A/N: Longest chapter yet, thanks for the reviews and follows! For those curious, Amblygonite is formed from the Greek words for blunt and angle due to its perfect cleavage. It can be used for gemstones but is vulnerable to abrasions over time due to poor hardness.
Peridot left Amblygonite alone for a while to check the nearby area. Amblygonite used the time to continue working on the pad and testing out the various contraptions in her arm. Now with an actual opportunity to test herself out, she was starting to figure out what exactly her arms were capable of.
Most of the time they seemed to act of their own accord, but if she focused her mind on the type of tool she needed for a task, it seemed her arms were capable of supplying it! She had tried using this to get a "instant everything fixer" but that just made her hands start feeling really hot. Fixing the pad itself didn't actually seem to be all that hard, and soon enough she could feel power coursing through it again. All it took was finding every single piece of rubble and gluing it all back on, then opening this weird hatch and fiddling with some of the wiring inside for a bit. Oh, and she had to stand on top of it and draw...something into it with a weird injector tool that popped out of her left ring finger. She had no idea what she was doing really, but it came pretty instinctively, so she figured it must be training kicking in.
She'd leave out the part where she resorted to hitting the top of the pad with a hammer for two minutes before she noticed a panel had burst open. And the part where she dropped two globs of sealant into the interior of the pad before shutting the hatch closed. Those were parts where training did not kick in.
Peridot was still gone once this was done, so Amblygonite decided to try out the rest of her tools. If she kept her index finger pointed long enough, a thin laser pointer emerged from its tip that could leave diagrams hovering in mid-air for a minute or two. She amused herself with this by drawing her name in bubble letters and then doodling an image of Peridot being ludicrously angry next to it.
If she clapped her hands rapidly, one of her hands would reform into a hammer, while the fingers of the other hand would slide together and form a chisel. She spent the rest of the time waiting for Peridot's return by chiseling a nearby rock into a statue of herself. However, considering her artistic skills were near absolute zero, she only managed to make what resembled a very friendly looking triangle by the time of the other gem's return.
She also noticed that her design of Peridot appearing very angry was still lingering in the air, which she hastily stood in front of as Peridot flew down from on high and landed in front of her.
"How goes the repair of the warp pad?" Peridot asked, trying to ignore the vacuous smile from the rock statue nearby. It was hard to do, that thing's eyes seemed to follow her everywhere.
"Perfect! I think most of my memories from working are coming back!" Amblygonite answered proudly. "It should be functioning again. You know, assuming whatever broke it in the first place doesn't come back."
"Great," Peridot said, ignoring everything beyond 'perfect' coming out of the other gem's mouth. "Follow me, I've located something we should work on fixing as a backup plan."
"Is it another escape route?" Amblygonite asked as she followed Peridot into the surrounding forest.
"No, unfortunately. It's too old to be used for that purpose. However, it has another use which should be hopefully clear to you when we see it."
"How long should that take to get there?"
"Not too long, I'm surprised we didn't find it sooner."
The cartoon image of Peridot faded from sight as they left the area, never to be remembered. Rest in peace.
After a few minutes' travel, the unlikely duo came to a massive crashed ship.
"Wooooooahhhhh," Amblygonite gasped, running forwards to rub her hands all over it. It was big! Grey! And menacing! She liked all those adjectives!
"Yes, yes, very impressive. Please stop getting dirt all over yourself," Peridot said, opening the front door with her hand. Amblygonite sheepishly pulled herself off the wall and followed Peridot inside, brushing dirt from her hair.
Inside was a disused room that had all sorts of dirt and plants crawling all over it. Bugs skittered to and fro, technology sat unused in different corners, and a single spider was drawing a web over what appeared to be a microphone.
"So...How are we going to use this?" Amblygonite asked. "Because I don't think sneezing is going to launch us in the air very far. I mean that's creative, but we'd need so much more dust!"
Peridot dragged a hand across her face.
