Steven had received his punishment after disobeying Rose, learning how to summon his spear for the first time or not. And that was why he was laying on the couch, tossing crumpled up paper balls and seeing if he could hit the Cookie Cat freezer with them.

You see, his punishment was that he still wasn't able to go with the Crystal Gems on one of their big important missions. They'd left earlier in the day, it was something about a Red Eye, which Steven assumed was some sort of monster like the bat was.

There weren't any actual restrictions on what Steven could do, thankfully. But that didn't change the fact there wasn't anything to do without the Gems. He could go into town, maybe get some fry bits from Beach Citywalk Fries, or visit with his Dad at the car wash.

Thankfully for Steven, he wouldn't need to lay around waiting to make a decision. He heard the distant sound of an engine rolling up the beach. And given there was no road, and mail was a rarity, there was only one person that could be coming.

"Dad!" Steven called out, having sprinted from the couch to the outside deck and then down to the beach below. "Steven!" he called back, looking first to the beach house, then up at the Temple, "Where's Rose?"

"Gem stuff," was all Steven had to say. Greg knew well enough the kinds of adventures the Crystal Gems could get wrapped up in. Magic stuff, stuff he'd been told to stay out of.

"Gem stuff, huh? I guess that's why she wanted me to open the storage unit for her."

Steven gasped long and loud, "You have a storage unit?" Greg just laughed lightly at the question, "It's nothing special. It's just a shed I use to keep old things that wouldn't fit in the van. Though Rose left it a mess after she was done with it. Hey Schtu-ball, how would you like to help me get everything back inside?"

Steven's eyes lit up like stars, the solution to his boredom, "Can I!?"

"Sure! Hop in, I'll get us there," Greg slapped the side of his branded van, setting off its alarm.

Greg wasn't wrong about the storage unit being a mess. Rose had left random boxes piled all the way to the roadside, and yet the storage unit didn't look that much emptier. The piles inside still reached almost up to the ceiling, with only a small hole stretching all the way to the back of the unit.

"Wow Dad, how did you get all of this… stuff?" Steven asked, kicking an inflatable beach ball into the hole.

"You pick up a lot of stuff when you're traveling all over performing, like this t-shirt cannon," Greg replied, picking up the cannon and firing it into the unit, causing something to crash inside of it. "Uh oh..."

"Maybe I should go see what that was." Steven was already on his hands and knees, looking through the hole in the pile of stuff. He was about to crawl in, too, when he felt Greg grab his shoulder, "Hold on Schtu-ball, we can't have you getting lost in there. Rose would never forgive me if you did."

Steven pouted, getting up off the ground and taking a look around. A sock, a pile of multicolored handkerchiefs, a spool of twine. "Wait, that's it!" he declared, grabbing the twine and wrapping it around his leg, "This way I can just follow the string back! That should work, right?"

"I-I guess?" Greg gave the twine a bit of a tug, "It's not coming off at least."

Satisfied with the vague approval, Steven got back down on his hands and knees, crawling into the hole as Greg held onto the other end of the twine. Inside was a lot darker, and seemed to stretch back a lot farther than it looked like from outside. He crawled past condensed piles of tables and boxes, old televisions and even an entire desk. Finally he emerged into a tunnel he could stand in, the path branching left and right in front of him.

Deciding to go left, Steven set off through the coincidentally-carved paths of the storage unit. It didn't take him long to find the end of the path, though. A wall of clutter, with a set of golf clubs sticking out like a series of nails.

"Hey Dad?" Steven called out, eager for conversation as he retraced his steps back to the junction, "Did you ever play golf?"

"Heh heh, found the clubs? Your Mother got those for me after you were born… I think it was a Father's Day gift. I do like to think of myself as someone who would golf, though."

Steven was glad he was inside after hearing that, as much as Greg probably was glad he was outside after saying it. It was such a ridiculous answer Steven couldn't help but shake his head, "Well why doesn't she give you anything now?"

"She doesn't want anything else being thrown in here, and besides, you're old enough to get your old man presents now."

Well, his Mother wasn't wrong about not needing anything else in storage at least. Steven had set off down the right path now, climbing over boxes labeled everything from "convenient pillows" to "fragile china," and almost tripping over an unlabeled box. Getting his feet back under him, Steven turned around to take a look inside the mystery box.

Inside was stacks and stacks of CDs, all labeled with the same Mr. Universe branding as Greg's van. "Hey Dad! I found a bunch of your old CDs in here!" Steven called back to Greg again, hoping to start a conversation up again while he kept traveling deeper into the storage unit that was starting to feel like two storage units put together.

