Aquamarine awoke in a dark place.

She knew she was awake, because the dream she was in disappeared. It was the first time she had ever "dreamt". She had heard about it before, read a few files on it before going to Earth with Ruby as Bluebird, but she had never experienced it for herself. Even when she had the chance, back in the Captain's ship on the way over, she made sure not to fall asleep. Maybe she was afraid of what she might dream about? Or maybe she was just unnerved by the idea of something completely new to her. Or maybe...those two things were exactly the same, when it came right down to it.

But regardless, she couldn't stop herself this time. The second she hit the metal plate face-first, she knew it was over. Darkness overcame her vision, and the last thing she heard before she slipped into unconsciousness was a dull "thud" as she hit the wooden floor.

After that, everything was a blur. Literally. She saw images...snapshots? Of different events in her life. Her first moments of consciousness, with the rough, grey walls of the kindergarten surrounding her. Then her first assignment, capturing a few Gems that had decided to go rogue. Her second assignment, the third, fifth, seventh, tenth, and eventually it went all the way down the lines, showing her images of random missions she went in, with no real pattern to it. As soon as Aquamarine realized what was happening to her, she started panicking, recalling the human saying of "life flashing before your eyes". She tried to call out for help, but received nothing but more snapshots. Eventually, it reached the point where she met the Captain and was sent to Earth, and the last image that fluttered through her mind was the metal plating coming up to greet her.

Then she woke up. Screaming, of course. On instinct she summoned her wings without thinking and flew upwards, only to ram face-first into the ceiling. She let out another cry and floated downwards, finally realizing where she was. A blank, dark room with no visible doors or windows, similar to the inside of the empty room that she and Ruby had been greeted with in the Temple. She started wandering around until she hit four walls, and came to see that she was trapped, with her wand taken from her.

Which is where she was now. After pounding on the walls for a while, Aquamarine gave up once she realized that it was fruitless, and decided she could only make the most of it at this point. Which wasn't much, especially since she knew the fate that awaited her. If the Crystal Gems didn't shatter her for attempting to murder Steven and not-sorta-kinda murdering Garnet (she was still going over that one, all she knew was that the metal Gems Ruby described had to be fake), then the Captain and Opal would surely come raising hell when they found out what happened. Her worst fear had finally come to life.

So she sat. Alone. In silence. In the dark. Her only thought at the moment was of Ruby. What were they doing to her? Had they poofed her or just knocked her out like-

But before Aquamarine could contemplate any further on these unpleasant (in her opinion) thoughts, a portion of the wall next to her suddenly slid open, and light flooded into the room and temporarily blinded her. She covered her face with her hands, while the rectangular opening grew bigger until it was roughly seven feet tall. She could catch the outline of a figure entering, before it closed again and the darkness returned like the light had never been there to begin with.

"Ugh…" She groaned, still recovering from the sudden change in luminosity. "What the heck was that? Is someone there?"

"Yes." A voice from the dark said, and the blue Gem gasped, instantly recognizing it as the voice of the fusion, Garnet. A Gem who was now in the room with her. The same Gem that they had fake-killed.

And judging by the tone in her voice, provided by the one simple word, Aquamarine could tell that she was slightly salty about that.

"Okay." She said, before standing up. "I know who's in here with me, and I just want to say-"

"I don't want to hear any apologies," Garnet said. "It's already far too late for that. The second you dropped my Gems in that pit of lava, it was too late. You made your choice back then, and that's a decision you won't ever be able to undo."

"I know," Aquamarine said, frantically looking around her for Garnet but finding nothing. But it was still pitch-black, and she didn't dare use her Gem as a flashlight, lest Garnet crack it to forcefully switch it off. It was clear to see, ironically, that she wanted Aquamarine to remain blind. "But please just hear me out. All we were doing was following orders. We didn't really want to shatter you, we had to! We-"

"Then what about Steven?" Garnet asked. "Back when you were scaling that tube to get to the burning room, you both started freaking out a bit. But then it eventually reached the point where you talked about murdering me and laughing at Pearl and Amethyst's reaction to Steven's corpse. You can lie to yourself and me all you like, but we both know the truth. You'd gladly kill him a hundred times over, and us as well, as long as it meant his death in the end."

