Missing Peace: Chapter 38
Rose Quartz stood in the tall, pink room. Beautifully ornamented spires ran from the floor up to a point so high that they faded into the darkness which obscured the ceiling. She liked coming here every once in a while, to remind herself of why she was fighting. This was the room in which she and her fellow Rose Quartz had been bubbled for millennia, while Homeworld had just moved on without them; while Pink had lived out her life on Earth, forgetting that they had even existed. Before coming back to the zoo, Rose hadn't seen this room in thousands of years; she and her fellow Rose Quartz having been brought back to homeworld before being unbubbled. The fact that Pink had left her once honoured royal guard to rot on the same station as her human pets disgusted Rose, but soon, they would pay back that indignity tenfold. She grinned to herself at the thought, only snapping to her senses when the door behind her slid open. Rose turned around, saw the Gem standing in the doorway, and smiled.
Pearl, Amethyst, Dalton, and Li made their way through the corridors of the Human Zoo as stealthily as possible. Pearl was able to move almost silently; her footfalls making sounds so quiet Dalton had to strain to hear them. Amethyst was…less stealthy. After she almost alerted two patrolling Rose Quartz, she decided it would be better if she didn't walk, so she shapeshifted into an owl and flew silently alongside the others from then on. They weren't exactly sure where they were going. Pearl had studied the Diamonds' zoo schematics in enough detail that she knew how to get to the humans' enclosure, and Peridot's program could get them through the door, but there was no guarantee that the humans would actually still be there. Facet 31 weren't known for their fondness for organics, so it wasn't out of the question that the humans had been moved somewhere less hospitable, if they were even still alive. Still, the group didn't have any other leads to go on, so they proceeded towards the enclosure as planned.
The whole time Li was constantly eyeing up opportunities to break from the group. He knew he couldn't complete his objective while he was stuck tagging along with a couple of Crystal Gems. President Dalton would be even more troublesome; Li sincerely doubted that Dalton would approve of his true mission, which was probably why President Liu had kept the matter private. Li grew increasingly exasperated. If he was to ensure that Rose Quartz was stopped, he needed to be able to go about his business unsupervised. To that end, he peered down every corridor they passed, waiting for an opportunity to slip away unnoticed. It quickly became clear though that unless the situation changed, this would not be possible. Pearl was constantly looking around to check on him and Dalton. Not out of any suspicion of course; she likely just felt responsible for the safety of the more fragile members of her group, but it was irritating to Li all the same. Why couldn't the alien just mind her own business? Earth was the planet at risk; it should be humans deciding how to deal with the threat. He resolved that when he got home he'd have some choice recommendations to make to his superiors regarding relations with Homeworld.
Steven, Connie, and Bismuth stuck to the shadows, also trying to avoid detection. Bismuth wasn't exactly built for hiding, but the group had managed thus far. Bismuth's muscle and fighting experience would prove very useful, should Steven's attempt to reason with Rose Quartz go south. However, right now their top priority was to stay hidden until they got the all-clear from Pearl's team regarding the hostage situation. Alerting Rose to their presence too early could put the humans' lives in danger, and Steven wasn't prepared to lose anyone else. Witnessing Rose kill a human in her initial broadcast had been traumatic enough. He hadn't physically seen it of course, thanks to Garnet, but his mind had been all too happy to fill in the blanks. The image of the Gem who practically wore the face of his mother driving her sword through a defenceless person had burned itself into his mind. He couldn't stand the thought that any more people would come to harm because of what his mother had done to the Rose Quartz. He had to save everyone.
Garnet, Lapis, and Peridot made a b-line for the zoo's most important areas: the main power core, the environmental systems, and the defence systems. They knew that once they had control of those areas, Facet 31 wouldn't be able to spring any nasty surprises on them, or endanger the humans by cutting the life support. Even more useful, the team would be able to shut off all power to the zoo if necessary; a prudent measure, given that they didn't know for what purpose the zoo had been modified. The three of them travelled together until they reached a point at which they had no choice but to split off to reach their separate objectives.
"Alright Gems, let's do this" said Garnet earnestly. "If anything goes wrong, you can get hold of me on your walkie-talkie."
"I… thought we were calling them communicators" replied Lapis, suspiciously eyeing the Cookie Cat-shaped object in her hand.
"Yeah, that does sound a lot more appropriate for a mission" agreed Peridot. "Honestly, where does Steven come up with these words? First "art", now this."
"Call them what you like" said Garnet, pushing down the Ruby part of her mind so as to avoid sounding exasperated. "Let's just get this done. We meet back here unless plans change. Ok?"
Lapis and Peridot gave her a nod, and the three Gems went their separate ways.
After a short period of searching; her pace having been impeded slightly due to having to avoid the guards, Garnet found herself just outside the zoo's main power room. As she was about to cross the threshold into the room, she "saw" a flash of movement in her future vision. Twirling around, she deftly sidestepped a blast of energy, which narrowly missed her head. As her eyes flitted to the beam's source, she saw her attackers: a large group of Quartzes, consisting both of Facet 31's Rose Quartzes, and the zoo's Amethysts. Some of them were wielding limb enhancers on one arm, in blaster configuration. Garnet didn't know why the zoo's Amethysts would be working with Facet 31, but right now she had more pressing matters to worry about.
