Chapter Text
The first thing that Rainbow Steve registered when he woke up was that he was flying. The weightlessness of flight being a feeling he was familiar with, as familiar as breathing. The second thing he registered were the voices surrounding him. Voices that were muffled as a cold chill blew right through him. Rainbow Steve opened his eyes to an unfamiliar sight, a metal room with five people standing around the middle, all talking, or rather yelling at each other.
Each of them were different colours, all standing in the same room together and not, in fact, killing each other like Rainbow Steve assumed they would have been by now.
Carefully he moved himself closer to them, their muffled voices not becoming any clearer. Heavy distortion covered their voices making them heavy and loud, as if Rainbow Steve was listening to them underwater. Rainbow Steve tried to speak, tried to get his mouth to let out any sound, but nothing came out. Another chill flew through his body, as he gripped his shirt, trying to rid the chill out of his bones. His clothes felt soft, like they were made of wool weaved together rather than the normal fabric he wore.
He looked down, seeing a pastel colour-changing sweater. The sweater he wore was almost hypnotic, shifting colours as he moved around a bit.
‘Man, I should get something like this at home too.’ He thought to himself before his attention was brought to his hands, much smaller than normal. In fact, his whole body was smaller than normal. Rainbow Steve let out a tiny squeak instead of the intended scream that was trying to escape his throat. Suddenly, the others in the room all turned their attention to him.
The world suddenly became far clearer, with Rainbow Steve being able to make out the words they were all speaking. Each of them rushed at him at once.
”Oh my Lord! He’s up in the air! We can’t get him down!” The green one yelled out. They were all crowded down under him, trying to reach up to grab him, but every time they got close, he only moved higher. Rainbow Steve let out a giggle, dodging each of their attempts when suddenly he was grabbed out of the air.
Rainbow Steve wriggled around, trying to get out of the trap he had been caught in. The miniature Steve let out a disappointed whine, looking behind him to his capturer, the Indigo Steve. The man only huffed, his gaze making the hairs on the back of Rainbow Steve’s neck raise, even if he knew that he was in no real danger.
Rainbow Steve was handed down to a different person as the indigo man spoke. “He’s growing at a faster rate than any of us could have anticipated.” He said, as Rainbow Steve was adjusted in the hands of another person. It wasn’t until they spoke that he realized who was holding him.
“Well, there has to be a reason for this, right?” The green one asked, moving the colourful child in his hold. “He’s been developing never before seen powers, growing at a rate that is far too fast for a normal steve; his cognitive abilities seem to be improving at the same rate as his size.” He remarked as he looked around the room.
Rainbow Steve tucked his head into the green one’s shirt. The impromptu flight had made him tired. It didn’t take long for them to all crowd around him once again, checking to make sure that he was healthy.
“All things considered, if you didn’t know any better, he would look like a fairly normal kid.” The red one said, checking his temperature with the back of their hand. “As normal as he can look, with all the colours on him.”
Rainbow Steve heard a small complaint from the green man holding him, telling the rest that they were crowding him too much. As soon as this was said, Rainbow Steve was once again scooped up by the indigo one, held so that no one could get up to him.
“I’m taking him back to his room to rest, we can continue talking about his situation once he’s back in bed” The indigo one said with a tone of finality. The rest of them grumbled, dispersing to do their own things. Rainbow tucked his head into Indigo Steve’s chest, letting out a high whine as his ears filled with static.
By the time Rainbow Steve was awake, it was well past sunrise. He stumbled out of bed, nearly tangling himself on his blankets as he stood up. He felt terrible, both his mouth and head felt fuzzy, and the cup on his bedside table was completely devoid of any water that could have relieved him. He sighed as he forced himself to get ready, the edges of his dream still lingering in his mind.
It felt important, in a way that some details just tend to stick out, like someone solving a mystery. Unfortunately, he was having trouble recalling what exactly was so important about this dream. Rainbow Steve went through the motions of getting ready as his mind wandered off.
His thoughts were interrupted by clunking coming from just outside the Rainbow House. He went over to the front window, where he observed Sabre outside, causing all the noise as he tried (and failed) to build a machine. It was a strange thing, unlike any of the machines that they had built recently. It looked… interesting.