"I…" Aquamarine stuttered, unable to come up with a proper response. "Okay. So you're right about that. But we didn't hate you, we-"

"Again...it doesn't matter," Garnet said. "It doesn't matter if you truly hate me or not. You still melted those fake Gems down thinking they were mine. It's proof enough. Please don't try to deny it any further, before I'm not in the mood to go in circles with this conversation."

"..."

"..."

"...What do you want from me?" Aquamarine asked. "I'm obviously not shattered or bubbled, so I'm assuming you have something else in store."

"Correct," Garnet said. "I'm here for information. I want to know everything that's happened to you since you left Earth a few months ago. Where you and Ruby have been, what you've been doing, how you came across Mirror and their subordinate, and where they are now."

"Mirror?" Aquamarine asked. "Do you mean the Captain?"

"...Yes," Garnet said. "Your Captain. Now, you're going to answer all of those. I don't want you to leave out a single detail. I don't care if it takes days, I want to hear it all."

"Why?" Aquamarine asked. "I can assure you that there are moments that are literally of no use to you."

"Maybe so," Garnet said, and then she spoke in a voice that sounded like it was right in Aquamarine's ear. "But after what you did, doing that might be the only way to convince me to not put you in a bubble forever."

Aquamarine jumped back in surprise at the sound of Garnet's voice, moving until she eventually hit a wall. No, a corner. All she had done was trap herself even further. She sank to the floor as she heard Garnet moving around, neither towards nor away from her, but more like she was pacing back and forth.

"I...I'm not telling you anything." She announced. "You can put me in a bubble for all I care. You can shatter my Gem into a thousand pieces. But I won't talk. Not now. Not ever. Anything you do to me is nothing compared to what my Captain will do if they find out that I told you anything about them. It's not going to work, fusion. Do your worst."

A heavy sigh came from the darkness, followed by a few more footsteps. "That's a shame," Garnet said. "I was hoping that it didn't have to come to this, but I suppose I knew it would anyways. Alright then. You don't have to talk. But you are going to watch this."

"Watch what?" Aquamarine asked, and her question was swiftly answered then the wall on the opposite side of the room began to move toward the ceiling. But not like before with only a small section, no, this was the whole wall. More light came into the room and Garnet was revealed to be standing about ten feet away from her, and Aquamarine covered her eyes again to shield them. But when she finally got used to the brightness and took her hands away, she was greeted with a sight that was a thousand times worse than anything she could have imagined.

It was Ruby.

Strapped to some sort of hand truck-esque device.

With a large mechanical arm hanging from the ceiling, with a thin needle attached to the end of it, aimed directly at her Gem.

"Here's what's going to happen," Garnet said, before Aquamarine could even fully process what she was seeing. "You're going to tell me where we can find Mirror, or the Captain as you call them, as well as everything else you know about them specifically. If you refuse, we will shatter your partner right here, right now. And then we'll move on to you. Peridot has designed a device that's essentially a mini-destabilizer. It won't be enough to poof you…" She explained casually. "...But it should prove to be extremely painful."

For a moment, Aquamarine couldn't move. If she had to breathe, she was sure that she wouldn't be able to do that either. All she could do was stare at Ruby, who was now awake, looking back at her with terror in her eye. Her mouth was restrained with a metal clamp, but Aquamarine could tell that she was still trying to speak. Garnet waited patiently for her to respond, hoping that it was real enough for Aquamarine to believe her own eyes.

And luckily, it was, as a few words came out of her throat, sounding like she was both speaking and choking simultaneously.

"No…" She said. "You wouldn't. You would never do something as cruel or callous as this. You're the Crystal Gems. You fight to protect the Earth. You're like...argh! You're like the good guys!" She screeched. "This has to be a trick. You would never-"

"Yes, we will." Garnet deadpanned. "You're too naive if you think that. We fight to protect the Earth. But you fail to understand something. We protect the Earth at any cost. No matter how cruel...or callous...or any other word you want to use to describe it. And your superior, Mirror, is a threat of which we know nothing about. He had already caused the cracking of several Gems and a major injury to a human. We have sworn to not let that happen again, even if it comes to this. We are up against an unfamiliar enemy, and we need answers. And if this is the only to get them…if this is the only way to ensure everyone's safety against this foe..." She sighed and gestured towards Ruby. "...then so be it."

