Chapter Thirty-Five – Poker Face

"I was thinking," Steven began a few minutes later, "we could play some board games?"

"Sure," Lapis said agreeably.

Peridot picked up a few more shards of glass and glanced over at him. "How are these board games performed?" she asked curiously.

"It depends on the game," Steven explained. "Like, in Slides and Ladders, you roll a die and move your counter-it's a little bit of plastic," he hastily added as Peridot shot the kitchen counter a look of confusion. "You move it around the board and if you land on a ladder, you move forward, and if you land on a slide, you move back. And the first person to get to end of the board is the winner."

Lapis bit her lip. She didn't like to criticize Steven, but… "It sounds very simplistic."

"Well, yes," Steven admitted. "But that one's just an example. There's lots of other board games and they can get very complicated. Like, there's Genuis!, where your counter is a little circle and when you move it, you have to answer a question about a subject, and if you're on the Genius! Square, you get a little coloured piece of plastic to put in your circle. And there's six colours, and you have to get one of each."

"Yeah, that does sound a little more complicated," Lapis conceded.

"Yeah. But a lot of the questions are Earth sports and history and stuff you guys wouldn't know, so that's probably not a good game to play." He thought hard for a moment. "There's also Art Thief, where you have to buy paintings and hope they're not forgeries, Murder Mansion, where you have to work out clues to figure out who killed somebody, um, Rummage, where you get little tokens with letters on and you have to make words out of them… oh, and of course, there's the ultimate property-owning board game - Empire!" He struck a pose. "Believed to be the number one cause of family feuds and broken friendships across America! Will you become the ultimate property tycoon… or does bankruptcy beckon? Own it all with Empire! We don't play it very often," he continued in a more conversational tone as the other two gems reeled back in amazement. "Not since that incident three years ago when Amethyst caught Dad stealing from the bank and Garnet was found to have Fifth Avenue hidden in her hair."

A moment of silence followed this sales pitch and Steven sighed. "Or there's the Crying Breakfast Friends game, but last time I looked under the stairs, I couldn't find it. I think somebody's moved it."

Peridot placed the last few fragments of broken circuitry on her worktable and dusted off her hands. "They all sound quite bizarre, but I'm willing to give these board games a try."

Lapis nodded. "Empire sounds…" She thought for a moment. "Interesting."

Steven grinned widely. "Let me empty out my backpack, then I'll run back and get some." He picked up the bag and carried it over to Peridot's worktable. "I don't know if any of this stuff would be any use to you," he said with faux casualness. "But Amethyst asked me to bring it over."

Then before Peridot's astonished eyes, he tipped a small arsenal of weaponry onto the table. "Wow, thanks!" she said, picking up a small but lethal-looking mace.

Lapis picked up a slingshot and thoughtfully turned it over in her hands. Peridot was uncoordinated, but even so, the thought of her having access to all this weaponry made her a little uncomfortable. "Is-is it safe for us to keep these here?" she said tentatively. "What if Jasper shows up?"

Steven looked a little puzzled by her comment and glanced out of the open door. "If Jasper shows up here, wouldn't you just be able to beat her up with the lake? Anyway, I think these are all a bit too small for Jasper to use. Garnet said they were probably all Ruby weapons."

"Well, what if the Rubies came back?" Lapis quickly interjected. "And I wasn't here?"

"Um…" Steven glanced over at Peridot. "Well in that case, it would mean Peridot would be able to defend herself for a while. Until they fused into a giant Ruby again, at least," he admitted.

Peridot scoffed at that. "As if I'd allow myself to be captured by that bunch of clods!" She crossed her arms for emphasis. "Obviously I'd call for backup and then assess the situation from afar."

"You mean you'd run away," Lapis translated.

"Anyway," Peridot continued, ignoring Lapis's comment and pushing the weapons away, "you can thank Amethyst, but actually, these will not be necessary."

Steven's face fell. "But-"

"Because I am going to learn to summon my own gem weapon," she interrupted. There was a look of fierce determination on her face as she spoke that left the other two with no doubt that she meant it.

