Steven Universe Of The Creek Chapter 13 The New Day Of Fruition

The sun rose above the creek after the rainstorm from last night. It stopped raining at about three thirty in the morning, while the clouds drifted away in short order. Despite the outdoors being wet with the dirt in the creek having turned to mud, kids are still gonna come over to hang out.

Craig woke up and immediately got himself out of bed. Even if he had more sleep than last time, he still needs to clean Steven’s clothes, even if he’s willing to come out right away. After he got out of his bedroom, he headed to the bathroom where Steven took off his clothes to put it in the dirty laundry basket. He heads downstairs to the washing machine in the kitchen where he put all of Steven’s clothes in. After putting the detergent soap in, he closed the lid and turned on the machine.

In the living room, Steven slowly opened his eyes while yawning. Even resting under a roof, his body is still shaking from the events that happened last night. He was too concerned about thinking about his current problem rather than encountering two gems, who are probably still around in the neighborhood.

After Craig poured his cereal in his bowl, he entered the living room just to notice Steven waking up from the couch. “Steven?” He spoke to which Steven turned around.

“Good morning.” He shyly smiled. “It stopped raining, are you thinking about going to the creek?”

“Well…” Craig headed back in the kitchen to the refrigerator while opening it. “Is there anything else you wanna do?”

“No, not even a bit.” As Steven heads straight to the kitchen table, Craig just poured milk into his cereal while sitting with Steven face to face. “I see you just started the washing machine huh?”

“Usually my parents do the laundry and they taught me how but…” He took a bite from his cereal.

“You don’t want to do it?” Steven guessed as Craig nodded. “I’ve been through that.”

“Maybe cleaning the laundry just to clean the clothes even if it’s important…wasn’t as important as you.” Craig continued to eat his breakfast while taking in the peace around him after the storm from last night, despite the noise from the washing machine.

“You know…you saying that I’m more important than laundry was the last thing I would expect to hear from a kid but…nothing’s too crazy anymore.” Steven commented.

“Well if you wanna go to the creek, I don’t even know where to start to be honest.” Craig replied. “I know I didn’t mind that when we met for the first time, but I wasn’t thinking about you. Just your gem.”

Steven didn’t forget that Craig’s friends saw his gem last night and if he wanted to set things quickly, he needed to find Craig’s friends even if he never got to know them unlike Craig. “When we go to the creek, do you want to know a little more about me and my life?”

“That’s fine, there’s a lot going on after seeing you glow pink. Especially those…gems.”

“Aquamarine and Ruby? Trust me, even if they’re my problems, they don’t compare to anything else I’ve gone through.”

After Craig finished eating his cereal, the washing machine took its time to clean everything through Steven’s clothes. Steven put on his clothes despite how they were a bit too warm. While Craig was washing his dish, he got out of his pajamas and changed into his regular clothes. He and Steven headed out and walked into the creek itself.

The leaves from the trees dripped down water after the storm from last night. Steven and Craig needed the fresh air in order to get along better. Even if they have to deal with the creek still being wet, the sun will manage to dry things as quickly as possible.

“So Aquamarine and Ruby who attacked you, are they your enemies?”

“They’re the only enemies I have at the moment. But compared to other enemies I’ve had in the past, they're more annoying than dangerous.”

“Yeah, they were smaller than me, but way more powerful.” Craig responded, keeping his hands in his pockets. “But when I saw them, they were a different gem.”

“True, but in reality, they’re the same person. It’s called fusion.”

“Fusion?”

“Long story, but one of my mothers is actually a fusion…who I just talked to last night who told me to work things out with you.”

“Do you mean…Pearl? Amethyst? Garnet?”

“The latter.” Steven answered. “This may be hard to believe, but there are more Rubies aside from this one. And the Ruby who’s on my side is fused with Sapphire, they’re Garnet.” He stopped himself while showing Craig a picture from his phone. The picture itself showed Ruby and Sapphire at the wedding at the beach, then he scrolled to another picture of him hugging Garnet after she fused back.

“Ohh…I completely forgot that you told me about the wedding, and the fusion two nights ago.”

