Chapter 14

Exiting The Big Doughnut, my mind raced as the realization of the world I currently lived in caused me immense stress. This stress only compounded at the sight of the people I considered close friends and allies, all enjoying the doughnuts Miguel and I had just gotten. Their laughter made me sink deeper and deeper as my thoughts grew darker.

Weekly world-ending threats.

The Diamonds.

Unmentioned dangers.

Worst-case scenarios continued to pile up in my mind until I suddenly jumped, startled by Noah tapping my shoulder to tell me we had arrived at the beach. But what caught my attention more was the visible worry in everyone's eyes as we unloaded the stuff from the truck and began setting up our spot.

"Hey Duke, you've been acting weird ever since we left that doughnut place. Are you okay?" Miguel suddenly asked, catching me off guard as I passed Noah the cooler, which he quickly carried over to where we set up our umbrella.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just been thinking about something," I said, trying to end the conversation quickly. But as I moved away from Miguel, I found myself cut off by Noah, who was giving me the same concerned look.

"Duke, I don't know what happened in that doughnut shop, but you came out looking like the world could end any day now. What's up?" Noah's question left little room for deflection. However, having calmed down, I didn't panic and gave them a simple answer that wouldn't reveal much.

"Aliens are real." My words seemed to confuse Miguel and Noah, who burst out laughing—not in a mocking way, but in genuine amusement at my worry.

"Wow, Duke, you're really worried about aliens? Like, bro, we literally have magic and the ability to, as far as we know, grow infinitely stronger. Unless the aliens show up today, we're good," Noah said nonchalantly, making me realize that my fears were much, much further away than I had thought.

'I think the canonical timeline is over the course of two years.' Now that I thought about it, if we continued gaining levels at our current rate, we should gain about 124 levels—and that's if I don't upgrade the mission board to allow us to take on more missions, further increasing our level acquisition rate. The only problem is I don't know what level we'd need to be to fight gems, let alone the Diamonds. But with my thoughts much clearer, I finally calmed down enough to enjoy our time at the beach.

Over the course of the two and a half hours we spent having fun, I found my mind forming plans to grow stronger. Even though my memories of Steven Universe were honestly vague, and I only had snippets and what barely counts as a recap of the movie, I felt positive. The few things I do remember are still quite key, and there will always be a chance for me to improve and grow. Who's to say I can't grow stronger than the Diamonds?

"Hey Duke, come check this out!" My deep thoughts were suddenly interrupted as I floated atop the water. Hearing Lily call for me, I rushed back to shore, only now realizing that I had floated pretty far out in my thoughts. But it was nothing my level 4 body couldn't handle, so I quickly arrived back at shore to see a strange sight.

"When did these get here?" I asked, looking at the stretch of beach that was absolutely littered with small, head-sized sand mounds. A rough count placed the number somewhere between 100 and 150, a figure that Olivia, with her keen eyes, gave after being the first to notice the mounds' sudden appearance.

"A few seconds ago. I was turning around to get a soda when suddenly they just appeared," Olivia said. Her words made me instantly form an assumption, so I took out my axe and ordered the others to do the same. But instead of approaching immediately, I instructed Lily to fire a frost shot near one of the mounds. She did so, and the shot quickly found its mark, hitting the side of the mound closest to us. The frost energy on the arrow wasted no time, rapidly spreading and freezing the moisture in the sand, forming a thin layer of ice that quickly climbed up the mound.

SCREEEEECH

Suddenly, before the ice could completely cover the mound, something burst out, flinging sand and ice everywhere, giving us a full view of the creature. It resembled a dark black and green centipede, with its head sporting a single eye that locked onto us as it unleashed a soul-shaking scream that made our hearts jump. But if that didn't terrify us enough, we soon saw more of these creatures emerging from the other mounds, all rushing in our direction, seemingly angered by Olivia's attack.

"Lily, summon your skeletons! Miguel, get as far away as possible! Olivia, protect those two! And Noah, be careful not to get hit!" I ordered. Miguel, Lily, and Olivia quickly ran in the opposite direction as Noah came to stand beside me, weapons in hand, ready to face the charging horde of centipedes. I recognized them as the spawn of the centipede creature from episode one.

