Chapter Text
A mom returns from work to her daughter, she hangs up her lab coat and lets out an exhausted sigh that's been building all day.
Her daughter asks, "Don't you ever get tired of work?"
“Why do you ask, do I look that bad?"
“Kinda.”
Her mom laughs a little, quickly stifling it, like that was all she had time for.
“It's April 1st, you get all sorts of dumbas-... foolish people… this day. Every year. Besides, don't you ever get tired of studying—or training with Steven and his moms?”
“Yes, and when I do, I stop.”
"Well I do get tired of work, even though it's fulfilling. But at the end of the day, I have a role to play. The patients depend on me, the other doctors too. I can’t just ‘stop…’”
She adjusts her lab coat again, trying to get it perfectly laid on the rack,
“...That's the basis of what your life is built on anyway, you know. You are given a role, and you do it to the absolute best of your abilities. Whether that's an employee, daughter, student, girlfriend…”
She hangs on ‘girlfriend’ with a scornful look on her face.
“...and it just so happens that mine saves lives."
The girl looks a little sad, "well I wanna save lives too."
Her mom fixes her hair quickly before walking into the kitchen and standing in the doorway.
"If you keep running around with Steven... I'm sure you will."
The floor creaks as she walks away.
-
A few months later. The same girl gets out of bed, she's drenched in sweat. She wonders if the air conditioner went out while she was asleep.
She opens her window fully, desperate for some relief. Then, she marks the day in her calendar, June 4th, 2018— and gets ready to go out.
She walks down the stairs and speaks to her mother.
"Good morning mom, may I please head to Steven's? He's by the ocean, it'll be much cooler there".
Her mother doesn't seem to completely love the idea, but she obliges.
-
Around the same time, a boy is seen in a red shirt with a yellow star on it. He's laying on steps upside down, as a short purple girl with long white hair approaches.
She smiles, "Hey Steven, what's up? Don't worry, I already know what's upside down."
Steven just looks at her for a minute. She has the biggest proud smile on her face, but it looks like a frown since he is upside down. Like she's sad at her own joke, he starts laughing at that.
The girl laughs too, "Haha I'm hilarious right, but seriously you look like you're gonna melt into those boards."
Steven responds as if speaking is the most painful thing in the world for him right now," Its sooooo hot. I thought coming outside would help but it doesn't. What's going on— why is the power out‐– its summer."
The girl laughs, "Dude you're not gonna believe this but apparently the transformer was completely destroyed. Like some BEAST tore into it. Totally tubular right?"
Steven flips over and his face hits the board beneath him. He stands up and dusts himself off before speaking half with a posturing of maturity and half genuinely, "Amethyst, you really expect me to believe such a childish lie. I'm almost 16, you know. also. Tubular??"
Amethyst walks behind him and stands with her back facing his. "Hey. I'm just the messenger, I don't care if you believe me. I get it, Steven. The transformer is on the other side of town, it’s a long walk. Just believe what you want."
She walks inside as Steven exaggeratedly rolls his eyes. He falls face down into the sand and starts attempting sand angels. When that fails, and hurts, he thinks about what Amethyst said. It annoys him way too much not knowing for sure when he could so easily check it. So he decides to walk to it.
A few minutes pass as Steven drags his feet suffering through the heat. His slouch turns into a fully alert posture when he finally sees the transformer. It has been torn up, and is actively being torn up more. There really is a grotesque monster clawing at it. It seems to be absorbing its energy. Steven is about to run to get the gems when he hears a familiar voice.
“Hey Steven!!! My mom let me come visit because of the heat."
She freezes as she notices the look on Steven's face.
“Steven..?”
A lightning bolt launches across the distance, Steven just barely manages to react in time to pull his shield out. It hits the shield and visibly arcs all around. Connie behind Steven and shouts, "where did that come from??"
Steven looks confused, "you don't see that? On the transformer."
"No."
He’s scared and unsure of what to do, "Well Connie, I need you to trust me that there is something there. It looks like a corrupted gem.”
Connie's terrified, she's only fought one of these before, and she's unarmed.
She speaks, "I believe you, but what do I do?"
"Run, and get the gems. I'll cover you."
"Just come with me."
"No, there are houses right beside it. Almost everyone’s at the beach right now, but I still can't leave it alone for that long. I can’t risk it."
Another burst of lightning is shot out from its massive nails. Steven increases the size of the shield and blocks it yet again.
"Now, please." Steven says softly, despite the situation.
As Connie runs towards the beach, completely unprotected, she isn't attacked by it.
Steven thinks, ‘It must have a charge up if it didn't try to attack her. That's a perfect time to take it down. But why can't Connie see it?’
After a few minutes of the same back and forth, the gems arrive, weapons in hand.
"Where is it Steven?" Says a tall one with gauntlets
"It's over there! On the transformer."
Amethyst chimes in- "I don't see anything Steven. I'm sorry I scared you dude but it was just a joke."
A tall white one speaks up, "I'm going in." She runs in with her spear and throws it at the transformer. They all see that it stopped short of hitting the transformer itself, and is now lodged within something unseen. But it immediately retaliates, shooting lightning at the tall white one. It attracts into her spear and she immediately drops it. The sheer amount of lightning being funnelled into it causes it to explode, launching her back and roughing her up a bit.
"PEARL," Steven yells, as the tall one with gauntlets catches her and lets her down gently.
