If Spinel was happy to see him before, she was ecstatic now. She gasped, her hair standing up on end as her whole form went ridged, her eyes wide. She then giggled happily, her voice a high-pitched squeal of excitement as her feet began prancing up and down quickly beneath her. Her hands came together in front of her chest, fists waving too fast for Steven to see them anymore other than the pink blur they had become.

That was a yes, then. Awesome.

“Glad to see you’re excited,” Steven grinned to himself, daring to be happy for just this small moment. “C’mon; I’ll warp us there.”

Spinel let out another high-pitch scream, then cartwheeled ahead of him towards the warp pad. “Well come on, slow-poke!” She called. “We got places to be!”

Steven’s smile remained plastered in place, and the contagious joy he got from Spinel mostly remained in place, though the stress lines under his eyes grew a bit deeper at her implication. The gems were going to be so, so mad when they found out, but this was for their sake, to keep them safe. This was something he could do for them, to make sure their destinies weren’t interrupted.

It didn’t matter what happened to him. Sure, by going through with this little plan of his he would become completely useless and worth nothing, but honestly? He was okay with that. Giving up his power was probably his best and only option here. No more outbursts, no more swelling, no more TV-dream projections…

…no more shield, a deeper part of him whispered. No healing spit or tears. No more bubbles.

No more domes or super speed, either, he quipped right back. This was good. The positive outweighed the negative- by a lot.

By the time Steven arrived on the warp pad, Spinel was literally bouncing with excitement. The gleam of adventure reflected in her eyes, and she seemed ready to jump into a volcano if it meant something new and exciting.

“So, where are ya takin’ me?” Spinel asked as Steven stepped onto the light blue surface.

Steven flashed her a smile, the pink gem’s mischievous attitude seeping into the teenager now. “Someplace underneath an entire ocean, submerged deep below the water. It’s a place where pearls were made, and has a lot of appearance modifiers and different accessories you can pick up if you like one.”

Spinel’s expression was one of wonder. “The place where Pearls emerged?”

Steven nodded. “Yeah. We’re going to the Reef.”

- - -

The ride to the Reef was one of joy. Steven’s anxiety began to melt away as Spinel started rambling to him about everything he’d missed out on since he’d been living on Earth, about Spinel’s efforts to become better, and how her road to healing has been going. Apparently, the Diamonds each had their own set of new powers as well, and they were using them for good. Spinel’s personal favorite was White’s new power, which allowed her to channel other gems into her body- kinda the reverse of what White could do normally. Yellow was fixing gems and altering their physical forms permanently, and Blue’s tears no longer made people cry, and instead they’d become clouds that made people happy as a clam! After Steven’s trip to the Reef, maybe he’d go visit Blue. A cloud ride of pure happiness sounded like it would be bliss.

At first, he felt a nagging sensation that he didn’t deserve that, and that maybe being happy wasn’t in his future. He countered those arguments by reminding himself that he was taking steps to control his wacky powers, and taking a break was healthy. Plus, serotonin was good for your mental health as well, whatever that meant. Connie had told him that one a long time ago, back when he struck up a conversation about days when the whole world just seemed flat for no reason-

He had to shake himself out of those thoughts pretty quickly to avoid going pink.

Spinel, meanwhile, was none the wiser of Steven’s current plight. She chattered on and on about one topic after the other, ranging from everything the Diamonds, to the Pearls, to random gems she met, to her healing, to that one bug she saw on Earth while she was there that one time. What kind of bug was that? Steven couldn’t answer her- she was pretty bad at explaining things, apparently.

Finally, they arrived. The Reef.

The building was shaped like a clam from the outside, and on the inside, many different rooms branched off a large center and down extensive hallways. Steven had only been here once, and that had been back when they were trying to fix Volleyball, when he’d almost gotten she and Pearl rejuvenated…

WOW the flashbacks were not being nice to him today.

“Gee whiz,” Spinel gasped in awe as she took the place in, “this is the Reef? It’s so big!”

Steven gave a light chuckle. “This is just the entry room, Spinel. What we want are to go down one of the hallways branching off.” He pointed at the walls ahead of them, which all were doors, currently shut.

