A/N: Sorry this one took disproportionately longer to update. I was having some trouble with the direction I wanted with this chapter and it took me a pretty long time to get back on swing. Last chapter turned out to be a tough act to live up to, since this one is shorter. I was considering to incorporate chapter 12 onto this one to make it longer, but I thought it took to long to update already. At least this one gives us some unanswered questions.
There's simply no other way to describe it other than… incredible beyond belief. That was redundant, she knows, but what else can she actually say? She's honestly speechless. She was really creeped out when she saw the portal. It just looked so WEIRD and way too out of place, even by Gem standards. There was just no way this was a Gem thing. It's too otherworldly. Too… she doesn't even know the word at this point.
But Connie decides that she needs to figure it out after the Crystal Gems jumped in. She WAS going to show them this strange black turtle she found at the beach, too.
Connie holds the little creature in her hands, kneeling against the floor of the Portal Room. All she can do is sit there, gently stroking the little turtle, as she tries to take in her alien surroundings of the Room, occasionally looking back at the portal she came from, as well as the other ones. Connie sighs, breathing in the strange air, not much different, but everything still felt unknown to her human senses. Later, she decides to try and stand up, and try to analyze the situation the best she can.
Now on her feet, Connie looks back at the other portals on the Room. She walks up to the one next to it, and carefully extends her hand. To her mild surprise, she seems to feel some kind of invisible wall. She presses harder and lightly bangs onto the obstruction hoping to gain an entrance, to no avail. Connie rubs her chin and turns away from the portal, wondering why she couldn't enter the others. Ignoring that train of thought for one moment, she decides to take another closer look at the turtle.
Now that she thinks about it, it seems even weirder than when she first saw it. She knew she shouldn't normally tamper with wildlife like this, but she thought it was some kind of Gem monster of sorts because it didn't look like a normal animal. Now she realizes it's not even that. She looks at its little eyes when it looks back at her. Its tiny, pinprick, little blue-ish bullseye eyes…
Connie hears the door in front of her opening and briefly jumps. She gets ready to run back into the portal, until she sees just what is opening the door. Something much more familiar.
"Pearl!" Connie exclaims and approaches her. Connie saw how a tad confused Pearl seems to find her here. "Hey—!" Connie tries to think of something to say, but she doesn't know where to start.
"Oh, hello, Connie!" Pearl greeted her as if she hadn't seen her in about a day or so. "Everything good?"
Connie thinks for a moment, then continues to put on a smile. "Yeah! Everything's… alright." She didn't mean to come off as being suspicious, but she can't help but find confusion. Pearl also stares in a bit of confusion herself, before immediately correcting herself.
"Oh, right!" Pearl puts her hand on her cheek and chuckles. "You must be looking for the others! They're somewhere in these Rooms below, come with me and I'll explain further." Pearl takes Connie's shoulder and begins to lead her away from the Portal Room. "I apologize for our absence."
Absence? Connie didn't understand, but cannot seem to get the question out of her mouth, and remains silent. They start to walk through the door of the Room, and both Connie and the turtle look back at the portal as they leave the Room with Pearl. Pearl takes her back into the hallway, and proceeds to try and explain where exactly Connie is. Connie listens on to all the talk about multiple universes and the "world" all of these different people ended up in with baffled attention, though she finds herself distracted once Pearl opens the first door to the left to show her the tower's functions. She proceeds to bask in at the sight of the Dance Room, observing its contrast to the rest of the building.
Pearl notices Connie's curious enthusiasm. "Oh, but there's so much more!" she exclaims, pointing towards a trapdoor in the center of the Room. "Go ahead and open that." Connie blinks at Pearl, then walks over to the trapdoor and gets on her knees. With the turtle in one hand, she reaches down with the other to slowly pull the door open, leaning down further to take a look in the hole…
"Wo-O-AH!" Connie feels herself being pulled forward when she looks down to the Room below. She begins to fall down through the hole, the turtle still gripped in her hands. Soon, she feels herself slowing down, until she almost seems to float. Rows of colors from the different lights of the Rooms filled her vision in an incredible stimuli, entrancing herself with the sights of this strange alien reality. She doesn't notice Pearl gently leading her to different horizontal Rooms so Connie will end up where she needs to be. For each Room, Connie's eyes fill with stars and diamonds, basking in at her surroundings.
Occasionally, the turtle also stares at its surroundings with close attention.
Before long, Connie stops her strange descent, finding herself being held by the shoulders so she wouldn't fall over. She finds herself at one single Room, the Game Room, a Room filled with tables and traditional games. Connie starts to pant heavily while Pearl holds her up. She grins widely in bliss and amazement.
