UPDATE - 07/02/2019:
Okay...it's been a long time since I've updated any of my stories on here, mostly because I got more busy and lost inspiration at times. I'm genuinely sorry for making you all wait this long, and I'll try to update this story when I can, because I have some new ideas for it. Also, lots of new things have been revealed in Steven Universe, and this update is posted a while after 'Change Your Mind' was released, so now I know more about Homeworld in general, although I've changed this chapter a little to go into more depth on Zircons and their purpose in trials on Homeworld.
Once again, I'm sorry for not updating in such a long time, and I'll try to update more in the future, both on this story and my other ones.
Athena Cykes wandered up the hills, her bright yellow outfit a contrast against the bold, blue sky. It reminded her of better days, when she lived at the space center and got to see these up close; and it was peaceful too, the stars gleaming down on her.
"The sky looks beautiful, doesn't it?" Her necklace and helpful AI, Widget, said among the darkness. Widget was in fact, connected to her mind and all the technology at the Space Center, as well as the Mood Matrix her mother had left behind: so it was common for it to blurt out her thoughts. Sometimes they were just helpful remarks, though it could backfire when her anger was revealed in court, almost causing her to get a penalty each time.
Luckily, however, Widget was much more gentle with its words today, mirroring her own mental state as she sat down and watched the stars. It reminded her of her childhood and her job as well - to protect her clients, just as she had done with a certain one from years past.
The fact that her fellow attorney, Apollo Justice, was correcting the law system in the Kingdom of Khura'in, meant more work for her as well as her boss, the legendary Phoenix Wright. But it didn't matter as long as she could take the time to relax like this. She could watch the shooting stars go by forever, and she marveled at one as it appeared...or was it a meteor?
Suddenly, a noise rang in her ears, as the shooting star kept flying by...almost like the sound of...screaming?
"What the..." Athena stared around the place, checking that nobody else was there; but if that sound wasn't coming from someone's heart...then...?
It was at this moment that she turned back to the sky, seeing that the shooting star was getting closer and closer...the screaming sound getting louder and more prominent as she clutched her ears in pain...
"Watch out!" Widget cried, snapping her back to reality as she ran out of the falling object's path, the thing falling with a large crash that shook the ground as she dived out of the way.
Once she felt that it was safe, Athena slowly pulled herself up from the ground, brushing off some dust from her outfit and stepping closer to the fallen object. However, upon getting a closer look at it, she almost jumped back in fright.
The fallen object itself was a dark-green sphere - made of materials that she didn't know of, or understand. It was a little busted and scratched from the fall, but it was still intact at least, and there a pitch-black window of some sort on the front of it, who-knows-what hidden behind it. Sure, Athena had lived at a apace center before, but this was almost alien to her. And in all her time at the space center, she had never been taught how to deal with aliens, or see them: mostly because everyone thought they were in another universe. This felt almost unreal.
Slowly, Athena stepped forwards, picking up a stick on the ground and poking the sphere. Nothing happened for a while...until the window at the front of it opened, the attorney gasping as two 'people' fell out, wearing strange clothing that seemed like something from the 80s.
But what was even more shocking was that they had dark yellow and blue skin, and they had two gemstones of the same kind embedded in their bodies. To Athena, she had just stumbled across extraterrestrials. But to them, being so shocked over the past few events, they were fugitives and had just stumbled upon Earth, an abandoned colony about to be destroyed by the Cluster.
"Well, that trial could have gone worse..." Blue Zircon slowly got up onto her feet, helping Yellow Zircon after brushing off some ash and dust. Athena took in those words, confused. What trial were they even talking about? Were they some type of...alien lawyers? Come to think of it, the blue person kind of did remind her of her boss, Mr Wright a little by what she was wearing.
"It could have gone better, too...we should have just left before the trial even started, and-!" Yellow froze in her tracks, tapping Blue on the shoulder.
"What? What are you-oh." Blue stared at the attorney in front of them, who was trembling both from the fear and the coldness of the situation. Widget's screen was a bright yellow, and Athena took a step back, getting ready to run. If she told anyone about this, they most likely wouldn't believe her. But a different type of feeling resonated inside her as she stared at them; she couldn't hear any cries from their hearts. It was almost as if they didn't have any at all...but even then, those strange gemstones embedded in their bodies...she could hear a few faint cries from those. However, she was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't notice Blue's terrible attempt to make conversation.
"Uh...hi! Is...is this Earth?"
