Monster
Health is a bit shaky at present so updates will be sporadic, however if you follow me on Tumblr feel free to send me random asks to distract me and kick-start my writing engine.
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It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
-Kyle Reese, Terminator
The official word on the subject was that it was a virus. Guidelines were set down in rapid succession. Pearl owners were ordered to keep their pearls indoors and away from any other pearls until they could be inspected, wiped and soaked with iodine. Black market districts were raided and thousands of illegally-held pearls purged.
After the panic receded, new rules were placed that forbade pearls to be within ten pelmetres of each other unless they were in gem form. Speech was forbidden between pearls, as was physical contact, and anyone caught breaking these rules was subject to a hefty fine, an orbit in iso-pod and the immediate purging of the pearl.
Naturally, the Homeworld residents thought it was all a lot of fuss over nothing. The defection had been shocking, of course, and the rebellion too, but they were light years away on a different planet. Why should the average pearl owner be inconvenienced like this?
Have you seen it, though?
There were recordings, very rare and very much illegal, but they could be scrambled and distributed over the commu-links disguised as other, more innocuous things. Chalcedonies were mostly responsible for the spread, but the recorded footage could only come from someone who was directly on the battlefield themselves.
It became something of a gauntlet for the Homeworld gems, to sit through one of the recordings without needing to leave the room. For every gem that scoffed and said they didn't find it that scary, there was another who couldn't look at a pearl again without flinching.
Watching the recordings, it's not immediately clear what's so terrifying about them. They've seen smaller gems take out big ones before (the Ruby skirmishes are nothing but this) and it's not so much that the renegade pearl is amazingly skilled, though it clearly is. Even the speed at which it moves is not so much of a factor...
...although it's not like it's coming for one of them, they can't say it wouldn't be terrifying if they saw it for themselves...
...it's more that it doesn't seem to hesitate, or size up the opponent, it just goes straight in for the kill. It's a particularly vicious killer too, if a gem attempts to block with their arms it goes for their eyes. If a gem shields her eyes, it goes for their throat. There is no weak spot you can defend without it immediately finding another one and bearing down on it.
It will go full-tilt at anything. Jaspers, fused Rubies, there is footage of it bypassing a platoon of Jasper's and slicing a Flourite in half. It is particularly infamous amongst Amethysts, as it seems to target them especially. Rose Quartz is formidable on her own, but soldiers facing her at least know what to expect.
It moves in ways it should be incapable of, and seems unnaturally strong. Even after its been cut down, and its gem damaged, it's barely a fraction of a cycle before it's back again. Death just seems to make it angry.
Not that you could tell, because for all its unnatural behaviour its face never changes. Gems in battle can be expected to show triumph, or rage, or sadness for a fallen comrade. The pearl shows nothing but the same blank expression you can find on any other regular edition pearl.
There are flickers, though. Someone claiming to be an Amethyst on the commu-link claims they saw it smile once, but nobody believes that.
Conspiracy theories run rife across the commu-links. Anyone who really believes the line they're fed about viruses is a fool. No virus could make a pearl behave like that...
...could it?...
The theory that makes the most sense is that it's some sort of glitch that's overridden its self-preservation senses and Rose Quartz has somehow manipulated this to her advantage. There's also a theory that it's purpose-built nanotech implanted into the pearl by one of the other rebels, but that makes no sense as the pearl is simply not built for fighting and would probably be more useful somewhere else. In theory. How could they have predicted how dangerous it would turn out to be?
The outlier theory is that a zoatox has managed to take over the pearl's body and it's really the zoatox they're fighting. One would wonder if Rose Quartz even knows about this one, if she'd take that kind of risk if she did. It's not unknown for them to infest a gem body, after all, but to actually be in control of one...
Anyone discussing that theory tends to trail off with uncomfortable laughter. Nobody really wants to talk about zoatoxes anymore. They're all dead. Diamond Core saw to that.
The renegade pearl has been personally responsible for the battlefield deaths of five hundred and thirty-four gems and counting, but its real legacy lingers on Homeworld. Any pearl owner that's not completely stupid will, from time to time, look at their pearl and wonder with a shiver if it would ever raise a weapon to them.
And if it did, could they even stop it?