11/22/16
I've been shitposting too much. ALSO RWBY VOLUME 4 ROCKS MY SOCKS.
RWBY is the intellectual property of Monty Oum and Roosterteeth and their affiliates. Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar and Cartoon Network.
I do not intend to make money off of this fanfiction.
Pearl liked doing menial tasks and domestic labour.
That's not to say that she was forced to do it, for the finicky Gem often found it very relaxing to let her mind wander off while her hands performed the small tasks of things like folding laundry, sweeping the house with a broom, or washing the dishes.
That last one was what she was doing right now. Pearl's hands glided over the porcelain, glass, metal, and plastic bowls, plates, cups, and silverware almost like a mother would carress her child, which was almost second nature to the Gem's slender fingers. However, today Pearl found herself going over the dishware at least a couple more times than usual, having left unsanitary grease and small bits of dried food still clinging to some of the plates.
Pearl pursed her lips in annoyance, perfectly aware of why she was so lax in her chores today. She was worried. Rather unwillingly, she had let Garnet and Amethyst talk her into letting Blake go to that "rave" with Stevonnie, which didn't sit right with her. Pearl didn't trust Blake as far as she could throw her- which admittedly might be a pretty fair distance- for, what was in her mind, a very valid set of reasons.
Blake really hadn't made the best impression when she and the Crystal Gems had first met (a pretty big understatement, if Pearl said so herself). "Attacked" Steven with a blanket and then threatened the rest with a small, yet menacing, human firearm, which was still as much a threat to Gems as a destabilizer's electrical energy.
Then, to her horror, the others just sided with her, as if she had done no wrong. Done no wrong! As if threatening Steven wsn't just asking for a world of pain!
Pearl sighed, letting out some of the pent-up frustration she'd been holding together. She noticed that her hands had stopped cleaning off a plate and restarted those motions.
Sure, she hadn't done anything untoward towards the Gems' precious charge, but she still had some reservations toward the black-clad teenage girl. Then again, she wasn't the biggest authority on possible events. After all, the one with future vision was Garnet, not Pearl or Amethyst.
However, the tall Gem could only hope in her mind that Stevonnie and Blake would be okay together and in the town unsupervised.
That night, I ran through the streets of Beach City.
I had absolutely no destination in mind as my feet pounded pitter-pat down the coarse pavement and concrete of the roads and sidewalks, respectively. I breezed past building after building, not really paying attention much to landmarks or street names as I ran under streetlights, some of which were flickering, some of which were dim, and a very surprisingly low number of fully-functioning lamps. The night was cold and my muscles were starting to grow weary. I shivered as I ran, tugging along my duffel filled with Dust, until I came to a stop in an alley behind a building.
I slumped down the wall, panting and feeling as if I would give away every speck of Dust in my bag for just a teaspoon of fresh water. My body was covered in sweat, which now pretty much froze my skin solid because of the evaporation and the temperature outside. Slowly, I managed to come out of my painful, overexerted state, and found myself sipping cool night air instead of gulping it down to fuel my burning muscles. I looked up at the night sky, with its very faintly twinkling stars, and hissed in frustration, throwing a fist into the wall behind me. I pretended not to notice the fact that my hand had sunk about an inch into the brick wall.
Goddamn that asshole! Things were going just fine, but some asshat clown who thought he could handle me decided to unravel my faunus identity in the middle of a party! What the hell? Couldn't anything go right for one damn second in my life? First the White Fang, then the fiasco with Weiss before the Vytal Festival, and that shit with Yang and Adam!
Screw you, Kevin whatever-the-hell-your-stupid-last-name-is!
I was jostled out of my internal ranting when I heard something heavy and fleshy thump down onto something metallic down in the alleyway. My faunus ears, which were still uncovered, as I had not managed to retrieve my ribbon from the party, twitched in pure reflexive reaction to the sound, and I squinted down the alleyway. Faunus, being people that shared traits with certain animals, usually ended up with some form of night vision. I exploited that part of my genes as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light in the area.