"No you clod, we're going to fix the ship's weapon systems! If the Crystal Clods try to follow me again, I'll be able to trap them in here and deal with them! Then we can escape this planet and have them all wrapped up for Homeworld to deal with!"
"Ohhhh, that makes much more sense. So. What do we start fixing?"
"Uh..." Peridot hesitated, chewing her lips and looking around. A few laser cannons were nestled in corners of the ceiling, presumably for...
"Why are there cannons inside the ship?" Amblygonite spoke up. "Were they planning on the crew rebelling?"
"That doesn't matter!" Peridot snapped. "Just get up there and, uh, check to see if they work or something! I'm going to find the control room!"
"How?"
"How what?"
"How am I supposed to get up there? I can't fly! And my legs don't have ladders attached to them! Well, I guess they could if I had some spare parts. When we get to Homeworld do you think they'll let me augment my legs too?"
Peridot sighed. It was a very long sigh. It was a sigh that spoke of long suffering and frustration.
Amblygonite sighed too. Not because she was frustrated, she just didn't want to be the only one sighing.
"Okay. Amblygonite," Peridot began very patiently. Her hands' digits aligned with each other, forming the traditional 'I'm trying not to smack you upside the head but boy am I getting close to it' gesture of having both palms calmly held together while still pointing at someone. "You have tools, yes? I can imagine that you were made to have intelligence, much like me. Try and use your tools to find a way up there, like how you described using them to catch up with me before."
"I can't cut the walls down until they reach me! That would really destroy the atmosphere of this place. And also destroy this place."
Peridot was already walking away down a corridor, muttering distinctly about clods and the intelligence of lower order gems.
Amblygonite watched her go, then turned towards the first cannon. It was basically just a small crystal on a stick connected to a sort of vase-like aperture. It was way high up on the ceiling.
"Okay arms...Transform!" she shouted, thrusting her hands forward. Nothing happened.
"Activate!"
Nope.
"Turn on!"
Nada.
"Fire!"
A pebble fell over.
Amblygonite blew a raspberry, then walked over the wall below the cannon and pressed her palm against it. "If I wanted to climb really fast...I'd need like, a ladder. Nah that's too big. A rope?"
She took a few steps back and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She thought of only rope and climbing. How much fun it would be to climb. How climbing and rope were the best things ever! She felt something start to shift in her left arm, and when she opened her eyes she totally panicked.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" she screeched, watching a good chunk of her arm shift to the side as a coil of rope fell out of the exposed end. The chunk that shifted off reformed into a wheel with a level. When Amblygonite (very, very grudgingly) looked down the bottom of the new hole in her arm, she saw something glinting like a spear tip.
She blinked a few times, then shrugged and pointed it up at the ceiling next to her destination. "Uh. Fire?"
Still nothing.
She thought for a few moments. For some reason, she was reminded of a small human's t-shirt she had glanced at while passing through some sort of celebration. Despite all the yelling, she had noticed the little human's shirt because of its cartoonish design of a man using a robotic limb to assist himself, complete with catch phrase.
"...Go go gadget grappling gun?" she tried, feeling foolish.
The spear shot out of her arm with a jolt that shook her all the way to the shoulder, then buried itself in the ceiling above. After a second, the spear whirred, then drilled slightly deeper into the wall for better purchase. Deciding to just go along with this insanity, Amblygonite gripped the lever on the wheel with her other arm and started spinning it. After a few moments, she felt herself getting pulled upwards. She was very thankful most of the weight seemed to be going towards her augment and not her actual arm, because otherwise her shoulder might have exploded at this point.
After a minute of work, she was at eye level with the cannon. Only now did she realize she had no way of actually seeing if anything was wrong with it.
Fortunately, Peridot appeared on a gigantic holo-screen from behind to scare the living daylights out of her.
"HEY! AMBLYGONITE!" Peridot yelled, causing Amblygonite to scream again and spin wildly around next to the ceiling.
