This was written because I believe that Garnet and Amethyst have adventures when Steven is busy with Pearl. Like when Amethyst ate that cloud she had for some unexplained reason and Garnet had to retrieve her.
Seriously, where did Amethyst get a cloud? And where can I get one?
I hope I got the characters right. What would be the point of reading this otherwise?
This takes place pre-Steven bomb 3, if any of you care.
Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe, thank god. It wouldn't be nearly as good a show if I did.
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Amethyst sighed, rolling over on the couch and scratching her belly. She was so bored. Steven was hanging out with Connie and Pearl. They were training Connie to be swordsman, or swordswoman, whichever. Which was cool and all, but didn't make her any less bored.
She sat up, looking around the house. Her eyes lingered on the fridge, but she dismissed the thought. She'd already eaten all the good stuff anyway, all that was left was some yogurt, and that sucked. It had like, no texture at all. It was barely worth eating.
She is that unfortunate state of being when one's laziness is at war with their restlessness, rendering her unable to even sleep the boredom off. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere, which was weird because she couldn't remember them having a clock before. Steven didn't really pay much attention to time, and the gems sure didn't. It was a loud, hypnotic ticking, she zoned out as the constant ticking drilled itself into her skull. She wanted to get up and smash it, but she couldn't work up the energy.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-so-bored-tock.
The door to the temple flashed and Garnet stepped out, the volcanic heat of her room filling the house for a moment before the door shut.
"Sup G?" she waved, drawing the fusion's attention. Maybe this was her chance to escape; Garnet was usually up to something interesting.
"Amethyst." Garnet nodded, stepping onto the warp pad.
"Where you going?" she asked, before the fusion could disappear, desperate for anything to help her escape the relentless ticking of that stupid clock.
"I sensed an unnatural surge of gem energy out on the starlight savannah, I'm going to investigate."
"Any chance I can come with?" Amethyst asked hopefully, it would beat sitting around hands down.
Garnet shook her head, "It's unnecessary, the surge was unnatural, but it did not feel large. I can handle it."
"Oh come on!" Amethyst whined. "I didn't ask if it was necessary, I asked if I could come with. Help me out here G, I'm dying of boredom over here." she shape shifted her eyes a bit, making them look like a puppy's eyes. It worked for Steven, maybe it would work for her too.
"Hmmm. Alright. Come on then."
"Yes." Amethyst leapt off the couch and dashed over to the warp pad, "Garnet, you rock."
"Actually, I'm two rocks."
Amethyst blinked, was that a…? "… pfffft. Nice one!" she chuckled.
"Thanks, I've been practicing. Steven said I should." Garnet grinned, before her face returned to stoicism. "Now let's go." the warp pad glowed and the world around them disappeared, giving way to the familiar tunnel of gem magic.
When the world came back into being, Amethyst had to squint against the sun's glare, hissing at the sudden brightness. The warp pad had brought them to a wide plain. Rolling hills of grass stretched out as far as the eye could see. Though grass wasn't exactly the right word, it was all crystal grass, crystalline structures that looked very much like grass, they grew like grass, they swayed in the wind like grass, and they filled the air with a musical tinkle whenever the wind blew. There were also trees and bushes scattered across the grasslands, their crystal leaves refracting the sunlight into a myriad of rainbows.
The starlight savannah was a pretty old place. Pearl had told her that in prewar times, before she had come out of the kindergarten, ancient gems had used this place as a dumping ground of broken or unstable sources of gem energy, like worn out warp drives and stuff like that. The energy had leaked out over time and infused the ground with crystal magic, and then the earth's plants had adapted, absorbing the gem energy and taking on their current crystalline form. Or was it that the crystal energy had grown on it's own and taken on the form earth's plants? Amethyst couldn't really remember which one Pearl had said happened, or see what the difference was.
Amethyst smiled wistfully, Rose had loved this place, and she was always visiting to see how the plants and gem magic had interacted and grown and blended together.
"So which way we going?" Amethyst asked, looking up at the taller gem.
"This way." Stepped off the warp pad, wading into the crystal grass that reached up as high as her waist. Amethyst frowned, the crystal grass may look soft, but she knew it could be razor sharp and you could spear yourself if you weren't careful, Garnet was tall enough and tough enough to withstand the pointy plants. But the grass was as tall as she was, their razor points glinting in the sunlight right at her eye level, she'd probably wind up spearing herself in the face if she tried to wade through it.
