Our story begins long before the story of Steven and the Crystal Gems. In fact, it begins a long, long way away from Earth, as well. This story begins at the gem home world. On home world, there was a very high ranked and prestigious leader and commander. His name is Red Diamond. That's right, his name. Unlike most other gems, Red manifested as a male when he first took form. Let me explain: In the home world hierarchy, there are different sects, or classes. At the top of the pyramid was the goddess. The goddess is the most beautiful and powerful gem of her kind, usually a diamond. directly below them, there are the commanders. Their stones are actually carved and cultivated from the previous Goddess's gemstone. They are regarded as the "Sons of the Goddess", on account that they take on male forms at the time of their creation. These beings are so powerful, that they don't even fuse. Not because they can't, but because they don't have too. With this being said, let it be stated that Red was unique. Most commanders take on 10 foot tall forms, but Red Diamond didn't. He chose to be a smaller, more average height of about 8-9 feet. Aside from this, he was an extremely powerful gem. Every opponent he ever faced never lasted more than 10 minutes with the fiery-haired master of combat. As such, he earned himself a place as the goddess of that time's (Herkimer Diamond) right hand gem.
As the goddess's counsel, Red would go out and scout new planets to colonize and prepare for the kindergarten program. On one of these scouting missions, he was sent to a planet known as Mars. On this scouting mission, he met a beautiful, smart gem who was a skilled sword fighter. Her name was Pearl. Before, on previous missions, he would only see the directive, and think only about the kindergarten. After meeting Pearl, he noticed the natural beauty of the planet. After a while, they began courting in secret, for political reasons, of course. Then, while Red was on home world, he learned of the rebellion. A group of gems, including some of Red Diamond's commander brothers, decided that what they were doing was wrong and unfair. While Red did agree to this to a point, it wasn't until he learned who the leader of this rebellion was that he sided with the rebellion. He received an encrypted transmission from his secret lover, Pearl, to aid them in the fight against home world on Earth, Mars's sister planet. He told her that he couldn't leave home world, because Herkimer Diamond ordered that all galaxy warps to Earth from home world to be closed. "However, I can gather intelligence on their battle plans for you and your friends. That is the best I can do for you right now," Red told Pearl, "but I will find my way to you, I swear it." With this message, Pearl accepted Red's offer.
So, for the next thousand years of the war, Red Diamond would tell Pearl of the home world force's attack strategies. She, in turn, would tell her leader, the beautiful Rose Quartz, and she would then plan her own counter measures. This, sadly, could not last forever. During one of Red's transmissions, he was interrupted by a member of the Diamond authority, Yellow Diamond. She had her suspicions of Red for a while. He would always act so secretly. She had told Herkimer Diamond, "He's up to something. I believe that Red Diamond is sending the rebellious forces intel on our attack strategies. Allow me to monitor him for a while to see that I'm right." Herkimer would have brushed it off as jealousy, but she knew that Red was being secretive ever since his mission to Mars thousands of years ago. "Alright. You may tap into and monitor his transmissions. But," Herkimer said, "first, I shall talk to him and see if I can get any answers." "Thank you, my liege. I shall not disappoint you," Yellow Diamond claimed. "For your sake, you better hope not." After their meeting, Herkimer called Red to her room. "You wished to see me, my liege?", Red asked innocently. "It has come to my attention that you may, in fact, be a traitor. Is this true?" Red knew this would happen eventually. The jig was up. "I have no idea of where this notion would come from. If it was Yellow Diamond who brought this to you, I wouldn't regard it too highly." Red figured blaming Yellow's jealousy was the best route. "This jealousy that Yellow Diamond has of you is admittedly suspicious," the beautiful goddess agreed, "However, I cannot deny that you have been acting secretively ever since your Martian scouting mission." Red didn't think about that. "My queen," Red responded with the highest sense of modesty, "if I were a traitor for thousand of years, would you not have known by now?" With this response, Herkimer Diamond released Red to his quarters. About one Earth month later, Red was finally discovered.
