#collapsedverse

[suau-reshuffled]

Sorry that I haven't been active in a while, medicinal issues that I have been dealing with for a bit now.

Anyway, I made this. This is the fusion of Steven and Oaks, also known as Stoaks.

They're designed to be like a dog with a Lizard-like or snake-like tail (which is reference to Cerburus, a three headed dog sometimes shown as having a snake tail). This shows three things, how they bonded over not being human (if only partially in Steven's case, and even that's not there any longer), the fact that they are on the very edge of what Steven can fuse with (this can literally only happen because of how magic works in Collapsedverse, as they wouldn't normally be able to), and how much Steven and Oaks want to protect the other (they are literally a Gaurd dog).

[alternativetwoie]

No one seemed to acknowledge his presence, meaning it was most likely working. The hard part was that he can't know if it actually was or how long it would hold, as he can't use any of his other powers while doing this.

So far though, it seemed like he was good. Even Kiddo didn't look at him, but that might just be because he's so focused.

Twoie needed to just let events play out. This needed to happen, or Peridot might not give up. If she thinks she has a chance to stop the cluster herself, or to escape the planet on her own, then all may be lost.

So far so good, events were lining up exactly as they had before. Stumbling across Peridot, the resulting conflict, her subsequent escape, and Pearl and Amethyst leaving to go find her while he stayed behind with Garnet.

"... If Peridot's mission was to reactivate the Kindergarten, the injectors would be on. But they are not" Said Garnet to his younger self.

"Oh, oh" said Kiddo.

Garnet picked up the collapsed injector, revealing a hole.

"Let's go see what she was actually doing"

Garnet, Kiddo, and Twoie went down into the Kindergarten's prime control room.

But only Twoie knew what horrors would await them.

(Prev/First/Next)

[oforangeandblack]

The roar of a corrupted Selenite was pretty unmistakable, mainly because of how loud a corrupted fusion could be. Thankfully, he and Pearl had faced this type of corrupted Gem before, Pearl more so than him.

Selenites existed only as a swarm or a fusion, and never as an individual. Their tendency to break the rest of their cohorts out of bubbles made it nearly impossible for the Crystal Gems to take out. He and Rose could get close on their own, utilizing there ranged, crowd controlling abilities, but they didn't have the ability to contain the whole swarm at once.

It didn't leave them a lot of options, but it did leave them one. So, holed up inside the entrance to the main area of the spire, Steven turned to Pearl.

"Well, you know what we need to do as well as anyone. Question is, are you up to it?" Steven said, a polite concern in his voice. If she wasn't, then they'd just have to run. Not a terrible option, it isn't like the Heaven Beetle is going anywhere, but it wasn't completing their mission.

Pearl nodded and held out her hand. She closed her eyes, and appeared to be hiding her emotions somewhat. Not that Steven could know why.

With a mental promise not to keep going if Pearl seemed uncomfortable, Steven touched her hand lightly. A glow appeared at their gems, and the cheery sound of bells and piano filled the air.

Pearl and Steven circled one another, fingers touching lightly. After one complete rotation, Pearl spun around in place and ended in a ballet pose. Then she spun back towards Steven, who moved with her so that they ended in a pose more suited for a ballroom than dance recital. Instead of going into a partnered dance however, the first step they took turned them into a glowing mass of light.

Pearl and Steven gemstones altered, becoming a light orange in color, and shimmering oddly as if coated in partial mirrors. Their lights merged into a single figure, still coated in light, but distinctly different in silhouette from either Steven or Pearl.

The light exploded from the outline of the fusion, and that light coalesced into the form of peach colored cherry petals that danced around the newly formed charecter.

The figure took the appearance of Steven's suit and Pearl's ballerina outfit and formed them into a Japanese armor, turning the skirt and coattails into the layered Kusazuri of a samurai. Steven's long, strait coat sleeves turned into the armor's protective arms. Their hair combined and affected a kabuto helmet.

As the petals fell around them, they reached to their forehead and throat. Pulling out Steven's morning star and Pearl's Spear, the fusion spun the two together. In a bright flash of light the eight foot tall, orange figure now held a large, single bladed sword.

With a look of focused determination, Sunset Aura Quartz charged into battle.

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(In Collapsedverse, when gems fuse they emit music in line with their musical motif. It hasn't really come up, sense whenever gems have fused so far, it would have messed with the stories flow, but it is happening).

Next time on Orange Steven AU: Sunset Aura Quartz fights.

