Hit a bit of a writers block for a while there, but we're good now. Buckle up because things are about to pick up. Also I get that the band subplot seems unimportant now, but believe me it comes into play later. Thanks for sticking with me through the inconsistency, so here's two back to back chapters. Enjoy!

Freshwater stared up at the many indentations in the walls. Looking at the many number of indentations compared to the utter lack of Pearls on Homeworld made her uneasy. What had happened to them? Where were they? She currently only knew of three besides herself, four iff you counted the Pearl currently fused with the Ruby guard.

She hadn't realized before how much larger these Pearls were compared to the herself until she stepped up to the nearest exit hole. The top of the Pearl's head was roughly a foot above her own, and looking around that appeared to be the standard design. Roughly a foot taller than herself, about the size of White, Blue, and Yellow Pearl.

Wait…was this the standard size of Pearls? Why was she so short compared to them? Was she considered something out of the ordinary? Off-Col –

Freshwater shook her head, frowning. No. Out of the ordinary, maybe. But that's what she was supposed to be. White Diamond had fixed her – Freshwater didn't know exactly what that meant, but she knew that White had made her perfect. So of course she was different.

Stepping into the exit hole, Freshwater rubbed her chin, looking around. She felt like she shouldn't have been there, like she was intruding on something. Freshwater hesitated and started to turn and ehad back, but something further back in the exit hole caught her eye. It was….shimmering?

Frowning, Freshwater turned and made her way to the back of the hole, kneeling to inspect the shiny chunks at her feet before cautiously picking a few of them up. They were a bright beautiful green color, and appeared to have just been disgarded into the nearest corner of the exit hole. For a moment, Freshwater wondered what she was holding before she jumped and reeled back, her heart jumping into her chest.

Gem shards.

As soon as the thoughts registered, a gut-wrenching pain filled her chest, making her cry out and fall to her knees as she felt her head start to pound. When she hit the ground of the Kindergarten, a vision flashed before her eyes. A fierce Agate gem standing over her, accompanied by a Peridot. They stood in front of a Pearl with green skin-tone and gright blue hair. The gem stood at roughly the size of the Agate, holding a Diamond salute as the gem inspected her.

"What do you think?" the Peridot asked, glancing at Holly Blue Agate. "Not a fan of the color. I took her home yesterday to clean my place, and she couldn't even work a duster without me teaching her. She knows little about cleaning, and knows even less about authority. She also talks too much, and I don't have time to babysit." The gem said with a sigh, pinching her nose.

A shudder passed through the gem as tears filled her eyes. "Please Holly Blue Agate, give me another chance! I can get it right, I swear!" The Agate sneered, looking up and summoning her weapon. "The Diamonds don't give seconds chances, and neither will we." The Peridot added, rolling her eyes. "Take your shattering like a true gem. A perfect pearl would realize that she's not good enough for the Authority and accept their fate."

The lithe green gem opened her mouth to protest, but was cut off when the Agate attacked, her whip tightening around her. Freshwater watched on, mortified, as the gem screamed in pain before poofing into a cloud of dust, leaving her gem behind.

Holly Blue Agate sighed as she dissipated her weapon and picked up the gem. Freshwater cringed and looked away as the menacing gem clenched her fist around the gemstone. "That's the third imperfect gem today. I think it's time to let the Diamonds know we need to move to a new planet." She said, looking at the Peridot gem as she continued to squeeze. Peridot nodded. "I'm already on it." The green gem said, pulling up her communicator and making a report.

"Log date 6-1-7-6: the Agate and I have managed to create life. But it's far from perfect." She said, glancing over when she heard a loud crunch, grimacing when she heard the sound of a cracking gemstone radiate from the Agate's hand. "We will, however, continue this mission until we make a creation that is perfect, but are requesting looking elsewhere as Homeworld simply cannot sustain efficient life. Peridot out." She said, looking away so she didn't have to see the Agate drop the green shards a her feeet, stomping it for good measure.

"Seems kind of overkill, doesn't it, Agate?" she said, raising an eyebrow. The Agate shrugged. "Get used to it. We'll be shattering many more gems if we can't get this mission right." She muttered.

Freshwater gasped as the vision ended, clutching her chest with one hand and holding the shards in the other. Shaking her head, Freshwater dropped the gem shards and tried to force her panic back, shakily climbing out of the exit hole. The indentations in the wall felt a lot more menacing as she looked up at them, not daring to go near the small mounds of glittering specks in the back of each one.

