*A/N at the end of this chapter

5. Half-Human

"Now, now, there's no need to be afraid."

Steven simply stared, his eyes wide and his heart thumping violently at the terrifying orange gem that was only inches away. Despite her words that Steven needn't fear, her lethally calm voice and malevolent smile suggested otherwise.

The Gem looked down, like a predator cornering its prey, meeting the wide-eyed stare of a horrified human child.

"Tell me, child. Why are you here?" She looked around, her face set in stone that was both elegant and terrifying, waving a thin hand to gesture around the temple. Then she returned her gaze to Steven, her head tilted innocently to one side.

Steven opened his mouth to answer, but found the words caught in his throat. He had never been so scared in his entire life. There was something about the presence of his Gem, his absolute loneliness, the blue light, the broken warp pad… it all made him feel powerless.

"Answer me." It was a simple command, but Steven could sense the threat lingering behind her voice… or else. His mouth had gone dry and he found it challenging to speak, so he cleared his throat gently and answered carefully.

"I… live here." It barely sounded like his own voice, raspy and anxious, a harsh breath of air that scratched against his windpipe.

"Good. Where are the Crystal Gems?"

Steven did not know what to say this time, but he felt powerless in the presence of this towering stranger. He tried to think of a lie, something that would satisfy her and protect the Gems. The orange gem said nothing, watching the boy plainly, eventually narrowing her eyes at the extended silence.

"Do not make me ask again." She delicately brushed a hand against his face, a touch that dared to be comforting, but it only made his stomach lurch as the icy fingers traced across his cheek. He shivered and drew away from her hand instinctually, only to regret his choice a moment later. He looked at her, expecting anger, but found only a blank stare.

"I… don't know…" Steven managed to choke out, his mind racing.

"You're lying." It wasn't a question. Her voice dripped with venom as she stood up to full height, towering over the human child. As effortlessly as she had regained her posture, she lifted a stone-smooth leg from an open hem that slit halfway down her dress, raising it out towards one side and slammed into Steven's comparably tiny frame. He flew to the left, slamming into the wall and felt a flurry of pain rush through his body. His head had smacked into the wall from the force of the impact, leaving him in a daze; his left ribs ached from the force of impact with her foot, and his left ankle had turned at an unnatural angle under his body weight. His vision swimming, Steven struggled to watch the orange gem approach him a second time. Though she was not built like a Quartz soldier, she was still a gem, an adversary, and she could certainly hurt him.

"Where are the Crystal Gems?" She asked again. The false delicacy that had masked her earlier words had vanished. Now, her entire presence radiated menace.

"They… are gone. Left. Earlier today. Maybe the ocean? Please… I really, really don't know." Steven tried his best to play up his humanity, praying that his answer would be satisfactory.

At first, the Gem said nothing. She simply started at him blankly once more.

Standing at his feet, the gem finally answered. "Hmm. I sense your honesty, child. Come." The last statement was not a command, but an afterthought she spoke mostly to herself. She grasped Steven by the collar of his shirt and effortlessly lifted him off the ground. Her arm extended at a ninety-degree angle away from her body, holding Steven far from her body but firmly, like he might infect her with a disease if she held him too close.

"Wait! Stop, please!" Steven struggled in her grasp helplessly, grabbing at his collar and her hand to try to pry himself free. He was really panicking now – what did she want with his caretakers? Why did they need humans? He was weak from being hurled into the wall earlier, however, and found his grip to be useless against her iron grip.

The Gem ignored his pleads outright. Instead, she grabbed at something attached at her waist and walked towards the porch of the beach house. It had a yellow, blue and white insignia embedded in the front and glowed at her touch. It floated in midair, a few inches from her mouth.

"Apatite. To me – I have one of them." Her tone did not leave room for questioning.

She looked over at Steven while she patiently waited for Apatite to return.

"Why did they do it?" the tall gem asked. She wasn't looking at him, but into the distance of the ocean, eyes betraying no emotion. Steven was unsure if the question was directed at him, but he felt obliged to answer.

"Um… I don't know… what y-you're talking about." The words came out as gentle whispers, eager not to upset the gem but answering honestly. His mind moving a million miles a minute, he desperately tried to think of what he could do to get away. Once the other gem arrives, his already low odds of escape would become infinitesimal. The gems lips pressed into a thin line at his response, glancing at the human dangling from her outstretched arm, but she said nothing and looked away.

Steven continued to struggle hopelessly, not wanting to give up but he recognized how futile his efforts were. No noise exchanged between them for several minutes aside from Steven's regular intake of breath and occasional grunt as he wriggled in the tall gem's grasp. Steven did his best to turn in her grip, however, and managed to make out what must have been the Homeworld ship. In size, it was only a bit smaller than the Hand Ship, but the shape was more geometric. With curving edges, the massive blue object was simply a rectangle, wider than it was tall, sleek and enigmatic. The blue face of the vessel shined slightly in the reflective light of the ocean, suspended gracefully above water and absolutely soundless. Outside, the beach was coated in a darker blue that had filtered in through the windows of the beach house.

The longer Steven looked at the ship, the worse his headache was becoming. Eventually, he stopped struggling against his captor's grip entirely once the ache had become a painful throbbing on the back of his skull. He stopped resisting and hung there limply. It was useless.

He was useless.

