Chapter Fifteen: Answers
Time passed and Steven found himself adjusting to his life of imprisonment.
Dad was always there with him, making sure he was okay. He was good company, but there were only so many times they could play hangman, and Steven felt guilty for keeping his Dad trapped with him in the boring cave under the ever-watchful eyes of the Crystal Gems.
"The people of Beach City still need clean vehicles," Steven told his Dad after three days. It took some urging and some not-quite-arguing, but Dad eventually agreed to spend a couple hours at the car wash per day.
Steven sought out more ways to fill his time. Amethyst's guard duties quickly became his favourite— they could fill the hours talking. She turned out to be pretty funny, actually. She reminded Steven of some of the kids he'd used to play with down at the park in Korea, before he had moved up to the Palanquin. He often had to remind himself that Amethyst wasn't a kid, however much she might look like one. She was an ancient warrior, and he couldn't let his guard down.
But still. He liked talking with her.
He practiced his shapeshifting a lot, both with her guidance and by himself. He could change his hand into any shape, make his nose longer or shorter, even start growing fur. It was exhausting, but he didn't mind. Anything to help him sleep better.
Sleeping remained tricky. Partly because of the now-fading warp lag, partly because of the constant surveillance, and partly because of the Visions.
It wasn't that he disliked the Visions, per se. He still felt they were essential in gaining intel on the Crystal Gems. It was just that they came most often when he was on the edge of sleep, inevitably jerking him back into consciousness. He wished they'd come when he wanted them to, not when he'd finally gotten cozy in his sleeping bag.
This time, when the Vision came, it was just after lunch. Steven's stomach had been comfortably full, and the sound of the rain outside the cavern had been easing him into a nap…
"I've got to get out of here," grumbled a stranger's voice.
Steven snapped to attention, his eyes flying open. It was twilight in his Vision, making it difficult to make out the two figures in front of him. The one was short, even shorter than himself. Not a kid like him, though. A Gem. He recognized the type from one of Pearl's many lessons— red coloration, short and stocky form, the heavy and measured gait befitting a soldier...
A Ruby.
Suddenly, the air was very, very hot.
Just as he thought it, he was blasted from behind by a wave of cold. He turned just in time to see the other figure to step through him, intangible.
He shivered.
"Wait!" the second Gem cried. She, too, Steven could recognize, by the vivid blue of her colors and the finery of her outfit: a Sapphire. "Where are you going?"
Ruby stomped her foot. "Don't know!"
"Where are you going?" Sapphire demanded again, running up and grabbing Ruby by the shoulder.
"I don't know!" the Ruby cried again. "Out of here! Off this planet!
"Wait," Sapphire pleaded. "Please, Ruby... You can't go..."
Ruby turned abruptly, and Steven could now see her face: an emotional mess covered in tears, which evaporated as soon as they fell from her eyes.
"I know. I know! But Sapphire— I can't stay here— alone, on this planet, for the rest of my life with all these— these monsters—"
"You won't be alone," said Sapphire. "You have me, and Pearl and Rose."
"Three Gems," Ruby muttered, "Three other Gems. That's it. That's all."
Steven wrapped his arms around the chest. He felt certain that he shouldn't be watching this. That this was something deeply private.
But he couldn't make himself look away or break the Vision. He had too many questions. Why were these Gems fighting? They were clearly Crystal Gems, but then how come Steven had never seen them before—
— Oh.
A Sapphire. And a Ruby. That meant they were—
These were the fusion's components.
Steven felt kind of embarrassed at being so slow on the uptake, but in all fairness, he had been falling asleep earlier.
"I just can't bear to look at them," the Ruby was mumbling.
Sapphire took her hand, held it close. "It won't be forever. We'll find a way to heal them."
Heal them? Steven wondered. Heal who?
"That's not a prediction," Ruby said, voice slightly accusing.
"No," Sapphire agreed. "It's a hope."
Quite suddenly, Ruby flung herself forward and buried her head in Sapphire's chest, sobbing. Sapphire clutched, making soft, soothing noises that were very nearly sobs themselves.
Steven stared, scarcely believing that these could be the Gems that made up the violent, stoic Garnet.
"You're right," Ruby said. "You're right. We'll find a way. We'll help them."
