Chapter 7, lucky!
I don't own Steven Universe.
Chapter 7: Blue
A small time before the Diamonds' arrival at power station Gamma…
Flint and Amethyst made their way to the Gamma power facility. Leaving behind Peridot and Pearl, the former wishing to study the exit hole more thoroughly and the latter not wishing to leave her all alone.
The facility finally came into view and it had definitely seen some better days, the power was off and even from the outside some serious internal damage could be seen.
One of the rubies tried hailing the facility. "Does anyone read me?" she asked.
Static answered her back.
"Still no response even from this distance huh?" Flint asked as the ruby shook her head slowly.
With their Diamond, Pearl and Peridot gone it was now just Amethyst, herself, and a handful of rubies. While Pink Diamond technically commanded an entire armada of her own, they almost never personally traveled with her. They were instead delegated to the far front lines and outer territories to help with expansion and conquering, something Yellow Diamond was entirely committed to.
With that being the case that just left a few specialized gems and a handful of rubies. This was just as well since Pink Diamond's personal ship was quite small compared to the ones her sisters possessed. So while PD was away Flint, normally the pilot, was captain, Amethyst was second in command and Peridot was science officer, technician and engineer all rolled into one. Pearl took over piloting when Flint took command and was actually better at it then she was, not that Flint would ever admit that.
They approached the dome, managing to get the outer doors of one of the docking bays to open and slipping inside. Flint looked on the monitor, no signs of movement.
She turned to Amethyst. "I'll go check things out, keep an eye on things here alright?"
"Got it." She held out her hand. "Be careful out there."
Flint grasped her hand, smiling. "Hey, what could go wrong?"
The grey-skinned quartz descended from the ship with her rubies and looked around. Everything seemed still, and quiet. There were ships inside with theirs but they were cold and dormant, everything just seemed so… silent, eerily so.
Amethyst voice came from a communicator. "You see anything out there?"
"Nothing, everything's quiet." Flint replied.
"You don't sound happy about it."
"I'm not, nothing should be this quiet. I got a bad feeling about this."
Amethyst waited a moment before answering back. "Looks like that feeling may be right, I got readings coming from beyond the bulkhead door."
"Can you tell what they are?"
"Nah, Peridot's the expert on this thing, all I can tell you is that whatever it is it's moving towards you."
"Got it, Flint out." She turned to her rubies. "Alright, on me." She ordered quietly and motioning to the door.
They ran over three on each side of the door as Flint drew her weapon. She nodded to one of the rubies who nodded back and accessed the door's console, unlocking it with a hiss as Flint prepared herself for battle, but nothing came.
The open archway revealed only a dark hallway. Flint stepped carefully out into it as the rubies followed behind her. She looked up and down the long arching corridor but saw nothing but flickering lights and leaking water.
Flint accessed her communicator. "Hey Amethyst what gives? I don't see anything out here."
"I don't kn- Flint, the sh- monitor said you had -acts just outside the door, - -w they're -." Came back the static reply.
The grey gem shook her communicator. "Say again? Didn't catch all that."
"I said-" The static grew and grew until it hissed loudly at her forcing Flint to take it from her ear. Just then the bulkhead slammed closed and with an audible and loud thunk the bulkhead sealed itself. The grey quartz turned around quickly attempting to access the console but it was dead, the buttons she pressed refused to respond and the screen for input went dark.
"Commander Flint, what happened?" asked one of the rubies.
"Looks like something sealed the door and then cut the power." Flint observed, before looking down at her communicator. "And something's also blocking our communicators."
"What do we do?" asked another.
"Should we fuse and break it down?" a third chimed in.
"Even if all six of you combined it would still take some time to break down a door like this, meanwhile whatever caused this would still be on the lose." She turned to them. "Alright we're going to find the command center of this place and try to figure out what the heck's going on. You with me?"
"Yes ma'am!" they answered in unison.
Meanwhile…
Peridot looked down in astonishment at what she was seeing, this thing was some sort of bipedal-robonoid. It had a small frame with a shiny bald head and metallic limbs and torso. Its design reminded her of olivine-type gems, small, compact but dutiful, efficient machines. She bent down carefully to observe it, the sparks from her shot radiated outwards and fizzled. If what she was seeing was correct the place she had shot in in the back had been some sort of power source, without it it had shut down immediately. She considered trying to access the machine's data, maybe some clue on its origins or its purpose here could be gleaned from it, but decided against it. She knew nothing about this thing and any further tampering could destroy it and any clues it might hold.
