Steven was struggling, and Amethyst was too. The flowers were nearly twice as big as they were, and the stems were covered in thin, fine thorns that stuck Steven every chance they got. They weren't big enough to draw blood, or to do much more than annoy Steven with a sting any time he had to push one aside. Amethyst had attempted to simply dash through the fields, only to quickly regret her actions and come running back, covered in thorns and wrapped in briars, to follow in the paths left by the rest of the Crystal Gems.
Garnet, at the head of the seperated group, pushed aside the flowers with gauntlet-covered hands; she was the only Crystal gem naturally taller than the surrounding flowers and, as such, everyone was following her lead. Even when Spinel had streched up to rid herself of the bothersome prickles irritating her, she still followed Garnet closely as everyone else did. Steven had long sense been following in the trail left by the three ahead, but even then he still had to push the flowers aside to make way for him and Amethyst.
Pearl squinted one eye as she pushed aside a flower with her spear. "I honestly cannot believe that went so well!"
"Yeah!" Amethyst cheered from behind, "That was kinda sweet when you hit it with your spear and it went bing bong!"
"And the way you were circling around it?" Pearl gave a cheeky smile, "Almost looked like strategy."
Amethyst rushed ahead of Steven to get closer to Pearl, and Steven took the chance to call up to Spinel.
"I'm glad they're getting along again."
"Mmhm." Was all Spinel said in response.
A leaf brushed against Steven, and he immediately sneezed in response. That caught Spinel's attenion, and Pearl's too.
"Steven!" Pearl scolded. "You're supposed to sneeze into your antecubital fossa!"
Steven wiped his nose. "My what?"
"Your... this thing!" Pearl pointed to her inner elbow.
"Then why not say inner elbow?" Spinel asked.
"Don't question my methods!"
"Somebody has to."
Steven sneezed again, this time into his 'antecubital fossa'. Pearl seemed proud.
"Good job Steven!"
"Here, I gotcha." Spinel reached for Steven, but Garnet was faster. "Hey!"
Garnet held Steven securely in one arm. "It's my turn for Steven time."
"Them's the rules." Amethyst shrugged off.
Pearl gasped. "I've never gotten Steven time!"
"And you never will." Spinel said.
Garnet moved Steven onto her shoulders and Steven held onto her, glad to be above the flowers and to give his legs a rest; it felt like they had been walking for hours. Garnet put her gauntlets away in favor of holding Steven's feet to keep him steady, and she continued to push through the flowers without so much as flinching from the thorns. Steven was glad that wasn't him.
Garnet carried him like that the rest of the way to the warp pad, and Steven was grateful. She was gentle picking him off her shoulders and placing him on the warp pad, but in a moments notice Pearl had taken hold of him.
"Hey!" Spinel snapped. "What did I just say, birdie?!"
Pearl gasped. "Do not call me a bird!" She squacked.
Steven laughed. "You do look like a bird."
"And sound like one." Amethyst added.
"And smell like one." Spinel followed up, waving her hand in front of her face.
Pearl blushed a light shade of blue. "Who do you think you are? The keeper of Steven?"
"Well, technicially she is." Amethyst pointed out.
"I... have nothing to say to that." Pearl pulled Steven in front of her, "But I'm taking my Steven time, like it or not."
"Pearl!" Steven squirmed, "I can warp by myself!"
Pearl frowned. "But my Steven time!"
Steven waved Pearl down and whispered in her ear. "We can have tea time later."
The happiness was clear on Pearl's face and in the aura all around her. She stepped to the side and let Steven have his space.
"Garnet, can I warp us back home?" Steven appealed to the leader.
Garnet hummed. "Yes."
Steven grinned, and focused his mind on where he wanted to go. Home.
The moment the warp beam acivated, and the world around them began to fade to light, Steven felt a familiar tickle in his nose. His thoughts of home faded to focus on the there and now, and then he started to notice the vaiugest forms of those he loved all around him, there but not. Solid, but liquid. Light and dark and everything contracting all mixed into one sensation.
I need to sneeze.
