Here's an interesting idea I had wandering around my mind. The main difference in this (At least, as I see it.) Is that Greg has nothing to do with the Crystal Gems, and does not know who Rose is. He knows and has interacted with Amethyst however, because we'll get Vidalia in this story too. Also, Amethyst has never met Rose (I base this upon the assumption that they met after the war. Either that or she was still too young to fight.) So she doesn't have the same emotional baggage about Rose and Greg like she does in the show.

I think I like the idea of shorter chapters for this (Minimum 3,000 words, excepting this one as it's the intro.) but we'll all see where this rabid plot bunny is going to go. This chapter does happen to contain a flashback, but that's only because it sets things up. I know how irritating those can get when in written form, so don't expect many more.

Also, a weird thought: If we ever see a flashback to one of the battles, will the music sound like a fully-fledged orchestra like the Mirror Match song? Or will it be a horrific mash up of instruments that sounds like someone broke into a music store and is destroying everything?

Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe.

Five Thousand Years Ago...

"ROSE! NO!"

Pearl regenerated just on time to watch the battle axe swipe through Rose's torso. She poofed back to her gem, a look of horrified shock still frozen on her face. Pearl was too surprised to do anything. Even if she had not been paralyzed, she wouldn't have been able to stop the second blow of the axe.

It struck the fallen gem, splitting her in half. One piece was sent flying, propelled by the force of the strike, hitting Pearl in the face. Pearl clutched it in shock, not processing what had just happened to Rose. The battlefield seemed to grow silent, the clash of weapons fading. Countless of Crystal Gems turned to the spot where their leader had fallen.

The Home World Gem paid no mind to the sudden quiet. Tossing her battle axe to the ground, she bubbled the first half of the former Rose Quartz and sent it away. The gem was now approaching Pearl. But before she could retrieve the other half of her and finish off the annoying Pearl that had continued to regenerate, she was attacked.

Thousands of Crystal Gems piled on top of the Home World Gem. Before she could even move, their multitude of weapons were sticking through her like a grotesque pincushion. She retreated to her gem almost instantly, but this did not stop any of them from fighting to destroy the gem into fragments. By the time they had retreated, there was little more than dust left of her.

"I-I wasn't strong enough..."

Present Day...

Pearl regenerated just as the memory ended. She landed gracefully on the floor, only somewhat shaken. Taking in her new form, she did feel a little stronger now. She had grown a little, possibly even near Garnet's height, and had chosen to get rid of the stray hairs had grew around the side of her face. The semi-transparent skirt was an interesting choice, not one she would have originally thought of, but it was still flexible, and thus suiting with her new form.

"You're back!" Amethyst grinned. "It was about time! You take forever!"

Amethyst was sitting, or rather, swimming around in her room. This normally would have been a cause for annoyance, but it looked like she had not touched anything, so that was at least a little bit of a plus. Normally everything would have been a disaster area at this point. The gem had clearly been waiting for her to come back.

"Yes." She said. "After getting impaled by that fence post, I sure did get a lot of time to think."

"Garnet said that we had to take it down after that."

Pearl balked at this.

"What?! But we need that fence to keep the humans out! Otherwise they'll be crawling all over the sand with their disgusting human feet!"

Amethyst shrugged.

"She said that we couldn't afford it happening again."

"But, it was an accident!" Pearl insisted. "I'll just go talk to her and-"

"No."

Garnet stepped into the room from outside of the temple. Again, Pearl was surprised to hear a negative answer to this.

"But Garnet-"

"No buts. We've had that fence up for too long."

"The humans-"

"Ignore them." Garnet interrupted. "We have more important things to worry about."

This caught the gems attention. After all, she had always taken her time after retreating to her gem. What had happened during the time that she had been out of it? Was it something dire? What if it was?! What if something had happened to the temple?! Were the corrupted gems somehow breaking free or becoming more powerful?! Was the planet finally reaching it's doomsday and they now had to evacuate all of the life on Earth to their moon or else they would face destruction?!

"What's going on?"

"The galaxy warp pad has been acting up." Amethyst explained. "It's been shooting out crazy beams of electricity and stuff! But Garnet managed to stop it for a bit, by punching it into pieces."

"Do you think someone else is working on the other end?" She asked in a hushed voice.

Garnet crossed her arms.

"I don't think, I know."

Pearl felt a sudden dread at hearing this from the team leader.

"And the outcomes?"

The taller gem seemed to grimace somewhat at the question.

"All of the outcomes I see are the same. Something or someone is going to come out of that warp pad, and it's only a matter of time until it happens."

"You can't see what it is? What we're going to fight?"

A dark silence filled the room. Garnet remained unmoving, and it was clear that she was searching everything that she could in the future for an answer. Pearl and Amethyst glanced at each other uncomfortably, not knowing what she was going to say about the outcomes. How bad were things going to be? Did they had a new threat upon their hands? Then, Garnet moved.

"The only thing we can do is prepare. All the battles I see aren't for at least a year."

