Hi there, I'm Newgrean, and I've already started this story in comic form on Tumblr. Comics are great, but very time consuming to make, and so in order to keep this story going, I will be posting some of the CIA entries in fanfiction form here, on Tumblr, and on Ao3.
To see the first entry of CIA, visit my tumblr blog (Newgrean). You'll find a link to the Ao3 posting of this fic there as well!
"So you made these?" Opal said, peering curiously at the long strands of plant fibers twisted together.
"Absolutely!" Pyrite replied, admiring her work. "They are essentially the same as the cables back on Homeworld, but can be fabricated without the assistance of any machinery!"
"That's super cool, Pyrite," Blue said, leaning in, an earnest smile on her lips.
"Yeah, we use those a lot around the base, but we can talk about that later," Dravite interjected. "For now, I want to make sure you two are up to speed on what we do here. How much did Aragonite already tell you?"
Blue thought back to the amber gem's silence as they had traveled through the warp pads to arrive in this underground cavern. "She didn't say a whole lot. She really insisted on us, well, me at least, keeping quiet about everything we were doing." Once Blue and Aragonite had gotten away from the headquarters, the stoic gem had hardly spoken.
Opal added, "Yeah, it was mostly the same for me. What do you all do here?"
Dravite nodded, "Good, Aragonite is smart, she wasn't keeping you in the dark for no reason. If any Homeworld gems had followed you here, things would've gotten pretty tricky." Her eyes glanced up to the corner of the cavern, where several brown and gold bubbles floated. Silhouettes of gemstones hung in the center of each one. Dravite quickly turned her attention back to the two new recruits.
"As you two know, the Crystal Gems are really starting to grow. We're starting to push back Homeworld's forces and make Earth a place where gems can live without having to worry about what they are supposed to be, instead making it a place where they can be who they want to be." Pyrite broke into a wide smile as Dravite continued.
"But in order for us to hold off Homeworld, we need more than just numbers."
Blue's brow furrowed, and she glanced at Opal, whose face remained neutral, "What else do we need?"
"We need intelligence," Pyrite said, stepping forward. Opal nodded. "That is to say, we need all the information we can gather about our enemies and their plans in this conflict."
Dravite nodded as well, "Exactly. There is no reason to deny it: Homeworld's forces are more skilled than we are. Yeah, we have passion, and we have something to fight for, but most of Homeworld's elite warriors and strategists aren't the ones defecting to our side."
"Why not?" asked Blue.
Opal took this moment to cut in, "They don't need Earth. Most members of the Crystal Gems are gems who feel like they've been pushed aside by Homeworld. The best of Homeworld's forces, though, they're the ones who are getting praise and recognition. They are the ones who are actually doing what they're made to do."
"...Oh, right," Blue replied.
Dravite spoke, "That's right, Opal. But none of that's stopped us yet. That's the whole point of this rebellion, to fight back with whatever we can. And that's what we're doing in the realm of intelligence-gathering as well."
She continued, "Back near the beginning of the war, Rose Quartz started setting up the Crystal Intelligence Agency. It was a small group of gems who specialized in covert missions to gather intel about what Homeworld was planning. The organization helps keep us, if not one step ahead of, then at least one step beside Homeworld's strategists. The organization grew as the rebellion did, and we are the third facet of the Crystal Intelligence Agency-"
"Abbreviated to C.I.A., if you will," Pyrite added.
"Right, C.I.A." Dravite corrected herself.
"What do the first and second facets do?" Opal asked.
"Well…" Dravite started, sharing a look with Pyrite.
Pyrite spoke, "Well, the lower the facet number, the more difficult the missions. Understandably, facet two handles assignments that Rose Quartz feels we are not best suited to." At the mention of facet two, Dravite eyes seemed to harden, though she kept her gaze on Pyrite.
"Facet one, well, I must admit that I have never met a member of facet one. But we can logically assume that they facilitate the most high-stealth, high-risk operations. Some C.I.A. members are of the belief that being unaware of the identities of facet one's members is a benefit to us. For if we were to be captured by Homeworld, they would have no way to pry that intelligence from our lips," Pyrite explained, her smile a bit reduced by the grimness of her words.
Blue's eyes widened. Dravite took notice of her uneasiness, "Look," she said, her tone gentle, "This isn't going to be an easy job. But honestly? There aren't any easy jobs in this fight. Someone higher up than us decided that you two were cut out for this." She crossed her arms and the corner of her mouth turned up, "And honestly, if Aragonite had seen something to make her really worry about you two being here, she would have warped you right back to headquarters and had someone reassign you."
