Ahead of the incoming monorail train that was riding along its railway, the chaos of the lower caste of gems revolting could be seen on full tilt as crowds of gem were fighting against the freshly emerged Chalcedony Quartz soldiers. With the sheer volume of gems unrest pressing the advantage with numbers, several buildings and pillars holding up the upper buildings collapsed from structural damage of the ongoing skirmishes within the streets of the underbelly of the cityscape.
One such building toppled down and pulled the street and pipes system with it as it tumbled away from the monorail track, but in doing it caused the ground and pipes system to buckle the monorail track up and break; as the monorail train continued its ride along the train track system, it ramped up the bent track system, and careened up towards the upper levels of the city scape.
From within a large room with fancy interior designs in the fashion of gem society reflecting white and gray scale colors, posh carpets lined the floors with decorative stained windows that were murals of White Diamond of Era 1; all around the large room were chairs and such for gems to sit on an discuss important matters between gems of elite status. Soft music played in the atmosphere as the gems conversed amongst each other, some even laughed as they spoke little jokes against the common riffraff that lived beneath the city.
From at an angle out of the floor, the entire serenity of the posh gathering of aristocrat gem was ruined by the crashing of the transportation train that was derailed from the lower depths of the planet and up into the upper levels of the city; As everything began to settle from the sound of the crash and the engine of the train cutting off with a sharp hiss, the sound of screams could be heard from gems at the sudden interruption of their gatherings and sudden sight of the chaos that was the crashed train that was now lodge diagonally through the entire building.
Several gemstones laid about from the aristocrat gems being poofed by the blunt force trauma of the train hitting their bodies, where as those that were out of the radius of the crashed train, had fallen back on their rear ends in fright that the chaos below had reached the upper levels of the planet.
From out of one of the train cars, a door creaked and was kicked off its hinges, it was Skinny with a bit of scuff marks on her body; under her arms were Fayalite and Corundum with scuff marks on their faces as well, whom she tossed out of the train and onto the floor below them, before exiting out as well. As Skinny Jasper landed with her knee bent, and stood back up, she glanced around while brushing her hands off each other with a smirk. "Never let it be said you guys owe me for that one." she jested as she saw the various noble gems scrambling out of the room away from the mess, which made her smile in amusement.
"But I have to say, Citrine's gonna be glad you two can fight pretty well." Skinny continued to talk as she turned to face the two gems that were picking themselves up off the ground, and began brushing themselves off. "Against freshly emerged Quartz soldiers that is." Skinny snorted in amusement and crossed her arms as she gauged the two gems as they looked up at her, with Fayalite only having to look up only a tad bit with the difference in height between her and the Skinny Jasper. "But hey, at least you'll be of some use, given your combat capabilities, that just leaves where to place you." she mused with some snark in her tone while smirking.
As Corundum and Fayalite finally came down from the high that was the short lived fight on the train against the Chalcedony quartz soldiers, Corundum was the first to speak up with an annoyed tone, "What do you mean use? What's even going on?" she fired off a few questions at Skinny, the sound of the chaos in the distance below them could be heard faintly.
Skinny smirked as she bent her knees to give Corundum and her an eye level talk, "Easy! White Diamond is tossing you aside, so Yellow Diamond is taking you all." she smiled back with a rather predatory toothy grin, "Welcome to the Citrine corps!" she quipped.
Fayalite crossed her arms and growled at the back of her throat, "And makes you think we'll follow you?" she questioned with a critical gaze in her eyes, "While both Cor and I are thankful for the save, we had other plans, and it doesn't involve being used by another Diamond, only to be tossed aside again like yester-century gems." Fayalite said to Skinny as the Skinny Jasper stood up to gaze back at her with an amused expression while crossing her arms once more.
"Who said you had a say in it?" Skinny quip with a smirk back at the annoyed gems, "It's either this, or get 'relocated' by White Diamond's soldiers." she told the two gems, who were struggling to answer, except for one.
Corundum sighed with her shoulders sagged in defeat, "We were going to escape to Pink Diamond's old colony, figuring that it'd be a safe haven." she answered with a grimace.