His own voice was foreign to him, panicked and searching for help; in his head and at his side, and in front of him and all around the light space that surrounded him.
Do it at Pearl!
Steven reconigzed the speaker as Amethyst only by the tone of her words; her voice was just as foreign, if not more so, than his own.
Steven no! Your fossa!
That was Pearl, unmistakebly. The warp was proving to last longer when Steven's focus was on something other than his destination, and seconds felt like minutes that in themselves felt like an eternity.
Steven sneezed.
The stream around him immediately warped into a rainbow of color, all swirling and dancing around him until they all abruptly faded to black. The next breath Steven took was a cold one, stinging his lungs and burning his eyes like firey ice. Stars danced in his head, and through the black eternity were streaks of light gliding past in streams of color and magnitudes Steven couldn't begin to comprehend. His eyes were naturally drawn to the blemishes speckling the flawless beams; black specks filling the otherwise pure beams. Things. Warping.
Steven was pulled back into the stream, and the next thing he knew he was in his house and Pearl was fussing over him. "Steven! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Steven said; the warp air filling his lungs was a relief he didn't realize he needed. "But I saw something! Something warping!"
Pearl straightened up. "That's impossible Steven. Your eyes were just playing tricks on you. You know there's not much oxygen outside the stream."
"No!" Steven argued, "There were a lot of them! All these little black dots in the warp streams!"
"There's nothing out there Steven." Garnet reassured, "There wasn't been for a long time."
"But there was!" Steven turned around to appeal to Spinel and Amethyst, "There was I swear!"
The pink gem and the purple gem wore simular expressions.
"I'm staying outta this." Amethyst raised both hands and backed up.
"They're probably right, Steven..." Spinel admitted, "Being outside the warp can play tricks on your mind, and I've never seen anything but us use the warps."
"That doesn't mean it's not happening!" Steven argued.
"That's... also a good point." Spinel relented.
"No it's not." Garnet followed up. "You're going to upset Steven more than he already is."
"But!"
Garnet hushed him softly and fell to his level. "Let's call it a trick of the eye and nothing more."
Steven sighed. "Okay..."
"Great!" Amethyst said suddenly, "Now that that's settled, bye!"
She made an immediately beline for the temple door and dissapeared inside. That was the cue for the rest of the crystal gems to follow suit; Pearl wandered over to the kitchen, Spinel settled on the couch beside the sleeping form of Greg (he must have had a long day at work) , and Garnet made for the temple just as Amethyst had. Through the window, Steven could see the sun was just now starting to go down. Almost time for dinner.
"I swear Amethyst spends more time in her room than out." Pearl scoffed as she began to pull some designated ingredients.
"Who are you," Spinel mocked, "The keeper of Amethyst?"
Steven couldn't sleep, but Lion didn't seem to be having any trouble with it. Even though the large predator was still technically banned from the house, no one bothered to enforce that rule, not even Pearl; she was too terrified to get near the big cat to scold him outside.
Steven sighed. "Oh Lion. I can't sleep."
The pink lion flicked his ear and nuzzled deeper into the bed with a heavy sigh.
"I know I saw something! Something was in the warp stream!"
Lion wiped his muzzle.
"I mean, I could call Connie and tell her about it, but I'm pretty sure she's asleep. So it's just you and me buddy."
Steven lifted Lion's head into his lap and ran his fingers through Lion's mane.
"I guess I'm not sleeping tonight..."
"Wake up Steven!"
Steven woke up suddenly to the voice, visons of dreams of dark figures dancing in his mind. Nightmarish things, advancing on him with nothing but black in their heart and intents malicious and cruel. He swung at the clouded monsters, trying to get them to go away, to leave him alone as his heart raced and his head throbbed.
"Ow!"
Steven blinked, and the scene faded from his memory. Darkened figures turned into familiar ones. Spinel and Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst. Pearl was holding her nose and whimpering.
"What?" Steven sat up and tried to make sense of the scene.
Spinel looked at Amethyst, and Amethyst looked at Spinel, and then they both busted out laughing. Even Garnet cracked the faintest of smiles, and that only made the confusion filtering through Steven's mind even worse.
