As both Pink and Steven turned towards the origin of the voice, indeed, they both saw and recognized Rose Quartz. Of course, Steven had a variety of imagery of her to go by, while Pink only really remembered the painting from the human house, but even that was enough to confirm her existing expectations and help her start building new ones.

As Rose approached her past and future selves and came to a distance close enough so that their sizes could compare, Pink immediately noticed something terribly off from what dared call itself "reality". Namely, Pink positively towered over Rose in this realm, whereas in "reality", when Pink's organic form was considered, it was neither taller nor shorter than the apparitions of the soldiers she wanted.

"Hello, Steven. Nice to finally meet you, in some form." Rose warmly greeted Steven, before turning to Pink. "Well... I suppose I should say hello to you too, Pink Diamond. It is kind of weird to see someone who is essentially myself here. A harsh reflection of the past."

"And you're a pointless sapphire looking into the future, so believe me, I reciprocate the feeling." Pink even bowed to Rose, trying to be fake polite and, in the progress, completely flying in the face of the social hierarchy she had known so far.

"I'm..." Rose was a bit confused by being called a sapphire, but Steven understood.

"Oh! You mean like a crystal ball?"

"What is a crystal?" Pink asked, being confused by human terminology.

"You probably know the word as part of the Crystal System, which is where the Earth is." Rose explained.

"No way! That's where 'Crystal Gems' comes from?" Steven suddenly became interested in the barrage of answers he was finally going to get, from both Rose and Pink.

"Wait, let me get this straight. By 'Crystal Gems', you mean rebel clods, right?" After all, until she realized everything, Pink still assumed that there were essentially enemies inside her own gemstone.

"One at a time!" Rose did her best to calm both Steven and Pink down, even though the two were "excited" in very different ways.

"Yeah!" Pink nodded to herself. "One at a time! That means that there can only be one gem per gemstone, and that means you both gotta go!"

"That's..." Rose groaned as she facepalmed. "That's not what I meant!"

"Pfft, is exactly! Is that why you shattered me? Is that it?" Pink appealed.

Steven looked at both the gemstone apparitions, as they began dealing rather harshly with one another. If this was the sort of frustration that Rose had kept inside of her, there was no wonder why she was such a polarizing figure, with the Crystal and Homeworld Gems having radically different opinions on her. Yet, he felt that there was no way he could interrupt them now, and there was no real need to until they pulled out their swords and attacked each other.

That being said... how did the cloudspace in the gemstone work, exactly? Could any of the three - Pink, Rose and Steven - be permanently gotten rid of? Didn't seem like it, because if Rose could actually shatter Pink, she wouldn't need to do that cheap party trick to impress Eyeball Ruby, whatever it was. The point was, there was something definitely going on, and Steven needed answers, and he wasn't getting them until he made Rose and Pink reconcile their differences.

Steven's awkward glances back and forth did not fail to be noticed by Rose. "Pink! You're embarrasing Steven. It is our first time meeting, for real, and he wants some questions answered."

"Oh, don't worry, Rosey pal, I'm sure me and Steven are best buds! Right, Steven?" Pink gave a condescending glance downwards to Steven's petite, adolescent figure.

"No..." Steven could only answer. "I still don't know the whole truth behind my mom; so, please... won't one of you just tell me about it?" he cried.

"Alright!" Pink clapped. "Who should start? The latest and greatest of the Diamond Authority or some out-of-shape fake quartz clod clad in sacrilegious white?"

"I..." Rose sighed. "I guess I should start." She kneeled over to face Steven, eye to eye, while Pink just crossed her arms. "Steven. I know these aren't the ideal circumstances - serenely watching a tape recording of me is already a huge improvement over... this, even though you can't interact with that - but don't hesitate to take this as an opportunity to ask me anything, knowing I'll answer truthfully. Can't exactly... hide secrets in my own gemstone." Rose glanced to the side.

"Blah, blah, blah, boring!" Pink called.

"Hold on, Steven." Standing up, Rose took Steven's hand and flew off, as graciously as Steven's own flying abilities, as far away from Pink as she could. He couldn't help but be amazed by the sight, and momentarily, completely forgot about Pink; it was just him and Mom, none of that shattering nonsense involved.

"Cool!" Steven screamed as he flew. Once he was on firm ground - or at least, as firm a ground you could call imaginary clouds in a mind realm - he asked Rose: "So, which one of you should I call mom?"

"I... that's quite the hard question..." Rose pondered. "I... I suppose... whichever one makes you happy, Steven."

"That's not an answer, mom! I'm here for real answers! Isn't this the single place where I can get true answers, from the actual Rose Quartz that everyone either idolizes or vilifies?" Steven asked.

"Steven." Rose put a finger to Steven's mouth. "A lot of questions simply don't have definitive answers. Sometimes, a question might have two answers that are both equally valid. Do you agree that is possible? Even for questions you desperately seek 'definitive' answers to?"

"I... I guess it could be a thing..." Steven looked away.

"Which one of us is your mother? In a way... both of us, because we're the same gem. Call us whatever you wanna call us; whatever makes you happy." Rose smiled.

