Fade Out
Chapter Two
Updates will still be a wee bit delayed as I have a trip to another part of Europe in the works and it's going to keep me busy. Once this hectic period is finished I hope to be back to fic spamming round the clock.
…..
The ground underneath them shivered with the tempo of the approaching mob, and the stranger gems and Crystal Gems stared at each other, at a loss for what to do. Nobody wanted to fight, that was for sure. Even as she dropped into a defensive stance, the Jasper rocked on her feet, glancing at the rig and the hill behind them with barely-concealed worry.
Somebody say something Steven thought uncomfortably. Whatever was approaching them it didn't sound friendly. Why is nobody talking?
He had just about gathered up the nerve to speak himself when the blue-haired pearl, whose hands had been frantically moving while the rest of her stayed deathly still, spoke with certainty.
"They should come with us," she told the Jasper.
The Jasper stared down hard at her but she showed no signs of changing her mind. The pearls huddled behind her seemed to relax a little, edging back towards the rig. Garnet and Amethyst looked at each other, uncomfortable. Pearl's face was inscrutable as Steven looked to her, but honestly he didn't really care so much. The thirst had returned with a vengeance and the sooner they were moving in whatever direction, the better.
The Jasper bounded away to the front of the rig, throwing open the door.
"Get in," she ordered them.
Garnet growled a little under her breath, but strode for the front herself, beckoning to the others to follow. The pearls opened a hatch in the side and crawled in.
They placed Steven between Garnet and Amethyst, but just as Pearl was climbing in the black pearl grabbed her, shaking her head and pulling her away. She didn't even say anything but climbed into the side hatch with the others. A sick feeling lurched in the pit of Steven's stomach.
"What the hell...?" Amethyst grumbled. "This is messed up...what are they doing back there?"
Garnet normally would have had some words to reassure them, and Steven looked to her expectantly, but was shocked when she kept quiet. She was staring out at the sand on the horizon, frowning, stress lines etched deeply into her face. Steven had never seen her so obviously distressed. The sick feeling climbed up his throat.
This is really bad his mind repeated over and over.
The Jasper had been hitting a bunch of buttons in sequence and finally pulled a series of levers to bring the engine roaring to life. The sand crunched under the wheels and the rig tore away at such speed Steven's teeth clattered. Numbly, he looked for a seatbelt and felt a little silly when he realized there wasn't one.
A screaming chatter next to them caught their attention; another vehicle had pulled up alongside them.
It was a scrappy machine and its riders were just as scrappy; a bare skeleton of metal bars and wheels with a fiberglass-covered engine tossing out thick rank smoke, ridden by two small red gems. They weren't Rubies, Steven knew that, but they were similar in size and shape, or would have been if the two red gems hadn't been so deformed. One had an overly large head on a tiny body and only one eye, the other had arms longer than her body and a misshapen spike-filled mouth.
The Jasper barely glanced at them, even as they shouted at her.
"You're finished!" Steven heard them yell. "Pyrite's gonna grind you up proppa good!"
They weren't attacking the rig or even trying to board, they seemed content to howl garbled insults at the Jasper. Within seconds another vehicle, as ramshackle as the first with drivers to match, pulled up beside them. These had some sort of plan, they ramped up a sand dune and drove there, nearly toppling over on themselves and held aloft with sheer velocity.
"Watchus!" they screamed to the first vehicle. "Dusta dust!"
The vehicle pushed off from the dune and clattered to the front of the rig. Both the ride and the occupants vanished under the wheels, and the blockage brought the rig to a crunching halt. It lasted less than a second, for the Jasper had clearly been expecting this. She hit an oval button on the underside of the dash and the whole rig rose about five feet off the ground. They hit the dirt again with a crash and were tearing away again.
Steven's thirst had been left in the dust with the broken shards of the red gems and their sad little machine. His mouth was watering now, which it usually did when he was about to vomit. He tried breathing through his nose and counting backwards from ten, but his mind was full of what those gems had done.
He stole a glance at Amethyst and immediately wished he hadn't; she looked just as sick as he felt. She was clutching the seat so hard it was buckling. He didn't dare look at Garnet. His mind lurched in another uncomfortable direction; Pearl was in the back of the rig with the other pearls. He couldn't see her and couldn't know for certain that she was still there. What if...?
Don't.
The red gems in the first vehicle were cheering, as though they hadn't just watched their friends die horribly. They vanished as the rig thundered through a gulch, only to reappear at the steep side. They were joined by more and more little vehicles and more of the red gems, along with a few green gems of a similar size and just as ragged.
A blast from the back shook the rig and Steven flew forward, saved from breaking his nose on the dash only by Garnet's sharp reflexes catching him. The blast was followed by a series of somethings falling on the hull, light as rainfall. The Jasper, gritting her teeth, swerved the rig violently and dug the spikes into the side of the gulch, covering the hull with falling rocks. Another blast rocked the rig, almost toppling it over onto its side. The Jasper leaned all her weight to the other side and the Crystal Gems followed in mute horror. It wobbled for a moment and crashed back onto its wheels.
"Easyup on them blasters!" Steven heard a gem shout from dangerously close to where he was sitting. "Everlast wants 'em back flawless!"
