Chapter One

Pearl was restless.

Or, perhaps not restless. Bored, maybe. Or fidgety. Or nostalgic.

It was silly, really, but she wanted to be moving. Things had been awfully quiet lately. Which was enjoyable, of course. It was nice not having to face off against some threat or other every month. Homeworld had been quiet for a long time now, and even the monsters seemed to have relaxed a bit; their attacks were few and sporadic, and when they happened, easily dealt with.

And Pearl had been enjoying herself. Keeping busy. Movie nights, family dinners, training, song recording, long walks with Spinel…

… but Pearl was a warrior. A warrior by choice. And she had to admit that she was seeking something of a challenge. A real challenge, not just friendly sparring with Bismuth or Connie or the others. Something different. Something unexpected.

A bit silly. A bit indulgent, perhaps. But a big group of the Gems were planning to go see a movie (some new Western, apparently; they were all very excited), but Pearl just wasn't in the mood to sit in a movie theatre for two hours, trying to keep up with the ridiculousness of human entertainment. Steven was staying behind to cook, an activity she usually enjoyed— the neat recipes to follow, the applied chemistry of it all—

— but just then, she felt much more inclined to wield a spear than a vegetable knife.

So Pearl decided to go exploring.

It wasn't something she'd done much, not since the early days, back when it had been just her, Rose Quartz, and Spinel. Where there'd been a mystery behind every tree, where they'd had to keep moving, constantly, for fear of Homeworld finding them. At the time it had been equal parts terrifying and exhilarating and wondrous, and Pearl wasn't quite sure when she'd allowed herself to lose that.

(Well, she could guess. Probably some point during the war.)

Pearl shook her head, and pushed the thought away.

Her first instinct was to go the Battlefields, but she stopped herself at the last moment. She didn't want to go chasing ghosts; she wanted new experiences. She warped off to places almost at random. She visited the Lunar Sea Spire, now nothing more than underwater ruins, coral and kelp already growing from the old statues. She visited the Galaxy Warp, more out of a general background paranoia to ensure they were all still inactive. She checked the Communication Hub for a similar reason, but it too was broken, completely destroyed. Nonetheless, the place still gave her a strange sense of background anxiety, so she moved on quickly.

Not once did she find a single monster. Perhaps it was simply that after so long, the Crystal Gems had finally succeeded in capturing all the corrupted.

After nearly two hours of warping, she finally arrived somewhere new, at least for her. A rocky, mountainous region, almost completely bare of any growth aside from low shrubs and bushes.

For most of the war, the place had been a no-Gem's zone, a place of little strategic value. It was only in the final decades of conflict that Homeworld had set up a base there, one kept both very secret and very well guarded. After initial scouting, the Crystal Gems had sent in a few spies and small raiding parties, but almost no one had returned- and those who had had been in poor shape, and with little helpful information to show for it. It had been decided the place was too risky, and the Crystal Gems had focused their efforts on more obvious targets.

Well. The place had been long abandoned. Perhaps it finally deserved some investigation.

Assuming Pearl could find it.

It took a little bit of poking around the rocks, inside crevices and such, but eventually she managed to track down the base. It was well hidden under a rocky outcropping, in a spot which would have been very well defended, and blocked by a very well fortified door.

… Or what must have been a well fortified door, once. It had been destroyed, leaving nothing but a perfectly squared opening in the mountainside. Pearl frowned, and reached out to touch the metal that remained. Up close, it wasn't nearly so smooth: the metal looked warped, almost as if it had been melted down.

Strange. A lot of damage had been sustained in the last days of the rebellion, and in the panic of Homeworld's evacuation. But this looked like it had been attacked from the outside . Had someone been trying to get in? Who, and why?

Only one way to find out. Pearl went inside.

