In a remote location, hidden of behind a encompassing series of mountains, was a valley untouched by humankind, either because it was impossible to reach by conventional means or because there was a mutual understanding that it was a place that should best be avoided. At least for humans.
Within that valley stood a gigantic tree, it's size rivalling that of a skyscraper, with hundreds, if not thousands of branches extending out in every direction. Flora, foliage and vegetation of an impossible variety decorated the branches of the tree in place of normal leaves. Each branch was big enough to house its own personal ecosystem. There was so much diversity in colour, shape and region that it would have been impossible for of all these types of plants to exist together in the natural world within one location except for this one very unnatural location.
The roots of the tree were almost just as big as the trunk and stretched out over the valley like trains tracks across the ground, wrapping around the bases of the mountains. One of these roots stretched out from the tree to edge of an exposed cliffside like a private walkway, stopping right next to a Warp Pad.
Walking down this giant root as though it was a normal sidewalk, unperturbed by the strange surroundings, was Peridot, speaking aloud, as she often did, into her finger-screen, keeping an up to date record of the day's events.
"Peridot, log date. Our latest outing has been a modest success and the Gem related theart in this area has been neutralised. As per usual, I find that my own performance during the mission was well within expectable standards, though I do have some minor critiques regarding my follow teammates".
Peridot stopped walking and turned around to cast a professional eye over her three teammates who were walking along the root right behind her.
"Jasper, unsurprisingly, failed to heed my initial warnings and charged recklessly into battle without any pause for strategy. And sadly, the fact that she was ultimately successful in defeating the threat will undoubtedly go to her head"
Jasper, who was holding the bubbled gem in her right hand, groaned and rolled her eyes in disgust at Peridot's assessment, having to endure one every time they had completed a mission.
Peridot then moved on to Steven, who was standing by Jasper's heel, staring into his open hands with a happy expression, marvelling at the sight of a brightly coloured lady bug that was scurrying up and down his fingers.
"Steven maintained a safe distance during the battle, yet provided a suboptimal quantity of his usual emotional support due to the fact that he was distracted by his insistence on protecting a colourful insectoid creature that was nearby in the vicinity"
Steven took his eyes off the ladybug in his hands and glanced up at Peridot. "I'm sorry I didn't help out a lot, but I had to make sure that this little lady was safe and sound" he said, apologetic, but no less proud of himself for his chivalry.
He took the moment to examine the ladybug, which was now resting on the tip of his index finger with a pensive stare. "I think I'll call her….Bug Steven. Lady Bug-Steven. She's clearly got class"
Steven bent down to his knees and carefully released Lady Bug-Steven back onto the tree root, letting scurry along the bark before opening out her wings and flying away. With no other comment to add to that, Peridot then turned her attention to her final appraisee, Lapis who was hanging back behind Steven and Jasper, idly twisting away at a single green leaf between her two hands with a dour expression.
"Lapis, while providing excellent aerial recognisance, also did not offer much assistance, possibly due to the shortage of natural water in this area. I also could not help but judge her overall performance as being heavily uninterested and out of focus during the course of battle. And I strongly suspect she is not listening to my evaluation either"
"Huh, what?" Lapis said, surprised, looking up at Peridot as though she had forgotten there was anyone else around her. "Sorry, I wasn't listening
"Case in point" Peridot added into her screen, before deactivating it altogether.
"What's the matter Lapis?" Steven asked curiously, approaching the blue skinned Gem. "You've been acting kinda down lately"
Lapis sighed, tossing the small leaf away, watching as it sailed on a gust wind, over the edge of the giant root. "I'm sorry. I guess, I've just been thinking…"
"About what?" Steven asked.
"About the fight we had with Garnet"
Steven's face dropped instantly, and he felt his stomach start to churn very badly as though he ate something past the expiration date. It had been a couple of weeks since their battle with Garnet, but it was still a touchy subject. Once they returned to the Beach House that same evening, Steven had readily told the Crystal Gems the full story of how he met with both Sapphire and Ruby, and the events leading up to their reunion, but they were none the less thorough in their cross examination of him.
Both Jasper and Peridot in particular had grilled Steven for as much information as he could recall, wanting to know even the slightest detail. And later, when Steven tried to ask some questions of his own, they would either gave only a vague response or simply buckle down and refuse to discuss the matter further. But strangely, out of the three of them, Lapis had said or asked very little, remaining quiet and withdrawn throughout all the conversations.
"Why's the thing about Garnet still bothering you?" Jasper asked, walking closer to Lapis, doing her best not to look overly concerned.
"Because we got our butts kicked" Lapis mumbled miserably into her right shoulder.
"Strictly speaking, our butts were relatively unblemished" Peridot said, slightly defensive.
"We were caught off guard and we were unprepared" Jasper said, firm and to the point. "Fusions like her are always unpredictable. Next time, we'll know how to handle her"
"What do you mean, handle her?" Steven asked, looking up at Jasper hesitantly, very obviously not liking the wording of that sentence.
Jasper was about to answer him but knowing exactly how blunt she was and suspecting that her response would likely upset Steven even further, Peridot quickly rushed in between the two of them, giving Steven a wide smile.
"We, uh, just wish to ascertain wherever not Garnet is a threat to herself or to others, Steven". Peridot let out a nervous chuckle but seeing the troubled look on Steven's face, she cleared her throat and composed herself a little better.
"I know you think of Garnet as your, friend, Steven" she said, a bit more gently. "But please try to understand, that it would be tactically unwise for us to leave her to move about completely unchecked when we can't be certain of her intentions, even more so due to the fact that she is clearly a very powerful Gem. I mean, look at Jasper. She is begrudgingly our strongest team member and yet she even suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Garnet"
The atmosphere suddenly turned very cold and the wind seemed to have stopped to allow Peridot's statement to fully sink in. Jasper slowly turned her head in Peridot's direction, who appeared neither afraid or abashed by what she had just said, all the while oblivious to Jasper's murderous stare boring into the back of her diamond shaped head of hair.
"Steven, look down at your neck" Jasper said sharply, out of nowhere.
"My neck?" Steven instinctively did as Jasper asked and bent his head forward to view his own neck, but he found that all he could really see was his chest. In the brief time that Steven head was lowered and before he pulled it back up again, there was a swift rustling noise, followed by a startled cry, the sound of wood breaking and then a loud rumble than shook the entire tree root.
Steven turned his head back up in time to see Jasper and Lapis standing in the same place, but behind them, Peridot's upper body appeared to have been violently lodged into the bark of the tree root, her legs sticking out and kicking wildly in the air.
"Let's go" Jasper said briskly, as though nothing was out of the ordinary, continuing down the path of the root toward the toward the Warp Pad.
Sharing a knowing look of exasperation with each other, Lapis and Steven moved over to Peridot's trapped body, each of them grabbing one of her legs. As was their custom, Steven took the left one and Lapis took the right.
After Peridot had been freed, the three of them soon reach the end of the root and joined Jasper who was already waiting patiently on the Warp Pad for them. As they clambered onto the smooth crystalline surface, Peridot threw Jasper an indignant look, already contemplating the numerous ways she might pay the Quartz solider back in kind.
With all them together, the Warp Pad activated, sending the Crystal Gems up into the air in a beam of light
No matter how many times they went through this, Steven never got tired of it. It was like taking the world's greatest express elevator, the shards of light zooming past them in a brilliant aura. He took the moment to float around in the warp stream, enjoying the temporary sensation of weightlessness. Just then, Steven suddenly felt something very small wiggling along the top of his left ear. Reaching up behind his ear with his hand, he then felt a set of very tiny legs scurry onto the tip of finger.
