Author's Note: I do not have the words to describe just how sorry I am that it took this long for me to update. There have been multiple factors contributing to this hiatus. Funnily enough, despite what I wrote in LitSWD2, the least of them have been writer's block. I will not bother you with details, but let's just say that work has consumed a lot of time and energy, which has seriously limited my ability to write. Now, this only been the first month at my first ever real workplace, so I trust you understand that it has been a lot to deal with. Hopefully, it'll get better as I get more used to the place. If nothing else, I certainly feel a lot more motivated now than I have for some time, and that is thanks to all of you. That's right, you, my wonderful readers! In the darkness, it is your words of support that illuminates the path and encourages me to push forwards. Thank you. Please enjoy.
Wake Me Up, Act 2
"All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost"
Peridot was walking around where the cornfield used to be, examining the damage the fire had caused. Whenever she found herself feeling bad, Peridot would list all the positives and negatives of the situation. If the negatives outweighed the positives, the feeling was justified. If the positives outweighed the negatives, it was not.
On the good side: Everyone was alive and unharmed. While everyone aside from Steven had taken some damage, they had been restored to their previous state. The enemy was gone, which too was a positive, as it meant they would no longer be able to inflict any damage upon them.
On the bad side: The fact they were attacked in the first place. Peridot hadn't had the time to fully analyze the implications of this, but even a cursory glance at the facts was… worrying, to say the least. The cornfield being burnt down was also a negative. She and Lapis had invested a lot of time and energy into cultivating the plants, and what was their reward?
A smoking pile of wet ash, that's what.
The destruction was total. In some naive part of her mind, Peridot had hoped that maybe a few plants behind the corn, like the pumpkins and the carrots had survived. Nope. The fire had spread to that part of the field too. Not all of the plants were ash, but they were all dead, if not from the fire, then from Lapis smothe…
Lapis.
Peridot considered her barn mate for a second. She… wasn't sure what had happened. Lapis had regenerated, killed the fire, and then she just left. She didn't even say hi, or ask Peridot and Steven if they were okay. Connie had said she was searching for the enemy, but she had also sounded really unsure about it.
What was going on?
She added 'Lapis flying away' to the list of negatives. There were now more bad things than good. Felling bad justified. Peridot didn't know why, but she felt like kicking one of the dead pumpkins. So she did. It med her feel a bit better, so she did it again.
It couldn't be that Lapis… no, she had said she wouldn't. Lapis wasn't going to leave. She promised. But then, what was wrong? Peridot knew Lapis had been through a lot, and that she was still hurt in many ways. But why now? She understood her being afraid of the Diamonds, after all, who wasn't?
Even if she didn't really want to admit it, Peridot understood, deep inside her mind, that if the Diamond's were ever to show up on Earth, Lapis might… retreat. Fair enough. But now? It was just some human. And one who had failed to cause any permanent harm to boot! Why was Lapis so upset?
"Gah!" Peridot kicked the pumpkin again. It didn't help. She kicked it even harder, as hard as she could. The dumb Earth clod broke, and pieces of half-baked pumpkin went flying everywhere. Peridot got disgusting gunk all over her foot too.
There was a familiar whimper behind her. Indeed, when Peridot turned around, she found Pumpkin, looking at her, with an expression like she had just shattered someone. Which she technically had… though the pumpkin was already dead, and never even sentient to begin with, so the magical pet fruit was really overreacting. Really, who was she to judge? There had been a practical war zone out here, and where was Pumpkin all this time?
Peridot blinked as the realization hit her.
"Pumpkin!" she yelled. The animated pumpkin cringed and whined some. "Where have you been all this time?" The orange fruit didn't answer. She instead turned away and started sniffing at something on the ground. She found one pumpkin, in particular, to be very interesting. "Hey! don't ignore me," Peridot hissed as the fruit ignored her. "You could have gotten seriously hurt if that human got to you, or you got caught in the fire…" Still no response.
Another thing to add to the list of negatives: Pumpkin was disobeying her.
"Listen up," Peridot said. "I will count to three, and on three, you will be over here to apologize." She paused, waiting for Pumpkin to acknowledge her, which she didn't, because of course, she didn't. She just kept on looking around one of the non-animated pumpkins. "One." What was it even that was so interesting on the ground? Nothing here but dead plants. "Two." Really, now she was whining and licking at it. "Two and a half… No wait, don't lick stuff you find on the ground!" Peridot forgot all about her countdown and trying to be assertive as she stomped over to the disobedient fruit. "Shoo! Shoo!" she hissed. "Get your off of that… that…" Peridot stopped in her tracks again when she saw just what it was Pumpkin was licking. It was not the dead plant. It was something behind it.
