AN/ EYYYYYY! A friendly comment on another of my stories helped me remember that I had this thing laying around! Thanks much buddy ILU!
SO. This is a Redemption fic, cannon up until episode 21 of season 2 called Too Far (I think?) after they've worked some on the drill and what not. Gonna shoot a lotta my own head-cannons here. I'm sorry if these characters seem a little off, I'm filling them as best I can. There WILL be some eventual Lapidot, not in this chapter really, but it will be a slow build when it does show it's ship.
This is Redemption and it's also my first try at anything like it, please bear with me on this.
THESE CHARACTERS DON'T BELONG TO ME.
"Okay, but what do you mean you "found Malachite" what significance is this thing to the Cluster?!" A particular short green gem flailed her arms exasperatedly, brows knit over her wide confused eyes as she gazed upon the "leader" of the Crystal Gems. Peridot seemed to visibly take a step back, small nose crumpling in distaste "I recognize the gem name, but what even is this "Malachite"? Is it a weapon we are going to use against the Cluster?"
"Malachite is a monstrous fusion between Jasper and Lapis Lazuli-"
"W- What?! So you mean to tell me that's where my escort and informant went? To the bottom of the ocean stuck together?!"
"I know it's hard to follow, but please try to keep up, Lapis kept the fusion held below the ocean in an attempt to keep Steven safe from Jasper's wrath." Pearl nonchalantly informed the shorter with a disinterested expression from her slumped and tired position on the couch, facing the ceiling with bored eyes. They had spent weeks trying to work together on that damn drill, but as they had witnessed when the drill had spun out and drove itself into the distance, they still had a lot of work to do. Pearl didn't particularly like working with the smaller gem.
Garnet continued, "the fusion was horrendously unstable, and we fear both gems might be becoming lost to the fusion. In a sense..." a pause sounded in the space that was deemed Steven's living room as the tall fusion looked to the floor and clenched her hands into tight fists. All eyes of the room's occupants on her "In a sense, the fusion is becoming corrupt. We need to separate these gems by force or we risk making the biggest enemy we've ever had."
"...can we not postpone this problem until after the Cluster has been stopped?"
Amethyst scoffed and rolled her eyes at the gem "Wow Peri, that was probably one of the most insensitive things I've ever heard come out of your mouth, even for you."
"-Well excuse me, but something that IS going to destroy THE ENTIRETY of this planet at any second sounds a bit more threatening than a fusion between my former Homeworld accomplices."
"I would unnaturally agree with you, Peridot.." Garnet hushed the banter with her own smooth opinion "but said fusion is climbing out onto the beach like a feral animal and is heading for Beach City as we speak."
Sure enough, a loud roar could be heard a distance away that shook the walls of the wooden beach-house slightly. Everyone jumped to their feet, weapons at the ready. Well, everyone except for Steven, whom had his shield in hand, and Peridot who cowered behind him with wide frightened eyes. Pearl sighed at the sight, Peridot was always talk, no bite. Always.
"Look, Peridot. If you can't summon you weapon, you might as well stay behind. You'll just be a liability to the team out there and we can't afford that kind of handicap right now-"
"Liability..?" The shorter glared daggers at Pearl, lime orbs drawing into hard slits as her brows frowned, voice becoming an octave higher in seething livid anger "Handicap?! Listen here you... You PEARL. I may not be inept for combat like the rest of you. I am a TOP NOTCH engineer and an EXPERT pilot-" her eyes shot open wide as a thought literally punched her in the face, or well, a thought came to her about being punched in the face that one time some days ago. Her body began to shake as she erupted with laughter that could only be explained by the word "insane"
"Great, Malachite-zilla is on the louse and we have a cracked gem on our hands."
"W- What? I- I- I'm not c- cracked!" Peridot managed to choke the words out between fits of her hysterical laughter before she put her hands on Amethyst's shoulders, the shoulders of the gem that had previously mocked her "I'm a PILOT!" She quickly wheeled from the surprised and confused gem to face the young gem-hybrid "Steven, please accompany me to the barn!"
Malachite roared a low bellow that shook the sand, massive amounts of seaweed falling off the grossly inflamed steaming body of the large fusion. It had gotten much bigger sense they had last encountered it, jaw falling out of that now hollow face and rows of teeth protruding from lips and cheeks. With it's glowing green radioactive eyes it glared at the gems, it brought a thick meaty hand covered in barnacles up to swat at Pearl who jumped away with practiced grace.
