Author's Note: Hey everyone! This chapter is crucial for the plot, so I'm asking for the same goal on both Wattpad and Webnovel: 50 stars and 170 power stones. As always, I'm super grateful for your support, and for nearly 400k views on Webnovel and 40k on Wattpad. You guys are awesome, keep it up! If you spot any typos, drop a comment; my dyslexia kicks in pretty hard sometimes. Leave your reviews and comments—I love reading them. Without further ado... Let's dive in:
Blue Diamond stood motionless before the observation window of her ship.
Space stretched out before her like a bottomless ocean—silent, eternal, indifferent to any conflict. The stars didn't judge, didn't obey, didn't demand. They simply existed. In that sense, the void had always felt cruelly honest to her.
Her hands rested together, tense, as if holding back something that shouldn't escape. The conversation with White Diamond returned to her mind without permission.
It hadn't been an argument. It couldn't even be called a dialogue. Exactly ten words. Ten words after several solar cycles without seeing each other. A new record, ironically useless.
Nothing had been resolved. Nothing had been granted. Pink wasn't mentioned as a person—only as a precedent, a historical error, a closed variable.
Blue Diamond slowly tightened her fingers.
This is useless, she thought.
If Pink were there, she wouldn't have accepted that silence. She wouldn't have stood still staring at stars as if the universe were a sufficient answer. Pink would have spoken up, insisted, challenged. Not out of pride, but out of conviction. Always out of conviction.
The projection of space shifted slightly as the ship adjusted its trajectory. Blue Diamond barely noticed; her mind was already somewhere else. On Earth. On that small planet the Empire had classified as a failure, inefficient, expendable.
That's where the palanquin was.
A structure that served no strategic purpose, produced no resources, imposed no authority. To the Empire, it was a useless object. To her, it was an intact memory—one of the few that hadn't been tainted by reports, reconstructions, or pious lies.
It wasn't nostalgia she felt. Nor weakness, though White would certainly call it that. It was something far more precise: preservation.
Yellow Diamond's voice echoed in her mind, clear and firm as always. The planet was to be destroyed. Not out of cruelty, but for efficiency. The Empire couldn't afford anomalies.
Blue Diamond closed her eyes.
Not this time. I won't let them take what little I have left of her.
The decision wasn't explosive or heroic. There was no dramatic instant where everything shifted. It was more like a crack that had been forming for centuries and finally became visible.
If Earth had to disappear, then at least something of Pink had to survive—something that couldn't be reduced to a footnote or wiped away by a higher order.
The palanquin wasn't a political symbol to her. It was a place of meaning. A place where Pink had been Pink without masks or extravagant titles—obvious only to her—without the expectations imposed by the Empire... A place where she had laughed, thought, doubted.
Blue Diamond opened her eyes and studied her reflection in the glass. For a split second, she didn't see a Diamond. She saw someone tired of obeying White Diamond in silence.
"If you were here," she whispered softly, knowing no one would hear, "I wouldn't be leaving you alone again."
The ship glided smoothly forward, almost reverent. The systems required no intervention; everything ran with flawless precision thanks to the Gems who had put in the work to build it.
Blue Diamond turned away from the window and walked slowly across the bridge, each step echoing with an artificial calm—because naturally, it couldn't be organic. She recalled Yellow Diamond, ever devoted to order, executing commands without hesitation. Yellow had found her own outlet after Pink's death: work, action, control.
Not her.
She had wept. For centuries. In silence.
She stopped in front of a partial projection of the planet. Blue and white, small, fragile. So unlike the Empire's perfect colonies. That was the exact reason Pink had loved it.
I'm not going to defy White, she thought bitterly. But I'm not handing you over to oblivion either, Pink.
The ship began to decelerate as Earth grew closer. Blue Diamond felt something she hadn't felt in a very long time.
I actually have hope for something, she thought with a touch of sarcasm.
If Yellow was right and the planet had to be destroyed, then the palanquin couldn't stay there. It wouldn't stand witness to another loss. She wouldn't allow the last remnant of Pink to be lost beneath fire and rubble.
Silence enveloped the room once more. A different kind of silence this time. Not empty. Not sterile.
A silence heavy with intent.
Blue Diamond returned to the glass and took one last look at the planet before the final maneuver. Her lips curved slightly—not into a smile, but into something resembling a promise.
"Wait for me," she whispered. "I'll hold onto what little is left of you."
And the ship pressed onward.
Blue Diamond settled back into her massive seat, designed for an authority that was never supposed to doubt.
"Pearl," Blue Diamond called out.
Blue Pearl turned instantly, her posture flawless, back straight, hands clasped in front of her. Her expression held no fear, only total attentiveness. If her Diamond decided to set the Empire ablaze, she would be the first to hand her the torch.
"Yes, my Diamond."
Blue Diamond studied the starscape projection in silence for a few seconds before speaking. Not because she needed to think through the question, but because she needed a genuine answer, not an obedient one.
"How is the human zoo faring?"