A small Earth critter. A cat. Peridot had seen them in movies. This one looked pretty small. Small enough to be hidden behind the slightly-bigger-than-average pumpkin.
The cat didn't look very well. It was covered in soot and ashes, and its fur singed, burned by fire. In some places, the fur was completely gone, leaving only patches of burnt skin shining through. Red liquid, blood, seeped from one of its eyes, glistening in the summer evening light.
Peridot got a bad feeling in her throat.
The cat had been caught in the fire. The fire Peridot started. This creature of Earth, the very same creature she had sworn to protect as a member of the Crystal Gems. She had killed it.
The bad feeling was guilt.
Steven was right. She really hadn't thought her plan through. She would have to be more careful next time. Assuming there was a next time...
"Shh, stop that now," she said and yanked half-heartedly at Pumpkin's leash-like tendril. The gourd whined but stopped licking the dead animal. "Um... we should maybe... bury it?" Peridot wasn't sure what it meant exactly, but she had heard it on an episode of Camp Pining Heart. Season one, episode twenty-three. Ellie's pet, also a cat had died, and they had 'buried' it. That was a sad episode.
Peridot scooped up the small animal in her arms. She figured she should ask Connie. The human girl probably knew what to do.
"Gyah!" Peridot nearly dropped the thing as it started whimpering in her arms. Oh thank the stars, it was still alive. well, forget Connie then, she needed to get Steven! She looked back towards the barn, scanning for her half-gem friend with the healing powers. There!
"Steven!" she yelled. He had been talking with Connie. He looked up. Peridot couldn't fully make out his expression, but she guessed 'confused.'
"What?" he yelled back. "Did you want something Peridot? Did you find something?"
"Yes!" she answered. "I… if you could… I need help!"
If she squinted, she could see their expressions turn from confused, to 'a little confused, but mostly worried.' They looked at each other, nodded and…
"Hold on!" Steven yelled, "We're coming to you." The something very strange happened. Steven and Connie grabbed each others' hands and ran forward as if bracing for something. The two of them were enveloped in a bright light, from which… someone new sprung forth. A fusion.
The fusion jumped high into the air above the burnt-down field. They rose higher and higher until their momentum slowed to a crawl, and gravity took over, beginning to pull them back towards the planet's center. Or rather, that's what would have happened, if the fusion hadn't started flying! They paddled their feet back and forth as if running on the air. Scientifically speaking, the air draft generated by this motion should not be enough to sustain elevation, nor push a figure of the mass Peridot could assume the fusion was forward the way it did… then again, gems could adapt to alternating gravitational pull… it was not an impossibility that there might be gems capable of consciously manipulating this ability, allowing them to control the effect gravity exerted on them. Considering the sheer number and scale of abilities Rose Quartz had possessed, Peridot supposed one more didn't really matter.
That didn't explain how Steven was able to fuse with a human though. Peridot had seen him fuse with Amethyst before, sure, but she was a gem. Gems were meant to able to do that. It was in their design. Humans, and other Earth creatures on the other hand? They shouldn't be able to fuse. It should be impossible.
"Yo!" the fusion said as they landed in front of the stunned Peridot. "What did you say you needed help with?"
Peridot suppressed the many questions that had sprung into her mind the last three or so seconds. This day was racking up quite a lot of questions. They would have to wait until later.
"Steve… em… you need to heal this cat!" She held up the little animal. It had started whimpering a bit louder, and even moving its head, its undamaged eye flickering, opening and closing rapidly. It was either a good sign or a bad sign.
The fusion's eyes went wide in horror at the sight of the poor animal. As quickly as they had formed, they split apart again, leaving the one-and-a-half human kids standing in front of Peridot. Steven wasted no time. He gently grabbed the little cat from Peridot. He examined it and winced when he realized just how badly the cat was injured.
"What happened here?" Connie asked.
"Oh, I don't know, what do you think happened?" Peridot snarked. She regretted it immediately. She understood why Connie had asked a question with such an obvious answer; she felt useless. Peridot knew how that felt. "I, uh… found it here… or, well, Pumpkin found it. It had, ah… gotten caught in the fire."
Connie nodded but didn't say anything. She instead looked back at Steven, the only useful person there a the moment.
He was cradling the cat in one arm like one might do with a small, newly made human. He whispered softly to the cat. At the same time, he licked his hand, covering it in spit.
"There, there, " he told the cat, obviously in great distress, as it tried to muster the power to break free from his grip. "I just wanna help…" he touched the cat's head with his saliva-covered hand. The cat stopped moving and shivered. Its body became tense as the saliva on its head started glowing in a soft pink light.
