Revised. Still spoilers for the following episodes: Back to the Moon, Beta, and Earthlings.

When Steven went to bed last night, he was snug in his bed in the Crystal Temple.

When he opened his eyes again, he was somewhere entirely different.

As he laid on his back in a field of gently swaying grass of a beautiful green hue, he could only see the cerulean sky stretching on forever overhead. A few pinkish clouds rolled past the gleaming yellow Sun, basking the field in a yellow glow and a comfortable warmth, occasionally permeated by a cool breeze.

Steven pushed himself up into a sitting position, taking the time to scan his surroundings.

The field stretched on for miles in every direction. The endless swath of tall grass was only interrupted once, several yards ahead, by a tall oak tree, its bark a pinkish-brown hue, its leaves, oscillated by the gentle wind, the same pale green as the grass beneath it. At first glance, it looked like he was completely alone there, but the fact didn't bother the young hybrid boy as much as it confused him.

He stood up, turning all the way around to give his surroundings a good, accurate surveillance.

Hm. Here again? Steven thought. He turned to face the tree again, staring hard at it. Where is she? She's usually here.

With a glance over his shoulder, Steven started walking towards the tree, slowly but surely, casting nervous glances in every direction as if he were waiting for something to jump out at him.

Once he stood within arm's length of the tree, he reached out a hand and ran two fingers across the surface of its bark. It didn't feel hard and rough like one might expect from a tree, it actually felt smooth and surprisingly soft to the touch, like the bark were made out of velvet instead of the natural oak wood. He drew his hand away and tilted his head back so much that he nearly fell backwards, looking skyward into the still swaying green leaves, branches thick and thin webbing beneath the foliage. It felt oddly familiar to him, but he couldn't place why.

"Ah, I have always loved the unique beauty of this planet."

Steven subconsciously let out a startled yelp when the voice, distinctly feminine with a somewhat motherly edge to it, suddenly hit his ears. Without thinking, he moved in what he only knew as the opposite direction of the voice. The "opposite direction" just so happened to be the side of the tree, sending him slamming hard against it. He let out a pained groan and defeatedly allowed himself to collapse into the grass, flattening some of the thin blades beneath his weight.

He laid there for a few moments, waiting for the soreness in his face and chest to subside. When he felt something tickle the end of his nose, he jumped and his eyes snapped open wide, surprised to find a butterfly sitting there, lightly bobbing its large pink and yellow wings.

Beyond where the butterfly was perched, he could see what looked like a woman towering over him… no, not a woman. She was a Gem. Her skin was a pale pink and her darker hair was fluffy and arranged in a vague star shape that resembled Lion's mane. She was wearing a simple pink ensemble with pastel Diamond insignia on both knees and on her elbows. There was a diamond-shaped cut-out on her belly, revealing a sparkling pink gemstone embedded there of the same shape.

Steven opened his mouth in a soft gasp that scared away the butterfly before throwing both hands to his mouth when he noticed that she was staring absentmindedly at the tree in front of her. She hadn't even noticed Steven's presence there yet and he decided that it was best not to draw any attention to himself.

"It is a shame we cannot have both." the pink Gem said, watching as the butterfly fluttered about in front of her and she reached out her hand, offering a new perch for it. She stared down at the winged insect for a long time once it landed, a sad look in her pink eyes. Steven thought he saw tears forming in them, but they disappeared when she blinked. With a sigh, she outstretched her arm and allowed it to fly away again. A sad smile appeared on her thin lips as she watched it go.

"Heh, what would my sisters think of me, saying something like that? This is organic life, after all. And Homeworld needs their colony much more than they need short-lived organisms like these. Wouldn't you agree?"

Steven tensed when he thought she was directing the question at him until she cast a glance over her shoulder at someone Steven couldn't see from the angle he was laying at. A thick silence hung in the still air before the pink Gem chimed in again, speaking one simple word.

"Jasper?"

Jasper?

"Yes, my Diamond."

