Underside of Homeworld
Kindergarten
In the ever expansive chasm of Homeworld's massive cave system of its kindergarten, one of the massive columns was carved vertically within the chasm; from high above the column structure, Citrine along with Spinel were still in free fall with countless gemstones falling with them. Not far below them were the two black garbed gems, who soon rid their garbs by igniting their magma wings from out of their back, and showing their actual forms of being two more Yooperlites.
Citrine pocketed her weapon from earlier into her gem and reached out to Spinel, "Spinel!" She yelled through the rush of air from the freefall they were all experiencing, "To me!" she ordered with a stern glance at the gem, to which Spinel glanced quickly back at her.
Just as Citrine had issued her order, the Yooperlites threw out twin arcs of 'X' magma arcs from their magma wings through the air up towards the two of them; Spinel took the order directly as she reached out and grabbed Citrine's hand, to which the Commander yelled out, "You land first!" she shouted as she twisted her body around while still holding onto Spinel's hand, and slingshot the gem around her and threw her between the two incoming attacks of the yooperlites.
With a whoosh of whistling air, Spinel utilized her rubbery arms to maximize Citrine's throw of her to the distant vertical column of earth below them, bypassing the two Yooperlites with the sight of a pink blur; with a loud thud, Spinel managed to land feet first while spreading her legs out a bit to displace the force of the impact while making a minor indent into her landing into the vertical column.
Citrine on the other hand twisted her body again to orientate herself between the two incoming lava arc attacks, narrowly making it through the two incoming attacks; while the magma arcs careened off sideways into nearby columns, Citrine continued her freefall down towards the Yooperlites who narrowed their eyes in aggravation as they flapped their magma wings to fly downwards.
The magma attacks themselves superheated their way into the columns they landed on, and caused several rocky boulders to crumble off and fall to the depths below, along with some heading towards the vertical column that Spinel landed on; Meanwhile with Citrine, she straightened her body to nose dive faster past the two Yooperlites before they could fire off another combo attack at her.
Spinel quickly looked up and watched as Citrine nosedived towards the vertical column she stood one, and within a quick second the commander reoriented herself to land with a loud crash on all fours; a harsh wide indent was created into the floor beneath her from the velocity of her fall, before she had to stand up and backflip away to avoid an incoming falling magma shot directing at her from one of the incoming flying Yooperlites.
Just as Citrine and Spinel were about to re-engage the two gems above them, two large broken pieces of boulders fell at opposite ends of the column they both stood on, causing it to crack at both ends before the vertical column broke off from its main body and plummeted to the deep chasm below with both gems still standing on it; Both Yooperlites flapped their magma wings to fly after the gems while the carnelian gemstones from earlier continued to fall and land on various ledges, some just continued to rain down with the plummeting column and gems.
Lapis
From behind a column of the massive kindergarten chasm, a steam cloud exploded outwards and engulfed the countless hole riddled column in hot steam; from within the cloud, two shadows flew through the steam at high speeds with glowing red and blue wings respectively of the two shadowy forms. The shadowy body within the steam cloud with red glowing wings exited out of the bottom first, the Yooperlite had an annoyed look on her face as she glanced over her shoulder as she flew downwards.
Following the Yooperlite, Lapis flew out of the steam cloud at high speed; bits of the steam cloud got dragged down by Lapis's form as she flew downwards towards the Yooperlite with a focused expression.
The Yooperlite glared over her shoulder at the incoming form of the Lapis Lazuli gem, and reoriented herself midlight to face her body towards Lapis and flapped her magma wings once more to propel herself faster down while reaching out at the nearby walls; clenching her fists and throwing up at Lapis, the cavern walls began twisting in on themselves until they glowed red hot and became magma themselves, before erupting outwards from off the wall and down at Lapis as the two of them continued flying downwards.
