Emerald

I flinch in pain as a particularly stubborn piece of wooden shrapnel is pulled from my body, Jade puts her hand on my back and I can feel relief as the wound closes. Quartz hovers close to me, Amber and Coral stand a bit further, and Fire Opal stands by the three unknown Gems and seems to be conversing with them. My faithful student, Quartz, shifts from one foot to the other as he explains to me how they had all been transformed into the cluster beasts, it was mighty horrific. Well, to me it would be, I don't know how a human would perceive the atrocity.

They had all been captured in a sabotage operation gone wrong, that much I remembered, but he went on to talk about how they were transferred to Pink Diamond's fortress along with those three out of place gems: an Obsidian, a Citrine, and an Aquamarine. After that, well what happened afterwards is self-explanatory. I looked at Ocasio so I could hide my face, "I see… I'm… I'm sorry Quartz, if I had been a better leader then you might not have had to go through all that, none of you would have."

Quartz shook his head, "As much as I would like to dredge up past arguments about how you need to stop taking uncontrollable variables as your personal failures, I think you have your own story to tell us."

Jade slapped a hand on my shoulder to signal she was done with the treatment, "I covered much of the serious wounds, your physical form will probably dissolve the smaller fragments and absorb them into your energy reservoir."

I stand, Ocasio still safely tucked into my arms, "Thanks Jade." I turn towards Quartz, "Now about what I have to say-"

Before I can even begin I hear the sound of scuffling, my soldiers instinctively move to a protective formation around me, Coral runs to the new gems. Quartz instinctively reaches for his side, but when he realizes he doesn't have his sword he goes into a fighting stance, "Whoever is there, present yourself before the Praetorian. We will not hesitate to shatter you."

A green hand rises, then a second, then the green goblin shows her face, "Eeep! There are more of you now?"

It was the Peridot, she supposedly made the barn her home. Speaking of which, "Where were you?"

She looks at me in nervous confusion, "What do you mean?"

I take a few steps forward, only pausing to let Quartz out of my path. I continue marching until the difference in Peridot's height and mine is very apparent, "My daughter was in the barn when the cluster beasts attacked. Where… were… you."

She, much to my surprise, straightened her posture and looked at me defiantly, "I did what any normal non-soldier class Gem would have done, any sane one that is. I hid in the hopes the obviously soldier class Gem would handle the enemies."

I feel my mouth twitch in anger, "So you… left my daughter to fight those creatures? To die?"

Peridot's confidence slowly melted away, "Look on the bright side-"

I raise my voice, it echoes for a few moments, "Bright side? What in the name of Star Quartz is bright about what you did?"

Peridot soon began stumbling over her words, "Uhm, y-yes… what e-exactly is the bright side? Uh… well, at least you know she isn't useful?"

"She isn't useful?" I ask quietly.

Amber groaned behind me, "Oh lass, you didn't."

Quartz walks closer and extends his arms, "Sir, would you prefer I held your daughter?"

I nod and Quartz takes my daughter. I crouch to Peridot's height so she can properly look me in the eyes, that and I feel it generates more fear than the normal procedure which to grab them by the neck, "Now you listen to me, if you ever, and I mean ever, even imply that my daughter is useless, I'll make sure that you understand what it means to be useless."

"But I've already lost my limb enhancers." she says with innocent confusion.

I flash my second signature smile, the one that I've been told makes me look like the true definition of demented, "I can take the real limbs next." Peridot swallows nervously and nods her head, I guess focusing on my anger does solve some things. I lean in closer and snarl, "Good." I stand and turn to face Quartz and freeze, "Pearl…"

Pearl turns to me, her face still has a good bit of anger pointed at me but it has softened a bit, "Emerald."

I notice Ocasio is now awake and standing by Pearl's side, tired but otherwise unharmed. My vision turns back to Pearl and I give a weak smile, choosing my words very carefully, "How have you been?"

She gives her own weak smile and, for a moment, I can see the dark rings under her eyes. It hurts my heart because I know I am almost certainly a factor for the stress that made them appear there, "Honestly, I could be better…"

"Yeah, same here." I say with a weak laugh.

Pearl gives me a smirk, "Yeah, I think you've been burning the candle at both ends again."

I pull off my trench coat and peer at all of the tears and holes from the hundreds of pieces of wood that struck me; I look through one of them to stare at Pearl, "Yeah, I'm going to have to break out the sewing needles again." I pull it back on and face my significant other, she returns my gaze.

Pearl sighs and looks away, "Come on Ocasio, we're returning to the temple." The others get out of her way, knowing how malicious she could be. Quartz stands by me and begins to ask what happened between me and Pearl when the Gem in question stops, turns, and throws me a sideways look, "Well, are you not coming Emerald? I want to hear what happened here last night." I stand completely still, was she inviting me back? As I contemplated what she truly meant by that statement she turned around completely, "Emerald!"

I flinch and signal for the others to follow, "Coming Pearl."