"Help who?" Steven couldn't help but ask, even though he knew they could not hear or answer.
"Together," said Sapphire.
"Together," Ruby agreed.
Steven could only see Ruby's face now, smiling despite the tears still rolling down her face. And then he couldn't even see that. Ruby was being consumed by a red light, Sapphire by blue, so bright that it obscured all their features. Steven pushed himself backwards as it got brighter and brighter and brighter, lights merging into purple— a figure forming from it—
Garnet appeared, and Steven yelped.
The vision ended.
There was a reason Sapphires generally formed with their eyes covered. When they first come out of the ground, they could easily get lost in their visions, responding and reacting to them as if they were happening in the present. As they learned to control their visions, such overt reactions faded, but it was impossible to suppress how their eyes would dart to and fro, looking at things that weren't there. Other Gems found that disquieting, at the very least.
Garnet's initial reaction to her strange, new Future Vision had been similar. While Sapphire's experience had been invaluable, even she had been unprepared for the initial rush of dozens and dozens of potential futures. Her first few years as a fusion had been an awkward adjustment period.
She was, therefore, very adept at noticing the signs in Steven Universe.
The tendency to stare off into space. The way his eyes would dart backwards and forwards. How he would say things out of the blue. How he would react to seemingly nothing.
Garnet could recognise the exact moment his current vision ended. The way his expression switched from mingled amazement, curiosity, and horror into just plain surprise when he noticed Amethyst was standing right in front of him.
He yelled.
Amethyst laughed at him. "Nightmare?"
"No!" he groused.
"Suuuuuurrre," Amethyst said.
"It wasn't," Steven said. "It was a Vision…"
"Of what?"
From her position on the wall, Garnet leaned forward a fraction. The movement caught Steven's attention, and his gaze snapped to her.
"Of them," he said.
Garnet grimaced at the plural pronoun, but said nothing. Just tilted her head a little.
"Whaddya mean?" Amethyst asked.
"Uhhh..." Conflict flashed across Steven's face. It probably had occurred to him that he might not want to share what he had experienced. He looked directly at Garnet. "It was you, but it wasn't you. It was Ruby and Sapphire."
Garnet said nothing.
"They were fighting."
She considered this. She felt no conflict within herself. It was possible that she might unfuse in the near future because of a fight, but that seemed very, very unlikely.
Not a Vision of the future, then.
A Vision of the past.
She'd suspected as much, but she wanted confirmation.
"Tell me what you Saw," said Garnet.
Steven still looked uncertain about speaking to her, but evidently, curiosity won out. "We were here, in this cave. I didn't catch the beginning of the conversation, but you two were alone and Ruby was… angry. About something. She wanted to leave, but Sapphire stopped her. She said— you were going to heal someone? And then you two hugged, and…"
"I fused," said Garnet.
Steven nodded, looking down at his feet. His cheeks had taken a reddish tone.
Squirming a little, he managed to ask, "What's it… like?"
When Garnet didn't immediately answer, Amethyst jumped in instead. "Fusion? Oh, man, it is awesome! It's like, you just get bigger. Not just your body, your mind too, and you've got all these cool new thoughts!"
Steven was startled. "You've fused?"
"Yeah, sure, tons of times!" Amethyst agreed, grinning. "Me and Pearl make Opal, and me and Garnet make Sugilite, and me 'n Rose make—"
"Ahem," Garnet said, raising a hand and cutting her off.
The Diamond— the boy— seemed relieved.
Garnet considered her words carefully. Just describing fusion to him wouldn't help. It wasn't something words could do justice to. Especially if you were already biased against it.
'Help who?' Steven had asked to the cave when he'd been lost in his Vision. Now that she had context, Garnet could give him the answer: the corrupted Gems. The question was whether he'd accept her answer. Mother or not, he appeared to have a nearly worshipful attitude towards Blue Diamond. Even if he knew about the monsters, knew they had once been sentient beings, would he believe her if she told him who was responsible?
No.
If Steven Universe was going to be convinced, he was going to need evidence. Evidence he could see with his own two eyes.
"You have Visions," Garnet said. "They come to you without warning or control. They are distracting."
He blinked at the change of topic, but nodded.
"I can teach you to control them," said Garnet.
"Woah," said Amethyst.