Steven's dark eyes went wide and he scrambled hastily to his feet, only to lose his balance and collapse forward against the tree, hitting his head a second time with a pained gasp. He quickly regained his composure and took the time to situate himself in a sitting position against a hollow at the bottom of the tree so that he had a clear view of Pink Diamond and the new arrival.

The half-Gem boy recognized the massive Quartz soldier instantly, but she looked… different. Her golden eyes weren't as intense and the organized chaos that was her waist-length blonde hair was half the length that he remembered it, barely reaching to her shoulders. Even her voice seemed decidedly less raspy and no longer bore a constant tinge of bitterness and hatred. She seemed calm and collected, something that felt so uncharacteristic for the banded Quartz.

She almost seemed… happy.

Instead of her brownish-red uniform with a yellow insignia on the chest, she wore a dark pink dress that was adorned with several fancy embellishments. The Yellow Diamond insignia was replaced with an identical one, except this one was Pink. Steven inwardly assumed that it probably had something to do with her change in attitude.

Steven jumped slightly, having been so enthralled with examining Jasper's attire that he didn't notice Pink Diamond approaching the tree, coming uncomfortably close to where Steven sat. He moved to try and get out of her way before she noticed him, but it was already too late. With two elegant steps, Pink's legs would have touched Steven's feet, but he was surprised to find that his own organic form simply passed through her hard-light one. It was like she wasn't even there. The Diamond didn't pay the fact any mind as she outstretched her arm and pressed her palm against the tree's smooth bark.

She let out a quiet sigh as she ran her hand down the tree trunk's length, stopping just above Steven's bush of dark hair, pulling away and turning away to face Jasper who only stood there, watching her Diamond from afar. Both hands were tucked behind her back as she patiently waited. Her face was an unreadable blank slate, devoid of any emotion.

"Come now, Jasper. We have a lot of work ahead of us."

That was all Pink said before she began striding forward, brushing past Jasper; she appeared to stand a head or two taller than the Quartz. Jasper crossed her wrists in the Diamond salute, bowing her head as she echoed her earlier statement, "Yes, my Diamond." and she turned, beginning to follow close behind without a second of hesitation.

Steven attempted to cross his wrists in the same manner, but no matter how he tried it, it always proved painful. He dropped both hands into his lap when he noticed Jasper stop suddenly, watching as the butterfly fluttered near her. She paused and held up her orange right hand, opening her fingers and allowing the butterfly to land on her palm. Steven's eyes widened as the Quartz simply stared down at it. Jasper had proved to be a savage, ruthless warrior in all their past encounters and Steven couldn't believe he was witnessing her doing something so… serene.

It was serene until her fingers snapped closed in a flash, clenched into a tight fist.

She didn't even flinch as two battered pink and yellow wings slipped from her deadly grasp and fell to the ground. The boy's eyes went even wider as she upturned her hand and allowed the crushed remnants of the tiny, now wingless insect to fall to the ground as well, joining its severed wings hidden within the blades of grass.

Steven looked past her in the distance as Pink turned to face Jasper, calling after the Quartz. Jasper was quick to begin sprinting to catch up with her.

And just like that, Steven was no longer sitting against a tree in a beautiful field on a warm spring day.

He was now sitting against the spidery leg of an all too familiar Palanquin of a bright pink colour beneath a dark sky that was filled with thick, ominous clouds, heavy with rain that threatened to fall. Mere inches in front of him sat a pile of violet gem shards. Steven let out a strangled gasp and immediately tried, but failed, to scramble backwards away from them. When that failed, he jumped up and ran a couple of steps, only to clumsily trip and tumble towards the bottom of the steep hill. He tensed when his uncontrollably rolling form fell right through that of Pink Diamond where she stood at the bottom of the hill. Steven fell helplessly to the ground at the feet of another Gem that stood about five feet in front of her, facing the taller pink Gem.

