Darkness...
All I could see was blackness in all directions. If this was the afterlife, I could have done a lot worse. It was certainly easier on the eyes than glaring, white clouds everywhere. Speaking of eyes, I could still feel mine. I blinked a few times, then flexed my joints experimentally, fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, toes. I was all here. I suddenly remembered how I had ended up here, and grasped my torso. No bullet wounds. No shirt either... but I wasn't naked, I was wearing some kind of rubbery body suit.
Slowly, a dull light started to shine in front of me. Not the proverbial light one is supposed to go into, when in situations like mine, but a blurry image, slowly getting brighter and clearer, amidst the darkness, like a gigantic TV. Along with it, came a voice. Like the image, it slowly grew clearer, and more distinguished.
"...la … yla... JAYLA!" It was Emily's voice, rife with despair and grief.
The image swam into focus, and I realised I was looking at the ceiling of the Gem Hunter base. Suddenly, Emily leaned into view.
"Jayla, come on...! I can't lose you too!"
I was fairly sure that, wherever I was, Emily wouldn't be able to hear me, and it stung, because I desperately wanted to reassure her that I was alright (or at least, I thought I was). Emily had already been through so much, and I hated that she mistakenly thought that she had my death to deal with, too.
I was about to call out anyway, just in case, when I noticed that there was a figure in between me and the display. Someone tall and slender, in skintight clothes, like mine, staring at the display with their back to me. The darkness made it difficult to tell what they looked like, especially what colour they were, but if I had to guess, I'd say their clothes were black, their skin was grey, and their hair, a sharp, upright mohawk, was silvery white.
As I approached, I could hear them groaning anxiously under their breath, and whispering, "Come on... get up..."
"Erm... excuse me...?" I gently caught the attention of my only company.
Despite my attempts to be quiet, the person cried out in alarm, and threw her limbs into a defensive stance, as she span around. With the light behind her, I could barely make her out, but I just about saw her look me up and down, and her fearful alarm turn to surprise.
"Oh my gosh... It's you... You're here!" She gasped.
Before I could defend myself, she grinned maniacally, leapt at me and hugged me tightly, wrapping one arm around my back, and with the other, pressing my head to her chest. I was about to resist, when I felt a familiar shape pressing against my forehead, and my eyes widened in shock.
The screen faded away, yet despite this, my surroundings grew more bright. From out of the darkness, four walls, a floor and a ceiling faded into existence and loomed towards us, forming a room, and furniture rose out of the floor like zombies. We found ourselves standing in a living room, connected to a kitchen, like in mine and Mandy's apartment, only bigger. Between the chunky TV, and the dated pop culture references on the posters on the wall, it looked like we were in the 90's. Once the room had assembled, light flooded in through the windows, revealing Empire City outside. Of course, I didn't care about any of this, because I'd realised who was hugging me.
I gently pushed away, and saw, in the light, a beaming face I'd seen in countless photos, and a Gem I saw in the mirror every day. "Mum!?"
"Jayla!" Jet excitedly greeted me back. "My sweet, precious girl! I can't believe you're really here!"
I really wanted to be happy that I was meeting Jet, which I'd always thought couldn't be possible, but I was too curious to know how it was.
"Where is this!?" I anxiously demanded. "And how are you here!? You're... HERE!" I pointed at my chest.
Jet smiled sweetly. "No... I'm not." She gestured to all of me, and then to the room around us. "None of this... is real... not in the tangible sense anyway. When a Gem's body is... well... you know..."
Jet didn't want to refer to my recent obliteration by minigun fire. That was fair. "They retreat into their Gems..." I finished. Suddenly, the darkness made sense, it was a black Gem after all, but what was the meaning of this apartment? "What is this place though?"
"My happy place." Jet explained, with a grin. "It's mine and your mom's first apartment together."
The information falling into place, I began to understand what was going on, and now that I was less confused, new emotions were taking priority.
"It's... it's really you..." I breathed, a tear rolling down my cheek. "Mum..."
I pulled her into another hug, and she quickly hugged me back. "Of course it is, sweetheart."
"I've only ever heard wonderful things about you... I wish I could have met you sooner. I'm sorry I couldn't get here until..." I thought about the recent events again, and stepped back from the hug, feeling a sting of guilt. "Emily! I can't stay here! She needs me!"
