Chapter 2: Crazy, Noisy Beach Town, Act 2

Six thousand years. In perspective, what is that? To a human, that is a ridiculously long time. Japan has the highest general life expectancy in the world, with an estimated 83 years on the Earth. That'sjust over one percent of 6 000 years.

To the universe, 6 000 years is nothing. A blink of the eye? Barely. Human scientists estimate the universe's age to be around 13 .8 billion years. 6 000 years is such a short period of time, that the author doesn't even care to figure out how to properly put it into words.

For a gem, it was a bit more complicated. It was a pretty long time for sure. But at the same time, it really wasn't. A short-lived organic will have a hard time understanding. Think of the expression "time moves fast when you're having fun." The same is true for gems but in the opposite. The exciting years seem to slow down and are perceived as a human would. A thousand boring years pass like a bad week.

Their perception of time depends on the conditions surrounding them.

In that respect, gems might not be so different from squishy, short-lived, organic humans after all.

The last few years had moved very slow for Pearl. Slower than they had since the war. It was first now that she realized just how long she had been on Earth. Six thousand years. Entire civilizations had risen and fallen in that time. She had seen it happen first hand. To her, Rome had been built overnight. And it had crumbled two days later.

Six thousand years, Pearl had spent on this planet. She had fought for centuries in a war for the planet's safety. To protect the plants, and animals, and all other life. Including humans. The closest thing this planet had to an intelligent form of life.

How many of those years had she spent actually interacting with humans?

Almost none.

She had fought for them, and never once considered interacting with them on her own volition. Either Rose had coerced her into talking with one, or she had been forced to by circumstances beyond her control. Now her life was full of humans. Greg, Connie, Steven… and others. And they were all wonderful people, smart, funny and caring.

In hindsight, she had been a fool not to give humanity a chance.

As it stood now, she was about six thousand years behind in human history, traditions, and social interactions. As of lately, that posed a huge problem. She had recently encountered… someone that made it necessary she at least know how to hold a conversation. Amongst other things.

So, Pearl now had the monumental task of learning how to properly talk with humans in front of her. This posed many problems. After spending so many years hidden away in the temple, she couldn't very well just walk up to the first human she saw and… interact. Steven's attempts to better integrate the Crystal Gems had gone less than stellar. Every single time.

No, that route would probably end in disaster. Thankfully, Pearl did know another human who was reasonably well adjusted. One that was glad to help and wouldn't judge.

In a way, she supposed it was ironic. No less than twenty minutes ago, she had been busy training Connie, a human, in the art of gem combat. Now, she was on her way be trained in the art of social interaction by a human, Greg Universe.

Today's lesson was an important one; phone calls.

xxXXxx

One second, Connie stood in a brightly lit room of mirrors with Steven at her side. Now, she stood alone in the darkness. Not like every-lamp-turned-off-at-night kind of dark either. This darkness was absolute. The very air around her seemed to absorb every last ray of light. Not a single photon penetrated the veil of darkness.

Connie had often been alone. She had often felt lonely, disconnected from other people. An invisible wall stood between her and the rest of the world.

This was a thousand time worse than that.

"S-Steven," she cried out, heavy despair in her voice.

Once upon a time, her biggest nightmare was dying without ever making a friend. Now, her biggest nightmare was to lose them.

"Connie!" Steven's voice cut through the suffocating darkness like a warm summer breeze through Antartica. "Connie, what happened, where are you?"

"I-I…" she blinked away the tears welling up in her eyes. "I don't know… everything just went dark and…" she was cut off by a scream. Steven screamed in fear and alarm.

A new voice spoke up.

"Quiet down, will ya!" it hissed. "I'm in a bad mood, so I'd suggest you hand over any money you've got quicker than quick."

"Wha-what are you?" Steven whimpered so weakly, Connie could barely hear him. What she did hear was the ten's annoyed response.

"None of your beeswax! Just hand over anything valuable you have, and you won't get hurt."

During the entire exchange, Connie was panicking. She couldn't see anything. Not Steven, not the teen, not whatever had scarred Steven so. She could only listen as the stranger threatened her best friend, and she could do nothing. In a way, that made it worse. If she could just see, she might be able to do something. But instead, she was cursed to only listen, listen as Steven gasped in horror of whatever, whatever…

Hold on.

She could hear just fine. In fact, Connie heard Steven as clearly as if he was still standing beside her. She could hear his heavy, uneven breath. She could practically feel Steven's presence beside her. Just where he had been standing when he disappeared.

Connie looked down at her hands. She saw them. Not just as silhouettes as one would expect. She saw them as well as she did in the bright mirror room. She could even see the shadows her fingers made on her palms.

