground. "Why did he have to be such a sacrificial idiot!
"I should have seen it, I just didn't expect him to surrender! They never surrender!" Garnet roared, holding her head as she rested against a wall.
"It's alright, it'll be alright, right?" A triangle headed kid said frantically as he went over blueprints with a green headed one. "We've built plenty of ships and teleporters before, we can.."
"Teleportation won't work around the gem Homeworld. There's a certain energy frequency around the planet that prevents the bending of space on it." A man in a Hawaiian shirt responded. "That also applies to any magical means as well."
"Dang it, these Glyphs are useless!!" A latino girl shouted, tossing a bunch of papers about.
Seeing them all run about, she decided to just introduce herself. "Guess who's back?" Kelly said with a grin.
"Not now Kelly, Steven and Star are …" Marco paused, turning to her with wide eyes. "KELLY!?"
"Yeah, I'm back, sorry for the.." The boy didn't give her a chance to finish as he wrapped her in a big hug. "…Not that I'm not flattered, but I'd rather stay single for a while if I can help it."
"What, no, that's not what I was … sorry, I'm just really happy to see A familiar face come back." Marco patted her back and pulled away. "Where have you been this whole time?"
"The land of crazy things where candy is a kingdom, space is hilariously ironic, and the gods are nightmarish abominations that make you realize how futile life is." She smiled. "All in all, a pretty stress-relieving vacation."
"We had one too … then Star went crazy … then the gods got crazier … now Steven and Star got taken by Homeworld."
"Taken by what now!?" This wasn't exactly how she immangined her 'grand' return to be.
"They were just taken, and we couldn't do anything!" Pearl shouted. "We were completely outmatched!! They gave themselves up to spare everyone else!" Tears ran down her face.
"I've done the 'sacrifice' yourself for everyone else thing before, and man, it sucks hard when you're the outsider!" The Latino girl crumbled a few pages on the floor.
"Can't we just use the Ruby ship?" Kelly asked.
"It got stolen by a Ruby that tricked me." Jana explained.
"Why would it need to trick you?"
"Because I felt left out on the 'gem redemption' train and wanted to try it out for myself."
"Can't we just use a plumber ship and fly off?" … She had no clue why the boy with a weird watch thought plumbers had ships.
"Those guys can go toe to toe with the Highbreeds, the aliens stronger than Tetramands and smarter than Galvans." The man with a Hawaiian shirt explained. "We had to do our best to just keep them at bay and separate them from the universe, and it's still a losing battle in the long run. The moment we enter that space we'll be annihilated."
"So that's it? We just…let them get taken away and that's the end of it?" A tall girl with dark skin said with a skeptical tone.
An orange haired girl looked panicky. "Can't we ask Asmuth for help, or anything?"
"He's already working on stopping a recent enemy we got information on. An apparent 'Galactic Kids Next Door' or something."
"Dang it!" The triangle kid kicked a can.
"What about those miraculous thingies that you guys have?" The braces-wearing girl pointed to the costumed figures in the room.
"Well …" A red spandex lady looked skeptical. "We can use the Horse Miraculous … but we'd need exact coordinates, otherwise we'll just open up a portal in space, or inside of a rock."
"There is a..special power ours hold…but it could cost someone innocent their own lives." The guy in black leather said dejectedly.
Lapis grabbed the man with a desperate look in her eyes. "Who cares about some random innocent! Steven and Star are out there suffering and we can't do a damn thing about it!"
"You know Star and especially Steven would never want to trade their lives if it cost anyone else their own!" Marco shouted at the water gem.
Lapis just let out tears, falling to the ground. "I know but … I don't want to lose him …"
"I can get you those exact coordinates, but it may take a few days." The man in the shirt said, walking away. "We just have to hope they'll hold out till then."
"That..that I have plenty of." Kelly said with a light smile, getting everyone's attention. "I may not know all of you, but I do know Star and Steven. And anyone that truly knows them that they get into impossible situations all the time. They redeem enemies, fight mountains, and turn the space time continuum into Swiss cheese during lunch on accident! A trip to an alien homeworld is something I know they can handle."
"So that's why Bunnyx looks like she's close to losing it." The guy in black spandex muttered.
"Yeah … yeah." Marco nodded. "They'll get out of prison and go on the run, just like we always do!"
"Yeah! We've all been in one breakout situation before at least once in our lives, am I right!?" The Latino girl cheered into the air. "Sure we get locked up for a while, but then we burst out in an epic montage and kick evil butt!"
"Yeah!" The bushy girl shouted. "They're probably thinking of a way out as we speak!"
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"Are you done?" The most annoying kid in Lar's life asked. "Are you finally done ranting about how I'm somehow the bane of your life's problems?"
"No, I'll be done the moment that my throat is cut off by these probing aliens!"
"Oh relax your giant donut shaped ears. They're not going to cut you open." The most annoying girl in Lar's life rolled her eyes. "They're just going to throw you in a zoo with a bunch of humans that spent their entire life in captivity. At least you'll have three meals a day and get to sleep."
