It was early morning in the Pink Stars base. Pearl considered herself lucky to have a room with a window. Not only that, she had a window seat where she could rest and think. Her window faced in-wards looking out over the base and the pink tower that was Pink Diamond's home. Pearl wondered if Steven was there now and what he was doing. Was he some experiment of Pink Diamond's? Or her pet? Did she keep him like a pearl?
Pearl frowned. She doubted he was mistreated or kept as a curiosity. He wandered in and out too much and fought too well to be a prisoner or ornament.
So what was he? She hadn't seen him since they dispatched the gem monster, and that had been a week beforehand. They'd talked using the communicator, but it was impossible to tell where he was. Somewhere dark and secret. Maybe he was afraid of Pink Diamond finding out he was talking to her.
Reaching for her gem with her mind, Pearl poked at the communicator. Where was he? What was he made to do? Every gem had a purpose. What was the purpose of an organic rose quartz that couldn't treat anyone? What did Steven do when he wasn't with Pearl? Did he treat Pink Diamond? Did Diamonds even need rose quartzes? And how had he even been made?
Pearl knew where she came from. She'd been born, been designated, and been given her gem.
Gems for organic-gems were pre-made. Rubies, garnets, topazes, every gem but sapphires were pre-made and sent to hospitals with obstetric wings. When a baby was designated a gem was placed on their skin by a sapphire, whose gloves kept the gem from reacting to her. They reacted to the life of the baby and the baby and gem bonded for the life of the child.
Pearl's gem would be hers until she died. Then when she died, an onyx would reclaim her gem, pound it down to particles and mix it with other pearls of her type to make new pearls that would start the cycle over. An organic-gem was never really gone, just shattered and spread across the many others of their gem-type that came after them.
Sometimes Pearl felt the others that had come before her in her gem. Men and women, pearls all, with different lives and different masters, encouraging her on, guiding her. That was one thing she knew natural-gems envied about organic-gems.
Did Steven have that? How had gotten his gem? Was he born with it inside him? Was he born? Or had he, like a natural-gem, sprung fully formed from the ground one day? How old was he? He looked like matched Pearl's nineteen, but if he was a natural gem, he could be hundreds or thousands of years old for all she knew. And if he was, it would be forbidden for them to be matched together? It was probably forbidden already.
"Connie!"
Pearl jumped in her seat and turned towards the door. Steven was pressed against the wall next to the door, pressing the lock button on the wall, with his hood low on his face.
"Steven? What are you doing here?"
"I have a gift!" Steven whispered. "It's for your first mission."
"I have a mission?" Pearl said with excitement.
"Shh-shh. I'm not supposed to be here. If the Stars catch me, we'll both have some explaining to do."
"Oh. Right! So what's that."
Steven hefted a bag of some kind up and smiled. "This is the famous cheeseburger backpack. I already adjusted the straps for you."
Pearl laughed. "A bag that looks like a cheeseburger? Only on New Homeworld."
"Right." Steven handed the bag to Pearl.
"Hey, Steven," Pearl said as she tested the weight of the bag. It was heavier than she thought it was going to be. "Do you have a job?"
"I… we all work for Pink Diamond's plan," he said with a laugh.
"You're Pink Diamond's rose quartz? Do you live in the tower?"
"Yea," Steven said, looking at the floor. "That's why I can't be around more."
"Does Pink Diamond know about me? Is this from you or her?"
Steven looked up. There was a blush on his face. "Connie. I should tell you. I have to tell you. Why you're here. I should have told you, but I didn't know how. How do you tell someone… I don't even want a Pearl, but they say I have to have one!"
A knock at the door captured both their attention.
"Con-con! Yo! It's Amethyst! You up?"
Pearl and Steven gasped. "Amethyst!" they whispered in unison.
"Steven, you gotta get out of here!" Pearl said in a hushed voice.
