Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spinel found herself wondering around her woods as she searched for the corrupted gems that frequented the area. This had been her every day since the diamonds attacked that fateful day, find one of the corrupted, fight them, poof them and leave them there to do it all over again the next day. It was the only thing that kept her going, she knew it was a little unethical, but she wasn’t a stranger to wrongdoing.

Though the numbers of corrupted gems had increased it was never really a problem for her, they were stupid, and she was overwhelmingly stronger than almost any gem on the planet. The real problem is when those gems attacked a village nearby, there were injured but she managed to finish the monstrous gem before they could do any harm. She didn’t know how the people would react, she didn’t interact with humans at all in her time there, but they seemed strangely grateful? Or maybe just grateful? She didn’t know, she wouldn’t know. After that she had taken the gem and a farming thing that she used as a weapon against the beast and released it on the furthest side of her forest, away from the village.

That was a few months ago now, at that point it wasn’t snowing yet. At this time of year, for some reason she didn’t know, activity from the corrupted gems almost ceased completely, the exception being the bigger ones. She didn’t mind this, the bigger ones always put on a better show than the others, plus she could enjoy her new weapon more, she thought it really complemented her. It had a weird shape, the blade went down for some reason and the handle was long, which was good because she could spin it around with ease.

As she walked, she noticed something on the ground, the snow was shaped like the paw of one of the gems she was looking for, this exited her to no end.

“Finally, I’ve been searchin’ for you all day…” She said with a smirk as she quickened her pace.

\-\-\

Garnet, arrived through the warp pad on the beach house, slowly making her way towards the couch were the other gems and Steven were.  She had visited a small village, her future vision had brought her there, but when she arrived, someone had delt with the corrupted gems already. The villager seemed very grateful but what concerned her who was this person that had successfully taken down the creature was. Sometimes a single corrupted gem could be a handful, and this one was described to her as big and very beastly. As for the stranger that manage to defeat said beast, the only thing she got was that they wore a hood.  There were not many people who she could think of that could take down a corrupted gem, but of those few there was one that came to mind instantly, and it terrified her, not for herself but for Steven.

“Alright gems, listen up, I found a village that is infested with corrupted gems, we must go and take care of this immediately and, sorry Steven, but you can’t come on this one.” She said, she knew that the boy would be disappointed, but it was for his own good.

“Aww, why not? I thought I had proved myself already…” He whined, he thought that it wasn’t fair, he thought that they finally trusted him.

“Because this mission is very dangerous because… there is a lot of them, but don’t worry Steven, I promise that on our next mission we will bring you a long.” She said with a tender smile.

Meanwhile the other gems knew there was something else going on, Garnet seemed… almost nervous and she is rarely like this. Both Pearl and Amethyst figured that she would tell them later when they leave.

Steven on the other hand was super disappointed, he wanted to go, but he knew it was dangerous and he didn’t want to break their trust by going while they were not there, so he decided he would sit this one out.

“Ok… but if there’s anything cool, can you bring it back for me?” He asked excitedly while he looked at Garnet.

“Sure, thing Steven, I’ll get you something.” She replied

And with that they said their goodbyes to the boy and headed out.

As they landed on the other portal, both amethyst and pearl looked at Garnet for an explanation, which she quickly gave.

“I think Spinel might be here…” She said bluntly, which prompted Pearl to gasp and Amethyst to raise a brow in confusion.

“Who the heck is that?” Asked the smallest gem of the group, not really knowing what they were talking about.

“She is a gem that belonged to Pink Diamond… she was one of the few survivors of the corruption blast, she hated Rose with a passion for…” Pearl lost her voice for a second, raising even more questions for Amethyst.

“That is way I didn’t want Steven to come, if she were to realize that he is Rose’s son, there is no telling how she would react.” Garnet finished as they started to walk towards the entrance of the village.

“Why haven’t I’ve heard of her before? And how come she hasn't tried to do anything against us?” Asked the purple gem.

“We did have an encounter with her… she almost got the better of us if it wasn’t for Rose… But that was years ago, you weren’t here yet.” The thin gem responded. This made the gem realize that they didn’t have rose here… What were they going to do if things went south? She hoped Garnet knew what she was doing. Even with future vision, Garnet had said that it was hard to get a read on Spinel, she was unpredictable.

As they got closer to the entrance the villager took notice of their presence and waved at them, they were welcoming of stranger as Garnet had found out earlier.  They weren’t there to interact though, they were just using the dirt road to get to the forest, since it was the only accessible way since the sides of the village where two mountains.

But before they could get there, three large, corrupted gems blocked their path. The gems quickly got into position to fight off the beast. All three of the corrupted gems looked similar, they walked on all fours, mad manes of hair, and their bodies were solid as a rock. They had delt with this type of gem before, they were very aggressive and equally strong, but they weren’t the brightest creatures. The one in the middle lunged first at them, but before it could bite down on any of them, Garnet managed to grab it by the face and lift its body off the ground to slam it as hard she could. This didn't poof the beast however and before either Pearl or Amethyst could finish it off, the other two pounced at Pearl, one pining her to the ground while the other tried to bite her. Amethyst was quicker though and stopped the beast from biting her by using her whip to grab it by the neck to pull the beast away. At the same time Garnet had made a dash towards the one that had pinned down Pearl and Punched it in the face, making the monster back off. Pearl quickly got up and summed her spear to fire at the creatures.

 As the battle against the beast raged on, a hooded figure lurked in the shadow, and she wasn’t very happy at what she was seeing, at who she was seeing…

“The nerve of those damned gems… but they are alone this time.”

The Gems were being pushed back a little, though they were starting to get the upper hand on the beasts once they puffed one of them.  The other two kept pouncing wildly however, it was more annoying than difficult for them but just before Garnet could punch one with all her might, a scythe flew across the road and impaled the monster, poofing it immediately. Before the scythe could fall to the ground a long arm grabbed it, shortly followed by the rest of their body. All three Crystal gems were stunned, but before anyone could say anything Spinel turned around and finished the other one. Using her arm to wrap it around the beast, she squeezed it until the gem poofed.

The magenta gem turned around to face them, a smirk plastered on her face. The crystal gems once again regrouped into a stance. Spinel Just laughed at their little show that they were putting on, she really liked a good performance.

“This is going to be fun… And this time it seems that rose isn’t here to spoil the fun! I can’t wait to collect your shards and show them to her.”

“We are Screwed…”

Chapter Text

“Yes, you are! I’ve been waiting a long time for this; I almost can’t contain my excitement to destroy you two into pieces…” She said, referring to Garnet and Pearl, which slightly offended Amethyst. Spinel was surprise to see another gem, she was sure she had not seen them before, but her hatred was for the fusion and especially the treacherous Pearl.

“Hey what about me!?” Yelled Amethyst at the magenta gem, who just chuckled at her.

“I need one of you alive… Who is gonna’ deliver my message to the “oh so powerful” Rose Quartz?” She responded, as she twirled her scythe around to show off.

“Listen, we don’t have to do this… We couldn’t have known that you were left stranded-” Before Garnet could finish her statement, Spinel cut her off.

“One of you did know…” She said in a low voice. Her eyes had started to spiral as she looked directly at Pearl which prompted the others to do the same. Pearl didn’t say anything and looked away in shame. Garnet had a neutral expression but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t at a loss for words, as for Amethyst, she had even more questions know.

“What is she talking about Pearl?” The youngest gem asked, not really catching on to what Spinel had said. Pearl didn’t know what to do, she just kept looking away.

“I’ll spill it out for ya’, she wasn’t just a renegade Pearl, she was the renegade Pearl, she was Pink Diamonds Pearl, she knew of me, she knew I was there and then she went on to shatt-”

“ENOUGH!” Yelled Pearl, she couldn’t handle it anymore.

“I didn’t think you were still up there and I’m sorry, I had forgotten about you… but we needed to take Pink out, she was going to destroy this planet, so please reconsider-”

“So, you forgot about me then? That’s… That’s something… That’s even worse than just leaving me there to rot knowingly! You left me there for more than a thousand years floating in tha’ middle of space! And you know what? Maybe she should have Destroyed this junk of rock, I would’ve been with my diamond happily by her side, instead I gotta’ live here in forest knowing that I can never be with her again!” She finished as she dashed towards the thin gem. Spinel swung her Scythe with all her might, but Pearl was quick enough to raise her spear and block the attack, even so the strength of their clash sent her flying back, colliding with a wooden structure.

Garnet quickly intervenes and tries to get a hit on the hooded gem, but they are too agile and ends up dodging all of them. Amethyst steps in to help Garnet, she swings her whip towards Spinel, grabbing one of her limbs and tries to pull her away. She manages to move her only a few feet in her direction before Spinel starts to spin wildly like a tornado, lifting the other off her feet and quickly throwing the smaller gem towards the sky. She then shapes her legs in the form of springs to chase the purple gem.

Garnet quickly aims upwards with one of her gauntlets and fires in their direction, but before her gauntlet got to far from her, she grabs on to it with her other hand to get to Spinel before she could catch up to Amethyst. She makes it just in time, right before Spinel was about to grab Amethyst and manages to get a hit from the back on the hooded gem. This launched the other further into the sky, leaving them midair. Garnet took this opportunity to grab Amethyst and land back down.

 As they landed, they quickly made their way and regrouped with Pearl on the ground.

“She is a lot stronger than she looks.” Said Amethyst, as she looked at the Sky once more, she could still see the gem up there, but it was just a pinkish dot, just barely visible. Suddenly the dot got larger, at first, they thought that she was falling but then they realized that she had made her fist gigantic and was about to fall on them.

“Everyone, move!” Said the tallest gem, as she and the others made a mad dash out of the area. Spinel’s fist collided with the ground, raising the snow, which blinded the crystal gems momentarily. 

As the cloud of snow disappeared, the crystal gems took in their surroundings once more, but couldn’t find the heart shaped gem. The only thing that they could see was the villagers, who were watching from behind stands and others were peaking behind corners. They kept searching for the hooded gem, but they didn’t need to search for much longer as pink arms popped out of the snow, one with her scythe in hand. Half of her head popped out as well so that she could better control her limbs.

Before any of them could react to this, she managed to grab Amethyst who she started to squeeze slowly but Pearl jumped on top of her hand and started pulling her fingers off the small gem. Spinel quickly moved her other arm, scythe in hand, and proceeded to stab the white gem on the back and then she proceeds to fling her off, poofing seconds later. Garnet saw this and decided to try and end this once and for all, going for the head, but before she could get to Spinel, she buried herself below the snow once more, leaving Garnet frantically looking around. Then she felt something hitting her on her back, the heart shaped gem had thrown Amethyst at her, but Garnet tanked the hit and grabbed Amethyst before she could hit the floor.

Spinel reemerged fully, her whole body was covered in snow, but she paid no mind to it, she just looked at the two remaining gems with a confident smirk on her face.

‘This will be over soon.’ She thought, a little disappointed that they didn’t put as much of a fight as she thought they would, though she did remember that last time it would’ve been the same, but that traitor had to intervene.

“Alright, what do we do Garnet?” Asked the purple gem, she had a feeling that they were not going to manage against the weird gem.

“I’ll distract her, try to grab her with your whip.” She said as she dashed towards the magenta gem. Though, strangely, Garnet noticed that Spinel had put her scythe and had inflated her fist to match her own in size.

‘Why?’

Garnet was the first to make a move, a punch straight at the others face, but she missed or rather Spinel dodge by flattening herself on the ground to spring herself back up so that she could uppercut Garnet, taking her off the ground. Before she could recover from the hit Spinel was already on her, though before she could fully reach her, Amethyst managed to grab one of Spinel’s feet, and dragged her back down towards th snow. As she landed, Spinel quickly got up and grabbed the whip to pull the purple gem towards her, but this time Amethyst let it go before she could be swept off her feet again. Garnet took notice of Spinel being momentarily distracted and dashed once more towards the gem, this time getting a clear hit on the others back. Due to the impact, she slid across the terrain but managed to maintain her balance.

