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There was a haze of pink light, dust spluttering up from the impact. Clouds upon clouds of debris as Steven’s powerful attack came crashing down onto Jasper. It was in his best intention to win - but not like this .
Steven covered his eyes as he laughed through a few small chokes, realising that this was the part that he had been waiting for. This is everything that he had trained for. Channelling all of his pent up feelings into one big blow, enough to finally defeat Jasper.
“See! I knew I could do it!” Steven pointed down at the cloud of disaster smugly. Nothing would have been able to take away this victory from him. Defeating Jasper? Sure, he had done it in the past - but nothing was quite like this. This was something that he had worked for. Something he had trained for.
This was completely different. Steven had singlehandedly tackled one of the toughest gems that he knew. A quartz that even people on Homeworld knew was strong and able to take on just about anything and anyone.
But she couldn't defeat Steven Universe. The outcome had been one that not even Steven had expected at first. Something that he couldn’t fathom as the fog began to clear below him.
Steven folded over his arms, proud of his ability to silence Jasper. That wasn’t something that he had ever thought he would have been able to do, but at least it was over now. Jasper would be silent on the subject. One that he was continuously frustrated with.
“Hey, Jasper? Up for another rematch? I'll go easy this time!” Steven chuckled, shouting down at the silence below.
As the smoke dispersed, Steven was slowly shown the crater in the Earth that he had created with his sheer power. It was one that was horrifyingly large - large enough that he couldn’t even get a visual on Jasper from his distance above.
He slowly floated to the ground below, his feet gently touching upon the dishevelled dirt. The landscape had already been rearranged by Jasper and all of the training that she had been putting it, but now Steven had added to the horror that was the broken Earth below him.
As he grounded himself, he coughed once more. He hadn’t expected to have made that much of a crash. The only thing on his mind at that time was the need to defeat Jasper at her own game. Cocky and selfish, but something that he needed to get out of his system. The only person tough enough to take on the physical aspect of his outbursts.
Jasper had become his punching bag, but a job that she was happy to have accepted. One that she encouraged.
“Jasper?” Steven squinted slightly as he stepped forward, the gem’s name coming out with a slight break in his voice. It wasn’t much, but there was a gist of a pit of anxiety at the bottom of his stomach that was telling him otherwise. Something wasn’t right…
There was silence.
A small part of Steven was slightly worried that Jasper may have jumped out of nowhere and began to fight him again. He needed to stay on his toes, terrified that may have been the case. He clenched his fists and held them up to his chest, ready to fight back if he needed to.
That last blow had taken a lot out of his system, but the power within him was infinite. He felt indestructible. He couldn’t control his powers, but that was fine. He could always channel that in a way that allowed him to beat gems in such a sport like he was when fighting Jasper. There was no harm in that.
Except, there was.
As Steven got closer to the sight of the crash, he noticed that Jasper was nowhere to have been seen. He knew that she was fast, but he was certain that he hadn’t seen her usual orange ball crash out of the dust. There was no way that she was anywhere but right in front of him.
Unless…
Steven spun around on his heel, continuing to hold his hands to his chest to defend himself if need be. He had gotten a little used to using his fists rather than his shield. It wasn't a good habit to get into and he knew that. Being on the offensive was a lot harder mentally than being on the defensive. It had gotten to a point where he didn't care. Jasper had taught him that fighting back with brute force was just part of defending himself.
Nobody was there - especially not Jasper.
Steven turned back around and headed towards the crash site to see if there were any remnants of the fight. He couldn’t quite believe that Jasper had disappeared so suddenly. Jasper was fast, but not that fast. She knew that Steven could outrun her if he needed to, there would have been no need to run away.
Steven felt as if he was at a point where he could have preempted a fight if he needed to. It was getting a lot easier to understand how Jasper fought other gems. Case in point...the way that he had defeated her in battle. How she had just disappeared...
As he took a few small steps closer the clouds of dust began to clear, revealing the damage that he had done to the Earth. He never wanted to compare himself to Jasper, but at that moment it seemed as if just like his violent and hurtful counterpart he didn’t quite have the ability to feel that what he was doing was wrong. A part of him knew he would have to clean this mess up eventually - if Jasper ever allowed him to do so.
Everything had the power to change, especially on Earth. If Steven needed to repair the damage that he had created around him then he would have taken the time to do so. Right now, he was ready to fight back.
There in the ground below was what could only be considered a crater, one that he had created himself. He skidded down the side of the crater and held his hands either side of him to balance himself, gritting his teeth together in the process.
Steven clenched his fists at his chest as he called out one more.
“Jasper?” He questioned, this time a little louder so that the gem could hear. He made sure to put a little more concern in his voice. At least that way she may have been able to gauge that he wasn’t playing around when it came to her vanishing. He wanted to know where she had gone.
He glanced down at the floor, as the sunlight failed miserably to shine through the clouds above them he noticed a glistening object below. Something that couldn’t have been mistaken for an orange gem.
He had poofed her.
Steven sucked air through his teeth rapidly. It was never his intention for anyone to have gotten hurt. He never wanted to poof Jasper, that would have been wrong of him. He wasn’t even quite sure how long it would have taken her to reform. Even if she did, would she be mad at him for poofing her or would she be happy with his results from all of her training?
Either way, Steven didn’t feel proud of his actions. His strike had been powerful enough to poof her back into her gem. That didn’t feel good. In fact, it made Steven feel terrible.
