Fossils (SU AU)

[Chairtastic]

As of me writing this, I have only Mobile data internet. Expect updates across the board to be slow at best.

Summary: Fossilization is the process by which organic structures are replaced by minerals, typically silica. While typically true, the process doesn't require the organic to have died to be completed.

Fossils -- Chapter One, A toy for Blue Diamond

The first time Blue Diamond had come to Pink's zoo, she had cried so much, she could barely function. It had been all she could do to place a loyal and decorated agate in charge of the facility to get things functioning again. But her duties required her to leave, eventually.

The second time Blue Diamond had come to Pink's zoo was to an extensive list of repairs, upgrades, and clarifications that needed to be authorized by her since resources were precious until she or Yellow could secure a new colony. White's new colony would provide a buffer, but it was a stop-gap measure. Blue Diamond, eager to be alone to mourn, authorized the agate to requisition everything she needed. The zoo would come second only to Blue's next colony in terms of resource priority.

In the time between her second and third visits to the zoo, she had reports of questionable materials shipped to the zoo. Specifically, the shards of shattered gems which had not been requisitioned by Yellow for her experiments. While worrying, her Pearl confirmed via the agate that the shards were necessary for the zoo's overall mission. Then there came a pressing need for more humans for the zoo – some catastrophe had reduced their total population below the viable self-sustaining threshold. Roaming Eyes were assigned to the zoo pursuant to human capture efforts.

She waited a thousand years or so before she returned to the zoo, and when she did she found her agate commander ecstatic with news. Blue Diamond had never heard an agate so excited before. An audience was requested and approved.

–

Holly-Blue Agate checked herself in the reflective surface of one of the exterior viewing windows. Her banded hair buns were perfect, her cape of office was immaculate, and to her eyes the commanding presence an agate should possess – fearsome, in-control, a hair's breadth from apocalyptic fury – was in place. A shame the pink lights in the audience section of the facility discolored her skin so, she looked almost purple – like those wretched amethysts!

Four of those Earth-grown clods were stationed around the specialty humans bred per Pink Diamond's operational plan. Quartz soldiers, big and as strong as Holly-Blue but of a more rambunctious disposition. Before Pink Diamond's secret purpose for the zoo had been discovered, it had taken all her patience to deal with them.

But it would be worth it, Holly-Blue told herself as she took up her position and marched the formation down to the audience chamber. To see Blue Diamond's face light up when Pink's dream had been fulfilled! The humans were more well-behaved than the amethysts, honestly. Holly-Blue didn't have to worry about them.

The Diamond's audience chamber was utterly massive – the entire pinnacle of the station was required to house gems of such majesty and literal size as the diamonds. Pink Diamond had envisioned all four diamonds at once in the room, and had allocated space accordingly. It was lined with pink pillars twisted in organic shapes per Pink's design aesthetic, which all worked toward the viewing windows which had the diamond's reclining cushion nearby. The ceiling was positively covered in bubbled gems – rose quartzes, Pink's daring first original gem type which unfortunately turned traitor. Blue Diamond mercifully bound them forever, rather than shatter them.

Per protocol, Holly-Blue and her accompaniment stopped on the insignia of the Diamond Authority per Era One, and saluted. Once she had saluted, Holly-Blue bowed at the waist and began the official greetings. "My diamond," she spoke lovingly, "my lustrous, gleaming, perfectly perfect diamond."

Holly-Blue looked at her when she stood up from her bow. A shawl and dress of deep navy, skin as blue as Holly-Blue's own white hair that perfectly framed Blue Diamond's gem in her torso, and an imperious expression on her regal face. Nearby her waify and demure pearl stood ready to obey her diamond's orders. "You may proceed," Blue Diamond commanded in her whisper voice. "Hasten to explain why these humans are outside of the containment unit."

"Three thousand years ago, when this facility was first created, it functioned purely as a zoo. The containment and furtherance of an oddity among organic life." Holly-Blue had practiced her speech literally thousands of times, there was nothing that could shake her from its delivery. "But Pink Diamond saw something more. She saw an avenue for an entirely new category of gem production!" Holly-Blue clapped her hands twice, and the amethyst guards moved out of formation to line up without breaking their salute.

Three adult human specimens remained in their formation, with their hands arranged in the diamond salute. They were presented in the standard uniform for human specimens, a blue vest, long white loincloth that wrapped from mid-chest to the waist then hung down, a brown belt, and communication earrings. The only distinction was that the humans each had a polished surface on their bodies, which caught Blue Diamond's attention post-haste.

The magnificent gem matriarch sat up on her cushion. Even crouched as she was, she was over ten meters tall. She squinted her eyes to see the humans better, and her expression was unreadable. "What… have you done?"

This wasn't expected, Blue was supposed to be overjoyed. Holly-Blue felt sweat creep along her brow and struggled to keep her cool. "Um. Completed Pink Diamond's mission for the zoo, my diamond."

Blue Diamond's eyes, each as large as Holly-Blue Agate was tall, turned to the commander with clearly a less than stellar mood. "What mission?"

Holly-Blue hadn't imagined Blue wouldn't know the mission, she'd assumed that was why Blue Diamond had bothered to keep the zoo operational. But that was fine, Holly-Blue had just done her a service in ignorance rather than met her diamond's expectations. Holly-Blue cleared her throat and tried to regain her composure. "Pink Diamond's note on humans indicated she wished for them to be preserved, but that her fellow diamonds – you, of course – wanted the Earth to only exist for gem life. So she looked for a way to turn humans into gems." Holly-Blue indicated the humans, and tried to smile. "We have completed that objective!"

Holly-Blue clapped her hands again, and the three humans stepped forward, then bent to show their diamond the gem that had become the core of their being.

"In lieu of actual categorization data, we have referred to them as fossils, my diamond. Organic matter that has been replaced with mineral – "

"I am familiar with the meaning of the word," Blue Diamond quietly interrupted. "Who authorized you to go ahead with these experiments? You're an agate, not a kindergartener, or a gem theorist."

Chastised, Holly-Blue bent at the waist in another bow. "I'm terribly sorry my diamond." She rose again and hastily gestured to the humans. "But… you authorized my actions. Your orders were to 'continue Pink Diamond's efforts', and this is one of the duties that entailed." Holly-Blue watched in trepidation as Blue Diamond glared at her.

Eventually, her matriarch sighed and lessened her severe expression. "I did, didn't I? Poor wording on my part. Proceed."

"I have gathered the best of the three varieties we have been able to produce."

A blonde female with poofy hair and fair skin was the first Holly-Blue indicated. She had a curved gem of golden-yellow which seemed to contain bubbles within it in the middle of her sternum. "Here, we have an Amber." An androgynous dark skinned male with similarly dark hair in thick cords was the next to be indicated. His gem was above his eyes, colored orange and red that was broken up by lines of black; it looked as though his gem had been shattered and repaired. "This is an agatized bone, which we simply refer to as a Fossil." The third was another androgynous male that was darker than the female but lighter than the other male, with poofy black hair, a peculiar curve to his upper lip, and hair which grew around his gem. His gem was striking in shape and color, lower on his chest than the female's, such that his wrap almost covered it. A spiral-shaped gemstone that had a white background and a plethora of colors that changed as the lighting shifted. "And this is a variety of opal, we called it an Ammonite."

Blue Diamond looked perturbed and at a loss for this development, but offered no praise or criticism. After a moment, she took a deep breath and focused her gaze again on Holly-Blue Agate. "This is what you requisitioned the gem shards for, is it?"

Holly-Blue knew she wouldn't like that line of dialogue and scrambled for a way to spin it to be palatable. "Um. Yes, my diamond. See, Pink Diamond observed how humans were able to consume minerals and break them down for metabolic functions. She theorized that the same would be true of gem shards. After about thirty generations of consuming gem shards with their food, we saw the first generation of these human gems emerge."

"You say this was in her notes – I will see for myself." Blue Diamond was furious, but wouldn't raise her voice. "Pearl, access the station's computer and bring me Pink's notes."

"Of course, my diamond," the demure pearl responded and moved to the nearest control panel. From the gemstone in her chest, she projected images from Pink Diamond's personal notes. Stills of the Earth, observations on humans eating. And then the theories. Holly-Blue watched as her diamond's demeanor melted from upset to despondent. The diamond's power swept through the room, and her grief over Pink Diamond drove all gems present to share in her tears.

Even the humans.

"That's enough, Pearl," Blue Diamond dismissed her attendant. The titanic woman reclined again on her cushion and looked upon the group of gems. "Tell me their capabilities, Agate, so that I can assign them purposes within the empire." The diamond shed more tears which were felt by the rest of the gems. "And… thank you, for finishing Pink's work. You will be awarded a personal pearl for your efforts."

Holly-Blue was beyond pleased that her diamond had turned around on the subject so quickly, and launched into her speech about the fossils and their powers. She carefully used her grand gestures to wipe the sweat from her brow so no one could see how nervous she'd been. "Well, starting with the ambers, they have a hard upper limit on how hot a temperature they can endure…."

–

Blue Diamond's control room on Homeworld was more detailed than Yellow or White's. She had a lounging couch that could adjust its orientation, three waterfalls that emerged from detailed murals of her fellow diamonds and filled in recessed paths in the floor of a mural of herself in the same style. There she could deal with simple bureaucratic matters, which included the admittance of new gems to the rosters. It felt like only yesterday that Blue had shown Pink how to add her rose quartzes to the lists of gemkind.

Not long after she submitted the forms to have the new 'fossil' category gems added to the rosters to White and Yellow, Blue Diamond's diamond-line communicator lit up with an incoming call.

"Greetings," her pearl said with a curtsey of her lace dress, "this is the Blue Diamond control room. Blue Diamond will be with you in but a moment."

Blue had expected Yellow to call her, but mere minutes after the documentation was submitted? The artistically-inclined diamond sighed and got ready to rise from her lounging couch. However, the subject of the call made Blue freeze in place.

"Oh, have I called at a bad time?" The coy voice of White Diamond oozed sweetness through the communicator. "I guess I'll just call back, when Blue isn't so busy – "

"No!" Blue launched herself from her couch and reached down for the communicator. "I'm sorry, White. I'm too used to dealing with emeralds and moissanites who think every slight delay is an emergency." Blue hastily fixed her hair and pulled down her shawl so the absolute ruler of Homeworld could see her clearly.

White was like looking into a star. Radiant, blinding, and hazardous. Her jagged, pointed hair that shined with blazing light, her outstretched arms held in place for literal centuries, the interplay of her namesake color with its pitch opposite in her lips, eyes, and wardrobe. White barely reacted to Blue's sudden appearance. "Ah, you do have time for me? How wonderful." The diamond of diamonds barely moved when she spoke – she barely moved at all. It was eerie to see White like that, as all four diamonds had once been a happy family.

When Pink was still there, anyway.

"I've noticed you had a new category of gem added. You haven't had a new colony started and failed to report it, have you?" White layered her coy tone upon itself as she narrowed down on what she thought was a 'gotcha' moment.

"Not at all, White," Blue responded emphatically. "One of Pink's orphaned projects has completed. We've found a way to convert the shards of shattered gems into entirely new ones by using organics." For a moment, Blue dared hope White would be reasonable about the whole thing. "I could send you the data, it's so very exciting. Finally having something to do with those shards, a relief for our storage space."

White's expression didn't change from her serene smile, and she didn't speak for a good minute. For sixty seconds, Blue was made to hold the projection in absolute silence while White played some power game with her. "I see. Our Pink is just so clever, isn't she?"

That comment made Blue's smile waver just a little bit. White had been with her and Yellow to blast the Earth in retaliation of Pink's demise. Why had White referred to Pink in the present tense? Was it possible that as Blue openly mourned, and Yellow had taken to emotional suppression, White had gone into full denial?

White continued to speak, as Blue pondered. "Well, we'll have to refine the process. Get these new gems to uniform consistency. I see that only one of the gems in this category are totally unique, the agatized and opalized bone will need to be worked until they conform to their parent roles. Are you listening, Blue?"

"Of course, White. I am dedicating as many resources as I can spare for the project and – "

"You will of course need to begin construction of new zoos to house more humans for conversion to gems. Yellow won't mind a few of her peridots being diverted to oversee the production of these new gems, and refinement of the process. Kindergartners should have insight on improvements."

Blue's smile returned. She could hardly believed White had taken it so well. "Of course, White. Do you… agree with the roles I've set for the fossils?"

"They seem a perfect fit for those roles. The ambers will fill the role Pink's rose quartzes were meant to occupy nicely. On a related note – do go ahead and deal those rose quartzes, won't you Blue? Either shatter them or get them out of those bubbles – I don't care which." White blinked, the most her face had moved in perhaps thousands of years. "Depending on how effective Pink's method is, I might need to talk with Yellow about those shards she used to make that geo-weapon."

–

"A whole conversation? She called you and had a dialogue? Like old times?"

Blue nodded and reclined against the titanic bench of Yellow's extraction chamber. "I know, it was so bizarre. I could hardly believe it."

Across from her, Yellow Diamond scowled. Yellow cut an imposing figure – she looked like any surface she touched would be cut from the meeting. Yellow was sharp in almost every sense of the word. Around them clouds of steam rose as the two diamonds extracted minute portions of themselves for future gem production. Once, it had been Blue's lavish baths which had been their extraction site; now, only Blue and Yellow partook.

"I can't believe this," Yellow groused. She leaned forward and rested her arms on her knees. "I've done everything expected of me, and I haven't gotten a word from her in thousands of years. Yet you get a full conversation over something Pink did." The titanic gem clenched her fist so hard gaseous molecules nearby began to ionize.

Blue frowned, stood, and crossed the extraction chamber to sit beside her fellow diamond. The twin stones often found themselves in that position. "Maybe that's for the best." Blue held up her hand to stall Yellow when the sharp stone looked at her with disbelief. "I think there might be something… wrong with White."

"What?"

Blue looked side to side, a sudden burst of paranoia that a gem from White's court was spying on them had crept into her mind. "When White talked about Pink it was in the present tense. Like Pink was still… with us." The artistic gem met the militaristic gem's eyes. "I think she might have taken Pink's shattering harder even than me. You know how tough White was on her…."

"White isn't the type to deny reality… what am I saying, of course she is," Yellow shifted her tone mid-sentence as she paused to think about it. "Hmm. Maybe we need to request an audience with her." They both knew it would likely take thousands of years for them to even get a moment of their fellow matriarch's time – after they had all but demanded White join them in retaliation against the Earth, White had been distinctly annoyed with them. "In the meantime, there's the issue these 'fossils' represent." Yellow looked at Blue plaintively. "I don't care for organic life, that's been clear for eons. But all that's been done to these things is that now they are pseudo-gems who do jobs other gems already do. Gems which do it better than they ever will, because it was what they were made for. Forcing these creatures into a life they aren't cut out for, and will never excel at is cruel, Blue."

"So was destroying their planet," Blue said back. She wanted to be icy about it, but on some level she agreed with Yellow. The ambers were in their own niche, they would do… adequate. But the agatized and opalized bones would always be second-tier gems. They would exist to bolster proper gems, but never to be those who were bolstered. "Yet it was done anyway. Now we know organic gems are possible – it opens new avenues for research. Technology to replicate the healing ability in those ambers is vitally needed. We have how many cracked gems in bubbles, again?"

Yellow sighed and willed her extracted power to the drain in the center of the floor. "You're right. I need to put together teams for that, and dedicate resources to producing new peridots to replace the ones requisitioned for your zoos. It was nice to see you, Blue." Then she calmly walked from the extraction chamber and didn't look back.