“Urgh, you stupid fusion, I outta’-” Before she could finish Amethyst had grabbed her by the waist and pulled Spinel towards her, then she spin dashed towards the incoming gem. Before she could make contact however, Spinel caught her, slightly burning her hands in the process. She then let her go and kicked her down, sinking the others body fully in the snow.

Garnet tried once again to get a hit on her, but this time Spinel saw it coming and jumped before the other could get to her. In the air, she stretched her foot downwards, hitting Garnet square in the face, splitting her glasses in half.

“Your getting predictable, I despise predictability, how can someone who can see the future be so terrible at predicting? Or am I just too much for you?” She spat as she once again took out her scythe, preparing to deliver the final blow. Before she could however, Amethyst managed to get back up and dash towards the magenta gem. Spinel heard her coming, and turned around and sliced at her, but to her surprise the other managed to dodge her attack and landed a punch to her arm sending her back a few feet. Spinel, already fed up with all this ran towards them and wound up her scythe.

“Oh crap- GARNET!” Before Amethyst could even react, Garnet had taken the hit for her. Amethyst was speechless and Spinel couldn’t have felt any better.

“It looks like I’m the winner of our little game and now to finish-” Before Spinel could Grab the gems Amethyst used her whip to quickly grab both, after that she jumped back to grab Pearl’s, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.

“Looking for this?” She spoke up to get the others attention. Amethyst turned around and to her horror, Spinel had Pearl’s gem in her hand.

“Give it back!” The other screamed at her but Spinel ignored her cry and continued to speak.

“You know I was gonna’ shatter the other two and go after Rose, but why do that when I can… entice her to come to my neck of the woods. Don’t worry I’ll take good care of her.” She finished as she bubbled the pale gem and sent her off.

Amethyst tried to do something but as she moved forward Spinel kicked her back down.

“Ugh… No…”

“Don’t test me… don’t waste this opportunity, you’ll have your rematch later.” She said coldly and started to walk away.

Amethyst wanted to go after her so bad, but knew that it would be a bad idea, plus she still had Garnet, but how where they gonna beat her later?

“No time for this, I gotta’ move.” And so, she stood up and ran towards the warp pad.

They needed a plan.  

Chapter Text

It’s been a day since Spinel’s historic victory (That’s what’s she calls it anyway) over the crystal gems and since she acquired the gem of her most hated member of the team and to be honest, she is anxious, she almost feels like a fool. She had gotten better at fighting thanks to years of hunting down corrupted gems, but she was going to have to deal with the greatest warrior gem-kind had ever seen.

‘Rose…’  Saying the name brought chills all over her body. She had been the only gem to ever to completely dominate her in combat, she is lucky to be here today. There was a part of her however that was excited over their potential rematch, she was confident that she could squeak out a win and she wouldn’t be as merciful as Rose had been towards her…

Spinel found herself on her knees, hands harshly grasping at the humid soil beneath her, unable to look from the embarrassment of having been beaten by the gem that had taken everything away from her. She thought on how the universe was so cruel that it let this happen to her, this should have ended to her favor, she had defeated the others but couldn’t finish the job fully.

She could hear the other’s heavy footsteps as they drew closer to her, Spinel was just waiting for the other to get it over with. The other stopped right in front of her and Spinel shut her eyes awaiting her inevitable fate, but after a few seconds the other spoke to her.

“Spinel… you must leave…now.” Spinel’s face shot up; a look of confusion plastered on her face. As for Rose, her face looked almost compassionate for the smaller gem.

“I’m giving you another chance, now leave” she said a little angrier, Spinel couldn’t believe it… she was letting her go? She knew that Rose mostly poofed the gems that she knew wouldn’t join her and were a threat during the war, so why was she letting her go of all gems? Something about her aura felt so familiar to her but she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly.

She decided that now was not the time to think about this, so Spinel stood up and looked at the taller gem with a menacing glare before walking away. As she made her way out if the clearing that they were in she looked back to find no one there. This raised her anxiety even more and she darted out of there as fast she could, fearing that Rose was just messing with her but as she got to the warp pad, she realized that she wasn’t being hunted down.

After that she never returned to that beach, unless they crossed her, she would rather be as far away as possible. Though as the years pass, the thought of trying to raid them popped up a few times in her head, but she knew that she wouldn’t be a match for all three.

“But even with one of them down, it’s going to be tuff either way…” She said to herself, unconfident in her ability to be able to handle the three remaining. She then looked at the bubbled gem that floated close to the ceiling of the small cabin she had been staying at for a few years now. She couldn’t help but glare up at the pale gem, she hated her almost as much as she hated Rose.

Before she could finish that train of thought, she heard a scream in the distance someone screaming out in gibberish, or another “language” as she has come to know that that’s a thing apparently.

“It must be one of those idiots from the village…” She said as she stood up and went to grab her scythe from the corner of the room.  After her fight with the corrupted gem, she noticed that some of the villagers, mostly the younger once were stepping on her territory, which she was very annoyed at. Not only did she have to save them, (she wasn’t a heartless monster.) but she didn’t get to have time for herself now since it would be four to five idiots coming to the woods for some reason, she was genuinely thinking of gutting them all for their foolishness.

She signed to herself, it was going to be a long day, she suspected.

/-/-/

Minutes after the confrontation with Spinel…

Steven was laying on the couch, anxiously waiting for the gems to return. He had kept himself busy in the meantime by using his phone and watching adorable cat videos online. Though in his mind he couldn’t shake that something was wrong, the scene when garnet was talking about the mission kept playing in his head repeatedly, he realized that the generally stoic gem seemed almost panicked at something, she had probably seen something she deemed very dangerous, which wasn’t an often occurrence. That’s probably why she didn’t want steven to come with, even though he would have loved to go either way, he could see that maybe he would’ve just gotten in the way of whatever it was that they needed to do.

Suddenly the warp pad flashed to life, soon revealing a beaten down Amethyst holding to gems on her hands. Steven gets up from the c Amethyst walks towards Steven and face plants on the floor in front of him with a groan.

“Amethyst?!”

“I’m fine… dude.” She replies lazily as she rolls around to be face up and puts both gems in the coffee table. Steven looks at the gems and realizes two things, one, they look like Garnet’s gems, which he hadn’t really put together up until now that maybe Garnet is a fusion, but secondly and arguably more important is that Pearl is messing.

“Amethyst, where is Pearl?!” He asked, his voiced laced with concern for his guardian. Amethyst looked over to him and slowly starts to sit, she didn’t know to approach this at all. She looked at him for a few more seconds before responding.

“We fought another gem, she has Pearl and managed to poof Garnet…” She said as she then looked down at the floor, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t do anything.

Steven eyes grew wide at this, who was this gem? Why had they fought? Why is every gem they come across hate them? Was she the reason Garnet didn’t want him to go on the mission? This where all questions that were circling his mind, but one thought overshadowed the rest.

‘How are we going to get Pearl back?’ Steven stood suddenly after this, Amethyst gave him a look, confused on what he was doing.

“I’m going to find Pearl.” He declared, his success rate in talking to gems was about a fifty-fifty at this point, with Lapis being kind of a success, sure she didn’t like the gems, but she was willing to talk to him, maybe this mystery gem would do the same?

However, before he could take another step Amethyst grabbed him by the leg.

“Y-You can’t, she literally destroyed us… you just can’t…” She said as she clung onto him.

Though this did not waver his determination in the slightest.

“We can’t just leave her there! What if I could talk that gem out of it? You guys just always fight, and I want to try it my way!” He spoke, determined to go through with it, but the purple gem wasn’t having any of it.

“Can we at least wait until Rub- I mean Garnet reforms? Please?” She tried to aske as nicely as possible. Steven looked at her for a moment and sighed. He figured that it was probably a little dumb to just go at it alone. Plus, he remembered that there were a lot of corrupted gems close to that village.

“Ok… But seriously, we should try a calm approach.” He finished as he went back to the couch to watch over the two gems that sat atop the table.

“We’ll see…” She knew that Garnet was probably going to be completely against this, but really what could they do? It wasn’t like they wanted to go at the gem again, it just wouldn’t go well for them.

She just hoped that Garnet didn’t take to long to reformed, she really was getting anxious about Pearl being in the hands of that crazy gem.

/-/-/-/

“I can’t believe this…” She said through gritted teeth as she now held a man and 2 children under her arm. This was the second time today that she’s had to get someone out of her woods. She thinks that these people may have a death wish.

Though, she does question herself as to why she saved them, she could have let them be, but she just couldn’t, maybe she wasn’t as heartless as she thought.

‘Whatever…’

She was finally nearing the village, and as soon as she steps inside, she let the man and the children go. She tries to hurry back to the woods but one of the children calls out to her, or so she assumed, she didn’t understand a word that had left their mouth since she saved them, so she had basically ignored them the whole way there. As she turns around, she sees the three humans waving… goodbye?

‘Huh?’ It takes her a while to process what’s happening but as soon as she those she feels she should reciprocate the gesture, so she those just that. She lazily raises her arms up and waves back slowly. The children seem to get exited and start to jump out of joy.

“What is happening?” She asks herself as she keeps waving. She doesn’t understand, well she does, but she doesn’t, the point is that she hasn’t felt this before.

She can feel a smile forming but before that happens, she turns around and buries these weird feelings.

/-/-/-/

“Uh…” Awkward silence filled the room; Steven was looking at two other gems that he hadn’t seen before, though he had suspected since earlier that they were both of Garnet’s gems, he still couldn’t process what he was seeing. Before he could mutter a word however the two Gems start to glow, indicating that they are about to reform.

He looked on with stars in his eyes, curious on how the two gems were like. However, he wouldn’t get the chance to see them, at least not today as they started to fuse mid regeneration. Soon Garnet formed and landed on the table, her weight snaping it in half.

“Whoops.” She spoke looking down at her feet. She then looked around and realized where she was, back home. Before she could get a word out Steven had already jumped up at her giving her a big hug which she reciprocated.

“You’re a fusion?!” He asked a little too excited, but Garnet none the less gave him a genuine smile.

“Yes, but we’ll talk about later, Amethyst, where is Pearl?” She quickly asked the other gem in the room. Amethyst sat up again on the floor and looked directly at garnet with an unreadable expression.

“Ms. Slinky has her…” She replied, moving her head to look elsewhere.

Garnet stayed in silence for a few seconds, thinking on what to do until she felt steven tugging at her clothes.

“I think I may have an idea…”

/-/-/-/  

Spinel walked through the trees with a slight bounce to her step, she didn’t know why she was doing that, but she didn’t care either. She had been walking in circles for a while now, not really wanting to go home directly and maybe find a corrupted gem to fight. But she would have no such luck, there was no gem in sight, which is rare but does happen on occasion.

 Soon she got to her destination, her cabin, her… home. There wasn’t much inside, a chair and that’s about it. She had wanted to decorate but she thought it might be a waste of time. Plus, where would she get stuff to decorate? She was in the middle of nowhere and even though she had thought about stealing from the villagers she concluded that it was a bad idea, especially now.

Before she could open the door to her cabin, she heard something step on a leaf. She quickly turned around, laying her eyes on a human child that was just standing there. They looked different; she didn’t know why, maybe it was what he was wearing but he didn’t look like your typical joe from around here.

Before the kid could even get a word out, she dashed forward and grabbed him and put him under his arm.

‘Wow, so fast…’ Thought Steven as he now found herself being carried by the gem.

