Hello internet friends and welcome to the fic that's way better than the one I was going to post last month. So a little backstory on this one, I'd like to give shoutouts to Kiranwearsscienceblues for the genesis of this idea. Basically, an AU where Pearl convinces Rose to fuse into Rainbow Quartz, so Steven can inherit her Gem instead. And me, being a nutter butter, decided that this was a great idea for a fic.

Now personally I always like to start with something a little more normal, so expect to see a lot of parallels to Gem Glow here. It helps me get to know the cast, and I think it helps the reader to ease into some of the more radical AUs like this. Don't worry, the twists they are a-comin'.

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Oh yeah, and I guess this is where I plug my tumblr as well. Over at never knew Pearl. There was no doubt about that. Pearl was as good as dead, in human terms. But Pearl was neither Human, nor was her demise so simple. Steven knew that, of course, even had his mother not continually reminded him, the picture hung conspicuously over the door of their beachfront home made sure he wouldn't forget.

The same could be said of the gemstone embedded in his forehead. A constant reminder that Pearl was gone. Smooth, egg shaped, nestled like a third eye in the center of his forehead. It was a Pearl, it was Pearl's Pearl. You see Pearl, Steven's mother and Steven by extension, wasn't human. Rather, they were Gems, or in Steven's case half-gem, intelligent gemstones projecting a light-based body.

Pearl gave up her Gemstone, though, she gave it up so Steven could be born. Born to a Gem Mother, Rose Quartz, and a Human Father, Greg Universe. And so Pearl was gone, and Steven would never meet the Gem his mother always talked so glowingly about.

He knew Pearl was one of the Crystal Gems, the group of Gems that protect humanity from monsters. Steven's mother was their leader, and their base was just up the hill from the beach house Steven lived in. A cliffside statue of a giant woman, six armed, two faced, with a single room cut into her navel containing what Steven's mother called a warp pad, which the Gems use to travel all over the world, and a single door leading to each Crystal Gem's room. Pearl apparently had one, one that would eventually be Steven's, but until that time he lived in a beach house, like any other human.

It was designed so Steven and Greg could live near the Crystal Gems, lifted off the ground on stilts to protect it from potential flooding disasters. Inside there were three rooms, a large front room featuring an included Kitchen, a large couch for Steven, Greg, and the Gems as well. A bathroom was tucked off to the side, with a room lofted above it for Steven's bed. In the back was a smaller bedroom, meant to be used by Greg and Rose. But Gems didn't need sleep, and Greg preferred to just sleep in his Van, so Steven spent most of his nights alone.

This was one of those nights, as he sat on the deck outside the beach house, just looking up at the night sky. Something about it always made him feel better, the infinite expanse of stars above him, all the places they could be…. The places they are. He idly ran a hand through his hair, brown like his father's, but curled up in the back and parted around his gem in the front. Pearl's hair had always pulled back to a point, but for whatever reason Steven's was similar but not the same.

It wasn't the only way he was merely similar to Pearl, too. Where Pearl was tall and thin as a rail, Steven as shorter and a bit stocky. Not quite a square profile, maybe more of a rectangle. And he barely seemed to age since he was a kid. Here he was, a middle school kid that looked like he could pass for an elementary schooler. His clothes were a handed-down shirt from his father, and a pair of shorts, a far cry from the aquas and lavenders Pearl wore. Perhaps the only trait he truly shared with Pearl was the light blue color of his eyes. He couldn't even use her Gem like she could.

"My gem..." he muttered to himself, as he ran a hand over the elliptical pearl, "I wonder when I'll finally get it to work."

His idle thoughts were broken by a voice yelling from the Temple above, "Steven get inside!" It was Rose, and she sounded absolutely frantic.

"Mom!?" he called back, hearing the sound of distant sound, like screeching, coming from down the beach.

Suddenly something whizzed just past Steven's ear. A pink shield, looking like it was made of energy, emblazoned with a rose design. His Mother's weapon. Steven barely got the chance to notice it before it impacted something behind him, triggering a shock wave that almost knocked him over.

