After handling various issues that popped up and filling out so many different forms he made his way towards the most important meeting he had. He walked across the campus with the umbrella Jonathan gave him to ward off the surprise rain shower. Waiting inside the massive gymnasium was his amazing wife.
"I hope your trip was pleasant, ambassador Maheswaren."
She laughed and gave him a wide smile. "Oh, the traffic was hell, my radiant Steven. It took me an entire two minutes to get here."
"Wow, two whole minutes to get here from the Capital?"
"I know it makes me sound old, but kids these days have no idea of the struggle of just getting places."
He just chuckled and listened to her talk.
"Everywhere I look they're tearing up roads and turning them into sidewalks, bike lanes, or just putting in trees."
"That sounds nice. I bet no one expected roads, cars, and planes to become completely obsolete in just a decade."
"Oh yeah, I told you about the pain in the ass the oil and auto industries were, trying everything they could to make us ban them. I'm sure you remember when they offered me a bribe to say they caused cancer!" She took a deep breath. "Ugh, just thinking about that mess got me all worked up and it was years ago. Is there anything you need me to do to help prepare for tonight?"
"Not really, just bring yourself. You know the kids love it when you show up to these."
She gave him a friendly shove. "We both know it's not me that they're excited about."
They had this event the first friday of every month, giving everyone a good time to make friends and experiment with a particular gem power. They didn't include the youngest, so the event was only open to those eight and up, since no one under that age even started to show their gem powers. Steven had later learned he'd been a bit of a late bloomer with most getting their abilities around nine and ten rather than his fourteen.
As it was getting close to starting time hybrids, gems, and humans alike all made their way in. There were quite a few people from Beach City and Little Homeschool who enjoyed the typically chaotic night.
He walked up next to the DJ setup with Connie and grabbed a mic for a second.
"Welcome to this month's Fusion Friday! Make some friends, make some fusions, but remember, always ask the person first before trying to fuse and don't get upset if they say no. Now, with that said-" Connie gave him a tight hug from the side and a kiss on the cheek, causing their forms to glow white and leave Stevonnie in their place. "-Have fun!"
A bunch of the younger kids swarmed the three fourths human. "Stevonnie!" When they were children Stevonnie was a seven feet tall person in their late teens early twenties. Now that Steven and Connie were both about thirty, Stevonnie was a powerful nine feet tall and looking to be about forty.
As expected, they spent a good portion of the afternoon getting tackled by various children and some new fusions had just come into existence. They had been talking with Atlantisite (Amethyst and Peridot's fusion) when a blur slammed into them from the side with a hug that had enough force that would probably severely damage a human and a fair amount of gems.
Stevonnie looked to see who the projectile was and found a red headed teen with dark skin and two gems, one pitch black and the other a bleached white. Ah, they'd been wondering if those two would fuse this time.
"Hi! I'm- oh, wait. I'm not sure who I am… Um. Wait one second, don't say a thing." Stevonnie and Atlantisite just waited quietly with big smiles. This new being got the extrovert and excitable nature of Suzy but also the nervous and curious sides of Lucas, which they could already tell would lead to a very chaotic being. After about a minute of muttering and mumbling the new person spoke up.
"I got it! I'm lucuzy!"
Atlantisite looked at them with curiosity. "That's fascinating, what pronouns does this new form like?"
"Umm, no? Yeah, no feels right. But also maybe yes." Lucuzy started looking anxious at not knowing the answer to the question.
Stevonnie just smiled at Lucuzy. "That's totally fine. You don't need to know for sure, you can take all the time you want to figure that out."
"Okay! Bye Stevonnie. I'm gonna go tackle my friends!"
Before Stevonnie could suggest not doing that the fusion had already taken off, and they only now realized that they had a second pair of arms a little bit further back than the normal pair.
Stevonnie looked around, admiring the various new fusions or people just talking to each other, it really was a good way to set up a magical meet and greet. On the other side of the dance floor Lily had walked nervously over to Jonathan who had been talking to Garnet. Both Looked like they already knew what was going to happen but weren't saying anything because they didn't want to make her self conscious.
She had leaned in and whispered something in Jonathan's ear which he responded to by smiling and nodding. After a little bit of dancing there was a bright swirl of light that grew and grew until it was about fifty feet tall and solidifying into a brand new fusion.
The purple colored being with five eyes and four arms looked down on the other party goers. Her hair was a wild thing, while still being in the typical cube shape, it flowed down to her lower back like some sort of curved monolith. All six gemstones shone as a massive pair of shades appeared to cover all of her eyes.
"Hello. I am Super Garnet. I can see all that there is to see." The massive being sat down and crossed her(?) legs as if meditating but also gave four thumbs up. "And you're doing alright."
A hand then reached out and caught the Lucuzy that had flown through the air at the new Super Garnet. "Hello Lucuzy, it's nice to meet you."
"Wow! You knew my name before I said it! That's amazing! What am I going to say next?!"
"You were going to ask to wrestle me."
"Amazing! You're right! I want to find out how strong you are and how strong I am, because I've never been me before!"
Stevonnie just smiled. "Reminds me of when I first formed. So excitable and wanting to try out everything."
Later in the night Connie and Steven split up and mingled with everyone separately. Connie had been walking around a little bit when she spotted a ten or eleven year old girl. She had a frilly dress with sunflowers on it. Her skin had a greenish sheen to it that changed color as the light hit her from different angles. But what caught her attention the most was that she was reading.
