?
"Y- we have been... captured?"
The clone of Pearl looked on, the peaceful pink sky of the dimension contrasting with the roiling storm that was tempestuously churning her thoughts. "Yes," Choking on her words, she halted for a second, "we have." She said simply, unable to speak any further as a hundred other worries swamped her mind.
Turning away from her he said nothing else, not wanting to upset her any further. Yet, his hand remained on her shoulder as they sat on the blank floor, both of them sitting with their legs close to their chest as a sense of solemness permeated the arid, empty air.
A long period of silence passed once more before anyone spoke again. "I- I don't know what to do." She said, her voice teetering off into buffeted whispers.
Lowering his head to the side, he looked at her. "Escape is… always an option." The words were light, with little weight to them, as they lacked any real seriousness backing them and served only as a bare flotsam of comfort in the storm of anguish's seas.
But it seemed that she took it another way, for her the grip of fears faltered and her tears were wiped away. "You know what, why not." She waved him on. "And besides, if we're going to... die, then we mustn't flicker in futility." She added, sounding tired, but not quite empty.
Pearl did not know whether it was desperation or inspiration that drove her to this, but either way, it was better than the alternative.
After all, the reality Zircon had delivered to her was still fresh in her memory. The civil courts, or more fittingly, the mockeries of justice they had become, was certainly not somewhere she wanted anyone she knew to be sent. She would take any opportunity to shield them from its corrupted sight, even if the risks carried by breaking out were mortal. Death had the potential to come either way, but sitting in a cell as she awaited to appear for what amounted to little more than a dramatised show that would end in a guaranteed execution was less than degrading - even after comparing it to everything else she had ever been put through.
At the very least, this way they had a marginally better chance.
Unable to think of what to say after he heard her reply, through his grave sobriety he appeared both dejected and dumbstruck as he opened and closed his mouth without a sound escaping his lips, especially after hearing his own words, even if only a single line, echoed back at him - and by none other than Pearl. Caring as Rhodonite in her entirety was, her version of protectiveness often spiralled into timidity as she would go to great lengths into making sure she and those around her avoided anything and anywhere she felt danger lurked.
Once, though he would never say it aloud, he found such behaviour as overbearing or limiting. But now, after he had time to see past the romanticism of rebellion, he instead viewed the clear consequences of his actions. Reflecting on that decisive day, a strong understanding set in that - when he said those things - he was deeply drunk on bravado and should not have been taken seriously. Not in the slightest.
And yet here she was, originally one of the most ardent against him when he tried to make his stand against the robonoids, now espousing for him to make a stand again. He wanted to oppose her, to make penance and show that he had learnt from what he believed was his greatest mistake. A mistake that had nearly seen all of them shattered.
But as he opened his mouth again for confirmation, disbelieving what he had heard, she chucked the other pickaxe his way, a look of grim determination emerging on her features as he caught it with the hand that once lay on her shoulder. "Do it, for all of us."
Any protest from him was silenced at the single phrase.
Feeling it cut his own hearts, he could only imagine the slow hollowing of the rest of the off colours' own souls with each day which passed where they did not return. As he emulated their potential thoughts and emotions, it quickly became a fate he would not wish on anyone - for their loved ones to disappear without so much as a single whispered word in farewell, nor a lone rumour confirming their fate so they could at last gain closure and grieve.
As his body again began to convert into light, he quickly donned the helmet by his side and took up his own pickaxe, giving her an equally grim nod as he was about to depart. "I will." He said, resolute.
Even if he did feel apprehension in welling up from deep within his bones, he was unwilling to show it on the surface, not now. He feared, yes, though not for himself, but for the others back home. Month after month, year after year, every moment of which being spent holding onto a fading kernel of hope before they gathered the exhausting willpower to at last exchange it for the rough, heavy rock of acceptance.
And then even after enduring so much of that agonising waiting, their ordeal would not yet be over, for eons of mourning would soon follow.
'Its limbs look deformed, they're too small for efficient use.' The moment anyone first showed true caring for him as a person, and not just for metrics surrounding him such as 'rate of growth' and 'organ development' that the blurry, white coat clad figures from… wherever he was before fussed over day in and day out.
'I think it's a lovely name…' The moment he was given a real identity; something beyond just a large clump of cells floating in a numbered tank.
'Yes, yes I think- no, I'm sure he is.' The moment someone first forgave him, showing that their care really did run far deeper than what he believed before.
Blinking hard and taking a deep breath, he dissipated the millions of thoughts racing through his mind. Tracing it back far enough, he knew his one moment of undisciplined boasting had led to this, and now was the time to follow it through and to see it to the end. Whether it would lead to the light of freedom or the darkness of a final death he did not know, but if worse came to worse, then as his eyes closed for the final time and his consciousness faded, he could die knowing he had given it everything. To save them.
With that final unspoken pledge, his vision was clouded by endless brightness, and he returned to realspace once more.
"I know this is going to be dangerous…" Her voice, almost ethereal as his senses degraded into nothing but light, called out to him one more time, "but please, stay safe out there…"
#####
City-17, Prison S-21, Cellblock 02-21
Coalescing back into a solid mass and landing on the floor as deftly as he could, Bolt began working his betcher's gland, building a large reserve of acid that started sloshing in his mouth that left a distinct taste, and even managing to slightly irritate the nerves through his gene-forged flesh as time passed. At first, he was facing Pearl, watching as she looked at him intently in return as she wondered why he had so far done nothing.
But she held her breath as did he. And after giving her an opened and raised palm in placation, he looked around the cell, taking in hushed gulps of icy air through his nose and feeling the lifeless, cold blue material that made up the flat, undecorated walls while looking at the transparent cerulean field of energy that trapped them within. All done in the search for any more information to help their escape.
