Third times the charm right?, Steven pondered this to himself. While wishing the door to the Burning Room would open slower, Steven wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his jeans.
Within the bottom hands of a familiar temple statue that had seen millenniums of deterioration stood a house that had seen more adventures, remarkable wonders, and destruction than a house really should see in the past sixteen years of its existence. The crayon drawings along the fridge had morphed from childhood photos, past souvenirs, and evolved to report cards competing for space with the grocery lists. Steven would've wanted to linger back in the living area which had a few floorboards replaced here and there but the two Gems on the farthest temple door lit right up. He had no choice but to go inside.
I shouldn't be this nervous, Steven thought to himself as he marched through the door.
His hand instinctively went to hold the nearest person's hand next to him. Steven took a small comfort from the return squeeze but his stomach did flip-flops and not in the excited kind of way.
Maybe I should think of this as just another mission!, Steven tried to reassure himself, Yeah, just like the thousands of others where we had to fight corrupted monsters . . . Bubble their Gems and . . .
Steven's feet seemed to turn to lead in his flip-flops. As much as he wanted to lie to himself, to feel more confident. His knees went limp where he went in.
. . . Oh . . . Kay. Who am I kidding?
This was a big deal to him that hung in his proverbial regrets closet for years. Steven padded across the heated floor, knowing, this time, would be different from the other times he'd come into the burning room. Instead of checking the monsters he'd bubbled, something was coming out of it instead of going back in. He'd gulped at the prospect.
Lava oozed down the porous volcanic rock walls where watery puddles let in light from the ceiling intermingled among glossy multicolored bubbles. Many pinks, reds, teal and a few lilac orbs were lazing for all eternity above a gigantic lava pit. The triangular little jewel glinted in the light, letting the highlights simply slide off its sharp edges like a sword through butter.
"Are you ready Steven?" asked the person holding his hand.
"Huh-yeah?" Steven blurted out his train of thought derailed. "Oh I mean yeah, yeah. I'm ready as I'll ever be."
Steven tittered. His hand was so clammy it simply slid out of that comforting grip and try as he might Steven's cheek twitched from stretching his grin too far to each ear.
"I hope," Steven tittered in a near whisper.
Garnet ducked her head in before she stepped aside to let the rest of her team through. To Steven she'd always seemed to tower. Her hourglass build filled every curve her reddish outfit wanted to hug. Pearl was a fidgety waif of pastel clothes wrapped around a lean wiry build. Her hair and nose came to such sharpened points, she'd put the viewer in mind of a fastidious bird, when she turned her head side to side surveying all the bubbles with newly worried blue eyes. These bubbles contained monsters, dangers, and weren't at all organized.
"We have a very slim chance at success," Pearl noted, "If the first two tries weren't going well."
"Well this is now Steven's big chance," Garnet told Steven lovingly, "Which one do you want to help?"
Nearly two years ago they'd promised to help these corrupt Gems. A year ago they weren't as ready to help these Gems as they were now. Steven put his hands on his hips looking for all the world like the kid ready to play Dungeons and Dragons instead of his heart hammering in his chest a million miles an hour. He squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest which Steven could not deny he never did cut out the figure for big and imposing taking after the softer sides of both his family.
Steven put on his best thinking pose. Pretending to scour the bubbles. He cupped his chin where barely any whiskers grew.
"Well~" he began.
His gazed scanned the various bubbles until he found a familiar little orange jewel. It was smaller than all the rest, but it belonged to one of the biggest Homeworld soldiers Steven had ever seen.
"How about~" Steven spoke, "that one."
Garnet grimaced upon Steven pointing to that Gem of all Gems. Pearl babbled incoherently while fumbling for an arm to latch on to. Amethyst got hoisted off the ground on one elbow. She never minded the occasional hug, Steven was sure, but with her tip toes scraping for traction Amethyst sighed in frustration but smiled nonetheless.