"Alright, mom!" Steven smiled back, before asking: "So, why this whole Rose thing? Why run away from who you really are?"

"Going for the hard-hitting ones right away?" Rose laughed, before constructing an answer of her own. "You see, sometimes, there is no real future for you, in your current place. That is why you should always be able to reinvent yourself! Unfortunately, Gem society has some trouble with that... but that's why Earth exists! Have you ever watched organic life go through its life cycle?"

"Mom, I'm only fourteen!" Steven laughed.

"You'll get plenty of time, don't worry. Anyway, back to your question." Rose cleared her throat. "Being a Diamond isn't exactly... the most satisfying experience. Like the royals of the Earth, we always had to be in our best possible form. We were, after all, perfect examples of the perfect Gem society... and yet, you couldn't find a family more dysfunctional than us if you tried. White was obsessed with perfection, Blue would never stop crying, Yellow would always let anger get to her and I..." Rose gave a glance at Pink, in the distance. "...was a spoiled brat."

"Mom!" Steven whined. "That's no way to speak of yourself!"

"Exactly, Steven." Rose smiled, hoping that he finally understood. "In order to remedy myself, first I had to accept that this isn't who I was. But good luck getting around to doing anything with yourself when ninety percent of your time is sitting around on Homeworld. That's why the story only really begins after I was assigned my first colony: the Earth."

Even though Pink was still at a good distance away from Steven and Rose, hearing the word "colony" made her more alerted than ever, and she was going to listen to Rose's story - hopefully a better version of Pearl's story from the waking world. She thus leapt over to Steven and Rose and quietly sat next to them.

"Pearl had quite the brilliant idea, I must say. Blending in with the Earth Quartzes via shapeshifting? I wish I could think of something even half-brilliant."

"Oh, don't worry!" Pink suddenly spoke up, giving both Steven and Rose a good scare. "I'm sure you will start coming up with ideas as brilliant as mine in no time!"

Rose only glared at Pink. "This is between me and Steven." she hissed.

"Oh, don't mind me! I'm just listening in! I have some catching up to do myself, haha!" Pink excused herself.

"A-alright." The towering figure of Pink didn't help the matters at all, but after closing her eyes for a while, Rose was able to pick her story up where she had left off. "So, the idea of Rose Quartz was born. And from an idea, absolutely everything else could evolve. It was a bit of wish fulfillment, I admit: while Pink was still forced to listen to her fellow Diamonds and take orders from them, even though she was frustrated with them to no end, Rose... didn't have to be. Rose could be everything Pink wasn't, and didn't even have to exist within the Diamond Authority's reach. Rose Quartz... was a terrifying renegade who answered to no one, nor did she expect anyone to answer to her."

"So... what you're saying is you literally abandoned your leader post and tried to establish some wishy-washy 'no one's in charge' utopia because oh-so-terrible Diamonds wouldn't listen to you. Right? Is that the vibe I'm getting?" Pink wondered.

"It's not as simple as you think!" Rose hissed back, and before she knew it, the moment was, once again, between her and Pink, rather than between her and Steven. "I spent centuries pondering it, long before I even started a war."

"Started a war... against yourself? Why?" Pink asked.

"Not against myself! Against the system! Do you not understand? And do you not take your time to understand before jumping straight to questions? You're so... childish!" Rose groaned at Pink, endlessly frustrated. Was that really what she was like?

"Oh, I'll start a war against the system!" Pink stood up as she put a fist by her gemstone, pulling out the rather familiar sword - the one that supposedly shattered her.

"You've forced me to do this." Rose also stood up and unsheathed her sword, almost perfectly following Pink's moves.

"Guys, stop! Moms shouldn't fight!" Steven took his stand between the two, holding both of his arms against each of them.

"Oh, but your oh-so-precious Not-Quartz thinks that they should!" Pink maniacally laughed.

"Do not put your words into my mouth. That is the absolute worst that you can do." Rose gritted her teeth. "You have to admit that you represent the past here, and that means knowing that I know better."

"Ngh!" Steven groaned as he jumped in the air, meeting both Rose and Pink at eye level as he floated. "No! Stop! Listen to each other!"

"And what's this apparition doing here?" Pink appealed, pushing Steven away with her free hand, making him lose his focus on his floating and hit the ground, hurting rather badly. "Creating one apparition to run away from your boring life is bad enough, but why another? And why must it be this h... h-human?"

"Don't you dare speak of Steven this way!" Rose lashed back at an image of everything she despised about her past.

"Oh, so she has a name now, doesn't she, your little pet? Is that what she is? A pet?" Pink mocked.

"He." Rose interrupted.

"Oh, right, the alternative pronouns that shouldn't exist!" Pink lashed right back at Rose.

"No!" Steven shouted from the distance "You might have beef to settle with one another, but don't insult me like that! Me! Not Rose Quartz, not Pink Diamond... me!" It was all to no avail, though, as both Pink and Rose were too far away from him to notice or listen to what he had said. Not only that, but he was too hurt from Pink's attack to even stand up; if he wanted to make some noise, he would have to crawl over to them, and the process was painfully slow, as well as painful, period.