As Steven stepped off, Spinel bounced on ahead of him. There was a pedestal in the middle of the room with a hand receptor on it, which would activate the Reef once Steven touched it. Spinel seemed to piece this together quickly, and smacked her own hand on the control. Nothing happened.

“Aww, what?” She groaned. “This is controlled by elites, ain’t it?”

“I guess so,” Steven mused, wondering the same thing. “That would make sense, given the Era this place was built.” He touched his own hand down, and the building sprung to life.

Lights turned on overhead, and the iridescent blue shine increased tenfold. It wasn’t overwhelming, but the sudden brightness did make Steven flinch a bit.

“Welcome, Steven Universe,” the automated voice greeted overhead. “I am Shell, your guide to the Reef.”

“Uh, hello again,” Steven replied nervously. “I would like to… um…” he hesitated. He hadn’t thought of how to phrase this without Spinel getting suspicious of him. “I wanna- I wanted to see if you have any secondary repair stations here? Since I, um, kinda broke the last one?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steven could see Spinel pause at his words, looking at him curiously with a hint of concern.

“Understood. Although there is not another Care Center,” Shell’s voice announced, “a good alternative would be the Emergence Center. Please follow the illuminated path to the Emergence Center.”

As she spoke, a series of lights lit up along the floor off to the pair’s left. The second door from the left began to open, and Steven could immediately see that it was relatively the same as the previous hallway. Many appearance modifiers shone through, highlighting peak Pearl fashion according to the elites that used to control their every action.

Spinel gasped in delight, then took off down the hall, her feet becoming a blur beneath her in her excitement. Steven followed along at a slower pace, not liking the familiar vibe this place was giving off.

“Nothing like looking at glitzy tchotchkes to get you nostalgic for a simpler time. I mean really, who even needs junk like this, right Volleyball?”

“STEVEN! Come look at this!”

Spinel’s cry of excitement brought the teen out of his thoughts once again (wow, she was a life saver today), and he realized he’d crossed through a good portion of the room without even realizing it. The zoning out was getting worse, too. He’d have to work on that.

Spinel was perched on her tip-toes in front of a display, featuring a pearl dressed in a flowing gown-like outfit, but cut open in the front to reveal her legs. The skirt-like dressing was made of multiple layers, and flowed like a ball gown from an old princess movie. The top part displayed poofy shoulder bits, flowing down the hologram’s arms like a waterfall. The torso was completely covered up, with little lines of what appeared to be beads running around the waist. The display wore gloves similar to Garnet’s in that they only covered one finger, though here it was the pointer finger. Being a hologram, it had no coloration other than light blue, but it was easy to imagine it as a shimmering gold, orange, purple, or pink.

Spinel reached out, like she wanted to touch it. “It’s so pretty,” she murmured.

“Find something you like?” Steven asked, coming to stand next to her to admire the outfit. “Isn’t that a bit… I dunno, restricting?” He imagined that outfits like that would get in the way of Spinel’s stretchy abilities.

“Hmm?” Spinel turned to him, her eyes having to refocus after being in her own little world for a moment. “Oh! Sheesh, that’s a nice thought, but no.” She smiled. “I was thinkin’ about getting’ it for one of the pearls in the palace! Though she’s not actually there at the moment, she decided to attend Little Homeschool on Earth.” She turned back to the outfit. “It could be a nice ‘welcome home’ present, right?”

“Uh, sure! If she likes outfits like that.” Steven gave Spinel a side-view look. She looked as though she were seriously thinking about the gift, which Steven found a bit odd. Spinel wasn’t the type of gem who thought about her actions first. Must be one special Pearl.

“Well, you stay here and decide, and I’m gonna, um… I’ll be up ahead.” Steven began to walk away, leaving Spinel to ponder on what gift would be best. Knowing her, she probably already picked out the ball gown-esk one, but wanted to look at the others ‘just to be sure’ (even though her mind was already made up at that point). She’d be a while.

Steven continued down the hall, suddenly feeling less sure of himself. He remembered the last time he’d been in a room in the Reef, with the sheer terror and horror at the thought of loosing Pearl because of his actions, along with rejuvenating an innocent gem. However, there was no one here but Spinel, and she was as far away as he could have hoped she’d be and more.

Once he stepped into the room, he was taken aback by how different it looked. There was a pad in the center of the room, just like the Care Center pad, but that was about the only similarity.

