"So let me get this straight, a child beat the fusion Garnet? In one on one combat no less?" Peridot asked, leaning over the kitchen counter and looking at the two gems that laid on the table in front of Steven. "At least I know what gems makeup Garnet I guess." She shifted her legs on the stool as she leaned in more, head laying on her arms. She silently watched Steven as he lay in a similar position to her, brows creased in concentration. "What are you thinking about?"

Steven glanced up at her and then looked back down at Ruby and Sapphire's gems lying on the table on top of red and blue cloths. "Things." He didn't want to tell her that he was thinking of the girl… boy… whichever they were, was talking about before. They had been talking all about dying over and over to them, with such certainty and venom in their voice. And the way Garnet had seemed different, much colder and distant than her usual self on the trip to the mountain.

Peridot shrugged her little green shoulders and hopped off the stool. "If you don't want to talk that's fine, I'll go see how the other two are doing." Walking around the corner she paused by his side and added as an afterthought, "You know they're going to come back right? The two gems I mean."

"Yeah." She nodded to herself and walked away, leaving him to his thoughts. He drummed his fingers on the counter, trying to figure it out. Garnet had been cold and distant, giving short curt answers upon their travel to the mountain, the entire time seeming distracted. When they all first heard on the news, thanks to Connie, that there was a race of monsters by Mt. Ebott, they'd rushed over. When their portal took them as far as it could they walked the rest of the distance and that had been when Garnet started being quiet.

It couldn't be the fact that they had no idea where these monsters had come from, according to the gems they'd never heard of anybody under that mountain, or ever heard of it for that matter. Pearl had been talking about how it was possible that humans could have been mistaken, or a bunch of gems could have hidden under it. Amethyst just talked about grabbing some food from the city that the monsters had apparently been seen in, Peridot just told them to leave her there so she could make sure the drill was finished.

Garnet was always hard to figure out, but still… he couldn't even ask Ruby or Sapphire why they'd been acting like that. In fact the only thing he could think of asking was that monster in the Burning Room, its joints stabbed through by Pearl and bleeding al- he clamped his hands down on his head and forced himself to stop thinking about it before he threw up again. It was one thing to fight Gems, they would just poof when they were beaten, but to see the way somebody looked after it all.

Then get right back up from Garnet of all people punching them like it was nothing and smiling, that disturbing little smile that showed itself through the blood caked on their face. It sent a shiver down his spine just thinking back to that, it wasn't something he'd been expecting when he first saw them. A striped shirt, a cut on their cheek and shorts made them seem normal, average even. The way they had charged right at them with a smile on their face and crimson red eyes peering out from under their bangs. That smile had stayed on for most of the fight, even when they got beat to the ground.

But he needed to talk to them, no matter how creepy they were or sickening of a state Pearl put them in. Sliding off the stool he began walking to his room, or rather his Mom's old room, the quickest way he could think of getting to the Burning Room. It was a sudden transition from his area of the house to the Gem's, wooden planks giving way to ancient rocks under foot, interrupted by a crystalline Warp Pad in the middle of the room before resuming its rock self up until the point of the door. He looked up at the pink door in front of him, for just a moment before it bloomed open like a rose for him, knowing he wanted to get in. Stepping through the door shut behind him, leaving him in the familiar pink cloudscape of his Mom's room.

"I need to get to the Burning Room." He said, head still lowered, trying to think of what he was going to say to that thing in the basement. It was dangerous, reckless, determined and talked really weird just from his one time meeting them. The clouds moved out of the way to reveal a fireman style pillar leading down into the basement and he hopped onto it, easily sliding down the crystal smooth vein, the walls around him turning into a slight blur as he went down. Looking in said direction he let go of the pillar as it curved away, like he did before when he talked to Peridot, and hit the ground in a roll coming up to a stand at his destination.

In the Burning Room, hundreds of different colored gems bubbled inside different colored bubbles, adorning the vein-like walls like decorations. All except for one bubble, two if you counted the one holding the thing's items it had on it. The one he was looking at though, its occupant was staring right at and through him, crimson eyes now matching the red stains all over their clothing. "Here I was thinking I was going to bleed out, before anybody was going to come down to say hi. I was wondering how bleeding out was going to go, haven't died that way before." They added as an afterthought, their lips pursed together in thought.

