Author's Note: Hey again, welcome back to Danger Watch! This chapter we get a little more time with Jake and Steven as they learn more of each others worlds. What do you think of the DWU, and my portrayals of the characters? What are you excited to see? I love reading your reviews and they really do mean the world, so if you have any thoughts don't be afraid to share!

Anyway, that's enough from me. Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Three - Swapping Notes

Pearl quickly ushered the whole party into the temple, and she and Lao Shi discussed matters of the past as they ascended the staircase. As they were filing up, Steven noticed that Garnet was about to bubble the small cluster of gems.

"Oh, wait," Steven said, "can I do it?"

Garnet raised an eyebrow.

"It's pretty big… Think you're up to it?"

"I've been practicing," the boy said confidently.

Jake, who was watching this exchange from the rear of the group, tilted his head slightly to the side. He didn't know what they were referencing. However, as Jake watched, Steven cupped his hands in the air around the knot of crystals. Then, there was the sound like sealing of air, and an ethereal, pink bubble appeared, surrounding the entire thing. Garnet then took her hands away, and the bubble floated freely until Steven tapped the top of the orb, and it vanished into pink particles. Jake raised his eyebrows.

"Yo," he said, "how'd you do that, tho?"

Steven turned to look at him.

"Hm?" He said. Then it hit him. "Oh, the bubble?"

"Yeah, can you like. Teleport?"

Steven laughed.

"Only corrupted gems," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "And… only to certain places. Unless I have a warp pad. Or my lion."

"Warp pad?" Jake echoed. By that point, they had all walked into the temple, and Steven gestured towards the back of the room. There was a circular platform there, made out of interconnecting, opaque crystal.

"Yeah," he said. "There's a bunch of them all over the world. I think there's even one on the moon, but…"

"The galaxy warp is offline," Amethyst chimed in sourly. Then, to Pearl, she added: "So what's the first order of business, P?"

"If I may," Lao Shi said. "I think, perhaps, we should discuss this in another room. My apprentice is still in early stages of training, after all, and there are some things you know that may… obfuscate his lessons."

"Grandpa!" Jake protested.

Pearl looked sidelong at Steven, whose expression read: 'Don't you dare.'

"Excellent idea, Master Dragon," she said, squeezing her eyes shut and forcing a smile.

"Pearl!"

"I know, Steven. We promised you we would be more forthcoming with you. However, we are the more experienced gems (and dragons). Trust us to come up with a plan," Garnet said. The boy tried to remain glum, but Garnet placed her hand on his shoulder, and he sighed, some of his aggravation alleviated. "We'll fill you in after."

"OK." Steven said.

"We can use my room," Amethyst offered.

"We can use my room," Pearl negated, walking over to the door to the inner temple.

Her gem glowed, corresponding to the pearlescent crystal orb inlaid in the door, and it suddenly shifted open. Inside was a calming, garden-like room with large fountains in each of its corners. Then, without further ceremony, the mentors entered the room, and the door closed behind them. After the door shut, Jake collapsed onto the couch, pulling his Nintendo DS out from the inside pocket of his jacket. Steven watched him game for a few seconds, little virtual explosions filling the room.

"Uh, I'm Steven by the way," the boy said, breaking the silence. Jake didn't look up from the DS.

"Jake," he said.

"Yeah, I overheard," Steven said with an awkward laugh. There was a sad, chiptune theme that played from his handheld game. Jake had died. With a sigh, he tucked away the game. Steven decided to continue pursuing conversation. "What do you think they're talking about?"

Jake shrugged.

"Probably the weird crystal things we've been fighting," Jake said. He noticed Steven's glint of recognition. "By the way, what's up with your witchy aunts? Are they trolls? Freaky elves?"

Steven laughed again, this time genuinely.

"What? Trolls? No," he said, struggling to keep down his chuckling as he noticed the slight wound to Jake's pride. "Um, heh, no. They're gems. They came from space."

Jake blinked once, and then seemed to actually register what he had said.

"Woah, like aliens?"

"Yeah!"

