A/N: I've finally got this chapter up now! Well, sorry for the delay again, but I recently got The Sims 4 and I've played it pretty much every day. Well, anyway, I've decided this fanfic is going to be like only five or six chapters long. (I'm definitely going for quality over quantity here.) So I should have the whole thing done by the end of the month or so (or maybe next month). Enjoy!

As soon as Rose came back to Earth, she felt wild with excitement from the revelation. Despite the promise she'd made to Zoisite, she just had to tell somebody, anybody about this new information. Naturally, the first ones she decided to speak this with were Eudoxia and Khaidarkanite.

"So... let me see if I've heard you correctly, alright?" Eudoxia began. "This man decided that he wanted to overthrow his queen by giving his friend a magical article of clothing and having said friend kill her?"

"Exactly." Rose simply answered.

"How did I not know he was going to do that?" Khaidarkanite mumbled to herself. "How did I not see this coming?"

"Alright, you two," Rose began. "I have an idea on how to deal with this. First off, why don't we go ahead and tell the others about Zoisite's involvement? That way, they can warn the rest of the humans of another attack ahead of time; by the time she strikes again, we'll be ready."

"Great strategy, but there's a problem." Khaidarkanite said.

"What would that be?"

"How do we convince the humans she's not a goddess?"

"Good question. We'll have to think of something."

Once the Minoans, both indigenous and foreign, were informed of another attack possibly being on the way, they didn't hesitate to start stacking up on an ecletic assortment of weapons (including what looked like a flamethrower and some bronze swords and axes) nor did they waste any time while coming up with hundreds and hundreds of battle strategies (most of which were Pearl's, by the way). Each time, however, they all ended up with the same problems and the same type of questions that had yet to be answered; for example, how could hundreds and hundreds of humans and Gems combined hope to overtake another Gem who was wearing a godly artifact? Moreover, how could they fight against a being they'd once thought divine? If they were ever going to defend themselves here, then Rose Quartz would have to help out big-time.

"Come on, Pearl!" a pregnant adolescent girl, Dendera, whined. "We've gone through this plan several times already. How in the world are flaming arrowheads supposed to harm this woman?"

"Well," Pearl began. "All it'll take is a lucky shot at her gem- which I think is on her chest -and hopefully it'll knock her powers down a peg."

"Wait a minute!" Bansabira's widow, Papsukkal, cried. "You don't even know where her gem is placed?"

"The aura from the corset she was wearing obscured our vision pretty badly, so we couldn't get a good look."

"How do you expect to attack her like that then? You can't! You'll have to swing a sword at her head or something!"

"Alright, fine, that's not going to work. Anybody else have suggestions?"

Rose slowly raised her hand, almost as if she knew what she was going to say next wouldn't be pleasing.

"Okay, Rose, what's your solution?" Pearl asked.

"How about not killing her?" Rose replied.

Almost all of the humans present (except, of course, for Eudoxia) stared at her with varied looks of outrage and confusion. The Gems, however, just made slight grimaces at this answer.

"And why shouldn't we, might I ask?" Papsukkal asked suspiciously.

"Because she's not the real monster here." answered the pink-haired Gem, almost in a pleading fashion. "The friend who gave her that corset is."

"But he's not the one killing our people now, is he?"

"No, but he's got something else planned for her. He wants to use her to try and kill the current queen so she can take over and he can micromanage everything she does."

"So what's killing us got to do with it?"

"I don't know, but I think it's the corset that's driving her to kill."

"So can we remove it?"

"No. It's already fused to her. She'd only be able to remove it if she regenerated."

"So what do we do now?"

"We're still going to fight her of course, but we'll need to figure out how to defeat her without having to kill her."

Today was now the big day. Countless herds of Minoans from all walks of life were standing guard at their respective homes and businesses, waiting for the one the Gems called Zirconia to emerge from out of the horizon and make her next move. They were eager to see if she was actually going to turn up or not; even more so, the Minoans were eager to get their hands on their weapons and just jump into the fray already.

"Come on, you bitch," Papsukkal seethed quietly as she looked out her window. "I know you're out there. You better hurry up because we're about to show you how the Cretans fight... Yes, we'll show you firsthand!" She pounded her fist on the table as she said this.

"Is she coming now, Mother?" her daughter Rhea asked.

"Hold on now, my darling," Papsukkal assured her. "We just have to wait."

"How long?"

"I don't know, but it should be soon. I don't want all those weeks of training our bodies to their limits and refining our tools to have been for nothing, and I'm sure Pearl and Rose don't want that either."

"Ugh, for the love of Britomartis, I don't know how much more of this I can take!"

"Please don't test me, beloved daughter. I've already lost your father so far and I'm not about to lose anybody else."

"Well, it's not like things could get any worse for us."

Just as she said this, Zirconia crashed through the roof of their house and onto the floor. Rhea couldn't believe how convenient the timing was on that frightening coincidence.

"Ros Ma!" Rhea and Papsukkal cried together.

"I am Zirconia!" this significantly-powered Gem introduced herself. "Welcome to die!"