Chapter 5 - "It's warping time!"


"Why aren't we going to school?" Steven crosses his arms, "we were going to learn more science!"

"because it's closed right now." Greg answers, then pat Steven on the back, "they said something about a 30-year-old man messing the place up, it's pretty weird."

"of course it's just some man." Steven mumbles to himself, "I guess I'll see what Zircon is up to then, where is she?"

"back at the mountain, she said something about examining the broken warp pad." Greg chuckles, "I forgot it was broken, can't believe I asked her if she could use it."

Steven puts on his hoodie and walks over to the mountain, it the air was warmer than usual, fewer things were covered in snow, and the overall road to the mountain was nicer.

"Zircon must have done a lot of work!" Steven thinks to himself.

He arrives at the entrance of the "Gem Cave" as he likes to call it. it looks like it's been rejuvenated a little bit.

"Hellllooooooo!" he yelled, it echoed around the place.

"Steven!" Zircon calls, "is that you?"

he notices Zircon standing by the warp pad, rubbing her chin in confusion.

"yep, It's me!" He rushes to her, "whatcha doing?"

"oh, you know..."

"looking at the warp pad?"

"Yeah. I just don't know how to fix it." she sighs, "wait! I DO know-how, I just don't have the resources needed to do anything!" she pulls her hair for a second.

"hey! no need to hurt yourself over this." he replies, "it's not your fault you were stuck in a cave for a long time, we'll find a way to fix it."

She takes a deep breath, "well, we'll find a way, but you're wrong about the 'being in a cave for 1299 years' not being my fault."

"Huh?"

Zircon and Steven sit down on the warp pad, "I didn't bother to leave because I was scared."

"of what?" Steven's face gets more worrisome.

"I don't think you'd want to hear." she slowly stands up, "or I don't think I should tell you," she adds.

"Hey!" Joey greets, walking down the stairs to them, "Dad said you guys were here doing stuff."

he walks up to Zircon, "are you doing cool alien gem stuff things?" he asks, excited for an answer.

"I could be doing that, but I NEED this warp pad to work." she claims, "without, doing anything useful is impossible."

"oh, this thing?" Joey runs over to the warp pad, "it does look pretty messed up."

"but she cleaned it!" Steven replies, "it looks so shiny now."

"Last time you said that you licked the 'shiny thing'." Joey laughs, "oh man, you were pretty stupid-" his smile fades after seeing Steven licking the warp pad by a tiny amount.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Joey pulls Steven away from the crystal platform, "WHAT? IT WAS CLEAN!" Steven responds.

Zircon watches them argue for some time until she realizes the warp pad is suddenly fixed.

"OH MY STARS!" she shouts, breaking Steven and Joey off of arguing.

"what did you say?" Joey asks, confused.

"THE WARP, IT'S FIXED!" she touched and inspected the warp pad, "it's like it's brand new!"

"wait! that means you can uh... warp around with it now, right?" Joey asks, getting closer to the warp pad.

"correct! I'll be able to travel across the earth, and most likely find the crystal gems..."

"most likely." she repeated in her head, "maybe," she says.

"Woah! I wanna travel across the earth!" Steven jumps on the warp pad, "how do we use it?"

"I-i don't know if Greg would be fine with that!" Zircon joins Steven on the warp pad, "but we can probably just go for a hectosecond or two." she adds.

"I don't know what that means, but yeah!" Joey hops onto the warp pad, "let's go see some alien stuff!"

"very well, let's go." Zircon says, "I think we'll go to the beta kindergarten."

Zircon reaches her arms out and points up, then to the ground.

"is it working-" Joey and Steven start floating into the air, with a light of beam appearing on the warp pad, "OKAY YES IT IS!"

the beam of light gets brighter until it stops, disappearing with Joey, Steven, and Zircon.


"WOAH!" Steven and Joey laughed, "this is awesome!"

"be careful!" Zircon shouts, "don't go out of the stream!"

"Steven, if this isn't the coolest thing, then I don't know what is-"


"Ouch!" Steven and Joey fall back on the ground, "what happened..."

they're now in a red canyon-looking place, with big holes all over the walls.

"What the- Zircon?" Steven is dumbfounded, "what IS this place?"

Zircon steps off the warp pad, "it's the beta kindergarten. I thought it would be safer for humans since all the other places I know are too dangerous."

"This doesn't look anything like a kindergarten." Joey says, "but wow."

"It is one, it has the injectors and everything." Zircon responds, "although it's very messed up, the injectors are in completely random sizes and the holes are in weird shapes."

"injectors?" Steven asks, "what are they?"

"Look up."

"WOAH!" Steven gasped, "what do they do?"

Zircon frowns internally, "they're nothing to get excited about."

"wait why?"

"They help make gems... and destroy the planet."

Steven flinched, unsure if it was in fear or disgust.

"D-destroying the planet?" Steven thought to himself, "um wait, why are we here then?"

"I'm looking for resources, I'll check out those injectors, I might be able to repurpose them for something."

"Dude, she just said 'destroying the planet'..." Joey says, "what's up with that?"

"I-i don't know, I don't think they work anymore, but still..." Steven frowns, "I guess these are from Homeworld."

THUD

"AH!"

the injector was broken down by Zircon.

"Phew, that was easier than expected." Zircon is relieved, "now I just have to take this off..."

"DID YOU TAKE THAT THING DOWN?" Joey and Steven were almost scared out of their bodies.

"Yes, of course. I probably need the front panel for something."

"Is there any way we can help you?" Steven asks.

"Not really." Zircon turns to look at them, "you already helped me by a lot." she smiles lightly.

