Gaspeite pounded on the door with a few loud metallic clanks of her levitating fist.
A Gem who was actually shorter than the enhanced Gaspeite opened up the door to the apartment meekly. She was wearing a simple yellow dress and she wore something like a hijab which covered her hair. Gaspeite stood regally, which intimidated the Gem who answered the door. It was exactly what Gaspeite wanted from people, the more intimidated they are, the sooner they want her to leave, meaning the sooner she'll get answers.
"Good evening, ma'am," Gaspeite said coldly.
"Good evening." The Gem replied shakily.
"What do you know of this document?" Gaspeite asked, holding up the propaganda letter for her to see.
"Oh, that letter? It was delivered to me by a pale Gem, almost opalescent, her skin was, said her name was Moonstone. She was so nice, I had her over for a few drinks even." The Gem said, smiling. Little did she know, she had given away her relationship with a rebel Gem and gave Gaspeite her first target.
"Thank you for your contribution, ma'am. You have done a great service to your planet." Gaspeite said before slamming the apartment door and speed-walking out of the apartment building to track down the Gem called Moonstone. It made sense, the initials MS on the letter stood for Moonstone. She stood on the edge of the street, and formed a holographic screen with her fingers, she then took a quick scan of the area with the same screen, instantly finding the location of an unregistered Gem. Gaspeite knew that Moonstones were never made in the labs, ever, that Moonstone was the only one of her kind, and she apparently wasn't registered in the system.
After taking a bullet train to the area they were located, Gaspeite kept tracking Moonstone until she reached her exact location. She finally came upon the pale Gem, and she had a companion with her, a slightly shorter Gem with two toned pink and dark blue skin with a fluffy mohawk. They were conversing on the side of the street.
"Yes...my best kill yet, sits right there," Gaspeite whispered before approaching the two Gems casually before stopping, forming her fingers into a plasma gun and holding it against Moonstone's head. "Stop, in the name of the Diamonds," Gaspeite said. She wasn't entirely sure what to do or say in this situation, especially since her targets didn't run or anything like that.
"We don't want any trouble." The pink and blue Gem said as she raised her hands up.
"You should've thought of that when your friend wrote this," Gaspeite replied coldly, holding up the letter.
Moonstone mouthed to Rhodonite, the pink and blue Gem. "What do we do?"
Rhodonite, thinking fast, ran over and pushed Moonstone away from Gaspeite, which caught both Moonstone and Gaspeite off guard. In the confusion, Rhodonite and Moonstone ran into the street as fast as their legs could carry them. Gaspeite ran close behind, she pulled up her handgun, about to shoot until she saw Rhodonite push a Gem off of their speeder, allowing Rhodonite and Moonstone to get on.
"I'm commandeering this speeder, it's for a good cause," Rhodonite said before speeding away.
Gaspeite caught sight of another speeder, shoved the driver off and hopped on.
"I'm commandeering this speeder in the name of the Great Diamond Authority." Gaspeite powered after them.
The chase was officially on. The streets were parted by the oncoming speeders like waters parted by a dam. The two speeders slalomed through the streets, Gaspeite took many shots, but new to maneuvering a speeder, she couldn't have a good aim while trying to keep from swerving. Moonstone was sitting backward, facing their pursuer, giving Rhodonite, the driver, a play-by-play.
"She doesn't seem all that experienced with speeders," Moonstone said.
"My past lives were pretty good drivers, so I just have to remember their techniques," Rhodonite replied.
"But these are newer models!" Moonstone shouted.
"Yeah, but I'm pretty smart. Smart enough to figure them out." Rhodonite said.
"I think she has it figured out now too! She is gaining on us, can you go faster?" Moonstone asked frenetically.
"Yeah, yeah I'm on it. There is a sharp turn coming up, and ha, what do you know, I got a racing model!" Rhodonite shouted with delight as she urged the speeder faster.
There were different models for speeders, rich Gems usually had racing speeders, all terrain speeders that could do tricks, go through tight spaces, and pull off dangerously tight turns. Unfortunately for Gaspeite, she got stuck with a regular model, and the two "fugitives" got a racing speeder. The turn was approaching fast, and by then, Gaspeite was racing beside them. The two drivers, Rhodonite, and Gaspeite, glowered at each other as they kept slamming each other's speeders together. Moonstone frantically turned around and wrapped her arms around Rhodonite's waist to brace for impact. After a few little collisions, Rhodonite and Gaspeite's speeders got stuck together, the exposed wires on the sides got tangled. The turn was about to happen, and Rhodonite decided to act fast and take the turn.