"Well, keep them anyway," Steven said, pushing them back. "Try them out for a bit. Maybe they'll help, maybe one of them will, you know, feel right." He picked up the empty bag and took a step back. "I'll be right back."

Lapis watched him go and then turned back to Peridot, who was turning something weird and pointy around in her hands. "Do you know how to use that?" she asked.

Peridot shrugged. "I don't even know what it is," she confessed. "Homeworld hasn't used weapons like this for a long time."

"Maybe we should put them away in a safe place," Lapis suggested hopefully.

"Maybe," Peridot said absently. She put down the unknown weapon and picked up the mace again. "Now this appears to be fairly straightforward."

She gave it an experimental wave and Lapis took a quick step back. "Not in the barn!"

"Right. Of course." Peridot quickly put the mace back down.

"I'm back!" Steven skidded to a halt just inside the barn entrance, his backpack bulging once again. "I brought Rummage, Murder Mansion, Empire and This Is Your Life. And a packet of cards," he added, removing each one from his bag as he spoke. "So…" He placed a hopeful hand on the Empire box. "Which one should we play first?"

xXxXx

"You have been caught making fraudulent tax claims. Go to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars."

Steven groaned and moved his car over to jail. "I was four squares from Go!" he complained.

"Well, you shouldn't have cheated on your taxes then," Lapis joked. She picked up the dice and looked down at the board. If she could roll a two, she'd be able to buy the water company. Community Chest or Chance would also be good. But anywhere else would either put her in Peridot's territory or send her to jail. Deciding jail was the lesser of the two evils, she dropped the dice and crossed her fingers. "No!"

"Ha! Pacific Boulevard!" Peridot gloated and shuffled her property cards. "And I have two houses there, so that's four hundred dollars."

Lapis glowered and handed over the money. Her finances were now in a troubling state and she'd already mortgaged all her properties. To make matters worse, Peridot then rolled a seven and brought Park Avenue, meaning she could now build houses there, which she immediately did. If she hadn't hated the other gem before the game, she would've by now.

"Double four!" Steven cheered and moved his car into Free Parking. "OK Lapis, your turn."

"Community Chest, Community Chest, please be Community Chest," Lapis chanted softly to herself. She rolled the dice and valiantly choked back the curse that rose in her throat.

Peridot clenched her fists in delight. "Park Avenue!"

Lapis scowled and handed over the last of her money. "I hate you."

Peridot chuckled, clearly under the impression that Lapis was joking. "Hey, I might land on Aegean Avenue, then you'd get back…" She leaned over to look at the card and cackled loudly. "Five dollars!"

When Steven was gone, she was so going to hurt Peridot. "Just roll the dice already," she muttered.

To her annoyance, Peridot skipped right over Lapis's few properties and the dreaded Income Tax and landed on Chance. "You win first prize in a beauty contest," Steven read aloud. "Collect fifty dollars."

"Was it a beauty contest for dogs?" Lapis muttered, glaring down at the board. Silence followed her words and she glanced up to see Steven and Peridot staring at her with identical expressions of astonishment.

"Lapis… that was kinda mean," Steven said slowly as he handed Peridot a fifty dollar bill.

"Sorry. I just… sorry." Lapis shuffled awkwardly. "Can we play something else?" she asked abruptly. "I'm not really enjoying this game."

"That's because you're losing," Peridot pointed out.

"It's not because I'm losing!" Lapis snapped. "I just don't like it! And it's a stupid system anyway! Why should you be able to double the rent just because you own all the properties on one colour?"

"Did you know, the game was actually created to show that allowing people to form economic empires with little regulation and force other people into bankruptcy is a bad thing," Steven quickly butted in. "So there's that."

"Are you saying winning is bad?" Peridot demanded, horrified. "I'm winning! I wouldn't have tried to win if you'd told us it was bad!"

Steven shook his head. "No-"

"Does that mean that by losing, I'm actually winning?" Lapis interrupted.

