Fade Out

Chapter Four

Sorry once again for the long absence, I've turned into a very busy person in the last while. I'm going to try and update once a week for the foreseeable future.

Anyways, on with the show!

…..

When compared with other pearls, Gift had it easy in the beginning.

She was newly created just before the journey to the planet, packed onto the ship still mostly blank and finished in her immersion tank in her owner's rest pod. She had been expensive, she knew that much from the start. Kunzite was the type of gem that attracted stress and turmoil (and made her own when there was none to be found) and when the work was done she just wanted something soft and pretty to look at and to dote on her.

Kunzite was almost always working, there were always shipments coming in that needed to be calculated and tested for purity, always machines running at half-capacity due to the slag in the earth, always broadcasts and messages from Homeworld being missed due to atmosphere problems. Gift spent most of her time on her own in Kunzite's chambers, waiting for her to come back. It was boring, but peaceful.

Kunzite was good to her. She said often, with a weary groan, that Gift was the only creature on the planet she could rely on. She came back at the end of every cycle and confided in Gift all of the little things that had bothered her. She brought in apparel and trinkets for Gift, shipped from Homeworld at great expense.

When the tide began to turn, Kunzite held on for as long as she could. She gave away her credits and possessions to gems she thought would protect her, only to lose them as those gems abandoned her or were smashed. When she finally came face-to-face with the Everlast, she only had one thing left to bargain with.

"You can take my pearl," she said, the desperate grin on her face making her look as though she had completely lost her mind. "It's a good one, very expensive. It's my gift to you!"

Pyrite shattered her on the spot, and took her pearl anyway. She liked the sound of the word 'gift', as was her way, and that was that.

…..

Pearl's form burst in a shower of sparks, and her gem dropped neatly into the sand. Steven stared at it, struck somewhere between horror and the giddy feeling of it all being a dream he would soon wake up from. It couldn't possibly get any worse...

A loud crack caught his attention and he turned, just in time to see Amethyst's whip catch the Jasper hard across the face. It left a mark, but Courage barely flinched.

"What the hell?" Amethyst growled, her stocky frame firmly planted for battle. "We had a deal!"

Steven's eyes shot to Garnet, and although her gauntlets were formed and ready she wasn't in a fighting stance. She looked unsure, and that in itself was terrifying.

The other gems were nonplussed. Gift's spindly fingers picked up Pearl's gem and gently wiped the sand off of the surface, and Courage turned on her heel to face Amethyst. She didn't even attempt to summon a weapon.

"It's for her own safety," she said. "She understands that."

Amethyst looked ready to pounce, until Garnet put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. A look passed between them, Garnet shook her head. With a disgusted snort, Amethyst put her whip away and stomped over to Gift.

"Give her to me," she demanded.

Gift shook her head and clutched Pearl's gem with both hands. Clenching her jaw in fury, Amethyst grabbed her wrist and prized the gem from her grasp, shoving her away with more viciousness than was really needed.

Sick at heart, Steven went to Garnet. She looked as upset as he felt.

"It's for the best, right?" he began with a hopeful chuckle. "She wouldn't have done it if it wasn't...and Pearl didn't fight back so..."

"I don't know, Steven," Garnet muttered low.

"Yeah, but they've been pretty good to us so far, so they must have a good reason..."

"No," she cut him off, shaking her head. "I mean I don't know. I can't see anything here."

Of course. It could always get worse.

"How...is that even possible?" she asked quietly. Even for the short confusing time he'd had Garnet's future vision, he had been overwhelmed with possibility.

"It's never happened before," Garnet told him softly, crouching down beside him. "Even when the most unexpected of things have happened, I've always been able to see something. But here..."

She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes to look at him properly.

"I might as well be blind," she continued, looking out towards the blazing white sky. "There's something about this place that's scrambling my focus. I can't take in anything from outside the atmosphere. There's too much interference."

Steven struggled to find the words, but nothing came. Garnet had never been uncertain about anything, as long as he'd known her she'd always known what to do.

"Tripcycle's over," Courage called, throwing open the door of the rig. "We need to get back on the trail."

The pearls jumped to their feet, clambered in through the side hatch one by one. Garnet rose slowly and pulled Steven gently towards the rig.

"Whatever else happens, we'll keep you safe," she told him as she pushed him in the side hatch with the pearls. "You can count on that."

It was meant to make him feel better, but it failed.

…..

They sat in silence for a long time, by Steven's estimate over three hours on Earth. It was dark and musty inside the hull, it smelled like wet rusted iron. His back ached from sitting on solid metal, he needed the bathroom and he was still thirsty. These little irritations distracted him from how afraid he was.

