AN: Man, you folks caught up with the animated adaption of Faded Blue? We'll admit, making it an AU where Steven is the son of Pink Diamond instead of Blue was a really bold choice, but we're interested to see where it goes.
Chapter Forty: Forced
Connie was going for a picnic in Korea.
Just repeating those words made her stomach flip. Though that might have been the warp stream, making her tumble in the air. Amethyst laughed at her, while Steven helped spin her upside up. As the light vanished, it deposited her heavily on her butt, but Connie was giggling so hard she didn't even care.
She had taken an alien transportation pad to the other side of the world for a picnic!
The novelty of it all had her grinning ear to ear. Her eyes were adjusting to the sudden darkness, reeling from how it could already be twilight here when at home the sun had just risen. All the new plants and animals, the latter of which Steven introduced her to. The rocky path they traversed, dangerously close to a steep cliff, which made Connie feel like the protagonist in a really good adventure novel.
By the time they'd actually laid out the picnic basket, though, Connie had noticed that her friends weren't sharing in her excitement.
They were sitting in the clearing where the Palanquin had once stood, the marks it had left in the soft ground still visible. They had all sorts of tasty food laid out, there were birds joining them for snacks as if it was an animated film. The scenery was absolutely spectacular… but she seemed to be the only one enjoying it.
"Are you okay?" she asked Steven, as he examined a pickle from his sandwich.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Fine."
Connie pursed her lips. She knew about PTSD and stuff. Mom had always been really honest about those things. This was the place where Steven had fought that monster and passed out healing it. Was that giving him some sort of flashback or something?
No… No, that didn't seem quite right. Firstly, why would he have invited them out here if he didn't want to come? Secondly, looking back, he'd been kinda down since before they'd even left Beach City. And thirdly, it wasn't just him.
While Steven was only picking at his food, Amethyst was plowing through it. It wasn't with her usual gusto, though. She did it almost mechanically, and her eyes were distant, as if thinking about something else entirely.
"Ame?" Connie said.
"What?" Amethyst said through a mouthful of apple.
"Are you guys gonna tell me what's wrong?"
"Huh? Nothing's wrong," Amethyst said, as Steven froze.
Connie put a hand on her hip. "Come on. I'm not blind."
"You have glasses," Steven pointed out.
"That's not the same thing," said Connie.
"Glasses are so weird," Amethyst mused. "Needing stuff like, stuck to your eyes, just to see properly." She looked Connie over, than stuck out a hand. "Lemme try."
Connie blinked, and then in her mind, smiled. "Only if you tell me what's up."
"We already told you," Ame said, "nothing's 'up'—"
Steven sighed. "Come on. Let's just tell her. She's gonna find out anyway, and it's not like it's— it's a bad thing really."
"If ya say so," Ame muttered. She sighed too. "Okay. Fine."
Satisfied, Connie held out her glasses, the world going vague and misty. She felt Amethyst snatch the glasses from her hand. There was a giggling. "Man this is weird."
"Can I see?" asked Steven.
"Later," said Connie. She found her sandwich and took a bite. "First, your end of the deal."
"Fine." The purple blob in front of Connie moved in a way that suggested Amethyst was waving her hand. "Basically, we found out—"
"No no no," Steven interrupted. "You can't just tell it like that."
"Why not?" said Amethyst.
"Because, number one, that's not where it started. Number two, it's boring that way."
"It's not boring to skip to the important parts."
"I want to hear the whole story," Connie interjected quickly.
Amethyst sighed. "Okay, fine. Take it away, Book Boy."
"Book Boy?" Steven squeaked. "Okay— nevermind." He cleared his throat. Connie took a huge bite of her sandwich, leaning forward with anticipation. " Light shone brightly from the luminescent moon, reflecting off the serene surface of the Pacific Ocean, as a cool breeze blew my hair away from my face while Lapis Lazuli carried me across the limitless expanse— "
"Woah, hold up. Why're you talking like you ate a dictionary?" Amethyst interjected.
