It's been a week and I'm already a master and/or professional at everything the diamonds have thrown at me. Every test, paper or physical, that I have been handed, I have passed with perfect scores. I understand every subject better than any of my teachers, and they are the best and smartest in the entire homeworld and all homeworld colonies. The diamonds can't be more pleased. I should know, I have two doctorates in psychology.
In order to instill practical knowledge in me, the diamonds have created my schedule, a schedule that outlines which diamond I would be with at any given moment. This means that I would accompany that diamond wherever they go, I deter all threats, and I follow every order that diamond gives, short of killing myself. I find it disappointing that they had to include that last one. Apparently it's happened before. The first diamond on my schedule will be white diamond who I will accompany for a week, before I move on to the next one, spending a week with each diamond before moving on. In order, my schedule is white, yellow, blue, pink, then dark.
My confidence has grown exponentially; through the vast collection of history books, I have found that every champion before me has taken decades of training and classes before the diamonds even considered making them a schedule. And I got a schedule in a week. How dishonored they must feel in whatever afterlife there is, all of them quartzes or any other kind of firstborn from moonstone, knowing that a low level like me outdid them all in this game that they all took lifetimes mastering. If I am not the ultimate mould breaker, then I don't know what is.
I walk from my room, heading towards White Diamond's room. When I finally reach it, I am greeted by White Diamond herself, which is strange because the pearl usually ushers you in while the Diamond waits inside. Seeing my hesitation, she said, "I'm sorry, champion, but I've been waiting all week to see how you fare in public, and I am admittedly too excited to get going. Now, let's proceed." We began walking off. When reaching the front doors, I realized something. Before this point, I have never been outside. The thought scared me and tantalized me in equal measures. The doors open slowly, laboriously, and with it follows the sunlight I haven't seen since forming. When the doors are fully open, the diamond and I walk out, instantly surrounded by aura quartzes, White Diamond's personal guards. We climb into her palanquin, a mode of transportation that every diamond seemingly has, and we're off.
A minute into the flight, White Diamond decides to tell me, "We are going to the public speaking area. I sent a signal to the public information services, and they have gathered everyone in the square. I plan to officially introduce you as the new diamond champion today. In addition, you will also be the youngest and 'least' trained diamond champion in gem history, just being an all around record breaker." She sinks back into silence, letting me digest what she had said. When the palanquin reached the square, I hear the loudest noise I heard since forming, but because of my training in self-restraint, I kept my composure. After a moment, I realized that the noise was cheering, hundreds of thousands of voices adding to the commotion. White Diamond pulls back the curtain, and upon seeing her, the crowd cheers louder.
She walks up to a podium in one end of the square, me following close behind, and both of us completely surrounded on all sides by aura quartzes. She stands at the podium for a while, waiting for the cheers to die down, before stating the reason for the gathering. "Friends, you may all be wondering why you are here. First and foremost, it is to introduce the new Diamond Champion, the first one we've had in almost five hundred years." There were a few woots to this, but mostly people were confused seeing as there was no one on the stage that looked like a diamond champion in the least. White persisted, "This diamond champion has exceeded every expectation by ten times our predictions, and he was only formed about eight days ago. This has proven him to be our youngest and fastest trained diamond champion in history." Again, some woots, but people were still looking for this elusive diamond champion. White motioned me to come forward, "It is time that we officially met our diamond champion. I step towards the podium nervously, the podium shrinking down to my size so as to allow me to speak into the microphone.
When people see me walking up, they go beyond confusion to pure mesmerization. They obviously weren't expecting an aquamarine to be the diamond champion. I lean into the microphone, trying to figure out something to say, and coming up completely blank. I wish I had had time to prepare something. Deciding to wing it and see what happens, I just started speaking. "Hello, I'm the new diamond champion, Aquamarine, Facet 5, shortened to Aq.F5. When I look out into this crowd, I see a lot of confusion, something I have been feeling since formation about a week ago. Looks like it follows me around", a little polite laughter, "either way, I hope that my appearance isn't a problem, considering that when I looked at the records, I now have qualifications that mark me the best champion in history, so I'm just gonna leave it there and see what happens."
