Yellow Diamond quietly sighed as soon as she stepped off the Galaxy Warp Pad. She never did like handling matters like this personally, but seeing that this was for a diamond, then it was worth her time. Yellow was the only diamond who didn't like traveling by palanquin, 'too frilly' she deemed it in her younger centuries. She much preferred to travel by air ships, however where she was going it would be ludicrous to bring a ship for such a task. She was a gem who did not like to waste time so she walked quickly through the domed walkway, forgetting that the smaller gems behind her had to run just to keep up with her.
This facility that she was coming up to was the secretive Project F. A simple building on a moon in a undisclosed sector of space that only she and White knew of it's exact location; not even the workers knew where they exactly were. This was the first time Yellow had come to the facility herself and it was quite evident that it was not meant for a diamond to walk around in. She sighed and simply placed her hands behind her back.
"Pearl," she commanded, to-which her pearl sprang forth and saluted her, "go in my place and fetch what we came for. Take four of the amethysts with you; you'll need them to help you I'm sure."
"Yes, My Diamond," said Yellow Pearl. This was a very rare treat for her, she had been told her four most favorite words: 'go in my place'. She was now the most powerful pearl in gem kind. Oh how she loved this feeling of power, even if it was short lived. She was a very lucky pearl indeed. As she and the amethyst guards made their way inside, Yellow Pearl couldn't ignore the strange smell that was in the air. It was faint at first, but as they made their way in deeper, the smell only got stronger and stronger. Eventually one of the amethyst guards covered her nose. Soon they finally found one of the workers, it appeared to be a black rutile in a white lab coat looking at her holomonitors. It was strange to see a black rutile here, black rutiles were very rare, marveled for their beautiful black and white stripes. A black rutile was one of the few quarts gems, let alone any gem that could be placed in upper gem society rather than its usual place of work, so it was strange to see one willingly stay in a lower position.
Yellow Pearl approached and made a polite noise to get her attention but the black rutile just kept staring at her holomonitors. Yellow Pearl glared at her and walked around to get a better look at Black Rutile and saw that she wasn't looking at her holomonitors at all. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.
"AH-HEM," coughed Yellow Pearl very exaggerated. Black Rutile jumped and her holomonitors dissipated as she spun around to look at where the sound came from. She smiled awkwardly at Yellow Pearl.
"Oh, yes hello," Black Rutile said nervously, "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. You must be here for the pick up?"
"Indeed," said Yellow Pearl, "Yellow Diamond is waiting outside as we speak." Black Rutiles' smile faded slightly as she adjusted her coat.
"Then we mustn't keep her waiting then," she said quietly, "who knows what she'd do. Come this way please." As they walked down the halls Pearl could hardly ignore the smell of the facility and wanted to ask what it was but it seemed that one of the ill-mannered amethysts were going to ask the questions for her:
"What is that smell anyway," asked the amethyst, "it's making my upper inner form burn."
"Sorry about that," said Black Rutile, "but that is part of the latest experiments...it's...not going well for our subjects," she said quietly.
"Why does it stink so badly here," asked another amethyst.
"Yeah," said a second amethyst, "wouldn't it make more sense to not put air in the place so the smell wouldn't carry around?" Black Rutile smiled and turned to the amethyst.
"That is a good observation," she said, "but we put air in the facility so we can communicate."
"Huh," said the amethyst, "what do you mean?" Yellow Pearl rolled her eyes. Amethysts' were so stupid. Black Rutile only smiled and continued her explanation:
"In space," she said, "there is no air, so if we were on the surface outside where the dome buildings were, we wouldn't be able to hear each other because sound needs to vibrate on molecules. There is sounds in space, but since there is such a large space," she chuckled at her words, "that is gap between molecules, it sounds for the most part, silent. Air is a great way for noise to travel," she said smiling, "so we put air in our bases and facilities even though we don't need to breath so we can simply talk to each other."
"Oooh, I get it." said the first amethyst with a smile, "I always wondered that. I always thought it was such a dumb thing to do but now I get why they do it." Black Rutile smiled gently. The group continued on in silence as they walked down the halls. Something about the environment put the visiting group on edge as they entered deeper in, even with Black Rutile's friendly conduct.
"How much further is it," asked Yellow Pearl looking around the halls, "my diamond doesn't like to be kept waiting long."
"It's not much further," said Black Rutile quietly, "it's right next to the testing areas. If we're quick, we will hopefully pass through before the testing begins."
"Why," asked one of the amethysts.
"Normally," said Black Rutile, "the testing isn't so bad, but one of the new tests as of late...it bothers me," she said quietly.