He sighed heavily as he knelt towards the gem, scooping it up in his hand and looking closely. It seemed a lot...smaller than usual.
“Wha-” Steven’s voice came out in a single crack, cutting off his own words upon his discovery.
Steven looked up from his shaking hand, noticing the shattered pieces of Jasper around him. As if the blast of his power had pushed them in various directions and thrown them everywhere around him. An array of disaster and his own mistakes spread out in front of him in pieces.
Jasper was in pieces.
Steven dropped completely to his knees, his form reverting to his usual teenage self. His heart sunk at the realisation of his error. The sheer power that he was afraid of had come through and destroyed everything that he stood for. There he was, on his knees and alone.
He scrambled on his hands and knees collecting all of the pieces he could, internally praying that he collected all of her gem. If he was missing a single part he wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to come back. Could he bring her back? There was always a way and the only way he knew was with the healing powers of all of the Diamonds.
At least, he hoped it would have worked. If his current life situation was to prove anything, he was currently in a scenario where anything could have happened. Not even Garnet would have been able to predict his current outcomes.
The only part of him remaining with a pink glow was his cheeks as his skin returned to his former colour. No longer plagued by the powerful diamond within him. Unhinged and unable to control unmitigated strength. His hands covered in dust and dirt as he scooped up the sections of Jasper’s fractured gem.
He frantically laid out all of the pieces on the palm of his hand and stared down at them for just a moment as he attempted to push them all together. There was a small part of him that hoped all it would have taken was for him to have fitted the pieces together like a puzzle for her to have returned.
It wasn’t like that. Steven knew it wasn’t like that and yet there was still some kind of false hope within that he was holding out on. That simply wasn’t the case. Not this time. Not ever.
Nothing was right about this.
“J-Jasper...I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t mean to!” Steven stuttered as he desperately poked his finger at the shards of the gem to get them to sit right together.
Nothing.
His breath shuddered at the thought. He couldn't go back. He couldn't let anyone know what he had done. He was a mess. Nobody would have been able to forgive him for such an error. He was too powerful. Too dangerous.
What if he continued to hurt the people that he loved?
Dad? Garnet? Amethyst? Pearl? Connie ?
He sobbed uncontrollably at the thought, a huge frown spreading across his face. His body and heart were cold as he sat all alone shaking at his actions. He didn't want to admit it - but he was afraid of himself.
What was he capable of?
"I-I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry. P-please..." Steven choked his words out violently, barely audibly through his breaths.
He thought he was a good person! He thought he fine! He thought that he could fix this! He thought that everything was going to be better!
He thought...wrong...
Tears began to drip down either side of Steven’s face as he sat on his knees in the crater that he had created with his brutalism. This was his mess. A mess that he needed to fix. An accident that he would never be able to come back from.
Steven’s hands shook violently with anxiety as the sound of the sky cracking with thunder was to be heard above him. Dark clouds loomed above, within minutes he would have been flooded with a rainstorm that would do nothing more than match his sombre mood. There was no way he would have been able to escape from the rain in time. Regardless, that was the last thing on his mind.
The only thing he could think about was the orange shards in the palm of his hand. He had successfully managed to collect them all - he was sure of it.
“J-Jasper...” Steven cried a little louder as he cradled the shards in the palm of his shaking hands. The truth of the situation was something that he was finding hard to digest. There was no way that he had committed something so morally incorrect.
Steven Universe was a good person. He always did the right thing. At least, he always tried to do the right thing.
Except, he didn't.
Everything that he believed in was gone. He was no longer the person that he believed he was. The person that he believed he had grown up to be.
He wasn’t helpful, just a hindrance. People used to need him for some unknown reason. Why did anyone need Steven Universe anymore? Everything was fixed. Steven had fixed everything. Except...he hadn't fixed himself.
It wasn’t even as if anyone had bothered to come and look for him over the days that he had been gone. At least...he didn’t think they had.
He was a disaster. Someone that nobody should be around, even Jasper. Why did he have to go and see Jasper? He should have known that he wouldn’t have been able to control his powers. It was just...he didn’t know that would mean against Jasper too. That wasn’t fair!
Steven sniffed loudly. Nobody was around to hear him. Even if there were any remaining natural habitants to the area that Jasper had claimed, Steven was sure to have scared them all away in what he could have only described as his megalomaniac moment of a poor decision.
He had shattered Jasper.
Thunder clapped above him once more as the heavens opened up and allowed for the rain to hammer down on the back of his neck. It suddenly became difficult to distinguish between his sweat, tears and the rain that trickled against his skin.
Somehow...he had to get back home. It was his only goal to make sure he got back there as quickly as he could. The only way he knew how to fix his mistake.
Except, his mistake was never going to be fixed. Steven Universe would always be broken and there was nothing that he could do about it. He was a failure and a tornado of poor choices. A violent and uncontrollable Diamond .
Everything he never wanted to be.
Steven swallowed his anxiety. He had to get back home as soon as possible. It was the only way he knew he could try to correct the mess that he had made. Otherwise, his quick decisions would fall into ones of permanence and continue to scar the very core of his being. The essence of who he once was.
They already had.
Steven Universe was no longer the sweet innocent boy that used to sparkle in his father's eyes. No longer the boy whose only woe in life was the discontinuation of his favourite ice cream.
No.
He was a murderer.
He was a horrible person.
A mess.