Chapter 15, it's nif-teen.
I don't own Steven Universe.
Chapter 15: Reversal
Two ships dropped out of hyperspace, beginning their descent onto the planet below. Scans quickly revealed what they had been looking for.
Not very hard considering it was a smoking pile of rubble.
The two ships landed nearby, waiting a moment before opening the loading ramp, a quartz from each walking of with a dozen or so rubies between them. Over their bodies was a yellow thin skin tight suit.
"Why do we have to were these?" One of the rubies asked aloud.
"Because if you don't, the atmosphere here will corrode your gem." One of the quartz commanders replied dryly.
"Oh, yeah." The ruby replied. The quartz, a jasper, pinched the bridge of her nose. She really couldn't handle the simplicity of rubies sometimes.
"All of you start cleaning this up! If there's salvage here I want it found!" the other quartz, an agate, commanded.
The rubies hopped to it as they began systematically moving around debris.
Jasper sighed as she sat down on one of the rocks nearby. "What are we doing here? We should be out fighting with all the others."
Agate joined her, the rock barely big enough to allow the both of them on it. "What are you gonna do? Order from the Diamonds, besides we clean this up fast enough we might get to the fight before it's all over."
Jasper cast a sideways glance at her. "Ah, you're just saying that to cheer me up."
Agate shrugged as the two watched the rubies go about their duty. Suddenly one of them spoke up. "Hey! I found something!" she hollered.
The two quartzes investigated to see what the little gem had found. It was a hole leading into the ground, but partially collapsed.
Flint wasn't quite sure how she felt overall, but at the moment she was pretty sure it was somewhere between annoyed and tired. She reached in and pulled out a long skinny bend metal bar. "See?" she asked.
Jasper frowned. "You got excited over a bar?" she asked.
Agate moved passed her though, picking it from the ruby's hand. "No, this might actually be a good find."
"How do you figure?" asked her fellow quartz.
"Well, it's sturdy for one. But not thick. Long but not enough to be for supporting a wall or ceiling." She said aloud, compiling her thoughts.
"So?" the orange gem asked, waiting on an explanation.
"So, I think this was used for a cage." replied Agate.
"Like a barred cage?" Jasper asked to which her fellow quartz nodded. "Primitive." She then thought for a moment. "So if there were cages here…"
"…then what was inside them?" Agate finished.
This place was the worst, the absolute worst. The forest and the rain on the last planet had been one thing, but these spores that floated through the air, they were everywhere. They kept sticking to her, forcing the grey gem to stop every few minutes to brush off an accumulation of them.
Similar cases of spore trouble were happening to all the gems as they marched on through the white fungal jungle. Scans and previous maps had indicated that the base should be somewhere nearby, but if it was, she couldn't see it.
Suddenly, Flint heard something, like a sudden rush of air, but different. It was more hollow and echo-like and soft, like it was coming from an underground cavern. She turned to look, but saw nothing but more spores flying through the air. The grey gem began to move on when she heard the sound of soft crunching as a mushroom near her was suddenly flattened to the ground. The grey gem bent down, seeing only a small footprint.
It was fresh, very fresh.
"What in space is going on?" Flint asked herself, she then looked from where she first saw the wind sound to where she now stood and then plotted the course in her head.
Something was headed back towards their camp.
Pink watched as their soldiers marched off, she and her sisters were staying behind in the camp this time. Yellow looked over to her sister and frowned, she could practically read her thoughts. "Pink, no." she said simply.
The younger Diamond turned around. "'No' what?" she asked.
"We're not taking any risks this time." Yellow said firmly. "Not after what happened…" she paused. "…what happened before."
Suddenly a priority message was being directed at them through the holotable. A small image of Flint was suddenly displayed on its surface. Yellow was about to say something but Pink moved past her and addressed her gem first. "Flint! What is it? What's wrong?"
The image was getting filled with static as the grey gem attempted to convey her message. "…thing is out… er… eading… … ay." She managed to get out before static overcame the signal entirely.
"Flint! What's wrong?! Repeat!" she said into the image but only static remained. "What's happening?" Pink asked turning to Peridot.