She looked up at Connie as she got closer, one eye was hazel colored while the other was her gem.
"Hi there, what are you reading?"
"It's about this girl who loves this boy but he doesn't know that she's actually a dragon. But when he figures it out he goes on a journey to turn into a dragon too so they can be together. It's called 'Hidden Scales'. I've read it a few times already but I like it a lot so I'm reading it again."
Wow, that was some peak YA novel stuff right there. Young love, magic, secrets, and a plot that kinda makes sense.
"That sounds pretty cool. My name's Connie by the way."
She laughed a little awkwardly. "Yeah, I think everyone knows who you are. Um, I'm Emma Labradorite."
It was pretty standard for the hybrid kids to have their gem as a last name since the biological fathers rarely even step forward as the father. Typically hybrids are fathered by men who want to fuck an alien and don't care about the child that comes from it.
"Well Emma, how come you're over here reading in the middle of the party? Don't get me wrong, I love a good book, but this seems like a noisy place to do your reading."
That was apparently all it took to break down the thin facade and for Emma to burst into tears.
She went and sat next to her on the bench. "What's wrong, did something happen?"
She shook her head. "That's the problem! Nothing happens! I keep coming to these and dancing with my classmates but I can never get it to work. I can't even summon my weapon! Everyone else got their powers and are fusing with people but I can't do any of it and now they just tease me when I keep trying. So I just gave up on trying to make it work and decided to just read my book. It doesn't matter anyways, I'm just some useless leftover."
Ah fuck, even if that sounded like a nonsense phrase it was a very derogatory term for hybrids that had been circling the internet. Calling someone 'leftovers' was referencing the idea they were what was leftover after gems killed themselves. It really was a cruel way to bring a child into existence, with the kids knowing that they were born not out of love but out of a deep sadness.
She put a hand on her shoulder and locked eyes with her. "Let me get something straight with you first. You are not leftovers. Good things can come from bad events, and that doesn't make the good any less good or the bad less bad. Think of it like this, when a forest burns down it's very sad, but there's some plants that can only grow after a fire happens. You're not leftovers, you're a beautiful fire lily that blooms after a wildfire."
"And secondly, who says you need powers? I don't have a single power but that doesn't stop me from being amazing, and it definitely won't stop you."
The little girl surged forward and gave her a tight hug. "Thank you."
"How about this, instead of trying to force fusion to happen, you just have fun. It'll happen eventually, and even if it doesn't, that's okay too. So maybe try dancing for the sake of dancing instead of for the sake of fusing."
"...But, no one wants to dance with me anyways."
Connie stood up and offered her a hand. "Well then Emma, may I have this dance?"
With a shy smile she got up and nodded. A new song started playing, and from the fact that all the kids started singing and dancing to it she assumed it was popular. She knew it made her sound like her mother, but she really didn't get this newer music. It was part of a weird trend where all the lyrics were played backwards, making it completely incomprehensible, but the kids all seemed thrilled by the weird backwards music.
Emma gladly showed her how to do the complex dance that went along with the song. Connie didn't understand half of what she was saying but that didn't matter. Emma was having fun, even if to her fun looked like explaining the deeper meaning behind each move of the dance (apparently it was a song/dance about rebellion and tearing down the government).
As Emma was leading her through the dance of the third song she felt a familiar glow take them over. She'd only ever fused with Steven though, so it definitely a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one, when she was suddenly someone new.
This new person looked down and saw her four arms change color in the light like Emma did. Woahhh, she could see so many things at once, was this what having two eyes was like? She wanted to tell someone all about this, show them this cool new thing she did. But who would want to listen to her ramble about things they didn't care about?
Principle Steven! Steven liked to listen when Connie rambled about nerdy things and Principle Universe was always nice to her, so he'd probably listen when this new person wanted to ramble!
It took very little searching to find steven. Well, sort of. It wasn't exactly 'Steven'.
The new person ran up to the ten foot tall bright pink fusion with long and poofy hair that was an even brighter pink somehow.
"Stars! Look at what we did!"
"Hey there, I don't think we've met yet. What's your name?"
"I have no idea, but I want to find out. And you've met half of me before, but the other half of me has only met half of you." She started running through possible name combinations in her head before gasping at a fantastic idea.
"I'm Comma. It's a punctuation joke, because I'm not going to be here very long, I'm just a quick pause."
Stars stared at them for a moment. "Comma? Oh! Connie and Emma. I recognized your gem but didn't realize that my friend-wife was in there too. Let me have a look at you."
For a few seconds Stars looked them over. "Yep, that's 100% adorable nerd." There was a dramatic flair of Stars' cape. "Well, Comma, tell me about yourself."
What followed was an introduction that quickly turned into a lecture on fusion and how she thought it worked between hybrids and humans. It was a fascinating topic that had eluded scientists but Comma was ready for the challenge. After a few minutes Comma was running out of steam and leaned against Stars as she unfused.
Emma was very sleepy afterwards and was scooped up by the pink fusion that chuckled a bit. "You held fusion for a while considering it was the first time you'd ever used your gem powers."
Stars and Connie chatted as they brought her back to the dorms so she could get some sleep in her bed. All in all, it was a great Fusion Friday with a below average amount of destruction, which was always good.