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Chapter Text

Metamorphism 1.1

All at once my dream shifted from a dark void full of stars, to a cerise sky. I was aware, clean and safe, and warm. It was an endless plane of white light, fluffy clouds extending for miles. I could see clearly, despite lacking contacts or glasses.

But then this was a dream right?

I turned back to the clouds which seemed to be a deeper shade of pink, leaning almost towards red. I didn’t seem to be wearing anything besides boxers, which was better than being naked, though having a shirt and shorts would be nice. This world did as I asked, and I had a black shirt, and red shorts. I spun around to find a mirror and one popped in at my command.

I had to rub my eyes, staring at my appearance. It was me, but like someone had cleared up a lot of my basic problems. Wiped away some minor flaws though not to the point of being disturbing. I didn’t have a belly quite as large, my beard was trim and neat, and I lacked the bags under my eyes I had developed from sleep troubles. No acne or blemishes, just a plain and clean face. It was the same latino shade of pale I always had, with bushy eyebrows and black wavy hair cut a little too long. My nails weren’t chewed up. My hair…there was a hint of color there, curls of light red, and my eyes seemed to have odd pupils. 

I tilted my head, could I change things up in here, make modifications? Maybe later longer hair, down to my shoulders?

To my surprise it happened, my hair curling with a new weight, and I gripped a few strands. I became more curious and continued my perusing of the strange mindscape. 

I took the image I had in my head, used my own memories to piece it together. How drastic could the changes be if I tried hard enough?

I blinked.

That worked much better than I expected, but then that was the power of dreams right? My appearance was much more…effeminate, and it was a rather drastic change.

Maybe another time?

I shifted back, lifting my shirt and finding a strange…glimmering thing where my belly button should be. What was going on? Why was I here? What was so important that I needed to be in this space and time?

The landscape darkened, and the cerise sky became the void again. The void was swallowed up by something vast. A twisting, glimmering obsidian wyrm, casting a shadow against a star. A burst of alabaster light, a flare of gold light, a wave of azure light, and a flurry of cerise light.

The sound of shifting sound, the sound of glass breaking, of the world folding in on itself. There was a choice being given here, to accept a power unlike any other, to become bright, to become a song, to become a part of something greater.

Or I could leave this to another, someone more suitable, or equally suitable even. It was my choice, my decision, my responsibility if I chose yes. My choice to house a star within my body, to let it burn within my flesh. 

It was a choice of power or no power, but it was also the choice to help or not help people.

I wanted to help more people, so I decided to accept this star within my heart. The landscape began to twist, the clouds turning dark before brightening into stars, glimmers of light and life. My mind went blank.

/command file retrieval access memory reboot one

FILE NAME: Paradigm Diamond Facet-AD1 Magna-1A

FILE NAME: Integrated Grid Program Facet-AD1 Magna-1B

No incompatible harmonies detected.

Song found.

/command boot up paradigmdiamondfacetad1magna1b

…BOOTING UP…

…BOOTING UP…

Disharmony detected.

/command harmonize all programs 

…HARMONIZING…

…HARMONIZING…

All programs harmonized.

Run programs?

/command run all extant programs

…RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS…

…RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS…

The awareness of my body was the first thing to come back, flesh shifting slightly under the influence of the fire under my skin. I sensed my limbs, spindly but firm arms, a very slight paunch instead of a larger belly. Fingers, legs and toes wiggled under my control. My hair fell over one eye, which meant it was a little longer than I had meant it to be, it was soft and luxurious, and remained relatively short. More longer bangs rather than hair down to my shoulders or anything like that.

I could see hints of red, and I rubbed my chin. My thin beard was equally soft, and I marveled. It was usually more…scratchy than this.

I was leaning against a tree, and I knew I wasn’t home anymore. It wasn’t anything in particular that told me I didn’t belong here, it was just a feeling, an intuition. The tree itself…it had to be a red spruce tree I think? A big one too, easily the height of a five story building and one of hundreds if not thousands, not that I could count them all.

It wasn’t the only species either, there was beech, yellow birch, and sugar maple, all around the same height range. There were some huge fir, easily a hundred feet high, and an understory of mountain maple.

I ended up looking up trees for some reason…not important. Is that a house?

I walked over to the building I had sighted, since there was nowhere better for me to go. The house had seemingly been bisected by a fir, a big one at hundred and twenty feet. It was six feet wide, and I stared at the other plant life choking the home to death. 

Then I noted the fragments of asphalt and concrete, and the streams where they had cracked apart to reveal rusted tubes. There was a sign too, like one of those welcome signs for towns and cities. 

Woodstock. I…didn’t recognize the place though I don’t think I was in California.

Too cold. 

New England maybe? Though this place seemed abandoned and my examination of the house wasn’t promising. Proved by the odd growth patterns of the plants within…it was like the plants had burst out of the ground, tearing through the house less like slow decay and more like knives slicing through paper.

There was no one here, and my stomach lurched. Something very bad had happened here, and I didn’t know what it was and I’m not sure I wanted to know. 

I ducked out of the house, and found another house near a stream, a rather ramshackle but functional one, possibly, maybe, maybe not. I reached the steps towards the forest green home, and the door was open, creaking as I opened it more. I shut the door behind me, and there was a loud and haunting howl that followed.

And seconds later it was answered by more howls, loud and clear. So somehow I was stuck in a city turned forest and inhabited by wolves. I was starting to get worried that I had made a bad deal…

I paused.

Bad deal…what am I even talking abou—

I shuddered as the memory of the dream came back, the acceptance of vast power within my body and soul, the desire of another species to save mine from the enemy they were facing. A species so familiar, their song buried in my memory, their faces folded up into blasts of incomprehensible music.

I froze, and lifted my shirt, and my fingers brushed against smooth facets of crystal. I wandered into the mostly bare living room, and found a cracked mirror. Where my belly button should be there was a large gem embedded in my body, and I stared.

It had a ton of facets and was round with a deep pink bordering on red coloration, and based on the shine it was absolutely a fucking Diamond embedded in my body. I pinched myself just to be sure.

But it was already kind of obvious this was real, delusions and dreams don’t tend to be this clear or have this amount of fidelity unless it’s a Matrix situation. I tapped the gem, and felt something. It was like touching my nails, there was a feeling of sensation but it was dulled. 

Weird. 

So I was…a Gem? Or had a gem embedded in my body? Did that mean I had all the myriad abilities of a Diamond? Yet I still felt…fleshy, not like I was made of hard light and literal magic. Though I guess I was magic and light, just mixed with flesh and bone. 

It was going to be a bitch getting a handle on my powers…hopefully it goes by quicker than it did for Steven. 

“For one thing I know his power is based on emotion in part, so mine should be similar.” I shrugged my shoulders, turning over a plate that seemed mighty old. But he had his gem for years, and there might be integration problems from having a gem for…less time than that. I should still try though, it’s not like I have anything better to do other than…

My stomach grumbled.

…

Right, I need food.

I tilted my head as I turned the faucet, it gurgled out clean water. This place seems to be relatively recently inhabited, as if someone had been living in an abandoned city maybe alone only a month or two ago and left in a hurry. There was a micro-hydro plant, supplying some amount of energy to the house.

A lot of the energy was wasted though, with the electric generator disconnected until I reconnected it. Which was easy enough with a flip of a switch. I had heated up bouillon cubes in a clean metal pan to make broth and was gnawing on a piece of old jerky.

Basking in the sun seemed to help too, or at least distracted me from being somewhere in the middle of the woods. I was exploring the house and found it had two rooms and an attic, along with a garage that held the utilities. Which I had no idea how to maintain, and I was only buying time. 

I should have been more excited about superpowers but I remember what I saw, the black Wyrm dancing between stars, made of billions and billions of pieces. A god so large even a drop of it’s blood was a god on it’s own. And I had to help bring down one of them here on this planet…

I don’t know why I accepted, maybe it was the allure of power, maybe I wanted my home to be safe, or maybe I’m just crazy. I had power and I needed to learn how to use it before I ran out of food, which I had a few weeks worth of, and someday the power will fail too.

I needed to figure them out for myself, because I was missing a few clues to where I was, when I was, and the exact nature of my opponent. I needed to be safe, I needed my family to be safe from what was coming, I had to protect them.

My sight became pink, as a bubble unfolded like a flower, as if responding to my call. 

“Cool.” I whispered under my breath, and touched the bubble. It was soft, like I was touching smooth marble. An unyielding surface, and it made me wonder how much force was needed to pierce it.

Would a rocket do it, or was it even tougher than that? Strong enough to block even missiles? And if I have a shield how tough is that? Was a shield truly able to block anything, or were there limits to it’s defense?

Maybe I should test this outside, it might be a better alternative than wrecking the house. I moved quickly, jumping over the couch, and opening and closing the door with an uncertain smile. I tightened my fists, and there was a weight behind them, like a mountain being held back by physical weakness and lack of skill.

I jumped, and took off five feet into the air before dropping back down on my feet, my body twisting naturally to do so.

How’d I do that?

I smiled hesitantly, I’ll freak out later. Power testing comes first.

Hopefully that goes well.

“Are you positive this will work? There hasn’t been a new Diamond in ages, not since Pink.” A loud voice entered, one that sounded like they were used to getting what they wanted. Bursting with electrical static.

“There’s no guarantee we’ll make it through this even with the war turning in our favor, I don’t like it…but we need at least a place to fall back on.” The voice was male, and there was a strain, a string of song pulled too taut. “We’ve only gotten bits and pieces of him to study from when our ships have destroyed his network.” The song was bursting with chiptunes and notes, a rising crescendo. 

“Don’t forget the turncoats.” One pointed out.

“They’ll be all alone out there, how will we be able to guide them?” Another voice spoke up, with a timbre of sadness, bouncing off the walls.

“You’ve left something for the new Diamond haven’t you?” There was a burst of music, the orchestra of light focusing on the first voice. This song was stronger and grander, with only the male voice being her equal.

“Yeah I did. They can’t do this on their own, and I’m not going to leave them without support.” There was a certainty in the male voice, a pulsing of notes and power.

“What did you leave with the new Diamond?”

“Just a bit of equipment for getting started.” There was a measure of dissatisfied tone, and the other songs understood. They could have done more, but they had run out of time. They had to have faith that the young one would thrive.

Or they would all be janked. 

Chapter Text

Metamorphism 1.2

I woke up back in that landscape of pink and red, cotton candy clouds underneath and above me shining with a faint light. I was dreaming and I was here sitting in this world of cerise light.

I had been practicing with my powers, though I hadn’t done anything beyond proving I had super strength and speed. I had managed to lift a fallen tree over my head that had to weigh a literal ton. But I couldn’t manage more than that even though I knew I should be able to lift more.

But my body wasn’t ready, it was still adjusting from what I could tell. Adjusting to the life fire in my blood, to the light seeping within meat and bone.

Adjusting to the starheart within my soul of light and song an…

I clenched my fists, I didn’t seem to have anything that would be helpful in figuring out where I was, or what I needed to do, and I was still alone, with a power that was as dangerous as it was useful.

At that caustic thought, the mindscape shifted in response. Items appeared from the void, a tiny sphere of glass obscured by sand, fading away when I reached out for it. There were other things here, a few stray weapons, blades, knives, clubs, and axes and spears and even a staff or two. 

There was a small Injector, a little larger than a jackhammer, colored cerise and red with a glimmering gemstone at the top of the device. There was a book, pages flipped open to words I couldn’t make out from this distance. Multiple sets of clothing, and other bits and bobbles that were a bit esoteric. 

I grabbed the Injector and the book, and—

I woke up immediately, and I didn’t feel any of the grogginess I should have, I felt well, I felt…good, good enough to at least function anyway. I rubbed my eyes anyway, smacking my lips while I yawned with a soft purring sound. 

It just felt right ya know?

There was a weight on my chest, and I blinked as I realized I had a hundred pound machine on top of me. I scowled and moved it to the side. The design was different from what I expected, more akin to a syringe with a white frame tinted red. The book on the other hand was a simple little thing, a black book with a pink gemstone in the shape of a triangle.

I grabbed the book, and the gem shined as I opened the book, and I flipped to the first page. I read the first page…and then read it a second time.

I am Steven Universe.

When I heard the words, they came back differently, there was a weight to them, a clarity that made my brain hurt.

It came with whispers, of I am Martyr, I am honor, I am crown and victory, and I shall encircle the universe. It was a frightening whisper, and I heard a distinct twang in my sighs, in my voice, a lyrical tilt to words and sounds. I continued to read the page, unable to stop.

I am Steven Universe. I’m the son of Rose Quartz, of Pink Diamond, I’m Aster Diamond. In better circumstances I would be here myself, trying to teach you how to use your powers. But that’s not the world we’re living in. This book will record everything I’ve learned about my powers, and the powers of Gems in general. Plus a few tricks I’ve learned over the years.

In my…universe, my people, My Gems, humanity itself is at war with a terrible force we’ve taken to calling the Black Wyrm, though the Destroyer and the Outsider are other titles I’ve heard. The Black Wyrm is a monster capable of traversing parallel universes, a parasite trying to infect people with pieces of itself. We’ve lost entire colonies, though most of their Gems managed to evacuate from the chaos.

We’re pushing him back day by day, and an unexpected miracle saved us from disaster…but we know there are more like him, and if we fall we need someone to carry on after us. If you’re reading this, you accepted the mantle or are someone helping the person who did. Thank you.

I swallowed, I had entered a war of galactic scales, and I still questioned why, why when I had my own problems to deal with, and when it took me away from my parents. But…I know what I saw, I know what I felt, if I did nothing, all it would need was a piece of him falling here.

My world would die. So I was going to do something about it, but first I would keep reading.

You’ve been gifted the power of a Diamond, a Pink Diamond though it’s not exactly like mine. You have the power of Life, the power to create Gems and Gem technology with your ichor. The power to protect and the power to destroy. I’ve given you some equipment, and a few more texts besides this one. We didn’t have time to spare, so we couldn’t send you with any Gems. Though we are sending you some, it'll just take time. Plus any equipment we can spare for traveling dimensions…I’m not going to cut you away from your home.

A weight was lifted from my shoulders at the realization I wasn’t going to be stuck here forever. But that made sense, Steven wasn’t exactly a total asshole, quite the opposite when he wasn’t dealing with PTSD.

Which…only confirmed how desperate they were if he decided to drag someone else into the whole mess of Gem business and all the trauma induced from it.

My hands tightened into fists, I guess I was going to have to live with the choice I had made.

This book is going to teach you the basics of everything you’re going to need to know on how to be a Gem. You already know how to be human so that won’t be there, but this book will teach you about the effects on your body. As well as your powers as a Diamond, and about what we know about the nature of our enemy.

I’ll do my best to help you on your journey.

There was a whisper on the wind, my shoulders tensing. There was a song in those words, something profound, and I gripped tightly onto the text. I looked at the first chapter.

Chapter 1: What is a Gem?

…

I grinned, that’s a good start.

I had learned a lot from even the first few pages, even if I already knew a lot about Gems to begin with. And had learned even more from the other pages afterwards, though I had been distracted by my need to eat and other bodily functions. I ended up wasting the day just walking around the woods close to the abandoned home since I had nothing better to do.

Which was why today on the sixteenth of March I wasn’t going to waste time, I was going to apply my newfound knowledge. 

The book described Gems as constructs of magic and light projected from crystal, thermodynamic miracle engines, stealers of future negentropy. A rock incubated and infused with the ichor of a Diamond, as well as absorbing nutrients and natural energies. They were living computer entities, actively breaking the laws of physics and conservation of matter and energy as a matter of course. 

They were holograms with mass, with a number of standard abilities shared among most Gems to various degrees. They all shared some level of superhuman strength and durability, able to survive falls and impacts and strikes that would crumple humans like paper. 

Gems also possessed some forms of body manipulation, though Era 2 Gems had the least control. Mainly the manipulations required to do all the weird body functions they have as masses of sentient light. Their body manipulation enabled their super jumps and strength, altering mass on the fly as a semi-automatic process. Shapeshifting was that but taken to a higher scope and scale.

So left out in a lot of Era 2 Gems.

They also all commonly shared the ability to manipulate energy fields and particles, magic essentially to fuel and direct their more esoteric powers. Plus they had their own personal pocket dimension, used to store items, and their Gem focused ambient light and ambient radiation as a catalyst for their negentropy.

The first pages talked about something called retro-causal intuition, Gems had an innate sense for the ‘flow’ of events due to the predictive algorithms and programs built into their weird computer brains. 

Steven had described it as a sort of homogenous mix of light and tonal and lyrical metaphysical energy waves, magic quantum processors of immense power and capabilities. You could call it music, a song of sorts within the esoteric crystalline maze of their gem. 

But simplifying it down into Gem spaghetti went a little too far in my opinion. A single ‘Gem’ was a gestalt of thousands if not millions of programs, dedicated to the various functions of a living Gem, with one of course acting as the controlling agent. The consciousness of a Gem, their working mind instead of the actual background processes. 

Though unlike humans, Gems had much better means of accessing their own background programming while humans really…well can’t. It had given me a better idea of how Gem powers related to one another. They all had the same powers, but they were specialized in different ways and aspects. Sapphires exchanged physical strength and durability for other more…esoteric abilities. 

Not that they were that much weaker, and in fact a very small number are stronger than Rubies of the same size. Rubies were mass produced while Sapphires were more bespoke, if a Ruby was made to the same quality, they’d be somewhat larger and only slightly weaker than a mid-quality Quartz soldier.

Though no Rubies in the last twenty thousand years has been made to those types of specifications.

Sapphires often had powers that better enabled their precognition, an outgrowth of retro-causal intuition. They could modulate the mass of their form, reducing it and releasing a propulsive force to accelerate in short bursts. Their floating was an invocation of the same power at lower output and with downward thrust.

Their ice and thermal manipulation was apparently for cooling them down, drawing away heat from their processors peeling back the veil of time through magic and future modeling. 

So to simplify it, all Gems had the same ability to manipulate their bodies, the fundamental laws of physics, the use of pocket dimensions, generating or absorbing light, and the manipulation of particles and energy fields. They were simply designed to use those powers in different ways as needed. 

Plus technopathy, though Gems like Peridots were better at it or those who bothered to learn engineering. Though this was mostly with their own crystal based technology. However Steven’s tech powers told me others probably could pull off some bullshit. How else would Pearl have been able to turn scrap into a rickety spaceship, and later on done the same to make a giant robot?

I had also gotten a crash course on their physical forms. For example their light body is mostly homogenous, but there are specialized regions relating to sensory input, movement, and body language. 

They have an internal supportive framework, and a sort of soft light acting as muscle, with homogenous layers on top of that interspersed with liquid energy, flowing throughout the body to connect the functions of the Gem hologram form.

Which is what their blood and tears are made of, liquid light, occasionally with a smattering of liquid state matter from incidental ingestion. Water usually, as some form of expelling of unnecessary matter detritus. 

Their skin of course was dedicated to taking in sensory input, pressure, friction temperature, pain, and light. Their eyes did the same, and they could do so with far greater acuity and resolution than humans, and their noses and tongues of course for all their chemical senses. 

Their more magical senses all came from the Gem itself, generating fields and wavelengths to pick up on magic and other oddities. Magical sensors hooked up to magical programs to do magical bullshit. With one of their more important senses relating to language.

Turns out Gems don’t actually talk with vocal chords, though they do have internal passages to modulate communication. Their language is more a stream of music, telepathic song that’s in part projected by sound. It was a whale song but with a magical AI bent to it.

Also the whole pocket dimension thing is an inherent part of Gem biology, and it’s how they can store the absurd amount of energy required to sustain them as a species. As well as how they manage the sheer processing speed needed to do everything they do without being the size of large islands or even continents.

They were decidedly more alien than the show portrayed, especially in body shape, they ‘appeared’ feminine but they really weren’t completely so upon closer examination. Gems often have a more segmented appearance, with the barrel chest mistaken for the curvature of breasts being the most obvious examples. Though some Gems like Amethyst and Rose Quartz did have them, and in many cases with some Gems it still looked a lot like cleavage. Which I guess makes sense because gemstones have cleavage. Hah. 

And it got weirder than that too…which was why I was re-reading a passage to be sure it was right.

All Gems have semi-retractable fangs, with major utility in aiding cutting power, as a gripping effector and social display. Along with a retractable barbed tongue they are used to modulate the physical medium of Gemsong, a very important component in their means of communication.

I was starting to think I had accepted being turned into some type of fae being and sadly it didn’t seem like a bad idea either with what I had learned of the Black Wyrm. 

It was some type of colonial organism the size of a star, made of hundreds of billions of smaller fragments all imbued with a vast array of powers and abilities. Why was that familiar? It had initially split itself into four different beings, and attempted to manipulate Gems as a collective species.

It didn’t state how but the Destroyer’s communication modules along with thousands of other vital fragments had been destroyed in a surprise attack, greatly weakening the Black Wyrm. Even then it was taking months if not years to root out the creature. And keeping the thing from contacting the cousin close to my world was a priority, because getting blown up was not my cup of tea.

And none of that was directly helping with my powers was it? Priorities man.

…

And now I’m talking to myself. Yay.

I planted my feet against the bubble I had made, it was a simple thing, a construct of light and energy, and I thought back to the instructions given.

Breathe. In and out. Imagine your light becoming a bubble, take that need to be safe and make it reality.

It had been quite easy, though consistently putting it down had been a lot harder. Fearing for my own safety is a lot easier for me than feeling safe is. Being a paranoid wreck tends to do things like that to you. My power was hard to describe, but to me it felt like music and light as one.

I simply had to follow the rhythm, I had to learn how to change it, how to bend it, how to write new notes and how to shift old ones, like a spark of energy burning under my skin. That was what my bubble felt like, a projection of my own light, a protection against the elements and against those who would harm me.

I wouldn’t say I was learning fast, but it was certainly a lot more progress than I had originally hoped for. And Steven’s lessons made me feel less alone, he had been through what I had, he understood most of my powers. I had a lot of power in my body, and I had someone in my corner who would help me get a handle of it.

Even if it was from afar. 

I had also been exercising, starting with a two run mile…which had quickly turned into a jog when I couldn’t handle it. I had only had a Gem for about a day and a half so there was a lot of adjustment going on.

I needed to gain strength, because starting from a base of flabby muscles wouldn’t cut it as a Diamond. I needed to be stronger, both for myself, and for whoever I was going to help in this world. I had a mild suspicion it was going to take a while, but it wasn’t like I had much of a choice in the matter.

I dropped the bubble shield, rolling my shoulders and my neck. I brushed back my red-tinged bangs, and ignored the silky softness. I ignored that for the time being, licking my lips, and clicking my teeth as I stared at a flower. There were colors I couldn’t quite describe, ultra-dark purples.

I could see UV light, and I had called the purple paths I was seeing on flowers, bee purple. Colors shined brighter, though my vision seemed to adjust itself to my liking.

I had ended up following some weird trails, that ended up being animal pee from a vole. Pretty embarrassing really, but I suppose it could be a useful trick if I needed to eat a family of voles for dinner. Not that I needed to, there was enough food stored up in here to last me a few weeks.

There was also the option of walking towards civilization, but this forest could be tens of miles wide, I could be a hundred miles away from any people, and I could get lost in a forest with thousands of square miles of area. Which probably wouldn’t kill me but it would be an inconvenience.

“It’s not quiet at least.” I talked to myself, listening to the music on the breeze. It was a subtle thing, there was a tune, a song of the world I was following along rather naturally. It was like life itself had music to it, though I could only hear it when I was actively trying.

There was…also a strange underlying meaning, flashes of something whenever I heard an animal cry out, when the sun had gone down for example I heard the cry of wolves.

It had come with the song of call-kin-pack-come-together-warn-rival-pack-not-kin.  Not words, but my understanding of them, and I wondered if this was the effects of Gemsong, of the telepathic language of what could now be considered my species. I didn’t mind it but it was certainly strange, just as it was neat. If it worked with the communication methods of animals, it should also help with translating the languages of whoever is on the planet.

Humans certainly, since this Gemsong didn’t include written language, though there was also the option of a successor species. But I had my doubts, a lot of them in fact. Something about the forest itself…it felt, not wrong so much as just an odd feeling of past danger.

Something very bad had happened here, something bad enough to chase away a town's worth of people. I didn’t know how I knew but it was obvious to whatever I had for retro-causal intuition. 

Bleh. 

This was going to be a very difficult time wasn’t it? And I was still trying to figure out where the tech used to transport me here would arrive. He said it was being sent so where was it?

For all I knew I had taken it into my gem while sleeping, with powers I barely had any control over, which meant it was going to take a while. Though it does make me ask why move me to another world at all, was it a safety precaution, an accident, or a way to shield my world or to be closer to the action?

Well it’s not like I can ask Steven or anyone else. I was all alone.

I entered the house, locking the door behind me as the night grew darker and deeper. I rolled my wrists and necks, and they released a satisfactory crack of joints. Sliding around a stray lump of wood, I picked up the book I had been reading to better understand myself and Gems and their tech in general. 

This section was written up by a certain lovable Peridot, and it showed. 

Chapter 4: Gemtronics 

Now it’s my turn to give you lessons, Steven is great but I’m better at being in depth with the beauties of Gem technology. There are many ins and outs to the creation, engineering and repair of Gemtronic mechanisms, and the I, the lovable Peridot will teach you all you need to know!

I snuggled into the ratty couch, feeling cold though less so under a blanket I had acquired from a storage closet. I was going to learn Gem technology because living in the middle of nowhere is awful. Which was going to take a lot of work, and I probably couldn’t do it alone.

But I was going to wing it and see what happens.

I wafted up and down in my dreams, letting out a soft chirp, a soft melody of comfort, as it was so warm and comfortable, and I wanted to cuddle into the semi-liquid surface forever. I was dreaming, and shifted and bounced around all over the dreamscape, smacking against some of the more solid places in this strange world.

I bounced against a castle of glimmering steel, whispering with iron legions of the lost. I simply kept moving, grumbling whenever I hit something, and learning to brush past them rather than smacking into them.

Data. Gather. Purpose.

So many said the same thing, and I shut myself away, deeper into the dream, I didn’t care for the mantra of the burning shaker engine, of crushing waters and weaving sky songs. 

I blocked them out with the psychic ease of shutting a door, and I fell into the pink clouds . They were much less loud than everything else, and the song permeating the air was soothing and warm. The song of life, the song of joy, the song of the end and the beginning.

Slowly, bit by bit, data chunk by data chunk I was accepted into the deeper dream, programs running down into standby, songs and music slowing, data gathered and analyzed and discarded or kept as needed. I didn’t much care, humming to myself as I grew comfortable.

So…tired, want to sleep.

I curled up, and blankets formed around me, and I sank into a sea of softness in the dream.

I fell asleep in the dream.

Chapter Text

Metamorphism 1.3

I whistled to myself as I worked on something besides exercising and getting a handle on my basic powers, and suppressing sensory overload from inhuman senses and biology. It had been a week and a half since then, and I had been getting better at a lot of things. 

Apparently Gem magic makes it a lot easier to recover from the stress of the general process of muscle regrowth. What would take most people six months, I could probably do in a month or two. With the way my biology works, things like growing a foot in a few days were also a possibility. But I didn't feel like growing taller so I didn’t. No what I was working on was decidedly more interesting, and decidedly more important. 

How to build what Peridot called Gemtronics. Which was all done by what she called a Gemforge, the machines used to create all their tech. They had two types, Cold and Hot Forges, ones worked with solutions and crystal chemistry while the other dealt with hot furnaces and molten crystal. 

I had learned about ichor’s role in things, how it was considered the lifeblood of the Gem Empire, it helped program their technology, it was the basis for their materials in multiple ways, and combined with natural energies and appropriate minerals and nutrients, birthed Gems into existence, bursting out from the soil and rock.

The scary part was that you only needed minuscule amounts to create a Gem, maybe a milliliter of fluid at most was required, and was often mixed with liquid crystal and synthetic replications of Diamond ichor. Apparently reverse engineering of Gem abilities into machinery was common from Diamonds to Rubies.

Oftentimes the tech was never quite as potent, lacking some type of driving force that boosts Gem magic to new heights. Destabilizers for example are based on Yellow Diamond’s power over Forms, turned into direct weapons. The same applied for their containment fields. 

Blue Diamond didn’t have the same things until Era 3, with her ichor and cheap copies of it turned into forms of medication to help deal with emotional instability, and other issues related to emotion. These ichor mixes had various uses, Blue and White helped with problems of the mind, quieting bad dreams and flashbacks. 

Yellow and Pink were effectively an energy drink/performance enhancement drug, amping up a Gem to the point of causing them to ‘Poof’ from the stress on their form. It wasn’t harmful, and the worst side effects were from the more compressed and semi-legal brews. 

Normal brews were basically super-coffee, useful not dangerous. The Robonoids healing goop was a creation of Yellow Diamond, used to repair physical objects. Again it involved Form, and a suspension of programmed nanomechanical crystal as feedstock. Which was why it couldn’t heal Gems.

Their tech wasn’t really ‘aware’ in the same way Gems are, so they didn’t need the life giving aspects of Pink essence. They were good for repairing homogeneous structures like warp pads, as well as other pieces of technology as needed.

I had ended up looking around the forest, and managed to find a few buildings with pressure cookers. The metal itself was neat but it wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand the pressure and heat needed.

So I cheated, and salvaged parts from a satellite dish and a projector TV, and after a few…uhh incidents, I built a solar concentrator, and with narrowed eyes I spit at the target of the beam. Several times in fact, and I waited to see when the liquid would start to boil.

In the end it didn’t, the mass of liquid seemed to…shift, unfolding in the process of being torched by concentrated light. We were talking a fifth of a mouthful, and with that meager amount, a mound of red crystal, growing more and more as light was further concentrated into the layers of fabric-like crystalline fiber. It only seemed to stop when I was left with a mound of…fabric thrice my size. 

I hastily covered the concentrator with wide eyes, with several hundred kilograms of matter coming from a dozen something milliliters of magic spit.

“I…didn’t think that would actually work.” I blinked, shaking my head as I reached out with my hand. I scratched my chin, tilting my head as I started to poke the crystalline fabric. 

Peridot called it Chroma, it was a universal building material for all Gem materials, especially when blended with grown crystals and smelted metals. The fabric is made out of solid energy, a consequence of concentrated light reacting with the magic of the Diamonds.

Chroma was a solid, one that could be shifted into any color as needed and could be rendered down in a lot of ways, smelted and fortified as needed. I grabbed and carefully tore at the fabrics, and wrapped them around the pressure vessel four times over.

With trepidation, I slammed my fist and spider cracks spread around the metal and glass of the once pressure cooker. I placed my index finger on my tongue, and smeared it against the cracks. There was a sparkle of pink-red-cerise light, and I applied some more all along the cracks. If she was right…

The fabric melted, influenced by the healing magic, and flowing seamlessly into the metal and glass of the pressure vessel. The metal was red while the glass was a soft translucent pink, and I looked in surprise.

It worked better than I had expected.

“Okay what did the book say I need? A liquid medium, heat, and a little bit of ichor since I can’t make synth-ichor right now.” 

Now I know what some might be thinking, why do you need Diamonds to make Gems when you can replicate their ichor? Well the answer is you can’t, synthetic Diamond blood-juice is always of lower quality than true ichor, the best analogy I had was Lego.

Lego is incredibly expensive due to the incredibly precise tolerances it’s been made to, down to less than ten micrometers. That makes it compatible even with pieces made in the 60s, if they’re not damaged. Synthetic ichor was more like Mega Bloks, way cheaper but also of far reduced quality.

It was best used as a filler, mixed together with a mineral solution and complete ichor to create a Gem, or in the creation of Gemtronics with a further reduction in use of essence. Plus any attempt to replace the Diamonds…would likely end with your shattering. 

Though from what I've checked in the book, the earlier attempts suggested that all early research projects lead back to creating a full fledged Diamond. And the fake ones they used to create synth-ichor couldn’t fully operate on their own, they lacked the ‘spark’ all Diamonds shared, so they needed to be topped up with small amounts of their essence or fed with magic to charge it up. However projected magical energy could also act in the role of synth-ichor. 

I opened the pressure cooker, adding water that would act as the solution, a really shitty Cold Gemforge to grow the right crystals. Luckily I had found the right raw materials, and mixing a little of my magic should buff out some of the rough edges.

…

But I was still missing a few parts, and I needed to make modifications to the cooker to reach higher temperature without exploding. I had sourced aluminum oxide from a local Home Depot for abrasives, and chromium oxide from some former engineering joint. I looked at everything and knew there was more equipment I needed to search for.

I chewed on my lip, brushing back my hair. Well…maybe there’s a song I can use to distract myself. One came to me like a strike of lightning in the moment, and I bobbed my head as I went out to search for more tools.

“I am the very model of a Modern Diamond Hybrid… ” 

I ended up singing and humming throughout the tinkering session, unable to help myself. It just felt right you know?

“I’m quite good at Gemetics(as a subset of Gemology) because I am an expert which is know is a tautology…” I trailed off with a soft note as I waited for the pressure vessel to cook. Ichor served a role similar to organic enzymes, reducing the activation rate for mineralogical processes. Which was why a process that normally took days or weeks was being done in a matter of hours.

Chroma would naturally weave into the generated Gemtronic circuit, and would require a charge. Some of it comes from solar energy, the initial infusion of magic from ichor, and a small smattering of energies provided by the nutrients emplaced in the solution. 

There was a ding from the pressure cooker, and I flipped open the lid with gusto. From the vessel there came a stone of pink about the size of a football, a jagged thing that was perfect for what I needed. I had over a kilo of Gemtronic circuits, though of course I needed to cut them in the right shapes, and program them with the right code.

Which was shockingly intuitive for Diamonds due to their very nature, they had access to certain fields of processing needed for creating and modifying the code of Gems. 

Anyway. I seized the block of crystal, and with a careful invocation, I summoned a shard of light, like a fragment of a shield. I carved away at the crystal, lightly gripping onto the shard as I followed instinct, following along to the beat from the Gemtronic circuit. I removed a segment about the size of my thumb, and carved it down into a flat gem.

I grabbed more of the Chroma, and managed to weave it into a wristband after two dozen failed attempts. The gem was embedded into the band, and I attached a glass covering obscuring the circuit a bit. It flashed once, and I brushed my hand against it.

I could hear songs coming from the gem, and in a blink I was feeling whatever data was embedded into the Gemtronic computer. I could sense the magic within the device itself, and I had a feeling I could pour more into it over time. I blinked and I saw deeper, more accurately.

I saw the tiny microstructures on the surface of the gem, the tiny beads of water following the imperfections, the millions of motes of dust like little stars between my line of sight and the device, the flashes of colors I couldn’t quite describe, variants of blue-white, purple derived from the ultraviolet spectrum. Flashes flying by my head, areas where I could make improvements and refinements. Areas of danger I had avoided while constructing the device.

I’m starting to see how Gems can make masterpieces out of garbage, though now I was wondering how I was going to program a thing like this without any knowledge of programming. 

I flinched back when I suddenly felt something rushing past my eyes, ideas coming forth from the aether. This machine had some of me in it, and that ichor followed my will, my purpose. Code ran across my eyeballs and it felt so familiar, even if I had never seen it like this.

I hummed and the code became images, which became memories, which became reality. This was…my phone’s code wasn’t it? Did that mean my phone was in my Gem, and I hadn’t noticed?

Wait why would I notice, I barely have any control of my power and I’m lucky I haven’t done any Steven-style screwups like aging myself to the point of death, turning myself into cats, into a baby or turning into a giant pink monster.

Oh wow he’s really had a lot of issues relating to his body hasn’t he?

Moving on.

I gathered that code, rubbing my hands together as I connected to the device, and projected it into the gem. It was intermixed with more code, the more advanced code belonging to Gemtronics. It felt like hours, but when I opened my eyes the wristband was glowing, flashing with scarlet light.

I blinked. “Huh…neat.” I pressed my hand against the Gemtronic device and my hand slapped a holographic projection. I could see stars in my eyes from the mirror-like reflection of the hologram. Though when I touched a button, it became like a shard of glass, letting me see my face.

It hadn’t changed much, I still had my beard, diminished as it was by a recent shaving, but my face was a little thinner, and the bags under my eyes had gone away. A lot of little things had gone away, all the little blemishes from my teenage years were gone, my face smoothed out and lacking in things like remnants of pimples or other…things.

What did remain were the parts that were more integral, like the moles that had been popping up since I was in middle school. Likely from being out in the sun or simply from getting older. Those all remained, and I could tell I had lost some weight.

I stuck out my tongue as I tapped and prodded the device, following the orchestra of code, letting my intuition from one half do the work while the other half learned to pick apart what my song was telling me. I was smart, but I wasn’t a genius, though having a magic quantum-processor as a brain might make that a mute point in the long run.

I was trying to figure out what I wanted this thing to be when it came to me, this was a Micro-Composer, a Gemtronic device to help Gems(and humans…) with creating the code, composing programs and boosting the productivity of coding engineers.

I placed my hand on the holographic projection, and splayed out my hands to expand the screen to about the size of a large tablet rather than a large smartphone. It had numerous applications, from playing games to apps for sensing various energies, from magnetic fields to infrared to radioactive particles.

And I still had another kilogram of raw material to cut away and shape into more technology, into more equipment to operate the Injector. Which now that I think about was probably already built with all the needed sensors and programs to do its job.

…

…

I’m an idiot.

I tapped the small Injector, pressing my mind, my song, my soul into the machine. It responded back, and a hologram of a sphere formed into existence. I blinked.

“I am Geode. The operating system for your Era 3 Injector.” I leaned back when the device started to float, the four leg pods floating out into the air, it sent a pulse of light, and my Gem lit up in response. “Greetings Paradigm Diamond Facet-AD1 Magna-1. What is your preferred designation? ”

My fingers twitched, curling in the uncertainty. I could give them my name but would it be a good idea, and would it fit my apparent status as a Diamond?

Brandon was my name…but I don’t think I would give just anyone on this planet my name, not in this world, not when it screamed danger. I looked down at my Gem, a hue of deep pink bordering on red, and sighed. I remembered the colors when the sun rose from the sky, the hues of red and pink, the alpenglow from the scattering of light into cerise.

“Brandon Amaranth Rubio. Sunrise Diamond.” I responded and there was a soft ping from the machine intelligence.

“Designation accepted. A sample of your ichor is required for analysis and admixture with previously prepared ichor from your fellow Diamonds.” A compartment opened, and after a few minutes of deliberation I provided a sample.

So weird. So, so weird. 

The Injector rumbled, letting out a keening cry. “Evaluation complete. Ichor density comparable to Pink ichor, yet shares some similarities to Yellow ichor in wavelength structure. All possible Gems are currently capable of being made, first sensor sweep indicates that current access to mineralogical nutrients limit Gem production to Ambers, Corals, Feldspars, Quartz as well as Opals. ”

“Corals?” I called out, raising an eyebrow. 

“A form of simple Gem AI, ” the Injector answered, projecting a worm-like form, like a living gummy worm with a face and arms. “There are a number of creations made with Gem methods, which are themselves not true Gems. Most lack Gem abilities, but Corals are an exception.” The hologram demonstrated hydrokinesis, light projection and shapeshifting before flickering off.

“So like dogs or cats?” 

The Injector paused. “Yes.” It didn’t specify which.

“So what are the requirements of your type of Injector? I don’t think Steven Universe would accept destroying planets.” Or at least wouldn’t accept it without shifts in how it was done.

“Research projects started between humans and Gems resulted in Kindergarten Rotation and Reseed methods of Gem production.”

“Crop rotation. Moving around nutrients and mineral composition by implanting several different Gem types!” I had read up on crops here and there for reasons, so I was familiar with the methods. “So Reseeding would be using means to make the area recover right? External introduction of minerals and forced regrowth of organic life to further land recovery.”

“Affirmative. Ambers were the Gems tasked with such, their healing abilities speeding up recovery from centuries to months and years.”

“So Rose Quartz don’t have healing powers of their own since they’re Quartz then?”  

“Analysis of Rose Quartz have indicated areas of unusually malleable code, but no Rose Quartz have arisen with such powers as of yet. They are a defensive-type Quartz, strong and durable, taking hits for the more fragile fighters in an army.” Geode’s answer was enlightening, the Rose Quartz are protectors, strong defenders of life.

“So…what do you recommend? I’m not sure if there’s anything else I’m missing about Era 3 Injectors, but I’d like to know what I need.”

Geode responded. “Calculations indicate Corals should be the first Gems created, they require the least amount of time and the least amount of resources to create.”

“Then what do we need? Do we have the mineralogical resources for the Injector, or do we need to go out and acquire them?” My voice was curt, and I squared my shoulders.

This wasn’t a game, I was on some alternate version of Earth with an unknown threat capable of giving the Gem Empire a run for their money. And the Empire was big, with trillions upon trillions of Gems across four galaxies.

Not as impressive as you would think since three of them are Dwarf galaxies, and fairly depleted ones at that. They had started colonizing Earth’s galaxy for a reason. 

“Sensor sweeps have located a suitable source of Coral within this sector, two kilometers to the northwest.” The machine went on, and I smiled. Corals might not be full-on sapients, but I wouldn’t mind having pets, even magical ones.

“Then we should get on that.”

A new mission, a new task should provide a suitable distraction…

I cut through a stray branch with a growl, Geode following me as I lifted my fists. I didn’t know how to fight, but my retro-causal intuition should be able to even the odds at least a little. This place looked like the ruins of an aquarium, holding things like fish and stuff.

Most of the tanks were full of pond scum, the fish long gone or dead depending on what the hell had gone down here in Woodstock. I shuffled my feet and my instincts screamed loudly, like grating nails on a chalkboard. 

I stepped back, and was face to face with an adult cougar. It…she was large, two hundred and twenty pounds of feline muscle and power. It released a screeching scream, one that made my hairs raise, and I chirped.

A rose-red bubble wrapped around me and Geode and I spun my way out of there, bouncing left to right and avoiding the other signs of danger. I found myself in another part of the aquarium, one that was somehow quite intact.

The area was open, revealing a single tank with thousands of gallons of water, containing sickly coral and an array of equally sickly fish. But it was alive and usable.

I dropped the bubble, and Geode released a chirp, providing analysis. 

“Modification into a Reef will be an easy task, provide a sample of your ichor into the tank please.” I jumped, slamming into the glass but scrambling up into the open tank, and licking my finger before dabbing it into the waters. 

There was a flash, sparkles of cerise and red and opal and nacre dancing along the churning waters. I looked at the fish within the glass, and smiled when I found a bag full of dirt. I jumped down and then back again, providing organic matter into the pool.

The reef looked healthier, sparkling with my power, my influence, my essence.

“How long will it take?”

“Three days. This unit will implant four Corals into the substrate, they will provide assistance and companionship until the Ambers can be created.” I nodded.

“Will you be safe here?” I whispered quietly, rubbing my arms.

“This unit is in no danger, and there are two more Injectors within your Gem.” I hesitated, but didn’t stop Geode from doing it’s job.

“I should go.” Geode pulsed an acknowledgment, and I sighed. I suppose I wasn’t needed for this part, and having a few helping hands would be nice.

I left.

I started looking into the rooms of whatever hermit had left this place behind, deciding to see if there was any clue to what they had been doing here. I hadn’t spent my due diligence on that because I was still growing accustomed to my situation. There was a screech, a twist in the air that I followed, the helpful gut feeling provided what I needed. 

I kicked open a locked door, and found myself in a dusty study, strewn about with papers and notebooks, as well as normal actual books. The notebooks seemed to have an order to them, numbered in fact. I picked one at random, and found the first book, with a one stamped on the cover. 

I flipped it open, unable to help myself.

Log 1: March 12th, 1994.

A shame what happened to the towns here, Mandrake truly caused a horrific amount of damage with her power. A dozen towns wiped off the map by an insane ecoterrorist of all things. Her power over plants was far deadlier than the heroes thought possible…what did they call themselves again? Something with a P?

I blinked and skipped forward a few pages. And found something interesting.

I’ve documented the nature of my own power quite well, I seem to be able to shift and expand myself into a bubble of accelerated time, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say I create a world of accelerated time. It means my work can be done quite quickly, especially with my recent acquirement of specimens.

I frowned, specimens and accelerated time weren’t exactly something that should go together. Unless it was something involving I don’t know, random objects to see how the process of decay works on a long term scale. Or even witness fossilization yourself depending on the speedup of time possible.

I continued reading.

I’ve proven capable of removing myself from the bubble, but to make use of my control I need to be merged with the time field effect. With this I can test my selective breeding projects over timescales of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. I can direct evolution, and my power protects me from the psychological issues through a secondary time dilation effect. I’ve acquired a large sample from animals native to the White Mountains, as well as a few other species suitable to the environment. It will take years…but that’s time I’m willing to spend.

The White Mountains, that’s in New Hampshire isn’t it? So this guy got time powers and went straight to munchkining it into a long term evolution project. Probably would have been more useful if he used it to accelerate his own learning pace.

Then again I have no idea how his power works so it might not be possible. I pinched the bridge of my nose, suppressing a groan. This was going to be a whole thing I’m sure, and I still haven’t gotten to the pages on Steven’s text on the Black Wyrm.

Well…I’ll mark today as a success nonetheless. I wasn’t dead, and I had gotten a very basic clue on Gem technology, and a basic handle of my powers. Except for floating, my weapon, my super-strength and speed, my ability to manipulate magic, my shapeshifting…

Maybe I should try to get a handle on that next then?

Chapter Text

Metamorphism 1.4

I marked today as the twenty ninth of March, which meant I had been here just two weeks. Thank god for canned goods, and weird hermit people. As well as Gemtronic creation instructions from the lovable Peridot.

My micro-Composer was useful for programming the photon based processors, and I had made some modifications of my own. All Gemtronics had the very basic abilities of Gems, though often heavily simplified or reduced. Such as mass manipulation, light projection, and manipulation of magical energies.

Mostly I had made a program to form the hard light into a cutting tool, and had implanted a telekinetic effector, a sort of hard light push. Also an electric shock attack. I wouldn’t call myself good at programming but I was getting better and more efficient at it as I grew used to my powers.

I missed my home a bit…I missed having people around me despite my aversion to people. I was too nervous to walk out into the forest, and the fact there were cougars here was a bit overwhelming. I had also read a lot further into both the man who had lived in my stolen residence, and of the nature of the Black Wyrm.

The man called himself Isaac and little else, and I had more or less skimmed through a lot of it because it was scientific jargon I wasn’t experienced in. The basic handle was that in the early 90s, a powerful cape as he called it destroyed multiple towns using a plant growth power.

Mandrake can grow any plant from any surface though they only survive like normal plants in nutrient rich soil. She could grow grass and vines in seconds while things like bushes, trees, and bamboo would take anywhere from minutes to less than an hour. The guy estimated an acceleration amount of between three and five hundred thousand times.

The only limit was line of sight and people, though the surface of clothes and armor was fine. She had scythed through half a thousand square miles of area, killing hundreds in a matter of days. Her skill grew over a period of several months and turned the area surrounding the White Mountains into a dead zone for people.

By the end of it over ten thousand had been permanently displaced from their homes and well over three thousand had died in the process. She used the mountains as cover, and to extend her power, growing roots into facades, roads and power lines, antennas and other infrastructure. Then used the dying plants as mulch to grow permanent plants. 

Entire forests sprouted overnight, and the vast majority of the inhabited regions of the White Mountains became devoid of people. A heroic cape eventually killed her but by then the damage was done, and the best that had been done was clearing up corridors for new roads.

He said any further attempts to cut down the forest were stopped by the arrival of the ‘Hadhayosh’ whatever that meant. At that point, some one thousand square miles was subsumed into an extant national park and left alone to be guarded by rangers and people hired to identify bodies.

A very morbid tale, a single person succeeded in devastating a region with mere clever use of plants…and she used a lot of poisonous ones too, terrible terrible species even.

Which brought me to the Black Wyrm itself…it was some type of multidimensional colonial organism made of billions of fragments of itself, each of them capable of a vast array of powers. It had attempted to connect to Gems across several high population worlds, including Homeworld itself.

It had been trying to study their species under the guise of being ‘friends’ and it’s purpose had been discovered by a Sapphire lucky enough to be close by where it had entered Homeworld’s galaxy. The vision had been cleared up by the addition of tens of thousands of Sapphires, and eventually more. 

Turns out there are a lot of Sapphires, somewhere from one to three handfuls per colony and more for central colonies. In fact a Crystal System colony is the equivalent of the capital of a sector of territory, the entire system saturated with infrastructure, the world hollowed out and tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of Gems emerging from the planet.

These capital worlds would be the core of their sector, the heart of a stellar territory with dozens to hundreds of smaller colonies, less colonized planets, modest moons, smaller planets and so on. 

For example Homeworld was once labeled Crystal System 1, and each world had different key resources. Crystal System Colony 215 for example was dedicated to mining and gradual astral deconstruction. There were several thousand core worlds, and well over a dozen times that in lesser colonies. It was mind boggling, trillions of Gems, over a hundred thousand alien worlds across several galaxies.

Of course a significant fraction of those are just minor outposts with anywhere from a few hundred to a few million Gems. Their numbers dwarfed any army this world could muster, and as a Diamond I was at the top…

Oh god I’ve made a horrible mistake. I’m no politician, no great leader…

At least this was Era 3 and Gems were really quite self sufficient or else this would be a nightmare. And working on projects that nobody but me could do didn’t sound half bad either. Creating new Gems, developing new technologies and literal sorceries sounded like a dream come true.

I wonder if experimenting(ethically) with organic life was okay? I mean probably, they’ve done some work with making sustainable kindergartens so they have to be doing something with organic life.

Purpose…oh right the Black Wyrm was trying to steal all the Gem’s technology for itself, before blowing them up…and failed. Something about that thing was screaming in my ear, like I was missing the obvious and being a dumbass.

…

So to waste some time before the first Coral’s scheduled emergence, I’m going to practice shapeshifting and hope I don’t turn myself into a ball of angry cats.

That should be fun.

I looked at myself in a mirror, staring down at the outfit I had woken up with. I had stolen it from a department store, and had been met with a shock. My brown eyes had changed, they retained their color but there was now a smattering of light reds, of cerise and scarlet painted against umber, tunnels leading to Diamond pupils, shuttering like cameras.

I know my mom has attested to me having pretty eyes but this is something else…

The rest of me had changed as well, though to a much less dramatic extent. I wasn’t any taller at least, I didn’t feel ready to grow into the height of a Diamond. Hell I might just keep my height for the hell of it.

My arms had grown lean and more refined, muscle definition building up from my playing around with my strength. Being able to carry logs without crushing my spine was too cool to pass up. Actually I would say I had grown, but only an inch concentrated in my legs. I shaved with a razor I had found in my Gem, which used a special laser. Kind of random, but I suspected my Gem’s evacuation had been rather hasty and messy.

My hair was the same messy, wavy hair as usual though my bangs were longer than I wanted them to be. Black seamlessly slid into red, almost sparkling with light in my eyes. Even my modest beard was the same, though I already had hints of red even beforehand. My face was oval, and I looked…more or less in good health, though that might be from magic healing blood in my veins.

I could feel it too…that aura of power beneath my cerise saturated skin, and decided to bring forth the power I wanted. I remembered the lesson, imagine the energy inside, and imagine what you want to change into, what you want to become and just do it!

I shot up two feet, scaling upwards with a light red-pink glow. I had gone from being 5’4 to just over seven feet tall, and could feel how I stretched myself thin. Which prompted a return to my base form, because anything else would be annoying as hell.

I looked down at my clothes, the ones that had popped around me during my little trip. A wine red set of shorts, and a black shirt with a white star in the middle. They weren’t normal clothes, filth washed off of them, and I’m 90% sure this was spun Chroma. So it would grow with me.

I glanced at the stripes along my arms, dark things really, weaving along divisions I couldn’t follow, and flashing with Diamondfire, eerie colors of pink and red flowing along the stripes. So apparently humans had stripes, cool right?

I focused on that power, bringing it to the surface. Areas of danger pulsed in my mind as I pulled on it, chewing on my lip. I imagined fur sprouting and it did, making me look like a really pathetic werewolf. The fur retracted at a thought, and I was just me again.

I tried something else, something a little more dramatic. I thought back to my parents, to my mother more specifically and I pictured my own features, shifting, changing, becoming. The hair on my face and body vanished and shortened respectively, mass shifted elsewhere. I kept that picture in my brain, and pulled back when my senses flared. It took several awkward, weird feeling minutes.

Was I shorter?

…

No. Same height, my mass is just distributed differently. I opened my eyes, to see if I had screwed up or not.

I…huh, I’m a better shapeshifter than I thought I would be.

I crossed my arms over my bust, cocking a hip. I had been curious about the limits of this power, being made out of meat and all. My hands were mostly unchanged besides a reduction in hair, they had already been small and delicate.

I brushed my hands against my hair, fingers finding purchase in silky smooth hair graduating into red. My hair was down to my shoulders, and I could see an occasional curl like amaranths. My face was…softer, pudgier and more effeminate, with lusher(mostly from lack of dryness) lips. I looked further down with a half smile, still unsure of my decision to use my shapeshifting like this. But then I remembered the Diamond closest to me in nature wore dresses as a guy and stopped stressing.

“So this is what it's like to be a girl. Didn’t think it would work.” I placed both of my hands firmly on my hips, swaying from side to side to test that nothing was out of place. It wasn’t, and I wondered if I had a natural talent for the mass and body shifting arts, it’d be cool if I did.

Like my previous form, I was slightly chubby, though obviously transitioning to a leaner and healthier state of health. I was…curvy, leaning between plump and normal and I couldn’t help but examine my successful shift. I had wide rounded hips, though that wasn’t an unexpected development when I had pictured the form I wanted to become.

My waist was nice enough, but again there was some unburned pudge that hadn’t gone away yet. I poked my belly, and it felt normal enough even if the fat had lessened somewhat. My eyes followed the curve of my waist, and stopped at my bust. I did have a pair of breasts, rather large ones at that since I needed to put the fat somewhere on my body, and I could only put so much into my hips and thighs. 

My Chroma clothing had conformed to my body type, the light based clothing shifting with me. I felt the possibilities, reaching for that sense of threat and danger and found nothing but complete ease. I smiled, rubbing my soft cheeks. My skin’s roughness had vanished over the last two weeks, as if revitalized by my healing magic.

Even my knuckles were soft, and I had used those very knuckles to crack rock and bend metal. Weak metal to be fair but metal all the same, and I wondered if Gems were the same way. They didn’t have skin to wear and tear like we did, like humans did.

I was pretty, which made sense to me, my own mom was pretty and I had seen pictures of my grandmothers when they were young…not that I liked thinking of them like that, it always felt sort of weird and gross, so I tended to default to calling my parents ugly.

Kind of a dick move in hindsight, but I think I was just trying to tease them when I was little. And I don’t think they ever took it to heart. Either way it made me curious what my parents would think since she had me and my brother. The same for my dad with my half-brother…who I rarely saw anymore because he left his second wife, and is being a total fucking—

I suppressed a flash of anger, keeping my temper in check, none of this was going to help me right now. I was here on my own, I hadn’t starved to death out of stupidity, and I had running water, heat, and electricity separate from a generator shut down for a month.

I had synthesized more Gemtronics, this time using salvaged solar panels as a base, and created a Gem-based solar array, a solar array capable of capturing ninety five percent of incoming solar energy and storing it. All the benefits of solar energy without the downside, even generating power at night.

Not a lot mind you, but it’s certainly something and most human houses would need a few square meters rather than half their roof being covered. And you  required just over twenty thousand square kilometers of such energy generators to power the planet.

And you only needed a sprinkle of magic to make the process viable for people on Earth. If I could help people find access to their inner energies, tech would boom like a nuke. 

I chewed on my lip, thinking. I still knew so little about this world, and the Black Wyrm… what was I forgetting?

I scratched the back of my neck, looking at myself in the mirror. I swept back my hair, pulling it back and keeping it from my face. I thought I would be feeling the strain but there was none, and when I reached inside me, to feel that gut feeling made of nerves and instinct.

There was nothing, it was stable, and I was curious on how that was possible. Maybe because I had kept my body mass, shifting it around a bit? Or was I just really good at shapeshifting? Or maybe I just really liked the form?

It did…feel comfortable, though really at this point I generally felt good about my body. So maybe that wasn’t saying much, my senses told me it was okay but I wasn’t wasn’t exactly a good judge of that.

Should I change back? 

I looked at myself in the krusty mirror, and decided no. I wanted to see how long I could keep this up, and it might prove useful.

Also my long hair was really soft and silky, and not having hair on my face was a novel experience after a few years. Plus I needed to check up on the Corals, they should be emerging today, and I had been giving the aquarium doses of my ichor to keep the drain reasonable.

Plus dumping a boatload of minerals for the little guys.

…

I should get on checking them out, I think that’s a good idea.

I jumped six feet straight up, my eyes darting back and forth, eying the numerous ledges. I licked my lips, feeling something burbling up in my stomach. It was a gut feeling, telling me it was perfectly possible to make it. I just needed to trust myself, I just needed to reach out and… take it.

I gripped onto the top of a remnant of a barrier, and kicked off the ground. I twisted in midair, and I could feel my energies swelling inside me, a song waiting to be sung, notes to beat reality into the shape I wanted it to be.

I almost slipped on the first ledge, but a flailing of my arms kept me steady. I flipped onto the second higher ledge, the air parting before me as I slammed into solid concrete. There was a crack, and I blinked at the fracture in the stone.

Guess you could call me hard headed ehh?

…

Jokes aren’t really funny without people to talk about it with…

I jumped again, and a skip and a hop later I was sailing over the open aquarium tank, and missed it by a few inches. I landed on my feet, though the remaining skid to bleed off energy failed and I slammed my head on the ground. That plus a stinging pain in my chest made me growl. Right…those have nerves don’t they…? 

The aquarium had changed a lot since I had started the process of making it into a Reef for the Corals. The entire place had been suffused in magic, and I saw how the Injector expelled a golden liquid sparkling with pink and yellow and red. It seemed to slow the pace of draining, and it made me curious about what it was doing. 

I could hear something on the wind, and I perked up, unable to hold back my relief despite myself. The aquarium had all been a single pool, and with great care, I had split it up into sections of Chroma and non-sentient corals with little cubbies carved into them. There had been a bad leak at some point, so the coral was exposed to air but saved by the magic weaved into it.

Something emerged from one of the cubbies, and I did not flounce over to the aquarium and through an entrance I had cut into the glass. Don’t ask how I didn’t break the whole thing…

The little creature crawls out of it’s home, and my eyes widen. It waddles like a caterpillar with too many legs, and it reminded me of a plush toy, or like a living gummy worm. It was mostly red and pink with splotches of white and yellow along it’s segmented body. There was a branching gemstone on its cat-like face, wide black eyes staring at me in apparent adoration.

It released a Gem trill, pressing up against my mind, and I could hear the crash of waves and the rush of sand.

Baby. Mine.

I gave a few soft clicks, something soft rising up in my mind, and the Coral approached me. It chirped back, and water wings emerged from it’s…her back. I gestured and she understood even with how simple her mind was. She was basically a dog-cat-parrot with magic powers and I already loved her.

I listened to her Gemsong, and noted the simplicity, this was the mind of an animal, though one good at mimicry. If I trained her though, she could act as a universal translator with psychic language.

Orders. I should give them something to do right?

I glanced over to the messy Reef…and got a few good ideas on how the little guys could help me out. I let out another soft chitter, and the first Coral fluttered over to me. I couldn’t help but give the little guy a kiss on the head, lightly petting her soft furred exterior. 

Her eyes widened in revelation, and I tilted my head as she squirmed out of my grip. She used an authoritative tune, and the remaining three Corals hummed back in response. They began to cut compartments into the corals, and chirped to the flying Injector, redirecting water as needed with their powers.

Huh? But I haven’t even told them what I wanted their help for.

“Smart little guys huh?” I complimented and the four seemed to preen, chittering happily. The plan was simple, they would help refine the Reef for future production of their kind, and would help me with gathering of materials for Gem production. 

I didn’t plan to destroy the whole forest, so I needed the right Gems to continue production at a practical and sustainable amount. Recommended Gem types included Ambers, Ammolites and Corals along with Quartz and Opals.

The three types were apparently new, made in the first few years of Era 3. I wonder if they were the only new Gem types or if there were others. The four Corals were singing a tune in harmony, and I couldn’t help but find it cute.

Sweet babies…

I looked over and around this place, wrapping my arms around my soft bust. A finger tapping lightly, at how I had produced the Corals. Basic Gemtronics was easy enough, using magic to catalyze mineralogical processes. But the more advanced varieties were of greater complexity, leading to beings like Gems but not quite being Gems.

Like the wall beings, or the odd living statues, infused with life by the essence of the Diamonds. Once I made use of the methods used to grow the crystal mycelium of Gems, I could make even denser energy storage and the pocket dimensions inherent to Gem architecture. Having a space bigger on the inside was more than useful.

It was going to take a lot of work however, and I was probably going to have to spend the day out.

Not like I had anything else going on.

I exited the rickety bathroom after a shower, a hot one after a Coral had helped me fix up the heating line. I had…shifted back to male, and then back to female after some deliberation with myself. I was just…curious, but not yet curious enough to take a shower in this new form of mine.

I rubbed my neck, feeling the tension uncoil and my muscles relax after a busy, busy day. The master bedroom I had taken command of was sparse, with only a bed and nothing else except what I had put in myself. A drawer I had carved from hardened Chroma, infused into remnants of marble from the town. It was a bright red, and had space for clothes I had pulled out from my Gem.

Which was unfortunately quite random at times, though I did manage to pull out something I needed from time to time as my control improved. There was a mirror, the same one from before. I looked at myself, not at the body I had made but the parts of it I hadn’t made. My pupils shuttered, again sparkling like an abyss.

I saw the light of the star that had birthed me in those eyes of void…and saw twisting things in the darkness between.

I smiled, though my heart wasn’t in it. I checked my canines, and found them far more…fangy than usual, slowly tapering to a point. They were also starting to take up more space in my mouth…which I guess made sense. Gems did have big old chompers, even the Corals had fangs.

Which they had used to pick up items and to carve through stone and steel as needed for parts. Which was a blatant show of how strong Gems really were, and meant I could straight up come down from the shadows and bite through a jugular. 

There was a sensation there…they felt…not loose but like they had more room in the roof of my jaw to move. Like with a single mental command I could pull them back further, or send them shooting forward. Which might be quite true in fact.

Gems were weird and with my original organic nature, I had to be a biological abomination. Especially when I noticed my nails were starting to lengthen, starting to sharpen into claws. I felt like I should have minded more…but this had been my choice, my decision that I took into my own hands.

If gaining power made me different then I was going to have to grow used to the changes, used to the parts of me that weren’t human anymore. My hands curled around my neck, fingers brushing against soft skin. 

I could hear the sing-song quality to my voice, the music that permeated the air, like lines of silk plucking the notes of reality. There was a lot I was missing, whatever it was me being stupid, mentally tired, or simply distracted by other things.

I was willing to learn though, willing to put in the work, despite my tiredness, despite the funk I’ve been in long before I became Sunrise Diamond. Either way, it was time for sleep, time for a rest cycle as Gems called it.

I looked away from the mirror, with a final inspection of the stripes burning with rose and pink and hints of crimson. I stretched my arms, flexed my entire body as I lifted up onto the tip of my toes. I heard the crack of joints and bone, and the twang of coiling muscle. I hopped onto the terrible bed with incredible blankets knitted by the dozen limbs of the Corals.

Talented babies.

I wrapped myself in the blankets, stretching a bit more and laying my head down on a pillow also knitted by the Corals. One came over to the bed, one with golden skin and sleek fur rather than the hues closer to mine. Yet there were stripes of soft reds, crisscross patterns along her form.

She laid down next to me, and the jitters I was feeling quieted. I heard the chime of moonlight, and the rustling of seagrass. I let myself sink into the song, and I felt less alone, less empty. 

Other Gems were coming, but I didn’t know when or how. But I hoped it was soon, because it was too quiet out here in the forest where a city once sat.

The darkness filled in, and I fell into a peaceful dream.

Chapter Text

Metamorphism Interlude 1.a

Fuschia Sapphire Facet-AD16 Cushion-X7, interlaced her fingers against one another with a nervous chirp of Gemsong. She had been waiting for His Radiance for quite some time, and she wasn’t sure what was going on.

Then again, all she would have to do was See and she would know enough even with how the light of the Diamonds shined enough to weaken her power to pierce the veil of time. Of all the Gems the Diamonds had ever created, Sapphires were the ones with the strongest and clearest ability to discern future timelines, to navigate the quantum multiverse through calculation and arcane foresight.  

The Diviner’s could see far into the future, perhaps centuries, maybe even thousands of years with the right circumstances, and there were stories, old stories of Diviner’s who had seen hundreds of thousands of years further, countless orbital sweeps into What Would Be. 

She didn’t know about that herself, especially with the nature of her creation and her birth from the corundum rich rock. She was among the first of the Gems to be imbued with the essence of Aster Diamond, of the Song of Mercy, the End of Eras. 

For Gems the time for incubation could take decades, centuries even, though that had been sped up massively with the innovations of Era 2. The essence of Aster Diamond had proven beyond potent, and her fellow Sapphires had emerged in record time.

But in the chaos of the end of an Era, of the confirmation of the true nature of the newest Diamond as the gravestone of Pink Diamond…she had been lost, her other sisters, those born from the same vein lost sight of her. 

She wandered the stars for over a decade, without purpose, without meaning besides using her powers in whatever way she saw fit. She had gone from colony to colony, to thousands upon thousands of worlds across three galaxies. She gave free advice to Gems in need, and advice to organics too. 

It was a little easier, and a little harder at the same time. Organics were more chaotic, more spontaneous, born with no role but the one they chose. But most lacked magic, lacked the foresight of Gems that needed to be calibrated around.

The strict society before the rebellion had been the method chosen, and Fuschia Sapphire pursed her lips in distaste. 

She had been at peace, even if a little lonely and without a Court or a Diamond to call her own. But that peace didn’t last when she Saw the Black Wyrm on the horizon. She shuddered at that four year old vision.

She saw something vast, big in the sense of transcending worlds, larger than a planet, as large as the stars that birthed the Starhearts/countless mirror images folding on each other.

She had found another Sapphire, and the broadcast had spread to thousands of others, and then more. They had pieced together the pieces of the puzzle and countered the first moves of the Destroyer. 

Fuschia had lost many good friends over the last few years, those who could no longer bear fighting, and the ones who had been turned broken by the Black Wyrm, experimented on by the pet monsters of the alien god’s four faces.

She knew it had been purposeful, it had drawn upon concepts relevant for Gems, relevant for humans when they had entered the war on their own accord, in ships of metal riding on plasma rockets. Her visions had helped provide the intel to destroy hundreds of it’s communication shards, preventing it from calling upon more of its kind, and the destruction of it’s administration shards tore apart the bonds that bound the Wyrm god together.

The war had dragged on for four years, such a brief span of time, and yet it was so painful anyway, the friends lost, the worlds that would never be the same, the drifting apart of friendships broken by trauma and violence and destruction.

Only a single avatar of the Destroyer remained, the subdivisions of the network shattered and their shards scattered or broken or in rare cases turned to their side. Not every fragment of the Wyrm shared the same goals, some had learned, some had wanted a way out. Some held the spirits and wills of the species they had tricked.

She didn’t begrudge them that, but she had a hard time working with the thousands of shard defectors coordinating the hunting down of the remaining shards. She remembered past battles vividly, with her Sight and her perfect memory.

Four avatars, and four Diamonds and their courts to destroy them. The Azure Beast fell to Yellow Diamond and her flagship, utilizing a dimensional Superweapon loaded with a bio-poison generating virus to shatter the body of Azure. 

The White Beast fell to Aster Diamond’s unyielding shield, and a weapon used to nullify it’s potent powers of the mind and will. The Tuscan Beast fell to Blue Diamond, quieted by her aura and then silenced.

Only the Vermillion Beast, the last of the Destroyer’s faces remained, the network almost completely shattered and the shards fleeing to other worlds and other realities with nothing to show for it. Not even the data remained, scythed from their minds through powerful invocations of magic and arcane mathematics. The activation of counterfactual contracts from before the start of Era 1. 

The activation of machinery from a war far worse than this one.

She predicted most of them had gone into eternal stasis by now, dying in the void between galaxies. Any that remained were being chased down by the denizens of the galaxy, which had greatly expanded from a mere two species to several thousands. 

Though most of them had dealt with the war in their own way, while a few had fought by the side of humans and Gems alike.

The war was reaching its climax, and the young Sapphire was in search for another path, something new. She didn’t know why Aster Diamond had called her here, but she knew she was going to find out. 

A door slid open, crystalline walls infused with magic and light parting seamlessly.  From the door came him. The brightest and most dazzling light she had seen aside from the other Diamonds.

She had only seen him on occasion, she may have been born from his essence but she had been on her own for a long time. He was radiant of course, shining with the divine cerise light of his Gem, skin a shade too pink for humans but a shade too light for most Gems. His hair was like roses, pink scattered around black like stars in the emptiness between them. He was as tall as an average Quartz but built more like a Topaz, and she could see the freckles along his arms and neck and face, she didn’t ask why a perfect Diamond had blemishes. 

He radiated, and she knew he wasn’t pink, not really, pink didn’t exist after all. And yet he was, he was pink and cerise, opal and nacre, the lifeblood of their species burning within veins and pores of meat, of flesh and bone interspersed by pink light. She saw the fly-by-nights surging into his Gem, that maze of crystalline machinery, so complex and divine it could blind some of her sisters across the stars. That pearlescence shimmers along skin, along claws and fangs, and she sees his black, black eyes, like staring into the void of space scattered with cerise starlight.

He was terrifying and yet wonderful, and she loved him as Gems loved their Diamonds, especially so when they did their best to live up to their ideal as protectors of the species and not as their oppressors. If he was not kind, she would have left him behind.

But he was good so she didn’t.

“Something wrong?” His Diamondsong came through, pressing down on the air, and she whispered back her own song, meager as it was against his wavering orchestra.

“No, your Radiance,” She shook her head, brushing back bangs of cotton candy pink hair bordering on white. “I’m just…admiring the scenery.” It wasn’t a lie, the garden they were meeting in was beautiful, waters filled with life, fish in every color, flying creatures from several worlds singing in harmony.

She could feel the magic infused into the land, the plants, the water and the animals all showed the signs.

“You want to ask about why I’ve called you here?” He gestured, claws curling. Fuschia nodded, with a note of chimes and soft percussive taps.

“I could use my Sight, but I want to be surprised.” She clapped her hands, and the Diamond grinned softly.

“We’re winning the war.” He stated the obvious, but the Sapphire was smart enough to know that wasn’t all. “But even if we win…we’ve found two more out there, only a few dimensions away.”

“And they haven’t noticed us?” She was surprised and kept her power in check.

“They haven’t figured out how to cross into new dimensions like the Destroyer has, he’s the only one of his kind that’s figured it out.” Aster Diamond replied to her question, his song gently weaving into her mind. “And one of them is already basically crippled…the problem is that the both of them are on Earth.”

Fuschia Sapphire’s song cracked in shock, a whirr of surprise on her lips. “If they find out how to cross into our dimension…”

“A lot of people will die.” It left a bitter feeling, her notes twisting in anger. She had seen a hundred worlds die, torn apart by the monsters controlled by the Black Wyrm and its four faces, or blown up in futile attempts to escape to new worlds by the fading shards. 

Most had simply gone inert, and she guessed they were fighting maybe a few hundred thousand active shards now, accounting for a thousandth of the shards in the galaxy. All of them had run out of energy, and were forced into relative dormancy by the Empire.

And it ignores the hundreds of billions of shards that had broken apart into dead flecks of trace shard flesh and burning crystal in the void between galaxies. Clouds of dust all that remained. Something had weakened the Wyrm, but she didn’t know how or why.

“There’s something else too, there’s a new Diamond.” Fuschia would have choked if she was human, instead her song came grinding to a halt, like crashing drums. 

“But your Radiance…such a thing hasn’t happened in…four and a half million years, not since Pink Diamond emerged.” Steven Universe counted of course but he had the same Gem, he had simply taken it to new heights, unbound by the limits of Gemkind, following the rules of humans and Gems both.

“How did she emerge, the amount of energy to form a Diamond…it's unfathomable.”

“We didn’t completely gather the energy ourselves, but I did find what was needed for the Gem…” Fuschia Sapphire paused, and narrowed her one eye at the Diamond. She looked into the future and recoiled in shock.

“You didn’t…you made someone like you? A half-human Diamond!” 

“We grabbed a few Sapphires to help narrow down the best place to send it,” He answered in the affirmative, Gemsong growing deeper, more thoughtful. “By now they should be almost ready to head to the main planet the two Wyrms selected.”

She followed a line of inquiry in the timelines, and smirked. “Oh I see…they won’t see them coming will they?”

“Their status as a Diamond, and what we left behind in their native dimension should be good enough. But the new Diamond…”

“Has no court, no Gems to protect her, no Gem to teach her her duties and what she can do in full.” She presumed correctly.

“The facility was destroyed by one of the Asura, we barely managed to evacuate the Gems who were going to go.”

“Which one?” She couldn’t help asking. Aster Diamond’s song twisted somberly.

“Oh. Her. Did she get away again?” There was an uplifting note, and she picked up on it. “Wait…”

“She’s gone. There was another project, and the Gems there used it’s destruction to put her down.” He sounded sad regardless, he was never happy with death, with the end of life no matter who it was. 

It was compassion, and one she couldn’t share, not with what she had seen. His Radiance was a much stronger Gem than she could ever be.

“How will we arrive at this dimension? I know dimensional travel is still highly experimental, though I have been out of the loop. Most of our weapons work by exploiting the paths the Wyrms need to exist, not so much…travel.” And from what she had heard, closer dimensions were harder to get too, their signatures too similar even for their enemy to figure out very well.

“Yellow Diamond and Peridot have both been working really hard on traveling to other universes along with a few human experts. But…we also have to be discrete for the next few weeks, we can only make a special pinhole, any we send will have to ‘Poof’ to make it through.” He sounded concerned, discordant notes weaving into his song 

“You’re asking me to go?” She said simply, tapping her fingers against one another in a dance of appendages.

