Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants chapter 5: Never Again (originally posted on November 16, 2020)
AN: Good to see you all again my dear readers! How have things been? Am I being too intrusive? Well, doesn't matter! It's good to be back in business after a few weeks, so let's just cut to the chase, shall we?
--
"So how much of this show is actual camping?" HYDRA Bob asked Peridot as they, along with Deadpool & Lapis, watched Camp Pining Hearts together at the X-Mansion while surrounded by massive amounts of snack foods and garbage. "A fair bit, but pretty much everyone comes for the romance," Peridot answered. "Yeah," Wade stated. "like your crippling yaoi addiction."
"What is yah-oy?" Lapis asked while mispronouncing this new word just as Pearl came in with a broom. "You really should learn how to pick up after yourselves as guests." The Gem grumbled while sweeping up crumbs off the carpet. "Hey, wise up Pearl, I'm basically an honorary member!" Deadpool remarked. "Hey, Flat-Top, gimme a refill on my coke here!"
"And you should also treat the people housing you like friends, not your servants." Colossus reminded them, just as disgruntled as Pearl, while he gave the Merc with a Mouth another bottle of pop when suddenly, Xavier came in. "Ah, Professor! Would you be so kind as to help us teach Wade here some manners?"
"It's alright, Piotr." Xavier calmed the metal mutant down. "Although Mr. Wilson here can be a bit of a nuisance, we do need all the help we can get to rescue Steven and Kitty."
"Thanks for the save Cap'n." Wade grinned at the aged mutant when someone knocked at the window. "Hey, anyone in there?!" the voice of Spider-Man called from outside, latching upside down onto the glass. "Peter!" Pearl exclaimed. "Long time no see. How are the other Avengers doing?"
"The big six are off in space right now, and the reserves are holding down the fort for now." The web-slinger answered as he opened the window and leaped through it. "When your message reached us, I was the first to take it and brought along a few pals who might be useful."
As Peter finished talking, a silver and blue blur burst through the front doors, stopping to reveal itself as Quicksilver. "Pietro, good to see you!" Colossus exclaimed. "Must mean Wanda isn't too far behind, da?"
"You are correct." Scarlet Witch answered as she followed her brother. "Hello again Crystal Gems." She greeted the Gems. "Hello to you and Pietro too, Wanda," Garnet replied as she stepped into the room. "It certainly has been a while since Thanos. I hope you both are well."
"Oh, never better Garney!" Quicksilver responded as he sat down between Peridot & Lapis to watch Camp Pining Hearts with them. "Ooh, I love this show! I always felt Pierre & Percy have really good chemistry."
"Thank you for agreeing with me good sir." Peridot added pridefully. "Oh, quit with the shit already!" Wade interjected crossly. "No one ever talks about Pierre and Paulette!"
"You take that back, you crimson clod." Peridot snarled threateningly at the mercenary and soon, an intense shipping debate between the two began. "Oh, this could take a long while." Pearl sighed in exhaustion.
"I just watch for all the crazy shenanigans these campers get up to." Spider-Man gave his opinion while snatching some snicker-doodles from the ottoman.
--
"Come on, work!" Kitty groaned in frustration as she continuously tried and failed to break her and Steven from their imprisonment without using her mutant powers. "If only I could find a way to break this collar, then we'd get outta here easier."
"Why don't I give it a shot?" Steven suggested, deciding to use his shield to cut the bars apart. However, that failed as well. "It's hopeless. If I didn't come, then maybe we wouldn't be stuck here."
"Hey, don't beat yourself up like that Steven." Kitty comforted her fellow mutant. "I'm sure the Gems are already on their way to save us, so try and keep your chin up until then." She implored Steven, but he remained downtrodden. "Let's face it; we're here because of my mom."
"Oh, mother issues?" Kitty realized. "I get it. That's perfectly normal. But you can't always let the sins of the parent bring you down." She assured him. "Yeah, sins like taking part in universal genocide before realizing that wasn't good and instead doing things far worse than that." Steven grumbled, much to her surprise. "Whoa okay, didn't see that coming!" Kitty exclaimed. "Far worse how? Did she actually murder someone?"
