Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe or any of its characters.
"Hey Garnet, could you hold this for a sec?"
"Ok."
Another small artifact was added to the already heaping pile currently in her arms. Pearl's interest in the objects bordered on ludicrous, but seeing as she personally saw nothing else to do, Garnet settled for being her single friend's personal souvenir holder as she continued to rummage among the crumbling ruins.
What a long way they had certainly come from their first meeting years ago, in which a hesitant and awkward conversation had somehow blossomed into a near-constant companionship. Garnet herself still wondered how they'd progressed since that peaceful afternoon, but this she took in stride. After all, why Pearl had ever approached her in the first place she didn't know and never asked. That she now had just one classmate willing to talk to her was the matter of significance, and frankly, it was the only thing she cared about either.
Presently, their class had been brought to the ruins of a previous Gem temple for a field trip. According to Pearl, it had stood nearly seven hundred years ago, but was overrun by monsters and forcibly abandoned. Apparently, the purpose of the trip was to educate the younger gems of the defeat they suffered that day in order to prevent a repeat of the incident, but whoever organized the excursion had certainly picked the wrong instructor. The 15th Rose Quartz was initially meant to accompany the class, but due to being abruptly called away by an urgent mission, she was replaced by the 17th Peridot and 19th Obsidian.
Unfortunately, being training instructors, neither were well-versed in gem history and barely knew more than the students themselves. They'd ended up allowing the class to roam on their own throughout the ruins, so long as they returned by sundown.
How utterly irresponsible! They could've at least studied something before they brought us here! Garnet had remembered Pearl saying in complete indignation, to which she'd seriously considered asking why Pearl even cared so much if she seemed to already know everything about the temple anyways. Nevertheless, her friend had been for the most part placated by the rich reserves of small trinkets and objects that lay forgotten in the debris of the broken structures. She now was poking through the wreckage with one hand and grasping a book in the other, eying every stone and brick with utter fascination.
"I can't believe they didn't salvage any more than they did. Some of these could've remained incredibly useful." Pearl said, half to herself and half to her patiently waiting companion. Garnet gave an indifferent grunt, not terribly interested in what was to her a pile of sand and rocks, and prepared for the huffy response that would soon follow.
"You should at least try to be more interested. Some of these are nothing short of ingenious."
As if to prove her point, Pearl lifted another trinket she'd found beneath the debris and held it out for Garnet to see. It appeared to be some sort of ancient device, completely coated in dust, with a cracked screen connected to a worn pull-string trailing from its side.
"It's a primitive hand-held hologram projector," Pearl explained as she wound up the device with a screw she'd picked up from the ground. "Watch this."
Garnet flinched as the ancient piece of technology sputtered to life and sent a bright beam of light her way, temporarily blinded by the flash. By the time she'd blinked the stars out of her three eyes, Pearl was fumbling with the controls again, twisting the knobs until a frail blue image flickered to life above the faintly glowing screen.
"Isn't it incredible how it still works after centuries? By contrast, some of our modern technology will break down at the drop of hat."
Admittedly, Garnet did feel somewhat impressed now that she was looking a mini version of herself hovering in the air, complete with a disgruntled expression and a heaping pile of artifacts in her arms. Still, seven hundred years had not been kind to the now shabby projector, and a few seconds later the hologram wavered before coughing out of existence completely. Pearl sighed in disappointment, but nonetheless added it to the collection.
"Anyway, I think that's all for this room. How about-"
Pearl stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening as they fixated on something past Garnet's shoulder before she brushed past without a word. Curious as to what had caught her friend's attention, Garnet turned to see her crouched in the corner, staring intently at the wall.
"Garnet! Quick, come over here!"
Struck by the sense of urgency in Pearl's voice, Garnet hurried over and crouched next to her, dumping the pile of artifacts on the ground. Now that she was closer, she realized there were faint engravings in the rough stone wall, though it appeared to be in a language she didn't recognize.
