A/N: I will be incredibly busy this coming Sunday, so I decided to be generous and post this week's chapter on Friday. Consider it an early/late birthday gift from me. The regular schedule will resume on Sunday, February 25. What can I say except You're Welcome?
This Will be Part One of a two (possibly three) part story arc involving one big question whose answer will start to unravel Onyx's blind faith in his Homeworld, featuring cameos from fan-favorite Gems who may or may not have abandoned ship. What is that question? Assuming I didn't mess up somewhere down the line, you will probably be able to guess by the end of this chapter. If not...well, just you wait until the next one!
The attack on the Human Zoo project had tipped Pink Diamond over the edge. From that day forward, her behavior was more erratic. The slightest infringement would set her off, and from there it was all Onyx could do to hold her back from shattering any Gem that stood in front of her. This was difficult when Pink Diamond would occasionally set herself on fire to get him off.
This was how Pink Diamond was in the early days leading up to the war. Attacks occurred from the currently unnamed rebels on key Gem facilities like the Galaxy Warp, the Lunar Sea Spire, etc. Pink Diamond's immediate response was an all-out assault in every case. She was convinced that simply overwhelming the rebels with sheer force was enough to get them to leave her alone.
She had a lot to learn.
Then the other Diamonds got involved. Yellow told her to let the rebels have the planet. The result was obvious: Pink Diamond stomped about with her fingers in her ears and simply would not listen to her.
Blue had a better idea for her.
The plan was as follows: Blue Diamond would travel to Earth, announcing her presence by requesting a negotiation with the leader of the rebels. A trap would be set. Blue would bring with her several soldiers disguised among her entourage of nobles in her court. They would overwhelm the rebels and the war would be over before it could really begin.
Onyx learned a valuable lesson the day the trap was set: life rarely went according to plan.
Pink Diamond sent him to the meeting as a representative of her court. They were at the Cloud Arena for this meeting of diplomats. This was a place that had normally been used for holding epic battles between members of the Homeworld military for the entertainment of the Homeworld elite…or so he had been told. Honestly, he had never witnessed one of these battles.
He was standing stock still, staring at Blue Diamond's palanquin. Its contents were veiled from view, but he could make out the tall, vague silhouette of a hooded figure. He was surrounded by other Gems, mostly nobles, each discussing some topic or another. He was too preoccupied with his thoughts to care what they were saying.
Once again, he found himself contemplating the inner thoughts of the Diamonds.
He had understood Yellow Diamond's reasoning when she had suggested abandoning the Earth colony. An all-out-war that this conflict was quickly building up to was not a desirable outcome. Resources were drained as a result of war. Eventually, the cost of waging the war became greater than the reward gained through victory. This conflict must be solved quickly, though he wasn't sure if he agreed with her idea of abandoning Earth altogether.
Earth was an untapped colony. There was so much potential left in this planet. Pink Diamond had only had this colony for a little over two centuries before he had been created. Giving up this colony before it had truly been established was out of the question.
Well, that was his reasoning for keeping the colony. For Pink, she simply wanted to keep it and that was that.
He briefly amused himself with the fact that a human being might find two hundred years to be very long indeed. Of course, to a Gem, two hundred years seemed to pass very quickly indeed. Sometimes he felt that a day had passed only to realize that it had been months. He supposed that was the way all Gems perceived the passage of time given their abnormally long lifespans. However, that didn't seem to be the case with him recently. Perhaps it was because of everything happening lately, but days were moving at an almost human pace.
"Hey!"
He looked away from the palanquin. He had been lost in thought again. He turned to the speaker.
A Lapis Lazuli. It was rare to come across one of these. They were exceptionally powerful Gems, capable of bending water to their will. They were primarily used for siege; one Lapis Lazuli, when supplied with enough water, could bring down any structure no matter how great. And to top it all off, there were even reports of them using water to give themselves lift and fly. Of course, the cost to produce even one of these was astronomical: enough energy to make a dozen Jaspers many times over was the minimum requirement for one of them.