"Keep the wheel," the Jasper suddenly said. Her voice was like a gunshot. She grabbed Garnet's hands and threw them firmly down on the steering wheel before Garnet could even think to react. A cudgel manifested from her bicep and she opened a hatch in the roof and climbed out.
"Do you know how to drive this thing?" Amethyst asked, sounding close to hysteria.
"No," Garnet said through her teeth. She held as steady as she could but the rig was listing towards the side of the gulch again.
A snapping noise was followed by a hail of gem shards trickling over the windscreen and the Jasper climbed back down into the front seat, taking back the wheel and turning it effortlessly back on course. Now the gulch was starting to taper out and they could see what was ahead.
A canyon.
A canyon they were heading for at about 160 miles an hour.
"She's gonna jumpit!" a gem cried from above the gulch. "Sendit back, she's gonna jumpit!"
"Gettin there!" another shouted. "Dusta Dust, grind 'em up!"
Gems rained down on them from above but only succeeded in hitting the spiked hull of the rig and getting impaled or ground up under the wheels. The Jasper pushed the rig ever faster towards the canyon.
An odd peace filled Steven. He could make a bubble; he could probably suck Garnet and Amethyst into it in time, and maybe even the Jasper too, but even if he didn't she seemed tough enough to survive the plummet. He wouldn't be able to reach Pearl or the other pearls in time, but she was smart. She would probably think of ten different plans to save them all even before they dropped. Sure, she probably didn't know they were heading for a canyon since the rig had no other windows, but she'd probably thought of something...right?
Everything's going to be okay, he thought, giggling a bit internally. We'll all be home watching Rusty Blades before we know it...
The thought was tossed right out of him when the rig crashed down on the other side of the canyon, grinding its wheels furiously to pull the dangling edge of the rig from the drop. When it finally got the last wheel on the ground, it sped away, the noise of the following mob fading into the distance.
When they had covered enough distance to be considered 'safe,' the Jasper pulled over. Without a word, she climbed out of the rig to inspect the wheels. Garnet and Amethyst climbed out shakily, and Steven followed, still somewhat giddily calm.
The hatch in the rig opened and the pearls clambered out, followed by Pearl. Once he had seen for himself that she was still there and everyone was safe, Steven wobbled over to the side of the rig and vomited.
…..
The pearls pumped up enough water for Steven to finally slake his thirst. They stared at him as he drank, but didn't say a word. Their hands fluttered restlessly.
Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst were conversing in low but frenzied tones. Pearl was explaining something to them, and whatever it was it was serious. Garnet kept rubbing her temples and Amethyst kept shaking her head furiously. It was bringing back the sick feeling, so he stopped watching them.
The Jasper was grimly calm. She had finished inspecting every wheel on the rig and was now sharpening the jutting spikes, wiping residue from the blades that he realized was gem detritus. How many gems had died today?
The sun bore down on them hard, and the Jasper kept looking up at it and frowning. She called out to one of the pearls, the blue-haired one.
"How long 'fore tripcycle?" she asked as the blue-haired pearl stepped daintily to her side.
The pearl looked up at the sun and off into the distance, then projected a hazy image from the gem on her wrist.
"Half a quad, maybe less," she replied. "Mercy, we need you."
The lilac-haired pearl tiptoed over, glancing about her nervously. The blue-haired pearl's hands fluttered, and the lilac-haired pearl projected an image from her own collarbone-set gem.
"Nearest shelter is here," the blue-haired pearl said, pointing at a shadow on the image. "612 pelmetres on the cusp."
The Jasper nodded, and continued to speak to the pearls in tones too low to be heard. Steven strained to hear them, but gave up in the end. He hadn't understood a word, anyway.
He looked around. The Gems were still talking in earnest, he didn't want to bother them. The white and black pearls were sitting as close to the hatch in the rig as possible, not looking at each other, hands moving like butterflies, legs intertwined.
The pink pearl was sitting by herself under one of the rig spikes, wiping sand from her limbs, her mouth screwed up with distaste. She looked the most approachable. Tentatively, he went over to sit beside her.
She stopped wiping as soon as he sat down, staring at him with what he thought was alarm.
"Hi, I'm Steven," he began.
Her mouth opened and closed with no words forthcoming.
"Those guys before were pretty scary," he continued awkwardly. "Were you scared too?"
Slowly, she nodded.
"But we're safe now," he sighed. His stomach lurched when she shook her head, the water he'd drank sloshing around uncomfortably.
She pointed towards the gulch, over to the east.
"They'll go crossways, towards the ridge. It's longer but they'll catch up if they use burners. Tripcycle will slow them down but us too."
Steven gulped. He had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn't sound good.
"So...we could be in trouble pretty soon," he murmured.
"Courage will protect us," she said.
He smiled; gems didn't tend to talk in metaphors, but pearls were apparently more prone to it than other gems.
"Yeah, that's the spirit," he laughed weakly.
"She has to, it's her mission. She said so herself," the pink pearl continued, looking over at the Jasper.
Courage will protect us. She has to.
"Her name is Courage?"
The pink pearl nodded.
"The Everlast gave it to her," she said. "Probably wants to take it back now, if she can."
"Do you have a name?"
For a moment, she frowned, and it looked like she didn't want to answer. But she did.
"Gift."