A/N: So this chapter became... man, I don't even know what happened here. Things took a turn for the Unexpected-I'm not unhappy with it, per se, I just feel like the characters hijack my writing sometimes.

On a completely different note, I want to give a major thank you to Spatial for coming up with Citrine's weapon!

It takes an hour to put all of the pieces together. The rest is just waiting for recreation time to be over.

"This is kind of exciting," Apatite confesses. She's sitting down, but she keeps folding and unfolding her arms. Her knees are crossed, and she keeps bouncing her ankle impatiently. She looks to Sapphire and Ruby. "Is this how you two feel all of the time?"

"Not even close," Ruby replies. She's pacing, as she is wont to do in times of stress.

"This is a little more exciting than usual," Sapphire translates. She is sitting on the bench next to Apatite with her hands tidily folded in her lap, as still as a sculpture.

"But it will work, right?" says Citrine anxiously, for the umpteenth time. "I'm not going to be doing all of this for nothing?"

"I'm surprised you were the first to volunteer, actually," remarks Tourmaline. She has a seat all to herself, and she lounges upon it luxuriously, as if she feels no nerves at all. Somehow, Sapphire is not surprised. "You're a pacifist, Citrine."

"This isn't fighting," Citrine maintains. "I'm just inconveniencing everyone. That's not a form of attack, it's just an annoyance. I'm not fighting anything."

That is a matter of opinion, but Sapphire is not about to bring that up.

With a loud, grating buzz and a conspicuous click, the recreation doors open. As the cohort begins to file complacently out into the hall, their little group stands and joins the crowd.

Typically, gems in Containment Units do not jostle each other during transitions like this. They're never going anywhere exciting, after all, so what's the point in rushing? But there are exceptions to this rule, of course. Like now.

"Apatite, would you stop it?" gripes Tourmaline, glaring at the shorter blue gem who has, indeed, started walking obnoxiously close to her, practically under her large green arm. "You have been in my shadow for days, I can't take it anymore!"

Tourmaline shoves—not terribly hard, but hard enough that Apatite stumbles into Plagioclase, who is one and a half times her size and much burlier.

"Tourmaline!" Apatite is a little over the top about the ham-handed way she steadies herself on Plagioclase, but no one seems to notice that. "That was rude and uncalled for!"

"You know what else is rude and uncalled for?" growls Plagioclase. "Using someone else as a piece of furniture!"

Apatite doesn't seem to have to fake the way she startles at the force of that voice. She immediately rips her hand back to herself and backs away, cowering. "Oh! Oh, my, P-Plagioclase, I didn't mean…"

"See? There you go again, always in my personal space!" cries Tourmaline as Apatite bumps into her again. Apatite flinches. With her height and her bulk, seeing her made a scene is actually quite unnerving. "What's a gem have to do to get some respect around here?"

"You said it," agrees Plagioclase vehemently. She gets an idea, and she cracks her knuckles. "Shall we teach her a lesson?"

That's when Citrine rushes in. She bodily places herself between the bigger gems and holds out both arms. "No, stop! This is against appropriate Containment Unit inmate protocol!"

If anyone were looking at this scene critically, they might have found Citrine's dialogue a little stilted and out of character. 'Appropriate Containment Unit inmate protocol' is not a phrase she typically uses. However, judging by the intrigued and somewhat baffled mutterings of the crowd as it reshuffles itself to spectate, no one is thinking critically right now. The cohort is simply allowing itself to be swept up in the drama, as it always does.

Plagioclase scoffs. The interest and excitement from the crowd is feeding her reaction, causing her to blow it up, make it bigger. "Who's going to stop us, the Supervisors? They love it when this happens—in fact, once they figure out what's going on they will probably join in!"

"They've done it before," someone mutters.

"Yes, Sapphire and Ruby are still here." There is a slight pause as the individual looks around. "Aren't they?"

"I haven't seen them since the doors opened."

"Tourmaline, Apatite is one of your best friends!" says Citrine, pleading. "I know you're annoyed right now, but think about what you're doing!"

"Well, she ain't one of my best friends." Plagioclase cracks her neck this time. "Let's get her, Tourmaline."