Scrambling to his feet, Steven saw what had made Rose so concerned, a tiny wingless bat. It was pitch black, nearly invisible against the night had it not been for the notably white, crystalline fang near dead center on its little body. Some kind of Monster, Steven realized as he saw more of them flying down the coastline from the city.

Steven turned back to the Temple to see Rose already rushing down to the beach, Garnet and Amethyst behind her. "Steven!" she yelled again to him, much less concerned and much more firmly. It was an order now, and that only made part of Steven want to intervene.

"No, I can help you guys!" Steven yelled back as he sprinted down the stairs from the deck to the beach. Rose simply was silent, what could she even say to that that wouldn't completely crush Steven's confidence? Sure Steven couldn't control his Gem, sure him being out here was putting him in danger, but Rose couldn't admit that in front of Steven.

But the bats didn't care about confidence, or if the child ahead of them knew how to use his Gem or not. No the bats knew only attacking Gems. And they used the only attack they really had, they could screech, and their screeches were like a destructive shock wave.

"Rose! The bats!" Garnet called out as she raised her gauntlet-clad fists in front of her, launching her gauntlets like a pair of rockets. One sent to intercept the shock wave headed for Steven, the other smashing into the side of the leading monster, a bat according to Garnet, and exploding with enough force to poof the small bat instantly.

Rose seemed stunned for a moment after Garnet's intervention, before rushing over to Steven. "You two take care of the bats, I'll protect Steven," she finally ordered, summoning a pair of shields this time.

"Alright! I can handle these," Amethyst smugly said, using her whip to strike wildly toward the oncoming bats. Garnet said nothing, racing past Amethyst's wild whipping and summoning another set of gauntlets.

Two bats were caught up fighting Garnet and Amethyst, only one slipping past them to pursue Rose and Steven. "Steven, I want you staying behind me" Rose commanded Steven first, before softening and asking, "Okay?" Steven nodded, hunkering in close and hugging Rose's leg as she put one shield in front of her to block any incoming sonic bursts, and prepared to throw the other.

Rose stood tall, waiting for her enemy to attack first. And it wasn't a long wait, the little bat used its sonic blast attack, impacting Rose's shield. She didn't move an inch from the attack, and immediately threw her second shield with extreme accuracy, cutting it right in the middle and poofing it.

"Hey you guys?" Steven heard Amethyst calling out after Rose's attack, peeking around Rose's shield to see the small purple gem wrap another bat in her whip and smash it into the sand, "These things don't have Gems!"

"Then the real monster must be somewhere nearby," Garnet calmly replied, grasping the last bat in her two gauntlets. With a swift tug she poofed the bat, turning her head toward the sand below, "Nothing."

Rose sighed, looking between Garnet and Amethyst. "Well, then we need to find it, let's split up and-"

"Oh I can help! I'll go check in town and see if anyone's seen anything!" Steven cut her off, rushing to join Amethyst and Garnet had Rose not put an arm out to stop him.

"No Steven, you need to get some sleep. We can handle finding one monster."

"But I'm not even tired. Come on, I can help you guys," Steven tried to argue, punctuating it with an inadvertent yawn that only served to make Rose stare harder down at him. "Steven..." she reiterated, before her stare softened, "Alright, I'll stay with you for now. Garnet, Amethyst, you both can handle locating the monster on your own, right?"

"Just us? Looking for a monster we know nothing about?" Amethyst tried to complain, but Garnet had already started walking toward town. And Steven could swear she was scowling as she did so. "Garnet!" She tried calling after the retreating taller Gem, but to no avail, "Fine. But don't stay gone all night Rose. We're going to need your help."

"I won't, Amethyst."

Rose ended up leaving after Steven had finally gone to sleep. It was easy to guess, since he ended up waking up alone again, and he knew Gems didn't need sleep.

