Chapter 9: Wake Me Up, Act 1
"So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older"
Peridot had never slept before. It didn't seem very productive in her eyes. You just lay there and do nothing for crying out loud! Though she would have to admit, after trying it… nah, it really wasn't all it was hyped up to be. Waking up again was especially painful. Her entire body felt sore.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She suddenly remembered what had just happened. She had been… knocked out? Yes, that was what had happened. That stupid human had knocked her out for a moment. Oh well, jokes on them!
"Yeah, take that you clod," she muttered. She yawned and stretched her arms like she had seen Lapis do sometimes after waking up. Her plan had worked out quite nicely. The entire field was ablaze. Orange and yellow flames roared and licked the dry plants into smoke and ashes. That human wouldn't have anywhere to hide anymore. "How do you like being on fire, huh?"
That's when an unidentified mass of human flesh tackled her to the ground again.
"Uah!" she yelled. "Let me go, you big dumb lump of…"
"Oh Peridot, I'm so glad you're okay," she heard the human sniffle. A pair of strong arms grabbed her and squeezed the air out of her system. "I thought that you… that we had lost you," a familiar voice said. Oh. So it was Steven and not the enemy. That was a relief.
"Obviously, you didn't," Peridot wheezed. "Would you mind not hugging me so hard? If those spikes didn't break anything, then you will."
"Oh, sorry!" Steven lessened his grip, though he didn't let go. "It's just that… you looked like you had really been hurt. And I thought I saw one of the spikes hit your gem, so I… I just got worried." There were tears in his eyes.
"That's understandable," Peridot said. It was actually kinda comforting to see how much her friends cared for her. "But I assure you, no lasting damage has been done." She rubbed her right eye (the one that had gotten hurt) again. There were no injuries on the rest of her body either. "I suppose you fixed my form while I was out?" she asked. Steven nodded. "You know you didn't have to, right?" she said. "A gem's body can repair damages like that, as long as it isn't enough to poof them. A few days, and I would have been good as new."
She paused for a moment as she realized she might have sounded ungrateful.
"But, em… wow, thanks anyway," she said. She returned the hug to her friend. "I suppose that's what friends are for."
Steven chuckled.
"Yeah, I suppose." He let go of the hug. For a second he looked peaceful. But then he frowned deeply, and his tone got serious. He grabbed her by the shoulders."Peridot, don't you ever do anything like that again! What were you thinking? What if that icicle really had hit your gem? You could have gotten seriously hurt!" The sudden scolding caught Peridot off-guard.
"Wha-b-but I thought that… Hey, I saved your life! Connie's too! Probably Lapis' as well. Is this how you thank me?"
"What if you had died? This is not like you Peridot, you're supposed to be the smart one!"
"You tell me what I should have done then! Wait for the enemy to get close, and then kill us all at that same time? I didn't have time to be careful."
Of course, Peridot immediately conceived of at least three other plans that were much safer and that was only about twelve to twenty-seven percent less likely to succeed than the one she had chosen to enact. The burden of being a genius; not only was it enough to make a mistake, but your mind would tell you just how big that mistake was.
"And, uh… maybe I panicked a bit…" she muttered, just loud enough for Steven to hear it. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He just hugged her again.
"It's okay," he whispered. Tears returned to his eyes again, but not because of sadness or fear. "I was really scared too. Thanks for saving my life."
xxXXxx
It wasn't quite like waking up after from sleep. It was more like… like, at first it started with her hearing a voice. And then she sorta realized she heard the voice, and that's when she realized she was… not awake. But if she knew she wasn't awake, then she was awake to know it, so she was actually waking up. Then the voices became clearer, and she could almost make out what she heard…
"…she lost a lot of blood, but she's in a stable state for now," she heard an unfamiliar voice. A woman, somewhere between thirty and fifty maybe?
