~Hi again, everybody! Hope you enjoyed the peace and quiet of the last several chapters while it lasted, because we're jumping right into the events of the Steven Universe movie starting. . . now. ~
Dr. Drakken's hand jitters in yours, his feet scuffling across the grass. A crowd has formed in the center of Little Homeworld with the two of you on the outskirts of it, humming in anticipation. Peridot throws you a crinkling grin before she surges like a tidal wave to the front of the group where she will not have to strain to see over wide Quartz shoulders.
From the sky descends a small round machine, its violet metal skin dark and solemn against the wash of gentle blue. The panel that faces you has been hollowed out and filled again with a screen like the one on Peridot's tablet. You recognize it as one of the Diamonds' new broadcasting instruments, repurposed from the detector droids that once scoured the shambles of Homeworld for Gems unauthorized to exist. Even now, gray lines fog across the screen as its scanner senses the multitude of gemstones, and it pushes itself forward to the spot where it can most easily be seen.
"Oooh, this is going to be so exciting to watch! I wish I'd brought some popcorn!" Drakken says, referencing the Earth food that evolves from kernels of corn exposed to harmless levels of radiation. He likes to eat it whenever you watch a movie with him; sometimes you join him, though it often has too much grease for your liking.
You squeeze his hand. "Shh. It's starting now."
The gray fog disappears and the screen comes into focus on the interior of the Diamonds' palace, as majestic as ever even after all that has worn it down. You see White Diamond on her throne at the top of the room, flanked on one side by Yellow Diamond, who actually smiles, and on the other by Blue Diamond, who watches the camera with her eyes shining and tearless.
But it is White Diamond who stuns you the most when the camera travels closer to her face. The stark eyes that can flash over a Gem and wring her essence straight from her, no longer hold the oppressive white heat of Homeworld's atmosphere, though their warmth and intensity remains unchanged, and when the lips as black as Shego's curve upward at the corners, it looks benevolent. Her hands, which you once watched rip Steven's gem from his stomach, lift a book from her lap and rest on its cover, her movements smooth and free.
"Let me tell you a story," White Diamond says, and you realize that it is a request.
She folds back the front cover of the book and begins to read. "Once upon a time, the Gem Homeworld was ruled by Diamonds: White, Yellow, Blue, and the littlest Diamond, Pink."
Hearing emotion in her voice is akin to feeling the approach of rain in a desert.
"While the other Diamonds conquered many worlds across the galaxy, Pink had only one – the planet Earth. One day, Pink fled the comforts of Homeworld. On Earth, she made a new home, new friends, and, finally, new life – giving up her form to bequeath her gem to her half-human son."
You know who will soon appear onscreen, and you don't want to miss it. You unfurl your wings and float a few centimeters above the crowd, low enough that your fingers can still touch Drakken's.
"Without Pink, Gemkind entered an era of despair," White continues. "But when Steven Universe learned of his heritage, he reunited with his fellow Diamonds and championed a new era of peace and freedom across the furthest reaches of space."
A cheer from Peridot manages to outshine all the others.
The camera pulls down to show Steven, grinning at his people and yours across the galaxies. Beneath him flash the words, "Steven Universe: Age Sixteen." It still seems such a small, modest number for having arrived with his restorative touch and healed all the cracks in the Diamonds that they had not even known were there.
You brace yourself for the sound of his voice, deep in the canyon riverbed.
"How's it going, everybody?" Steven says. "Good? I thought so." He chuckles. "I'm sure you've probably noticed that things on Homeworld aren't quite the same as they used to be, and they haven't been for a few years now. Today, the Diamonds and I are proud to officially announce the beginning of Era Three!
"We're printing up some pamphlets that'll explain everything in more detail, but for now, here's the gist of it." You expect him to reach for the notebook in which he was scribbling last night, but he doesn't; he just tucks one hand into the pouch on his jacket and tilts the other one outward. "First of all, the Diamonds aren't going to have absolute authority anymore. They'll still help lead Gemkind, but everyone will get a say in what rules are passed and how they're enforced and stuff.
"With that said, the Diamonds and I do want to issue one final order: No more colonizing other worlds. Unlike most other species, Gems don't ever die of old age, so we don't have as much of a need to, you know, reproduce to keep the population going. The crazy thing is that we were using other worlds to create armies – armies that we wouldn't have needed if we'd just left those worlds alone in the first place."
He speaks with a note of irony that stops before it becomes disdain. You hear Drakken grunt.
