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minijenn · 5 years

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Universe Falls Chapter 68

Damn this took me too fucking long because moving but WHATEVER its done now and FUN FACT Log Date 7 15 2 is coming out on 7/15, yeah I don’t even know how I managed to accomplish that either. Enjoy!

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/185533681379/universe-falls-chapter-67

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Chapter 68: Log Date 7 15 2

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“Log date 7 15 2… I can’t believe I just did that!” Peridot’s calm report instantly turn to hysterics as she gripped her tablet tightly, her recording app taking in her every word all the while. Everyone had only just arrived back at the barn, still somewhat shaken by what they had just learned during the green Gem’s surprising conversation with her Diamond. But no one was more shaken than Peridot herself as she expressed her shock over her own open rebellion against her now former matriarch in the only way she knew how. “I disobeyed my orders and went against Yellow Diamond’s wishes! I’m a traitorous clod! I never want to think about what I’ve done again!”

Despite this proclamation, Peridot frantically tapped away at the tablet until it began playing back her most recent recording on a constant loop. “I’m a traitorous clod! I’m a traitorous clod!”

Oddly enough, this elicited a rather unhinged chuckle from the green Gem, one that only grew louder and more excited as she recalled exactly what she had done. “A-and I called Yellow Diamond a clod right to her face!” No more than a single beat later, Peridot collapsed to her knees, letting out a devastated whimper as she shook her head remorsefully. “I called Yellow Diamond a clod… right to her face…”

Though the green Gem had hardly paid them any mind, Steven and Mabel had been standing on the sidelines, watching Peridot’s entire breakdown as it unfolded before them. As frantic as the green Gem currently was, neither of them really knew much they could say or do to try and calm her down. Then again, that same sort of frenzy seemed to hover over everyone else’s heads at the moment like a shroud as well. Ford and the Gems were all congregated right outside the barn, discussing in hushed, fearful whispers the frightening fact they now faced: that Bill and Yellow Diamond really did have some sort of sinister alliance. An alliance that, by all accounts, none of them knew anything of other than the fact that it did indeed exist, though for what purpose, they were all still completely in the dark about. Certainly, it was a gravely worrying thought, one that they’d all likely have to confront sooner or later. But for now, while everyone else fretted over the future, Steven and Mabel opted to fret over the present—or more specifically, over Peridot—instead.

“Uh, Peridot?” Steven finally spoke up as the green Gem continued hunching over her tablet. “Are you gonna be ok?”

“…No!” Peridot quipped, looking back at the pair with a blatantly deranged smile.

“Aw, don’t worry, Peri,” Mabel soothed, pulling the blubbering green Gem into a tight embrace. “Everything’s gonna work out, you’ll see! Especially since you’re part of the best squad ever now!”

“The Despicable Traitors Against Their Homeworld Squad?” Peridot asked, her lip quivering all the while.

“No, silly!” Mabel chuckled before quickly recanting. “Well, actually, you’re not totally wrong. But anyway, you’re part of the Crystal Gems plus Pines Squad! Name’s still pending, but either way, your family now! Isn’t that exciting?”

“More like terrifying!” the green Gem countered, lightly shoving Mabel away. “You don’t understand! I’m protecting a planet I was once trying to destroy! I used to follow every order, every rule. Now, I’m a traitor. A rebel! A Crystal Gem!”

“…Yeah, that’s kinda what I just said…” Mabel noted as she exchanged a glance with Steven.

“Yeesh, and I thought we were all freaking out,” Dipper cut in as he stepped into the barn from outside. For the most part, he had largely just been listening in on the anxious discussion ongoing outside, though even despite his own immense concern over the matter, he had still decided to spare a moment to check in on the others amidst it. “I can’t say I know a ton about existential crises, but it sure does look like you’re having one, Peridot.”

“Hey! I am not having a so-called ‘existential crisis’!” Peridot huffed, offended. “I’m merely questioning my suddenly changed overall purpose in the grand scheme of reality!” At this, the green Gem set her recording app to repeat itself again, creating a chorus of ‘clod!” that showed real signs of stopping as Peridot paraded it around manically.

“Uh… well, at least your tablet seems to be helping,” Steven noted.

“No, its not! It’s a chronicle of my descent into madness!” Peridot snapped, tossing the tablet away from her. Fortunately, instead of hitting the ground, Garnet happened to catch it as she stepped into the barn right on time.

“You dropped this,” the Gem leader said, offering the device back to its owner.

“G-get it away from me!” Peridot quickly deflected, cowering behind Garnet. “Give it to them!” she pointed to the trio of kids. “Return madness to its source!”

“Uh, technically Pacifica was the one who gave you that tablet, not us,” Dipper pointed out, crossing his arms.

“It doesn’t matter!” the green Gem argued. “I don’t want anything more to do with it!”

“Are you sure, Peridot?” Steven asked as Garnet handed the tablet off to him. “I mean, you really, really like this thing.”

“Whatever! It’s yours now!” the green Gem refuted wildly. “Yours, not mine, not mine! Yours! Yours!”

“Oof, Peri, you really gotta take a chill pill,” Mabel mused, hands on her hips. “You know what always calms me down when I’m feeling stressed? Knitting!” She smiled brightly as she held up her rather complicated sewing kit, complete with countless balls of yarn and a vast collection of knitting needles.

“Good idea, Mabel, but I think I might just have a better one,” Garnet said as she gently hoisted the green Gem into the air to halt her frenzy. “Let’s calm down.”

“O-Okay…” Peridot finally stilled as she let the Gem leader carry her out of the barn for a moment of peace. “So am I gonna have to wear a star? Where am I gonna put the star?!”

“Well, there’s the newest Crystal Gem for you,” Dipper said with a bit of a sardonic smirk. “Hopefully Garnet will actually be able to get her to mellow out, I don’t know how much more ‘Peri-Panicking’ I can take.”

“Eh, I’m sure she’ll be fine eventually,” Steven mused, glancing outside, where Peridot sat alongside Garnet in some sort of unknown conversation. “Weird… they seem to be getting along well. I wonder when that happened…”

“Why don’t we find out?” Mabel grinned down at the tablet in Steven’s hands. “Peri’s been using that app she downloaded to record all of her log thingies. Its like a diary we can listen to!”

“Uh, you know reading—or I guess in this case, listening to other people’s diaries isn’t exactly… a good thing to do, right, Mabel?” Dipper asked knowingly.

“Yeah, we probably shouldn’t violate Peridot’s privacy like that…” Steven frowned before sparing another glance back at the tablet. All three of the kids took a brief pause, each of them contemplating the matter silently before the young Gem voiced what they were all thinking. “Then again… she did give this to us, so…”

“So what are we waiting for!?” Mabel cut in with an eager grin. Likewise, Dipper leaned in, admittedly quite curious about these unheard logs himself. “Steven, press that play button!”

The young Gem did exactly that, all three of the kids poising to listen in on the green Gem’s own telling of her time on Earth. A tale that would no doubt reveal just how far she’d come, from Homeworld to here, and everything in between.

The story of how Peridot became a Crystal Gem.

“Log Date 7 11 2.”

“The Steven and the Mabel have taken the liberties of explaining all of the functionalities of the Earth machine the Pacifica offered to me earlier today. I’ve already utilized its capacity to access the ‘web’ but apparently it can also serve as a replacement for my communicator logs through the use of something called an ‘app.”

“Oh, here’s a good one!” Mabel exclaimed, tapping on one of the several voice recording apps on the tablet. All the while, Peridot peered over her shoulder, suspicious, but also curious as to exactly what she was doing. “So we’ll just download this real quick and then you should be all set up.”

“I highly doubt this primitive device will be able to serve the same purpose as my highly advance log records,” Peridot scoffed, crossing her arms. “But I suppose I appreciate the intel you have to offer, the Mabel.”

“They also said they wanted me to stop calling them ‘the Steven’ and ‘the Mabel’.”

“Um, Peridot?” Steven interjected, somewhat bemused. “You don’t have to keep putting a ‘the’ in front of our names like that. I’m just ‘Steven’, and Mabel’s just ‘Mabel, ok?”

“I said I’ll call them whatever I want.”

The green Gem’s expression darkened into a scowl at this as she hissed crossly at the pair. “I’ll call you whatever I want!”

“He told me that was rude.”

“Rude!” Steven countered her outburst with a disapproving wave of his finger.

Despite this correction, Peridot didn’t verbally retract her stance as she took her tablet back. Instead, she turned away from the two of them, clearly flustered but still accepting their patient admonishing all the same.

“I guess I’ll call them… Steven and Mabel.”

“The organic life forms of Earth have fascinating traits despite their poor choice of residence.”

Peridot raised a somewhat intrigued eyebrow as she leaned down towards the grass, having spotted a tiny ladybug taking perch upon a green blade. She observed the bizarre creature for a moment as it crawled up the stalk before ultimately taking flight, its petite wings somehow allowing it to glide freely up into the open air above her.

“I wonder if all of them have flight capabilities…”

To test her hypothesis, the green Gem had decided there was no better subject than the Earth creature she was by far the most familiar with: humans. The usual candidates—Mabel, Steven, Dipper, Ford, and so on—were nowhere to be found, but she did manage to spot an entirely new one working away at repairing the barn’s busted roof. And as soon as she did, Peridot didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to put her theory into practice.

Greg took a brief moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, his hard day’s work on fixing the barn’s roof nearly complete. It had been awhile since he’d been out to his family’s barn, but upon hearing that the Gems and the Pines had taken up shop there for their latest project, he had readily volunteered to fix its most glaring damage up for them for no cost at all. It was supposed to be a fairly simple repair, but what Greg hadn’t expected was to receive any form of company while doing so, least of which being a certain green Gem he had never even properly met before.

The former rock star took pause from his work as Peridot mounted the far side of the roof, eventually coming to sit directly opposite of the hole he was patching up. “Oh, you must be Peridot,” Greg greeted with a small, friendly smile. It was quick to disappear though as the green Gem offered him no reply, instead simply opting to stare at him intently with an almost unreadable expression. Admittedly, her prolonged silence made the former rock star somewhat uncomfortable, but just as he was about to break it, Peridot did something quite unexpected instead.

She shoved him off the roof.

