AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sooooo sorry for the wait! College has been keeping me busy and I have been working on some other things as well, outside of this website. I hope this chapter makes up for it, though! But first, review-reply-thing time!
TravisUmbra: Thanks! I hope you're enjoying the story so far!
Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
It had been a few months since Crystal had moved in. Everyone seemed to get along with him well, expect some bratty teenagers that had annoyed the gem when making fun out of his younger brother. The teenage gem just simply scared the life out of them by pulling some un-speakably scary faces that no human could do, even if they tried their hardest to do so.
The result ended with the teenagers running off with a cry of "Mommy!". Crystal wasn't gonna let anyone hurt Steven, emotionally and physically, even if it meant, risking a chance at having Pearl scold him for scaring off young kids. The white gem was also officially welcomed into the Crystal Gems, after proving himself to be worthy by passing the tests that were set up for him. Some tests were done with Steven watching and cheering the gem on, some were not.
Many things had happened, including Crystal's nightmares disappearing. Everything seemed like it was going so well... for now, it seemed, at the very least. It was a normal night, the winter weather had faded away, leaving the trees to grow their leaves back, and wildlife to come out of their sleep to continue their life. The white gem had just come back from a mission with Steven and the Crystal Gems, the mission was to capture another one of those corrupted gems. The gem in question, had put up quite a fight. It took the four of them to team up and poof the gem. Pearl had to somehow stun it, while Amethyst held it in place, using her whips. Garnet and Crystal went for the finishing blow. The plan had worked as expected, thankfully.
Now, the teenager was able to 'rest', and the best way, was to sleep. However, this dream was... different.
Crystal found himself laying on his back in some kind of forest, although one thing was off...
"Why does everything seem to be... purple?" He asked himself, slowly rising with a yawn. He checked his surroundings. Trees everywhere, so much that it was like he was in a room, rather than a forest. He walked quietly across the grass, towards the only exit out. Upon doing so, the area looked more like a forest. He could feel the soft breeze against his face, as wildlife was wondering through the area, exploring this land of Mother Nature, just like he was.
After a nice scroll, the trees suddenly stopped, so did the appearance of animals. The white gem wasn't bothered in the sightest, however. He heard a waterfall nearby, in his direction. The gem soon saw a lake, with a single waterfall leading to it, from above. However, Crystal saw something else that was far more interesting than the lake... Someone, to be more precise.
Right in front of him, was a single person, laying on their knees, near the lake. He stopped walking. Was this normal? To see another person... in your dreams? The stranger in question was wearing a blue dress of some sorts, had blue hair and a lighter blue skin, than the dress or hair. Crystal also noticed another thing... they were a gem. The blue rain-drop shaped gem on her back was a big giveaway.
The teenager slowly walked up to the laying gem, curiosity getting the better of him. Hoping to not alert anyone, he went slow enough to supress sound. As much as he would hate to admit it, Crystal had to be slow. Once he got close enough, he reached his hand out to tap the shoulder to get their attention...
Only to pull his hand back, when the person turned around to face the teenager suddenly. They both stared at each other in silence. Crystal analysed the stranger's details, she was female. Her eyes was a beautiful ocean blue, that stood out most to the teenager. He tried to not get distracted by them, but found himself looking at her eyes, instead of looking her dress design. Her dress had a diamond symbol in a deeper blue color, that he hadn't noticed before. That was all that he could scan of the girl.
The blue gem was looking at Crystal with mixture of surprise and confusion as far as he could tell. Was she thinking that, this place didn't have another gem? Just he was going to say something, Crystal saw his vision go white, before returning to pitch black.
It was that moment, when he woke up to finding himself laying down on the sofa, inside Steven's house. He shrugged, maybe that dream was just a movie made out of his thoughts, just like how Steven explained it. Just as he got up, he immediately checked on Steven, only to see the kid peacefully snoozing on his comfy bed. Crystal also saw Pearl sleeping in a sitting position nearby as well, as it seemed.