Skinny glanced down over at Corundum, and whistled in astonishment, "You guys are really behind the times, aren't you?" She asked them with an amused look, earning confused looks from the two gems, "Have you spent all that time under the city, that news doesn't spread that well?" Skinny asked Corundum and Fayalite.
Fayalite was the one to answer with a haphazard shrug, "News comes iffy at best from beyond the planet, why, what happened beyond the Diamond's winning the war on that planet?" she asked Skinny with a confused expression.
Skinny allowed herself an eye roll, "The Milky Way galaxy is barred off for a few thousands years, something about homeworld and its colonies reorganizing itself, before it can fully commit to another attempt at colonizing that Galaxy." She shrugged to herself with her arms still crossed, "That, and apparently word is that the Galaxy warp on Pink Diamond's planet was damaged, which makes instantaneous travel impossible to travel to the planet." Jasper explained to the wilting gems.
"Would it bother you to be less subtle, Skinny?" A familiar voice to Skinny Jasper said from the nearby busted down wall of the building they were in, followed by the sound of watery wings flapping and the soft patter of feet landing.
Skinny and the other two gems with her turned their head to the gem that spoke, standing atop the diagonally crashed train was Lapis Lazuli. Wearing a backless, halter crop tank top that is blue on top and navy on the bottom, Lapis also wore puffy dark-blue pants, tied up by an orange ribbon. She smiled rather amusedly down at Skinny as she hopped down from atop the train and walked towards the three gems before stopping a few paces away from them.
Skinny scoffed with a smarmy smirk, and stepped forwards to look down a bit at Lapis. "Keep talking, Laz, just because Citrine favors you over most Lapis Lazulis, doesn't mean you get to talk smack so easily, I don't see you rounding up any gems on your end." she challenged back with a daring smile.
"We're right here, you know." Corundum spoke up with an annoyed look on her face.
Lapis simply smiled back up at Skinny, and flicked a tuft of her hair out of her view, "I don't know what you're talking about, I see two gems to round up right now." she challenged back with a smirk of her own as she looked back up at Skinny, "And besides, your mission isn't to round up gems on your part, you and your fellow skinnies are supposed to take out the new batch of Quartz soldiers on this planet." she chuffed a bit with a roguish smile at Skinny.
"Wait, what!" Fayalite jumped in surprise at that tidbit of information.
Skinny butted her head down at Lapis with her fist on her sides, and gave Lapis a daring toothy grin, "Keep Talking, Laz, and you'll find out why Jasper and I are still even in matches against each other!" She retorted as she and Lapis butted heads.
"What's even going on?" Corundum asked with a confused look.
Lapis let out a chortle and stepped away from Skinny, before turning on the balls of her feet, "And here I thought that sort of thing was something you shared with Jasper?" she teased back as she stepped towards Fayalite and Corundum, who stepped back with cautious looks on their faces.
It was then Skinny stood straight up and crossed her arms with an annoyed look, "Shut it, Laz! Don't poke your nose into where it doesn't belong!" she grumbled, before watching as Lapis summoned from out of the nearby indoor fountain to form her wings, and catch Corundum and Fayalite within an orb of water to transport with her.
While the two gems panicked within their water orb prison, Lapis turned towards Skinny with a serious look. "Onto serious matters, have you received word on the status of the planet so far?" she asked, while pointing at her ear, "I can't handle flying with something like those earpieces in my ear, it distracts me too much." she explained with an annoyed look.
Skinny crossed her arms now as she and Lapis were in more of a serious mode of talking, "You and your fellow Lapis Lazuli seem to have the same problem, ever tried practicing with the earpieces on?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Lapis furrowed her brow, and lifted her hands with a shrug, "Give us a break, Skinny, the tech is new, we'll figure something out. Anyways…" She said with a glance in the direction of the hole in the building, parts of the brick and mortar wall fell occasionally from the top down. "Do you have any updates on the planet?" she asked.
Skinny lifted her hand up to place her finger below her lip, as she mulled over a few thoughts, "Planetary Communications were successfully brought down, among other things, but so far the teams around the planet have been successful so far in breaking down services on the planet." she explained as she dropped her finger away from her lip, and smirked at Lapis as she flapped her water wings and hovered up above the ground with the two captured gems still in the orb of water.
