Homeworld kindergartens
"Hydrazine?" Bolt raised his head and looked around as he nervously called out the fusion's name into the darkness in the forlorn hope that she or one of her components would hear his pleas and call back to him. He may have been grown with the purpose of being a walking superweapon, but at his base he was still a human child, and like any lone child he was becoming increasingly distressed as the amount of time he spent separated from those he saw as his caregivers grew.
"Rhodonite!" He started to cycle through the off colours' names after considering that Hydrazine may have already split back up into her components. Once more he waited in anticipation for a response, instead only to have his hopes rapidly fade with each passing second where there was no reply.
"Padparadscha!" He shouted out before going silent so he could listen out for a response, this time he waited even longer before moving on to the next one as he knew she would need some time for her perception of things to catch up with the present. Again though, there was nothing, only the echo of his voice reflecting off the rock and the hushed howling of the frigid wind that was directed his way by the high walls of the canyon he was currently trudging through.
"Leftile, Rightile?" He said the twins' names, this time with far less vigour as the idea of a quick reunion began to wear away. In hindsight he shouldn't have even dreamed to find them all again so soon. Bolt remembered laying on his knees, there at the edge of the broken bridge, simply waiting to hear an impact noise just so he could at least get an estimate on how far they may have fallen before going out to look for them.
He had sat there for quite some time, yet he had heard absolutely nothing, signifying that they had fallen a very long way indeed. Long enough that when they did hit the ground it was either not loud enough to hear, or that they hadn't hit the ground at all and had been falling for the entire time he had sat there, and perhaps still were. He desperately hoped for the first situation to be the true one, otherwise he may never be able to find them again. The wrenching in his gut came back as the thoughts he had suppressed during the battle resurfaced and soon mixed with the current unease he was currently feeling to form a vile concoction that began brewing in his mind.
The Agate's words came to the forefront again. He was guilted into realising how his existence led to them being pursued again, how because of that one or more Fluorite's components were nearly shattered twice, and now at how it led to many of the off colours being lost. Looking back at it, if he had just run from the robinoids, then they would never have been detected and none of this would have had to happen. But all of it did happen, and there was no longer anything he could do about it since it was not as if he could go into the past and undo his actions, so now he had to live with their consequences.
He wanted to scream and shout out all his troubles to fill the grating silence surrounding him, but he instead held all of it within. Bolt felt that after the robonoid incident he too needed to live by the example set by the words which left his mouth on that fateful day, even if the off colours were not present there and then to see it. Otherwise what would have been the purpose of teaching them to be confident, brave and strong if he didn't follow the same lessons as well? He could feel the weight of culpability dragging him down, but he remained steadfast and endured onwards, for their sakes.
"Do not fret, I will find them, all of them, and I will set things right." Bolt said sternly to the six gemstones he cradled in his arms as he steeled himself for the task ahead. When he looked straight forwards at the rest of the canyon he felt his hearts sink as he saw the walls and floor of the place seemed to meld into an endless grey horizon that stretched out for miles ahead with no visible exits aside from one at the very of end of it where the floor appeared to abruptly cut off far in the distance, thankfully suggesting that it was probably a stony ramp that led to the deeper parts of the planet where the others were likely to be. All of it made him understand just how long the road ahead was going to be, but he cared not, the only thing that mattered now was finding them again and making sure they were all in one piece.
"At least I'm not wholly alone." He muttered to himself while continuing to look down at the Fluorite's components as they quietly jingled in his arms with each step he took. The fact she was, in a way, still with him was enough to soothe his psyche, even if only temporarily.
After looking at the same bare surroundings again Bolt realised just how long he had been travelling for, and though not physically tired, he needed a respite from his errant thoughts. He spied a modestly sized exit hole not too far above the ground, then upon deeming it suitable he walked over there and as soon as he arrived he sat down inside of it before setting down Fluorite's components to do a cursory check on them. It had been the third time he had done this by now, but he wanted to make utterly sure they were undamaged in order to set aside at least some of his concerns.
