Scintillation 4.1
- Location
- Chula Vista
Scintillation 4.1
I could feel the magic in the air, the signature aura that came with it was easily identified. It had been growing steadily stronger on Mars, and around home. The magic seeped into the soil, it churned the currents of the mantle and core and provided radioactive heat and power to the core. Terraformer Gems and machines thickened the atmosphere with nitrogen from Venus.
The colony had created a cocktail of carbon tetrafluoride and other super greenhouse gases, while Gem satellites used magic to redirect sunlight towards Mars without mirrors the size of continents. They were self repairing units capable of operating effectively indefinitely. Tied through magical contracts to the planet itself.
About a thirty six percent increase in solar insolation, and the production and importation of billions of tons of super greenhouse gases. Argent was busy moving and gathering control over the water on a nearby alternate Mimas, and exporting it into the same storage dimension used to hold some of the atmosphere of Venus for exportation to Mars.
Various Gem magic tools were sublimating the CO2 of Mars from the poles and the soil. The atmosphere was about twenty percent thicker, and we were barely keeping the sudden dust storms in check.
I breathed in the air, and saw dust devils dissipating against the barrier of Rocknest. I had seen enough for today, and was stepping back a bit now that we had more than three handfuls of Gems. While it was my colony, my authority wasn't ready, my experience wasn't there, and diving in could end badly.
I had seven hundred and seventy Gems under my aegis and maybe under my Court one day. I doubt every Gem was going to stick around, some might just want to get in on terraforming for their own sake.
Officially I probably wouldn't have more firm authority of the colony for at least a year, maybe even two. More than enough for my power to grow, and for me to get used to what I was. Mostly they were taking orders from Steven, plans he had created haunt some of my tentative ideas and intuitions.
Much of the design of the colony was based on the conditions of Earth Bet and its many parallels. The various engineers and technicians were already started on a planetary defense system, a series of weapons platforms on the ground and in orbit.
Essentially they planned for multiple sets of energy weapons, which was actually an incredibly lethal idea. Rose's cannons had yields of about four gigatons, and it would take fifty shots from four of them to bring down the now almost two centuries old ship used by Peridot and Jasper. They hadn't even sent the newest model against the Crystal Gems.
Their dial-a-yield energy cannons were frightening things, and they were more than capable of incinerating a small region.
The ship…the Destiny Unbound had also been carrying a number of Matter Caches, crates using Warp tech to turn them into a Tardis container of supplies. So it carried a massive amount of supplies, from ichor to armor to weapons and generators and more.
One of them was a Guardian Defense system, an array of energy weapons to strike against targets in space from the surface. They were scaled up versions of that Titanite magic based weapon I had tinkered with.
Most Gem energy weapons were made out of a mix of light, plasma and magical energy, modeled off the energy manipulation of their species. They had described magical energy, mana, prana, quintessence as a form of force native to a higher level of reality. Magic was used to alter the laws of physics, a flow of higher dimensional energy beyond the multiple physical dimensions.
From what I could tell there were extra physical dimensions, at least twenty two more that could be used to mutilate, twist, warp and bend the universe. That was what Entities did, while magic was beyond that…or at least more comprehensive.
Their dimensional understanding was responsible for all their space and time fuckery, along with implementation of stolen technology into their organic physiology.
I stepped back through the warp pad, and several seconds passed as I crossed interplanetary distances. I warped again, and found Faultline's Crew inspecting the teleportation pads with slightly wide eyes. We had used a transport tube to get underground. Newter had almost thrown up.
"I imagine you've been laying low for a few days, I didn't know you were showing up today." I honestly didn't, I really didn't plan to enter a big leadership role. Despite my Diamond heritage.
"You have teleportation tinkertech?" Newter was the one who had the most energy, being younger and well…more energetic to begin with.
"We have a lot of things, you might need to be a lot more specific."
Teleporters, faster than light spacecraft, energy weapons, elemental manipulation technology, weather manipulation, portal creation, a vast array of robotic servants and automatons. Time manipulation, though limited in a number of ways, Time Hourglasses for example aren't as useful for time travel as you would think.
Their purpose is more for anchoring themselves against time effects with the time travel abilities as a dangerous side effect. From what I can tell, fucking with time has numerous limits relating to tears in the fabric of reality and natural loops stopping paradoxes.
Though they had developed means of looping time using what they had studied from the White Beast, one quarter of Abaddon's hub network. That avatar had access to an administrator shard to modify shards, as well as a number of mental, emotional and esoteric powers.
Time and space manipulation was among it's repertoire of dangerous and complex powers.
Focus.
"Anyways. We should move this to somewhere more suitable…"
I yawned, opening my mouth wide, teeth clicking against one another as I shut my trap. I tapped Newter on the shoulder, and he jumped in response. I raised an eyebrow, and waggled a bottle of water in his direction.
"You touched me." He looked slightly nervous, and there was a questioning look from Gregor and Faultline.
"You'll find pretty much anyone here won't get affected by your power, though in my case the reason is different." Being made out of magic Diamond juice tends to come with perks like immunity to disease and poison. "Comes with the territory of unusual biology."
"Neat." He wasn't being sarcastic so I took his reply at face value. I was showing them to a warp pad, one of about two dozen on the planet.
