Chapter Text
She was a Pearl. But she wasn’t just any Pearl. She was White Diamond’s Pearl.
She was White Pearl.
She was as close to perfection as one could be as a Pearl— after all, she served THE White Diamond. The most important Gem on Homeworld, even moreso than her sisters.
Her Diamond wouldn’t keep her around if her service wasn’t satisfactory.
At least, that was what she thought.
Until…
Until, as she was walking down the hallway on her way to fulfill her assigned tasks for the day, she overheard something that Her Diamond said to Yellow Diamond. About how she planned to take Pink Diamond’s Pearl. Apparently, Pink Diamond had shrieked at such a volume that she literally broke her Pearl’s psyche and it manifested in a cracked eye.
If… Her Diamond was taking Pink Diamond’s Pearl, then what did that mean for her actual Pearl? Maybe it had nothing to do with how satisfactory her service was— perhaps she just wanted to keep Pink Diamond’s Pearl away from the source of her trauma and injuries. Maybe that was all.
Of course it was! Who was she to doubt Her Diamond?
“And what do you plan to do with your Pearl?” Yellow Diamond had asked.
“I will pass her off onto one of the Sapphires,” Her Diamond had answered.
White Pearl froze.
Pass… her off? Why not pass Pink Diamond’s Pearl onto them instead?? Did White Pearl’s service mean nothing to her? Thousands of years, doing everything she asked… ever since White Pearl could remember. Never disobeying a command. Never failing a command. And doing everything she asked with a smile on her face. All because she thought she was making Her Diamond happy.
Did it mean nothing?
White Pearl stared at her reflection in the wall. Her eyes, one green, one blue, stared back at her, as lost and broken as she herself was.
. . . . .
It had meant nothing. Because just like Her Diamond had said she would be, she was assigned to a Sapphire. And that Sapphire was going to one of Yellow Diamond’s colonies.
White Pearl, subdued and heartbroken, followed her orders and left with the Sapphire and her Ruby guards. She did not want to displease Her Diamond any more than she already had by not complying.
Serving the Sapphire, however…
White Pearl couldn’t understand it, but she felt no joy. Not in the same way she did when Her Diamond gave her a task. She wasn’t Her Diamond.
She was just a Sapphire. If anything, she was beneath White Pearl. All of this was beneath her.
. . . . .
Two months after arriving at the colony, White Pearl stole one of the Gem Colony Dropships and escaped. Never looking back. Before taking the ship she had hesitated, knowing that if she was caught, the punishment would be severe. Possibly the shattering kind of severe.
But…
Her Diamond didn’t want her. And she didn’t belong in that colony. She—
She could only hope the stars held the place she belonged. There was only one way to find out. And that was to seek it out herself.
. . . . .
White Pearl didn’t know how long she had been traveling the stars. It took a very long time for her to get far away from Homeworld’s colonies, and she went further still, fearful that they would come after her. After all, she did steal one of their Dropships and run away.
She hoped that she was far enough away that they wouldn’t come here looking for her.
A few scans of the planet told her that it was inhabited, and by using the ship’s digital telescope she saw that the primary population seemed to be primitive bipeds that admittedly didn’t look too different from her. She could conceivably pass for an ordinary… whatever these bipeds are. And then from there, she could learn whether or not this was suitable planet on which to stay.
She… didn’t want to be alone.
She had already tried that. It was horrible. Insufferable. She needed other beings. Other voices. Speaking of voices. She ought to learn the planet’s language before going down there and making an absolute fool of herself. Or worse, causing those bipeds to be hostile towards her.
White Pearl tuned into the radio stations, as sensors had also been picking up numerous radio signals all over the planet.
She flicked between them, a silent frustration building as she found the voices to either be obnoxiously annoying or so dull that she might shatter herself out of pure boredom.
And then she found it.
A voice she liked. She couldn’t understand the words, at least not yet. But that voice… it was beautiful. She ran a finger down the side of the console in front of her.
