Lesson Four: Don't Get Discouraged

Before Steven could reach his mother's room, he was held back by Pearl placing a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Wait!" she cried. "We can't all go in there!"

Steven blinked at her. "Why not?"

"Well," she said, stuttering a little. "It's not safe for, well," she waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the Cool Kids, "for them."

The group of teenagers had been busy staring into the pink infinity of Rose's room with undisguised awe, but Pearl's words brought them back to the conversation. "Wait, what d'ya mean, safe?" asked Jenny. "Isn't this your house?"

"The Temple is our home and base," explained Pearl, under the teens' expectant gazes, "but it's also a place of extremely concentrated magic. It contains highly volatile Gem artifacts, and does not always conform to Earth physics. It can therefore be extremely dangerous, especially for humans."

Jenny grimaced a little at that, but Sour Cream just shrugged and exchanged a glance with Buck. "But aren't you guys humans right now?"

Pearl's face froze. Amethyst snorted at the expression.

"I...suppose," Pearl eventually managed to say, pointedly ignoring her teammate. "But our situation is completely different. We actually know how to conduct ourselves in the Temple's environment. If you went in there, even with Gem bodies, you could do extreme damage not only to yourselves, but the Temple itself."

"I resent that," Buck said, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, man," agreed Sour Cream. "We might be new to this magic stuff, but it's not like we're gonna go around randomly poking everything."

"We're seventeen, not five," finished Jenny. Pearl gave her a look as if to say that she saw very little difference between the two ages.

Steven finally shrugged off Pearl's hand, and took another step towards the still-open Temple door. He simply said, "Why don't we all go?"

Everyone looked at him. He smiled in his most understanding and reasonable smile. "That way the Gems can guide us and find what we need to find. And you," he said, gesturing at the Cool Kids, "can handle any of the stuff a human can't do. Oh, and I can help out, too!"

Pearl opened her mouth, but no protests came out. Amethyst merely shrugged, and looked towards her leader- which was weird, since the two of them were now nearly equal in height. Garnet, in turn, looked at Steven, then at the Cool Kids. "Alright," she said. "It's a good plan."

"Fine," said Pearl, sighing. She clearly didn't like it, but she could tell that there wasn't really any valid alternative available. "But be careful! And do must do what we tell you!"

None of the the teenagers were really listening by this point, instead rushing straight towards the Temple door, earning a frustrated glare from Pearl and a cheer from Amethyst. The true Crystal Gems came behind them, while Steven pushed ahead to take the lead. As the boy crossed the threshold, his confident smile faltered.

His Mom's room... Steven wasn't sure how to feel about it. The pink clouds around him were beautiful, and the sight filled him with a sense of safety and comfort that he could barely describe. At the same time, he was aware that this was a false comfort. The room was strange. It worked on it's own rules, rules that Steven still didn't fully understand. It wasn't evil- just inhuman and well meaning, which maybe made it even more dangerous.

He remembered the first time he'd used the Room, when everyone had glitched and Beach City itself had broken down around him; he could still feel the sickening terror, that had made it feel as if his stomach was in his mouth. And then there had been that different fear, unique but just as horrible, when he'd thought he might have lost Connie. Thankfully, he'd found her easily enough, but if something like the clone-Connie happened this time, he didn't know if he'd be as lucky again. He didn't want to risk losing his other human friends.

So he would have to be careful. And anyway, he had the Gems with him this time. If anything weird started happening, they'd be able to help.

"Woah," said Buck, lowering Garnet's visors to get a proper look around. "This was your Mom's room?"

"Yeah," said Steven, rubbing his arm.

"It's pretty," said Jenny, "but kinda... empty. I can definitely see why you live out there-" She had turned around to point back into the human house- but now found that there was no door to be found, just more clouds. The girl blinked. "Uh."

"Yeah, stuff like that happens in here," explained Steven, wearing an apologetic expression.

Sour Cream bent down to inspect the ground which was apparently composed entirely of pink clouds, yet somehow felt as firm as concrete beneath their feet. He glanced at Pearl. "Can I touch it?"

"Yes, yes, this is fine," she said, briskly striding forward. "It's harmless to damage the clouds, and they're extremely malleable."

"Meaning?" asked Buck.