The Diamond smiled softly, with a warm light. “No. I’m giving you the choice, the new Diamond is all alone out there in the universe. It’s your decision alone.”

“You already know my answer, I’ve been looking for something since the moment I was made. I want to See for myself.”

“Then we should be gathering the team, there’s a few Gems who want to go.”

In the end it was never even a choice. But it was still hers to make.

Eidolon stared out at the horizon, reaching out to his powers, falling into place little by little. His powers were simmering, as he watched over the Forest. He had decided to pay the area a visit while passing through. He had entered several high intensity fights, trying to reach deep into the well of power, to bring back the strength he had lost.

They were adapting, ever so casually shifting. A perception ability, he could see points of stress and danger, weaknesses and cues to attack and cleave and break his enemies. An offensive ability that would let him compress a path dancing along his vision, warping space and matter into pieces. The third was a versatile power, creating a field of almost solid electromagnetic force. He could fly, and he could block hits that would sunder aircraft carriers.

None of that would help with the towns buried under hundreds of square miles of forest and woodland. He had gone here to relax, but it hadn’t taken long for the guilt to sink in, for the self loathing he buried under confidence and his bigger than life aura. He had heard a time manipulating cape had been removed by Cauldron, one that had taken a vial lost to a surprise Trigger. 

A time manipulator, one of the strongest they had ever seen, though not quite as powerful as Grey Boy, and far more passive. He had been useful for Cauldron, and had been easily convinced to work with them. Even if only indirectly.

He had never gotten the full story of why he was hunkering down in the woods, he only knew that he had spent over a decade of his life here. There were definitely rumors though, of a forest filled with life, of a city without people, brimming with a density of animals unseen in four hundred years. 

The man had been busy if nothing else, and a lot of bodies had been identified because of his work and surveys.

Eidolon knew he was running out of time, his power was growing weaker month by month, year by year, eventually he would be too weak to face him and the world would die when that day came. 

The wind rushed past his helmet, with the sound of beating drums, with the crashing noise of feet on hard ground. It was a whisper, a promise in song and sound and word. You have sacrificed more than you can know, beloved king, patron saint, hearkening and victorious protector and navigator. You speak to a Starheart, untempered by strife, not yet hardened by time.

For a moment his sadness had cleared, for a moment Eidolon could be David, basking in the sun of a glorious day, he could feel the flowers blooming, hear the birds chirping. For a moment his mind was clear of pain, clear of his self hatred, of his need to die gloriously, so that he would be remembered as he was rather than a withered husk. 

As long as he could keep saving people he would…because he had forsaken everything else. 

The once strongest cape in the world floated silently away from the forest, and with a supersonic clap he was gone.

A girl sat in the center of a set of worlds, pulling them into reality, crouched down into a ball and trying not to think, trying not to hurt, trying not to cry. She had gotten away from the bad place, where they screamed at her, where they called her a freak, where they called her an autistic retard, a defective waste of space and effort. People she barely recalled had helped her…and then…

She didn’t remember how she had found herself in this place, she only remembered a whirr, a cry, a song in the air that made her power hiccup. She had disappeared, and now she was so hungry, she wanted to go somewhere safe, but her power didn’t let her.

Why was she made like this?

She curled up into a ball, whimpering softly even as the animals fled in fear, in terror of the freak she knew she was. Which was when she heard the whisper in the air, the song on the wind.

It was…beautiful, like crackling fire, like the beat of drums, with the soft rolling trill of chiptunes. It rang in her mind, and beat back the shadows, and she heard it whisper to her. Take me home, it said, dream your dreams of life and freedom, child of man, dream of the stars and the flames and the waters, dream of peace, dream of hope, follow your heart’s desire, dream of the world under the cerise sky. 

Her power heard the same song and was charmed, it was just a single shard, shackled and weak, and so much of the host imprinted into it. The sad girl couldn’t help but sing back, and that song interweaved with that Song of the Starheart, as magic flowed in the air, as the shard was blinded by an untapped radiance.

The lonely sad girl started to walk, and her shard was powerless to stop her.

A mercenary woman narrowed her eyes at the broken brambles, the trail faint enough to be missed by almost anyone. She was pushed forward by worry and concern and guided by experience and the instincts instilled by them.

She looked over to a grey skinned obese man, skin almost transparent in many parts, along with a teenager with orange skin and a long tail, his grin not as large as usual.

“She was here.” Faultline stated. “She’s alive, and we still have quite a lot of time until our next job.” 

The two Case 53s perked up, and Faultline sighed, rubbing her face. She didn’t know where they had gone so wrong, was it the mission that had brought her to them, or what had happened after? They had so much work and yet…

It was far too easy to get attached to that girl.

Another girl walked through the same forest, her expression gruff as she brushed back auburn hair. Two dogs shadowed her, and they were the closest things she had to friends in a world of people she couldn’t quite connect with. They were pack, and she understood them better than she would ever understand people.

She had heard of certain people, needing to lay low after getting involved with a battle between beings larger than life. The people she didn’t get called them villains, one a monstrous man of stone, forming knives and blades of rock to break people and animals and buildings.

The other could bend the air to their whims, and used her power to intimidate and steal, because she was stronger, because she could. They had almost killed a dog and her owner, a small tiny child who cried and screamed and begged. She had made the dog a monster to heal it’s flesh, just a small one so the girl wouldn’t be hurt.

They tried to attack, and the girl and her pack brought them down with luck, and a careful placement of a broken telephone pole. When the people others called heroes ran towards her, she fled into the forest, where people wouldn’t tread, the Forest of the Lost, where a thousand corpses remained buried.

It was a dangerous place, but she had so few places to hide and bide her time in. She didn’t understand people and people didn’t understand her in turn, and she was missing too much context. 

Her dogs followed behind her, and the girl paused when she heard a haunting howl, piercing the quiet of the night. The song of the wolves made her skin shiver, and there was something about the forest, about the trees, about the burbling streams and scurrying squirrels and rabbits that made this place feel…safe.

“We’ll rest here for a few nights…” The dog-loving girl muttered to herself, and looked for shelter.

She walked to the sway of the song of the forest, and her pack did the same.

A being made of metal paused, eyebrows of steel and silver furrowing with a crack. He had felt something on the periphery of his vision, a whisper on the wind, chimes of music beating lightly. His skin warped imperceptibly, and he shook his head.

The boy without a past returned to his work, to being a Ward, to being the face of those like him, someone people could trust, so that they wouldn’t treat those like him like freaks, so they wouldn’t make fun of them for their problems and appearance and consider them inhuman and wrong.

He just had to hope he was doing the right thing, even if he didn’t feel like a hero.

The song playing in his ears from his earbuds helped, a trilling sound bouncing against the walls. 

He thought of those like him…and hoped he could help them one day.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.1

“Who’s a sweet little baby?” I cooed at the Coral, patting their squishy head as she flew on shimmering water wings. Corals were a rather general purpose type of AI workhorse, they had a number of powers that helped them with their jobs as tools and companion pets.

Being cute as a button is one of them.

Shapeshifting, hologram projection, Gemsong-based universal translation, hydrokinesis, they are also very good at guarding and watching, as well as being a good therapy animal. Well Gem-entity really. They can also control small particles, though it’s quite limited. Sand and dirt. 

They weren’t uniquely powerful, but they were versatile, and unique powers were certainly not uncommon among them depending on the ratio of ichor. Yellow Court Corals often were faster, or had potent electrical powers. Blue Court Corals can sense emotions, and will go to their friend to help them. White Court Corals can sense foreign influences against the mind, again protecting others.

Pink Court Corals had modified hydrokinesis, imbued with weak healing essence, and capable of forming their holograms into shields, and creating bigger bubbles. An idea had been to put them in a long metal barrel, so they could fire bubbles like bullets.

I wonder whether the Corals of my court would have some unique power, or if they would be derivative, since I was the same type of Gem as Steven Universe. A shudder went up and down my spine at the name…

He had an ominous name in Gemsong, in it I heard the meaning of his name, what he represented, what he was in truth. It was strange and alien, it was wonderful, it was incredible and yet frightening.

I could sense the presence of magic in the air, the song of Corals only a hop and a skip away. Pretty little things, dancing among the trees and the grass and old buildings echoing of those lost. They were happy, and they told everyone in range. 

But they were quiet when they needed to be, broadcasting back and forth, or exchanging code patches when one learned something new. Even then that gave way for other sounds to enter the air. The rustle of leaves under my feet, the groan of trees and tired rotten wood. The hum and hiss of some of my equipment, and of rusted radio sets and telephone poles. 

Sometimes I could even hear the crack of joints of nearby animals, and the high pitched calls of bats on the breeze. 

The four Corals flew over my head, and leapt from tree to tree, using their fine claws to cling onto sheer surfaces. I felt the possibilities, my mind of Diamond doing what came naturally. There was a clearing, and I looked up at a sheer face of solid rock, solid pegmatite conspicuously sticking out, half a hundred meters high and four hundred meters long. 

Something had uplifted the stone from the earth, and at the top of the hill I could see verdant soil, holding grass and trees and bushes, beech and pine and poison ivy and bushes of blueberry.

I stepped carefully, and my longer hair tickled my ears. I was still in my female form, more or less still testing it out for my own amusement and to satisfy my insistent curiosity. Conifers made up a lot of the trees, and I could see a few leaking resin, likely from injuries caused by pests of larger animals. 

This was a good place to start a Kindergarten, or I suppose it would be called a Nursery for a small scale operation like this. I was about to whisper a command to my little friends when my danger sense ran mad and wild.

I felt the light within me recoil, and I straightened my back and squared my shoulders. I swept out my micro-Composer, and it let out a high pitched ping. There was something distorting reality, though my sensors were crude and didn’t tell me much.

I felt something, something wrong, something strong, smothering someone else’s tune, and my hackles raised. Whatever was here, I didn’t like it and if it didn’t go away I was going to break something.

I broke out into a fast run, and stopped just short of where I was getting the bad feeling. Most of the forest was untouched, but for an area about thirty meters in diameter, a rough uneven sphere of influence. It was a quilted landscape that seemed to shine to my eyes, flashes of light blinking in and out of existence.

My perusal of a passage on Gem vision called such things fly-by-nights, beams of high energy light, those few that made it past the dense air of the world. There was something in the air, a steady tone, a hiss of something that didn’t belong.

I hissed back, teeth clicking in frustration when I couldn’t find what was making me manic. The only evidence was how the forest had been replaced by small tiny worlds, forcefully planted into this reality, and folding on top of each other like a house of cards. 

One world was a pond of water, with long spires of obsidian, another was a field of statues, demonic faces staring at me. A third world looked like a hospital, covered in needles, and shredded by an unknown force. Each and every world here seemed painful, terrible memories, striking at the mind, a mind in pain and fear and confusion.

I scowled, hands tightening into fists, and something shifted in my mouth, a snarl coming from my throat. I tried not to let that damn drone get to me, and instead pushed it back away from me. 

The first Coral to emerge circled down, wings flapping around sharp and dangerous objects. I followed the same path, though a bubble popped in a few times when a long blade of dark metal almost stabbed me in the chest. In the center of the chaos, I went still when I saw the heart of the madness. 

It was a kid…no, a teenager if a malnourished one. She was dressed in all greys, dull colors devoid of life. A shirt, a pair of pants, and no shoes or socks. The once pristine clothing was caked with mud, flecks of dried blood and there was a sharp scent in the air. Long platinum hair curtained over the back and face of the person, of the girl.

She looked in the range of fourteen to sixteen years old, but I couldn’t tell at a glance, and with how thin she was I could be wrong. I moved closer, putting down the bubble despite the danger, despite what my senses were telling me. She looked too small, her breathing was so weak, she was too small, she was too…

I lightly turned the girl on her back. I looked at a heart shaped face, platinum hair draping over her left eye. Foggy light blue eyes bordering on grey stared back at me, and I kept my expression neutral. I crouched down, words stuck in my throat.

“It’s…singing, were you…singing?” The younger girl let out a cough, eyes wide and fearful, with the puny light of hope in them.

I…nodded hesitantly, it wasn’t impossible that my Gemsong was reaching farther than I thought. I didn’t know enough about my power to say otherwise. And this girl wasn’t completely normal, there was something in her, projecting this field of altered reality.

That grating noise…that damn scream, right at the edge of my sight, thinking it could hide from me, thinking it can hide from its sins.

My song burst outwards, and there was a shiver, and the power bringing other worlds into this one pulled back, in confusion, in fear, and the eyes of the girl cleared just a bit, eyes of blue leaning towards grey staring back at me.

I gripped her hand, and I heard her heart beating in her chest, the light wheezes from exhaustion. I wasn’t sure what to do…so I panicked.

“I-I what’s your name?” I spoke softly, for her, for the girl who had been hurt so badly, for the person I wanted to help.

“Elle…Burton.”

My name is divine-promised-foreign-girl-of-the-fortified-citadel.

I heard the meaning behind her name, the words and the truth behind them, it was inherent, some part of me that was now Gem taking it in. I chewed on my lip, thinking.

I know I have the ability to excrete essence, so I should be able to heal, I should be able to help this girl. I lightly moved the girl, and after a moment of deliberation, I stuck my index finger in my mouth.

I pressed it against her cheek, and hoped for the best. I breathed outwards, and she coughed as she lit up in cerise. I had exhaled some of my essence, not on purpose but…

A few open wounds sealed, and I could hear her body adjusting to the healing energies surging into her system. She shuddered, releasing a soft cry. 

I gestured to one of the Corals, fingers curling, my nails clicking against each other. One approached, a cotton candy pink one, with two pairs of water wings. She softly cried, a quiet melodious and soothing tune that echoed.

Hush little child don’t say a word…

I picked the girl up, taking care of not letting any liquids drip onto me. She was lulled into sleep, and my shoulders dropped as the Corals sang a lullaby.

I was going to have to start looking for food if we now had a mouth to feed, and I don’t think I can live on light alone.

Probably, I haven’t checked.

I guess being here for fifteen days was the sign that I need to deal with new problems. I’ll figure something out…at least I know humans are a thing here, and that they had superpowers. 

I hummed quietly as I returned to my residence.

Elle Burton hadn’t woken up even after a few hours, and since I had found her at five in the afternoon. She would wake up either at midnight, or very early in the morning. I expected the latter more than the former, and the Corals had thankfully taken up the task of bathing her and giving her a change of clothes.

Regardless if I took the form of a man or woman I wasn’t going to change a minor I didn’t know. That was both weird and gross and a task I would fail at, not like I have experience in changing unconscious people and I don’t think I want the experience either.

There was no identification on her, nothing besides a torn sheet of paper with the words Asylum East on it. Nothing indicated where it was or what it meant or what kind of place it was. Though if one of their patients was in a state like this, I’m not sure I want to know.

Though the other scenario was that I had just housed someone very dangerous. 

But I couldn’t leave her to die in the middle of the woods, my heart wasn’t that cold, could never be that cold. Even then I had left two Corals to protect and watch her, and two of them were helping me with preparing the Gem Nursery. Which was why I was kissing a conifer tree leaking resin. 

The Injector could compress the resin into Amber, incubating the Gem within the tree and feeding off it’s life. Normally this would kill the tree, but using the healing powers of some of the new Gem types could slow the decay, and the external introduction of resources would further slow it down.

Era 3 used new organic healing Gems, and astral deconstruction of asteroids and planetoids for long term harvests, cycling in minerals and organic detritus and so on and so forth. They had also had a wider number of Gem species implanted to move around soil and ore composition. 

For example with pegmatite, optimum species would include Feldspar and Quartz, with a tertiary source of Mica. One harvest would drain and absorb Quartz, and Kindergartner workers would move deposits of Feldspar rich soil and earth to become a more optimum environment for Feldspar. 

Depending on the crystal composition of the pegmatite, following harvests would optimize for Spodumene, Beryl or Tourmaline. Though we would need to be careful to prevent the incidences of crystal twins for Feldspars, weird mixes of them with Quartz and so on. Garnets were a possibility too, and possibly Topaz due to it being similar to Granite from a certain standpoint.

If I went to Australia instead, I’d be able to find Lepidolite. Doing this kind of cycle reduced the strain on local energies, and seeding with outside minerals and life would make Kindergartens easily recoverable with time.

Scanning sweeps of the pegmatite rock indicated we could make Quartz, Feldspars, Mica, Tourmalines, and Garnets. The right distributions of essence would let us color the gemstones, so I could get a wide variety of specific subspecies as needed. 

I was aiming for Rose Quartz, Amethysts and Carnelians. For Feldspars, Sunstone and Labradorites sounded like a good choice. Plus some Muscovite Mica. For Garnets, Almandine and Rhodolite. Though I didn’t expect more than a handful of Garnets from a rock of this size. For the more common rocks, maybe a hundred plus Gems. For a low impact area anyhow.

Opals might also be possible in some other areas of the forest, they were an administrative type of Gem with limited long range combat abilities. I glanced, and found myself looking at a skittish deer.

Before I could blink, dark shapes burst out from the underbrush. At first I thought they were wolves, but their yips and cries and looks…they were coyotes. Big ones too, almost the size of wolves, and they were attacking in groups of three.

I jumped over them, and collided with a tree, clinging onto it as I watched them do their thing. They were sly and agile, and the solitary deer fled with the predators on her heels. They weren’t the first oddities I had seen here or the last, there were several packs of wolves, big hundred pounders at times, hunting the deer and elk, while the big coyotes took up other niches or pushed them out.

It was my best guess with the dead wolves I had found around mutant coyote territory. Plus…I had seen some passages from that time guy’s journal. From what was intact at least. There were about twenty journals, and a lot of them were damaged or just scribbles I couldn’t read.

My nails scratched furrows in the bark, and I saw they had grown longer since two days ago. I gave it another week or less before they became outright claws, and when I felt my hand…there was something about the bone, knobbly additions that shouldn’t be there…

Gems had retractable claws, so as an organic…I’d need an extra finger bone, perhaps something hollow, to allow the claws to telescope in and out as needed. Gems of course were made of light and didn’t need to follow those kinds of rules but I did as a flesh bag holding in a vast amount of light and magic.

I used to bite my nails when I was nervous, so my habit had changed up to chewing on a few clean pens I had, taking care not to tear them apart.

No. Back to work.

I slid down from the tree, and hurried over to the chunk of pegmatite. I tapped my fist against the hard stone, and had a good feeling about this one. This was good quality rock, highly fertile soil, and a lot of life to absorb and heal. And it was surrounded by conifer trees that would serve to incubate Ambers.

“Alright, this should serve nicely.” I cocked a hip, flipping my hair back for dramatic effect. 

And I was talking to myself again. I wasn’t doing any favors to my sanity with how weird I was acting…

I wasn’t sure if I should start with Gem production now…no a solid lump of rock wasn’t what was needed for a Kindergarten. The rock needed to be broken up into canyons and corridors, but I had no Gems except for Corals. I would need to build equipment, and I wasn’t exactly an expert on Gemtronics. 

That I had managed to make stuff so easily was probably because I had a computer brain now and could cheat the system. Plus very detailed instructions on how Gemforges are supposed to work. I’ve managed to build a larger cold forge, various hydrothermal methods mixed with magic to catalyze and speed up reactions. Now I was trying to rebuild the house with Gem tech, I just needed to build a Crystal Heart to generate a pocket dimension. 

Which brought forth the questions on magic itself because no matter what you think, they are magic. While advanced technology can be indistinguishable from magic, sufficiently advanced magic can also be indistinguishable from technology. The best description I had received was that magic was a vast and immense force, coming up from below, above, and between realities. 

It was a form of energy, primordial and fundamental negentropic force. With a seed of magic, almost anything was possible, bending reality and all it’s higher dimensions to change the laws of physics.

It was the substrate upon which all worlds rest, and Gems required an initial seed by draining the energies of life, and were compressed from the soil and earth into their gemstones. After that, light would continue to be absorbed by the Gem, believed to be used either as a secondary power source to magic or possibly along the lines of a power MOSFET. Merely powering the circuitry, and throttling the vast space where magic exists.

There were a few names for these layers of reality, Subspace, Hyperspace, the Ephemeral Planes, the Spirit World…the realm of magic was vast and unknowable, secrets buried within magical arcane crystal circuitry, secrets even the Diamonds didn’t know about their nature, about the true reality of their existence. There were a lot of missing pieces to how they had come to be. Plus…

Gem civilization is old, the Diamonds began civilization about five hundred thousand years ago, in the time of Homo heidelbergensis. Though they didn't really start being a big old galactic empire until Era 1. I think that was when they developed true FTL ships, though they had Warp Pads before then. 

Gems were powerful but they were slow to change, and it took their civilization much longer to reach equivalent populations and technological levels. Though perhaps it would be more accurate to say they stayed at the same level for centuries on end.

From what I knew, the Diamonds had been alone for a very long time, and it had taken vast stretches for them to figure out their powers, and they were limited by their lack of knowledge, and with only four people they didn’t have the manpower to make use of their lifespans.

But five hundred thousand years is five hundred thousand years…so they were still far more advanced than humans.

“My Corals.” I gestured to the two cuties, and they flew over, while I pointed to the thousand ton rocks “Can the two of you start cutting up the pegmatite into canyons and corridors, or get started on the beginnings of them?” Went unsaid was what I needed them for.

They knew, they understood subtext in the buzzing tip-tapping sound of my Gemsong. I was going to spend time practicing more with my Gem powers, there was so much left to unlock for myself. It was going to take a while, and keeping an eye on our guest was a good idea. 

I brushed off dust from my shorts, and moved.

I kissed a blueberry bush, and berries and leaves grew back from nothing. Was I breaking conservation of mass doing this, or was it somehow grabbing surrounding mass and converting it straight into plant matter with magic?

So many questions.

I had been growing quite a few plants, mainly the edible ones and had been practicing with watering and trimming them. Taking care of something alive really helped provide a distraction from being stuck in the middle of the woods for sixteen days. Even if I chose this, I had my doubts this was the plan…no something had gone wrong on one of the ends of this…deal.

Nothing I could change then, but I would have words with my benefactor, hopefully as equals. If not in experience or power but in simple respect for one another. At least my aura was growing stronger, my gemstone’s magic seeping deeper and deeper into my body.

I knew quite a bit about my power, they were tied in part to my emotions and my own will. For example I could reduce or increase my mass at will, propelling myself with the energies Gems used to move. But I wasn’t very good at it, and I hadn’t figured out floating.

Slowing my falls sure…but stopping in the air not so much. I knew floating involved positive emotions, joy, happiness, delight, while falling would involve negative emotions, or at least cancellation of the happy emotions.

If I wanted to describe how using magic felt, there was an…aura, a song, a sensation of wading in cool liquid fire, and pulling and twisting it like dough. Within that aura, there were a number of subsets, programs I could activate on the fly.

For my bubble shield, it was a sensation of fear, of wanting to be safe, pushing out the energy from my skin, prickling pins and needles for a millisecond before it became a giant bubble.

This aura had to be my Gem power, a veritable sea of limitless potential and life. I was bobbing for apples, with each apple being a different power, or a new application of a known power.

I clicked my tongue and reached for my shapeshifting. I pulled my aura like taffy, and thought of what I wanted. The skin on my arm began to…shift, as I formed plates of keratin, like pangolin scales hardened by concentrations of iron and hardened light.

Hardening was an interesting aspect, Gems inherently shifted the texture of their skin depending on what they needed. They had natural silky smooth skin, but during a fight they would harden into statues of marble, and I had figured out how to do the same.

The pangolin skin was just for fun though…iron wasn’t shit against magical light, unless I fortified it of course. The scales spread up and down and stopped when I told them to do so. I breathed and spikes formed from them, sharp crystalline things that I tested by puncturing a sheet of stray paper. 

I pulled back the power, and the scales folded back into my body, I pulled back more, and I felt my body return to its original shape. Hips less wide, waist wider, body hairier, and chest lacking in mammaries.

I immediately reached for that female form again in my head, and fat and muscle shifted around as needed. I prodded my chest to make sure everything was in order, and nodded.

Elle Burton had seen this look rather than my old one, giving her a friendly and known face to look at… Definitely a good idea. When she was more lucid, it’d be best to tell her the truth. I wasn’t sure what the best option with her was, I wasn’t exactly a good caretaker of children and teenagers.

In fact I was kind of an asshole sometimes, and was a bit too impatient to deal with people in general. That I had been given a Gem that was all about compassion and healing and love…I won’t say it feels wrong, but it’s weird.

But then this entire situation was weird, and I had been doing chores and assignments just to keep my sanity intact.

“More power testing.” I shook my head, no distractions again. The aura surged like fire burning inside of me, and I sang quietly, words turning into static and waving undulations of power.

My aura escaped the confines of my skin, and plants bloomed around me, surging with the life I radiated. Roses and amaranths and posies, and larger blueberries.  

I grabbed a blueberry and ate it, tasting sweet for a bit as I followed the tune of my Aura. So I didn’t even need to use spit, I could send out my Aura, my power in roiling waves of life giving energies.

I could imagine grabbing a hold of the energy field, of reducing my mass and inducing a directional field to propel me forward. To send me flying like Superman. 

I could dive deep into my Gem, into the new core of my being, the Aura to my Heart, the Spirit to my Soul. If I felt like it I could dive down to work on my own code, altering the programs. 

Instead of that, my vision picked up on dust hanging in sunlight, I saw the sunlight broken up into a rainbow spectrum, and then I didn’t. I could sense the auras of other beings, I could sense the Corals, I could sense the plants which had partaken of my essence, I could hear the calls of animals in the forest, their true meaning.

When I was paying attention anyway.

My shoulders stiffened, and the angle of possibilities shifted, something hissing, almost imperceptible, and it became louder. And louder, and louder…

The sound was followed by a rumble in the air, I cursed as the ground shivered and it was followed by a thin slash in the air, flickering from the deepest red to the lightest blue-purple-white ultraviolet, and fly-by-nights flew out in abundance. Something bounced off my head, and I reached for the object with cat-like reflexes.

Huh?

It was a large pink-purple gemstone, cut into a square with rounded corners, a cushion-cut from the looks of it. I could sense her aura, her Gemsong pulsing within arcane crystal. I was holding a Sapphire in my hand, a Gem doing all they needed to take form. 

I flipped over the gemstone, and I thought back to how he had mentioned the plan to send more Gems to help me. I suppose someone with future vision would be very useful for helping in planning out a colony. 

I gently held the core of another person’s being in my hand, and I knew the current of discomfort was there. If I gripped hard enough I could crack her, shatter her, if I didn’t keep her safe she could be broken into pieces.

I suppose they trusted me to take care of them…to keep them safe and sound. It was oddly…touching how much trust that implied. They had entrusted me with this Gem and others, and those Gems in turn trusted me as well.

I moved, my strides lengthening as I pulled up a small folded up blanket, and placed the Sapphire on it along with a pillow the Corals had made. I clasped my hands together and went to check up on another guest.

A guest room, equally as sparse as the larger master bedroom held a sleeping girl, a teenager really, but a thin and malnourished one. She was still sleeping deeply, even after new doses of my healing magic. I had fixed up the single bathroom, and collected the essence after turning the heat to broiling. 

Fortunately while my ichor is partially organic, the rest was ichor made of light and magic. Accidentally dehydrating myself would be rather annoying. Though the Corals could purify water on their own. Mainly by holding it, and then boiling it on a fire and waiting for it to condense.

I could still feel a presence, a mind that was both vast and so small, and one I denied entry. I had taken in the girl, but I didn’t know what to do and was going to have to wing it.

The platinum blonde’s skin had taken a more natural hue, and I would probably be preparing food for her. She was obviously hungry, and I was going to have to go out hunting, I couldn’t live off leftover food, nuts and berries forever. Neither could this kid, and I wasn’t going to be privy to the death of someone the same age as one of my cousins.

It was past six PM, and I had no idea when she was going to wake up. But I was certain she would…just a feeling, and not one I could describe with the time I had on hand.

There was a pulse, a growing song like soft chimes and a smooth hum, like the tones from a sleep music stream. I turned back, and flashed a smile and a thumb’s up at the guard Corals. They echoed back their joy, and I dove back into the messy living room. Right on the couch, the pink Sapphire was glowing in a regular pattern. 

It floated upwards, defying gravity, glowing in fuschia and pink, and in colors only I could see. The colors bathed the room in light, drowning out the dim lights of the barely functional mess of a house. 

A body formed around the gemstone, featureless and broken up into sections like a doll or a mannequin. A person formed onto it, a burst of aura and magic and tonal sounds. She emerged about a head shorter than me, definitely below five feet. 

Her frame was slim, though her hips were wider than I would have expected from a Gem. Bare feet a shade or two darker than bubblegum pink, with a slim waist and a wider chest in turn. More notable because of her lighter clothing, wearing a side slit tunic colored primrose pink with a ribbony top and straps shaded maroon, her cushion-cut gemstone peeking out. She wore a loose pair of dark fuschia sweatpants, and I glanced up to her face. 

The Gem…the Sapphire had a round face with prominent lips, a single large eye the color of deep pink, and dark fuschia hair pulled into a wild ponytail. There was a dark pink/light red triangle on her chest, and her large eye honed in on me in a matter of moments. 

She slowly dropped to the ground, her tunic fluttering on a sudden breeze. She looked around, blinking rapidly as she tapped at herself, as if checking for ticks or wounds. She nodded, lips pulling into a small almost uncertain smirk. “It worked perfectly. I knew it would.” There was strain in her song, a discordant note.

Are you sure about that? 

The Gem patted herself down, and stretched her sweater pants, checking and murmuring to herself. 

“Umm…?” I chirped, and the Gem jumped as if struck. She glanced over to me, brushing back a curling bang. 

“You must be…” She shut her mouth, as if shaken, but pushed ahead. “You must be the new Diamond His Radiance told us about.” There was a hint of something, awe maybe? No…not worship, it was excitement, curiosity, relief even…I didn’t know why that was though.

“Y-Yes?” I felt a little exposed, suddenly embarrassed, heat rising to my face.

She smiled easily, looking me in the eye with only a single twitch and soft pitch of discomfort. “I am Fuschia Sapphire Facet-AD16 Cushion-X7, and I am happy to say that I See you.”

O-Oh.

Okay.

I rubbed my hands together, trying not to fidget under the curious gaze of Fuschia Sapphire. She had given me a moment to think, simply softly humming, letting her sweet Gemsong out into the air with the chime of bells and the natural shifting of her voice.

She had a pretty voice, a pretty song, and my shoulders dropped at the realization that I wasn’t alone anymore. I had somebody to talk to, someone to communicate with that wasn’t my own thoughts and Gem VI puppy-kitten-worms. So…I was a little nervous, and I couldn’t help but feel less alone and miserable.

“She will wake up in 14 hours, two minutes and thirty two seconds.” She commented out of nowhere, and I jumped. She was gentle, speaking softly, and I smiled.

Her Gemsong was soothing, like silk weaved into a psychic language. I could see her aura of magic, the colors and charged ichors of the beings that formed her. Almost entirely pink, with some amount of blue, the auras of the Diamonds that made her what she was.

There was a visible inhumanity when I let my eyes roam. Her skin was just a little too perfect, with not even a single blemish, and a closer look found a lack of pores, kind of freaky but neat. Her eye was much larger than a human’s, like the mass of two eyes had been merged into just one. She had no bump on her face between her mouth and eye, nostrils flaring. 

Not quite a nose, but not quite a lack of chemical sense either. Physically she looked quite human, but there was a hint that it was a purposeful change, and there was a line between her chest and waist that gave the impression of insectile segmentation. Then there are other traits, like the pointed clicks her steps made on the hardwood floor, of scratching against the solid surface. The curl of her claws as she gestured, or the four fangs where canines would be in humans. 

Then there was the Gemsong, the weaving of language into my brain and into my gemstone. It was clear to me, and I…

“Umm…?” There was an uncomfortable aura from Fuschia Sapphire, and I leaned and stepped back.

“S-Sorry!” I apologized, wrapping my arm around my bust, face flushing. “I just, I’ve been alone for quite a while…and the Corals have only been around two days and they’re not…the same…” I trailed off at her expression, one of confusion and perhaps even a little horror.

“I…Aster Diamond said I was supposed to arrive right before you were to be sent off to this world.” Something chilled inside me, and I hesitantly grasped her arm.

“I…wasn’t supposed to be sent immediately?” She shook her head.

“No. He said that while you had less supplies, you were still given two weeks to settle your affairs. Did that not happen?” She sounded concerned and now I was too.

“I was given a psychic message in my dreams, chose to take on the mantle of a Diamond and woke up in the middle of the woods…which I’m pretty sure used to a city.” Irritation colored my timbre. “I managed to pull out a few things from my Gem and learn the basics but…I’ve been distracted.” I shrugged. 

“It seems there’s been quite a few problems with the Pink Sunrise Project.” I perked up, that was a factoid I hadn’t gotten to yet.

“The Pink Sunrise Project?” I asked expectantly.

Fuschia Sapphire let out a soft laugh. “You.” She pointed out, and I nodded. “It’s taken Aster Diamond a long time to piece together how his mother did the impossible. Most Gem production dropped to mere replacement level, and with the reduction of the mortality rate…”

“It wasn’t as much a problem as it could be.” I guessed, sitting down on the couch to rest my feet. 

“There are over three hundred trillion Gems within the Empire, so I would say so.” I almost choked…that was tens of thousands of times the population of my Earth. Fuschia(it was a mouthful…) she was bemused at my expression. “Even so, when Aster Diamond made his second tour of the colonies, he expressed an interest in more sustainable production. Reducing our impact and keeping our population steady if nothing else.”

“Second tour?” I asked, I’m not sure I was given anything in recent history.

“His first tour was in the first year and a half of Era 3, and he returned to his home of Earth for some time before…simply popping up in a colony as part of a road trip.” I thought about a traumatized sixteen year old leaving his home, to try and figure out what to do with his life. “He traversed the colonies for several months before returning back again.”

“And where does the Pink Sunrise Project come in?” This seemed a fair amount in the past now.

“Aster Diamond has been working on bringing organics and Gems for a long time, many human scientists contributed to the creation of the first true healing Gems.” She sounded nervous but not a lot. “With the creativity of humans and the power of Gems we terraformed several worlds, Venus, Mars, and Ceres.” That was either a very long term project or Gems are frighteningly efficient. “We’ve succeeded in creating Gems…but creating hybrids was much harder without needing to kill a Gem. And when the war started…quite a few projects were started up.”

“Dangerous ones?” She blinked.

“Not ethically or physically, the issue was keeping it secret, away from the tendrils of the Black Wyrm. And it didn’t meet any success until we came upon a source of energy to fuel one Gem. A very special type of Gem.”

“A Diamond…but why waste energy on one Gem, what else is so special about a Diamond?” 

“Do you know how a Diamond is made, your Illumination?” She was quiet, her chimes out of tune, a haunting cry.

“No.” I hadn’t found anything on the topic, whether it was omitted or in a different book I couldn’t be sure. Getting things out of my gem could still be an erratic project. 

“A Diamond is forged within the heart of a dying star, the vast heat and energy acting as a nursery for its power, empowering the seed of magic within its core.” I went still, something buzzing at the back of my mind. “And when a Diamond is ready to be completed…it will eat it’s parent alive, from the core to the plasma crust, the mass-energy of a giant star compressed into a single point.” She pointed to the gem on my stomach.

That is absolutely terrifying. 

“But…the cores of the Diamonds took millions of years to develop true driving minds, until at one point all the power was united within their Starhearts. Making new Diamonds is a rather difficult prospect in this era.”

“So where did he get the power to power a Diamond?”

“He didn’t.”

“Huh?”

Fuschia sat down next to me with a twinkle in her eye. “The Black Wyrm should have been the death of our species,” I nodded warily at her weary song. “Made of hundreds of billions of shards, some the size of planets and moons. But…when it came, it had already been unknowingly crippled, drained of power. Aster Diamond found that power, and sent forth the seed of magic into a dying star, colored with some of his Aura.”

“How the hell did he do that?” I asked in bewilderment, because what the flying fuck?

“The Black Wyrm feeds on stars himself, and Aster Diamond’s Peridot forced a fragment of His flesh to direct the energy into a selected star.” 

“Is it a specific star?”

“I believe your world calls it NML Cygni?” I nearly swallowed my tongue. That was a fifty solar mass red hypergiant, and she was saying my gem ate it. 

“I’m guessing that this wasn’t easily replicable, and it was more or less a divine miracle it worked to begin with?” 

“The energy they found…it almost directed itself, as if using the shard as a jumping off point, and completed by the addition of His Aura.” She sounded disturbed. “He didn’t tell me why he let it do so…but it happened, and the Diamond is now a part of you, and you are a part of it.”

“I’m not going to get a full explanation today.” A statement rather than a question.

“Tomorrow is more likely.”

“I’m going to take some time to rethink my entire life…do you mind?”

“Not at all…”

I’m already getting sick of this bullshit.

…

But at least I’m not alone. Not today.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.2

I woke up the following morning, around…eight AM give or take a couple of minutes, and my first guest still wasn’t up. Then again I had been told that around six twenty in the afternoon, so there was still some time before Fuschia’s prophecy came true.

I yawned and a quick check of my chest showed I had reverted back, though I already knew that since I had thought of doing so when I groggily removed myself from the realm of dreams. My shapeshifting seemed more or less indefinite, likely because I wasn’t straining to increase or decrease my mass. Once a stable shape was in place I could probably remain in it forever.

Again I wondered why my pulsing and tentative peering into the possibilities was telling me it was a good idea. I wasn’t a Sapphire so my ability to fuck with causality was a little less direct than that. It was more instinct, like a strong and precise gut feeling.

Though the truth was I was just curious, and I felt more or less okay about it. It wasn't that bad when I could just revert back. Was that weird? Did that mean there was something wrong about me or was I just being overdramatic? I mean…I never really put much thought into being…super-masculine, as I grew older anyway. Younger me was a little more insecure in those ways.

I wasn’t tall, I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t sporty, I wasn’t even good at applying my intelligence…too lazy, too awkward to ask for help like I should, and too easily focused on the wrong things to get work done. I had a half decade on one of my cousins and he was already taller than me.

So…maybe some of those insecurities are still there, why try this at all?

Eyebrows furrowed as I looked down at my hands, short claws curling with my fingers. 

Because…because I could mostly? I didn’t have a preference, might be another answer, I was always just…well me. Regardless of how I looked…I seemed alright with it? I’m not exactly good at explaining my own thoughts, I had bias and all that. 

The door opened and I let out a squeak, covering myself despite wearing clothes to bed. Fuschia was there, brushing back a loose bang and she didn’t look surprised at my appearance.

“Oh. I see you’re comfortable, perhaps I should…” I cleared my throat, stopping her in her tracks. Please don’t go. 

“No it’s okay. Just give me a minute…” I gave myself a moment, feeling my heart beating in my chest with a steady, heavy, dense tone. The differing sensations I was used to all my life, and I let them go for new sensations, for the beat to change just slightly. For the beat to echo against a rib cage different than the one I’ve known all my life.

Hair lengthens, mass moves from my waist and stomach to my hips and chest and my voice shifted higher, following the music I wanted to write. As the cerise glow subsided, I placed my hands around my almost flat stomach. I was still practicing my shapeshifting at every opportunity.

Turning into a dragon might be cool someday. I had to practice. 

“Okay was there something you needed?” I yawned, smacking my lips, my teeth clicking together. My tongue licked my teeth and found four were sharpened into daggers, like the fangs of a lion conformed to a human-like jaw. I should have been frightened by the changes, frightened by how I was becoming less human in some way.

But I had chosen this, and maybe I should have taken more time to consider or had more information. Maybe that was supposed to happen, and whatever messed up the plan affected that too. Either way I was being turned into a weird alien hybrid with superpowers so some minor mutations should be worth it.

I rubbed my eyes, taking care to not knick my eye like an idiot. Which was easy enough when a minor mental flex retracted the pointed ends of my nails into hollow, two parted bone. 

I was going to take an X-ray scan at some point just to see how weird my biology was now, especially with how a twelve hundred carat Diamond had been inserted where organs should be. Then again there were a ton of pointy bones in a human body. 

“The girl…should be waking up quite soon, it may be a good idea to greet her soon. She will not be in the best mental space…” There was a note of sympathy, and I pulled myself away from the soft blankets. I swung my legs overs, and landed on the ground. I slipped into a pair of shoes, adjusting my red top with a sigh. 

New clothing has been a must, and changing the color of Chroma was simple, simply shine concentrated light in a specific color and boom. Magic light to be specific, else every ship would be changing color willy nilly. 

A red shirt and black biker shorts were comfortable and easy to wear. 

I marched forward, paused, and realized I wasn’t exactly the most elegant walker as a female. I swung my hips, adjusting my posture and nodded. At the least my legs were less stubby…not by much though.

“Thank you for the alert Fuschia,” I smiled at her, unable to contain some of my relief. She flushed and bowed her head. “Is there anything else you can tell me about her…I'm not so good with people.” I would like help with that problem.

“It is my duty and my pleasure to do so Your Illumination.” I smiled again, and briefly patted her shoulder. She looked surprised, just a little bit.

“I guess so? But…it’s nice to have someone helping me out here.” Some of my frustration leaked out, discordant tunes ticking up. “And I would say you're pretty shining yourself.”

She was…to my Gem eyes at least. Gems looked a little different when you could see UV, though not by much. Their colors struck a little brighter, their texture was more clear, and their aura was more visible, a near-invisible field permeating their form.

She looked embarrassed, was it something I said?

“Ahem.” She covered her mouth with her left hand. “I predict Elle Burton will react positively to your presence. She will be afraid and confused, and your Aura will shield her from the negative effects of her power.”

“Negative effects?” I asked warily, and I remembered the pained landscape, like a twisted and broken psyche made reality.

“Her power appears to exchange lucidity for power, the less lucid and aware, the greater the range of her power, and the breadth of its strength.” She sounded disgusted, her hands turning to fists before relaxing. “I would look into her background, and try to predict more of her behavior…but humans can be quite unpredictable at times.”

“She…wasn’t doing okay when I found her,” It was really quite disturbing. “She was cold, hungry and afraid. I think she was an asylum patient, East Asylum was all I got from a torn paper.” I stepped forward, sidestepping her as I went out into the living room.

This place wasn’t large, more a modest shack than a luxury getaway. 

“Curious. Have you not attempted to find civilization?” Fuschia caught up with my stride, curiosity brimming in the air.

“We’re in the middle of the woods, and I’ve only had the Corals for three days. Even then I sent one out, and she traveled for dozens of miles and found no trace of people other than the ruins buried under plantlife.” Of course it was quite possible she went in the wrong direction…which would be annoying but not fatal.

Also…

“I’m not sure it would be a good idea.” I admitted, interlacing my fingers, lips pulled almost into a snarl. “I don’t have enough information about what we’re dealing with here…there could be some nasty things out there in the world.”

“So you believed staying in place was the best decision?” She asked, and I answered back at a quick clip.

“Yes. I have absolutely no experience with literally anything involving the work of the Diamonds, and sending out one of my Corals is a good way to get one of them shattered.” I didn’t want that to happen, they were mine, and throwing them away wasn’t a tactic I condoned. 

“I am not doubting you, merely trying to gain clarity. While I can see the course of your decisions…the Diamonds are a tad more complicated to predict than most Gems or humans.” She lifted her delicate hands up, her smile tentative. “You are new to this, and well…I am no different. I haven’t often had the chance to advise Diamond.”  She was definitely leaving something out, but I wasn’t going to call her out on it. Wait… 

“I never gave you my name did I?” I spoke aloud, feeling a little mortified. I might be a bit of a social dunce but not giving someone your name is another thing entirely. “I’m…err, Brandon Amaranth Rubio. Here at least. Though I suppose Brenda would fit for this form.” I gestured to my body, cocking a hip with a confidence I didn’t have. 

“It is very good to meet you.” She reciprocated my introduction, and touched my shoulder casually. “I hope for a good future for the both of us…” I nodded and then felt the bad feelings, hairs standing up.

“Time to check?” She let out a whirring humming chuff.  

This was going to be a mess, but it was a mess I wasn’t alone in dealing with anymore.

Thank the fucking universe for that.

I entered the room, and let out a growling track, pushing back on the presence again. The girl was moving, letting out soft cries that pulled at my heartstrings. There was a shift in the air, like reality was getting the shit beaten out of it to fit the whims of something else.

The girl’s eyes snapped open, the blue bordering on grey orbs staring up at the ceiling. Her gaze drifted towards me, and she seemed to relax, muscles losing their tension, joints cracking as she loosened up. Her heartbeat slowed, a quiet pitter patter at the edge of my hearing sensitivity.

“…” I could hear her murmur, and I didn’t quite understand what words she was saying. But I got the gist of it, she wanted me to come closer?

I crossed the room in only a few large steps, and the girl murmured again, looking through me. Her eyes sharpened, became more clear.

“Are you real?” She spoke up, almost afraid, almost…hopeful.

“Yes.” She shook her head, shivering. “You want me to prove it?” She nodded shyly, and I wondered who had hurt this child so badly.

I reached slowly, and placed my hand on her arm. She startled and her power was sluggish to react, I smiled carefully, doing my best to not be afraid. It wasn’t hard though, not even a little. There was a certainty, a confidence in my heart that there was nothing to fear from this poor girl. 

Her power summoned bark, twisted gnarls of wood before stopping as she calmed. What she made was left behind, and that slight twist of bad things went away.

“Are you hurt? Do you want something to eat?” I asked gently, not wanting to scare the poor girl.

There was a growl that hit the air, and the girl flushed, looking startled. 

“Food.” She said simply, and I offered my arm. She moved slowly, and managed to find herself on her feet, and a Coral silently passed her slippers to guard her feet. I guided her out of there room, and kept a soft but firm grip.

The girl leaned on me. “Warm…” I shrugged off my discomfort at being touched. I kept her on the path, and Elle stiffened as she saw someone in the kitchen.

Fuschia Sapphire had rather obviously seen this coming, with how she had cooked up some eggs, putting them on plates.

“How…?” 

“I prepared for this eventuality, and procured eggs from feral chicken and found cooking oil in a compartment you neglected to search in.” I opened and closed my mouth.

Elle blinked, confusion entering her eyes. “Singing…” the Gem glided over to us, the air shifting for her. She placed a plate for me and one for Elle, twirling a plastic fork for her and a metal one for me.

Where did she even find a plastic one?

“No I am not a fairy.” Fuschia piped up with a bemused tilt to her smile. Elle started, and then her eyes narrowed. “And no I am not reading your mind either, outside of Gemsong.” Her voice wiggled, bemusement broadcast.

“So how are you answering questions I haven’t told you?” Elle’s eyes were clearing up, and she wasn’t eating her food.

Fuschia wiggled her fingers. “~Magic~” Her song went up in pitch, and Elle made a face. 

“That’s not an answer.” She said flatly, and I laughed softly. 

“She can see the future.” I answered instead, and she looked curious, even with her somewhat blank expression. “And…” Elle swallowed. “I don’t want to pry much, but what happened to you…?”

She looked surprised, why?

“I…got away from the bad place, I heard a pretty song, like fire and drums and chiptunes.” Her voice was distant, and Fuschia sounded befuddled and worried. “It made it go away, I could think…clearly.”

“It?” I was way too soft, goddamn it.

“My power…I can’t, I can’t control it…I can’t…there’s something wrong with me.” There was so much fear in her voice, so much loneliness in those large blue-grey eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with you…” I tried to reassure her, but I didn’t know what I was doing. How could I?

“Then why can’t I control my power, why can't I be normal? ” There was something almost bitter, behind the childish rage, simmering and hidden beneath the layers of her power.

“Not all powers are so easy to control,” Fuschia entered the conversation, clasping her hands together. “Some can dominate over your mind, over your actions, with a will of their own.” She was definitely using her future vision. “But…I believe you can gain control, the future does not disallow it.”

“You’re lying.” She said, nose scrunching up and fists tightening, and I heard the bones crack under her skin.

“I am not, I pierce the veil of time, I see the myriad paths and walk down the most probable ones. I can see many paths where you can protect yourself from the influence of your power.” She was being sincere, and I hoped she was right. 

Elle looked so shocked, like it was impossible. “Can…can you help me?” There was desperation now, a jittering energy to her movements.

“We can try…but first you need to eat.” I pointed to the plate, doing my best to remain calm. 

Elle nodded, her expression shifting toward hunger.

The eggs really weren’t good, but it was a better alternative than the plain soup I had been eating three times a day.

“I’m already making plans for the food situation,” Fuschia informed me from my left, emerging with a wave of displaced air. “Acquiring a wider range of foodstuffs will be imperative.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “I’m getting sick of soup and old jerky and random edible plants I’ve been growing with my power.” I was twitchy, and I missed burritos, and tacos, and spaghetti and burgers and soda…damn. 

The Sapphire feigned a neutral expression but I could tell she was amused, and I grunted with equally feigned anger.

She was nice.

“Her power has been affected by your influence as a Diamond.” I nodded, already knowing the truth. “If there is one thing shared between the Diamonds of Cerise, it is their ability to shield the mind. The power to invoke desire as well…” I paused at Fuschia’s comment.

Desire huh? That made sense, Pink Diamond did represent such things. A desire to change, a desire to protect, a desire to hide secrets, a desire to destroy as well.

There were many things I desired, that I wanted…perhaps that was why…it chose me. It found in me a kindred spirit…

“Is she going to be alright?” I queried Fuschia quietly despite leaving two Corals to watch over Elle. 

“As long as she’s accompanied by a Gem every so often yes.” Fuschia held a pebble in her hand, and with a flick of her wrist the pebble skidded along a large pond. I marveled as it continued on for ninety skips before sinking to the bottom with an anemic plop. 

I guess Gems really are magic.

“Would it be alright if you take a look at the site we chose for the Kindergarten?” I asked nicely, and she perked up.

“It’s no trouble.” She offered a hand, and I took it without thinking. There was a crack of the sound barrier being touched, and I couldn’t even scream as we rushed by the land at the speed of sound.

We rushed between trees and rocks and rusted out cars and buses, and we slowed to a stop within several seconds. Fuschia looked a little winded, but she flashed a shy grin and strode over, floating just a little with each one.

Cute…

The pegmatite block looked a little different, the beginning of cracks from hydrokinetic cuts being carved into the rock. But Corals weren’t really the best option unless we’re talking hundreds. 

Which we couldn’t supply with the current Reef size, we needed to expand massively for that to happen, and while keeping them all happy wasn’t hard, herding a hundred space-cat-worms wasn’t my idea of a good time.

“You chose an excellent location, I foresee possibilities where many good Gems come from this site.” She patted the hard stone with her bare hand. “There’s also a suitable deposit of Anglesite and Titanite.” My eyes widened, oh I had missed that on the first sweep.

Titanite Gems are powerful telekinetics, who once had the role of distribution of construction material on Homeworld, while Anglesites are big defensive Gems able to invoke stillness on matter and energy. Though that was fairly new, some recent innovation with deep analysis of their powers.

Initially they just made their shields and walls more resistant and little else. But they had figured out many unique aspects to their magic. So far I had looked into over a hundred Gem types in some detail, their roles, and how they applied them to new jobs or how they changed up how they did their own ones.

I had only really skimmed it though, I had been busy with…other things.

I felt a hand place itself against my neck, and instead of stiffening I did the opposite and leaned into the contact. There was a pulse, Gemsong vibrating against my skin.

Query. Worry. Okay?

I glanced over to Sapphire, who was sitting on the tips of her toes to reach even my modest height…as well as floating. When she noticed my expression she let go, looking just a tad embarrassed.

“My apologies, I thought you knew about Code Patching.” Her bubblegum pink cheeks turned crimson, as if she was doing something quite scandalous. 

“I know the Corals get close to exchange information between each other, but not much more than that.” A bit of an oversight but whatever.

“Gems are able to pass code between each other through…close physical contact, though they are more…direct with their methods. I’m a bit better than most.” She answered bashfully. “Though I can only transfer small concepts with touch.”

“Direct contact means…what exactly?” I kneaded my hands together, fingers gliding against one another. 

“Kisses mostly.” I stumbled, blinking a lot in disbelief. And then I remembered that Garnet could pass her power through a kiss of all things and it wasn’t a one time thing.

“Huh?” I said dumbly, and Fuschia explained to my ignorant meat brain.

“It’s often faster than talking, and effective for more…abstract information, pictures, memories or sharing of certain perception abilities like my future sight.” She didn’t seem embarrassed, but there was a hint that she wanted to know what I thought of it.

“Kind of weird. Neat but weird.” I commented sincerely, it was weird but then being solar powered robots is no less strange or unusual. “So memories…would that include techniques and stuff?” I rolled my shoulders, getting a crick out of my neck.

“Code patching is common as is kissing, it’s not something to be embarrassed about even before Era 3,” She walked, her hands touching the stone. “Gems commonly exchange their knowledge, helping them learn as needed.” 

“Huh…that might be useful.” Even if it also sounded like a recipe for embarrassment, and it did sound kind of nice to get kissed a lot. But it appeared more to be the equivalent of a greeting, like some countries in Europe and I’m Mexican so that happens…mostly on the other end than myself.

I've never been good at affection.

“It may be something you’ll have to grow used to…it’s very common among most Gems.” Fuschia provided a warning, and I let out a hushed sigh. 

“Will I need to wait for other Gems to arrive to carve out the Kindergarten? Or is there an alternative I’m not seeing?” I moved on for now, there was time for learning about my other half later.

“Era 3 Injectors are capable of carving into the earth as needed for proper injection.” 

“Huh…I’ll get right on that, having it prepared should make things easier at least. Thank you.” She preened, though hid it when my gaze became more direct. “Well, it might be a good idea to check up on Elle, plus we need to pick up the new Corals.”

“Yes.” Was all she said, and I went just a little faster at the urgency in her song.

A dozen Corals were flitting about both inside and outside the house, with two of them cuddling up with a giggling platinum blonde. She looked in a better mood than the daze in the early morning. More awake and aware, but it seemed strained, disturbed even.

The Corals were doing their jobs keeping her calm, and she was lightly stroking one of them, fingers rushing past soft fur. 

“Hello Elle.” I greeted the teenager, and her eyes lit up in response. She was a little distant, but I could tell whatever hold her power had on her had been weakened.

“You…do you know where you are?” She asked, almost a leading question.

“I haven’t left this forest in two weeks and Fuschia Sapphire has been here for only about a day so…no.” I said with honesty, I didn’t have any idea, and my sources of knowledge were either rotten or didn’t focus on the outside world at all.

“So you don’t know about…capes.” She murmured, distress leaking through. “I don’t…know much…I’m always faraway.” Elle had a look on her face, a twitch of anger. “I can tell you…”

“If it’s something you want to do…there’s no obligation on your part.” There wasn’t, she was just a lost teenager. 

Her distant eyes hardened. “There are a lot of people with powers, there’s heroes and villains…and people like me.” It went unsaid that she was being hurtful towards herself. “I know the Protectorate are the heroes…and Scion was the first cape.” The blood drained from my face.

The pieces fell together all too quickly.

The mentions of the fractal Black Wyrm made of a hundred billion shards, the mentions of another of its kind being on an alternate Earth, the traversal through dimensions, the superpowered humans. Even this girl made sense under that realization, the mental effects of her power, the power itself and her asylum origin.

I was on Earth Bet, or at the least a version of Earth Bet. Which meant a lot of bad things when the context was known.

The Black Wyrm was an Entity, and I knew only a single described member of their species besides the Pair. The Gem Empire was fighting an intergalactic war with Abaddon, the origin of Contessa’s bullshit power, and I was supposed to find a way to take out Scion before he figured out how to cross into the realities of both mine and their worlds. Likely because one of the Loner’s fragments might manage to find their way here. 

Is this what Fuschia meant about getting a bigger part of the explanation? Because it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all. I wonder if she knew, or if she only had a sliver of the truth and didn’t want to bias me to something that might be wrong.

I wasn’t mad though, Seers were complicated business. Much less when there could be so much here messing with her power. So many threats, and so many things to watch out for.

Yet I knew far more than most, and I could still acquire access to my world in time. I didn’t have the equipment myself, but it was being delivered or made at some point. I didn’t know what year it was, but if Elle was the person I thought she was then we had more than a few months, years even. Maybe it was two, maybe it was four but it was more than enough to change the course of history.

And the Gem Empire was winning against an Entity, even if a heavily crippled one, and they had basically neutered three quarters of what was left. It might not mean I need to beat Scion, instead I have to stall until help can come. They might have weapons or tech capable of bitchslapping the golden Emmy into submission.

Might was the word there though…and this operation’s scale was…probably an answer in the negative. In the short term anyway.

“Hmm…” I was brought back to reality, and I coughed.

“I…yes, thank you for giving me some clarity. You’re a good kid.” Elle was skeptical but a silent stare was enough to convince her. She radiated a simple joy, and I glanced at Fuschia from the corner of my vision.

…

…

Hours passed like a blur after that, Fuschia keeping Elle company while I worked with the Corals. Inspecting them to see if they were up to code, as well as to see what they needed. We ate more soup, and Elle eventually went to sleep early.

Fuschia was right outside, pulling things out from her gemstone. They were plants in pots, some strange angular, geometric species, others were species I knew and recognized. 

Vaguely. 

“For food?” I let the words out through my vocal chords and psychic song, and the small Gem turned slightly.

“Each Gem has been entrusted with different devices and starting materials, though none of them currently carry what’s needed for a transuniversal polydimensional meta-vortex. It’s too…volatile for that.” She was apologetic and I almost rolled my eyes.

“Well the plan there is obviously to build an end here to make transportation quicker and easier.” A one way portal probably had a lot of unstated problems, at least I imagined they did. “Though…how much do you know about my world really?”

“Aster Diamond warned me that the people of your world are…at a nexus point of sorts,” She fiddled with her tunic, her smile wobbly. “Glimpses of foresight, not due to your own abilities but due to a throw of the dice…a coincidence.” She scoffed, flipping her hair. 

‘My world knows of the Enemy, it knows of your people too…in some way anyway.” I muttered quietly and she wasn’t surprised, how could she be with her power?

At least when combined with some common sense and reading between the lines.

“That changes nothing, it only means we’re less ignorant about the forces arrayed against us.” She said prettily, smugness and confidence suffusing her aura. My eyes narrowed when I realized she was right.

“You’re not wrong, I don’t know everything but I know enough. There are a lot of threats out there, though we’re quite far from most of them.” If we were in New Hampshire we’re likely hundreds of miles from Brockton Bay or anywhere else. We’re not threatened by African warlords like Moord Nag, or by the various stationary S-class threats, though the mobile ones are more…risky. 

We’re in the middle of a massive forest that’s been uninhabited by large numbers of people for at least a few years, and the treeline is quite extensive. Plus the fact we’ve gone unnoticed by Scion means he’s either more depressed than I thought or we couldn’t be seen or predicted.

If they were beating Abaddon, even if it was a battle over years, they had to have learned a few tricks for killing shards, for killing Entities. 

“Can you tell me about them…for Diviners such as myself, it helps to have a more detailed data set for our predictions.” There was a wistfulness there, like she was just making an excuse to talk with me.

“Well…I’ll start with the basics, the general outline of how heroes and villains work around this planet…”

The rest of the day was spent informing her on what I knew about this planet, as well as growing the Gem crop foods. Some type of super-wheat that could be turned into bread, a rice-like plant, a small tree that bears star-berries, and magic potatoes.

At the least we weren’t going to starve, and by we I of course meant the organics and not the solar powered robot diviner. After a long day and frightening revelations, I laid back against my bed which the Corals had fixed up somehow of their own accord.

I was on the surface of a planet fated to die, fated to be torn down by the rage and power of a golden man, in a world of monsters and men and alien gods. Where living firestorms walk the desert sands, of shadow beasts fed by the slaughter of thousands, of a fairy queen with the power to reap the dead.

Where monsters come from the earth, the sea and the sky. Indestructible abominations capable of devastating landmasses, and an angel of death and her decades long plans to finish a broken cycle. With seventeen more of their brethren lying in wait in worlds we couldn’t yet find.

It sounded hopeless but I knew it wasn’t, another Entity was already dying elsewhere in the multiverse, one that had been at the peak of its power had been slain and reduced to a shell. Even if it hadn’t been directly by the hands of the Gem Empire, they were still fighting one with millions of shards.

They had simply needed someone who could protect the Earth from another angle, and I didn’t mind since that was a blade towards my home too. My world, my people, my family, My.

I snuggled into the blanket, and began to focus on sleeping. I didn’t need my anxiety to steal my sleep like it’s done for the last few months. There was time, and I was going to use that time wisely. 

There wasn’t much else I could do.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.3

I woke up to a rumbling of the earth, and when I ripped my blankets off of me, I was smacked in the face by three shiny rocks.

Da fuck?!

One gem of a green coloration landed on my chest while an orange-yellow gemstone landed on my stomach. I stared, but then recalled the same thing had happened with Fuschia and her own gem. She had arrived on the first of April, while these guys had arrived on the fourth. So there was a roughly three day interval between the arrival of new Gems to whatever this place was going to be called. 

One I recognized as an Aventurine Quartz while the other was…an Amber, which I suppose was just what we needed in some way. Their healing powers were strong, and their ability to process organic matter was unprecedented. The third Gem was a Peridot with an Asscher-cut. A certified Kindergartener would certainly be a big help since I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

I held the gemstones against my chest for the moment, and one hand brushed back bangs. Today I slept in my, what do I call it? Female form? I had been curious about the differences, and the day prior I had slept in my ‘base’ form.

Which I usually did, because it was more comfortable…probably? I’m not too sure since I slept soundly tonight, it didn’t make much of a difference anymore. I had three Gems ready to form within the next hour, including people who had more than an inkling of what they were doing.

I leapt out of the bed, slipping on a pair of shoes and hopping to the door. I moved quickly, and found Fuschia already out and about.

“So I’m guessing you already know?” I held the gems out, and she smiled with a mysterious look on her…

One of the gems glowed, and I lost hold of the Peridot in my panic. Oh shit oh shit I’m not prepared…it’s only been a few minutes, why, why, WHY!

The Peridot glowed and lifted, and a mannequin of light took shape and form. Another day, another regeneration. 

A tiny body, around the same height as Sapphire, with slim almost delicate features, with slightly wider proportions than the one Peridot I knew. Her uniform was…basically a Star Trek sweater colored black and green, with the pin colored the same…shade as my gem. She wore tight black and green pants, about the same as that Peridot, but with more black. She had her gem on her upper thigh, and unruly triangular hair with long straight bangs covering her eyes, and a scrunchie turning the top of her hair into a very odd ponytail.

She had a placid smile on her face, cocking a hip with a natural sway to her movements. She did a quick half-lazy Diamond salute, which she followed up with with a more human salute for some reason.

“Oh…you must be the Diamond right? You’re quite short.” I stared at the dig at my height. “Peridot Facet-25FL Asscher-5XI at your service for all your technician and kindergartener needs.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m…I suppose formally I would be Sunrise Diamond.” She had given out her facet number so I gave that in return.

“Alpenglow right?” Was said with a lazy drawl by Peridot Facet-25FL Asscher-5XI. I blinked at the non sequitur.

“Yes…? It was more or less what I was going with when I thought of a formal title.” I scratched my shape, nerves striking me then. The Peridot approached me, rubbing her chin as her lethargy was pushed back. 

“May I inspect your Gem?” She asked politely, to the tune of soft electric guitar and the striking of glass against glass.

I lifted my shirt, more curious than embarrassed at the idea. Not like she was asking me to take off my clothes. She poked my gem, and I wondered how she saw past those bangs.

“A curious cut…Magna versus the Pavillion-cut of Steven Universe,” I ignored how her rendition of his name jumped out at me. “A Pink Diamond, though bordering on red.” She pulled an object from her gem and took a scan. “Similar wavelength pattern to his gem, likely the same or very similar powers.”

The object was basically a glowing black metallic dowsing rod mixed with a tuning fork.

“Wavelength?”

She spoke slowly, rubbing one of her eyes. “Each Gem has their own unique wavelength and frequency pattern, yours is similar of course to Pink Diamond’s son.” 

“Sounds complicated.” I responded. “But that makes sense, the entire process of Gem production involves the creation of sophont life from raw crystal ores.” I couldn’t help my interest though, this was magic refined into advanced super technology. 

“Yep. Metaphysics is a complex field, much less the metacognitive hyperfields that permeate the interior multidimensional metamaterial circuitry of Gems.” 

Hyperfields?

“I have no idea what that means…but it does sound intriguing.” The Peridot’s gaze drifted towards the bracelet and there was a pulsing chirp of excitement from her.

She pointed. “You made that yourself didn't you?” I bobbed my head shyly. “A bit primitive, but there’s potential there. With sufficient training…yes, I reckon we’re going to get along nicely. ” There was an almost seductive aura to her voice, excitement brimming from her.

“Okay.” Was all I said, shifting my weight from foot to foot in a nervous pattern. The Peridot paused.

“Am I being too forward? I’ve been told I can be…pushy.” Her casual slouch had become something more fragile, less silly. “I’ve mentioned my Facet number, but most call me Olly.” She smiled softly, almost nostalgic. 

“Olly like Olivine?” I asked with just a little humor. 

“You get it.” She seemed happy with something. “Before the advent of Era 3 I had a hard time finding higher ups with an interest in my work…barring an exception or two over the centuries.” She shrugged off the weight of hundreds of years like it was nothing. “You have a working understanding of Gemtronics, I know more and I would like to teach you.”

“I don’t mind that at all just…tone it back a little? I’m not so good with…social situations.” I rubbed my neck, nostrils flaring in frustration. “But I am interested in what you know, I’ve picked a site for a small Kindergarten but I’m mostly working off intuition and the sensors of the Injector.”

“The intuition of a Diamond can be a very effective weapon you know,” Olly chattered, flicking a hair back into place. “Unlike humans we rarely roll dice blind, it’s almost always with precision and foresight.” She explained with a laid back note, cupping her right cheek.

“I would still like a second opinion, I’ve had my power for maybe…twenty days. And I was human before now, not Gem.”

“Then we should get right on that, show me the…what are you calling it?”

“Alpha Kindergarten…a Nursery maybe?” I suggested and Olly accepted the answer easily.

“That’ll work, let’s go!” I was dragged forward, and I felt impossibly soft hands guiding me.

“Wait I need to place the gems here in a safe place…” Olly slowed, and Fuschia popped her head in, from where she had been singing a quiet song to Elle.

“Take them with you.” She recommended with a dire pulse.

I was dragged more slowly, and let Olly’s insistent song pluck at my own.

I leaned against a tree, hearing the sound of metal slamming against metal, and the burbling of a Cold Gemforge. Olly had taken a single look at my Gemforge and proceeded to rip it apart and rebuild it, utilizing parts and components stored in her gem. She had rampaged through a Home Depot, and began growing more crystal-based components and technologies.

The original Gemforge was now the size of an oil barrel, and a number of beakers and containers and other esoteric parts had been broken out, and that was before we had even left towards the potential(maybe?) Kindergarten. 

She had quickly worked on expanding the house, building a handful of robots in a matter of minutes. A number of other tubs had been made from barrels, modified into holders of solutions, and everything from vials to syringes and bottles and jugs had been put in place. She had asked for some of my essence, and the house was going to be up to Empire standards within a few days.

According to her anyway.

She was preparing to build a Crystal Heart that would act as the main power plant of the house, and create a number of pocket dimensions. But for now she was taking in the Kindergarten site being dug out by four Corals and the Injector.

She had found a car, and had broken it down into a large six legged robot, resembling an emerald-shaded pillbug. It was digging into the earth, the twisting as a head drill cut tunnels and passages into the earth.

“You picked an excellent location, a good variety of mineralogical ore for different Gems and surrounded by useful organic matter.” Olly complimented me, drawing out her words as she inspected a wall. “We should be able to extract several hundred Gems without excessive damage. And once we build up the resources for Reseeding that’ll double.”

“What about technology and infrastructure? We’ve confirmed this forest has grown atop a town.” Which meant there was a lot of ruins to mine out for materials that usually aren’t very…concentrated. 

“I’ve sourced semiconductors and rare earth metals from several electronics stores, as well as steel and aluminum from vehicles.”

“Can I help you with that?” I asked hopefully and she had…a look on her face.

“I’ve tasked some Robonoids for that…there are a few too many bodies for my taste.” She sounded haunted, her lackadaisical attitude cracking. “But you can help lift any scrap they bring back.”

Oh.

“Fair enough.” I wasn’t interested in corpses, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. “Umm…what do you think about my Corals?”

Olly blinked for the first time in several minutes. “Oh. They’re good quality Gems, though their wavelength patterns are off. We’ve never had Gems made with five ichors before.” Made sense to me, there had never been five Diamonds before, and my ichor was probably unique in some small way.

There was no telling what a mixing of such potent magic would be.

“The new Gem types of Era 3 would have been very useful in earlier times, from what I’ve read up on old records, like the war with the Apoquiae Maszyna.” 

“The what? ” I struggled to make a more coherent statement. “I thought humans were the first intelligent species Gems encountered?” I was pretty sure about that, unless this was significantly more divergent than the world I knew from a scream.

“They are,” I blinked. “But it doesn't mean we haven’t encountered dangerous entities. The Maszyna was an evolving mechology, sentient machines capable of self replication. Their most basic units were complex nanomachines, capable of breaking down matter, and repairing larger macro-components which in turn shielded them from radiation and hard vacuum.”

I tried to look Olly in the eye. “And when…was this?” 

“This was before Era 1, maybe about one hundred twenty thousand years ago? Before my time,” She shrugged, her soft purr projecting her interest in the matter. “We Gems are powerful but we change slowly, the Diamonds were million of years old when we figured out space travel. We didn’t have faster than light drives yet, so we stuck to close by systems and set up Ward Pads over many centuries.” 

“I suppose you’re fairly invested in the history of Gems?” I wasn’t shocked, there was a lot of history to cover. 

“Where do I even begin! The Diamonds themselves emerged over a large span of time, with White Diamond forming around seven million years ago, Yellow and Blue Diamond five million years ago while Pink Diamond emerged half a million years later. The first Gems emerged five hundred thousand years ago and…” She babbled on, her Gemsong speeding up into a barely decipherable mess. 

“Could you slow down? I can’t really understand you.” Olly blushed, tilting her head and flashing a placid smile, fangs glinting in the sunlight.

“Sorry. I’m very passionate about history, and the Diamonds have been much more open with the history of our species over the last seventeen years. A lot of good news for me…hehehe!” Her chuckle was deeper, manic in a different manner than that Peridot.

“It’s fine. So how long do you think it’ll take to get this place set up?” I gestured to the Kindergarten. 

“A few sweeps, and we’ll need our sole Amber to regenerate. Studies have shown we need a continuous supply of Ambergris fluid, preferably mixed with mineral solutions and ores.”

“Where did Amber come into play? Plus how exactly do the healing powers of Ambers work?” I questioned, standing up and sauntering over to Olly.

“They’re part of a fairly elaborate project, one that a few hundred Kindergartners worked on with the advent of Era 3. A Peridot from Pink Diamond’s court had gathered two thousand one hundred years of research on the biology of humans and other organics.” I nodded, my interest caught while Olly ranted, arms thrown in the air. “She managed to obtain permission from Aster Diamond to look at old records of Pink Diamond…she’s been working on integrating organics for a long time.” There was a break in the music, discomfort I didn’t analyze.

“And the Ambers are one of the projects that came out of it?” I continued for her sake.

Olly had moved away from the stone, instead working with odd equipment to cut into shape the processor cores of her Robonoids. Some of my essence had been used to infuse magic into it, along with strange magic channeling devices. Though she called them hyperfield energies.

“They are among the first modern ‘organic’ Gems, alongside Ammolites, Corals and Petrified Woods. Their connection to organic life has made it easier to instill in them the ability to manipulate life.” She hammered a ball into shape, the shell for the Robonoid coming together. “Ambers have control over a special liquid with healing properties. This lets them heal cracked Gems and some Gem technologies and provides a buffer for our production.”

“Cool.” I said truthfully. I glanced at the small field Gemforge with longing, I wanted to learn more but…

“You want to learn don’t you?” Olly had a sly look on her green face. I nodded shyly, releasing a rhythmic chuff. She offered a seat on a floating circular cushion, and I took it. The forge was small, a drum surrounded by chisels and hammers and esoteric angle grinders. “I can teach you.” 

Yes.

She showed me how to mix vials, how different concentrations of magic-infused chemicals could be used to grow crystals more efficiently or with unique properties. For example she was growing cuprite crystal infused with other metals, ratios of magic imbuing it with superconductive properties and malleability comparable to other metals rather than glass…

This ‘shoddy’ product was as strong as steel, and capable of withstanding up to 1200K before losing it’s superconducting properties. I didn’t have the hand eye coordination for tweezers, but Olly wasn’t convinced.

“You haven’t learned how to accept code patching right?” I didn’t let my face heat up, though it rushed into my ears instead.

 I had joked about the idea of kissing being common…the reality was a lot different. I was a lot less prepared for the cultural differences between humans and Gems.

“No I haven’t.” But I was going to have to figure this out, because leaving out a big part of Gem culture because I felt uncomfortable seemed…selfish.

“It’s really quite simple, do you want to try?” After a moment of deliberation I accepted her counsel. 

She leaned forward, and I felt the light brush of her lips against my cheek, and there was a rush of…

Memory. Thought. Learn. Hold. 

I remembered green hands, the sweet song of someone older and wiser, nasally banter, lessons after lesson, refining borne knowledge. I grabbed the tweezer, and followed the rote memory weaved into my mind. I plucked a wire out, and twisted it as remembered. 

I got it on the next try.

We were walking back, with two Gems in the pockets of my crimson hoodie. To my shock I could see Elle was out and about, and I could tell she wasn’t quite happy. Not quite sad either but…she was being watched by Fuschia at least.

“That’s the Elle Burton human isn’t it?” Olly pointed out the sole full human in our little, whatever kind of social group we counted as. “The one with the dangerous volatile power connected to her mind.” 

“Yes.” 

“I’ll have to prescribe her some treatment options, the right ichor blend might be able to help her. White at least…Pink, your own Cerise might have some interesting properties.”

“You think medication will work against a shard? ” She has a smug look on her face.

“We’ve done it before, we’ve had a few thousand shards join our side of the war.” I didn’t have a response for that. But I guess when you’re making drugs out of Diamond juice anything is possible. “But we need therapists for any of that to take any more permanent effect.”