Jet shared my look of concern and pointed at me, as if to say I was right. She took my hand, and led me to the sofa, leaping over the coffee table before taking a seat. I reluctantly let myself be pulled down next to her. Jet produced a remote, and turned the TV on. It showed the base again, except this time, the view was horizontal, albeit askew. The soldiers had returned, and I could just about make out the legs of two of them, standing protectively at each side of the screen. The founder was still in his mech, in the distance, and nearby, Emily was on her knees, her wrists cuffed behind her back, staring at me, desperately.
"She's in trouble!" I cried. "I need to get out there and help her!"
Jet held her head anxiously, grabbing hold of her afro in one hand. "You can't! Your body is still damaged! It takes weeks for humans to regenerate that much body mass! Who knows how long it'll take you to recover!"
"There must be something I can do!" I pleaded.
"Sweetheart, you're a human!" Jet said, urgently but apologetically. "You can't exist outside the Gem without..."
Suddenly, her expression changed. I saw hope and I latched onto it. "What? What is it?"
"You can't help Emily without a body. There's no way for you to reach her on your own..." She grasped my shoulders. "But you're never alone, Jayla. There is a way for us to help, but I'll need your permission."
I held her wrists and looked urgently into her eyes. "Anything."
-x-x-x-
Back in the base, unease was in the air. At the founder's instructions, two of the soldiers pulled me to my knees, while another secured Emily in handcuffs, while she gave very little resistance, focused on crying out to me, to wake up. Despite the fact that my torso resembled an undercooked steak, it didn't seem like I was bleeding any more. Instead, my bullet wounds had become ominous, black voids. Beyond that, I looked like an ordinary, human corpse.
"Take her to the holding cells." The founder instructed. "We still don't know what happens to a hybrid when they die. It could be valuable information. Lock her in maximum security, no one goes near her, no matter how badly the doctors want a sample. And handcuff her now, just in case."
After complying with the latter order, securing my wrists in front of me, two of the soldiers lifted me by the shoulders, and dragged me past Emily. She looked on anxiously, as though struggling to decide if she should run after me or not.
"What about this one?" One of the soldiers, closest to Emily, asked.
The founder considered it for just a moment. "Kill her, but don't damage the Gem, same as the other one. A second subject will give us a clearer result."
Two guards behind Emily pulled her to her feet. Even with Emily injured, distraught and her hands cuffed behind her back, it took all of the soldiers' strength to subdue her, while a third guard approached her with a knife. While Emily writhed and protested, her Gem glowed, the building's lights flickered and the intercom began playing stuttering white noise. Tensions were high across the base as Emily's would-be executioner neared, but with moments to spare, a suitable distraction saved Emily's life.
I planted my feet on the floor, and, with my hands still cuffed together, drove an elbow into one of my captor's faces. The other barely had time to turn in my direction, before I leapt into the air, and floored him with a jump kick. I say it was me doing all this... not exactly true, but that's how it looked, for now...
I turned around, and the room vocally reacted to the sight of my eyes, which had turned black, and a blackness slowly began to spread across my body, from my Gem, like the Bleeding Edge armour from Infinity War.
"Gem Hunters..." I scowled, in a voice that clearly wasn't mine. "I recognise you're a formidable military, and a significant threat to life on earth. You've got the technology, the loyalty and the strategy of a real army, but you made one fatal, devastating mistake, which will undo everything you've done so far..." The blackness reached my neck and turned grey and then white, as Jet took form, for the first time in twenty two years, around my recovering body. "YOU MESSED WITH MY DAUGHTER!"
While I was still inside Jet's apartment, inside her Gem, cheering her on, Jet sprang into action. She snapped the handcuffs off like they were made of breadsticks, and hurled a boomerang at the guard approaching Emily with a knife, and then leapt at one of the ones restraining her. The guard didn't even have time to draw his knife, before Jet swept his feet out from under him with her leg, and sent him hurtling to the floor with an elbow to the stomach. No longer outnumbered, Emily thrust her head backwards into the remaining guard's face.
"It's... Jet, right?" Emily asked, uncertainly, as Jet tore Emily's handcuffs apart.
"Thanks for taking care of my little girl." Jet smiled.
Emily cringed and rubbed the back of her head. "She definitely took better care of me..."
The two weren't distracted for long. The remaining guards, on the other side of the base took arms, aiming their rifles. Jet immediately summoned two boomerangs, almost as big as she was, and jammed them into the ground, forming a cross, and pulled Emily to the floor behind it. The two weapons emitted a black, mist-like aura which, it turned out, was bullet proof. Inside the Gem, I wondered if I could do that.