"The window. I'll float up to the roof, then run to the side of the building." Steven ran to the window, opened it and was gone before Pearl could say a thing.
Wishing Steven good luck in her mind, Pearl went to the door and unlocked it. It slid open with a soft swish and Amethyst stood there looking up at Pearl.
"Good," Amethyst said. "You're up and… where'd you get that?"
Pearl frowned in confusion. "The bag? It was just on the bed when I got out of the shower." A small lie, but it would put an end to things.
"Oh man. Wait until Garnet and Pearl getta load of this," Amethyst muttered.
#
"Pearl! Garnet!" Amethyst's voice bounced off the walls of the garage as she led Pearl to the van they were taking to the docks.
"Amethyst!" Rainbow Pearl snapped. "Please. You're setting a poor example for Connie."
"Oh-ho. You are going to freak when you see this, P. Lil' Pearl, show 'em what you found on your bed this morning!"
Connie shifted from foot to foot, then pulled the backpack off her shoulder and held it up. Rainbow Pearl gasped and Garnet shifted slightly.
"Where?!" Rainbow Pearl squawked. "Did you get that?!"
"Like Amethyst said," Pearl said. "I found it on my bed."
Pearl wished she knew what the big deal was. How could a bag shaped like food be such a big deal for the likes of the Pink Stars? Unless they knew where it came from. Was her friendship with Steven about to be exposed? No, Steven wouldn't be that foolish. Then why were they all panicking over a bag?
"Cah-razy! Right, Garnet?" Amethyst nudged Garnet's leg.
Garnet was silent for a time, then slammed her right fist down into her left palm. "It's time," she said.
"Time?" Rainbow Pearl, Amethyst, and Pearl said together.
"Pearl, you drive." Garnet pointed to the driver's seat. "Connie, you're in the back with me. Cheeseburger backpack showing up here means it's time to tell you a story."
"What kind of story?" Pearl asked. She considered that maybe she was about to be told about Steven and the hybrid project that had made him.
"The story of Pink Diamond Form 2," Garnet answered.
They piled in the van, Amethyst and Rainbow Pearl upfront and Garnet and Connie in the back among the tools and weapons. They were sitting cross-legged, facing each other, cheeseburger backpack between them.
"Really?" Pearl said and privately wondered if this new form could have children.
"But this new form was weak for a while," Garnet went on. "Weak and confused, with no memory of being a Diamond. Before Pink Diamond made the jump, she tasked us, her guard, the Pink Stars, with caring for her new form, and keeping it safe."
Pearl nodded.
"That backpack was one of Pink Diamond's favorite things while she was recovering from her form change. If she's given it to you, she must want you to know about her."
Casting down, Pearl took a breath. The backpack wasn't new. It wasn't even in that great of condition. It looked more like a toy, something an elite was privileged to have that had no purpose but amusement. A pearl generally never had something so useless it was on the whim of an owner. But it had been well taken care of, stitched where it needed to be, washed. This item was loved. And it was being given to her.
"I'm so grateful," Pearl said, looking up.
"You deserve it," Rainbow Pearl said from the driver's seat.
"Yeah, way to go, Conster!" Amethyst chimed in.
"Welcome," Garnet said. "to the Pink Stars."
#
They ended up at the docks. Not one of the docks for spaceships that were dotted around the forests near the base, but the docks for seafaring vessels. Pearl had never been on a boat before. She saw gems of all sorts, both natural and organic, running back-and-forth hauling shipments of rock and lobster, minerals and fish.
"What is all this?" Pearl asked excitedly.
"The sea-life is food for the organic gems," Rainbow Pearl explained. "The minerals are for the injectors to make more natural gems for the other Diamonds' colonies. New Homeworld and Pink Diamond's colonies don't have to strip their planet's resources to make natural gems, so they can outsource small amounts of important minerals and other resources to productions of natural gems going elsewhere. If it wasn't for colonies of organic-gems carefully managing resources on Pink Diamond's side of the Empire, natural gem's would have out-grown their ability to make proper natural-gems long ago."