"Huh. I thought I got rid of those back in the day. Oh, that's right, I couldn't even give those things away! You know I think the only one I gave away was when I came here to Beach City for a concert. Nobody even showed up except for your Mother."

"Just Mom, seriously?" Steven asked, pocketing a CD for later, "Come on, at least the other Gems showed up, right?"

"Nope, just your Mother. The rest of the Crystal Gems didn't take too kindly to me at first. But your Mother and I were inseparable from that day until the day you were born."

Steven wasn't sure if he wanted to ask the followup to that, but it would make is trek a little more interesting, so he called back once more. "And what happened then?"

"Well after… Pearl gave up her form for you, Rose and the other Gems had to pick up the slack. So I started the car wash to be able to afford your clothes, your food, your… well, everything. So we don't really see each other as much now."

It wasn't that he hadn't heard the story before. He'd lived it already for his entire life. So, not knowing what to say, he just kept on walking until he heard his Dad again, "Steven? You still in there?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I just didn't know what to say." The boxes had given way now to various tall decorations. An inflated Palm Tree, a floor lamp, Steven figured he had to be getting close.

"It's no problem, I know it's kind of… Weird. Though, if every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs!"

Steven was going to laugh, but stopped himself when he almost tripped over a shirt. "Buy T-shirt Cannons?" he read off the shirt as he picked it up. Just ahead of him was a tall totem pole, knocked over and resting on a box labeled "GGS."

"Hey Dad, I think I found it! A… totem pole fell onto some box. Hey, do you know what a GGS is?" he called back, tugging lightly on the twine this time as well.

"GGS?" he heard Greg calling back, "Oh! That must be my old Grintendo! Hey Steven, do you think you can bring that out here?"

Steven gave the box a tentative grab. It was awkward, wide and large, but it didn't seem heavy. So Steven called back, "Yeah I think so!"

And so Steven started his trek back out. Carefully climbing over boxes and only almost breaking a photo of his parents along the way. Once outside, he set the box down on the ground and stepped back, letting his Dad do the honors of opening.

Opening the box, both men were hit with the smell of dust. Dust and old plastic. Inside was a pile of gray cartridges surrounding a gray console. It was roughly squared, with a slot in the top for cartridges, an oval-shaped switch and button, and a square cover over… something.

"There it is. I used to play on this all the time when Rose and I were still dating," Greg then started digging through the contents, "The Perils of Pweepwee, Skateboard Kids, G.U.Y.S. Arena, Fargo Park…. Er, we can talk about that one when you're older. Oh! Here it is, my old copy of Mighty Lewis Bros. This one was always Rose's favorite."

"Mom liked Video Games, seriously?" Steven asked, looking over the Mighty Lewis Bros cartridge. The sticker depicted a tanned, heavier-set, bearded man wearing a hard hat. He was leaping, apparently up a tower, toward a scaly, green, skinny lizard man wearing a crown and a cape. The lizard king was raising an arm in the air, an arm that ended not in a hand, but in some kind of pirate-like pickaxe.

"Not really, but she did like watching me play that one. The Crystal Gems didn't care for it, though. They said it was distracting Rose from her work. Hey I know, would you like this old thing, Steven?"

Steven's eyes lit up like stars as he dumped the cartridge back in the box, "Really? I can just have it?" Greg just laughed and closed the box up again, "Sure! It's not doing anything stuffed in the back of U-Store, is it? But first let's get the rest of this stuff put away."

Getting everything else into the storage building was easy. Between Steven and Greg they were easily able to shove most of it straight in. By the time the sun was starting its descent in the sky, the mess had been cleaned up and all that was left roadside was a van, a single box, and a father and son. "There, that wasn't so hard," Greg remarked, picking up the Grintendo box and stowing it in his van, "Now let's get back before Rose does."

"Sure! And I grabbed a CD for us to listen to on the way!"

Greg wasn't that excited to be listening to one of his own CDs on the way back to the beach house, nor was Steven's borderline-vibration helpful. But they made it all the same, and the Crystal Gems were still away on their mission!

Hurrying inside with the box, Greg was quickly able to get the old GGS hooked up to the old television in Steven's loft, "Alright, that should do it. Go grab one of those games will you, Schtu-ball?"

Steven nodded, running down to where the box had been left and looking inside. Immediately he noticed the Mighty Lewis Bros game again, since it now sat alone in the empty space the GGS once occupied. Not knowing what games would be good, he just decided to grab that. "Got one!" He called out as he ran up the stairs to his loft.

"Lewis Bros again, Schtu-ball? Well let's see if this old thing still works," Greg said, taking the game and inserting it into the top of the system before powering it up.

And nothing happened.