"Apologies," he said. "I was lost in thought. It is a bad habit of mine."
"Is that any excuse to ignore me three times?" she asked. "I was asking who you are and what you're doing here."
Onyx nodded. "I am here as a representative of Pink Diamond's court."
Lazuli inspected him critically. She was looking at him the same way a Peridot might inspect a defective piece of machinery; in layman's terms, she was trying to figure out what made him tick.
"Why would she send you?" It was clear from her tone that she didn't mean it as an insult. She was merely curious why he was important enough for a "diplomatic" mission like this.
"I am Pink Diamond's personal attendant," he said. "I do whatever she requires of me. Nothing more, nothing less."
Lazuli had a moment of realization. "You're that Onyx guy, the one that everyone's whispering about."
"Whispering?" Why would anyone whisper about him? He was a Gem like any other, wasn't he?
"Yeah, if you got your head out of the clouds, you might even hear some of what they're saying," she pointed out. Then she grinned. "Then again, kind of hard to do that at the Cloud Arena."
Onyx could tell from that look on her face that he should find this funny.
…
After a prolonged silence, she sighed. "You're just like everyone else here. You don't have a sense of humor either."
"My sense of humor," he said, turning to look at the palanquin again, "is too complex for you to understand."
"Riiiiight," she replied. There was another awkward silence. Then she gasped. "Look, they're finally here!"
He looked to where Lazuli was pointing. Indeed, while they had been talking, a new individual had entered the Arena. All conversation ceased for a moment as many turned to stare.
A Sapphire had entered. She was shorter than most other Gems at just half Onyx's own height. Her hair obscured everything above her nose and her full lips formed into an almost perfectly straight line. Overall, she gave off an air of mystery, like she knew something that everyone else didn't. In the case of a Sapphire, this was almost always true.
The crowd split to form a path to Blue Diamond's palanquin from where Sapphire was standing. Onyx knew from his briefing before his departure to Earth that this Sapphire was here to give Blue Diamond guidance on how to conduct the trap.
He remembered Pink Diamond's words so clearly.
"Listen, just do as Blue Diamond tells you, alright?" she commanded. "You may not think she's as great as me, which I don't blame you for, but she does know what she's talking about. She'll summon one of her Sapphires to the proceedings to tell her how everything's going to go down. My Rubies can handle standing guard over her. It is important that you do everything in your power to make sure that whatever good future this Sapphire sees comes true."
A Sapphire's precognition was a tricky thing to work with. The future is not set. Every tiny action could result in a drastically changed future from what time had originally decided. Though Onyx didn't understand how exactly a Sapphire's ability worked, he did know that it was a useful tool that should be used as effectively as possible.
Three red figures leapt down and surrounded the Sapphire. Next to him, Lapis Lazuli tensed up.
"An attack already?" she asked.
"No, the security has arrived," he said.
Three Rubies, practically identical aside from their gem placements, were escorting the Sapphire to the palanquin.
If ever there was an antithesis to the Sapphire, it would be the Ruby. Sapphires were rare aristocratic Gems, Rubies were mass-produced foot soldiers. Sapphires used their minds to gain greatness, Rubies solved every problem with their fists.
"That's all they could get to keep her safe?" Lazuli asked. "Just three Rubies?"
"It is true that Rubies are…mentally challenged," he said. "It is also true that they are weak individually. However, each one costs much less to make than most other types of Gems. When they fuse together, three Rubies can be just as strong as any Quartz soldier, perhaps more so."
"Is that so?" Lazuli nodded, watching the escort walk by with even more interest now. "Have you ever seen it? Fusion, I mean."
Onyx looked back at Lazuli. "I have much knowledge about how fusion works. Two or more Gems combine their physical hard light forms and share the energies within their Gemstones to create a greater and more powerful singular form." He shrugged. "Though to be honest, I have never seen it firsthand."
