Chapter 2: Status Check
A/N: Imma try to continue this and fill in all the gaps in the homeworld gems' arc! it's a tall order... but i gotta have tall ambitions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's valentine's day and i'm feeling shippy. whatever. I hope you like it!
In the dim light, Peridot stared at her real hands and blinked. Stubby little fingers on arms too short. Disgraceful. As much as she prided herself for climbing the ranks despite her smaller-than-average size... her self esteem still left so much to be desired.
She'd locked the lapis in the main room of her personal compartment. The prisoner gem still moved very little, even after several timecycles had passed, several orbits made around the center of the off-planet Yellow Authority megacomplex. Ever since Peridot had brought the tattered blue gem back to her room, she'd done seldom more than crouch in the corner. Her eyes flickered over the elements of her surroundings - the smoothly glowing lights; the tri-diamond insignias on the floor panels; the floating weapons, grotesque clusters of gems in lime bubbles, and machinery parts suspended in motion all over the room. She pulled her knees close and hugged them, pressed her forehead down, and pretended she was back in the Homeworld she remembered.
Peridot would never let a gem lay eyes on her without her limb enhancers if she could help it - not even the decrepit prisoner she'd been forced to share her living quarters with. Here, in the closed-off, tiny communications room, she'd unsnapped the metal limbs, and now sat massaging her sore elbows and knees. There was a strange, ghostly sensation that came with doing this - she could almost feel the missing extensions, though they were gone. When she wiggled her fingers, she seemed to sense the disembodied touch-stubs in the empty air before her.
"BEEP-BEEP. Incoming message for PERIDOT 2F5L-5XG. BEEP-BEEP."
Peridot nearly jumped out of her holographic skin as her Complex Message Transmitter came on with a metallic twang. Fumbling with her limb enhancers, she reattached her false arms with a sharp hiss of steam, and slammed a fist on the touch screen that had appeared. The noise ceased, and Chrysocolla came into view. Two of her arms tapped at control screens, while another hand lifted to remove her visor.
The glare she gave her subordinate made Peridot stand pin-straight without stopping to think. She saluted her manager immediately, wide-eyed and attentive. The yellow diamond on her uniform stood in stark contrast against her dark teal skin, as she reciprocated the salute, her hands framing the bright shape.
"Peridot 2F5L-5XG."
"Yes!" she awkwardly interlaced her floating fingers.
"Commander Topaz has ordered another remote status check on the Earth's communication hubs. A thorough one. Get to it."
Peridot couldn't stop an exasperated growl from escaping her throat, but she coughed it off. "Chrysocolla, forgive me, but I performed a status check merely two time-cycles ago!"
Chrysocolla stopped tapping at the screens and gave her Peridot another, even more fiery glare. Her message was clear and familiar: Peridots may not talk back to their Managers.
"Understood, your botryoidance!" While she saluted once again, Peridot wiped a bead of sweat from her cheek. The Manager raised a hand over the communicator screen and the image flickered out.
As she clambered into her leg extenders, Peridot grumbled her annoyance. "Topaz thinks she knows how to evaluate a planet... yeaah, right! She's a big clod, is what she is."
Absolutely nothing had changed on Earth, from what she could see on the archaic communication screens and old gem tech. They were still completely functional... if not utterly simple. The task was three times more boring each time she repeated it. Earth didn't seem to offer much, and she couldn't quite see what Topaz was so concerned about.
Peridot was about to close down the planet surveillance equipment, when she noticed a robonoid update had appeared. She tapped on it, and read that one of the plug robonoids had reached the Primary Kindergarten's control and research base. Her eyes widened. Topaz would be pleased to hear this, for sure!
But first, documentation was needed. She fiddled with the communication channels until it detected a signal coming from beneath Kindergarten. "Gotcha." She chuckled quietly with excitement.
Peridot brought up the base's surveillance screen using her gem. The room appeared clean and dark. She quickly turned on the auditory log device in her arm panel.
"Established gem projection link with control room. Plug robonoid has successfully landed on planet Earth and entered Prime Kindergarten Control Room in Facet Five. Will proceed to perform status check of Kindergarten..." She turned the screen and checked on the panels, then scanned through the data logs. Wow... what a load of useful information! Peridot was a bit stirred seeing how many fusion experiments had been conducted here.
"Now accounting for all operational injectors." She activated the local hand control devices and lifted them toward the ceiling. "Checking for aberrations in perimeter." The controls were terribly boring to use.
"Hh. This gem tech is simply archaic..." Columns of soil began to sift down - hopefully some of the experiments had incubated long enough to take on a physical form.
"I dunno. I think it looks pretty cool."
Peridot froze. Whose voice was that?! She dropped the hand tools and searched frantically with her surveillance screen. Right in the entrance to the control room stood a tiny, rather round creature. Peridot was silent.
The thing spoke again. "Hi! I'm Steven."
Her brow knitted, Peridot brought up her personal infoscreen. Was this creature documented?
She realized she was still recording. "There appears to be an infestation of... stevens, in the Kindergarten." Perhaps this was the primary life-form on Earth. An annoyance at best.
"Aww, I'm not so bad once you get to know me!" The steven was smiling goofily up at her.
"And how many more stevens are present in this area?" She glanced around warily.
"Oh. Just me."