"Oh, my gosh!" she says breathlessly. "O-oh, my. I… I can't believe any of this!" She takes a deep breath. "Wow. I-I need to see more."
"Believe me, Connie," Pearl says with a smile. "I couldn't believe it either. Welcome to another world."
Connie allows her human mind to try and process everything, the best it can. It's a lot to take in. Looking at the assortment of games, Connie understands that quite a lot of stuff was familiar to her, and yet, it wasn't quite the same. As if the things she sees here are trying to imitate what she already knows, but can't make an exact copy of what her own personal reality is composed of. Considering Pearl's explanation, everything she sees feels as if it were trying to be… extra-universal, for lack of a better term. Still, it's amazing to her. She only hopes to know more. She looks to her left at one of the door, and to her surprise, finds a silhouette of a… someone peeking inside.
"Um…" Connie points to Pearl the direction she saw the silhouette. "What's that?"
"Oh! That's just Gumball Watterson. He's one of our otherworldly guests in this place." Before Pearl could explain who "Gumball" was, he retreated back into the Room behind the door, leaving Connie confused.
"Hey!" Connie hears a definitely familiar voice coming from her right. She gasps and turns her head to greet the sound she recognizes from everything else with clarity. "Steven!"
From one of the doors, Steven steps into the Room. "Connie!" He exclaims in glee and waves at her. He starts running up to her to greet her. "Hi! Welcome to… this place!" Steven tries to present with his arms. "Pretty cool, right? What brings you here?"
Connie giggles. "Well, at first I actually wanted to show you this." She presents the turtle to Steven and Pearl. "I don't know where it comes from, and I was wondering if anyone knew what it is…"
Steven stares at the turtle curiously, while Pearl frowned as she observes it more closely. "Hm…" Pearl rubs her chin. "No… I don't recall this creature from anywhere," she states quietly. "I know it's a… turtle, but I don't think I've seen anything like it before."
Connie and Steven begin to look at it pensively, as it stares them all back with its glowing little eyes. Connie mumbles "Then… what could it be…"
"Well," Connie hears a much more unfamiliar voice from behind her. Both she and Steven turned to the door where Connie previously saw the person. This time, they were in full view; a blue cat with a big head leaning against the doorframe. "That's pretty friendly of you two. You know Steven, if you wanted to arrange double 'playdates' or something, you could've just asked."
Connie gasps in shock. "You… you're a cat!" She points at him, with diamonds in her eyes.
Gumball stands up straight and casually examines his body. "… So?" He starts approaching the two. "Well, not that you hang out much in other nearly incomprehensible dimensions who-knows-how far away from your home." He shows her his hand for a handshake. "Anyway, Gumball Watterson. Now with less screaming at the moment."
Connie takes a second to look at Gumball's cat hand, before taking it and shaking it lightly. "W-wow, nice to meet you Gumball."
Gumball's vision darts down to Connie's other hand, carrying the black turtle. He gasps and pulls his hand away. Connie looks at him in worry when his eyes instantly widen, his pupils shrink, and his eyebrows curl into a panicked frown.
"Um… t-this thing isn't… bitey, evilly, spawny, devily?" he asks nervously through his teeth. "C-cause I don't have good experiences with these things…"
"Oh, um," Connie quickly went back to holding the turtle with both her hands. "I just found it… I'm not sure what it is. Buuuut it looks harmless enough." Connie tries to comfort Gumball by bringing the turtle close to him. He just shrinks further into his sweater until his eyeballs are visible. Connie pulls the turtle away and looks back at Steven, who just shrugs.
After a few moments, Gumball strains to bring his head out of his sweater, then sighs and facepalms. "Great, I just blew it."
"You did okay, Gumball!" Penny shouts from the door.
Connie turns to it and almosts gasps again, stumbling back upon seeing a glowing fairy creature at the door. "Wow!" she exclaims in amazement, and laughs once Penny walks closer to greet the new visitor.
"Hi, there," Penny greets politely and holds out her own hand, "I'm Penny Fitzgerald, good to meet you!" Connie excitedly shakes Penny's hand, but Penny looks closer at Connie's face, and tilts her head. "Um… do your glasses not have lenses?" she notes.
"… It's a long story," Connie says offhandedly while she takes off her glasses to demonstrate.
Within minutes, Steven giggles, and takes the chance to pull Gumball forward towards two girls, pulling everyone in a group hug.
"Everything's really different here, it's so cool!" Connie says.
"So weird!" Gumball remarks in a startled tone.
"Kinda weird…" Penny agrees.
