Chapter 1
July 6th, 2016.
The burning summer sun scorched down onto Beach City. Everyone was trying to find ways to beat the heat. For Steven, that meant laying on his bed in his boxers with the ceiling fan on as high as it could go. It was way too hot outside, and even the temple felt like an oven. Had it not been for the fact that he already had a painful sunburn, he would have been splashing around the beach. But no, instead of that, he had to stay indoors while his reddened skin peeled.
To make it worse, he was bored out of his mind. The gems had been gone for hours and left him because of his sunburn.
"Man...this really sucks," Steven panted as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "How could I have forgotten the sunscreen?"
At sixteen years old, Steven was slightly taller and a little leaner, but not by much. He was still pudgy, but he was slowly growing into his weight.
While he still didn't fully understand his gem powers, he had managed to learn how to summon his weapon.
He still had a lot to learn before he could go on really dangerous missions, but he was content with that. He was in no hurry to rush into danger again.
He winced in pain as he rolled over onto his back. His skin stung as if he was on a hot iron skillet.
He could hear seagulls and ocean waves through his opened window. His mind began to wander into fantasies of splashing and playing in the refreshing cold water with Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl...and Connie...in a two piece swimsuit.
"Aw man, get your head out of the gutter!" he grumbled as he smacked his hand against his forehead without thinking.
He then knew what Hell felt like.
With a pained squeal, Steven peeled his hand off of his forehead. Blinded by the burning on his face, Steven rolled off of his bed and smacked hard against the floor.
"This-really-sucks!" he groaned bitterly as he pushed himself off of the ground. "I bet the gems never get sunburned."
Steven ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth. He swore he felt sand in his mouth.
"Water..."he mumbled dryly.
He cautiously crept down to the kitchen, trying his hardest not to let anything touch his skin. After slamming down a tall glass of water, Steven tip toed into the living room , flopped on the couch, and flipped on the T.V. Once again, there was nothing worth watching, just bad sitcoms and weather men saying how hot it was. Annoyed, Steven turned off the T.V and flipped on the stereo and turned it up as loud as he could stand it.
The windows rattled and room vibrated at the sound of the loud techno music that Steven was blaring. He liked the way the he could feel the bass kick in his chest.
A childish smile crept across his face and he raised his hands in the air. The rhythm began to quicken and climb, growing higher in pitch as it did.
Steven's heart pounded with excitement as the percussion paused for a second; this was his favorite part.
He pointed his fingers to the ground at the pause with a sly smile on his face.
"Drop."
The base slammed hard like a sledgehammer as the sound system blasted the temple with a heart stopping bass drop.
The subwoofers on his speakers throbbed and shook as the music echoed throughout the temple. It felt like an earthquake in his head, and Steven loved it.
In the years that followed the battle with the False gem, Geissel, Steven had gone through a long phase of emotional development.
He wasn't the innocent kid he once was. He was older and (slightly) wiser to the way the world worked. He didn't know it, but it was just part of becoming an adult.
He was at the "stupid teenaged angst" part of growing up. The phase were one thinks everything really sucks.
But not even changing hormones could keep Steven down for long. He learned to fight depression with music, loud, blaring, trashy techno music.
The kind of music Pearl wouldn't let him listen to when he was younger.
The kind of music Amethyst danced to.
He didn't care how loud he played his music.
Hearing be damned!
While Steven moved his hands rhythmically to the fluctuating beat, the gleam of the warp pad flashed across the room.
He didn't bother to look up, he was too lost in his music to care.
As the gems exited the warp field, they were assaulted by the wall of sound that shook the temple.
Pearl covered her ears as they felt as though they were going to burst. Amethyst smiled and started dancing, she really liked Steven's new taste in music.
Garnet stood like a stone statue as music smashed against her. She had heard worse.
"Steven, turn that down!" Pearl yelled loudly.
Steven didn't hear her, he simply bopped his head up and down to the rhythm. Pearl bit her lip in frustration. It felt like her gem was going to shatter the music was so loud.
"Steven, turn that down for goodness sake!" she screamed over the music.
Steven rolled over and looked up at the gems. He only heard bits and pieces of what the pale gem had said.
"Turn down...for what?!" Steven asked, raising his hand to his ear.
It hadn't dawned on him that he should turn down the music. Finally, Pearl had had enough of the deafening, tuneless, and in her mind terrible excuse for music.
She swiped the remote out of Steven's hand and shut off the music.
"Hey, what gives?" Steven asked as he sprang off of the couch. "That was my jam."
"Steven Quartz Universe, you are going to ruin your hearing listening to that noise!" Pearl exclaimed in an upset motherly tone.
Steven rolled his eyes, it was way too hot in the temple for her nagging.
"Well excuse me," he said sarcastically. "I was just trying to keep myself from dying of boredom."
