Missing Peace: Chapter 1
Beach City, Delmarva:
Steven stood on the beach, waiting nervously as Pearl and Peridot tinkered with the bizarre contraption they had built. White sat down next to him, awkwardly curling herself up to give the others room to work. After what seemed like an eternity, Pearl turned to Steven and gave a thumbs-up. Greg raised a large film camera over him shoulder, wires of every colour snaking out of it into the machine. Steven took a deep breath, and got ready to give his speech. It was time to send the message he and the other Gems had been planning to send for some time…
The White House, United States of America:
James Dalton sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, sifting through a pile of documents. No doubt anyone who was working elsewhere in the building would assume that at this moment he was contemplating the political issue of the hour, but if he was being honest, he was thinking of little other than what he was going to have for dinner that night. It was getting late, and he'd been wading through particularly impenetrable documents for hours.
He was just about to pack away his papers and head out, when a particularly startled looking aide ran in through the door, flanked by several security personnel. The aide had clearly sprinted the whole way there, and after taking a moment to catch his breath, blurted out the message he had been sent to deliver.
"Sorry to disturb you Mr President, but you need to see this." On a monitor that had been wheeled into the room by one of the personnel, a video began playing.
On the screen was the image of what appeared to be a young boy, certainly no older than his mid-teens. He was fair skinned, dark haired, and somewhat chubby, and wore a red t-shirt emblazoned with a yellow star. He had a soft expression on his face that conveyed nothing but pure innocence. Why then, was this seemingly innocuous child being presented to him? Dalton wondered to himself. Then the boy began to speak.
"People of the Earth….um…Hi? My name is Steven Universe. I'm speaking to you today because there's someone who'd like to introduce themselves to you."
The boy, Steven, gave an encouraging nod off to the side of the screen, and the camera began zooming put. Dalton nearly dropped his stack of papers at the sight he was presented with next. The camera had panned out far enough to reveal the 'person' sat next to Steven. She was colossal; easily 20 feet in height, if not more. Her skin was pure white, and gave off a radiance that almost obscured her features, making her nose look like little more than two slits. Her irises were pale grey, and Dalton wondered for a moment if she might be blind, but the way her eyes darted from place to place, clearly taking in information, told him this wasn't the case. Embedded in the woman's forehead was a massive, clear gemstone, barely visible in the glow of her skin. Dalton sat in stunned silence as the camera zoomed back in, this time on the giant woman's face.
"Er….hello….humans." The woman began. "My name is White Diamond. Leader of the Gem Empire."
The nerves this 'White Diamond' had exhibited at the start of her sentence began to evaporate, and her face took on a slightly calmer demeanour. For her to calm down that quickly, thought Dalton, she clearly had experience addressing crowds. He couldn't believe he was making such a casual observation at a time like this, but at least it meant his wits were still about him.
White Diamond spoke again: "I speak to you today to request a formal meeting with your world's leaders. Our peoples have been on the opposite sides of a terrible conflict for millennia. It is time we start to fix that." Dalton blinked in disbelief. He had never even seen a creature like this before, much less heard of humans fighting them. What on Earth was she talking about?
"We wish to meet with you for a…peace talk" continued White Diamond. The words 'peace talk' escaped her lips in a tone that indicated the phrase was as alien to her as she was to the humans she was addressing.
"We will meet in Beach City, Delmarva, in three days' time. I hope to see you then." The camera then quickly panned back to Steven, who blurted out "Um….Thank you!" before the feed cut off.
Dalton sat in stunned silence for a moment. His staff looked at one another nervously, before the aide finally spoke.
"Mr President, as far as we can tell, this message just played on every screen on the planet. Every world leader received it." After what seemed like an eternity of trying to gather his thoughts, Dalton finally looked up, a mix of panic and determination flashing in his eyes, and barked an order:
"Get me the governor of Delmarva, now!" It was going to be a very long night…
Author's notes: Hope you liked the first chapter! The first few are going to be mainly set-up, so I hope it wasn't too dry. Feedback is appreciated. I'll see you in chapter 2!