As he picked through them he thought about how he could have taken a far quicker route down the kindergartens by using the tightly packed exit holes littering the place as a makeshift system of unevenly spaced ladders to descend into the rough area where Hydrazine may have fallen. But he knew that option ran the risk of dropping the gemstones in his custody, and stars knows if that amethyst fusion was still rampaging down there. It was impossible to tell how long it would take for all of them to regenerate so they could make the journey down together, and he could not bring himself to simply sit idle whilst the others were in potential danger.
Bolt found it intriguing how half of what made up Fluorite were the same simple green faceted triangles, peridots if he had to guess. Two of them were nearly identical and seemed to be of similar quality to eachother while the third seemed to be some amount more dimly coloured than the rest, likely small hints at the conditions they were grown under.
While he had little idea about the identity of the one normally located on her abdomen, he could see that it was a yellow hued object about the shape of a rhombus diamond. However that was likely only a passing resemblance and not telling of their true identity as he had been told there have only been four of their kind to ever exist, and three as of a few millennia ago. He wished that number would fall lower though, a lot lower.
He recognised the next one far more easily, it was a pearl, and its near perfectly spherical shape combined with the uniform iridescent glow that highlighted the whole object was testament to the meticulous care which was likely involved in her manufacturing. He assumed that they were probably crafted originally to be a gift that was destined to become the prized possession of some especially high ranking noble in the diamonds' courts.
Finally came the stone which, even after the third time seeing it, was still by far the most surprising for him to see present amongst the others. From above it looked to be circular in shape, it had a triangle in the middle from which three facets radiated out of, and despite the dark cavern atmosphere it managed to shine a brilliant blue. There was little doubt then that this was a member of the aristocratic class of gems, and an incredibly well formed one at that.
It was a sapphire, the rare seers of the blue court whose enigmatic powers allowed them to peer into the flow of time and see the future. Bolt briefly wondered about the story they must have to tell, to be able to hear how someone like them could have fallen so far from grace. And though he wouldn't press them to tell it if they didn't want to, whether they were laid low through plots and schemes or some other factor, he had a feeling that it would be interesting to listen to either way.
'However, that can wait for later.' The thought passed through his mind as he looked forwards and set his feet and hands down on the floor to push himself up, the now mostly healed skinned soles and his palms scraping on the ground as he did. In contrast to the well restored, though calloused flesh of those parts, were his long list of other wounds, his thighs for one had long twisting scars from where Holly Blue's electric whip wrapped around him. Then came one of his hands, which now had a series of dents created by bite marks ringing the middle, that combined along with the permanent hole in his teeth as a result of a broken incisor made up a set of visible mementos - given to him free of charge by courtesy of Jasper.
Numerous as his injuries were, they did little to stop him from trying to find the others. With that in mind he picked up the gems back into his arms before walking out of the exit hole to continue the journey, now satisfied that unlike him none of them had sustained any harm. As he walked out of it he began to do a solid jog - just fast enough to cover more distance, but not too fast as to risk dropping his precious cargo.
Suddenly he was forced to halt as two of the gemstones, those of the pearl and the sapphire, began to float upwards one after the other out of the pile. Bolt's attention was immediately stolen away by the event as he quickly understood what was about to happen and he backed off a few steps from the two to give them some space to reform. Unshaped light started to emanate from each of them before it hit some invisible margins and coalesced into the shapes of two people.
The pink light from the spherical gemstone then solidified into a lithe and tall form that landed hunched over on the ground. The main part of her appearance modifiers was a pinkish-purple coloured leotard that was slightly darker than the shade of the same colour that painted what could be classed as her skin. Then came the secondary part of her attire, which was a short translucent dress surrounding her waist that was coupled with a pair of low heeled shoes, each of which were nearly as iridescent as her gemstone. Last of all was her light pink hair that was set in a neat braid which dangled from side to side over her shoulder while she looked around to orient herself.
