The skies of Corundum cracked with lightning as Cobalt made her way down the quarry's winding paths, a small brown bag at her side. A chilling rain soaked her short blue hair and coated the massive stone steps in muddy water, so that thick brown waterfalls splashed down every side, pooling in a basin below. Cobalt's steps were measured, each one firmly planting in the soft but solid surface beneath the thin layer of runoff.
She squinted at a series of holes lining the quarry wall in a spot where water wasn't flowing. They were tiny, less than half her height, if not wider than her own slender build. Each of them was shallow enough that she could see the back walls inside, even from over a hundred feet away.
Rubies, she thought, or maybe corundite ore to be broken into shards. Whatever the case, the holes were long abandoned. Cobalt wondered why Homeworld would bother to plant gems here at all. The process required a substantial amount of vital minerals to be drained from the planet, and Corundum was lacking in those well before gems found it. This quarry wasn't a kindergarten either. Or at least, Cobalt didn't think so. Maybe Corundum had been a site for kindergartens, centuries ago.
As she made her way down a particularly thin ridge, something cracked beneath her. Cobalt held her breath, motionless. After several drawn-out seconds, she moved her foot forward again—and a chunk of stone snapped and split off the path beneath her. The entire rock face began to crumble, taking her footing with it.
Cobalt's yelp was drowned out by tumbling rocks and thunder. Just as she felt the tug of gravity, she spun around and punched the muddy wall with all her strength. With skinny arms like hers, that wasn't very much, but it was enough to crack the surface of the wall behind her and give herself something to hold on to.
"Nnnngh!" Her grip barely held as the thin platform beneath her slipped into the landslide. Brown water spilled down from above, over her face and down the shoulder strap of her bag, making it difficult to see. After a few seconds the flow stopped, and the quarry was silent, save for the sounds of the storm above.
Even in that silence, she waited. Cobalt had discovered several times that she was not the only living thing on Corundum, and she could not afford any monstrous distractions now.
After nearly five minutes of motionlessness, Cobalt felt her grip in the wall starting to weaken. Finally satisfied that she was the only living thing in the quarry, she twisted around best she could, her legs still dangling. Just as she wiped the mud away from her bright blue eyes, a massive bolt of lightning arced across the sky, painting the quarry with white flashes.
That's when she saw it. Not too far below, on a wall on the opposite side of the quarry, the great maw of a mine shaft's entrance opened up into the ground. Cobalt lowered herself onto the newly formed slope of debris beneath her and started towards the mine.
The quarry basin was covered in waist-deep water. Cobalt waded through it, squinting at some broken gem machine next to the mine's entrance. As she drew closer, she realized it was a smelter of some kind.
"As luck would have it," she said. The statement made her shudder—it was the first time in months Cobalt had heard her own voice. After so much time isolated, even her own speech seemed strange. Still, it renewed her determination. Cobalt would not be the last gem to hear her voice.
The smelter was unbelievably old, and much of its outer casing was cracked and rusted. None of that interested her. Cobalt moved around to the side facing the wall and found a vent sticking out, about ten feet off the ground. With one hop, she was hanging from the vent, pulling herself up to the top of the machine.
Combustion was nearly impossible on Corundum. The atmosphere contained almost no oxygen and far too many particulates to keep an open flame alive, but the gems in this quarry had found a solution, a source of energy Cobalt could use to get off this rock. She tore open the rusted metal casing on the machine's top and reached inside. Immediately, she felt what she was looking for—a crystal the local miners called fire glass.
The smooth, tiny crystals were warm to the touch. They were a bright gold color, and their insides seemed to twist and dance like open flames when Cobalt turned them over in her palm. After only three handfuls of crystals, though, she felt nothing in the machine but the sides of a now empty container. It was a good start—an uncontrolled detonation of this much fire glass would melt the smelter to nothing—but it wasn't nearly enough energy to restart a depowered warp station. Cobalt pocketed the fire glass in her bag, climbed down from the machine, and made her way into the mine shaft.
The tunnel was clearly made for someone smaller than herself. Rubies must have marched up and down these mine shafts, carting buckets full of fire glass to the surface. Cobalt scooted along, her feet barely lifting off the muddy floor with every step. How strange it must be, she wondered, to always see the world from this height.