Flipping wearily onto his back, Steven glanced in Pink's direction for a moment. Her hair was a frazzled, dirty mess, her whole body visibly battered and scraped, her ensemble, barely visible beneath a scarred suit of pinkish white armour, was now shredded and torn apart. Flanking her were four more Gems: a familiar orange and red Quartz and three Ruby foot soldiers. One of them had a gemstone that replaced her left eye, a small chisel knife clenched in her right hand.

Steven felt his whole body tense up when he realized just where he was, or rather, when he was. He turned his attention to the Gem standing over him.

Mom?

"I've already told you once, Rose Quartz. Stand. Down! This fight is already lost!"

"But it isn't. We still have plenty of Crystal Gem soldiers to spare, and none of us will rest until the innocent natives of this planet have been liberated."

"'Innocent na…'? Ugh… they are short-lived organic creatures that need to be purged for the sake of our Homeworld!"

"But you shared my sentiment once, you saw the beauty in this planet just as I did, and you longed to protect them! To keep them alive! What happened to that Pink Diamond? The one who saw perfection in imperfection, the one who longed to be different! The one who was my friend!"

"She's gone now, Rose. Shattered into a million pieces, because I realized that those sentiments were a delusional fantasy! The Gem Homeworld needs this colony, not a bunch of organics sapping it of its valuable resources and material! Look around you, Rose! We could form thousands, possibly millions of new Gems here! We could be unstoppable! Isn't that what you want? What's best for your home?"

No. Steven inwardly responded, but he couldn't bring himself to actually speak up. He tensed when silence fell over the Gems. Rose Quartz glanced away, looking around with an unsure look in her dark pink eyes.

"No." Rose echoed. "Not if it means everyone and everything here will die."

"What?! You… Y-You can't be serious, Rose! After all these millennia, you're just going to give up everything?! On Homeworld, you have the loyalty and respect of hundreds of Gems! You have a reputation, you have luxury, you have everything a Gem could ever wish for! What do you have on this—this… rock?!" Pink paused her enraged shouting to scoop up a clod of dirt in her hand. "This… this dirt?" She let it pour away through her fingers. "Is that what you want, Rose Quartz? Is that what you're fighting for?! Giving up everything you have for nothing?!"

Rose looked Pink Diamond in the eye as she spoke, "It may not seem like much to you."–she added softly to herself–"Not anymore."–she then rose her voice to an audible tone again–"But it means so much more to me and the Crystal Gems. All you have to do is give it a chance and then maybe you'll see that!"

Pink Diamond growled and clenched both hands into tight fists. Anxiety stabbed into Steven's heart and he crawled out of the Gems' way as he watched Jasper and the Rubies summoning their respective weapons. Eyeball's mouth stretched into a wide, sadistic grin as she held her knife out in front of her, aiming it straight at Rose's exposed gemstone. Steven let out a whimper, grabbing his shirt, feeling his own gem beneath the fabric, as the sight caused unwanted memories to re-enter his mind.

Likewise, Rose's gemstone, exposed by a diamond-shaped hole in her armour, began to glow and a familiar pink shield appeared in her hand. From the scabbard on her back, she unsheathed a massive pink sword and held it at her side, its blade pointed at the Gems in front of her.

"Y-You're a fool, Rose! You're outnumbered, you have been ever since day one!" Pink shouted, a livid look in her dark pink eyes. "I'll give you one last chance to stand down! You can put an end to your silly 'rebellion' and you can return back to Homeworld with me! We can forget this little mistake ever happened! Or…" She outstretched her arm again, fingers open, her palm facing the sky. "you can have your gem shattered by my hand!" She punctuated her words by clenching her fingers into a fist like she were crushing Rose's pink gem within it.

For a moment, Rose Quartz looked unsure of herself, thinking her Diamond's words over. Steven tensed from where he sat on the sidelines, silently pleading with her to refuse Pink's offer as if he were watching a particularly captivating action movie.

Rose let out a sigh and opened her hand, her sword abruptly falling to the ground with a metallic clatter.

Steven let out a horrified gasp and he saw Pink Diamond's eyes go wide, looking just as surprised as he was. Jasper's mouth was hanging open in disbelief and Eyeball looked disappointed.