He averted his gaze, feeling sick again at the way their limbs were drenched in blood, the amount of pain they must be in. Looking at his feet he said, "I've been meaning to ask about that, why do you keep talking about dying like that?"

"I'm good friends with death." They paused, he wondered if their expression changed but didn't look up. "You've always been a curious kid, always asking questions and being amazed by the simplest of things. Tell you what I'll make a deal with you, an answer for an answer."

He glanced up to see them moving their arms, a grimace on their face as they struggled to get their limbs moving the way they wanted, lower arms hanging limp. He quickly looked away again, feeling bile rising in his throat once more. "What do you mean, we both ask questions?"

"I suppose Pearl was the smarter one of the bunch," They said in a hushed tone, as if to themself. "Yes we both ask questions and we both answer, I am tired of dying and I just want to get past all this shit. Here I'll be polite and let you ask the first question."

He gulped, starting to question his own idea of coming down. "Why do you keep talking about dying so much?"

"Because I've died at least two hundred times, I know we've died a lot of times but I gave up counting because who cares how many times you die? It matters how many times you win. Now my question, who are you gems? I've never heard of any of you before this whole event."

Picking at his pants he answered, "Well they came to this planet a long time ago, and they decided to call this place their home and help to protect it from bad people and things. What do you mean you've died hundreds of times?"

He heard them snicker from above. "Then they suck at their job, so much chaos from what I remember. But as to your question, every time we die we reset time to some point before hand. We've seen so many possibilities but yet you and your friends always like to try and kill us." They sang with a chipper note. "I'll admit it's been fun fighting again, being in charge but I don't like people messing with us."

Why did they switch to we and us, glancing up once more he saw them looking down at him, slightest hint of a smile evident on their face, perched atop a pair of arms that shouldn't have been able to be moved. He needed to stop looking. "Enough about us, why is Garnet so focused on pounding us into the ground?"

"I don't know why, she's been acting weird ever since we went to the mountain, but she's always been one to act quick. Why did you talk like there's more of you?"

"Yin and Yang. Frisk is good, happy and quite a lot like you actually, just more or less mute. I'm the opposite I'm in charge of handling pain and fighting. Wanna see, this is excruciating and would make Frisk faint probably. Come on and look up at us, I'll wave to you."

"No thanks." He kept his eyes rooted to the ground, not wanting to see them moving again, knowing he'd probably lose it if he did. "Does it hurt?"

"What? I-I just said it did, handling pain and not having any are two different things, but you skipped my question so I get tw-"

"Can I help? With the pain I mean." He rubbed at the back of his neck, blatantly ignoring all the weird and creepy answers they'd been giving. "I know that you probably don't like me, any version of me if this is what keeps happening to you, but it's not right for anybody to suffer."

A moment of silence passed between them before it was broken by them. "Forget being like Frisk, you make me think more of Papyrus… if you really want to help then get my phone."

Looking up again he directed his gaze to the bubble containing their phone and knife. "How will that help?"

"Compare it to this bubble thing with transporting items, I can get something to heal myself. Frisk would appreciate it, they can still feel some of the pain, just not all of it." Nodding he looked at the veins protruding from the wall to see if he could climb up one of them to get to the bubble in question, and saw nothing to grab onto. Instead he had to summon his shield to get it down, the pink shield appearing at his wrist before being thrown up at the bubble, its two items falling down. He grabbed the phone before it could hit the ground, but let the knife clatter against the ground, not wanting to risk grabbing it.

"Why?"

He looked up to the side of them, looking for some way to get them down without popping the bubble. "Why what?"

"Why are you being so nice? I could never figure out Papyrus, Frisk… well they're the yin to my yang so I dunno. I mean I even killed your friend for the love of Pete."

Spying a pillar he could climb up he laid down the phone and hugged it to climb up on. "You didn't kill her, you just poofed her. You hurt her sure," He paused to adjust his position as the vein twisted away. "But I think you got the poorer half of the deal."

He reached over and gently smacked the bubble down out of the air. "Not dead? Bah even then I hurt her, and I'm a bit of a freak."

