Now We're Talkin' Bismuth!
TheOneAndOnly1993
Rose... you... you clodding COWARD!
You lie, and lie to our friends, just to save face! You... you ran! That's why you're pulling this "mother's son" routine, isn't it!? You ran from our friends when they needed you most! When the Crystal Gems are nothing left you just hit the reset button like our lives are some sick game to you?!
Some meaty little kid, please. You sure still pack a punch like a Rose Quartz.
Wincing, I push myself up, and see you leap over to me on one foot like the forge is actually going to hurt you, Breaking Point hugged in your meaty little arms.
"Bismuth," you say, pity in your eyes, "this has to stop."
My anger flares. Stop acting like you're in the right here! And what if I don't stop then, Rose?! "So what're you gonna do!? Shatter me?!" I grab the weapon in his arms and point it to my Gem. "So go ahead! Just do it!" If you're really not the coward I think you are, then you will, and you'll prove me and yourself wrong.
And my Bismuth will be done here.
"No!" you cry. "Even if we don't agree, nobody deserves this!"
Really? You even used that same line all those years ago?
Well that's fine by me!
I lunge and grab the Breaking Point, bashing you away with it. You stumble back, tripping and falling over on your own sword. Your elbows hit the forge's scalding floor, and your arms immediately dance up as you cry in pain.
"You deserve this, Rose!" I pull my arm back Breaking Point poised and aimed for your gut.
Fire.
I have to say, Rose, you really pull a good parlor trick. Took me a while to pick all the pieces of your gemstone out of that meat puppet you called "a son."
Honestly, possession? When did Gems get the ability to do that?
Then again, when did Gems get the power to heal other Gems?
Tch. What a waste. The only Gem to get the payload of powers and its a coward who plays with the lives of her friends.
My friends...
I glance down at the lilac bubble in my hands, several pink shards dancing inside. This will take some explaining to do, they'll probably be in hysterics when they first see me. But Pearl is smart, and Garnet reasonable. They fought against Homeworld so they'd be free of their strings! To find out our friend, our Rose, has been lying to us this whole time...
...There will be a lot of screaming. Not excited for that. But I know my friends, and I know they'll understand that I, unlike Rose, had the Crystal Gems' best interest at heart.
I always have.
I warp back into the wooden temple (seriously, whose dumb idea was that?), bubble behind my back. Don't want that to be the first thing they see, after all. And there'll be enough surprises tonight without me lugging the Breaking Point from the forge, too. I'll make a mental note to bring them around tomorrow.
Lucky enough, my teammates are still up and about in the food prep area. Seated at the counter, Amethyst is the first to greet me with a lazy wave of her hand.
"'Sup, Bismuth?"
"Hello Bismuth," greets Pearl, turning towards me as she dries her hands on a towel. "I do hope you made something nice for Steven. Within reason, of course. He may be a Crystal Gem, but he's still just a little boy." She gives a light titter, and my heart aches for having to take that away. Oh, how I hate to see Pearl cry...
Her smile droops a bit when she sees I've returned alone.
"Bismuth, where is Steven?"
My grievous expression doesn't help.
"Bismuth?" Her voice raises a bit, edged with concern.
Now Garnet is looking at me, her lips slightly parted, and then Amethyst jumps down from her stool. They're all walking towards me.
"Gems," I begin, looking off to the side. Even as I rehearsed this in my head, played out every scenario as I disposed of Rose's puppet into the lava and locked the forge up, actually being here in the moment was... surreal.
I was about to tell them that Rose was traitor. That's she's a traitor and I had to shatter her...
I sighed. "This ain't gonna be easy."
"Bismuth... What. Happened?" Garnet's voice was firm, but her punctuating told so much more, showed me so much more of what's going inside that mysterious brain of her's. "Where is Steven?"
A shake of my head. "Rose... was a liar, Gems. Y'all've been duped."
They all reeled back.
"Bismuth?" Pearl gasped.
I explained, never meeting their gaze. "Rose has been lying to you for years. I... had a way of winning us the war. A weapon that would have prevented..." I gestured one hand from behind my back, to all three of them, "...this. Everyone would still be around. The Diamonds would have been gone, Gems would be free! But..." My energy fled me. I was so suddenly... sad. "But Rose didn't agree with my methods. She didn't think that shattering our enemies was right," I practically spat the words as I replayed the entire story in my head.
Why, Rose? Why didn't you just accept my offer? Our lives would have been so much better...
"As if Homeworld knew what was right and wrong, all that mattered was winning!" I finally looked to my friends; Garnet had her visor off, Pearl with hands over her mouth... Shocked was an understatement right there... Couldn't tell if they were appalled or not though. If they were Crystal Gems, which I know they are, they wouldn't be.
