And now, with the pieces coming together, it is time to start raising the intensity.
The superpowered duo had no idea how long they had been moving. They had changed from running, flying, and even swimming in one point but none of that mattered. All that mattered was showing just how strong they both were and reveling in being the only two people in the world with their power.
Mountains were climbed, canyons were crossed, massive bodies of water were skipped over and miles upon miles passed until the two had somehow ended up on a tropical island once their insane stamina finally ran out. They had hit their limits and now could only communicate through their labored breaths and eyes scanning the other.
They also managed to forget Jasper this entire time but thankfully the gem was also a skilled tracker and could follow along. The only thing she couldn't do was catch up, especially when the new couple decided to take flight. It only made the sinking feeling in her gut even worse by the time she reached the beach where Steven and Connie had recovered enough energy to stand up and talk again.
"So, uh, now what do we do?" Steven asked, "That was fun and all but…"
"Eh, I just felt like it," Connie answered with a shrug of her swole shoulders, "I did always want to see the world."
"Well, we pretty much ran across a decent chunk of it. Where even are we now?"
"Somewhere warm, sunny. That's all that matters to me."
Her devil-may-care attitude surprised Steven but it also intrigued him. He never once imagined that Connie would just go wherever the wind, or her superhuman body, would take her but he wasn't complaining. He was incredibly hungry after all that exertion, though, and decided to head into the rainforest only a few steps away from the ocean to find something to eat. Connie stayed put to soak in the sun but said that she'd be free to help if he asked for it.
He quickly found his answer in the form of a rushing river filled with fish trying to swim against the current.
"Sorry, little guys," he said with only a twinge of actual regret, "But I promise to make it fast."
He reached his titanic arm into the rapids and plucked out several of the fish. Once he had his catch, he squeezed with just enough force that he could feel their necks snap and they quickly went limp. A small part of him found it how funny it was he wouldn't eat pepperoni on pizza a few weeks ago.
As he headed back to the beach with his catch, that thought of pizza not only made his stomach growl but it also brought back the memory of the freak snowstorm from not long ago and how the gems spent the entire day wanting to spend time with even if it meant a very bizarre game of tag.
"They… Didn't want anything from me then," he realized, making him stop in his tracks, "All they wanted was to be around me…"
By the time he got back to Connie, he was actually reminiscing about the better times they had. When they all tried going to the arcade at Funland, when they performed on stage as a band, the time they all had a slumber party, everyone playing baseball to try and fool the ruby squad, Garnet's wedding right before it was crashed.
"Note to self: Chew the diamonds out for that at some point."
"Something on your mind?" Connie asked him, currently breaking a nearby palm tree she uprooted into kindling for a fire to cook their lunch. By the time he was done talking, they were both watching their fish fry with Connie giving him a curious look.
"So, you're starting to miss them?"
"I think so? I dunno, all those good times just popped up out of nowhere and they aren't the only ones I can think of. I just feel… Really conflicted right now."
Steven then pulled one of the fish right off of the fire, barely feeling the flames licking his hand, and ate half of the roasted animal in one bite. Connie did the same shortly after but seemed far less torn.
"Well, you said this whole experience has been about what you want, right? So that's the question now: What do you want?"
"Part of me does miss those good times. I realize it wasn't all bad 24/7 but… I can't just ignore how massively they've screwed up."
"Then tell them that. To their faces, preferably, but that's all up to you."
"Well, what about you? You've been away from your parents this whole time."
"One: I just got these powers, so I'm a little more inclined to keep stretching my wings than go home," Connie admitted frankly before reaching for another fish, "And two, I don't exactly have a lot of happy memories."
Steven quirked any eyebrow at that. "How bad was it?"
Connie, once she was done eating, explained further about how her parents were so busy with their careers or shuffling around from place to place that she never really got much of a childhood. Aside from their skewed priorities whenever it came to bullies, the Maheswerans seemed to expect the world from Connie in academics.
