A/N: Times I rewatched "Friend Ship"? Too many.
Amblygonite and Peridot made it back to the galaxy warp without incident. It seems that despite being rather poor at her job, the Amblygonite had enough natural instinct left over to get the pad working. Although most pads generally don't hiss in the middle of teleporting. Amblygonite just shrugged it off and assured Peridot that it was definitely completely normal. Peridot reminded her that since she had no memory Amblygonite wouldn't know whether it was normal or not.
Amblygonite had to admit she had a point.
Now they were testing the various pads on the galaxy warp, trying to fix what Peridot assured Amblygonite was the pad heading back to Homeworld.
"But it just looks like a bunch of tiny rocks!" Amblygonite insisted, even as she hauled them across the small island they were on to the middle.
"Be that as it may, this is definitely the remains of the galaxy warp. These Crystal Gems are a menace, I can't believe they broke it again..." complained Peridot. Even she was lending a hand this time around. It seemed like she had the actual diagram for how the warp should be constructed in her limb enhancers. At least that was what Amblygonite assumed she was looking at her fingers for. Her fingers could even move rocks around without requiring Peridot to lift them!
The lowly constructor was definitely jealous.
"They broke it before?"
"Affirmative. I repaired it, but it looks like they intended to keep it from being used permanently this time. That's why we had to use a ship to get here instead of a warp," she explained, shoving another rock onto the pile.
Amblygonite fretted over whether she actually had enough sealant in her arms to pull the whole thing back together. From what Peridot had told her so far, the galaxy class warp pad had to be gigantic! Fixing a small one was no problem, but a funny feeling in the back of her head told her that this was slightly out of hear league.
As she stood there, locked by fear of not having enough glue, one of the warp pads glowed, drawing both gems' attention.
Four figures appeared on it. A tall, lanky Pearl, a tall, square haired Garnet, a short, big haired Amethyst, and a small, curly haired Steven.
"O-oh! Aha! Look! I was right!" the Pearl exclaimed, pointing at Peridot. Somehow Amblygonite escaped her notice. She felt mildly offended.
"My plan worked perfectly," crowed Pearl, clenching her fist while the Steven waved hello at the two Yellow Diamond Disciples (that was the name Amblygonite had insisted they give to themselves to combat the Crystal Gems).
"Good morning!" Steven said cheerfully.
"What!? How did you know we were here?" asked Peridot, looking simultaneously confused and panicked. Still no one had noticed Amblygonite. She wondered whether she was invisible or not.
"We found a seeecret way to track you! And we'll never tell you how, even if you ask nicely! Nyeeeeh!" taunted Steven, pulling his eyelid low. Amblygonite was definitely offended now. Nobody pulled eyeballs at her and got away with it!
"Now hold on just a-" she began, raising her arm to call attention to herself.
"Peridot, we're here too-!" Garnet began, interrupting her.
"We won't let you get away with this!" cut across Pearl, continuing the interruption chain.
"Uh, hello!? I'm here to-" began Amblygonite, but Peridot's dulcet (read: nasally) tones interrupted her again. Her eye started twitching.
"Don't you Crystal Gems have anything better to do than annoy me?!" she cried.
"Nope, we're gonna-" began Amethyst, slamming a fist into her open palm, only to be interrupted by-
"Prepared to be annoyed!" annoyed Pearl.
"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP INTERRUPTING PEOPLE!?" shouted Amblygonite as she stomped her feet in anger. Everyone looked at her, seeming to finally realize she was there.
"U-Uh..." stuttered the construction gem, feeling the power of every gaze on her. "Cuz', you know, it's rude."
"Who on Earth is that?" Pearl asked.
"Whoever she is, she's with Peridot," Garnet answered, summoning two very threatening looking gauntlets onto her hands. Amblygonite swallowed.
"Good morning! What's your name?" Steven asked.
Peridot, meanwhile, was fuming quietly in the corner. You could almost see the steam coming from her mouth as she ground her teeth.
"Me?" Amblygonite asked, pointing one bronzed finger at herself. "I'm Amblygonite! Member of the Yellow Diamond Disciples! Peridot's told me all about you horrible rebels! You're going down! Like how my ship went down! Painfully and with lots of head injuries!" she said enthusiastically. Far, far too enthusiastically.