For a moment, much to the weary-eyed protests of Pearl as she realised what he was about to attempt, he walked over to the field and let a single finger pass through it for barely a nanosecond before bringing it back in. That was all the time he needed, as with his improved cognizance he instantly recognised that, despite the same sickly lines appearing on his hand - the glow intense enough that it could be seen through the black inner layer of the armour - he felt no other harm come to his body.
Now that a minute had passed, he lifted the helmet's visor and pressed his slightly opened mouth at the left side of the cell and began letting it spill out as he tiptoed a dozen or so centimeters either side. As the metal fizzed and bubbled in the acid's wake, he only hoped the ambient whining of the destabilisation fields blocking every door drowned it out - or at least made it so any guards listening would dismiss it as a figment of their bored imagination.
'No alarms yet.' He thought as the dark bubbling liquid that once was wall sloughed off, revealing another prisoner within the neighbouring cell that was immediately startled by the sight of him.
Quickly, he raised an open palm as he balanced the pick in a curled thumb, slowly lowering it in a gesture that the cracked ruby would hopefully recognise as meaning peace. Despite his heavily armed state and her provenance likely being from the slums, she seemingly understood that it would be in her best interests to not question the powers of the mysterious figure standing in front of her and to set aside the divisions between them. For now, at least.
As such, she merely nodded and turned forwards again to do what little she could to not bring any attention to the gaping hole in the wall. Releasing a breath that caught in his throat, he made silent thanks to the ruby in return then readying to repeat the same process on the other side.
Satisfied as he was that it worked, his mood immediately dimmed when he turned around he saw Pearl staring - though in his direction, not at him directly - her face growing ill and distant as she put a clenched fist at her mouth. On sighting the ruby, she took an audibly shuddered breath as she forced herself to turn back around, every moment of which was filled with pained and visible strain as an aching longing for her other half left her near the verge of sombre tears.
And yet she refused to let them spill into a stream of sorrow, for that would have been tantamount to despairing.
As he saw her sitting there in misery, head half buried within knees that were packed tight against her chest and her arms wrapped tight around them, his determination grew tenfold. At the same time though, she soon blinked hard, dissipating her building tears as she stood up and took to leaning in the corner, where she then took out the most substantial and tightly rolled piece of metal she had. When he continued to stare, curious at the move, her sole response was to meet his gaze before subtly jerking her head upwards, quietly pointing him to break down the other wall.
So without a second thought, he repeated the process, taking little heed of the nature of the person in the next cell. Even if they were likely an aristocrat from appearance, with their flowing robes and their unique twin tasseled hairstyle, he continued to placate them with the same palm gesture he showed the ruby before. Appraising as her expression towards him in return was, she made a single, almost insignificant nod, prompting him to nod in return and freeing him to continue his work on the rear wall to connect with another cell.
Yet, just behind him, Pearl barely held her own fire as she almost fell into a fit on seeing her other neighbour. If sorrow was what coursed through her body on her catching sight of the ruby, then in an instant, as though a solar flare had struck an ocean, nearly all of it evaporated as she locked glares with the other inmate, unbridled spite flooding into its place.
Contrasted by rosy cheeks, she recognised those professional, practically dead eyes anywhere; realising just who the individual was even before she saw their gemstone's position. 'M- M… MORGANITE!?' A mental wail surged through her psyche, her hands clenching tighter around the baton as she imagined herself gaining retribution against her former owner.
"Heh, looks like I'll be owing you lot something now… if we get out of this."
As he worked to tell the next gem to keep quiet, another slum dweller - this time an amethyst he certainly recognised - inside the cell that was back to back with theirs, he suppressed the mix of alacrity and alarm that he felt on sighting what lay beyond the destabilisation field on that side.
Doors.
Not another row of crackling energy fields to act as more silent sentinels aiding their incarceration, but real airlock doors in a row of three. Each was diamond-shaped - albeit with a quarter at the bottom cut off - and were three meters at their widest and two and a half tall, with each also being exactly two meters apart from eachother. In turn though, a wide hallway with possible cameras and garrisons lay in between them and possible escape as of yet.
"We're on the twenty first floor," Morganite intoned, her soft, almost melodic voice contrasted by her ghostly whispering as it echoed while she continued to look forwards, "escaping downwards will be… difficult to say the least."
While Pearl may have snubbed Morganite's advice, he, having no personal prejudice nor knowing who they were, did not. Instead pondering on their words as more caustic spit built up in his mouth as he wondered what course to take next.
Only for the choice to be made for him.
"Frack." A lone word left his lips as the middle door hissed open, revealing an amethyst with a destabiliser in one hand and a bubbled gemstone in the other.
He lept into action, practically phasing through the energy barrier and barely registering as a silver and black apparition as he closed the distance with terrifying speed. First colliding elbow first into them, then knocking them back through the door and crashing into the bannisters atop the stairwell behind it, sending chunks of material tumbling down the dizzying height of over twenty floors.
As he brought the pickaxe down on their neck and poofed them, alarms began to blare - the terrible, high pitched whining alerting every guard and official within the facility of what he had done. With his enhanced hearing, he immediately tuned out the noise and instead caught wind of the rapid march coming from below. Quiet as it was right now, he knew it would only be a matter of time before they reached him.
And so, with his twin hearts beating apace, he ran back to the 5JQ's cell and placed his body under the field, raising his arms level to his shoulders and wide like wings to block the field. While he gritted his teeth in defiance against the lambent blue energy coursing in circuits through his skin and body, the four gems within ran out from under him. Soon after, Pearl gave out more rolls of plating as befitting each of the escapees' sizes, even Morganite.