Katey forced her eyes open. It felt like the Sandman had strewn a handful of sand in her eyes, and then sewn them shut. She managed to pry them open a bit, and then regretted it almost instantly. It had hurt less to keep them close. She wanted to rub the sand and tears from them, but her arms refused to move.
Come to think of it, she couldn't even feel most of her body. It was numb. Only the pain in her eyes and a faint beating in her right hand. Her throat was pretty sore too like she hadn't had anything to drink for several hours.
She tried to concentrate, but it was hard. Her entire head was stuffed with cotton and her eyes full of water. Her eyes were adjusting slowly, like old cameras or binoculars. It began with colors, mostly white… then fuzzy shapes and outlines.
"However, there is no chance of her hand recovering. We're gonna have to amputate it."
The world didn't become all crystal clear like you might imagine, but it sure as hell got a lot more focused. Katey's memory returned to her, and when I say returned, I mean it came crashing into her mind like a meteorite onto a prehistoric Earth. The cool boy, the scary man, the arrow… her new power, how she was forced to use it on the strangely colorful women… what had happened to her hand…
Katey was suddenly very glad she couldn't turn her head to look at her right hand. She instead averted her attention to what she could see properly. She was in a hospital bed, so much she figured from the white bedsheets and other surroundings. Far more interesting however was the woman only a few meters away, right in front of Katey's bed. It was the woman with the square… hair?
Okay seriously, what fashion disaster thought a square afro was a good idea? That was probably the worst idea since… since… since Katey's own brain decided to lose focus over what's important, that's what. The maroon-skinned woman she had 'attacked' was standing but a few meters away, her back turned against Katey. She was talking to someone, whom Katey assumed was a doctor. She couldn't actually see the doctor-woman behind (or rather, in front) of the square-afro-haired maroon-skinned woman. But she could hear her clearly. And they were talking about… amputating her hand.
Katey very nearly winced at that thought. Thankfully, a combination of willpower, blood loss, and numbing medical drugs stopped the sound from escaping her throat. What had actually happened? Her memory was still a bit fuzzy, but it couldn't be that bad… could it? The beating, pulsating feeling in her right hand got worse.
"No need," the square-afro-haired maroon-skinned woman said. "You just need to keep her alive for a while. Steven will fix her."
"Hmph," the woman said. She sounded skeptical. "And if I may ask, how exactly would he do that? I don't know about your… kind, but there is no way that hand could ever recover. The best surgeons in the world couldn't put it back together. How would Steven be able to 'fix' her hand?"
That was a good question, one Katey too was very interested in learning the answer to.
"Magic," square-afro said.
Of course. Of course, the answer was magic. Katey felt kinda dumb now. She had a bunch of rags in strings come flying out of her hand, and attach themselves to people to draw out an evil twin. How had she ever not thought that was magic?
She didn't quite catch what the doctor mumbled next.
"Fine," she said after a short pause. "I'll tell doctor Who to wait a few hours…" Katey still couldn't see her, but she could practically feel the narrowing eyes through square-afro. "But I want to know why this poor girl is here in the first place. I demand an answer, and I demand it right now! What have you done to her?"
"Nothing she didn't force us to," square-afro said. Katey supposed she was right… she had kinda been the one to attack… Except she had been the one who had had her hand explode, so you tell her who really drew first blood.
"And what on Earth is that supposed to mean?" the doctor asked.
"It means she attacked us," square-afro said. "We, or rather I, simply defended ourselves." She paused. Katey saw her move her hand to her face. Perhaps to take off her shades? "I know what you're going to say. The answer is that I don't know either. But know this: I didn't lay a finger on her. I didn't know that this…" she half-turned to make a gesture to Katey's hand. Katey quickly closed her eyes and pretended to still be knocked out. "…would happen. I was just trying to defend myself."
Katey didn't dare open her eyes again. This was one confrontation she'd rather enjoy skipping out on.
