Chapter 01:
Do you like normal?
I like normal.
To me, it is relaxing when most things stay the same as before.
Naturally not when it came to food, because who would want to eat the same meal each day. Or when you play a game you don't want the game AI to do the exact same moves each turn or things will become repetitive and boring
preettyy quick.
Mostly though? Steady the course and let things flow just as before. Go to work at the same time as yesterday, return home at the time of day I returned previously...
Actually, normal might not have been the best way to describe things...
Oh yes, I have a better way to put it: I like
routine.
No:
I LOVE routine!
To me, problems such as public transportation going haywire because of technical malfunctions weren't just an annoying delay during transit, but like an affront to all things kind and holy, messing up my mood quite baddly.
Some of my friends claim that I might have some issues. They might actually be right, when I think about it.
Still, if you knew me personally, it should be easy to believe that when I woke up one morning and found myself stuck inside some odd tube in total darkness, my internal monologue became filled with great deal of anger at my situation and some growing amounts of stress.
Of course I also panicked, but mostly I was simply pissed off. Actually, pissed off so much I almost couldn't think straight.
On hindsight, that should have been my first clue that I wasn't quite myself anymore. I should have been more panicky than I was, routine-obsession or not. Plus, the amount of anger I had was bizarre even for me.
Oh well, frothing rage has a certain way of clouding your sensibilities, as I'm sure most would agree.
Without any illumination nor noise to distract my attention from my thoughts, I was left brooding for quite some time.
For some reason, I couldn't move my legs nor arms. I wasn't even certain that I actually was inside some odd tube instead of just some square box, some magical pink pyramid or whatever other kind of bizarre geometry I could think of.
I called it a tube because my surroundings just 'felt' tube-like.
That should have been my second clue.
After a long while – hours, days, weeks or more – my resting place finally opened up.
CRIAAAK
Well, as long as a sudden fall, followed by a strong impact with the ground cracking your apparent container into pieces, could be considered "opening it up".
Naturally, it would have been too simple if I had been able to immediately jump to my feet, open my eyes and take in the situation.
No, nothing so simple here.
Nothing normal either, as the first few seconds of my questionable freedom were immediately followed with few key realizations.
One: I still couldn't see.
I didn't have eyes, so how exactly could I "sense" that I was in a room of some kind, filled with dull shapes I couldn't quite make out? Actually, how did I hear the container shattering into pieces just a moment ago, when I didn't even seem to have ears to listen through of?
Two: I didn't have a body at all. Kinda tied down to the first realization, you might say.
There were no hands, legs or anything at all attached to me. I felt concentrated, like a ball – or core – of my being existed independently of anything else, in some crystallized fashion.
I should point out that, once more by hindsight, my thoughts were hilariously spot-on without me knowing it.
Three: either I had been transported to the world of giants, or I had been somehow shrunk. Because why else could I have a giant humanoid figure gazing down at me, towering over me and...
I couldn't be certain, but the way their forms seemed to shiver slightly while I was focusing on them seemed to indicate... discomfort? Horror? Or maybe it was simply some interference? It wasn't like I knew how reliable my new odd
sensing actually wa-
OK, that most certainly looked like the figure is about to faint – hard to misinterpreted someone grasping support from a nearby table (or cabinet? Hard to say.) while their hands moved to the correct position to (hopefully) prevent themselves from hurling up their stomach-contents to the ground.
That was the point where a second character entered the room with a sprint, starting to scream words that were neither English or my mother tongue of Finnish, but which I could somehow still understand...
"Watch it! This is very important hardw-
you clod already broke one?!"
Peridot, Facet-4R4L Cut-3DX would normally have felt absolutely horrified to have broken something in the presence of a superior gem, especially if they happened to be a very irate quarts-gem. However, at that moment she was far more occupied with the sight before her eyes.
Namely, the utterly revolting existence of broken gem-shards, stitched together like someone took some industrial-grade adhesive and proceeded to mash random parts together in hopes that it would fix someone back together. A cluster of shards, with apparent donors from at least 4 separate fallen gems (she could make up at least two Quartz'es, one Ruby and one Peridot, the remaining small slivers only noticeable because of differences in color), as if there just to mock her and her mind, teasing her to find an logical explanation to the disturbing sight... and try as she might, she couldn't figure it out.
'What was the point?'
Her silent mutterings were interrupted when the pink quartz swept by, punching Peridot from behind hard enough that Peridot would swear later that she almost 'poofed' then and there. Gibing gave a gasp of pain, she quickly bowed low in deference to her superior who most certainly didn't seem amused at her lack of proper response.
"Fo- forgive me, it wasn't my intention to-"
"But you did do so," the quarts growled, "that is exactly the problem."
Taking a closer look at the... gem amalgam, the quartz sighed as some of her tension left her stance while she picked up the disturbing blob with her left hand - Peridot noticed that her hand also happened to be the placement soldier's gem. "Thank the Diamonds, you only broke open one of the failed batch. Alright, here is how this is going to go..." the soldier slowly leaned towards the lowly Peridot who began to tremble in fear, waiting for the terms of her punishment.
"If you had broken any of the successful batch, you would be dead. If I had happened to be outside the room during the time you were carrying these things, it would look bad in my record. With me so far?"
Peridot couldn't nod fast enough even when the choice of words began to confuse her, bringing a dark, amused grin to her superior's face.
"So here is the deal: you forget that I was doing my own business here while you were carrying these and I forget this ever happened. We stash this thing back into one of the still empty containers, you copy the original designation of the container and neither of us will have
any problems whatsoever - just another nice, routine day at the lab."