"Not all lifeforms exist by the boundaries put forward by Gems. Do you understand that?" Rose appealed.

"Yes, and that means that those lifeforms should be eliminated! Isn't this what the Diamonds fought for?" Pink asked.

"And this is exactly what I fought against. And I'm gonna fight against it now!" Rose launched forward with her own sword.

"Well, then! Let's fight! It's you versus me, Rose, none of this... Steven!" Pink put her own sword in a parrying position, and in a blink of an eye, the two swords finally struck each other by the blades, making a clang that made Steven, still far away and groaning in pain, realize that there was no salvaging of this situation with words anymore. Nevertheless, he still wanted to try.

Realizing that this was a fight for their lives, forgetting the nonexistent stakes inside a mind, both Pink and Rose took out their shields, once again perfectly matching each other. Even this early into the fight, it was clear that both Rose and Pink were made of the exact same stuff, and in order to win the battle, one of them would have to outsmart the other.

The two then continued fighting in their own styles. Rose graciously swept around and parried any hits that she took from Pink, while Pink moved from fighting position to fighting position like a rebellious teenager would move from the shopping aisle in a clothes store to the counter. Nevertheless, the two proved to be equals, and watching the fight gave Steven hope; if the fight lasted long enough, he would be able to step in, use all of his strength to jump upwards and stop the battle temporarily - that is, until Pink, the not cool mom, pushed him away and hurt him once again.

Either way, Steven knew that this was a battle that neither Rose nor Pink had the right to win. It was written all over them: while Pink was still defending her cause without giving second thoughts about it, and Rose had the upper hand of having more experience... in a way, it was her fault for pursuing herself, for pursuing the cause - no matter how good it was, and no matter that the Earth was saved in the process, allowing for a being like Steven to even exist. As Steven limped, on all fours, towards the battling ladies, he knew that neither of them could win.

It looked like he had finally reached them - they were only ten feet away - when something terrible happened. Having slid under Pink due to her shorter stature, Rose was finally able to knock her sword out of her hand, and as Pink leaned over, as quickly as possible, to grab it, Rose hit it with her own shield, launching it into the air.

Pink only got a few moments to stare at her flying sword dumbfoundedly until she was faced with another groan from Rose. She defended herself with her shield, but Rose - somehow, don't ask anyone involved - was able to pierce the shield with her sword, before tossing it over to the side, flying within a hair's width of Steven's suffering form. The gust of wind did wonders to scare him, and before he knew it, he plopped onto the floor, knowing that he had lost.

Finally, Rose had the upper hand. She took no more precious moments, and stabbed the sword through Pink's gemstone, in a harsh repeat of the staged shattering where she had played Pink's role, while Pearl had played hers.

"THAT'S IT I DECLARE WAR ON HUMAN SLEEPING THIS INSTANT." Pink screamed as she woke up, before realizing that her face still hurt from when Pearl - her own Pearl - hit her.

Speaking of her... Pink thought as she glanced around. It was a bit disorienting, given that both her own room in the Crystal Temple and her own mindscape were essentially made of the same stuff, but this was easy to orient yourself around, especially since two more copies of yourself weren't around, while all these other rebels joining a made-up cause were.

And surely enough, Pink did locate Pearl: right by her own "sleeping" corpse's side, messing around with some sticks and string. What was that all for? Surely it was some weird human custom that Pink had no way of wrapping her head around. Not that it mattered, because after the episode, her mind was as clear as ever, and her intentions weren't budging anymore: she was going to use these "Rose" and "Steven" people to upset the structure of the Crystal Gems, before taking over and making the other Diamonds - wherever they were - to make up with her.

The other Diamonds couldn't have possibly been shattered as well? The Diamonds were the strongest Gems around. They must still be around, ruling Gemkind with hard light fists.

"My Diamond! That took a while!" Pearl laughed. "Oh, don't worry, I was just-"

"Nah, you don't worry." Pink interrupted. "I've got at least a couple of systems to overthrow, and I'm gonna need loyal soldiers. You're loyal to me, right?"

"Yes, my Diamond." Hearing these words, Pearl instinctively did the Diamond salute; it looked like the thousands of years of being raised as "her own thing" didn't matter at all if Pink Diamond, her own Diamond and owner, was back with a snap of the fingers, just like that.

"That's a start. Let's go." Pink opened a passage way out of her own room back to the Crystal Gem base of operations, ready to face the pesky fusion and whoever was by her side, fighting a made-up war.

Perhaps Pink was a hypocrite, partaking in the war against all odds. But then again, some genius in her gemstone had managed to escalate it into a real war, with soldiers on both sides viciously supporting their cause. The fire had already been started; now was the time to put it out, rather than keep blaming the person who started it, especially since that person was more likely than not herself.

Author's idiotisms: If this is the last fanfic chapter I ever write, I want to leave you all with a bang.

AN 2020 05 23: It was going to be the last fanfic chapter I ever write, because I really, really wanted to move on to original fiction, but then I kind of lapsed back with stuff like Inside Out reImagined.