Chapter Fourteen: The Gem Tamer

I woke up in a chair not long after I passed out. There was a wet towel on my forehead and I could barely feel the hand the glove was on. I didn't try to move, waiting for the sickness in my stomach to disappear. From the corner of my eye to the right, Gambit was looking at the gemstone of the corrupted gem beast me and Abigael fought. She was able to keep it in stasis while out of the capsule, but I didn't know how. Once she realized I was awake, she put the gemstone into the capsule and walked over to check on me.

"Wow. You came back from that fast. Though, whether or not that's a good thing should be put into question. How do you feel?"

My response was slow and groggy. "Sick."

"Hmm. I'll give you something carbonated and see what happens." Nothing happened. I wasn't fully better, but I wasn't getting worse. Gambit proceeded to check my vitals.

Still feeling tired, I asked, "Did Marco really believe the creed is corrupted?"

Not slowing down in her work, Gambit responded, "If left unchecked, but that wasn't what he wanted to prove. Tourmaline seems to have goals that aren't good for everyone involved it seems."

If Abi was anything to go off of, that was clear enough.

I continued with my questions. "You said before this power may not be enough. If that's so, who will help? Maybe Michael or Alan?"

"Neither."

"Why not them?"

"According to Marco, there too attached to their powers to think of them coming from 'the bad guys.'"

"So if I can't get help, then I'll need more power."

"Right. Which is why you're going to learn how to fuse," she pointed at the capsule, "with that."

"A corrupted gem? Among all that I can fuse with, why with that?"

"I wondered the same thing once. The thing is, to fuse with a gem or a human would require the cooperation between both parties, for them to be in sync, and they in this case both will need similar goals. Most, if not all, of those problems are resolved if you fuse with a gem that acts like a beast and can be tamed like one."

Beast. I thought back to when everyone was fighting Tiger Eye and Aventurine and how they screamed once Obsidian stopped playing her flute. Until that moment, I forgot the corrupted were also gems like the Crystal Gems, but that was the point. We couldn't fix them, so why feel for them when we were supposed to immobilize them.

"Will it work?" I asked.

"It should, but as a warning I have no records of any test."

"If I am to tame it, how should I go about doing it?"

"With patience." Gambit was finished checking me concluding that I was fine for now. She told me to check my phone once I left. "Take the corrupted, go to the location I've sent you, then once you feel ready find Toumaline, and contact me. Don't tell anyone what you are doing."

A chill went down my spine as her last words rang in my ear. I wouldn't hide my glove to not raise suspicion. I would pick up a hunt request as to give myself a cover to explain my absence; the hardest request I could take that was appropriate of my rank. I would keep the capsule hidden as I went to the place to meet up with someone by the name of Momo at a beach not too far from Beach City by the request of Gambit. But before any of that could happen, I sat in the room thinking of those words.

Don't tell anyone… I wouldn't tell anyone, but it felt wrong to keep quiet. I had no reason to not trust the creed with this knowledge. This affected everyone and everyone should know, but who would I tell? Surely anyone would do as long as I wasn't alone. I took this mission without thinking. Was the price of my hast to carry the burden on my own? Then I remembered why I was so hasty. Abi was in trouble and I had a chance to make things right by getting her back.

I was on my motorcycle which was stocked with gear. If I must do this alone, then I will use everything I was taught and my own skills. I blasted out of the creeds hideout.

Objective 3: Training Arc

The ride felt longer than it should have been. My hands were throbbing increasingly while I was doing my best to steer. So I pulled over.

As soon as I got off the bike, I held out my hand in front of me as if they were on fire. The numbness was back, but now it was BOTH my hands. Why was it both my hands? But it wasn't just my hands, but my head started to get heavy.

….I woke up. I was a few yards away from my bike. The ground around me was chard. "What the..." I asked as I slowly got up. Now the blackened grass crumbled under my shifting weight and I noticed my arms were scarred. Light jagged lines were now rolling up from my hands. "Lighting? Did I do this?" It had to be me or the from the gem. But did this much power come from a shard?

I was back on the road almost immediately. I need to get to the locations before something like that happened again. Thankfully, nothing did.

Once I reached the part of the beach I was told to go to, I grabbed my bag and frantically looked for my contact. Near the lapping waters stood a blue tent and nearby was a boy that seemed to be my age, but his back was turned to me. That said, he didn't seem familiar to me. Maybe he was from the research department.

As I got closer, he turned with his wild hair shaking with his movements. Looking uncertain about the stranger who had walked into his camp he asked, "Can I help you?" The tone of his voice was strange to me.

"I'm Rekirts. I was supposed to meet someone here."

"Oh! So you're him?" He got up, dusting whatever sand was on his pants. He extended his left hand. "I'm Momo. Gambit said you were coming."

Instinctively, I reached out my right hand to greet him. By the time I realized my mistake, he was already shaking and completely unphased.

"Can I see her?"

"See who?" I asked.

"The gem you were supposed to bring. Did you forget?"

I pulled out the capsule from my bag. My hand was shaking again. "It's here, but what do you plan to do?" Once Momo took the capsule, I tried to hide the shaking.

"I going to calm her down. Make sure you don't have any weapons showing and don't look aggressive."

I going? Did I hear him right? Must have been an honest mistake. "I can do my best about not looking aggressive, but I need to be ready if it attacks us."

"Don't worry. I've do this before."

"You've done this before?"

"Eleven time as a matter of fact." Momo opened the capsule and placed the gem gently on the soft sand.

I freed my hands and took a few steps back. Muscles tensed, blades gripped with white knuckles, but I decided to simply watch as long as I could. This man was confident in his words and his movements showed no signs of hesitation. Even as the gem formed, Momo just stood there. Fully formed, the best roared at him, but instead of screaming, running, or attacking like I would have, he raised with his palms facing it. Slow gentle shush sounds came from him. He told it that everything was OK. He continued to talk to it as it got smaller; small enough to fit in his arms.

I couldn't believe how fast he was able to do it. It was timid and shaking nervously even as Momo scratched it behind the ear.

"How? How did you do that?" I asked him now with the gem in his arms. At the site of me(though I don't know how it could see me without eyes), it curled deeper into Momo hissing lightly.

"It like I said. I practiced."

"But how could you? What apartment allows you to?"

"Technically, Field Researcher with an emphasis on gem behavior. Which is true, by the way!"

"But...why? Clearly it works, but surely it doesn't work all the time."

"You right, it does not. This one is the most docile I've seen so far."

Ignoring his choice of words, I retorted by explaining how that thing was anything but docile.

"Please. This 'thing' is a she." Momo pulled the gem-or I should say her-closer to him. "To answer your question; I do it because I'm good at it. I want to do it. I know they are unstable. We as the creed can't allow them to run wild, but they were people once."

They were once people. It was in the creeds code to not forget. But as they are, they weren't people and it was easier to fight them if they weren't people. Even now the gem he was coddling twitched and moved like an animal.

Momo put the gem down. "But enough about me, let's talk about the first time you used your powers."

"What do you mean?"

"Your hand is shaking. It might mean nothing, but you're shaking with the same hand where the gemstone is placed."

I didn't even realize how badly it had gotten. I did my best to try and stop the shaking then… "Wait did you say gemstone?"

"Were you not told? It craked, but unlike everyone else you have a full gemstone."