They honestly weren't that tough and died with a single decisive hit, but their numbers were staggering. With the added lethality of their acid, we had several close calls. Fortunately, Lily's skeletons took the brunt of the attacks, though she had to replace them almost every second of the fight. The battle dragged on as two minutes passed, then five, then ten. Instead of getting easier as we wiped them out, it seemed to get harder. Although their numbers were visibly decreasing, their size kept increasing, with some now as large as small cars.

"Duke!" Hearing my name called, I turned from chopping a centipede in half to see Noah quickly moving in my direction. His weapon had been left behind, melting into a pool of slag after being hit by acid.

"Here, take these!" Dodging an attack, I quickly took out what looked like two blood-red khopeshes and handed them to Noah. A small aura of fire covered him as his skill seemed to activate, increasing his stats and deterring the creatures with the damage it dealt to his surroundings.

'Why are these things here? Aren't they supposed to be with their mother—' My thoughts were suddenly halted as the ground rumbled. From it emerged a massive centipede, the size of a house, with a mane of greenish-white hair that widened its already enormous shadow. It towered over us and the surrounding insects, but instead of attacking as we expected, it let out a low hum and then dove back into the sand, soon followed by the rest of its kin. They disappeared into the sand, leaving all of us stunned at the sudden end of the fight.

'Where are they going?' I wondered, collapsing on the ground, exhausted from the battle. I glanced over at Noah, who had a massive bite wound. I wasted no time walking over to help him seal it up until Miguel could come and heal him.

"What the hell was that!" Lily screamed, clearly shaken as she unsummoned her skeletons, worried that someone might see them after all the commotion.

"Probably aliens," Miguel commented, causing Noah and me to burst out in laughter, though Noah had to stop quickly when his wound flared up, causing him a lot of pain.

"Probably aliens, because if creatures like that existed on Earth, we'd see a lot more movies about them," Olivia added, her bow still drawn tight, ready to react in case the creatures returned.

"We can't just leave those things to wander—they might go into town," I said, getting a nod of approval from the group. After waiting a minute or two for Noah to be healed, we moved out in search of the centipedes. But seeing how the sun was slowly setting, it wasn't hard to guess where the creatures were heading. I wasted no time leading the group in the direction of the temple, hoping to see how strong the Gems were—and maybe more.

Eventually, after a bit of running and following the trail of the centipedes, a giant statue came into view. At its base rested a house, previously obscured by the cliffside that overlooked Beach City. However, we didn't focus on the house. Instead, our attention was drawn to a purple ball of light speeding around the giant centipede from earlier. The centipede made several attempts to snap at the purple blur, but every time it got close, the blur seemed to increase in speed, barely escaping the monster's grasp.

"AMETHYST, keep it steady!" Turning our heads, we noticed a tall woman with porcelain-white skin and a clear pearl on her forehead. In her hand, she held a spear made of light blue energy, which she seemed ready to throw. However, she struggled to get a clear shot as the rabid centipede made too many abrupt and rapid movements. That soon changed when a red streak came from the sky, smashing into the centipede and sending it crashing to the ground. The armor covering its midsection shattered, kicking up a massive sand cloud.

"Thanks, Garnet!" Pearl said, wasting no time as she threw her spear, which landed cleanly in the creature's mouth, lodging it open. From the dust cloud emerged a towering red woman with a perfectly squared afro and massive gauntlets that, with a shake of her hands, disappeared in a flash of light.

With a great leap, Garnet landed in the creature's mouth and began tugging at its eye but had to quickly retreat as a torrent of acid poured from the creature's mouth, bathing the land around them in an acidic rain.

"Watch out!" Suddenly, I found myself tackled just in time, moved out of the way of a massive glob of acid that landed in my previous position.

'What the—Normally, I would have seen that coming.' Looking at the sizzling puddle of acid, I was left extremely confused. Deciding to leave that for later, I chose to address my savior.

"Thanks, kid. That was close." I looked at Steven, who was dusting himself off after saving me. But before I could say more, he quickly spoke up.

"Hello, I'm Steven. Gotta go!" Saying this, Steven dashed away out of sight toward the house, leaving us to watch the fight, which continued to escalate far beyond what was seen in episode one. Amethyst, the small purple woman, slammed into the creature's mouth, causing the overflow of acid to end as another spear came stabbing it in the side. When the creature was prepared to use the jaws on its tail to retaliate, it found them grabbed by Garnet, who, using her gauntlets, restrained the creature easily, allowing Pearl to continue pelting it with spears.