Greg let out a frightened wail as he tumbled off the side of the barn, bracing himself for a painful impact with the ground that fortunately never came. Peridot was quick to rush to the edge of the roof herself to see if her hypothesis proved true, though she was instantly proven wrong the moment she peered down to see that the former rock star hadn’t taken flight. Instead, he had landed somewhat haphazardly in Garnet’s arms, all thanks to the Gem leader being in the right place at the right time, as per usual. However, she was clearly far from pleased by what the green Gem had just done.

“Peridot!” she scolded, glaring up at the roof.

“What do you want?” Peridot asked sourly from her higher perch.

“You can’t just shove someone off a roof!” the Gem leader said, her tone properly harsh.

“Why not?”

“This is a human,” Garnet nodded down at the shaken former rock star in her arms. “He isn’t like us. He’s fragile and soft.”

“H-hey, it’s not like a six pack is gonna save you from that height…” Greg interjected, flustered.

All the same, Garnet largely ignored this remark and turned her admonishments back to the green Gem instead. “You could have seriously hurt him!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?!” Peridot snapped, quite cross with being corrected in such a way.

“Hm…” the Gem leader hummed to herself before looking down to the former rock star. “Greg, you’ll have to excuse Peridot. She’s far from Homeworld and she still has a lot to learn about our planet.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do,” Garnet responded to Peridot’s heated protest evenly.

“Uh… hey, yeah!” Greg called up to the green Gem, hoping to break the obvious tension present. “Don’t worry about it! Wouldn’t be the first time my life was put in mortal danger after all.”

Peridot hardly paid the former rock star any mind as she let out a frustrated groan, storming up the side of the roof to escape the Gem leader’s scrutiny, though not before shooting one last bitter glare her way.

“In conclusion, not all organic beings can fly. Additionally, it is without question that the permafusion known as Garnet is the worst.”

“Today, I have been assigned a ‘chore’—cleaning duty. Like I’m the Pearl! These clumps don’t know how lucky they are to have me…”

It was, at least as far as Peridot assumed, a simple task. Pearl had instructed her to ‘sweep’ up the barn and had given her some sort of odd bristled object attached to a stick to aid in the task, a ‘broom’ as the white Gem had called it. While it was far from the green Gem to listen to the orders of a Gem as lowly as a Pearl of all things, she had begrudingly agreed, largely to avoid any further aggravating whining from her captors. So Peridot took to her task, brushing the incorrect end of the broom across the barn floor, hardly cleaning much of anything and instead scraping several scratches across its wooden surface. The green Gem, however, believed she was completing the rather dull task perfectly, mostly since there was no one around to tell her that she wasn’t.

“Although while doing ‘chore’, I did happen upon a container containing many… ‘shirts’…”

Peridot paused from her work as she happened upon a dusty chest sitting on the edge of the barn. Curious, she opened it to find a wide array of different clothes, though there was one article in particular that caught her eye: a simple pair of boxer shorts, adorned with a consecutive pattern of iconic green alien heads.

“Imagine—appearance modifiers that aren’t melded to your body! How ridiculous! How superfluous! How… fascinating…”

Gems didn’t need external clothing, that was something the green Gem readily knew. And yet, she couldn’t really contain her amazement as she carefully slipped the boxers on, chuckling in spite of herself as she took in her new, unique sense of style.

“Nice shorts.”

Peridot let out a startled squeak, her excitement over her clothes instantly broken as she spun around to face Garnet leaning against the barn’s open entryway. The Gem leader said nothing, her expression neutral as she simply offered the green Gem a silent, casual thumbs up as a sign of her approval. Approval that, as far as Peridot was concerned, she wanted no parts of.

“Ah! H-how did these get here!?” the green Gem panicked, swiftly tearing the shorts clean off her body. Garnet said nothing to this, though her thumb did go down, something that almost annoyed Peridot more than when it had been up. And the worst part was, she hadn’t the faintest idea of why that might be.

“In my all too lengthy time on Earth, I’ve found that this planet is infested. Infested with humans. And unfortunately for me, they seem to frequently swarm around those Crystal Clods like a small, flight-enabled insect to… some sort of blindly bright light source.”

Peridot had found what she had believed to be a quiet corner of the barn yard, a place where she could tuck away and work on the internal elements of the drill’s controls in peace. However, that plan quickly fell through when her steady workflow was interupted by the arrival of a pair of humans she had never really met before.

“Whoa! Check it out, Wendy!” Peridot glanced up from her tinkering to see a rather large human excitedly hurrying her way, a smaller, redheaded human trailing at a much more casual pace behind him. “Its that new Gem I was telling you about. I think her name’s… Peridude or somethin’ like that.”

“Close,” Wendy remarked, crossing her arms with a wry smirk. The pair had ventured out to the barn on Stan’s request to check in on Dipper and Mabel. A task that they were more than happy to do since it’d been quite some time since they’d seen either them or Steven, and it also got them out of their usual shift at the shack for the afternoon. “The kids told us her name’s Peridot, remember?”

“Oh right, right, Peridot,” Soos corrected himself with a nod. “But you gotta admit, Peridude would be a pretty cool name, dude.”

“Um, do I know either of you?” Peridot interjected, sending a glower to both of them.

“Oh, its me, Soos, dude!” Soos offered the green Gem a friendly grin. “We sorta met that one time Mr. Pines used you as the shack’s newest exhibit. Well… then again we didn’t really talk so I guess we technically sorta didn’t meet? Or maybe we did since Mr. Pines had me make t-shirts with your face on it? Or maybe we didn’t since-”

“Ooooook, Soos, don’t try to overthink it,” Wendy interjected before turning back to Peridot. “So, Dipper, Mabel, and Steven told us you’re the new Gem on earth. How are you digging it so far?”

“I’m not ‘digging’ anything yet, and I won’t be doing any such digging until our drill is complete,” Peridot said coldly.

“Uh… that’s not what I-”

“Oh yeah, that’s right! You guys are building that drill thing!” Soos exclaimed, thoroughly fascinated. “Mind showing us a quick peek of it, dude? I bet its totally futuristic and sciencey and rad!”

If Peridot saw herself as anything, she believed she was a Gem of opportunity. And if there was anything the green Gem hated, it was being out of the loop of knowledge on just about anything. Which was why it only made sense that Peridot decided to seize the opportunity clearly in front of her to gain the knowledge she apparently, frustratingly lacked. Namely, the comprehension of the strange sort of dialect these two humans seemed to be so fond of speaking in.

“Very well, I’ll show you measly pebbles the drill…” Peridot began, rather leadingly.

“Wait… ‘pebbles’?” Wendy repeated, confused and slightly offended.

“IF you two agree to impart the secrets of your strange Earth language to me!” the green Gem finished with her usual brand of boldness.

“Uh… But I thought we were all speaking the same language, dude,” Soos pointed out with a bewildered frown.

“N-no!” Peridot hastily countered. “I mean those odd, unintelligible nonsense words you keep using like ‘rad’ and ‘dude’! What do they mean? What kind of strange human code doers it stand for? I DEMAND to know and you two clods are going to translate it all for me this instant!”

Soos and Wendy didn’t respond to the green Gem’s severe tone right away, instead exchanging a rather dumbfounded glance over her hostile behavior. “Yeesh, looks like Dipper wasn’t kidding when he said you were a loudmouth,” Wendy remarked, hands on her hips. “Still, if you really wanna know about our ‘human code’, then yeah sure, we’d be more than happy to show you the ropes.”

“We will?” Soos asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah, man,” Wendy whispered to him aside, just quietly enough so Peridot couldn’t hear her. “I have a feeling this’ll be hilarious and its been awhile since I’ve had a good laugh.”

“Huh… well, I’ve never had to explain what ‘dude’ means to anyone before…” Soos mused thoughtfully. “But I’ve always wanted to give it a try!”

“Ah, yes, the mysterious ‘dude’,” Peridot cut in. “Let’s start with that one! What does it stand for? Is it a formal title used to regard superiors? Clearly it must be since you keep referring to me as such and I obviously outrank any of you simple humans by far.”

“Oh, uh…. Nah, dude’s really not that deep, dude,” Soos shrugged. “I just use it whenever I’m talking to my friends. Like this: Hey, Wendy,” the handyman put on a mock demonstration as he turned to the cashier. “What’s up, dude?”

“Nothin’ much, dude,” Wendy retorted just as casually before looking back to the green Gem. “Think you got the hang of it. Cause if not-”

“N-no!” Peridot cut in, flustered. “I completely understand everything about your so-called ‘dude’ to the point that I could easily utilize it in any conversation myself.”

“Great!” Soos grinned amicably. “Then why don’t you give it a try, dude?”

“Er…. Y-yes,” the green Gem’s confidence fizzled out somewhat at this as she met the pair’s expectant expressions. “This… is an… ideal example of the use of the word ‘dude’… dude.”

“Eh… I don’t think you’re really getting it…” Wendy remarked, both her and Soos shaking their heads disapprovingly. “Its ok, you know, if you can’t handle it. It is a pretty powerful word after all.”

“Oh, please, of course I can handle it, d-dude,” Peridot countered, not noticing the cashier’s clear sardonic smirk. “I will not let a simple human term of endearment become my undoing, dude! In fact, you might as well consider me to be the master of the dudes, DUDE!”

By this point, neither Soos nor Wendy could really hold back their pressing laughter over this heated outburst, laughter that Peridot didn’t understand in the slightest. Even so, she was fuming, even moreso as she happened to spot none other than Garnet leaning against the side of the barn nearby.

“Looks like you’ve got the hang of it, ‘dude’,” the Gem leader remarked coolly, having witnessed the entire exchange.

“Oh would you get out of here!?” Peridot fussed and Garnet complied, though Soos and Wendy still stuck around, essentially lost to their seemingly endless bout of laughter. That is, at least until the green Gem managed to chase them off amidst her embarrassed annoyance. “And the same goes for you two, dudes!”

“Log date 7 12 2. Today makes the 14th earth rotation since my… capture.”

“Happy two-week canniversary!” Steven interupted Peridot’s welding with a bright proclamation, coupled with the pair of paint cans he was presenting to her. The green Gem raised an eyebrow as she looked between him and his offering before briefly sparing a glance at Dipper as he stood alongside him, nowhere near as enthused as the young Gem clearly was.

“Cylinders?” Peridot asked, referring to the small cans in Steven’s arms.

Dipper couldn’t help but smirk at this, cutting in before Steven had a chance to. “Actually, Peridot, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but around here, they’re called pyramids.”