Without warning, enormous yellow electrical sparks erupted all over the cat's body, and the cat started screaming. It was the only word that fit. It didn't whimper, meow or howl. It screamed. A deep, primal scream, a scream of pain. It was unlike anything Peridot had ever heard before. The closest thing that came to mind was the cluster, but that was... different.
Steven yelped in surprise. The cat was thrashing and he dropped it to the ground, where it kept on kicking and howling.
Every muscle in the little animal's body tensed, as the electrical sparks around it intensified in one last great surge around its hurt eye, and… as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
The cat laid still and silent on the ground. The only sign it was alive was its side moving as it breathed, slowly and heavily.
Everyone was silent. Peridot, Steven, Connie, even Pumpkin had been stunned at what had just happened.
"I-is that normal?" Peridot asked in her 'small' voice.
"N-no," Steven said. "That has never happened before… it looked like she was in pain…" He looked over at Connie, who just shook her head.
"Healing has never hurt on me," she said. "And there's usually not that many sparks…"
The three of them all kneeled next to the cat to have a closer look. It looked fine. Its breathing was steady. The patches of burnt skin had been healed and the fur regrown. The healing had even, somehow, cleaned off all the soot, ashes and blood from the fur, making it shine like it had just been polished. Despite the apparent anguish the cat had just gone through, it looked awfully peaceful as it started moving again.
The small animal cat-moaned and opened its eyes. A pinch of dust fell out of its right eye. Probably just excess material from regenerating damaged tissue. It blinked a few times and looked up at Steven, Connie, and Peridot. It may have been the second or third cutest thing Peridot had ever seen.
The cat yawned and stood up, a little shaky at first. It stretched its legs and back. It then looked back at the trio surrounding it. Peridot wasn't sure what it was, but it looked like the cat wanted to… say something? It was a ridiculous thought; most life on Earth, including cats, couldn't talk. They were simply too primitive, their brains too simple. Even Pumpkin, who had been artificially altered by the magical properties of Steven's spit hadn't shown herself able to express ideas or concepts of any higher meaning. So the notion that a cat wanted to say something was an illogical one. Cats are simple creatures, who only communicate simple ideas. Humans or gems might not understand them, due to the difference in how they exchange information.
And yet… the cat was staring directly at Peridot, right into her eyes, like there was something it wanted to 'say.' Like there was an idea it wanted to express beyond what creatures like itself normally do.
Peridot felt a chilly sensation traveling down her back. Did… did it know?
"Hey, you feeling better now?" Steven said softly and held out his hand to the little animal. The cat broke eye contact with Peridot, instead concentrating on Steven. Peridot felt a wave of relief. It may be a bit hypocritical, her being a gem and all, but there was something about the cat that felt… unnatural. Something that had unnerved her.
The cat smelled Steven's hand. It must have liked the smell because it started rubbing its head against it while emitting a pleasant purring sound. Steven chuckled, and started petting the cat, scratching it behind its ears.
"Hey Steven, I think she's thanking you!" Connie said as she too joined in petting the little cat.
"Well, you're welcome," Steven laughed and gave the cat an extra scratch to emphasize the point. "But you really should be thanking Peridot, she's the one who found you."
True enough she supposed. Technically speaking, Pumpkin was the one to first discover the broken cat and had alerted Peridot to it. Still, it was likely she would have found it herself, and she was the one who alerted Steven. So saying Peridot found the cat was not inaccurate. But she was also the reason the cat got hurt in the first place.
She had almost killed it.
Her reckless plan had very nearly meant the end for this creature. Sure, it had been an emergency, but that didn't make it right. It was, after all, her sworn duty to protect all life on planet Earth as part of the Crystal Gems… Yet she had endangered the life of this, and possibly many more creatures in her ill-thought through plan. It was pure luck the cat had survived the sea of flaming death Peridot had unwittingly unleashed upon it. And judging by the stares it had been giving her earlier, the cat knew that she was to blame.
It probably blamed her. Which it was right to do. It was right to hate her. After all, she was the one that had nearly killed it…
"Nyah!" Absorbed by her thoughts, Peridot hadn't noticed the cat walking up to her. She had been squatting, balancing on the tip if her feet, and was caught off-guard by the cat suddenly starting to stroke itself against her. As a result of this (and poor balance), she toppled over, landing on her butt. "Ugh," she groaned. Second time falling over today (not counting being knocked over by the attacker, because of different circumstances invalidating comparison). At least Steven and Connie wouldn't tease her about it later… no, they would just laugh at her now.
"He he… hey, look Peridot, I think she's trying to say 'thanks'!" Steven said, gesturing towards the cat.