“Ugh, this is getting ridiculous. You people really want to get your head bitten off huh?” She asked to nobody since she was expecting the boy to not understand a word but to her surprise he did.

“Not particularly…” He responded.

“HUH?”

Chapter Text

As soon as Steven had been picked up by Spinel, Garnet and Amethyst had almost run towards them, but Steven gave them a look, indicating that he was fine and to not intervene. Spinel had stopped as soon as the boy spoke, this gave the other gems an opportunity to execute the plan. Garnet would keep an eye on Steven and Spinel in case anything where to happen, while Amethyst entered the rundown cabin to retrieve Pearl’s gemstone.

“You can speak Gem!?” She asked a little too loud, causing Steven to put his hands over his ears, Spinel noticed this and mumbled an apology.

“You mean English? A lot of people from where I’m from speak it…” He responded while Spinel looked at him dumbfounded.

‘Just my luck, I just had to pick a place where nobody speaks “English” or whateva’…’

She then started thinking while the boy talked about something, something about someone he knows or something. She ignores it and keep wondering how on earth did this child end up here? He just said that he isn’t from around here so how did he wound up in her part of the woods?

As her train of thought keep racing onward, her eyes started to drift over the boy, she had not been paying attention to him at all, but now there was something catching her eyes. His shirt, there was something about it that made her nonexistent blood boil, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. The boy must have realized that she was gazing at him like a hawk because he was trembling. Trembling at the Spirals that could be found in the gem’s eyes, swirling with a confused fury.

It wasn’t her intention to scare the small human but to be fair she hadn’t even noticed that he was terrified, she just kept looking at the shirt, the star…

“That Star…”

For a moment, the spirals that adorned her eyes had gone away when she realized what had garnered her attention but as quickly as her eyes had settled and she realized what she was looking at, they started to spiral out of control once again.

‘They are close…’ She thought to herself.

Spinel then roughly turned around with Steven still in her arms. She saw the cabin door had been opened, she guessed that both gems were around somewhere.

“You idiots really used a small human to distract me? My, my not only is this the worst plan that I have ever seen~”

She had been listening intently at her surrounding, she could hear light footsteps sneaking up behind her. She patiently waited until the other pounced at her and when it happened, she had already taken out her scythe and slashed at the taller gem, making the taller gem dodge out of the way.

“But you also forgot to change the human’s clothes. How can you be so stupid to think I wouldn’t recognize that symbol?” She spoke.

The boy was trying to escape her grasp, but she had a strong hold on him. She didn’t know what exactly was going on, but she wasn’t stupid, she knew that they were using this kid as bait, to lure her away from the cabin. How low can you go, really? And she thought she was messed up. The child was talking but she wasn’t really listening, she had her eyes set on the fusion, she was so unbelievably angry and part of it was because they used a kid against her. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much, she should realistically hate them, but they really didn’t do anything wrong.

“Let him go Spinel… he didn’t do anything.” Said Garnet, taking Spinel out of her thoughts. Steven tried to calm everyone but before he could get a word out Spinel spoke up.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt him, I’m not one to go as far down as you gems.” She replied furiously.  

Garnet realized that Spinel probably thought that Steven wasn’t part of the crystal gems, that he was just some kid that they brought to play a part while they retrieved Pearl’s gem. This was good and bad, in the sense that Spinel wasn’t going to hurt Steven since she seems to have formed some sort of relationship with the natives of the area, probably warming her up to the idea of being around humans. The bad thing was that she was probably going to do her best to protect Steven, and Garnet knew that they had little chance to beat her, even one limb down.

Before she could act or speak however, Amethyst had jumped in to try and snatch Steven from her, but Spinel moved quickly out of the way. Amethyst had Pearl’s gem still in the same bubble that Spinel had made, she quickly tapped it to send her away to the temple to release her later.

“Well, well, it seems that almost all have made it to the party, except for Rose… I guess her pearl isn’t as important as she makes herself out to be.” She said, giving a quickly laugh at her comment. Amethyst and Garnet stood together and took a stance, so did Spinel very eagerly, waiting for their next move on her.

“Can we all just calm down for one second?” Asked Steven getting tired of being ignored. Spinel finally looked at him directly waiting for him to speak, which caught him off guard for a moment,

“I can explain. They didn’t use me to lure you out… It was my plan…” He admitted.

“What?!” She said dropping him down to the ground.

“Yeah… Sorry about that… My name is Steven Universe, and they are my family…!” He said, pointing at them.

Spinel looked back and forward between the gems and the boy in complete confusion.

“That doesn’t make any sense! How can a human be family with gems? Gems can’t make offspring, that- I don’t understand!” She exclaimed, dumbfounded by what the boy had said.

Steven scratched the back of his neck awkwardly looking at the pink gem in front of him, who now wanted answers.

“Well, you’d be surprised…”

‘Tha’ heck does that mean? Ugh, concentrate!’

It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter that yet another being played with her just now, it doesn’t matter what that child is talking about, all that matters is she getting back at the crystal gems.

And if the human child stepped in the way, so be it.

‘You could use him as hos- ‘

‘No, I’ll try to avoid him as much as I can, hopefully they understand that staying out of my way is the smart move.’

“Get out of my way.” She pushes Steven out of the way not to hard but hard enough, so he stumbles on his feet and falls to the side. Spinel reaches for her scythe that was on her back and pull it out. Garnet and Amethyst then take out their weapons and run around the pink gem, one on the left and one on the right to be exact.  Garnet dashed towards the gem, and she dodge but at the same time, Amethyst’s whip caught her by her waist. Before Spinel could react to this Garnet grabbed the whip and used it to conduct electricity from her gauntlet, shocking Spinel in place. After that, Garnet went up to her and punched her as hard as she could sending her straight through a few trees.

“Wait guys, we can still talk-”

“No Steven, if she where to find out who you are, she wouldn’t be as forgiving as she was to you just now… Just stay there.”

Garnet immediately dashed off to where Spinel was leaving Steven’s side.

Spinel quickly got up one her feet, the hit from garnet didn’t really do much damage thanks to her elasticity. She then saw the fusion running full speed towards her, instead of dodging this time she decided to stretch her hand until it was big enough to completely cover the other’s form.

Garnet tried to dodge but Spinel’s fingers stopped her from doing so, as they wrapped around her arms and legs.

Amethyst quickly appeared and tried to untangled Garnet, but the force of the pink gem’s grip was too strong for her. The hand slowly started to swallow her hole, before it did though she signaled to Amethyst to go back to Steve.

A few seconds later Spinel crushed the fusion’s physical form leaving her gem in her palm. Amethyst ran back towards Steven to protect him; it was the only thing on her mind.

But Spinel was done with this, she was done waiting, she was done playing games, so she swiftly took care of the purple gem collecting yet another gemstone.

Steven looked horrified at the gem and what she had done, she almost felt bad, but it didn’t matter what connection he had to the gems she needed to do this.

Now the question was what to do with him, she knew that he wouldn’t survive out here with her, not that he would want to stay with her anyways. But a little plan started to form in her mind.

‘I could use him to lure out Rose… the human won’t get harmed and…’

“I’ll win this time…” She whispered to herself with a sickening smile plastered on her face which further terrified the young boy.

“Well bud’, I guess I’m taking you back home~”

Chapter Text

The warp pad chimed at their arrival, she held the boy by his hand, she didn’t feel great doing this but she, in her mind, had no other option. She didn’t care if she didn’t see the end of this day, she just wanted to end this once and for all. While she wished she could say that she could handle Rose, she, even now after all this time had her doubts. Maybe she would get closure on all of this.

‘Maybe I don’t have to suffer anymore…’

She looked around the room that surrounded the warp pad that they were standing on. It looked like a human building which was odd to her, but Rose seemed almost obsessed with the idea of humans, it was strange to her still. On one of the walls, she saw a painting of her, she wanted to rip it apart so bad, but she didn’t want to cause a scene, not right now anyway, there was no point if the real one was close.

She stepped out of the pad and looked through the window, she saw the planets orange star very slowly submerge itself into the water. Of course, she knew that wasn’t what was happening, but she like to imagine that’s what it was. She had to admit it was an impressive sight to witness.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Asked the young boy looking up at the gem. Spinel looked at him for a moment, had he read her mind?

“I-I, yeah I guess so…” She said as she quickly turned around to walk somewhere else.

Steven looked at her as she approached the door to the temple that had gone unnoticed when they arrived. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her; it was clear that his mom had done something to anger this gem greatly. Though she didn’t seem evil, she was very scary, he thought on how the pink gem would react to her mother being gone. Would she hurt him over it? Would she think that I’m her? He didn’t know and wasn’t to keen on finding out, but he knew that it was an inevitable confrontation.

Spinel passed her hand over the door; she didn’t really know why she did it, but she guessed it was curiosity.

Then she turned around to face the boy, who flinched at the speed in which she had turned around. She looked at him dead in the eye, the waiting around was getting on her nerves, even though it had been maybe two minutes since they arrived there.

“Where is she?” She asked to which Steven fidgeted awkwardly in his place, not knowing how to approach the situation. Spinel just looked at him expectantly, but he wouldn’t say anything, he didn’t know what to say.

“It doesn’t matter, she will arrive soon enough.” She said confidently as she walked to the middle of the room. She crossed her arms and looked at nothing as she went over possible scenarios of what could happen when Rose arrives.

Steven on the other hand was trying to speak but words would not come out of his mouth. It felt like as if there was something in his throat that wouldn’t let him speak to her, probably since this was also a tough subject for him. He was always compared to his mom, whether it be positive or negative it still annoyed and frustrated him, he sometimes felt as if he wasn’t his own person.

So instead of taking the direct approach of just saying she doesn’t exist anymore, he decided to question her about his mother. Maybe this would answer some question of his, he knows that the gems hide things from him, so why wouldn’t they about his mother and her past? Maybe Spinel knew things that the gems would never tell him, he knew there was some conflict, but he didn’t understand the full scale of it, who better to ask than someone who was there and wasn’t biased towards Rose? Well… unbiased in the sense that she wouldn’t be afraid to speak negatively about the leader.

Honestly all he craved was to get a better picture of how things came to be and maybe get her to understand him, understand that he is himself.

“So, uh… How did my mo- Rose and you...? I mean… what happened between you two?” He asked hesitantly.

Spinel’s face snapped from looking at the floor to glaring at Steven. Honestly the question caught her by surprise, did he not know anything about it? Well, it made sense, he seemed young, maybe they hadn’t told him about it yet.

“What happened? What didn’t happen? Is because of her that lil’ ol’ me had to spend more than a thousand years in a floating rock in the middle of space. It’s because of her that me and Pink Diamond where separated. Then s-she shattered her…It’s her fault that the war happened in the first place, everything is her fault!” She yelled as she walked back and forward, yanking at her pig tails.

‘My mom… shattered someone…’ He didn’t know what to feel at the revelation, he guessed that it made sense that at some point in a war someone would get shattered whether it be on accident or not. Steven was conflicted, he felt somewhat disappointed at the thought of his mother, who until this point was described as nearly perfect, shattering someone. Yet he didn’t know the details of it so he guessed that he shouldn’t draw any conclusions just yet, though he was hopping that she had been forced to do such a thing.

Before Spinel could continue her rant, Steven managed to ask a question.

“Who is Pink Diamond?” He asked.

Spinel stopped all movement and snapped her hole buddy towards him. Her expression had changed from anger to adoration at just the thought of her former leader.

“She was one of the four Diamonds that ruled over all gem-kind, I was lucky to be her best friend and trusted companion! She was funny and kind, sure she could have a bit of a temper from time to time but who doesn’t…” She answered, sadness suddenly filled the gem as she thought on what to say next.