Clear as day, I could see what had made that sound. I made out a little bulbous, furry form twitching on top of an aluminum trash can lid among the garbage someone had left out in the middle of the alleyway, making little squeaking and squealing noises. I wrinkled my nose in disgust a tiny bit before my mind had quite realized and recognized what I was looking at.
It was a rat. A damned rat, and a big one, too. I fought down the urge to pull Gambol Shroud from my duffel and skewer it, as that would probably create a ruckus that I really didn't need right now. Instead, I focused on a more pressing need of my body. I needed water, and I needed it fast, or I might pass out from exhaustion. I'd seen it before, back in the 'Fang.
I stalked out of the alleyway and back into the somewhat-lit streets. There was a nearby drinking fountain, fashioned from really old-looking and half-rotted wood and some (hopefully) cleaner and newer metal, that I almost sprinted to and guzzled down a gallon of water from. Not really that far from here, I could make out a store, definitely closed, that I could possibly use to my advantage. Making my way a little closer, I saw that it was a clothing store, with mannequins and signs in the glass windows showing off the latest fashion trends in the area, ranging from stylishly-torn blue jeans to fur coats that had more of a passing resemblance to clouds than jackets.
Perfect. If I managed to run in and "appropriate" a hat or beanie or something, I'd be able to interact with the rest of the world like a "normal" human being. My ears would be all but invisible underneath a little bit of fabric.
As much as I hated to use anything I picked up from the 'Fang, there wasn't much I could do otherwise at this point. I needed to disappear.
I scoped the place for a little bit, then slipped in through the employee backdoor, using a pinch of Burn Dust to melt away part of the lock. I didn't hear any alarms go off, but the business might've had a silent alarm. Nothing major, though, as I would be long gone before the authorities arrived.
The steel backdoor swung open with an agonizing shriek of protesting metal, and I plunged into the opaque darkness of the store.
Steven Universe sat his bed. A bowl of nachos rested in his lap, half-eaten and almost neglected. The beach house, or at least Steven's part of it, was bathed in shadow, with the window blinds closed and the lights off, save for the dynamically changing glow emanating from the television that Steven found himself still staring at.
It was playing through a rerun of Crying Breakfast Friends, which was, of course, one of Steven's favorite tv shows of all time. Something about the shared and individual despairs of each food item character just spoke to the young Gem. However, there was just something missing.
Steven sighed, reached into the bowl and munched on another cheesy chip, and slumped over into spread-eagle position on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of the house. Steven heard the door to the house slam open. A click a second later caused the lights in the house blazing to life, which in turn caused Steven to scrunch his eyes shut.
"Oh dude!" floated up Amethyst's voice, followed by the purple Gem herself when she ascended the stairs to Steven's bedroom. "Are you still moping about?" Steven grunted and turned over to face away from Amethyst. "Look, Steven, it's been a week since she ran away, but you can't just keep feeling down about it. It wasn't even your fault at all."
Amethyst reached out for the boy, but halted at the young Gem's next words.
"I know it's not supposed to be my fault, but I don't know, I just feel like it is!" Steven had tears in his eyes as he looked back at Amethyst. "I mean was I just not good enough? She had nowhere else to go and she still left!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Stee-man," Amethyst said, "It's not your fault, dude. You're, like, the nicest guy in the world. If Blake can't see that, then maybe we shouldn't have offered her a place to stay."
"You really think so?"
"I know so, guy. Hey, Pearl and Garnet are getting ready for a mission, and Garnet wants you to come along."
"Really?" Steven asked, "What for?"
Amethyst shrugged. "I dunno, but I trust Garnet's intuition. Anyway, back your stuff. We'll be goin' soon."
Amethyst walked back down the stairs, leaving a starry-eyed Steven behind.
It was just the thing that Steven needed to get his hopes up. Since forever had he wanted to join his guardians on a mission, but they almost always shut him down. Whenever he did go, it was always an exciting adventure filled with intrigue and excitement. The half-Gem quickly gathered some stuff in his cheeseburger-themed, shaped, and colored, backpack. Since the last outing with the food-themed item, he had learned to pack a little bit more sensibly, and had forgone the bringing bagels in favor of beef jerky and threw in a first aid kit, for good measure.