Yeah, forget that noise.
She shifted into a humming bird and took to the air, zipping into the air and flitting around Garnet's head. She followed for several minutes, not speaking as they traveled through the plain.
"So…" Amethyst began, taking a stab at conversation. She wasn't really sure what to say, and Garnet wasn't really one for conversation at the best of times. Though admittedly, she had been getting better since they started raising Steven.
"…"
"Been a while since we been here."
Garnet nodded. Well that conversation was dead. That done, the gems lapsed back into silence, it wasn't so bad really, it was pretty peaceful in the savannah, and the grass was tough enough that most earth creatures weren't able to live here; they couldn't eat it, nor get through it without getting shish-kabobbed. Heck, even crystal beasts avoided this place; the grass was just that much of a nuisance. Only birds and insects were able to colonize this place, flying between the crystal trees that dotted the landscape. Their chirps and birdsong mingled with the tinkling of the grass to make a rather pleasant ambience.
But still, she was a restless person, and eventually she couldn't take it any more. "What exactly are we looking for again?"
"I told you."
"Yeah well." Amethyst chirped, shrugging her wings, "You were kind of vague, and I didn't really care at the time. I just wanted something to do. So come on, spill it."
"As I said, I sensed an unnatural surge of energy somewhere in the savannah."
Amethyst waited, but Garnet didn't say anything else. "…And?" she asked, rolling her eyes, "Come on Garnet, you gotta give me more than that. I know I don't really do your whole sense-the-flow-of-the-universe, or whatever. But I do know this whole planet is loaded with a whole bunch of gem junk. It's everywhere." Amethyst hovered in front of the fusions face, her tiny wings keeping her suspended in place. "I bet these energy surges happen all the time."
Garnet had stopped walking and was quietly regarding the humming bird. "You're right."
Okay, Garnet didn't have to sound so surprised. It's not like she was an idiot. She was just really lazy and didn't listen to other people much when they talked about boring stuff.
"So, what's special about this one?" she asked, perching on Garnet's nose pressing her beak flat against the fusion's sunglasses.
"… It felt familiar." Ugh, getting complete answers out of Garnet was so annoying.
"Still gonna need a little more than that G."
"…It felt like Rose." Okay, those were the kind of details she wanted.
"Are you serious?"
Garnet nodded.
"And you were just gonna keep this to yourself?" Garnet was pretty private and Amethyst could respect that, gem's gotta have her space, but come on. If it concerned Rose, all the crystal gems had a right to know.
Garnet hesitated.
"Garnet?"
"I was going to inform you and Pearl. But only after I checked it out." Garnet fell silent, again. Amethyst didn't interrupt, she could tell this was a I'm-thinking about-how-to-say-this silence as opposed to a I'm-done-with-this-conversation one. "I didn't want to…upset Pearl. I predicted that she would have gotten very worked up over whatever this is, and it might be nothing worthy of note."
"Eh, that's fair." That sounded like Pearl, she would have dropped everything and come running the moment Rose was mentioned. "I doubt Rose would have left anything important here, anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember how Rose always used to visit this place? Whatever's triggering your senses, it's probably just some gem junk she left behind by accident, like a magic sword or battle-axe or something. She had tons of those. If it was something big, she would have told us about it."
Garnet considered this, before nodding in agreement. "But it still needs to be checked out."
"Well duh. So, are we close?"
"I can't tell. Whatever it was has ceased releasing energy, so I can't tell where it's coming from.
"Why can't you just see it with your future vision?"
Garnet shrugged.
Well that was helpful, but whatever.
"So we're just randomly walking around hoping we find something, while also not knowing what we're looking for?" Garnet opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it shut, her body sinking into a battle stance, shaking Amethyst off in the process.
"What?" Amethyst asked, tensing herself, glancing around to see what the problem was.
"We're not alone." Garnet formed her gauntlets and stood still, focusing on their surroundings. "Not sure what, but it's bigger than anything around here should be."
"Think it's what we're looking for?" Amethyst couldn't see or hear anything weird herself, but she tended to take Garnet's word on this.
