The explosion came at noon.
12-A had been melting large junks of various meddles for todays physical development sessions. Elemental manipulation was hard. The only certain way to unlock her abilities was to terrify or upset her.
12-A had eventually settled on running as best as she could to speed up her heart rate.
Suddenly 12-A sensed a rise in temperature not caused by her. She was about to turn to the doctor to see if she had noticed only for the blazing heat to tear through the room in a blast of blinding yellow and white!
The force of the explosion threw 12-A back. The last thing she heard for several hours being the tracker/power generator of her collar cracking.
When She awoke everything was gone. The pristine walls 12-A had known all her life had been reduced to rubble.
Above her was a sight 12-A couldn't even begin to describe.
She knew what 'Sky' was. It had been in her mental development sessions. She hadn't thought such a thing could possibly be real. It was all just stories told to further the progression of her brain cells.
But this was a sky. There was something wrong with this sky though. It was on fire!
The whole sky was aflame in red, yellows and pinks.
Well, most of the sky was on fire. In the distance were great looming 'clouds' that hung over great grey 'Cliffs'.
12-A's head was spinning.
None of this was supposed to be real. This couldn't be! The world was tiny, and scheduled, and clinical. This story surrounding her had to a dream, or a hal-oo-sin-a-shon, like the doctors sometimes said.
But the ash coating her skin felt so real, as did the blood grushing from where she'd been injured during the explos-
Oh!
She was injured. It hurt quite a bit. especially the cuts on her feet and her head, which was bleeding.
There should be nurses to patch her up, but they were gone. 12-A knew the word for this particular form of gone. The doctors called it 'Dead'.
It was the explosions fault, 12-A reasoned, as she pushed the rubble away from her and stood on shaky feet.
12-A wondered if the sky was what had exploded, and if it would explode again.
Just in case, 12-A decided she should get away from the sky. It scared her anyways.
So 12-A went to the cliffs.
It was a long and hard journey. The ground went up and down, The air was cold and pushed against her.
And the sky changed! It darkened and glowed, but not enough to see well. The changed was scary and 12-A picked up her pace, her heart racing and flames bursting from her skin. scorching the hard, stony ground under her.
This was bad, very, very bad. She needed a cell! She needed to be contained! Surely she would hurt someone!
These thoughts only frightened 12-A more , the flames leaping higher as she reached the cliffs.
12-A was scared of the cliffs too. They were so tall, and quiet! Spindly machines were scattered around must have been custom cells that covered the entirety of the canyon.
Cells!
12-A picked one deep in the heart of the canyon and curled inside. It was safe in here.
12-A was exhausted. She was only at the status of 'seven years' and had not yet been trained for any sort of endurance. 12-A was so small, even for someone of her status, the doctors had said. There were no doctors now. There wasn't anyone. The only place she'd ever known was gone. She knew nothing of this strange place she'd woken up in. Not to mention, that without her daily nutrient and fluid IV she'd surely die.
Not that anyone would notice, 12-A reasoned. All the doctors and nurses and guards were gone. She must be the only person left in the world.
12-A lay down in a fetal position and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed, along with her pulse. Her lips went blue and a layer of frost coated her like a blanket. Ice crystals formed around her and spread to the entrance, blocking it off completely.
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Many miles away, a tall figure opened her third eye and caught a blur of a vision.
Something was in the kindergarten.
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"Are you sure Garnet?"
The fusion nodded and adjusted her visor.
"Positive. There's something in the kindergarten. Can't tell what, but som'thins in there."
Rose nodded seriously.
"Well then I suppose we'd better take a look. After, we might have another Amethyst case on our hands."
Pearl huffed as she attempted to keep said little gem from climbing on top of her.
"I hope not! Can you imagine two of this little monster?!"
Garnet chuckled and lifted Amethyst off of Pearl and set her on the ground.
"Aww!" The short gem pouted for a few seconds before chasing after a seagull.
"Amethyst! Stay here while we're gone." Rose instructed gently.
Amethyst nodded and continued to rush after the wary bird.
Pearl linked arms with her best friend guided Garnet to the warp pad.
"Shall we?" Pearl inquired lightly with a coy smile.
Garnet grinned "I suppose we shall."
Rose smiled as she followed the two to the warp pad. It really was amusing to watch those two talk circles around each other. It was Rose's opinion that the pair desperately needed to kiss and get it over with.
The kindergarten was just as ominous as they remembered. With it's eerie silence and looming injectors.
"Split up I assume?" Pearl asked.
Garnet nodded and stepped off the warp, the others following suit.
Pearl released her hold on Garnet's arm to take a path with Rose while the fusion headed in the opposite direction.
The canyon was large and winding.
Garnet listened closely for any sound of disturbance.
All she could hear was the ringing silence in her ears.
The fusion was just about to give up and head back to the warp to wait for the others when she caught sight of something that made her stomach turn.
Blood.
Garnet knelt down to inspect the red stains warily. It was drying, but still a little damp. Whoever the stuff belonged to could still be here.