These holes no longer looked empty to her. They looked dead. These gems weren't roaming Homeworld, or even hiding from the wrath of the Diamonds.

They were simply…gone.

Shaking her head, Freshwater heaved a shaky breath and made her way over to the gem sharsd, forcing herself to scoop them up and bubbling them. White had made one thing very clear to her: shattering was not her duty. She was to poof and bubble, bring ems worthy of being shattered to White. But now she was faced with what looked like hundreds of Pearls shattered all around her.

The thought made her skin crawl. Getting rid of imperfection made somewhat since to her, but she'd never wanted the gems she was getting rid of to be killed. Poofed and bubbled forever, maybe, but never shattered. Bubbling the gem at her feet, Freshwater tapped the bubbled gem shards, sending them back to her room.

She then made her way around the Kindergarten, bubbling all of the Pearls she saw. "You weren't in our meeting spot." The gem said coolly, crossing her arms. Freshwater jumped when she heard a voice behind her. Looking up, she gave a nod of acknowledgement to Hessonite.

"Freshwater shrugged. "I was close to it. Anyway, I wasn't looking for this spot. I was looking around for more Off-Colors." She muttered, turning her back on the gem. Hessonite scoffed, crossing her arms. "Well you're lucky I took care of the gems for you. They're bubbled and currently in their little safe haven. All we need now is to get them back to White and give our report. I suggest you lie about how much effort you gave on this mission."

Freshwater scoffed. "I would never lie to my Diamond." She mutered, coming out of the exit hole. "Anyway, someone had to go deeper into the Kindergarten and look for any more Off-Colors." She muttered. Hessonite scoffed. "And you plan on doing that by going into the exit hole of a bunch of gems?" the elite said, raising an eyebrow. Freshwater shrugged. "They enjoy their exit holes." She said simply, leading the way back to the "safe haven".

Hessonite smiled at that. "Damn right they are. After I completely gassed the area to ensure they wouldn't wake up, all I had to do was go into their exit holes and take them out one by one."

"Mediocracy isn't something to be proud of." Freshwater said, rolling her eyes. Hessonite shrugged. "Better than being defective."

….

"Lion, stay." Johnathon said sternly, holding his hand out to keep the pink cat from following him into the Big Donut. "I'll bring you out some Lion Lickers whenever I'm done talking to Lars and Sadie. I promise." He said, closing the door.

"He's been following you around a lot. What's up with that?" Sadie asked from her usual spot behind the desk. "I don't know. He's usually hovering around Steven, but I guess he's just been extra clingy since he's been accompanying the others on missions."

"What do they even do?" Sadie asked curiously as the boy pulled up a spot and sat at the booth. "I dunno." Johnathon admitted, shrugging. "All I know is that apparently there's this big buff lady out there terrorizing gems, but since they can't find her they're taking on smaller threats just to stay on their toes. Me, D13, and H11 aren't exactly Crystal Gems, so we don't really help out. We're just kinda crashing there."

"Speaking of D13 and H11, why isn't the usual trio of naissances out and about?" Lars asked, looking up from his phone. "They finally get tired of you or something?" Johnathon rolled his eyes, far used to Lars's jerkish personality. "No." he paused. "Well at least I hope not considering that we'll be living together for a while now." The boys eyes lit up as Sadie put a donut in front of him, giving Lars a death glare which the teenager ignored. "Thanks Sadie!" he said, putting it to the side for now.

"Yeah, D1e is actually taking lessons from Sour Cream now, and H11 is taking singing lessons with someone Mr. Universe hired since we couldn't find anyone in Beach City." Johnathon explained excitedly. "Mr. Universe put together a few rehearsal songs we can put together for now until we actually get this band off the ground. We figured it would be a good idea to have a gameplan before the actual audition date in a few weeks."

"You're really serious about this, huh?" Lars said boredly, looking back down at his phone. "Kid, you do realize that you can't make a one hit song with the little experience you and your ragtag band have, right? Your first show will probably be more of a pity party than anything." He said, chuckling. Sadie glared at him, nudging him with her elbow.

Johnathon's face dropped as Lars and Sadie began to bicker back and forth. Lars was right, even if his words did kind of sting. He had never thought their band would make even one hit, but the words about their first show being a pity show were painfully true.

"Apologize? Apologize for what? Sadie you know as good as I do that A ragtag group of kids can't possibly become good enough for a show, at least not to the magnitude that this kid is thinking."