"Very true! Aragonite does what she wants," Pyrite laughed. Opal smiled, and Blue's fearful features softened a little.
"Okay, let's show you around the base a little bit," Dravite said.
Blue had been pretty impressed with the base when she first arrived. It wasn't everyday that she fell fifty feet down a hidden tube in the middle of an organic biome on an unfamiliar planet. Seeing a beautiful, hewn, almost primitive cavern at its base had only added to her surprise. Back on Homeworld, everything was geometric. Buildings, floors, walls, and every other structure was made of intricately faceted, cold metal. If there were curves, they served a design purpose and were made with obvious mathematical intent. Blue would know best, she was a low-level architect back on Homeworld. Maybe architect wasn't the right word. She, along with all the other turquoises back home, were made to ornament gem structures with faceted sculptures and designs that conformed to the standards of design perfection.
But down here, in this rebel base, everything was almost sloppy. The walls were curved and rough, as if they had been dug out in a hurry. The technology looked like it had been cobbled together from pieces of destroyed Homeworld ships. The grain of the Earth's natural minerals formed an unorganized, but strangely beautiful pattern on the uneven surface of the wall. Much like the rest of Earth, this room could only be described as organic.
"Hey Blue," came Opal's voice.
Blue snapped out of her transfixion with the room, "Hm? Sorry, yeah, I'm coming," she said, hurrying to the large circle which covered a fourth of the room by the row of doors, one of which the other Turquoise had come out of earlier. The circle of metal was surrounded by dashed warning lines, and had four seams which split it into four equal slices with a small diamond in the middle covering each slice's point. The image of a rose, the Crystal Gems' symbol, was painted over this diamond.
"This is the entrance to our training room," explained Dravite. "You two are going to spend a lot of time here sparring with Pyrite."
"Indeed. It is a bit of a trick to open, though. Allow me to demonstrate," Pyrite explained. She walked to the rose symbol in the middle of the wide disc and bent down. "I believe this used to be an upright door, but we repurposed it, just as we did most of our technology down here. You simply use your gem to-" as her hand spread over the rose, the metallic stone on her temple glowed a bright yellow. The diamond plate under the rose shone as well and the four sections of the door slid quickly open underneath the other three gems' feet. Pyrite and Dravite dropped to the floor of the spacious rectangular room below gracefully, but Opal and Blue were caught unaware and crashed haphazardly onto the stone.
"Ah," Pyrite laughed, "Yes. That is the trick. My apologies."
"It's fine," Blue said as she and Opal picked themselves up. They took stock of the room around them. It was also hewn from the earth with large, rough slopes. The training area extended to be about half the size of the upper room, and had a small door on one of the narrower walls. The wall was already rather rough, but seemed to have many additional chunks and slashes carved out of it, most likely from earlier training sessions.
"Is it safe for me to assume that neither of you had much combat experience before you joined the Crystal Gems?" Pyrite asked.
"Yeah, that first day that we joined was the only time I had ever done any real fighting," Opal replied. Blue nodded in agreement.
"Ah, I will have to hear more about that later," Pyrite answered, a twinkle in her eye. "Well, do not fear! I myself knew little to nothing of combat until I joined the rebellion, but after training with my mentor, I am proud to say that though I do not have the strength of a Homeworld soldier, few quartzes can outmaneuver me!"
"It's true," Dravite smiled, "But you do have a pretty big advantage-"
"Ah, more on that later!" Pyrite interrupted. "Now, Opal, Blue, would you be so kind as to show me what you wield on the battlefield?"
"Okay, sure," Opal said. She thrust her chest forward as the fiery, violet jewel on her sternum shone. A large, bearded axe with a sturdy, curved handle leapt from her gem and into her hands. As its glow faded, the violet and peach coloring on its grip and blade appeared. She gave it a swing before saying, "Yeah, I guess it's not a typical 'spy' weapon, but I like it."
"Excellent!" Pyrite exclaimed, "Every good team needs a heavy hitter, and this axe looks like it will help you be ours!" She turned to Blue, "And what do you have for us?"
"Well…" Blue reached up to her cheek where her teal gemstone rested. It glowed brightly and she pulled a long, slender handle from it. As it flashed into existence, the other gems saw that she held a long bo staff. Both ends of the staff were thicker than the middle and were each capped with a circular cabochon version of her gemstone.
"Very nice" Pyrite said, a grin on her face. "This will be exciting! I have mostly been training against Dravite for the past long while. It will be good to fight against some more long-range melee weapons."
"Oh, what do you use, Dravite? If you don't mind me asking?" Blue said, looking quizzically toward the second-in-command.
