Chapter 2
"...run."
Garnet's remaining eye rolled to the back of her head as her form vanished into a cloud of mist, her gems thudding into the sand on either side of Steven. He looked up in horror to see a striking silhouette perched atop the statue, backlighted by the flames of the crash.
Burning pink eyes stared back at him. The figure's wild hair flared out on both sides of her otherwise rounded face, framed by spiked sleeves. Both of her gloved hands grasped the handle of the scythe that was still lodged in the stone of the statue, directly below her. With a grunt, she yanked it free, and deftly twirled it through the air until it came to rest, balanced over her shoulder. In the dark of dusk, its bright pink blade shone to reveal black stripes running vertically down her face, and a large, faceted gem in the center of her chest.
Behind him, Pearl screamed in horror. Steven felt her and Amethyst leap to his side, but his terrified gaze was locked with the figure smiling down at them.
Her pitchy, singsong voice rang loud and clear.
"Are you Steven Universe?" Steven shakily and almost imperceptibly nodded, not thinking his voice capable of working in that moment, but too shocked to resist. The pink gem chuckled, "Perfect."
Amethyst shrieked out behind him, the fear evident in her voice. "What do you think you're doing, you psychopath? Leave!" A mischievous gleam entered the pink gem's eyes as she stealthily snaked an arm down to the beach and wrapped it around Amethyst's foot. The smaller gem cried out as she was lifted high above the ground and flung into the air. One of the villain's feet flew at her, sending her sprawling form crashing into the face of the temple, hundreds of feet away.
The gem's limbs shrunk back to normal as she hopped down from her perch and stepped menacingly forward. Next to him, Pearl whipped her trident-spear from her gem and aimed it fiercely at their assailant. Steven shakily stood and backed away, letting Pearl take position in front of him.
He didn't want to believe what was happening. Not even an hour ago, they were all so content. Things were finally okay. He was finally okay. Why was this happening?
A bright flash and a metallic clang brought him out of his head and back into reality. The pink gem was wildly swinging her glowing scythe at Steven's protector, and she in turn parried each attack with her weapon's handle. The toxic pink light shining from the scythe blurred in the quickly darkening dusk.
Pearl's high, soft voice struggled above the sound of the fight, and between sharp breaths, she bit out "What on earth are you doing here? Why are you attacking us? And why do you look like that?!"
Her attacker only laughed in response, dodging all of Pearl's shaky lunges easily. She appeared like a gymnast as she flipped and twirled through the air to new vantages.
"Pearl, you know her? Can you tell me who she is?" Pearl didn't answer; her focus was completely on her opponent as they danced and skirted around each other.
He was caught completely off guard when one of the pink gem's arms wrapped around his throat, squeezing his windpipe and lifting him above the sand.
"Who am I?!" the gem cried in an accusatory tone from ten feet away, on the other side of Pearl. How she was fighting Pearl with just one arm he had no clue, but that worry slipped from his mind as he struggled to breathe in her grasp. His legs kicked wildly in the air below him and his fingers clawed at the gem's skin, but her grip only tightened.
He emitted a terrible, choked cry of pain, which was cut off abruptly as his throat ominously cracked. His legs stopped their fighting and his arms dropped to his sides, limp. Through half-lidded eyes, he saw Pearl's head snap in his direction, her face contorting in devastation. That moment had been all the pink gem was waiting for. Pearl turned and dropped to her knees, staring up in horror at Steven's suspended corpse.
She didn't seem to notice the scythe pass through her lithe form one, two, three times. Three glowing pink gashes that grew to consume her entire body. Poof.
Steven's eyes rolled back just as a small, purple blur barreled in.
His body dropped to the ground as his assailant was forced into another battle. His head flopped into a strange, skewed angle that just felt…wrong. A gentle pink glow began to emanate from beneath his t-shirt. Through the whip cracks and shouts of the fight raging on fifty feet away from him, Steven's head slowly moved of its own accord, dragging through the sand. It reconnected to the bone with a click, and his mind instantly erupted in a splitting headache. He groaned loudly and curled in on himself, wrapping his arms protectively over his face. Tears escaped his eyes and rolled into the sand as the pressure mounted, and blood began trickling out of his nose. His gem was healing his broken neck, he realized.
Amethyst screamed out in rage somewhere near him, but he couldn't force his teary eyes open, nor could he shift his body from the tight ball he was curled into. For what felt like hours, he lay there, his own blood and tears soaking the sand below him.
