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That wasn't me. That was a- a fleshy mockery.
Like, we're essentially programmed to enjoy doing things that keep us alive. Isn't that smart?
Is there not a gem version of that? Like, do you enjoy fighting?
[some people's entire canon hinges on being fast in quicktime events.]
Jasper...
What I'm going to tell you, I don't want to have to tell you like this. You deserve to hear it and see it, face to face.
What's your game? You think you can manipulate me? You actually think there's any way I'd take your side?
Please just meet me on deck.
But nothing you say or do could change anything.
[But it might just change everything.
She shuts off the communicator and heads to the deck.]
Rose is already there, waiting, and as soon as Jasper is in earshot?
"I want you to poof my body. Shatter me if you want, but that would just make this take longer."
"It isn't. Ford knows this is happening. He's not going to look for you to be punished."
Rose meets her gaze unflinchingly.
"If I just told you this, you wouldn't believe it. I have to show you."
"Pity this won't be permanent." She growls the words out, stepping forward to slam her palm against the other Quartz's gem, fingers digging in around it. She doesn't have the strength she did, but she has enough for this.
The urge to fight it is - terrible, almost sickeningly so. She has to clench her fists at her sides, fight down the urge to summon her shield; she'd thought Jasper would improvise a weapon, not...
This.
The world vanishes, her body turns into pale smoke, and the Gem drawn free is unmistakably not the flat shape of a Rose Quartz.
She looks down at the gem in her hand, a brief flash of satisfaction quickly fading as a chill runs through her form, a curious kind of numbness where she can't quite seem to parse what she's looking at.
The Gem only take a few minutes to rise from Jasper's hand and reform its body. Rose has no control over how - it's Pink, from the bouffant bob down to the little floaty shoe pompoms.
"...I couldn't have just told you this," she says, quietly.
-she can't even begin to untangle what otherwise would mean.
She shakes her head minutely.
"I won't. Rose Quartz was who I became, when the other Diamonds wouldn't let me stop the colonisation, when they wouldn't listen to me. This is who I really was, Jasper."
She's still mourning. The tears are welling now, her defenses in complete shambles. She doesn't notice.
She takes a step closer.
"...I'm so sorry, Jasper. I didn't have a choice."
She steps away. "You made me," she whispers. Her brain is whirling, but she's never been dumb, even if she prefers to solve things with her fists. She can feel the truth of this in her core. The implications are falling into place now. What this means for her, for her life, for everything she believed in.
She turns away, holding her head in her hands, not able to look any longer.
"Yes. I did. I thought the threat of the Crystal Gems would have been enough to convince them to leave the Earth alone."
And yet she'd continued to raise armies, regardless.
"You made us to fight and shatter your own troops. And- and to be shattered by them? You made us knowing we could only fail?" Even if they defeated the Crystal Gems, it would have been going against their Diamond's true wishes.
The anger's coming back now, but brittle and heartbroken. "Is that why the Beta Kindergarten was such a mess? You wanted the Crystal Gems to win? Did I-" she lets out something between a sob and a choked, hollow laugh. "Did I disappoint you by being so effective?"
She wasn't wanted. Pink never wanted her. She was nothing, a pawn in a big hoax. Nothing but a joke.
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