When an Imposter Dies

Chapter 1

Notes:

First off, a couple of notes. I'm pretty new to this fandom (I've just joined less than a month ago), so I probably won't have everything right. However, I'm learning more and more every day. Please be patient with me.
Another note is that my keyboard's space bar stays down just a little longer than it should after each word, which causes double-spaces where there shouldn't be double-spaces. I'll work on getting a new keyboard, although you'll probably notice this for the first 3 chapters or so. I apologize for any eyestrain this might cause.
Also, I'll probably update this until December, then have a hiatus to work on another writing project until Valentine's Day, and then work continue to work on this. I aim to finish around mid-May, although I have no guarantees.
Why mid-May, you ask, when I'd normally finish a fic in a month? Well, this is a pretty ambitious writing project. Not only am I sketching out the plot of the next four seasons of Steven Universe, I'm also trying to fit that plot into a manageable, 100,000 word-long story. Which, if you read the first chapter, is harder than you think. Conflicts escalate when they really shouldn't be escalating, although I've tried to weave these conflicts into a natural part of the story. Technically, if I wrote for 16 hours a day nonstop, 7 days a week, I could have this thing done in 12 hours, but I am a human, and I have family, culture, and lots of other things in my life. (Plus, my hands might fall off.)
Oh, well. I'm trying my best as a writer, and will always try to improve.
With no further ado, let's get on to the story.

(Also, I did see the sneak peek. I just want to say now that what happens in the show may be different than what happens here. This plot was in the works for a very long time, and I don't want it to go to waste. So I may not be "relevant", per se, but this is my specific vision, not an adaptation of the actual show.)