The Triangle Jewel just stayed in stasis within its bubble prison. Sharpened whips snapped around it and casually reeled it down to eye level. Amethyst was one of the shortest women in the group. From there the round purple face that came so close to the jewel that it would've surprised our fellow to go, poof, where she floated, unconscious in a small bubble barely nose to button nose with her. The woman holding the bubble, however, stayed stuck between self-consciously tucking a strand of lilac tufted hair behind one ear or pulling her bangs over one indigo eye.
"Are you sure you want to do this Amethyst? Steven?" one of the lady's companions asked. Pearl gave her friend's shoulder a squeeze. Amethyst grasped the spindly hand with her free hand in return.
Amethyst passed the bubble to Steven who actually hesitated to hold the thing. The bubbled jewel had many mixed memories for the two of them. Their fusion Smoky Quartz making her first appearance last year. The rage that bubbled up in the back of Amethyst's throat at Jasper calling her Runt. This Jewel belonged to a bully.
A traitorous part of Steven's conscience pointed out the brute almost didn't deserve a second chance. She called people names. She pushed other Gems around, corrupted Gems, which made it ironic she'd joined her former prisoners' ranks. Still, Steven stifled that doubt under a lot of determination and a dose of good cheer. If the Crystal Gems were behind Steven all the way on this decision it was only fair to give everyone a second chance too.
"I know that we promised we would help find a cure for these corrupted Gems but why this one?" Pearl brought up.
Garnet adjusted her shades but offered no explanation. Pearl brought up a pretty good question. Why this Gem? She could probably see what was going to happen anyway if she concentrated but her focus was on the here and now. Amethyst couldn't quite meet her teammates' eyes. She edged shoulder to shoulder with Steven. Steven screwed his face into a determined frown. The adorable teen would've passed for someone younger underneath the dark curls and the chubby build. Yet the memory of the fear in the bully's eyes while her body broke out in a rash of sea-green spikes and gnarled claws curled that frown into a grimace.
Steven looked back towards his family. The smile not reaching his sparkling dark eyes. The jewel slid inside the bubble unaware its very fate was now in the hands of a high school freshman. Steven gave a small shrug.
"I don't know any of the other Gems as well as Jasper and while Centipeetle and I are buds. Jasper and I," Steven gulped, "I mean my Mom and Jasper have some history together and I feel bad for her she was this big legend."
"Well not to cut this history lesson short," Amethyst nonchalantly interjected, "But yeah she kind of . . ."
Amethyst shook off the memory. It left a tight squeeze in her throat watching the Gem, not that she liked the jerk, mutate into that thing. This was someone they knew. Someone who was a real person, even though a bad person, before the corruption. The bully yelled at being betrayed and tricked. The bully, self-righteously, roaring out her Diamond's name to the end. The giant came from the same stomping grounds, the same earth, and Amethyst bit her cheek since she hated to admit it.
"She's kind of family?" Amethyst questioned, "I guess? Well, it's not like I'd actually had a sister before she came along but she came from a Kindergarten here and technically that makes her a part of Earth."
Amethyst silently chided herself for not putting her 100% faith in Steven. Steven didn't even have 100% faith in himself and Lapis Lazuli, followed by a spooked and afraid for her life Peridot, had volunteered to stay away. There really wasn't any fortified place in the barn that would endure a corrupted Gem and the fearless leader predicted the bully's brain would be the consistency of silly putty upon regeneration.
"She scares me," Steven admitted, "But she knows what happened to Homeworld and I want to find out what happened to everyone."
At his teammates' behest, Steven moved Jasper's bubble miles away from the temple and any form of civilization for that matter. Steven stepped off the warp pad, bubble at hand, and the first thing to greet his vision was the sting of ash and a slap of wintry wind. Steven blinked back the tears along the ashen coastline where the middle of Russia used to stay. His heart fell into the pit of his stomach.
"What happened to this place?" Steven burst out. He'd seen maps at the library of what happened to the landmass but to see the scope of the damage in person froze up his internals, chased his eyebrows into his hairline, and popped his eyes wide in his sockets.