"Again, why," asked the same amethyst. This time Black Rutile didn't answer. Finally they came to an area where there were many other gems in white lab coats working at stations.
"Right this way," said Black Rutile, "please don't disturb the others as they work. Their work is highly classified and they are working with sensitive materials." As the six walked through the area the five visitors couldn't help but look around at what the scientists were doing. Some of it looked really interesting while other parts looked relaxing. Some of the test subject gems seemed happy enough, however many of the gems, scientist and test subject alike, had a haunted look in their eyes.
"Here we are," said Black Rutile as she came up to a closed door, "I just have to go clear this with Peridot 3C9 , wait here and...just don't touch or do anything until I return." As they stood waiting for Black Rutile to return, the amethyst guards looked around nervously.
"This place gives me the creeps," whispered the first guard to nobody in particular.
"What is it they do here exactly," asked another.
"That's classified information," said Yellow Pearl, "even I don't fully know what they do here, and it's none of our business."
"Hey, I was just-" but she stopped talking when she saw Black Rutile coming back with Peridot. Yellow Pearl couldn't help but notice how similar Peridot looked to her diamond when she was in a particularly bad mood when interrupted from something important. Black Rutile went into the room to get what they came for while Peridot stayed behind to talk to the group.
"Some information for Yellow Diamond," said Peridot bluntly to Yellow Pearl as she marked some files on her holomonitors, "so please pay attention: The five slabs we are delivering is all we have currently, and it will take a lot of time and valuable resources to make more," and she gave a death glare to all of them, "so make sure nothing happens to them. Give this to Yellow Diamond," she said giving Yellow Pearl a diamond-shaped object, "it contains all the information she needs to know about this." Yellow Pearl nodded as she held onto the object carefully.
"Is there anything else we need to know," asked Yellow Pearl as the amethysts readied the large transport pallet.
"No, everything important should be on that device I gave you," Peridot said as she looked away. Yellow Pearl raised an eyebrow, it was becoming clear that the peridot did not like working on this project but...it wasn't like any of them had a choice of what they did.
"Then we will be on our way," said Yellow Pearl, "hurry with that pallet amethyst," she said to the guards as they pushed the hover cart with them. As the group walked back with Black Rutile, Yellow Pearl noticed that Black Rutile was occasionally glancing down at the pallet with some strange look of apprehension. Soon they came back outside where Yellow Diamond was standing patiently with her arms behind her back as she looked out into the cosmos.
"My Diamond," bowed Yellow Pearl, "we have returned with the asked items, and I have been given this by Peridot 3C9," she said handing the diamond shaped object to her, "she informed me that all the information that you would need is on this."
"Why didn't she come and tell me this herself," asked Yellow slowly, her tone low and dangerous. Black Rutile thankfully spoke up in Yellow Pearl's place, as her least favorite thing to tell her diamond was 'I don't know'.
"I apologize My Diamond," she said saluting, "but we've been very busy with the latest experiments and with the Solution C being reactivated, we have been shorthanded."
"I see," said Yellow Diamond, "I will inform White Diamond of this oversight and see if we can send you more gems quickly. Tell Peridot I expect a report on this sooner than later," she said looking down, "and that I don't like her new attitude. If I come in person, then she better come see me."
"I shall inform her," said Black Rutile. Yellow Diamond simply raised her head slightly then raised her arm to signal the others to follow her. As Yellow marched away, she decided that she would talk to White about the peridot. Clearly she was becoming far too impertinent for her own good. As she walked, she took the time to quickly read what information Peridot gave her. She hummed at it, there was still a bit of an unknown factor with it considering they had no information when it came to diamonds.
When Yellow reached the Galaxy Warp Pad and was about to step on it, she looked back and saw that once again she had outpaced the others. She rolled her eyes, was it really that hard to keep up with her? When the gems finally reached her, she reached down and picked up one of the cakes and said:
"We are returning to the Diamond Temple. Take the pallet and this," she said giving the diamond object back to Yellow Pearl, "directly to White Diamond, I will take this to Pink Diamond."
"Yes My-" Yellow Pearl started but Yellow Diamond warped away before she could finish. As Yellow was warping she examined the cake in her hand. It seemed sufficient enough she supposed but she sighed and looked away from it. There was no point at telling Pink how foolish she had been; White had already done that. She finally arrived back in the Diamond Temple so she made her way back towards Pinks' chamber. When she reached the door she knocked on it and waited for it to open. It took longer than expected to open, no doubt because of the defective pearl Pink insisted in keeping around. The door finally opened and Yellow stepped inside. To her surprise Pink Diamond was working on something in her chair with several holomonitors surrounding her chair. Pink looked up from her work and smiled at her.