"Aim for that nose!" That was easier said than done, all kinds of sea life had grown over parts of Malachite's face, including the gem nose. A pained yelp escaped the monstrous being as a large boulder connected with the side of it's head, disorienting it slightly. Peridot donned the driver's seat of her "giant robot" and stood a few paces away, readying another large boulder, a look of determination in her eyes as she bared her teeth at the fusion.
"Should we ready the cannons?" Amethyst shouted over the noise of the fight to Garnet who had pulled herself out of a hole Malachite had punched her into.
"Yes, but we will only use them as a last resort. Steven, go with Amethyst and wait for my order!" The boy nodded as he and the purple gem started off toward the floral cannons that were laying in wait under a sheet by the front steps.
"Amethyst, we aren't really going to shoot her with these are we?" They tugged the fabric off the large gem weapons and began to angle them in the direction of the corrupt being "I- I mean... Lapis could still be in there. What about her..?"
"I don't know, Steven.. I just don't know."
The fusion was relentless, pushing forward despite the combine efforts of the three gems. Pearl had managed to flip up onto the back of the monster and make a jab at the blue gem that rested there, but one of the arms snagged her by the leg and threw her backwards far into the ocean.
With a grit of her teeth and a firm jaw, Garnet turned to the green mechanized gem "Peridot, throw me!"
"What?!"
"Throw me! Get me as close to her face as fast as possible!"
"My stars, I'm surrounded by crazy idiot clods!" She didn't argue though as the darker gem came to her, hauling herself up into the machines metal claws.
"I've got a pretty good hunch this'll work, trust me." That's maybe asking a lot, but it's not like she hasn't been forced to trust these gems before. Peridot lifted the other into the air as Garnet held on with one hand, the other clenched tight in a gauntlet-fitted fist. Some beeps and the sound of multiple buttons being jammed in rapid succession filled their ears before the machine began to spin it's upper half in a dizzyingly fast manner, feet remaining firmly planted on the beach. Rockets were activated from the shoulder of the robot, boosting the speed to a blurred and distorted rate to the point something in the cab of the bot started to blink red and wail loudly in warning.
"You got one shot at this, you know?" The gem shouted over the vortex of noise and velocity they had created.
"THROW ME, PERIDOT!" And with a scream from the green gem, she did. The sound emitted when Garnet left the metal was something akin to thunder, the volume bursting every window out of the buildings and cars in the city, cutting the power to many surrounding residents, and temporarily rendering occupants deaf.
It all happened so fast, in a flash of light, both Garnet and the monster were gone. Sand quietly filling the hand-prints left behind by the massive fusion. When the machine had finally stopped spinning from the aftermath, Peridot met Amethyst's eyes, both of them wearing a matching expression of "Oh shit"
A distant boom was heard, that being the only sound aside from the labored, panicked breathing from Steven and the sound of the waves gently lapping the shore. Out of the corner of her eye, Peridot was the only one that caught a distant shimmer in the afternoon sky that the boom flowed after. Turning her gaze fully in the direction of that little sparkle, the robot's long arms slunk into the sand as it fell into it's knees.
It was over.
"Wh... what happened..?" Pearl, soggy and disoriented, walks over to stand beside the green gem who looked very distant.
"I think.. maybe I threw her too hard.." that voice was very small, Pearl had to strain herself to listen. Amethyst jogged up to the others with Steven hot on her heels.
"Peri, what was that... that boom?"
"Could have been a number of things... but," She audibly swallowed hard, hands breaking into a cold sweat over the controls of her mech. Eyes unwavering on that spot "but, I think that was the sound of Garnet leaving this planet's atmosphere.."
That night was scary quiet, half the town still having not regained power and they were still missing one Crystal Gem. Pearl tended to Steven up in the loft-space bedroom, the boy whom still hadn't recovered his hearing was making the white gem consider taking him to Roses fountain just in case his ears were broken.
Amethyst and Peridot sat idling side by side on the couch, the thin green gem still looking as lost as she did when she had possibly thrown their designated team leader into orbit.
"Yeo man, don't sweat it. I'm sure she's fine! She's a hella strong gem, she'll probably warp back in within the day with a sombrero and maracas dancing to some weird up-beat music from distant lands or whatever." She reached out a hand to gently lay on a taught shoulder in an attempt to comfort the other, but the smaller stood before she could establish contact.