"Y-Yes, of course it is!" Athena strained to make herself louder as she snapped back, before a sinking feeling began to rise up inside her, "...but...who...who are you?" She slowly stepped forward, mentally preparing herself to dash away if needed. She had only become a defense attorney one year ago...she didn't want to become a victim to whatever these two people were, or if she could even call them people. Blue and Yellow, on the other hand, had never seen a human before; only in the databases of Homeworld...but they weren't there any more. Not after the Crystal Gems had presumably been defeated - then again, the trial they had been in just prior had disproved that somewhat.
It was only then that the truth of what they had just done hit them with the force of a speeding train: they were on an abandoned colony that would most likely be destroyed by a giant fusion, though it seemed incredibly overdue to them, and on top of that, they had nowhere to stay.
So, maybe if they could negotiate with this human...they'd at least know where to go.
Once again, Athena's eyes fell upon the gems embedded inside them, almost looking like attorney's badges - but they were more different than any ones she had seen before.
"What are you?"
"We're Gems...are you a human?" Blue Zircon's eyes took in the human more closely - she was wearing a bright yellow coat with a light scarf, and judging by the look on her face, she was regarding them with the same curiosity.
Meanwhile; only one thought pounded in Athena's mind - she had to find out whatever these things were, and why they were here. But then, she didn't want to be a possible murder victim, or get kidnapped at all. So she did the best thing that came to mind.
Without a word or even an answer, she ran.
Ignoring the cries of 'Wait!' and 'Don't leave!' behind her, Athena high-tailed it down the hills, trying her best not to trip over her own feet and slam into the steep rocks scattered across the place. And having the nerve to look back was a big mistake, as she saw the two aliens in pursuit, making her heart skip a beat and her running speed quicken immensely.
"Please! We just want to talk to you-" Blue cried out, Yellow just barely managing to keep up with her.
"Get away from me!" Athena yelled back in fear, her feet flying across the ground as she reached a path nearby, though she wasn't looking where she was going - and she didn't have any time to react as her foot caught on a rock and she pitched forward, hitting the ground hard as pain seeped in from all directions. Blue and Yellow immediately stopped in their tracks, just staring at the human on the floor, slightly twitching as she got up, before running as fast as she could, disappearing into the darkness as she tried desperately not to faint.
They hadn't even been on Earth for five minutes and already things weren't going well.
"So much for a first impression...I guess humans don't take well to gems as easily..." Blue sighed, staring blankly at the spot where the human had just been.
"You think?" Yellow Zircon sighed, putting her head in her hands. "It's been thousands of years since Pink Diamond owned this place...and ages since any gem's been here. Of course they wouldn't accept us being near them, heck, we won't be able to find somewhere to stay so we aren't seen, and the Earth's gonna be destroyed in who knows how lo-" The familiar sounds of Blue's screen made her stop rambling, and she glanced up to see Blue Zircon staring at a database of Rose Quartz, before glancing at other records. "...What are you doing?"
"I know that Rose Quartz stood out as the only Rose Quartz - the leader of the rebellion against the Diamonds, but-" Blue's eyes narrowed, before she gasped. "Look." She displayed one of her screens in the other Zircon's face - a report detailing Rose Quartz, indeed - not the one who had shattered Pink Diamond, but the countless other gems like her who had been decommissioned after the shattering.
LOG 742 694 - ROSE QUARTZ
CLASS: SOLDIER/GENERAL CONSTRUCTION
DETAILS: ROSE QUARTZES, GEMS BORN OF MATERIAL FROM THE EARTH (SEE: PRIME KINDERGARTEN RECORD) HAVE A FULL BUT STURDY BUILD, MANUFACTURED EITHER FOR BATTLE PURPOSES, OR FOR SIMPLE CONSTRUCTION WORK, SPECIFICALLY IN PINK DIAMOND'S COLONY, EARTH. ON TOP OF BEING MADE TO SERVE HER LIKE EVERY GEM UNDER A DIAMOND'S COMMAND, THEY WERE SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO HAVE THEIR PARTICULAR APPEARANCE FOR REASONS UNKNOWN. DESPITE THIS, THEY ARE STILL RELIABLE, AND DO NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANY MALFUNCTION, ASSURING THAT THIS COLONY WILL BE A SUCCESS.
A ROSE QUARTZ SOMEHOW MANAGED TO SNEAK PAST THE ENTIRETY OF PINK DIAMOND'S ENTOURAGE AND EVEN HER PEARL, WHO SEEMED TO BE ABSENT [INCAPACITATED? SHATTERED? WHEREBOUTS UNKNOWN] AT THE TIME, SHATTERING HER. AS SUCH, ALL ROSE QUARTZES WILL BE RECALLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, SO NOTHING LIKE THIS MAY HAPPEN AGAIN. ALL OF THE GEMS UNDER HER COURT WILL BE TRANSFERRED ELSEWHERE TO SERVE THE ONES WHO REMAIN.