"Great, I feel so much better, I get the exact same treatment as an animal." He grumbled. "So what was your big breakout plan anyway?"
"My what?" Steven asked.
"Your plan to get out of this mess?" Lars clarified.
"I didn't need one." The boy explained. "I just wanted the Diamonds to stop sending gems to earth, so I sacrificed myself in hopes that it would do something."
"That's the most idiotic plan I've ever heard."
"Oh okay, so when a race of aliens that have a six thousand year old grudge against your mom suddenly try to kill you practically every other month, I'll sit back and watch whatever Amazing plan you're sure to come up with!" Steven shouted right back.
"Just … leave earth or whatever then." Lars said. "Who would sacrifice themselves for someone else?"
"Me, because I don't like seeing people dead!" The boy continued to yell at him. "Because no matter where I go in this DAMN universe, someone's always going to be in trouble, and somehow it's all going to tie back to how AWFUL a person my mom was! I have to live EVERY SINGLE DAMN day with that because I was born, someone, somewhere out there suffers because I exist!"
"It's not your problem!" Lars yelled back. It may have been the final moments of freedom he had left, but he felt invested in this. "You're just taking on other people's problems and shoving them on yourself! When was the last time you were legitimately happy without running yourself into the ground!?"
"When I got to spend time with all my friends and my girlfriend!" Steven cried out. "But I can't even enjoy that, because they get hurt! Everyone I love and care about gets hurt! Just look right now!" He gestured to the two of them. "I failed to save my sister, and I failed to save you!" The boy began crying. "I hate being useless, I hate being needed, and I hate that I have to die for all of this madness to end!"
"Just leave!" Lars shouted. "Next time you're in a situation like that, take everyone you care about and go, because even WITH or WITHOUT super powers and problems running your life, there are some things you can't fight. Some things you can't do. Some things you'll never live up to."
"Oh like you have any say in this matter, you coward!" Star shouted. "Is that how you live your life, caring about nothing and no one but yourself?! Such a great lifestyle!"
"I care about other people!" He shouted.
"What about Sadie, she does so much, I bet you don't even return the favor ever!"
"I love Sadie!" … There was an awkward silence, as he took a sigh. "I heard she had a crush on Marco, so I never made a move. I just kinda kept working late at night when she looked down, as a friend would." Lars felt his eyes water. "She … she looked so scared when this yellow lug head was trying to catch us again… and I ran like an idiot and hid instead of helping her! She's the one that pushed me into getting that bakery job… and I never even thanked her!"
"Lars.."
"I'm not cool like Marco, I'm not selfless like Steven, I'm not even weird in my own good way like you! I'm just a nobody!" He faced the ground, finally realizing for the first time how truly pathetic he really was.
"Better a nobody than a Butterfly." Star now had her own tears in her eyes. "My family is full of the biggest fuck-ups in the universe, and here I go, continuing the tradition of every decision I make biting me in the ass."
"Star, we both know this was my decision … one you just happened to piggyback off of." Steven chuckled.
"Like I would let you go to space by yourself. We both know space is the worst place ever." The girl laughed brokeningly. "I'm not the leader mom wanted me to be, I'm not the peacekeeper you want me to be, and I now I can't even be the girlfriend Marco wants me to be."
"You're my sister. That's all I want you to be." Steven smiled. "It's always alright as long as you're here."
"You guys..you really care about each other, don't you?" Lars observed, a sad wave of nostalgia hitting him.. "I only had friends like that once, and I threw it away because I couldn't get over myself."
"If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure Marco feels guilty too." Steven did his best to shrug from within the freaky giant's body. "It's fine to be flawed. If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hotdogs."
"That somehow both does and doesn't make any sense." Lars weakly laughed. "Thanks..for trying to save me and all..sorry that I screwed up the noble sacrifice thing."
"Wouldn't be the first time it happened before." Star chuckled with watery eyes. "I'm just glad we have each other for now."
"Yeah..me too."
There was a sniffling noise, a liquid dropping on Steven's face. They all looked up to see the yellow giant … crying. "You guys are so moving."
"Oh right, we have an audience." Star muttered. "Wait … you can talk?"
"Yeah … it's just … Everyone just expects me to be the muscle and nothing else! You guys are so open and honest with each other, even when you're all about to die!"
"Yeah, at this point it's really becoming numb." Steven muttered. "The about to die part, not the opening up. That always helps, unless it's therapy." … Lars has so many questions he doesn't want the answer to.
"Topaz is always trying to help Topaz, but she can't get a word in because we're always sent on these awful missions, and there's always someone else getting in between us!"
"Are you referring to yourself in the third person or am I missing something here?" Lars asked.
"It's a gem thing, better explained when death isn't upon us." Star waved off.
"I want to help you guys. I'll get you three out of here." Seriously!?
"Did you hear that guys, we get a 'get out of jail free card'! We've gotta use it." He told them.
"No, you use it, I'm staying." …He always knew bleeding hearts would lead themself to death…he just never knew how serious it truly was.
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Finally, an actual break! Steven couldn't have been happier for Lars right now as Topaz prepared the escape pod.
