Disclaimer: Steven Universe is owned by Rebecca Sugar
Summary: Lapis and Jasper aren't they only ones trapped at the bottom of the sea.
Warnings: One-shot. Spoilers for the end of season one and mild spoilers for "Chille Tid." Kinda wonky format/POV cause of crazy Malachite. Influenced by headcanons. Non Beta'd
Date Posted: July 7th, 2015. Update: Went back and fixed some mistakes.
Author's Note: This popped into my head after watching "Keeping It Together." From what I understand, a fusion is their own person and the gems they are made of is a part of themselves. The fusion is meant to be in control and fuel by the harmony between two or more gems. If there is disharmony between the fused gems, the fusion becomes unstable and is supposed to fall apart. However, Malachite is a very unstable fusion where one of the gems she is made of is determined to stay fused, so I imagine that she's just a little bit unhinged.
Also, the "Light" mentioned a few times is a reference to how Garnet explained fusion to Greg in "We Need to Talk."
The first feeling that was her own was that of power. The Light from her two gems were sluggish in creating a combined body for her but the end result was beyond pleasing. Her body was a titan compared to the laughable, reject Gems that stood before her. She could easily reach out and capture them all with a single hand. She could crush them in seconds(make them regret opposing her regret what they did to her). She nearly did. She had reached out, prepared to grab them all, when she paused.
She could feel a twisting, churning energy inside of her that was both very familiar and completely alien to her. The strange energy pulled the nearby waves to her and made the water feel like an extension of her already huge form. She could remember harnessing the water before to overpower the Crystal Gems. The memory brought a feral smile to her face—this was how she was going to destroy them, she decided. She was start with the Pearl, the Amethyst, and the Garnet. She would humiliate them(like they had her), make them utterly helpless(like they had her), and shatter them until not even RoseQuartzSteven could fix them. Then she would move on to himher.
But her excitement was quickly replaced with confusion, horror, and pain. Her emotions fractured and her own thoughts started screaming at each other. Her body, her new beautiful, monstrous body, felt like it was melting as the energy inside of her started to boil. She felt triumphant and betrayed as her own chains(she could easily break them with a flick of her wrists why wasn't she) dragged her into the ocean, away from the Gems. As she was pulled into the black depths, she felt burning rage(she make them pay) and horrified irony(she was a prisoner again but now she was also the imprisoner).
She couldn't truly think. She watched the surface become further and further away and the light become dimmer and dimmer. The too loud thoughts had dissolved in nothing but savage screaming and bitter laughter. She didn't notice when the chains came to a halt in a trench deep, deep in the ocean floor. She could only feel.
Her body cried to turn back into the Light that would silence the painful thoughts in her mind and bring her peace. One of her gems, the one that granted her strength, demanded for her to separate. Her other gem, the one that held the very energy that started all of this, needed her to stay together. She couldn't decide what to do. Her environment wasn't helping either; the pressures of the ocean water were strong enough to break down her body, but were also heavy enough to force her together. She was stuck.
Time passed—how much she didn't know or care—and eventually she resided into her mind and away from the suffocating outside. The argument she was having with herself was still going strong. She was still forcing herself down and she continued to claw up, but the noise was much more quiet compared to before. She could finally think in with her own whispery thoughts.
She couldn't fully understand why she was. Every part of her seemed to want something different.
There was a weak, unyielding part of her that was the one that forced her to be. She had made this her purpose. After so long of being trapped, she didn't know what to do with freedom. She had tried to return to place she considered home for as long as she could remember. It was the one thing that had kept her sane with old memories that filled her with a soft warmth. But that place was gone. It had been replaced by a cold, metal empire that had no place for her. She had nothing—she was nothing—until she thought of him. He brought out a flicker of that old, dead warmth from deep within her and she treasured him for it.
An angry, determined part of her wanted to punish herself for her treachery. When she was freed(for it was when not if), she made it her mission to cause unmeasurable pain. She was great and widely feared; she should be commanding armies, not rotting in a glorified puddle! She was power and she would have to remind those that dared to defy her. She would burn away the weak part of herself and this entire miserable planet while she was at it. None would be spared. She would make them all pay.