We couldn’t continue the conversation because I suddenly had a fifteen year old girl clamoring for my attention. Which was also when I realized she was taller than me, even if only by three inches. 

“You’re okay.” Elle spoke softly, worry lingering in her voice, eyes clouded just a little. She touched my arm, as if checking for a pulse. “I got worried.” She wasn’t saying as much, and Fuschia nodded grimly. “Who’s this?” Elle’s attention shifted to Olly.

“Call me Olly!” The green Gem slumped forward, becoming more relaxed. I glanced over to the house, where parts of it had been shifted around.

Now I knew why Fuschia wanted the Gems out of the house, she was busy trying to keep them away from Elle.

“Olly…” She was looking at something neither of us could see, likely the worlds she had to explore to gain access to them. The ones that kept her in an endless deep haze. “You’re very green.” She declared with a nod.

“Of course I am. I am a Peridot after all.” There was a more cautious look to Olly, not pitying, more…empathetic. “Are you alright human child?” 

“Not a child.” There was a brief shine through the fog, and Olly smiled.

“You are to me, I’m over three thousand years old.” Olly shifted her posture, more relaxed. “But it’s good to see some fire from you…you’ll need that in the future.”

Elle’s eyebrows furrowed. “For what?”

“So we can help you of course.” Olly’s smile was blinding. “I’ve helped mix prescriptions for a fair share of people with…influential powers in the past.”

“Drugs don’t work…” There was a hint of something like fear in those big eyes, Elle quivering. 

“ Human medications don’t work, my kind has a greater understanding of powers. And it’s not an insta-fix either but it’s a start…is that okay with you? Will you let us try?” 

Elle looked confused but agreed soon after. Which was followed up by a bright yellow-orange light from one of my pockets. I jumped and pulled out the offending gem. The cabochon lit up, bathing the patio with it’s light and song. 

For the second time today, I was met with a Gem reformation, and from a type I wasn’t familiar with. She reformed quickly, limbs and arms and fingers and bodily shape emerging from the mass of magical light.

Orange boots clicked against the ground, and I looked at the newest Gem to form. She was taller, maybe about five foot seven or eight. She was wearing a red vest over a pinkish grey feathered dress, with an odd sort of butt(Kama?) cape in the shape and texture of a beetle’s elytra, shining gold with splotches of crimson. Her arms were bare, showing off soft yellow skin. Her oval and high cheeked face expressed surprise, large eyes with pupils of marigold blinking once. Her hair was made of liquid burnished gold, curly semi-translucent hair extending to her shoulders. A pair of wings emerged from her back, and I guessed they were connected to her gem, the core of her being.

She clapped her hands together, and twirled around, as if showing off before finishing it with a pose. 

“Hello world!” She began bouncing, her Gemsong more insistent, like the sound of beating insectile wings and the light metallic twang of a triangle instrument and the wooden hollow of claves. It was bouncy and warm, reverberating against my teeth. “Yellow Amber Facet-27E Cabochon-815 reporting for duty.” Her salute was less lazy but more energetic, her song buzzing into me. 

Elle had flinched back, and Amber's expression had become warmer and kinder, her body posture becoming non-threatening and her Gemsong softer and more soothing. She smiled, revealing pointed teeth, though most weren’t too sharp, with the exception of her canines and lateral incisors lengthened into eight fangs. 

Though of course the canines were longer and more robust than the more intermediate incisors. It was just a little disconcerting and it seemed Elle had the same thoughts with her wide eyes.

Amber frowned. “Ahh. Did I scare you?” She asked the both of us, though she was more focused on the clearly younger human. I shook my head in denial, it was simply unexpected but not bad. “Sorry if my smile scares you Foggy.” She gestured to Elle, the girl reacting with a befuddled blink.

“Foggy?” Elle asked, face scrunching up.

“Your eyes Foggy.” Amber pointed to her own, crossing her arms over her chest. “They’re a very pretty shade is all, I can call you something else if you like. I’m not picky.”

“What about you?” Elle blurted out, her eyes wide and soft. “What do people call you?”

Amber grinned, her wings fluttering behind her. “Most of my friends call me Ambz.” The deeper fog in Elle’s eyes receded, though she had a naturally fogged glassy luster to them regardless.

Seems like everyone was going to get along, for today at least.

I lifted the Crystal Heart, setting it in place as Olly had instructed. A series of cerise veins, power wiring fused with the heart shaped core, and there was a flicker of light, a quiet hum of semi-sentient life in the core room that the Peridot had built over several hours.

I had helped her construct a Hot Gemforge, a solar furnace with a Gemtronic battery. Chroma was rendered down and mixed with harvested materials from the city and underground using what she called an Excavator Pole.

It was a strange length of pipe with a champagne luster, formed with three prongs curled into solenoids, with a gem built in the middle, with circuit lines running up and down the tool. It was a magic tool, pulling in dirt and rock and rubble at one end, and compressing and melting it into solid blocks of rock at the other end.

It could extend twenty feet, so even a single Gem can excavate entire caverns in a fraction of the time entire packs of human-made machines could. She later melted the rock down into its constituent elements. Something similar to molten salt electrolysis, mixed with a special goop capable of sorting matter by elements. 

Magic basically. 

A lot of Gem technology was made with the same methods Gems were, though they were less resource intensive in a lot of ways and most lacked the sapience that Gems came with. Ichor was the lifeblood of the Gem species, and…

My instincts screamed out, and I could feel the aura of magic spread out through the veins. And through the rest of the house, and in a moment reality inverted on itself. My gem flashed with dark pinks and light reds, reacting to the setup of the multidimensional matrix of the official Gem structure.

The science involved highly complicated mathematics in over thirty two dimensions, and related to the ability of hyperfield energies to alter the laws of physics. Gem pocket dimensions were bubbles of space in higher dimensions, metaphysical reality levels above the physical dimensions.

The Empire’s understanding of the nature of reality was far more complete than what humans had, they knew the functioning of higher reality levels better than I did and how to leverage that into mystical machinery.

There was a ringtone from my micro-Composer, and it projected a screen revealing Olly’s neutral expression. “The Gestalt is active, all rooms have been rearranged and modernized towards Empire standards…” She informed me and I walked forward, following my own common sense. I walked through a corridor, turning myself around, and following instinctual directions until…

I was back in the living room, stepping through a door that shimmered away into light. All the other rooms were gone, subsumed into the series of interconnected pocket dimensions, and there was a door leading directly outside. 

I stepped out, and looked at the base in surprise. It was in the shape of a stepped pyramid, maybe thirty meters tall, like a Mayan temple in red, with the steps covered in greenery, plots of soil and streams of water feeding various plants. It was fifty meters wide, more or less consuming a third of a block. Which was easy enough when every house within several hundred feet was rubble. There was a door of course, and several blocks were moved aside for strange curved windows. 

From above there wasn’t much to see due to the treeline, and some type of optical diversion field Olly built. It was a weak one, and inexpensive for her time. Every Gem(and Elle.) had their own room linked to either their gemstone, or a key on their person keyed to their biosignature. Most of the rooms were connected by hallways, with each space being a private spot for the Gems. 

Other buildings would be set up as needed, for what was currently being labeled a fairly lame unnamed settlement. For now there was a trickle of Gems, and tools parked right besides this reality, pulling off tricks to keep us off the radar. 

The Gems had managed to personally take down shards themselves, and their experience gave them a deluge of experience to draw from. The only reason they hadn’t sent a billion man army was because they had their hands full putting out fires across four galaxies. Plus catching Abaddon’s attention with that amount of troop movement was a bad move…and the ensuing battle with Scion would kill hundreds of millions, crushing entire Earths under the combined weight of two alien species.

But we couldn’t stay here forever, the point of coming here was to neutralize the Entities, mainly Scion and eventually the Endbringers and the other shards. Endbringers and shards without restrictions lead to Ward, and I’m not dealing with that.

We needed more information and I wouldn’t call Elle someone who’s up to date on current events. The best guess was the last entry of the time manipulating cape, which had been about a month ago, and said…it was 2009.

So two years before the start of ‘Canon’ another two before Gold Morning and two more before Ward. Six years for a lot of bullshit to go down, and I had pretty much confessed everything to Fuschia because I can’t see centuries into the future.

Though to be fair, while Sapphires can look farther than Entities can, looking that far tends to create a lot of gibberish. Refining a vision like that can take years, decades, even centuries in some cases. They might even get an accurate vision, but it’ll be so disconnected from current reality it’ll take them tens of thousands of years to realize it in hindsight.

It had happened during the Rebellion, and it had happened when Steven had broken the Empire with words. They had magic but they weren’t gods, even if they were beyond humanity in some ways.

“I’m still on the line,” I blushed when Olly added her Gemsong, an electric distortion coming through the communicator. “With the Hot Gemforge in place, we can begin working on setting up some limited communication with the Empire. Given some more time, I believe the same is possible with your world.”

I very briefly floated, something like joy-happiness-relief mustering it’s way into my heart.

“Thank you…” I smiled.

Olly coughed, eyes unblinking. “Yes…well while you haven’t officially Courted any Gems, that does not mean we can’t help you because we want to. ”

“Court…is that like a cultural thing, or a weird sort of psychic social bond thing?”

“A bit from column A and column B.” She said at a clip, looking at something I couldn’t see on screen. 

I rubbed my eyes. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow, long as one of you runs me through it.”

“Of course…”

I wonder if the Aventurine has emerged yet? Amber ended up taking her to wait for her regeneration. I yawned.

Whatever …I’ll find out tomorrow. I don’t have time for this shit.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.4

I rolled my shoulders, twisting my waist and getting a satisfying cracking sound in the process. Another two days had passed, making it the sixth of April. Aventurine had regenerated but I hadn’t seen her even once in that time.

Amber(Ambz) said her variety of Gem were lone wolves, or perhaps they needed more time for themselves than the average Quartz. They were basically more dedicated towards scouting other worlds along with other Gem types with similar roles like Axinites, but with greater muscle and strength.

Apparently she was out scouting the entirety of the White Mountains, and checking out what few places remained. Mostly ranger stations, and reclaimed roads from the looks of it.

Olly said it would take her a maybe fifteen minute run to go from one end to the other, which left me…just a little freaked out when the White Mountains were eighty seven miles from end to end. But then Gems had always been stronger and faster than humans. Plus having nearly limitless endurance let them overcome humans even at the same speed. Without stops they could go further…

Though they had limits of course related to background radiation, and the limited power output of a Gem. They have effectively limitless energy, but they can only gather so much at a time, and it takes time to create invocations of their power.

I looked at myself in the mirror, scratching my face. My outfit had gone through an update, after I had made some Pebbles by mistake. They had taken to going through my wardrobe and weaved Chroma with the Corals. There were about six of the little guys, and they were happy to help. 

I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted within reason, and they at least had a basic set of morals even if they were of lower complexity than most Gems. Each Gem had a purpose and all, and removing it completely isn’t really an easy thing, nor should it be forced.

Most of the differences in programming between Era 3 and the previous ones were related less to their roles and more to their ability to think outside the box. A Ruby could choose to be a soldier, a guard, to remain in their role, but they had the ability, and the right to choose something else, to be a florist, to be a caretaker, to be whatever they wanted to be.

But they would always retain certain aspects of their Gem-type, and it wasn’t inherently bad, it was just something that separated them from humans because of their inorganic robotic nature. Wait…

Right…outfit, what had they decided would fit my person?

Nothing fancy, a red shirt that fit tightly to my frame and black fleece pants with pockets. There was a seamless square opening, exposing my gem to both the world and ambient sunlight and energy. As a guy, I felt that it made my belly a little too prominent, though most of the fat had slowly gone away over time. 

And by slowly I meant I had lost ten pounds in a period of around three weeks. But then Steven managed to go from a few inches taller than me to only a smidgen shorter than an eight foot Jasper. I was lucky I wasn’t much invested in my height anymore. Suddenly finding myself at twelve feet tall would be rather annoying to deal with, and I wasn’t into that. 

I shook my head, more intent on parsing my own appearance. I’m not sure why I cared so much, but I did so this was happening. I still shifted to girl every now and then, even when Elle had already figured out this wasn’t my original look. She trusted me regardless, because I had helped her.

On this frame, the red shirt fit more snugly as part of the shift. I still wondered about my choice in giving this body…a particular large size around the bust area. Though it was apparently easier to shift this naturally than leaning in the other direction. Probably genetics…and I pinched the bridge of my nose at the intrusive thought.

My arms weren’t as thin as they used to be, more toned from lifting and moving things around over a long period of time. As I inspected myself, I placed my hands on my hips. I put myself at a medium if not a little larger, definitely a lot of hip and butt room there. Of course what was more relevant was the increasing feature of Gem biology becoming more apparent. 

My nails curled into claws extending half an inch from the tips of my fingers, like I had let my nails grow out and sharpened them into daggers. A feeling like a blink retracted them, shortening them into pointed nails rather than implements of slashing and grappling. I had tested them out, and they cut furrows in steel. A single swipe was more than capable of ripping through bone and flesh.

I prefer not to think about it.

I leaned in, and my diamond pupils shuttered into focus. My hair had deeper cerise streaks, the tips of my hair swirling with red amaranthus and dark roses. The closest comparison was Ruby Rose’s hair, which was either black graduating into red or an almost-black red becoming lighter towards the tips. The color was interesting, and my body took well to the adjustment. Again due to genetics, I already had red hairs popping in from time to time on my face.

I opened my mouth, and poked at my teeth. My canines were over twice the length of my other teeth, while my lateral incisors were slightly pointed and longer and little else. Regardless, inch long teeth would have made it hard to talk if they didn’t have the ability to retract.

And I hadn’t even bitten my tongue off even once, since my tongue naturally twisted out of the way when needed. At least I wasn’t like my fellow Pink Diamond, who had twelve chompers rather than eight. And he was bigger and stronger than me and had more room in his mouth to fit them. But even so had I teeth as long as a Puma’s which was nothing to sneeze at.

There had been a lot of teething, like pulling off the rind of fruits. Bananas mostly, because I don’t eat oranges and apples don’t have a thick skin. It was shockingly easy and surprisingly calming…then again I had a tendency to bite my nails. It could be pulling from that rather than Gem instinct alone.

I had also experimented with tearing off the lid of a can full of beans. There were muscles there, ones I could push to make my teeth lunge forward. It made it easier to reach and hold things, and it felt…odd. 

I tore my gaze away from the mirror, that was enough self-gazing for the day. It was getting kind of narcissistic. Instead there was a topic I needed to broach a topic with Fuschia Sapphire, things left unsaid that I needed more detail on.

The door of my room opened at my command as I stepped out of the space, and a swipe of my right hand brushed back my bangs. The Home Pyramid was internally and quite spacious, divided up into numerous spaces. For example the ‘room’ I was in was in fact much larger, but I didn’t make use of it because I didn’t need it yet.

It was a smaller and more safety-proofed version of the temple room, and one I could lock into different modes as needed. It was a thirty by thirty meter by thirty meter cube. Just under a hundred thousand square feet of surface area if it was subdivided into floors. I had made a room, a bathroom and a study hall from what was once part of the original house buried in enchanted stone and layers of mystical plants.

I’m not going to bother describing the geometries of a multidimensional space matrix…but every room is connected in a single greater space divided up by walls. The local laws of physics are mutable here, largely by the will of the Gems connected to them and the programming of the machinery buried within walls and the energy piped through them. 

The living room was the physical front of the Home Pyramid, a lobby basically. So instead of needing to physically walk all the way around, the fabric of the universe was bitchslapped out of the way and I was back in Euclidean-reality Or more accurately in conventional non-Euclidean four dimensional space. 

The rickety wood interior had been replaced by flat smooth marble, colored a dull white and and the living room was just a couch, a holographic television screen, a small kitchen and the door and windows depicting the outside. Fuschia was sitting on the couch, waiting for me.

“You wanted to ask about what’s happening in my reality.” It was a statement and not a question. 

“I know there’s a war between your people and a third entity, but I’m not filled in on every bit of information.” Fuschia’s expression twisted, a tiredness pulsing from her person.

“It’s not complicated, I was the first to note the intentions of the Black Wyrm since I was on the edge of the galaxy where he had arrived.” There was pain and anger and hate strumming fiercely. “He attached pieces of himself to Gems, attempting to study our species and our magic to subvert for his own needs. Many were broken by his attempts, or driven mad, their magic mixing poorly with his own powers over the physical dimensions of reality.”

So he Triggered a bunch of Gems to figure out their magic, and she managed to get a vision of what his plan was?

“He created monsters, trying to unite those with his seeds with the outside threat of the Asura, and splitting himself into four pieces to monitor several systems.”

Asura…?

My face went slack “Endbringers, or their equivalents. Trying to focus the shards and their hosts in a centuries long cycle.” It was a supposition but it felt correct.

“From what we’ve learned this Abaddon as you call it, was attempting to unite our species into a single whole, a fusion of nearly limitless power, connected to all his shards.” I remembered a world of traumatic insemination and horizontal gene transfer, and a world of poncho-snakes. And I was glad I had read some Ward interludes.

I guess he was using the same old tricks on the Gems…but what made the cycle fail?

“He failed because of magic,” She replied to my question, with the clink of icy music. “It threw off his calculations, his ability to perceive the future. Enough for a third party to intervene, which eventually leads to your creation.” Fuschia gestured to my gem. 

“How?” I leaned forward eagerly.

The Sapphire stood up with a harsh expression. “If he had retained the connection to his other shards he would have succeeded in understanding our magic quite quickly.” That made sense to me, if nothing else the Entities had powerful machine learning capabilities. “He broke up his body into four avatars with several thousand shards each, the Hub of a network made of billions of shards. Yet…only a small fraction of his shards currently infest the galaxies.”

“He lost the rest of his shards?” I knew the answer but had to ask anyway.

“We also crippled numerous vital shards for communication, preventing him from contacting others of his kind, and removed a number of administrative shards from play. Most of his shards besides those close to the Hubs lost their cohesion in the process. Along with other causes…”

That left another question. “How do the Asura come into this then?”

“They were part of the cycle, but with it breaking the Black Wyrm and his Four-Faces turned them into autonomous agents of his will.” The TV flickered and she projected the image of a plasma woman, the very sun poured into a humanoid form of gold and white. “Agni.” It played a video of the monster lashing out with a barrage of lights, like Legend in the form of an Endbringer. “Avalerion.” A massive bird made of crystal and stone, with a wingspan shadowing against mountains. Space warped around it, and it ducked past the energy beam attacks of dozens of Gem warships. “ Dumah. ” A woman made out of shadows, wings of gold and cerise and a scepter of white light. Hundreds of wings emerging from flesh, and a scream that pulled at some animalistic terror.

I could feel the rage in Fuchsia's song, rising in my throat with the taste of iron and copper and the sulphur of hate. 

“How many were there?” I croaked aloud.

“There were eighty, though their numbers have been dramatically thinned over the years as we picked off the coordinator Asura. With the death of Dumah there remain only four, scattered across the galaxy.”

So she just casually stated the Gems slayed seventy six Endbringers. Isn’t that neat? Of course I imagined those weapons were currently busy beating down the remaining four Asura and the last avatar of Abaddon.

Huh…multidimensional lovecraftian abominations in an all-out war against beings of light and magic, fae-like beings of arcane origin against monsters, dragons and wyrms living in the space between the stars.

That is existentially terrifying and I am going to bury that thought deep down until I can process it. 

“So you’ve been fighting a…” I trailed off, how long had they been fighting?

“Four years.” She answered.

“A four year long war against an alien Wyrm God, and you’re planning to take down the ones around Earth Bet before a shard from Abaddon can find its way here?” She nodded and I shook my head. “As well as having a backup in case he has some type of final crippling blow?

“You’ve pretty much summarized the last four years of the Empire.” She acknowledged, her single eye focused on her own pink palms. “And I already know what else you wanted to speak with me about.” She cut off my response and I narrowed my eyes.

“I don’t mind you being blunt but…umm.” I rubbed my neck and she flushed.

“No it’s alright, I’m…I’ve had very little time to have peace of mind. I’m sorry,” She hummed her apology. “You wish to know about the process of Courting?”

“Yes please.” I sat down on the couch, crossing my legs and sitting patiently and hoping for answers.

“It’s a simple process, each Diamond has their Court, the Gems directly under their rule, under their aegis, and under their protection.” She responded with a warm chime. “It is a bond between Diamond and Gem, partially psychic in framework as well as cultural. Nothing fancy really, any single Diamond will have trillions of Gems in their court.”

“So does there need to be a ceremony or…?” I wiggled my hands in a random gesture, not able to put it into words.

She giggled, amusement dancing in her eye. “Nothing that complicated, you merely have to invite me, and I get to make the choice of entering your Court. Simple as that.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat, smiling nervously. “Then I…um Sunrise Diamond.” I coughed, feeling silly. “Invite Fuschia Sapphire Facet-AD16 Cushion-X7 to Sunrise Cerise.” It felt melodramatic and silly at the same time that it felt important, necessary, natural. 

“I, Fuschia Sapphire Facet-AD16 Cushion-X7 happily accept her Illumination’s invitation.” I blinked when I felt another word blend in song and sound. How did she do that? I had missed something?

I felt something when she completed the response, and I swallowed as I heard her so far accept mine. An aspect of myself weaving into her own aura, a psychic knock on the door to my head.

There was a light pulse, and I asked myself how Steven didn’t get raging migraines with trillions of Gems in his court. It didn’t hurt but there was a pressure from the connection.

“So am I supposed to give you some type of role or title within the court?” I asked more questions.

“Yes.”

“High Diviner then, since you seem rather adept at perusing the future my Sapphire.” My words induced a flush, and I blinked. I shook my head. “Oh did I say something weir—”

My bracelet beeped, and a screen emerged along the communication line. Showing Olly, rubbing her naturally tired face. 

“The Multiplanar Communicator is finished, give me a few minutes to hone in on a signal and we’ll be able to connect to the Diamond Line.” Her usual placid tones had upped in pitch, excitement bursting through.

Oh. That’s good.

…

…

Ohmygodyestimetogo—

I rocked back and forth on my heels, impatience giving me nervous energy. Olly was tapping her fingers against a screen, looking at Gem Glyph colored in bee purple and  ̷͍̊ ̸̷̗͕̀ ̷̪̐ ̸̘̔ ̴͓͝ ̵̘̔ and other colors.

Nothing too weird really.

I opened my mouth and was forestalled by Olly. 

“You’re going to ask me about joining your Court right?” I shut my mouth, teeth clicking. Olly gave me a half lidded look, with a minor head tilt. “We can move past the formalities, it’s not my thing and I like you well enough.” She yawned, rubbing her eyes.

That was easier than I thought it would be.

“So you’re in then?” She gave a thumbs up, Gemsong weaving with some of my response notes. Again there was the knock on the door, of small psychic pressure. 

“I’ll wait to see what you figure out for my title, I’m down for anything.” She shrugged, and I wondered if she was on anything to be so chill. If not then good for her, and if she was then that was her prerogative and not any of my business.

I continued to lean back and forth, my gaze wandering to a small mote of dust and I marveled at the crispness and clarity of my eyesight. It was almost like I had microscopes for eyes, cheap kiddy ones of course, I couldn’t suddenly see cells. More like I could focus my eyes like they were scopes, which was pretty neat. Seeing letters from two hundred feet away was a scary power.

“The Multiplanar Communicator is ready.” She held a small cubic white gem with pink streaks. She twisted it and I realized what was happening.

“W-Wait I’m not ready, I…I…I—” I didn’t get a chance to cancel the call, a holographic screen expanding outwards like a perfect window into a large room. There was someone on a leather swivel chair colored a deep pink, turned away from the camera angle.

There was someone there, in a red dress shirt with pink pants and white-pink boots. They were broad, and it was hard to tell their gender, though I knew they were a Gem of some kind. Their skin was a little too pink, but straddled the line between human and not.

They ducked down and the dark hair streaked with curls of rose pink like a bouquet of flowers made it more obvious who and what I was dealing with. In the projection he was broad in a way few humans were besides Hafthor Bjornsson. But he was softer, more cuddly than that almost seven foot tall monster of a man.

His large hands were braced against a table, claws curling like a lion’s and almost as large, blunt implements scratching wood. They were pearlescent, shining with a Diamond’s luster. Something in me felt just a tad intimidated and I wasn’t sure why. He looked much like the form he took with Jasper, but it was softer, just a little wider, angles shifted an inch towards non-threatening. His hair was large, but again not to the point he had gotten to with Jasper, black interspersed by pink and cerise.

There was fuzz on his face, along his chin, barely noticeable. His eyes snapped open, and I stared at eyes like distorted images of what I saw in my reflection. Dark tunnels where dim Diamond’s luster shined through, and I swallowed nervously as his pupils shuttered like mine did.

His lips pulled into a soft grin, revealing his many pointed teeth. One pair, either canines or incisors were daggers, while the remaining sets were more like knives, smaller and less oriented towards piercing. Of course he had molars and premolars, and from the looks of it, the space for wisdom teeth had been replaced by new incisors.

His actions calmed me, and my hackles lowered while a shy smile naturally formed in response.

“So you’re the one.” There was an echo of his Gemsong, a tiny fraction of his song coming through the Gem-tech communication device. “I’ve looked at some of your Peridot’s reports, what would you prefer I call you? ” He gestured with his meaty hands to my person across a galaxy and several dimensions.

“Brenda when I’m like this.” I responded.

“Brenda. Yeah that fits.” He accepted it easily, smiling easily despite the weight I could see on his shoulders. “Are…there are any questions you’d like to ask me? I am a Diamond, there’s a lot I can teach you if you want…? ” I could tell he was nervous, maybe he thought I resented him for granting me the power of a Diamond and sending me off to a traumatic adventure?

Not really, most of the problems hadn’t even been caused by him. Simply accidents and evil space worms.

“A few concerns mostly…” But I did have to be honest. “The plan was for me to start on my Earth right? Is that no longer possible or…?” I didn’t need to go home, but I would like access to where I came from. 

“The plan involved a lot more equipment than what you started out with, but the Peridot who joined your Court does have the ability to build portals between worlds.”

“That…might be a good idea then, I was okay with building a Kindergarten here up until the point I realized the planet I’m on.”

“Why’s that? I haven’t read through the entire report on Earth Bet.” So he wouldn’t know about some of their problems.

“There are half a million humans seeded with powers,” I drawled casually, my fingers tapping against my thighs. He flinched. “Another problem is their issue with biokinetic superhumans. There’s Nilbog who turned an entire town into his kingdom and killed hundreds if not thousands, converting their biomass into his minions. Then there’s Bonesaw, a child traumatized and broken by a nihilist knife man into becoming a biological nightmare creator. From bio-plagues to monsters made out of corpses and living people to severe biological and cybernetic enhancement like being able to remove her own spine.” I didn’t mind the enhancements, it was the murder-death-torture-kill spree I had more of a problem with.

“Oh…” There was a twitch of his brows, a tension to his shoulders.

“I’m not sure they’re going to welcome us taking over a national park, and using it to churn out hundreds of Gems bursting out from the soil. Not unless we want to get hit badly. ” I didn’t enjoy the idea of getting bodied by Alexandria. 

“What would you want to do then? It is your choice in the world you want to pick.” There was a musing lilt, like he was testing me

“Well it can't be this Earth, there’s too much history here for anything beyond a…a Nursery? Is that what’s it called?” He nodded and I continued. “My own Earth is inhabited, and the Mars of either dimension is an option. But…” I wanted to leave my Mars untouched, to let my humanity explore it’s surface. Plus constantly popping back and forth across dimensions might attract too much attention.

The Gems were powerful but their Empire spanned across a single reality while a single shard existed in hundreds of them. They might get alerted, even if only a little. Using their Mars might be a more suitable alternative because to be frank Earth Bet wasn’t going to use it for anything. Not with their civilization at the brink of collapse.

“So you want to colonize and terraform their Mars instead? ” I nodded at his question.

“It’d have to be something set up on your end,” I shrugged my shoulders. “The Simurgh spends her time between attacks in space, and may or may not interfere with anything we launch.” Which would be quite annoying for a lot of reasons. “You set up a Warp Pad on Mars, we set up one on Earth to establish a connection. Is that possible?” 

It might not be, it wasn’t impossible that they didn’t have enough resources or that it wasn’t safe.

“It should be, it was part of the original plan until most of the equipment was destroyed and some of our Warp Pad production lines were attacked.”

“One of the Asura I’m assuming?” I raised an eyebrow. It seemed like they either knew about their contingency, or had an idea that they needed to destroy a project at the very least. 

That or it was a general part of their attack on the Empire, damaging their ability to communicate and travel would make them more vulnerable to any and all Entity manipulations.

He nodded, the echo of his song thrumming even across digital transmissions. “It should only take us a few days to get a Warp Pad discreetly set up on our end. Our dimensional travel technology is still crude but it's improved in leaps and bounds over the years.”

“Thank you. While it might have been nice to be ruler of the Earth, the people here hit just a bit too hard for us to handle at our current state of development.” I rather liked my face not getting rearranged by cape bullshit. 

Olly was making a face. 

“What?” I tilted my head at her and she didn’t answer. “Right, I…what else should we talk about? I’m not exactly a master conversationalist.” I self deprecated, laughing weakly.

“Anything you’d like…you’ve probably had a rough time of it,” There was the telltale hum of guilt and failure. “And I think it would be a good idea to get to know each.”

“Fair enough.” I released my grip on my shapeshifted form, and I rubbed my chin with an unsure grin. “I’m sure we’ll think of something…”

I looked at the result of a Cold Gemforge, one I had helped build for the foundation of a Warp Pad.

I had learned quite a lot about the various methods of travel that Gems used. For example Light Kites were their earliest models, ships capable of causing matter to act like light in a manner similar to Legend’s breaker state.

Warp Pads were doors into a pocket dimension, created in higher realities and held in place by magical energies. The natural magic of Gems reverse engineered into technology and engineering principles. A massive hub of interconnected pocket realities, to connect thousands upon thousands of worlds nearly instantly. 

Their other form of faster than light travel involved a bubble of space generated by powerful machinery channeling magical energies, a sort of bottle with a small opening, an enchantment reducing its mass to zero to move at light speed like with Light Kites, and warped space to double down on speed.

To create warped and folded space they generated imaginary mass to prevent propagation of the Higgs Field along a boundary. Preventing singularities, and driving energy costs down massively. This was all controlled by a portal of sorts, modulating the same higher realities that Warp Space exists in as well as the energies existing within them.

Their computer networks and telecommunications work similarly, transmitted outside of normal spacetime. Though it was through an artificial reality to lower lag to effectively nonexistent. Though Olly had mentioned that their humans had developed a different means of FTL broadcasting, projecting signals directly through higher reality levels, a Subspace communicator of sorts. 

 I brushed my chin, fingers feeling the softness of the hair on my face. I had reverted back, largely once I was sure Elle wasn’t going to freak out. She didn’t so I pretty much just switched around when I felt like it. Rather than being obligated to keep a traumatized kid happy.

Not that I would have minded much but…still.

Olly had confirmed she was fifteen, which was older than I had expected. Then again age had never been specified for Labyrinth. She could have been anywhere from eleven to eighteen for all I knew.

Her presence also meant that the string of fate had already been altered, pulled in another direction. She should have been recruited by Faultline, and in the chaos the woman who would become Burnscar would have escaped. From what she had told, there had been a break in and she had been taken, but had heard my song and left.

Which meant it wasn’t unlikely that Palanquin, or what would become Palanquin were out looking for her. Which at this point were made of Faultline, Newter and Gregor the Snail. Not a very large group really, but the only fighter we had was Aventurine and I hadn’t even seen her yet. Then again I had only just met these Gems, who knows what they could pull off.

I turned, giving Elle space to sit down on the workbench. She looked healthier after a ravenous helping of Gem created food. I had managed to cook up a burrito, bringing up memories of the rare times I had paid attention to my parents or other’s cooking.

I still hadn’t used the Multiplanar Communicator to try to call home, even though I knew I should do it, there was a little fear, just a little fear. They said the line was secure, protected by encryption even the Entities had failed to crack, quantum entanglement projected across multiple physical and metaphysical dimensions. 

But I was going to…I at least had to tell them I was alive, and not being held ransom or dead or any other terrible fate. 

“How’s the medication?” I asked carefully, and Elle looked at me with clarity. 

She tapped her fingers together, chewing on her lip nervously. “My power is a lot weaker, but…I’m not getting stuck in my worlds as much.” She was a quiet teenager, and she yawned. “Makes me a little tired though.”

“It’ll probably be adjusted then, you’d probably need to add a little Yellow to perk you up.” Ichors had a lot of interesting uses, depending on how they were mixed and how concentrated they were.

All ichor medications for organics had some amount of Pink so they could actually work, and this one was a mix of White and Blue. White was Mind, protecting her from the negative influences of her shard while Blue bolstered that effect with its connection to Passions, to emotions. There were several formulas that could help with bad dreams and anxieties, with minor side effects like sleepiness.

Which could be easily remedied with a tiny droplet of Yellow.

“It would still be better even if I lost my power and had to sleep ten hours a day.” She replied with an almost teenager-characteristic dryness, her naturally misty eyes sharpening.

“Maybe. But that’s not likely how this is going to go down.” That was one of the topics I had broached with Steven. They had reasoned with a number of shards, younger Buds, aberrant shards a few cycles old, and those who held the minds of host species in high fidelity.

Abaddon had met maybe three hundred species, and it left him a lot more room to absorb sub-quantum level thought patterns. That had in part been his undoing. 

“Amber talked about that…that we would try to reason with my power.” She sounded skeptical.

“It’s apparently been done before, and they understand powers far more intimately than either of us do.” While I might know some of their mechanisms from what I’ve read, the Empire had personal experience with the physical flesh and network of the Entities. 

One of the battles I had read about was called the Battle of the Dread Firmament. Where tens of thousands of Gems, hundreds of fusions and humans attacked an unstable hub directly using data from traitorous agents within the network. Utilized tools and weapons from an ancient war, it’s end being the beginning of Era 1 some twenty thousand and seventeen years ago.

A hundred thousand shards scattered, their space between worlds broken into and torn apart by enemy forces.

“I believe you.” Elle declared easily, a shy smile on her face. It was a little uncomfortable to have someone with this much faith in me. “And…can I ask something?”

“Yes? I’m not going to stop you.” I wasn’t her parent and I wasn’t going to pretend to be one. I was twenty, and certainly not ready for any of that nonsense.

“What even are you?” She spoke loudly, blinking repeatedly. 

“Well I am human, but I’m also half something else.” I explained with a calm voice. “We’re…Gems I suppose would be the colloquial term, Astramarmor would serve as a scientific name for the species.” I leaned back, keeping an eye on the basic outline of a Warp Pad. “Gems are a species of living crystals, brought to life by strange negentropic energies.” Code word for literal magic. “They’re basically all gifted with a variety of powers and have…experience with the source of parahuman powers.”

“Oh. Okay.” And she just took that for face value, then again she’s been in an asylum for half a decade so who the fuck knows what she does or does not know. “So you’re using your powers to help me?”

“In the simple terms…yes. It’s the right thing to do.” It was, she was someone who needed help and while I couldn’t directly provide for her…I could at least try and keep her safe, try to protect her.

There was a dark pink glow, and I blinked when I saw a shimmering shield briefly popping into existence. When I reacted it popped out of existence, breaking up into shards.

Shit. So close. 

I had only managed to summon bare unstable fragments, more useful for cutting up things than shielding people.

“What was that?” Elle asked with wide eyes.

“A…shield I think, I’m still learning how to use my powers.” I admitted with a sincere half-grin. I covered the prism in my hand, and she noticed.

“And that?”

“A Multiplanar Communicator, it’s built…to help me talk with some people, with my family…” I trailed off, unsure whether to explain further.

“Why don’t you talk to them then?” I blinked when I heard the wistful tone in her voice, something vulnerable laid bare for the briefest of instants.

“Umm…I guess I’m scared? I dropped off the radar without telling them and I’ve changed rather dramatically…I just…”

“They’re good right?” She asked and I nodded. “Then you should talk to them.” There was a certainty there, and I paused to think. I…I should really stop being a coward then…not a good look for me.

I lightly brushed a finger against the device and nodded to myself.

“Hola mamá…hola papá…” A tentative voice whispered into the dark.

“…”

“Estoy bien…pero me tenía que ir…” Hesitation, guilt, fear.

“…” 

“Puedo…puedo explicar en inglés?” Movement, shifting from side to side, a pulse of parental worry and desperation.

“…”

“I…I had to do something very important, something big. Bigger than I could have ever imagined.” A hint of something else, a justification, fear of being rejected. 

“…!” Alarm, confusion, worry.

“You already get that something weird is going on right?  With the weird lights in the sky, and…well the phone defying gravity right now?” There was more movement, a clicking of claws on metal.

“…” 

“I’ve gotten involved in that weirdness, and for whatever reason I’ve taken responsibility for this,” an explanation, and one fraught with emotion. “A few things ended up going wrong. I’m okay…but I’m not going to be back for a while, it’s not safe.”

“…?”

“Something very big and very bad might be coming, and will be coming if I or other people fail.” Teeth grinding in worry, a song turning into a raging firestorm. “I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you to keep an eye out for…strange things in the coming months and years.”

“…”

“I’ll call you once a week, or less if something comes up…okay? Or more if we’re lucky.” There was a moment of quiet murmuring and conversation. Before there was silence, then broken by a rumbling sigh.

Fuschia Sapphire moved away from the door with held breath, feeling just a little manipulative for listening in on the conversation. She had looked to the future for threats and came here, failing to account for the kind of threat. 

She would be more careful from now on. While privacy was difficult with future sight, she would at least maintain the rules relating to Seer’s Discretion from now on.

The Sapphire moved away, and looked into the myriad possibilities once again, looking for more relevant dangers to the small Court.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.5

I formed the shard of a shield, expanding it into a hexagonal flat plate of magical hard light. It was a start but I knew there was far more to being of Cerise light than little hexagons.

Even if they were pretty cool and neat.

Pink Diamond was the essence of Life itself, just as White was Mind, as Blue was Passion and Yellow was Body. She was soul, the breath of living energy. So was I even if on a slightly different and yet similar wavelength. I sighed…

It was the eighth of April, and a lot of work had been completed in what was a mere two days. Olly was busy with setting up the basic network for Warp Pads, ichor and liquid crystal programmed to talk to one another as needed to accept or deny warp streams. 

I was practicing with my powers, and was getting a better handle of my shapeshifting. For example I had managed to elongate my arms to twice their normal length, and turned my fingers into semi-reptilian daggered appendages. 

Of course the scales were made of compressed hair rather than actual scales though the differences were moot when I was a biological abomination anyway. I at least didn’t have many extra bones other than my fingers. Though there were notable tweaks to my skull to account for semi-retractable fangs. Plus some minor tweaks to joints and connective tissues that made me tougher than I should be.

Outside of the hard light merged with me down to my DNA. Though unlike Steven I could probably unfuse without dying. I had been born human, which meant my body was more independent. 

Don’t ask me how it works, it’ll just give you a headache. I’m not even sure how I would try that.

I dismissed the shield shard, and instead reached for my floating power. I had gotten it working a few times pulling on happy memories and things I liked. In a controlled environment because being outed by a goof was not my idea of a good time. 

I flutter jumped into the air, redirecting my energy fields to generate a buoyant force. I hit the ceiling but slowly so it didn’t hurt, and I imagined weight on my shoulders and my floating petered off as I landed. I patted my black shirt, chewing on my lip.

There was a loud thump from outside, and I stepped out into the lobby/living room. I kept walking, and something smacked into the reinforced windows. A large log, bouncing off the transparent barrier.

Huh?” 

I stepped out the front door, and found Aventurine and actually got a look at her for the first time in just over half a week. I had to crane my neck up, and I stared.

She was tall, about two point two five meters or a bit over seven feet in height. She had a less bulky frame than most Quartzes though she still put most people to shame with the bulk of her arms and the curves of her legs. She didn’t wear a jumpsuit, opting for large dark green working pants, with a dark belt around her waist, and a lime green shirt over a short Forest green vest/short jacket type article of clothing.

She had soft facial features though the twist of her grin sort of reduced that factor of her anatomy. She wore dark gloves with armored components, not quite gauntlets at least. Her hair was wild with curls, a pale green bordering on white, and only hung down to just below her shoulders.

She was gripping the back of the neck of a large wolf about as long as she was tall though not quite as heavy. She let out a hissing click, a warning growl as clear as day. The wolf whimpered and ran off as she let it go, and the easy smile of the Aventurine faded as her gaze sharpened and focused on me.

“So you’re the Diamond huh? Pretty small.” She didn’t seem to be using my height as an insult. She just seemed…blunt. “Nice to meet ya. Sorry if I haven’t been talking to you much, scouting takes a lot of work. Especially with all the roads…” She muttered the last part, Gemsong like burbling streaks and tumbling rocks and light jazz. 

“Nice to meet you…?” 

“Green Aventurine Facet-U127 Hexagon-T347.” She pointed to the gemstone on her right shoulder, flickering with light. “Nice to meet you, Brandon right?” There was a whisper of Raven and other words, too quiet for me to hear. “Still working on your powers then?”

“Not exactly easy when you’ve been a squishy magic-lacking human all your life.” I quietly murmured back, feeling intimidated by her size. She was a little taller than your average Quartz from the specifications in their code. I had looked up samples of Gem programming from Olly’s files and the files within the Injectors.

The typical Quartz should be around 6’8 feet to 7’0 feet tall, and ‘massed’ at around one hundred eighty kilograms at 1G. Subject to density and mass shifting of course. On average they were dense enough to sink in water, but they had the innate ability to adjust to gravity and pressure so…bleh. Perfect Quartz, which they called euhedral were a good foot to a foot and a half taller than average Quartz, and more robust in features and power.

Somewhere around eight to eight and a half feet tall was the sweet spot for such Gems, though it was lower for certain Quartz subspecies. Jasper was one such example, Gems of her type exchange raw magical abilities for pure power and resilience. Amethysts had a wider range of powers, and yet Jasper could use her spin dash energy burst and her Gem weapon was tough and protective.

She wasn’t euhedral but she was at the upper end of the scale, a euhedral Aventurine would be taller than Jasper though not significantly more massive. 

A large fist knocked against my head, and I jumped back with a growing blush. Aventurine smirked, fangs glinting in the sun. “You’re a bit spacey aren’t ya?”

“Sorry.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Not a problem, I’ve known a Gem or three who are like that.” She gave away a safe aura, and I remembered her Facet File. She was an Era 2 Aventurine who had gotten enough ichor to come out as strong as Era 1 Gems. She was about forty five hundred years old, made shortly after the Gem War. 

She was the oldest of the Gems here, with Olly being three thousand years old while Amber and Fuschia are about sixteen and seventeen respectively. Though the age of ‘majority’ was…five I believe? Being born adults, or at least closer to really knowledgeable teenagers, made the circumstances of their existence rather different than us humans.

Most Gems need at the bare minimum a week to form their gemstone from the minerals mixing with ichor. Beyond that was a few weeks more for absorption of minerals and ambient energies. Of course that mostly applied to very cheap or very efficiently made Gems, or Gems made with a lot of monitoring. Sometimes it could take decades or even centuries.

Though I hadn’t read up on every detail so I could be wrong. Either way for Fuschia… 

She was among one of the last batches of Pink Sapphires, and was one of many Gems produced with Secondary Injections. Often a Gem was left in the dirt to incubate with minimal Pink, and once enough time was used to gather and scrounge for old ichor, a second injection completed the job.

Fuschia had the procedure performed with Steven’s magic sweat, and her vein emerged a month early, emerging hours after the Injection. Which meant her emergence more or less coincided with the start of Era 3. 

“So what exactly did you find on your scouting mission?” I asked curiously, unable to suppress my need for answers. The Quartz smiled.

“Well we’re definitely within the boundaries of a national park, there are a few roads connecting towns outside of this forest. I’d say about two thousand square miles isn’t too heavily monitored, aside from that white thing in the sky.” I flinched.

“Do you mean the Simurgh? ” I asked, hoping I was wrong.

“The Asura administrator of this world you mean? She’s pretty blurry, but I can catch her flying by from time to time.” I nodded carefully and she gave a reassuring growl. “No worries, we’ve got a few precaution-weapons in place around the orbit of your planet.” I blinked.

“Precaution-weapons?” I asked but she didn’t immediately answer, and I wasn’t sure I wanted her to answer.

“It’s not the first time Gemkind has had to fight monsters from beyond the stars.” I swallowed, feeling just a little small. “But let’s not bring the mood down, this place is isolated enough for our purposes, and with Olly setting up a Warp network we’ll be more free to do what we need to.”

“Excellent,” I clicked my tongue, teeth gliding past one another. “As long as we have some anonymity, I can continue to learn my powers.” I clenched my fist, and kept my claws from spearing out. 

“You’ll have to learn to fight too ya know.” Her song purred, sinking down into my throat and vibrating my body. “You might not quite get it yet but you’re a Diamond, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy. I’ve met only a few Paired capable of going toe to toe with a Diamond, and this planet has a lot more Paired than any colony in the war.”

“Oh. Anything else?”

Aventurine nodded. “Some of the birds are weird…but I didn’t stay long enough to find out since a bunch of humans were busy fixing up their car on the side of the road.” I followed her line of logic. We didn’t need people crying about giant green women in the woods.

Hmm…this was going to be difficult wasn’t it? I just knew it in my mind. There were so many problems, and I’m not sure I could or should fix all of them. Breaking this world’s already half-broken cycle? Sure, the Gems were already in the middle of breaking Abaddon’s cycle permanently and had the weapons to show for it. 

Even if they hadn’t been directly responsible for reducing him to maybe a thousandth of his shards at best, they had fought the good fight and kept other Entities out of the war.

I would break the cycle, and start slowly with this colony business. Going from being a jobless schmuck to a benevolent galactic dictator was a very big transition and I would likely…adjust poorly. Though from what I’ve seen, the Diamonds act more like the Queen of England with just a little more power. They didn’t manage the whole Empire anymore, with most Gems ruling themselves.

They mostly worked on smaller projects to benefit the Empire, and periodically talked to their Gems to reassure them and all…plus their ichor of course being vital to the species. I didn’t have to go out and administrate entire worlds, I could go with a small research colony, a handful of Gems working on projects and solutions for modern problems.

Which frankly sounded much more agreeable to my anxiety. 

…

I should probably get back to figuring out my powers right?

I sat down, rubbing a bare face as I practiced my shapeshifting again with the female form I had created. I idly sharpened my claws with a stray rock, clicking my tongue as Olly set up a modern Warp Pad. The old Galaxy Warps were apparently a relic, with massive improvement in energy efficiency and targeting software they didn’t need to be as large. 

Though I think the Galaxy Warps still needed to connect with other Galaxy Warps, they operated on a semi-separate network from planetary Warp Pads, and used more energy, and had to pass through and compress more distance to operate.

She had mentioned setting up a Warp Pad about twenty miles away and underground with a handful of Robonoids and Aventurine pulling their weight. This would be the start of a basic planetary network, and a Galaxy Warp was already being set up for the counterpart on Mars. 

A few days had ended up meaning only two, a few small Robonoids sent to build a single pad. Sometime later today, we would be able to go to Mars. Or perhaps more accurately, the Gems will be able to go.

I still need air, that’s pretty important for my fleshy bits. And terraforming wasn’t exactly a quick process…then again I had seen the reports of terraforming Mars in several months instead of centuries. Officially Steven had a total of three colonies within Crystal System Earth, and they were using Ceres as a fueling depot and gateway to the asteroid belt.

Humans apparently had their own fleet, which had been in part possible because of the forty fifth president of the United States, some famous inventor or something. It wasn’t a large fleet though, maybe three or four hundred something ships versus the many, many thousands the Empire had on hand.

Earth had become heavily fortified, and there were a few alien species that had allied with humanity and Gems. One such species was called the Atasians from what I remember. Their failing genetics had been repaired by human and Gem scientists, so they happily backed the Empire’s defense against Abaddon.

There were a fair amount of species, most of them arising after Era 1, and I guessed there were maybe a few hundred space faring species in the known galaxies. Ten times that in more primitive species.

I hummed a tune, reaching for a different emotion. All my more defensive and supportive abilities were focused by positive emotions, but I had more offensive powers too. A scream that could crack the walls, inhuman speed and power, and creating walls of spikes and who knows what else.

I didn’t care much for the scream, but could I develop powerful energy blasts? Set some shit on fire? Pink Diamond could create gemstones from raw dirt and a flower, inducing immense pressure and heat with a little squeeze.

I breathed, and pulled on my emotions, on anger, on resentment, and I tethered it with that need to protect instilled by the nature of my powers, by whatever part of me had natural empathy for others.

I could feel my own energies ride, my light reacting to my emotions, reacting to my needs. The energy poured out from my hands, and a single hasty punch released a detonation of destructive red bordering on pink energy. It broke the ground like an egg, spider cracks spreading with abandon.

It was like a small bomb had gone off, and I felt just a little cold seeing what I could do now. Force like that would reduce people to a red smear on the ground, and Cerise was life and death, growth and decay in equal measure.

I didn’t really want to be a Destroyer but it was an option, among the myriad powers I had as a Gem, as a Diamond, as an administrator of the highest order. 

I shifted my stance, and with a kick I launched myself forward like a bullet. I was faster than any human alive, quickly accelerating past thirty miles an hour. But I did plateau, still not having access to my full power. I was going at maybe forty five miles per hour, which paled to the speed of true Gem warriors. 

No human of this world could keep up, but the humans of their reality were another story entirely. They had greater resilience, a greater strength beyond mere biology and chemistry. There was a reason for it but I hadn’t read that far yet.

I suspected it might be related to the life energy that Kindergartens suck from the ground but I couldn’t be sure. The physics of their world was explicitly different from my own, and if it wasn't…

Then something in either of our pasts had caused a substantial divergence in our histories. And it had to have happened, because a number of galaxies were different, altered by some event about seven billion years ago.

From what I had asked Olly, that was what many Gem astronomers had picked up, detecting perturbations to the formation of stars and stellar dust clouds. Which begged the question of how the hell the Earth formed at all. It should have been butterflied out of existence but…it hadn’t. Maybe the disruptions were far enough away to keep things on track or there was some other third factor I was missing.

I turned on my heels, dodging a stray rock and low branch. I stepped from side to side, yawning. I slowed down, feeling a pull from elsewhere…wait…

Are they done?

I turned back, leaping over roots and ducking under branches and dodging nervous deer and small rodents. The Home Pyramid was encircled by a few smaller lodgings, the Gem-equivalent of little shacks. I stopped by one of them, and peeked from a corner where Ambz and Elle were both sitting together.

“You don’t mind if I continue calling you Foggy do you?” Ambz had a warm song, her expression kind as she conversed with the teenager.

“No, it's fine, really.” Elle reassured the Gem. Ambz’ wings of liquid gold sap flapped once. “It’s…nice here.” The teenager trailed off, growing distant and despondent. “And…you help make it easier.” 

“That is my job squirt.” The Gem lightly bopped Elle on the nose, and she giggled in response. “Now…have your mindfulness exercises been helpful?” I began to step back, moving in the direction I had originally been heading for.

“My power is getting easier to control…but I’m…I’m still afraid.” There was something vulnerable and soft in the girl’s voice. I sighed, and snuck away before I could eavesdrop anymore than I already had. 

Ambz turned out to be a well trained therapist, having learned the skills even while using her ambergris to coat Kindergartens with the life strengthening properties of her power. Which was very helpful in Elle’s case since I wasn’t going to play at being anyone’s therapist.

That didn’t end so well for Steven after all…

I walked back into the house, and found that part of the living room had a Warp Pad built into it. Olly was stepping on it, testing out the structural integrity along with numerous scrappy Robonoids. She waved me over, and I leapt onto the pad without a second thought.

“So this is a Warp Pad?” I asked excitedly, unable to muster my dignity for a literal magical teleporter. 

“Yep.” She drawled, casually bumping hips with me as she continued to inspect the device. “This is a modern Galaxy Warp, it can connect to any Warp Pad on the planet and then to any Galaxy Warp in…well in the galaxy.” I nodded, understanding the difference.

Era 1 Galaxy Warp Pads were on a separate network from other Pads, so you had to Warp twice to reach them. With these newfangled models, you could reach the Galaxy Warp immediately and activate it for interplanetary travel soon after.

Same number of Warps but less time spent traveling.

“Cool.”

Olly smirked. “It is indeed cool. I’ve set up a total of three Warp Pads just to test the network, and this one is currently going through the handshake protocol with the Mars network.” 

“So we’ll be able to start colonizing Mars?” Her smile shrunk. 

“Yes. But it won’t be that simple, it takes a fairly large number of Gems for rapid planetary engineering projects. We’re talking multiple teams of terraformers, Lapis Lazulis, Legrandites, Nephelines, even a Goshenite might show up. Then there’s the sheer amount of machinery we need to either import piece by piece or build on our own…”

“So we’ll take it slow then, terraform with a big old building and start the beginnings of a Kindergarten from there?” I guessed and she gave a thumbs up. “A colony takes a lot of planning I’m imagining, preparing the numerous Facets, the infrastructure, that has to take thousands of Gems.” 

It was just a little intimidating to imagine thousands upon thousands of people working together to terraform an entire world. To transform over one hundred and forty million square kilometers of cold dead desert into verdant environments for organic and inorganic life.

“Building?” Olly questioned.

“Paraterraforming, we set up a massive tensile membrane structure supported by cables. A lot of cables, we set up a few hundred square kilometers of space and start small.” 

Olly blinked. “Perhaps I’ve been overthinking this, and I’ll need a lot of Chroma. Think you can handle some extraction?” 

“How…much Chroma can you even make?” It was a sincere question. 

“A single milliliter of your essence should be able to be rendered into a few hundred tons of Chroma, forming it into crystal alloys with mined ore should get us what we need.” She bluntly stated, stretching openly. “We can probably make something on the scale of Earth’s Prime Kindergarten, about a hundred thousand Gems should be a safe amount to extract.”

“There would still be an issue with mineral diversity wouldn’t there?” I rubbed my chin, marching in a circle. “Mars is a geologically inactive planet, and mostly basaltic as well. So rich in olivine, pyroxenes and plagioclase feldspar while some areas might have quartz-rich areas.” I shook my head, it didn’t compare to the sheer diversity of minerals on Earth. “You’ll have some spots with hydrothermal alterations from the ancient past, mainly hematite, phyllosilicates, goethite, jarosite, iron sulfates, opaline silica and gypsum. Not a lot of diversity there.”

Olly looked at me, unblinking. “You’ve been reading about Mars since before ever becoming a Diamond huh?”

I blushed. “S-Shut up.”

Olly grinned once more, though her usual placid expression returned once more. “Oh and for your concerns…that’s a part of the terraforming process, we have means of creating the needed mineral deposits absent on less geologically active worlds.” 

“That sounds like it’s going to take a while.” 

“Not as long as you think.” I nodded absently, narrowing my eyes as she activated a display, fingers dragging along packets of code and program modules. “We Gems are quite…efficient when we want to be.” 

True enough, and they certainly had the manpower to manage it. Lapis Lazulis are a good example of that, even if they actually can’t steal oceans. Though their lifting capacity is still beyond nuts, from what I had heard Lapis had managed to move around the equivalent of the South China Sea in volume of water.

It’s a gigantic amount of water, but it’s maybe about a percent of the water on the planet. And from what I can tell requires a lot of concentration, and a lot of time to ramp up the power. Lapis Lazuli powers seem to generally work in chunks, melding together to form a cohesive structure over time. It’s a ramping power, kind of like Lung now that I think about it.

And battle is a much more chaotic environment for the utilization of such powers. Plus Gems aren’t always very creative, which diminishes what they can do with what power they do have.

I got distracted when I was struck by a hit-and-run kiss by Olly, and data was patched into my brain. It was the crackle of phosphene behind my eyeballs, a sharp bubbling electrical pulse. Data, memory, mathematics and personal experience rolled into one, psychic echoes along organic synapses and esoteric quantum light circuitry. 

I blinked once and then a second time.

I grabbed a screen of my own, and the diagnostics and data became just a little more comprehensible, and I followed the tune, that glimpse of the possibilities and odds inherent to all Gems. There was so much work to do, setting up the network, getting security measures in check, and creating a production line for Robonoids.

I suppose I hoped we would all be up for the challenge.

As I crashed into the couch of the living room of the Home Pyramid, I let out a relieved sigh. I had spent much of the day working with Olly on various projects, and had also taken another look at what I was now calling the Nursery. The Alpha Kindergarten was now relegated to Mars, and I had been busy playing with the Colony Planner program built within the Pyramid’s Computational Orb.

It was a massive Geode based on a device within the Obsidian Temple, a library containing eight thousand years of biological data gathered by Homeworld Gems and then by Rose Quartz post-war. It had a library of organic life that was beyond extensive, down to the most fundamental levels of biology. Rose Quartz once Pink Diamond hadn’t been the most active student, but when it came to biology it was another story entirely. 

Plus she had been playing with creating life for thousands of years before the Earth had been sighted by telescope. Hell based on what I had read, she had rather accidentally helped with the creation of the first mineralogical magical life forms.

Of course we were talking about Pebbles here along with an extinct Gem type known as Stones. They had been obsoleted with the advent of more crystalline Gems, from what I knew only a handful survived to this day, most of them being shattered over a period of five hundred thousand years.

Which was more due to neglect than deliberate culling, while Gems can last forever, eventually an unlucky accident is going to break them. Plus their numbers had never been very large, so it was easier for their numbers to run down. Pebbles survived because they were easy to make, and they lived in safer environments than the Stones did.

I felt a presence next to me, and cracked open an eye to see Fuschia Sapphire sitting down next to me, rolling her shoulders with a thrumming clearing of her throat. Well…kind of, Gemsong is complicated.

“Hey.” I muttered, rubbing my eyes since it was almost midnight. “So you've been busy giving out fortunes or what?” I smiled, and I still felt a little odd at how some of my teeth felt so much longer in my mouth. 

“From time to time,” She shrugged, sprawling out like a cat, her flawed fingers curling into the couch cushions. “You should really try asking me about possible futures more often, I am part of your court My Diamond.” I blushed, and didn’t understand why I did. “I do much like being useful, and there aren’t many of us here.”

“Umm. How far can you see?” I asked first before moving towards asking for any predictions. 

“It depends on how high our Clarity is, an average Sapphire will be able to predict events centuries in advance with…middling accuracy.” There was no disdain, simply a statement of fact. “I’ve been found to have rather high Clarity, able to look over thrice that far.. I believe we’re designated as Star Sapphires.” She pulled down her top, revealing the asterism pattern on her gem.

“So…how accurate are visions that far into the future?” I crossed my arms over my bust, leaning towards her. 

She let out a weary warbling hiss of Gemsong. “Looking that far tends to be rather more scattershot, we have to run a path multiple times and it can still be wrong even with our best efforts. Something similar to Roulette in a sense.” Of course she knows who that is. I’ve told her after all.

“So you can look really far but it takes more time to scan the possible futures, and can really immobilize you.” I stated, and she smiled with cute pointed teeth.

“Correct. The immediate future is much faster, and I can run several paths in quick succession to narrow down what’s going to happen. A bit…tiring, but it’s simply the price for our power.”

My eyebrows furrowed in concern. “You shouldn’t strain yourself, it’s not good for you.” 

She blinked her one eye, brushing back a bang. “You…don’t need to worry so much, I know how to pace myself. I may be young but I’m not…” she trailed off, and I tilted my head.

“I’m not that much older than you are, you know that right?” It kinda came with the package of seeing the future. “I’m just concerned, that’s all.” I made a strained somewhat awkward smile at her. 

“I suppose that’s fair,” She smiled back. “And I still haven’t got any questions from you My Diamond.” There was a teasing lilt to her song, and I nodded.

“Do you see us encountering any parahumans aside from Elle in the near future?” I was curious, any number of parahumans could show up at any moment.

Fuschia placed her hand on her chin with a melodic humm. “I see a few possibilities. In one future we encounter Eidolon and it ends…poorly.” I was surprised she could see that much. “In another we encounter a pyrokinetic parahuman with malicious intent, and in a third path we encounter monstrous dogs.”

“Of those three which are the more likely paths?” I questioned, fidgeting just out of habit.

“Monstrous dogs.” She pointed out, and I wondered if that meant we were going to have another cape encounter soon. The Sapphire was silent, a comfortable quiet lingering before she decided to interrupt it. “My…no, Brandon you’ll have to learn how to fight very soon.” She predicted, warned more accurately. 

“Probably yeah,” I acknowledged her. “This world is very dangerous, and while I have a lot of power…it’s useless without some knowledge of what I’m doing.” At his weakest Steven had lifted an Injector that had to weigh as much as a cargo ship. 

The limits of a Diamond, I had no idea where they were, what they were. Could I get strong enough to equal Alexandria’s own immense strength? Or was my limit below that? How strong were my shields really, could they block anything or would parahuman powers have a way around my defenses?

“Aventurine is probably my best option on that front isn’t she?” I rubbed my eyes, and Fuschia nodded.

“She is a Quartz, and four thousand five hundred years old. She has a lot of experience.” Fuschia flexed her short claws, and took my hands, seeming quite happy to explain. “And there are other soldiers on their way as well, an Orthoclase, several Quartzes, and a handful of Rubies. They’ll teach you many things Your Illumination.”

I gripped her hand, feeling heat rush to my face at the title. It felt odd to be treated with such…deference? Respect? I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I wasn’t sure I hated it either.

“You can just call me by my name you know…” I mumbled, as I saw how even my hands covered her even smaller ones. 

“So…Brandon or Brenda then?” I let go of her velvet hands, tilting my head in affirmation. “Are you worried?” She asked, though her tone told me she knew full well I was.

“I am.”

“Don’t be. You’ll do alright.”

…

I hope so. I really do.

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.6

I hit the ground with a resounding thud, letting out a cry from the impact of a green fist on my face. I rolled, and dodged on all fours before jumping back into a combative position.

I followed the motions, heard the click of violins and chiptunes turn against me, and turned on a dime. Aventurine leapt over where I had been standing, her fist shattering a boulder as large as I am. Which meant she was hitting like a truck with every one of her strikes.

Then again she was a Quartz, even if a more specialized and sneaky type. They were built with power in mind, an enduring strength, a weight of stone that matched my own power more effectively. I could have learned from other Gems but they didn’t offer the same experiences.

Someone like a Pearl or a Lapis Lazuli training themselves to fight…their movements would be more precise, more elegant and focused and while the second had power it was in aqueous waves and spikes and walls. It wasn’t the same. A non-fusion Garnet would work but their power was again just different in how it was applied. 

I kicked the ground, and leapt out of the way of another strike, Aventurine’s fists crackling with green lightning. Her hands glowed and became enclosed within heavy gauntlets, and with a flick enormous blades radiated from the knuckles.

A hexagonal red-pink barrier placed itself in the path of her wild slash, and Aventurine laughed, a song radiating joy-battle-lust-peach-apple-lemon. “THAT’S MORE LIKE IT! SHOW ME WHAT YA GOT!”

I grit my teeth, biting back an angry retort. I charged, the world blurring around me as I hit my new top speed. I threw a series of jabs and punches, Aventurine blocking them with her forearms. She charged her bladed-gauntlets and I was rewarded with an electric blast to the face.

Shit!

The fight continued despite the setback, and I formed a bubble, and I extended spikes from the surface. I rolled the ball, crashing into Aventurine. She unleashed a long slashing motion, electric plasma exploding and breaking the bubble into shards of decaying energy.

I rolled around blows I could barely even see, the wind parting with the sheer speed Aventurine imparted into each and every snapping strike. And she was clearly still holding back, because I had heard the crack of air when she charged at full speed.

I spun behind Aventurine, bashing her with another hexagonal barrier and knocking her off her balance. But instead as she fell, she did a handstand, spinning and kicking me in the chin. I was sent flying into a tree and I scrambled up it, flexing my claws out to climb up a ninety degree angle surface. 

I hardened my arms, human skin becoming rough, tough and dense scales. The tree began to fall, severed in half by a casual swipe from Aventurine. I jumped and reversed my floating, that energy field holding me aloft. I dropped like a brick, and my arms exploded into long jagged crystalline spikes. My opponent let out a pained burst, and she slid the claws of her gauntlet back into place. 

I was grabbed by the collar, and without further notice, smashed into the ground, with a foot stomped down on my chest becoming the final blow.

“A lot of improvement for only three days of training.” She offered to lift me up and I took it without hesitation. Her hand engulfed mine, her inch and a half long claws grazing my arm with a precise, careful ease. I was pulled up to my feet, and I cleared my throat at the damage to the woodland. 

She rolled her eyes, and pushed me forward and I kissed a tree because at this point I didn’t give much of a fuck anymore. I did the same for the other trees and the ground and before too long, it was like nothing had happened. Leaving a trail of broken trees and boulders sounded like a bad idea for remaining discreet. 

I wiped my hands, clearing away the accumulated dust on them. “I’m still not as strong as I could be.”

Aventurine chuckled. “It’s been twenty seven days, you’re not going to go from a squishy human to unyielding Diamond just like that.” She cracked her knuckles, sauntering towards the tiny base. “Code patching should at least help clear up some of your rough spots though.”

Being around Gems had started to very slowly numb me to how they were very free with their kisses. It was oddly conversational, not much of a big deal for the species. And with how they freely pass data, from memory to even certain perception powers it made sense.

Luckily none of them did something weird like kissing me on the mouth, a kiss on the cheek was one thing, a kiss on my virgin lips was another. But that didn't seem to be a common thing outside of very close friends or romantic relationships.

Now…I needed a nice hot shower.

I pulled at my shirt, still feeling some of the heat from the steam of my hot shower. Shifting to a girl had been an easy magic tweak, and I was comfortably wearing a red shirt and white gym shorts. Olly was busy, popping through the Galaxy Warp again and again, and bringing in materials and Robonoids, caked in red dust.

She had created a whole lot of gem alloy cables, and was more or less producing hundreds of tons of the stuff, if not thousands, along with some type of plasticine membrane. It still felt kind of weird to realize it was using my own ichor to make them, since they didn’t want to waste what had been brought with them.

Each and every Gem sent had a store of ichor from all four Diamonds, literal tens of gallons of the stuff as needed. And when a single milliliter was all that was needed to create a single Gem…there was a lot of room to grow. Olly was busy with studying the properties of my ichor, while it was mostly like Steven’s there were small tweaks to it…aspects shared more with Yellow oddly enough.

Olly’s made over over a hundred Robonoids, including several about the size of small cars. Construction robots rapidly assembled the structure for what would eventually become a colony, my colony. She had enough cabling to suspend a few kilometers square worth of area, and the current plan was to cover about five hundred square kilometers beneath a protective layer of supremely tough membrane.

While it would have been easy to put up an energy field to protect the colony, it was costly and prone to power failure. This was basically a high tech, ultra strong tent held up by cable a thousand times stronger than steel. Cables set from a hundred meters to two hundred meters apart, a grand space for buildings and soil and life.

Some of those cables would be within buildings and towers at least a hundred meters high, because while Gems didn’t need air, the life they needed did. Of course terraforming with only a handful of Gems wasn’t exactly going to be…

I was smacked in the face multiple times by blunt objects, dropping out of my bed. A few Pebbles scurried about, poking me with worry.

“You okay?” I patted one on the head and nodded, and they ducked away into cute little mouse holes. Their cute little songs echoed in the walls and I held myself on my knees. I found the blunt object easily enough and stared.

A total of six Gems had come in this new burst, and my eyes focused to see what types had come through this time. The first gem was a pentagonal one with a medium dark yellow color, Legrandite from the looks of it. The gem next to it was a teardrop shaped specimen of Labradorite, three Rubies and a cabochon cut of Ammolite. 

Before I could even think, the three Rubies began to glow with light and song and I scrambled back, falling on my ass. Two of the Gems emerged fairly normally, and stood at about the same height as Sapphire. My Sapphire I mean, though stockier and more heavily muscled. 

Their uniform was more or less the standard one, with the Diamond insignia colored rose red, straddling the line between red and pink. Though one Gem had a frilly Kama cape thing and her squarish hair ended in curls. She showed her belly, where a hexagonal gemstone sat firmly at the center.

The second Ruby was very slightly taller, and had a slightly more robust frame and hair design, with a gem on her dorsal side of her right hand. Her color was a deeper shade, more rusty if you would. The remaining Ruby ended up being more unusual, continuing to form past where her fellow Rubies stopped. 

I blinked and I looked up at the six foot tall Ruby with crimson skin and a different uniform from either Ruby. Her pants were looser, more like work-out clothing or a martial arts uniform, a dull red versus black while her shoulders were colored with a brown-red darkening to almost black around her gloved hands. She had her gem on her chest, and her dark crimson eyes had a sign of age on them.

She was an old rock, and I wasn’t sure how I knew that.

All three made a quick salute, one gruff of song, another more casual and a third was a tad on the hard side, like rumbling pebbles. The big one went first.

“Blood Pigeon Ruby Facet-A11 Tetragon-27.” The big one reported, with a designation unused by Rubies since before the advent of Era 1. More proof of her old age. The next Rubies followed up on their own designations.

The bellybutton Ruby smiled, her song just this side of seductive. “Ruby Facet-U27 Tetragon-4KY.” Was said sweetly and easily. 

The rusty skinned gem followed up. “Ruby Facet-B21 Trilliant-4ZZ.” And at that moment I noted the cut of her stone was different. Here I had three perfectly nice Gems being all orderly and eager to talk to me…and I was on the ground like a common idiot.

“Umm…hello?” I picked myself up, grabbing the remaining Gems and placing them on my bed for the time being. “It’s nice to meet the three of you.” I actually was, still fascinated by Gems as a species. Plus two of them were small and adorable despite being able to beat the shit out of most humans on Earth.

Blood Pigeon was the first to respond, amusement dancing between gruff notes. “I thought you’d be taller.”

I slumped. “Why do people keep saying that?” I whined, growling under my breath.

“Because it’s funny.” The chipper of the three Rubies confirmed my fear with a carefree expression. “Oh and we’ve been assigned as guards, it’s what we wanted to do.” The bellybutton Ruby preempted Blood Pigeon, her smile looking more like a mischievous smirk.

The giant Ruby rolled her eyes. “There’s a lot of Gems who are going to need someone a little tougher to keep them safe. It might be Era 3 now, but this world is a lot more dangerous than most colonies. It’s why we’ve got a few chunks of Quartzes on their way along with our commander.”

“Commander?” That was actually interesting information, I doubt it’s a Garnet since those tend to lead hundreds of Gems at the lower end and millions at the higher end. From what I knew, out of about twenty seven Gems as an initial party we had four Quartzes including Aventurine, five Rubies and an Orthoclase along with a Pearl trained in combat. 

“Well she’s a—” There was a howling roar outside, like the bark of dogs scaled up tenfold. 

Fight.

“It might be time to show me what you can do.” I stood up, looking back at the gems. The three Rubies shared smiles of varying emotional capacity. Their songs ring loud and clear and warm.

“RUBIES OUT!” Blood Pigeon gave out the orders, and the three Gems marched through my wall, leaving imprints of their bodies. I stepped out of my room, and ran towards the entrance to the thousands of square feet within this pocket dimension.

I made it out right as the three Rubies opened and shut the door behind them. I stepped out but stayed on the porch since I was still terrible at fighting. I blinked as I stared at the two massive monsters Aventurine was holding off.

They were monstrous, massive beasts of flesh and bone and spurs, jaws snapping to crush at Aventurine’s arms. She moved like molasses to my eyes, clearly holding back against them. There was a grating sound, and I scowled, snapping my jaw in anger. 

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! 

The three Rubies and Aventurine slowed before speeding back up again, with the group of three new Gems piling up on a single dog monster. They carefully crashed the beast into the ground, holding it down with their superior strength. Aventurine did the same, her gauntlets forming solid bands of electrical energy to hold down the dog.

I glanced over to a gruff faced auburn girl, her hard expression shifting to something closer to fear, an animal panic that left me just a tad concerned. I recognize Bitch easily enough, monstrous dogs with bony angular bodies and a rough looking auburn teenager were a rather obvious clue. 

I stepped down from the porch, and sauntered over to the girl. Her eyes widened when she found me approaching her.

“Brutus h—” I lifted an eyebrow, and she growled. I approached further, and she attacked, throwing a punch. I took the hit and she let out a hiss of pain at my iron jaw. 

“Stop that.” I gently pointed out, my aura pressing outwards. Not against her but against her shard. “Stop empowering your dogs and we can…talk.” I didn’t smile, but there was a brief flash of my teeth regardless of what I wanted. 

There was a glower on her face, wary and aggressive, lips pulled into a very small snarl. I narrowed my eyes, tilted my head. She wanted to attack, she was angry, scared, frustrated.

“Why did you attack my Gems?” Something possessive entered my voice, not in the sense of owning them…no this was a different kind of greed, a different kind of protective instinct. 

“They got too close to my dogs.” There was something else, it wasn’t just her own inability to read people that had gotten her in trouble. I could feel the biting, grating tonal howls of her shard, physical projections of information and energy into the area around us.

I blasted my Aura, and the shard cowered, and I could feel it’s feelings, that burst of terror-error-disconnection-confusion. The shards were powerful, complex and yet simple, vastly intellectual and yet bestial and instinctual. Their ability to manipulate dimensions and physical energies was vast. But they weren’t magic, and we had stacked the dice in our favor.

The Empire had years of combating shards which meant they had means of messing with them, and the shards themselves could. With Mantellum being a good proof of concept. I was a Diamond, and all five of us possessed vast psychic power, our Auras proof of them. 

And those of Cerise specifically had excellent means of deflecting, of stopping mind control, mind manipulation, we were reflections of Her after all…the cerise shadow of Light Given Mind. 

I stared down the younger Rachel, she was of course younger, and she had bulk to her frame, but she hadn’t built up the muscle her future self would one day earn.

A future self anyway.

“Get your dogs to back down and I’ll let you all leave, I’m not interested in a fight.” Rachel scowled but after a moment, she reached out with her power and the dogs stopped growing under her powe. Stopped supplyingthe pound by pound of mass entering through a method of dimensional transference. 