"But we disagreed, and Rose had me poofed and bubbled... until she released me again hundreds of years after we lost." I choked. I felt tears beginning to prickle my eyes.
Damn you, Rose. Damn you!
Why? Why couldn't you just say, yes!?
I was silent. I didn't know where else to go, where anything or anyone was, I became... lost. I choked out a few sobs before swallowing them all and forcing them back.
"Bismuth..." said Pearl, her voice light, and weak, "...where, is Steven?"
I shook my head slowly. My voice turned dark. "Rose... she's been lyin' to us, Gems. She just changed her form and made you think she forgot everything, to try and hide from her mistakes and start over with a clean slate-!"
"BISMUTH!"
I froze, and felt a claw of fear drive its icy fingers into my back.
Never have I heard little Pearl scream like that.
Her shoulders were heaving up, and down, and on either side of her the two Gems I called my friends looked nothing short of terrified. When she spoke, Pearl's voice was straining to maintain itself. "Where. Is. Steven?"
This was it. I dropped my head, and sighed. "You mean Rose," I said in a low voice.
"Here's the traitor now." And I presented the bubble with Rose's shards.
The three Gems stared at the bubble, eyes wide as the galaxy, silent as the grave.
They were in shock, I could tell. "She won't be lyin' to us ever again," I assured them.
Pearl's breathing was steadily gaining in speed, her breaths becoming quicker, louder. Amethyst looked about to reach for the bubble and touch it, as though to make sure it was real, but retracted her fingers at the last moment and just gently pressed them over her plump lips. All three of Garnet's eyes were wide and on the bubble, the Fusion still as a statue. I imagine Ruby and Sapphire were in absolute turmoil over this revelation.
I bet Sapphire was being the sensible one, heh, like always!
"I know how you must feel," I spoke, my voice gentle. "Trust me, it hurt like absolute Hell to have to do this to a Gem I loved, I believed in and trusted in...!" I paused, took a breath. Had to calm down, my teammates needed me to keep it together.
I shook my head. "The Rose Quartz we believed in died years ago. The past is in the past, Crystal Gems. What we need to do now, is look towards the future." I gave the best Bismuth-grin I could possibly muster in this situation. With a clenched fist I proclaimed, "With Rose gone, we should turn our attention to the Diamonds! Now, this weapon I proposed to that so called 'Crystal Gem' is already made. Well, it's just a prototype, but I think that with a bit of-"
Pearl SCREAMED.
Tears burst from her eyes and streamed down her perfect face. She slowly dropped to her knees, her teeth biting down on her fist. Her little body wracked with frenzied sobs, and she had to battle with herself for a single gulp of breath between them. "Steven," she wept, though it was muddled with the spit and tears mussing up her face. "Steven, Steven, Steven..."
Amethyst was down beside her, thick arms wrapped around Pearl as tears of her own fell. The Quartz soldier soon had her face buried in Pearl's neck, her broad shoulders throbbing with her crying. The skinnier Gem coiled her arms around Amethyst and squeezed as hard as she possibly could.
Only Garnet was still standing. Her three eyes burrowed deep into mine and they burned, burned with rage, with betrayal, and all the tears that came with it. I never saw her express such raw emotion before, but I understood. It was just how I looked at Rose before she died.
"I know how it feels," I lamented. "To be betrayed by someone that you loved, that you trusted and believed in... It hurts." I choked again, and glanced off to the side, biting back tears. They needed to hear this. "And the only way to make it go away is to do the unthinkable!? But you have to, for the betterment of the team! ...That's what a real leader would do." And Rose Quartz didn't. She never had the stuff. She was no leader, not to me.
Garnet absorbed my words, her three eyes slowly trailing down to the two sobbing Gems curled up on the floor. My chest ached; I hated seeing Pearl cry, and I know there'll be more tears to come in the future.
But we will endure it together.
Because we are the Crystal Gems!
"Bismuth..."
My eyes met Garnet's. Still burning. Still enraged. Still so, so sad.
I'll be there for her. "Yeah, Garnet? I'm here for you."
A quiet, wavering sigh, and finally did the tears travel down her face in three long, wet streaks. "I could not have agreed more." And with a deafening fwoomp, her gauntlets were summoned.
I love Bismuth, and hope she returns as a permanent Crystal Gem in the future, hopefully less murderous.
I wrote this in first person so you, the reader, could really get a sense of what is going through Bismuth's mind and understand why she's in this mindset, thinking she's in the right. When I labelled this 'Tragedy', I didn't do that just to have Steven get killed. Bismuth's a pretty interesting character and I wanted to explore that with what might have been.
Hope you enjoyed. This was a oneshot, so no continuation. Review and favorite.