"Maybe." Garnet frowned. "I can't tell where it is."
"I'll take a look around," without waiting for the fusions response she zipped into the air. She had to squint against the glare, the sunlight kept reflecting off of all the crystal, so she couldn't really see much around. She promptly solved the problem by shape shifting a bird-sized pair of sunglasses onto her face.
She loved being able to do stuff like that. She couldn't imagine how humans got by without it.
There! She saw a white blob of fluff slinking through the grass behind a cluster of trees.
Go time.
"I see it!" She called, shifting into a hawk and diving. She transformed into the Purple Puma right as the figure began to rear upwards. She slammed into it sending it tumbling. Amethyst could feel the crystal grass stabbing into her back as it struggled against her.
It growled and she paused. She knew that sound, the Gem glanced up and saw a familiar pair of eyes staring at her.
"Lion?" Amethyst blinked, snapping back to her normal form in surprise. She got off the cat, backing off as it got back to its feet and sat in front of her. "The heck are you doing here?"
The big cat just blinked at her, then leaned in and licked her face, his tongue rasping against her nose. Amethyst melted inside.
"Awww, c'mere you." she wrapped her arms around the cat, who placed his head on top of Amethyst's and purred.
"Amethyst!" Garnet shouted, jumping back into sight with her gauntlets at the ready. She paused upon seeing the two, "What is Lion doing here?"
"I dunno." Amethyst shrugged, leaning into his poofy mane. "He's Lion, he does his own thing."
Lion was a bit of mystery, he was always wandering around the house, and occasionally the temple. Amethyst had stumbled upon the jungle cat sleeping in her room more than once, it didn't bother her, it just meant he had great taste. It didn't hurt that his habits drove Pearl up the wall either.
He might not be a puma, but he was still pretty cool.
Amethyst had a sudden thought.
"Hey Lion." She asked turning up to look up at the pink leonine. It blinked at her, "We're lookin for something of Rose's that's somewhere around here. Any idea where that might be?"
"Do you really think he will know?" Garnet asked, raising a brow behind her glasses.
"Hey, he had Rose's sword, didn't he? Can't hurt to ask."
"Hmmmm. True." Garnet stared at Lion.
Lion stared back. Then got up and started walking away. Well, that was about a clear an answer as one could get out of Lion.
"…Should we follow him?" Amethyst asked.
"Might as well." Garnet shrugged following the lion's path through the grass.
It had been a half hour since they had begun following Steven's lion, and Garnet was getting agitated. The pink feline had been leading them on a winding route through the crystal grass, meandering through wherever the sharp plants grew thinnest. Which admittedly was a bit of a relief, she might be able to walk through their wickedly sharp points, but that didn't mean that the fusion wanted to.
Amethyst had forgone further flying and climbed on Lion's back. The feline hadn't bothered to shrug her off so the smaller gem was lounging on the cat's back, just watching the landscape pass by. It was a slow process, as the cat stopped every couple of minutes to sniff the air.
It wasn't the speed of the journey that was agitating, however.
It was the uncertainty.
Her future vision was being surprisingly unhelpful on this venture. When Amethyst had asked why she couldn't just predict where the thing was earlier she had shrugged, because it was too complicated to explain to one who could not experience it.
Future vision was not omniscience. She could gaze into the river of time and see what might happen and use that vision to guide her actions.
The problem was that what might happen was a sea of possibilities too vast to truly comprehend. So she had to anchor herself in the metaphorical river with what she knew was fact. She knew that something was in this savannah that was giving off energy akin to Rose's energy. But that just wasn't enough information to help.
It was possible, that it might be Rose herself. It was possible, that Rose hadn't disappeared when Steven was born and that she was hiding in these lands. It was possible, that Rose just didn't want to see any of the crystal gems, Greg, or Steven and was hiding from them.
That was all nonsense, of course, but that didn't stop the fusion from seeing such an outcome hidden in the river of what might be. Garnet had long grown accustomed to ignoring possibilities that were so ludicrous. But that still left a nearly infinite number that were plausible.
Rose had visited the savannah hundreds of times throughout the millennia and Garnet had only accompanied her on a handful of those. She had no idea what Rose had been doing for the trips she hadn't been present on. Where had Rose gone? What had she brought with her? What could she have left behind, on purpose or otherwise?
