The Soul Gem

Designation

Steven and Ermac arrived back in Steven's old home. Ermac now getting a chance to look around the home. It was neat, with a kitchen that had a freezer fridge that had the freezer's doorhinges snapped. So the door just loosely hung by a single screw.

"Don't worry about that, the gems told me they've been trying to fix it. Amethyst still loves to break stuff though," Steven said. Ermac looked around the rest of the house, there was a staircase that went up and around to a level of the house Ermac couldn't see. He saw a painting on the apex of the first staircase, it was a painting of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Steven smiling towards the painter. On Garnet's lap was a small cat with white and orange and black fur, with a scratch over an eye.

"Like it? It's at least a nice replacement for the Homeworld gems to see as opposed to see a rebel leader," Steven remarked at the painting. Steven could tell there was something on Ermac's mind that was perplexing him.

"You okay?" Steven asked.

"We are trying to...understand the situation," Ermac replied.

"What're you getting tied up about?" Steven asked as he sat on the sofa, patting the spot next to him to encourage Ermac to sit with him. Ermac walked over and accepted Steven's offer of sitting on the sofa.

"...Pink Diamond. We were lead to believe that Pink Diamond was shattered. Killed by the leader of the rebellion," Ermac began.

"If you were Era 1, how do you know about that?" Steven asked, vaguely confused as to how Ermac would know that.

"Parts of us are sapphires. In our time of being idle, our sapphire components were seeing disjointed futures. Potential paths as to how the war would go. There was a point where all possibilities converged to one. Rose Quartz shattering Pink Diamond," Ermac replied. Steven twitched a bit, recalling at the problems his mom's dual identities caused him in the long run.

"Right. That makes sense. Well....what was one possibility your sapphires saw? One that seemed completely outlandish, but one that still pinged on one of their radars?" Steven asked. Ermac had to look down at his lap, closing his eyes as if trying to recall the visions of his sapphire parts. Steven could see Ermac's gem fade from its normal red to a cool deep blue tone. As if he was relinquishing control of his own body to one of the Sapphires. He opened his eyes, which were now the same Dodger blue as the Sapphire that was part of Garnet.

"One of the more...bizzare possibilities I saw was that Pink Diamond and the Rose Quartz that fought Homeworld...were the same person. Simply Pink Diamond putting on several acts for one reason or another," Ermac said, his tone now softer and more sincere. As if Sapphire herself had possessed him and starting talking through him.

"Yeah, that's the right series of events. By the way, nice to meet you. I'm Steven," Steven said as he shook the hand of Ermac, introducing himself to the Sapphire that was currently controlled Ermac.

"We've all seen timelines where we've met various versions of you. In the horde's time of hibernation, we all saw different timelines. We saw timelines where you were a girl named Nora, or your lineage spurred from some of the other Diamonds. Many of the gems bound inside of us were ecstatic to finally awake and meet you," Sapphire said.

"We? Us? Do you talk the same way as Ermac?" Steven asked. Sapphire shook Ermac's head in denial.

"The one you call Ermac is the collective persona of all of us. He is the one who acknowledges himself as the collective, as the group. I am simply one of the many inside of him. We see each other, we all see each other individually inside of Ermac," Sapphire explained.

"Oh. See that makes sense. So...can you let Ermac tale control again? So I can explain it to him," Steven asked. Sapphire nodded and stared down woth eyes closed. The blue color faded back into the gem, regaining the dull red that Ermac's gem was by default. Ermac opened his eyes and they were back to his green hue.

"What did the Sapphire say?" Ermac asked, hid voice back to normal.

"Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz are the same person. An act because she fell in love with the wonders of the planet Earth. She gave up her status to save the planet, but she made a lot more messes than she could've realized," Steven replied.

"Messes that...we assume you had to clean up?" Ermac asked, showing some form of passive wisdom that might be bestowed to him by being part Sapphire.

"That's the nail's head that you just hit right there. I had help though. The Crystal Gems helped me through it all, and they all helped me fix the Earth and give Homeworld its wake up call," Steven said with a smile of remembrance.

"Would....would you give us a designation?" Ermac asked Steven.

"A designation? What does that mean?" Steven asked in response. Ermac pointed to Steven's gem, which confused him even more.

"Your gem is Pink Diamond. They are a Ruby and a Sapphire combined into a Garnet. She is an Amethyst, and she is a Pearl. Everyone seems to know who they are. What their gems are...we do not have that," Ermac replied.

"Well...I would call you Cluster...but then the actual Cluster would get confused," Steven said in contemplation.

"We are an amalgam of 10,000 gems. Each shard intricately placed to where the gem would be fully formed inside of our headspace...and our body would be anatomically correct in terms of proper gem form. We were simply a prototype, not meant to have a designation. So we ask of you...Steven Universe. Tell us what our gem is," Ermac pleaded, gently grabbing Steven's shoulders.

"Well...by all intents and purposes. You're a bunch of...gem souls thrown into a body? Gem souls...gem soul....Soul Gem! Yeah, you're a Soul Gem!" Steven said in a burst of confidence. Ermac stared at Steven for a few seconds, as if his collective mind was processing the name given to his gemstone.

"Soul Gem...hm..." Ermac repeated, in thought.

"Like it?" Steven asked with a kind smile.

"Yes...we do....we are Ermac the Soul Gem," Ermac said, embracing his gem's name with a slight smile under his face cover.