The former architect turned to Bolt, pointing to the azure and glassy pipes on the lining the roof and entering through the short pieces of wall atop the entrances of the cells, from where the energy was being projected from. "Break those, and we might actually have a chance to break free." She said, almost sounding as if it was an order; only for an apologetic grimace to appear on her face for but a second before it melted back into tired neutrality.
Acting on her words and desperate to turn the odds to their favour, he looked upwards, ignoring the tone she spoke in. Squatting, he coiled the muscles in his legs before leaping high into the air and smashing the crystalline blue pipes on the walls with a single, powerful strike of the pickaxe in his right hand.
Time seemed to slow to an excruciating crawl as the pick pierced through the veritable veins that kept the prison running, a thousand cracks spreading faster than the eye could see outwards from the point of impact. Then all at once, now uncontained power burst through the damage, a great explosion throwing scalding debris at his body and sending him flying back first onto the floor. But even as some of it struck and stuck to his exposed legs and abdomen, he flicked down the visor, despite only his mouth previously being exposed, and rose to his feet. Undeterred.
At once every prison cell in block 01-21 flickered and failed, releasing their awestruck inhabitants, with each one filled with a new fury or flurry as everybody scrambled in different directions to find escape. Some even fused together, either with the rare few forbidden unions or with the many condemned and cracked soldiers joining together to make rage-fuelled giants. Though only three or four gems could join together, limited by the hallway's size, each one's flickering form nonetheless was filled with a terrible resolve as anger and violence united their components, but simultaneously clouded their already addled thoughts.
As the first guards from the other blocks left their posts to come to 01-21, a cacophony of explosions rang out one after the other from the other cellblocks as other prisoners copied his example. All of this occurring while the floor was also being sundered in a bellowing beat that came from beneath each of the giants' steps. It was as though the most destructive orchestra was being played right before them - and they were both the audience and conductor.
The lone ruby joined a rapidly growing band of others of their type, wielding her roll of metal like a baton as they battled the guards. Meanwhile 5JQ, seeing Bolt's example, decided to go upstairs before those from above could swarm the place. Wielding another roll, courtesy of Pearl, of what once was her own scrap, she charged up the stairs to deliver the chaos happening down below up to the cells above.
Debts were something the shrewd side of her liked to avoid, and this was her way of paying it back, if not with merchandise, then with deeds.
"CONSIDER US EVEN, MUTIE!" A shout gathered his attention before the twang of metal heralded another staccato of explosions, in turn bringing the same devolving insanity and brutal melees from here up to the twenty second floor.
But his attention did not remain towards her for long. As a guard amethyst made a spin dash towards the group, seeking to run them down, he merely roared in return, deigning to use his pickaxes as he raised his foot, waiting for the precise moment to strike. Then, all in a barely a blink, moments as they were about to run him over he stamped an armoured boot on their head as they rotated into the exact position, sending the momentum they once used to travel forwards into the ground. The action cratered their landing spot, poofing them in an instant and leaving behind a purple dust cloud and a gemstone clattering on the floor below as it fell with their temporary demise.
"Search the upper floors for Ruby and Pery!" He shouted over the chaos, "I'll hold-" Pausing, he caught a blow from a destabiliser spear within one pick's head before bringing down the other to cave in the offending quartz's head, "-them BACK!"
His instructions were based on a gamble, and one that he was not confident they would win, at least not at first. There were troops in the upper floors as well, that much was simple fact, but what else was simple fact was that there were more floors below them, and thus more troops - even when the entrance at the bottom was discounted. And yet at the same time, less floors above meant the less chances they had that they would find the others there.
But that was the crucial crux the choice hung on, for there would be a small window between peak chaos within the prison and the arrival of reinforcements from elsewhere. If they could rapidly search the, relatively, safer upper floors now, the more time they could have to leap through that small window where it would be safer to go back downstairs.
Pearl easily nodded as she put away her improvised baton and took the spear that lay at his feet, only for her to glower before she ran upstairs as Morganite followed too. But her mouth kept pursed in spiteful silence, knowing that the middle of prison riot was not the place to argue against someone who had seemingly thrown themselves as an ally to their cause - if an unproven and untrusted one at that.
Praying for their safety, he faced forwards from the flat platform at the end of this set of stairs and took a deep breath as he heard the furious trampling of guards racing upwards. If numbers were not in his favour, then at least the layout of the area was, for there was but a single flat area for every floor from which one set of stairs ended and the other set began directly next to it that led to the next platform above - this pattern supposedly repeating for every floor.
Wide as the stairs were, three meters in all for each one, making each platform about six meters, if they wanted to engage him effectively without crashing into each other any time they tried to attack him, then they could only fight him three or four at a time. Dizzying odds for even an experienced warrior, especially after considering the sheer amount of outnumbered encounters he would have to fight to make a dent in their numbers.
But he needed no experience, as little did he know, he was made from birth to be sent into battle. He had all the physical, and especially, mental, edits that came along with it. For better or for worse.
Fear for the wellbeing of others he had aplenty - but fear for himself? None.
'Fools…' A single, pity-filled thought entered his mind as he faced down his fellow engineered soldiers, each of them wielding destabiliser spears that he knew full well would have little to no effect on him.
As the first one charged towards him - and unaware of his identity under the black and silver suit - they aimed a crackling spear at his unarmoured abdomen with the expressed intent on their face to gut him.