Garnet followed the trail of blood to an unusual sight.
One of the exit holes was iced over.
Garnet crouched in front of the hole and placed her hand on the cold, jagged surface of the entrance. Through the mess of crystalized water she could just barely make out a figure inside.
summoning her gauntlets, Garnet smashed as many of the ice shards as she could.
From inside the figure bolted up and a shriek was heard.
Almost instantly a blast of heat had Garnet blanching. Not because the heat could hurt her, having Ruby as a counterpart ensured she was very much fireproof. The heat was unexpected nonetheless and had Garnet falling back slightly.
The ice melted away and evaporated, revealing the tiny figure inside.
She was pale, and thin. Her dark hair was long, surrouning her like a black blanket draped over her head. Her skin was slightly red from the heat she was emitting. Well, the skin that was visible under all the ash that coated her.
The flush of blood in her cheeks betrayed that she was no gem.
She was human. A tiny human child.
Garnet took off her visor to meet those wide, terrified eyes and something clicked deep inside her.
An instinct thought dead amongst her kind from thousands of millennia of disuse.
'mine.' A tiny voice in the back of her head whispered.
Garnet vanished her gauntlets and reached out to the tiny being who let out a whimper and scrambled away from her.
"Shh. It's alright." Garnet whispered gently. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
The child looked up at her warily, slowly reaching out to inspect the offered hand, pulling at the fingers and running her own tiny hand over the smooth gemstone on her palm.
The little girl seemed mystefied as she looked between her still burning hands and Garnets own.
Garnet smiled, knowing what to say without even checking her future vision.
"Don' worry, You can't hurt me." The towering gem summoned a tiny little flame that flickered in her palm.
The girl's eyes widened. Carefully, she set her hand palm down onto Garnet's and hesitated, before grasping it as best as she could, her hands really were only about as big as the gems in Garnet's palms.
Garnet gently pulled the little girl out of the hole and cradled her in her lap, inspecting her injuries.
She would need to be healed. Rose could take care of that. But first,
"What's your name, little one."
The child looked up into her tricolored eyes.
"Specimen 12-A." Her voice was feathery and delicate from disuse.
Garnet frowned. A human child with gemlike abilities, no name, medical gown. Garnet put the pieces together.
Her hold tightened on the little girl in her arms. The scientists certainly weren't getting her back!
"12-A isn't much of a name." Garnet murmured. "How about..."
Garnet's minded drifted to some of the prettier names she'd heard over the years. Specifically latin. Pearl had loved Latin as a language. Garnet could see why, it was such a precise and elegant form of speech.
"Lacuna." Garnet mumbled. "Lacy for short."
12-A considered this for several seconds before nodding. She liked the sound of her new title.
"Lacy." Garnet murmured, resting her chin atop the latter's head.
Lacy found this physical contact comforting. She'd never felt anything like it before and rested her head against Garnet's chest.
This new reality was scary but she felt safer curled up in the strong lady's arms. Not to mention tired.
Lacy yawned and tucked her head into the crook of Garnet's neck.
Garnet stood slowly, afraid to jostle this tiny being cuddled in her grasp. A part of her was worried she'd crush the delicate little girl, with her fluttering breaths and half lidded eyes.
"Garnet!"
The fusion stiffened in surprise.
Rose and Pearl peered at the bundle in Garnet's arms in surprise.
"Is that-"
"She's what I saw in my vision. She's an experiment from tha' Lab that got bombed."
"Poor thing." Pearl cooed, taking to Lacy immediately.
Rose frowned. "What are you going to do with her."
Garnet shrugged and made her way to the warp.
"I'm takin Lacy with me."
Pearl grinned. "Lacy, what a pretty name." Garnet nodded "Short for Lucida."
Pearl smiled at the Latin name and stroked her hair. Her smile faltered slightly after a moment.
"She's going to need a bath."
Garnet laughed, causing Pearl to blush and roll ger eyes.
"Well she can't very well walk around covered in ash like this for the rest of her life now can she?"
Garnet smiled. "Suppose not."
Rose frowned. "Garnet are you sure about this? She's human. She'll die within the next few decades."
"Maybe." Garnet aknowledged. "But I doubt it. Whatever the scientists did to her changed her molecules, She can speed then up to cause heat, and slow them down ice things. Humans age because of the gradual wear on their molecules. Her molecules would have to be as stong as ours in order to withstand the constant change. I forsee her living as long as we can in many possibilities."
Rose sighed. "I just don't want you to get hurt."
Garnet raised a brow. "Says you." She deadpanned.
"Touché." Rose conceded.
As they warped away Garnet couldn't shake the sense that every thing had just changed.
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Well well well, could it perhaps be...
AN AU?!
Why yes, it is, I'm rather proud of this idea and I hope you lovely veiwers enjoy it too.
I've got a blog on tumblr now, cinderselensworld, blog name Nerdlife. You can send me asks and stuff there about this story or any of my other stories.
I've really put a lot of thought and planning into this story and i hope you like it
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