The Long Way Home(Doctor Who/Steven Universe crossover)

The Same as It Once Was

The Doctor and Pearl were caught. Motionless where they stood, in the reddish beam that was being cast by the piercing orange "eye" of the dark shape that hovered just in front of their faces. Pearl summoned her spear in a flash of light, bending her knees in a clear attack stance. The Doctor, on the other hand, just stood impossibly still. "Don't move," Pearl whispered to him quickly, her voice ringing with anxiety and tension. And there was a good reason for such tension, because she was still in complete awe of this hauntingly familiar sight: a Roaming Eye. It was different than the one that she and the other Gems had encountered a few weeks back during the "baseball incident." The ship was massive in size; from where Pearl stood it was impossible to see an inch of the sky behind the ship's girth. The hull was tinted a deep shade of purple, almost violet, as opposed to the usual crimson variety. It looked like it had come out of someone's nightmare.

Suddenly, the eye narrowed its single orange "iris", centring the gaze of its light directly on top of the Doctor. "Attention, human," came a voice from the Roaming Eye, "you are within the proximity of a classified Gem commerce and reproduction area." The voice was booming, low and completely monotone . "Please leave this area, for any organic lifeforms entering Gem territory will be disposed of swiftly."
Pearl felt her whole body tense after hearing this very clear threat from the machine, or rather from its masters. The Doctor, however, took a step forward. This was something that he'd never seen and he already wanted to know more about its business, assuming it had any.
"All right, listen here. We aren't meaning to cause a panic, we just landed here on accident." The Doctor couldn't help but flash a backwards glance at Pearl while uttering the last word. The Eye promptly responded by firing a laser from its iris. Pearl quickly ran into the Doctor, pushing him out of the way just as the laser hit the ground. The point where the laser had made impact was shown by a massive, triangular scorch mark in the grass. The Roaming Eye whirled around to focus its spotlight on its targets. Without missing a beat, Pearl tossed her spear directly at the Eye's piercing iris. But the spear simply bounced off and fell to the ground, where it fizzled away into specks of light.
"Wherever we are," muttered the Doctor as he picked himself up, "it's clear that the people of Earth in this particular timeline are not going to hear out our case."
"This isn't their Earth!", snapped Pearl. She quickly collected herself, however, as the plus sized Roaming Eye began to advance on them. Pearl immediately pulled another spear from her gemstone and stared head on at the Eye. But her concentration was broken when the Doctor snapped his fingers in a moment of realisation.
"Fortunately, for us, I have a sure fire solution to situations like this".
"Really, what's that?"
"Run."

Just like that, the Doctor was again making a break for the horizon, leaving behind a befuddled Pearl. Although with another look at the Roaming Eye, however, it was obvious that Pearl didn't have a lot of options. She broke off into a sprint, the Eye in hot pursuit, and in only a minute Pearl caught up to the Doctor, who was still running.
"Don't you have any kind of weapon we can use against something like that?"
"Sorry, question time is off for now," the Doctor called to Pearl sternly, in between each deep panting breath. "As you can see this isn't a very good time for playing '20 questions.'
That was all the Doctor had to say before he found his second wind of breath and began leading past Pearl. As he charged forward, the grey, lifeless grass all around began to disappear, replaced by nothing but flat earth and rocks. Suddenly the Doctor felt his shirt collar snag against his throat, sending him stumbling to a sudden halt. The Doctor, clutching his throat, turned his head to the thin Gem beside him, who was still holding onto his collar. The Doctor surely would have snapped at her for trying to choke him, had he not looked down at his feet for a second. The ground had opened up into a wide canyon and he was just a few seconds short of falling in. After a few seconds of awkward silence, the Doctor looked at Pearl again and muttered a small "Thanks". Pearl didn't hear him. She just stared forward into the canyon below, her eyes bulging and her mouth agape. She allowed her hand to release the Doctor's shirt collar with a slight tremble and go over her mouth, as the slightest flecks of tears were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. For right there in that canyon stood a Kindergarten. A fully functioning Gem Kindergarten! On either side of a dry, cracked riverbed, Injectors stood tall and glowing as they tore up the ground beneath them. From left to right, new Gems began to squeeze their way out of the canyon's rock faces, if they weren't being trained in the grounds below.

