A/N: I'll be shifting towards at least one update per week (Usually on Mondays). I'm not sure what the end game of this fic is going to be yet, but since I'm usually writing a few chapters ahead of what I post, hopefully it won't be terrible when we get there.
"So where are we going?" asked Amblygonite.
"Why are you still following me?" Peridot asked irritably.
They had been walking for some time. It seemed to Amblygonite that they were just heading to the opposite side of the island, but she didn't have a better idea of where to go. The island appeared to be mostly rocks, sand, and more sand. It wasn't as pretty as the forest was. Maybe she could convince Peridot to go back to the forest! But, ooh, then she'd have to look for the pod and the Peridot would probably get uber ticked at how badly it got smashed up if they found it. It was probably totally unusable now. Amblygonite swallowed nervously.
"Because I was told to help you!" Amblygonite pointed out after a few moments, folding her arms and blanching when the sides of her 'arms' started spraying thick foam at the ground. These things were just getting silly now.
Peridot glanced at the other gem's unique arms as Amblygonite quickly uncrossed her arms to stop the foam. "Limb enhancers?" she asked.
"Is that what these are?" Amblygonite asked. "I hit my head really hard. I think. I'm pretty sure I wasn't quite as..."
"Stupid? Clod-like? Ditzy?"
"Yeah those, I think I was at least a little more serious before. Or maybe I was just always this way!"
"It must be a product of your inferior materialization then," Peridot said simply. Which was incredibly hurtful, but Amblygonite had to also admit she was probably right. Still, ow!
"What makes you say that?" she asked the green gem, shoving her hurt feelings into the dark pit of her mind where they'd rot forever.
"Not only do you exhibit...diminished intellectual capacity at the moment, but your arms have been augmented to compensate for a lack of certain...abilities. Such as transformation, it seems," Peridot explained, marching onward and keeping her eyes facing forward.
"At least they're really cool augmentations!" Amblygonite pointed out. "I'm finding new tools all the time! I even used some to get here to you. I was rolling over these weird flat surfaces with metal boxes rolling on them..."
"You're speaking nonsense."
"I swear it's true! There are these weird paved areas with lines on them all around! If you stay on them long enough, big metal boxes speed past you and make loud beeps at you! It's bizarre, but quite exhilarating. I tried to jump on some but they all sped away. They had these weird things inside them..."
"Probably humans. They're the dominant lifeform on this planet."
"Is that what they're called?" Amblygonite scratched her head, pausing for a second to wait for her drill to recede afterwards. "Strange. None of them even stopped to say hello. And who were those people breaking the communication hub?" If they were an army of giants with tiny handlers she was quite prepared to override her earlier indecision and start looking for that pod.
"Some rebellious upstarts that have upset the mission here," Peridot said irritably, rolling her eyes. This was an awful lot of explaining to do. They had reached the shore now and Peridot looked at her new 'companion.' Looking her up and down, Peridot was completely unimpressed. Of course all she got sent was a third-rate builder gem. Not even a quality Bismuth!
"Do any of your tools assist in traversing aquatic terrain easily?"
"Let me check!" Amblygonite did a series of complicated dance maneuvers, causing a variety of different tools to pop out of her arms, but none of them looked especially useful for moving across water, except-
"Is that a mark V ice crystalizer?" Peridot asked, suddenly interested.
"This?" Amblygonite asked, holding up the flat of her palm. Inside of it (Contained within a hole behind a shimmering force field) was a bubbling blue ball of what could only be called 'goop.' It bubbled, hissed, and dribbled messily, but it didn't leave the confines of the hole in her palm. "I guess. Maybe?"
"Throw it in the water and see!" Peridot ordered.
"You're the boss!" the gem responded, thrusting her hand forward and ejecting the ball into the water. It hit with a small plop and sank. Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then the water started hissing and frothing, until-
"OH BOULDERS!" cried Peridot, diving onto the ground as a moderate explosion rocked the earth in front of them, forming a huge geyser of water and showering them in a small rainstorm for a few moments. Amblygonite was absolutely intrigued, despite being thrown backwards onto the ground by the force of the blast.
"Woah! What was that thing? Hey! Hey! Listen! Peridot! Peridot! Peri! Peri! Pear! Pear! Pear!" badgered Amblygonite endlessly, nudging Peridot with her toe each time. Peridot seemed to still be in shock over nearly getting blown to pieces, judging by how she had her hands cover her head and was cowering on the ground.