Narrowing her eyes, Pearl reached out and brushed away the dust coating the wall, clearing up the writing somewhat.
"A Gem must have written this. But at what point in time?"
Having no clue herself, Garnet focused on the actual writing itself. Even without the sand clogging it, she still couldn't tell what language it was in. That said, if anyone knew…
"Do you know what it says?" she asked. Pearl by now was already flipping rapidly through the pages of her book, her eyes darting across the text as she bit her lip in concentration.
"This was the old language of the Gems. It hasn't been used for five hundred years, but I have a rough understanding of the message already. I just need to confirm it…"
She at last settled on a glossary at the end of the tome, scanning through it for a few moments before she became even paler than her already almost ghostly complexion.
"What is it?"
"It's what I thought…"
"Which is?"
Swallowing nervously, Pearl squinted at the engravings and began to translate.
"Masses of darkness. Swarming us. Never ending. Will not last. Strike the yellow star…"
Her voice dwindled off in confusion as she realized that was where the message ended. Garnet frowned, also unnerved by the odd conclusion.
"Are you sure that's it?"
Pearl nodded, checking below and beside the engravings the see if there was anything else. They shared an uncertain glance.
"Whoever this was… they were here when the temple was overrun."
"And this was their final message?"
"Probably, since it doesn't seem to be finished. Everything before I can understand… but what does 'Strike the yellow star' mean?"
Garnet shrugged in response. If Pearl didn't know, then probably no one in the class did, Peridot and Obsidian included.
As they were in the midst of mulling over the message though, a soft "click" noise sounded from nearby. Garnet, with her heightened perception, noticed almost instantly. Looking over, she noted that her companion, still intensely examining the ancient carving, had not.
"Something's here."
Garnet stood, summoning her gauntlets as she prepared for a fight. Pearl, less sensitive to the cosmic forces of the universe and her surroundings in general, reacted much slower.
"Are you sure it's not just another gem?"
She received her answer promptly when, from behind the broken-off end of the wall, a spider the size of a dictionary scuttled out and hissed at them. Multiple fangs hung from its mouth and a dim blue gem glowed in the centre of its back. For a moment the two parties merely stared at each other, but the stillness was quickly broken when the pitch-black creature made a hostile whistling noise and sprang towards them.
Pearl stood up sharply and drew her glaive, but it wasn't necessary. Garnet took all of a few seconds to send a solid punch to the spider's abdomen, her fist passing into thin air as her target disintegrated in a puff of smoke.
She withdrew her hand, not prepared to dismiss her gauntlets yet in the case that the creature hadn't been alone. While she remained for the most part calm, she couldn't help but send a questioning glance to her friend in hopes that she would know what had just attacked them. Pearl wasn't taking it quite as well as she was though and was in an extremely nervous state, holding her book to her chest and tightly gripping her glaive as she stared at the spot where the spider had vanished.
"T-That… it couldn't have possibly been… Oh heavens, if that was what I think it is-"
She was cut off by a shrill scream, one that came from somewhere up the stairwell to the second floor. As they both stared dumbfounded in its general direction, it was followed shortly by pounding footsteps as Peridot appeared from seemingly nowhere and charged towards the source of the cry.
"Both of you, to the front of the temple! Now!"
As the muscular, green-skinned gem disappeared into the ruined hallway, Pearl and Garnet exchanged a nervous glance before doing as they'd been ordered. Two minutes later they were safely outside the entrance, weapons still drawn, where they found about half their classmates in a similar state of confusion.
"What's going on?" Pearl asked the nearest gem, which happened to be Turquoise. The normally confrontational boy seemed to temporarily forget his fear for Garnet as he responded with an expression of absolute terror.
"T-There were these weird… spider things that attacked us. T-Topaz…"
Before Pearl could make further inquiries, the side of the temple wall exploded with a burst of stone and dust. Before the smoke cleared, Peridot leaped forth from the fresh hole with Obsidian following suit, holding what appeared to be a badly injured Sapphire and Topaz over his shoulders. Behind him the remaining students followed tightly, the entire group rushing to join the other party by the entrance.