"But that doesn't mean everybody's stuck on Homeworld forever, either. Gems are now allowed to go live anywhere they want in the entire universe. Provided they do so peacefully – you know, no messing with the lifeforms that were there first.
"And for those of you who choose to stay on Homeworld, we've got a nice little surprise for you, too. From this point on, all Gems officially have equal rights in the eyes of the Diamonds. No more worrying about who's an Elite or who's a common soldier."
A sigh of relief comes to life in the core of your gem and moves over the rest of you in a swell, slipping out not just from the puff between your lips but in the fluttering of your wings and the slackening of your arms and legs. At last, it is over.
"So, yeah, there are gonna be a lot of big changes going into Era Three, and we're super-excited about them. On that note, we'd like to ask all the Era Two Gems to please report to their respective Diamonds for important news."
Good, you think. They will not be ordered to relinquish their weapons in the presence of snickering Era One Gems who can summon their own.
The camera rotates to find White Diamond's face again. "And now, dear Gems everywhere, I'm pleased to announce that Steven is finally ready to take his place on Pink Diamond's throne!" She gazes down at Steven. If you did not know her, you would say she looks at him with love.
You wonder, then, how much you do know White Diamond.
Steven squints for a moment as though he is in pain, and then his curly head shakes. "I know you might all be thinking of me as the new Pink Diamond, but you don't have to put me on a throne. I already have a rightful place, and it's on Earth."
White Diamond's face falls into a scowl. Yellow Diamond arches her proud neck, and Blue Diamond looks as if she might collapse.
"It's a beach house where I live with my friends, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. And I've got a lot of other Gem and human friends all over Beach City, too!" Steven offers his smile again. "As much as I've loved dismantling the empire and saving all your planets, I can't wait to get home and spend some quality time with my friends."
"Cut the feed!" White Diamond says.
An instant before the picture snaps from the screen, you hear a tinny voice say, "Your time was up anyway." It, and the graceful control of the camera, can only belong to the yellow Pearl.
A cloud of silence hangs over the congregated Gems. It does not surprise you in the least when Bismuth is the first one to disperse it.
"Steven!" Bismuth shoves aside the Gems next to her, her eyes unaware of what her arms have done, and lunges for the transmitter, which she could probably crush in her hands. "Steven, what are they doing to you?"
Her panic begins to spread among the other Gems; you know from Dr. Drakken's whimper that he feels it, and you can feel it too. For that one moment, the Diamonds looked so close to what they used to be.
A long-fingered hand lands on Bismuth's shoulder. "Don't worry, Bismuth," Garnet says. "The Diamonds simply want Steven to continue living with them in the palace. They'll plead with him, and he'll say no, and they will be deeply disappointed but allow him to return to Earth."
You aren't sure whether it is Garnet's strength or her wisdom that detains her friend, but Bismuth gives a slow nod and releases her fists. At this point you don't blame her. Bismuth has more reasons than you do to fear the Diamonds and want to tear their empire to scraps, and you have plenty. The war lives on in the tight set of her body, as you know it sometimes does in yours. That sort of thing is not forgotten in the course of two tides or two journeys around the sun.
Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl climb onto the warp pad and vanish. They will be at Steven's beach house to welcome him home.
When you close your eyes and search, the Diamonds themselves become wells in the earth, waiting to be Injected with your trust so that progress can grow. Trusting Yellow and White Diamond requires digging entirely new holes, but if you are to trust Blue, you must reenter a hole that has been misshapen by water and time. It is easy in some places and nearly impossible in others.
The panic Bismuth introduced does not entirely dissipate until the warp pad sings as it deposits Steven in Little Homeworld. You fly up to him and take his hands in yours; his fingers are longer than yours now, though their thick, comforting texture has not changed. "Steven! You were amazing," you say.
"Thanks!" Steven's eyes are bright, as though the exertion of the day has strengthened rather than wearied him. "It was fun but, boy, does it feel good to be out of the spotlight."
"Such is the life of a hero," Drakken says with a nod.
Bismuth's gaze sweeps the length of Steven's body as if scanning him for injury. "You're okay," she says, with relief if not surprise. "For a minute there, I thought those Diamonds were gonna –"
Steven waves away her words with his hand before they can form a complete thought. "Nah, they wouldn't hurt me anymore. They just tried to guilt-trip me into staying on Homeworld with them because they miss me so much when I'm on Earth. I guess I still really remind them of my mom."
They love him now, you realize. You wonder if that feeling is as odd and exploratory inside them as it was inside you.
