Steven Universe Movie Novel

Finally Redeemed

Steven's arm was burning from the weight of the huge blow. Nothing so hard had ever hit his shield; around him, a huge crater had been carved into the gemstone atop the Injector.

Back on a surface, the two glared at each other. "All that stuff's easy for you to say," Spinel snarled. "When you change, you change for the better! When I change, I change FOR THE WORSE!!" She leapt forward and smashed her fist onto Steven's shield again.

She repeatedly banged on his shield as Steven struggled to hold it upright. "I used to be just not good enough! JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Pink, but no... Now I'm not good at ALL!"

With a massive thud, her wailing was drowned as she slammed down on Steven so hard the whole gemstone cracked with an awful metallic screech. The gemstone started to glow dangerously. To Steven's surprise, the next sound he heard from Spinel was a cross between strained laughter and crying. "Heheheheh... that's funny, right?... At least you found me entertaining... "

Through his translucent shield, Steven could see Spinel was kneeling, still resting her fists on the shield, and crying. "You actually liked me... didn't you... ?" She took her hands off the shield. Steven stared at her, not sure how to feel or what to say to her. Nothing, I guess, he thought, after thinking about her reaction earlier. He didn't want to provoke her again.

"What am I doing?" she continued, sobbing and covering her face. "Why do I want to hurt you so bad? I'm supposed to be a friend... I just - wanna be a friend... "

Steven slowly retracted his shield into his arm, and Spinel moved back, startled. Steven could see she wouldn't harm him anymore, she had realized what she had done was wrong... he just hoped he was right...

"Spinel -"

He was cut off when suddenly glowing light started erupting from cracks in the Injector. Steven and Spinel looked at each other's tear-stained eyes, both realizing what was about to happen...

A gleaming light shone from the Injector once more, and then with a deafening blast, it exploded. From Little Homeworld, the Gems watched in horror as a huge pink tide sloshed through Beach City, drowning anything unfortunate enough to get in its way.

"STEVEN!" screamed Pearl. The wave was blocked by Bismuth's construction work, but nobody was sure if Steven - or Spinel - could survive that explosion... As far as they knew, Steven still didn't have his powers...

Out of the pink-tinted smoke rose something - a pink bubble. It was Steven, and he wasn't alone: Also inside the bubble, he was clinging onto Spinel, who had her eyes screwed shut and didn't appear to know that he had saved her as well.

Steven strained to keep the bubble closed; the impact of the explosion had weakened him, and some of the rubble was trapped in there with him... he couldn't see... he had to get back down to the earth...

There was a massive crater where the Injector had been lodged. Steven blindly set the bubble down inside the crater. He gently put Spinel down on one of the many scattered rocks and opened the bubble.

"Woah," he said, gaping at the crater, which gaped back in its own way.

"Oh, no no no no no - what did I do?" Spinel shrieked. "I've wrecked everything!" She gazed at the huge, smoking crater her weapon had blown.

"Well, that's... one way to get rid of your Injector," Steven muttered.

"But what about the poison? What about the planet? What about your happily ever after?"

There was a pause. "There's no such thing as a happily ever after," Steven decided sadly. "I'll always have more work to do."

Spinel lay on the ground, looking both bewildered and miserable. Steven held out his hand to her; she looked as though nobody had ever wanted to help her before. Slowly, she took it and he helped her up.

"I'm sorry... " she began.

Somewhere at the top of the crater, a voice cut across her. "Steven! Steven! Where are you?"

"Connie!" Steven yelled back. "I'll be right back," he told Spinel. "Really," he added, seeing her fearful expression.

Connie ran down the crater and left Lion at the top, where she had been riding him. They crashed into a hug. "Oh my gosh, we saw the explosion and -" Connie's voice was muffled as she smushed her head into Steven's shoulder.

"What about you?"

"I'm fine!"

Lion trotted into the crater and nuzzled Steven. "Lion!" he cried happily. "Hi - were you worried about me?"

"Sure seems that way!" Connie laughed.

Steven didn't seem to see Spinel's slightly insecure, tear-filled expression as Greg's van honked and drove into the crater. Out of the car, burst the three Crystal Gems, and Greg. "Steven!" they all cried, rushing over to him. They all hugged him at once.

"Guys! Dad!" Steven said, hugging them back. "Is everyone from Beach City okay?"

Pearl gave him a thumbs-up as Garnet said, "They are all safe, and accounted for."

Alarmed, he looked at Greg's arm. "Dad! Your arm!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, um... don't worry," Greg said, trying to cover up his arm and smiling nervously. "I just got a little careless and I... "

"No worries, Dad," Steven said, grabbing Greg's paralyzed arm and kissing it. Greg's arm glowed brightly and was restored to its normal stage.

Greg cried, "Steven! You got your powers back!" He held his mended arm out to the sun.

"It'd be cool if you could do that to the whole planet, heh," Amethyst shrugged.

"Amethyst... that's not a bad idea!" Steven said.

Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Dude... I was joking," she said incredulously.

Steven bent over and kissed the ground. A circle of grass and flowers grew there.

"Woah, that actually worked?" Connie said as the Gems (excluding Spinel) crowded around to watch him kiss the ground.

"Looks like I've got a lot of kissing to do," Steven said, rolling up his sleeves and crawling on the ground, kissing every bit of the earth he could find.

"Should we lend a hand... ?" Pearl suggested.

"We should probably get 'im some water," Garnet told her. She turned to Connie. "Stay right here, it's probably very important."

Steven looked up from the ground, just in time to see Spinel walking away from him. "Huh? Spinel, wait!"

He pushed his sleeves back down and caught up to her. He panted, "I really was going to come back."

"I know," she replied, not looking him in the eye.

"Then... where are you going?"

"I got work to do." She moved about a metre away from him and turned around. "Friendship isn't gonna be easy for me, I'm gonna have to work on it. You make me wanna try, but... " She took a deep breath and let it out. "Gah, I messed up bad with you... I wish I had a chance to start from scratch with somebody... "

"Spinel, I... " A sudden gust of wind caught Steven's attention. "Huh?"

A sound like an airplane coming down to earth was made as the ashes in the slightly bluer sky swirled around: The gigantic torso of Blue, Yellow and White's huge robot had come out of nothing and was preparing to land.

"Whaaaaaaaaat?!!" Spinel cried, staring at the huge figure, her eyes as big as saucers, but not in a scared way.

"Knock knock, Steven!" came a voice that sounded like White's.

"It's us," trilled a voice like Blue's.

"The Diamonds," declared somebody sounding like Yellow's.