"Ah, Lady Bug-Steven" he said coyly, pleasantly surprised at the sight of the little insect once again, recognising the same coloured pattern on her wings. "Did you follow me home?" Steven chuckled, watching as the adventurous little ladybug crawled up his hands, more than happy to have an extra passenger tag along with them.
Lady Bug-Steven opened out her wings and flew out of Steven's hands, circling around the warp stream, passing by each of the Crystal Gems in turn; Peridot glanced at the little insect with some curiosity, having never seen any Earth based creature to fly so comfortably inside a warp stream.
Lapis, who still appeared as melancholy and disinterested as before, didn't appear to notice the ladybug in the slightest, not so much as flinching as she buzzed past her face.
As Lady Bug-Steven drew closer to Jasper, the Quartz soldier gave the bug an unamused snarl to warn her away, which appeared to work as Lady Bug-Steven soon veered out around her, instinctively wanting to keep her distance.
The bug circled past Steven once more, and then flew up above their heads, toward the top of the warp stream, as though she was looking for a way out. She continued to fly around in circles until she started moving a straight directly towards the edge of the stream as though she intended to go through it.
"No, wait!" Steven cried, quickly becoming terrified. "You can't go out there!"
"Steven, don't!" Peridot yelled.
But Steven already did. Kicking with his legs, he propelled himself forward, using his arms like paddles to swim through the zero-gravity of the warp stream. Once he was close enough, he caught Lady Bug-Steven inside of his hands before she could reach the edge of the stream, being extra careful not to crush her by mistake.
"Got'cha!" he said. Steven smiled, happy that his friend was safe, but then realised that he was still moving towards the stream and had no means of stopping. He tried to right his body and bring himself to a halt, but was too late, the top of his head breaking through the warp stream and popping out on the other side.
The first thing that he felt was the sheer cold surrounding his ears, as though his entire head had just been shoved inside a freezer. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself drifting through an what appeared to be an endless, terrifying vortex. He had no idea where this place was or if it was even a place itself. But it was most definitely not a safe place.
Luckily the rest of his body seemed to stop moving when he burst through the stream, with only his head sticking out, the energy of the warp stream washing down his neck like a waterfall, though he wasn't sure if he couldn't actually feel anything from it.
Squinting his eyes, which were already beginning to sting with the cold, all he could see was an endless void of shadows in the shape of nebulous and blacked clouds, with an occasional cackle of lighting. There were numerous other warp streams aligned together in an integrate network, moving in different direction, like some great circulatory system of light and energy, surrounding the beating black heart of a thunderous storm cloud. Steven could briefly see the outline of some tiny round objects passing through each individual stream.
And that's when he saw it. In one of the warp streams that was nearest to them, the stream turned bright red like a streak of fire. Steven narrowed his eyes and could just barely see the outline of something black moving inside of the stream. Then in an instant the stream returned to its normal teal colour and vanished.
"Wha-?"
Before Steven could figure out what he had had just seen, he felt something grab onto his left leg, which then pulled him back inside the stream. Once safely inside the stream again, Steven let out a huge gasp, not even noticing how out of breath he really was. Jasper, who had pulled him inside, was holding him upside down with her free hand wrapped around his tiny ankle. She released him again, allowing his body to correct itself in the zero-gravity. Lapis and Peridot quickly hovered over to Steven, checking him for any sign of injury.
"Steven, you have to be careful out there" Peridot said reproachfully. "There's very little oxygen and the temperature is well below acceptable standards for humans"
"Is Lady Bug-Steven okay?" Lapis asked, indicating to Steven's still clasped hands.
"What? Oh right" Remembering what had caused his whole excursion in the first place, Steven opened out his hands and to his relief, saw that Lady Bug-Steven was safe inside his palms. "She's ok, but there's something else. I saw something out there!
"What?" Lapis said, confused.
"Something warping!"
"Well, yes" Peridot said, matter-of-factly. "I have my robonoids out on their routine patrol. They're simply collecting data for me"
"No, it wasn't a robonoids. It was something else!" Steven insisted. "It was warping by itself out there, and whatever it was, it turned the whole warp stream red!"
"Red?" Jasper repeated, surprised. Steven nodded his head earnestly in response
Peridot let out a derisive chortle of laughter, as though Steven had said some kind of childish and misinformed joke. "Red? Steven, warp streams aren't red. They are teal coloured. That obviously must have been a brief after effect of the lighting that disrupted the input from your vision spheres. Plainly speaking, you were seeing things"
"But-"
"Enough" Jasper said abruptly, already getting tired of this discussion. "There's nothing out there that we need to be worrying about. Forget about it"
"But-" Steven started again, but Jasper silenced him with a single glare, making herself perfectly clear.
"Forget. It"
Sadly, Steven was unable to take Jasper's advice and forget what had happened today. Regardless of what she or Peridot said, Steven knew he had seen something strange in the warp stream. By the end of day, Steven was lying curled up in his bed, nervously wrapped in the blankets. He didn't know how late it was, but he hadn't been able to get even an ounce of sleep. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't take his mind off what he had seen.
From his bed, Steven kept glancing down at the Warp Pad, resting in front of the Temple door, less than twenty feet away from him. If something was warping through the Warp Pads, then it could show up here at any moment in his very own home, whatever it was that he saw.
"Lapis?" he said.
"Oh, hi Steven" Lapis said.
"What are you doing up?"
"Nothing" she said vaguely, walking up the stairs to Steven's room, before taking a seat at the foot of his bed. "Is something wrong?"
"I can't sleep" he muttered into his blanket.
"Really? Me neither" Lapis said quietly, staring out over the house.
"You sleep?" Steven asked, looking up at her, surprised.
Lapis nodded her head. "I like to sleep sometimes. I mean, I don't need to do it, but I really like it. I find it to be really peaceful. You just lie back, letting your mind and body drift off, like your floating away on boat down a gentle, quiet stream that'll carry you somewhere peaceful
Steven smiled softly as he listened to Lapis' words, feeling his head fall back on his pillow, his eyelids beginning to grow heavier.
"But lately" Lapis continued, face darkening and her tone shifting with a far more ominous effect. "I can't get to sleep anymore. I'm not sure why. It's like, if I close my eyes it fells like I'm falling, like I'm being dragged down into an endless, crushing, suffocating dark chasm that I can't ever escape.
Lapis shivered a little, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as though cold. "Do you ever feel like that, Steven?" she asked, casually. Lapis turned to look at Steven, who was hiding behind every fold of blanket he could pull towards him, his eyes wide and unblinking, his face as white as a sheet, with sweating pouring down his forehead.
"No" he squeaked quietly.
"Oh" Lapis simply replied, looking neither surprised nor disappointed by his answer. "Well, ok then. Sorry to bother you. Good night".
And with that, Lapis walked down the stairs of Steven's bedroom and then back into the Temple, oblivious to the terror she had unintentionally instilled into Steven. From his bed, Steven gulped and took one more look down at the Warp Pad. No use in denying it any longer. He picked up his fully loaded water gun that was on the side of his and pumped the nozzle.
"Looks like I'm not sleeping tonight."
Early the next morning, the three Crystal Gems had found Steven lying at front of the door, sound asleep, the water gun in his lap. Granted, they weren't exactly sure why he was sleeping on the floor and not his own bed, but they were grateful nonetheless that he wasn't awake as that would spoil the surprise that they had ready for him.
