"So..." Last said sitting on a chair opposite Steven and Connie. "Back here again."
Steven and Connie looked around. They were in a white room with a single door of to the side leading out and light that came from nowhere.
"Where are we exactly? And why aren't we we fused anymore?" Connie getting up from her chair.
"Steven should know where we are, he's been in here before. Then again it was a bit more open last time he was here." Last said looking at Steven expectantly as did Connie.
Steven took a moment to look around. "We're inside your head again aren't we."
Connie looked over at Last in slight awe and Last cracked a smile. "You really do pay attention to what people say."
Last stood up from his chair and walked to the door. "The reason you aren't fused in here is because even when your bodies are physically made into one being your minds remain seperate. Two people, two different places in mind, that's where you differ from the gems Steven, you stay who you are, you don't blend, your distinct."
Pushing the door open, light flooded into the room. "Now let me show you why your here."
Steven and Connie followed Last out the door to see endless rolling hills going off in all directions, but turning around the door they had come through was gone.
"Why does that keep happening?" Connie asked to no-one inparticular.
"The mind is not a solid structure, think about it like thoughts they go anywhere they want and the same thought might not bring you to the same place. These things shift, they flow. This is the most peaceful place I can imagine, rolling hills, a few clouds in the sky, and a breeze to keep you cool. But that's not why we're here."
The three of them began to lift from the ground and float into the sky.
"I keep some information here that you need to see." The ground fell away and the sky came closer, in less than a moment they floated in front of something rather odd. It was a circlular platform with only the outer part of it being able to stand on as there was no center section. On the outer edge stood 12 seats, one mirroring another.
"This is was designed to basically act as divine intervention." Last said. "Whenever me or the others wished to overturn a law of reality we brought this device from wherever is happened to be. It only needs one to function and that one can be almost anyone."
"How does it work?" Steven asked. Last pulled them down to stand on the structure and to the nearest seat.
"Sit down on the seat." Last said to Steven and as he did so an orb of energy appeared in the center of the circle. "Now think."
Steven thought of the field below and within an instant the structure dropped far to the ground below, it was done within an instant, as fast as thought.
"Good, thought it might not allow you to use it. There are limits to what you can do alone with this, it is its own entity it doesn't have to listen, but with sufficient energy and will, it will listen to whatever it is told to do by whoever sits on one of the seats. Now let's see what your roof is, try to bridge a door from on of the gems dreams to here."
"Wait, why would you make something like this?" Connie asked.
"We made it as a last resort. 12 seats, 12 of us. Together we could rewrite reality down to it's most basic components. We're not all powerful, we just have different limits, the more people know the more they can do. And the older you get the more you learn, so you can imagine the amount of information we know, we've watched the universe unfold since its inception." Last said lost in long gone memories.
With Last's thoughts turned to the past, the scenery below changed to reflect the memories he thought so deeply on and his image began to flicker, his clothes changed as well as the color of his eyes and the sky grew stormy.
"Umm, Last?" Steven asked.
"Wha, oh right, imagine one of the gems and then imagine a bridge between them and us." Last said pulled from past memories, the terrain below resumed being made of grassy hills and a gentle breeze then the sky cleared and the sun re-emerged.
Steven set to work and within a moment four portals opened up, each showing a different area behind it. Last looked to the two on the right and immediatly bolted in front of them blocking the view of what was inside of them.
"Steven! For the love of GOD shut these doors!" Last said frantically.
"Why," Connie asked, "Steven, who's minds do those led to?"
"Umm, Lapis and Pearl." Steven said just before a pair of moans escaped from both the portals and a bra flew from the portal on the far right.
At this point Last pulled a sword from no-where and began to try and destroy the portals. "Children shouldn't see what those two dream of! It's too X-rated. No looking that up. That goes for you to readers."
The portals fell apart and vanished, "Now for the ultimate test." Last said as the other door fell apart and sitting in the chair opposite Steven's. "Stop me from issuing a command." Last said as he sat down.
