Chapter 4: Catch Up and Caught
Steven walked in the room with so much swagger he could make Amethyst blush. "So, uh, how's it going?" he asked the small group. They all just continued staring, blinded at the sure rambunctiousness that was the result of a visit to Fort Port. Steven, not wanting constant staring for the entire evening, quickly took off all the swag and put it in his back pack, and then quickly fixed his hair. He then joined the small group, taking a seat part way between Ruby and Yang. "So, uh, Steven that's Weiss. Weiss, Steven," Ruby said, trying to initiate a conversation. Weiss did something between a nod and a bow, and Steven replied likewise.
"Well, this is officially awkward, so I have a plan!" Yang proclaimed. The others turned to look at her. "Here's how things are going to go down. We'll each take a turn chatting with Steven, say ten minutes or so. During that, everyone else goes about their business as usual. Capiche?" Everyone stared at Yang. "What?" she asked. "I thought it was a pretty practical plan!" "It's just, I can't believe you made that entire speech without also making some bad pun!" Ruby said, immediately getting hit in the head by Yang's pillow. "Alright!" Yang smiled, "so Ruby will go first, then Blake, then yours truly, and then finally Zwei!" "Hey! What about me?" Weiss asked outraged. "Well, you can go after Zwei if there's still time, I guess," Yang said thoughtfully. "Who made you in charge of scheduling?" Weiss demanded. "Well you see, I'm the leaders' sister, which makes me vice president. I'm also the coolest, hottest and funniest member of this team. AND, I once had my palm read and it was foreseen that someday I'd have one of my arms replaced by an awesome cybernetic robot one! So unless President Ruby has an objection, that's the way it ism Snow Angel!" Weiss, looking absolutely furious at being called Snow Angel, turned in desperation to Ruby. Unfortunately, Ruby was on the floor laughing hysterically at her sisters' ridiculous speech, and therefore was in no fit state to oppose. "So Ruby, you're up first!" Steven nodded, and the other three went to go do generic background tasks until it was their turns.
Seeing as Ruby had already had all day to chat with Steven, she let him ask all his questions about the world of Remnant. She explained, to the best of her knowledge, how dust worked, what the creatures of Grimm were, and how the different kingdom's worked. Aside from the odd question every now and then, Steven mostly just listened in wide eyed amazement. Next, it was Blake's turn. She didn't say all that much, and Steven was worried because he had no idea what to say. Eventually, he started explaining what little he knew about fusion. Blake perked up at this, and became very attentive to everything Steven said. She seemed particularly interested in Garnet, being the result of the love between Ruby and Sapphire. Once their time was up, Steven saw Blake immediately grab a book called The Man With Two Souls. She was still flipping through it rapidly by the time Yang's turn was over. During Yang's turn, the two swapped stories about general shenanigans. Steven told of some of the crazy stuff Amethyst got up to, and Yang revealed the zany schemes she got up to, sometimes with a little help from Ruby or Nora. Finally, after Steven spent several minutes cuddling with Zwei, it was Weiss's turn.
"So Steven, Ruby explained quite a bit about you and your...kind," Weiss started, "but I still have a question: what exactly do you "Crystal Gems" do? What sort of monsters plague your world their would require such fierce sounding guardians?" As Steven did his best to explain, Ruby rolled her eyes at Weiss. Ever since meeting Sun near the docks awhile back, Weiss had had an unusual interest in knowing stuff about new people. She insisted it was purely out of curiosity, but the rest of Team RWBY suspected she really wanted to know how to best everyone should the opportunity rise. "So really, it's just the Home World gems and the occasional Gem monster. Other than that, Beach City is fairly quiet.," Steven finished. Weiss nodded, listening attentively. "Tell me again about all your individual fighting styles," she demanded.
"Weiss, that's enough," Blake interrupted, "it's getting late, and we've got a big day of trekking through the Emerald Forest tomorrow." Weiss looked taken aback, realizing that she'd let her enthusiasm get a little out of hand. "Of course. Forgive me, I must have gotten a little carried away," she said. Steven nodded. "Sure. That sounds like something Pearl would say," he said. Weiss nodded as she got into bed. She liked the sound of this Pearl character. Similarly, Yang thought Amethyst sounded like a lot of fun, and Blake supposed that Garnet sounded very similar to the protagonist in The Man With Two Souls. Ruby on the other hand was just happy to hang out with Steven. The lights were turned out, and everyone magically fell asleep immediately.
However, Steven was woken up a buzzing in is pocket a few hours later. He quietly got up and went outside to take the call. In the hallway, Steven saw it was Connie, and he enthusiastically answered. "Hey Connie!" He said brightly. "STEVEN! WHERE...LOOKING...BACK...GEMS..." Steven looked confused, and he quickly made for the elevator. "Hang on a minute Connie, you're breaking up. I'll try to get a better signal from the roof." Steven hit the button for the roof, and the connection steadily grew better. Steven walked onto the roof balcony under a beautiful starry night, and said "okay Connie, what's up?" Immediately, Steven nearly had his eardrums blown. "STEVEN WHERE ARE YOU?" Connie shrieked. "Actually, don't bother responding, Pearl needs to talk to you!" Oh boy, Steven thought miserably. "Hello?" he said tentatively. "STEVEN WHERE ARE YOU?" Pearl shrieked this time, nearly blowing Stevens' other eardrum. "Oww," he groaned, "if I have to get hearing aids now you're going to have to pay for them!" Conveniently forgetting that he could easily heal himself. Pearl began talking as rapidly as possible. "Steven, where are you? We came back to get some forgotten equipment, thanks to Amethyst, and when we arrived we were greeted by Lazuli. She told us Peridot knew where you were. So we asked, and she said you teleported to us shortly afterwards. IS THIS TRUE?" Steven looked extremely guilty. "Yes, it's true."