She turned her head up, to where the roof should be. She starred for a few seconds, before shutting her eyes. Green and blue imprints of light danced on the inside of her eyelids like northern lights.

She heard the faint sound of Steven summoning his shield.

That confirmed it.

It was an illusion. She had not been taken away, nor had Steven. The room hadn't even really gone dark. It was nothing more than a trick. And once you knew the trick, it was easy to see through. Connie closed her eyes. They were useless anyway. All she needed was her ears to listen. Listen, wait for an opening…

"Hyaa!" Steven yelled. It was almost immediately followed by the sound of a mirror shattering into a thousand pieces. He must have thrown his shield at the mirror. Probably through another illusion.

"What the actual fu-?"

…and then attack swiftly without hesitation!

Connie rushed forward toward the source of the voice With all the strength the young girl could muster, she tackled the teen. The two of them crashed onto the floor in a rather undignified pile of limbs.

"Steven!" Connie called out. "it's just an illusion! He-he made it somehow."

If there was a response, she didn't hear it. Her hearing might have been what lead her to the enemy, but now she relied fully on touch. She and the teen wrestled on the floor. He was several years older and a lot heavier. Yet all his attempts to get the little girl off him were fruitless. Connie was high on adrenaline, her sense honed by hours upon hours of training and she was as ferocious as a wild animal.

She clawed and punched at the young man for all she was worth… and that was not little.

How long did they lie there on the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and curses? Ten seconds? Twenty? It might as well have been an hour before Connie felt two chubby, but inhumanly strong arms grab the teen and locking him in a tight bear hug.

She could actually hear the teen wheeze as if the air was squeezed out of him.

It probably was. Steven may not look like it, but the guy was almost freakishly strong. Certainly stronger than some fairly scrawny looking teenager.

Once Steven eased his grip somewhat, the would-be-mugger spent a solid two minutes swearing, kicking and threatening the two kids.

The threats were especially colorful; enormous monsters and beasts would appear before Steven and Connie's eyes. Enormous eldritch creatures, with teeth and claws as big as Rose's sword, drooling entire bathtubs worth of saliva. Tentacles, spikes and glowing red eyes covered several places where they had no business being. Monsters that would give H. R. Giger nightmares appeared before their eyes.

But that's all they did. The monsters would appear out of nowhere… and then do nothing. What else could they do? They were as imaginary as the monsters in a children's closet. Nothing more than illusions, tricks on the mind.

Tricks may be for kids, but these two had already seen through the teen's cheap conjurings.

Eventually, he gave up and dropped the illusions. The monsters disappeared and light returned to Connie. Or rather, she could once again perceive it normally. After all, the teen's illusions had only made her think it was dark, rather than actually making it dark.

Once all the fake images were gone, they were left with a rather sad sight. A larger portion of the mirror on the wall was shattered by Steven's shield. Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowney were not going to be happy about this.

Also, the would-be-mugger looked pretty bad too. The young man was held tightly in place by a kid much younger and smaller than him. A bruise was forming on his cheek, made by another kid much younger and smaller than him. Add that to his scrawny body, oily hair, weak facial structure and generally unthreatening image, and he looked about as pathetic as he really was. And no tricks would hide that fact.

xxXXxx

You know, Pearl really didn't have any business being as nervous as she was. She, a lowly pearl, had rebelled against the mightiest intergalactic empire this side of the galaxy. She had done so without hesitation. Not a single shred of doubt had been on her mind as she betrayed Homeworld. She had been afraid, of course. But nothing she had ever faced had made her waver in her dedication.

So why was the thought of a phone call making her feel nauseous?

Pearl had spent the last ten or fifteen minutes pacing back and forth along the boardwalk. In her hands, she held a brand new cellphone, courtesy of Greg. While neither he nor Pearl knew was experts in human tech, he had helped her with the basics. He was now confident that the small device would be capable of connecting to another wireless audio transmitter device.

And so, he had advised Pearl to take a minute to mentally prepare, enter the desired phone number and then press "call." pearl had agreed that it was a sound plan; hesitation would only prolong the uncertainty.

Turns out she was completely right. That minute had seemingly stretched out to six times the intended length. In that time, she had walked up and down the boardwalk seven times, checked to make sure she had entered the right number sixteen times and practiced at least nineteen different greetings.

Some part of her knew she was being silly. 'Here you have an opportunity to move forward,' it said. 'Stop pacing about, and just press that call-button,' it said.

'Shut up!' said another part of her. 'This was a bad idea from the very start. It's useless, you should just give up. Let's go home and forget this whole thing.'

