Chapter 11: The Gem Knight
"Amazonite!" Quartz bellows, furious. "You were supposed to come tomorrow!"
"I know," Amazonite replies, running a hand through her spiraled hair, "but I thought I would like to have a little fun before then." The Gem turns to Steven. He can't see through those lenses, but he knows she's staring intently at him. "A human named Steven, friends with Gems…Not a good choice." Steven is taken aback at the utterance of his name. She was stuck in the meteor, how did she know anything about him?
"How did you know who he was?" Quartz asks, confused as well.
"I could hear inside the meteor, though barely. Let's quit dawdling, Quartz," Amazonite looks at the Crystal Gems, "and let's apprehend the traitors."
"Fine," Quartz says, walking to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, cracking his neck. He holds an enormous smile on his face. He looks almost insane.
The Crystal Gems stand up, preparing for the worst. They each summon their weapons, preparing to attack. Garnet, her gauntlets; Amethyst, her whip; and Pearl, with her spear.
"Steven!" Pearl cries. "You need to get out of here! This is going to be far too dangerous for you to even watch! Go!"
"Shut up," Amazonite says. Pearl is caught off guard as Amazonite uppercuts her straight into the air with amazing speed despite her size. She jumps and clamps her hands together. Before she can hammer arm the Gem, Garnet is in the air with them. She does a back spin kick into Amazonite's side. It propels her into the ocean. Amazonite crashes down into the great body of water with enormous force.
Garnet catches Pearl and they land. Pearl recovers in Garnet's arms.
"Are you okay?" Garnet asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Pearl replies.
"Guys!" Hollers Amethyst, who is tangling with Quartz. He has her whip wrapped around his wrist. She's struggling to get it back as he pulls her in. Pearl throws her spear. Garnet follows behind it, running at full speed. Quartz catches it and throws it at Garnet. She catches the spear, turns it around so the point points at Quartz's face, then she thrusts it. He, only centimeters away from being impaled in the face by the weapon, steps out of the way. He throws Amethyst into Garnet as she passes by. They both topple over into the sand.
Quartz smiles. He turns to Pearl. She has a giant fist raised over his head. He opens his mouth. Pearl smashes the male Gem into the sand and returns her arms into her normal state. Pearl summons her weapon and moves into an attack stance, knowing she didn't do anything significant to him. Why hasn't he negated their powers yet? Is he toying with them?
Quartz picks himself up out the sand, and dusts himself off. "I wasn't expecting that at all, Pearl," he laughs, "good job. But this is where I get serious." The gemstone located on Smokey Quartz's right arm glows. He's summoning his weapon. "Do you know what they used to call me during the war?" He reaches over with his other arm and grabs the dark grey hilt of his weapon. Yellow-brown quartz crystals jut out of the guard where it meets the hilt, and the guard itself has a smoke pattern drawn on it. The blade is silver and it shines like the metal of a newly made weapon, ready to cut down anyone in its path. "The Gem Knight." Quartz slashes the air. It sends out a shockwave, throwing Pearl with the force of a tornado. It knocks Stevens away too, who has been watching the battle this entire time. The power of that Gem…it's unbearable.
Quartz slams his hand onto the sand. It starts to crystallize into jagged formations of quartz. He's currently negated the powers of any and all Gem magic except his. He's out to kill. Amazonite isn't here to hold him back.
Pearl, after recovering from that powerful blast of air, is stunned from witnessing the ruthlessness Quartz is showing her and her comrades. It was just like on the battlefield thousands of years ago. It's terrifying. And it's happening again. All of it! He's taken out whole armies by himself, and even crossed the Imperial Gems in the olden times, which lead to his exile! He is destruction and violence. There is no good in him, none at all. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl must do what Rose couldn't—and kill him.
The quartz stops moving a few yards away from Pearl. A giant hand has smacked Quartz into the ground again, but this time it's not Pearl's, for obvious reasons.
"Sugilite!" Steven cries happily. Garnet and Amethyst fused right before Quartz activated his nullification powers. The giant woman can't summon her weapon though.
"You're weak as always, Pearl," Sugilite laughs.
"Is this really the time to insult me?" Pearl yells.
"When isn't the time?! Haha—huh?" Sugilite's cries out in pain. Quartz stabbed her palm with his sword. Luckily, Garnet's gem wasn't there or else it would have caused trouble for both Sugilite and Amethyst. The giant fusion retracts her hands, taking his sword with her. She eviscerates the blade from her hand and throws it into the ocean.
