Steven fought his way through the rebels, meeting Angel Quartz dead on.
"Welcome back," she sneered, swinging her pickaxe at him, and he jumped back to avoid the blow, bringing his shield up to block it. She pulled back, stepping away before he could retaliate, but he moved forward with her after a few seconds, tightening his grip on the scythe. A flash of pink from the corner of his eye told him that Cherry Quartz was joining the fight, and it didn't take him too long to shift his focus to both of them. He blocked another swing from Angel Quartz, scowling, and slashed his scythe out at Cherry. The rest of the battlefield briefly fizzled to nothing; he heard grunts and snarls and weapons clashing as the rebels and Crystal Gems fought, adrenaline pumping hard through his veins as he fought. Angel slipped around behind him, slamming the blunt end of her pickaxe into his spine before he could turn to face her.
He could have sworn he felt something crack, and pain flushed through him, his entire body rocking with the force of it. Clenching his teeth, the hybrid breathed in and spun around, not waiting for it to subside. He swung at Angel Quartz without really looking, managing to snag her shoulder, and the gem let out a yell and leaped backwards, stumbling a little on her feet as she retreated. Steven rolled his shoulders back, pain subsiding, and turned back to Cherry Quartz.
"What's up, meatball?" Cherry Quartz asked him sweetly, circling around him as she twirled her dagger. Steven turned with her, narrowing his eyes as she stopped beside Angel Quartz, while the blue gem pushed herself up again and tightened her grip on her pickaxe, composing herself.
Steven kept his gaze focused on them, but he didn't miss the pale pink blur approaching from behind them. He narrowed his eyes slightly, twirling his scythe. "Nothing much. 'Sup with you?"
Angel Quartz growled, bared her teeth, and lunged. Steven leaped back and slammed his shield forward as she swung, shoving it against her stomach and sending her flying backwards. He turned to Cherry Quartz completely while Lars, who had jumped into the fight the moment Angel Quartz had lunged, grabbed the pink gem by the hair and swung her around after Angel Quartz, sending them clashing together just as Angel had started pushing herself back to her feet again. The gems screeched as they crashed into each other, falling back to the sand, and he smirked.
"Looked like you needed a hand," Lars commented, sword ready as the gems picked themselves back up. Steven let out a quiet hum of thanks and shifted his gaze around, taking the chance while the other two were busy to check up on the rest of the gems. He caught sight of Amethyst and Pearl fighting side by side; they managed to poof two rebels right off the bat. He also noticed, on the other side of the battlefield the beach had all too quickly become, Berry and Lemon Lime were fighting someone together, Berry up close and Lemon Lime a few feet away, shooting arrows while Berry ran circles around them, dodging attacks and keeping them still. He smirked to himself, just for a second, when Lemon Lime managed to poof them via an arrow through the chest, and turned his attention back to Angel Quartz and Cherry Quartz.
"You," Cherry Quartz growled, eyes on Lars, and the pink human offered a toothy grin. "Traitor."
"Traitor?" Lars scoffed. "Hardly." Then he grinned, glancing at Steven, and the hybrid allowed the corners of his lips to tug upwards as he went on, "you can't betray someone you were never loyal to." He lunged without waiting for a response, slashing his sword down toward Cherry Quartz; while they fought, Steven turned his full attention back to Angel Quartz, ready with his scythe when the blue gem lunged for him. They fought for a moment, trading and dodging blows; Angel Quartz managed to knock him back against part of the broken hand, cornering him against it as she knocked his shield out of the way and slashed down at him, hitting his arm.
The wound took a second to sting; Steven let out a muffled yell through clenched teeth at the impact, and breathed through his nose when the pain set in. He didn't take the time to heal himself yet; he blocked another blow with his shield and swung his scythe backwards, breaking off the top part of the hand he was trapped against so that he could jump backwards over it, effectively putting it between himself and Angel Quartz. Granted, she demolished the rest of it with her pickaxe rather quickly and lunged at him, but he managed to get his bearings by then; he retreated as they fought, and she advanced just as quickly. He couldn't see Cherry Quartz and Lars anymore, and he had to keep looking back to make sure he didn't bump into anyone.