"Why would I do that?" Steven asked.
"Because it will be needed, I don't know when, I don't know why, but someone will try to use this weapon for something horrible, and I won't be able to stop them. It might even be me that tries to do something insane. Now, stop me or Connie will be erased from existence."
Connie's lower body began to become transparent.
"Why are you doing this?" Connie exclaimed.
"Because I need to know he can do what needs to be done! If your strength is even with those you fight, it comes down to wit, if that is even, then your will is your last chance. People die when we don't give it our all, I don't want to see people die anymore!"
"I'm just a kid, I can't beat you!" Steven shouted desperately.
"If that's what you think she really will be lost to you." Last said as he full focused upon erasing Connie.
Connie was vanishing quickly now and Steven couldn't overcome Last.
"Steven." Connie said touching Steven's arm with the only arm she had at the moment.
"Please don't go." Steven whimpered.
"Then believe you can save me." Those were Connie's last words as her body vanished entirely with tears in her eyes and her glasses fell to the stone below along with a single tear.
The image of Connie crying and then being lost to him snapped something at the back of Steven's mind, it could be said that the dam finally gave way under the strain and unleashed something new in Steven. Many Steven's began to appear at the other seats all with a look of absolute determination.
Connie's glasses began to rise from the stone to eye level and froze there. A look of extreme strain enveloped Last's face, he began to strain to keep Connie gone. Then he simply couldn't, he couldn't defeat Steven, not with what he felt. The outline of a person began to come into existence, then the outline thickened into a body. Last cracked a smile as he reversed his direction, instead of trying to erase Connie again, he began to help rebuild her, only with a somewhat different format.
A few drops of red came from Last and floated over to Connie.
'I hope it is enough.' Last quietly thought to himself.
Connie returned fully within a moment with a gasp of breath. Looking at her hands she saw that she was again existent.
"Now to make sure you can't do that again." Steven said but just before he could do so the entire structure vanished beneath them, they were close enough to the ground that the fall was not enough to harm Steven or Connie, Steven's clones however went up in a poof of clouds.
"What did you do with it?" Steven yelled at Last.
"I moved it away, far away." A voice said from nowhere. Another Last fell from the sky and tried to cleave the Last that stood in front on Steven and Connie with double-edged twin swords. He avoided and pulled his own set of swords.
"You shouldn't know I'm in here." The first Last says. (1)
"You honestly think you can hid inside MY head!" Says the second (2) as their battle continues.
"This isn't your mind anymore, you stuborn old man. I want to live as much as you do, I refuse to sit inside this hell house for another eternity!" (1)
The battle and conversation continue on like this, but let's change this to Steven and Connie's perspective.
'I can't understand this.' Steven thought. 'Last tries to erase Connie then another Last shows up.'
"What is happening here?" Connie asked to nobody inparticular.
"I don't know." One Last says. (2)
"I do." Says the other. (1)
"What the hell are you then? Some copy of me?" One Last says. (2)
"I'm that part of you where you bury it all, every dark day you ever buried inside your head made me. I'm just like you, except I will do evil. I'll burn the universe if I desire. I'll do anything to further my freedom from you. So I started to train Steven on how to use the weapon." (1)
The battle pauses for a moment.
"You call this training? You tried to erase Connie, it would have broken him far beyond repair if you had managed it. Your ends don't justify your means of doing it. Why do you think I put you in this memory? I put all that ever haunted me in a place where I felt most at peace. It's because here is where you do the least harm!" (2)
"I will do anything I please." (1) Said as he ran towards Steven and Connie with his swords in hand.
The second Last raised a wall in front of him, which he rammed through. When the wall failed the second Last was left with a choice. Let Steven and Connie met whatever fate the first had in mind, or use the last resort that he could. The second Last clapped his hands together with a force that shook ground. This caused the first Last to look back for a moment, and then turn back around to run at Last when the thought of what was happening came to his mind.
"ENOUGH!"