"Steven! Steven, wake up!" With a giddy expression, Peridot crouched down in front of Steven's sleeping form and started repeatedly poking him in the forehead with the tip of her cylinder fingers. But despite her relentless prodding, Steven didn't stir. Peridot soon frowned with impatience at her lack of success. Moving in closer, she picked up one of Steven's drooping eyelids and peered inside, hoping to somehow examine his degree of consciousness from the disposition of his eyeball.
Steven suddenly sprang to life with a startled cry so loud it made Peridot retract back from him at once, as he opened fired with his water gun in a wild frenzy. Peridot narrowly side stepped the stream of water which was now flying in the direction of Lapis, who simply raised a single index finger in the air, altering the angle of the water and, perhaps unintentionally, re-directing the stream back at Peridot who received a face full of the splash, much to her chagrin.
Jasper, who was standing next to Lapis, both her arms tucked in behind her back, chuckled snidely at Peridot's soaked face.
"Nice shot" she said to Steven. "Guess you earn the cookie we made for you". Jasper pulled her arms out, holding giant chocolate chip cookie, the size of a car wheel, in one oven mitten hand.
"Why is it so big?" Steven asked, squinting his tired eyes at the cookie, unsure if he was seeing things or not.
"We kept arguing about how many you should get" Lapis explained, with a soft smile. "So, we decided to just let you have one, but we then decided to make it an extra big one"
"But now we going to have to re-evaluate your cookie privileges, both in quantity and size" Peridot said sternly, transforming her levitating digits into a rotating fan to dry her face.
"I'm sorry, Peridot" Steven said, sadly, sinking lower to the floor.
"You didn't sleep last night, did you?" Jasper said, noting Steven haggard expression.
Steven responded by letting out a long, tired yawn. "I guess not"
"What was preventing you from getting sleep?" Peridot asked, inquiringly
"It's about what happened yesterday" Steven admitted guiltily.
"What about yesterday?" Peridot asked, confused as to what Steven was referring to. Steven turned his head up her in surprise.
"You know? Yesterday, when we out on our mission"
"And….?" Peridot said slowly.
"When we were in the warp stream!"
Peridot blinked, still looking confused. She cast a questioning look over to Lapis, who merely shrugged in response. She then turned to Jasper, who was in the middle of taking a large, unapologetic bite out of Steven's cookie.
Peridot then looked over to a large glass jar that was sitting on the counter top in the kitchen. Inside the jar, housed the tiniest new addition to their home, who was now resting peaceful on a small bed of green leaves and twigs.
"Is there something wrong with Lady Bug-Steven?" Peridot said pointing at the jar. "I'm sure she's satisfied with her new accommodations"
"NO!" Steven snapped angrily. "I mean about what I saw outside the warp stream"
Peridot blinked again, and then threw her head back in burst of laughter. "Oh, that. You're concerned with that thing you mistakenly believe you saw in the warp stream yesterday but didn't actually see. That's quite a relief. I was worried it was something much more serious"
"But I did see something!" Steven said. "There was a red warp stream, and something was moving around it in"
Peridot crouched down in front of Steven once again, beaming at him with a kind of motherly, patronising smile
"Steven, your fears are a very natural and important survival instinct. But in this instance, they are very unwarranted and mildly inconvenient. Allow me to reiterate. There is no such thing as a red warp stream. And more over is the fact that nothing on Earth could possibly be using the Warp Pads except for the four of us and my robonoids"
"Well what about Garnet!?" Steven countered. "Can't she use the Warp Pads too?"
There was another awkward silence in the room, which seemed to have become the norm every time Garnet was brought up. Now looking far more alert and serious, Jasper unceremoniously shoved her partially eaten cookie into Lapis' hands. Peridot instinctively stood up and moved out of Jasper's way as she approached Steven, dropping down to one knee and staring at him with a steady gaze.
"Did you think it was Garnet that you saw yesterday?" she asked him, looking him dead in the eye. It wasn't a joke. It was a serious question.
Steven held Jasper's gaze and teetered on an answer, until he finally sighed, lowering his head. "No" he admitted truthfully. "I thought that it was something else. Can fusions make red warp streams?"
"First of all, no they cannot" Peridot said, levitating one of metal finger to stand in a perfectly vertical line. She then raised a second finger parallel to the first one. "And letter number B, red warp streams don't exist"
"There's be no sign of Garnet since our last fight" Jasper said, standing back up to tower over Peridot. She crossed her arms as she contemplated the situation. "Either she's lying low somewhere or she's keeping herself on the move"
"It would make more logical sense for her not to use the Warp Pads as to the avoid the risk of running into us by accident" Peridot said. "And even if she was using the Warp Pads, I would know about it."
"Hmph, then it couldn't have been her" Jasper said, rubbing her chin, though not looing entirely unconvinced.
"But wait a second, what if it was Garnet?" Lapis said, abruptly. Everyone in the room turned to look at the blue Gem in surprise. With half-eaten cookie still between her arms, she quickly rushed in between Peridot and Jasper. "And if it really is her, then we should go and take a look, shouldn't we? Just to be sure!"
"That would be a tremendous waste of time and energy" Peridot said, making it clear how much she disliked the such a suggestion.
"But we should still do it, just to be sure!" Lapis stressed, squeezing the half-eaten cookie between her arms so tightly that it began to crack. She moved closer to Jasper, looking up at her with a sense of impending urgency. "We need to-I mean, Steven needs to feel secure. He can't sleep because he's worried about what he saw. If we go and see that it was nothing, we'll know for sure, right? We can't take that chance"
Jasper stared down at Lapis' pleading face, her own expression as hard and uncompromising as always, like a parent unwilling to give into a child's begging. She turned to Peridot who shook her head and gave a sour look of disapproval. Finally, Jasper looked down at Steven again, giving him a hard stare.
"You really can't sleep, huh?" she said, sounding as close to sympathetic as she could be.
Steven slowly nodded his head in confirmation. Jasper sighed heavily, placing her hands on her hips, knowing there was only one way to settle this. "Fine. We'll check out the Warp Pads".
Steven smiled happily, while Peridot continued to scowl, mumbling under breath. Lapis simply lowered her head and let out a tense breath that she had been holding.
For the rest of the day, Steven and the Crystal Gems had been teleporting to each of the Warp Pads, stopping to check for any signs of strange activity, but no matter where they went or how long they spent there, they had found nothing out of the ordinary. Or at least nothing exceptionally out of the ordinary for the four of them. For the next stop on their tour, they arrived at the Sky Spire, where they had originally found the Heaven Beetle.
"Nothing here either" Jasper said, taking a brief survey of the area.
"Except, Steven Junior" Lapis said, pointing at the old goat whom Steven had adopted on their last outing, who was laying cuddled in the grass next to a female goat as well as several smaller, younger goats. "Hey, look at that, he's got a Steven Junior Junior of his own now"
"Guess that makes you a grandpa, huh, kid?" Jasper said, giving Steven a playful ruffle on his head.
"We're getting off task here" Steven said, sounding uncharacteristically impatient, swatting Jasper's hand away.
"A pointless task." Peridot muttered bitterly, looking quite fed up at this stage. "As I already said at the previous fifteen Warp Pads, this is a total waste of time and energy. We have found nothing just as I already predicted we would. There's nothing wrong with the Warp Pads. If there was, I would know"
"But you're wrong" Steven muttered, angrily rolling his eyes.
Peridot suddenly flushed at Steven's comment, looking almost indignant as she rounded on him. "I am not wrong, Steven. It is an objective fact that nothing on Earth can use the Warp Pads except for the four of us and my robonoids!"