Then, Rose reached up and covered up her gemstone with her hand, her palm resting against its faceted surface. She closed her eyes and Steven saw a glow emanate from beneath her open hand. When she pulled it away again, the diamond-shaped hole in her armour was replaced the shape of a five-pointed star, matching the yellow one upon Steven's red shirt. The insignia of the Crystal Gems. That prompted a gasp from Pink as Rose bent down and grabbed the hilt of her sword, lifting it up again, a hard look in her eyes.

"Then so be it." was all she said. Her voice was low, an uncharacteristic coldness to her tone.

Steven winced as Pink Diamond let out an irate sound that sounded like a cross between a growl and a battle cry. Taking a single step forward, she pointed a finger in Rose's direction. That was all she had to do for Jasper and the Rubies to spring into action.

Jasper attempted, twice, to smash her orange crash helmet into Rose's gem, but on both occasions, the blows were subverted by her huge pink sword.

Rose whipped around in a full circle. As she did so, she threw her shield at a Ruby that was leaping at her from behind, the shield slicing through her torso like it was nothing. Her gemstone, placed on the small Gem's forehead, fell to the ground as her physical form disappeared in a cloud of red smoke.

Once she faced Jasper again, she held the sword up vertically between them, Jasper's third attempt at hitting her being disrupted once again, prompting a frustrated growl from the soldier before Rose shoved the sword forward, sending Jasper skidding backwards. Her feet were planted firmly to the ground, leaving two shallow ruts through the dirt in her wake.

Eyeball attempted to get a blow in on Rose from behind with her knife, but the pink-haired Quartz was faster, expertly dodging every strike the Ruby tossed at her. She jumped into the air and flipped backwards, landing behind Eyeball as the third foot soldier lashed her double-tailed whip in Rose's direction, missing and tangling it around Eyeball's knife instead. The Ruby's eyes went wide as Eyeball snarled at her, instantly releasing her grip on the whip, causing it to disappear in a stream of white glitter.

Before she had a chance to summon a replacement, Rose had shoved the blade of her sword straight through the Ruby's chest, avoiding the gemstone on her upper back by less than an inch. She poofed into another cloud of crimson smoke almost instantaneously.

That was two down and three to go. Steven silently cheered Rose's skills from the sidelines.

Rose leapt over Eyeball a second time to avoid yet another attempt from the Ruby at stabbing the Quartz that towered over her. Rose attempted to get Eyeball through the chest as well, but she had whipped around to face her in an instant, interlocking her tiny blade with the larger pink one. The odds weren't in Eyeball's favour, but she held her own regardless.

With a twist of Rose's sword and jerking the blade upright, Eyeball's chisel slipped from her hand and was thrown into the air, impaling itself into the ground several yards away, well out of the Ruby's reach. Her gemstone glowed as she went to summon a new one, but it was interrupted as Rose lifted her sword up over her head, preparing to bring it down upon her enemy. Eyeball's instinctive reaction was to lift both arms over her head, crossing her wrists over one another. The blade sliced through her wrists effortlessly as it came down, both hands instantly disappearing in smaller, individual puffs of smoke.

For three tense seconds, Eyeball and Rose both stared at her injuries in wide-eyed shock; had she not been a Gem, it would've been a lot more gruesome. Rose glanced up at Eyeball, an apologetic, concerned look in her eyes. When Eyeball looked up to meet her pink gaze, pure hatred burned within her dark red one. However, before either of them could make a move, Rose cast a glance over her shoulder when she heard a strange buzzing sound from behind.

Steven barely managed to keep himself from intervening when he saw Jasper rolling into her spin-dash attack, barreling straight towards Rose from behind. But Rose didn't need any protection as she leapt backwards into the air, flipping once above the fiery ball and landing impressively on her feet. She watched as Jasper uncontrollably smashed straight into Eyeball before unfurling a few feet behind the red Gem.