"What happened?" He asked.
Garnet shook her head. "You punched Pearl." She held a plate up high, out of the reach of everyone around her, "So it looks like someone's not getting cookies."
"Is it me...?" Steven asked sheepishly.
"Yes."
Steven sat up and yawned as the terrifying, yet somehow blissful reaches of sleep faded from him. "Sorry Pearl... I guess I just... didn't..."
"Didn't sleep." Garnet finished.
"Yeah." Steven fought hard against the clouds in his mind, "I was... scared."
"Oh, Steven." Pearl seemed to forget her minor injury immediately in favor of tending to Steven. She kneeled down beside the bed and rested her hand on Steven's knee. "This isn't about the thing you thought you saw outside the warp, is it?"
"Know I saw!" Steven corrected, "Not thought. Something was warping!"
"Steven." Pearl took Steven harshly by the shoulders, "Nothing on this planet can use those warps but us."
"Well... what if it came from space?"
Silence ensued.
"I..." Pearl was wide-eyed and surrounded by an air of all sorts of emotions, so much that Steven couldn't untangle the knot before she continued her sentence, "I don't appreciate your tone."
Garnet suddenly stepped forward. "I'm certain Pearl is right."
Amethyst took the opportunity she saw, and grabbed the plate Garnet held before she could lift it out of reach once more. She swallowed it whole.
Garnet took a deep breath. "If it will help you to feel better, we can go check." She held her hand out to Steven.
Steven took Garnet's hand and she helped him out of bed. "Okay... I guess."
Garnet smiled. "Get dressed Steven; we can't have you going around in your nightclothes."
"Oh." Steven rubbed his eyes. "Right."
"We'll be waiting."
"Right."
Steven did as Garnet told and quickly got dressed. He quickly joined the gems.
"I'm dressed, can we go now?"
"But Steven, you haven't eaten!" Pearl objected.
"I'm not hungry!" Steven stomped his foot, "I wanna find what was warping!"
"Oo, feisty!" Amethyst teased.
"Ya know, you've been taking that tone with me a lot lately and I don't know how I feel about that."
"Well maybe if you'd listen to me!"
"Enough!"
Garnet word seemed to reverberate all around the room, and seized a silent spell from everyone except for her.
"Steven, you don't have to eat right now, but you will after we get done checking all the warps."
"Thank you Garnet."
"Let's go."
No one argued any further. They all piled onto the warp pad, and the very first place they warped to was the familiar flower field.
"See?" Pearl said, "There's nothing here!"
"Okay..." Steven said slowly, "But it has to have gone by now. It's somewhere else, I know it!"
They warped next to the bottom of the sea spire, and Steven felt a familiar sense of smallness in its shadow.
"Nothing here either." Garnet reassured.
"Let's keep looking."
They warped to the sky spire.
"Now that's something!"
Steven felt his heart give a flutter, but the hope was quickly beaten back down when he saw what Amethyst was pointing at; a congregation of goats with dozens of kid goats sprinkled in and around the herd.
"Look! Big mean goaty is a big mean mama now!"
It took Steven a moment to recognize the large female, but when he did the memories came flooding back; Amethyst challenging the larger goat in goat form, and the adventure that followed.
"Good for her." Garnet commented.
"We're getting off track here!" Steven said, and Garnet took his objections seriously.
They warped again. And again. And again. To place, after place, after place. Warping, searching, finding nothing.
"Steven, we've been searching for hours! What exactly do you want us to find?"
"Whatever was warping!" Steven said, "It has to be somewhere!"
"Steven." Garnet said, "We need to get you home. You haven't eaten all day."
"I'm fine!" Steven lied; in all reality, his stomach as twisting with a hunger begging to be sataited.
"There is nothing to be found!" Pearl squawked.
"But you're wrong..."
"What was that?"
"I SAID YOU'RE WRONG!"
Pearl took a step back from Steven's outburst. "Steven! I don't appreciate this type of violence coming from you!"