His mind was elsewhere than Rose's departure, though, still thinking about the night before. The Crystal Gems were out there hunting a monster, and he wasn't able to help. And he knew why; it wasn't because he had to sleep like any human, it was because he couldn't use his gem. Rose never admitted it, she was his mother after all, but he'd heard it from Amethyst before.

"You know Rose isn't going to take you with us until you can at least summon a weapon, right?"

It wasn't that Steven wasn't trying. He'd heard all the stories about all the things Pearl could do; all the things he couldn't do. He even knew the petal story by heart, but still he couldn't do something as simple as make his gem glow.

Steven's internal angsting was interrupted, however, by a commotion coming from the beach outside. Thinking the Gems had located the monster, Steven rushed out to the deck and looked up and down the beach. There was no monster, though, only Amethyst and a flock of Gulls.

"Go! Get out of here! We're hunting Gems, not Birds!" she was yelling, waving her arms to little avail as the birds merely flocked further up the shoreline. "Amethyst!" Steven called out, waving his arms as well as he raced down the stairs to join her on the beach.

"Steven! You're awake!" Amethyst stopped yelling at the Gulls to yell at Steven instead. "So how did your monster hunt go last night? Did Mom help you find it?" Steven wasted no time in asking once he'd gotten to Amethyst.

"How did it go? We're still looking for it. Rose didn't even join us until this morning."

This morning? Steven had to guess that Amethyst simply wasn't being honest with him. She probably just wanted to keep Steven from feeling like a bigger burden, keeping Rose away from hunting monsters, it wasn't Amethyst's fault Steven had already guessed what was likely the truth.

"You really couldn't find it?" Steven asked instead, trying to move the discussion quickly away from Amethyst's lie.

"Nope!" she replied, shrugging her arms as a Gull started pecking around her feet, "Garnet still says it has to be around here but I think it bailed after we took care of the little bats."

"Well what if it only come out at night? Like a real bat?"

"Steven, these are Gems we're talking about, they don't sleep during the day or anything," Amethyst tried giving her best lecture like Garnet or Rose would have, but the effect was lost when the Gull pecking around ended up pecking at her feet.

"Grrrgh!" she growled, drawing her whip out of her Gem without a second thought, "I said get away you stupid birds!" She was about to start swinging her whip at the Gulls when Steven interrupted her, "Wow Amethyst, how do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That whip thing. How do you summon it? I keep trying Pearl's petal thing but it just never works." Steven actually wanted to know how how other Gems summoned their weapons, not just Pearl, though getting Amethyst to not attack birds was a nice bonus.

"Tch, the petal thing? Steven, what you need to know is all that practice stuff is junk. Whenever you need your weapon, it'll just be there. Like mine!" Amethyst summoned another whip for emphasis, snapping both in the direction of the Gulls, who finally all scattered into the air in a mass of feathers.

"But my weapon wasn't there last night. All I could do is hide behind Mom." Steven just kicked at the sand, thinking back to how he'd just gotten in the way by making Rose have to protect him instead of fight.

"Well maybe the problem is you-"

"Amethyst!" the distant, yet still surprisingly clear, voice of Garnet yelled down to them. Both the half-gem and full-gem looking up to the cliff overlooking the Crystal Temple to see Garnet there, staring down at them.

Amethyst reacted immediately to the sight, her two whips vanishing as she dug around in a pocket. "Uh oh, I need to get back to hunting. Hey Steven, how about you head into town and get some snacks for after we take care of this, huh?"

She pulled a fist out of her pocket, a couple of $3 bills and holding them out for Steven. He grabbed the money, not wanting Amethyst to get in any more trouble by holding her up. And as she ran down the beach, Steven trudged the other way toward the Big Donut.

The Big Donut, as it's name might imply, was a store that sold donuts. In truth it was more of a donut-themed convenience store, despite the proud claims that "We only sell donuts." Built on the edge of Beach City, where the City, the Boardwalk, and the Beach met, the little shop was advertised with…. A big donut on the roof. It used to serve as a neon sign, but the Crystal Gems had destroyed the old sign some years ago fighting a monster.

