In the heart of Little Garden, the "Mr. 5 Pair" had managed to find and subdue half of the pirates rather easily. After using Mr. 5's Devil Fruit powers to spike one of the giant's barrels of grog, Mr. 3 sent the two to find Princess Vivi, the young princess of the Alabasta kingdom. They had worried that they would have to deal with "Straw Hat" Luffy's Devil Fruit abilities, but he was presently lodged under a rock and unable to move.
Things seemed to be looking up for Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine.
"It is fortuitous that you seem to be incapacitated, 'Straw Hat.' You are the only one on this damn island we consider a threat. We had planned to lure the princess away from you using her duck, but this worked out so much better for us," Mr. 5 taunted moving closer to his target.
"Consider yourself lucky, duck! Kyahahaha!" Miss Valentine laughed.
In actuality, the two had been close to forcing the duck to do it by force regardless, but Miss Valentine insisted on checking in on Steven with only minimal complaining by Mr. 5. It was only on their way back to the wax house did they spy the Straw Hat pirate, his long-nosed friend, the princess, and her duck.
"It was you, wasn't it?!" the long-nosed pirate growled. "You interrupted the giants' noble duel, didn't you?!"
Mr. 5 merely smirked. "Just following orders from Mr. 3...just like taking you alive right now, Princess Vivi."
"Mr. 3 is here?!" the princess cried. "Then that means Miss Goldenweek is here too!"
"How perceptive," Miss Valentine rolled her eyes. Of course, the mere mention of her name caused the woman to worry. Was Steven in danger with that powerful painter? But the Straw Hat pirate dragged her back to reality.
"YOU ASSHOLES STOPPED THE GIANTS' FIGHT! I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS!"
She forced herself to put Steven out of her thoughts. 'I just hope that Miss Goldenweek isn't secretly as cruel as Mr. 3 is…for Steven's sake...'
*AGITR*
"Now that's just cruel!" Steven cried out. "You can't do that!"
"I can do what I want. I got put in charge," Miss Goldenweek told him. "Now, are you going to listen or not?"
"But I want to see how it's looking!"
Miss Goldenweek put down her paintbrush and easel and gave the boy a look. "It's not done yet. I don't like showing off unfinished work."
"Ugh!" Steven sighed and slumped down. "Can you at least TELL me what you are painting?"
"A banana gator swimming beside a ship," she said between strokes.
Steven started to chuckle. "'A banana gator?' Really?! That sounds hilarious! Are they bananas shaped like an alligator or alligators shaped like bananas?"
"You're odd."
"You're weird!" Steven retorted.
Miss Goldenweek sighed and looked at her painting. "I don't want to paint this anymore."
"Then can I see it?!"
"No. I might want to finish it later," she said as she put aside the canvas. In its place she grabbed another one. "Now I don't know what to paint."
Steven blinked a few times and scratched his head. "But...but..."
The girl, taking great energy to do so, got up and moved over to a small box in the corner. "Do you want a rice cracker? I do."
"Sure! Want to eat outside? It's so nice and I'm tired of being cooped up in this small house," Steven suggested as he accepted the cracker.
"I don't see why not. Grab that blanket by Mr. 3's colognes. We can put it down and have a picnic."
"Picnic!" Steven said excitedly, rushing to grab the painter's desired object.
The two sat down outside and stared out at the trees. Steven felt relaxed here for the moment, with the memory of the Rifting Stone's failure fading away.
"Mr. 3 doesn't believe you are from another dimension, you know," she said. "That's why he wanted me to be with you."
"The guy with the hair? I don't really like him," he admitted. "He was very rude to Miss Valentine and Mr. 5."
"He gets like that."
"Why is he so mean? Why was he putting them down?"
She shrugged. "He's got a superiority complex." When she saw the confused look on his face, she reworded it. "He thinks he's better than everyone."
"Ah." Steven nodded. "Why do you hang out with him then?"
"Because we are the two artists of Baroque Works."
"Is Baroque Works your secret club?" Steven pried.
Miss Goldenweek put down her rice cracker and cocked her head. "You mean you've been traveling with Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 and you don't know anything?"
"Well, I did kinda fall out of the sky yesterday...or was it two days ago? I really don't know," Steven lightly laughed. Then his eyes grew wide. "Wait, are you going to tell me about your club and what you guys do? All I know is that you catch pirates!"
"No."
Steven batted his eyebrows. "Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No."
The half-Gem hung his head in defeat. "Aww."
Suddenly, a loud rumble was heard all around them. Steven started to panic and looked around in every direction. "Ahh! An earthquake! What is that?!"
"It's just a dinosaur," she said, pointing to an oncoming beast. It was charging with all of its might at the two.
"How can you be so calm?!" Steven asked.
She went to pick up her paintbrush, but then looked around the blanket. "Oh no. I seem to have left my brush inside. That's not good."
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Steven yelled. "Brace yourself!"
The young painter closed her eyes, waiting for the dinosaur to strike when she heard an odd sound. She opened her eyes to see a most majestic sight:
Steven wielding a pink shield against the enemy dinosaur.
"...I think I know what to paint."
*AGITR*
After the excitement of the picnic, Miss Goldenweek asked Steven to pose with his shield out. When he found himself in a pose that was acceptable to her standards, the girl started painting.
