"All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming."
-Helen Keller
Chapter One: The Jolt of Gemstones
A beautiful array of colors, oranges and reds and pinks, had already been cast out over the clouds of Beach City by the time the gems had decided to return home. When the warp pad lit up in Steven's room, all four gems stepped onto the wooden floor, exhausted. While Pearl and Amethyst limped off of the warp pad, Garnet and Steven walked, hand in hand, with all three gems trying to coax Steven into staying calm.
"It was enormous!" Steven was shouting, almost crying. "And I didn't realize I was in the way...I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
Amethyst stood up straight, and grinned.
"It's just a scratch, Steven," she managed, gritting her teeth through some pain. "I mean, seriously, we're tougher than that. I bet I can still win against you if we were to have a toughness contest." She was covered in scrapes that somehow didn't bleed, and looked as though she had escaped a textile factory that no safety regulations.
Pearl, on the other hand, was only a bit better off.
"It's nothing we couldn't handle," the motherly gem kept insisting, and slowly, Steven calmed down. Garnet didn't say anything. She believed it only right of her to intervene when necessary, and Pearl and Amethyst were handling things just fine. Before they had even gone on this mission, their agreement was that Garnet would be guarding Steven most heavily this time around.
Garnet slowly let go of Steven's hand when she saw the younger gem relax, and gave him a small shove toward Pearl and Amethyst.
"Why don't we all head down to the beach?" Amethyst asked.
"Amethyst, that's a great idea! Summer is going to be over soon, and then it will be too cold for Steven to go into the water," Pearl almost sang, eager to change the subject of injuries. Steven still looked depressed.
"Are you sure that you are up for it?" he asked quietly, looking at the floor.
Now Garnet chose to intervene.
"Gems heal fast from injuries, so that they may be ready for more battles in the near future. You don't need to worry, Steven; it's our job to worry about you."
"But I care about you guys," Steven almost whined, looking at his three friends. Garnet frowned.
"We can take care of ourselves," she coaxed. That didn't stop Steven from looking almost heartbroken. "We have had to live and do missions for a long time, and we've come back in worse shape, so don't worry about us so much, okay?"
"...Okay," Steven said finally. He put on a smile, and rushed to the upper part of his room. "I'm going to get my swim trunks! Meet me down by the shore!"
Garnet smiled. "I'll be ready for the next Ultimate Water Fight when you get there, should you choose to accept that challenge."
Amethyst's hearty laugh rang warmly through the house. "You and me against Pearl and Garnet, Steven!" she shouted.
"Okay!" Steven shouted happily, forgetting his earlier worries. "Be down in a moment!"
"Wait a moment! I didn't get to chose a team!" Pearl shouted. "I didn't even get to choose whether or not I wanted to be a part of this!"
"You're complaining about being on Garnet's team?" Amethyst asked, raising on eyebrow and wearing her 'Seriously, Pearl?' expression.
Pearl glared back in response, and crossed her arms.
"I don't enjoy splashing around in cold water."
"Whatever. Come have some fun!" Amethyst taunted happily.
"Let's get outside before dark," Garnet murmured pensively, before smiling at her too companions as the three of them headed out the door. "Meet us out there, Steven!"
"Okay!" Garnet heard shouted back at her. As she soon as she closed the door behind her, both Pearl and Amethyst grew quiet as all three gems clamored down the wooden steps.
"So really," Garnet said after a long moment of silence, "Are the two of you okay? There isn't any shame in resting for awhile if you are damaged. It could save your life if we go on a mission in the near future."
"Don't fret, Garnet. You're not nearly as good at it as Pearl or Steven," Amethyst shrugged. "I'll be fine, I end up like this all the time after the missions. The main thing is that we prevented Steven from getting hurt when the cavern started to collapse."
"That's not exactly something we can be proud of," Pearl chided, not in an irritated way, but with an apprehensive tone. "I doubt we should be bringing him into situations like that to begin with. I'm sorry, Garnet, but I really don't agree with bringing him on so many missions lately."
Garnet remained silent for a long while as the gems shuffled through the warm sand and to the calm shore of the beach, the temple only a short distance away from them.
"This stuff happens to us regularly, Pearl. Steven being with us doesn't make the outcome any different," Amethyst said.
"But it puts him in danger! And what if next time he's the one who's hurt?" Pearl snapped back at Amethyst.
Garnet raised and single hand, signaling for the two bickering gems to calm down.
"Steven needs to be prepared for what's coming ahead, and so do we. If we can't protect him, then we have failed because we can't protect anyone. And if he isn't prepared, than we have failed again," Garnet said slowly, almost grimly.
Pearl took those words in slowly, and finally nodded. "I trust your judgment," she said, and turned toward the water. "So what is an ultimate-splash-fight?"
"I'm glad you asked!"
Pearl, who was knee deep in sea water, turned around to face the source of the voice that had just called out, and in shock, watched Steven, arms a-blazing, ran toward the water. He laughed loudly when he saw Pearl's face, and quickly waded into the water before flopping ungracefully into a short wave, managing to haphazardly splash a decent amount of seawater over Pearl's face and hair.