As he found his way downstairs and outside, his mind had wandered off to the dream again, still trying to grasp the fraying threads of the memory. Colours stood out to him, burning reds and colder blues, electric yellow and calming purple. He knew what these colours meant, the meaning seared into his mind.
Would his kind forgive him if he failed at saving them? He was stuck sorting through his thoughts again, all kinds of questions running through his head. What were these people like before he was created? What lives did they live? How did these once great kingdoms perish under the hand of just a single Steve? Why did this have to happen to him?
Would the people in his dream forgive him for not saving them? Even if he doesn’t know who they are?
Rainbow Steve was pulled out of his thoughts by Sabre up in his face, staring - well, at least as much as he could stare through that old blindfold - directly at him. Sabre was nice, even if he was slightly off sometimes when he panicked, and he didn’t quite look like the sentient life that Rainbow Steve had gotten used to seeing, just barely looking off to him. It wasn’t enough to stop Rainbow Steve from being his friend but Rainbow Steve could remember when they met, when that initial look made him panic. Nowadays it was just another quirk of Sabre that he accepted. What he wouldn’t accept was that stupid bandana-
“Dude, you good?” Sabre asked, ripping Rainbow Steve out of his thoughts before he went into another tangent. Rainbow Steve blinked at him, backing up just a tiny bit, personal space and all that.
“Yeah… Yeah. I’m good! A little tired but I’m fine!” Rainbow Steve said, smiling at Sabre as bright as he could muster. It obviously didn’t convince Sabre, seeing as he grimaced. Rainbow Steve panicked and redirected his attention to the very strange machine Sabre was making, far out of the ordinary things that he creates to help them out.
It didn’t seem to be for a person, seeing as it was connected to multiple chests. With one in the center, connected up to 5 outputs, each of their redstone interrupted with a different block each. Red, yellow, green, blue and purple. Rainbow Steve looked at it strangely, if he didn’t know any better he would say that Sabre was trying to split him up again. “So what’s up with the machine? You woke me up with it, you know.” Rainbow Steve said, trying to joke about it. It didn’t work as Sabre still winced.
“Yeah.. sorry about that. It really looks like you need more sleep.” Sabre sounded apologetic as Rainbow Steve self consciously rubbed his eyes. His eyebags weren’t THAT bad, were they? “But anyway! I was up thinking last night about you - no. Not like that, don’t get flattered. I was stuck thinking about how you like, can only use water powers? And like, oh lordy what is up with that?”
Rainbow Steve shrugged, “I can’t say I know much about my powers, man. My memories only go so far back.”
“Right, so.” Sabre clapped. “We know that you’re at least a combination of multiple Steves. And we also know that when you were split up your parts were able to use their powers without any issue.” Rainbow Steve perked up, he wasn’t aware of that? “So naturally, you should be able to use your other abilities? Either all or none of them since you can either use all of your powers, or all of them cancel each other out. Clearly they haven’t been canceled out by each other, since you can use a blue steves power without any issues.” Sabre wasn’t looking at Rainbow Steve anymore, borderline mumbling to himself.
“So that just leaves the option that you can, in fact, use your other powers. But you don’t. Why not? Well, if you could I would have seen it by now, at least in one way or another. My leading guess is that even you didn’t know you should be able to use these powers.” Sabre said, finally seeming like he was talking to Rainbow Steve, rather than just talking at him. “But now the question is why? Is it because you can’t use these powers? Or is it because you never even thought you could use more than one? Or does it have something to do with how you were created?” Rainbow Steve looked at Sabre, trying to process the frankly absurd amount of words he managed to say within 3 breaths. “Well. I can’t tell you what happened when I was created. I don’t really know that, and you know I don’t know that.” Rainbow Steve said slowly, as if trying to formulate his words properly. “Most of my powers, all the flying, the ice, the water. All of that is mostly just instinct. I just know how to do that?”
Sabre nodded along, tinkering with the machine a bit, moving some redstone, changing a block or two as he listened. “So your water powers are instinctual…meaning, we would likely need to actually bring out any other powers… Hey, completely unrelated, how well can you make a tsunami?”