"AND NONE OF US APPRECIATE YOUR ARROGANCE! WHY AM I ANGRY?!"
"BECAUSE I'M ANGRY!"
Everyone looked over at Spinel, including Steven.
Spinel psuhed through Garnet and Amethyst to get to Pearl and point an accusitory finger at her chest. "How dare you?!"
Pearl was frozen in place and stuttered out an, "I'm sorry?"
"Even if Steven didn't see something, your high and mighty attitude is just making things worse for him!"
"Spinel." Garnet warned. "Watch your tone."
"I'll watch my tone when she watches her words! You're so confident in yourself that you won't consider the possiblity that he may be right, and that we may in danger! That he might have actually seen something out there, and if he did and we missed it because of your bad attitude then you know what would happen!"
"What would happen?" Steven asked, and though his voice was quiet it easily silenced the shouting.
"There's still one place we haven't checked." Garnet said.
Pearl looked to the leader as if she were crazy. "You can't mean...?"
"We said everywhere. Spinel is right. We need to put Steven's concerns to rest, and the only way to do so is to show him there's nothing out there to be concerned about."
"Well, whatever it is can we hurry it along please?" Amethyst urged.
"Why?" Spinel smirked, "You got a date or something?"
Amethyst returned the grin. "Or something."
Garnet shook her head. "We'll be done soon, Amethyst."
They warped to a place Steven had never seen before; a large monument, surrounded by ocean, and lined with half a dozen warp pads. All except for the warp they appeared on was shattered; broken and cracked and covered in fractures.
"What's this place?"
"These are the warps that once connected us to other planets." Pearl explained, "If something came from space, it would come through here. But look! All these warps are broken."
Steven flinched as he felt something furry suddenly rub against his leg, and looking down he came to face a pale purple cat-Amethyst, purring and rubbing against him.
"Sorry Steven." She purred, "As usual, Pearl's right." She stepped away from Steven and turned back to herself. "You get used to it."
Garnet reached down a hand to pet Steven's head, but he ducked away from her. He still felt that dull anger brewing inside him, but he tried to ignore it. to swallow it and push it back down. Spinel was silent, and he knew why, but it still made him feel even worse. Garnet didn't seem to take offense from Steven avoiding her.
"We're safe." Garnet reassured him.
Steven said nothing. They warped back home.
"Finally!" Amethyst exclaimed, the first one off the warp, "That took all day!"
Spinel stormed off into her room and slammed the temple door behind her.
"It was important to make Steven feel safe." Garnet said to break the tense air surrounding them all.
"Yes, Steven feels much safer now." Pearl wrapped her arm around Steven and lead him off the warp.
The anger hadn't left him, still brewing and bubbling and threatening to spill over. "Ya know, I'm a little tired." Steven tried to leave it at that, but the words just kept coming, "of you telling me how I feel! I know I saw something outside the stream!" It keep bursting out of him, though his brain screamed at him to stop. He had to stop, but he had so much heat built up inside him that it was impossible and the fiery eruption only kept building.
"And I know you didn't!" Pearl reflected the anger, "You should know to take my word for it! I swear it on my Crystal honor!"
"I'M A CRYSTAL GEM TOO!" Steven stomped his foot, and a sudden echo shot through the house, shaking it to it's very foundation. The three gems shook with the force, and radiating from them was nothing but fear. "And I swear on my honor that something is out there! If you don't believe me and won't help me find it, then I'll do it alone!"
Steven shoved past Pearl, barely registering the thud behind him as he warped into the stream. The rage surrounded him followed him into the stream, blocking his thoughts and making the process seem more surreal and drawn out than ever before. His mind was clear despite the burning fires of anger, and the thoughts flashing through his mind made sense with the upmost clarity. Steven held his breath and stuck his head out of the warp stream.
Through the atmosphere that threatened to freeze his eyes solid, he saw them. Thousands of them. Small, black orbs warping at hyperspeed just as he was. Streams far and ones close too. One so close, in fact, he could almost reach out and touch it, so he tried. If he could just do that, just grab one of the dozen warping in that stream, he could bring it back home, he could...