"Uhh, don't worry this happens sometimes," Greg laughed a bit as he tried turning it on again. Still nothing. Then he took the game out and blew on it, something Steven would later learn not to do. Inserting the game again, it finally powered on, "So Steven, do you want to give it a try?"

"Nah, you try it. It's your game after all," Steven replied, flopping on his bed and watching the TV, he didn't really get that much time with Greg anyway, so any excuse to keep him here was a good one.

"Well alright then, but pay attention, okay?" Greg grabbed the controller off the floor and started playing. Showing Steven the skills of the game; jumping, enemies, and most importantly…

"Now this is a castle, Steven," Greg explained, "It's the end of the world, so make sure you pay attention. Back in the day these were a real challenge, it was like... a final exam in school."

Steven didn't go to school, but he'd heard from Lars and Sadie about the dreaded finals. If this was the same thing, it must be hard.

"See these barrels? First you need to jump over them, but once you get to those blocks there they're going to start bouncing down at you from above. So now you need to have learned their timing so you can get to the spots where they'll bounce over you," Greg demonstrated, jumping over three barrels before stopping against a block, letting a barrel go over him, and jumping up the block, and repeating the process.

Steven watched intently, tapping his finger inadvertently to the beat until the beat had stopped. Greg's character was now facing a river of lava, with barrels somehow floating down the lava. Greg didn't explain this part, merely jumping toward the lava and landing safely on a barrel.

"See Schtu-ball? Now you need to jump on the barrels to progress. Pretty tricky, huh?" He seemed like he was forcing the coolness a bit, but Steven did have to admit this was more depth than any game he'd seen at the Arcade in town.

"And only after all of that do you finally get to the boss, King-"

Greg's explanation was interrupted by the high-pitched buzz of a game that had stopped working, however. "-Well that's not supposed to happen. I guess this old thing isn't quite in working condition after all."

He got up and turned the GGS off and on again, this time nothing happened. "Maybe it's broken," Steven piped up with, "It was in your U-Store all that time. And that pole did fall on it."

"There's no way it's broken, these old systems were built to last. Not even Amethyst could break it." While Steven was left to wonder how Amethyst had tried to break the system, Greg picked it up and gave it a tentative shake while talking, "Hmm, maybe something is loose in there. Let me check quick."

And so Greg put the system down, opening the little hatch on the top and releasing a flooding light into the house. A light accompanied by an intense rumbling.

"What was that?" Greg asked, rubbing his eyes from staring directly at the light's source, "Hey Schtu-ball could you see if that was Rose?"

Steven ran to the front window, looking out at the beach for any sign of the Gems. He didn't see it, though, but he did find something else. "Uh… Dad, you may want to see this..."

"What is it Schtu-ball?" Greg made his way over to the window and looked out as well, only managing an "Oh no" at what he was seeing.

Outside was a massive castle made of sand. It featured an abundance of same-style openings, passing for windows, and also spikes. Giant sand spikes around it's top edges and in periodic bands down its towers. The Castle seemed to float just above the ocean, the sand likely pulled from the ocean floor.

"Steven," Greg continued after the pause, "I think we need to get Rose. That's not just any sand castle. That's the castle from the game… that's King Kroc's castle."

Steven thought back to the art on the game's cartridge, and the boss that Greg was about to fight, and the light. "Wait Dad!" He called to Greg, who was already running toward the back bedroom, "If this is some kind of Gem Monster then we can take care of it ourselves before Mom even gets back!"

"Ourselves? Steven, I know you saved the Gems once but this seems more intense than just fighting a giant bat."

"But we can handle it, Dad! I'm a Crystal Gem, I can fight whatever's in there, and you know all about how to play the game. Together we can take that Castle down before Mom even gets back," Steven practically begged, already formulating a plan of attack. It wasn't for sure a Gem Thing, but castles don't just form out of nowhere for any other reason.

Greg seemed unconvinced though, "Steven I'm not going to let you go out there and get hurt. I'm going to get Rose."

Steven wasn't hearing the objections, though. He was gone like a flash, running out of the house and down toward the castle. Heedless of the danger, confident in his skills.

"Huh? Wait, Steven!" Greg yelled, running after Steven upon hearing the door shut, "Steven if anything happens in there you run back here!"

"Don't worry, Dad! I'll clear this castle without continues!"

For being made of sand, the interior of the castle looked very detailed. The walls looked to be made of sandy bricks, and the floor did too. Except for a strip of flat sand, Steven guessed it was there to lead him along. And so he decided to follow along.

