Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar.
"Really, Garnet, I don't see why we need to come all the way to the barn for this?"
"Bear with me. There's something here that all of us will want to see."
What Garnet could have possibly meant by that was beyond Pearl at that point. It had taken some persuasion, straightforward from Garnet and raucous from Amethyst, to get the her to even accompany them on an impromptu visit to the barn.
She hadn't been able to get anything out of either of them. Garnet couldn't have been more vague, but Amethyst seemed particularly keen to go on this venture.
"Whatever it is. . . " She internally grieved. "Let's hope it's over with quickly. We really should be going back to the Kindergarten soon to check on. . ."
A lime green laser suddenly shot out through the open barn doors, yet what had caused it remained hidden. It zipped between Pearl and Amethyst, making each jump back in shock.
The stouter gem let out a guffaw as she whirled to the barn. "Ha! Now we're talkin'! C'mon, P!"
Pearl fluttered behind, clutching the thin fabric of her tunic as she scrambled after the now rushing Quartz. "Amethyst, hold on just a moment!" She sputtered as she skidded to a halt at the door to the barn, gripping Amethyst's shoulder imploringly. "You don't know whaaa-"
When the tall gem lifted her eyes from the mane of lilac hair she was greeted with an appropriately startling sight.
Steven and Connie were watching from the safety of the second floor of the barn, heads between the wooden guard rails as they watched the clattering rage on below. Lapis stood to the side of the barn doors, hardly giving the newly arrived Crystal Gems more than a blink of acknowledgment as she watched Peridot clang around in. . .
"Her limb enhancers?" Pearl gasped.
Clanging around was a generous word to explain exactly what Peridot was going right then. She was hobbling slightly, like she was still trying to become used to her shifted centre of gravity. Her arms spun in arcs around her as her magnetic yellow fingers did their best not to short out from the lack of control.
She unfortunately hadn't noticed the others yet in her glee to be stomping around in her old beloved enhancers once more.
"Ohoho, yeah!" Amethyst bounded forward, scramming to a stop just before one of the large robotic feet kicked her square in the nose. "Wassup, P-dot! Lookin' tall up there!"
A gasp ripped from Peridot's lips as she spun around, narrowly ramming another leg enhancer into the short Quartz as she fumbled for footing. "Amethyst! Pearl! Garnet!" She yipped as she found balance, staring at the three gathered Gems in surprise before it morphed into giddy confidence. "Look! Look what I've got back!"
"Your old limb enhancers," Garnet said knowingly.
"My restructured limb enhancers!" She threw her arms up, before catching herself as her body began to dip backwards from the sudden shift of weight. Her fingers rotated and swiveled on the magnetized docks of her arms, before opening up into a familiar transparent screen. "Revitalized with new commodities! Such as!"
She drummed her fingers along the screen, and it glittered before a gentle whirring noise filled the air. When Pearl looked up, she was suddenly surrounded by five green security drones, all aiming their blank nozzles toward her. "Remote controlled security drones!"
"But-" Pearl brought her arms up over her head to cover from fire she knew she wouldn't receiving. "How on Earth did you get them back?" She squawked, strolling out of the drones' vicinity and up to Peridot. Admittedly, it was strange not having to look so far down to meet her eyes. "Especially after we, err. . . "
"Lapis found them!"
Pearl's eyes moved around the barn until she found the blue gem, whose eyes gingerly darted away to focus on the exultant green gem when she tried searching them. "I went underwater and found them in a cave," she gave simply. "It wasn't a big deal."
"Wasn't a big deal!?" Steven hollered from the loft, nearly tipping over the edge before Connie firmly gripped the rim of his red shirt. "You fought a big monster eel! And saw a lot of fish, and escaped a crashing cave and-"
"Was amazing!" Peridot finished, striding up to Lapis and throwing an arm merrily over her shoulder, her beaming grin saying everything that she couldn't. "She did it on her own accord! I- Frankly, I'm still shocked she went through all the trouble to retrieve them for me!" Her eyes fell half-lidded as she put on a smirk. "Then again, I am your great and lovable bar-"
"Barn mate who was just crying on the floor thirty minutes before the others came about this," Lapis commented, a faintly smug quirk to her brow whilst silencing Peridot by slapping a hand over her mouth. Connie and Steven giggled from upstairs.