Steven felt his body slipping. Falling, yet flying. Lifting and gliding and being devoured by the darkness as his legs left the stream and his connection to the warp was severed. Everything felt black. Black and cold and empty. Emotionless. Hard to breath, like the collar of his shirt was constricting his neck like a python would. He swallowed, and sighed, and tried to breath in deep but all he sucked in was cold.
The frost lifted momentarily and so did the storm in his mind. He felt his hands graze something solid and he grabbed it, the last thing he could manage to do before the nothingness returned to him. He pulled the... something... to his chest. It felt warm. He wanted to get closer to it. He held the thing closer and closed his eyes as he imagined himself being just as warm. Something was moving, but he didn't care. There was ringing, but he barely noticed. Warmth seeped from his eyes, only to freeze. The only heat he felt was the thing. Where... where did he get this thing? Why was he holding it? It was so warm though...
Heat expanded inside him, but it wasn't a good heat. It was like swallowing lava, but even lava was perferable over the endless nothing he felt. Nothing. Nothing... There was a strange noise. He liked the noise. A hum. He tried to hum along but nothing came out. Hum... hum...
The warmth inside him began to seep out. His eyes melted, the lava in his chest subsided. The small something warm turned into a big something warm, and the hum surrounded him in a delicate embrace. The hum stopped, but the warm surroundings only increased.
"Take deep breath's Steven."
Steven felt a strong, gem-incrusted hand pat his back twice before rubbing his back in a gentle motion.
"Mmm." Steven felt pain wash over him through the bliss of warmth, and he clung to the metal object in his arms. He groaned even louder when Garnet turned him over on his back and held his face in a warm hand.
She gave a sudden humph and Steven felt his prize being lifted away from him.
"No..." He reached up blindly for it.
"I"m not taking it Steven. Just looking."
Steven grabbed the object the moment it was place back on his chest and held it tight, even when it was sucking the warmth from out of him.
"This is what you saw out there."
"I don't care." Steven sobbed and let the warm tears heat his face."I don't..."
"I do." Garnet shifted Steven upright, resting against her shoulder, and gave his back another pat. "Come on, let's go home."
They warped back home, and Steven clung to Garnet for the entirety of jorney until it brought them back home, and only then did he crack his eyes open.
"Steven!" Pearl's voice and the worry in it was umistakable, "Are you okay?!"
Pearl was pushed aside as Spinel rushed to be the first to take Steven in her arms, cradling him like an infant.
"Oh, Stevie!" Spinel whimpered, rubbing her hand through Steven's hair, "It's okay, it's okay. You're freezing!"
"What is that thing?" Pearl was the first of the three to notice Steven's robot.
Small, metallic, with four legs that didn't quite attach to the rest of the bottom. It was still trying to move, kicking its legs in a feeble attempt, but Steven held it tight.
"I don't know. You don't know either?"
"Woah!" Amethyst grabbed onto Steven's arm to lift herself up and get a better view, "That thing's far out!" She tried to touch it, but Steven turned his back on her.
"It's an alien robot from outer space or something!" He said; now that his voice returned, he didn't want to ever stop talking, "There were tons of them!"
Garnet nodded her head. "I saw them as well."
"There were like... so many!" Steven opened his arms wide, "And they all were going to the same place, I think."
"Do you know where?"
"Nuh uh."
"I do." Garnet said with certainty. "Follow me."
Everyone piled onto the warp pad. Steven opened his mouth to ask if he could walk, but quickly realized the weakness in his legs. He still tried to sit up straight in Spinel's arms, and he held tight onto her as they warped, the fear of falling back out still fresh on his mind. That endless feeling of his veru soul drifing away, his own thoughts just as scattered. He whimpered, but Spinel was there as a security blanket to ensure he didn't fall. They appeared at the Galaxy warp.
"What are they doing to the Homeworld Warp?!"
