Back at the barn, Peridot and Lapis have been getting to know each other better since they are going to be living together for the foreseeable future.
Lapis was sitting with her legs tucked under her chin at the front of the barn, watching the night sky and the stars, getting lost in her thoughts about the earth and the gems.
Peridot on the other hand was wondering if she could sit next to the blue gem and watch the stars with her. Peridot builds up enough courage to move across the barn and sit down next to Lapis.
"The stars are pretty tonight." Peridot nervously looks over at Lapis. "It's nice to see the universe from earth without speeding past it right Lazuli?"
Lapis nods and for a moment it seems peaceful between the two. No gems trying to capture them, no cluster having to take care of, no gem mutants or fusion experiments to deal with. Just the night sky and the gem next to them who under better circumstances might have become friends more quickly instead of being stuck by a barrier put up by the past.
The two sit in silence before a small beeping interrupts the two. Peridot jumps up to find Atoms old core flashing red with words on it saying "Warning! Fear levels rising!"
"Peridot? What's that?" Lapis peaks over the green gems shoulder as Peridot picks up the energy core.
"Somethings wrong with Atom." Peridot looks up at Lapis who is intently waiting for Peridot to continue her explanation. "This was their old core before me and Pearl replaced it but I'm surprised that it is still working."
"We have to do something right?!" Lapis summons her water wings. "What if they're in danger?" Peridot nods and as Lapis leans down, she jumps on the blue gems back as the two take flight.
Peridot moves the core around, fiddling with it until an arrow shows up. "Go that way! To that mountain!" Peridot points to the mountain where the beach city drift is taking place.
The two land where most of the humans are which is at the bottom of the mountain. Stevonnie rushes over to the two gems as soon as they spot the two.
"Lapis, Peridot? What's wrong" Peridot quickly explains how they got the warning and what it might mean as Lapis looks up at the mountain where she can see a faint green glow coming through the trees. "The last I saw Atom, they had a massive chunk missing from the left side of their face." Lapis turns back around to the fusion.
"I found them, can you get there by yourself? This might be a fight." Stevonnie nods and runs back to their car as Lapis and Peridot take flight again but this time, with a clear direction on where they are going.
The three push past a herd of deer, different trees and plants until they all stop to see Atom on the ground with the forest floor slightly smoking, staring up at the former beta kindergarten gem. Jasper.
Atom stares up at Jasper with their only functioning eye while the other is hidden by their messy and dirty hair.
"We can work together! I need you! We need each other!" Jasper states and holds out a hand for them to take, mirroring the time back at the beach so many months ago.
"It wasn't healthy Jasper, you know this..." Their suit has held up for most of her hits all except the helmet that shattered on impact.
"You don't know that! Look at what the humans have do-" Jasper gets through against a tree, breaking it in half by a beam of water. "It's you.." she looks up at Lapis, Peridot and Stevonnie.
"Jasper." The gems and fusion stand next to Atom as Jasper regains her composure. Peridot quickly helps the robot up and menacingly holds a stick towards Jasper as she hides behind their legs.
"Tch, I'm not fight all of you it's an unfair fight especially with that fusion." Jasper starts to back away into the trees as the gems lower their weapons.
When she is fully gone Lapis turns to Atom as the others breath a sigh of relief. "What happened to your face?!" Atom looks over it Stevonnie for help and they do just that.
"It wasn't Jasper! It was just a friendly little race..." they trail off.
"How did you guys find me? I was sure that nobody saw where I was going." Peridot perks up and pulls out the old core.
"We were notified from this and then we followed it here." Atom has a flicker of fear flash over their face before they shake their head.
"Lucky we kept it intact then right?"
"Yes, now I'm sure that we all should be heading home." Peridot turns to Lapis who nods and summons her water wings but there seems to be one slight problem.
"Can you carry the both of us? Because if not I do have another power that I want to try out." Without waiting for a response they turn on their gravity engine causing them to hover around the air.
"Let's go then!" Lapis takes flight as Atom says goodbye to Stevonnie.
"It was nice meeting you." And they float upwards into the sky meeting Lapis and Peridot in the clouds.
~~~
"Peridot can I have some help? My face hasn't fixed itself yet and maybe you could look at it?" It's the next day as Atom finds that their face hasn't fixed itself after an entire night when it should have fixed itself in a matter of minutes.
"Naturally. It probably has something to do with your mainframe maybe the crash knocked something out of place?" Atom lifts up their hoodie that they burrowed from the clothes pile in the barn. Peridot studies the metal skeleton for a moment before sitting back.
"I don't know what's wrong." Peridot says as Atom lowers their hoodie and looks over at their old core.
"Maybe it's that..." A moment of silence washes over the two as they realise what they have to do.
Atom stands up and walks over to the glowing green sphere, it feels hot but also cold in their hands, they pull off their hoodie and open op the small compartment where their core use to be.
"Wait! Are you sure you want to do this?" Peridot scrambles towards them and holds their arm.
"If it's the only way then I have too Peridot." Atom kneels down to the small gems. "I know you will prevent me from completing my mission, so please watch me for me." They place the small sphere inside of the compartment and shut their eyes.
*reconnecting*
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