"WHAT!?" screamed the beleaguered Peridot, turning to glare daggers at the other gem.
"Do you know what tool that was?"
"Not a mark V crystalizer," Peridot said sourly, getting onto her feet and brushing herself off, acting like she was too cool for this stupidity. "It was presumably explosive gel, used for quick demolition work."
"Oh." The brown gem hastily clenched her fist before she shot a wad of the jelly at her own feet. Why would someone pack this much destruction into one gem? Or, rather, arm? She glanced at her other arm, suddenly concerned about it also shooting out balls of explosive fire.
"Yes, it usually has a long priming time so it can't be used as a weapon." That fact Peridot was infinitely grateful for. Giving someone this careless demolition gel was a terrible idea. Had that landing really damaged her that much? Surely she had to have been different before whatever damage she suffered.
Peridot sighed, then raised one hand into the air and clutched her legs to her chest. Her 'fingers' started spinning in a rapid circle, pulling Peridot into the air. Amblygonite whooped and gave her two thumbs up, very impressed. Peridot felt very tired.
"You'll just have to follow me from under the water!" Peridot called down, snickering at getting to lord at least some power over a lesser ranked gem. Amblygonite frowned for a moment, but shrugged.
"Your call. Just don't get too high! And where are we going?"
"We're heading to another warp pad! We need to use the galaxy warp to get back to Homeworld since both of our ships are destroyed!"
"Are you going to teach me how to fix it if it's broken?"
"Er...Sure," Peridot answered.
Amblygonite nodded, giving her 'boss' another thumbs up before heading under the waves, following the distant shadow of Peridot high above her. She might even catch a fish while she was underwater this time! She wondered if Peridot would accept it as a peace offering.
Eventually they hit land, Peridot coming in for a safe landing as Amblygonite climbed up from the ocean depths. The latter spat out a wad of salt water and shook her hair again, which now needed a comb worse than ever. Peridot's hair looked great in comparison, and her hair resembled a Dorito chip!
Not that either of them knew what that was.
"So how close are we?" Amblygonite asked after wringing her hair out and shoving it roughly back into place. A fish jumped out from her upturned collar and flailed back into the ocean. Amblygonite turned to watch it leave sadly. Goodbye peace offering.
"Not too much farther," Peridot said, studying a map formed out of her fingers. Amblygonite badly wanted to ask where she could get gadgets that cool, but she figured it'd probably be pointless. Maybe if she schmoozed the other gem enough...
"What exactly were you doing here in the first place? You said something about a mission?"
"It's nothing you need to worry about. Well, I guess you should worry about it, but at this rate we should be able to get off the planet in time before we have to worry about it," she answered ambiguously, leaving Amblygonite more confused (Which was getting distressingly common) than ever.
"So...Uh..."
"Just don't worry about it," Peridot finished for her, closing her map and marching on ahead. They eventually came upon another warp pad that was damaged and smashed in several places. Peridot almost began to fix it herself, but then glanced at Amblygonite as the other gem kicked over a few of the pieces and bent to look over them.
"I'm sure you can handle this, assistant," the Peridot said importantly.
Amblygonite looked up at Peridot and grinned, snapping a traditional diamond salute. "Right away! I'm sure it'll come naturally to me!"
She started hauling the pieces of the pad back towards the center, seeing as that would be a logical place to start. This took a while because a lot of the pieces had managed to get scattered during the time that the pad had been damaged. Peridot spent the time recording something in her logs.
"Hey, Peridot?" Amblygonite asked as she gathered the rocks together at the pad.
"Yeeeeesssss?" Peridot answered testily.
"Did you come here with anyone else?"
"Yes, two others. One of them was my escort, the other an informant."
"Then why wasn't the distress call for them too?"
"Did that part not get through?"
"Nope. Or it did and I forgot," she clanged one metal arm on her own head. Lightly. "Memory loss, remember?" She snorted at her own joke.
You could almost hear the whistling noise as the same joke passed right over Peridot's head.
"Right...No, I've lost track of them. The last time I saw them they went down with our ship. I've been trying to get off this planet ever since."