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(Secondary note: This was the last fully canon chapter I wrote before the hiatus went up. I wanted to release at least something sense right before the hiatus was supposed to finish, I got sick. As such, I decided to release it now, just to get something out there).

[twobladedswordsandmauls]

Check it out

This was made by Sal over at @su-momswap as a reward for their DTYS contest. It was supposed to only be a line art, but they were awesome enough to do a full color for it.

This is, for the uninformed, Reshuffled Steven from @suau-reshuffled, which is one of my own AUs. It happened to be the character I had the most of a reference material for, so it was who I elected to do.

Anyway, go check out @su-momswap, they are clearly just awesome!

[alternativetwoie]

Empathic projection was, perhaps, Twoie's least favorite ability. It surprised him a little when he thought about it, but once he mastered sound manipulation it really wasn't all that scary.

Empathic projection would always terrify him. It, like mind control, took people's freedom from them. Unlike mind control however, it couldn't be controlled well enough to simply ignore. Twoie had to choose to mind control someone, and it was a hard thing to maintain. He had to put an active effort into not spreading his emotions to all around him.

Plus, it was pretty hard for mind control to hurt him. Empathic projection, before he realized it was there, can and has hurt directly. It had its good points, but its bad ones nearly ruined his life (though part of that was his fault).

Now though, he needed to use it, and he need to do it right. Folding laundry helped, mainly because it kept eyes off him as he practiced and caused people to not notice his screw ups.

What he was trying to do is project a sense of disinterest toward him around himself. This should cause people to not consider him, especially Gems due to their weakness to psychic infiltration. If he messed up, he'd most likely project a feeling of boredom, hence why he was doing this while everyone was folding laundry.

He needed to do this because he couldn't mess up this mission. Timing was important, and if his team mates were thinking about him and what he would do, that timing could be messed up.

He hummed as he worked, while singing wasn't important to empathic projection, making deliberate noise was. It was essentially a variation on the naturally transitive properties of the Gem language. Using noises to directly project meaning, rather than the noises themselves having inherent meaning.

It wouldn't effect Kiddo of course, as a Diamond he had quite a bit of resistance to this type of attack, further accentuated by Kiddo being psychic in his own right. Worse, his younger self might be able to sense that he's doing it, and that might mess things up. All he could was trust that Kiddo won't try and make things harder on him.

About halfway through the laundry session, Garnet began to speak.

"We need to track down Peridot. We found her pod. We know she's out there somewhere. She came to Earth with a job to do and odds are, she's still gonna try to do it. That's why I've gathered you here."

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

(Yes, this is basically filler. I overslept).

(Prev/First/Next)

[alternativetwoie]

"So, Kiddo. You ready to learn how to use your powers?" Said Twoie.

It had been a few days after Connie's training had started. Excited to learn as well, Steven had asked Twoie to teach him how to use his Gem, Twoie had deflected. Choosing to cite not wanting to lose control of the situation as his reason.

So, Twoie suggesting they do it less than 10 minutes before Connie's arrival was a little weird.

"I thought you said that we couldn't do that?"

Twoie shrugged with a smile, he seemed excited.

"Yeah, but then I had a lot of trouble remembering too many instances where that happened, and I think I can just tell you what is SUPPOSED to happen. I can trust you"

That made Steven feel overwhelmed. People didn't trust him, not even he trusted him, but Twoie did? That was odd.

Twoie looked saddened, a pout creeping onto his face.

"I forgot I used to be like that you know"

"Like what?" Steven said, confused.

Twoie turned away and didn't answer, then shook his head.

"Let's go to the sky arena, better to start earlier rather than later" he said.

And with that very obvious deflection, Twoie and Steven warped away.

(Prev/First/Next)

[suau-reshuffled]

Connie jumped at the ringing of the doorbell. Priyanka was saddened, whatever her daughter had seen, it had really shaken her. Worse, Priyanka didn't even know what to do for her daughter for this, not so soon. If the problem persists without getting better, Priyanka was going to get her daughter into therapy, but doing that too early could make things worse.

It had only been a day or two, and Connie had been getting better, if slowly. She probably wouldn't need therapy, just support, but Priyanka was pained watching her daughter struggle through this.

Priyanka got up from her chair, and walked to the door. It was early, and the sun was rising, so it is a little odd that someone was ringing their bell.

Opening the door, Priyanka was at first confused. She didn't see anyone at eye level with herself. When she looked down, thinking it might have been a package of some form, she got her answer.

A familiar short, red figure filled her vision. Ruby, if Priyanka remembered correctly. The Gem didn't seem to register that she was there.

"Hello?" Priyanka asked eloquently.