“What?!”
By the time the machine was done, the two of them had shuffled through multiple ideas, none of which sounded like they could be plausible.
“Oh! What if you actually absorbed a blue steve willingly and that’s why you can use those powers more? ‘Cause you’re mostly blue then?” Sabre said, elbow deep in a chest as he was trying to find things in their cluttered belongings.
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Not only would I never willingly absorb someone - that’s a terrible thing to do, I would also remember doing something like that.” Rainbow Steve replied, carefully examining the parts that he was holding. The repeater looked a little off compared to the other one, and Rainbow Steve couldnt tell which one was fine.
“But we know that you don’t have the best memory, especially when it comes to your past. For all you know, you could have done some terrible things, got hit in the head, and woke up with morals and no memories.” Sabre argued, pulling out another repeater and handing it to Rainbow Steve.
Rainbow Steve rolled his eyes, inspecting all three repeaters and picking out the odd one out. “I’m fairly certain that I never did any of that. Besides, if I was, I feel like one of those history books we’ve seen would’ve told us.” He said, tossing the faulty repeater to the water. It landed on the shore, just a few centimeters off. Rainbow Steve glared, willing the water up to swallow it whole and send it to the bottom of the lake.
Sabre watched as the faulty repeater disappeared into the water. “Unless it happened where no one else would see it, which would make sense if you did it willingly but also believe that it’s despicable.” Sabre reasoned. “Besides, we both know that if it comes down to it, you tend to do some more… morally dubious things when you think it might help.”
Rainbow Steve rolled his eyes, flicking his wrist to speed up the water sending the broken repeater to its doom faster. “You make a few small decisions to help people out and all of a sudden you’re morally dubious.” Rainbow Steve complained, heading over to the machine where Sabre was finishing it up, adding the repeaters they had fished out of the chests. He still didn’t exactly know what it was supposed to do, apparently being something to power him up, but every time he asked about how exactly it’ll work, he was only given vague answers. Sometimes not even an answer, just a shrug.
Rainbow Steve prodded at the machine a bit. If he had to guess, it was made to split something up. Hopefully nothing alive, since he could still remember how it felt to be turned into pieces of himself. “Are you at all planning on telling me what exactly this thing does?” Rainbow Steve asked once again. This time he got a small smile from his almost-mad scientist friend.
“Well. It depends if this even works out. If it does, you’ll see what it does by yourself. And if it doesn’t, well then I guess I’ll HAVE to explain it to you.” Sabre said, adding a groan at the end as if he truly hated giving any sort of reasoning for the things he did. Rainbow Steve would have thought the guy was allergic to explaining his actions if he didn’t know any better by now. “Honestly. It’s a 50/50 if this is gonna work out. I don’t know if your bad luck will cancel out or overpower my good luck.” Right, that was another thing he went on about a lot, calling Rainbow Steve “the epitome of Murphey’s Law.” Rainbow Steve didn’t even know anyone named Murphy.
“Nevermind what it’s supposed to do. What do you think it’ll manage to do?” Sabre asked. Rainbow Steve was sure that if he could see his friends' eyes, they would be sparkling.
Rainbow Steve inspected the machine again, trying to figure out how and why it might work. “Well. Obviously, you have something being inserted at the front, and sending… some sort of signal through 5 channels? Likely a power source or something.” Rainbow Steve thought out loud, prodding at the machine in front of him. “Each of the connections have a different block in front of it - I don’t want to even know how you got purpur blocks - and I’m assuming that is to get specific colours? So that means the input needs to be something with multiple colours. Are we splitting a rainbow stone?!” Sabre nodded aggressively, a smile tugging on his lip as he pulled out some rainbow stone from Lord knows where.
“If it can power you up as a whole person, it should be able to power up each individual part of you! If it doesn’t work, we can assume that it’s just something else entirely that’s blocking you from your other powers.” Sabre muttered, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
Rainbow Steve thought about the words for a moment. He truly didn’t believe that he had any other powers, but if what Sabre was saying was right, he could save so many more people. He watched as Sabre put the rainbow stone into the machine, the two of them stepping back as these machines tended to end with lightning that had struck the two of them down far too many times.