"What Devil Fruit did you eat? The Shield-Shield Fruit?" she asked while she made pink paint on her palette.
"I didn't eat one! We don't have Devil Fruits in my world," Steven informed her while trying not to move. "It's actually from my gem. Want to see it?"
"Will it require you to move?" Miss Goldenweek asked.
"...yes?" Steven said hopefully.
"Then no."
"Aww," he pouted.
"So, does everyone where you come from have those 'gems?'" the young painter asked as she compared the pink hues of the shield to her palette.
"Nope! The only people who have them are me and the Gems. They are magical aliens from the Gem Homeworld!" Steven smiled, thinking about his family back home.
"So, you're an alien."
"What?"
"You said Gems are aliens. You have a gem..."
"No!" Steven laughed. "I'm only half-Gem! My mom was a Gem while my dad is just an ordinary earthling!"
The painter nodded. "Oh."
After about an hour of painting (and squirming around in Steven's case), Miss Goldenweek finally reached a conclusion. "I believe you."
"What?" Steven asked carefully, trying not to move again. He didn't want to make her angry.
"I believe you are from a parallel dimension."
"Oh," Steven blinked. "Good?"
"You're an interesting person, Steven Universe," she nodded. "But you make a good model. Want to see the final product?"
"Really?!" Steven said excitedly. "Does that mean I can move?"
She nodded slightly and the boy caused his shield to disappear as he jumped in the air. "Yay!"
The painting was so lifelike. In such a short amount of time, the girl was able to replicate every single detail on Steven's body and shield. It was incredible. The young Gem couldn't believe that this was made in front of his eyes. "It's beautiful!" he whispered.
"I'm glad you approve."
"Is that why you came to Little Garden?" Steven asked. "You came here to paint?"
"No. We came here to kidnap the princess and kill the Straw Hat pirates," she said while admiring her work.
"Oh, that's right," Steven nodded. After a second, his eyes widened in shock. "Wait; back that up. What did you say?"
"That we were going to kidnap the princess and kill the pirates."
Steven felt like his inside was going to burst. "Wait...'kill?!'"
"That's what I said."
"You've...you've killed people before?" Steven backed away nervously.
She shrugged. "Not me, but Mr. 3 has. Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 too."
"What?!" Steven started to sweat. "But they are so nice!" His mind started to race. Surely there was some way to justify this horrible truth? "Wait, it was just pirates right? Bad guys trying to hurt people?"
"Just the people Mr. 0 tells them to kill," she said nonchalantly.
It was at this moment that the gravity of Steven's situation hit home. The people who he thought were good people were actually killers...but he couldn't accept that they were truly mean. After all, they were so nice to him! He had been taught that killing was something only bad people did, but they helped him and worried about him!
What was he going to do?
"Why does your boss want you to kill people?!"
"So we can have a country all of our own where all of our dreams can come true," she told him.
Steven couldn't believe what she was saying. "But to get that by hurting people is wrong! You can't just go around hurting people!"
Miss Goldenweek said nothing at the comment and didn't change the expression on her face. Fear swelled up inside Steven when he realized something. "Were...were you going to kill me?"
"Mr. 3 probably wanted to, but I don't think Miss Valentine and Mr. 5 would have been happy about it."
"Gah!" Steven backed away. "Do...do YOU want to kill me?"
She shook her head. "No. You're nice."
"So if I wasn't nice, you'd want to kill me?" Steven stared at her intently.
Miss Goldenweek looked to the floor at her feet. "I don't know...probably not..."
"Do you like killing?" Steven continued.
The girl's face flushed red. "No...but Mr. 0...utopia..."
The dark-haired boy slammed his arm into the wax wall cracking it. Miss Goldenweek let out a small gasp. "Why do you listen to him?! Is your utopia really going to matter if you got it through violence and death?! You are better than that!"
"You just met me."
Steven looked her in the eye and forced his face to soften. "Miss Goldenweek, Pearl told me that when my mom gave up her physical form to bring me into the world, I inherited her love for everything and everyone. If you want a better world, make it your own way! The world could use good painters like you."
The little girl brought her hands to her cheeks and felt the burning on them. It was clear she was embarrassed. "I...I..."
"That's your dream, right? To be a painter?"
"The best in all of the Grand Line," she replied in a small voice. "The best in the world."
"Well, do you think you can do that by forcing it to happen? That doesn't seem fair."
Miss Goldenweek was now clearly conflicted. Who was this boy to tell her what was right and what was wrong? However, she was only ever really interested in her other teammates, who she really cared about. If they were all happy, then she would be too and if she were happy, her paintings would be perfect.
"What can I do?"
"Well, for starters," a new voice spoke out. "You could pour me a cup of tea. A guy gets parched in the jungle."
The two children looked from each other to the direction of the new voice. A blond-haired man had entered the wax house at some point and had been listening in. He took a deep breath of his cigarette and exhaled.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" Steven and Miss Goldenweek screamed loudly.
Now Steven was terrified. It was bad enough to deal with the revelations of Miss Goldenweek but now a man who was probably a pirate had broken in and was probably out to kill him too.
'Why is this happening to me?!'