"Yellow," she said standing up, "I didn't expect to see you so soon."
"Yes well," said Yellow as she looked around, "White informed me of what happened. She is currently busy with something important, and I had some spare time so I figured I could be of some assistance."
"Thank you," said Pink as she approached her, "this whole...experiment has been a bit of a disaster," she said running her hand through her hair. Yellow chuckled.
"We all have done foolish things in our younger times but yes," she said, "you did not think this one through at all." She looked around the room seeing that there weren't any bubbles in the rooms other than the bubbled Fire Agate that Pink had begged to keep.
"It seems that my arrival was well timed. Here," she said handing her the cake, "this is one of five; White will have the other four. According to Peridot 3C9, this single serving here should satisfy you for a little over eighteen hundred days."
"Really," said Pink looking the light-brown object over, "That is quite amazing. What is it made of?"
"That isn't important," said Yellow, "as long as it works that is all it matters." Pink shrugged and brought the cake up to her nose and sniffed it. It was a strange habit she had started when she started eating, but this thing had no smell to it. She took a bite of it and chewed it and instantly stopped. It wasn't...bad, just bland. It had no taste, at all. It was slightly gritty, but the texture was soft like nougat.
"Something wrong," asked Yellow.
"It's just," said Pink looking it over in her hand, "boring." Yellow raised an eyebrow, not really understanding what she was talking about.
"Well," said Yellow, "I'm sure you'll have to simply manage." Yellow walked over to where Pink's chair was to see what she had been working on. Looking at the information she was very surprised to see what it was.
"Are you reading about gem creation Pink," she asked. Pink only nodded as she currently had her mouth full of the boring cake. Yellow looked over what she was reading and put her hand at her chin.
"Gem creation is very complicated," she said walking back over to Pink, "it's not just a matter of taking a gem rock and placing some primordial ooze onto it and hoping it will spring to life. If you really want to learn how to create a new gem type, I would talk to White," she said tilting her head, "but again Pink, don't get your hopes up, even I haven't successfully created a gem myself." Yellow looked up at her bubble floating up in the room before turning to leave the room. Pink sat back down in her chair and took another bite of the cake as she looked back at her holomonitors. Yellow probably did have a point, she was getting very confused about how gems should be able to be created from any old stone but it seemed that it wasn't that simple. She took another bite of the cake, it was weird, the more she ate it, the more she was liking the boring thing. She decided that she would ask White about how she created gems, after all, she was the one who created all of them. She hurried and finished the cake and decided that she would ask now, it was hard to ever catch White when she wasn't busy so she would just risk it.
Pink walked out to the Throne Room and thankfully White was sitting on her throne working quietly. Instead of interrupting her, she decided to sit on her own throne and wait until there was an appropriate time to speak. She sat down and saw that Pearl had followed her and had stood at the right side of her throne. Chuckling, she reached down and picked Pearl up and placed her on her lap. Pearl smiled as Pink gently petted the top of her head, however both did not notice White Diamond looking over at the two of them. White said nothing about that but looked back to her monitors and said:
"Is there something I can do for you Pink," she asked in a very bored tone.
"Well," said Pink, "I wanted to ask you about gem creation and how you did it." White paused, and slowly dismissed her monitors and sat back in her throne. She looked up at the ceiling and placed her hands in her lap.
"When creating gems," she said slowly, "it's not just about creating them because you want to," she looked over at her, "because that will not make it happen. You can't simply will things to life," she said very sadly.
"When I first started to create my first gems," White said, "I thought you could use any gemstone," she gave a bitter laugh, "but with failure after failure it became apparent I was doing something wrong..and I had nobody to turn to ask what I was doing wrong." She closed her eyes. "It was thousands of years before I figured it out, but those were such lonely, lonely millenniums." Pink didn't say anything, but she couldn't imagine being alone for millenniums with nobody to speak with.
"How did you do it," asked Pink quietly.
"Do what," asked White, "create gems?"
"No, be alone all that time." White sat there quietly, then stood up.
"Pink come with me, but pearls," she said to them, "you shall stay here." White and Pink made their way back to White's chambers and entered it.
"Please sit," White said to Pink offering her chair to Pink. Pink who didn't want to be rude sat in the chair and was actually surprised how comfortable it was. White's back was facing her, her hands behind her back interlocked with eachother. White sighed and finally said:
"I am the first gem," said White, "that is very common knowledge..however...I was created." Pink sat up from the chair.
"You were created," she asked breathlessly.