"We don't have anybody left to fight anymore," Steven says. "Now we can just live happily ever after."
The moment feels empty, as if you have waded out of a warm sea to find the shore and everything beyond it colder than you remembered it. Happily ever after is among the best ways to end a book, but it seems a poor fit for the world where you live.
You don't say anything, though. You don't want to shadow the glow of satisfaction on Steven's face, not after he has worked and fought and loved so hard to get here.
"So how's Little Homeworld coming along?" Steven asks.
Peridot glances up from her tablet, the skin above her nose puckered in concentration. "According to my calculations, Little Homeworld is 83.7 percent complete as of today."
"Only 83.7?" you say. "We'd better get cracking!" You look at Steven again. "I'd ask if you'd like to stay and help, but I bet you're exhausted."
"Pretty much, yeah." Steven yawns. "Plus, Connie said she'd come over and tell me goodbye before she leaves for Space Camp this afternoon. I'm gonna go home and chill for a while."
"You've earned it," you say.
Steven steps back and, without touching anyone, delivers a smile that embraces all of you. He makes his way to the warp pad, and any worry dematerializes with him. Fear is an obsolescent piece of technology in this new era.
Drakken's breath releases in a contented gust. "Oh," he says as Bismuth turns to walk back to her crane. "I sure do love a good redemption story. As a former supervillain who tried many times to conquer the Earth, you know."
Bismuth's foot stops above the ground, and she twists to face Drakken again. "Right. I keep forgetting that. Kinda hard to picture you that way."
You watch Drakken inhale Bismuth's words and try to determine whether they are complimentary or not. His mouth begins to move before his eyes have come to a decision. "But I was, cross my heart! Ohh, you should have seen all the schemes I came up with. Mind-controlling people through shampoo! Stealing the Great Lakes to power up a weather machine that I had also stolen! Pointing a top-secret government weapon at major cities when I didn't even know what it did! Why, once I even stole candy from a baby."
Peridot turns her attention from her tablet again. "Infants do not possess the mandibular strength required to safely consume candies. You were completely in the right to confiscate it."
You snort, but Drakken doesn't laugh with you. He shakes his head. "Well, thank you for that – err – vote of confidence, Peridot, but most people, you know, native to Earth consider taking candy from a baby to be the laziest and most unnecessary act of evil one can possibly perform." His voice doesn't waver the way it did at the rehearsal dinner but his eyes do, darting to meet yours and then not letting go. "And all the ways I tried to destroy my arch-nemesis, Kim Possible! I'd even invented this machine I called a 'Juvinator' so that just in case humanity ever cracked the secret to time travel, I could turn myself into a preschooler and go back to torment her when she was young and vulnerable."
Bismuth chuckles, the sound of an oil spring rising to the surface. "Oh, I would've loved to see you try," she says. "I'd bet anything you were not a scary-looking kid."
Drakken blinks at you.
"She's right," you say. "You were probably adorable."
Two replicas of Steven's gemstone take shape on Drakken's cheeks. They are almost the same color as the spaceship that sails by a moment later, so low to the ground it blows the grass to the side. It must be another immigrant coming to stay at Little Homeworld, though it seems peculiar that she would not use the warp pad. Perhaps the one on Homeworld has been damaged somehow.
"Hhhgg-heh. Well, be that as it may," Drakken says, "most of my schemes were definitely un-adorable." A shudder turns his stomach to a cave, and he clamps his arms around it.
Peridot sets her tablet down and creeps across the grass toward Drakken. "Fascinating. So unlike, say, me, you were aware that you were not good?"
"Oh, was I ever." Drakken's stare appears to pass through Peridot and drift away to someplace only he can access. "I'd brag to anyone within earshot how evil I was. I was proud of it. Even so –"
"Even so what?" Peridot says.
"There was this program I discovered in my early days of supervillainy. It came on every Christmas – The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank."
You smile into the back of your hand. You have heard him extol Snowman Hank, a fictional being composed of snow packed into a series of globes stacked atop one another, with a smooth red stone for a nose and a voice that, according to Drakken, could calm white-water rapids.
"Snowman Hank was the most iconic representation of the holiday season that I can imagine," Drakken says. "And he was all about the power of friendship and love and turning bad guys good."
"Ah," Bismuth says.
"So I think there was a part of me that wanted to be good. But I also hurt so much," Drakken says. His ears pull back, and as hyperbolic as the expression is, there is nothing comical about it. "And I wanted to stop hurting more than I wanted to be good."
