1Super Strength Adhesive
At first Lapis Lazuli didn't notice it right away, after all it was in the smallest of details that she never really paid no mind to. However, as the months slowly dragged by since that fateful day that she finally decided to join those so-called Crystal Gems, she began to notice that something just wasn't sitting right. Of course at first she had thought that maybe it was just her paranoia getting to her again so she would put it out of her mind, but only for herself to be reminded with each mission that they went on. Things began to become more and more clear to her; the stares every now and again, the hushed whispers and worst of all, the awkward silences that would arise once they had to go near any body of water.
Once night, her nerves had finally gotten the best of her and she decided to confront Steven about it, but he laughed it off and that there wasn't anything to be worried about. Of course he did, he is Steven after all. His words did manage to put her at ease for the time being and it managed to stay rather peaceful around the temple; though sadly that only lasted for about a week. As another day rolled around, the peaceful bliss of ignorance was shatter to show that her original fears had been rightly so.
She had been sitting on the couch next to Steven, Amethyst sitting on the floor across from them nearly dozing off, as the young boy excitedly told them about a possible film-adaption for Unfamiliar Familiar. He was insisting that they all get tickets to go see it in theatre together when Garnet burst into the room from the temple door, being followed shortly after by Pearl. Apparently the fusion's future vision had told her of a corrupted Gem that was rampaging up in the mountains and slowly making its way down; they had to stop it before reached civilization. Of course, all of the Crystal Gems then jumped into action leaping onto the warp pad. Steven held out his arms with a focused expression as he prepared to warp them all when he paused for a split second and looked around.
"Hey, wait, shouldn't we wait for Peridot?" Steven asked, to which there was instantly an internal groan amongst the whole group. Amethyst was the first one to speak up, stretching her limbs having just woken up from her small nap.
"That nerd is just going to slow us down." She said, looking up at Garnet, a grimace on her face. Steven scowled at the purple Gem and looked up at their leader as well, his eyes sparkling with hope; the fusion only frown. After a single second ticked by, Garnet gently put her hand on top of Steven's head.
"We've talked about this before Steven." She had said, the light from the kitchen reflecting off of her shades. "Peridot is... More suited to staying behind and keeping an eye on things around here." Which really just meant that Peridot was terrible at fighting and couldn't even defend herself, which only lead to the green Gem getting in the way all of the time. Lapis rolled her eyes and decided to remain silent on the matter, while Steven let out a sigh of defeat. Finally they warped.
Once they arrived, it didn't take them long to zero in on the creature's location as it continuously let out a series of horrible screams. Garnet put her hand to her head and then looked up towards a small peak; the corrupted Gem was just on the other side of it. The Gems quickly went to work and summoned their weapons as they ran towards it, all except for Lapis Lazuli and of course Steven whom still had not mastered his shield. He looked to her as if questioning why she had not summoned her watery-wings and Lapis decided to simply shrug at him before running off after the others. The air around them was light and freezing, heavy piles of snow and ice at their feet; of course, Steven hadn't been there the last time that they had a mission up in these mountains. Lapis Lazuli would care to forget the humiliation of the time where she had tried to summon her wings up here only to find that they instantly froze on her. What made it worse that she couldn't even thaw them out as the weather rendered her powers absolutely useless. It had taken Pearl and Peridot two whole hours to free Lapis from the mountains of ice and snow that had started to collect on her back.
That was definitely something that she didn't want to live again, let alone allow Steven to see. So now she was desperately hoping that the original Crystal Gems had a hold on the situation and wouldn't really need her help, she was mostly just taken along for back-up anyway. As Lapis and Steven had finally made it around the peak, they both witnessed what appeared to be quite an enormous corrupted Gem that resembled an earthly porcupine with quills made of ice. It hissed out at its foes as it struggled to break off Amethyst's whip that had been wrapped around its leg. Garnet had jumped up to deal it the final blow when the ice-spikes had suddenly shot off of it, knocking the fusion back roughly into a large boulder, while the others were forced to scatter.
Lapis Lazuli was unsure of what had really happened after that, she vaguely remembered feeling the urge to help the other Gems, if only to protect Steven from the rampaging beast. She had grabbed one of the ice quills from nearby and lunged towards her foe, only for the corrupted Gem to swat her away like a fly. Lapis remembered that the force caused her to slam into Pearl and rather than landed on the ground shortly after she started to feel as if she were falling. When the water Gem came to her sense, it became clear that she had fallen into a deep trench along with Pearl; the other Gem was now currently looking up at the light that filtered down at them. It appeared that she was calling out the others' names, hoping that they would come to their rescue and only when Lapis stood back up onto her feet, did she stop.