Steadily, the tunnel began to curve to the right. The dim blue light radiating from her gem illuminated cracked walls, lined with black streaks of onyx darker than anything Cobalt had ever seen. The further she traveled into the mine, the blacker and blacker the walls became, until even with her gem's light, she could barely see her own fingers as they passed over the wall's remarkably smooth surface.
Then, she could see something. Whatever it was, it was distant, casting a violet glimmer that twinkled on the onyx walls. Cobalt squinted, unable to make out more than the color purple. She moved slower now, her hands pressed against the mine shaft's sides. The ceiling was rising, she noticed, so much so that she could almost stand up straight again. With every step, the distant shimmer grew brighter, and its reflections on the onyx walls glittered like starlight.
As she came to the end of the tunnel, the source of the light was revealed. She stood in a hole nearly twenty feet above the floor of an enormous cave that sprawled out in every direction before her. Its walls were littered with thousands of bright violet crystals, all of them collectively painting the cave with a brilliant lavender hue. From the ceiling, over two hundred feet above her, even larger crystals stretched down like massive glowing spikes.
Cobalt marveled at the patterns of light dancing across her skin with her every movement. Wavy purple light covered her arms, her legs, and even the bright blue gem in her chest. Her eyes caught a glare, and her gaze was drawn to the center of the cavern where a cerulean lake of water stretched hundreds of feet across the cave's floor, its surface a deeper blue than her own skin.
Cobalt took a deep breath, and then another, and another, until a noise was squeaking out with every exhale. It was a motion she hadn't felt in so long, she'd almost forgotten what to call it—laughter. She dashed across the cavern floor, dropping her bag along the way. Every step brought her closer to blue water, clean water, something so perfect and pure that she could hardly believe it existed on Corundum at all. Closing her eyes, she leapt into the air, her body positioned for a perfect dive.
Cobalt smashed into the rocky floor face first.
"Owww!" Her cry echoed mockingly through the cave. Something else was making a sound somewhere, but her ears were ringing too badly for Cobalt to make sense of anything. Stumbling, she rose to her feet, clutching her throbbing forehead.
Either her ears were clearing up, or the sound was getting louder. It was swirling, almost like the sound of water. And there was something else, something tearing and crashing through stone so fiercely that Cobalt felt the floor rumble beneath her.
Cobalt shook herself and saw the lake was draining in a spiral of rushing water and foam. "Oh no... Oh no, no, no, not now!" The source of the sudden violence ignored her plea, and the water disappeared altogether into a gaping hole at the center of the now-empty crater. At the same time, the cavern floor shifted and broke, as if some titanic creature were ripping its way to the surface. Pieces of broken rock were launched in every direction, shattering dozens of the violet crystals. The air around the hole grew thick with dust, so much so that Cobalt could barely see the beast rising out of the chaos, filling the room with its horrible screech.
As the debris cleared, Cobalt recognized the monster as a corrupted gem. A few still roamed Corundum, and she had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with them before. They were violent, unpredictable creatures, but never had Cobalt seen one like this.
The monstrosity was enormous, larger than anything she had ever encountered. Its head was twice the size of Cobalt's entire body, crowned with rows of tall black horns, and dotted with a single massive red eye. At the center of its forehead, a massive green gem shimmered with thin white lines tracing across its surface. Its mouth was lined with curved teeth, and a thick ooze leaked from the corners of its jaws.
As Cobalt slowly backed away towards her bag, the creature leaned forward, its two enormous claws smashing into the ground. Cobalt got a better look at its body, and found herself backing up faster. The monster's torso was a mess of spines, scales and translucent red skin. Through the patches of skin, dim light the color of amber shone through, giving the spines a hot orange sheen. And from its back, the beast revealed a dozen twisting appendages, twisting and folding over each other like gargantuan black worms.
For several seconds, the world seemed to stand still. The violet light from the crystals seemed to dim as Cobalt stared into the corrupted gem's great red eye, and the monster glared right back. There weren't many options here—there was no way Cobalt could take down something like this. At the same time, she wouldn't make it very far if she ran.
Suddenly, the air split with the monster's screech, and one of its claws came straight for her. Cobalt flipped back, snatching her bag and its precious contents in a single fluid motion. She landed with it slung over her shoulder, then turned and sprinted for the left side of the cavern. The ground shook and the creature's shrill cry echoed louder as tentacles fell one after the other, each missing her by only inches.
Cobalt took the moment to look over her shoulder. "Ha! Nice try, you sorry excuse for a—Woah!"