Sliding back down he looked at them, eyes peering out from under their bangs at him, all hostility gone and replaced by confusion. From above they looked different, less intimidating in their broken state, red splayed all over their purple and pink shirt and slitted wounds, the thing that had earlier added to their intimidation with the way they still moved, now showcased how hurt they were. Hitting the ground he thought for a second before he shrugged. "Well Peridot attacked us at first too, she even came close to truly killing all of us but that was because she was just scared. Now she's upstairs talking to the rest of the Gems about you. I gave her the chance to calm down and explain and it all turned out right."

They scoffed from their position in the bubble as he walked over and poked it, dropping them a few inches onto the ground which they had been floating in earlier. They hadn't been expecting it so their face meet the floor with a wet smack, making him cringe. "Before you ask, yes we're fine but a little warning would have been appreciated."

"Sorry." He reached over for their phone and sat down, indian style, next to them and rested his fingers on top of it. "Do you want me to use it?"

Their head pulled itself up off the ground, to look at him with a fresh bloody nose, still crooked and out of place from before. "Just put it under my face."

He slid it under them and looked away as they started using their broken nose to punch the buttons, a sickening crunch sounding as they worked. "Where's the… right ate it earlier… eh I guess a cinnamon is good enough."

A final crunch and a solitary pop sounded by him, in which direction a bunny shaped treat fell out of nothing. Out of their reach, so he grabbed it off the ground and looked at it, wondering why it looked so familiar. "If you wanted something to eat I could've-"

"Monster food is different from human food, now can I have it before we bleed out?" He mumbled an apology and held the cinnamon treat out for them to bite. They opened their mouth and somehow managed to drag it out of his hand. Their cheeks bugged out with the food, like a chipmunk as they chewed.

He sat and waited for them to finish, not exactly sure how giving them food was supposed to help them with the pain. A minute passed by and he picked at the ground. "How is food supposed to help you?"

They swallowed their cinnamon bunny and looked at him. "You know how food gives you energy? Well Monster food does the same but instantly." They finally started using their arms, the shaking gone from their movements. Sitting into an upright position with legs stretched out they did the same for their arms stretching them up above their head with a pleasant sigh, as Steven sat there dumbfounded, the injuries that Pearl had inflicted upon them now seeming to have no effect.

In fact now that he actually looked at them, the holes that had been stabbed through were still there, just a slight bit less shallow, still leaking out blood. Their nose was crooked to the right, two rivers crusted onto their face and over their lips. Their leg was the same case, something pointing up and out of it at a definitely unnatural and painful angle, not to mention the semi-closed wound that only wasn't gaping for the fact the way their leg was situated. He avoided looking at the more open wounds on them, knowing he would truly lose his lunch looking at the crimson inside of them. To tie their injured look together, ignoring the crusted blood on their clothing was the old scar across their temple. "A-Are you feeling better?"

"Oh heck yes." They finished their stretch and reached down for the phone, dialing a few more numbers on it. "You know, you're pretty calm, all things considering." Another thing popped into existence beside them and they grabbed it out of the air, not bothering to look.

"What do you mean?" He asked watching as they unwrapped something that looked like a popsicle.

They immediately took a bite out of it, picking at some of the crusted blood on their pants while looking up at him from under their hair. "Well look at us, literally look at us, broken bones, open wounds and we're just sitting here eating through it. Not to mention how dangerous we are, sitting right next to you without any of your friends around to stop us." They took another bite and watched his nervous smile and laugh.

"I'm just really good at hiding my fear, especially when showing it means that somebody's going to get hurt." Still smiling he watched them eat their food.

"Mmmm." Was their only response to that as they finished the popsicle and started using the phone again. "You going to ask a question or are we done talking? The deal is still in effect you know."

"Right… so what are the monsters like? All I kind of know is that a whole bunch of people freaked out when they saw them."

"They're a peculiar bunch, a lot of them too. I'll treat one person as one question, so to start off... Papyrus is a skeleton, nice and naive despite wanting to be part of the royal guard, pretty sure he's more than capable but he doesn't want to hurt anyone. Every time he came close to killing us, he'd wrap us in a blanket and heal us back up." They stopped to take a bite of the sandwich they summoned, one that looked a lot like a sword. Which they were quickly devouring.

"He sounds nice."

They nodded. "He is. Too much for his own good even." Trailing off they seemed to be thinking of something before shaking their head. "Who's this Peridot you talked about? Somebody else I'm going to have to worry about?"