"But surely we can stop this!" Pearl desperately said. "Can't we just completely destroy the galaxy warp?

"We already tried." Amethyst replied. "And all we got was a nasty electric shock."

"What about Sardonyx?" She suggested.

"We tried to mash it up, but Sugilite couldn't handle it."

Garnet's fists clenched at this.

"It forced us to unfuse, we barely remained conscious."

The trio went silent again at the statement. They all knew how much fusion meant to Garnet, and the idea that something could force her apart was startling. Garnet turned on her heel and exited Pearl's room. Amethyst stopped swimming in the water, and pulled herself out of the pool. She gave a frustrated sigh, aiming a kick at the rack of swords that Pearl had left out before she had been poofed.

"She's been all weird since then." Amethyst huffed. "She just stuck in her room all the time, and she only talked to herself!"

Pearl tried to laugh off her own worry at this, but it wasn't working too well. Not much was able to phase Garnet. With the warp pad and her future visions not promising anything good, it seemed like they were really going to be in for a lot of trouble. What was so powerful that it could force someone like Garnet to split apart? It had to be something even stronger than the love that kept them together, a force that could drive two gems that were made for each other to split.

"Oh, you know Garnet! She's always been quiet."

"Yeah, but not this quiet." Amethyst pouted. "If I didn't have Vidalia to talk to this month, I would've gone insane!"

Lowering her voice, Pearl said;

"We both know how things to do with fusion can make Garnet a little... Less stable than usual. But I'm sure with a little more time she'll be back to normal!"

"Are you two coming, or not?"

They both winced, realizing that she had probably heard their entire conversation. Amethyst and Pearl ran out of the room to catch up with Garnet, who was already standing on the warp, waiting for them to show up. Pearl gave the gem a slightly twitchy smile, that was supposed to seem innocent. It failed miserably of course, and the taller gem simply looked away from her.

The warp away to the main hub seemed to be a little more jarring than usual. Pearl was alarmed to see that there were actually holes and tears in the stream. She could make out bits of the space between warps rolling past her at the speed of light. The chill from space outside was leaking into the area. They arrived with a jarring start. Both Amethyst and Pearl were flattened to the ground by this, but Garnet remained stoic.

Picking herself up from the ground, Pearl looked at the warp they had used in disgust.

"Has it been like that since I left?"

"It was worse before Garnet punched them all." Amethyst said, punching her fist. "Right Garnet?"

The taller gem didn't say anything, and continued to where the Home World warp pad was situated. Amethyst's eager smile faded at this, and she kicked a piece of the warp pad that had come loose. In the meantime, Pearl caught up with Garnet, still surveying the area that had once been neat and orderly.

Now the warp pad hub was a mess, plain and simple. There were chunks missing from almost all of the warp pads, and several had giant cracks on their surfaces. The once shiny material they were made of seemed to have dimmed down as well. Everything just gave off a strong sensation of wrongness. Pearl couldn't help but feel that the decay of these warps seemed unnatural.

They were unnatural of course, but the feeling still persisted in the back of her mind.

"Oh this is just awful!" She claimed out loud. "I knew that the warps had to be put down, but that state they're in now is a disgrace! I mean, just look at how the stone has-"

"Pearl?"

"Oh, uh, yes Garnet?" She asked, turning to her teammate.

"Be quiet."

The gem pointed over to where the Home World warp was. True to their stories, it was reacting strangely. There was a slight buzzing noise emanating from it, which Pearl realized was the sound of a current flowing through it. Yellow-green sparks hummed and leaped off of the warp pad.

Amethyst joined them, crouching behind a nearby fallen pillar. The trio watched the warp as it continued to act up. Pearl continued to feel more uneasy as she stared at the Home World warp pad. What was going to come out of there? Would they have to fight? How would this affect the other warps?

Suddenly, a shower of sparks rose from the center of the warp pad, slowly expanding wider and wider until a pillar of yellow light was shining. Pearl could see that there were even more holes in this one, revealing mixtures of warp space inside of it. Someone was trying to use the warp pad!

"Ready your weapons!"

The statement was hardly needed. They all pulled out their respective weapons and waited to see what would come out. The stream of light suddenly stopped. The group tensed as they saw a figure emerge.

"Whoa, that was a weird warp!" The gem laughed. "No wonder why they're under construction!"

"THERE! GET IT"

The gem turned in confusion, wondering where the voices had come from. Before he could even realize the danger, he had been pulled off the malfunctioning warp by a whip, and speared through the chest. Much like Rose Quartz, and many gems before her, the expression of disorientation turned horror stuck on the gem's face.

The gem poofed, and fell to the ground with a clatter. With the deed done, they could all breath a little more easily. Garnet bubbled the gem and sent it back to the temple. The Crystal Gems then continued to sit by the Home World warp, waiting for any more intruders from the home world to show up.

None of them had even gotten the chance to see the familiar gem embedded within his stomach.