"This isn't so hard, and Dad was going to call for Mom," Steven joked to himself. He was a little nervous, of course, well maybe a lot nervous, and it wasn't helped by the thumping noise he kept hearing just ahead. A low rhythmic rumble, then a loud bang, and then it repeats, "Almost like..." Steven muttered to himself before rounding a corner and quickly stopping.

The answer was barrels.

Barrels were one by one rolling down the hallway, bouncing down blocky stairs, and ultimately crashing into a wall. Crumpling into sand that was absorbed back into the castle itself.

Steven remembered this part from watching his Dad play the game. Or, something close to this anyway. First he had to… jump over the barrels!

Now Steven wasn't that athletic, he couldn't jump and spin like Pearl could have, but he had to try. So he backed up a bit, to get a running start, before charging down the hallway and leaping… not high enough. His feet getting caught up on a barrel, sending him stumbling to the ground. And stumbling forward, toward the next rolling barrel.

"Oh no!" Steven yelled out, cupping his hands over his Gem and hoping it would do something. It didn't, and as Steven's momentum sent him closer to the barrel. Realizing there was nothing he could do, he just dove forward and hoped.

He didn't hit the barrel, that was good at least. But he did impact the floor, and go rolling forward until he did impact something. He opened his eyes, he had hit one of the stairs at the other end of the room, and something was rumbling toward him.

Steven threw his arms up, expecting to be hit, but no hit ever came. Instead the barrel bounced off the stair above him, flew over him, and landed away from him. Steven breathed a sigh of relief, trying to remember what came next in the game. "The barrels are bouncing down the blocks… and I need to climb them by..."

His finger was tapping out on its own, tapping the rhythm of the barrels. "That's it! I need to time them so the barrels bounce over me!"

"Alright… I can do this," he said to himself, listening again to another barrel, and another, bouncing over him. Committing the rhythm of the barrels to memory.

Finally feeling like he got it down pat, he got up off the floor, climbed up the giant stair, and rushed to huddle against the next stair before another barrel could arrive. And then he repeated the process again, and he repeated it again, until he had finally climbed to the top of the stairs.

"I made it. Now next was..." Steven realized he was feeling… hot. Hotter than he should be inside a sand castle. The reason he realized just looking ahead, a pit of what looked like bubbling sand, with a series of barrels floating in it. "The lava barrels..."

Steven watched them for a time. They were small, it would require precise jumps to reach them and not overshoot. But they were also mostly stationary, merely bobbing up and down. He had the space, so he decided to give a few test jumps on solid ground. After thinking he had a good idea of how far he could, and couldn't, jump, he faced the sandy lava again. And taking a deep breath, and mentally apologizing to his father, Steven jumped.

And his feet met sandy hardness. One barrel down. The next barrels were off center, and different distances apart, but making the jump once, Steven was confident he could do it again. And so he jumped again, faster this time. And soon he was practically flying from barrel to barrel until his feet finally met solid ground larger, and less circular, than the barrels.

"Land," Steven sighed to himself, looking ahead and spying a staircase with light streaming down it. A way up, and if he was remembering right, a way to the "boss."

So Steven sprinted up the steps, taking two at a time in fact, until he came face to face with fresh air, sunlight, and a monster.

Well, not a monster. Well okay it was a monster, in the strictest sense of the term it was a Gem Monster. The semi-transparent, milky looking gem was set into a rather stereotypical golden crown, like a child's paper crown. It had no fancy cutting to it, rather it was simply a squared off, square shaped cut of gem. This wouldn't mean a Gem Monster, had the crown not been being worn by the near-spitting image of the lizard-man from the Mighty Lewis Bros cartridge. Easily a head taller than Greg, despite a slight hunching over, it tasted the air with its forked tongue and simply stared down at Steven, red cape blowing in the oceanside breeze.

"Steven!" a distant voice rang out, it was Greg, apparently from down below on the beach, "What's going on in there!?"

"Dad!" he yelled, waving an arm over the battlements that lined the top of the castle, "There's this giant lizard-man with a crown up here! I think it's actually a gem! And it looks like the monster from the game!"

There was some distant muttering, or at least regular talking, before Greg yelled up to Steven again, "That must be King Kroc! Since this is his castle! Listen, you never fight Kroc in the game! There's always some kind of self-destruct switch you need to hit instead!"

A self-destruct switch? Steven quickly did a visual sweep of the area. Kroc was still standing there, eyes locked on Steven, the pickaxe-replaced hand swinging back and forth at its side. Behind, there was an extension off the roof. If a self-destruct switch was anywhere, it was probably there. Unless it was a random brick, but the game hadn't seemed that cruel.

Sure of what he needed to do, Steven tried to summon his Spear once again. Cupping his hands in front of the pearl set in his forehead…

And nothing happened.

