Steven POV
"Y/n's right next to me...It's gonna be okay." I thought to myself.
Today came, the day we're finally going to get some answers from Pearl. But I'm extremely nervous about all of this, both for asking her, but also about what she might say. My legs felt like they were moving on their own, jittering in my seat as I tried to keep myself together. I looked over to see Y/n just playing with his fingers, looking cute as ever as he tried to keep his mind preoccupied. I took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. He immediately was brought out of his little state and looked over to me and gave a small smile. "You ready?" Y/n asked. "Y-yeah, just give me a moment." I replied, taking a deep breath. Pearl and Amethyst walked inside the house, looking to be arguing about some kind of phone? "I just can't believe you've had your phone for a month and haven't used it at all!" Amethyst said.
"Now that's not true! I use my phone to tell the time." Pearl replied. The 2 of them were probably going to go at that for a bit, but I realized I was definitely not prepared for this, and I just blurted something out. "PEARL, CAN I ASK YOU SOME-" I shouted, startling Y/n. "Hold on a minute, Stevo. I'm in the middle of something." Amethyst replied. My phone buzzed and looked down to see a message from Pearl. "Alright, you should be good to go! But you should really see about a phone case for that thing." Amethyst said. "I already have a case for this." Pearl replied, pulling a briefcase out of her gem. "Alright, I have a bunch of real phone cases in my room, so don't destroy that thing before I get back." Amethyst said, walking into her room. "P-pearl, can we ask you a question?" Y/n asked.
"What is it, you 2?" Pearl replied. "You know how mom shattered Pink Diamond? Well, we were wondering if maybe...you shattered her." I said. "I-" Pearl gasped, covering her mouth as if she was desperately trying to hide something. "Hey, it's okay! You can tell us anything!" Y/n exclaimed, concerned. Pearl just couldn't seem to get any words out of her mouth, and she started sweating profusely. "Listen, Pearl, you need to tell us about this!" I shouted. Amethyst walked into the room, not expecting the drama that was unfolding. "I'm back with the...phone...case." Amethyst said, just staring at us. "Oh yeah, the phone case! Thank you Amethyst, very much! I'm so clumsy, probably just better if I put it in here." Pearl spurted out, putting the phone inside the briefcase. Pearl then proceeded to walk inside the temple, before closing the door behind her.
"What the heck was that about?" Amethyst asked. "It's nothing..." I sighed, grabbing Y/n's hand and walking outside. Feeling defeated, we sat down on the beach and stared at the endless waves. My stomach started growling, I guess I haven't eaten in a bit. "Wanna go get some food? I could use something to eat too." Y/n asked, standing up and offering me his hand. "Yeah, I'd like that." I smiled, grabbing his hand and walking over to the boardwalk. We settled on some Fish Stew Pizza, and got a table inside to eat. "I just don't understand why she can't tell us, I don't know why she has to hide everything." I said, taking a bite of my pizza.
"Maybe it's just too secret to tell. She might be scared of what would happen if something of its nature were to become public. Something held so close..." Y/n said, his voice trailing off. "Sweetie, you okay?" I asked, raising some concern for his muffled voice. "It's nothing, babe. Just reminded me of something back with my mom, that's all." He replied. "You wanna talk about it? It might help." I said. "Well, back with my mom, there were things that Osiris had told me about that didn't quite add up. She allied with Rose during the war, but somehow had a grasp of it's events before the whole mess even started. Since this started with Rose shattering Pink Diamond- Steven, I think there's something much bigger going on here." Y/n said, seemingly on to something. At that exact moment, my phone got a notification. "Hang on, this is from Pearl? 'I want to tell you but I can't', with a monkey emoji. C'mon, Y/n! We need to get to the bottom of this." I exclaimed, jumping up out of my seat.
"Alright, let's go see Pearl!" Y/n said, leaving some money on the table. We immediately rushed over to Pearl, who was busy cleaning up the temple with a vacuum in hand. "PEARL, WE'RE READY TO TALK!" I shouted. "Um, what?" Pearl asked, turning off the vacuum. "We got your text saying you were ready to talk, with the weird monkey emoji next to it?" Y/n said. "Erm, I didn't send you any messages. I haven't used my phone since this morning when I put it away." Pearl replied. "Maybe you accidentally dialed me somehow with your gem?" I asked. "No, that's physically impossible! Let me just pull it out and we'll get to the bottom of this. See- um, here I-" Pearl said, trying to pull out her phone. Quite a few items started coming out of Pearl's gem, but none of them were her phone. "Pearl, you okay...?" Y/n asked, slightly worried.
