Bismuth took the Crystal Gems to a broadcast station in Little Homeworld, where Peridot and Lapis were manning the station.

"What's going on, Biz?" Amethyst asked.

"We received this transmission from one of the farther out bases." Peridot said, restarting the video.

The video was fuzzy, but there was obviously a gem, and she was in panic. The audio also was fuzzy, and warbly. Only a couple times throughout the message was the video signal clear enough for them to see the mess going on; but it was only for a second.

Pearl was shaken, she put her hand over her mouth with a gasp. "What happened?"

Peridot swallowed nervously and pulled up a datapad. "While Bismuth was getting you, I was able to make out some words from the garbled message. Some key words, luckily. 'Under attack,' 'die,' 'men of black.' "

"Men of black?" Pearl asked, curiosity piqued.

"What does that mean?" Amethyst asked.

"Are there other species out there in the galaxy?" Lapis added.

"We should warp there immediately and investigate." Pearl suggested.

"We won't find anything." Garnet said, breaking her silence. "Nothing that will help, at least."

Everyone was confused by Garnet's response. "So are we going or not?" Peridot asked, slightly annoyed at the unclear statement.

The gems warped to the gem station, but they were not prepared for what they saw.

"Nothing." Bismuth's voice harrowly shuddered. Everything was gone.

Then they noticed the warp pad they were standing on was floating on a rock through space. There were rocks and asteroids everywhere; the whole station was destroyed. Then the gems themselves began lifting off and floating.

"Woah woah woah!" Amethyst shouted. She pulled out her whip, but realized it wouldn't help to catch on anything. "Pearl! Give me your spear!"

In a panic, Pearl pulled her spear out of her gem and threw it at Amethyst, who caught it, tied her whip around it, and threw the spear at the warp pad. It missed, but stuck it in the rock the pad was sitting on. Amethyst yanked herself down onto the warp pad and held herself there. She quickly pulled out a second whip and swung it out for the others to catch. Everyone grabbed each others' arms and grabbed Amethyst's whip. With a grunt and a heck of a strong pull, she pulled everyone down to her. She couldn't get them to the ground, but she got them just above the warp pad; she quickly focused and warped them all back to Earth.

Everyone then fell on top of Amethyst when they returned to Earth's gravity. "Y'all, get off! I almost poofed!" Amethyst grunted, nearly out of breath.

"Good work, Amethyst." Garnet said, making Amethyst grin (on the inside, at least).

"What could have possibly done that?!" Pearl was visibly and audibly nervous.

"I've never seen or even heard of a weapon that could do that." Stated Bismuth, rubbing her chin. "Even the combined efforts of White, Yellow, and Blue didn't do as much damage to Earth as was done to that station."

"We need to get everyone ready when the fight is taken here." Garnet said.

"What about Connie?" Pearl asked.

Garnet thought for a moment before answering. "This fight may be too big for Connie. If she gets involved, I cannot guarantee her safety." Garnet replied, rubbing the top of her head.

That answer shook Pearl. She was very good friends with Connie, and Connie was Pearl's own student. She could hardly bear the thought of anything grave happening to her.

"She's not gonna take that well." Amethyst stated.

"What do we need to do?" Lapis asked.

"Alert everyone to the danger on its way." Garnet said, "but keep evacuation on hold until we give the word."

"What're you gonna do?" Peridot asked.

"The three of us are going to visit Homeworld to warn everyone there." Garnet said.

"I already sent the transmission up to Homeworld already." Peridot informed them.

"Right. Let's go." Pearl said, prompting Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot to step off the warp pad.

The Crystal Gem trio arrived on Homeworld, warping in at the front of the diamond palace. Blue and Yellow were waiting. Blue was standing still, her hands pressed together in front of her face; and Yellow was nervously pacing back and forth.

"Where's White?" Pearl asked, noticing the absent diamond.

"Oh there you are!" Yellow said, noticing the three smaller gems. "White saw the transmission first, and she immediately left to investigate for herself."

"How long has she been gone?" Garnet asked.

"She should be back any minute." Blue answered.

The warp pad activated and White appeared. She seemed to be floating in the air, a pointer finger barely touching the warp pad; when she reentered Homeworld's gravity, she fell to the ground. She got up and brushed herself off. "Nearly got carried away there. Oh good, you're here!"

"We checked it out, too." Amethyst said. "Any idea who did it?"

White sighed, a very concerned facial expression on her face. "I'm not sure. As far as I knew, only something like the Cluster could do damage like that, and I'm certain we didn't have one of those there."

"Peridot was able to make out a few words from the disrupted message. 'Under attack,' 'die,' and 'men of black.' "

"Men of black?" Yellow repeated.

"Are there any other species out in the galaxy that you're aware of?" Pearl asked.

"I'm afraid not." Yellow answered. "We fortified all outposts to resist potential outsiders and intruders away, and we never encountered any, with the exception of the crystal gems on Earth all those years."

"So, we actually have no idea what we're up against." Blue said.

"Well no matter. The lot of us will definitely be able to prevail against this threat." Yellow said confidently.

All of a sudden, Peridot came through the warp pad. "Guys! Guys!" She said loudly.

"We're right here, Peridot." Pearl said monotonously, her brow furrowed.

Peridot composed herself. "I just had a thought. If this new enemy is going after gem outposts-"

"They're outreach facilities now, actually." White corrected Peri.

"-gem outreach facilities -I never bothered checking, then they might go after the others, too. I think they should be evacuated to shelters on Earth and here on Homeworld."

"I think it would get crowded very quickly." Yellow said. "And panicked."

"I can help with that." Blue said, twirling an emotion cloud around her finger.

Garnet put a hand on Pearl's shoulder. "Go to Connie; she will help the evacuees."

Pearl humphed and nodded in agreement, and left to Earth.

"I'll go too. Having someone like me around will help things along more smoothly." Yellow said, following behind Pearl.

Peridot suddenly humphed in amusement.

"What?" Amethyst asked.

"I was just thinking about the message. It's nothing, really," She was obviously exaggerating, "I just thought it interesting. 'Die,' 'men of black' kinda sounds like 'diamond of black.' "

"That'd be impossible." Amethyst said with a chuckle.

"Right? There have only ever been four diamonds in existence." Peridot added.

No one took notice of the horrified, harrowed expression on White Diamond's face.