Marble Madness
Requested by: TDRoramie
Hope you enjoy!
"So, I can look at it?" Connie curiously asked, covering her eyes.
"Sure!" Steven replied, pulling out a sticker album as Connie uncovered her eyes.
"Woooah!" Connie gasped. "What is it? An album?"
"Well, sort of; it's the best sticker album in the whole world!" Steven explained, star-eyed. "The Cookie Cat series album. It's a complete collection of every single sticker related to Cookie Cat!"
"Really? Like what?" Connie asked, getting interested.
"Like... Ahem, the normal Cookie Cat himself, the family he left behind, this character from-" Steven began, only to be silenced by a distant noise that sounded like a shoot and discomforted Connie. "... Like I was saying, this character from the discontinued movie based on Lion Lickers-"
"Look out!" Connie interrupted her friend to point out at the sky.
A big, lime-green colored ball descended from the sky and splashed onto the beach's water, making Connie and Steven scream in unison.
"What's going on?" Jasper yelled, getting out of Connie's beach home with the other Comet Gems.
"It's a Marble Robot!" Connie realized, as the ball grew eight cone-shaped legs.
"What?" Steven asked, as the marble robot began to approach both of them. But before it could come any closer, Spessartite stopped it with a dual pair of her scythes.
"Jasper! Pink Pearl!" Spessartite called out, blocking the robot's tracks. The two drew their weapons and jumped in to join the assault agains't the robot, while Connie pulled her stick and used it to draw a shield to protect her and Steven from the explosion.
"Steven, are you okay?" Connie asked to a starry-eyed Steven.
"I love this magic stuff in your life." Steven said in a half-whisper, amazed.
"Pearl, was that one-"
"Of Nephrite's machines?" Pink Pearl completed Connie's question. "That's blummingly obvious! But... That one is pretty big."
"Uh-oh... Gems?" Jasper said, lifting her right arm to reveal she had... Nothing. But Connie already knew; Jasper was pranking everyone with her shapeshifting. And Pink Pearl fell for it, freaking out and running away, only to be chased by a giggling Jasper.
"Is Nephrite that Gem? You know, the one that's coming to Earth?" Steven asked.
"Yes." Connie replied. "Spessartite stopped her from coming back, but she can probably send her robots, still. Is there something we need to do?"
"We destroyed it. That is enough." Spessartite calmly replied, picking a piece of the robonoid and tossing it aside.
…
Later that week, at least once, the phone conversations between Connie and Steven involving the Cookie Cats sticker album would be forcibly interrupted by a new marble robot powered by gooey acid, lethal for organics. Not so differently, it was the fifth time this week, and even thought they were being destroyed easily, it was getting on the nerves of the Comet Gems.
"I'll talk to you later, Steven!" Connie said, hanging the phone. "Wait for me!"
She teleported to the Desert, the place of the next marble robot, a little bit later than the Gems. But in time to stop them from destroying this other marble robot.
"Wait!" Connie demanded, forcing the Gems' attention to her. "We will have to fight more of those marble robot things?"
"I have no idea!" Pink Pearl said, breathing, stressed and stuttering heavily. "We don't know anything about then- But they just keep COMING, again, and again, and again!"
"It's ok- I don't have much of an idea about what is going on as well." Connie said. "But you guys tell me about the Gems, Steve tells me about the experience of an nuclear family, and my father helps me with... Pretty much everything else. So... What if we follow the robot, and see where it goes?"
"Are you CRAZY?!" Jasper exclaimed, surprised.
"Wh- Connie, it might go somewhere super-dangerous!" Pink Pearl said, worriedly. "What if you get hurt and, and-"
"Well, we either perpetually deal with those things, forever... Or, possibly, get into the bottom of this mystery." Spessartite pointed out. "Let's do the Connie way."
"We are goners." Jasper cynically commented.
So, the four Comet Gems hopped to the back of the marble robot, and began to ride it like a robot. Finally allowed to move without being damaged, the robot began to move to the Warp Pad and warp. The group gasped, as they realized they winded up to a canyon of purple rocks.
"The other Kindergarten..." Spessartite commented.
"Oh no! What if- Oh my- Ok, enough. It's the end of the line for this thing." Pink Pearl decided, reaching into her belly gem to summon the handle of her hammer.
"Wait! Just let it go wherever it's going to!" Connie protested, interrupting the white-skinned gem of pink hair and clothes.
"Connie way." Spessartite reminded, forcing Pink Pearl to accept the fact the group had to use the robot to find the truth behind all the others, and making her pull the tip of her hammer back into her gem. The group exclaimed in surprise as the robot gave a large jump towards the group.
