Peridot works with Lapis and Dori the Labradorite as they traverse the depths of the abyssal valley.
The vibes down here were pretty dark. This looked like something designed out of era two. A design befitting technicians like Peridot herself, if not for the reddish tint that brought concern.
From the map, there was a four Quadrant round layout of the Kindergarten, separated by processing rooms and filled with the noise the ventilation made that pumped all the way down. Dori lead the charge as Peridot and Lapis followed her nose. Though the green gem couldn't help but examine the dirt and wanted to analyse its properties and quality of the holes.
"We're gonna be here all day if you're going to examine every single of one of them." Lapis complained.
She went from checking the materia and elements, but it was made clear these had nothing out of the ordinary. General Quartz layout and required deposits. So why did none of this feel right to her?
She checked all the consoles. The gems here were labelled 01 onward, which was coded for this specific quadrant for the Kindergarten as a whole. While large, it was a considerably small Kindergarten, if not one of the smallest she'd ever seen.
"It's important to note done every bit of detail. Nothing seems odd however. It has all the signs of what should have been a successful production line. But where did all the Quartzes go? I wonder." Peridot explained. She'd assume they would have gone to do their created duties and wondered what those specific duties were. The three made it to the processing room as Peridot filtered the data on a nearby terminal. Lapis kept looking around, as if something distracted her.
"All these flowers..." The blue gem muttered.
Peridot didn't realize what she was talking about until she checked around as well. Dark, crimson roses were spread around the walls.
"They really loved them, didn't they?" Said Peridot.
She'd checked the terminal for the amount of data she could pull. It appeared that these batches were meant for each of the Diamonds originally. O1 was Whites, O2 was Yellows, O3 was Blues and 04s were Pinks.
Though an extra patch was created as Peridot continued to rummage through as many files as she could. She opened it up to see something else that was flagged.
A D1 file. The data was linked to all the others, yet, the D1 file intrigued her. It looked like what ever they were doing down here was part of some larger construct. But what was D2?
"Was there a third Kindergarten the maps didn't show?" She wondered. The maps didn't show anything about any other Kindergarten that was there, although she could see the words HOPE/DELTA etched on, like it was a hasty add on.
She then felt a nudge from Dori, who started to growl behind them.
"What is it?" Peridot queried. She looked at Lapis who holding herself and shivering.
"You can't feel that?" Lapis wondered. Peridot grew worried. They heard footsteps as Dori took them both behind a nearby barrier that was towrds the farside walls as two individuals entered. They could see a tall orange gem entered with a skinny, dark red gem with a black limb enhancers on her hands and feet and black bushy hair. She couldn't recognize the uniform however.
"Jasper..." Peridot muttered, surprised. She was half tempted to bolt and talk to her, before Lapis pulled her back in haste...not to mention that Dori bit her hand to stop her as well.
"Shhh...I want to hear what they're saying." Said Lapis as they peered from behind the barrier.
Why would Jasper be here? Of all places?
"I got you the stuff you asked for, Pyrope." Said Jasper.
"Now, you gonna honour your end of the deal?"
What deal could Jasper possibly ask for? Considering the situation at the moment, Jasper remained distant and AWOL unless it was for the obligatory Book Club meeting. Even then, she would prefer to be on her lonesome. Even Steven had trouble in reaching out to her. What had she been doing this entire time?
This was a Pyrope, presumably a Pyrope Garnet as well. Possibly an era 2. But Peridot couldn't see her gem anywhere, until she turned around, revealing it to be on of her left shoulder.
"I assure your prize is on its way. As you know these things Jasper." Said the Pyrope. Her voice was low, but it had the right power of authority.
"As the humans would say, patience is a virtue."
Jasper grumbled as she crossed her arms in annoyance.
"What do you even need this stuff for anyway?" She asked.
Pyrope gave off a devious smirk as she wandered over to the same console they had been fiddling with earlier.
"The Outpost Minors you visited as well as the Thought Markers you collected are all from the same Gem that used to run this Facility...Milky Quartz." Pyrope revealed to her.
"She's been compiling absolutely indispensable dossiers. Whether she knows it or not."
Peridot did know Snow Quartzes were mostly careful with covering their tracks. Or else the Crystal Gems would have found them a long time ago.
"Yeah yeah, I don't need to know the story for the fourth time." Complained Jasper.
"Milky comes back, goes insane...Get to the point."
Jasper was impatient as ever. But hearing that Milky had turned...insane?
"My, my querulous gem." Pyrope responded, dismayed by Jaspers behavior.
