A Pearl woke up Rhodonite early, and this time, she wasn't forced into a long, billowing dress, instead, she was put in something like a black karategi. The Pearl refused to tell Rhodonite what they were doing, except that White and Yellow Diamond wanted to see her. She was lead to the gardens, surprisingly, and she was told to meet Yellow and White Diamond in the same clearing where Rhodonite saw the two sauropods fight. White was waiting in the clearing, she was wearing a long dress, but not as long as it usually was, about half the train size than her usual dress. Yellow Diamond was sitting on a rock holding a clipboard, obviously disgusted by the filth of the place, trying to shoo off birds and small primates that kept picking on her. She also had a holographic screen floating around her, and she tapped and fiddled with it occasionally.

White Diamond had that angelic look again, the sun beaming down on her white dress, skin and hair, making her have a strange radiance. She was fanning herself with two white fans with the design of a cherry blossom branch on both of them.

"Okay, that isn't weird at all...What do you want me for?" Rhodonite asked.

White Diamond stopped in her slow pacing across the clearing and stopped fanning herself. "Come closer..." She said.

Rhodonite stepped into the clearing reluctantly, getting closer and closer to White Diamond, Yellow watched the two intently.

"Fight me," White said calmly, closing her eyes.

"What?" Rhodonite asked.

"Do it," White ordered.

"If you say so..." Rhodonite mumbled as she quickly summoned her tomahawk and went for a downward strike to White's chest. White quickly opened her fans with a dramatic flapping noise and blocked the blade of Rhodonite's tomahawk. Rhodonite was stunned but focused on the task at hand. She noticed that the branch designs on White's fans quickly morphed into a snarling dragon, like the ink on the white washed away, then repainted into something else.

Suddenly, White disappeared from where she was standing, causing Rhodonite to almost fall over as her blade came down on thin air. She was confused, looking around frantically before getting grabbed and feeling the blade on White Diamond's seemingly metal fans press against her neck. White leaned over and whispered in Rhodonite's ear:

"You weakling, you fell right into my trap."

White Diamond and her fans disappeared from behind Rhodonite and appeared again out in front of her.

"What? How did you-" Rhodonite was discombobulated by the whole thing.

"It doesn't matter how. What matters is how well you do against me." White Diamond said.

"But you are like, a goddess, how am I supposed to-" Rhodonite began before White interrupted her.

"Anyone can be a deity if they see themselves as one," White replied. "Again."

Rhodonite went for a horizontal swipe to try and slash White's abdomen, but White leaped and flipped over Rhodonite's head, dodging the blow. Rhodonite turned around to see that White landed with cat-like agility, but backward, her arms spread out like wings. Rhodonite saw it as a chance and tried to stab her in the back, but White's arms quickly bent behind her back and the fans blocked the blow once again.

White Diamond turned her head slightly to look at Rhodonite. "Nice try, but it takes more than that to get me." White held Rhodonite's blade there with one fan, but took her other arm away. She turned around abruptly, but moved a considerable distance so that Rhodonite would miss her body completely, and she used her other arm to whack Rhodonite in the face with the closed fan in her other hand, shouting an aggressive, "Hy!"

"What was the random hello for?" Rhodonite asked, groaning in pain and rubbing at the bleeding cut on her face. She always was used to the Earth custom that "Hi" meant hello, not a sound made in martial arts.

"One more time, focus, fusion." White Diamond opened up the closed fan so both of them were open, she fanned her face while she talked to Rhodonite.

Rhodonite groaned. "Do I have to?"

"Yes, fusions are war machines, and have the potential to be strong warriors. The only way for you to be stronger is to work, now shut up and fight me." White Diamond growled.

Rhodonite caught a glimpse of Yellow watching the two, she looked stunned, which as strange since she never really had much of an expression on her face besides the same, cold, angry face. Rhodonite wasn't sure why she had that expression, maybe it was because she was impressed that she stood up to her superior, or White's aggressive tone.

Rhodonite and White bowed to each other, then got in the fighting stance. Rhodonite hated the Diamonds, she was just going to admit it to herself. There was thousands of years of rage and hate stored up inside her, and she tried to unleash it upon the White adversary who had an expression that laughed right at her for her weakness. Rhodonite tightened her grip on her tomahawk and tried to cut White open with her blade in a frenzy of articulated, precise attacks. White, however, was quicker, deflecting each hit with her fan, her whole arms moving quicker than Rhodonite had ever seen someone move before. After a while of hitting, Rhodonite decided it would be best if she knocked White's fans out of her hands. She aimed her next attack for White's wrist, and she just happened to catch her off guard. White exclaimed in pain and the fan flew out of her left hand and clanked onto the floor, much to everyone's surprise.

Yellow looked up and stared at the scene for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen. Rhodonite and White were both frozen, and it felt like time had frozen. Rhodonite's eyes were locked into White's, and suddenly, White broke the silence by closing her eyes and chuckling to herself. Rhodonite eased out of her fighting stance, wondering why White was laughing at her defeat.

White's eyes suddenly opened to reveal her icy blue irises, she then quickly flipped open her other war fan, teleported behind Rhodonite and held the blade of her fan to Rhodonite's neck again.

"You used the same move twice, one trick pony." Rhodonite jeered.

"Poor sportsmanship is not exactly honorable, fusion." White Diamond said before easing away and getting rid of her fans.

Rhodonite got rid of her tomahawk and rubbed her neck awkwardly as the two stood there facing each other. "Can I go now?"

"Of course, you can, I have things to do anyway," White said before leaving the gardens. Rhodonite expected Yellow to follow, but instead she got up and approached Rhodonite.

Rhodonite assumed the Diamonds were the kind of people who always gave people the creeps by getting uncomfortably close to them because this was the second time one of them had done that. Yellow clutched Rhodonite's chin, but she shook her hand away.

"Now what do you want?" Rhodonite asked.

"I need you to come and meet me at the throne room tomorrow night when the first moon is a quarter of the way across the sky," Yellow replied.

"Oh no, I'm not falling for it. You aren't getting me to come to your throne room just so you can drag me to your lab and do all kinds of weird experiments on me!" Rhodonite shouted before storming out of the gardens.

Yellow crossed her arms in frustration. "I'll have to think of something else instead."

Hello again!

Sorry if this took a little long...

Just to warn you, the first experiments are really not all that horrible/horrific, but painful for Rhodonite. But Rhodonite definitely hears of worse things from Blue and other Gems.

The worst, and best, is yet to come...