“The last time I saw her was in her garden… we never got to finish our game…” She finishes as she looks down to her feet in sorrow.

‘The garden? Game?’

Before Steven could get a word in Spinel continued.

“When I found out about her shattering, I felt something I had neva’ felt before, I needed to find the filth that had separated us, those so-called Crystal Gems… It fueled me, that unknown feeling, to keep going, to destroy everything that was in my path just so I could shatter Rose myself, but I could neva’ get close, she always had backup, until… I finally had the chance to do it, but I failed, but instead of finishing me off she just- She just let me go! She knew how much more that would anger me, she- she must have known!” Spinel stumped on the floor, completely breaking it in the process as she continued to blow off steam.

Now Steven was worried, she really hated his mother, what should he do?

Spinel’s eyes had started to spiral out of control again. While she kept dragging Rose’s name through the dirt, she started to throw things around the house. She hated Rose so much, even looking at that stupid painting was making her photons burn with anger. So, she decided to break it as well.

But before she could do this, the boy put himself in-between the painting and her fist.

“Tha’ heck is ya’ doing? Get out of the way will ya’?!” She barked at the boy, but he didn’t budge.

“I can’t let you destroy that…” Was his response, Spinel raised a brow in confusion, anger still very much present.

“Because it’s… she is my mom…” He said lowly, almost whispering. Spinel on her end didn’t understand what that meant.

“She’s your what now?” She asked, dropping her fists to her side.

Steven started to sweat a little, how the hell was he going to explain this? He didn’t even know how it all works himself! But he guessed that he had danced around the subject for far too long at this point.

“Well, she gave birth to me… she and my father made me, I’m half human half gem.”

Spinel was bewildered by his claim, she couldn’t wrap her head around how what he said works.

‘Also, what is a father?’

“I-I don’t understand. How did she make you? Gems can’t make other gems! Unless you were made in a Kinder Garden… but your also human? Wait…”

The gears in her head started moving, she remembered those humans she saved earlier… Was that what he meant? Was he a direct offspring of Rose Quartz? But that still didn’t make any sense to her.

‘Unless this “Father” he mentioned had something to do with it…’

Now another thought crossed her mind. This human or rather half human must be very important to her… More so than she originally thought...

‘Maybe I should-’

‘No, no h-he didn’t do anything, it’s not his fault…’

“Spinel?” The boy called out, pulling the gem out of her thoughts.

“Huh?”

“She isn’t coming… she never was…” He said to Spinel’s shock.

She felt something twist inside of her, the thought of her not coming back, even though she didn’t fully understand what he meant yet.

‘He must be lying…’

Then Steven did something that shattered her world, something that proved without a doubt that she wasn’t coming back, no matter how much she screamed and cried.

He lifted his shirt to reveal Rose’s gem.

Spinel looked at It for a while not understanding what she was looking at… she knew the gem that was there but what un earth those this mean? Is he Rose? She quickly discarded that, he was weak, he was smaller, he was a human… with a gem?

“W-wha… I don’t- I don’t understand this at all!” She said as she feared the words that might come out of the small human.

But she needed to know.

“She gave birth to me,  but to do that, she had to give up her physical from… I’m sorry, she doesn’t exist anymore.” The boy was fighting back tears, it still hurt talking about it, he felt guilt, always.

Spinel was trying to keep herself together, this couldn’t be happening to her. This has got to be a cruel joke. What was she supposed to do know? She had waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited

                                                               and waited

                                                               and waited

                                                               and waited

                                                               and waited

                                                               and waited

End of chapter 1.

Chapter Text

Spinel, to Steven’s horror, had started to snap, physically and mentally, her limbs twisted in very unnatural ways, even for someone with her set of abilities. Her whole form was changing in size rapidly, each limb either turned small or super large, there was just no consistency to her form, causing her to hit the walls roughly on occasion.

Steven took a few tentative steps forward to try and maybe snap her out of whatever he was witnessing. He stopped a few inches away from Spinel, he knew that he needed to speak but the words wouldn’t come out.

“Spinel…” He whispered, almost inaudible but this did grab the gems attention.

Her limbs suddenly stopped moving, it looked as if she was frozen in time. Steven keeps her eyes on her, he was unsure of what was about to happen, but he was certain that this wouldn’t end well for him.

Suddenly her head started slowly twisting in his direction, making him take a step back.

“You…” She said with a level of hatred that Steven had never heard before.

Steven kept walking backwards, towards his gem room as Spinel slowly followed. She looked like she was about to pounce, there was a crazed look in her eyes, she didn’t want to hurt him… but she couldn’t restrain herself from what she was doing, she wanted to, but she didn’t, and she wasn’t strong enough to stop herself anymore.

She looked at him and it reminded her of Rose, but he didn’t, it was so confusing, he wasn’t her. She needs-

‘Stop it- don’t – I need to stop…’

Her from started to restore itself, her limbs started to retract to where they should be, and she slowly started to calm down.

“Spinel-”

“DON’T- Don’t, you’ll make it worse…” She said quickly, shaking from her own dark thoughts.

Steven did not speak, but he did try to get closer to the gem that was now standing on the warp pad.

But before he could she warped away leaving Steven alone.

/-/-/

As soon as Spinel got to the warp pad that was next to the village, she shaped her legs into springs and flew off into the forest, landing near her abandoned cabin. She quickly ran inside and slammed the door shut and she just plopped on the ground.

‘What do I do now?’ She thought as she laid in the middle of the cabin’s floor, unmoving, uncaring. She just wanted it all to end.

She had nothing now. No one to love, no one to hate. She was in possession of the others but not even the thought of torturing them give her any satisfaction. What would it matter if she hurt them, Rose wasn’t here to suffer for them.

She had always felt alone, even back when the gem war was at its peak and she had a small group of “friends” (Well…more like two gems…) she never really was open with them, she felt like she couldn’t trust anyone, and she never knew why. Nobody had betrayed her, but she felt… abandoned. She regrets never being open to those two…

‘But none of this matter, why bother thinking about it…’

/-/-/

A few minutes after Spinel left Steven went inside the gem rooms, more specifically the burning room, where all the poofed and corrupted gems where stored. He quickly went over to a specific bubble with a familiar oval shaped gem. It was a little far up for him and took him a few jumps to get to her, but he finally managed to do it and quickly popped the bubble to let the gem out.

Soon enough the gem started to reform, but this time no changes were made to her physical form like last time. As soon as her feet touched the ground she summoned her weapon and took aim at nothing.

She frantically looked around until her eyes landed on Steven. She quickly got on her knees and hugged the boy tightly who quickly reciprocated back. She then pulled back from their embrace and grabbed him firmly on the shoulders with a worried expression.

“Did she hurt you?” She said as she looked everywhere for any sighs of Spinel touching her baby, but to her surprise there was no bruises or mark on him.

“She didn’t hurt me… Pearl I-I… told her about what happened to mom.”

Pearl’s eyes grew wide with worry, she was surprised that Steven was even alive.

“What?! What did she- how did she react?” She asked, concern present in her tone.

“Her body started to twitch uncontrollably… and she seemed like she was going to do something but she just stopped…” He responded.

Pearl was very worried about this hole situation, did Spinel understand that Steven wasn’t Rose? Would she return to do something to her child? Many questions invaded her mind until she realized the lack of presence from the others.

“Where are Garnet and Amethyst?!” She asked even more concerned now.

“Spinel has them… we got to get them back!” He declared.

Pearl thought about it for a moment, she didn’t want to put Steven in even more danger but leaving him alone was probably worse… there would be nobody to protect him if Spinel were to come back.

“Alright, I guess we should go now…”

/-/-/-/

Pearl ran as fast as she could through the forest while also not letting Steven get too far behind her. She was nervous to say the least, she knew she stood no chance, and an angry Spinel was not gonna make things any easier.

She felt awful for the gem, she had to admit that it was partially her fault for not remembering her, she could have prevented all of this and she knew that things from here on out would get worse. She knew she couldn’t keep Pink’s secret forever… Well, she could but she didn’t now if she wanted to do that for eternity.

It was a very complicated situation that she found herself in because of Rose’s mistakes and her own, but she guessed that it was better to concentrate on the present rather than anything else right now.

Soon enough Pearl barged in through the front door of the cabin, taking it off its hinges. To her surprise it seemed to be empty apart from two bubbles that floated in the air. She walked slowly towards the bubbles, still feeling uneasy about being inside the small building. It almost felt like she was being watched.

Before she could dwell on It further Steven made it to the door frame, completely out of breath.

“Pearl-”

“Stay there… it might be dangerous…”

As soon as she finished her sentence she heard someone scoff from above. She quickly looked up, only to see darkness, but slowly two magenta orbs appeared, staring intently at the gem below.

To say that Pearl was a bit panicked at the moment was an understatement, but she stood her ground waiting for the others potential attack, but what came instead was a question.

“What do ya’ want?” The pink gem asked annoyed, she had heard them running here and she had decided that she didn’t really want to show herself, especially to him.

“We came for the others, give them up or else.” Pearl said in an intimidating tone.

Spinel proceeded to chuckle at the other gem, after a few seconds of this, suddenly her arms shot off from where she was on the ceiling and grabbed Pearl’s spear. Pearl held on, which is what Spinel wanted and she slammed her against the wall where the other crystal gems where.

“Pearl-”

“I’m ok Steven.” She said while holding her head.

“Take them…” The gem on the ceiling said to the other two’s surprise.

“Wha-”

“I said grab em’ or I’ll shatter you both…” She replied her eyes starting to spiral.

“And don’t ever come back here again I want nothin’ to do with ya’ gems ya’ hear me?!” She yelled loudly shaking Steven to his core. He had never heard someone so angry before. Pearl quickly tapped both gems just to be safe, and quickly dashed out of the cabin while grabbing Steven from the ground.

As soon as they disappeared from Spinel’s view she dropped down from the ceiling and landed sitting down. She looked tired; it was the first time in eons that she had felt this way… She was always energetic but today she doesn’t even feel like moving which is concerning since she despises staying still for too long.

She still does, but she’s so out of it that she would rather endure the pain of staying still and silent like when she was in the garden all those years ago.

She then started to cry, she didn’t know exactly why but it didn’t matter, she didn’t matter, she always knew this, she was an utter failure. Maybe if she had tried sooner to destroy Rose, but she was a coward and when she finally gathered the courage to try again, she wasn’t even there anymore.

What was left was some child…

‘Some stupid, stupid child!’ She thought as she grabbed her face and started clawing herself.

Before she could continue to torture herself physically and mentally, she heard a scream. She quickly got up from the floor at what she assumed was cries for help. She almost bolted out of her cabin on instinct, but she stopped herself.

‘Was it really worth it? This would change nothin’’

The screamed continued it was getting harder for her to ignore, she wanted to go so bad, until she gave in. She couldn’t just stand by; she had gotten so used to tending to these humans that it was almost part of her at this point. At first it was annoying, but she had gotten into a routine that she couldn’t possibly break now.

‘Maybe it is meaningless, but even if it was, maybe I can give it meaning.’ She concluded.

Maybe she had found a new purpose, much like her diamond before her.

Chapter Text

A few weeks after her last encounter with the Crystal Gems, Spinel found herself in the middle of the village after another successful rescue. Before she could return to her cabin however, the people that she had helped earlier had dragged her on to what she imagined was a celebration of some kind. There where people everywhere which made her anxious at first, but she managed to keep it together. She saw people dancing, talking, drinking, it was all very strange and very new to her as she had never witness something like this. People tried to talk to her but evidently, she didn’t understand a word, but that didn’t deter them from trying to get Spinel to try different foods and drinks. At first, she was hesitant, but she eventually caved in and tried the foods and she had to admit, they tasted amazing, though she wasn’t a huge fan of the drinks they had as the majority had a bitter taste to them. She noticed that the humans really liked it however, though they would always be the ones that would later fall on their faces, making Spinel question what the heck was in those cans.

