Author's Note: Hello and welcome to yet another late, late night chapter of Steven Universe! If you're enjoying the story, a Favorite/Follow is always appreciate, but I won't keep you too long. Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 10 - Break Out

With a groan, Steven came to.

"Pearl? Amethyst?" He groaned. Then, his eyes snapped open.

"Garnet."

There was a heavy ringing in his ears, and his head was throbbing with pain, but there was another sensation too, distant and warped, that he couldn't quite make out. After a few long, agonized moments he became aware that it was a sound. Eventually, the young half-gem found the pain in his forehead receding, just slightly, enough for him to pull himself up to sitting and take a look at his environment.

He was in some kind of small, square room, made of metal. It was bathed in a yellow glow, which, he realized, was being cast by a wide sheet of glowing energy that acted as the fourth wall of the room. That, he thought, must be some kind of foreshadowing. Aside from Steven, the room was functionally empty, and for a long while he sat alone in contemplation, trying to rub the pain from his head and stop the ringing. There was something, in the back of his head, that was practically itching his brain. Some fuzzy, ringing sound. He was distracted from it momentarily by the echoing sound of heavy metallic bootsteps, growing closer until a familiar gem suddenly walked into view, on the opposite side of the yellow energy field.

"It's you…" Steven said, wincing as the strange sound shifted up a pitch suddenly. Peridot, who had just arrived, seemed to notice the shift in tone as well, which Steven found strange. The green gem looked at Steven for a long moment, and then her gaze suddenly fell off and to the side. Steven waited a beat before speaking again. "What did you do to Garnet?"

Peridot crossed her arms.

"Hm? Oh, you mean the fusion," she said. "They were separated, and contained, along with the rest of you."

"Separated?" Steven asked. Peridot seemed to try not to respond, but then looked at the boy, and that strange feeling in her gut exploded.

"Hn- You mean… you don't even know?"

Steven furrowed his brows.

"Where is Garnet?" He said, glowering. The green gem sighed, shaking her head and turning around.

"It's probably in your best interests to forget about your Crystal Gem friends," she said. "I will do my best to get you put into one of the zoo's where you belong, but… It might not hold up in court."

"Court?"

Peridot looked over her shoulder in annoyance at the continued questions.

"That display, earlier? It has complicated things immensely. Not to mention whatever this… thing is that you did to me."

Steven was genuinely stumped by her last comment.

"What I did? To you?" He asked, angrily. "What about what you did to me? You dangled me over a cliff! By my hair!"

At that, Peridot let out an audible wince. Her cheeks flared a dark green behind her visor, and she turned quickly away from Steven as his words made the inflammation in her stomach flare up.

"If you did nothing to me, then… Hrng… What is this awful feeling?"

"Feeling? It's probably guilt! You feel bad, because what you're doing is wrong!"

Peridot froze. The word struck her like a physical blow, as if she had never seen it coming. Steven paused. He hoped that his words might mean something to the gem, and he walked over to the energy field, slowly reaching for her back, which was inches away.

"If… if you really feel bad," he said, "then that's ok… My dad says if you feel bad about something bad that you did, you can't change that. You'll always feel bad. The only thing you can do that will even start to make that feeling go away is good stuff."

Peridot frowned, still not turning to face Steven.

"Good stuff?"

"Sure," Steven said, reaching to comfortingly pat her on the back.

At the sudden contact, Peridot reared back, causing Steven to do the same, both gasping in exclamation. They stared at each other for a few awkward seconds before Peridot squinted.

"Clever tactic, Steven Human," she said. Steven made a confused face. "You've been getting me to "talk" about so called "feelings" in order to get me to free you and your comrades! I won't fall for it, rebel clod! There is important work that needs to be done with the Cluster and I'm already struggling to keep us on world long enough to complete my research. You and your band of misfit clods are just one more reason for Jasper to wrap up her mission and leave, taking my ride with her!"

Steven shook his head, totally taken aback by the sudden outburst. Peridot herself seemed to be surprised, and with a look of annoyance, she turned away once more.

"Just… don't cause anymore trouble, or else I can't promise that my Diamond will show you mercy," she said.