You remember the man you saw in the footage of the Diablo battle, his eyes burning hot and cold simultaneously, and you wonder if that was how that man always felt: both too hot and too cold, unable to become comfortable no matter which direction he shifted or which posture he assumed.
Your back grows tight. "I think we've all been there," you say. "At least, I know I have."
Bismuth bobs her head absently.
Drakken continues, too absorbed in his story to ask any questions. "Having the power to hurt other people made me feel better for a little while. But the problem with seeking happiness through evil – well, one of about nine thousand problems – is that it's so chemically unstable. One minute you've got a productive mixture that gives you the result you want, and then the next it stops working, and then it works again, and then all of a sudden it turns radioactive and almost kills everyone."
His hands clench together in his lap. You doubt he is exaggerating this time.
"And then eventually," he says, "you realize that it's too dangerous an element to be messing around with."
Peridot nods as if she has understood every word. "And the only way to stabilize the solvent was to reverse the polarity and join the Crystal Gems – I mean, become good."
"Exactly!" Drakken says.
Bismuth leans closer to you, and you don't slide away. "These two are something else, aren't they?" she says.
"Definitely," you say. "Something weird – and great."
The salted breeze sets Bismuth's vines of hair dancing, yet otherwise, briefly, she is as silent and still as the statue atop Rose's fountain that marks her place of healing. Drakken's words bob like buoys, Peridot's paddling to keep up with them, and over and beneath it all, you can sense the ocean within you, its rhythm peaceful and true.
"Well, I guess I better get back to work." Bismuth stands and wipes her palms on the fabric that covers her hips. "If Little Homeworld is gonna have visitors today, I want them to be able to see it eighty-four percent complete."
She winks and strides toward her crane once again. Peridot shoots behind her on the trash can lid that has become her individual hovercraft. It dips from side to side as she watches Bismuth's crane lift a metal beam and lay it across the incomplete roof of a squat house.
"Does that fit, Tiny?" Bismuth calls. "It's not too long, is it?"
"Negative. It is precisely the correct length. And even if it wasn't, I could just crunch it until it fit anyway," Peridot says.
"No! No crunching!" Bismuth says. The words strike like small fists, quickly and with force behind them, and Dr. Drakken throws an arm in front of you as though to deflect them. "I mean, thanks, Peridot," Bismuth says, her tone softening, "but sometimes you have to do things the hard way."
Peridot lets out a sigh you can hear even from the ground.
Drakken relaxes and then gapes at the building, taller than any other, next to the house Peridot and Bismuth are constructing. "You guys have gotten the tower finished since I was here last, I see!"
"Yeah." You grin at him. "Want to see it up close?"
"Do I ever!"
Drakken holds out his arms, and you clamp your fingers around his wrists and fly to the top of Little Homeworld's central tower. He makes a sound of excitement, more like a gurgling whale than his mother's trilling dolphin.
You set him down on the firm, level roof. He gazes around him: at the raised walls that delineate the four sides, each trimmed with a piping of inanimate Earth stone that Bismuth has carved into notches, and the slim stalk rising from a divot in the roof's center, another pole laid lengthwise across it to form a junction; at either end sails shaped like leaves but made from wood spin in the wind, like the vane-of-weather that used to adorn the top of the barn.
"Oooh. What does this do?" Drakken tilts his head at the spinning mast, his black eyes blissful with the discovery of something to ponder.
You shrug. "I'm not sure it does anything. I think it might just look cool."
"That it does," Drakken says with a nod. "That it does, indeed!"
He wanders over to one of the walls and looks down on Little Homeworld from over the notched trim. You are close behind; it isn't easy to topple from the tower, but if anyone can find a way to do it, it will be Drakken. "You know, I always imagined having a tower like this in my palace once I'd taken over the world – oh, no."
At first, you think it is just the darkness of the memory that tugs his eyebrow into a frown, but then he points across the meadow. "There's a car parking there. Wait a minute – Gems don't have cars, do they? I didn't think so," he says when you shake your head. "Something here isn't normal."
A short laugh forms in your throat at the idea that there has ever been anything of normalcy about Little Homeworld, and then you take a closer look. Greg's van sits, stationary, on the grass. The door across from the operator's side opens and Steven spills out as though in a daze, his face bewildered and pinker than ever. An instinct that has gone unused for years emerges and startles your powers to life, and you jerk your eyes around, searching for the threat.