"Ple...please…" Aquamarine started, Garnet's monologue now erasing any doubt that they fully intended on killing Ruby to get information. "Please don't shatter her. Just take me instead! Just let her go and-"

"We can't do that," Garnet said. "You know we can't. We know you have a ship somewhere, one is another thing we want to know by the way, and if we let her go then she'll use it to escape and Mirror will come to Earth to save you."

"Then let it happen!" Aquamarine pleaded. "You want them, right?! Just let them come to you! Problem solved. None of us have to die, and you get your big enemy! You can go back to being the good guys! No more of this torture and dark room nonsense!"

Garnet paused and appeared to think about this for a second, and Aquamarine suddenly felt a spark of hope. But a moment later, the fusion shook her head and put a finger to her ear, speaking directly into a device that was planted there.

"Peridot." She said. "She's uncooperative. You know what to do."

After this, there was a loud whirring sound as the arm behind the transparent wall began to move forward, with the needle now only five inches from Eyeball's head. Aquamarine screamed in horror and got to her feet, although Garnet quickly pushed her back to the ground, and the arm abruptly stopped about four inches from Eyeball's Gem. The fusion then turned back to Aquamarine, who would be hyperventilating if she could.

"No! Don't hurt her!" She begged. "She's all I have now! There's nobody else I can depend on, nobody else I can talk to! Please don't hurt her!"

"Then tell us what we want to know," Garnet demanded. "Where Mirror and your ship is. Any weaknesses they might have that we can exploit. Everything you know about them. Right now."

"I…" Aquamarine stuttered, the terror of the idea of what the Captain would do to them still clouding her ability to let loose with all her secrets. "I can't-"

"Fine," Garnet said. "Peridot. Finish her. There's nothing else we can get out of this one."

And with this order, the mechanical arm began moving again, Eyeball desperately struggling to escape as the needle got closer and closer to her. Aquamarine got up again and dodged Garnet's attempt to knock her down, rushing over to the wall and pounding on it. She used every ounce of her strength, but try as she may, she didn't make a single crack. The needle finally reached Eyeball's Gem and slowed once it touched it, before it began spinning around rapidly like a drill.

"Last chance," Garnet said from behind her. "You have about five seconds after I finish speaking to make your choice. Otherwise, it'll be too late by then. Five."

"Wha...umm...what about Steven?!" Aquamarine tried. "If he hears about this, then he'll-"

"He's not going to hear about this. Ever. We'll just say we poofed you." Garnet shrugged. "Four."

"The Captain can hear all this you know," Aquamarine said. "They have nanobots placed in almost every location on Earth designed to hear things related to them. I can assure you that they can hear this conversation, and if you shatter her then they will come here and destroy you all!"

"No, they won't. We'll be ready when they arrive. And while that is an interesting piece of information, it's not what we want." Garnet said. "Three."

"Nononononono…" Aquamarine repeated, turning back to Eyeball. "Ruby! Quickly! Shapeshift! You can escape that way! That needle won't be able to harm you if-"

"She's not able to shape-shift," Garnet revealed. "We placed something on her back, a device that locks onto her Gem and prevents her from accessing any of her abilities. She's helpless, and she can't even hear you anyway. And...two."

Aquamarine started panicking so much that she couldn't even speak at this point, quickly looking back from Garnet to Ruby before pounding on the glass again. The entire pane vibrated each time she hit it, but just like before she left no visible damage. She tried to attack it from every angle, even slamming her entire body into the edge of it where it was weakest, but she couldn't make a dent. All the while Ruby squirmed more and more as the needle-drill was now only a millimeter from her Gem.