The green gem was already trying to troubleshoot the problem but was frowning as she learned more and more. "Something's interfering with our signals." She informed, as she continued to work. "It could be all this organic matter in the air but…" she trailed off.
"But what?" Yellow Diamond asked.
"It shouldn't be this much of a problem, my Diamonds." She said respectfully. "I think it's coming from an outside source. "
"Can you fix it?" Pink asked.
"I'm trying, but…" she trailed off again shaking her head exasperatedly. "I've never seen a jamming signal this intricate. The way its interfering with signals, I barely know where to begin, what to do."
Yellow quickly spotted several olivines nearby and called out to them. They immediately gathered in front of her, standing at attention. Yellow pointed to Peridot. "You will help her restore communications to our forces and you will do it now!" she ordered.
"Yes, my Diamond." The responded in a sort of fearful harmony.
Below ground…
Spinel watched as hundreds, no, thousands of gems appeared to be marching through her territory. They'd be upon her soon. She'd already initiated the first phase, their communications were severed, for now. It was time for the second phase to begin. She began to type in a series of commands as she watched the soldier grow nearer and nearer.
Amethyst walked along with her fellow gems, some rubies were scouting ahead but so far, they'd found nothing.
She didn't like this.
She'd already walked into a trap on the last planet they'd been on, she didn't want to do it again. Soddenly she heard a whirling from within the ground and hatches popped open. "Of course." Said the purple gem with resignation as beasts came flying out, small and fast. By the time she saw it, it had already taken out a ruby and was pouncing on her. But Amethyst had expected it, and batted the fast little beast away with a mighty swing of her mace, only for another of the same type but different color to take its place as it jumped on her and bit into her shoulder. She knocked the little creature off with her free arm and got a good look at it.
It was just a small animal-like little quadruped with no eyes and a mouth that seemed almost larger than its body. The purple quartz glanced around and saw hundreds of the little beasts they were swarming them, streaming from ground like a well-spring. The little beast launched itself at her again and like before Amethyst batted it away. Then she looked around herself, the little beasts had her surrounded. "Oh, it's like that huh? Bring it!" she shouted as they pounced together.
The corridors inside White's flagship were awfully quiet, only a skeleton crew remained, everyone else being directed to the invasion outside. On one of the consoles inside control room, a lone peridot went about her business. She was actually kind of grateful, with all the grunts outside and away from her maybe she could actually get some work done.
The door behind her opened up, just then. The green gem turned to look but saw nothing so she shrugged and turned back to the wor-
A blaster pistol was suddenly aimed at her head and the little gem remained perfectly still. A red gem, of some make she'd never seen before, stepped into view. "Wh-what… who…?" she began but the red gem narrowed her eyes and this silenced Peridot. After more silence the little gem worked up the courage again. "W-what do you want?" she asked timidly.
The gem reached passed her with her free hand, the blaster pistol still poised to shoot and typed in one word. O-N-Y-X
"'Onyx'?" she said aloud. This seemed to irk the red gem and began to dig the barrel of the blaster into the gems head. "Okay okay! But I don't know what-" a thought suddenly crossed her mind, something she'd heard about over the last few days. "Do you mean the prisoner?" She asked.
The red gem seemed to tense at the last word, but nodded.
"You want to know where she is then."
Another nod.
"She'd probably be down in the holding area." The green gem suggested. "Here, these are the directions." As she showed a quick layout plan of the ship on her screen.
The gem pulled the blaster away and the peridot sighed.
BLAM
Pink was pacing impatiently which her elder sister stood, impassive and regal. "Sister calm down."
The young Diamond looked to her. "Calm down? We've lost communications with our troops! Doesn't that make you just a little concerned?"
"They're soldiers Pink." Blue spoke up. "They'll be fine, communication will be restored and you'll see there was nothing to worry about."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that." Peridot muttered under her breath as she and her fellow technicians continued to try and reestablish a secure line to their forces.
Amethyst brought down her mace one last time and the small creature poof out of existence. The purple quartz took a look at her surroundings. Gems of all kinds were scattered across the white fungal floor. She couldn't tell apart the enemies from the fallen though from what she saw they weren't hit too badly, all things considered. Maybe a little over fifteen percent of their force had poofed?