The instant the lever was flipped, thunder cracked, striking the chest and electrifying the ground around it. The reaction made Rainbow Steve jump back, he had never gotten used to the violent reactions of the machines they use. More lightning struck, each boom ringing in Rainbow Steve’s ears until the lever was finally turned off. His ears continued to ring, the noise piercing through his mind as he rubbed at the outside of his ears in a futile attempt to make them stop hurting. While Rainbow Steve was recovering, Sabre had already begun moving towards the chest, opening the main one first.
Sabre looked giddy as he opened the chest where the rainbow stone had been. As Rainbow Steve peered over Sabre’s shoulder, he could see that the rainbow stone had vanished, as if it was never there. Both of them glanced at each other, running over to one of the chests to see if it had worked.
Opening up the chest revealed a few yellow-ish stones, shining with the tell-tale look of enchantment. Sabre reached into the chest, wanting to pull it out immediately. He pulled back with a yelp, a few of his feathers on his hand charred. “Dude! It just zapped me!” He exclaimed, sounding more shocked than mad.
Rainbow Steve let out a little huff of laughter, heading over to the green chest right next to them. He opened it up only to find... nothing. The chest was empty. Rainbow Steve’s eyes widened as he felt around its insides, as if the stones were just invisible rather than just not there. “Sabre. There’s, uh, there’s nothing in the green chest.” Rainbow Steve said, hesitantly looking up at him.
One of Sabre’s cheek muscles twitched (his version of an eye twitch as his eyes were unfortunately covered by that bandana.) “What do you mean there’s nothing in there?” He asked, his voice a little strained. Sabre stalked over to Rainbow Steve to look in the chest, the gears turning in his head. “Check one of the other chests.” He told Rainbow Steve.
Rainbow Steve moved to the blue chest, glancing up at his friend for a split second before he opened up the chest, holding his breath. He let out a shaky sigh, “There’s nothing in this one too.” Rainbow Steve said, closing the chest in defeat. He sat on top of the chest, head in his hands. “Why did only one of them work? This makes no sense...” He asked, looking over at Sabre who seemed to be in thought.
Sabre stared at the yellow stones, with a blank expression that often made people nervous for what was about to come. Despite having been on Sabre’s side for quite awhile,Rainbow Steve still felt nervous for what Sabre was about to suggest. “What if we try to inject this stuff into you?” Sabre said, not looking away from the sparking pile of rocks. “It’s not the solution I’d prefer but... The power might be able to fend off that infection. At the end of the day, my priority is to get that off so nothing happens. Maybe then we could get rid of that ugly slime tower in our lake that you can’t seem to see.”
Rainbow Steve had long since tuned out most of Sabre’s insane ramblings, instead focusing on the first sentence alone. He wasn’t unfamiliar with Sabre injecting weird stuff into his body, as unfortunately it’s common to do. Maybe these supercharged rocks could be able to bring out some of his powers. It’s risky, but almost everything Sabre has come up with has worked eventually.
“If we were to do this, how exactly would we deal with the whole zapping stones thing?” Rainbow Steve eventually asked.
“I was just thinking of giant wooden tongs. Though saying it outloud I realize it’s easier to just build the machine around the chest.” Sabre said, preparing to go into another tirade of engineering. “Then again, we might not be able to recreate these new stones if we remake the machine, since this sort of thing is really fickle. Our best bet is to just move the yellow stones into a new machine.”
Rainbow Steve sighed. He looked up at the sky, the sun was still up, a few more hours of daylight left. As he half listened to Sabre’s rambling, he thought about how long this might take. A few hours, maybe? If he was lucky it would only take until sundown. That would be with gathering the materials, planning, testing, using, and then finally some trial runs. He could hear Sabre listing out the materials that they’ll need for the new machine.
“Our best bet is to just keep it outside. With the energy of this thing it might accidentally set fire to the house. Water is a no-go for this, if we accidentally drop it we might not be able to go into the lake ever, let alone to just retrieve it... though that might make a decent defense system.” Sabre mumbled to himself, starting to go through the chests to grab materials. “Hey, can you poke the rocks with a stick and tell me what happens?” Sabre asked Rainbow Steve, looking at him for a brief moment and then holding out a stick.