"Not unless you're worried about getting slapped." He joked as they finished the last of the sandwich and licked the crumbs off their fingers.. "Although she does have… no we broke it. She's just a cute little technician, more than likely just question you once or twice and leave you alone afterwards."

"Still want to know the Monsters?" He nodded. "Alright, next up is… Undyne, captain of the royal guard. She's part fish, but can get by fine without water for the most part. She's willing to do anything to help kids and Monsters, no matter the cost. Strong enough to suplex a boulder while she's trying to kill us, Frisk think she's alright after we talked to her, I disagree 'cause well... " They shrugged. "She killed us. Pretty violent in how she acts even when we're all friends, made us sit down by almost skewering us with a spear. Ended up ruining her table, followed by us burning her house down."

He smiled as he noticed they seemed to crack a slight smile of their own, "Sounds like she's a carp."

Their smile widened, enough to show their teeth before they quickly corrected it into a frown and glared at him, their eyes betraying the smile they had tried to hide. "We already have one person making puns we don't need another one."

He chuckled and shifted his legs on the floor, glad to have made them seem a bit more child-like, it helped the mood. "Sorry, couldn't resist. So uh, you're friends now?"

"Frisk is." They paused and looked up, leaning back on their arms to get a better view. "What is this place, has hundreds of Gems I'm guessing?"

"This is called the Burning Room, it's where we put sick Gems until we can figure out how to fix them." He stood up and placed his hands on his hips, looking around at them all. "We really haven't been able to figure the fixing part but the Crystal Gems have been pretty good at getting sick Gems into here."

"Looks like there's hundreds in here." They idly commented, standing up too.

"Yup, they've been doing this for thousands of years." He smiled looking over at them as they stared upwards. Then he noticed the fact that they were standing up, despite the fact that not ten minutes earlier they were almost dead, the holes in their knees and elbows gone. "You're completely healed!?"

"Eh?" They questionly sounded, before looking down at themselves then back at him with a shrug. "I did tell you that Monster food is pretty much upgraded regular food. Heals us back to a hundred percent in no time." Cementing it with a flex of their arm they smirked.

Taking a step forward he inspected them over, the only evidence of most of their injuries being blood and a still crooked nose. "That's awesome."

"It is isn't it. Back to the Monsters there's also Alyphs, Undyne's girlfriend who is the Royal Scientist and a lizard dinosaur thing. She's made robots, jetpacks, lasers, is a huge nerd for anim-... why are you making that face and what's wrong with your eyes?" They asked, noticing he clamped his hands onto his cheeks, his pupils seemed to have turned into stars and he was practically vibrating in place.

"She sounds soooo awesome! Tell me more!" He squealed, hopping back and forth on each foot.

"Quit doing… all of that and I'll keep going." He stopped and she rolled her eyes. "She also made us this phone with the dimensional pocket in it. Shy, nervous and I'm pretty sure she has some anxiety disorder she's alright. Only time we died because of anything relating to her is because of that robot Mettaton. How old are you?"

Back on the ground, laying on his back he looked up at them. "Fourteen, no idea how old the Crystal Gems are. Now what's this robot Mettaton like? Does it have death beams?"

"In a way he does. In reality he's just a TV star who wants to get everybody to watch his show. He looks good for a robot I guess, is pretty self-centered, but keeping to the pattern Frisk still likes him. Also owns a big portion of the Underground from what we've seen." They walked over to the veiny wall and leaned against it, seeming deep in thought. "As douchey as he is, I guess he's alright? I don't know what to make of him, every time he does something nice he immediately ruins it by doing something else. How come you're only fourteen and the others aren't?"

He rolled up his shirt slightly and pointed at his gem. "Well my Mom used to be their leader until she gave her physical form up for me to come into the world, making me a half-Gem. That was about fourteen years ago and I've kind of been helping the Gems out when I can."

Their brows furrowed in concentration and they opened their mouth several times, as if to question what he just said but kept shutting. Until they moved onto their family. "Moving on from that, there's Sans, Papyrus' skeleton brother. He's lazy, likes making puns and jokes whenever he can and you can always rely on him to be napping somewhere. It's surprising to say this but out of them all I think he's the most normal, personality wise, ability wise he's… very unique."

"So he's got a punny bone?" He smiled as their mouth twitched again and they looked away, hand covering their mouth for a few seconds before pulling away.

