Hey guys! We'll be seeing some new faces pretty soon. so keep an eye out. ;) Anyway, here's the new chapter! :D
-Luna's POV-
Steven, Circo ,and I were listening to Mr. Greg play the guitar, while sitting on the sand. Mr. Greg brought his van around the front of the beach house and had a bunch of sound equipment set up for his songs he was currently playing. Circo was lying on his back in the blanket, hands behind head. Steven and I sat on the blanket, listening. As we listened, I couldn't help but smile.
Apparently, my dad and Mr. Greg were in a band once. Both were great musicians. Mr. Greg would play guitar and my dad would play the drums and bass guitar at times. They were suppose to go off and be big stars, but they met Rose and Lucine. They both instantly left for our moms, and well, the rest is history. Steven and I were happy about that story and soon found out that our dads became friends with Circo's mom when they one day met with Circa, who had come to visit Lucine. All three of our moms were pregnant and the last time they all met, was the day my mom and Circo's mom moved away.
Overall, our families had known each other for a while.
Mr. Greg finished his song and we all clapped. Circo sat up and joined in the applause. "That sounded great!" Steven said, excitedly.
"Thanks!" Mr. Greg said. "I'm thinking of calling it 'Water Witch''.
I slightly flinched, thinking it had something to do with Lapis. I haven't heard from her in a long time now, and just the mention of her hurts. But I shook my head, trying to focus on what Mr. Greg was showing Steven at the moment. He was giving Steven a sketch pad and showed Steven the picture. When I looked, I flinched again. It looked a lot like Lapis. Circo looked and placed a hand on my shoulder, trying to reassure me.
"It...looks like Lapis," Steven said, touching the picture.
Mr Greg took it away, saying to be careful with not to smudge it. He gave an electric guitar and cord to hook up. As Steven went to go hook it up, I looked at Mr. Greg. "So these songs are about Lapis?"
"Well, i did get the inspiration when the whole ocean being taken thing happened," Mr Greg said. Steven came back and said, "Okay, let's jam!" He went to strum the guitar, but nothing happened.
"Uh, where are my jams?" Steven asked. We all laughed and Mr. Greg said, "I don't think it's plugged in." Steven looked and saw he hadn't plugged in the cord all the way. He fixed this and said again, "Let's jam!"
Nothing happened when he strum the guitar. He did this a few more times, but nothing happened. Mr. Greg looked up and said, "Oh, sorry. That's just the T.V" He took the cord out of the T.V and hooked it up to the sound board. "See, you plugged into the video jack but were making audio here. Don't you know video killed the audio star?"
We all gave Mr. Greg a confused look. "I have no idea what your saying," Steven said.
"Same," Circo and I said. Mr. Greg smiled, "That's okay. You guys leave the details to me. When you're a one man band, you got to know how to do it all."
"Did my dad know this stuff?" I asked.
"A little, but it was mostly me who did this sort of stuff. Your dad would somehow mess it up," he said, laughing. I smiled; that did sound like something my dad would do. Once everything was hooked up, Mr. Greg said, "Okay, we need a catchy hook like, 'Well, she's a riptide queen and she's, super mean!'"
I flinched; Lapis wasn't like that at all. Steven noticed and intervened saying, "Whoa, hold the phone. Now give the phone to me."
"Lapis was not mean, she was trying to get home," I said, trying not to sound too upset.
"How about this instead," said Circo, who extended his hand to Steven. Steven gave him the electric guitar and strummed a chord and sang. Steven and I joined in at a couple parts to fill in the lines while Circo played.
(Circo) "She was trapped in a mirror, and it couldn't be clearer.
She wanted to leave this place, and get herself back in space."
(Steven) "And dad you might think she's a, criminal.
But her friendship comes through, subliminal."
(Luna) "Lapis Lazuli, you fled into the bottom of the sea,
Lapis Lazuli, you were so mad but then you came around to me."
As I sang the last verse, we all tensed up by a weird loud ringing. "What the heck is that?!" Steven asked. Circo nearly dropped the guitar by the noise. He placed it in the trunk and covered his ears. I wouldn't blame him; the noise was irritating and loud. "It must be some kind of weird feedback!" Mr. Greg shouted over the ringing. He ran over to his keyboard and started pressing buttons and turning dials, trying to stop the feedback.
I glanced up at the temple, feeling like that was where the source was coming from. "I don't think it's feedback!" I shouted. "It must be coming from the temple!"