Already feeling the rush of heat heading her way from above, Lapis connected the dots of what the new gem with Magma wings was capable of, and flapped her water wings to nose dive faster and spin around before making a sharp curved turn through the air; the flow of magma narrowly missed Lapis as she flew around another column within the Kindergarten chasm.
"Two can play at that game." Lapis muttered to herself as she flew around the column while clenching her fists up, feeling out for Homeworld's water system, something that still existed even after the planet had been cracked into large pieces; as she continued to fly with a flap of her water wings, Lapis finally made it back around the bend and confronted the Yooperlite with her arms locked behind her as if she was dragging something behind her.
The Yooperlite on the other hand smirked as she watched as the Lapis gem come back towards her while she hovered in the air with the flap of her magma wings, the gem raised her hands up and clenched her fists, before bringing them both down is if she was swinging down a hammer; the cavern wall behind the Yooperlite twisted in on itself before it turned into magma, and like a spring of water flowing out from a water faucet, the heated up rock turned magma exploded outwards and hurled itself towards Lapis.
Lapis on the other hand halted and hovered some ways away, and gritted her teeth in concentration as she struggled to pull her arms forward with both fists clenched; just as the flow of magma was about to reach her, Lapis's arms snapped forward. A massive torrential flow of water bursted out from one of the nearby cavern walls, and coiled around her like a giant serpent of water before she willed it forward to smash against the flow of magma head her way.
Citrine and Spinel
As the column that the two gems stood one began its freefall, the empty space above them where Lapis was fighting against her Yooperlite exploded into an enormous cloud of steam; meanwhile with Citrine and Spinel, the two of them steadied themselves atop the large column as it continued it fall along with them standing atop it.
Meanwhile with the two Yooperlites, the magma winged duo fluttered their wings as they glanced each other while chasing after the Commander and Spinel gem; both yooperlites nodded as one before flapping their wings to reach out to each other and clasped each other's hands, the two gem then began performing a death spiral until their gems lit up.
Citrine cursed her luck as she watched the new type of gems perform what looked like a mid air death roll courtship of what eagles would do on earth, before the gems' bodies lit up and fused into one big Yooperlite. "Be ready Spinel!" Citrine hollered over, to which Spinel nodded with a cautious look over her own as she clenched her fists and prepared herself for the trouble to come.
With two loud thumps, the giant Yooperlite had flapped her magma wings and landed her large feet into the free falling column that Citrine and Spinel stood on; as the Commander and spinel gem faced off against the large Yooperlite, said gemfusion smirked down at the smaller gems with a confident look. "Say your prayers to your makers, cause you'll be seeing them soon!" the large gem bellowed out in a deep feminine voice.
Spinel's eyes became bloodshot angry as she glared at the fusion of two Yooperlites, "You leave Pink out of this!" she shrieked, before flinging herself at the large fusion, "raaggh!" Spinel scream as she dove at the yooperlite fusion, and extended her limbs out to wrap the fusion's own limbs in on themselves, thus causing the large yooperlite fusion to fall over onto her back with a bewildered expression.
"Get-get off me you stupid nutcase!" The Fusion yelled as her arms and legs began becoming red hot, causing Spinel to hiss in pain, but gritted her teeth as her pain tolerance was higher than a normal gem's, but she wasn't as resilient as a Bismuth gem that would be able to bath in magma as if it were a morning swim. "What the crack! What kind of gem are you!?" the fusion asked in an incredulous tone.
The Fusion watch as the Spinel gem looked back at her with a maddening grin of ill intent, but before Spinel could open her mouth up to reply, the Yooperlite fusion found her leg being pulled, and once she glance over the spinel gem, she saw that Citrine had come over and grabbed her heated up leg; with some wincing on her part, Citrine heaved the fusion up over her shoulder while shouting, "Get off her while you can, Spinel!" the commander shouted.
