Rose starts to talk to other gems at their kindergarten about her plans and ideas, and sends Pearl to do the same. After spending a few weeks shadowing Rose as she gives her rebellion recruitment speeches, she picks up on ways of sounding more convincing and enthusiastic when she starts talking to gems by herself. Rose starts to recruit gems from other kindergartens too, and a lot of them seem to be on her side.

None of them feel any loyalty to Homeworld after being marked as defective and sent away, and Rose isn't the only one who's fallen in love with Earth. And for those who haven't, she's able to make them see its beauty and wonder, like she did with Pearl.

Pearl puts her excellent planning and strategy skills to good use, making herself Rose's assistant once more. Rose insists she should work with her, not for her, but Pearl insists she doesn't mind.

Gem production begins to slow down, nearly stopping completely in some of the smaller kindergartens as more gems join the rebellion. Rose pretends to play nice with Homeworld, and the threats about replacing her stop as they seem to stop monitoring Earth as closely as they were. Gems spend most of their time training now, mastering summoning and using their weapons, something most of them haven't done for decades, even centuries.

Defective gems weren't welcomed on the battlefield, unless numbers were desperately low.

Pearl starts practising her sword fighting again, something Rose taught her when she was her assistant back on Homeworld. As her and Rose train together, Pearl starts to notice how scarily calm she is. She's training to fight in a war against her home planet, a war that could get her killed, but she doesn't feel scared.

'It's Rose,' she tells herself, 'She's such an amazing, inspiring leader. Of course you don't feel scared. There's nothing to be scared of.'

But soon enough Rose tells them Homeworld has caught on to what they're doing and that need to start preparing to fight at any moment. It all starts to sink in then, when she and the rest of their arm change the emblems on their uniforms from diamonds to roses, and she gets that sinking feeling in her gut she hasn't felt since she was first sent to Earth.

She smiles when Rose embraces her, tearfully thanking her, thanking all of them, but it's a strained smile. Even Rose's warm embrace can't rid of the growing feeling of apprehension, because the full weight of what they're about to do has sunk in. But she smiles, pretending, because she needs to be brave, for Rose, for all of them. She needs to be the pearl she was made to be.

Pearl tells herself she isn't scared when Homeworld's first army arrives. It's a big army, but not much bigger than theirs. Rose tells them to not be afraid, that they've got this, to remember what they're fighting for, and when the first battle begins, Pearl focuses on that.

She's fighting for Rose. She needs to protect Rose.

As gems fall to the ground around her, she runs to Rose, blocking everything else out as she anchors herself in front of Rose and wields her sword. Rose yells at her to run, to protect herself, but Pearl blocks out her voice too and she thrusts her sword into a gem's torso as they try to hit Rose with their mace.

Homeworld's soldiers must have been instructed to take out Rose, because a lot of they seem to be coming straight at her. Pearl clenches her teeth, furiously fighting off anyone who tries to even get near Rose.

"Forget about me, Pearl!" Rose yells, holding up her shield to block a mallet before it drops on them both, "You need to protect yourself!"

Pearl ignores her, running to parry another gem's sword before it can reach Rose. But as she lifts her sword up to block, she hears Rose scream her name and then feels something sharp pierce her chest. Her arms go limp, she hears her sword hit the ground and feels her body go numb, and then it all goes black.

When Pearl regenerates, it's dark and quiet. No clashing of swords, no screaming or yelling. She's staring up at Earth's night sky, disorientated. Her body feels strange, and her head hurts, but there's no pain in her chest.

"Rose…" she whispers, her eyes widening. She sits up, looking around frantically. Did they lose? She surrounded by dozens of gemstones, some cracked. She reaches for her own gem, running her fingers over it to check for any fissures.

"Rose!?" she calls, looking at the gems around her to see if hers is there, "Rose?!"

No answer.

She starts to shake a bit, clumsily standing to her feet. Did Rose get hurt? Pearl tears up at the thought and her mind starts to race. She should have been more careful, then she wouldn't have gotten hit and she would have been able to protect Rose. What if her gem is cracked and she can't regenerate? Rose can heal gems, but she won't be able to heal herself. What if they took her gem? What if Pearl's the only one who made it and she gets captured and taken back to Homeworld? Would they kill her?

Just as she feels herself starting to cry, she hears something rustle in the bushes behind her. She swivels around, pulling her spear from her gem, readying herself to fight even though she's not in the right state to do so at all. But she relaxes when she sees it's another gem, another Crystal Gem. That's what Rose said they should call themselves.

"Sapphire?" she squints, slowly lowering her weapon.

"You're back," Sapphire says, walking towards her.

Pearl nods and stabs her spear into the ground, leaning on it. She's known Sapphire for quite a while. They worked together on another planet when she was a lot younger, and because of her "future vision", Rose always had her nearby, especially during planning. "Where's Rose? Is she okay?" Pearl asks.

"She's fine, she's with the rest of us over there," Sapphire gestures vaguely somewhere behind her, "We left the rest of you here to regenerate. Sorry, someone should have been watching over here… We should get going."

Pearl nods again, letting Sapphire put her arm around her waist to support her and start walking her towards a clearing. She hadn't realised how much her legs had been trembling, and she was only starting to notice how off her body really felt. It felt as though her legs weren't hers, as though they weren't really there. "Sapphire… what happened?"

"Rose said you got hit by an arrow and retreated into your gem. We managed to push back Homeworld's army a bit but…" Sapphire trailed off and looked behind her at the gems littering the ground.

"Can't Rose help them?" Pearl says, stopping.

"She's tried to heal the ones she could but some of them were crushed beyond repair, and we don't know how many will be able to regenerate in time or at all. We're going to… bury the broken ones later."

"Oh…"

The two go silent, continuing their slow walk back to wherever Sapphire is taking them, until they see Rose approaching them.

When she notices them she stops and hers eye widen, before she run towards them and grabs Pearl, scooping her up in her arms.

"Pearl," she whispers, hugging her hard, "I was so worried… Don't you dare do that again!"

"Do what?" Pearl asks, confused.

"Risk your life for me! I can look after myself, you don't have to protect me."

Pearl frowns, "Why not?"

"Because you need to protect yourself," Rose says, smiling as she sets Pearl back down on the ground, "You don't have to put yourself in danger, Pearl."

"But… but I want to protect you, Rose. I need 're too important."

Rose's smile leaves her face, "You're important too, Pearl."

Pearl can hear the slight annoyance in her voice and it makes her flinch. "But I'm…" Pearl begins, turning around to see if Sapphire is still listening, but she's gone.

"Pearl, I appreciate it, I really do, but we should be working together. You know that. You don't have to work for me any more," Rose holds her hand out to Pearl and smiles, "Come on, I'll take you to our new base and tell you what happened."

Pearl considers arguing, but she doesn't want to annoy Rose. She sighs and intertwines their fingers. They walk hand in hand, Rose excitedly telling her about the battle, how proud she is of everyone, and how she's certain they're going to win.

Pearl fakes a smile, only half listening. 'I'm going to protect you,' she repeats over and over in her head, 'No matter what.'