Yes, she would learn. She would learn from this one.
. . . . .
As the weeks passed, White Pearl’s understanding of the world the Dropship was now in orbit of grew. For one, there were many languages all over the planet. So many. It seemed so inconvenient— the Homeworld only had one language.
However, White Pearl couldn’t deny that it posed an interesting challenge. A challenge that fueled her with a purpose she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
She learned Alastor’s language, English, first. She had learned the human’s name with time, among other things. Like the fact that apparently he used different pronouns. White Pearl had only ever heard she and her.
She didn’t know that there could be other pronouns.
She also learned a little bit about Alastor’s personal life. Very surface level things, mind you. She often wished he would share more. Sometimes she day dreamed about them living together and talking about their lives. Sometimes in those fantasies she was human. And she had a human family. One that she would take Alastor to meet. And he had a family that he would take her to meet. These were all just fantasies. Dreams. Delusions.
She… still found what he did talk about intriguing. Of course she did. He was Alastor. He kept her company, like no other radio show host did. He felt almost like a friend.
Alastor lived in the city he grew up in, New Orleans. He was a party-goer and would play the piano, and would frequently compliment the singing of a friend of his named Mimzy.
White Pearl found herself… slightly jealous. It was unreasonable, she knew. Alastor didn’t know she existed. She then wondered if she could still sing herself, and after the broadcast she tried recording a song.
It was one that she used to sing back on Homeworld for… for…
She deleted the recording after listening to only a few seconds of it. It hurt to listen to. All it did was bring back memories, memories she wanted so badly to forget.
She knew it amounted to heresy but one day, while listening to one of Alastor’s broadcasts, she stood in front of the console and crossed her arms over her chest in the salute she once gave to… not Her Diamond anymore. She was just White Diamond to her now.
White Pearl whispered, “My Alastor.”
And then, a few weeks later, she stopped hearing his broadcasts. She searched and searched for the frequency, checked her systems to make sure nothing had broken because this ship was old, she had been traveling with it for so long that it was probably on its last legs—
… She found nothing. He was gone. Alastor was gone.
White Pearl was abandoned once again. She sunk to her knees and buried her face in her hands. Her body shook and she sobbed.
She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t perfect, and she wasn’t even good enough for Alastor to stay.
No, this is unreasonable, she tried to tell herself. No.
Alastor didn’t know she existed. Alastor likely stopped his broadcasts for a different reason. Perhaps something happened to him.
Eyes wide, she lifted her head.
She had to find him. She had to find Her Alastor. If he was in trouble, she had to be there to help him. She was His Pearl. She had to.
White Pearl stood, and walked up to the console. Steeling herself, she scanned the planet for an area near New Orleans that was secluded, and once one was found, she programmed the ship to follow that trajectory and descend.
She then stared down at her reflection in the floor. She closed her eyes, and allowed her body to shift. When she opened her eyes again, she had taken the form of a man. She wanted to draw the least amount of attention as possible, and humans had a tendency to be… strange about women.
It wasn’t as if White Pearl was that attached to what would have been her perceived gender anyway. She was White Pearl, no matter the form she took. This shapeshifting was merely for convenience’s sake.
The body still had her heterochromia, but now instead of her pale blue hair, she had black hair. Her body suit, which once had a flowy white skirt with an opening in the front, was now a blue, professional looking suit.
She saw that the soft blueish-green Gem in her forehead was still uncovered and parted her hair to hide it.
She thought with a derisive snort that perhaps she should have been Blue Diamond’s Pearl. Her color scheme would have certainly been more fitting. And perhaps Blue Diamond would not have discarded her so easily.
Either way, she would never know.
. . . . .
White Pearl quickly found out what had happened to Her Alastor.
She had come across an abandoned newspaper left on a bench. Upon looking through it, she found an article that described the horrific events that befell Her Alastor. He had apparently been in the midst of burying a body when a hunter had come across him. Mistaking him for a deer, the hunter had shot him in the head.