The purple quartz's attention was suddenly torn from her surroundings as the bounding form of Flint came near, calling out her name all the while. "Hey! You just missed it!" Amethyst called out.
"No, I didn't I was just-" The grey gem shook her head and refocused. "Nevermind that, we got to go back to our ship right now!"
"What for?" her fellow quartz asked.
"Something's headed their way. I don't know what, but I got a bad feeling about it." Flint replied.
Before Amethyst could offer a comment, the panels in the ground came up once more. "Too late. Looks like the second wave is coming."
Flint turned around and the remaining gem forces prepared themselves. At first, there was nothing, then the sound of simultaneous marching came and from the darkness robonoids came, beginning to break ranks as they engaged the gem nearest to them.
The purple quartz was about to join the frey when Flint grabbed her by the shoulder. "Forget them! We need to get back to base!"
"We can't abandon our forces out here, Flint! We're commanding gems! If they see us start to run everyone's gonna start breaking ranks!" she shouted back as blaster fire started sounding off.
"If we don't get back right now, who knows if we'll have a camp to go back to !" Flint shouted back over the sounds of battle, the robonoids drew near, some of them targeting the two even as they spoke to each other.
"You really think it's that bad?" Amethyst asked before jumping out of the way of blaster fire.
"The bad feeling's getting worse Am, I need to go now!" the grey gem replied.
"Go then! I'll catch up soon! I promise!" Amethyst shouted as she jumped high and brought her weapon down hard on one of the robonoids causing it to blow up.
The two quartzes met eyes one last time and simultaneously nodded before Flint took off for the camp.
A quartz patrolled the hallway in a bit of a huff, she'd wished she'd been called to fight outside with everyone else but no, here she was patrolling an empty hallway. What a bore.
She heard the sound of running in the halls and turned to see who it was, but when she did, she saw nothing and heard nothing. The quartz squinted her eyes, trying to scan the area. A second later her feet were pulled out from under her and she sank into the floor. A moment later Zircon appeared, phasing through the floor, and looking ahead to the doors where the oath to her sister was on the other side.
She walked towards the door and touched it, before phasing through it. A single ruby guard was facing away form her patrolling the many empty cells. Before the little gem could even react to the sound of footsteps behind her Zircon over took her and destroyed her physical form. She looked to the last door in the corridor, an inner and outer door making up its composition.
The rogue gem drew near but heard the sound of coursing electricity in the outer door. She nodded once before raising her fist. She clenched it hard and it began to darken until it was completely black. With a mighty swing she hit the door once, it dented, she hit the door, again and again until at last the door began to lean over and fall.
The rubies inside had heard the commotion from outside and had taken positions to counter the invaders. The doors fell hard with a loud clang but, there was nothing Neither of the rubies saw anything, looking around for the sign of anyone.
Onyx's smug grim only deepened, a little teeth now showing.
"Where did-" one of the rubies began before she was suddenly thrown back hard against a wall by some invisible force.
"Ruby!" the fellow ruby called out, until she was knocked straight under the chin and into the ceiling by the same force. The little gem fell and poofed upon hitting the ground. The other ruby lied still but opened a single eye to see a red gem approach the prisoner.
Onyx's smug smile was lessened, becoming more honest and sincere rather than gloating. "Zircon… you look good."
The rogue gem only returned the smile with one of her own. She reached forward to her sister but stopped just short of touching it and frowned looking to her sister for guidance.
"Sorry Zirc, I don't know how these work but maybe…" she eyed the ruby who was now getting up, steading herself against the wall.
Zircon quickly closed the distance between them and picked her up, walking over with the ruby tucked under her arm like a newspaper. She stopped in front of the force field and pointed to it.
The ruby however didn't understand. "What?"
Onyx spoke up. "You'll have to excuse her, words aren't my sister's thing. However, I believe she wants to know how to free me."
"I ain't saying anything." The ruby responded defiantly. Zircon gritted her teeth and shoved the ruby into the ground, putting pressure on her back.