Lazuli nodded. "So, I guess you've obviously never experienced it for yourself, then."
Onyx paused. He honestly wasn't sure whether fusion was possible for him. His metal endoskeleton was only the first problem he would encounter should he attempt fusion. The question of what he would do with it during the act was not one easily answered.
His second problem: he likely didn't have enough energy in his Gemstone to execute fusion in the first place. Based on his blueprints, he knew that his Gemstone had been specially made to work with the Titanium frame. The stone had been removed from the earth several hundred years too early in development. As a result, he had inherently less energy in his system than any other Gem. He could project a physical form using his endoskeleton as a base. He could summon a weapon. Theoretically, abilities like fusion and shapeshifting were forever lost to him. He tried to make up for this shortcoming by using his superior defense and mind as effectively as possible.
"Why the interest in fusion?" he asked.
Lapis Lazuli shrugged. "I guess it's just not something that the elite get to participate in very often," she said. "I mean, I'm the only Lapis Lazuli on Earth right now. No one else would fuse with me." She didn't seem sad about this fact. As far as Onyx could tell, this Gem didn't desire fusion, she was merely…curious.
That would be the third obstacle he would face: if he was the only Onyx in existence, no one else would ever want to fuse with him.
"Excellent point," he said. He was about to say something else when he noticed something: all conversation in the Arena had stopped. He turned to the escort. One of the Rubies had apparently bumped into the Sapphire on accident based on the way the former was backing away quickly. The latter, of course, had no reaction.
"Oh, I…um," the Ruby stammered, "I'm so sorry, I…let me –"
"I'm fine." It was a curt response, direct and to the point. Just like a Sapphire. It was also not the answer anyone had expected.
"What?" the Ruby asked, sounding just as confused as Onyx felt at the moment.
"It's okay," the Sapphire said, a small smile on her face. "It was bound to happen."
The two stood there for a long, awkward moment. Conversation gradually returned to the Arena as the crowd returned to more interesting topics. However, Onyx continued to stare at the group.
"Now please wait here," Sapphire said. "I must attend to my duties."
The Rubies realized that they had arrived at the palanquin and each stepped away to allow their charge passage. Then the Sapphire stepped past the veil and out of both sight and earshot.
"Interesting," he said. "Most other Gem elite might not have been so kind."
"That's what's so great about Sapphires," Lazuli said. "They don't care if something bad happens because they see it coming. It gives them time to prepare themselves mentally."
Onyx nodded. They stood in silence for a moment, neither of them having anything to say. Rather than getting lost in his thoughts again like he usually did, Onyx decided to do something different.
He listened to the people around him.
He heard many voices, not distinguishing between them, only hearing what they were saying.
"So anyway, did you hear what Pink Diamond did with her Rose Quartz soldiers?"
"I heard she had imprisoned them and had them interrogated one at a time."
"Yes, exactly! She was convinced they might tell her something about the rebel leader."
"Oh, right, she's a Rose Quartz too! Do you think that this trap might work?"
"As long as everything goes according to the Sapphire's premonition. Anyway, I heard that none of them could tell Pink Diamond anything! So, she shattered every one of them herself."
"No way!"
Onyx stopped listening. He already knew that was hyperbole. His Diamond was too attached to her creations to discard them so permanently like that. He should know, he interrogated every single one of those soldiers.
"Excuse me."
He looked down. The Sapphire was staring up at him. "My Diamond wishes for you to meet with her."
Onyx nodded. He turned to Lapis Lazuli. "It was a pleasure speaking with you. I hope we cross paths again."
"Cut-1MG," Lazuli said. "That's my designation."
"I'll keep it in mind," Onyx said, walking away.
He heard a conversation between two of the Rubies as he approached them. The third was staring at the ground as Sapphire went to stand next to her.
"Hey, who's that guy?" Ruby 1 asked, pointing at Onyx.
"Oh, I think it's that Onyx guy from Pink Diamond that her clarity was talking about."