"Hey Duke, over here!" Hearing my name called, I turned to see Apollo floating in all his golden glory, holding a scroll. He immediately began to open it when he saw I was looking at him.

"Under the mandate of my boss, given the current circumstances, he estimates you are far too weak to face any of the present and future threats. Therefore, you shall be granted a boon and a personal blessing. Do you accept?"

I was a bit confused by Apollo's words and there abruptness, but after a moment of thought, I wasted no time accepting the boon and blessing. However, instead of the grand light show I expected, I was met with silence as Apollo simply floated there.

"Umm, what now?" I asked. Apollo didn't respond verbally; instead, he pointed toward the ongoing fight between the Gems and the corrupted Gem. What I saw immediately shocked me.

[Pearl: Lv76]

[Amethyst: Lv69]

[Garnet: Lv99]

[Centipeetle(Nephrite): Lv 126]

The levels of everyone flashed before my eyes as they continued to battle, but the numbers I saw crushed my enthusiasm a bit. However, knowing this was only one of the two things I received, I perked up and glanced over at Apollo, who with a wave of his hand, opened my status, allowing me to see the changes that had taken place—chiefly, the addition of a new section.

[Name: Duke Harold]

[Level: 4]

[Class: Guild Master]

[Boon: [Paragon Body]]

-Skills-

-Passive-

[Novice Apprentice Axemanship (66%)]

-Active-

[Weakness Detection: Lv3]

[Battle Oath (54%)]

Seeing the new addition to my status, all it took was a bit of focus on the skill for its information to appear in my vision. When it did, my heart jumped—the description was just too good.

[Paragon Body] - All your stats and skills will show 1.5x the effects they normally do.

The description was simple, without any grandiose details, but what it meant was downright insane. If what Apollo told me about stats being extremely linear was true, then with my stats multiplied by 1.5x, I could display the power of someone multiple levels higher than me. For example, if I reached level 50, I would have the stats of someone at level 75!

'This is too good,' I thought, my mind clouded with visions of my future. But I was soon snapped back to reality as I noticed Steven spinning around with what looked like the melted, sparking remains of the Cookie Cat mini fridge.

The remains, which he launched toward the unsuspecting Centipeetle that screeched as it was electrocuted. Seizing the opportunity, the Gems all attacked at once, eventually causing the creature to poof into nothingness, leaving behind a beautiful green gem.

"Good job, Steven!" Amethyst quickly bubbled the corrupted gem and moved in to hug Steven, who laughed happily at the affection. While the two of them didn't notice us, Garnet did. Instead of greeting us or acknowledging our presence, she simply lowered her shades, revealing her third eye, which seemed to stare into our souls.

"Oh, hello there!" The one-sided staring contest was suddenly broken by Pearl, who, noticing us, unsummoned her weapon and quickly approached, seemingly surprised to see us.

"You guys were incredible!" Lily stepped up to greet the Gems, breaking the silence. Pearl seemed surprised by Lily's words and got quite flustered as she quickly responded, though I noticed a small blush developing.

"It was nothing, really. It's our job. Steven did most of the work anyway," Pearl said, waving her hand toward Steven, who was currently being hoisted up on Amethyst's shoulders as she paraded him around, much to his clear excitement.

"Even still, your accuracy, your red friend's power, and the purple one's speed—you guys are insane!" Noah chimed in, sounding extremely impressed with the Gems.

I, however, couldn't join in. Unlike everyone else, I hadn't broken eye contact with Garnet, whose eye continued to stare me down, seemingly deep in thought about her next action.

'Wait, can't she see the future or something? Did I do something wrong?' My thoughts were a bit frantic, but I calmed down as I watched her raise her shades and approach, offering a small greeting before going to celebrate with Steven.

"It was a pleasure meeting you all, but I have to go. Bye." With that, Pearl left, leaving us to quietly observe the aftermath of the battle, which had left the beach absolutely wrecked.

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Sorry for the abrupt end of the chapter just now realized I was at 2.5k words when my normal limit is 1.5k -2k so what do you think? any opinions? also soon we will have 4 more additions to the squad so I will take some suggestions now