"Please don't. Back to you, how are you half-Gem? Aren't they just rocks or something like that?" They asked with their hands held out asking the same question.

He rolled over onto his stomach and propped his head up on his hands. "Well that's a bit complicated and I don't know the actual answer. But my dad probably does, we could ask him later."

"Meh." They shrugged. "Not the most important question to go after right now. Next person to talk about would be the King and Queen. They're both goats, divorced, equally nice and both will offer you snacks. Alike in many ways they're effectively immortal age-wise and can beat almost anybody in combat with their power over fire. That's more or less everybody worth mentioning that we hang around with on normal occasions. Unless one were to count Miss Muffet the spider, she just looks after her own kind mostly though."

"I take it there's plenty more though?" They nodded, shifting their weight onto their other foot and propping the previous one up against the wall. "They all sound pretty awesome."

"Frisk loves them." They left it at that as they pushed off the wall and walked past him, making him flip around on his stomach to keep them in sight and watched as they picked up their knife, flipping it twice before smoothly sliding it into their pocket, not noticing the fact his face had gotten slightly paler. "I'm just… tolerant of them. While I'm thinking of it what did you mean earlier by poofing your friend?"

Standing up he dusted off his shirt and jeans. "Well the Gems don't die really, when they get hurt they just kinda poof," He made a slight explosion with his hands to emphasize his words. "And out drops their gem. Why do you want to know?" He asked with a slight chuckle as they turned their attention back to the room and Gems decorating it.

"Because when we die again I want to make sure this detour was worth the wasted time, every time we tried talking to you freaks we died. Or somebody else." They shrugged with a slight chuckle of their own. "I wish I could say I've gotten used to dying but I haven't and I'd rather not die again. So every time we do die, we use it as a lesson of what not to do." They gave a thumbs up to him as they spied the exit. "For example we now know we can't kill them, but I'm guessing we can throw them into one of these bubbles instead or something so there's that."

They began walking off without another word with a slight hum, heading for the exit. "Wait, hang on!" He yelled, running after them to catch up. "You don't need to die anymore you know!"

They stopped and looked back at him with a half-amused grin. "Come again?"

"I said you didn't have to die anymore, even if you use it to your advantage it's not right for anybody to die." He said as he came up next to them, extending his hand. "So just let me help you out, ask for any help you need."

They looked down and smiled at the hand before looking back at him. "We appreciate the offer, but it's going to happen anyways. Kind of accepted that fact a long time ago, by blade, by poison, by our own fault or etcetera."

"And do any of your friends know about you dying?" They remained silent and avoided his eyes. "I'm guessing by that, it's a no which means it's only been happening to you because you're alone. So let somebody help."

They smiled again, a somber smile one at that. "We have each other in our head, besides you can't help that much if you don't know what's going to kill us. Again we appreciate it, but we should get going."

He grabbed them by the shoulders before they could turn and looked them in the eyes, having to look down at them since they only came up to his chin. "Look I know I can't say anything to re-assure you, after all I've never heard of anybody in a situation like yours. But believe me when I say that I will protect you guys and you won't have to worry about dying anymore."

Their eyes went wide, and a blush formed across their face. He smiled, assuming that meant that he'd penetrated their defences at least a bit. Then he raised his eyebrows as they seemed to take on a golden sheen and watched as the blood that had crusted onto their clothes just disappeared. Along with the fact that their nose just slid back into its original spot, which made him cringe slightly. "Why're you making that face?

"The blood, it disappeared." He said in surprise.

"What?!" They push him away and looked down at themselves, patting their body. "What- How!?" Suddenly, a expression of dread went across their face. "Did I SAVE!?" They put their hands on their head, and started pacing, muttering to them selves in a frantic manner. "No no no. Why did I save!? I can't reset, I can't undo this without going all the way back. And I CAN"T do that! Not again!"

Suddenly, they turned away, and started running towards the opposite of the room. "Hey, wait! What's going on!" Steven yelled at them, but they ignored them. Their hands flashed to their phone, thumbs flying across the screen before it expanded outwards in a explosion, the phone now somehow the size of backpack and straps on it to boot. In a hurry they swung it onto their back, two canisters making up the pack, the bottoms of which were glowing like the ends of rockets… He had an inkling to what it was but before he could do anything to stop them they rocketed off through one of the tunnels.