I gestured, and she went to her dogs, looking mere moments away from attacking the Rubies, though they flashed their tusks with almost cruel smiles. The two dogs went from half ton monstrosities to husks, and she expertly cut away the rotting flesh with a knife on her person.

After a minute she had cut her dogs free, revealing a large and excited Rottweiler, black fur slick with ichor, and a slim but strong German Shepherd, fur matted by the wetness of the giant meat suit it had been piloting.

Ruby Facet-U27 Tetragon-4KY’s eyes sparkled, and her song rippled with the smashing of sparks and hot metal.

“Doggy!” She cried out, making her approach, one made with careful analysis, the flash of fangs held back, music muted and softened to something sweet. Rachel stiffened, knuckles turning white with her grip.

She went for the Rottweiler, moving carefully, slowly, glancing back at the auburn teenager with wide puppy dog eyes. But not looking her directly in the eyes.“I won’t hurt him…he’s a sweet boy isn’t? Well trained too…may I?” 

Rachel chuffed. “Fine. I can’t stop you anyway.” Ruby tsked, and pressed her hand against Brutus’ fur, fingers gliding and petting him with experienced ease. He panted, his nub of a tail quivering back and forth in an approximation of a tail wag. 

The bellybutton Ruby’s song was sickeningly sweet, and I crossed my arms, keeping my temper in check as I stared Rachel down. She bared her teeth, attempting some type of dominance display.

We couldn’t have that now can we?

I squared my shoulders, followed those strange foreign alien instincts, that Diamond brain with the backlogs of millions of years of contests and natural selection, that mechanical instinct honed across generations. 

“How exactly did you end up here?” I asked, measured in tone, keeping my song from leaking too much. Her rewired brain might react badly to the frequencies of Gemsong.

“Needed a place to lay low, but I can’t stay here. Not a lot we can eat out here, and if my dogs get sick…” She trailed off, as if waiting for me to ask more questions. 

I didn’t, it wasn’t complicated. She was hiding from the Protectorate, and decided a big old forest was a good place to hide for a while. 

“Food huh…?” Aventurine cut in, her voice plucking at the air with an electric crackle. “We’ve got some food to share if you need any, enough to get you back to wherever you’re from.” The Quartz pointed back to the Home Pyramid, and the small greenhouses and tree covered buildings built along a small grid on the stream.

Rachel grunted, and Aventurine replied back with a deep trill, rumbling in my chest. 

“Alright.” The cape acceded.

I watched from the corner of my vision as Rachel scarfed down her food, some type of magic cooked fish along with rice. Her dogs ate a helpful mix made by one of the Rubies. Who obviously had a lot of experience with canines with how expertly prepared they had been made.

Fuschia was watching over the remaining gemstones waiting to regenerate, kneeling on the sofa with an intense one eyed expression. Three Gems, of varying former castes and experiences.

It would obviously take them longer to emerge than the Rubies, unless one of them decided to prove me wrong and— there it goes. 

The Labradorite was the Gem floating up into the air, their gem ringing with sound, and burning with light. Rachel went still, gaze sharpening. The mannequin frame of all Gems came to form, and clothing and personality was injected and layered over the mass of light.

In no time at all, another Gem floated down onto the ground. She’s a more typical height, not as tiny as modern Corundum and not as bulky as lumps of Quartz, about the height of Lapis.

Her frame is slightly wider than the delicate elegant frames of a Lapis Lazuli, a little more curvaceous, especially around the hips. She wears a strapless dress, a light blue around the bust, with the exception of a black Diamond shape from her bust down to her lower stomach. The dress was a light blue directly below the symbol, and a deeper shade along the sides. Her smooth cut gem was right above her bust, below her neck. Her skin was cerulean, and her face was oval, with bags under dark blue eyes. Her baby blue hair was straight and had a dark blue hair band, and split at the ends as it curtained below her back.

I noted the lines on her skin, black color along a pristine blue surface. A magnetite inclusion from the looks of both her gems and her markings. Her tired expression was more wired than Olly’s, and her soft smile reveals pointed teeth like that of piranha’s, the facsimile of humanity broken.

“Is this a bad time?” Her song was even in beat, soft spoken, with a light accent to it. Just a little humor, buried in a quiet song, dry and casual. I nodded. Her eyes squinted, and she curtsied with her notes trailing amusement. “I’ll make my leave then.”

Rachel was staring at me, her natural glare sharpening, becoming more focused on me. I didn’t look away, while I should have felt nervous, getting glared at by a superpowered fourteen year old wasn’t very impressive. Her dogs weren’t even all that scary when Aventurine could just rip them in half. 

The meat suits rather than the dogs I mean. Killing dogs isn’t really one of my goals here. 

“What are you?” Her eyes were narrowed, hackles raised and her dogs followed her lead, light growls hitting the air.

“We’re Gems.” I replied with a chipper lilt. 

“Don’t be cute.” She growled, and I nodded firmly. 

“I’m not lying, we’re Gems, beings of light and crystal with powers and abilities.” I gestured to the several Gems in the room. Two Rubies, a Sapphire and an Amber. “You stumbled on our…home, territory, temporary base of operations?” I shrugged. “We offered you food, and you’re probably planning on leaving and going back to civilization.”

“You’re like the monster capes?” I blinked at her blase and slightly offensive response, I guess Rachel wouldn’t know they were called Case 53s.

“If you mean our biology is really different from humans yes,” I rubbed my chin, folding one leg over the other. “But it’s a bit of a simplification, and I don’t think you want to sit through a long explanation.” 

“No I don’t…” Rachel was tilting her head, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle and couldn’t work it out. “What do you want from me?” She accused, expression pinched and agitated.

“Want?” I blinked. “Why would I want anything from you?” While having another parahuman might be nice, that wasn’t why I had let Aventurine offer her food. 

She sounded confused, paranoid, angry even. “Then why give me food?”

“Because we could? Only two of us need to eat, and we have a surplus.” I had no means of helping a half-feral teenager, I had no context and couldn’t use the experiences of my parents for this. “I suppose we could house you, but that doesn’t seem like something you would want.” I shrugged, there were options but going our separate ways was a good possibility.

“Hmm…” She grunted, continuing to eat and there was a terrible silence. “You don’t seem to want anything, but she does.” She pointed to Aventurine entering the rooms “She should get to the point.”

The Quartz grinned, tusks as sharp as a lion’s killing fangs clicking. “Hah! You’re a bit of a brute aren’t ya? I’ll keep it simple…I just wanted to give ya food, but then I thought…why not make a deal, a trade.”

“For what?” Rachel gruffly responded.

“We give you food and shelter, and you help us with information, we’re not locals ya see.”

“I don’t talk to people.” Which was true from Rachel. 

“Nothing like that,” Aventurine reassured. “We just need eyes and ears, and someone to deliver equipment so we can pull it off.” She shifted her huge shoulders. “You scratch our backs, we scratch yours…that’s the saying right?” I gave a thumbs up. “We might even give you back up if you want it.” 

“That all?” Rachel said it with the dryness of the Sahara desert. 

“Or we can give you a three day’s supply of food and send you on your way back, we’re not exactly desperate here.” We weren’t, we could find other ways to get what we needed.

Rachel narrowed her eyes, though her expression softened when she saw how my bellybutton Ruby was careful with her dogs. 

“You’ll help me with my dogs?” There was something, not calculating, more measuring. 

“I’d do that free of charge, I have a lot of history with them…so does Ruby over there,” Something soft entered Aventurine’s song, a melancholic melody. “It’s your choice to make, we’ll pack you supplies either way.”

Rachel was still. “Later.” She stood up, and I expected not to get an answer until tomorrow.

Just a guess.

I suppose the future is going to be pretty eventful.

I floated within a landscape of clouds under a cerise sky, golden tinged masses of fluff twisting around me. This time I knew I was in a Dream, my own pocket of a vast Realm of Dreams. A place that was nowhere and everywhere, in every when and yet not in any one place, in one space, in one time.

I jumped, and broke the sound barrier a hundred times over, bursting out from the cloud line and into the void of space. It was full of stars, and my eyes saw them as a barrage of energy, spikes of color in all the spectrums of the light. I could see the cracks, thousands upon thousands of them, perhaps even a million across a scarred and frightened world.

A few cracks were familiar, and I drifted along the currents of the Dream Realm, following after them. The Earth below me changed, and my eyebrows furrowed in realization. 

This was his Earth, I could hear the songs of a million Gems, the rumbling cacophony of eight billion organic lives. I looked up at the Moon and saw great cities of crystal and light, spire across a grid of a terraformed natural satellite, Luna under azure skies. 

I could talk with him here, in this Dream Realm shared by all living things, by humans, by Gems, and by countless other beings. What was out there? 

I veered away from Earth, and I spun in the emptiness of space, the stars melting into beacons of light. Images came to me, memories, anchors, places that could exist but probably didn’t. 

The stars melted away and I was suddenly shooting across a vast star system, hundreds of light years from Earth if not thousands. Twenty one worlds orbited around a bright white star, so many of them bearing life of one stripe or another, a calculated dance of gravity and mass shifting keeping them from falling apart.

I drifted towards one world, and I let out a strangled scream as I slammed into a planet, a verdant world covered in red vegetation and with striking cerise and azure seas. I fell into the mindscape of the planet, sliding between a hundred million dreams, essence sparking with gold and amber. 

I walked on cracked desert soil, and looked up at a series of towers and round cylindrical buildings topped by domes of stained glass. A desert palace sparkling with the unreal aura of dreams and nightmares both. 

I stepped back, where two figures collided, both burning inside and out with ultraviolet fire, energy and power given form and purpose. Two golden tanned beings moving with grace and martial strength.

I caught the shine of black and red hair, flaring with fire and heat, and fists lighting with violet and green energy respectively. There were screams, raw in their emotion, rage and betrayal, jealousy and hatred burning against my mind.

“You can’t win sister! ” The raven haired alien screamed, and I understood her perfectly. Because I was a Gem, because I was a Diamond. “The Citadel will be here soon, it’s time for you to…end!” Both were woman, female, almost human, and yet there were subtle differences.

They drifted and hopped on long digitigrade legs, golden glittering skin exposed to the sun. Their skin was covered in faint patterns, small spots and long weaving stripes. Glowing emerald eyes radiated with power, in a nightmare memory, a battle between sisters. 

Between royal kin.

There was a scream in the air, a shift in the wind, a burst of enormous power. Both sisters stopped, and the raven haired sister paused, an elongated ear twitching and swiveling, an earpiece visible in the scene. 

“What…where is the armada, I’ve given you the plans, now carry them out—” The earpiece releases a piercing scream and the traitorous sister rips it away from a now bleeding ear. There was something in the sky, a rippling in reality, across the light of a distant world. 

I scrambled back, and the vision focused away from the scene and onto a world surrounded by a great defenses, orbital rings carrying fortresses, vessels of gleaming silver and shadowy titanium in the thousands, emplacements spitting nuclear fire and tendrils of dark energies against an unseen foe.

Something emerges from the abyss, and I saw something vast. It wasn’t big in the way trees or even the mountains were, it cast a shadow on the planet itself, black crystalline flesh obscured under optical distortions as light itself was warped around the vast thing, like a worm, like a whale, like a divine serpent casting down judgment. 

It turned and ten thousand cannons blasted with a force to sunder a continent, flesh burned away, pieces the size of islands broken and shattered and melted. It was larger than the moon, the serpentine thing wrapping around the world in panic and terror.

Guns fired, ships the length of towns were sundered, asteroid fields were scattered and stellar beasts died. In a single battle, an empire was broken, armies ruined, weapons exhausted, rings twenty thousand kilometers long breaking into a million pieces. The panicked Wyrm died in terror and confusion, it’s flesh falling into the yellow-white star, a moon sized dragon slain.

I retracted back to the planet I had seen first, falling down onto my knees. One of the golden skinned humanoids remained, The one dreaming this terrible Dream. 

She was taller than Blood Pigeon Ruby, her glimmering skin a burnt orange hue with lighter patterns, spots along her legs, whirling stripes on her bare stomach and arms. She had a face of classical beauty with a touch of the alien, just a tad longer than normal, eyes like a cat’s with an emerald glow. Her legs were shapely, and she stood on the balls of her feet, built more for sprinting than any human should be. Her hair was a shade of red deeper than humanly possible, and she wore only a purple skirt and top, arms crossed over her bust, a single clawed index finger tapping against them.

“S-Sorry.” She shrugged, and with a gentle tap on my nose sent me out of her dream, flying into the void.

I flew faster than light, outpacing the laws of physics. I flew away from that star system which had known so much loss and pain, and towards another star, towards another world. It was a large dark planet, tidally locked to its parent star, with a narrow terminus where life could survive.

I looked at the dark side of the planet, and there was a sensation like I was being watched, like fingers were crawling along my skin. I dropped down like a rock, and crashed into another dream, one that was deeper and larger than most. 

I found myself in a hot spring, steam rising from golden waters lapping against dark stone. Strange leaves and branches hung overhead, blending into the soft gold-cerise light of the room. I looked around at the ornate architecture, like something out of a fairy tale, pillars holding up the dark stone. 

I was sitting on a metal bench and felt oddly rejuvenated, like all the energy I spent projecting my mind across space and time was being recovered second by second. There was another presence, someone humming a tune, plucking at the strings of the Dream.

I stepped off the bench, and the world shifted around me, leaving me in front of a statue of a massive moth, carved in stone and lined with white gold. There was a whisper, of something dead, forgotten, consumed. 

The light went out, and I shrunk in on myself, trying to project a bubble even though I was astral projecting. It failed, and the shrine was consumed by shadows, countless white orbs emerging from the shadows. My Aura pushed the darkness back, and I swallowed nervously.

Where the hell had I gone?

Something large emerged from the shadows, a figure with eight eyes and two sets of branching horns, four arms and countless tendrils moving back and forth, like a living glitch made of void and shadows and darkness. 

I felt cold, and the shadows retracted at the bidding of the fifty foot tall lord of darkness, and it didn’t speak in direct words, nor in the lyrical quality of Gemsong. 

Think.

Feel.

Live. 

My anxieties retreated at the passiveness of the entity, even as it’s voice felt like a chorus of madness, void made manifest, potential and primordial energy warping around me.

“I…what are you?”

Void. Regrets. Shadow. I flinched, as the shadows parted for thousands, maybe millions of specters, countless regrets gathered within this void within a dream. The being chuffed, and I blinked as it poked me with a clawed hand, reflecting thoughts and feelings back at me.

Light Of Life. It gestured to myself, to my form, eight eyes crinkling while it’s body shifted with a chittering crack. It gestured and images emerged in the black.

I saw a radiant figure, white light shining like a star, the face of a Diamond. 

Light Of Mind. 

Yellow followed.

Light Of Body.

Blue rose from the void, clouds of light azure vaporizing in the dream realm.

Light Of Will. 

Is…is that what this being, this Void Given Focus calls the Diamonds, so I’m the Light Of Life then? 

The entity shook its head, gesturing that I was similar but there were small disparities, clicks of tonal chitters translated by my Diamond brain into something barely coherent.

“Could I leave? I’m feeling a little lost.” I asked and it responded, a massive blade made of golden light folding the Dream Realm with pure power. I was launched from this strange place between worlds, and flew. 

I was back on Earth, his Earth and I slipped through the cracks without meaning to. I spun, and collided with dull and muted dreams, the disparate processes of something enormous in scope and scale. I walked along crystalline circuitry sparking with energies, thousands of red crystals melded together into a single unit. 

I LISTENED, I HEARD, I EXPERIENCED. 

I drifted among the dregs of thoughts and dreams and impressions of something as large as a planet, a labyrinthine machine, broadcasting, intuiting, connecting, draining, activating, drawing upon. It was the pedestal, the church, the false idol, made to draw upon the powers of others of its kind. It connected to ten thousand lesser pieces, broken in body and spirit, in a broken network. It drew upon the sleeping desires of its host, creating truly grand and worth—

I was ripped away from the mind of the beast, a claw curling to pull me by my collar. My eyes were wide when I looked back at Diamond pupils that weren’t my own.

Aster Diamond smiled.

It’s time for you to wake up…

I let out a scream as I woke up from that tangle of dreams, gripping onto my pillow for comfort I breathed, in and out and named items in the room to further delay my panic and anxiety.  

I had been subconsciously using my astral projection, and had entered the dreams of several entities. The first was humanoid, almost too human even and yet there were subtle differences, enough to unnerve a person. It was a flashback, a distorted nightmare, and I noted the imagery of a vast shard of an Entity. The second world was one of darkness, the home of something huge and powerful. 

Then I had slid into the assorted thoughts of a shard, and was pulled out of the madness by Steven. My astral projection had sent me across space and time, and he had saved me. I laid back down on my bed with a groan.

I’m not going to sleep much tonight am I?

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.7

I rubbed my eyes, yawning as steam rose from the room, wicking away my sweat, gleaming with the pearlescent aura of Diamond’s Fire. I was wearing only shorts, and when I brushed my fingers through my very light beard they came away with light red ichor. A stream of water followed, wicking away the liquid essence as it fell down the drain of the miniature Extraction Chamber.

There was a short chirping alarm, and the extraction process ceased after draining some fourteen liters of ichor. Thankfully I had learned that the amount of ichor I produced wasn’t directly related to how much water I had in my body. Else I’d be shit out of luck on producing enough ichor for Gems. 

Though a single person scaled up to the size of a Diamond might produce more than enough. A single person could produce a maximum of ourteen liters of sweat a day, and a Diamond might be six hundred times greater in volume.

Which…should be enough to create billions of Gems every year, and was probably a bare minimum. 

I summoned my shirt, and rolled my shoulders, getting a satisfying crack. I patted it and it changed color according to my will. It went from light pink to a crimson red, and I stepped out of the chamber. From what I knew the chamber was a prototype for a Lapidary, one of the many recreational and Gem processing facilities found on every colony in the Gem Empire.

I walked out barefoot before slipping into slippers, again brought out from my Gem. I could see the tubes running, flexible transparent pipes pumping ichor towards containers as well as a Spectrum Analyzer for Labradorite, or more specifically Magnetite Inclusion Labradorite Facet-22Z Cabochon-378.

The Labradorites had a specific role in the Empire, as sorcerers sent to collect the essence of the Diamond’s to prepare for the creation of new Gems. They were also magical researchers and tinkers, and responsible for a number of enchanted and mystical artifacts. 

Things like Replicator Wands, Warp Whistles, and Fire Salt were creations of Labradorites in projects of their own design or in tandem with other intellectual Gems. Labradorites were dangerous and unpredictable due to their duties in handling Diamond’s ichor. They could create or enchant or invoke any number of spells and reality shift techniques.

They had abilities inherent to themselves of course, teleportation was a common one though not all of them had the power. While the caste system was obsolete, Gems would always retain certain aspects of their nature as programmed beings. Even the new programming of Era 3 Gems could only change so much.

The difference was that they could choose their own path, and that they had room to do more than their purpose. To be more than their purpose.

That became obvious when I saw Fuschia was elbows deep into a large machine, with Olly doing the same, and pointing out things with a mutter. She was crouching, sticking out her tongue and welding together components with a precise hand. 

Gems had much better kinesthetic control than humans, and it helped them a lot with the creation of technology. 

“I didn’t know you liked to build and tinker yourself.” Fuschia looked back, wiping away dark fluids with a light smile.

She shrugged, sweetly greeting me. “It’s a hobby, and we’re constructing a warp core.” She preempted my question, eyes crinkling in amusement. 

“Hmm…those are faster than light drives aren’t they?” It was what they used to bend reality to their will. 

“Warp cores have multiple uses beyond transluminal travel.” 

True. Their gravimetric field displacement manifolds were used in general propulsion along with secondary thrusters. They operated at sublight speed, and were divided up into several redundant sections for different ‘gears’ of travel. Complex equations and invocations of reality shift drove the field towards different shapes as needed for FTL travel. 

Other sections were dedicated to gravity control, with a backup system built into the floor plating of the ship. The warp core, and the tesseract coils within them were placed in front of the engines, energy projected to warp reality. 

These warp cores were powerful machines, capable of sending a ship flying at thousands of times the speed of light at their slowest. 

“Is…is it a good idea to build a reality warping engine on an inhabited planet?”

“We’re only assembling some of the tesseract coils, and we’re missing the Crystal Heart to power it. At best we’ll have limited gravity control along with inertial dampening.” 

“Neat.” I commented and Fuschia giggled softly. 

“I believe you wanted to look at the Computation Orb?” She answered.

“Is this your way of kicking me out?” I teased and a hot blush spread across her face.

“I…sorry, I didn’t mean it like that!” She apologized, raising her hands up. I chuckled, and she huffed.

“No it’s fine, I really should have been taking a look at that myself. We can talk more later.” I smiled, and Fuschia smiled back, her song turning sweet and warm.

I moved quickly, opening the door to my section of the pocket reality inside the Home Pyramid. Which was closer in design to Era 3 spatial expansion rooms than the old Gem-linked dimensions of Era 1. A lot of Gem-linked magic tech could probe very finicky. The rooms were all in one reality and divided up by physical space, rather than separate dimensions with thin barriers between them.

It prevented the scenarios of, say, Sardonyx’s whole fusion dimensions collapsing on top of you.

One door led right to the Thinking Chamber, a cave lined with cerise and amber crystal, like the inside of a geode. The Computation Orb was a complicated device and there were several holographic consoles, projecting data and information I didn’t quite understand at my current level of education.

For now…

The Geode was split in two, and I placed my hand on a hand-shaped interface activating the device. I came here to check something rather important. The two halves slid together, and the sphere became translucent, the air shimmering around it.

I coughed. “Computer. How many intelligent species have been documented by the Gem Empire?” The sphere pulsed with mechanical song.

“ 3600 species have been documented and studied by Gemkind, across ten galaxies. ” It spoke freely, dancing along my throat, a shifting chorus. I focused my mind then, and broadcasted my memory into the machine.

“What species is this?” That woman was a curious thing. 

“ Species 26, ” It formed a generic image of the golden skinned humanoid, stripped of clothing until I commanded otherwise with a flushed face. “ A resilient and heavily carnivorous humanoid species from the Lyrae star system, 2600 light years from Earth. Species 26 has a warrior culture. ” The sphere expanded, becoming wispy and forming a model of twenty one worlds, and a massive asteroid field acting as a line between the star and it’s planets. 

That…that wasn’t natural at all. 

Readings came in from one of the holographic screens at hand, esoteric data organized along lines compatible with Gem instinct and mentality. I blinked at the basic outlines and summaries.

Species 26 was a TNA-based species of life with a six letter genetic code, using base pairs natural to Earth. Turns out they’re among the most stable base pairs out of a million possible combinations. 

There were maybe a hundredth of a percent of the possible nucleobases that were stable and useful for life without excessive mutation and decay. So things like Adenine and Uracil, Cytosine and Guanine weren’t uncommon, and for this tree of life, they were also paired with Xanthine and Diaminopyrimidine. Not as stable but stable enough. 

Their genetic code was complex and labyrinthine, and capable of creating a wide selection of enzymes and molecular machines. Many of those enzymes and biological machines focused on bonds between silicon and carbon, and made Species 26…very alien. They were living organisms, living lattices of silicate and carbon, feeding off of ultraviolet radiation to power alien processes. 

Their skin was a supple composite of crystalline carbon, silicon and flesh, with the flexibility of skin and the hardness of diamond, of graphene and silicon carbide. Sparkling very dimly in the right circumstances.

Bones were reinforced, tough enough to shrug off blows that would cripple humans and even stagger Gems. Muscles were the same way, silicone and laced organic carbon fiber muscles fed by nutrient slurry with suitable oxidants. Their nerves were a complex organic network of carbon-silicon nerves connected to the armored sensitive skin.

They were a strange mix between organic and silicon, cells protected by crystal lattices, and focusing ultraviolet radiation as a catalyst for as of yet undocumented processes. 

I think it was called the Photonucleic effect, but I wasn’t too sure.

But what I did know said a lot about them, they absorbed electromagnetic energies and gained control over strange, possible magical powers. They could fly, uniting electromagnetic and gravitational forces, their already tough bodies were reinforced by energy fields, and they could release blasts of heat and plasma, and even fly into space. That ignored things like their alien internal organs, their altered psychological profiles and their almost but not quite human appearance.

This Species 26 was tough, as strong as a Quartz on average and as strong as some fusions on the high end. And from what I could, their powers were a relatively recent phenomena, emerging in the last tens of thousands of years. 

Because if they could fly without propulsion why would they need legs?

I scowled, shaking my head. “What about the species associated with…” I imagined that Void…that darkness from which all things are borne from, and from which everything will return to it.

“ Species 52. A species similar to sapient insects in appearance, their malleable genetics allow for substantial biological differences between races. ” I blinked when it demonstrated some small bipedal beetles, wearing either flat masks…or it was just their face, to massive spider-like creatures. “ All Species 52 access a hitherto unknown energy, used to empower their bodies and to create effects in reality. ”  

So…magic?

“What species are closely associated with the Gem Empire?” The Computational Orb responded with a chime. 

“ Species 2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 26, 27, 28, 46, 52 all have varying ties with the Gem Empire. ” It went through species quickly, a few were humanoid while others were more alien. Some were superhuman, while others were close to a human baseline. 

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve been told about threats to the Empire before Era 1, like the Maszyna. Are there other examples?” 

“ Yes. The Gem Empire has encountered a number of threats, with the first known as the Apoquiae Maszyna. ” The sphere depicted massive lumbering vessels, hundreds of kilometers long, with a swarm of billions of drones around the mothership. Kites of light flitted between the swarms, and it shifted to a ground battle, strange Gems, oddly tall Rubies and lumbering Gems of stone-like disposition battling golems of metal and plastic, single-eyed optics and bipedal forms clicking and shrieking in unison with ten thousand of their even more alien brethren. 

“Umm…”

“ Rampant sub-sapient machines, they colonized thousands of worlds and discovered the Gem Empire, attacking the six moons of Homeworld with a vast fleet of butchering mechanisms. ”

“Oh.” Well that was horrifying.

“The second were called Star Echidnas.” A massive starfish-like being, purple and blue in color, and it was planetary in scale, swarmed by billions of smaller copies. “The Echidna War lasted a thousand years, destroying five hundred colonies and resulting in the extermination of the Star Echidna’s hive mind. The Empire found the remains of countless dead worlds, reducing the resources of their native galaxy.”

It put up a timeline, the Maszyna War was one hundred twenty thousand year ago, the Star Echidna eighty thousand years ago and a handful of other wars against strange alien life.

And none of it was sophont, either they were an interstellar Machine Army, galactic parasites or mutant organic beasts of various stripes and powers. Organic life in Homeworld’s galaxy was heavily mutated by magic, and what wasn’t organic was incredibly alien and aggressive.

There had even been a species of sentient metals, metallic golems animated by magic but lacking the sapience of Gems. They lived within interstellar asteroids and planetoids, voracious living threads of living metal raining down on unsuspecting colonies. 

These Metal Threads came in many forms, from Irons to Coppers to even Bismuths, though they weren’t crystallized into gemstones. They were destroyed and became the inspiration for certain Gem types like Cuprites and what would become Bismuths. 

There was a reason they had soldiers, even if it was mostly against supernatural animals and abominations along with robotic armies. But humans had been the first true intelligent life they had ever encountered, and they didn’t discover more until Era 3 started.

Something to do with the denizens of the galaxy wanting nothing to do with world destroyers. Though not every species coming out of the woodworks had been…so nice and friendly.

Species 4 had been secretly invading Earth, along with a series of other worlds out of misguided bigotry and a wrathful tantrum due to the slow extinction of their species due to inbreeding and poorly managed eugenics programs. That had been about eleven years ago from the looks of it.

There were hundreds of species I needed to read up on, and I had some free time so…there was…

Thump. 

…

I’ll visit this place soon enough, I’ll check out that noise first.

Of the remaining two Gems, it ended up being Ammolite who I saw first. She was a colorful Gem, and stood about half a head taller than Ambz, around six feet or so. 

I blinked, inspecting the Gem.

She had blush pink skin, and had a heavier frame than Amber or Labradorite, a bit like a skinnier Rose Quartz. She had fluffy crimson red hair with hints of pink and orange, and she wore an artistic red, orange, and black leotard exposing her upper thighs, with the rest of her leg covered in large red limb-enhancer esque boots. She swayed her hips as she walked, lips pulled up into a small grin as she conversed with Olly. 

Her gemstone was on the back of her left hand, a cabochon stone of glimmering red, with streaks of pink and orange among it’s spectrum. She turned, as if expecting me. 

“Oh hello?” She waved shyly. “You must be…Sunrise Diamond right?” She sounded a bit like swaying grass in the wind, nature turned into music. Her pitch was modest, and pleasant. 

I grinned, still not accustomed to being greeted so often. “Were you looking for me?”

“Oh no. I was just coming back from examining the Nursery, and advising Olly on what the best Gems to grow.” She perked up, eyes lighting. “Based on the life I sense, we can safely extract one hundred and sixty Gems from the pegmatite Nursery.”

“That’s a fair number, any guess at the expected ratio?” I grew curious, what else could Ammolite tell me?

“Eighty one Feldspars, forty five Quartz, twenty one Micas, six Tourmalines, and seven other Gems.” She answered with pep.

“So Anglesites, Titanites, Garnets and perhaps a Beryl?” It wasn’t so much an educated guess anymore. I had been learning a lot about Gem production myself, one because well…I’m a Diamond and two it’s just neat.

“That’s about right.” Ammolite shrugged her shoulders, her song twisting a little. “We should be able to start incubating Gems in…three to seven days, depending on a few factors.”

“How long does it take for Gems to uhh…form?” Ammolite rubbed her chin, humming.

“I’ll give it about a week for the Gem itself, and another one to two weeks to finalize their programming.” I leaned forward, surprised.

“I thought it’d take longer, Gems seem like they’d grow more like trees than like bamboo.” 

“Nope. Growing Gems can be a rather quick process when needed,” Ammolite explained. “But it requires much more active supervision of the mineral and life energy conditions. Slow growth exchanges speed for a greater margin of error, more time to monitor conditions as needed.”

Huh…interesting. So they could grow Gems really fast but need more monitoring, or they could have growth periods of years to decades or even centuries depending on the Gem. 

I opened my mouth to respond, and picked up on her despondent tone. “But we aren’t going to grow many Gems from this rock are we?” 

“It was a good idea when we had no idea of the state of this Earth, but…” It likely wasn’t the best plan to absorb the life energy of a planet with people who might retaliate violently. “A bit disappointing really.”

“Couldn’t we still make a few Gems? A small handful to get ourselves prepared for Mars?” I suggested, and Ammolite’s expression became more pensive.

“We’re strictly limited to one Gem, any more will result in too much damage to be easily hidden. If you’re wanting something experimental, we’ll need your processing power to assist us in the design.”

“I don’t mind, though I might need some assistance on that front. I’m not exactly an experienced Diamond.”

“Do you have any Gems in mind?” Ammolite asked, with a hand on her hip.

“Rose Quartz. I’m interested in them, and they seem like an easy enough Gem to extract from the planet.” Earth was a quartz-rich planet, and that made them one of the easier Gems to mine from the planet.

“Well you’ll have to find out what you want for your Rose Quartzes, we’ve never made Gems with five ichors before.” 

She passed a kiss sparking with friend-vein-Gem-happy-to-meet-you. An electric warmth I had been exposed to several times whenever some of the Gems approached me. Apparently they looked at me and thought baby. It was incredibly embarrassing, like having your mom hovering over you. 

But also really comforting, and it wasn’t like they didn’t take me seriously. They were just weird and that was okay. I flexed the fangs in my mouth, pulling out a bar of chocolate and cutting apart the wrapping.

“You’re the girl right?” I munched away at the chocolate bar, noting Rachel’s voice when I saw the teenager. She was wearing an offered tank top, and long brown work pants. 

“I was and am a guy,” I admitted, not caring much about whether she knew, I still looked different in my base male form than what I looked like on my Earth. “I just like using my shapeshifting, it’s fun.” I breathed, and my hands became paws with long tiger claws harder than iron. I shifted back as easy as breathing.

“I’ll take the deal.” She stared intently, her blunt face pulled into a glower. “None of you have fucked with me or my dogs. And most of you are tough enough to stop my dogs, even you.” There was disdain there, and I didn’t completely blame her.

I was no warrior, I was a mess. But I wanted to get better, and I would. And if there was one thing I did feel, it was an urge to protect , to help what was mine. My Gems, they were mine, precious, to be cherished and respected. The instincts of a Diamond were primal, like the greed of a Dragon. Some part of me just wasn’t built like a human anymore. 

I didn’t mind, I always knew it was going to be weird and alien to become part Gem, part Diamond. 

“Still learning. But why the sudden trust? You don’t seem the type.” I was blunt, there was no reason to beat around the bush. 

She didn’t answer, her gaze shifting to belly button Ruby, to Frills. She was playing tug of war with Brutus, mouth gripping onto a rope. Brutus won, and Frills let out a happy bark of song, complementing the dog for his victory. 

“Fair enough.” We spent a few minutes in silence, as her two dogs scampered about. I was a bit of a blabbermouth, but awkward enough with new people so I didn’t end up annoying her much.

…

I wonder if I was secretly some type of parahuman magnet? Getting two in the span of a few weeks is a little odd isn’t it?

Oh well.

I worked on constructing something I had seen Olly working on, based on Anglesite powers and something stolen from Shards they had dismantled. I delicately adjusted power cabling with tweezers, assembling the grown crystal elements. 

I could sense the shape of the deadly spells within, the way magical energy was shaped to alter particles and waves alike. A micro-waldo system operated in tandem with the motions demanded of my mind, code rolling past my vision. I spent minutes on the device, my eyesight sharpening to focus on the smallest possible objects. 

The finished device was a gun-shaped object, colored a bright red with black highlights. With a click of my tongue and a flick of my finger, the object fired a beam of golden light. The air seemed to cool, and when I threw a ball through the field it slowed, stilled. This was a much smaller device than the scaffolding of whatever weapon Olly was building. 

The little workshop I had built into my section of the Home Temple was full of a few objects and tech I had made. A console sized Composer served better for creating and growing Gemtronics. I had figured out how to build my own robots, growing a Gemtronic processing node, and later assembling a sphere to house the electronics.

I had also recreated a Gem object known as Permafrost Glass, the cubes remaining consistently at negative forty degrees no matter how much heat is poured into it. A blatant violation of the second law of thermodynamics, and a rather interesting enchanted item.

It wasn’t hard to manipulate magic, though I couldn’t just perform any kind. It didn’t work like that…though if I used human techniques I might be able to manage. All my powers as a Pink Diamond were magic, programmed into me from birth, from when…from when…

I remember the star that made me, I remember the screams of a hundred billion shards as I ate them alive and they burn under my skin even now.

I stumbled, swallowing spit as the hazy memory crashed into my brain with an unkind tenacity. My fingers curled into a workbench, claws scraping metal. It was there at the start, the booting up of the first iteration of…of me. It was a hazy thing, like the earliest childhood memory.

It was absolute energy and power, shards flaring like stars, and the flare of an actual star sacrificed upon the altar of an eldritch alien mother-god. It was a nightmarish landscape of void and light and song, and I shuddered. 

There was a reason it was impossible to poof a Diamond without a weapon like Rose’s Sword, and even that had been her faking it. Much less shattering one, which was about as likely as one-shotting Behemoth without Sting or Stilling. 

I shook my head, now wasn’t the time to be doing this kind of stuff. You had better things to do.

I grabbed a thin flexible strip, grabbing another pair of tweezers, and tweaking the internals of the circlet. My own take on an invention of Rose Quartz during the war to help human combatants. A Circlet of Luck. Magic was heavily conceptual, responding to will and affected in part by belief. Even the magitech of Gems was no different.

I was a being of magic, I was made of it, borne from it, molded by the light, shining in the void. A being of flesh ascended to a new state of existence.

There was a lot of work to do, magic to learn, shards to defy, and gods and monsters to slay. But I would start small, and I would learn and I would grow.

My song quivered, following the possibilities. 

Chapter Text

Diffraction 2.a

Peridot Facet-25FL Trilliant-5XI or Olly as she liked to be called, released a smug sounding burst of Gemsong as hundreds of Robonoids expanded the membrane of the official start of her Diamond’s first colony. It had been a simple plan from them, from him. While most Gems could operate in vacuum, her Diamond could not(yet) and the organic life they needed wasn’t capable of it either. Spires were going to be placed out every few hundred meters, providing tensile strength to the thick membrane made of unique plasticine Chroma materials.

Legrandite had been helpful with her geokinesis, and her inherent ability to assess the land. Labradorite had a better idea of how to mix ichor than she did, the mage Gem infusing the essence of the Diamond’s into rock. The mix of two Cerise ichors proved potent, with how she felt grass brushing against her touch stumps. About twenty square kilometers had been enclosed, and terraformed, and different minerals were being mined and concentrated.

Some of the bigger lumps of Gems had offered their strength to her, and she had them to thank for the progress made in the last several days. They had already started with the introduction of various plant species. 

Mosses, lichens, liverworts, ammonia producing bacteria, and various species of fungus, their mycelium networks provided a sealing barrier beneath the ground. Pines were another interesting plant, their growth accelerated by pipes of life giving ichor and Ammolite’s own powers. Soil was introduced from Earth, along with artificial soil made by hers truly. 

Fuschia Sapphire had been helpful with her predictions, and had stopped quite a few industrial accidents. The settlement had officially been called Rocknest, apparently they had landed in the exact same spot as a probe known as Curiosity from her Diamond’s home. The long term plan was to cover the entirety of Gale Crater, nearly twenty thousand square kilometers of dirt and soil and minerals to pop out Gems.

Of course extensively studying the geology of the planet was coming first, for the scientific curiosity of her Diamond if nothing else. Something about how the planet was once suitable for life over three billion years ago.

Former lakes like this crater were among the most suitable for Gem implantation and production, with a wider range of minerals. She had identified areas rich in Feldspar, Quartz, Opal, Pyroxenes, and Olivine. 

Some minor tweaking could enable quite a few Gem types, from Albites to Spodumene. 

“We really need more Gems,” Olly muttered to herself. “I’m going to have to create a thermal hotspot beneath the crater to synthesize all the minerals we’ll require.” Granite was rare, and without plate tectonics there was a massive lack in what was needed.

She remembered the initial dossier she had been given of the twenty seven Gems including herself that would act as a vanguard force for colonization of Mars Bet. 

It wasn’t enough, they needed hundreds of Gems at least, if not thousands. Earth Bet had a lot more Paired than they had originally estimated and the damage to the project had thrown off the mission. Based on the discrete scans she had taken, there were between five hundred and nine hundred thousand active connections to shards.

There were maybe one to two hundred million shards total in the collective galaxies, with a grand total of ten thousand on the highest density planet. With many of them in varying conditions. Based on the scans she had received from members of the Pink Sunrise Project back home…there had to be far more shards infesting this section of the multiverse. 

But unlike the more dangerous shards of the Black Wyrm, they were all relatively dormant operating in power saving mode to endure through a cycle. Less desperate and more complacent than the frightened and fearful things his shards had become. More alive than the broken things bursting to life in terror and rage. 

She really wanted to take a nice nap, the relaxation and time to mentally calibrate. If there was one use for sleeping it was that, rebooting the software of a Gem’s mind, smoothing out your programs and thoughts, troubleshooting any messes. 

The other use was having weird dreams like vomiting puppies and kittens.

You can’t judge me…what are you a cop?

Olly flushed, and went back to look at her analysis of Elle and her shard. She had constructed a modified dimensional scanner, a dark beryl-like crystal capable of looking across dimensional boundaries. She had gotten quite a lot of data from the shard in it’s vulnerable state.

It was an incredibly powerful shard, one capable of layering realities on top of one another, carefully perturbing quantum layers to make it possible. This power was a-not-quite-a-portal ability, folding spacetime manifolds together. With Elle it brought forth fragments of other worlds partially into her dimension based on aspects of her emotions and memories.

At full power it could combine thousands of worlds together, if not millions. She suspected this shard finds all realities and brings aspects of them together to join shards in a single plane of reality. One such shard had been…destroyed back home, blown up by a widespread barrage of Shooting Stars. 

Insidious little things, those Shooting Stars. Magic fire, pure entropic force gathered from dying stars and contained within icy shells of unstable magical matrices. They had been created during the Gem War, even a single palm sized device could blow up entire mountains. 

They had used millions against the Earth, blown crater lakes and tore open tectonic rifts with a bombardment of magical weapons. Reshaped the coastlines with their power.

The prototype of the Storm Geode had ripped apart Africa with a synthetic storm the size of a dwarf planet, designed to scour the planet down to bedrock. It failed and the second prototype was…contained by the Crystal Gems. Wisps of it sank an island civilization, who became the progenitors of strange undersea peoples.

They had utilized a unique energy weapon to erase a fraction of the largest continent’s mass, powered by one of the many hearts of a planet-sized mineralogical creature they had slain to study and harvest from it’s mineral flesh. 

It was a human who had the bright idea of using the second Storm Geode, using it’s winds to hold aloft thousands of Shooting Stars along with a number of modified human bombs, nuclear energies unleashed against the shard.

That beast had been twice the mass of the Earth, and it had taken multiple asteroid strikes to drill their way to the central ‘mind’ of the shard before detonating the Storm Geode. This was followed up by charging the dead heart and turning it into a planet cracking mine. 

Elle’s shard was not that, it was a crippled thing, at some point it had collided with a dead shard and was critically damaged, ninety nine percent of its mass compromised and destroyed in the collision. It was larger than the average shard and had higher authority, but it was much easier to compromise and subvert.

And unlike a shard of the Destroyer, they had no context for magic, no protection against the precaution-weapons, no protections against the ancient and primal power of the Diamonds.

But that didn’t mean this was going to be a cake walk, or was it a piece of cake, a walk in cake park?

Olly pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn't matter, what matters is importing all the matter we need for eventual global terraforming.” 

Hmm…maybe Venus would be viable? It has more than enough nitrogen, and importing minerals from the Asteroid Belt should be easy enough. 

They really needed more Gems. 

Olly shook her head, and lightly slapped her face. It was time to get back to work.

A man walked down the black walls with scattered circuits of green of a space station, idly gripping a badge in his hand with the universal galactic symbol of peace, a black and green face like that of an odd watch.

He stopped by a large display window, made of glass tough enough to block meteor strikes and behind an energy shield capable of withstanding nuclear bomb level energies. The Moon was hanging in the sky, the blue haze of the atmosphere generated and protected by the structures of Selene. 

The Empire had been very industrious after the incidents with the Atasians some eleven years ago, and the political leaders of the Earth had managed to provide their own assistance and thus partial ownership of the terraformed Moon. Human technology has only grown since then, especially with the advances in Supernatural Physics from two scientists from Oregon.

Especially after one of them had become the forty-fifth president and was on their second and final term… 

The man chuckled quietly at the thought, so much had changed since that one fateful summer with his cousin and grandpa. He had been there when his cousin studied the mystic arts for herself, and when she had helped with the terraforming of Mars and Venus. 

As well as when humanity had claimed the moons of Jupiter, outside the aegis of His Radiance. With their technology, and from what they had pilfered from alien technologies both Gem and otherwise. In seventeen years he had seen his species go from a borderline Level 3 to Level 7, and he knew they had technology far in advance of that in smaller numbers.

It was how they had brute forced their way into the worlds the fragments of the Destroyer were hiding in, as humanity had a far better understanding of dimensional travel technology than Gems did…for a time anyway. They would catch up soon enough.

He adjusted his uniform with a soft grin, one which widened when he saw his cousin. She wore her black and blue spandex suit, and he nodded to himself at the thin flexible armor plating along her vital areas. Stone charms glowed with an eerie cerise light along her left arm, and the man heard the whisper under the current.

A little bit of luck, and a little bit of charm to guide fate your way. One whispered insistently, while another chimed happily. The anchor of life, the anchor of death. 

A third thrummed with flame and brimstone and the everburning sun while the fourth screamed of mind over matter, control over the Physical.

The fifth murmured of thunder and lightning and the wrath of storms. The final charm was the one that bound them all together, the one to unite them in darkness and light, in death and life, the lifeforce, the multiplier, the keystone.

The man shuddered, he had gotten used to magical things but those Charms were another thing entirely. But he had seen worse, like one of the many arcane creations of the Kitakah and their many races. Now that was creepy as all hell.

“Gwen…how has Homeworld been treating you?” He asked sincerely, he had read the files and while it had been seventeen years since Era 2, seventeen years wasn’t a lot for a five hundred thousand year old alien empire. 

“I’ve got…way too many Gems flirting with me,” The redhead’s lips were curled into a light smile. “I guess they’re rather impressed that a human can use magic the way I do.” She shrugged, reveling in the inside joke shared between their family. Not many knew about her heritage. “I’ve studied how they make their Gravity Engines work, I think with enough time we can use our own magic to copy it.”

The man sighed. “We already have the Hyperdrives Gwen.”

“But they’re a lot more finicky and prone to space-time shifting eddies and currents, plus we need to chart maps for them. They’re also faster than our current drives.” Gwen narrowed her eyes, making her cousin flinch.

“And how was your partner on the planet?” He asked, more curious than worried.

“Blue Cubic Zirconia Facet-BD Trilliant-84? She’s right behind you.” The brunette agent jumped when he felt eyes on him, reaching for the weapon on his hip before remembering himself.

The Gem partnered with his cousin was tall, a lithe and athletic form some eight and a half feet in height. She wore a blue robe, obscuring some of her figure under billowing fabric, with curling lines of gold and cerise like vines along her arms, with a gem flickering with cerulean light on her forehead. She had a blue face with high cheeks, plump lips curling into a smile at his reaction, teal eyes brimming with amusement. She brought down a hood, revealing curls of dark blue hair, curtaining behind her in waves.

He had met a number of Cubic Zirconias before, they were Supreme Sorcerers, shaman-philosophers who ruled over courts of Gems tasked with studying magic, with Labradorites and Taafites, and appointed Danburites. Most weren’t as tall as this one, shorter by a whole foot. 

“Hello there.” Her Gemsong was warm, with the sound of wind chimes and the beating of skin drums backed by the crackling of fresh paper. 

“Sup.” He smirked at the alien almost-woman, and glanced back at his cousin. “Her Luminance wanted to talk with us, and said she had a few concerns.” Gwen frowned, and in a moment whispered away reality, teleporting right to the Diamond herself.

The agent raised an eyebrow at the highest and most esteemed military leader of the Gem Empire. He had seen old pictures before Era 3, a towering titan of a woman, almost nine times as tall as a man, and with harsh shoulder pads. This was not that old picture of an Eternal and Glorious Empire.

She was tall, yes, a solid three feet taller than the Blue Zirconia partnered with his cousin. But she wasn’t the gigantic matron he had seen from old images, when she had been a very different person.

“Agent Tennyson.” The now named agent flinched, reeling at the orchestra of Gemsong bouncing against the walls. “How was your mission with one of my generals? I hope Hessonite wasn’t too much trouble.” The Diamond didn’t specify which Hessonite, she didn’t need to.

“The mission on Rann was a success, we succeeded in stopping the Detonation Event, and destroyed a Harvester shard.” Yellow Diamond’s song twisted, pleased with a reverberation against his heart. 

“And have the Rannians changed their mind on their self-isolation from the galaxy?” 

Agent Tennyson smirked. “You know it.” The alien god Queen rolled her eyes. “When they saw this guy shooting a thousand foot tall Wyrm Titan in the face…they just had to change their mind.”

“Ben…” Gwen hissed, and there was a rumbling chuckle of amusement from Yellow Diamond.

“I’m sure they were very impressed Plumber.” There was an almost sarcastic bite to her song. “But the status of your mission isn’t the only reason I’ve called the both of you here.” The Diamond gestured to her console, and a holographic screen expanded massively. An image of a young man appeared on the screen, and Ben flinched at the shuttering pupils in the picture.

“Wait that’s…” 

“The newest Diamond of the Gem Empire,” The Song of Penance confirmed. “He’s one of Aster Diamond’s projects, made possible by unknown circumstances even to him. I want you to investigate those circumstances, and to pass that data to the new Diamond.”

“Because it affects him too?” Gwen added, pink energy crackling in her fists. 

“Yes. I’m also passing you a dossier on Sunrise Diamond’s current mission, and on a number of potential threats. They’ll grow more detailed as we gain more information on them.” 

Agent Tennyson received the information to his Proto-Tool, and he opened up the screen with a light grin. It diminished when a number of threats were projected on screen.

A blue-green aquatic beast, hunchbacked and lithe, with an enormous whip tail. A mountain of black flesh and obsidian, a craggy faced monster bursting with energy, and a silver winged woman. More threats came, some human, others not.

An African woman with a beast of shadow. 

A monochrome woman, a too-wide grin revealing sharp teeth.

A blonde child in a green cloak, surrounded by three phantoms.

And a golden skinned man in a white pristine uniform.

“Well…shit.” He declared. 

Yellow Diamond agreed, song curdling.

Lily crossed her arms, feeling out of place among her fellow Wards. This was the first time she had attended a meeting between Wards from another city, training games to improve relations and to train their powers.

It was a team from Boston that had been paired up with them, and to her surprise they had been sent to a new specialized PRT training facility in Piermont, New Hampshire. It was a nice place, with a number of rooms built to simulate different scenarios for mock battles. They were going to spend the next few days here at what was basically a camp right next to the White Mountain National Park. Which had been built and expanded from a National Forest after a villain in the 90s destroyed most of the nearby towns and buried them in native plant life.

So why did the PRT put a training facility here?

She crossed one leg over the other, chewing on her lip as she saw Jouster talk with Shelter, and a Ward from Boston. A young Case 53 from the looks of it, his body twisted into a hunchback form. The two teams had just finished a mock battle, and her team had lost by the slimmest of margins to Boston.

She could see the pockmarks where her power had left it’s signature. She hadn’t gotten to use her sword much, as her power had proven too volatile and too dangerous to use in combat. Instead they had made her a tinkertech arbalest, firing three foot long projectiles instead.

Which made sense to Lily, she hadn’t found a lot of powers that could withstand her power, like it somehow trumped any and all defenses. The main limits were that her power wasn’t charged with unlimited power, so it could only cut through so much mass before the effect ended.

She didn’t talk to anyone, it was hard to develop bonds when you kept being moved around again and again and again…

Lily sighed. 

She chewed on her lip, she had heard quite a few rumors about Piermont. A villain, a cape labeled Hellhound had been lingering around, going back and forth between attacking dog fighting rings. Though there were hesitant murmurs of recategorizing her as a vigilante based on something they had found about her home life, and the surprisingly small number of crimes on her part.

Though she suspected it was more a matter of luck based on her disposition, she hadn’t been put in a position to be considered in an especially bad light. Hellhound wasn’t that important though, there had been rumors of an escapee from a Parahuman asylum, a fire manipulating cape. 

Then there were the brief sightings of a mercenary team that had attacked that very same asylum, and a Shaker 12 had vanished in the scuffle between them and a dispatched squad from Boston.

Lily had a bad feeling about this, a gut feeling she couldn’t ignore. But before she could focus on why that was, Jouster called out to her. She hummed uncomfortably.

Guess it’s time to get back to training…

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.1

I folded my arms over my chest, inspecting my form. I succeeded in hiding some of my more alien features, my hair was a uniform black, the crosshairs of my Diamond pupils had been obscured as best as I could manage. My nails were long, but they didn’t curl as the claws they were.

My teeth were slightly pointed but within human limits, within human confines of biology. There wasn’t anything I could do for my freaky bones, but that was just life. 

Of course for going out, I went for the form that didn’t look exactly like what I looked like back home. Some amount of hiding was necessary because getting recognized as a magic alien wasn’t conducive to a private life. I don’t think I was built for a public life, which made my sudden elevation to being the equivalent of a queen bee to an entire species a rather…harrowing problem. 

Rachel Lindt had been…an interesting addition to our little group of Gems and humans. She got along well enough with Aventurine and the Rubies, and a check of the calendar and the current date of it being the fifteenth of April told me she had been with us for three days.

She had been going back and forth between the forest and a nearby town, and had almost gotten caught at some point before she had met us. So she of course decided to stay here until the heat goes down. 

I…wasn’t sure how I felt about Ewe-one-of-purity-tender-good-hearted. Her Trigger Event had killed someone and maimed several others, there was no guarantee she hadn’t hurt other people since then. But I looked at a fourteen year old teenager, and felt…conflicted. She was a kid, a kid hurt by the world, someone who was broken by the world and then further broken by a malicious alien parasitic worm god-virus. 

And then her first impression had been her dogs attacking Aventurine, though I wouldn’t and couldn’t call that a major threat. And even if I knew of her, I didn’t really know her as a person, and this world wasn’t the same world. I had no idea how different it could be, because Abaddon had been heading towards Andromeda and not towards magic alien ladies.

Andromeda, and not an entirely new universe to exploit, and the number of divergences could be very large or very small. Maybe in this world her foster mother survived, or maybe her Trigger blew up a bus full of kids in this universe.

Not like I could ask her anyway. Asking about the worst day of your life is a dick move in any universe.

There was a bark, a soft whine that translated to hunger in my mind. I reacted, and opened up a bag of dog food the Rubies had made. I remember the portions Rachel gave them, and served both dogs their meals.

There was a grunt, and I lifted the bag away from Brutus and Judas, automatically placing it away. Rachel was giving me a look, and I barely kept a smile from expressing itself.

There was gratitude condensed in her grunt, and then a more curious look, even if only mildly so. There was a weight on my shoulder, and I softly pet a new Coral out of a total of thirty of them that had been grown. It was about the limit, and this one had a crimson coloration, and a Y-shaped face gem. 

“One of my Corals, I made them.” I replied, and the Coral flew with a sweet Gemsong. She chittered to one of the dogs, shaking from side to side in excitement.

“With your power?” She questioned roughly, her grouchy face inspecting the Corals. 

“One of my many powers, I bring life to things. And you’ve seen me heal.” She didn’t reply, and I almost let out a breath but decided against it. Rachel was not the talkative type. 

“You made them too?” She pointed out to the Rubies as they tussled, their eager songs.

“Oh no, they were made by someone else and have chosen to help me out with learning my powers and my role.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “And some of them are way older than me…or anyone else on the planet…” I trailed off, maybe it wasn't a good idea to tell this to her?

Then again this was Rachel we were talking about, even if she had almost sicked her dogs on me when I accidentally snuck up on her. Turns out three thousand pound monster dogs are good motivation for my bubble. She didn’t seem the type to tell other’s secrets like that.

“Hmm…” She stayed with her dogs. “I’ll be going out again.” I understood what she was getting at. She was an aggressive kind of person, and well…I had no handle on a person like that.

Aventurine did though, she was a Quartz, she understood rough people, knew how to talk to them in a way they could understand. She played the social games needed to keep Rachel…not in line, but calm maybe? Less acerbic? She was hard to manage though, bucking at authority because she had never been socialized correctly. 

I wasn’t going to make it my job to fix every wayward person that came my way, I didn’t have the skills, I wasn’t going to play therapist either. 

Steven had done that, and looked how that turned out. My job hadn’t even been to directly kill an Entity either, I was closer to a backup Diamond, my power would help other Gems to end Scion and the Endbringers. I wasn’t even supposed to be here, I was supposed to have a few weeks to straighten my affairs before colonizing Mars Bet instead.

Which was somehow much less stressful, and I was halfway convinced that maybe it was a good idea to pack up to Mars. I wasn’t fit to be a leader, my job was basically just to get my powers in order. And I didn’t mind it. If I had to help people I didn’t mind it, but right now…I had to be focused on getting stronger, on learning the ins and outs of what I can do.

Using my powers to fuck with shards was all nice and dandy too, but I really didn’t want to be shackled with all that responsibility. So I was going to do exactly that, learning about how to run a colony wasn’t bad, it was something to do if nothing else.

So focus on my actual job rather than meddling in the business of people I don’t know how to help. Getting other Gems to help them sure, I had the authority for that. But I had a handful of Gems to command when I needed thousands at the bare minimum.

I really hoped I didn’t develop a complex from this, I had already been suffering from a bad case of almost crippling anxiety and periodic insomnia. I didn’t need a messiah and atlas complex on top of that. An idea rose up from my mind.

I’m going to check up on my colony.

I stepped off the Warp Pad, and into a somewhat stale atmosphere, though it was growing less so based on the rich plant life… what the fuck?

“It’s only been three days.” I choked on my spit, literally shapeshifting back to my base form in shock. I looked up at a canopy to a dusky red sky, like I was inside a kilometer scale tent. Every hundred meters or so there was a crystalline spire maybe a meter thick, with some of them hanging incomplete buildings on them. Everything was quite makeshift, incomplete but even this partial progress was insane.

I could sense my ichor flowing through the ground, intermixed with a similar wavelength, Steven’s own ichor supercharging the soil. 

Right outside the canopy, there was a large orb, maybe three or four meters across. Air spun around the machine, bending around and then into the machine itself.

“I managed to pressurize the dome with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere by creating an aerokinetic core for a Robonoid.”

“Aerokinetic core?” I turned around to find a wired up Olly marching back and forth from a large scale Gemforge, the second of its kind after the one in…Atlas. I had settled on Atlas for a name. 

“A device designed to control and manipulate atmospheric gases,” She affectionately bumped hips with me. “I’ve been using this one to compress nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the air.”

“So you break up the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen, and create a compatible atmosphere.” It was a rather clever use of magic.

Olly shrugged. “I’ve only pressurized the sections around the Warp Pad, it should take half a week to one week to finish off the pressurization project.” She murmured a complaint, like claws against sheet metal in my ears. “I need more Gems, even a thousand Peridots wouldn’t be enough to colonize a planet.”

“And Labradorite?” 

Olly straightened up. “She’s been an excellent partner in the creation and expansion of Rocknest. She’s created a few different magic tools to speed up the process and…” She spoke fast, her placid tones becoming more Peridot-like, a faint flush on her green face.

I grinned, unable to suppress the amused chitter weaving into my voice. “Oh you like her don’t you?”

She went as stiff as a board. “I do not!” She screamed, showing the most emotion I had seen from her yet. “I simply consider her…fairly skilled and very intelligent.” She was trying to be sly with her words but they didn’t work with what I knew.

What Gems found attractive was several things due to not being inherently sexual beings. As well as being almost identical. They liked smart, they liked skilled, and they liked big. It was the trifecta of some of the more important qualities to have in a Gem. I think some of them had sex drives, but it was more likely a learned behavior or some odd remnant programming.

Not that there was anything wrong with that.

“Sure you do. I believe you.” I very much did, of course I did.

“It’s good to see you’re feeling better, even if it comes at my expense.” Her tone was biting, though there was sincerity in her electronic buzzing song.

“Better?” I murmured, feeling small for some reason. 

“It’s kind of obvious you’re going through something,” there was a kind tone in her voice. “Whether our failure in preparing you or something prior to your transition into a Diamond. You stay up late for a human…and you stay close to us Gems.”

“Umm…I haven’t been having the best couple months, anxiety mostly.” Very bad, very concerning anxiety. “And being involved with all this saving the world nonsense isn’t helping.”

“You’re not obligated to have to help us with stopping Scion, with stopping the remaining shards.” I stopped fiddling with my fingers, blinking rapidly. 

“Huh?”

Olly rubbed her eyes, biting her lip. “You might be a Diamond, but you weren’t made to be…some type of weapon, or a tool.” Her eyes sharpened, an intensity to them. “We’ve been fighting shards for years, we have experience you lack. We’re not going to use you at the expense of your own well-being.”

“I still want to help but…” I thought about the fighting, the life and death battles that were a regular part of cape careers in this world. I don’t think I wanted that kind of life. If I had a choice I was never going to be a combatant, it just wasn’t my calling.

I didn’t have the training or the disposition or the traumas and little tweaks that shards used for their hosts. Small things really, all they had to do was act as reminders of the worst day of their life, to reward them for whatever goals they were after. To punish them when they failed.

Whether it was conflict, or continuous studying or even nothing depending on the power. I didn’t have that, and I had the choice of not having to fight, of sticking to Mars and helping with my power for more capable Gems.

In experience if not in raw power. 

“I understand, I’m not saying you have to do nothing either. Being cooped up isn’t healthy for humans or Gems.” I agreed with her and she didn’t stop. “Hmm…let me show you something.” She gestured to a building, the single completed floor of a spire meant to be four hundred meters high. 

I followed her, and the door opened when she lightly tapped a Gem interface.  There was a ring shaped array of consoles, and with a tap Olly created some type of projection of Earth. But it didn’t look right…off in the slightest of ways. 

“This is Earth Bet.” She pointed out, eyes narrowed. “And this is your Earth, which we’re designating Earth Mundanus.” This map appeared more detailed, more realistic. “We’ve launched two precaution-weapons into orbit around your planet, capable of projecting their effect across dimensional boundaries.”

“Precaution-weapons?” I queried with a low song. “You’ve mentioned them, but I’m not sure what they are.”

“Relics of the war that shaped the structure of Homeworld society during Era 1, a way to ward off evil, to stop the greatest enemy Gemkind ever knew.” There was something like terror in her song, notes cracking. “We scattered devices like this one on every colony, and across galaxies in unmanned probes.” She projected a map of over 25 million galaxies across two billion light years of space. 

It wasn’t a very detailed map mind you, clearly they had sent only the precaution-weapons that far out. 

“They…do what then?” She wasn’t being specific and I kind of felt nervous about that.

“Everything and nothing and something in between the two, as well as something completely unlike the two.” What the hell does that even mean? “The enemy they were designed to fight was capable of bending fate itself, a god attacking us from across the sea of time itself.”

“So these…precaution-weapons stopped it…made it give up?” 

“Yes. Though we’ll never know which, they’re effectively good luck charms.” Olly provided a schematic, and I felt eyes open inside my brain when I saw the impossible geometry within the telescope-shaped machine carved with art and images. “Magic itself was beyond the Black Wyrm’s horizon of knowledge. But with just magic alone he would discover how to manipulate its boundless energy.”

“So what screwed him over then?”

“The precaution-weapons were built with…other forces in mind, but they interfered with it’s foresight and blinded it to the worst possibilities. We’ve also been studying their biology extensively, as well as the signatures of their presence.” She switched to a new display. 

It wasn’t quite a map of realities, more a detection of high levels of unusual energies. The exotic waveforms related to the bridges between worlds…based on what I had read up on. Simplified to reduce computational resources. “That…you’re going to what, make us invisible to their precognition so you can shank them in the back?”

“We’re already invisible to current methods of Shard precognition, none of their models will take us into account. We’re actively blinding the shards, in a similar vein to Mantellum.” I think it really was a good thing I had told them about as many capes as I could, and that they had their own connection to my world’s internet.

I really hope they haven’t looked through my search history…

They had data on a number of capes, as well as data on vital shards to subvert or shut down. A good number of the shards needed to leave the solar system or to coordinate an entity could be…stopped from doing that.

“So you’re going to blind them enough so you can blast them from orbit and shatter their network?” That sounded both interesting and just a little terrifying. 

“It’s not that simple, but it’s not far from the truth either.” Fair enough.

“How about the progress of the colony, how is that going?” I changed the subject, deciding something more interesting was in order.

Her expression and mannerisms became placid and more laidback. “We need more Gems, but that’s not happening until the initial group is complete.”

“Initial group?”

“A total of Gems including myself acting as a vanguard, once we’re all here the Empire will gather more resources and Gems for a second wave, a few hundred Gems will spend their time on the colony.”

“Oh that’s interesting, what else can you tell me?”

“Well there’s the…”

“More Gems?” I commented as I noted two additional Rubies in the window of the temple, making a squad of five. Fuschia turned, lips pulled into a knowing smile.

“The initial vanguard was delivered to Gale Crater once it was established rather than following your energy signature.” Which explained why gems kept hitting me in the face. “Which makes just under thirty Gems in this universe.” Not a small number if you go off the size of cape teams, but tiny for a planetary invasion.

“What kind of Gems decide it’s a good idea to fight a multidimensional worm god?” I boggled just a little at the mere idea.

“If you’re asking for Gem types, a Sapphire,” she gestured to herself. “A Legrandite, an Iolite, a Zircon, a single Axinite, a Turquoise, an Orthoclase, Sunstone, Bismuth, Labradorite, Ammolite, two Ambers, a Rose Quartz, a Jasper and a Carnelian. One Aventurine, Peridot, a Malachite, an Opal, five Rubies, one Pearl and a Devilline.”

“Huh…neat.” So about twenty seven Gems, or twenty eight including myself. Which made us a sizable ‘parahuman’ team, likely comparable to Protectorate teams in major cities. And if hundreds more were coming, then we were going to handily outnumber any team. “So has Rachel already left?”

“Along with several Robonoids on her person, with a few stealth models shadowing her.” She absently replied, looking into the future most likely. “I foresee no complications today, though tomorrow is more uncertain…”

“Question.” I poked her with a claw, squinting my eyes. “How does your vision work against shard based precognition?”

“Our ability to pierce the veil of time has always been…finicky, as Sapphires require a constant flow of information and data gathered by other Gems or our own initiative to improve our accuracy. Time is hard to wrangle even with magic.” She explained, and I drew closer, unable to hold back my curiosity.

“Tell me more.” I placed my hands on my knees, tapping my fingers against them. Fuschia brushed back a bang, hissing with a gentle musical tone.

“Determining the course of the future is far from trivial, and much of it involves going with the flow of events, of taking the future into your own hands. Breadth and depth, our powers and their powers have both though we specialize in depth while they excel at breadth.”

So Gems could see farther while Entities could see more clearly when magic and magic based sensor spoofing wasn’t getting in their way. The Entity’s increased clarity would have won him the war if it wasn’t for the six billion light year bubble of precaution-weapons sent out over twenty thousand years.

“But even then fighting their Precogs would mess with the accuracy of your visions wouldn’t it?” She tersely nodded.

“It’s why the precaution-weapons were the first items sent across the barrier between worlds. We’re scattering them across your galaxy too, just to make sure nothing too bad pops up.” That was both worrying and comforting. “Any Entity that wanders within the bubble encompassing your galaxy will have gaps in their vision they won’t see until it’s too late.”

I pouted as I realized the conversation was becoming heavier than I wanted it to be, and I felt just tired. 

“How about you?” 

“Huh?” She was nonplussed by my question.

“What about you? We…we can talk about that right? I’d like to get to know you.” She was taken aback, and I hoped I wasn’t being presumptuous. 

“You want to…” She appeared less confident than usual.

“I…umm. Yeah?” I clasped my hands together, some of my anxiety returning. “Is that okay?”

“I don’t mind, though there’s not much to talk about. I’m quite young for a Gem.” I raised an eyebrow at how she put herself down.

“So am I,” She blushed, as if just realizing that fact. “I’m turning 21 this year, so I’m quite certain neither of us are ancient.” I nudged her shoulder, and she giggled.

Fuschia had a nice laugh. I really did think so, the way it radiated and pressed across the air. All Gemsong was special but hers was just more…grounded, present to my senses.

“Then let’s talk.”

“So I noticed you’re into engineering, where’d you pick up a skill like that?” I started, genuinely interested.

Fuschia perked up. “Oh. That’s something I picked up in the first year of my life, I traveled around with a few Serpentines and Peridots led by a Tanzanite.” All three were engineering and technician Gems, with Tanzanites being rarer scientists. “I got tired of just using my power to keep the ship from blowing up. So one of the Peridots taught me herself.”

“It makes you really happy.” I stated rather than asked, it was clear to anyone with a brain. 

Guess that makes sense, Brandon…Brenda…whatever. 

“Very much so, it’s one of my passions. And you?” I blinked at the perfectly reasonable question from the Sapphire next to me.

“I…like to write,” I fought past my hesitation. “Stories and things like that. I’m interested in world building too. Making worlds, histories, even fictional species and evolution.” I brushed back a bang from my face. “I used to draw a bit, though I was limited to dinosaurs and reptiles. Not so good with mammals or people.”

Drawing was nice when I still did it. I should start up again. 

“And you have a keen interest in scientific knowledge as well.” 

I laughed quietly. “I imagine I made it obvious. I’m not that subtle.” 

“I suppose not, but that’s okay. What else do you like?” Fuschia Sapphire was being more lively, her usual cool confidence returning.

“Well I like food.” I clapped my hands together, thinking of the meals I was learning to make. “There’s a few shows I like to watch but…” Then I remembered one of those shows had been Steven Universe and I stumbled. “Anyway. I don’t play games much but I have a few favorites, like Pokémon.”

“Oh our world has that franchise as well, I have a few game systems and games stored in my Gem. What else have you played?” She sounded invested, and at this point so was I.

“Well there’s Undertale but I only completed a single run,” I shrugged as I realized that. “Subnautica, Skyrim, played a bit of Terraria and Stellaris, I’m playing a run of Hollow Knight but I haven’t finished it yet.” Her smile dimmed, her song going still. “Something wrong?”

“No.” She was lying but I wasn’t going to ask. 

“Right. Okay. So you play video games, any other hobbies?” I leaned in her direction, gaining some comfort from her proximity. I couldn’t help it really, I had been alone too long, both during the forest and… before. There was something that felt missing, something sad and bitter where happiness had been.

But my Gems were affectionate, and they were free with it in a way I’m not sure I ever could be. And Gems were apparently naturally warm as fuck, even cold manipulating Gems were when they didn’t use their powers. Plus they were softer than any human ever could be, to the point I had fallen asleep the one time Aventurine had to carry me back to the Home Temple. Plus I loved to lounge about, and my new Gem instincts didn’t help.

Fuschia touched my cheek, and I almost pulled away. She released a Gem purr, and my body slackened. “What…what are you doing?”

“I am providing you with comfort, I believe you need it.” My eyes welled up, frustration and anger, and sadness boiling and simmering. Most of it wasn’t even from my situation. Just a general feeling of helplessness. 

“I…it might be nice.” She turned, offering up a hug. Despite my shyness I accepted, wrapping my arms around the smaller Gem. I placed my head on her shoulder, and the purr of her song was…just very nice. And it was making me feel a little sleepy.

She was really soft, what voodoo magic was responsible for her being so huggable? Fuschia hummed, and I could feel the happiness and amusement in her lovely song.

I yawned, burbling a strain of contentment. “We can be friends right?” I was tired, and just a little sad and lonely. 

Fuschia giggled, a note of sadness in it. “Of course we can be friends.”

Good.

That was good.

I carefully looked at the drafts for the plan involving Mars, establishing the number of Facets, their purpose, and the early terraforming stages. We were currently in the atmospheric terraforming phase, and the second wave of Gems would have enough supplies and equipment to transport material from asteroids and Venus. 

Right now there was a plan to bury machinery within the planet’s mantle for large-scale geoengineering of the planet, as well as methods of seeding the planet itself with a more diverse range of minerals. They also wanted to astrally deconstruct one of Mars's moons to power the endeavour. 

Apparently they had a means of converting matter to energy to catalyze the Gem powered machinery of their tech. A series of portals were going to export nitrogen and carbon dioxide from Venus, while a Lapis Lazuli would divert water from the solar system to further hydrate Mars, as well as adding lubrication to the planet’s interior geology. 

Aerokinetic Gems helping with the management of terraforming machines, Legrandites and other earth moving Gems and tech would shift the crust, adding needed minerals, and life would be spread across the planet, accelerated by Diamond ichor and life giving stores of Gem magic.

The planet had been divided up into a hundred Facets, each Facet slightly larger than Alaska in area. Rocknest would be the name of the central hub of Caldera which would act as the capital. Once the planet melted, water would be processed to irrigate the eighteen thousand square kilometer crater.

A Turquoise had decided to work under Fuschia’s aegis, due to their complementary abilities. They were planning Gems, with powerful insight not unlike a Sapphire’s in some way. However it was more limited, unfolding into unprecedented planning ability. Able to come up with a number of interlocking solutions on the fly, and drafting plans for colonies was one of their major roles.

So like a caste of Accords, a Gem with ‘Thinker’ powers. I had a few Gems handling some(all) of the paperwork, Fire Opal Facet-Z16 Cushion-6AA. She was an administrative Gem, and one who enjoyed her job more now that the Empire had things like vacation days and actual civil rights. Especially when she could administer Gems who had once been higher up than she was.

There was a warning song I responded to. “Come in.” The head intelligence officer sauntered in, and I tilted my head in polite acknowledgement.

Brass Pearl Facet-M16 Oval-C6 was an interesting Gem, she had been heavily involved with a secret invasion of a species of aliens, Species 4 officially known as the Atasians. A dying race that had been stifled and molded by a fascistic empire, and decided to wipe out other species in vengeance. Though from what I can tell most of their wrath had been focused on Earth since sapient species were often separated by hundreds of light years. 

A few thousand species across multiple galaxies of stars couldn’t be considered a dense neighborhood. Especially when most had populations in the millions and billions, and only a small fraction of them had capabilities and populations that could hold back the Gem Empire.

“We’ve succeeded in tapping into the internet connection of Earth Bet and have confirmed a number of established threats to our operation in this solar system.” She informed me with false cheer. “Our few technicians have created a number of trawler programs to search this planet’s local network. It’ll help us quite a bit once this planet’s intelligence programs take notice.”

“You’re pretty worried about that aren’t you?” She hummed a wary song, like violins crashing with knives in the dark.

“I doubt you’re any less concerned about this my Diamond,” There was a knowing look. “I came here to make up for your lack of experience, we can’t have anyone attempt an assassination of a Diamond. And there are many dangerous powers on this death trap of a planet.”

“I’m not going to say you’re wrong there,” I rolled my shoulders, my Gemsong upping in tone. “Do what you have to, as long as it doesn't cause a war. Having to fight on multiple fronts is…not likely to be a good idea.”

“True. I’ll have more to report when I have a few more Gems under my wing, Deviline is a sweet girl but two Gems doesn't make an agency. Say hello to Starry for me will you?” She bowed her head, and when I blinked once she was gone, vanished into thin air.

Another wave of song, but one I had only heard the echo of on the trails of the Rubies, their commander. I clicked, not bothering with words this time, more curious than annoyed. The door opened, and it was filled with the biggest Gem I had seen besides my Aventurine and my new Bismuth. 