"huh, I guess you're right" Steven smiles back, with concern still on his face.

the beta kindergarten

"I feel a little uneasy here." Joey says, "like, I don't feel like we're alone."

"Yeah, I'm getting it too." Steven rubs his arm, "Zircon, when can we leave?"

"Right, soon, why?" she says, "it's not like there's anything that can harm us here," she added, but as soon as she finished, she heard growling, and it wasn't very far.

"I take that back," she frowns, "stay behind me, young humans."

Steven and Joey comply and hide behind Zircon in fear. "what was that sound?" Joey whispers to Zircon, "I'm not certain."

Zircon takes a peep, and at the corner of her eye, she sees giant light blue-ish curly hair, and it didn't look like a human's.

Zircon could hear the growling get louder, she could even see a face, not a humanoid one, that's for sure, meanwhile, Steven and Joey were hiding behind a rock, pretty close to Zircon.

the 'thing' goes out of sight, "Thank stars," Zircon feels relieved, "I think it's gone, we should run to the warp pad."

Joey and Steven slowly walked their way to Zircon until Joey heard the sound of talking coming from the opposite direction of which the monster went, he pulls Steven back behind the rock and calls for Zircon to hide with them.

"why? we can just run to the warp pad," Zircon said, "ssh! I hear someone coming." Joey whispers to Zircon.

Zircon thought he was being dumb, but she saw a green figure passing by, the looks and sounds they were shouting.

the green figure had a large triangle on their head, probably some sort of hair. the green figure had another figure with them, they were taller and more intimidating.

"Jet black! they keep breaking my stuff!" Steven overheard, "you need to do something about them!"

the taller figure, named "Jet" glares around the area, then back to the triangle-shaped gem.

"in that case, your 'stuff' wasn't that important." Jet replies and smirks, "I'll take care of some of them, next time you shouldn't call an elite." she laughs, "a couple of rubies would've gotten the job done." she stated.

"I know it's foolish for a Peridot to call an elite for help, but I've already tried to send several rubies, and they keep messing up."

"Peridot" Steven whispers, "her name is Peridot."

"Alright then!" Jet black says angrily, "give me some time and I'll clean this place up."

Peridot and Jet black walk away to where the monster went, lowering the tension.

a moment of silence passes by before Joey talked, "okay... more aliens, I think that's what they were."

Steven, Joey, and Zircon stopped hiding behind the rock and brushed themselves.

"were those crystal gems?" Steven asks, "if so, we should talk to them!"

"No." Zircon replied immediately, "and if they were, their language isn't of a crystal gem's,"

"what does that mean?" Joey says, "the way they were talking to each other has Homeworld written all over it." Zircon responds with an angry tone.

"they were kinda rude to each other, are gems on Homeworld rude to each other?"

"depends, really." she says, "2 gems I've never seen before from Homeworld are on earth."

Zircon takes a deep breath "Great."

"Should we go-"

"Yes, I forgot about that."

they ran back to the warp pad at full speed, the whole time Zircon was shaking a bit, she almost risked the lives of 2 young humans, though she did get some resources, it wasn't too bad.

Zircon stretches her arms out to the sky, then back to the ground, Steven tries to mimic her.

The beam of light appears again, faster than before, and warps them.

"that's still so cool." Joey thinks to himself.


they all warped back to the Gem cave, they weren't alone though, they're greeted with an angry face from Greg, "I knew you took them somewhere! as soon I saw the warp pad fixed."

"OHHH HEEY GREG!" Zircon ignored what he just said, "ya know, I just..."

"you just what?"

"SHE JUST TOOK US TO A MAGICAL PLACE!" Steven laughs nervously, "well it wasn't really magical at all, but... the warp pad is awesome!"

"warp pads are awesome," Greg admits, "but, you could still get them uh... hurt easily."

"Okay." Zircon bit her lips, and nervously said, "It won't happen again, unless..."

"Unless... what?" Greg said. he didn't expect Zircon to respond with that.

"unless I need help with something, and that includes you," she sighs, "I can't do everything by myself, can I?"

"what do you mean you- ugh," Greg takes a deep breath, "Joey, Steven, please go back home, Zack and Tim are bored."

the two brothers comply and take the staircase out of the "Gem Cave",

"look, if you mean help with the war, then I'm sorry," he pauses for a brief moment, "but it's already over. there's no need to fight a war that doesn't exist anymore,"

"Yeah, I know."

that wasn't the response Greg was expecting, she knows, but still wants their help, with what? he thought to himself.

"back at the beta kindergarten, I saw 2 gems and something that's probably a gem too."

more gems, just what Greg needed, and they weren't crystal gems, "w-what are we supposed to do?"

Zircon tilts her head slightly, "you can just help carry stuff, nothing too dangerous."

"too dangerous? how can carrying stuff..."

"forget it." he mutters, "if it's something dangerous, she can help us, and we'll help her." he thinks to himself.

"Okay, we'll help you, just like you helped us, but don't put much work on the kids," Greg sighed, "that'd child labor, and you may not know what that is, it's bad."

"uh, how bad?" Zircon replies, "really bad." Greg says.

"if you say so." Zircon coughs, "okay, I brought some injector parts,"

"I have no idea what an 'injector' is,"

"you don't need to, I want some help with the parts, I could make a weapon out of it."

Zircon sees Greg making a disappointed frown, "I meant weapons for me"

"oh good, I won't be fighting powerful aliens."

the rest of Greg's day was spent helping Zircon move stuff around, and him teaching Zircon about some human things.

The weirdest thing he'd seen in there were 4 doors with gems on them, they seem to be "blank" as Zircon calls it.

Steven and Joey spent their time explaining what happened to Tim and Zack.