Rainbow Steve hesitated, taking the stick and looking at Sabre with weary eyes. “This won’t kill me, right?”
Sabre gave a toothy grin, one that was far too natural on his strange, unnervingly smooth face. “It shouldn’t!”
They managed to just barely finish the machine before sundown, both of their hands covered in redstone dust. Rainbow Steve had gotten lucky, the rudimentary wooden tongs managed to carry the yellow stones for a short amount of time before setting the sticks on fire, and just long enough to put the stones into a chest by the new machine, built in front of the Rainbow Tree of Life.
Sabre tossed Rainbow Steve a wet rag to wipe down his hands. “You got some on your face too, by the way.” Sabre added on, using his own to clean his hands before putting on his gloves. It was a miracle those gloves were still the plain white they had been when the two of them had first met. Maybe Sabre had replacements? Rainbow Steve had never seen any others, but that doesn’t mean Sabre didn't have extras.
Rainbow Steve wiped his face down, tossing the dirty rag into the temporary chest they put by the machine to store their materials. The water, along with the slight cool breeze of the evening helped cool him down as he sat on the grass. “Now all that’s left is to use the machine.”
“Hopefully this can get rid of the… stuff on your hand.” Sabre said to himself, not intending Rainbow Steve to hear it. Of course, Sabre forgot that they were the only two there and there was nothing that could have covered up his mumbling.
“Sabre. Not this again, for the last time there’s nothing on my hand!” Rainbow Steve said, waving his hands in front of Sabre. They looked fine to him, he could use them fine and they were a normal person colour. “If this is the reason you’re doing this, I swear on the Sky People-!”
Sabre raised his hands in defense, “It’s not the sole reason! I do believe that you can get stronger by absorbing some of this, and potentially even, gain some new powers! But also, this should totally bring you back to your senses and see what I see! It’s a win-win for both of us!” He justified.
Rainbow Steve sighed, looking at the machine. He knew that Sabre only wanted what was best for them, but sometimes he just got so single minded that he couldn’t think of anything else. To Rainbow Steve, this felt like one of those times. “Fine. Okay. I guess it can’t really hurt to try the machine.”
Sabre cheered, shooting his fist into the air. “Let's get this show on the road!” He exclaimed, grabbing Rainbow Steve by the wrist and pulling him to the machine.
Rainbow Steve sighed to himself as he walked into the machine, wondering silently to the skies as to why he agreed to doing this in the first place. He watched as Sabre grabbed the yellow stones with their makeshift wooden tongs. He absolutely didn’t let out a giggle as the stones set fire to the wood with a spark, and he totally didn’t laugh at Sabre’s panicked expression. Rainbow Steve has no clue what you’re talking about.
Sabre miraculously managed to get the stones into the chest hooked up to the machine without setting himself on fire and turning into cooked chicken, or electrocuting himself and stopping his heart. Rainbow Steve eyed the chest from inside the machine, silently praying to anyone that the whole machine didn’t end up set on fire in the end because of the yellow stone.
“Ready?!” Sabre yelled from outside the machine, standing right by the lever. He bent down to pull it, looking up as Rainbow Steve gave him a thumbs up.
As Sabre pulled the lever, Rainbow Steve could feel his mind go blank. His molecules split apart, spreading across the universe, infinitely far and wide. He could see everything, he could see nothing. He could feel an ever-looming presence, watching him and everything with him. He could see the future, the past, even things that could have happened, and things that will never come to pass. He could feel everything, every being in existence. It’s as if he had been all of them, or would eventually be them. Somewhere, at some point (or was it always like this?) he could feel a buzzing everywhere, as if his scattered body had suddenly been injected with energy. It buzzed and buzzed until he felt more scattered than before.
Rainbow Steve heard a click as he woke back up in the machine, his bones felt like they were buzzing inside of him. He blinked his eyes a few times, they felt oddly dry. Rainbow Steve looked over at Sabre, who gave him a questioning look. “Is everything fine? Do you feel weird?” Sabre asked, hesitantly moving towards the machine.
