Abandoned Crystal System Colony Planet Earth - Monday Night, Fandom Time
Peridot's brilliant 'get back to Homeworld before the traitors or the Cluster kill me' plan wasn't going so well. She hadn't gotten any reply at all from the distress signal that she'd sent out, and by the time she'd returned to the Communication Hub to see what had gone wrong... it had been demolished. Smashed to rubble and beyond repair.
Now she was at the Galaxy Warp, trying to fix the shattered warp pads. All she needed was one that would get her off of this planet. It could go anywhere that the Gems had ever been to, and she'd take it!
"Stupid broken warp..." Of course, she was going to grumble while she did so. "First, the Communication Hub, ugh... now this is busted again... These Crystal Gems are a menace..."
Of course, of course that was the exact moment one of the warp pads activated and the Crystal Gems themselves appeared. Peridot made a somewhat undignified face as the Steven perked up and waved hello from the pad.
"Good mornin'!"
"What?" Peridot wrinkled her nose and straightened up from where she was standing, knee deep in rubble. "How did you know I was here?"
"We found a secret way to track you, and we'll never tell you how, even if you ask nicely," the Steven announced, and then he made a rude gesture that involved sticking out his tongue and pulling one eyelid down with his touch-stump. Weird creature.
"Peridot!" And now the permafusion was yelling at her. Because of course she was. "We're here to--"
"And you'll never get away with this!"
... Gold star for the Pearl, interrupting and proving why they were typically considered the servant class Gems of Homeworld.
"Don't you Gems have anything better to do than annoy me?!"
"Nope," the Amethyst proclaimed, readying her whip. "We're gonna--"
"Prepare to be annoyed!"
The Pearl was doing excellent at that, yes.
"I don't have time for this," Peridot groaned, rearranging her fingers into a blasting weapon and charging it up. "This planet has an expiration date, and I'm not gonna stick around to find out when!"
Peridot fired the ball of energy, and the fight began.
Well. It was sort of like a fight. They weren't the terrifying, well-coordinated force they had been before. The Pearl kept tripping over everybody, which was probably the only reason that Peridot managed to make it to one of the few surviving warp pads back to Earth in one piece, herself.
"Wow," she muttered, looking at the group. "This is just sad. I almost feel sorry for you."
And then she stuck out her own tongue and pulled down her eyelid, as the Steven had done before, and activated the warp.
*****
Peridot's plan was brilliant. It couldn't fail! If the traitor Gems could find her wherever she went, now, then the thing to do was to lay a trap! And there were some old, derelict Gem colony ships from before the war. They'd be useless for flight, but maybe she could use them to keep the Crystal Gems busy until she could repair just one warp pad that would get her off of this miserable planet...
She sat back in the ship's control room and waited, and sure enough, before too long the control panel sent her indication that other Gems had entered the ship. Cackling, she activated the projector.
"You Gems really are as dull as dirt!"
The Pearl said something and pointed at the monitor, but what Peridot heard on her end was mostly just garble. Stupid ancient Gem technology, failing her again. Just her luck that the only ships on the planet were ones that hadn't been functional for thousands of years.
"What?" She squinted a little. "Can you speak louder? Some of these communicators are gunked up."
She watched the video feed as the Steven grabbed one of the microphones and took a moment to clear the plants and such off of it. He said something, and a few seconds later the audio transmitted into the control room.
"Pearl says, 'You're the dull one if you think you can fly this wreck!'"
Peridot couldn't help but laugh.
"Fly? I'm not using this vessel to fly!" It would never get off the ground, for a start. "I'm using it to trap you!" She slammed her hand down on a button, and the door the Crystal Gems entered through slammed down behind them. "Isn't this nice...? No more Crystal Gems running around, messing with my plans, destroying my things. Looks like I've got you right where I want you. How does it feel to be so easily outsmarted, you clods!?"
She watched in smug satisfaction as the Gems reacted with an appropriate amount of horror. The Amethyst made a reach for the microphone, and said... something... but Peridot wasn't about to give the audio enough time to filter through to her end. Not a chance.
"Enough talk! Prepare yourself for annihilation! Hi-yah!"
She slammed her hand down triumphantly on the control panel.
The ship groaned a little.
"... Hi-yah!"
A different button, this time, activating the ship's moss-covered laser defense systems. This time, something did go right as the ship's weapons extended toward her former pursuers and began to open fire.
"Aha! It works! Yes! Die, die, die, die, die, die, die!"
That would keep them busy for a while. And the holoprojectors would let her taunt them whenever she got bored. Peridot could see no problem with any of this, really.
*****
Okay, this whole endeavor could admittedly be going better than it was. Out of the three projectors she had at her disposal, two of them were showing static, and the third one was only sometimes showing her a map of the ship. The rest of the time, that one was static, too.