"You gonna leave me alone?"
There wasn't any response. It could've been the deafening crowds, Spinel supposed, going once or twice over the irony that before, the reason was that there was no one at all. It could've been the noises of the ship.
Or it could have been the unhearable noise that comes with settling back home. That became louder and louder with every step the Diamonds took to heading back to their shared and unashamedly luxe kitchen. Spinel ended up having to jump up, in a second-heartbeat, to one of the decorative juttings from the wall that looked like an unused Christmas tree spike. The Diamonds were laughing like older women with a bottle of champion and two or so life stories, and that's when Spinel said it.
"You gonna leave me alone?"
The black was dripping, Spinel discovered, from her eyes. She saw what felt like tar drip and drop onto her boots. Her head burned, as it tended to do every now and then whenever people walked this far from her.
Could it be that the Diamonds were helping her already? That couldn't be right. If that were right, then her head wouldn't be seeming to burn her like this. And her body wouldn't be threatening to fall off of the spike.
But how could it be that the Diamonds weren't helping her? They'd already took her in, revealed to her their unconditional love, stretched out their hands and watched as she bounded her way across them, one by one. She wasn't on the streets, like too many Gems were on this planet. In fact, she was in the most sumptuous building in the planet. On the planet. How was it, then that she-
One of the Diamonds moved to the left. The light shifted. Her boot was immaculate.
She couldn't control herself. It was an instinct. She struck one of her hands against the spike, listened as it reverberated to the back walls, came back to her ears.
It went unheard. She went unheard. She was too small.
She couldn't take sitting here. She used her scythe as a climbing spur, made her way down, and ran to the kitchen.
Two minutes passed by before the Diamonds noticed her.
"What is it?" White asked. All of a sudden, the weight of interruption settled its way on Spinel's shoulders.
"It's... it's just that..." Six thousand years of emotion. How much of a lunacy it was that it could be unfettered when she needed it to stay in its cage, and stayed shy in there whenever she needed it out with her. So she sputtered out the first thing she could.
"I was noticing the people outside. Some of them don't look too happy."
"There's always people that are unhappy." Blue this time, before she went to get herself one cozy object or another. So many things Spinel was exposed to. So many new things, yet ancient things. So many things even she, who understood fully how the Injector worked, couldn't even begin to decide.
"I know, but something tells me that they're all not happy for the same reason."
Yellow paused. At least Spinel understood something. Something about this political tangle of wires and thorns. Something about this life.
"I know." White.
And White knew exactly the reason why they were unhappy, although that was a conglomeration of lots of different reasons, reasons they weren't allowed to be unhappy about. At least in Steven's eyes, everything was almost perfect...almost. They'd dismantled their armies, stopped their colonization, completely dismantled the caste system.
Free speech. Free speech, so rampant, including protests, was the problem, at least in the Diamonds' eyes. White and the other Diamonds, albeit about two or three thousand years ago, had made law upon law that resulted in protest upon protest nowadays, although, like crying children after being handed a piece of candy, they were quickly shut up. The candy had been pleading, promises, and one clandestine demonstration that would terrify Spinel should she decide to ask what happened during it. But that was besides the point. And the laws were almost a religion, seeping into their homes like the rain that only seemed to happen to the poorly-designed roofs on Rose's former colony. The rain was good, some said. The rain was sweet, kept them alive. But some claimed they were drowning.
No romantic relationships. That would be an abomination, and besides, none of them could procreate. Weren't long lifespans and former Kindergartens enough for them? If they wanted to write their own books, they could've at least made them reasonable and not sneak in ideas that would lead them to another war. And unless there was a war, or if one's job was strenuous, there was no use for wearing garments that didn't take after the Diamonds' flowing skirts and dresses...what would be the use for them?
Before Blue was finished with getting whatever object Spinel couldn't decipher, there was the sound of a single knock, the door's wood splitting.
It was instinctual. No friend would knock that way. Either it was an enemy, or hundreds of them, which is what the last of the protests turned out to be.
Yellow and Blue let out a few colorful words in the planet's own language before grabbing their weapons, and, before White could get a closer look at what was happening outside the heartily-decorated window, Spinel had already scoped out that there were at least 150 people here.
"150?" Charm made a little dance across White's face. And it was also the first time Spinel had seen her smile since they had both stepped in the door.
It slipped away just as White called for reinforcements, and when the door burst and a thousand and five hundred other Gems Spinel's size all fought their way inside, all of hel broke loose. Spinel did her own part in keeping back the other Gems, but that was before she looked to her right.
One of the guards clubbed one of the Gems on the head. She fell back, shuddered, and lay still.
"Stop!"
No one heard Spinel, just as before. She shoved off one of the Gems trying to get in. It was only when Spinel was on the floor with a shiner that she discovered the Gem was a Bismuth.
That did it. She couldn't play this game anymore- some words that ruminated in her head every so often. She blew her horn, and the sound of it caused the Bismuth to kneel screaming, hands over her ears, and those close to her to run. All the rest seemed to be paralyzed. The guards doled out a few glancing blows, but that was all. It echoed across the constantly-scrubbed, crystalline walls of the home, creating a horn of its own.
The place was silent.
"No one else needs to get hurt."
For a few seconds, there was only the noise of a few ships taking off, of the humming of generators outside.
Yellow stooped down, picked her up so forcefully her neck made a popping noise. "And just what do you think you're doing?! You think you can just infringe on a diplomatic operation like this because you don't want them to get hurt? They were going to storm into our home, kill us all! Do you have a better idea?!"
"Go to Earth!"
"Excuse me?!"
"Go to Earth. Everyone."
That was all Yellow needed. She squeezed Spinel enough to make her arms pop a little this time, but not enough to be visible. White lay a hand on her shoulder.
Yellow took a breath. It released in the cold wind, released to the constant flow of minerals.
"Tell me. What do you mean?"
And Spinel told her, and only her, quietly, about how Earth was safe and how she was a friend of Steven's. She didn't elaborate; anything else would be speaking badly of Homeworld, and that would be very bad for her.
Yellow took a breath. Another. Another. Then, White, reading Yellow like the storybook she'd had so meticulously handmade, golf foil strewing the floor it was made above, called off the guards. And the crowd, seeming to read the four like the hovergrams- not quite holograms- that were there books, slowly, slowly, dropped back home.
The door was very quickly replaced by one of the palace workers, and by the time Spinel was kicked off to the side, although no one had told her to go, off to look out of the window on her own, off to see the crowds as they went home, off to see every single thing she had missed for such a gut-wrenchingly long period of time.
And it was that period of time the Diamonds had to get used to, even if they did joke on it back when they were on Rose's former colony.
"Spinel."
It was Blue. Spinel turned. The blackness was still on her eyes.
"Spinel, deary, you've been sitting there for twenty minutes, not saying a word. Wasn't there something you wanted to add?"
"Add to what?"
"Let me take you there."
And Spinel was twenty feet tall. She looked to her left, then her right, in order to see if the fingers on her palm would close in. When they never did, Spinel still went with unease onto the over-half-a-million-carat dining room table.
White and Yellow's heads were in their hands for two very different reasons. White was very, very tired. Yellow was the kind of disappointed Spinel imagined Pink to be if she were to ever come back...
Spinel did what she was, at least in part, made to do. She broke the tension, and a poorly time-joke left her mouth. Yellow chuckled for three or four seconds, although she seemed a little regretful a few seconds later.
Blue. "Before any of you say anything, it bears mentioning that migrating to other planets is entirely legal."
"It's too fresh." Yellow rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.
White lifted her head from her hands, thoughts pushing on her shoulder blades, and pressed both palms to the table. "It still stands."
White paused for a few more seconds. No one dared to interrupt her. Blue even thought for a minute she was Spinel's height, and then realized she'd had her own head plopped on the table.
White again. "Blue, Yellow...Spinel...look at our resources. What stands out to you about them?"
"Allocation and more allocation. Stood out to me during the war, stands out to me now. And it seems like we're running out, despite us not needing nearly as much as the inhabitants of, hrmm,...her former colony."
"Despite." "Allocation." "Inhabitants." Spinel nodded at Yellow, despite there not being anything for her to look at that White showed. It felt so great to be learning, or at least hearing, something new.
Another pause. Spinel fiddled with her gloves, although it took her scuffling her boots along the table to bring everyone to attention again.
"It bears mentioning that migrating to other planets is entirely legal," Blue repeated.
"And I'm Steven's friend. I'd think it's what he'd want, too."
A longer pause.
Only a few minutes later was the verdict reached, and only a few seconds later was the order published to the public. The first part of the first paragraph read something like this:
"We, the Monarchs of this great and salubrious planet , hereby endorse and highly encourage migration to the planet of Earth, located in the Nyunai Hery Galaxy, affectionately dubbed 'The Milky Way' by its inhabitants. Further information on its location, as well as its biological bypass combination, can be found in the latter half of this statement. In order to make preparations before migrating this planet, we highly encourage you to test for any diseases you may carry on you or your person before you go any further, as you...."
At first, it was small. But as the conversation between the three Diamonds started again about some trivial topic or another, as Spinel, bored and tossed away again, made her way to the Diamonds' launchpad in order to say one last goodbye to Steven before finding an area to settle in, the ships prepared, in more and more numbers, to leave Homeworld. All in all, 7 million would leave to settle in the United States alone. Most went near Little Homeworld, off of the East Coast of the United States, but the braver ones chose to take a newer path. Those settled in the desert to the west, some farther north, and only very little to the south. Most acclimated to human homes, but the craftier or formerly higher-classed ones built ones of their own. The whole process took about a few months in Earth time. All normal for Gems.
And it was then that all hel broke loose.