"Grandpa never said anything about aliens!" Jake said, looking bewildered as he threw his hands up to his hair.

"You're a dragon, but you never thought aliens might be real?" Steven said. Jake shot him a look.

"No, dude! Obviously not," he said. "What, you assume that unicorns were real cuz you live with three aliens?"

"I don't just live with aliens I-" Steven paused. "Wait, unicorns are real?"

"See?"

"OK, no, you're right," Steven said. Jake was slowly calming down, and Steven rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I'm glad that somebody told you. I know what its like to be kept in the dark about stuff."

There was a break in the conversation. Steven was waiting to see if he had came across as strange, and Jake seemed to be thinking hard about something.

"So, is that what they are?" He finally said. "These crystal monsters. They're… alien monsters?"

"Yeah, I guess," Steven said. "They weren't always monsters. They were like Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl once. People. Gems."

"Heavy," Jake said. "Are you the only ones left, then? What happens if your friends turn into one of them?"

Steven shuddered at the thought, but shook his head.

"No, no," he said. "We're not exactly the last gems. There are still way more out there in space… and even a few others here on Earth. The monsters that have been popping up recently; the ones that your grandpa is concerned about… They're something called 'cluster prototypes.'"

Jake squinted at the unfamiliar term, and Steven began to wonder whether or not to disclose the information to him. He hadn't even told the gems everything that he knew. Before she had escaped to who-knows-where, Peridot had come close to cracking, bestowing some of her knowledge of the impending danger to Steven. Realizing that, in placing an embargo on Jake's knowledge, he would be a hypocrite, Steven decided he deserved to know. He was a dragon, after all. Maybe he would help.

"Cluster?" Jake asked.

"They…" Steven went a little pale."Hrk… Sorry, it's gross- They're parts of shattered gems… stuck together."

At first, Jake was confused. Then, stunned. Then, mortified, and finally, disgusted. Steven understood each reaction and nodded to show that they were valid; a comforting mannerism she had picked up from his friend Connie. Once he looked stable enough for more, Steven pursed his lip.

"That's not the worst part," he said.

"Of course it's not!" Jake said, throwing his head back on the couch. "What the what have you gotten mixed up in, dawg?"

"What the… what?"

"What?"

Steven squinted in confusion.

"... What…" he said, more than asked. Then, he gave finger guns to Jake, who just shook his head, flabbergasted.

"Dude? What's the worst part!" He said, reminding Steven of what they had been talking about.

"Right," he said, snapping back from the off-putting buzzwords. Jake slapped his own forehead with his palm. "These guys are prototypes, like I said. Tests, for the real thing. There were others, but these ones seem to be waking up. According to a frie-… According my sources, it's because its waking up. The Cluster. The real one."

"Let me guess," Jake said, "it's the biggest and baddest one."

"You have no idea," Steven said.

"How bad? You think that me, gramps, and the alien ladies could take it?" Jake asked.

"No way," Steven said, shaking his head. "We wouldn't stand a chance. The Cluster is massive… Like, wake up and take out half the continent massive."

Steven sifted through the ever-growing pile of papers that was building up on the coffee table. Pearl, now frequently busy searching for Malachite or else combatting rogue gem monsters, wasn't stopping in to clean as often. Thus, a layer of debris was begin to grow on every surface of the temple house. Eventually, the boy found what he was looking for: hastily drawn sketches in crayon. He handed them to Jake, who studied the flaming earth and the floating skulls.

"What language is that?" Jake asked. Steven looked confused.

"What do you mean?" He said.

"What does it say?" The young dragon pointed to the apparent scribbles on the drawing.

"You… you can't read it?" Steven asked. Jake gave him an annoyed look.

"If I could read it, why would I ask, man?"

"I guess it must be written in Gem Glyph… I didn't even realize. My brain must have auto-translated."

"You speak alien?" Jake asked.

"I mean, yeah," Steven said. Jake blinked, but Steven pointed to the writing. He knew that it read 'die, die, die.' "It says, uh, 'danger, danger.'"