"Typical." he muttered, as he lay back on the sofa, wondering what to do... It was still early in the morning. There was only Crystal Gem who was in, that was Pearl. She seemed to really care about Steven, like as if, the world would end if anything harmed him in a way. The speedy gem wouldn't blame Pearl for thinking that, Steven was his brother and was the main reason for why he was here.
"I still gotta repay him for his kindness though." The gem said, letting a small, poilte smile spread across his face.
Boredom had hit Crystal as he wondered how long until Steven was going to wake up. He occasionally made himself coffee to drink. Sure, gems didn't require such things as food or water, but... he didn't care. What mattered to him, is that it tasted good. Even though, it was full of caffeine, Crystal didn't show any signs of hyperactivity in the slightest. The white gem did some things to keep himself busy, such as playing one of Steven's games("He wouldn't mind, right?") without him ever knowing, by muting the audio and trying to keep his button-tapping to a miminum, running across the ocean using his super speed, just for fun and pranking non-supsecting strangers out in the streets.("He fell for it!" whispered an chuckling Crystal in the shadows, as Lars tripped on an banana peel, cursing.)
Before he knew it, morning had come already as the gem was laying upon the couch. It may look like it, but he wasn't sleeping at all. He knew Steven would wake up anytime soon, so he pretended to be asleep. However, he couldn't help thinking about the girl in his dream... Who exactly was she? He couldn't help, but wonder. He came up with various, silly assumptions such as... her being some kind of forgotten friend, or an "guardian angel", from what he had heard from some people, but none of them seemed right.
"I should forget about that and just focus on what matters now." He muttered to himself as he shook his hand.
Soon, it was morning, Pearl had already left the spot, she previously was, greeting Crystal on the way. The speedy gem, then heard the covers of Steven's bed moving and quickly pretended to be asleep. Steven groaned as he woke up and stretched up to the ceiling. The young kid procceded to get changed as usual and go downstairs. He wondered what to decide upon for breakfast, before starting his day. It was a tie between the choice of some toast or a bowl of 'Crying Breakfast Friends' cereal.
Eventually, the child went to 'wake up' Crystal and ask for his opinion. It took a lot of attempts to do so. Splashing water on his face, didn't make him squint his eyes at the slightest... Steven tried other ways, such as blowing a hairdryer in his face. There was no other things he could think of, to use... expect for one...
The kid turned on his phone and raised the volume to it's maximum limit and tapped on a video to play and left it, right by Crystal's ear... The video loaded and played a screeching airhorn sound effect, causing the gem to react badly and jump right off the couch and cover his ears, gritting his teeth. Steven turned the noise off and lowered the volume on his device to normal.
"Ugh... my ears." The teenager groaned as he rubbed the ears of his head, with his hands.
"Sorry, Crystal. I had to wake you up for something." Steven said, pointing towards the kitchen. The white gem understood in an instant, that it was now breakfast time for his brother and got to work.
The result was an omelette stuffed with various berries and a tiny teaspoon of honey. As usual, Steven enjoyed his meal and complemented the speedy gem on his 'amazing' culinary skills.
Suddenly, the Crystal Gems had appeared, returning via the warp-pad. It seemed they had completed yet another mission.
"Yo, Steven and C-Man!" Amethyst greeted ecstaticailly to the pair, before she noogied the child as Pearl and Garnet walked into the room.
"How'd the mission go?" Crystal asked casually.
"It was awesome! You should have seen the size of the monster!" Amethyst exclaimed. Pearl smiled a bit, mentioning that, it didn't seem to put up much of a fight.
"Shame I didn't get to go, then. I would of had fun giving it a-" Crystal spoke, before Garnet interputted his sentence by addressing him, to gain his attention.
"There is a swarm of gem monsters heading their way to Beach City, I need you to take Steven to somewhere safe and wait until we come to get you two." The fusion said, looking quite serious. Crystal was going to say something, but Pearl interputted the teenager.("No buts, we quite don't know your full potential yet. It's better to be safe than sorry.")