"Eh... that's a relief. So, tell me. Have 'stevens' replaced humans as the dominant species on Earth?"
"Oh no, there's lots of humans. There's my dad, Connie, Lars and Sadie, the mail man, Onion... I think. There's lots of people!"
"Hm." These humans probably wouldn't be pleased with what would soon happen to their planet.
"Now I get to ask a question. What are you doing?" the steven asked smugly, pointing. Ugh.
"Hm? Just picking up where we left off." She raised a fist above the annoyance and prepared to let it fall and crush him. Thankfully humans were pathetically fragile...
A shiver ran over Peridot. Where was the noise of the creature's life being snuffed out? She swiveled the screen around. The fist had stopped dead several feet from the ground. Underneath it, a reddish lifeform pushed upwards and let the steven escape. The screen detected a gem presence and targeted two of them in the creature's palms.
Clods. "A gem!" And not only that, but a fusion.
Suddenly two other gems hopped into view, scowling up at the screen. A short one and a skinny one.
"Ugh! More?! But the Red-Eye didn't report the presence of any gem on this planet!" Terror was slowly overcoming her. Topaz would be furious... and this certainly meant another mission back.
The twiggy gem shouted, and Peridot zoomed in on her. "That's because we destroyed it!"
No way. "You what!?" Waves of panic washed over her as she searched her infoscreen. "But - the records say gems were wiped out on Earth!" As shocking as it was, it all started to come together in her mind.
"Wait a minute. You're the ones that have been destroying my plug robonoids! Are you the reason the Homeworld warp is down AGAIN?" She pulled her infoscreen forth, and summoned the picture of the symbol she'd found attached to the side of the warp pad. "Is this your bizarre icon?! Urrrgh...!" Peridot glared at them, her nose millimeters from the screen. "Why do you keep destroying my stuff?!"
The stringy gem shouted even louder this time, and brandished a spear toward the screen. "Because we are the Crystal Gems! We're still alive, and we're still the guardians of this planet and all of its living creatures!"
Peridot stared at the spear, trying to calm down and make sense of this proclamation. The name was vaguely familiar.
"The... Crystal gems?"
Without warning the three gems sprung forth, their weapons aimed at the control devices. "Agh, stop! How dare you!" she pulled the floating hands out of their reach; her real hands were trembling inside their enhancers. "I'll do this one way or another. You're just making it really difficult!" she screamed as the short one and the fusion smashed one of the hands to pieces. Before she could think of some way to remotely destroy them, they had sent the other fist careening into the power source with a tremendous crash.
"I'm reporting this!" Peridot just managed to say before the screen went dark.
She hung her head for a moment, then lifted a fist of green fingers and slammed it down on the Earth communications device.
"Rruaaaagh! Why is this happening to me?!"
There was a quiet knock at the door, and Peridot swung around angrily, fists balled up. Teeth clenched.
When the door slid up into the ceiling, she found the lapis standing there. Standing.
"I didn't know you could walk," Peridot sneered.
Lapis wiped her nose with a forearm. "Something wrong?" Her voice was tiny; gravelly from disuse.
"How did you know?" She stormed into the main room, and began walking in circles. What was she to do? There was no way she could eliminate those hostile strays on her own.
"That Topaz said you were going to use me to get information about Earth." She backed into the corner once again and slid down against the frigid steel of the wall.
"Huh. That's right." Peridot grumbled, not bothering to look at the prisoner. "You don't happen to recognize the term 'Crystal Gems', do you?"
There was no response. After a moment the flustered gem stopped pacing and looked quizzically at the lapis.
Her bangs cast a black shadow over her eyes. This was the most distraught Peridot had ever seen her... which was saying something.
After a minute's consideration, she walked to her side, and stiffly sat herself down. She didn't look at Lapis. Her fingers were curled over her knees, feeling the border between her real legs and the dead metal of her enhancers. She'd been this way for most of her life - short as it was so far - but she felt she wasn't herself without the technology that propped her up. Her enhancers were a symbol of status. A trophy; a priceless tool, and an indirect gift from Yellow Diamond herself. Only Peridots fit to serve the cause were given these. Yes... things were meant to be this way.
"I never saw a forced fusion in Blue Diamond's court."
Lapis's sudden remark brought Peridot back to the present. Her gaze turned to her face, noting the gem's shadowy eyes, and her appearance modifiers still grungy and tattered.
"You belonged to her court?"
Lapis nodded slowly, her eyes cast downward. "She was gracious to us. It was so peaceful there..." Her eyes were cloudy, overcast with something tragic that Peridot couldn't see. "Things are probably different there too."
"Different?"
"I was stranded on Earth for so long. I didn't realize that things had changed this much while I was... trapped." Her slender, tapered fingers were playing with the frayed ends of the ribbon around her neck. Peridot watched them, mesmerized.
"You'll probably be allowed to go back." As Peridot spoke, Lapis looked up. "I mean, back to Blue Diamond's domain. They probably... miss you."
The bruised gem brought her eyes back to her lap. "That would be nice. I don't think they want me, though."
What was this - what was happening in Peridot's mind? Feelings?!
"There's someplace you belong. Trust me." She could hardly tell what she was saying, but it seemed truthful… logical… right.
Peridot glanced back at Lapis - and she swore she could see a smile appear there, for only a second, then fade away.
A/N: If you read this, please tell me what you think in a review!