//------------------------------// // One Shot // Story: A Lost Crystal Gem - The Story of Sunset and how she became Spinel // by ratedoni //------------------------------// Steven was young, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t intelligent, because for all purposes, even though his family wasn’t lying to him, he knew that there was something going on that they weren’t telling him and that in a way was worst. If Pearl of someone else had told him that everything was fine then he would have known it was a lie and he could try to get the truth out of the Crystal Gems or at least from his father, but that was not what was happening, not since another gem -just not a Crystal Gem and wasn’t that a surprise on itself- had pop up and put everyone on high alert. He had spent a long time on his loft, being surrounded by Sir Teddington the Third and the rest of his stuffed bears, all of them acquired alongside Sunset when she still lived with them; it always helped him when he had to think about something or when a situation was too big for him, like every time he thought about his mother. He didn’t quite understood what was going on, but for what he could understand from his father’s explanation, the artifact known as Black Helmet, a thing that looked like a tiara more than any helmet, like the ones he have always seen people wear when they went to space, or medieval-like armor. No, it was a small tiara of pure black with a space in the center for a jewel maybe, and that on itself made him shiver without knowing exactly why; but they had it back and when they brought back to the house, Garnet was there alongside Pearl, but no Spinel. The taller of the gems took it on her hands and looked at the tiara with an expression he had never seen her do before; for someone that could always keep her cool, she seemed like she didn’t even want to see the tiara, which Steven couldn’t really understand why, besides the fact that it had been used by a bad guy long ago. Now that Steven thought about it, she seemed almost… disgusted with the thing; it was weird, but he thought that maybe it was for a reason that they had it hidden away alongside the other stuff on her dad’s storage. Probably the only real good thing that came out of that day had been the fact that he had met Sunset’s friends and they were amazing. Both girls were so cool and nice too, so maybe everyone at Canterlot was like them. Applejack reminded him a little of Sadie in the way she was calm and friendly and with a smile that made him smile, not that it was that hard. Rainbow was also so cool and it was clear that she and Amethyst also got along, but due to what happened with Sunset they didn’t have much time to talk with them and instead they helped teleport back to Canterlot. If everything went right, maybe he could visit Canterlot, because it would be way better than where he was currently, full of just sand and more sand everywhere he could see. If he had known the desert could be so… desert-like he would have stayed back home, with the breeze from the sea and maybe even a lemonade glass at his side. Oh, that was such a bad idea, just thinking about a glass with cold lemonade inside made him grumble due to the heat; seriously, who had the bright idea to have a gem hidden in a place like this? For someone like Steven, who had abilities of gems but was mostly human, the heat was seriously weakening him and the dangerous part was dehydration, which was something that could be extremely dangerous in a location like the one they were in, but since the gems thought that they all needed some distraction from what was happening, decided to go for another gem, this one right in the middle of the desert. It was easy for the gems to simply walk around in the hot sand as if it were nothing, but poor Steven just couldn’t take one more step in the direction of the temple because he was about to fall down; thankfully the other gems took notice of the way he was sweating and let him stay underneath a nice cool shadow that helped him recover some of his energies. It was nice and quiet, just what he needed to think about all that had been happening these last couple of days, what with Sunset finally coming back and mysteries about the Gem’s past resurfacing; if he was honest, all of that seemed more like the plot out of a cartoon more than anything real, but it could be fun once he knew if Sunset was alright, besides, there was another Gem he could meet, because whoever this Lapis was, if she was staying with Sunset she couldn’t be that bad. Just as he was about to fall asleep due to how tired he was, something happened, another creature was also using the shadows to cool themselves apparently and Steven was up and about ready to defend himself with… well, truthfully he didn’t have much in ways to defend himself so he could only raise his hands, close his eyes and wait for anything to happen, which amounted to nothing because whatever or whoever was also close didn’t react to him. Opening his eyes, he was amazed at what he was seeing; it was a lion, but unlike anything he had ever seen before, because it was completely pink as in, natural pink, how cool was that? But it was the expression of the animal that amazed him, since it wasn’t looking at him, even though Steven knew he was a nice snack for a lion of that size; no, the lion was looking elsewhere, out in the distance and was making him feel a little tense to be sincere, which just became worst when the ground he was standing up began to move. If there was one thing Steven knew from the ground was that it didn’t move by itself so it could only mean danger. Whatever was happening underneath him was soon seen by him and he wished he hadn’t seen it because it was as bad as or even worse than the centipede gem back at home; it was the same size, but even bigger teeth and pure red which fit technically since they were in the desert. Steven didn’t have much time to think about it because the creature focused on him and was ready to eat him. Steven screamed knowing that there was no way to get out of this alive, since the other gems were busy with whatever gem they were looking for, but then, something strange happened, something that stopped everything in the desert, even the wind. It was the sound of a gun being fired; well, technically it was more like cannon than a shot considering the sound. Looking at the creature, Steven was amazed at the hole that was now present on the monster which had been thrown back by the kind of power the gun had and in an instant, instead of falling into the ground or showering him in blood, the creature simply vanished, poofing out of existence, only leaving a red gem behind. All sound had stopped alongside the wind, everything was quiet until Steven heard steps coming closer; it weren’t the gems, not even the lion that kept on watching the distance. Turning around to where the lion was looking he saw a figure, a tall one coming close and he could now see that it was a woman, wearing blue shorts with tight high stockings with boots of the same color, a yellow tank top with the word AIR in it and a bandanna around her neck. She wasn’t smiling and besides the attire, the two things that caught his attention were how shiny and metallic her right arm looked and the huge weapon that she had over her shoulder. “Who… are you?” “I was named, Queen of Blue.”