Welcome back, everyone! I hope you're excited! Onto the story!
Chapter 3 – We Are Malachite Now
Eventually, the ship crashed. All of the fingers and palm and everything else were in pieces, with just a few chunks left. Peridot had blasted herself to Canada with her Escape Pod, but Jasper was nowhere to be seen. The poor Ruby, her friend, was shattered and gone. Nobody would've known where L2 was. When the ship crashed, she was scratched and damaged. She felt like she was going to suffocate. While she was coughing meekly and struggling to get out the pile of metal, she heard a muffle conversation from a growly, deep voice she instantly recognized. Jasper. She finally got out, and attempted to fly away for freedom, but Jasper caught her by her ankle and tugged her down, grasping her arm. She gave her a choice. Fuse, or flee with the Crystal Gems. She paced back and forth.
She approached Jasper and performed a dance, but she didn't want to fuse. She didn't know what she was beginning when she took Jasper's hand and danced. The fusion with six limbs (four legs, two arms) and four eyeballs began to form. Her hair was a wild mass of material, like a lion's mane, and she had a sneer in the shine of her eyes. She was only stable, but in a certain way. She was bound together by anger and mistrust, and if she was too wild, she could go destroying Beach City and its civilians. "Why did I do this?" Lapis muttered to herself, but her being part of a fusion, Malachite herself muttered it angrily, in a deep growly voice. She argued with Jasper, but lastly, she told Jasper she was going to keep her prisoner, and with that she tugged the damaging fusion to the bottom of the ocean. There, it was fixed. But Lapis didn't realize the damage she had started.
Suddenly, she was swarmed in a giant, dark realm. She was gripping the chains of torture, trying to keep Jasper from escaping. Why'd she get herself into this mess? She wanted to protect Steven, that's why. She even loathed herself so much she would occasionally hit herself, but she soon learned to love herself, and she loved herself for protecting Steven. Does Steven love me? Does anybody love me? She was mostly ignored, but if she "came in handy" she would be given attention. No, it's not like I have PTSD, or do I? She felt regular. She could do this. She would do this forever, no matter how much it hurt. She felt torn, and she felt like her muscles would snap in half. A daily workout. How nice. The wet, bleak, and suffocating tombstone was her home now. She would never be able to be free again. Wherever she would go, she would be trapped. And that would be forever. She might as well just get used to not seeing the light of day.
Tears began to fall.
She was losing balance. No, no, no! Eventually, she felt the rushing coolness of water pour into her screaming mouth, and she was drowning. Jasper was holding her up! She didn't need air. She began to try to control Malachite. With Jasper's crazy mind, she would be smart enough to know how to hurt Steven, or maybe worse…kill him. She began crying, but the deep waters washed away her tears. She summoned her wings and flew high above the surface, grasping chains, beating Jasper. In her place, she even heard the angering screams of her enemy. Jasper will forever break me. Lapis made a bad choice, but she had at least had been able to protect Steven. She didn't care for the Crystal Gems, but she loved Steven dearly. He loved her so much, he freed her. Someday, she hoped, someday she would be able to do/give something in return for his kindness.
She miserably looked up into the "sky" of the dark realm. "I love you, Steven," she whispered, and with puffy eyes she attempted to hold the weight of the planet's ocean.
It was such a long time before Jasper had beaten her again. There they were, having a conversation while Jasper held the weight and Lapis was struggling and trying to force herself to win. "You're just a weakling, brat," Jasper said. "Well, brat, since you're powerful, I chose you to fuse with. You should be happy. Just be glad I haven't shattered you yet." Lapis immediately began to feel hurt. "I don't care about you," Jasper sneered. "This is only the beginning of abuse." Lapis moaned. She was probably going to be broken inside forever, and Jasper was probably going to enjoy it. Finally, she was able to beat Jasper with a huge flap of her huge wings. She was beginning to regret life. All of those 26,789 years she lived were misery. Maybe life was storing up all of her loses to make a huge win, but what could it be? Freedom, possibly, but with her luck she would never get it. She thought of all those civilians back on Beach City. They had all the freedom they desired, and they got to do whatever they want, or as it seemed. Once again, her thoughts were interrupted by the unnecessary screams from her enemy under the blue. This realm is so quiet. The only noises were like faint rain, splashing waters, screams, and the drops of her tears falling into the water.