"Cause a distraction, and I'll finish this." Jet suggested.
"Got it." Emily agreed.
She already knew what Jet had in mind. At the Gem's command Emily had the base's intercom emit an ear-splitting shriek. The guards relented for just a split second, which was all Jet needed. She leapt over her cover, and threw boomerangs from midair, flooring the remaining guards, one by one. But before Jet hit the ground, the founder's mech lunged forwards, and snatched her from the air. An enormous, three-fingered hand slammed Jet into a wall, fracturing it behind her, and pressed painfully. The lightning cannon, mounted on the arm crackled menacingly, and the founder leered at Jet from just a few feet away, in his shielded cockpit.
"You think a single Gem, can undo our entire operation?" He sneered. "This technology was designed to crush the life out of pests like you, by the hundred!"
"Oh, I know..." Jet grinned victoriously, between wincing in pain. "It's an Era 1 Epsilon class battle mech. I used to pilot the Era 2 models back on Homeworld. I wonder how similar they are..." Jet took a deep breath, and began talking very quickly. "Emergency shutdown Pink Blue Pink Yellow White White Blue Pink Yellow!"
With a mechanical whine and an outraged cry from the founder, the mech suit collapsed to the floor as though it had had enough and wanted to call it a day. While the founder frantically tried to remove his seatbelt, Jet saved him the trouble by tearing him from the cockpit by the collar of his shirt, and lifting him threateningly above her head.
"The next time a Gem Hunter hurts my little girl enough for me to take form, I'm coming for you." She promised, with a dark stare. "I don't care where you are, I don't care how involved you were. I don't care if you quit the Gem Hunters and moved to Australia. If I were you, I'd take a very deep interest in how this organisation behaves in the future."
She hurled the founder across the room, towards the exit, where he frantically scrambled to his feet, and ran for the hole in the door. Jet let out a deep sigh, and turned to face Emily.
"Look after JJ while she regenerates, okay?" She asked.
Before Emily could reply. Jet gently lay down on the concrete floor, brushed herself off and, after lying still for a second, her form shrank back into her Gem, like paper into a vacuum cleaner, leaving my still unconcious body.
-x-x-x-
And that's the last we saw of the Gem Hunters, more or less. With Tina's help, the police scoured the country, quickly finding their bases, and rounding up their troops by the truckload. After Jet shut down their main base, her and I got to spend some quality time together, until a couple of hours later, when my body finished healing. Before I left, Jet made me promise not to blow my own brains out, the next time I wanted to talk to her.
I'm happy to say that the kid Emily rescued made a full recovery. His name's Jamie. He can't use Gem powers anymore, but Dorothy claims that he'll never age, unless they upload new ages into the Gem prosthetic she made. The next day, we all went outside the city to have a funeral, and a burial for Perry and Jamie's mum. Dorothy was unfamiliar with the custom, and got frustrated when she found it didn't make her feel better, but I think she appreciated the effort, deep down.
It turned out Jamie had lost his dad in a car crash a few years back, and had been living in a children's home when the Gem Hunters captured him, and of course, there was no question of him staying there, so while Emily lost an aunt, she gained a little brother.
Speaking of Emily, she and Mandy are stronger than ever. Emily would always be haunted by what she'd done at the Blackthorn base, but it never changed how Mandy thought about her, and Mandy was happy to be there for Emily, while she overcame her grief. As for the rest of the hybrids, Olivia and Sabina got back to their respective lives, promising to assemble again in a heartbeat, should they be needed. Tyler still texts me sometimes, eager to join the team when his dad thinks he's old enough, and Bird Person just up and vanished. I think he's still lurking around Empire City, Batman style, like the moody edgelord he is.
Haven't heard from Steven since then. According to Bismuth, he went to the Gem Homeworld on a diplomatic mission, or something? Sounds pretty intense. Honestly, a couple of weeks ago, I might have been jealous or insecure, but now I have important work of my own to do. Jamie's implant gave Dorothy a million new ideas about curing corrupted Gems, and when we're not working on that, there are still who-knows-how-many more hybrids out there to find.
As exciting as the last week had been, I couldn't wait for what came next. New friends to meet, monsters to fight, and Gem crises to contain. So, one more time for the road- My name's Jayla Mills, I'm half Jet and half badass biker chick, my friends call me JJ, and I'm on a mission to save the world.