In response he ducked low, understanding that any blood drawn would quickly expose him, before then melding that into a single fluid movement as he made a sweeping strike of his pickaxe into the side of their leg, the weapon burying its almost half of its sharpened head into the limb and eliciting a sharp, angered cry from the unfortunate quartz. But he did his best to ignore their anguish as he savagely yanked it straight backwards while he jolted back up to his full height, sending them off balance and forcing them to land back first onto the floor.
As they hung upside down from the pickaxe still stuck in their leg, he spotted the gemstone on their back, and so with a whispered apology, he brought an underhanded strike of the other pickaxe to break them. And as their life was shattered, their shards clattered onto the floor as their body turned to dust, hazing the battlefield with a macabre cloud.
With their comrade behind momentarily startled, he took advantage of their fatal moment of confusion. Using their fallen squadmate's death cloud as a temporary smoke screen, he left his strong position atop the platform for a scant second to lunge forwards, swinging his left pickaxe sideways into the gemstone on their cheek, shattering them in a blink and causing them to blow up in yet another explosion of sparkling powder.
Muttering another regretful apology to the next set of shards that now lay at his feet, he hopped back to position and assumed a slightly crouched defensive position with his legs somewhat apart. A trio of challengers came at him this time, heralded by their spears piercing through the fog of war before they themselves broke past it.
Reacting faster than most could even think, he hopped backwards again, leaving their stabs to hang in the air. Then without a single delay, he cut their spears down before they could retract them, breaking off the electrified tips and leaving them even more useless in hurting him than before.
At once, they threw down the weapons as they realised what had occured, their gemstones soon glowing as they summoned their in-built arsenal in an attempt to continue their offensive.
Attempted.
As he saw the gemstones glow and their hands move to them, he hammered a pickaxe into the middle one's arm at the elbow before yanking them towards him as he then met them midway with a headbutt. Though the sheer force of impact cracked the glassy visor of the helmet, the effect on them was far more severe, for he had cracked the gemstone on their forehead, causing them to glitch and buzz. In a final act of sonder-filled mercy, he retracted his head before then swinging the other pick down to crush what remained of their stone, killing them in an instant.
Each random quartz here was a person like him. They had their own lives, their own thoughts, their own memories and it saddened him that they were on opposite sides - that he had to end their lives else they would end his own then Ruby, Pearl and Pery's after. Perhaps in time he could do more than this and truly help them become more than indoctrinated cannon-fodder. But, as of now, there was nothing. So with heavy hearts, he took up position once more and stared down the rest.
In the meantime the other two on the sides had completed their summoning, and fuelled by a thirst to avenge their dead, they flanked him with their battleaxes in a concerted strike aimed not to kill, but to delay as they waited for another of their number with a working destabiliser spear to arrive, believing that they could at last recontain the defiant non-standard 'quartz' that stood in their way.
The one on the left parried his strike on the flat end of their own axe, the surface angled so steeply so that his blow merely ricocheted off of it instead of being buried. Then at the same time, the one on the right gave him no room to breath as they tried to decapitate his pickaxe with a sideways swing of their broadsword.
In rapid succession, he took three long steps back before their attack could connect with his weapon, time then slowing down from his perspective as superconductive nerves kicked into full drive and gave him a few precious extra moments to create a plan of action. A third amethyst had already come to replace the one he shattered - fresh destabiliser spear in hand - to complicate matters further. Though it also seemed that the two still carried on with their advance, albeit clumped tighter together and with their weapons held in both hands over their torso in defence.
All of it, he guessed, was in an effort to maximise the chances of the rapidly approaching third quartz. The position they took meant they were ready to commit to a delaying action if he struck first, or if he waited, then to distract him once their comrade arrived so they could deal what they believed would be a final, decisive defeat. Despite the fact that a destabiliser would have no effect on him, he also knew being hit on the exposed parts of his skin, even if it would draw no blood, would still alert them to what he really was once his body did not break apart and explode on contact.
Faced with a tough decision, he came to a conclusion. Either way the risks of being struck were great, but this way he would settle the battle on his own terms. So he played a bluff, pretending to lose all of his previous stalwart determination and quaking in his boots before turning around and taking four purposely flighty steps to the side, his body arching forwards as if he was about to break out into a run.
The desired effect was immediate, and their previous solid strides towards him were replaced by swifter, though less stable sprinting. With this tiny opportunity, he hopped back down from the first step up and landed facing them, arms then splayed wide as he charged towards them instead. As his arms made contact with their legs, they shut tight around one leg each, wrapped around their knees as he swept them off of their feet and continued to charge forwards, further knocking them into the quartz behind who had just got up.
Their screams were immediate, with the twin tips of their comrade's spear now impaling each of their heads as they fell on it, sending sickly blue lines across their bodies before they broke apart in what was perhaps one among countless explosions he would be witness to this day. Bursting from the cloud, still in a crouched run, he pitied the third quartz's expression of instant regret.
'Friendly' fire was such an innocent-sounding euphemism for such an ugly thing, more so when being the one who, in part, perpetrated it. But he steeled his hearts as he continued the tackle, this time with both of his arms free to fully wrap around both of their legs. And as his arms, pickaxes still precariously in hand, wrapped around their legs, he rose up and began to spin, whereupon five rotations he let go of them, sending them flying into the coming reinforcements and striking a number of them down.
Though most only fell in front of the advancing troops, delaying their advance, some were speared again or accidentally speared their allies as they had no time to think where to point their weapons while they were flying in the air.
Visibly enraged by their squadmates being so far beaten back by what they saw as a cowardly, cheating aberrant, yet also not being blinded by it, the rest that approached saw clearly the futility of charging down the strange figure one by one. And so the more rigorously trained prison guards wordlessly organised into a tight phalanx of five people wide, barely able to fit on the stairs. But with the organisation of the formation, the prospect of jostling around in a chaotic melee needed not be a worry anymore.