After the party the humans had thrown, she started to make her way to the cabin. She felt refreshed, she hadn’t had this type of fun in so long, and even though she really didn’t understand why they had invited her, she was grateful that she got to experience it. Even though she couldn’t really consider them close to her she still valued that they had tried to include her, not many people in her lifetime had done that for her.

That is why she had to be better.

She had started to bubble the corrupted gems instead of letting them go after poofing them, she knew that after she finished bubbling every corrupted gem around the area she would be of no use to these people, but she didn’t want to think about that right now. She just had to do it, she couldn’t let those gems around, causing harm just so she could have her selfish little game.

She was done with games, she just wanted to live for once, to move on.

‘There is nothing to stay put for anyway…’

/-/-/-/

Steven and the Crystal Gems watched over the village where Spinel found herself with the humans, which was surprising to everyone. The Crystal Gems didn’t know what to make of it, though Garnet knew that she had been saving humans, she had thought it was because she didn’t want anyone in her space but this? She hadn’t seen this coming.

‘Unpredictable as always…’ The fusion thought to herself as she kept looking at the human’s offering food to the gem.

As for Steven, he was happy for the gem, but couldn’t help but feel bad that Spinel probably hated him. He imagined that she thought that it was his fault that Rose wasn’t around. She could never get her revenge because of him. He wished she could talk to her, but the gems would intervene, and Spinel doesn’t seem like the most stable gem, so who knows how she would react to seeing him again.

‘Hopefully you’ll give me a shot to change your mind and maybe we could even be friends!’ He thought enthusiastically.

Though there was something that bothered him, he had asked the gems about what Spinel had told him, about his mother shattering a so-called Pink Diamond, but the gems didn’t answer his questions, even more worrisome was that it looked like Pearl was a few seconds away from a heart attack.

Something he also found very odd was that the gem in question always brought her hands to her mouth, almost as if she wasn’t in control of them, which he found disturbing to say the least.

Maybe he should speak to Spinel again, but he would have to do it when they weren’t around.

One week Later…

Spinel was sitting on the floor of her cabin, illuminated by the soft glow of the bubbled gems above. She held a rock in her left hand and her scythe in the other. Her weapon had recently started to wear down and she was trying her best to sharpen it once more but to little success since she didn’t know a proper technique to do it. This frustrated her to no end, so she just put the rock and her weapon at the wall until she could either figure it out later or get a new one.

‘Maybe they have one in the village that I can grab…’

She slowly stood up and made herself to the door. She opened the door to realize that it was pitch black outside and that she would need to use her gem to illuminate the path. As she walked through the darkness of the forest, she started to hear a light rustle to her side.

It couldn’t be a corrupted gem, no, it sounded too small, and it definitely wasn’t one of the villagers, they tend to avoid coming here now and if one was around they wouldn’t be hiding.

She abruptly stopped for a second before she spoke.

“I know you’re there, come out or else.” She stated menacingly.

There was a period of a few seconds where there was only silence, until the ruffling started to sound closer and closer to finally reveal the person she least wanted to see.

“Uhm, hi…” The boy awkwardly waves at her, meanwhile she just looked at him, not knowing what to do.

“I thought I made myself clear, did I not? You humans really don’t enjoy livin’ do ya’?”

“Y-Yeah I know what you said… but I just wanted to know more about what happened in the war you told me about…”

Spinel looked at him for a few seconds, she was enraged inside but knew that she wouldn’t do anything about it, so instead she just kept walking to the village.

“No.” She answered plainly as she walked.

“Wait-” said the boy as he stumbled to her side.

‘This kid is so annoying…’

“Look, there isn’t much to say. I was waiting for my diamond so we could finally finish that stupid game, then I get word that she has been shattered. Angry, I got to earth to try an avenge my friend and for the better part of a thousand years I fight mostly alone trying to get to Rose but, in the end, I failed… and here we are now, stuck on this rock forever with some kid annoyin’ me and asking me questions about personal stuff.” She said, quickening her pace to try and make distance between the two but Steven just kept catching up to her.

“Ok, sorry about asking, but I do have one more question… What kind of game were you playing with your diamond?” He asked innocently.

Spinel halted for a moment, she felt discomfort at the question, it brought her bad memories. The stillness, the silence, it was all so unbearable, but she wasn’t about to let him see how vulnerable she really was.

“It… It was a waiting game, I needed to stay still until she came back… looking back at it… Pink really did come up with some of the most boring games… Ha… If only she had come back… I knew that there was something wrong when she started to take too long. I should have been there for her…”

After hearing Spinel, Steven couldn’t help but feel uneasy at what he just heard, it didn’t sound like a game, it sounded more like a child being abandoned by their mother. He wouldn’t dare to speak his mind though, Spinel was still unpredictable, and he didn’t want to risk anything.

Meanwhile Spinel, as they walked to the village and facing away from the boy, couldn’t help but shed a few tears. She was frustrated, she felt that she was missing something, that there was something she wasn’t seeing. She felt that she had done something wrong and it’s something that has been eating at her for millennia. For now, she would just have to burry these feelings, until she figures out what is wrong with her.

figure out why sometimes she hates her too…

After a few minutes of walking Steven decides to speak up once more.

“So, where were you going?”

“I think it’s obvious…”

“But why are we going there?”

“First of all, can you stop with the questions? Secondly there is no we there is only me. The only reason you're still alive by my side is because I don’t like hurting innocent people, but you’re sure making me want to break that rule.”

Steven audibly gulped but kept walking beside her. He at least was relieved that the gem saw him as his own person, it was refreshing to say the least.

They both walked in silence until they reached the village. The sun was already coming out, making it easier to see where they were walking. There was no one outside it seemed, the lack of activity made Spinel uneasy, but she understood that they hadn’t left, they were probably still asleep.

“Why do you do it?” Asked Steven out of nowhere.

Spinel halted for a moment she was about to tell him to can it, but she stopped herself in confusion.

“W-What? Do what?” She asked a little self-conscious. Was she doing something weird? Something wrong?

“Why do you help them? I thought you didn’t like humans.”

“Ugh, can it why don’t cha’?!  Don’t you have somewhere else to be? With your friends?” She replied, getting quite irritated.

“They aren’t at home right now and… I really wanted to talk to you… Since you seem to know a lot about my mom, and I guessed that maybe you could give me some answers…”

“So, you came to me, the gem that probably hates her the most?” She asked, baffled by what he said. Before the other could speak, she opened the door to a small shed where farming tools where stashed.

“Well… It doesn’t hurt to have more than one perspective… Also, are you stealing?” He asked with a raised brow.

Spinel turned around with a newer scythe on her hands, she then proceeded to quickly put it away in her gem.

“No… Well- They don’t mind it… It doesn’t matta’ alright?” She answered as she walked past him and the door frame. “And talking about perspective, I think I’ve been more than crystal clear, so why don’t you leave me alone?!” She yelled at him, her patience with the boy was about to run out. 

“Well that’s not the only reason I came here, I wanted to see if we could be friends.” He replayed innocently.

As soon as Spinel heard the word friend, her head snapped around to face Steven.

“Friends?! Why the heck would I be friends with you? Your creator or whateva’ shattered my best and only friend- “

“But-”

“SHUT IT! I would rather be shattered than to be friends with any of her friends and even more so with you. I don’t care if you aren’t her, every time I look at you, I hate you and Rose even more, so do yourself a favor and get out of my Sight!” She snapped at the boy who was now backing away.

“I-” Steven tried to speak but was cut off by Spinel jumping away into the air.

‘Well, I guess that confirms whether she hates me or not… I’m not giving up just yet though.’ He thought to himself as he saw the gem plummeting down into the forest.

/-/-/

Spinel was stomping through the woods angrily, she hadn’t felt this angry since she got the news on what happened to Rose.  She couldn’t believe the nerve on that kid, coming up to her being all friendly and such. Worst of all was him saying he wanted to be her friend, she didn’t know whether to cry, punch a tree or scream. How dare he ask her for friendship when his mother was the one who took her friendship with pink away.

But deep down she knew that it wasn’t his fault, but just the thought of him made her want to shatter them all. She had been so happy for the past few days and now she felt horrible.

As she entered her cabin she plopped down in a mess of her own limbs and started to cry.

‘Maybe I should have ended this when I had the chance, when I had him in front of me…’ Her eyes started to Spiral at the thought flooding her mind.

Spinel’s mind was taking a dark turn to something that she might regret, though, Spinel wasn’t the only gem that Steven and The Crystal Gems needed to worry about.

Chapter Text

Spinel had traveled all the way to the warpad that would take her to the Crystal Gem base, if it can even be called that. She was hesitant however, if she were to warp directly to the beach house, they might just all be there waiting for her. She thought about warping somewhere else that was near, but she knew of none. She also did not know why she wanted to go there. Did she want to talk to them? Destroy them once and for all? Diamonds forbid, join them? ‘That would be insane… but what do I want…’ She did not know the answer, but she would find it there, she concluded.

“She isn’t here anymore. You know he isn’t her.” She kept repeating to herself, she still had that desire to take it all out on the small human, but he was innocent, she should be fair. Plus, what would the town think of her? They were the only people who seemed to care about her existence. She could not bear the thought of them thinking of her as a monster.

With a deep breath she stood on top of the pad and soon her body was engulfed by light, which sent her away to her desired destination.

To say she was expecting what she saw would be a lie. As soon as she stepped out of the warpad, she noticed that the main room of the house was engulfed by a green light that shone from outside in. She quickly looked at her surroundings noticing no one was inside. Before she could do anything else she heard cannons go off outside, making her sprint towards the window to see what was going on. As she looked outside something immediately caught her eye, a giant hand ship. She had seen those before they were rare, at least in her time when they were just an experimental concept, something to strike fear into the hearts of the enemies of homeworld and seeing one now proved that it worked to some extent.

‘Why is homeworld here? They gave up on the war after their final attack on earth, after the light…’ She had been lucky that day, she had been underground scheming. Light could only penetrate so far, but she had been caught off guard when she resurfaced, the war had ended so suddenly she wandered for months, she didn’t know if she had been the only one to survive.  She would soon have her answer.

Spinel brought herself back to the present as a Sphere came out of the ship which revealed three gems inside. One was a dreaded Jasper that Spinel had run into a few times during the war, she was no fun to say the least and always thought herself above anyone else. The other one was what looked to be a Peridot, but she looked different. She knew that Peridots were always good with tech, but this one was surrounded by it, like she depended on it. And lastly there was…

‘Lapis?’ She asked herself, this couldn’t be that same lapis, but it looked so much like her that she had to be. She had lost contact with her during the war, she wouldn’t say they were friends by any means, not even comrades, but the blue gem had helped her a few times and she couldn’t deny that they were unstoppable. She remembers the gem being kind, if not a bit shy. She had tried to form an alliance with her and a few other but she never heard from her again and she thought the worst.

She noticed that Jasper was being rough with the blue gem, which didn’t surprise her, but it did tell her that Lapis was probably there against her will.

 ‘This is bad, should I…?’ Before she could finish her thought she looked down and saw that the kid had arrived at some point and was taking a stance. ‘Is he Stupid or somethin?!’ Soon the ship took a shot and the boy charged forward. Instead of being blown into tiny flesh pieces like she had imagined, she stood in awe at the shield that had appeared. “Her shield…” She hated it, that symbol made her nonexistent blood boil.

She focused on the ship, she could not see their faces, but she could tell that the Crystal Gems were still frightened by their stance alone.