To your relief and puzzlement, you don't find one. The three Gems who exit the van are Amethyst, Ruby, and Sapphire; they are joined by a fourth Gem, whom you don't recognize, her hair bound above her head in two bobbing knots the same color as the ship that passed by earlier. She must have been the one who brought it to Earth.
Drakken leans closer to you, his body a tense thin string. "Ggghhhh…I don't like this."
You reach out a hand to steady and cool his nervous warmth, your eyes on Ruby and Sapphire. It always seems odd to see them unfused, but that does not alarm you. Since the healing of the Corruptions, Ruby and Sapphire have grown more comfortable with spending time apart. Yet Ruby marches forward, eyes ahead, and Sapphire floats, each acting as if they do not see the other, as if the other does not exist.
Drakken was right. This isn't normal.
"Come on." You take Drakken's wrists in your hands again. "Let's go find out what's going on."
You swoop from the top of the tower. Drakken whimpers until his feet touch the ground again, and you don't think it is because of the height.
Ruby's arms are straight as tree branches at her sides, and Sapphire's hands meet in serenity at her waist. No one unacquainted with them would see anything amiss.
The back doors of the van come open with a blast of a horn, and the sound feels like someone has touched your gem with icy fingers. A thick, lengthy carpet unrolls from the opening to the ground, marking the grass in elegant red. Pearl hops over the carpet, her lissome legs swinging widely to the side as though to ensure the tips of her slippers never touch it. She bows, and when she straightens again, she says, "Announcing the arrival of My Um Greg Universe."
A song still runs through her words, but is it not her song.
Greg steps from the van, looking every bit as pink-cheeked and uncomfortable as his son, his shoes wincing across the carpet. "I have no idea what's going on…" he mutters.
"That makes two of us," Drakken says.
"Three," you add, and your eyes fall to Amethyst, who has not spoken at all since she climbed out of the van. Her hair, you see now, curves to a stop at her chin like yours and it is smooth, not the typical rough Quartz torrent down her back. Rather than hanging with their usual carelessness, her limbs are sectioned and jointed, rigid as a plastic toy's. She stares across the meadow and her gaze is motionless and empty, like an uninhabited planet or a pond that has never known ripples – not a peaceful expression but an unsettling one.
You realize with a flash of surprise that you recognize this Amethyst. This is the Amethyst whom Rose Quartz first brought home from the abandoned Kindergarten she went to inspect all those thousands of years ago, when you lived behind glass.
Footsteps beat the ground behind you as Bismuth sprints toward the van. At the sight of Pearl, she comes to a halt so abruptly that blades of grass tear free and litter the air. One lands in Drakken's mouth, and he coughs and gasps as he tries to scrape it from his tongue and yet you know everything is silent and invisible to Bismuth.
"Pearl?" she says, pain leaking through her voice.
Pearl gazes up at her with a polite smile. "Yes, how may I help you?"
You watch the columned muscles in Bismuth's throat work as she swallows air.
Drakken pokes you in the side. "I don't like this," he says, almost whining. "This isn't the way Pearl is supposed to act."
You shake your head. The frightening thing is that only years ago on Homeworld, this would be exactly the way Pearl was supposed to act.
A trash can lid sails up beside you, and Peridot pitches from it onto the grass; she loses no time jumping to her feet and waving. "Hi, Amethyst!" she calls.
Amethyst waves back, her eyes still empty. "Hi, Amethyst," she repeats without inflection.
Peridot thrusts her hands to her tiny hips. "No, silly, you're Amethyst!"
"No, silly, you're Amethyst," Amethyst says.
"That is incorrect! I am Peridot. You are Amethyst."
"That is incorrect. I am Peridot. You are Amethyst," Amethyst says.
Peridot takes a step backward and extends her hands. "Are you making fun of me? Please tell me you're making fun of me!"
Amethyst raises her hands, mimicking Peridot, and the gesture has no more tone than the words. "Are you making fun of me?" she says. "Please tell me you're making fun of me."
Peridot's pain cannot go deeper than Bismuth's, but the inappropriateness of it, as though a Nova Blaster has misfired and razed a defenseless target, is so great you have to look away.
The world around you begins to narrow and cloud, and you focus on Steven, the only definition in the fog. "What happened, Steven?" you make yourself ask.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out!" Steven says. His eyes are wild and wailing for help. "I went home, and Pearl and Amethyst and Garnet and I were all just chilling, and then she showed up."