The place was plain and utilitarian, the walls the same dull grey of the bedrock it had been built out of, the corridors dim from the faint lighting spells that had been placed there so long ago. Pearl used the light from her own gem to help guide her. Many of the doors were shut, barred against access to anyone without the right credentials, and far too heavy for her to break through on her own. What rooms she could get into appeared to be laboratories. She knew that compared to what current-day Homeworld had, this place was antiquated, but to Pearl's own eyes the technology housed there looked highly advanced. This had been state of the art when it was built; so much so that much of the equipment's purpose Pearl couldn't determine the purpose of, at least at such a superficial glance. Once she had ensured the place was safe, she would have to conduct a more thorough analysis.

After some time, she came to a chamber which did have equipment she recognised. Computer screens, scalpels, power monitors… most of it destroyed, or at least damaged and scattered about the place. There were dents in the walls, cracks in the floor. There'd been a fight here.

Pearl moved quickly and efficiently, trying to see if she could discern any clues to what had happened there, until she finally came across something she did recognise. A large cylindrical object, big enough to hold something as large as even a quartz. A stasis pod.

Pearl was vaguely familiar with the pods. They were a way to keep a Gem in suspension without destroying their physical forms. After the invention of bubbling, they'd rarely been used. They were just less efficient, taking up more space and requiring an active energy input to keep from failing.

This stasis pod wasn't being used for its intended purpose, however. Gazing through the glass into pink fluid, Pearl found not a single unconscious Gem, but rather two poofed gemstones floating inside. One was red, one was blue: it took a moment of studying for Pearl to recognise their type. A ruby and a sapphire.

Odd.

If they had been put in stasis before the Corruption— which surely they must have done; monsters hardly had the mental capacity to do such a thing— then perhaps they would still be…

And if they weren't. Well. Two small monsters would be easily dealt with. And Pearl had been itching for a proper fight.

The console controlling the pod had been smashed beyond repair, so instead, she simply summoned her trident and thrust it through the glass. It broke, the stasis fluid spilling out onto the floor, the two gemstones with it. They clicked when they hit the stone floor, but probably not enough to be damaged.

Pearl stepped back and gripped her weapon, just in case.

Almost instantly, the stones floated back up and began to glow, red and blue. Bodies formed: head and arms and legs— surely, at any moment, they would start to regress, to sprout wings and claws and feathers—

—but they didn't.

Within moments, a sapphire and a ruby stood there, completely normal.

Pearl's deduction had been correct. That didn't stop her from blinking in surprise and saying, "You're alright."

The sapphire looked between herself, the ruby, and Pearl (or her head moved, at least: her eye was hidden) and said, "So we are!"

"Not so fast," the ruby said, taking the sapphire by the hand, where her gemstone was. She clutched at it, looking it over, and when she saw it wasn't cracked, burst into a grin. "Looks good. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. How about you?" the sapphire said, now taking the ruby's hand in turn and repeating the ritual.

"'Course," the ruby scoffed. "Takes more than that to scratch the mightiest ruby to have ever popped out of the ground."

The sapphire giggled. "I would hope so. Otherwise, I—"

Pearl coughed. "Ahem?"

The pair looked at her, finally letting go of one another, their demeanor shifting. The ruby's eyes grew wide, and the sapphire brushed her hair away from her face to look to see more clearly.

"Pearl," Sapphire said. "Thank you."

Pearl nodded. She wasn't sure who these two were, or how they'd gotten here— but they weren't corrupted, they didn't bear diamonds on their clothes, and they were polite. "You're welcome."

The ruby was looking around. "Where's Amethyst and Steven?"

Pearl stiffened. "How do you know about them?"

The sapphire and the ruby froze.

"Oh no," the sapphire said, while the ruby stamped on the floor. They reached out for each other again, and this time—

—this time they fused.

Pearl stared in horror and incomprehension at the flash of red light, at the being that formed before her. Tall, lithe, with strange proportions and three eyes and—

"Pearl, it's okay," the fusion said, taking a step closer to her. "Pearl, please, it's just me, Garnet—"

"Get back," Pearl snarled. "Unfuse. You're not supposed to be here."