Jasper's golden eyes went wide as she looked down at Eyeball. She hadn't been poofed, but her physical form was faltering and it looked like she didn't have much left in her.

Even after all the Ruby had done to him in the past, Steven's heart still went out to her. She was severely injured and looked ready to retreat into her gem at any moment, and yet, she still didn't. She still laid there and fought it, even though she was no longer any use to their fight.

With an infuriated cry, Jasper spin-dashed again, intending to hit Rose this time around. Rose didn't dodge it, but re-summoned her shield and held the spinning blur of orange and red back with it to the best of her ability, and once she felt her strength faltering beneath the force of Jasper's attack, she shoved the shield forward and sent Jasper skidding back across the ground again.

"You're putting up a good fight there, Rose Quartz! It's a shame you'll be in shards soon."

Rose Quartz didn't respond to her opponent's taunt and leapt forward, her sword held up over her head, ready to bring it down upon Jasper. But before Rose was even halfway to the ground, a streak of pink leapt into the air and crashed into Rose, sending her tumbling back to the ground. Pink Diamond had a foot on Rose's chest before she had a chance to recover, pinning the Quartz soldier on the ground, where she laid helplessly, flat on her back. The nearby clattering of metal caught the attention of both pink Gems.

They exchanged glances for a second before Rose scrambled after her fallen weapon, but trapped beneath Pink's weight, her mobility was limited. Grabbing the blade's hilt, Pink Diamond pointed the tip of the blade straight at the central pentagonal facet of Rose Quartz's pink gemstone. The sword trembled ever so slightly in her grip.

"Pink, please, don't do this. It doesn't have to end this way." Rose said, her voice low and surprisingly calm.

"All these years. All these eons! I… I thought I could trust you, Rose! You were one of my best soldiers, I thought you would fight on my behalf until the very end! But then you just—just… betray me like this? Betray everyone?!" Pink was almost screaming as she furiously brushed away tears forming in her eyes. The way Rose remained eerily calm beneath her only frustrated the young Diamond even more.

"I thought you were better than this, Pink." Rose admitted, allowing her composure to break slightly. "I remember when you tried to be different, back when you weren't like the others. I respected that… and I respected you and followed you because of that! What happened, Pink Diamond? You were a brave, respectable Gem once!"

Pink looked away, grimacing. With a shrill, enraged cry, she rested her opposite hand atop the sword's hilt and pushed it down. Rose flinched. It didn't shatter or even crack her gemstone, but the tip rested dangerously against its surface. All it would take was a split second of her losing her composure like that again, and Rose would be… Steven didn't even want to fathom it. Rose clenched her plump hands into anxious, trembling fists, but hid her fear well as she spoke.

"Pink, you're going to regret this. So, just put the sword down and…"

"No!" Pink cried out. She paused, and her tone suddenly became eerily stoic and cold, matching Rose's. "Diamonds don't have regrets, Rose Quartz. But if I did, I know that this wouldn't be one of them!" She tightened her grasp on the hilt and prepared to penetrate Rose's gemstone, but hesitated for several long, agonizing moments, unable to bring herself to do it.

The last thing Steven saw was a tear streaking Pink Diamond's face before he threw both hands up, completely covering his face and whimpering softly. He knew what was coming, but he didn't want to see it. Ten seconds passed, but they felt like ten hours as Steven sat there, his whole body tense as a stone with fear.

A loud, undefinable sound suddenly hit Steven's ears that made him jump. It sounded vaguely familiar, but he just couldn't place it. All he knew was a sickening crack immediately followed it and a chilling shriek pierced the air. Steven hesitated, before parting his fingers just enough to peek at the scene playing out before him.

Pink Diamond was on the ground now, as was Rose's sword. She was kneeling close to the ground, whimpering and sobbing, her thin arm wrapped tightly around her stomach, hiding her gemstone from view. Steven noticed a white glow seeping from beneath the appendage; it slowly got brighter. Rose Quartz was on her feet in an instant, tears beginning to stream down her face as she cried desperately for Pink to let her help, but the pleas of the Crystal Gems' leader went ignored or unheard by the Diamond.