“Ha! Nice try,” the green Gem retorted, hands on her hips. “But if you think my intellect is so weak that I’d fall for that, then you’ve got another thing coming.” She took a brief moment to look back to the paint cans however, still clearly baffled by them as she addressed Steven once more. “But seriously, what are they?”

“They’re stilts,” Steven smiled. “You tie them on your feet and they make you taller. I tried to spruce them up a bit. I dunno what it is about flames, but they just make everything cooler.”

“Why are you giving me these?” Peridot asked, still confused.

“Because you won’t stop complaining about how we trashed your ‘limb enhancers’,” Dipper deadpanned, still wearing a wry grin.

“And because we want you to feel nice!” Steven added much more sincerely. “That’s what gifts are for. You give them to your friends to show them you care. And they go ‘wow, thanks’. Like this.” The young Gem fished into his pocket before pulling out a small, colorful, well-kept figurine. “Here you go, Dipper; one of my favorite G.U.Y.S of all time: Ninja Guy! He’s a gift, just for you!”

Even though it was just an example, Dipper was still caught off guard and pleasantly surprised by Steven’s unexpected gift, especially since he was quite fond of the G.U.Y.S figurines himself. “Wow… Thanks, Steven!” he accepted the present warmly, Steven returning his excited smile.

“You’re welcome!” the young Gem chimed before glancing back at Peridot. “See what we mean?”

“Hmph!” the green Gem huffed, far from impressed by the shmaltzy exchange. “As if I’d stoop so low as to tie Earth trash to my body!” Peridot growled, swiping the paint cans away from Steven. “Leave me! And take your ‘G.U.Y.S’ with you! Go! Go! Go!”

Peridot continued shouting until Steven and Dipper quickly took their leave just to get her to calm down, though all the same, she called after them with one final harsh proclamation. “And wow, THANKS!”

“Why, yes, Pearl, I did get taller! How correct of you to notice!” Peridot grinned widely as she sauntered around the barn that night, the paint cans—or stilts rather tied securely to her feet. Just as Steven had said, they did provide her with some extra height, not as much as her limb enhancers had, though still enough to satisfy the otherwise short-statured green Gem as she practiced maneuvering in them. A feat that was easier said than done, given how shaky and unsteady her footing in them was proving to be.

“Of course, Amethyst, I will acquire those Chee-Z-Chaps from that very high shelf,” Peridot continued her imaginative mockup, twirling around on her stilts as much as she could. “Ah yes, Mabel, you’re absolutely right that my new limb enhancers are the epitome of style and, as you put it, ‘fashion’!”

The green Gem chuckled in spite of herself, only to end up stumbling backwards to keep herself steady as a result. “Haha! They even function in reverse!” Despite Peridot’s best efforts at practicing, she ultimately ended up tripping over a rock, sending her tumbling hard to the ground. Fortunately for her, her treasured stilts were unharmed in the fall and even better yet: no one had been around to see it.

Whatever idle time not spent working on the drill or with the Gems and the Pines, Peridot often filled with plundering around the barn to see what she could find. Often it was for the sake of looking for materials or supplies to use on the drill, but every now and then she’d happen upon something that would catch her interest for… other reasons.

Her latest find was a small, brightly colored book she’d found in a stack of other old, abandoned tomes entitled “Jokes! How to Make People Laugh Around You Instead of Feel Bad.”

“Jokes, huh?” Peridot muttered to herself as she cracked the book open. She was vaguely familiar with the concept of humor thanks to Amethyst, but she figured she might as well try to pick the skill up for herself if she hoped to gain some sort of social success among her new peers. Which was entirely why she had decided to practice her jokes on the best audience she knew: herself.

“‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’” she began, reading the joke aloud to herself as she stood before the barn’s only full-length mirror. “‘…The chicken wanted to get to the other side of the road!’”

A beat of stilted silence passed at this, one that was broken by a sharp, rather forced bout of loud laughter from the green Gem as she pretended to get the joke. “Ha! Ahahahah! …What’s a chicken?”

“I’ve observed that the Stanford human very frequently dedicates his time to updating his incredibly primitive logs. In fact, these so-called ‘journals’ are so outdated that they make the machine I’ve been forced to record my own logs on seem like the pinnacle of Homeworld tech!”

Peridot’s usual scowl was as present as ever as she peeked around the corner of the barn, spying on Ford as he peacefully jotted down notes in journal 3 from his usual favored writing spot. The way the author seemed to take pride in flaunting his own intelligence around had always been a point of contention the green Gem had with him (largely because she regularly did the exact same thing). She could hardly care less about his apparent research, and yet…

“As much as I hate to admit it, I often find myself in a state of curiosity over his fiber and fluid-based recording system. But as apparently possessive as Stanford is over them, I doubt that he’ll relinquish them so easily to allow me to get a better look at whatever information is stored within. Which is why I’ve devised a brilliant plan to claim one of them as my own!”

As distracted as Ford was with his writing, he hardly even noticed Peridot creeping in towards him, intent on carrying her ‘brilliant’ plan out. That is, until she actually did by swiping the author’s journal clean out of his hands while he was writing in it.

“W-what in the—Peridot!” Ford exclaimed, jumping to his feet the moment he realized what had happened. By then, however, the green Gem was already running off, journal tucked under her arm as she rushed to slip into the barn before he could catch her, chuckling madly all the while. Ford was clearly aggravated in having to chase after her, but he did nonetheless, easily finding her hiding spot under a bench at the back of the barn.

“May I ask what in the name of the Ellistis 5 Nebula you think you’re doing?” Ford asked, hands on his hips as he stood over her.

“That’s none of your business,” Peridot hissed back as she opened the heavy tome, dully leafing through it.

“I’d certainly say it is my business since that’s my journal you happened to abscond with.”

“Well, if you must know,” the green Gem glared up at him. “I’m researching your research, if that’s quite alright with you.”

“It isn’t,” Ford said flatly, holding out his hand. “Now, if you’d please kindly give it back, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“Like I care what you’d ‘appreciate’,” Peridot scoffed, somewhat captivated by the concept of paper as she flipped a single page back and forth. “Ooo… are the logs contained in this collection… removable?”

“No, they are NOT!” Ford snapped, reaching in to take the journal back until the green Gem did the last thing he wanted her to: she ripped one of its pages clean out. “…Really? You really just did that?”

“Did what?” Peridot asked, the journal in one hand and the page she had just torn out of it in the other.

“Peridot…” Ford sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in apt annoyance. “Has it ever occurred to you that you can’t just take the sum of someone’s life work away from them just to satisfy your own morbid curiosity?”

“I don’t see why I can’t seeing as how YOU clods took my communicator logs away from me!” Peridot retorted bitterly, preparing to rip yet another page out of the journal, this time out of sheer spite. “Now back off, or lose even more of yours!”

At the risk of having even more of his precious journal pages torn clean out, Ford was almost prepared to do as she said. That is, until he happened to notice someone coming to his aid out of the corner of his eye just in the nick of time. “Actually… I don’t think that’s much of a problem I’ll have to worry about.”

“Oh really?” Peridot raised an eyebrow at his suddenly smug grin. “And why is that?”

“Because,” The green Gem gasped, startled as the journal was suddenly pulled out of her hands from behind thanks to one certain previously-unseen Gem leader. “Those pages aren’t yours to rip out.”

“Hey!” Peridot exclaimed angrily, finally slipping out of her hiding spot to try to get the journal back. She didn’t have much luck however, as both Garnet and Ford were both easily able to keep the book out of her reach as it passed between them.

“Ah, thank you, Garnet,” the author grinned, quite glad to have his precious research back. “Fortunately, it seems as though she didn’t do too much damage. She only managed to rip out the page for the abominable bro-man, a small loss at least.”

Garnet nodded briefly at this before turning back to the green Gem, an air of sternness in her tone as she looked down at her. “Peridot. Remember what we told you about taking things without asking for them.”

“Pfft, no,” Peridot scoffed, crossing her arms. “And I don’t care either.”

“Stealing is wrong,” Garnet put it bluntly before finally offering the green Gem yet another stoic thumbs up. “Just keep that in mind and you’ll be golden.”

“Why would I want to be golden?” Peridot asked, confused. “I’m already Peridot!”

Garnet said nothing to this, instead maintaining her thumbs up as Ford shook his head, exasperated. “Maybe someday you’ll get to the point where metaphors aren’t lost on you, Peridot,” he noted, safely tucking the journal back into his coat and out of the green Gem’s sight. “But that day certainly isn’t today.”

“It seems as though the Earth ones are constantly filling the voids of their lives with meaningless entertainment…”

“You’re totally gonna love this, Peri!” Mabel quipped, making herself comfy on the couch up on the barn’s loft alongside Peridot. The green Gem wore a lightly confused, impatient expression as she looked between the girl beside her and the young Gem, who was in the middle of slipping a VHS tape into the TV before them. “If you thought coffee was good, then you haven’t seen anything yet!”

“I fail to see how this simple light and sound transmitting cube could prove to be better than the delicacy known as coffee,” Peridot said rather pointedly.

“Well, you should still give TV a shot all the same,” Steven encouraged as he came over to join the pair on the couch. “Besides, I have a feeling this’ll be right up your alley.”

“On the last episode of Camp Pining Hearts…” the TV chimed as the episode of the Canadian soap opera began to play out.

“I don’t care if you’re on the yellow team, Percy! We can make this work!”

“It’s a colour war, Paulette. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Ah! So romantic! And tragic!” Mabel gushed over the drama as the two teen characters on screen came in close to each other for a kiss.

“What is this strange ritual?” Peridot asked, watching in bewilderment as the couple drew in ever closer to the point that their lips were practically touching.

“Um… w-well,” Steven began, rather uncomfortable. He glanced over at Mabel, hoping to get her help in explaining this, though she seemed far too captivated by the emotional saga that was Camp Pining Hearts to really be of much assistance. “T-that’s-”

“Are they attempting fusion?” the green Gem cut in, even more confused as Percy and Paulette finally kissed, which they of course drew out as long as possible, much to Mabel’s elated delight.

“N-no,” the young Gem said, deeply flustered. “W-well, my dad told me… uh, during… certain stages of your life-”

“How could anyone indulge in this?!” Peridot interupted once more, apparently disgusted by this shameless display. “Baseless drivel! I’ll have no part in it!”

