Chapter 1 – It's An Intro! :D

Steven roamed the temple, shuffling through the many rooms for anything he might deem interesting. He invited Connie over earlier to hang out, and lucky him, she accepted, considering she still had a few more weeks left over of summer vacation before she had to go back to school.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were out on a mission again yesterday and had yet to return. Something about a super special pendant or whatever? Steven had trouble remembering at the moment. He was too busy thinking of what he and Connie would do when she got there.
"Come on, come on," Steven whined. At this rate, he wouldn't have anything good to do with Connie. A melodic ring pierced the silence of his solitude. That familiar ring could only mean that the Crystal Gems were back. He ran out into the living room and saw his three guardians stepping off of a platform.

Pearl was arguing with Amethyst about being more cautious in the future, with Amethyst simply responding with plugging her ears with her fingers. This only made Pearl more irritated.
Garnet approached Steven, ignoring her two partners. She kneeled down in front of Steven and handed him a small red geode. "It was full of these, so we thought we'd grab one for you," she said. The rock was well appreciated, as stuff like this was sort of the perk of being left behind by the Gems when they went on missions.

"Maybe I can show this to Connie," Steven beamed, "Oh, but maybe she'll want to hear about the mission. Can you tell me what happened?" Hearing of Connie stopped Pearl's nagging and made Amethyst unplug her ears.
"Connie's coming over?" Pearl asked.

"Sweet! What are you planning on doing, lover boy?" Amethyst teased.

Steven grumbled, annoyed. Not by Amethyst's comment, but by the fact that, other than the souvenir he just received, he had nothing in mind. Taking too long to answer her, Amethyst chuckled.

"You've got no game, Steven."

"I do too have game," Steven replied, with absolutely no idea what the term meant.

"If you don't know what to do, why not take her to the arcade," Garnet suggested.

Pearl and Amethyst groaned at the mention of it. Last time they went to the arcade, both of them either sucked at playing the games or downright cheated and Garnet ended up completely addicted and distracted.

"Maybe you should just take her over to a restaurant or something, Steven. Fast food, maybe?" Pearl contributed. "After all, you two are pretty close. Why not act on that? Or maybe take her to the movies. I don't know what might be in, but I'm sure you'd have a good time."

Steven considered both and his face lit up as an idea came to mind. "Why don't I just do both?"

With a small smile, Garnet pet Steven's head and replied, "Wonderful idea, Steven." A knock on the door caught their attention.

Pearl, excited for Steven, ran off to open the door. Amethyst followed her, slamming into Garnet on accident, additionally taking something from her.

"Amethyst, hand the artifact over."
"No way, I wanna hold it," she said, examining the gem closely. As soon as the door opened with Connie on the other side, Pearl grabbed the young girl's hand and ran off towards Steven. Amethyst walked outside onto the porch, promising not to lose what they searched so hard for during their mission.

"Hey Steven," Connie greeted. "What are we doing today?"

"Let's get something to eat first," he said. "We'll go to the movies after that."

Connie smiled and the two kids ran out of the house, running across the beach in the distance to get to their destination.
Pearl smiled and watched them run along the sand and sighed. "It's so wonderful to see them happy."

"Uh-oh," Amethyst muttered.

Pearl's smile dropped as she turned to the purple Gem. "What is it?"

"I was tossing the artifact up and down, but I kinda, sorta accidentally tossed in into the city," she said with a hint of embarrassment. Her confession freaked Pearl out and it even seemed to vex Garnet.

After that, the three Gems felt a strong presence overwhelm them for a moment before the sensation vanished.
"We need to locate the artifact as quickly as possible," Garnet said with a sense of urgency. She left the house to search for it.
"I knew we should have bubbled that thing as soon as we got back," Pearl growled in frustration as she followed Garnet out of the house.

X—

Steven and Connie grabbed a couple of burgers with some fry bits and headed off to the movie theater. "Two tickets to Unfamiliar Familiar," Connie said. Recently, Connie's favorite book had gotten a movie adaptation and she wanted to go see it, hoping it would be as good as the books.

