Pink looked at her calendar. It was the millionth anniversary of her emergence, and what she had to do was paperwork. Of course, emergences were nothing to celebrate (Why be happy about the day that you knew the least about the world?), but sometimes she wished that there was no budgets to sort, no broken injectors to have to fill out repair forms for, and no daily checks on how many gems they made.

The Kindergarten on Mortmire, the planet she was on, was yielding only 5% of gems a year they were 500 years ago. The swamps were already nearly dry, and those beautiful little peat flowers that came for a few months every year had been extinct for fifty. It sort of made Pink sad.

But they needed every drop of life they could get. That war that Yellow had picked a few ten thousand years ago drained their resources quickly. Thank goodness Yellow had finally learned some diplomacy, or else there would be even more problems.

Luckily, in this sector of the universe, there was hope. Scientists had discovered a new kind of mineral, that, when kindergartened, usually produced large, bulgy gems who had a good amount of battle lust and were reasonably strong. They were fairly to easy to kindergarten, unlike corundums, which were hard to artificially reproduce, and often emerged far from anywhere reasonable. Corundums also tended to be born near their natural enemies, and that would usually result in fatalities.

But since there was no more real use of Mortmire, she had sent out scouts who were to return by the next 100 years to look for planets with life.

"I need a break" Pink said to herself out loud. She tossed her papers aside dramatically. She then pushed her clean-up button, knowing that someone would already have it back on her desk by the time she got back.

She strode out of her room, and motioned to her guards, a Ruby and a Topaz. Pink didn't really need protection, as she was harder than all of them and was the second ever gem to learn martial arts. Besides, the only people who probably could kill her are light years away. It was just sort of a thing to show her importance. Or so said White.

She was about to step out of the little room that held her Room's portal, when she decided to go out alone. The guards were told, and they were sent on break.

Concentrating, Pink shrunk herself to about the size of a pebble, gave herself some wings, and flew out. Sometimes she liked to be able to see her subjects without the usual pomp.

She studied her usual. She called them her secret characters, gems whose lives interested her.

There was a Hessonite with her gem on her chin, who for some reason wore nothing but a short top that covered half of her chest, a short skirt, and shoes that made her look so much taller than what she really was it made Pink wonder why she didn't just form herself taller.

Then there was the Granite with her gem on her front neck, a weathered old trainer who commanded enough respect to get Newly-emerged Amethysts and Jaspers to not kill each other. She really should of been under Yellow's jurisdiction, but the Granite always passed up promotions and always preferred to stay with the early devolopement unit, which basically taught gems about the empire and how to use their gems. Pink could tell she was an old softy under her literally rough exterior.

The last was a Tiger Eye, a Quartz who managed to be able to stay because of a special power of hers: she was able find gems by their scent. Occasionally the swamp sucked a gem under the bog, and they would get stuck there until someone found them. But that wasn't why she interested Pink so much: she also had a tail.

This made Punk think to happier times, when it was just her and her duster diamonds and Carnelian. They hadn't spoken recently, and last Pink had heard of her, she was governing the first conquered planet of the Diamond Authority, Pyrmont. That was 100,000 years ago. A position like that was usually given to gems of higher moh's, but she received some special favors, as she was the fiery non-diamond.

Hearing about their daily lives sometimes made Pink say that she had no one to talk to. They had friends, enemies, and little conflicts that were so big to them that it was cute. She had her sisters, of course, but actual live video chats were draining from this far away, and they were only able to do it once a day due to each of their schedules.

Pink was thinking of getting a secretary. After all, not all of the papers needed her seal. She mused on this as the Tiger Eye was chatting about the latest drama, her winning a wrestling match against a Smokey Quartz.

But it was time to head back. However interesting other gems were, there was more paperwork. She flew back to the little room. But then something stopped her.

A large gem, with her gem under her pects, close to Pink's placement, said "When we get to the new planet, I think we need to start sabotaging. You know, unscrewing the injector caps a little, maybe plant a few closer to the ground than quartzes like, that sort of thing.

Pink tried to turn around, but then a wind flew by, almost placing her in the steps of the Hessonite she had been observing earlier. Luckily she dodged in time, but by the time she was back in the air, the large gem and the people she was talking to were gone. She didn't even catch their names.

Still, this was something that needed to be reported. A revolution hasn't happened... Well... Ever. The closest thing was 40,000 years ago, when a Brookite had gone crazy, claimed she was the creator of the universe, and had started throwing grenades everywhere in the lab she was working in. She had a high pressure job, so that's why the detectives concluded she would commit a mass suicide/homicide.

It was called a suicide/homicide because Pink was the only gem who could heal back then. She didn't get to save all the cracked gems in time, and the ones who were close got completely shattered or even powdered.

As Pink thought about this, she flew into the office and changed back. She marched into her room, and filled out some more paperwork, waiting for the designated call time. When the clock struck midnight, her wailing stone and mirror turned on. Scientists were still working on the technology on combing the two.

3 faces stared out at her, all in one segment. Sometimes the first three diamonds would find enough time in their schedules to warp over. Pink never got to do that.

"Hello, dear Pink. We have about 6 things on the agenda. Do you have any?" White said. Blue and Yellow nodded hello.

"Hello, White, Blue, Yellow. Yes, I do, but this is a somewhat large issue, so how about we work through yours first?"

They all agreed, and so they began.

White talked about legalizing couples ability to raise new emergences a few at a time, instead of institutions. Pink tho it this was a lovely idea, but Yellow and Blue shot it down, because they needed quickly built teams, not individually taught gems. White could not vote upon the subject, because she had broached it, and so it was 2-1.