"Well, I liked it," Amethyst chuckled obnoxiously. "That beat was pounding! And that drop was sick! Where did you find those beats anyway?"
Steven shuffled painfully over to the stereo and ejected the CD and tossed it over to Amethyst. The three gems all looked down and read the marker written label on the CD. It was titled 'Music to Listen to When I'm Pissed # 3'.
"Steven, where did you find this-this- filth?" Pearl stammered with a mixture of anger and disbelief at the vulgar title.
"I found it in that box of stuff Tibbets left me," Steven responded. "And it's not filth, it's music."
Pearl pressed her fingers against her temples, her head was still pounding.
"Children these days, I swear..."she sighed tiredly.
Whatever had been blaring out of those speakers was not what Pearl would call music.
"How is your sunburn?" Garnet asked, ending her silence.
Steven showed off his reddened, flaking back and chest.
"Still feels like jumped out of a fryer," he whined. "I feel like I'm the temple's personal Steven jerky dispenser."
Amethyst let out her usual loud laughter while Pearl gagged in disgust. Garnet tossed a blue bottle of liquid over to Steven.
"It's for your sunburn," she stated flatly.
Steven smiled, at last, salvation. He would have hugged her if it weren't for the fact that such an act would feel like being placed on a searing grill.
"Thanks, Garnet," he exclaimed happily. "I'll go slather this stuff on right now."
"Just clean up the floor once the dead skin peels off," she said with a small smile as she watched Steven run off the the bathroom.
While Steven was treating his sunburn, the gems gathered in the living room to discuss current events.
Even through they spent most of their time going on missions, the gems were not blind to the world around them.
For months large cargo ships had been unloading massive amounts of building equipment.
Every now and again, CH-47 Chinook helicopters could be seen transporting large containers over to east part of the city.
They didn't know what was being built, but knew that it was going to be big. The amount of steel girders and concrete that they had seen being transported gave them a rough estimation on the size of the structure. It was going to be at least as big as their temple. Despite the size of the construction, the gems had not been able to see what was being built. A huge black canopy had been placed over the construction sight and was heavily guarded by the U.S military.
Any attempts to approach the sight would be unwise, as the gem's relationship with the government was still fragile after the damages their battle with the False gem had caused. It troubled the gems deeply that the humans no longer fully trusted them, but it troubled Garnet the most.
She was old enough to know that humans are not to be underestimated. She had seen their ability to change and adapt countless times.
It still seemed like only yesterday the humans were arguing and bickering over whether or not the planet was round.
Now they had fought through two world wars, split the atom, and had walked on the moon.
If there was something they wanted to do, they would do it or fall by the wayside.
"I saw another one of those cargo ships dock today," Pearl stated calmly. "This time it was filled with cables and other electronics."
"Makes a girl wonder what they're building over there," Amethyst yawned, not too interested.
"Whatever they're building, it' none of our concern," Garnet stated flatly as she adjusted her shades.
"I know, but it worries me," Pearl sighed with a stressful tone. "You know how humans can be."
Garnet shook her head, she secretly was dying to know what the government had been building for the last three years.
From the amount of troops being transported out of the city, it seemed more likely that whatever they were building was nearing completion.
Hopefully whatever they had been building wasn't some kind of new super weapon or something of the like.
The flashing light of the warp pad all broke the gems from their thoughts. Only they could work the warp pad, no one else was supposed to be able to use it.
Not knowing what was being teleported into the temple, the gems all readied their weapons.
As the light of the warp pad faded, the gems all lowered their weapons and stood awestruck.
Garnet felt her heart skip as what looked like an elderly Native American woman wobbled off of the warp pad.
She wore a teal buckskin dress and a long blue beaded shawl with white tassels hanging off of it's edges.
She had pale teal skin and long blue hair so dark that it looked black. In her hair she wore three eagle feathers.
"It can't be...," Pearl rasped in disbelief. "Turquoise?"
The old woman glance up to Pearl. She reached out and tenderly placed her hands on Pearl's face. Pearl felt strangely calm and relaxed at the old gem's touch.
"Aké iyúškinyan wancínyankelo, Pearl," Turquoise spoke happily.
The language she was speaking was Lakota. Pearl shook her head, showing that she didn't understand what Turquoise was saying.
Turquoise frowned and cleared her throat.
"I said, I'm glad to see you again, Pearl," she spoke in perfect english. "Now, where is Rose? I need to speak with her."
Deep within the confines of the newly constructed "Monastery" the lead professor Adler was busy monitoring the progress of the task he had been assigned three years ago. He was so excited, in just one more day, he could show the world the fruits of his labor.
"When you four are shown to the world, it will mark a new era of protection for humanity," he spoke eagerly. "Where grandfather failed, I will succeed."