"What would have happened then?" Pearl asked as they hurried past a huge cart of glittering black sand.
"We'd probably have to use technology to keep the natural-gem up to standard," Rainbow Pearl mused. "You see, say Amethyst was in any other Diamond's court. She'd have to wear limb enhancers to meet her height requirements. They'd make gems do that."
"Hmph," Amethyst muttered. "Like they could make me."
"Pink Diamond would never," Garnet said.
"And hopefully that'll never be the case," Rainbow Pearl went on. "As long as Pink Diamond lives and the organic part of the Empire thrives, the rest of the Empire will too. Pink Diamond is saving Homeworld from itself."
Pearl looked out across the harbor. It wasn't peridots and nephrites like on spaceship docks. There were topazes, jaspers, amethysts, agates, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. The whole cross-section of the empire was here working for Pink Diamond and they were keeping the rest of the Diamond Empire from eating itself alive with its ambition, keeping things in balance. Pearl clutched the straps of her backpack.
The Pink Stars owned a ship, but to Pearl's surprise they weren't taking a ship, but a submarine. It was a dark pink vessel which they all boarded, and Pearl found to be rather spacious. She sat down while Rainbow Pearl flipped some switches and turned some knobs. Garnet stood next to her, watching silently. Pearl was so busy watching Rainbow Pearl's steady work at the controls she almost didn't hear Amethyst sit down next to her.
"Hey, Lil' P," Amethyst said.
"Amethyst! Oh, hey."
"So, what's it like getting a gift from Pink D?"
"I… I don't know. I'm really excited. I just hope she likes me."
Amethyst snorted. "I'm sure she will." She put her arm behind her head. "Look about today. Don't freak out too much. This was Pink D's first outing too, and she was all 'waahhhh!', you know?" Amethyst shouted quietly and waved her hands gently at the sides of her head. "And she… heh, don't take this the wrong way, but there's a reason we're headed to the bottom of the ocean."
"Is where we're going not supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean or something?" Pearl laughed.
Amethyst winced playfully. "Uh, yeah. Basically."
Pearl stopped laughing.
#
It turned out their destination was a place called the Lunar Sea Spire, a former mission site for the weakened Pink Diamond. It might have been called the Sea Spire, but its current place, hovering inside an underwater vortex over a chasm, wasn't where it was supposed to be.
"How did this get down here?" Pearl asked as she gazed out the front window of the sub.
"Pink D was little… creative when she was recovering," Amethyst muttered.
"But now," Rainbow Pearl chimed in, "we have the perfect training ground for you!" Rainbow Pearl stood next to Pearl. "Now you haven't been given that bag for this mission for nothing. Cheeseburger backpack first came with us to this very site. Oh, Connie, there's so much history here! So, I want you to take the lead. Check your bag and make a plan to get to the top of the spire using the contents. Pink Diamond will have provided you with everything you need."
"First thing," Garnet said. "We have to get into the vortex without being sucked down into its depths."
Pearl nodded and slipped the bag off her shoulders. She placed it in the chair and opened it up. As if by magic, the very first thing she needed was lying on top, waiting for her.
"I've got it!" Pearl said.
"What is it?" Amethyst laughed. "A sweater?"
"What?" Pearl asked, confused. "What would I do with a sweater?"
"Never mind her," Rainbow Pearl sighed. "She was just thinking of one of Pink Diamond's jokes."
"Well it worked," Amethyst complained.
"Connie," Garnet said. "What have you got?"
Pearl pulled out a grappling hook and some rope. "This. We can anchor the sub to the rocks out here, then use Garnet's gauntlets to fire this into the vortex, attach it to the Spire. Then we can climb across."
Rainbow Pearl and Amethyst's faces were shocked. Garnet took the grappling hook in her gauntleted hand.
"Good work," she said.
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