Then, with that, she left, leaving Steven in a stunned silence. As her bootsteps faded away, Steven looked down at his hand, which had just barely passed through the field of yellow energy to touch Peridot's back. It had been for only a brief second, and it had left his digits feeling tingly and strange, but it had indeed passed through. As he inspected his hand, his brain suddenly placed what the sound was that was rising and falling in the back of his mind.

It was singing.

Peridot, on her way out of the holding block, heard the door hiss open to reveal the hulking orange form of Jasper. The technician saw rage in the larger gem's eyes, and wisely stepped aside as she stormed over to one of the many energy-guarded cells, slamming her fist aggressively against the wall beside it and snarling at it's inhabitant, the source of the singing that carried all the way across the resounding, metal room.

"Shut up!" Jasper snarled. "Stop singing!"

Peridot watched and waited for her captain's outburst to be finished, glancing once at the gem held prisoner inside of the cage. She was small, smaller even than Peridot, with a blue hue to her light-clothes and a bushy bob cut of blue-white hair, with bangs that covered her forehead down to the top of her nose. She was sitting against the back wall, legs pulled up underneath her lightform dress, singing at the top of her lungs. It was a waning, droning song, a sad, soulful melody that had some kind of strange, biomagical ring to it, sticking primarily to the backs of the gem's minds.

The song seemed to be putting Jasper on edge.

"I said shut UP!" She growled again, this time punching the wall so hard that cracks formed upon impact. Peridot gulped. The singing continued defiantly, and with an angry whirl of her cape, Jasper shoved Peridot aside and began to walk away, back the way she came. "Finish your research, Technician. We leave in a rotation of the planet."

"What?!" Peridot demanded, "we can't leave yet! I've barely scratched the surface! There's over a dozen major gem ruins in this hemisphere of the planet alone! Not to mention I haven't even started to look into the Cluster!"

"I don't care!" Jasper said, as the singing went up a decibel further. A vein seemed to pulse in the big gem's forehead. "The sooner we dump these rebel disgraces off at court the better."

With that, Jasper was gone, leaving Peridot alone with the singing gem. She sighed, and then her attention was seized by a small blip on her wrist computer. Pulling up the holographic display, she squinted at the readings, and then frowned.

Something organic, bigger than a human, was making it's way towards the ship.

And it was running on water.

After a couple of test runs, Steven sucked in his breath, and took a running start, closing his eyes at the last moment and leaning on his shoulder as he came barreling out of his cell. His entire body jostled, as if electrocuted, for a few moments, sending odd, tickling pulses of nervous energy up and down his skeleton, but he came out on the other side. After patting himself down and realizing he was in one piece, the young half-gem pumped a fist in the air, doing a little dance to himself before shaking his head and crouching, trying to gain some semblance of stealth and seriousness.

He padded along the walls, although it was more like flapping as, he realized, he was still wearing his flip-flops. After a moment of forethought, the boy stooped and stepped out of the loud, red devices, and picked them up with one hand before trouncing off barefoot, the soles of his feet making only the slightest padding noise as he went. He walked along, swerving his head around to try and catch a glimpse of the interior of every cell he passed. Practically all of them were empty, however as he dashed along his seventh or eighth row, he passed by a cage so fast he almost didn't see the small, red gem pacing back and forth inside of it. After passing by, however, Steven caught himself, and backpedaled to stand in front of the cell.

The gem inside was shorter even than Amethyst, with brick-red skin and a small, poofy afro, tied together with a scrap of red cloth that served as a headband. She was pacing a small circle in her cell; literally. As she walked, Steven took note of the small, singed footsteps that she left on the ground, with smoked for a few seconds even after she stepped away. The gem was muttering angrily, and it took a few seconds for her to register that Steven was there.

"Um… Hello," he said, causing her to stop in place. "I'm looking for my friends… Are you trapped in here too?"

The gem looked to Steven, and then suddenly a look of anguish covered her face. Her hands went up to cover her face, and she growled, pulling them down and stretching out the skin of her face before pushing her hands up and through her hair.