"… It's weirdly cool!" Connie improvises.
"That's the spirit!" Steven tells her, giving her a thumbs up. Slowly, and barring some of Gumball's eyerolls, Penny began to giggle. Soon enough, the kids started to giggle to themselves, and Pearl smiles in amusement at the scene. A minute later Amethyst is peeks down from the ceiling door, with Garnet behind her.
"Um…" Gumball stops laughing, and points at Connie's turtle again. "Seriously, what's up with that?"
Connie nods understandingly, and breaks away the group hug. "Okay, let me explain…" Connie clears her throat, while holding the turtle close. "I found this turtle at the beach, so I came to the temple to show it to you guys. The door was open, so I let myself in. Then, I found you guys entering some kind of portal. I waited for a while, until I decided to go in too because I wondered what was going on."
Connie stops once she sees Steven beginning to stare at her in worried confusion as she was telling him. Pearl soon follows suit, as well as the Gems up in the ceiling. Gumball and Penny dart eyes to each other.
"Wait…" Steven asks slowly. "When was that…?"
Connie soon gets confused herself. "… Um… Just now? About a minute ago…?"
Steven opens his mouth, but no words come out. His inhale almost comes out as a gasp. He turns to Pearl with a look of uncertain bafflement, and she looks at him with confused worry. Amethyst widens her eyes and raises an eyebrow. Gumball stares awkwardly, and starts to point at the Gems.
"You guys don't think…" he begins to ask in a low voice.
"But we've been here for a day!" Penny shouts rashly.
"WHAT?" Connie shouts back, and turns to Steven. "A day?"
"Yes!" Steven replies quickly. "I-it felt like a day!"
Connie shakes her head. "But then how…?
"Whoa, whoawhoa hold UP!" Gumball begins to get frustrated and steps forward. "Can we, can we discuss this? It's pretty obvious that TIME works differently here! Don't you think? So maybe…" he begins to calm down and starts gesturing with his fingers, trying to calculate. "Uh… Time moves a LOT slower here, than it does in our worlds." As Gumball explains, Anais and Darwin begin to peek from the door he and Penny previously entered.
Steven thinks for a few moments, then begins to smile nervously and scratches the back of his head. "Oh… wow… I can't believe it took us this long to realize that! It's so obvious!" He shrugs. Gumball sighs.
"How long, though?" Amethyst asks from the ceiling door, startling Connie for a second. "You said it was like a minute back home, and we were a day here… what's that mean?"
Pearl joins her hands with her index fingers sticking out, and hums to herself. But before she could say anything, Anais enters the Room to interject (Connie tries to contain her excited gasps upon seeing the bunny).
"So a minute would roughly equal a day back on your Earth…" Anais counts with her fingers. "2 days here would be 2 minutes. A week would be 7 minutes, a month would almost be half an hour, and a year would be… 6 hours."
Gumball lets out a loud sigh and sits on one of the chairs. "Oh, good, MATH," he grits through his teeth. "THAT'S interesting, sis."
"And these are just estimates," Anais snarks at him. "Imagine if I had more precise information."
Pearl takes a breath. "Right." She points at Anais, and looks up to the other Gems. "What she summed up."
"Wow…" Steven and Connie both exclaim while looking at each other.
"That's the equivalent in our universe," Garnet states from above out loud, before entering the Game Room herself surprisingly quietly. "The animal children would have to guess how it applies to theirs."
Darwin couldn't help but snicker bashfully a bit, while Anais clears her throat. "Well, considering our mom hasn't come for us by now and later grounded us in what's the equivalent of about 28 years here…" Anais says, "I think it's safe to say it applies to our world too."
"Oh, so no worries!" Gumball sighs in relief and chuckles.
"Then it probably applies to the other guys' worlds too," Penny observes. Within a minute, she calls out. "HEY, MORDECAI! RIGBY! We have some news!"
Connie raises an eyebrow. "Mordecai and Rigb-? WOAH!" She feels the ground beneath her open up, not realizing she was standing in the ground door. She quickly jumps forward, and finds a beaked face and a… raccoon thing peeking out from underneath. Connie makes a startled yelp.
"What's up?" Mordecai asks Penny, before taking a second to look at the new guest. "… Oh, hey."
Connie almost didn't respond, but eventually waved at him. "Um, hi there."
Rigby turned to Mordecai. "How many more are gotta get in, Mordecai? Because I am NOT looking forward to more janitor hotel employee duty!" he complains.
"Yeah…" Mordecai replies, resting his forearms (wings?) on the floor under the door. "Besides, Benson's gotta be pretty pissed by now for disappearing for a day and all," he says out loud for the others in the Room to hear, "So I think we better get going."
