Connie and Steven rushed into the room to see Peridot. She had fixed her limb enhancers, but had agreed to Steven's request of only wearing them whenever a battle was about to commence. "What has you two so worked up?" The green gem asked. "I was wondering," Connie said, "With all the crazy stuff that's been going on, I'm probably gonna need to know how to fight, and I was hoping you could teach me."
"You want to learn combat?" Peridot questioned. Connie nodded, "Anything I can learn to help keep Steven safe. I don't wanna just sit on the sidelines and hope he comes out of it okay. Please, will you help me learn to fight, so I can protect him?" She asked. Steven was surprised to hear all of this, as Connie hadn't told him this much before now. Peridot seemed to approve of this, and nodded, "Very well, come with me."
Peridot pulled her limb enhancers on with her powers and headed towards the teleport. Steven and Connie followed Peridot onto the warp pad in the living room. They appeared at the Cloud Area, a gem location that they used now mostly for training. Steven and Connie looked around curiously as Peridot walked them to the center of the room, "I remember when I discovered the idea of using my talents for the sake of another. I know it may sound like an odd thing to be 'discovered', but we just didn't have any concepts like that on gem homeworld."
As Peridot spoke, her moved her hands, bringing various pieces of metal together to form a blaster. It was smaller than her own hand cannons, one more fit for Connie's size. She struggled to hold it for a moment, surprised by the weight, but then got a better grip on it. Peridot's hands put up a hologram of another Peridot, "This holo-Peridot will be your opponent."
"Level zero challenger, would you like to begin training?" The holo-Peridot asked flatly. Steven gulped at the sight of the Holo-Peridot, not realizing he had instinctively summoned a shield bubble around Connie until Peridot asked him to take him a seat away from where the sparring would be happening. Steven went over and sat down as Peridot took Connie's hands and showered her how to use the blaster, "Remember, you do it for him, and you would do it again," She helped Connie aim and fire, blasting the hologram, "You do it for her-eh, that is to say, you do it for him."
"Keep your, stance strong, keeps your arms braced. As you're lining up the shot, accuracy is the key. Eyes locked and shoulders drawn, and as you pull the trigger, keep your eyes on me."
"Keep my, stance strong." "Good." "Keep my arms braced." "Right." "And as I'm lining up my shot-" "Concentrate, don't you want him to live!?" "Eyes locked and shoulders drawn," "Yes and be sure to hold nothing back! Everything you have, everything you are, you've got to give, on the battlefield. When everything is chaos, and you've got nothing but the way you feel, your strategy and a gun, you just think about what you'll do after everything's done! And then you do it for her, that's how you know that you'll win. You do it for her! That is to say... you do it for him."
"Deep down, you know, that you weren't built for fighting. But that doesn't mean you're not prepared to try! What they don't know, is your real advantage. When you live for someone, you're prepared to die." "Deep down, I know, that I'm just a human." "True." "But I know that I can draw my blaster and fight!" "With my brief existence," "Good." "I can make a difference." "Yes excellent!" "I can be there for him, I can be his knight."
"I can do it for him!" "You do it for her. Okay now do that again," "Yes Ma'am." "I did it for her, and now you say," "I'll do it for him."
About two weeks had passed. Connie's training with Peridot had only gotten more and more intense. Steven had tried his best to stay out of it, not wanting Connie to be upset with him, but the way they'd been talking.. Steven had been starting to get worried. His worries turned into outright fear and panic though when he spoke to Jasper about how Peridot had been talking to Connie.
"That's how she used to act around Citrine," Jasper had said, "Always putting Citrine's safety above her own, no matter how many times she got poofed for it, which was usually about three or four times per gem battle from her just up and throwing herself in front of attacks that Citrine herself probably could have handled with her shield or even just tanking it."
Steven went silent as his mind cut to an image of Connie, who didn't poof and certainly didn't reform, jumping in front of a sword blade of energy blast for him. The mental picture left him with a look of horror on his face as he turned on his heels and bolted for the warp pad to stop Connie and Peridot from doing whatever it was they were doing at that moment.
As it happened, Connie was getting a test; her against about a dozen holo-peridots. Connie was actually doing pretty well, but was nearly blasted off the edge of the arena by a stray shot that Steven blocked. "Steven? What are you doing here!?" She questioned, "I'm not letting you go into battle believing you can just throw yourself into the fire for me, you're just as important as I am, even more to me." He said, blocking another shot.
Connie used his shield as cover, destroying the remaining holo-Peridots. "Huh, that was much easier." She said. Steven nodded, "That's the idea." He said, glad she wasn't completely lost in Peridot's all or nothing mind set. Peridot herself was less happy about this, and approached them glaring, "Steven, you are far too important to be doing something like that. What if this had been a real battle?"
"If it were a real battle, I'd have been fighting with Connie from the very start of it, just like Mom always did." Steven said. The mention of Citrine shut Peridot up quite immediately, "Steven, you just don't understand." "No, I understand completely. You wanted to be there always to protect her, but Peridot.. I think a lot of the time you needed more protecting than she did." Steven said.
Peridot's eyes widened at this. She opened her mouth to argue, but no argument came to her. After a pause, she simply said, "I... believe that will be all for our training today.." She said, levitating her limb enhancers off of her body as she went over to the edge of the sky area, looking over the clouds around them. Steven and Connie went over and sat next to her.
"Did Citrine.. did make you feel like you were nothing?" Connie asked. Peridot snorted at the questioned, "She made me feel like I was everything.."