He nods to the unfamiliar Gem behind him. She is smaller than you, but not by much, and though you know she is built from light just as you are, her body seems to have been made of a thinner, more flexible variant of light than yours, one that does not bother to behave like organic material. Even as you watch her legs elongate, lifting her above Steven's height, and her arms twist and curl so that her hands loll, off-center with her wrists. She offers a smile full of teeth and energy, like Drakken's.
"Um, excuse me? Quick question?" Drakken raises his hand. Petals have slipped out under each of his ears, and yet he makes no move to pick them off, pointing instead over Amethyst's head at the contorting Gem. "Are we supposed to know who she is? Because sometimes I meet people and then forget about them, and it's always really embarrassing…"
"No," Steven says. "I've never seen this Gem before in my life!"
"Okay, good," Drakken says. "Well, I mean, not good, of course. More like one less thing for me to worry –"
Steven interrupts him. "She pulled out some kind of weapon and poofed Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl." His voice caves, nothing like the strong mature voice that spoke to the galaxy just a few hours ago. "When I ran up to her, she stabbed me with it –"
You want to gasp but can't.
"– which really hurt for a few minutes, but then I was okay. And she said, 'You don't poof, huh?' and I said, 'I guess not.' And she said, 'Well, it doesn't really matter. Your human half won't last long anyway.'
"And that really scared me, so I grabbed her thingy and poofed her. Then I took all the gemstones back to the house and called Dad." He motions to Greg, who still stands at the rear of the van with Pearl nearly attached to him. "When the rest of the Crystal Gems came back, they came back like this. And she came back like that."
"And just like that, she's stopped trying to hurt you?" Peridot says. "It took me months to get to that point!"
"Even took me a few days," Bismuth says.
"What about you, Lapis?" Steven looks up at you, and some of the terror in his eyes parts to reveal his old spark of curiosity. You wish it could stay a while longer.
"Who says I ever stopped?" you say with a snort, and you reach out and tousle his curls, hoping it will make him laugh. It doesn't.
"And ever since then, I've been feeling weird," Steven says.
"Good weird or bad weird?" Drakken takes one look at Steven's face and answers his own question. "Bad weird. Okay. Sorry. Just making sure."
"Weak," Steven says. "And Dad had to drive me here because I couldn't get the warp pad to work." He lets out a growl of frustration, a sound you have not heard often from him. "So now I'm stuck here, and I have no idea what she did, or why, or even who she is!"
You glance at the Gem again as she balances on her hands and then throws her body forward, arms springing behind her. She looks harmless, as if she cannot be the catalyst, the one who has taken thousands of years of friendships and turned them to ash. Though you know some Gems are cruel beneath crusts and mantles of cuteness, even as you look at her more deeply you cannot see anything in her body language or her eyes that speaks of a threat.
Peridot, too, appears to have recovered enough to make a study of the Gem. "Well, clearly she is a Spinel of some sort."
Of course. You know of Spinels: Gems uncommon but not highly valued, watched for entertainment as though they are living episodes of Camp Pining Hearts. All the signs are there; the gem fastened to her chest is the shape of a heart, and she moves with a comic grace, knowing how to bend without snapping. Shame warms your cheeks as you realize you never looked closely enough at any Spinel who performed at the Diamonds' balls to identify her now.
"Yep," the Spinel says. "That's me. Your new best friend – Spinel!" She winks and sticks out her tongue.
"Hi, Spinel," you say when Steven doesn't. You sigh. "Now this makes even less sense."
Spinel shrugs. "Wish I could help ya."
You wish so, too. You cannot understand why a Spinel would attack the boy who officially liberated her today. Why would she not be celebrating? Where would she have gotten a weapon at all?
"This weapon she used," Bismuth says. "Can I see it?"
"Yeah, I brought it in the van. Hang on a sec." Steven dashes back to the van and returns moments later with an object in his hands. Its handle is long, thin, and metallic and its blade a sharp flash of silver, angled for slicing. You have seen illustrations of harvesters wielding similar weapons in Peridot's farming books and you have seen one ghost without a head or body wielding it in Steven's ghost books. Peridot steps toward it and runs a hand along the base of its handle, and you grab the back of her shirt and yank her away from it as Steven holds it out to Bismuth.
"I was afraid of this." Bismuth pinches the weapon between her fingers as though it is a thing of filth and rot. "It's a Rejuvenator."
Dr. Drakken's hand meets his forehead, confusion and excitement on every bend on his face. "A Juvenator? Egad! My technology has gone intergalactic?"
"No. It's not a Juvenator; it's a Rejuvenator. And you didn't build it." Bismuth's jaw sets, hard as Topaz. "I did."