"Now, are you ready to use a warp pad? We'll be going pretty far from home." Not that I fully considered this planet home.
"You brought us here by teleportation Mover, we can handle a machine that does more of the same." There was a bite to Faultline's tone. I hopped up onto the warp pad, and the three followed. "Now…how does this work?"
"Try not to fall out of the stream."
"What—" the three capes started to float as the stream began and we folded space into a knot. Newter sputtered, and I grabbed his tail when his head almost poked out into the empty void of Warp Space. A handful of seconds later, they were sent sprawling onto the ground.
"You all alive right?" I lifted them up using barriers, since I hadn't figured out how Steven floated other people with his power. I frowned at the trail of sweat left from Newter, so I snapped my fingers and projected out kinetic force without any movement.
The shock of air dissipated the fluid, and I kept walking towards another warp pad.
"Where is this meeting spot you're taking us?" There was one notable difference between this warp pad and any other. The center was carved with a simplified galactic symbol, a spiral galaxy.
"How willing are you to take a more…long term job?"
"What are you offering?" Faultline stopped me, an intense look somehow conveyed from behind a welding mask.
"So access to teleportation technology, and an unspecified level of firepower and defensive technology isn't enough for you?"
"Actual cash would also be helpful." She was being a little snide but not annoyingly so.
"You're shit out of luck there, though we do have access to substantial mineral wealth. Assuming you can sell them." I shrugged.
There was more interest then and there. "What kind of minerals?"
"Any form of precious minerals and stones, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires."
"Tinker-made?" She seemed more wary.
"We're very good at mining deep, " I denied. "Anything we give you is legitimate, mined and then cut by us. You can either get some cut Gem-quality stones or the rawer stuff depending on your needs."
"That…that could easily exceed what we make as mercenaries." I think I was bringing her over to the idea of working for us. "But that alone won't cut it." The two Case 53s blinked at her reply.
"You want help with something I'm guessing?"
Faultline snorted. "Don't act like you don't know, there's at least one Thinker on your team."
"Technically we're all Thinkers," She seemed surprised. "But that's not what you mean I'm sure. So are all of you going to the meeting place…or just you?" There was intuition, a hum I could read of her intentions. A natural Gem power.
"That would be my preference, yes." She gave the two Case 53s a look, probably silent communication.
"Then get on the magical teleportation device." It was hard to smother my song, my power, because I didn't need to be accused of being a Master.
Which I am but who's listening in on my thoughts anyway?
Faultline stepped aboard. "Now exactly where are we going that you consider so secure?"
"Well to cut it short, it's a very good thing the warp network is keyed onto your power. May I?" I waved to the pad, and after a physical stutter of hesitation.
She nodded. The world was swept away, as the interplanetary warp did its job. I could hear her power sing-screaming, as by this point the Empire had long since wrangled her shard as well as the shards of Gregor and Newter.
None of them by Gems I knew either, there were over a million Gems on his Earth, and several hundred million across the solar system. Since they had dimensional travel already, they had the job of tracking down and holding down shards. Which was easy enough when they were in power savings mode and effectively blind.
My musing was broken as the warp compressed over sixty million kilometers of distance into a distance crossable in seconds. Faultline stumbled but kept her footing as her power recalibrated.
I jumped several feet in the lower gravity of Mars, though I was more than capable of adapting to the gravity. It wasn't inherent for hybrids but it was an easily learned trick.
"W-What am I looking at?" Faultline was staring up at the dimmer skies of Mars, with the Moon Bases on Phobos and Deimos being set up, a dim glow from mining drills and lasers, and compressing rubble into solid structures of crystal and metal.
"Olly did say we were out of this world, and this is an easy way of proving that statement." I gestured and she flinched when she saw the full scope of Rocknest. The area had expanded out to about six percent of Gale crater, one thousand and eighty square kilometers of land terraformed and the rock beneath transmuted by magic empowered geological processes.
Geometric buildings covered the landscape, seamlessly merging with nature. Gems were well known for their kilometers deep cities, spires upheld by particle streams and immense magic and atomic reinforcement.
The entire city was built into a grid, an interconnected network of skybridges, forested balconies and vine-covered circular spires, with multiple skyscrapers up to two hundred stories tall. Bismuths set up scaffolds, the cubes infinitely replicating themselves as they and other Gems worked to build and construct, and some cultivated and grew plant life.
It was unfinished, hanging gardens still being assembled and prepared and seeded with appropriate flora and fauna. Almost all of it was genetically altered through Gem techniques, and I plucked a swiftly unfolding star-berry. I ate it absently, tasting sweet apples.
Gale Crater was going to become the heart of the largest urban center on the planet, and the design…I had mentioned something like this in a conversation with Righty…
"But I didn't think they'd go this far…" It was still hard getting used to it, and that was while ignoring the eventual Understory.
"You're…we're on Mars. " There was no hiding the shock in her tone.
"I imagine you have questions." It was a statement rather than a question.
"Are…are you human?" There was a distinct sourness, Faultline obviously didn't like how she had worded the question.