"Meaning that Steven controls, like, everything in here!" said Amethyst, with a wicked grin. Steven returned a significantly smaller one back at her.

"Neat," said Buck.

Out of all the teens, Sour Cream looked the most impressed. "So this is like, VR?" he wondered, turning to Steven. "Could you show us?"

"Uh..." Steven hesitated, eyes flicking towards his family for support. Honestly, he just wanted to get out of his Mom's room and find what needed to be found. He especially didn't want to do anything that might risk a repeat of his last two journeys here. "I'm not sure..."

But then, none of the Crystal Gems looked worried- Garnet and Amethyst looked encouraging, while Pearl appeared to be merely impatient. The Cool Kids, meanwhile, were actively egging him on, eager to his his magical powers. Jenny in particular seemed to be taking advantage of the adorableness of her new body to shoot Steven some of the largest, most pleading puppy-dog eyes he'd ever seen.

"Oh, okay," he relented. Something small wouldn't hurt. "Tiny floating whale?"

On queue, the adorable pink whale popped into existence, waving it's little flippers. It's cuteness even broke through the teens' cultivated veneer of disinterest, and they all coo'ed appreciatively; Pearl too gave him a fond, proud smile.

"Very nice, Steven," said Garnet. "But we should move on."

Steven nodded, then shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "Um- how do I...?"

"You must ask the room for what you really want."

Steven considered Garnet's words as the whale floated down to hover by his shoulder. He thought hard about exactly what he would have to say to the room, for it to give what he actually wanted, and not just a deceptive replica. "I want access to the rest of the Temple. Please."

With of soft 'floof', a pillar of clouds shot upwards, solidified, and transformed into a doorway; the clouds in the center melted away to lead into a large, purple cavern.

"Amethyst's room," Steven said, slightly surprised. He guessed he hadn't actually been specific about where in the Temple he'd wanted to go. But Amethyst's room was the place he was most familiar with, since they often spent time hanging out with her there- that's why the room must have selected it. "Is it real?"

Amethyst stuck her head through, frowning critically. "Sure looks like it. Kinda hard to tell, though."

Jenny was twirling a lock of bleach-white hair around a finger, looking thoughtful. She stepped through the doorway, into the massive cave, staring around at the tall piles of trash and the glittering, stone-studded walls. She turned around slowly, a peculiar expression coming over her face. "It's...weird," she said. "I've never been here before, but it feels- familiar."

"Huh. That's how it usually feels for me," said Amethyst, an odd look in her eyes. Not jealousy, exactly, but something akin to it.

"Amethyst's gemstone is resonating with it's own power," Garnet stated. "Rose's room is excellent at fooling physical senses, but not magical ones. This is not an illusion. Let's go."

So they did. Once everyone had walked through the doorway, it vanished, leaving only solid rock behind. Amethyst took the group's- her magical connection to her room might have been severed, but she still knew it like the back of her hand, and was the one best equipped to find the quickest path to the Temple's heart. The newcomers thought the cave was one of the coolest places they'd ever seen, and Amethyst took delight in showing her domain off, cheerfully telling the guests that they were free to poke everything in here, at least.

"This stuff is wicked," Jenny said, as she started digging through the nearest trash-pile with interest.

"Yeah," agreed Sour Cream, as he unearthed an old phonograph. "This junk is pretty sweet."

"Wait," laughed Amethyst, holding up a hand. "I'm going to need you to say that again, on video. I want a permanent recording of Pearl's mouth saying that. For like, posterity or whatever. Just a sec, I think I have a video camera buried over here-"

Pearl, who looked personally offended at the entire exchange, grabbed Amethyst by the hand before she could dive into the nearest junk pile "Can we not get distracted from the task at hand, please?" she asked, cheeks pink.

Amethyst seemed perfectly ready to pull out of her friend's grip, but when she met Pearl's eyes, she seemed to think better of it. "Okay, fine," she relented. "But before we turn back, I'm getting that video. 'Kay, Sour Cream?"

"Sure," he shrugged. He put the phonograph back down, and the group moved on.

Not long after, they all arrived at the edge of a particularly large puddle. Amethyst pointed at it, and said, "Okay, here it is."