Her Alastor was dead. Her Alastor had been shattered.
With an angry cry, White Pearl ripped the newspaper to shreds, and ignored the passerbys who gave her odd, concerned looks. She gritted her teeth and bit back a scream of anger. Now wasn’t the time to lose her composure.
She was going to find this hunter and shatter him.
. . . . .
White Pearl had found the hunter. He had been incarcerated for manslaughter, thanks to his shooting Her Alastor.
Frankly, she thought the hunter had deserved a worse fate. Which was why when night fell, she broke into the prison he was locked up in.
“What the fuck?” he had asked, stunned by her cutting through and breaking down his wall with little effort.
She smirked at him, and after slipping the laser torch into her pocket, grasped the long snake-like object she held in her opposite hand and stretched it out. She lifted it as high as her chest so that he would see. So that he would know.
She had brought with her from her ship— in addition to the tool she used to cut a hole through the cell wall— a long thick cord, once used to power the engines. And then, before he could so much as scream for help, she wrapped it tight around the hunter’s neck, so tight she could swear his eyes almost popped out of his skull.
She wore a wide, wild smile on her face. She was enjoying this. Watching him suffer. Watching as he struggled in vain. Humans were so much weaker than Gems. Than Pearls. Pearls like her. It was hilarious. It was pathetic.
“Pl… ease,” he choked out. “Don’t…” Shame he had to be the one to take Her Alastor’s life. His voice wasn’t that bad.
In fact. She was going to keep it. It was her voice now.
“You shattered My Alastor,” she told him in his own voice, and oh, how she relished in the horrified confusion that took over his face. “What’s that phrase you humans like to say when you despise the other? Oh yes. Go to Hell.”
She cackled softly as the life finally began to fade from his eyes. Only when he stopped breathing did she let him go. She let his pathetic shell fall to the floor, and sneered.
Still. She accomplished what she came here to do. She stormed out of the cell the way she came, never looking back.
. . . . .
“That’s it for today, and remember, trust us with your weather.”
Vincent’s fake cheery smile fell as soon as the spotlight switched off and the cameramen practically ran off to go film that news anchor schmuck and his girlfriend (who also happened to be a news anchor) or whatever the fuck she was to him.
Vincent internally cringed at the almost… desperate way he had said the word “weather.” No wonder they wanted to film that stupid fucking anchor.
He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t good enough.
His scowl deepened as he watched them. He wanted to be up there. He wanted to be the one the cameras were on. He wanted to be the one delivering the news to the people. He could do it so much better than that fuck!
All he needed was a chance. A chance to prove himself. A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He fiddled with the lightning bolt on the tip of his pointer, and pulled it off. It looked sharp, sharp enough to cut into the male news anchor’s throat.
Oh sure, it would leave a mess, but Vincent was a Gem. He could just wash the blood off and no one would suspect a thing.
Besides, he wanted to see that anchor’s blood spill everywhere. He wanted to feel the splatters on his face. He wanted that rush again, the rush he felt back when he killed the hunter for shattering His Alastor.
. . . . .
Vincent climbed higher and higher. He had to kill, to get there, of course. He had no qualms with that. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed the various, increasingly creative ways in which he could kill these pathetic humans. And most of all, he enjoyed how untouchable he was.
A decade had passed since he killed that stupid fucking news anchor and still no one caught on.
He was a God! Nothing and no one could stop him! He was going to shine, brighter than everyone else on this miserable rock! He would be perfect!
He was their God! They loved him, as their God. He was perfect. He was good enough. He was trusted, he was adored, he was loved, and no one would leave him again!
That was what he thought… until a fucking television fell on his head.
. . . . .
As it turned out, life didn’t end after having a TV fall on your head and shatter your Gem. Because Vincent now found himself in some kind of afterlife. A city with a red sky streaked with a massive pentagram. A city that was in total chaos. Cars on fire, strange bipeds that looked nothing like humans running around either chasing someone with a knife or being chased.