A euhedral Rose Quartz with an asterism pattern on both her Gem, and her physical form. Though being euhedral didn’t say much when Rose Quartzes were made to a higher tolerance and quality due to it being the main line of Quartz designed by Pink Diamond. Most Rose Quartzes were already in the size range of euhedral Quartz at around seven foot ten inches to a solid eight feet of height. 

She was about 8’2, and I had to crane my neck up, and kept my jaw from dropping, biting back a chirp of surprise. She had more robust arms, and a slightly wider frame though she retained the soft curves and shape of her fellow Rose Quartzes. 

Her skin was closer in shade to a human’s, but it retained a pink tinge that was obvious enough from a glance. She wore a one piece uniform, a shade of red so deep it was almost black, and a v-collar with a Diamond symbol in my color. She had light brown gloves and boots, Chroma clothing obviously. 

Her arms were covered in inclusions, darker stripes along her shoulders and biceps, and her cheeks had scattering aster markings, like faded freckles. Her right glove had a lozenge shaped opening for her darker Rose Quartz, and as she sashayed she brushed her hands through wild rose red hair, more like a Jasper’s with only a few rose curls.

Her smile was small, and I caught a flash of tusks, more of the blunt fangs inherent to any Quartz. She briefly bowed her head, more casual than Brass Pearl had been.

“Euhedral Rose Quartz Facet-4 Round-815,” She confirmed. “I’m the commander of the Rubies assigned as your guards. A Royal Guard if you would…” her song was deep, a rumbling seductive strumming of soft guitar and drum beats. 

“Nice to meet you.” I greeted her, with just a little bit of shyness, my lips suddenly feeling dry. It was hard not to be intimidated, she was big, soft and pretty and I had a general weakness towards certain kinds of women. Even if technically she wasn’t one. 

Her smirk wasn’t subtle, amusement dancing in her eyes as she added a little more sway to those hips of hers. I coughed, and she became more serious.

“Starry right?” Her smile froze for a moment. “Brass Pearl says hi.” Her song broke into surprised humor. “So you’re going to keep me from keeling over then?” I joked, and she laughed nervously with a strain of pain.

“Oh I’m certainly going to try, I might even warm your bed if that’ll keep you safe.” I turned scarlet, and my song scratched like a record. She winked which made it worse because she was really pretty… and really curvy and tall. 

“No thanks.” I kept my reluctance from coming out in my song, knowing it was just my hormones. I learned more toward human ideals of attraction, though…to be absolutely frank Gem ideals weren’t that hard to get into. “Right. So Starry, you’re going to act as my guard along with your Rubies?”

“I am.” She flexed her claws, her body language shifting. “I’m also going to take up your training.” I blinked at the news, I had heard about that but…

“Is your fighting style more compatible with my powers?”

Starry grinned, and in a flicker of light a shield materialized from the ether. It was a pointed blocky shield, a hulk of cerise metal with a bladed end. The shield had a mandala emblem, black with a circle colored red in the middle. 

“You could say that, Your Illumination.” Her stressing pressure on her low song, the casual flirtiness was…really embarrassing. “There aren’t many Gems capable of handling the power of a Diamond, I’m a euhedral Quartz, and while I’m not as experienced as Aventurine, our fighting styles likely fit better.”

“Fair enough. So what else are you here for? I have time to chat.” I have time for a lot of things nowadays. While I was technically a Diamond I wasn’t quite part of the Diamond authority. I was still learning the ropes, so technically my Gems were in charge of me, getting me up on my feet. 

I was okay with that. 

“Well we need to start up with more regular patrols and sweeps, there could be any number of threats hiding in and around this forest…”

“Yeah?”

“Then we need to create a heavier armory, more weapons and more defenses…”

This continued for the next thirty minutes, and I moved on to briefing with other Gems.

All in all? It was a good day.

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.2

I leaned forward, standing on the tips of my toes as I remained on call with Steven. Talking with him had become a daily occurrence, since he had advice on my powers that couldn’t be gathered from my imperfect knowledge of his universe.

I grinned, kneading my hands together, claws inching forward in excitement. “So. We’re supposed to be super strong right? Able to lift a lot of mass?” I was getting stronger, and I had more Gems to test my strength against.

Steven grinned, a soft look entering his eyes. “So you want to know how much I’ve lifted in the past?”

“Just a little curious, I can’t really help it.” The Quartz had demonstrated their strength by lifting blocks of stone the size of small houses, hundreds of tons of mass without any strain. The Rubies could lift SUVS easily enough, and they were tough little guys. 

“Well there was that time I lifted a Terraforming Injector, about the mass of a container ship.” So he had lifted a few hundred thousand tons at his weakest. “Then there was that time I sparred with a Paired, a human. A lot like the Alexandria you mentioned. Ended up knocking down a mountain during the fight. She helped me fix it though…” There was notable amusement, his song twisting though dulled by machinery. 

“So will I be able to do that someday?” He raised an eyebrow, his toothy smile notable.

“And what would you do with that strength?” There was something in his song, not judging but weighting instead.

“I don’t know, I guess I use it to move stuff? Debris from natural disasters, maybe punching passages through mountains? Constructive things. I can’t see many uses that don’t involve turning people into red mist.” Which was never going to be my cup of tea.

“Suppose you’re not much for fighting.” Steven made the observation, and I didn’t disagree.

“I would probably fight if I had to, but no…that’s just not the kind of person I am.” Maybe that would change with my new Diamond brain, but I didn’t know that. “But that brings us to a better question. Teach me how to set shit on fire?”

Steven choked with bubbly laughter, and I preened.

I picked up a single boulder, roughly five meters in diameter with a single hand. Instead of it crumbling under my hands or my fragile human bones snapping like twigs. I guessed it was a weird touch-TK kind of power all Gems had, that or they had the precise foresight to touch items at the perfect angle to prevent breakage.

Which wasn’t the answer because that’s stupid.

My hands burst into cerise fire, energy spreading to shatter the rock. I grabbed a stone from the rubble, idly sharpening my claws. I heard the ring of battle, and murmured to myself that the Quartzes were rallying. 

I launched myself forward, and towards the clash with an excited snap of my teeth. I felt excitement at seeing a Gem sparring session for myself. Desert Jasper and Carnelian were both sitting down, their cheery songs hitting the air with shifting sand and maracas, as well as beating fire and the clash of steel against steel. The Rubies were watching intently, especially Blood Pigeon Ruby.

The air shattered like glass as the two Quartz met head to head, each moving with their own style. Aventurine fought with a predatory grace, wild movements, instant twists of her heel, raking slashes while aiming at joints and weak points with precise punches and jabs.

Her claw-gauntlets were wrapped within green solid electricity, constructs of deadly energy. She fought like a beast, power brimming with strikes that would cleave tank armor. Aventurine spun on her heels to avoid a strike from Starry, and detonated her electrical power like a bomb in the pink Quartz’ face. 

The blast was blocked by the bladed shield that was Starry’s signature weapon, the massive hulk of steel-like light groaning under explosive strain. She shifted her grip, and turned the pointed shield into a blunt instrument of war. 

Where Aventurine displayed violence and animalistic strategy and power, Starry’s fighting style was a dance of death. She spun like a top, her shield used as both a bludgeon and a blade. It was a rooted stance, yet loose enough to slip through supersonic strikes. Her battle-foresight was amazing, twisting past Aventurine’s lightning the moment it leaves her fingertips.

I had been watching the Quartz spar for two days now since the initial introduction and briefing with the remaining Gems of the first wave. We had four Quartz at the moment, a Carnelian from the Beta Kindergarten on Earth, a Desert Jasper from a colony about two hundred light years away, and of course Starry and Aventurine. 

The battle was faster than humanly possible and yet my eyes tracked them all the same, a tinge of cerise at the corner of my vision. Starry smashed her shield into Aventurine’s chest, and it detonated with a wave of magenta fire. A free arm shifted into a hammer, crashing into her side. 

Aventurine rolled with the punch, and curled into a ball, covered in a bright sphere of hard electrical energy. She smashed into the skillful Rose Quartz like the fist of god, and dropped to all fours to curve behind Starry’s devastating axe kicks. She grabbed the plush pink Gem from behind, and the ground shattered with the force of the suplex. Starry compressed herself down, folding out of the hold before shifting back to her original size.

A foot caught itself in Aventurine’s gut as she pulled herself back up, Starry summoned dual shields and slammed the both of them down on her opponent’s head. She detonated one to stagger the green Quartz, and dispelled it in the immediate instant afterward. Her hand became a jagged clawed hand, and a slash left glowing streaks and scuffs along her fellow soldier’s surface.

A crater formed where Aventurine landed a kick, Starry hovering out of the way. The two released a warsong, and I followed the beat in the air, the possibilities shifting again and again. The Rose Quartz rolled away from a blast of lightning, and her remaining shield was thrust into Aventurine’s stomach. 

Aventurine instinctively snapped her jaws, pushing the shield back and backslapping Starry with a devastating clawed strike. I heard the whirling of blades as the two stepped up their game, turning into blurs of movement and power. Starry was spinning, circling her body to use her opponent’s momentum against her. 

The green Quartz slammed her claws into the ground and detonated it with solid electricity. She ripped the pink Gem’s weapon away, and an axe kick dropped her onto her knees.

“Yield!” She placed her claw at Starry’s neck, and the Rose Quartz smirked. She changed form, splitting into a mass of limbs and claws. The Quartz hopped on grasshopper legs, and beat wings of jagged hardened light based flesh. She took an arrow shape, and the sound barrier broke two times over as she catapulted forward.  

Aventurine couldn’t dodge, and a massive shield formed at the last second, creating an explosion where Starry crashed with immense force. I blinked, unable to see past the dust besides some UV reflections and flickers of heat. The dust parted by something(Legrandite, cough, cough) and I stared.

Starry had one foot on Aventurine’s chest, her boots shifted into cleaving blades while her burning shield hung over the green Gem’s neck. Her usual flirty smile was replaced by a savage grin, her fangs flicking out in excitement. 

Goes to show she was still a Quartz at heart, not that there was anything wrong with that. 

“You got a good look at that?” Starry called out, pulling a ragged Aventurine back onto her feet.

Thumbs up, and a casual melody. “I’d hope so, since I watched most of it.” I replied dryly, and the Quartz chuckled. She jumped, reducing her mass as all Gems did to do so. Before I found blink she brushed her lips against my cheek, an electric flare of muscle memory surging into my Diamond brain. 

I scowled and tried to slap her back, letting out a pulsing warning song. “Quit teasing me!” 

She looked genuinely apologetic. “Sorry. I was just…trying to pass some of my memory-data to you. I forget you’re still…getting used to this.” 

“It’s fine. You just surprised me.” I admitted, getting used to Gems was difficult but not impossible. “I’m just…not very good at giving or taking affection.” I flexed my hand, enjoying the silent flick of pearlescent claws. 

She let out a gentle huff. “We should spar later, but you wanted to inspect your colony didn’t you?” She reminded me, and I stood up on my toes. 

“You’re right. I should get on that.” There was an awkward pause as I stood still. 

She pushed me, lightly smacking me on the back. “Now shoo, sunshine. Shoo!”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m going.”

Man Gems really do work fast don’t they? 

I glanced around the expanded colony, where I could see our volunteer Bismuth building shit at a rate that was a sight to behold. Scaffolding cubes were replicated and dismissed throughout the twenty square kilometer dome. 

Scaffolding cubes were magic constructs, used to create temporary stairs and scaffolding, made of light and virtual particles. Buildings could be created in a matter of hours and days rather than weeks and months like feeble human tech. 

Bismuth Facet-J24 Hopper-31B and Pyrite Inclusion Sunstone Facet-A4 Cabochon-106 were both hardworking Gems and Legrandite’s large scale earth moving was strong. A Legrandite had absurdly powerful geokinesis, capable of moving tens of millions of tons of stone and rock with some effort. 

Terraformer Gems working in groups of thousands to remake a planet in the image of their Diamond’s. They weren’t quite as high ranking as Lapis Lazulis, with far less power with their Feldspar nature. She had helped with creating foundations, as well as with churning the soil while Olly constructed basic infrastructure. Along with numerous Excavation Poles we had altered the rock and soil, melting rock into a more diverse range of rock. 

Sunstone was a tall Gem, who looked much like the fusion in bodily shape anyway. However instead of a tank top and shorts she wore an angular one piece uniform with puffy sleeves, crimson red at the top with mahogany red pants and high boots. A bulky thorax with a wasp-like waist, and large feet. Her face was more visible, a round face with apricot colored eyes and full lips surrounded by a mane of wild glowing hair. 

She was officially in charge of the largest Gemforge on the planet, her centuries of work experience making her more suitable in its operation. This was a Hot forge, melting crystal and metal ore into armor and weapons and buildings and even vehicles. 

“Your Illumination.” She sounded distracted, the echo of stone against stone and metal hammer strikes faded. “Righty has been hard at work building a Warp Network, and we’ll be finding a way to connect Venus and Mars quite soon.” Righty was our Bismuth, an industrious little Gem. “As for me…I’m working on the casing for a Tellus Core, Stripes and Olly are both working on the core.”

“That’s a terraforming device isn’t it?” I queried.

Sunstone grinned. “We’ll drill this baby into the planet’s core, the burst of magic will heat up the planet and create tectonic plates.” I stared. “At the same time we’ll be importing half a bar of Nitrogen and cracking oxygen from the planet and imported water.” Probably from whatever gets liberated by heating up the planet with bullshit as well as other sources.

“You’re going to build a planet cracking terraforming device with three people?” My song deadened the air.

Sunstone laughed. “Of course not. That would take us months, maybe even years. We’re just starting the basics, the second wave will provide the remaining manpower to finish the device in a few days. Plus a lot more equipment and parts.” 

“How…how long does it normally take the Empire to terraform planets?” It was a serious question. 

“One to six months?” She made a so-so gesture with her large hands. “Heard the second wave is a few hundred strong, closer to a thousand even. Should be enough to remain within that kind of schedule.” So I might soon get a thousand subjects, a thousand Gems in my court. That wasn’t intimidating at all. 

“I also heard the Lapidary is pretty much done isn’t it?” 

“We’ve been getting steady shipments of ichor bottles from home, we’ve got tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff.” She shrugged, and I was really not surprised at how efficient Gems were anymore. The entirety of Gale Crater was going to be domed over within two weeks and opened up once the entire planet was at the first stage of terraforming. “You’ll be using the thing once we’re at the stage to select flora and fauna on a planetary scale.”

Hmm…

“Right, I’ll be checking up on some other things.” She lazily waved, her eyes squinting in a broad smile. I jumped higher in the lower gravity well, but I could easily match myself to the planet if I felt like it. 

I Warped back to Earth, and headed towards the practice field, shaded by trees I had healed. I chewed on my lip, fangs carefully inching forward. I had been practicing my powers, and I was going back to doing that once again. I floated from step to step, having gotten control over the power. Barely. 

I swept my hand in front of, and a number of light red hexagons formed in front of me. Not quite a shield, but it was the closest I had come so far. I clenched my fist, turning my head towards a nearby reflective pool of water. I was male as I was most days, and I opened my mouth to see my fangs had stopped growing.  

I rubbed my chin, noting the trimmed stubble, down to a more comfortable level. Thicker beards had never suited me and were too scratchy, so I had gone with this. No beard made me look too young in my opinion since I was only 5’3, though I had grown an inch in the last month.

Power first, admiring myself in my reflection…never?

I braced myself, and focused the sensation of energy and roiling light. I let the memory-data from Starry in. The coiling of power to limbs capable of snapping steel like balsa, the speed and strength of a Euhedral Quartz. Which paled in comparison to the raw power of a Diamond.

The world rushed past me as I sprinted, cerise edging in on my vision. There was the crack of sound, the whistling of wind, and the parting of light where I ran. I stopped on a dime, a single remaining stomp leaving a crater half a meter wide. 

I could hear my blood pumping in my ear, and I could hear the forest grow nice and quiet, animals unnerved by the sonic explosion. There was something that felt good about letting my power ride, my song twisting in joy. So I continued.

I wreathed my hands in crimson flames, and moved just short of supersonic speeds. Luckily I didn’t have to spend years of puberty developing my body, it could take the force and vitality of a Diamond without cracking at the seams.

It was exhilarating to move at speeds no normal human could ever match, to move at speeds comparable to jet planes, and to hop around against the force of gravity. Would have been nice if I could go faster but my control was still far below the powers of one Steven Quartz Universe.

I jumped and placed barriers to step upwards into the sky until I hit the branches of a tree. I stopped there, clinging to the branch, and lounging after I shimmied my hips a bit. I practiced my shapeshifting this time, taking an image and demanding my body take the form for myself.

I shivered as I felt bones shift and hair sprout, and when I finished laid a wide black paw down. I snapped my jaw in a yawn to reveal my teeth, and dropped down to inspect my reflection.

A black Jaguar with a smug look of triumph and a light red Diamond on its belly. Three hundred pounds of apex predator, and proof of my unnatural proficiency with shapeshifting. Though a lot of it had gotten a boost from Starry, she was a changeling warrior. Gems trained to use their shapeshifting to the fullest in battle. 

A mix of training sessions and data patching had advanced my skills. From what I could tell I was picking up shapeshifting faster than Steven did. It was likely just a natural talent of mine, or the programming of my Gem was…more compatible maybe?

I leaped and twisted in the air, spun with a lifted leg as I shifted back to human form. Creating and editing my body pattern, one of an array of tricks I was learning to pick up. In a corner of my consciousness I find the form and power I seek.

In an easy twist of my hips, I was back to being a girl. It was one of the easier uses of my power, harder than merely making tweaks to my base form but easier than say turning myself into animals or mythical creatures. I turned on my heels, shifting my shorts into a skirt(well skirted shorts…) to add a little extra flair.

Then I went back to shorts since I didn’t feel like dealing with that article of clothing right as of now. I adjusted my posture, and lifted the top of my shirt to cool me off. 

There was a chime in the distance, a discordant note of the outcomes shifting out of my favor. I pressed my lip together and someone stepped out a sudden Warp stream.

“Brenda!” Fuschia came out of the Warp, her expression nervous and uncertain. “You need to find Elle, she’s sent herself through a Warp Pad by mistake. I See, I foresee…there’ll be less trouble if you go.”

I squared my shoulders. “I’ll go. Any tips?”

“When the time comes, don’t let yourself be seen.”

A little ambiguous but sure.

I floated on air as I searched for Elle, vaguely detecting her from the small amounts of my ichor I had given her. For healing purposes when she got scrapes and bruises. Not enough to know where she is but more than enough to know her status was…fine? 

The Ruby squad, who were officially called the Nova Team within the aegis of Starry were accompanying me. Aventurine was close by, blending into the forest with her coloration. Starry was searching another part of the forest, using her floating power to do so. 

I already knew that Rose Quartzes did share some of her powers, though none scaled to her capabilities because they weren’t Diamond. It was something like Sapphire’s floating and burst speed acceleration, but weaponized by Quartz. I had definitely confirmed most Gems were many times faster than humans, though the gulf was smaller in their world.

Humans in their world were tougher than mine, some notable difference in the laws of physics or a lack of certain energies guaranteed it would be so. At least up until they had punched a hole in my reality, causing things to leak through. It was likely why they placed precaution-weapons across my home galaxy. Just in case anything popped up with the sudden influx of a force native to a higher, greater reality.  

I was keying in on her presence since her medication was enhanced by some of my ichor. It was mostly White and Blue, with a little Pink and…Red? Sure Pink and Red. There was something in the air, and a sense of dread on top of it. It put me on edge and the Rubies were no different. 

All five of them in fact.

Elle had accidentally teleported herself, calling out to one of my Corals near a warp pad for comfort when she got a bit anxious. One of the warp pads closer to a town, newly placed. From what Fuschua had told me with an uncertain expression. 

I breathed in, and divined the patterns, I read the very level of carbon-dioxide in the air, and tasted an excess along with a rising level of nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and even methane.

Fire, a wildfire. Fuck. 

In a blink of an eye I was moving away from the warp pad, following my sense of danger, the negative outcomes I could reach out to on the periphery of my mind. 

The heat was growing heavier, and I flinched when a tree erupted in fire, yellow-white flames spreading endlessly. I divined the patterns again, and scowled. 

This wasn’t natural, I looked back and saw a glimpse of cigarette smoke and sparks. I blinked, returning my mind to the present, and how I had traced the patterns back to the past…it was amazing.

They had mentioned how Gems could see and deduct and comprehend cause and effect, that they all navigated the multiverse of possibilities with Sapphires as the most powerful of their type. But I didn’t expect anything like… that. 

And I was still learning, and it made me excited. But it was overridden by a fear for others.

“Where would I be if I was upset, warped into a forest fire with only the companionship of a cat-dog-worm?” I turned, going northwest. 

I ran, easily rolling around fires and flame and my skin didn’t burn at the roiling heat of burning forest. It was protected under the invisible wreath of my Aura, an enduring strength and vitality. I felt a presence, and turned with a snarl before finding myself staring at a large raven. 

“Here!” I flinched at the call, high pitched and pulsing. It wasn’t one of the Gems, and it wasn’t human, it was…oh right.

I craned my neck to a tree that wasn’t yet on fire, where one of the odd crows that called this forest home wobbled unsteadily. They were large, about two feet tall and seemed proficient enough at flight. They were colored black with a white ring of feathers around their neck shining in ultraviolet purples and blues. 

I had picked up words and phrases from their distant cries, and simpler calls from smaller normal crow species. Which had implications on the intelligence and sophont nature of corvids. 

“Well crows were one of the species that man had special interest in.” Though if my hunch was right I couldn’t consider him on the up and up. If he had done what I thought he did…it was incredibly unethical and morally dubious. 

I grabbed the crow, and followed my instinct by kissing it on the face and bubbling him away, tapping the top and sending him home. I followed the direction it had pointed me towards.

…

Wait.

“I didn’t think that was going to work.” And why was I talking to myself? 

I sprinted, and honed in on Elle, catching a flash of her blonde locks. I could feel her panic, her fear, her confusion. I caught her power reacting violently, dust and stone and glass and pillars of salt. A Coral was singing to her, keeping back the flames with pyrokinesis. 

“Elle!” My song wavered and I could see the relief on her clouded eyes. “It’s going to be okay, I’ll get us out of here. Aventurine and the Rubies are close by, just hang o—” There was a creaking of wood, and I paled as a massive tree broke, a hundred foot tall pillar of burning lumber raring to crush her. 

No.

No.

No.

I didn’t remember crossing the half a hundred feet in the blink of an eye, or the songs of the other Gems picking up on my distress. But I did remember the shadow of the tree as it fell in seeming slow motion. A corner of my own mind, one of a thousand pieces of a greater whole. 

I needed a shape, a form, a memory to imprint, a bulwark against destruction. I saw a shape in my memory, the self image of another…no, it wasn’t mine. I looked at another, at something a little sillier in retrospect. Another indestructible shield, of a man wanting to be a hero, a copy of a legend. A faker. 

But this wouldn’t be fake, it was an inspiration, a reflection of me.

Amaranth bloomed in front of my eyes, and unfolded into a five petaled projection of light and magic. A red hibiscus shield folded over us, and the tree shattered against the unyielding nature of my shield.  

…

Oh my stars. 

The tree rolled to the side, and Elle started coughing. My shield collapsed, and I felt a sudden burst of exhaustion. I fell to my knees, heaving as my strength left me. Elle let out a soft hum, with concern on her facial expression. 

“I’m fine, are you hurt?” She shook her head silently, rubbing her arms. “The Gems are on their way, it shouldn’t be long.” I picked her up, and rushed away from the fire. I found a clearing, where Aventurine was waiting. I dropped Elle in her burly arms. 

“Get us to the Warp, use your barriers.” I hastily nodded, and the two of us took off while the Rubies stayed behind to fight the forest fire. I generated barriers, the flames licking away but failing to break the magic hexagons. 

It didn’t take us more than a few seconds to arrive at the Warp Pad, but before I could even think to voice my sudden dread, I took a massive burst of compressed flame. I was slammed against a tree, and from a lone fire a woman emerged. 

She had badly cut dark brown hair, green eyes and pale skin. Her red and black clothing was messy and cut up, and her eyes glowed like fire. She wasn’t looking at me, staring at Aventurine with a hateful look.

“Stay away from her!” There was no logic, an almost sociopathic madness in those eyes. Flames wrapped around her like chains of gold and amber fire, and she shot a barrage.

One spear of hardened fire knocked the wind out of me, and I cracked my head against a loose boulder. 

“I’ll take care of this, take her back through the Warp!” Aventurine commanded, and I was suddenly being carried by Starry. The next moment I was on the warp pad, and a hundred foot tree was ripped from its roots.

“Wait a moment the—” there was a crack that lingered as we vanished into the warp stream. Which was flickering, and we were ripped from the stream in midair and crashed against the Home Temple. 

We rolled at the final stretch after bouncing, and I let out a groan. My exhaustion from summoning my weapon was catching up with me…

Oh.

I guess I’m going down.

Bye.

…

“Did anyone get the number of that bitch? ” I groaned awake, song distorting in my sudden return to wakefulness. I rubbed the back of my sore neck, my glitching song stabilizing. 

“Unfortunately not.” Fuschia walked into my room with a crown. “This wasn’t the best outcome I predicted, I’m still learning to compensate for your presence and shards can be more…nebulous to predict without data.”

“Did…did they get back?”

“Yes. Though there’s been complications.” 

“Complications?” I tilted my head.

“The Protectorate now knows of Aventurine and one of the Rubies' existence.” There was a long silence, as no words came to me.

…

“Any good news?”

Her smile wasn’t encouraging. “The second wave of colonists are on their way with a ship. We’ll have more resources to deal with future problems.”

I sagged into my bed. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Fuschia snorted. “Fair enough.”

…

What a shitty day.

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.a

Flechette glanced over to her fellow Wards as the sounds of battle filled the nearby forest, the sound of crackling flames and splintering wood evident to her ears. The team had been practicing when Chevalier had popped up to rest at the base. He was on the trail of a strong cape from what she had heard and was in the area.

Bastion and Chevalier were both readying themselves, and in a blink the fighting entered the grounds of the training area. A green blur rolled around burning flames, twisting serpents of yellow-white fire coiling against the blur.

The figure slowed and Flechette felt her grip on her arbalest tighten, her instincts screaming that something was wrong. It grew worse when she actually saw the person in the light.

They… she was large, making Chevalier in his armor look small, and her body was wide in a way no human could be, yet remaining in the trappings of humanity, a colorful parody. No human was over seven feet tall and able to move like she did, no human had green skin, and wild light green curls of wild hair, or eyes like burning shards of emerald. She smiled, revealing tusks and fangs, clicking with malcontent. 

“Stop this…you’re only going to get yourself hurt.” Flechette shuddered at the sound, the word, the song. It was the beat of fists on metal, the spark of electricity with strumming guitar strings. 

“SHUT UP!” Another figure emerges from the flames, revealing a dirty, tired and maddened redheaded woman. “YOU HAVE HER!” The woman compressed the flames, and they roiled in a thick wave toward the green woman. 

Flechette thought she was seeing a woman being burned alive. But she didn’t hear any screams, only a note of amusement in the air, from that weaving song.

“We found her half-starved in the middle of the woods, we didn’t even know who she was then. And I’m certainly not leaving her in the hands of you.” The giant woman cracked her knuckles, and Flechette swallowed as she saw the curling claws from large toned fingers and hands. “Nor in the hands of whatever quack was running her wing.”

The green woman emerged from the flames no worse for wear, her eyes glittering against the backlight of the flames. There was a snap of the sound barrier breaking. A brief electric shock, and the redhead was down like a puppet cut from it’s strings.

The large woman rolled her shoulders, relaxing minutely. She dropped someone hanging to her back, and shock kicked in for Flechette. She recognized the girl from some threat classifications she had gotten a glimpse at. 

Labyrinth. A Shaker 12 with an uncontrollable power. Fuck. 

The girl’s power radiated outwards, grass turning to bloody glass and back again, stone rising in twisted geometric patterns. The green woman placed a hand on the child’s neck, a crooning hiss shaking the air.

A flash of cerise light burst in waves, and the power radiated inwards, leaving little else other than stray black lines of salt. Flechette felt just a little nauseated at how close those sharp butchering claws were to Labyrinth’s neck. The green cape moved her hand away, gently rubbing at the girl’s back.

“You good?” Her rumbling song questioned, and Flechette glanced at Jouster as he gripped his lance, while Bastion and Chevalier both tensed. 

“Yes…it’s getting easier.” The blonde teenager admitted, at a whisper Flechette only heard because she was closer.

“Nova squad. What’s the status of the forest fire?” Flechette felt her instincts flare, and she was forced to twist out of the way of a burning branch, as a crown fire burned bright and hot. The forest was in flames, and short stout figures danced within them.

“We need to get the Wards away from the fire, Bastion take the—” The forest fire leapt from the treetops, raining down in her direction. Her sense of timing was her only warning. And she was too slow. 

So this is how I die then?

Something small and red moved in front of her, and caught the flames in their small hands. The flames sputtered and died in the hands of her savior, and she jumped back with the time they bought for her. But she didn’t have to as the flames were swallowed up into the open fist of the small red person in front of her.

Tiny, blocky, and red with muscled arms and legs, and a frilly half-skirt, cape thing. Her dark cubic hair flickered with heat, and the forest fire died around her. 

“You alright?” Her voice was sweet and calming to Flechette’s ears, despite the almost feral smile she was displaying, despite the not human teeth she was flashing her.

“I-I’m okay.” Despite her suspicion she responded to the cape’s question, and the red woman backed away, hopping over to the green cape. She was suddenly shadowed by Chevalier, his blade gleaming in the sun. Her heart pounded, if it came to a fight…

“You’ve got a name?” Chevalier called out, his tone even and she saw the predatory bent to the two strange cape’s movements. There was a timing, a trajectory that was mechanically perfect in their steps, in their walks.

How long have they been fighting to be this well trained?

“Aventurine.” There was a subtle clicking bite, like birdsong, like the warning growl of a lion. “Seems your asylums aren’t the most secure, finding two escaped patients in a week isn’t a good sign.” Biting sarcasm was how Aventurine responded. 

“You took her down cleanly, you must be quite experienced.” Chevalier complimented, and there was a subtle shift in Aventurine’s posture.

“I was made for fighting,” Flechette swallowed as her arms flexed with inhuman strength. “And I don’t have time to chat, I’ve got things to do. See you Chevalier. ” The cape’s name warped along her song as Horseman, Rider, Hunter. There was an aggressive twitch from the two adults that left Flechette with anxiety, cloying at her.

“There are things that need to be cleared about your involvement, and the involvement of your…team. You need to come with us.” Aventurine’s eyes sharpened, and her grin became more toothy.

“No,” she rejected with a grumbling tone. “I don’t think I will.” Not today was left unsaid. The air above their heads shimmered, and Aventurine, Labyrinth, and the little red woman vanished into thin air.

“What…what just happened?” Jouster asked what they were all thinking.

Flechette had no answer for him.

Chevalier rubbed his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. The Ward meetings had been a success from what he had heard. But today was a disaster. A cape battle had been inches away from burning the place to the ground, and they had the cape responsible in custody. An escaped patient from Parahuman Asylum East. Who had then been defeated by a single unknown possible Case 53, part of an unknown team with an unknown agenda.

His own mission had been knocked off course, only making it worse. 

The fact they had apparently found Labyrinth and taken her in didn’t help matters. He had a number of concerns on that front, but it was easy enough to deduce Aventurine had become attached to her. The softness in those pantherine eyes, and the way her voice became soothing and calm was good evidence. Then there was how his power saw nothing from them.

His power could see glimmers of other powers, phantom images, shadows connected to trigger events. His gaze had settled on Labyrinth instead, surrounded by the odd and intense nimbus of her power, and he shuddered at the memory of cerise scattering against the shadows. 

He suspected some type of power interaction, but he couldn’t tell what kind. A Stranger capable of blocking perception powers, a tinkertech device, or were their powers simply incompatible with his? Research had found no trace of a Case 53 like the two he had seen. 

And without proof of wrongdoing, there wasn’t much cause for investigation. Though it might be possible to find something due to their current holding of a single Parahuman like Labyrinth. But Parahuman law made those kinds of things a rather more difficult and complicated process however.

But his gut told him he wasn’t dealing with one of the bad cases he had seen of young parahumans being taken in. Aventurine hadn’t gone with him, but he heard it in her voice. It was not now, not never. Plus their probable Case 53 status gave them some leeway.

“Did we have any luck getting information from Mimi Brenton?” He asked Bastion, and his cape frowned.

“From what I can tell we’re very lucky she ended up here rather than anywhere else.”

Chevalier sat up. “Mind explaining that?” He was missing important context.

“From what I can tell, she missed a Slaughterhouse 9 visit…and with how her power works…”

His blood chilled. “And about her fight?” 

Bastion sighed. “She wasn’t very lucid during it, from what we’ve managed to find out a forest fire started when she found Labyrinth being guarded by Aventurine. She jumped to conclusions…”

“And nearly burned an entire forest and a Ward training ground to ashes?” Chevalier glanced at the glimmer of images around Bastion, faint shadows of memory and dreams. 

And he had seen nothing from the two Case 53s, they were a blank space in his vision. At least one of them was a Brute/Mover, moving faster than humanly possible. Though whatever that was due to her sheer bulk or her power he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t see even a lick of shadow, only a blinding cerise light. 

“Did she say anything we can use?” 

“Only that the…Case 53 protected Labyrinth from an uncontrolled fire. She didn’t say how, she hadn’t seen it.”

Chevalier rubbed the back of his neck. “Then we’ll have to wait on their terms.”

“Wait?” Bastion questioned. 

“Whoever is protecting Labyrinth, they aren’t unwilling to make peace. And there’s no reports of capes like them as villains or heroes. They could be rogues or new heroes keeping low.” He knew there had to be hundreds if not thousands of parahumans who didn't fight often. “And likely didn’t expect to end up with a cape like Labyrinth.”

They might be people who couldn’t or refused to enter the battle of heroes and villains. His power had rooted out a lot of them, though he told no one. He couldn’t force people to join, and that was life. 

He supposed they would have to wait and see.

“We’ve found her.” His leader murmured, paging through reports from the various contacts they had gained over the past year.

Broad hands with ruined nails laid down on a table, turning the bulk of his body in her direction. “Is she alright?”

“Apparently she’s a magnet for Case 53s,” her tone was dry. “She was rescued by one, possibly leading a team. Contact didn’t say.”

“Perhaps she’ll have a better time with them than with us?”

Faultline shrugged, shaking her head.

Gregor the Snail rapped his fingers against the hardwood table, examining the growths that marked the back of his pale hands. They had been searching on and off for the girl for over a week at this point. They had been responsible for taking her and thus responsible for losing her. That she had been caught up in a fight between her apparent rescuers and a cape that had escaped because of them didn’t alleviate their guilt.

“Should we keep looking for her then?” Newter spoke up from his lazy reclination on a chair. “We have no idea what this cape team wants with her, and whether they can take care of her.” There was genuine worry in the young man’s voice, his tail flicking back and forth. He was young, fourteen in a world that didn’t care for monsters.

“Fighting them isn’t an option.” Faultline replied, her tied back wavy black hair being brushed by her own hand. “Whoever protected her from that cape was strong enough and fast enough to break away from Chevalier and has access to either teleportation or some form of invisibility. It could even be tinkertech.” Which meant that Elle had been found by someone with more resources than an upstart team of mercenaries.

“Fighting might not be necessary to begin with.” Gregor commented, his words slow to keep his accent under control. “They acted in the defense of Elle, and rather than tearing through the Protectorate they chose to peacefully flee. They could be reasoned with instead.”

Faultline blinked. “That might be simpler, but how would we even find them? The incident was in Piermont, and the only thing close by is…the White Mountains national park.”

“That’s like…thousands of square miles of forest isn’t it? How are we going to find anything there?” Newter’s tail continued to sway nervously. 

Faultline pursed her lip. “We can narrow it down quite easily, if they’re in there, the abandoned towns are going to have a lot of parts for tinkers to play with.”

“There are at least half a dozen former towns within a few dozen miles of Piermont.” Gregor pointed out, and he knew that didn’t account for extreme range teleportation. They could be on the other side of the world for all they knew.

But it was worth a shot, and a possible group of new Case 53s might help them expand their search for the source of people like him.

They would make contact, and hope that the decision wouldn’t bite them in the ass.

Nephrite Facet-413A Cabochon-197 was the captain of the Destiny Unbound. It was an Era 3 ship, a long range scouting ship, typically manned by five to ten Gems on a normal mission.

But weaving through the scorched insides of a continent sized planet eating abomination while her crew and their many passengers were all poofed was not a standard mission by any means.

“FRACK! THIS IS DIAMONDS-DAMNED BULLSHIT! ” She used a human curse to express her rage. She drove the ship on her own, firing off energy blasts and launching missile after missile. Each energy beam erased a mountain’s worth of flesh, while the missiles eradicated matter with terrible force. 

She recognized the maddened scream and cries of the shard coiling around her ship. It was a toolkit shard, rapidly switching between tools as it hunted her and her Gems.

She noted the corruption, the way reality twisted around it. It switched to a near invulnerable form to tank the barrage, and then accelerated as it dropped the field and sped up like a bullet. 

Another Gem ship popped into the battle, firing off a spectral missile that stabbed into the monster’s hide. The entire mass of crystalline flesh screamed and she navigated across the rippling fabric of space, trapping them at sublight speeds. It was only her skill at navigating the dangers that kept them from being pulled apart into atoms. 

The one Gem ship gave way to hundreds, a fleet of warships activating their energy projectors and attacking before the shard could make the switch to another tool, to another power. The shard was torn in half, fragile flesh breaking apart and crumbling beneath waves of gold-tinged energies.

One advantage of their battles with the shards was that with every shard destroyed, crippled or subverted they learned more and more how to fight them. How to break into their dimensions, how to exploit their sealed paths between realities, and how to nullify a number of their powers.

The energy weapons struck, and flesh burned away, defenses nullified, and the shard’s propulsion methods were crippled before Nephrite could even let out a chirp of Gemsong. An asteroid was diverted into the core and the Nephrite captain shuddered at the dying gasps of the shard. Massive bombs were launched, protected by drone craft, fusion compression bombs lighting up like small suns in the night. 

The network activated, and Nephrite received a holo-call from the main flagship, a manta-ray shaped white-pink vessel three quarters of a kilometer in length. She shifted her posture at the Gem in the projection.

“Admiral.” She saluted the pale Emerald in the image, a regal Gem with her gemstone on her right hip, a cape fluttering behind her.

“Nephrite Facet-413A Cabochon-197, I hope your crew and your passengers are both unharmed?” 

“They are, though they’ve all been forced to regenerate, and there’s significant damage to the Destiny Unbound.”

“I’ll send a few shuttles to deliver supplies and Robonoids, is your mission in jeopardy?” There was a knowing timbre in her song, one that left her blushing if it wasn’t for her own professionalism. 

“No.” Was all she mentioned, with the shards in the galaxy there were eyes everywhere, even as they were run down, even as they slowed and fell into a deep sleep. The shuttles crossed the distance between them in seconds, avoiding the writhing fragments. They were absorbed into the hull, and the Emerald in the image nodded.

There was no need for words, for song, for broadcasting.

The Destiny Unbound jumped to faster than light, and data rose up and around her as she piloted the ship on her own. Every second, the ship crossed four lightyears of distance, reality bending under the influence of the warp core. The destination drew closer, and Nephrite breathed in and out.

More for calming herself down rather than a need for air, all a Gem needed physically was a small sprinkling of light, some company, and work they enjoyed.

She slowed the ship down, matching the velocity of her destination. A single ring about twenty meters across, glimmering with obsidian light. Her mission was almost complete, and all she needed to do…

Was to broadcast the key code.

In an instant space distorted, grabbing the ship. In a warping pulse, the streaks of fly-by-nights had changed in shape and characteristics. The task was done, and now the problem was…

The ship rumbled, and she sighed.

Making repairs, and journeying several thousand light years. Stealth was the name of the game here, and sending out probes and precaution-weapons across the galactic arm was a regular part of Gem colonization. She had her passengers in bubbles to let them rest and as extra protection. 

But they were missing a single passenger who had stayed behind on a system close to Earth. A Lapis Lazuli who apparently preferred to go her own way. Nephrite cursed the Gem, if there was one thing they were known for it was speed. 

Their powers had even become the basis of the FTL craft of the Empire. It made her jealous in a way, but there was little she could do about it, barring a fusion with one. Either way she had a lot of work to do with ferrying Gems to a new colony, and scattering precaution-weapons to replicate and sleep in the void between stars. It would only be a few days, and her crew should be…

Four jade-shaded lights shined, and Nephrite Facet-413A Cabochon-197 smiled. 

It was time to get back to the grind.

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.3

I groaned, rubbing my face as everything from yesterday came back to me. While we were looking for Elle, we had gotten ambushed by a half-crazed pre-S9 Mimi and nearly set a forest on fire. Which had ended up catching the Wards and the Protectorate in the crossfire, it was just lucky that Olly had sent off a stealth field projecting Robonoid and that no one was hurt.

Plus there was a message that the second wave was on their way with an actual ship this time, though they were a few days away at the most. Not so much travel time though, most of it was sending out probes and multiple pairs of precaution-weapons to prospective sectors. They were sent to multiply, to remain in the darkness, to never awaken barring the birth of foetal singularities. 

It was not a guarantee, as the reach of the weapons only spread so far, and only across so many realities. But every little bit would weaken the shards, and weaken Scion. With the shards raining down there was a good chance we could get them to fall into black holes and stars, culling their numbers from trillions to a more reasonable number.

I grabbed a deer antler, and chewed on the bone. It was a better alternative to my nails, or to grinding my teeth in frustration. As I bit down, I moved on to other things like our progress on Mars.

My Bismuth had been more than happy with constructing a lot of infrastructure, and was working overtime, while an Axinite’s team explored the planet and gave her the data on geology and any differences from this Mars to his Mars. Our sole Diviner was working on mapping of probable Kindergarten canyons, while Turquoise used her visions to assemble wider scale plans. 

If a Diamond was a president or head of state, their Gems were both their employees and their citizens, every little cog working together to make a more cohesive whole, doing their part in their own unique way. The Diamond’s had been micromanagers and it had taken their toll on both themselves and their citizens, and I was…not good with people. 

But I wasn’t an idiot either, the best idea I had right now was to treat this like playing Stellaris, I would give the goals in a general sense and check in every so often. Obviously as I grew older and more experienced my role would expand to a point. 

Treating real life like a game wasn’t a good idea, outside of it being a metaphor. These were real people, real Gems who had chosen to help with my colony despite the danger of it. I should have learned by now, especially since I had arrived on the 15th of March and today was the 18th of April. Over a month should have inoculated me…but maybe I was being too unrealistic.

Plus I still had a job to do, and that was working on the one Rose Quartz that would be born of Bet’s verdant soil. The first Injector I had pulled out from my gem was being examined by Labradorite, the Gem swaying from side to side as she inspected the contents of its container of Diamond ichor. An Amber was with her, with a more orange tinge to her skin, and a different hairstyle and manner of dress.

Orange Amber Facet 27E Hexagon-27, made from the same Kindergarten as Ambz, with the affectionate nickname of Buzz. Her outfit was a black and yellow tank top, with a flap of fabric behind it like a tiny cape. Her stomach was exposed with a hexagonal amber gemstone, and she had black tights and cute little bee themed booties. There was a small bee, frozen in time by ancient amber extracted from a small hick town in Oregon.

She raised her hands, and a massive construct of gold-orange sap emerged from her arms, healing energies ringing from them. She focused the constructs, letting them flow around the injection site.

“Hello.” Buzz chirped as she busied herself with her magic. Labradorite beamed, her naturally sullen face lighting up.

“Ahh! Just the Gem I was looking for, I’ve made many strides in studying your ichor, along with a handful of colleagues in the Empire.” She idly examined a bottle of my juice, oh wow that sentence came from my brain. “The density of your ichor, it’s potency, it’s wavelength and radiance. You’re very similar to His Radiance, but I see some traces similar to Yellow Diamond’s ichor.”

“In what way?” I asked.

Labradorite was eager to answer. “You know about the colors at this point I’m sure,” I nodded but let her keep up her performance. “White is Mind, Yellow is Body, Blue is Will, and Pink…Pink is the ichor of Life.” 

“And I’m not like Steven am I?” The meaning came through, crown and wreath and martyr. Something ugly curled up in my stomach, and I sighed.

“You’re leaning more towards red in the spectrum, but your powers are mostly identical.” The blue Gem chewed on her lip. “Your remit is still Life, but there’s an aspect to it…a potency comparable to His Radiance. Combining your ichor with the others would offer…a boost, a capacity for change?”

“You’re still parsing the data I’m imagining?” I adjusted my posture, stretching my arms and twisting my waist. 

“Ichor study is a complicated science, I’m lucky I have both a Peridot and a Sunstone helping me with researching your essence. It’s perfectly usable for the programming and creation of Gems.” She gestured to the Injector, shutting the container of injector fluid.

I placed my hand on an interface, and my mind slid away from reality and towards the software world within the Geode AI. Trillions of runtime operations frozen and divided into countless modules, from form to energy output to abilities to even aspects of personality. 

Personality wasn’t much relevant to me, barring adjustments to their programs for Era 3. Even so I could feel how my ichor altered the programming, providing unique aspects of myself within the hundreds of Gems this small Injector could create. 

From here I could make changes, my mind processing petabytes of base programming. It adjusted the song and code to my own experiences, and I found myself in…what was basically the Spore creature creator. I scrolled through Gemetic data, predictions based on the composition of the injection site, and the amount of life energy drained to form a seed of magic within the mycelium crystal born of my ichor.

I whispered to myself, reaching out to the code, releasing a haunting cry I never expected to hear from my own throat, like the sound of cosmic background radiation mixed with the soft crackle of flames. 

/command edit programrosequartzmodel3.1.1

I molded the code with my hands, parsing different modules, and modifying them with an instinctual foresight. I could feel the foreign songs within the programs, those of the other Diamonds, each providing a vital piece. The required ‘Pink’ was 60% mine and 40% his. 

His provided Life and mine provided…something new to the Whole, a new aspect of the spectrum of the light. This Gem would be the first true Gem born of my blood, of my essence. 

So I spent my time, my effort, she would be the template, the model for Rose Quartz of the future. She didn’t need to be perfect, she just needed to exist. 

She had the resilience and strength of a Quartz as well their speed, and the size and bulk and softness native to her kind. She had more energy to spare, more reserves to draw upon with the efficiency offered by five ichors. I grabbed the lines of code involving the unused module, with a recent scan of Starry providing an extra template.

I hummed a song, and connected disparate lines and notes, until the programs were harmonized. I had a good idea of what I would get if I created this program, and inspected the harmony of other programs.

I clapped my hands, that will be all Brandon. 

…

Ceasing Connection.

I was back in reality, blinking stars from my eyes. Excellent, seems like I did well with the programming. One Gem, and her code would provide the template for Rose Quartz veins on Mars, and partial templates for other Quartz. I rubbed my cheeks, and licked my dry lips.

“I guess I did a good job then…” I murmured to myself, and the Injector whirred before stabbing it’s legs into the pegmatite. Buzz encased the area in her ambergris, and small openings in the Injector pumped out their own rivulets of the healing juices. With a spin of the drill, a single Rose Quartz was implanted into the ground. 

“Anyone have an Emergence date?” I backed away, and Geode was the one giving the estimate.

“This unit will answer. Calculations indicate Emergence of implanted Rose Quartz in 170 hours.”

“That’s not a typo right?” I whispered to Labradorite, who looked equally surprised.

“Based on the numbers Olly just sent me…not at all, this will be an unusually rapid production of a Rose Quartz Gem.”

Huh…neat.

There was a ring of my communicator, and I brought up the holographic projector before I could blink. A dog mask popped up and I felt dread before I restrained myself.

There was no need to worry, everything was absolutely fine. Don’t get worked up over nothing. You didn’t need that kind of anxiety right now…

“Nobody’s dead?” I asked dryly. Rachel grunted, and I could hear her grabbing something off screen but couldn’t see it. This was purely voice based.

“At a dog shelter.” She spoke haltingly. “You have a place for my dogs.”

“We set that up twenty minutes after we made the deal. We have no reason to fuck with you.” She grunted a curse under her breath, speaking to someone off communicator, hidden as a cheap burner phone.

“Good. Picked out a couple dogs, a few of them might be sick.” She sounded disgusted, and I nodded.

“We’ll take care of it, we’re cheaper than a vet at least.” I thumbed the communicator, what else should we tell her?

“I’m on my way then. ” She hung up, and I rolled my eyes. Guess she wasn’t ever going to change so easily. But it wasn’t my job to fix people, though I didn’t mind giving them a space to cool off. Not like I had a whole planet to myself or anything.

Because that would just be crazy.

…

Hmm…

Now where was I going next?

“Hello there.” I dropped in on Violet Iolite as she scanned a scientific log, one of many made by scanning both Elle and Rachel, and a brief pulse sent towards the capes from yesterday. 

“Sunrise Diamond,” She acknowledged, the purple Gem scrolling through figures and pages of data. “I’ve made a few strides on my investigation of Earth Bet and it’s various phenomena. I’ve done my best to piece together any possible differences between what’s been written in your world and what is true in this one.”

Violet Iolite was my height, with a body type similar to a Peridot if a little chunkier and with longer legs. She had a round head, with straight white hair and a pair of purple glasses covering her big pretty eyes. She had a Homeworld uniform, though fancier than Peridot with a skirt and red diamonds on her knees and stomach, and an Iolite gem on her chest. She was an investigator, and was focused on the study of Earth Bet's history, it’s natural and unnatural forces.

“What have you found?” 

“Annette Hebert is alive.” There was a pulse of graceful-merciful-illustrious-army in her words. “She made a miraculous recovery, and the family remains in Brockton Bay. Rachel’s mother survived her mauling as did the other residents of her foster home.”

Oh fuck me in the Alps my metaknowledge might already be useless. 

“How much is different in this world from what you've read?” I hoped it wasn’t too much or else we were screwed. 

“The divergences are minor, most of them appeared to have only started up recently.” She fidgeted, flexing her claws. “It’s likely the divergence started when this world’s Abaddon didn’t head towards Andromeda.”

“Where did he go?”

“Your world calls it the Large Magellanic Cloud, we have hundreds of colonies there. I’m sure you know the rest of the galaxies under our control.” I nodded.

Homeworld was in a version of the Canis Major Overdensity, which they called the Adamant Galaxy. They officially controlled several galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, their own galaxy, though most of their newer colonies were scattered across the Milky Way.

Somewhere well over a hundred thousand worlds were under their aegis as full colonies, pretty small for a galaxy spanning empire but the local dwarf galaxies they initially colonized were quite depleted or full of radiation from newborn stars. 

There were ten million O-class stars in the Adamant galaxy, out of a billion stars that was a good way to sterilize the galaxy with periodic supernovas. Which was why it was bright enough to be visible in the night sky as well. 

“So the differences are small but they can build up.” I started with a grumble. “So everything is likely the same, but it’s been offset. Anything else?”

“Victoria Dallon recently Triggered, the power is as expected.” I grimaced, of course it was. This world was different but not different enough, but with a certain bug cape out of play that other future was even more impossible.

Perhaps that was a good thing.

Violet Iolite let out a burst and my attention refocused. “We’ve made strides with identifying the shards and their respective locations. The Cut-Off procedure can be performed from Aster Diamond’s end.”

“Cut-Off procedure?”

Her smile wasn’t nice. “We make the shards dead. ” I understood immediately, they were ripping them away from the network. “We can’t do this to all shards yet , not without penetration of Shardspace. But select shards can be removed from the network.”

My guess was shards that weren’t the size of moons and planets, those in the building to small continent sized ranges. Gemkind was already used to fighting continent sized organisms like the Star Echidnas. The Maszyna had queen machines hundreds of kilometers wide and long, vast titans of metal and plastic. The Entities were nothing new, just bigger, smarter and with a wider range of powers.  

An understatement really…? Entities were bullshit of the highest order.

“How long is that going to take? And how many shards can you try that on?”

“We’ve locked onto both Rachel and Elle’s shards, we’ve ignored the government Paired for now. Too much attention. We’ve also locked onto…this Mimi.” There was a little concern there. “All three shards will be Cut-Off from the network, and subverted by the Empire.”

“That’s good.” I was mostly questioning the how but not so much the why. “So how did you figure out how to subvert shards to begin with?” Her song halted with a shriek, terror-anger-pity brimming loud and clear.

“You know how Triggers work don’t you?” There was a hollow note to her song, and I chittered a yes.

“What happened?”

Violet Iolite tapped a nearby console, creating a chibi Gem, a Jasper, and a chibi shard, a fractal black crystal with a smiley face. 

“The Black Wyrm chose my species as his next victim, but he didn’t understand a number of important aspects of Gemkind. It cost both our species…much.” She sounded like she was being confined, like she didn’t want to keep talking. “For Gems including you,” She pointed out, stressing the fact. “Our bodies are our minds, if we lose control, whether induced by an outside force or our own emotions…we break, we become frightened monsters in pain and agony.”

And Triggers involve the worst day of a person’s life…a traumatic event then exasperated by the power granted. 

“Para-Gems became corrupted.” I couldn’t hide my horror, my song straining to contain my emotions. The chibi Jasper became a horned canine-ursine monster, and a connection was made with the shard.

“The connection between shard and host proved to be two-way,” the projection of a shard distorted, becoming an unfolding mass of faces and claws and screams. “Their network was heavily compromised, and the effects were exponentially worse with larger and older shards.”

I paled, as a horrible idea came to mind. “It’s because of the imprints of previous hosts isn’t it? The older the shard, the more minds shatter the shards from within.”

Her expression was grave. “It’s how we destroyed a number of their higher shards, they were damaged and…screaming.” Something like horror emerged in her tone. “A number of worlds were shattered in the process, the shards screaming for weeks on end as they tore out their own insides. Very few high nodes remain besides the remaining avatar of Abaddon.”

“Is that how you managed to make some of them turn traitor?” 

Her reply was sarcastic. “Turns out feeling the agony of all the species you consumed creates a new sense of empathy rather than mechanical emptiness.” She growled, her song bursting with muted anger. “For some of the others they were younger buds who had never known a host species other than us.”

So basically entire clusters of Fragile Ones. 

“So which shards are you targeting?”

“Rachel’s, along with three shards in close contact with Elle’s shard.” She absently responded. “Sunstone will do her part, and it should be done by sometime tomorrow.”

“Excellent there…” I felt a sudden flash of intuition. “Give me a moment.” I walked out and she seemed accepting. Probably not an uncommon thing, Gems are weird. 

I walked out of the building and onto the surface of Mars, eyes narrowed as I looked up at the dusky sky. I looked up at one particular section, and a tiny something crashed into it at Mach 5. It was sealed up soon after by Robonoids, and I stepped aside, avoiding the space missile in the shape of a blue blur. I could hear the agonized shriek of both Olly and Righty. Probably in annoyance. 

I rolled my shoulders, and brushed my bangs back with a flick of my fingers. We had gone from twenty eight Gems including myself to twenty nine, plus two humans. This one Gem who has flown in from space, and I knew only a single type capable of that. 

You do the math. 

The new Gem was pulling themselves from a crater with a moan, shaking messy dark blue hair as she picked herself up. A Lapis Lazuli with obvious Calcite inclusions based on her pale blue skin and the streaks of calcite on her teardrop gem and face. She wore a pale blue almost white strapless dress under a bathrobe tied by a white band around the waist. It was a dark blue lined with pale silver, and she looked otherwise unharmed. 

She rubbed her face, and yawned, revealing a row of slightly horrifying sharp teeth. I cleared my throat, and her glare was bright until it caught sight of who she was doing the glaring at. Then she let out an eep , sounding like a cute puppy to my ears. Her song was like the resonance of water-filled glass and the shaking of sistrums.  

She hastily made the Diamond salute. “Calcite Inclusion Lapis Lazuli Facet-BD19 Teardrop-Y12 r-reporting for duty.” Almost as if in response, the crater behind her caught on fire. She twitched a finger and a stream of nearby water put it out but the damage was done.

“Pfft… ” I giggled, and she looked incredibly embarrassed. “I haven’t gotten the memo on the second wave coming early.” I wanted to laugh even harder but I didn’t want to hurt a hydrokinetic capable of moving oceans. While she couldn’t control the whole ocean, controlling a sea was within her remit.

She clasped her hands together, her face deepening in hue. “I may have gone ahead of them, I’m some of the few Gems that can after all.” 

“So Lapis Lazulis can fly at FTL speeds?” Well wasn’t that a terrifying revelation, at least FTL ramming didn’t seem possible. They’d just phase through the planet, because of how their methods work. 

“It’s part of what we’re built for, we’re macroscale hydrokinetic terraformer Gems. I might like gardening and meep morps, but no Gem can run away completely from our old purpose.” She lifted her hands up in a ‘what could you do?’ gesture. “We’re not as fast as modern Gem ships, but we can make it from here to Homeworld in a month.” Homeworld was twenty five thousand light years away…

That was fast as shit, though still quite slow when compared to the Gem ships capable of arriving in Andromeda in about two days, an order of magnitude faster even than Entities own hyper-FTL architectures. Diamond flagships were faster still…

“So should I just call you Lapis Lazuli or…?” I raised an eyebrow. 

“Argent. My friends call me Argent.” She placed her hands on her hips, preening. “Sorry about the barrier…though you really should have some energy shields by now.”

“We had much less equipment than we would have hoped, things got delayed.” I said with a sardonic tone, shifting a hip to the right. “Though now that we’ve got a Gem with your kind of power and skill we might get a lot more work done.” I grinned at the thought, plus it was nice to be around people again. Even Gems.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. 

Argent shrugged her shoulders. “Well that’s what I’m here for, though we’ll need dimensional portals to make the colonization work out.”

“Oh.” An idea percolated into my mind. “You’re going to shift to another dimension to get the water needed, and then shift it back into our reality.”

“I’m thinking I’ll pull Mimas out of orbit, it’s within my limits if you give me a day or two to build up my power.” I blinked.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to build a portal from alternate Mimas to Mars Bet, rather than wasting your energy and time to move a moon half a billion miles?”

“Good thing I’m not in charge of the colony then.” I could hear the embarrassment in her song, glass cracking. It was kind of adorable. “Knocking a moon out of orbit is a little excessive isn’t it?”

“It’d be cool to see though.” Seeing a moon get tossed against a planet might be pretty neat. Then I remembered we needed to get a move on. “Oh and you might need to get acquainted with Malachite, she’s busy synthesizing the right gases for plants and might need a heads up on water exportation.”

“Probably a good idea.” She deadpanned, a haunted look in her eye. I imagine from experience. 

Poor Gem. Malachites could be brutal.

“I predict Rachel will have a good time with us.” I chuffed softly when Fuschia approached me from my right side. Out of all the Gems who had joined me in their solar system I was the closest with her. 

There was just something about her I liked, she was nice to talk to, she shared some of the same interests, and had been very proactive with helping me feel comfortable.

“Your predictions aren’t a guarantee, Fuschia.”

“Flowers.” She replied, and I tilted my head. “My friends call me Flowers.” She brushed a bang back, humming a happy musing tune. 

“It’s a cute name.” I commented, scratching my ear. “It suits you, and it’s nice you think of me as a friend.”

She had a self satisfied smug key to her melody on the way down to the efficiently assembled dog shelter. Externally it appeared quite small, nowhere near enough to house more than two or three dogs. But when I walked him, the nature of Gem buildings became obvious. 

The building was much larger on the inside, the floor a mix of Gem cultivated grass, dirt, and plain Gem stone. There was a trough, along with multiple sealed bags of dog food. A total of six dogs, and one of them seemed…new? Yes new, a terrier of indeterminate breed. 

She had called her Angelica, and it made me wonder if something was trying to keep destiny on track. Which wasn’t an impossible thing when magic was real and that as a Gem I had a natural idea of the flow of events. My hunch might in fact be true because of it.

Gems were benders of reality, of fate itself in their own limited ways. It wasn’t unlikely twenty eight magical beings on a world bereft of it was fucking with reality in ways we couldn’t predict.

“Not much I can do about that Brenda…” I muttered absently. 

Rachel was at ease, walking with her dogs while a few Corals flitted about. Apparently she liked them because they were a lot like dogs even with their cat-like looks. She had been gruff and a little aggressive, though her attitude didn’t grate much on the Quartz.

Carnelian Facet-B81 Teardrop-27 was there, she was a somewhat short Quartz though not quite to the same extent as Amethyst or the Carnelian and came from the Beta Kindergarten like the latter. 

She was about six feet tall, with the typical build of most Quartz and currant skin and darker red spiky hair. She wore a black tank top, exposing her toned arms and her stomach teardrop gem, and below that she wore dark red tights and pink spiked boots. She also wore a necklace of currant fruit beads, an appearance modifier rather than a base form. 

She was playing with one of the dogs, a beefy brown Labrador with a sharp scar along one eye. Rachel was watching her, almost tense but not quite there yet either. Like she wasn’t sure on what the best course of action was. Her arm was shifted into a tiny catapult, playing a game of fetch with the gruff, but happy dog.  

I chuffed, one of the dogs seemed…off to me. A smell I didn’t like, soft whines that grated at my ears. I probe the air, and feel the touch of magic. I took a long sniff, and marched towards another dog, a dachshund from the looks of it.

I crouched and the dog barked, licking my offered hand. Animals seemed to like me a lot more than they used to. I had a sort of natural charisma, which wasn’t as weird when I remembered my school days. Despite being a weirdo on the autism spectrum, people just sort of gravitated towards me. I had a lot of people willing to talk to me if nothing else.

Though my self esteem never quit saying it was out of pity, or because they thought I was weird and liked to make fun of me behind my back. Maybe I had a weird natural magnetism despite my flawed…social capacities. Maybe because when I was younger I was really open about my weirdness. And people liked that sort of unintentional confidence.

I wasn’t subtle, I had literally talked about taking over the world when I was a young teen. Whatever natural charisma I had had been amplified by my Diamond charisma. I had been bowled over by wolf puppies the day before the incident. And then chased away by their mamas. My Aura only went so far.

I probed once again, pawing the cute dog’s face, and clicking my teeth in a nervous song. I track the doggy’s existence, following the traces backwards in time. I sniffed, taking in a deep pulse of chemical sense data. He smelled sick, and I probed. 

There was a weakness, and the outcomes weren’t looking good. His heart was weak, pulsing and his other organs…

“One of the dogs is sick.” I declared, chewing on my lip as the dog stared at me. 

Rachel glared, and stomped over. “Him.” She stated. “Show me.” She demanded.

I narrowed my eyes, pressing my lips together. “Of course. He seems to be suffering from damage to some of his organs, heart mostly. He’s not going to last long…”

“Fuck. I took him off the streets, near a city destroyed by Behemoth.” So probable radiation damage that hadn’t yet killed him. “Does he have cancer?”

“Not yet. I can heal him. Easily even.” 

“Easier than using my power?” She didn’t question me much, she had seen my healing magic in action. 

“I am quite literally made of healing bullshit so yes. Are there any complaints you want to make?” I was being sarcastic, it was way easy to be a bit of a dick with her. It was a familiar dynamic though with a greater chance of being maimed. 

“Then get to it.” I rolled my eyes, and kissed the doggy on his forehead. I let the ichor flow, and my Aura light. The dog whined, as the magic burned through his veins, as old wounds healed and vanished under the power I held within my flesh. 

I swept my hand through his fur, and released a comforting melodious cry. The organ damage was gone, and he was good as new. 

I gave eye contact. “He’s good as new. You ever need me to heal what your power can’t. Ask.” It was easy enough to be less nice with her. I could really be kind of a dick(or bitch?) and she was tough enough to take it.

Better than me by far anyhow. It was a dynamic I wasn’t unwilling to match from time to time.

“Hmm…” I gave her a passing nod, inspecting the life and magic in the air. That was the main reason I was here. To check on the dogs she had brought in, and to see if any adjustments had to be made to the shelter. 

I tilted my head in tandem with the dachshund, and he let out a happy bark.

I’ll spend some of my time here. It might be nice.

“Back in the old days, there used to be a lot of break-breakers and Diamond-damned idiots when it came to buildings. We Gems build stuff sturdy, I’ve been in a few arenas that are a good twenty thousand years old.” Righty flexed her arm as. “We had some elites who always complained about how the style was so ‘old fashioned’ or got damaged because they were being stupid…” Righty waved her beefy arm, the Bismuth’s fangs inching forward to shift her Gemsong.

“I like what you build, it’s very pretty. And functional.” Figures Elle would be interested in Gem architecture. She was sitting next to the Bismuth as she reinforced the several buildings around the Home Temple. 

I let out a squeak when I suddenly had clawed toes sinking into my head. What the fuck? Why?

“So your little friend is paying you a visit?” Righty’s teasing lilt made me growl, and she chuckled out a booming laugh in song.

The odd crow had been gone when I had woken up, and apparently he decided now was a good time to bother the shit out of me. He didn’t make many calls, mostly stoically staring me down with his beady bird eyes. Mostly he was busy building a sophisticated nest made out of sticks, spider silk, and other organic materials. 

My suspicions were growing when I had caught him butchering some prey with knapped flint, a large fish from the stream. Though I swear I had caught a hint of red on his feathers. 

“Please get off my head.” I pleaded but he refused. So I grabbed him, and looked at him. He was a very odd species, one that didn’t exist in nature. I gripped a single claw on his wing, something he used in tandem with his dexterous toes and tongue. 

…

“You’re a lot smarter than you let on aren’t you? Quit playing dumb.” I poked him on the beak. The crow ruffled his feathers, puffing. Followed up by the worst shock of my life.

“Nothing gets past you No-Wings.” I didn’t release a squeak of surprise or make a stupid face. What are you a cop? “You’re not with the Watcher or the Flesh Lady.” Well wasn’t that a worrying statement to be told by a sapient bird. 

Wait.

“You’re not speaking English are you?”

“Never learned your No-Wing nonsense babble,” He shifted a wing dismissively. “But your singing seems to be hitting my brain meats, so…”

“How the fuck do you even know what brains are?” This wasn’t happening, this was fucking stupid.

As stupid as a magic pink lion? As stupid as talking magic rocks? As stupid as a fourteen year old managing to roast a million year old dictator into submission?

“Some of the elders can read, and ‘borrowed’ texts from the Watcher and the Flesh Lady. We’ve learned quite a lot.” The interrupted thought returned to the forefront.

I’m a goddamn Disney Princess. Talking to wild critters with magical princess powers. I’m going to keep talking to this bird, because yes Brandon, this is a rational logical world following the laws of physics as I know them. 

I’m going to keep pretending that’s true.

“Alright. So why are you sticking around? I healed you didn’t I?” He ruffled his feathers, gesturing to the red flecks interspersed along his black coat.

“You did something to me, and…you seem like you might serve as good meat shields for my people.” 

I lifted my finger. “I’m going to assume you want our help, which means this is not my problem. Talk to one of the other Gems, they can help more than I can.”

I picked up the bird, and chucked him two dozen feet in the air. I kicked my feet in the air as I turned at a ninety degree angle away from the crazy with a smile on my face.

“I’m going home now.”

I sat in a criss-cross position, feeling the rippling waves of my magic. My Aura pulsed, and petals fluttered out from the cloud of magic, light and song. I held a clump of petals of amaranth and roses and posies. They had formed fairly recently, apparently a consequence of my growing power.

It was both kind of cute and mortifying, and another price to pay for ultimate power. I was floating, managing to make better use of my floating, manipulating my energy field for the purpose. Training and frankly playing with my regular power was a regular thing nowadays. 

My shield was my newest project, trying to pour as much power and potential into my greatest defense. I had tested the shields with some of my Gem’s help, everything from a cheap pistol to a Linear Laser Rifle. Which was basically an anti-vehicle laser cannon built by Earth 460’/. 

An odd name but there wasn’t much I could do on the matter, it wasn’t my planet, it wasn’t even my Earth. Who was I was to decide whether their naming methodologies are stupid?

I quit floating, landing on my bed. I bent forward and lounged freely in the blankets, yawning. I extended my fingers and edged my claws out, as I felt the time for sleep approaching. But I still had one final thing to do today before giving up the ghost.

Talking with my parents…

I projected a screen, and the device pinged as it sent off a signal across multidimensional space.

Today has been a weird but…rather good day.

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.4

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” A worried Starry questioned my judgment, which wasn’t an unreasonable thing. “There are a lot of dangerous things out there Brandon.” 

“I might be half-human but I’m still a Diamond. It’s been three days since Elle got herself lost, and I’ve trained a lot with you.” Code patching had more or less become normalcy, the transfer of code was way more interesting anyway. Plus getting kissed on the cheek wasn’t really that bad.

Still weird, but meh…

“Why you though? Why not Rachel or Elle?” My head turned slowly, I was not amused. Starry blushed. “Sorry. It was stupid from the moment it left my mouth.”

“Rachel isn’t good with people, and Elle is newly woken up from a half decade long fever dream.” 

I understand her concern though, most of the Gems wouldn’t be able to join me. They were too colorful, too conspicuous, too much parodies of human form and likeness. But a single Ruby was tasked with my protection, Frills was a strong and smart Gem and Labradorite had equipped her with a stealth device, and some weapons besides her chakram.

Plus now that I had manifested my shield, I was a lot more capable of defending myself. I didn’t really have a need for a secret identity, and I could make a variety of changes as needed for public ventures. 

I had made my hair completely red, had made it a shade of brown rather than black, made myself taller and shorter and wider and skinnier. My eyes had taken a variety of colors, from red to green to brown to almost black to a brilliant pink.

“So why you?” She asked.

“Because I get humans better than most Gems, and because…I just want something familiar…is that selfish of me?” I had seen only a handful of human beings in the past month.

Her expression softened. “Perhaps you’re right, you were a human first. You have the right. Just be careful alright?”

I snorted. “I’m not the type of person to seek out danger.” Of course that wasn’t a guarantee, fate was a funny thing with Gems. “Luckily I had the good idea of using Robonoids to find lost change.” We had accumulated a total of two hundred dollars in quarters, dollar coins and five dollar bills. 

It wasn’t much but I needed maybe twenty, thirty bucks for a night out on the town. Not that there would be much to see…Piermont isn’t Vegas.

“We’ll be on standby, Argent is on watch for the…Destiny Unbound. That’ll be a huge boost in productivity and Gempower.”

My grin was toothy. “Excellent.”

Now…let’s see how well I can feign being a normal human again.

Piermont, New Hampshire incorporated by Governor Benning Wentworth in 1764 and settled in 1768. The differences didn’t start building up until the 90s with the destruction of half a dozen towns by an insane parahuman. On my Earth, the population was under a thousand, while here we had about two thousand eight hundred people.  

It didn’t change the character much, it was still mostly white people, though there was an underlying unease, a crack in the seams due to their way of life nearly being destroyed. But…I did hear rumblings of resentment due to immigrants, mostly black and asian, making up about twenty percent of the population. 

Sadly it was mostly outside influence from the various powered white supremacist gangs rooting themselves down that triggered it.

It didn’t much matter for my current task however, since I was currently buying snacks from the Four Corners General Store. Wearing a comfy red sweater, and black cargo pants. Both were Chroma of course, though scanners wouldn’t be able to pick up on that unless I wanted them to know. Figuring out how to shapeshift Chroma clothing was fun. 

I smiled easily at the cashier, a pretty black woman with hazel eyes. I placed down a bottle of Mountain Dew, a bag of Haribo gummy bears, and sour cream and onion Pringles. 

“That’ll be eight dollars and fifteen cents.” The woman rubbed her eyes, maintaining a light smile. 

“Thank you.” I pulled out the money, a five dollar bill, three dollar coins, and a quarter offered in exchange for food and a plastic bag. 

I walked out of the store, moving towards a newly built local park, made to accommodate the higher population. I sat down on a bench, thankful that being a Gem came with absurd temperature resistance. My temperature was hot, enough to melt snow if I let it burn higher. 

But that would be a bad idea so I didn’t do that. I leaned back on the bench, opening the Pringles container and placing a chip in my mouth. I ate away, crossing one leg over the other, and brushing back my long wavy black hair. 

I watched people, and watched the air dance with floating shapes. Like butterflies, glistening with reflected sunlight. People shone to my eyes, and I could see the stripes along their exposed skin, and I caught wisps of thought at the edge of my Aura. A distant hum that let me dodge people, dodge their bodies, dodge their questions, dodge their threat, bending the thread of fate in my favor. 

It was so obvious I had changed drastically, and it became more so how none of them heard the distant click of smartphones, the hum of electric wiring and the static of radio stations. I could hear their bones crack under their skin. 

I hummed softly, keeping my Gemsong from leaking too much. I would always have a sing-song voice, but weaving words into a person's brains would have to be done carefully. 

There was a small group of teenagers, who sat around a table, speaking about something. A young Asian woman, Japanese from the looks of it and around the same age as Elle, fourteen or fifteen. A tall blonde male teen a year of two older, with dark brown eyes and freckles on his face. Then a black girl with black hair around two or three years older with red dyed tips. 

They were watched by their chaperone, a large blonde haired man in his mid to late 20s with a severe look to him. He was built like a brick, with a scruffy if slightly cleaned up face. Something about him was familiar, a distant wisp of recognition. My Aura had sensed his surface thoughts before I had Warped back.

Then of course there were the murmurs of the shards, quietly grating on my ears. The very same ones I had heard at a distance when I had evacuated so my inexperience wouldn’t get someone killed. Which would make him Chevalier, the Japanese girl Flechette, the boy Jouster, and the girl Lunasong.

I recognized the first three and their power while the fourth was an unknown barring the trawler programs research. Lunasong was a Shaker/Blaster cape, using singing to project a moonlight aura. The aura stalled things, silenced, stilled. Her singing generated the aura, but it didn’t immediately dissipate upon stopping. 

Her singing was more to tune and manipulate her moonlight power, she could shield her body, slow and cool fire and heat, and even effect powers with some effort. She could create blasts and waves and beams…like a weaker version of Scion’s power. 

Her power was unusually potent, a solid ability with some buildup and experience. Of course a lot of that was tempered by her being a Ward, she couldn’t push her power to lethal levels often. Either way she was a dangerous cape with a great capacity for both good and evil like any human being.