"Yellow Diamond Disciples?" snickered Amethyst.
"Hey! I liked the name!" Amblygonite said.
"We don't have time for this!" snapped Peridot, forming a cannon with her fingers and pointing it at the Crystal Gems. "This planet has an expiration date and I'm not gonna stick around to find out when!" she shouted, before apparently accidentally loosing a blast at the rebels.
The glowing green charge blew between the group, slamming into the pillar behind them and cracking it in half. The Steven quickly formed a large shield (Amblygonite whistled, impressed, until Peridot glared at her) to block it.
"That's it!" declared Pearl, rushing out from under the shield's protection and charging towards Peridot. "You're not going anywhe-!"
She found herself halted in place, frozen by Peridot's green matter transporter thingamajig.
"Sorry, but it looks like you're going in the wrong direction!" Peridot declared, spinning her around and around. "Assistant! Catch and release!" she yelled. It took Amblygonite a second to realize she was being addressed, so she barely had time to catch a surprised Pearl in her arms to continue the spin chain.
"Oh, uh, hi!" giggled Amblygonite as she used her arm's strength enhancing powers to spin Pearl even faster. Pearl looked, surprisingly, a little queasy now, and was unable to respond. Amblygonite shrugged, spinning on her heels and throwing Pearl hard in the direction of the other gems.
She slammed into Steven, and you could just barely hear the splash as they both got knocked off the island. The Garnet used her massive fists to hold up the collapsed pillar now, directing Amethyst to attack Peridot.
The Amethyst surged forwards, rolling into a ball and charging at Peridot. Amblygonite threw herself in the way just as Peridot jumped out of the way. There should have been some seriously tearful music playing for such a stupid maneuver. Just pretend someone's playing on the world's tiniest violin.
Amblygonite and Amethyst collided, yelping and squeaking as they tumbled into the remains of another pillar and got stuck in the rocks within.
"Why yeS yellOW dIAMond I'd LOVE tO be proMOted..!" mumbled Amblygonite in a daze as she lay in the rubble left behind. Amethyst groaned nearby, irritably stuck in a small pile of the stuff.
"Assistant, you know where to go!" cried Peridot as she crawled upright on her...fingers!? Damn. Amblygonite HAD to get some of those things. Peridot crawled and jumped on top of a pad. Not a thing happened.
"Argh, doesn't anything on this planet work!?" Cried Peridot.
A spate of coughing that sort of sounded like a feeble "I do!" came from Steven, who had managed to climb back onto the island. He was soaking wet and his hair looked a mess. He chucked a smaller shield at Peridot, beaning her on the nose.
"Hey! Ow!" yelped Peridot, clutching her nose.
"Amethyst! Catch!" yelled Garnet as she threw the remains of the pillar high into the air. Amblygonite shook her head, clearing her thoughts in time to watch Amethyst conjure a whip, clearly intending to use it for the 'catch' thing that other gem was yelling about.
Amblygonite readied her favored saw blades, dashing forward and leaping into the air like a totally cool hero, just as Amethyst swung her whip forward and wrapped it around the pillar chunk. Amblygone swiped her hand forward and...
Fell flat on the ground. But at least her flailing sent a buzzing blade right through Amethyst's weapon, dropping the rock harmlessly on a different warp pad, destroying it.
"Thanks assistant!" called Peridot. Amblygonite gave her a thumbs up from the floor.
However, that still left a very irritated set of 4 gems to deal with, now that Pearl had also pulled herself out of the ocean, looking especially irritated now.
Peridot glanced between the 3 on one side of herself and Amethyst on the other, now looking angry about her destroyed whip and clearly intending to vent that anger on Amblygonite in a second. Thinking quickly, Peridot blasted another explosive shot at Garnet and Pearl, knocking them aside as she dashed for the warp pad they had been in front of. "Amblygonite! Move quickly!" she called, spurring the yellow gem into getting up and stumbling after her.
Amethyst, to her credit, jumped into another ball and spun after the retreating technician, but failed to account for Amblygonite tripping over her own feet and being sent sprawling off to the side. Amethyst soared right over where Amblygonite stood a second before, smacking into another pillar and demolishing it easily.