Inside worked Lars and Sadie, stocking and watching the register respectively, while Steven rushed to his favorite cat-promotional freezer. "Hey Steven, busy day?" Sadie asked. "Nah, all the Gems are off doing Gem stuff, so I got sent for snacks," Steven explained, blindly reaching around the freezer once, twice, then a third time before looking away from Sadie to discover the freezer was empty for the first time in forever.

"Nooooooooooooo!" Steven cried out with a force that could shake the windows on the shop, falling down to his knees before the freezer, "This can't be happening! Where are the Cookie Cats!?"

"I'm sorry, Steven. I guess they stopped making them," Sadie tried to let him down gently, to little avail as Steven simply got up and pressed his cheek against the freezer.

"Stopped making them? Why would they stop making Cookie Cats? Don't they have laws against this!?"

"Tough bits, man," Lars piped up, kneeling and stocking another freezer on the other side of the little store. This one much larger and decorated with a cartoonish lion head, "Nobody was buying them. I guess they just couldn't compete with Lion Lickers."

Steven suddenly let go of the Cookie Cat freezer and ran over to the Lion Licker one, almost stepping on Lars, "Lion Lickers!? Nobody likes them! They don't even look like lions! Kids these days!"

"Watch it, Steven. I'm stocking here," Lars waved his arm to get Steven to get away from the Lion Lickers' freezer, "If you want your wimpy ice cream so much, why don't you just make more with your magic Gem powers?"

"That's not how it works, Lars!" Steven shot back. He'd actually asked Rose about it before, when Lars had commented on magic Gem powers before, and she told him Gems can't just... create ice cream sandwiches. So instead he just trudged back to the Cookie Cat freezer, resting his head against it dejectedly, "Goodbye sweet Cookie Cats, your crunchy cookie outside and your icy creamy insides were too good for this world."

And then he kissed the freezer.

Now kissing freezers is weird and unsanitary enough as it is. But given what happened the last time Steven started kissing Big Donut property, the staff, all two of them, decided to just let Steven take the freezer with him.

And so Steven skipped home, a Cat-themed freezer strapped onto his back by the power cord, like a weird backpack. Once he got the freezer inside and unstrapped from his back, he heard a sound coming from Greg and Rose's room. A rustling and a thumping sort of sound, like something was trapped inside.

Cautiously he walked from the kitchen to the doorway. Grabbing a broom for protection. But before he could open the door, it opened on its own, light flooding the bedroom to reveal the source of the noise.

"Garnet!?" Steven called out, almost falling over the broom he had brought with him as the same Gem that had scared off Amethyst earlier was now looking through Steven's house.

"You weren't supposed to be back yet," Garnet said flatly, walking past him toward the front door, "I wanted to check the beach house for our monster."

"Wait, Garnet!" Steven called out, getting Garnet to stop just at the entrance. "Yes, Steven?"

"Um…. About last night. Do you…. Dislike me?"

Garnet listened to Steven for a moment, tilting her head, "Dislike you?"

"Yeah. Last night when Mom decided to stay with me instead of going to help you. It looked like you were mad," Steven explained, recalling Garnet's seeming scowl the night before, and then her... strange behavior today. "I don't dislike you, Steven," Garnet explained after a brief pause, when Steven could almost feel her gaze on him despite the visor she always wore, "I may have my disagreements with... your Mother, but I don't dislike you."

"Then can I ask you something else?" Steven waited for a response, but getting nothing and Garnet not leaving, he decided to just continue, "Mom keeps telling me about how Pearl studied petals to learn how to summon her weapon, but Amethyst says I should do the complete opposite and just do nothing. Do you just…. Do nothing to summon your Gauntlets?"

"No. I just link my mind with the energy of all existing matter. Channeling the collective power of the whole universe through my gem," Garnet explained, her voice sounding more and more mystical as she explained, before suddenly snapping back to her usual cold self, "At least that's my way of doing it."