The ashes trailed into the lapping tide. The crash sight's lifeless coast had pulled a U-turn around a fantastic crater which sucked in all the salt water and radiation enough to leave a radioactive inland sea where Russia's mainland used to call home. Without the need for nuclear weapons the radiation had to go somewhere and mother nature decided well if there's no Chernobyl than there's the Radiated Gulf.
Pearl snaked her hand around Steven's shoulders to give a one-sided hug. It was an apology more than a history lesson.
"Not every battle for the Rebellion was a victory," Pearl trailed off, "With a ship crashed into the middle of Russia it caused a chain reaction which forced many tectonic plates apart and why half of Africa is now the new coast of South America, it was one of our more . . ."
Steven yanked Pearl into a vice grip around her waist. Pearl's lips thinned.
". . . embarrassing losses," Pearl finished sweetly.
"That's not funny P," Amethyst scolded.
". . . It wasn't funny when it happened. . ." Pearl grumbled under her breath.
Garnet ruffled Pearl's and Amethyst's hair. Pearl blushed under the contact. Amethyst's hair tangled into a little rat's nest. She instructed, "The important part is this is far enough from any life forms that should Jasper run rampant she won't destroy the nearest city."
The bubble burst open leaving Jasper's Gem clinking into the ashen sand after the boom. Steven's itchy trigger finger just steadied over his Gem. His fingers wrinkled the fabric of his T-shirt. Pearl's body tensed. Her very core raring to spring. Garnet's fists instinctively clenched. Amethyst clutched her chest, her Gems hard edges pressed into her fingertips.
Steven held up a hand holding back the tension.
"Steven, please be careful," Pearl hissed.
Steven relaxed his posture. Palms up as the light around Jasper's Gem quaked and pulsed. Ashes radiating from the very point where her essence was coming into being.
"I know what I'm doing," Steven gulped, "I hope."
Jasper fell to her knees. The tremor shook underfoot. A wild mane of hair burst out behind her lit form like an Amazonian cape at first. Jasper groaned. Then was when things took a turn for the worst.
When Jasper started coming to her eyes lost focus. The world a ghostly blur of grays. The green rash that swelled around her jutted up in stalactites to her eyes. Her nerves inflamed. The pain was too thick of a haze for her to notice a certain little Gem. Her vision blurred red.
"Ro-o-o-se," Jasper growled out, surprised a clicking noise was escaping out of her throat.
Steven stilled his beating heart. The traitorous organ battered against his sternum. Jasper's form rapidly shifted. Bones crackled much to Steven's strained ears. He held his palms up anyway.
"But I'm not Rose," Steven exclaimed, "I-I'm Steven. Don't you want us to help you?"
Jasper lunged. Steven threw himself back. Claws tore a gash across Steven's shirt. The bully's roar blasted him in the face sending sand gusting twenty feet behind him in a wide-spread blast radius.
"I know Rose recruited soldiers at their lowest point. Anyone who wanted to feel important," Steven started, "And anyone who wanted to feel valued even a little, but I'm not Rose."
He'd ducked. Jasper's paws hit thin air. The crystal Gems each sucked in a collective gasp. Steven meanwhile slowed his breathing. He knew Jasper was a cunning calculating Gem. She stooped to new lows under Yellow Diamond's command to reach new heights. Steven put his hands behind his back.
"You know that, don't you? I'm not here to recruit you," Steven stated, "I want to help you because everyone deserves to be treated as equals even if we don't see eye to eye."
Jasper was still circling around this puny Quartz. A curious growl escaping her teeth. Steven stepped close, duck! Wow, what sharp teeth Jasper had. Steven's heart started to beat along his sternum. His throat went dry.
Steven glanced behind him. Eyes wide at the chunk of rock where Jasper almost had Steven chow.
He gulped, "I don't want to change who you are."
Steven was affirming this to himself by now. He'd been working on this strategy for two whole years. He'd been studying up on Soldiers. He'd even sat through courses with Mrs. Maheswaran, not that they'd help but psychology was the needle and thread to the torn fabric of the mind right? Steven was a horrible fibber he admitted to himself.