EARTH WILL BE ā̶͖͙̀*̴͍́̎D̸̥̙͆͐̍̌͝$̵̨̘̟͙̊M̴͈͍̝͑̀̀͘͜%̷͙̇D̶̯̤͋̋̒s̵͖̠̭͓̝͙̍̓̑͒̿́Ĉ̷̯͖̰͎̥̀̀͌k̸̗̈̒̀̍*̵̩̱̃Ļ̷̪͇̰̄̄̆̚ͅ
LOG 753 529 - EARTH PROJECT HAS BEEN TERMINATED
LOG 843 294 - NEW CLUSTER PROJECT HAS BEEN INSTATED
A diagram of the typical Rose Quartz's appearance and the properties of its gem appeared, but Yellow didn't have a clue what Blue was proposing at all. "Look at what? I know about Rose Quartz, we all do - so what are you getting at?" Blue gave her a slight glare, before pulling up another screen - showing documents of all the humans originally going to be taken to the Zoo. She was glad that the Aquamarine and Topaz supervising had been kind enough as to capture images of their appearance and their designated names before taking them, and this was what Blue seemed to be focusing on as she glanced between them and the diagram of a Rose Quartz.
"...Got it!" She grinned after a while, leaving her fellow Zircon dumbfounded. "Yellow, look at all of these images - what do they have in common with Rose Quartz and the form we saw her in?" Yellow sighed as she squinted at the information, before she eventually caught on.
"...Their appearance?"
"Exactly!" Blue practically had stars in her eyes. "Gems might look similar to humans in some cases, but their colour scheme depends on the gem in their bodies entirely - and their uniform is particular to just who they serve. Humans, if Pink Diamond had still remained in control, would have a uniform showing their planet belonged to her, I bet...but they don't."
"And that means...?"
"Look at this image of Rose Quartz, and then the appearance of a usual one." She pulled up a photo from the rebel leader's file and then one from the typical Quartz - it was clear that all Rose Quartzes had a mostly pink colour scheme, but the leader of the rebellion's skin tone was similar to that of a human's. Maybe she had made it that way in her devotion to them, perhaps. "She obviously looks similar to a human, in more ways than one...so, if all humans would be afraid of us in this form, then we could change it to look more like them, right?"
"...But we weren't made for this! We're just lawyers, who knows if we can even do that!"
"We can try." Blue insisted, knowing there was at least one thing they had the ability to do - normally, gems not built for battle or heavy construction weren't equipped with weapons. The Pearl who had come to be known as Rose Quartz's accomplice was a different story, but those were probably forged away from the gem. However, Zircons had an advantage - ever since the end of Era 1, Homeworld seemed stricter; any defendant in a trial was often declared guilty, so much to the point where some began to question the system, but didn't dare voice those opinions aloud. Some of them had panic attacks underneath the pressure and knowledge they could be shattered, and some of the witnesses went crazy - so, in the event of them ever trying to attack someone in fear, anger or panic, Zircons had the ability to summon a weapon to apprehend or poof them if necessary.
But on this occasion, they wouldn't be poofing a witness.
Blue shuddered at the thought - she remembered the first of many times she would fail to get a non-guilty verdict, no matter what evidence she presented, no matter how much she pleaded...
The Diamonds were the rulers of Homeworld, in charge of creating and bestowing every Gem, each, with their own purpose and title. They couldn't show up and induct punishment on every Gem that was found guilty, of course - they had more important things to do.
Zircons weren't just given weapons for apprehending witnesses before they could literally crack under their own pressure - sometimes they actually had to carry out the consequences.
"Well, go on..." the mocking voice of whatever Gem had been presiding over the trial still haunted her sometimes, to this day.
"Shatter her."
The way the defendant had screamed in pain as her weapon pierced deeper, her form slowly splitting apart until it faded away into nothing and all that remained were some shards on the floor...back then, Blue had dismissed whatever doubts or fear she had, because at the end of the day, it was her purpose. It was what every Zircon had to do in that situation, given the circumstances.
Now, she realised, that was the only thing keeping her sane. And now that she couldn't go back to Homeworld at all, a great dread began to sink in.
The two gems were silent for a few minutes, before their gems glowed in unison and they reached out, summoning their respective weapons in a flash of light. Clenched in Yellow's hands were two sharp daggers that could cut through any Gem's form in five seconds, and gripped tightly in Blue's was a long, navy blue scythe.
They met each other's eyes, both silently asking a question with their gaze.
Are you sure you want to do this?
And after what felt like hours, in one sudden movement Blue had sliced through her own form, and Yellow trust the daggers deep into her chest, and it was all over as quickly as it had started.