“Hour 78 of Camp Pining Hearts…”

“It’s a colour war, Paulette. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Peridot repeated along with Percy, having memorized the entire script from beginning to end. For what seemed like ages, the green Gem had been sitting, her face only a few mere inches away from the TV screen, completely engrossed in the unfolding drama before her. Drama that, even despite her initial distain towards it, she couldn’t resist, no matter how hard she tried.

“Uh… you’ve been up here for a few days…” Steven called as him, Dipper, and Mabel climbed up onto the loft to check on the green Gem, who had, by all accounts, been oddly missing all that time. “Is everything ok?”

“I’ve just been…” Peridot trailed off, looking between the kids and the TV briefly. “Watching your previously recorded entertainment.”

“For three days straight?” Dipper asked, rather incredulous.

“Aw, see, Peri? I told you you’d love CPH!” Mabel exclaimed happily. “It’s a classic.”

“Wait…” Steven interjected upon stealing another glance back at the TV. “Is that… the same episode from the other day?”

“…There’s more than one?”

“Oh, Peri, you have no idea!” Mabel quickly took a seat next to the baffled green Gem. “CPH is a several season saga of love, competition, and gorgeous Canadian teens, like Pierre! He’s just dreamy…”

“Yes, I’m well aware of how… adept Pierre is,” Peridot huffed, swiping up a piece of paper sitting next to her. “That’s exactly why I made this!”

“Is that… a picture?” Steven asked, having a hard time making out the detailed graph.

“Picture?” Peridot countered. “This is no mere picture, Steven! It’s a complex chart cataloguing the compatible characteristics between campers.”

“Wait…” Dipper cut in before letting out a small snicker of realization. “No way. Peridot, did you seriously make-”

“A shipping chart?!” Mabel gasped in awe as she looked over the chart for herself. “Oh, Peri, you really are a superfan! Quick! Tell me who your OTP is!”

“…I have no idea what any of that means,” Peridot concluded stanchly before she took her chart back. “But what I do know is that somehow the rejects at Camp Clod fail to realize the superior pair that is Pierre and Percy.”

“Well, that’s because Paulette likes Percy,” Steven pointed out.

“Paulette?” the green Gem scoffed harshly. “Ha! Paulette has no place in the camp’s hierarchy! Now, Pierre, Pierre is a brute! He laid waste to the three legged races! Pierre and Percy present the strongest battle formations! They’d destroy the entire camp!”

“Ooo! And now that you’d mention it, they’d make a super cute couple too!” Mabel said with a bright smile. “How did I never see it before? You’re a real ‘Pining Hearts Pioneer’, Peri!”

“Yes, I absolutely am!” Peridot proclaimed with a proud smile. “Its about time somebody noted my mastery of your feebly-constructed human media!”

“You’ve literally only watched one episode out of one show, calm down,” Dipper remarked, deadpan.

“And… you got all of that out of one episode?” Steven asked, somewhat impressed by that fact.

“It’s…. subtext, Steven,” the green Gem shrugged. “Allow me to explain.”

“Please, don’t,” Dipper said dryly, though of course, Peridot did anyway.

“Percy and Pierre are on the yellow team, and also-”

“Ugh…” Steven groaned, exasperated as the tablet’s recording began playing out Peridot’s infamously lengthy rant on the show. “I remember this part…”

“Yeesh, me too,” Dipper remarked sourly. “Only Peridot could go on for something that not a single person could ever care about for so long?”

“Hey, I cared about it!” Mabel protested, reaching for the tablet. “Let’s listen carefully to it! She makes some really good points in here!”

“NO!” Steven and Dipper quickly protested, rushing to fast forward past the green Gem’s diatribe entirely.

And what a diatribe it was. In deep, dramatic detail, Peridot went over her intricately crafted thesis on all things Camp Pining Hearts to her lukewarm audience. The kids made themselves comfy on the couch as the green Gem explain everything she had heard and seen from the single episode of the show she had watched countless times over. Her immense knowledge of the half hour segment had given her a strong opinion that Percy and Pierre were the ideal team out of all of the campers based on all the evidence she had gathered. And as passionate as she was on the subject, it took her several hours to divulge that evidence, to the point that Steven and Dipper quickly lost interest, though Mabel was thoroughly engrossed in the discussion of the show that she was rather fond of herself. But even then, her enjoyment of it seemed to pale in comparison to Peridot’s, who refused to even really let her get a word or question in edgewise amidst her seemingly endless, several hour long rant. At some point, Garnet joined the kids in listening in on it, though even so, Peridot hardly paid her or the kids (who had all long since fallen asleep as she went on and on) any mind as she brought her explanation to its bold conclusion.

“And that is why Percy and Pierre are objectively the best for each other!” she finished, clearly on an excited high from her intense explanation.

The green Gem’s verve was hardly shared however, since all three of the kids were still completely asleep, essentially piled on top of each other on their spots on the couch. Garnet on the other hand, also offered no reaction, that is, outside of her usual, simple, silent thumbs up. A thumbs up that was more than enough to annoy Peridot to the point that she ripped up her shipping chart entirely in a heated rage.

“Out of all of the humans I’ve been forced to contend with, the Ma—or just Mabel is by far the most agreeable out of all of them. And also the most well-versed in the more significant elements of this planet’s culture and social practices, such as today’s lesson in the adhesive item commonly known as ‘stickers’.”

“What are you doing?” Peridot asked, watching impatiently as Mabel flipped through some sort of colorful book.

“Oh, hiya, Peri!” Mabel greeted the green Gem as brightly as she always did. “I’m just sorting out my Sticktionary, see?” She held up the surprisingly thick book with a cover reading “Big Book of Stickers” in bold, bright letters.

“Stickers?” Peridot questioned dully.

“Whaaaa?!” Mabel gasped, dumbfounded as she looked up at the green Gem. “You don’t know what stickers are?! What the heck is even going on on Homeworld for you not to know about stickers!? Well, don’t worry.” She patted the spot on the ground next to her. “Mabel’s got you covered with everything you need to know, as usual.”

While normally, Peridot would have declined the invitation, she really didn’t have anything better to do at the moment, which was why she begrudging took a seat next to the girl to listen to her lesson. “Throughout history, stickers have been the backbone of many great civilizations,” Mabel began dramatically as she flipped through her own collection.

“No, they haven’t,” Dipper called from his spot on the other side of the barn, having overheard the conversation amidst his casual reading.

“The ancient Greeks used leeches for stickers!” Mabel continued, largely ignoring her brother. “The more stickers you had, the cooler you were!”

“Nope, not true.”

“The ancient Aztecs’ chest skull was the modern equivalent to today’s ‘orange you happy, mon?’” Mabel grinned, holding up said orange sticker.

“Yes,” Dipper interjected once more, exasperated. “Aztec war paint was exactly like a rasta orange. Mabel, have you ever read a history book?”

“Oh, will you be quiet already?!” Peridot huffed before Mabel could make any sort of counters herself. “Don’t you know an in-progress orientation on what’s apparently one of Earth’s most significant status symbols when you see one? I’m trying to listen to it!”

“…You know, on second thought, this ‘sticker’ lesson is probably exactly on your level, Peridot,” Dipper noted dryly as he took his book and left the pair in peace.

“So anyway, where were we before we were so rudely interupted?” Mabel asked, glancing down to her book once more. “Oh yeah! My Stictionary! So stickers fall into several distinct categories: puffy stickers… googly eye stickers… bumper stickers, scratch and sniff stickers, sniff and touch, touch and taste, and last but not least, price stickers! You can get these free at the store!”

“This is all very… fascinating,” Peridot deadpanned. “But what exactly is the point of these… ‘stickers’?”

“What’s the point?” Mabel frowned, baffled by such a question. “Peri, the ‘point’ is that they’re amazing! Wearing a sticker shows that you’ve got personality, that you’re special and unique. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.” It didn’t take long for Mabel to search through her collection to find the perfect sticker for the green Gem, which she gladly positioned over the diamond on Peridot’s uniform. “There ya go! It’s a turtle; he’s green, just like you are, Peri!”

“Ooooo…” Peridot mused, genuinely amazed by the simple sticker. “I understand everything now; these ‘stickers’ are some sort of Earth status symbol! The more you have, the more important you are, just like you said!”

“Uh… well, I don’t know if that’s-”

“Which is why I must have more of them!” Peridot took the sticker book into her own hands, eagerly flipping through it. “I need to demonstrate to all I encounter my elevated significance when compared to everyone else! And based on what you told me, these stickers are the best way to do that!”

“Whoa, hold the phone, Peri,” Mabel interjected, taking her book back. “I’m more than happy to let you share in on all of the sticker fun, but you can’t just take them from me. If you really want more, all you gotta do is ask nicely! You remember that super-special magic word I taught you?”

“Uh… yes…” Peridot groaned, annoyed as she complied. “Please?”

“Yep, you got it!” Mabel grinned as she brightly offered the green Gem a sunshine sticker. “And here you go, another sticker to show everyone-”

“To show everyone that I’m the absolute best of the best!” Peridot exclaimed proudly.

“No,” Mabel shook her head. “To show that you think manners are number one!” To prove her point, she gave the green Gem yet another sticker, this time in the shape of a #1. This was only the beginning, however, as the next hour or so turned into a seemingly endless sticker exchanges. For every time Peridot remembered to say please in response to just about anything, Mabel readily awarded her with yet another sticker, each of them completely colorful and unique. The green Gem was more than excited to earn them to, placing each of them, dispensing them all over her body to the point that she was more or less covered in them in almost no time at all, much to her immense satisfaction.

“And here’s a special glittery sticker,” Mabel handed the green Gem what had to have been her 3-th sticker. “It’s a pirate ship!”

“Ah yes, a ship,” the green Gem smirked as she slapped the sticker over her shoulder. “Certainly this one will signify my skill when it comes to piloting all manner of interplanetary vessels.”

“Uh, sure,” Mabel shrugged, amused. She perked up even more, however, upon spotting Garnet enter the barn a moment later. “Oh! Hi, Garnet! I’m glad you’re here; I’ve been saving up this super special, color-it-yourself sticker for you! Bam!” She held up a heart sticker, half colored red and half colored blue. “It’s supposed to represent Ruby and Sapphire. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Very,” Garnet smiled, taking the sticker and proudly displaying it on her chest. “Thank you, Mabel.”

“You’re welcome!”