The smaller form of the sapphire regenerated next, landing opposite from the area where the pearl was searching. They had on a courtly dress which was a mix of white and differing shades of blue, with the lighter colours making up the different sections of the top and a gradually darkening cascade of shades making up each frilly layer of the full length skirt. Though her light blue hair may have covered much of the top half of her face, Bolt could see the bottom part of her gemstone poking out through the long fringe in place of where a singular large eye should have been.
Expectedly, both of them forgoed generating any symbol related to the diamonds or the Empire anywhere on their forms, but what Bolt most definitely did not expect was that they independently decided to paste one of the symbols on his gestation pod somewhere on their new physical forms, more specifically the symbol of the sharp mouthed creature with lightning streaking out of it. Half unbelieving it he did a double take by looking down at his chest to see the side of the pod which had the symbol on it and then looked back up at the two. Faded as the one painted on his makeshift armour plating was, he could still confirm with high certainty that they matched.
The pearl generated it directly on her body, just below her neck but also just above where the gemstone located on what would have been the middle of her sternum had she been a human, while the sapphire had done it on the side of her dress' left puffy shoulder pad. Bolt had little idea of why they did so, though perhaps it was a sign of solidarity? Maybe it was simply an act of defiance to their previous allegiances by taking up a different banner? Either way, he recognised how out of place the solid black symbol looked when compared to their otherwise bright colour palettes, but that only served to highlight its presence even further.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Sapphire anxiously said as she stood back up, their poofing at the hand of Holly Blue Agate still not far removed from their recent memory. It seemed that their gemstone's positioning may have had an effect on their vision, as she appeared to begin wandering with her hands held out to feel her way around.
"Sapphire!" Iridescent Pearl instantly called out to them before Bolt was able to even open his mouth to respond. In turn, the directionless blue gem rapidly twisted their body to face the area from where the voice had come from. Pearl ran towards Sapphire, smiling in joy after seeing that they were alive and the moment she neared she kneeled down to face level and swept Sapphire's fringe aside with her right hand to gently caress her gemstone, making sure that it was free of any cracks.
"Pearl, please stop worrying about it, I'm fine." She calmly replied with a quiet giggle shortly following her statement. Sapphire's own gloved hands moved to smoothly take their hand off of her face and into her own grasp instead, making Pearl look awkwardly upwards away from Sapphire as she became ever so slightly flustered at the act. But the minute vibrations coming from the movement could be felt by Sapphire, eliciting her to giggle for a second time at Pearl's expense.
"Well, what are we waiting for!" Pearl quickly shouted out in an attempt to switch the topic, wanting to cut the nigh endless cycle of teasing that she knew would come next if she didn't. Her right hand slid out of Sapphire's grasp and joined with her left hand to slide under the aristocrat's shoulders to lift her up, causing the far shorter gem to momentarily exclaim in surprise as she was swiftly hoisted off the floor in preparation to fuse.
"Why are you in such a rush, Iri?" Sapphire said coyly with a knowing smile as she peered into the near future while making Pearl shrink back at the mere mention of her nickname in the present.
"Hello? Am I interrupting anything?" Bolt said innocently with a wave as he walked up to the pair, deciding to try to add himself to the conversation at the worst time, his young mind not being privy to the context of what was proceeding in front of him. Pearl's head snapped to his direction, and when she caught sight of him she felt both relieved and increasingly flustered by his presence - relieved that he was alive and had saved the other four components of Fluorite, but flustered at the fact that there had been an audience to Sapphire's antics the whole time.
"OH! NO, it's, uh, it's nothing. We're just… catching up!" Pearl said hastily with a nervous dismissive laugh, struggling to formulate a reply. "Sapphy, why do you do this to me?" She whispered to the blue gem when she turned away from Bolt to face her again. Their cheeky smile failed to falter, if anything it only grew wider as they struggled to hold onto a raucous laugh of her own in a merciful act of sparing Pearl any further embarrassment.
