Chapter 58: To Catch and Release

Summary: Two amazing catch missions

Peridot sent one of the few remaining Robonoids to listen in on the conversation at hand. "Star, this is Crazy!" The one known as 'Steven' shouted. "We can't just risk our lives and everything for Glossaryck of all people."

"Steven, we both know that the book is important to this family, and that Ludo is gonna get even worse with it in his hands." The Mewman, through Peridot's vision enhancer, said while packing supplies of some sort. "So we need to storm his place and get it back."

"Can't we do it with mom, dad, or the gems?"

"I tell any adult they'll try and stop us. And I'm not letting you go cause Ludo's wand always messes you up. That's why I'm bringing Marco and Kelly."

"Actually, Kelly's not going to be an option today…she just broke up with Tad again." The one identified as 'Marco' groaned. "It was one of the more nasty one's too, she hasn't left her house…which is actually just another woolet's hair, but bigger."

"Wait, so all Woolets just live in each other's hair?" What was this ... 'hair' they spoke of??

"It's a weird thing." Steven explained. "The biggest ones just live without a home in the wild and never wake … except during hibernation."

"Ughh…fine, I'll just go by myself." The Mewman rolled her eyes and held up a piece of impractical looking daggers fused together, before the Steven got in the way.

"Star, it's our magic, our bond, I'm coming with you whether you like it or not." The Steven held out his hands.

"... Fine, but keep yourself at a distance, alright?" The Mewman placed the daggers in the air and cut a hole out of the air WHAT THE FRACK!?" This must be another example of 'magic'. Peridot never really believed that technology could be so advanced, but here she was. Something to report to homeworld once her plan came to fruition.

"Wait up for me, just let me get my stuff.." Marco attempted to enter, but the Mewman pushed them back.

"Sorry, but Steven's right. This is something we need to solve on our own." The princess sighed. "I can't risk everyone else getting hurt when there's so much on the line now."

"Fine, guess I'll stay here then." Perfect. As soon as the hole closed, she moved in, her Robonoid spraying the boy with a Viscid substance that prevented movement. "What the!?"

"Marco." Peridot stated coldly as she made her way through the glass entrance.

"Peridot!? Why do you always come when at the most inconvenient times!"

"You have a lot of nerve to say that, when it's you and your 'friends' that keep getting in my way of leaving this rock!" She aimed her laser menacingly at his head. "And with what you have done to me, I have half a mind to blast you off the face of the earth." She watched him look in fear, pleasing herself a bit as she let go. "But you're my bait." He was lucky he was worth more alive than dead…for the moment that is.

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"You seriously couldn't read any of my letters?" Buff Frog asked. "You never thought to come by and say you couldn't read them?"

"We honestly thought it was the tadpoles sending us thank you cards." The Butterfly princess said sheepishly.

"The tadpoles would draw a picture of a dungeon with Ludo and scary rock wand at the end of it?" He asked rhetorically.

"I was drawing snakes with arms when I was three, and Star once drew mom as a demon overlord that threatened to burn the whole world to dust." The butterfly prince explained.

"A magnum opus, I might add." Star said with a proud grin.

Buff Frog sighed as he sneaked past a corridor, looking down before signaling them to follow. "Ludo has been using a hole he placed in your farm's barrier, allowing him to steal enough Corn to make a small farm. He uses it to feed his new minions and run part of the underworld."

"Hell already has a king." Star stated.

" Criminal underworld." Buff Frog corrected. "He offered me old position a while back, but he was talking to his wand as he was doing it. I believe he has gone, how do you say, coocoo for cocoa puffs."

"Yeah, funny story." Steven speaks as they walk down the halls. "I can hear the voice in his wand too."

"..." Buff Frog began backing away. "Should I try to find new babysitters?"

"No, whatever happened to the wand when it split let something in." Star said. "Magic is on the Fritz and we're half certain Toffee is around somehow."

"The same monster that couldn't be killed and ran circles around everyone with emotional manipulation and highly advanced technology?"

"The very same. His finger was inside of the wand for years, and no one knew about it until a few weeks ago." Steven spoke with a noticeable shiver

"So either we beat Ludo now … or we are doomed beyond belief?" He asked.