As I'm walking away from the podium, I hear a slightly stronger applause than there was previously, and feel a little better about myself, considering that this is the first crowd I had seen, ever. I fall into step behind White, following her as she winds her way through diamond only streets. White talks to me, "We need to work on your public speaking skills. Not to say that you will be speaking often, but when you do, you need to be moving, bring people to tears kind of moving." Not having anything to say to that, I just nod my head and say "yes my diamond", as is customary. In any course, I think the decision is stupid. My job is fighting. Not with words, but with fists, with weapons, with my body. I'm not a politician, I'm a warrior. The only reason I had to learn all the other stuff is because I need to be able to pick up any job necessary in combat scenarios, and, last time I checked, politics was not necessary in combat. Anyway, that decision is not up to me. Than I took a moment to realize something. I was feeling emotions again. This was the second time since my formation. And it was the exact same emotion, anger. I wonder if that weird little coincidence has any significance. Probably not. It was, after all, a coincidence.
White just led me around the town a little bit, letting me map the area, letting me get a feel for the place. She told me that this tour is important, especially after all the strategy lessons, because as champion, I will be the forerunner of every force fighting invasion of any kind, as infinitesimal as the chances of that may seem. She also said that, with other diamonds, I may also have chances to explore the other homeworld colonies and help fortify them however they need. But for now, we need to focus on homeworld. When there was nothing else to show me, we went back to the Dwelling, where we spent the rest of the day walking around, White spending most of the time on her tablet, checking in with everyone, everywhere, as the reports keep coming. Finally, she just stops at her office, and sits down in there, sighing a deep sigh as she leans back in the chair. Moments later, she looks over at me, taking me in for a minute, as if seriously considering me for the first time. "You know, the first time I saw you, I genuinely thought that Yellow was playing a prank on me. Now I know she wasn't. All of your test scores are outstanding, your complete understanding of everything put before you, completely baffling. Needless to say, you show great promise. I can't wait to give you your general freedom, to see what you can really do."
In all the excitement of the past week, I had forgotten about that part. For all the diamond champions, when you had completely proven yourself to all the diamonds, they took your schedule off and you freely roam around, changing whatever you thought needed be changed, and also letting you roam the galaxy, allowing you to go to any homeworld colony to set some kind of law or pace there. Originally, that was the power that I had aspired to, but in all the haste in the past week, I had not thought about it, and therefore subsequently forgotten about it. But now, I remember, and I know that, like I impressed the diamonds with my fast progress, I must now impress them with my practical knowledge in the ensuing weeks. Considering that I need all the diamonds to consent in order to get off the schedule, than the fastest that I could do this is five weeks. Put together with the time it took me to learn all the lessons, than I could potentially become a fully fledged diamond champion in a month. That would be setting new heights previously unimagined.
With this new purpose in mind, I start thinking about the diamonds would want in order for me to prove that I'm worthy of becoming fully fledged. I would need to be a good law keeper, a good fighter, a peace keeper, a scholar, intelligible in all areas. With the last one, it hit me. That's why I must be a good speaker. I have to be a jack of all trades, coupled with the fact that one of the things necessary for law and peace keeping is being able to calm a crowd. Something I'm starting to find out about myself that I already hate is that I tend to rush my judgements. There was no reason for me to get angry with White earlier, she knew these details already, and yet I sat there and doubted her. And now I sit here and look in her searching face, feeling nothing but guilt for the way I've thought of her. What had she done but taken me into her home, provided for every single one of my needs, and then some, and then, with doubt probably still playing around in her head, took me "alone" through the city, showing me ropes that I probably didn't need to be shown, considering I could have figured out the city on any given day.
Fortunately, I didn't need to respond, as she looked away from me and said, "Your services today are completed, you may go back to your quarters and rest for the night." Taking my cue, I did the "yes my diamond" salute, left the office, and proceeded to my room. When I had gotten there, I took out the tablet they had given me, called the librarian pearl over comms, and requested books about public speaking be brought to my room, immediately. When she walked through the door to give me my books, I thanked her and beckoned her out. When the door slid shut, I instantly started flipping through the book on the top of the stack, following a similar pattern, finishing all the books in the stack within in an hour.
When I was completely read up in public speaking, I made my way to the gym, where I used a new trick I had learned a couple of days ago, summoning holographic versions of yourself, and setting up scenarios in which there would be a victim and an assailant, me stepping in to be a mediator, deterring the crime and incarcerating the criminal, or, in extreme homicidal scenarios, killing them. I went through this kind of training every night, doing whatever I found to be necessary, or whatever I found to be my weak point throughout the day, spending the entire night improving upon it, trying to turn it into my strongest point. After I finished my last simulation, I looked out of the window to see dawn breaking out of the horizon. I decided to surprise White Diamond by being early, so I set out for her room. When I reached her door, I stood off to the side and waited.