"I really didn't mean…" Apatite stutters. Her arms are curled up against her torso as if in preemptive attempt at defense.

"She hasn't been annoying the snot out of you, though—has she, Citrine?" bursts out Tourmaline viciously.

"That still doesn't mean you should—"

"What is going on back there?"

The Supervisors in charge of overseeing this transition from rest back to labor are starting to get annoyed that not everything is going smoothly. Spectating gems are knocked unceremoniously to the side as the march to the back of the group.

"Oh, look," Plagioclase croons with a grin. "Reinforcements."

Considering the fact that it's Kunzite and Morganite, this is not a poor assessment of the situation.

"No, we don't have to do this!" Citrine tries again. Either she is a very good actress, or there is real desperation in her voice.

"Why didn't you tell me if I was annoying you?" Apatite asks Tourmaline.

"What do you mean, I didn't tell you? You couldn't figure out I was miffed for yourself?" roars Tourmaline.

"Hey!" calls Morganite sharply. "What's the holdup back here? We do the exact same thing every day, and you defective gems can't even get this right?"

"Oh." Kunzite has gotten the gist of the situation. She produces her spear in a flash of light and lowers it over Apatite's nose. "You. Why are you disturbing the peace? Need a lesson in how to be cooperative?"

"No!" screams Citrine. It most certainly isn't an act anymore; you can hear it in her voice. Like the rest of the cohort, she's well and truly caught up in the situation.

"Probably," Morganite mutters.

"I said stop it!"

The problem with using flash grenades in small metal spaces is all of the collateral damage. Not only do the gems you intend to stun get blinded, but everyone else does too. The shouts that rip out of gems' throats—of fear, annoyance and anger, primarily—are a sudden cacophony that bounces chaotically back at them and rings incessantly in their ears.

"My eyes!" someone cries plaintively. "What's wrong with my eyes?"

"Damnit!" shouts Morganite. The peach-hued gem staggers, covering her blinded eyes with one hand and groping blindly with the other, looking for all the world as if she wants to find someone to take her anger out on. "Why would you do that, you defective clod? Why would you ever let off a Homeworld-cursed flash grenade in a space like this?" She bumps into one of the rec center's doors, growls out, "Get off of me!" and punches. She immediately regrets this action as one of her knuckles jams into the door hinges.

Knowing that the grenade was going to drop isn't as big of a help as you might think. Closing her eye and even producing reflective eyewear helps some, but Sapphire still has lights dancing in her vision, ruining her already shaky depth perception as she grabs Ruby's wrist and they take advantage of the quickly escalating chaos to run.

Ruby leads, to begin with—her vision is also compromised, and she's not as fast, but she's leagues better at navigating writhing crowds than Sapphire is. Since that's the best they have to work with, it will have to be enough.

They don't know where the other ruby and her friends are hiding, especially not now. Nobody has jumped out at them yet, though, which is a good sign.

They're only stopped once, at the end of the block. It's the precipice of the confusing, branching halls that they are guaranteed to lose their pursuers in, because once they've broken free of the cohort Sapphire and her future vision can take over. It won't matter how uncertain and dazed her monocular vision is there, because she will be able to make all of the proper twists and turns regardless, and she will have the speed to get the distance they need as well.

Sapphire should have known that having long hair for this event wasn't a good idea. That being said, a part of her is wholly unsurprised when someone takes a fat handful of it and yanks.

Her hand is forcibly ripped out of Ruby's as her head snaps back, and the rest of her body has no choice but to follow.

"Sapphire!"

She is immediately ensnared in a headlock, and the edge of a cruelly curved dagger peeks through her bangs and hovers just over her eye. Doing this without actually cutting her takes some skill, as they are all still swaying with disorientation.

Sapphire might have been able to identify her assailant from this alone, but the fact that the body holding her captive is practically scalding immediately brushes all doubt from her mind.

Of course the one gem they have trouble defeating would be the one to catch her. Of course that's how this goes. Sapphire should have Seen this coming.

