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

The Divide

As the wind raced past the Doctor as he fell down the tube, he could just faintly make out the distressed cries of Pearl, before the pale Gem began to fade into a tiny white speck. The Doctor kept falling, through the hole that had been left by the drill earlier, from the ceiling to the floor, everything growing even more dark and distant. Below him was just a never ending void of blackness and then to his side was, well, a giant green tube. The Doctor knew that there was only one option at this point to save his hide. Doing his best against the intense force of the fall, the Doctor jerked himself sideways. The air fluttered through his coat as he waved his arms about to try and turn himself around, just enough for him to grab a firm hold on the tube. One final push forward and the Doctor launched out and wrapped himself around the tube. His descent only slowed slightly as he tightened himself around it.
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Pearl launched herself from the rock face and wrapped her long, thin arms around the thick green cylinder. The Doctor was falling fast and she had to go after him before he went "splat." Strangely, Pearl didn't slide down the tube, like she thought she would, but rather she continued to hang in that one spot. Moving neither up nor down. As Pearl but her lip in anticipation, she could feel a strange sensation from the tube that was pressed against her body. A warmth emanating on her skin. Something about the tube felt living. Living and-familiar. Just then, Pearl could feel herself start to move up, slowly at first, before being propelled up the tube she was wrapped around by an invisible force. The light of the surface above her was getting getting wider and brighter and a the full force of her motion was crushing down on Pearl's head. She felt like a bullet being shot from a gun.

She felt that this tube was drawing her, leading her somewhere. Or to something She didn't know where but she knew she had to do something. The top of the tunnel was now only 10 seconds away....9....8. Pearl did her best to maintain her concentration without passing out from the gravity that was increasing upon her. 7....6....5....4. The darkness surrounding the edges of Pearl's eyesight fell away as the rock path opened up into a wide space....3....2....1. Pearl released her grip on the tube and went somersaulting through the air, before landing roughly on her back, onto a hard marble floor.

"Rough entry, but perfect form," Pearl noted to herself. She groggily sat up from her sprawled position on the floor and tried to get a good look at her surroundings. She could see that she was sitting in a massive room, covered by a crystalline dome roof. She was able to faintly make out where the green tube appeared to be leading from the hole in the floor. It snaked across the floor past her feet; she picked herself up and tried not to step over it while she steadied her feet. Then it turned straight up and into a massive shape hanging from the very centre of the ceiling. A glow was coming from the shape, which stretched over the entire dome area, covering it in the sinister green light and several identical tubes were reaching out from the centre, stretching into holes all across the room; most of them were leading into the floor. Now Pearl could tell why these tubes had felt so eerily familiar.

"A Crystal Heart," she whispered to herself in slight shock. "Just like the one at the temple. So, am I in some kind of Gem base?"
Just as Pearl finally regained her balance completely, however, another quake immediately started up. As Pearl tried to stay upright, she could swear that a strange sound was ringing in her ear throughout the quake. It was the faintest of sounds, but she could tell that it sounded like screaming. Then just like that, the quake had ended and the room returned to normal.

"I hope the Doctor's okay...," Pearl muttered nervously. "Alright, Pearl, you've infiltrated your fair share of Gem bases before during the Rebellion," she said after drawing in a cleansing breath. "A Crystal Heart means that this is the centre of the base, so that's already a good place to start looking around from. As long as this day can't get any more surreal, we should be fine." Then she quickly stopped and face palmed as a huge realisation dawned on her. "Except now I'm talking to myself."