Steven was far less excited. He regarded her with frank suspicion. "Why'd you want to do that?"
"Because there is something that you should see."
"...What sort of thing?" he asked.
"You'll have to find out."
He stared at her with those very blue eyes. Garnet met them easily.
"Fine," he said, at last. "Uh… so should I sit down or…?"
"No," said Garnet. She made her way to the cage, and dissipated a few of the bars with a wave of her hand. "We're going on a trip."
Steven had to admit that he had no idea where they were. As the warp stream disappeared, the first thing he saw was the clear blue sky above, with only a few lonely clouds floating along. But when Steven stepped off the warp pad, he realized that the sky wasn't just above them. It was all around them.
They were on a platform floating in the sky!
Over the nearest ledge, Steven could make out the distant landscape below— jagged mountains and a robust field of greenery. It was a beautiful view, almost picturesque. However, Garnet and Amethyst didn't react to this at all, instead they simply stepped off the warp pad and began to walk in the opposite direction.
Steven briefly considered taking advantage of their lapse in attention, to warp away and never look back, but instead he scampered after them. Besides knowing that he had no place to run, Steven also actually wanted to see what Garnet was going to show him through his Visions.
Walking up some stairs led them to a wider, more open area, kind of like a sports arena. Rows and rows of seats rose around them, overlooking the flat stone expanse in the center. There were a few ruined columns at the borders of the arena, the crumbling architecture and the jagged edges of the floor only showed that this was once a much grander place.
Destroyed by the civil war, just like all the other Gem buildings on Earth.
"Where are we?" Steven finally asked, still gazing all around him. He wanted to reach out and touch some of the carvings, but his hands were bound by Amethyst's whip.
"The Cloud Arena," Garnet answered simply. "This is… a very important place."
"Why?"
"During the early days of the War, this was where Blue Diamond's court was held," Garnet explained. "She had come to tour the newest colony, the first colony for Pink Diamond. And to receive the wisdom from one of her Sapphires."
"Mom was here?" Steven gasped. "When she was still ruling Homeworld?"
Garnet nodded curtly, but Amethyst said, "Ya wanna see her like that, dontcha?"
"Well… yeah. I do," Steven said. He had seen Visions of his mother, of course. From her towering figure at the Palanquin, to her and Dad curled up together on the couch at the apartment. Once, he'd even had a Vision of them making out, and he'd gotten out of that one fast.
But he had never seen her when she was still a ruler. And while he had asked Pearl what Blue Diamond had been like back then, her descriptions had always been annoyingly vague.
If he could have a Vision, he could finally see for himself.
"Is that why you brought me here?" Steven asked. "To show me this place and tell me Mom was here once?"
Garnet shook their head. "You said you wanted to see Blue Diamond while she was still ruling over Homeworld. Now is your chance."
"Really?" Steven was astonished. They were just… going to let him sit there and have a Vision?
"Yes," Garnet said. "I want you to see her."
Steven felt his brow lower and the corners of his mouth tighten. "Why?"
Garnet silently looked at him for a moment, before saying, "Blue Diamond is a part of you. You deserve to have the fullest picture of her as possible."
Steven wasn't sure what to think about this. He would be glad to get a Vision of his mother before she had come to live on Earth, but there had to be some sort of catch.
"If you don't need any kind of special circumstances to have a Vision," Garnet said, "then you should get started right away."
"I should be fine," Steven said. "I just need to…" He closed his eyes and begun to focus his thoughts. He scrunched up his face, doing his best to only think about the Arena around him, and nothing else.
It was hard. Wind kept blowing hair in his face, and the whip bit uncomfortably into his wrists.
"Uh, ya okay, dude?" Amethyst asked. "You look like you're about to pass out or something."
Steven frowned. "No, I'm fine. I'm just… focusing."
Amethyst didn't say anything else. Or maybe she did and Steven just didn't hear her.
He felt a familiar tingle in his torso as the energy in his gem emerged and gathered. Then, he began to use that energy. The exact process was hard to describe. Whenever he tried to tell Pearl about it, all he could really say was that it felt natural, like everything was just how it was supposed to be.
The world started to feel fuzzy around him, and he felt just a touch lightheaded. When Steven opened his eyes again, everything was different.
