"Connie, we can't both exist." Yellow Diamond told her daughter, looking into the camera with seriousness. "I'm going to become half of you. And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that's me, loving you and loving being you. Because you're going to be something extraordinary. You're going to be-"

Connie paused the video before rewinding it slightly. She narrowed her eyes before jotting down a few more notes. "See, here, despite saying she will love me, she looks strained. Dad said she struggled with emotions, even the simplest ones like sadness she didn't like to show… One could only assume her sorrow and anger towards Blue Diamond came out in a violent manner because of it being bottled up all the time, right?"

Lion glanced up to see her pacing and huffed.

"That's what I'm saying!" Connie answered, though she did it mostly to reassure herself. "This theory is that mother just snapped and shattered gems who had wronged her, or at least had the thought to, it could've happened before based on the behavior I've seen from the Temps."

She pointed to each statement on her chalkboard as she reviewed it. "Number 1: I have felt the urge to shatter, though it usually has not been of my own accord… I think. When my mother's anger controls me like it did when I first poofed Pearl, I change…. But what if that is just me? It could be, I don't know. Number 2: Jasper has threatened to shatter and Lapis and Peridot are afraid to go against her because of it, she thinks violence is the answer to most things. The thing is, Jasper met mother when she just emerged to serve Pink Diamond. She was a baby in gem years when she joined the rebellion, which brings up the debate of nature vs nurture-"

Lion moaned then in boredom, making his mistress sigh.

"I know, I should just accept that the possibility exsisted and I'll never know, but I feel I must, for justice. What if gems were shattered for no reason and never got a proper goodbye? I'd owe it to them… if they exist…" Connie gave a loud groan, flopping onto her bed. "... I used to trust in the idea that she was some saint, but now…? I just don't know anymore. What if she shattered more? What if all that time she acted brave and with kindness, it was all just a fake to get people to follow her, I know that's awful to think about but-!"

Lion then sat up, as if to disagree with her.

"L-Lion?" Connie whispered, turning to him. "You know something about mother, don't you? Do you know if she really did care?"

Lion suddenly started hacking and Connie wrinkled her nose. "Come on, buddy! Not on the bed, gross!"

But what came out of Lion wasn't a hairball, it was a small glass sphere of some sort. Connie was quick to put on gloves to pick it up and look at it. It was see through, and appeared to have nothing in it. Connie frowned.

Connie did various things with the ball. She tried to see if it could tell some possible futures like a crystal ball would, but to no avail. She tried to contact spirits of broken gems, even though she didn't really beleive in ghosts, that didn't work either. At one point she even tried bouncing it on her soft bed to see if that did anything. She shaked it, poked it, turned it over and over, but whatever she did caused no answer to anything.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Connie finally conceded after half an hour of trying. She looked to Lion. "How is this supposed to help me…?"

Lion stared at her.

"Lion, you always know about Mother." Connie said firmly. She was stern to Lion when she needed to be. "Take me to where you found this, please."

Lion huffed, wishing he had a more gullible master like that Steven kid. He rose and allowed Connie to get on.

Hours later, Connie was laying on her Lion, nearly collapsed from heat exhaustion. "It'll be worth it, when this long trip is over… I'll know if my mother was a good leader, and didn't shatter anyone else…"

The girl glanced up when Lion suddenly stopped and bowed. She shielded her eyes from the sun's glare before seeing a giant yellow metal… arch. She slipped off Lion and tried to remember why the structure seemed familiar… Did Homeworld make it? Her mother must've found out about it. She then stamped her foot on the ground in thought. "What is this?"

Her foot didn't land on sand, it hit a metal something. She bent down to the ground and dusted off a large circular spot in the ground. She noticed in the center there was a deepened circular space in the center of a carved diamond. She gasped in shock then and quickly took out the glass orb. She shoved it in and it fit like a glove. The only problem was, it didn't do anything…

"Come on!" Connie yelled loudly to no one in particular. She started pounding on the metal space. "I need answers! T-This was supposed to work!"

Her anger was welling up inside of her. Her mother had left her nothing but secrets and broken people that adored her, and still did even when they knew that she was a shatterer. This anger that she had, was it even her own? Was she even her own person at this point? It wasn't fair… It wasn't fair..! "THIS ISN'T FAIR!"