With nothing left to do, Steven shut his eyes and listened to the stillness around him. The only breathing was his own, and the only sounds were the waves and the slight breeze. If he wasn't acutely aware of the throbbing in the back of his head and the uncomfortable grip the Gem had around his shirt, Steven would almost be tempted to say it was peaceful.

Just like this morning. How did everything go so wrong? I wanted to be ready. I HAD to be ready. To protect my friends… the Gems, my family… Connie… Involuntarily, he felt warm tears roll down his cheeks. He couldn't even save himself, how was he supposed to save anyone else?

Steven cried silently for a minute or so before the other Gem arrived. Steven felt like this whole ordeal has gone on for hours, and judging by his physical exhaustion, he suspected it to be well past midnight.

"The child," was all that was said by the orange gem who held him aloft.

Steven blinked away his tears as best he could, trying to make out the details of Apatite.

She was not nearly as tall as the orange gem, but she was still plenty taller than Steven. His best guess would have been the height of Pearl, but the proportions and coloration were all wrong. She was a pale blue with very pale orange hair and her clothes were varying shades of deeper blues. Steven noticed a diamond symbol on her chest that reminded him of Peridot, but the area was cut out to reveal her skin underneath. She had long hair, not unlike Sapphire's, but no bangs. She was shaped like a taller Ruby, wide but not beefy in the same way as the "Famethysts" that he met at the Human Zoo. Perhaps most startling of all was the placement of Apatite's gem – her mouth. Steven has never seen a Gem that covered the bearer's mouth, and it made Steven uncomfortable to look her in the face. Where there should have been a frown, a smile, a grimace or anything that portrayed some sort of emotion was just an oblong blue Gem.

Steven looked away, trying and failing to turn in the grip of his holder so that he might face away from them both.

The same robotic voice that spoke earlier, crackled and distorted, sounded again.

"Where is the adult?" it asked. Steven was surprised to say the least, looking down at Apatite to realize she had a screen pulled in front her that greatly resembled something that had once belonged to a certain green gem he knew.

"I don't – who?" Steven managed. He suspected he knew where this was going, but he didn't want it to be true.

The blue gem lifted up his mangled cheeseburger backpack, and held out two pairs of glowing purple earrings. They released that same steady radar-like beep that had sounded earlier in the temple. A small voice in his head couldn't help but note the tragic condition that had befallen his beloved novelty pack, but he pushed the thought away. He had much bigger, more life-threatening worries at this time.

Finally, when no one spoke, the blue gem's screen sounded again, vocalizing words unavailable to Apatite. "The adult human male that escaped with you. Where is it?"

And there it was. Steven had a sickening suspicion that it was those horrid earrings that caused this – it was too convenient that he popped the bubble and that night Homeworld gems showed up. He shouldn't have disturbed those stupid earrings, he should have been more responsible, he should have waited for the Gems to come home, he should have asked Peridot about the risks… So much he should have done and failed to do. And then there was the matter with his Dad. Steven knew that if they came for him, one of the humans who donned the futuristic earrings, they must also be searching for their other bearer. Steven's father.

"I don't know!" Steven answered finally, with a little too much enthusiasm given the situation. He wanted desperately for them to leave his Dad out of this, and if he could just stall long enough for the Gems to return…

"I- I don't know. The Crystal Gems just took us. I've been here since and don't know where they took the older guy. I don't really understand what's going on." Steven tried to lie convincingly, playing up his childlike voice to sound especially helpless and confused.

Neither gem said anything at first. They just stood there, Apatite looking into her screen and his orange captor looking at him. All of this staring and silence was making Steven incredibly uncomfortable.

Finally, with a jolt, the orange gem flung Steven down into the sand below. He slide painfully backwards through the sand, but was nowhere near as hurt as when he was kicked inside the house.

"Child," The orange gem said dangerously. "Look around you." She gestured upwards at the giant woman that was so emblematic of his home, shining in the blue glow that came from the ocean.

"Do you honestly expect us to believe that? We know all about these Crystal Gems…" The orange gem was standing right before Steven once again. He stared up at her in horror as he felt fear creep up through his stomach and seize his heart.

"We know of that they are disgusting," she said, followed by a swift kick to the chest. Steven groaned in pain and rolled over in the sand.

"Unforgivable," another kick, this one to the back of his legs. He was crying now, the pain between his head and his bruised body becoming too much.

"Traitors!" This time, the orange gem did not harm him. Steven tensed as he prepared for the flash of pain somewhere along his body, but it never came. Instead, he weakly opened his eyes and to his own dismay found himself inside of his bubble. He had tried to suppress the instinct to defend himself, but his body couldn't help but react as the pain became paramount with each hit.

Covered in sand, badly bruised, head aching, a few ribs likely broken, Steven rolled onto his back as gently as he could and began to shrink away from the pair. They both looked down at him, genuine shock painted on their faces.

This time, the blue gem approached him cautiously, and he tried to push the edge of his bubble backwards through the sand. He could have even smiled, remembering when he and Connie tried to push their way across the beach in his bubble the day they met. Connie…

He felt the world sway, head feeling heavy as he tried and failed to put distance between himself and the approaching blue gem. The bubble fell just before Apatite could even challenge the bubble. In a small, shuttering sigh, Steven exhaled deeply into the Beach City air, releasing the last strings of tension that bound him to consciousness.

Then, everything went black.

*Author's Note:

Thanks to those who have left reviews and are enjoying the story so far. I really appreciate your support and kind words. Next, we will find out where the Crystal Gems have been all this time and check in on our favorite barnmates.