"Where on earth could I have put it?! It's gotta be in here somewhere!" Pearl panicked. "Hey, you just sent another one!" I said, showing Pearl my phone. She looked at the text with a face of horror. "Steven, Y/n, I need you to go inside my gem and find my phone." Pearl said, serious. "I-inside your gem?! Is it stuck there or something?" Y/n asked. "There are things that I can't tell you, but I CAN tell you that I need you to find my phone, please. I can bring you back outside once you've found what you're looking for." Pearl replied. I gave Pearl my phone so we could text her to bring us out once we found her phone, and she sucked us up into a white light and brought us inside her gem. Inside her gem is this giant bright room and there was...Pearl stocking something?!
"Wait a minute, Pearl?" I asked, staring at her. "What is going on..." Y/n mumbled. "Ah, Steven! Now let's see, where should I file you?" Pearl said, picking me up. "Woah, Pearl, put Steven down! You sent us in here to find your phone, not file us!" Y/n yelled. "My phone? Alright, let's see..." Pearl replied, putting me down. "Phew, that was close. Thanks Y/n." I whispered, giving him a kiss. "No problem." He whispered back, reciprocating the kiss. "Hm, I'm not seeing anything...oh! It's a cellular phone, so it must be under 'c'." Pearl said, flipping to the alphabetized section. She pointed to a section of the items, but there was an empty slot. "I don't understand, it should be right here! Unless some other me took it..." Pearl said. "There are more of you in here?" I asked. "Oh heavens no, not here. I made sure of that. I'm good at keeping things tidy, which is why I get to be surfaced." Pearl replied.
"If one of those Pearl's has the phone, could you tell us where to find her?" Y/n asked. "Oh you don't want to go where they are, it's a mess. Let's just stay here where everything is neatly organized!" Pearl said. "Y/n and I can handle it!" I shouted, confident. Pearl just groaned and figured we weren't gonna give up, so she transported the 2 of us to another place. "Hang on a minute, this just looks like the temple from the past?" Y/n said, taking in the surroundings. We looked around the area for a bit, before hearing the sounds of crying. "Oh...that kind of mess." I mumbled, walking over to the noise as Y/n followed behind me. Pearl was just sitting there with her knees curled up. "Um...Hey Pearl inside Pearl's Pearl, you upset about the phone thing too?" I asked, sitting down next to her.
"No, it's Rose. She can't have a baby, what was she thinking?" Pearl sobbed. "Oh that's really awkward..." Y/n said. I just went a little pale and turned to Y/n who gave me an unsure shrug, and turned my attention back to Pearl. "What am I even going to do when she disappears? I'm just going to lose her! Just like how I lost my...what was it you said?" Pearl continued sobbing. "Your cell phone?" I said. "MY CELL PHONE!" She cried out louder. "Woah, it's gonna be okay. That's why you sent Y/n and I in here." I said, as we both hugged her. "I think I know where it is, it's in the place where I lost everything." Pearl sniffled, giving us her hand and teleporting us to another location. As we looked around, the field below us was very red, including the mountains and surrounding areas. We started walking for a bit, but I looked behind me to see Y/n shivering rapidly.
"Sweetie, are you alright?" I asked. "I-i don't know...I just got some kind of blurry image stuck in my head, I'll be alright. But this place is starting to scare me, let's just try to hurry up." Y/n said, grabbing my hand. I nodded and we proceeded to walk forward more until I tripped over something and looked down to see broken gem shards all over the ground. "AHH!" I shouted, trembling in place and standing up. Y/n just had a horrified look on his face and walked closer to the gems. "W-wait Y/n, those are shattered gems!" I exclaimed. He walked towards one of them and picked it up, immediately dropping it in place. "Oh my god...!" Y/n barely got out, breathing hard. "Y/n, what's wrong?!" I asked, now getting seriously concerned.
"Mom...no you didn't...why...?" He mumbled, on the verge of tears. I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, bringing him in for a hug. "Shh, it's gonna be okay." I whispered. "Let's just find Pearl's phone, I can't do this anymore." Y/n sniffled, hugging me back. I kissed his head gently, before taking his hand and finding the other Pearl moments later. "Listen Pearl, is all of this necessary for your phone or what?!" I yelled, annoyed. "We're all that's left...everyone was leaving...we thought we'd won...but there was a bright light...why did I do it?" Pearl spoke. "Pearl, what do you mean? Can't you just tell us?" Y/n asked. She shook her head no and gave us her hand, teleporting us once more. Opening my eyes, I noticed pink gem shards on the ground. I heard some loud voices and turned to see mom with her sword out.