Hours later:

Ocasio

I threw my controller into the air and I give a laugh of victory, Steven groans, "Come on Ocasio, quit button mashing."

I poked my cousin's nose and smirked, he was only jealous because I kept beating him at his video game, Lonely Blade XVII. "I mean, when button mashing lets me beat you, someone who's played video games his entire life, why shouldn't I use it? That and it's wa-a-ay easier than learning those complicated combos."

He returned my smirk with a frown, "That's not the point."

"Then what is it Stevey?" before he tries for the… how many times was it? Six, seven? Aw forget it, the point is I stopped listening to him explain his point because I heard the door open. Mommy entered and told me to come outside, she didn't like to be kept waiting so I jumped up from my spot.

I stepped outside and was immediately hit by the bright light from the sun, I rubbed my eyes to stop the glare. After a few moments I blink and find the light not so harsh, though I also find Mommy's friends are staring at me. I feel heat rush my cheeks when the really orange one points a thumb at me, "Ya know, I thought Yellow Topaz looked more like you."

The green lady nods, "I agree with Amber, other than the relative shortness of her hair and a bit of her facial structure, she looks more like Emerald."

Mommy laughs, like actually laughs. For the past two months I don't think I ever heard her laugh, she always seemed sad that Daddy had left. She then turns to the green lady, "Yes, I don't know what went wrong. I tried to make her more like me, but it seems those stories she heard from Steven had more of an effect on her than I thought."

She was referring to the stories that my cousin had heard from Daddy. Steven began telling them to me about a month and a half ago, and I may have started shifting my form slightly to match a bit to what Steven had said Daddy looked like.

Another person spoke, he snapped his fingers and a bit of fire flared up, "I don't blame her, Emerald always did dress comfortably." He lifted Mister's arm and tugged at his coat, "I mean, just look at how much room are in these sleeves! You could fit a bottle of Chrysol or two in there!"

I looked at Mister, "Oh, so you dress like Daddy too?" he tenses and the adults start laughing. I feel the heat rush my cheeks again, "What's so funny?" The laughter ceases.

The pale man looks at Mommy, "She doesn't know him?"

Mommy returns the man's look, "She knows of him."

I stamp my foot on the wood below, "Tell me what I'm supposed to know!"

"Ocasio," I freeze up, whenever Mommy calls my name it usually means I should stop talking. She knees close to me and points to mister, "You see him?" I nod my head, "That's your father."

I slowly look him in the eyes and he begins to smile, "Hey Topy." My vision blurs with tears and my legs began to move without me trying to. I run into Daddy's arms and bury my face in his shirt.

After a few minutes I pull away and wipe the tears from my eyes, "I'm sorry, I'm not crying because I'm sad; I promise I'm happy to see you."

He uses a sleeve to wipe the rest of my tears away and when I look at him I can see he is crying too. He nods his head, "I know Topy. Trust me I know." He takes a moment to wipe away his tears before speaking again, "I'm sure you have so many questions. Don't hold back, you deserve information."

I open my mouth but Mommy interrupts me before anything comes out, "Hold on, it's getting kind of chilly. Perhaps we should head inside."

The fire guy shakes his head, "Nah, let's start a fire."

The pale guy hits the fire guy in the head, "Fire Opal, we cannot just make a fire on this patio. That would surely burn little Rose's house."

The stocky orange guy suggested in a gruff voice, "How about we make it on the beach?"

"Yeah, I'll get the marshmallows!." Aunt Amethyst said with a holler. Before she could rush inside, Steven ran outside with the marshmallows already tucked safely in his arms.

"I heard we were having a campfire?"

Emerald

The moon has risen by the time Ocasio finishes with her interrogation. Her first wave of questions almost made me break down in tears, they included why I had left, if I left because I was angry with her… though the worst question she had asked was if I hated her, oh Moonstone did I feel worse than a Bismuth with nothing to build. Luckily, I managed through them with no unfortunate leaks. Her next questions were normal, like what was my favorite color, which isn't green surprising enough (it's teal in case you were wondering), and what did I like most about Earth, which was obviously just the sheer freedom it had allowed my kind.

We had moved on to telling stories and roasting the sugar confections known as marshmallows and as we did, I could feel the gap I had made with my outburst begin to slowly close. Not fully, no not even close. Even I know that was going to take a bit longer to mend.

The little beach party continued for a bit longer, and it probably would have lasted longer if some horrifying roar hadn't emanated from the ocean. All our heads swiveled to see what had caused it. I was the first to stand, my arms slammed on the canyon wall behind me and the stone shoved their way in front of our little group. Pain erupts in my stomach as I force the wall to solidify even further.

I sigh in relief when a dull thud rings in my ears, an icy point poked out of the newly made wall. I had felt the chill of the icy projectile seconds after the roar and so my body moved in accordance. My body's next course of action was to look for the caster of the weapon, but whenever I saw who it was my body returned control to me and I, unprepared by what I saw, stopped moving.

All around me the other's began preparing for the next attack from her, but all I could do was stand there and think about who I was looking at. It was her… "Lapis."