Garnet and Pearl nodded while the Cool Kids all frowned. Steven frowned too, but not with confusion. He was pretty sure he recognized this puddle from the hours he'd spent hanging out in Amethyst's room. "Wait," he asked her. "Doesn't this drop in from the ceiling?"

"More like half-way up the wall," Amethyst said. "Below all the bubbled gems, don't worry. We won't accidentally pop any if we go through."

That wasn't what he'd been worried about. "Half-way up the wall is still really high!" he exclaimed. "If you guys fall through that, you could get hurt!"

It was something that the Crystal Gems hadn't even considered. Heights were a thing that other people worried about. They didn't have to deal with bruising, or shattered bones, or internal bleeding, or any of the other things squishy organic people had to think about when confronted with a jump greater than a few feet. And honestly it appeared that the Gems' pride stung having to consider it. But none of them were so proud that they were willing to foolishly risk their lives, especially when they bodies they were currently occupying were on loan.

"-Okay, I'm lost," said Jenny, with nods from her two friends.

"Same," agreed Sour Cream, while Buck nodded.

A quick explanation about the puddle-system, central room and bubbled gem collection ensued, followed by a quick discussion of their options. Eventually they all agreed that having the now human-Gems just jump, head-first, through the magic puddle would be a bad idea- but their alternatives weren't much better. Garnet pointed out that the other paths to the Temple's centre were in many ways equally dangerous, filled with bottomless pits and precarious climbs. Pearl suggested that they retrace their steps and return to Rose's room, where Steven could hopefully summon another portal directly where they needed ago.

"Nah, I got a quicker idea," Amethyst said. "Why don't they just carry us?"

The Cool Kids all initially looked surprised at the suggestion, but grew thoughtful as they considered it. "We are pretty strong now," said Buck.

"Hell ya, we are," said Jenny. She picked up a nearby anvil to demonstrate. In her hands, it looked as though it was made of Styrofoam, not solid iron.

Pearl looked dubious. "Even with them carrying us, we could still get hurt."

Before anyone could respond to this, Steven just ducked his head under water.

There was nothing to do but wait for him to come back up. Garnet bent down to grip his feet to ensure that his whole body would not accidentally fall through. A few moments later Steven's head re-appeared, not-at-all out of breath, and she let go. He informed them all that the jump did actually look pretty safe for humans, as long as everyone was carried correctly, and he urged his formerly-human friends to take a look so that they would know where they were landing.

After a few uncertain glances at each other, the Cool Kids obliged. They got down on their knees and each dipped their heads into the pool. The stayed submerged for much longer than Steven, leaving the Crystal Gems to wait awkwardly to return.

Sour Cream was the first to re-appear; his eyes were wide, but we was clearly smiling. "Woah," he said as he stood back up. "The gravity switch is kinda disorientating. It's like a real-life Portal."

"That's 'cause it is a portal," said Amethyst.

Sour Cream shook his head. "Nah, I meant the video-game 'Portal'. It's this first-person puzzler where you get to shoot portals, and there's this evil robot lady-"

His explanations about human pop-culture references was cut short by the return of his two friends. Buck and Jenny reappeared, wringed water out of their hair, and looked at the Crystal Gems.

"Are you sure we won't get hurt if we jump?" Buck asked.

"Certain," said Garnet.

"Just don't fall on your gem," Amethyst added, pointing at her/Jenny's chest in demonstration. Jenny and the other teens considered this.

"Alright," Jenny said, putting her hands on her hips. "That shouldn't be a problem. We can do this."

This was why, five minutes of quick discussion later, Buck found himself sitting at the edge of the magical puddle, legs dangling through it and out-of-sight. Garnet was being held, bridal-carry, in his arms, her face completely blank. Steven, meanwhile, was piggy-backing, his legs wrapped tightly around Buck's waist while he clutched at Buck's neck in a way which would have certainly been choking, had the teen's projected-body needed to breathe. Once it was certain that everyone was secure, Buck took a deep breath anyway, then pushed himself off shore and into the puddle.

He and the others fell through with a small splash. For a second, everything was muted. Then water gave way to air; gravity twisted and reversed; together, they fell past downward, past the floating bubbles. Buck shifted his stance mid-fall, and managed to brace himself as they all hit the ground, no worse for wear.