“Wha-hey!” Peridot squeaked angrily after watching this exchange. “What in the name of the Diamonds is this?! I have to go through an endless round of pleasantries to get even just one sticker, but you’re willing to hand them off to the fusion for just walking in? How is that fair?!”

“Aw, Peri,” Mabel tried to reason. “That’s not-”

“It certainly can’t be because she’s of a higher rank than I am,” Peridot continued her rant. “After all, the very thought of that is just absurd.”

“No, Peri, I just-”

“It couldn’t—NO,” Peridot gasped, suddenly mortified. “D-don’t tell me… its because you like her more than me?!”

“W-what?”

“And after everything we’ve been through,” the green Gem lamented. “I’ve never in my entire existence felt so betrayed. And after I finally allowed myself to become your new ‘fiend’ after weeks of you begging for it and everything!”

“You mean ‘friend’,” Garnet corrected.

“Yeah, that too!”

“Oh, Peri, I don’t think you understand,” Mabel said with a good-natured smile. “I like both you and Garnet!”

“Then why did she get a special sticker?”

“Well… uh… just… because, I guess?” Mabel shrugged. “There really isn’t that much more to it. Sorry?”

“Ugh!” Peridot groaned loudly, quickly tearing every single sticker off of her body. “Then all of these are meaningless!” And with that, the green Gem stormed off, though before even Garnet or Mabel could react to her frustration, she hurried back, though only for the purpose of scooping up her discarded stickers off the floor. “I’m still keeping these though. Especially the turtle. Don’t ask why.”

“Log Date 7 13 2. Progress on the drill is going optimal. Surprisingly though, I have a few complaints on the work ethic of-”

“Heeeeeey!” Peridot jumped, startled to the point that she interrupted her own log, She was quick to send an annoyed glance over at Amethyst, or rather, at Amethyst who was currently shapeshifted into Lion beside her.

“Amethyst, really,” Pearl huffed, looking over from her and Ford’s welding work on the drill. “This is no time to be fooling around.”

“Aw, c’mon, P,” Amethyst teased, still taking on the form of the pink beast. “I’m just trying to lion the mood.” She paused for a beat to let her joke sink in, seeing that it had been apparently lost on both Pearl and Ford before she continued it. “Lion around.”

While Pearl merely grumbled at the rather lousy pun, Ford shook his head over it, hardly amused. “Good to see Amethyst’s… unique sense of humor hasn’t changed over the past 30 years,” he noted dryly before getting back to work.

“Do you always use shapeshifting like this?” Peridot asked Amethyst, her tone clearly critical.

“You mean to be really cool?” Amethyst smirked, changing her form from Lion’s to the green Gem’s. “Pretty much.”

“But its such a-”

“-Significant use of energy when compared to the output!” Amethyst and Peridot both said in near unison as the result of the purple Gem’s playful mocking.

“…What was that?” the green Gem asked, confused and slightly irritated.

“I’ve been practicing my ‘Peri’-phrasing,” Amethyst grinned proudly. “Pretty impressive in my opinion, but its hard to beat the original.”

By this point, Peridot was clearly flustered by the purple Gem’s teasing, though she managed to play it off with a small, light chuckle all the same. “So… can you shapeshift into anything?”

“Sure,” Amethyst reverted back into her original form with a daring smile. “Got a request?”

Peridot, in fact, did have a request, one that, Amethyst immediately agreed to the moment she heard it.

“Bawk! Bawk! I’m a chicken!” the purple Gem laughed rowdily, running around the barnyard in the form of, of course, a wild chicken. The others watched on as she scrambled about, all of them mildly amused, though none more than Peridot as she cackled loudly from the realization.

“Ha! I get the joke now!”

“Yes, well, at least she isn’t lion around anymore,” Pearl joked, laughing lightly as she did.

“…Hm. Seems as though Pearl’s sense of humor hasn’t changed in 30 years either…” Ford noted to himself as he continued tinkering away at the drill.

Peridot, on the other hand, did her best to acknowledge the white Gem’s quip with something of a forced chuckle, even if she didn’t really find it that funny. Still, as she had come to learn during her time on Earth, it was often the thought that counted more than anything else.

“Pearl really tries for some reason and I can appreciate that. Stanford is… tolerable, for a human at least. Amethyst’s company is entertaining as well. But the fused one…”

The green Gem’s fake laughter quickly died down as she stole a brief glance over at Garnet. The Gem leader said nothing, keeping her relaxed stance against the barn as she simply sent her yet another silent, solitary thumbs up.

“Eludes me…”

Sure enough, the drill was just about done. In fact, the only thing that really needed to be done on it from a general standpoint was to attach the drill itself, something that both Pearl and Amethyst were aware of as they looked over the sizable injector head before them.

“Ok, we can add more support as we go,” Pearl noted thoughtfully. “But for now, we just have to pick it up and put it on top.”

“No sweat,” Amethyst smirked, shapeshifting into the muscle-bound Purple Puma. “Let’s do this!”

“You’ve got the right idea, but we might want to be a bit more careful.”

“Gotcha,” the purple Gem obliged, shifting back as she extended a cordial hand out to Pearl. “Shall we?”

The white Gem warmly agreed, allowing Amethyst to pull her into a brief, yet surprisingly graceful dance. And that dance was more than enough to bring the two Gems together into Opal without a single hitch whatsoever.

Peridot could do little more than gawk when she saw the familiar fusion, appalled that two incredibly dissimilar Gems could just combine so easily over something so small. She was even more dumbfounded as she watched the fusion swiftly scoop up the drill head and position it correctly for the finishing touches to be made on it.

“That looks great,” Garnet called over to Opal from her spot near the barn. “Let’s take a break.”

As if Peridot couldn’t get even more baffled by the fusion’s ongoing presence, she was even more confused when Opal stuck around even after the Gem leader’s call for said break. In fact, she was so frustrated with just how backwards everything seemed to be here that she found she couldn’t contain that frustration any longer.

“Alright, I’m at my limit!” Peridot growled as she stormed over to Garnet petulantly.

“Evening, Peridot,” the Gem leader greeted as coolly as ever.

“Explain to me, fusion!” the green Gem shouted back. “Explain to me how you Crystal Clods can just go around fusing all willy-nilly like this! The ‘Stepper’ was bad enough, but then there was the ‘Maven’ and the ‘Dipevebel’, not to mention that… thing,” she sneered over at Opal afar in the distance, still happily, harmoniously fused despite the fact that her work was over. “And don’t even get me started on you. I can at least make sense of your existence if it’s for a functional purpose. But you’re not using your combined size and strength to do anything!”

“I’m doing something.”

“And what’s that?”

“Stargazing,” Garnet smiled, the glimmering stars above reflecting against her visor.

Peridot let out a disgusted, disgruntled groan. “You can do that alone.”

“Don’t want to.”

The green Gem scoffed once more, still completely baffled by just how callous and carefree the Gem leader was about something as touchy and taboo as fusion. Oddly enough, however, Garnet didn’t seem to mind her bitter manner, instead silently tapping the empty spot on the bale of hay beside her with the unspoken invitation for her to sit down. Peridot was more than ready to turn her offer down, but ultimately, she relented, sighing as she slipped up onto the hay alongside the Gem leader.

“You can see Homeworld’s galaxy from here,” Garnet began, nodding towards the night sky.

“…You’re right…” Peridot’s eyes widened as she spotted the distant cluster of twinkling stars, so seemingly close, yet so painfully far.

“We’re very different,” the Gem leader noted, smiling over at the green Gem softly, kindly. “I appreciate that.”

“R-really?” Peridot asked, confused. “Even after… what I just said about you and fusion?”

“Peridot,” Garnet’s tone remained calm and even as her smile faded somewhat. “I think a big part of why fusion frustrates you so much is because you don’t understand it. Or rather, Homeworld wouldn’t let you understand what it could really be.”

“Pfft, like I’d even want to understand it,” the green Gem glanced away, coldly. “I think I’ve gotten more than my fair share when it comes to fusion thanks to…” She trailed off, almost not finishing her thought entirely before she shuddered visibly, still completely averting the Gem leader’s gaze. “Pyrite…”

“Pyrite wasn’t a fusion,” Garnet countered, her expression darkening somewhat.

“Uh… y-yes they were?” Peridot frowned. “They were also a complete disaster, one I still can’t believe I let myself be a part of! Every time I so much as close my eyes its like I can still hear his sickening laughter rattling around inside my gem as he ripped away control of my form right out from under me! And the worst part of it all was I let him do it! I let him in and I let that… that abomination Pyrite exist in the first place!”

“Even if you did, its still not your fault,” Garnet suddenly interrupted the green Gem’s bout of immense regret. “You’re definitely not the first to be tricked by Bill. Pearl, Amethyst, and even Ford and I can all attest to that. He has a way of making you think that his way is best, when in reality… everything he does is for his own twisted gain and no one else’s.”

“…Now you’re telling me…” Peridot muttered, pulling her legs tightly against her chest.

Garnet paused for a moment, easily telling that the green Gem was still hardly comforted by the haunted look in her eyes alone. Which was why she decided to take an entirely different route in reassuring her instead. “Your first ‘fusion’ may not have been what a fusion should have been,” she mused thoughtfully, empathetically. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t still see what it’s supposed to be like. If you really want to understand what real fusion is, I could show you.”

“…What do you mean?” Peridot asked, unable to deny her own intrigued curiosity.

“Let’s fuse.”

“Oh my stars!” the green Gem gasped, falling off the hay bale entirely upon hearing this.

“Heh, I get it,” Garnet grinned, extending a hand to help her up off the ground. “You’re not ready. That’s fair. I can’t blame you, especially after what Bill put you through. Another time then.”

“N-no!” Peridot shook her head fervently, determined to prove that she could do this. That whatever lingering terror and dread Pyrite had caused for her didn’t define her even still. “No, just… just give me a sec!”

Garnet complied, creating a space for them to dance in as Peridot rushed back into the barn to get ready. When she emerged, she stumbled out on the ‘stilts’ Steven had given her, hoping that the extra height would help her measure up to the Gem leader’s taller stature. Even still, she was rather nervous, all things conserved, as she teetered over to take Garnet’s hand so their dance could truly begin.

“Get ready,” the Gem leader encouraged, easily pulling her in close. For the briefest of moments, Peridot thought that, as Garnet began to spin her out, that she could do this. That she could fuse and become something more, something better than Pyrite could have ever hoped to be.