The green gem sputtered and withdrew, cheeks boiling blue as she stepped away. "Irrelevant!" She shrilled. "In my defense, it was a revolutionary act of kindness I hadn't been expecting at the time." Her words drew into mumbles by the time she was done defending herself.
"Ah, geez, Peri got all teared up about getting her things back." Amethyst jaunted over to Peridot and experimentally patted the large sleek foot. "Kinda surprised they're still working. I mean, they've been in the water for like, what, a year now? Two?"
"Homeworld makes its technologies immune to elemental phenomenon now!" Peridot exclaimed righteously. "Even if they'd been left to brave other earthly elements, they'd be left untouched by weathering, erosion, anything of the sort."
Amethyst's eyes squinted with what Pearl knew was confusion from an overload of terms she didn't care to comprehend, but the small purple gem clapped the leg again regardless. "Well, like I said, lookin' taller. Guess you ain't part of the Shorty Squad no more!" She lifted a hand to her mouth, "oh Connie. . .!"
The green gem's eyes blew wide with astonishment. "Wh- I- No, I just,-" She shot out her arms, helplessly staring at how she towered over the Quartz. "No, I can still be a member! Look! If I just-" She began to make a gesture like she was about to uncertainly detach one of her robotic arms.
Amethyst blew up in a fit of laughter as she leaned against a wooden shaft. "I'm just playin', Peridot! You can be an honorary member, even when you're tanking around in those things." She motioned to her enhancers with an arid chuckle.
"That's all very well," Pearl intervened as she paced up to relative eye-level with Peridot. "And I commend you on the return of your enhancers; Lapis, as well, for finding them! But, what does this mean?"
Garnet fell in beside the blue-and-white gem, placing a steady gem-palmed hand over her sleeveless shoulder. "I think we all know what this means," the fusion revealed, earning a holler from Amethyst and an excited, indescribable noise from Peridot.
Pearl's eyes narrowed as she swapped her gaze from Garnet's unyielding visors to Peridot's cantankerous moving about, back and forth, before it clicked.
"Oh my stars."
"Oh my stars, oh my stars, what if this doesn't work?"
Peridot and the rest of the Crystal Gems were tucked away in a remote valley of the Kindergarten, preparing to send the newly suited Peridot into the fray to retrieve the information they needed.
Of course, that was if Peridot would stop flustering.
"Calm down, Peridot, you're gonna do just fine!" Steven consoled, walking up to the shuddering gem and wrapping his warm arms around the cool metal of her foot. "Just play it cool and stuff and you'll blend right in!"
"But what if I get found out?" She hissed, crouching down and grasping Steven's shoulders tightly. "They'll report me for sure! Who knows! Maybe they'll immediately recognize that I'm 2F5L Cut-5XG and shatter me instantly after what I did to Yellow Diamond! The faulty possibilities are infinite! What if-"
"Peridot."
"Nyegh?"
Garnet guided the nerve-ridden gem up and rested a hand securely on the slim of her back. "I know you're nervous to go in there," she began, "but you mustn't be afraid. Earth is in a grave danger, and we need you to go in there to help us understand exactly what is going on."
"But what if-"
"You need to trust me when I tell you that if you follow your best instincts and believe in yourself, that this will go through easily. The more you make this difficult on yourself the more trouble you'll find yourself in."
Peridot was quiet a moment. Each gem could see each individual tick of her limbs as they steeled themselves, and watched as
"Right," she exhaled, smoother than both she and the others had anticipated it coming out. "Just play it cool," she recited. "Play it cool and the chances of you being shattered by one of the other Peridots drops seventy-nine percent. Roughly."
"There we go!" Amethyst remarked proudly, giving Peridot's limb a mild punch for morale, and for good measure. "Now go on in there and hack all their stuff. No Homegem's gonna be able to sneak by us when we've got all the know!"
"Amethyst, be quiet!" Chastised Pearl, growing a few extra figurative grey hairs on her head as the short gem drew back in cheeky surrender. "We don't know when one of the Peridots could be near!"
"Like. . . that kinda Peridot?"
All of the gems' heads snapped to Steven as he pointed towards the end of the rift valley, where through the dusty haze they could make out a shape becoming clearer and clearer.
"Hide!" Pearl grabbed Steven in her arms before throwing both he and herself into an empty Quartz hole. Amethyst followed suit, jumping into the one adjacent to theirs. Peridot threw Garnet a terrified look before bolting off to slip into a nearby gem cavity, stamping in and crawling until the shadows obscured her from outside view.