"Thank you, Garnet..." Pearl's hair is standing straight up, which Amethyst laughs at. Everyone looks at her disapprovingly.
"What? We've fought these things a hundred times, we'll be fine. In fact, I'll prove it. Back me up Steven."
Steven nods and they both run in. Garnet and pearl run along as well, further back- ready to assist. Lightning is shot at Steven, who is leading the charge. It dissipates on his shield. Amethyst pulls out her whip and wraps it around the corrupted gem, or where she assumes it is—And pulls tight.
"Am I getting it Steven?"
"You got it, but it looks fine. We didn’t hurt it at all." He says with baited breath.
Garnet and Pearl attack it from either side, to no effect.
Arms jolt out of it, and it snaps the whip. It knocks the gems flying, and Pearl drops her spear. Before they can recover, it grabs Steven by the leg, and dangles him upside down. Steven screams as it squeezes his leg.
Connie grabs Pearl's spear and guesses at its location based on the angle Steven is being held.
She stabs its arm but it barely reacts.
It slams Steven into the ground. A loud crack is heard, not from lightning. Then lifts him up again.
Steven’s bottom half of his leg is bent in an entirely different direction than the top half, he's been in fights before, but he’s never felt this powerless.
Connie jumps and grabs onto its arm, she tries to pull Steven from its grasp. She manages to rip skin from its slimy body, and to pry him away.
They both fall a considerable distance to the ground.
Connie lands worse than Steven does, and he immediately calls out to check on her.
Connie runs over to him and grabs him, dragging him away from the corrupted gem.
"I've got you."
The gems are still wailing on it, to only superficial damage.
It impales itself on the transformer. So much so that it is now inseparable from it.
"RUN AWAY." They hear from an unknown voice behind them. A boy, wielding a katana. He's dressed plainly, but well enough—black sweatpants and a white jacket, it almost looks like a school uniform.
The gems are hesitant to listen, Steven speaks up. "Listen to him!! It's about to do something big." The gems begin to feel the sheer output of its charging, and they all step back. Connie drags Steven.
"Further." He says, brandishing his katana. "Please," he smiles.
They follow his instructions.’
He rushes in, and stabs it straight through, all the way to the transformer. A neighborhood’s level of electricity flows through the sword and into him, sending arcs which jump to the nearby buildings, but he seems completely unaffected.
The corrupted gem begins glowing yellow, and pulsing. Like a bomb. He looks around, at all the buildings and people around. He rips his sword out , and sheathes it. He speaks softly to someone unseen.
"You take it from here, my love."
Suddenly a massive monster appears behind him. It grabs the corrupted Gem and flies into the air with it, ripping out the transformer and it at the same time.
As the monster flies it further into the sky, It pulses quicker and quicker, each pulse sending off waves of air, until finally — It explodes. Pieces of it go flying everywhere as it lights up the sky.
They all feel the force of its explosion even from the ground.
Steven screams, "it's gone! He beat it!"
However, one of the pieces falls directly over Steven's head. He summons his shield to block it and it rolls off. But then, it starts moving. Steven bashes it with his shield, revealing its approximate location to Connie, and she grabs his shield and crushes it without thinking. A puff of blue energy releases from it and dissipates.
The monster returns to the boy, and says something unheard, he then embraces it as it fades away.
The mysterious boy looks over at Steven and Connie and starts thinking-
‘two sorcerers? Over‐seas? I've never seen them before.. I don't know-maybe I'm wrong, but, they at least have the potential to be sorcerers.. He has a weird cursed technique. And I don't know what's up with the other 3. But the girl crushed that piece in one hit. That's not nothing.’
He resolves to talk to them alone before he leaves for good. He walks away, but turns around to smile at them.
“You all have a nice day." He then leaves without another word, weaving through the crowd of beach city residents coming to check out the explosion.
The gems usher them away, and when they get a chance to talk about what happened, they just stare at each other.
Once the conversation finally starts, the gems and Connie quickly accept that, from their perspective, it flew into the sky and exploded, but then they promptly realize something that confuses them.
Amethyst is the first to say it out loud "Where is its gem? Whenever we beat corrupted gems, their gem falls. Right?"
Steven grasps at his broken leg as he speaks. "I don't know. I don't really think that was a corrupted gem anymore."
Connie speaks.. "Yeah. That was nothing like the one I fought months ago with Pearl. And that guy, it was gone in less than a minute after he arrived. He just stabbed it and then it flew away. It was like a scene from ‘The Unfamiliar Familiar’”
Garnet chimes in next, "Whatever it was. It's gone now. We did it." She then turns around and back to the temple. Pearl skittishly follows and Amethyst shrugs her shoulders at Steven.
He looks at Connie, "I still can't believe you guys couldn't see it. He could."
"Yeah I don't know. Could there be something unique to your biological makeup which makes it
visible to you. But then why could he see it?”
She cups her chin as she thinks, “I’m sorry about your leg.”
“It’ll be fine, a couple days and I'll heal up.”
“I’m sure it still hurts.”
“I’m just happy nobody else was hurt.”
The same voice from before speaks, interrupting their conversation, "I can explain it all to you. I'm sorry for leaving a second ago, honestly I just had no interest in talking to your other 3 friends."
He said it with such a smile that it would be off putting if not for its genuineness.
”It's nice to meet you both, my name is Yuta Okkotsu.”
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