Finally, he managed to turn his scythe and catch the blade of her pickaxe with the handle when she swung at him again. Instead of pushing forward, he pulled; yanking the weapon out of her grip and effectively discarding it in the sand beside him, he spun and slashed at her again. She jumped back from him, the blade coming just inches away from her stomach, and staggered.
"Steven!"
He twitched at the sound of his name, and looked up.
Lars lunged out of nowhere, briefly turning in his direction to toss something to him. He stopped his shield to catch it as Angel Quartz turned to see what the commotion was, and his hands closed around Cherry Quartz's gem just as Lars barreled into the blue gem and sent the two of them tumbling, clashing and rolling across the sand. The pickaxe beside Steven vanished as Angel Quartz summoned another one; the hybrid bubbled Cherry Quartz's gem quickly, sending it to his gem for now, and diminished his shield with a flick of his wrist to summon a new one.
He took a deep breath and turned back to the fight, making his way through the crowd. He lunged at a rebel Candy was fighting - the Pearl was surrounded by like, three of them - and managed to poof them whie Candy took the other two out damn near effortlessly. Briefly, he offered the pink Pearl an amused smile before he turned and prepared to lunge at another rebel - only to freeze, heart plummeting to his stomach, when he heard a sudden, pained scream.
His eyes followed the sound and found Connie, hunched over in the sand with the sword beside her, hands covering her throat. A gem Steven recognized well stood over her, weapon raised.
Tiger's Eye.
He was quick to lunge, and so was Lion; the pink beast went right for the gem, roaring as he knocked her back and away from the human. Steven made a direct beeline for Connie, poofing another rebel that had gotten in his way but not bothering to stop and bubble the gem right then.
The sight of blood pouring through her fingers, held tightly over her throat, was petrifying; she didn't look up as he approached her, and she hardly reacted when he grabbed her and pulled her up against him. He turned, blocking an attack from another rebel, and summoned his shield underneath him and Connie to lift them up into the air with it, using his floating powers to hold it steady in the air. He didn't waste a moment after that, bringing them up into the air swiftly, closer to the beach house and turning to press a kiss to Connie's forehead. She melted against him, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her in response, shifting his foot back against the shield and forcing them to slow before he brought them to the ground. It took a bit of an effort to stop them without completely flinging them off of the shield, and their landing wasn't entirely graceful, but he did manage to swoop down and land them just under the porch, far away from the fight.
He stumbled a bit as they landed, keeping her close. He felt her fingers dig into his shirt, holding on tightly; it took him a good few seconds to force himself to pull away to get a good look at her.
"Let me see," he urged softly, and Connie pulled her hands away from her throat, fingers stained with blood. Steven sucked in a shaky breath, taking her hands carefully and ducking his head to get a better look at where the wound had been. It had closed up and healed over by now, thankfully, but there was still blood on her skin, trickling down, that hadn't even had the chance to dry yet. His stomach twisted sharply, nausea rolling through his gut at the realization that he could have very well just lost her. If he hadn't gotten to her in time, if his healing powers hadn't worked, if the wound had been any deeper, he could have lost her. She could have just died.
He wondered, briefly, if he would have been able to bring her back like he had with Lars.
(Somehow, the thought didn't make him feel any better.)
He tightened his grip on her hands, knuckled turning white; Connie didn't seem to notice. She finally lifted her gaze, having been staring at the blood staining her fingers, and looked up at him again; she looked shaken, visibly shaken, and yet she still managed to whisper, "I'm okay."
Steven shook his head in disbelief. "You could have just-" He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed, taking a deep breath and letting it out through his teeth, rolling his shoulders back.
Connie hesitated and grimaced. "I know."
"This is why I didn't want you…" The hybrid shook his head, frustrated, and pulled away. He looked down at his hands for a moment, smeared with blood - her blood, dammit - then glanced across the ground for his scythe, which he'd abandoned on the ground the moment they landed. He didn't make any move to pick it up yet, careful to rub his hands clean of the blood before he reached down to wrap his fingers around the handle, realizing too late that he was shaking.