"Ow! Ow!" said the little gem.
Onyx bent down so the ruby could see her. "You shouldn't have done that. C'mon you can tell us. I promise we won't hurt you."
"No!" the ruby said again.
Onyx sighed and Zircon looked over the other ruby now lying inert on the floor. The red gem got off the ruby and picked it up with a single hand.
"What are you-?" the ruby began before Zircon began to squeeze. "What are you doing?!' she cried,
"Any more pressure and your fellow ruby might start to crack. Who knows maybe she'll even be shattered." The grey gem said, putting extra emphasis on the last word.
The ruby gritted her teeth before looking from the calm face of Onyx to the frowning face of Zircon. She closed her eyes and gave a sigh of submission. The ruby walked over to the wall and tapped on it twice. Suddenly a command console was visible and after a few seconds of typing, the light around Onyx began to fade.
The rogue gem stretched her limbs as she was freed and motioned for Zircon to stop her squeezing. She then walked over to the ruby, who now stared at the floor in bitter defeat. The grey rogue gem put a single hand on her shoulder. "Hey, no one blames you for makng a descision that saved a friend."
The ruby looked up at her for a moment before her face went into one of shock. She looked down to see a blade now buried in her chest. "Sorry it had to be this way." Said Onyx, her face emotionless as she withdrew her blade. The little gem poofed and Onyx took a deep breath before turning to her sister with a smile.
The two ran towards each other and embraced. Tears began to stream down Zircon's face and Onyx's began to water up too. "Oh, Zirc, always with the tears."
They broke the embrace and each wiped their eyes. Zircon looked to her sister with a confident smile. The grey gem returned it with her smug grin. "So, shall we have some fun?"
"Is it done yet?" Yellow asked.
"With respect my Diamond, this is a very difficult jamming signal and we've yet to find anything to fix the ones being jammed or find another on a different frequency that we could use instead." Peridot answered, briefly explain the intricacy of their fixing of communications.
"How long could it possibly take?" Blue demanded.
"Hey Blue, they're trying their best, let them concentrate on their jobs." Pink cut in.
"Our forces out there are operating blind Pink, we need the communications up now." Blue snapped back.
Suddenly a grey gem came flying in, landing in a tumble before the hologram table, gaining the attention of all present.
The young Diamond recognized he right away. "Flint? What are you-?"
"News! From the battle!" Flint said, saluting. "Most of our forces are currently engaging some sort of robonoids. Communications are also out." She said in quick curt sentences.
"We know, we've been trying to fix that." Pink replied.
"Is that all?" Yellow asked her.
"No, there is some sort of enemy that I believe has breached the perimeter." The grey gem said, again quickly and curtly.
The three diamonds looked to each other confused and then ack to Flint. "Are you sure of this?" Pink asked.
"I am." The quartz responded.
"But we've had no damage done here. If someone was infiltrating here would they have struck here first?" Blue asked.
"Unless they weren't aiming for us." Pink said in slow realization.
"The prisoner." Yellow said before looking around to see a scant few gems, several rubies and two quartzes. still standing around, an auxiliary force to protect the leaders of gem-kind. "You! Follow this flint into the ship and sweep it immediately!" she ordered.
Flint looked to Pink for confirmation and saw her nod. "Let's go!" she said and the group ran inside.
The hallways were eerily silent. There was no alarm, no gems, everything looked immaculate. But without gems roaming around besides them, it gave off a creepy vibe. Flint shook off this feeling and lead the gems straight to the holding cells.
Along the way, Flint began to see a few inert gems left on the floor, but she paid them little mind as she focused on the task at hand. The group finally reached the room where Onyx was being hald only to see the doors busted down. They ran in and quickly saw no one was inside except for two inert ruby gems, laying neatly side by side near the busted doors.
"We're too late." The grey gem said, her face dropping.
"What do we do now?" one of the rubies asked.
Flint was about to give new orders when the group suddenly heard and felt a large rumble reverberate throughout the ship. A thought suddenly came into Flint's head as her eyes widened. "Quick! To the ship's power core!" she ordered as they followed her lead down the corridor.
