The entire cavern lit up with a pink radiance that rippled across the walls, as if the place were waking up from a long slumber. In the center of the hall, a stone hand slowly emerged from a small pedestal, rising with solemn grace. Steven remained calm, watching the whole thing as if it were completely normal, while Pearl, her eyes shining with pure emotion, could barely contain her awe.
Steven glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, carrying a mix of curiosity and resignation, before stepping up to the pedestal. He placed his hand directly onto the glowing surface, and a heavy silence filled the cave.
For a few seconds, both of them stood completely still, waiting.
"Uh..." Pearl said, looking over at Steven, her voice trembling slightly. "Your mother... she could only make things appear with this."
"Well said," Steven replied with a faint smirk. "My mother. I'm not her."
Pearl furrowed her brow, her expression turning cold before shifting into pure confusion. "Then... how does it work with you?"
"Like this," Steven murmured, bringing a hand to his stomach right where his gem was glowing. In that exact split second, the ground rumbled and several pillars of light shot up, revealing a set of gleaming suits of armor.
"The armor..." Pearl whispered in wonder, slowly stepping forward to get a closer look.
Here too, Steven thought abstractly, scratching his nose. But then he looked down with a hint of awkwardness. What a pain, he grumbled to himself, realizing that touching parts of his own body seemed to be the key to activating things around here. He didn't know whether to feel powerful or just incredibly uncomfortable.
"My word!" Pearl exclaimed as she examined several swords that began to materialize around them. She was inspecting each one with an almost obsessive precision.
"What are you looking for?" Steven asked, crossing his arms.
"I'm looking for your mother's sword," she replied without breaking her gaze from the weapons.
Steven just sighed. In his head, he was silently cursing every single Gem in the universe, along with the ones that didn't even exist yet. Somewhere out there in the deep recesses of space, a certain Peridot felt an inexplicable shiver run down her spine while analyzing a holographic screen.
"Why do I feel like someone just put a curse on me?" she muttered, typing away with indifference. "Bah, whatever. Let's see... my next assignment is... the Cluster? Hmm, sounds interesting. Though I'd better gather more intel first."
"You know," Steven said, looking at Pearl calmly, "I'm pretty sure it's a pink sword, right?"
Pearl looked at him, completely confused, trying to keep up with his train of thought. "Yes... it's pink," she replied slowly, "but... why do you ask?"
Steven tilted his head, scratching the back of his neck with a casual air. "Because Lion has it," he said flatly.
Pearl froze completely solid.
"Huh?"
Her gaze darted from the boy to the empty air, from the air to the swords, and then straight back to Steven.
"What do you mean Lion has it?!" she asked, her tone hovering between utter disbelief and sheer alarm. "It should be right here! This is the place where Rose kept all of her weapons!"
Steven shrugged, acting as if he didn't see the big deal. "Well, I guess that 'completely random lion,' as you put it, has the sword."
Pearl fell dead silent for a few seconds. Her eye began to twitch slightly.
"A... random lion... has Rose's sword?!" she repeated in a low, practically trembling voice. "That... that can't be. She told me it was here... or... at least that's what I remember."
Steven looked at her with a blend of confusion and amusement. Well, maybe the lion turned out to be more trustworthy than you, he thought without saying it out loud, watching Pearl look like she was tearing herself apart between disbelief, deep nostalgia, and a textbook case of repressed hysteria.
Or maybe she just had her secrets, like everyone else, Steven thought silently as he watched Pearl continue to spiral through her own confusion.
"Alright," Steven said, clapping his hands twice to break the tension, "let's go find Lion. I want to see if this scabbard actually fits, you know?" he commented, heading toward the cave exit with an air of pure laziness. Do we seriously have to hike all the way back? Good grief... let's get out of here before a Diamond slug or something pops out.
With that, the two returned to the house. The warp stream enveloped them in a flash, and in a single second, they were right back in the living room.