Steven shook his head again. "No! It's just a game! It's bad in real life, but in the game, you're supposed to win all the money! Look, let's move onto to something else," he added hastily as memories of Amethyst and Pearl furiously pulling cards and money out of Garnet's hair came back to him. "Peridot owns three quarters of the board and has the most money, so she wins. Let's play Murder Mansion now."

"OK," the two gems sullenly agreed.

They played Murder Mansion for a while, but Peridot's extremely logical mind meant that she was able to deduce the murderer and their weapon of choice long before Steven and Lapis did, so after she'd won four times in a row, they took a break so Steven could cook some lunch in the newly repaired kitchen. After he was done, he showed them a few card games, and Lapis found she was much more successful at those, thanks to a lot of practice at hiding her emotions.

Eventually, Steven stood up, stretched and glanced outside at the darkening sky. "I should go home now," he said a little regretfully. "But I'll come over again soon!" He grinned at them. "Maybe for a sleepover!"

"That would be nice," Peridot said agreeably. "I'll begin construction on the sleep chamber shortly."

"And if you fixed the multimedia player too, we could finally watch Camp Pining Hearts." As he'd expected, they both tensed again at that suggestion. Weird. "Or maybe not, we could watch something else if you want," he quickly amended.

"We still have a lot of Connie's DVD's to watch," Lapis said. "So we should probably finish those first."

Steven nodded. "That makes sense." He picked up his backpack, said his farewells and walked away.

As soon as he was out of sight, Peridot turned to Lapis. "You said you were going to replace my DVD's, you need to replace them!" she hissed. "He's not going to stop asking about them!"

"I'm working on it!" Lapis retorted. "They don't stock it anywhere in Beach City." This much, at least, was partly true – she'd had a quick glance around the few shops to see if any of them had it in stock, not that she intended to replace it herself, she just wanted to see how difficult it would be for Peridot to do so. "I'll have a look around Empire City." This, however, was not true. "I've got some stuff to do in my room, I'll see you later." And with that, she disappeared up the ladder and into her room.

Once she was alone, she shut the trapdoor and carefully placed the cabinet back over it so it couldn't be opened from the other side. Then once again, she removed the cushions from her window seat and moved the lid aside. But this time she ignored Jasper's gem and took out several other items instead.

Where to put them? Could she bubble them and send them to the forest for the moment? No, animals might pop the bubble and then they might get lost. She reached behind her and traced the gem on her back. It was in an awkward spot to reach, which was why she didn't like to store things in it, but it would have to do.

She flew out of the window and landed quietly beside the barn doorway. Peeping around the wooden frame, she watched as Peridot stirred the pieces of her broken multimedia player with her fingers. "Can you fix it?" she asked, taking a step inside.

Peridot picked up a circuit board and frowned. "Not immediately. I'm going to need more glass. I'll ask Amethyst," she added, mostly to herself. "I was intending to ask her if she could spare another toaster anyway."

"Steven suggested I ask you if you could make me a DVD player as well," Lapis said, taking another step inside. "I know you have several projects to deal with at the moment, but when you're done, would you mind?"

"That shouldn't be a problem," Peridot said confidently. "They're easy enough to make. Actually, I may already have the correct parts for that."

"That's great!" Lapis beamed at her. "You're such a good friend." Peridot looked pleased by the praise, and Lapis pressed on. "As a matter of fact, I was wondering… no…"

She looked away, pretending to reconsider her words, and as she hoped, Peridot took the bait. "Wondering what?"

"Well…" Lapis took a deep breath. "I was wondering if you'd let me read your diary?"

xXx

It really is silly, the amount of Googling I did for Empire. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what board game that's a parody of, right? Can you work out the others? Most should be easy, but I'm not sure how popular Art Thief is. I really only added that one because it was me and my sister's favourite game when we were younger.

Ruby weapons! While I'm 90% sure than all the Rubies in war would've been fused into giant mega Ruby kaiju's, I'm also pretty sure they would've had smaller weapons for those moments when they were broken apart. Imagine how horrifying it would be if you punched a giant Ruby and it suddenly splintered into fifteen little Rubies who then all swarmed you with daggers!