"One," Garnet said, before turning away from the wall. Even if she knew the truth of what was going on here, even if she was aware that Eyeball wasn't in any real danger, she still couldn't watch what was about to happen. The fact that they were doing it in the first place made her sick...but what she had said earlier was the truth. Although even that...didn't justify this. "Alright. Peridot, finish it." She ordered, her voice shaking ever so slightly

With that, Aquamarine gasped in horror again as the drill started spinning even faster, and after so many agonizing, horror-filled moments, it finally made contact with Eyeball's Gem. Instantly cracks appeared all across the surface as she screamed in pain, and Aquamarine's eyes became as big as dinner plates as red shards flew everywhere.

She knew what she had to do now.

She only had a millisecond left to scream it out.

She could either let Ruby die here, or doom them both at the Captain's hand. Sacrifice her partner to save herself, or have it so that they died together.

The old Aquamarine would have chosen the first option without hesitation.

But now…

"STOP!" She screamed. "I'LL TELL YOU! I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW! JUST PLEASE STOP!"

"Peridot!" Garnet yelled, less than a second after Aquamarine made this announcement. The needle stopped soon after, moving away from Eyeball's Gem and slowly down as the drill was shut down. Eyeball gasped a few times like she had an air supply that was cut off, and her form glitched rapidly as her fingers and legs became distorted. Her Gem itself was hardly the same, with a deep hole in it cutting about halfway through. Fragments of it were scattered all over the floor, and upon seeing all this Aquamarine realized that if she had said that only a nanosecond later, it would have been too late.

But she had no time to dwell on Eyeball's condition, as Garnet came up from behind her, looming over the blue Gem with her arms crossed. If Aquamarine was looking at Garnet more closely instead of Eyeball, she would have noticed that the fusion was still shaking, already horrified with herself with what she just put the small blue Gem through. But she wasn't, and thus this detail went unnoticed.

"Now then." She said. "Tell us what-"

"Heal her first!" Aquamarine demanded.

"What?"

"Heal her!" She repeated. "I won't talk until you fix her Gem. She's already in a critical condition. Her form is falling apart at the seams. She may shatter by herself while we're talking, and I don't want to take that risk! Heal her or you can just shatter me as well!"

"...You really care about her, don't you?" Garnet asked, now putting on a slightly less serious tone.

Aquamarine scoffed and wiped some tears out of her eyes. "She's all I have left now. I had nobody for months. She's the only one I can talk to. If you kill her, then I'll have no one."

"...Hm."

"What?"

"Nothing," Garnet said. "Just...nostalgia. But fine. We'll heal her for you." She put her fingers to her ear again. "Peridot, send someone in with some of the fountain water to repair her Gem. She makes a good point. If she suddenly shatters while we're asking questions, Aquamarine will likely refuse to answer any more."

"Likely?! I definitely will!" Aquamarine yelled. "If she-"

"Quiet," Garnet ordered. "Did you get all that?"

"Yes," Peridot replied, whose voice was just barely audible to Aquamarine, but she was able to make out that her tone indicated that she hated all of this. "I'll send Pearl down with some. In the meantime...I recommend you try to spark a conversation. A normal one. If she stops being so terrified of you, whatever secrets she'd be hiding might come out easier."

"Understood," Garnet said, before turning back to Aquamarine, who was busy staring at Eyeball with a weary expression. She cleared her throat and took another step towards her, so that they were now only a foot or so apart.

"What are you going to do with us?" Aquamarine asked, starting the conversation before Garnet had a chance to. "Once you heal Ruby and I tell you what you want to know, what are you going to do with us? Keep us down here in these cells forever? Bubble and stick us in that burning room with all those fusion monsters? Or just shatter us anyway? Which is it?"

"We're going to figure that out," Garnet said. "Especially after what you just told us about Mirror and those...nanobots. Was that a lie, or was it the truth?"

"It's the truth," Aquamarine replied. "They told us themselves, and I don't see any reason why they would lie about it. It's how they found out that you were talking about them. There's…" She hesitated to speak before looking around, as if trying to spot something. "I'm not sure I should say this next part, actually. Or if I should even give you the answers in here. Those nanobots, after all, could be picking this up."

"...When were they planted?" Garnet deadpanned, even though inside, she was freaking out about this little revelation.