The first two rows had their spears pointed forwards, the second row being positioned such that they could fit theirs in between the tops of the front's shoulders. Meanwhile the rapidly growing rows behind had their spears up high, raised at a fourty-five degree angle, thus leaving a clean medium where any feats of acrobatics were rendered useless while at the same time allowing them to quickly lower their spears should the line ahead somehow fall.
Slow as it made their advance, though much to his own frustration, it wholly prevented him from spreading the anarchy downstairs. With so many arrayed against him in such a way, head to head confrontation was less than useless in what it would achieve.
So he avoided it instead.
He knelt down and began to mine the step in front of him, each mighty hit cracking the material and causing the very structure to quake. His arms moved with unnatural speed, registering as little more than a half bronze half silver mirage as sixteen strikes were dealt in rapid succession. Then on the seventeenth, before anyone in the phalanx in front of him could react, much less break formation to go after him, the section of stairwell collapsed from beneath his feet and he had to jump back to not be taken with it.
As he ran upstairs to rendezvous with the Pearl and the unknown pink court aristocrat who chose to accompany her, he heard chunks of masonry impacting the ground, breaking up and catching a number of people below on the ensuing slide of debris. Even the distinct eerie, echoing rings of poofing and shattering were present, for a few unfortunate souls were crushed by the falling rubble.
He only hoped it was a painless death for them, and that none of those hit on their gems were left cracked.
After all, he had seen first hand what fate was left for those that were.
#####
Cellblock 01-24
Ten cellblocks for every stars-damned floor.
Twenty entire blocks they had already searched after floor twenty two and three, then soon to be thirty after here, and yet…
"Ruby? Ruby!" Pearl cried out her name the moment she got up the stairs and entered the hallway ahead of the first cellblock.
None of them were to be found.
"Pery?" She called out again.
Not a single one.
"If we do not find them here..." Morganite said gravely, "then that only leaves the lower floors."
Their pessimism seemed to open a crack in Pearl's nerves, which were already frayed by innumerable factors - chief among them being their mere presence, Ruby's continued absence and the carnage occurring all around them. "Why are you even here then! What do you, you upper crust piece of shale, care about some defects!?" She snapped, contempt lacing her every word while an undertone of waning hope could be felt too.
Morganite nearly seemed offended by the accusation, but millennia of courtly life - and other work - had honed her emotional control to a fine point. So with nothing but a deep sigh, she replied. "Have you ever once stopped, even for a moment, to consider that I am in this prison with you, or the reasons why?"
"Because of some power play gone wrong probably." She scoffed.
"No," She said with hidden resentment before she went off ahead without warning, almost as if to challenge Pearl's resolve to stop arguing and carry on the search, "and never compare me to them." She whispered afterwards.
Pearl clenched her teeth to bite down on a retort that was about to escape her lips and followed Morganite around the corner, then turning left again to enter the top end of the next cellblock. Immediately, she cursed them as she saw that Morganite had already come face to face with an amethyst.
And not one of the escapees either.
They were stuck, blocking the assailant's spear by holding her makeshift baton sideways as it was stuck in between the two speartips of their opponent's weapon.
"Help… me." She muttered, practically meek as she was slowly pushed back with her baton bending further inwards against every shove forwards the quartz made.
Knowing she could not let their life go to waste, no matter how much she wanted to see their shards clattering on the floor in retribution, Pearl tried to strike the quartz. But as her spear descended on their legs, the quartz's free hand shot out to her, ripping the spear from her grasp and almost beating her over the head with it had she not cartwheeled sideways, practically out of instinct, into an empty prison cell before the blow could fall.
"Hey, granitehead! TAKE THIS!" A warcry bellowed from behind.
Mere moments later a deep thud could be heard coming from the quartz's back, indicating a harsh impact of something colliding and sticking onto them. Then, before they could even try to swat away the new threat, a single, echoing, and otherwise beautiful high note rang out across the hallways as a square-headed knife was plunged and twisted into the gemstone atop their shoulder, shattering them into two.
From the dispersing purple dust, besides the fallen spear, a lone figure groaned as they sat back up. At once, Pearl crept out of the cell and found the will to push out a lone word, no, a name, that had been stuck in her mind for what felt like an eternity. "Ruby..?"
As she ran towards them, dagger dissipating and arms wide, ready for an embrace. "Oh thank stars! Pearl, you're…" Ruby's steps stuttered to a sudden halt as her gaze instantly shifted from relief to rage and confusion within the span of a single second. "YOU!?" She exclaimed, smoke rising from her feet as she entered a renewed, spiteful stride.
"Stop this foolishness, there are more impor-"
"No. Give me ONE reason why I shouldn't pummel you right now!" She interrupted, her fury having reached such levels that she was now leaving scorch marks on the floor at an alarming pace as her pace sped up.
Morganite took a step back before gripping her ramshackle baton with both hands, ready to defend herself. But the moment she displayed the gesture, Pearl's arms snapped into position, the crackling sound signifying she had picked up another spear and now bore it down a scant fraction of an inch from the side of their head. Though aside from recently she had never held a real weapon in her life, the robonoid she rode on notwithstanding, she seemed to have true killer intent behind the action.
Sighing again, she spoke, "For the last time, I am not here to fight you- either of you," loosening her grip around the roll of metal as she did, "berate me all you want, but save it for when our lives aren't at stake.
Seeing her logic, yet unwilling to back down so easily, the former guard slowed her speed and clenched her fists as she looked to Pearl for a consensus.
And she did find one, but not in her favour, at least not on the surface.