If Connie got anything less than an A- on any assignment from basic homework to a major test then clearly she was having too much fun and needed discipline. She didn't pick up tennis or the violin as much as her parents insisted she needed something occupy her idle time and keep her out of trouble. It was just a happy coincidence she enjoyed them both fine enough. And then there was the fact that, when Connie did make friends at whatever school she ended up at then it was up to Doug and Priyanka to "inspect" them.
"And let me guess," Steven interjected, now thoroughly disappointed in his friend's parents, "They weren't easy to please."
"One time, a kid was five minutes late because her mother was sick in the hospital. My mom said I shouldn't be friends with people who make excuses."
And with that, Steven's respect for the good doctor was almost gone. "Okay, fair enough. Starting to get why you don't want to be around them much."
"And besides all of that? I got the feeling that I had to work for their love, however little of it they showed," Connie sighed, "And even after that whole scene at the hospital, the only thing they ever lightened up on was you. Oh, and they smiled at me more and told me they were proud of me so that's a nice thing to start doing a whole two-thirds of the way through my life."
Connie punched the ground in irritation, cracking the coastline slightly if the sound was to be believed. Steven was thoroughly stunned to hear just how hard his best friend's life was. It also put that first time they met with the bubble conundrum. She really never had a friend before him and her parents were why.
"Oh man," he said eventually, "I… Connie…"
"Don't apologize, Steven, it isn't your fault. Not like you could have somehow made them loosen up before I even met you." She then stood up before stomping the fire out with her bare foot.
"Where do you wanna go now?"
"Anywhere, as long as it's with you."
Steven's skin may have been glowing pink since his training kick started but his face somehow flushed a deeper shade as he and Connie took off into the skies to even they didn't know where.
Doug and Priyanka Maheswaran liked to consider themselves pretty reasonable people when it came to most things. When Connie told them that she had to leave to find a missing Steven who hadn't been home in a week, they merely asked that she return safely and let them know if she would be gone for longer than a day.
Now, though, with their daughter having up and disappeared for several days at a time and all of their calls being ignored, it was time to be overbearing and pushy. They barged into the Crystal Gems' home first thing in the morning with a simple demand.
"Where is our daughter?!" they shouted, getting the gems' attention instantly. Despite the fact that the mother was still in a nightgown and the father in pajamas, the gems were worried now.
"W-We don't know," Pearl admitted, "But we have a plan-!"
"Plan?!" Priyanka shrieked, "Our only daughter has been missing for two whole days now! And last we checked, she was seen going to talk with your roided-up son!"
"Wait, how did you know that?" Lapis asked.
"She told us all about how Steven's transformation the last time she was home," Doug explained, "And we understood this wasn't the first time the young man has had his powers go out of control. We decided to just let that whole incident slide but this… Now we need to intervene."
"Okay, everybody just calm down," Garnet stepped in only for the doctor to get in her face.
"We can't calm down! We haven't slept a wink all night because our child, our pride and joy, has been missing! Hasn't your son been missing for over a week now?! Why aren't you more upset?! He could be dead for all you know!"
"First off, it is highly unlikely for Steven to have been terminated so easily," Peridot added, "Considering his sheer physical strength and aptitude for utilizing his barriers, I believe nothing short of a cataclysmic event could even injure him. And second off, it is clear he needs some space to sort his issues."
"'Some space?!'" Doug blurted out, "Why are you acting like he's sulking in his room?! That's what most kids do when they need 'some space', not venture out into the wilderness miles away from any known civilization! What is wrong with all of you?!"
"We are not dealing some normal kid, alright?!" Amethyst scoffed, "And it's not like you're parents of the year either!"
"Excuse you?!" Priyanka shouted in her face, "Last I checked, you've never so much as been responsible for drawing a bath let alone raising a kid!"
"Hey, all three of us looked after Steven when he was growing up!" Pearl stepped in, "You had one child and yet you somehow completely missed her unhappiness and desire for individuality until your life was in danger!"
"Yes, we've made serious mistakes with her but we've done nothing but make up for that these past several years! Giving her more freedom, letting her make her own friends, even hoping that Steven and her would be together some day! Well, I guess that was a mistake since your delinquent of a child turned into a musclebound monster!"