Garnet and Amethyst were gone, as was most of the arena. In fact, all that remained of it was a single giant rock. Or— no, that was too small a word. This was like the whole top of a mountain had been lifted into the sky.
Gems were working on it, dozens of them. They were huge and bulky, their hair like tangled rainbows. The stone under his feet thundered as they dug away at it with pick-axes.
Except they weren't pick-axes, he realized. They were part of the Gems' bodies. They'd shapeshifted their arms into tools, to cut away at the stone.
"Mom?" Steven spun around, trying to get a glimpse of her, but everywhere he looked, he could only see these builders, chipping away—
He blinked, and suddenly he was back in the present, the Crystal Gems staring at him.
"So?" asked Amethyst.
"It didn't work," Steven grumbled, and explained what he saw.
"Bismuths," commented Garnet, and Steven vaguely recalled the name from some of Pearl's lessons. "Must have been from when they were constructing the Arena. You went too far back. Try again."
Steven didn't appreciate being ordered around by a Crystal Gem, but she was right. Dad had always told him, you didn't get anywhere by giving up.
So he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to focus.
It came quicker this time. The sound of wind cut out suddenly, and all he could hear was screaming.
Screams, and explosions, and a horn high and loud—
His eyes flew open. It was pitch black. Lights flared at a distance. Fire, or cannons, or lasers... He couldn't tell, there was too much. All around him, people were stampeding for the nearest warp pad, or else charging in the other direction, towards the battle—
A battle.
He was in the middle of a battle.
There was a yelp and a burst of smoke. The Gem beside him was poofed by a sword through their neck.
Something flashed, heading right towards him— an arrow. He tried to dodge, but he was too slow. It went right through his head—
He screamed.
There was no arrow, no battle, no fighting. It was daytime, and he wasn't dead.
The fusion was crouching on the ground in front of him. He could see his own reflection in her visor, pale faced and wide-eyed. He looked so scared, and he hated it.
"Tell me what you Saw," Garnet ordered.
"Fighting. Lots of it." He shuddered. "Everyone was running…"
"What you saw cannot harm you. It is merely a vision, immaterial. Damage will only come if you ignore what you See."
Biting his lips, Steven pondered this. He could see how this would be important for the fusion. They could see the future. That had to be super helpful for all sorts of stuff.
But the past was the past. You couldn't change it.
Then again, he remembered his history lessons. The textbooks talked about how people made the same mistakes, again and again. It was only by understanding what had happened before that you could do better now.
"But how do I See what I want to see, instead of just random junk?!" he groused.
"What's wrong with random junk?" said Amethyst, tracing some shapes into the dust on the stone.
"It's annoying." And scary, Steven added to himself, recalling the visions of battles and Pink Diamond's death.
The fusion stroked their chin. "For me, Seeing what I want is a simple matter. I simply Look to the immediate future, and things flow from there. But you have the entire past behind you. It is easy to get lost in it." Garnet focused on Steven again. "Stop clearing your mind. Instead, you need to focus on what you want, specifically."
"But I don't know what I want!"
"You do. You want to see Blue Diamond. Picture her in your mind."
Steven did— that was easy, he'd drawn so many pictures of her. But that was Blue Diamond as Mom, not Blue Diamond as queen.
"Her Pearl was with her," Garnet said, their voice sounding very far away, and Steven imagined that too. He could feel the power beginning to bubble up inside of him. "And Sapphire…"
He opened his eyes.
Garnet and Amethyst were gone, replaced instead by dozens of Gems, some types Steven recognized and some he didn't. They all seemed to be generally gathered around some kind of large structure—
"The Palanquin!"
Steven didn't bother trying to go around the Gems, instead he just ran straight through the phantoms. He emerged at the front of the crowd and was greeted by a very familiar face.
"Pearl?" He spoke softly, even though he knew she, nor anyone else, couldn't hear him. He could feel his heart racing as he slowly approached her.
He'd missed her so much.
At first glance, she seemed exactly as Steven knew her. Same thick hair covering her eyes, same leotard and frilly dress. And yet, this version of Pearl still seemed different.
In the present, Pearl always seemed to be moving around and doing something, whether that was making lunch, or cleaning up a mess, or doing any other number of chores. But now, she was just standing there, head tilted down and her hands folded carefully in front of her.
