Me: Okay, it's 2:30 in the morning and I've worked on chapters for "Alone Together" "Too many birthdays" "Coach Steven" "Steven the Sword fighter" and "Say Uncle" that should do it…

Onyx chapter 11: 13% complete

…shit

So yeah I procrastinated a bunch, had a birthday recently, turned 1200 and something but whatever. Now here's the chapter you hopefully were waiting for.

The original "Arcade Mania" was about Steven showing the gems video games and Garnet getting addicted to one game in particular, it was later revealed that she had a 3rd eye.

And now for something completely different…

Onyx was gazing out into space, she was trying to figure out how to use her room's observatory function, but it was much harder than it looked. She could observe her dome that gave her an amazing view into space but she couldn't see very far or take notes of the placements of the stars.

Onyx tapped her foot against the floor impatiently. "Come on room, you've changed yourself to make me more comfortable, can't you give me something to help me see the stars?"

Suddenly, Onyx felt the ground beneath her feet shift; she stepped back and she saw a section of the floor peel away and from it rose a telescope worth golden rings and an impressive wood finish.

"Ah, that'll work."

She looked into the telescope and began moving it around to focus on another spot in the dome.

"Incredible. The placement of the stars, the planets… beautiful."

Her stargazing was interrupted by banging on her door; she answered the echoes and opened her room's door. She saw Steven standing in front of it with an excited look in his eyes.

"Onyx, we're gonna go do a secret mission! You wanna come with?"

"Steven, come on, I told you not to disturb Onyx. We can handle this mission by ourselves."

Steven nodded and jumped on the platform with the gems, they began to teleport away but Onyx wanted to join them.

"Wait a second, I can come with you, I'm good at whatever it is you're going to do."

She was too late though, the gems had already left and she was all along in the room.

Onyx gave a small sigh. "I guess if they needed me they would have said, maybe I should just-"

Crunch!

Her thoughts were disturbed by the sound of something breaking underneath her foot, she looked down and saw that she had accidentally stepped on Steven's instrument which he had carelessly placed on the floor.

The second she realized what she had smashed Onyx began to panic. "Oh no!"

She picked up the pieces and looked at them with forlorn eyes. "I broke Steven's instrument! If he finds out he's going to be mad at me. He's never been mad at me before… I don't like the thought of that."

She placed the fragmented pieces on the couch, and then she took a deep breath and exhaled. "Okay… maybe it's not too bad. All I need is an adhesive to put it back together and a book about this instrument and I should be fine."

So Onyx went to work, she managed to find a roll of tape in the kitchen and her shelf had a book on the shape and features of various stringed instruments, one of which was a ukulele. Onyx worked carefully and tirelessly to fix the broken instrument, carefully putting each shard of wood back into its proper place and trying to stretch out the strings so they played properly.

Her efforts… did not work; in fact it was arguably worse than when she started since now it was an unidentifiable mass of wood, tape, and metal. She needed more time to figure out how to make this work.

However she didn't have more time, she saw the warp pad glow and she knew she needed to get rid of the evidence. She swept the bits of wood and glue underneath the couch just before the gems teleported into the house.

She tried to act innocent. "Hey guys! How did your mission go?"

"Great!" Steven said. "You should have seen Garnet, she was so awesome."

"I bet." Onyx turned her attention to the gems. "Um, do you mind if I talk to the gems for a second?"

"Sure. I've gotta go get something from my room anyway, I'll be right back."

Steven ran up the stairs and Onyx faced the gem with a sad look on her face. One that was very apparent.

"What's wrong Onyx?" Pearl asked.

She reached under the couch and pulled out the pieces of Steven's broken instrument. "I made a huge error."

The gems gasped.

"That's Steven's ukulele!" Pearl shout whispered. "What did you do?"

"I just stepped on it, I was too heavy and it broke. I tried to fix it but I don't know how, what do I do?"

"I know someone who can fix it." Garnet stated.

"You do?"

"Go to the edge of town, you'll find a building with the sign 'it's a wash' inside is a man who will be able to help you fix this."

Onyx nodded. "Alright, I'll be back."

