Several days passed and Steven had gotten used to the sentry. He, at times, jokingly called it "Pear" to gauge its reaction. The worst he's gotten was a bizarre look from it. They were sitting on the couch one evening when the sentry noticed Pearl walk in. It waved at her and gave the same fake smile as when it first saw her. It was then that Pearl spoke up.
"Steven, why are you still keeping that around?" She asked, her body language practically oozing aggressiveness "Come on, Pearl. Be nice! Think of it as... A younger sibling or something." He said, still unaware if it even had a gender. Probably not, considering the fact its body is an illusion. Pearl glared at it "I'll try, Steven... But only because I care about you." She lied. Whenever she and it were around each other without Steven nearby, it kept bringing up Rose, or Yellow Diamond. It agitated her almost to a boiling point. She didn't like the sentry at all and knew something was up.
But as she headed for her door in the temple, she heard it snicker. She looked back at it with eyes like daggers. "Are you testing me on purpose?" She nearly yelled. It looked at her with pseudo-innocence, curling its hair around its finger. "Oh, of course not! If I were to make you angry, Steven would surely dislike me." Pearl opened her mouth to say something, but turned around and stormed to her room before she could word her thoughts.
Steven tugged on the sentry's arm, his face bent with confusion. "Why are you being mean to her? I thought that since you two were made from the same place and for the same reason, that you'd get along better... " The sentry sighed and knelt to reach eye level with the young halfbreed. "Because, Steven... She is defective. We Pearls are made only to serve and protect. But she... She had the nerve to fall in love with the one she was sent out to serve."
Steven's head tilted "Then... Wait... Doesn't that make you defective, too?" The sentry drew its hand back in shock. "...Excuse me?" "Admit it. You've been having fun with me. If a Pearl is supposed to act and be like you say... Then aren't you..." He trailed off, and the sentry bowed its head when it realized how right he was. "For a mere half-human child... You are far smarter than you look. Forgive me, Steven..."
He cupped its cheeks in his hands and smiled. "It's okay! No one's perfect. You don't have to apologize." He stated. With this, the sentry nearly cried as it wrapped its arms around him in a tight hug. As it clung to him, he noticed Pearl staring at them from in front of the temple door, mouth agape. "Steven., you..." Steven shook the sentry off of him and went up to Pearl. "Is something wrong?"
"Not at all, Steven." She smiled, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Now, it's time for bed." She looked over to the sentry "I'd like to talk to you tomorrow, if that's fine with you." The sentry nodded before following Steven to his "room" and sitting at his bedside, leaning against the mattress as he started to doze off. He smiled and sleepily added a "goodnight" before he went to sleep.
The next morning, the sound of metal clanging woke Steven up, and he noticed Amethyst and Connie staring out the window with a wide smile spread across both of their faces. "What's... Going on?" He asked as he made his way sluggishly down the steps, rubbing his eyes. "Pearl vs Other Pearl! This is gonna be so intense!" Amethyst exclaimed. Steven's eyes shot open just before he rushed to the window.
They both had their spears out, and the sentry looked confident. They ran around each other in a large circle, looking for an opening. Pearl struck, only to be blocked by the sentry's spear. The sentry returned the blow, only to be blocked and blind-sighted by Pearl. It blocked again! "I wonder who would win..." Connie said, trying to hold in the excitement. "I mean, Pearl's a very talented sword fighter... But we don't know about the sentry. It could have had tons of training back on its planet."
Steven, being the sweet little knucklehead that he is, went outside to try and stop them from fighting. As soon as he got there, though, Pearl had stabbed the sentry in its chest and smiled, raising a foot just above its gem after it fully retreated. "STOP!" Steven cried out, catching Pearl off guard. "Why are you doing this?" His face started getting wet with tears.
"Steven... It was going to hurt you. You wouldn't give it the information it needed, so it was going to force it out of you.. I couldn't let it do that." She claimed, wiping the tears from his cheeks. "Then why were you about to crush the gem when you could have bubbled it?" He questioned, looking up into her pale blue eyes for every hint of honesty. "I wasn't thinking, Steven. I'm so sorry. You're right." She stood up and sighed, encapsulating the gem in a bubble and sending it off with a wave of her hand.
He hugged her and smiled. "Can we... go on that field trip now?"