"No way! I heard about him! I heard that at the attack on the Sea Spire, he took on three Amethysts by himself!"
"I heard that he's strong enough to lift three Jasper's above his head!"
"I heard that he's actually a machine!"
Onyx stopped moving directly in front of them.
"Psh, don't be stupid, Ruby!" Ruby 2 said. "Where did you even get that idea anyway?"
"Um…" Ruby 1 tried not to make eye contact with her comrade. "I heard it…from…sssssooommmewheeerrre?"
"I mean look at him!" Ruby 2 indicated the figure towering in front of them, oblivious to his growing impatience. "He's just like you or me! Except he's taller and cooler and more smarter and stuff!"
"He is also standing right in front of you," Onyx said, slowly turning his head to look down on the diminutive Gems. "He would also appreciate it if you didn't talk about him behind his back. Or directly in front of him."
He leaned down, his face inches away from Ruby 1's face. "Or, if you're going to do it, at least make sure he doesn't hear you," he whispered.
Ruby 1 gazed into his eyes for a moment. Then she smiled and nodded. "Okay, thanks for the advice!"
Onyx glared at the guard a moment longer before standing up straight. It was impossible to intimidate Rubies. The last thing he heard before stepping through the veil into the palanquin was one last comment from one of them.
"Who knew he was so wise, too?"
He grinned. Rubies were so amusing at times.
He saw Blue Diamond before him, sitting upon her massive throne. Her face was obscured by the shadows of her hooded cloak. He knew the elite of Blue's court had a thing for obscuring their faces; even Blue Diamond's Pearl, standing at attention next to her, had her eyes obscured by her hair. He suspected this had to do with something he observed when he saw Blue Diamond in private: her face betrayed her emotions no matter how hard she tried to hide them. Thus, she hid her face in public.
"What seems to be the matter, my Diamond?" Onyx asked.
"I wish to discuss the execution of the plan." Her voice was soft, yet powerful. It commanded authority yet also seemed to lull whoever heard it into a serene trance.
Blue Diamond tilted her head. "What's so funny?"
Onyx hadn't realized he had still been grinning. "Apologies, I had been amusing myself with the antics of Rubies when you summoned me."
Blue Diamond nodded in understanding. "I must give you exact instructions for the trap."
"Based on your tone, I trust your Sapphire had good news?"
"Indeed," Blue said. "According to her, the rebels will arrive and destroy the physical forms of several Quartz soldiers, two of her Ruby guards, and herself. The rebellion will end here."
"Excellent," Onyx said. "What is my role here?"
Blue hesitated. She leaned forward in her seat so he could see her eyes clearly. He was transfixed by those pupils strangely shaped like four-pronged stars. She spoke with utmost seriousness when she said:
"You will do nothing."
Onyx tilted his head. "Pardon?"
"In order for this day to go exactly according to plan, you must not interfere in anything that occurs. Do you understand me perfectly?"
Onyx hesitated before nodding slowly. "If that is what I must do, then so be it."
Blue Diamond leaned back into her throne, once again shrouding her face in shadow. "Good. You may leave."
Onyx saluted and left. Among many other things, the question of the passage of time and how to predict it was not an easy one to think about. Perhaps his CPU was simply not capable of such complex thought.
Oh well. He once again molded himself into the crowd. He wound through, staying towards the opening leading to the palanquin. He may not be permitted to engage in the conflict, but he would still be at the ready if anything were to go wrong.
The Sapphire and her Ruby guards had their backs to him. They didn't notice him, apparently. He heard a conversation between Sapphire and Ruby 3 as he walked past.
"What a beautiful place to build a colony," the Sapphire said in that cool, collected monotone that her kind constantly spoke in. It seemed more wistful, like how Pink Diamond spoke whenever she talked of the Human Zoo. "I only wish I had gotten to see more of this planet."
"Um…there's still time," Ruby 3 responded.
He heard Sapphire give a small chuckle. "That is a nice thought but…no."
