Universal Rescue

Aaron T Izzard

Prologue

The cave was dank, cold and practically pitch black, making navigation for any would be explorers, perilous. However, the group that had ventured into this place where bettered prepared than most, a thin woman of average height, led the group. A powerful beam of light shone from a polished white gem on her forehead, illuminating the path and obstacles in their way. A shorter woman with purple skin and long flowing hair followed close behind her.

"Ugh, how much longer P'? This is seriously snoozeville" said Amethyst.

"If you'd like to lead for a while and risk falling down a crevasse, then by all means please lead on" said Pearl her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Amethyst huffed, crossed her arms and said "Man now I wish I'd gone with Steven and Peri instead".

"Well I did give you the opportunity, if I remember your exact words were "I'm cool with whatever" I believe is what you said" Pearl said with an air of smugness.

"Ugh, fine! let's just find this dohicky and get home, I've got a pizza at home with my name on it" said Amethyst licking her lips.

Pearl cringed and shuddered at the mention of food "Very well then, let's continue" and with that the two of them set off again.

Garnet the heavy hitter of the Crystal gems held her left palm up in front of her sending a beam of indigo light out of the gem on her palm. She soon came to a T junction in the tunnel, she came to a stop and looked from left to right, behind her tinted glasses she shut her eyes as if to concentrate on something, her third eye opened and gazed to her right, she opened her other eyes and proceeded down the right-hand tunnel.

A young boy with curly brown hair and a short green woman were headed down another tunnel, large rocks and fallen stalactites formed large obstacles they had to navigate through, the short woman (Peridot) had a green triangle gem set in her forehead and was projecting a bright green beam of light. Steven the young boy was carrying a flash light and walking alongside her.

"Are you sure we're going the right way Peridot?" Steven Asked.

"Most certainly Steven, it's only logical the Anti-Chamber would be located in the deepest part of the caves to insure its safety, so the deeper we go the closer we'll be to the chamber" said Peridot.

"I guess it makes sense" agreed Steven as they continued on.

They continued on for almost two hours before they could see a faint reddish glow ahead of them, they'd found the Anti-Chamber. Steven pulled out a walkie-talkie out of his cheeseburger backpack to call the others.

"Amethyst can you hear me?" All Steven got back was static.

"We must be too far away from them for the radio waves to penetrate the rock down here" said Peridot.

"Then that means we'll have to get it ourselves" said Steven.

Gingerly the two of them made their way towards the ever-brightening light of the Anti-Chamber.

In the tunnels above them Garnet suddenly came to a complete stop with a look of sheer horror on her face she suddenly turned and ran back the way she'd come; her future vision had just showed her something and she needed to find Peridot and Steven FAST.

AS the two of them entered the Large Round chamber there was a pedestal in the centre of the room with an opaque pink sphere floating above it, the whole thing was surrounded within a shaft of red light.

AS they stepped towards the pedestal, ready to remove the sphere the shaft of red light disappeared and the sphere began to emit a deafening ringing that caused Steven and Peridot to cover their ears.

So, loud was the sound the Pearl and Amethyst in the tunnels far above them could clearly hear the sound. Upon hearing this burst of ringing sound Garnet began to move even faster, faster than she'd ever gone before, she needed to reach Steven and Peridot before something awful happened to them.

Meanwhile within the Anti-Chamber a fears wind was picking up a gale fore gust what was picking up dust pebbles and almost picked up Peridot had she not clung to a metal bar sticking out of the damaged section of wall. Steven was also fighting the fears howling winds, he struggled to maintain his footing and stand along the wall, but a sizable rock came flying at him and smacked him in the side of his head, the sharp corner of the rock cutting him on his forehead and he was sent tumbling.

"STEVEN!" shouted Peridot, she held out her hand out and caught the collar of Steven's shirt.

"Steven, are you Okay?" she asked shouting so Steven could hear her.

All she could get in response was something that might have sounded like "ouch" as the wind was getting even stronger. The wind was so strong was it now, that it picked them both up off their feet, they would have been sent flying if not for Peridot's firm hold on the metal bar.

At this Moment, Garnet had finally arrived and was met with the desperate situation before her, she extended one of her arms towards Peridot and shouted.

"Peridot! Hold on" shouted Garnet.

Peridot could feel Steven's shirt collar slipping through her fingers.

"HURRY! He's Slipping!" shouted Peridot.

Garnet tried to fight the wind and debris to grab them both, but just as she grabs onto Peridot, steven slipped from her grasp and flew through the air.

"Aaaahhhhhhh!" Steven cried.

"STEVEN!" they both yelled in abject horror.

Neither Garnet or Peridot could gab Steven as he was flung about on the swirling vortex, Steven tumbled and spun through the air, his hands desperately trying to grasp at something.