She picked it up slung it over her shoulder with a huff, boy did she wish Flint or Amethyst was back here to carry this thing for her. She walked back to the edge of the cliff and eased her way down the sloped sides until she reached the bottom of the valley where she found Pearl, now sitting up and rubbing her head.
Peridot laid the machine down and rushed to her side. "Pearl! Are you alright?"
The pink-ish gem waved it off. "I'm fine, just got caught off guard." She stood up, dusting herself off. "Did you get her?"
"Not 'her', 'it'." Peridot corrected, Pearl gave a curious look at that comment and Peridot waved her over as they walked over to the robonoid.
"What is it?" Pearl asked.
"Some sort of machine servant I suspect." Peridot replied. "Although what it's doing here I have no idea."
"Perhaps there is some sort of way to find out what it knows." Pearl suggested.
"I thought so as well, but the power source of this thing is destroyed and without any power we can't access its systems."
Pearl thought for a moment. "Perhaps we can find some way to turn it on back at the kindergarten's command structure."
"Perhaps." Peridot agreed.
Later…
Peridot and Pearl arrived in the command center, the latter carrying the machine on her back piggy back style as the former access the center's systems. Peal huffed and dropped the machine on its butt behind herself. "I don't see why I had to carry that thing." She grumbled.
"Quit griping, I did it just fine." Peridot answered back without turning around.
Pearl looked around the center, it was empty aside from the two of them. "Where is everyone?"
"Out where they're needed I suspect." Peridot answered back. "Once the injectors have done their job there's really nothing left to do in a kindergarten but wait until the first gems pop, which these instruments can faithfully predict with data sent out." The monitor in front of Peridot went dark and she bent down and removed a panel, accessing the wires within and snapped a few apart, touching them together as they sparked. She turned to Pearl. "Bring it over here."
Pearl sighed loudly before grabbing the things' arm and dragging it across the floor, making a loud scraping noise and leaving behind scratches on the floor. She pulled it in front of Peridot and dropped the arm with a clang.
Peridot looked at her, a deadpanned look on her face. "Really?"
Pearl shrugged. "Dunno. Should you really have ruined one of their monitors like that?"
"The damage is minor it can be fixed later, by someone else." The green gem replied. She then access the machine's power source again, much of the battery was gone now but she could see where power had been siphoned off for the rest of the robonoid's body. With a few adjustments… "There!"
"The machine was quiet at first but then sprung to life, raising it arms and knocking the two of them over. It attempted to stand up, but as it did, pulled on the wires and yanked them out, the machine powering off and falling on its face.
Peridot turned to Pearl. "Okay let's try this again."
The machine was powered on again but as it tried to move it could do nothing but wriggle it's limbs which were now sparking stubs where Peridot and Pearl had removed the limbs. "Not going anywhere now." Peridot gloated before popping open the cranium and accessed its hard drive. Peridot connected it to her personal wrist-mounted computer and began to give commands.
The machine fizzled and shuddered before it complied to Peridot commands. The hard drive popped out and Peridot grabbed it. "We'll need to use our ship's systems to properly access the data here but…" Peridot's victorious smirk changed to a look of surprise to then wide eyed shock. "Oh no…"
Pearl looked to her. "What is-" but she was interrupted as Peridot grabbed her hand and yanked her away from the machine as it began to glow brightly before exploding, engulfing the command center with light.
Elsewhere…
Amethyst continued to watch the monitor alone but without any way to contact anyone else, she was starting to get worried. "Calm down, Amethyst, Flint's the toughest gem you know, if anyone can handle herself it's her right? Right." She said to herself. She shook her head, this sitting around and waiting stuff was making her restless.
She got out from the ship and walked over to the bulkhead door. She tried to access the systems but nothing came, the power was completely cut off. She then touched the door, the thing was sealed tight, she wasn't going anywhere. She then heard something that made her stop in her tracks, what was it?
whirl…
She turned around just in time to see one of the dormant ships had sprung to life and was now aiming its port guns at her. "Oh no…"
They fired and Amethyst dodged out of the way, rolling over to a pillar and using it for cover. The lasers from the ship kept pounding on the pillar as she hid behind it. "What do I do? What do I do?" she asked. She peered out from behind the pillar just enough to look at the ship's window seeing someone at the turret controls and using them on her. "Got to get in there." The purple gem took a deep breath and jumped out, nimbly and scarcely dodging the beams as she jumped from cover to cover, closing the distance between herself and the ship.