"Unless it was something that came from space" Lapis said softy. Peridot threw her an angry glare, for both taking Steven's side in the argument and for making a legitimately valid point.
"Alright, that's it" Peridot said angrily, stamping her foot on the Warp Pad. "I am putting an end this farce!"
They all soon arrived at the Galaxy Warp. Peridot quickly marched off the Warp Pad before others and gestured out across the empty platform with her hand.
"Look, here are all the Warp Pads on the planet connecting us to other planets. If something was coming from space, it would be through here. Now let's examine the evidence, shall we?"
Peridot walked towards the largest Warp Pad, located centre of the platform; just like the others it was cracked with obvious signs of damage.
"Now, as you can plainly see right here that this Warp Pad is severely damaged, thereby rendering it inoperable." Peridot picked up a chunk of the broken Warp Pad and threw it over her shoulder with a backhand gesture, where it landed at Steven's feet. He glanced down at it with an irritated expression as Peridot continued.
"Second, as further confirmation that this Warp Pad is inactive, it was diligently marked such, as will you note, by this icon of a weeping, grid-pattern compression disk". Peridot bent down and pointed to a sticker of a very sad looking cartoon waffle that was pressed onto the side of the Warp Pad. She straightened up again, folding her hands behind her back, as she turned away from the others.
"And this sticker was placed here by none other…. than Steven Quartz Universe!" Peridot turned around in an overly dramatic fashion and threw an accusing finger directly at Steven. From either side of him, Jasper and Lapis briefly glanced down at Steven, who groaned in annoyance.
"Oh, wait? Still not convinced?" Peridot said, with not so-subtle sarcasm. "Well let's test out the Warp Pad to be sure"
"Peridot…" Jasper warned, already getting impatient, but Peridot was not listening. With a kind of deranged smile, she stepped onto the Warp Pad, then turned to face Steven, Jasper and Lapis, folding her arms behind her back.
"Warp Pad, please activate and teleport me off the planet" she said, closing her eyes expectantly.
A long moment passed. Nothing happened. The Warp Pad did not power up and Peridot remained exactly where she was. Still smiling, Peridot opened her eyes and glanced around the Galaxy Warp, then up to the sky, as if to confirm that she was still on the same planet
"Oh, look at that!" she said, feigning shock as only Peridot could. "I'm still here. How very unsurprising!" Dropping her smile, Peridot walked off the Warp Pad and stood in front of Steven, Jasper and Lapis, folding her arms with a deadpanned, yet no less triumphant expression. "Satisfied?"
"Alright, you proved your point" Jasper said, not wanting to hear anymore of Peridot's rambling. "Nothing has been coming through these Warp Pads"
"But just because no one is using the Warp Pad doesn't mean nothing is coming through space!" Lapis said, with the same kind of anxious urgency she had displayed earlier. "Steven said that Sapphire came here to find Ruby. What if the reason we can't find Garnet is because she's not on Earth anymore? What if she-"
"We don't know that for sure" Jasper said sharply, quickly putting a firm hand on Lapis' shoulder which silenced her. "And even if they somehow got off the planet, there's no way the two of them could have gone back. Least not together"
"But can we really be sure!?" Lapis said, still sounding unconvinced, her emotions beginning to rise in her voice. "I mean, Steven might still need to feel secure"
"Steven is fine, Lapis" Jasper said curtly, gesturing at him. "Look at him. He's plenty secure"
"Of course he feels secure" Peridot said, closing her eyes in an self-assured expression of confidence and superiority. "He understands that he was wrong and obviously feels better now"
Steven had moved away from the Crystal Gems while they had been talking and was now kneeling in front of the Warp Pad, staring the waffle sticker he had placed there weeks ago. It was totally untouched, just like the rest of the Warp Pad. Everything Peridot said made total sense and he had no rational way of refuting it. But despite all that, despite knowing that he had no way of backing up his claim, Steven still knew he was right.
"I'm a little tired," he said after a moment's pause, before rounding angrily on the Crustal Gems. "Of you guys telling me how I feel! I know I saw something outside the stream!"
"And I know that you didn't!" Peridot snapped. "Do I have to bring up the cartoon waffle again?"
"Look, I'm telling you that I saw something, and you keep saying that I'm wrong. You keep acting like you know everything! How can you be so sure?!"
Peridot let out another angry groan. "You want to know how I'm sure? Fine!"
With a sour, yet very determined look, Peridot activated her finger-screen and inputted some sequence of information that she alone could understand. Less than a minute after she did this, the single functioning Warp Pad on which they arrived began to glow as a dozen of Peridot's flask robonoids descended upon the Galaxy Warp, moving in single file to standing in front of Peridot.
"As you know, I use my flask robonoids to patrol the Earth using the Warp Pads to keep a look out for any sign of Corrupted Gem activity" she said. "But immediately after our initial encounter with Garnet, I sent all of them into the warp stream on a special reconnaissance mission. For the weeks now, they've been keeping routine surveillance on the Warp Pad across the planet"
Images flashed across Peridot's screen of Warp Pads in different locations, all of which appeared untouched and vacant, save for one in the woods that was covered by a scurry of squirrels.
"Well, have you been watching all the Warp Pads?" Steven asked, defiantly.
"No, I don't have enough robonoids for that" Peridot admitted without hesttation. "But I do have enough to rotate between Warp Pad locations that have the highest statistical likelihood of encountering something if they were being used"
Steven was about to open his mouth to speak again, but Peridot refused to give him the chance as she sharply cut over him.
"Not a single one of my robonoids has malfunctioned, none of them are unaccounted for and I have thoroughly reviewed all their log information. I haven't been just keeping idle, Steven" she said, giving him a very serious look. "Nothing has been using the Warp Pads without me knowing. I wouldn't be making such statement if I didn't have the knowledge to back them up!"
"But it wasn't the robonoids!" Steven said, throwing his arms up in the air. Never before had he felt like such a broken record. "It was a red warp stream!"
"This is becoming an increasingly derivative discussion" Peridot growled, narrowing her eyes at Steven.
"That's because you're not listening!" Steven snapped angrily.
"I did listen" Peridot said, quite calmly. She then bent down and locked eyes with Steven in an angry glare which he returned in kind. "Then I proved you wrong!"
Steven groaned, his fatigue and frustration now getting the better of him as he launched into a full blow argument with Peridot, each of them now shouting over the other, both trying to affirm that they were right.
"Should we… try and stop them?" Lapis hesitantly asked Jasper, looking visibly worried as Steven and Peridot were practically screaming at each other now.
"I honestly don't know who to root for" Jasper said with a very amused smirk as she couldn't help but enjoy this rather entertaining show before taking place before them. Lapis on the other hand, was most certainly not enjoying this show of hostility between Steven and Peridot, having never seen the two of them fight like this.
Lapis soon began feel a terrible, squirming feeling of uneasiness swelling up inside her body as Steven angrily rounded on Peridot once more.
"How many times do I have to say it?!" he said, stamping his foot, refusing to back down. "I saw something yesterday and it turned whole warp stream turned red"
"There is no such thing as a red warp stream!" Peridot said, stamping her own foot on the ground, in equal refusal.
"How do you know that?!" Steven shot back at her.
"I know, because I am right!"
"Well, what if you're wrong?!"
"If I'm wrong about these things, then that means we all are in very serious danger! Do you want me to be wrong?!"
That final statement proved to be the breaking point for Lapis. Her eyes widened as they snapped to the broken Warp Pad that was behind Peridot and Steven. Trembling, Lapis slowly retreated back few steps, her eyes locked onto the Warp Pad.
