Symbiote Chapter 10

Ten days later...

Tanzanite had just finished relaying the last week's events to her Queens Pearl and Garnet, who had seemed rather curious on how she and the crew had been handling things on Earth. Needless to say, the two Queens didn't like what they were hearing.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do anything to save poor Monique..." Tanzanite shook her head. "Pearl, I know I taught you that whenever something like this came up, we should do everything in our power to fix the situation no matter what. But I couldn't. It was beyond my control, and the worst part about this... none of this would've happened if we'd just killed Red Antimony right away..."

Tanzanite began to cry and she embraced her student, the white Gem Queen, slowly and delicately.

"Garnet, what would you make of this?" Pearl asked her wife.

"Honestly, I don't know what would've been worse, but let us never speak of this catastrophe ever again." Garnet spoke up monotonously.

"Agreed!" the other two people in the room chimed in.

Meanwhile at Beach City...

The other Gems were making a valiant effort to go on with their lives; well, almost all of them. Diamond had only now just come back from a five-month-long solo mission in Siberia, so she couldn't really understand what all the fuss about some "red jelly" and a "monstrous parasite" was about. As for the rest of Beach City, while they hadn't been as traumatized as they had been during the "Zoisite Massacre" two years ago, now they were so paranoid about there being another attack that you could barely see anybody getting out of their homes (or workplaces) anymore. And Parker was nowhere to be seen; he had already left the place after attending a memorial service for his lost Monique.

Steven and the rest of the Gems (save for Tanzanite) were in the Temple, gathered around the TV and watching reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a means of levity. Steven had always found the show to be hilarious for one reason or another; after all, Rose used to watch it frequently with Greg and his aunt and her family before her big sacrifice. But would the Crystal Gems really be able to cope with what they had just gone through just by laughing at Uncle Phil's funny jokes alone?

"Y'know, I can't help but feel sympathetic for Carlton sometimes." Jade commented.

"Why is that?" Diamond asked in confuzzlement.

"Because he always feels like he's a second banana to Will or something, I don't know. He looks very human for a banana."

"What are you saying? You think you're inferior to Tanzanite?"

"Maybe. At least it's not as terrible as when Pearl and Amethyst clash."

"Yeah, I suppose so..." Diamond's train of thought suddenly wandered off as she caught a glimpse of Kiki entering from the porch. "Hold on."

In the process of showing off her slender 7'2" frame, the former Gem Queen proceeded to get up and approach the Ghanaian girl.

"Diamond, what are you doing here?" Kiki asked. "I didn't think you'd come back from your mission in Russia."

"Neither did I." Diamond said. "After that battle with this giant Gem horseshoe scorpion and some wapitis and manguts, I had to swim all the way to Alaska and trek all across the West Coast- on foot, no less -just to get here. But anyway, what are you doing here?"

"I... just wanted to thank you guys for saving me and Mr. Smiley and all that. I'm not sure what we would've done without you."

"Ah. Well, thank you. But you two managed to put up a pretty good fight, too."

There was a brief pause after that.

"Alright, it was nice seeing you, Kiki."

"You too, Diamond. I'll just go home and call Parker real quick."

"What about Ronaldo? Aren't you two dating?"

"What?"

"You and Ronaldo. You two are dating, yes?"

"Not anymore, no. We broke up. I guess our worlds were just too different. Anyway, bye."

With that, Kiki turned around and walked out.

"Well, that was nice of Kiki to drop by." Steven had been paying attention to the conversation the entire time. "I wonder if the rest of the Pizza family is just as grateful."

"I wonder if anybody's grateful." Diamond retorted as she rejoined the group that was watching Fresh Prince.

Ah well, at least they had each other to lean on.