Blue Pearl paused—not out of nervousness, since she had outgrown that long ago, but out of calculation. She tilted her head slightly and brought up a series of holographic displays, data scrolling rapidly as she accessed records very few Gems were authorized to view without direct clearance.
"My Diamond... the system remains operational."
Blue Diamond interlaced her fingers. "That doesn't answer my question."
Blue Pearl gave a subtle nod. "The humans are still alive. They reproduce. They adapt. However, maintenance is lacking."
A new projection materialized, displaying containment pods, suspended structures, and aging stasis fields.
"Yellow Diamond has blocked the dispatch of technical Gems. The zoo is being maintained entirely by a single Peridot requested roughly five thousand years ago."
Blue Diamond raised an eyebrow. "Just one?"
"Yes, my Diamond. A Era-1 Peridot. She requested technical reinforcements millennia ago, but the order was never approved."
Blue Diamond examined the image closely. A single Gem keeping an entire facility designed for thousands of years running on her own. That wasn't Imperial efficiency. It was negligence.
"Is she broken?"
Blue Pearl shook her head softly. "Unlikely. Era-1 Peridots are remarkably resilient. However... she exhibits erratic behavioral patterns."
Blue Diamond exhaled slowly. "Pink would have been furious."
She didn't say it as a scolding, but as a plain fact.
Blue Pearl lowered her gaze slightly—not out of shame, but out of respect for a name that still carried immense weight even in her absence.
Blue Diamond opened another interface and began reviewing pending trials, colonies under evaluation, and minor conflicts she normally would have cleared without a second thought. Today, however, everything felt secondary.
"What should I do, Pearl?"
The question hung in the air.
Blue Pearl stood still, taking a moment before responding. She looked past the ship's glass into the projected void, as if searching for an answer unconditioned by protocol.
She thought.
She thought as a Gem.
She thought as a tool.
Above all, she thought as someone who knew her Diamond better than anyone else.
"I would say... we should send reinforcements."
Blue Diamond didn't look up, but her full attention was locked on her.
"Era-1 and Era-2 Gems. Not too many. Only as many as necessary. Efficient. Quiet—given the nature of the facility, my Diamond."
Blue Diamond nodded slowly. "Five more Peridots... and another Agate?"
Blue Pearl calmly shook her head. "There is already an Agate assigned to the zoo, my Diamond. Her performance is adequate."
With a sweep of Blue Diamond's hand, the orders began transmitting. "Five Peridots, then."
She paused for a beat. "And additional supplies."
Blue Pearl bowed her head slightly. "Diamond Essence?"
Blue Diamond blinked, caught off guard. "That too?" she asked, hesitant.
"If you wish to maintain them for another few millennia, yes, my Diamond," Pearl said firmly.
...
...
"Very well," Blue Diamond finally agreed.
Pearl nodded, keying in the directives.
Blue Diamond fell silent, though a silly question crossed her mind. "Are they still alive?"
She let a trace of genuine curiosity filter into her voice.
"Yes, my Diamond. Though they are not the original individuals. They are their descendants. According to human records... they are called children."
Blue Diamond studied the projection with a different kind of focus now.
Curious.
Pink had talked about them—about their fragility, their ability to change over absurdly short spans of time, and how, against all odds, they kept pushing forward.
Pink wanted to protect them, she thought.
And that thought, though unspoken, tightened something deep within her core.
"Send the essence," she said at last. "The bare minimum required."
Blue Pearl nodded and executed the command without hesitation.
The two worked in silence for several cycles. The ship surged effortlessly ahead, constantly self-repairing, adjusting on the fly, flawless in function. It needed no large crew.
It was a Diamond ship.
Blue Diamond rested her chin on her hand, watching the stars drift slowly past.
Only two Gems on board.
Herself and her Pearl.
For two very simple reasons.
First, because she was a Diamond, and no one possessed the authority to tell her where she could or couldn't go. The Empire was built around them, not the other way around.
Second, because this ship could not fail. And if it did, it would repair itself. As it always had.
Blue Pearl glanced at her Diamond out of the corner of her eye. She knew her well enough to spot the shift. It wasn't sadness—not quite.
It was resolve.
"My Diamond," she asked softly. "Are we heading to Earth?"
Blue Diamond waited a moment before answering.
"Yes."
Blue Pearl nodded, satisfied. She didn't need to know anything more.
As the ship adjusted its course, Blue Diamond closed her eyes for a brief instant.
Pink... what a mess you left behind, she thought. And yet... I still want to save what little of it remains.
And this time, she wasn't going to let anyone take it from her.
Both resumed their work for the Empire.
Out of nowhere, an incoming comms request broke the quiet.
"Huh?" Blue muttered, confused upon noticing the signal wasn't directed at her, but at her Pearl.
"Who is it, Pearl?" she asked, turning her head slightly.
"Checking right away, my Diamond," Pearl replied with complete composure as she pulled up the channel.
Her eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second.
"It is Yellow Diamond."
End of Chapter 72.