Rainbow Steve shook his hand, trying to get rid of the weird buzzing feeling in it. “I feel… fine. Just blanked out for a moment like I normally do in a machine.” He said, carefully stepping out of the machine. Rainbow Steve watched as Sabre checked the chest.
“Well, the stones are gone.” Sabre said, feeling around the chest with a stick. “Are you sure you just feel fine? Because it definitely went into your body and there was an awful lot of lightning when the machine was on.” He said as he went over to Rainbow Steve and pulled him out of the machine, checking his hands. “Oh hey the infection is gone!”
Rainbow Steve shook his head, looking up into the sky once more. “Sabre, you’re like, insane dude. I honestly feel fine. I can feel the yellow stones inside me, they’re making my body buzz but other than that it's fine. The buzz is slowing down anyway.” Rainbow Steve said as he looked down at his hands. They looked fine to him, just like they always have. “I am a little tired though.” Rainbow Steve said, opting out of telling Sabre that it was just because they had been working on the machines all day and the sun was going down.
“Yeah that’s fine and all, expected even. Now come on, I have something else to check as well!” Sabre yelled, dragging Rainbow Steve away by the wrist.
Rainbow Steve sighed as he fed the chickens, petting Fake Sabre, who had decided to use his lap as a nest. From his spot within the chicken coop, he glared at the giant pillar of slime in the middle of the lake. It turned out that there was, in fact, something wrong with him that he couldn’t see. According to Sabre it was also making him act weird whenever Plague Steve was around.
Rainbow Steve sighed as he tossed the chickens some more seeds, using Fake Sabre as a headrest as he groaned. He knew that he would have to deal with that whole mess soon, after all, he couldn’t just leave it all to Sabre. “What am I supposed to do?!” Rainbow Steve yelled into Fake Sabre’s feathers. Fake Sabre only clucked in response.
All of this was starting to get annoying. First he had to deal with this new verison of rainbow stone, then he finds out that the latest member of their crew had been mindcontrolling him this whole time, and on top of that all he still was thinking about the dream he had earlier in the day.
The chickens pecked at Rainbow Steve as he thought more about the dream he had had. He could barely even remember it, but it still drove him insane thinking about it. Rainbow Steve mindlessly tossed the army of fake Sabre’s some more seeds. He could just barely remember hearing voices, people talking about him, maybe talking to him? He wasn’t sure.
Rainbow Steve was broken out of his thoughts when someone else spoke up.
“Jeez, it can’t feel nice to have that many chickens vying for your attention.” The voice said. Rainbow Steve looked up to see Light Steve, standing by the fence around the chicken coop. He hopped over the fence, grabbing some seeds and throwing them to the other side of the coop so that the chickens would leave Rainbow Steve alone.
Rainbow Steve watched as they all ran for the food, leaving him alone. “I didn’t realize that they were pecking at me…” He mumbled to himself.
Light Steve let out a little laugh at that, sitting down beside Rainbow Steve. “I know, you had this zoned out look in your eyes.” He said, petting Fake Sabre when she squacked at him. “It’s dark out, what are you still doing up?” Light Steve asked quietly, holding his cloak close to him.
Rainbow Steve sighed in response, plucking Fake Sabre off his lap and sending her off. “I didn’t get to say hi to the chickens earlier, I spent the whole day working with Sabre.” He said, looking over at Light Steve. Light Steve was looking directly at him, with a look of worry in his eyes. Rainbow Steve looked away as fast as he could. “Besides, you’re not my dad, it’s not like you can just tell me to go to bed.”
Light Steve let out a little huff of laughter “I think technically speaking, I’m your son.” He said, still looking at Rainbow Steve. “You know, since I was a part of you and was created with your energy?.”
Rainbow Steve looked at him owlishly. “Never say that again. I’m not ready to be a dad, so you’re not my son, you’re my brother.”
Light Steve let out a loud laugh at that, scaring the chickens in the pen. “Alright, alright, I won’t say anything like that again.” He said, watching the chickens settle back into their previous positions of pecking at the seeds on the ground. “But seriously, you’re usually in bed by now. Is something up?”