She— (they?)—stopped moving forward, at least, but didn't unfuse. Her voice was pleading. "Pearl ."

Pearl was doing her best to remain calm. "You're supposed to be dead. Every Gem on this planet is dead, and it's because of fusion that they are!"

"That's not true."

"Yes, it is. The first fusion that ever existed was a ruby and sapphire, like you, and they were killed for what happened to them. Fusion just invites death."

"Pearl, I am that fusion."

Pearl stared at the stranger, shocked at the audacity of the lie. "That's impossible. I saw her her gems be crushed. Right there in the court. I... I still remember her name."

"Garnet."

"How do you know that?" Pearl demanded.

"Because I'm her." The fusion pressed a hand against her chest. "I'm Garnet."

"Then…" Pearl shook her head. "No. No, it can't be. Rose was there. I remember her... having to tell Spinel that—"

The fusion's eyes flashed. "Spinel," she said, a visor appearing to cover her face. "She did this. She's been with you."

"Of course," said Pearl. How did this Gem— Gems— know so much about her, and her team?

"Take me to her, Pearl. Please."

Pearl's eyes narrowed even further. "Why?"

"We have business."

Well. Pearl wasn't going to stand here and be ordered around by some fusion, one with dangerous degrees of knowledge and no answers to be offered. She raised her trident, prepared to go on the offensive. "You better explain more than that."

"I-" 'Garnet' shook her head. "You need to tell me what happened to everyone. Steven, Amethyst, Connie—"

"How do you know so much about us?"

"Because... I... I know you. All of you. You're... my family."

"Family?" Pearl spat out the human word. "I've never even met you."

'Garnet' sighed. "I need to see her. Spinel. It's important. And it's the only way you can get any answers about me. So whatever you have to do to make you feel safe or ensure I'm not a threat, do it. But I must talk to Spinel."

Pearl considered. "...I'll poof you. Bubble your gems. Take you back that way."

There was a pause.

"Fine," the fusion said. "Whatever you need to, Pearl. I trust you."

Pearl didn't nod. Didn't take time to think. Just readjusted the grip on her trident, and lunged forward. The fusion simply stood there, watching, didn't try to move or dodge as the spear embedded itself in her chest.

She gasped, softly. There was a glow as her components lost their connection and fell apart. The ruby and the sapphire crashed to the ground, then clutched at each other. The ruby's face was screwed up in tears, fixed on Pearl, the Sapphire's body arced protectively around the other Gem...

Pearl raised her trident. Two more strikes. That was all that was needed.

But she couldn't.

They looked exactly like the ruby and sapphire from the Sky Arena, so long ago. Even down to the position of their gems. Pearl could still see it perfectly in her mind's eyes— how small they'd looked as they'd been crushed between Blue Diamond's hands, reduced to dust—

This wasn't the same. Pearl wasn't going to shatter them. She was just going to bubble them. She was just trying to protect her family.

But Rose wouldn't have liked this, she thought. And Steven certainly wouldn't.

Pearl lowered her weapon, the tips of the trident clanging against the metal floor.

"What? Pearl, I-" the sapphire began, only to stop herself when Pearl's gaze returned to them.

"You want to meet Spinel. I still don't why, but... you haven't tried to attack me. And you were even going to let me bubble your gems." Pearl shook her head. "I don't know what exactly you're end goal is..." Pearl sighed. "But you said you trusted me. Even though we've never met."

The ruby made a motion, as if she were going to say something, but the sapphire laid a hand on her arm and that seemed to stop the thought.

"So come on. Follow me," Pearl straightened up, though she kept her spear held tightly in her hand. "I'll lead you back to the Temple. Spinel should be there. And you can have your meeting." She turned and took a few steps away, before looking back over her shoulder. "Stay close. And no fusing."