It was a bittersweet victory, in all sense of the word. The Crystal Gems had many mixed opinions on what to do with the two, now thankfully unfused, gems they had just wrestled from damnation. Too much longer in such a risky, unhealthy fusion would have led to the melding of the two gems and everything that made them apart, but an intensely heated battle led to an intensely heated debate about what to do with the now harmless gems sitting, bubbled, on the living room table. One side argued that they couldn't be trusted, others said that they might as well give them a chance. One comment in particular was somewhat directed to Peridot, stating with distaste, "Well, we gave her a shot."
"Still," Garnet sat back in the couch, looking for all the world perfectly calm and about to enjoy a nice television show. "We gave them the benefit of doubt before, and this is where it led. I believe they should be sent to the Temple, for good."
"But Peridot turned out nice!" Steven whined, sitting right beside the massive gem. "And what about Lapis? She did all that for us!"
"What she 'did'," Pearl remarked, "Was use a dangerously unstable fusion that she later let run over Beach City just to contain an intensely weakened warrior. If I had five more seconds before she showed up, I could have had her bubbled and forgotten by now. She's risky, Steven, and we can't take too much more of that."
"It's so lonely in a bubble! I know Lapis will be just as bored as she was in the mirror." Steven sighed, and reached out to poke the bubble containing the blue gem before Garnet's hand quickly snatched it away. She wrapped his hand in her fist, and smiled gently.
"I know you worry, Steven, but it's peaceful inside your gem. Like you're asleep. Trust me, she won't be in any kind of pain." Steven's still distressed look showed he wasn't completely confident in her promise, but he said nothing more. Garnet patted his head softly. It had finally seemed like the matter was settled until one voice suddenly spoke up from her previous vow of silence.
"Well, if you ask me," Peridot began, noting from the expressions of all the others they had most certainly not, "Jasper's an extremely powerful warrior. I don't have much experience with, ah, the other one, but I can vouch that if you could get Jasper on your side, you wouldn't need to fiddle around with half of the junk you do. Like that mailman, or mayor? She's valuable, you know; quartz is an extremely rare type of soldier, hardly even used besides for the royal army."
"Her value was the last thing in my mind when she was trying to pound my skull in." Garnet said evenly. "Even if she was powerful, what good would it do to have that power against you? She's made it pretty clear where her loyalty stands."
Peridot tittered for a moment before replying with a sarcastic undertone, which Garnet heavily winced at. "Quartz are more brain than brawn, you realize. Yeah, they're loyal, but that can also be, persuaded, if you will."
"Well, why don't you do the persuading?" Though said offhandedly, Pearl's comment suddenly gravitated attention.
"What do you mean?" Peridot asked, eyes narrowing from behind her lenses. Her remark was nothing short of surprising, and every eye that could be offered was set heavily on the prim gem.
"Well, you're the one closest to her, out of all of us, correct? Why would she ever listen to one of us, especially after we just tried- and succeeded- in destroying her? For a while you two even fought on the same side; maybe she would listen to an old friend who turned the other way round."
"And how certain are you that this will work?"
"Absolutely zero. But, if she did end up smashing you into a pulp and then trying to escape, we can't say we've had many casualties." Pearl gave a faint laugh that was accompanied by silence.
"And how are you certain she isn't going to just bust out of this joint with all you four dead and gone?" Peridot could only wish that after her last comment, but Pearl's sly look immediately crushed her dreams.
"We have ways."
...
Pink, Peridot decided, was her new, least-favorite color. All around her, annoyingly peachy clouds swirled and streamed, and the rose-colored sky did anything but lift her spirit. So they had decided to stick Peridot's neck out on the line to try and contain this... tyrant. Even though she had known Jasper longer than the other gems, it still wasn't as long as they thought. With any luck, Jasper would hesitate to ask 'Who are you?' before pounding her face into the ground.
So there she was, sitting in an increasingly irritating dreamy scenery with Jasper's diamond shaped gem just waiting to regenerate. It was a less than ideal situation. In all honesty, Peridot had to admit, if she were in the Gems' shoes, it would be exactly what she would have done. Throw out the newly ally, previous enemy, and see what comes walking back. No skin off her back. Peridot sighed heavily, in any case; because in this situation, it was going to be her skin off her back.
Perhaps she had misjudged her earlier calculations. Perhaps Jasper would take more than an hour to regenerate, like their companion Pearl. Perhaps she would be stuck in this maddening scenery for weeks on end, or until they decided she could come out. It had already been an hour, maybe two, and still no signs of the typical glowing that usually indicated a gem's arrival. Absolutely perfect, glorious, fantastic. Was she to be stuck in this hellhole til those... Gems decided she'd had enough? They never really did specify when she was supposed to come out, either.