"Uuugh, stupid button here! I don't know what anything is!" She gave a little growl of frustration as she raised her fists into the air. "Blast this old Gem tech! Where'd they go? Why isn't anything working?"
There were probably good odds that things weren't working because of the Gems that blasted a hole in the wall behind her, earning a little shriek out of her in shock.
"Surrender, Peridot," the permafusion declared. "You have nowhere to run!"
"The Crystal Gems are gonna get youuu," the Steven agreed, sounding entirely too pleased with himself.
"You really think this is the end?" Peridot knew better than to stick around to keep fighting these clods. She held her arm out toward the Gems and shifted her fingers to form her blaster, cackling all the while. "This? This is only the beginning... of my escape!"
She aimed the blaster upwards, shooting a hole in the ceiling above them. And then she put her hand to further use, spinning her fingers like a helicopter's blades yet again. If it had worked for her back in the kindergarten, it would work for her now!
"Well, I'd love to stick around and watch another one of your pathetic attempts to capture me, but I guess I'm just too smart for the likes of you lumpy, clumpy, clods!"
... Wait. There was a weight on her foot.
"I caught a Peridot!"
"Hey!" Peridot shook her foot violently, trying to dislodge the Steven that was clinging to it. "Get your touch-stumps off me, you Steven!"
She shook her foot harder, and the Steven... bit it. He bit her foot! And then the Amethyst jumped up and grabbed him, and the Pearl grabbed her, and then the fusion...
It was not the most comfortable arrangement ever. She couldn't take off with the four of them weighing her down like that, and with the way her limb enhancer was pulling at her leg? Not great. She started flicking the Steven in the face with her free hand, the one that wasn't currently keeping her aloft, in the hopes that maybe that would dislodge him.
"Let go of me, you, you... persistent... little... whatever exactly you are!"
"Peridot," the fusion called, "your flight's... been cancelled!"
She... she had no choice. They were going to reel her back in, and sacrifices needed to be made. So, teeth grit, she reached down and pressed a finger to the side of her foot. It glowed for a moment in a shade of bright green, and then her foot just... fell off, leaving Steven and the Crystal Gems falling back to Earth, and Peridot actually flying up and out of the ship, a trail of smoke pouring out the bottom of her leg.
This... had not gone well.
All she wanted was to be left alone long enough to go home! And now she had no ship, no communications, no foot...
She was getting desperate.
[OOC: The CANONING continues! This post has been brought to you by the Steven Universe episode, "Friend Ship." NFI establishy goodness!]
Now she was at the Galaxy Warp, trying to fix the shattered warp pads. All she needed was one that would get her off of this planet. It could go anywhere that the Gems had ever been to, and she'd take it!
"Stupid broken warp..." Of course, she was going to grumble while she did so. "First, the Communication Hub, ugh... now this is busted again... These Crystal Gems are a menace..."
Of course, of course that was the exact moment one of the warp pads activated and the Crystal Gems themselves appeared. Peridot made a somewhat undignified face as the Steven perked up and waved hello from the pad.
"Good mornin'!"
"What?" Peridot wrinkled her nose and straightened up from where she was standing, knee deep in rubble. "How did you know I was here?"
"We found a secret way to track you, and we'll never tell you how, even if you ask nicely," the Steven announced, and then he made a rude gesture that involved sticking out his tongue and pulling one eyelid down with his touch-stump. Weird creature.
"Peridot!" And now the permafusion was yelling at her. Because of course she was. "We're here to--"
"And you'll never get away with this!"
... Gold star for the Pearl, interrupting and proving why they were typically considered the servant class Gems of Homeworld.
"Don't you Gems have anything better to do than annoy me?!"
"Nope," the Amethyst proclaimed, readying her whip. "We're gonna--"
"Prepare to be annoyed!"
The Pearl was doing excellent at that, yes.
"I don't have time for this," Peridot groaned, rearranging her fingers into a blasting weapon and charging it up. "This planet has an expiration date, and I'm not gonna stick around to find out when!"
Peridot fired the ball of energy, and the fight began.
Well. It was sort of like a fight. They weren't the terrifying, well-coordinated force they had been before. The Pearl kept tripping over everybody, which was probably the only reason that Peridot managed to make it to one of the few surviving warp pads back to Earth in one piece, herself.
"Wow," she muttered, looking at the group. "This is just sad. I almost feel sorry for you."
And then she stuck out her own tongue and pulled down her eyelid, as the Steven had done before, and activated the warp.
*****
Peridot's plan was brilliant. It couldn't fail! If the traitor Gems could find her wherever she went, now, then the thing to do was to lay a trap! And there were some old, derelict Gem colony ships from before the war. They'd be useless for flight, but maybe she could use them to keep the Crystal Gems busy until she could repair just one warp pad that would get her off of this miserable planet...