Both of them made good points.

They were not the only ones. Though it didn't say anything, it was still there at the back of her mind. It had been there for so long, Pearl didn't even take notice of it half of the time. But she had more and more now. It was the voice that answered the question 'what would Rose do?'

'She would tell you to trust your instincts and do whatever makes you happy,' it said.

Pearl pressed 'call.'

And nearly dropped the phone at the sharp tone the device to her and Greg, they had accidentally turned on the speaker function. Pearl found herself frantically trying to maneuver the phone's interface to turn it off. But to no avail; as she pressed every button she could find, a click could be heard, and then a voice.

"Hello?"

"Uha! Um, hello! It's me. Or, well, you might not remember me, but, um… we met at that concert a while back, and you gave me your phone number, and I'm really sorry haven't called earlier but things have been busy."

Later, when she got time to objectively evaluate this call, Pearl realized it had actually gone better than she thought it would.

"Oh. You're that girl from the Mike Krol concert, right? You asked me about my hair."

"Yeah, that's me," Pearl said weakly. This was a bad idea. "I… I just thought that… since you gave me your number and all, that maybe… I don't know." Yep. Bad ideas sounded like this.

"That sounds like a great idea. I'd love to meet sometime."

Pearl blinked, one, two, three times.

"I'm out of state at the moment (family business, you know how it is…), but I'll be back in a few days. Hey, I hear there's a show coming up this Saturday with some local band that looks pretty cool. Maybe we can meet there?"

This was a surprise. Pearl was sure her rambling would have scared of pretty much anyone.

"Yes, yes that sounds lovely," Pearl was quick to respond.

"Perfect!" said the woman on the other end. "I've gotta go now, but I'll see you on Saturday then. Just call if anything comes up."

"Yeah… see you on Saturday!" Pearl made a mental note to clear her schedule on Saturday. And Friday. And Sunday.

"Golden!" It was weird, Pearl could have sword she actually heard the woman smile, as little sense as that did. "Bye then."

"Bye." And then it was over. Pearl let out a deep sigh of relief. Now, that wasn't so dangerous, was it? Really, she needed to get her act together and stop worrying about every little thing. How silly she had been!

Pearl felt a surge of confidence and energy surging through her entire being.

"Aw, tastes like diabetes."

And then she felt a surge of primitive surprise and shock through her entire being, as a person behind her suddenly spoke up. She nearly dropped the phone for the second time that day. She had been so focused on the phone call, she hadn't noticed someone walking up behind her.

She spun around, and came face to face with… herself? No, it was a young human woman. Pearl had just seen her own reflection in the woman's dark sunglasses.

"Heh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare ya," she said. "I just happened to overhear your call, I thought it sounded really sweet."

She had shoulder-length, wavy black hair, and wore a simple white jacket. She was also making Pearl feel very uncomfortable. She wasn't comfortable with her own team, her family to let hem listen. That went double for strangers.

While Greg has assured her she was making great progress, she had yet to learn how to tell humans to go away in a polite way. She decided to go with the second best alternative, and just walk away. She turned away to do just that.

And then she stopped.

"Hey, what's with the cold shoulder? You're not a robot… are ya?"

Pearl couldn't move at all.

xxXXxx

[? ?]

A stranger that recently appeared in Beach City.

Notable Powers and Abilities

•Illusions-Can create illusions of anything he wants. The full extent and origin of this power are unknown.

Stats

Destructive Power:?
Speed:?
Stamina:?
Durability:?
Skill:?
Development Potential:?

Status: Defeated

xxXXxx

AN

Me: "I'll go to bed soon, just gotta write out this scene first. It's short, it won't take too long.

Also me: *spends an hour writing about Pearl angsting over a phone call*

The first taste of a stand battle! Sort of anyway. It's a pretty simple and basic one, but hey, you've got to start somewhere, right? I'm not gonna go throwing full power DIO with Za Warudo and road rollers on our poor heroes the first thing I do.

Regarding the next act, you can expect it soon. Maybe Friday, not later than Sunday I think. It will be the third and final act of Chapter 2: Crazy, Noisy Beach Town, so look forward to that. Can Pearl handle the strange woman and her impossible ability? Find out, next time on JoJo and the Crystal Gems (and Steven!).

But until then, take care of the planet Earth, and remember that anything can happen in space.

EDIT: Shout-out to Koiibutt for pointing out my math mistake at the beginning of this chapter. 83 is not 13% of 6 000, but closer to 1.38%... This is what three years studying natural science, and a total of five math courses on the third biggest high school in Sweden gets you, ladies and gentlemen.