With the attack now over, the group begins moving towards their next steps.
...
While Pearl and Bismuth continued their tasks outside the palace, the rest of the group had just rejoined Blue and White Diamond. Seeing the group's return, the two diamonds shifted their attention towards them.
"Welcome back everyone. Good to see that your all still in one piece and present. I trust everything is back in order?" asked White.
"For the most part, yes. We lost some number of gems however. We're currently in process of getting a headcount of how many gems we still have." said Yellow.
"Were you all able to guess what the point of the attack was?" Blue asked.
"No, I'm afraid not." Yellow said as she sat on her throne. "He sent Holly Blue and about fifty or so gems to attack us, but they had nothing to gain, at least not that I can see. The only thing I can guess is that he was attempting to add numbers to his army. It's possible that by sacrificing some gems, he could gain some more on his side, but even a move like that is something I don't think he would jump on immediately."
"With things like this, my brother was always one step ahead. Although his motives might seem unclear, he rarely does things without good reason." White added. "So now with the attack taken care of, do we know anything more?"
"No. As it stands, we're currently still planning out our next step. The only thing that came from the attack is we captured Holly Blue..." Garnet noted as she pointed to the agates unbubbled gem. "...and that the attack didn't seem like something random. Although they lost, the troops he sent out didn't seem very distraught at losing the battle."
"One of the them even said that 'we're the ones who've already lost'", noted Pearl.
"I see. Well, I suppose we won't know more until Holly reforms. Hopefully with her info, we can find a location. Until then, we keep bolstering our defenses and wait for our opportunity to come." White said.
With this, each member of the group began to mind their own as they awaited the agate to reform. While waiting, Pearl and Bismuth had rejoined the group. With the defenses set up the best they could with the numbers that were available, Bismuth moved to relax for a bit while Pearl gave her findings from the headcount.
"By my estimate, we lost about sixty gems from the battle. Although many of the now missing gems were soldiers and fighters, we lost more civilian gems to the fray. With this, although its a sour note, this has left us with plenty of warrior gems, which allowed Bismuth to establish the defense. I'm still not sure exactly what the plan here was, as I'm sure you all don't either, but I'd hardly count gaining roughly ten or so gems to the team a win for Black."
"Make no mistake, every gem counts in this war. It was a combination of numbers and thinking like that that caused the first war with Black to end in his defeat. Even if he were to have only one more gem then us, that one could change the whole battlefield." noted White. "Now then Pearl, is that all from the headcount?"
"For the gems still planet side, then yes. However, with all the gems we've been bubbling and sending to the temple for sometime now, we won't know an exact count until we retrieve them. That and there are still plenty of gems off world."
"Although we can't account for the off world gems, you bring up a good point. We should go and retrieve those gems from the burning room. Many of them were soldiers, and ones that were on Black's team for sometime. They could have some info we could use and they could also help in increasing our defense here." noted Garnet as she stood up. "Bismuth, could you come with me to retrieve them? Having the extra hands and muscle would help out."
"Sure Garnet, I gotcha." she said as she stood up.
As the two gems exited the throne room and began making their way to the warp pad, Holly Blue began to reform shortly after their departure. Now reformed, she gazed on the group of onlookers as she attempted to process what had happened. Once she caught up with the recent events, she broke down.
"Oh my diamonds. Forgive me. I...I wasn't myself...I..."
"Relax Holly...we know Black forced you to attack us. It's fine." Blue said.
Seeing and hearing her forgiveness, the gem continued. "Thank you my diamond. And also, thank you for freeing me. It...didn't feel right, taking orders from an outsider such as him."
Once the gem had regained her composure, the group began to question her. "Now then Agate...just to confirm, you still recall everything from your time under Black Diamond's command yes?" Yellow asked.
"Yes my diamond."
"Then what was the point of that skirmish?" asked Blue
"Initially, my group was tasked with attempting to gain more numbers for the army. We were instructed to go about, poof any gem we would come across and send them away until we ourselves were poofed. He was very clear on his request for us not to retreat. However, I'm afraid the attack had much deeper motives than it would seem." Noticing the groups curiosity, Holly continued. "While I don't know the specifics of his mission, Steven was instructed to conduct a follow up mission as soon as we were poofed. I had given him as much warning as I could before you all captured me. Although I wasn't informed of the details for his assignment, I know that our defeat at your hands was part of the plan, as it was the main point for success to Steven's mission."