"She deliberately left tons of Gems and other races to die for her just because she was bored of being Pink Diamond, let two of my friends to be imprisoned for thousands of years, forced Gems who cared for her to suffer from her faked death and who knows what else!" Steven complained. "And then there was that whole thing with Magneto."
As if on cue, the aforementioned leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants stepped into the brig to interrogate them. "I see you've been making yourselves at home while you could." He declared before grabbing Steven by the shirt collar through the cell bars. "Tell me boy, why do you have her gemstone? Was it passed down to you?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." Steven answered. "When I was born, my mom died to give birth to me, and I got her gemstone and all her powers as a result. She also left me with all her baggage from ages ago, including when she was once a member of the Great Diamond Authority."
"Great Diamond Authority?" Magneto wondered, and Kitty seemed just as confused. "Yeah, I have to agree. There are more Diamonds out there?"
"That's not important right now," Steven said before Magneto set him down. "Still, why go after me in particular? We're both mutants. We should be on the same side!"
"You already know about how Rose abandoned me at Auschwitz, but the Gems only told you half the story," Erik revealed, turning away from Steven & Kitty in the process. "My part of this tale is far more complex than you realize. Like many a Jew during the war, I was prosecuted by the Nazis for my religion and sentenced to death. But I was a special case."
--
Heavy rain poured upon Poland in 1944 as a large group of imprisoned Jews marched sorrowfully through Auschwitz, their world nothing but drab colors aside from the bright yellow Star of David on their clothes signifying their religion. All around them, more of their people were forced to perform possibly lethal jobs for their superiors and be treated horribly should they fail to work or try to resist.
One young man in particular named Erik Lehnsherr watched just as miserably as his fellow Jews and began to notice that many of the other prisoners had brands on their arms. As soldiers began coldly leading their prisoners away from the group, Erik's parents Edie & Jacob were forcefully separated like the rest from their son, with Edie being particularly hysterical about having to leave her child.
Erik raced after his parents in an effort to see them one last time, but the gates closed before he could get a chance, and another Nazi grabbed the boy to keep him under control. However, something miraculous happened. When Erik fruitlessly reached out towards the gate, it began bending towards him. Another Nazi aided his fellow soldier in detaining the boy, and two more raced towards him as the fence began twisting more and more.
Erik's mutant powers awakened that day as the gates were ripped open with a mere stretch of his hand, but he was quickly stopped with the butt of a gun to his head from a fifth soldier. "Bring ihn zu Dr. Schmidt." that soldier commanded his subordinates. The four Nazis nodded and dragged the unconscious boy away, to where his destiny would soon be realized.
--
"And that's where you first met his mom, right?" Kitty asked her captor. "Yeah, I don't think we need to hear how she ditched you again."
"As I stated, the story is much deeper than that," Magneto said. "Allow me to continue."
--
Soon, HYDRA had come to assist the Nazis in stopping the Howling Commandos and the Crystal Gems from instigating the Auschwitz breakout. As Rose began fighting off soldiers, she began counting off the fleeing Jews. "Let me see how many we got," Rose muttered while trying to do a headcount. "Agh, there's too many of them! I can barely keep count when I'm surrounded like this!"
"Less than a million!" Garnet counted for her leader with her future vision. "However, there are still a few that we were too late to save, namely the Lehnsherr family. Klaus Schmidt is holding their son Erik."
"Klaus?" Rose soon came to a realization. "That was the boy in the office! I have to go ba-" Before Rose could finish, a HYDRA enforcer took advantage of her letting her guard down and fired with an anti-Gem weapon, poofing her form.
"Rose!" Pearl exclaimed while rushing to the deactivated gem lying on the ground. While Captain America covered for them with his shield, the Gems made a hasty retreat. "But what about those other Jews?!" Amethyst exclaimed. "A few prisoners should take this from here." Garnet answered, just as the Sonderkommando charged at their captors with guns, knives, axes, and grenades.