But then, in that split second, the fear and doubt all rushed right back in. What if it didn’t work? What if it did? What if fusion, regardless of who it was with, was still just as bad for her as it had been with Bill? What if, with Garnet or anyone else for that matter, it was better than she could have ever imagined? Those, and about a million other ‘what ifs’ dashed through her mind faster than she could keep up with them. And, as overwhelmed by both the countless risks and possibilities as she was, it was no wonder that Peridot ultimately ended up breaking apart from Garnet altogether, far before they even had a chance to fuse.

“N-no, no, no, no, no!” the green Gem stumbled back, clearly anxious and upset. “I-I… I can’t do it…”

Despite the bitter disappointment Peridot was feeling, Garnet merely answered it with a warm, supportive smile. “That’s fine! Peridot, I’m proud of you.”

“Why?!” Peridot huffed, more confused than ever at just how accepting the Gem leader seemed to be of her blatant failure.

“Because you made an effort to understand me,” Garnet said. “Even when it was difficult for you to do so.”

“But I still don’t understand you!” the green Gem groaned, exasperated. “Why are you fused all the time?!”

Garnet took a brief moment to think that this, before offering her answer in a way that Peridot would be sure to understand. “I’m Percy and Pierre.”

Just like that, every missing piece for Peridot clicked right into place. And at long, long last she finally understood exactly what Garnet was and why. Just as she had said of Percy and Pierre, they were, as bizarre as it might be by Homeworld’s standards, the perfect match. “Ohhh….”

“Ok… go!”

“Log date… seven fourteen two.”

Steven, Dipper, and Mabel all gasped, mutually surprised to hear Garnet’s voice joining in on Peridot’s usually singular recordings. Still, even despite the Gem leader’s attempt to start the log, the green Gem was quick to jump in to correct her.

“No, you say it seven one four two! Ugh… Log date, 7 14 2. I have attempted a fusion with the fusion Garnet. I had hoped to gain a better understanding of fusion; Instead, I got a better understanding of Garnet.”

The kids couldn’t help but share a small smile upon hearing this, knowing that this near-final log, just like all the rest they had heard, was by and large a testament to just how far the green Gem had come. For certainly, there had been a time when the only reaction she had towards Garnet, towards any of them really, was scorn and disdain and little else. But now, where there had once been callous cruelty, there now stood genuine respect, respect that Peridot had gained towards each of them all on her own. And that, along with her bold stand against her former Diamond, was something the young trio couldn’t help but be proud of.

“Wait, keep it on a moment,” Garnet suddenly spoke up before the most recent recording could end. “Steven, Dipper, Mabel, you probably shouldn’t have listened to Peridot’s logs, but I know your shared curiosity comes from a place of caring. Either way, you should give her tablet back to her now. She’s going to want to keep it.”

“Wait… what?”

Surprised as they were by the Gem leader’s very accurate foretelling, the kids were even more surprised to see Peridot and Garnet returned to the barn. The green Gem’s former frenzy had finally been quelled, replaced with a calm sort of resignation over her new lot as a Crystal Gem, a calm that had come about in no small part thanks to the Gem leader’s easy reassurances.

“Here, Peridot,” Steven handed the tablet back over to the green Gem with a smile. “You can take this back.”

“Yeah, consider it as a ‘welcome to the family’ gift!” Mabel chimed in happily.

“Mabel, it was already hers to begin with,” Dipper pointed out, amused. “Still, we probably should appologize for listening to all of your logs and everything, so… yeah.”

“Wow, thanks,” Peridot deadpanned as she reclaimed her tablet. She paused, however, noticing as Steven, Mabel, and even Dipper followed suit after Garnet, all four of them offering her cheery smiles and encouraging thumbs up. And, even despite whatever lingered of her dread in turning away and breaking free from everything she had used to know to embrace a life, believes, and teammates she had once stood against but now couldn’t imagine living without, it was a thumbs up that she finally not only accepted, but returned.

#jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #crossover #au #fanfic #log date 7 15 2 #peridot #steven #mabel #dipper #ford #garnet #amethyst #pearl #keyword is camp pining hearts

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andrewmoocow · 6 years

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Steven Universe Secret Wars chapter 2: Assembled We are Strong (originally posted on December 4, 2017)

AN: Hello once again loyal readers! This is your esteemed author Lightyearpig coming back to you with another chapter of Steven Universe: Secret Wars. Today, we finally see the debut of the Crystal Gems themselves along with the rest of Earth's Mightiest Heroes and a certain trickster god. We will also see our grand villain Thanos begin to put his plan into action by targeting one of the Infinity Stones in Beach City, but I don't want to give too much away! Now then, let us proceed.

Steven Universe couldn't believe what he was seeing. Tony Stark, aka the Invincible Iron Man, standing right before him at his front door. He didn't know what to say, even when the superhero got his name wrong. "N-no sir, m-my name is Steven uh-Universe." he stuttered blushing.

"Nice to meet ya too kid." Stark greeted looking behind the boy's back to examine the interior of the house. It looked like a basic beach house, except for the fact that there was a large crystal structure in the back in front of a door with a five-pointed star on it, each point featuring a colored circle on it. "May I come in please?" he asked. "Oh sure, what can I get you?" Steven offered leading the adult inside and sitting him down on the couch. "Just give me something to drink, I'm a bit parched after flying here."

Steven cheerfully poured Tony some lemonade and pulled up a chair to sit down on. "So, what brings you to Beach City Mr. Stark?" he asked. "Actually pal, I've come here to speak with you about recent events concerning alien activity. Do you happen to know anything about talking raccoons and giant trees?"

As if he spoke of the devil, a beam of light burst from the pad as three colorful beings emerged from it. "Oh man, been so long since we've been on a mission!" the short one exclaimed stretching her back. "Don't be so worried Amethyst, it was just retrieving a Gem artifact." the taller one with a pointed nose replied. "Doesn't matter anyway, thankfully we got this before Homeworld could." the figure with glasses stated carrying a mysterious object in a bubble before sending it away to parts unknown.

"Hey guys, good to see you back!" Steven happily greeted the trio. "What up dude! Say, who's the bearded guy sitting down?" the short one, now named Amethyst, greeted the boy before gesturing towards Tony, who just stared at them before looking between the picture on his phone and the three standing before him. It took a bit to comprehend it, but he just found the Crystal Gems. "I can't believe it, it's you!" he shouted. "Uh, what's he talkin' about?" Amethyst wondered. "Fury was right, you do live here!"

"Can anyone make heads or tails about what he's saying?" the skinny one wondered raising a brow. "Just let me talk here, my name is Tony Stark and I'm here for your boy he-" Before he could finish, the glasses woman punched him hard in the face, sending him flying across the room. "Okay, that was kinda rude." he stated as he pushed a button on his wristwatch which covered his hand in metal plating.

"Garnet, what're you doing?" Amethyst shouted. "We already dealt with one intruder, we don't need another!" the glasses girl, now named Garnet, replied winding up another punch before being blasted in the face by Stark's glove. "Aren't you being a bit short-sighted Garnet? Maybe he's friendly like what happened with the Guardians." the skinny one asked before summoning a spear from her forehead. "So you three wanna play hardball, huh? How about we make this even?" Tony challenged the three. "J.A.R.V.I.S, send in the Mark XLVI!" he commanded to an unknown figure. "Right away Mr. Stark." the voice replied as several pieces of metal fell from the sky crashing through the roof of the beach house and assembling on his person, forming a suit of red and gold armor.

"WHOA!" Steven gaped in awe at the man in armor before them before turning to his guardians. "Guys, don't fight him, he's a superhero kinda like you!" he shouted to the three women. "Wait, a superhero?" the tall one wondered. "Yeah Pearl, he's..." he began before Tony interrupted him. "Just let me do this one sport. I am Iron Man."

Sitting down on the couch, the Gems and the Armored Avenger took time to apologize to one another about what had just happened. "Anyway, I am terribly sorry for punching you." Garnet said in her usual stoic tone. "It's okay, that's happened to me way too many times." Iron Man responded. "And I'm sorry for blasting you in the face."

"So Steven, who did you say he was again?" Pearl asked Steven. "He's Iron Man, a member of the Avengers alongside the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and my personal hero, Captain America!" the boy exclaimed, to which the genius billionaire replied by waving. "Oh, you mean like the heroes in your comic books?" she added. "No, I'm the real deal. And I've come here to speak with you about recent events." Tony stated. "You know a bunch of a-holes calling themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy?"

"Oh yeah, we know them! They came here trying to capture a friend of ours before we became friends and kicked evil butt!" Amethyst replied. "But speaking of which, if you're superheroes then where were you when Lapis Lazuli stole the ocean, Jasper invaded or when the Cluster was about to form?" she asked Stark. "We were willing to step in, but we had our own fish to fry like Loki, Ultron, Baron Zemo & the Masters of Evil and especially Thanos."

"Who's Thanos?" Amethyst wondered. "I think I may vaguely remember him, but my memory is a bit foggy." Pearl replied. "Mine too." Garnet added.

"Basically to jog your memory, Thanos is a galactic tyrant that wants to get in the pants of the personification of Death by uniting the six Infinity Stones to conquer all life in the universe." Tony explained before they all heard a ringing noise. "Hang on a sec." he apologized pulling out his phone to read a text message from Pepper saying she and Happy have returned to New York. "Oh never mind everyone, just a text from my colleague/girlfriend." That was when they heard another noise before Tony picked up an ID card with the letter A on it. Tapping it, a hologram of a muscular blond man appeared.

"Comrade Stark, thou must heed my words!" the hologram exclaimed. Steven immediately recognized the voice as Thor Odinson, prince of Asgard and God of Thunder. "Hey, that's Thor!" he smiled. "Excuse thy but was that a child's voice I heard?" Thor wondered. "Not important right now Hammerman, what's the big news?" Tony asked. "Anyway, Loki hath returned to Midgard and this time he is headed for your location!"

"Awesome, we get to fight Loki!" Steven cheered before Tony stopped him. "Slow down there kid, this guy might be a bit too powerful for you." Tony calmed him down. "It's alright Mr. Stark, he can handle himself and we've covered threats like this Loki before." Pearl reassured him. "Okay, you can come. Avengers, a-" he began to say the Earth's Mightiest Heroes' famous battle cry before Steven stopped him. "Can I say it?" he asked with stars in his eyes. "Alright, knock yourself out."

