"I'm...I'm..."
"Just say it!"
"Yes, tell us."
"I'm all soggy!" wailed the cartoon croissant on the television screen. "I'm ruined; I'll never be the same! I feel so...empty inside," it continued. A cartoon glass half-filled with orange juice looked on with a guilty expression, as it was an accident on his part that had caused the croissant to be covered in orange juice. Who liked croissants with juice on them, anyway?
As the other characters gathered around their friend, they too cried tears of agony, making the croissant even soggier than before. The screen then cut to black and the end credits began to roll. The booming voice of an announcer then said, "Come back in two months to find out what happens in the next Crying Breakfast Friends episode."
"No!" yelled Steven, throwing his hands in the air and acting just as dramatic as the characters onscreen. After fumbling with the remote, he switched off the old television set. "I mean, they can't just end it there! What's going to happen to Sniffling Croissant? He can't be dead, right? Aw, man! And now we have to wait two months? I can't wait that long, I'll explode before then!" he ranted. As he was home alone, there was nobody around to hear his tirade and question why he was yelling at the TV.
He pulled the blanket off of himself, pushed the half-eaten bag of potato chips away, and stood up from the comfy chair in the living room that faced the television. Then, he began pacing aimlessly around the house.
School had been cancelled again, making the weekend start a day earlier than expected. It had been the second time that month that the school had sent everyone home. They said it was "too dangerous to be outside." He didn't feel in danger, though. Spending most of the day in front of the TV snuggled up in a warm cocoon of blankets didn't make him any more scared than he would've been during a normal thunderstorm. Besides, his mom and her friends always took care of whatever dangers plagued the town. Without fail, the monster would be gone by sunset.
On a whim, he walked to the nearest window. Pulling the curtain aside, he stared outside it, pressing his nose against the glass. The view hadn't changed much over the course of the day. It was overcast; clouds blocked the sky and made the daytime unusually dark. The restless ocean waves were choppy and foamy, disrupting a usually peaceful beach scene. Steven didn't know if the weather was caused by natural reasons or if it was a side effect of whatever alien monster was attacking town this time. It was impossible to tell anymore.
As he looked out the window, he spotted something odd. There was a strange shape that sat in front of the ocean. If he looked really hard, it almost seemed like it was a person sitting with her back to the house. He could make out the faint details of clothes and long, dark hair, and decided that it was in fact another person.
He had to wonder what a person would be doing all the way out there while the town was under attack. The house he lived in with his mom was a bit secluded from the rest of town and resided at the bottom of a cliff separating, the town from the ocean. Few people in general, let alone tourists, made their way back there, and it was almost like he had the beach all to himself. As for the person, he didn't think sitting outside alone all the way out there was the safest thing to do.
Although his mom had instructed him to stay in the house in the event of an attack, he couldn't let someone sit out in the open like that. His mom would probably understand. Who knew? Maybe the girl didn't have anywhere else to stay. All he would do is offer to let her stay in the house until everything went back to normal.
He ran to the front door, cartoons forgotten, and neglected to do so much as throw on a jacket. As soon as he opened the door, wind raised goosebumps on his arms and blew through his curly hair. Leaving the door open behind him, he jogged off towards where he'd seen the distant figure, leaving only a trail of footprints in the sand in his wake.
...
Fighting alien monsters with no special powers and equipped only with a few guns and old Gem weapons was no easy task. However, Rose and her team of deputies were up to the challenge of defending Beach City from the regular slew of attackers. As the resident police officers, the responsibility fell on their shoulders. Besides, someone had to do it.
Yet another monster had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to wreak havoc on the small town. They'd realized this after several panicked calls from citizens. After endlessly chasing the thing, Rose was beginning to grow frustrated. They were unable to catch so much as a glimpse of it. Their only clues were the destroyed buildings left behind and the descriptions that citizens had given them.
So far, according to Pearl's extensive notes taken after interviews with people who'd seen it, they were looking for a birdlike creature of some sort. It had been described as being green in color, with the ability to breathe fire.
Suddenly, Amethyst cried, "There it is!" from the backseat of the car, and pointed outside the window. All four women craned their necks to look in the direction of the monster. Sure enough, there was a flash of green that was visible for a split second before vanishing around the corner.
"I see it," said Rose from the driver's seat. She spun the steering wheel and pressed down on the gas pedal as the car turned. The police car hurtled down the thankfully near-empty streets of downtown Beach City, siren blaring and lights flashing, in pursuit of the monster.
A green shape appeared, floating in the air directly above the shops and streets. It had stopped fleeing, and instead began flying towards the car at lightning-fast speed.
They were able to see it clearly, in all its glory. All the descriptions in the world couldn't have prepared them for seeing it live. It was a sight to behold even for a group of people who fought monsters on a regular basis.
The alien was quite big, and kept itself in the air by beating its huge, feathered wings up and down. It was a brilliant dark green shade, and appeared like a huge bird with sharp talons and claws. As it came towards the car, it opened its mouth and breathed out a spurt of green fire unlike anything Rose had ever seen.