There was too much uncertainty in the river, and she didn't have a metaphorical paddle of facts. It was a state she had found herself in far too often recently.
So she was stuck following Lion, who she knew so little about, she didn't even bother trying to use her future vision on.
"Hey Garnet want a snack?"
Garnet blinked, drawn from her brooding by her companion's question. Amethyst had her arm shoved into Lion's mane and was fishing around.
"Steven showed me how he stores stuff in Lion's mane." Amethyst explained, sticking her tongue out in concentration as she rummaged in the hair. "He probably left… a… jackpot!" she exclaimed, pulling out a watermelon.
"Ah, nice!" she smiled, ripping the watermelon in half and offering a piece to her. Garnet shook her head; she knew Amethyst enjoyed eating more than she did.
"Suit yourself." She jammed half into her mouth and then jammed the other half in as well; her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk. "So…" she said, speaking around the fruit in her mouth, "Still no clue about Rose's whatever?"
"No." Garnet replied, a little bit of her frustration must have leaked into her tone, because of how Amethyst was looking at her, with a big gulp she swallowed the fruit.
"Uh… you doin' alright there, G? You seem…tense."
"I'm fine."
"Well if you say so." Garnet could hear the doubt in her teammate's voice. That wasn't good. Since Rose was gone, she couldn't be allowed to show weakness. Pearl, Amethyst, and Steven looked to her for direction, if she wavered in her confidence, if her uncertainty showed. She knew her teammates would waver with her. They needed her to remain strong.
"Amethyst." She said, putting her hand on the gem's shoulder. As Lion came to another stop, pawing and sniffing at the ground. She looked the shorter gem in the eye, "I'm fine." She repeated, putting as much confidence into her tone as she could.
Amethyst nodded and Garnet could feel the gem relaxing under her hand. She opened her mouth to say something, but Lion interrupted her as he raised his head and growled.
"What's up dude?" Amethyst asked, "do you smell someth- WOW MAMA!" she yelled as Lion bolted, dashing off through the grass. Amethyst latched onto his mane and shouting at him to slow down.
Garnet dashed after them. She could stop the Lion if she wanted to, but instead chose to keep pace with him. Lion didn't usually move quickly like this unless it was something he deemed important. He could very well be leading them to what they were searching for.
Lion carried on like this for several minutes. Ahead, Garnet could see a darker blot on the landscape growing closer as they ran. When they reached it Lion came to a halt, his mane puffing up as he growled at it.
It was a cluster of trees had grown in a way that they twisted together, their trunks and branches intertwining elegantly to form a sort of cage, as if they were trying to hold something between them. In between the gaps of crystal branches, Garnet could see a steady pink glow.
"Well, this definitely looks like something Rose would make." Amethyst said, sliding off lion's back and eyeing the cluster of plants.
"I believe it is one of Rose's seeds."
"It's kinda big for that though, isn't it?" Amethyst replied, tilting her head and trying to get a better look in between the tree branches.
"Yes, it is." Garnet frowned. Rose often summoned and commanded a variety of living plants to fight for her. Often this took the form of vines sprouting from the ground to ensnare a foe, or perhaps a barricade of trees to defend her. According to her, those kinds of things were easy, vines naturally wanted to grow around things, and trees grew sturdy all on their own, she just encouraged them to do it faster and stronger.
But mobile fighting plants, such as the Watermelon Steven Legion, were more difficult to handle. Mixing gem energy into normal earth plants tended to make them more than a little wild. The Watermelon Steven Incident was not actually the first time the crystal gems had to fight off a horde of angry earth plants, nor was it the worst experience they'd had doing so.
Rose had promised never to experiment with pineapples ever again.
So instead of creating armies of weaker plants, Rose had spent centuries crafting individual seeds, trying to make the perfect soldier plants. It was certainly more effective than mixing up gem magic with whatever wild seeds were around and seeing what happened. The results were often impressive: sturdy tree golems that could shrug off the strongest of blows as if they were a light breeze, graceful flower dryads that danced around the battlefield like a leaf in the wind, a platoon of cactus warriors, who struck fear into the hearts of whoever it approached on the battlefield, or anywhere else for that matter.