Inside the building where Klaus Schmidt was stationed, the mutant Jew slithered around the hall to avoid being caught again. Nazis raced outside to combat without once taking notice of the boy making his escape. Taking a moment to peek outside the window, he noticed the Gems escaping the concentration camp and furrowed his brow angrily. "Sie haben mich verlassen."
As the warfare continued, Erik quietly made his getaway with his newly awakened mutant powers and used a wrecked chain fence to fly himself away from Auschwitz.
--
Many years later in 1963, Magneto was holding a demonstration in New York to make a speech about the superiority of mutants when she showed up again. Rose Quartz had decided to show her face to him again after leaving him to rot all those years ago in Auschwitz, and only now, she shows up with an excuse to try and make peace.
"You can try to rope yourself into my good graces all you want Gems," he growled, preparing to fight the Crystal Gems. "But nothing can ever change the past!"
Ripping a nearby water tower off its supports, Erik prepared to smash it on top of Rose, Garnet & Pearl, but then came a loud shriek coming from the Irish mutant Sean Cassidy, aka Banshee. "Top o' the mornin' to you ladies!" Banshee exclaimed and let out another scream that brought the master of magnetism to the ground. "Now Neal!"
"I got you!" the Indian pyrokinetic Neal Shaara, or Thunderbird to his teammates, boomed while turning his body into plasma and landing a few hits on Magneto, but the German fought back by expanding a force-field that pushed him back. "Longshot, Angel, Mimic, it's all you now!"
"You got it!" Longshot replied while standing on a rooftop with Mimic and Angel Salvadore and preparing to throw a large knife at Magneto. "Just got one shot at this." He muttered to himself just as Amethyst hopped up behind him. "Hey, what you guys doing?" she asked the three mutants, catching Longshot off-guard. "Do you mind squirt?!" Longshot barked, but then he noticed her gem. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know those three, right?"
"We can discuss it later!" Angel said while sprouting fly-like wings and flying off. "Hey, wait for me!" Mimic exclaimed, copying his teammate's power by growing insect wings of his own and soaring after her.
"You guys wouldn't happen to be like ol' Maggy over there?" Amethyst continued asking Longshot, who harshly shushed her while trying to keep his concentration. "Okay, sheesh!"
"Now Longshot!" Banshee exclaimed as he let out a loud shriek at Magneto to knock him off-balance, allowing Longshot to fling his knife at the evil mutant. But Erik stopped the blade before it could reach his face with his powers and threw it right at Pearl with a wicked grin.
"Pearl, no!" Rose cried out as she dove in front of her confidant, letting the knife stab her instead, causing her to ultimately poof and retreat into her gem.
"Rose!" the remaining Gems shouted, racing to protect their leader's inactive gemstone from Magneto. "Well, that should do nicely for now." He snidely muttered. "But know this Crystal Gems, we shall meet again someday soon. Even if we have to wait years to do so!"
With that, Magneto zoomed off into the sky and left the Crystal Gems & the X-Men below. "So, sorry about letting your boss end up like this." Longshot nervously apologized. "That was my knife he threw at her after all."
"It's alright. Rose will recover soon." Garnet assured the mutant. "By the way, I didn't get your name."
"Call me Longshot, leader of the X-Men!" Longshot proudly replied. "These are my teammates; Banshee, Mimic, Angel Salvadore, and Thunderbird. We're all mutants."
"It is a pleasure to meet you." Thunderbird greeted, extending a hand to Pearl. "Mutants? I think I remember meeting one, centuries ago." Pearl replied, shaking Neal's hand. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone named En Sabah Nur?"
This revelation caused the X-Men to gasp in shock. "Wait, you met Apocalypse?!" Mimic cried. "Let me guess, you guys know him as a real bad guy?" Amethyst quipped. "Yeah, he's about yay tall, superiority complex, total Darwinist." Angel replied. "Come along. We can tell you more about him."
"And maybe we'll introduce you to the professor too." Banshee added happily. "We'd be glad to meet your professor." Pearl agreed, and Garnet & Amethyst nodded as well.
--
"So that's how the Gems met Xavier!" Steven realized. "But how come you remember that last bit happening? You left after poofing Rose."