Rhodonite turned her speeder so sharp that it almost flipped over, and with a startled scream, Gaspeite, and her speeder slammed into the wall of a building. Gaspeite leaned the opposite direction to try to avoid getting poofed, but it was no use, Gaspeite poofed as her speeder slammed against the wall and her lifeless Gem flew into the air. Moonstone caught the lifeless Gem and put it inside the compartment in the back of the speeder.
"Did we get her?" Rhodonite asked.
"Kind of. She just poofed, I have her Gem in the back." Moonstone replied.
"Good, she can have many benefits. Interrogation, ransom, or we can just kill her." Rhodonite shrugged.
"Maybe we could take care of her, maybe she doesn't know our cause and she feels oppressed too." Moonstone pondered.
"If she was going to kill us because we wrote that letter, chances are, she's against us. She must've read the letter and decided to side with your sisters." Rhodonite said.
"Or she was offered a reward," Moonstone muttered.
"Oh...you mean like a mercenary? So it is a war, the Diamonds wanted to get rid of us, so they send a pathetic mercenary to do their dirty work, typical." Rhodonite scoffed.
"I say we interrogate her when she regenerates," Moonstone suggested.
"I agree. We just have to find a place to put her, a private place, like a base of some sort. If this really is war, then we have to have a base, a rendezvous." Rhodonite was thinking aloud.
"I know a place, a shallow trench underneath the subway just a few miles north of here. It is deep enough for it to be private and secluded, but shallow enough that it can be accessible by our speeder." Moonstone said.
"Okay, let's go." Rhodonite agreed and sped up the speeder even more. They didn't get a lot of attention while they were driving like they were during the chase, which was perfectly fine. The two didn't want anyone snapping pictures or telling anyone of their location. They reached the trench in a matter of minutes, and drove down the slight slope of the trench wall slowly, eventually hitting the bottom.
"Whoa..." They both gasped in unison as they got off the speeder and looked around. There was a whole 'nother world down there. It was the ruins of an old temple. Rhodonite wasn't sure what it meant, there were no temples anywhere else on Homeworld, so she assumed that there was never any religion. The temple was only half of what it was when it was still standing, the rest was rubble. Moonstone got closer to the pyramid temple and ran her fingers along the faded designs and incantations carved into the stone.
"Are you sure you should be touching that? I mean, it could fall down on us at any time." Rhodonite was unsure of the whole thing.
"Absolutely, according to what I have observed in this temple in the few minutes I've been here, the building is stable. We could take refuge inside, this could be our base." Moonstone said.
Rhodonite picked up two random stones and slammed them together until they made a spark. She summoned her tomahawk, flipped it upside down, sprinkled dirt on the end of the handle, and made the spark again, this time, it lit the dirt on fire, creating a torch.
"Huh, I guess there is a little oxygen left here." Rhodonite shrugged and followed Moonstone into a crack in the temple wall.
Rhodonite's torch made what looked to be an orb of light around them, and the interior of the temple was somewhat intact. They could see the mosaic designs on the floor of celestial bodies and what Rhodonite assumed to be deities that matched them. Rhodonite then shined the light on the walls, which had more designs on them, displaying a scene. In the first picture, it showed a lush, beautiful planet with many plants and animals. The next slide showed a small civilization, with happy dancing Gems, praising the heavens, and Rhodonite noticed that the sun above was replaced by a beautiful woman. After that, the civilization was bigger, and the woman, the sun, seeming to be setting. It was getting darker, and the Gems in the civilization were beginning to look unhappy. Rhodonite's eyes shifted to the next slide, which showed another powerful being, three, in fact, torturing the once happy Gems, and the civilization got bigger. The sun was gone. The final slide, showed another woman, a beautiful pale woman, rising from the darkness and bringing back the light to the world.
"It's a prophecy," Moonstone said quietly.
Rhodonite looked at Moonstone, her mind was still wandering, though, lost in the story. "What does it mean?" Rhodonite asked.
"It means that long ago, when Homeworld began, the Gems were a happy civilization, and the light of good shone on them with the help of Sunstone, one of two light goddesses. As time passed, Sunstone disappeared as people started to lose sight of the light, the greater good, and people were no longer happy when supposedly powerful forces took over and snuffed out the light for good. However, the prophecy promises that a mortal Gem will rise out of the dark and restore the light once more. This temple was built by ancient Gems, long ago, but then, after technology got better and a new, assertive type of Gem was born, then those Gems took over the civilization, bombed out all the temples, and extinguished hope for gemkind. I learned to read these runes when I was a couple 100 years old, and I never forgot them." Moonstone explained.