"Home sweet home..." Steven sighed in relief, letting all his breath out at once. We literally ran into a godforsaken Diamond slime monster, what kind of luck is that? he muttered to himself, walking slowly and completely exhausted, his clothes totally shredded.
"Umgh..." Pearl murmured, her voice shaking.
"Huh?" Steven looked over and noticed Pearl wasn't answering him. Instead, she was staring dead at Lion with a volatile mix of anticipation, nerves, and dread.
"Oh, right," Steven said, calmly walking over to Lion.
Right at that moment, Amethyst and Garnet stepped out of their rooms. Both of them paused, watching Pearl lock her eyes onto the lion as if she were standing before a forbidden secret.
"Lion, will you let me inside?" Steven asked with a relaxed smile.
Lion looked at him completely confused, tilting his head, and then looked even more baffled.
"What's with the face?" Steven teased. "How do I know you have that power? Magic," he added with a playful smirk.
Lion let out a resigned huff and raised his mane toward Steven. The moment Steven touched it, it began to glow with a soft, warm radiance.
"See you guys in two minutes. If I don't come back, it's because I died," Steven joked with a grin before vanishing straight into the glowing mane.
"He won't actually die, right?" Amethyst asked, a drop of sweat forming on her forehead.
"It is a possibility," Garnet replied, calmly adjusting her shades as if she weren't worried in the slightest.
"What?!" Pearl and Amethyst yelled at the same time, completely alarmed. Both of them lunged at Lion and started shaking him frantically, desperately trying to get him to spit Steven back out.
Steven emerged from the inside of Lion's mane with the sword firmly in hand, panting heavily with a drop of sweat rolling down his forehead. The scene waiting for him was as absurd as it was standard for this house: Lion was completely pinned down between Pearl and Amethyst, who were shaking him without mercy, while Garnet watched the entire spectacle with her usual calm, acting like this was just another Tuesday.
Upon seeing him pop out, Garnet simply flashed a thumb-up, then looked down at the sword and threw up a second thumb, giving a double gesture that spoke volumes. Steven let out a tired, quiet laugh, muttering to himself that his mom was a real piece of work.
When Pearl finally noticed he was back, she froze in her tracks, her eyes locking onto the pink blade Steven was holding. Her face, usually so serene and composed, completely broke into a mask of pure shock and nostalgia. She stammered out that this was... this was... the sword of her lo—and stopped herself abruptly, clumsily correcting her words to say it was the sword of his mother. Steven, Amethyst, and Garnet exchanged a silent look, knowing exactly what they had almost heard. Inside his head, Steven decided to play dumb and act like he hadn't caught a thing, keeping his face entirely deadpan.
Pearl, however, seemed to have completely forgotten anyone else was in the room. She touched the blade with absolute delicacy, as if it were a sacred diamond forged not by ordinary hands, but by twenty giant dwarves working in perfect unison. The sheer devotion in her eyes was unmistakable, and the mixture of respect and raw emotion pouring out of her made the entire room shift, as if the weapon's presence had dragged a physical piece of the past back into reality. Steven watched her and thought with a touch of irony that yeah, these Gems were incredible role models, and that somehow this sword meant way more to Pearl than he had ever anticipated.
Steven kept watching her in silence, the sword still in his hand and sweat sticking to his forehead. Pearl's question hung heavily in the air like a direct accusation. Why was the sword inside a lion? Why wasn't it in its proper place? Her voice shook, loaded with bitter frustration and pent-up rage. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath before responding calmly, even though he was secretly just as confused on the inside. He explained that there were a lot of things about his mother—too many—and that he didn't even understand all of it himself. He looked over at Lion, who, upon feeling his gaze, simply trotted over and plonked himself down on a piece of furniture, completely forgetting that just a moment ago Pearl and Amethyst were practically trying to interrogate him.