When she stepped out, she was talking to her pearl,ordering her to call me and tell me to report, when she looked to the side to see me standing there, waiting patiently for her to walk out. Upon seeing her I did the salute and waited for her to command me, to tell me what was going to be happening today. After about a minute, she asked, "Were you there all night?". I respond, "No, my diamond. I spent the entire night in my room, reading about public speaking to it's fullest extent and practicing in multiple peacekeeping scenarios using gem shades." White diamond looked at me for a moment and said, "While I am still impressed, I am a little put out by the fact that I have to spend yet another minute cancelling a class I had set up for you. I feel like I'm going to have to get used to this."
With that, we set off for our second day around town. After that, the third. Then the fourth. After the second day, they just started melding together, becoming more and more similar, as we took the same routes through town, made the same checkups on the same people. It didn't help that I had photographic memory, and therefore felt the monotony more powerfully than others would. The only interesting thing that happened was on my last day with White Diamond. When we were walking through a factory district, we encountered a misbehaving quartz. When warned to calm down by White Diamond, the quartz continued to escalate the situation and even dared to call White Diamond a clod, among other things, and started to spout anti-homeworld propaganda.
White Diamond finally had enough and ordered me to shatter the quartz. I was caught off guard. With the monotony of the week, I was not prepared to shatter anyone. Not even to add the fact that I had never shattered anyone before, the closest I ever got being my simulations in my room. I walked up to the quartz, preparing for resistance, the kind anybody should expect to receive when threatening to kill somebody. The quartz began their line of insults again, only this time directing them at me, "Hey, who is this shrimpie? You're not telling me this is the new Diamond Champion, are you? Oh, I'm trembling in my shoes, truly. As if this little child could do anything more than poke me in the thigh." As least she wasn't lying, I am short. I stopped about three feet in front of her, taking on a combat stance. The quartz continues, "I guess we're really doing this. Oh well, I guess I needed a little warm up today, anyway." She pulls out her weapon, a magnificently large mace, a spike adorning many sides of it, turning it into a very deadly bludgeon indeed.
I, on the other hand, did not summon my weapon. Instead, I put my hand into a jabbing position, pointing the end of it so that it looked like a fat little knife. The quartz swung, making a big show of it, until I swept in under her arm, straightening up behind her, and jabbing my hand though her physical being to the gem on her chest, splitting it clean in half. The quartz dissipated into cloud of dust, an action I have heard common folk call "poofing". An aura quartz from White Diamond's guard rushed forward and picked up the shards for disposal later, while I walked back up to White Diamond, and we continued on our way, heading back to the Dwelling.
There, White Diamond dismissed me back to my room, where, for the first time since my birth, I felt there was nothing I needed to learn. So, for the first time since birth, I looked at the bed in the bedroom. As I stared at it, I tried to figure out how it was supposed to work, and how I was supposed to sleep. Sure, I read all the books, I know what sleep is, but I don't know what happens during it, how to initiate it. After gathering courage, I climbed onto the bed, putting my head on the pillow and lying on my back, causing me to stare at the ceiling. After a few minutes in this position, I wondered why I wasn't sleeping yet. Then I remembered that the pictures depicted people with their eyes closed, so I tried that too. Equally, I tried to initiate the act of thinking about nothing, something that seemed like it would help in this situation. After a couple minutes of being irritated that nothing happening, I opened my eyes and sat up, only to notice that there was daylight outside. Impossible. When I first began to try to sleep, there was at least eight hours left until dawn. How is it that that amount of time could have passed in just a few minutes.
Then it dawned on me. Perhaps that's what sleep was. I was knocked unconscious mid-thought, thereby rendering me incomprehensible until could pick up the thought again upon reentering consciousness, making a seamless transition that not even I could pick up upon happenstance until piecing the puzzle together. Impressive, the fact that my body can act in such a way is such an astounding thought. I wonder, with such a powerhouse such as this, what I could do if I learned to fully master it. Enough of that. I still have a schedule to keep, which means that I must start heading out to Yellow Diamond's room. As I head out the door, I wonder what could be held in store for me with her, as opposed to White Diamond. For that case, I wonder what each of the diamonds do. The only way to find out was going to be to finish the month and see what happens.