Steven flinched when he saw brilliant white cracks tracing her skinny form from her head to her feet. They were the worst around her stomach. He wanted to look away, but it was like there was some outside force than prevented him from doing so.

Only a few minutes prior, Pink Diamond had been standing innocently on the sidelines, watching her best soldiers fight Rose Quartz to the point of retreating into their gemstones on Homeworld's behalf. But now, she was on the ground, fatally wounded and crying as she curled up into a pitiful ball at her sworn enemy's feet.

Several more seconds passed that felt like eons; Jasper and Eyeball could only hang off on the sidelines, watching in stunned silence, but knowing there was little they could do about the situation. Pink let out a final, dying scream of pain that was cut off short when her form vanished in an explosion of pink smoke, larger than any Steven had seen before. The air was eerily still and silent as the smoke cleared, leaving a tiny pile of jagged pink gem shards on the ground in her place.

Steven flinched when he heard Rose choking back sobs as she bent down at the shards' side, lifting up one between two violently trembling fingers.

Her grieving tears fell futilely upon it.

Jasper and Eyeball still stood off to the side, their eyes wide with a mixture of horror and increasing sadness. Her entire form shaking, Rose Quartz looked up at both of them, the tears continuing to stream from her eyes. They seemed endless. She mouthed something to the enemy Gems that Steven couldn't make out from where he sat.

All he knew was Jasper suddenly fell at the shards' side as well, slamming her fists to the ground so hard that it cracked apart.

"MY DIAMOND!"

Her scream of anguish echoed in Steven's ears as the world morphed into a canyon, its red sandstone walls lined with deformed holes.

Sickly teal splotches of colour now covered Jasper's body, darker horns and spikes protruding from her blonde mane, two tumorous green spikes replacing her intense golden eyes. She no longer looked like the muscular humanoid being he knew so well. She stood on four clawed feet, her form resembling that of a huge, feral canine. She looked like a monster. She opened her fanged maw and screamed at Steven as she blindly stared him down.

"Your Diamond! Pink! Diamond!"

She leapt at him, her massive claws outstretched in front of her, her fanged jaws wide as she let out an unearthly roar as the boy sat helplessly against the wall of the Beta Kindergarten.

Steven's eyes snapped open wide and quickly jerked upright, breathing heavily, his skin and the sheets soaked with cold sweat.

His whole body was shaking uncontrollably. Tears began to form in his eyes as he looked down at his trembling hands. With a soft whimper, he grabbed the yellow star on the front of his shirt and curled into a ball atop his bed, his quiet sobbing the only sound in the dark room.

Yay! Another SU fic! And yes, it's another Jasperdemption fanfic, like the fandom doesn't have enough of those. XD

So far, Jasper is one of my favorite villains and she's my second favorite Gem overall, behind Peridot (because who doesn't love Peridot?). Seeing Jasper getting Corrupted, poofed, and then bubbled away in Earthlings broke my heart and, ever since, I've longed for her return, to see her healed and possibly even join the Crystal Gems. Okay, maybe not, but at the very least become an unaffiliated ally like Lapis.

Oh, and you thought I was actually gonna show who did in Pink? Ha, of course not! In all honesty, I used to think it was Pearl that did it and Rose took the blame to prevent Pearl from getting hunted down and shattered; the way Pearl always threw herself into the front lines to protect Rose Quartz at all costs (as shown in Sworn to the Sword), I still feel like it's a likely possibility. But after watching The Trial, without going into any specifics, I really don't know what to think anymore. But, unless proven otherwise, I will always believe that Pink Diamond's gem was shattered using a Laser Light Cannon (someone could've stolen one, I dunno). You cannot tell me otherwise!

Regarding my one-shot SU fic, The Corruption and the Quartz, I still don't know whether I'll be continuing it or not. For now, though, I'm just going to be working on this one. Read, review, or don't. Stay tuned for chapter two! XD