"Fine, fine. Just put me down and-" She stopped speaking for a moment to let out a small snicker. "We can get this over with." She finished. Pearl eyed Sapphire skeptically for a moment, wondering if she would use this opportunity to carry on with her charades, but she eventually found some faith within herself to set them down on the ground.
Thankfully it seemed that faith was not unfounded as Sapphire soon offered her hands up to her far taller partner, who now let out a grateful sigh. Pearl did a small pirouette before arching down to accept the gesture and initiate their fusion dance at last. After that Pearl stood back up, her slender arms allowing her to still hold onto Sapphire's own. The pair then made a few graceful steps back and forth, speeding up with each set completed until on the fifth set Sapphire broke one hand off and spun away, turning around opposite to Pearl. As she stopped her spare hand poised dramatically on her forehead with the palm flecked upwards.
Pearl was tempted to playfully roll her eyes at the noble's showy display, but she elected to continue the dance without complaint by pulling Sapphire back in, grabbing hold of her other hand as they returned followed by the pair doing another five sets of steps back and forth. Pearl then let go of one hand and did her own spin around, though on her go she landed on the other side with her back arched downwards and one arm splayed outwards with an elegant flair.
Sapphire smirked at the performance before pulling her back in, though when it came time to reign her back she pulled Pearl much closer, to the point that they were curved so far down that their faces were nearly touching. At this Pearl summoned the confidence to lean in further to finish the dance in style by planting a kiss on Sapphire... only to stumble as she lost her balance and received a mouthful of hair when she unceremoniously face-planted into her long fringe, toppling the previously composed duo over.
As Pearl's face lit up in humiliation any and all pretence of Sapphire upholding the courtly manners she once adhered to disappeared when she erupted in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. But only seconds later Pearl joined in too, seeing how humorous the situation was as well, slowly building up from a hushed chuckles until she was guffawing the same volume as Sapphire.
Now that harmony between their mental states had been achieved, albeit in a rather unusual way, their forms began to glow, heralding the breakdown back into two amorphous blobs of light that then blended together into a singular purely light purple gemoid shaped projection before solidifying into a being composed of a more varied palette of the same colour.
The gemstones embedded on the fusion too had changed, now taking up a purple dominated iridescence as opposed to Sapphire's deep blue and Pearl's mainly pink iridescence. The resulting being was still lying on the floor, finishing up her last few snickers as she stood up and started to stretch themselves in an attempt to throw off the exhaustion of being trapped within her stones for so long.
Her head tilted upwards as her upper pair of hands clasped eachother around the back of her neck and her smaller lower pair wrapped cupped the middle of her back. A few audible pops and cracks could be heard as she all of a sudden bent her whole upper torso backwards into her locked hands. Now that was done the fusion then rectified her posture and turned her attention to Bolt, who had been standing there in content silence for quite some time now, likely out of a wish to be polite and wait his turn to speak whilst her two components were busy getting back together.
Now face to face with them Bolt could see what the new, at least new to him, fusion looked like. They had powdery purple hair, which looked to have changed into a style like that of Fluorite's, with the fringe now higher up so that the gem on her forehead was fully uncovered. Meanwhile the rest of their head was overall more similar to Pearl's, with gently rounded features contrasted by the prominent sharp nose. Now that he thought of it, their nose half reminded him of the creature present on the symbol he was named after.
Their body's complexion also inherited the paleness of a pearl, with a muted purple making it up. On the other hand their arms looked to have had little mixing of features aside from a change in colouration, for they stayed independent. With Sapphire's arms - distinguished by the pair of long white gloves going halfway up the forearm - being found in the usual spot, and Pearl's - located on the middle of the abdomen at the sides - making up the lower pair. Each of them were appropriately enlarged to be in proportion with her increased size.