Blue mentioned that they had just made a break-through in warpology. Warp pads were now able to warp multiple gems at a time, though they were still not big enough to send even the smallest ship through.

Yellow proclaimed a victory in the Betelgeuse system, though it was hard fought and many of the Rose Quartzes had gotten crushed before they were able to heal soldiers. They sustained heavy losses, but the enemy had far worse.

Blue then spoke about the height of gems. Pink perked up at this, because she was the shortest of the Diamonds and Yellow, a few hundred thousand years ago, used to make a little fun of her. Apparently, the closer your hole was to sea level, the shorter you were.

White then offered the idea of sending a Pearl to Pink. They mentioned that their ability to prioritize and sort was quite astonishing when it came to their little thought activity. Pink agreed to the idea, as it was something she had been thinking of asking.

Yellow then mentioned that she really appreciated the Cairngorms, or smoky quartzes, as their ability to calm the bees (what they called the enemy, large yellow flying creatures with drills for hands) with their smoking nostrils really helped in the battle fields. She hoped that Pink could produce more, along with some Roses, because of their recent shortage. Pink agreed.

Blue then said speaking of Quartzes, she has tested each different type of Quartz on aggressiveness levels. Going in forward order, Rose, Citrine, Amethyst, Smoky, and Jasper were the most aggressive quartzes. Apparently, though, Roses had the farthest breaking point of insanity, but when they did go insane they were the worst.

Pink sighed at this information. She really wanted to tell her own information. She remembered the day she had helped Blue develop the method. They had been testing extremely defective talcs (it was a huge secret- unit members who fought guards and refused to work got 'reassigned' to Unit 7, or rather, Blue's labs. Talcs, back then, were the easiest to get.) who had their gems on their fingers, sides of their bodies, or on toes. They were the lest valuable.

Yellow had asked for a way to get gems to go insane, just in case it was thought to be an easier way to get information out of them. So, after many trials, Pink had found a way to definitely make them go insane.

You put them in a white, lit up cell, with a door that looks exactly like the wall. Make sure no actual sun can get in, not solar lamps. Attach a small hammer to a band that goes around the area of their gem.

The hammer is there to tap their gem every minute, hard enough to make a ringing sound but soft enough not to damage it.

The gem will first probably sit in a corner. Then they will start shaking every time the sharp, clear note of it echoes through the room. They will then try ripping it off. Unfortunately, it is always made of a higher moh's mineral then them. (No diamond has needed it yet) the gem in them start trying to shapeshift it off. Unfortunately for them, they will no longer have the energy to do so by then.

That's when they start going on a rampage, raving about the horridness of their oligarchy, slashing the walls with their weapons.

Afterwards, they'd start pleading. And then finally, they mentally break.

They tell what the diamonds want to know. They then showed their maximum aggressiveness. It literally took four gypsums to restrain 1 crazed soapstone. All the Diamond were thankful that they didn't have to do so with a corundum yet.

Pink realized Blue was done lecturing. All three of the other Diamonds were looking expectedly.

"Ah-hem. We have a rebellion." This drew some blank faces, namely White and Yellow's. "You know, when subjects are discontent with the government and decide to overthrow it."

White's eyebrows went up so high they seemed to tech her hairline. Yellow grinned. Blue just huffed.

Everyone then looked in extra surprise at her. "Come on. I calculated this would happen!"

Yellow rolled her eyes and White went back to the task at hand. "What do you know?"

Pink looked down at her feet. "Not much. They're in their early stages and one of them was green. What should we do?"

They all thought hard about this for a few minutes. Yellow then finally suggested that they send in an infiltrator. Blue and Pink agreed to it, but White then brought up a valid point: What if she tried to then betray them?

This then brought on some more furious thinking. White then finally suggested that they'd bring in a pink gem, have it sometimes impersonate Pink, and have Pink infiltrate and then crush the gems responsible.

This was an idea that was agreed to by all four of them, though Pink was not sure of the idea. She hadn't actually had a real conversation with anyone besides a diamond since 800,000 years ago, when Yellow had conquered all of Homeworld. Pink had long since stopped exploring, but they needed her to go as a representative to talk with many of the gems.

Breaking her out of her reverie, Yellow said she could spare a Rose Quartz from the battle they do recently had. While she needed all the Roses she could get, this Rose was one of the survivors and deserved to be off duty. Besides, she had Pink's exact gem placement.

"That's a good idea." Pink replied, and so it was set. She didn't really like the idea, though. It felt as though it had been decided for her. After exchanging the usual wish-wells and whatnot, Pink snapped off the communicators.

Next week, when the Rose Quartz arrived, her mission would start.

Pink sighed. Shuffling her papers, she sent in an order for new rose quartzes, and got back to work.

Hey guys! What do you think? I'd like to know. Have you checked out United I stand? Just in case you cannot find it, it is written by Cavedwellers. Please critique on my writing, if you feel like it, as any of it would be greatly appreciated. Please excuse any grammatical and spelling mistakes.

Thank you (especially if you favorited), and have a great day!

To Guest: Thank you. I can try. She probably wouldn't be able to be a big character, and she can't be a fusion partner, because Garnet is pretty much the only 'perma-fusion' in the United I Stand Universe. But I don't see why she shouldn't be, like, plain old partners. I'll try to work her in next chapter. What would you like her partner to be? Review again and we'll try to work out something. Also, if you are comfortable with it, please make a Reviewer name, so I don't confuse you with other guests.

P.S. A Pet Peeve of mine is when I can't figure out the average update time, you know, how long does it take for the story to usually be updated. So each chapter I'll post the dates. And just to be clear, I'm probably not going to update every 5 days. Usually between 5 days and 2 weeks.

October 21, 2015

October 26, 2015