So… yet another story I'm starting. Ah well, fickle me. I'm making a whole bunch of suppositions here and any of this could be easily retconned by cannon in the future. For reference this was written around the time of "Onion gang". Until then however…
I don't own Steven Universe.
Chapter 1: The 4th
Some tens of thousands of years ago…
Space, large, black, possibly infinite.
Peridot (facet 2D2R, cut 3XG) watched it wiz by as their ship flew through the cosmos.
She was on her way to some distant system their star maps had recently added to their expanding empire. The system in question unfortunately had very little in ways of resources, only three gas giants orbiting a white dwarf.
Still it was not a total waste of time, sure most of the moon orbiting the giants had almost no mineral value, but one did, her destination in fact. That particular moon had almost unheard of amounts of mineral value, rich and waiting to pop out some hundreds of new gems. So no, not a total waste of time.
Peridot had been selected to receive the new gems because it was she who had been tasked to survey the system for possible kindergartens in the first place. After a few dozen planetoids written off as useable, but ultimately a waste of time she had found this… this… well… gem… she supposed, snorting in a small laugh to herself.
WHAM
"HA, I win!" came a voice from behind her as Peridot turned around with a sigh. The voice had come from Flint, a large robust quartz who now pointed into the face of another by the name of Amethyst, a snarl upon her own features.
"No! You caught me off guard! Let's do it again!" Amethyst shouted pointing back into the smug grin of her opponent.
Peridot features scrunched in annoyance. These two had been sent with her to ensure her safety, at least that's what her superiors had told her. The green gem could have handled this on her own she thought, but ultimately it was against policy to do so and was not her decision to make, so she obliged. She was not one to go against rules after all, still the last few hours of the two of them going back and forth in their brute-like ways had been somewhat… annoying.
They were large fierce gems who liked physical action much more than they had ever cared for intellectually inclined topics, such as she had on occasion talked with other olivines. No, these two had whittled away their time mostly picking fights with each other, such as their recent bout at arm-wrestling.
Peridot's frown continued to deepen as she unconsciously gripped one arm of her chair tighter and rubbed the small of her forehead. She attempted to speak up as the two of them butted heads again. "Hey could you guys cut it out? We're almost there and then you can do all the brutish acts you like."
The two looked to her for a moment stopping their ongoing battle as the grey skinned flint steped over, large and imposing as most quartz soldiers were, her hair short with a razor cut. "Ahh, pipe down, 'captain'." She said spitting out the word with some disrespect. "We're just blowing off a little steam, it's no big deal. Heck, it's practically how we say 'Hello.'." She said giving a large smug grin over to Amethyst.
The purple quartz, also of the large variety, her hair braided back into a single stream of white-purple, nodded, her arms crossed. "Yeah, we don't really mean nothing by it. Just how we do things."
"Look, I know you quartzes like to fight but could you please just go back to your chairs and sit quietly?"
"Aw, are we causing too much of a ruckus for the little peridot?" Flint asked, mockingly putting her hands to her hips and towering over Peridot in her seat.
Peridot stood up, though even with her limb enhancers increasing her height she barely reached the shoulder of grey-ish gem. "I was put in charge of this mission and I said knock it off!"
Flint stood back to her full height a look of slight surprise on her face before she exchanged looks with Amethyst and they both laughed. Peridot blushed slightly at this, she felt embarrassment and some anger. She wasn't all that fond of quartzes, usually they were in charge of missions due to their ability to take down anything in their way and their general tactical abilities. The only reason she'd been put in charge of this, and not either of them, was due to her vast experience and expertise in gem growing and kindergartens and the fact that battle probability was very low.
Flint lay a single hand on her shoulder, the palm engulfing the better part of the smaller green's gem shoulder. "Easy, small fry. Didn't mean nothing by it. You're the boss after all." She said before walking back over to the purple quartz and whispering softly, causing her to laugh as Peridot sighed again before returning to her seat, tuning around and facing the front window.
"I cannot wait for this to be over." And just like that they dropped out of warp and were now orbiting the gas giant, Peridot input the coordinates and landed with a small cough of the engines. They were here at last. By her calculations the first of the gems should be ready to pop out, if they weren't already.
She and the quartzes made their way to the control tower they had built for the moon, being rather small they had only needed the one. She activated the door and the three rose, arriving at the top floor, the control room.
Peridot stopped through and sped right through to the main monitors while the other two simply stepped inside and watched her with mild disinterest.