Lowering the spear slowly as a sign of mutual, if still tense, understanding, Pearl acted as an intermediary between the two. "As much as I hate to say it… she's right." She said, spirits dim as she was forced to acknowledge her former owner as right and her other half as wrong. However, her face soon lit up with a determined grin as she offered her spare hand. "Now come on, let's do this - for them."
Though she initially stuttered for a response to the first half of her statement, Ruby could not deny the truth in the next part. Of the task that was still ahead of them. "...For them." She said firmly, taking their hand.
There was little time to be spent on any elaborate dance, so the pair chose to make it quick - barely more than the two spinning around eachother, Pearl breaking out to do a lone pirouette, then hoisting Ruby up into the air by the hips before they struck a pose and combined.
As the bright crimson and pink light solidified into a tangible body, there were numerous changes on her new physical form. Namely, her hair became less pronounced and more kempt, if still retaining some of the previous horizontal flaring. Meanwhile, though she kept the two pairs of arms for utility's sake, in a show of unity she removed her lower pair of eyes, keeping only the top ones.
However, the most notable was that she had forgone the disorganised, almost jester-like get she had previously, replacing it with a simple three piece outfit consisting of a long-sleeved v-neck top, tights that also covered her feet and gloves - a coarse patch on the every fingertip to give a good grip on any weapon. Though the black and grey scheme remained, it was now organised in a different pattern, for there was a clear diagonal cut from where the black top half of each piece ended and where the grey bottom half began.
Then, wishing to distance herself even further from the regime she once served, a patch of darker pink discoloration around her right eye created a thoroughly foreign symbol to Morganite. And though as one of the more privileged pink court gems the organic creature was at least vaguely familiar to her, she had no idea how they would have even remembered it, nor of any gems who would take to using one as an emblem.
Yet, the potency of its presence could not be denied, for the crafted imposing nature of the eagle head and lightning insignia remained.
"What are you looking at? Aren't our lives still at stake?" Rhodonite said sternly, showing not even the smallest hint of entertainment in her tone despite the sarcasm in her words.
With a destabiliser spear again in her possession and all of her strength returned to her, she could now search the rest of the floor with great speed, almost leaving Morganite behind in her trail as she did. Paranoid prisoners and other guards be damned, she would fulfil her end. Pery, grating and coarse as her personality could be, did her best to save them earlier. And so of her own volition, although with some of Bolt's honourbound tendencies rubbing off on her, she did her best to make sure they would not be abandoned here.
'And those tech tricks she probably has in that stone of hers would be great to have right now.' She mused, though burdened with growing stress with each cell block or hallway she looked down the length of without seeing her - or even a single peridot at all for that matter.
Her thoughts were interrupted when, in block 08-24, she encountered a number of the cracked gems from the slums holding up against a group of some three guards, the group easily falling apart despite their numbers advantage as all except one were unarmed. Holding up against them was, curiously enough, 5JQ with her ramshackle baton - even she only managed to give a few seconds of time for those few behind her to either try and summon their weapons from their damaged gemstones or scatter.
Most chose to stand their ground here and now, knowing there was nowhere they could run. Determined as they were, their efforts proved to amount to nothing as two of the guards approached from the side and in unison stabbed at her arms. With 5JQ gone, red, purple, yellow and orange explosions bracketed the hall as the rest were cut down before her very eyes, sickening Rhodonite to the very core.
Yet, if there was one small, cursed solace for her, it appeared that she had arrived on time for the guards to have their backs to her as they instead focused on shattering the errant prisoners, deeming that they had stepped far out of line by resisting and fighting for themselves.
Feeling that she could not hold back against such injustices for any longer, especially when she had firsthand been a victim all too many times, she charged forwards, stolen spear gripped by the bottom of its shaft as she charged down range like with it as if it were a lance. But the fusion seemed better able to control her temper than Ruby alone, meaning she made no wanton warcry that alerted the guards to her presence before it was too late.
Running through the first one, she made no delay and tore the spear out of their back before turning it on the other two on either side. Even if the meeker part of her wanted to stop for a moment and breath - to take in the shock of using a weapon on another for the first time for that half of her mind - she did not silence it entirely, instead using it to her advantage as her attacks were tempered by her ingrained skills of dance and elegance.
Emerging from the death cloud, she spun around and caught the soldier to her left off guard and ducked low to avoid their counter-attack. Then, spinning again, she jutted out her leg and the side of her foot struck them on their shins, buckling them as she got back into position. Coiling herself, she pointed the spear up before using her entire mass to send it towards them, a single leg left on the ground thoughtfully in her haste so she could step back into position after.
The action ended with the weapon being sent diagonally through their chin and out through the back of their head. On its own, the damage would have been fatal already, but the resonating energy that now coursed through their body assured her that the deed was done and that she could focus all her attention solely on the other.
But, as she landed back on two feet and swung it sideways ahead of the rest of her twisting body with a single arm in a swifter attack, hoping to catch out the final quartz as well, her body almost tensed in fear as she felt metal merely scrape against the shaft of her own spear instead of another body as she had expected. The feeling alerting her to what was about to happen, she sent out a panicked arm towards the general area of the sensation.
Then, closing her eyes as her gemstones raced with thrumming terror, after a predetermined distance she clamped down as hard as she could. Catching the other quartz's spear in her hand, she breathed an agonising and stuttered breath of relief as the reality of just how close her demise was dawned.
Soon though, she was knocked out of this aching pondering on mortality as the quartz put their other hand on the shaft and used all their strength to thrust. She was almost knocked out of position by it, and in her moment of reorientation, before her grip could regain its solidarity, the spear had inched its way precariously close to her face; the weapon practically aimed in between her eyes. Though suddenly made aware of her inadequacies as a combatant, having been out of practice for countless aeons, she held firm and thought of a plan.