A body slammed onto the ground right next to him, and through a crack in his arms, he saw Amethyst on her back, both of her hands gripping the pointed shoe that was planted firmly on her chest, right over her gem. With a crazed gleam in her eye, the pink gem held the scythe above her head with both arms, cackling with glee. Steven cried out as the weapon, almost in slow motion, moved in an arc down towards his only remaining guardian. On instinct alone, his arm shot out to protect her. He summoned his shield onto her body, then flung the gem off of her. She flew, then skidded to a halt near the shore.
Amethyst rolled onto her elbows exhaustedly. She rose, then stumbled back onto her knees. Steven's arm dropped into the sand, and he let out a shallow breath.
"Are you okay dude? I saw you…a-and then you fell!"
Steven blinked slowly up at her, "I don't know…I really just don't know." He forced his sore body up, and looked past Amethyst. The pink gem was marching towards them, her fingers curled into claws and her face contorted in a snarl. He pointed with a shaky hand. "Look."
Amethyst stood, and growled, "This ends now." She summoned her jewel encrusted weapon, and flung it out behind her. Her face was set in stone as she ran towards the pink gem, snapping her whip at her face.
The mysterious attacker's eyes didn't leave Steven's face as she grabbed the whip's end with both gloved hands and pulled. Steven watched in horror as Amethyst was swung around and thrown out to sea. Her form grew comically smaller and smaller as she shot out towards the horizon, out of sight.
Alone with the pink gem, Steven panicked. He crawled back in the sand as she continued to march at him, her gleeful smile getting bigger with each step. She held the toxic pink scythe aloft at her side, with crackles of electricity sparking off of its edges.
She stopped just in front of him, looking down her nose at his trembling form on the ground. She let out a dramatic sigh of relief. "Finally, just the two of us!"
Steven frantically looked around for Garnet and Pearl's gems nestled in the sand. His breath caught in his throat when he saw them, completely immobile. His wide-eyed gaze shot back to the gem in front of him.
She laughed. "Oh, they're not coming back for a while; not after I hit them with this!" She deftly twirled the weapon in the air, smiling toothily. She cried with glee as she brought the scythe straight down on his head, then through his chest, and again through his neck. She stepped back to admire her handiwork.
The pain was indescribable. Flames and electricity tore through his being, burning away his insides. He was blinded by the tears that sprang into his eyes, and he realized numbly that he was screaming. He wanted to escape into nothing, to disappear, but his human body wasn't allowing him to poof. His skin tore and repaired itself over and over; he thought of the lightning streaking through Garnet and Pearl before they disappeared. At least he was able to save Amethyst from this. His throat was raw and sore as he dropped to the ground, heaving for breath between cries of pain. His clothes were soaked in blood from the wounds that wouldn't stop opening all over his body. He lay twitching on the ground, staring up at the pink gem as she watched with enjoyment.
"When I snapped your little neck, I figured you would poof. But, you know what? I'm glad you can't. This is so much more fun."
Steven's breath shuddered as he whispered "please…why?"
She gasped, and a brightness came over her face. She appeared to not have heard him at all. "I know! Since you're so much fun, you're gonna be my new toy!"
Her arms whipped out and wrapped around his still shaking body, dragging him across the beach. She carried him, bleeding and crying, to the temple of glass she had built upon her arrival. Her legs stretched impossibly to carry them to the top of a spire. Looking down, Steven saw what had carried this evil to them. Steaming in the center of the crater lay a large, pink sphere. A robonoid, he remembered. Like Peridot's.
A splashing sound caught his attention, and he snapped his head to the right to see Amethyst, struggling through the waves as fast as she could.
"Amethyst!" His hoarse voice couldn't carry all the way out to her, but he knew she could see him perched on the tower of glass, captive.
"Hush! She can't hear you, anyways. She won't make it in time, either." His captor bounced down onto the robonoid, placing her free palm flat on its smooth, pink surface. A small, square door opened on the top, and he was dragged inside. The opening closed behind them. She left him wrapped in her arm as she sat at the control center, logging their destination into the system. She was taking too long, however, with only one arm, so she tsked as she unfurled her arm from him and began typing frantically.
Seizing his only chance, Steven jumped up and banged on the wall where the door had just disappeared. The pink gem whirled around in her seat, snarling. "What do you think you're doing?! You CAN'T leave me!"