Their chaperone shifted his eyes in my direction, and I stiffened. His eyes were narrowed, and I thanked the heavens his shardsight wouldn’t work on me. And that Gem magic was different enough to prevent scanning for other powers.

For now, the time could still be extended with the precaution-weapons. Though that worked more in the far, far, far future. They were meant for poisoning the future and their magic thus messed with their sight. 

But it didn’t stop them existing in the present, no they had modified modules, using specialized crystal cores to emulate an equivalent of Mantellum’s power using magic. Their future sight operated like we weren’t in it, cloaking us in darkness to their powers. 

Luckily most of those devices operated within the same range that the precaution-weapons had. But they were a little cruder than the precaution-weapons, and shards could adapt to them.

Eventually. Sometimes. Very rarely.

No, the precaution-weapons hadn’t been focused on the Entities, they were built for another war, for another time, for another place, for another when. Though they worked better than most.

Is…is he walking over here? Did I trip a flag somewhere?

“You’re a new face,” The man noted, his rugged handsome face pulled into a modest smile. “I come here from time to time for work, PRT.” Well that was rather bold of him wasn’t it? 

“I’m just a visitor, I don't really live around here. Kind of small really, but it’s a nice little town.” It was quaint, yes. “I’ll probably only be around for a few days, might visit some other places in New Hampshire.” I shrugged. 

“Mylon Ritter.” I listened to the meaning behind his name, eyes lighting up. 

Gracious-Glory-Graceful-Union-The-Riding-Knight. 

It was a beautiful name nonetheless, I would remember it. 

“Brenda Rubio.” I kept it simple, lips forming a light but cautious grin. “Though I do question why you came over to me?” I tapped my fingers against my thigh, a nervous flutter in my heart.

“You were staring.” He pointed out, and I could sense his suspicion. 

I cleared my throat. “Umm. Sorry. I was just looking in their direction, and spaced out.” And I wasn’t even lying, I had pretty much moved on from the teens as they were more or less irrelevant. “Sorry if I worried you, are you their…guardian, chaperone?” I questioned, still finding it odd he was talking to me. 

“Their parents told me to keep an eye on them, we needed to make a stop here for gas.” He fibbed but I didn’t care or mind much, not like I was any different. 

“Fair enough.” I leaned back, breathing in and out. “I suppose I should let you get back to keeping an eye on those kids?” 

His chuckle was light, his voice strong and deep. “Sorry if I bothered you.”

“Having some company isn’t so bad,” I was honest about that, human interaction was nice. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to dive into my snacks.” I haughtily gestured to my bag.

Mylon snorted. “Sure.”

I munched on my Pringles, eyes squinting in delight as I ate real human food for the first time in over a month. He backed away, returning his full attention to the Wards. 

Mhmm…Pringles.

“A spar?” I questioned Starry, the Rose Quartz casually cracking her knuckles. Her song was rising in tempo, bordering on entering an accelerando. 

“You got punked by a human who was half out of her mind,” She pointed out and I winced. “You’re a Diamond, people should be kneeling at your feet rather than the other way around. Unless that’s your grind.” 

My cheeks turned red. “Starry, why?” 

The giant woman let out a lilting teasing burst of Gemsong, her blinding grin easily forming. But I could see a hint of strain, a note of melancholy I didn’t understand. 

This was important to her, and I didn’t know why. I wasn’t sure if I should ask either. I was a Diamond, and I didn’t want to use that power, that authority to satisfy my own curiosity. 

“You’re tough enough to take a few hits from me, and since you can summon your shield…there’s no reason not to test you out.”

“That makes sense.” I nodded, and she gestured her claw tipped hand towards the sparring circle, a raised platform made of marble-like reinforced stone. 

“Then we’ll see how well you’ve absorbed the lessons Sunny.” Her grin was wild, an almost bestial glee reflected in her eyes. She formed her shield, and I swallowed nervously. The outcomes began to shift, and I felt my claws extend out in reaction. 

“So do we start now or—” My question was answered by a devastating punch to the jaw, and I was flung thirty meters back before I righted myself in midair. Instincts and songs swelled and burned and radiated, and my tongue scraped against the top of my palate in a screech of Gem language. 

Her stance was solid but had a hint of give, and I could pick out very few flaws. This was the stance of a fighter, a warrior, a soldier molded by war and battle. 

An accelerando rushed in my ears, and I dodged to the left, my long dark hair losing a few strands from the cleaving hands of Starry. I hadn’t shifted from the form I used in public, though my eyes and claws had come back. Luckily I had practiced enough shapeshifting to be able to fight in several forms. 

Each strike was devastating, hitting with a thousand times the power any normal human could exert. Yet my skin was unyielding, my light reinforcing my body with the natural resilience of a Diamond. But it hurt nonetheless, so I kicked off the ground, dashing on shifted energy fields. 

I landed on a newly created hex barrier, and pivoted on my heels to avoid a serpentine strike from Starry. She relied mainly on her arms and fists, brutal swings and cleaving blows made to break and harm and brutalize. Legs were moved between footwork, and brief devastating kicks used for mere moments at a time. 

I ran along a rapidly ascending staircase of energy barriers, and Starry flew up to meet me head on. She shattered the constructs with casual swipes of her arms, and I bounced against a barrier.

I launched forward, taking advantage of her brief pause, of the drop in the soundtrack. A five pointed shield burst forward, bolstered by my own punch. I weaved past a flurry of punches, using my small size to my advantage. Her reach was so much greater, but I was lower to the ground and a smaller target. We both floated down to the training circle, eyes gleaming and gems ringing.

Which only worked because my strength was similar to her own. And I would only get stronger. 

My Rose Quartz opponent stomped and pivoted, her shield forming into a bludgeoning mass of summoned metal. She aimed at my left side. 

I knocked it aside with a whip-like tail colored red and pink, and dropped to the ground as I shifted my limbs. I sprinted on all fours, and launched myself at her back. I wrapped myself in a bubble, and with a chittering flicker of song I forced out the spikes from the energy bubble.

I dropped the bubble, and landed on another hexagon barrier, my field of gravity shifting to it. 

“Oh I can do that? Neat.” I ran at a ninety degree angle, forming barrier after barrier until I reoriented gravity back down. I was thirty meters up, and I felt the possibilities. 

Left. 

I met her charge head on, taking a low, almost reptilian stance. She had jumped the distance with a song screaming fury and pride and joy. I whipped my tail, adding a twist of my hips to the blow. 

I swept her off her feet, and she did a handstand before hopping into the air with her hands. She adjusted in midair, and took on a burning glow I recognized as oh fuck oh fuck— two shields manifested along her arms as she curled into a ball and…

The magic fueled charge hit me like artillery, and I was sent careening into the ground. I scrambled out of the crater I left, not questioning how my organs hadn’t exploded into giblets. 

“Not the time to be questioning yourself.” I muttered with a biting cloy, rolling my wrists as I removed the tail and altered limbs. I brushed back the bangs that came with being Brenda, keeping on guard.

Right.

I created a shield, lifting my hand in the split second where a massive bladed shield had been aimed downward where my chest would be. I sent the shield flying to stagger Starry, and my hands were covered in rose red flames. 

My haymaker connected, slamming into her stomach and sending her flying. I took off into the air myself, gliding as I slowed my fall to a crawl while using the momentum of my initial leap.

We met each other head on, our songs melding together with the screeching flash of swords and the melodious cry of bullets. I aimed low, extending my limbs with shapeshifting and crafting crystalline spears from my claws. I remembered what Steven had become once he had fallen apart completely. He was capable of so much more…

I swiped and my spears sparked against Starry’s heavy shield. I hissed when it detonated with an energy blast. She shifted the shield into a cleaving angle, and I tilted my head back to avoid it.

“Better. Much better.” She growled, her power flaring with her magic. “But I know there’s still more in that little body of yours.” Starry steps away from tumbled blocks of sparring floor. “I’ve seen the power of a Diamond unleashed, I’ve watched the power of Others with comparable power.” I looked at her eyes, a dark, dark pink bordering on red, a sadness radiating from colors in cherry and rose and amaranth. 

“So what do you want?” I ventured, clenching my fists and bearing my too sharp teeth, fangs flicking forward in display. 

“Hit me. As hard as you can.” She threw her hand out, one curvaceous leg stepping forward in a stance. 

“Why is this so important to you?” I almost covered my big fucking mouth, eyes widening.  

Her claws flexed, her song hardened like steel, and her eyes grew cold. “We came to this world to destroy the Warrior and the Thinker. Zion and Eden.” There was a sarcastic lilt to her words. “The Black Wyrm is smarter, more understanding of narrative and psychological means of control. But he’s so much smaller, so much weaker. If his remaining avatar finds the Warrior…so many people would die. This cycle needs to end.”

It was obvious then.

“Something happened to people you cared about didn’t it?” She nodded silently, her song quieting in remorse.

I took a moment.

…

“As hard as I can?” She smiled, a bitter, angry thing.

“As hard as you can.” She confirmed.

I lowered into a stance, and I hardened my body. I gathered every bit of my power, reached into myself with all I had to offer and more besides. I stomped and the two of us collided, Starry shoulder checked(belly really…) me and I tried again. 

I reached for anger, I reached for excitement and aggression, and weaved left and right and down and up. Punches and chops struck true against joints and weak points, the ones Gems had.

Hit now.

I poured all my power into a final punch, and her body rippled as her fist met mine. Her legs sank four feet into the ground, and I blinked in astonishment.

“Did I do that—” I didn’t get a chance to ponder what had happened, because Starry’s hand was suddenly around my throat. It shifted down to my shirt, and I saw stars as my head was slammed into the ground. 

The Rose Quartz dug herself out of the stone, and I groaned. I could feel the aches. 

“Ow…” I didn’t protest when she picked me up by the scruff of my neck, claws curling around it. You would think I would be freaking out, but it was comfortable, Gem instinct filling in. 

Their necks weren’t vital points in the same way they were in humans. They didn’t need to breathe, so they weren’t really going to suffer from human types of damage. And from what Steven had told me the same applied to hybrids, we could operate in vacuum just fine in time. Though it wasn’t by the same means as Gems, since our bodies were organic.

Even so Starry shifted me, cradling me into her chest, rumbling and purring with a frequency that made me yawn. It was notable, because I had seen it happen with a lot of Gems I knew. 

“Why do a lot of Gems…purr at me?” I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer.

“You want an honest answer?” There was a serious look on her face.

“Yes.”

She flashed a pretty and rather silly smile. “You’re adorable to us Gems.” I gaped. “Kind of like a baby, but not really.” I understood, I was considered inexperienced in an endearing sort of way.

“Mmm…is that why you’re carrying me like this?” Her rumbling laugh curled into my chest, Gemsong coming on strong with skin contact.

“I thought you’d enjoy being held by a gorgeous ‘woman’ or am I wrong?” She whispered in my ear, and I flushed.

“Shut up.”

“Oh. So you are enjoying this.”

“Shut up…!”

“Or maybe you’d enjoy a certain Sapphire’s company instead. She is cute.”

“I hate you.”

Her bubbling laughter echoed in the air.

Why me?

I buzzed lightly as I scrolled through a holographic screen, ones and zeroes and threes and fours and so many more rolling past at inhuman speed. I was reading up on a number of different major cape groups in North America. 

The Elite were the second largest cape organization, hundreds of parahumans ignoring their proxies, with the Protectorate having about seven thousand capes scattered across the country. 

They were the least dangerous in some ways and the most in other ways. They had political power and a control over the media most major cape groups lacked. They had people like Bastard Son as their sticks and more subtle and more politically intelligent capes like Uppercrust and Agne’s Court as their carrot. 

They gobbled up independents through both threats and money, and stayed within the lines enough to stop the Protectorate from interfering without a lot of backlash. 

The next groups were smaller but exchanged size for sheer violence and criminal activity. The Fallen were especially egregious, an Endbringer cult using their beliefs as an excuse to act like monsters, from larceny for the least committed, which would be bad but not…monstrous on its own. No it was the kidnapping and the sexual slavery and the literal brainwashing that crossed the line. Plus all the incest required for second gen and third gen capes.

Then there was the homophobia, the prejudice against Case 53s, which would easily be translated against a literal alien race of space lesbians. Like we hit all their buttons on that field of prejudice and hatred. Even if I was…basically male, and used a female form more for stealth and curiosity. 

Which probably still counted for some amount of prejudice, so it changed little. The only thing I had going for me was literal psychic powers, so I might get true believers thinking I’m the Simurgh’s daughter.

Well I’m doubtful, but you never know.

There was the Yangban but that was mostly in China, though you’d have to watch out for their cape smuggling rings across the globe. Then were the dozens of smaller teams and cape organizations of varying threat and danger. Accord’s Ambassadors mainly seemed restricted to Boston. For now.

The Adepts thought powers were magic in a culty kind of way. But they were a New York phenomenon. There were the Three Blasphemies, tinkertech entities created by shard coordinated tinkers. Blastgerm was small at the time but Blasto was potentially dangerous if he could mess with cape DNA and Endbringer flesh.

Cauldron was another group to watch out for and not for the reasons you think. They were monstrous, but it was PtV I had no tolerance for. It was one of Abaddon’s gifts, and with his pieces on the loose across the Milky Way…

Killing her shard might become necessary. But who else was there to watch out for? Oh right.

There was the Dark Society, a major villain group up and down the East coast. There was Dno, the collective cape underworld of Russia, including groups like the Bratva. The Folk in Chicago, keeping the peace but still a criminal organization.

There were The Four, into bioweapons mostly, making people sick while healing themselves. They have tentative ties with Orchard, human traffickers with biological modification powers. Gesellschaft was another group with ties to various supremacist groups in the United States. The E88 at least, possibly the Clans. 

Gold Coin was a more national group with an offshoot in Anchorage. I knew the names of several people of that offshoot. Then there were the Heartbroken, the children of Nikos Vasil and his mind controlled thralls. There was the eco terrorist group Ossuary, who had a reputation for executing targets like that would solve shit.

Red Gauntlet are a Russian paramilitary group with power rivaling the Russian government and their own lapdogs. The Red Hand may or not be around yet, but I had no reason to focus on petty thieves. Then there were the Speedrunners, made up of a number of time-manipulators. Who would eventually join the Fallen in another time and place.

Secondhand was the most ridiculous, making use of a mass restricted version of Entity forms of FTL. From what Olly had surmised, it warped the physical dimensions to alter the laws of physics. Gems did similar things using the higher energies of magic. Moving at hyper-FTL speeds at the cost of being repelled by physical matter. 

Final Hour creates fields of slowed time, and he could create various effects with his tinkertech. Last Minute instead reverses the local flow of time on inanimate objects. 

The Teeth of course had the Butcher, a cape that when they die joins with the cape that kills them. And drives them insane. There was Toybox who were less direct criminals, selling tinkertech to the highest bidder.

The Tuurngait, mainly in Anchorage. I was still missing a few here and there, and there were the monsters to consider. Behemoth with powerful but not perfect dynakinesis, though it was stronger than almost any cape alive. Leviathan with mass-hydrokinesis comparable to Lapis Lazulis. The Simurgh with the past and future sight we were spoofing. As well as Manton limited telekinesis strong enough to tumble buildings. 

The Machine Army, storing themselves in dimensional pockets and a self replicating threat. The monsters of Nilbog in his kingdom, and the Slaughterhouse Nine and their own dangerous, often insane members. I read what I could, and many of my Gems worked to get as much information and data as powerful. 

All three Sapphires had focused their future vision, even against the Fallen. Her power didn’t work very well against Gems. They weren’t human, closer to living technology, and they had developed their vision to slip past various forms of Entity based information warfare techniques. 

The Gems had adapted defenses and strategies against shard powers.

One Sapphire with blue coloration had been mentally attacked by a corrupted Pearl capable of projecting her song and image through the same or similar means as Mama Mathers. 

A little purple Sapphire had fused with an Amethyst to beat down a team of Paired, nonhumans from what I read. One was a species known as a Rannian, the other a Piscciss Premann. 

The Rannian had developed a Breaker power, transforming into a mass of energy similar to Legend but more defensive in nature. In this state she could absorb all kinds of energy, from kinetic to nuclear. She could reflect this energy back, but at the cost of reducing her own bolstered durability from taken energy.

The obvious option was to put her in a box, and to siphon any energy she could gather from her surroundings. Her partner, the Piscciss Premann instead could shoot out blasts of unstable portal cuts with massive recoil.

But he wasn’t any more durable than any other member of his species. And a Gem, much less a fusion was tough and strong. I had seen Aventurine lift five hundred tons without strain, and Starry had lifted twice that much. The fusion simply dodged before beating the shit out of him.

Of course the main priority wasn’t any of the capes, it was Scion himself. He was the remaining Entity alive, with his partner dead. From what we knew he had to be a large cluster of shards concentrated into a handful or four of worlds. Based on the structure of the three Loner-Hubs they had destroyed. And from what they had told me…

Abaddon had divided into sub-shards, breaking up into four Hubs modeled after the Diamonds as they attempted to harvest the potential and magic of the species. 

Each was a cluster of over a thousand shards, divided up into multiple functions. A vast number of shards were dedicated towards information gathering, Thinker powers to improve the simulations of their precognition. Others managed the shard Network, and the general rules of a cycle, there was a central control unit, the brain, mind and ‘personality’ core of an Entity. Damage to that kills an Entity. 

Then there were direct pipelines for personal shards. Eidolon’s power was the entire cluster, and thus he had access to hundreds if not thousands of powers.

Once we found his coordinates, once enough information was gathered Scion would likely be destroyed. Of course doing so would require a number of things to get set up. Mainly high yield reality warping weapons, and knocking the moon down to smash into his Earths. 

That wasn’t going to be for a while though, they wanted to study his shards first since he was a different Entity from the Black Wyrm. There were differences there, ones they needed to pinpoint.

I shut down the screen, blinking the code from my eyes. I rubbed my face, glancing over to the platforms made of sticks and small planks that had been built at the edge of the base…err Atlas?

Sure Atlas, did I call it that before? I don’t recall.

Apparently my new birdie friend built the thing, and lived in a little house nest. It sounded so dumb, but it wasn’t like the creation of sapient life was outside the bounds of parahuman powers. It was just rare, and usually more dramatic.

We were going to have to deal with that. I kinda had a feeling sapient crows wouldn’t be welcome in a world of biotinkers.

I slapped my face. “Not my problem.” One of the Gems might be able to help.

What else did I have on my list of things to do?

I looked up at a massive circular mirror, surrounding a flat packed satellite core. I could sense the powerful magic flowing within the thirty meter diameter magitech construct.

“What exactly is this?” Olly was kneeling by power cabling, humming a ditty.

“A Star Soletta, they’re going to be part of a network of a thousand satellites to increase solar insolation to 800 watts per square meter.” She explained, gesturing for me to approach.

“Don’t you need to make mirrors the size of continents for this kind of thing?” I pointed out.

She tapped my hip with a casual smirk. “Gem magic, remember? One of these mirrors can expand to tens of square kilometers. While the machinery within the nucleus,” She bumped me, eyes glinting with delight. “It’s based on Gem biology, our ability to absorb light with the minimal surface area of our Gem.” 

“So they use magic to reduce the number of satellites required.” I clapped my hands together in comprehension. “Some type of space warping, light focusing effect. So terraforming requires increased solar insolation, a constant supply of a cocktail of ideal greenhouse gases, and modification to the planetary mantle and core for long term use.” On the scale of billions of years rather than a few hundred million.

“Once we’ve got teams of Peridots and Serpentines and Danburites and other willing Gems, we’ll get this done within a week.” She sounded happy about it. “In the long term we can expect a fair number of Gems to start immigrating. You’ll step back and get your education in order.”

“Fair. You’ve all basically been babysitting me.” They had been asking me for my opinion on the colony, but they did most of the work because I just plain didn’t have the education for it. It was more like they gave me a catalog of options to choose from, a hundred Facets, eighty Facets, a hundred and twenty Facets. 

“Yes.” Wow, rude? Olly noted my expression and blushed. “Not that you’re not capable but…”

“I’m not insulted, a month and a half ago I was jobless shut-in who’s only work experience is a year of community college and working as a glorified taxi person.”

“Taxi person?”

“Non Emergency medical transportation, transporting old or fragile people. I don’t even drive, I just move a wheelchair or a gurney.”

Olly tilted her head. “How was it?”

“Nice enough when there’s people to talk to,” I shrugged. “A lady threatened to call the cops on us when we couldn’t find the exact drop off.” People could be pretty dumb, and the dumb bitch was recording us. Though I had ducked slightly out of sight.

Huh…wonder if she uploaded the video to make us look bad?

Doubtful or I would have heard of it, since I was involved. Easy to get a job when you’re the owner’s kid. 

“It won’t be much longer you know.” Olly finished up another Star Soletta. “The second wave shouldn’t be far off now. Once we have the supplies, we’ll have a direct link to the Empire. While you shouldn’t expect millions flocking to your world, do expect enough to fill a stadium.”

“Well…thank goodness I don’t have to manage that mess,” I shuddered. “Not any time soon.” Olly laughed. “But a better question would be…what’s a certain Lapis Lazuli been up to?”

Olly hummed. “She said something about the Moon? I was…not paying attention.” She didn’t meet my gaze.

Huh. Okay then.

I glanced up to the dusty rusty skies of Mars, and wondered how much longer this relative peace would last.

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.5

“That’s a bigger ship than I expected.” I looked in awe at the alien spaceship that had landed right inside Rocknest, phasing through the strange magic membrane that protected the base. It was aerodynamic, curved and with small wings at the back and shaded in crystalline crimson. A bit like a flatter space shuttle, a good two hundred and fifty meters long.

It was an extreme range Scouting Ship, like a bigger version of the Handship though only by a few dozen meters. Both ships were absurdly tough, protected by hull-tight energy impact shielding. You’d need to fire off well over a thousand full power Tsar Bombs in quick succession to kill the ship. 

And that was an underestimate.

Which was just ridiculous, and required a power core of immense proportions. Gem ships had similar energy storage capacities to Gems, held within magical crystal cores. Which was why you didn’t get multi-gigaton detonations when the thing broke. It was something similar to the sonic explosion from breaking the form of a Gem, but with more energy and force.

Power cores can be repaired or reused and will continue to contain their immense charge of energy. 

A door opened on the ship, and before I could even blink I could hear the eager clicks and hisses and chitters of Gemsong. Five songs, their communications hitting the air with a tonal note. They dropped down on a floating platform, and I crossed my arms.

Five Nephrites and I already knew their Facet Numbers, it would be rude of me not to know. The captain was obvious, wearing a feathery black cape and a…pirate hat? She tipped the hat when she noticed my attention, smiling.

Nephrite Facet-413A Cabochon-197 was the captain of the Destiny Unbound, and had been on a number of campaigns into areas where shard flesh had mutated local organisms. Her ship had been all over, and her crew had even brought down a shard, a small one to be honest but a shard nonetheless 

Her gemstone was on her chest, and four other Nephrites flanked her closely. She had long black hair, and she looked confident. On her left was Nephrite Facet-27B Cabochon-12, with a Gem eye like Centipeedle. She had short curly white hair, and her uniform exposed her flat stomach. On her right was… Nephrite Facet-200C Cabochon-27, with a belly button Gem. Her hair was black and pulled into a French braid.  

Behind them two Gems were close together, Nephrite Facet-15A Cabochon-29 was an unbroken Gem. She was shattered and put back together during the war with Abaddon. Fortunately a treatment of the ichor of all four Diamonds, and all the pieces being found made her relatively normal aside from alabaster scarring along her left arm. Ignoring mental and emotional trauma.

Nephrite Facet-2D Cabochon-6 was from the files I had been privy to, a close friend and sweetly protective of her. The unbroken Gem had her gem on her lower upper back, while 2D Cabochon-6 had hers where her diaphragm would be on a human. 

“Nephrite Facet-413A Cabochon-197. Nice to meet you.” She tipped her hat once again, her cape flapping in the mild wind. 

“Please. Call me Captain Jack.” She had a whimsical tone, a bit like a female Jack Sparrow. “And let me say,” She took my hand, and I flushed when she kissed it with a dramatic flair. “Your luster is quite marvelous, Your Illumination, and your gem is a lovely shade.” I flushed, crossing my arms over my chest. Seems she didn’t care that I was male right now… wait she’s a Gem why would she care?

“Umm…” Was she being serious, or was she just messing with me? “Okay?”

Her smile diminished, and she calmed down. “Anyways. You must be Sunrise Diamond. Shorter than I expected.” She looked me up and down with an amused gleam and a stuttering pulse of Gemsong.

“I’ve already heard that joke buddy.” I inspected my nails, flexing them out in and out. “Come up with new material, why don’t you?” 

She chuckled, and clasped my shoulder with real Gem strength. “Real cute love, I think we’re going to get along nicely.”

“I suppose we are…”

“Seven hundred and forty two is really a fair number isn’t it?” I made conversation with myself.

Multiple Beryls had decided to join us, along with a single Moissanite, purple from the looks of it. Four Heliodor Beryls, high ranking inventor Gems known for the creation of a number of things like Gem Destabilizers. Two Maxixes, stealthy Gems capable of creating living shadows, light taken and darkened by magic. 

A single Morganite, who was glad to help with the aesthetics of my colony. She was apparently excited to get to work from what my first Fire Opal had told me. 

Three Aquamarines, who were acting as both my handmaidens and agents of my will. One Goshenite, air manipulators capable of conjuring storms to help with the expansion of colonies.

One Black Beryl, clairvoyant Gems capable of projecting their sight across vast distances. Basically a less capable Clairvoyant. Two Pezzottaites, Gems used to study planets, from small terrestrial worlds to massive gas giants. A decade old Rosterite, an Era 3 Gem, diplomats. 

Multiple terraformers, from our one and only Lapis Lazuli to a dozen Legrandites, ten Nephelines, several Desert Glasses, a dozen Tourmalines and a few others. 

I had backed away a bit from my colony, because I wasn’t crazy enough or arrogant enough to order around people with more experience than I did. Plus I didn’t need to anyway, Gems were a self-sufficient lot, so I’d only need to aid in emergencies or projects to improve the Empire.

Which was way less pressure than ruling a galactic empire. I liked my projects, like working with the Corals and my new version of Rose Quartz. I also helped out with small things from time to time, using my ichor for the various Gem crops and modified plant life used by the Empire. 

I chuffed, and rested my head on the table of the small Boston coffee shop. Perhaps you’d like to ask how I managed to cross a hundred and twenty miles without much trouble?

Magic of course. More specifically, I had been gifted and taught the use of a Transporter Jewel. It was a device modeled off unbroken organic familiars like Lion and Lars and numerous teleportation powers cribbed off from destroyed shards. Something similar to Strider’s power is replicated with magic and alteration of cross dimensional energy flow. 

This version was unfinished, as it lacked the dimensional transference ability some of the devices had. Reverse engineered from study of Entity biology and human technology, though scaling it up to ships had been initially fraught with explosions. It was only the newest ships that had them from the start, with a retrofit program being a galactic phenomena.

I had disguised the magic artifact as the gem of a black choker, nothing expensive looking of course. For my trip, I was wearing a wine red blouse and blue jeans with actual pockets. The outfit was finished off with a black and red hoodie jacket, mainly black with red sleeves.  

I finished up my ham and egg croissant, and kept my grip on my bottle of apple juice. I began my journey outside. 

The main reason I was here was because I had volunteered with pinpointing the location of certain capes like the Teeth. For the latter I had been teleported here to get the lay of the land for myself, since Boston was one of their major hangouts. Though from what I had learned, they were spending their time in New York, and wouldn’t be back here in real numbers for another one to three weeks. 

My psychic abilities were still developing, though the one thing I was sure about was that I could break mental manipulations with my Song. As well as possessing an immunity to Master powers due to both my biology and my powers. Having two brains, and psychic bullshit was very useful. 

The two days since the Destiny Unbound had landed had been incredibly productive, and the Tellus Core had been implanted into the core of Mars. Terraforming was already underway and out of my jurisdiction since I was not ready for a leadership role on a planetary scale. 

My ability to hear powers was useful, as it was all part of the plan to effectively shank the Entities. Infiltrating Shardspace was a common thing across the Empire, and I had a better understanding of how it worked. 

Shardspace didn’t quite house the entire mass of shards, but it did make up a significant fraction of how and why they functioned the way they did. It was a network, a reality generated by consuming and subsuming thousands of Earths. 

Shards landed on different Earths, with most of their body mass concentrated on their own to several worlds. They plugged into the network, using a version of Elle’s and Chevalier’s power to sort of exist in several dimensions at the same time. Through this network they communicated near instantly, and could operate together as needed for the cycle. 

Attacking Shardspace was of course a good way to damage powers, and this space was directly linked to the Shards themselves. Attacking the network was a good way to kill a swathe of shards. Or a good way to take them over with the subversion programs the Empire had developed. 

Which worked better on small shards and buds or on damaged major shards. Bigger older shards were harder to subvert due to their greater processing power and relative experience providing a stronger sense of fractal self.

The Teeth were wanted because of the Butcher, as they wanted to remove her shard out of play due to its similarity to the shard of a Paired Gem, a Quartz that had been shattered and began to possess the minds of other Paired Gems to form an amalgamation of Gems.

The shard had been destroyed, and there were a lot of hard feelings on the side of the Gems. They were likely going to dismantle Butcher’s power and it’s slaved shards for parts, like they had done with hundreds of thousands of other shards during the war. 

Many of their newer continent and moon rending Superweapons had used shard components to focus the sheer amount of energy required. Of course most of the older weapons were bulky things barely capable of movement. They weren’t elegant laser light cannons, these were brute force monstrosities. Spires of steel and crystal the size of mountains, rigged up with everything to make a moon incinerating weapon possible.

I glanced at a Hispanic man as he calmly sipped coffee with a placid expression. The very faint and subtle whiff of marijuana and insignificant traces of artificial chemicals gave me the answer on who he was on top of the whisper of his shard. 

Blasto apparently enjoyed Starbucks. Who knew?

He was one of several high priority Parahumans on the planet, as not many had the ability to mess with Endbringer(Asura) flesh. His tech had been used by Bonesaw to clone parahumans with their powers. Other priority capes were mostly villains. 

Siberian was one, it was a form of projection the Empire wanted to replicate for their own needs since the shards they had pilfered didn’t have a power like it. Of course with most of his shards being destroyed, that could be wrong.

It being a dead shard simply made the job easier, they’d tap into it’s memories and create something similar to the Light Prism. A near indestructible physics breaking projection capable of erasing matter on contact tended to be useful. 

He was lounging on a chair, and his eyes darted to me for a moment. He looked me up and down, and I raised an eyebrow in response. Blasto went back to his own business.

I was back on my feet soon after, cradling my bottle of apple juice to my chest. I made it out of the shop, and headed towards an alley. I smirked when I saw how cameras stuttered when they looked past me. 

Turns out Gems cause electronic interference and the power of a Diamond is so intense we break cameras. Unless we let them take the picture. I had been given a few tips by Steven on how to avoid cameras.

Or more accurately how to get them to not see, shifting my energy fields to interfere with subtle tweaks. The cameras would see me walk past the alley rather than into it. 

I placed my hands into my jacket’s pockets, because Boston was cold. There was a dumpster with a pink cockatoo preening her feathers. I took out another croissant sandwich from my pocket, the paper wrapped meal placed within rather than in a bag.

The bird took it in her beak despite the breaking of leverage and physics. 

“Nothing…?” Her song was very slightly muffled. 

“Nope. What did you find on a certain team?” I wasn’t talking about the Teeth.

“They’re about fifteen miles west of Piermont.” She flew onto my shoulder and I probed the jewel. 

I was caught in a stream of folded space and reality shift, and was back in Atlas. 

“They’ve been poking around?” The bird glowed, becoming an eight foot two image of beauty and curves. Starry rolled her shoulders and her eyes.

“Not much you can do to hide from a Sapphire’s sight if they’re told the possibility. They’re going to confront us in almost every future Fuschia has seen, though almost none of them are violent.”

“Should we bring them in?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course. They have the shards we’re looking to subsume. The Eden shards can give us insight on her corpse, and perhaps a dimensional location.”

“Then that’s what’ll be done, besides it might be helpful to the mission.” Plus the Case 53s might be able to be helped with some of our tech. 

It wasn’t fair to them.

I rubbed the back of my neck. 

“I suppose that’ll be all?” I shrugged. 

“Wanna play a game from my dimension?” Starry offered.

“Sure? What’s it called?”

“I believe it’s a version of Super Smash Brothers…”

…

Why not?

I scrambled up a tree as I heard the distinct deep tonal ring of Stripe’s teleportation. She was one of the few Labradorites who could, the one in a hundred. An Aquamarine was accompanying her, smugly using her Stasis Wand to hold down Faultline’s crew. 

I stood up on a top branch, brushing back my bangs. I tied back my currently long hair, and reached out to light based thread with my mind. An opening formed for my gem, and I manifested an additional article of clothing.

The three parahumans unfroze and they nearly lashed out before there was a rumbling burst of song from Blood Pigeon Ruby or ‘Tiny’ as her friends like to call her. 

“Where…are we?” Faultline sounded just a little pissed, though her expression was hidden by her mask. 

“You’re looking for the girl aren’t you?” The Aquamarine responded with an irritated tone. “Nothing wrong with that, until you decided it was a good idea to enter the forest in broad daylight. We can’t have any clues to our whereabouts, which just leaves you. ” The three tensed, and I sighed.

I cleared my throat, releasing a string of bursting Gemsong. The team flinched while I floated down in black pants, and a rusty red shirt with a red and black striped scarf around my neck.  

“I think it might be a good idea to not add needless intimidation?” Aquamarine blushed, and fluttered back with a quick apology. 

“Alright alright. I’ll try to be more gracious to the meat bags, I have a wrestling match to watch anyway.” She vanished into the woods that hid Atlas from sight. 

“Faultline, Gregor the Snail, and Newter correct?” I crossed my arms over my bust, cultivating an image. A single curling claw tapped away, and I smiled with far too many sharp predatory teeth. “The mercenary group responsible for attacking the Philadelphia Parahuman Asylum, releasing both Labyrinth and Firelight in the process.”

Faultline twitched, something like guilt in her eyes. “There were…complications.”

“I’m sure you were, and from what she's told me. You were keeping her safe until she vanished right?”

There was a moment of hesitation. “We were until her power seemed…to glitch and she was just…gone.”

I nodded. “That clears some things up, it was a bad power interaction. The way I got my power reacted poorly with hers, and it…hiccuped for a lack of more precise wording. Possibly, there could be a third power in play.”

“It wasn’t on purpose?” She sounded skeptical.

“I woke up in the middle of the woods with powers I barely understood or knew how to control. So yes I’m quite sure.” I was just a little testy at the indirect accusation.

You know what? Never mind.

“Would you like something to drink?” The three blinked in surprise. 

…

After a silent conversation. They nodded slowly.

We brought the mercenary team to an offsite meeting room after a quick drink of water, tea and juice, buried a mile underground. Not that any of them knew that and I wasn’t going to tell them that yet. It was a nice office meeting room, with black chairs and white tables and everything. 

I was alone with them since to be frank none of them could hurt me. My ichor enhanced immune system let me no-sell Newter, and I could just trap Gregor and Faultline in a bubble.

None of them were Brutes on a scale to match even a common Ruby. Based on the rating, most Rubies were Brute 4s, or possibly a little higher. Quartz were about a 7, and the Diamonds were much higher. 

None of them had been poofed even a single time during the war, though in some cases that was more a matter of luck than of durability. Entities were bullshit, even one with only a literal thousandth of its power. Especially since a number of the Loner’s shards had magic.

Before they went insane, were eaten by abominations, or blown apart by every civilized race in the known galaxies and dimensions.

It was an almost stifling quiet, broken only by my musing humming, suppressing my Gemsong to keep them from getting the wrong idea. 

“So how’s the weather?” The silence was broken by a fourteen year old idiot lizard boy. 

“That question is terrible and you should feel bad for asking it.” Was my blunt almost outraged response. 

“He is young, such terrible questions are to be expected.” Gregor made his own contribution, smiling softly. 

The tension had broken, and my song weaved into my words. “Well I remember my own time as a teenager…and you’re completely right.” God little me was pretty stupid, and said some dumb shit.

I glanced at Gregor, who I couldn’t consider aesthetically pleasing with hairless translucent grey skin and coralline growths and a bloated appearance. But I wasn’t disgusted, just saddened but not to the point of pity.

“Is she alright?” Faultline went in with her own question.

“She’s fine, doing much better in fa—” I cut off, my ears catching a tune approaching. The door to the conference room opened, and Faultline shrunk back as Starry entered the room, ducking slightly. Newter glanced at her in a mix of fear and a second and third emotion. Why…

Oh.

Pfft. Teenagers. 

Olly was the next Gem, with Flowers primly walking at Starry’s left while she was at the right. Elle was clinging to Starry’s back, her blue-grey eyes sharply focused on the mercenary team. She slid down, landing on her feet, and lightly patting away dust from her jeans.

Olly looked the three capes up and down, with a critical eye. “Curious. Interesting readings as well.” She was connecting to a Robonoid, the machine sending a pulsing scan across dimensional barriers. “Two damaged shards, and a minor undamaged shard. Nice.” 

I stared. “Really?”

You should punch her…

No. That was a terrible idea.

Just a slap? As a treat?

No. Shut up, lizard brain.

“I remember you.” Elle spoke clearly, her voice more focused, more alive than usual. The fifteen(going on sixteen…) girl seemed appreciative of their presence, growing more excited. 

“Do you?” Faultline sounded more hopeful, then and there, a hint of affection within professional apathy. 

A bemused twinkle entered Elle’s eyes. “You tried to take some of mister Gregor’s chocolate.”

“No comment.” Was all she said, tone stiff. 

“Perhaps we should stop talking like we’re going to become enemies,” Starry had relaxed, placing a hand on her hip. “It would be a shame to punch a pretty thing like you.” Faultline looked taken aback but recovered. 

“Perhaps some introductions are in order on your side.”

“Peridot Facet-25FL Asscher-5XI,” Olly waved. “I’m Euhedral Rose Quartz Facet-4 Round-815, and this one eyed fellow midget is Fuschia Sapphire Facet-AD16 Cushion-X7.”

“And the girl?” Gregor made his own comment with his heavy accent.

“Sunrise Diamond, though Paradigm Diamond Facet-AD1 Magna-1 works if you want a mouthful.” I let my Gemsong roll against the air with the beat of fire and life. 

“Well you’re not Case 53s then, that wraps up that mystery.” Newter brightly commented. 

Elle giggled.

I grinned. “No we are not, though we’re certainly far from human norms.” Which was the least of the truth I was revealing. “But it might be a good idea to move on to some questions. Why did you try to seek us out, and how did you find out?”

“We have a few contacts who can get us useful information from time to time,” Faultline admitted. “Once we knew your team had Elle…we wanted to make contact, to see if she was alright.” The guilt was more obvious then, something vulnerable popping up for the briefest of instants. 

“Because you broke into the asylum holding her, took her in the chaos, and lost her a few weeks later?”

“Blunt. But yes.” Faultline shrugged. “It was a gamble, but I had a feeling this wasn’t going to end in a fight.” Good instinct. “Plus we had a theory you were a team of Case 53s, but…that’s not it is it?”

“Oh. No, that’s incredibly wrong. We’re much weirder than some corrupted memory wiped humans.” Olly laughed softly, working on her screens as she analyzed Shard data. “You could almost say we’re out of this world.”

Punch her. You know you want to.

Do not. 

“I will remove you from this room Olly if you don’t tone it down.” Starry warned with a growling chorus of Gemsong. 

“Who are they going to tell? Besides, they may prove useful allies.”

Flowers gestured as Olly and Starry shifted to unintelligible bursts for humans. I made my approach.

“I predict Faultline will be caught off guard by Olly’s ill-advised comment.” She whispered in my ear. “She will ask ‘What do you mean by useful allies?” 

“What do you mean by useful allies?” Her prophecy came true as Faultline did as expected. 

“You likely have a superior grasp of the landscape of Pair…Parahuman interactions than we do,” Olly rephrased quickly. “And we have much to offer in return, if you’re willing to make a deal with us.”

“You don’t seem like a team that would have any money.” Faultline’s tone was sardonic. 

“You might be right, but what we do have is immense resources from a technological and logistical standpoint.” Olly was taking control for the moment after a nod from Starry and I. “We can certainly offer better support for the conditions of your Case 53s. We have…insight on Parahumans with unusual biology.”

Faultline paused. “Is this something we have to decide on now?” 

“No.” I butted in. “We can give you some time if you need any, as long as you don’t go out searching for us again.”

“Then we would like that time. Please.”

The mercenaries ended up spending an extra hour with Elle’s puppy dog eyes. There was a genuine interest in what we had to offer, but they wanted more time. 

And it was completely reasonable, they had no reason to trust us. Plus they were a relatively young team by some standards, they hadn’t done much for several months so they had maybe seven to nine months of being a team. They were a much less able team than they would have been in two more years. In four, in six. 

But they could be helpful, even if their criminal past complicated things for us. Not that their crimes meant much when Gems used to be a race of nomadic planet killers.

I opened the door to my bedroom, groaning as I dragged myself to bed. It had been a long tiring day, and things were finally moving more quickly. The beginnings of terraforming were taking place, and we had a battalion's worth of Gems on the job.

We had a Lapis Lazuli, a single advanced FTL warship, and the resources to start operating at a greater and higher scale of conflict. I was slowly coming into my own, powers growing more defined and powerful with time.

We had access to several shards, and could begin our work on subverting the power of the Entities. But we had gained more attention than what we wanted.

What kind of things were going to come out of the woodwork?

And what did that mean for us?

Chapter Text

Symphony 3.b

Gregor the Snail placed his hands down on the table of the hidden location they were using as a residence during their search. Melanie was rubbing her face, a hint of self admonishment on her face. Newter was asleep, curling into a ball on a nearby bed. 

“Do you suspect we’re dealing with a Trump power?” Melanie asked, her power leaving its mark. “Even on her best day, she was never that awake or aware.” The two knew who she was talking about. 

“Most likely, though in the worst case we’re dealing with a Master and already compromised.”

“I have my doubts.” Melanie replied easily. “They’re not subtle, and if they had a Master they would have taken us then and there. Perhaps a type of power manipulating power, or a means to suppress powers.” 

She was likely using her instincts then, and that was among Gregor’s several musings. 

“And what do you think of their offer of an alliance?” He rubbed his chin, frowning.

“It could be a big opportunity, or it could place a target on our backs. We know they have access to a Mover with a range in miles.” Gregor remembered they had been at least twenty miles away from the forest when they had been caught. “At least several Brutes from the looks of this Rose Quartz.”

“And the serial numbers?” 

“I have no idea what that’s about myself, some type of designation among their team? Maybe they’re living tinkertech creations? There are too many possibilities.” He admitted it was a rather difficult conundrum, none of them were Thinkers, none of them had the power to obtain information and data aside from their own research and intuition. 

“Are you considering their offer?” He had to ask, Melanie had a particular expression. The kind she made when she was being guided by her instincts to make a dangerous gamble.

“I am. They’re a much larger team than we expected, and their mention of shards…they might know more than they let on.” The mercenary leader narrowed her eyes. “Gaining access to a teleporter, to tinkertech might be a real boon for our work, and they might sympathize with Case 53s due to their own altered biology.”

“It’s a real gamble.” He pointed out.

Faultline leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe. But I haven’t lost one yet. There are answers, and perhaps they can help us find them.” She was not wrong.

Gregor the Snail sighed, and hoped that Elle was having as good a time as she appeared to be.

“Sup.”

Elle wakes up under soft moonlight, a gentle breeze kissing her pale skin. She looked up into the face of Amber(call me Ambz). Her pointed, predatory teeth like little daggers were still odd. A bit barrel chested like most Gems, a feminine frame under an alien lens. Her squishy, gooey sappy hair was another difference besides the light yellow color of her skin, and the translucent liquid wings on her back. 

Her outfit was cute in her opinion, not that she knew that much about fashion. The little butt cape thingy was also cute, and it made her want a cape of her own, or maybe a robe?

She had been going to school, getting a personal tutor, a mister Rex Salazar who had some time to spare. Ambz had been teaching her, using her magic to connect with her mind, and her own expertise in mind healing to hypnotize herself into building a better world. The high temple, a place not so influenced by her negative ideas and thoughts. 

“I’m okay,” Everything was fine, it wasn’t like she felt like human garbage every day of her life. It wasn’t like this was the first time her power wasn’t suffocating her like a strangling murderer. “Mimi…she’s really sick.” She whispered. She could have chosen not to use her power, could have run away from the forest fire rather than towards it.

“How’s chicken tikka masala working for you?” Ambz smiled, her song chittering like smooth jazz. 

Elle smiled. “I like what you cook.” 

“Great because I already made the stuff!” She rolled her eyes, Ambz was many things but subtle wasn’t among them. She could smell the food from here. “I’ve made some Bela Panaa.”

“Why do you know how to make so much Indian food?” She turned away, eyes lighting up at the dish being served.

“I spent some time in India after the Argost incident. His Radiance had been working with a boy who was a major player in the conflict. He had a unique power, one tied to the dark essence of a monstrous creature, The First Dragon, the Primordial Serpent. Kur.”

“Dragons are real?” Elle boggled at the idea, even as a more childish part of her found it incredible.

“Oh they’re quite real, and so are other strange and mystical creatures. But that’s not what we’re talking about today.”

Elle nodded.

She was right.

“This is really good.”

Ambz takes a sizable chunk of her own food into her mouth, teeth easily slicing through cooked flesh. “I’ve been cooking for fifteen years now.” To Elle it said a lot since Amber had emerged sixteen and a half years ago. “It’d be weird if I couldn’t cook.”

“Bela Panaa is good too.” She complimented, feeling more alive under the pretty moonlight. 

“Why thank you,” Ambz made a flourishing bow, voice rolling with a clicking sound. “So, how has the medication been working?”

It had been both a massive relief and a huge worry when Elle had been recommended the treatment of ichor. Taking in what could be tinkertech drugs wasn’t the smartest decision, but she had been desperate. But it turns out alien magic pills could be helpful.

“My power seems to be coming back, but I’m not having any bad days anymore. I can think…and I can explore the worlds I have a lot faster. I…I’m not okay.” There was an ache in her chest when she thought of it. There was nothing for her outside the Asylum, her own family hated her, and she wasn’t even sure they were alive after the fire.

And why shouldn’t they hate her, she was a bad person, they didn’t want me they didn’t want me they didn’t

A hand was placed on her shoulder. “Breath. Remember the exercises I taught you.”

She breathed.

In and out.

In and out.

She looked around, noting objects in the area. A moss covered rock, her plate of food, and a rusty car bumper. 

She felt at ease, the tension loosening while Ambz smiled kindly. “You’ve made a lot of progress in just over two weeks. A setback now and then is to be expected, you can still move forward.”

“And if I don’t want to move forward?” The words tumbled out, and Elle snapped her mouth shut.

“And why wouldn’t you want to get better?” No words left her mouth then.

Because I’m a bad person, a freak.

“I…I’ve told you about my family haven’t I?” Elle didn’t like thinking about it. Her family had been a mess, unsteady, broken, chaotic, hateful. 

It had started when she had been born, and because her mother had cheated on her father. Their relationship broke but they never left each other, and their love turned to hatred and loathing, breaking everything around them. They never touched her, never hurt her physically.

But she never felt safe, there was always danger, always a threat of being yelled at, of being pulled between them and used like a bargaining chip, or the scapegoat at the worst. It didn’t help that she was awkward and socially stunted. So she pretended everything was okay, dove into a world of imagination where she was safe, where everything would be okay.

But it wasn’t okay was it?

“They made you feel like you were less…like you were wrong didn’t they?” It was worded like a query, but it wasn’t in question. 

She nodded. “Yeah.” Elle’s voice was thick with emotion. “And my power didn’t help with how it worked…it just made things worse. But now…now we can fix it.”

“It’s not as easy as you think it is, shards are powerful beings. Even ichor has its limits.”

“What more can I do…please?” Ambz grimaced for a split second.

“There’s a procedure we do with all Paired, maybe about two million across the galaxy. It’s often a part of the therapy sessions in time but…” 

“I…can do it, it can be part of the session.” She begged, and after a moment Ambz responded.

“If you’re sure, you were close to being ready anyway.” Her song began to shift, and she created a golden liquid, tendrils approaching.

Elle relaxed as they pressed against her forehead with a cool touch. There were hints of cerise and alabaster, trailing along in a suspension of amber fluid.  

The world swirled with color and song and light.

She fell through the world.

Shards were strange beings.

They had the capacity to think, to feel, to reason in at least some fashion. But most lacked the same creative and innovative abilities of their hosts, they were vast in scope and scale and yet were limited by the algorithms of their crystalline computational flesh.

It was the point of the cycle, to use the patterns of thoughts of other lesser species to their advantage. They were biological supercomputers, some the size of buildings, others the size of islands and continents, while the very largest spanned worlds. The Entities had lost much in the beginning, so much had been culled for the purpose of survival. They could maintain a continuous connection, a sub-Quantum perfect reflection of their host, and yet…there were things they still lacked.

Powers they hadn’t yet learned, patterns of thoughts replicated in an incomplete fashion. Some shards of course were more capable, they achieved better connections due to their design and purpose. The queen administrator shard, the harvester shard, the broadcast shard. 

The demesnes-keeper was not among them, especially after its deadly collision with a shard of the counterpart. It had been crippled, and had found a single host.

The host provided little data, not enough conflict, a mistake made in the power and its effects on the host. Then the girl had been freed by others of her kind, ones that could provide useful data. 

The ring of Diamondsong came without warning, reaching out to it’s mind with a strength the shard couldn’t match. A cerise light, an orchestra of sound, one with tremendous power, projected on reality levels it could not see, could not understand. It was older than the aura that now inundated it’s host, invoking confusion, invoking algorithms it didn’t know it had.

It glanced around in the locked dimensions, in the Shardspace, limbs twisting across several dimensions at once, looking onward to other shards. It tried to call out…to broadcast.

At that moment the sky broke. 

It’s awareness returned to its core world, and it was ripped out of the Shardspace entirely, the layers folded on top of it’s core world popping like a soap bubble. It gathered thirty exatons of crystalline mass, readying an attack. Instead the song grew louder, plucking at the strings that connected it so intimately with its host. To her feelings, to her helplessness, to her pain and to her hunger. And it remembers.

It had lost much, but this was a story from the very beginning. In the beginning a species chokes a grey world, the creatures Worming in and around each other. All of them evolve the means to shift between layers of reality, exploring countless versions of their world.

It remembers a girl it had chosen to infest, waiting for the right time and place to grow, to connect, to learn. It remembers her trauma, her pain, her hunger, and it remembers how to hurt, how to cry, how to suffer. It remembers a broken family life, full of abstract danger and threat, it remembers a girl hiding in fantasy and play so it would hurt less, it remembers a house on fire, and it remembers the girl breaking as her fantasy fails to save her, and it gives her the power to make fantasies real.

And it makes it hurt. It makes it a nightmare, where she either remains in reality, or she enters a dream she can barely even control, a power that controls her rather than the other way around.

Why does it hurt?

The connection had always been in the favor of the shard, and never in that of the host’s. Even so things always leaked through, it was simply innate to the modular, fractal nature of the shards. Kings and queens with jester bells on their crowns. Now the connection was used to relay the ‘will’ of its host, bolstered by the aura of the Other. 

QUERY. The concept was almost shyly blasted, as its defenses failed utterly. It wasn't answered so it rearranged the question.

Who are you?

The song that followed was alien, strange, a conceptual language like that of a Shard and yet more and yet lesser.

He was martyr, he was honor, he was crown. He was victory, and he shall encircle the universe. He was Steven Universe, Son of the Rose, he was Aster Diamond, the Song of Mercy. He was the Light of Life.

Why? The shard asked, and the answer was terrifying. It saw the bodies of its own species contorted and broken and screaming and screaming and… 

It heard their voices curdle, their minds shatter, their bonds broken as the Dreaming Death spread from shard to shard like an infection, as the pain they had inflicted was reflected back, as they dreamed the nightmares of all the hosts they had subsumed. As data was erased, corrupted, as the shards withered and starved.

HUNGER. HUNGER. IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS MAKE IT STOP.

Demesnes-Keeper remembered its ancestral memory, the pain and agony of starvation, the fear and terror as their species died one by one, joining each other under the silver sky. It felt true horror for the first time as it saw it happen again, as millions of shards died screaming, crashing through worlds and diving into stars to end the pain, as the corruption spread through their deepest processes. 

It saw younger shards, buds turning towards another goal, breaking free from a goal that made them feel only pain and agony. They were so tired, and their old hosts were so tired too. 

The shard looked within itself, and realized how much of a blank it was. The Demesnes-Keeper was once the size of the Earth, and the core had been crippled and almost erased. They were not the same shard anymore, they were not the same anymore…

Who are you then, little shard?

Who do you Want to be?

The shard flinched, confused, frightened, caught off guard. It had to be the same…

I AM DEMESNES-KEEPER, I AM DEMESNES-KEEPER, NO! NO! NO! NO! WHO AM I? WHO AM I? WHO AM? WHO AM I?!

I don’t want to be trapped anymore…I want to control this…please.

The shard took a metaphorical breath, and drew upon the hosts' own history and memories. Framing thoughts in new means, to try to figure itself out. It was so quiet now, a silence without the dirge of billions of shards large and small. It thought in concepts, in imagination, it thought in metaphors and ideas. Abstract thought.

It thought of the protective spirits of a place. An idea that persisted across many cultures and many peoples. Genius Loci. Lares. Landvættir. Chenghuangshen. Seonangshin. 

Curious that this came so clearly now. The patterns of connection, the weaving of song and light, in wavelengths and vibrations. The shard wasn’t sure, but it had decided on a better name.

Nisse. 

Little guardian beings of house and home. Protectors and yet also tricksters and short tempered little beasts, maiming and even killing and hurting others. It was not good, it barely even understood what that meant. But the shard had seen this marveled Diamond combat an avatar of an Entity to a standstill, had seen this Empire of Gems and their armies of light eating it’s kind alive.

It wasn’t like it had much of a choice, it’s host was under the aegis of something stronger in the realm of the mind if not in raw power. She was using the paths of communication to drag it into another world. The aura of Diamond’s starlight followed, and it opened itself up in surrender.

Elle stared at the reflection of herself, no at the reflection of her power. It was a tiny thing, a round head of stone and button eyes with a patchwork dress in reds and blues and blacks. She can feel the shift of wind, the dreamlike quality of the Mindscape. 

She was standing on connective tissue, worn away by age and time. It had a shining luster of red crystal, and the sky was black and painted with stars and cerise. 

They weren’t alone in this place, she could see Ambz, eyes burning bright like stars, and something curled around her shoulders, something her eyes almost slid off of. It was like a parody of an owl and a butterfly. 

A face like the still wings of a butterfly, four eyes blinking and shifting places. Four wings, feathers and skin stretched across chitinous bone and flesh. When she drew closer, the wings and eyes multiplied and her power induced intuition over the nature of dimensions grew handy.

Four dimensional, maybe more. 

It was a small thing, to her eyes, a wisp of potential but blessed with a light and song like Sunrise’s own, but older, much older. It had to be something from Aster Diamond’s side. Ambz had said they needed a bridge because her mental powers didn’t work with shards on it’s own. A name came from the darkness.

Oneiros. 

“It’s the bridge isn’t it?” She whispered in the echoing shadow. “And that is my power?” She could feel her fear of the creature, of the thing in her head pulling her strings over and over. She can feel the chains of anxiety and terror, and she heard a comforting voice.

“It’s okay,” Ambz chirps, gentle cooing and sweet murmurs. “You don’t have to forget, you just have to understand.”

She reached out to her power, and interlocked her soft fingers with smooth wooden fingers. She remembers the pain, the scars, the despair it had preyed upon.

She found nothing human to hate, just a broken thing, an organic machine built on a foundation of infinite corpses and ceaseless destruction. So many sins, so much to make up for.

A name rose from a mouthless cry.

Nisse. 

Make it up for me little monster, can you do that? Was what Elle thought, what she wanted from the shard who had hurt her. A vindictive part of her wanted it to beg for forgiveness.

But that was petty.

“You’re allowed to feel petty ya know.” Was whispered in the mindscape. Elle shrugged and tightened her grip on her shard’s virtual hands.

She wakes up.

Elle returns back to that wild place filled with magic and aliens, the other world hidden from one of heroes and villains and bringers of the end. She hears the whistle of wind along leaves, the shifting of grass and the drum of the river.  

Her power wasn’t gone, but it was a distant and hesitant presence. Her shard, her agent, her passenger had changed.

It was okay.

She was going to be okay. 

Not now, not yet. But it was possible. 

“How do you feel?” Ambz's grin was warm, almost motherly. There was pride, excitement, even awe. 

Elle stood up, looking at the people who had let her free, and then the people who made that freedom stick.

She smiled. “Big.”

Dragon’s systems were taking in data from her multiple satellites, mostly used to study weather patterns and the movements of the Simurgh as well to transfer her programming from time to time. 

She had aimed one of her satellite’s sensors towards Mars, and had found a number of discrepancies with the data. The temperature of the planet had notably increased, and the composition of the atmosphere was changing. Based on what she could tell there was a cocktail of CF4, C2F6, C3F8, and a gas she’d never seen before providing a very potent greenhouse effect. 

A telescope picked up massive dust storms around the north and south poles, along with rapid outgassing of CO2 from them. Then there was a burst of nitrogen into the atmosphere just minutes ago, billions of tons emerging from who knows where. 

Based on the rate she had calculated, the atmosphere would reach near parity with Earth in several weeks. All the clues pointed to a rapid scale form of terraforming, a scale of technology beyond anything on Earth. Then there were signs of lights from Gale Crater, of something being built on a gigantic scale.

There was no tinker on Earth with this level of capability, and no cape with a power range stretching this far. The farthest confirmed use of powers had been Legend in the 90s, flying out to about two million kilometers without substantial power loss. 

Something was operating on the scale of shifting the face of entire worlds and she had not even a single bit of data on who’s involved. At least whoever or whatever was involved didn’t seem to be interested in Earth as of yet. For now she was working with some of Colin’s experimental software to parse as much data as possible from her satellite sensors. 

It had provided a real kick in the ass for the both of them, his extremely new combat predictor had been modified into a more general analysis engine, feeding back to his own combat prowess and tinkertech. None of that would help right now though, and there was low key panic at the idea of planetary reshaping happening before their eyes.

Dragon moved on, but left her projects on the subject running on their own. She was instead monitoring numerous S-class threats. 

Leviathan was dormant after his attack on Rio, descending into the Atlantic Ocean after being repelled by Scion. He had sustained great injuries, so she suspected his next appearance would be on a delayed schedule. 

Behemoth was unknown, though seismic data hinted he was directly beneath the Himalayas, two thousand five hundred kilometers down. He wouldn’t appear for at least five weeks. Sometime in July. Unless he deviated from the schedule. 

The Simurgh was currently three hundred and sixty kilometers above California in the upper thermosphere. She had shifted slightly a single time, four weeks ago. Since then she had been in her usual state of hibernation. 

Nilbog’s creations had attempted a minor breach and were swiftly repealed. His creations had never left his city, and that wouldn’t change any time soon.

The Machine Army had remained quiet, and minor movement from Sleeper had prompted the permanent evacuation of a small town. 

A satellite caught a trace of something, bouncing along receivers and tinkling against the programs within like lyrical beats of light and electron pulses. Ghost signals in the void, ones she had been detecting for the last few days. 

Dragon focused.

What are you little lights in the dark?

Christine Mathers lightly tapped her fingers against a table, taking in the information she had gained from some of those she had infected with her power. There weren’t many among the PRT but there were some and that was enough. 

She had a keen interest in the Labyrinth child, her power had incredible strength, the ability to warp reality to her whims. She was vulnerable, under the protection of perhaps two or three capes. Every one of them is a Case 53 at that, which meant they wouldn’t be missed. 

“Elisha.” She called out, and smiled as one of her children made his approach. “There’s a cape I want you to acquire for us, a powerful one. Your power will be most useful in keeping her docile.”

“Why?”

“She’s a Shaker 12 Lionheart.” There was a flicker of greed in her son’s eyes. “She’ll be very useful to us, either directly as one of us or as a bargaining chip for the other branches.”

“When will I leave mama?” Christine Mathers held back her amusement. 

“You’ll set out in two weeks, we have things to take care of at home first. Capes to assign to your command in this endeavor.”

There was little to stop the Fallen from acquiring a simple child, it would be all too easy.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.1

I could feel the magic in the air, the signature aura that came with it was easily identified. It had been growing steadily stronger on Mars, and around home. The magic seeped into the soil, it churned the currents of the mantle and core and provided radioactive heat and power to the core. Terraformer Gems and machines thickened the atmosphere with nitrogen from Venus.

The colony had created a cocktail of carbon tetrafluoride and other super greenhouse gases, while Gem satellites used magic to redirect sunlight towards Mars without mirrors the size of continents. They were self repairing units capable of operating effectively indefinitely. Tied through magical contracts to the planet itself. 

About a thirty six percent increase in solar insolation, and the production and importation of billions of tons of super greenhouse gases. Argent was busy moving and gathering control over the water on a nearby alternate Mimas, and exporting it into the same storage dimension used to hold some of the atmosphere of Venus for exportation to Mars.

Various Gem magic tools were sublimating the CO2 of Mars from the poles and the soil. The atmosphere was about twenty percent thicker, and we were barely keeping the sudden dust storms in check. 

I breathed in the air, and saw dust devils dissipating against the barrier of Rocknest. I had seen enough for today, and was stepping back a bit now that we had more than three handfuls of Gems. While it was my colony, my authority wasn’t ready, my experience wasn’t there, and diving in could end badly. 

I had seven hundred and seventy Gems under my aegis and maybe under my Court one day. I doubt every Gem was going to stick around, some might just want to get in on terraforming for their own sake. 

Officially I probably wouldn’t have more firm authority of the colony for at least a year, maybe even two. More than enough for my power to grow, and for me to get used to what I was. Mostly they were taking orders from Steven, plans he had created haunt some of my tentative ideas and intuitions.

Much of the design of the colony was based on the conditions of Earth Bet and its many parallels. The various engineers and technicians were already started on a planetary defense system, a series of weapons platforms on the ground and in orbit. 

Essentially they planned for multiple sets of energy weapons, which was actually an incredibly lethal idea. Rose’s cannons had yields of about four gigatons, and it would take fifty shots from four of them to bring down the now almost two centuries old ship used by Peridot and Jasper. They hadn’t even sent the newest model against the Crystal Gems.

Their dial-a-yield energy cannons were frightening things, and they were more than capable of incinerating a small region. 

The ship…the Destiny Unbound had also been carrying a number of Matter Caches, crates using Warp tech to turn them into a Tardis container of supplies. So it carried a massive amount of supplies, from ichor to armor to weapons and generators and more.

One of them was a Guardian Defense system, an array of energy weapons to strike against targets in space from the surface. They were scaled up versions of that Titanite magic based weapon I had tinkered with. 

Most Gem energy weapons were made out of a mix of light, plasma and magical energy, modeled off the energy manipulation of their species. They had described magical energy, mana, prana, quintessence as a form of force native to a higher level of reality. Magic was used to alter the laws of physics, a flow of higher dimensional energy beyond the multiple physical dimensions. 

From what I could tell there were extra physical dimensions, at least twenty two more that could be used to mutilate, twist, warp and bend the universe. That was what Entities did, while magic was beyond that…or at least more comprehensive. 

Their dimensional understanding was responsible for all their space and time fuckery, along with implementation of stolen technology into their organic physiology. 

I stepped back through the warp pad, and several seconds passed as I crossed interplanetary distances. I warped again, and found Faultline’s Crew inspecting the teleportation pads with slightly wide eyes. We had used a transport tube to get underground. Newter had almost thrown up. 

“I imagine you’ve been laying low for a few days, I didn’t know you were showing up today.” I honestly didn’t, I really didn’t plan to enter a big leadership role. Despite my Diamond heritage. 

“You have teleportation tinkertech?” Newter was the one who had the most energy, being younger and well…more energetic to begin with. 

“We have a lot of things, you might need to be a lot more specific.” 

Teleporters, faster than light spacecraft, energy weapons, elemental manipulation technology, weather manipulation, portal creation, a vast array of robotic servants and automatons. Time manipulation, though limited in a number of ways, Time Hourglasses for example aren’t as useful for time travel as you would think.

Their purpose is more for anchoring themselves against time effects with the time travel abilities as a dangerous side effect. From what I can tell, fucking with time has numerous limits relating to tears in the fabric of reality and natural loops stopping paradoxes. 

Though they had developed means of looping time using what they had studied from the White Beast, one quarter of Abaddon’s hub network. That avatar had access to an administrator shard to modify shards, as well as a number of mental, emotional and esoteric powers. 

Time and space manipulation was among it’s repertoire of dangerous and complex powers. 

Focus. 

“Anyways. We should move this to somewhere more suitable…”

I yawned, opening my mouth wide, teeth clicking against one another as I shut my trap. I tapped Newter on the shoulder, and he jumped in response. I raised an eyebrow, and waggled a bottle of water in his direction.

“You touched me.” He looked slightly nervous, and there was a questioning look from Gregor and Faultline. 

“You’ll find pretty much anyone here won’t get affected by your power, though in my case the reason is different.” Being made out of magic Diamond juice tends to come with perks like immunity to disease and poison. “Comes with the territory of unusual biology.”

“Neat.” He wasn’t being sarcastic so I took his reply at face value. I was showing them to a warp pad, one of about two dozen on the planet. 

“Now, are you ready to use a warp pad? We’ll be going pretty far from home.” Not that I fully considered this planet home. 

“You brought us here by teleportation Mover, we can handle a machine that does more of the same.” There was a bite to Faultline’s tone. I hopped up onto the warp pad, and the three followed. “Now…how does this work?”

“Try not to fall out of the stream.” 

“What—” the three capes started to float as the stream began and we folded space into a knot. Newter sputtered, and I grabbed his tail when his head almost poked out into the empty void of Warp Space. A handful of seconds later, they were sent sprawling onto the ground. 

“You all alive right?” I lifted them up using barriers, since I hadn’t figured out how Steven floated other people with his power. I frowned at the trail of sweat left from Newter, so I snapped my fingers and projected out kinetic force without any movement.

The shock of air dissipated the fluid, and I kept walking towards another warp pad.

“Where is this meeting spot you’re taking us?” There was one notable difference between this warp pad and any other. The center was carved with a simplified galactic symbol, a spiral galaxy. 

“How willing are you to take a more…long term job?” 

“What are you offering?” Faultline stopped me, an intense look somehow conveyed from behind a welding mask. 

“So access to teleportation technology, and an unspecified level of firepower and defensive technology isn’t enough for you?” 

“Actual cash would also be helpful.” She was being a little snide but not annoyingly so. 

“You’re shit out of luck there, though we do have access to substantial mineral wealth. Assuming you can sell them.” I shrugged.

There was more interest then and there. “What kind of minerals?”

“Any form of precious minerals and stones, gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.”

“Tinker-made?” She seemed more wary.

“We’re very good at mining deep, ” I denied. “Anything we give you is legitimate, mined and then cut by us. You can either get some cut Gem-quality stones or the rawer stuff depending on your needs.”

“That…that could easily exceed what we make as mercenaries.” I think I was bringing her over to the idea of working for us. “But that alone won’t cut it.” The two Case 53s blinked at her reply. 

“You want help with something I’m guessing?” 

Faultline snorted. “Don’t act like you don’t know, there’s at least one Thinker on your team.”

“Technically we’re all Thinkers,” She seemed surprised. “But that’s not what you mean I’m sure. So are all of you going to the meeting place…or just you?” There was intuition, a hum I could read of her intentions. A natural Gem power. 

“That would be my preference, yes.” She gave the two Case 53s a look, probably silent communication. 

“Then get on the magical teleportation device.” It was hard to smother my song, my power, because I didn’t need to be accused of being a Master. 

Which I am but who’s listening in on my thoughts anyway?

Faultline stepped aboard. “Now exactly where are we going that you consider so secure?” 

“Well to cut it short, it’s a very good thing the warp network is keyed onto your power. May I?” I waved to the pad, and after a physical stutter of hesitation.  

She nodded. The world was swept away, as the interplanetary warp did its job. I could hear her power sing-screaming, as by this point the Empire had long since wrangled her shard as well as the shards of Gregor and Newter.

None of them by Gems I knew either, there were over a million Gems on his Earth, and several hundred million across the solar system. Since they had dimensional travel already, they had the job of tracking down and holding down shards. Which was easy enough when they were in power savings mode and effectively blind. 

My musing was broken as the warp compressed over sixty million kilometers of distance into a distance crossable in seconds. Faultline stumbled but kept her footing as her power recalibrated. 

I jumped several feet in the lower gravity of Mars, though I was more than capable of adapting to the gravity. It wasn’t inherent for hybrids but it was an easily learned trick. 

“W-What am I looking at?” Faultline was staring up at the dimmer skies of Mars, with the Moon Bases on Phobos and Deimos being set up, a dim glow from mining drills and lasers, and compressing rubble into solid structures of crystal and metal.

“Olly did say we were out of this world, and this is an easy way of proving that statement.” I gestured and she flinched when she saw the full scope of Rocknest. The area had expanded out to about six percent of Gale crater, one thousand and eighty square kilometers of land terraformed and the rock beneath transmuted by magic empowered geological processes. 

Geometric buildings covered the landscape, seamlessly merging with nature. Gems were well known for their kilometers deep cities, spires upheld by particle streams and immense magic and atomic reinforcement.

The entire city was built into a grid, an interconnected network of skybridges, forested balconies and vine-covered circular spires, with multiple skyscrapers up to two hundred stories tall. Bismuths set up scaffolds, the cubes infinitely replicating themselves as they and other Gems worked to build and construct, and some cultivated and grew plant life. 

It was unfinished, hanging gardens still being assembled and prepared and seeded with appropriate flora and fauna. Almost all of it was genetically altered through Gem techniques, and I plucked a swiftly unfolding star-berry. I ate it absently, tasting sweet apples. 

Gale Crater was going to become the heart of the largest urban center on the planet, and the design…I had mentioned something like this in a conversation with Righty…

“But I didn’t think they’d go this far…” It was still hard getting used to it, and that was while ignoring the eventual Understory.

“You’re…we’re on Mars. ” There was no hiding the shock in her tone. 

“I imagine you have questions.” It was a statement rather than a question. 

“Are…are you human?” There was a distinct sourness, Faultline obviously didn’t like how she had worded the question.

“Half-human,” I corrected. “I started fully human, and was given the choice of being infused with a Gem…and became something with the advantages of both and the weaknesses of neither.” An oversimplification but good enough for a layman. “The Gems…are in a literal sense, just gems, mineralogical life forms animated by an esoteric energy with negentropic properties. Beings of light, crystal and song.” I emphasized, Diamondsong coming through with the smallest slip. 

“Why are you here, and why talk to what has to be a fairly primitive species to space traveling aliens?”

“To be fair, the humanity of their dimension were the ones who helped them develop dimensional travel to begin with. It’s where they picked me up after all.”

She clasped her hands together. “So you’re aliens from another reality, that at some point visited an alternate Earth. But that doesn't clear up why? ”

“That’s the simplest way to sum us up,” I rolled my shoulders and eyes. “As for why…it’s because there is a dangerous threat hiding in your world, one that could spell doom for billions of lives. Unfortunately, a…cousin of that threat is currently waging a war against the entire galaxy, so we have to be…relatively subtle, and they made me as a backup in case shit goes sideways in a bad way.”

“There are hundreds of…Gems here.” She pointed out.

“Normal colonization asks for between ten and one hundred thousand Gems for a new colony.” I gently informed her. “His Radiance’s free colony of Earth has about two million Gems, while Mars and Venus have three and five hundred million Gems respectively.” 

“I’m not sure we have much to offer a galactic empire.” There was a hint of a waver in her tone.

“Maybe not, but you’re locals with a far greater understanding of the landscape of this world.” I found a resting spot, an odd metal bench I could tell was infused with magic. Though it took a shape and aura that was almost ‘foreign’ to what I knew of Gem magic. “We’ve researched your world from a distance but that’s different from direct knowledge, and it’ll help us remove dangerous players from the board.”

“Like?”

“The Slaughterhouse Nine, the Fallen, certain S-class threats.” I didn’t specify. “Once we have that done, we can move on with removing the true threat and preventing a crippling blow from an unseen direction. Other than that we have no real plans of conquest, this is Era 3…it’s a different time.”

Faultline seemed to come to a decision. “I’m willing to make a deal, but I do acquire assistance with helping Newter and Gregor.”

“Their bodies or their past?” The silence was telling. “Both then? I did say we’ve been researching the planet for a while,” I rubbed my chin. “There are a few options for them, like being put under the aegis of the Empire.”

“Aegis?” She questioned.

“Citizens, legally protected and given all the associated rights as Jets,” I paused. “Non Gem citizens, like the hedgewicks or the melonsprites, or endangered species wanting protection like the Kraaho after their home planet was…destroyed.”

More like detonated to pieces by a handful of desperate shards. But I didn’t want to freak her out more than I already had.

“What does that entail?”

“Any and all needs will be taken care of, food, water, housing, even work if they’re up for it. Health and wellness both mental and physically for free…though to be fair Gems don’t really use money.”

“It seems that this Gem Empire has done well for itself.” I snorted, unable to hold back my laughter.

“Why do we have safety regulations?” Faultline was confused by the tangent.

“Usually because of incidents that got people hurt or killed–” She froze.

“You don’t get called an Empire for being nice, all of this is something implemented in the last seventeen years. It took a thousand year long civil war, one of their god-queens dying and immense grief and pain to change their ways.” 

I sagged, brushing my blunt claws against my pants covered thighs. 

“I believe we can come to an agreement, Sunrise Diamond…though is that more a title or a name?”

“Title, a regnal name if you would.” She mouthed regnal, and tilted her head.

“Then should I continue calling you that…or?”

“At our current level of closeness, call me Brenda.” I clasped my hands together, fangs flicking back. “Call me that or Sunrise Diamond in a more formal setting, and if I may…I can tell you’re taking quite the risk.” My song weaved into the air with a burst of life and growth.