But as she dropped the spear out of her other upper hand in the hopes of catching it in her lower set, the quartz saw what she was doing and sent a long kick that made it fly into the wall and clatter on the floor behind. Far out of her reach.
Grimacing at the failure, she made the most of it and sent her now free hand to join in and made a shove in return before the quartz could set their foot back down. Though it sent the guard springing back two steps, they caught themselves. Their own grip held as they pointed the spear back against Rhodonite while an ugly rage caused their face to scrunch, likely not taking it well that an imperfect abomination had been able to stand so long against a perfectly standardised specimen as themselves.
Feeling herself beginning to waver, if not in synthetic-borne strength, then in spirit, she almost welcomed the spare hand helping her hold on had it not been for the reason behind why it was free. Yet, as the confrontation looked as if it was about to drag on until she broke, the quartz's fury was suddenly broken first. Their gaze snapped upwards, their body went limp and their spear fell from their dead hands, the weapon's rear now grazing the floor as it hung from her now startled grip.
Soon, the same sickly circuit-like lines that she thought would have been criss-crossing her body appeared all over the quartz's instead, heralding a final explosion. Though the same as all the rest, a sense of victory overcame her body, even if it was not hers to claim. As she felt her feet almost give way for her to sit down to rest in a momentary celebration and give thanks to her saviour, she stood tall and denied herself rest, understanding deep within that now was not the time for laxity.
As the mist cleared and so too did the burden on her mind. Despite this, the clear, crisp voice called out to her that nearly undid all of the euphoria that coursed through her, "There's no one else in blocks 09 and 10-24," Morganite announced on appearing again, one of the many spears on the floor in hand and the tip of it pointed to where the quartz's back once was before she lowered in down to her side.
While the fusion almost clenched her fists at the sight of them wielding a destabiliser, she ultimately made no comment on it, instead giving a quick and short, "Damn it," as her sole remark before turning around and making her way down the hallway that led back to the stairs.
"Ruby, Pearl? Pery?" Her gemstones raced with hope as Bolt's voice was easily picked out from the deadly commotion all around them and below, "Rhodonite!"
"Bolt! Oh thank the stars - have you found Pery yet?" It seemed futile to ask if she was not present with him, but it was better than not doing anything.
Though he seemed to pause for a moment, taking in her new appearance, he answered swiftly and solemnly after gathering his bearings. "No."
"Frack me," She half-spat as she looked to the next set of stairs, "that only leaves one more floor before we have to go down."
Though Morganite wanted to correct her, she kept silent as she too now began playing her own gamble. There was to be no cells found above them, the sole features on the flat top of the roof being raised crenellations at the edges and, most important of all, a landing pad. With any luck, the personal ship of the Agate that runs the prison would be there. And if fortune favoured her further, then perhaps she could reason with the strange, masked quartz in spite of the fact that Rhodonite seemed to be familiar with them, and so wield some sort of influence over their decisions.
Realising they had already begun walking up, she followed behind and heard them curse as they reached the top first, seeing there was nothing else left to search and they were left with the dreaded prospect of breaking past the armed squads that likely held vigil over the lower floors, a vigil made stauncher than usual by the situation. The 'quartz' especially seemed quite troubled, as if they knew something that the rest of them did not.
As she too reached the top and sighted the ship laying on the pad, Morganite held in her cheer, knowing it was not yet guaranteed and instead gave a tentative suggestion. "I need you to break into it. I will go find the control room." She said, at last playing her hand.
Rightly suspicious of them, Bolt inquired further. "For what purpose?"
Unwilling to take even the smallest risk of being abandoned or abandoning anyone else, either in the prison or in the planet, the fact that he even let any leeway of allowing their proposition made Rhodonite speak out in protest. "H- how are you considering something like this so quickly?" Stutter as she may have earlier in the statement, Rhodonite composed herself as she argued her case to him, after which she then turned to Morganite. "How do we know you won't run away, now that we've served our purpose to you?"
However, by now her accusations were losing steam, for while the past presented her endless reasons to convict them guilty, the present gave her a stark lack of anything at all.
And yet, though frustration did begin to colour their expression, her former master did not bid her to silence, instead speaking to her, if not quite as an equal, then at least with marginally more respect. "Think before you speak - have I given you any cause to distrust me yet?" Morganite parried with a question in return, pausing, then sighing a harsher sigh, "Nevermind. But I can get us access to the rest of the prison if you simply let me get inside."
Narrowing his eyes at the aristocrat but sensing no deceit, he jogged forwards onto the pad and up to the thumb of the parked ship, having come to a hasty decision knowing there was little time left.
"Fine, but do not give me cause for regret." He said, a certain authority emanating from him which, despite his prepubescent voice, added stern weight to his words.
A preliminary rain of acid spit softened a rectangular outline around that part of the hull, about five feet tall by three feet wide. Then, a dozen consecutive and heavy downward strikes of the pickaxes into calculated places sent the thick, almost person sized chunk of metal clattering to the deck behind.
Hard as it was for him to oppose Rhodonite's counsel again, he tried to internally justify it with the fact that he thought about it with more clarity than he did the last time. Though even then, it still felt flimsy in his mind.
"I- but… how can you trust her - just like that?" Rhodonite said in a whisper coloured by loss as she made steps towards the ship, wanting to follow them as they went into the gap.
Interrupting her, he spoke his mind. "If it is any consolation to you, neither do I. But if that is how you feel, then, by all means, you can go in there with her, together. Then you can keep watch over each other as I go, alone, to find Pery." He said, trying to sound firm towards her while he gave the ultimatum before turning to Morganite. "Go on. Do what must be done."