A fight erupted between both sides; Peridot seemed to use the ship while Jasper exchanged blows with Garnet. Spinel decided she should do something, she always hated both sides so why not cause a bit of chaos? With her elasticity she maneuvers her way through the beach like a snake to not be seen by the others, then she slid onto the ship and as soon as she made contact where the homeworld gems had appeared from, she was surrounded by some strange matter and brought inside the hand ship.

“Wowy, that sure was somethin’…” Soon an alarm came on, probably since the ship had detected an intruder. The corridors were now painted in flashes of red.

“This is going to be so much fun.” She said to herself with a crazed look on her face.

As soon as the homeworld gems got in they knew something was off, and the alarm had gone out. They didn’t know if it had been truly an intruder or if it had been when they entered with their new prisoners. Jasper quickly threw Steven inside one of the many cells in the ship and kept dragging Lapis as they walked to hers. “Have you found anything?” Japer asked. “No” Peridot said back drily, she had been asking her about it since they entered the ship and Peridot was already sick of it. “Well search harder, go to the bridge until I secure her inside her cell.” She said looking at Lapis who had her gaze on the floor.

Peridot grumbled and went away while Japer took her prisoner to her cell. Once there she threw the other gem inside and closed it. “It’s a shame really, that you had to betray your own world for some renegades, you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. It doesn’t matter anyway; they are still going to trail and then be shattered but now you will join them. “Someone capable of so much yet-” Before Jasper could continue something shot out from under the floor and wrapped herself around the tall gem “WHAT THE-” She struggled against whatever this was, but it was too late, the thing had already covered her whole. Lapis could only watch in horror, not understanding what was happening. The mass started constricting in, crushing the gem’s physical body inside until-

POOF

The thing suddenly started to take shape beside Jasper’s gem, leaving Lapis in awe, she started to recognize who it was, and she didn’t know if this was going to be a good thing for her. “Heya’, Long time no see.” Said Spinel as she bowed. “Hope you enjoyed our little show, give it up for Jasper.” She said as she pointed with her arms at the gem on the floor. “Sorry she is a bit shy.”

“Spinel? Is it really you?” Asked surprised that the gem had survived the war. “The one and only… literally.” Spinel came closer to the shield that was separating them. “Don’t worry I’ll get you outta’ here and then I have a plan… hopefully we aren’t too far off earth yet.” she said with a terrifying grin. Lapis had always been cautious around the other gem, she seemed unhinged at times with her theatrics, but she knew it was mostly show, plus she could be genuinely entertaining. Plus, now that she had been stuck in a mirror for eons, she could better relate to the other. She thought about it for a second, the only possible threat was Peridot and she nor Spinel were worried about her. “Well, I can sense that water is relatively close to us still, what’s the plan?”

“You’ll see, let me get you out first.”

For the first time in millennia Lapis had gained confidence, which was not good if you where trying to keep her restrained.

Chapter Text

Day 240…

"You are not going to like this…"

"What is it? Show me!"

"WAI-"

"...She… it can't be… "

'This can't be real'

"She played me… and every one of her followers. That monster, she just left me there to rot?! And now she is just playing chest with us!"

"Spinel-"

"Peridot, get my suit ready, I'm taking out all of em'."

"All?"

"You know what I mean"

"... How?! There is no way you can take her, not even now."

"Remember that little experiment you were testing out? The one with the injectors and my suit? with that, nothing can stop me."

"B-But that hasn't been tested yet! We don't know what could happen! It could alter your state of mi-"

"Shut your trap! Go get my suit and I don't want to hear it, I'm not lettin' that two faced liar get away with this, I will free them from all Diamonds."

Day 244…

"Listen up! We got word that Yellow Diamond is coming personally."

Everyone looked in shock and gasped at the news. Panic was starting to set in the building, the fear of a Diamond was still ever present even after years of war at this point.

"What will we do!?" One of the gems screamed out.

"Don't worry my fellow gems, preparations are being made for the invasion, just remember what we stand for and use everything that we have learned over the last few months to get rid of our oppressors!" She spoke with determination and confidence, she wanted them to feel strong, unstoppable. Everyone cheers at her, they love her. She is seen as a God, her influence is undeniable.

If only they knew.

After a while speaking to various gems and making preparations she went out to see if she could find Pearl, they needed a plan for upcoming battle.

Rose made her way through the trees outside the camp looking for her trustworthy companion.

"Pearl!" Rose said as she laid eyes on the smaller gem.

Pearl seemed to be practicing with her spear before Rose came, she quickly stopped and looked at the other gem.

"Rose! I did not expect to see you so early." She said as she phased out spear away and quickly made it to Rose's side and looked up at her leader pure adoration.

"Yeah, I just informed everyone about the Diamonds coming to earth, we need a battle plan to secure victory, got anything in mind?"

Pearl pondered on how to set up a defensive perimeter.

"Yeah, I have a few ideas."

Later…

"...and we should position the light canons here, just to be safe." Pearl and Rose had retreated to their camp to talk about everything more in depth.  After just a few hours they had finished their plans to defend their base from the incoming attacks and reinforcements from other nearby camps where on their way and to Rose it was perfect... Almost perfect.

Her confidence was on an all time high, but only one thing bothered her about all this.

"Perfect… uhm" Pearl quickly noticed the uncertainty in her leader's face right away, which made her question herself.

"Well… we could move them over here!"
She said pointing at the map.

"Pearl is not about the plan, it's fine, I'm just…." Rose looked down at the table, not knowing where to start.

"You can tell me, it will be safe with me…" Rose looked up and gave a small smile which the pearl eagerly returned.

"I just feel terrible about what I did to Spinel. Knowing her she'll probably arrive to battle us and the diamond troops. I want to tell her the truth but… she isn't the most stable gem but I feel like I owe it to her. What do you think?" Rose looked at Pearl expectantly.

"Well… I don't think you should for now, plus we don't know where she is, nobody has been able to track her or Peridot and let's not forget that they aren't exactly allies." Rose walked back and forward for a bit pondering on what Pearl said.

"Yeah, I guess you are right. After this is over though, I will come clean to her."

Day 245

"L.C.S. is active and working properly, rocket stumps have been fixed, kinetic armor is at one-hundred percent. Everything seems in order…" Peridot said as she worked on Spinel's equipment that she had made a few months ago. She had worked extremely hard on making all of it, especially the armor, it was a balance of protection while maintaining Spinel’s elasticity.

'It's funny how I made this to trap her at first, but that's in the past now.'

"How's it goin'?" Spinel asked as she got closer to Peridot.

"Everyone is set… but I think we should talk about-" before Peridot could finish, Spinel covered her mouth with her hand.

"Yeah, Yeah, un-tested blah, blah whateva', I said I don't wanna hear it." Spinel looked the other in the eye to try to get her to stop but Peridot wasn't having it.

"Listen you clod, I don't think you quite get it, I'm worried because we don't know what will happen to you, how it will change you. What if I can't stop it? What then?" Peridot was hoping that she got through to Spinel or at least scared her out of it but she didn't seem to care.

"Look, nothing is gonna happen to me, what is gonna happen is that the Diamonds will be nothing when I'm done. And let me make myself clear I don't care what happens to me, if I tell you to press the button you will do it and that's that. Don't talk to me about this again." Spinel turned around and stormed out of the room.

Peridot sat there, she did not like this at all.

She was not gonna put her friend in danger.

'You're so reckless, ugh what do I do?'

Day 247: Close to Arrival

"We are close to earth, my Diamond." Yellow pearl said as she bowed towards her leader.

Yellow Diamond sat at her throne, anxiously awaiting their arrival on earth. For some time now she had wished to take matters into her own hands but things just don't work that way but now, with White's approval, she can finally avenge her fallen sister and destroy the rebellion and its leader, the one that caused all of this mess.

'Rose quartz…'

She often asked herself how was it possible that a diamond could fall to some lower gem, it terrified her that there could be a possibility that someone other than her and her sisters could wield such power. Or maybe she's thinking way too deep about it and it just came down to Pink not being ready.

She wonders how Blue is doing, she had a hard time when the news of Pink’s passing reached them, she was always the closest to Pink. She swore to destroy every gem that is associated with the crystal gems. Yellow wanted everything to be destroyed but Blue said to spare the planet since it belonged to Pink. 

‘Hopefully we can move past this after we shut down this rebellion…’

Day 248: First hints of madness

Rose, Garnet and Pearl were overseeing the defensive perimeter on the beach. Everything was set apart from a few details that were being worked on.

“Do you guys think this will be enough?” Pearl asked in a concerned and low voice.

“I do think it's sufficient… wait…” Said Garnet while holding onto her visors.

“What is it?” Rose asked as she looked at the fusion.

“Spinel is coming. She is close.” She calmly said.

"She is not happy."

Pearl and Rose looked at each other, they knew what they had to do.

“Garnet, you're in charge until we get back, she is too unpredictable to just let her walk in here.” Rose quickly sprinted to the trees, followed by Pearl.

/-/-/

“Peridot, do ya' copy?” Spinel asked as she made her way through the thick forest. 

"Loud and clear, the Injectors are nearby for assistance…" Peridot responded over the radio on Spinel's chest plate.

Peridot is currently on an underground base while she helps Spinel out. She thinks that she is much more useful there since she is not a fighter and doesn't want to get in Spinel's way.

"Good, how close-" Before she could finish, Rose and Pearl landed in front of her.

"You!" Yells Spinel, pointing at Rose.

Pearl quickly pulled out her spear, but Rose put her arm in between her and Spinel.

"Relax, we are not here to fight you-" Spinel cut her off by taking her scythe out and pointing it at them.

"Oh-ho, but I am!" Said Spinel before longing at her.

Before she could hit Rose, Pearl put herself in between both and blocked Spinel's attack. Spinel Quickly released one of her hands from her weapon and hit Pearl square in the face with her electric vambraces, shocking her and sending her to a nearby tree, landing on her back.

Rose quickly summoned her shield and clashed weapons with the slender gem.

"Spinel, this doesn't have to go this way, I know Pink meant a lot to you but you have to let it go!" Rose yelled, hoping she could reason with Spinel, but this just had the opposite effect.

"Do you think I'm stupid?! Of course you do! How could I blame you after what I let you do to me?! Ha!"

Spinel quickly kicks at Rose's shield giving her some distance to deal with an incoming Pearl.

Pearl made a sweeping motion with her spear, which Spinel dodged by dashing backwards. Pearl went in for another strike as Rose circled around to try and get Spinel from behind and apprehend her. Spinel was aware of what was happening and as the spear was about to hit her she dodged once again but this time grabbed Pearl by the arm and threw her towards Rose. Rose catches Pearl but Spinel has already jumped towards them, scythe ready to strike. Pearl quickly acted and threw her body to protect Rose. Pearl's gem landed on the ground, Rose quickly picked her up.

"Pathetic…" Spinel muttered as she watched Rose protectively hold the other's gem.

"I think it was brave…" She said defiantly to Spinel.

"I wasn't talking about her, I was talking on how you've brain washed her to the point where this is normal but what can you expect from a Diamond!"

Rose quickly looked up with wide eyes.

"What?"

Spinel laughed and started to pace around.

"I always had a feeling, since we got out of that kindergarten base—you know, our first encounter?—You always felt familiar." Rose stood up and bubbled Pearl to send her away.

"After we went our separate ways I couldn't stop thinking about it but what was I going to do? Nothing." Spinel Stopped and looked at the other straight in the eyes. Rose reached inside her gem.

"So I tried to forget that feeling, that terrible feeling, at least until a few days ago when me and Peridot broke into one of your abandoned bases. It seemed like you and your friends had to leave quickly." Rose drew her sword as Spinel kept pacing around her.