"Thousands of years ago. But they've survived that long, I know that much." Aquamarine said. "And don't try to convince me that they're not in here. They've gone undetected by humans and you Gems for all that time, so don't tell me you can magically start picking them up now."

"Hmmm…" Garnet hummed, before raising her hand again. "Peridot. Are you getting all this?"

"Yes." She said. "And I'm running a diagnostics test now on the inside of the room. If there's anything in there that we don't know about, I'll find it. Just give me a few seconds and...there!" She exclaimed. "According to the test, there's nothing in there except you two. I detected plenty of organic germs on the microscopic scale, but nothing mechanical in nature. If those nanobots truly exist...they're not here. You're safe from any eavesdroppers."

"Thank you," Garnet said. "You can speak now, Aquamarine. We've confirmed that none of these...nanobots are present within this room. You can say whatever you want without consequence from Mirror."

"I don't think so," Aquamarine whispered. "What did I tell you? These things have gone unnoticed for thousands upon thousands of years. Your Peridot hasn't detected them before this very moment, and now you expect me to believe that she created a device that can in no more than...what, the five minutes since I mentioned them?"

"Yes," Garnet said. "She's good with those sorts of things."

"Well, it doesn't matter. Pick someplace else." Aquamarine requested. "A place that you can show me and I can approve of. A place that I alone will believe carries no nanobots."

"No. We're doing this now. If there truly are nanobots in here that Peridot didn't detect, then they already know we have you and there's no further point in trying to hide it." Garnet said. "Tell us everything, or we're turning the drill back on."

"...She wouldn't last one second more of that thing digging into her Gem." Aquamarine gasped.

"Then you better hurry up. Although speaking of which…" Garnet said, as she turned back towards Eyeball. Aquamarine did the same, a second later the wall in her cell opened, revealing Pearl carrying a bowl of water that was sparkling. Without even looking at them, she picked up the shards one by one and stuck them back in Eyeball's head, who was trying to remain as still as possible once she realized what was going on. Once everything was in its proper place, Pearl simply dumped half of the contents of the bowl on her Gem, and instantly the cracks spread across and the glitching affecting her body vanished. Once all was said and done, Pearl left as unceremoniously as she entered, never casting a single glance towards the glass wall.

A moment later, the wall went black, and Aquamarine arched an eyebrow as she was surrounded by darkness again.

"What-"

"We'll keep it like that until you become uncooperative again," Garnet said. "To calm you down. Is that okay?"

"Yes...it's...yes," Aquamarine said, a look of confusion now spreading across her face. "But...that was weird." The blue Gem then said entirely without emotion.

"What was?"

"The way she did that." Aquamarine iterated. "She performed the task without taking any notice of us. Yet that Pearl of yours, the one I know, would have least acknowledged us in some way. But she didn't. She was like...like...like a Pearl!" She exclaimed. "Just a slave performs an order without paying any attention to her surroundings. It gave me an odd sense of deja-vu…"

"Yes, but we asked her not to react, and she agreed. Simple as that." Garnet said. "Now, are you going to-"

"If I have no other choice...then yes." Aquamarine sighed. "But when the Captain comes for me and Ruby, and he destroys half of your city, I just want you to remember this moment, and what you did to get these answers out of me. And...if it was worth it or not."

"..."

"..."

"If you insist," Garnet replied. "Now, before we begin, please excuse me for a moment, I need to have a talk with somebody."

"I...fine," Aquamarine said, noting that she was in no position to make complaints. "Just don't hurt Ruby like that again."

"We didn't hurt her at all…" Garnet muttered under her breath, making sure it was much too quiet for Aquamarine to hear. She walked over to a corner of the room where the blue Gem wouldn't be able to understand a word she was saying, and began speaking again. "Peridot. You can probably shut down the room permanently now. I don't think it's going to be needed again."

"I sure hope so. I didn't have that much time to program that many holograms." Peridot said. "If we needed to show her that again, then she might have noticed it was the exact same thing…"

"Noted," Garnet said, still sounding disgusted with herself. "Peridot...I want you to know that I didn't want it to come to this. But my future vision-"

"Showed you that it was the only way, yes, I know, as you told me and everyone else literally ten times before we did this." Peridot sighed. "Trust me. I don't think you're not horrified at what we just did. I feel like I'm going to vomit. Or at least I think I do...but I'm feeling something that's making me sick."