"It's storytelling," said Steven. "And I think you mean a thesaurus."
"So you agree with me!"
Connie didn't need to see to imagine the glare Steven was giving Amethyst.
"As I was saying," Steven said, plowing through, "I was flying with Lapis. I wanted to show her more of the Earth, and we'd ended up above the Atlantic Ocean…"
Lapis had been flying for hours, never once growing tired or faltering at all. But as she'd dangled Steven playfully above the water, he'd felt her grip loosen. He'd called out to her for help, but she hadn't seemed to hear him. They were descending rapidly, Steven's ears popping, his hands slipping—
— she'd come back to herself and caught him.
She apologized profusely, but still seemed dazed.
There was something in the water below. A small, circular island, too perfect to be natural, covered in crumbling columns.
"What's wrong?" Steven asked.
"This is where it happened," she said, distant. "The Galaxy Warp. Where I was…"
She trailed off as they landed. Steven looked around. He'd never seen so many warp pads in one place before. Or surrounded by any weird orb things.
"What are they?" he asked, picking one up. It struggled in his grasp.
"What's what?" Lapis said. She hadn't even noticed them, her eyes having gone glassy. The reflectiveness faded as she saw what Steven was holding, and the thirty or so others wandering around. Lapis frowned. "I… I don't know."
They looked like green marbles, each about the size of Steven's head. They had four little legs, not physically attached to the main body, but hovering a couple inches away from it. And embedded in one side was a nozzle, dripping with a viscous green liquid.
"Don't touch it," Lapis said sharply, as Steven reached out to do just that. "We— we don't know what it is, or where it came from."
"I can find out," Steven said. He set the marble-robot on the ground. It immediately set out to join its companions, swarming around the different warp pads.
He settled down on the cold stone, focusing on the lessons Garnet had given him. He closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and focused on what he wanted to See.
The world shifted. It was only twilight, and the air was a few degrees warmer. Steven looked up and around, getting his bearings, when something bright in the sky caught his gaze. It fell rapidly, landing with a splash in the water.
Crawling to the island's edges, Steven saw an odd current in the water, the marble making its way towards the galaxy warp. It wasn't exactly designed for swimming, and was pretty slow.
It didn't need to be. A moment later, a warp pad activated behind Steven. Spinning, he saw it deposit another one of those marbles, which made a beeline for the biggest warp pad. It began spraying it with the green liquid. Soon another warp pad activated, then another, and another, and another. All of them brought the marbles. Soon there were dozens and dozens of them, close to a hundred. Eventually the one from the ocean joined them, dripping water as it went. All of them swarmed the pad.
Then in unison, the marbles stepped away. In a flash of light, and the liquid vanished, leaving the warp pad sparkly and new.
It activated.
A new Gem arrived.
Even knowing she couldn't see him, Steven scooted back a little.
She was tall and robotic looking. Her fingers floated around in the air. The insignia on her chest and legs marked her as in the service of Yellow Diamond.
"Log Date 3 1 2." A holographic screen opened in front of her face as she looked around with professional disinterest. "This is Peridot, performing Earth hub maintenance check."
A Peridot! Steven knew all about Peridots. They were Homeworld's technicians and mechanics.
… but why would one be sent to Earth? Homeworld apparently didn't really care much about it anymore.
"Warp repair a success. All 79 robonoids deployed and accounted for. Preparing to locate and manually reactivate Kindergarten, and begin assessment of Cluster prototype experiments.
"Now to locate the domestic warp." The Peridot made her way down the stairs. "These warp pads are archaic in design, but all appear fully-repaired at least." She stepped onto one. Pressing a series of buttons on her screen, three of the marbles hurried to join her. "Domestic warp located. Initiating stage two."
And she disappeared.
"So what happened next?" Connie had completely forgotten about her sandwich, and was currently clutching it so hard that its filling was starting to spill out.