"All of you, start running- Oh no…"
The ruins of the temple had been located in the middle of a deep dry valley, with steep and rocky mountains on all sides. Now though, a light rumble was shuddering through the earth as across the ground, little bulges of dirt emerged and grew until they exploded in a spray of dust, each producing a new hissing gem spider. Turning her head three sixty degrees, Garnet could tell right away that they wouldn't be able to climb the steep sides of the valley faster than the little nightmares, leaving them trapped on all sides.
Peridot seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for he'd begun to sweat quite profusely as he turned his head side to side, completely overwhelmed by the situation. Obsidian looked equally frantic. However, a combination of the younger gems' screams of terror and the quickening approach of the snarling creatures were enough to jolt them back to their senses, and Peridot raised his voice to holler a command.
"All of you! Get to the highest level in the temple and ward them off from there!"
The student gems didn't need a repetition of the instructions as they scrambled into the entrance. As Garnet passed by though, she felt herself stopped by Obsidian as he handed her the unconscious bodies of Topaz and Sapphire.
"Bring these two! Make sure nothing attacks them again!" he ordered her urgently as he raised his hand and drew his weapon from the back of his left hand, an enormous black flail. Peridot was already charging into battle with a bulky lime-green hammer as long as he was tall, smashing into a few spiders that came too close. She looked at him uncertainly as she lifted her classmates, one on each shoulder.
"Sir? What about-"
"Just hurry! We'll hold them off from down here! They'll want to target us because we're the strongest! Now go!"
Garnet didn't waste another second, nodding gravely in acknowledgement as she made her way after her classmates. However, she didn't take more than a few steps before her sixth sense twitched in alarm, prompting her to stop immediately and look around herself, with the sinking knowledge that something was very wrong.
All three eyes widened as she realized that Pearl was a few feet away, completely still as she stared at the hordes of spiders charging for Peridot and Obsidian, her expression unreadable. Struck by a fierce surge of panic, she temporarily forgot about her load as she rushed over to her spellbound friend.
"What are you doing?"
Pearl clenched her teeth, not taking her eyes off the spiders in the slightest as her eyebrows knit themselves tightly together. She gave no response, which Garnet knew meant she was thinking very deeply and didn't want to be interrupted, but the current circumstances were hardly accommodating and neither was her own current state of mind.
"Let's go! What are you waiting for!?"
For a few seconds, Pearl remained motionless, and her panicked friend was getting ready to physically carry her out of danger alongside Sapphire and Topaz, but she snapped suddenly to attention and looked straight to Peridot.
"I think I have it! Garnet, you go first, I'll come soon!"
Very few times in her life had Garnet been shocked to jaw-dropping silence, and this was definitely one of them.
"Are you crazy-"
"There's something I have to tell them! You have to get those two to safety! Go, I'll be fine!"
Garnet found herself watching helplessly as Pearl bolted straight towards Obsidian, unsure of whether she'd ever been more scared in her entire life. Every instinct screamed for her to go and stop her one and only friend from diving headlong into certain death, and only the burden of her unconscious classmates prevented her from doing so. Her better judgement won out over her emotional desire as she made a beeline for the temple, but it didn't make her feel any less terrified for Pearl's wellbeing.
Sprinting through the ancient hallways, Garnet prayed with all her heart that her friend would be okay.
Huzzah, sudden time skip!
So, looks like they're best buds now. Ain't that great? Except they might also be about to die. Let's see how they deal with it, shall we? Also, I can so imagine Pearl making Garnet carry all of her stuff as they explore some magical setting. Just food for thought.
I feel like with every episode that comes out, the chances of my headcanon being true grow smaller and smaller. I might have to stick an AU tag on this fic if it continues. Welp. Consequences of writing fanfic before sufficient source material is revealed.
Not much to say today, so Happy Easter everyone.
That's all for now. Sherlockdetective99, signing out.