"I need a moment, sorry.." With that, she walked stiffly out the front door and down the steps. The beach was just as quiet as everywhere else, though the sound of the water helped drown out the clawing grip of the silence. There were no moon tonight.
She needed a walk.
Small feet padded along the sand as she walked a ways from the house. Out here it was just her, the deep blue sea, and the stars above. Sitting, she let her gaze dance over the dark horizon, finding that space where sky met water and watching it intently like looking into a void.
She couldn't think.
For once in her life, her thoughts were completely gone.
Negated even. Less than gone.
Time to start up that train of thought again... So, what made her head ghostly clear like this..? Maybe the centrifugal force from being so close to the center-most point of a velocity that broke the laws of time and space messed with the inside of her gem or something. Maybe the fight had never actually ended, Garnet wasn't the one whom was gone, but she herself was the one that was lost. Sucked through an invisible black-hole. Stuck in an unforgiving gap between realities where thoughts were played backwards in some way that felt sickly like deja-vu. Stuck in a death-spiral.
No... speed like that didn't create denominational worm-holes.
But maybe playing with light did..
And they are indeed beings composed completely of light.
Space. Light. Time...
What even is time? Because a planet turns and things here eventually die only proves that these things here have a limit, a time within time. Who is to say time actually exist? If it does exist, does it have a limit too? If time does exist and it has a limit, is there a bigger picture beyond this existence that doesn't have a limit? Space is endless, but maybe it's even more vast than time itself, so maybe that's time's limit.
Time exists in space. Time is as time was expands through the aria that space provides from places that space is no longer, so time is distance?
Mayonnaise?
What is real anymore?
The young gem finds herself standing again, trying vainly to keep her thoughts afloat with more simple, trivial things. Things that she actually had answers for. She used some pebbles laying on the sand that had washed up from the surf as a detraction, tossing them as hard as she could out into the waves. Watching them glide through the air before gravity gently guides them into the open water.
A blink as she watched the last gritty stone she had thrown sink beneath the surface. Deciding she wanted to try and skip the last remaining rocks. Picking up the smoothest one she could feel, she raised it, narrow eyes set on the horizon once more before she angled her arm and pitched it.
She did it!
It skipped!
The first stone she ever tried to skip, SKIPPED!
...multiple times..
In fact the stone skidded along the surface at a rapid pace up until it was well out of sight.
"Really," voice gruff as she deadpanned, not amused in the slightest "you can't be serious. This is going to be a rule now. I Peridot; am never aloud to throw things. Ever." Not bothering to try and skip another rock, she sat back down onto the sand with a sigh before drawing her lips into a hard line. This was not her day. Or her night. The little green gem just couldn't seem to catch a break on this crummy planet.
A light flashed in the distance over the water robbing Peridot of her destructive thoughts before the sea parted harshly with a strong and sudden torrent of salty air. Sand picked up and was lifted into the air around the gem going way up onto the beach as an unknown force built like a hurricane bolted through the space directly over Peridot's head. She was knocked backwards in the flurry, laying on her back like a vulnerable starfish in the sand as her eyes stare at the stars above.
Now slightly damp and very confused, she just lays there. Trying vainly to figure out what happened with a surprised expression that almost reads "recalculating"
Something glistened up there.
The lights produced by the stars seemed to fracture as if they were reflected through something tangible but clear.
Water maybe..? Water in the air that wasn't rain?
The glistening was getting bigger. Closer.
Quickly!
As a split-second decision, the short gem tucked herself and rolled out of the way. The spot she had been laying exploded, promptly sending sand and mud up in all directions, but when it all stilled and vision cleared, Peridot was met with another shade of blue.
An angry shade of blue.
"You..."
"L- Lazuli?"
END (chapter one)
AN/ Here, have a cliffhanger! I know you guys love em!
So, how did you guys like the read of my first Redemption fic? Did you guys see any errors I might have looked over? Lemme know what you guys thought about it in the comments. Personally I feel it's very rushed and under professional, even when I went over it countless times to try and fill it out better... Meeeeeeh. I'm shy about this one, maybe I'll update it again soon..
Anyway! You guys have a wonderful day/night, please be safe and as always, stay rad!