"Don't think about it." Magneto assured him. "And now that I have you in our clutches, watching Doctor Doom experiment on you will be so satisfying."
"But still, you can't just vent your vengeance on a kid!" Kitty exclaimed.
"Yeah, this isn't what Xavier would want!" Steven replied, forcing Magneto to drop his stoic façade. "He knows you can be better than this, barring the terrorism. You're both on the same wavelength when it comes to protecting mutants, but kidnapping one of your own for your own sake is just wrong!"
"Y'know, that does seem like something Charles would say. Though he would've said it better." Magneto relented, pressing a button on the cell to let Steven and Kitty out. "Fight them off while you still can children. I shall take the blame myself."
"Okay Steven, let's get outta here!" Kitty declared excitedly. "And no matter what happens, I got your back!"
"Actually Kit, I think I got yours." Steven replied, just as another door opened, and Mystique stepped into the brig. "Erik! Why have you let the prisoners out?" she asked Magneto. "It was the boy who convinced me." Erik revealed. "As it turns out, he's quite good at turning people to his side."
"Well, you're too late child." Mystique said to Steven. "We have finally landed in Latveria."
--
The Crystal Gems, X-Men, Fantastic Four, X-Force, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver all marched to the Blackbird, ready to go out to Latveria and save Steven & Kitty. Human Torch and Cyclops were in charge of piloting the plane while Xavier planted his wheelchair in the back.
"So tell us what we're in for Reed." Garnet asked Mister Fantastic, who gave a sharp sigh of regret. "You should know by now that Doctor Doom is our family's greatest adversary. Intelligence on par with my own, mastery of the mystic arts, psionic abilities, the works." Reed explained. "But what I'm sure you probably don't know yet was that we knew Doom long before he turned out like this."
--
"Victor, have you gone mad?!" a younger Reed yelled at his college classmate Victor, who was standing in front of a large machine generating an unstable portal. "This machine is highly unstable and could explode at any moment!"
"I do not care what it takes, Richards!" the man who would be king of Latveria cried as the machine was on the verge of self-destructing. "This is the only way I can see my mother again!"
"Hey Stretch, we got everyone outta here!" Ben Grimm, back then a normal human being instead of a large rock creature, called for his classmate while he, Johnny and Sue burst into the laboratory. "You gotta come with us!"
"No Reed, we can see our mothers again, together!" Doom tried convincing his rival. Reed hesitated for a moment, weighing his options between escaping with his friends or getting to see his late mother Evelyn again. But as he made his decision, he turned away from Victor. "I'm sorry Vic. But I've moved on."
"How dare you?!" Victor screeched, while his four contemporaries fled the scene. "Don't you dare run away! We could've been something more!" Just then, the portal machine has just about reached its boiling point, and caused the lab to explode with Doom inside. The last thing he said before the room collapsed on him was a scream of "RIIIIIIIIICHAAAAAAAARDS!"
--
"Never saw him again after that incident. Ol' Iron Mask got expelled, then he just vanished offa the face of the planet." Ben regaled in the present day. "That is until he re-emerged as some young upstart billionaire named Victor Domashev, who funded the space flight that made us into the Four we are today."
"Hey guys, less backstory, more blasting off!" Amethyst snapped her fingers. "Pretty sure Steven might be on his way to being dissected by now!"
"Yeah, and a certain author friend of ours wants to get this out as quickly as possible." Deadpool agreed, his medium-aware comment inciting odd stares from the others. "Can we move onto the next scene already?!"
--
As Mystique had declared, Steven was now in the European country of Latveria, famously ruled by the Fantastic Four's arch-nemesis Victor von Doom. He and Kitty were led through the aesthetically medieval capital city Doomstadt, where its citizens whispered in German, Hungarian and an unknown third language reminiscent of the latter dialect.
"Victor, we have brought the child. And an unwanted guest." Mystique announced in front of Doom's castle as they crossed the drawbridge. The castle was guarded by numerous robot soldiers that bore Doom's face, all of them giving Steven cold and unfeeling glares as he was finally brought before the man who's face the robots bore.
