Stephen walked into the dining room where the other gems were. Pearl finished setting up a set of new dishes she'd just spent time cleaning and polishing. She was quite proud of them. They were white with pink accents and had little roses on them. "Oh there you are Steven!" She said, placing the last plate down. "What do you think of my new dish set?"
Stephen looked at the display of dishes. He recoiled his head back so every roll in his neck and double chin was visible, his nose scrunched up, causing many wrinkles on his face to form. He inhaled and bellowed out a deep "Ewww!" that gurgled from the back of his throat, almost as if he was trying not to vomit. Pearl immediately looked visibly upset and frowned at him.
"Steven! No need to be so rude!" She placed her hands on her hips. Amethyst burst out laughing. "Pearl, I told you those dishes were hideous!" she wheezed. Garnet simply stated "I'm afraid I have to agree with Steven."
"You guys!" Pearl huffed. "Don't encourage that behavior! Anyway... Steven, we need to begin your test." Stephen smiled at her. "Okay no problem!" A bit of a mischievous smirk appeared across his face as he pointed at the table in front of them. The table suddenly lifted in the air rather quickly, almost touching the ceiling. The gems gasped in amazement. Upon hearing her new dishes clank against the ceiling, Pearl quickly grew concerned.
"Steven! My dishes!" she exclaimed. Stephen looked directly at her, a grinch-like smile forming on his face. His lips crept higher and higher until his smile rivaled even the Joker's as he lifted his finger up a little higher, slowly crunching the new dishes. "Steven!" Pearl yelled at him. Stephen suddenly dropped the table with a loud thwack, glass going everywhere. Everyone stared at him in shock.
"Steven what is wrong with you today?! You're not acting like yourself!" Pearl stated firmly, trying to hide her tears from the others. "Pearl chill out." Amethyst said. "Steven just hated your dishes and obviously learned a new power, so he doesn't need to do that dumb old test anyway."
Garnet nodded in agreement. "Steven has shown us enough for today." Stephen smiled at the praise coming from the other gems. "Aww thanks guys!" his chubby cheeks returning to normal. "Well I'm gonna go say hi to Sadie and grab a doughnut, I'm just gonna grab a few bucks first."
"No no no! That wasn't supposed to happen!" Steven thought. "Pearl knew something was wrong, but the others didn't even notice! And Stephen was so mean to her... She can be kind of annoying sometimes but she didn't deserve to have her dishes smashed like that..." He reassured himself that all he would have to do was keep waiting. Everything would be okay.
Stephen walked over to the sleeping lion on his bed, and started to fish through his pink mane for some spare dollars. He peeked his head inside the interdimensional space, when he came into contact with a towering mountain of garbage that Steven had been accumulating. "Aw, man," he sighed at the giant mound, as he started to rummage through the pile in search of a few dollars. He found all sorts of junk: gum wrappers, old t-shirts, an empty bag of chips, a half-eaten hot pocket, some random locked chest that probably wasn't important, and a suspicious bubble that contained a colorful, rainbow artifact inside.
"When did that get there?" he glanced at the object with mild interest before tossing it out as well. "Whatever." When he finally got to the bottom of the the pile, he found three dollars. "Thank God," he mumbled, glad that his scavenging hadn't been in vain.
"Alright, well, I'll see you guys later!" He shouted, climbing down the stairs and walking out the living room door.