The Gem ran down the creaky stairs with vigor, then dashed over to the warp pad, where the rest of the Crystal Gems had waited for him.
"Do you have everything you need?" Pearl gently asked. Steven nodded in response.
"Let's go," said Garnet.
The four of them were instantly bathed in that familiar blue pillar of light that came with using the warp, and were soon whisked away from the beach house, leaving behind the wooden abode, empty and peaceful.
Vinchenza Morgan was bored out of her mind.
Sure, waiting on tables to help out her uncle Gary's ailing business was a proposition she was more than happy to help about, but it was just such a chore to wait on so many guys who would come in and just do nothing but try to get her number. Sure, she tolerated some of the nicer and nicer-looking ones, but as a whole they were underwhelming and overbearing at best.
It didn't help that Vinchenza already had a boyfriend, either. She sincerely doubted that Ben would find the snide comments about her ass nearly as amusing as the customers did.
Vinchenza was currently carting away some the plates of what was supposed to be the last customer of the day when the front door to the little diner opened, its bell chiming to signal the entrance of someone who would eagerly give their money for heartstopping food.
Vinchenza spared a glance at the new customer before going to the back to drop of the dishes for the busboy to handle.
The customer was a girl. She was pale with waist-length ebony hair that leaked out from under a black baseball cap. She wore black pants and a crop top under a long white coat and carried a duffel bag which she let clatter to the ground when she took a seat at the counter. She looked to be in her late teens or her early twenties.
Vinchenza went into the back room to change out of her modest waitress uniform- short cream apron over a white dress shirt and black dress pants- into something more casual. The woman slipped on a pair of well-worn jeans and a plaid button-up shirt, then donned a fur-lined denim jacket. Ben had always gotten on her case about its impracticality in hotter weather, but honestly Vinchenza didn't really give a damn. She paid for it and it looked good, so why should it really matter that much? She could always drink more water to compensate.
As she half-expected, the girl was being pestered by one of the guys visiting the diner. It looked like he'd gone the classic route of getting a girl an apple pie, then going in for the kill, so to speak. It looked like he went in a little too early, though, as she looked wholly disinterested.
Vinchenza took it upon herself to intervene, for the girl's sake. She stormed over to the counter, where the guy was still talking.
"So you wanna go get a coffee or something later?" the guy said. He was a blond with a charming smile and a crisp clean suit. The sleazeball's name was Barney, an absolute ass who went around trying to pick up girls almost 24/7.
Vinchenza was about to tell the guy to buzz off, but to her delight, the girl beat her to the punch.
"Not interested. Go away." Short and sweet. Vinchenza liked this girl.
Now ordinarily, a guy like Barney would at least try to ask a girl out a couple more times before leaving, but something in the mystery girl's glare got him a'runnin' away. The mystery girl let out a groan and covered her face with her hands, probably a little too tired to eat the apple pie anyway.
Then again, she might leave it on principle. After all, that's what Vinchenza would do.
Vinchenza sat herself down next to the mystery girl, but before she could get in a word, the black-haired beauty addressed her.
"If you're here to get a date, I'll have you know I'm not interested."
Vinchenza was taken aback a little, but quickly recovered. "Sorry, but I really don't swing that way. Gonna eat that pie?" The girl shook her head. Vinchenza shrugged, then got to work on the dessert.
"Yeah," Vinchenza said through forkfuls of pie, "guys like Barney are real pieces of work. Don't let it bother ya too much and you'll be fine. The name's Vinchenza. Vinchenza Morgan, by the way."
The girl removed her hands from her face and looked straight at Vinchenza, giving her a look at her face- well proportioned, pretty enough to attract a guy like Barney and then some- and her nearly glowing amber eyes.
That wasn't really normal at all, but Vinchenza wasn't really one to judge. She probably wore custom colored contacts, which Vinchenza personally thought was really cool.
