Steven walks home from the Big Donut, happily humming to himself, eager to see his family; the Crystal Gems. The boy walks up to his house and opens the door to greet the Gems. "Hey, guys!" Suddenly a small, blue centipede-like creature jumps out, startling Steven, "AH!"
Then a whip with blue electricity surrounding it wraps around the insect creature and yanks it towards the user; Carnelian. "Sup, Steven?" The scarlet Gem grunts holding the creature in place.
"What are these things?" A surprised Steven asks the gems fighting the creatures.
Another centipede jumps in front of Steven, only to for Blue Pearl to cut it down with her swords. "Ugh! Sorry, Steven, we will get these Centipeetles out of your room. We think they were trying to get into the temple."
"Aw. You don't have to get rid of them, they're really cool." Steven says with enthusiasm, only to regret it when a Centipeetle that Blue is holding off spits out a shard of ice barely missing his feet.
Carnelian electrocutes the Centipeetle she had entangled in her whip, poofing it. "Um, guys we got a problem. These things don't have gems."
"That means there just spawns; the real one is somewhere nearby," Garnet states poofing a Centipeetle with gauntlets. "We should probably find it before someone gets hurt."
"Oh! Can I come?" Steven says excitedly, willing to prove himself.
"Sorry Steven, until you learn to control the powers in your gem, we'll take care of protecting humanity, okay?" Blue responds as she continues to poof several more Centipeetles with her blades.
"Aw, man." Steven says disappointed, but then notices a group of Centipeetle raiding the fridge "Hey! Get out of there! Go on! Shoo! Shoo! They got into everything!"
Garnet quickly smashed the Centipeeltes with her gauntlets, poofing them. "Well, that's the last of them, and the third time this month," Garnet states. "No matter how many times we push them back, they just keep coming, and in greater numbers."
"We may have something they're looking for, whatever that is." Blue quietly suggests.
"Maybe they're hungry; they did try to raid our fridge after all," Carnelian says lightheartedly. "Speaking of the fridge, we've got a surprise for you, Steven."
Garnet opens the freezer, revealing it is full of Cookie Cat Ice Cream Sandwiches. "No way, it can't be! Where did you get these? I thought they stopped making them!" Steven shouts with enjoyment.
Carnelian places her elbow on Stevens' shoulder. "Well, we heard that, too, and since they're your favorite, we went out and stole a bunch," Carnelian says jokingly.
"No, we didn't, we paid for them," Blue reassured. Carnelian frowns at the Pearl for taking the fun out of her joke.
"I can't believe you did this. Thank you so much!" Steven says happily.
"Help yourself to one man." Carnelian insists.
Steven takes one of the treats, unwraps it and bites into it, savoring the taste. "Mm," Suddenly, Stevens gem begins to glow.
Blue brushes the hair in front of her eyes aside, to get a clear view of what is happening, "Steven... your gem, it's…"
Steven looks down at his Gem. "My Gem, it's… it's glowing!" Steven shouts enthusiastically.
"Quick, try to summon your weapon!" Carnelian says supporting.
Steven's enthusiasm turns to disappointment when he realizes, "I don't know how!" Steven looks down at his gems seeing the glow fading away. "Ah, it's fading! How do I make it come back?" Steven panics.
Blue kneels in front of the young Gem and places her hands on his shoulders. "Calm down Steven. Just breathe, don't force it." Blue suggests in a calm, motherly tone.
The glow fades. "Ah, I was really close that time!" Steven sighs. "Can you guys help me out?"
"Of course, we'll help you, our little guardian in training," Blue says playfully messing up Steven's hair, making him chuckle a bit.
"You two go on ahead, Carnelian and I will stay here in case any more Centipeetles show up, wouldn't want the little buggers to get the drop on us again." Garnet orders.
Blue leads Steven out of the temple to a fully-grown cherry blossom tree, found up on the hill.
"This is how your Mother taught me to summon my weapon. She told me to pay attention to the petals." Blue moves her body like a ballerina dancing on stage, following the petals in the breeze. "The way they dance seems improvised, but it is actually being calculated in real-time based on the physical properties of this planet. With hard work and dedication, you can master the magical properties of your gem and perform your own dance!" The slim Gem's gemstone begins to emit a bright glow; she reaches for her chest and pulls out a sword. "Like so."
"Whoa," Steven says awestruck at the display.
"Now you try Steven," Blue says stepping out-of-the-way.
Steven takes a deep breath and tries to "dance" with the petals as suggested.
A half-hour goes by, but nothing happens. "Am I doing this right?"
