Pearl took a deep breath of stale, dust-clogged air, as she tried to process what she'd just been told. And then she let it out in a slow sigh, to not feel too annoyed at the childishness of it all. "So. You wanted to get Lapis Lazuli out of the barn for a little bit."

"Correct," Peridot replied cheerfully, not quite reading the mood.

They were just out of the training hall, walking around, looking for an access touchpad. The first few touchpads had become inactive in the centuries since the Gem War, and so they had to keep looking. "You really did intend to scrounge for materials, and it was convenient to have her along. But you needed a better reason than that to convince her."

"That's right."

"And then you came up with the idea of inviting Steven, to show off how much you two had improved."

"And, and! Sapphirine!"

"...right. You didn't know this was a training ship, but you activated what you thought were the defenses. Drat." Another touchpad, and another failure. "Let's keep going. ...Then you figured out it was a training ship, and your planned fake distress call - don't ever think of doing that again, by the way - turned into a real one."

"Sorry about that. I promise I won't do it again."

"Make sure Lapis doesn't either. ...and then, you fused into Sapphirine, both because you were in trouble and because you wanted to show her off."

"-Him," Peridot clarified quickly.

"Oh?" Pearl blinked a couple times, and then got it. "Ohh! Okay."

"We wanted to introduce him to Steven, and then, ah, you guys too. At a later time. Can you pretend to still be surprised later?"

"...fine." It had taken years of practice, but Pearl had mastered the ancient Human art of nodding and rolling her eyes at the same time - and demonstrated it here, for the benefit of the little green Gem. "So, then he took over and eliminated the training drones early."

"Too early. And - ooo!" Peridot found a touchpad at her height on a nearby wall and ran to it. "He got a little excited and made it so we couldn't show him off." She kicked the wall underneath it in frustration. "Slaggin' ancient junk! The one I tried to trap you in worked...!"

Pearl looked over her shoulder; the touchpad was active but the face had a jagged crack running across it, inconveniently right where they didn't need it. "Come on, we'll find another one. ...And then I arrived instead of Steven, and I wasn't who Lapis wanted to see."

"Yup! And here we are, all caught up!" Peridot announced. She seemed to be proud of having learned some Human slang.

The next touchpad was, amazingly, still active and undamaged. "Here we go." Pearl began manipulating it, looking for any information on the ship or Lapis's position. "Hm! This ship was one of the earliest to land on Earth."

"That makes it a priceless Era One artifact." Peridot looked around with new appreciation for her surroundings. "I feel bad about all those broken drones now. We should move the ship to a museum - or even better, it could be a museum on its own. The - where are we again? Can-saws City? The Can-saws City Gem Museum."

"Mm. We'll put it in Rockhill; no one will notice- oh?" The touchpad suddenly flashed red and ceased to respond. "Oh, no no no!"

"What's going on?"

Pearl poked and prodded at it for a few more seconds, before smashing her fist down on it and giving up in frustration. "That blue- We're locked out! Lapis did something."

"Lapis? Are you s-"

"ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS. ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS," a mechanical voice blared throughout the hallway.

"Okay, yeah, that was probably her," Peridot mumbled.

"TRIAL MODE EIGHT WILL COMMENCE SHORTLY. PREPARE YOURSELVES."

"Rrrgh!" Pearl punched the wall under the touchpad with unexpected force, bending in the access panel and then tearing it out from the wall. She reached in and began fiddling with the relay systems inside. "Mode eight is the second-hardest mode, and all the access locks are engaged!"

"What does that mean?"

"We're trapped inside until we beat everything it throws at us, or until we stop mov- ow!" There was a visible electrical arc from inside the wall.

"...oh. No chance of, ah, hotwiring the control network?"

Pearl pulled her hands out, now with small scorch marks where she'd been shocked. "None! ...what did that blue troublemaker do?" she added to herself.

"Not much? This is Era One tech," Peridot said, stomping the floor to emphasize the point. "We had to dig and drill just to get down here, and it's still mostly working like the day it was buried."

"Drill? Oh-for-the-" Pearl slapped her hand into her forehead and slid it down, her expression stretching cartoonishly. "...She's using her water powers."

"Aaaaand she shorted something out. That's definitely like her." Peridot sighed. "So that means Plan A's not gonna work. Is there a Pearly-Plan B?"

"No. The only thing we can do now is shut down the generator."

"That doesn't sound so bad?"

Pearl suddenly swiveled towards Peridot, shadows cast ominously across her face. "Remember the ship you three came to Earth in?" She wiggled an outstretched hand overhead.

"Y-yes?"

"Garnet threw Jasper right into that ship's generator, and all it did was shock Jasper and cause a power surge! And yes! That led to its destruction! But that was because it was an Era Two model!" She began waving her arms around wildly, as though pointing in every direction at once. "This is an Era! One! Training ship! It was built to survive accidents involving supergiants. Yellow Diamond herself could punch the generator casing for an hour, and all that'd happen is sore knuckles and an awful lot of whining!"

"Oh stars you're right." Then, something occurred to her. "Wait - you've met Yellow Diamond?"

"Of course I'm- ehhhhh, nonono, I never said that, I've never met her, I've never even seen her in person," she explained quickly, before clearing her throat. "... Ahem. We need to find Lapis, and then a way out of this deathtrap. Come on."

Author's note: Next up is a chapter from Lapis's perspective.

I hope it's been interesting so far. Like, Comment, and Subs- I mean, leave a review or something, let me know what you think! I've got the story mostly mapped out, but I'm listening too.