"Lapis, could you summon your wings to get us out here?" Pearl had asked, her expression becoming hopeful, though not before Lapis noticed her weary glance.
"I'd rather not try because of what happened last time." The water Gem replied, a dark blue tinting her cheeks as she thought about the occurrence. Pearl gave a small nod as if she signified that she understood and left it at that.
"I'm sure Garnet and the others will come to help us any minute now, anyway." Pearl stated as she continued to look up at the sky. Soon several long minutes ticked by without a sound, except for the distant screams from the corrupted Gem that must have surely still been rampaging. Lapis Lazuli looked towards the walls that surrounded them with a frown on her face, nervously she wrapped her arms around herself, turning to look back at Pearl.
"Should we try to climb out?" She decided to ask the other Gem, to which it seems that Pearl actually contemplated it for a moment before she shook her head.
"These walls are too steep, I don't think there would be much for us to hold onto." The pale Gem said, walking up to the wall in front of her to gently brush her hand against it. "There's a very thin layer of ice as wells, we'd surely slip and fall if we tried to climb up."
"Well, it was just a suggestion." Lapis mumbled, feeling put down as she tightened her hold on herself. She nervously looked around at the walls around them again and gave a shudder that went down her spine. "I-I really need to get out of here."
"It'll be fine, any minute now they'll come and help us." Pearl had responded once again, which only got another frown from Lapis Lazuli. However, she decided that she would listen to Pearl just this once and wait it out; it couldn't be entirely that bad.
She couldn't have been even more wrong as at least an hour must have passed before anything even remotely changed. That being, that the corrupted Gem had ceased its screaming and they couldn't even really tell if it was because it had finally been defeated or if it had simply gotten to far away from them to hear it anymore. During that time, Lapis Lazuli had positioned herself in a corner of their trench-of-a-prison and nervously kept looking around; to her, it seemed as if the walls around them were shrinking with each minute that went by. Even Pearl seemed to be becoming rather frantic as she paced along-side one of the walls, mumbling about their worst-case scenarios. It was almost too much for either of them to handle, though as Lapis Lazuli sat there, she was suddenly struck with an idea that made her instantly jump up onto her feet nearly slipping as she did so.
"I've got it!" She shouted, causing Pearl to jump with surprise. "Fuse with me."
"What?"
"If we fuse then maybe we'll be able to think of a way to get up there somehow or in the very least, it'll make it easier to climb. It couldn't hurt to try it, right?" Lapis said, turning to look at Pearl, and this time in the other Gem's eyes there was no hiding it. All of the other times they were just brief glimpses that made Lapis question whether or not she had actually seen it, but this time there was no use in hiding the fact or making up excuses. As she looked into Pearl's eyes, all she could see was the uttermost horror and fear shining right back at her. Lapis frowned as Pearl quickly shook her head and nervously began to flutter her hands around as she began to speak.
"No, no, I don't think that's really all that necessary." She had said, a light blue blush covering her cheeks. "I'm sure the others will show up any minute now."
"You said that an hour ago." Lapis scowled as she crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as Pearl fumbled around with her words.
"So I did..." The other Gem mumbled as she turned away to try and look anywhere other than at Lapis Lazuli. "Look, we just don't know how stable our fusion would be."
"I can tell that you're hiding something from me." Lapis responded, her voice becoming dangerously low as she narrowed her dark blue eyes and took a few steps towards Pearl. "So why don't you just come clean and tell me what it is?" Pearl nervously looked back at Lapis and then looked around as if looking for some sort of escape from this conversation, but there was none.
"Look, Lapis, I just don't want to fuse with you." Pearl said, now getting on the defence as she was not too pleased with having been put into a corner. Lapis Lazuli scowled as she had already guessed as much by the way that the other Gem was acting and it felt like she was still trying to beat around the bush.
"Yea, I got that already, but why don't you want to fuse me?!" Lapis attempted to ask Pearl, however, her voice was much louder and more angrier than she had intended it to be. Her glare towards Pearl and gritted teeth didn't seem to help much either as the pale Gem seemed to become angry herself at having been shouted at like that. Pearl took a step forward with a glare of her own upon her features as shouted right back into the ocean Gem's face.