"Half-human," I corrected. "I started fully human, and was given the choice of being infused with a Gem…and became something with the advantages of both and the weaknesses of neither." An oversimplification but good enough for a layman. "The Gems…are in a literal sense, just gems, mineralogical life forms animated by an esoteric energy with negentropic properties. Beings of light, crystal and song." I emphasized, Diamondsong coming through with the smallest slip.
"Why are you here, and why talk to what has to be a fairly primitive species to space traveling aliens?"
"To be fair, the humanity of their dimension were the ones who helped them develop dimensional travel to begin with. It's where they picked me up after all."
She clasped her hands together. "So you're aliens from another reality, that at some point visited an alternate Earth. But that doesn't clear up why? "
"That's the simplest way to sum us up," I rolled my shoulders and eyes. "As for why…it's because there is a dangerous threat hiding in your world, one that could spell doom for billions of lives. Unfortunately, a…cousin of that threat is currently waging a war against the entire galaxy, so we have to be…relatively subtle, and they made me as a backup in case shit goes sideways in a bad way."
"There are hundreds of…Gems here." She pointed out.
"Normal colonization asks for between ten and one hundred thousand Gems for a new colony." I gently informed her. "His Radiance's free colony of Earth has about two million Gems, while Mars and Venus have three and five hundred million Gems respectively."
"I'm not sure we have much to offer a galactic empire." There was a hint of a waver in her tone.
"Maybe not, but you're locals with a far greater understanding of the landscape of this world." I found a resting spot, an odd metal bench I could tell was infused with magic. Though it took a shape and aura that was almost 'foreign' to what I knew of Gem magic. "We've researched your world from a distance but that's different from direct knowledge, and it'll help us remove dangerous players from the board."
"Like?"
"The Slaughterhouse Nine, the Fallen, certain S-class threats." I didn't specify. "Once we have that done, we can move on with removing the true threat and preventing a crippling blow from an unseen direction. Other than that we have no real plans of conquest, this is Era 3…it's a different time."
Faultline seemed to come to a decision. "I'm willing to make a deal, but I do acquire assistance with helping Newter and Gregor."
"Their bodies or their past?" The silence was telling. "Both then? I did say we've been researching the planet for a while," I rubbed my chin. "There are a few options for them, like being put under the aegis of the Empire."
"Aegis?" She questioned.
"Citizens, legally protected and given all the associated rights as Jets," I paused. "Non Gem citizens, like the hedgewicks or the melonsprites, or endangered species wanting protection like the Kraaho after their home planet was…destroyed."
More like detonated to pieces by a handful of desperate shards. But I didn't want to freak her out more than I already had.
"What does that entail?"
"Any and all needs will be taken care of, food, water, housing, even work if they're up for it. Health and wellness both mental and physically for free…though to be fair Gems don't really use money."
"It seems that this Gem Empire has done well for itself." I snorted, unable to hold back my laughter.
"Why do we have safety regulations?" Faultline was confused by the tangent.
"Usually because of incidents that got people hurt or killed–" She froze.
"You don't get called an Empire for being nice, all of this is something implemented in the last seventeen years. It took a thousand year long civil war, one of their god-queens dying and immense grief and pain to change their ways."
I sagged, brushing my blunt claws against my pants covered thighs.
"I believe we can come to an agreement, Sunrise Diamond…though is that more a title or a name?"
"Title, a regnal name if you would." She mouthed regnal, and tilted her head.
"Then should I continue calling you that…or?"
"At our current level of closeness, call me Brenda." I clasped my hands together, fangs flicking back. "Call me that or Sunrise Diamond in a more formal setting, and if I may…I can tell you're taking quite the risk." My song weaved into the air with a burst of life and growth.
She chuffed. "You could call me a bit of a gambler."
Hours later, saw us working with Faultline as she filled us in on information about different cities we could set up at.
"Boston has a large Protectorate presence and is somewhat calmer after the Boston Games a few years back." Nothing I hadn't heard. "Last we checked there are about ninety capes in the city." So about the average urban ratio. "35 heroes, 16 rogues, 39 villains. Approximately."
"So mostly Protectorate and Wards with a few independent heroes on one side, with the rest made up of the Ambassadors, the Teeth, Blastgerm and a fair number of independent villains and small teams." I responded, rubbing my chin.
"Brockton Bay has less capes in total but is higher per population, and most have stronger and more dangerous powers like the Empire and the ABB." Kaiser's metal manipulation would have been dangerous if they hadn't built tricks against such powers ages ago.
For the more metallic Gems like Bismuths I mean…
"While Boston has the Butcher, though admittedly we were looking for them anyway." Butcher thirteen had thirteen shards all resting within a single set of spacetimes. A far easier target for Whaling Crews.
Teams of hundreds of Gems using reverse engineered shard techniques to damage, cripple, kill or subvert shards. They effectively grew shard-based hardware components to project certain higher dimensional energies to warp reality. Though calling what they used shards would be…false. The shards were giant modular organosilicon organisms, organic components hybridized with synthetic machinery at the most fundamental levels.
They manipulated the axis of multiple dimensions, flipping and crossing and distorting higher physical dimensions and their energy and particle fields to alter and tweak reality.
Shard-tech was more just tech using modified shard-like hyperdimensional crystals as a projector, grown and modified by ichor-mediated catalytic fluids. They were based on samples of an ancient mineralogical organism, a being of stone and rock and exotic metals given life by subtle energies.