Flint and her gang ran along the corridor to see a familiar scene, inert gems lying scattered here and there in the hallway to the power core. They reached the entrance to the power core's door but found it had been sealed shut. "Let's get this open." Flint said as she drew her wepon, The others drew theirs and began to pry open the door.
The grey gem heard a voice from beyond shouting. "C'mon Zirc, hit harder!"" It was Onyx's voice.
The group finally got the door and piled in. Onyx turned around but Zircon did not, focusing on the task at hand. "Looks like we got company Zirc."
The red gem looked over her shoulder briefly but went back to hitting the large towering generator in the center of the room. It was sparking now and would be able to take much more.
"Stop! Flint shouted out. "Do you realize what you're doing?!" she shouted.
"Destabilizing the ship's energy core." Said Onyx nonchalantly. Just then Zircon gave a final mighty hit and drew back as the core began to sputter and the ship began to shake. "Which reminds me, you may want to run." With that Zircon grabbed her hand and the two sank into the floor below.
Flint's eyes widened as the core began to shine with a bright light. "GET DOWN!"
Peridot wiped her brow. "I think we've almost got it." she said proudly as she was putting the finishing touches on the fix.
"Some good news at last." Yellow said flatly.
Suddenly a quartz bounded in and tumbled just as before, but this tie it was Amethyst.
Pink looked over to her. "Amethyst? What are you doing here?"
"Flint came this way, right?" she asked.
"I mean yes but-" the young Diamond began.
"Good, I was just coming to help her. I mean without me, who knows what would happen." Just then White's flagship was blown apart, sending everyone to the ground with the force of the explosion, knocking over equipment and shorting out a few of their electronics. The force field surrounding the camp was also down now, the spore from outside now free flowing in.
Blue was the first to pick herself up. "What was…" her eyes widened as she saw the ship in flames. "White ship! White's gem!" she suddenly got to her feet and ran towards the inferno.
Yellow was the next to stand up, holding one arm. "Blue! Wait!" she said running after her sister.
The last Diamond stood up, holding her head. "What was-" she suddenly noticed a pair of feet standing before her and slowly looked up to come eye to eye with a gem she'd never seen before. It was tall, just a little bit taller than she was infact. It had wild crazy hair on the top of her head but was straight and neat on the sides. She was a hue of stripes, dark greys and reds with three arms, two on each side and one that came from her back like a tail and longer that the other two. Three eyes stared down at her as pink looked weakly back.
Suddenly the wind was knocked out of Pink as a great fist came and rammed her gut. Pink felt dazed and limp as the strange gem picked her up with its arm-tail, the jumping off towards the white forest.
Amethyst had seen the whole thing but was almost too weak to move, barely getting to her feet as she tried to regain her strength. She watched as the giant gem bounded off and then turned back to the flaming ship. "Guess that's what would happen."
Spinel continued to watch on her monitors, the battle was going pretty well. Her robots were at some disadvantage, but not by much. Suddenly one of her sensors went off, alerting her to the new arrival. She turned around and saw the giant gem place Pink down before a ight brightly shown and Onyx and Zircon were left in its place.
"So successfully got our prisoner freed I see." Spinel said to Zircon.
Onyx. "Free as can be. And it looks like we got one of our own now." She said motioning behind her to Pink Diamond who was still weak and trying to even gather the strength to sit up.
"Huh, I surprised you didn't just destroy her physical form." Spinel observed.
"Not like we really have the time to be wasted on waiting for her to reform." Onyx said pointedly.
"Too true." The rogue leader agreed. "You two should go prepare, we may need your strength soon." The two rogue gems nodded and walked off.
Pink began to sit up and Spinel walked over to her console. She quickly input a few commands and the ceiling aboe Pink began to retract a small dish coming down. It emitted a white field that entrapped Pink Diamond in a cone of energy. She weakly sat up all the way, still holding her head. "Where am I?"
"You're in the heart of my base, Pink Diamond." Spinel said, suddenly gaining Pink's attention. "We have so much to talk about."
Done. Review, if you wouldn't mind.