"You're not making any sense," the doctor said. Somehow, her voice managed to be both like ice and fire at the same time. "Either you tell me what's going on right now, or I know a few people in the child protective services who would be very interested in taking a closer look at how you…"
Square-afro interrupted the doctor, who promptly shut up. She probably did the right thing, because you could feel the temperature in the room lowering at the cold fury from the square-afro woman. Katey had seen her angry before, and she had punched a hole in the ground. Now, she didn't hear any holes being punched, or anything else being punched for that matter. But something within Katey, some deeply buried survival instinct told her that this anger was much, much more dangerous.
"I already told you, I don't have any answers," she said. "I can't tell you, because I don't know. However, there is someone who does know…"
A strong hand and fear both grabbed Katey at the same time.
"…and I'd suggest she starts talking. Right now."
xxXXxx
Lapis hated being poofed. Most gems do. For obvious reasons. The darkness, the silence… it was blinding and deafening in its absoluteness. It left you alone with just your own thoughts. Still not as bad as the mirror though. Then she could see and hear, but not act. That had been a million times worse. That complete helplessness… that was something she never wanted to experience again.
Which was why she had to reform. Peridot, Steven, the human Connie… they were all in danger, and she was their only hope. They needed her. She needed to make a new body, right now.
Lapis had heard some quartzes could reform within one minute after being poofed. Lapis wasn't sure how much time had gone past since she was… inconvenienced. One minute? Two? Ten? Whatever it was, too long was what it was!
With a mental push that could literally move oceans, Lapis forced her gemstone to project a new form. No need for any changes in structure or appearance, just the same as she had been using before. It didn't matter if it was a rush job, she just needed to get it done.
For a second, her gemstone became weightless. It floated in the air, and waves of blue light poured from it and took the familiar shape of the terraformer gem.
Her senses returned to her, all at once. Sight, hearing, touch… it was overwhelming. The first thing to hit her, even before her eyes and hearing had formed fully, was the heat. Hot, uneasy air blew against her skin. Then came the sound. A violent crackling sound. Then she opened her eyes…
…and was met by a sea of flames. For a second, they were all she saw; enormous towers of ferocious fire, reaching all the way into the blue sky filled her eyes.
The cornfield was on fire.
The rest of the world came into focus. She saw Steven, hugging Peridot, who sat behind the tractor. Several ice spikes laid beside her. Lapis couldn't make out what they were saying over the sound of the fire, but it looked like… was he scolding her? But he was crying too?
"Erm…" Lapis's entire new body jerked at the sudden sound. "Are you okay?" the human Connie asked. She had been approaching Lapis from the right… and she hadn't noticed. Maybe her senses were still a bit maladjusted.
"Y-yeah, s-sure," Lapis stuttered. Her voice box must have been a bit wonky too. Probably because of the rushed regeneration. "How, eh… how long was I out?"
"Just a few minutes," Connie said. "I'm not sure how long. Five, maybe?" She scratched the back of her head. Lapis could see she had the sword back in the sheath on her back. "But, ah… those minutes were quite eventful! Yus…"
"I can tell," Lapis said. "What happened here? Who lit the field on fire?"
"Peridot did," Connie said.
"Peridot did this?" She couldn't believe it. Peridot? Really? How would she even…
"Yeah," Connie said. "She told us to hide in the barn, so we didn't catch what happened, but I think she might have used a gasoline can? I saw something in the air which kinda looked like that. And then something to start the fire… maybe a lighter?"
Lapis looked back at Steven and Peridot by the tractor. The two looked to be arguing about something. The gas canister that had stood by the tractor was gone. It seemed Connie was right.
"Okay," Lapis said. She wasn't really sure what… how to… why… "What, erm, what are they talking about?" she asked and made a halfhearted gesture to Steven and Peridot. She still couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about, just upset mumbling.
