A/N: This chapter was supposed to be longer, but then I noticed that a whole bunch of other authors had updated... By the time I was done reading all of their stuff, I looked at the half-finished latter half of this chapter, said "bleh" and went out to dinner instead. ^^" So now this is becoming a bit of an arc-whoopsie! Enjoy anyway ;P

"Don't take this the wrong way," Tourmaline says. "But you two look terrible. Who did you fight today?"

"How are they supposed to take something like that the 'right way'?" asks Citrine.

"I haven't heard anything about bully activity recently," says Apatite, furrowing her brows and looking between the two small gems. She is either aghast that her gossip network has failed her or worried for their wellbeing. Or both, Sapphire supposes. "What happened?"

To be fair, as soon as they made it into the (tentative) safety of the rec center, Sapphire dropped into one of the uncomfortable chair with uncharacteristic lack of ceremony, and Ruby had flopped down on the floor and leaned against her shins. As this is not typically how they greet their friends, the uncertainty they're being greeted with is understandable.

Ruby's voice is oddly blasé as she says, "Oh, a decision we made about 1,600 years ago is coming back to haunt us."

"The other ruby," Sapphire translates.

"What?" Now Apatite really is aghast. "What happened? What did you hear?" Her thin sheet of hair whips through the air as she looks around the rec center, glowering. Her hands are in blue fists at her sides. "How didn't I know about this?"

Let it never be said that Apatite doesn't take her gossip seriously.

"Whoa, wait," says Tourmaline, waving a green hand. "I thought you said you beat the snot out of her once."

"We did," says Sapphire. "That's the problem."

"How is that a problem? Usually you do that to Supervisors and they start behaving."

"Well, this one rounded up a lynch mob of 8-plus Mohs gems, and they all want us dead," says Ruby, drawing up a knee and resting her forearm on it.

Citrine blinks. "Y-you're being sarcastic. Right, Ruby?"

"There's about a thirty percent chance they'll break down the rec center doors and force us to fight them in front of the entire cohort," says Sapphire. "If that does happen, there's a sixty-five-percent chance that we will be publically cracked or shattered."

Even Tourmaline, normally an avid fan of the morbid, cannot seem to hide her mortification.

"W-well, what's your plan?" asks Citrine. She looks to Sapphire. "You-you do have a plan, right?"

"Currently, no," Sapphire replies, and while her voice remains calm and monotone her words settle heavy around them. She leans her elbow on the armrest of the chair and props her chin up with it. "If we're lucky, they will become discouraged at not finding us in the halls and go back, and we will be better prepared to face them when they inevitably go searching for us tomorrow."

"…And if you don't get lucky?" asks Tourmaline, though it seems to Sapphire that she's hesitant to actually hear the answer.

"If we're not, we will be ambushed in the halls as soon as we leave this place," says Sapphire. "It won't end well."

"That," says Ruby, lifting her gem holding hand. "Is news to me, but to be honest I'm still not surprised."

"I've Seen those possibilities for myself," Sapphire says in response to Apatite's question.

There is a small, immensely awkward pause, and then Ruby snaps her fingers and gestures to Apatite. "You were about to ask who we heard about all of this from, am I right?"

"Huh?" At first Apatite is thoroughly confused, but then she realizes, "Oh, o-oh! Actually, yes, I was, but how did you…?" She gazes at Sapphire with wonder before again having an epiphany. "You must have Seen it before I said it, of course! Sorry, Sapphire, you've never done that before. But to continue the conversation: you're just seeing all of these possibilities without provocation?"

Sapphire's cheeks are burning with embarrassment, she knows they are. She tries to reply as if they aren't, though, "We were warned by another gem, initially, but I probably would have noticed regardless."

"Which gem?"

That's right, faces and names matter to Apatite.

"Onyx, A," says Ruby. Then, as Apatite's eyes fly open and her hand clenches in front of the necklace-shaped striations on her collarbone in a scandalized gesture, she adds sternly, "Don't make a big deal out of that. That's not the point of this, remember?"

"Right. Sorry, sorry," Apatite says quickly, shaking her head and banishing the gesture. "I just didn't know you two still—"

"Apatite, there are far more serious things to be discussing right now!" snaps Citrine.

"Though when things have calmed down, I would also be interested to hear how Onyx is doing these days," says Tourmaline, delicately curling a finger under her round chin. "Her form is still taller than mine, right?"

"Tourmaline," Apatite says, her voice abruptly dry. "Not only are you two cohorts apart, but—"

"There, is, a, lynch, mob," Citrine growls out through clenched teeth, though each word is punctuated by a fierce gesture in Sapphire and Ruby's direction. "Remember, gems? Remember that part?"

It is, Sapphire thinks, a very strange day when Citrine becomes the voice of the group's focus and rationality.

