The Crystal Gems recently warped back to the beach house after another mission, and Pearl was scolding Amethyst for her recklessness.
"Why would you think punching the Power Core was a good idea?! You could have gotten us all killed!"
"Well, I didn't, did I? Besides, how was I supposed to know punching it would cause the whole place to explode?"
"You should have known better than to punch it in the first place!" Pearl clutched her stone and sighed in agitation. "I swear, Amethyst, it's like you always have to do something to put us in danger! You're so reckless!"
"Uh, yeah, and don't forget-" Amethyst began counting on her fingers. "-lazy, immature, vulgar. And that's what makes me so awesome! Right, guys?!"
"Yeah!" Steven agreed before getting a glare from Pearl.
"Amethyst," Sapphire began. "You are a protector of humanity. Therefore, you are expected to act like one."
"She's right, Amethyst," Ruby told her, crossing her arms over her chest. "You can't keep acting so impulsive on missions."
"Right, and you're not always running head-first into battle when you get the chance?" Amethyst countered.
"At least I know what I'm doing."
"Well... Fine. I'm going to the Big Donut." And she walked off in a huff.
"I think we might have finally gotten through to her!" Pearl chirped.
"Technically, Ruby is the one who got through to her," Sapphire said.
"Is she okay?" Steven asked, getting a bit worried.
Yes, she's fine, Steven," Pearl assured him before waving her hand dismissively. "She's just having a silly tantrum. She'll be back after she's calmed down a little."
"Well, I think I'm gonna go talk to her." And he ran out the door.
"Alright. You go do that."
Amethyst roared in frustration as she slashed the dumpster behind the Big Donut in half with her whip. She then walked up to one of the ripped-open garbage bags and ate one of the stale donuts that was in it before Steven came up to her.
"Amethyst?"
She turned her head to see him standing there.
"Hey, man."
"Are you okay?"
The purple Gem sighed. "Yeah. I'm just sick of Ruby, Sapphire, and Pearl getting on my case all the time, you know?"
"Yeah. I imagine it must get on your nerves, huh?"
"Yeah! It's one thing that Pearl's always giving me crap about being too reckless and jeopardizing Gem missions and getting crumbs all over the couch," Amethyst threw her arms in the air before crossing her arms. "but then Ruby and Sapphire always take her side! It's not fair."
"So, what do you think you're gonna do about it?"
"I'm gonna run away!"
"What?"
"Yeah! Life would be so much better if I didn't have to deal with them anymore."
"But won't they be worried if they notice you're gone?"
"They don't care! Hell, I even half-expect them to throw a party or something."
"Well, you should let me and Lion come with you so we can keep you company. Besides, I've always wanted to try out life on the open road, just like the No Home Boys!"
"The what-now?"
"The No Home Boys. It's a book series that I like about this group of boys who don't have a home, so they travel around the country, sleeping in boxcars, riding river rafts, and solving mysteries. We can do all that stuff together! What do you think?"
Amethyst considered this for a second. "Yeah, okay. Why not?"
"Okay! Let's go pack!"
Amethyst and Steven packed up some food and supplies into Steven's cheeseburger backpack and took off on Lion's back. They rode for hours, taking in all of the sights and sounds around them. Eventually, they jumped into an open train car before the train it was attached to took off on its travels.
That night, Steven tried to sleep on top of a bale of hay in the train car, only to find it pretty uncomfortable. The illustrations in the No Home Boys books made hay look really soft to sleep on, when in real life, it was actually really prickly and scratchy. After some tossing and turning, he got to his feet and walked over to Amethyst, who was lying on her side and looking out at the passing scenery. "Amethyst?" Steven gave her a gentle shake. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah. What's up?"
"I wanna go home now, Amethyst. I'm done being a No Home Boy."
"I'm not."
"The rest of the Gems are probably really worried about us."
"Let 'em worry. I'm not like them anyway."
"What do you mean? You're still a Gem, aren't you?"
Amethyst sighed as she stood up. "Let me show you." She grabbed Steven's hand. "Ready?"