Reverse psychology worked about as well as an arrow missing the broadside of a barn.
"You don't want to hurt me," Steven exclaimed, "You're not a brute."
Jasper tried to squish Steven with her head-butt. The wall cracked. Now Jasper roared, angered her target got away. Steven tried everything sweet and kind to get Jasper to back down. Bribery with treats didn't work. Jasper tried to eat Steven for a treat. Singing didn't help. While Jasper now had Horns for eyes her hearing was great and she ate Steven's favorite ukulele before Steven got eaten. Luckily unharmed but perfectly peeved Steven slammed his backpack to the ground and stormed off.
Jasper skidded to a halt. Head tilted. A whine wheezed from her throat. Where was Puny Rose going? Rose never gave up before.
Fed up, Steven opened his big mouth, the words tumbling out before he stopped himself.
"You blasted MORON!" Steven yelled, "I've been trying to help you orange putz. You're such a brute you can't even hit the broad side of a barn."
Steven's heart leaped in his throat at watching the now much bigger and much nastier Gem rise to full height. Jasper, if she had eyes, would have leered down. She was doing a convincing pawing at the dirt. Dirt clods sent flying. She reared up. All of her weight bared down for a single strike.
Steven ducked into the fetal position. The Crystal Gems screamed his name as the war monster came crashing down with a clang akin to a hammer hitting an anvil. Steven peeked one eye open following the other eye. Face slackened in horror. Jasper's face trounced something hard and solid.
The ash blew away in the wind revealing an abandoned barn. It was all too surreal. Steven rubbed his eyes looked wide to stare. Indeed, that was a barn with its rusty tin roof and iron girding. Steven now cursed his dumb luck that Jasper never backed down from a challenge. Failure number three mocked his conscience. It felt like the third time he'd failed.
The crack of Gem meeting iron had Steven crying out in despair. Jasper's gem nearly cleaved through the tip of her nose. His eyes wet with tears. Steven clenched his fists to his chest. They were a weak shield between him and the horrible injury he helped wrought.
"Oh, no Jasper are you okay!" Steven gasped hovering over Jasper. Little star charts seemed to swim overhead of the little monster. Jasper's form fizzled in and out. The mighty beast breathed in short wheezy gasps now that her nasal passages had just been smashed further into her face.
Garnet sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. The break looked as painful as the crunch. Pearl fidgeted in place. Her hands itched for a spear to pull out and finish the job. How dare Jasper attack, Steven.
Amethyst cupped her hands yelling, "Woohoo way to go Ste-man. Use your healing spit!"
The thoughts just clicked together thinking, "Oh yeah, my healing powers."
Steven heaved Jasper's messed up face to reach her broken Gem. He'd licked his lips in preparation working up a good spit. Normally this would've freaked anyone out to see pursed lips slowly looming toward their face. Jasper, however, konked herself out. She didn't have to worry about what dignity she just lost.
The kiss seeped into Jasper's cracked Gem. Her form started leaking tendrils of light. The sight was worthy of the northern lights if the body where that aurora borealis originated to didn't start withering away, Steven clasped Jasper's shrinking form with a death grip. He'd squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the inevitable goodbye.
A whistling snore punctuated the quiet. Steven's gaze snapped open. He was soon swarmed from all sides by Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl who snapped him off the ground in a bone crushing hug. Pearl proceeded to circle around her surrogate son fussing for injuries. Garnet tapped her chin trying to make sense of the incredibly shrinking Jasper.
Amethyst's eyes lit up with glee. Her smile was so wide it threatened to get hooked off either ear. Fists to her chest. The urge to squeal like a small school girl rising.
"Oh this is new," Pearl exclaimed, out of the myriad of emotions, logic and jubilation beat confusion, "And so much more efficient, Garnet! This solves our problem about where to put Jasper."
"She's so cute!" Amethyst squealed.