"As if any of us would want to fuse with you after what happened with Jasper!" Pearl had said, though she quickly covered her mouth and took a few steps back with her eyes going wide. Lapis was pretty sure that her own expression was mirroring the other Gem's in shock, she hadn't even considered the possibility of what she was now hearing.
"What you think that I'd do something like that to any of you?" Lapis asked, horrified at the mere thought of it. "Well, I wouldn't do something like that again."
"I'm sure that you wouldn't, but your will is so strong that we just can't be all that sure. What I do know is that none of us can bear that thought of being stuck together with you like that." Pearl said with a nervous shrug as she attempted to smooth things over, but of course to no avail. Lapis Lazuli grimaced and turned away from Pearl, walking back over to her corner of the trench without another word. Behind her, she could hear Pearl mumble a small "I'm sorry..."
"Yea, so am I." Lapis stated without so much as looking back to see if Pearl had heard her or not. The fact that she had been fused with Jasper under the ocean for a full year and a half was still an incredibly touchy subject for her, and to find out that it was also the reason why the others still feared her was devastating.
"Peaaaarl! Laaaaapis!" A voice suddenly called from above, getting both the Gems' attention; looking up with wide and hopeful eyes.
"Steven?!" Pearl called out as loud as she could manage, given the circumstance.
"Oh!" They had suddenly heard, followed by a small bit of ruckus from the top of their prison; shortly afterward, the boy poked his head over the edge and waved down. "Hey guys!"
"Steven be careful! Where are the others?" Pearl had called back up to him while Lapis waved back at him, a forced smile on her face whether or not he could see it.
"They're around, we've been looking for you for awhile!" He yelled with an excited laugh. "Garnet defeated that monster a long time ago!" It didn't take much longer then, Amethyst showed up and used her whip to pull out Pearl and then Lapis from their prison cavern. Garnet was also there, making sure that the creature's Gem remained contained inside of a bubble; once the fusion made sure that both Pearl and Lapis were alright, with no cracks in their gems, she decided that it was best to head back to the warp pad now before anything else bad happened. Lapis looked straight at Pearl who in turned looked back, the two stared at each other for a relatively awkward second before Pearl gave an apologetic expression and turned away to follow after their leader. Lapis scoffed before she too began to follow after the others, remaining ever silent on the whole trip back to the temple.
Even once they were back in the safety of their base, she didn't dare to usher a single word. Instead, she simply stalked past everyone and stomped her way over to the door that lead outside; she didn't wait to see if the others were staring at her this time as she left. The night air was brisk, but felt rather warm against her skin compared to where she had just been; it made her feel better, if only slightly. The ocean Gem decided to take a stroll on the beach in an attempt to clear her mind from the negative emotions that were fuelling inside of her head and causing the ocean's waves to angrily spit right next to her as she walked along. Once she was at a comfortable distance from the temple she stopped in her tracks to look out onto the sea. Things here, aside from the few angry waves, seemed to be so blissful; Lapis Lazuli could have stood there forever and she never would have gotten tired of staring out at her element.
More than once it crossed her mind to just leap into the water and leave Beach City and everything else behind. So much so that she actually summoned her wings, flapping them a couple of times as if to test them out; however, she realized that running away from her problems wouldn't necessarily make her feel any better about them. With a sigh, Lapis sat down onto the sand fanning her winds out just in case she still wanted the option of flight. Pulling her knees up to her chest to rest her chin on them, Lapis shut her eyes and simply listened to the rolling ocean waves for several incredibly long and peaceful minutes. Though, of course, with her luck it was short lived.
It was pretty easy to hear the loud clunking of her loud metallic shoes over the crashing waves of the ocean. 'Oh great, now what?' Lapis Lazuli thought to herself as she buried her face into her knees in the hopes that the other Gem would just go away. Instead, the clunking did come to a stop a foot away, but the sound of her leaving didn't reach Lapis' ears either. Maybe if she just remained this way then she would leave; Lapis didn't dare to look up. Suddenly, she heard the other Gem clear her throat in annoyance.
"Whenever you mope around, it's such a waste of everybody's time." She complained with her usual tone, getting a long dragged out sigh from Lapis Lazuli before the blue Gem finally looked up at her uninvited company.
"You know you don't have to stand there then, Peridot." She snapped, getting a narrowed glance from the green Gem that stood next to her. Peridot grumbled at typed something into her holo-pad before turning back to look at Lapis.