There was no further conversation after that. Onyx moved on, getting farther away from the palanquin with every step.
"Blue Diamond! Leave this planet!"
Onyx snapped his head towards that voice. He couldn't see her anywhere, but he knew who she was.
"This colony will not be completed!" He pinpointed the voice and looked up to the large central pillar in the Arena.
"Who are you?" called out one of the Rubies. "Show yourselves!"
And then he saw them. Rising from behind the pillar was the leader of the rebellion, this time dressed in a long flowing white dress with a star-shaped hole on her abdomen to display her Gemstone. Perched atop the pillar and carrying two swords was her Pearl, the one who had miraculously bested him in combat in their first encounter. She too was dressed differently from Onyx's last encounter with the two of them; this outfit was better suited for combat and allowed for more freedom of movement. A yellow star was emblazoned on her chest.
They called to the crowd in unison.
"We are the Crystal Gems!"
He looked around in confusion. Only two of them had arrived to attack Blue Diamond, one of the four leaders of Homeworld? What were they playing at? No matter, he would destroy them anyway –
Wait…no, he couldn't do that. Here they were, the chance for a rematch and he was forbidden from taking any action.
Well, so long as things go according to plan, perhaps he could work out a deal with Pink Diamond to have a chance to fight the two of them again. He needed to collect more data on this peculiar duo: the Rose Quartz that betrayed her kind and the Pearl that could fight. Two Gems that spat in the face of Homeworld's perfect order…yet continued to succeed despite this.
He realized that he had been so lost in thought that he hadn't even noticed the battle go underway. He went with the flow of the crowd around him, following the nobles to the edge of the arena away from the action. He saw Blue Diamond's palanquin sprout legs from underneath it and crawl away to observe the proceedings from higher ground. By higher ground, he of course meant at the very highest seat in the Arena.
He watched as Blue Diamond's Amethyst soldiers charged into battle, reaching to their Gems for their weapons. They never got the chance. The Pearl ran past them both without a second thought, her swords cleaving right through them. They stood there dumbfounded for a moment before they poofed out of existence.
Two more Gems charged Pearl. She immediately turned around, uttering a war cry that reminded Onyx of some kind of exotic bird. The three of them leapt into the air and met head-on. Once again, one slice of the sword each was all it took to reduce the soldiers to their stones.
He looked around and spotted Rose Quartz watching her Pearl. She had a look of utter fascination, like how he observed Pink Diamond watch her humans.
Both he and Rose were snapped out of their thoughts by three war cries. Those three Rubies were dashing into the fray. Rose smiled in apparent amusement as she watched the diminutive soldiers running up to her.
Then the Rubies did what they specialized in. Two of them stopped right next to each other while the other jumped onto their soldiers. Then they turned into pure red light and fused.
When the light dispelled there stood a single Ruby taller than even the enemy that stood before them. Onyx realized with surprise that this Fusion was taller than Pink Diamond herself.
This was fusion then…fascinating. He knew it was too much to hope they would be stronger than his Diamond, but he hoped it would be enough to fend off the rebels.
The Fusion cried out in a deep booming voice that still somehow sounded as non-threatening as a single Ruby. She ran forward with her fist on a collision course with Rose's face.
Then Rose grinned.
It happened in an instant. One moment Rose was standing in front of the Ruby fusion, the next she was behind the massive form and leaping away. The fusion fell apart and the three Rubies fell. Before they had even hit the ground, there was Pearl slicing through them immediately. Two of them disappeared in a puff of smoke as the third landed flat on her face. The Pearl stood in front of Sapphire, swords at the ready.
Apparently fusion wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Onyx reminded himself to take a closer look at his memory of the battle when he returned to the Moon Base.
"NOOOOOO!"
Then, much like every other perfect plan that had ever planned in the history of perfect plans, it all fell apart because of one minor slip-up.
The last remaining Ruby did her job too well.
