A Day in the Life of…
Pearl:
Ah, what a day. The sun is high on the horizon, the birds are singing, not a cloud in the sky, and also there is a ham-sized, red urchin with a gem aggressively launching itself around a car wash. A triad of women with gems embedded on their bodies rushed onto the scene and began futilely chasing it. Welcome to Beach City.
A crowd of two hovered around the car wash nervously. Greg Universe and Mayor Bill Dewy bonded as they both sweated nervously whenever the urchin came close to rushing straight into one of their vans.
"Don't let it touch you!" Garnet yelled as she narrowly avoided an attack from the bouncing urchin. The urchin bounced off the wall and whistled towards Amethyst who dropped to the ground, barely dodging the urchin. The urchin kept going and knocked the head off the Mayor's van which rolled off and smashed into Greg's windshield. The car alarms began wailing.
"My van!" they both shouted. The urchin stopped in mid-air. It hovered uncertainly before targeting Pearl and going straight for her. Pearl easily twirled around the attack and tried to smash the urchin as it passed but it was going too quickly. The urchin stopped again and launched itself back towards Pearl who pirouetted out of the way. She tried again to hit it, but the urchin curved about her spear and went straight for her head. With a gasp she bent backwards and the red urchin hissed as it passed overhead. Amethyst's whip snapped out and entangled itself in the urchin's spines.
"Hah!" cried Amethyst triumphantly. The urchin simply kept going and began dragging Amethyst along with it. "Wait, no! Ah!" Pearl spun around and smashed the blunt side of her spear into the urchin. It flew lose and straight into Garnet's gauntleted hands. She crushed it with a loud crack and it disappeared.
"Good job, Gems." Garnet said. The car alarms kept screeching. Mayor Dewy turned to Greg, red in the face.
"You're paying for this!" he yelled, furiously gesturing towards the head that was firmly stuck in Greg's windshield.
"What? I didn't do that!" Greg stuttered, not eager to get on the Mayor's bad side, but also not eager to pay for damages.
"Well it happened at your car wash!"
"It's alright Mayor Dewey." Pearl walked over to the bystanders with a surprisingly large sum of cash. She counted it out and split it between Greg and the Mayor. "That should cover it." She joined the other Gems and they left for home.
The Gems stood at the door to their house. Pearl stopped suddenly, "Did you feel that?" she whispered excitedly.
"All I feel is the freezing wind out here, c'mon Pearl its cold out here!" Amethyst complained. She brushed past Pearl and went inside. The rest followed. Pearl's gem glowed dimly.
"I think another shard is calling out!" Pearl rushed into the adjoining room and into her own room in the Crystal Temple.
"Ugh, not another one of those!" Amethyst groaned. Garnet rubbed the back of her head hesitantly; she wasn't exactly as excited about it as Pearl.
The crystal shards had become something of a hobby for Pearl. They are the shards of an ancient artifact that, Pearl thought, formed the key to a mysterious locked chamber in the Crystal Temple. No one knew what was behind this door, and quite frankly no one other than Pearl and Steven really cared. Occasionally one of the shards would "call out" and the Gems would hear it. Other creatures with gems felt it as well and would home in on the signal just like Pearl.
In Pearl's room, Pearl was just selecting a sword from her collection for the occasion. She lovingly took one from its place and strapped it to her side. Her swords disappeared back under the waterfall gracefully and so did she. She rose from the water closest to the door and walked out with her eyes shining with excitement and determination. "Ready to go?"
"You can go without me, Pearl. I'm tired of fighting things for some stupid shard!" Amethyst was dozing on the couch.
"They're not stupid! They could unlock secrets beyond your imagining!" Pearl retorted indignantly. "Garnet?"
Garnet was sitting at the kitchen table. She gave a start and hesitated. "I… As much as I would love to I promised I'd take Steven out today. Sorry, Pearl." It was technically true. Amethyst could have done it, but Garnet didn't want to go either.
"Fine, I can get the last shard myself!" Pearl walked pointedly to the warp pad. She stood with her nose indignantly pointed up as the pad activated and transported her to the general location of the shard.