"Ready."
"Jump!" They both jumped out of the train car and rolled down a hill, with Lion following after them soon after.
"So, where are we going?" Steven asked as he got up and dusted himself off.
"You'll see in a minute." Amethyst climbed onto Lion's back, the feline growling but not protesting any further. "Get on."
Steven did as he was instructed, and Amethyst pulled on a couple handfuls of Lion's mane to steer him where she intended to go.
After about a half-hour of riding, they arrived at a dark, desolate canyon. There were hundreds of small, vaguely person-shaped holes littering the ground and the walls.
"Here we are! Whaddya think?"
Steven looked around. "Um, it's cool! What is this place?"
"It's the Kindergarten. It's kinda where I was born, along with a bunch of other Gems." The two of them climbed off of Lion to walk around.
"But I thought Gems were born on Gemworld."
"Most of 'em were, like your mom, Ruby, Sapphire, and Pearl, but I was born here on Earth."
Steven looked around at some large machines hanging off the walls of the canyon. They kind of reminded him of those viruses in the science textbooks that Pearl would sometimes read him to help him sleep. The boy screamed and ran out of the way as one of them fell to the ground with a loud clang, before he slowly walked up to it to get a better look at it. "Hey, Amethyst? What's this thing?"
"Oh, that's just something that was used to drill holes for geodes to incubate in 'til they hatch."
Steven looked at the drill attached to the bottom of the machine before running to catch up with the purple Gem. "How long did you stay here before Mom and the others found you?"
"I dunno, like, a couple thousand years or so? Before that, I was found by a pack of Rough Quartzes that lived around here and they took me in as one of their own. Taught me how to run on all fours and forage and hunt for food and a bunch of other cool stuff." Amethyst kicked a small rock out of their path.
"Did they also teach you that cool spin-dash move you sometimes do?"
"Nah. I taught myself how to do that! And then Rose and the other Gems found me and brought me back to the Temple, and they taught me how to talk and walk upright and use my gem, and they taught me about what clothes were for." Amethyst chuckled.
Just then, the familiar ping of a Warp Pad was heard as Pearl, Ruby, and Sapphire all appeared on its surface. "There you two are!" Ruby exclaimed.
"I suspected you were here," Sapphire said.
"Oh, great," Amethyst groaned. "Here comes the fun police."
"How did you guys find us?" Steven asked as Lion trotted over to see what was going on.
"My future vision is not usually wrong," Sapphire replied.
"I didn't want to believe that you two would actually be at a place like this," Pearl said, eyeing the Kindergarten with disgust. "Amethyst, what were you thinking bringing Steven here?!"
"Well, he asked, so I offered. And I told him about how I was born here, and how y'all found me after I got separated from my old pack."
"You better not have told him anything else," Ruby growled.
"What? You mean about the bad stuff? How bad Gems built this bad place to serve as a breeding ground for more Gems, ruining the planet in the process? Is that what you're talking about, Ruby?"
"Amethyst!"
"What are you guys talking about?" Steven asked.
"I'm so sorry, Steven." Pearl brought Steven into a hug. "None of us ever wanted you to see this horrible, horrible place."
"Then leave!" Amethyst howled.
"You're coming back with us," Sapphire told her. "You can't stay at the Kindergarten."
"I can, and I will! I'm done listening to you guys remind me of how much I hate myself!"
The rest of the Gems' expressions softened upon hearing this.
"Amethyst..." Pearl slowly approached the stocky Gem, only to be shoved to the ground.
"Just admit it. All I am is a big, fat embarrassment to you!"
"Come on, Amethyst," Ruby said. "You're better than that."
"Better than what?! Better than those Rough Quartzes I was raised by before you guys came along? Better than this slagging place?!" Amethyst gestured to their surroundings. "Better than the Gems who built it and were running it before Rose shut down the whole operation so no more parasites like me could wreck up the Earth just to be born?! I'm not better than nothing and we all know it!" Tears started running down Amethyst's face as she sniffled loudly. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to exist!" And she ran off into the distance.