Steven opened his eyes to a strange sight; dozens of the robanoids, just like the one he held in his arms, gathered around one of the biggest warps. The ones that couldn't fit piled up into neat, single-file lines. Eradically, one of the robots on the warp would move off it and to the back of the line, while the next robot in order took their place. Each robot spewed out a strange goo onto the cracks, which then solidified into a shiny gleam.
"They're... fixing it?" Spinel's voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper.
"There's a million of them!" Amethyst shouted.
"Garnet? What does this mean?" Pearl looked to the leader; they all looked to the leader.
"I..." Garnet's voice was a shaking, fearful tone that Steven had never sensed from the great, unshakable leader. "Don't know."
She suddenly seized the group in a flash, and before Steven could process it he and the gems were tossed behind a pillar, with Garnet holding her arms tight around all of them at the same time, covering Steven and Amethyst's mouths. He looked down at his hands and his heart dropped when he didn't see his robot.
"Garnet, what..."
Garnet shushed Pearl gently, and Pearl covered her own mouth. There was a humming, a humming Steven recognized immediately. He pulled Garnet's hand off his mouth.
"Is that a warp?"
Garnet replaced her hand with a little more force and hushed him. Steven tried to look, and lucky for him the pillar wasn't all that big and he could barely see beyond it. The first thing he saw was something green, and the first thing that passed through his mind was the Desert Glass, but it was quick to see it wasn't the same gem,
Lime-green skin and blonde hair, with white visors (or where they markings?) around her eyes. Her outfit was a mix of different shades of green, ranging from dark to practically neon, and on her knees and chest were yellow, diamond-shaped markings. Her gentstone was a triangle, upside down and (you guessed it) green. Her face was cold and stoic. The stranger tapped her foot and hummed a strange tune while the robanoids all gathered around her, pawing at her feet and making strange clinking noises.
The gem lifted up a hand, and to Steven's absolutely horror, her fingers weren't attached to it. He tried to scream, but Garnet quickly pulled him back into cover, blocking out any chance of it.
"Log-Date 3 1 2."
Her voice was high and nasally, yet somehow managed to send a shiver down Steven's spine.
"This is Peridot, performing Earth Hub maintenance check."
Peridot. Her name was Peridot! He wanted desperately to relay this imformation to the gems, but the better half of him told him they were hearing everything he was.
"Warp repair a success. All 80 robanoids deployed and accounted for. Preparing to locate and manually reactivate Kindergarten."
A strange whirling sounded, and Steven tried to steal another glimpse, but Garnet wouldn't let him. There was a silence following that, and a flash of green.
"This sight may have been compromised."
Something small and compact and beeping skidded beside them, and the robanoids followed suit, swarming it and tapped it with their non-connected feet. Garnet pulled the group in front of her and tuned her back to the things as there was a sudden implosion of green and yellow smoke. When it cleared, all that was left in its wake were the robots laying in pieces, cold and inactive.
"Is... it safe?" Spinel asked.
Garnet didn't answer, but she did let go of the four. Pearl was the first one up, removing her hands from her mouth to breath in heavy, shaking breathes and cover her eyes instead. Steven felt a cold storm brewing inside her, infecting everyone around her as she paced back and forth across the monument.
"I can't... do this! Not again!" She moved her hands back to her lips and was lost in thought for no more than a few seconds before continuing to speak, "They're coming back. They're coming back!"
Amethyst was grabbing fistfuls of her hair, and the infectious worry inside her bubbled into panic. "We're dead. We're so dead!"
Spinel's pigtails were pulled back and she made strange, grunting-groaning noises, but she didn't speak.
"That was another gem right?"
Garnet ignored his question and walked to the repaired homeworld warp. Steven ran after her.
"Where did come from? What was she trying to do?"
"Steven!" Steven was pulled away from Garnet and into Spinel's arms, held tight against her. "Leave her be."
"It doesn't matter." Garnet's voice was back to its normal tone, but something about it seemed... off. Something that made Steven suddenly fearful.
Garnet summoned her gauntlet, and made it grow to three times its normal size before she brought it down hard on the gleaming, newly-repaired surface.
"She won't be coming back."