Amethyst jumped up and smashed her way through the ship's window, landing on one knee as she summoned her mace. The hooded figure turned to her, and crouched down, ready to pounce. Amethyst jumped as the figure did too and they collided in the air. They rolled on the floor before Amethyst managed to pin it down. "Who are you?" she asked as she tore off the hood, only to reveal an eyeless yellow stripped head with large teeth that growled at her.
Without any hesitation Amethyst brought down her mace upon it and it burst. But instead of the smoke dissipating it floated off and through the crack in the window, leaving behind nothing but the cloak. "What the heck was that, a corrupted gem?" She shook her head there would be time to worry about that later, she still needed a way out of here. She eyed the gun controls of the ship, the eyed the door. "Hmm…"
Meanwhile…
Flint and her rubies carefully made their way down the corridor, the dripping of water and the sound of their feet on the metal the only thing to be heard. Still even as Flint looked around and saw nothing, she could feel it. They were being watched. She wanted to do something, anything, about it but without an enemy right in front of her to smash there was little she could do other than keep moving forward.
The lights flickered on and off in a pattern almost, it didn't seem sporadic the way most of them seemed to be going on and off, more like someone had set them to do so, or at least appear so. Flint was looking forward and so didn't notice but one of the rubies in the back had stopped behind the others, seemingly transfixed with something in the water. "Is that a gem shard?" she asked before reaching down to grab it. Before she could she saw the water's reflection show a shadowy figure.
Flint stopped, sensing something was wrong and looked down to her rubies. She looked at them and they stopped. "Wait a minute…" she said narrowing her eyes. "Weren't there six of you?"
The rubies looked at her then each other. They then looked back behind them as they beheld a silhouetted figure it stood stock still, but Flint heard another presence make itself known and turned around seeing another figure exactly like the first, standing opposite. "Rubies, we're surrounded, form up and get ready. The lights flickered and each time they did the figures got closer form both sides, four of the rubies fused together into two separate soldiers, each facing one of the figures while the last ruby stayed close to Flint's leg. Then as they rubies were about to charge the figures the lights went out all at once.
At first, Flint heard nothing but dripping water, then…
CLANG
SWISH
"NO!"
POOF
The lights flickered back to life and now Flint was all alone. The figures simply stood less than ten feet away from her, standing still as before, now side by side. "What did you do to my rubies!" she asked.
They said nothing in reply, but removed their hoods two eyeless striped red and orange, some sort of mist quickly floated by and stopped next to them, it hovered for a moment before taking shape, another bipedal creature, this one yellow and stripped, they growled at her, drool dripping from their mouths.
Flint readied herself, her sword in front of her as she eyed them down. "You want a piece of me? Bring it on."
Before they could even move though a ship came crashing through from the side wall, slamming into the figures and stopping as it hit the opposite wall. The grey gem blinked in disbelief as Amethyst jumped out from the wreckage, dusting herself off. "Well, now I know why I never pilot…"
The purple quartz then looked to her grey companion with a start. "Whoa, didn't think I'd run into you so fast." Flint's mouth was agape as she simply stared at Amethyst. "So, you find the enemy yet?"
Flint got ahold of herself. "You, uh, you just took it out with the ship."
Amethyst looked back to the wreckage. "Really? I was just going trying to get out of the hanger but… hey whatever works huh? I mean I was trying to blast open the doors but…"
Their conversation came to an abrupt end when from the wreckage of the craft, the three creatures formed again. "Guess they want some more." Amethyst commented as she got out her mace again.
The creatures then lined up with one another and held out their hands. They opened their mouths, revealing glowing gems and a bright light engulfed them. When the light ended the creature before them appeared, taking up the hallways' full space, a large worm-like monster that roared at them loudly, sending vibrations through the water and metal.
Meanwhile…
Pink and Blue listened to the roaring in the distance as Agate continued to shiver and a couple of the rubies made whimpering noises.