Rainbow Steve bit his lip, debaiting whether or not to tell Light Steve about the mysterious dreams he’d been having. “It’s… nothing. I just haven’t been feeling the best. Must have something to do with whatever Plague Steve did to me.” Rainbow Steve said instead. “Why are you here at this time anyway? I barely see you around anymore.”
Light Steve didn’t look convinced, frowning just a bit. “Yeah uh, I spend my days sleeping and my nights awake, most of the time now.” He explained, petting a chick that had just ran up to him. “The days are too hot, and you need someone to guard the place at night. Also the whole town looks nice in the dark.” Light Steve quietly admitted.
The two sat in silence for a moment, letting the clucks of the absurd amount of chickens fill the noise for a bit. It was Light Steve who spoke up to break the silence once more. “Rainbow… I’m worried about you.” He said, not looking away from the chickens. “You’ve been quiet recently. At first I thought it was because of the whole infection thing but… after getting cured you’ve just gotten worse.”
Rainbow Steve sighed, drawing circles on the ground with his finger. “It’s… it's just been a bit much recently, but I'm fine overall.” He said, shutting his eyes. “Pretty sure I’ve been having stress nightmares, but I can’t remember them enough to pin the blame on them.” He joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Light Steve grimaced in response, frowning but staying silent for a moment. “You’re not gonna tell me what’s up, are you?” He asked softly.
Rainbow Steve shook his head, “It’s nothing, really. If it was something I would have told you by now, but since it’s nothing, I haven’t told you anything.” He reasoned, wincing internally at how suspicious it sounded.
Light Steve looked at him for a second, inspecting Rainbow Steve thoroughly. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re so stubborn, Rainbow Steve.” Light Steve groaned. “If whatever is happening to you starts putting you in danger, you’ll tell me, right?” He asked.
Rainbow Steve held out his pinky finger. “I promise.” Light Steve stared at the finger for a moment, before looping his own pinky around it.
“What exactly is this supposed to do?” He asked, mildly curious.
Rainbow Steve shrugged, “Sabre does it with me sometimes, apparently it’s supposed to make your promise unbreakable or something.”
Light Steve perked up at the mention of Sabre. “Speaking of Sabre! He was actually looking for you earlier! He wanted to check in on you about the machine you guys used earlier, just to make sure that everything was still fine.” Light Steve said as he got up, dusting the dirt and straw off his pants. “He asked me to tell you to head to the basement if I found you, and, well, I found you!”
Rainbow Steve looked up at Light Steve, watching as he once again hopped over the fence instead of just opening the door like a normal person. “Do you have any idea what he was doing or…?” Rainbow Steve asked as he got up as well. Light Steve just shook his head.
“He’s probably running tests or making something. You should meet with him before he heads to bed!” Light Steve said as he started walking away. “I gotta go for now! Don’t like, accidentally run into a villain while I’m gone!” He yelled as he got progressively further away.
Rainbow Steve rolled his eyes, Light Steve could be such a worrier at times, he could have an apocalypse bunker and no one would bat an eye. Rainbow Steve nudged one of the chickens by the door with his foot, the chickens had a habit of running off on their own if they were too close to the door when it opened up. He got out the fence gate and closed the door behind him.
Rainbow Steve decided to fly over to the basement, it would be faster and more convenient. He got ready to jump, calling on his powers. Something strange happened as he called on them. The buzzing from before, from when he was injected with the yellow stones, it came back, buzzing more than ever. The feeling made Rainbow Steve freeze, the power crackling under his skin, within his bones. He tried to call his powers once more, to try to fly up and float away, but the buzzing grew stronger.
Rainbow Steve felt locked in place as the buzzing kept growing and growing until it was burning him from the inside out. His eyes widened in fear as small arcs of electricity jumped from place to place on his skin. It felt like he couldn’t breathe as his heart started to speed up. He tried to let out a sound but his mouth hung open in a silent scream. The feeling grew and grew, becoming more painful with every passing moment.
Rainbow Steve heard a loud crack, managing to just barely register it as the sound of thunder that was too close to him. His world went overwhelmingly bright as the pain reached its peak right before he passed out.