Steven was right. Morning came and everybody was out and about, doing their thing, getting a bite, and whatever. The Yellow Diamond sat on the hill, near where the park her ship, and savored the view from a distance so as not to distract attention. Slowly but surely, she began to feel like she underestimated the "primitive" nature of the humans. Many humans she witnessed were on their smartphones: reading the news, watching a funny video, webcamming with friends, and texting away like there's no tomorrow. All of this was new to the Yellow Diamond, but then again, as Steven told her, it's relatively new to the Crystal Gems too during their years with Rose Quartz. It was a simple thing of life called 'culture shock'.
"Peridot has a tablet," said Steven, "It's like a smartphone, but bigger. I'll ask if she can let you borrow it."
And she did. The Yellow Diamond and her Pearl watched all the good stuff that TubeTube had to offer. Later, she went on a website called 'Wikipedia', to see what they had to say about Earth in general. Unfortunately, some smartass went ahead and deleted all the data off that page, and replaced it with one word. 'Harmless'. From what the Yellow Diamond has seen based on previous experiences of Earth, "Mostly Harmless" would've been a better description. Then the battery went flat, and they gave the tablet back to Peridot.
"Do you suppose these humans are compensating for something?" said the Yellow Diamond to her Pearl.
"Yes. Those 'tablets' and 'smartphones' almost look like the finger-screens that Era 2 gems use."
The Yellow Diamond was pissed. She spent a millennia or so with a whole bottle of anger saved up to use on Rose Quartz. But now she can't use it, since Rose Quartz is gone, and Steven is too ridiculously nice to have his spirit broken by a high ruler like herself. She reduced her size and went into the temple to see what the Crystal Gems did on their spare time. She could see Garnet and Amethyst playing a video game in Steven's bedroom ("YOU CHEATED!" yelled Amethyst, cursing future vision under her breath). Pearl was in the kitchen making a pie (Nobody said anything about her eating one though). The Yellow Diamond ended up joining Steven on the couch, who was watching TV.
"It's like TubeTube, only on shuffle," explained Steven, "and each 'video' is at least 15 to 30 minutes long."
On TV, a fuzzy-haired guy was painting a picture. His voice was so soothing, it could put anybody to sleep. The Yellow Diamond found herself vulnerable to that voice, and so was Steven. They both started to doze off, but they were interrupted by a noise made by the artist beating his paintbrush against the leg of his easel.
"I get letters from people who say they have no desire to paint," he chuckled, "They buy a brush just to beat it, take out their frustrations."
'Hmmmm' thought the Yellow Diamond, 'That's what I need. A brush.'
Steven read her thought, and called Amethyst over.
"Hey Steves," she said, "Whadda you and the big giraffe doin'?"
"AMETHYST!" yelled Pearl from the kitchen.
She yelled back, at a lower volume, "I'm just jokin'! That's mah thing!" Then turned back to Steven and the Diamond, "But seriously, whaddaya want?"
"Steven tells me you enjoy shapeshifting," said the Yellow Diamond.
"Yeah," Amethyst turned into a purple version of the Yellow Diamond's Pearl.
"I get mistaken for a shapeshifted Rose a lot," added Steven, "but this is as close as I can get..." and he made his fingers turn into little cat heads.
"Any requests?" said Amethyst.
"Yes," said the Yellow Diamond, "Could you turn into a paintbrush?"
Amethyst did just that. Her body became the handle, and her hair became the bristles.
"Child's play!" she exclaimed.
The Yellow Diamond picked up the Amethyst brush and went outside. Bringing herself back up to size, she walked up to the ocean and dipped Amethyst's hair in it. Walking back to the temple, she looked for a straight, vertical woodlike thing, and found one in the form of one of the supports holding up the house. She gave the Amethyst brush a quick shake, and then proceeded to beat it against the support. Steven walked outside to see what that noise was and where it was coming from, and when he did, he cheered on.
"YEAH! Beat the devil out of her!"
He could distinctively hear Amethyst yell "HHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW LLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG IIIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS GGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAA TTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEE?"
Nonchalant, the Yellow Diamond simply said "Till all the anger is gone."
This went on for about an hour. Afterwards, the Yellow Diamond, though exhausted, felt better about herself; and Amethyst, dizzy, vowed never to shapeshift for sport ever again.
Later in the day, Steven thought about giving Connie a call, perhaps ask her to help him show the Yellow Diamond around some more. Connie was just out the door when her home phone rang. Her mother, Priyanka, answered the phone, then went outside to get Connie.
"Connie! Steven's on the phone!" she called out.
But before Connie could run back, she was ambushed by three new gems: Two yellow Topazes and an Aquamarine.
"I found the Connie!" squealed Aquamarine, "Topaz, put it in with the others!"
"Uh oh," said Priyanka, then back into the phone, "Connie just got captured. And it looks like they got some others too. Might wanna come down and sort this out."
"I'm on my way," said Steven, hanging up.
Steven whistled for Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst to join him on his search for the evil gems-no doubt from the Homeworld. They didn't bother Greg or the Yellow Diamond; they were asleep and/or tanning in the sun.
They found Aquamarine and the Topazes-fused into one-on the Boardwalk. Aquamarine went up to each individual and stopped them in their tracks, asking them the same question: "Are you my dad?" Obviously, nobody knew what she was talking about. Steven and the others did not like where this was going at all. Aquamarine and the Topazes must've been sent by the Diamonds before Yellow left for Earth, presumably to collect more humans for the zoo. But why only Steven's friends? Steven didn't have much time to think about this, because the next thing he knew, Aquamarine walked up to him.