"We found lots of things, including your little game, maybe don't write your thoughts next time?" Spinel laughed once again at her face, but Rose was staying calm, she didn't want to fight her, she had messed up so much and she knew that she had done horrible things, Spinel didn't deserve her negligence.

"What do you want, Spinel?" She asked.

Spinel looked at her angrily and spoke.

"I want you shattered, you and the other Diamonds, there is no place for gems like you. I want true freedom, and as long as there's a Diamond in charge that ain't happening." Spinel took a fighting stance as she looked at Rose with crazed eyes, spiraling out of control.

"Spinel, I'm not the same gem that left you in that garden, I am truly sorry for never going back, but now is not the time for this, the other Diamonds are coming and if we don't fight back, things will go back to how they were…"

Spinel rolled her eyes and charged at Rose. She raised her scythe and swung it down on Rose who had her shield up to deflect the attack. Rose quickly pushed Spinel's weapon to the side with her shield and swung her sword across. Spinel quickly dodged by ducking underneath the attack, she raised a fist to punch Rose with her electric gauntlet. Rose quickly Stepped back to avoid the hit but Spinel quickly closed the gap once again. She flattened herself on the ground and went in between Rose's feet.

As Rose was turning to face the other, Spinel was already swinging again at her. Rose barely managed to deflect the attack with her sword.

"Spinel stop this, you can join us." Rose pleaded as they clashed weapons.

"Lies! I know what you do to gems like me, I'm not going to be put away again." Spinel stretched herself in all directions, making herself bigger and almost surrounding the other gem. Rose tried swinging at Spinel but she managed to grab the sword by the blade with her finger tips and threw it away.

"We won't be needing that anymore!"

Spinel started to swing violently, all Rose could do was dodge. She tried to hit Spinel with her shield but she kept stretching away. Rose was starting to get frustrated.

As they fought, Peridot came in through the communicator.

"Spinel, Yellow Diamond is in orbit, you need to finish this now."

Rose's eyes grew wide. She needed to be at the beach and lead them.

"Spin-"

Spinel started to land hits on the other gem, this form was just too unmanageable for Rose to deal with, she was everywhere it seemed.

"Don't worry Peridot, it'll be over soon!"

Rose kept fighting but it was becoming almost impossible to dodge the other. Spinel grabbed her and started to snake her arms around Rose. She started to squeeze her.

"Spinel, stop this please."

Spinel didn't answer, she kept looking at her with those spiraling eyes of hers. She kept putting pressure on Rose, she was getting desperate and a feeling she hadn't felt in a while.

Anger.

"Stop this right now or else."

Spinel chuckled at her.

"Is Pink finally gonna' make an appearance?"

Rose's eyes turned pink and started to glow.

"I said enough!"

A sudden explosion of energy came out of Rose, knocking back Spinel into a tree and destroying most of her armor.

'What the hell?!'

"Spinel, what happened. Do you hear me?"

Spinel now found herself on the floor unable to move, she felt as if all her energy had been zapped out of her. Rose on the other hand was just staring at Spinel, a hint of regret on her face.

"I… we'll settle this later…"

Spinel started to crawl towards Rose as she quickly picked up her sword.

"G-Get back here P-Pink! I'm not done with you!"

Rose quickly glanced back for a moment but stopped and went on her way.

"P-peridot…" She said, pain apparent in her voice.

"Spinel?! What happened?! Are you OK?! Why didn't you use the injectors?!" After hearing the others' voices she started to panic, had she lost? Was Rose still there?

"I-I wanted them at f-full capacity…"

"Spinel, don't tell me…"

"Don't l-lecture me, a-activate FM-00."

"Spinel you are not in shape for that right now… let me come ge-"

"Now I-is not the time, just press tha' stupid button!"

"I… I can't… I'm sorry, it's too dangerous."

"Y-you're an idiot… good thing I brought the spare control."

"You clod, don't do it, you may never come back from that state!"

"It's w-worth it, I don't care if I die, I'm winning this time."

"Wai-"

A sudden burst of energy shakes the land and the injectors start to deconstruct.

Back at the beach.

Rose dashed out of the trees and made her way towards her base. The light canons were already firing towards the sky. The giant hand ship was taking some damage but continued on and shot back at the opposing threat.

"Rose! Where is Pearl?" Garnet asked as she looked at her leader.

"She was poofed, I bubbled her. I was able to deal with Spinel."

Garnet nodded and set her sights on the sky as the two ships drew closer.

"Everyone get ready!" Rose shouted at her army.

As the Ship got closer to the beach,  Rose raised her sword and pointed it at it.

"Charge!" She screamed at her gems. The Ship started to fire at them but there were too many.

More homeworld ships start to appear from the sky. It seemed the Diamonds had brought reinforcements.

"Fire at the incoming ships! Garnet come with me!" Garnet nods and follows Rose to the Diamonds' ships.

Before they could reach the ship, Yellow Diamond made her way out of her ship and quickly sprinted into action. She started zapping gems left and right, none could get close enough to her. Rose sprinted towards Yellow who noticed her approaching, the Diamond quickly aimed at Rose and fired lightning from her hand.
Rose was quick on her feet and dodged all of her attacks, closing the gap between them.

"You!" Yellow says as she looks at her with disgust.

Rose, being now very close, tries to hit Yellow with her sword but the bigger gem steps aside and kicks Rose from the side, making her tumble.

"Is this it? Is this what the mighty Rose Quartz has to offer?"

'You haven't changed a bit Yellow…' Rose thought.

Yellow quickly sprinted towards Rose, closing the gap once more and tries to hit the smaller of the two. Rose jumps over her hand and manages to land on her arm. From there, she quickly jumps and slashes at the side of Yellow's head cracking her helmet a small amount.

"Why you-"

As the battle continues the ground starts to shake, making some gems tumble on the battlefield.

As Garnet fought the homeworld gems that had recently landed, her communication device started to receive a signal.

"Hello, can anybody hear me?!" A nasally voice asked in a panicked tone.

"Copy, who is this?" Garnet calmly responded back through the device.

"It's Peridot, Spinel is out of control and on her way to your location. I'm on my way there but it will take me a while."

"Don't worry I can hold her back with a few other gem-"

"No, no, you don't understand she isn't really Spinel anymore, she is transforming into something horrifying, the reason that I'm telling you all this is because you need to warn everyone there to get out, especially Rose."

"What do you mean by Transfor-"

Before she could finish her questioning, a beam of light appeared in the wooded area, which was surrounded by largepiecesof metal and scrap. A magenta colored orb could be seen rising through the middle of it. Metal parts start to enter and seemingly start attaching themselves into the core.

"That can't be good… Rose, we have a major problem." She changed frequencies to warn Rose about whatever that thing was.

"W-what is it?"

Rose was still fighting with Yellow, the Diamond was not stopping her onslaught of attacks (and insults) at the smaller gem but Rose was managing decently.

"It's Spinel, she is transforming into… I can't tell right now."

Then she felt the ground underneath shake furiously, making everyone on the battlefield stop and look at the beam of light. 

Metal had covered it completely. Metal beams started to attach themselves to the orb, then other parts of metal and electronics started to connect to those very same beams, all of these parts came together to make a big spherical base with a hole in the middle. On each of the sides of the almost spherical base, something akin to arms started to form out of the metal base, on each end, giant claws seemingly came out at the end of the two structures. Below the Sphere another Structure started to form with more of an oval shape and a bit bigger than the upper half. As all the parts start fusing together, spikes on the upper part of the metal body sprouted outwards on its back. On top of the whole structure cables and metal beams started to form a base made out of wide flexible cylinders, which seemedto act like a neck to the body. The lower half started to grow gigantic metallic wings on each side, both of them bigger than the whole of the rest. On top of the body a head similar to a dragon's had formed, which snapped-locked to the neck. The empty hole in the chest of the mechanical beast was filled with the giant gem that was part of one of the injectors, acting as its power source and giving the whole beast life.

"What is that… thing?" Asked Yellow but no one really had an answer.

The beast roared, the frequency making many gems shake furiously.

"I… did it…" the mechanical monstrosity said in a more calculated way to what she usually sounds like as it started to flap her wings and gain altitude.

Final Madness.

The beast found itself above the battlefield as it fired a powerful beam from its jaws to one of the homeworld ships, destroying it completely. Gems below ran from the falling debris as the beast kept destroying more and more hand ships.

Yellow Diamond was having none of this so she stood on top of her Ship and commanded it towards the mechanical monster. As this was happening Rose and Garnet sped off to get Pearl's gem inside one of their buildings.

Peridot on the other hand flew her hand ship out of the ground as she at the same time worked on a device to make Spinel snap out of her situation. Suddenly Peridot's communications device Started making noise.

"Hello? This is Rose, come in. Can anybody hear me?" Came in through the small device as Peridot made her way towards it.

"Copy, what is the status of Spinel?" Peridot replied as she quickly made her way back to her work bench.

"She is decimating Yellow's fleet… I told my gems to evacuate, it's only Pearl, Garnet and me here… We don't know what to do but you have knowledge on the transformation I suppose?" Asked Rose, she knew Peridot must have been already planning something to stop Spinel.

"Yes, I'm working on a device that will hopefully turn her back to normal, I'm currently on my way, just hold on for as long as you can, over." Peridot responded as she worked on the frequency.

/-/-/

"Copy that…"

Rose was now looking up at the sky, wondering if this was all her fault? Well to her, of course it was, she left her there to never come back, she started a rebellion, changed her appearance to that of a Rose Quartz, probably got all the others Roses destroyed just for looking like them but, even now she is determined to at least do something right, she has to try and save Spinel from this, she owes her that much and more.

As the crystal gems got ready, above in the sky,  Spinel was tearing ships apart as she fought against Yellow. The Diamond found herself on top of the ship, shooting lightning at the monster but to no avail.

"What are you?!" She asked in disbelief, the creature seemed unaffected by her attacks.

"I… I am my true self…" Spinel spoke coldly, her voice sounded eerily metallic.

Yellow ordered the remaining ships to focus all firepower on Spinel. Even though her transformation was massive, Spinel was still very fast. She maneuvers around the swarm of Laser fire and starts to fire back with her chest beam, destroying the last few of Yellow's fleet. She refocused on the diamond but this time a very powerful beam comes from her jaws, Yellow tries to dodge though she is hit with the blunt force of the attack but she isn't out yet as she resists with her hands. She gets pushed further and further back leaving her at the edge of her own ship. The ship is still firing at her but it's barely doing anything.

Spinel finally stops playing around and increases the beam's power instantly, which engulfed the ship completely. The Ship explodes soon after.

Spinel didn't feel anything, what was she doing again? Why is she this? Who was she after? She felt so angry, where was the gem she was looking for?

She started to look around, they had to be close. She focused on the beach and there she was looking up back at her.

Spinel descended quickly, landing on the shallow waters, which caused the trio to get soaked from head to toe.

"You…"

Spinel roared, sending a shockwave towards the Crystal Gems, which Rose blocked with her shield.

"I know who you are…" said the mad gem.

Rose looked at Pearl and Garnet and nodded at them. She then looked back at Spinel.

"Spinel, this ends now!"

Rose grabbed onto Garnet and Pearl to start a fusion dance, leaving the giant creature to watch the strange ritual.

'What is this? Are they mocking me?'

"You will not make a mockery out of me any longer!" She shouted at the trio who were still in the middle of fusing.

Spinel quickly raised one of her giant metal arms and aimed at them, lighting came out of her finger tips, knocking all three back. Usually any attack goes through a forming fusion but not this time.

Out of nowhere a giant tale came out from the back of the lower half of Spinel's new form, which she quickly used to sweep the whole beach, making the sand cover the trio.

Spinel could feel it, she was slipping away and letting her emotions take control but she didn't fight it. If it meant the destruction of the Diamonds; of Pink Diamond, she could live with this.