Steven just stared blankly for a moment at her sudden change, "So I'm supposed to both do nothing and do everything?"

"In a word, yes." And the house fell silent for an extended pause. Unlike usually when Garnet was silent, Steven didn't feel like she was constantly watching. It was like Garnet was asleep, except Gems didn't sleep. Finally after seconds that felt like minutes, Garnet spoke again, "I need to leave. Maybe you should try asking Rose about her weapon."

Steven didn't get another word in edge-wise before Garnet had left, leaving him alone once again with his Cookie Cat freezer. "Ask Mom?" he asked himself as he hefted the freezer up onto the counter of the little kitchen, "I guess I haven't really asked her about how she summons a shield. Not that it'd make a difference."

Deciding the freezer needed something to freeze, Steven went to the much larger, much more proper looking, refrigerator and started looking for any frozen food. Some hot dogs, some ice cream, some Cookie Cats.

"Cookie Cats!?" Steven exclaimed, not hearing the door open again, "No way, they-"

"Stopped making them?" the voice of Steven's mother, Rose Quartz, asked from behind him, "I heard that too, and since they're your favorite I had to buy everything the Big Donut had left."

"Mom!" Steven dropped what he was doing to give Rose a hug, "I can't believe you did this for me!" Then he paused, "Wait, what about the Monster?"

Rose rubbed her voluminous curls and glanced away from Steven, "Oh that? I have Garnet and Amethyst looking for it. Garnet said that Amethyst had told you already."

"They did, but shouldn't you be out there helping them? You're their leader, you don't need to do all this for me," Steven tried to explain again, Garnet and Amethyst's respective stories about Rose coming to mind.

Rose moved closer to Steven, closing the freezer door and pulling the half-gem into a hug, "I will, first I wanted to make sure you were okay after last night. Steven that was very reckless, you can't try fighting monsters until you can use your Gem."

Steven chaffed under the admonishment, looking up at Rose, then down at the floor, "I'm trying…. The petal dance, the hard work, I even tried asking Amethyst and Garnet how they use their gems. Garnet even said I should ask how you summon your shield."

Rose went quiet, Steven could even feel her tense slightly, "Steven… do you really need to know about how other Gems use their weapons?"

"Amethyst and Garnet told me," Steven responded, giving a hug back to Rose, "Who knows, maybe it'll help?"

"Well let's sit down first." Rose walked with Steven to the large L-shaped couch, nestled just below Steven's bed-loft, "Steven, I never knew how to even summon a weapon until I formed the Crystal Gems. I never had a reason to. But now it's effortless for me to summon one, two, or more. Do you know what changed? I found something worth fighting for, worth protecting."

"Mom..." Steven muttered, before the house windows shook from a distant screech. Rose must have known exactly what was going on, since she shot upright before putting an arm out to stop Steven from doing the same. "Steven, this time I'm serious. Stay inside," she stressed, before racing out the door.

Steven wasn't going to intentionally put himself in danger, but he did rush to the front window to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening. He saw the Crystal Gems gathered on the beach, near one of the giant stone hands that had fallen off the cliffside statue the Crystal Temple was built into. He could just barely see down the beach the black bloby outline of a much larger bat creature. It's body was a dark gray, with a black, square-cut, curved-corner Gem on its… stomach. Unlike the smaller, more hand held bats the night before, this one was easily as tall as Amethyst, and had crystalline eyes to go with its two crystalline fangs.

And it was leisurely flying toward the Temple. Perhaps it hadn't seen the Crystal Gems yet, perhaps it didn't care. "Gems, weapons!" Steven could hear Rose yell outside, as the three Crystal Gems all summoned their weapons and charged down the beach toward the Bat. Then the windows shook again, accompanied by the screech, loud enough that Steven ducked to the floor fearing the window was going to shatter.