As she accessed the mainframe she observed the data and… no… no…. that can't be correct. She studied the data again, doing the calculations in her head. The data was… off. Her face scrunched up in confusion and then some panic seeped in before she calmed herself.
She called out to the other two, needing someone to talk to. "Hey! Come over here!" she called out.
"What is it now, 'captain'?" Amethyst said, walking over with flint, their faces not at all mused.
"I think we have a problem." Peridot admitted.
Flint narrowed her eyes, while Amethyst remained unmoved. "What kind of problem?" The grey gem asked.
"You know all the gems that were supposed to be here?"
"Yes."
"They're well… gone." Peridot said, the last word almost coming as a peep.
Flint reached down and grabbed Peridot by the scruff of her neck, holding her up to eye height. "What do you mean gone?"
Peridot seemed to smile sheepishly. "Well… the mineral levels on this planetoid have dropped to almost nothing but there are no gems... well… anywhere."
Flint dropped her, Peridot barely catching herself before she fell face-first. "How could this happen?" Amethyst asked.
"I don't know!" Peridot said quickly. "This station reported that everything was fine only a few cycles ago! It's not my fault!"
"We came here for hundreds of new gems, and you want me to go back to our superiors and tell them we have none?!" Flint bellowed.
"Please wait! I'm not to blame here! Let me see if I can find out what happened." Peridot quickly added, returning to the monitor, accessing the earlier data between the last transmission and now. "Let's see, the mineral levels were still almost full, which is odd they should be less than half as of a few cycles ago, but then… they drop to nearly nothing the following cycle."
"Are you saying a bunch of gems were formed overnight?" Amethyst asked.
"Possible, but due to the differences in time needed to make different gems, ever gems of the similar type, that would mean that every gems would need to be of the exact same type. They would also have to be identical in gestation and emergence as well. That's really rare in case you were wondering." She said a matter-o-factly to a still scowling Flint, unlike Amethyst on the other hand who seemed to be somewhat interested now.
"So does that mean there are a bunch of amethysts or agates or something running around somewhere?" she asked.
"If they had already popped they would have known to come here, they would have known what this place was. No it's like all the minerals just disappeared."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that this planetoid has nothing more to offer us." Peridot concluded.
"So we came all this way for an empty rock?!" Flint said pounding one of the tables, putting a small crack in it. "What are we gonna tell our superiors!? That we lost hundreds of gems?!" she asked.
"I don't know what to tell you!" Peridot pleaded back.
"I'll tell you what you're gonna do! You're gonna go back into that data and find me those gems!" Flint thundered.
Peridot looked somewhat scared and looked to Amethyst for support only for the purple quartz to shrug her shoulders.
Peridot sighed and turned back around accessing the data for the fifth time. As much as she'd hate to say it out loud, the quartz had a point. Minerals couldn't up and vanish like that. So she went back into the data and sifted through going in smaller and smaller timescales till she could pinpoint the drop… and… there it was. Only about a cycle and a half ago was the planetoid near full when it suddenly disappeared.
She used the tower's scanners and quickly gave the kindergarten a once-over. It was clean, surface scans indicated no signs of any gem activity. Peridot then considering trying something, she accessed the deep core scanners and… there it was…
"There's something in the kindergarten." Peridot informed her bodyguards.
"What do you mean something?" Flint asked.
"I don't know. I've never seen this happen before. I have no idea what it is but something is deep below the planetoid's surface and it's coming up. And it is big." She added.
"Well then let's go see it, shall we?" Amethyst said holding the elevator door open and motioning the two inside.
After a short shuttle ride in their ship, the three arrived at the kindergarten, a fairly big one as well. Injector pods lay quiet and dormant, their fluids now drained. The walls should have been lined with holes, gems of all sorts ready to come out and serve the will of the authority, yet the entire compound remained silent.
"So where is it?" Flint asked.
"It'll appear over there." Peridot said, pointing to a stretch of open space almost directly in the center of the kindergarten.
"Let's go greet it, shall we?" Amethyst jumped down, Flint followed after while Peridot activated the hover function on her limb enhancers, floating down safely to join the other two.
The green gem brought up her data screen, now updated with the data from the tower. "It's almost here." She said.
As if on cue, the ground trembled before a crevice opened up, a large light seemed to engulf the area as the three had to shield their eyes from the intensity. Usually a gem formed their body in the ground and dug their way up and out but this was much different.