Blue thought, for a brief moment, about how easy it would be to grab onto Yellow and demand that she stay just a bit longer. Their schedules were so busy, it would be a decade before they could see each other again. But White expected her orders carried out.

Which meant Blue also had to go to the zoo and shatter all of Pink's rose quartzes. One less thing to remember Pink by – the thought of it made Blue cry a little, alone in Yellow's extraction chamber.

While she bemoaned the situation, a thought came to Blue. Perhaps she could solve the problem of the rose quartzes with the increased volume of humans she would be collecting. The titanic woman willed the last of her power into the extractors, and the steam with it. Then she rose and made her way to her ship.

–

The Left Arm of Authority wrapped itself around the zoo, and Blue Diamond disembarked from it to the station. A Hand of of Authority was already in a parking orbit when she had arrived – the peridots White had demanded of Yellow had arrived ahead of her. Blue Diamond let her pearl go ahead of her to announce her arrival and to prepare the way. Specifically, she wanted to talk with her agate and the peridot commander.

When she arrived in the landing area, the amethyst guards were in formation and saluting her already. Blue barely acknowledged them and walked through the pink room to the hallway. She stopped when she heard something crack under her feet. Blue looked down and saw that one of the immense floor tiles for the base had been broken by her weight. As she looked at it, there were more minor cracks in the tiles around the broken one. She looked around, as if for the first time, and saw that the facility had signs of wear and tear all around. Even the atmosphere seals on the windows were in need of repairs.

Oh how Pink would despair to see her zoo like this, Blue thought to herself and felt tears rolling down her face. Barely five minutes, and she was already crying. Blue Diamond steeled herself and forced herself to ignore the dozens of minor imperfections as she approached the audience chamber. While the peridots were at work, she would have them complete repairs.

Not long after the diamond made herself at home on the titanic cushion, her pearl returned with two agates. One was Blue's own Holly-Blue, the other was the commander of Yellow's loaned peridots. A taciturn quartz similar to Holly-Blue except that her hair was jagged and sharp, like Yellow Diamond's, and she had her gem placed where her left eye should have been. They saluted her, and waited for Blue Diamond to speak.

With tearful tenderness, Blue reached up and drew down one bubbled rose quartz gem. Relative to her, the bubble was the size of a marble. The bubble was one of Pink's, she had personally locked away the rose quartz cut after the infamous rebel had shown her colors. "Tell me," she said at last. "How much of the personality from the shards used in your process remains?"

Holly-Blue Agate broke her salute to bow and responded with glee. "Almost none, my diamond. We've tracked some memories containing complex information, but an intact personality has never manifested."

Blue tilted her head back, as if she didn't believe the agate. It was a trick Blue had developed millions of years ago. In silence, she would stare at a gem with a look of displeasure on her face. If they lied, or had misrepresented information, the pressure would squeeze the truth from them. But Holly-Blue Agate remained firm in her statement, if suitably terrified of Blue's displeasure. "I see. Good. Approach."

The two agates advanced to the base of the stairs which would lead to Blue Diamond's seat, and accepted the bubbled rose quartz when it was presented to them.

"I want you to incorporate these… things," she tried to be angry but a sudden wave of grief over the congealed memories of Rose Quartz and Pink drove her to cry instead, "and add them into the process. Try to use them whole first, and if it cannot be done shatter them to use them in the original way."

"Of course, my diamond."

"With clarity and purpose, Blue Diamond," Yellow's agate added, still in her salute.

"Furthermore, this station is in desperate need of modernization and repair," Blue pulled up her shawl so that her weeping eyes were hidden from the agates. They could still tell as they shed tears of their own in response. "Keep as much of the original structure and systems as possible. With the other zoos to follow, it is fine to make them cutting edge, but this zoo has history. Preserve it."

"With vigor and dedication, Blue Diamond." The yellow agate bowed deep to indicate her acceptance of the order.

"That will be all."

Blue turned away from the agates as they bowed and turned their backs on her to leave. Time seemed to slip away from Blue as she sat in the audience chamber with her Pearl. Every time she looked up, there were fewer and fewer rose quartz gems in the room. Until there were none. One of Pink's treasured possessions, the gems she had been so proud of, gone. One way or another.

Her pearl, ever gentle, acquired Blue Diamond's attention with a doeful 'my diamond', and saluted her when the matriarch regarded her. "Your red-eye has found a new colony site." She said nothing more, and left the decision of what to do with the information.

Blue Diamond wiped away her tears, and looked up at the vacant space where once there were rose quartzes. "I suppose I could just pass it off to White, Yellow, or one of my aquamarines. Let them deal with it while I… stay here."

"Also, there is a status update on your fossilized human program. Your agate wishes to present her findings to you at your earliest convenience."

Blue sighed. Trivialities, she assumed. "Fine. Send her in, when she's ready."

She slipped out of time again in her mourning, and when she came back to reality, her agate and a human from the containment unit were saluting her.

"My diamond," Holly-Blue Agate said, beside herself with excitement. "We've had a massive breakthrough in the mandate you made regarding the rose quartz hybrids." The terrifying commander clapped her hands and the human stepped forward. It was a male, with strong similarities to the ammonite hybrid that had once been presented to her. "We were not making any progress with combining the human and whole rose quartz gems, there will be a plethora of reports on the topic submitted to you for review shortly. We were all ready to begin shattering them, but an idea occurred to me. Perhaps we could combine our fossilization methods with the fusion experiments conducted by Yellow Diamond?"

Blue Diamond's brow arched dangerously, as she visually instructed the agate to get to the point.

"Er, yes," Holly-Blue stumbled verbally for a moment. "The conclusion being, we were able to succeed! May I present, the fourth gem in the fossil category: Jet!" She gestured to the human, with a near-manic smile. "Currently this is the only extant gem."

"I see," Blue Diamond said and looked at the human-gem hybrid with greater interest. "Why does it look similar to the ammonite you showed me?"

"The human base used for this hybrid is related to the base which was used in that particular ammonite."

"Related in what way?"

Holly-Blue Agate began to visibly sweat at the topic, while the human giggled. Hastily the agate turned and glared daggers at the human. "Humans reproduce via cellular division with components drawn from two or more parents. Similar to how gems require extractions from multiple diamonds to properly form. If you would like specifics on how the two human bases relate to one another – "

"Include it in the report," Blue Diamond dismissed with a wave of her hand. So large was she, that the gesture created a sudden strong wind. "Let me see its gemstone."

The human turned around and adjusted its jacket so that its shoulders were exposed to her and lifted its hair. There, between the shoulder blades, was the gemstone. Five facets with a pentagon at the center, like the rose quartz base, but blackened. Rose quartzes were typically soft pink and luminous, but this 'jet' was dark and yet reflective. Blue Diamond squinted a bit, to see finer details, and then directed her gaze to the agate. "And nothing of the original gem remains?"

"Memories, at most, my diamond."

"Hmm." Blue looked at the human, and imperiously arched a brow. "Tell me, human. How does it feel? The gemstone in your back?"

"It makes me feel light, my diamond," the human hybrid said in a gleeful tone. "Like I could jump and just float all day long." He turned his head and grinned at her, with a wide smile the likes of which Blue hadn't seen since Pink.

All at once, Blue Diamond was fascinated. The human could speak, in articulated sentences! It was able to grasp the concept that it belonged to her, and could find simple joy in that. But that smile combined with the ruddy skin tone, and its poofy hair immediately made her think of Pink. For just a moment, Pink's silhouette was imposed over the jet's. When the jet's tears caught her eye, Blue realized she was crying too and hastily covered her eyes. "Agate," she said after a moment. "Prepare a copy of the daily routine and care requirements for humans." She reached out her hand and held it out for the human to walk onto, like it was a pet. The hybrid glanced at Holly-Blue before it lept into Blue Diamond's hand and hugged her thumb with vigor. "I like this one. I would keep it with me for a while."

"My diamond," Holly-Blue protested. "We haven't properly tracked what a jet's powers will manifest as. This one doesn't even have the requisite control to generate a bubble!"

"Then I will document it myself, and see that you're informed." Blue smiled sweetly at her new pet as she brought it up to her face. Instantly the human released her thumb to hug her cheek. She laughed ever so slightly from the 'cheek' of the display. It was just like how Pink would greet her after she returned from a colony. Blue's gazed was less warm when it fell on Holly-Blue Agate. "Once my ship has everything needed for a human, I will be going off to oversee a new colony site. A portion of the resources will be diverted here to expand production of these hybrids. That will be all."

Defeated, Holly-Blue bowed and backed away. "Yes, my diamond. Of course, my diamond."

The jet waved at her as she left. "Goodbye, Holly-Blue! I'll miss you!"

---

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Two -- Fossil Record

Blue Diamond scrolled through the care instructions and routine that the humans in Pink's zoo went through and her mind boggled. So many things could go wrong with the care of a human. They were a social species, so being kept in isolation for prolonged periods would drive them insane; they required daily ingestion of nutrients and liquids because their gem wasn't connected well enough to supplant those needs; and humans needed daily play periods or, again, they would go insane.

Perhaps, she reflected, she hadn't anticipated how cruel trying to adapt such beings to life in the gem empire would be. Perhaps, she reflected and let tears bubble at the corners of her eyes, if all this had been known earlier, Pink wouldn't have spent so much time to try and save humanity. Blue Diamond sighed and put the Left Arm of Authority in position to pick up colonization equipment from the fabrication plants on Homeworld. Around her ship, Hands of Authority and Roaming Eyes similarly collected equipment which would be vital for her new colony's completion.

She looked over in the control room of her ship, toward where her jet's resting cushion had been placed. There she saw the human-gem hybrid and her pearl, in the act of instruction. Pearl would create a bubble, and let Jet try to create one as well. Blue Diamond watched her jet try to create multiple bubbles and fail, and began to take note of minor imperfections which would help tell it… him apart from other jets as they were produced. The jet had blue-green eyes, and while his hair was poofy like the ammonite's, it didn't defy gravity nearly as much.

While she watched, Jet noticed her attention and grinned at her. That was something Blue Diamond would treasure, Jet's smile. It was big, bright, free of all worry. Like how Pink's had been before… everything.

Blue Diamond went back to work, and spotted some problems with the zoo's categorization systems. The captive humans had a naming convention similar to a gem's, alphanumeric in nature. Technically Jet was known as Jet Aych-Two. But this convention only allowed numbers up to 'ten', which would limit the human population to two-hundred sixty. Wholly insufficient for hybrid production. She sent a message to her agate to sort the matter out at once.

Bureaucracy took time to navigate, which she was made aware of as her pearl and jet would stop working on his bubbling for Jet to sleep, or eat or… something else which required Pearl escort the hybrid out of the room. Every time Blue thought she had been working only a little while, and she could glance over, the hybrid and the pearl were doing something else.

The two of them seemed to get up to such games together – every time Blue looked their way they were up to something silly. Jet hadn't managed a bubble of his own yet, but he had a grand old time on bubbles Pearl made for him. Once, when she looked over, Blue saw Jet rolling around on top of the bubble by walking backward. Another time, he would bounce from one bubble, pop it, and leap onto another bubble which Pearl placed in the air. The skill of his acrobatics made Blue wonder how closely related jets were to opals – the gladiators of gemkind.

On a whim, she waved her hand and encased Jet in a royal blue bubble of her own and drew it to her. "Just a moment, I need to see something," she soothed the human as she called up a robonoid from her throne. Shaped like a triangle, the particular purpose behind the robonoid was to hunt down gems and shatter them. But it also came with an advanced scanner suite. Blue made use of that while she had it examine the jet for composition and structural integrity.

"My diamond," Jet laughed while the scanner looked at his gem through his clothes with a beam of orange light, "it tickles!"

Blue noted that jets could potentially sense when they were being scanned. There was no record of it in regards to other fossils, so perhaps it was unique. She muttered to herself while she examined the composition. "Not a true mineral, odd. Mostly carbon with impurities of sulfur and iron. Internal structure suggests brittleness, so likely not a front-line soldier." Blue sighed and supported her head with her free hand. "It would be so much easier if more of the rose quartz used to make you survived, but it can't be helped." If more of the original gem had survived, then Blue would be eternally suspicious of the jets. Rose Quartz had been a legendary threat, as evidenced by her successful revolt and assassination of Pink. The beam intensified as it looked into the gemstone's mystical energies. Blue was distracted by Jet's hysterical laughter in her bubble – it was so precious, so cute.

The display for the mystic scan brought up runes Blue had never seen before in a gem. Only one of them was something she recognized, a pair of wings which emerged from a disc – the indicator for flight-capable gems. Another rune was split in half – empty on one side with only a + near the transition to the other half, which was filled except for an empty – symbol. A third one was a trio of Z's in various sizes. The meanings behind these runes she would have to divine herself.

On a whim, Blue showed Jet the symbols she had found on the mystical scan. "I don't suppose you know what these mean?"

The hybrid ceased his hysterical laughter as the robonoid returned to Blue's throne. Once he had breathed deeply several times, he looked at the runes and squinted. "Um. I will make things turn small?"

Blue looked at the rune again and squinted. "I suppose that could be what that means. We'll find out eventually." With that she burst the bubble which kept Jet aloft and let him fall into her hand. Gracefully, she moved so that Jet could hop to the floor. "Back to learning bubbles, you."

Jet hugged her thumb again, then bounded off to her pearl.

Blue looked back at the details on Jet's gemstone while she waited for the equipment to finish loading. It was funny – from the records she was looking at, the mineraloid jet was a precursor to coal, which in turn was a precursor to diamonds. A hybrid was closer to an actual diamond in structure than even moissanites, the 'false diamonds'.

If only Pink had lived to see her hybrids come into existence. She would have adored them. Blue quietly cried to herself at the thought of Pink playing with her human-gem hybrids until it was time to deploy for the new colony site.

–

Pink's zoo had often seen the Left Arm of Authority in orbit, it was a familiar object in the eyes of the gems and humans aboard. However, the day came when the Right Arm of Authority arrived to orbit the station instead. The diamond's personal vessels were colored after them, and while the Left Arm almost always had its hand open, the Right Arm's hand was closed in a fist. Yellow Diamond extended no courtesy of announcement for her arrival, she merely sent ahead her pearl and a cadre of topaz troops to ensure the environment was fit for a diamond.
Yellow Diamond's pearl was attentive, dedicated, and quite vocal in the demands her diamond placed on the facility. Backed up by the blocky, stoic topazes, her commands carried substantial weight.

For the first time since its inception, the zoo bore Yellow Diamond's weight. Literally, and metaphorically, that weight was different than Blue's. Blue Diamond was diffuse, sorrowful, soft. Yellow was none of these; she was honed to a fine edge, sharp, and ready to cut at the first sign of resistance. Tiles in the floor broke under her feet, even though they had just been replaced after Blue Diamond had done the same.

"Bring me one of the agatized bones," she commanded to no one in particular while she advanced to the audience chamber, where Blue had wallowed for so long.

"Of course, my diamond," her pearl responded, and barked orders to the topazes who in turn walked into the hallways of the facility to fulfill the command.

When Yellow arrived, she immediately looked over the room. Much had been done to modernize the facility, however the work was incomplete. The pillars which supported the roof were covered in scaffolding as brawny bismuth gems worked to lay additional power channels within them. A galaxy warp was in the process of being installed, sized up for a diamond to use. All the workers stopped to look, and salute, at Yellow Diamond as she entered.