"I know. I'm sorry I made you create those holograms." Garnet said. "And I don't think I need to come up with any more excuses. There's really nothing I can say to excuse what we just put her through."

"I agree, although what you mentioned about us having to do it because we know nothing about Mirror or anything else was half-decent," Peridot admitted, before sighing again. "Listen. I'm just going to delete these holograms and try to wipe my memory of this whole event. Hologram or not, real or not, even if one of those is "hologram" and the other is "not"...I want you to promise me that we will never go this far again."

"I promise," Garnet said. "I promise. I just...did what I thought had to be done."

"Sure you did," Peridot said. "Talk to you later...and good luck."

Garnet was about to say "thanks", but realized that it might be better if she didn't. Rather, she remained silent until Peridot hung up, and then clenched both her fists.

Why did I have to come to this?

Her future vision was almost never wrong, but had this truly been the only way? She checked the future so many times to make sure...and after five hundred checks, it was always the same thing. So making what was easily one of the hardest and worst decisions in her life, Garnet decided to go through with it.

And she could only hope that it was all for something.

So she turned and walked back towards Aquamarine, who was still staring at the now blank wall, totally unaware that everything she had just witnessed was nothing more than a big trick.

"Alright, first question," Garnet said, catching her attention. "Where is Mirror? You mentioned something about how they have a ship, so where are they in the universe?"

"I...I don't know the exact coordinates." Aquamarine said, after some hesitation. "We weren't told any of that. I can't tell you exactly where they are."

"Then do your best," Garnet demanded. "Were there any clues? Hints? Anything you saw outside of the ship they gave you an idea of where you might be?"

"Well…" Aquamarine started. "There are two things. I knew that we were in close proximity to a quark star, and considering how few of those have been found by Gemkind...I believe that narrows down the possibilities."

"Quark star?" Garnet asked, who actually knew nothing of the concept. "What is that?"

"It's...hard to explain." Peridot suddenly thundered in her ear, who was of course listening in to the whole conversation. "They're nicknamed "strange stars" by humans. They're composed of strange quark matter. You see, while ordinary matter is made of atoms, this matter is composed entirely of quarks, and theoretically if-"

"I don't need a whole lecture," Garnet said, whose Ruby side was beginning to grow impatient. "Are there any that Gemkind knows about? Assuming these things even exist?"

"Give me a minute…" Peridot said, and several loud typing sounds were heard on the other end. After a minute or so Peridot let out a loud hum and began speaking with a tone of intrigue.

"There are five that we know about." She said. "But they're all extremely far away, the point where you could consider them to be on the edge of the universe, so there may be more out there that we haven't found. In fact, I see it as a definite possibility."

"This is still useful," Garnet said, before looking back at Aquamarine. "Why were you orbiting that star?"

"For fuel." She said. "I don't know how, but the ship we were on pulled energy from the star and powered itself that way."

"Interesting…" Peridot chimed in, now sounding like she was smiling widely. "I've never heard of anything like that. Hey, can you ask her how-"

"Later, maybe," Garnet interjected. "I see. And what was the second thing you knew? You mentioned that there were two."

"Um...that's...it took a long time to get here," Aquamarine said. "Even with our technology, it was several hours before we got to Earth. So wherever we were...I believe that we were likely millions if not billions of light-years away from this planet."

"Hm. That matches up with the data we have on the stars." Peridot said. "Edge of the universe. At least we know that's not a lie."

"At least…" Garnet echoed. "Alright, Aquamarine. Is that all you know about their location? It's orbiting a strange star, and it's far away from here?"

"Yes." She said quickly. "Please, believe me, I don't know anything else. If you run on that drill you'll just be hurting Ruby to get me to talk about information I don't have."

"...Alright. But if we find out you're lying...you get the idea." Garnet said, who honestly didn't want to put Aquamarine or herself through that again, even if it was fake.

"Yes, I know," Aquamarine replied. "What else...what else do you want to know?"

"..."

"..."

"Everything."