"Grrr, great! Just great! It wasn't supposed to go like this!" She growled, stomping around in her cell, causing more burnt footprints. One even caught into a little blaze, causing a bead of sweat to drip down Steven's forehead.

"Woah, hey, hang on a sec," he said, "what are you talking about?"

Then, there was a distant sound, a heavy thud that echoed though the walls. A fraction of a second later, the singing picked up in urgency, and the little red gem went ballistic, throwing a punch at the yellow energy field, which zapped her hand. She retracted it quickly, shaking it angrily..

"Woah! What's the deal!" Steven said.

"She's trapped in here too!" The little red gem said. "I have to-"

She stopped, as if she was suddenly just taking in Steven for the first time.

"Wait… you're out. How did you get out?" She asked. Steven laughed nervously.

"Oh, I mean… I just kinda…" He put his hand through the beam, ignoring the strange sensation. The yellow energy stopped at his fleshy hand, and there was a small area that was clear of energy, disrupted by his biological form. The new gem looked on with an intelligent gleam in her eye.

"Can you get me out?" She asked.

Steven thought about it. He did seem to be stopping the yellow energy wherever he passed through it. Maybe if he…

Steven stepped into the energy field, and held his arms out as if creating some kind of umbrella for the gem to walk through. His body vibrated strangely, and it sort of felt like his eyes would rattle out of his skull, but the he momentarily created an exit wide enough for the gem to come dashing out at breakneck pace, pausing only long enough to grab Steven by the hand and yank him along behind her.

"Come on!" She said, as the very confused half-gem struggled to keep pace, despite having the longer legs of the pair. The little red gem seemed focused, tilting her head at each intersection of cells to listen out, and the picking a direction to dash. As they went, Steven realized they were following the sound of the singing.

"Where are we going?" Steven asked.

"She's gotta be here somewhere," the gem muttered, mostly to herself, ignoring Steven's question.

As the red gem rounded a bend, she suddenly skidded to a halt and started backing up, shoving Steven back the way they came, a panicked look in her eyes. She dropped to a crouch and glanced once around the corner, before coming back, her back to the wall. Steven looked at her.

"What is it?" He asked, taking his turn to glance around the wall. He saw a squadron of 4 or 5 gems, the same size, shape, and general color scheme of the one he was accompanying. However, whereas the gem she had freed kept her gem on the palm of her hand, these alien's had their gem's in a variety of places. One even had a belly button gem, similarly to Steven.

"Ruby guards…" Steven's newfound companion said with a grimace. Steven looked down at her.

"They look just like you."

Her grimace deepened.

"They're coming this way… Damnit," she said, "She would know what to do."

Steven pursed his lip. He had to think fast. He thought of every movie trope he could think of, and one of them stuck.

"You could pretend to be one of them. Tell them the coast is clear, or something?"

His companion, apparently Ruby, looked up at him and squinted.

"You think that will work?"

Steven shrugged.

"Worth a try, right?"

Ruby didn't like it, but they were running out of options, and as the squadron of Rubies came around the bend, she quickly apologized before shoving Steven into the nearest cell, and then leaning against the wall, trying to seem nonchalant. As they filed in, the gems took in the newest Ruby, and one of them even looked at her suspiciously.

"Um… Hello, fellow Rubies," Ruby said, trying and failing to sound confident. "Everything's all good in this, uh, sector."

The Rubies glanced among each other, and a couple of them murmured, before the apparent leader of the bunch, the one with the bellybutton, spoke up. She sounded surprisingly kind when she spoke.

"Heya, fellow Ruby!" She said, glancing over her shoulder at the dazed Steven. "That human zoo prisoner secure?"

Ruby nodded a little too quickly.

"Uh, yup, totally secure," she said. The navally gemstones alien nodded.

"Good. We were about to go to the command deck and get ready for the lightspeed jump. I was gonna stay and lock up but… If you wanted to do it, I would owe you one. I wanna get in good with captain Jasper."

The alien eyed Ruby slyly, and the little red gem just sputtered and laughed nervously.

"Ahaha, uh, haha, yeah, sure!" She said. "No problem! You just, ahaha, you owe me one!"