Her taunt was cut short by a burning beam of green energy exploding in front of her. She tumbled back, groaning, and opened her eyes just in time to see the beast's gem glowing, and a massive black claw swinging down to crush her. Cobalt rolled to the side, and as she rose, a brilliant azure light shone from her gem. Standing tall, Cobalt reached to her chest and drew from her gem a thin blue rapier sword. The blade extended three feet, tapering all the way like a razor sharp needle.
As the monster's claw crashed down behind her, Cobalt leapt back and thrust her blade into its wrist. The corrupted gem howled, jerking its claw away. As it did, Cobalt slid her blade from the wound. The creature twisted and roared, tentacles swinging wildly around the room. With each one that slammed the cavern's walls, Cobalt saw violet crystals crack and fall, shattering on the ground. As she turned to run, one of the larger crystals from the ceiling fell and broke into several pieces upon impact, each shard still a great deal larger than Cobalt herself.
Just then, the corrupted gem shot another beam from its gem. Green light filled Cobalt's vision, and the blast sent her hurtling across the cavern. She struck the wall just above the floor before falling on her face. The creature roared again, and as Cobalt looked up, she saw the beast's entire body slither up out of its hole. Thankfully it wasn't much bigger than what she'd seen already. As its hind claws left the ground and the monster stood to its full height, Cobalt saw something glimmer on the ceiling above its horned skull.
Dozens of massive violet stalactites hung from the cavern's ceiling. With every step the corrupted gem took towards her, Cobalt saw the crystals shake. Some even fell, crashing to pieces and leaving impact craters on the cavern floor.
"Nnngh..." She stood up, using her rapier to lean on. "What, is that it?" she shouted. "Just a few lasers and tentacles?"
The corrupted gem shrieked and roared, its tentacles thrashing and slamming the cavern's floor. As they did, one of the ceiling crystals snapped and fell, shattering against the monster's head. For a moment Cobalt, saw it stumble.
She smirked. If she could knock enough of the larger crystals down on the corrupted gem, it would poof for sure.
The monster righted itself and let out a violent roar. "Is that all?" Cobalt shouted back. "My sneezes are scarier than you!" As if to drive the point home, some dust drifted up her nose, and Cobalt let out a soft "Achoo!" that ended in a squeak.
In response, the monster loosed a guttural cry and charged, kicking up dust as it tore across the cavern. Beside her, the cavern wall was dotted with violet crystals all the way to the ceiling, each sticking out a few feet from the stone.
The beast charged closer. Cobalt's gem glowed, and she drew a second rapier from within. She spun both weapons in her hands, feeling their weight.
"Yeah, come and get it."
The corrupted gem swung half its tentacles towards her, and at the same time launched another beam from its gem. Cobalt jumped up and over the green blast and landed on one of the tentacles, stabbing into it with both her blades. The monster swung its appendage up and down, screeching all the while, but Cobalt held on. When the tentacle was high enough off the ground, Cobalt pulled slightly up on the rapiers, causing her to slide down the tentacle along two clean cuts. As the corrupted gem thrashed and howled in pain, Cobalt slid down its appendage until she was close enough to one of the wall's crystals, then she pulled out her blades and leapt off.
One of her blades pierced through the crystal, leaving her dangling fifty feet off the ground with her bag swinging at her side. Behind her, the monster swung wildly, narrowly missing her with a swipe of its claws. Cobalt pulled herself up, found the closest crystal, and jumped to it. She continued, every step lit by a bright lavender glow. Each time she jumped, a tentacle or claw or beam would be right behind her, shattering her previous platform to pieces.
Soon enough, Cobalt made it to the ceiling. She could see the monster's eye clearly now, red and pulsing with fury. Before her, the massive ceiling crystals stretched all the way across the cavern. A deep breath, and then another, and then she was in the air, both rapiers ready to stab into the closest crystal like the fangs of a snake.
Just as her blades touched the crystal's edge, a bright green beam exploded forth from the monster's gem, and the entire crystal exploded into a thousand pieces. Time stood still just long enough for Cobalt to realize the crystal was gone, and then gravity took over.
"No! No no no no no—!" Cobalt fell two hundred feet and slammed into the cavern floor.