After a moment, he summoned another shield and handed it to her. She blinked as she took it, holding it carefully, and Steven let some of the tension ease from his shoulders. Some, not all. "Stay close to me," he ordered sharply, and Connie looked somewhat startled at first, raising her eyebrows up at him for a moment before letting the corners of her mouth tug into a brief smile.
"Okay."
Steven hesitated, glancing back toward the battlefield for a moment, watching the rebels and the gems clash. As the rest of his fear finally dwindled a little bit, he also realized that there weren't nearly as many rebels as there had been the first time around. With a flicker of relief, he noted that the Crystal Gems were doing a hell of a job at driving them back, mostly because they were sticking in teams; Candy, Berry, Lemon Lime and Peridot were fighting against Tiger's Eye and some other rebels now, Amethyst and Pearl were side by side, and Garnet and Bismuth were together taking on Melanite herself. Aqua was tangling with Angel Quartz now at Lars's side, and Spinel had wrapped a rebel up in her arms, effectively trapping them so that the Rutile twins and Rhodonite could poof them. At the moment, he knew, they had the upper hand.
(But he also knew from experience that that could change in an instant.)
Melanite seemed to realize her numbers were dwindling, too; she kept backing off toward her ship whenever she had the chance to, fending off Garnet and Bismuth as best as she could as she tried to retreat. Steven took a deep breath and turned back to Connie, offering her a nod and summoning another shield underneath them. She wrapped her arms around him as he lifted them up into the air, slow and steady, and flew them out from under the porch to rejoin the fight. Landing was, once again, a tricky feat; he dove low enough to the ground where Connie's sword was for her to jump off and grab it again, then looked ahead toward Tiger's Eye and the others; the gem was grinning as she and Candy clashed, slashing her battleaxe down at the pink Pearl carelessly, and Steven gritted his teeth, anger flushing through him, then paused.
He tilted the shield forward, gaining speed as he soared through the air, and crashed himself straight into the gem. He managed to grab a handful of hair, diminishing the shield as they tumbled, and shifted slightly to slam Tiger's Eye under him as they finally skidded to a stop in the sand, pinning the other gem down. He traded his grip on her hair to grab her by the throat instead, raising his scythe, but she was quicker to knock his hand off, kicking him off of her.
The hybrid scrambled back, using his scythe to heave himself up while Tiger's Eye jumped to her feet and summoned her battleaxe again. They clashed, over and over again; she managed to grab him by the shirt with one hand and haul him up off of his feet, throwing him into a rock.
He summoned a shield to take the blow as she slashed down at him, breath hitching.
The shield broke and Tiger's Eye lifted her battleaxe to lash down again. Impulsively, Steven reacted; he looked for the first open spot he could see, and slashed at the same time she did.
The blade struck her gem, and she froze.
He froze, too, but not for the same reason.
Releasing her weapon, the gem staggered back, away from him. The fighting continued to rage on around them; nobody seemed to notice, or care, that the two of them had stopped. Everything else kept moving, but Steven felt frozen in time for a second, rigid where he stood. His back ached, pressed up hard against the rock… no, every part of him ached; the pain spread slowly, a tingling, agonizing sensation. He couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, where it started; he just knew that it was there, that it hurt, and as it began to radiate across his bones, his veins, until every inch of him was consumed in it, he felt his knees go weak, legs buckling underneath him. The scythe slid from his fingers, and, with a flicker, it disappeared.
In front of him, Tiger's Eye stood still with her hand on her cheek, where her gem was. Her form glitched, distorting for a second, and the battleaxe, stuck where it had struck Steven's stomach, vanished with a flicker. Steven stared for a moment, breathing heavily through the pain; the gem simply stared back at him, her wide eyes meeting Steven's gaze steadily, before she poofed.