"Why is it even here?" Pink Pearl questioned. "I don't like this a tiny winney bit."
"Well, for one, I agree with you, and for second..." Jasper said, crossing her arms with a confident smile. "At least it's minding its own business."
"Woah!" Connie said, as the robonoid suddenly stopped moving. "It stopped. Maybe it found something here!"
Pink Pearl and Jasper immediately jumped off out of the robot, while Spessartite grabbed Connie first. The marble robot made a triangle hole on the ground and changed it's own form to fit inside it.
"I knew destroying this would be a mistake!" Connie said, proudly, before carefully jumping down the hole and landing on the robot. The Gems followed her, sliding through the "elevator's" walls. "Guys, don't worry, I'm ok!"
"I know, but... What is this?" Pink Pearl replied, looking around at the wires lining the walls of the place.
They reached a type of control room, that glowed once it detected the presence of the marble robot. The robot detached a part of itself to create a hand, activating the square pedestal in front of it. The monitor came to life with static, which in moments transformed into a certain familar, eye-gemstone Gem that shyly looked to her left and right. The Comet Gems immediately hided once their minds processed who she was.
"L-link estabilished with the control room." Nephrite stuttered. "The Plug Robonoid successfully landed on the planet Earth and entered the control room of Prime Kindergarten, Facet Five. Status check on Kindergarten w-will be performed soon."
"That is Nephrite..." Jasper whispered.
"She's really unaware reactivating one Kindergarten will kill everybody on Earth?!" Pink Pearl gasped in disbelief.
"We should tell that to her." Connie said, determined, only to be shushed by Spessartite.
"Connie, we are facing someone we never met with technology we never dealth with; you can't ask questions." Spessartite said.
Connie just whimpered in mild frustation as Spessartite began to explain a stealth plan to the Comet Gems and, in an act of rebellion, she decided to go and face Nephrite by herself, escaping from Pink Pearl's grasp despite the Gem's protests.
"Oh geez... Archaic Gem technology is so much harder!" Nephrite shyly mouthed in a near-whisper.
"Hey! I don't think you should be doing that!" Connie bravely replied, as the other side of the monitor began to face her, and force a whimper out of Nephrite. "Uh... My name is Connie Maheswaran!"
"Wh- Is that a new kind of human in the Kindergarten? Or is it an... Alien?" Nephrite awkwardly asked, double-checking all her holograms.
"Hey, Earth is my home too, you know? I'm not that bad." Connie protested.
"S-sorry- I mean, there's more Connie's here?" Nephrite politely asked. "And did they replace humanity as the dominant Earth species?"
"N-no, I'm one of them as well!" Connie said, only to grow quite unsure about what she just said. "Or.. Maybe half of it. Also, can't you just stop doing it?"
"I'm sorry, but they sent me for a reason." Nephrite apologized, sounding sad, as the monitor faced away and a giant hand began to creep towards Connie. It was only meant to be a innocent gesture of pushing away, but Spessartite, Jasper and Pink Pearl ran to protect Connie from it, and threw the hand to the ceiling, catching Nephrite's attention. "Ah- Gems?! But the Red Eye didn't see any Gems on Earth! Well, at least I hope..."
"Sorry, but we had to destroy it." Pink Pearl boldly said, blushing.
"But the Gems were wiped out of Earth and-" Nephrite began to explain, only to realize something. "Wait... You were destroying the Plug Robonoids. You destroyed the Homeworld Warp again? That is your icon?!" she continued, breaking down into a shocked and horrified tone as she showed a Unfamiliar Familiar sticker. "Why are you destroying my things?"
"Because WE, are the COMET GEMS!" Pink Pearl replied, spinning and posing with her hammer. "We're still standing, as the guardians of Earth and everything that lives on it!"
"The Comet Gems?" Nephrite asked, confused and sweating. But then, they used Nephrite's lack of reaction as a chance to destroy all the other hand constructs in the room. "W-wait! I could potentially be punished by failing! I don't understand still why you're doing this!"
"Jasper, now!" Spessartite commanded.
"Smash!" Jasper yelled, jumping high and grabbing the last hand and throwing it at the power source.
"Oh no, I must report thi-"
Nephrite's voice and screen was cut out when the power source malfunctioned for sure.
"Oh, no... S-sorry, guys." Connie apologized, blushing and grabbing her right arm. "I got us all busted."
"But you weren't wrong at all, Connie." Spessartite said, lying a hand on Connie's shoulder, much for the latter's surprise. "We would never find out the truth about those things if it wasn't for you."
"Really?"
"Yes. But it was a bad idea anyway."
"Oh boy..." Connie mouthed to herself.
