Onyx NX765, writer of several guides, foremost advisor to Pink Diamond, had failed miserably and completely. Onyx sported her black Gem upon her mouth, her role to watch and listen for Pink Diamond's enemies, and snuff them out before Pink Diamond ever knew-a task she had ruined just as a derelict building is not fit to support life. A failure so momentous, as the pink wave shattered Onyx's physical form, she fully expected to be shattered. When she reformed, in Yellow Diamond's custody, she could not believe she still lived.
They want me to tell how Pink Diamond died, she thought. But I was not there, so I do not know…
As Pink Diamond charged into the distance, her faithful but ultimately inadequate advisor could not follow, knocked off-balance by a Garnet, who then disappeared as quick as she had come. On the ground, many other Crystal Gems converged upon her. And while she fought them off, Pink Diamond died.
Indeed, under supervision of a Yellow Zircon, Onyx was interrogated. After telling all, Onyx was assigned to the Kindergartens on Earth. Make sure the soldiers come out well and fight bravely.
I suppose I still have some use to the Diamonds, Onyx mused.
The war ended with a brilliant blast of song. Two days before the end, Blue Diamond's entourage arrived and whisked all who remained from Pink Diamond's court away from Earth. Once at Homeworld, Onyx watched as Yellow Diamond assigned the Earth soldiers to her contingent. White Diamond took some of Pink Diamond's engineers for herself, but otherwise looked on. Finally, Blue Diamond took Onyx, and what remained of Pink Diamond's closest aides.
I will be shattered now for my failures, Onyx believed.
She was not. Blue Diamond led her and her comrades to the hall just outside her inner chambers. Instead of entering, Blue Diamond led them all into a newly-hewn passageway, the door several hundred feet from Blue Diamond's own chambers. The passageway was unlit but polished, and reflected the warm blue light in strange ways, lending the room an eerie lighting.
Onyx picked up her pace, keeping close to Blue Diamond. At the end, a massive door, taller than even Blue Diamond, opened up into darkness. Onyx peered in, switching to her night vision. The lights abruptly came on, dazzling Onyx.
The room was massive, and shaped in an upside down U. On the left side, a large terrace stepped up halfway the room's height, like an amphitheatre, before levelling off. Atop this open-air pseudo-second floor were pods and tables, devices, computers, many other things. Onyx looked around. Similar getups were peppered over the large floor; chandeliers hung from the ceiling in a style that was most certainly mimicking Earth's. Slightly sick, she turned back to Blue Diamond.
"My Diamond, why have you brought us here?"
"You must stay here, where you all will be safe," Blue Diamond said, ushering them all in with her huge hands.
The massive doors ground closed, shutting with the clicks of locks and the thuds of bolts.
In the same room, remnants of Pink Diamond's closest courtiers remained. Blue Diamond visited often, demanding to hear the same stories of Pink Diamond's exploits over, and over, and over again. Hearing such tales of Pink Diamond's greatness cheered her up, as it made her collected Gems more miserable. The two other Diamonds tolerated this, until the great shortage crashed down on Homeworld. With no outlet for her stress, White Diamond grew irritated with Blue.
She saw Gems with valuable talents, caged up, unutilized, out of a misguided desire to enshrine Pink Diamond's greatness for all eternity. Unwilling to put up with it any longer, White Diamond threatened to confiscate all of them, and send them to distant planets on dangerous missions. Grudgingly, Blue Diamond allowed Onyx and her friends to leave the room, to perform tasks like overseeing the formation of new colonies or maintenance of Homeworld's' important battleships. Onyx was glad. She felt empty and wrung out, and these missions gave her something to do, besides wallow in misery.
Blue Zircon sat quietly, back against a cold blue marble wall, in some byway of Blue Diamond's court, the cobalt causeway calming her back to normal. She felt exhausted, and unhappy, mostly with herself. The Great Gem Detective, getting all panicky because she had to walk past White Diamond.
Pah! White Diamond wasn't even paying attention! Her nose was deep in that huge packet of hers.
…Of course, thought Blue Zircon, I could be in a jail somewhere, wishing I had been more careful.
Blue Zircon sat there awhile, before rousing herself. Springing up into the air, tamping down her conflicting emotions, she circled in place, grinding her heel into the stone. All this misery was getting her nowhere! Where was that insane confidence she had when she accused the Diamonds of murdering one of their own? She had a task to do, and by the Diamonds, she'd do it!