Another warp pad, millions of miles away, activated and Pearl appeared atop of it. She turned her head every which way like a bird to observe her surroundings "It's so beautiful!" Rocks were floating aimlessly in a field of blue space, interspersed with burnt orange stars. The warp pad she was on resided on a floating rock below a series of other rocks which seemed to form a pathway to a looming tower. Everything was silent. Pearl gracefully leapt from one rock to another, making her way up the huge door of the tower. Each rock dipped underneath her weight and floated away when she jumped from it. She reached the door and looked back, frowning. "I can probably make that jump." She said to herself, examining the distance between the door and the warp pad. She nodded and went inside. It was strangely well lit for a floating tower in the middle of space. There were no torches or light fixtures anywhere. The walls were decorated with complex murals of creatures advancing on the tower. Pearl rubbed her hand across the fading art. "Look at that!" She whispered admiringly. Her hand trailed along the wall as she walked forward, examining the story within the art. It told the story of the crystal shard deep inside this tower. A terrible man had once used it to call dark and twisted creatures to his aid in a war against this very tower. The siege was successful but the creatures turned on him immediately and devoured him. The wall was actually pretty graphic in its description, and Pearl drew he hand back in mild disgust, "Eugh…" Pearl stopped and found that the wall had led her into a large circular room where many more stories of similar nature were told. Pearl looked around in wonder and worry. This crystal shard was different than the others she had found somehow. She feared that if she could feel it then so could these creatures, and that they could arrive at any moment. Pearl put a wary hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword and moved deeper in the room. In the center of the room stood a golden throne and on it lay a skeleton. Pearl brushed the skeleton aside and found that there was a crevice in the top part of it. "It looks like the other shards I've collected," Pearl observed. "Whoever this is must've kept it there." She poked her finger in it and drew it back quickly. She looked worried. "That's some really nasty energy there." She muttered uncertainly. Suddenly she wasn't so sure about this venture.
There was a loud hiss behind her and a centipeedle as large as Pearl herself lunged at her from the side. She rolled with the attack and tossed the monster off of her. She drew her sword with a hiss of metal on leather and cut the writhing creature in half. Pearl quickly turned in all directions with her sword up and kept a sharp eye out for any others. She lowered her sword, but stayed alert. Pearl had lost the luxury of examining the archaeological treasures around the tower, she needed to get the shard and get out quickly before she ended up like the skeleton on the throne. Pearl strode out of the room through an arched doorway at a fast pace. Another centipeedle feel from the arch. In one fluid motion Pearl impaled the monster and flung it off her sword. She began running along the hall she had entered. The hall split into three paths and Pearl took the farthest left without hesitation. She could feel the energy getting stronger as she ran through the twisting halls. Pearl could feel the slight incline of the floor. She was going up to the very top of the tower, and hopefully where the last shard was located. Pearl ran through the tower unimpeded until she heard the sickening sounds of hundreds of centipeedles. They were all laying in a mess on the floor, hundreds of them. Pearl almost gasped, but silenced herself. They were sleeping. Without stopping she began running silently across the wall, over the sleeping heads of the giant insects. She passed them without incident. After she did, it began to get noticeably darker with every step Pearl took until she couldn't see anymore. Pearl's gem began to glow and it revealed a dead end, and a very frustrated Pearl with it. "This can't be the wrong way!" she whispered to herself. She doubled back a ways to make sure she hadn't missed a branch off. She hadn't. Pearl came back to the dead end. Pearl poked and prodded at the area around the wall and the wall itself to make sure they were all real, not illusions. There were no secret doorways or levers or buttons. It was simply a dead end. "No, no, no, no!" Pearl whispered tautly, "This has to be the right way." Suddenly a screech echoed out of the darkness behind her. Pearl turned and peered into the dimly lit hall, eyes wide with fear. She looked everywhere again with growing panic. The clicking of hundreds of pincers reverberated all around her. Pearl looked up with fear and found hope. The