"Did Blue tell you about the 'petal thing'?" Carnelian asks greeting the two Gems.
"Hey, Carney." Steven greets the small, red Quartz.
Carnelian turns to Blue, "Boss told me to come get you; said she needs help with fortifying the rear or something."
"On my way; we'll try this again later Steven," Blue says hopping to her feet.
"No worries Blue, I can help him out," Carnelian suggests.
"Okay, just don't do anything too reckless." Blue politely asks before leaving.
"No promises!" Carnelian responds. The red Quartz turns to Steven. "So how can your big sister help you out?"
"Blue said that I need to practice really hard, so I can dance like a tree or something." The boy answers.
Carnelian cracks a smile, chuckling a bit. "Listen, Steven, that stuff may work for Blue, but when I need to summon my weapon, it just happens." Carnelian closes her eyes and reaches for the gem on her shoulder, and pulls out a whip emitting light-blue electricity, "as you can see." The red Gem whirls her weapon around playfully but accidentally fires an electric blast from it to both hers and Stevens's shock, with neither of them knowing where it went. "Don't worry; it probably won't hit anything important," Carnelian assures with a coy smile.
Meanwhile, at the Big Doughnut, Lars finishes throwing out some trash; Lars turns to head back inside but stops when the electric blast from Carnelian's whip destroys the trashcan, spreading garbage everywhere, much to his dismay.
Back at the Beach House, Steven walks in as the Gems finish setting up barriers using furniture and other supplies they could find. "This should keep them out this time," Garnet states approvingly.
"Hey Garnet, can you help me out," Steven asks the tall Gem.
"Sure, what do you need?" Garnet asks.
"It's about summoning my weapon." Steven states. "Blue told me to practice dancing with the petals, and Carney tells me that it just happens on my own and I don't have to do anything, but nothings working, do you have any advice for me?"
Garnet removes her translucent blue visor and looks at Steven with her three eyes. "In a way, I would recommend both pieces of advice."
"So, I'm supposed to work really hard and not try at all at the same time?" Steven asks even more confused.
"Think of it like this." Garnet begins. "For me, my weapons have been connected to my basic instincts of when to act and how to act in different scenarios, whenever a situation arises that requires my gauntlets, they appear, ready for battle, but I also have to train my mind to recognize those situations, so I can summon them when I need to. Does that make sense?"
"I think so," Steven says understanding some of what Garnet said. "I think my best bet is to retrace my steps and recreate what happened the last time my gem glowed." Steven recreates the scenario in his mind. "So, I walked through the front door and got scared by one of the Centipeetles, Carnelian grabbed and poofed it. Blue came over and poofed a bunch of others. Then a group tried to raid the fridge then you poofed them, Garnet. Afterwards, you opened the fridge and I saw the Cookie Cats and I was so happy, I ate one and then my gem glowed and… that's about it."
Before Garnet could respond, she is cut off by a large rumble that shakes the house.
Carnelian and Blue walk out from the Burning Room. "What was that?" Blue asks.
Steven and the Gems head outside to find the source of the rumbling and come across a large Blue Centipeetle.
"That is one big mother…" Carnelian says before she is cut off by Garnet.
"Steven, stay in the house!" Garnet orders.
"What? No, I can help." Steven declares.
"Listen to Garnet," Blue says as she summons her swords. "This'll be over before you know it."
The large Centipeetle hisses at the gems and fires a blue beam from its mouth that freezes everything it hits. The Gems dodge the blast and advance on the monster, led by Garnet "Let's do this."
Carnelian whirls her whip and fires blasts of electricity at the Centipeetle, but it just dodges the attacks. Blue and Garnet attack the Centipeetle together, but it just keeps dodging their attacks repeatedly. Carnelian spins dashes towards the large Centipeetle and tries to entangle her shock-whip around it, but the monster grabs the weapon with its pincers and flings Carnelian into the air. Garnet jumps and grabs the small Quartz, and they land safely on the ground. Blue charges at the insectoid monster and thrust her swords at its Gem location, but the creature dodges it with complete accuracy, then attacks the Pearl with its tail, which Blue scarcely dodges. Garnet smashes her gauntlets onto the ground sending a shock wave toward the Centipeetle, but it quickly jumps onto the side of the mountain avoiding the wave. The creature retaliates by firing her ice beam at the Gems again, and they barely dodge it and take cover behind a now frozen, broken off piece of the temple.
"What are we going to do?" Carnelian questions in a panicked tone. "It's like it knows what move we're going to make before we even make it."