"Great! Thanks, fellow Ruby," The other Ruby said, pressing a small keycard into Ruby's hand and then turning around. "C'mon crew, let's get to the deck!"

With that, the little entourage filed out, leaving a somewhat stunned Steven and Ruby in their wake. When they had fully left, Ruby looked down at the keycard she held, and then slapped her face with her palm in secondhand embarrassment. Steven grinned easily as he forced his way through the energy barrier again.

"Hey! You did great!" He said. "That seemed like it went well."

Ruby turned to him, a little half-smile on her face. Then, the song began anew, restarting from the beginning of the melody in a way that jarred the little red gem out of her momentary victory. She once again grabbed Steven by the hand, and the pair of them dashed away through the maze of cells.

A few turns later, the unlikely pair skidded to a stop in front of a cell, the apparent source of the singing. As they walked forward, Ruby shouted out in joy.

"Sapphy! My Sapphy!" She shouted, charging forward and pressing her hands against the energy barrier for as long as she could, peering in at the small, blue gem before she had to pull away, nursing the painful stings the energy left.

Steven came in quickly behind her. He waved to the small gem inside of the cell.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Steven."

The gem, who had now stopped singing, was standing patiently in front of the energy field. She gave a slight smile beneath her sea of white-blue bangs, and though he saw no eyes, Steven could tell he was looking into his.

"I know," she said.

A little unnerved, but happy to help, Steven proceeded to help Sapphire out of her cell, creating space for her to flee through the energy field. As soon as she was beyond the barrier, the two small gems ran into each other like magnets, falling perfectly into each other's arms, tears and laughter and crying falling out of both of them as they collapsed on the ground. Steven pulled himself out of the beam with a little smile as he watched them, glad to see them reunited. Then, his mouth opened wide as Ruby picked up the other gem by the waist, spinning her around until both gems started to glow, surrounding by an amorphous white light.

Then, with a chiming sound of harmony, the glow subsided, and standing before Steven was an inspiringly, heartwarmingly familiar gem.

Garnet.

The large gem laughed, and jumped with joy as she became whole once more, and she took a good, long moment to hug herself before she turned to take in the bewildered Steven, whose mouth formed a wide 'O'. Garnet laughed, leaning down to pick up Steven and hug him close to her. He returned the hug gladly, suddenly feeling much safer.

"Oh, Steven," Garnet said, "we wanted to tell you. We just… We couldn't find the right time."

"It's OK," Steven said, shaking his head and then burying his face in her shoulder. "I'm just glad you're OK."

They embraced for a few seconds, but the reunion was cut short by a sudden, blaring alarm, and the lights in the room suddenly flashing as if there were an emergency. Garnet set Steven down, and grabbed him sternly by the shoulders, looking him in the eye.

"Go find Amethyst and Pearl, and get off the ship," she said.

"What about you?" Steven asked.

Garnet stood, cracking her knuckles and summoning her sunglasses with a little sparkle of light on her fingertips. Donning the shades, a smug little smile danced on the corners of the alien fusion's lips.

"I've got a rematch to win."

Peridot arrived on the deck moments before the alarm began to sound, and swore, realizing she was too late. Jasper, who was looking on with frustration at the control panel, spun around at her entrance and curled her lip.

"Technician!" She said. Peridot took her place at the helm. "Get me a visual."

Peridot's mechanical fingers flew across her holographic display, pulling up a number of different camera angles before choosing one that showed the open palm of the ship outside. With a deft flick, she sent the image up onto the main screen, enhanced and blown up so that she, Jasper, and the crew of Rubies could see it. Jasper crossed her arms, trying to make sense of the display.

"What is it?" She asked. Peridot looked too.

It was a large earth beast, quadrupedal and made of lean muscle, with a feline build and a wild mane of pinkish fur. It's man-killing claws were extended, and as it opened it's fanged maw to roar menacingly at the camera, a bolt of pink energy came flying out of it's mouth, destroying the camera and cutting the feed, leaving only the viewport. Peridot looked to Jasper.

"It appears to be a lion, captain."