A planet sized life form mined to death by careless Gems during the Gem War, it's crystal hearts used to incinerate a good fraction of Asia and its constituent atoms.
Shard-tech was rather complicated from what I remembered, and was considered a rather new field.
"I'm almost afraid to ask why you want the Butcher at all." Faultline commented, cocking a hip as she inspected my face.
"Their power isn't much of a danger to any of us because we're not parahumans, but they're not exactly something we can ignore." I had helped with the construction of shard-tech to scan for…well shards? They had removed the two Eden shards first, and then dragged them into dimensions the other shards couldn't see yet.
That was followed by both Faultline and Elle's shards once they were sure they wouldn't be missed. And their absence would be shrouded by some method they had developed from a magic saturated dimension. Illusions that Entities couldn't see through.
"We've sent the gems to some contacts to check their validity," Faultline changed the subject. "Based on their size and value, we can expect an income of several million without invoking any suspicion. Your cut should be sizable…but then money isn't of much value for your people is it?"
"I was human before I was part Gem," I inspected my nails, and their new black pigmentation. "Money still has some value, at least for getting stuff from this world." I tapped my fingers on the table, claws cleaving wood. "Which brings me to the terms of our agreement, you wanted help with quality of life improvements for Newter and Gregor?"
"Your people have a better understanding of powers, I thought there might be means of…repairing their bodies." She sounded skeptical and yet hopeful.
"We'd need to research what was done to their bodies by their powers, and it's a 50/50 shot it'll dismantle their powers." As in grabbing their shards and sucking them up into shard-tech components, as well as backtracking the changes to reverse the physical issues. "For now though, some of our researchers are working on a counteragent for Newter's fluids. It should only take us a few days."
"How?"
"More advanced technology, it's as simple as that." The Empire had acquired a substantial database of biological data from other allied races as well as data downloads of Entity memory. "Our capabilities should grow as we get a better understanding of your world's variety of powers."
What I hadn't told her was that the two Case 53's provided a strong lead toward the general location of the various shards belonging to Eden. They had the least chance of catching Scion's attention, and a handful of shards among his court were considered expendable enough to take.
Elle was an edge case because her power had been considered crippled and almost useless by the network as a whole, from what they traced from shard broadcasts. Even with it's important status in the cycle, it was a more redundant shard than administrator or shaper.
Shards were blind to the set of dimensions involving both my Earth, and the set of Earths the Gems had gained access to prior to Abaddon's arrival. Which he had done by scanning and finding a subtle crack in reality since his own techniques didn't work to navigate those dimensions.
Which was suspicious in and of itself, and made me want to ask one of the Diamonds how the Entity worked in their dimension. But that was something I could do at a later point.
"How exactly does…the Gem Empire know so much about how powers work?"
"I couldn't tell you, not in extreme detail. I'm basically a baby Diamond." She sounded surprised. "Only reason I'm even on the planet is because of a screw up on a project. I won't answer much more than that."
"Then why are you talking to me instead of one of the others?"
"They've got a few things to work on, mainly colonization and a few small things…"
…
Hmm.
Weren't they working on something on Earth right now? At Atlas?
…
What was I forgetting?
/command file retrieval access memory reboot one
FILE NAME: Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01
/command boot up
rosequartzfacetsdround01
/command run emergence programs
She awoke slowly from the barest wisp of consciousness, just the essence of decision making, memory, emotion, and instinct. She feels incomplete, pieces slowly melding together, a tiny song beating to life. She begins the process of emergence, creating the body pattern that will gain inertia as her self image.
She tried to be quick, but there was no sense of time without her geocortex, she doesn't even know what a minute or a second or an hour is. Then her body coalesces, forming the structures attuned to her mind of crystal with a brain made of light and song. She learns what a minute is, what senses are, and learns what it's like to have a body.
She clumsily pulls herself from a(her) exit hole, hands marveling at the smooth patterns of glass all the way to the back. Her tongue flicks out, tasting the air, a song entering the world. There is the gentle sway of Gemsong in the air, swirling in currents of joy and relief.
She feels no danger, though there's a prickle as she scans the life rich shard of pegmatite she had emerged from, rivulets of gold seeping into dying soil and drained rock.
Her eyes darted back and forth, and she focused on three people, no three Gems waiting for her. An Ammolite, red and pink with hints of orange, her expression soft in a way the young Gem didn't understand yet.
Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01 was a newborn Gem, all instincts and programming and little emotional spectrum. Regardless of that fact, she had the natural code of her Gem to draw upon for basic experiences.
So it was easy to recognize one of her own, a redder and bigger and beefier Rose Quartz to her own pinker and softer and fluffier frame. A Peridot was riding on her right shoulder, sending a pulse of scanning magic from a device.
Her first words came swiftly. "Hello world!" It was nice and friendly, with a slight echo to her song.
The big buff almost red Rose Quartz smiled back, the harsh song turning gentle, and the two other Gems sang in tune with her.
The older Gem spoke. "Hello there." She tilted her head at the fanged smile, and her own lips perked up in an unfamiliar facial expression.
So this was the world.