Jasper was in the middle of another amused chuckle when she soon noticed Lapis backpedalling. Dropping her smirk and looking concerned, Jasper was about to ask Lapis what was wrong, when her face suddenly flushed with her terror. Closing her eyes shut, Lapis clasped her hands over her head, as if to block out some terrible sound before she turned about face and ran away from the group, stopping at the very edge of the Galaxy Warp.
Jasper watched with surprise as Lapis stormed off. For a moment, she looked to be at a complete loss as to what to do or say, as if she couldn't decide whether or not to go after Lapis. Jasper then turned back to Peridot and Steven, who were still in the middle of their argument, oblivious to Lapis' sudden reaction. Realising at once what had set Lapis off, Jasper decided that the entertainment of this entire escapade was official over.
With a stern scowl and supreme authority, Jasper marched forward toward the still ranting Peridot and Steven, thrusting herself right between the two of them.
"Alright, enough!" Jasper roared, so loud it silenced them both instantly. "Both of you need to step back and shut up!"
"But, I didn't-" Peridot began.
Jasper roughly grabbed Peridot by the shoulder, squeezing her so tight that it cut her off from speaking again.
"Shut. Up." Jasper repeated in a lower, more dangerous tone, pulling Peridot in closer. Giving a brief jerk of her head, Jasper indicated over to Lapis, who was still standing alone at the edge of the platform, far away from the rest of them. Peridot's face paled when she saw her and she placed her hand over her mouth, already realising what she had done.
Steven likewise settled down once he noticed that Lapis was now standing by herself, hugging her arms around her body tightly, practically shivering as she stared down at the water below, which now churning violently in form a relentless whirlpool that appeared out of nowhere.
With an almost fearful expression, Jasper slowly approached Lapis, who made no acknowledgement of Jasper's presence as she stood next to her. Jasper her raised her hand as though to touch Lapis on the shoulder, but hesitated, looking very unsure of herself. After a moment, she took a quick breath to steady herself, before she finally placed her hand on Lapis shoulder as gently as she could. Lapis turned to face Jasper, faint tears forming in her eyes.
"There's nothing here and there's nothing using the Warp Pads" Jasper said firmly, not betraying any sense of doubt. "We're safe."
Lapis held Jasper's gaze for a moment, before she gulped and nodded her head, accepting her answer without question, although she didn't look entirely reassured, returning to stare down at the water below. Steven slowly approached the two of them, intending to say something to Lapis, but was soon silenced when Jasper turned to glare at him.
"And we are going home, now!"
It was now late in the evening time, the sun having already gone down hours ago. Steven was alone in the living room, sitting crossed legged on the floor directly in front of the Warp Pad, a small bowl resting on his lap. His eyes were even more blood shot than before, his face much more haggard, as he still not gotten any sleep since they returned, but he refused to take his eyes off the Warp Pad.
He didn't care what Jasper or Peridot said; he knew he was right. Before he was too afraid to sleep. Now, he simply didn't want to. He wanted to meet the mysterious thing face to face, expecting it to appear on the Warp Pad at any moment.
The front door creaked opened as Lapis entered into the living room, still looking as melancholy as ever. She soon spotted Steven in front of the Warp Pad.
"Hi, Steven" she said quietly, as approached. She took a seat on the floor beside him. She gestured down to the bowl on his lap. "What are you eating?"
"Macaroni and nothing" he answered bitterly, stuffing a spoonful of the food into his mouth, not even bothering to turn around to look at her.
"You're still thinking about the thing you saw in the warp stream" Lapis said. It wasn't really a question. More like a despondent observation.
"Yeah" Steven said, shrugging indifferent.
Lapis sighed and looked off to one corner of the room. "Steven, don't you think, that maybe you should just let this go? I mean, look at what it's doing to you. You can't sleep, you're getting into fights with Peridot. This whole…thing isn't good for you. You need to stop dwelling on this"
There was a long silence. Behind them, Lady-Bug Steven was fluttering away inside of her glass jar, tapping away at the glass surface as though she was agitated in some way.
"Do you believe me?" Steven asked softly.
"What?" Lapis said in surprise, turning to look at Steven, who eyes were still on the Warp Pad.
"You never said anything about it earlier. Did you believe me when I told you I saw something?" Steven turned to look at Lapis, his eyes still looking horribly red. Lapis held Steven's gaze for a moment before turning away and looking straight ahead at the Temple door.
"Peridot and Jasper said we are safe, so that means we are" she said very steady and with absolute resolve, keeping her eyes firmly on the door and nothing else. Her hands gripped the helm of her skirt tightly. "No matter what. We are safe"
"I know they said that" Steven sighed wearily, but still keeping himself firm. "But I know I saw something"
"You didn't see anything, Steven" Lapis said, her voice dropping lower.
"I did" Steven repeated. "I don't know what, but it was there and I saw it and-"
"NO, YOU DIDN'T!" Lapis snapped loudly, springing to her feet so fast that it made Steven practically jump from where he was sitting, complete taken back by Lapis sudden outburst. Lapis towered over Steven, glaring down at him fiercely and yelling at him as though he were someone else entirely, someone that she truly despised. "There was nothing out there and you were just seeing things. You're wrong, ok! You have to be wrong!"
Lapis turned her back to Steven, giving him full view of her exposed blue gemstone. "Everything was fine before all this happened. We were all so happy, but now all you want to do is to keeping thinking about this stupid thing!" Lapis whirled around again, giving Steven a desperate and frustrated expression. "You're just acting like a….like a pathetic little sad stack!"
Steven said nothing and stared back at Lapis as her words sank. If he was hurt by statement, he didn't show it, as he appeared just as tired and drained as before.
"Then, I guess I'll stay here and be a sad stack then" Steven said, grumpily stuffing some more Marconi into his mouth and returning to his vigil over the Warp Pad.
Lapis stared down at Steven for another moments, speechless, before she finally turned away from him and marched past the Warp Pad, into the Temple door without so much as a backwards glance at him as the door closed behind her.
Alone once again, Steven continued to stare at the Warp Pad with the same tired expression as before. He slowly lifted another spoonful up to his mouth but then paused before tossing the spoon to the floor in anger.
"Ugh! Why am I doing this?" Steven sighed. He set the bowl of macaroni-and-nothing down on the floor, before standing back up again and shouting up to the celling.
"Fine. I give up! Steven was wrong and everyone else and especially Peridot was right! Nothing's going to come through that Warp Pad!"
Throwing his hands up in frustrated defeat, Steven walked away from the Warp Pad and headed toward his bed. Even if he was wrong, that wouldn't stop from finally getting some much-needed sleep.
But just as he was halfway through the living room, Steven stopped when he started to hear something; a slight banging noise coming from above his head. Confused, Steven glanced up to ceiling, noticing a sprinkle of dust beginning to fall down from one isolated spot of the roof, as if something was hitting away against
After a moment, the banging then stopped and was replaced by a loud whirling sound. In an instant, thin red laser shot through the wooden ceiling, just barely missing Steven's foot as he jumped back to avoid it. The laser cut clearly through the ceiling, moving in perfect circle, until a round piece of wood dropped to the floor at Steven's feet. He glanced down at the piece of wood and then back up to the freshly cut hole in his celling.
With no pause for an invitation, a black, square cube, roughly the same size as a small television set, slowly descended down from the hole and into the Beach house, stopping to hover in mid-air, a few feet off the floor, directly in front of a stunned looking Steven; in the centre of the cube's face was a bright red sphere, much like an eyeball, that was staring right at Steven.