The center of the light began to hover in the air a little while longer before the tell-tale signs of forming started to appear. Arms, long and lithe formed then legs and feet and finally a head emerged, long hair but swept up from behind and over the front of the head, forming jagged hair tufts.
The quartzes had already summoned their weapons, Flint with a long two-handed blade and Amethyst with a large mace, in preparation for whatever this thing was. Peridot has given herself a reasonable distance between herself and the mysterious creature but aimed her plasma blaster, ready to do her part.
The light finally dimmed and the figure fell to her knees, then onto her hands. Her form was large, about twenty feet, she wore a pink, sleeveless, body-suit that covered her from neck to toe, except for her navel area which was open, exposing her gem. Her face was round-ish, but fit and lean as well.
She stood up, towering over the smaller gems and opened her eyes, bright pink with diamond-shaped pupils, though only one could be seen as her hair fell over he left eye. She brushed it out of the way and gazed down at the three, mixtures of shook and awe between them.
Peridot dismissed her gun and ran up to the other two, who lowered their weapons to the ground mouths agape and dropped them, causing them to vanish. The green gem looked to the giant before them and back and them, just as speechless as they.
"Hello." The pink giant said, her voice carrying the weight of power, but with tinges of kindness. "My name is…" she seemed to stop for a moment, bringing her hand to her chin in thought. "I am…" she began to pace a bit, the three still too shocked to do anything at all.
"Y-y-y-you… y-y-you're…!" Peridot began, pointing upwards at her.
The quartzes looked down at the green gem waiting for an explanation. "What… is she?" the purple quartz asked.
"Yes, yes… just… hold on…" The pink giant said as she began banging her hand softly against her forehead. "My name is… My name is…" She then opened her eyes, as if in sudden realization. "Pink Diamond!" with that she opened her arms in a wide arc. "That's right! My name is Pink Diamond!" she looked back down at the three, offering her hand to them. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"A diamond…" Flint mouthed still in awe. "A DIAMOND!" she screamed, immediately falling to one knee, her arms forming the diamond salute. The other two quickly followed suite.
Pink Diamond's face changed from a warm smile, to somewhat surprised as she looked down at the three gems, the expression then changed to one of sheepishness as she rubbed the back of her head. "Yes… uh… thank you… for that." She said gesturing down at them.
Peridot was the first to speak up, her eyes still glued to the ground. "My Diamond! I am Peridot, facet 2D2R, cut 3XG. May I say what an honor… no what a privilege it is to be the first to make your acquaintance?"
Pink gave a small smile to her. "I think you just did."
The green gem gained some small measure of courage and looked up, being met by that warm comforting expression filled her up with glee. She barely restrained her giddiness.
Pink then gestured to them all. "Please… please… stand." She said to them. After some hesitation the three did as they were told, standing upright, looking at each other and then back to her.
Flint stepped forward. "If I might say so, my Diamond, you…" she seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "…were not what we were expecting."
"Oh? I'm sorry if I did not live up to your high standards." Pink teased.
Flint immediately fell back to one knee, saluting again. "Forgive my impudence! I meant no disrespect! I would never disrespect you in such a way intentionally!" she said quickly.
This caught Pink Diamond off-guard, she had meant it in jest yet this gem before her seemed to almost quake in fear of the consequences. "Wait, I'm sorry. It was only a joke."
Flint peered up to the great figure before her. "A joke?"
"Yes, a joke."
There was a pause before Flint got up slowly chuckling to herself before the laughter spread to the other three, the whole lot of them laughing.
Several thoughts raced through her mind at once. One, this diamond, the de facto leaders of their entire way of lifewas laughing with her, her a peridot! Two, didn't she know she was supposed to be their superior? Three, how could any of this be happening right now? Similar thoughts ran in the minds of the quartzes.
After they stopped Peridot grabbed her head, as if trying to keep it from exploding with thought. "This is incredible! Another Diamond has been made! And we were here to witness it!" she said, practically jumping with joy. "I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" she said.
Flint stepped forward. "My Diamond, I am Flint, facet 2E6Y, cut 7QG, it is beyond a privilege to make your acquaintance." She said, echoing Peridot's earlier greeting.
"And yours." PD returned politely.
Amethyst stepped forward. "My Diamond, I am Amethyst, facet 3D4T, cut 4QH. The pleasure of your presence humbles me." She said.
"A pleasure for me as well." PD said.