In terms of what they decided to generate for their appearance modifiers, the top part of the outfit resembled Pearl's leotard combined with shoulder padding coming from the attire of Sapphire while what once was Sapphire's skirt became the bottom half of the dress, though this time the various blues had switched to the corresponding shades of mildly iridescent purples and it only reached down to her knees as opposed to all the way to the ground.
As he looked up to their shoulders pads it seemed that they had also decided on keeping only one of the symbols made by their base parts, that being Pearl's one placed at the same location in between the bottom of her neck and middle of her sternum. Bolt found this decision of theirs to be quite sound, as it felt a tad redundant to plaster the same symbol elsewhere when it was already placed on a conspicuous position.
"I am Purple Ammolite, or simply Ammolite for short." She introduced herself as she squatted down to eye level with the boy. Being a fusion of two meant she had some extra size her constituent parts didn't, and though not enough to be classed as truly gigantic, standing at roughly eleven feet tall meant that she still quite handily towered over him when she stood up at full height.
"What should I call y-" Bolt cut himself off as he realised that the fusion had answered his question before it had even left his mouth. Ammolite smiled as she responded to the confused yet amused emotion he now expressed by tapping on the gem embedded on her forehead, causing his face to instantly shift into toughened contemplation. Though she knew what he would ask next, she decided in this case it would be more appropriate to let him finish his sentence.
"Are you able to use your future vision to find where the others have gone?" He asked her, the restrained hope welling up in his eyes tugging at her to answer with haste. Ammolite stood in silence for a time as she closed her eyes and let her precognition do its work, the flow of fate now as clear to her as the long forgotten daylight of the planet's surface.
Her vision travelled through to the end of a hundred streams every second, and by the time she opened her eyes again thousands of conclusions were already catalogued - whether they were good or bad and the probability of them occurring being made known to her. Blessedly, the positive outcomes were far more numerous and likely to come to pass than the negative ones.
"They are… far, but not unreachable. If you follow my lead we can go to where they will be and wait for them there." Ammolite assured him by mentioning the most probable future she had seen. Though she may have seen a number of unfavourable outcomes, she decided on withholding them so as to not dampen the child's already low spirits.
"But, can you be sure the others will be safe from the robonoids? Or if we can even arrive there on time before they move further on?" He asked her, still holding onto his worries despite receiving a prediction of the future.
In response Ammolite said nothing and instead gave him a small kiss on the forehead, a number of sparkling particles being emitted by the act. Bolt's eyes opened wide and his pupils slightly dilated as he felt his point of view being torn from his body then flung through the kindergartens at all speed, rocky walls and pillars appeared as quickly as they disappeared each time he flew, ran down a ramp or made a turn as he was sent a miles down into the planet's crust within a fraction of a second. Despite having travelled that far, he spotted not a single robonoid swarm in the way, which did some work to put his mind at ease.
Eventually the vision reached its destination. It revealed to him Hydrazine, still fused together and standing triumphant over the giant amethyst fusion with a boulder poised over her heads, ready to drop it onto the enemy and end their prolonged duel. The battlefield the duo of giants had fought in was littered with craters, rubble and axe marks, yet it seemed that all of Hydrazine's gemstones were still in mint condition. The vision ended there, leaving him to rapidly blink his eyes and shake his head while processing what he had just seen.
"So, how do you feel now?" Ammolite asked him.
"Tired." Bolt replied with a yawn. "Though, thank you for showing me that." He added, sounding grateful for being given hard to deny evidence that the others were safe.
"Do you want to go into your rest cycle then?" She offered him.
"Yes please." He readily accepted with a lazy nod. The catalapsean node may have been a powerful modification to stave off sleep for days, even weeks at a time, but it too had its limits. Though if Bolt was being honest he could probably have gone on for a good time longer with minimal consequence to his health, but this was a chance to spend some time with someone who he technically had never seen before, and Ammolite did seem to possess quite a likeable disposition. Even then, the previous cluster of events had left him feeling worn down and now looked to be a good opportunity to recuperate.