"A fusion, huh," Quartz says out loud. "I haven't seen one of those in a long time. Not since Rose fused with you all to form Obsidian. This is going to be fun!" He laughs with excitement. He gets to fight a fusion! How fun is this?!
Sugilite tries to punch Quartz from both sides. He stops both her fists and jumps in the air. She claps her hands together, squishing Quartz. Her hands begin to crystallize into smokey quartz crystals and within seconds, he breaks free from Sugilite's clutches. Her hands shatter in the process. Shards of giant woman's shattered hands are strewn across the battlefield. The entire time he laughs like a maniac, enjoying the fun of battle that he's yearned for so long. Life without battle is boring.
"He's like a fly that won't die!" Sugilite screams. She's lost two of her hands, but she can still keep going. Sugilite takes a step forward and she glows white. Amethyst can't take it anymore. She and Garnet separate. Amethyst screams out in pain, holding her hands. They have shards of quartz crystal jutting out of the skin. She can't even close it without it hurting like crazy.
Garnet can still stand. She successfully summons her gauntlets. There has to be a limit to when Quartz can use his power negation abilities because there's no way he can keep it on forever. Quartz summons his sword again. "Let's go, you fusion!" Quartz bellows with bloodthirsty excitement. "You and me!"
Garnet and Quartz rush each other with blinding speed. Quartz ducks under a punch, Garnet sidesteps from a swipe of the sword, Steven can't keep up. They're moving too fast for his eyes to follow. He's never seen Garnet go all out like this before, doing her best to defeat the enemy. It looks like she's trying to get this over with before something happens. Steven shakes his head. This is not the time to observe these kind of things. He needs to do something to help Garnet, but what? She sees a shard of Sugilite's hand, big enough for him to throw near him. He'll throw it to distract Quartz so Garnet can get the upper hand in this fight. That should work!
Steven picks up the piece of flesh incased in crystal and hurls across the sand. It hits Quartz directly in the head. The Gem turns around, his smile quickly turning into a wicked frown. His eyes have become so black with anger that no light can shine through it.
"You stupid human! You stay out of this fight!" Quartz blitzes to Steven. He punches the boy in the gut and then throws him into the air.
"STEVEN!" The Gems all scream. Quartz raises his sword up for Steven to fall on. He wants to kill him. What's one human to the rest of the world? Garnet tries to run to Quartz but she won't make it in time.
Steven puts his arms in front of his face and his Gem glows. Quartz's face shifts from livid anger to stunned shock. Steven's shield materializes. It touches Quartz's sword, and shatters it as gravity does its work of pulling both the child and the weapon down. The shield slams Quartz into the sand, breaking his nose, and cracking some of his skull. Steven lands on it, and it dematerializes, leaving him on Quartz who s shifting to get up. Garnet snatches Steven up and runs away to where Pearl is. Amethyst is already there, picking the crystals out of her skin.
"We have to run," Garnet says. "We can't keep fighting like this."
"We know, Garnet," Pearl says, "but we have to stay. They're just going to find us." Pearl feels a stabbing pain in her head. She holds a hand to her lower arm. She notices a feather growing from it. She yelps, scared. "Garnet…" She whispers.
"Oh, no… Pearl, you have to get out of here, now. Amethyst and I can handle this. We'll just fuse into Sugilite again."
"What about Steven? What about the city—?"
"I can handle this. I have more control over myself."
"What are you guys talking about?" Steven asks, holding his stomach. It still hurts from the punch he took from Quartz. The Gems stay silent, looking at him with worried expressions. He notices the feather on Pearl's arm. "What's that?"
"It's nothing, Steven," Pearl says, quickly, hiding her arm. "Go into the Temple and hide in Rose's room. You'll be safe there."
"I have to stay and fight!" Steven exclaims, his voice getting higher.
Pearl slaps him. "You're just a child, Steven! Don't you get that if you fight, you'll die?!"
"I'm with Pearl on this, Steven," Amethyst says. She looks over in Quartz's direction. He's getting up out the sand. She also sees Amazonite walking out of the water and towards the beach. They had forgotten about her.
"Go to the Temple," Pearl continues, "he already knows you're—"
"A Gem?" Quartz is walking over to Steven and the others with Amazonite, fixing his nose. They'll have to do more than break his bones to make him retreat to his gem. He summons his sword. "You are part human, part Gem." He pauses. "That Gem is Rose's. That was her shield. Where is she?"