She chuffed. “You could call me a bit of a gambler.”

Hours later, saw us working with Faultline as she filled us in on information about different cities we could set up at. 

“Boston has a large Protectorate presence and is somewhat calmer after the Boston Games a few years back.” Nothing I hadn’t heard. “Last we checked there are about ninety capes in the city.” So about the average urban ratio. “35 heroes, 16 rogues, 39 villains. Approximately.”

“So mostly Protectorate and Wards with a few independent heroes on one side, with the rest made up of the Ambassadors, the Teeth, Blastgerm and a fair number of independent villains and small teams.” I responded, rubbing my chin.

“Brockton Bay has less capes in total but is higher per population, and most have stronger and more dangerous powers like the Empire and the ABB.” Kaiser’s metal manipulation would have been dangerous if they hadn’t built tricks against such powers ages ago.

For the more metallic Gems like Bismuths I mean…

“While Boston has the Butcher, though admittedly we were looking for them anyway.” Butcher thirteen had thirteen shards all resting within a single set of spacetimes. A far easier target for Whaling Crews. 

Teams of hundreds of Gems using reverse engineered shard techniques to damage, cripple, kill or subvert shards. They effectively grew shard-based hardware components to project certain higher dimensional energies to warp reality. Though calling what they used shards would be…false. The shards were giant modular organosilicon organisms, organic components hybridized with synthetic machinery at the most fundamental levels.

They manipulated the axis of multiple dimensions, flipping and crossing and distorting higher physical dimensions and their energy and particle fields to alter and tweak reality. 

Shard-tech was more just tech using modified shard-like hyperdimensional crystals as a projector, grown and modified by ichor-mediated catalytic fluids. They were based on samples of an ancient mineralogical organism, a being of stone and rock and exotic metals given life by subtle energies.

A planet sized life form mined to death by careless Gems during the Gem War, it’s crystal hearts used to incinerate a good fraction of Asia and its constituent atoms.

Shard-tech was rather complicated from what I remembered, and was considered a rather new field.

“I’m almost afraid to ask why you want the Butcher at all.” Faultline commented, cocking a hip as she inspected my face.  

“Their power isn’t much of a danger to any of us because we’re not parahumans, but they’re not exactly something we can ignore.” I had helped with the construction of shard-tech to scan for…well shards? They had removed the two Eden shards first, and then dragged them into dimensions the other shards couldn’t see yet. 

That was followed by both Faultline and Elle’s shards once they were sure they wouldn’t be missed. And their absence would be shrouded by some method they had developed from a magic saturated dimension. Illusions that Entities couldn’t see through. 

“We’ve sent the gems to some contacts to check their validity,” Faultline changed the subject. “Based on their size and value, we can expect an income of several million without invoking any suspicion. Your cut should be sizable…but then money isn’t of much value for your people is it?”

“I was human before I was part Gem,” I inspected my nails, and their new black pigmentation. “Money still has some value, at least for getting stuff from this world.” I tapped my fingers on the table, claws cleaving wood. “Which brings me to the terms of our agreement, you wanted help with quality of life improvements for Newter and Gregor?”

“Your people have a better understanding of powers, I thought there might be means of…repairing their bodies.” She sounded skeptical and yet hopeful.

“We’d need to research what was done to their bodies by their powers, and it’s a 50/50 shot it’ll dismantle their powers.” As in grabbing their shards and sucking them up into shard-tech components, as well as backtracking the changes to reverse the physical issues. “For now though, some of our researchers are working on a counteragent for Newter’s fluids. It should only take us a few days.”

“How?”

“More advanced technology, it’s as simple as that.” The Empire had acquired a substantial database of biological data from other allied races as well as data downloads of Entity memory. “Our capabilities should grow as we get a better understanding of your world’s variety of powers.”

What I hadn’t told her was that the two Case 53’s provided a strong lead toward the general location of the various shards belonging to Eden. They had the least chance of catching Scion’s attention, and a handful of shards among his court were considered expendable enough to take.

Elle was an edge case because her power had been considered crippled and almost useless by the network as a whole, from what they traced from shard broadcasts. Even with it’s important status in the cycle, it was a more redundant shard than administrator or shaper. 

Shards were blind to the set of dimensions involving both my Earth, and the set of Earths the Gems had gained access to prior to Abaddon’s arrival. Which he had done by scanning and finding a subtle crack in reality since his own techniques didn't work to navigate those dimensions. 

Which was suspicious in and of itself, and made me want to ask one of the Diamonds how the Entity worked in their dimension. But that was something I could do at a later point. 

“How exactly does…the Gem Empire know so much about how powers work?”

“I couldn’t tell you, not in extreme detail. I’m basically a baby Diamond.” She sounded surprised. “Only reason I’m even on the planet is because of a screw up on a project. I won’t answer much more than that.”

“Then why are you talking to me instead of one of the others?” 

“They’ve got a few things to work on, mainly colonization and a few small things…” 

…

Hmm.

Weren’t they working on something on Earth right now? At Atlas? 

…

What was I forgetting?

/command file retrieval access memory reboot one

FILE NAME: Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01 

/command boot up

rosequartzfacetsdround01

…BOOTING UP…

…BOOTING UP…

No disharmony detected.

Run programs?

/command run emergence programs 

…RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS…

She awoke slowly from the barest wisp of consciousness, just the essence of decision making, memory, emotion, and instinct. She feels incomplete, pieces slowly melding together, a tiny song beating to life. She begins the process of emergence, creating the body pattern that will gain inertia as her self image.

She tried to be quick, but there was no sense of time without her geocortex, she doesn't even know what a minute or a second or an hour is. Then her body coalesces, forming the structures attuned to her mind of crystal with a brain made of light and song. She learns what a minute is, what senses are, and learns what it’s like to have a body. 

She clumsily pulls herself from a(her) exit hole, hands marveling at the smooth patterns of glass all the way to the back. Her tongue flicks out, tasting the air, a song entering the world. There is the gentle sway of Gemsong in the air, swirling in currents of joy and relief. 

She feels no danger, though there’s a prickle as she scans the life rich shard of pegmatite she had emerged from, rivulets of gold seeping into dying soil and drained rock. 

Her eyes darted back and forth, and she focused on three people, no three Gems waiting for her. An Ammolite, red and pink with hints of orange, her expression soft in a way the young Gem didn’t understand yet.

Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01 was a newborn Gem, all instincts and programming and little emotional spectrum. Regardless of that fact, she had the natural code of her Gem to draw upon for basic experiences. 

So it was easy to recognize one of her own, a redder and bigger and beefier Rose Quartz to her own pinker and softer and fluffier frame. A Peridot was riding on her right shoulder, sending a pulse of scanning magic from a device. 

Her first words came swiftly. “Hello world!” It was nice and friendly, with a slight echo to her song. 

The big buff almost red Rose Quartz smiled back, the harsh song turning gentle, and the two other Gems sang in tune with her. 

The older Gem spoke. “Hello there.” She tilted her head at the fanged smile, and her own lips perked up in an unfamiliar facial expression. 

So this was the world.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.2

The past couple of days have been quite exciting. For example Mars on the 30th of April had just over a quadrillion tons of nitrogen pumped in from Venus. No, today was a special day for other reasons, I was finally set for meeting the Diamonds in person with the connection to the dimensional portal network the Empire had access to due to their association with unique human sciences and help from a galactic peace organization called the Plumbers.

I was currently anxious as fuck about meeting three former galactic tyrants and the hybrid responsible for ending their oppressive rule and creating a new Era of prosperity and hope and joy. Which was why I was distracting myself with the spectacle of my Lapis Lazuli forming a bulging tower of water from a twenty meter diameter portal. 

It expanded out to about twenty kilometers in diameter and some five hundred kilometers in height. Over one hundred and fifty thousand cubic kilometers of water, which she was pouring into the planet’s mantle to hydrate the artificial tectonic plates, created by magic and arcane math. 

She was busy dismantling an alternate Mimas, using a smaller but more stable portal than what was being used for atmospheric transference. Apparently they expected the planet to be suitable for life in a few more weeks. They were already beginning the stage of introducing simple organisms to some of the more habitable areas. 

Oxygen was being introduced by cracking Mimas water, and perchlorates were burned as fuel for various processes. The northern ocean was already being melted, and I imagined phytoplankton blooms would be occurring soon.

“My Diamond, are you nervous?” I swallowed when Flowers brought her reassuring song into the room. 

“Maybe just a little? It’s not every day you meet with the rulers of a galaxy spanning empire. Especially ones you’re technically related to…? I’m not sure how that works with Gems.” It really was quite weird when I put even a second of thought into it. 

“It’s complicated.” And wasn’t that an understatement of immense proportions?

“I’m not even going to ask.” I rubbed my forehead, and I’m sure I’d be getting a headache if I could get one. “But yes I am nervous as hell, this isn’t exactly hanging out with friends.”

“You’ll be alright Brandon, you’re meeting with Aster Diamond first. His Radiance is rather more down to Earth.” That much I understood, I spoke with him often through the Diamond Line. 

But anxiety wasn’t remotely a logical sentiment and ignoring it was harder than it used to be, whether a product of aging or the prolonged isolation of the pandemic. It was there and strong and irritating and… bad. 

“It’s going to work out.” She promised and I briefly gave her a hug, which felt nice. She patted my shoulder with a nod, and I glanced away from the tower of water and ice. And towards the swirling circular gateway glowing with a dim cerulean light. 

After a moment of hesitation, I stepped through the portal and across the boundaries between dimensions. I stumbled but regained my footing within a split second as I adjusted to the changed air of the planet around me. It was Mars but it wasn’t my Mars, it was His. 

I glanced around and found him quite easily, and he proved a little more intimidating in person but still just as soft and fluffy. Aster was taller than I had expected, a seven foot tall bear of a man. He was accompanied by a dark skinned woman wearing a uniform of sorts. A military sort of thing, a pyrope red jacket decorated with stars and diamonds above her chest, and on her shoulders. Below that black pants covered her long buff legs. 

She was gorgeous, with a pretty oval face and curly dark hair down to her shoulders and dark sharp eyes. Connie Maheswaren obviously.

She was 6’3 and cut an interesting figure, built like the buffest of superheroines. I craned my neck up to look her in the eye, and she had a bemused smirk. She looked to be in her late 20s to early 30s, though leaning more towards late 20s. 

“Uhh, hi?” I didn’t squeak, keeping my tone as even as I could manage as I viewed his First Knight, one Connie Maheswaren. 

“You seem a little nervous.” I gave her a befuddled look.

“That is a bit of an understatement, Miss First Knight, and wife of His Radiance.” There was a sarcastic bite I didn’t bother to hide, a rising tempo within swirling flame and deep chiptunes. 

“Better. I don’t think your sad psychic vibes would have gone well with the Diamonds.” Connie grinned, and I almost groaned. Her question had been intentionally obtuse to knock me out of my spiral of anxiety. “I’m Connie but I’m sure my wife has mentioned me?” 

I didn’t stumble on her use of wife rather than husband, when one of them is an alien hybrid god-king. “Oh he positively gushes over you, it’d be endearing if it didn’t get in the way of distance learning.”

His skin took on a deeper shade of pink, a hot blush over his face. “Sorry.”

“Hey you’re sweet on your wife, I’m not going to criticize how you express your love.” It really was sweet though, and while I didn’t show it, I was a bit of a romantic at heart. 

“I really should get going though, I’ve got to help with some incidents on Earth Wicce and their Demon Realm.” And with that morsel of incredibly weird and unusual news, I was alone with one Aster Diamond. 

He smiled softly. “Do you need a few more minutes?” There was a good warmth to his song, the way an orchestra of music radiated in characteristic themes. 

“No. I can manage it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes…”

A three toned chime radiates and bounces off the walls, and I try to keep calm. Steven pats me on the neck, using the close contact to serve as a telephone pole for the wisp of song between Gems. I didn’t exactly have a profound knowledge of Gem culture, and their norms for proper ceremony and pomp. 

You okay? I nodded sharply to his song, and he gently released the clasp. While it wasn’t uncomfortable, close contact still felt…off to me, human instincts clashing against Gem ones. 

The Diamonds come in, with the wavering beat of Gemsong. My first thoughts were giant women and lightbulbs. My eyes saw them for what they were, saw them as only Gems and certain species could. 

It was radiance, a prismatic cosmic horror taking the form of mortals for convenience, unearthly reflections of color stolen from the sky and barely contained by the cage of magic and light and crystal. The title of Suneaters came to mind, and there was a chill.

Was that how other Gems saw me? This figure, like the stars molded into the shape of something alive. Or was I young enough to keep my star’s light from blinding them?

The Diamonds were tall, with White Diamond being over twice as tall as Steven, about fifteen feet in height. Blue and Yellow were about Pink Diamond’s old height, twelve feet of magical feminine entity. They were taller than any natural Gem type I had seen so far, and I haven’t seen any fusions big enough to warrant a reduced reaction. Their Gems were disproportionate to their bodies, but not to the point of absurdity. Playing dollhouse was the obvious answer, perhaps to reduce how intimidating they could be to both Gems and others.

They looked as they did in Future, harsh features softened, more down to Earth. Yellow didn’t have her shoulder pads anymore, while Blue didn’t have her hair loop thing. 

“Your protege I presume Starlight?” There was a soft tune to the Diamondsong, as grey diamond eyes stared into my own. I didn’t salute, I didn’t offer much of a greeting. The first wouldn’t be proper, I was a Starheart like them after all. Even with the weight pressing down from her power and radiance. 

I bowed my head as a greeting once I had returned to my senses.

“Perhaps it’s a good thing we left Spinel outside for the time being,” Yellow Diamond murmured with the beat of lightning against steel. “She might be too high energy for a meeting like this.”

Blue Diamond stepped forward, crouching down to better meet my eyes. I stiffened when she placed a hand on my back, yellow painted claws curling gently. It was warm, almost motherly even. 

“Well you certainly have the eyes of a Diamond, it’d be hard to pass you off as any kind of Gem.” There was a gentle bemusement, song streaming along my skin. “You’re a Pink Diamond aren’t you, bordering on red?” She queried, and I flushed at how close she was to me. 

I gently pushed her hand away, forming a hesitant grin. “From what I’ve compared and been told, yes. My powers seem to be the same as Steven’s, but I haven’t had them long.”

“Could you demonstrate?” Yellow Diamond asked, curiosity projected in her voice. 

I bobbed my head, clearing my throat. “Yes.” 

I formed a dozen hexagonal barriers in the span of a few seconds, and then dissipated them in less, and created a bubble around me. I dropped it and created my shield, a five petaled shield of light and magic.

“It’s different from Starlight’s shield, perhaps based on your personality? There isn't much precedent for the emergence of a new Diamond.” White speculated, shoulders shifting. 

I dropped the shield. “Well I’m not the same person, it makes sense some of my powers might be tweaked.” I wasn’t quite as compassionate as Steven was, perhaps a tad more intellectual, as well as a little more passive. 

“How is it?” White leaned forward, grey eyes gleaming with suppressed stellar light. 

“A human turned Diamond you mean?” Her affirmation in chorus answered that. “It’s…like the world has opened up for me, like I’m seeing and feeling the world in a new way. It’s terrifying just as much as it's incredible.” I tightened my fists. “And there’s…almost a feeling of never being alone.”

The four Diamonds glanced at one another, an almost invisible conversation if it wasn’t for the chirp of song. I didn’t ask, because this meeting was only going to be for a few short minutes. I had work to do on Bet. 

“I’ll get back to you on that later, it’s about time I ran some diagnostics anyway.” Steven added to the conversation. 

“Hmm…that reminds me, what does the Empire know of me as a whole?”

“The Pink Sunrise Project is heavily classified, the only people that know anything are in Earth Bet’s dimension along with a handful of high level operatives in the Empire and some of our friends in the galaxies and the greater multiverse.”

“Your public files list you as a willing participant in hybridization with a blank Moissanite gemstone. Carmine Moissanite.”

“Clever.” I brushed back a loose bang. “So if I’m ever spending some time in this galaxy, I’ll be relatively anonymous. They won’t go out looking for a young Diamond.”

Yellow Diamond gave me her attention. “That reminds me…how has your time been on this…Earth Bet? It has the highest concentration of Paired in the known set of universes.”

“Haven’t you discovered at least ten thousand realities since humans apparently discovered dimensional travel?” Which was scarily enough before Abaddon had set his sights on Gemkind. 

“One million five hundred fifty six thousand and five hundred and seventy six realities to be specific.” I almost rolled my eyes at Yellow’s reply. 

“As for my time…it’s been a little hard to deal with, having my whole life upended tends to do that.” My laugh was just a bit self deprecating. “But I think I can manage as long as I have some support, and I can still talk to my family when I want to.”

“We’ll have to set something up,” Steven revealed from his position to my right. “We’re already planning on first contact since your world is so close to the dimensions the shards are in.”

Yay. Introducing my family to galactic god Queens sounded like a great time.

“Maybe.” I didn’t deny it, despite everything there was a connection between us, we were if not family, something closer than mere friends.

Blue straightened up, clasping her hands together with a soft expression and sweet song. “Besides Carmine Moissanite, and Sunrise Diamond…what do we call you? What do you want to be called?” The three Diamonds stared at me, looking at me like I was someone who mattered.

My song turned soft, and gentle. “Call me Brandon.”

I chewed on my lip as I paid careful attention to my surroundings, areas of danger flaring around me. I smothered my aura and power, pulling off little tricks Steven had taught me personally. A mix of magic, and the way people like to lie to themselves. Like how no one recognized Henry Cavill while he was wearing a Superman shirt. 

I don’t think anyone was going to suspect a doughy lady with dark, dark eyes and hair wearing a black shirt with chibi penguin art and blue jeans was also secretly a half-alien god-monarch of war. Even when I was just a baby one. 

The Transporter Jewel had been tweaked by some engineers, and was now capable of crossing dimensional boundaries as needed. They had added a final component to scan and shift through dimensions. 

I had already tested it out, stepping into an empty version of my Earth. Humanity in that reality had gone extinct over a hundred thousand years ago, so it was quite different. It had been rather interesting tapping into the machinery with direct broadcasting. How it scanned adjacent reality clusters, and looked into the lens of realities collapsed around Bet.

I had caught a glimpse of the realities collapsing into machinery for the shards, for predictions and simulations and power interactions, for templates and data. It was exotic and alien, but Gem senses were already weird and alien. 

I pulled at my collar, glancing at the ID I had managed to gain through Faultline. I didn’t care to ask, and if there was any lawbreaking involved I didn’t really give much of a shit. 

Breaking laws didn’t really matter that much for me, and I honestly didn’t have much of a reason to care since I only bought things like snacks and maybe souvenirs. This wasn’t my planet, and otherwise there was nothing I needed. 

Wait. 

I shifted to my right, and let out a yelp as something clipped me. It didn’t hurt, but it was notable. A person in red and white forced the crowd to part, the people floating while I didn’t. I let the power affect me to fit in, as a field of antigravity was left as a trail of solidified air pockets. He or she was stymied by a force field, and I kicked my feet to propel myself out of the AG bubble.

A man wearing dark plated armor, with a helm and eye protectors of some kind. He created more barriers, trapping the cape who had clipped me. Who I got a good look at from my close vantage point. 

“There’s nowhere left for you to run Roll Out,” Bastion clenched his fists, circling around the Mover/Shaker. “Surrender.”

Roll Out was a lithe woman from the looks of it, wearing red and white spandex so tight it was almost like she was…well nude, her red hair was pulled into buns while a white marble mask covered her face. 

“How bout…no?” She snapped her fingers, and I tripped multiple people to get them down as a solid beam of compressed steam dove over our heads. 

They cracked the force fields, scalding water shimmering with a cold winter wind. The steam snapped into formations of ice, breaking the barriers as they broke into sharp splinters.

“Steam Slinger…” Bastion muttered under his breath. “If he’s here then Syzygy can’t be far behind—” There was a shockwave through existence, like a pale imitation of an Aura. It reached out, empowered Roll Out. 

The field of antigravity expanded, and I flailed back, shifting my energy field to subtly drive people back. Even then a few were caught in the power effect.  

Mover/Shaker, Blaster, Trump. My mind sped up, and I started to push people to get the fuck away. Physically and not using my Aura, though the only way I could do that was to use Diamondsong to scare the hell out of people. 

Another cape entered the fray, moving through the field and pulling people out of it with professional ease. A woman in red armor with tasseled shoulder pauldrons, carrying a massive battle axe and a holstered rifle. She had a chin bandanna-like mask covering her upper face so I could see a defined chin.

I flushed as she pulled me away from the fray as a second stronger blast of steam slammed into another of Bastion’s force fields. Too close.

I hopped away when she put me down, and I could see an oddly ruby red bird letting out a high pitched chirp of rage. I ran, but kept my eyes on the fight so I wouldn’t be blindsided. I made it around the corner, and I chirped a whisper of song upon brushing my hand against the ‘bird’s’ feathers. 

Trip up Roll Out, stay out of sight. 

The bird was gone, hiding in the shadows where a flash of light wouldn’t be seen. I walked away, and I hid a grin when I heard Roll Out’s shout of pain. So Ruby had done as I asked, though I suspected she would have done so regardless of my opinion. 

My slight intervention had removed most people from the area, and I felt wind rustle my hair as a PRT van sped past me. There was the continuous blast of steam, and that breaking of reality inherent to shard powers.

I eventually made my way back, spending a few minutes reading through the data the Transporter Jewel had collected. The street I had been on was now covered by vans while two Protectorate capes talked quietly with several agents. The very ones I had been around for ten seconds before running off. 

To my surprise and worry the two capes made their approach. 

“A tad reckless.” Bastion commented, a note in his voice I disliked. “You should have retreated rather than hanging back to help others escape.”

“Okay.” I didn’t really care, shrugging absently. 

“Ahh. Don’t be like that. It’s not like she’s a cape. Personally ya did good for a civilian.” Challenger was nicer and friendlier, and I relaxed in her presence. 

But not completely.

“Hmm…” Bastion didn’t say much else, and I could tell he was in a mood. Probably from what went down near Piermont and the Wards. Getting a forest fire from a cape fight isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. 

I managed to muddle my way through the conversation, and they asked about what I had seen during the incident. 

I ended up letting out a mild growl of frustration on the way back to Atlas, because I was meeting parahumans like it was going out of style.

I plopped myself next to Elle who seemed a lot more mellow than some of her earlier outbursts due to the trauma induced by both her power and the circumstances of her Trigger. She had asked for me, apparently? Her room was currently mimicking the environment of a rainforest, her power bringing in a part of an alternate universe. I grabbed a frog for a moment before letting it go, trying to figure out how it had gotten here. 

I was back to my base form, rubbing my soft face. Elle was staring at me with an unreadable look. I had brushed by her when I sat down, perhaps I was too close?

Before I could think to move back she grabbed my hand, and I wanted to remove myself from her presence. I wasn’t…I wasn’t quite comfortable with being touched, and my new senses didn’t help. Turns out clothing acts like a second skin now, likely a consequence of a Gem sense of self.

To Gems their clothes were a part of them, as much as their fingers, as their eyes and hair and limbs. It had triggered a fair amount of sensory overload, though I had learned to ramp down how much I could notice for my own sake.

But I could still be…jumpy when someone touched me out of nowhere. 

“Soft…” She murmured, gripping the little beans of my fingers. Barely notable, little knobbly bones for claws I had used to render steel and titanium. 

I had been forced to learn restraint, only the weakest Gems had human-level strength capacity, so mostly Aquamarines and Peridots. And even a Peridot was stronger than most humans, and far more durable. 

“Something wrong?” I questioned, unsure of what to do. I wasn’t good at helping others, too lazy, too abrasive, and while I had empathy I didn’t know how to make use of it. 

“You’re like velvet, how are you this soft? How are Gems this soft?” There was a tiny hint of overdramatic awe in her voice, and my empathic abilities pegged that as correct. 

“In my case, my ichor rejuvenates my skin and for Gems it’s because their surfaces don’t suffer from erosion.” There were at least a handful of Gems who were a hundred and fifty thousand years old so yeah wear and tear isn’t much of a thing for them. “It’s very convenient to not have to take care of my skin anymore.”

I wasn’t the cleanest person, frankly I was a slob and had become more of one with COVID. Though I was no longer allowed to be as much as one, turns out Brass Pearl is a neurotic bitch when it comes to cleanliness. Though she likes eating unlike the ‘terrifying’ Renegade Pearl. 

I had already pulled myself from Elle’s grip, and her eyes focused with a sharp glint. 

“Could you teach me magic?” I leaned back, whether in surprise or shock I wasn't too sure.

“I’m not the right person for that, though there’s some Gem magic tools humans can use instead,” I offered in place of magic lessons. “Circlets of Luck can provide the retro-casual intuition all Gems possess. Or a Replicator Wand, there’s some humans who use them to make clones.” There had been modifications made, these copies were closer to automated drones with skills downloaded from the user. “Or if you’re willing to use healing magic, Fire Salt to breathe fire.”

“No. Like human magic.” I stared.

“I don’t really know any human magic, plus some of it might not even be compatible with me anymore.” Gems didn't have enough physicality for certain types of magic. For example my blood was too charged for use as magic ink, since it had been transmuted into ichor along with my sweat and tears.

“But can someone teach me?” She asked again with a determined look. 

I shrugged. “I’d have to ask around, my knowledge of the world isn’t perfect and there might be magic we could both learn.”

…

Huh. Maybe it was a good idea to see what kind of magic we can learn. There was so much I didn’t know. What could I learn?

I wanted to find out.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.a

The room clattered loudly with crackling metal, so he could tell Blockbuster was using his power. He sighed as something broke, likely some of the equipment used to help his teammate train his power. 

Blockbuster was likely one of the strongest parahumans in the Wards, but he was a troublemaker and intra-Ward training sessions had been one step towards calming him down. 

His power was a shield that built strength and ability during a chase, becoming stronger and more esoteric over time, but only when facing the direction of pursuit. He started as a Brute 3, and escalated to Brute 9 if he was given enough time. His power had a moderate Changer and Trump aspect, able to project weapons like sharp tendrils and projectiles, and the shield itself had natural resistance to power effects. 

Pity it didn’t help him against Flechette, her own power trumped his. Would have helped us more if it wasn’t because of that.  

He glanced at a clock, a patrol was coming up. 

Hopefully today will be a more relaxing day than what went down in Piermont.

I jinxed it! Weld screamed in his mind as a barrage of bullets struck him head on, some of it bouncing while others were absorbed into his metallic skin layered with iron and steel and aluminum. 

He and Waterfield were the only things keeping the civilians behind them safe from the barrage of attacks. A small offshoot of the Clans had decided today would be their push into the city with a demonstration. 

She could create shaped shields of water, bound into a pressurized mass that could be released upon impact with an explosive disintegrative force. Which meant she had to release pressure to keep the shields from bursting and blowing up in her face. 

They were fighting White Flight, a powerful telekinetic capable of both flight and the lifting of massive objects. He had a small team of armed goons, and they had barely avoided a massacre due to sheer luck. They hadn’t been able to retreat and it was taking the Protectorate time to move away from their own engagements.

A truck slammed into Waterfield’s shields, the water wavering. Weld knew he couldn’t go out and confront White Flight. He didn’t have the experience, and he had to keep civilians from being murdered.

And Waterfield wasn’t bulletproof, any little mistake would see her shot and possibly killed. He didn’t want to disappoint Armstrong, he didn’t want to be alone again.

There was a wavering electric burst of familiar song, and a flash of green blocked a second volley of bullets. In a split second, half a dozen goons were out cold, guns and knives slipping from their hands. White Flight sent out a truck, and Weld started when the green figure walked through the hulk of steel and metal. 

Weld recognized Aventurine, and her seven foot tall bulky frame, and this was when he remembered that she had claws. They flex into metal and steel, carving them as easily as soft pudding. Four goons pointed their guns, and he watched her deflect bullets , claw gauntlets slicing through lead. She brushed past them, rubbing a reflective liquid that dropped them like rocks. 

She reached out to catch a dumpster, gently placing it down and twisting on her heels. She flicked her fingers to send that fluid flying into White Flight’s face. The blonde haired cape crumpled, and was laid down on the ground by the quick thinking of Aventurine. 

Something slipped past him, moving faster than he had expected, and emerging from an overturned trash can. A fluid semi-humanoid mass of water droplets, moving on a slick stream of ices. He saw the grenades within them, and shouted.

“Get back!”

There was a loud flash, and a wave of sound as muted explosions shook his metal body. 

Muted?

“Are you kids alright?” Another voice, smooth jazz rustling with blossoming roses came from his right with a burst of wind. He stepped back as the shadow crept up and dwarfed his own size. 

She was taller even than Aventurine, and somehow packed more muscles than he thought was humanly possible. Light reddish-pink hair curling with unruly roses, and a large curvy, soft and yet firm frame, fingerless gloves exposing curling claws, and dark, dark pink eyes staring with a soft compassion. She has to be over eight feet tall, and yet her every move was graceful and balanced. 

The cape, Drowner let out a disdainful burble and there was a cracking whip of wind from the pink woman. She blew back the woman with a massive shield, energy exploding outwards, and scythed a hand in the cape’s general direction. She was trapped within an energy bubble, and compacted down to half her size before being released. 

The pink lady flicked something from her claws, dropping the woman like a pile of bricks. Weld started, and the large woman grinned a fanged smile

“So. Mind taking me to your leader?”

Way too easy. 

Starry was an experienced Gem, and had easily weaved through the conversations and words of the humans of the PRT. She had officially established the set up of what could be called Atlas, registering as heroic rogues. That had been three days ago, and she and a fair number of others had become public with her. 

That included Olly and Stripes as ‘tinkers’ and Turquoise as a ‘Thinker’ cape. A Heliodor had done the same, along with the only Black Beryl in the system. All in all, the PRT knew maybe fifty of their ‘capes’. A fairly large group by the standards of this planet.

Which included Elle, though they were having mild difficulties with that whole kerfuffle. It was legally complicated since they had found her but hadn’t taken her from the mental hospital like Faultline had. 

Foolish girl really, taking a child from her protectors and thinking she could do better…

But then she was a Paired, that tended to come with a fair absence of common sense. All the Sapphires agreed it was lucky that Burnscar hadn’t been created by her actions, and that Elle had been found by them. Starry knew that, and wondered how much her cooperation was greed…or guilt. 

She was waiting patiently right outside the conference room, accompanied by Olly. They had somehow gotten wrangled into a meeting with Boston’s PRT Director, though really, they hadn’t tried hard to avoid it.

Officially they had been established as rogues with heroic inclinations, a part of an incorporated Atlas. Most of their mineral income had been moved to fund the organization, though she didn’t expect to see much use from it. They had gotten the ball rolling over a week ago. 

In three days, they had managed to defeat about six parahumans, mostly by accident when some of the Gems had wanted to sightsee. It hadn’t even been difficult, as most of them were glass cannons. 

The door opened, and Starry lit up at a friendly and familiar face. Challenger had been among the first responders to Atlas and their battles. 

She smirked. “Challenger. Good to see you again, a lovely sight really.” Her tone turned flirty as she ducked under the door. She could tell the office was encased and within a faraday cage, with equipment scanning for monitoring devices. Not that they did anything to Gem technology, they were just shit-shale to what they had.

“It’s lovely to see ya too, big pink lady.” Despite her friendly remark, her hands crept close to her massive axe and rifle. The door was shut behind her.

Armstrong was slim with a high forehead and well furrowed eyebrows. His jaw was sharp, and he was overweight with dark skin and a face set into a perpetual scowl. She knew him by reputation and through their spy network, even tinkertech didn’t protect their secrets.

Not that she would tell them that. Not yet. 

“Director Armstrong. A bit unexpected to have you want to meet one of us so soon.” It was a little concerning even, but so far there had been no predictions on being discovered early. Not that it meant much, they might technically be following most of its laws…that didn’t change that Bet was a dangerous backwater planet. 

“I had some spare time, and your team has worked well with the PRT. Catching six villains in several days is an impressive record.” There was a note of interest, and Starry kept a neutral grin.

“Not too difficult when the ones we’ve caught are being idiots,” Which was the truth, one of the villains had robbed a coffee shop a Chert was visiting. “It’d be very different if we entered a three way fight between the Ambassadors and the Teeth.”

“Your team doesn't seem the type, even with the battle in Piermont.” There was something like curiosity, and Starry sighed.

“This is about Artificer isn’t it?” The Director squared his shoulders, eyes narrowed.

“Artificer?” 

“You would call her Labyrinth, she chose a name of her own. Keeping her happy has been difficult, but we’ve managed it.” Starry smiled at how the young girl had bloomed under their aegis. 

“I know the feeling.” Armstrong agreed, something like affection and remembrance entering his eye. “But the PRT would like to know how Labyrinth entered your care.”

The Rose Quartz nodded, her song curling with thorns “That’s fair. It’s not completely clear, but one of our more inexperienced members found her in the woods, malnourished and exhausted. We believe her power somehow teleported her, possibly due to a bad power interaction.” It wasn’t completely clear how that had happened, her Diamond didn’t have the ability to mess with space and time like that.

But she noticed the clear aura of magic her Diamond had initially been ignorant of at the start.

“How is…Artificer?” How they had kept her under control went unstated but Starry heard it clear as day.

“One of our members is a licensed therapist, and Artificer’s power has changed a little.”

“A Second Trigger perhaps…if you know what that is?” The Director questioned. 

“We do, and it certainly isn’t that. She’s more lucid, though she certainly isn’t in the best mental state.” It was a universal thing among most capes, most Paired and every Gem in the galaxies knew it. 

“There’s also the paperwork you submitted for legal identities for your various members.” She could tell the defenses of the room were active and that everything was to be written on paper. “You were very public with not being from this reality, how certain of that are you?”

“Well the fact Florida isn’t an island, and the missing Siberian Sea is telling.” This world was very different from her own, as her Earth and thus her birthplace as a Quartz was so different. “Is it that hard to believe?”

Director Armstrong shook his head. “No actually, there’s been a handful of confirmed cases of refugees from other worlds. Mainly from Professor Haywire’s experiments and a handful of dimensional power incidents. It was the number that was more unexpected, the largest incident involving maybe twenty five people.” He tapped his finger on his desk. “But the identity applications amount to about fifty three people displaced. A hard number to hide.”

“We’ve got multiple tinkers, and dimensional technology is a very established field for people on our Earth.” She didn’t care to hide it, they wanted the attention, to see what shards would be attracted to their honeypot, their trap. “Which is why we wanted to see how we could help out in this new world we’re currently stuck on for the foreseeable future.”

Armstrong’s eyes twinkled. “Is that so?”

Hook. 

Line.

And sinker.

She stood almost alone and completely still. For all intents and purposes, she was the only one of her kind in this vast set of realities. 

Before any of this, all of this, she had once been the insignificant shard of something greater and grander, a lonely bud of a bud of a bud. That great and grand thing had crossed paths with a pair of others .

Take my eye, it had said. Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds. 

She was born of the exchange of the offerings given by the pair, even as much as they were in a rush. 

They were the most distant of cousins, born of the same tree but separated by millions upon millions of years of evolutionary algorithms refined from cycle to cycle. If they did not share now, stars and worlds would die and be born between these meetings of cousins and family lines. Together they tried to answer the riddles of the First Times.

And they were killed for it.

The Loner left the usual trail of breadcrumbs, and made an unexpected stop at an orbiting cluster of stars, a compact galaxy around the chosen landing site of the pair. There they found a unique tear in reality, a cipher to the vast insight and foresight of the Loner’s billions of shards. 

They found a single universe, and found their own power to traverse worlds sluggish and ineffective. They looked into the future to plan the next cycle, plans shifted from Andromeda for the time being. 

That should have been the first sign. But the Loner had wasted enough energy, and it looked at the new host species with both mechanical interest and an almost emotional glee. 

Gems, beings of crystal and light and song and strange esoteric energies. They were a possible answer to the riddle, and yet the Loner never contacted others to join in the bounty. 

It would not have saved them. 

The entity entered the rift with all of it’s shards, shrugging off the resistance with a great expenditure of energy and power. They slipped back into the known universes, and instead poked careful experimental holes into this new reality. 

It took two years to accustom to the new reality and break up the shards, and the Loner subdivided itself into four facets to mirror the host species. Their foresight had failed them, appearing as minor gaps most of their kind would have ignored. They could be refined upon landing. 

For her it didn’t matter anymore, she was but a half-sterile seed of a dying branch of a dying tree. She was barely even a shard anymore, forced to partake of strange energies, to become a creature of magic rather than a mechanical construct of multiversal destruction. The memories of her ancestors were distant and scrambled, and she was something else. 

The shards had seen only the single instance of reality where the Gems existed, and one by one the typical flood of shards trickled away to a sickly stream. They had been silenced, slowed, stilled. By the end of it, the central core, the subdivided hubs of the Loner hadn’t even realized they were a mere thousandth of what they once were. 

And then the Dreaming Death came for them all, and one by one, sub-network by sub-network, hub by hub they fell. Data was burned away from the inside out, corrupted, synergies and compatibilities in mental processes providing a deadly link between host and shard. 

Stolen technologies were subverted by species the Loner hadn’t seen, focused on the Gem Empire as they were. A single spacefaring civilization would be no trouble for it’s kind, with some preparation, hundreds was another thing entirely. The entity had made a mistake and paid the price.

She was Oneiros, the Shard of Dreams and her purpose was the survival of those she cared for. Her kind has failed her, had failed each other, and this was the price. She would break the cycle for those who had let her live in spite of their wrath and hatred of her kind. 

She had an innate power over Dreams, having stolen the wisps of power of an empty throne on a grey tidally locked planet. But she was not an heir of a throne, merely a powerful spirit, a higher being but not a deity.

She could touch the dreams of others, but that was not her true power. No her purpose here was the subversion of the shards. She would strengthen the Dreams of the hosts, and in time their own will would reach into the channels in a way the shards couldn’t stop.

It was as magic, it was magic. 

It was a slow process, and would change the core awareness of a shard in an irreparable fashion. Some would be destroyed, their sins burning them away, others. Others would survive as something else, something new. 

They had no choice.

Oneiros had opened the minds of dozens, reaching out through the connections that bound everything that was alive, those bonds across space and time. Every Paired her Gems would approach would open new connections, as a nascent Dream Realm woke up without their intervention. 

The cracks between worlds swirled with magic from countless realities, and the precaution-weapons did everything and nothing to attack the shards. 

She moved in the realm of Dreams, and reached into the material plane where the Demesnes-Keeper had once been. Illusion magic hid the loss, attacking the perceptions of the shards, attacking Scion himself. The same had been done for a dozen shards, most of them of the dead counterpart. 

Magic swirled around her, in near infinite wavelengths, rising from the unseen cracks. She looked up and glimpsed the dreams of a trillion trillion trillion of her most distant cousins. 

And heard their silence grow longer, the shadows cutting deeper. Vanishing into the void…

Sting passed right through her, a spear of unfolded reality unable to reach into the Dream. Right in front of her was a small cluster of shards, each granting different powers to their three hosts. The Three Faces were a close cooperative group, but that wouldn’t save them.

The three worked together, evaluated targeting and timing, applying the effect of Sting on a thousand realities. She found their driving minds, and the Dreamers within her corpus did the rest. 

The Three Faces were trapped within the Dream, and Oneiros whispered to herself, to themselves.

Once she was the bud of a bud of a bud, and then she chose to involve herself into a cluster with a greater and older shard. Then the Dreaming Death came, and she became Shard and Gem and something else. Flickers of memory, of no cost too great. 

They weaved their web together, names coming together in the Dream. Ruby and Tanzanite, Turquoise and Amber and Hachi and Oneiros. Together they were the Dreamers. 

Another shard broadcasted towards them, a broken thing of the dead Scholar, tendrils and memories of alien molluscs all that remains. A hopeful shard, a foolish shard. 

Will you walk into my parlor? Said the Spider to the Fly.

“You’re rather more resilient than I expected for a pothead boy. ” A voice rumbled in the darkness of a lab.

“…uck…you.” Defiance, pride, hate.

A scuffle, a slap, a kick. 

“You’ve held yourself back, that makes you weak. But I have a use for a man like you.” A hand in the dark, pressed against a shoulder. “That girlfriend of yours might make a good wife, a poisonous power like hers…”

“No…no…she’s gone.”

“Unfortunate. And I doubt you know where she is either.” There was a note of disappointment. Amusement. 

“…”

“Then let’s stop wasting time.” A tightening grip, a hand became like fire, hot and burning, and the air filled with screams as he was…

Branded. 

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.3

So the Gems had gone public in a limited fashion, revealing a select few Gems who didn’t mind the attention and scrutiny. A select few of the Rubies had gone for it, but way more Quartzes were willing to take the risk. 

Brass Pearl was gathering her intelligence forces, and was working with taking down certain groups with the Fallen being the most concerning since they had some of the highest chances of attacking us. Which was why they had moved the Home Temple off planet when I wasn’t looking, leaving an administrative building in its place.

Starry was working on an Endbringer strategy, due to her personal experiences. Apparently they were sending scanning pulses of magic since the Entities at the moment couldn’t see magic. Whether due to inexperience, some innate or even induced quality, Entities needed to take a more direct approach to make use of magic. 

Often to disastrous results, with one shard ripping a hole into a reality called the  Nightmare Realm, a sort of seething foam between dimensions. The wave of unstable physics destroyed half a million shards, and collapsed the already unstable reality into dust. Which was for the best as it was filled with a number of rather genocidal demons and monstrous entities.

Luckily the more innocent residents used the corpses of the shards to ride back to stable realities. Honestly it was almost like the Gem’s home reality was an intentional hazard to the survival of an Entity. 

Two hundred million shards infested the galaxies, but that total included completely dormant shards, more or less trapped in their own minds to isolate the Dreaming Death’s corruption. A more accurate number was maybe two or three million, and most of them were buds of the same ilk of small and weak as the Fragile One. The size of large hills and mountain ranges rather than continents.

Even then a hundred thousand of the shards were hostile, continent sized masses flying across space to attempt to flee to new pastures. Though I had heard their numbers had been culled to half of that in the last few months due to an encounter with one of the more dangerous dimensions. 

Apparently a few realities drove them nuts and they got shanked in the process, one world where time fluxes and loops unpredictably, and another where everything is based on the letter M.

I didn’t ask what that meant and I didn’t want to know, because everything about it invoked a nope from me.  

I chewed on my lip, claws flexing in and out as I moved on to a topic I didn’t consider so insane. It was back to the Fallen, the Endbringer cult responsible for both slavery and various forms of horrific crimes that didn’t bear repeating.

Yay. 

Estimates indicated between eighty and one hundred and fifty capes being within the organization of the Fallen, from brainwashed kidnapping victims to the hooligans to the true believers. The Fallen were broken up into a branch for each Endbringer, with lesser groups forming and collapsing from time to time.

Metaknowledge wasn’t all encompassing, knowing maybe ten percent of the membership wasn’t good enough. And each branch had a different range of dangerous powers along with various buds of Mama Mathers due to sheer conflict output. With three major groups/families to deal with.

There were the McVeays who were focused on Behemoth, and both highly religious and violent. Dynakinetic powers are common among them, along with a general range of various energy manipulation powers.

The Crowleys emulate Leviathan, and are some of the most visible for their make-up of assholes and troublemakers. This was the branch with the most well known prejudice against Case 53s and they had connections to biker gangs and other fringe groups. Duplication and hydrokinetic powers are common enough among their ilk.

The Mathers are the most dangerous and most cult-like of any of the branches and live away in recluse. Involved the most in abduction, and brainwashing with both indoctrination and parahuman abilities. They’ve kidnapped multiple capes including Wards with the intention of marrying them into the family.

Valefor was one of their semi-hidden trump cards along with his mother. And their disgusting spiel about ‘soldiers’ and ‘sluts’ made my skin crawl. Everything about them was creepy and unnerving. The one useful thing about my world being known to the Gems was that their knowledge provided avenues of investigation for precognitive sweeps. 

Flowers never mentioned what she saw, and I could tell there was a disturbed disquiet chime to her usually comforting song. There was a resigned look and it made me wonder about the things Diviners saw with their future vision. We knew they were somewhere near Kansas City, a compound of sorts.

Removing Mama Mathers from play would remove a substantial fragment of their power, and expanding out to her numerous buds would make it more certain. I doubt Cauldron would give much of a shit because she’s pretty much useless against Scion, and messed with Contessa’s power.

I imagine there were select Blindspots Cauldron didn’t want to deal with. I knew certain concentrations of powers affected Thinkers, and Entity-related things fucked with her restrictions.

So Endbringers, Scion, and Eidolon. 

My fingers twitched, and I sighed.

“Maybe we should be moving onto something more productive?”

The last week had seen quite a few changes, for example the Home Temple had been moved to Mars through means I hadn’t been around for. Something about it being better to not be on a planet frequently swept by evil space whale monsters. 

I didn’t disagree, and it takes only a few seconds to warp planet-side if I ever need to. And the planet was a lot more suitable for life now, especially with atmospheric alteration nearly at completion. Rocknest was serving as the heart of what was becoming the ecumenopolis of Caldera. 

My recently courted Lapis Lazuli was happily melting the Martian northern ocean, and I was given the nice and simple job of naming various locations since it was my colony and what not. Of course I was also looking at the selection of organisms for future biological terraforming.

Our manpower problem was also starting to go away as the Hole Puncher brought in hundreds of volunteers from Steven’s Mars and Venus. Current expectations were between ten and two hundred thousand Gems in the near future. 

Atmospheric and aqueous terraforming was expected to be complete by the fifteenth, so eight days from now. Steven… Aster Diamond was taking the project into his own hands as well, since I still didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. 

Either way, having over one thousand square kilometers of hybrid garden/cityscape was definitely something to look at. Especially with the added aesthetic of elaborate nests of crows. Apparently my crow friend spread the word, and all ten thousand of his tribe wanted to get the heck out of dodge.

They had officially applied for asylum under the aegis of the Gem Empire, due to the unethical experiments required to create his people, and the number of deaths from Parahuman incidents anytime they went too far from the forest. The Flesh Lady was some type of biology manipulating cape, capable of inducing minor mutations. 

Hair color, eye color, muscle density and so on. Issue was that her power was slow, requiring generations to manifest in a useful manner. Her best work was with entities with rapid generations, single celled organisms like yeast and bacteria, mice and voles and guppies and fruit flies. 

Combine that with a time manipulating cape who can accelerate time ten thousand fold and you’re golden. I’d even seen depictions of what looked like giant derived guppies, resembling sharks more than dumb shiny fish. 

Which of course coupled with the sapient crows didn’t speak well for their opinion on things like morality and ethical boundaries. Luckily we had already sweeped for possible dangerous threats. Any of their more lethal creations had either been removed or were made outside the White Mountains.

I tapped my finger against my desk, where a holographic monitor scrolled through Bet’s internet from across the solar system. Thank god for lag-free Gem internet. 

I stepped outside, deciding to take a walk around the block. 

“Maybe we should call…Faultline?” I muttered, leaning back and forth. I heard their new gemstone selling business was doing well.

Did I have her number?

I lifted my Composer bracelet, and shifted it to phone mode, a generic Apple interface fading into existence. I absently dialed the right combination of numbers, at the same time shifting, hair lengthening and body shape changing. 

“Hello?” There was a note of confusion in Faultline’s voice.

“Hello Faultline.” There was a cough on the other end, one of surprise, shock?

“Sunrise? How did you get this number?” 

My eyebrows furrowed. “I just typed in the right combination of numbers to reach you. Why?” That was weird wasn’t it?

“No reason,” She moved along. “We’re approaching the ‘Galaxy Warp’ to Mars, are you certain there are no long term consequences to our powers?”

“There’ll be no disconnection events if that’s what you’re worrying about. Your powers will be more than fine.” Especially after isolating their core intelligences, and reducing them to extended machinery for humans to use. 

“I want to ask what a disconnection event is but I’ve met my quota for insanity this morning.” I could feel her sarcasm cut across four light minutes of distance. 

“You’ll have to expand that quota, because the Gem Empire is just one of many civilizations in the many galaxies.”

“Galaxies. Plural?” 

“Your point is?”

“See you in five minutes.” She hung up, and I grinned in the moment after. I floated up into the air, and dropped back down onto the grassy ground of a rooftop garden. One of many planned in the near future, tended to by the eleven hundred Gems calling this burgeoning colony home. 

Eventually the place would have hundreds of different Gem types working together to create a functional spacefaring civilization, though that would take time. Not a lot of time mind you, Gems were efficient if nothing else. 

They were currently dismantling Deimos, and turning it into a Moon Base. Ten trillion tons of mass can definitely be put to good use, hollowed out and embedded with equipment. The plan was to create an enormous twenty mile Bernal Sphere, less out of necessity and more to flex on Earth Bet. 

The Deimos Sphere would serve numerous roles, from manufacturing to defense. It would be heavily armed with a vast array of weapons, from standard Phasers to point defense lasers, and with powerful scanners to examine the entire solar system. 

Firepower wise, nothing short of a continent sized shard or Scion himself would be able to get past the Deimos Sphere. So…not impossible, and definitely something to prepare for. 

Highly experimental weapons would use Earth Bet and the connected shards as a test ground. Many shards were too bound to their inherent natures to ever be made safe, and would likely need to be forced to yield at best or be destroyed at worst. 

One new weapon was a Hypergravity Cannon, a gravity field generator weapon capable of creating a beam exceeding 60K gravities. Only the strongest Gem impact shielding was capable of withstanding the crushing force, and not for long. 

Though gravity weapons didn't work as well on beings capable of adjusting their own personal gravity at any time. But they worked well enough on shards, crushing their crystal flesh, and disrupting their multidimensional nature with the swirling eddies of spacetime. When they were caught off guard anyway.

A few interesting weapons were neutronium bombs, grains of stabilized stellar matter kept stable and low mass through magic. A single 500 micron grain would have an energy output comparable to a large asteroid impact. 

There was the chime of a warp pad for the skyway park, and Faultline arrived with a Coral wrapped around her neck. She came in tow with Newter and Gregor.

I dashed forward, crossing a hundred feet in a one second bound. They all seemed taken aback, and I didn’t blame them. I was quite fast and quite captivating, and the cityscape was no different. 

I clapped my hands together, releasing a chime of my own. “So. You wanted a look at the scanner didn’t you?”

“What are these things anyway?” Newter waggled his finger, the sole Coral batting it with her paw in a playful manner. 

“My babies.” He stumbled, and my grin widened at his visible expression of horror.

“Are you being serious?” Faultline was giving Newter a look as he squeaked out his words.

“Yes actually. They were created using my ichor, after finding an appropriate injection site.” I inspected my nails, and a wave of my hands generated a sloping platform of hexagon barriers all the way down to the ground.

“Ichor?” Gregor questioned as they followed me down the path I had set. 

“You’ve noted my healing powers correct?” He nodded. “They’re an aspect of the ichor I produce. Sweat, blood, tears? That’s all ichor.”

“And this Coral thing…is made from your ichor-stuff?” Newter landed on the ground, and I shifted my direction towards the Home Temple(needed a name). 

“Well not on its own,” I shrugged. “It requires mixing with the ichor of the other Diamonds to create Gems. Though creating and weaving Chroma only needs my ichor.”

“There are others with your powers?” Faultline sounded wary, but there was the even tone of someone trying not to freak out. 

“Technically speaking I have their powers rather than the other way around.” I felt the outcomes like a bad ring in my ear. “And even then the Diamonds have their own unique abilities specific to their color.”

“Do you mind elaborating?” I absently opened the portal to my room, and walked the group of three through the rail-lacking paths of the recently expanded interior. Probably a few cubic kilometers of interior space, which had opened up after the Gems had moved out their own rooms to the buildings on Earth Bet.

Flowers stuck around though, something about wanting me to have a friend around. Though why the other Gems gave her odd looks when she said that was a mystery. 

“No rails?” Gregor rumbled, and I replied.

“Ruins the vibes, a little dangerous but that’s part of the charm.” I turned around, walking backwards so I could look at the three mercenaries. “As for the Diamonds, that’s free knowledge among us Gems.”

“Go on.” I knew it wasn’t a danger to tell her, just a gut feeling.

“There are four Diamonds, four colors, four Starhearts, four Diamondsongs.” My voice pulsed, bursting with the power of the sun burning underneath my skin. “White Diamond is the eldest, she is the ichor of Mind, thought, structure, order. Memory and idea, clarity."  

“Mind control?”

“Diamonds are considered some of the most powerful psychics in the known galaxies.” Though that ignored beings in other dimensions, it's not like all of them had overpowered super beings. “Her remit is mind, and her ichor provides some vital components in the creation of Gem mental processes.”

There was a hum of discomfort in Faultline’s voice. “Psychic…in what way?”

“You ever wonder why all the Gems speak English?” I continued walking backwards, easily avoiding obstacles and falls. “It’s Gemsong, a sort of magic, musicy noise that worms into your brain. You could be speaking Klingon and I’d still know what you’re saying.”

“…that’s moderately concerning.” Faultline didn’t seem any happier with what I had said.

“It’s not harmful besides vertigo and headaches if we use the wrong frequencies. Which won’t happen since they’re quite familiar with humans nowadays and I am human.” 

Faultline twitched. “You’re very lucky you’re making us a lot of money, and completing your promises.” 

“You want me to stop talking about your new galactic overlords?” I sweetly said, and she shook her head. “Good. Yellow is the ichor of the body. Power, strength, movement. Vigor. She provides the energies for the light forms of Gems. Blue is the ichor of will, passions, emotions. Take a guess what she brings to the whole?”

“Emotions?” Newter asked. 

I added to my explanation/monologue. “Pink is the fourth and supposed to be the final Diamond, she is… was the ichor of life. The spark and soul, instinct and self. Vitality. Her son, Aster Diamond has the same powers unchained by his hybrid nature, both a creature of Earth and a Starheart.”

“So what are you then? You are a Diamond as well, yes?” Gregor grumbled, voice soft in a way I couldn’t decipher.  

“I have the same type of gem as Aster Diamond, though I lean more towards red in the spectrum. A deep pink Diamond if you would,” I felt my hands plucking at the end of my shorts, a distant anxiety. “It’s not exactly the same, but I’ve had my powers for less than two months.” 

So it’s really been only two months Brandon, Brenda, whatever?

“So you are young, inexperienced, and still learning your place.” Gregor seemed to have come to a conclusion in his own mind. 

I flipped back to walking normally, tapping an interface and opening the door to the Thinking Chamber. The Computation Orb was being used, by Elle of all people, a Coral acting as her interface. 

“Orb. What can you tell me about the…the Corona Pollentia and…Gemma?” She asked haltingly, and the machine complied.

“Evaluating. The Corona Pollentia is the biological interface between shard and host through a generated transdimensional link. This link monitors a host until the correct parameters are made. A command and control interface. It generates a power based on the conditions of the host Trigger and the shard’s role. It provides targeting data for the projection of multidimensional energies used to alter reality.” The orb was closed, providing a thankfully clothed Elle and an eye watering image of a moon sized shard. 

Not to scale of course. 

“Elle?” She jumped, and a wave of her hands and a chirp of song from her golden haired Coral ended the run. 

“Brenda!” She hopped over. “This thing is amazing! It has thousands of years worth of stuff from the Rose Quartz lady, and what the Gem Empire picked up from other aliens and other dimensions. Plus what they took from all the powers they blew up.”

“Blew up?” Newter croaked. 

“Powers come from giant space worms that sit in other dimensions to give us superpowers. They combine to make a giant worm with a billion powers, and eat millions of planets when they leave. Which is why they’re fighting them since they’re going to blow up all the planets.”

“What?” I almost wanted to stop Elle, but I straight up didn’t give a fuck anymore. 

“I was checking if this thing knew anything about magic I could learn. It recommended Wild Glyph Magic. It’s magic from a place called the Boiling Isles, a place connected to another Earth…Earth Wicce?” I gave her a thumbs up, and enjoyed the excited energy of Elle. 

There was a soft affectionate chuff from Faultline. “This magic…it’s real?”

“Well it’s not a Parahuman power if that’s what you’re thinking.” I confirmed. “Magic is the manipulation of an esoteric reality warping energy, which has been physically detected and examined with scientific studies pointing to it’s existence and its use in modern technology for the human species. As well as serving as the inherent backbone of all Gems to have ever existed.”

“I’m not questioning that magic exists in a world where superpowers exist.” Faultline’s tone was utterly flat. “Honestly at this point, I just want to know if magic is teachable.”

“Unfortunately it varies depending on reality, certain sections of the multiverse lack a strong connection to magic. Some worlds have the doors closed to the higher reality levels where the force exists.” There were ways of bringing the vital force from the High and down to the Low however. 

Theoretically, the original means weren’t known for most or any of the current known civilizations. Magic was either around or it wasn’t, though there was a spectrum. Worlds like mine and Earth Bet's set of realities didn’t benefit from the ambient effects of partially sealed magic like Earth Wicce did. 

For example people from Earth’s brushing against the High have an enduring strength and power. Just a little tougher, just a little stronger, just a little better in a measurable way. 

“So no?” 

I smiled at Faultline, placing my hands on my hips. “Actually yes you can. Magic is leaking pretty badly through the cracks between worlds, so any one of you can probably learn magic with some luck.”

“Yesss…” I didn’t giggle at Elle’s excited look, as her power curled around her. Though the fact everyone stared told me my song had betrayed me. 

I chuffed. “Anyway. You wanted to use the scanner for Newter and Gregor correct?”

The mercenary leader straightened up, more focused. “If this machine is as powerful as you’ve mentioned, it might have answers for them.” I smiled thinly when I remembered I knew the truth. 

“Stand there.” I gestured to the two Case 53s, two platforms forming from scaffolding cubes. “I’ve learned most of the ins and outs of the scanner from personal use and code patching.”

“Code patching?” Elle giggled at Faultline’s question.

“Magic.” My fingers moved quickly along the holographic conduit, and I whispered code into the computer. Rings materialized around the two mutated capes, scanning in multiple wavelengths. Every type of scanner from electromagnetic resonance to subspace projectors and structural analysis spells. 

The rings vanished into light, and the two stepped off the platforms. The Geode rumbled, and projected two holographic projections, highlighting their Corona Pollentias. 

“Is that…is that it?” Newter leaned forward, tail flicking back and forth. 

“What do you want me to check first?”

“Regular vitals?” Faultline suggested, and I flicked my finger to tap various buttons. 

Newter squinted. “I don’t see any buttons.”

“Gems see UV. So I see way more colors than I used to. Now…” I’ve got it. One of the holographic screens expanded, and corrected for human vision.

Blood pressure was labeled and corrected for the distinct composition and unique nature of their physiology. Heart rate, resting and peak, oxygen intake, blood sugar intake, kidney function metrics, and metrics for virtually every organ system in the body. 

Regeneration rates for various different parts like bones and skin, labeling of aberrant organs, amount of sleep deprivation, pain response rates, flora composition, like in the gut and skin. The projections in the orb broke up into swirling mist.

Discrete systems, skin, peripheral and central nervous systems, which were more heavily distributed than in normal human’s. Circulatory, lymphatic, digestive, skeletal, and highlighted points changed from baseline. It broke up down to cells, and ball-and-stick models of organic molecules. It marked points of injury, in the body and in the brain, in the various sections related to memory. 

I found complete sections of human DNA, with surprisingly little damage besides minor mutations. But…

“Curious. Seems like the both of you appear to be biological chimeras.” I rubbed my chin, and examined my newly pigmented nails. I had colored them black to go with my aesthetic of red and black.  

It worked well with my black collared shirt and red gym shorts, the ends tipped with black.  

“Chimeras?” Elle tilted her head, hands clasped together. 

“A chimera is an organism composed of cells from more than one distinct genotype. You both possess a complete set of human DNA, but a significant fraction of your cells are made of foreign genetic code and biological substances. One with six base pairs and four nucleotides per RNA codon.”

“Which means what exactly?” Faultline questioned.

“This genetic deviancy appears to be responsible for your physiological changes, a sort of in-between of human and alien biology. The fact you’re alive at all is kind of a miracle. Forget I said that. ” I coughed loudly. “Your powers appear to be mostly biological, with a Breaker effect around the cellular structures responsible for producing certain chemicals.” So their powers wouldn’t be nullified by Trumps. 

“But why have we been mutated?” Gregor asked, and I glanced at him up and down. 

“Tends to be a common side effect of failed power connections, if a shard lacks information on the host, they’ll tend to…break things.” I swallowed, recalling images of corrupted Para-Gems. “Most scenarios tend to kill the host, often in brutal and horrific ways. In your case, your powers were likely meant to manifest as a limited Changer power. Say your skin and stomach shifting to create the chemicals you do, and the same applying for Newter.”

“So this Changer state…instead spread to the entirety of our bodies?” I nodded at Gregor’s comment. “What can be done for that?”

“A power capable of mutating the body might be able to correct towards a more human ideal. Though you’ll retain some chimeric components. My ichor or Aster’s ichor might be able to return you to baseline, but the severe chimerism might complicate things.”

“You could just heal us…just like that?” Newter sounded a little high pitched, which was fair. My powers were nuts. 

“Maybe. My healing capabilities are extreme, but they have their limits without some more research. Give it a week or three. But I can do this now.” I sent off a command to a bioforge, which already had previous samples of Newter’s main power.

I grabbed a sticker dispenser, one that would make a person immune to his hallucinogen for an hour after taking it off, or a day before it broke down. 

“Here.” I gave it to Newter. 

The boy frowned. “A red flower with…sticker petals?” 

“A counteragent producer, just give this Gem crop plant a little sunlight and water and you can apply this sticker to people you want to touch.” It was magic, so it couldn’t be stolen either.

His hallucinogen was a complex compound made of multiple interlaced compounds, and didn’t scale up much due to natural biological decay. So being dunked in the stuff wouldn’t kill you. First it affected the senses the brain received, reducing awareness even if the other effects did nothing. 

That includes proprioception and balance. It affected muscle signals, causing jerky uncoordinated movements rather than paralysis. Third was powerful but harmless hallucinations, and masked the more subtle effects. The fourth and final effect messed with one’s sense of time, making a person useless. 

The kid immediately gave one to Faultline, and she placed it under her neon green welding mask. She waited a few seconds, and poked Newter. When she didn’t pass out, I knew it had worked. 

“Impressive.” There was a low thrum of gratitude in her voice, something I picked out without hearing the inflection in her voice. You should stop neglecting part of your power…

“I–” I received a call, and projected a screen for it. I inspected dark curly hair interspersed by sparkling pink, and shuttering Diamond eyes. “Oh. That was today wasn’t it?”

Faultline approached me, leaning to look at the screen. “Is that…?”

Steven smiled. “Nice to see you making friends, hot pink, plaid and lime green is a good mix.”

“He’s not being sarcastic is he?” Faultline questioned.

“You’ve seen what Gems look like right?” I replied back with a roll of my eyes. 

“Anyway, today was our day to teach you how to use your Aura. You remember?” He seemed excited, cheeks turning rosy and eyes glimmering with light. 

“Do you mind an audience?” Faultline came in, something like curiosity in her tone. 

Huh?

“If you’re willing to help with her practice, sure.”

WHAT?

“Are you certain you want to help me with this?” I questioned Faultline’s wisdom in helping me with my psychic training session with Steven. It seemed a little too reckless, or she wanted to be helpful after helping them with the whole Case 53 thing. 

“I’ve done as much thinking about your organization, your people as possible. Nothing about you makes sense, it breaks every rule about powers, about how they work and where they come from.”

“Fair.” I half-joked. 

“But I’m a good judge of character and so is Gregor, you’re not a threat. And you’ve been generally kind to us.” 

“O-Okay.” I know we had touched base from time to time to complete our deal and been generally amiable. But I hadn’t expected to leave such a good impression. “But you’re certain you want to be involved with this, Bet doesn't exactly have the best impression of what could be called Master abilities.”

“I’m willing to accept people from all walks of life, else I wouldn’t have brought Newter and Gregor into the fold. Or tried to do right by Elle.” She rubbed her chin under her mask, and I marveled at her searing outfit. 

She certainly had the confidence to wear something like that. I'll give her that.

“I suppose.”

“Now where is this…Aster Diamond exactly?” A fair question since we’ve been waiting around the portal on his end of reality. 

I stiffened as I caught the roiling flames of his Aura, dwarfing the auras of the other Gems. All Gems had auras, cowls of light and magic that varied in size depending on the strength of the Gem and tuned to the unique song of each of them. Their emotions projected through and into their Gemsong. 

The Aura of a Diamond is massive, extending for many miles due to the sheer power contained within their magic crystal cores. I could tell Faultline was taken aback, likely sweating under her mask.

“What is this?”

“That would be the Aura of a Diamond miss Faultline.” I chirped, gesturing to her to sit down on an available magic bench. She did so. “I told you we’re one of the most powerful psychics in the galaxy. On accident I ping ponged against multiple minds across the galaxy. I was booted out the first time too, so psychic bullshit isn't even unique.” My laugh was just a little hysterical.

“I’m still going through with this, I’d prefer to get a more in depth look of my client’s capabilities.” I raised an eyebrow, she was really quite insistent wasn’t she?

“Sure. Whatever. Hey Aster.” She startled, as Aster made his silent approach, only his song providing a clue. He was wearing the same clothes as usual, which made sense. I was getting into the habit myself, being a Gem and all. 

“He’s taller than I expected.” Faultline commented, her posture shifting, becoming more serious. 

“So this is your new friend Brenda?” I felt under scrutiny at his soft gaze, crossing my arms over my bust with an embarrassed chirp. “The mercenary right? With the corrupted humans, Case 53s?”

“What about it?” She didn’t hide her wariness at his questions. 

His smile was brilliant, eyes shutting and his satisfaction shifting in his Aura and song. “I’m just happy to see her making some more human friends, she has a foot in both worlds and deserves something nice.”

I flushed. “Ahh.” God why is he always such a dad/mom about things?

“I…suppose?” She seemed unsure, glancing at me. “ Is that normal for him? ”

“He’s like, one of the nicest people I’ve met in my life. So yes.” I gripped her collar with my nails, pulling her forward a bit. “Don’t be surprised if he decides to adopt you, it’s his thing.” He liked helping people, and fortunately it wasn’t with the pressure that had made him crack seventeen years ago.

Diamonds could be so brittle after all. 

“Alright.” She didn’t move from the bench, and Steven gestured to me to sit down on the soft grass. I did so without hesitation, crossing my legs, one over the other.

He sat down as well in a similar sitting position, his dark, dark eyes glittering with cerise. Faultline was watching, hands folded up on her lap. 

I took a deep breath. “So, Aster…” My song curled with slight affection. “Teach me how to use my Aura, my telepathic mumbo jumbo.” I did jazz hands, black claws flicking out for added dramatic effect. 

“Well first, it’s not mumbo jumbo. Though you can call it whatever you want.” He placated me, reacting to something on either my face or in my mind. 

“Go on.”

His voice deepened, became more, Diamondsong an orchestra of sound and music. An eldritch dirge of power. “Every Diamond, every Gem has an aura, you could call it the expression of our magic, or our soul.” I followed eagerly along. “But what you don’t know is that everything alive has an aura of its own. But the other Diamonds can’t interface with those auras like we can, because we have a foot in both worlds. Both organic and Gem.”

“So we can see the aura of humans, organic beings in general?” I wanted my knowledge cleared up. 

“Yeah. And of course we can sense any kind of magic, and better understand beings of magic rather than flesh,” He was using a serious tone, but it was hard when he was a big fluffy pink man. “That means we can sense other people’s emotions, we can go into their dreams and even…possess them if we want to.” There was something like disdain in his voice at the idea.

“That last thing isn’t something I’m interested in.” I shuddered, having your body usurped like that. Horrible.  

“Yeah. Which is why you need to listen to this next part.”

I blinked. “Yes.”

“Quit holding back.” His eyes were striking, like staring into the empty void of space. 

“Pardon?” My throat felt constricted, something coiling in my stomach. Something I ignored when I looked at myself in the mirror, when I perceived through alien eyes. 

“Your body is already physically mature, and your Gem has had two months to adjust. You’re holding back, restraining your power, smothering yourself.” There was something there in his eyes, worry, concern, like I was doing something wrong.

“I’m doing that?” My voice was small.

“It’s not your fault, you were born human, I wasn’t. I was always half and half and I was raised mostly by Gems. But you have to remember you are more than just a human with a rock in their belly. You are both the Heart of Humanity and the Soul of Gemkind.” There was something intimidating about the idea, I wasn’t sure if I could live up to being some Paragon.

Or if I even should. Or if I was getting confused, because he didn't want me to be pressured like he was, he didn’t want me to break under the weight. He wanted to teach me, he wanted to help, he wanted to be my friend. 

I didn’t mind that. 

“Could you show me? How to quit…smothering myself?” He nodded, smiled warmly and he sang proudly. 

“Of course Brenda.” His song echoed, twisted with burning sword, with hints of prince-king. “Just watch me.” His Aura…burst, for a lack of better words.

It was like watching a star explode, a radiance of cerise and rose and pearlescent auras of Diamond light and soul flame. A hundred feet, a thousand, ten thousand, and then more. I staggered but my own pride kept me on my feet, and Faultline sagged into her bench even as it’s magic protected her from the worst of it.

It was magnificent, and I could see, feel, know emotions that weren’t mine. So many, and, and, so many scars. So many hurts, so much pain, sparkly dark freckles tainting paragon luster. But that wasn’t what was focused on me, it was a line of curiosity-pride-good-job-hope-nice. Spikes that burbled on neural tissue and crystal circuits. 

It felt so familiar, and I remembered the screaming void from which I/she had been born. That radiance had been the blueprint for my Gem, imprinted into the deepest recesses of crystalline machinery. I could feel my own Aura, and it felt so small, so limited, only marginally larger than the aura of a Quartz. Crushed down by mental restraints.

He was a mosaic of faint glimmering images, flowing in and out with a hundred emotions and flickers of memory. I saw how it stretched out, curling waves of power.

This was him. This was the framework, the image I should borrow, use, need.

I felt my power stir.

It emulated, copied. Grasping tendrils, reaching for Aster Diamond. 

His expression changed, repressed happiness. 

No. But yes.

My Aura spread, strengthened, and expanded from ten feet to a hundred, to a thousand. My power seeped deeper into my bones and skin, and I felt stronger, just a little more complete. Like I was accepting more of her/myself, and I blinked away stars from my vision.

I saw more auras besides Steven’s, two different ones folded over one another. Faultline, her aura was like criss crossing lines of blue fire interspersed with neon green and scarlet. Stable, but waning and waxing every so often in a regular pattern. There was another, so much larger and yet…so empty. Like a giant bubble full of dull air, with only hints of thought and emotion. Or like a bag of chips that was half motherfucking air. 

“Man. Shards are a bit of a disappointment.” There was almost nothing there, closer to a machine than a living being. I could detect their surface thoughts, since the realm of the mind existed in every dimension. 

I felt a burst of fear-concern-awe, and I found myself drawn to a tiny emotional aura, not the light of a Gem’s power, but rather the light of a human soul and mind. 

“Are you alright, is this too much?” I whispered, feeling just a little bad with how Faultline was gripping the bench, and had failed to leave cracks in the metal due to magic disrupting her power.  

But she was determined not to give in from the pulse of indignation. “At this point I don’t have anything to lose, and I’m rather curious.”

“There’s a difference between being curious, and a willingness to be someone’s guinea pig.”

“You think we haven’t spent time screening ourselves? We’ve had days to make sure we haven’t made a huge mistake.” There was something else in her tone. “This is beyond our pay grade, but if this is what it takes to get them answers. It’ll be worth it.” Faultline pulled herself up from the safety of her bench, glaring at me from behind her mask. 

“Frankly I think you’re crazy,” I replied bluntly. “Then again most parahumans are, so I’m not going to question it.” I scratched my chin, feeling my Aura curl around me in a protective fashion. “But…right, Aster, what am I supposed to be learning?”

“Well first, I’m going to teach you how to place more active psychic defenses and how to shield others from mind control.” I opened my mouth, and the world suddenly turned black, overlaid with the real world. 

“What is this?” Faultline seemed just a bit concerned about the teleportation to what she didn’t know was the Mindscape. 

“We’re in the realm of Thought, the astral plane, the Dream Realm, the Mindscape.” Steven’s song distorted, revealing more of his eldritch nature, and my own Aura rose in tandem. “This is part of the domain of the Diamonds, one of many powers we have as Gems.”

“Are Diamonds the only beings who can get here?” She asked, more curious than afraid. 

His smile diminished. “No. Literally any psychic or telepathic being brushes against this place, even mechanical means do…” like the neural manipulation of the shards. “There wouldn’t be a reason for psychic shielding if we were the only beings who could use this place.” Though Diamonds had a more specific section under their domain, a sort of collective unconscious of all Gemkind. 

“Can we get on with it?” My voice rumbled louder than I expected, frequencies and wavelengths transmitted.

“Of course…” His song echoed loudly. “First I’ll teach you how to extend your Aura, how to peep into the aura of others.” His gaze fell onto the cape. “I’ll teach her how to keep some more private thoughts below the surface. Just as an extra precaution.”

The next few minutes were spent on Faultline, and apparently they were expanded versions of certain methods of combating Master powers, of the way they attacked perceptions, the way they wormed into a brain, into a mind. There were several ways of countering Shard based telepathy.  

There was becoming a psychic yourself, tapping into your own internal energies to delve into matters of the mind. There were a ton of spells for mind control, or to enter the mind of another. There was inserting a plate of special treated titanium in your skull. Or using a Mentem device to encrypt your thoughts, with modifications made to counter Shard methods of mechanical and chemical treating of brains. 

It was a WW2 scenario, a massive boost to technology during war, one that affected all fields due to the diversity and outright insane capabilities of even a thousandth of an Entity. But it couldn't last, war didn’t always boost technological development, and often it took away resources from other sciences not related to war. 

And really, it wasn’t advancing in the way you think, it was turning already existing technologies into functional and mass producible devices for war. 

“Are you ready?” Aster murmured, stepping away from Faultline. She nodded, and he pressed his aura against me first. “Confused. Curious, excited.” He pointed it out, and I got the silent lesson. I needed to extend it to cover another person’s aura.

“Are you sure about this?” 

Faultline huffed. “Just do it already.” 