Nari hopped over and gobbled up some fallen tomato.
"What makes you think anything did happen next?" Amethyst said. Her tone was teasing, playful, but there was something… defensive in it, Connie thought.
"I mean… another Gem came from space and headed off to a 'kindergarten', whatever that is?" Somehow Connie doubted it meant crayons and naptime.
Amethyst didn't say anything. Connie couldn't see very well right now, but it looked like she might have hunched over.
"It's where Gems are made," Steven said, in a quiet voice.
"... oh?" said Connie, curious, but getting the sense that she shouldn't be too obvious.
Suddenly, something was thrust into Connie's hand. "Huh?"
"Your glasses," Amethyst muttered. "I'm done with 'em."
Slipping them back on, Connie could see that Amethyst was sitting with her head down, arms cross. Connie stiffened— wanting to reach out and comfort her, but didn't know why she was upset.
"My turn with the glasses!" Steven said.
Connie could begin to feel the start of a headache forming from looking through such blurry vision, but it was only fair. She handed them over. Steven goggled a little bit about how weird it was, but even that was subdued.
"So…" Connie began at length. "What happened?"
"Steven and Lapis basically stormed into the Temple, all freaked out and junk," Amethyst said. "But that was nothing compared to Pearl and Garnet when they were told what was going on. Rose made us all go to the Galaxy Warp. While Pearl went 'round squawking her head off, Garnet destroyed all the warp pads."
Amethyst paused. Steven didn't say anything, and neither did Connie.
Eventually, Amethyst began speaking again. "Rose had us split up."
"Split up?" said Connie.
"Yeah, 'cuz we didn't know which Kindergarten Perisnot had gone to. So Rose and Pearl and Bloop—"
"Bloop?"
"Blue Pearl," Amethyst said offhandedly.
"Do you have to call her that?" Steven said stiffly.
"It's less confusing," said Amethyst. Steven humphed. "Anyway," Amethyst continued, "they headed off to Beta. I was sent to lead the team to the main kindergarten with Garnet and Steven."
" You weren't leading the team," argued Steven. "Garnet was."
"Emphasis on the 'was'. 'Sides, I know the Kindergarten better than anyone. So we headed off, and left Lapis behind to guard the Galaxy Warp in case Perisnot came back…"
The Kindergarten looked as it always had.
Unconsciously, Amethyst took in a deep, long breath, savoring the familiar smell. Something inside of her had loosened.
She was the only one. Garnet was usually pretty stiff, but if it was possible, being in the Kindergarten made her even stiffer. And Steven was staring around with a wary expression.
"This… is a Kindergarten?" he asked.
Garnet said, "Yes."
She picked Steven up, and jumped to the ground below, putting him down quickly. Amethyst followed after them.
"I didn't expect it to… be like this." Steven grabbed a handful of dry dirt, which was blown away almost immediately. "It's so… desolate."
"Creating new Gems sucks the minerals and vital energy from the ground, making it incapable of sustaining other life. It's one of the primary reasons we rebelled," explained Garnet, voice low.
"Oh," Steven said flatly.
Amethyst kicked a rock.
"Shh," Garnet said. "Peridot might be here."
"She might not be," Amethyst muttered.
But she was.
It took barely five minutes to find her. Around the bend, in the area Amethyst had named Slippy Cliff, because she'd liked to climb to the top and slide down. Never, in all her thousands of years hanging out there, had she noticed the giant gaping hole in the ground.
Neither had she ever noticed dozens and dozens of things just… flying there. Things that just looked like… mangled masses of hands and feet and eyes or wings, tangled together. Left on the ground, like slugs.
Garnet gasped.
"What— what are those?" Steven whispered.
Neither Amethyst or Garnet answered.
Peridot was facing away from them, pacing back and forth in front of the orderly lines of fused body-parts. One of her hands was being used to project some sort of glowy green field, suspending one of the things in the air. Her other hand's fingers had created a holoscreen, which was talking into.