For a few seconds, Steven stared at the strange black cube with a blank expression, having no idea what to make of this surprise visitor. But then his face broke into a mad grin and he let out a triumphant, almost insane sounding laughter as he came to a single brilliant conclusion.
"You were the thing in the warp stream!" Steven said to the black cube; he had no idea if it could understand him, but it just felt so good to say that. "You did come from space! What the heck are you?"
The cube gave no response to Steven's question, other than to give a slight humming noise. Steven had never seen anything like this cube before. It appeared to be made of some kind of metal, but the surface area was so smooth and sleek it looked almost unnatural. It was black in colour, like a deep shade of ink, with the exception of the red eye in the centre of its frontmost face as well as a set of horizonal and vertical red lines that stretched along the sides of the cube, dividing each face of it into four squares.
The cube hovered closer to Steven, its red eye blinking at him several times. In a flash of light, the cube fired a grid patterned laser beam from its eye that washed over Steven's entire body several times.
Feeling a little embarrassed, Steven raised his arms above his chest in an attempt to cover himself, just as the cube finished its scan. Now seeming to have lost all interest in Steven, the cube then hovered over into the kitchen area, firing another scanning laser the glass jar containing Lady-Bug Steven. It then moved to do the same thing to the fridge, as well as other items in the kitchen.
Steven watched in the cube with a curious expression, wondering what it could be doing as it continued to scan various objects throughout the house, until a sudden realisation came to his mind. Steven glanced back over his shoulder, to the one thing in the room the cube had yet to scan
"You're looking for the Warp Pad, aren't you?" he said.
The cube had just finished scanning MC Bear-Bear, when it turned around and hovered over the top of Steven's head, moving toward the Warp Pad. Instinct kicking in, Steven took a running start and leapt up into the air and landed on top of the cube, holding onto either side of it.
"Nice try, but I'll never let you on the Warp Pad!" he vowed valiantly, failing to register the fact that his efforts had no real effect on the cube's mobility as it remained in the air, despite the extra weight.
Yet surprisingly, the cube did stop moving, remaining stationary in front of the Warp Pad. The cube then released another scanning laser that swept over the Warp Pad. Steven raised his hand in front of the cube's red eye in an attempt to block the laser and stop it from doing whatever it was doing, but his effort appeared to be in vain. The cube completed its scan and now began to beep loudly, like some kind of time, until finally it stopped. Then it began to hum loudly, its red eye glowing, the red lines along its side beginning to light up as well.
He had no idea what this meant, but Steven had very bad feeling about this. Before he figure out what to do, there was a familiar chiming noise as the Temple door opened up again, with Lapis striding out of from it, a guilty expression plastered on her face as she spoke very rapidly.
"Steven, I'm sorry for what I said before, I shouldn't have yell at you like that, I was just -Steven?" Lapis stopped dead in the middle of her apology, taking the moment to stare in dumb surprise at the sight of Steven, riding the floating black cube in front of the Warp Pad. Admittedly, this was not the strangest situation she had walked in to find Steven.
Steven offered Lapis a nervous smile and was about to try to come up with kind of explanation, when the black cube stopped blinking. The red eye began glow brightly as the cube released a string of red-coloured electricity from its core that surrounded both it and Steven. The air around the cube began to vibrate, and Steven just caught one last glimpse of Lapis' terrified face before both he and the cube disappeared in a flash crimson beam of light that travelled through the ceiling and up into the sky.
Steven let out a yell, holding onto the cube for dear life as it pulled him upwards through the sea of red energy at an extremely fast pace. While it may have looked strange, Steven knew instantly where he was; in the middle of a warp stream, but it was unlike any warp he had ever experienced.
Before, it felt he was floating gently through space, but in here, everything felt so heavy and intense, like his body was being squeezed inside a giant vice. Steven had no idea where this stream was taking him, but he refused to let go of the black cube.
But then to Steven's surprise, a dozen more of the black cubes appeared inside the warp stream, all them gathering around Steven, or rather gathering around the cube he was holding.
"Hey, what are you doing" Steven said, as the cubes began to draw closer to him, pressing up against his body, as if trying to squeeze the life out of him.
Beginning to panic, Steven pulled as hard as he could on the cube he was holding and flung his body to the side in order free himself from the crushing embrace of the other cubes, but in the process both he and the cube were pushed outside of the warp stream into the void. Floating away through the empty space, Steven watched as the red warp stream vanished once again, leaving him totally stranded and helpless. The freezing temperature washed over Steven almost instantly, his body already starting to shiver from the cold.
"I was right" he whispered, using what little air there was, still keeping the black cube secure in his hands as they started to go numb. "And now I'm gonna die... a tired, frozen little... sad sack."
Slowly losing all sensation in his body, Steven let out a tiny gasp and felt his eyelids become heavy again; he suddenly was reminded of how very tired he was. Maybe now he could finally get some sleep
Just before his eyes closes completely, he saw the brief glimpse of a teal warp stream appearing in front of him and then the blurry streak of something blue coming straight toward him. The next thing Steven knew, he was caught by a pair of blue arms that wrapped around his body. Steven felt his body fly through the void, veering around and then returning to the safety of the warp stream.
As soon as he was back in the stream, Steven felt the cold air disappear and the oxygen return to his lungs as he began to gasp loudly, cuddle inside a pair of blue arms.
"It's ok, I got you" said an all too familiar voice. "Just breath"
"Lapis?" Steven wheezed, coughing slightly, looking up at her from the front of her chest, his vision returning to normal.
"Just breath" Lapis replied firmly. She reached down and took the black cube that was still in his arms. "So this is what you saw" she said, eyeing the strange cube was an dark glare. Lapis looked back at down Steven, shamefaced.
"I'm so sorry" she said, remorseful, hugging him even tighter, resting her chin on the top of his head, tears streaming down her face. "You were right. You were right this whole time and we should have listened to you!"
"I don't care about" Steven said, now crying himself.
"But you were right!" she choked out, breaking away to look him dead in the eye, her faced flushed with sadness and guilt. "Because I really did believe you the whole time. But I didn't want to agree. I was too afraid. I was so afraid something bad was about to happen. I thought if I said anything then it would come true. But it didn't matter if I said it or not. It happened regardless. I shouldn't have been trying to ignore it".
Lapis turned away, disgusted by her own cowardice. "I'm just a big sad sack" she said quietly, sounding miserable.
Steven was about to offer another word of condolence until they were joined in the stream by Jasper and Peridot.
"Steven, are you ok?" Peridot said franticly. "Lapis said she wanted to apologize to you, but the she said you went into the warp stream. I sent the robonoids to track you down, but they couldn't find you for some reason and there was big black scorch mark in the kitchen for some reason and-what is that?" Peridot immediately ceased her ranting, her face dropping into a wide eye expression the moment she saw the black cube that Lapis holding.
Lapis passed the strange cube over to Jasper, who was looking it with hostile suspicion, before Peridot quickly snatched it out of her hands, examining the cube from all sides and angles as though she had never seen anything like it before.
"I don't understand" she whispered. "What is this thing? How can it be using the Warp Pads? Why didn't my robonoids report this back to me?"
"It wasn't using the Warp Pads" Steven said, his voice a little raspy. "It can warp all by itself!"
Peridot looked up from the cube to gape at Steven, at a complete loss for words. "What? But that's….that's not…"
"Where was it going?" Jasper cutting in at once, with a commanding tone.
"I think I know" Lapis said, glaring up at the top of the warp stream.