Through the low fog, she could make out the shape of of huge green feet from just outside her hiding place.
"She knows, she knows, she knows!" Came the horrific mantra in Peridot's head, and it was all that she could do to avoid further confrontation to keep her fingers clamped sorely over her jaw to stop her from making any petrified sounds.
After what seemed like centuries, the Peridot continued on, the sound of clanking metal implying that she was heading farther away from their home site, and therefore, further away from all the trouble they were about to cause.
They waited until the sound of her limb enhancers faded into nothing before crawling out of the holes. All of the gems sported the same startled expression, save for Garnet who turned to Peridot with renewed tenacity.
"For a second," Steven murmured hesitantly, "I kinda thought that was you, Peridot."
"That's because it was the Peridot with the gem placed on her forehead," Garnet informed. "Peridot, you'll need to remove your visor if you're to assume her place among them."
"You mean, I'll pretend to be her?" The green gem gaped. "I don't know who she is, or what her facet is, or even her cut!" Her fingers twitched and spasmed with a new flush of panic. "What if I'm interrogated by one of the others and unable to supply that kind of information?"
"You won't be. And I can see that our time window is running out, we need to get moving." Garnet traced her finger along the edge of her visor before approaching Peridot, placing her gems over both of the quivering gem's shoulders to assuage her worries. "We'll be watching you. If we hear, or even see anything, that suggests something's gone wrong, we promise to be there to help you."
"Crystal Gem promise!" Steven popped in from beside Garnet, reaching his hand out for a high five which Peridot dubiously eyed.
"Okay," she finally appeased. "I'll go. I'm going to hack their database, retrieve the statistics of their responsibilities on Earth, and possibly plunder their operation here in the Kindergarten."
"When you put it like that it sounds way more dangerous."
"Not now, Amethyst, can't you see she's developing fortitude?"
Peridot's arm rose slowly and her fingers wrapped around the rims of her visor. In a quick thrash they were torn off, revealing the entirety of her angular green face for all to see. Steven even let out an awe-filled little whoa. He hadn't expected her eyes to be so teal!
She determinedly shoved them into Garnet's waiting hands. "I'm going now." She steered herself away from the taller gem, shoulders tense and legs carrying her insecurely over the rocky ground. "I'm going now, to further endanger myself but consequently save the millions of respectable life forms on this planet." Slowly, her gait grew more self-assured and her head even raised a few centimeters.
Suddenly she stopped, and the others feared that her surge of intrepidity had burned out.
Except when she turned, her expression only pegged them with one thing: guilty concern. "If I don't come back," she whisper-shouted, "tell Lapis I really, really enjoyed living with her. On an emotional level." She spun around again before anyone could register what she'd requested and tramped off in the direction of the Peridot site.
Steven and Amethyst waved her off encouragingly while Garnet and Pearl watched quietly on from behind.
"Let's hope this was a good idea," Pearl mumbled.
The prosaic clanking of her enhancers was the only sound to accompany Peridot down the winding canyon. She could make out the ominous silhouette of the enemy vessel in the distance, large and imposing even when stationed and most probably offline.
Mustering whatever whatever scraps of cocky courage she had left Peridot pulled up her screen and began to rifle through its countless fields of analysis technology. One of its assets among perpetual others!
Peridot felt an overwhelming sense of appreciation for Lapis for finding them once more. She felt obligated to return the favor, but as far as she knew, Lapis never donned any limb enhancers. What could she repay her with? Something that defied the simplistic laws of compensation; she needed something. . . Something more than just an abstract meep morp devoted solely to her. . .
. . . Something more.
Realizing she was getting off-task she sharply pressed a finger to the screen. Luckily, it happened to fall on the exact place that would take her to achieve unauthorized access to its inner locking mechanism.
While it was digesting the code, she made a quick inspection of her surroundings. The other Peridot she had seen was nowhere in sight, and neither was the rest of her team. One relief among the many, many worries that currently plagued her conscience.
Pulling her eyes back to the screen, a curriculum displaying the ship's name at the top of the data outline was scrolling past. "Agh, I know all this," the gem grumbled as she fidgeted with the audit. She knew what type of ships Peridots were typically responsible for operating; she was a Peridot, for Diamond's sake. What she didn't like was the subtitle which read Kindergarten Executive.