"So without knowing more about Steven's mission in detail, we can only guess as to what Black had planned." Pearl noted.
"Yeah, but at least now we know that the attack wasn't just to gain more followers" Amethyst said. "It's still weird though. How did Black even get you Holly? I didn't think you or the Famethyst on the zoo would have been in any trouble."
"I'm unsure. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening before we all began to fall. We had a few gems scheduled to visit, but aside from them, I couldn't get how we didn't see them until they were on top of us. As for myself, I was the first poofed, so I'm not sure what happened afterwards nor of the status of the facility right now."
"Out of curiosity, what did the gems of those who visited look like?" questioned Connie
"The gem's themselves seemed the same as any other gem. The only key difference I can think of was their blacked out gems."
"And there it is. Sounds like he ambushed you guys by taking hold of your visitors." said Amethyst.
"We should probably check on them in a bit." Lapis said. "There were a few gems watching over the zoomans."
Coming to an agreement to check on that afterwards, the questions continued.
"Is there anything else you can tell us that could get us closer to stopping Black?" asked Connie.
"I don't know much, as my main task was overseeing gems as the agate usually does. However, something I was given instruction on before my departure was the workings and location of the Beta facility. Although I'm unsure why I was trusted with such info, I can use it to show you all where it is and what to expect."
"Well, at least we have our next step in mind now." Amethyst said.
"Right, once Garnet and Bismuth get back, we can head out there then. Having one less facility for Black to use would definitely give us an advantage." Pearl noted. "For now though, we should go check on the zoo. They still have a communicator with them, right Holly?"
"Yes, if the facility is still active, then we should be able to contact them from here."
"Well, lets get on it then. Not like we have much else to do right now." Amethyst said as she jumped to her feet.
With this, the group moved to contact the human zoo with a communicator in the throne room. While they were doing this however, Garnet and Bismuth arrived at the beach house via warp, although something wasn't quite right as the duo had found themselves in the right area, but the wrong location. Looking around as they had warped onto the pad in the observatory rather than the one next to the temple doors, the two soon became weary as they could tell something was wrong.
"You good Garnet...thought we'd warp into the base." Bismuth asked in hopes that it was an error on the fusion's part.
"That was where I was taking us. But something threw us here instead...something isn't right here. C'mon, let's check around."
As the two exited the observatory and entered Steven's room, they noticed the house was still quiet, something the two of them expected, but also became concerned over as it didn't provide any initial answers. As they moved to and down the stairs, the saw the living room area, which was still a mess from Peridot's assault on Red. Aside from the mess however, nothing was out of the ordinary at first glance. Once they were off the stairs, the two soon found something was very wrong as a couple bubbles with gems in them were sitting next to the main warp pad.
"We haven't started sending gems there right?" asked Bismuth.
"No...we haven't." Garnet said as she began moving towards the bubbles. However, before she could get much closer, the warp pad activated as it brought someone into the home. As the light from the warp died down, the two stood and stared with disbelief as Steven stared back with a similar look painted across his face.
...
Really, if you think about it, the gems had been sending quite a few gems to the burning room for sometime now and hadn't really made a move to free them yet as plot took over. But, more on that one next time as well as the status of the zoo.
And another chapter is out and done. Trying to set myself a word minimum each time to avoid shorter chapters. Working out somewhat well so far, but there are a couple still I'm weary about. Regardless though, we still move forward.
Thanks everyone for the continued support in ever growing slab of plot and detail. I hope things are going well for everyone. If not, sorry...but at least it's almost the weekend right. Well, I'll see all you individuals once more in C 27.
Onwards by Hans Zimmer (if you can't tell which chapters are of more plot relevant importance based of the songs I'm choosing, then I'm shocked. Lot of these chapters where I try to fill in the blanks and move towards the next point don't sit well with many song titles in the long list I have...oh well, so long as it's somewhat relevant I suppose...like this one. ONWARDS TO THE NEXT POINT/ONE lol)