Soon enough, the four of them arrived back at the Galaxy Warp. Jasper disembarked first, taking a cautionary glance in every direction, looking for any sign of danger. After giving her some quick reassurance that he was fine, Lapis set Steven down onto the ground, the two of them following after Jasper.
Peridot however, remained behind on the Warp Pad still far too engrossed with the little black cube, prodding away at it with her metal finger as she tried to unravel its secrets.
"What kind of shell is this?" she growled. "Must some an interface somewhere and…..aha! Found it!" With a triumphant grin, Peridot inserted one of her fingers into one a small socket that was underneath of the cube's red eye.
"Now, I'll just interface with it and see what this thing is really-"
The red eye of the cube lit up at once; Peridot's smile soon faded as the eye fired a red beam of energy directly into her chest, blasting off her feet and sending her crashing into one of the damage Warp Pads, chunks of it breaking apart as she collided with the crystalline structure. The cube, now hovering in the air by itself, started moving toward the downed Peridot, its eye glowing as it prepared to fire at her once more.
Before the cube could let off another attack, Jasper quickly rushed in from behind and headbutted the cube into the ground with her crash helmet before it could do any more damage. The impact was enough to crack the surface of the cube, as it lay side, tiny red sparks firing out from its damaged eye.
"Peridot, are you ok?" Steven asked with concern as he helped her back up.
"I'll be fine" Peridot said, with a slight cough, rubbing her chest. Despite that grievous setback, her eyes were soon focused once more on the immobile black cube at Jasper's feet, having intent of trying to examine it again.
But before Peridot had the chance to get neat the cube, the sky above the Galaxy Warp soon lit up as a dozen more rays of crimson beams began to rain down upon the them, but the beams did not strike any of the vacant Warp Pads. Instead they were landing in random locations around the Galaxy Warp, each one dropping another black cube and each one accompanied by a loud booming cackle as they dissipated, like a clap of thunder.
"Where are they all coming from!?" Steven shouted, jumping out of the way as a red warp stream struck the ground beside him. Eventually, the beams finally stopped, and the Galaxy Warp was now swarming with numerous black cubes, hovering in the air like a kind of plague.
The Crystal Gems quickly grouped together in a tight formation, weapons at the ready and covering each other's backs, expecting an imminent attack any second. But the cubes did not appear to have taken any notice of them. Instead, they all began to move tothe centre of the platform, towards the largest Warp Pad.
As they gathered around it, eight of the cubes hovered closer to the Warp Pad, each one firing a laser that scanned over a different section of the damaged crystal. The cubes then began to beep, like some kind of strange orchestra, processing whatever information they had just retrieved from their scan.
"What are they doing?" Steven asked aloud, half expecting the Crystal Gems to say something, but they appeared to be just as lost as he was.
The cubes stopped beeping, all of them going silent. Seconds later, the red eyes on each of the cubes began to glow once again before they all fired another beam of energy directly into the Warp Pad, yet the crystal did not shatter from the impact. Instead, the Warp Pad seemed to be absorbing the energy from the beams, which turned the colour of the crystal from teal to red until finally the Warp Pad released a beam of red energy up into the sky
Steven was about to ask what was happening, but he suddenly felt Jasper's huge arm wrap around his waist and lift him off his feet, as he and Jasper, along with Peridot and Lapis, quickly ducked down into the open crevice surrounding the centre of the Galaxy Warp.
No sooner than they had moved out of sight, the red beam from the Warp Pad dissolved into the air, the black cubes now remaining stationary in the air surrounding, as two unknown figures appeared to stand in the centre of the Warp Pad.
The one to the right was a tall, skinny, yet elegant looking physique, with pure white skin, red hair; in the centre of their head, was an oval shaped gemstone. They were wearing a black coloured dress and frilly skirt, with black legging that reached up to their upper thigh and with matching, fingerless gloves that stretched past their elbows.
The second visitor was a smaller and rounder looking being, with purple skin and long, spikey white hair that looked distinctly to Jasper's own. They were even wearing a similar looking body suit, with a slight difference in colour. A bright purple gem was visible on the middle of their chest, just below the shoulder line.
"Whoa!" the small one said in amazement, surveying the entire Galaxy Warp. She elbowed the taller being in the leg, nearly knocking them off the Warp Pad in surprise. "Check it out, Pearl. It worked like a charm"
"Yes, a successful test run" the one named Pearl replied, clearly satisfied, although nowhere near as enthusiastic as her compatriot. "Let me just mark that down on the list". Pearl pulled out a small rectangular device, which soon expanded out to form a holographic display that which several illegible markings on it. Pearl began to carefully tab at the display with a single finger.
The smaller one bent down and tapped their foot on the surface of the Warp Pad, noting the obvious cracks. "Hey, how come the Homeworld Warp looks all broken?"
"Amethyst, please" Pearl said, with a weary sigh. "The Hexahedroids do not fix the Warp Pads. They themselves can act as portable Warp Pads. Once they've mapped and recorded the appropriate locations in their database, they can teleport any Gem anywhere on a planet. But they still have limitations with interplanetary travel. Luckily for us, the base of the Homeworld Warp was still intact, allowing them to manually override it. Weren't you listening when all this was explained?
"Think you just reminded me why I wasn't listening, Pearl" Amethyst replied, nonchalantly picking her own nose with her pinkie finger.
"That one's name is Amethyst and the other one's name is Pearl" Steven whispered to Jasper, listening to every word the two mysterious visitors were saying, peering up at them from the edge of the crevice.
"Good observation" Jasper whispered back to Steven; she may or not have been sarcastic in that remark. Her eyes were focused on the two Gems still standing on the Warp Pad, watching their every move like a hawk, looking ready to jump at them at the slightest hint of provocation. Beside her, Peridot and Lapis appeared far more intimated and fearful of the two invaders
With holographic display still in her hands, Pearl slowly and gracefully walked down the steps of the Warp Pad, keeping her eyes down on her list. "Ok, now next step on the list is to run a system check of the remaining-"
"Ahem!"
Pearl stopped half way down the steps, slowly turned back around to Amethyst, who was standing with a cocky smile, her arms crossed. "Um, hello? This is my mission remember? I'll decide what we do next"
"You may be my escort, but I'm the one with the assignment list!" Pearl replied with a faint hint of indignation, while tapping her hologram smarty with one slim finger.
Amethysts snorted, waving her hand dismissively. "So, what's next on the list?" she asked, putting an exaggerated face of disgust at the last word.
"The next step is to run a system check of the Hexahedroids to ensure they are still functioning after the warp stream override" Pearl said, as she continued down the steps, walking along the outer platform, obviously drawing closer to where Steven and the Crystal Gems were hiding. Behind him, Steven felt Jasper beginning to tense up, getting ready to pounce.
"After that we need to do some more test runs around the planet. Then we-"
Pearl yelped loudly as she nearly toppled over, just barely making to recover before she hit the ground. From the Warp Pad, Amethyst let out a boisterous chortle of laughter at her companion's near collapse. Surprised and just a little embarrassed, Pearl straightened herself up before looking down to see the cause of her misstep.
"What's this?" she said, sounding surprised. Down at her feet was one of the Hexahedroids, which Steven quickly recognised as the one that Jasper had headbutted earlier. Despite its damage, it still appeared to operational as it was making several feeble attempts to take flight, wanting to join its brethren in the air, but unable to manage move forward any more than a few inches at a time before falling down again.
With a curious expression, Pearl bent down and picked up the cracked cube, carefully running her hands along the damaged area. She then turned to Amethyst.
"Did you break this?" Pearl asked. She gave Amethyst a suspicious look, one that would suggest such an act of vandalism would not be out of the ordinary for her character.