Peridot then spoke up again. "Wow! I can't wait to tell everyone! Another Diamond!" She then turned to the woman who almost tripled her height. "My Diamond, may we escort you back?"
"Back?" She asked. "Back where exactly?"
Peridot and the other exchanged glances for a moment then turned back to her. "Back to Homeworld of course!"
Pink Diamond seemed gave a blank look then nodded to them. The three returned the nod with glee and ran off to the ship. Peridot powered it up and brought it over to PD, landing it and opening the port entry. She looked at it, frowning a bit.
"A bit… small don't you think?" she asked.
Peridot, who could be seen through the window and was now using the intercom, spoke. "I am so sorry, my Diamond! We were expecting a few dozen gems at most, a larger accrue of ships would have been sent for the rest later, but…"
PD waved it off. "No it's fine, just… give me a second." She hunched down and squeezed through, little by little until she was inside. She crawled on her hands and knees until she had made it to the bridge, stopping at the entrance, blocking off the hallway behind her. "Heh, looks like this is about as far as I go."
The quartzes looked to each other and nodded, striding forward. "My Diamond if I may?" Flint asked.
"Yes?"
"We could… try and pull you through?"
PD looked behind her, it was still a tight squeeze but with a little pull… She turned back to them extending her arms to them. "Here."
They each nodded and grabbed one arm, the limbs of the great gem almost too large to wrap around completely. They tugged and after a moment PD popped through to the bridge, the room being the largest in the ship yet still too small for Pink to be entirely comfortable, adjusting herself until she was sitting upright with her legs crossed in the middle of the room.
"Well then, shall we get going?" PD suggested.
"At once!" Peridot said jumping to her feet and sitting down in the captain's chair, but only for a moment, turning back to PD quickly. "My Diamond, it would be a honor if you were to sit in the commander's chair." She said offering the seat.
Pink Diamond looked to it. The chair was meant for say a quartz to sit in, as it was it made Peridot look small in comparison, but that thing was less than half her size. "I appreciate the gesture Peridot, but I don't think that I'd be able to fit."
Peridot looked from PD to the chair and back. "Yes I see your point. Still, a gem of your status should have the best seat on the ship."
Pink giggled at this. "Peridot it's alright really I can just sit like this until we get back home."
"As you command, my Diamond." She said before sitting back down and turning around in the seat. She hit a few buttons and took off into the sky, quickly entering and leaving the thin atmosphere of the moon.
Peridot tapped a few more buttons, setting the coordinates of Homeworld before taking a deep breath and turning around to face Pink Diamond. The giant pink gem returned her look of anticipation with the patient gaze of a mother, causing Peridot to feel flushed. "We are maintaining maximum efficiency in speed and will arrive in a few hours, my Diamond."
Pink Diamond laughed softly at this. "Of course, thank you." She replied warmly. "Also please just call me Pink Diamond… nah that's too wordy. Just 'Pink'."
Peridot seemed to freeze a little at this. "Is this a test? To see if I treat her with the respect I should? She doesn't seem to be acting like… well… like a diamond." She dismissed this thought though, bringing herself back to the situation at hand. "As you command my… Pink." She felt butterflies in her stomach saying that and had to cover her own mouth from giggling with glee for the umpteenth time.
Flint moved into view of PD addressing her. "My… Pink." She felt weird saying that out loud. "Would you like us to contact Homeworld for you? The others will want to hear of your creation.
"The others…?" PD asked.
"The other Diamonds, my Dia-Pink." She said, correcting herself at the last second. "Your sisters, they'd be most interested to hear of your existence I would think."
"Yes, I suppose they would." PD agreed. "Alright, yes, proceed."
Flint did a quick salute before turning around to the communications array on the bridge, taking the controls before AMythyst ran up behind her, trying to take the controls away. "Let me do it!"
"No! She told me to!"
Their bickering continued back and forth like this for a few minutes, much to Peridot's annoyance and PD's slight amusement, before finally deciding they would take turns talking.
Flint accessed Homeworld's main communication hub, waiting for a few seconds before finally being connected.
"This is Peridot facet 3X9R, cut 4DE, how may I direct your call?" came the voice of another green gem, not unlike their 'Captain'.
"This is Flint facet 2E6Y, cut 7QG…"
"And Amethyst facet 3D4T, cut 4QH…"
"We've just…" Flint began.