The rest of the room was set up like a laboratory in a science film.

Off to the far left, behind a wall of glass, there was what Steven assumed to be the left-most room in the Reef. In it, there were many individual glass cases. Inside each was a small egg-like shape: new Pearls. Some were larger than others, and the larger tended to have less sand and liquid in theirs than the smaller ones. The room appeared to be turned off, as there were no lights on, but the light coming from the Emergence Center was enough to reflect off the other.

The rest of the room was a large circle of gem machinery, with a small tube connecting everything together. One would be able to fit a baseball inside the tubes and have it roll around leisurely, but they weren’t much bigger than that.

Upon walking up to the first machine, Steven noticed that the tube connected to the left room, directly into the wall of forming pearls.

“Uhh, Shell, what is this place?” Steven asked, taking in everything as slowly and thoughtfully as he could.

“This is the Emergence Center,” Shell replied. “When a gem orders for a new Pearl, this is where the programming and preferences are done before it becomes yours.”

It. That word irked him.

Steven looked down the hallway again, making sure Spinel hadn’t gotten too close. She was still off fawning over outfits, more than halfway down the hall from here.. Even if she did hear, she wouldn’t be able to make it to him to stop him in time. Dread and more second-guessing set in as Steven realized that this was it. He looked down, away from the ignorant pink gem in the hallway. “…Do you happen to have a rejuvenator in here, too?”

“The Emergence Rejuvenation Station is located on the pad in the center of the room,” Shell announced dutifully.

“…shut the door.”

Just like that, the door to the room slid shut. Spinel was locked out, if she’d even noticed. He figured not, or if she did, she probably wouldn’t have thought of it as a big deal.

Taking a deep breath, Steven steeled himself and stepped onto the pad. “Shell,” he announced as commandingly as he could muster, “I need you to rejuvenate me.”

“I’m sorry,” Shell’s voice replied half-heartedly in its roboticness, “but I cannot do that. I am programmed to adhere to orders about Pearls, not other gems. If you would like me to rejuvenate a pearl, have one step forward.”

Steven hissed in anger under his breath. Of course this wasn’t going to just be that easy. When was anything ever just that easy? He brought a hand up to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

This had to work. It just had to.

Well, she would rejuvenate a pearl, right? There were plenty of pearls in the room next door. Surely, if he placed one of those on the pad, she’d follow his orders. That could work.

However, he had no idea how to place an order for a pearl, nor what would even happen to the pearl once he did. He did NOT want a pearl serving him; that was everything he tried to dismantle and more in Era 3. But, maybe he could order her to not follow him…? No, his dad tried that when his Pearl got rejuvenated, back when Spinel attacked the Earth.

Well, maybe he could just un-program that from the pearl? This is where all programming was done, wasn’t it? It was worth a shot.

“Shell, I’d like to place an order for a Pearl,” Steven announced, standing up a bit straighter.

“Order received. One moment, please.”

The machinery around the room suddenly burst to life, the whirring of gears and other futuristic components filling the air. Through the window, Steven could see the room next door light up. He ran up to it, intrigued to see how this process went down.

One of the larger pearls, a purple-y lavender color, was selected. The containment box it was resting in lit up, the others growing dim around it. Then, a circular hole opened behind it, and the gem was sucked through. It disappeared behind the other containment boxes, until it reappeared again in the tube that connected to the room Steven was standing in. The gem slid into the first machine, disappearing again behind a green computer screen-like box that looked like it came straight out of the 1980’s. The display lit up on it, and a bunch of descriptions in Gem Glyph cycled along the lime green monitor.

“Pearl, RB-46, has been selected. Would you like to continue with this pearl?” Shell’s voice came not from the overhead as Steven was used to, but rather the 80’s monitor.

Steven didn’t know a whole lot of Gem Glyph, but he knew enough to make out a few basic things. The gem weighed exactly average (though its actual weight was in a measurement Steven didn’t understand), it was smooth all the way around, and it had a higher density than usual compared to pearls made here in the past. He… didn’t know what to do with any of that information. Was that important somehow?

“Uhhh, yes?” Steven answered unsurely. “That one’s fine.”

(Broke up the chapter again, sorry. Apparently I write too much lol.)