After landing, Buck stepped aside and helped both Garnet and Steven to their feet. About ten seconds later Jenny dropped down, Amethyst in her arms, and the two of them screaming happily as they fell. When they landed on the ground, both looked as though they wouldn't mind going back around and doing it again. The same could not be said for either Pearl or Sour Cream, who came down not long afterwords, both looking incredibly stressed by the situation and thankful it was over.

There was an strained silence as everyone waited for Pearl and Sour Cream to disentangle themselves.

"Nice lava pit," Buck commented, looking around at the strange chamber.

"Thanks," Garnet said.

The awkward silence returned. Eventually Steven said, "So...?"

Pearl hummed. She was staring critically up at the bubbled gemstones above. "We need to find the Gems from the explosion. "

Everyone peered up. The sheer number of Gems collected there was staggering.

"I bubbled two," Steven said. "One was green- it was kind of all bubbly over, sort of like moss or something. And the other was silver, and really thin and sparkly."

"Okay, great," Amethyst said, also staring up. "But what about that one gem the monster managed to get away with? The purple one? Shaped like an ice-cream cone?"

"We find one matching it," said Pearl.

Sour Cream raised a single eyebrow. "Wait. Do you really have a Gem here that's identical to the other one?"

"...similar," Pearl eventually said, with some reluctance. "Not identical, but similar enough for our purposes."

"The ferret-thing also got away with some keys," pointed out Jenny. "What about those?"

"Let's focus on the gemstones for now," Pearl said, primly.

Jenny didn't seem particularly satisfied by this answer, but there wasn't much she could do about it. The search began. They broke into two crews. Those with human bodies stayed on the ground (or mostly human, in Steven's case), acting as a spotting crew from below. Those with Gem bodies, meanwhile, climbed up the veins of the Temple's heart like it was a jungle gym, allowing them to search right among the floating collection of captured gems. The teens were initially nervous at doing what was essentially rock-climbing over a pool of lava without equipment, but when they realized just how steady and strong their new bodies were, anxiety quickly gave way to exhilaration. The search started to feel more like a game. As the teens grew more and more casual about it all, Pearl looked as though she might end up tearing her body's hair out- she kept shouting up at the teenagers to be careful. If they accidentally popped any of those bubbles, the gems inside could regenerate, and they could all have a huge problem on their hands. (Or an even huger problem, as the case may have been).

Amethyst was the one who first managed to spot the sparkly-gemstone which Steven had bubbled earlier in that afternoon; Buck was the one who found the green one. They were left where they were floating, for now, though everyone was instructed to remember where to find them. They would only be useful, Pearl stressed, when they found a gem matching the purple one which the monster had escaped with- there was no reason to risk popping bubbles before then.

There was only one problem; they couldn't find a matching gem.

They had a couple false-alarms. Jenny found one gemstone which was purple, but when she brought it down to the ground and let the bubble break, both Pearl and Garnet shook their heads; Steven was forced to bubble it once more. There was another, which was not only purple butalso matched the lost gem's conical shape. Upon closer inspection, however, it was discovered to actually be a light red colour. It merely had seemed purple due to the blue bubble it had been contained it. It, too, was put back. Eventually, Sour Cream's called down; "Hey, I found something that looks like it might be what we need- but it's all busted!"

"Bring it down," Pearl ordered, anyway.

'Busted' was an apt description. The gem wasn't completely shattered- it was mostly in one piece. But three smaller shards had been broken off, and what remained of the central piece had a deep crack in it. But the stone was purple, and despite the heavy damage it had sustained, the stone's shape was clearly a cone.

Steven winced when he saw it. Then he glanced nervously at Garnet. Her eyes were hidden, of course, and the rest of her expression was like stone; but the hands which weren't quite hers were nonetheless balled into tight fists. She was completely still, not saying a word, and Steven knew that she was thinking of the tortured shard-fusions they'd found beneath the Kindergarten.

Neither Amethyst or Pearl knew about those fusions, and so were nowhere near as badly affected- but neither did they look happy. Far from it, in fact. Amethyst had begun to stare resolutely at the ground, while Pearl's lips were pressed into a very thin line.

"So?" Jenny asked, as she and Sour Cream jumped down to join them. "Any good?"

"This is the kind of Gem we need, yes," Pearl said, in a quiet voice.

