It's finally time to get Connie back in the story! Just as you all hoped! Also Sorry SneaselxRiolu for not adding her in last chapter like you wanted.
Also! New information about Ciritine, or I guess what's going on, but not really directly... AND IF I HAVE TO WRITE PIZZA ONE MORE TIME WITH MY "Z" KEY ON MY KEYBOARD NOT WORKING I SWEAR...
"This is why you shouldn't let random gems do whatever they want!" Pearl scolded Steven he fidgeted nervously. Long story short they had all gone out for fish stew pizza, but Ciritine got a little to wrapped up in battling gem monsters to pay attention to the world around her, and ended up wrecking everything. And of course Steven knew exactly how to fix this, much to Pearls dismay.
Steven set everything up. Again. The heat from the sun really beat down on his neck every time he bent over to pick up something. Steven glanced over to Ciritine who was resting under a tree, breathing heavily, he looked around there was no sign of Moonstone either. Ciritine was a roughly a pale gray-yellow hue and her eyes were a dull yellow. She was wearing old overalls with a orange T-shirt underneath and knee-high socks with brown boots and a straw colored sun hat with a orange bow, her ponytails hung loosely under her sunhat, looking smushed and about to come undone, she had neither of her bows in her hair, just her signature black hair pins.
Ciritine got up, stretching, but when she stepped into the light, her pale gray-yellow color didn't fade, it only seemed to get worse. Steven decided to check it out.
"Ciritine!" Steven called, she rushed over, stopping a few feet from him, and backing up a few more inches form the young kid. "Are you alright you look...Gray.." Steven said, in a low voice so the others wouldn't worry, Garnet was setting up the barbecue, Amethyst was doing her thing somewhere in the house (But probably eating most of the raw hamburger meat) Pearl was tidying up the beach and setting up the volley ball net. Ciritine laughed nervously.
"Probably the lighting or something, Earth is a few thousand...hundred thousand? Kilometers from the sun and its afternoon ha ha, probably that, yeah see ya!" Ciritine lied, and just as ever, she was terrible at it.
"Are you sick?" Steven said after a moment as she was backing away, Ciritines facade fell and a frown appeared on her face, her eyebrows twitching in discomfort and she sweated nervously.
"W-well..." Ciritine began, but before she could answer the guests arrived.
Pearl had just finished up and realized Amethyst was still setting up tables and chairs and offered to help, she purple gem agreed, rather hastily however. They had all gotten into their beach outfits as Steven instructed and saw that the fish stew pizza family was here, just in time.
Garnet set down platters of hamburgers and Moonstone, appearing out of nowhere, had brung fries.
Each gem, and human had settled down and were eating their hamburgers, but in silence for the most part.
"Wow these cam out good~!" Kiki applauded.
"You've barely touched your food!" Nanefua, the old woman said in her foreign accent, it was easy to descifer her from her family accent wise, but appearance wise could prove to be difficult when her daughters grew up, but that was just how the woman predicted it.
"We don't need to eat." Garnet replied in a monotone voice.
"Oh young people these days..." The old woman said in a playful voice.
"Do you all live in that tiny house?" Kofi criticized, but by now Ciritine wasn't listening, she felt too...awful. She didn't know why though, all of her memories were a mess since she got here with Moonstone, she could hardly remember anything and anything she did was really hazy, or were from years and years ago, recent ones were hardly memorable. She didn't want to worry Moonstone though, despite hardly knowing the gem anymore, who knew someone could change so much in that amount of time...How much had she forgotten?
"Steven!" Steven looked up, his mind was nothing but a haze, he remembered...Not much really, they were at the Beach party with the fish stew pizza family and...Then what...? Steven decided to fully open his eyes and scan the area. The place was a mess and he looked to where everyone was, there was the gem monster from earlier that had attacked Ciritine and made this mess in the first place! But...Someone else was here, he looked to his left to see a petrified Connie there.
"C-Connie?!" Steven cried, she glanced over to him, she smiled in relief.
"Aha...You're okay..." Connie said relived, she was speaking slowly and in deep breaths, which broke her words up.
"Why are you here?!" Steven asked, but before she could answer a spike came hurling at her, Steven pushed her to the side, activating his bubble. "Just stay put, then you can explain this to me later okay?" Steven asked, Connie nodded, despite being completely and totally scared for her life. Steven lowered the bubble and stepped out, hiding her beside the temple and the small home.
The gems were having trouble with the monster and Ciritine and Moonstone were no where to be seen on the beach. Steven called for Lion and the pink feline was there within seconds.
"Lion I know this is a weird question, but I need a sword!" Steven instructed, the Lion didn't waste a second, getting into a bowing stance almost and lowering its head, its pink mane glowed until reaching a lgiht white hue and looked as though it was being forced against high wind speeds, a pink hilt appeared and Steven hastily grabbed hold of it, yanking the pink sword out, his mothers sword.
Steven ran towards the monster and charged forward with the sword in hand, it turned to him, sucking in a deep breath, and pulling him in, Steven realized too late that the sword wasn't gonna help him much here.
Just as he thought he was going to be sucked in a firm hand clasped his arm, tugging him back. Steven turned, "Connie!" He cried.
"I'm saving you a lot today huh!" She said cheerfully. "C'mon follow my lead!" The two grabbed a hold of the sword while the monster turned to the three gems all attacking it from the other side, paying no attention to the two kids.
"Forehand!" They both shouted, cutting the monster and leaving a huge gaping gash along its side, and before it completely turned around they shouted, "Backhand!" Another seeping deep gash.
"Overhand- Death strike~!" And the monster widened its eyes before the sword and itself made contact, bursting into tons of clouds.
"Just like tennis practice." Connie whispered before falling onto the sand, giggling. Steven picked her up, grinning too.
Garnet bubbled the gem and the team all gathered together, Connie following behind Steven with a guilty look. The fish stew pizza family had all gone home once they saw the monster. "That was a brave- but fairly stupid idea." Garnet scolded. The two fidgeted guiltily. "But, you saved the day." She said with a smile, and ruffled the twos almost identical hair, but Steven stopped to think for a moment where Moonstone and Ciritine had gone off too...
"That was crazy." Connie said as she laid down on the sofa, Steven sat down next to her.
"Yup." He said with a grin.
"But, it was still really fun." She grinned.
"I didn't know you took tennis!" Steven lied. "No wait, the better thing would be, I didn't think tennis was so awesome!" Steven said, stars in his eyes.
"Well the last one I made up." She said humbly, but they both knew fully well that fact.
"It's still awesome!" Steven insisted. The two talked for what seemed like an hour or two before Connie admitted to needing to go home twenty minutes ago, and was driven home quickly. After about another hour Moonstone and Ciritine came home, both clearly exhausted, but Steven didn't question it.
But, eventually he would. And he wouldn't like the answer very much.
So, sorta cliffhanger, but more so one that's going to be dealt with in the future, but near future, but still future, so that means not next chapter, or the chapter after that, but soon after those two. So look forward to them! Because next is gonna be a whole other topic.