"We're tabling this discussion," Apatite tells Tourmaline briskly, to which the voluptuous green gem nods. Then, to Citrine more than Ruby and Sapphire, "I don't know what you expect us to do. Maybe if I knew who was part of the lynch mob, I could provide some kind of information on them, but if they're from two cohorts or more away it's very difficult to know anything for certain." She glances at Sapphire. "Do you actually know who's coming?"

Sapphire tells her, and Apatite lets out a heavy breath. "Well, the chrysoberyl is an inmate, I do know that. The problem is, she's a symmetrical one."

"Oh, great, so she's unstable as all get out," Ruby grumbles, picking at the hem of her mid-thigh shorts and leaning back a little more heavily against Sapphire's shins.

"Yes," says Apatite gravely. "And if my one source is to be believed, she's teamed up with the Supervisors before. The rest, as far as I know, are all Supervisors themselves."

"That is conducive with the uniforms I Saw," says Sapphire.

Apatite gestures to her and looks at Citrine pointedly. "See? I can't even help with that, because she's already seen it."

"How don't you have a plan?" asks Tourmaline. "Especially you, Sapphire. If you can See how everything will turn out, can't you see how to avoid it?"

"Just because I See possibilities doesn't mean there is always one that works in my favor," Sapphire replies. "Currently, it seems we are fated to be unlucky, and they will ambush us as soon as we are far enough from the rec center."

"Because all routs from the office funnel into the main hallway," Ruby mutters. She tilts her head back until her afro is braced against the angle of Sapphire's knee. "Of course. If we had gotten past that one block we would have stood a chance, but they've already planned for that."

Tourmaline's demeanor wilts somewhat. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"You really don't know what to do, do you?" says Apatite softly.

Citrine doesn't say anything, but the way she has been looking between everyone for the duration of this conversation speaks volumes for how she has already come to this conclusion herself. They wouldn't have started talking about this if they already had a plan, after all.

After all of this time, their friends really had no concept of the limitations to their abilities, did they? They truly expected them to be able to take on any and everything.

Sapphire has to wonder how much of that she and Ruby have to take direct responsibility for. Helping others has never before felt like such an enabling maneuver.

Ruby isn't saying it. She still has her head tilted back against Sapphire's knees, and her eyes are closed. By process of elimination, Sapphire becomes the one who answers Apatite's question. "No, we don't know what to do. Our own brashness is the reason we're in this position, and now we don't know how to get out of it."

Citrine takes a deep, slow breath. "Do you think my weapon would help?"

This gets Ruby's attention. Suddenly, she is sitting up straight. "Citrine, you haven't used your weapon since—"

"I know." Citrine's voice is tight. She swallows, her fists clenched at her sides. "But after centuries of helping everyone else without asking for a single thing in return, the least I can do is give you some cover while you run, right?"

"Oh," Sapphire says belatedly, as she peeks into futures in which Citrine is a part of their escape from the rec center. "That could work."

Apatite is anxious. "Citrine, are you sure? You know what will happen if—"

"You think I don't realize that?" she snaps. "I've already made up my mind. I-if Sapphire says it'll do some good, then I'm helping."

"We could always arrange a cover scene for the cover," says Tourmaline. "It might just be convoluted enough to work. Plagioclase's face is always a good scapegoat, right?"

Thankfully, Plagioclase is on the other side of the rec center, and far out of earshot. She avoids Sapphire pretty pointedly these days (not that Sapphire minds).

"It needs to be a big scene," Sapphire says. "The kind that would warrant the sort of commotion we'd be making."

"In that case, Plagioclase is the perfect candidate," Apatite says automatically. "Especially if we use a gem that's softer than—oh." Her face falls into a decidedly unimpressed expression. "I suppose that would be me, wouldn't it?"

"Nobody's forcing you into it, Apatite," Ruby says. She's standing now, nearly bouncing from foot to foot in either nerves or excitement (in this moment, it's very hard to tell the difference between the two).

"I know," she says, reaching over and rubbing her own elbow. "I've just—I've never thought of you and Sapphire as needing help from anyone before. What kind of friend does that make me?"

"The kind that believes in us," says Sapphire. It's a little awkward to be the only one sitting, so she pushes herself to her feet as well. "Typically, that's all the support we need."

"Except this time we've bitten off more than we can chew, and now we need a little more support than usual," says Ruby, half-ironically.

After a wide-eyed second, Apatite flashes a little smirk. Her hand falls from her elbow. "You know I'm still helping, right? You don't need to suck up to me."

Ruby grins and shrugs. "If you say so."

"Okay," says Tourmaline in a sudden and oddly uncharacteristic business fashion. She points to each gem in turn. "So Apatite's the bait, Plagioclase is the unwitting distraction, Citrine is our closer, and you two are going to be running like hell. What can I do?"

"Well," says Sapphire slowly, flicking through possibilities in her head. "How scary are you comfortable being, Tourmaline?"