I could feel the magic in the air, the signature aura that came with it was easily identified. It had been growing steadily stronger on Mars, and around home. The magic seeped into the soil, it churned the currents of the mantle and core and provided radioactive heat and power to the core. Terraformer Gems and machines thickened the atmosphere with nitrogen from Venus.
The colony had created a cocktail of carbon tetrafluoride and other super greenhouse gases, while Gem satellites used magic to redirect sunlight towards Mars without mirrors the size of continents. They were self repairing units capable of operating effectively indefinitely. Tied through magical contracts to the planet itself.
About a thirty six percent increase in solar insolation, and the production and importation of billions of tons of super greenhouse gases. Argent was busy moving and gathering control over the water on a nearby alternate Mimas, and exporting it into the same storage dimension used to hold some of the atmosphere of Venus for exportation to Mars.
Various Gem magic tools were sublimating the CO2 of Mars from the poles and the soil. The atmosphere was about twenty percent thicker, and we were barely keeping the sudden dust storms in check.
I breathed in the air, and saw dust devils dissipating against the barrier of Rocknest. I had seen enough for today, and was stepping back a bit now that we had more than three handfuls of Gems. While it was my colony, my authority wasn't ready, my experience wasn't there, and diving in could end badly.
I had seven hundred and seventy Gems under my aegis and maybe under my Court one day. I doubt every Gem was going to stick around, some might just want to get in on terraforming for their own sake.
Officially I probably wouldn't have more firm authority of the colony for at least a year, maybe even two. More than enough for my power to grow, and for me to get used to what I was. Mostly they were taking orders from Steven, plans he had created haunt some of my tentative ideas and intuitions.
Much of the design of the colony was based on the conditions of Earth Bet and its many parallels. The various engineers and technicians were already started on a planetary defense system, a series of weapons platforms on the ground and in orbit.
Essentially they planned for multiple sets of energy weapons, which was actually an incredibly lethal idea. Rose's cannons had yields of about four gigatons, and it would take fifty shots from four of them to bring down the now almost two centuries old ship used by Peridot and Jasper. They hadn't even sent the newest model against the Crystal Gems.
Their dial-a-yield energy cannons were frightening things, and they were more than capable of incinerating a small region.
The ship…the Destiny Unbound had also been carrying a number of Matter Caches, crates using Warp tech to turn them into a Tardis container of supplies. So it carried a massive amount of supplies, from ichor to armor to weapons and generators and more.
One of them was a Guardian Defense system, an array of energy weapons to strike against targets in space from the surface. They were scaled up versions of that Titanite magic based weapon I had tinkered with.
Most Gem energy weapons were made out of a mix of light, plasma and magical energy, modeled off the energy manipulation of their species. They had described magical energy, mana, prana, quintessence as a form of force native to a higher level of reality. Magic was used to alter the laws of physics, a flow of higher dimensional energy beyond the multiple physical dimensions.
From what I could tell there were extra physical dimensions, at least twenty two more that could be used to mutilate, twist, warp and bend the universe. That was what Entities did, while magic was beyond that…or at least more comprehensive.
Their dimensional understanding was responsible for all their space and time fuckery, along with implementation of stolen technology into their organic physiology.
I stepped back through the warp pad, and several seconds passed as I crossed interplanetary distances. I warped again, and found Faultline's Crew inspecting the teleportation pads with slightly wide eyes. We had used a transport tube to get underground. Newter had almost thrown up.
"I imagine you've been laying low for a few days, I didn't know you were showing up today." I honestly didn't, I really didn't plan to enter a big leadership role. Despite my Diamond heritage.
"You have teleportation tinkertech?" Newter was the one who had the most energy, being younger and well…more energetic to begin with.
"We have a lot of things, you might need to be a lot more specific."
Teleporters, faster than light spacecraft, energy weapons, elemental manipulation technology, weather manipulation, portal creation, a vast array of robotic servants and automatons. Time manipulation, though limited in a number of ways, Time Hourglasses for example aren't as useful for time travel as you would think.
Their purpose is more for anchoring themselves against time effects with the time travel abilities as a dangerous side effect. From what I can tell, fucking with time has numerous limits relating to tears in the fabric of reality and natural loops stopping paradoxes.
Though they had developed means of looping time using what they had studied from the White Beast, one quarter of Abaddon's hub network. That avatar had access to an administrator shard to modify shards, as well as a number of mental, emotional and esoteric powers.
Time and space manipulation was among it's repertoire of dangerous and complex powers.
Focus.
"Anyways. We should move this to somewhere more suitable…"
I yawned, opening my mouth wide, teeth clicking against one another as I shut my trap. I tapped Newter on the shoulder, and he jumped in response. I raised an eyebrow, and waggled a bottle of water in his direction.
"You touched me." He looked slightly nervous, and there was a questioning look from Gregor and Faultline.
"You'll find pretty much anyone here won't get affected by your power, though in my case the reason is different." Being made out of magic Diamond juice tends to come with perks like immunity to disease and poison. "Comes with the territory of unusual biology."
"Neat." He wasn't being sarcastic so I took his reply at face value. I was showing them to a warp pad, one of about two dozen on the planet.
"Now, are you ready to use a warp pad? We'll be going pretty far from home." Not that I fully considered this planet home.
