News of the facet 7 strike has spread like wildfire. The Diamonds are trying to suppress it, of course, but information has a way of making itself known, especially in this era of rebellion.

At first, most gems dismiss it. Just another little pocket of rebellion waiting to be crushed; they're putting up a fight, sure, but they'll give up eventually. It'll all be over soon, and they can go back to focusing on the war on Earth.

Then an entire Kindergarten on a remote colony goes on strike. No big deal, just a few dozen Peridots and a couple Agates. There are thousands of Kindergartens in the Empire; one won't make a difference.

Then another factory goes on strike,

And another Kindergarten,

A spaceport,

Another factory,

And more and more and more until it's impossible to keep count. Entire colonies are being shut down as gems simply stop working, slowing the entirety of gemkind to a grinding halt.

No weapons are being produced to aid in the war. No injectors are being made to be sent to Kindergartens, and no Kindergartens are functioning to produce new soldiers. Computer systems are breaking down in the absence of Peridots to do maintenance, ships are falling into disrepair for the same reason, and in some places all order has ceased to be.

Gems on Homeworld whisper about this in abandoned corridors, wondering if they should join the strikes. Gems on colonies far from the Diamonds shout loud and proud, demanding that gems go on strike. These gems have realized something that the Diamonds were not prepared for: if everyone does it, they cannot be punished. Even the Diamonds aren't foolish enough to slaughter half their population. So even if they lose the war, they'll come out alright.

The Diamonds are in a precarious situation. There's still a war going on, on Earth, but while the battles are fought only on that one world, entire colonies are being lost to the strikes. Every day that Kindergartens and weapons producers remain inactive is a day that Homeworld's forces will undoubtedly lose ground; they have been powering through in numbers alone, because the Crystal Gems' unorthodox strategies are undoubtedly superior, even if the Diamonds won't admit it.

In the end, the Diamonds abandon several striking colonies and instead focus on the few which are still loyal, demanding they ramp up production to the maximum level. They push their gems to their very limit, demanding more and more soldiers, weapons, repairs and maintenance from an ever shrinking workforce. But all this stress wears these loyalists down, and within weeks many find themselves questioning whether it's worth it to remain loyal to the Diamonds any longer, and so they go on strike too.


On Homeworld, in facet 7, the first factory is still on strike. The Coals are still sitting there, whispering to each other while the assembly lines stand still. Occasionally one reaches out instinctively to assemble a part in front of her, but catches herself and finds something else to fidget with.

The Peridot which supervises these Coals has given up on making them work. She shatters one, to try and scare them into working, but they refuse to move. She poofs three others, to no avail. She lest those three reform, and they go right back to sitting by the assembly line. She has called for reinforcements several times, but no one has been able to break through the barricades the Coals set up on the doors. The Peridot has tried to break through them from the inside, but each time she finds herself blocked by a small army of tiny, seemingly dumb gems. If she makes it out of this alive, she knows she will never look at these workers the same way again.

She begins talking to the Coals. Slowly, she starts to understand their reasoning behind striking. She omits these conversations from her daily reports to the Diamonds; instead, she continues to listen and learn, and draws her own conclusions from this. After several months of being trapped in the factory, she agrees to join the Coals in their strike. She destroys her limb enhancers, her screen, even the computer locked away in her office. The only electronic device she does not destroy is a small tablet, outdated and barely functional, which she has kept for her personal use.

There are channels of the Gem internet which are safe from the Diamonds' prying eyes. In these channels, she posts updates about her new, relaxed life with the Coals. She slowly makes contact with the other groups that have gone on strike, and they laugh together over the absurdity of the situation. Virtual parties are thrown, and gems on some colonies begin experimenting, breaking out of the molds the Diamonds put them into. Peridot receives news of new fusions being formed, of Pearls learning to fight, of things that should be impossible happening every day.