Suddenly, her body coursed with electricity. Her hands flattened on the orb as she gasped in shock, her hair floating around her.

A shock wave of lightning went off from her body and it was put into the orb.

Connie leaped up in time to see the orb had multiple currents of golden electricity circling inside of it and she realized what it was: a plasma orb, an old novelty. But here, it was the key to a secret.

The diamond around the orb lit golden and Connie was shocked to see it go down into the ground like some kind of elevator.

She stuck her head down the hole and was surprised to see there was a singular room there.

The girl took the elevator down, the place was massive and went miles underground, likely in case Yellow Diamond needed to ever change into her true size when it took too much to remain small.

Connie looked around in amazement, all around her were weapons, armor, and various gem devices. The place was completely covered in these weapons except for a cleared walking path through it. The girl looked upward and was horrified to see up by the celling golden bubbles filled with gem shards. She clasped her hands over her mouth in shock and fear, about to accept the theory that her mother had done this, but Lion suddenly brought her a small device that Connie recognized as the same she had used to see Pink Diamond's message to her after being captured.

She clicked it and it exspanded to a massive size. Connie backed up and saw several folders of various sizes. The largest was titled, 'Don't Forget Them' In it was millions of pictures, all of the gems that had fought by her side. Peridot and Jasper were the very first, and Lapis was the last to join them. She really had cared…

Connie then picked out a folder that said 'Gem Shards'.

The screen filled with various notes and drawings.

Connie read a few and quickly realized that her mother hadn't shattered these gems at all: piece by piece, she was trying to fix them…

The girl felt tears come to her eyes, seeing her mother's handwriting with such passionate and determined words. She only could read a few snippets as they flashed by.

"They've been corrupted, so I failed them. I won't stand for it."

The monster I saw today was still the brave admiral I sent into the battle, she has to be."

No matter how hard I try to piece these shards back together, it's not working! Why isn't it working?!

She tried to lay a trap for me by placing a weapon in the battlefield. Pink is getting more cunning. I recognized this weapon, this gem: Blue created her.

I don't know how much longer I can keep this a secret from them… They should at least know I'm trying to heal the corruption, but this place will stay mine alone.

I'm running out of time. Despite how badly I've wanted to have this child, to have made something so pure and precious unlike all the gems I've made, I'm afraid that they will find out what happened that day.

I'm lying to them, putting on a mask that's not really me… And I let that slip in his tape… It's safe though, Doug promised he would never show that part to Batal. And as for Connie, she won't know about the mistake I made in their tape.

Connie gasped in shock. "What… What is she talking about?! Mistake? What mistake?! And who is Batal?!"

She backed away, breathing heavily in shock. She then tripped over something and fell into a pile of whips.

The girl untangled herself hurriedly and picked up the thing she had slipped on: a vhs tape. The words on the label shook her to the core: 'For Batal'

Lion warped Connie over to the one person who could help her and tell her who Batal was.

She gently knocked on the door and the man answered.

"Pumpkin? What are you doing here?" Doug asked.

Connie glared up at him. "Why haven't you told me? I know the gems would hide things from me, but not you!"

"What are you talking about?" Doug whispered, letting her in.

They went into the living room of his small house. She showed him the tape with anger. "Who is Batal?!"

Doug gasped in shock. "I haven't seen that in years…! I need to see it, and so do you!"

Connie sat down in confusion as her dad set it up on the tv.

They played it and static filled the screen.

Doug was on the screen. He smiled nervously into the camera as he strummed his guitar. "How was that?"

"Pretty weak to be honest, in a battle you wouldn't land a hit, would you?" Yellow Diamond laughed.

"Hey!" Doug blushed with a giggle.

Static cut out and then the camera was looking at the ground. "Isn't it amazing, Batal? This world is full of so many incredible possibilities…"

"Wait… this is… my video…?" Connie whispered in shock, turning to her father.

"Honey, Batal is you." Doug told her.

"If I was a boy?" Connie asked.

"Yes. We had two names, one for a girl and one for a boy: Batal and Connie."

