Chapter Text
It was beginning to grate.
Laughter. Yellow had taken to it like a fish to water. It almost never stopped. That sound- it was of course adorable, or at least it had been when it was Pink. She supposed it would've grown tiresome coming from her, too, if she'd laughed all the time, if she hadn't kept that tacky little thing out of sight most of the time.
She didn't want to ask Yellow if she meant it.
She was afraid to find out. The act was very convincing- and if it should turn out not to be an act? If Yellow was indeed satisfied with having this toy, instead of Pink? Could she be trusted to do the right thing, now...?
"It didn't work," a glum voice beside her said.
"No," she agreed.
"So... what now?"
She turned to Blue. "We try again. Perhaps with Yellow's 'cluster', this time."
"Mm."
They sat in silence for a moment, watching Yellow as she egged on the Spinel. It began juggling its own head, something Yellow apparently found funnier than anything else in the universe. The laughter again.
Blue spoke up again. "How do you imagine we do that? I thought he'd already subverted it."
She shook her head slightly. "Pacified it. The right kick, perhaps, could spur it into action."
Blue nodded.
There was more silence. Between the two of them, anyway. True silence evaded them, ever since they'd brought back the plaything.
"Any other leads?" Blue asked.
"Plenty," she replied. "Pink made no shortage of enemies. The difficulty is in arming them. If we try the same trick twice, we might tip our hand."
Blue was silent. Neither of them needed to say what the consequences of that would be. She would hate them, of course- and even bringing their conquest to a grinding halt again wouldn't suffice to repair that breach.
"I did hope it would work," Blue mused. "The rejuvenator, at least."
It hadn't been very likely. The rejuvenator's effects had an unpleasant tendency to wear off unpredictably- and regardless, Pink had performed such reckless experimentation on her own flawless gem. It hadn't been surprising that a factory reset hadn't broken the connection to that biological shell.
"You'd hoped the injector would fail, then?"
Blue hesitated, then nodded. "I can see why she liked it, at least. It would have been a shame to destroy- if we'd had her back, we could've made it into a garden planet for her."
She couldn't say she felt the same. The smell made it difficult to get attached to.
The injector should have been the failsafe. Leaving it unguarded at the warp depot, ensuring the Spinel would make the right connections... it was child's play to set up, and it should have finished the job.
What was it? Was it that the toxin had been sitting too long? She'd been assured the substance didn't degrade. And... no gem's healing, not even Pink's, should have been sufficient to counter that volume.
She should have been the only one left alive- the Spinel would, quite without her prompting, see to it that all of Pink's connections to those "equal beings" were systematically severed. The meat-creatures killed, the Crystal Gems wiped clean, and Pink left all alone but for her best friend.
And then, of course, they'd have arrived to rescue her from the monster. What a tragedy, that the Earth- that gnarled claw that meant to snatch her away from home- would be so cruelly destroyed by a mad Spinel. But at least, at the end of it all, she would still have a home to go back to- and no reason to leave.
"Oh, White, why did you not arrive sooner?" she would ask. And she'd tell her the truth, of course- that she'd clearly wanted her space, and watching her every move would have been so smothering. She could hardly be blamed for doing exactly what Pink wanted! And she would learn, of course, that to be outside of her protective reach was a recipe for disaster.
But no.
No, instead... instead, Pink was still on Earth, literally kissing the dirt those animals walked on.
"What if... we replaced them?"
Blue was talking again. What did she mean?
"Explain."
"Well, Steven knows that the rejuvenator's effects are supposed to wear off, now. If it happened again, he'd be counting on it. He wouldn't give up."
"I don't see the connection," she said, pretty sure she saw the connection but allowing Blue to speak her mind.
"He won't want to believe that the Crystal Gems aren't themselves," she continued. "He'll think he knows the answer- waiting. But if we managed to replace the originals with fresh cuts, that would never work. There'd be nothing to wear off. He'd have to give up eventually."
Like she thought. "It's a good idea," she began, "but there's a danger that she'd bond to the new ones, too. Subvert them, replace her friends with copies she believes to be the originals- going through a recovery process, perhaps, but still worth clinging to."
Blue frowned. "There are avenues... if the copies are under orders to sabotage his attempts to befriend them..."
"Hmph." Her eyes narrowed. "Would you like to make a bet on those odds? Pink, failing to corrupt our servants?"
Blue let out a sad little laugh. "You're right..."
"Besides, getting it to work in the first place is... it's risky. To make a swap like that- well, it'd require a careful touch. Close supervision. And if we're too close, Pink might notice what we're doing."
"Steven," Blue corrected her.
A derisive snort. "This 'Steven' is a phase. She'll outgrow it soon enough. It's hardly a reason to..."
...to stop... using her real name. It was important not to start calling her Steven. Because then she'd be getting her way- moreso than she already had. Pink's little tantrum had to stop somewhere.
Blue clicked her tongue. "If you call him Pink in private, you'll be more likely to slip up and say it to his face. And you know how he'd take that..."
Slip up?
By reflex, she turned to Blue and gave her her best #3 smile. The one to remind her what it meant to imply that she could "slip up". Rigid. Leaving the meaning unspoken.
Blue didn't look impressed.
"White."
She let the #3 drop. That... well, Pink hadn't been entirely wrong. Perfection... it was something she still had to remind herself she'd lost. She couldn't get it back if she refused to admit it was missing. "The first step is admitting you have a problem," he'd said.
She'd said.
Curse her. This had to stop. She just needed to put things back to normal, that was all.
And she could take a small bit of comfort in the self-evident fact that- though she may not be perfect- she was still better than everything else in the universe.