"You brought us here by teleportation Mover, we can handle a machine that does more of the same." There was a bite to Faultline's tone. I hopped up onto the warp pad, and the three followed. "Now…how does this work?"
"Try not to fall out of the stream."
"What—" the three capes started to float as the stream began and we folded space into a knot. Newter sputtered, and I grabbed his tail when his head almost poked out into the empty void of Warp Space. A handful of seconds later, they were sent sprawling onto the ground.
"You all alive right?" I lifted them up using barriers, since I hadn't figured out how Steven floated other people with his power. I frowned at the trail of sweat left from Newter, so I snapped my fingers and projected out kinetic force without any movement.
The shock of air dissipated the fluid, and I kept walking towards another warp pad.
"Where is this meeting spot you're taking us?" There was one notable difference between this warp pad and any other. The center was carved with a simplified galactic symbol, a spiral galaxy.
"How willing are you to take a more…long term job?"
"What are you offering?" Faultline stopped me, an intense look somehow conveyed from behind a welding mask.
"So access to teleportation technology, and an unspecified level of firepower and defensive technology isn't enough for you?"
"Actual cash would also be helpful." She was being a little snide but not annoyingly so.
"You're shit out of luck there, though we do have access to substantial mineral wealth. Assuming you can sell them." I shrugged.
There was more interest then and there. "What kind of minerals?"
"Any form of precious minerals and stones, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires."
"Tinker-made?" She seemed more wary.
"We're very good at mining deep, " I denied. "Anything we give you is legitimate, mined and then cut by us. You can either get some cut Gem-quality stones or the rawer stuff depending on your needs."
"That…that could easily exceed what we make as mercenaries." I think I was bringing her over to the idea of working for us. "But that alone won't cut it." The two Case 53s blinked at her reply.
"You want help with something I'm guessing?"
Faultline snorted. "Don't act like you don't know, there's at least one Thinker on your team."
"Technically we're all Thinkers," She seemed surprised. "But that's not what you mean I'm sure. So are all of you going to the meeting place…or just you?" There was intuition, a hum I could read of her intentions. A natural Gem power.
"That would be my preference, yes." She gave the two Case 53s a look, probably silent communication.
"Then get on the magical teleportation device." It was hard to smother my song, my power, because I didn't need to be accused of being a Master.
Which I am but who's listening in on my thoughts anyway?
Faultline stepped aboard. "Now exactly where are we going that you consider so secure?"
"Well to cut it short, it's a very good thing the warp network is keyed onto your power. May I?" I waved to the pad, and after a physical stutter of hesitation.
She nodded. The world was swept away, as the interplanetary warp did its job. I could hear her power sing-screaming, as by this point the Empire had long since wrangled her shard as well as the shards of Gregor and Newter.
None of them by Gems I knew either, there were over a million Gems on his Earth, and several hundred million across the solar system. Since they had dimensional travel already, they had the job of tracking down and holding down shards. Which was easy enough when they were in power savings mode and effectively blind.
My musing was broken as the warp compressed over sixty million kilometers of distance into a distance crossable in seconds. Faultline stumbled but kept her footing as her power recalibrated.
I jumped several feet in the lower gravity of Mars, though I was more than capable of adapting to the gravity. It wasn't inherent for hybrids but it was an easily learned trick.
"W-What am I looking at?" Faultline was staring up at the dimmer skies of Mars, with the Moon Bases on Phobos and Deimos being set up, a dim glow from mining drills and lasers, and compressing rubble into solid structures of crystal and metal.
"Olly did say we were out of this world, and this is an easy way of proving that statement." I gestured and she flinched when she saw the full scope of Rocknest. The area had expanded out to about six percent of Gale crater, one thousand and eighty square kilometers of land terraformed and the rock beneath transmuted by magic empowered geological processes.
Geometric buildings covered the landscape, seamlessly merging with nature. Gems were well known for their kilometers deep cities, spires upheld by particle streams and immense magic and atomic reinforcement.
The entire city was built into a grid, an interconnected network of skybridges, forested balconies and vine-covered circular spires, with multiple skyscrapers up to two hundred stories tall. Bismuths set up scaffolds, the cubes infinitely replicating themselves as they and other Gems worked to build and construct, and some cultivated and grew plant life.
It was unfinished, hanging gardens still being assembled and prepared and seeded with appropriate flora and fauna. Almost all of it was genetically altered through Gem techniques, and I plucked a swiftly unfolding star-berry. I ate it absently, tasting sweet apples.
Gale Crater was going to become the heart of the largest urban center on the planet, and the design…I had mentioned something like this in a conversation with Righty…
"But I didn't think they'd go this far…" It was still hard getting used to it, and that was while ignoring the eventual Understory.
"You're…we're on Mars. " There was no hiding the shock in her tone.
"I imagine you have questions." It was a statement rather than a question.
"Are…are you human?" There was a distinct sourness, Faultline obviously didn't like how she had worded the question.
"Half-human," I corrected. "I started fully human, and was given the choice of being infused with a Gem…and became something with the advantages of both and the weaknesses of neither." An oversimplification but good enough for a layman. "The Gems…are in a literal sense, just gems, mineralogical life forms animated by an esoteric energy with negentropic properties. Beings of light, crystal and song." I emphasized, Diamondsong coming through with the smallest slip.