Steven held the phone far away from his ear just as Pearl shrieked again. Next, he heard the shriek die down as it was replaced by much lower and severe sounding voice. "Steven! This is Garnet! We're coming to get you to bring you back home! Can you give us some sort of landmark you're close to?" Steven looked around. "Well, I'm kind of at a big floating castle school in the sky. Does that help?" He heard Pearl scream again in the back ground. "Steven! We'll be there by morning! It's essential that-" but before Garnet to tell Steven what was essential, the phone connection went completely dead. "Garnet? Garnet?" Steven called, but there was no answer. Sighing, Steven put the phone down and smacked his head against the railing in sorrow. He knew that he'd be in big trouble for going against the gems wishes and breaking his word to Garnet. Boy, Ruby is really going to let Garnet go nuts now, Steven thought sadly. He slumped against the barrier and put his head in his hands. "Hey there champ," a voice said from the elevator. Steven looked up and saw it was Ruby in her pyjamas, looking quite tired, and therefore more adorable than usual. "Oh hey," Steven responded, trying to act casually, "I just had to take a call." "Who from?" Ruby asked as she sat beside Steven. "Oh, uh, Connie," he replied, which was technically true. "Did you guys have an argument, or do you generally sit on balconies at night looking mildly edgy?" Steven smiled. "You're starting to sound like Amethyst." Ruby smiled back. "Look, umm, honestly, the Crystal gems are coming to pick me up tomorrow, to take me back to Beach City." Ruby looked surprised. "Why? You seem like you can handle this place! Especially now that you've got Team RWBY as an entourage!" "I know. It's just, they said there's some sort of danger here. Something that could threaten my world if we don't stop it. And the Gems don't want me anywhere near it."
"Other than the Grimm we saw earlier, there is nothing bigger that's a threat. And we can squash those guys when we have a full team. Do you think maybe they're over reacting a little?" Steven thought about that. Yes, Pearl often did overreact to things, but Garnet usually kept her in line. But this time, Garnet had completely agreed with Pearl, so Steven felt especially bad. "No, they're right," Steven sighed. "It probably is too much for me out here, for whatever reason I'll just go pack my stuff from the room and wait for them up here."
Steven stood up and began heading towards the elevator. Suddenly, he felt Ruby's hand on his shoulder. "I may not know much about gems or anything," she said, "but that doesn't mean I don't recognize heart. And you my friend are full of it. You could take on anything around here." Ruby smiled a beaming smile at Steven. He returned the smile, blushing slightly. "How do you know how to give such great pep talks?" he asked. Ruby replied, "as team leader, it is my sworn duty motivate my team through the harshest moments. Inspire them to be swift as a coursing river, have the strength of a raging fire, and be mysterious as the dark side of the moon!" Ruby stood triumphantly after her gusto speech, before her and Steven fell laughing. "Actually, I just tell them to keep being Weiss, Yang and Blake, which if you think about it is kinda the same as that other list of similes." Steven laughed, "you're a great leader, Ruby," he said. Ruby broke into a grin. "And therefore, I think you're capable of spending one night in our room! Leader says so!" Steven nodded, feeling slightly taller than usual. Whether he knew it or not, Ruby was good for him. She made him feel like he could do more than before. And he appreciated having someone to look up to who didn't look down in him. Not that the Gems meant to, but they couldn't help inadvertantly pulling rank every now and then.
The duo took the elevator back down, where they once again entered the room and settled down for a nice long slumber. Steven's eyes closed silently as he began dreaming about a walrus which looked oddly like Weiss, chasing a psychic gorilla foot-CRASH! Steven, and the rest of the room for that matter, was abruptly woken up by a huge crash, followed by a booming voice. "STEVEN?" it called, before assumingly moving to the next room. "Well, the Gems are here I guess," Steven said, as nonchalantly as possible. "They sound like an angry hoard of Ursi!" Weiss said indignantly.
Just across the hall, another crash was heard, as well as a rather soothing voice. "Hello?" it said. "STEVEN!" was shouted again, presumably by Garnet. "He's, uh, not in here. I'm sorry!" The soothing voice said again. They then heard another voice, "Pyrrha, don't apologize to them! They broke our door! Know I'll have to beg Yang to help us fix it!" Everyone knew that that voice belonged to one Jaune Arc. "We'll have to apologize to Pyrrha, and the rest of Team JNPR. It sounds like the gems broke their door," Blake said, mildly exasperated. "No! You think?" Yang said as sarcastically as possible. Just as the other members of the room were nodding in agreement, the door all of a sudden exploded into splinters, with a giant gauntlet protruding through it. "STEVEN!" shouted Garnet. Still lying on the floor, Steven looked up sheepishly at Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl all standing open mouthed in the door way. "Oh, um, hey Garnet," Steven said weakly.
Author's note:
So, I've learned that writing dialogue in a crossover story is super difficult as most of the time it comes out pretty awkwardly. However, in the next two chapters the characters will all be in a position where they can talk like they would to anyone in their own world. Thanks for sticking through this one, next chapter should be much better! Also, big thanks to my 6 beautiful followers. I had no idea even that many people would be interested in such a weird crossover. Stay fabulous!