Whatever business this thing had here, it wasn't to help the grass grow any greener, as Steven would say.
Her lips split into a brash smirk when she reached a point where it presented with with a big, familiar button.
"And. . . open!"
With nothing more than a tap the ship entrance unsealed, releasing its hinges with a resounding pshhh as eerie steam billowed out from inside. Peridot wasted no time in running over to the opened door and darting inside.
As soon as she stopped her vision was filled with mellow greenish-yellow light. The ship was by no means a small vessel, like the Ruby flight kite; a main console unit branched out into four passageways, all glittering with the same glassy green interior design as her old hand ship.
She eventually found the prime control panel, and before anything else, disengaged the security system before it picked up on an unfriendly presence. Once that was over with, she preened at her expertise before starting up the system. She was careful to only engage its inner workings, closing the door behind her so that no one watching from the outside would be any the wiser.
"Now. . ." She grunted as she sped through the archive for what she was seeking for. "Repairs. . . Framework. . . No, no, no!" She had to refrain from punching the console now that she had her limb enhancers back. "Just work, you stupid machine!"
Her words seemed to be enough to persuade the system to rapidly scroll through its contents. Peridot was in a tizzy as numerous square holograms flashed before her eyes, presenting data here and there, eventually filling up her entire field of vision until it all collapsed on itself. It left one holograph behind, twitching above the console as it awaited her touch.
Warily, Peridot reached out and read through the file. "This is it," she breathed. Without a second thought she plugged herself into the panel via her robotic fingers, skimming over the lines of Gem text that were on the program.
None of what it said made her feel any better about Gemkind.
The wait for the files to complete syncing with her own directory was agonizing, but immensely fulfilling when it ceased with a rewarding beep.
Just as she powered the console down, deleting a few important choice codex files from it as a final "bite me, clods" to Homeworld, a voice interrupted her from behind.
"What are you doing in here?"
Peridot's throat clenched. She should have suspected one of them would return to their vessel, now of all times.
Steven's words rung in her ears. "Play it cool, and you'll blend right in!"
"Play it cool."
"Recoordinating the programs," she stated, surprised at the cool monotony of her tone. She had to sink back into her old demeanor, the Peridot before Steven, the Peridot before Earth. "They were out of order, and whoever's responsible for disheveling the system is only going to further complicate the mission."
She finally turned to face the Peridot who had entered the ship.
It was the Peridot who had nearly blasted the injector the Crystal Gems had been hiding behind a day ago, the one with the gem in her shoulder. She was standing with her limb enhancer cocked arrogantly against her hip.
"Whatever," she sighed, blatantly disinterested in Peridot's spiel. "Get out and assist me with this. 2XC is assigning us to reconfigure the glitching panel in the second quadrant."
She couldn't just reject the order. Homeworld practiced no illustrations of liberty, not like she was able to on Earth. Any disobedience would immediately be reported; even if she wasn't affiliated with them anymore. . . it left an awful feeling of black dread in her form.
Peridot whipped her fingers out of the control system and followed the other green gem out of the ship, watching it seal shut suspiciously behind them.
She wondered if the other Crystal Gems were watching her now. Would they intervene now that she was headed off-course?
The two gems walked onto the platform that would lead down into the heart of the Kindergarten underground facilities, and old memories of running wild through the old purple canyons with the Crystal Gems hot on her tail resurfaced as the panel glowed and they were taken deep under the surface.
They emerged into the main lobby. Shoulder, as Peridot would mentally refer to her until learning her formal facet and cut, eyed the run-down complex with blatant disgust. "Honestly," she snipped, "you would think that at least one of our escorts would have made it here to confirm that it was in malleable working condition before we landed."
"Escorts?" Peridot asked before she could stop herself. When Shoulder turned to her like she'd just called Yellow Diamond a clod again, she felt a bead of sweat trickle down her face as she hastily turned her face away to focus on a broken set of gem supply containment pillars.
"The Rubies and our assigned Aventurine?" Shoulder made it sound like it was blindingly obvious. "The ones who were lost on all systems while en route to this desolate planet? Also, you're headed in the incorrect direction."
"Of course." Peridot twirled around hastily and stayed behind Shoulder as they headed deeper into the decrepit facility.