"Probably. We just need to get the book away from him, so he can't learn spells." Star spoke. "We really appreciate this, Buff Frog. I have no idea what I'd do if I didn't have your help."

"No problem, Butterfly Princess. You help me with Corn, I help you with Ludo." Buff Frog shrugged. "Also pretty sure he will create a doomed empire."

"Come on he's not that incompetent." The entire group paused to stare at the boy. "Yeah, you're right."

"I know your kindness spreads wide, but you should learn to put limit on it in certain situations." Buff Frog kept going, leading them ahead. Hopefully this will end soon, and his tadpoles would be safe to grow in peace.

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Marco was in a bit of a pickle here. Glued against a wall at gunpoint as the crazy gem had been staring at the warp pad with a crazed look in her eye. He wasn't liking his odds here. "I-"

"Zip it." She interrupted. "I will not fall for your 'mental disorientation' once more, organic!"

"I was just going to ask what your plan is." Marco spoke, annoyed.

"And why should I tell you?"

"Because it's my life on the line?" He rolled his eyes. "Just saying, I can't really do what you want me to do for whatever crazy plan you have if I don't know anything."

"Crazy? Crazy!? Hah! It just goes to show just how feeble your organic mind truly is if you describe such a genius plan as insane!" The homeworld gem laughed hysterically. "Would a gem driven to the brink think to kidnap the weakest member of her enemies knowing they would come running the moment they notice him missing!"

"Well she would if she wrote the note in anything other than English or Mewman, the only two languages they can read." Marco raised an eyebrow. "I don't know how Gem-glyph works, but to a normal person on this planet, it just looks like a bunch of scribbles."

"Ah….A…" The gem froze, obviously realizing the flaw. "I…That doesn't matter either! When they notice you're gone, the Mewman will just use that 'magic' to find you like when they located me, and the Steven will come and fix the pad like he did with the Lazuli's gem!"

"I guess you have a point." He admitted. "Side note, there's a glitch thing going on and his powers are wonky, meaning he can't heal it."

"No, no, no you're lying!" The gem's 'hair' started to get frizzy and messy.

"Why would I lie? You can shoot me the moment I become useless to you as a hostage." He asked.

"It has to be a trick, it has to be!" Peridot hopped around on her one available foot, tripping when she lost balance. "This is my one chance to get off this rock! The cluster is due to emerge in a matter of weeks! Nothing on this planet will once it's done incubating!"

"Or you can just stop the cluster … whatever it is." He said.

She laughed. "Oh you think you're so fracking smart, don't you Clod!?" Peridot hobbled back and forth. "I've lost my ship, the Jasper, and I'm forming this oddly shaped structure in the back of my head!" She turned to show off what looked like barely visible antlers growing out of her 'hair'. "And you have the gall to tell such cruel jokes when the end is coming soon!?"

"I'm just saying, your homeworld ship was thought to be unbeatable by all of us, and we still managed to take it down." Marco reasonsoned. "When it comes to breaking homeworld's stuff, my friends are basically experts."

"The cluster is an unstoppable force and you think you can beat it with your tiny tricks and trinkets!?" She shouted.

"Well we do have magic. That's usually a win for us." He answered. "Your only problem right now is trust. Do you trust that we can take it instead of just giving up and dying?"

"No! I wouldn't trust you even if you were the last sentient piece of life in the entire galaxy!"

"Then I guess you choose to die. Congratulations, we both don't get what we want." Marco sent a sarcastic glare at the green gem. "We get to be miserable together."

"...." The gem gave him a neutral look before turning to the sky, and firing off that finger blaster in the air randomly. "DAMN YOU AND YOUR MISERABLE GEM FORSAKEN PLANET!" She blasted it at a few pillars before turning to him. "Alright, suppose I extend my 'trust' to you and your entourage. What guarantee do I have that you'll no longer attack me?"

"We need your information, which means we need you unpoofed to explain stuff to us." He reasoned. "Come on, you can understand that much right?"

"...I suppose that an agreement can be found at the moment." Peridot groaned. "Coerced by an organic. The other Peridot's will never let me live this down."

"I like to think I'm an above average one." He smirked as the warp pad lit up.

