Chương 139: LOG-132.

The handover went well, from what I was told. The Gem I'd sentenced to death was briefly brought back to her cell, before a second pair of Sphenes arrived and took her away, brutally shattering her into pieces away from the gentle eyes of the aristocracy. It was after that small reprieve that I returned to the judgement chamber, presenting those blue shards to a stunned, silenced crowd. I had spoken of duty to the Empire. To the Diamonds. I had spoken of the price of failure.

And I had spoken of how there was no place for it in Gem society as we knew it. To my audience, I was a hardliner. An uncompromising, borderline broken enforcer of a system that did not care for them. Viridian was a celebrated name amongst the Courts. A Pearl with a kindness like no other. A generous Gem who sang to all. With just a short bit of time spent with Yellow, I had become monstrous. Of course, that was the image presented to the public.

What they didn't need to know was that the two Sphenes that had extracted the asset were Fawn operatives, cultivated into agents over thousands of years. They didn't need to know that the shards I'd shown them were fake, something easily told if you viewed them up close, and that I'd quietly returned them to a pleased Fuchsia for the next time we needed to convince someone a Lapis Lazuli was dead. I didn't know what story she'd been told. Maybe to her, I was a saviour.

A hidden force that had been controlling the strings to spring her free. Or maybe I was the monster I portrayed myself to be, the Gem who had sought to ruin her immortal life. And Fawn were the heroes, plucky rebels who had arrived and saved the damsel in distress from my green claws just in the nick of time. The truth of the matter was that I didn't care… much. And more importantly, I didn't need to know.

My work here was done, and I'd already gotten more than a few notifications on my personal Diamond-class communicator from Yellow herself, the Gem Matriarch sounding even more irate than usual as she requested progress reports, asking when I would return. So I did. Return, that was. Reuniting with my Citrines before taking a short trip down to the Galaxy Warp, which promptly flung us back to Homeworld. Soon enough, it was like nothing had changed at all.

My guards were reassigned elsewhere now that I no longer needed protection, and I quietly made my way into my owner's enormous room, taking up my usual post behind my desk and sparing only a glance to note that the Diamond in question still hadn't come back from her essence extraction yet. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I took the time to sort through a few messages left to me by Fawn, chief among them being the agent which had started this whole side quest thanking me, and assuring that the asset had been recovered successfully, now likely acclimatising to what would soon be her new life, and that the organisation was appreciative of my involvement. Then came the datawork. So. Much. Fucking. Datawork. Piles upon piles of digital files.

Requests that had been placed on hold, unanswered because Yellow Diamond had been forced to focus on what was more important, with no assistant to help with the rest. I approved colony expansion efforts. Refused to provide reinforcements to distant war fronts against organic empires. Diverted forces to veritable meatgrinders (or would it be rockgrinders?) in other areas. The Gem Empire was a monolithic machine that couldn't possibly be destroyed. Not in one perfect hammerblow. But one could chip away at it.

And so I did. Even as I resigned myself to the fact that I was sending people (and they were people, in the end) to their deaths. An hour passed. Two hours. Still no sign of Yellow. I had barely gotten through a chunk of my backlog. Slowly, almost hesitantly, my hand moved away from the holograms and reached down towards my gemstone. My finger extended, the tip rubbing against its surface.

A subtle glow was the answer as I mentally rummaged through my storage space, taking inventory despite the fact that I remembered, and couldn't help but remember, where everything was. Eventually, a single item was picked out. A small notepad, barely used. I knew what was on it already, but opened it anyways, ignoring the memories I'd inherited from my other self.

'Hi Viridian!' Staring at the perfect, flowy handwriting, I couldn't help a slight sniffle, even as my eyes slowly lowered to read the rest.

'Dianite here, so kind of a note to self, I guess? But only half of my self. And she's more grouchy. But still! I'm writing this because well…I want to.'

'I'm gonna write messages for everyone else too, so hopefully we can be like fusion penpals or something. I can't wait to see how Honey Lemon responds! But I figured I'd do your one first because…I know you need it. And you know that you need it too.'

'You're going to be fine, Viri. Everything is gonna be okay.' Trembling fingers nearly lost hold of the precious object before I choked back the sob threatening to leave my throat. There was more to the page. More words that had been written, relating to how I was home. How I'd finally made it. But I couldn't see them. My vision was too blurry. Bringing up an arm and hastily wiping away at my eyes, I gave the rest of the chamber a wary glance, before reaching down and grabbing a pencil from my gemstone.

The light scratching sound it made on the paper was somehow therapeutic, in its own way.

'Hi Dianite. This is a weird conversation to have, mostly because I remember you writing all of this. And you'll probably remember writing all of this too. I guess including Brim into our fucked up headspace makes it work, though.'

'... Things are tough, right now. I've had to make some hard decisions. Scratch that, I've had to make a LOT of hard decisions. It feels like I'm becoming an entirely different person, the longer I go on.' Heaving in a breath, I clenched my eyes shut for a moment, willing the tears to go away, before resuming.

'But I know that it's for the best. Because I'm keeping you guys safe. And the Earth safe. And the Empire would totally kill Brim, Vermi, Emerald, the Crystal Gems, the Avians, humanity, and every cute kitten and puppy and duckling on the planet if they ever found out it was safe to colonise it again. So I'm gonna do what I need to do, to make it so they don't get the chance to do so.' Slowly, the tears disappeared, determination rising in place of sorrow as I continued.

'We're all going to be alright, Dianite. I'll make sure of it. One day you'll read this, and maybe I'll even be able to live with myself after you do.'