"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE! Oh, that felt so good."

Mere minutes later, a jet touched down right outside the beach house as Iron Man and the Crystal Gems rushed outside. Five figures had stepped out of the vehicle, each making Steven more excited and the Gems more interested.

The first to exit were actually a pair. One half of this duo was an attractive red-haired woman clad in a skintight black bodysuit with an hourglass-shaped belt buckle while the other wore a purple-and-black uniform with sunglasses and carried a bow-and-arrow on his back. They were Black Widow and Hawkeye.

The next was a giant green beast of a man clad in nothing but torn purple jeans. He was the Incredible Hulk.

After him was another muscular man clad in chainmail battle armor, a silver helmet with wings on each side, a red cape and carried a small hammer. He was Thor.

Finally, a man clad in a full-body suit bearing the colors of the American flag and wielding a shield that had a white star in its center. This was Captain America.

"Tony, we got the message!" the good captain called to his armored teammate from the sand. "Wait a second, is that..." Pearl stared in awe. "STEVE!" Amethyst cried with joy before dashing down toward the Star-Spangled Avenger. "Are those the-" Captain America wondered before the undercooked quartz pounced him and they landed on the sand. "Steve, I can't believe it's you!" Amethyst said hugging him tight. "We thought you died you big red, white and blue lug!"

"It's good to see you all again too Gems." Cap responded getting up before hugging her back. "We all thought you perished saving the country from Red Skull, but here you are!" Pearl added joining in on the group hug. "Aren't you going to join in Garnet?" Their leader stood there for a bit before picking them all up with just her two arms. "I can't believe it, first Iron Man comes at my doorstep and now the Gems know Captain America! MY MIND IS BEING BLOWN SO MUCH TODAY!" Steven screamed before fainting.

"Tony, I suppose thou is the child from earlier?" Thor wondered pointing at the boy. "Pretty much Thor. Excitable squirt too." Tony answered. "So guys, how do you know about my favorite superhero ever?" Steven asked getting up. "Looks like I have a fan here." Cap said releasing himself from the group hug to meet Steven. "So little one, you know these girls?" he asked. "Yeah, they're my guardians and we go on missions to protect humanity and stuff!" Steven replied smiling. "Kinda like us. So how's Rose been doing?"

"Oh yeah, about that." Amethyst said rubbing her neck. "She married a human and had to give up her physical form to give birth to Steven." Pearl finally answered. "Well I'll be." Cap sighed. "So is pink boy same person as his mother?" Hulk asked. "Well technically. She's like half of me." Steven replied pulling up his shirt to show his Gem. "Wow, that stone must be worth billions." Hawkeye stated examining it. "Clint, what did we say?" Black Widow stated. "Okay, I'll stop."

"Natasha Romanoff, former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D and Avenger. This is my partner Clint Barton." Widow introduced herself and Hawkeye to the Gems. "Wassup?" he said. "I am Thor Odinson, crown prince of Asgard!" Thor boomed holding his hammer aloft. "Name's Hulk, and you better not make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry." Bruce Banner added. "So what's the gimmick behind these heroes?" Pearl asked Steven.

"That's a very good question Pearl." Steven replied trying to look smart. "Thor is a god of thunder who wields the mighty Mjolnir to do tons of awesome stuff. The Hulk is just an average scientist named Bruce Banner who was exposed to gamma radiation and can transform when he gets angry. Black Widow & Hawkeye are secret agents that worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Hawkeye is really good with arrows while Widow has super cool spy skills. And finally, Cap-"

"We already know Cap's story Steven. And I kind of guessed he could've been alive with my future vision." Garnet stated. "Now then Mr. Rogers, tell us your story." she offered to the super-soldier. "With pleasure Garnet."

Germany. August 4, 1944.

HYDRA was on the move, preparing their next attack. Captain America & Rose Quartz led both the Howling Commandos & the Crystal Gems into combat against them. "Rose, any word from Amethyst yet?" Steve Rogers asked to his sister-in-arms. "Not yet, but hopefully soon!" the leader of the Crystal Gems answered as she dodged enemy fire.

Meanwhile in a HYDRA outpost, their leader was making a speech to a platoon of armed soldiers. He was clad in basic military garb, but his most distinguishing feature was his crimson skeleton-like facial features. This was Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. "Soldiers of HYDRA!" his voice boomed for all to hear. "Today, we stand here on the brink of victory against the Allies! Thanks to technology from thousands of years ago we recently recovered, the odds are most certainly in our-"

Before he could finish his speech, a purple bird pooped on his face, humiliating him and making the soldiers laugh loudly. "WHAT THE?!" he screamed turning his attention to the bird who stuck its tongue out at him. "Don't just stand there you idiots, KILL THAT BIRD!" he commanded the soldiers before they fired their weapons at the bird who turned into Amethyst and landed straight in the path of a tank. "Aw geez." she groaned before Garnet took one out with her gauntlets. "Nearly lost you there Amethyst." she said punching another tank into a tree. "Yo, thanks for the lift G."

"Garnet, Amethyst, air raid at 3:00!" Jim Morita of the Howling Commandos shouted to them as he, along with Gabe Jones, Pinky Pinkerton and Happy Sam Sawyer began shooting down biplanes carrying bombs. "You ready for this?" Garnet asked her shorter companion readying her gauntlets. "I was produced ready!" Amethyst exclaimed as he pulled down planes with her whip.

Pearl was currently dodging enemy fire along with Bucky and Dum Dum Dugan, trying their best to swiftly dodge the swarm of bullets. "Quickly everyone, behind those trees!" she ordered as they fled deep into the forest, only for Bucky to get shot in his left arm. "Oh my goodness, Bucky!" Dugan cried out to his comrade as they rushed to his side. "Tell me Bucky, are you alright?" Pearl asked trying to patch up the wound. "It's alright Pearl, just a little bullet hole." Bucky said as the Gem pulled out some gauze from her gemstone and patched him up. "Those riflemen are catching up to us, what do we do?" Timothy wondered as the men crept closer to their location. "Boys, I think I have a plan." Pearl declared.

"So what do you plan on doing if we win this?" one rifleman asked to the other. "I don't know, maybe retire, settle down with a nice wife and kids to tell war stories to." the second gunman answered before they spotted Pearl. "It's the bird lady, prepare yourself!"

"Okay you two, I surrender." Pearl announced. "Just take me to your commander so that I may spill our secrets." she stated with a hint of snark in her voice. "I can't believe it, one of those rock ladies is actually surrendering! What do we do?" the first sharpshooter exclaimed. "I say we just take her to Skull and maybe have a little 'fun' with her, if you know what I mean." the second one answered wiggling his eyebrows. "Hey, didn't you say you wanted to settle down with a nice wife?!"

"NOW!" Pearl shouted which led to the two being knocked out by Barnes and Dugan. "Excellent work you two." she congratulated the men. "I can't believe they actually fell for it!" Bucky said. "Great plan there Pearl." Dum Dum said to Pearl. "Makes me wonder how Cap and Rose are doing."

Speaking of which, the two were plowing their way through HYDRA forces like a herd of elephants stampeding into a china shop. Rose Quartz was slashing down unfortunate soldiers with her trusted sword while Captain America was deflecting enemy fire with his mighty shield. The two of them arrived at a compound with its front door bearing the red-and-black symbol of HYDRA looming in front of them.

"This is it, this is where we dismantle Red Skull's latest scheme once and for all." Cap declared preparing to open the door before Rose stopped him. "I'm not sure about this Steve. HYDRA may have weapons beyond our comprehension. What if you die?" she said. "It doesn't matter if I lose my life here, there will always be someone to defend the country."

Bursting inside, they were immediately cornered by Red Skull standing by himself applauding the duo. "Well well well, the Star Spangled Man with a Plan and his pink compatriot." he calmly greeted the two with a devilish smirk.

"Your madness ends here Red Skull, release the people you have enslaved or else we will have to end you ourselves!" Rose shouted fiercely to the terrorist. "Ah Fraulein Quartz, it shall be you two who will end." Schmidt revealed, snapping his fingers to reveal more HYDRA foot soldiers armed with technology that seemed familiar to Rose. "We have recently recovered weaponry created by a place known as Homeworld created to destroy your kind." the leader of HYDRA explained.

"Wait, what's Homeworld?" Cap asked Rose. "I'll explain later, but right now our problem is them!" she replied. The two shield-wielders stood firm as the soldiers prepared for combat while chanting "Hail HYDRA!"

Meanwhile, the Commandos and the Gems rushed to the compound to find it locked down. "Rose, are you in there?!" Pearl cried pounding on the door. "You alright Steve?" Bucky added joining her in pounding the entrance. Suddenly the door finally opened and out came their respective leaders badly beaten but still alive.

Mere hours later, the heroes were all taken back to Washington D.C to be congratulated by none other than President Franklin D. Roosevelt. "In our darkest hour, you were the light that gave us hope." he spoke shaking each soldier's hand, including the Crystal Gems. "When our country and allies were faced with a calamity of unimaginable proportions, you stood tall and prevailed over the threat that was HYDRA."

The crowd grew more wild as they started taking pictures of FDR standing with Cap and Rose. "You're not only America's heroes, but heroes of the whole world." he continued saluting them. "On the behalf of the people, we salute you Captain America, the Howling Commandos and especially your new companions Rose Quartz & the Crystal Gems."

"I still look back fondly on that day." Pearl became wistful for the old days as Steve finished his story. "In fact, the reason why you're named Steven is partially because of the good captain here." Garnet revealed putting her hand on Cap's shoulder. "Come on Garnet, you're making me blush in front of him."

"My friends, I hate to interrupt but LOKI IS HERE!" Thor exclaimed pointing to a mysterious portal appearing in the streets of Beach City. "Well whadya say everyone? Kick some Asgardian ass?" Tony asked. "With pleasure." Hulk replied pounding his fists. "Let's go." Garnet added. "Woo, fighting a supervillain!" Steven cheered. "All right everyone, let's move out!"

Meanwhile within Beach City, a portal had appeared and out of it walked none other than Loki, adopted brother of Thor and the God of Trickery. Alongside him were a muscular man clad in black-and-white striped pants & carrying a ball on a chain and a blonde woman clad in a revealing purple leotard with spikes on the arms. They were the Absorbing Man and Titania. "Ya sure this is the place Horns? Doesn't look like much to me." Carl Creel wondered. "Of course I'm sure my friend, he said the Stone would be here." Loki replied with a smirk.