Peridot was frozen when confronted with such blatant disrespect of protocol and regulations. The quartz ground her teeth, took a grip of Peridot's neck and started to shake the smaller gem. "
Are. We. Clear?"
"Yes," Peridot quickly recovered her faculties, realizing that if she wanted to survive the next few moments without imminent Shattering, her accident had to be hidden - at least if the gem before her was to be believed, but Peridot wasn't in the mood to demand verification from the clearly violent warrior currently having her hand around her neck - especially as her gem-location was just under her chin and as such in easy Shattering-distance if she pushed her luck.
"Good," the larger gem said, noticeably pleased with herself for another job well done, "You collect the container-shards and get the identification number, meanwhile I'l stash this into one of the empty containers -"
"What is that thing?"
In the ensuing silence Peridot suddenly realized that the words had come from her, accidentally letting her inner monologue to spill onto the real world. The words had a clear impact on the soldier-gem however, as she did an about face, rushed at her and smashed her frame right into the wall. She quickly materialized her weapon - a short sword of some kind - and placed it over the poor Peridot's gem, ready to pierce it at will.
"
Your designation number, now!"
"Peridot, Facet-4R4L Cut-3DX!" Peridot screamed out in terror as quickly as she could, trembling before the gem that seemed to flip-flop between a slimy rule-breaker and her future executioner.
"Facet-4R4L..." The warrior mumbled on as she seemingly checked something from the confines of her mind. "What the crack, you are the new gem that was moved in day before aren't you? What in the world are you doing here, you shouldn't have clearance to be in these parts of the complex before your orientation-period. It couldn't have finished already, it takes days!"
"There was some kind of accident," Peridot attempted to move her head, but her captor just moved the blade as she moved her gem, keeping the distance between the two same, "one of the gems in charge of the labs lost an assistant - she picked me as a immediate replacement."
"And she of course didn't even brief you what you were working with..." Shaking her head in exasperation, the warrior chuckles. "Figures that I would need to fill the gaps. Alright, you see this thing here?" She held the amalgam close to her eye level. "This is what we call a 'cluster gem'. Take a few rebels, smash them to bits, take some of those bits, send them to the labs and presto: a new, disposable shock troop even more replaceable than your average ruby!"
Peridot's eyes, before now filled with terror, were not filled with one emotion only.
Absolute. Total. Horror.
So, apparently I was now some kind of a... what, a living stone-zombie? Wait, no. Undead stone crystal? That just sounded silly.
Made me hella pissed, too. I mean, not only was I apparently a rock now, I was apparently made out of dead bodies of sophonts.
Oh yes, I was kinda irritated right about now.
"
No..."
The voice was so small that neither I nor the woman (did living rocks have gender?) almost didn't hear it. But almost wasn't enough, as the taller woman's hold over my new form slowly tightened into a fist. "What did you just say?"
"I said
no!", the short one suddenly began yelling as if she was possessed by the devil. "This is - this is insane! This is utterly revolting,
who was the clod who invented -!"
Her voice was cut off as a fist impacted her solar plexus. "Yellow Diamond runs this op, you fool! One more word and I'l save myself the trouble and Shatter you at once!"
Among the coughing, an angry hiss broke out. "
Never..."
Yay, there
was a sane person in this mad scientist's workshop.
Boo, the tall one was strangling her and this time it doesn't seem like she would stop.
It kinda made me more mad than before. Well maybe calling myself mad from rage would be a bit of a misinterpretation: I had gone over anger and reached a point where rage becomes cold and calculating instead of the traditional, instant and basic shows of temper.
Instincts and commands I didn't even knew I had before that specific moment passed over my 'vision' - and I could feel as energy and crystalline growth around my core began to expand, impacting the gem of the tall woman currently holding my core in her hand...
Pure Quartz, Facet-2P1D Cut-1YX was not having a good day.
First she had been placed on guard duty during her break-period because her superior had seen her slacking and punished her with extra ten shifts of tedious work. Then the new girl goes and breaks open one of the cluster prototypes - non-functioning mind you, but still! Finally the new girl breaks into some moral nonsense about broken traitors and calls one of the Diamonds - her diamond specifically - a clod.
A clod! She should be thanking Quartz for her mercy: the last person to call a Diamond anything derogatory survived
for weeks until Blue Diamond considered their death a more useful deterrent than the value of entertainment.
And the whole 'respecting the dead'-nonsense was clearly something Rose Quartz - the Diamond-shattering traitor she was - used to say even before she began her open betrayals. It wasn't like every gem that had existed on Earth while Rose was still somewhat tolerated - even as she silently spread her opinions around - was shattered after the Great Betrayal and it wasn't like they had all joined the rebellion, but her influence still clung to those who harbored sympathetic thoughts. The idea that dead gems - rebel gems specifically - deserved any mercy or to have a right for any peaceful rest was absolutely treasonous!
At least she now had a good excuse to break the gem instead of just going with the ruse: there would be some questions, but killing a traitor that somehow managed to infiltrate this far into the system was worthy of a recommendation at lea-
"
GGRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"
The excruciating pain shot through her very being as her gem came under assault. Opening her fist, the core she had thought to be dormant was quickly digging in, breaking her gem into shards right under her horrified eyes.
The Peridot took the opportunity to wrestle away from the quartz, her hands covering her mouth as she witnessed the final moments of a gem.
The last thing Quartz heard was a cold voice, the icy tone running across her very being.
"
You were one step too close to me..."
As her final thoughts, - before an ever expanding zone of white reached her self within her gem - she realized that the distorted voice had left her own lips.
Then nothing.
and the mouth torso mutant
are both symetrical...