"Well maybe so, but you shouldn't crush his hopes like that! He's just a ki-"

"Can I get two packs of Li0on Lickers, Sadie?" Johnathon asked, disrupting the argument that had been going on between the two workers. Taken aback slightly, Sadie nodded and completed the transaction, shooting Lars several dirty looks.

"Johnathon I'm so-"

The pink haired boy waved Sadie off. "Don't worry about it. I'll let you know when our first show is. I would love for you two to come." He paused to look up at Lars. "Even if it is just because you pity us."

And with that, he put the cash he had left in his pocket into the tip jar and walked out, unwrapping a pack of Lion Lickers and tossing it to Lion as the door closed behind him as he became deep in thought.

Like it or not, Lars was right. He didn't know much about music, but he did know that a lot of people who studied it had started when they were young. Take Steven for instance. According to Greg, he had been holding a ukulele ever since he could talk, and he was fourteen now. Sighing, he unwrapped the second pack of Lion Lickers and sat on the nearest bench, biting into it as Lion sat in the sand next to him.

"No, I must be mistaken. A friend of Steven's would never eat a Lion Licker."

Johnathon jumped and looked up, slightly confused when Lion walked up to the person the voice belonged to, nuzzling her hair affectionately. The girl had nice brown skin with short black hair and eyes and was wearing a uniform of some kind – baggy blue pants with a blue top to match and a red ribbon around the waist. A long and pink bag of some kind was resting on her shoulders, and she looked exhausted.

Johnathon shrugged. "I don't think they're that bad." He said, shrugging. The girl snickered. "Don't tell Steven that. As his best friend, I can confirm that he would be crushed. Johnathon's eyes widened in recognition. "Oh, you must be Connie." He said, snapping his fingers. Steven talked about the girl often, but he hadn't registered who she was until she had mentioned being Steven's best friend.

Connie nodded, giving him a smile. "Right! Connie Mahashwaren. Your parents are staying at my place, remember?" Johnathon arched an eyebrow. "No?" he said, shaking his head. Connie looked equally confused. "J10 and Y6?" she said, cocking her head to the side. "Oh, no they aren't my parents." Johnathon said, chuckling. "We were in the human zoo together, but my parents are…..not here." He said, choosing his words carefully, smiling softly as Lion came over and licked his face comfortingly.

"So, what brings you to this side of town?" He asked before things could get too awkward or Connie could ask any more questions.

"Oh, I'm just heading back from Steven's. We had sword training practice with Pearl today, but it got cut short because this other gem needed to show him and Garnet something?" she shrugged. "I dunno. I was just heading back now, actually and I saw you with Lion so I figured I would say hi since we hadn't been properly introduced." She explained.

"Well it's nice to meet you Connie. My name is Johnathon." The pink haired boy said, giving her a smile as he bowed. Connie giggled and did the same. "Nice to meet you." She said, her eyes lighting up. "Hey, you should come over tomorrow sometime! Me and Steven are supposed to be hanging out in his mom's room. He usually doesn't like being in there, but sometimes we just go in there and re-enact our favorite scenes from our favorite book. Last time was kind of…..iffy, but we've been meaning to try again with other stuff. Keep the imagination in check, ya know. We won't have it forever."

Johnathon thought on that for a moment and almost agreed, but hesitated when he looked back at the Big Donut. "I'll….think about it." He said, looking back at her. "I really want to make sure I'm ready for our first show – whenever that will be." Connie nodded. "Okay. Just be sure not to practice too hard. Balance is the key, after all!" she beamed.

Johnathon opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but before he could, Connie reached into her pocket and pulled out a small rectangle. He'd seen Steven use his once or twice, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what the thing was called.

"Hey mom – yes. Okay. Yes ma'am, I'm on the way home now. I promise. No, I didn't get hurt at sword training practice, mom. You know Pearl wouldn't let that ha- Well yeah there was that one time-" Connie put her hand to the end of the rectangle and sighed, looking at Johnathon. "I'll see you later, Johnathon." She said, shaking her head as she made her way down the boardwalk, putting the small rectangle to her ear as she continued to talk.

…..

"You know this isn't healthy, right?"

Pearl ignored the statement as she sat cross legged in front of the figure in front of her, putting one of the cups of tea on a coaster and holding the other in her hands. It was odd to watch the gem's lips move and hear her own voice speaking, but it was the best she could do since she didn't have the real thing.

