Author's Note: Last chapter of the day, schizophrenia hit me and these were some drafts I completed today, you're welcome, keep following this story and leave your Power Stones, damn it, we're heading toward the final stretch.
"OWWWWW!" Pink Diamond's voice rang out as her body was carelessly thrown into a room inside Blue Diamond's ship—a room that was already a familiar sight for the small Diamond. The impact didn't hurt her as much as the gesture itself.
Blue Diamond remained at the entrance, standing tall with her arms behind her back, watching her with a tired, heavy glare, as if this whole ordeal were just one more problem she had to deal with.
"What did I tell you?" she said in a firm tone, heavy with authority. "Display more of that respect you claim to have."
"But..." Pink Diamond tried to answer, struggling to sit up, frustration clear in her voice.
"I am not interested in what you have to say," Blue interrupted without hesitation. Her gaze made it clear there would be no discussion. "Tell your Pearl to help you if you need anything outside this room. Otherwise, you are not to leave."
The door shut in front of her with a sharp, definitive sound. Pink Diamond stayed there, staring at the spot where Blue had been seconds before, as if still waiting for her to come back and say it had all been a mistake.
It didn't happen.
Pink Diamond remained motionless for several seconds, listening to the echo of the sealed door fade down the ship's hallways. Silence was nothing new to her; she had lived surrounded by it ever since her status began to crumble.
Even so, this silence was different—heavier, as though every wall were there to remind her that she had been reduced to something she didn't fully understand.
She sat down slowly on the floor, leaning her back against one of the cold structures in the room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to sort out the knot of emotions she had been building up for cycles.
It wasn't fair. It hadn't been fair from the start.
It had all begun with something so simple, so small that it seemed absurd now. A salute. A gesture that, to other Gems, represented order, hierarchy, and obedience.
To her, however, it was a barrier. Seeing those Aquamarines bow to her with a rigid, mechanical reverence made her feel distant, detached from everything she claimed she wanted to understand. That was why she had asked them not to do it. Not as an order, but as a request. She wanted to be seen, not worshipped.
But that was where the problem lay.
The Pearl.
Her Pearl... or what was left of her.
Pink Diamond pressed her fingers against the surface of the floor as she remembered her. She knew perfectly well that she didn't belong to her anymore.
White had claimed her long ago, not just in form, but in will. Even so, that Pearl kept watching her—silent, present in places she shouldn't be. And she was the one who delivered the message. Not to White, as Pink would have expected or even preferred, but to Yellow and Blue.
Why hadn't she gone directly to White? That question spun in her head over and over. Maybe out of fear. Maybe because, even controlled, that Pearl still remembered who White truly was. With Blue and Yellow, punishment was guaranteed, but predictable. White was something else entirely. White was absolute.
Pink let out a brief, humorless laugh. What an irony. She had tried to do something different, something minimal, and she had ended up locked away as if she were a defective Gem. Blue had looked at her with exhaustion, not hatred, and that hurt more. She hadn't been punished for destroying anything, but for questioning IMPERIAL MATTERS.
She brought a hand to her stomach, where her gem throbbed with a dim light. She didn't want to defy the empire—at least not like that. She wanted to understand it, change it from within, make it less rigid, less cruel. But every attempt seemed to pull her further away from her sisters, further away from the place she was supposed to call home.
Maybe I am the mistake, she thought, not daring to say it out loud.
She remembered Homeworld, that opening from which she could observe—if only a little—something that wasn't metal and geometric perfection. Here, there wasn't even that. Just smooth walls, controlled darkness, and constant surveillance. A reminder that even a Diamond could fall if she strayed from the established path.
Still, between the sadness and frustration, something inside her remained firm. It wasn't rebellion or pride. It was conviction. The feeling that, even if she didn't know how or when, what she was feeling had a purpose. That the organics, the Gems without hierarchy, the voices that didn't fit in... all of it meant something.
Pink Diamond opened her eyes and stared at the void in front of her.
They could lock her up. They could monitor her. They could diminish her.
But they couldn't erase what she had already learned to feel.
And that, she knew at that moment, was what they feared most.
Pink Diamond didn't know how long she stayed there crying. In the darkness of that room on Blue's ship, time seemed to lose all meaning. There was no light, no reference points, only the muffled echo of her breathing and the weight of her own thoughts. She stayed there in silence, wrapping her arms around herself, as if that could stop her from breaking completely.
She had been punished, yes, but not for something she considered truly grave. It had all started so simply that it felt absurd now. She had merely asked a few Aquamarines not to perform the Diamond salute. She hadn't done it out of spite or anger, just exhaustion. She was sick of seeing every Gem kneel, sick of every gaze filled with fear or reverence. She wanted to walk among them without feeling like a distant figure, without being treated as something untouchable.
But a Pearl had seen. Not just any Pearl—the Pearl that was once hers, the very same one now under White Diamond's absolute control. Pink knew it from the start. She had felt it in the rigid posture, the vacant stare, the obedience that left no room for doubt.
She couldn't say anything to her. She couldn't confront White directly. She never could. White didn't listen, didn't ask, didn't doubt. So the Pearl did the only thing she could: she reported it. Not to White directly, but to Yellow and Blue. And Blue, with her cold authority and accumulated weariness, decided that Pink needed to "learn."
