Another Name (SU fanfic)

17. YOU WOULDN'T

White Diamond is at the main room of her head ship revising reports. She spends most of the time there, not all though, these days she'd go out for diamond affairs and public events.
Even though she's with her pearl, she's technically alone as she controls her to teach to Pink a lesson. The misbehaving member of the Authority gave her no choice. She can't have a colony because she's not supposed to. If she can't understand it, maybe a constant reminder of her true self will make her feel the way she should. The greatest matriarch knows it will take time anyway, so she's ensuring the pearl won't suffer during the process.
An omega code warning appears on her screen. She knows who is allowed to set it and, although she can tell for sure that gem hasn't been shattered, she was hopping not to hear about this shameful past ever again.
WD: [What could be so important to disturb me after thousands of years?]
Reads:
Potential threat to the Diamond Authority detected. All diamonds should always avoid type 692 space anomalies.
WD: [Spherical flammable blue gaseous clouds? Their only rarities are the geon and graviton levels, which aren't even an actual threat. There has to be more, or this is just a revenge for remaking her friend.]
Anyway, she can't tolerate the lack of information. To get more, she looks for the ones who cataloged the anomaly type. There's only one entry, therefore she plans to summon the responsible when she reads:
Rejuvenated.
Still, her position doesn't allow her to consider ignorance acceptable. She finds the raw data material, diary entries, and they mention a sample containing 'some kind of condensed light' that apparently went missing.
WD: [Not enough.]
So she looks for the rejuvenation trial documents. The gem claimed to have suffered an accident that made her forget the ship's control code.
WD: [That was so stupid it could have been the truth...]
And yet the warning was placed as if the danger was a proved fact. White is annoyed at this point, she's almost certain she's being deluded because the only remaining source of information left is that deplorable being, who happens to be very easy to track if you know where to look. When she does, she finds two traces, the expected one, and another much smaller directed towards some non-Homeworld technology.
WD: [Oh dear, you must be completely desperate. It's time to see how you beg for my help once more.] Smiles looking at her pearl.

----------

Apatite tries to reform, but she can't quite get to her own body. Her memories are very blurry, there's only the feeling something bad happened, something unbearable. Then she hears a very dampened voice.
<...Ou ...e u... ia...>
She thinks she heard this voice before. Its sound brings her hope.
<...Won' last lon'... a sign... ani'in'...>
She keeps trying to connect to her form and finding some kind of invisible barrier. Not like she's actually seeing, it's all just bluish light that carries sadness.
<...Now u can ...seen it... life... any word...>
She thinks it's a pearl's voice, maybe it's Tiny. It's hard to tell without feeling her magics. The voice sounds worried.
<Don't know... I think... mad...>
Something had to go wrong or she wouldn't have to regenerate. There was trust and then betray. She panics.
<...Try... I'll see... need... u're in...>
The thought this will last forever terrifies her. She tries to cry and yell in vain.
<...See her... has to be... won't accept...>
For no apparent reason, suddenly, she knows she _has_ to stay in the gem longer, she's never been more convinced of anything in her life. At the same time, an intense headache strikes her. She doesn't know how since she doesn't really have a head.

----------

Tiny is very confused holding Apatite's gem. She was reforming, then there was an intense bluish flash of light, and nothing.
Less than a minute later, the pearl hears the expected intruder in the least expected way. It's too soon, too quiet, and it doesn't come from the door. She puts Apatite's stone in her gem in a rush and walks to the living room.
There she finds the one who used to be Pink Diamond's Pearl, now in grayscale, hovering, with her arms opened, her hands up, and on her face an empty fake smile and a broken eye.
T: "I thought you'd send someone. I'm honored." Salutes.
The regular size pearl speaks with White's voice. She keeps it sweet and with the most educated calmed tone.
WP(WD): "This was only the least embarrassing option."
T: "Of course." Walks to the table and jumps on it. "I was going to shapeshift to make it easier for your guards."
WP(WD): "What is the threat?"
T: "I've told you what you need to know. I've given you a simple choice, you can keep away from a very rare event with almost no effort, or you can ignore my warning and see what happens. It's up to you."
WP(WD): "I don't give orders without knowing why. You're using this to try to force me to help in your traitorous plan."
T: "I'm neither trying to damage the Diamond Authority nor trying to convice you to help. The times I was stupid enough to believe you would are over. I've told you about it because I'm kind, but I have to keep the rest to myself because you're not."
WP(WD): Still sweet. "Tell me about the threat or I'll track the alien device you're rerooting your backup energy to and I'll destroy it."
T: Worried. "Don't you dare. She's a life form."
WP: "She's not organic and she's on my planet. I'll do as I please."
T: Almost whispering. "Know this will be my only warning. If your actions cause her to get destroyed, killed, hurt, captured, interrogated, spied, bothered in any way, or even if you happen to look at her direction and that makes her uncomfortable, I will bring your empire down."
WP(WD): Laughs in a high pitched contained tone. "Oh stupid boy. You are even more desperate than I thought. What will you do? Start the shortest war in history?"
T: "No war. I'll say six words to the right gem."
Tiny proceeds to say them and counts them rising a finger on each.
Meanwhile the smile on White's Pearl turns to anger. At the end of the sixth word she slaps the small iridescent gem with fury sending her to the wall and making her break the shiny building picture frame with her head. The contusion leaves the colorful servant temporary unable to use her aerokinesis to slow down the fall, she hits the floor along with the broken glasses. Dizzy, bleeding and sore, she refuses to retire into her gem, instead she stands panting and keeping a hand on the wall to maintain her balance, checks which frame she broke, and smiles even though it hurts.
T: "This is too ironic. See? You were so busy humiliating Pink you forgot somebody else knows about the big flaw in your perfect society. And the best thing is, it doesn't even have to be me, I could have told anyone."
WP(WD): "You wouldn't..."
T: "Oh! I thought you wouldn't build on it." Points up. "And I thought you wouldn't rejuvenate oval, but here we are. Over a thousand years wasted."
Tiny waits for White's Pearl to say something, but she just hovers with an empty neutral expression on her broken face.
T: "Can't you see I'm not your enemy? I don't have forever, it's been fifteen point seven one four seconds already. Please, just stop sabotaging my work."
The grayscale gem floats towards one of the walls and turns around with a tense smile on her face.
WP(WD): "Your work doesn't matter, you're less than a pearl. They're already dead."
T: "Blue Chalcedony cabochon 976. She won't mind loosing a few thousand years."
A big white bubble forms around the now angry looking puppet and takes her out through the wall.
Tiny breathes deep and shapeshifts into herself, but without the injuries.
Homeworld standards consider this way of healing to be dishonorable and so gems don't emerge knowing they're capable of doing so, but it's an open secret, especially among the riskier professions.
She then clears the glass mess, jumps to the couch, and takes her friend's gem out.