Steven awoke, facedown on wet sand. His body ached, and a blur was smeared over his vision. He didn't know where he was, or what happened earlier that day. As he pushed himself off the ground, he found his legs responded only with sharp pain. Using his healing spit, he wiped his knees until he was strong enough to walk.
Once moving, Steven licked his fingers to heal his eyes. He was interrupted when he kicked something wet, filling him with dread. When his eyes healed, he looked down.
It was Sadie, the top half of her.
Steven looked up, and to his horror, he saw a large sea of corpses on the shores of Beach City. Faces he knew, friends and acquaintances, all lives extinguished, all left for the stray corrupted gems to be eaten.
Steven looked up and saw a strange light over his home, prompting him to go there. He needed speak to the gems, but he couldn't bring himself to run. As he walked home, he became more aware that his fallen friends were wearing a sort of pink outfit, almost armour-like in appearance. Steven felt as if hours went by to make it home. As he climbed up, he heard the violent grunts and wails of two figures.
"Stop this, please!" yelled one of the figures.
"Why should I? This was what I was meant to do, what I was always going to do," calmly said the other one.
"Why? Why are you doing this to us?"
"I'm just bringing the universe back to equilibrium, one planet at a time."
Steven stepped up the ramp, and got a clearer view of the figures, one was tall, covered in a number of gems, some shattered, some all too familiar. The other figure was roughly the same height as Steven's father, but much younger, with a blade he recognized but unsure from where. With a powerful arm, the taller figure hit the swordsman, throwing him across the room, coming to a stop just in front of Steven. Steven looked down at the wounded man, and when he looked into his eyes, everything clicked.
Steven had dissociated.
Steven was the swordsman.
Once Steven blinked, he woke up in the body of the swordsman, and knew everything that had happened. He watched as the taller figure stole the gems one-by-one, and when he watched Connie die, he rallied all of Beach City to replace his fallen family, the figure made short work of them.
The gem-covered figure began stepping towards Steven.
"What did we do to deserve this?"
"You know damn well what you did, but I thank you for freeing me."
Lifting Steven up by the neck, the taller figure eyeballed Steven's gem.
"Your mother," he begin, "she would be so disappointed."
He grabbed Steven's gem, digging his fingers underneath and twisting.
"Now, sleep tight, Steven, sleep as your world ends."
Garnet pulled her lips away from Steven's forehead.
"What happened? Did you beat him this time, Stevey?" Excitedly asked Amethyst.
Steven said nothing, he looked at Amethyst, then Pearl, then Garnet, and soon his eyes forced themselves shut and his defeated cries couldn't be held back.
"This is it," Pearl whispered, "there's nothing we can do, can we? Garnet, we need to stop this, for Steven's sake..."
"I've seen the future myself, Steven didn't improve in any of them," Garnet painfully stated, "we need to stop this, now."
"NO!" Steven yelled, "I won't let this end! We need to keep trying!"
Steven had done this over 600 times.
Never once was he happy with the outcome.