Her fist flew and hit him squarely on his jaw, and he hit the wall behind him, sliding down into darkness.
o0o0o0o0o
Panting, she waded through the waves pounding her towards the shoreline. Towards Steven. She watched him disappear behind a glass spire, taken by the pink gem that had poofed Garnet and Pearl.
Amethyst raced down the beach once she escaped the water, hoping and praying she could make it before Steven was lost. She was almost there.
Suddenly, a bright pink light flashed from inside the glass temple. The light rose up, shining through the spires like prisms, casting spectrums of moving light all over the beach. The source of the light broke above the glass, and was revealed as a glowing pink orb. It rose up about 50 feet, then shot back through the clouds, the same way it came.
Amethyst ran to the base of the crater, and peeked between two glass columns.
No Steven.
o0o0o0o0o
Black. He felt a cool embrace pressing in on him from all sides, almost crushing him. He could hear sporadic cracks and booms from above and all around him.
The others…
The others like him, they were emerging. What was it like, out there? What would the others look like, be like?
He started as a resounding crack issued just above him, followed by an ear-splitting explosion. He had no chance to think as the splitting of the rock reached him, and the earth around him opened up. He fell down the widening gap with a faint clink, clink, clink. The pressure that had subdued him for all those years had suddenly vanished; he had just a moment's rest at the bottom before his entire form exploded into a blinding white light.
…
He was on fire. Steven awoke with a gasp. The image of searing light was burned into his retinas, leaving him blinded in his dim surroundings. His face and body ached, and his head was pounding. What was that dream about? He moved to sit up but froze when he realized that his feet…he rubbed his eyes to adjust. His feet were stuck.
"Wh..what?" He pulled himself into a sitting position and squinted downwards. Something was holding him, growing up from the cold, stone floor. He splayed his hands out in the darkness to feel the weaving tendrils tightly wrapped around his ankles, tangled in the straps of his red flip-flops. The woody texture of the constraints confounded him. He mumbled to himself.
"Are these…roots?"
"You betcha." The snarky reply reverberated along the walls of the chamber, as did the hysterical cackle that followed. Steven's captor stepped into the dim lighting of his prison, smirking haughtily.
The sound of her laughter mingled with the echoes of Steven's cry of fear. Adrenaline flew him up to his feet, but the roots he stood on almost toppled him back over. He flung his arms out for balance, nearly twisting his ankle to stay upright. The pink gem's eyes flicked down to the roots holding him, then back up to his eyes, her grin widening.
Silence rang through the chamber as Steven attempted to steady his shaking.
"Please, there must be a misunderstanding! I-I've established peace across the galaxy-"
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard" the gem cut in, "I've had your little 'message to the universe' on loop. Going on and on about your stupid friends and your bullshit happily ever after! That's all that whole message was, Pink. Bullshit!" Her grin dropped, and Steven realized with horror that he was about to pay for another terrible thing his mom did.
I am not my mom.
Steven cried out desperately, "But wait! Listen, I'm not Pink Diamond-"
"I don't care! Pink? Steven? It doesn't matter. You have her gem, that's all I need to know." She growled as she stepped forward, baring her teeth. She stabbed a gloved finger at his chest. "When I'm done with you…no one; not your Diamonds, not your Earth friends, not even Steven Universe will be able to recognize you. You. Will. Be. Nothing."
Steven swallowed thickly before responding, weighing his options.
"D-did Pink Diamond hurt you? I can help! You're not the only one she hurt-"
A sharp crack to his cheek sent him sprawling onto the stone ground. He dizzily noted a bright circle of light high above him before her thin arms snaked around him and pulled him back up to face her. His arms were pinned down to his sides as he watched the crazed gem move inches within his face.
She shouted, shaking him with each syllable. "You would know all about her life without me, huh? Rub it in, why don't ya!" She dropped him in a heap on the ground, and turned to leave.
His head hit the ground with a sickening thud that made his eyes water. He gasped out, "Please…I can help you. Please just… tell me…who are you?" Her retreating footsteps ceased, and the pink gem stepped back in his direction. He blearily opened his eyes to see her standing over his prone form, her wild hair silhouetted by the strange light from above.
"Who am I?" Her voice shook with rage. She knelt down and grabbed a fistful of his curly hair. Steven's eyes watered and he hissed in pain as she pulled him up, up, up, until he felt the roots strain and tighten around his feet. Through watery eyes, he saw his captor's face cast in shadow as she spat,
"I am…the end of your story."
The solid ground rushing towards him was the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness with a crack.