Onyx took the broken pieces, put them in a bag, and ran out of the house as quickly as she could. As she ran out Steven saw her leaving and was curious.

"Where's Onyx going?" He asked.

"Out." Garnet said simply.

Later…

Onyx jumped from roof to roof with the bag in her fist, she searched for the building that Garnet described but had to go through several houses to find it. It took some time but she eventually found it, it was closer to the water than she thought.

In front of the building she saw a rather large looking human strumming a guitar; she jumped in front of him to get his attention.

"Excuse me sir."

Unfortunately, her sudden appearance shocked the man and he fell out of his chair in surprise.

"Perhaps I should have learned my lesson after the first time this happened." Onyx thought.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you, are you alright?"

The man looked up at her and his eyes went even wider.

"You're a gem!" He said surprised.

Onyx was also surprised that he knew what the gems were, not many of the humans in this town seemed to know.

He got up and gave her a look over. "Wait… are you that gem Steven keeps talking about?"

She smiled a bit that he recognized her. "Onyx, that's me alright… Steven really talks about me?"

"Oh yeah, every time he comes over he talks about you and the stuff you've done, he thinks you're really cool."

Onyx smiled as she heard that, glad that the child thought so highly of her. It made her feel…warm on the inside.

"Well… Steven's kinda the reason I'm here."

The man got panicked. "Oh no, did something happen to him?"

"No, but something happened to his instrument."

She handed the bag to him, he looked inside and recoiled at the sight.

"Oh geez this thing is really messed up, what happened?"

Onyx looked down with nervousness and shame. "I…accidently stepped onto it and broke it, then I tried to fix it and it only made things worse. I was wondering if you could help me fix it?"

He whistled. "Honestly, this thing is beyond saving at this point." He turned around and started walking away. "Luckily, I always keep a few spare instrument parts in my van. Let's see if we have enough to make him a new one."

Onyx followed him behind the building and she saw him walk up to an automotive, he opened up the back and… it was a mess. Onyx could see clothes, posters, and random items everywhere. She observed a bit closer and saw that there were several pictures of him with Steven.

"You seem to have quite a few pictures of Steven." She noted.

"Well yeah, he's only my son and all."

Onyx gasped. "You're Greg?"

Greg seemed confused. "Yeah…"

"The husband of Rose! The gems told me about you."

"Really?"

"Well… no. They told me your name and that you're Steven's father but that's pretty much it. They sent me to you to fix Steven's ukulele so that must mean you're a musician of some kind."

He chuckled. "Yep, that's me. I was kind of a rock star back in my youth and I still have a lot of my old stuff."

While they were talking he pulled out a couple of things. "Ah here we go strings and tuning heads, that's a good start. Now I need some.. oh!" He ran out of the van and towards the ocean. "I'll be right back!"

Onyx leaned against the van's exterior and watched him run off, and she couldn't help but think how much he reminded her of Steven.

She chuckled a bit at that thought. "At least now I know where he gets it from."

Soon enough he returned lugging a big piece of wood on his back, he set it down next to the van and started breathing heavily.

"Oh man… I am out of shape."

"What's this?" Onyx asked.

"This…" He paused "… is a block of wood that washed up on the shore a few days ago. I thought it looked cool do I dried it off and took it. We can use this for raw materials to make Steven a new ukulele."

He handed the block to Onyx and then he went back into his van. "All we had to do is cut this into a more uniform shape and then it will be perfect for…"

Greg stopped talking when he heard some energy sounds followed by slicing and the sound of wood cracking. He turned back around and saw that Onyx had cut the wood into a block that was two feet long and six inches tall. Honestly, Greg was impressed.

"Wow…" He took the block and felt the sides. "And it's relatively smooth too. How did you do that?"

Onyx stuck out her hand and it was surrounded by black crystals. "My crystals can cut through monsters. A simple block of wood is no match for me."

Greg chuckled. "Now I can see what Steven was talking about."

He put the block of wood back into the van and wiped his brow. "Well, I still need a few more materials to finish this thing up. Why don't you come back tomorrow? Business has been slow today so I can probably work on it tonight and finish it up by tomorrow afternoon."