Garnet cupped her chin and tilted it in the opposite direction. Jasper's mass had shrunk from two hundred pounds to maybe twenty pounds? Without the extra spikes on her back, she was akin to a thick bulldog whose Ram horns and the two spikes were where her eyes and ears used to be.
"Garnet can she stay in my room?" Amethyst asked.
"Garnet, we need to find a proper place to put the Jasper," Pearl exclaimed.
"Uh Guys," Steven finally inquired, he was the one holding Jasper and he was the one who was the most confused. "Guys, Garnet what just happened?"
"Garnet," called Pearl.
"Garnet," exclaimed Amethyst.
The constant calling of her name was slowly grating on what kind of patience she had left. Part of Garnet's patience endured the ongoing chant "Garnet, Garnet."
Jasper's only addition to the conversation was a squeaky snore. The rest of Garnett battled between yelling and diplomacy.
"Garn-"
Shhhh
Garnet hushed the trio. She simply signaled for the trio to return to the warp pad and return to the Temple. Garnet had a pretty good idea that Jasper wouldn't wake until much later. Her future vision still gave her glimpses of Beach City or worse yet the Delmarva state going up in flames. However, a lull of peace settled upon the city. Jasper defeating herself was quite unprecedented but not unwelcome. At least now the Corrupted Gem wasn't a big rampaging monster chasing cars and commanding an army to take over the world.
Jasper snored peacefully on the couch. She didn't have any nostrils to breath through. Thus she made do with twisting herself upside down until she was practically sleeping on top of her furry head. A permanent groove where she broke her own monster muzzle making her jaw jut out past her Gem nose. Gravity was playing tug of war with her tongue lolling outside her upper lip. She had trouble smacking her lips. Back hooves twitched, front paws convulsed, and tiny monster Jasper was chasing little bitty Stevens through her dreams.
The snoring grated on Pearl's ears. She could've sworn it was a grown man snoring on the couch instead of a tiny Jasper. A traitorous part of her wondered if she could shut Jasper in with Greg. They sound just as deep gruff and terrible a snorer.
Amethyst meanwhile lay enraptured at poking Jasper's feet. Jasper sneezed only to fall flat into Amethyst's hands. The Gem hugged Jasper close earning a rumbling purr. Starry-eyed she grinned. Amethyst, besides Peridot, was still the shortest Gem on the team and it felt so good to not be the shrimp anymore.
The only one who wasn't questioning this was Steven. He'd been filming Jasper with her cell phone.
"Pearl," Steven asked, "How did Jasper end up like this?"
Pearl lowered herself gingerly to the couch. She flinched from another deep-throated snore. Now that the stress from earlier had ebbed away. Her entire body might as well have linguine noodles for bones. Emotionally exhausted she could feel the years crawling on her back.
"Well, Jasper's body may have benefited from your healing powers speeding along the process Steven," Pearl started, "Yet healing still takes energy to burn Steven and our bodies are light based projections of our conscience which light is pure energy. It is likely her body did what any other animal's bodies would do when it is starving and cannibalized itself to heal her health problems. It would explain why she is so little."
And frail, Pearl mentally added She stroked Jasper's back where she could count vertebrae and trace Jasper's pelvis with her fingertips.
"So Jasper's just tired," Steven asked, "She's not gonna die."
"No," Pearl reassured Steven, "Jasper is a tough old warrior. We'll help her or at least make her comfortable. Now head to bed."
"Can Jasper sleep with," Amethyst and Steven began.
"No, absolutely not," Pearl reminded them, "Jasper is not going to sleep with you in your bed. She is a person, not a teddy bear."
The duo relented. Amethyst carefully readjusted Jasper on the couch. Her snoring stopped now that the incline allowed her to get more air into her lungs. Steven, without thinking, gave Jasper a good night kiss causing the Gem to flinch. Pearl observed the display carefully noting that if Jasper started snoring again she could at least fix it.
Now all that's left is to tell Greg, Pearl mused, That's going to become tons of fun.
. . . If Jasper was anything like Amethyst, the repair bill was going to sky-rocket should Jasper start craving anything whether it was edible or not.