"Wouldn't it be better to just poof those two? Rather than carry them in that water prison?" Skinny asked with an amused gaze at Lapis.
Lapis simply smiled back as a Sea Harrier-like flying gem ship flew into view from the crashed open hole of the building they were in, the side of it opened up while the bottom of it emitted gravitational prepulsers that enabled it to fly with blades or jet engines. "Who said anything about carrying them, I'm simply making sure they can't get away." she said while tossed the gems in her orb of water into the gem ship, and flapped her wings to fly into the flying craft.
Skinny walked over to the edge of the hole in the building and watched as the aircraft parted from being close to the building and Lapis stood at the open side-door of the gemcraft with one hand holding onto the frame. "Need a lift for another run, or you wanna hop in and rest for a few?" she hollered over the sound of the chaos below the cityscape.
"Hn." Skinny let out an exhausted noise as she bent her knees, and leapt over the gap to land into the aircraft, "I'll take that small break, we still have less than six days until Citrine can get her ship in working order and arrive with the rest of our forces." she said with a grimace as the aircraft took off with the side door being shut closed by Lapis.
Meanwhile with Lapis while she controlled her orb of water to go ahead and clench her fist to cause the water pressure to squeeze down on the gems within the bubble, and poof them and allow their gemstones to clatter to the ground, she made a once in a while thought to how she was forced to work under Commander Citrine. Well, forced would be the word, if it weren't for the fact she was poofed by a Bismuth, and later used by Homeworld's forces when they believed her to be an enemy.
Lapis would later come under the scrutiny of Yellow Diamond's Citrine Commander, after prying her gem from out of the mirror; The one sentence that still irked her that Commander Citrine once said during the war, was 'You belong to me for now, that can be our little story. You were my informant, and you were caught.' and that was just one of the many interactions she had with her temporary warden, now Commander.
Lapis Lazuli's cheeks tinted dark blue as she thought back to the words, 'you belong to me.', like all gems, they are owned by higher classes of the gem caste system, but Commander Citrine said those words without bothering to realize the implications of a gem telling another gem that they belonged to them. Don't get her wrong, she, like her fellow Lapis Lazuli gems, they rarely answered to very few high ranking gems, given the fact the power of a single Lapis Lazuli could control an entire planet's ocean.
Thus. Given the fact that Commander Citrine was one of the rare few high ranking gems that could say that she belonged to her, and it would actually be true in a sense, Lapis Lazulis were still gems that control vast amounts of power over water. She then thought to how different it'd be if she came with a partner Lapis to the earth, would things have been any different?
Her gem line often operated in groups of two on their own to terraform a planet with its oceans if it had any; If a planet didn't have an ocean or any form of water, the job of terraforming the planet went to the Yooperlites, which given the ratio of planets that didn't have water, they were called on more often…huh, "I don't suppose Commander Citrine might ask about them some day…" Lapis thought to herself as the aircraft flew through the chaotic airspace of emergency gem vehicles and such.
Blinking herself back to awareness all of a sudden, she snapped her fingers as she forgot something, and walked over to the gemstones of the Corundum and Fayalite, and picked them up before bubbling them, "Almost forgot." Lapis said with an amused smile.
"Was wondering when you'd realize that, I would have done it, but I wanted to see if you'd realize it first." Skinny Jasper joked with a smirk as she looked up at the standing form of Lapis with two gemstones bubbled in her hands.
"Hm." Lapis couldn't help but agree with an amused smirk, before placing the bubbled gems away into a bin nearby with other bubbled gems; Lapis continued her train of thought of how she came under the service of Citrine. 'I wonder how different my life would be, if Citrine didn't confiscate my Mirror prison.' Were Lapis's idle thoughts as the aircraft soared through the air of the chaotic air traffic from the ongoing chaos that was spilling upwards from the lower levels of the cityscape and out onto the upper levels.