The pearls were huddled together at the other side of the rig from him, even Gift (who he had sort of started to consider a friend). Their fingers fluttered, and now that he knew they were speaking to each other this way he felt like they were whispering about him, and sourly he glowered back at them.

The screeching from outside sounded distant, even as attackers landed on the rig right above their heads and were tossed under the wheels. One clattered by close to where Mercy was sitting, and since then she had gradually been curling in on herself until she had made herself as small as possible. The other pearls seemed relatively unruffled by comparison, grimly stoic.

When one of them finally broke the silence, Steven was so surprised he jumped.

"What?" he sputtered.

"I said, are you a Quartz?" It was the white pearl, Sweetness or Light (he didn't know which she was.)

"Oh," he mumbled. "Yeah, I suppose I am."

"I've never seen a Quartz like you before," she continued. "What happened?"

"Don't be rude," Treasure admonished. "Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it."

At the same time, they all stared at him, clearly waiting for him to explain himself.

"Well, uh..." he stuttered. "I'm half Quartz..."

All of their heads tilted to one side in perfect unison.

"What's the other half?"

Before he could think of an answer, there was a loud cracking noise and the rig tilted to the side. Steven and the pearls were thrown hard onto the hull, and just as he was summoning his shield a hole was wrenched into the side inches from his face. A pair of crowbar-like tools were shoved into the breach to widen it. A red face peered in through the gap, grinning with broken jagged teeth.

"Found 'em!" it cried, to answering screams of victory.

Two, three, four more gaps were torn into the hull, and the rig was slowing down as some force pulled back on it. Steven crawled over to where the pearls were huddling and formed a bubble over them all. Just in time, as the bubble finished forming over Treasure's ankle a hook was tossed in her direction. It clattered uselessly off of the bubble.

Amethyst's whip flickered into view and the red face vanished, the intact wheels rolled over another body. Under the rig, there was another crack and the hull lurched again, and again. A huge section of the hull was torn away, large enough for a gem the size of Opal to pass through. More hooks were tossed at them, bouncing harmlessly away.

With the wall gone, Steven had a full view of the forces chasing them. Not just small gems on haphazard vehicles now, but cruisers full of hulking soldier-class gems, half-tanks with flaming pipes carrying grim-faced gems near shattering point, and in one vehicle that towered over the rest was the gem that Steven knew on sight to be the Everlast.

She wasn't tall or imposing, or even stocky enough to belay some strength, but even from a distance she was intimidating. She stood perfectly still on a car that was swerving all over the place, glaring down at the rig with murder in her eyes. The cracks in her face and on her exposed body looked deliberate, like tattoos. Her teeth jutted out like knives.

"Steven!"

A shout from just ahead of him made him jump, broke open his bubble. Garnet was hanging on to the back of the rig's upper vehicle, one hand on the coupling hook.

"We're going to dump it, you need to get up here!"

It was madness. The gap between the upper vehicle and the storage rig was almost four feet across, and that was a hard jump for him even if the rig hadn't been moving. But what choice did he have?

"Quickly!" Garnet called. "I'll catch you!"

The remaining spikes on the rig kept the worst of the crowd at bay as Steven and the pearls crawled along the broken hull to the edge. As he prepared to jump, he spotted Amethyst hanging from the door, lashing at any gems that got too close.

Well, it wasn't going to get any safer...

With a deep breath and a short crouch, he jumped off of the edge as far as he could, which wasn't very far at all. Luckily, Garnet's arm shot out and caught him, throwing him into the back seat.

The pearls went next, one at a time. Mercy had to be coaxed and finally pushed by Treasure before she would jump, landing safely beside Steven. Sweetness (or Light) jumped after her, with enough skill to land gracefully on the tip of the coupling hook and clambering over the hood.

Gift jumped, badly, and came close to going under the wheel but managed to catch onto the coupling chain. A roar went up from the crowd as they lost sight of her, even some of the attacking vehicles pulled back, and there was a communal sigh of relief as she was pulled back into view by Garnet.

"I want them back!" the Everlast bellowed. "Unharmed! Unspoiled!"

The attacking vehicles lurched forward again, and Treasure jumped, deftly caught by Garnet just as a hook clattered inches from her face. The black pearl (Sweetness, it was probably Sweetness) hesitated for a moment, shrinking back towards the ripped hull.

"Come on!" Light called from the backseat, reaching out for her. "We're almost there!"

She ran, and jumped, and made it. But just as she was pulling herself into the backseat with the others, a hook finally found its mark and wrapped around her ankle.