"Did I tell any of you to stop working? Then get back to work," she growled as she traversed the room and stood near the diamond-sized cushion which had been Pink's idea of a throne. The military commander stood with her hands clasped behind her, and looked out the window at the gas giant which the zoo orbited. Having a diamond in proximity made the workers work harder, for fear that any mistake would be sufficient cause for Yellow to shatter them. She didn't need to do anything, the investment she'd made in her public image millions of years ago continued to pay dividends.

The sounds of work kept her distracted, anyway. She was rarely still, rarely in one place long enough to think about Pink and what had happened to her. Work and other's work would keep those thoughts at bay for a little while.

She turned when the doors to the audience chamber opened again. Her topazes brought a human with them, lifted off the ground in case she became defiant. Zoomans, as the subspecies became known, were more docile than wild humans so such measures were wholly unnecessary. Yellow examined the human as her topazes put it down and backed away. Dark-skinned, hair in black cords, Yellow assumed it to be female, and it had its gem on its right thigh. As soon as it was released, the human saluted her and bowed at the waist. No visible diamond insignia to designate which court it belonged to – that was something Blue needed to fix.

"Fossil," Yellow barked imperiously. "As an agate-derivative, you are charged with maintaining order in the ranks and ensuring orders are carried out. Do you understand?"

"I-I think so, my diamond," the human hybrid answered with hesitation.

"Already you've failed at that mission objective – you ignorantly say I'm your diamond when I'm not. You belong to Blue Diamond, though it looks like I'll have to get involved in working your cut of gem myself." The diamond of war crossed the gap between her position and the fossil's in mere moments. "An agate needs to be terrifying, not meek. An agate needs to inspire, to lead from the front, and to know when to crack the whip. I look at you and I see literally none of those qualities – would you care to explain yourself?"

"I… I don't know how to do those things," the human responded as if she were about to cry of all things. "Holly-Blue hasn't taught us any of them yet."

"So you pass your deficiency off onto your agate? Ugh, you've been coddled too long. Just like what happened with Pink, well it won't happen this time." Yellow paced along the width of the audience chamber and pinched the bridge of her nose. "If Blue's being so negligent that her own gems don't know their duties, I'll have to fill in." More to herself than anyone else, the diamond muttered, "at least the ambers don't have a mold to fit yet."

At least the fossil hadn't broken the salute yet, so she'd done nothing worth actual punishment or Yellow's hands would be tied. The diamond found the situation the hybrids were in to be needlessly cruel – gem society was built upon unrelenting pressure which organics didn't have the traits to survive. But they'd been thrust into it, so Yellow would see they got the best possible chance to adapt. To that end, she had an idea. "Pearl," she called. The servant caste gem stepped into her line of view and saluted elegantly. "Summon Jasper facet nine, cut twelve-gee-eye. Send some amethysts in one of this station's Roaming Eyes."

"At once, my diamond." Her pearl enthusiastically left to fulfill the orders, and turned her nose up at the human as she passed.

"As for this one," Yellow pointed at the human, then flicked her finger toward her topazes. "Return it to where you found it. But keep tabs on it and the other fossils. We'll need to whip them into shape."

One of her topazes glanced at the other, and then raised her hand.

Yellow Diamond sighed through her nose, and all but growled. "What?"

"One of the ammonites is off-station, my diamond," the topaz informed her with dutiful deference. "According to the station's agate, they use the ammonites' hypnotic voice to lure new humans in for capture to bolster the population."

While opals were primarily meant for entertaining combat, their hypnotic voices were useful in colonization efforts to corral organics. Yellow Diamond couldn't fault the decision, and simply folded her hands behind her back. "I see. Ensure that it is returned to the confinement area when its mission is complete."

Her topazes bowed at the waist, picked up the emotionally unstable fossil, and carried her from Yellow Diamond's presence. Yellow turned her back on the poor organic as it was carried off. She didn't want to look at what necessary cruelty had wrought. She clenched her hands behind her back and strode back to her original position. It had been cruel of Pink to try and make the humans into something they weren't. And it had been negligently cruel of Blue to allow it to proceed. And now it was cruel of Yellow that she had to do what neither of the other diamonds involved had been willing to do – put in the work to make this mess work. It would have been better if Pink had just stifled the humans when she could and end their suffering quickly. It would have been better if Blue had just left the Earth alone and let the cluster deal with it. And it would have been better if Yellow hadn't ever given the Earth to Pink to begin with.

She clenched her hands again, and small amounts of her electric aura flared along her body. "Has it become necessary for me to repeat myself?" She spoke to the workers who had slowed their tasks to a near crawl to watch Yellow speak with the agatized bone. They got back to work, a bit faster than their original speed.

–

Peridot Five-X-G had come out of her hole, been assigned her limb-enhancers, and given her orders. Go to the docking station for Roaming Eyes in Facet Twenty-Four and perform routine maintenance. It was a quick job, clean out garbage data, replace some damaged parts; all in all it only took fourteen years of work to get done.

But then a new assignment came almost the instant she reported her task completed. If she'd been a moment later, then she wouldn't have been available for it. And what a job it was! She was to be part of a research team to duplicate the abilities of a new gem's powers technologically. Peridot was to report to the Hand of Authority docking bay in Facet Nineteen, where the other research team members would be present.

All research was to be done on an abandoned colony site of Yellow Diamond's. Such a remote location would ensure that the research team's mandate didn't interfere with the production of new gems in the cabochon, and keep it out of the diamonds' personal business.

The docking bay was filled with Hands of Authority, massive gem warships styled after Yellow Diamond's own ship, a right hand. Behind the diamond's own vessels, the Hands of Authority were the mightiest ships in the gem fleet; often they would serve as flagship command vessels for emeralds to command. As far as Peridot knew, Blue Diamond had no equivalent to the Hand of Authority in her fleet, and neither did White Diamond. Not that it was necessary for them to do so, Yellow had more than enough to spare.

When she arrived, she was the ninth peridot to do so, and fell in line along her fellows without question. Like her, they were all a pleasant shade of green with yellow hair in various sharp configurations and most had limb enhancers. To Peridot's embarrassment, she saw two Era-One peridots in the line as well. They didn't need limb enhancers to meet their height and limb length requirements. Naturally, they would be the project leads. Not her. Never her.

Once all twenty peridots assigned to the project were gathered, their commander made her entrance. Diminutive in height, a yellow sapphire flanked by four ruby guards made their way to the front of the line of peridots. The yellow sapphire had her circular gem with the triangular cut placed on her back, her hair was sharp and covered her cyclopean eye with jagged bangs, and her dress evoked imagery of electricity.

"You were all fated to be on this mission," the sapphire said with gentle firmness. "None of you are more or less important than the others. Our diamond expects us not to let doubt or petty squabbles get in our way." She barely looked at the peridots while she talked. "I know exactly whom among you will disappoint our diamond, but there is always a chance I'll be wrong. Prove me wrong. Let's get to work."

The sapphire, and her guards, led the way to the loading ramp of a Hand, where Peridot saw the principle cargo were bubbled gems. Cracked bubbled gems.

"Our diamond has commanded us to study the new gem type in Blue Diamond's court, called amber. They possess the power to heal and repair gems and technology. Our diamond desires this power for all gemkind. You will see her will done." The sapphire stopped and turned to regard the first peridot in the line behind her. "Or you will pay the price."

When they arrived to a work area inside the Hand, they saw what could only be the new gem 'Amber' resting on an a branched pseudo-organic structure in the middle of the work area. Tables with bubbled cracked gems and pebbles on standby surrounded the perimeter. There were two of the ambers, and they were radically different. One looked rather like a quartz soldier, with a bulky and muscular build, ruddy skin, and brown hair that flipped upward in spikes as it grew off the main mass. The other was more curved, with fair skin and yellow hair that combined the 'downward volume' typical in Blue Diamond's gems. Respectively, their gems were at the base of the throat, and dead-center of their chest. Peridot couldn't fathom why they were so wildly different – was one an off-color?

"These are the two ambers our diamond has provided us for our research purposes. The rubies which oversee my safety have been trained in their care – you will differ to them in such matters. Remember – document everything." The yellow sapphire nodded, and left for the deeper areas of the ship. Three of her rubies stayed behind, and took up positions around the ambers' strange seat.

Peridot realized they had been ordered to get to work right away, before the other peridots, and scurried to a work station. At the station she picked, there was an opaque purple bubble which contained a badly cracked ruby. Peridot easily set her limb-enhancers to record mystographical information and carried the bubbled gem to the ambers. The rubies didn't stop her, so she assumed she was in the right. Peridot held the bubbled gem up to the ambers but they looked at her like she was the odd one.

"You want us to play with the bubble?" The more quartizine of the two asked – in a gruff, deep voice that barely sounded feminine. "Or with the gem inside?"

"What – " Peridot replied, shocked and confused. "You ambers have healing powers, right? We need you to heal these gems."

The slimmer amber tilted her head at Peridot. "The gem inside is… hurt?"

"Yes!" Peridot was exasperated, and it showed in her tone. "Your cabochon clearly lacks observational skills. This ruby is almost cracked all the way through – if she gets more stress she'll shatter. So yes, she's hurt! Hurt real bad!"

That seemed to activate their duty response, as both ambers began to bark 'hurt!' over and over and frantically grabbed the bubble. After a moment of their struggling, Peridot realized they didn't know how to pop the bubble – and to be fair, neither did she.

One of the rubies coughed and produced her gem weapon, a dinky little bowie knife. Peridot took it with her limb enhancers, popped the bubble with the pointed end, and returned the weapon.

With the cracked ruby in their hands, the two ambers' gems began to glow, and cast the room in a brilliant golden light. The light pulsed as the new gems hummed a tune and a resinous fluid built up around their gemstones which both ambers scooped up and slathered onto the ruby.

Peridot checked her mystographical scan and took note of the results. Harmonics were involved, so the humming was likely important. But there was strange readings which related to time. It messed with her chronometer slightly. When she looked back at the ambers and the ruby, the cracked gem was encased in a solid piece of the resin. As she watched, the cracks in the gemstone began to fill. All the while, the ambers did not stop their humming or their active glow – but their expressions became less panicked as time progressed.

After less than a minute, the encased ruby was restored. Then suddenly the resinous covering exploded off her gem as the ruby's reformation occurred. The small, red, and square gem looked around like she expected to be in a fight, all while Peridot picked up the pieces of the resinous coating for further study.

"Log date One Four-Five Three," Peridot muttered to her log system as she returned to her workstation. "I have begun my study of the healing properties of the amber gem type…."

After Peridot had shown what was expected, the other peridots joined in, and a queue formed for who would next present a gem to the ambers to be healed.

"Is anyone going to tell me what happened?" Asked the healed ruby. No one answered her.

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Three - - Doom Senses

The world Blue Diamond's red eye had found was almost entirely water. The most considerable landmass was on the northern magnetic pole, where an icy continent lay. Scattered islands were dotted across the surface, but almost never in archipelagos. Most of the life on the planet was aquatic, which would be perfectly fine for Blue's taste. She could immortalize them in the form of art and architecture which her colony would sport. First things first, the moon base had to be set up.

The Left Arm of Authority was frozen in synchronized orbit around her colony's moon, which itself sported life and would be colonized itself if things went smoothly. The moon was primarily forested, tropical jungles near the equator, which transitioned into temperate deciduous forests and finally taiga near the poles. Trees was the dominant life form on the moon. The moon base for colonization was set up in the space between titanic trees in the deciduous region – its stark white contrasted the dark browns and greens which surrounded it on all sides.

While the base was constructed, Blue watched Jet devour a green-colored synth-fruit produced by the program her agate had provided. He seemed to enjoy the fruit, enough to comment on its taste when his monitor-earrings asked him for feedback. This prompted Blue to look up some information about human diet. Apparently organics were categorized partially by their diet, with the majority of overall organic life using light as their food source – like gems. Humans did so as well, they needed certain ultraviolet light waves to generate what was called 'vitamin d' – however human-gem hybrids had their gems to provide that.

Humans were classified as 'megafauna', organics bigger than the average small gem. Megafauna were sorted by diets of primarily plant life 'herbivorous', other organics 'carnivorous', or both 'omnivorous'. Humans fell into the third category, as they had been observed eating both plant and animal life. However the zoo designers didn't want to replicate organic animals for the humans to eat – so the synth-fruit was developed. Effectively, Zoomans were herbivorous.

Blue was surprised that there was so much information on organic life available, and looked up who had provided it. The answer left her feeling despondent and weeping. Pink had studied the organics, and it was she who had provided all this detailed information – with additions from Holly-Blue Agate. Long after her shattering, it became clear that Pink's ideal place would have been the production of organic gems. But when Pink had been colonizing the Earth, she had only pleas and theories – naturally, Blue and Yellow had dismissed her.

Thousands of years too late, Blue realized Pink was right.

A series of pops drew Blue's attention out of her despondency. She looked up to see Jet bouncing off of one bubble, and flipping up to the next to gain altitude. Blue couldn't tell if they were Pearl's bubbles, or ones which Jet had made, but soon enough the hybrid had gained the ten meters he needed to jump up and hug Blue Diamond's cheek again. He was right in the path of her tears, but didn't seem to mind. Gently, she reached up her hand and lifted him off her face – right away he went to hugging her thumb. "What's gotten into you?"

Her crying had forced Jet to cry as well, and he hugged her thumb like it was all that kept him aloft. "I'm trying to squish the sadness out of you," he said like it explained everything.

Blue blinked as she processed what she'd heard and smiled a little. "Thank you for trying," she told the hybrid gently. "But I think if you squished all the sadness out of me, there'd be nothing left."

Jet relaxed his hug just a little, and looked up at her. "Well… maybe if I squish out a little at a time, you could fill yourself up with something else?"

Curious, Blue Diamond arched a fine brow. "And what would I fill myself up with instead?"

"Things that make you smile!" Even though Blue's tears still forced him to cry, Jet grinned up at her. "Your smile is so pretty – it's the nicest thing I've ever seen!"

"Well that might just be because you haven't seen all that much of the universe yet." With her free hand, she used one finger to gently rub the hybrid's head. "But thank you for the compliment." Surprisingly, she felt a little better. Less stuck in the perpetual cycle of grief she'd been in a moment prior. She put her free hand down, and allowed Pearl to rise onto it. Then she brought both her attendant gems to the loop of hair which passed beneath her gemstone. "How about we see some of what this moon and this colony have in store for us, hmm?" By her will, several scouting robonoids deployed from her ship. Blue Diamond brought their transmissions to her control room through massive projectors. Together the three of them explored the moon without ever having to leave the ship. It was improper for a diamond to wander a forest, so it would likely be the only time Blue got to see it firsthand.

–

Once the base was set up, Blue Diamond went right to work planning the colony. Only minor alterations to the control room were needed for Jet's extended presence. However the hybrid and her Pearl did seem to enjoy playing in the water effects which Blue adorned her bases with. Even though humans were typically a tropical species, they could readily adapt to different climates if the tools to survive were present. That included the water, it seemed – as even though Holly-Blue Agate described their swimming ability as 'poor', Jet would repeatedly take to the water and swim for exercise and enjoyment. Often he would encourage Pearl to join him.

Blue allowed it, provided she was available to see to her duties when called on. Every so often when she checked in on the two of them, Blue would see Pearl teaching Jet how to walk on the surface of the water, or bubbling sections of water and playing with it. Any time she needed her pearl, her servant quickly responded without needing Blue to raise her voice.