Rhodonite was stunned, not just by the beauty of the temple or the power of the prophecy, but the way Moonstone looked when telling her story. There was something in her face, something in her eyes that Rhodonite hadn't seen in a long time, it was like a little light, a little star. It made her face light up and skin seem to glow. Rhodonite couldn't put her finger on it...it was hope, and Rhodonite loved it, she cherished it like water in the desert. She was blushing and couldn't focus, at least not until Moonstone snapped her fingers, as though to wake them both up, and give the next order.
"We gotta get our little friend out of the trunk," Moonstone said.
"Wait, are we staying here overnight?" Rhodonite asked.
"Of course! We gotta get settled in." Moonstone said, smiling like nothing could be more simple. She unloaded Gaspeite's gem and took it inside the temple. Rhodonite lit some candles that she found laying around, illuminating the inside of the temple. Moonstone set Gaspeite's gem on the floor and waited a couple seconds before the pale green Gem glowed and rose off the ground.
Gaspeite's reformed quickly, likely because she looked pretty much the same except she had a grey streak across her left eye, a scar from the crash. Gaspeite realized that she wasn't wearing those awful limb enhancers, and without even thinking about where she was, she laid down on the floor and spread out her limbs starfish style.
"Aah, feels good to be out of those things," Gaspeite said with relief.
"You're so small and cute!" Moonstone shouted, much to Gaspeite's surprise and dread. Moonstone couldn't help herself, the mercenary who looked so intimidating before was the size of a child.
Gaspeite jumped up and clenched her fists. "That doesn't mean I won't kill you, I am not small, and not even close to cute. I am lethal, ruthless, don't test me!" Gaspeite had a slightly squeaky voice, which made her sound even funnier to Rhodonite and Moonstone.
Moonstone giggled. " You don't even have a weapon! Besides, we don't want to kill you!"
"Well, I want to kill you!" Gaspeite shouted angrily.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't even know us. Let's start there. I'm Rhodonite." Rhodonite tried to calm Gaspeite down and held out her hand to shake.
"I don't need your companionship!" Gaspeite slapped Rhodonite's hand.
Rhodonite lightly giggled. "That kinda tickled." Gaspeite's hands were small compared to Rhodonite's.
"We know we wrote that letter, but you have to admit, we do have a point," Moonstone said calmly.
"Of course, you had a point! That letter is exactly what we need here, it's just that my entire life, all that I've ever wanted is resting on your shattered gem shards!" Gaspeite shouted. "Wait, no, forget I ever said-"
"Oh, I see." Rhodonite interrupted Gaspeite. "You work for a price, eh?"
Gaspeite's eyes widened, then she lost her excitement. "You are fugitives, unregistered in the system. How can you possibly have more money than the Diamonds?"
"Here's the deal, you work for us, and if we win, then you can have all the Diamonds offered you and more." Rhodonite smiled.
"And if we lose?" Gaspeite cocked an eyebrow.
"The Diamonds are a dangerous force, their wrath burns worlds. We either win or die trying. You're a businesswoman, so you should know opportunity cost. It's a win-win in my book, you get endless fame and fortune if we win, and you get to go to the heavens early if we lose." Moonstone added.
"Or the hell below us, but that sounds like a good deal. You drive a hard bargain, you two. I'll sleep on it." Gaspeite said.
"We still haven't gotten your name," Moonstone added.
"It's Gaspeite," Gaspeite said. "And I know the pale one is Moonstone, and the weird-looking one is Rhodonite."
"Watch it, shortstop," Rhodonite muttered.
"MAKE FUN OF MY SIZE AGAIN AND I'LL MAKE THAT PRETTY GEM OF YOURS A NECKLACE!" Gaspeite threatened.
"Alright, alright, geez." Rhodonite sighed.
"We better get some rest. Give our guest plenty of time to think." Moonstone said before winking at Gaspeite.
The three settled in for the night, Gaspeite pacing in her mind, Moonstone dreaming of a new Homeworld and the glory of a fulfilled prophecy. She hoped for the light to come again. Rhodonite lied awake for a few hours, haunted by everything that had been happening, and occasionally looking over at Moonstone. Eventually, Rhodonite crawled over to Moonstone and wrapped her arms around her. Moonstone scooted into Rhodonite's embrace and they slept the night, using each other as a safety blanket.
DID SOMEBODY SAY SMALL COMIC RELIEF CHARACTERS?
Geez I feel like I have too many characters...
I don't want to spoil it but Gaspeite actually becomes a main character! So get used to her saltiness hehe
This marks the conclusion of all the chapters I already had written! Which means I'll be back to writing them fresh off the word barbie hehe
(Also why I split this into two parts I have no idea sometimes past me's logic is really hard to grasp)