As the Gems recovered, Amblygonite quickly scuttled to the same warp pad as Peridot, collapsing on top of it and thanking every mineral in her body that somehow none of those scummy rebels had gotten their hands on her.
"Wow, this is just sad!" taunted Peridot, now confident that their escape was assured. "I almost feel sorry for you!"
Amblygonite stumbled to her feet, hand on her head as Peridot pulled her eyelid down, matching Steven's earlier taunt. Amblygonite waved goodbye to the Gems. "Yellow Disciples rule!" she yelled, just as the blue light of the warp activating yanked the Crystal Gems out of view.
They landed in a completely different area as opposed to the one near the crashed ship they had prepared. Amblygonite used the free time granted by this to rub her head as her scattered thoughts pulled themselves back together. She really had to stop getting knocked around this much.
"H-hey! We did it! We won!" Amblygonite cheered, looking up at Peridot. She didn't appear nearly as happy.
"So why are we here and not-"
"That Steven said they were tracking our movements," Peridot replied. Amblygonite frowned. This interrupting business had to be stopped, Maybe when they weren't in danger.
"So I'm giving them a few minutes to get back to whatever mechanism they use to track us, and then we'll head to the ambush site."
"Did I do good?" Amblygonite asked, hoping for faint praise.
"You performed adequately, assisting in my escape and distracting their Amethyst. But I guess you've never actually been trained in combat either," she sniffed.
Amblygonite smiled. 'Adequate' was high praise! "If I have been, I certainly don't remember. So is the plan still the same? Lure them to the ship? We're gonna have to leave a trail."
"No need, I noted a closer warp pad next to the ship when I first found it. I let you fix the other warp pad so you could improve yourself."
"Uh. Thanks?" Amblygonite said, not sure whether to feel insulted or grateful for the extra training.
"Right. Okay, this should have been long enough," Peridot said, and the blue light encompassed them again.
Amblygonite stumbled off the pad as Peridot rushed towards the ship. The yellow gem hastened to follow her. They had gone over a plan when they went to the galaxy warp. Peridot would man the control room and keep in contact with Amblygonite through various intercoms throughout the ship, Amblygonite was supposed to keep the Gems stuck in whatever traps they got trapped in. Given that she alone wouldn't stand a chance against the gems, Peridot had been generous enough to allow her to retreat if they tried to attack her.
Amblygonite entered the ship, just as Peridot's face appeared on the holo screen.
"Do you still remember the plan?" she said, now appearing rather frightened since the Gems were most likely chasing them.
"I got most of it still in my head, don't worry," Amblygonite said confidently. "How are you doing? You looked worried. Keep your head in the game, Peri! Confidence!"
"Don't worry about me!" snapped Peridot. Amblygonite shrugged it off, taking out her grappling spear again and climbing up to the ceiling to hide.
"Relax, Peridot, we got this. They're obviously running out of steam with how badly we beat them!" she said reassuringly.
Peridot looked almost mollified, until they heard footsteps approaching. The screen quickly shut off. They had to maintain the element of surprise, after all. Amblygonite swung lightly in the air high above the group of Crystal Gems as they entered. As soon as they had all entered the ship, the screen flickered back to life as Peridot began to taunt them.
Amblygonite zoned out for most of it, it was really very boring. When she heard the hum of the cannon next to her powering up, however, she hastily dug her spare hand's fingers into the ceiling to ensure she didn't get fricasseed. What she hadn't counted on was their Steven reacting fast enough that he could throw up a shield that deflected the shots rather than absorbing them.
"Eeep! Yikes!" squeaked Amblygonite as she performed mid-air pirouettes in order to dodge the lasers bouncing around her. She was at least 20% sure her hair would have a smoking hole through it by the end of this, but in the meantime she tried to focus her bouncing eyes on the group of Gems retreating below. They disappeared down the hallway leading to the disposal area.
Amblygonite hastily released the lock on her pulley mechanism, rapidly descending to the floor and reforming her arm as a laser bounced off the floor next to her. Yelping and hissing, she danced between the few laser shots still bouncing between the metal plates in the main room and dodged down the hallway, following the Crystal Gems.
