Hills rolled across the next great chunk of land ahead of them. Orange and brown covered the ground as fall rolled back in, the dead leaves crunching with each step. Streams flowed along the forest floor, weaving its way between the trees that surrounded them. It left the terrain muddy at the bottom, but then left the tops of the hills dried out. They were steep hills, roots of trees sticking out and being the only source of surface to grab or step onto. Though the sun was out, it was shrouded by grey clouds, not containing rain, but carrying it elsewhere. It left the forest dim, but not dark.
Conversation echoed softly amongst the trees and bounced between the valleys of the hills, often drowned out by the crinkling of leaves from their own footsteps and the treading of other animals nearby. It never brought alarm that other animals walked amongst the same terrain as they did, as this was quite normal everywhere on Earth. They had let the edge leave them as they readjusted to the environment over these last four months.
Jade felt his foot slip again as he managed to get himself over a small stream at the bottom. As he fell backwards, he heard a quick turn of steps from the two ahead of him and felt his arm suddenly yanked before he could splat into the mud. It took him a second to realize it was Pearl who grabbed so violently, a slight panic to her stone cold expression.
She still hadn't fully recovered from losing him for two days straight.
After a moment, Jade just laughed it off. "...Whoops." He regained his footing with the aid of Pearl and stood back up, making sure he was balanced this time.
"You alright?" Pyrite asked before turning himself back around to lead ahead again.
"Yeah, I'm good."
"That's the third time this hour!"
"This is rough terrain!!"
Pyrite searched the ground for a second, but then picked up a stick, which ended up being taller than himself. He threw it back at Jade.
"Here. Use this."
He barely caught it, but then held it in his hands, confused. "...What's this for?"
"Making sure you don't fall over."
"Wh- I don't need a walking stick!" Jade tossed it aside, immediately wiping the dirt on his hands off onto his pants. Pyrite only shrugged, implying it was Jade's loss.
The hill ahead of them wasn't too steep, but it was aided by roots of surrounding trees breaking through the ground. It made for natural footholds that then acted like stairs. They didn't jut out too much, but hey, it was better than nothing.
They had picked back up whatever conversation they were having before, resuming it as if nothing had happened. They seemingly payed almost no mind to the surrounding environment as they talked, sometimes even turning around to talk to each other and walking backwards. Of course, that resulted in occasional slips and falls which never failed to bring more humor to the conversations.
Reaching the top of another of the hills, Jade slowed down and turned back around, getting a view of it all. Everyone else slowed when they realized he had practically stopped.
"You good?" Asked Pyrite, but he already knew what Jade was doing. Jade only responded simply, just taking in the view. Sure, it wasn't the prettiest day, but that was alright.
They ended up standing around for a moment, mostly waiting for Jade. He did this way too often. Honestly sometimes they wondered if he scanned the environment and visualized it in his head like a god damn poem. But they couldn't really do anything to stop him, so they also just looked around for a moment.
Pearl swung herself around suddenly, facing the opposite direction that Jade stared in. Everyone brought their attention to her.
Her stance became defensive, and only after a second, she summoned her weapon.
"Pearl?-" Jade was quickly shushed by her hand gesture behind her. Both him and Pyrite tried listening out for anything that would set her off.
A crinkling of leaves nearby that sounded like footsteps. Not the usual animal ambience.
Jade was the next one to get prepared, although he didn't face the same way. He heard it from a different direction than Pearl. He heard it from the way he was facing before.
Pyrite was the last one to get ready, and even HE was facing a different way! They all practically stood back to back at this point, unsure of where the hell this enemy was.
Out of the corner of his eye, Pyrite could see Jade was doing something weird with his hand. Like he was trying to get his sword but it wasn't working. He didn't hesitate to loudly whisper at him, clearly concerned.
"What are you doing?!"
"The sword-" Jade tried again to summon it. "I can't use it!"
"What?!"
"I SAID, I can't use it!"
"I know that!-" Pyrite jolted his head back in front of him, taking a step forward. Now he could hear things from both the direction he faced and the direction Pearl faced. And then from Jade's direction.
"Well you better figure that shit out FAST, we got company, dammit!"
"IM TRYING."
Pyrite continually looked around, suddenly hearing the noise stop. But he knew they were still there.
"What do you want?!" He yelled out to them, awaiting a response.
And yet he got none. Only the wind in the empty trees answered.
"We know you're there, assholes. The hell do you want?"
Still no answer. Everyone stood on edge, Jade giving up trying to summon his sword. Pearl held her blade close to her chest, a hand out in front, while Pyrite had his shield ready.
These had to be some homeworld lackeys. Who else would be out here wandering the woods like they didn't know where they were going? ...Well, ok, besides the three of them.