Steven peeked up through the window again, immediately seeing the Gems had fallen back down the Beach, the Bat now quickly advancing on them, and a big sand crater between the two groups. He ducked again, though, as the Bat Monster screeched again, louder still, shaking the entire building this time as something crashed outside.

When Steven poked his head up again, he saw the hand on the beach was gone. Rocks that once belong to it strewn all over the beach, one having even landed on the stairs up to the beach house. The Gems were nowhere to be found though.

"Oh no, oh no," Steven muttered to himself as he scanned the window's view of the beach up and down, seeing no Gems, only the bat monster. His scanning shortly turned into pacing, which turned into rushing back to the window and scanning the beach. He knew he had to do something, but what could he even do? He couldn't even summon a weapon!

But he had to do something, so he once again grabbed the broom he'd left by the back room, and ran out the door.

Outside he could see the full scene, the Bat was bearing down on a chunk of rock that had dislodged from the cliff before Steven was even born, and Steven had to guess that was where the Crystal Gems had hidden themselves.

"Everyone!" Steven yelled as he jumped his way down the stairs, winding up his broom-holding arm.

"Steven, no!" he could hear Rose cry from her hiding spot, but the damage was already done, the monster had turned its attention toward Steven. "Leave them alone!" he cried out as he tossed the broom with good speed and accuracy. Though the monster ultimately caught the broom in its mouth, snapping it in half with a single bite.

"Steven!" Rose cried out again, as the monster flew up high to attack. Steven threw his arms up as if it would somehow protect him, but the sonic burst never arrived. Instead Steven opened his eyes to see something glowing in front of him.

"Steven..." Rose yelled a third time now, this time in awe, "Your Gem!"

It was true, the glow in Steven's eyes was coming from just above them, from the Pearl nestled on his forehead. "W-what do I do now!? It's never done this!" He cried out, waving his arms as the monster got its bearings back from the sudden light.

"Your weapon!" he heard Garnet calling from the rock as well. "Yeah! Come on Steven!" Amethyst added in as well.

Steven moved on something close to instinct. Grasping at the glow, pulling out, and flourishing down. "Woah," he muttered as he took stock of the light-based weapon in his hand. A glowing off-cyan blade, wrapped around a similarly glowing shaft, connected to a grip of stark white, with a little half-star attached to its end.

"Her spear…." Steven could just make out one of the Crystal Gems uttering, he was too busy staring down the monster. "I said leave them alone!" Steven yelled, winding up and tossing the spear this time toward the monster's opened jaw.

And Gem Weapons don't break like Brooms do.

So the spear pierced the monster's mouth, it screeching loudly and in pain, sending small pebbles tumbling down the cliffside before it finally poofed in a cloud of black smoke. The curved-corner gem falling into the sand with a soft tink.

"Steven you did it!" Rose ran from the rock, calling out to Steven as she grabbed him in a hug, Amethyst in tow behind her.

"I knew he could do it all along," Amethyst tried bragging, "It was easy, wasn't it?"

Garnet didn't come to congratulate Steven, instead bubbling the bat's Gem, and sending it away to… wherever Gems get stored. Only then did she come over and give Steven a simple pat on the head. He frowned, he didn't like the head pats.

"I guess it turns out all I needed to summon my Gem was deadly peril, huh?" Steven asked, entirely seriously. Though Rose didn't take it with the pride he expected.

"You're still in deep trouble for not staying inside like I told you, Steven."

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Congratulations you read through that beast. 9 pages, 4.5k words, that's the 2nd most I've ever written for a single chapter of a fic. And hoo boy did it show, that was about a month's work of work. Honestly I kinda wrote all that out in smaller chunks, then when I went through and did editing I realized I kinda wrote this interesting mystery woven through about just what Rose was doing the whole time. If you can't tell already, Rose is going to be something of a conflict in this.

(PS please be gentle it's literally the first chapter of many.)

Anyway since I'm 12 hours late on posting this I'll just get right into this.

Next time, when the Gems leave Steven behind on another adventure, he and Greg end up having an adventure of their own.