She didn't seem to be moving at all, not even the slightest sway.
It was all more than a little unnerving, seeing her stand there like a statue. Steven had slowly begun to circle around Pearl when when a voice rang out above him:
"Sapphire, tell me what will happen here."
Steven quickly swiveled around and saw, to his amazement, his mother sitting in the Palanquin's throne. He wasn't sure how he'd missed her, even in his excitement to see Pearl again. She towered over everyone, her expression hidden by the hood of her robe. The tone she spoke with was perfectly calm and level.
Blue Diamond was gazing downwards, past Steven. He turned again, and this time saw another Gem. It took him a moment to recognize her. She was the small blue Sapphire Steven had seen in his earlier Vision, the one who'd argued with the Ruby who made up Garnet's other half.
Steven looked behind the Sapphire and saw three Rubies all standing at attention. Was one of them the Ruby?
"My Diamond," Sapphire bowed before Blue Diamond. "The events have been foreseen. The rebels will attack the Cloud Arena and before they are cornered, they will destroy the physical forms of seven gems, including two of my Ruby guards, and myself. Immediately after my form is destroyed, the rebels will be captured. The rebellion ends here."
"Thank you, Sapphire," Blue Diamond said, her tone seeming to loosen just a touch. "That is all I needed to know."
"I look forward to speaking to you again when I reform on Homeworld." Sapphire curtsied before returning to her Ruby guards.
Steven blinked in confusion. That… obviously wasn't what had happened. Had the Sapphire been deliberately deceiving Blue Diamond? Or maybe her Future Vision just wasn't very good.
Steven watched them for a moment, seeing Sapphire briefly converse with one of the Rubies, before he turned back to focus on his mother.
Much like Pearl, she was very unlike what he knew of her. Far from the romantic in Dad's stories or the distant tales Pearl had told him (Or indeed from the Visions he had seen of her weeping in front of the abandoned pink Palanquin…).
Instead, Blue Diamond was tall and authoritative. It was clear that she was in charge and every Gem there knew it. Steven couldn't help but smile. He hoped he could be as good a Diamond as she was.
"Blue Diamond, leave this planet! This colony will not be completed!"
A voice rang out over the crowd. Panicked murmurs swept over the crowd as everyone tried to look in every direction at once. Steven stepped out of the Palanquin and joined the crowd, trying to pinpoint where the voice had come from… and soon getting his answer.
Landing in front of the Palanquin was none other than Rose Quartz and her Pearl, looking ready to attack. Steven took an instinctive step back, even as he remembered that he was in no danger. Still, the fire that both of them had flaring in their eyes was more than a little intimidating.
"We are the Crystal Gems!" both of them recited, perfectly in sync.
Gems— Quartzes, by the looks of them— immediately rushed the pair, but they stood no chance against the rebels. White Pearl charged, nimbly dodging an attack then destroying the form of her opponent with a single slash of her sword. Rose Quartz was doing even better, were that possible. She seemed to only dash past her attackers, before their forms disappeared in a plume of smoke behind her.
And it was like neither of them were really trying. Even when the giant three-Ruby fusion rushed them, Rose leapt forward and forced the Rubies apart with a single, well-placed attack.
White Pearl, meanwhile, was closing in on the Sapphire, who wasn't moving from her spot. In fact, she seemed completely undisturbed by the fate awaiting her. But the same could not be said of her single remaining Ruby guard.
The Ruby came screaming at them, drawing White Pearl's attention for the split second needed for the Ruby to tackle Sapphire away from White Pearl's attack. But then something happened that neither Steven nor anyone else in the Vision expected. Ruby collided with was a flash of light—
— and then Ruby and Sapphire were gone.
Standing there instead was Garnet.
The same three eyes, the same cube-shaped hair, the same gems two gems embedded in their hands... Even though they— no, she — looked wildly different, Steven knew it was her.
But she was… pretty, Steven noticed, with some degree of alarm. She shouldn't have been, since she looked she'd been unfortunately splattered by pink and blue paint, but she was. Her hair especially looked like cotton candy.
Steven walked through the crowd to get a better look at her. The current Garnet was always serious and unflappable, but this one was clearly panicked and confused. The awe and surprise faded from her face as she looked wildly at the Gems closing in around her, and down at the two gems in the palms of her hands.