"So we can use it?" asked Sour Cream.

"No," answered Pearl. She took the broken gem and it's shards from Buck's hands, bent down, and pressed them in Steven palms. "Bubble them," she commanded.

"But-!" said Steven.

Pearl closed her eyes, for just a moment. "No buts. It's too damaged."

"Yeah, no, I agree-" said Jenny, gesturing for Steven to wait. "Sure, the rock's in bad shape. But we can fix it, right? Get some super glue, maybe some duck tape. Heck, Sour Cream has a soldering iron at his place, we could-"

"No," interrupted a voice, and this time it was Amethyst's. "You can't just glue a gem back together. It doesn't work that way."

All three of the teenagers looked prepared to start arguing the point, but Steven interrupted him. "I- I could lick it," Steven said, in a desperately hopeful voice. "Or take it to my Mom's fountain- we could fix it, just like we fixed Amethyst-"

"Oh, Steven," Pearl sighed. "Don't you think we've already tried that? I was there when we collected this gem. It fell into rapids when it's body was destroyed; it was a miracle we found it at all. When we did, Rose Quartz cried directly onto it. Even her freshest tears didn't do a thing."

"That's just the way it is, bud." Amethyst's voice was unusually tender as she crouched down to wrap one of her arm's around Steven's shoulders. His eyes had become very shiny. "Some things, you just can't put it back together."

Steven sniffed; nodded. Then a delicate pink bubble blossomed in his hand around the broken gem, gently carrying it up into the air.

"But it's okay!" Pearl said, with a familiar forced confidence as she turned her attention back to the rest of their gem collection. "That particular taaffeite specimen may have been broken, but I'm certain there are others! We just have to keep looking! We haven't even started on that quadrat, for example, and-"

"Pearl," Garnet interrupted, speaking for the first time since they'd found the broken gem."There's not."

Pearl froze, not looking at her friend. "Pardon?"

"There's not any more taaffeite here," Garnet repeated. "You know it isn't."

"Well," she said. "I don't personally recall collecting any others, it's true, but I hardly know about every single gem here. You always go on lone missions, and so did Rose Quartz, so it's quite conceivable that-"

"I've never found any," Garnet said. "And I highly doubt Rose ever did, either. You know very well that Taafiete has always been one of the rarest models, and that very few were ever stationed in the Crystal System. As far as I'm aware, after the war only two were left on this planet. That one," she pointed at the broken gem floating above their heads, "and the one that we saw stolen today.

"So please, Pearl," Garnet continued, a note of softness entering her otherwise harsh tone. "Tell us the truth. Don't offer them- or us- false hope."

Aside from the gentle gurgling of the lava in it's pit, the chamber was dead silent. As Garnet had spoken, breaths had been held, and even now, the onlookers seemed to have forgotten to start again. Amethyst and Steven were staring at their teammates wearily; Jenny, Buck and Sour Cream merely looked shell-shocked, as if they realized that they had wandered in on something terrifying and huge, which they barely understood.

Pearl ran a hand through her short, blonde hair. "I wasn't trying to give false hope," she said. "I knew the odds were low- but I had to confirm, without anyone becoming- discouraged. And I wanted to buy some time, so that I could think of some alternative way to compensate for the missing gem..."

"And have you found an alternative?" asked Garnet.

"No," Pearl admitted, drooping.

Garnet reached out a hand, laid it softly on her friend's back- Pearl moved closer at the contact. "That's alright," she said, softly.

"What do you mean, alright?" asked Jenny, throwing up her arms. "We are stuck in the wrong bodies, and apparently we have NO WAY OF FIXING IT!"

"That is not true," Garnet said, taking off her sunglasses. She addressed not just Jenny, but each of her body-swapped companions in turn. There was true authority and security in her voice, that stood clear despite the apparent youth of the face she wore. You could tell her to be the ancient alien warrior she was. "We can fix it. We simply return to our initial plan.

"We track and fin the monster that took both the taffeite and the keys," she said. "We take it down. We get what we need. And we will reverse this."

oOoOoOo

Author's Note: Taaffeite is a purple gemstone which was first identified in 1945; though it had been discovered before that, it had been mistaken as a kind of spinel, due to it's similar structure. Today, it is recognized as one of the rarest minerals on Earth.