Black Diamond

Chapter 68 - Adventures in Light Distortion

A/N: Welcome back to our severely unscheduled program. The next chapter will come out soon after this one. I just have to read over it, and it will go up. Thanks for your patience as always. I would have had something up sooner, but I was on a warpath convincing myself that I needed to finish the In Greyscale chapter that I was working on. Long story short I hit a patch of writer's block and for now that chapter will be on hold in favor of the main story.

P.S. Ao3 is going to have a scheduled maintenance period in about an hour, so I'll start working on uploading the story their tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the story and see you guys again in a few minutes.

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"Blue Diamond."

As if he were in a cave, the name echoed in his mind endlessly. That couldn't be right, a part of him rationalized. She wouldn't be here. What for? There was nothing left for them now. But the distant sounds of Steven's panic were very real and eerily familiar.

"What does she even want him for? To eat him? To put him in a zoo?" Steven shouted, worry generating question after question.

However, that last question struck a chord with Pearl, "Wait." That was it. Pearl could almost kick herself for not thinking about it a moment sooner. There was only one use for a human in this case. "That might be it."

Steven gasped, horrified that his prediction may be true. "She's gonna eat him?!" It was just like the movies. They were going to serve his dad on a silver platter like some strange earthly delicacy.

Pearl frowned shaking her head, "What? No." That wasn't what she meant. She should have clarified her deliberation. After all Steven was still young and lacked the facilities to make proper judgements in his current state of panic. "But there was a...no, no. It couldn't possibly still exist. Not since we..." Pearl spiraled thinking of the possibilities.

It was at that moment that Garnet caught on to what Pearl was implying, "That's right. Pink Diamond's insidious human zoo."

"What.../What?" Black and Steven responded in varying degrees of shock.

Garnet turned her attention to Black Diamond. Confused for a moment as her eyes trailed over his expression and appearance. His hands shook at his sides clenching and unclenching. While his eyes were wide, a myriad of emotions swimming through them. He really didn't know. "During her reign on Earth, Pink Diamond stole humans from their families as trophies of her conquests." Garnet explained.

The grim expression that overtook Black's face left a sinking feeling in her chest. Wordlessly she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder giving it a light squeeze. Smiling when he looked up at her. Black could barely return the gesture still too caught up in his own thoughts.

"You gotta be kidding." Amethyst asked weirded out by the idea. What could you really get from keeping a bunch of humans in a weird petting zoo anyway. The diamonds were weird.

Black on the other hand was in shock. Not Pink, she was so kind and curious. How could she have fallen to the perverse influence of their sisters? Was this what Pink took from him telling her about his colonies? This was how she interpreted him telling her to cherish the life on the planets she came to rule?

But should he have really been shocked? After all she voted to keep him locked away, and even if that wasn't true, she never came back for him...not before...she was shattered.

"Oh, no." Pearl realized. They hadn't been able to go back for them. It had been so long since the end of the war that she had forgotten, and with the galaxy warp down anything outside of Earth never came up again. "It was very serious. When I still served...Homeworld, I saw it myself. A private menagerie deep in space. Humans in captivity. We were never able to rescue them. That was over 5,000 years ago."