Connie clutched her chest, looking back to the screen that her mother had been using to say the same words she had on the other tape.

Suddenly, Yellow Diamond gave out a frustrated sigh, and turned the camera to her. She looked upset into the camera and called Doug over.

"I… I think I'm trying to be someone else." Yellow Diamond admitted to her love. "I don't know if I'm right for being a mother. If anything, I feel like I'm trying to act more like Pink, with her joy and her emotions…"

"What's so bad about being you?" Doug asked with a smile.

Yellow frowned, narrowing her eyes.

The camera cut to static.

It came back to Doug with his guitar. "So… if we're being totally honest with who we are, I'm Doug Mahaswarren! Just a guy."

Connie frowned in surprise. Why wasn't any of this on her tape?

The next was of Yellow Diamond. She gave a sigh and then looked into the camera. "You are my child, even if I'm not around, and because of that, you will be a great success, no matter what you do… I'd like you to first know that. I'll admit that I've never been a motherly type, so maybe it's better that I won't be around. The Diamond I helped raise clearly doesn't like me." She rolled her eyes in thought but then glanced back. "However, I hope you will like me, all of me, even this side: the vulnerable gem who expresses her true emotions which she isn't good at showing."

Connie stared at the tv, feeling tears come in her eyes.

"I'm not a good person by any means. I am nothing like any of the other Diamonds, I don't like to show weakness to anyone unlike Pink and Blue. I have done awful things, I have shattered, once, and you will have to accept that!" Yellow Diamond told the camera. "If you ever see this, that is… I'm debating on whether I want you to see me like this. The point is, I'm having you because you deserve a chance to experience this world, let it shape you and change you, like it did with me."

"Why wasn't this-?" Connie whispered.

"No. I'm not showing them this." Yellow Diamond whispered suddenly, the camera glitched most likely due to electricity from Yellow. She slammed the camera down. It lay there in the sand while Connie could hear them speaking.

"But Yellow! This is the real you!"

"They don't want the real me, no one would!" Yellow cried. "Any human child wouldn't want me as a mother, they'd want someone to actually look up to, to aspire to be! And that's not me…. The lines I said on Connie's might've been just me trying to be more like Blue and Pink, but I want them to think of me like that."

"Are you sure…?"

"Yes."

The tape cut off to static and Connie wiped away tears.

"You mean to tell me she told everything about herself, showed her true self, and she didn't want me to see it?" Connie asked. "Why would Batal get to?"

"Batal wouldn't have. I promised Yellow I'd just edit together the parts of your tape and his in case. She wanted her kid to think of her as someone-"

"Someone perfect!" Connie cried. "All my life I've wanted to be like that: perfect like my mother. Turns out, she was just as flawed as I am!"

"And that's a bad thing?"

Connie stuttered. "Well… no. But I still am her, I still have to take responsibility for what she's done to Homeworld and the Rebellion! Even if she wasn't that perfect, she was still the most powerful Diamond there ever was! And I have to be that! But if I'm that, I'll always be in a constant state of worry, because I know corruption can't be cured, I'm constantly putting my friends in danger, and this war between Homeworld and us… what if it has to end like the last one? I've tried to think of a peaceful solution but Pink Diamond will stop at nothing to make us all pay! What if I have to shatter her?!"

The girl burst into tears.

Doug looked at his daughter, tears in his eyes. "Sweetheart…"

Connie was wrapped up in his arms and she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Shhh…. Shhh… Your mother would want you to live your life instead of worrying it away… And you aren't her, you're you! She faked so you would live carefree, like she and I always dreamed about. She didn't want you to worry about Pink, or Rose, or Homeworld, especially not shattering. She just wanted someone that would be free, and that would give her peace. You don't have to do anything like your mother, baby. Just let it go if you can, even for a little bit."

"I'll try…" Connie sniffed and hugged her father. She knew deep down she still felt remorse and responsibility for her mother's actions, and that wouldn't be going away. Her mother had ordered soldiers to fight to their deaths, had closed off all emotions but anger since they were so hard, and had been driven to shatter. She was herself, yes, but she knew herself well.

Connie Universe was absolutely terrified at what this destiny would turn her into.