And from that, the harsh words and insults started flying left and right as Doug and Priyanka tore into every gem present. Even the aliens who had no part in raising Steven stood by to either defend how they'd done their best to help, fixed their mistakes or still made better guardians than the pair blind to the fact that their pride and joy had worn vanity lenses around them for months before Connie spilled the truth about her eyes being healed.
Right before things could come to blows, however, they were all pulled out of their argument by a third party.
"What is going on in here?!" Greg shouted, looking better than before thanks to actually sleeping and putting some effort in dressing and feeding himself. That good cheer didn't stop him from glaring at the entire room who stopped dead in their debate from his arrival.
"I don't know what's gotten into you all but could someone please tell me how this is going to help us find our kids?!"
Pearl and Priyanka, seconds away from coming to blows a few seconds ago, looked at each other in confusion.
"What do you mean?" the former asked, "I thought we were going to wait for Steven to come around."
"I've had enough waiting, alright?" he shrugged, "And now that Connie's gotten involved, I'm worried about her too. I just want to see my son again, tell him how sorry I am for ever letting things get bad between us, and then go back to life. And if we have to remodel the house so Steven can fit in it then so be it!"
"You're… Okay with that?" Doug wondered, "Your son is a twelve-foot-tall juggernaut that could dead-lift a cement truck and you're not worried?"
"A good parent focuses on what makes the kid happy, first and foremost. Steven could have a second head or a tail as far as I care, and I'll still accept him. I've only got one of him, after all."
"If that's the case then we need to get everyone involved," Garnet said, sounding infinitely more confident than she had in weeks, "Pearl, dial up the diamonds."
As Connie and Steven kept pushing themselves to cross countries faster than they could count them, someone was starting get tired. Jasper, by this point, was struggling to keep up with the dynamos that used to be her student and his best friend. In fact, she literally couldn't see them anymore. She looked every which way in the desert she had somehow ended up in and all she saw were sand grains carried on the wind and heat visibly radiating off the ground.
And once she was alone, it gave Jasper plenty of time to think. It also struck her that, despite being thousands of years old, she had never once truly sat down and thought about anything and that made her frazzled for some reason.
From the moment of her creation, Jasper knew she was a soldier designed to follow orders from a worthy superior. The diamonds to her were the epitome of strength, unflinching power that could conquer anything and turn any dissenter to dust. Naturally this meant she obeyed them without question and assumed their philosophy that could be summed up as "Get with the program or die."
And then came the mission that got her stuck on this planet to begin with. It all started as a simple reconnaissance mission to chaperone that nasally Peridot to her own job only to find the remnants of the Crystal Gems. That might have been the first time that Jasper broke protocol as she saw an opportunity to take down the biggest enemies to gemkind and get some revenge on the infamous Rose Quartz that shattered Pink Diamond.
That, of course, was all before the mission went so south that it would go down in history as a catastrophe. In the span of a few hours, all of her prisoners had escaped, the ship itself was destroyed and Jasper herself was stuck fused into Malachite by a Lapis Lazuli that she totally wants nothing to do with and anyone who suggests otherwise is getting flattened!
That tangent aside, her time as Malachite was a mix of tumultuous emotions that she never had time to unpack and now she was thinking about she liked taking orders from Lapis. While calling it anything romantic might have been a stretch, she found that domineering presence comforting. Lapis gave orders, she took them and life would have been nice if she was allowed to use all of that power instead of getting immediately beat down by the Crystal Gems but that was the past now.
Then came her stint trying to exact revenge on her enemies with that whole plan to assemble the corrupted gems into an army which she had to admit (mentally) in hindsight was not the smartest decision. She could have just ambushed them or maybe gotten back at them another way but it ultimately led to the same place: her corruption and eventually being healed.
The moment she was herself again, she wanted to attack Steven only stopped when she noticed the rest of the diamonds. That was the single worst day of her life. It was that humiliation, along with a massive bout of spite for everyone involved.