"Let's go check it out!" Steven shouted. Circo shook his head, obviously against the idea of going after the noise that was hurting his ears. Mr. Greg shouted something but I couldn't hear him. I glanced at Steven and nodded towards him, letting him know I was going with him. We both ran up the hill and to the stairs. We got to the door and, just as Steven opened it, the noise blasted louder then before outside, causing me to fall back.
"What's happening?!" Steven shouted.
"It's the wailing stone!" Pearl shouted. The wailing stone was sitting in the middle of the room, vibrating and shaking from the ringing. Amethyst was on the ground, covering her ears and whining for the noise to stop. Garnet placed her hands over it, but it started ringing a moment afterwards.
"I'm going to bubble it!" Pearl shouted. She created a bubble and the wailing stone was bubbled, causing the noise to stop. We all sighed in relief. "There," Pearl said. "Now we can get back to-"
Suddenly, the bubble popped and the wailing stone fell to the floor, vibrating as loud as before. Steven stuck his arm through the hole and the noise stopped. But Steven started vibrating and opened his mouth, only to have the noise come out from there. Garnet moved him away and placed a couch cushion inside the stone. She soon covered it with more couch cushions and placed Steven on top. The noise was toned down but we all could still hear it ringing.
"I don't understand," Garnet said. "This thing has laid dormant since we found it."
"I haven't heard a wailing stone activate since we used them for the rebellion," Pearl said. "and I've never heard it sound like that!"
"Someone is trying to send a message," Garnet said.
"But who? We've rounded up all the wailing stones on earth, and we're not sending a message to ourselves. Unless..." she quickly turned to Amethyst, who was slowly getting up from the ground at this point. "Amethyst?! Is this a prank?!"
"No way!" Amethyst said. "I don't like that noise! I want it to stop!"
"If it's not coming from earth," Garnet said. "Then a gem must be trying to send a message from space."
I felt my heart skip a beat. Was Lapis trying to send a message? "Could it be Lapis?" I asked.
"We're not sure," said Garnet.
"Even if it was Lapis," Pearl said. "We should be hearing a voice. Maybe this signal is too advanced for the Wailing stone to process. That would explain the distorted audio."
I looked at Steven and smiled. We knew someone who knew audio.
-Time skip!-
"I can't believe it! you need help with sound stuff? Then you came to the right guy!" Mr. Greg said, looking through his van. "Ah ha!" He then crawled back out of the van and showed us a weird looking microphone sponge. "The Lubitz Cardioid Condenser 680! It's got warm tone without too much top end."
"Uh, plus it's got a big honking sponge thing," Amethyst said.
"I know, isn't it awesome!"
Garnet removed the pillow from the wailing stone, which started ringing loudly again. Circo covered his ears and this time, so did everybody else. Mr. Greg plugged in the device and the ringing lowered a little, enough so we could remove our hands from our ears. "Now I'm going to add some reverb and some low octave effects," Mr. Greg explained. "I'm also adding some fuzz because who wouldn't want fuzz? Now if I directly input the Wailing stone and put it through a flanger we might get what you're looking for."
"Flangers aside," Pearl said, a little confused. "do you really think a signal like this is compatible with your analog device?"
"Don't worry dad, it'll work!" Steven said, using the robot voice. I smiled; with Steven around to lighten the mood, I'm sure everything will be okay.
"Well, here goes nothing," Mr. Greg said. He started to raise the volume on the Wailing stone and the noise intensified to a dangerous hearing level. I covered my ears and fell to the ground. I couldn't hear anybody and soon the noise soften a little. I removed my hands and heard....music? I looked up and saw that Mr. Greg was still trying to use his sound board to figure this out. He smiled, enjoying the music. Pearl on the other hand, was growing impatient.
"It's not suppose to be music, it's suppose to be a message!" she shouted over the noise. Greg nodded and started configuring more and more. He seemed to almost have it, when smoke started rising from the cars engine and Mr. Greg turned off the equipment to put out the fire.
"Oh great," he said, coming back after putting out the smoke.
"What happened? Where's the message?" Pearl asked, confused.
"Looks like the van battery couldn't handle all of this," he said.
"I had a feeling this wouldn't work," Pearl said, standing up. "There's no way Greg's equipment can interface with our ancient gem technology."
I grew irritated and said, "You guys aren't giving up already?"
"Look, we got to keep trying," Circo said, sounding annoyed as I was towards Pearl. "Sure we don't have the latest and greatest gem tech, but-"
Garnet removed the condenser from the wailing stone and placing the cushion back in. She placed a hand on Greg's shoulder and said, " It's okay Greg. You tried. Back to the temple. We'll figure something out." She picked up the wailing stone and took a great leap to the temple.