It was nice, Blue found, to be working on a colony again. There would be times when she would slip into fits of tears over Pink, but work could draw her out of it, or Jet would do something adorable. She laughed more in the week following her colony's beginning than she had in thousands of years.

At some point, Jet had managed to make bubbles reliably. He would use them for his play periods, or to scale heights he normally wouldn't be able to get to, other such things. As Blue was designing a spire sized adequately for her, she happened to look over and saw Jet in a bubble that floated near her shoulder. She hadn't a clue how long he'd been there, but it had been long enough for the human to go to sleep. The hybrid's sleeping position wasn't ideal, which caused his mouth to loll open and struggle for air during his sleep. It produced enough noise to shake the bubble.

"If you wanted to see what I was up do, you could have just asked to be up here," she scolded the sleeping human as if he were a naughty pet. With one hand, she casually popped the translucent black bubble and caught the still sleeping hybrid. Then she transferred him to the loop of hair below her gemstone and went back to work.

Sleep would naturally detract from any fossil's work performance she thought as she kept working. Even in optimal conditions, the need to eat, sleep, and play would put fossils behind more efficient gems. But if Holly-Blue Agate was correct, they would be able to produce more fossils in the long run via human reproduction. But, per Pink's notes, gems could sleep too. She had tried it, and said that it granted her visions – which the humans called 'dreams'.

Pink only documented one dream – three great women who were joined by a fourth after a meteor fell on Homeworld. The meteor was cracked open, and a pink element was found inside which pebbles worked into someone entirely new. Blue knew the story well – that was how Pink had come to join them – she had lived through it.

Perhaps, when she had free time, she could give sleep a chance. Perhaps her dream would give her some profound insight. Perhaps it would let her see Pink again. A tear fell from her eye, directly onto Jet and woke the hybrid up from the shock.

–

Jaspers were soldiers. Big, orange and red-skinned quartz soldiers made for strength and fighting spirit. They were noted for their determination, resilience, and destructive power. And she was the best jasper ever made. She'd come out of her hole during an attack on her kindergarten, and smashed eighty rebels before the sun set. It wasn't a compliment to say she was the best at what she did, it was a statement of fact.

Yellow Diamond had trusted Jasper to solve her problems for thousands of years. Put her into unwinnable situations, total chaos, and Jasper had resolved the situation masterfully through application of violence. Put her in a fight, and she was an unstoppable force.

But then came the day when Yellow Diamond called on her for something she wasn't made for. Teaching. A Roaming Eye full of Blue Diamond's second-hand amethysts was sent out to pick Jasper up from Yellow Diamond's latest completed colony to 'fix' some of Blue Diamond's agates opals on Yellow Diamond's behalf.

Agates were quartzes too, Jasper had served under hundreds. All they had to do was shout orders, maybe participate in a battle, and crack a whip to keep weaklings in line. Opals were more complex, they were fighters who fought to entertain more important gems. How could something so simple be screwed up? Jasper got her answer as the Roaming Eye emerged from warp space to see a massive sword-shaped space station all of pink crystal.

Ah, that's how, she thought. Put them in charge of humans. What were opals even doing out there?

Unmitigated horror was her reward when she asked those questions of Yellow Diamond. Humans had been fed the shards of shattered gems, and over time absorbed enough of them that they became gems. Jasper didn't let her horror and disgust affect her salute or professional behavior. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, especially when Yellow Diamond allowed her to see the monsters. Human in shape, but each had a gemstone that allowed them powers and abilities their kind was too weak to handle. There were four varieties, two of which were unique. Opal derivatives, and agate derivatives were the two versions Yellow Diamond summoned her for. Ammonites and Fossils respectively. Yellow had made Jasper look as unturned humans were carefully fed gem shards to use their inner fluids to dissolve the pieces of fallen gems into slurry and then incorporate it into themselves.

"They should all be destroyed," Jasper muttered as she looked on the scene in a cold sweat.

"I agree," Yellow Diamond quipped. "But they're Blue's. And there are limits to what I am allowed to do with Blue's gems. Which is where you come in." Yellow Diamond turned her head barely enough to look at Jasper, who barely came up past the diamond's ankle. "Your mission is to get these gems into line with their roles – specifically the agates and opals. It will be difficult, but your history of service leads me to believe you will do adequately."

Jasper didn't give voice to the utter vile revulsion she felt at the idea of interacting with the gem-eating monsters she saw through a viewing window. Instead, she pushed that feeling down, with the other hundred-score feelings she couldn't allow herself to process. "I'll start with the agates," she decided after a moment of gathering her thoughts. "They'll help reinforce the training on the opals when we're gone."

"Good. Blue's away to colonize a planet right now, and the galaxy warp between those two points isn't set up yet. I'll check in as my schedule allows." Yellow Diamond folded her hands behind her back. "I don't want this to be a patch-job, jasper. I don't want this done quickly, I want this done correctly. See to it that you don't need to visit here ever again once your task is done."

"Of course, Yellow Diamond." Jasper saluted, and quietly thought to herself. She had to get this right, so she'd never have to deal with those horrible things again.

"Good. Get to work as soon as possible. I have colonies of my own to manage." Yellow Diamond turned away from the viewing window, and walked down the hall toward her ship's docking bay. The thunderous boom of her footsteps faded as she departed, and Jasper felt suddenly alone.

Alone with them. She locked her jaw as she looked at them. They would eat her if they got the chance. Her gemstone was small, it was placed on her face where her nose would be. It would be so easy for them to pop her into their mouths and then… she'd be gone. Worse than being shattered, worse than being a failure. Jasper had fought Rose Quartz. She had fought to avenge Pink Diamond. But Pink Diamond had created the method for these things to come into the world.

For a horrifying moment, Jasper almost thanked Rose Quartz's memory for destroying Pink Diamond, if her diamond had wanted to create animals which saw gems as food.

"Aww look," a passing amethyst said as she looked through the window. "That one's using their strength to juggle other humans in bubbles! That's so cute!"

Jasper could only stare at the amethyst in absolute mystified horror as the lesser quartz cooed over the monster and went back to her duties. Was Jasper the only one who saw the creatures for what they really were?

She took a deep breath, straightened her back, squared her shoulders and set herself on her path. Even if they were monsters, even if she had to acknowledge she was afraid of them, the diamonds expected her to make proper gems out of them. There were agates out there who needed to learn how to be quartz soldiers.

But she would keep a gem destabilizer on her at all times while teaching them. In case any of them looked hungry.

–

"Log Entry Two Five Three Seven," Peridot said to her built-in recorder. She was at a work station while she and other peridots worked on their assigned duties. "The ambers are a borderline defective gem type, I've noticed. They require special circumstances to work, cannot operate at temperature extremes, and require daily maintenance or their mental health will deteriorate." She picked up some fragments of solidified resin she had collected over the course of the work period. "However their unique abilities make pandering to them a necessity. Naturally, this is why Yellow Diamond desires a technological equivalent, so the ambers can be retired and newer – better gems can take their place."

When the first generation of quartz soldiers downgraded the rubies from the de facto soldier to mere guards, they replaced the older pewter gems. Those pewters were quietly disposed of, or kept as relics in bubbles. When topazes first emerged, similar fates were imagined for rubies; but the difficulty in producing topazes restricted their implementation.

The resin, peridot found, lost its restorative quality after use. However, it would regain it when the ambers would activate their abilities again. So far her efforts to obtain liquid resin had been thwarted by the amber's cumbersome design. They couldn't produce the resin on their own will, someone had to be 'hurt' to get them to generate it.

At least she had been provided with the full identification codes for the ambers to tell them apart. The big bulky 'male' apparently was Amber En-Seven, and the more petite 'female' was Amber Eye-Five. They were provided in the pair because they had been 'choosened' for each other. Peridot didn't understand the term's context, but from what the rubies had told her it involved the production of additional ambers. The ruby had been hesitant to share details, as it involved apparently unpleasant aspects of Blue Diamond's method for producing the gems. Peridot had learned that for 'breeding' a 'male' and 'female' had to be 'choosened' for good 'trait inheritance'.

"Blue Diamond's kindergartners are maddeningly inefficient, as a side note. Excessive use of made-up words, arcane rituals around gem production, ugh it's just so wasteful." Peridot's detached fingers rubbed her face while she worked with her other limb enhancer. Yellow Diamond was wise to get the matter out of their hands and into hers. Blue Diamond would surely appreciate her help.

"What is 'wasteful'?"

Peridot jumped at the sudden, foreign voice that asked her a question over her shoulder. She looked, and there was Amber Eye-Five, who smiled at her as if she hadn't just ambushed a poor, lovable peridot.

Peridot steeled herself and glared at the defective gem. "Wasteful is what you are," she told the amber viciously. "The way you're produced and your powers work uses up more resources than is needed."

The amber bent forward to rest her hands on her knees, to better look Peridot in the eyes. "What is a 'resources'?"

Peridot was stunned for a solid second or two. She hadn't thought the ambers were so defective their cognitive abilities weren't at gem standard. "Okay," she said, and gestured with her detached fingers. "First order of business. Resource is the singular, resources is the plural."

"What is – "

"Singular means only one, plural means more than one." She talked slow, so the amber could understand her. "Resources are things you use to accomplish a task. A task is something you want to do, or someone else wants you to do. Do you comprehend?"

Eye-Five giggled. "You're full of big words!"

Peridot legitimately considered screaming in frustration for a moment before she considered something: if she could improve the amber's cognitive functions, she could have the amber explain how her powers worked. Trick the defective gem into accelerating her own replacement! Another brilliant plan by the lovable Peridot.

She took a deep breath and met the amber's eyes. "Yes I am. Would you like to be full of big words too?"

The amber nodded enthusiastically, and Peridot smirked at how easy it would be to get the clod to replace herself.

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Four – Abuse and Defiance

Pearl had taught Jet most of what he knew. Words, so he could understand what their diamond wanted of him, how to access his gem powers – as far as she was permitted – so that he could please her with his magical efforts, and finally how to be a pleasing ornament for Blue Diamond. She found the third one was trickier than she'd anticipated, for his body didn't move the way a gem's did. He couldn't alter how his body bent as it suited him – he had rigid structures inside him which limited his mobility. Unfortunate for him, but she did her best.

Lesson one was how to flounce pleasingly. Pearl would drape herself on a structure or surface, and instruct Jet to mimic her. He was heavier, so he struggled to get it right. But with practice, she was sure he could flounce with the best of them. Lesson two was how to dance. Jet took to dance like a lapis to the water. Stretches and practice moving in unexpected directions allowed him to make minor adjustments to his posture to accommodate a mimicry of true gem dance.

Balancing on his toes had been, by far, the hardest part in learning to dance. He could do so for a few seconds, but balancing on a bubble helped him gain stability for simple fact that if he lacked it he would fall. The first time he fell, he had become a bawling wreck that their diamond had to calm down. Pearl found out later on that Jet had never felt pain before, and didn't know how to react.

He got better about managing his response to pain, though even minor landings on his head or bad landings on joints would leave him bawling again. Blue Diamond understood that it was necessary for Jet to learn how to dance, however. She had confided in Pearl that it was likely jets would come to accompany pearls in the servant caste, alongside spinels.

Where Pearl erred was on lesson three, singing. She didn't err purposefully, for she hadn't known what would happen. But as she taught the notes to Jet, and he sang them back to her, she felt something was wrong. But singing was vital for a servant, so Pearl pressed on, and taught him a simple song.

"Twinkle twinkle, little star / How I wonder what you are," Jet sang back to her after she'd sung it to him. Instantly something was terribly wrong. Jet smiled like he was happy as could be, Pearl felt her limbs grow heavy. "Up above the world so high / Like a diamond in the sky."

Pearl couldn't stand anymore, she fell to her knees. Jet didn't know what was wrong, he was focused on singing his first ever song.

"When the blazing sun is gone / When there nothing shines upon."

Pearl's vision darkened, and she felt herself fall forward – then, nothing. She was unable to move, unable to see. Until something shifted in the darkness.

"Then you show your little light / Twinkle, twinkle all the night."

Pearl felt fear dig its claws into her as the something in the dark moved again. But as soon as it appeared, there was color to replace it. Turquoise and white gobbled up the blackness, and left a scene of wonder in its place. An endless expanse of water which was dotted with spiral spires decorated in statues which looked like Pearl's drawings. Sheer lacy fabric was strewn between the spires and danced in the wind. Gems gracefully crossed these bridges like they were made of solid stone! And in her hand was an order from her diamond to explore the world, and see its wonders. What a wonderful day!

She completely forgot the fear she had felt before she had the vision of the wonderful place.

–

Blue Diamond had been hard at work when she heard Pearl singing to Jet to teach him. His voice wasn't practiced, but once he'd gotten it right their harmonies would please her greatly she imagined. The choice of song was something Blue had once sung to Pink when she taught the new diamond how to sing. Bittersweet, it drove Blue to tear up. What worried her was why Jet's rendition of the song made her feel listless, exhausted.

"Then the traveler in the dark / Thanks you for your little spark."

Blue Diamond closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was not in her control room, in front of her colony's design interface. Instead, she was in an endless void of nothing. She stood from a throne that no longer existed, and looked around. As she watched, the nothing filled with points of white light. The stars. The firmament split apart into three sections which took familiar shapes. One was sharp, and had a yellow star in its chest. Another was soft, and had a blue star in its chest. The third was radiant, and had a blindingly white star in its head. Between them was Pink. Just as Blue had last seen her – small, poofy, silly-looking and so incredibly sad.

"She could not see which way to go / If you did not twinkle so."

Blue didn't care what reason anything else happened for, Pink was there! She could reach out and touch her! So she tried, Blue moved faster than was dignified for a diamond with her hand outstretched to reach Pink. "Pink," she called out. "I'm here, I'm here, it's all going to be alright, just come to me and – no!" A hand made out of stars and the empty space between them snatched Pink away right as Blue reached her. "Give her back!"

It was the soft figure with the blue star in her chest that held Pink away from Blue. As far above Blue as far as Blue was above an average gem. The soft one shook Pink around like a toy, and the three figures threw their heads back in silent laughter.

Blue tried to call on her powers, the mystic arts she had pioneered, but nothing happened. She tried to leap up to grab Pink, but the soft figure would yank Pink higher than Blue's hands could reach at the last moment. Tears blinded Blue, so desperate was she to get Pink back.

"Please!" Her plea startled the three figures out of their laughter. "Please, give her back! Take me, instead! Take anything I have! Take everything! Everything for her, please!"

They laughed at her again, only this time she could hear it. A million voices all joined together in horrid mockery of Blue's anguish. Blue's memory was sharper than any other diamond's, she knew those voices. She remembered them pleading with her, as she shattered them. They had defied the order of the diamonds, they had broken White Diamond's laws, there was nothing she could do for them; and now they mocked her. When there was nothing she could do for Pink.

Crack.

A horrible sound silenced the laughter. Blue saw the soft figure's vicious grin as Pink vanished from her hand. When she opened it, pieces of pink gemstone fell down onto Blue.

"No." Blue hastily grabbed the shards. "No, nonono! Pink!" It couldn't be, she wouldn't allow it to be! She tried to fit them back together, even as her tears fell onto her hands and obscured the shards. "Pink, come back."

The three figures threw their heads back in horrid laughter.

"Though I know not what you are / Twinkle, twinkle little star."

"Come back," Blue pleaded with Pink's shards as her legs gave out from under her. In a most un-diamond-like way, her voice cracked as she kept trying to piece Pink together. "Come back..." Blue was surrounded by her water-like aura of vivid blue light as she clenched her hands and slammed them into the ground.

