Wowo! Thank you guys for your support! I'm writing most of this at night. The title of this chapter does not mean a literal ship. It means an OTP ship. I really don't know what I'm going to do with Lapis and her famous one-liners. My humor style is literally taking people's typos and such and never letting it go. Ever. I tried to include humor at the end. Tell me if you guys want more or less humor. I'm trying pretty hard to keep the personalities of all of the characters. One line I wanted to include at the end was "Connie carried all of her 34 books off the beach, making only one trip. When Steven asked her about this, all she would say was 'hoNOR, STEVEN. ITS ALL ABOUT HONOR'" But I had to sacrifice humor for the plotline making sense. :/ I couldn't find a way to start off the first paragraph with a character's name, so the first 3 paragraphs is from Amethyst's perspective.
We had gone into town to see how long we'd been out. Eight and a half years. Steven would be twelve or thirteen by now. She missed him. She missed the way he'd call her Amy, because he couldn't pronounce her full name. She missed his silly little songs. She missed the way he loved them despite who they were. She wasn't sure that Pearl didn't just miss Rose, or that Ruby and Sapphire weren't just angry at themselves. But I missed him.
We'd then gone back to the temple to discuss what our next move would be. "We have to split up to find him. We can cover more ground that way." Ruby had said. Sapphire replied "We need to stay together. We have strength together." Ruby suddenly became furious. "We might not have lost him if you'd been strong enough to help me. So I don't trust you anymore. I need to become strong on my own." Pearl had sided with Ruby. "The fastest way to find Steven is to split up." I had sided with Sapphire. "Even though we may go our separate ways, we still need to stay in touch, and stay close enough that if we find him, that we can fight Lapis together." I'd argued. They didn't listen.
Garnet had been our leader before we lost Steven. Now, we needed a new one. Ruby and Pearl refused. Ruby had told us "I don't want any of that! A leader would just boss us around. We'd have to take orders like a… a…" Sapphire finished his sentence. "A common foot soldier." Ruby was furious. "Is that all I am? A common foot soldier?" Sapphire became horrified at Ruby's reaction. "No! I was just finishing your sentence… just like we used to…"
Steven was walking around the beach, just like normal. But then he saw a girl sitting by the sea, her hair flowing behind her, the pages of her book fluttering in the wind… because she wasn't paying attention to her book. She was looking at the green human standing in front of her. "Where is he? Where is Rose Quartz?" the green girl yelled.
Steven ran and fetched Lapis. Lapis gasped. "That's a homeworld gem called Peridot! If she's looking for you, that's bad. Let's get out of here. Steven glanced over his shoulder and said "But that human girl…" Lapis tugged on his arm and said "Steven we have to get out of here. If homeworld finds out that I'm here, they might trap me in a mir- I mean they might hurt us." Steven glanced back suspiciously.
Peridot looked at the girl. "You have no clue who I'm talking about?" The girl frantically shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. Peridot sighed. "Then I have no use for you." Her limb enhancers started to power on. Laser spheres grew out of her fingertips. The girl braced herself for the worst.
Steven couldn't just watch. I threw his hand out, as if to reach for the girl, when suddenly, there was a flash of pink. A shield appeared from his arm and launched out like a Frisbee. It hit Peridot's arm just before she could fire. The laser sphere hit a tree. A moment later, the tree was gone. Peridot screamed. Lapis jumped in front of Steven, and started to use her water powers. Peridot was quicker, and she fired another laser blast at Lapis. Lapis tried to dodge, but the blast sliced through her back. Lapis cried "Ow!", and fell on the ground. She didn't get up.
Steven jumped in front of the girl. "Leave here. It's over for you, 'Peridot'. Your big mistake was to hurt people just because they were in your way." Steven formed his shield. The girl blushed.
Peridot screeched. "You clods! How dare you! I'm here on important gem business! Hey – wait a sec! That's a gem's shield! That's Rose Quartz's shield! That must mean you're-" Peridot was cut off by Steven. "I'm Rose Quartz's son. Got a problem? Talk to the shield!" Steven flung his shield at Peridot. She poofed in a cloud of green smoke.
Steven smiled and held his hand out to the girl. "Hi. I'm Steven. I'm a bit magic." The girl gave a short snicker. "A 'bit' magic. You made pink light shields! That green lady had laser hands. Your friend over there is blue!" the girl exclaimed. Steven calmly replied "Well I mean she's a bit sad at the moment, but she's usually kinda happy. Most of the time she's hard to read, though." The girl laughed. "My name's Connie. I'm not magic, but I've read about magic in these books." She indicated the stack of books behind her. Steven smiled. "Then I guess it's time for you to read about me next. Too bad I can't read." Connie stopped laughing. "Steven, you can't read?" Steven shrugged. Connie fiercely replied "Then I'll teach you. Meet me here in two days." She gathered her seven large books and walked off into the distance. Lapis smirked. She turned around, still smiling. "My little hero. I ship it." Blood was dripping off of her back onto the sand.