But Pearl wouldn't stop. Her voice grew sharper, more broken by the second. She ranted that his mother had never kept secrets from her, that she always told her everything. She was her best friend, her absolute everything. Pearl raved, practically running out of breath, insisting that she had known Rose long before any of them, that she had been trusted with her problems, her virtues, and every single one of her secrets.
Steven felt a sharp pang tighten in his chest watching her fall apart like this. The image of Pearl, usually so rigid and collected, was shattering right in front of him. In a calm, measured voice that was barely above a whisper, he told her that everyone had secrets. Garnet had secrets, Amethyst had secrets, he had secrets, and even she had secrets. "We can't tell everything to someone," he explained softly. "If we did, what would be left for ourselves?"
Pearl glared at him, her eyes burning with a volatile mix of tears and fury. She screamed, "You don't know anything! You didn't know her! You... you aren't her!" Her voice cracked under the weight of her rage, and she slammed her fist directly into the wall. The impact knocked his mother's portrait off its nail, but Garnet, without losing her imperturbable composure, caught it flawlessly before it could smash on the floor. The room fell into a dense, suffocating silence, heavy with unsaid words and memories that felt entirely too heavy to carry.
I stood there paralyzed, the breath caught solid in my throat. Is this what the original Steven had to live through? How on earth did he handle something like this? He felt his chest tighten, a massive void opening up inside him. If it hurt this badly for him just to hear it, he couldn't imagine what the original kid must have felt—a boy who always tried to force a smile even when his entire world was collapsing, a child who just wanted to understand why everything around him seemed so profoundly broken.
Pearl suddenly realized what she had just said. Her eyes went wide, a violent tremor ran through her body, and without a second thought, she bolted toward the warp pad.
"Wai—Pearl!" he yelled, his voice cracking, but before he could even finish the name, she had already vanished into the stream of light. The sharp chime of the warp pad shutting down was the only sound left.
He stood there with his hand still extended toward the empty space, trembling. Amethyst didn't say a word. Her expression said it all—there were no words that could fix what had just dropped. He knew Pearl had laid everything out on him, throwing things in his face that weren't even his fault, things that belonged to another person, to a past where he didn't even exist. Garnet remained completely still, though her gaze showed she understood something he hadn't quite pieced together yet.
"Steven," she finally said, her voice quiet but firm.
He looked up at her, his throat still dry. "Yeah."
"Go after her. You know what to say."
He stared at her for a few seconds, trying to process it. "Do you really think she wants to see me?" he asked in a low, doubting voice.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Probably not," she replied, her tone completely unaltered. "But you have a chance to talk. That's something. Let her vent. Only you can do this. If one of us goes, it won't be as effective as you."
He looked at her for a few moments and let out a faint, exhausted laugh. "It almost sounds like you can see the future or all the possible timelines."
Garnet tensed for a fraction of a second—so fast it was barely perceptible—before snapping right back to her usual calm as she hung his mother's portrait back onto the wall.
"Perhaps," she simply said. "Who knows."
And for a moment, that simple answer gave him the exact push he needed to go after Pearl.
"Lion, can you take me?" Steven asked with a small smile. Lion stood up without a single complaint, as if he understood exactly what was needed. "Come on, Lion, take me to the floating islands," Steven added, though he immediately wondered under his breath where exactly Pearl would even be. Lion looked at him confused for a second, then tore open his own portal, one of those spatial tears that seemed to rip straight out of his roar.
Amethyst blinked in sheer disbelief. "Since when can the lion create warps?!" she asked, making zero effort to hide her shock.
"I don't know," Garnet answered calmly, acting as if this weren't any weirder than a regular day. Amethyst just shrugged, letting the question hang in the air.
The portal swallowed them up, and Steven arrived at a floating flower island that completely took his breath away. Wow, beautiful, he muttered, looking at a vast sea of roses and other glowing flowers hovering over tiny fragments of land. Up ahead, Pearl was sprinting through the floating petals; Steven balled his hands up inside his pockets, told Lion to stay back, and took off running after her.