The figure at her door turned upward in slight surprise, then seemed to blink it out of their eyes.

"Um, Hi Mrs. Maheswaren! I... uh, sorry. It's been a bit of a day. How is... How is Connie doing" The red Gem stuttered as she spoke, seemingly because of stress rather than a speech impediment.

"Oh, she's getting better. Would you like to come inside?" Priyanka said, noticing now that the Gem had a different outfit on then when she last saw her.

"That would be nice, thank you..." The Gem commented sorrowfully, before trailing off when she saw Connie.

Priyanka went to the kitchen to make some tea. She wasn't sure if it would help the Gems nerves, but it sure would help hers.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

(Surprise!)

[alternativetwoie]

Garnet was confused, without her future vision she had no way of knowing where Twoie would bring her, but she didn't expect it to be here.

The cloud arena, the place where she first fused, had been completely empty at the time of the attack. Due to it's location, it, and most of the other floating Gem buildings, were completely free of corrupted Gems. They were too close to a warp pad to be caught in it.

The last time she was here was to destroy it's Diamond communicator, and hadn't really thought about it since. What could be here that could help her with her future vision?

"So" Twoie said, stepping off the warp pad. "I am sure you are wondering why we are here?"

Garnet nodded in agreement.

Twoie smiled.

"It was just because it was the last place anyone would go accidentally. There are, reasons, to keep this covert"

Garnet had to think about this. Twoie didn't want to be interupted, nor did he want anyone else to know they were doing this. That was slightly suspicious.

"Why do you want to keep this a secret?" She asked.

Twoie, instead of responding normally, took a deep breath, and stuck out his hand.

"May I have this dance?"

That... explained a lot. Garnet knew how excited Twoie's younger self could be around fusions, especially new ones, and even without her future vision she could see why he might want to avoid that.

She took his hand in hers, and their gems started glowing. A song filled the air around them, and Twoie led her into a very simple dance. As it finished twoie spun into her and they combined.

It was a lot quicker than Garnet had expected, and whoever they were now had got to have been the shortest three gem fusion Garnet had ever "seen". Of course, as the process completed, Ruby and Saphire found themselves in the mindscape, with Garnet no where to be found.

The fact that they were already in the fusion mindscape was a little weird, sense that generally only happened when a fusion was in a state of great focus. Looking around, they found Twoie, just standing around with his thumbs in his pockets.

They couldn't find the fusion anywhere, normally while in a focused, mentally separated, state like this, all parts of a fusion mind would be present. But they couldn't find any other figures.

Twoie saw the confusion and looked at them, and pointed up.

Following his finger, they saw a massive butterfly descending as the fusion took form, finally resting on the mirror like surface that made up the fusion mindscapes floor.

The butterfly showed the sky arena, tinted red. They realized that this wasn't a memory, or even a vision, it was what the fusion was seeing now. If in slow motion due to them moving at the speed of thought.

However, as they all focused on the image, it sped up to normal time. And the fusion started to speak, likely only moments after it had properly formed.

"Awwww YEAH, It's been a while!"

Ruby and Saphire were both shocked. They couldn't hear the fusions thoughts, they could only see and hear what it did.

This broke their focus and they looked at Twoie, who, without looking away from the screen, answered their silence.

"This is what normally happens with Sunstone. Can't hear their thoughts, can't influence their actions. I am honestly not even sure she can hear us back here"

Ruby and Saphire stared back at the screen, and caused it to go back to normal speed.

"A Future Vision Problem? Well, I got you Garnet. It's going to be Just fine!"

Sunstone's giant hands pulled something from an orange, flaming portal. A clipboard, seemingly the one Twoie had Garnet write the rejection letter to Jamie in, came out.

And with that, Sunstone just began writing. She wrote down a time, a date, a location, and a description of what's going to happen. It wasn't very comprehensive, but it was alot more than Garnet had gotten.

After nearly thirty minutes, and three sheets of paper of writing. Sunstone set down the clipboard.

"Well then, I hope that's cool enough for yah, G-Squad. Talk to me again if you think you need more"

Then, with out any warning at all, Sunstone unfused. It took a decent bit of work for Ruby and Saphire to stay fused through this, but not more than poofing Sugilite had.

Garnet stood across from Twoie when the process ended. Then she walked over and picked up the clipboard. She saw that Twoie had taken a seat rather than heading toward the warp pad. She stuffed the clip board in Saphires gem for safe keeping and review, then sat next to him.

"So, I am sure you have some questions?" He said.

"Many"

(Prev/First/Next)