"You don't need to yell!" she answered, angling her voice down to the microphone.
Peridot squinted for a few seconds, eyes searching around until she found Amblygonite. The jumpsuited gem waved happily with her good arm. Peridot decided not to ask what was going on with her arm.
"Have you been able to repair the cannons yet?" Peridot asked.
"Uh. How do I tell if they're broken?"
"Well you...!" Peridot started, then paused. "Uh. Oh! Look! See, here's a button to see if they work! I'll just press it and-"
"PERIDOT WAIT I'M STILL-" Amblygonite screeched, throwing herself violently out of the way and scrabbling against the ceiling as the cannon in front of her shot a pink laser out at the ground. The nearly dissected technician was left swinging and cursing at Peridot, heart pounding like mad.
Peridot, like all good gem leaders, accepted absolutely no fault. "See? They work! Good job, Amblygonite," she congratulated.
Amblygonite had the good grace to smile and thank Peridot instead of continuing to rage.
"Right. I think everything here is mostly working. I'm coming back down there to inspect the garbage disposal, I want to see if it can stand up to sustained assault, I might be able to use it as a trap!" Peridot said.
"What should I do?"
"Uh, duh? Head down the corridor I went down. It's the big room with the trap door in the middle and the two big wheels..."
"Riiiiiiight," Amblygonite said, nodding as if those directions were good.
"Excellent. Peridot, out."
Amblygonite smiled, shaking her head. Peridot sure was weird. Despite nearly frying Amblygonite a few seconds ago, there was an odd quirkiness about her that made her somewhat endearing. Amblygonite considered for a few moments that this may be the greatest sign of all that she was going insane. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice the anchor point of her spear give way, sending her plummeting to the ground with a panicked yelp.
She hit the metal with a thud, fortunately on her back and not her front.
"Owwww..." she groaned, slowly getting up and stretching her back out. A few bits of metal fell on her head from the hole her grappling gun had added to the ceiling. Limping now, she headed down the corridor as indicated by Peridot.
Eventually, Amblygonite found the room Peridot had been talking about. At least, she found the two big wheels. This was after accidentally triggering the trap door mechanism and nearly falling into the death pit in the middle of the room. Through a series of yelps and screams, she had narrowly managed to grab the edge of the pit with one augmented arm and pull herself out. Turns out pull-ups are easy to do when your arms are made of metal and you're also certain you're 2 seconds from being shattered.
So now she waited, glancing up at the two large wheels on the ceiling. They hadn't been used in such a long time, there were masses of spider webs growing over them and a serious helping of dust. Amblygonite was reasonably sure her arsenal didn't include a vacuum or a duster. Maybe she'd get away with just breathing really hard at the mess instead.
Peridot floated down from above a few minutes later, collapsing her 'helicopter' digits back into hand form as she landed next to Amblygonite. She looked reasonably happy, presumably because the ship still functioned miraculously.
"I see you found the location I described easily," Peridot said approvingly. Amblygonite rubbed her shoulder.
"Yeah, uh, I guess. You didn't tell me that the floor up there would collapse and throw me down here though."
"It does?" Peridot said, surprised. A devious thought formed in her head while she disregarded the threat to life and limb her partner had obviously gone through. "That's excellent! I can leave some form of bait in case they escape the laser hall! Then they'll just fall down here and..."
She paused, looking down at the other gem.
"...How did you get out of the pit?"
Amblygonite waved one of her arms that looked like it was now in serious need of buffing and waxing. "Techno enhancements, Peri! If I hadn't gotten lucky and grabbed the ledge I would have been stuck down there. For like, a few minutes I guess. If you got the right tools you could climb out of there eventually."
Peridot nodded, stepping closer to the ledge to inspect the garbage disposal. Why did a ship even need one of these things? Why not just toss junk out the airlock? Amblygonite shook her head. Nothing made too much sense lately.