Tanya
From out of her private quarters, Tanya is launched through a hole in her doorway by a large pink fist, and impacts the wall on the other side of the hallway, before sliding down with a wince of pain on her face. "She's back to angry again." Tanya growled out in annoyance as she picked herself up, thankful that her hard light gem body was able to sustain itself against such blunt force trauma.
As she picked herself up, Spinal's fist was pulled back in with more screams of anger and sadness, "I was hoping she was going through her stages of grief fast, but apparently I ask for too much!" Tanya hissed in anger to herself as she brushed herself off, before reacting quickly to catch a tossed Orange Pearl.
As Tanya caught Orange Pearl into her arms bridal style, her pearl looked up at her with an embarrassed look and red face, "Oh my." Pearl said while Tanya looked down at her with a raised eyebrow, before setting Orange Pearl down on her feet.
Tanya sighed as she rolled her shoulders a bit and calmly walked into her own room through the hole on her door to try and calm Spinel down who was throwing another angry fit. "Wait out there, this will take a moment." Tanya hollered through the high shrill screaming of Spinel, as the sounds of furniture can be heard being thrown around.
"Stay away from me! you should have just left me on that moon!" Spinel yelled within Tanya's quarters as the two could be heard getting into a scuffle.
"Maybe, but that wouldn't help matters, you have to face the fact that Pink Diamond is gone." Tanya retorted through the sound of fists punching a wall.
"Shut up! I never asked you to save me from that Garden!" Spinel wailed as she could be heard tossing aside another furniture piece.
"And what then? Do you think your mind would stay sane just standing there for centuries, waiting for your Diamond that may never come back?" Tanya challenged back, as Pearl could see through the hole in the doorway while she leaned to the side to see inside a bit, her Commander Citrine managed to get Spinel into a grappling hold, which the Spinel Gem didn't bother to elongate or stretch herself out of.
"I just…I just, why did it have to be her?" Pearl could now see Spinel wilting her limbs a bit as she sniffled and cried. In the corner of her eye, she could see a few Amethyst Quartz coming around the corner of the hallway, making her shake her head at them, prompting them to understand and turn around once they heard the ruckus more clearly.
"Perhaps it's best you should take another rest like how I showed you, gathering your mind a bit more." Tanya suggested to Spinel, who was now let down to lay on the ground. As Pearl stepped inside the room through the hole in the doorway now that things were calming down, Spinel could be seen with black tear marks under her eyes.
"Hm." Spinel mumbled a bit to herself, fully lying on her side with her eyes closed, and began to sleep on the floor.
Tanya proceeded to pick Spinel up, and help her over to her bed, "I meant on something comfortable." She remarked as she laid Spinel down to rest on her bed.
As Spinel could be seen relaxing on Tanya's bed, Pearl approached her Citrine Commander with a glance at the broken doorway, "What do we do about…" she began to softly say, only for Tanya to hold her hand up to stop her from speaking anymore.
"I've been meaning to install a new doorway system anyways on this ship." Tanya answered back softly as she turned to face and looked at her Pearl, "Let's just hope she doesn't have anymore anger episodes soon." she remarked with a sigh, followed by the soft sound of Spinel snoring softly.
Tanya turned to look at Spinel with a deadpan gaze, "...at least she learned how to sleep quickly." she added.
Little side Omake
Dust was kicked up around the room from Spinel throwing an angry fit, the sound of soft stomping could be heard from the doorway where the dust was more thick; from out of the dust came Citrine as she rolled her shoulders, and Spinel swore she saw a weird flash of a different looking Citrine with a green uniform on, while wielding a sword in one hand.
As Commander Citrine closed the distance between them, Spinel fell onto her rear as Citrine began to swing her saber at her, "You lack conviction in your anger!" she yelled, before Spinel had to scream in fright as Citrine swung her sword down.
It was at that moment, that Spinel woke up screaming from her sleep, and began to pat herself down, "It…what…but…" she began to sweat bullets of fear.
Citrine glanced over as she sat at her desk, while Orange Pearl is seen sweeping up the mess she made, "Nightmare?" Citrine asked Spinel with a cautious and concerned look.
"...What's a nightmare?" Spinel asked, oblivious to what her mind dreamt up for her.