She dove under the Pearl's legs and tackled Sapphire to the ground, the sword passing inches away from her cubic hair. Then both she and the Sapphire began to glow, then turned into blue and red light.
The light mingled, the two Gems' stones drawing closer and closer together as the light formed a tall humanoid figure. All action seemed to freeze as everyone stared at this strange new development. Then the light faded and revealed the new form behind it.
She was tall, only just shorter than the triple Ruby fusion from earlier. The curliness of Sapphire's hair had apparently canceled out the angular and cubic afro of the Ruby to create a huge tangled mass of red and blue curls. Her skin was various shades of blue and pink, though overall, she was a dark magenta. Her clothes consisted of pieces of Sapphire's and Ruby's clothing stitched together at odd intervals. It was…an odd sight to see.
The new Gem opened her eyes – all three of them. Even more fascinating. A fusion between Gems of differing types produced a completely different Gem. He didn't have any data on such a phenomenon. He needed to study this.
The Fusion seemed to realize what had happened to her. She stared at her hands, each containing a Gem of her component. She voiced the word that just about everyone in the arena was thinking:
"What?"
He realized that everyone was forgetting the true dilemma here. He looked to the self-proclaimed "Crystal Gems." Pearl was giving the fusion a look of perplexment. She shook her head and raised her sword again. Then she stopped as Rose Quartz placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Wait," she said. "This is…"
Then they looked around. Members of the crowd, Onyx included, were advancing on the rebels.
"Let's go," Rose said.
Pearl nodded, grasping her leader's hand.
"Well…bye!" With that last comment from Pearl, the two of them leapt away, so far that they had become mere dots silhouetted against the sky. Then they disappeared below the clouds.
Onyx walked to the edge of the Cloud Arena, then stopped. He realized that no one was following him. He turned to see that everyone was instead marching towards the center of the Arena where the Fusion was still located.
Onyx was confused, yet he too rushed through the crowd. Certainly, he too was fascinated with this never before seen phenomenon, but wasn't the rebellion the more immediate issue here?
As he pushed through the crowd, he heard the crowd exclaim various words and phrases along the lines of:
"Horrible!"
"Disgusting!
"This is unheard of!"
So, they weren't fascinated with this cross-Gem Fusion as Onyx was. No, they were appalled by it for some reason unknown to him. What was going on here?
The Fusion had disappeared by the time Onyx could get in a position to see the center of the crowd. Sapphire and the Ruby were in her place. The Ruby looked around with a mingled look of confusion and fear while the Sapphire continued staring at her hands with her mouth open.
There was a loud crash as Blue Diamond's palanquin leapt down all the way from the top of the arena to the ground below. Everyone made way for their ruler as her vehicle retracted its legs and floated slowly along the ground towards the offenders.
"The rebels have fled." Blue Diamond's voice projected from the palanquin, cutting through the crowd and silencing them.
"Sapphire," she called, "this is not the scenario you described."
Sapphire looked up at the massive silhouette within the palanquin. "This is…n-not what I saw!" she cried in her defense. Sweat was falling down her face. "I-I don't know what happened, I –"
"No!" Ruby literally leapt to her charge's defense as she landed in between her and the palanquin. "It was me!"
"Clearly," Blue Diamond said, her voice oozing with disapproval. "How dare you fuse with a member of my court."
"Forgive me, I –"
"You will be broken for this!" Blue Diamond's hand curled into a fist, and all at once Onyx felt…something. It was the most unspeakable rage he had ever felt in his life. All he could think about was attacking the offender, crushing her and grinding her stone to dust, then scattering the dust to the wind, then incinerating it with a massive blast of energy from his weapon –
This was very uncharacteristic of him. Why was he getting so angry? Then he remembered: Blue Diamond was an empath. She could literally broadcast her emotions to any Gem around her and even make them feel the way she did. Usually this happened unintentionally. Members of Blue Diamond's court occasionally reported tears coming from their eyes in times where Blue Diamond felt sadness. Right now, the crowd was likely experiencing something similar, but with anger.