She was in a constant state of drowning.
So there, at the bottom of ocean, bound in icy chains, she was frozen. Her body refused to move as it was just barely keeping itself together. Her mind was fighting itself for control, with the tiny, broken part of her(this was all she had she wouldn't fail she refused to fail him) coming out victorious most of the time over her animalistic side(she would win just wait and see they would beg her to end the suffering when this was over).
One of the few things all of her felt was the desire to die.
Her self-imposed torture, however, was suddenly grinded to a halt.
"Lapis Lazuli?"
'What is heshe doing here?!' all of her thought. Seeing him brought out the small warmth but also reignited the fiery rage within her tenfold. She needed to concentrate, now more than ever. Heshe(her reason her enemy) couldn't be here. It wasn't safe, especially if heshe didn't have the Crystal Gems with himher.
(That was another one of the very few things she fully felt: hatred for the Crystal Gems. They had hurt her and caused all of this. If they had never trapped her, rejected her, fought her, challenged her, than none of this would have happened.)
In a flash heshe was gone. She wondered if he had ever been there or if it was just a hallucination brought on by the chaos in her that was inevitably driving her insane. She cursed the General she once respected for cowardly running away.
Just as her thoughts started to settle once more, heshe returned and all of her was pushed to the breaking point.
Never before had she felt so divided—not even when she dragged into the ocean just mere moments after coming into existence. She could actually feel parts of her mind become shades of who she once was. She barely existed anymore, held together by feeble, nothing chains of the confusion between Desire and Wrath.
For the first time, the strong, defeated part of her emerged and took control. This time, the unrelenting Rage was directed to the small, pathetic thing that had somehow found herhis way into the furthest corners of her mind. Yet, despite countless hours spent paying revenge and simmering in hatred, the effort it took to overcome had left her with just barely enough strength to crawl toward the shivering whelp.
Then, as fast as it had happened, it ended. Her Rage was dragged under once more and her Purpose pulled through. She felt drained. The Fury was smothered and her Resolve, while victorious in the struggle, was damaged.
The boyGeneral tried to talk to her, tried to save her, but she refused. He had saved her once before, now it was her turn.
"Just let me do this for you!"
Once more, he reached out, but she pulled on the small strands that remained of her once vast energy. She forced a shield of water between her and her reason for existingthe reason for her imprisoning.
"We're Malachite now."
That was all she needed. The Resolve had finally given in and the Rage had finally quieted. Her halves were weakened, but she as a whole remained strong.
She took control. She raised the cage in her mind over the parts that created her. She dragged the echoes of the gems that had created her into the depths of her mind and consumed them. She devoured the Anger and absorbed the Drive. She had suffered enough from their battle. She would drown them like they did her.
Malachite was a being all her own.
"GO!"
With her first moment of clarity, she banished the being that caused all this from her mind. She wouldn't hurt it, but she wanted to completely alone for the first time in her existence. Now, with her internal war was over, she was once more aware of her body after so long. She didn't move, however. She didn't want to trigger anything that wake up her annoying Temper or irritating Stubbornness.
Compared to the empty expanse that was her mind, her massive body felt very small as it floated in oblivion. It was also the first time she had ever experienced silence. She felt at peace and that, in a way, was terrifying.
She had become accustomed to the eternal conflict that was her and now that it was gone…she pretty much felt nothing. Her gems had once belonged to a very passionate pair. Neither would admit defeat in the end and even then they would rise up and continue fighting until they were shattered. But now, they were all but gone and she felt nothing by herself. However, they had left hints of spite and hate in her and she would never let either of them go.
Her mind had become completely one with itself.
Malachite had never hated herself more.
Author's Note: I hope I did this idea justice. To me, Malachite is held together by hatred, whether to others or to herself. She is her own person, if only in the barest of senses. In my headcanon, Steven's appearance in Chille Tid upset the already unstable mindset of the fusion, she was able to take over both Jasper and Lapis until she was in control and they became her prisoners out of spite.
Of course, this theory will probably disproven soon enough, but oh well~
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. I'm still pretty new to writing fanfiction, so let me know what you think!