Spinel didn't bother being told twice as she unfurled her limbs off from the fusion and flung herself away as Citrine heaved the large Yooperlite fusion over her shoulder and slammed her into the ground; with another heave on Citrine's part while the large fusion was still dazed from getting her face smacked head first into the ground, that is to say, the falling column they were still fighting on, the commander gritted her teeth as she pulled the large fusion back into the air and over her shoulder.
"HaH!" Citrine yelled in frustration as she threw the fusion over her shoulder and into a far off cavern wall full off leftover holes from gems emerging out from it, the Yooperlite fusion body ended up getting indented into the wall, before peeling off and falling down towards the descending piece of earth that Citrine and Spinel stood on.
Letting out an exhale of breath, Citrine looked over at Spinel to quickly assess the gem's state before the fight with the fusion started back up, "How are your limbs, are you okay?" she hollered over.
Spinel looked back at Citrine as the ground beneath them continued to fall with the fusion of Yooperlites still in freefall above them, she lifted her arms up and showed a little redness in them that was gradually disappearing, "Eh, I'll be fine!" She smiled cheekily, before frowning as she looked around, "We've been falling for some time now, how are we going to get back up?" Spinel hollered back.
Just as Citrine was about to open her mouth, the column they both stood on came to a sliding halt as it finally reached a choke point in the chasm, both of them buckled a bit at their knees before falling to their rear end; Spinel spun her arms around and fell while Citrine simply fell with a wince of slight pain.
"I guess that answers-" Citrine began to mutter, only to be cut off when the fusion of Yooperlites slammed nearby onto the surface she and Spinel sat on.
"Are they unconscious?" Spinel asked, and as if to answer her question, the fusion groaned and picked herself up and glared over at the two other gems, all the while none of them noticing the broken piece of cavern column they were on began cracking and sliding very slowly downward.
The fusion smirked in confidence as she stood back up, "Nice try-"
BAAM
A ragdolled body of the Yooperlite that was fighting Lapis, soon found itself being bodied into the head of the fusion, followed by an onslaught of a water fist slamming down into the fusion and lone Yooperlite.
Citrine and Spinel watched on with bewildered expressions as a torrent of leftover water continuously pounded down into the Yooperlites until their bodies couldn't sustain their forms from the onslaught of water; Citrine looked up followed by Spinel as Lapis flapped her water wings to slowly fly down and land once the Yooperlites' gem bodies poofed and clattered to the surface while the leftover water sloshed away into the chasm below.
Once Lapis landed and steadily walked over to Citrine, the commander spoke up with a reserved look on her face, "I take it these new types of…elemental gems are no match for you?" she asked with a raised eyebrow of curiosity.
Lapis smirked back as she palmed her hip and shrugged with her other arm, "Eh, she had the homefield advance, I was just fortunate enough that homeworld as any water at all…that, and she was definitely green compared to me." she boasted while inspecting her nails with a prideful expression.
While the poofed gemstones of carnelian soldiers caught up and rained down around them for a bit before trickling down, Citrine looked up, "Lapis, are you able to carry any of use back up?" she inquired.
"Mmh." Lapis crossed her arms with a nonchalant look on her face, "I can carry one of you at a time." she answered, before looking up as well, and saw how far down they were, "It'll be a while between each trip though, so choose who wants to go first." she informed the commander.
In the time that Lapis was talking with Citrine, gone went unnoticed the slight glowing of the Yooperlite gems by Lapis and Citrine; while Spinel first took notice of the odd occurrence with her focus elsewhere other than the conversion that Citrine had with Lapis, she wasn't sure what was going on with the gemstones until it was too late.
Right when the gemstones began to crack a bit, Spinel hollered, "Hey Citrine-" were her only words spoken before the three dormant Yooperlite gemstones shook, cracked, and exploded into a bursting flow of hot magma that went flying in all direction with excess force.