Her aura exploded out from her, banished the three figures which had tormented her, and the firmament they were made from. Suddenly, Blue was in her throne in her diamond base again. Her face was streaked with excessive tears, and her aura flared around her visibly. What had been the cause of those visions?

"When the blazing sun is gone / When there nothing shines upon."

As she heard her jet singing, she felt some power try to seep through her aura, but she banished it. So that's what that was. Sorrow was replaced with cold fury as she stood from her throne and walked to where Jet and Pearl had been practicing.

Her jet smiled up at her, but Blue was in no mood to be soothed by his similarity to Pink. She reached down and snatched him from the ground in her hand, and held her up to her face. "You," she hissed dangerously, "are never to do that again."

He was confused and afraid. He'd never seen Blue Diamond angry before, he had enjoyed a privileged position before. "But I thought you wanted me to sing?"

"I don't care what you thought I wanted, I'm telling you what I want now." Dangerously angry, she squeezed him ever-so-slightly. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

"No," Jet cringed back from her, clearly on the verge of crying himself. "I don't understand what I did wrong, my diamond – "

"You don't need to understand!" Blue Diamond hadn't shouted in centuries. The sound of it shook Pearl from her insensate state. "I am your diamond, I have given you my orders! In fact..." Blue Diamond narrowed her eyes at the terrified Jet. "Until I say otherwise, you are forbidden from making any noise. Is that clear?"

Jet tried to talk, but nothing came from his mouth. He was surprised by this, clearly, and didn't comprehend how it had happened. Blue did, however. Diamonds had power over their gems, geas was one such power. Without words to convey his understanding, Jet could only nod his acceptance of Blue's orders.

"Good." Blue's last bits of rage made her cast Jet to the ground like an unwanted toy as she walked back to her throne. She didn't look back at Jet who had landed badly. She didn't see the way his leg was bent slightly more than was normally possible, or how he had begun to weep in silence from the physical and emotional pain. For that moment in time, Blue didn't care.

But she didn't stop Pearl from rushing in to help the hybrid either. She was more focused on forgetting the horrible vision she had seen and getting back to work. It didn't work, and mere minutes later she was a sobbing wreck in her throne all over again.

–

Jet wouldn't play with Pearl anymore. Pearl had accessed the records on organics and followed procedure to let the hybrid's organic half begin self-repair, which involved shoving the damaged internal structures back together and securing it in the correct alignment with an exterior brace. Short of calling on an amber – which could not be done without Blue Diamond's permission, there was nothing to do but wait.

Pearl had thought 'perhaps play will help the time pass faster' for Jet, but the hybrid wouldn't respond to her. In fact he cringed away from her every time she went to touch him. That made the feeding, bathing, and lavatory duties she had in his care difficult to say the least. All the fossil seemed capable of doing was sitting on his cushion, eating significantly less than his routine demanded, and refusing to play.

It began to worry Pearl. Without play, humans would go insane. It was stated as fact in Pink Diamond's notes. All the progress that Blue Diamond had made away from her grief had been reversed. Her diamond could barely work for a day without an emotional breakdown; the majority of the colonization efforts had to be managed by her aquamarines.

Pearl didn't know what to do.

She knew she had to do something when Jet started to lose mass. It meant his body was entering a starvation period, where it was in need of more resources than it had provided. But Jet wouldn't eat. So she did what she would normally not do, and approached her diamond.

"My diamond," Pearl dolefully called while she saluted.

The weeping matriarch turned in her throne to regard her.

"Your Jet is in need of maintenance. I don't know how to fix what is damaged. What should I do?" She remained still as she waited for her diamond's reply. All around her, teardrops almost as large as she fell but she remained in position.

Blue Diamond sighed, mournfully, and closed her eyes. "Bring him to me."

Pearl bowed, and walked backward out of Blue Diamond's splash zone. Then she gracefully made her way to Jet's cushion, bubbled him, and brought him to Blue Diamond. As they approached the giant woman, Jet became visibly agitated and tried to get out of the bubble. Specifically, he tried to get away from Blue Diamond – more fervently as they grew closer.

Blue Diamond took Pearl's bubble in her hand, and lifted Jet up to her eye level. She watched as Jet literally cowered before her in abject terror, and wept more.

Pearl couldn't tell if she genuinely felt remorse for what she'd done, or if her sorrowful mood hadn't abated yet.

"Jet," her diamond said, "I'm sorry for how angry I got. I wish I could say I was better at controlling my emotions, but I'm not." She looked at the fossil with sorrowful eyes. "I lift my geas, you can make noise again. But my order stands – no singing ever again." With a minor flex of her fingers, Blue popped Pearl's bubble and held Jet directly in her hand. "There. Better?"

Jet was timid a moment before he opened his mouth and breathed deep. His gasping breath made noise, and the return of such ability made him happy. He crawled over and hugged Blue Diamond's thumb.

Though Pearl noticed, he didn't hug it as hard as he'd done before.

Blue Diamond seemingly didn't notice, and smiled despite her tears. "Alright. Now get back to eating your food. You're the only jet I have – I'd rather not lose you." She lowered Jet to the floor, where Pearl bubbled him again and carried him back to his cushion. His leg was still damaged, and he still would be unable to walk.

Pearl had learned long ago that what a person said mattered ever-so-slightly less than what they didn't say. Perhaps Jet hadn't picked up on the implications in Blue Diamond's apology, but Pearl did. She couldn't help but feel like this would become a regular occurrence. Like how it had been for Pink Diamond.

–

Holly-Blue Agate found herself in a more chipper mood as the zoo became more popular a location for gems across the empire. Sure, they were there mostly to take notes on the construction of other zoos, but she was in charge of the facility. Barring orders from Blue Diamond otherwise, she was ultimately in charge of everything that went on. All these guests, even those of higher classes than she, had to listen to her. She gloated to herself internally, and plied sweet manipulation externally so that they never had to see her whip come out.

An agate needed to command with and without the whip in equal measure.

Even the hessonites who would command the new zoos had to heed her advice on human care and hybrid production. She had been so positively gleeful to make high and mighty 'clarity' gems sit through a presentation about human reproduction and how it related to hybrids. They'd been so ill at ease, but not Holly-Blue! Holly-Blue had put in her hours of slogging through Pink Diamond's process, and now she was the expert! A mere agate in charge of what had been a backwater outpost, an expert on gem production.

Her hybrids were a delight to work with, not nearly as roudy as the Earth-grown clods among her troops. They listened, they were always happy to see her, they did exactly as they were told, they punched amethysts so hard that they skipped along the surface of the containment area lake like skipping stone…

Something in her train of thought made Holly-Blue stop mid step, but she had to stop and rethink her thoughts before she realized what. Hastily she turned back to the viewing window she had passed which let her look into the containment area. There she saw amethyst guards quartz-rolling at her precious hybrids with weapons drawn. The poor pseudo-gems looked so afraid they only fought back out of desperation.

In what felt like moments, she was at the access door then in the containment area herself. "What is the meaning of this?!" She shouted while an amethyst guard was punched almost vertically into the air. Oh this was awful, Holly-Blue thought as she advanced on the scene. All of the hybrids involved were fossils, agatized bone, so they weren't in danger from mere amethysts. But did they know that? "Stop this at once, I'll have all of you on toe nail clipping duty for years for this – "

Holly-Blue was stopped by a gem destabilizer being brandished in her face. The forked green metal poles with distinctly yellow lightning between them would have dispersed her form with a touch. The hand which held it was a massive slab of quartz – a jasper from her banded coloring. As Holly-Blue got a better look at her, she realized the jasper was the Jasper. The legendary warrior from the rebellion. Her utterly massive mane of hair and the gem in place of her nose were telltale signs.

"Hold, agate," Jasper growled as she continued to hold the destabilizer in Holly-Blue's face. "Orders from Yellow Diamond are to toughen these lesser agates up. Get them worked into proper quartz soldiers." She looked back at the amethysts surrounding the fossils and jerked her chin upward. That seemed to be the sign to resume the attack, as the amethysts began to go after the poor hybrids once more. "They're strong. But they're soft. A few days of this will harden them up to where we can begin real training."

"They can't go for days on end of activity!" Holly-Blue found she cared less and less for the possibility of being poofed in light of this new information. "They have strict care requirements that need to be met."

"Tough. The diamond's orders are absolute."

"Blue Diamond charged me to care for these worthless animals and finish Pink Diamond's work, and now you're going to ruin a whole batch of actually valuable humans!" Holly-Blue watched in horror as an amethyst's gem-weapon came dangerously close to hurting her display model fossil, which she had presented to Blue Diamond, and her frustration became too much to bear. "Slag your orders! And slag Yellow Diamond!"

The amethysts stopped, turned and looked in horror at what Holly-Blue had said. Jasper turned and looked at her in shock at what Holly-Blue had said. Holly-Blue had her hands clasped over her mouth in shock at what she had said. She hadn't meant to say that. She shouldn't have said that. That was meant to be something she kept locked up in her thoughts, but never ever give voice to.

And her troops had heard. The fossils had heard. There was no turning back anymore. The only path forward was to double-down.

Holly-Blue took a deep breath then gracefully side-stepped the gem destabilizer, Jasper was too stunned to resist, and brought her elbow down on Jasper's wrist. The weapon landed in the grass and fizzled to inactivity. Then she swiftly brought her knee up into the Jasper's abdomen.

Jaspers were tough, the Jasper moreso, but agates were every bit as strong as any quartz soldier. And Holly-Blue was motivated beyond all reason in that moment. Jasper doubled over and let out a gasp of shock.

Holly-Blue Agate kept on the offense, and laid into Jasper with a punch right next to her gemstone, then again on the other side. Finally she interlocked her hands together and brought them both down on the back of Jasper's head, to drive her into the dirt. Whereupon she proceeded to stomp on the legendary soldier's head.

"This is not Yellow Diamond's zoo. This is Pink Diamond's zoo administrated by Blue Diamond's trusted agate: Me. Blue Diamond left strict orders, and no one short of White Diamond can countermand them!" Every stomp drove Jasper's head deeper into the ground. "So either give White Diamond a call, get off my station, or get in line, soldier!" Holly-Blue stopped her stomping to glare at the stunned amethysts. "Well?! Whose orders matter more to you?! The diamond who gave you purpose again, or the one who would've had you all shattered?!"

As one the amethysts dispelled their weapons and backed away from the fossils.

Under Holly-Blue's boots, Jasper turned her head enough to look up at the agate in shock. Perhaps no agate before her had dared get physical with the perfect quartz. Well, now Jasper knew better.

"As for you," Holly-Blue hissed. "You're here as a guest. Your presence here is through the grace of Blue Diamond. Don't step out of line again, or I'll throw you off this station myself." Holly-Blue looked around and saw that most of the forested part of the containment area was badly damaged. The other fossil gems were, hopefully, on the other side of the lake where they wouldn't have heard or seen the display. "And clean this mess up! Training is done in the facility proper, not the containment area!"

"Yes, Holly-Blue," the amethysts muttered.

Jasper stood up after the agate took her foot off. The two quartzes shared an odd look, as the perfect soldier faced off with an average commander. However, Jasper blinked first, and saluted Holly-Blue. "Yes, agate," she muttered, and then went to work fixing a toppled tree.

As soon as Holly-Blue heard the door to the containment area close behind her when she left, she became a nervous wreck as she asked herself what had come over her to do something so stupid.

Meanwhile inside, all the amethysts could talk about was how cool Holly-Blue had been. All the fossils could think of was how Holly-Blue had come to their rescue. And all Jasper could think about was the strange feeling she couldn't repress that she had felt when she met Holly-Blue's defiant eyes – it was like when she had looked into Rose Quartz's eyes.

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Five – Concessions

Things didn't go back to how they used to be in Blue Diamond's control room. Even with Jet's sanction partially lifted, he refused to play with Pearl. When Blue Diamond reached for him he cringed away from her like she was going to hit him. And worst of all, he didn't smile anymore. Blue Diamond hadn't realized how desperately she needed his smile until it was gone, seemingly forever. Once his leg healed, he returned to his lessons with Pearl but would always treat it as a break from his routine of doing nothing.

Sometimes, before he went to sleep, Blue Diamond could swear she heard him crying – but what would he have to cry about? Perhaps his leg caused him pain? Blue had seen in Pink's files that some injuries continued to cause pain for years after they'd healed, though she had never gotten close enough to one to know why.

After she had set her lapis gems to terraforming the initial colonization site for the warp pad hub, she saw Jet languishing on his cushion and decided to get to the bottom of the issue. "Pearl, bring me my jet."

The servant gem gracefully stepped over and encased Jet in a white-blue bubble and brought him over. Even inside the bubble, Jet tried to get as far from Blue Diamond as he could. This proved useless as Blue Diamond picked up the bubble and brought it up to her face.

"Why do you continue to refuse your play periods? Why do you cringe away from me? Why do I hear you cry before sleep? As your diamond, I command you to answer." As soon as Jet's eyes met hers, her geas took effect and Jet was compelled to answer.

He fought it for a few seconds, he frantically tried to keep his mouth shut, but the compulsion was too strong and his will too weak. "Because I'm afraid of you!" He clapped his hands over his mouth to try and stay quiet about the issue, but one hand fought the other to comply with her orders. "I don't understand why I made you so mad! So I don't know how to avoid it again! I don't want you to break my leg again, and I don't know how to avoid that! I want to sing for you, because that made Pink Diamond happy, but you forbade that!"

Oh. Those simple answers burst the bubble of the 'imperious tyrant queen' Blue had been in the midst of putting on. She sighed through her nose and slumped in her throne. "When you say it made Pink happy… are you referring to when your gem was a rose quartz?"

Jet slowly nodded. "Sometimes, when I dream, I dream her memories. She doesn't have a lot of them, but she remembers what made Pink Diamond happy the most. Pink Diamond loved to hear the rose quartzes sing for her, she loved to talk to them, and she loved asking them their opinions on things."

Blue couldn't help but smile a little. Of course Pink would be happy talking to her gems, and asking opinions of support infantry like they were her aristocratic gems.

"She knew each and every one of them by sight," Jet reclined in the bubble, but did so away from Blue's fingers. "She could glance at one rose quartz, know immediately who they were, when they emerged, and their last conversation." As he talked, he saw that Blue's smile widened, and smiled faintly himself. "She was… very huggy, which I think was because the rose quartzes were almost her size?"

Blue chuckled as pleasant memories rolled through her mind. "No, she was just… huggy. When she wasn't being silly." Blue looked at Jet, really looked at him, and saw that even as relaxed as the conversation had become, he was still afraid of her. When she subtly moved her fingers he would jump a little. How odd, it seemed, that she even cared enough to ask one of her gems for the reasons for their behavior. How odd, it seemed, that one of her gems being afraid of her seemed bad. She remembered how Pink had adored her rose quartzes. She would brag about them to Yellow and Blue whenever she could.

And then everything went… horribly wrong. An entire cut of gem ruined by the actions of one. Blue closed her eyes and sighed. She couldn't afford to make Pink's mistake again.

"I got angry because you used your power on me, without permission." The part of her that was the cold tyrant objected to an explanation of any kind, while the part of her that loved Pink and all Pink had done said it was good to explain. "And I forbade you singing because it didn't look like you could control your power at all." She looked at Jet and she saw a vision of Pink again, which brought tears to Blue's face. "But… if you can learn control, to sing without using your power, I will allow it."