 "Here comes the cavalry." Peridot sighed, raising her arms. "Greeting rebel gems, I-" A spear was thrown straight into her chest. "... Pebbles." The gem poofed, rock and three robotic limbs hitting the ground, which were crushed under the boots of Amethyst.

"Marco, are you alright?" Pearl ran up to him. "Garnet alerted us with her future vision and we rushed over here as fast as we could!"

"... I just got us a truce … where she would explain something threatening earth … and you poofed her." He spoke calmly with an eye twitch. "And before you say anything, I can guarantee that if you just try and bubble her, we're going to have another mirror incident on our hands."

Garnet shifted her visor for five seconds. "Fine. But it'll be on YOU to watch over her from here on out."

"I understand." He was always the responsible one, what was one more addition?

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Steven bursted into the room with Star, wand and shield (luckily functioning since the finger incident) raised and ready … only to see nothing. "Oh come on, this is like the fifth empty room we've busted into by this point! Where the heck is Ludo?!" Star screamed.

"Who-du what now?" A random monster team asked from behind them. The entire place was filled with them, but none of them had attacked, so they had mostly ignored them until now.

"Tell me where Ludo is now, or I'll blast you to bits!" Star aimed a wand at his face, cocking it angrily.

Before they could say anything, the monster went ahead and spoke. "Alright, alright! He left!"

The group blinked. "Left where?"

"I dunno, he talked to his wand when he came back with a book about it 'not being safe', so he flew away and we haven't seen him since." The monster shrugged. "It's still a pretty big space, so the monsters that stayed just made this place their home, we go about how we please done here, no need to fight for anything."

"No, no, he has to be here!" Star looked around desperately. "I mean, it can't just.-"

"Star." He held his sister. "It's alright, it's going to be alright."

"No, no it's not." Star began pacing. "It's not because he's got the book and it's all over."

"Butterfly." Buff Frog spoke up. "You did your best, that's all anyone can ask."

"No, there's more, there has to be more that I can do…I can't just…" Star looked completely devastated.

"Okay, Buff Frog, please give us a minute, we won't be long." Steven asked the father.

"Very well. I'll wait in another room." Buff Frog made his exit, leaving just him and Star.

"Star, it's alright." Steven patted her back. "We just have to tell mom and.."

"No! If I go to mom, she's just going to double down on the secrecy and tell me to stay quiet like with Ludo's wand half!" That did sound like what Mom would do now. "If I don't do anything now, then this whole mess won't ever be fixed, and I'll just be another bad Butterfly out of the dozens we have."

"Don't say that!" Steven shook his sister. "You keep trying even when everyone says to give up, you're willing to make up for your mistakes and admit when you're wrong. That alone makes you better than the Solaria's and Rhina's and Eclipsa's in the past!" Even if he was still iffy about HOW bad Eclipsa actually was.

"Eclipsa…of course, I'm an idiot! I should've thought of that at the beginning!" Star raised her hands in a familiar position. "I summon the all seeing eye, to tear a whole into the sky. Reveal to me what is hidden, unveil to me what is forbidden."  

"Okay we have gotta stop defaulting to that-" He stopped as it showed Glossaryck in the eye … eating pudding like it was no big deal. "Oh the little-"

"HEY, GLOSSARYCK!" Star interrupted before he could finish. "We came to rescue you, can you tell us where you are!"

"Huh, you two really have a habit of using this spell. Weird." The tiny man shrugged, slurping down his pudding. "I'm in some kind of dungeon, not sure where though." 

"Don't lie, you're all knowing!" Steven shouted.

"Fair enough." The blue man shrugged. "But like I said before, I stay with the wielder of the wand … who just so happens to be Ludo in this case."

"Wielder..wield-Glossaryck, he stole you! He stole half the wand and stole the book!" Star shouted. "He's been fighting my family for years, and you're just okay with that?!"

"Yes. I told you before that I don't have sides, or feelings." The blue bastard just ate his pudding like before.

"Come on, Star, he's not worth it.' He tried to pull her back, but she retracted.

"No, you can come back with us!" She reached out, only to hit a sticky barrier.

"The spell doesn't work like that." The asshole stated. "It's just spying."