"I was made for the sole purpose to humor you, to always be beneath you, but now you're nothing more than a speck of dust to me now."

Rose quickly got out of the sand, quickly she started to look for the others. As soon as Spinel saw Rose reappear, she struck her with lightning sending her back.

"I will finally be free once this is over…"

Pearl and Garnet emerged and quickly regrouped with Rose.

"Is she referring to you?" Garnet asked but before anyone answered Spinel had started taking shots at them.

Rose raised her shield once more, deflecting most. Quickly Spinel started to up the amount of shots, which made the trio slide back.

"What do we do Rose?!" Pearl asked frantically but Rose didn't really know, they were out matched, especially from long distance. But to their surprise more homeworld ships came out of the sky and started to fire at Spinel. A group of the ships separated, probably searching for Yellow Diamond. The others continued pressure on Spinel.

She quickly turned her attention to the homeworld ships and spread her wings to take off to the skies.

Rose saw this as an opportunity to rethink her plan, maybe they couldn't fuse but they could still work together, she just needed to get them in the air with her.

"I have a plan!" She said and raised her hands in front of both gems, summoning her bubbles to encase them both. She hurried and flew off behind Spinel.

Spinel started ramming against the attacking ships, completely decimating a few in a short amount of time. She landed on top of one and lowered her head igniting her jaw cannon but before she could blow it into pieces a gauntlet hit her in the face garnering her attention to the Crystal Gems, who had managed to get on the ship as well.

"Pink…"

Rose knew that Garnet was looking at her but now was not the time. She started to close the gap between them and Spinel. Spinel reacted by getting off the hand ship, picking it up mid-air and throwing it at them. Rose raised her shield a second before the ship could hit them. Rose, Garnet and Pearl penetrated the hard metal and found themselves inside the falling ship, rolling around inside as they were still in Rose's protective bubbles. Spinel once again attached herself to the ship and clawed on the surface searching for her prey.

"All I ever wanted was to please you, but you never acknowledged me or my efforts…"

Spinel's head poked inside the ship, putting her face to face with the trio. She charged her beam and Rose readied her shield for the incoming blast. The laser collides with the shield sending Rose and the others through a metal wall taking them outside once again. Spinel lets go of the ship and flies in the gems direction. She stretches her hands and shoots lightning bolts at them, Rose summons her shieldonce more to deflect and Pearl charges her spear to take a shot at the spiraling gem. Garnet shoots both her gauntlets at the same time as Pearl releases her shot, both attacks hit Spinel in the chest but no visible damage can be seen.

"But that was in the past, now I am this, I am all of my feelings towards you, manifested in this metal abomination you see now."

Missile launchers appear on both of her shoulders and a flurry of energy based proyectiles shoot out. Knowing that her shield won't stop this, Rose decides to go further up and try to lose her in the clouds for just a moment.

"Learning about your secret shattered me to the core, I had been fighting to avenge no one. Almost got the only gem that had ever respected me killed multiple times just to destroy some false idol, I can't let another gem be manipulated by you or any Diamond."

Her metallic voice echoed through the sky as she soared through the clouds looking for Pink.

She had been trying to ignore Spinel's words but it was too much, her guilt was consuming her but it wasn't the only thing she had been trying to ignore.

'Her power is astronomical…'

Her power was well above her right now, she wondered how this was even possible. Spinel was strong but this was something else.

"Pearl charge your spear and Garnet ready your gauntlets, we're about to give it another try…"

Rose, Garnet and Pearl quickly emerged from a cloud and rushed at the spiraling beast.

Spinel saw them and quickly opened fire from her shoulder launchers.

"Pearl, shoot directly at the projectiles!"

Pearl unleashed her shot which clashed with Spinel barrage creating an explosion of energy, making the perfect smoke screen. Rose quickly elevated Garnet and threw her at Spinel, with her fists clenched she hit as hard as she could on Spinel head, making her stumble a little but it was quickly followed up by Rose.

"I'm sorry."

She once again called on to her feelings of rage and anger, charging her up. Spinel quickly realized what she was doing as this happened earlier and Swung her claws at her but before they could make contact Rose unleashed her energy blast knocking Spinel back and doing some damage to her body but not enough to be fatal.

The attack didn't do nearly as much damage as Rose hoped it had done. Generally gems don't run out of energy but she was starting to feel sluggish.

Spinel started to slowly cackle.

"Seems that time is running out for you my Diamond."

Garnet and Pearl got up to Rose who was just looking at Spinel slowly laughing at her.

"What do we do now?" Asked Pearl, looking at her concern.

"We threw everything at her and we managed to only dent her armour, but I think we bought enough time…"

Pearl Raised a brow and Garnet adjusted her glasses. "What do you mean?"

"We just need to hold." Said Garnet calmly.

Rose summoned her shield once more.

Peridot had been communicating with her for most of the battle, updating her on how much longer she would take to arrive. They just needed a few more seconds.

"It 's game over."

Spinel charges her laser and aims at the trio. She made sure to give it her all this time. Rose makes the shield bigger so all three are properly protected behind it. Spinel unleashes her beam and in less than a second, Rose, Garnet and Pearl are enveloped by the massive energy beam. The trio are holding with all their will but they're quickly being overpowered and the shield is cracking because of the sheer force.

But suddenly it all stopped and a huge bang was heard by all three.

A ship had rammed Spinel making her tumble back.

"I'm sorry Spinel but this ends here!" Peridot says confidently as she turns her frequency device on.

Spinel groaned as she clutched her head at the ear piercing sounds. Her whole body was shaking furiously but she wasn't about to stay down and pushed forward.

"This is nothing to me…"

Spinel tackled Peridot's ship, digging her sharp claws on the metal exterior.

"Spinel don't! This isn't you!"
Peridot desperately says to Spinel but she keeps tearing the ship apart.

"You're right, I have surpassed my old self, I am no longer bound by anything. See me for who I truly am, no longer beneath anyone. "

As this went on The Crystal Gems entered the ship to try and get Peridot out of there in one piece. Peridot quickly grabbed her device as the Crystal Gems came in, Rose quickly put a protective bubble around her and got all of them out of the ship.

More homeworld ships came down from space and shot at Spinel on sight. Spinel retaliated and started to fight the incoming horde of ships.

"Rose we need to get closer to Spinel, the signal on this is not optimal from a distance, plus we don't have much time before she goes on a frenzy."

Rose looked at her wide-eyed.

"Ah what?! How is any of this even possible?" She asked Peridot but she waved it off.

"Too long of a Story, let's get going"

Everyone nodded and went to confront Spinel.

  /-/-/

She could feel it, she wasn't in control anymore, now it was just pure fury. Ship after ship had been decimated by her own hands and she couldn't stop herself, she needed more. She wasn't protecting herself anymore, she was just blindly taking down these insignificant machines.

Suddenly she started to hear that sound again, that sound made her feel weak.

'That clod thinks she can double cross me?!'

Spinel instinctively turned around and started to take shots with her launchers. The other gems dodged and weaved their way closer to her.

'I can't let them get too close…'

"Long time no see, my loathsome Diamond."

Spinel flew backwards to keep her distance and have an edge on the fight since her long range attacks were more effective than her close range attacks.

Spinel opened her jaws to use her laser cannon on the gems and quickly unleashed the blast against them. Rose took the other three and dove to dodge the attack. Spinel quickly used her launchers at the same time she followed the others with her laser. Rose pulled out her shield to cover themselves from the proyectiles while trying to not get hit by the giant beam.

"Burn to dust…"

The gems were managing to get closer to her, so Spinel decided to use all her energy, with it she summoned a Giant scythe. She slashed at the air creating a wave of energy but Rose still had her shield out and tanked the attacks but not without shattering. Rose was worn down by this point, but she maintained the protective bubbles, it was their last wall of defense.

As they passed a battleship, Spinel dug her scythe into it and swung it around and threw it at the gems. Garnet quickly reacted and shot her gauntlets to make a hole through the ship so they could pass through it unscathed.

"Just give up…"

Spinel violently swung her weapon to create more energy waves while also maintaining the launchers going to create as much pressure and distance.

The gems were dodging and diving, doing everything they could to not get hit, Peridot was getting tired of all this.

"That stubborn clod… Garnet, throw me at her as hard as you can."

Garnet looked at her briefly and nodded. She went behind Peridot and used her gauntlets to send her flying towards Spinel. Peridot's bubble took a few hits but she managed to dodge most of the projectiles. She slammed against Spinel upper body; her bubble finally collapsed but she stuck herself to the giant. Quickly she activated her device at full capacity and stuck it to Spinel.

"Argh- What is this?!"

Her vision became blurry and she started to feel weak. The metal started to very slowly erode.

"Now Garnet!" Peridot screamed over her communicator. Garnet quickly raised her arms and shot her gauntlets at Spinel.

"Pearl, charge your spear, quickly!" Rose commanded.

Spinel manages to swat one of the gauntlets away but one hits her in the center of her chest where the gem from one of the injectors was protected by a layer of clear metal. Due to the force the metal cracks and the rest of the chest area loosens up, due to both the force of the gauntlet and the signal progressively weakening Spinel.

"Shoot it Pearl! Garnet throws me at her!"

"You can't win… This is your end."

Pearl shot in Spinel's direction and Garnet threw Rose behind the blast. Spinel reacted quickly, she opened her jaws and unleashed her laser beam to prevent Pearl's shot from reaching her but it was too weak due to the effects of Peridot's devices, Pearl's blast cut through it like butter. The blast reached her chest, chattering the remaining metal that was protecting her power core. Rose had taken out her sword and was very close to reaching Spinel and dealing the finishing blow but Spinel quickly swats Rose away and opens fire at her with the scythe.

Rose put up her shield and deflected the incoming blows of energy but Spinel kept shooting at her, laughing maniacally. She was fully concentrating on the diamond.

"You're beaten, just accept it!"

"No she's not"

A green projectile suddenly collides with Spinel's core, making her completely tense up. Spinel gave out a roar of pain as her whole body started to erode.

"No… I…"

'Am I cursed to live in your shadow? I had it all, even if for just a moment, the power… and yet you're still standing and I'm falling….'

Her body slammed against the sand making a giant hole of her shape.
The erosion quickened as the crystal gems and Peridot reached her. Soon enough there was nothing left except her original form.

"Ugh…" Spinel looked up to see the trio and her only friend looking at her.

Rose, walks closer to the fallen gem, sadness edged on her face.

"Spinel, I'm sorry… I truly am, I shouldn't have forgotten about you. I know that you won't forgive me but just to show that I do mean what I'm saying, I'm… letting you go."

"What?!" Screamed Pearl, dumbfounded at what she had just heard.

Spinel didn't respond, she didn't care if they meant it or not, she not only left her stranded but she replaced her. She just couldn't forgive her.

Before anyone got another word out Peridot quickly grabbed Spinel and took off with her helicopter fingers.

The trio watched as their silhouettes got smaller and smaller.

"Rose, you have a lot of explaining to do." Garnet said, they turned around to go back to what was left of their base. Pearl looked at Pink but Pink just kept on staring at the sky.

/-/-/

"Look, I know you're mad at me… but I couldn't let you lose yourself-"

"I'm not mad… You did what was right, at some point I was going ta' become a mindless monster and I don't know how I feel about that."

"Oh, I wasn't expecting that… so, what now?"

Spinel was quiet for a few seconds, seemingly thinking on what to say.

"We keep doing what we were doing, taking no one's side, overtake the diamonds… and make a functional suit that doesn't turn me into more of... Whatever that was "

"I don’t know about that last part, but we'll see."

'Someday I'll get you back for everything.'

To be continued l…. Maybe