She sat back in the ship's control room and waited, and sure enough, before too long the control panel sent her indication that other Gems had entered the ship. Cackling, she activated the projector.
"You Gems really are as dull as dirt!"
The Pearl said something and pointed at the monitor, but what Peridot heard on her end was mostly just garble. Stupid ancient Gem technology, failing her again. Just her luck that the only ships on the planet were ones that hadn't been functional for thousands of years.
"What?" She squinted a little. "Can you speak louder? Some of these communicators are gunked up."
She watched the video feed as the Steven grabbed one of the microphones and took a moment to clear the plants and such off of it. He said something, and a few seconds later the audio transmitted into the control room.
"Pearl says, 'You're the dull one if you think you can fly this wreck!'"
Peridot couldn't help but laugh.
"Fly? I'm not using this vessel to fly!" It would never get off the ground, for a start. "I'm using it to trap you!" She slammed her hand down on a button, and the door the Crystal Gems entered through slammed down behind them. "Isn't this nice...? No more Crystal Gems running around, messing with my plans, destroying my things. Looks like I've got you right where I want you. How does it feel to be so easily outsmarted, you clods!?"
She watched in smug satisfaction as the Gems reacted with an appropriate amount of horror. The Amethyst made a reach for the microphone, and said... something... but Peridot wasn't about to give the audio enough time to filter through to her end. Not a chance.
"Enough talk! Prepare yourself for annihilation! Hi-yah!"
She slammed her hand down triumphantly on the control panel.
The ship groaned a little.
"... Hi-yah!"
A different button, this time, activating the ship's moss-covered laser defense systems. This time, something did go right as the ship's weapons extended toward her former pursuers and began to open fire.
"Aha! It works! Yes! Die, die, die, die, die, die, die!"
That would keep them busy for a while. And the holoprojectors would let her taunt them whenever she got bored. Peridot could see no problem with any of this, really.
*****
Okay, this whole endeavor could admittedly be going better than it was. Out of the three projectors she had at her disposal, two of them were showing static, and the third one was only sometimes showing her a map of the ship. The rest of the time, that one was static, too.
"Uuugh, stupid button here! I don't know what anything is!" She gave a little growl of frustration as she raised her fists into the air. "Blast this old Gem tech! Where'd they go? Why isn't anything working?"
There were probably good odds that things weren't working because of the Gems that blasted a hole in the wall behind her, earning a little shriek out of her in shock.
"Surrender, Peridot," the permafusion declared. "You have nowhere to run!"
"The Crystal Gems are gonna get youuu," the Steven agreed, sounding entirely too pleased with himself.
"You really think this is the end?" Peridot knew better than to stick around to keep fighting these clods. She held her arm out toward the Gems and shifted her fingers to form her blaster, cackling all the while. "This? This is only the beginning... of my escape!"
She aimed the blaster upwards, shooting a hole in the ceiling above them. And then she put her hand to further use, spinning her fingers like a helicopter's blades yet again. If it had worked for her back in the kindergarten, it would work for her now!
"Well, I'd love to stick around and watch another one of your pathetic attempts to capture me, but I guess I'm just too smart for the likes of you lumpy, clumpy, clods!"
... Wait. There was a weight on her foot.
"I caught a Peridot!"
"Hey!" Peridot shook her foot violently, trying to dislodge the Steven that was clinging to it. "Get your touch-stumps off me, you Steven!"
She shook her foot harder, and the Steven... bit it. He bit her foot! And then the Amethyst jumped up and grabbed him, and the Pearl grabbed her, and then the fusion...
It was not the most comfortable arrangement ever. She couldn't take off with the four of them weighing her down like that, and with the way her limb enhancer was pulling at her leg? Not great. She started flicking the Steven in the face with her free hand, the one that wasn't currently keeping her aloft, in the hopes that maybe that would dislodge him.
"Let go of me, you, you... persistent... little... whatever exactly you are!"
"Peridot," the fusion called, "your flight's... been cancelled!"
She... she had no choice. They were going to reel her back in, and sacrifices needed to be made. So, teeth grit, she reached down and pressed a finger to the side of her foot. It glowed for a moment in a shade of bright green, and then her foot just... fell off, leaving Steven and the Crystal Gems falling back to Earth, and Peridot actually flying up and out of the ship, a trail of smoke pouring out the bottom of her leg.
This... had not gone well.
All she wanted was to be left alone long enough to go home! And now she had no ship, no communications, no foot...
She was getting desperate.
[OOC: The CANONING continues! This post has been brought to you by the Steven Universe episode, "Friend Ship." NFI establishy goodness!]