Jet's face immediately brightened, and Blue smiled at that. She paused to consider where it could be done that wouldn't be harmful to colonization efforts. An idea struck her. "The atmosphere on the moon is breathable for humans. At this latitude it might be a bit chilly for you, but you can still practice your singing out in the forest. I'll have a robonoid follow you to guide you back when your play period is done."

Jet's smile drooped just a little, and he tilted his head. "How will I know when I can control it?"

"Like all gems, your powers are tied to your mind, and your emotions. With practice and conscious effort, you will gain control. It shouldn't take long – a couple years at most." Blue Diamond tried to look reassuring. "You're clever, you've picked up on Pearl's lessons quickly for a human. This won't be a bother at all."

Jet's confidence seemed to come back, and Blue was glad for it.

–

Peridot 5XG enjoyed a privileged position among the other peridots on the research team that not even the Era One peridots enjoyed. The ambers liked her.

Any time one of the ambers was being difficult with an experiment, typically one that required some form of pain as a side effect, the other peridots had to come to her to get them to comply. She would say much the same thing the original peridot had said, but the ambers would be soothed by her presence. Typically, the female had a stronger reaction than the male. Both of them typically just asked her to use her limb-enhancer touch-stubs to secure their hands while the experiment went on and they would comply. Peridot understood, they were made partially of automatic response systems that might have damaged valuable equipment or hurt the peridots if their hand remained unsecured.

As for teaching them advanced vocabulary, it required more work than she had originally thought. One definition would require a detailed explanation of what the thing being defined was because otherwise the ambers didn't connect the points of data. Other peridots on the team snickered at her when she did the explanations, but they still had to come to her for help when the ambers wouldn't cooperate.

That all changed on log date Five Four One Three. Peridot was across the room, in the midst of examining a healed citrine to see if her mystographical information differed from an undamaged citrine when she heard it.

"It's not making sense because you did it wrong."

The whole work area went dead silent. Peridot abandoned her examination to look over at what had transpired. The female amber, Eye-Five, looked over the shoulder of an Era One peridot who was trying to mathematically solve the question of how an amber healed a gem. From the red outlines around the display, Peridot could tell it had returned a 'does not compute' solution.

"Excuse me," the Era One peridot hissed, "but I think you'll find I have a better understanding of how these numbers work than – "

Eye-Five ignored her and tapped on the screen. "You have all the right numbers, but you have them in the wrong places. Probably because you're using the rose quartz healing method as a model." With deft hands, she encircled certain figures and moved them about the solution. "I'm not a rose quartz, and you need to factor that in. Stop assuming that the problem already exists in the system and – there you go." Eye-Five set the figures to run in an entirely new configuration and ignored the peridot's squawking as she hit the 'run program' button.

Moments later, the display brought up a green-bordered solution to the mathematical problem.

Rather than gloat, Eye-Five skipped away and climbed up into the pseudo-tree for cuddles with En-Seven. Meanwhile all the other peridots, including Peridot, gathered around the display to look over the solution that had been reached. The Era One peridot which had been doing the experiment had been locked into a loop of gritting teeth, shaking, and making 'gh' sounds.

As one, all the peridots turned to glare at Peridot when they couldn't find any fault with the logic Eye-Five had used. "Wha – I didn't teach her to do that!" Peridot defended herself.

"Well then – who did?" Another Era Two peridot groused and crossed her limb-enhancers across her torso. "You're the only one who's done any teaching with them."

"I taught them linguistics! Basic vocabulary so they could understand what we wanted them to do!" Suddenly the subject of her coworker's judgement, Peridot started sweating and scrambling for a way out. "None of you had a problem when I helped them learn how to talk!"

"None of that explains this," a third peridot growled. "How did a defective gem learn enough higher mathematics to correct our work?"

The initial Era One peridot continued to remain in shock.

"Maybe the results will tell us something," a fourth peridot calmly ventured. She continued to glare at Peridot as she advanced through the crowd to look at the results. "This data indicates time manipulation is strongly involved," she said and tapped her chin with her limb-enhancer touch-stubs. "Is everyone's chronometer functioning correctly?"

"Mine has been spotty every time we do an experiment." "I got mine smashed by that bismuth the ambers fixed, and haven't gotten a chance to do repairs." "I never needed mine, so I didn't finish installing it."

The general consensus was 'no'.

"So we need external confirmation," the quiet peridot confirmed, and tapped her limb-enhancer. "Bridge, this is the work station. Could we get an update on the time remaining for our project?"

The smooth voice of the sapphire overseeing the project replied. "Let's cut to the end of a pointless series of questions. The amber's time manipulation has put you three weeks out of sync with the universe outside your work station. I've made Yellow Diamond aware of this, and she has increased your budgeted time."

"Thank you. Work station, out." The quiet peridot shrugged and looked around. "So, we're out of sync, but it doesn't explain how this has happened."

Peridot was once more the target of her fellows, and decided to fix this by demanding answers of the source. She stomped her way over to the amber's tree and called up. "Hey!" En-Seven and Eye-Five looked up from their snuggling and then down to her. "How did you clods learn to fix that problem?"

"We watched, we listened," the ambers said together. En-Seven even had the gall to arch his eyebrow at Peridot.

That simple answer threw a rock into Peridots mental gears, and stopped her outrage for a moment. "You… watched? You listened?" When they nodded, Peridot felt one of her eyes twitch. "You mean to tell me you learned higher level mathematics from simple observation?!"

"Yes," they answered in unison again. "It wasn't hard," Eye-five added with a smile. "Once you know how to do the formulas, everything snaps together."

"I'm better with the stuff that deals with shapes," En-Seven added in a stage whisper. "But she's better with the big walls of numbers."

"Oh, that's. That's… swell." Peridot didn't know how to respond to that. Instead, she turned and walked back to the group, stunned. "They learned it from watching us."

The general consensus among the peridots was that Peridot must have misunderstood. So additional peridots went over to the ambers to ask the question. Each time, the questioner would come back as stunned as Peridot had been.

"Hey," one of the ruby guards who protected the ambers offered with a cheerful smile. "At least you guys won't lose your role to these things." Her smile became visibly hollow and bitter. "Like we did." Then she snapped back into genuine cheer. "Because Blue Diamond doesn't have any peridots. As long as Yellow Diamond doesn't want any ambers of her own, you'll be fine!"

Peridot processed that information and found she could stand up slightly taller afterward. "That actually helps a lot. Thank you."

"No problem!" The ruby waved her off. "Anything to spare a gem the horror of realizing that the role you were given when you were created was cruelly ripped away by the advancement of gemkind!"

A solid minute of silence resulted as the twenty peridots stared at the – obviously very old – ruby. "Are you okay?"

The ruby laughed, and smiled again. "No!"

–

"Come all you pretty fair maids, whomever you may be / Who loves a jolly sailor bold, who ploughs the raging sea," sang the ammonite as she led about fifty wild humans out of the roaming eye and towards the assimilation bay.

Jasper had to admit: Holly-Blue Agate was good at making monsters. The ammonite female was almost as tall as a quartz soldier, with a dark yet radiant skin tone, and hair that trailed down almost to the floor. Her gemstone, spiraled and glowing from active use, was set into her shoulder, and produced a haunting melody that flowed with the opal's hypnotic song.

Jasper watched in sick fascination as the ammonite stood next to the assimilation bay door while humans were fed into the conveyor. Her hypnosis would wear off halfway down the line – Jasper knew from the rebellion the exact limits of opal hypnotic power. Jasper almost pitied the humans who would come to their senses in the midst of being processed. But life on the zoo was better than anything they had on Earth.

After the last humans were loaded in, the amethysts which had accompanied the ammonite piled on the praise and compliments.

"Great work, Ehs-Three!" "Fifty humans! All at once!" "You had them practically eating out of your hand!"

The human-gem monster flourished under all the praise, but quickly snapped to a salute alongside the proper gems when Holly-Blue Agate advanced on her.

"Ammonite," the agate said, crisp and commanding. "Report!"

"Yes, Holly-Blue," the human, 'Ehs-Three', started with her soothing, gentle voice. "We departed from the station and 8XK instructed me in the emergency operation of the Roaming Eye, per protocol I was unaware of."

Holly-Blue turned to the relevant amethyst and squinted. "Is that so?"

The amethyst nodded, and Holly-Blue clicked her tongue against her teeth.

"Continue."

"Yes, Holly-Blue. We arrived on Earth in the region of the communication hub. Some humans had made shelters near the hub, so we watched them to ensure they were not in the midst of some infectious disease."

"Good, good," Holly-Blue nodded.

"When it was determined that the humans were suitably healthy, I was sent in with 8XO shapeshifted into the form of a bird to watch me. The humans were a bit aggressive, but fell under my spell without difficulty. I was able to use my spell to send them to sleep any time I needed to rest my voice, and we returned without incident. Report completed."

Holly-Blue then took the report of the amethysts while Jasper watched. At least the ammonites wouldn't need instruction in how to obey their agates. It would just be a pain to get those 'fossils' to act like agates. However, what surprised Jasper was how Holly-Blue acted after the reports had been delivered.

She immediately was all smiles and warmth for the ammonite. "Ah! Fifty humans! Some children and pregnant females even! A whole settlement all at once – oh, I'm so proud of you Ehs-Three!" In some strange ritual, Holly-Blue held the human's face in her hands, and squished her cheeks together to shake her head. "Who's a good human? Who's a good human?"

"Hee!" The ammonite said around the squishing of her face. "I am! Me!"

"Yes you are!" Holly-Blue gushed and stroked the human's hair lovingly. She stepped back and was suddenly all seriousness when she talked to the amethysts. "Take Ehs-Three through the delousing bay, and get her in position with the other ammonites to keep those wild animals in check. We're expecting three new ambers today, and I won't have their mothers under undeserved stress."

"Yes, Holly-Blue," the soldiers responded in unison and marched alongside the hybrid. As soon as they were out of Holly-Blue's direct line of sight, Jasper saw the gems and human go right back to playing.

If Jasper had a stomach it would turn. Didn't they realize how easily that ammonite could turn her powers on them?

Holly-Blue sharply turned to glare at Jasper, unconcerned with the differences in their height. "See? That's how you get results from a hybrid. Reward the behavior you want."

"That was sickening," Jasper growled.

"And effective." The agate was clearly pleased with herself, and held her hand up to her chest. "My fossils are the most well-behaved gems short of White Diamond's court." As quickly as her good mood appeared, it vanished with a malevolent glare. "And all without almost ruining them."

"Yellow Diamond expects those opals and those agates to be opals and agates," Jasper growled in return. "Not to be well-behaved pets!"

"I don't think Yellow Diamond really knows what she's asking for then," Holly-Blue fired back with an arched brow. "We're all the diamond's pets. They use us until we do something they don't like, then we're gone."

Jasper wanted to refute what she'd heard. She was a soldier, not a pet! But then she remembered how she was expected to drop everything and come just because Yellow Diamond called. At least she had it better than a pearl would – a pet was better than being a decoration.

Suddenly the agate was all smiles. "But don't fret! I know the exact way we can teach them some aggression without damaging them too much." She turned on her heel to march down the hall to a door. A seldom-used door from the amount of dust on it. Inside, Jasper was presented with rows of spears, hundreds of shields in kite and buckler style, and racks upon racks of different sort of blades. "An agate is well known for her whip. And fossils respond best when they know what is expected of them when. So we'll train them to only show aggression when they've a weapon in their hands. It also allows us to train them toward summoning their gem weapons, wouldn't you think?"

The perfect quartz smirked, walked past the agate and picked up a weapon in a style she found familiar. A massive two-handed ax like what she'd carried into battle against Rose Quartz. "They're going to get damaged this way too, you realize?"

"But of course," Holly-Blue said as she too strode in and picked up a weapon. A long, narrow saber with two cutting edges, a narrow tip, and a handguard to protect her fingers. That style of weapon was familiar to Jasper too – Rose Quartz's terrifying combat pearl used that style. "But this way they'll be damaged less, and not damaged in a way an amber can't fix."

So Holly-Blue was okay with the agates fighting so long as they had a weapon too? Jasper could live with that. What Holly-Blue didn't seem to consider was that training aggression didn't work how she thought it did – putting a weapon into a person's hands and getting them angry didn't make them less angry when they put the weapon down. Jasper had been there, she'd lived through that. All it did for her was made her angry enough to use her fists. Holly-Blue thought she'd tricked Jasper, but she'd just tricked herself.

Maybe, if Jasper was clever about it, she could ax the gem-eating monsters before they had a chance to eat her.

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Six – Progress

Eudoxia knew this would happen. She knew that living so close to a God's House would be trouble. Either the gods would grow displeased and send a horrible monster to destroy them, or mere proximity to the House would kill them. She'd told Demetria they shouldn't live there – but the men of Rome wouldn't come near the House. It was safe, Demetria had said. Safer than being anywhere close to Romans.

Well, now they were dead!

A witch had come into the village and struck them all dead, which they found out as they were ushered through the path to the underworld. Eudoxia hadn't expected her whole village to wind up in the Elysian Fields, but the gods were merciful when they cared to be.

Eudoxia was the village huntress, alone since Demetria had run afoul of a boar. It had been her job to train children how to find food in the forests, how to prepare their hides for the tanner, and how to offer portions of the kill to the gods. She was a heavily scarred woman from years in that work, and had shaved her hair close to her head so it wouldn't get caught in the brush. All traits worthless in paradise.

Paradise took the shape of a verdant forest, with a massive lake, and a little voice that whispered into her ear what the gods willed her to do. Strangely enough she found the little voice highly agreeable, even as it told her to do the same activities day in, and day out. For a week, her village kept mostly to the forest near what was assumed to be the eastern shore. A simalcrum of the sun crossed the sky every day and became the moon halfway through, so they assumed the direction it rose from to be east.

There was no game in the forest, there were no herbs to gather – all the plants were just bushes and trees which would sprout flowers and fruit at fixed times of the day. There were no insects, no birds, no fish. It was like the only truly living things there were the people.

That concerned Eudoxia, for there were pregnant women and children among them. Would they be forced to endure those states forever? Would the gods deign to speak to them? What would they do with their lives without texts, or homes, or a future? Malaise spread quickly among the people, and Eudoxia could only watch helplessly.

Then, one day when she ventured away from the villagers in the hopes the gods would grant her something to hunt, she came across more people. Not from her village, but obviously not Romans. A variety of skin tones and hair colors – which she had never seen outside of big cities. The main difference was that the majority of them had green or blue eyes. The strangers didn't see her as a threat, and merely waved at her in greeting. Neither did they seem fearful or alarmed when Eudoxia approached them. Were they fools? A warrior covered in scars advanced on them and they seemed unconcerned!

A dark skinned woman with her head shaved close like Eudoxia patted the ground next to her, a clear invitation. Stunned and confused, Eudoxia complied while she tried to process what all this meant. While she did, the other people plucked beautiful flowers from around them and passed them to the dark skinned woman.

They dressed in the same way as the villagers had found themselves – a blue vest, a long white loincloth that wrapped around their chests from the breasts down, brown belts, and strange earrings which would whisper to them.

"Hello brother," the dark skinned woman said with a beautiful smile. "I'm Ay-Nine, I'm so happy that I get to welcome you home." She wove the stems of the flowers into a ring as Eudoxia watched, deft in her craft.

Eudoxia recoiled a little, the villagers had known her well enough to know she was not a man though she appeared as such, but these were strangers. "Um. Sister. I may look the part of a man, but I'm your… sister. And I'm Eudoxia. Have you been dead long?"