Onyx nodded. "That sounds excellent. I'll see you tomorrow then."

And so Onyx went back to the temple, hoping that Steven would not notice that his ukulele was missing and that he wouldn't question where she had been all day.

The next day…

It was late afternoon when Onyx got back to the carwash, Greg was sitting in his van fiddling with his guitar when he saw Onyx walk up.

"Hey! You're back!" He said excitedly.

She nodded. "I am. Is it ready yet?"

"Yeah, I just put down a varnish and some pain so I was waiting for it to dry. Let me check on it."

He put down his guitar and went inside his van. While he was gone Onyx examined his instrument, the way he played it and the music it created… it intrigued her.

She picked up the guitar and put it in between her arms, then she started plucking at the strings. It wasn't as harmonious as Greg but it didn't sound discordant either.

"Hey… that's not bad."

She was interrupted by Greg, he seemed interested as he took the guitar from her.

"You need to work on how you space the notes, but that didn't sound too bad. You might have a talent for playing guitar with a bit of practice."

"Well I am a warrior, I do need quick hands. I didn't know that could translate to musical talent."

"It can if you practice hard enough. Who knows? Maybe someday you'll be able to play this six string better than me."

Onyx shook her head. "No, that's very unlikely."

"Anyways…" Greg reached behind himself and pulled out the new ukulele. "Here you go."

She took it from him. "Thank you very much Greg, this means a lot to me."

"Just keep helping the gems save the world and take care of my son, that's all the thanks I need."

Onyx nodded. "That I can do. Farewell."

Onyx made her leave and managed to get back to the temple pretty quickly.

She opened the door. "Hello? Anyone home?"

She put Steven's new ukulele down on the couch and examined the home, not even Steven was here.

"I guess they went out."

Onyx sat down on the couch, not really sure what to do with her free time. Then she looked to Steven's ukulele…

She picked it up and started stroking the stings, trying to see what sounded good and what didn't. Greg was right, her technique would improve if she kept practicing.

Besides, she needed a hobby and staring at far off stars didn't satisfy her. It only left her with a sense of emptiness… and dread.

Again, I kinda suck at endings.

So to make up for that I wanted to go over the latest Steven bomb and go over all five episodes and say my thoughts on all of them. I'll start with the ones I liked least and work my way up:

5. Rising Tides/ crashing skies- This episode was clearly meant to be a joke, it doesn't really do anything new for the plot or reveal anything to us. Honestly, I didn't think it was all that funny but it wasn't horrible.

4. We need to talk- I'm all for another chance to see the majesty that is Rose Quartz, what I am not for is a jealous, angsty Pearl acting like a child and trying to push Greg out of her life because he's stealing her waifu. That kinda ruined the episode for me, but the inclusion of Rainbow Quartz and seeing the relationship develop between Rose and Greg made up for it.

Okay, now things get hard…

3. Chile Tid- Between a reference to family comedies from the 80's, Pearl's dream of Rose, and all the creative imagery used in this episode it's hard to find a spot where I wasn't entertained. Not to mention we got to see more of Lapis and her inferiority complex, which is why she thinks she only deserves to be imprisoned at the bottom of the ocean and not saved… it's really sad when you think about it and I plan to address that later on.

2. Sworn to the sword- I wanted to put this at number 1, I really did, but something better came along. Make no mistakes though this episode had everything: character development on a massive scale, satisfying action sequences, Steven summoning his shield, an absolutely beautiful and addictive song, and an introspective into the mind of Pearl. The interactions between Steven and Connie alone make this episode worth watching… but it isn't number one

1. Keep it together- The SU crew has a knack for putting dark elements into their episodes but not delving too deep into it so as not to freak people out… this is the king of that trend. Garnet experiences forced fusion, we see her get scared at the abominations before her, we see her two halves divided and speaking as separate entities, and we even saw her almost un-fuse because she was so horrified at what she was seeing. This is honestly the darkest SU episode to date and it sends shivers down my spine whenever I watch it.

It's going to be a hell of a ride in the next Steven bomb, and I look forward to seeing you all then.