Lapis being trapped was awful. She was in a mirror, bossed around, and forced to fuse. The mirror thing happened probably because of that stupid Bismuth – she poofed her in the first place. Maybe she should thank her, though, because if she wasn't placed in the mirror by a confused Quartz soldier, she would have never met Steven, the only joy of her life. When will I see him again? Maybe in a few years, but Lapis didn't want help. She wanted to keep Steven safe. It was all she could do in her unfortunate situations. What have I gotten myself into? A huge mess, that's what. She sighed. Crying wouldn't solve anything, but Malachite hurt her socially and physically. Hopefully, before she got shattered, especially broken, she would get to enjoy some freedom. She couldn't help but thinking all of the trouble she'd caused Steven. She broke his dad's leg, hurt his friends and family, and almost killed off all life in a huge part of the area. After she'd begun her journey home, she left Steven tumbling down in a crashing, towering pile of water, but he was safe. Jasper punched him in the eye, though, and it hurt him.
It hurt Lapis to see him get hurt.
If Lapis could do anything in the world right then, she would save Steven and forever live with him, learn to get along with humans and gems, and fly into a huge world of freedom, visiting all the locations where humans stayed, and visiting space occasionally…but nothing would ever work out like that. It really hurt. Lapis never got to do things her way, but it was always someone else bossing her around and telling her what to do. It wasn't very nice. She began to cry, and she let herself drown. Due to gems not needing air, she didn't actually die, but she let Jasper beat her. She cried herself to a five minute sleep, more of a nap, and then quickly retreated to the surface, flying higher than ever and beating Jasper with her strength, and suddenly heard the angered screams and yelps Jasper let out as she fell to the ocean.
Lapis tugged on the chains. Hopefully time would pass faster, and soon enough, she would beat Jasper and break free, and fly to freedom. She could just imagine the warm Earth sunshine gleaming and sending warm, brilliant, gentle rays of sunshine across her happy face. She loved the bright color palettes the sun could produce. She saw it while she was up at dawn, making her water tower go higher and higher to eventually reach space. It was so beautiful. Earth before hadn't been her favorite planet, but after she saw its beauty, she realized that on Earth, you could be whoever you wanted to be. Earth meant freedom.
She couldn't see freedom in her situation now.
In this dark, wet, bleak, suffocating realm, you had to be one thing: strong. You would have to grasp the heavy chains of torture waiting for you, and pray that the opponent would be at least a little weaker than you. You would be crying and forcing yourself to hold all of that weight, and the opponent would laugh at your failure, and you wouldn't be able to protect the friend that had freed you. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed Steven. It's been at least four Earth months since she had seen him, and it has been four whole months or more that she has been spending time in that tombstone, grasping the weight as strongly as she could. Every day she held those chains, a glimmer of hope would shine across her curious eyes when she looked up at the "sky". Every day, she would have to get used to the fusion. It was bound together by anger and mistrust, but it was so unstable, it didn't have a voice, and it had multiple eyes and legs.
How was Jasper reacting in this situation? Horribly. Since Lapis Lazuli was seemingly winning while she bravely held the chains, she was a sore loser. "I'm stronger than that brat. Why is she doing better than me?" Jasper would muffle to herself. Since she was saying it while she was underwater, Lapis couldn't hear her, luckily, but if she had, she would probably be really hurt. Jasper wasn't exactly a gentle person, but she wasn't likeable either. Jasper didn't care about Steven himself; she was sure he was Rose. The shield's symbol, the gem – everything. According to Jasper, he was just a converted, dulled down Rose Quartz. She was looking forward to beating Rose into the ground. She had a chance; a very good chance at that. But due to Lapis' actions, the chance everyday would continuously be ruined, and Jasper wasn't very happy about that.
Lapis cared about Steven.
Jasper didn't care for him in a loving way.
Lapis often had a sweet, motherly nurturing side, which Steven helped her reveal. He had been so kind and loving to her, so in return she was nice to him, but never really to the Crystal Gems. She, in general, was a sensitive friendly gem, who would be a great friend. She, as a result, was the sweetheart in my opinion. Jasper, on the other hand, loathed herself so much she turned down any help people offered to give her. She believed that advanced/better gems "higher up on the list" didn't need help. Was she living proof of that? Jasper was continuously rude and abusive towards Lapis. Malachite was a very abusive relationship, indeed, but both were too focused to notice so, except for Lapis.
While Lapis flew up and give the chain a final tug, Jasper was deeper underwater, and that meant that she was the strongest. She just smiled weakly, but then went back to her usual broken, sad look that she used to have often, and just kept working at it. She felt a sudden pang of sadness. How was she going to escape being part of the fusion? This confused her the most.
Tears began to fall.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I wrote a pretty generous amount, huh? I hope to do that for my other stories, too. If there are mistakes, sorry. It is 12:59 am right now, and my brain is mush. I would get the remains of my Starbucks coffee, but I'm saving it for the morning. Stay tuned for chapter four!
