Backstage Protection

A Steven Universe Fanfiction

Chapter 11

A/N: Hoooo-ly crap, I cannot believe how terrible I am at this. I'm going to have this chapter, a chapter of Far, Far Away, and a one-shot up today. I promise. Really sorry that this update is almost a week late, I'll try not to do it ever again. Here's a long update to make up for it. Peace.

Peridot had finally caught up with the little beast, and she was utterly exhausted from chasing it around all day. Her hair was tangled and a mess, several little scrapes all along the green flesh of her physical form, a scowl upon her face. She slowly approached the little squirrel, which was staring at her with its dark and beady eyes while holding the lapis lazuli stone to its disgusting, furry little body.

"Alright, I've caught you. Now, give me the gem." She snarled, taking a few cautious steps forward. The heavy boots she wore made it borderline impossible to walk up to it quietly, and she had learned the hard way that this was a very good method to startle it.

Its ears twitching, the squirrel continued to watch it with slightly frightened eyes. It made a faint squeaking sound, turning its tail a little and looking like it was about to bolt. The mammal continued to watch Peridot a moment before bringing the teardrop-shaped stone up to its mouth and giving it a little nibble, almost as if it was doing everything within its power to piss the technician off. And, as embarrassing as it was to have something so small and weak get under her skin, it was working – and rather well at that.

She gave an enraged shout and dove at the squirrel. The animal almost seemed to scream, giving up its purpose by dropping the gem onto the floor and darting off as fast as it could up a tree. It continued to watch her carefully momentarily before disappearing into a little hole in the wood.

Peridot gave a long sigh and carefully picked the stone up. It seemed to be unharmed from the little escapade, not even a scratch on the smooth blue surface. "I hope you're happy." The green gem grumbled in the grumpiest way possible before putting the gemstone in her sleeve. It wasn't the comfiest place in the world, but it would at least keep Lapis safe until she regenerated. "I've had to go through so much trouble trying to keep you out of harm's way, and I'm even failing at that."

Not that she was unhappy that she had managed to rescue her downed comrade; in fact, she felt more accomplished than she had the first time she successfully repaired something. She sighed heavily and started walking again, looking for a place where she could be safe and hidden while she tried to decode the message and waited for Lapis.

After some time, she finally discovered a small group of rocks that seemed to be hollow on the inside. A small smile reached her lips for the first time in a while, and she quickly darted over to the small makeshift shelter.

It took a bit of time – she had to move a few stones to fit, and she wasn't the most physically strong gem in the word – but she eventually had crawled into the hollow space within the rocks and started decoding what was on her thigh onto her other leg. This was almost needlessly difficult; Peridot considered herself a smart gem, but there were so many unnecessary strokes and characters that confounded her to no end. This was a very painstaking task, and was turning out to be a very long one as well.

She wasn't sure how long she had been in her little cave, but she knew it had been several days; the sun had set and risen, she had listened to many birds and other animals come and go, and it had even rained at one point. Even with these days of work, she had not managed to get very far; the decoded text on her thigh simply read "ATTENTION ALL GEMS CURRENTLY REPORTING TO HOMEWORLD CURRENTLY STATIONED ON EARTH." That was strange, she hadn't known that more than just herself and Jasper had been sent.

She supposed that what she had so far would help her suffer through the rest, as many of the letters had been decoded and there were not many more than there were in the human alphabet. This had commanded all of her attention since she had crawled among the rocks, and it was exhausting and taxing. The technician wanted nothing more than to rest, but she knew there wasn't enough time to relax.

Because she was so distracted by what she was doing, she would not have been able to notice the large dark shadow that signified that something very large was approaching her from the direction the sun was in. And because she did not notice that something was coming, she did not have the adequate time to prepare before an unholy excessive amount of light hit her as the stones that protectively covered her were ripped away and thrown to the side.

Peridot very nearly screamed in surprise when she quickly looked up and saw Jasper standing there with her arms crossed. If she had a heartbeat, it would be thudding loudly enough to be heard in her ears. She could feel herself begin to panic as she scrambled backward.

"Hello, brat." Jasper seethed through her teeth, taking a few threatening steps forward as Peridot stared like a deer stuck in headlights. "Where's Lapis?"

Thinking quickly, the green gem came up with a story that she almost tripped over several times. She knew that Lapis was vastly more powerful than Jasper, and it was a possibility that the big brute was a little intimidated by the small but mighty blue gem.

"She went out looking for something. She said she'd be back s-soon. In fact, she could come back out through the trees any m-moment. And she won't be happy to see you here."

The orange gem snorted and grabbed her smaller enemy by the arm, making her squeak in fear as green eyes locked onto the larger's yellow ones.

"I don't blame her. Maybe she knows I'll beat her senseless." Jasper snorted. "At least I have you alone for now, though. Without her to mess everything up, I can kick your ass without her intervening. How would you prefer to be executed?"

Peridot stared at her with wide eyes, fear constricting her throat and keeping her from giving any sort of answer as she just dangled tensely, her unnecessary breathing becoming quick, ragged, and shallow. "L-Let me go!" was the first thing that popped into her mouth as she started frantically kicking at her former superior's abdomen, trying desperately to free herself even though reason told her it was no use.

A dark chuckle left Jasper's throat as she lifted Peridot so that their faces were level, her brick-like crash helmet appearing on her face with a faint flash from her gem. "No, but I'll give you some sort of pity. I'll make this quick, and maybe you'll still be alive when we get back to Homeworld."

The technician was barely able to whimper before she felt herself fall from the larger gem's grip after her arm received a nice and hard tug. She fell to the ground with a small 'oomph,' landing sprawled on her back as a shape slightly taller than herself sprinted out in front of her in a defensive stance.

"Leave." Lapis warned, a long stretch of water resembling a hand just behind the two. Peridot was confused a moment, unsure of where she had found the source, before she traced back the hand with her eyes and concluded that there was a small freshwater lake several hundred yards away. Under different circumstances, she would have been in awe of how far the ocean gem could stretch her abilities.

Jasper snorted slightly and quickly rushed at Lapis, who slipped out of the way and swept her leg at the larger gem's knees in an attempt to knock her over. The hand crashed into the brute, pushing her back a ways and holding her down. That probably wouldn't last very long, considering that Jasper was rather large and angry, but it would be enough.

Lapis quickly grabbed Peridot just under her armpits and quickly flew into the air with her stamina greatly increased by whatever gems have in place of adrenaline. Strong watery wings flapped quickly as the two gained altitude and started a rapid journey south.

The blue gem glanced down at the green one, all business for now considering they didn't have enough time to thank each other or be any sort of sappy. "Is she following us?" Lapis asked in a voice that reminded Peridot of a soldier or an officer.

The technician glanced behind them and to the ground, but she wouldn't have been able to tell if her life depended on it. The trees covered the area almost completely, and even something as large and bright as Jasper would be concealed by the protective cover of foliage.

"I don't know. I can't see her anywhere." She gave her answer. "But I did get a message while you were gone. I've been trying to decode it. We need to go somewhere safe."

Lapis nodded in understanding and glanced around before lowering herself over the ocean, sinking both herself and her passenger into the water. Jasper probably wouldn't want to return to the water after being stuck in it for a while, and gems didn't need to breathe. This would work out fine.