Her gem fell to the sand, a spiderweb crack spread across it like broken glass seconds away from shattering, and Steven's mind whirled dangerously for a moment as he realized he could have very well just shattered a gem, if he had applied any more force, any more pressure…
Pain spasmed through him abruptly, cutting his thoughts off and eliciting a sharp, startled scream from the hybrid's lips. He covered his mouth and doubled over, one hand twitching down toward his stomach instinctively, and with a start, he realized that was where the source of the pain was. His stomach. Head fogged as he tried to make sense of it, he curled his fingers around his gem tightly, pressing down against it, only to wrench his hand away with another scream when another burst of pain shot through him in the same area, a split-second rush of pure agony that split right through his gem - oh, oh stars, oh stars it was his gem that was hurting like that, his gem was the source of all this pain, something was wrong with his gem-
He groaned, gasping, and squeezed his eyes shut. A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched, violently; the hand retracted at once, startled, then returned tentatively, hesitantly.
"Steven?" Pearl's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "Steven, are you okay?"
"No," Steven moaned, breath coming in harsh spurts through his nose as he struggled to blink his eyes open. Everything was too bright; the world felt hot, like the sun was beating down on him a little too hard, and he could feel the sweat forming on his forehead and the back of his neck. He'd never felt pain like this before; not even with the destabilizers. Tears blurred his vision, and he blinked furiously as he fought to look up, flinching away from the glaring light overhead and instinctively pressing himself closer to Pearl. And then everything got loud; he heard screaming, fighting, weapons and… and he heard gems being poofed, he heard Candy-
Candy screamed, and Berry yelled Lemon Lime's name, and-
The world blacked out for a second, and the sound turned to static, and deafened completely. Pearl moved him a little and he couldn't keep himself from crying out in time, another rush of pain flushing straight through his stomach, and he found himself doubling over, curling in on himself. His hands moved instinctively, closer to his gem but not quite touching, and Pearl froze. She was quicker to move him that time, despite the way he screamed and thrashed against her hold as the pain worsened; she managed to hitch his shirt up just enough to see his gem, and the sound returned when she screamed and whipped her head around, yelling for the others over her shoulder. Through the blur of tears, he saw bright colors flashing, he heard the rumble of the Sun Incinerator roaring to life, he saw pink and heard the familiar thundering of pawsteps as Lion bounded over to them with Connie safe and secure on his back, looking worried.
"What's going on? What happened? Steven-?"
"He's cracked, his gem is cracked," Pearl choked out, "the fountain, we need-"
She moved him again, but he managed to cut his scream off, silencing it to a whimper instead. More hands joined Pearl's in lifting him up, and he huffed and grunted through spasms and bursts of pain as he was lifted up to Lion's back, where Connie's shaking arms held him tight.
"Get to safety," Garnet's voice joined the others as she yelled across the beach, toward where the sound of the ship was. Steven blinked his eyes open again, twisting his head to look. The fusion had joined them, leaving a reluctant Amethyst behind with the others; he blinked the tears from his vision to watch them file into the ship, then swung his gaze around to survey the rest of the beach. The entire area had cleared; no sign of the rebels, or Melanite's ship to be seen.
The world tilted dangerously as Lion roared, the sound too loud to his ears all of a sudden. He leaped forward in the same instant, and Steven bit back another scream from the movement.
He was aware enough to know where they were going.
"Oh, Steven…" He heard Pearl sobbing, quietly, the sound somewhat muffled. He winced, body spasming through another rush of pain, and shuddered in Connie's hold as he struggled to think. He just couldn't think. He was aware, he knew what was happening around him, but he couldn't think clearly. He couldn't think clearly enough to speak or move on his own or look around; his gaze was fixed ahead as they dove through the portal, and Lion bounded forward without pause to bring them closer to the edge of the fountain. Steven's eyes fixed on the statue for only a second before his eyes fell to the water, but only because a pair of strong arms had wrapped around him before they'd completely stopped - they felt like Garnet's arms, honestly - and he was lifted up into the air at an alarming rate, and lowered into the water just as quickly.
The pain halted just like that, all at once, too suddenly for him to process.
Steven wavered, blinked, and collapsed backwards into Garnet's arms as everything shut down.