"Amethyst, wait!" Steven tried to run after her before Amethyst used her whip to slice the legs of one of the Gem machines in the wall, causing it to fall right in front of him and block the path. Lion then ran over to let Steven get on his back, and they jumped over the machine to go after Amethyst. "Amethyst!" They stopped when they saw the Gem curled in the fetal position and weeping into her knees. "Amethyst?"
"Go away. I'm a bad Gem."
"You are not." Steven dismounted Lion and slowly walked towards her. "Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but-"
"Of course you don't. If you did, you wouldn't even be talking to me right now."
"You don't know that."
"I know that Pearl thinks I'm bad. That's why she's always yelling at me."
The two Gems did have a lot of arguments, but Amethyst never seemed too bothered by them. Had she been bottling up her emotions all this time? Steven decided that he would go and convince Pearl to have a talk with her, and he ran back to where the rest of the Gems were.
"I honestly had no idea how much Amethyst was hurting," Pearl said. "I probably wouldn't have been so harsh with her if I had."
"Amethyst never really was one for talking about her feelings," Sapphire mused. "I don't think even I would have known how she felt about herself."
"Hey, Pearl?" Steven ran up to her. "I think you should go talk to Amethyst."
"Steven, I don't think Amethyst wants to talk to me right now."
"Just go talk to her anyway," Ruby ordered.
"But-"
"That's an order, Pearl. You have to."
Pearl stood there fiddling with her tie before relenting and walking off. "Alright." She carefully climbed over the Gem machine and made her way over to Amethyst. "Amethyst?"
Amethyst turned her head to see the taller Gem standing there. "What do you want?"
"Amethyst..." Pearl fiddled with her tie again. "I'm really sorry for how you've been feeling about..." She looked around. "all of this." She knelt next to her. "I honestly had no idea you were so upset."
"Oh, really? You had no idea? This Kindergarten was, like, my whole existence, and you and Ruby and Sapphire all wanna pretend like it never happened! You think I'm just a big mistake that should never have been made!" Amethyst buried her face in her knees and cried some more.
"Amethyst, no! No, you're not a mistake." Pearl cupped her hand under Amethyst's chin and lifted her head so she could look her in the eyes. "You and all of the other Gems who were born from Kindergartens on Earth are simply byproducts of..." Pearl realized what she was saying and quickly changed her words. "I mean... I never thought of the Kindergarten as you! You didn't contribute to the creation of this place, you didn't build any of the Incubation Drills, none of what happened here was your fault! How could it be? You were still only a geode."
Amethyst simply looked away.
Pearl sighed. "If I'm to be honest, Amethyst... You're the only good thing I know to have come from this place."
"You're just saying that."
"No, I'm not! Amethyst, I know we've had fights sometimes, but I never once hated you for what you are. You're not the circumstances of your birth. You're you. You're a Crystal Gem."
Amethyst went back to making eye contact with the older Gem, this time with a softer expression and fresh tears in her eyes.
Pearl smiled at her as she placed a loving hand on the purple Gem's cheek and wiped her tears away with her thumb. "I want you to be proud of who you are."
Amethyst suddenly hugged her, bawling into her chest as she let her emotions out, and Pearl soothingly rubbed her back up and down.
"It's alright, Amethyst," she cooed. "I'm still here. We're all still here."
When Amethyst was done crying, she pulled away and wiped her nose on her sleeve, sniffling loudly. "Sorry for all the times we fought. I promise I'll stop being such a jerk."
"I'm sorry too." Pearl stood to her feet and helped Amethyst to hers. "Now, let's go home, shall we?"
Amethyst smiled at her. "Sounds good to me." And the two of them returned to the rest of the group hand in hand.
"I see you two have made up," Sapphire observed.
"We have," Pearl replied, smiling down at Amethyst, who smiled back.
"That's great," Steven said before letting out a yawn. "Now I think it's time I went to bed. My bed."
And so the Crystal Gems all stepped onto the Kindergarten's Warp Pad to warp home.