A sudden, blindingly bright light pierced her eyes even from behind her closed lids, and instantly she opened them wide to watch whatever happened next. The orange gem lifted itself up to wherever it would be on Jasper's body, almost like the light was supporting it. Startlingly, Peridot remembered just how tall and intimidating Jasper exactly was. Especially now without her limb enhancers... it would be absolutely no contest. With some of that old fear rekindled, she scooted back farther from the light display, til she was a safe ten feet away. By then the images of Jasper's past forms were already flitting by, and she easily counted at least five. How many times and could this happen to someone as rough and tough as Jasper, anyways? Maybe she was wrong to think she was just as strong as she seemed. Unless she was fighting someone just as, maybe even more, strong than she...
Breaking her train of thought, a lumbering mass of glowing light suddenly broke from the cycle, and was thrust forward and landed on her knees, now no more than five feet from Peridot. She squeaked in surprise and terror, but quickly suppressed it when the light settled back into familiar orange colors and build. White hair was swept back onto broad shoulders as Jasper threw her head up, and her wide pupils flashed back and forth as she quickly examined the surroundings, like she was scared of where she had landed. But when her gaze rested on Peridot, alone in a harmless looking pink room, her breath evened out from its previous huffing, and a hand ran through the stands remaining on her forehead.
"Ah," Came her gruff, even voice. "So they got you too."
"Excuse me?" Peridot tried to not be sarcastic, but her old habits were hard to suppress. "They-"
"So what is this? Some kind of prison? Doesn't look too intimidating, if so." Jasper rose to her terrifying full height, and suddenly Peridot remembered she was embarrassingly sitting in a position that looked like she had just tripped and fallen backwards. Quickly she also climbed to her feet, and brushed herself off sheepishly. Jasper's gaze once again fell on her.
"And what are you doing here, anyways? I thought you bailed on me. And if this is a prison, why would they have a shrimpy twerp like you in here with someone like me?"
Peridot couldn't help her eyebrows from rising in indignation. "Because, first of all, this is not a prison. You're not a prisoner, and they're, ah, not your enemy."
Jasper's look of absolute confusion urged her to move on before she went back three conversations ago to ask a question. "The Crystal Gems, I think you already know them, want you to become an ally with them. You're an extremely adept soldier, and they want to embrace that."
Jasper huffed. "So you're one of them now? I guess it's not surprising; you're too weak to fight back, only choice you got is surrender."
"I'm not weak! I chose to, in a way-"
"So you're not one of them?"
"No, I-" Peridot sighed, hands finding her temples and she rubbed them slowly. This was slightly more aggravating than talking to a brick wall. "Listen, Jasper. You don't have many choices here. You can either get bubbled and put away for however long you can live, or you can just join. Trust me, it's not any less terrible to be a part of the team than just being poofed- Pearl, is always trying to show off in front of me, and Garnet has always been on my case. The other, Amethyst, is always rowdy and loud and trying to break everything I make, but she's the best out of all three, if that says anything. Oh, and there's another one, Steven, I'm not even sure what he is besides annoying, but he's the, ah, baby of the group, if you will. Definitely not Homeworld material. There's something different down here on Earth. But my point is: even if it's awful and exhausting and every other day you wished they just bubbled and sent you off, it's worth it. Even if I hate it and despise every single one of them, at least I have something to hate and somebody to despise."
Strangely, Jasper had let her speak all that while, without trying to interrupt. She seemed to be thinking it over, a look of concentration clouding her face, as if she was trying to decide the less of two evils. Peridot suddenly worried her argument wasn't strong enough, and that she was going to just push right past her and try to escape because death was better than the latter option. Peridot couldn't help tensing in case of the inevitable, but Jasper suddenly connected eyes with her own, a surprisingly firm finality set about her features.
"Fine. Take me to your leader."
"...And how do I know you're not going to just go back on your promise?" Admittedly, she hadn't promised anything, but the question demanded to be asked.
"Because I'm not trying to bust your skull open right now twerp." Peridot winced.
"Right, right." She began leading back to the door that had disappeared when Steven left earlier, and she could hear Jasper's heavy steps following behind her, but she suddenly stopped and turned to her former superior.
"Oh, and, uh, Jasper?"
"Yeah?" Her voice was just as gruff as ever, but it did not hamper Peridot.
"Welcome to the team."
Sorry about the mistakes earlier guys, I'm not sure what happened, but it's fixed now.