Pink Diamond gritted her teeth in the dark. It wasn't the first time she had been confined, but this time felt different. She wasn't on Homeworld; there was no opening to watch the distant light through; there was nothing. Only emptiness.
When she was finally able to move, when crying no longer choked her, she whispered to herself that... "They were almost there." She knew perfectly well where the ship was heading after the Diamonds' presentation. It didn't soothe her, but it gave her anxiety a direction.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and stood up. She felt a strange, heavy weariness, something that shouldn't affect her, but the lack of light was taking its toll. Gems didn't need to sleep, but they did need light, and she had been without it for too long.
Shaking her head, she walked toward the door. She hesitated for a moment before opening it, as if fearing what she would find on the other side, but she finally did.
"My Diamond," a Pearl said instantly.
It wasn't the same one. Pink knew immediately. Even so, it was impossible not to draw comparisons. This Pearl had the proper posture, the proper voice, even a trace of the personality Pink had molded into her own. An almost perfect copy with a few adjustments, as her sisters always made.
"Ship status report," Pink Diamond said, her frustration held back.
The Pearl looked down at her tablet, quickly scrolling through information.
"The ship is in an advanced stage of upgrading, my Diamond. Current total progress is at eighty-six percent."
Pink frowned slightly. "So fast?"
"Yes," the Pearl replied with a subtle touch of pride. "The Peridots have optimized the power and calculation systems. They updated the colonization projectors and recalibrated the light cores to increase efficiency."
Pink Diamond crossed her arms. "And the structure?"
"The Bismuths are in charge of that. They have reinforced the hull, the internal corridors, and the landing points. The ship will be able to withstand extreme conditions without compromising its integrity."
Pink nodded slowly, listening.
"In addition," the Pearl continued, "two Agates and their troops are regulating the cooling systems and gravitational control. An Emerald is supervising the troop coordination assigned to the ship, and a Sapphire is analyzing potential future issues during transit."
Pink Diamond let out a long sigh.
Everything was working. Everything was progressing. Everything was in perfect order—how she hated the damn order of this place.
"So... it will be ready soon," she whispered.
"That is correct, my Diamond. Once progress reaches one hundred percent, the ship will meet the empire's latest standards."
Pink remained silent for a few seconds, looking at the hallway ahead. That ship didn't truly belong to her, even if her name was engraved in some records. It belonged to the empire. It always had.
"Thank you," she said at last, her voice lower, more tired.
The Pearl bowed her head. "It is always an honor, my Diamond."
Pink Diamond turned and started walking. The ship was moving forward, the empire was moving forward, and she... she could only keep going, trying not to lose herself in the middle of it all.
"How long until we arrive?" Pink Diamond asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Right away, my Diamond," Pearl answered calmly while communicating with the other Pearl through her tablet. "In approximately half a cycle," she added after a few seconds.
"I need to get ready, don't I?" Pink Diamond said, a clear grimace of frustration on her face.
Pearl made a subtle, almost imperceptible awkward expression. "May I assist you, my Diamond?"
"Please," Pink replied, turning around and walking back toward the room she had been in earlier.
Pearl followed her in silence. Once inside, she began adjusting tiny details of her appearance. She carefully polished Pink Diamond's gem, located on her stomach near her navel. It was a gesture reserved for very few Gems, a privilege almost no one was permitted, but Pink didn't seem to care in the slightest. Her mind was far away, trapped in a constant frustration that refused to clear.
I'll have to go with Spinel, she thought, making a barely visible face.
Suddenly, everything went dark.
Steven snapped back to reality all at once, feeling Blue's Pearl holding him firmly and practically shoving him forward. He was dazed, his head heavy, not fully understanding where he was or what had just happened.
"Has it reached the end of its lifespan?" Blue Diamond asked with a hint of sadness in her voice as she observed him.
"Not at all, my Diamond," Blue Pearl answered calmly. "According to basic data, it still has a pulse. That is what the inhabitants of that planet called it. It was difficult to locate where those beats were coming from, but I found them."
"Huh?" I muttered, clumsily pushing away the Pearl's face, which wasn't being as subtle as she probably thought.
"What's going on?" I said sleepily, bringing a hand to my face. "Are we there yet, Mommy?" I added half-asleep, rubbing my eyes.
Then I realized what I had just said and gave myself a mental slap.
"Not at all," Blue Diamond said, letting out a sigh. She didn't want her pet to last so little.
A few seconds of silence passed until she finally spoke again.
"We have arrived."
I looked up from the cockpit and felt the air catch in my throat at the sight of what lay before us. A colossal structure dominated space, piercing through it like an eternal wound. A massive pink sword floated imposing, impaled into the very heart of that place.
"Holy shit," I muttered, unable to think of anything else.
"Great, isn't it?" Blue Diamond said with a touch of pride. "This is where I'll take you to meet your cousins. Though I might keep you with me if you behave."
She wiggled an eye at me before standing up. Blue Pearl picked me up immediately like a sack of potatoes. Out of reflex, I quickly pulled my shirt down to cover my chest, hiding my gem.
Nobody seemed to notice.
Even so, my mind raced. Inside my gem, I had a special outfit—a sort of one-piece shirt and shorts set. I had saved it specifically to avoid trouble like this. If they were taking me where I thought they were taking me, I was going to need it.
I swallowed hard as the ship drew closer and closer to its destination, with the clear feeling that none of this was going to end well... but that there was no turning back now.
End of Chapter 80.