She was able to yank on the steering wheel at the last minute, and the car swerved to the other side of the road. The fire narrowly missed the car, instead burning a black, smoky spot into the nearby pavement.
Rose opened the car door after pulling it into a nearby alleyway to decrease its chances of getting roasted, and everyone else immediately followed.
In front of the car, they clustered into a tight group. Their position in the alleyway allowed them to have a few moments in relative safety before the monster found them again, and Rose put those precious few seconds to use. Appearing cool and collected, she said, "Here's the plan. The Gem is fast and evasive, so what we need to do is overwhelm it with attacks coming from multiple directions at once. If we surround it, we'll be able to distract it long enough for one of us to hit it. Amethyst, Garnet, and I could go along the back and on either side of it. Pearl, could you handle going in front of it?"
"Of course, Rose," Pearl replied, practically beaming at the responsibility.
"If we stay stationed in one spot, say, behind a mailbox or something, instead of moving around, we could fire at it with less chance that it'll burn us," said Garnet.
"That'll work," replied Rose. "Now, let's go."
Weapons in hand, they crept out of the alley and into the open, where the monster awaited them. It hadn't moved much, and hovered a few feet above the ground, searching for the people. Rose was able to hide behind a large, square, trash can from an outdoor restaurant to the side of the monster. Crouching behind the can, she watched as Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl made their way to their positions while carefully evading the bird's flames. Rose gave a signal from behind the trash can, and then all four began firing their various weapons at the looming monster.
While she and Amethyst had standard human guns, which did little more than annoy most monsters they fought, the others' weapons were Gem-made and thus more effective with Gem monsters. It was Garnet and Pearl's turn to have the gem weapons on that mission. Garnet held a device that could put gem shards into bubbles, and Pearl had a ray gun that looked almost dainty-until it started shooting, that was. The weapons had once belonged to Greg, as they happened to be on the ship he escaped Homeworld on. Greg had never liked using them much, but they were necessary tools that the others needed to fight.
The monster dodged every bullet or beam of light that got thrown its way, remaining undeterred by their efforts. It responded by blowing a column of flame in Rose's direction, although she was protected by the trash can. Although the can had protected her the first time, it wouldn't do so again. The can was ruined, leaving her in full sight of the monster. It saw the opportunity and fled directly over her, casting a shadow over her entire body.
She reacted to the fire being sent her way by simply evading it. She could hear Pearl's yell of "Rose!" and the gasps of Garnet and Amethyst, but her full attention was on the monster. Her movements weren't very fast, but there was a graceful fluidity to them as she jumped and dodged the bird's flame.
The other three members of the team saw that all of the monster's energy was directed at Rose and took their chance. They all shot at the monster at once. Someone, it wasn't clear who, managed to land a hit on it.
As soon as the bird was compromised, it stopped dead. It let out a deafening screech from its beak before vanishing entirely into a puff of smoke.
There was a moment of quiet as, one by one, the team picked themselves off the ground and stood up. Pearl ran over to Rose and grabbed her by the arm. "Are you okay?" she asked, worriedly staring up into Rose's eyes. She smiled out of relief.
"Yes, I'm fine. What about all of you?"
"It's cool, we're okay too," said Amethyst, putting the gun into its holster as she walked up to them with Garnet.
"After the fight, which had actually been easier to end than she'd expected, it was nice to be able to breathe easier. In the instant the bird vanished, the dark clouds began to clear, and the monster's hold over town slipped away. Now, only the tasks of making sure the civilians were okay and bubbling the gem shard remained. Luckily, most of the Beach City denizens had retreated into their homes to wait until things cleared out.
The matter of the gem shard, however, proved to be more difficult. Pearl had taken it upon herself to find the shard of crystal that was a characteristic of all the monsters they'd ever fought. The shard, which was always located on some part of its body, was the one thing that remained after its defeat. The shard would then be bubbled after the fight, where it wasn't dead, but rather unable to be a threat to anyone.
"Well, this is highly unusual," Pearl piped up. "I can't find the shard anywhere. I looked directly underneath the spot where the bird disappeared, but it's not there."
"Maybe it's just really, really tiny," said Amethyst.
The four of them searched the area for any glimmer of green that the shard would've given off, but the search yielded nothing. The bird had vanished with one hit without leaving behind the usual gem shard, not even a tiny one. Although they were puzzled, they didn't know what else to do. "It's gone. That's what matters. It's really not a big deal, is it?" Amethyst said.
"I don't know about this. What if it's still out there somewhere?" Pearl replied.
"There's nothing else we can do. If it's still out there, there's no way of finding it. If someone calls and gives a location, then we'll have to fight it again," explained Rose.
"I suppose."
Rose wanted to go home as soon as possible, anyway. She hadn't seen Steven since early that morning, and knew that if school had been cancelled, then he would've been at home by himself all day. She longed to go back and check on him.
"Come on," she said in a laid-back tone. "Let's head back."
As the last of the clouds cleared away to reveal bright blue sky, the small team went back in the direction of the car on their way back to the office.