"This can't be happening...", Pearl whispered in probably her most feeble sounding voice. But she couldn't help it. She knew that it was impossible, that the Homeworld Gems couldn't have possibly started this whole travesty again right under her nose. But her eyes were telling her otherwise.
"I think I at least know where we are now", came the voice of the Doctor, who now sounded more reserved than Pearl ever had since their first meeting.

A long shadow appeared over both of their heads and hung in midair. It was the Roaming Eye and it had found them. Instead of charging up another laser, however, the ship made its landing a few feet in front of where they stood. A circular platform lowered itself from the bottom of the ship, carrying three figures. In between two Ruby soldiers stood a tall, thin yet built Gem with dark orange skin. Her hair was slicked over the right side of her head and streaked across her face were six long silver markings stretching out in all directions, all extending from the gemstone that was directly in the centre of her face.
"A Star Quartz," gasped Pearl.
The Gem in question just pointed a questioning finger directly at Pearl.
"Where is your master?", she asked, leaving Pearl a bit stunned but not for long.
"You should know full well that all Pearls are not authorised to be outside of Gem controlled areas unless accompanied by their owner." The Star Quartz narrowed her eyes at the Doctor. "I also expect that you are well aware of penalties regarding interaction with organic lifeforms, under clear jurisdiction by the New Diamond Authority."
Thinking quickly, Pearl quickly put on the best calm face that she could and grabbed the Doctor firmly by his shoulders.
"Not to worry, general, I simply found this "human" trespassing in the nearby area and I was in the process of apprehending him." The sharp eyed glare of the Star Quartz general made it clear that she wasn't convinced by Pearl's excuse for even a second.

The Doctor quickly shook himself free of Pearl's grip and glared right back at the Star Quartz and her Ruby subordinates. "What are you and your ridiculous machines doing to my TARDIS?"
"What are you doing!?", whispered Pearl as she gritted her teeth in frustration.
"Just trying to get us some decent answers", the Doctor whispered back in a very self assured tone.
"Don't speak to General Star unless permitted, dirty human!", cried out one of the Rubies, who Star Quartz promptly told to shut up with a move of her hand.
"What is a tardis?", questioned Star Quartz.
Pearl shoved through from behind the Doctor with her spear already in her grip and her eyes alight with a white fire of pure fury and, of course, determination.
"It is nothing that you need to be concerned with!", she yelled. "As a member of the Crystal Gems, I will not allow you to taint this planet any longer!" The Doctor tried to say something, but Pearl was already to well into her tirade to be stopped now. "Leave this planet, and when we say to never come back, this time we mean it."

Star Quartz said nothing, she just stared back at Pearl as her eyes widened slightly in clear interest. She whipped her head to the Ruby standing to her right.
"Ruby, tell the Diamonds that we have located the missing rebel Pearl."
Upon hearing this, Pearl's grip on her spear began to waver. "Missing?", she whispered to herself.
The Star Quartz reached to her gemstone with her right hand, fingers spread open as wide as the "star" on her face. In a flash of light, a twin bladed sword had formed from the gemstone, as Star closed her fingers around the handle in the centre.
"Tell them that I will be bringing the Pearl in personally," Star added in a sinister snake like voice. "I will assure that the last of the Crystal Gems is wiped out."

I'm very sorry that this new chapter took so long to finish, but thank you for bearing with me. I'm probably going to be redoing a few of the older chapters (making them more 'pristine') for a while, but don't lose face yet, true believers!

Feel free to leave comments and when the next chapter comes hold onto your seats; as Garnet would say, this is gonna be intense.