Patton Universe: A Sanders Sides/SU AU

Part 5: An Eye In The Sky

"Remind me again how you convinced me to have a day out," Ameythst uttered, his pale skin almost quaking in the presence of sunlight as they made their way across the boardwalk.

"You're making it up to me for not coming to dinner." Patton murmured, whilst in the middle of devouring the ice cream he had guilted Amethyst into buying.

"In my defence, I did show up. We just got distracted."

"So this our compromise!" It felt good to finally get to spend some time with him, that wasn't just out of necessity but the time he instead chose to spend. They had been out for several hours now and though he could keep walking with Amethyst for several more hours, the boy couldn't hide his tiredness. A nice pink hue was settling other each of the stores and restaurants, turning a reddish tone nearer the shore and making the entire scene look the same strawberry flavour as his ice cream.

"Can we go home now?" The gem groaned, giving a hefty kick to the sand spilling onto the pavement. "I want to duck out before Roman tries to convince me to socialise."

"Oh come on, Amethyst! It's the most beautiful time of day, the sun sinking behind clouds, the weird alien thing looming ominously above us." His tolerance to Patton's whimsy delayed his usual keen sense for discrepancies and if he hadn't already used his limited prediction already he may have seen the danger brewing ahead.  

"Oh yes,  weird alien stuff... Wait? What?" He dared to edge his eyes towards the foreign object hovering effortlessly in the sky, with a strange conviction. "No... It can't be."  It was a perfectly circular thing, parting the clouds where it was, with an irregular hexagon that seemed to act as a sort of eye that rearranges itself every few seconds.  You could tell Amethyst was looking for something, almost staring straight at something far behind it as if he could see right through. "Impossible..." His arm snapped back suddenly and, upon grasping Patton's arm quite rigidly almost hurled the child onto his back.

"Amethyst... What's going on? Put me down!"

"No time."

He lurched forward and began his stampede across the beach, giving huge leaps that were well beyond the realm of human achievement. The boy may have been a bit more frantic and flailing if the feeling of going this fast wasn't so fulfilling. It was like they were racing with the wind itself, so much so that he could hardly feeling brushing past his face. "Hold on tight there, you could slip off." he heard Amethyst comment and noticed that in the rush he had loosened his grip beyond the standards that would be considered safe. When the temple reared itself ahead, Patton was both quite sad to that this feeling was about to fade yet full of relief when he saw both Logan and Roman stood by the shoreline. 

"We're back!" He called down, as they came to a soft landing and shuffled off the hoodie had been clutching to. Roman glanced back to show his rather weary-looking face,

"There you are, sulky. Took your time. Shouldn't you know about these things in advance?"

"Shut up Princey," Amethyst spat and instead opted to go discuss things with Logan, who may be a bit more responsive to a conversation, "What's that doing here?" 

"A red eye... I haven't seen one in millennia! This is fascinating!"

"Red eye?" Patton queried trotting up the sand, beginning to feel a slight breeze coming from that direction. The little hexagon in the centre of the orb certainly did seem almost like it was staring at him, pulsing even, but it was much too mechanical looking to be an actual eyeball. Surely? "It looks cool!"

"Not cool, Patton, dangerous." Logan corrected, "These things are near-indestructible. The only things I ever saw break them is-"

"Topaz's Cannon." Amethyst interrupted him with a strange defensiveness that was a slight step beyond the usual grumpy persona. "But that went missing years ago. We have to think of something else."