She could hear yelling up ahead, presumably they had run into the distraction Peridot had arranged. At least she didn't have to deal with the spike traps that Peridot had discovered in the hallway. She sprinted along the corridor, coming into view of the Crystal Gems just as they fell down into the trap Amblygonite herself had fallen in earlier. Jeez. Gems sure built their ships in the most bizarre way possible.
She bent over and watched as the gems fell down into the pit below, until the smallest one used her whip to rescue herself and the Steven, anyway. Amblygonite frowned, watching them land on top of the now closed pit, then jumped up and pressed down on a nearby intercom that was partially hidden by an overgrown vine.
"Hey, uh, Peri?" she asked. "Your trap sort of worked!"
"Excellent! Wait. What do you mean 'sort of'?" crackled Peridot's voice. It sounded even more high pitched and annoying than usual thanks to the aging system trying to transmit her voice.
"Well the small ones managed to get out of it, uh...Hold on, they're talking..." She dashed off to check down below again. What on Homeworld were these guys talking about? Something something...apologies for something...no you can't apologize for that...
Amblygonite dashed back to the intercom.
"Yeah, they're just having a moment in the pit thingy. I think they're working their problems out or something?" Amblygonite said, for once feeling like she wasn't the only confused one in the building.
"Uh..." Peridot droned over the intercom. "Okay. I'll just...Do this! Make sure it doesn't get stopped!"
"Make sure what-Woah!" Amblygonite started, then stumbled as she felt the gears down below start to rumble. Presumably that was the crushing mechanism in action. In theory it would only dematerialize the Gems' physical forms and keep the allotted space small enough that they'd be trapped forever.
In theory. That's what Peridot told her anyway.
Amblygonite cocked her head, listening in as Pearl lamented how useless she was and how she had needed so badly to fuse with Garnet. The yellow skinned gem frowned. This was almost tugging at her heart strings. But, these were cold blooded rebels! They were probably just putting on an act. She stumbled again as she suddenly felt the gears stop moving.
"Amblygonite!" Peridot yelled from the intercom. "Something's stopped the crusher! Figure out what it is and fix it! That's an order!"
"On it boss!" called Amblygonite, forming a pick axe with one hand and jumping into the funnel. She jammed her hand against one side of the wall, slowing her descent slightly as she slid down towards the now closed off pit. The grinding of metal was horrendous enough to make her wince and wish she could choose to just stop hearing things for a while, as well as wishing she'd picked a less obvious method of making her entry. She'd never be cool and sneak up on the two down there now!
She fell to the floor, quickly jumping back and forming her favorite weapon: Saw blades.
"Alright Crystal Clods! No more Miss Nice Gem!" Amblygonite taunted, facing the Steven and Amethyst who appeared to be busy holding the gears still with that infernal whip of theirs.
"What the-!?" gasped Amethyst, turning her head to look at Amblygonite. "Oh not now! Can't you like, go bother Peridot instead or something!?"
"She complains when I do that!" Amblygonite said, advancing towards the pair with as much 'menace' as she could muster. Since they were stuck standing still, it'd be a simple matter to cut that whip in half while they were forced to watch.
"Stop! Y-You don't have to do this!" the Steven yelled at her, his panicked gaze flicking between the pit and the screen showing just how close to being crushed Garnet and Pearl were.
"I don't have a choice!" yelled Amblygonite dramatically (If she didn't attack them she'd really get an earful from Peridot after all) as she finally jumped into action.
She surged past the pair, slicing downwards at the whip with one of her spinning hands, cutting the rope cleanly in half and letting the gears resume their grisly work.
"Haha! Feel the wrath of Amblygonite!" cheered the technician as she immediately advanced towards the pair, slashing with her hands wildly and inaccurately, even stumbling a few times for good measure. Turns out, construction workers aren't very good at fighting smart.
Amethyst jumped back from the razor sharp blades spinning towards her while Steven summoned another shield, causing Amblygonite's blades to bounce back at first, making her stumble backwards again. Steven stuck his tongue out at her. The nerve!
"Arrrrgh! Enough with the shields!" shouted the frustrated gem, reforming her hands and wiggling all of her digits until they formed into drills. "I'm so tired of shields today! Just surrender so we can bring you to justice!"