"I-I'm not sure," Connie said. She rubbed her hands again like she had done after they had just been healed from all the needles. "But I think I have an idea… Steven is probably upset she put herself in danger… you know how protective he can be. He got really scared too; a bunch of spikes hit Peridot, and he thought he saw one hit her gem." She paused. "So that's-that's probably what."
"Did-did she really put herself in danger?" Lapis asked. She had a bad feeling in her stomach. Must have been because of her new body.
"Yeah!" Connie said, a little too excited in Lapis opinion. "And she was super brave too! We didn't know what to do, but she came up with a plan in no time at all! She just asked Steven for a shield, and then she ran out there. She didn't even stop when spikes started coming from the grass!"
"Oh, wow," Lapis muttered. "That's really… wow. I didn't know she… could… you know… do something like that."
"She is a lot tougher than she looks," Connie said.
"Mhm."
They stood there for a while. Connie looked at the fire and Lapis at Peridot and Steven. The two seemed to have made up and were hugging again.
Lapis wasn't feeling so good. She didn't know why. Her friends had been in danger, and she had failed to save them, but they had managed on their own. Peridot had stepped up and saved them. Lapis should be proud over the small technician. It was like Connie said, she really was tougher than she looked.
"Um… maybe I should put that out before it spreads?" Lapis said and pointed to the fire. Connie nodded.
"That's probably a good idea," she said.
Lapis nodded back. Without a word, she extended her power to the 'smaller than average lake' outside the barn. She raised her hand, and the water followed along. She moved the body of water out above the field and spread it out like a fire-extinguishing-blanket. She carefully lowered it over the field and smothered the flames. In less than a minute, the sea of fire had been put out. Lapis left some water in the field, just in case some small spark had survived somewhere before she moved the rest of the water back into the hole by the barn.
There was something gnawing at the back of her head while she did this. A small thought she didn't like. It kept saying the same thing over and over again. It was really irritating.
Steven and Peridot had both looked surprised when the body of water came flying over their heads. They had turned and looked at Lapis. They looked really happy to see her. They began walking towards her and Connie.
Lapis needed to get away.
"Did you find the attacker?" she asked Connie. At the same time, she summoned a smaller body of water from the lake.
"N-no," the human girl said. "But do you think…"
"Then I should probably go look for them," Lapis interrupted her. She connected the water she had summoned to her gemstone and formed new wings. "Don't worry about me, I won't fall for the same trick again."
She didn't wait for a response before taking flight again.
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Okay, so while I was writing chapter 8: Tigereye… that chapter… it gave me nightmares. You may think I'm joking or exaggerating, but it's the truth.
I dreamt I accidentally hit 'Post Without Preview' instead of 'Save Without Posting' on the half-finished Act 2.
I don't even use the draft function on AO3, but the dream was so convincing, that even after I fixed it in the dream, my paranoid brain refused to let me relax until I checked to make sure once I woke up again.
Don't know why I just thought it was a funny little story.
—
So it turns out this chapter will be divided into at least two parts (I don't think it'll be more than that, but who knows?)
Be sure to stay tuned for the next chapter. It'll hopefully be up by next Monday. And in the meantime, remember to take care of the planet Earth and that anything can happen in space!
P.S. Gah, I almost forgot! I don't know how much attention you paid to the stats at the end of Tigereye, Act 3, specifically to Peridot's. I don't blame you if you skimmed over them, even I did, and I was looking for a problem. Okay, so to those of you who noticed, you might remember it said "Status: Cracked." That has since then been changed to "Retired."
See, I was planning on having Peridot's gem actually be cracked by Tigereye's icicle. But then I got to thinking… I realized it didn't affect the story at all. Steven would just fix her up, and there was nothing I could win on that little plot point that I couldn't accomplish without it. It was basically an unnecessary bit of drama and tension that ultimately lead nowhere.
So I changed it, and I think the story is (at least a little) better because of it. I only wanted to mention it here, in case any reader caught that detail and was wondering what happened.
