The Roaming Eye entered Earth's atmosphere slowly, carefully. It had done this before - same craft, same crew - and followed the same path down to the west coast of a particular land mass. New target, though. Its crew had been tricked into going on an unnecessary tour of the Solar System, and they wanted answers.

The sun had set some time ago in the region. It was a happy coincidence, providing convenient cover for what they wanted to do.

There was a field outside of the nearest Human population center - 'Beach City', according to intercepted communications - that was itself just outside of their target. There the Roaming Eye landed, gently, some distance away from a familiar red wooden structure. The hatch hissed open and five small, red soldiers of varying angryness disembarked. Four of them quickly arranged themselves in a line before the fifth, standing at attention and ready for their orders.

"Okay Ruby Squad, listen up!" Ruby barked. "For the duration of this mission, I am in command!"

"Yes, Ruby!" the four other Rubies replied, saluting.

"Our mission: locate, neutralize, exfiltrate, and interrogate the Peridot assigned to the Operation Cluster Earth recon mission!"

"Yes, Ruby!"

"No dawdling, no distractions, no silly games, no interaction with locals, and no! Baseball! Understood?"

"Yes, Ruby!"

"Questions?"

Ruby (second from the left) raised her hand. "Can I keep my Leader Visor?" she asked.

Ruby hadn't usurped power or committed mutiny; she'd asked for, and received, temporary command of the squad from its commanding officer. In practice, the only place it would matter would be in the after-action report - and frankly, Ruby was fine with Ruby getting all the credit, so long as the job got done right. "No, Ruby, you should keep your visor," she replied in utter seriousness, before smiling and then blinking (winking?). "After all, you need it to protect aaaaalllll two of your eyes."

The Rubies all laughed. After such a rough mission, they needed the laugh.

Ruby was an Era 1 Gem, and something about how they were made, or maybe how long they'd been active, meant she had a sense of humor. And not just that; they had the best Ruby, a legend among Rubies! She'd been to Earth before, served in Pink Diamond's personal guard, never gave up, never faltered, never failed to fight, and a good soldier by any measure of the term.

Under normal circumstances, it would make sense for Ruby to be in charge of the Ruby Squad. She had the most combat experience after all, and the full respect of her comrades, but for one reason or another she wasn't given a commission. Normally this suited her fine, since that meant she didn't have to do boring things like write reports or not get into fights. So in her place, Ruby had been commissioned and given a Leader Visor.

Everything had been going well so far. Ruby turned out to be a competent commanding officer for the Rubies, racking up successes and commendations until Yellow Diamond herself gave them a special mission! Then things happened, not least of all their getting tricked repeatedly by Humans.

Ruby had been suspicious from the beginning about the 'humans' they'd encountered, but had kept her misgivings down to a series of low growls and let Ruby lead. The other Rubies had noticed… but didn't make the connection until after it was too late. So, feeling like they'd all learned a lesson, they'd unanimously put Ruby in charge.

"One more thing," Ruby added when they'd all stopped laughing. "For the duration of this mission, don't forget that we're using code names." It was something they'd discussed during their trip back. They could just refer to each other by their cut, but Crystal Gems were a crafty bunch and there was no telling what they'd do with identifying information. And if they lost count of their number again, they could work out who an infiltrator was by asking for a code name they couldn't possibly have.

The other Rubies - leader DCC, cheerful NYV, hardheaded RME, and 'Newbie' LGY - saluted. "Yes, EBL!" they exclaimed, psyched up and ready to march after her into the Earth night.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Peridot had grown a little paranoid since the last time Homeworld agents had visited Earth, and one of the first things she'd done was install proper countermeasures. Equipment, home base fortifications, combat tactics - she wanted to be able to fight her own battles, and protect her friends.

Era 2 Gem Warp Drives were standardized among the Gem star fleet, and she'd even worked on them as an engineer once. She knew they had a particular hardwired safety feature: to let other Gem ships in the vicinity know that they shouldn't occupy a point in space if they wished to continue existing as contiguous matter, they projected an 'exit mark' at their destination. The type, size, and flavor of the 'exit mark' was dictated by the size and importance of the ship projecting it, but that wasn't terribly important for her purposes. What really mattered was that, even with primitive Earth materials and technology, it was possibly to scan for them.

This didn't mean she felt ready to face the Rubies again, but she had no choice: her early detection equipment had picked up their specific warp 'exit mark'. They were probably aware they'd been tricked, and were likely furious. No quarter given, no mercy shown, no doubt.

Good, she thought, pumping herself up with false courage and bravado.

The Crystal Gems were out on a mission, and consequently Steven had been free to take Lapis to a show, so she was alone. It was a shame - they still thought of her as a Gem who couldn't fight, and she wanted to show the others what she was capable of! Innate powers and strength and weapons weren't everything, and as much as it still felt awkward to admit she wanted to prove Pearl right about what 'real strength' was.

She'd been given three minutes' warning, so she got hustling. With Lapis' help she'd prepared some equipment for this eventuality - boots, utility bandolier, poncho, mask, a pauldron. All of it was smoky gray for nighttime stealth, except for the pauldron which was brick red at Amethyst's suggestion. It was all ready to go, and Peridot got, dashing out into the night like a bolt.

And then, just as predicted, the Roaming Eye had appeared.

Under a hollowed-out rock, she smiled nervously and flicked the safety off on her weapon. All she needed to do now was wait.