Amblygonite whistled low. "That sucks. These Crystal Clods-"
"The official term they, ugh, use is 'Crystal Gems.'"
"Crystal Gems must be pretty tough! Especially with that huge purple thing-"
"What?"
"Didn't you see it smashing the hub?" the assistant asked, moving one part of the pad into place and making a finger gun motion until a tube filled with a clear, sticky liquid jumped up on top of her index finger. She shook her head for a moment, then shrugged. Natural instinct? She'd think about it later.
"It was gigantic! It smashed everything into pieces and was super angry! I didn't know they made Gems like that! Well, I don't think I didn't know." She'd have to think on that phrase for a while to see if it made any sense.
"They...don't. These Crystal Gems are fond of using fusions to augment their fighting capabilities," Peridot clarified while the other gem spread the liquid around the damaged parts of the pad, sealing it back up.
"Fusions? What are those?"
"Are you serious?" Peridot gaped.
"As serious as this pad is damaged. Which is very serious. Like, wow, did someone with anger issues try to validate themselves all over this or what?" she said, laughing at her 'joke' as she continued her work.
"...What?" Peridot asked, dumbfounded.
"Well you see, it's like..." she trailed off, frowning at her feet for a few moments. "Uh. Y'see. It's. Er. Look the point is that this thing is messed up! Super bad! So, fusions? Ha ha!" she finished, laughing nervously and feeling heat rising to her face.
"O...kay," Peridot said wearily, keeping an eye on the other gem as she worked now. "Fusions are when two gems combine their powers into one, although it's not limited to two gems. This is usually only done during war and doing it any time outside of that is disgusting. Which makes it worse that one of those Crystal Clods is always a fusion!"
"They always have that purple thing?"
"No, it's- No. Usually there's four of them. Garnet, the fusion, a Pearl above her place, a half-formed Amethyst, and the Steven, who seems to be their leader for some reason."
"What's a Steven?" Amblygonite asked, casually sliding a piece of the pad she just smashed after somehow turning her thumb into a hammer out of the way.
"It's...Look, enough with the questions, okay!?" pleaded Peridot. "Why are you in such high spirits anyway? We're trapped on this planet with a bunch of rebels! And we're running out of time before the c- before they find us!"
"Well, I don't think it'd help anything to be sad and cry about it," Amblygonite replied, the slip shooting past her like an errant fly. "I mean, I guess it might feel nice. But I just crush those weird feelings I get sometimes down into the back of my head and forget about them!" Her right eye twitched slightly. This is perfectly fine.
Peridot nodded slowly. "I...Guess that makes sense. That's actually a pretty good idea in these circumstances."
"Well, I do try." She paused for a moment, looking at how damaged the warp pad was, then back up at Peridot. "Should we rest here for a few days? I think it might help me a lot to experiment while I work on this thing. I might be able to remember more about how I, you know, work?" she indicated one of her arms.
Peridot paled slightly at the phrase 'a few days.' "Uh. Maybe not much longer than a day or two. I can scout the area while you work on this, but we can't really afford to waste any time."
"Hey, that works for me! Why not tell me about these rebels at the same time? I should probably know how to fight them if we see them!"
"You'd actually fight them?"
"I wouldn't really like it, but yeah, I guess I can give it a try!" Amblygonite said proudly. "After all, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to listen to all your orders and serve you blindly. It sounds like the right thing to do. It definitely feels right when I say it, anyway!"
"In that case..." Peridot considered, then began to regale Amblygonite a tale of dastardly rebels overthrowing the proper diamond authority of the planet. She really made them sound like awful people, but Amblygonite ate it right up. How could her leader be wrong? She ooh'd and aww'd at all the right places while she continued to work, even shaking her fist and fuming when Peridot told her about how they crashed the ship despite the green gem's brave fight against them, even if her Jasper had fallen almost immediately!
"They really took your whole ship down?" she asked, incredulous. She was somewhat regretting hear eagerness to stand up against them.
"Oh yes, probably because they lacked the proper training to pilot it. Unlike me," Peridot said haughtily. "I was fortunately able to escape when they had their backs turned. But if you follow my lead, we'll definitely be off this planet in no time at all!"
Amblygonite stood up and saluted her Peridot proudly, patriotism in her heart!
Peridot was, suffice it to say, pleased.