The strangers and Ay-Nine looked at her curious, and then at each other. "No. I was born here. We all were. I'm sorry I called you brother, sister Eud-oxia, I'll make sure no one makes that mistake when they meet you." She had a strange way of names, Ay-Nine, she broke it up into two distinct syllables like her own name. Finally she was done, and offered the completed flower crown to the huntress. "Welcome home, sister!"

"The gods allow people who've died here to have children?" She'd never heard that in the stories. But, Eudoxia supposed, people wouldn't stop the act of creating children. She'd been told it was fun. "I guess that explains why the gods allowed the pregnant women to remain so." With trepidation, she took the crown and placed it on her head. She'd been the brutal warrior who killed beasts for her people, she forgot how it felt to just be pretty. Demetria would poke such fun at her.

"You have a funny name for gems, Eud-oxia," Ay-Nine laughed. "If your choosened women find the bearing hurtful, bring them to us. We are ambers, we can undo the hurt."

"Ambers?"

Each of the strangers twisted and turned to show Eudoxia a polished surface on their body – golden yellow in color with bubbles frozen in place within. Ay-Nine's was on the palm of her hand. "We are new gems, our diamond has not said what our role will be yet, but Holly-Blue Agate says she thinks our healing power is important."

Realization dawned on Eudoxia. Demigods. She was seated among demigods. The words were different, but if she replaced 'gems' with 'gods' and 'diamond' with 'Hades' it all snapped into place. These were Hades' children by Persephone – who was named Holly-Blue Agate in the realm of the gods! Suddenly she remembered stories of the legendary temper of the gods, and horror struck her.

Hastily she backed away and made a sign of prayer to the holy beings. "I'm sorry, I didn't know who you were – I thought you were mortals, I'll get back to my people right away – "

"Shhh," Ay-Nine said and grabbed her hand. "Don't be afraid. We're gems and humans at the same time. It's okay for you to sit with us, talk with us!"

"Depending on what the little voice says," another female of slightly lighter skin and oddly cut hair added, "you might be choosened with one of us!"

If Eudoxia had the correct idea of what 'choosened' was a euphemism for, her response to blush terribly bright was appropriate. What an idea! With a demigod? Her?!

"In time," Ay-Nine explained as if it would soothe her. "Those that come after you, and those that come after them will become closer and closer to gems. And then one day, it will be! You are already part of our family, and we want to get to know you – so we can love you, and love those who will come after you!"

Eudoxia stumbled over her words at the thought that if she had children they would begin the journey to being demigods in their own right. But she became alarmingly aware that the ambers as a group had gotten closer to her, all smiles and curious eyes.

"You are covered with old hurts," a male amber told her. "Could you tell us how you got them?"

The huntress looked down at herself, and her cornucopia of scar tissue on display, and looked around at the semi-divine beings. "It would take a long time to tell the story…."

"We can listen to as much or as little as you'd like to tell us," Ay-Nine said and rubbed the hand of Eudoxia's she held. "The routine won't start for many hours."

"Well… okay, the short versions," Eudoxia decided as she settled down. She looked awkwardly around at the ambers and held up her hand to show the crisscrossing scars on her knuckles. "I got these from my neighbor's house cat when I was young. I caught him picking a fight with our cat, and got in the middle of it…."

–

The sounds of metal on metal echoed through the zoo's training region. Amethysts and Beta Kindergarten quartzes stood on the side as a legend crossed blades with a commander. Seated on the floor, in wondrous awe, were the extant adult fossils onboard the zoo. All twenty-two agatized bones, ambers, and ammonites.

Yellow Diamond's agate which commanded the peridots aboard the zoo brandished a narrow sword with little ornamentation and a wide guard, while Jasper wielded a heavy two-handed ax. Despite the differences in their height and weapons, the two quartzes were able to lock attacks regularly.

A sudden clapping noise ended the duel, and Holly-Blue Agate stepped into the arena behind the combatants. Behind her was a waify figure, thinner even than the humans with a light blue uniform, a lace mantle in mimicry of Holly-Blue's, and a perfectly round gemstone set into her head – Holly-Blue's pearl had finally arrived.

"Most fights will not take this long," Holly-Blue groused as she marched in front of her hybrids. "Most will be over in seconds. It is acceptable for fights here to take longer as you're expected to learn, or to teach." The last half of her statement was directed venomously at the other Earth-made quartzes in the room. "Let's start with some observations – who can tell me why Sagenite Agate was able to fend off Jasper's weapon despite the differences in mass?" She looked over the many raised hands among the proper gems and focused exclusively on the hybrids. Holly-Blue's face lit up like a star when one red-haired male raised his hand. "Yes, Gee-Three?"

"The ax is heavier," the human-gem hybrid slowly spoke while all eyes were on him. "It takes a lot of energy to move. If she put too much in and missed, all that energy would be wasted. So she held back."

Jasper scoffed behind Holly-Blue and was completely ignored.

"A good answer, Gee-Three, carefully spending your effort on attacks that you know will connect is important." Holly-Blue clapped her hands together and smiled cheerfully. "But it's also not the complete picture. Jasper, would you like to provide some insight?"

The legendary quartz glared at Holly-Blue's back and grit her teeth. Through her clenching she answered. "If I missed, I'd be open to a counter-attack. I need to hit her center-mass to poof her with my ax, she just needs to stab me in the right spot."

A collective 'oh' was spoken by the observing hybrids.

"Now then," Holly-Blue clapped her hands and her pearl produced a saber from her gem's storage space which Holly-Blue took in her hand. "We'll start with basic swordplay, and move on to other weapon styles. Bare-fist fighting will be one of the last things we cover. Everyone, line up for your training swords."

As anyone could have expected, giving training swords to those who had never held a weapon before – nor had the concept of what a weapon was – did not end well. A few of the humans got poked hard, some got smacked and bruised, one had their eye damaged. Fortunately, ambers could heal all those things, even on each other. But for Holly-Blue it was a stressful experience to go through especially because she couldn't intervene. Sagenite Agate was given command of the fossils' training for matters of impartiality, and she was a rigid taskmaster as an agate should be.

Jasper took pleasure in flaunting Holly-Blue's inability to shield her precious hybrids from harm by being slightly rougher with the hybrids than the other Earth-made quartzes were. Sagenite Agate never saw an issue, so Holly-Blue could only watch and seethe.

Holly-Blue scoured her memories of Pink Diamond's notes to find a way to turn the tides in her hybrid's favor. Something, anything to give them a better start than what she'd seen. When the first lesson was concluded as a resounding failure, she retired to her quarters and looked over the notes directly for something she'd missed.

As it turned out, she had failed to look into Pink Diamond's notes on human culture. It was the most incomplete region of her notes, as she'd started it shortly before Rose Quartz happened. She'd only gotten around to studying a few civilizations, and even then not very much. But there were a few common threads for Holly-Blue to put together.

During the time between the first training session and the second, Holly-Blue and her pearl went among the humans to tell them about the diamonds. They already had a vague idea of who and what the diamonds were – but Holly-Blue told them the story of the people who were their diamonds. Her three display models were encouraged to tell the others what they knew about Blue Diamond from their meeting – her constant emotional pain resonated with the ambers the most, who desperately wished to help her with her 'hurt'.

Her ammonites seemed to grow somber at the thought of Pink Diamond, but Holly-Blue didn't know what to make of that. The agatized bones however, seemed driven by the knowledge that Yellow Diamond commanded Homeworld's armies, and wanted to please her with their strength. Holly-Blue had thought things had gone well, until one of her agatized bones hesitantly approached her as she was leaving the containment area.

"Ehm-One, what's the matter?" Holly-Blue immediately saw that the hybrid was near crying, and had her pearl produce a segment of cloth to dry the fellow agate's eyes. "Come now, you can tell Holly-Blue anything."

After some coaxing, the dark-skinned agate explained the situation. "I… think Yellow Diamond is mad at me. She asked to see me when she was here, and… and…." The poor girl finally broke down crying, and had to lean on Holly-Blue.

"There, there, sweetie. Let it all out." In a moment of softness that would never be experienced by anyone but a fossil, Holly-Blue embraced the poor girl. "Yellow Diamond is demanding. But that is because she sees who you will be at the end of all this training, and expected to see it then." Holly-Blue didn't believe a word of what she had said, but she said it to calm down the crying human. "I know it hurts, that she doesn't believe that you will get there. But I believe in you. So does Blue Diamond. Let Yellow Diamond be mad at you all she wants, you weren't made for her."

When Ehm-One was calmed down, and Holly-Blue could leave the containment area properly, she found herself the subject of Jasper's glare once again.

"What is it now, soldier?" Holly-Blue's sweet tone did a complete shift, into a coy tone to mask her annoyance. "Getting angry on your diamond's behalf again?"

Jasper's eyes narrowed. "Yellow isn't my diamond. And you can't just explain away a diamond's wrath like that."

"Why not?" Holly-Blue arched a brow. "We both know how Yellow feels about organics, but they don't. They don't need to. And by the time they figure it out they'll be strong enough to take it in stride."

Jasper's glare became confused. "How can you do that? How can you just… allow them to shrug off a diamond's scorn?"

"It helps that she's not my diamond."

The station shook as Jasper's hand lashed out and punched a crater into a pink flower decal in the wall next to the containment area door. "She's not my diamond either!"

"Is that right?" Holly-Blue advanced on Jasper with a smirk. "I can't help but wonder. If Pink were around to see you as you are – would she even recognize you as hers?"

A dangerous glint shined in Jasper's eye, and Holly-Blue narrowly dodged a grab attempt on her head via a backstep.

"Ah, you've thought about that as well." Holly-Blue's smirk became even more pronounced. "Each diamond has a set of traits they desire their gems to have. Blue favors adaptability. Yellow favors efficiency. I've worked with Pink Diamond's gems for thousands of years, and I can tell you don't have the traits Pink wanted for her gems."

The dangerous glint in Jasper's eyes was revealed for what it was – a reaction to knowledge she already knew. A layer of outrage over a deep pit of shame.

"Pink Diamond wanted her gems to have joy in their hearts. But you? You're full of fear for them," Holly-Blue flicked her hand toward the containment area, "and a desperate desire to fit in with Yellow's crowd. You want Yellow to be your diamond."

"Shut up," Jasper croaked.

"Because, as far as Pink's gems are concerned, you're an off-color every bit as hideous as someone who came out misshapen."

"Shut up!" Jasper clutched the sides of her head, as if she wanted to squeeze the agate's words out of her mind. When Jasper looked at her again, her eyes were full of rage. With a twinge of magic, the quartz soldier's weapon emerged from her gem – a crash helmet designed in the image of a powerful pompadour with a visor over her eyes.

"Oh ho ho ho, my," Holly-Blue laughed into the back of her hand, and looked at the infuriated perfect soldier without fear. Behind her, she could hear the whispers of some of her soldiers as they watched the scene. "Someone's not very good at hearing the truth."

Jasper breathed heavily for a moment before she took a deep breath and dispelled her weapon. "Here's some truth right back at you. Those monsters will never be as good as real gems."

Holly-Blue's smile vanished.

"They can't fit within the order of the diamonds, because as organics they have no place of their own. Only places where they're tolerated by other, better gems." Jasper's eyes were just as full of rage as they'd been a moment ago, but Holly-Blue got the feeling that Jasper didn't see her there – that the quartz soldier was lost in memories. "And as someone who's spent a lot of time being tolerated, it weighs down on you. They're not as strong as me, they'll snap eventually. And when they do, they'll get good gems ruined. You will have gotten good gems ruined."

"Then maybe," Holly-Blue snarled with a dangerous glint of her own in her eyes, "it would be more effective if we worked on making them stronger than you."

–

Blue Diamond hadn't expected much when she allowed Jet out on his first jaunt across the moon, but she certainly expected him to come back presentable. Instead, when she had gone down to the physical doorway of her diamond base, she saw an utter mess of a human waiting on the other side. His feet were coated in semi-hydrated dirt, his vest and belt were both gone, and instead of wearing his loincloth, he had a much smaller mass of torn white fabric held up to maintain the illusion of modesty. There was plant matter all through his hair – which was missing entire clumps – and the human had the gall to grin up at her.

"What in the universe did you do out there?" The diamond asked as she scooped him up and carried him up the diamond-sized stairs. She immediately called down a landing bubble to transition them into her ship where she had a portable extraction pool that she intended to use to get her servant cleaned up.

"I fell down!" The human said with clear amusement. "A lot! Through trees!"

"How did you repeatedly fall through trees – " Blue stopped mid-step as she thought about it some more. "You figured out how to use your flight powers, didn't you?"

Her human bobbed his shoulders. "Sort of? I could float for a few seconds if I jumped really high."

Blue sighed through her nose and continued the path to her extraction pool. It was smaller than her pool on Homeworld, in that it was never meant to contain all four diamonds at once, just her. There were similarities – the diamond-shape, the colored capstones at all four points to correspond to the members of the Authority, and the trenches which would convey minuscule fragments of Blue's power away for gem production. The diamond sat down in the empty pool and let Jet hop off onto the side while it filled with water from a waterfall effect behind the diamond.

"I suppose I'll have to have a new uniform made for you – unless you've learned how to sculpt light into appropriate attire?" Blue looked down at Jet who tried to reach behind himself to touch his gem, but to no avail. "It's alright, it's a skill that doesn't come easily. Pearl, could you…." Blue looked to her side and saw an empty space where her pearl should have been. The diamond buried her face in her hands in exasperation. "Ah, of course. You got me so flustered, I forgot to bring Pearl with us." Blue extended her will into the ship, and by her command a panel opened up in the side. "Well, I'll just have to do this myself then."

From the panel, Blue extracted a stopped bottle of syrupy red fluid. This was opened, and a drop carefully poured into the water as it rose. Pink foam took shape as the water mixed with the liquid soap and air along its surface.

"Alright, jump in," Blue coaxed the hybrid. "We need to get you clean before someone from my court sees you in this state."

After a moment of reluctance, Jet moved to the water's edge, jumped up and landed in the pool with but a small disturbance of the water. He was fortunate it was deep already. When he emerged, he grinned up at her as if he wasn't the cause for the whole ritual. "If only I needed cleaning, why did you get in too?"

Blue scoffed, and picked the human up out of the water with one hand, then scooped up some foaming water to pour onto him with the other. "The pool doesn't activate unless I'm in it. Now get to scrubbing, that dirt and those twigs won't get off you by pure water friction."

While Jet cleaned himself, Blue Diamond worked in her mind and in her gem. There she stitched together strands of light and willed them into the material plane. In hindsight, she shouldn't have allowed a servant caste gem like Jet to run around with the appearance of an average human. He was hers, and gems would need to know him as hers with a glance. The trouble with that was to create something which could survive Jet's activities in the forest. She opted for a shorter loincloth – the original length was down almost to Jet's ankles, far too long for the wilds – and a top that mostly covered his front, tied together at the neck, and left his back exposed. That would show his gemstone clearly, and have less fabric to catch on. Once he no longer went out into the woods, she would design something more akin to a pearl's outfit, since she intended jets to decorate her court.

"The forest out there is fantastic," Jet said as he scrubbed his hair free of dirt and plant matter. "There's animals hidden in every small crack, you can go so deep there's barely any light, and the wind makes music as it moves through the trees. You should come with me and see it, my diamond!"