On his last transmission to the gems on Earth, Yellow Diamond decrypted it and found that he was sending Pearl attack patterns, tactics, and weapons reports. When the evidence was presented to Herkimer Diamond, the Goddess became infuriated. She was so hurt that her right hand man would betray her like that. So enraged, that it's said her calls of rage were audible halfway across the planet. She ordered the guards to apprehend Red and bring him to her for a "special punishment". But, to their amazement, Red Diamond was already gone! Not a trace of him was left. Turns out, he had a contingency plan in place. If any of transmissions were decrypted, he would be alerted with plenty of time to escape. Yellow learned this while decrypting the rest of his messages. But Herkimer Diamond didn't need to hear the rest of the message to know where Red was going. "GET TO THE WARP PADS! If he's going off world, he'll have to go through there. We'll cut him off at the warp base." But Red Diamond was smarter than that. He knew that they'd expect him at the galaxy warp. So instead, he built a ship. Yes, a space ship. One to escape the gem home world and get to Earth to be with his secret love and to aid in the rebellion.
But, when Red left the planet's atmosphere, little did he know that he was being tracked. Just after the guards were sent to block the galaxy warp, Yellow Diamond discovered his ship in another decoded message. So, she decided to find his secret hangar and place a tracking device on Red's ship. After his takeoff, Yellow came back to her station, very pleased with herself. As the enraged goddess stormed back, the diamond cut gem told her of her great discovery. Feeling better knowing where Red Diamond was heading, Herkimer Diamond asked if they knew where he was going. "I have reason to believe that Red Diamond is heading for Earth, and he will be passing by Mars's orbit to get there."
"Good," replied the satisfied Goddes gem. "Let's make sure he never gets there."
The golden-hued diamond asked, "Shall I activate our station cannons? They should still be operating."
"No. Activate the martian galaxy warp. I'll take care of this myself."
Now, to elaborate, it has been thousands of years since Mars was sucked dry of it's natural resources. So, the planet was abandoned and the kindergarten deactivated. So, as Red neared our solar system, he felt that there was nothing to fear. He was very wrong. As he passed over the red planet, he thought of himself and how clever he is. Suddenly, Red felt a hard jolt come from his rear left side. He looked down to see the goddess smiling with contempt as she geared up for another shot. She was so powerful, she shot blasts pure of energy into the hull of Red's ship. As he went down, Red Diamond, was able to eject from his cockpit and retreat into his gem. Going unnoticed, Red landed on the desolate planet's reddish-orange surface. He returned to his physical form just in time to see his ship explode into thousands of pieces. Satisfied, and believing that she had eradicated the traitor, Herkimer Diamond returned to the home world and blew the galaxy warp right after she was safely on her way back.
Stranded and alone, Red chose his new form. Still 9 feet tall, his musculature was more defined. His fiery red hair parted on the left, going right, and curling in the front. He wore a button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up past his elbows that had diagonal, intersecting lines with alternating colors of red, orange, and mahogany, and he wore it tucked in. Beneath it, an orange tank-top, and he had the top four or five buttons undone. He wore tight black pants with holes in the knees, and calf-height boots that resembled red and orange biker boots with diamonds that resembled the gem in the middle of his chest on the top center of these boots. He also had black fingerless gloves that have holes cut into the knuckles that end at his wrist and a diamond-studded gauntlet that covers his left forearm. Lastly, he donned a brown leather belt with large utility pockets and a red, rhombus shaped buckle that displayed an "R" scribed into it.
Satisfied with his new form and design, he began to make his way towards the ancient kindergarten. Red knew that his only hope of getting to earth was the galaxy warp. However, when he arrived, Red was greeted by a devastating sight. The warp pad had been completely annihilated. Destroyed beyond repair, there was no way to get to Earth, or even off the planet. He began trekking through the kindergarten, looking for tech he could use to build a space ship to reach his love, who was so close, yet so far away. While he hefted a massive piece of machinery over hi head, he heard what sounded like a soft sobbing and whimpering sound. He immediately dropped his piece of metal and drew his sword. The weapon itself was of gorgeous stature. The handle a brown leather wrap with red brass knuckle grips and a hilt that resembled a burning flame. The massive blade seemed to grow out of the hilt, with a wavy cutting edge and 3 equally spaced circles cut into the back and i small fire burning within each section. To top it all off, e red diamond sat at the bottom of the handle and would glow when he would raise it.
