Chapter 8: Tigereye, Act 2

The small human female fell to the ground. She was not dead yet, but she didn't need to be. Those damages would probably kill her, but no need to make sure. She wasn't one of her preys. Just the green and the blue ones. But there had been something with those small humans… they unsettled her.

They had appeared from thin air in a blue pillar of light. Just that was alarming. She had never seen any humans or anything else for that matter do something like that. Then there was something off about the two of them. The way the female walked, her stance, the sharp metal thing on her back… she was a fighter. A human that could fight? She may have this new strength, but even she realized a human like that would be dangerous.

Then there was the round male. He didn't look or sound dangerous. But the light breeze had carried his scent to her. And he didn't smell like any human she had met before. There was still the sweet and bitter smell of the poisons humans like to bathe in, some sour stench of sweat, expected on a warm day. But beneath the surface, another scent lied. The natural' human smell was a pretty boring one. It was… dry, not very exciting. Not this one. His scent was not dry, it was alive.

She didn't understand why, but the scent made her afraid. It shouldn't, it was actually a quite nice smell. So why was it also telling her to flee?

The feeling had only gotten worse when the male came running to the female when the smell got closer and stronger. There was a stab of pain in her head.

He must die too.

He stopped at the female's side. Just outside range. The female had kept right on the edge of how far her ability could reach. Which was why she had to throw the last thorn at her, rather than form it from the water in her body. Now, she was completely outside reach, and so was the male. If she wanted to kill him, she needed to get closer.

She told her body to move, to creep closer so she could get rid of the danger. But her body refused to follow her commands. Something was blocking her.

She didn't have time for this! The female was still conscious. Any time, she would tell the male where the attack had come from. The female had stopped a thorn with the sharp metal thing with little problem. If the male was even half as dangerous as her senses were telling her, then…

She focused her new strength on the plants around her. She pulled on the small drops of water inside them, forcing them outside. The plants died quickly, becoming only dry husks. The water flowed through the air and formed three thorns, becoming hard water. The male still hadn't looked towards the field of tall plants. He was still occupied with the female.

She narrowed her eye and focused on the male. Her aim had been off last time. She had wanted to hit the female's leg, but the thorn had hit higher. Now that the male was kneeling down, she had to make sure the shot wasn't too high this time, lest they fly over his head…

There! He turned around, looking right at the field she was hiding in. Right then, as he turned, she threw the spikes with all her new strength. Even if he had time to see them coming, it was too late to escape.

She wasn't sure what happened next. Only that there was a light, and that her thorns shattered against a pink round thing the male held on his arm. What had happened? He hadn't been holding it before she threw the thorns, but now it was there. Where did it come from? The female had been carrying her sharp pink metal thing on her back, but the male hadn't been carrying anything.

Was he… was he like her? Did he also have the same strength as she and her master?

The place where her eye used to be stung like a bee. The pain brought her back to the moment. It didn't matter where he had gotten the shield from. All that mattered was that he died.

She considered all of her options. She pushed her new intelligence to the limits of what she had thought possible. She had only moments of time. Who knew what else the young male might do? She had to come up with something, and fast.

Whatever his pink round thing was, it had stopped her thorns. As far as she could see, there were no scratches on the thing. Nor had the male budged when they hit. It was like the thorns had just been small insects trying to break a metal monster by flying into it. And the way he was looking into the field where she was hiding, it was obvious trying to throw more thorns at him from here wouldn't work. She could try to form thorns from the grass around him… no, pulling the water and gathering it into a thorn would take too long. He would notice. And her body still refused to move closer.

Then she remembered something. The stomach stuff the female had vomited up was full of water, and it was still within range. And the way the male held the pink round thing… If she timed it right and put enough power and speed behind it…

She poured her new strength into the puddle. She had to form, harden and throw the thorn, all at the same time. Or else it wouldn't work. One blink… no, half a blink of the eye. That was all the time she had.

There! The male looked back down at the female. He was… licking his hand? Why was he grooming himself now?

It didn't matter why. Because the moment he lowered his guard, he was a dead human. A sharp thorn of hard water exploded from the human vomit, aimed straight at the human's head. His death would be instant. There was no way he could survive. This was her victory!

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Lapis stopped the spike just before it reached Steven's head. She hadn't been sure what it was that had bugged her at first. Obviously, the human Connie being hurt was one of them. But something else had tickled the back of her mind. A feeling that something was wrong. Now she knew what it was. Someone was manipulating water in her presence.

She had felt it when the icicles came flying out of the cornfield, and then when the water in… whatever the disgusting stuff on the ground was had done the same thing. A power like hers, but different. For one thing, it was weaker. Much, much weaker. Which whoever was attacking her home and friends was soon going to find out.

A new set of icicles formed inside the field… her field. Her and Peridot's crops were destroyed as the attacker formed a few more puny ice crystals to hurl at them. Lapis stopped them too just before they could reach Steven and Connie. With a thought and a flick of the hand, the melted and evaporated into the atmosphere, beyond the enemy's reach.

"Hey Connie, are you okay?" Lapis turned to her one-and-a-half human friends. She didn't really know anything about the human body, other than it was fragile, needy and broke easily. And that if it was too damaged, the human would die and never come back.

"S-soon," Connie grunted. "I just… ow!… I just gotta wait for the… ouch…. for healing to finish."