"Yes, however, the Steven has asked me specifically to check on you." She responded, sounding annoyed that she had to be explaining this. "It appears that he is worried that you might try leaving, again."
"Well, I won't, so you can leave now." Lapis responded with a frown upon her face as she looked back out onto the ocean. Peridot looked at her quizzically, transforming her holo-pad back into her fingers.
"You seem especially troubled by what happened." Peridot pointed out matter-of-factly, getting a surprised look from Lapis. "Steven is not the only one worried about your state of being, I was also told of what happened and sent by Pearl to... How she said, 'Patch things up.'"
"Well, you can tell Pearl that she can come over here herself or shove it." Lapis snapped, angry at how the pale Gem had simply sent someone else to try and apologize for her.
"I am unaware of the meaning of that earth term, so I'm not going to." Peridot said with annoyance, crossing her robotic arms across her chest. Lapis grumbled and decided that it would do no good to take things out on Peridot since she hadn't even been on that mission.
"I just want them to trust me." Lapis mumbled with a frown appearing on her face. "I'm never going to be able to truly trust them, if they don't trust me."
"Perhaps they don't trust you because you don't trust them for not trusting you." Peridot stated, rubbing her chin in contemplation. "Hm, what a complicated situation."
"You just made my brain hurt"
"Gems don't have brains."
"You know what I mean." Lapis let out a sigh and leaned back on her arms, looking back up to Peridot whom was still standing there staring down at her. Tentatively, Lapis patted down the sand next to her invitingly; Peridot gave a look of disgust, but obliged none-the-less. The two sat there in silence for several minutes before Peridot finally decided to speak.
"Why would you even want to fuse?" She had asked, getting a flinch from Lapis as a reply. "It is such an obsolete way of combat."
"Excuse me for not having your modern Gem mind set." Lapis said with a defeated sigh. "I guess that it's more of the concept of it more than anything. Hearing that someone doesn't want to fuse with you specifically is pretty harsh."
"I can imagine where you're coming from." Peridot said, though Lapis was unsure if she truly did understand. "When I was first taken hostage here, those Crystal Gems would panic whenever I would so much as lift a finger." Peridot lifted up one of her floating fingers as if to emphasize.
"You know, you need stop saying that you were taken hostage rather than just joining them."
"That is irrelevant."
"Whatever you say, Peridot." Lapis said with a small smile as she looked away towards a sparkling shell that the ocean spit out only moments before. Before another silence could rise up, Peridot seemed to continue on with the conversation even though Lapis was pretty sure that it was done with.
"In any case, if you really must fuse with somebody, I suppose you may fuse with me." She said, refusing to look over at the blue Gem as she turned in her direction with shock on her face.
"Really?" Lapis asked in shock, not taking Peridot for one who would so willingly do something like that.
"Yes, though of course the rule stands where we should do it only in necessary situations." The green Gem replied with a roll of her eyes. "Honestly, you are all acting so... How the humans would say 'childish'. Besides, I trust you to not drag me down to the bottom of the ocean. I'm sure that you would have already done it if you were going to."
"Wow, thanks for that, I really need to hear it." Lapis said, a smile playing at her features as she finally looked back at Peridot; the green Gem was watching her wordlessly, a serious expression plastered onto her face. It was then that a mischievous grin grew upon Lapis' face, her turmoil momentarily forgotten as Peridot leaned away from her with her expression a mixture of suspicious and concerned. With a laugh, Lapis Lazuli threw her arms around Peridot's shoulders to bring her into a hug as thanks.
"Ugh, Lapis!" Peridot grumbled, a deep green blush covering her cheeks as the two of them fell back into the sand. "You're an insufferable clingy Gem, I hope you do know that."
"You love me."
"That's debatable... W-Wait, Lapis you're wings! My tech is going to get soaked again!"
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop bringing it with you to the beach?!" Lapis chuckled as Peridot finally returned the hug, if only so the blue Gem would finally let go of her.
"We reside on the beach so that may be a little unorthodox." Peridot replied, now attempting to slide out of Lapis' arms, but to no avail as the ocean Gem's hold simply tightened. Lapis was like glue and Peridot knew that she wasn't going to get away that easily, not that she actually really minded it, though she would never let Lapis know that.
Just behind them, the sea's waves finally started to calm down as both Gem's laughter began to drown out the sounds of all else. It was a small detail, that both didn't seem to even notice.