"I'm Blake. Blake Belladonna. It was nice to meet you," she supplied politely.
Vinchenza nodded, then noticed that Blake had glanced at the remnants of the apple pie she'd been eating.
"Hey, you hungry?"
"No." Blake seemed serious enough, but a quiet growl told Vinchenza all she needed to know. "Okay, maybe a little."
"Here, I'll pay," Vinchenza said, pulling her wallet from her purse. Blake looked up at her, panic clearly evident in her eyes.
"Oh no! I can pay for myself. I don't want to impose-" the girl tried to say before the waitress hushed her.
"Stop right there," Vinchenza said, "It's on me. I wouldn't touch anything that that sleazeball paid for anyway, if I was in your shoes. Here's a menu, order yourself something for those munchies, girl."
Blake nodded, then ordered a tuna sandwich with fries, a fruit cup, and a root beer. As the black-haired girl ate, Vinchenza tried to strike up a conversation, but managed to pry little more than short, clipped, one-word answers from her.
Eventually Blake finished wolfing down her meal and thanked both the cook- Vinchenza's uncle Gary- and Vinchenza for the food and the money, respectively, before making her way out of the diner.
Blake stepped onto the sidewalk outside the restaurant and took a nice, deep breath of the cool night air, her heeled boots tapping staccato on the pavement. She quickly turned and looked behind her when she heard the door chime as Vinchenza followed her outside.
Rolling her eyes at the waitress, she asked, "What do you want?"
Vinchenza raised an eyebrow at Blake. "Do I need a reason to stop and chat with a perfect stranger?"
"Uh, yeah, you kind of do."
"I digress," Vinchenza waved her off. "Besides, you look like you might need some help. Down on your luck?"
"How would you know?" Blake stared at the woman.
"Hon, you walked into a two-bit diner near closing time-"
Blake cut the older woman off, curtly saying, "Anyone can do that."
"-carrying a full duffel bag and without a ride waiting outside."
"Uhh, I walked here? I robbed a bank? You can't really prove much."
"Oh really?" Vinchenza confidently said, "I heard something metallic jingle around in there when you hauled it off. Hon, you ain't gonna want to carry that anywhere unless you absolutely needed to. You'd be better off leaving that at home."
Blake sighed. "So what? Why would you be so interested in my personal well-being?"
Vinchenza grinned. "I don't like seein' people down on their luck. Comes with workin' at a Salvation Army Centre every weekend. Why don't you come spend some time at my place? We could always use more hands on the farm. We're just a few miles out of town."
"That's... An awfully nice offer, Vinchenza Morgan," Blake hesitantly responded. "But I wouldn't want to be a burden. Besides, I'm a terrible farmhand."
"Then we can pay you! Besides, what're you good at? I'm sure we could find somethin' for you to do there."
Blake hummed in thought before giving an answer. "I can track and hunt pretty well, but I don't see how-"
Vinchenza's face blossomed into a wide smile. "That's perfect! We've been having an issue recently where something's been preying on our animals, leaving behind weird, maimed, or half-eaten remains behind," Vinchenzaa grimaced, remembering the gruesome scenes she sometimes came back home to. "We could pay you to hunt this thing down for us, and in the meantime you can get back on your feet! It's a win-win! Whaddaya say?" the exuberant woman finished, extending her hand out to the young huntress.
Blake visibly wrestled with the idea before snarling to herself. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" she mumbled to herself. "Alright, I'll do it. But on the condition that I'll be leaving as soon as the job's done."
"That's swell! C'mon, new employee, my car's over there! I'll introduce you to everyone when we're there." The waitress practically skipped over to a beat-up blue truck sitting placidly in the Greasy Diner's parking lot. Blake sighed and shook her head before following the woman.
AN: Ooo, what's this? A double update?
Edit: Goddammit FF I told you to save an updated version. I fixed it now, but damn.
I went through a name change with those OC characters halfway into Chapter 5. I thought I fixed it when I uploaded the chapters, but I guess something went wrong. I apologize, I'm not usually that bad at writing, I promise.