"M-mom?" I asked. She looked up with tears pouring out of her face, and I noticed that she had Pearl's eyes, and when she turned her head, she had Pearl's gem too. "But that's Pearl's!-" Y/n said. "I-i knew it, you shattered Pink Diamond." I said. She opened up her hand to show a pink gem resting on her palm. "Wait a minute...that's..." Y/n started to say. "Pink Diamond...but...I don't understand." I added. Once more, Pearl's gem teleported us to a different location, but this time we were in Pink Diamond's Palanquin. "We're inside the Palanquin..." Y/n mumbled. Suddenly, we heard some voices coming from behind us, so we ducked near the little throne to see who it was.
"After that, we'll be done. It's gonna be easy!" Rose said.
"There has to be another way! I mean-" Pearl said.
"Blue and Yellow don't care at all, they never have. This world is Pink Diamond's colony, we can end it all right here, right now." Rose said.
The Palanquin's curtains opened up, and in came a black coated gem that looked familiar. "Mom?! W-what is she doing here...?" Y/n whisper-shouted.
"I've checked the outside coverage, we're good to go!" Onyx smiled.
"Thank you, Onyx. I'm glad I could count on you to help me." Rose said, flashing a smile.
"We have the same goals, it's not as if I'm being forced to do this. We're going to set things right once and for all." Onyx replied.
"Look, you know this is crazy, right? Your status, my purpose, Onyx's rank, not of it will matter anymore. This is going to change everything." Pearl said, while Rose nodded.
"I know, isn't this super exciting?" Rose cheered.
"It is." Pearl replied, blushing.
"We can finally leave our old lives behind. If this really is my world, I want to give it to the crystal Gems. I want to live here with human beings, with you, and everyone else! We can finally be free!" Rose exclaimed.
"Alright, I'm ready." Pearl said, determined to carry out this task.
"Pearllll!" Rose said with excitement.
"I'm glad you're ready for this, Pearl. This could mean a better future for us gems!" Onyx cheered.
"You've got the right spirit, Onyx!" Rose replied.
"I just can't believe I'm really going to do this." Pearl said, as Rose gripped her hands.
"I can't exactly shatter myself." Rose said, stepping back after sharing one more hug.
Rose then started shapeshifting herself into someone. Her body grew taller and she formed into...Pink...Diamond. "Oh my god..." Y/n and I said, watching these events unfold right before our very eyes. Pink Diamond walked over to a small patch and picked a flower which she put in Pearl's hair, and then crushed up some tiny shards.
"Convincing?" Pink Diamond asked.
"Very much so, my Diamond." Pearl replied.
"Soon, it's going to be just 'Rose'." Pink Diamond said.
Pink then put the shards in her mouth and swallowed them, while Pearl unsheathed the sword. But before Pearl could finish, Pink stopped her.
"Wait! There's one final thing I need to do." Pink Diamond said.
"Yes?" Pearl asked, putting the sword down.
"No one can find out that we did this, ever. I never want to look back on this life. So as my last order to you as a Diamond, please, let's never speak of this again. No one shall know." Pink said, covering Pearl's mouth with her hands.
Pink then stood up and walked over towards the curtains.
"Everything is in order?" Pink Diamond asked.
"Yeah, all that's left is this. We're never turning back, so I hope you're prepared for this." Onyx said.
"I am, thank you for all your work, Onyx. We couldn't have done this so easily otherwise." Pink Diamond thanked.
"My pleasure, Rose." Onyx smiled.
Pink then walked outside, leaving Onyx and Pearl inside the Palanquin. Pearl and Onyx then turned around, acting as if they knew we were here.
"Sorry to make you come all this way." Pearl said, handing me her phone as she finally shapeshifted into Rose Quartz.
"Hey, son. I know you saw everything back there, and I'm sorry about all of that. I worsened a war, but you can fix it's remnants, I believe in you." Onyx said, giving Y/n a small kiss on the forehead, before following Pearl outside.
With one final step, I texted Pearl and we were brought out of her gem. We saw a brief flashback of different events that led up to now, before landing on the floor inside the temple. Pearl stood there with tears in her eyes, as Y/n hugged me tightly to comfort me. "I know everything..." I said. "I wanted to tell you for so long." Pearl said, tearing up. "Mom was Pink Diamond..." I replied, looking down. To the left of us was a shocked Amethyst and Garnet. "Whaaaaaaaat?!" Amethyst shouted.