"We need to find this thing and stop it!" Pink said.
"I agree." Blue replied. She looked back to the huddling gems before shaking her head. "Useless…" she said under her breath. She then access the door controls and opened the hatch wide and ran out, making her way towards the source of the sound.
Pink watched after her sister go then back to the huddling group. She then closed her eyes and sighed before going after her sister.
Pink could hear the noises of roaring and as she got nearer she also began to hear the sounds of battle as well. She saw a large open door and could distinctly hear the sounds coming from within. As she rounded the corner she beheld the massive room of the main power generator and saw her sister standing a distance away as two quartzes, one grey and the other purple battled some sort of giant worm creature.
Pink recognized them immediately. "Flint! Amethyst!" she called out.
They both turned at the sound and sight of their leader but this unfortunately gave the monster an opening and it swept them with its tail, knocking them to the wall with a thud.
Pink ran up , attempting to close the distance between her and her friends but was caught at the arm by Blue, she turned to her sister. "Let go!" she ordered.
"Sister you need to wait!" Blue hissed back.
"Wait!? WAIT?!" Pink asked as she snatched her arm away. "My gems are about to be crushed into dust and you want me to wait?!"
"Pink we can't rush in there without knowing what we're dealing with." Blue said calmly, even as the battle raged on less than fifty yards from them.
"I can't afford to wait here while my friends are fighting for their lives!" Pink said as she rushed in. She jumped up and slammed it into its side, knocking it away from her subordinates. She watched the creature begin to pick itself up and quickly bent down to check up on the two of them. "Are you two alright?"
"B-boss…" Flint said weakly, she looked bad, but able to go on, Amethyst gave a thumbs up but didn't look much better.
"Sister! Watch out!" Blue called as the creature rushed Pink. PD tried to punch it but the monster suddenly turned to mist and quickly formed around her, beginning to crush her and roaring in her face. It then screeched in pain as three large shards of ice were now protruding from its side, it turned to mist again and floated away.
Pink fell to her knees and looked up to her sister, water now floating up and into her fingers forming large thin shards of ice. "I told you to wait, sister." Blue said almost boredly as she began to approach the creature's mist form.
It took solid shape and looked in their direction before letting out a shrill cry, suddenly more of the same mist came out and began to form into the creature as it grew larger and larger, taking up more than half the room now as it now dwarfed them.
"Oh-" Pink began.
"-no" Blue finished.
Flint and Amethyst looked to the gigantic beast and then to each other. "Well Am, it's been fun."
"Same here Flint." The purple gem replied. "If there's anyone I had to go out with, I'm glad it's you."
The monster then burst open the dome and water poured in as a bright light began to surround Flint and Amethyst. A large chunk of debris separating them from the Diamonds.
Pink was washed into a wall and saw as the creature began to regain its balance, even under the water its roar rippled through.
Then the water began to swirl around the facility, slow at first but it quickly gained speed. Pink held on to the wall as she saw the creature begin to spin faster and faster. She looked over to see Blue standing tall in the water, her gem glowing brightly as she made swirling hand motions. The water began to recede until a whirlpool of water surrounded the entire facility, creating dry land on the bottom of the ocean.
Pink managed to get up and walked over to her sister, her arms now relaxed at her sides but gem still glowing. "You did this?"
"My sister, you haven't even begun to see what I can do with water yet." Blue said slyly, the familiar roar sounded again and Blue gave a look of annoyance. "This thing just doesn't know what to give up…"
The monster appeared again, bursting through the whirlpool wall and looking ready for more battle.
Pink then noticed the absence of her two gems. She looked around franticly, but saw no trace of them. "Flint! Amethyst! Where are you!"
Another roar sounded however and Pink snapped her head back to the creature as Blue continued to fight it alone. She was summoning spears of ice and throwing them into the creature as she nimbly dodged and ducked around its mighty and large blows,
Pink then watched with amazement as Blue summoned a pillar of water beneath her feet and continued the fight even as the creature batter at her and continued its roaring. "That's it!" she screamed before backing off and making hand gestures as large hands of water began to reach out from the water wall and grab the monster, restraining it. The monster began to turn into mist again but Blue was prepared for it this time.