"Pearl." The voice repeated, a little more softly this time. "How long are you going to keep this up? It's been weeks now." The hologram asked, flickeing for a moment. Besides the light blue tint, the gem looked the same as she had looked before the two had separated – Mohawk hairstyle, black shirt, and visor. The only thing that was different about Freshwater was that Pearl imagined the gem with a bright star in the middle of her shirt to replace the Diamond Authority's logo. The others may have still held resentment towards her – hell Pearl even found herself becoming angry with the gem sometimes. But after all the two had been through, she couldn't see her as anything besides a Crystal Gem.

"I…..don't know." Pearl whispered, putting the still hot cup down and looking away from the hologram. She had told herself that she wouldn't do this. Make long lost loved ones in a desperate attempt to ease the pain of knowing that they were gone. But she just couldn't help it. She'd done it with Rose before Garnet had caught her and she had stopped out of shame, and she now found herself doing it with Freshwater.

The hologram removed their visor and put it next to them, taking Pearl's face in their hands. "Pearl. You can't keep doing this to yourself." They whispered, their form glitching out slightly as they came in contact with Pearl's skin.

"It isn't healthy."

"Pearl?"

Pearl jumped and immediately turned around, the hologram of Freshwater immediately flickering out as she turned and faced the stoic leader.

"Oh, Garnet! Are we going on another mi-"

"You aren't handling losing Freshwater well."

Pearl gulped. It wasn't a question as she looked away, tears springing into her eyes as she fought back a sob. "No." she admitted, hugging herself.

The leader nodded sadly and came to sit next to the pale gem, putting a hand around her. The fusion still held a lot of resentment towards Freshwater, but she never brought it up to avoid upsetting Pearl. She felt angry at Freshwater, but her heart ached as she watched Pearl go through the grieving process again, and appeared to be going through it alone this time, as the only other person who had been especially close to her, Steven, was currently convinced that the gem was still alive and well.

"Do you think Steven could be right?" Pearl whispered, looking up at the fusion when she had composed herself. "Or are his dreams just that. Dreams."

Garnet pursed her lips, hesitating. "I…..don't know." She admitted, looking away. She hated giving that answer as much as Pearl hated receiving it. Lately her vuture vision had been thrown off by a landslide, with so many things happening that she had never expected. Freshwater trying to turn over a new leaf, Pearl being transported back to them via bubble, the humans arriving on the ship, four gems (Lapis, Peridot, B9, and Jet) who she wasn't sure she could even consider part of her team or not. There was just too much going on for her to even focus on determining a future.

She just….didn't know.

For a few minutes, Garnet and Pearl just sat together, not saying anything, which was fine with Pearl. She didn't want the fusion to say anything about Freshwater – she wasn't stupid. She knew the gems didn't feel the same way about Freshwater that she did, and Pearl was honestly okay with that. After all, they didn't know exactly how much the gem had changed over the course of everything they'd been through together.

They didn't understand, and Pearl would rather them not try to act like they did, or worse try to tell her how awful of a gem she was.

…..

"Hey Steven, you seen Garnet around?" Bismuth asked, stepping off the warp pad and looking up at Steven who was playing videogames on his bed. "She went in Pearl's room a few miutes ago." Steven said, putting the game on pause.

Bismuth glanced at the door. "She's still not over it, huh?" Steven shrugged and started to make his way down the stairs. "Freshwater and Pearl must have gotten pretty close throughout everything. I mean we still don't exactly know what happened. She doesn't even really wanna talk about it." He said, rubbing his neck nervously, worry etched in his features.

Bismuth pursed her lips as she looked at the door to the temple. "Well I suppose I don't exactly need Garnet." She said, glancing back at Steven with a glint in her eye. "Technically you've got Rose's gem, and Rose used to be the leader, so that makes you leader now." Steven laughed nervously. "No not really. I still have a lot to learn. If anything, Garnet's the leader." He said, nodding at the temple door.

Bismuth hesitated. She supposed she could bring her former apprentice to the temple. I mean after all, they outnumbered her by a long shot, and she was a lot weaker than even one of them. "Alright, fair enough. But I do want to show you your new weapon though!." She said, a glint in her eye. "I've been working on it since I was unbubbled, and believe me, it will do you a lot of good to get some training in before you use it." She said, making her way back to the warp pad and motioning for Steven to follow.

"A new weapon? That's awesome!" Steven said excitedly, following her. "Mine are mostly for defensive stuff, but Connie can't defend me all the time so offensive weapons would be a good idea too." Bismuth nodded, her smile growing.

"Exactly."