"Subject No. 26. Fusion composed of a ruby, an aquamarine and flint. Gem size: approximately 25 by 15 by 7 milliquads. Projection size: approximately 44 by 22 by 12 MQ. Physical form composed primarily of a spherical mass covered six vocal emitters, three vision orbs, and one gravity connector. Ineffective for battle, or indeed, any function."
Peridot's angle shifted, and finally Amethyst could get a proper view of the thing she was holding.
It was a head. A Gem's head, in splotches of red and blue and grey. It had three eyes— not the same way Garnet had three. Two of them were in the usual place, but the other, the other, was on the cheek. It had a leg sticking out where a neck should be, and it was absolutely, absolutely covered in mouths.
"Sick," Amethyst whispered, somewhere between disgusted and enthralled.
Garnet shook her head, but said nothing.
"Trial 1," Peridot continued, still oblivious to their presence. "Heat resistance, to ascertain if the fusion has maintained the component ruby's high tolerance."
She dropped the fusion on the ground. It's single leg kicked ineffectively. Peridot's fingers rearranged themselves, and produced a bright white light. She held it against the fusion's side.
With six mouths, its screams were very loud, almost piercing through Amethyst's form.
"No," Garnet said, "No, no."
Amethyst swore. Garnet was shaking. Not just shaking, but glowing. Her horrified grimace was barely visible against the light.
Steven had taken a step away from her, but Amethyst rushed over, trying to grip her arms, steady her. It was like holding a warm cloud.
"W-who are you?" Peridot said, rearing on them. "What are you doing? Do you have permission to be on this planet?"
"Uhhhhhh," Steven said.
"G," Amethyst said, "Garnet, ya gotta stay with me—"
"These are Crystal Gems," Garnet muttered, "the shards of Crystal Gems. This is where they've been, the whole time— they were forced together—"
"Who are you?" Peridot demanded again. "I'll have you reported!"
Garnet didn't notice. "They didn't choose this— this is punishment for the rebellion!"
"Garnet," Amethyst said.
But she didn't hold it together. She couldn't.
A burst of light, and Ruby and Sapphire collapsed onto the ground, clutching one another.
Amethyst didn't think. She just acted. Letting out a scream, she threw herself at Peridot.
Peridot didn't see it coming. She screeched as Amethyst rammed into her, the two tumbling to the ground. Amethyst brought up her hand and punched, once, twice, three times—
Gravity disappeared.
"Amethyst!" Ruby and Steven cried.
Amethyst was surrounded by green. She couldn't move at all, not even to wiggle her nose.
"Get away from me, you clod!" Peridot swung her suspension field, and threw Amethyst into a wall.
Amethyst laughed. It was gonna take a whole lot more than that to take her down!
She charged again, summoning her whip. She was just about to catch Peridot around the waist, when instead Amethyst was once again caught in the suspension field.
Thankfully, her friends had gotten a hold of themselves. Ruby rammed into Peridot's side, and Amethyst was dropped again. This time, she landed right on top a few of the weirdo fusions. They squirmed and whimpered beneath her. Amethyst jumped quickly to her feet, only to find another of the fusions reaching out to her with a body made entirely of hands, grabbing at her feet, her hair…
Amethyst kicked it away.
Ruby had Peridot pinned against the cliff-face. Literally smoking, she growled, "Let's see what your heat resistance is!"
"Guys!" Steven called. "Isn't there a way to— to sort this out or something?"
Sapphire floated past him, the temperature plunging around her. She said, "We are."
Amethyst leapt into the air. Power surged through her gem. Her teeth sharpened, her fingers transformed into claws, wings unfurled from her back— she rose into the sky, a mighty dragon—
"You didn't do that!" said Steven.
"I was about to!" argued Amethyst. "Until you interrupted me. It would've been epic!"
"I stopped the fighting."
