The jungle was very dense, very humid, and very annoying. Steven didn't mind it too terribly much though, as he was just happy that the gems were actually letting him come with them on a mission. Granted, it wasn't a mission to battle a big magical monster or anything, but it was still a mission.

"We need to find the Jungle Sphere," Opal said. She was the only one seemed perfectly okay with the jungle area. Ruby seemed to be one step away from trying to fire punch her way through the place, which was bound to turn bad if she actually tried, and for once Sapphire was on board with her, ready to freeze the place over if she could. She had probably only held back from doing so because of her future vision telling her it was a bad idea.

"What's the Jungle Sphere?" Steven asked, taking pictures of the different plants as they passed by them. "It's an ancient gem artifact that was left out here for far too long," Sapphire explained, "It can manipulate the structure of plants to creature towers and strongholds out of the organic plant-life."

"Woah, that sounds cool!" Steven said. Ruby nodded, "It used to just be focused on holding this one huge castle made out of a tree together, but something messed it up, and now it's just building stuff wherever and letting them fall apart again."

"Too dangerous to leave out here." Opal said, "We'll have to find it and bubble it, just like the monsters." Steven nodded, understanding. Well, understanding somewhat. "So, what's it look like whenever it builds stuff?"

Steven got his answer almost instantly. Directly in front of the gems, a series of roots sprung up from the ground, all wrapping around each other and forming a large wall in front of them. Opal draw her bow and Ruby summoned her gauntlet, but the wall of roots fell apart all by itself before it was even attacked.

"Like that." Sapphire said with a sigh, "We must be getting closer, let's keep moving." The gems continued forward, Steven taking a picture of the now crumbled wall of plants. The deeper into the jungle they got, the stranger things seemed to get. Watch towers formed out of several trees tied together by vines, chairs would appear out of the sides of plants and tablets would fall out of the trees.

After a bit more walking, they finally spotted the Jungle Sphere, a porcelain looking orb that was sitting on a pedestal carved out of a tree stump. Green energy was seeping down from the orb into the floor of the jungle in short bursts as opposed to the steady stream Sapphire said it was supposed to be.

"The Sphere must have been damaged from the lack of care. We should have gotten long before now, but we've been kept busy by other missions." Sapphire said. Ruby went towards the stump, reaching out to grab the Sphere. This was a mistake, which Sapphire foresaw and warned Ruby about just a second too late to prevent what happened next.

The Sphere recognized Ruby's gauntlet as a weapon, and assuming that Ruby intended to damage it, reacted to protect itself, letting out a powerful burst of green energy into the ground that caused a tower of trees and bamboo to form around it, thorn covered vines lining the wall to protect it.

"Think you can get away that easy do ya!?" Ruby shouted, taking this as a challenge. Her gauntlet lit up with fire and she began punching and pulling apart the wall, though it seemed to re-grow itself just as quickly as she was able to pull it apart. Sapphire tried to help, freezing parts of the plants to make it easier to get through, and Opal fired on as well with her bow. Even with all three attacking at once, the process was slow going.

Steven, knowing there wouldn't be much he could do to help the current situation, sat down nearby and watched the gems attack the wall of plants. He took a few pictures of them as they did, then became aware of breathing suspiciously near his head.

Turning his head, Steven was greeted with something he was sincerely not expecting to see in the jungle: a large, pink furred wolf. It looked down blankly at Steven, who was staring back with stars at his eyes at the appearance of the creature.

"Guys, I found a wolf!" Steven shouted. "Yeah, cool Steven." Ruby shouted back, being the only one aware he'd said anything, and not really hearing what it was he had said, as she was more focused on prying apart the wall of vegetation between her and the Jungle Sphere.

Steven on the other hand had completely forgotten about the magic ball that controlled the jungle, all of his attention going to the pink wolf, who had decided to simply refer to as Wolf. Wolf didn't seem to mind Steven's petting him, which Steven could safely say was odd all things considered, but awesome nonetheless.