"No, I don't mind," Dravite said. She pushed back her jacket on her left side, revealing a brown and amber gem on her waist. It flashed as she pulled a small, faceted knife from it that was no longer than her hand. "I use throwing knives which aren't always a great matchup against Pyrite's swords."
Opal glanced at the solitary, long cutlass at Pyrite's side, "Swords?"
Pyrite wiggled her eyebrows and reached towards the gem on her left temple with her right hand and towards the cutlass on her hip with her left. From her shining gemstone she pulled a long, slender blade with a domed, ornate guard. "I use a rapier and a cutlass!"
"Uh…" Opal glanced at Blue in confusion, "Isn't it hard to fight with two different types of swords?"
"Oh, well, at first it was fairly difficult, but I got the hang of it after a while," Pyrite answered, looking down at her two blades and smiling almost in embarrassment.
Behind her Dravite mouthed, "It's so hard."
"But enough of that, let us go up one more time," Pyrite said, sheathing her cutlass and letting her rapier dissolve into sparks.
"So this is, well, Turquoise's control area, but we all use it for different things," Dravite explained as she led the gems away from the training room's door to a corner of the cavern that was lined with computing devices and quietly humming screens. The computers looked to be from a mix of different gem cruisers and dropships. In the upper corner where two walls and the ceiling met rested a very large monitor, but for the moment it was dark.
"Yes, I doubt either of you will need to operate this kind of equipment while you are with us, that is more in Turquoise's realm. In any case, she may be perturbed if you meddle with it as I believe she has most of it calibrated just like she likes it," Pyrite said, running her hand over one of the monitors.
Opal leaned over one of the many keyboards, "What exactly does Turquoise do here?"
"Well… So here's the deal," Dravite leaned against on of the consoles, "Turquoise doesn't actually come with us on our missions. She stays here and watches us. She says that as the one who's in command, she needs to make sure that we are seeing our objectives from every angle." One of Dravite's eyebrows twitched slightly as she said this, and Pyrite gave her a look that Blue and Opal couldn't quite decipher.
"That is correct," Pyrite said. "She uses these little robonoids to keep her eye on everything in the field." As she spoke, Pyrite picked a wedge-shaped device from one of the counters. It was about as thick as her forearm and almost as long. It had three spindly legs which ended in wide, circular feet, and its square face had a dark, glass diamond in its center. As Pyrite moved it, the glass diamond blinked red, and its legs flailed for a moment before grabbing onto Pyrite's arm.
"Aww," Blue leaned in. "I love it."
"Is that just a Homeworld surveillance robonoid with a Crystal Gem insignia on it?" Opal asked, moving to poke its eye.
"Indeed it is. Turquoise reprogrammed this one and a few others to follow us on our missions. Their cameras are connected to our screens here." With that, the large monitor in the corner of the cavern flickered to life and a crackling image of Opal and Blue appeared on the screen.
"These little ladies are pretty useful, I have to say," Dravite added, gathering the robonoid into her arms. "We'll have to show you them another time though. Right now I want to show you your rooms." She switched the robonoid off and laid it on the counter again, the red light of its eye fading back to sleep.
Opal and Blue followed Dravite and Pyrite as they returned to the training room's large door. On the two walls surrounding the circular door, Opal and Blue noticed three doors they hadn't seen before. As they looked up, they saw a metal platform affixed higher on the wall which led to three more doors of the same size. Each door had a pointed arch at the top and a white star in the center. One of the ground-level doors had an opaque, greenish-blue, circular gem in the center of its star.
"This is Turquoise's room. You two probably should steer clear of it, she really likes her privacy," explained Dravite.
"But these two are yours," Opal and Blue turned to face the two doors with empty stars as they heard Pyrite's voice.
"Just put your hand right there, and it'll recognize you as its owner," Dravite said, pointing to the blank white stars on the doors which stood before the new recruits.
As they tentatively placed their hands on the stars, both Opal's and Blue's gems began to glow. The stars hummed against their palms for a moment, and when they pulled their hands back, they saw flat versions of their gems etched into the middle of their stars. The etched gems remained only for a moment though. Soon glowing lines spread across each door, splitting them into pieces which then withdrew into the doorframe and allowed Opal and Blue to see into the space beyond.
"Come on," Dravite said, smiling at both of them, "We'll show you what to do."
Thanks for reading! Every now and then I will be making a C.I.A. entry in fanfiction form like I did this one. To see the entries which are made in comic form, search Crystal Intelligence Agency 1.1 on my tumblr blog (Newgrean). You'll find a link to the Ao3 posting of this fic there as well!