"Steven Universe." Doctor Doom boomed, resting on his throne while the boy was handcuffed in front of him. "I have heard much about you these past few months child. Erik, I must commend you for getting the job done, although I've heard of your possible betrayal and won't tolerate it." Then Doom turned to Mystique. "Thank you Ms. Darkholme for alerting me of this before you arrived.
"You are most kind Doctor." Mystique thanked him with a bow. "We hope you return your end of the bargain and grant us mutants sanctuary in Latveria."
"Raven, you must listen!" Magneto cried to his second in command. "This boy calls himself a mutant, just like us! We can't just let Victor experiment on him like this. What if he has something else planned?!"
"SILENCE!" the king of Latveria roared. "It seems this child has made you soft Mr. Lehnsherr. No matter." He rose from his throne and stepped towards Steven & Kitty to give them a good look. "He shall become useful to me soon. And as for the girl, take her away."
"Yes your Highness." Mystique complied, snapping her fingers to have Juggernaut take Kitty away.
"Hey, put me down!" Kitty hissed, struggling to break free from the massive mutant's hands, which was easier said than done since her powers were still restrained. "Don't worry Steven, I'll find a way to save you!"
"Ah shaddup!" Juggernaut groaned loudly, stuffing a big finger inside the smaller girl's mouth to keep her quiet when Mystique put a hand on his bicep. "And what do you want Bluey?"
"It's about Erik. We may resort to terrorism to fight for mutant rights, but I think allowing a child to be experimented on may be going a bit too far." Raven whispered to Cain while they moved farther away from Doom. "Besides, he is a mutant much like us."
"So I've heard." The Juggernaut muttered. "But shouldn't he count more as an alien because his momma was one?"
When the Brotherhood mutants left the throne room, Steven was left all alone with Magneto and Doom. "What do you want with me Doom?" Steven asked the king. "Was it really necessary to have the Brotherhood kidnap me when you could've had your robots do it?"
"Why I couldn't have just sent my Doombots doesn't matter." Doom declared. "But what does matter is what I want to do to you. You see, you're special Steven, as you probably know. A being who's a mixture of human and alien DNA, and that alien DNA might prove very important to me." He explained to Steven. "I wish to use those genes for my own ends. Perhaps make an army of similar beings, or perhaps become part-Gem myself to gain ultimate power! Which is why I chose you in particular."
"Doctor, an invading ship is approaching Doomstadt." A Doombot announced as it walked into the throne room. "Shall we send out the reinforcements you selected?"
"You may, #1961." Doom replied, pressing a few buttons on his arms that opened a door, and behind it were four supervillains.
Trapster, a man in goggles with a container of glue-like substance on his back, attached to a hose with a gun at the end.
Mole Man, a deformed midget in a green suit with a blue visor who was holding a staff in his hand.
The Puppet Master, a bald, dark-skinned man accompanied by a pair of human-sized marionettes in the shape of the Human Torch and the Thing, that he controlled with a special remote.
And the Wizard, a purple armor-wearing supergenius who floated in the air with special anti-gravity discs.
"Frightful Four, it seems we have some uninvited guests." Doom revealed to the four villains. "I insist you deal with them at once, while I make my little guest here at home."
"Yes Doctor." The Frightful Four said in unison, then the marched out of the throne room to battle. Once again Steven was alone in the throne room with Victor & Erik, and the former was all too eager to get things started.
"Now then, shall we begin testing?" Doom asked Steven maliciously, and Steven replied with a very nervous gulp.
--
After three months of work, it's finally done! We're getting close to the end of this guys, and I couldn't be more excited. But for now, I think I'm gonna take a little break to focus on college stuff for a bit, and I'll be back soon with not just a new chapter, but also a brand spankin' new Steven Universe tale I've had on the brain for a while. It's an AU rewrite of Steven Universe Future aptly named Steven Universe: Alternate Future. If you want to know more about this upcoming series, I've already got an entire episode list on my DeviantArt page along with drawings of some original characters created for it. Until we meet again, toodle-oo!
In Loving Memory of Sean Connery
1930-2020
& Alex Trebek
1940-2020
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