"But, where will we go?" Crystal asked. He barely went anywhere outside of this area, finding somewhere to live until the possible horde of corrupted gems are dealt with... would be pretty hard.
"I know! We can live in the barn!" The kid exclaimed happily, having now finished his breakfast. Garnet couldn't help smiling. Steven always found a way to bring a smile to her face.
"Alright, then. I guess you two will have fun, then." She said, and for a moment, Crystal thought he saw Garnet wink at him there. Did the fusion know something he didn't? It wouldn't be a surprise, as he knew about Garnet's "future-vision" ability.
Soon enough, the two was packing everything they could need. All sorts of food... drinks and even clothes.
"I've called Peridot and Lapis to let them know that, we're staying with them." Steven said, putting his phone down and stuffing a toy into a single suitcase, they were using to carry everything. Crystal looked dumbfounded as he said:
"Peridot... Lapis...?" He asked.
"Yeah, their one of my best friends! In fact, everyone's my best friend!" He exclaimed. Crystal quickly snapped out of his thoughts, thanks to Steven's sentence. He can't help, but beam at Steven. How could anyone hate this boy? He was so kind to everyone and wanted them to be happy.
Defintely one of the best reasons, as to why the gem cared about his brother so much.
Once they had all packed their things, Steven let a gasp. Crystal quickly turned around.
"Something wrong?" The gem asked very quickly, in what he had hoped to be a concerned voice, rather than a panicked one.
"How are we going to carry this without the contents falling out?" The kid asked, and hoo boy, was he right... The suitcase was stuffed so much, it looked like it could explode at any second. Crystal casually walked to it and looked at Steven.
"Watch this." The white gem said, trying to keep the smile off his face. He grabbed the suitcase and did something to make it disappear into his gem.
"That's so cool!" The younger gem said, jumping up and down in excitement. Crystal smirked in reponsed, before they headed downstairs.
"Ok, it's time for you two t- Uhhh... Where are your things?" Pearl asked, quite confused.
"Right here." Crystal said casually, as he pulled the suitcase back out of his own gem.
"Woah! I never knew you could do that!" Amethyst said, feeling the suitcase to see if it was real or just some phony fake.
"How'd you do that?" She asked, as Crystal chuckled.
"Magic." He shrugged.
"You two better get going now, the horde will arrive any second now." Garnet stated.
"I'll miss you all!" Steven said, hugging all three Crystal Gems and going back to the speedy gem to take off.
"Hang on tight, bro." Crystal reminded the young boy sitting on his shoulders.
"Will do!" The child nodded, before they went at lighting speed, right out of the door.
The streets of Beach City was busy as cars and trucks of all sizes were pasting by. Crystal ran along the road, side-stepping out of the way of all sorts of things. Roadworks, incoming vehicles... anything in a normal road.
The way to the place was easy, thanks to Steven giving him directions, until...
Crystal skidded to a stop as he looked at what was in front of him. The road was blocked by a traffic jam.
"You have to be kidding me." He thought, pouting. He looked around his surroundings. Steven looked at Crystal, a bit worried. The older gem suddenly smirked and leapt up to a nearby streetlight and began swinging and jumping to other streetlights.
"Crystal... I'm...getting... dizzy!" Steven said, covering his eyes. The gem knew this wasn't the best of ideas, but he had no choice.
"Don't worry, Steven. It'll be over soon." He assured, before landing on the road, after 2 minutes of swinging and jumping. The teenager ran off again, hoping nothing else gets in their way. With the wind brushing his hair, Crystal was out of the city and into the countryside. The white gem saw the wooden barn in the distance and sped up towards it... not knowing who or what lived there... He was bound to find out.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I thought I'd make Crystal able to store things in his gem, because why not? So, I did a thing to make Crystal show off. Anyways, next chapter... Crystal meets Lapis and Peridot! See you then!