Prologue: Date 4 73 4

It was late, as the third moon began to sink over the horizon. I glanced out my blue-tinted window and rested my chin on my free hand as I scrolled through log after log, numbers and symbols flashing before my eyes.

I let out a gentle sigh as I glanced over complicated, transparent plans, and was about to swipe it away when I stopped. Peering closer at the plans, I realized what they were for. A new colony, formed on a distant planet that had been dubbed Earth. There were formulas everywhere, writing scribbled in every corner, and building plans cluttering up the file it was in. As I looked at the grand plans, I realize something was off. The colony-to-planet ratio was off horribly. If these plans had continued, they would have needed a planet twice as big. Then I would get blamed for not doing my job.

I was an Aquamarine on the Homeworld of the Gems. My purpose was surveying and drawing up plans, and occasionally helping to build structures. Aquamarines were generally a smart gem, but there were so many more gems that could be used for our functions that we were normally cast aside. My gem was located on my neck, which gave me the unusual power to heal, if a gem was cracked or damaged in any way. But again, since there were many others with neck gems, I was cast aside and put to the task of surveying plans before they were sent to the Diamonds. But now as I looked at the plans about to be sent to our leaders, I felt conflicted.

It was against the rules to modify any documents or files before sending them away. It was either approve it as correct or send it back and have them start over. And the mistake was so minor, just fixing a few numbers would make it perfect. I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my forehead at the dilemma.

I glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then tapped the screen a few times. Just a few numbers. No one would notice, right?

I approved the modified files. They were sent off to the Diamonds, assumingly Yellow Diamond, as she was my boss and oversaw the construction of all off-planet structures and colonies. Breathing a deep sigh, I finished out my work for the day and shut off my screen. No one was in the room. I was in the clear.

Or so I thought.

The next day, as I went into work, I saw my manager standing at the door, a tall, intimidating Citrine. She had her arms crossed with a scowl placed on her face, and I instantly had a feeling of dread wash over me.

"Aquamarine, Facet 7D1K Cut BF4. I believe you have some explaining to do."

I groaned. "What do you mean? What have I done wrong?"

Her eye twitched, anger building with every second. "You INTENTIONALLY went against our one rule! NO MODIFYING ANY PLANS! Now those plans are sent off to the Diamonds and we cannot change them! You failed your job, you broke our rules, and you are an embarrassment to every Aquamarine on Homeworld!"

My face grew redder as she yelled at me, from embarrassment, but also from rage. After she finished her speech, she turned away and pulled up a screen, taking a deep breath to calm herself down.

"You will be fired from this station and sent to work on the colony on Patria. The colony is complete but the resources have not been mined out of the planet's core. I hope you will not fail like you did with this job."

Patria was a neighboring planet a few thousand units from Earth. It was a barren wasteland, which we had turned into a colony and began to mine out the interior, but the interior was entirely composed of molten rock. I grumbled, and was about to turn away when she finished speaking. "An Aquamarine sent to mine on a colony. How ironic."

At this point my anger exploded. "Agh, I can't take it anymore! Why am I, a fully capable, talented, smart Aquamarine given the low-level jobs? I have SO much more potential than this, and YOU must be so ignorant you cannot see that! I should be the boss while YOU are spending years scrolling through plan after plan! I should be the manager of YOU, you….you…CLOD!"

I breathed heavily, and then my eyes grew wide as I finished my rant and realized what I had done. Citrine stalked up to me, almost twice my size even with my limb enhancers I used for my job, with the angriest expression on her face you'd ever seen. Before I could even blink, she lifted me up off the ground, tore off my attachments, and stomped towards the middle of Homeworld. Right towards…Yellow Diamond.

Oh boy.

I just realized she had been watching me the whole time. Her screen was carefully monitoring the termination of one of her workers, and she wanted to make sure nothing went wrong. Even though in THIS situation, something went horribly, horribly wrong.

I was struggling the entire time she carried me, and as two Pearls parted the doors, Citrine put me down, a hand firmly grasping my arm. Yellow Diamond turned to us with a sickly grin on her face.

"Oh, dear." She boomed in her loud, commanding voice. "First you break the most important rule, then you refuse to be fired, then you insult your manager right to her face." She gave out a chuckle, and a chill ran down my spine. "You may be right, you are capable of so much more. Too bad for us we'll never get to see it. Guards!"

Two huge Topazes stalked towards me and lifted me up off the ground again. I punched their enormous arms, but it did no use. Yellow Diamond smoothened her hair and then turned to her screen before addressing the Topazes.

"Have her taken to…the expulsion room. She is no longer permitted in my court, on Homeworld, or anywhere else! She must be broken, and her remains scattered over the budding Earth colony!" I heard her smug Pearl chuckle and type in some data. "Now get her out of my sight!"

The Topazes whisked me away to the dreaded room on the far side of our planet. After we warped there, they threw open the door and stalked in. I could see a Peridot, working on her green-tinted screen, turn to them quickly and salute. They tossed me in a small, escape pod-looking room before shutting the door tight. The Peridot glanced in at me, and her eyes widened under her visor for a brief moment before she turned to the Jaspers.

"Yellow Diamond has informed you of the fate of this Aquamarine?" The Topazes spoke in gruff, simultaneous voices to the shriveling Peridot. I pressed my hands on the door of the pod and screamed, but it was no use. One Topaz simply smacked the side of the pod and I silenced myself out of fear.

The Peridot nodded, quivering, and the larger gems marched out of the room in perfect step. She then went behind her desk, and I couldn't see her any more. It was dead silent in the room, and then I heard a slight whirring sound.

The walls of the pod began moving closer from all angles, shrinking. I attempted to push against them to slow them, but it was futile. I thought about summoning my weapon, but it would do no good, and by then the walls would have already crushed me. I curled into a ball, wincing for the impact, but then the walls slowed, then stopped. I opened an eye, and although I couldn't see out the door anymore, I heard the muffled voice of the Peridot from outside the pod.

"Listen closely. I know what you did with those plans, and with your manager. I have to admit, the plans you modified were mine, and my manager said if I messed up one more time I would be terminated from my position. So…you took the fall for me, and I appreciate that. I am Peridot, Facet 2F5L, Cut 5XG. I'm going to shrink the pod down just enough for your physical form to be destroyed, but your gem will remain intact. Not a scratch made. You should reform on Earth, a distant colony in the Alpha Quadrant. I'm scheduled to visit there on a task to…well…it's unsure at this point. But I need you to remember something. My robonoids are dubbed with the identification F.L.A.S.K. Flask Robonoids. If you can remember the word FLASK, I promise, I'll return to Earth, find you, and bring you back to Homeworld. It's the least I can do after what you did for me."

I heard muffled footsteps, some beeping, and the walls closed in again. The voice came again. "Remember FLASK. I'll return the favor, I promise."

Then I felt my physical form shatter, all went black, and I retreated into my gem.

That was the last memory I ever had on Homeworld.