"Um, yeah, about that…" Penny begins to say with a sincere smile on her face.
"You guys can stay here as long as you want!" Amethyst interjects joyfully. "No one even knows you're gone!"
Mordecai's pupils shrink in surprise. "Woah, a―" He then frowns playfully. "Naw… you can't be serious!"
Connie put a hand on her cheek. "Well… when did you guys come here?" she asks them, still somewhat stunned.
"Oh, we were in our lunch break!" Rigby answers.
"Yeah, a half hour one…" Mordecai says in discomfort.
Penny smiles widely, while Connie continues. "Well, now you guys can spend your lunch break here, for about a month! And once you come back to work, it'll be like you were never gone."
The two now stare at Connie with eyes the size of white oranges. After a moment Rigby shoots Mordecai a wide grin. "Month of lunch break, duuuude!"
Soon, both of them are hollering. "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The laugh and jump up to enter the Room. Connie steps back in awe in seeing just how tall the bird actually is, and watches them speed to one of the tables to look for games to play.
"I'm Connie, by the way!" she shouts at them, though in a polite manner and not in anger.
"So…" Steven says to the Gems as he watches the two browse through the collection of board games, yelling at each other while they take off on a table with what appeared to be a checker board. "… What do we do now?" he asks curiously without apathy.
Amethyst jumps down into the Room. The Crystal Gems now all look at each other. "I don't know…" Pearl said. "It doesn't seem to have a lasting impact, but a lot can happen in even a few minutes if we decide to stay here for days."
The Gems remain quiet, and Connie takes the chance to come closer. Gumball drums his fingers on the table, while his siblings decide to sit in the same table with him and Penny. Darwin took the time to eye some of the games available, trying to pick one.
"Hey…" Amethyst speaks up, though quietly. "We could stay here, until we feel like we HAVE to go home! Remember what we talked about a while ago, Pearl? That we can't actually stay here forever even if you want to?"
Pearl looks at Amethyst with sparked interest and raised expression. "So in that case… we can stay here until we absolutely need to go back… and we'll know it when we feel it." She turned to Garnet, hopefully knowing what they were talking about. Garnet thinks for several moments, before nodding understandingly.
"It's alright, I feel it too," Garnet assures. "We'll know when we have to go home. Until then, our worlds shouldn't be too affected by our absence." She adjusts her glasses.
"So…" Steven says, not quite understanding everything. "Can we stay?" he asks with anticipation.
Garnet leans down on him and gives him a small smirk. "For as long as you feel. There's nothing to worry about."
Before long, Steven has stars on his eyes and sports a huge smile. He turns towards a cautiously idealistic Connie, and goes to her with all smiles and hope. "Connie, this is gonna be great!" he reassures her. "We can stay here for as long as we want! This dimension is amazing and strange and we're all having a lot of fun here. It's like you said, it's weirdly cool! C'mon, Connie, we don't get another chance like this everyday. We gotta make this day outside back on Earth count! I promise you won't regret it!"
Hearing Steven's words, Connie can feel curious excitement flutter inside her. She begins to smile, her mind consuming with wonder."Okay, I'll stay too," she tells him with a smile.
"Yay!" Steven cheers. Soon enough, Connie and Steven run to the table where Gumball is, and the other Gems depart. Meanwhile, Darwin finds a game of Monopoly and he and Anais set it up. The kids start to pick the metal pieces for their game as they set up the session. Steven and Connie run to sit on the table alongside them in time. "Hey guys!" Steven shouts. "We have a sixth player now!"
Gumball cocks an eyebrow. "Alright… cool!" Gumball gives them a thumbs up with the racecar piece still in his hand, then turns to Penny. "Not quite my idea of a double playdate, but that should do for now…" he tells her quietly.
Penny giggles silently while twirling the thimble piece in her hand, then winks at him. "Oh, they'll know sooner or later," she remarks, watching Steven and Connie picking out pieces together for their game. The two pick the iron and a shoe, while Darwin and Anais hold the little dog and the battleship.
Steven and Connie take one last look at all the doors in the Room, the curious things they've seen, the strange potential of this reality, then at each other. All six kids begin to play, entertaining themselves with this game, that somehow reminded them of their worlds' counterparts' game. The same kind of mimicking familiarity that Connie had felt earlier about the tower, and the 'extra-universal' quality of it. Strange, but fantastic.
The turtle is set aside at the corner of the table. It crawls onto the game board set and begins to nibble on the top hat piece.
A/N: Just wondering. Would anyone be okay if I uploaded Zootopia fanfiction on here too?