Consequences

33 - Tears

The blast fired. It danced through the air, aimed to destroy and avenge. It was there. In a split second a huge flash exploded, a huge ringing filled the ears of many, and a large debris cloud jumped up from the ground.

The Crystal Gems' hands instinctively rose to shield their faces, though they knew it wouldn't do any good.

The waiting was the worst part. They knew what was coming, and all they could do was stand there and wait. It was torturous.

The gems screwed their eyes shut tight, and waited.

...

But the blow never came. There was a huge crashing sound, and Lapis dropped the bags of gem pieces as she was startled.

For a moment, everyone thought they had died... but they opened their eyes, standing in the same position as ever. Not a single scratch that hadn't been there already was placed on their skin.

Smoke was billowing around them, and rubble and trash was strewn all over the ground. Plastic was melted and smeared across the foundations of the building, and T-shirts were burning.

Bags and trash and broken glass was everywhere. It looked like a bomb had gone off... but the rebels weren't hurt.

The Crystal Gems all, slowly raised their heads in front of them. They expected to see thousands of sinister Homeworld soldiers staring at them, but instead, they saw a pink shield.

It was smoking itself, and dozens of black cracks spread like spiderwebs around it. The shield itself looked sort of like a shattering gem.

They all stared in astonishment, before turning their heads behind them, almost simultaneously.

Steven was holding himself up with one hand, and held his other hand out, stabilizing the pink shield's existence. He looked as if it took every bit of effort just to hold himself up, and even more so to have made and kept the shield.

The shield broke apart without a sound, as Steven's arm gave out under him, and he fell.

Pearl rushed over to pick him up, and checked on his gem. If anything, it was only cracked worse.

"We need to leave," Garnet said, not loud enough for the Diamond team to hear.

"But-"

"NOW." Garnet said, quiet but demanding. Pearl nodded, and stood up with the half-human in her arms. Lapis, Amethyst, and Peridot followed.

The small group stumbled quickly through the little that remained of the store, under the cover of smoke and sand that was still kicked up and floating slowly away in the breeze.

The gems couldn't run all the way back to the temple, or they'd be seen.

Instead, Garnet, having taken the lead, turned left behind Fish Stew Pizza. She wrenched open the locked back door easily, and everyone filed inside.

The electricity had been cut, so it was dark. Pearl allowed her gem to illuminate like a flashlight, casting a blue-tinted glow on the surroundings.

There were boxes and crates, labelled with the names of different pizza ingredients. A large storage shelf took up one side of the room, and plastic boxing wrappers were strewn about.

The gems huddled around nervously. Since the small room was mostly occupied by storage, there wasn't much space to spread out.

Garnet fitted the busted door back into its frame silently, and sat down in front of it, just for good measure.

"Steven..." Pearl whispered comfortingly, stroking the young boy's hair. Steven was awake now, and he was settled into Pearl's lap.

Steven barely seemed to notice. He just cuddled closer to Pearl, blinking his eyes drowsily.