"What a waste of time," Pearl said, jumping after Garnet. I growled and curled my hands. Circo placed a hand on my shoulder. I looked at him and he shook his head, as if saying it wasn't worth it. Amethyst followed and Steven tried to follow but failed. Mr. Greg sighed and picked his guitar up and walked a little bit away, saying, "I blew it."
We all felt bad for him and, quite suddenly, he strum a couple chords and started singing.
(Greg) "I could have tamed you, I could have shown I could depose you from your loud throne,
but in the end I wasn't good enough. I just showed the gems I ain't got the stuff.
Oh, Wailing stone! I tried so hard to fly but I was thrown.
Oh, Wailing stone! I gotta tell the gems cause they should know.
Have a little, have a little, have a little faith in me, I just want to help.
You know I have a little, have a little, have a little expertise,
I know it's not much, but I know if it could come in handy, I'd want to be there.
I think so highly of you, it just isn't fair that you have so little...."
He stopped singing and sighed, "That's a b side."
Steven walked to his dad and placed a hand on his back, saying, "dad, I hate seeing you like this. There's gotta be something else we can try."
"I don't know Steven," he said. "I mean, sound and stuff like this, this stuff's my whole world. And if I can't figure this out, then I don't know. Maybe it isn't even sound."
A light bulb went off in my head, and I excitedly grabbed Circo's hand. "That's it!!!!!" I shouted. Everybody looked at me, confused. "It's not sound! It's video! The message is a video!!!"
"Of course!" Mr. Greg said. He walked over to me and hugged me, saying, "Kid, your a genius!" I was startled by the sudden parent like affection. Then Steven started running up the hill to go tell the gems. Mr. Greg looked at us and said, "You guys really are great kids. I don't know how often your dads told you, but I'm saying it for them now." He ran off to go join Steven and I looked at Circo, confused on whether I should be happy by the compliment or sad about our dads.
He smiled and said, "We should probably get the equipment set up."
-Time skip! (again)-
"Okay, go for it Garnet," said Pearl, as Garnet started sending electric currents through the jump cables to the car battery. Pearl nodded and looked at Amethyst, who was sitting in the driver's seat of the van, with the car key in the ignition.
"Okay Amethyst, try it now," she said.
"I've never started a car with a key before," she said as she started the car by turning the key. She laughed and said, "That's way easier!"
"The battery is ready to go!" she shouted to us behind the van.
"T.V cable is plugged up!" I said, from inside the van, making sure all the wires are hooked up.
"Engine looks okay!" I heard Circo shout from the front.
"The wailing stone is ready," Steven said to his dad.
"Ready with the cord Luna?" Mr. Greg said. I plugged the cord in and said, "Ready."
Everybody rushed to the back of the van to see the T.V screen. Mr. Greg concentrated on the board, trying to get the video to come up. The T.V was fuzzy and Pearl said, "Is that it?"
"Just a second," Greg said, working on the board. We soon started to hear something and Mr. Greg said, "Come on!"
Suddenly, the screen cleared and on the screen was Lapis Lazuli.
"LAPIS!" I shouted, relieved and happy to see her.
"Luna! Steven! Circo!" Lapis said.
"I did it!" Greg said, triumphantly.
"I can't believe my flipping eyes!" Pearl said, shocked.
Garnet shushed everybody as Lapis started to say her message. She looked scared and unhappy as she said the message. She also looked worried, as if somebody was watching her.
"I hope you guys are able to hear this," she said. "There's a gem looking for you; all three of you. Circo, Luna and Steven. She even knew your names. I don't know how! I didn't tell her, I swear! She's on her way to Earth, and she's not alone. Steven, Luna, Circo, Homeworld, is not the way it used to be. Everything here is so advanced! I can't even understand it. There's no way anything on Earth could stand up to it. Please don't put up a fight. It'll only lead to destruction. Luna, please don't fight! Don't-"
The message went out, and I panicked. As Pearl and Amethyst started to panic, I looked at Circo with concern and worry. "Lapis..." I started. "She's scared. What-what has happened? Is she alright? What's scaring her? What's coming? What's-"
Circo stopped me by placing his hands on my shoulders. I looked up at him and he said, "We'll talk about this later. but for now, at least we know that Lapis is safe."
I nodded, and looked down. Garnet quiet everybody and thanked Greg, who looked like he was about to cry. Steven lighten the mood by using the robot voice. We all laughed, but the laugh wasn't one of joy.
It was one of knowing something was coming. Something bad.
.....
Extra long chapter for you guys! What will happen when the Homeworld gems come? And how many are coming? Hope you guys liked this chapter and I'll try to update ASAP :)