"Wha… What? What is this…? Is this…?"
It seemed all this was too much, even for her. There was another flash and Ruby and Sapphire were thrown apart, tumbling onto the ground. It was then that the gathered crowd's mood turned from confusion to anger. There were murmurs at first, but they soon grew in volume and intensity.
"Unbelievable!"
"Disgusting!"
"This is unheard of!"
The crowd wasn't simply angry; they were furious. And for what? Ruby was trying to save Sapphire. Surely that was good? The fusion had clearly been an accident. But nobody seemed to care, as they continued to scream and jeer.
Blue Diamond's voice cut through the din.
"The rebels have fled. Sapphire, this is not what you predicted!"
Sapphire spoke, but her calm, collected tone was now jittery and unsure. Steven saw her eye sweeping across everything in front of her. "This was… not what I Saw. I don't know what happened, I…"
"No! It was me!" Ruby had stepped, presenting herself to Blue Diamond.
"Clearly." Blue Diamond's voice was heavy with disdain and anger. "How dare you fuse with a member of my Court?"
Ruby flinched at her words. "I-I'm sorry… Please, forgive me…"
"You will be broken for this!"
Steven felt his throat tighten and his heart skip a beat. What was Mom doing? The fusion was an accident! Ruby had only been trying to protect Sapphire, an important member of her Court! Why was she acting like this?
The crowd began to converge on the pair. But before they could do anything, Sapphire grabbed Ruby by the wrist and ran, darting through the crowd and disappearing off the edge of the Arena.
Steven ran after them, through the ghosts of Gems long gone, and watched them fall, fall, fall until they passed through the clouds below. He spun around, breathing heavily, and the world began to shift and change once more. His surroundings grew brighter, and the once flawless architecture began to crumble. Gems disappeared— Blue Diamond disappearing last— until Steven was back in reality, standing dangerously close to the edge of the arena.
Thankfully, Amethyst was holding him by the back of his shirt. Steven didn't really like the Crystal Gems touching him, but Amethyst seemed pretty cool, and he couldn't be annoyed if she'd stopped him from falling to his death.
Garnet had remained further away, but now approached him. "You saw it."
It wasn't a question.
Steven felt his mouth tremble a little before any words came out. "Why did Mom— Why did Blue Diamond order that?"
"Want to shatter Ruby?" Amethyst shrugged. "'Cause that's just who she was, dude."
"But Diamonds protect Homeworld! And all Gems!" Steven protested. "Wanting to shatter a Gem for what was an accident…"
"The Diamonds protect themselves," Garnet replied simply. "Anything that threatens their hold on power, they will try to eliminate."
"But that's not what Pearl told me."
"She has a very… skewed view of Homeworld."
"Yeah. If by 'skewed' ya mean 'completely messed up'," Amethyst added under her breath.
Steven didn't respond. He folded his arms across his chest and turned away, thinking very hard. There had to be something he was missing, something that must have madehis mother act like that.
Maybe she knew… somehow, that Ruby and Sapphire would rebel? But… they had both seemed rather loyal. Even Sapphire herself had seemed resigned to her fate at the hands of White Pearl, and completely surprised by her fusion with Ruby.
Not very rebel-like.
Maybe… Maybe his Vision had been wrong, or he'd misheard something.
(But Pearl had told him his Visions were always completely accurate. Always.)
But still. It was fusion. Fusion was— it was horrid. So maybe... maybe Ruby had deserved punishment, even for just a small mistake.
But… shattering?
Steven shook his head.
"Let's head back," Garnet said as she walked up behind Steven. "Back to the Temple."
"Yeah. Ya can mull over the Diamonds' terribleness there," Amethyst added, giving him a light shove in the direction of the stands.
Steven slowly began to walk towards the warp pad, still deep in thought and ruminating on what he had just seen, Garnet and Amethyst following silently behind him.
Unlike with most of his Visions, he had just gotten many more questions, rather than answers.
oOo
Authors' Note: Just a heads up for anyone who may have missed our announcement in the Bloop Prequel: we now have an official blog! Check it out at the tumblr TeamFadedBlue if you're interest. We have stuff like answered questions, fanart and story-relevant reblogs.