As Red spun around to get ready to attack what was behind him, he saw something extraordinary. In the midst of this desolate place, two small, underdeveloped, twin gems. Twins were so rare, even Red had never encountered one before. but some thing was off, and Red recognized it as soon as he laid eyes on the two. Their gems weren't fully grown. "The kindergarten must have been deactivated before they fully formed," the commander thought. "The poor creatures must be in terrible agony." They were a variety of topaz, Moonstone and sun fire topaz, with the latter cradling the first in her arms. She looked up at Red, tears in her eyes, and asked weakly and hoarsely, "can you... help us... please?" Then, she collapsed. Red's weapon dissipated, and he sprinted to catch the two before they hit the ground. He looked at the two weak gems, and realized there was something that he could do. They would have no idea, no memory of before then, and Red would have to train her, but these could fuse them. Yes, Red Diamond had the power to synchronize and fuse the two halves of the gems to crate a whole gem. They would be an entirely new entity-Imperial Topaz-and she would be extremely powerful. As he began the ritual, the blue gem looked up at Red and smiled as they fused into one gem. As he recovered from the strain of the fusion, he looked over to see a beautiful new gem with a skin tone unlike any other, split down the middle, her left side was orange and her right a gorgeous blue. Her short hair was a crystal blue with yellow highlights. She wore a deep, cobalt blue top that was sleeveless and tucked into a golden, wonder woman-style belt over black, knee-length leggings. Her feet lay bare, but she stood on her toes, with her hands behind her back, and her right leg crossed over the left.
As Red Diamond stood up, he realized that she stood at about the height of a human 8-year-old. As he looked at her, he realized that he had done something amazing:he saved a life and created a new one. While this thought processed through his head, the little girl gem ran up to and hugged Red's legs. This sensation gave Red a feeling that he hadn't known since he last held Pearl, his great love. He raised the gem child to his height, and noticed for the first time where her gems sat. They each rested on either of her shoulders. He understood that this amazing gem fusion would do great things, and he then pulled her in, and hugged her, like a father holding his daughter he hasn't seen for years after he fought in a great war. And she returned that hug as much as she could, shielded by Red's large, powerful arms, and his undying love for his newly adopted daughter.
For years after that day, Red Diamond would train Topaz in the art of sword fighting and battle. On Mars, there were plenty of gem monsters-creatures that used to be gems like them, but were corrupted or damaged during the war for the planet. This means that they would have to defend themselves, and Red wouldn't always be with Topaz to protect her. So, he taught her how to fight. Over the years, he tried to get her to summon her weapon, but it seemed that her weapon didn't exist. Red wasn't sure that she could summon one, since her gem was incomplete. So, if that were the case, Topaz was taught how to be proficient with a sword. She could almost match the fiery diamond in battle, only because he was her trainer. The reason she couldn't match him was because of Red's extreme power levels. Regardless, Topaz was an amazing swordsman. Pearl would have been proud, Red would think.
Then, one day, the extraordinary happened. During one of their training sessions, a gem monster burst into the scene. It resembled a starfish with bird beaks for arms. The creature was enormous and terrifyingly strong. Red ordered Topaz back behind a boulder. "But Red, I can help!", she cried, but it fell on deaf ears. Red slashed at the creature with a blow that would have destroyed any other gem, but this thing was too fast. Before he knew it, Red Diamond was slashing at red dirt as the monster towered over him. He turned back just in time to see the thing's beak-like appendage coming right at him. The next thing Topaz knew, her mentor and best friend was being eaten by a giant starfish monster. She couldn't bare to see any more, so she ducked behind the rock to hide, but the gem monster had seen her. As it came closer, Topaz could smell the beast as it hungered for more. She held mixed emotions of fear and rage all at once. Suddenly, her gem began to glow, and she felt something emerge from her shoulders. As the beast drew nearer, she stood up, reached across her chest with both arms, and grasped the two handles jutting out of her gem. She then proceeded to pull out a one-sided battle axe from each shoulder. Then she clapped them together, as if out of instinct, and they fused into a massive, two-sided axe with crystal blue diamond blades. The handle's colors split down the middle between orange and blue, with a moon-shaped crescent at the end. Then, at each end, there sits a black diamond between the blades. As the weapon's light died out, the creature halted in it's steps long enough fro Topaz to attack. She leaped up into the air, and brought her weapon down on the creature's center. This caused it to retreat back into it's gem, leaving a bewildered Red Diamond laying in the dirt, staring at the small gem with an axe taller than him. She looked at him, fearful for his well-being, and he smiled back at her, partially to signify that he was okay, but mostly because he was extremely proud of what Topaz had just done. As she placed her weapon back into her gems, Red's eyes began to fill with tears.
"Are you okay?" the small gem asked, worriedly.
Red replied, "I'm alright, just got something in my eye," as he wiped away a tear, and embraced Topaz in a great hug.
He now knew for certain that this little girl was going to capable of incredible things, and that she would be a wonderful person in life. But first, they had to find a way to get off of Mars and over to the planet Earth.