Both of them walked in peace, wrapped in the silence that the ocean imposed with its calm. Connie didn't say a word; she seemed way too absorbed in the view, until Steven, looking to break the quiet, smiled a bit and asked her how she liked the ocean. She looked at him for a second, replied pretty quickly, "It's great," and then, a bit more timidly, added with a spark of excitement, "I've seen so many fish, and I even saw a dolphin jumping!"
Steven nodded with a satisfied smile, then looked back at her and asked if she wanted to go deeper. Connie hesitated for a few seconds, but finally nodded. She figured that since she was already out here, she might as well go all the way to the bottom. Plus, he asked her first, which proved he wasn't a bad guy. Well, it's not like I've met many guys anyway, Connie reflected, bringing a hand to her chin in a thoughtful gesture.
Steven didn't notice, way too focused on what he was about to do. You're probably wondering what I'm doing, he thought, feeding his usual inner monologue. What he was actually going to do was lower the gravity inside the bubble—a trick he had learned a while back, though he still didn't have total control over it. He knew it would take way more concentration than usual, and he'd most likely end up wanting a massive nap by the time he got back home.
Carefully, he started lowering the bubble slowly so he wouldn't freak Connie out. She watched him in fascination as they sank deeper into the depths, watching the shades of the water turn darker and more mysterious. Fish swam all around the bubble, glowing like flashes of light in the deep blue. Connie looked like a little kid discovering something new for the first time, completely mesmerized and catching every single detail.
Steven was impressed too, but not in the same way. In his head, he kept reminding himself that just a few days ago, he had seen a giant worm spit acid, and honestly, lately he'd been running into way too many of those Gem worms. A slight shiver ran down his spine, though it quickly faded when a school of fish surrounded the bubble, putting on a glowing dance that completely stole Connie's attention.
Her eyes were so wide and bright it looked like she had just figured out how to run before learning how to walk. Steven let her enjoy it for a few more seconds, watching her in silence, almost as if he wanted to lock this moment of pure awe into his memory.
I am totally over-animating my own imagination, I thought, a drop of sweat sliding down my temple. Several minutes passed like this, while Connie, excitement written all over her face, explained every single species of fish that passed before her eyes to Steven, describing the corals with their different shapes and colors, almost like she was reading a living book. Steven listened to her intently, even though deep down he already knew most of what she was saying. Still, seeing her talk with so much passion gave the whole atmosphere a different energy, like everything became brighter and more special.
Seems like now I'm the voice in my head and she's me—what a weird way to look at this, I thought to myself, another drop of sweat forming over the bizarre metaphors running through my mind. However, between my thoughts and internal laughs, a bad gut feeling started creeping up on me. And it wasn't good. Every time I felt that shadow in my chest, something dangerous ended up happening, so I started paying way closer attention to my surroundings.
Connie, without noticing, kept rambling on excitedly while pointing at a shipwreck that appeared in front of us. It was small, but she still found it fascinating, and she couldn't stop turning her head to take in every detail. I, on the other hand, looked away toward the sea floor. Something caught my eye, though it was too far down and barely visible.
I frowned. It was a tube... yellow? pink? orange? I couldn't really tell. I whispered in disbelief, "What is that?" Connie heard me and turned to look, raising an eyebrow behind her glasses. "What's what? Another ship?" she asked, completely missing my alert tone.
I shook my head slowly, feeling a chill. "No... it's like a cylindrical tube."
And then, just as we started getting closer to that weird thing, it moved.
Both of us froze, the air inside the bubble turning heavy, and Connie's heart seemed to skip a beat. "Uh... huh?" she stammered nervously, "That ship... did it just move?"
I wasn't smiling anymore. The look on my face turned serious, cold. The gut feeling stabbed me like a knife. No way, I thought, instantly regretting going down this deep.