"Hopefully he's right, cause that stupid brother of yours is here." Mary MacPherran stated spotting the Avengers and the Crystal Gems headed toward them. "Oh goody." Loki grimaced. "It seems wherever I go, he always manages to follow me."

"Actually brother, you followed us here." Thor quipped before pointing his hammer at the trio. "Now then, what brings you here?!" he demanded. "I bet you're here to kidnap Steven, and if that happens again we will end you!" Garnet added. "Kidnap who now? HA! I have simply come here for a certain item you may have." Loki claimed. "Wait, what's he talkin' about?" Amethyst wondered.

"Carl, crush her." the Frost Giant ordered. "With pleasure boss." the Absorbing Man affirmed with a smirk before charging at the wannabe Quartz soldier. "Amethyst, run!" Steven called to her, but she was too late and was uppercutted into the air by the villain, causing her to spit out an glowing orange nugget. "By Odin's beard, it can't be!" Thor exclaimed in utter shock. "Please tell me we're seeing things!" Hawkeye added as the other Avengers gaped at the sight before them while the nugget fell into Loki's palm.

"Well, who knew getting the Mind Stone was going to be this easy?" smirked Loki. "You had Mind Stone entire time?!" Hulk wondered. "Wait, the what now? I thought it was a chicken nugget." Amethyst responded getting up from Creel punching her. "You mistook one of the Infinity Stones for a chicken nugget?!" Tony shouted groaning. "Infinity Stones? You mean-" Pearl exclaimed before covering her mouth in fear. "We can explain later, right now we stop Loki!" Cap ordered. "Avengers assemble!"

The two parties charged into battle, the Crystal Gems taking on Absorbing Man and the Avengers against Loki & Titania. "Don't think you can win just because you're aliens babes!" the criminal boasted getting into a fistfight with Garnet. "Steven, you're the superhero expert here! What even is he?!" Pearl shouted. "Well let me think for a moment." answered Steven. "Oh yeah, Carl Creel was an average crook that was given the power to absorb any material he touched through Asgardian magic!" he explained. "And Titania was just an average woman from Denver who got super-strong thanks to alien technology!"

"Thanks for expositing our powers brat!" Carl snarked as he grabbed Garnet in the gemstone on her right hand and his skin suddenly turned as blue as the ocean. "No way!" the fusion gasped. "Fancy! Loving the new skin!" he boasted examining his body before punching Amethyst in the face, freezing her. "Wait, why did Wrecking Ball Man turn blue after touching Square Woman when Square Woman red?" Hulk asked. "We can discuss later Hulk!"

"Okay team, our current mission is to get the Mind Stone out of Loki's hands!" Steve ordered. "Clint, Tasha, I'm gonna need you to handle Titania! Hulk, you try and distract Creel while the rest of us take care of Loki!" The other heroes immediately did as they were told, with Hawkeye and Romanoff first going after Titania.

"Hey babe, wanna see some tricks?" the archer offered to the villainess. "What kinda tricks Robin Hood?" his opponent wondered before she grabbed an arrow fired by him that started beeping. "Tick tick boom." The arrow then exploded in her face knocking her back. When she got back up, she looked furious and charged at the duo.

Meanwhile, Bruce had stood his ground against Absorbing Man who had already put Pearl literally on ice. "Hey Wrecking Ball Man, you leave Bird Woman and friends alone or else Hulk smash!" he roared. "That's what you always say big guy! Y'know, maybe I should start counting how many times you do it whenever we fight." Creel fired back before Hulk punched him in the face and started smashing him. "Hulk gonna break you to tiny pieces and turn you into fancy rings!" the gamma giant shouted continuing to crush him with his emerald fists.

"Banner, calm down! We just need you to take him out, not kill him and turn his remains in jewelry!" Iron Man said. "Yeah, the better to SMASH YOU with!" Crusher cried as he picked up his wrecking ball and smashed Hulk back. "Hey, you leave him alone!" Steven demanded summoning his shield to protect the scientist from the supervillain. "What the?!" Absorbing Man exclaimed before he was instantly knocked out by none other than Mjolnir. "Good work there defending Bruce young one." Thor thanked Steven retrieving his trusted hammer. "You're welcome Thor." the boy replied beaming.

"It's always got to be him, doesn't he?" Loki moaned facepalming. "Titania, please pick up where Creel has failed!" he ordered to Mary only to discover she was already beaten by Natasha and Clint. "No matter, I still have the Mind Stone on me!" he declared before it was immediately snatched out of his hands by Amethyst's whip. "That's what you think sucka!" she bragged before changing her form to resemble that of a pro-wrestler and knocking Loki to the ground with a clothesline attack.

"It's over brother, your cohorts have fallen and the Mind Stone is ours. Any last words before we have to bring you in?" Thor declared before his arch-enemy finally rose from being beat up. "Don't get too cocky fools! You may have defeated me now but I am nothing compared to what's next! He will put an end to you once and for-"

Hulk had finally got sick of the Frost Giant's talking and grabbed him tightly before jumping high up in the sky. "HULK SICK OF PUNY GOD TALKING! HULK SMASH PUNY GOD!" he roared for all to hear as he let go of him and started punching him while falling down.

Loki landed first and was about to flee before he noticed the strongest there is still charging toward him. "HULK CANNONBALL!" He utterly crushed the brother of Thor, leaving him lying on the ground only letting out a small, pained squeal. "Still a puny god."

"Good work team, we saved the town and stopped Loki." Cap congratulated everyone. "Now, let's hand these two over to S.H.I.E.L.D and reconvene at the Gems' temple."

"You all did great there Gems, especially you Steven for defending Bruce from Absorbing Man." Tony said to Steven, who was utterly ecstatic. "Thank you Mr. Stark!" he smiled. "Uh, hey guys I hate to be a party pooper but Loki is getting away!" Hawkeye exclaimed seeing the mangled Frost Giant escape through a portal before giving one last hateful look at the heroes. "I will be back soon fools." he uttered before finally retreating and the portal closed behind him.

Later at the Crystal Temple, the Avengers and the Crystal Gems begin discussing the Infinity Stones while Steven made them all snacks. "So if this apparently an Infinity 'Gem', why isn't it reforming yet?" Pearl wondered.

"Actually my pointy-nosed companion, these are not the types of Gems you are familiar with. Tony, if you please." he said to Stark who created a slideshow with his repulsor lasers. "Before creation itself, there were six singularities. When the universe exploded into existence, these singularities were compressed into a group of ingots known as the Infinity Stones." he summarized.

"Each of them represent an aspect of our universe such as space, time, power, the soul, reality and of course the mind. A mad being known as Thanos constantly sought to obtain these Stones to gain ultimate power over the universe and win the love of the personification of Death herself."

"We nearly lost our lives against Thanos before, but we were always able to defeat him and separate them across the cosmos." Widow followed up. "And it seems one of them landed in the hands-or rather stomach-of you four." Amethyst just glanced around before turning her attention back to the Mind Stone. "So what do we do now?" she wondered. "Simple, we go to space and find the Stones before Thanos does." Cap declared.

"Whoa whoa whoa, are we really going to space?!" Steven exclaimed. "The last times we were there didn't end very well for us." Garnet added. "We understand you may be a bit uncomfortable with going to space, but it's for the good of all life." Thor said.

"Before we leave, Hulk still got a question." Hulk said before he regressed back into Bruce Banner. "How is it that Garnet has sort of a reddish color yet when Absorbing Man touched her gem, he turned blue?" Bruce wondered. "Funny you should ask that Doctor." Garnet answered with a smile before glowing brightly and splitting into Ruby and Sapphire. "Wait, what?! You mean to tell me this badass square afro lady with the hilariously oversized hips was actually two little girls in a trenchcoat?!" Bruce shouted.

"You could put it like that Doc. We're a fusion." Ruby said. "A special process when two Gems are completely synchronized together to form something entirely new." Sapphire added before they finally merged back into Garnet.

"Good news everyone, I've already arranged a Quinjet that'll take us into space and I also got some extra firepower coming with us." Iron Man announced. "But who will protect the city while we're gone?" Widow wondered. "Right, almost forgot." the Armored Avenger responded pulling out his phone to make a call. "Hey, is this Reed Richards?" he spoke. "Good to know, thank God you haven't been replaced with a Skrull. Listen, the Avengers and I are going to space to find the Infinity Stones again, so I'm gonna need you and your fantastic friends to pick up the slack while we're gone."

"While Tony is talking, I think we should still prepare for what's to come." Rogers stated. "The Quinjet should be arriving in a few minutes, so best to say your goodbyes before we leave."

Meanwhile in a far off part of the universe, Loki had finally fled from the Crystal Gems and the Avengers to an asteroid field known as Sanctuary. It was infested with alien races preparing for battle at any moment from Chitauri to Outriders and much more. "Lord Thanos, I wish to speak with you." the god declared to a figure with his back to him. "Speak Loki." the figure boomed. "I hate to say this, but I failed to acquire the Mind Stone, plus I have ran into some...problems along the way."

"Problems Loki? What kind of problems?" The figure turned to face Loki, revealing himself to be a purple humanoid creature clad in blue and gold armor with a golden gauntlet that gave off an eerie purple glow.

It was Thanos.

"I ran into those so-called 'Avengers' during my quest along with a group calling themselves the Crystal Gems." Loki explained, which made Thanos furious as he grabbed him by the torso and hoisted him up to his eye level. "Not only have you failed to bring me one of the Infinity Stones, but you were once again foiled by those heroes?!" he shouted. "Enjoy these last moments while you can boy, for I will bathe the starways in your blood!"

"WAIT!" a voice called out, charging to Thanos's side and whispering into his ears. This was Ebony Maw, another one of the Mad Titan's minions. "Very well then. I shall let you live." he stated dropping Loki to the ground. "But you won't bring me the Stones anymore."

"Oh really, and who have you nominated to replace me?" Loki wondered with a smirk. Thanos simply grinned and turned his gaze to another being clad in red clothing pressing his fingertips together behind him.

"Mephisto."

The plot begins to thicken true believers! What adventures will our united heroes go on? Who will protect Beach City while they're gone? Will they encounter a certain bunch of a-holes along the way? Find out next time on Steven Universe Secret Wars chapter 3, The New Crystal Gems: Rise of MODOK!

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