Pearl spat water out of her mouth and winced from the cold.
"Come, Steven!" Amethyst yelled. "Let's show her a real splash fight!"
Steven and Amethyst both scooped sea water, flinging and beating small waves in skinnier gem's direction as she shrank back from the cold, spitting salt out of her mouth.
Garnet crouched behind Steven and Amethyst, who were ganging up on Pearl, and then stood up to her full height. As sea water dripped off of her, Steven and Amethyst turned around to see Garnet towering over them, smiling.
"Don't 'gang-up' on my teammate," Garnet said with a proud smile, the quotation marks audible in the sentence. She summoned both of her gauntlets, and proceeded to begin punching the water, sending waves cascading over Steven and Amethyst while Pearl recovered from the attack.
Pearl joined back in, and it became an all-out water war as they four gems took a rare moment to enjoy time together and smile. To Steven, it all ended to soon when Garnet uncharacteristically slipped backwards into the water, submerged in three feet of salty waves as the sun was just beginning to set.
"Garnet?!" Steven yelled. Both Pearl and Amethyst looked over to see Garnet just below the surface of the water, her mouth drawn back into a grimace of intense pain. Wordlessly, but slightly panicked, Pearl and Amethyst both grabbed one of Garnet's shoulders and hauled her onto draw sand, Steven following behind.
"Is she breathing?" Steven asked, kneeling down where Pearl and Amethyst had laid Garnet on the sand.
"She's not unconscious," Pearl said with calm seriousness, pointing out the fact that Garnet had her hands drawn toward chest. She and Amethyst both knelt over Garnet for a moment, a bit uneasy.
"I'm fine," Garnet gasped, sitting up. She drew her hands away from her chest and looked at both of her gemstones. They were glowing very faintly now, where as before they had turned red and burned like a living fire. Garnet grimaced when she noticed the raw flesh around the gemstones on her hands, as if she had actually been burned. "I need to go to the temple."
Without another word, Garnet pushed herself to her feet (a bit painfully) and shoved past a worried Pearl and stunned Amethyst. Steven stared after Garnet curiously, and finally shook his head.
"Do you guys want to go back into the water, or go back inside?" he asked.
"Inside," both gems answered at once, staring after Garnet.
As Garnet approached her door to the temple, the too stones on her door lit up in response to her gems. Garnet let the gemstones on her hands open the door, and held back a gasp of pain. Shrugging it off quickly, she made her way to her own room of the temple, rethinking of the incident that had just occurred down at the beach.
Garnet's room in the temple was unique from the other rooms; instead of bright waterfalls, swords, and junk piles, she preferred the room near the center of the temple that had walls constantly bathed in the red light illuminating from the crystal heart of the temple. There was an armchair there, a humanish object that Pearl had thought was strange to see inside Garnet's room, but that Garnet enjoyed it none the less. Along with that, there were several relics scattered about the large room, some in piles, some on pedestals, that Garnet would occasionally look through in case any object was important to her more current objectives.
There was also books, many marvelous book and journals to record any memories that Garnet felt come to the surface. And she thought she remembered feeling a burning sensation in her gems only few times before, but none like this.
In her hurry, Garnet didn't see the interloper hiding in a tall corner of the room. The interloper was lanky in stature, but strong, and quietly stole into the lower recesses of the room as Garnet shuffled through some of her recorded memories of the time before she had met Rose Quartz.
With a small tap on her shoulder, Garnet turned around, and in shock face the interloper, who loomed over her. It was another gem, with fire-like orange skin and white hair, and unnaturally black eyes. Embedded in the tip of his nose was a brilliant orange gemstone, and one just like it was visibly embedded into his arm, just above his elbow.
Garnet didn't have time to react before the gemstones on her palms began burning again, stronger than before. The gem scoffed her in disgust before knocking her onto the floor and yanking off her visor.
Garnet glared at the gem, who only gave her a smart smirk in response.
"It's been awhile," he said softly, but not sounding entirely sinister. "I have something for you, three-eyes."
As Garnet kept silent, her face a mask of pain and her gems beginning to throb like separate heartbeats. Her mouth drew back into a snarl as she stared at the gem hovering over her. The orange gem drew a club from one of his gemstones before he smacked Garnet over the head, and watched as she fell limply onto the ground.
With a small sigh, the gem shook his head, removing a photo from the pocket of his pants, beneath his tunic. He stuck it to Garnet's forehead, covering her third eye. The gem once again stole back into the shadows, and for now, away from the temple.
On the back of the photo was the message "Your exile is over."
AN: There is so much information to include, and I can't do too much too soon...ugh, the struggle...
Anywhoozles, I'm back! Sorry I left for so long, guys. I got busy with school, and then when I wasn't busy, I couldn't bring myself to write. I'm not feeling that inspired lately, but that came back with some of the music I listened to today =)
Thank you all so much for your continuous support and for reading! Reviews are very much appreciated. =)