That spite was all she thought about everyday in her little cave away from civilization and yet only now did she realize it. She had nothing. All of that work for Homeworld means nothing now that they aren't taking over worlds. She had allies and subordinates back then, but all of their ranks were dissolved. Plus she never wanted another gem to see her like this.
It was only when Steven came to her the second time looking for training that she finally found a goal to reach for. And though she would rather be caught under an avalanche than admit it, the weeks she spent coaching him were the best she could remember. It was an entirely new feeling: pride for someone else.
But now? Steven, and by extension Connie, had eclipsed her. She knew they didn't need her anymore. If she tried fighting either of them, even in a friendly spar, she'd get bodied into the bottom of this planet's crust. She couldn't go back to Homeworld, couldn't provide anything to the one person she actually felt something resembling friendship for, so what was left? Go back to her hovel in the woods and tear up grass?
She also had to bite her tongue remembering how Steven lectured her that the tiny green blades were non-sentient plants meaning she wasted hours of her life. The cherry on top of her humiliating cake.
Jasper simply stopped moving. She let herself fall flat on her face and her back be exposed to the scorching desert climate. She wondered just how long it would take Steven to realize she wasn't behind him anymore
"He doesn't need me anymore…" she thought semi-sadly, "But he's so much stronger than me… At least I accomplished that."
"Hey, where did Jasper go?" Connie asked, the two presently taking a rest at a cool oasis in the middle of the otherwise hellishly hot desert.
"Hm, that is a problem…" Steven sighed, currently soaking his feet in the refreshing water, "We should probably go back for her."
"Yeah. Maybe she has some way for us to get even stronger!"
Steven chuckled at that before realizing Connie wasn't kidding. "Really? What do you want to do, crush cars for a living?"
"I mean, I can probably do that already… But I just like being so strong like this! I imagine you do too, right?"
"Well, duh, it's awesome being able to beat anything in your way. I guess I just don't know what to do with it all now? A real shame there aren't any more monsters to wrangle."
Connie then seemed to think of ideas on how to use their superhuman abilities now and soon got Steven thinking along the same lines. A two-person demolition crew, planting and regrowing forests (causing Steven to realize he probably grow whole groves of trees now), and eventually the conversation turned to them being literal superheroes. The thought of dressing up in spandex to fight crime and prevent natural disasters made them laugh until Steven let something slip.
"It'd be really funny having you as my sidekick!"
That made Connie stop laughing, pause for a good long beat and then speak up with only the tiniest bit of shock in her tone. "Um, hold on… I'd be your sidekick? How does that work?"
Steven himself didn't seem to realize his own words. "W-Well… I mean, I did give you your powers after all… If you really wanted to, I guess I could-"
"Bahahahaha! Steven, you're blushing like crazy! I'm not mad! I just can't believe you said that!"
Steven chuckled nervously, his face slowly fading from an almost electric pink to its usual brightness. "Phew, thought I really shot my mouth off there… But, would you actually consider doing stuff like that?"
"I guess I could… But now I can't help but think of something else and now it's really bugging me."
"Oh yeah?"
Connie then stood up, casting her shadow over Steven's body as she looked down at him over her own expansive muscles with a challenge in her eyes. "Which one of us is stronger? Who'd be in charge if we were out fighting bad guys?"
Steven stood up, once again standing several heads taller than her, but still looking a bit sheepish. "I mean, does it really matter? We'd be equal partners in that more than anything."
"How about we sort out those details later. I'm just dying to learn which one of us is stronger!"
A bit of cockiness came back to the young man. "I mean, I am bigger than you. By a fair amount, too."
"Maybe, but that means I'm faster and harder to hit."
"I hit pretty hard, though. One punch might be too much for you."
"I'd love to see you try, big boy…"
With each taunt they exchanged, their faces got closer and their eyes grew more determined. Now they were both on board with this idea but it was still a matter of who made the first move.