"Allow me to take those off of you first." She said, looking at the gemstones jumbling around in his arms. He complied without a word, knowing just how important they were to Ammolite, who then took the four rocks from him and cradled them in her lower pair of arms. With the transaction done she placed her upper pair of hands on her lower back, palms facing upwards to act as steps for Bolt. He then walked behind her, clambered upwards then sat on her shoulders, his legs fitting neatly around her neck
Bolt soon laid his face with his right cheek down on Ammolite's soft hair with the intent of using it like a pillow, the small amount of baby fat left on him made to gently smush up into his eyelid. All the while his arms went forwards to hug her forehead as to cling onto her when she stood up from her half-squat, turned around to face the right direction and began to walk. Her size combined with her willowy form meant that her strides were long, making it so she was making good distance with each step.
"Ammolite?" He said, getting her attention. "If you have future vision, do any other fusions with a Sapphire included within them receive the ability as well?" He queried.
"Perhaps, though I believe it may only be true if they are made of two gems. I find that any more, and it is diluted beyond any usefulness. Even for me it's already weakened, I can only see relatively short-term futures while Sapphire on her own can see things that stretch for potentially millennia in the future with exceeding accuracy." Ammolite answered as concisely as she could.
"...I know that it is unlikely that the others will be attacked by robonoids and that they have defeated the amethysts. But what of different threats, like more Homeworld gems looking for them, or something less predictable like falling debris? Has your future vision shown you anything related to that?" He asked her another question after only a few seconds of silence, his stress about the rest of the off colours' wellbeing still keeping him awake.
"Bolt, please try to not think about it so much. Though yes, in a small number of my visions I did see those events happen, but just because I have seen it does not mean it actually will occur." Ammolite said in an attempt to comfort him. "If it will help ease you into your rest cycle, then would you like to hear another story?" She then suggested, knowing just how much he enjoyed those.
"Of course!" He replied enthusiastically, making Ammolite chuckle as she realised the ironic situation that she had just caused. Now he was unlikely to fall asleep easily, not because of worry, but because of excitement.
"How did Sapphire and Pearl meet, and how was it like when they first fused to become you?" He asked her, jumping at the opportunity to sate his curiousity. "You do not have to tell me if it is a sore talking point though." He added upon seeing the prolonged silence coming from her.
"No, it's alright, what happened is all in the past now." She told him, a hint of dejection present in her tone. However Ammolite quickly moved through it, her components' falls from grace were well healed wounds and she had no intention of letting them open up again. She used her pearl half's abilities to create a group of three dimensional holographic projections that continually moved in front of her as she walked. There, it then began to replay her memories to bring accompanying imagery and sound to her tale. Or in the case of Sapphire's memories, only the sound.
"It all began in the dusk of Era 1 and the war on Earth had been raging on for nearly a millennium. In the chaos of it all a lone Pearl sat on a ship that was on its way back to the Empire, for with the death of Pink Diamond the emergency evacuation of the planet had been ordered with all urgency by the other Diamonds. Her original owner, a Pyrope, had been slain in the line of duty about an Earth cycle earlier and without them to vouch for her, her fate was uncertain."
"Under all of these grand events, a Sapphire emerged into the universe for the first time within the prime kindergarten of one of Blue Diamond's colonies. Because of how rare and valuable her kind were, the event was met with some fanfare from the colonies' inhabitants. Her gem shone for the first for all to see when the daytime light of the system's star struck it as she walked out, but at that moment the adulation of the crowd stopped, for there was a problem - she herself could not."
A/N:
Credits go out to AJ Universe on YT since their theory video was the basis for the inclusion of a blind Sapphire, a Pearl and the three Peridots as the parts of Fluorite in this fic.