"The Dossiers were generally about the individuals of Beach City. Specifically the Crystal Gems."
Peridot looked at Lapis who was generally concerned about that statement. Peridot grew paranoid at being under the eyes of a powerful figure. Again.
"She did this after the Lillim Wars. She was not under orders to observe...nor was she even given any clearance to create these Kindergartens. The Markers seemed to prove another project of hers. Something known as the Delta Kindergarten." Pyrope continued.
A Delta Kindergarten? Nothing on the maps showed this, but the id number of one of them didn't match with the rest. Not to mention that HOPE/DELTA Statement, that was her only clue.
"You said the Alpha Kindergarten was the first stage, filled with failures...but the Omega was filled with many more quality Quartz soldiers. Why would she even need to create more?" Jasper queried.
Especially with the Cluster brewing underneath the Earth. Not many people were even made aware of that.
"Her general craziness got to the better of her." Said Pyrope.
"No one encounters Lillim and comes out sane. No one."
It got Jasper frustrated as he picked up a flower and examined it thoroughly.
"I fought in a pointless war. You don't come out sane from that either." She roared as she scrunched the flower in her hand.
"Yes that whole Diamond Dilemma was swept under the rug quite quickly." Said Pyrope as she held her chin on the back of her hand.
"However...that's exactly why I am here."
How much did Homeworld know about what they did there? Did they see any of her heroics?
"I worked under Milky for a time, being able to communicate with many of the Stealth Class Gems under her command. Two of the subjects Milky had been focusing on, on my suggestion, were two people. Steven Universe, aka Rose Quartz aka Pink Diamond..."
Oh no...
"And his friend Connie Maheswaran."
Why her?
"What? Isn't that one...Ro...I mean Pin...I meant that...she...he...fused with?" Jasper stammered with disbelief.
Pyrope nodded in acknowledgement.
"Indeed." Said the Red Gem.
"How much do you know about human biology?"
Jasper grunted as she stood up and punched a hole in a nearby wall in frustration.
"Useless, weak...must I say the words aloud?" Replied Jasper.
To this day Peridot only knew so little from Steven himself. Pyrope simply chuckled.
"Yes...but...Connie...going from what records we've gathered, has been developing. Please understand Jasper, humans change and evolve over time. Like most organics, they can take, hundreds, thousands if not millions of years to evolve through countless circumstances, whether its for survival or due to the environment they lived in. The most recent and common iteration are of the Homo sapien variety. Follow me...I want to show you something...one of the Sample Rooms."
Jasper couldn't care less but Peridot was ultimately fascinated by the topic. Lapis still felt the odd chill as she shivered. Dori rubbed against her, using her fur to give her warmth. For what ever good that could do. She'd worry about Lapis, but the prized Lazuli's pride wouldn't let her.
They followed the gems out of the Processing Room and up into the supposed sample room, still red in hue. They hid behind Dori who took them behind a table, although they could see this room was massive and filled with pictures of humans and a large photo of Beach City. The tables were filled with numerous bits and pieces of human junk that Peridot wouldn't mind making a meepmorp out of.
Pyrope lead Jasper to the largest console in the room, which had a huge projection of imagery they could scan through. She tapped her through and brought up two projections. One of Steven and one of Connie.
"This has all the citizens of Beach City, but these two files have the largest collection of particulars and features, which I would say Milky would have been inputting most of it from their endeavors." Pyrope continued.
"Humans have a genetic structure they like to call, DNA. DNA is...akin to a gems...well, making. Our gems, whether its a Quartz or a Ruby or even a Diamond for that matter, have different compositions. It makes up what we are, like DNA does for humanity. Now you brought up the topic of fusion earlier..."
Pyrope continued to type away as Peridot was being floored with only learning this now. Well, she learned how to grow organic life. But she had yet to realize the complexities of humans themselves until now. Back then she thought each human was like a type of gem. It took her a while to learn that was not the case at all. She blamed Steven's existence for that.
"Milky discovered a lot. Through my sources, we were able to obtain Connie's DNA from the local Hospital. Who'd thought, that getting her blood from there was so easy? Milky said that Connie's mother worked there and had her do blood tests all the time. Steven's DNA was harder to get, since he'd barely ever go into a hospital...let alone get any blood tests."
Milky clearly knew a lot more about humans and their goings on, far more than even the Crystal Gems knew.
"Whats that got to do with Fusion?" Jasper grumbled.
Pyrope sighed with annoyance.
"I'm getting to that." She said. The imagery of Steven and Connie drew close, as Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz appeared next to them.
