It wasn't even morning and the camp was buzzing about. The whole place was swarming with many gems of many colours and shapes, each of them heading off to complete their appointed tasks. None of them had time to care about the dark. Homeworld was just too important for that, for recently they were given another threat from them after their last meeting on the battlefield saying that they would be returning in about a few days.

Most of the time, the Homeworld Gems would normally attack once every one or two months. Them coming back this quickly could mean some serious business, especially from the Yellow Diamond Authority, the most ruthless and bloodthirsty of all the other authorities.

Many of the gems scattered about the camp site were off to train, improve or create weapons, or to probably panic, to be honest. But none of them could be as panicked as their leader, Rose Quartz. Not that she actually let herself look panicked, because she'd never allow that, especially when she needed to seemed fearless to all of the gems counting and depending on her. All she did was stand alone at the edge of her site staring off into the night sky with a small smile in hopes of reassuring herself.

"Rose!" A high voiced barked from behind her. "Rose! She won't let go of me!"

Rose turned around. In front of her, Pearl, a young gem and one of her best sword fighters, was holding another gem much younger than her in her arms. The little one was lilac coloured and had short but spiky hair, and she had gotten her grabby little hands on Pearl's nose and was yanking.

Rose couldn't help but chuckle. "Oh, Pearl. Calm down! She's just being playful."

"But it hurts! And it's annoying!"

The tall and beautiful looking gem rolled her eyes, but in a cheerful way. "Come on, little Amethyst. Let go of her beak."

"My beak!?" Pearl squeaked.

Amethyst quickly wiggled out of her arms and headed towards Quartz. She hid behind her and stuck her tongue out. "Yeah, you're a real bird brain!"

Pearl scoffed and turned her head away, but she turned back by the gentle sound of Rose giggling under her breath. She always found the sound of her laughter to be calming and somewhat enticing. In fact, all of Pearl's thoughts about her could just be summed up with those two words; Calming and enticing. Maybe the reason why she always found herself attached to Rose was because everything about her just seemed soothing to an anxious and neurotic being like herself.

The pale white gem blushed slightly and her cheeks were tinted with light blue. "You embarrass me so much.."

Rose gave off a cheeky smile. "I know."

Just then, footsteps were heard nearby and all three of them redirected their attention towards. A gem with tangled hazelnut hair that dragged along the ground and was completely coloured in different shades of brown was walking her way towards them with a sly smile on her face.

"Oh jeez, not her!" Pearl said with a sneer.

Amethyst stared curiously at the approaching stranger and began tugging on Rose's flowery white dress impatiently. "Who's that!? Who's that!?"

"Heya Rose. How's your never-ending war?"

"It's fine, thank you."

"And it will end! And we'll be the winners! Right, Rose?" Pearl cried out defensively.

Quartz placed her hands on the young gems shoulder and shook her head. "Please, let me handle her." Pearl lowered her head, feeling like Rose was unimpressed with her behaviour.

"Alrighty then. So, it's been good and all living by myself, but i-"

Immediately, the bronze coloured gem stopped spewing out words as soon as she got a sight at the small and quite furry creature holding onto the big bright pink curls flowing down her back. She had been to the camp enough times that she had recognized every smuck that made up her army, but she had never seen anyone of anything like that around there.

"Who the heck is that?" She said as she pointed at Amethyst.

Rose gritted her teeth. "Shard, can we talk about this in private?"

The two walked away from the group and walked towards the left slowly together. Rose gave Shard a concerned look.

"That's Amethyst."

"Amethyst? I don't remember there ever being an Amethyst back at Homeworld."

Rose's teeth gritted even harder now and turned her eyes away. "That's because...she wasn't from Homeworld. She was created by them."

Shard's eyes widened and any traces of her previous slick and mischievous behaviour melted away from her face as she gave a face of pure shock. "Created? How?"

"We're not exactly sure how, but we ended up finding a place where Homeworld...creates their own gems. And we found her there."

"You mean you saw this big place filled with unnatural intentions and you just pick up one of your enemies products like some kind of plaything?"

Rose raised her voice. "She's not a product of the enemy! Or at least not anymore!" Rose's sudden outburst made Shard jump. "And she was all alone at the time! And we were the first living things she ever saw!"

Shard settled back down and looked at her sternly. "All i'm sayin' is...you're playing a real dangerous game with keeping her, Quartzy." The sly smirk began to creep it's way back onto her face. "This is why i don't get involved in politics that much."

"Alright! My original business here!" Shard threw her arms up into the air. "Yo! Mo!" She roared as she pointed her finger towards a nearby gem a few feet ahead of them. The gem she pointed at was bright pink with long flowing magenta hair. She spun her head and started spouting nonsense. "Hello!? Yes!? What is you want!?" She yelped.

"Bring me your sharpest dagger! I need something fun to meddle with!"