"Well, Jasper taught me to seize an opening!" he thought merrily before suddenly jumping back and putting a good hundred yards of distance between himself. As he leapt backwards, he summoned a few dozen hexagonal barriers as big as screen doors before flinging them at Connie with a push of his arms. Connie's move was to run directly at the approaching pink walls, sidestepping and somersaulting with an incredible amount of grave for someone of her size and only smashed through a barrier when it was inches away from hitting.
"Wow, she actually broke one," Steven awed, "That's the first time that's happened, ever."
"Not bad, huh?" Connie boasted before thinking to herself, "Hey, how do you summon those?"
"Um, I just kind of imagine forming one with my hands? It's not really descriptive but…"
"Got it!" Steven's jaw dropped as Connie held a square pink barrier about the size of a patio tile between her fingers.
"Did… Did you get all of my powers?" he stuttered.
"Time to find out!" Connie then chucked her new barrier like a frisbee, forcing Steven to duck. She then proceeded to sling a dozen from both hands, meaning Steven had to either dodge or charge through it.
"Oh, duh…" he sighed before forming a bubble around himself and charging through. While the spinning tiles did manage to slow him down a bit, he stampeded ahead with Connie deciding to flex her own might by rooting her legs to the ground and trying to stop it with her body.
That was both successful and a failure since she did manage to stop him dead only for her to be knocked backwards several feet from the impact and crash onto a dune back-first.
"Okay, that was a bad idea…" she moaned, more winded than hurt, "You all good?"
"I think so," Steven said. The shock of bowling over his best friend made him drop the bubble at just the wrong time so he ended up falling into the sand and getting a mouthful of grains for his trouble. As he tried to spit out as much as he could, Connie decided to take the time to stretch out the kinks she got from her hard fall. Soon Steven forgot all about the unfortunate taste in his mouth as his eyes drank in as much as her body as they could.
Eventually, she caught on and got a teasing smile on her face. "Like what you see, huh?"
He tried sputtering a response and resorts to a nod when words fail him. Connie simply laughs it off as she cracks her knuckles.
"Well then, I think that was a nice warm-up. Let's start the real show now…"
Steven didn't have to wait long to see what she meant as she charged right at him to throw a punch as his torso. He simply caught her blow in one hand before pushing her back with his other arm. Connie was about to head in again but Steven decided to go on the offense with swings of his massive limbs.
It quickly became apparently that neither of the two had any real fighting experience. Jasper's training consisted more of strength exercises and durability while Connie's training from Pearl was made so she can handle a blade and/or defend herself as a last-ditch effort if she was separated from her sword.
Their attempt at a hand-to-hand spar equated more to the two super strong teens trying to pummel each other in a playground fight. The major difference was that each blow would be enough to shatter a brick wall or send a normal person six feet under. Couple that with them being under the desert sun and their attacks quickly grew sluggish as their bodies grew sweaty.
One misaimed punch ended up sending Connie tumbling forward and Steven simply lying down in the sand with her on top of her. Both of them laid there, trying to catch their breath and not at all focused on how their chiseled forms were resting against each other.
"So…" Connie said between puffs, "Maybe we both need… To shape up some more?"
"Yeah…"
"Are you… Interested?"
Steven saw the half-lidded look in her eyes, the deeper tone in her voice and the subtle shifting of her hands makes something click in his mind.
"You know, Connie, you said I should focus on what I want."
"Yeah… And what would that be?"
A mischievous smile lit up his face. "You!"
He then lunged himself forward to press his lips to hers. For the briefest moment he feared that he'd gone too far only for Connie to purr in approval before leaning herself into his embrace. Their first kiss quickly turned into a passionate lip lock that grew messier by the second until they both came up for air even more heated then when they were trying to pummel each other.
"Okay… Fair warning…" Connie panted, "If this goes where I think this is going, my parents will want you dead."
Steven merely let out a throaty scoff. "Good thing I couldn't care less…"
He dove right back in, Connie's wandering hands signaling that she agreed entirely as they mutually let the situation escalate from there.
You'll have to use your imagination for this next bit but now what? How will this new couple change things? Find out next time!
Thank you all so much for reading! Feel free a review or any questions or comments.