"Why are you here, and why talk to what has to be a fairly primitive species to space traveling aliens?"
"To be fair, the humanity of their dimension were the ones who helped them develop dimensional travel to begin with. It's where they picked me up after all."
She clasped her hands together. "So you're aliens from another reality, that at some point visited an alternate Earth. But that doesn't clear up why? "
"That's the simplest way to sum us up," I rolled my shoulders and eyes. "As for why…it's because there is a dangerous threat hiding in your world, one that could spell doom for billions of lives. Unfortunately, a…cousin of that threat is currently waging a war against the entire galaxy, so we have to be…relatively subtle, and they made me as a backup in case shit goes sideways in a bad way."
"There are hundreds of…Gems here." She pointed out.
"Normal colonization asks for between ten and one hundred thousand Gems for a new colony." I gently informed her. "His Radiance's free colony of Earth has about two million Gems, while Mars and Venus have three and five hundred million Gems respectively."
"I'm not sure we have much to offer a galactic empire." There was a hint of a waver in her tone.
"Maybe not, but you're locals with a far greater understanding of the landscape of this world." I found a resting spot, an odd metal bench I could tell was infused with magic. Though it took a shape and aura that was almost 'foreign' to what I knew of Gem magic. "We've researched your world from a distance but that's different from direct knowledge, and it'll help us remove dangerous players from the board."
"Like?"
"The Slaughterhouse Nine, the Fallen, certain S-class threats." I didn't specify. "Once we have that done, we can move on with removing the true threat and preventing a crippling blow from an unseen direction. Other than that we have no real plans of conquest, this is Era 3…it's a different time."
Faultline seemed to come to a decision. "I'm willing to make a deal, but I do acquire assistance with helping Newter and Gregor."
"Their bodies or their past?" The silence was telling. "Both then? I did say we've been researching the planet for a while," I rubbed my chin. "There are a few options for them, like being put under the aegis of the Empire."
"Aegis?" She questioned.
"Citizens, legally protected and given all the associated rights as Jets," I paused. "Non Gem citizens, like the hedgewicks or the melonsprites, or endangered species wanting protection like the Kraaho after their home planet was…destroyed."
More like detonated to pieces by a handful of desperate shards. But I didn't want to freak her out more than I already had.
"What does that entail?"
"Any and all needs will be taken care of, food, water, housing, even work if they're up for it. Health and wellness both mental and physically for free…though to be fair Gems don't really use money."
"It seems that this Gem Empire has done well for itself." I snorted, unable to hold back my laughter.
"Why do we have safety regulations?" Faultline was confused by the tangent.
"Usually because of incidents that got people hurt or killed–" She froze.
"You don't get called an Empire for being nice, all of this is something implemented in the last seventeen years. It took a thousand year long civil war, one of their god-queens dying and immense grief and pain to change their ways."
I sagged, brushing my blunt claws against my pants covered thighs.
"I believe we can come to an agreement, Sunrise Diamond…though is that more a title or a name?"
"Title, a regnal name if you would." She mouthed regnal, and tilted her head.
"Then should I continue calling you that…or?"
"At our current level of closeness, call me Brenda." I clasped my hands together, fangs flicking back. "Call me that or Sunrise Diamond in a more formal setting, and if I may…I can tell you're taking quite the risk." My song weaved into the air with a burst of life and growth.
She chuffed. "You could call me a bit of a gambler."
Hours later, saw us working with Faultline as she filled us in on information about different cities we could set up at.
"Boston has a large Protectorate presence and is somewhat calmer after the Boston Games a few years back." Nothing I hadn't heard. "Last we checked there are about ninety capes in the city." So about the average urban ratio. "35 heroes, 16 rogues, 39 villains. Approximately."
"So mostly Protectorate and Wards with a few independent heroes on one side, with the rest made up of the Ambassadors, the Teeth, Blastgerm and a fair number of independent villains and small teams." I responded, rubbing my chin.
"Brockton Bay has less capes in total but is higher per population, and most have stronger and more dangerous powers like the Empire and the ABB." Kaiser's metal manipulation would have been dangerous if they hadn't built tricks against such powers ages ago.
For the more metallic Gems like Bismuths I mean…
"While Boston has the Butcher, though admittedly we were looking for them anyway." Butcher thirteen had thirteen shards all resting within a single set of spacetimes. A far easier target for Whaling Crews.
Teams of hundreds of Gems using reverse engineered shard techniques to damage, cripple, kill or subvert shards. They effectively grew shard-based hardware components to project certain higher dimensional energies to warp reality. Though calling what they used shards would be…false. The shards were giant modular organosilicon organisms, organic components hybridized with synthetic machinery at the most fundamental levels.
They manipulated the axis of multiple dimensions, flipping and crossing and distorting higher physical dimensions and their energy and particle fields to alter and tweak reality.
Shard-tech was more just tech using modified shard-like hyperdimensional crystals as a projector, grown and modified by ichor-mediated catalytic fluids. They were based on samples of an ancient mineralogical organism, a being of stone and rock and exotic metals given life by subtle energies.