She jammed all her fingers against Steven's shield, drills grinding furiously against the bright pink light. Amblygonite laughed when she saw Amethyst trying to find a good angle for her fresh whip to get around with, and failing miserably. Steven's shield was taking up too much room! And Amblygonite could already see cracks starting to form on the 'weapon,' while beads of sweat popped up on Steven's forehead. Any second now-
There was a furious grinding noise below their feet.
Amblygonite glanced down, then screamed and jumped backwards off the trap door.
A huge drill, much more powerful than her tiny finger drills, bored through the mechanism and preceded a giant red skinned gem out of the trap. She stood on top of the trap door's sides, then was swallowed by a bright light. Garnet and Pearl stepped out of it, glaring daggers at Amblygonite.
To her credit, she tried to parlay.
"Oh. You uh. Got...Free," she said meekly, pulling one hand behind her back as discreetly as possible. They were already advancing on her, not looking too happy.
"You're coming with us. I suggest you come quietly," said Garnet. Her tone was calm, but it radiated threat like how an angry tiger seems to scream 'I will kill you' with its mere presence.
"See, now, if I do that, then I'll fail my friend!" Amblygonite protested. "Oh my god! Look! I told Peridot not to use that!" she suddenly said, pointing her spare hand at the back of the room.
Steven and Amethyst looked. Two out of four wasn't bad, right?
Amblygonite shrugged and discharged explosive gel at the wall behind herself, counted to five, then turned and ran.
The huge explosion rocked the ship to its core, causing the unprepared Gems to stumble as Amblygonite sprinted through the new hole in the wall. She had to get to the control room and warn Peridot! She may or may not have completely forgotten about the other intercoms on the ship.
"PeeeeerIIIIIDOOOOOOOT!" she yelled, running faster than she ever had in her life. Which was pretty short considering her memory only extended back a few days at this point. Still, she ran pretty fast! She could hear yelling in the distance behind her, and she didn't fancy trying to fight all 4 gems at the same time considering one of them had managed to stop her by standing there.
As she ran along the corridors of the ship she slapped at buttons along the way, activating a myriad of traps in an effort to delay the Crystal Gems. One corridor began to spew flames behind her back, another opened a fresh trap door that led to an entirely drained tank with tiny fish skeletons. In hindsight, Amblygonite had to admit they should have spent more time prepping their backup plan. This was reinforced when she looked behind herself and saw Steven leading the way through the fire with that infernal shield of his. "Don't you clods ever get tired!?" she yelled, exasperated.
"You're only making this harder on yourself!" Amethyst yelled, cracking her whip just above Amblygonite, who ducked in time to avoid getting caught in its grasp.
"Can't we just talk this out!?" Amblygonite shouted, looking forward in time to avoid slamming into a fallen support strut.
"We would if you-" Steven gasped for a second, straining due to the amount of energy he had blown through during the day. "-If you stopped for a second!"
"No thanks! I don't wanna get killed!" Amblygonite replied, redoubling her efforts and rounding a corner, dodging into an open door and slamming her palm on the 'close' button. It shuddered closed and she listened carefully for the sound of her pursuer's footsteps. They became louder, and louder, making Amblygonite start to panic since they were clearly just outside the door, then started fading away.
"Wheeeeeew," she breathed, sliding down the door and onto the floor as the Gems ran off in the wrong direction.
She looked up, seeing Peridot staring at her aghast.
"Did they break free?" she whispered quietly, sounding more scared than angry. A good omen for Amblygonite's feelings.
The assistant nodded her head. "I tried to stop them, but then a really big gem drilled out of the hole! They fused again!" she answered, then quickly looked around as if that large gem would suddenly appear again, drilling through the thin walls surrounding the command center.
"Not another of those accursed fusion!" groaned Peridot, dragging a 'hand' across her face. "Well, there was nothing you could do anyway if that's the case. Let me see if I can find them on one of the cameras..." she began, turning back to the console and trying different buttons.
This old Gem tech was clearly not playing nice with her, however. Several screens hissed and crackled, some of the buttons shorted out as soon as they were pressed.
Amblygonite ambled over to try and assist her leader, not that she was at all familiar with any level of gem technology. She was faintly concerned that her memories still hadn't returned, but she crammed those feelings down like one would cram a failed test into the bottom of a backpack.