Her new-found burst of optimism and confidence faded away quickly, leaving a sense of disquiet. Blue Zircon sighed, and brought up her notes, to decide what to do next.
It was Blue Zircon's great fortune that so many witnesses from such a long time ago were still alive. She honestly had expected most of them to be dead, from the wars Homeworld had since participated in.
Nevertheless, Blue Zircon made the short journey back to Blue Diamond's inner chambers. The guards allowed her passage wordlessly, as if expecting her.
A few steps into the large upside-down U room, Blue Zircon took a seat at a nearby bench. Glancing down the list of witnesses interrogated in the investigation long ago, Blue Zircon weighed her options. First, the logistician, a prim Aquamarine.
Right by her name was that of Pink Diamond's prime advisor, an Onyx. The description read her as a short and stocky Gem, with light grey skin, black discs for eyes, and her Gem upon her mouth.
Blue Zircon had already read her testimony; the interrogator was more interested in the identities of the attackers and how the scene played out than what happened in the days before. Blue Zircon knew the names of the Crystal Gems present, and was very surprised to see all five commanders were present: White Pearl, Garnet, Antimony, Crazy Lace, and Biggs Jasper.
The base where Pink Diamond was shattered was solely within Homeworld controlled territory. Pink Diamond's decision to go there was spur-of-the-moment; no one but she knew that's where they were going. How did the Crystal Gems know Pink Diamond would be present? How did they gain entrance to the base, without raising any alarm from the soldiers present at the base?
Blue Zircon had an idea: there must have been a traitor, someone to let the Crystal Gems in, someone close enough to know Pink Diamond's every movement. But who…?
Blue Zircon decided to begin with how they would have gained entry-hence why she wanted the military intelligence, undoubtedly contained in Yellow Diamond's HQ. Had there been any large shipments, or many small shipments into the base a few days before the event? Someone with a lot of power (perhaps Pink Diamond's inner circle) could have placed the Crystal Gems within these packages and brought them inside the base without anyone noticing. Had there been any humans near the gates? Blue Zircon was not sure if the Crystal Gems had been able to transform into humans, but it was worth checking out.
Blue Zircon did not think it was likely that the Rebels would have planted any agents before Pink Diamond's arrival. The base was extremely remote, and in the heart of Homeworld-occupied territory. No important Gems were housed there; it wasn't the site of any military training. It was simply a base placed upon a piece of land to show Homeworld's ownership. There would be no benefit to planting spies at a base where nothing ever happened. Still, Blue Zircon would check if any spies had been caught.
Checking her case files, all warp pads had been dissected. Analysis showed no one had hijacked them, to change the entry point. Indeed, it was not easy to hijack or meddle with a Warp Pad. Blue Zircon had procured an antique Warp Pad maintenance book-indeed, unless broken or damaged irreversibly, a warp pad was hard to tamper with. Such a very important piece had several important controls: only a specific Gem was allowed to perform maintenance, the Pad was encased in a tough green insulator to prevent any hijacking electrical signals, the Pad logged who came and went, and so on…
No movements occurred in the air over the base, except for Pink Diamond and Company arriving at the base. The case files showed the Yellow Zircon in charge had dug through the ground underneath the base for tunnels and bombarded the ground with ultrasound and such, seeking out relevant anomalies. This search had yielded nothing but ordinary activity.
So then…an ordinary activity, hiding an abnormal action: unless prying eyes knew exactly what to look for, the guise of the commonplace, familiar event would hide the Crystal Gems' infiltration of the base.
Blue Zircon supposed the most likely way the Crystal Gems entered was through a very large shipment-all at once. The insider would stage a large incoming shipment, pack them in, and let them out once inside. The remoteness of the base guaranteed less soldiers would be there, and…
But Blue Zircon could not get ahead of herself. She had to be ready for results that directly contradicted her current way of thinking.
She took a moment to orient herself, then set out in search of the quartermaster. She had only taken a few steps until every Gem in the room knew a visitor had stepped into their cage. As if one, they gathered around Blue Zircon until she was surrounded by a semi-circle of Gems, all eagerly awaiting for her to announce the purpose of her visit.