"Star, give it up, if he doesn't wan-"

"No." He felt a surge of power, seeing her eyes turn blue with her mark, reaching and stretching against the barrier until her hand popped through on the other side.

"Wow…that's new. You're really something else." Glossryck looked impressed, but it still didn't look like he was all that interested in coming back.

"Stop acting stupid and just reach your hand out to me or something!" Star shouted at the man, the energy just getting higher and higher to the point where he felt a little woozy. "Come back to us! We need you…I need you!"

"Maybe this is what you need now." Glossryck offered the same STUPID vague advice he always did, and it was really, REALLY pissing him off!

"That's it? You, probably the most knowledgeable and powerful beings in the universe…decide to act completely helpless, going along with some random idiot that grabbed the book like some kind of dog on a leash!?" Steven felt the energy rising, his face, as well as the rest of his body, started glowing pink!

"... Meh." The blue man shrugged, eating pudding as if it was no big deal.

"Star Butterfly, a good person, is putting this much effort and care for someone she actually gives a damn about, and you're doing nothing!" He tried to push through as well, but for entirely different reasons. "You're a horrible and unfeeling bastard! You're not neutral, you're just a lazy asshole who couldn't care less if the whole universe was destroyed just as long as you can slurp down your stupid pudding!"

"It's a little more nuanced than that, but that does summarize it up nicely." Glossaryck looked up. "Well my time is up, later." The portal shoved them back, closing behind and leaving them alone and defeated.

"He didn't…he didn't even try…" Star growled, but it was very hollow and lacking energy. "He really never cared about anything we did…what was the point in even trying…?"

"I guess there wasn't …" Steven sighed. "Want to go talk to mom now?" He asked in a defeated tone.

"Steven…do you really think I'm a good person?" Star looked at him with tears in her eyes.

"Star." He turned to face her. "That's something I'll never doubt." Steven gave the biggest hug he could muster at the moment, and the two just let themselves enjoy each other's company…because it didn't feel like they had that much time for it anymore.

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"We did everything we could…but I couldn't reach him no matter what we tried." Star confessed to her Mom and Dad, with Steven holding her hand as she explained everything. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She cried, her knees crashing to the grounded

"Star, it's fine." Mom said gently.

"But we lost the book and-"

"It's just a book, your lives are much more important than some relic." She spoke gently.

"And between you and me, I'm kinda glad Glossaryck is gone." Dad mock whispered. "The man never knew when to shut up, and he never put clothes on whenever he used the mirror."

"Glad I wasn't the only one who didn't like him." Her brother muttered, but noticed the look she was giving him. "Sorry, still bitter."

"You two have worried about the Ludo situation long enough…let us take care of it from here on out." Moon said with a warm tone that should've made Star feel better, but just made her feel more empty inside.

"Please let me help, I-"

"Star, please. Let us handle this. You've already done so much for someone your age." Mom pleaded with her. "Just enjoy your time on Earth and rest." The call ended right there with the mirror going static.

"Well..she wasn't mad…so that's…something." Steven sighed.

"But she's cutting us out, with secrets, like always." Star muttered. "Always secrets with us." Nobody trusted them.

"... Why don't we have a secret of our own then?" Steven said with a small grin. "We clean the slate and start our own spellbook, just like Skywyne did, and fill it with our own powers and spells."

Star stared at Steven, before smiling. "Heck yeah, let's do it." She pulled out a notebook, writing on the cover with roses, bubbles, stars, rainbows, and butterflies before she opened to the first page. "First up, the Mega Narwhal Blast." A classic.

"Perfect. Oh, I have a couple of suggestions for new spells if we really want to make this our own, like snack sushi sneak attack! Or a rubber duck diamond beat down, or a saulsberry stack slam! Or.." her brother went on and on as she made sure to make a note for them later. It felt like the old days, where she and her brother were naively happy about the future.

Marco knocked on the door, opening it. "Hey guys, you busy?"

"Writing a new spellbook because Glossaryck sucks." Steven answered. "What's up?"

"Peridot's about to explain how the world ends."

"Huh?" Star almost broke the pen she was using as Marco presented a green gemstone right before them.

"Let's just say the two of us had a very insightful conversation."