"Are you my dad?" she said again.
"What? No. I'm too young to be your dad!"
"Not your dad," said Aquamarine, frustrated, "I'm looking for my dad."
Steven looked at the giant, fused Topaz behind her. In her transparent belly was all of his friends: Connie, Lars, Jamie the mailman, Sadie and Onion (How did he get to be a friend again?). Steven did not like the look of this at all. They were all screaming for help.
"I'm nobody's dad. I'm Steven."
"Oh! So you're the 'Steven'!" Aquamarine was delighted somehow, "You do seem to know everyone on our list. The list did come from a Steven, after all. Maybe you can help us out!"
He stood aside to get Garnet take center stage.
"Let them go," she said, very cross.
"Who are you dullards?"
Amethyst's turn. "We're the Crystal Gems, b****!"
Aquamarine was, surprisingly, not surprised.
"Oh. You. Rose Quartz's old lackeys. That was in the report, too. We're not here for any of you rogue gems," she assured them, "We'll leave you alone, but only if you tell us where we can find my dad."
More blank stares. Aquamarine pulled out a list from behind her person.
"Yellow Diamond asked for a 'My-Dad', a 'Connie', a 'Lars', a 'Sadie', a 'Mailman', and an 'Onion-I-Think'. Six human variations specified in a report by Peridot 5XG."
Steven was doomed. Those were the exact same people he mentioned when he first met Peridot.
"Oh, I see where the confusion is," He tried to sweet-talk his way out of it, "Humans don't have variations, they just have names to refer to themselves by. No human in their right mind would call himself 'human'."
"Hmm...Could you elaborate?"
"When I first met Peridot, and introduced myself as Steven, she asked me if 'Stevens' replaced humans, and I didn't get the implication. Because I'm not fully human myself. I'm only half-human," He lifted his shirt to expose his Rose Quartz gem "And half-gem."
Aquamarine was impressed. She turned to the fused Topaz.
"I stand corrected. Topaz, take the other humans to the ship."
'AUGH!' Steven thought. His explanations, while helpful, didn't help in the way he intended. As much as he hated to do so, he had to disrupt the Yellow Diamond's tanning session and get her to call off Aquamarine.
And he did.
"Yellow Diamond! There's a gem in town...mumble mumble mumble...taking humans...mumble mumble...has a list...mumble...save them!"
The Yellow Diamond couldn't keep up with Steven's nervous mumbling and babbling, but she caught the gist of it. She stood up from her tanning spot and walked to where Aquamarine's ship was parked, just as she and the Topazes were getting on board.
"AHEM," the Yellow Diamond bore down on the little moth.
"Wha? Yellow Diamond!" said Aquamarine, surprised, "I have the humans you asked for!"
She showed her the list. The Yellow Diamond reached down, grabbed the paper, and ripped it to shreds. Then she picked up Aquamarine, and, dipping her into the ocean water and shaking her off, began to beat "the devil" out of her on one of the legs holding her ship up.
"Your services are no longer required today."
Aquamarine's anger grew to a level that would make Donald Duck jealous.
"Well if that's the case...THEN I DEMAND COMPENSATION!"
The Yellow Diamond dropped some coins in the tiny hands before her.
"Here. You were never here."
Aquamarine put on a monocle she summoned from her gem, and counted the big ones that made up the bribe. She then removed the monocle and turned to Topaz.
"Topaz, free the humans. I have made my decision."
The Topaz fusion split apart, freeing the humans inside. They prepared to run off the ship, before they were stopped by Aquamarine's wand.
"STOP! This bribe is only good for freeing four humans. Allow me to randomly decide who stays."
Using her wand as a pointer, she did the gem equivalent of "eeny meeny miny moe" in her head. When she got to Lars, who just so happened to be the "moe", her wand accidentally went off, zapping Lars to a state of unconsciousness. All parties involved were shocked; even Aquamarine. She was certain that she set her wand to 'stun'.
Steven was the first to approach the unconscious Lars. He put a hand on his chest. No up-and-down. Figuring mouth-to-mouth should be the reasonable solution, Steven put his mouth into Lars' and began to breath.
"What is he doing?" whispered Aquamarine to Connie.
"This is what humans do to other humans who suddenly can't breathe."
"How..."
Something was happening with Lars. His head started to glow, his hair turning...pink.
Lars, awake, said "Wha...What happened?"
"Aquamarine's wand must've killed you. But I performed mouth-to-mouth to save you just in time," Steven explained, then realizing, "I must've brought you back to life with my healing spit!"
He put a hand in Lars' hair, and watched in shock as it started to sink in. He pulled his hand back, and dipped his whole head in. Steven was amazed at what he saw inside, then pulled it out to tell Lars.
"So? What did you see?" said Lars.
"It was amazing! I saw the same pink savannah I see when I jump into Lion's mane!"
"Great!...Soooooooo what does that mean?"
Steven, excited, started jumping up and down, "Now I can quickly go from Earth to Homeworld (when you get there of course) any time I want!"
The crowd behind him applauded. Except for Aquamarine.
"All right now," she said "Play time is over. Topaz, lock him up."
The two Topazes fused into one again, trapping Lars in between. Aquamarine and the fusion stepped into their ship, and turned around as the doors closed.
Aquamarine's parting words were "So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
The ship took off, and everybody went to back to what they were doing. Except Sadie, she broke out in tears right there on the beach. Steven walked up to her and patted her on the back.
"Everything's going to be all right," he said assuringly.
He pulled out his smartphone, and began to send a text. He really hoped Lars still has his phone with him. He typed two words and then tapped SEND. The two words were "DON'T PANIC."