The others weren't as resistant to this sudden change in emotion as he was. The crowd became a mob, advancing on the poor Ruby. Their steps echoed through the arena like an army marching into battle. He looked around. No one was paying attention to him as they pushed him aside to get at the infidel. They all seemed to be focused on the destruction of "the enemy."
As luck would have it, he made eye contact with the one other person in the mob that was resisting these emotions that weren't hers: it was Lapis Lazuli. She stared at him in confusion. There seemed to be a lot of that today. He gave her a look that said what are we supposed to do?
Then his attention was diverted. He saw a blue and red blur rush past Blue Diamond's palanquin to the edge of the arena. Another unexpected event had transpired: the Sapphire had grabbed her last remaining guard and dashed off. He could hear the Ruby crying out in protest, though it was getting more and more difficult to hear her as the two of them grew further and further away. He saw the mob begin to give chase before they stopped themselves. Sapphires, in addition to their tremendous foresight, were capable of short bursts of blinding speed. It was a deliberate design Blue Diamond had implemented when creating them; supposedly it allowed them to escape battle with their enemies if their guards were incapacitated. Sapphires couldn't run forever, but they could run long enough to get reinforcements.
Or to dive into the clouds to escape their pursuers.
Onyx felt the wave of anger begin to fade as the cries of the Ruby faded with it.
"Onyx!" Blue Diamond's voice echoed through the arena and drew his attention to her. The palanquin had floated up to him and from here he could feel the overwhelming power of the Diamond even from her veiled form. The crowd stepped away and created a new clearing where he was standing. He felt every eye in the Arena trained on him.
"Yes, my Diamond?" he asked.
"I want you to chase those two down and bring the Ruby to justice."
Onyx, for the second time that day, was perplexed at Blue Diamond's commands.
"You want me to chase after them?" he asked.
"Yes, that is what I said," Blue replied. "My soldiers and your Diamond's remaining Rubies have yet to regain their physical forms. You are the only one suitable enough to chase down those two and bring them back so we can give the criminal a proper punishment. Do I make myself clear?"
He couldn't help but notice the blatant favoritism by Blue Diamond in that she made no mention of punishing her Sapphire. After all, they both had participated in this Fusion, had they not?
He had other reasons for not wanting to chase them down, though. Mainly that he had better to do.
"My Diamond, while I will agree to chase down those two, I feel that perhaps our priorities are not in order. Would it not make more sense to chase after the rebels before their trail runs cold?"
He felt it again. The wave of unbridled rage. The mob advanced one step towards him.
"If you do not chase after those two within the next thirty seconds, there will be dire consequences." She leaned forward, and Onyx saw two glowing blue dots where Blue Diamond's eyes should be. At the same time, he felt an inexplicable feeling of sheer cold engulf his entire being.
He then realized that this time, the empathy was not intentional.
"Do I make myself clear?" she asked.
Onyx looked from Blue to the mob around him. In that split-second hesitation, the mob advanced another step. The cold was getting worse. He could feel his joints begin to seize up.
"Very well, my Diamond," he said.
Blue Diamond's eyes stopped glowing and she leaned back in her chair. The cold began to subside. The crowd parted, giving him a way forward to the Arena's entrance.
"Good," she said. "A transport will be prepared for your descent to the surface."
"No need," Onyx said. "I will get down on my own."
He walked past the palanquin to the edge where both the "Crystal Gems" and the "criminal" had escaped. He looked down and noticed that there was frost on his hands, though it was fast melting. He hadn't thought it was getting that cold. The clouds were a few hundred feet below the arena.
"What exactly are you doing?" he heard Blue Diamond say.
He looked back. The crowd was still staring at him. He picked out Lapis Lazuli at the front, giving him a look of curiosity and great interest. Everyone else seemed to be gazing upon him with great disapproval. He turned back to look at the clouds.
"This way is faster," he said.
Then he jumped down.