ceiling ended where she was and there was a wide gap between the wall and the roof. The path went directly up! With a graceful leap she jumped onto the wall that obstructed her way and back flipped onto the top of the roof a few feet away. Landing softly on her feet, Pearl backed away from the edge as the centipeedles arrived below her. Pearl ran swiftly down the dark path. Light began to fill the path again and it opened up onto the roof of the tower. Stars twinkled silently in space and in the center of the roof lay a pedestal. On the simple stone pedestal was the last shard, glowing red. Pearl approached it carefully, "The others weren't red." She said worriedly. Pearl reached out to it tentatively and grabbed it. It was cool to the touch and gave off a sinister tranquility. It began to shake and click in Pearl's grasp. Wait, no. That was the tower shaking and the horde of centipeedles pouring out onto the roof that was doing that. Pearl gasped and ran to the edge of the tower. She looked down and was overcome with a sense of vertigo. Far, far, far below her waited the warp pad, her way out. "No, no, no…." The centipeedles began launching themselves at her. Pearl gracefully twirled and ducked, managing to dodge most of the flying insects. They tumbled off the tower to their deaths. Pearl summoned her weapon and began batting away the monstrosities that were attacking her with both sword and spear. Pearl deftly handled the first wave, but soon the sheer numbers of her aggressors would overwhelm her and she knew it. She had to find a way off this tower and do it now. Pearl looked over her shoulder and out below the tower. She glanced at the way she had come; centipeedles were still pouring from the entrance. Pearl tossed the shard off the roof and after a brief moment she herself jumped off the tower elegantly.
A silvery-blue moth gently fluttered to the bottom and over the warp pad. Pearl shape shifted back into her original form and the shard clinked as it hit the warp pad beside her. She put her hand over her chest to slow her heart. "I hate heights." she panted, right before she was transported back home.
"Hey Pearl, get your shard?" Amethyst asked. She was lying on the back of the couch watching TV; not actually concerned about the shard.
"Are you okay Pearl? You look like you had a heart attack." Garnet asked, concerned and feeling a bit guilty about letting Pearl go out on a possibly dangerous mission alone.
"I'm fine." Pearl said after gathering herself. "And yes," she smiled triumphantly, "I did get my shard." Pearl walked to the door to the Crystal Temple and it slid open. Pearl retrieved the other shards from her room and disappeared under the water. She rose majestically from a still pool of water in a dark, stone room. Moss grew from between the stones and everything was perfectly still and silent. Across from Pearl stood a huge stone door, engraved with ancient symbols and carefully set strips of gold; also a tiny cat in the bottom left corner from when Amethyst had visited. A single torch lit the room. Pearl approached the door cradling the shards in her arms. She threw them upwards and contained them in a white ball of magic. In a flash they clinked together and assembled themselves into their original form. An octagonal gem with the red diamond-shaped shard in the center fell into Pearl's hands. A shadow flitted across its surface and Pearl looked around for the cause. Nothing. She carefully set the gem into an octagonal indention on the surface of the stone door. The door hummed and the gem began straining against its place in the wall. It turned once with a loud crack and stone dust showered the floor. It turned again. Crack! The door stopped its ominous humming. The whole gem turned red now and sank into the door seamlessly. The door split in half and one side popped in slightly. With excitement, Pearl pushed on the doors in and they swung open. She couldn't see anything, just blackness. Red eyes blinked open and a low, menacing growl emanated from inside.
"Twenty thousand years," snarled a voice, "twenty thousand years I've been trapped!" the room shook. Another row of eyes right below the red ones blinked open. A gust of warm, moist air hit Pearl. "And now-"
Pearl, eyes wide with shock and fear, slammed the door abruptly. The door sealed itself again and the crack disappeared. The door shook with the rage of whatever was in there and stopped. The key split into tiny shards again and trembled in the door. They fell onto the floor anti-climatically. Pearl stared at the door in utter confusion.
"Well." She murmured uncertainly. She looked around for a moment, at a loss, until finally she dropped into the puddle of water and left.
Pearl joined Garnet on the balcony outside.
"So, what was behind that door, Pearl?" Garnet asked politely.
"Oh, some ancient evil," Pearl sighed, frustrated.
"Oh."