The impact was enough to leave a crater a few inches deep. The bag of fire glass landed somewhere in front of her. Somehow the crystals hadn't detonated on impact. Her rapiers landed some distance away as well—too far away to reach. She turned her head, groaning, just in time to see both blades dissolve into nothing.
Her vision flickered. Cobalt was never made for anything like this. After a fall like that, she was going to poof for sure, and then this monstrosity would crush her gem into dust, adding to the graveyard planet of Corundum.
"N-no..." It was a whisper, barely escaping her lips as the corrupted gem loomed over her. A foul-smelling red mucus leaked out from between its teeth. It almost looked like it was grinning, reveling in the moment.
Cobalt's arm lifted, just a little. "I'm not gonna die here," she said, just loud enough for herself to hear it. "I'm not gonna die here." She was louder now, loud enough that the creature bearing down on her hissed in reply. Enormous tentacles crossed behind her, closing off any possible escape.
"I'm not gonna die here!" Cobalt was almost shouting now. She was upright too, without even realizing she'd stood up. Her body was screaming at her, but she kept standing, fighting her body's pleas to poof back into her gem. Before her, the corrupted gem was rearing up, its tentacles closing around her. And on the ground between Cobalt and the monster was her bag of fire glass.
The creature's tentacles contracted to crush her, but Cobalt pulled two rapiers from her gem and swung both out in wide arc, slashing the closest tentacles in two. The monster screeched, its jaws wide open and oozing red acid, as it lowered its forehead to fire a lethal beam from its gem. Cobalt flicked her blade under the bag's straps, pulled it off the rapier, and flung the fire glass into the corrupted gem's open mouth.
For a few seconds, it was as if the monster was frozen in time. Then, fire. Cobalt dove out of the way, vaulting over a fallen tentacle and rolling to a stop. She turned and saw the corrupted gem writhing and twisting, with horrible screeches erupting from its jaws. White flames leaked from its mouth and melted through the monster's tentacles, causing the severed appendages to flop and wriggle about until they too succumbed to the fire. The entire creature was exploding from the inside out, with scales and spines giving way to torrents of hot molten plasma that broke through its skin.
Cobalt watched silently, falling to her knees as her rapiers clattered down beside her and disappeared. All around her, violet crystals were crashing down as the corrupted gem thrashed about. The cavern's lighting grew less and less purple until the only source of illumination was the burning body of the beast before her.
Then, in a gigantic poof, the corrupted gem was gone. Only a few small fires still lit the ground, leaving the cave so dim that Cobalt could barely see the green gem the monster left behind.
Slowly, she rose to her feet and lurched forward. Every step was torturous, so much so that she almost envied the monster for retreating into its gem. She could do that later. Right now, she had to get back to the surface.
As she passed by the creature's gem, she stumbled and fell to her knees again. Patches of white flame flickered around her, the last remnants of the fire glass she'd found. "It's gone. All because of you..." Cobalt said, as she picked up the monster's gem.
The cavern echoed back. "All because of you..."
She looked around. The fire glass was gone. There was no telling if she'd find more somewhere here, or if she'd have to travel to the other side of Corundum to find another mine like this.
The fire glass, the beautiful cavern, the clean water—all of it was gone. Cobalt held the gem close. "Why..." she whimpered.
"Why? Why couldn't you just let me have this?" Tears brimmed in her eyes. "I just want to go home! And the first nice place I find on this gem-forsaken rock, and you take that away too!"
She threw the gem down. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Cobalt stood and drew her rapier. She leveled it with the gem on the ground, her arm shaking. It would be so easy, just one thrust forward...
"I... You... You're just—"
Cobalt lowered her rapier and wiped the tears from her face. "No. You were a gem. You were a gem, just like me." When the gem didn't answer, she closed her eyes and turned away. "And I'm sorry for whatever happened that turned you into this. I'm sure you were a good person, once."
She opened her eyes, and felt the tears coming once more. All around her were the remains of the dead subterranean paradise. Beautiful violet crystals were shattered and splintered, with barely any left still clinging to the cavern walls. The lake, so pure and wide and open, was nothing but a crater filled with shards of dim crystals and a few wispy white flames. Everything was gone. The fire crystals were gone. And now she might be stuck on Corundum for the rest of her life.
She wiped away the tears once more, and then her gaze hardened. Cobalt turned around, took one step forward, and smashed the gem beneath her heel.
As she made her way back to the mine shaft, Cobalt whispered under her breath. "Once."