Peridot looked down at the beast that had assaulted her. Then she regretted doing that because the cat was staring at her like it had before. With big, unblinking eyes hiding some mysterious message. It was still purring, but a lot softer, only a faint hum. Peridot knew there was a lot you could tell about someone's emotions and thoughts by looking into their eyes, but she had never been any good at it. But she tried. What was it the cat was trying to tell her?
xxXXxx
'Thank you, thank you, thank you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so, so sorry, thank you…'
xxXXxx
She had absolutely no idea.
"What do I do?" Peridot whispered. Not that she had any delusions the cat wouldn't hear her… but it felt better whispering. She didn't let go of eye contact. Or anything else for that matter. She just half-sat there in the grass, staring into the cat's bright blue eyes.
"Try petting her like we did," Steven whispered back.
"How do I do that?" Peridot said. She was growing more desperate. The cat hadn't blinked yet, and it was beginning to seriously freak her out.
"Er… I don't know, how do you pet Pumpkin? Just do that."
Really? Was it that simple? Didn't different animals require different petting routines?
Peridot extended her arm. It was shaking way more than what was befitting of the leader of the Crystal Gems. She put it on the cat's head… still keeping eye contact… and scratched lightly.
For a second, it felt as if the potential energy of the situation caused the molecules in the air around them to bond together into a material thick enough so that it could be cut with a simple cutting device.
In other words, you could cut the tension with a knife.
…
It worked! The cat's purring grew louder again. it closed its eyes and rubbed its head against Peridot's hand. The action was pleasurable!
"There you go," Steven said and nodded with approval. "See, that wasn't so hard, now was it?"
"I-I suppose not," Peridot muttered. She crossed her legs, sitting up in a more comfortable position. The cat took this as an invitation and promptly positioned itself in Peridot's lap. Which was pretty similar to what Pumpkin would do. The cat was a lot softer and warmer. Pumpkin had a solid outer shell and didn't exude any heat. In comparison, the cat was a like a little fluffy heater. It was… nice. Peridot could definitely get used to this.
"I think she likes you," seven said. "Heh, go figure you'd have a good hand with animals too."
"Y-you really think so?"
"Yeah. Cats can be difficult to handle, even if they're tame. They can take a lot of time to build trust. It took me forever to get Lion to respond to my calls. But this one seems to just instantly like you."
Connie decided to pipe up. "Once when we were looking at adopting a kitten, we found this really cute one, but it kept biting mom, so we, uh… didn't… get a cat." She piped down again.
Peridot had never met Connie's mom, but Connie was an impressive specimen, so she could only imagine what her mother would be like. And if even she had difficulties handling the tiny little Earth critter, then Peridot felt safe bearing her head high in pride. Despite putting it in danger, the cat liked her. It had even felt safe enough around her to put itself in a vulnerable position, at the complete mercy of the green gem.
"Wow, thanks," she said. "Those words mean a lot to me. They really do. It's hard for me to explain, but I…" Peridot's attempt at emotional honest was interrupted by a loud, way too happy ringtone filling the air.
"S-sorry, hold that thought," Steven said, as he fumbled with his phone. "But it might be important…" Peridot gritted her teeth in frustration as Steven git up and started walking away. "Unknown number," she heard him say before pressing the "accept" button. "Hello, this is Steven Universe?"
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Author's Note
*something witty and funny relating to the chapter*
I had originally planned for this act to be divided into two scenes; this above one following the Barn team and finding Tigereye, the other following the rest of the Crystal Gems and Katey. So, spoilers, but that is Pearl calling Steven at the end of this scene.
Now, for obvious reason, I've decided to split them up, so WMU will be getting three acts. I don't know when it will be out. The most desirable scenario would be one act/week, but if the last month is anything to go by, that might be hard to manage. I'll try my best to be more productive, so… maybe Wednesday the 8th? That's about one and a half week. if I'm not ready by then, I'll let you know.
—
So it was recently asked in the reviews if Red Stone of Aja was a gem. I would have sent a PM, but, uh… "Guest" left a review as a guest, so I couldn't. But anyways, I thought it was a valid question to consider. Now, I'm no xForts, so I had to look it up on the JoJo wiki. To quote:
"The Red Stone of Aja (エイジャの赤石 Eija no Sekiseki), also known as the Super Aja (スパーエイジャ Supā Eija), pronounced similar to "Asia," is a perfect gemstone sought by the Pillar Men and the main plot device for Battle Tendency."
So yes, the Red Stone of Aja is a gem. I hope it was of help.
*whistles not at all suspiciously*
*sees readers glaring at me*
What, were you expecting something else?
—-
Anyways, once again, thank you all for reading, following, favoriting, leaving reviews and all for that stuff. It is really appreciated. So, until next time, remember to take care of the planet Earth and that anything can happen in space!