A planet sized life form mined to death by careless Gems during the Gem War, it's crystal hearts used to incinerate a good fraction of Asia and its constituent atoms.
Shard-tech was rather complicated from what I remembered, and was considered a rather new field.
"I'm almost afraid to ask why you want the Butcher at all." Faultline commented, cocking a hip as she inspected my face.
"Their power isn't much of a danger to any of us because we're not parahumans, but they're not exactly something we can ignore." I had helped with the construction of shard-tech to scan for…well shards? They had removed the two Eden shards first, and then dragged them into dimensions the other shards couldn't see yet.
That was followed by both Faultline and Elle's shards once they were sure they wouldn't be missed. And their absence would be shrouded by some method they had developed from a magic saturated dimension. Illusions that Entities couldn't see through.
"We've sent the gems to some contacts to check their validity," Faultline changed the subject. "Based on their size and value, we can expect an income of several million without invoking any suspicion. Your cut should be sizable…but then money isn't of much value for your people is it?"
"I was human before I was part Gem," I inspected my nails, and their new black pigmentation. "Money still has some value, at least for getting stuff from this world." I tapped my fingers on the table, claws cleaving wood. "Which brings me to the terms of our agreement, you wanted help with quality of life improvements for Newter and Gregor?"
"Your people have a better understanding of powers, I thought there might be means of…repairing their bodies." She sounded skeptical and yet hopeful.
"We'd need to research what was done to their bodies by their powers, and it's a 50/50 shot it'll dismantle their powers." As in grabbing their shards and sucking them up into shard-tech components, as well as backtracking the changes to reverse the physical issues. "For now though, some of our researchers are working on a counteragent for Newter's fluids. It should only take us a few days."
"How?"
"More advanced technology, it's as simple as that." The Empire had acquired a substantial database of biological data from other allied races as well as data downloads of Entity memory. "Our capabilities should grow as we get a better understanding of your world's variety of powers."
What I hadn't told her was that the two Case 53's provided a strong lead toward the general location of the various shards belonging to Eden. They had the least chance of catching Scion's attention, and a handful of shards among his court were considered expendable enough to take.
Elle was an edge case because her power had been considered crippled and almost useless by the network as a whole, from what they traced from shard broadcasts. Even with it's important status in the cycle, it was a more redundant shard than administrator or shaper.
Shards were blind to the set of dimensions involving both my Earth, and the set of Earths the Gems had gained access to prior to Abaddon's arrival. Which he had done by scanning and finding a subtle crack in reality since his own techniques didn't work to navigate those dimensions.
Which was suspicious in and of itself, and made me want to ask one of the Diamonds how the Entity worked in their dimension. But that was something I could do at a later point.
"How exactly does…the Gem Empire know so much about how powers work?"
"I couldn't tell you, not in extreme detail. I'm basically a baby Diamond." She sounded surprised. "Only reason I'm even on the planet is because of a screw up on a project. I won't answer much more than that."
"Then why are you talking to me instead of one of the others?"
"They've got a few things to work on, mainly colonization and a few small things…"
…
Hmm.
Weren't they working on something on Earth right now? At Atlas?
…
What was I forgetting?
/command file retrieval access memory reboot one
FILE NAME: Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01
/command boot up
rosequartzfacetsdround01
…BOOTING UP…
…BOOTING UP…
…BOOTING UP…
No disharmony detected.
Run programs?
Run programs?
/command run emergence programs
…RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS…
She awoke slowly from the barest wisp of consciousness, just the essence of decision making, memory, emotion, and instinct. She feels incomplete, pieces slowly melding together, a tiny song beating to life. She begins the process of emergence, creating the body pattern that will gain inertia as her self image.
She tried to be quick, but there was no sense of time without her geocortex, she doesn't even know what a minute or a second or an hour is. Then her body coalesces, forming the structures attuned to her mind of crystal with a brain made of light and song. She learns what a minute is, what senses are, and learns what it's like to have a body.
She clumsily pulls herself from a(her) exit hole, hands marveling at the smooth patterns of glass all the way to the back. Her tongue flicks out, tasting the air, a song entering the world. There is the gentle sway of Gemsong in the air, swirling in currents of joy and relief.
She feels no danger, though there's a prickle as she scans the life rich shard of pegmatite she had emerged from, rivulets of gold seeping into dying soil and drained rock.
Her eyes darted back and forth, and she focused on three people, no three Gems waiting for her. An Ammolite, red and pink with hints of orange, her expression soft in a way the young Gem didn't understand yet.
Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01 was a newborn Gem, all instincts and programming and little emotional spectrum. Regardless of that fact, she had the natural code of her Gem to draw upon for basic experiences.
So it was easy to recognize one of her own, a redder and bigger and beefier Rose Quartz to her own pinker and softer and fluffier frame. A Peridot was riding on her right shoulder, sending a pulse of scanning magic from a device.
Her first words came swiftly. "Hello world!" It was nice and friendly, with a slight echo to her song.
The big buff almost red Rose Quartz smiled back, the harsh song turning gentle, and the two other Gems sang in tune with her.
The older Gem spoke. "Hello there." She tilted her head at the fanged smile, and her own lips perked up in an unfamiliar facial expression.
So this was the world.