"Don't look at me, I didn't touch it" Amethyst said, throwing her hands up. "Been up here the whole time"
"Hmm, that is odd" Pearl said. "All the other drones appear to be perfect working order, but this one seemed to have malfunctioned for some reason. Maybe it overloaded itself from excess warping. Oh dear, and here I thought this was going to be perfectly successful field test" she said, sounding quite disappointed. "Now, I'm going to have mark that down as well"
"It's just one broken bot, no big deal" Amethyst said, with casual shrug. "Here, I'll take care of it".
Striding off the Warp Pad and without pausing to register Pearl's protest, Amethyst snatched the Hexahedroid out of her hands. Taking up a stance on the outer platform, she tossed the droid upwards and watched as it came back down toward her.
With a sly grin, Amethyst then reached up to the gemstone in the centre of her chest and grasped freshly materialized handle, pulling it out to reveal a purple braided whip a good several feet in length. With a mighty heave and a painful sounding snap, she flexed the whip down in a straight line, slicing the airborne cube clean half.
From his hiding spot, Steven grimaced slightly. Part of him hoped that those cubes couldn't feel pain, since that looked like it hurt a lot.
Amethyst threw her head back and slapped her knee as she broke into a fit of uproarious laughter at the destruction she had just caused, as the broken pieces of the cube clattered to the ground, while Pearl on the other hand, gaped in horror at what she had done, looking completely aghast.
"That was a highly advanced piece of prototype technology!" Pearl picked up the pieces of the ruined Hexahedroid and brandishing them at Amethyst as if to make her understand the severity of what she had done, but Amethyst merely shrugged again, looking as unconcerned as ever.
"It's junk, now. Besides, you said it was broken anyway"
"Yes, but if we took it back we may have determined the cause of its malfun….oh never mind" Defeated and resigned, Pearl dropped the pieces of the Hexahedroids to the ground. She pulled back out her hologram. "Let's just move on. It's exactly my luck with an escort that's so-"
"So what? Reckless? Unprofessional? Fun!?" Amethyst yelled, completely unabashed, while flexing her arms in a smug pose.
"If those are the adjectives you prefer" Pearl muttered dryly under her breath. "In any case, after we run a full diagnostic check on the remaining Hexahedroids warping capabilities, we can then move on to check the status of the Prime Kindergarten and-"
"Yo, Pearl, check this out"
Annoyed at being interrupted yet again, Pearl groaned as she turned around to see Amethyst, now crouching down in front of the Warp Pad, staring at something out of view. Pearl walked back to the Warp Pad with a disinterested expression, but that soon changed once she got a proper look at what Amethyst was trying to show her.
The moment the two invaders had their backs turned, Jasper was already half way out from the crevice, until Peridot quickly grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her back down, frantically shaking her head. With great reluctance, Jasper relented and lowered herself back down into the crevice
Craning his neck up from the edge of the crevice, Steven could just barely make out what had caught the two Gems attention; it was his own cartoon waffle sticker, still stuck on the side of the Warp Pad.
"What the heck is it?" Amethyst said, peering at the small sticker with great interest.
"I have no idea" Pearl replied, crouching down next to her, looking a little more serious. "What is it doing on the Homeworld Warp?"
"Dunno" Amethyst said absently, her eyes still on the sticker. "Looks kinda cool though?"
Pearl rolled her eyes and sighed wearily. "Yes, cool. But I would I'd imagine that a responsible escort in charge of a very important assignment would understand that this is typically not a normal thing to find a on a Warp Pad, which may indicate that this site might have been compromised and is worth reporting back before we continue."
The was a short pause as Pearl waited for Amethyst to respond. When she failed to, Pearl spoke again, in a slightly more serious tone. "Particularly, when you remember who it is, we are reporting back to"
That final statement was enough to snap Amethyst to full attention, as she suddenly becoming much more alert and focused. "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely". Amethyst stood up again, adopting a much more serious tone and expression as she pulled the waffle sticker off the Warp Pad.
"We gotta report back, the uh, thing here, so we can….you know, be sure it's ok and stuff. Let's go Pearl!" she said, marching up the steps and back onto the Warp Pad.
"And the Hexahedroids?" Pearl asked, deadpanned.
Amethyst stopped in her tracks, quickly losing her tough façade as she fumbled at the question. "Oh, yea, we should, uh…."
"Do you mean to say I should send them back out to patrol the rest of the planet until we return?" Pearl finished, with a veteran's skill at subtle patronisation.
Amethyst stared at Pearl for a long moment, before shrugging, reverting to her previous laid-back attitude. "I mean, whatever's cool, I guess"
Pearl sighed once again and shook her head, before stepping back onto the Warp Pad to join Amethyst. Pearl then tabbed the screen of her holographic display once more.
Registering the command, Hexahedroids gathered around the Warp Pad just as before and fired their concentrated beams into the base of the crystal, which teleported both Pearl and Amethyst back to wherever they came from.
As soon they were gone, the Hexahedroids began to warp away one by one, until the Galaxy Warp was deserted once again.
With the coast finally clear, the Crystal Gems came from their hiding places, slowly gathering around the now deserted Galaxy Warp.
"Those were other Gems" Steven said, in both fear and wonder. "Where did they come from? What were they doing here?"
"This doesn't make any sense" Jasper muttered, placing her hands flat on the surface of the Warp Pad. "Why are they coming back? Why now?"
"They actually developed portable Warp Pad technology!" Peridot said, kneeling down next to the destroyed Hexahedroid. "That's not possible. That shouldn't be possible. What other advancements have they made since we've been gone? How could I be this far behind? Oh my stars, oh my stars, I cannot handle this!" Peridot stood up again, grabbing fistfuls of her own yellow hair as she started hyperventilating, pacing back and forth, appearing to be in the middle of nervous breakdown, losing all sense of control.
"What did they mean by the Kindergarten?" Steven asked, not understanding the terminology. "Are they going to come back. Are they going to bring more Gems with them?"
"There's nothing of value left for them on Earth" Jasper said, frustrated, as she stared at the surface of the Warp Pad, unable to comprehend their enemies' motives. "What could they be here for? What are they trying to do?"
"It doesn't matter…"
Steven, Jasper and Peridot immediately ceased their questions, all of them turning around in unison to see the only one of their number who was not panicking. Lapis was standing away from the group, her arms spread out in striking and terrifying pose, the wind ruffling through her hand. Her eyes were now gone, each replaced a sheet of clear glass. There was no trace of fear or doubt in her form. Just an unrestrained, furious sense of will and purpose.
"They are NOT coming back here!" she cried fiercely.
The Galaxy Warp began to shake as if an something was pounding at from the sea. Two massive arms made of water rose up out of the ocean, towering on either side of Lapis. Curling her own hands into fists, the water arms mimicked her movements. With a heavy grunt, Lapis then thrust her arms down, as the colossal water arms did the same, aiming directly for the Warp Pad in the centre of the Galaxy Warp.
Steven, Jasper and Peridot had only seconds to scramble away from the Warp Pad, as the two mighty fists came crashing down upon it simultaneously, hitting it with so much force that it the Galaxy Warp shook, with several large fissures and cracks spreading out from the centre. The watery fists retracted again and dissolved away into the ocean. Once they were gone, the four Crystal Gems could get a clear view of what had been done.
The Warp Pad that Pearl and Amethyst had used to travel here was no more, smashed into a thousand tiny pieces, practically nothing but powder, and without even a shred of doubt, ruined beyond any hope of repair. That was the end of it.
They hoped that was the end of it.