A new array of spike emerged from the field. Trying to take advantage of her being distracted? That tactic would be useless now that Lapis knew how and from where they were coming. The only reason she hadn't finished this already was that she wanted to make sure Connie was okay. Speaking of whom, something strange was happening to the little human.

Her body was surrounded by a soft pink aura. Small sparks of yellow electricity crackled around her hands and stomach, where pieces of hardened water had stabbed her. The ice melted into back into water, and the holes closed back up. Huh. So Steven could heal humans too, and not just gems? That probably came in handy considering how easily injured humans were.

Connie wheezed and sat back up, rubbing her hands. She looked like a mess, red human-water all over her and a huge tear in her shirt. Her voice was still shaking, but she was smiling.

"S-see? I'm all b-better now!" She made one of those 'thumbs-up' signs Garnet liked to do. Then her eyes widened again, and she grabbed Steven's hand. "But we need to get out of here! This thing… it can turn the water inside our bodies into spikes! Steven, we can't get any closer!"

"Yeah, you should probably back off," Lapis butted in. "These icicles are no problem, but I don't know if I can stop them from forming inside your bodies… at least not without damaging something myself. Don't worry, I can take care of this myself."

"Excuse me…" Peridot piped up "…but could someone explain to me what in the stars is going on!?" She was by Connie's and Steven's side too. A collection of metal objects had been dragged behind her out of the barn. That sometimes happened when she got upset. After a particularly emotional episode of Camp Pining Heart (season 5, episode 18, "A Simple Yellow Dandelion") she had had a mass of iron dust stuck to her back for almost an entire day. She had gotten better at controlling it, but accidents still happened.

"Oh, it's nothing really," Lapis said as coolly as she could. If Peridot was so impressed was so impressed by everything the Crystal Gems did… "Just some poor fool who thought they could just come here and hurt our friends. Just you get Steven and Connie back into the barn, and I'll teach them a lesson."

…then let's see how impressed she would be Lapis took down this threat all by herself, without the Crystal Gems' help.

The three of them withdrew. Steven shielded the other two with his… uh, shield. Good, then Lapis could relax her guard over them. Not all the way, just a bit. Just enough for her to concentrate on the dumb little piece of dirt who was hiding in the field. They had stopped throwing icicles for now… not the Lapis was fooled by the seeming surrender. No, many more of them had been made hidden inside the field. They were hovering close to the middle, so Lapis figured that's where the attacker was hiding.

Lapis tugged at the icicles with maybe one-thousandth of her full power. It was still about three hundred times stronger than what the attacker could muster. The sharp ice was sent flying into the air at about two-hundred meters per second. If Lapis calculations were correct, they would land somewhere in the forest close by. Eventually.

Practically the entire field seemed to shiver, as the water was pulled out of the plants. Aside from a couple of them at the back, every single one was ruined. Seeing her plants she and Peridot had put so much time into nurturing become nothing more than standing pillars of dust made Lapis a bit angrier than she already was.

"You're not very smart, are you?" she said to the dark shadows inside the field. About one-hundred and fifty spikes of hardened water were turned into steam and blown away. "That kind of attack is useless against me. I get that you're a human, so you wouldn't know this, but I am a Lapis Lazuli. I was made to remodel the face of planets. But for now… I think I'll stick to remodeling the face of you."

Ouch. That was bad. It had sounded a lot cooler in Lapis' head.

She had kept some of the water around from the last attack. She shaped it into a ball just above her hand. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with it yet… but she'd figure something out.

In one last act of desperation, she could feel the enemy pouring all of their measly little strength into the ball, trying to turn it into an icicle. Lapis didn't laugh; she didn't feel the situation was right for that. Connie had gotten hurt… pretty bad too, it had looked like. So instead, Lapis went for a 'cold fury' approach.

"Didn't you hear me? Trying to use your power against me is useless. Useless, useless, useless!"

Lapis felt something tug at her very core, her gemstone. It was like… someone was… ripping out a piece… of her body…

A massive spike of ice burst out from her chest.

"F-frack," she muttered before her form poofed and there only was darkness.

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Author's Note

There come points in a writers career in which he or she will lean back, with their eyes unfocused, and just ask themselves:

"WTF did I just write?"

That moment occurred to me when I realized I was writing about a small animal trying to kill a child by turning a puddle of vomit into an icicle.

And is it just me, or is that one of the most JoJo things ever? You tell me.

—-

Wow, I finished this act super fast. I guess it's because of all the awesome response I've been getting! And quick was it too! Things like that gets me really excited to keep writing and make the best story I can.

So far, I'm having a blast with this arc/fight. I think it's turning out to be pretty exciting… how will our heroes get out of this one? With Lapis out of the fight, they've lost their elemental powerhouse and biggest advantage. Neither Steven, nor Connie can get close without suffering the same fate (but much gorier), and Peridot… will literally trip over her own feet.

I'I think I might have written myself into a corner with this one…

Well, we'll have to see how they manage in the next act. When will it be out? I dunno. Maybe next Sunday. Though considering graduation is coming up by the end of this week, and all the stuff it brings with it… we'll see how it goes. Maybe Sunday, maybe later. If I don't have finished the chapter by then, I'll let you know. But let's hope it doesn't come to that.

But until next time, take care of the planet Earth and remember that anything can happen in space!