The sound of leaves shuffling in large amounts was followed by the blurry visual of an individual moving. There was no time to spare. Pyrite immediately jumped on dealing with them, and the fight officially started.
About 7 more gems emerged from behind trees and lower parts of the hill, all springing on the three of them. They didn't put up a weak fight, but it seemed they didn't aim to kill. But their intent wasn't known. They couldn't be sure.
Pearl ended up getting her hands full with three gems of her own, holding them off with relative ease. Their weapons were all close-range, which faired well with her small kunai. Pyrite was able to keep 2 at bay, but occasionally he'd bite off more than he could choose and go at 3 or 4 at a time. He ended up slipping back quite often in the mix of leaves and twigs below him, getting shoved back by the brute force of the weapons the opposing gems used.
Jade couldn't do much. He still couldn't summon his sword, and he had no idea why. The best he could do was try to dodge and maybe use his arms to block some attacks, but that hurt way more than it needed to. He tripped over one of the people attacking him by swiping under them, but that didn't do that much in the grand scheme of things.
Why the hell wasn't his sword there?! There's no reason for it to not be accessible! He tried to think back to the last time he had it, and although he hadn't used it in forever, he had it back at the Yellow Diamond fight! So why didn't he have it now? I mean, he had it on him when he died, I'm sure he....
Oh.
Jade accidentally ran into Pyrite, almost tripping the both of them over.
"Watch it!!-"
"I figured out why I can't use my sword"
"Why's that?-" Pyrite managed to deflect a direct hit from one of the gems he was dealing with.
"I left it in Yellow's room."
"You WHAT"
"I destabilized, dropped it, and it's there!"
"God-" He turned and landed a blow on one of the gems, destabilizing them. "Dammit! Well, that explains it!"
"Trust me, I'm more pissed about it than you are-" He ducked under the swipe from a sword that one of the opposing gems wielded. It ended up accidentally hitting Pyrite, which threw him off guard.
With 2v7 at this point, they were never gonna win. Not with Jade this useless.
Pyrite grumbled to himself in the very short break he had between fighting the gems in front of him, but then outstretched an arm violently to Jade. Jade was confused for a solid moment.
"Come on! We don't got all day."
Jade didn't realize exactly what he was doing, but then it clicked.
While Pearl remained fighting, she did hear the sound she had heard several times before, but not in a long while; the sound of fusion. But she didn't bat an eye at it. She didn't let it distract her. But what made her stop was that the other gems were distracted. They had stopped fighting her, even backing away from her. Everyone went silent, and those who were fighting Pyrite and Jade backed off.
Imperial backed himself up and readied himself. "Alright! Who-" It didn't take him long to realize everyone went quiet, the battle was over. He dropped his guard and let his arms fall to his side, disappointed.
"Come on, what happened to all the fighting??"
"You.." One of the gems amongst the crowd spoke. She stepped forward, a teal gem with long, blue, straight hair stretching down her back. Her shirt bore a contrasting yellow star on it as the rest of her outfit looked soldier-like.
"You're a fusion.."
"Yeah? So what! You guys scared to fight now or what?-"
"No, no, not at all!" Her voice was soft, a welcoming tone. Honestly, it was kind of annoyingly soft. Her motions weren't brash either. "It's just so fascinating... finding gems like you out here in the middle of nowhere.."
Imperial paused for a moment. That sounded so very weird, and somehow wrong. He just stared oddly at her.
"....Well I can say the same about you. What's your deal?"
"We're scouts for the Crystal Gems. We were in the area and heard your chatter, and we assumed you were some of Homeworld's troops. We apologize for the sudden ambush."
"Us? Homeworld's troops?" Imperial laughed. "Yeah, complete opposite there, bud. Not to brag, but we fought Yellow herself!" He answered himself in his head that they had lost, but he wasn't gonna say that.
"Really?!" One of the other gems exclaimed. But the blue gem hushed them.
She looked at Imperial and Pearl oddly. Like she was debating something. But she had made up her mind.
"Do you mind coming with us for a moment?"
Imperial perked his head up. "Well, first thing's first, who's asking?"
"Oh, my apologies. Azurite, leader of scout troop T6I." She gestured to the rest of the people who Imperial now realized had surrounded them.
....Looks like he didn't really have much of a choice.
They hadn't walked far, but it was far enough that they were out of the forest. Azurite's people weren't keeping heavy eyes on him, so he knew if anything was fishy, he could just slip out. Pearl walked by his side as they walked through what seemed to be an open field, bearing what seemed to be a large hill in the distance.