"Okay, I have the perfect job for you," Peridot said after a moment.
"Do I have to get shot at by another cannon?"
"Of course not," Peridot dismissed casually. "Just jump down there and see if you can break out through the walls. Without explosive gel," she added hastily.
"Ooookay, what about the wheels? Do I need to clean those too?"
"I'm sure those still function fine. The important part is making sure those Crystal Clods can't escape from my trap!"
Amblygonite shrugged, then stepped over to the ledge herself and looked down. It was a long way down. She wasn't even sure that her grappling hook could reach all the way back up if she fell down there. Oh, but if she didn't agree to jump down there, Peridot would get all mad and shout-y. Angry Peridot or possible entrapment?
Amblygonite grasped the ledge with both hands and lowered herself as much as she could into the pit, then let go. It was an easy choice.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-OOF! PAIN!" she yelled all the way down to the bottom, managing to stick the landing at great cost to her ankles. It was a good thing gems didn't actually have bones.
"Okay, you made it! Now start trying to escape!" Peridot called down from above.
Amblygonite stared at the four walls surrounding her, trying to ignore the intense throbbing from her ankles. Then she raised her index finger and tapped it on one a few times until it turned into a tiny drill. From there, it began to very, very, painfully slowly break through the wall.
"Okay! I'll be out in roughly a century or so!" Amblygonite called back cheerfully.
"Can you try to escape a little faster?!" Peridot said with exasperation heavy in her voice.
"Anyone ever tell you that you're not much fun?" Amblygonite replied, laughing slightly.
"Irrelevant!"
Amblygonite rolled her eyes and retracted her drill. Well, if she wanted to escape sometime this century she'd need another plan. Her grappling hook couldn't reach that far, she figured. No way to just hoist herself back up here.
"Climbing tool, climbing tool. Digs into rocks...easy to use..." she said aloud, brainstorming a possible escape mechanism. Then, like a bolt of particularly accurate lightning, it came to her. She performed the same wiggling (mostly side to side and two small hops) from when she was next to the road the previous day.
Once again, the whirring sawblades of bad decisions made their appearance. She immediately thrust the first one at the wall. It promptly bounced back off of it at an angle. Satisfied that this was definitely a good plan, she got her arm back under control and then aligned herself to be facing the opposite wall.
"C'mon, just try not to faceplant into the wall or think about how much it's going to hurt if you fall..." she said, trying to gather her courage. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she jumped up and thrust her hands behind herself.
She promptly got launched into the corner of the pit, smashing against the wall with a painful sounding Cr-Crack! before slowly sliding back to the floor. Then she disappeared in a cloud of smoke, limb enhancers hitting the floor with solid clangs!
Peridot was slowly shaking her head, watching the whole ordeal. She had several choice comments in mind for what she just saw, but she decided to save them for when she was in a really foul temper.
After 30 minutes, Amblygonite quickly reformed and was ready to try again, a true testament to how just ignoring pain slash quasi-death telling you to stop being stupid will ensure you're always ready to keep going.
She was also now considering trying to find some sort of armored plate to put in front of her gem, which was miraculously still not cracked.
"Okay, bad idea number two down the drain..." she murmured. Maybe she just wasn't using the right tool. Wasn't there something else besides drills that could dig past metal and rock? Bombs. But she wasn't supposed to use bombs. A really sharp blade? But she didn't have any swords on her! Maybe a-
"Well that works," she said, nonplussed as her hands' fingers joined together, slid forwards and reformed into two sharp blades. Pickaxes. That was the word she had been looking for.
She swung wildly at the wall again, being rewarded with Newton's Third Law throwing her back into the other wall for using a bad angle.
Ten more minutes of rubbing sore spots.
Peridot was at least happy that the trap was working great.
This time, the construction gem took a second to properly line up her angle, then swung at the wall. With an almighty Crrrr-RR-rrrOK! she cleaved the metal in two, getting her blade stuck in it.