She jumped over to the tail end of the creature and breathed upon it, some of the mist froze and broke into nothingness as Blue landed on another pillar of water. The mist circled before rising far into the air, the creature formed again, in midair. Its great form fell and shadowed Blue.
"Watch out!" Pink called out.
"I don't think so." With a flick of her finger upwards, spears of water shot up and impaled the beast, it writhed as it struggled on the water-spears. But, before it could turn to mist again Blue snapped her fingers and the water instantly turned to ice, freezing the monster along with it, its face frozen in rage and agony. Blue snapped her fingers again and the spears turned back into water, the creature however stayed frozen and smashed into piece as it hit the ground.
The remaining ice from the impact blew away and left only a single gem. Blue picked it up and shifted the stone in her hand as if playing with it as she walked back to her sister, whose mouth hung agape.
Pink spoke in excitement. "Sister! That was amazing! I had no idea you could do that!"
Blue smiled at her with a glint of pride. "Of course, I am a Diamond after all." Blue held up the gem for her sister to see, an orange stone that looked rather small in her large hands. "All this, from a single gem."
"But how could a single gem become so big?" Pink asked.
"I have no idea." Blue said looking to the gem. "Perhaps it had some form of replication? Or maybe assimilation? In any case, it's over now." Blue said as she crushed the gem in her hand.
Pink looked to her sister in shock. "Why did you do that?!" she asked.
"It cost me personally and was a significant danger to gem-kind. Destroying it was the only way to be sure it couldn't happen again." Blue replied.
"We could have learned from it!" Pink argued.
"Nothing more than we could have learned from the other corrupted gems." Blue countered.
Pink wanted to argue further but decided against it, Flint and Amethyst appeared, walking away from a pile of nearby debris. She turned to them and spoke. "Are you two alright?"
Flint and Amethyst looked to each other…
A few minutes earlier…
A dull-purple gem found itself underwater, her body pinned to the floor by debris. She easily lifted it off with her… four arms?! She got up and turned to look at herself before feeling the water around her quickly receding and being pushed away. She looked down at herself and her arms… "Wha… what?" she said before another light shown and Amethyst landed on their butts, looking at each other in stunned silence.
They then both looked back to Pink. "No worse for wear, b- my diamond." Flint replied catching herself as Blue Diamond neared.
"I'm fine, my Diamond." Amethyst replied respectfully.
Blue Diamond stepped forward and the two of them tensed up. "That was most impressive." She said to them, surprising both Pink and her gems. "A pity you weren't able to subdue the creatures yourselves, still you did all you could."
"Your words do us great honor, Blue Diamond." Amethyst said giving the salute as Flint followed suite.
Blue diamond waved for them to follow her. "Come, perhaps we can find more in the surveillance footage of the facility." She said walking towards one of the doors. Pink and her two gems followed and blue waved them inside before going in herself and allowing the water down to flood the room.
They managed to make their way to the sub-level of the facility where the command canter was and access the logs, only to find… nothing…
Blue looked through files and found nothing at all, the system had been wiped clean. The Diamond gritted her teeth and began to pace in front of the screen before she stopped, sighed and looked to her sister. "Someone is tampering with my facility, my staff and my equipment…"
Pink had seen this before and pushed her subordinates behind her. Blue looked like she was going to go into a conniption, her face clenching and her firsts tightening. "SOMEONE IS GONNA PAY FOR THIS!" she screamed.
Pink and her crew were silent before they heard the beeping of a communications line trying to be opened. Pink answered it. "Yes?" Blue watched her sister talk as she continued to writhe in anger. Pink's eyes then shot open and Blue's ae relaxed a bit as Pink looked to her. "Sister, I think we got something."
Meanwhile… Far Away…
A figure sat in a chair as she stared up on the large monitors in front of her. Robonoid 045 had been destroyed, but 036 had managed to implement the device and make it off the facility before anyone had noticed it.
The figure frowned, she had hoped that at least one of them would have… no matter, no matter, there was still plenty of time. She had waited hundreds of years to get her revenge she could wait just a little bit more.
"You may have beaten my creation this time, but I'll get you… I'll get all of you. Just wait… if it takes a thousand years, ten thousand or more… I'll do it. My hatred will never die, mark my words ALL DIAMONDS WILL BE BROKEN!" The figure finished as they slammed a fist on the monitor table.
Do do do do do Done! (think Mario theme)