"I hope it's accurate," Steven said as they were handed their tickets. The kids stepped in; excited over the movie they were about to go see.

X—

Malachite laid at the bottom of the sea, entrapped and struggling against herself. She had been trapped within the depths of the sea for months and she's been attempting to free herself for a while now. Not from the sea, particularly, but from herself.

A powerful force caught the attention of Malachite's two halves. One half tore her attention from the force and separated while the other half was distracted. The giant woman split into two Gems.

Jasper and Lapis Lazuli.

The woman of water narrowed her eyes angrily at Jasper, while the latter gave a victorious grin. She kicked off the ocean floor with great force and burst from the surface of the water, leaving Lapis behind.

"I failed," Lapis lamented.

X—

Peridot was treading a dirt road that ultimately led to Beach City. It shouldn't take much longer to get there after hours of travelling. If her escape pod weren't destroyed, she wouldn't have to exhaust herself with this.

Suddenly, a powerful presence hit her. "What was that?" It seemed to have come from Beach City, her destination. The presence seemed strange, but intimidating nonetheless. However, she needed to finish her trek to the city.

X—

After the movie ended, Steven and Connie had gone on a walk through the city. "That was awesome!" Connie exclaimed. The movie was quite accurate to the source material and it was well executed.

Steven agreed and went ahead of her and stopped right in front her, taking a stance that suggested a combat sword stance. "I shall engage you here and you will never get by me, Lisa," he said, deepening his voice as he referenced the movie. The impression made Connie laugh, to which Steven followed suit shortly after.

A glimmer in the sand as they were heading to the temple caught Steven's attention, cutting his laughter short. He ran past Connie and picked it up. It was a silver chain necklace with a stepped kite-shaped cut topaz pendant at the end. "Wow!"

Connie looked at the pendant and pondered who would have something so valuable in the city. Beach City may be a vacation spot in the summer, but it was about to hit autumn right now and most of the residents there were a little too middle-class to likely have something like that.

"What would something like this be doing here?" Connie wondered.

"Maybe it washed up from the ocean," Steven wondered.
"Well that's definitely more likely than it belonging to anyone in the city."

Steven chuckled and examined it. It looked beautiful, especially when the moonlight made it sparkle. The young boy turned to Connie and placed the pendant around her neck. "Well it looks like it belongs to you now!"

Connie held the topaz pendant up with her right hand and looked down at it. "Are you sure you want me to have it, Steven?"

He nodded his head. "Sure. Think of it as a present."

She hugged him tightly and would have liked to do so a little longer if her cell phone hadn't broken the silence. She pulled it out and opened it up and answered the call, placing the device against her ear.
After a few brief moments, she closed the phone. "Listen, I gotta get back home. So I guess I'll see you later, Steven."

She ran off, leaving him alone on the beach. After watching her disappear into the distance for a while, he turned on his heel and headed for the temple, only to be stopped by a familiar voice calling his name. He looked around for a moment, but shrugged it off. Maybe he was just hearing things.
"Steven!"

He looked around again as he was called again and again. Finally, his gaze was aimed at the ocean. A figure rose from the surface of the water and turned to look at him with familiar somber eyes. "Lapis?"

Author's Note:
And in comes another fanfiction. This time of Steven Universe.

I knew I loved the series ever since I watched the first few episodes. However, until just recently, the first few episodes were the ONLY episodes I'd seen. What got me to finish the first season was a bunch of fan art of Lapis Lazuli as I was going through Tumblr. The character alone was the reason I finished the first season and will additionally continuously watch the upcoming episodes.

As you may guess, Lapis has become my favorite Gem.

The idea for this fanfic came to me after I watched the episode Jail Break. I can't wait to introduce my OC for this fanfic. She'll be introduced in the next chapter, so hang tight.

Reploid7,

Signing off!