"Yes," said White very quietly, "by accident. Long ago, there was a ancient space faring organic race that was much like us: They would conqueror worlds by means of war and pillage. They were a merciless race," White said, "cruel and unforgiving. If they would come into contact with a world that they wished to destroy without alerting the race on that planet, they would use their ultimate weapon. They would inject it deep within the mantel of the planet and within a few centuries a part of the planet would explode or implode, effectively wiping out a majority of life on it before any evacuations could take place."
"That's horrific," said Pink.
"Yes," said White with a very small smile, "but doesn't it also sound familiar?" Pink paused then looked up at White. White nodded.
"Yes," she said, "it seemed that when they first designed their weapon, they not only used diamonds," she said with a scoff, "but they had encrypted a silly depiction of their war goddess within the code," she shook her head.
"Anyway, during one such time, instead of the usual explosion or implosion, the life of it started to wither and die. The intelligent life on it clearly noticed it and evacuated. The conquering race was of course furious that their weapon had failed for the first time so they studied the site to see what was going on. When they eventually landed and surrounded the site, is the day I emerged."
"So you weren't alone when you came out," said Pink. White's face went dark.
"No, they had their army in wait and when I emerged; confused and new...they attacked me. You must understand, being something was wasn't suppose to be," she said turning to her, "I had a very limited intelligence and didn't know what was going on. Despite my size and power advantage, I cowered away from them. Soon they had me captured and I was their prisoner and slave."
"For how long," asked Pink.
"Several decades," White said, "they used my size and power to use to move and lift objects, other trivial things," she said clearly not wanting to go into details, "however I did find a friend in a scientist. He is the one who taught me the most basic of things, and made me realize something."
"What was that," asked Pink.
"That I was far greater and more powerful than they all were," said White darkly, "so for the next several hundred years I raged my own war on them and soon," she shrugged her shoulders, "I won."
"Oh," said Pink, "and what did you do with your first victory? Did you rule over them?"
"No," she said, "I decided that organic life was beneath beings like me, like us," she said looking at Pink, "so I went around the world, our Homeworld, and began to cleanse it. It took many millenniums to eventually wipe out all organic life forms but I was successful in doing so. I of course did record the majority of it as you did read about it."
"I'm sorry," said White, "I went off track about what you wanted to know, didn't I? You wanted to know how to make gems. Well, I simply took what they had created for use for war and began to modify it. As I said it took thousands of years, but I soon learned how to perfect the proper technique to make the perfect gems without flaws. There must be life within the planet, a lifeless planet will not work. I'm not sure why. When creating a new gem type, you also have to put a part of yourself into it," she said looking at her in earnest, "that is the true secret, but to do that you have to discover how to do that on your own."
"When you spoke to me all those years ago," Pink said quietly, "when you said making a diamond was very difficult,"
"Ah," said White, "you remembered. Yes, even though I have perfected gem production, diamonds are an entirely different matter. There is still the chance that when you inject the gem into the mantle of a planet or moon, it can explode or implode and that is usually the outcome. I don't know why," she said turning to her, "I use the same techniques that I use on gems that I use on diamonds and the same thing happens. I hope to perfect it one day so that we may have more sisters, but until then I am glad to have you three."
"Thank you White," she said standing up and giving her a hug, "I am sorry your beginning was so difficult. I had no idea it was so hard." White returned the hug and said:
"It is fine, that is in the past." Pink went to leave the room but then paused.
"What did become of your friend," she asked. White smiled and reached inside her coat.
"I kept him with me," she said pulling out a crystal bottle. Inside was a light gray powder.
"He doesn't look like much now," she said shaking the bottle, "but I promised him I'd keep him with me as long as I could, and as you can see, I've kept that promise."
"Did he die naturally," Pink asked.
"No," White said, "he died before I began my attack on the world. He wouldn't have liked the world I had in mind," she said looking at the bottle sadly, "so I did the kindest thing I could do for him; spare him of that world by giving him a quick death." Pink gave her a blank look.
"Is there anything else I can do for you," asked White.
"No, that's all I wanted to know," said Pink, "I will continue to study how to create a gem until my court emerges and then I think I will try to make a gem on my own."
"I wish you luck, but don't expect a perfect gem the first time," said White. Pink nodded and left the room. White looked at the bottle and shook the dust inside.
"What would you have thought about all this," she said to it, "I'm sure you would have loved the warp pads. I know you would have loved Pink Diamond, you two are so much alike." She put the bottle back in her coat and left her room to go back to work.
A shorter chapter but I wanted to get something out for you guys. Also some nice background for White Diamond that I would actually like to do a spin-off story possibly...maybe. If someone else wants to do it, go for it!. Please leave a review! :)