Pearl was running in absolute desperation, screaming for him to leave her alone as she veered down impossible paths. Steven called out to her, his breath cutting short. "Pearl! Pearl, wait up, please!" She wouldn't answer, only repeating over and over that she just wanted to be left alone.
Back at the temple, Amethyst glared at Garnet with a mix of a threat and an ultimatum. "If you don't give me a cut for dealing with this, I swear to God I'll figure out how to break into your room and let all the bubbled Gems loose."
Garnet merely sneezed in total indifference.
"Bless you," Amethyst shot back rapidly.
"Thank you," Garnet added.
Meanwhile, both of them were sprinting across the floating lands—small chunks of moss-covered, flower-laden rock suspended in the total void. Where did these floating islands even come from? Steven wondered, a drop of sweat forming on his temple. It seemed like everyone in this world just normalized the absolute impossible.
He pushed forward through the thick mist and swirling petals, determined to catch up to her. I've got one shot, he thought, and I am not letting it slide.
Pearl was standing on the very edge of the final floating rock. "Pearl..." I said in a low voice, speaking out to her. She was just lying there on the grass. Well, looks like this is playing out exactly like the original timeline, I thought, raising an eyebrow. What a crazy coincidence. Only a few small details are different, but I feel like I'm forgetting something...
I rapidly dashed toward Pearl and took a flying leap toward the floating island. Just as I was about to clear the gap and reach her, the look in her eyes froze me completely solid. "Uh..." I murmured, losing my concentration mid-air. The distance... holy shit! I screamed as I plummeted. That was what I forgot!
Reacting purely on instinct, I grabbed onto some wild branches sticking out from the side of the floating island, narrowly avoiding a certain death. I looked up and saw that Pearl was just staring down at me before turning around and walking deeper into the island.
"What the actual hell?!" I growled in pure fury. Garnet said this was the best option?! I thought, remembering her advice. Hanging there by a thread, I pulled off a move I had only ever done in video games. I summoned my shield, slammed it flat beneath me like a makeshift platform, and used it to launch myself upward. How did I manage that? Magic.
Steven vaulted over the ledge onto the top of the island, his fury instantly vanishing the moment he looked at Pearl. She was holding his mother's sword, gripping it tightly against her chest as if it might vanish into thin air if she let go.
"You remember it, don't you? We were right here."
Steven remained entirely silent.
"During the war, you told me you would always be there for me... that I was irreplaceable. Someone by your side. An equal..." Pearl said, her voice dripping with profound sadness.
"Sometimes I wonder if she can see me through your eyes. Is she disappointed in me? Or did she just cast me aside, the same way she left me thirteen years ago?" she asked, her voice completely broken.
Steven walked over to her side. All his tactical thoughts had completely vanished. It was just her and him. He sat down right behind her. Pearl tensed up, expecting him to yell at her, hit her, or do whatever else, but instead, he simply wrapped his arms around her in a hug.
Pearl fell into absolute silence.
"You know, Pearl, you're always thinking about my mother. Even though everyone always tells me how incredible she was, looking at you like this makes me doubt it. She's gone, Pearl. You don't have to carry her expectations anymore. If you want someone you can truly trust, let it be me. I want you by my side. Please," Steven said, pulling her even tighter into the embrace.
Pearl went into absolute shock. Out of everything she had expected him to say, this wasn't even close. And she cried. She broke down completely, sobbing and hugging Steven back like a lost little girl. Steven just held her, letting her completely empty her heart. "It's okay, alright? You're good. You're... you're a really good mom," he said, gently patting her head.
And just like that, Steven achieved his first real redemption, all thanks to the emotional wreckage his mother had left behind in Pearl. And knowing Rose Quartz, this was definitely not going to be the last little "gift" she left waiting for him.
End of Chapter 16.