And as for Vincent? He didn’t exactly look like himself anymore either. A television set sat where his head should be, with only blood-red eyes and a shark-toothed mouth for a face. His skin was a dark blue-ish gray, with pale blue claws for fingertips.
At least he kept his clothes. They were torn up and dirty, and probably smelled like shit. But he had no idea if he could shapeshift new clothes or not here, so he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, as humans love to say.
. . . . .
It wasn’t long before he figured out where he was. Hell. And boy, did it live up to the name. Not a day went by that he didn’t see Sinners killing each other in the streets over the pettiest shit.
Yesterday he saw a guy set another guy on fire over a sandwich.
Apparently, Sinners also didn’t stay dead. Their bodies would regenerate with time, and more than once Vincent saw a Sinner that had been killed last week walking the streets again like nothing happened.
Of course, all of them were Sinners who were once human. Vincent was a Gem. At least, he was before he got here. He didn’t exactly fancy finding out if Gem Sinners also regenerated after being brutally pulverized, burned alive, stabbed to death, or whatever.
So he took a gun off a Sinner’s corpse and kept it with him, fully prepared to strike first if… no, when the time came.
He was not disappointed. As he wandered the streets, standing tall with his back straight so as to look intimidating, like someone you don’t want to fuck with, a Sinner shoved him into an alley and held him at knifepoint.
“All your money, now!” the Sinner hissed.
“Do I look like I have money?” Vincent snarled. He didn’t wait for the Sinner to respond. Instead he slapped the hand away and then ducked and rolled. He pulled out his gun from under the hem of his pants and in a swift motion, pointed it at the Sinner’s back and fired.
His pathetic shell fell limply to the ground in an instant.
“Dipshit,” Vincent grumbled.
“Interesting.”
Vincent froze. He turned, looking over his shoulder. Behind him stood a deer-like Sinner demon, whose mouth seemed permanently locked in a wide smile.
But that wasn’t what caused Vincent to freeze.
Had the voice sounded different, he probably would’ve shot this guy too. But… he knew that voice. He had listened to it, week after week. He had killed when he lost that voice.
His Alastor.
His Alastor.
Vincent stood, and put away his gun. Alastor raised an eyebrow at him. Looking almost intrigued. Like he was a scientist, and Vincent was something to be studied.
“I… is it really you?” Vincent asked.
He was so sure, it had to be him, it had to be— but a part of him was convinced that this wasn’t real. That maybe this was a dream. A mockery, courtesy of his own jerkass subconscious.
“My sincerest apologies, but I’m afraid I’m not quite following, my dear,” Alastor told him.
“A- Alastor,” Vincent continued. “You— were a radio show host. Back on Earth. I heard you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, in the salute that once was reserved for White Diamond, now reserved for His Alastor.
“My Alastor.”
Alastor’s other brow raised. He was still smiling, but the strain in his face… he looked almost uncomfortable.
Vincent’s own smiled became strained. He had only spoken to Alastor for what? Less than a minute? And he already disappointed him.
He wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t good enough.
“If I may ask, what is your name?” Alastor finally spoke. Vincent was grateful for the change in subject. And grateful that Alastor didn’t just… you know. Leave.
“V…” He started to answer, and then he stopped. No, he couldn’t use his real name. No one seemed to use their real name down here. And sure, Alastor answered to his human name, but that didn’t tell Vincent if he actually still used it or not.
Vincent had to think of a good demon name, fast.
Wait. The Latin for the word voice. He used his voice for so many things, back when he still walked in the land of the living. Moments before his death, he even spoke of being the people’s voice. And even now, in this shithole, he still used it. He still used his voice. He smirked. Yes. Yes, this one would be his demon name.
“Vox,” he said. Vox’s smile grew wider. “My name is Vox.”