"This thing is set to autopilot, you won't have to worry about travel." She spoke. "But we need it to be believable, so you should … probably poof me."
"Aw, but you're too nice to poof." Star patted the gem on the head. "Oh, how about you unfuse, I'll blast the walls a little, and you can say I had a magic spell that split you apart."
"Right, I forgot Mewmans had that crazy advanced tech stuff." The gem nodded. "Alright, it's all set up, now we just need to-"
"Topaz …" A familiar voice spoke up. "What do you think you're doing?" Great, the blue brat was back.
"Just … checking on the condition of the pods mam!" The giant gem saluted.
"With the prisoners out of your body?" They raised an eye.
"...Their limbs kept getting in my way."
"Is that really the best excuse you can really come up with?" Aquamarine didn't buy it for a second. "Ugggh, this is why everyone hates working with fusions. They get too sappy too quickly and mess up everything."
"Or maybe you're messed up in the head!" Star began glowing, shooting a beam that was quickly blocked with the wand, all of them frozen.
"Regale me with why you thought fighting me with fewer numbers was a better idea?" The gem asked. "Or should I just assume it's your organic idiocy showing up?"
"Look, Aquamarine, you weren't there, but they had this whole emotional breakdown about being together in the face of certain doom and it was super sweet and…"
"We are literally minutes away from homeworld and you chose now of all times to become a turncoat! This is perhaps THE biggest victory for us yet and you're about to throw it all away!"
"Just listen to-"
"To what?" They laughed. "To their idotic ramblings about 'freedom' and 'friendship'. They're filthy creatures with absolutely no skill that couldn't compare to Homeworld at all. Rose literally turned herself in just to save a few worthless organics because she knew fighting us was pointless."
"She did that because she cared for them…" Topaz muttered under her breath as she grabbed a hold of a nearby gem destabilizer. "Something I know for a fact I don't have with you!" Topaz actually managed to catch the blue brat off guard and pin her against the engine.
"Heck yeah, take her out!" Star shouted with a sparkle, falling to the ground.
"Oh sure, turn traitor now, poof my gem, then what? Where are you going to go?" Aquamarine still managed to talk even under all that pressure.
"Hey, don't you think you've said enough already?" Steven had to ask.
"No, because unlike you or anyone else on this bloody ship, I'm capable of seeing the entire picture." Aquamarine snapped back. "Even if you turn this ship around, I've already alerted the Diamond's of our capture. They'll know something went wrong, you'll be branded a traitor on par with Rose Quartz, and you know THEY WILL hunt you down eventually, where you will be forced apart and shattered…separately and all alone."
"A … alone?" Topaz asked with worry, a genuine fear in their eye as the destabilizer shook in their hand.
"Topaz, I am going to be blunt with you." Aquamarine spoke coldly. "I don't care that you 'like' being fused, and I don't report your sentimentality, because you're good at being strong. But do you know what happens if me, an Aquamarine, doesn't come back from her mission?" She asked, staring into her eyes. "Being shattered? … That's the least of your worries if they realize Rose Quartz and a Mewman got free." The blue gem smirked at the worried expression. "So just trap them again, and I promise to overlook this display of … retaliation."
"No, don't we can..!" Steven tried to argue back, but it was too late. Topaz had relented from pressing against Aquamarine, who covered him and everyone else in that blue light once more.
"You're just as dangerous as the rumors said you were, Rose Quartz. All you need to do is use your mouth and everything goes wrong." She smiled. "I would seal it up but … we're here." They were too late. There was no getting Lars out of here. "Carry the three of them to their cells, I'll tell the Diamonds of our arrival."
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Topaz walked forward, grabbing the human with a heavy heart. "Topaz, please!" Rose pleaded. "You don't have to do what she says, you have more options than you think!" She gave a glance to Topaz, knowing that wasn't true. You couldn't escape from the Diamonds forever, and this way they could stay together, even if it was temporary.
"Come on Topaz, we had a good thing going for us back there! Sharing feelings, getting everything out in the open, it felt good for you, didn't it!?" The Mewman begged, and she was right, but there was a job that needed to be done. Even if she hated it with every fiber of her being, Topaz knew she had fill that function or be discarded, and she knew Topaz felt the same.
Topaz and Topaz made it to the end of the hall, walking to their … separate stations. "Where are you taking me?" The human asked. "Guys, where is she taking me!?" She could feel her heart break, and knew Topaz was feeling the same thing, without any way to comfort her.
"Lars, it's going to be fine! You're going to be fine!" Rose cried out to her companion as the doors shut on them. How wonderful it must've been to live in such denial. Where you could hope in something so wonderful no matter how impossible it may have been. If Topaz and her were made six thousand years ago, maybe she would have experienced that freedom the Crystal Gems had. Even if it damned them all, wouldn't it have been bad to have a short but happy life?
Topaz pressed their hand to a cell lock, watching the door open and tossing them in. "... I was reported to send you to separate cells … I'll be punished after." She told the two.
"Topaz…" The Mewman cried tears, before wrapping their arms around her. "Thank you." It wasn't the embrace of Topaz…but it felt close enough.