As Steven's hands rubbed across Wolf's almost plushie soft pink fur, something began to glow when he got near the center of the canine's chest. Steven was confused by this, wondering if there was something inside the Lion's fur. Before he could investigate further though, the gems stepped back away from the hole they had made in the plant wall.

It was several feet deep, though not quite to the other side yet. The gems caught their breath and were about to start up again when the hole sealed itself with even thicker vegetation than what had been there when they had first started.

"Oh come on!" Ruby shouted in frustration, her whole body briefly bursting into flames as she charged the wall, her flaming tackle doing little if anything to the wall before she fell to the ground and laid on her back, seemingly having given up.

"We could always try to hit it with something bigger." Ruby suggested, her meaning clear to Opal and Sapphire, though Steven wasn't sure what she meant. "I suppose it would be efficient, I'll see who would be the best pick for it and then we'll-"

Before Sapphire could activate her future sight to check who the best pick would be, which Steven made a mental note to ask the meaning of later, Wolf stood up from where he had sat down next to Steven and walked over to the plant wall. Wolf stood in front of the wall, opened his mouth, and howled.

It was much, much louder than Steven or the gems had been expecting, and when he did it, a wave of energy left his mouth and hit the plant wall, a glowing hole forming on it. Steven gasped, his mental note now forgotten as Wolf jumped through the magical hole in the wall and exited the hole with the Jungle Sphere in his mouth like a ball.

"He's helping us out!" Steven said with a smile, walking up to Wolf, "What is this thing?" Sapphire questioned, unsure what kind of earth creature could do such a thing. To her knowledge, none at all.

"It could be another monster." Ruby suggested. "Then why isn't it attacking us?" Opal questioned, "More over, why is it actually helping us?" She added as Wolf dropped the Jungle Sphere into Steven's hands. Not that it was no longer attached to the ground, the wall of plants slowly broke down, and the jungle returned to normal.

"Gross, it's all covered in Wolf drool." Steven said, though Opal didn't seem to mind as she took the item, bubbled it, and sent it back to the temple. "We'll deal with it later." Opal said to Ruby and Sapphire, "Thank you for your help." She said to Wolf, who responded with just another blank look as Steven and the others began to leave.

As they left though, they realized that Wolf was following them. "You gotta stay here." Steven told Wolf. the pink canine seemed to obey, sitting down on the ground. Then, when the gems started walking off again, so to did Wolf, following them all the way to the warp pad at the edge of the island where the jungle was located.

"I think he wants to come with us." Steven said. "But why?" Sapphire questioned, "What if he's dangerous?" "Well, he's had plenty of opportunities to maul us, and he hasn't so far. He seems nice." Ruby said as Wolf came over, once again letting Steven pet him. "Probably just instinct. Wild animals usually won't attack if they're certain an enemy is much stronger than them unless the enemy forces them to." Sapphire said.

"Did you see that power howl? If he wanted to fight us, he wouldn't have too much trouble. At the very least, he wouldn't have to worry about getting away before we caught him." Ruby said. Opal nodded, "He seems fond of Steven," She said, "What's more, Steven seems fond of him."

And that was really the deciding factor. They couldn't really say no to Steven when he wanted something, so long as it wasn't something immediately dangerous. And as confused as she was by it, Sapphire could see no immediate threat, or really any threat to Steven or the gems at all, coming from Wolf.

"That settles it, the wolf comes with us." Opal said, picking Wolf up like a lap dog and bringing him onto the warp pad.


Sorry if this one feels shorter than the previous, the length of the chapter really depends on how much content I can think of an existing episode to get swapped. Or rather, how much content I can think of an will enjoy writing. Some will be longer, some will be shorter.

And to answer a question from the reviews, no, I won't be doing every single episode with Garnet in it just to replace her with Opal to show off Opal's power, but I might do a version of Giant Woman with Garnet. I was considering leaving the episode out because there'd really only be the one scene that changes, but it's still an important episode, introducing one of the most interesting and important concepts, the concept of fusion, into the show. So I'll leave it up to you, the next chapter will either be Giant Woman or Coach Steven, which would you prefer?