The ocean floor shook. And emerging from the sand came a gigantic worm—not as colossal as the green one I had faced days ago, but big enough to make our blood run cold. Its body glowed with a sickly shimmer, and a gem throbbed embedded inside it. Thick, poisonous slime drooled from its mouth, melting the sand beneath it.
A gem and a slug again, echoed in my head, my aura turning dark as I clenched my fists tight.
"Nothing but slugs these past few days," I said out loud, startling Connie and even the worm looming over us. "My god, all I see are worms. Can't I get a bird, a rhino, or some ancient beast from the Mayan civilization?" I was ranting in sheer annoyance, while Connie just stared at me, completely confused by such a specific complaint. The slug, on the other hand, locked its eyes on us and suddenly lunged. Opening its mouth wide, it trapped the bubble right in the middle of its attack.
Connie was terrified and thrilled at the same time, seeing how well the bubble held up. I, barely paying attention, kept complaining that my life was full of slugs, and that people should just start calling me Steven Slug. Meanwhile, I threw an arm over Connie's shoulder to keep her from falling while the worm dragged us forcefully all along the Beach City coast, right through the middle of the sea.
Connie, noticing the bubble was holding up without a scratch, just stared at me with a mix of confusion and awe. Finally, in her hesitant little voice, she asked while pointing her tiny hand toward the creature, "And this... what is it?"
I looked at her after venting and replied calmly, "Well, you already saw I can summon things, right?"
She nodded, still with a hint of disbelief.
"It's a Gem," I continued, "something kind of like what I am."
Connie looked at the slug trying to eat us and then looked back at me, frowning. "Well... you can't really tell," she muttered, a drop of sweat on her forehead.
I just smiled and lifted my shirt a bit. Connie, by instinct, covered her eyes with both hands. But curiosity got the better of her, and she left a tiny gap between her fingers to peek at what was hidden.
The first thing Connie noticed was the gem embedded in my stomach, a small glow that made her question reality itself. She stared at me wide-eyed, as if checking to make sure this wasn't a dream. I pulled my shirt back down and kept explaining in a low voice, trying not to scare her more than necessary, that these creatures were a kind of corruption of the Gems.
She looked back at the glowing stone and then asked me what I did with them, still holding onto that mix of disbelief and curiosity. I just asked her to watch and closed my eyes for a split second to focus. Calmly, I pretended to steer the bubble in a specific direction, and the current wrapping around it obeyed. The slug followed the trail as if it lacked any free will in that deformed state, and just like that, we headed back toward the beach.
Feeling the surface close by, the slug suddenly let go of us, probably thinking it had caught a round fish and was leaving it to die on the shore. The two of us tumbled onto the sand; I bounced up with a jump and, without a second thought, popped one side of the bubble to pull Connie out and secure her inside the half that stayed intact. I left her protected while I exposed myself completely.
How I did it actually brought a goofy smile to my face; my inner monologue had given me a quick, weird, but effective idea. The only thing I still hadn't mastered were the spikes, though now wasn't the time to whine about that. Summoning my shield, I decided to attack head-on. I charged at the creature holding up the glowing defense, threw the shield toward a rocky ridge to confuse it, and as it ricocheted off a sharp stone, the shield spun and smacked the slug right in the forehead. The impact made it stagger, and the beast, completely enraged, slid across the sand to throw itself at me.
I saw the speed of its attack and braced myself. I planted the shield in front of me, holding my ground while the slime tried to drag me down. Its massive mouth grazed the surface of the shield, pulling at it as if trying to grind it to pieces, but the defense held up. From the sand, using all my body weight, I shoved the shield like a lever, guiding the creature's charge. I used the force of the collision to redirect its trajectory, making its own momentum crash it right into a nearby rock wall.
The crash was deafening, and the creature groaned, the sound echoing between the waves and the shore. For a moment, everything went dead silent, except for Connie's panting inside her half of the bubble and the grinding of the rock under the beast's weight. My heart was pounding hard; I knew this wasn't over, but at least we had bought ourselves a breather.