Amethyst blew hair out of her face. "I guess."
"How?" Connie asked, wishing again that she could see properly. Not that her glasses would have done much. Night proper had fallen, and it was very, very dark.
"I just told Peridot to stop," said Steven.
Connie's eyebrows went up. "That's it? And she just… stopped?"
Steven shifted uncomfortably. "Well… Not until I told her who I was…"
"Please, stop!" Steven said, rushing up, tugging on Ruby's shoulder.
Ruby stopped herself. Her face was a furious grimace. It softened just a fraction when she saw him. "She did this. She's— she's torturing them—"
Steven couldn't deny that. But he also couldn't deny how scared Peridot looked, ambushed and outnumbered.
That didn't stop her from shooting them with an energy blast.
"DUCK!" Sapphire yelled, just in time.
Sapphire slammed into Steven, pushing him out of the way. Ruby dived in the other direction, letting out a yelp as she was grazed in the side.
"Take that, you clods!" Peridot screamed. She was holding one of her hands skyward, her fingers beginning to spin like a helicopter.
"No!" Steven cried, pushing himself back up. "I— I order you to stop!"
Peridot was already floating away. "And why should I listen to you, whatever you are?"
Amethyst had already turned into some wing shape, and was prepared to cut Peridot off. But if that happened, it would just be more fighting— Steven had enough unpleasant memories of that already.
"I'm Steven Diamond Universe," he said. He unzipped his hoodie, and pulled his shirt over his head.
Peridot stopped.
Her eyes widened.
"D-Diamond?" she said.
"Yeah." Steven's throat felt tight as he spoke. "Come down. Now. L-let's talk this out."
Slowly, warily, Peridot came down.
"Steven," Sapphire said in his ear. He couldn't understand the emotion in her voice. Ruby came to stand besides her, taking her hand.
Amethyst landed, taking a place behind Peridot, whip out.
Peridot approached. Her expression was skeptical, her brows narrowed. Her eyes kept darting between Steven's face and his gem. "... May I?" she said.
Steven gulped. "Sure."
A single finger floated out to press against Steven's gem. It felt weird. Not really like another person touching it at all.
Her holo-screen reappeared. Steven could read Gem, but not backwards, and even if he could, this language was too technical for him. There were all sort of complicated looking graphs. Peridot's eyes widened. "It's genuine." Immediately, her fingers flew back into place, and she snapped a salute. "Blue Diamond!"
"Well, not really—" He caught Amethyst making slicing motions across her neck. "Uh, never mind that right now. Um… stand down?"
"Ah! Of course!" Peridot said. "My deepest apologies, Blue Diamond, I had no idea you were on this planet— my manager didn't say anything—"
"It's… It's kind of a secret mission," Steven said, which wasn't entirely a lie.
(Ruby snorted.)
"I… understand," Peridot said, though her tone made it very clear she didn't.
"So. Um." Steven put his shirt back on, zipped up his zipper, pulled his hood up, and tried to look as authoritative as possible. "You're going to stop this, right now, and explain exactly what you're doing." As an afterthought, he added, "Please?"
And Peridot did. She explained why she had come to Earth. Explained that the forced fusions were so weak and lethargic because she'd equipped them with restraining devices, to lower the power output of their gems while she conducted her experiments. Explained that her assignment was partially to assess the functionality of forced-fusions as a method to recycle gem shards. Explained how the rest of her assignment was to use the data collected from them to predict how much longer the Cluster had to incubate, and what size it would be once it emerged.
Turned out the Cluster was a giant forced fusion composed of thousands and thousands of gem shards. And it was due to destroy Earth. Very soon.
Steven was surprised and horrified by this revelation. The Crystal Gems were not.
After they had poofed each and every fusion experiment (as quickly and painlessly as possible), sending them off to Crystal Gem temple, they set off to find the others. Peridot came with them, tied up in Amethyst's whip. Even though he understood why, Steven still gave Peridot a sympathetic look. He knew how uncomfortable that was.