Names have become important in this era, she realises. Gems everywhere are giving themselves names, identifiers to make them stand out from the crowd. Facet and cut numbers are all well and good, but will you remember them, or will you just think of that gem as another Peridot, Ruby, Pearl, and so on? The Coals have already started naming themselves, and Peridot tries to keep track of them all but quickly gives up. There are a good thousand Coals in this building; it's just impossible to remember each one. But this gets her wondering about a name for herself.


The Diamonds continue to grow more and more desperate as the Empire falls further into chaos. Peridot keeps a continual eye on the news, waiting for the latest reports of battles waged on Earth. The Diamonds are, undoubtedly, losing; slowly but surely, the Crystal Gems are gaining ground.

Peridot then hears, through those safe channels of the web, that a loyalist Peridot on the other side of the galaxy has made something. Something that will turn the tide of the war in the Diamonds' favor.

They call them Rejuvenators.

Panic spreads through the web like wildfire. All the gems on strike see the implications of this device; should it become widely produced, the Diamonds will finally have a way to end the strikes without sacrificing their workforce. They are already using the Rejuvenators in battle on Earth, with devastating effects; the Crystal Gems are losing battles again, struggling to hold their ground.

Peridot sees all of this, and takes precautions.

She writes down all of her most precious memories. Everything that made her who she is, she writes down, in an obscure file buried deep in the web, backed up on multiple servers scattered throughout the galaxy. If she is Rejuvenated, she may not find it right away, but she knows she will eventually, and when she does, she'll be able to pick up right where she left off.


The war continues on. Eventually the Crystal Gems get desperate. They shatter Pink Diamond. Rumour has it that every gem in the Empire heard the crack of her gem shattering into pieces. The Coals seem to know long before Peridot hears the news; then she hears it too, that sound that reverberates in her gem, refusing to disappear no matter how hard she tries to drown it out.

She wonders, what happens now?

After this, she finally decides on a name. Echo; a fitting name, for one following the example of so many others. An echo of the Crystal Gems' ideas, an echo of the Coals' actions, perhaps an echo of her former self. She hears the echo of that crack reverberate in her head for several cycles, until it finally dulls to a dim hum in the background, barely noticeable unless you're listening for it.


The War is over. The Crystal Gems lost. The Earth is abandoned, the battlefields left untouched, broken pieces of gems scattered about. Echo hears this before the Coals do, and it takes her hours to be able to tell them. By that time, strikes on other worlds are already coming to an end; with the Earth gone, without the Crystal Gems, what do they have left to fight for?

They open the doors of the factory again, and the Coals sit down at the assembly line and start working as if nothing has changed. Echo requisitions new limb enhancers, which are delivered within hours. In the time before they come, she sits down with her little tablet and writes in her journal. She writes down everything she knows of the War, of the Crystal Gems, of all the things she's come to understand. She saves it all in that one obscure text file, floating about on a server thousands of light-years away, and wonders if someone will find it one day.

She keeps the little tablet with her, in the hopes that she may need it again someday. In the meantime, she goes back to her duties as a supervisor. She ensures that no mistakes are made in the assembly line, and walks up and down the line of Coals to inspect each one of them. But every once in a while, when the security cameras are down for "scheduled maintenance", the factory lights up with lively chatter, Coals shouting names across the room, laughing and joking as if nothing has changed at all. In a way, it hasn't.

Echo smiles during these times, laughing along with them. She holds onto her little tablet, and the telling photos on it, in the hopes that someday she will need them again. She hopes—no, she knows—that someday, there will be another strike. Someday, there will be another rebellion. She only hopes that when that day comes, she'll be there right from the start.


A/N: Not our Peridot, obviously. I always wanted to do a Part 2 of Strike, but it took me a while to come up with a good idea. I really like how this came out, though! I might write a Part 3 in the future, if I have time(and the little plot gremlins in my brain are telling me to rewrite this as a full fic, but I got no time for that). Reviews are always appreciated!

Keep reading, keep writing, and above all, keep dreaming!