The group of Quartzes charged at her, and she dashed to meet them. As she spun and ducked away from their attacks, she put her communicator on an open channel, and spoke to any of her allies who would hear her:
"This is Garnet. I'm pinned down. Tell me what's going on at your end."
After a few tense seconds, during which she struggled to keep the group of attackers at bay, she got her answer. The sounds of more scuffles played through her communicator, occasionally punctuated by discernible words. Eventually, Pearl's voice cut through the assault of noises:
"Garnet! We're pinned down here too! We don't know how they found us; we didn't think we'd alerted anyone!"
"Same here" said Steven, his voice also emanating from the communicator. "We didn't even hear them coming; they were just on top of us!"
It was the same story for all of them. In the environmental control room, Lapis clenched her water-fists imposingly as she stared down the group of Quartzes who were cutting off her escape. They had appeared so quickly; far more quickly than Quartzes should have been able to sneak up on her. She pushed her confusion to the back of her mind. Explanations could wait. Right now, she just had to survive. Near the main weapons room, Peridot was in a similar situation. She used her metal powers to fling any loose pieces of plating or machinery she could find at her would-be attackers. This seemed to be working for the time being, but she knew she couldn't keep them pinned down forever. "How could I have been so stupid?" she thought to herself. "How could I let a bunch of Gems sneak up on me, Quartzes no less?! Urgh, if only I weren't cornered in this weapon room I could-… wait… I'm in the weapons room." A cheeky grin spread across her face.
In a chamber near the bridge, Bismuth, Connie, and Steven fought a fierce battle against a large group of Quartzes. Bismuth had morphed both of her hands into huge hammers, and was chewing through the enemies quickly enough to give the group room to breathe, but not quickly enough to actually cut them a path out of their cornered position. Steven was projecting as large a shield as he could in the opposite direction to keep the Quartzes from flanking her. Connie meanwhile was taking on an individual Rose Quartz, who seemed to match her in ability. They were entirely boxed in.
"How did they find us?" asked Connie, never taking her eyes off the Quartz she was fighting.
"I don't know" replied Steven. "Quartzes aren't exactly supposed to be stealthy!"
"Well, neither are Bismuths, but I snuck in here just fine; maybe Rose taught them a few tricks" Bismuth piped up as she sent a couple of Quartzes flying with a swing of her arm.
"No, it's something more than that; something I'm missing" said Garnet, still listening in from her own position. "Rose is good, but she didn't predict our plans like this last time, or she would have caught Ruby back when we eavesdropped on their meeting place. How is she one-upping us now?"
"How do you think, fusion?" spoke a voice from behind Garnet. She whipped around at the sound of it, as did many of the Quartzes, though while Garnet's reaction was out of shock, theirs was out of deference. The voice was one Garnet found chillingly familiar. It was like hearing a part of herself speaking, but in a tone that was nothing like she was used to. For a moment, Garnet reflected that this must have been how Steven had felt when he'd faced down Rose. The voice's owner stepped out of a door just a few metres down the corridor. Her black and grey dress bore the Facet 31 logo, and a large gem gleamed in the position her eye should have occupied, but everything else about her was unmistakably familiar, from her short stature, to her thin dainty limbs, to her soothing, almost lyrical voice. A Sapphire.
"No, really" the Sapphire continued, walking slowly towards Garnet, "how do you even think? With that Ruby's unorderly thoughts tumbling around in there it's a wonder your Sapphire can even function." Garnet clenched her teeth angrily at the insult, but she could tell this was no casual jab. The Sapphire had been smirking when she delivered the comment, but that smile had faded almost immediately into an expression of pure contempt.
"I don't understand" Garnet replied, a mild tone of panic creeping into her voice, "A Sapphire shouldn't have been able to see us coming." It was true, the Crystal Gems had never had to worry about Homeworld's Sapphires during the war, or during their time with Steven, because Sapphires were only adept at predicting futures that seemed likely. The rebels' behaviour and tactics were so unpredictable to Homeworld Gems that Sapphires had been functionally useless against them. If a Sapphire had seen through their plan now, then that meant… Facet 31 had considered this future a likely one. Rose had expected them to come. She'd been waiting for them.
Seeing the look for realisation appear on Garnet's face, the Sapphire spoke again. "Finally catching up are we, fusion? Rose knew you'd come sooner or later, she just needed me to tell her where and when. And now that we have you, I'm going to enjoy watching you discover what it's like to feel blind…"
Author's Notes: Just some housekeeping this time; I'm going to be away for the next few days, and I don't know if/when I'll have the time to write during that time, so if the fic goes on a break until the middle of next week, that's why. Other than that, hope you're all still enjoying it, and I'll see you in the next chapter.