Imperial was conflicted. He didn't even process these were Crystal Gems. And yet.. why did they feel almost ominous? It felt too welcoming. And seeing Imperial suddenly changed their minds? He was honestly hoping for more of a daze than a wonder. He preferred the daze over the wonder, frankly.
That handful of months ago, it was decided they were gonna go hunt down the Crystal Gems to team up with them. And although that was still the plan, it just... it still didn't sit well with him. Didn't sit well with any of them. Now, maybe this weird introduction didn't help, but it just felt.. wrong.
He wasn't really sure if he wanted to do this, even after all this searching.
"How are you doing, Pearl?" He looked down to Pearl and saw he caught her by surprise.
"Decent." She looked ahead again.
"...Any thoughts? I mean, we're headed to.. what I can only assume to be the Crystal Gem base..?"
"..It's what we planned months ago, is it not?"
"It is, it's just....." He struggled to find any word or words to fill the blank, so he just left it blank and let the silence speak for itself.
"You're having doubts?"
"Absolutely. 100%"
"And it's not just your inner Pyrite hating this plan through and through, is it."
"My inner- what? No, no this is like- a gut feeling." He looked ahead towards Azurite's team. They were talking with each other, but not much. Azurite led ahead by herself. "The atmosphere just doesn't feel right. It feels... off, you know?"
Pearl actually nodded, agreeing that something felt weird.
"You feel it too?"
She didn't give any response, but honestly it was self explanatory.
"Hey, Azurite or whatever!" He yelled up to the front. Azurite turned her head back, then ushered those behind her to keep moving as she walked back to talk with Imperial.
"What's up?"
"So where are you and your little crew taking us, exactly?"
"Ah. There's a temporary base set up for one of the Crystal Gem squadrons up ahead. You can actually already see it, we're quite close."
"Huh?" Imperial scanned the area for a moment, but saw no base. Only that large hill in the distance. "I don't see anything."
"Well, because you're viewing it from the wrong angle! That hill over there?" She pointed to it. "It's actually caved out in the middle, so it's almost as if it was the shell of a hill! That's where we're stationed."
"A cave?? In the middle of nowhere..?"
"Not a cave, necessarily, but more like a piece of land with two walls. The tops aren't connected and both sides have entrances. You'll see!"
".............Alright.....???" Imperial walked on, confused as hell, but I guess he'll see when he gets there.
As they got much closer, they heard loud chatter from that fake hill. It sounded like easily over a hundred people were beyond the walls of it. It sounded jovial, but it was hard to tell with so many voices. They reached the edge of it, and Imperial could finally see what she meant; the sides of the hill were actually just two large pieces of rock that curved over the area, covered in moss and dirt that happened to be covered in grass. And beyond it, a rainbow of a display of gems were gathered, too many to actually depict what they were doing. He could see many were just chatting, some were sparring, some were throwing things? It was noisy as hell in there.
Azurite stopped him just before entering.
"I'll be right back out! You just stay here for a moment!" She looked up at him with a smile, then left and disappeared within the crowd.
It wasn't like he was gonna move, he didn't wanna go in there.
"Quite the party in there.." Pearl muttered, but Imperial heard it.
"Hm. Yeah, sure is something.." He tried to take this as a moment to figure out what to do.
"How are you feeling now that you see this crowd?" He asked Pearl, maybe hoping she could influence his decision a little more.
"Are you not feeling it?"
"I asked YOU, come on! Help me out, here!" He looked back over towards the crowd quickly but then back at Pearl.
"I'm never a fan of big crowds like this, so the decision is more yours."
"Alright, then we won't do this! That sounds like a valid excuse to me!-"
"Don't just do this for me! Why do you need an excuse?-"
"Because I don't know, Pearl! This just doesn't feel right, and I can't figure out why!" He turned to her, a serious gaze in his look. "We've been going for this for like- 4 or 5 months and yet I don't even know if this is what I wanna do! Yes, I know that Pyrite's fucking pissed about this plan! But I'm also on edge about it, and honestly that doesn't feel like 'my inner Pyrite' or whatever the hell you said before. That feels like genuine ME. And- you know what?" He took a moment to breathe. "You know what? It's the fact that these guys want us because of me. Like- that's fucking weird. Right??"
"That is kind of odd.."
"Exactly! Look, I'll join if I want to but you want ME to join? I'll pass."
He felt mostly satisfied with that answer, I mean, it's not wrong! But he'd leave the inner conflict with himself for later. Something in his gut was telling him to get outta there. Not in a desperate panic kinda way, but just.. discomfort.
But then Pearl popped the question, the one they couldn't decide after all this time:
"What do we do then?"