Peridot averted her eyes quickly, her cheeks turning a darker green.
In the Beta Kindergarten, they found Rose Quartz, as well as Pearl and Pearl-ssi. Them, and a giant drill, still under construction.
"Steven!" Pearl cried, when she saw him. "Oh— you weren't supposed to see—"
"He knows," Sapphire said, and joined Ruby and Amethyst in explaining about Peridot, and what she'd been up to.
Steven looked between Pearl and drill she'd been building. "Why… why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh, sweetheart." Pearl placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's because you're an immature child who I can't trust with the most basic of information or responsibilities."
"She didn't actually say that!" Connie said.
"She might've well have," Steven muttered. "I just— can't believe she didn't tell me. None of you told me!"
In the darkness, there were sharp flashes of blue light. Connie flinched back in surprise.
"Yikes dude!" said Amethyst.
"Sorry, sorry," Steven quickly muttered. The flashes faded.
There was a ruffling noise, and Connie felt the metal frame of her glasses pressed into her hand. She put them back on. By the moonlight, she was just about able to make out Steven's miserable expression. Nari flew around his head, landed on his shoulder, and proceeded to preen his hair. Steven didn't even seem to notice.
Amethyst shrugged. "None of us told ya because we thought you knew."
"Yeah." He huffed. "Everyone keeps assuming that. I've got my Mom's gem, I'm supposed to know everything she did, but I don't. Pearl keeps— keeps hiding things from me. How am I supposed to help anyone if I don't know what's really going on?"
Silence fell.
She's doing it because she loves you, Connie almost said. It was the line her Mom used, whenever there was some weird rule Connie had to follow but none of the other kids at school did. Sometimes Connie wasn't sure how true that was.
Besides, it wasn't a problem of being left in the dark. Her parents always explained the logic behind their rules and punishments, at length. There were no secrets in the Maheswaran household. There was nothing worth keeping secret.
"Rose and Garnet and Pearl can be the same way," Amethyst eventually said.
"Yeah, right," said Steven. "They tell you everything."
"I dunno." Amethyst folded her legs up to her chest, and rested her head on her knees. "They tell me tons 'bout the War. But it's usually only, like, good stuff. Sometimes I wonder…"
She trailed off.
Connie looked around for some sort of snack. That always managed to put Amethyst in a good mood. But all the food was long since gone, and most of the wrappers and garbage too.
"How… is Garnet?" Connie asked. "Is she… alright?"
(She still barely understood what this 'fusion' thing was, but it sounded like splitting into Ruby and Sapphire hadn't been… pleasant.)
Amethyst waved a hand. "Sure. She's fine. Pretty shaken up for a couple of days, but she managed to get back together. The G-Squad always does."
"That's good," Connie said, for a lack of anything else to say. "So… what did you end up doing with Peridot?"
"She's staying at the Palanquin," said Steven.
"Garnet wanted her bubbled," said Amethyst.
Bubbling? Like being sent to the bubble room? That gave Connie an uncomfortable jolt.
"Peridot didn't know what she was doing," defended Steven.
"How could she not know?" Amethyst growled. "That thing was screaming!"
That threatened to send them back into bickering. "Hey," Connie said quickly, "isn't the Palanquin where you're keeping the kittens?"
"Just one kitten left now," said Steven. "And she's actually staying at the van. Dad says she's good company."
Connie swallowed a sigh of relief. Even better. She wasn't sure if she wanted to risk meeting this mysterious new Peridot, but a kitten? "Can I see her?"
"Oh, yeah, that'd be cool," Amethyst said, perking up.
Steven shrugged. "Don't see why not."
So it was decided.
They packed up their stuff, and Connie was pleased that she'd managed to cheer her friends up, at least a little. But as they followed the dark path to the warp pad, lit only by the light from Amethyst's gem, Connie realised she had a lot to think about herself.
