A/N: By the way, for clarity's sake I want to specify that these are all canon to the story of Fractures, unless I say otherwise.
2. Disillusion
- Yellow Diamond decommissions the zoo.
She looked past her reflection in the glass, only half-listening to the commotion going on throughout the building. Far below her, those primitive organics milled about, unaware of their impending doom.
Yellow sighed. Every single one of Pink's gems was being arrested. They had to be interrogated, to weed out any remaining Crystal Gems. She had a feeling that many innocent gems were going to be shattered, regardless of how thorough she might be.
This was a mess. She still had trouble believing it; the lengths that Pink had gone to in order to fool them were ridiculous.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, watching the human beings closely. What had Pink ever seen in them? They were a disgusting facsimile of gems; they had the same body type, but were weak and useless and purposeless. What did she see in that planet and its organics that they didn't? What did she see that could have caused her to go so completely off the rails?
She found herself asking a lot of answerless questions lately. The world didn't seem to be as solid as it had once been; it was as if it had tilted slightly, just enough to unbalance her. She had been completely blindsided, never once imagining that one of the very few people close to her would lie to her like this.
A feather of anger flared in her chest, followed by a pang of grief, and confusion, and fear. Nothing she did helped to ease the endless circling of her worthless feelings.
In a few weeks, her little sister was going to be unbubbled, only to find that she'd lost everything. Blue had been unable to convince White to spare a few gems, and Yellow had been equally unsuccessful.
She itched to do something, to save just a little piece. She could smuggle away some humans, but where would she keep them? This entire station was built for the sole purpose of caring for them; it wouldn't be worth the trouble of building a second zoo. Not to mention, if White found her hiding something, defying her order to get rid of everything…
Her breath caught in her throat for a moment before passing easily again. She shook her head. It was better this way; Pink wouldn't learn her lesson otherwise.
The memory of White telling her that Pink would be let out to watch the event caused a tremor to run over her skin.
…
Pink had pled to save the life on Earth, and Blue had given her this zoo. She stopped asking after that; they thought she was happy with it, but after a while, Pink's visits had grown infrequent. Now Yellow wondered if she had even wanted this facility in the first place. Maybe she had decided it wasn't enough for her, as nothing seemed to be.
She remembered all the times Pink had called, complaining about this or that, and whining about how it was all too hard and too costly. Only now was it apparent that she had been trying to talk them into leaving.
She just… She just didn't understand! Pink had been so excited about getting a colony! The three of them had spent many days designing it together, and when they were done, Pink had leapt up and wrapped her arms around their necks and kissed the tips of their noses and uttered an endless stream of high-pitched 'thank you's. She had been so determined to do it right, in her own style. So why…
Why had her excitement faded? What happened that changed her, that mixed up her priorities and made her choose organic life and defective rebels over her own purpose, her own family?
How could she have possibly expected this to end? They were never going to abandon such a resource-rich planet. It could have only ended in a Crystal Gem loss, yet she had dragged it on for as long as possible and made them lose far too many good gems in the process.
Yellow tried not to think about what Pink had done to achieve that. Tried not to think about the things she must have done, the sabotage. Tried not to think about her taking their plans and purposefully poking as many holes in them as she could.
Her hands clenched unconsciously. She tried and failed not to think about the possibility of Pink luring them into a trap, shattering her own sisters under the guise of someone else.
The thought was severed by a booming crunch. The startled organics below paused, but the glass didn't break.
Yellow retracted her fist. A yellow agate chose that moment to enter, tactfully ignoring the cracked glass and the way the air was laden with static. She saluted and bowed. "All of Pink Diamond's gems have been apprehended, My Lustrous, Luminous Diamond."
She couldn't, not here. She could not appear weak for even one second.
"…Good." She swallowed down the heavy tightness in her chest, pushed it away and stored it in the dark recesses of her mind. "Make sure they are all sent back to Homeworld for interrogation. As for the organics…" She glanced past the glass. "…Terminate them all."
"Yes, My Diamond." The agate saluted, then left.
Yellow watched a moment longer, silently bidding the distasteful creatures goodbye before moving on to her next task.
The room was awash with pink light. The massive door hissed shut behind her as she stepped inside, leaving her alone in the privacy of Pink's personal chambers. Nearly a thousand rose quartzes floated in bubbles all around her.