And King Kroc hunched lower on his legs, looking ready to spring at a moment's notice.

And then Kroc charged at Steven, swinging its pick-arm like…. A pick-ax. Steven dove to the side, once again rolling into a solid wall, this time one of the battlements. The battle was officially going poorly, and he couldn't summon his Spear!

He didn't need it, but he sure wished he could have one to throw right now. Just to give him room to get up and run, put some distance between himself and Kroc, maybe find the switch. But Steven's luck wasn't having it, as Kroc charged again, swinging downward, and only missing Steven because he had started crawling forward.

"Steven!" Greg called again from the beach below, "You need to wait for his big attack, and then get him to hit the walls!"

Steven barely heard it over the scrambling he was doing, Kroc chasing hotly behind him, and he almost yelled back that it would have been nice to know sooner. Instead, he opted for a simple "And when is that!?"

"It's a pattern! He'll do three normal attacks first!" Steven barely heard Greg yelling, dodging a swing of the pickaxe at the same time. The third attack. And Steven realized he wasn't being chased anymore either, Kroc had retreated to one of the battlements, eying Steven down again.

This time Steven knew what was coming. The extension was unguarded, Kroc was eying him, and any moment would likely charge. Greg had said to let Kroc hit the wall, but Steven was going to do one better.

Everything was quiet, like a cliche movie, and then Kroc charged Steven. And Steven charged the alcove. Kroc hit the wall, and Steven hit a floor-switch. Kroc slumped over the battlement, and Steven jumped on the switch.

"I got it!" Steven yelled down, before the castle started shaking violently. It was a self-destruct switch, that's right.

A self-destruct switch for a castle of sand. And like sand, the castle simply began to crumble away like dust. Steven watched Kroc go tumbling off the crumbling battlement, crashing with force into the ground below, its physical form poofing like the sand that was quickly falling all around the gem.

"Steven! Get down from there!" he just barely could hear Greg calling from below. And then Steven lost his footing, the switch was crumbling now too.

He stumbled for a moment, before turning and diving toward the ocean the castle was partly perched over. He fell for longer than he thought he would, the castle was actually rather high, and then he hit the water. And swam back to the surface with a gasping breath.

"Steven!" he heard his father yelling as he waded into the ocean while Steven swam toward him, "Steven that was reckless and dangerous and… I'm just glad you weren't hurt." Greg went in for a tight hug, but Steven ran right past him, digging in the sand until he pulled out the gem responsible for all of this.

"Dad, can you go grab something to store this in?" he asked calmly, almost tiredly. He'd seen the Crystal Gems put Monsters in bubbles, so he figured a container of some sort might work just fine.

"Uh, sure thing, Steven," Greg replied, running into the beach house and returning with a tupperware container, which Steven promptly dropped the Gem in before putting on the lid.

"So that little thing caused all of this, huh?" Greg asked, looking at the piles of sand that were left behind from the Castle, "What was it even doing in that old Grintendo anyway?"

Steven had a guess. A Crystal Gem must have put it there. But before he could say anything, the beach was lit up by the activating Warp Pad. Rose, Amethyst, and Garnet had returned. Carrying a chunk of red metal with them. Steven was going to have a tough time explaining this.

.

.

Hey everyone I finally got this bad boy done. So this was meant to go up like… 2 weeks ago but I dropped the ball hard. Spent like 3 weeks writing everything up to the castle showing up, then regurgitated the other half of the story in like a week, and did all the edits in a day. Though hey, beats the first chapter where edits took like a week.

Anyway as for the chapter itself. This one was something of a passion project for me as a fan of video games. I was originally planning this concept for the third chapter of my defunct Blueswap fic, again taking the place of Laser Light Cannon. Crammed full of references too, like our "Villain" King Kroc. He's like… Bowser-meets-K Rool-meets-a Lizalfos, who might I mention, is based on the Ulexite Gem. It was originally a Spinel, but after hearing about "TV Rock" I had to make the switch. There's also a Tokusatsu reference slipped in there at one point for good measure.

(Edit the next morning: Hi I forgot to mention that this also was inspired by the Greg Universe comic, the one about The Perils of Pweepwee. Expect to see more comics work their way into this story in the future.)

Anyway as for chronology, like I said, this is taking the spot of Laser Light Cannon, and for good reason. Like I said in the comments on AO3, some events will be changing due to Rose's existence. This being one of them. You don't need Steven to save the day when Rose knows where the cannon is, and how to fire is.

Anyway I think that's about it for this chapter. So let's sign off in the usual way. Next time, Steven learns of a new Pearl Power, and finally gets to go on his first mission!