“How the Stars?”

Rose and the rest of the Crystal Gems checked out the site, and the only other thing different was a new hole, in an impossible place.

The hole clipped into the side of two other Gems hole, and the top of the hole was less than a hairs length from the bottom of the hole above it. To top it all off, the hole was few degrees short of completely upside down. Even for the Beta Kindergarten, this was weird. This spot couldn’t have even been injected as the physical programming of an injector inhibits it from injecting to close to another injected area.

Another Gem forming could explain the loss of plant life, but it would also inhibit those plants from growing there in the first place. There’s nearly fifty years between injection and emergence, so no matter when this gem was injected they should have been killing the plants, not be the center of their growth. The only way it could work is if the Gem was somehow promoting Plant Growth, and When it emerged the effect stopped. But there are no Gem types that do that.

It occurred to Rose that the Gem that came out of this hole would most likely still be in the area. It was clear Garnet got that too as she called out to… someone.

“HELLO, WE AREN’T GOING TO HURT YOU! BUT COULD YOU PLEASE COME DOWN HERE?”

Rose looked where Garnet was screaming at, and saw a silhouette on the cliff. The person hopped off, and fell several meters to the ground. Now Rose could see that she was bright Orange, in a rather Quartz like jumpsuit, a pumpkin colored Gem rested on her throat.

“Hello”

The orange Gem spoke shyly, as if not sure what to say. Rose spoke up.

“Hello! I’m Rose, this is Amethyst, Pearl, And Garnet. What’s your name?”

The Orange Gem thought for a moment.

“I-” I’m a-“

She slumped her head.

"I don’t know”

Rose thought for a moment, given how off color this Gem had to be given her hole placement, it wasn’t unlikely that she might not have certain preprogrammed information. Rose wanted to tell her her Gem type, but the truth was that Rose didn’t actually know. Orange likely meant a Jasper or feldspar, but this Gem was CLEARLY not one of those.

“Would you like to come with us?”

The orange Gem thought for a second, then nodded.

●■●■●■●■●■●■●■●■●■●■●

To be continued:

Next time on Orange Steven AU:

We get a time skip, Steven gets a name, and Rose stops miss-gendering him.