Now that she knew the rueful truth of this place, courtesy of multiple tirades from Pearl, her feelings were conflicted. It was a place she had been specifically created to harness the power of; she was a Kindergartner, and to think of this place as one of evil was a new and alien feeling.
"If only their vessels remained on radar," Shoulder muttered, to no gem in particular Peridot was certain. "Leaving that sort of corrosive material to the organic species on this planet is bound to have a negative effect. Not that it will matter soon."
Peridot squinted as she assisted Shoulder in cleaning out the clutter surrounding a blank-screened panel. "What do you mean?" She tried. "Good, just, just keep gathering intel. Like Garnet said. The more knowledge, the more you can save."
"I mean the Trenchant Form Destabilizer. What, did you emerge minutes ago?"
Peridot shook her head, doing her best to hide her confusion over what the Trenchant Form Destabilizer was. "No!" She snapped. "It's the accursed. . . Earth atmosphere effecting me. It's unnatural to have a constant gravitational pulling on your physical form."
Shoulder sneered as she completed reinstalling the new system. "Pebble. The system is now functioning. Tagging console for further investigation should further problems arise in its software in the future."
"This planet is going to be broken apart by the Cluster in coming time," Shoulder called out coldly as she stomped down the dank corridors. "Yellow Diamond has decreed that we take advantages the remainder of its resources before it expires. And in case you forgot what a Kindergarten is, as well, I'm sure that 2XC would be pleased to give you a stern lecture about that."
Now alone in the dimly lit chamber, Peridot brought up her screen and eyed the new contents plaguing its archive.
The others would not be happy to see this.
Peridot spun around and flew to the hub of the Kindergarten, but not before pausing and giving the main line of consoles a wary look.
"Well," she mentally decided, raising her arm canon and preparing a blast at the central hub system. "They never said I couldn't destroy a few things."
Before she could use her better judgment, she released a burst of electronic green energy that crashed into the hardwire, sending the place up in a blaze of broken machinery that awoke a thunderous, crackling roar that sent her fleeing onto the elevator.
She rapidly activated it just as she could hear a stringent voice calling out from below, demanding to know what 'misgrown pebble had the idiotic audacity' to do this. "Farewell, clods!" Peridot cackled as she was pulled up on the platform. When it stopped she threw herself onto solid ground, sprinting with all her might back to the small ravine where the Crystal Gems had made her rendezvous point.
When she entered the valley, she was greeted by silence. "Hello?"
"Peridot?"
Pearl's alarmed hiss followed. "Steven, get down!"
"No, it's really her!"
A familiar human emerged from a hole, rushing over to Peridot and throwing his chubby arms around her legs. "Peri's back! Come out, guys!"
A flushed Pearl crawled out from the same hole Steven had emerged from, followed by Amethyst who had an impish look about her. Garnet jumped down from above, scaring the absolute wits out of Peridot when she placed her hand on her back.
"So did you get all the stuff? Huh? All the bad stuff they're gonna do to the place?" Amethyst stared up at Peridot, violet eyes large with morbidity. Pearl promptly berated her with a nervous twitter.
"Yes, I got it!" She affirmed, holding up an enhancer and giving it a victorious shake. "And all that we need to know about their functions on Earth are in here." She opened her screen, where a small excerpt of all the data she'd ripped from the Homeworld archives flashed on-screen. "And, we may want to leave soon. Quite soon, actually. Very soon."
Garnet's head shifted in the direction from whence Peridot had come. "Definitely. They're quite upset over the wreckage."
Pearl's jaw dropped to the floor. "Wreckage?"
"We'll hear what she has to say when we return to the Temple," Garnet insisted as she broke into a sprint for their warp pad. "We may want to get moving before they all come out of the facility."
"Aww yeah!" Amethyst bellowed, dragging out her whip in an adrenalized flash of light as the team pelted across the Kindergarten. "Give it up for Peri!"
Peri's eyes being teal is my own personal headcanon! I actually had to go ask for some second opinions from friends before I decided to just go with my own. And aaaa, I've been excited to write this chapter since I began to write this story? It just seemed so cool a concept at the time, and I still think it is now. Kinda sad it's already gone 'n written!
Oh well, more to come, I guess. Remember to favorite or review to lemme know you like the story! I'm awestruck by all of the amazing feedback so far, it's amazing!
I'd like to say updates may be a little slower from now on, once or twice a week, since winter break's over Tuesday. If I'm lucky, twelve can be out before school starts back up again.