Citrine tried to move again, but to no avail, the debris was simply too heavy for her physical form to lift. While she couldn't see anything trough the smoke and dust, she could hear shots and screams. How someone could be able to stand, not to mention fight after such an explosion was beyond her…
She struggled again, but the tons upon tons of broken walls didn't move the slightest. The worst part was that she wasn't able to poof herself, as her gem, located on her body's hip would break.
She tried again and again, but then she heard a certain sound... There was no way anyone who had heard this particular ring could mistake it for anything else… Bolt guns used by the sharded. And they were getting closer…
Citrine started moving more intensely, she couldn't let them see her in such a position. She knew what sharded did to those unable to fight…
As the yellow gem started moving the intensifying screams of those who tried to fight back against the sharded were silenced by a certain sound. A brutal, savage roar, so powerful one could swear it could shatter metal and stone.
Citrine froze in place losing all of her determination to free herself. She knew what creature was able to roar so loudly and with such ferocity. It wasn't anything that the enemy deployed, that's for sure; it was something far more dangerous and powerful than Citrine could have imagined existing, besides the Diamonds themselves, off course. It was the roar of the monstrous defective obsidian…
Memories started flooding Citrines mind. Those times she stood in the corridors as the obsidian leadership moved through. She remembered both defects perfectly. The monstrous grey obsidian and its insane pearl, a duo which while at first comedic, became the nightmare of numerous millions of gems. Everyone who at some point saw the defect and its pearl were ordered to be quiet… And later, when the crusade was announced sent here.
Citrine shook when she remembered the recordings they were shown… At first those were just recordings of battles against terka. Sharded defeating… no… slaughtering, entire strike forces. Several hundred masked elites, armed with weapons more fit to be put on weapon platforms, against tens of thousands of organic creatures…
Citrine didn't know why, but the sight of these faceless beings marching across a field of mutilated organic creatures cut itself into her memory.
But that was not all; they were shown other recordings… Sharded butchering entire cities with such ferocity and efficiency that even the most aggressive and savage quartzes flinched.
Later they were shown even more terrible recordings… Gems fighting other gems… Sharded in small numbers annihilating armies of obsidians which should have been equal to them... Assaulting fixed positions without heavy weapons and emerging victorious… Purging entire cities, where the dissidents had fortified.
Their leader, Omega, overwhelming even three gem fusions… Crushing entire battalions, like they were chalks instead of soldier obsidians. Ripping apart artillery pieces and fortifications like they meant nothing to it…
And after all of those numerous recordings, which were shown as an example of what happens to those who don't follow the imperial hierarchy, the last one cemented it… In it a prime obsidian, a perfect soldier, a perfect general, denied the orders she was given, her soldiers followed in suit…
Omega and its sharded were ordered to exterminate and so they did… As the faceless butchers shattered obsidians in their tens of thousands, the defect met the prime… Swords collided with forces equal to supernovas as two obsidians clashed for their ideals. It seemed that both combatants were equal, but as the rebellious gems fell around their general, the defect overwhelmed the prime. The last image before the recording ended was the grey monstrosity driving a massive blade through the center of the prime's gem.
Citrine couldn't stop shaking no matter how much she tried. As she heard the shots and screams getting close, she was terrified; it was the first time in her existence that she felt that way. She was a quartz soldier, a brave, courageous warrior, but these… these sharded were something else, something fierce, something otherworldly, something to be feared and despised. And now they were getting closer…
Now she could hear their heavy steps as they came closer and closer. Their boltguns spewing death louder and louder.
A mutilated body flew through the smoke and crashed into one of the blocks that had fallen into her… Now seven massive dark shades could be seen through the smoke, how could they be so massive, the yellow gem had no idea… She could clearly see their massive ballistic weapons, except for the middle one, which clearly carried a sword or some similar elite weapon. Citrines eyes expanded as she realised that there was a leader between them. What kind of monster would be promoted to a lead such butchers?
Such thoughts plagued her mind as the first of the shatered started emerging from the smoke. She closed her eyes, not wanting the butchers to see her cry.
It seemed like an eternity had passed, but nothing happened.
And then suddenly she started feeling her lower body relieved from the weight of the debris. She opened her eyes only to see the shatered removing the tones upon tones of broken buildings from her, while their leader, a prime obsidian extended her hands toward the quartz, with a reassuring smile.
"Are you alright?"