“I didn’t feel the need to tell you, since it was the day before yesterday.” When he put his phone away, they resumed their walk. “But then again yesterday was the day we didn’t expect to turn out terribly.”

“You know Steven, things don’t turn out the way I wanted at the creek, but compared to yours, it’s much smaller in scale.”

“Did you remember what I said about the Gem war?”

“Yeah. And about you…turning into a baby…I never saw a TV show that did that.”

This causes Steven to sigh, knowing he has so much work to do. “When I showed you a picture of Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond, there’s another Diamond…who’s my real mother.”

Craig stopped himself, thinking that a Diamond far bigger would be Steven’s mother of all things. When Steven took notice, he wasn’t surprised, but knew Craig would catch on, even by a little. “How??”

“She turned into Rose Quartz, who was the mother I remembered the most in my childhood, only to learn, just like Ruby, there are more Rose Quartzs. She’s Pink Diamond.”

“Pink Diamond…that explains why you were glowing pink last night…and about you turning into a monster.”

Craig had more questions than necessary, but he didn’t know where to start. Rose Quartz, Multiple Rose Quartzs, and Pink Diamond turning into Rose Quartz, he can’t even think of one thing without getting confused or overwhelmed.

“Craig, you don’t wanna know everything about Pink Diamond, but it’s hard for me to be mad when I lose it.”

“But how is Pink Diamond the reason you glow pink?”

“Because I can’t control myself forever. You can’t be the nicest and self-controlled person when you're a gem at the same time.”

“So, Pink Diamond was the biggest enemy in all this?”

Steven lowered his head while answering his question. “Yes.”

“Then it’s best if we leave it at that.”

“Pearl would tell you everything if she was here right now.”

When Craig thought about Steven’s guardians and his downplay stories from his family reunion, it became clearer as day that whatever he’s downplaying is always the other way around. But when it comes to Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet who’s a fusion, he never understood how important his life was with the three.

“Steven.” Craig came up with a new question. “When you put saliva in my ear, all I saw was pitch pinkness in my eyes. Not only did I feel sparkles, but the old emotions I had between you were gone. Do you do this with people?”

“Yes.” Steven answered. “You see, my saliva heals corrupted Gems when they are damaged. I helped with Connie’s eye vision when he took a sip of my juice box years ago.”

This causes Craig to come up with another question. “Do they get powers like you do?”

Steven shook his head in response. “Would you expect other people to explode like yesterday at my apartment? I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s probably best that it didn’t.”

“I don’t even know what it would feel like if it's true.”

Steven could imagine what a human would do if they had powers like this, but on the other hand, Gems require gems for powers regardless of them being different from one another. “The chances of you having powers are one in a million. And even if you’re a gem like me, you have to cooperate because it’s still dangerous.”

“I know, Aquamarine and Ruby felt powerful together just by seeing their powers.”

“That’s mainly because of the fact that they’re in a fusion. And there are many more fusions that are bigger and stronger than them.”

Craig wondered what fusion would feel like inside of the mind with others, but cooperating with another person would be harder than he thought. “It seems that this type of specialty is a huge custom to Gems.”

“Well, I can fuse with my dad and Connie, but it’ll only work if one of the two are a gem. I’m not gonna explain a lot about it because it’s too complicated for you at your age.”

In a moment of realization, Craig wouldn’t experience fusion if he found a gem similar to Steven. Not to mention he still has a lot of understanding of Steven’s life as a gem. Then again, he needed to set things straight by having his friends be part of it.

“I think we should have my friends be part of this. Let’s save some of the details when we go to the stump which is where my friends are waiting.”

“You're right. Besides, the amount of kids that I saw last night, you have almost the same amount of friends that I have back at Beach City.”

“You really want to meet them?”

“That and more by chance, because I doubt I’m leaving anytime soon.”

Craig smiled from Steven’s eagerness to give the creek a chance by starting somewhere and he’s more than thankful to start off with his friends. “Okay let’s get Kelsey and J.P. to catch up with us.”

“That’s the spirit.” They return to their walk while heading to where Craig spends most of his time with his friends. The following step of getting to know each other to resolve their newborn friendship.