Blue Diamond smiled ruefully. "You forgot to practice your power's control out there, didn't you?" She laughed as she watched Jet's hands freeze mid-scrub. "It's alright. There's plenty of time to explore and practice. But I can't come with you – it's unbecoming of a diamond to aimlessly explore their colonies. It's a pleasant thought… but no."

"But this isn't a colony," Jet said with a tilted head. He went back to scrubbing a moment later. "This is the moon of a colony. Is it unbecoming of a diamond to aimlessly explore a moon of a colony?"

"Well…," Blue examined her knowledge of Homeworld's laws and found a blank on that subject. "Technically, no. But this moon will be colonized eventually."

"But it isn't being colonized right now. So you can explore all you want, and no one can say you're breaking the rules."

The diamond inclined her head in thought and smiled faintly. "I… suppose I could. Once I do it, White will definitely make a rule about it, but until she does…."

Jet grinned at her, and Blue felt for a moment like she had when Pink was around, and not being impossible. For the first time in thousands of years, Blue Diamond was happy.

 

[Chairtastic]

Chapter Seven – Realization

After the revelation about the ambers' observational skills, the morale among the peridots was considerably low. Peridot 5XG got hit worse because she had to endure continued interaction with the ambers. Her work speed was slowed by profound lethargy, her results were poor because she couldn't muster the energy to properly experiment, and her usual witticisms had become garbage tier. At first, the ruby's words had been soothing – Yellow Diamond had peridots, why would she need ambers? But then one of her fellow Era Two peridots pointed out that ambers certainly were an improvement over them. In light of that, perhaps Yellow Diamond would simply discontinue the peridot production, and bring in ambers to do their work.

They'd only be partially replaced, in that peridots would still have their jobs. But as time went on there would be fewer and fewer of them. Until eventually they went the way of the pewter. It was inevitable.

She was stirred from her melancholy by a sudden grapple attack by the female amber, Eye-Five. The squishy gem had wrapped her arms around her and began to squeeze.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Peridot demanded, and glared at the rubies. "You're supposed to protect us from them too!" It was wholly insufficient to damage Peridot, but the principle of the matter still stood.

As one the rubies rolled their eyes. "You're fine," the elder of them said. "It's just a hug."

"A what?"

Peridot's dumbfounded croak moved Eye-Five enough to laugh. "A hug, silly! I'm trying to squish the sadness out of you!"

The technician gem used her touch stubs to stroke her chin thoughtfully. They floated freely, so her arms being bound did little to hamper them. Squishing an emotion out of a gem was an… unconventional way to achieve a result, but it had some merit. Peridot nodded, and barked over her shoulder. "Well, if that's what you're trying to do put more effort into it! I'm barely being compressed at all!"

Eye-Five laughed again and easily doubled her hugging pressure.

Peridot grunted from the increased pressure and grit her teeth. "More! We have yet to conclusively prove or disprove your hypothesis." She evacuated all gaseous matter in her hard-light construct form as the pressure increased again. "More…."

"En-Seven," Eye-Five called playfully, "could you come help me hug Peridot?"

Peridot was only aware of the telltale 'thumps' of En-Seven's approaching steps after that. "Yes," she gasped in satisfaction. "His superior strength will easily yield resul-hrlks!" Peridots were made to be tough – they were intended to survive field conditions for drastic repairs, so their poof resistance was at the high end of the spectrum. However the combined strength of two ambers pushed Peridot dangerously close to the poofing threshold, to the point where she couldn't even see because her eyes bugged out of her head.

When she was released, the first thing she did was hit the ground face-first. "Ow." The second was to stand and reflect on her emotional state. She was no longer locked into her malaise, and had returned to the neutral state she favored. "Log date Eighteen Nine Two Two, an experiment on the effects of squishing undesired emotion out of a gem have yielded tentatively good results, repeat experiments must be performed." She looked over at the other peridots in the work area, and put her touch-stubs together to whistle. "Hey, all you unpolished rocks! Line up for experimental emotion purging!"

Behind her En-Seven and Eye-Five began to stretch and get themselves ready for a hugging marathon.

–

Hug-squishing proved a viable method of getting rid of the malaise which had afflicted the peridots, but only as a temporary measure. Frequent hugs were needed to maintain productivity.

Peridot 5XG naturally got the best quality hugs, and they had the longest effect, so she was able to do the most work with the shortest downtime. This allowed her to make two important breakthroughs in the study of the amber's power. First, she discovered that the harmonics were what allowed the resin produced in the healing to remain a liquid. Next, she found that while an outer shell of the resin hardened during gem-repairs, a layer of it remained liquid as the harmonics were used to vibrate the target and allow the resin to interface with it.

It was reasonably easy to create a similar fluid, one that adapted its resonance to match the target's. But she needed more data on how the substance healed a gem, so Peridot turned Eye-Five for help. Peridot had noted that Eye-Five's gem had seemed to lock into an active state some weeks prior, and thought perhaps she could use that to try and heal with Peridot's synthetic resin.

To her surprise, Eye-Five rubbed some of the resin on her back for the healing experiment before Peridot could fetch a bubbled cracked gem. "Ah," the amber sighed. "Yes, this works. Create a new batch with tracking robonoids in it so we can see how the effects work."

Peridot narrowed her eyes at the human. "Why did you do that?"

Eye-Five smiled. "Because my back hurts."

"Why does your back hurt?"

Eye-Five smiled wider. "Because I'm carrying additional weight."

Peridot's eyes narrowed even more. "Why are you carrying additional weight?"

"Because I'm making a new amber inside me." She rubbed her stomach and for the first time Peridot saw that Eye-Five's abdominal region was swollen.

"You're… making a new amber. In there?" Peridot pointed at the hybrid's abdominal region. "How? With what resources?"

"When we eat, we put aside some resources to allow us to have extra to pull on in case of environmental changes. This is one of them." Eye-Five's eyes sparkled as she explained it all.

Peridot was, however, extremely confused and alarmed. "But… but you need an injector to make a gem!"

En-Seven whistled at her from his spot in the amber's tree.

"And the new gem has to come out of a hole!"

Eye-Five nodded.

Peridot's narrowed eyes were replaced with dawning horror as she fully realized the scope of what she'd just heard. "Your entire cabochon are equipped with miniature kindergartens? That pull from resources you can stockpile?"

Again, Eye-Five nodded and grinned. "Not just us. All fossils can do this!"

It was like the floor had fallen out from under Peridot's feet and she was falling. "All of them?"

All of them. Agates, and opals would never need to be produced from a kindergarten again. Two niche roles, no major loss. But Peridot had read the notes on proto-form gem categories which would radically alter the balance of power in gem society.

–

Blue Diamond had never before walked under the boughs of a tree. It was a surreal experience, to see structures which look as firm and secure as stone sway under the force of a mild breeze. Jet swung from branch to branch by way of thick vines, and bounced along bubbles if he could not swing to catch the next vine easily.

It was graceful to watch. His lessons with Pearl had really paid off.

Exoskeletal animals seemed to be the type of organic animal which the moon sported the most of. Armored crabs with homes made from boulders, land lobsters with the claws to crush those boulders, and wasps large enough to carry away the lobsters were just a few that Blue Diamond saw on their outing. It gave her such ideas for new murals, statues, and mosaics to remember them by when the moon was colonized.

Blue didn't like it when they scuttled onto her, but she didn't mind watching them when they were elsewhere. She liked to watch them move, she just didn't want to have them touching her when they did. The wasps, she found out, didn't take to gentle persuasion when she tried to get them to leave her alone – and she had to lay waste to their hive before they got the message.

"Alright, Jet," she said when they came to a cave system. "This looks like a good spot for you to practice your power. Head on in."

Jet hesitated, perhaps because it was dark and unfamiliar, but Blue placed her hand behind him and gently scooted him into the caves.

"Your gem can give you the light you need – you just need to command it so. I will be out here, you won't have to worry."

How odd, Blue thought as Jet scurried off into the cave. The whole situation was odd, being out in the wilds of a strange moon, with one of her gems which couldn't control their powers. Really, she pondered as she sat down near the cave, if Jet hadn't come from Pink's zoo, and Pink's methods, she would have had him destroyed for the trouble he'd caused.

And she'd still be miserable, if she'd done that.

The diamond of art and beauty slumped against the trunk of a giant tree, and even with its mass it groaned to bear Blue Diamond's weight. If she'd just done what she'd done for any other gem, she'd be miserable and stuck crying constantly again. She hadn't cried in days, she realized with a start.

The pain of losing Pink was still so sharp it felt like it would cut her up inside, and she didn't miss her any less. But Blue didn't feel the urge to sob over Pink anymore. She didn't feel better, but she didn't feel broken. Blue was sure Yellow would tell her it was being back at work which had helped her, but Blue speculated the reason to be something different. She glanced at the cave, and heard faint notes of distorted singing. Her aura flared so that she wouldn't be touched by Jet's power unintentionally.

Would Pink approve of being… replaced by an organic? Tears bubbled up in Blue's eyes as she genuinely couldn't answer that question for herself. Pink had adored organics. So much that Blue wondered if Pink would have been happier as an organic.

Blue rested her head against the tree trunk and imagined what it would be like. Pink as an organic. Ridiculous! She closed her eyes to envision it better, and as she did her aura weakened just a bit. Just enough. Blue perceived the dappled light that came down through the trees as a line against the back of her eyelids. As she imagined, that line coiled and twisted down like the lines on a drill bit toward the bottom of an abyss behind her eyes.

"A dream is a wish your heart makes / When you're fast asleep."

Blue imagined herself as a human woman. She walked through a castle made of mere rocks carefully carved into pleasing patterns by flimsy human hands. Pink walked beside her in the shape of a younger woman than Blue imagined herself. Still young enough that it was acceptable for Blue to lead her by the hand.

"In dreams you will lose your heartaches / Whatever you dream of, you keep."

They came to a courtyard full of plants and little animals in cages, a garden – just for Pink! On all walls of the garden were statues of White, in the pose she'd held for hundreds of years. Blue let the girl go play while she imagined Yellow in the shape of a human soldier advanced to talk to her about affairs of state. Things like growing food and the necessity of clean water. Such trivialities! But Blue's mind was always on Pink, on how happy she was to play, and be free of the burdens she would one day have to bear.

"No matter how your heart is grieving / If you keep on believing / The dream that you wish will come true."

After she and Yellow had talked for a while, Blue imagined her seated next to a fountain in the garden. While she sat and watched Pink play with a small simian animal, she imagined Jet to be there. Even as a human, Blue was still taller than him, but he didn't care. Jet came to sit next to Blue and watched Pink alongside her. Blue's arm wrapped around Jet's waist to draw him closer to her, and –

Blue Diamond snapped out of her imaginings right then and there. She flared her aura to full strength and forced out the thin traces of Jet's power that had managed to get through. Her face was flushed as she berated herself mentally for even thinking such things. It was inappropriate! Unnatural!

And exactly what Pink would do, in her position.

"A diamond must stand apart," she told herself as she forced down the improper thoughts. "No need for friendships, no need for support from anyone or anything." But that hadn't been the case for anyone except White Diamond. Yellow and Blue had always supported each other, and Pink had always asked them for support. White was the one who always acted like she tolerated her fellow diamonds.

Why wasn't it true for her? Why couldn't Blue be like White and not care? Why did she need Pink to make her happy, and then an organic to do the same when Pink was gone? Why did her imaginings lead her to thinking that way for her servant?

Pink had been that way for her servant. Her first pearl, the one White had cruelly taken away and abused to teach Pink a lesson.

Horror dawned in Blue's mind as she put the pieces together. "Was it… me?" She asked herself as she covered her face with her hands. "Did Pink have all those terrible habits and… and favor those organics because she learned it from what I did?" Blue was the only one to let Pink keep any organic pets. Blue had been the one to build the zoo, and then keep the zoo, on Pink's behalf. And Blue had been the one to try and teach Pink how to be a diamond the most. "Was… I the problem?"

"What's the problem, my diamond?"

Blue whirled around, and saw Jet. He had come from the cave, and looked up at her with clear worry.

"Is something the matter? Did I do it wrong again?"

Blue shook her head to get herself out of the past and laid down her hand for Jet to climb onto. "No, no. I'm just shocked at how late we are," Blue lied seamlessly. "We've been out far too long, for a first trip anyway. Come on, let's go back to the base."

"Okay, my diamond." Jet's tone and face made it seem like he didn't completely believe her lie, but he wouldn't resist. "As you command."

–

Jasper dreamed in the periods where she was permitted free time. She would go to her cubby hole, slump against the wall, and sleep like she was an organic. It made her mind sharper when she woke up, it made her aware of things she missed when she was awake. And it gave her something to do besides think about herself.

She dreamed she was on a jungle planet, with a platoon of other quartz soldiers. For some reason they were in frantic retreat, and Jasper was near the back of the pack, meaning she'd been one of the last to fall back. It didn't make sense, Jasper's sleeping mind thought, there had been no retreat orders given during the rebellion that took place in the jungle. When was this?

The jungle gave way to a field of tall grass, almost as tall as the quartz soldiers but nowhere near Jasper's height. "Don't go into the long grass," Jasper frantically shouted but she didn't know why. She tried to grab a nearby carnelian but the red quartz slipped through her fingers like smoke. "Don't go into the long grass!"

With her height, she saw something move through the long grass in pursuit of the fleeing gems. Jasper called on her crash helmet and chased after her fellow soldiers. Soon enough the pursuers revealed themselves. A human with black pits and red dots for eyes lept from the grass onto the back of a fleeing amethyst. Jasper could hear shock become terror and then pain in the quartz's screams. When she got to the scene the amethyst was gone, and only shards in the human's teeth remained of her. The human hissed at Jasper and darted away into the long grass.

The same sick drama unfolded again and again with each soldier that Jasper tried to rescue. The worst ones were the times she would arrive just as the human's teeth broke apart the gem. Jasper would watch with horror as the gem's form dispersed, and the pain that would be the last thing the poor quartz ever felt was etched into Jasper's memory.

And eventually, Jasper was the only one left. All the other quartz soldiers in her platoon were gone. The grass rustled around her, and Jasper rolled to spin dash at the enemy. But there was nothing for her to connect with. The humans darted around, and were too fast for her power to catch them.

"Cowards!" Jasper howled into the night. "Monsters! I won't let you gobble me up! You hear me?! If you want me, you'll pay for me with your worthless lives!" The humans made no response but to rustle more of the grass around her. "I won't lay down and let you shatter me!"

A new rustle happened in the long grass. Someone walking. Jasper turned and saw Pink Diamond, with her eyes as black pits with red dots at their core.

"Wha – "

"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Rose Quartz's voice. "Lay down."

Pink was her diamond, she had to obey. Jasper's body moved against her will, even as she tried to fight it. "N-no…."

"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Holly-Blue Agate's voice. "Become food for my precious humans."

"N-no…." Jasper was only able to look at the sky as human faces surrounded her on all sides. "Not like this…."

Crack.

Jasper woke in a cold sweat, and startled her amethyst neighbor with her panicked gasps. She held her head in her hand as she realized it was all a dream. It was only a dream.

It was a dream that could become real at any moment.

"They all need to be destroyed," Jasper muttered to herself as she tried to calm down. "They all need to be destroyed."

 

[Coshiua]

Fossil Fan Art
Current Jet

 

[Coshiua]

Fossil Fan Art
Holly Blue Agate's Pearl

Spoiler: link

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/480194090525261834/636772037980979227/HollyBluePearl.png

 

[Coshiua]

Fossil Fan Art
Amber

Spoiler

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/480194090525261834/637086716787949608/Amber.png