"No it doesn't," Jake said. "You're a bad liar."

"Hnng," Steven squirmed.

"Look, it's not that important," Jake said. "Tell me more about this Cluster thing. When does it pop out? How do we stop it?"

Steven looked grim.

"That's the problem. I don't have any idea when its gonna emerge. As for how to stop it… That's also a problem. Apparently, we need some kind of powerful machine to take us down into the crust where its buried. I'm not sure we'd be able to stop it. I have a theory on how, but we'd need a lot of power. Besides, we won't be able to get down there anyway. As far as I know there's no human tech capable of building a machine like that."

Then, where was a scratching at the door. Both boys turned to see the hulking shape of a lion standing at the entrance of the temple house. It was pink in hue, with a lighter mane that took on the appearance of a cloud of cotton candy. It leered into the screen door with its enormous, intelligent eyes. It seemed to stare directly at Steven as it pawed at the door. With a wry smile, Steven went over and let the beast inside.

"Oh, hey, Lion," he said. "I was just talking about you earlier. Lion, this is Jake. Jake, this is my lion. It's OK, he's nice."

Jake just shook his head in disbelief as the great, pink animal came and sat down directly in front of Steven.

"I thought my life was weird," he said, "I think you got me beat, fam."

Steven started to say something lighthearted in response, but was interrupted by a heavy, fond nudge from the pink lion. The young half-gem looked down at him curiously, but the great cat just stared at him. Steven sighed. This again.

"Oh, boy, here we go," he said. He turned to Jake, and tried to ignore the next heavy nudge that the lion gave him. "He's not gonna- oof, stop until I follow him… You wanna come? It might get weird."

Jake was already standing up, stretching his arms out and then shoving his hands in his pockets. He just shrugged.

"Yeah, I was getting bored anyway. To be honest, at this point, I'm actually curious as to how much weirder this can get. I started the morning bringing potions to a mermaid."

"Mermaids are real too? Oof- OK, Lion, fine!"

Jake laughed as Steven was nearly toppled by the aggressive affection of the feline, and the little ensemble made their way out to the beach. As they descended the old wood steps to the sands below, Jake cast a gaze out at the water. This was a nice town. It was sad he hadn't found this spot before summer vacation ended. He figured it would be really cool to watch the sunset from on top of the giant, carved lady in the cliff behind them.

As the reached the beach, the lion swiftly trotted ahead, and Steven kept looking over at Jake, waiting for his reaction. Jake watched with mild curiosity as the lion sniffed at the ground, trotted in a circle, and then stood stock still. Jake cocked an eyebrow. The lion swung its tail once, looking back at Steven intently. Jake snorted, but Steven continued to wait in apprehension. The lion continued to stand perfectly still.

"Looks like your kitty doesn't wanna- Woah!" Jake started to say.

Then, the lion turned back around at them, only this time, its eyes were glowing bright white. This startled Jake, cutting him off. Then, the lion turned towards the sea once more, and stooped low to deliver a powerful, cutting roar. There was a magical, pulsing noise layered into the roar, and rings of white-pink energy came shooting out of the creature's mouth.

The energy rings hovered in the air before swirling and compounding into a singular mass. A hovering, circular gateway. As the magic settled, the lion's eyes ceased to glow, and it promptly rolled over on its side in the grass. Steven and Jake approached the portal while the lion writhed playfully on its back, but as soon as they were directly in front of the portal, the lion stopped, and stared directly at them. Steven grinned at the beast, and went over and scratched beneath its chin.

"Thanks for the portal, lion," he said. "I'm sure it goes somewhere neat!"

"It's not, like, a competition," Jake said, as they both walked towards the swirling magic portal. "But, I also fought a minotaur a few months ago. I, uh, I won. Easily."

"That's awesome!" Steven said. He then vanished into the shimmering light, leaving Jake alone with the lion. The young boy looked at the creature, who was still staring at him. Jake squinted.

"How did you do that?" He asked.

The lion blinked. It had no answers. It was a lion. Recognizing this, Jake went through the portal.