"We'll figure out a plan, but right now, we need to keep it away from the temple and Steven!" Garnet orders.
Steven looks out the window worried about his friends. "Oh Geez, this is not good!" Steven begins pacing. "I got to do something, but I don't have a weapon, if I go out there I'll probably die, but if I don't, they'll definitely die." Steven continues pacing, but stops when he hears a burrowing sound, he turns and sees several Centipeetle spawns digging through the furniture blockade. "AH!" The young Half-Gem looks around to see what he could use to defend himself; he finds a mop in the corner and runs to it. Steven picks up the mop and uses and readies himself for an attack. The Centipeetles however, just ignore Steven as they try to burrow their way through the door to the Burning Room. Steven walks over confused at what the small creatures are doing. Steven pokes one of them with a mop to which it responds with a hiss, before going back to burrowing. Steven confusingly observes the Centipeetles, but then remembers what Blue said earlier, 'We may have something they're looking for, whatever that is.' Steven looks back at the window, still seeing the Gems fight, then looks back at the burrowing insectoids. "Please don't be wrong about this. Please don't be wrong about this." Steven chants to himself as he opens the door the room, and gazes at the thousands of bubbled Gems.
The Centipeetles charge into the room and begin scouring for something. They look at all the different bubbles closest to the ground, only to turn away from them. Steven enters the room and searches through the bubbles, keeping his distance from the blue creatures. Then, Steven notices a small group of Centipeetles stacked on top of each other trying to reach a bubbled red gem, Steven looks at the mop he is holding and breathes an unsure sigh as he pops the bubble with it. The red Gem falls to the ground, a red light emerges from it as it begins taking form, the light continues to grow in size and mold its appearance, revealing itself to be, "a Red Centipeetle?" Steven says to himself stepping back, the red insect starts breathing fire all around the room, with Steven almost hit by its flames. The house shakes once more as the Gems continue to fight the Blue Centipeetle; Steven realizes this is what it was searching for all along. Steven pokes the Red Centipeetle with the mop trying to get its attention, "follow me." Steven pokes it again, "this way." The red creature follows Steven out of the room to the Blue Centipeetle.
Garnet, Carnelian, and Blue continue assaulting the creature, who just continues to avoid their attacks. The Large creature charges its ice breath and fires it at the Gems, they jump out-of-the-way but Garnet's hit by the blast and her right leg begins to freeze. "GARNET!" Blue and Carnelian shout running to their friend, "You all right Boss?" Carnelian asks.
"I'm fine, you two need to move now!" Garnet orders. But their too late, the Blue Centipeetle charges its ice breath once more, preparing to freeze all three of them on the spot.
"WAIT!" Steven shouts getting both the Gems and the Centipeetles attention.
"Steven! Get back in the house!" Garnet orders, worried about him.
"No, I found what it was looking for." Steven moves aside as the Red Centipeetle emerges from the house and notices the Blue Centipeetle, it screeches as if trying to say a name that sounded like "Saf-Ahyuh-R." The Blue Centipeetle sees its red counterpart and tries to screech a name as well, sounding like "Roo-Bee." The two creatures crawl to each other and wrap around one another in a romantic kind of way.
"Aw," Steven says at the display of love.
The two creatures turn to Steven and screech something that sounded like, "Thangk-Yoo," before they burrow underground together, off to parts unknown.
Steven not knowing what they said exactly, utters, "Uh… You're Welcome, I think." Steven turns to the Gems and runs towards them. "Guys are you okay?"
Carnelian uses the hot electricity emitting from her whip to thaw Garnet's leg out, "you good?" The red Gem asks.
The taller gem quickly stands up and kicks the air several times to restore feeling to her leg; Garnet thanked Carnelian, with an approving smile, before turning to Steven. "Steven, that was completely dangerous."
"I know," Steven states, "but I had to do something, I may not have a weapon but that doesn't make me useless, what I did was dangerous, but I'm a Crystal Gem too and I wasn't going to let you guys risk your lives." Steven sighs to himself. "I'm probably grounded aren't I, for disobeying."
"Steven, you're not grounded," Garnet states to the boy's surprise. "While I don't approve of how unbelievably dangerous that was, it was the right move nonetheless, and it saved our lives."
"Even if your gem can't do anything yet, you're still one of us, Steven." Carnelian states, "We're not the Crystal Gems without you!"
"We're sure someday you'll figure out how to properly control your gem, in your own way." Blue chips in.
"Thanks, guys," Steven says giving the Gems a hug.
Note: Garnet is a single Gem in this AU, not a fusion.