The second Last slammed one hand to the ground as he put the other to his gem. The world shock and fell apart as Steven, Connie, and both Last's were deconstructed.
Oblivion came into sight after a moment of being rebuilt along with 3 portals to Truth.
"You can't do this!" (1) Shouted with anger.
"I can, and it will be done." (2) Said with an ambient voice that came from everywhere.
"What are you doing?" Connie asked.
The second Last only smiled a sad smile before walking to Steven and Connie.
"Today I use the last resort, when I myself become the enemy I must defeat. I made the choice that I would give all that I am to another so the evil in me will never escape, well everything but shape, memory, and desire. I must put those in something else. The things which make this darkness must never corrupt another. But I won't forget everything. I'll still have the first sunrise, and everything before it."
Last (2) walked to face himself. "We will be one again, there is no point to fight anymore."
"NO!" The first Last pushed himself away, and ran towards his portal. "This will not happen if I destroy our door!" Claps and tries to destroy his door, but it doesn't happen. "Why isn't it working?!"
"Because I will not allow it to occur." Said the outline of a man that gaurds the portals.
"Why you bastard?!"
"If this is what is desired by the owner of a portal, you can't interfere."
The second Last walks back to Steven and Connie. "You each get half, and Connie, this means you WILL, last as long as Steven."
Connie's eyes widen. "You...mean..."
"Today, and everyday after you can be with him, if some part of you stopped you for that reason, no more. It's time to look forward, not back. I above all else should know this." (2)
The second Last took one last look at his portal. "The man looking up at the night sky. That is the image etched in my portal, it represents me, and my desire to know what is out there. Every portal in some way is supposed to represent God or the universe. That is the source of this alchemical knowledge, and that is the truth etched into these doors."
Last (2) raised both hands to Steven and Connie. "I give you all that I know, and I that I can."
Steven and Connie both placed a hand in his. Both Last's were dragged into their door as it opened.
"Tell Lapis...I'm sorry..." Last (2) said.
With those words Last was gone and after a moment only one Last was thrown from the door onto the ground, unmoving. In the next moment, all of the doors opened and pulled their respective people in.
"I do hope that you don't stay like this forever brother." The outline said looking at Last's portal after the doors closed.
Both Steven and Connie were imbued with a vast amount of knowledge as the were sent back. However Connie was being changed as she passed through her door. The few drops of red that had been put inside her body by the dark Last expanded. For a moment she was made of red.
They all appeared back inside Last's mind, but this time it was blank. The same as where the portals stood except with no outline man and no portals, A true Oblivion.
"Steven." Connie said tapping his shoulder. "Wha... since when are your eyes blue?" Steven asked Connieas her eyes were now a very sharp electric blue.
"Really...nevermind that, look behind you." Connie said pointing behind Steven at a lone door, with Last laying next to it. A door standing in the middle of nothing with a note on it. Steven and Connie walked to it and read the note.
'Home, we all want to go home.'
Steven touched the handle to the door and dissappeared, Connie dragged Last's hand to the handle before she did the same.
"LAST!" Was the first thing Stevonnie heard as she woke.
Bolting out of bed she ran to find the source of the scream. Eventually they found Lapis desperately trying to wake Last.
"WAKE UP!" Lapis screamed at him with tears.
It only took a moment for what this meant to sink in.
"We're sorry." Stevonnie said beginning to cry. "He's sorry."
Lapis looked over to Stevonnie. Slowly she got up and walked over to Stevonnie.
"What did he do?" Lapis asked afraid of the answer.
"He gave us everything." Stevonnie started to cry very hard into her hands.
"Hello?" Last's voice came as a great surprise to both Stevonnie and Lapis.
Last was sitting up in bed simply looking at them in a strangly blank way. Lapis ran back over and embraced him to which he froze.
"Don't ever scare me like that again!" Lapis said crying into Last.
"I'm sorry but..." Last said pulling Lapis away. "Am I supposed to know you?"
Ya, I know I'm evil. -author