"GARNET! PERIDOT! HEEEEEELP" he screamed.

As Garnet reeled Peridot in, Peri' climbed onto Garnet's back and held on for dear life. Garnet then extended her hand to try and grab Steven.

"STEVEN! Grab MY HAND!" Garnet Shouted.

Steven tried to reach and orientate himself and make a grab for Garnet's hand. He tried and just managed to grab her hand, as soon as he did though, the wind and storm in the room grew in strength. Steven found it harder to hold on and the air itself seem to be trying to wrench him free of Garnet's grip.

As the rooms storm grew in strength, Peridot gripped onto Garnet Tighter and Garnet summoned one of her gloves to firmly dig into the wall and anchor herself into position.

With unnatural power the wind eventually pulled Steven free of Garnet's grip and he was airborne.

"NOOOOOOooooo" Peridot and Garnet screamed in unison.

"GUYS!" Steven screamed as tears began to stream from his eyes.

Steven Flew strait at the shimmering globe atop the pedestal.

"HEEEEEELL…" Steven was cut off mid speech.

As he made contact with pulsating globe, there was a terrific flash and the might winds instantly died down, the globe had stopped pulsating and all that could be heard was the drip, drip, drip of water droplets from the stalactites in the cave behind them.

Steadily a stream of tears began to stream down from behind Garnet's glasses, at this moment Amethyst and Pearl came running down the tunnel towards them.

"You found it Wonderful now we can go Home…" pearl cut herself off when she saw garnet's tears streaming down her face.

"What is it? What's Happened" Asked Amethyst.

"Steven… He was… dispersed… by the sphere" said Peridot, who had now climbed down from Garnet's back.

"I… I wasn't… strong enough… I failed Him" Garnet fell to her knees, embraced pearl and wept onto pearl's shoulder.

"Steven's really gone?" asked Amethyst, in a state of shock not really believing that Steven was gone.

"NOT FOR LONG" Peridot stamped her feet.

She ran into the room and stood at the foot of the pedestal.

"Well need to get the sphere back to the Temple, if we can figure out how it works, we might be able to pull Steven back to our plain of existence" said Peridot.

"But where is he now? Is he somewhere safe?" Asked Pearl with great concern as she now walked into the antechamber, followed closely by Garnet and Amethyst.

"I don't know, but wherever he is, we have to get him back" said Peridot bravely.

Wind, air rushed past Steven's head, as he opened his eyes he could feel his weightlessness as he tumbled, all round him he could see white and grey as he fell through clouds.

"Wooooooooooooe" he yelped as he tumbled through the clouds.

"Good thing I skipped lunch today" he said to himself, slowly turning green as he tumbled and spun through the cloud cover.

As he finally broke through the clouds, he could orientate himself now he knew which direction he was falling. As he manuvered himself so he was falling stomach first, he could see he was falling towards a vast ocean… and fast.

"Not good" he said.

"Come on bubble…" but no bubble appeared.

Closer and closer the surface of the water came towards him, and still his bubble wasn't working. He was now close enough to hear the waves of the choppy sea below.

"Come on bubble, COME OOOOOOON!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

With only seconds before he hit the surface, finally his translucent pink bubble surrounded him, the bubble slammed into the surface. Steven braced himself best as he could, just enough to hold his bubble together. His bubble began to sing down through the water, the light grew darker as the bubble sank deeper, the bubble came to rest on the white sandy bottom, seaweed and rocks of varying sizes littered the sea floor. Even in the dim light Steven could see quite some ways, the water remarkably clear, just to give him some extra light he reached into his cheeseburger backpack and produced a battery powered lantern, not very bright but enough to illuminate his way as he began to roll his bubble along the sea floor.

He didn't know how long he'd been traveling but Steven was starting to feel slightly tired and so decided to sit and rest for a few minutes. As he sat there wondering what had happened to himself and whether or not the gems were okay, Steven became aware of a light that was approaching from out of the gloom towards his position. Presently he began to have flashbacks to when he'd first met Connie and their time together in Beach city bay and the fight with the Glow Worm Gem, in short Steven was more than a little worried and without his mother's sword or any of the other gems to help he'd have to face thins one alone.

However, as the light came further and further, Steven could make out the shape of something large, the light wasn't from a corrupted gem, it was from a submarine of some sort, he couldn't quite make out the colour, but the light was attached to a pair of pylons that extended forward from the nose of the craft, on the nose he could make out a number of holes, the light from a cockpit was now visible too as was a prominent back fin.

"Well, this I did not expect" he said to himself staring at the mini submarine that now floated ahead of him.

The occupant of the craft, visible to Steven only in shadow, moved from the cockpit and faded out of sight, some moments later a hatch in the top of the craft opened and with a flourish of bubbles someone, presumably the pilot, exited the craft in scuba gear and began to swim toward Steven.