Citrine, Spinel, and Lapis all found themselves hit by an onrush of liquid hot magma that burned their bodies and sent them flying off the now collapsing wedged pillar that they were all standing on; three poofs later and a Citrine gemstone, followed by a Spinel and a Lapis Lazuli gemstone fell to the deep dark depths of the kindergarten chasm bellow.
The explosion echoed throughout the cavernous Kindergarten, followed by the sounds of heavy rocks and boulders falling to the depths below; after a short bit, calmness stilled and all was silent.
Pink Palace
Pink Morganite calmly walked through the halls of her late Diamond's palace, she had forgotten to give Citrine a tablet that contained the copied still-images of her Diamond, the kind of images she had used in her many efforts of creating the various Pink Diamond Statues that were present throughout the Pink Palace. With the hopes of giving the detailed images of her Diamond, Moganite was of the mind that it'd help further Citrine's investigation into the matter surrounding her Diamond's shattering.
Once Morganite reached the private room of her Diamond, she frowned as she noticed the door had been left open; with some grumbling on her part, Pink Morganite continued to walk toward the room and walk in before glancing around a confused face as she noted no one was in the room. "I was told she was last seen heading to see how my Diamond's Spinel gem was faring…" she noted with a worried look.
Walking further in, Pink Morganite looked around and found nothing broken or worse, but as she continued to walk through the room, she stumbled a bit when her foot stepped on something; stepping back and reaching down, Morganite picked up what none other than what looked like a yellow pronged projectile of the new destabilizer weapon that was in the works of being the staple of every gem soldier.
Glancing back up from the pronged bullet in her fingers and now noticeably worried of the situation, Morganite looked around with wide eyes, "What happened?" She asked herself, before walking over to the balcony. There were no signs of any leftover gems or anything else, so whatever had to have happened, had to have caused a fight the led to it being taken outside, and the only fastest way out was through the balcony.
Approaching the banister of the balcony, Pink Morganite leaned forward and looked down, before widening her eyes at seeing a large hole made by whatever force or gem she was not aware of yet; the hole was red hot from whatever drilled its way down, so that left the possibility of a Lapis Lazuli being guilty of causing such a hole to be drilled to what she knew was the underside of Homeworld.
"Morganite?" The soft and calm voice of Pink Sapphire echoed from the entrance of the room, causing Pink Morganite to get jumpscared and quickly turn around to see the worried face of Sapphire.
"Sapphire!...I mean…" Morganite stumbled through her words while placing her palm on her chest from getting surprised.
Pink sapphire walked in while looking around, "What Happened? Where's Commander Citrine? Did you already hand off your images of our Diamond to her?" she asked calmly, while Morganite breathed out a calming breath of relief.
While Sapphire finally reached Morganite, said gem looked back at Sapphire with a worried look, before glancing down at the pronged bullet in her fingers; for all she knew, Citrine was right and there was a clandestine group of anti-Pink Diamond sympathizers, very zealous ones at that. Many thoughts ran through Moganite's mind, were they next? Did some gem high up in a court chain send some gem assassins after Citrine for delving too much into her investigation of her Diamond's shattering?
Word is already spreading amongst the courts after all that Citrine is investigating the matters of Pink Diamond's demise, it started with Sodalite and it snowball from there; it was only a matter of time when one of the Diamond's caught word of it…wait, what if one of the Diamonds have already caught word of it?
Pink Morganite's eyes widened, what if that's what happened!?
"Morganite?" Pink Sapphire spoke up once more as she turned her head from side to side, a tell that she was looking around with her eye under her bangs, she ceased looking around and back at Morganite, "What do you think happened?" she asked once more as she walked forward to look over the banister and down at the hole drilled through the ground to the underside of homeworld.
Pink Morganite curled her fingers over the pronged bullet with gritted teeth of facial worry, "I believe Citrine may be onto something, and an aristocrat or even a diamond had sent some clandestine group to take her out." She answered, while looking over into the distance of the entire city of the Homeworld capital.
"...Oh dear…" Pink Sapphire spoke with worry.