Yellow frowned, sighing. A familiar wave of hatred washed over her, quickly dissipating in light of the fact that Rose Quartz had not been a rose quartz at all. These gems were innocent; they probably weren't even defective. It was only fair that they be freed and given a chance to fulfill their purpose.
She took hold of a bubble and carefully popped it, setting the gem down on the ground. She waited.
Nothing happened.
Her brow furrowed. This gem had been bubbled for centuries; that should have been more than enough time to recuperate. The quartz should have reformed the second she was released.
She opened a second bubble and put the gem next to the first. Once again, nothing happened.
A chill crept up her spine. She let out a third rose quartz, then a fourth, then a fifth.
Everything went still, the air growing heavy and oppressive as all of them failed to glow.
Mechanically, she began to pop the bubbles one at a time, letting the gems inside fall uncared for to the floor. Some of them cracked.
The world faded away as she worked. She felt cold, and nothing else. Her body seemed to move without her as she picked up the pace, releasing them in bunches. Finally, all of the bubbles were gone, and she stood there, waiting.
Not one single gem woke up.
She stared at them, desperately willed them to form, because if they didn't, it meant…
…They were fake.
They were all. fake.
…Pink had bubbled them herself.
…How could she have taken the time and effort to create them, there were so many…!
She would have had to do so much! She… She would have had to falsify records, fool peridots, pretend there was an entire kindergarten that didn't actually exist! All for the sake of her fabricated identity!
How could she have…
How could she have done this to them!
How could she have lied to them, baited them into playing the most foolish of her games yet!
Her vision blurred.
Electricity arced through the air, crashing into the ground, the ceiling, the lifeless gems all around her. She moved, a living storm of violence. Pillars cracked and fell; the floor buckled. The crunch of gems beneath her feet did not reach her, nor did her furious screaming.
How could she have!
How could she have…
Drained of everything, Yellow fell to her knees, staring at her hands. Pink's bed was on fire, and she could hear the quiet hiss of the artificial atmosphere escaping through a tiny breach in the window; it seemed to suck away her breath.
Pink dust drifted through the air, glittered on her clothes. The rose quartzes were nothing but shards, now.
They should have shattered the little runt when they had the chance. They should have done it when she proved to be less than a diamond should be, but by that time they had already come to love her. They… They loved her, and she turned around and did this to them?
How could she…
'Does she hate us? Does she hate me?'
She couldn't breathe past the vice clamping down on her heart. She wanted to fight, wanted to hate, but all she could see was Pink's smiling face.
It was her fault. It was all her fault, for not being there for her. For not paying more attention to her, for not listening.
It was her responsibility to guide Pink, and she had failed. Failed to teach her, failed to steer her in the right direction, failed to notice when irrational, corrupting notions were worming their way into her head.
Yellow tried to swallow. What could she do now?
What could she do to make it better?
The Earth was hers now, the Crystal Gems were soon to be shattered, and something inside her felt inclined to tear this zoo apart piece by piece with her bare hands. White was not to be defied.
A tear escaped and fell to the floor, sparkling in the dust.
She didn't know what was going to happen. She didn't know what Pink was going to do after being released.
…She had to work harder. She had to correct her mistakes, their mistakes, and be there for her. She couldn't let Pink fail again.
She finally noticed she was crying and hurriedly wiped at her eyes. She was wasting time here.
Yellow got to her feet slowly, brushing off the dust. She straightened her back, held her head high, forced her expression to be impassive.
She left the room, folding her hands behind her back to hide their shaking. She ignored the stares of frightened gems, pretending that nothing had happened, that the room she'd just been in wasn't half-destroyed.
She focused her thoughts on the work ahead, swallowed her pain, and showed only certainty and poise.
Just as she always did.
A/N: I'm like, 80% sure there's no such thing as a real rose quartz and Pink just made them up. She was pretending to be an amethyst when she went down to the kindergarten, and I don't think she'd create an entire gem type just to bubble them. I think she made them all the same way she made her fake shards.
If White is the kind of person she appears to be, then I am also sure that she fucked Yellow up pretty badly, emotionally. Yellow seems like a person with a lot of deeply-buried anxiety.