"Pink Diamond was definitely the most...creative of all the Diamonds. Despite the amount of heresy and the stain it would place on herself and the Diamond Authority, not to mention to total cessation of her own life, the precedence in which she helped create Steven to begin with was wonderfully unique. The start of a new species of what was called, Homo Magia."
The amount of praise with that, was more than what Peridot was comfortable with. And she'd heard far worse, especially when it came to Cluster Gems. Jasper was left puzzled by that logic.
"My Diamond truly died then...but not in the way everyone thought...and here...I was hurting her. Why is it so hard to wrap my head around it?" Jasper called out.
Peridot would love to hear the answer for that too.
"To think, that abomination was all that was left of her."
She served Pink Diamond once upon a time as memories of Jaspers cruel corruption flooded back to Peridot. Her Diamond was right in front of her and they could do nothing at the time to tell her that. They found out too late. Shame, all Peridot could feel was pity. She looked at Lapis, who couldn't even stare straight.
"Our Diamond certainly did have an abstract way of thinking." Said Pyrope, though it sounded more like an insult from what she insinuated.
"In what ever the case may be, her son...her creation has paved the way...a new way for gemkind to evolve for themselves...as well as it gives insights into humanities potential as well. Homo magia starts with him."
No...not this...she was planning to create more Stevens? More gem hybrids like him?
"Ehhhh I don't like this." Said Jasper. Peridot had to agree.
"You don't have to..." Pyrope told her outright.
"But you have to admit, Steven's unique composition of human DNA and a gems light allows us insight into the depths of how that not only affects himself, but how he can affect others..."
Pink and Rose disappeared from the projection as Steven's and Connies merged to become Stevonnie. Jasper made a minor growl, reminded of how she lost to them once.
"I was disgusted by that pathetic display..." She noted.
Peridots projections on fusion were at first, a bit aligned in the way Homeworld would view them. Simply war machines when an army wasn't enough and they really wanted to bring in the firepower. But after hanging with Garnet, she found it out that it was so much more, that it opened her eyes slightly.
"Ignorant Gems of course would be! But...Milky...and me were outright mystified by it. I mean, the properties of the two would make it possible once you ran with the calculations." Said Pyrope.
She projected the DNA strands on both sides of Stevonnie. One labled as Stevens, as Peridot had seen DNA strands before, but just didn't get the deeper meanings behind them. The other was Connie's. Steven's was unique as it held the colours of blue and light pink as an indicator of his half-gem nature. Connie's looked blue to begin with, but held flecks of pink in them.
"Human technology is too primitive to detect this, but...every time Steven and Connie fused, a little bit of him was left behind in her. Making her slightly stronger and could potentially gain abilities humans would only dream of. The mutations were minor however and it would require either a few hundred or a few thousand years of fusion at best, unless she decides to merge with a full gem...its all theory really...not enough evidence to say for sure, but going off human genome patterns..."
"SHUT UP ALREADY! I...I don't...ugh...why are you EVEN TELLING ME THIS?" Jasper yelled.
She was a brute meant for battle, not for knowledge.
Pyrope was taken aback, jarred from her outburst.
"My...well, if you want me to be thorough..." She said. "But I just wanted you to-"
"I'm not going any where until I get my payment. Understand?" Threatened Jasper.
Pyrope shut it all down as she adjusted herself.
"Your payment is in progress as I said. I do have another job that might be satiate your thirst for a while. I'll throw in a little extra. How does that sound?" Offered Pyrope.
Jasper appeared to mull over it for the moment, before she grumbled in her own begrudged way.
"Yeah. Okay...what is it?"
Peridot heard it all as Pyrope ordered Jasper to find a way to get into Milky's Private Chamber, suggesting that the way they were headed was not the only way to get in there. They listened as Pyrope showed a series of vents that wormed their way around the facility. A much quicker route. Apparently Milky's data on Steven and Connie indicated that Milky had plans for them, in which made Lapis concerned for their friends. Pyrope and Jasper went their separate ways, to which Peridot leaped at the chance to see the details for herself as she sprinted towards the large console nearby. The information Pyrope found held twisted motivations.
"What if they find them?" Said Lapis.
"I don't trust this Pyrope anymore than I trust Jasper."
Neither did Peridot. They had to make sure that Jasper couldn't get close to them either.
"I think we should follow her." Said Peridot, then she looked at Lapis who had mixed reservations.
"If...you don't mind."
Lapis forced a smile as she stood up straight with confidence.
"I agree. We can't let her touch Steven. Let's go Dori!" She said.
Peridot grinned, as the three went on their way.