At his confirmation, she climbed into the hole, only to turn back to him for a short moment. "Thank you." Morganite said - a grain of genuine gratitude present in her otherwise professional tone - before disappearing into the massive maze of hallways within the spatially compressed confines of the ship.
"I really hope you made the right call there…" She trailed off, bristling somewhat at his reply. However, as she looked on at the endless, towering cityscape, it was hard to see any other way of escape that did not involve a risk that was more dangerous by mangnitutes
"So do I, so do I." He said, an emotion hard to pinpoint, but sitting in between strong camaraderie and something else, far deeper, tinting his tone. Shaking his head, he spoke again as he turned back to the stairs. "Come, we must act swiftly."
With that, she needed no further instruction to begin charging down the steps. Though Bolt was now found again, there was still another person who was still held captive. And while their return would no doubt earn them much reputation and respect, she cared little for that - the only thing taking up substantial space in her mind being that of the simple hope that all of them would make it out alive. Alive, and away from the selfish gaze of the aristocracy.
With each floor that passed, more and more gem shards were seen littering the floor, even a few that were mixed in with eachother - leaving no other conclusion other than that they were fusions, like her, in life. The pair did their utmost to not let such sights cause them to tarry, but instead to give them cause to continue - reinvigorated by earnest emotion.
As he had expected, his actions and the chaos in the prison left them with an opportunity to grasp. But it was an alarmingly short one.
Already, the chaos had audibly lowered in volume. Acting as a great motivator, they rushed down the steps with all haste back down the stairs. On the way, they passed little resistance, with the paranoid prisoners and the limited number of guards caught against each other as they vied for dominance within the confines of each floor. Ignoring the sickening death rings, many likely being those of prisoners, they at last arrived on the twenty first floor.
Coming to a sudden halt, Rhodonite took a deep stare upon the broken remains of quartzes, their weapons and the steps themselves before looking at Bolt, perplexed. "What- what the fleck happened here?" She asked, slowly.
Slowing from a sprint to a jog then to a halt, he turned to her. "I had to stop reinforcements from overwhelming us…"
Finding his rationale reasonable, if at the same time the results of it unpalatable, she found herself almost slumping as she clenched her lower left fist. "What are we supposed to do now then?" She said, despair creeping into her tone as she now looked on at the devastation, only to frown as another thought vented from her mind to her mouth. "And where is Morganite? Where's this 'access to the rest of the prison' she talked about?"
Then, as if their prayers were answered, power failed across the entire facility. As he was about to start digging into the floor and tear apart the pipes on the roof of the level below, they died almost as if on their own. The power lines on every floor flickered against their fate, only to grow dim as their struggle ended in barely a second and they flickered off for a final time.
However, the reprieve soon turned to panic as the entire floor began to shake mere moments after, as if the anarchy all around was made manifest in the form of a physical quake that struck with such force against the stalwart edifice's core.
Hearing that the source seemed to, out of all places, be coming from the far end of the floor, they ran over to noise - even as continuing quakes of smaller intensity continued to batter through the walls and floor, though this time apparently emanating from lower and lower floors as time passed. On arriving, a thick dust cloud clogged the air, forcing Rhodonite to squint while Bolt wiped the helmet's visor to clean his own view.
They went through a rapid fire course of emotions, their bodies tensing while their similarly paralyzed minds jumped from dread, disorientation then deliverance in but a millisecond as they comprehended just what was being done in front of their very eyes.
When the fog on their floor fully cleared, they were greeted by the sight of the blue hand ship. The craft floated there for a moment, poised with the rest of its fingers curled inwards except the index one, which was presumably the origin point of the blinding blue beam that continued to slice through the walls as it slowly and methodically pointed further downwards. This approach made sure that the walls were only exposed to the energy for long enough to melt into slag, but not to hurt anybody they were supposed to be helping rescue inside.
However, it seemed the prison had not been their first target, as was made apparent by the rising smoke that led to an area astern and below the stolen ship, revealing a terrible, smouldering gash wrought into the streets and further into the ground itself by what was likely a fare more high-powered blast. Underneath the gash, there was what looked to be the ruined remains of a larger version of the power pipes once covered by the now evaporated rock.
Despite the crucial importance of every action in every moment they spent on the escape, the two could not help but to stare in slackjawed surprise - only to be brought back to reality by a very familiar, and somewhat disliked, voice. Nonetheless, it brought much needed closure to them, for they finally knew where Pery was and there was now a method of extracting her then escaping available.
"YOU MAD, MAD PIECE OF SHALE!" The former saboteur called out in near reverence to the starship from two floors below the pair, her awed cheer soon being joined in by the other, newly freed rioting prisoners until they formed a disjointed chorus of raucous praise.
"'Access to the rest of the prison'… well, this is access alright." Rhodonite said through a confusion-filled and disbelieving half-smile. While not ready to forgive her old master for their previous actions, she could at least find it in herself to give credit where it was due for their current ones.
The ship moved down to the twentieth first floor, twisting around all the while so that the thumb pointed towards the tall tear torn into the prison's walls. Then, with as much grace as she could muster as the noose of time was closing around her neck, she manoeuvred sideways until the jutted out digit was hovering barely a few centimeters from the now half-molten part of the ground.
Using the ship's PA system, Morganite's voice managed to echo out of the hole cut into the thumb loud enough to be heard. "Get in!" She shouted - actual urgent emotion finally showing itself in her tone, unabated.
A/N:
Whoops, I forgot about Rhodonite's planned backstory when I was writing chapter 12, so I made a few minor edits to correct for it.