"The age old question, huh!" He said, trying to stall time and give himself a little longer to think. It still wasn't a question with a direct answer.
"I.... Don't know, exactly.."
He didn't have any time to add on anything else before Azurite returned, bringing along another gem. The gem was tall, almost as tall as Imperial, but her stature showed she probably was strong headed. She came around the corner, then took a good look at Imperial.
Azurite introduced him. "This is the fu-"
"The name's Imperial." He interrupted.
"...Right! Imperial! Well, this is Heliodor, the head of this sector!"
"It truly is nice to meet you!-" Heliodor started, but honestly, Imperial didn't like everyone being so flattering all of a sudden.
"Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you to. ..So I'm assuming you're gonna ask me to join your whole lot or whatever."
"I- well, of course we're open to whatever you are willing to do, but it's just.. it's unusual finding a fusion like you out in the wild, let alone a fusion of two different gems! It caught us so off guard, I apologize for our brash actions." Heliodor eyed Azurite as if lightly scolding her.
"Eh, it's alright."
"Usually the conditions for fusions is so unsafe that we try to provide protection for them under the Crystal Gems. Whether they accept or deny is up to them."
"And what do I get for joining? Besides your 'protection' or whatever?"
"You gain the freedom to stay fused as long as you would like!" The tone she said it in felt the same as saying Imperial was... well, in a.. relationship.
Imperial stared coldly at her, confused, and frankly disgusted a little. See, this is the problem with the Crystal Gems. They're so focused on "love" and "freedom" and whatever, they completely ignore the fact that Imperial isn't doing this shit cuz of any of that. Imperial didn't exist for the past few months, not because of any issue, no! It's because being constantly fused all the time was so damn draining on homeworld! They need breaks, dammit! Even being fused right now felt a little exhausting, to be quite honest.
Heliodor saw Imperial's expression and felt she had said something wrong. Which she did. Before she could try to correct herself in some way, Imperial came first.
"L- Look. I get you guys are trying to be nice and all, and I'm not here to get in your way, but I'm gonna have to take a hard pass."
"Really? Are you sure you'll be alright?"
"Absolutely. I'm pretty damn sure we'll be good on our own."
Heliodor didn't seem extremely content with that response, but she knew it was out of place for her to stop him. Imperial knew the look of running things through your head one last time though as she contemplated something else.
"Well, I do wish you safe travels. But do know, if you ever need aid, we're always willing to help!"
"Yeah, thanks. Really appreciate it" His tone wasn't completely genuine.
"If you ever need, you could be on your own but use our name if you're ever in trouble!-"
"Mhm! Got it"
Heliodor paused, getting the pretty strong hint that he wasn't interested. But again, it wasn't in her place to stop him. So she stood herself straight again and, once Imperial saw the conversation finally ended and he had turned to leave, she waved him off, Azurite doing the same.
Pearl took a second to catch up to him as he walked back towards where they came.
"You we're pretty impatient back there, maybe you should've given them more time?"
"Yeah, no, I'm glad I rejected them. HUGE red flags. I mean- you saw how much they praised me, right?"
"Yes, but to be quite honest, that was your first encounter with another fusion, was it not? It seems you're quite rare-"
"WAIT WHAT." Imperial stopped and turned to Pearl swiftly. "THAT HELIODOR GUY??"
"I couldn't help but notice the gems she had on her shoulder and her naval. I'm surprised you didn't notice"
"WH-" Imperial all of a sudden was solidly impressed, but then remembered that her attitude still wasn't the greatest. "Well! She still threw me off, alright? Fusion or not, I'm glad I rejected her offer!" He continued his pace again.
"Well then, I'll ask again. What now?"
Imperial didn't try to respond immediately, running ideas through his head. There was no way they could make their way back to homeworld and try that again. No way in hell. And it's still way too risky trying to do any sort of raid or anything, they'd need a bigger group than just 3.
He looked ahead. He didn't realize he had zoned out facing the forest they were first in. There wasn't anything special about that forest, and honestly it was like the rest. But there was something that made it unique. Nobody could place what it was, but it was the same thing that made every forest unique, every plains unique, every step of the way across the Earth unique. Especially recently. As of these last 4 months, the places they'd seen, they were never walked before. Even Pyrite had never seen some of those places. And to know that they only walked such a small distance across the Earth, knowing there's more to see, more memories to be made, finding each environment's special uniqueness...
"Well, we first gotta go get Jade another weapon. Probably should head back to that battlefield." Imperial broke the silence after a minute.
"Do you think it's safe to use the warps?" Pearl inquired, a genuine interest to hear his answer.
But all he did was smirk and give her a side glance, one filled with intrigue. Content.
"When did I ever say we were gonna warp?"