A sharp-edged rock appeared right in front of me at the last second—the exact same one Pearl always used to sharpen her spear. You're probably wondering why she needed to sharpen something that seemed impossible to wear down, and trust me, so did I. When I asked her, her answer was as simple as it was weird: It was your mother's favorite rock. Right then, I just gave her a blank face, completely unable to understand her logic, but that fleeting memory vanished as reality forced me to act.
I guided the creature straight toward that rock, and just as its charge was about to rip right through our throats, I curled into a ball in mid-air and snapped a protective bubble into existence the exact second I was swallowed. The slug, ecstatic over what it thought was its prey, didn't notice it had sealed its own doom. The impact was brutal; the beast was completely impaled on the sharp edge, and a dull thud, followed by a bright white flash, shook the entire coast. Sand and rock fragments flew everywhere like a blinding cloud.
Connie watched the scene with stars in her eyes, hypnotized seeing how the monster that looked invincible seconds ago just vanished into thin air. When the dust settled, I appeared through the haze, my clothes torn and a serious look on my face, holding a gem bubbled inside a pink sphere. My expression was a cross between sadness and exhaustion; I sighed and walked over to Connie, showing her the bubble.
"This is what I do," I muttered. Still fascinated, she stepped a bit closer and asked what the sphere was for. "So it doesn't come back out in its monster form," I answered bluntly. Her curiosity didn't stop there, and she wanted to know if there was a cure. "Not for now," I said in a heavy tone, looking at the corrupted stone vibrating weakly inside its pink prison.
To cut the tension, I pulled something out of my pocket. "Oh, right, this is yours." I handed her a red bracelet. She blinked in confusion, not getting it. I smiled a bit and explained that she had lost it at a parade, that I thought I saw her in the crowd, and decided to keep it. The memory rushed back to her, and with a slight smile, she took the bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist. A few seconds of silence passed, and finally, she said, "Thank you."
I nodded with a smile and asked if she enjoyed the trip. Connie snapped out of her awe immediately, answering with enthusiasm, "Yes, yes! It was amazing, so exciting!" Then she lowered her voice a bit to ask if this happened every day. "Slugs? Yeah," I replied dryly, looking out at the sea. "There are plenty of corrupted Gems out there, and a lot of them are roaming around completely out of control."
To wrap up the meeting, I lifted the bubble, and the trapped gem disappeared in a soft flash, sent away from our sight but not from its corruption. Connie, acting nervous, tried to find the words to ask for my number, but the watch on her wrist caught her eye, and the sudden anxiety made her hesitate. The moment slipped right through her fingers, like the waves breaking on the shore, and she stayed quiet, her cheeks flushing just a bit.
"Uh," I said, confused, "It's getting pretty late, right? Your parents might worry," I added with a smile, and gave her my number just in case she wanted to talk later. She wrote it down in silence. "Well," I said, "See ya. Maybe I'll see you around," and I walked away in the opposite direction with my hands in my pockets.
Connie stood frozen for a few seconds, then murmured excitedly that he was her first friend. I kept smiling to myself for a moment. Well, I thought, the day didn't go too bad; at least that monster was weak. Seeing how my shield didn't really work well as a weapon, I thought that maybe I should get a rifle or a sword, something with more kick, and a half-smile crept onto my face at the thought.
Suddenly, I heard a splash and looked toward the house, freezing dead in my tracks. The Gems were being held down by another creature, but this time, the slug had water tentacles that wrapped around them and yanked hard. Garnet kept her usual poker face, Pearl looked terrified because she couldn't do a thing, and Amethyst, for some reason, seemed to be enjoying the feeling of being dragged through the air.
I sighed, summoned my shield, and thought incredibly fast, organizing the strategic mental chaos that sometimes saves my life. Without a second thought, I lunged at the creature, determined to get the Gems back and protect anyone I could.
End of Chapter 9.