The Soul Gem

Throwdown

"You tried to destroy my Diamond's work! You tried to shatter me! Both of which unforgivable!" Jasper yelled, demeaning Ermac for his actions in his monstrous form.

"We didn't mean to. We weren't in control," Ermac defended. He was right, he wasn't in control of himself. None of his pieces were, they had all been swallowed by the monster and engulfed in mental strife.

"Lies! That beast had your abilities! You clearly had some agency over it!" Jasper yelled once more, referring to the beast's blast waves that reflected Ermac's limited form of telekinesis.

"So that's what that stinging was," Ermac muttered to himself. While he was transformed, his psyche had felt a burning sensation coming from his forehead. Where his gem would be, it felt as though lightning was being ripped out of him. He couldn't exactly see or hear fully what was happening, he could only catch the moments where impacts were made to his monstrous body. As those moments were where he was brought to awareness of the world around him briefly. He felt his leg get broken from under him, the watery shackles restraining him through his hands and legs. He faded out of awareness again, first feeling the burning sensation from his forehead.

The process repeated, each moment of lucid awareness bringing different glimpses of reality. His legs being sliced out from under him by Bismuth. A shield being slammed into his face, by an adult of ambiguous gender riding a pink lion. His body being forced apart, limb by limb before falling into the water. The entire last minute or two, where he was trying to use a large scale laser attack. It was being held back, which was burning his throat and torso. He saw the adult slicing away at the back of his mouth, while he felt a harsh tugging at his forehead. He remembered that Peridot had metal abilities, she was pulling on the metal of his own gem. Then he felt nothing. As if he was trying to perceive the world, only to get nothing but black. Then his first bout of lucid thinking and senses coming back to him, he was awake inside of a pool of water surrounded by the Diamonds.

"We....we're sorry," Ermac apologized.

"So you admit you had control?!" Jasper yelled, punching him back down as he tried to stand up. Ermac was in a stunned panic, as he didn't know how to respond. Suddenly, Ermac went still, frozen in place like a statue. No gem could fully see that his gem changed to a orangish tone, and that his eye now matched Jasper's in their yellow orange shade.

"Get up and answer for your transgressions!" Jasper yelled, about to bring her hands down onto Ermac's head. Before his left arm shot out, punching Jasper in the jaw and sending her staggering backwards. Ermac looked up from the ground, making direct eye contact with Jasper. It was then that she recognized the changes.

"You changed your colors? What's the point of that?" Jasper asked with a glare. Ermac mimicked that glare.

"Fighting back against a dull clod who clearly isn't paying attention!" He replied, with an anger and tone that sounded like Jasper was talking through him now. The Crystal Gems recognized what had happened, based on the things Steven had told them to watch out for.

"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Amethyst asked, looking between the other two gems.

"Ermac's not piloting and one of his Jaspers just took the reigns?" Pearl said.

"Yep. We should be careful," Garnet said, carefully observing the conflict thay was about to happen. Along with her third eye focusing on the pools of possibilities, trying to gauge how bad this fight will get. Her starting point from where she starting viewing from was the timeline where Ermac's Jasper immediately punching Jasper in the jaw. Which eliminated the possibility of his Jasper immediately shattering her, and Jasper was about to summon her helmet.

"You want to fight? Alright then!" Jasper yelled, getting her fists up in a fighting stance. So there went that timeline entirely, now is the matter of what would Ermac's Jasper do next. Would that gem discover Ermac's powers and use them, or would they respond to Jasper's stance with a punch, a kick, or a headbutt? Or what power would this Jasper discover? His concussion blasts, or his energy projective telekinetics? One leads to a shattered Jasper, the other lead to the fight being taken elsewhere.