"Not so cocky now, are you?" The Supervisor's voice in Sapphire's ear is almost too low and grating to be heard over the cacophony of blinded gems smacking and running into each other just down the hall. Proximity makes up for it, and for once the cold that Sapphire feels shivering down her spine isn't a welcome comfort.

Gems don't need to breath, but that doesn't make having your airway abruptly choked off any more comfortable. Sapphire is being held aloft by the neck, her slippered feet dangling a foot or so off the indifferent metal floors.

If she tries to flail or kick, the knife will sink into her eye. If that happens, she will probably poof. Ruby, who has a weaker version of all the same powers as the Supervisor choking her, won't stand a chance after that. Even if Ruby does choose to opt out of combat and run, she won't be fast enough. As things stand, there is nothing Ruby can do right now without inspiring the same stabbing result.

"Let her go," Ruby says it, but she seems to know how futile a demand like that is to a gem who's out for vengeance. Still, she doesn't move. She and Sapphire seem to have come to identical conclusions.

Sapphire needs to find a way to get herself out this alive, and soon, before the other ruby establishes an upper hand that they can't counter. Until then, Ruby needs to stall.

The other ruby's barking laugh clangs and echoes in Sapphire's skull the way the abrupt explosion of noise from Citrine's flash grenade never did. Haunting.

"Make me," the Supervisor says, and her massive bicep squeezes Sapphire's throat a little tighter. Sapphire's feet kick out limply in reaction. At this point she is more likely to die from a broken neck instead of a dagger to the eye.

Ruby cups a hand around her ear and leans in. She says loudly, "Sorry, what was that? I can't hear you over all of that." And she points behind the other ruby to the slowly but surely fading pandemonium by the rec center's doors.

"I said," the Supervisor shouts. "Ma—"

It's hard to say whether it's pure instinct or sheer force of will. Perhaps, in that moment, the two become one and the same. The result of their union—if it even exists—is unmistakable, and vehemently effective.

The other ruby lets out a wet grunt as six different icicles launch from Sapphire's person and into her torso, ensnaring her where she stands. Of course, her temperature does melt the ice some, but they are all of them fat enough to withstand such treatment and still keep pushing onwards. Her dagger clatters to the floor, and as soon as her hold on Sapphire's neck begins to stutter Sapphire sends a couple hundred volts coursing through her system, pauses, and then does it again for good measure as she drops neatly onto her feet.

The last icicle she produces stops just short of driving itself into the other ruby's eye. Sapphire, lips set into a firm, emotionless line and her gaze cold enough to send a thin crust of ice crawling over the floor and defiantly over the heated Supervisor's feet, grows it slowly onwards—but not too slowly, those icicles won't hold her for much longer. She wants the Supervisor to know what's coming, see it in slow motion just as she had. Who needs future vision when you have an imagination? It's just like Unit 2: either them or you, and it sure as hell isn't going to be you. It's just like that, the world suddenly snapped back to how it always was—how could she ever think that mercy was possible? Such a foolish dream.

This Supervisor isn't going to leave them alone until they scare her so badly that she never wants to try again. If Sapphire doesn't do this, she'll just keep hunting, and hunting—this won't stop. It's Sapphire's fault this has happened to begin with, and now she needs to resolve this issue once and for all. If Sapphire can do that, if she can make that possible, then…

That's when she feels warm fingers capture her own, and Sapphire realizes that she's been levitating, skirts and her dratted long hair billowing up around her. Her knuckledusters are out, too—when did that happen?

The last icicle stops.

Ruby's expression isn't enigmatic, but Sapphire doesn't know how to read what she's seeing right now, either. Her feet touch the floor once more as the warmth spreads across her hand and up her arm, overcoming the chill that has taken her over. "We need to go," she says just loud enough to be heard, and she gives a little tug.

Sapphire doesn't say anything, but she does glance back at the other ruby, still held irreverently in place by the six quickly melting icicles. You can't see their cruel spikes sticking out of her back anymore, but Sapphire knows they're there. Her vision doesn't have dancing lights in front of it anymore, and there is no longer any ringing in her skull; she can perceive quite clearly.

"You're right," she says. She tightens her hold on Ruby's hand—thank you. If you hadn't been there…—and, with a burst of speed, they are gone.