Rose had stopped crafting such seeds millennia ago, after the war, creating them had changed from being a wartime necessity to a mere hobby. There were still a few of those seeds left back in the temple, stored in bubbles to ensure they didn't germinate by accident, without Rose's will to guide them, they acted much like the watermelons, picking a fight with anything that set them off.
That's what made the presence of this seed so troubling. Rose knew that her plants were dangerous; she would never leave one of her seeds lying around and not inform them. It could have been a mistake, but Rose wasn't careless enough to make such an error, so why was it here?
This seed's germination must have been the surge of energy she had sensed. It had likely lain dormant for years, decades, maybe even centuries. Garnet didn't bother wasting time thinking about why it had germinated now. Just about anything could have caused it.
Regardless, it would have to be dealt with.
Suddenly, the glow from the tree cluster intensified, sending out a pulse of energy. Amethyst yelped and jumped back, colliding with lion and half sinking into his mane.
"That's not good." Amethyst commented, pulling herself out and falling into a battle stance.
"No. It's not." Garnet replied, her mind beginning to race through their options.
Option one: Get Steven to calm the plant and make it go dormant.
Steven wasn't here, and there was no way that she was going to let Steven anywhere near one of Rose's war plants for a very long time.
Option two: Bubble it and leave it with the bubbled seeds to be dealt with later.
It was too late to bubble it now, since it had germinated, it would just break out.
Option three: Smash it. Now.
Option three it was.
"Destroy it." Garnet ordered, snapping her hands upwards, her gauntlets materializing and blasting forwards like rockets. They slammed into the tree cluster, sending spider webs of cracks running through them, and exploded sending bits of rock and tree everywhere. Garnet snapped her eyes upwards, zeroing in on the exposed seed, a large crystal orb with several roots protruding from it, writhing as it soared through the air
She leapt after it, effortlessly propelling herself after it as a new pair of gauntlets formed on her hands. She slammed them together, sandwiching the seed between them in an attempt to crush it to pulp.
The seed cracked, but didn't shatter. The roots whipped out and wrapped around her hands, anchoring it to her gauntlets and starting to burrow into the joints. Garnet jerked backwards in midair, dematerializing her a gantlets to dislodge it, the roots wriggled towards her hands, but before they could make contact, a thick purple cord wrapped around it and yanked it away from the fusion.
Amethyst let out a battle cry as she swung her whip around and slammed the seed into the ground, sending a shockwave of energy racing down weapon for good measure, The ensuing explosion sending up a cloud of dirt. Garnet landed gracefully and nodded her thanks.
"No prob." Amethyst replied, eyeing the cloud of dust. "Think we got it?"
"No." she didn't need her future vision to predict that. If the seed could withstand her gauntlets, it would take more than one blast of Amethyst's whip to finish it. She stalked forward, cautiously; the thing had attempted to burrow its roots into her gems when she'd tried to smash it. She wasn't going to give it another chance. Beside her, Lion stalked forward, belting out a sonic roar that blew away the cloud of smoke.
The seed was growing fast; Rose had designed them that way. It had rooted itself into the ground and was swelling in size, already rivaling Lion in mass. Worse, it was pulling in surrounding plants, ripping up crystal grass and assimilating them into its growing form. The seed flashed violently, and sent a volley of crystal grass raining down on them like arrows, forcing the gems back.
The plant stopped growing when reached the size of Steven's house. It looked remarkably like a wolf; A roughly canine head with glowing pink flowers where its eyes should have been, four legs made of crystal trees pawed at the ground, supporting a body made of a tangled mass of vines. Behind it a tail of woven crystal grass waved through the air menacingly.
The plant behemoth glared down at the gems, its floral eyes blazing with fury. It opened it's mouth revealing teeth made of jagged crystals and gave a shrill piercing whistle that set the gem's teeth on edge.
"Aw man." Amethyst groaned. "This is gonna suck isn't it?"
"Probably" Garnet nodded.
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AN: and there's the first chapter, I don't intend this to be a long story: only 2 or 3 more chapters tops.
I did my best to keep the gems as in character as possible, but I'm not sure I did a good job or not. Please let me know if you think I did, and thanks for reading.