At chest level.
And the metal behind what she had torn open went on forever.
Amblygonite reformed her pickaxes into hands, fuming quietly in defeat.
"Give up yet?" Peridot called down to her.
"Maybe!" Amblygonite replied. "My hands are getting really sore, isn't this thing trappy enough for you yet?"
"Well you HAVE been down there for an hour now! So, that's an affirmative."
"Aw jeez. How am I supposed to get out of here then!?"
"That's your job to figure out!"
Amblygonite kneaded her forehead. Peridot did have a point, she probably didn't deserve to get out of there unless she could figure it out for herself.
"Will you come get me if I can't get out in thirty minutes?" she asked.
"Suuuuuuuure," Peridot replied, with all the air of your best friend agreeing to help you move that king size bed down from the second floor of your house.
Amblygonite pursed her lips, trying to concentrate. After a while, she stood up and reformed her grappling hook, taking careful aim at the ledge high up above. The roof was too high up, but maybe if she could get the spear near the edge...
"Go go gadget grappling arm!" she called out, causing Peridot to become concerned that all those spills the other gem had taken were finally starting to affect her.
The spear shot out, climbing higher and higher, not quite reaching the ledge but managing to bury itself a few feet short of it.
Amblygonite then began the slow process of walking up the wall, spinning her pulley with her good hand. She had to wonder why she didn't think of this in the first place, and the answer is that it would have been too easy, so clearly she just wanted to challenge herself!
Ego soothed, she was soon at her spear. She looked up at Peridot, grinning sheepishly. There was no way she could actually reach the ledge from where she was, but...
Rolling her eyes, Peridot got down and stretched out her hand. Amblygonite stretched as far as she could, grasping onto Peridot's vastly more solid wrist, rather than her digits, and was shortly pulled back over the side.
"Okay," Amblygonite said, twisting her robotic wrist around after it reformed from its grappling position. "Never, ever, ask me to jump down pits for you again, please?" she said as nicely as possible.
"I'll consider it. Since it took you so long to get out, this only confirms that this is the perfect trap!"
"Why? I still got out with the help of a friend. And those guys have 3 friends each!"
"Because I can activate the crushing mechanism while they're in there! It traps them from every side and will squeeze them until they're safely deformed!"
Amblygonite fell backwards onto the floor.
"So basically what I just did was entirely pointless," she said flatly.
"Er...Well...I guess in a sort of-" Peridot began, starting to feel more than a little foolish.
"That was a GREAT prank! Peridot you sly trickster you!" Amblygonite said, sitting back up and shooting her friend a big smile. "Wow, I really didn't see it coming! Giving me a pointless job, tsh. But you only get that one time, and only because I liked the challenge so much!"
"Uh- Yes! Yes! It was a great prank! Just keeping you on your toes, Assistant! You did very well in spite of that- Uh, friend?" Peridot replied, the penny finally dropping from a minute previously.
"Yeah, friend! We're taking on the rebels, planning dastardly ambushes, fighting common foes, playing pranks on each other! That's friend stuff!"
"Huh. I guess so," Peridot ruminated. She didn't know how to feel about this 'friend' thing. It felt weird. And gross. But slightly not gross. A feeling that all people with friends can understand. "Wait? Each other?
"I'm still thinking of a good prank," Amblygonite said mischievously. "What's the next thing we do?"
"Er...I think most of the ship is fine now, we should try to go and check on the galaxy warp," Peridot said, sounding distracted. She started walking towards the exit, Amblygonite in tow.
"Hey Peridot?"
"Yes?"
"What's gonna happen when we get to Homeworld?"
"They'll send someone to clean up the mess of this planet after everything's over."
"Oh, good! Yeah, I saw these humans throwing garbage out of their boxes when I was on the road, it was really nasty."
The dramatic irony was thick enough to slice open with a saw blade.
A/N: Next chapter will take place during the events of "Friend Ship."