"What do we do if they find us in here?" Amblygonite asked, trying a few buttons and wincing when a screen split open and issued sparks. She bent under the console and checked around for a panel to dislodge. Maybe if she could redirect the flow of power, fewer of these things would overload...
"I'll shoot a hole in the ceiling," Peridot said. "We can escape through there if they somehow find us in this labyrinth."
Amblygonite pulled herself backwards and looked up. She saw cold metal. But in theory, the same fireball Peridot launched earlier could also destroy the plating there too. In theory. Amblygonite was trusting Peridot an awful lot lately.
"Good plan, Peri," Amblygonite said, heading back to searching for a spot to start working on.
"I'm a Peridot, we always come up with good plans," she answered cheerfully, seemingly braced by at least having someone else around for the Crystal Gems to pound upon.
So when the rear wall suddenly shattered explosively, both were comforted by that same fact as they saw the Crystal Gems pour forth into their last bastion of safety.
"Surrender Peridot, Amblygonite! You have no where to run!" challenged Garnet, managing to look peeved through her glasses somehow. Maybe Amblygonite shouldn't have led her on such an annoying chase...
"The Crystal Gems are gonna get youuuu!" added Steven, jeeringly.
"You think this is the end?" Peridot said, arming her cannon and pointing it at the Gems. Amblygonite followed her example and armed her grappling hook, deciding not to inform the Gems it was a pretty useless slow firing weapon.
"This is only the beginning!" Amblygonite added, glancing at Peridot, who nodded back at her,
"Of our escape!" yelled Peridot, blasting a massive hole in the ceiling.
Amblygonite fired off a hook into the edge of the ceiling, not wasting any time in starting to rapidly wheel herself upwards. She really, really wished this stupid pulley could be automated, but apparently she didn't rank high enough for that sort of upgrade.
"I'd love to stick around and watch another of your pathetic attempts to capture," taunted Peridot as she began to hover up into the air, "But I guess I'm just too smart for the likes of you lumpy clumpy clods!" She laughed, certain there was no way someone would think to grab her as she slowly rose into the air.
Steven jumped up...
And grabbed Amblygonite's leg. Amblygonite shouted, trying to shake and kick Steven off of herself while still wheeling herself higher.
"Hey! Leggo my leggo!" she yelled rapidly, squirming as she felt the odd fleshy creature's digits pushing against her skin.
"I caught an Amblo...Ambly...What was your name?" he tried, sounding out the unfamiliar name.
Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet added to the growing chain dragging Amblygonite back down to Earth, making the yellow gem start to panic.
"Get those things off me! This ain't funny, eugh, your digits feel so gross!" she whined, feeling her spear start to groan from all the weight being put on it. Any second now it would snap free of its mooring!
"Amblygonite," shouted Garnet, "Your hike's been postponed!"
Amblygonite would have laughed if she wasn't certain they'd shatter her if she got pulled back down there.
"Peridot! HELP NOW PLEASE!" she shouted pleadingly at the green gem, who had made it to the ledge safely and was watching the incident with some amusement.
"Uh, right! Hold on Amblygonite!" she said, performing a quasi-good act for once in her life. She quickly charged her cannon and loosed a round at the congregation gathered below. Perhaps, maybe a too powerful fireball. She also should have spent longer actually aiming it. Remember kids, hip firing only works in movies. In real life it just results in shooting your friends. The command center erupted in an explosion as the gems dodged out of the way, while Amblygonite found herself launched into the air.
"I got you, I got you!" yelled Peridot, catching the other gem and staggering under her weight. "Uh. Whoops."
Amblygonite blinked, then pulled herself out of Peridot's grasp and glanced down at an oddly cool feeling part of her body.
A regular yellow arm, somewhat shorter and far less powerful looking than her usual metal arm, looked back at her. As much as an arm can look. Amblygonite wiggled her fingers. They failed to turn into drills. She gratefully scratched her head risk free.
"Your limb enha-" Peridot began, but Amblygonite shook her head.
"We gotta go! They're gonna shatter us!" she shouted. Peridot nodded and took off into the air, the now one enhanced arm Amblygonite sprinting along under her.
In the command center of the gem ship, Steven marveled at the captured limb enhancer, still reverting from grappling form, while the other Gems proudly and confidently assured each other they'd catch the terrible duo next time.