"Please hold one moment." The Peridot interjected. "It says here you were to check on the kindergarten in facet 6C6Z. Are the gems ready yet? We can amass a small contingent of ships ready in…"
"There was one." Flint said, stopping the Peridot dead in her tracks. The on-screen gem looked away from her data and gazed squarely at them.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"There was one, and only one." Flint repeated.
"What do you mean 'one'?" She asked. "You mean one so far?"
"No, there is one, and only one on that entire planetoid." Came a voice from behind, as the captain walked into the monitor's view.
"2D2R, what is the meaning of this?" she asked. "That was a class four kindergarten and you got only a single gem from a planetoid that rich?"
"That's right." She replied smugly.
"Your superiors will not like that one bit 2D2R." the monitor warned.
"Actually, it was about that one gem I wanted to talk to my superiors about." Peridot said, still smugly smiling.
"What could possibly interest the higher-ups about a single gem?" she asked.
"What if that gem was a diamond?" Flint asked.
"…what." The monitor said flatly.
"See for yourself." She replied before they all moved aside and the monitor tilted up, revealing Pink Diamond who, still hunched over, managed a wave.
The Peridot over the call seemed to go dead silent for a few seconds before they heard a small audible reply. "…connecting you to diamond line… please hold…"
White diamond sat upon her throne, three different holographic interfaces in front of her. She was doing her regular duties, doling out the orders for every other gem on Homeworld and about a half-dozen colonies as well as some orders/advice to her younger sisters.
She had platinum-white hair that stood up in five spikes. Her features were sharp and pointed, speaking of age and authority, her diamond pupils looking fierce. She wore a silver-white and grey body suit with a long flowing coat over top, matching the suit's colors. She also wore long, grey, fingerless gloves and silvery dress boots. Her gemstone lay in her forehead, highlighting her face's features.
Her Pearl, a fancy model matching the color scheme and dress style of her superior addressed her. "My Diamond?" she asked.
White Diamond broke her gaze from her monitors, gazing down unblinkingly at the pearl barely even a quarter of her size.
"There is a call for you ma'am."
"Who is interrupting my work?" She asked, her voice aged yet powerful and wise. "And why?"
"There was a call ma'am." She repeated. "The team sent out to retrieve the gems meant to be fully grown today. They only came back with one."
"One?"
"One, from the entire kindergarten." Pearl said.
WD raised an eyebrow at this. "How is that possible?"
"The crew claims the entire planetoid was used to create the single gem." Pearl explained.
"And this gem, what was it? A quartz? An olivine?" she asked.
"It was… a diamond, my Diamond." Pearl finished.
White Diamond blinked once then dismissed her interface, now giving her full attention to the Pearl, who wasn't at all used to the sudden increase in scrutiny as she began to shift uncomfortably. "Give the line to me."
Pearl did what she was asked, pulling up the communication line she had put on hold and accessed it, three gems appearing before her, all giving the diamond salute as they registered her presence.
"My Diamond I-" began Peridot.
"Stop. Skip the pleasantries. Show me this Diamond." White ordered.
The three moved to the side and Pink moved forward the best she could until she and White Diamond could see each other clearly.
"So you are the diamond." White said. If she felt anything in particular about the news, she hid it well, her inflection said nothing.
"I am." Pink replied. "Just popped out actually. The crew and I are on our way to Homeworld."
"I see." White said, the same monotone permeating her voice. "I'll have a squad of quartzes waiting on your arrival. I look forward to our meeting."
"Yeah, sounds great. See you then." She said as the message cut out.
White Diamond looked down to her Pearl. "Leave." She ordered.
The Pearl gave a salute before exiting, leaving White Diamond alone. The old gem pressed a few buttons on her console and two separate monitors popped out of nowhere, one a shade of yellow and the other a blue hue.
The two recipients of the calls came as White's sisters entered her field of view. "White?" came the smooth voice of Blue Diamond. "What is it?"
"Yes, what?" asked Yellow Diamond in her authoritarian way.
"There is something you need to know about."
That'll do for now. You may be wondering why I've written this so short. Well, all the chapters will be significantly shorter than the usual 15k-ish words I do. This is mostly due to me writing them in about a 10 minute format, like the show. I'm also changing a few things, first with time I'm borrowing a couple terms from transformers with the whole "cycles" thing, second I'm making some assumptions and theories which will reveal themselves in time and the only reason I'm not sharing them with you now is the fact that they'd be spoilers for the story ahead. Third, I'm not sure weather to label this K+ or T but I'm going T for now, just so no one gets mad at me in the future. But that's about it, goodbye.