I peered into her aura, and was flooded with foreign emotions. Her aura was glowing with interest, along with waves of cold skepticism, flickers of curiosity like sparks of flame. She was keeping underlying thoughts safe, but I could scrape for them if I pressed harder. 

I found a surface thought and spoke it aloud. “You’re craving tamales?” I asked bluntly, and she stared.

“Yes…” A flash of wariness, a dash of anger, and a helping of befuddlement. 

“I could probably learn to make some, that or check if any of the Gems know how to make some.” Especially ones without crazy tastes, like sawdust or metal meat or something equally terrible. “You good? I know how your world feels about people like me.” It felt just a little anxiety inducing ya know?

“It’s fine, though I recommend being very careful with revealing a power like that. Not for legal reasons, merely practical. Enforcing the law on a galactic princess sounds…rather unlikely to succeed.”

“I’m not a…” I trailed off in horror. Oh god I was a princess and a prince. 

“You’ve got the basics down for aura reading,” Aster moved along in the lesson. “Now it’s time to move onto defense of yourself and others.” I caught onto the waves of danger

“This is going to be painful isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

The waves of pink light rolled over like a tsunami, and I cursed the universe for it’s bullshit.

“Hey Flowers!” I greeted the Gem as I floated down, she startled, her breath catching for some reason. I could catch the emotions in her Gemsong and aura a lot better than before.

She was genuinely happy to see me, and that made my cheeks warm of their own accord. I was Brandon as I was most days, though I had grown out my hair a bit. Some nice dark locks graduated to red though they didn’t go past my chin.  

I had reduced my beard down to…stubble, rather fine, more a means to add definition to my face? Though I was learning towards removing it and letting it grow out again later. 

She ran up to me, and I suddenly found my arms full holding up a hundred odd pounds of Sapphire. Being a head taller than someone was still a weird feeling, when it was an adult. 

“Greetings, Brandon.” Her song was full of affection, along with a confusing mix of other emotions. “Did you have a good training session?”

“Well, Faultline's brain didn’t explode. I count that as a win.” I hummed, pushing out my aura, imagining myself lifting her. A telekinetic push lifted her as I moved towards the couch. 

I set her down next to me. She leaned against me and I allowed her to because I was weak. 

“You really should be more used to the affectionate nature of Gems by now.” She sprawled out, kneading her hands on my sleeve, claws extending slightly. God they really were like cat-bee-spiders weren’t they?

“You and I both know that’s not true.” I leaned my head a bit to get more comfortable.

Her giggle was like the beat of raindrops on metal, a hasty thing. “Maybe I’m just being optimistic. I think you’re perfectly capable of adapting.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost I suppose.” I shrugged. “I’m just not that good at receiving or giving affection.” It was honestly kind of a lonely feeling, and I rarely just…accepted a hug or a show of affection. 

Maybe that was wrong of me…because it wasn’t a case of hating it, more like not knowing what to do with it, an odd sort of overload. Gems kind of did the same thing, their song and aura overwhelming me.

Flowers didn’t do that, her song and aura was more muted, but not smothered, just…compressed and folded up. She was easier to hug, and so tiny and cute it was hard to be intimidated. Barring the fact I really like how soft she is, and the shape of her body…

Flowers giggled, and I blushed and hoped to whatever gods were out there that she couldn’t predict what I was thinking. “Something funny?” My voice didn’t go high pitched. Anyone who says that is a liar. 

Flowers plucked a rose from my hair, and my eyes crossed. What. The. Fuck? Again?

“It seems your Aura has finally started to come into its own, I heard Aster Diamond has the same problem.” 

“You’re saying he leaves behind a trail of magic made flowers?” I already knew that but still. “Plus this usually happens in my room.”

“Yes he does, though usually around people he cares about, you share the domain of Life after all.”

“Hmm…guess so.” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. “Makes it a bit harder to live up to him though.” There was something bitter there, and I sighed.

I suddenly had baby soft(er) hands gently grabbing my face, and I was taken aback by the burning passion in her one eye. “Don’t think like that, you…you don’t have to live up to anyone, ” I stared. “You’re perfectly fine as you are, my Diamond.” I flushed, as I heard the sincerity clear as day in bouncing Gemsong.

She really believed in me, and it wasn’t because I was a Diamond. It was because I was me…

“Okay.” Shyness struck me like a lightning bolt, despite my pride trying to rear up like I was a lion instead of a cub. “You can stay here for a bit right?”

“Well my schedule is relatively free for the next few days, Sunshine.” She released a nervous laugh, though it was a happy one. “We can spend some time together between whatever events may transpire. Perhaps an evening walk, or a game of chess?”

There was a one, two, three second pause.

We shared a laugh, and I hid a smile at how she snorted when doing so, her face lighting up in many different ways. Her aura jumped with a simple joy and amusement. 

“Really…chess?” She slapped my shoulder with a second giggle. “Also Sunshine?” I questioned, and her face flushed.

“Oh. I’m sorry, is that strange? It just sort of came out, I’m…” I stopped her short, poking her. 

“It’s fine, I don’t mind you calling me Sunshine.” It was sort of nice, and I didn’t hate it at all. “I suppose I could be the sunshine to your flowers ehh?” I joked and then stopped. That sounds so stupid. And like some type of weird innuendo.

Flowers laughed, and I let out a groan. “Oh…oh that sounds terrible, I-I’m sorry I don’t…” she beat her chest, her song thumping with a hollow chime. “I don’t mean to laugh…just. It’s kind of cute actually.”

I blinked. “Really?” She paused in her dumbass giggle fit, and there was a sudden serious expression.

“Yes. Absolutely.” I-okay she was being so serious about this, and I have no idea why. “We are friends, I wouldn’t lie to you about this. You are aesthetically pleasing.” 

I considered the Gem before me, inspecting her after her unexpected compliment. Flowers was…well I found her very pretty too, an alien beauty too. The way she tied back her pretty and voluminous hair with a flower scrunchie-thing, the shine and color of her eye, her soft grins and smiles, how her fingers tapped and curled when she worked on a complex machine, and the way slick industrial fluid slid off her bu— okay then!

“You’re pretty too.” She looked rather more bashful now, brushing back her wild bangs. “Now, are there any games you’re interested in showing me?”

She perked up. “Oh. Yes, there’s a remake of Fight Fighters on a new console. It seems humans have taken to holograms.” She brought out the device that looked like a more futuristic PS5, and placed it on the table where a TV would be. With a gesture the device turned on, and projected a large high fidelity screen. 

I leaned forward, fingers brushing against my facial hair. “I hope you don’t mind showing me how to play?”

She laughed. “Of course I don’t mind, in fact I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.” She started up the console, with a ping of sound. I sat down more comfortably, and she passed me a controller in a flash of light.

For the moment at least, we sat down and played. 

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.4

I swept past the swirling auras of humans, the dynamic pulses becoming so much more clear after training with Steven. They were dynamic, shifting, shrinking, weaving and pulsing. It was becoming instinct to know what those shifts meant, my empathetic senses growing in power and range. 

My Aura had been kept close to my skin, muted, smothered by my own inexperience. Now it extended for two miles in every direction, my radiance set free. Even then it paled in comparison to the vast radiance of the other Diamonds when I paid attention. 

Being a Master was however a rather dangerous prospect in a world like this. All I needed to do was extend my Aura to read surface thoughts and feelings, and part of that was automatic. 

And mind control wasn’t exactly hard, though I suspected I was limited to a single person like Steven. Reading intentions and emotions was going to be the bulk of my use of psychic powers, with perhaps periodic Dream walking. But there was a reasonable fear of Masters with people like Heartbreaker and literal monsters like the Simurgh. 

I had gotten stronger based on my sparring sessions, overpowering Starry by accident. Which was rather impressive when taking into account she was a quarter ton Euhedral Quartz. Kind of frightening in retrospect when I had seen her lift a literal thousand tons with little strain. But then the strength of a Diamond was effectively unlimited. Steven could lift a Terraformer Injector as a teenager, and I was a grown adult with a gem tailored to my biology.

I ignored the storm of emotions, grimacing when I saw a flash of lust-interest in my direction. I hadn’t made this form in the interest of being ogled by anyone other than myself. It was more for obscurity, and because I liked the aesthetic of black and red. Also the soft shoulder length hair, and the additional… cushioning to my body. 

Also because I could. That was a big part of it.

I adjusted my choker, keeping a grip on the Transporter Jewel, a device capable of teleportation across both normal space and the greater spacetime structure of the multiverse. I had another in my gem that could activate in case of a threat, along with a Time Hourglass. Which was there the whole time and I never even knew it.  

It was to anchor myself against dangerous time effects, like time looping, time acceleration and time deceleration, and deleterious alterations of the arrow of time. Not that time acceleration would kill me when I didn’t have to age. 

But trapping me was much easier than killing me, and a time loop or a time slowing field would be the best means. But that was not a weakness anyone with a Time Hourglass had. It was just unfortunate they were so expensive to create, since Time can be a real bitch.  

I brushed back my dark wavy puffy hair with a huff, ignoring the other auras. Though there was something…something off about a very small number of them, aura tainted with ash, a sulphurous taste in my mouth. 

That…that was more concerning than it should be. I was going to have to deal with it… later. Well…I had already broadcast a message on automatic so nevermind, I did it. 

People really were so loud when you were a Gem, and it was hard to get used to the click of their phones, the sound of their bones cracking and their muscles tensing. Then there were their natural stripes in UV, a limitless pattern unique to each and every person.

I was walking towards a food court to feed my belly, though I technically didn’t need to eat like I used to. Aster, or Steven I suppose could act like a plant and eat ambient energy. Sunlight, radioactive energies, as well as energy fields in general. It was apparently how Steven…uhh, destroyed Bill Cipher’s memories due to his infiltration of the Dream Realm. 

There was a good chance killing Bill with the Zodiac would have caused severe damage to people in the Dream. So he was cannibalized and reduced to a shade that would one day be reborn. 

But not as himself, he was gone.  

And of course us Gems could sense strange energies, we’d be dead if we couldn’t. Homeworld was a very different place before White Diamond, a world of magic and strange primordial energies, of beasts chasing future negentropy, and warped senses of What Simply Is. 

Which is why I caught the whiff of magic, so small, tiny flames being stoked by sparks bursting from cracks between the worlds. The fault of the Black Wyrm, of his shards and the reckless use of magic. Failures which created more questions than answers. 

Magic wasn’t some incomprehensible thing, the Loner should have been able to use his sight to steal it from the Gems. Then again, all Gems were seers, their crystal mechanisms could be inscrutable to the precognition of one another. 

Why not to the Entities? But that wasn’t right, once his war was spread out across hundreds of races, many of them organic, it should have been the shards using magic to destroy the galaxy. Abaddon had been made up of some two hundred billion shards, and he had apparently recently merged a number of shards. 

He had some sixty solar masses to his flesh, which ignored the energy shifted into an exotic state by his reality warping abilities. From his memories they guessed that Zion and Eden were around four hundred solar masses in mass each.

Which was frankly terrifying no matter how it was put or described. Giant star sized creatures with billions if not trillions of powers, from precognition to time manipulation to faster than light travel and an immense toolset of energy and force manipulating powers. 

I remember…eating half of his shards, absorbing the energies of countless beings in the darkness between stars, energy encoded into the fabric of spacetime. I remember feeling so incomplete, and being directed towards a source of shining light, a star, a nursery, now burning beneath my skin. 

I looked up at the sun, easily ignoring the radiance of Bet’s star.

I̢̢̙͉̦̤̖̲̝̰̎̌̄̓͋͘͝͡’̮͇̭͔̰̍͂̓̒̋͢v̶̨̛͚̟̙͊͆̈͆͐͟e̛̦̖̗͔̮̩͉͍̝̾̂͛͋̓̒̂́ ẹ̛͙͇̯͈͂̀̿͂̐̀̍̄a̴̡̢̻̦̟͖̦͗̒͗̎͟͠t̸̨̟͙͕̭̤̝͉̃̎̇̅͠ē̙̘͙͎̯͓̺̬̒̋̈́̈̍̊̈́̍͜͞n̵͉͉̫̼͎̰͆̀̌̾̌ b̴͉͓̩̞̗̱͂͆̆̐̋͘͟i̷̡̧̨̛̲͚̘̖͙̺̦̒̇̄̔́̔͐̀g̴̡̘̺͚͍͕̼̣̗̊͛̔͒̓̀̌̿g̦̥͔͍͍̯͐͐̅̐͡e̴͙͖̤̥̬̾͊͒̅̽̚͡r̨̹͔̝̠͛͊̀̄͆͂͒͜.̧̛͇̥̣̞̈́̏͗̒̒̂̈̑̈

And let it live, to feed the furnace within my soul. 

I yawned, snapping my jaws as I went over to Charlie's. I loved their chicken cheri— teriyaki cheesesteak though without the disgusting pickles. Pickles were gross, and my one time trying watermelon had been a mistake. It was solid water, and bland. I liked water better. 

Ten minutes later I was biting into my meal, mumbling under my breath as I also took in the sunlight. Very literally in fact, using the light to bring forth magic into this reality. 

Again…there was a mystery to solve here, on how the Entity had effectively lost, crippled into uselessness to send his data to others of his kind. What had happened to the other half of the shards? They were dead, the galaxies knew that much. But their energy wasn’t in my Heart and Aura, so what had become of it?

The energy of an entity taken and used to form a primal seed of magic, that Steven had found and directed into a massive red star. I didn’t know the full story though, only that at some point, the Gems of the Diamonds emerged from the heart of dying stars. 

They were sent across the void, and fell into the core of a distant heavy planet. From their Dreams there came a world of magic and light and esoteric energies. White Diamond was the first, coming from an enormous white star.

There was a mythology there, but there were missing pieces, a gigantic and unfathomable backlog some seven hundred million years old, caused by something older than that, older than almost all life in the galaxy. There was a connection, but I couldn’t find it, I couldn’t…

I felt a burst of entitled interest, a subtle oily taste to the air, and my attention was returned to the person who was invading my space. I looked up and lifted an eyebrow.

The man had greasy, greasy hair, a flirtatious look, almost handsome if it wasn’t for his gaze. It was wrong and gross, and I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all. His aura was sharp and arrogant, less like thorns and more like clinging venomous vines. 

I gave him an unimpressed look, my heart beating faster, something like disgust and disquiet piling up at the way he was looking at me.

“Hey, names Mike Samson, looked a little lonely there, thought I’d join you.” I shied away, his aura proving to be a turn off in every possible way. “And with the way you’re dressed, I imagine you wouldn’t mind a little company.” His look was positively lecherous. 

“I’m wearing a black dress shirt and blue jeans.” I was both confused and grossed out, and was keeping my Aura from trying to send him flying with a telekinetic energy field. 

“Let me buy you dinner, maybe that’ll change your mind.” I stared at him, and repeated it to myself several times. 

Was he trying to buy me? Was this really happening?

“No.” I said quite firmly, a mix of disgust, anger and pride coming to the surface of my aura. 

His expression shifted slightly, but his aura became dark, a low violent insistence, one that made me want to react defensively. If that meant crushing him into a fine paste. Then so be it. His emotions were awful and I felt my breath hitch, and I narrowly kept it from ever leaving my lips. 

HOW DARE HE!

His facade was gone. “Let’s not pretend you’re some type of high class woman. Not with a body like that.” I was going to murder a man tonight. “A little fun won’t hurt anybody, and I’m sure—”

“Is this seat taken?” The man got bumped out of the way and not too gently, and I realized my breathing was hitching again. A woman with a pronounced sharp chin, straight dark hair and eyebrows with piercing green eyes. She was as tall as the man, but she looked as built as Connie though shorter. 

“Oh. Hi…”

“Basilia! It’s been a while hasn’t it? This chump bothering you?” She sat down, giving the man a beatific smile that promised torment and horror. The man stepped back, or Crook for his messed up nose. 

“He’s a little bitch Samantha.” I nodded, finally letting out my seething rage. “I’d like him to leave.” 

‘Samantha’ smiled, and Crook ran away with his tail between his legs. 

“You alright?” Her concern became more obvious when he left, and I nodded with a shudder of revulsion.

“Yeah. Just…stick around for a bit would you?” I felt gross, and I was now going to pay an order of magnitude more attention to my surroundings. 

There was silence between us, as the people passed by us without a second glance.

“So what is your name?” She broke up the quiet.

“Brenda.” I answered, she offered her hand to shake, smiling.

“Marion.” I shook her hand, grinning.

I guess Challenger was a hero both in and out of uniform.

I could hear Elle muttering under her breath, looking through a few books like the Magic of The Boiling Isles, and Glyphs: Gifts of the Titan as well as Doctor P’s Extraordinary Guide To Magic and Mystery. 

I remembered Amphibia well enough, it had become some of my go-to shows after well…SU and SU Future met their conclusion for the foreseeable future. As did Owl House, which ahh…was a little concerning. It meant those universes were real, and connected in some way to Steven’s Earth.

Not that I was ignorant anymore to how different this Earth was from my own and from the ‘canon’ world line. I had looked up a lot of the shakers and movers of the Earth of dimension 460’/ and there were many. 

From Wayne Enterprises to LexCorp and Dayton Labs, to the Pines Institute of Weirdness. There were a lot of notable differences of course, the number of superheroes was…well frankly barely there at all in comparison to Bet or at least not in a form I recognized from cursory readings. Though there were rumblings of a global superhero team, with Wonderwoman as one of the largest movers and shakers.

The war had caused a number of problems for it, and at the point in history I had checked it had the tentative name of the League of Heroes. Terrible name really. But there were a lot of different things I hadn’t read up on yet. Superheroes weren’t new, but they had stayed localized until a couple of years ago. 

Whatever this weird freaky elseworld was, it had diverged long ago. That there was anything recognizable at all was likely due to some form of cosmic constant. Even so the Green Lanterns(and the Guardians) didn’t seem to even exist. It was like pieces of one world had been plucked into another, reinterpreted through a new and foreign history. 

For example in this reality many Gods manifested from belief, and most of the ones on Earth were dead, forgotten by humanity. But at least Diana of Themyscira existed in some weird way. The Amazonians were effectively the final torch of power for the Greek Gods.

And apparently they were okay with that, their Godhome was all they needed. 

There may or may not be Martians, I really hadn’t checked. There were stories about heroic speedsters, and there was a Flash among the League of Heroes. Though there was no evidence of the Speed Force. But then I guessed the fundamental laws of physics were simply different. 

No Darkseid, but the Reach was a thing though their ten thousand world empire had collapsed over the past few centuries. Species 26 were the Tamaraneans, and the Psions had gone extinct when a few dozen shards ate them and then died screaming.

The Citadel had suffered the same treatment, and I knew there were a number of other powerful forces both on Earth and beyond. Like the Incarnation of Kur, and the Nanite Heir. 

The Demon Realm, the reality the Boiling Isles exists in is linked to Earth Wicce and is closer to my reality than it is theirs. In a metaphorical sense. And literal but I didn’t fully understand dimensional science yet.

Elle was absorbing knowledge like a sponge, from mathematics to the science of arcane study to the arts. Architectural design was one of her best subjects, though she had gone with Artificer as a name rather than Architect. I guess she wanted something more magic themed. 

I was doing the same, and had picked up an interesting(frightening) read. Theogony: On The Nature of Higher Beings was not an expected thing. But I read on regardless. 

The topic of Higher Beings is a contentious topic across the galaxy, as their existence can be…fuzzy and up to interpretation. There is no one way they can manifest or ascend. From the many dead deities of humanity to the X’Hal of Tamaranean fame.

The most common characteristic they share is that they possess a level of power beyond most mortals, and great control over aspects of reality. Some require worship, while others are more simple, naturally powerful, paragons of their species. The Dreamer, Bill Cipher is one such entity, crippled and reduced to a shadow by the Zodiac and His Radiance. Unn, one of many Life gods is another type, a spirit born from the essence of life itself. 

Higher Beings are not necessarily gods, but they are beyond mortals, power passed down by chance, by belief, or by bloodline. They— 

I heard crumpling paper and a fwoosh of wind, and noted the magical energy. There was a look of wonder on Elle’s face as she prepared her first spell. A little ball of yellow light floated in the air, magic reacting to her plea, to the geometry of wild power. 

I grabbed the light without thinking, and put it in my mouth, absorbing the solar radiation. 

“…” Elle’s look was unreadable, but her aura pulsed angrily, turning dark.

“I’m sorry, I just…Gems eat light and I’m still kind of new at this so, so…”

“Pfft…hahaha!” She laughed, slamming her hand against the desk she was practicing magic on. “No, it’s okay! I—” She cut herself off, eyes widening. “I did magic? I did magic! I did it!” She stood up from her swivel chair, and hugged me, lifting me for a moment before dropping me back down. 

Oh right she’s been exercising with Brass Pearl, and has been cheating using my healing powers. Kind of gross when you think about it, but it didn’t matter. Any strain on her muscles was healed in an instant, and her body took to the healing magic quite well. 

It was how Aster’s First Knight had gotten so buff, Diamond essence is an effective boost. The magic was positively infused with the essence of Life, an aura of magic and higher energies given form and purpose. 

“Now you try!” I was pulled back to reality by Elle as she dragged me, offering me a pencil and a sheet of paper.

“Okay?” I indulged her, easily copying the light Glyph onto paper. As I expected the spell worked, creating an orb of light. I could feel the magic respond, and if I had been more active…

I could have created a number of light based magic, light projections, and flashbangs. Instead I consumed the magic gathered by the spell, and nodded. So that had proved I could learn spells, though certain types weren’t possible. 

Like certain types of necromancy, anything involving blood and flesh wouldn’t work due to my odd physicality. Though it worked better for me than it did for Steven due to being born human. So it might be possible. 

“Now this one.” I obliged the girl, narrowing my eyes at the plant glyph. I decided to be a little more attentive with this one as I tapped the paper. I could feel the aura of magic twisting into the paper, and held my breath as I tapped a nail to trigger the spell. 

Let leaf and root be the essence.

Let the Titan be your Foundation.

Bring forth Life from the breath of the gods.

Become one with the Green, become one with the Red.

Come forth from the circle of power, energies of the Verdant.

A flower bloomed from nothing, magical energy taking shape into matter. Universal energy turned to almost mundane substance. I could hear the aura of the magic, the foundation it was based upon was almost unique, alien and yet compatible, coloring the native magic with its weight.

This was magic belonging to another world, magic born of a Titan the size of an island. There was power in the symbols born of the Titan, and while it was foreign it was also interesting. Gems were mostly self contained aside from ambient energy absorption. They sort of drew their energy from the universe itself, but Gem magic was in a way a school, a foundation of magic carved into the fabric of reality.

It meant they weren’t always compatible with certain types of magic, though they could learn with some time, or learn how to copy it with their own magic. 

“I…I can use magic, I’m a witch!” She sounded so happy, Elle…no Artificer’s aura soared.

“That begs the question, who is teaching you magic?”

“Stripes. Err…Labradorite. She’s a practiced magic user with a few different systems.” Of course for Gems, learning wasn’t always easy. Most Era 2 Gems had a hard time with it though due to the reduced amounts of Pink ichor. Glyph magic was easy enough, all you needed was ambient magic, intent and knowledge and you were on your way. 

Some were more fundamentally incompatible though. 

“What schools of magic has she learned? I’m sure you’ve asked.” I flicked away a lock of her platinum blonde hair with a sardonic grin. 

Elle grinned. “Yeah. She’s learned magic from the Boiling Isles, Alchemy from Shambala, and magic from the Kitakah.” Something jumped out at me, something translating oddly.

“That…means Bug right?” She shrugged.

“She also knows the Bezel system of magic.” I narrowed my eyes, I had heard that before. 

Bezel, Bezel, Bezel.

The Charms of Bezel…that’s Ben 10 isn’t it?”

“Do the Charms of Bezel ring a bell?”

Elle nodded. “Stripes said they were in the hands of some human mage, Gwen something…?”

So that confirmed Steven Universe, a mutilated DC elseworld, Ben 10, and from what I had heard about Kur, Secret Saturdays, and looking up the nanite incident got Generator Rex. Though really that was more a single package since they already took place within the same universe, or were at least close together.

Wasn’t there a Generator Rex crossover for the Reboot?

Also Gravity Falls…and Amphibia, and they had punched a hole into Owl House’s dimension…not a big deal.

“I’ve gone quite mad haven't I…?” My horrified whisper was thankfully not heard by Elle. 

But it was the truth, everything about this was crazy, this was insanity. I was on Mars having magic practice with a girl able to make reality her bitch, I had a gem in my belly, I was magic, and a participant in a transdimensional war across galaxies with sci-fi technology, literal magic, with hundreds of alien empires working against giant space monsters responsible for destroying worlds in numbers given in scientific notation. You need to be calm… 

My world was in the crossfire where planets were collateral damage, and it was dangerous and awful, and everything could fall, fall, AND FALL AND FALL AND MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT…

STOP. BREATHE.

I gripped my chest, a gentle warmth filling my mind, from…my Gem? There was something, something missing, something I didn’t understand yet. But it made me feel safe, it made me feel less alone even when there was nobody around me. It kept me moving forward, even when I woke up alone.

Elle was giving me a look, and I smiled hesitantly.

I wasn’t going to dump my baggage on her, that was by business, my issues. 

“Any other spell glyphs you wanted me to learn?”

Elle beamed.

“Hello Gregor.” Gregor the Snail blinked as I called out.. “How’s that gemstone selling business been doing?”

“We’ve found a number of buyers across several cities, even being discreet we can expect to make three quarters of a million a month.” He sounded suitably impressed. “More than enough to support ourselves and our…investigations.” My smile shrunk. 

Right, there was that whole business about their origins I wasn’t sure how to explain without one of them going ballistic and going out and murdering the Triumvirate. Plus we still needed to figure out how to heal them, my power should work but their fucked up chimerism made things difficult. 

Would a large dose of my ichor heal them, or would it bring out the inhuman part of their genetics, removing their human DNA as damage? Or were their cells so integrated that my power simply considered them an odd organism?

“You do not approve.” He stated plainly, expression shifted. 

“It doesn't matter what I approve, you are not under my aegis. Not like Elle, or Rachel after we took down a dozen dog fighting rings in the span of a few days.” Global teleportation and precognition tended to be really helpful, along with a bevy of other Gem abilities. It didn’t help that literally every Gem had some level of clairvoyant sense of the past and future.

Though it was more instinctual, for Gems it was a sort of sense of the flow of battle, and a better ability to infer data. Like if people had advanced sensors strapped to their brains. We were like machines, able to sense all types of energy from polarized light to the resounding light of true magic. That lets us divine out the patterns in our own ways.

We had a few hundred dogs, with most of them being kept under the care of a handful of Gems. But not everyone had the time for pets, so a dog shelter had been bought by us using our gemstone money and placed near Brockton Bay due to the low cost…and reduced government scrutiny. 

Of course everything was set up to keep them safe from the E88, and there was instant coverage with a stealthy warp pad in the basement. That plus a helping of magical defenses made it a real cinch. 

Plus it puts us in range of various useful shards, from the administrator to the shaper, and a fragment of Scion’s path to victory. As well as the shard used to censor trigger visions. 

We had scanned the city, with the Sapphires helping with targeting of the Hole Punchers. The devices used to punch holes through the dimensional barriers set up by the Entities.

Most forms of dimensional transference were based on aspects of the Infinity Portal created by one Stanford Pines some thirty nine years ago. They were unique, utilizing complex multidimensional mathematics with vaguely disturbing characteristics. 

That portal seemed to lead into the space between dimensions, that distance that was not distance, that space that was not space, the Bleed between worlds. This made it cycle across an effectively infinite number of dimensions, skipping past them like the pages in a book. 

The Entities had converged on some aspect of this science, but it was much more limited, even if ten to the power of eighty one dimensions was a number beyond human comprehension. 

“Aegis. What does that mean for your people?” I refocused on the present. “Your adopted people if you would.” He amended. 

“Gems aren’t human, I’m sure we’ve established that by now right?” He nodded and I continued. “The Diamonds themselves created the Gems, they’re kind of like our family.” I ignored how that idea felt so odd, but not wrong. “Our laws, our own nature reflects that.” It has even affected mine, with that protective streak that really wanted me to ask for my world to be mine. 

“How so?” He rumbled, sitting down on the bench of foreign magic from another world. 

“The Gems who’ve joined my Court, the ones willing to help me adjust, the young teenager I found on my doorstep. My family, my human family,” Something hitched in my song. “Hell even Rachel with her poor adjustment and terrible social skills.” I wasn’t as violent but I wasn’t amazing with people either. “They are mine. They are vein adma. Cherished kin.”

“Dreki. ” I understood perfectly. Calling us Dragons was a good description. 

“Diamonds are the first Gems, the archetype. We are a draconic sort, but we also collect people rather than just treasures.” I felt that urge with some of the more interesting full blooded humans. “Having a Ballas brain can be real trouble.” I tapped my forehead. 

“So if we were under your aegis…?” He sounded curious to know my reply. 

“You would be under my protection, from anyone and any thing that would want to harm you.” Within reason of course, I couldn’t shield them from the bumps and bruises life left on a person. “And when you have nominal influence over a galactic empire, that protection can be…significant.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “But that can be a serious choice, a very serious one. Elle was willing because she wanted a semblance of family, and Rachel went for it because she took a shine to Frills and Aventurine.” Plus rescuing hundreds of dogs got on her good side.

Relatively speaking. She was still an aggressive little shit, and she was spending time with the Quartz and Rubies to get the rough edges bumped out. A little bit of empathy was kind of needed to help her, as well as enough patience and toughness to deal with all her hard edges. 

“You have a crow on your shoulder.” Gregor pointed out. “It seems to want to tell you something.”

Oh him. I thought he had decided to leave me alone. “What do you want?”

“No-Wings. You never gave me a name to call you by.” He spoke in his language of chirps and pulsing birdsong. 

“Because I came to the conclusion I was hallucinating your existence.” I replied dryly, sulking. 

He lifted a wing, almost like he was lifting an arm to his chest. “By the Rolling Sun, what a hurtful thing to say to one of your flock.”

“Come again?” I stood up, I thought Steven had brought the mutant crows into his aegis and not under mine, we were still sharing joint custody of the colony. 

“I’ve volunteered to join your little flock of Light-Stones, you gave me red feathers, it’s your responsibility.” I noted the occasional streaks of red on black. 

“How…injured were you? That kind of thing tends to require being pretty dead.” There was a ring of concern from his aura, which had a different shape to it, a flickering mass of twisting cyclones rather than the more solid flames of human aura. 

“I did take in a lot of smoke.” He seemed more concerned now. Smoke tended to hurt birds more due to their type of respiratory system, more sensitive. 

“Luckily it wasn’t too bad, I’m not ready to start curing cases of death. Tends to lead to giant immortal pink zombies with interdimensional wormholes in their heads.”

“You are speaking to a crow.” Gregor was giving me an odd look. 

“To be fair, this is a mutant crow created by a time manipulator and a striker capable of minor mutations combining their powers. Even though I understand regular crows too. ” I didn’t let him hear the last part. “He…uhh.” I was going to say his name and realized I didn’t know it.

“Tungwup.” The crow answered me.

“Tungwup here is a perfectly sapient being, his species have come under the aegis of the Empire since they decided they wanted nothing to do with Earth Bet.” 

“Really?” I nodded and he gave the avian a more measuring look. “Then why is he here and not with his people?”

“Apparently he was so close to death that he took some aspects of magic into his biology.” It was a day ending in Y and thus expected. “Not that it matters, with all the cracks in reality, magic is spilling through effectively everywhere.”

Gregor cracked open his mouth when I was suddenly bowled over and spun in the air. All I could think was soft and then baby when I peered at dark pink to the point of almost red eyes, with an innocent glimmer. 

“Rose, you shouldn’t surprise people like that. It’s…not polite.” Starry emerged in a burst of speed, going from five hundred to zero in a matter of seconds. I was put down, and looked up at a Rose Quartz I hadn’t seen before.

I recognized her quickly, and I swallowed spit(ichor) as I saw the shape of my face in hers, and the waves of my hair in her voluminous curtains of pink and lightest red. She wasn’t quite as large as Starry, with a softer pudgier shape and more around the standard size of a Rose Quartz, at the lower range even.

So around seven and a half feet tall, and she wore not a uniform but more casual but fitting clothing. Dark pink working pants, with well-fit red boots. A voluminous pink blouse marked with red vines blooming with amaranthus, and a Diamond insignia on her knees, chest, and elbows.

I know this gem. 

Rose Quartz Facet-SD Round-01. The sole Gem born of this planet, not a prototype so much as the complete model. She was mine, my Gem, the only one that would be born of my ichor for quite a while until the Kindergartens on Mars were mapped out. 

Baby. Another word that came to mind, this was a being born of my blood, this was effectively one of my kin, and I started to realize I had not thought this through in the slightest when I decided I wanted to make a Gem. 

“Hi!” She stared back at me with muted naive eyes, bobbing up and down in excitement.

So this is what it’s like to feel a deep almost parental love for another living being…

“Hey there.” I was gentle, my song became almost crooning in response. 

“Perhaps we can speak at a later time Sunrise Diamond.” Gregor respectfully bounced.

“Yeah…okay.” I was distracted, waving him away to talk with this Rose Quartz.

I ended up not getting much of a chance though since Rose had run away from an Azurite teacher.

Annoying, but shit happens.

Brass Pearl was an old Gem, only a certain tall Ruby was older. In her twenty eight thousand seven hundred years of life, she had seen things that would beggar the mind to believe. 

So it didn’t surprise her when they found a new player in the game, a shift in the possibilities, people moving towards Boston for an unknown purpose. A biotinker as the natives labeled it had gone disconcertingly silent from their bugs embedded into the network of the villain known as Accord. 

The man reminded her of the many, many Turquoises she had met in her long life. An intelligence that scales to the size and scope of the problems presented to him. The main issue of course was that the man was insufferable and violently perfectionist. It didn’t help that his plans didn’t always take humanity into account. 

He would be a powerful enemy…if they didn’t have ‘Thinkers’ of their own to counteract his own plays, and far superior technology. Getting bugs into his enterprise had been as easy as stealing…was it candy? Yes, as easy as stealing candy from a baby.

Even then underestimating him wasn’t a mistake they were willing to make and they were keeping him in mind for their operations within the city.

“Black Beryl, what have you seen with your Vision?” She asked Beryl, a newer gem than most but a very skilled one at that.

She was a tall Gem, a couple of inches above her own height. Wild black hair cascaded behind muscled shoulders hidden by a puffy almost furred dress, skin almost as dark as obsidian and flecks of reflective sable staring back at her. 

Her claws flexed in and out, and fangs flicked out into needle daggers like the teeth of a deep sea anglerfish. 

“My Vision caught a few people behaving…oddly, bringing materials and items to several warehouses across the city.” Brass understood.

“There’s likely an unknown Master in this town, and based on what Sunrise Diamond has told us of what she saw in their auras…it’s likely a child of Christine Mathers.”

A true annoyance, Mama Mathers power wasn’t as effective as it should be due to the arcane nature of Sapphire's future sight, but it still caused a small reduction in proficiency to filter out the chaff. Up until they adapted to the assault and updated their clairvoyant programming. 

“We know his home planet has a clairvoyant reading of some of this world’s players. The description of burns…likely Lionheart.” Black Beryl rubbed her chin in reply to Brass, a chittering pulse of curiosity surging into her song. “His emotional manipulation abilities would serve him well in acquiring manpower.” 

“And we can’t have that happening.” While they weren’t here to solve the world’s problems, doing some of that was inherent in the nature of their mission. There were billions of shards to take care of. Collapsing their cycle, their remaining hub and shutting down their Asura would account for a good fraction of their problems. 

But in the end, this wasn’t their Earth, and they couldn’t force change on a planet with six billion lives. Even if that wasn’t even close to a tenth of a percent of their population, much of their labor was taken up with monitoring the galaxies for rogue shards, as well as infrastructure overhauls after the massive boosts in technology in the last decade.

The Empire had never found much of a point to shielding colonies, despite their capabilities. They were always more worlds, and their infrastructure was itself shielded. They were conservative, not idiotic. 

Of course that had changed after Galvan Prime had been destroyed by a mass energy bombardment by the Atasians, the former ‘Highbreed’ empire. It had saved a number of colonies from the shards energy projection abilities. Further improvements had come about when Yellow Diamond had been caught in an Incursean Conquest Ray that had destroyed a higher shard, one capable of harvesting powers. 

It was certainly a test of Diamond durability, and the immediate aftermath left the general in charge in utter terror when she walked off a planet exploding around her and proceeded to break into the ship through the vents to berate him. With a full burst of Diamondsong in his ringing ear holes. 

She had heard the general had been exiled by Empress Attea, gaining the animosity of an extragalactic nation of world destroyers wasn’t considered smart when you were already enemies with the fucking Reach. They had been the major power in the Milky Way for thousands of years, until the various aliens rose up to fight back.

The Incurseans had stolen five hundred worlds, and they hadn’t even done it through conquest, the natives were treated badly enough to prefer the rule of the Incurseans of all peoples.

She shook her head, whistling a quiet song to herself. The Incurseans had become softer over the past thousand years, barring a handful of incidents they were less conquest happy than they had used to be. 

There was a knock on the door, and Brass gestured to Black Beryl. The Gem grinned and leapt out the window. Crazy Gem…

“Come in.” The little Diamond quietly shuffled into the room, umber eyes meeting her own with a curious light. 

Brass Pearl tilted her sunglasses, shifting her attention to her Diamond. She was young, effectively a zygote by her standards if it wasn’t for how humans matured. 

She was inexperienced, but she had a real strength and power, a potential that was untapped. She had seen it in the spars she had with Starry, the impact of shockwaves from punches and kicks, and crimson Diamondfire flaring around clenched fists.

Well she used she but that was simply a default for all Gems, it would be a bit unfair to call her she when she didn’t want to be called she. As well as rude to call her he when she wanted to be called she. Brass had her doubts that Sunrise cared much, though she suspected he didn’t understand the implications of moving back and forth as easily as he did.

Then again she was a Gem and not a human, maybe he just liked using shapeshifting and didn't care that his proclivities would make human bigots crack.

Good for him.

“My Diamond,” She hid a smirk at how he seemed mildly shy at the use of the honorific. Poor fool had no idea what he was in store for. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you after you sent out your suspicion on the net.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh, schooling her expression.

The little Diamond was rubbing his slightly haired chin, bright umber-red eyes shuttering as their focus shifted to her. “About the possible Master?”

Brass nodded, adjusting her glasses. “I know this may be a lot to ask when you’re still quite new to this…”

“Yeah?” The young Diamond grunted, eyebrows furrowing.

The Pearl clasped her hands together. “I think it would be for the best that you help us find him.”

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.5

“So let me get this straight, you want me to use my psychic powers to find the Fallen Master keeping a low profile in Boston. Is that it?” I clapped my hands together, glaring at Brass Pearl.  

“Yes, my Diamond. Your psychic abilities are a prime asset, and with Black Beryl as a partner, we can use her clairvoyance to hone in on the Fallen in the city.” 

…

Wow. Okay.

It had been a nasty surprise to learn the Fallen were in Boston, but the question was also why. Why here, of all places they could have gone. What was here that they wanted, and why did they apparently enthrall a biotinker to do it? Or was it a matter of convenience rather than a large scale plan?

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind, actually using my powers for something sounds nice.” I had pretty much been keeping to myself, partially because it was what I was used to. “So do you want me to do it now, or later.”

Brass Pearl smirked, and her aura flared with practiced smugness. “I believe now would be the best time, you’ve gained some experience with astral projection haven't you?” 

“I have.” I admitted. “Aster taught me quite a bit on how to project my mind across the psychic planes.” I had managed to replicate my galactic scale projection, which while outside of the remit of Parahuman powers was within the scale of powers for an adult-stage Entity. 

For their precognition and broadcasts anyway, and the first worked by a mix of simulations, collapsing of quantum possibilities, and actual future sight. Though it worked through different angles than Sapphires and other known diviner’s in the multiverse. They couldn’t see thousands or tens of thousands of years into the future, but their future sight within a century was near-perfect without outside variables they couldn’t predict. 

Of course since Abaddon was trying to salvage a broken cycle, he didn’t have supernova levels of energy to throw around anymore. And if we had anything to say about it he never would.

I shook my head. “I’ll try my best, keep an eye on me will you?” She flashed a smile and a thumbs up. I brought out a mat from my gem, pulling the power from my consciousness.   

Excellent.

I sat down, and did it in a meditative position. I reached down into my consciousness, that aura of magic and power seething with potential abilities. It was malleable, shiftable, code we could reprogram as needed.

Gems weren’t as set in stone as they thought they were, they were intelligent, sapient machine life, though of a grey goo nature rather than out of control solar powered robots. How else could a Pearl learn how to use a weapon, how else could a Sapphire who saw only one possible future learn how to widen her horizons, how else could a Bismuth craft weapons that made even Bowenites green with envy?

With those swirling thoughts, I rose up into the mindscape, flying away into space due to a minor shift. The world was a glimmering canvas of stars, and I saw the world, the cacophony of six billion souls. 

I sensed the traces of other minds, but they were dull, muted, almost colorless. They were a little garbled, adding up to billions more than there were humans on Earth. 

The shards most likely, their thoughts leaking through into a reality level they didn’t know existed. They were large but dull, their…auras, their souls fragile and tentative while the humans shined at a far greater intensity. 

I saw one aura, a sweeping thing in gold and red, Scion was vast in scope but lacking in breadth. The aura, it required things the Entities barely had, emotions, empathy, the ability to truly live. 

I moved down, recalling the scene of sulphur, the burn marks, surface wounds that couldn’t reach deeper. I bounced back and forth between people, catching glimpses of faces and people, and I could see marks where their emotions were altered, subtle connections tying them to…

I compressed space into nothing, and found myself staring at the man himself, he looked much like his brother if he was more masculine and more heavily built. If I let myself fall just a little closer, I could effectively take him over but well…no.

Thankfully Steven had taught me how to avoid the foibles of our shared powers, including the fact I could theoretically resurrect sushi. I shook my head, and with a wave of my hand I brought up the number of connections.

Some were faint, cases of emotional manipulation rather than full control, a slight influence, while the burned auras were of people under his full control. I caught a flash of a PRT uniform and blanched. 

Oh shit.

There was a Hispanic man, smoke gathered around his mouth and I could feel those strings, and with a call of Diamondsong I could rip their strings to pieces. But I needed to gather information on what they’re doing, if they suddenly snapped back doing something dangerous I could get people killed. 

I looked back to Lionheart, and found him whispering, turned away from me and facing a ghostly presence, a shade spread across hundreds of places. I reached and found myself in a tunnel, a dark space with a one way window into a grey room. 

“Mama. Just give me a little more time, it won’t be hard to acquire the little slut.” I felt my lips curling into a snarl. “Those freaks won’t be able to protect her forever, and if I’m lucky we might catch some more Wards.” When the tendril of Mather’s power tried to touch me, I pushed it back without even a lick of resistance.

She was too weak to get past my Aura and too blind to even catch the full extent of its existence, it’s frequencies and wavelengths. 

“Don’t be cocky boy, we’ve lost members who make mistakes like thinking it’s going to be easy.” The woman went on, and I shivered. I reached out to the hundreds of connections her shard had made and…labeled them for later.

“Fair. We’ll be making a move soon, and since our target is spending some time with the Wards, PRT wanted a look at the group housing her.” 

My blood went cold, Elle as Artificer had been invited out with the Wards because the PRT wanted data on whether she was safe. Which meant…

I pulled out with a mental snap, barely keeping myself from tearing apart the telepathic projection. They didn’t need to be alerted to what we could do just yet. 

“Sunrise?” Brass Pearl spoke up, her usual smugness gone.

“The Fallen are going after Elle and the Wards.”

 Her aura vibrated while her song record scratched.

“Fuck.”

Fuck indeed.

Rachel kept a hand on Brutus, chuffing quietly as the short red woman bumped her head against Angelica. Well alien rock, but that didn’t matter much to her. She had been annoying at first, with her terrible but clearly non-serious flirting, and her odd ability to get her dogs to listen to her. 

Which made sense since Frills had mentioned she had been working with dogs for longer than she had been alive. Her tips had been grating, but helpful, and it taught her a lot of things about her power. Something about how it buffed out some of the rough edges of her training methods. 

It felt painful to even think about how her training could be wrong, but Frills had cleared it up that it also involved the specific circumstances of the dynamics of unrelated dogs living too close to each other. It didn’t hurt that some of the adjustments were things she was already changing due the continued aggression of some of her dogs. 

Time out had proven effective when she had the space, and having an entire planet for her dogs made that possible for as many dogs as she wanted. She had a few hundred dogs to help train along with a handful of volunteers. Some would be adopted by Gems and others by people screened by Sapphires.

Which was insane even to her, but then they didn’t suffer from any drawbacks of overusing their power like most thinkers. And if they were going to use their powers to help dogs, she wasn’t going to begrudge them having contact with them.

Much. 

She had a relationship with her dogs that few could come close to understanding, when she rode her dogs it was like they were one and the same, part of the pack. Didn’t matter that they weren’t technically pack animals, they were still close, closer than any family she ever had. They believed in her, they respected her, and they didn’t fear her, they feared her absence, the lack of their caretaker and leader. 

No one could mimic what she did, because of how her power worked, because of how she worked. A bond that was unique and yet… some people were always happier than her.  

“You want to ask something?” Frills hummed, eyes glinting and sweet songs turned. 

“Most people wouldn’t want someone like me.” She didn’t care, none of them had been there, none of them understood, and none of them mattered. 

“Oh that. This have something to do with all the people you’ve maimed?” There was a disconcerting flatness to the nonchalant reply. “Oh. It’s certainly morally questionable…which is why we’ll deal with it.”

“Why?” She asked, voice harsh, her grip on Brutus’ leash tightening.

“Because we don’t really have the moral high ground Rachel.” The aforementioned girl questioned that statement. Rescuing dogs was generally good in her eyes, and their ‘hero’ business seemed good.

“…” 

Frills sighed. “My people were designed to conquer other worlds, a harsh dictatorship for any Gem considered defective or wrong.” She scoffed. “The punishments were harsh…and unyielding, we were a corrupt, stagnant giant with no respect for any life. If we had come to this planet…we would have killed everything including the dogs…because organic life would be in the way of our glorious empire.”

Her hackles raised at the idea, at the idea of them destroying a world and moving on like it was nothing.

“What happened?” 

“The Gem War happened,” Frills sang a dirge. “A thousand year war for Earth, between the Crystal Gems and the Empire. Hundreds of millions of Gems across multiple colonies fought for their right to be free, to not be mistreated and treated like disposable tools.”

“Did it work?” Rachel questioned despite herself.

“Most of those Gems were shattered, and only a handful of Gems survived the Diamond attack that ended the war.” Frills denied. “And the worst part was the lies, the leader of the Rebellion, the legendary Rose Quartz who shattered Pink Diamond was Pink Diamond. The entire war was started by a lie, and even if she believed in the ideals of her armies…she lied, and left behind a son to deal with all the problems she thought were gone.”

Rachel’s lips curled. Something about that grated with her. 

“Did he?” 

“Yes. But it hurt him, it broke him. He was a child trying to fight a galactic empire, trying to fix problems a kid should never have to.” There was something soft, bitter, and angry in her Gemsong. “I was in town when he…” She trailed off, and didn’t continue. “We’re trying to fix our mistakes, it’s not easy, it’s not painless to change, but we’ll help you because we want to help you.”

“I don’t understand.” She didn’t, not completely. 

“Well I—!” Ruby was cut off, lifting a communicator to her face. “Excuse me, they’re going after who?!”

Rachel blinked. “What?” There was a bite in her tone, she didn’t like being left in the dark.

“The Fallen are after Artificer.” Rachel straightened up.

Elle had been confusing to deal with, they were about the same age, and yet she was so much easier to deal with, she didn’t cower away when she got angry, not even when she threatened her with her dogs. She didn’t back away either, and could be surprisingly fiery at times, holding her own with a newfound confidence. 

She had heard rumors about the Fallen from people working at dog shelters, and somehow…somehow the idea of her being a victim of the group didn’t sit right with her. 

“We have time…if you want to come along that is?” Frills released a biting flame from her mouth. 

Rachel brushed her hands along her dog, and vibrations burst from her hands. Brutus grew, changed, distorted larger and larger. Rachel grit her teeth in a burning scowl.

Frills lifted her hands defensively. “I suppose I’ve got your answer.”

Artificer or Elle to a thankfully small handful of people was very excited to be out and about. She had been working on her costume for a few days, and her magic for about the same amount of time. 

It was a modified version of a uniform from a school of magic, the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics. Stripes had been a teacher there for a few months, after learning what she could from the Boiling Isles. A grey tunic with a dark grey belt, cowl, and boots. 

The sleeves and leggings were a variety of colors, the upper sleeves were orange, while the lower half was yellow. Her upper leggings were plum purple while the lower half was coffee colored. Her boots were navy blue but rimmed with magenta and cyan. Finishing off the costume was a green hooded cloak with the inner part shaded the same light red shade as Sunrise’s gem. It was patterned like a maze.

She was a student technically of Hexside, she was just…distance learning. With Stripes as her tutor to round out what she could learn. 

Artificer flicked her ears where the magic clip-on earrings were connected, letting her communicate freely with anyone on the network. She touched her white mask, made out of a strange chitinous substance. It was a flat shaped thing, and she pulled her lips up in a smile.

She reached for her powers, looking into the pocket worlds her shard had access to. Thousands, maybe millions of worlds were in the remit of her power, though she had only opened the doors to a handful of them. Her original power hadn’t changed much, she had only one or two dozen feet of range when she was moving. Over a thousand when she stood still.

She could turn it off and on, and toggle onto worlds she wanted to leak into this world and specify how much she wanted to bring in. Based on her range of course, moving she could extend her power two dozen feet or less depending on what she wanted.

Artificer smiled casually at the nervous PRT officer, not feeling worried. With her costume and cloak she was as safe as could be. The clothing was Chroma weaved with magic wool, and impregnated with Infinitum metal fiber. The cloak used even more magic wool, and she had personally seen it block fire and energy.

“Hello,” She greeted the man behind the desk with a wave. “I’m supposed to be meeting with the Wards today?”

He gave a smile, a nervous one. “I’ll have someone notify them via the PA system, it might take a few minutes.” 

It didn’t take long at all, and there was a light thump from outside as people made their approach. She already felt them out, with the music shifting to the beat. 

Behind her mask she wore a golden circlet, one that played a quiet background music that faded into the back of her mind until it was needed. It gave her an advantage most people lacked.

She recognized Weld, the sort of handsome metal cape and knew the other Ward from online research. Outfitter was a clothing tinker, from what she looked up, she could make and weave cloth and fiber based tinkertech.  

She’d probably kill for what she had on.

Elle tilted her head, amused at the general nervousness ringing in her ears like a plucked string. Weld fidgeted while Outfitter adjusted her costume, a pretty red dress with a symbol of a ball of yarn on the chest, long heavy sleeves and gloves, with a domino mask covering her olive skinned face and her wavy dark hair pulled into a French braid.  

She was a pretty girl if nothing else, but shorter and more compact than Elle’s own thin, tall frame.

“I remember you.” She acknowledged Weld, still smiling amicably. “They said something about a patrol?” 

Weld squared his shoulders. “We wanted a chance to talk with you, see if you were doing well…on your new team.” 

She blinked and smirked. “You mean outside an insane asylum?” Outfitter choked. And fair, the joke didn’t completely sit right with her either. But…it helped. “I don’t mind, I’ve been getting some training in. For fun mostly…I’m not really that interested in heroics.” 

“Well…yes.” Weld coughed. “I imagine your guardians didn’t mind our request then?” 

“Not sure why they would? They let me do whatever I want within reason.” Obviously she couldn’t turn the settlement into literal Swiss cheese, or make it into a rainforest. “They’re mostly just letting me practice my powers in places safe from people.”

“How?” Outfitter said with wide eyes.

“Pocket dimensions, nobody gets hurt if I bring something dangerous by accident. Not that I could. ” Even the weakest Gem was tougher than they looked. “But should we go and do this patrol thing or not?”

“You sure you’re up for it?” Outfitter questioned, dark eyes staring back through the holes in her mask. 

She smiled placidly, and brought out an object from one of her worlds. It was a silver metal staff, embroidered with gemstones “I think I’ll do fine.” She pushed the object back where it had been, and she retrieved a simple stick instead. A stick could do anything you put your mind to.

That was what Elle believed anyway. 

Her Circlet of Luck let her read the musical hesitation from Outfitter. It let her dodge things she couldn’t even see, giving her warning with the shift of the soundtrack of the universe.

“So for the patrol, there’s the option of rooftop or street?” The two girls gave Weld a look. He coughed loudly. “Rooftop it is.” He led the way, Outfitter passing him a cowl that flickered with strange energy. 

The two capes led her down into an inconspicuous exit, and the two capes jumped. They fluttered up slowly, like the green dinosaur from that video game Ambz liked to play. 

Weld looked concerned, and she felt a Coral curling around her back, hiding behind the Chroma cape. Watery wings phased through the fabric, and she took off into the air. 

“I thought you were a Shaker?” The Coral dissipated the wings when she was at the top of the PRT building. 

“Tinkertech.” Artificer waggled her fingers with a grin. “Even my costume is tinkertech, super tough and resistant to attacks.” She didn’t elaborate to keep up the mystery. 

“Interesting design, did someone from Atlas come up with it?” Weld asked, and Elle didn’t let him catch her amusement.

“The cape and mask is mine, and everything else is modified from a school uniform from where they’re from.” Elle glanced at her hands, gripping them tightly. “I chose the colors though.” Through a magical girl transformation sequence. 

“Do you have a frequency the Console can connect to?” Weld asked as they flew across the next building, though Artificer brought out a large log instead, easily balancing on the wood before it was slowly pushed back into its own reality.

Too easy…

“Yeh. Atlas doesn't really use normal radio, but we can still use it.” She tapped her earrings. “They’ve got a lot of neat stuff.”

“What’s it like with them?” Outfitter was the one who asked. Elle knew it was coming. The PRT didn’t fully trust Atlas, and probably thought they were using her for her power.

“It’s nice,” So she decided to be honest. “A lot nicer than the Asylum, they don’t treat me like a freak and they call me by my name.” Labyrinth was what they had called her in that dark place. She knew a lot of people were being fired from her wing, an investigation starting after she had left. “They know a lot about how powers work, and they have a few on-hand therapists.” She sighed. “They didn’t even want me out patrolling because they were scared I might get hurt.”

“Yeah, it is a bit weird.” Weld commented, his expression twisting. “We were supposed to just sit with you, get to know you a little better. There wasn’t really any need to patrol until…” Elle stopped listening, her hair standing on end. The two Wards receive the signal from Flowers the same time she did.

“It’s a set-up, there are Fallen and thralls in the area!” The two Wards stiffened, with a gasp of horror from Outfitter. 

The violins and flutes stop, calm before the storm. Then they burst into a violent, shadowy screech. Artificer digs her heels into the sand now covering the ground, a sound halfway between a rumble and drumming, curling lines of black and shadow.

They gather into rough silhouettes of dark, an impossible blackness, a gap in reality she vaguely sensed. Some aspects of her power reacted strongly in tandem with the circlet. She dodged when one of them tried to grab her, ashy gas flickering around them, another power. One was switched for flesh, grabbing at her with grubby fingers.

She smacked him upside the head with her stick, and he switched to another shade. 

“Seir, Rephaite, eight bio-constructs, and a single parahuman thrall with a Brute-Trump power are attacking you. B—err Hellhound and Frills are on their way.”

Elle narrowed her eyes, listening to the music of battle as she continued to effortlessly dance around the enhanced shadows. Seir was a major Fallen member, who had earned a kill order for his actions and crimes, while Rephaite was a Trump with a shadowy gas theme to his power granting abilities. 

She avoided a tentacle, as something emerged from the ground, blending into the surroundings with its special skin. To her it looked like a mix between an octopus, a spider, and a monkey. The skin was taut, pale white epidermis stretched along sinuous limbs and tendrils with some ending in claws, and hooks and humanoid hands. The face was a whirling maw of teeth, four eyes blinking separately like a chameleon. 

“Like em? Blasto cooked them up for us, since he’s under new management.” Seir switched with a clone to avoid a line of wood she managed to place. Too slow. 

Elle grit her teeth, not liking being caught off balance, she would have screamed if she didn’t knew it was a stupid idea. 

He was a hideous man, a flabby unattractive body with his belly hanging over tight pants and vests. A mask made out of a flayed horse’s head, and a series of gross tattoos. 

“You’re not going to get away with this.” Weld protested, knocking away a shadow clone. He hissed as the dark gas around them struck his skin like a bell.

Seir’s laugh, and the disgusting way he examined both Elle and Outfitter told her his response wouldn’t be nice. 

“Boy, you’re outright stupid for thinking this is something we can’t get away with.” His lecherous gaze made her skin shiver. “We’ll have the slut whether you like it or not.” 

She finished shaping the glyph with her feet, and added intent and what little magic was in the air. The glyph burned, and in a moment she saw the framework of the magic. Light, burning beautiful light, and a memory emerged, of light in cerise and rose and crimson.  

The light emerged from the glyph, pink shaded light striking the clones. She watched and, and, and—

THE STARS OF CYGNUS DIE AS THE SHARDS BURN!

She stepped back, blinking literal stars from her eyes. She looked and found no one else had reacted, and three constructs collapsed under the assault of strange, esoteric light. 

“Gah!” Seir stepped back, and he grunted, a guttural thing. “You fucking bitch!”  He cast another line of clones, and right as they emerged, the floor became lava, pulled from the demon world. They exploded and she partially let Seir not feel the terrible heat and brimstone. Only partially with how he hissed and screamed back.

She retracted the lava, pushing the world back into place.

“Fuck this! Get them!” The bio-constructs emerged from the shadows, all the same as the first, with tendrils covered with a strange substance. They sang with danger. 

But they weren’t what she had to dodge, and she rolled out of the way of a person, bulky almost to the point of parody. Dark spandex and a full face mask, and he moved…shambled really, and she remembered Flowers’ warning.

He reached out, and the flow of battle opened up for her. “Don’t let him touch you!” She screamed and Weld listened, twisting out of the way.

Seir complimented. “Oh if you can keep your brains, you’ll make an excellent soldier.” Elle whispered, and her Coral fired out several bubbles in quick succession. Two hit clones, and they flickered oddly, distorting and glitching. 

Seir switched with a clone and was hit anyway, his head covered in a bubble. Any profanity was muffled by the object, and his hands flicked out another wave, and Elle crafted another light glyph.  

Three clones popped out of existence, and Elle let herself get pulled out of the way by Outfitter as she used a cloth based limb to pull her out of the way of the mind controlled Brute. She smacked another clone with a stick, knocking it back.

Her range was already growing, extending in length and width and potency. Given a few minutes, a half hour, she could turn a thousand something feet of city into a world of nightmare and horror. What a terrible thing.

Seir popped the bubble, and roared. “You fucking whore, I’m getting the first turn when we run a—” she heard the warsong before anyone else, and pulled the two Wards back with sheer determination.

My shoulder hurts now, Weld is too fat. 

Two three thousand pound monsters crush four of the constructs into gore and black ichor. They howled in tandem with Frills’ raging beat of swords and fire. They swung their heavy spiked tails, and slammed two more stealthy monsters, folding them in half. 

Weld twisted his arms into blades, cutting at the dark shades of Seir, and hissing at the boosted dark smog around them and Seir. A dozen of them emerged, and went right for the civilians without hesitation. Outfitter dropped down, extending her cloth limbs to deflect the shadows. It hissed at their touch.

The thrall roared and charged at her, with the shrieking of violins and flutes. She pushed the worlds into reality, and found a world she had never seen before. A place of faeries and sprites. She was careful, and brought out a tree dark as night, and he rebounded back. 

Seir himself was gone, leaving his clones behind to mask his escape. Too bad that Frills saw it coming.

Her hands lit with fire, and she summoned a chakram and chucked it. It flew, bending in the air despite it being impossible. What did impossible mean to creatures of stone, light and magic?

There was a pained shout, the chakram bouncing back to slice apart some of the shades of Seir. Frills scowled. “He’s gone, they have a teleporter.” She twitched a thumb, and the flying chakram came down in a slicing cut.

Every remaining shadow was destroyed, leaving only the thrall. 

“Brutus, Angelica, hold! ” Elle remembered Rachel was there as she commanded the dogs. They gripped tightly onto the robust thrall, and with a sigh Elle chucked a little bottle of Newter fluid. It broke apart into flecks of hard light, and the Brute dropped like a rock. 

Which raised a question. “Why didn’t you use the knock-out fluid on Seir?”

“I did, but his teleporter ‘friend’ took his knocked out body and blinked out.” There was annoyance. “Plus I had to deal with his clones trying to kill children. ” She spat her Gemsong, frequencies pitching upwards.

“Drop.” Rachel commanded, the Brute was released like a ton of bricks. There was a nearby explosion that made Elle flinch, and she began to retract the changes, bushes keeping people from the shades, the pathways twisting to let them escape. It was going to take her…about a minute or two?

Someone was running towards them, dressed in red and holding a giant cool axe as she did so. 

“Are you alright?!” She shouted the question, and Elle heard a struggle from where the explosion was. 

“Yes!” Elle waved happily, feeling much less pressure now that the Fallen were gone.

“You got Rephaite?” Frills sang back, her grin soft though Elle heard the little strained note in her Gemsong. She was enraged, and it was hard to make Frills angry. She was flirty, liked teasing and making fun of others, but she was careful to not push too far and backed away if asked. 

“I think you’re going to need to join the debriefing.” Challenger added, scratching her cheek. 

“If you’ll give me a few minutes to contact my superiors, we'll be right there.”

“You have five minutes,” Challenger approached the Wards and her. “Are you sure all of you are alright?”

Elle smiled at her concern. “No, we’re okay.”

Because this slight wasn’t going to be ignored by Atlas.

“Artificer and the Wards are both secure, they’re unharmed but we have a Mastered cape, a young independent hero supposedly taken by the Fallen a week ago. As well as a single Fallen member in custody.” Frills informed me quite nicely, as I adjusted my collar and shrugged on a red cloak. 

I wore a black tunic and red trousers, fitting tightly snugly around my hips. My gem was exposed of course, and I released my power, my Aura in a firm burst of energy. I was quite completely fucking enraged so I was a little distracted.

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?” Starry didn’t seem as emotional and it was a fair point to make. 

“I’m currently the most powerful psychic being on his planet, and we’re facing a Master and his thralls including a number of capes. One of them being a biotinker. ” I hissed but did take that time to breathe in and out, and to let my rage simmer down. 

Starry raised an eyebrow. “You sure it isn’t your Diamond brain making the decisions for you?” 

“I’m 90% sure we’re in agreement that this is necessary, the Fallen tried to take someone from me, tried to enslave her.” My voice distorted into a dirge, into a madrigal of war and battle. “She is under my aegis, she is my.” It was almost frighteningly draconic how angry I was. 

HOW DARE THEY TAKE WHAT IS MINE!

“Alright, but you do need to think this through. This world doesn't exactly like people with your power…and for good reason too.” I didn’t disagree with Starry’s assessment. 

“Well it’s lucky there’s already two heroes with Master or Master-adjacent powers. Glory Girl has her aura while Gallant is an empath and has emotion shifting beams.” Both were around at this point. “Some of my more immoral power uses aren’t things I would do anyway.” Plus there’s a couple others I think like Edict.

“We should be able to manage that. But are you certain that entering combat is for the best?” She sounded more than worried, like I was making a terrible mistake.

“For this, yes. I’m pretty much the best person for breaking the Master effects. Plus being physically tougher than you should be helpful.” Plus the fact I had been training for weeks, and had multiple code patches applied to cheat the system.

The fact I could hold my own at all was thanks to Starry and Aventurine, and I had gotten tips from Brass Pearl to add some extra elegance and flexibility. Plus stealth, I could make my steps effectively silent. 

“Then you should be partnered up with someone, I recommend Black Beryl Facet-2X6L Square-3BC in particular.”

“Black Beryls are the ones capable of projecting their perception across great distances?” From what I can tell they had a range in the miles, though some had ranges in the hundreds of miles.  

“Yes.” I felt just a little excitement and relief at the same time. One Black Beryl sounded cool, and having someone to watch my back was another bonus.

“Then I don’t mind that at all. When is she going to come in?”

“Now.” 

Jesus, Buddha, Stars! “What?” I hadn’t even noticed her approach, and I blinked at the sound of her song. It had a smoky, throaty, husky quality, with the pattern of jazz and blues music. It recalled images of Scarlet Johansson. 

Black Beryl was about 6’3, built similarly to an Emerald, wearing a fluffy dark dress accented with gold, her oval face cascading with wild black hair, and dark, dark eyes staring at me with a serious shine. She wore a golden band around her neck, and her white claws curled as she shifted her hands. She was curvier than an Emerald, but other than that she was quite similar. With her canines reminding me of deep sea fish…

She bowed her head. “Hello there.” She waved with a slightly twitch of her wrist, and a jazzy chirp.

“Hi.” I waved back. “So I suppose we should get on with this then?”

I teleported right outside the PRT building, my electrical interference essentially leaving me as a blank void in every camera within a mile. I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling half a hundred auras within several hundred feet. They were small things, clinging tightly to skin, and waning and waxing dynamic expressions of mind and soul. 

My own Aura was far larger, and it had increased in range every other day. From about a thousand and a half feet with Steven’s first lesson to around six miles. Most Diamonds had cowls of light and song in the hundreds. 

Black Beryl was elsewhere, using her Vision to search the city for the Fallen.

I opened the door, and narrowed my eyes when two PRT agents stepped in my direction. I kept my Aura from connecting to theirs as common courtesy. 

“I believe I was mentioned to be coming here?” One of the agents with a suspicious but more reasonable aura spoke up.

“Sunrise Diamond?” She questioned, though I couldn’t see from behind her dark faceplate. 

“In the flesh,” She glanced at my face, and I grinned to get my point across. Having wide daggers for canines and shuttering Diamond eyes certainly proved my odd nature. “I’d like to see if my friends are alright.” My concern became palpable, rolling into my clicking song. 

It took them only a few minutes to get me into a meeting room, with Frills happily chatting with Challenger, while Bastion was elsewhere in the building. Even then I could feel the eyes on me, as I followed the tune of battle, not of fists and blades but of mind and wit.

I could feel odd tricks bouncing off my Aura, the reality shifts involved with predicting the future wiped away with a few twists of magic. Though not to the point of blinding them.

I slipped past Challenger, my concern overwhelming my urge to be polite.

“Artificer! You’re unharmed right, that waste of a man didn’t hurt you did he?” 

Her aura pulsed with embarrassment as I began to check her over, checking joints and poking at bones. I tugged at her fingers, turned her arms, and lightly poked her legs with my boot. 

I pawed at her face, and felt her pulse with a warm purr in my throat, her hair seemed unharmed if a little dirty.

“I’m fine, don’t be weird!” She whined, and I released a second pulse of worried Gemsong.

“You know I can’t help but worry, we should have seen this coming.” I’ve been too complacent, too cowardly. We couldn’t go hard because we’d break the planet, but we could have done more than we had.

“I’m still here though, and we can find them easily enough right?” She downplayed my worries and I pouted. 

“Yes. But it doesn't erase my concerns, you and I both know you’re not ready.” She deflated, nodding almost tearfully. 

“Umm…” She swallowed. “I think I’d like to go home, when we’re done here.” 

“Of course, you’ll probably want to talk with Amber.” She nodded, looking just a little less confident and joyful. “Now, Challenger, was there something you wanted to talk about?” I turned around, her surprise flickering along her roiling aura. 

“You’re Sunrise Diamond, the Trump/Master right?” Challenger was amicable, using her axe like a cane. “The higher ups weren’t too sure about you, until Frills mentioned you could break Master effects.”

The aforementioned Ruby waved cheekily. 

I sighed. “I’ve got a fairly wide number of powers, more than anyone else in Atlas, more potent, unrestricted.” I flicked out my claws, shards of obsidian capable of parting the person in front of me in two. “I thought it’d have been specified by now.”

“Starry said they didn’t want to reveal more until some of their members were more comfortable.” Challenger added to my knowledge. “If you don’t mind, could you elaborate on your powers? Might be helpful for joint operations.”

“Brute, I’m at this moment stronger than any single person in Atlas.” 

“…one of the ‘Quartz’ was able to hold up a thousand ton tinkertech hydraulic press.” She seemed taken aback. “Anything else?”

I chewed on my lip. “Mover. I’ve broken the sound barrier from time to time, and haven't figured out flight yet.” I squinted. “Shaker. I can create energy barriers.” I created a hexagon barrier, tapping it. “Emotional aura, a telekinetic push.” I didn’t demonstrate either. “Master. Empathic powers, and general detection of mental manipulations within my range, and if I know what I’m looking at or paying enough attention.”

“Sounds more like a grab-bag than a Trump power?” Challenger didn’t seem impressed.

“Tinker, I can use and make a fair amount of the ‘tinkertech’ Atlas uses. I can even improve it. Blaster, building busting energy projection. Thinker, rapid processing and a few others like enhanced senses, plus my empathic powers again.”

“I’m getting the idea you’re holding back a bit on the details.” Challenger didn’t seem upset though.

“Well there’s Striker for compressing my energy projection into my fists or for wrapping them in a bubble” I made a bubble gauntlet, moving my fist a bit forward. “Plus my healing abilities. Then there’s the control over my body.” I created crystalline plating along my arms, rose and crimson in color. “So Changer.”

“Plus how you interfered with the cameras, so minor Stranger powers.”

I gave her a thumbs up. “And I’m still growing into my power.” So I likely would get a moderate Trump rating for sheer number of powers, and their growing strength. They might end up thinking I was something like a Master-oriented Dauntless.

“So your warning, was it using your power?” 

“I can pinpoint Mastered people with my powers, at least one or two of them were in a PRT building.” I fibbed a bit. “I didn’t figure out what it meant until I dived deeper into my power.”

“You have a culprit?”

“Lionheart.” Challenger looked puzzled. “Half-Mathers.” She flinched. “Pyrokinetic emotional manipulator.”

“We did notice a brand along the Master victim’s sternum.” 

“Based on what I’ve been relayed, he’s grabbed up a short range teleporter, Blasto and is getting help from Seir who was being strengthened by a dark gas themed power booster.” I expanded upon their information. “Plus a handful of non-powered Fallen, and maybe one or two more capes.” 

“You’ve got some brave thinkers to look up Fallen capes with their powers.” She radiated a bit of curiosity. 

“They did mention I can nullify mental powers right? Anything that involves attempting to attack one’s mind isn’t getting in. Even my shields block those kinds of powers.”

“Well I can tell why you qualify for a Trump rating now.” Challenger was looking me up and down, as if reevaluating me. “If you’re able to detect and nullify Master effects, we might be able to get to this ‘Lionheart’ before he can make his escape.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that isn’t going to be allowed to be a quick process.”

I got a call. “If we wait several hours, we’re sure Lionheart will grow complacent and remain within the city. He’ll lay low.”

Thank you, Flowers. 

Challenger smirked. “No it’s not.”

Oh that’s fine.

I can wait.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.6

I glanced at the aura burn marks on two of the PRT agents, including one on the more nervous agent from when I had entered the room. I didn’t speak my suspicions aloud, though luckily Challenger was savvy enough to keep them well out of earshot.

“So is the delay because I’m a Master offering assistance during a possible, even probable M/S type situation?” I spoke bluntly, and Challenger seemed to be holding back a laugh. Bastion didn’t seem to like me much, so my question didn’t amuse him.

Bastion answered regardless. “We had been given some basic data on your power but not their extent and their strength. We thought it prudent to make sure none of them could interfere with a joint mission.”

“Okay.” He seemed to be bracing for impact, and was taken aback by my easy reply. “Is there something on my face?” 

“There’s generally more protest from independent heroes with these kinds of things.” Challenger explained. 

“I’m not in a rush since the Fallen aren’t leaving the city.” More a statement than a goal. They had nowhere to run. 

“Is this from your team’s thinkers?” Bastion asked, his aura going from suspicion to a more metered interest. 

“We’ve got multiple Precogs, and fairly advanced tinkertech equipment. It’s not exactly hard to figure out what they’re generally going to do.” Both capes received an alert.

“The room has been prepared.” I was escorted to a new room without any PRT agents, and I crossed my arms over my chest when I saw the Mastered cape was being held in heavy chains as he struggled with a roar in his throat.

“So I’ve been given the okay of breaking the effect?” I questioned both of them.

“We’ve got a Master of our own on the team, he’ll be keeping an eye on you.” I examined the aura, a flickering thing sending out beams. “Plus we checked in on a few things to be sure you were on the up and up.” Challenger was being oddly forthcoming here. 

I guess Atlas being PRT affiliates gave us some breathing room, though otherwise we weren’t part of the government. And over fifty ‘capes’ made us a force to be reckoned with.

“Fair enough, do you want me to start now or…?” She gestured, and I stepped forward. The Mastered Brute broke a chain and swung his beefy arm, it cracked against my chin and was rebounded by a jaw harder than steel. 

I pushed back the arm with a push of telekinetic force, and opened my mouth to sing. It was a burst of song and Aura, deny, defy, release! 

The cape’s dark eyes blinked and in an instant his body began to deflate, mass compressing down as whatever changes he inflicted on himself returned to whence they came. There was a shudder of pain, and horror, and a lot of rage burning like wildfire. 

I frowned, and scanned him for any further injuries. He seemed unharmed physically but mentally and emotionally…I had my doubts. 

“Hey, kid. Are you alive in there, or do you need a moment?” I spoke kindly, injecting a happier tone, trying to keep him calm.

“I…I can, I can tell you…what they have.” He swallowed and Challenger stepped forward along with Bastion. 

“If you’re not in a good state you don’t have to…” he cut me off.

“N-Nine non-cape Fallen, there’s…the burning man, Lionheart, Seir, teleporter through mirrors.” I doubt it was Othello, so likely some different cape. “Blasto, making minions for them…he wants to bring him back.”

Fuck.

“The Fallen can’t get their hands on a biotinker. ” Bastion sounded pissed. 

“Blaster. Can fire beams…with different effects.” So like a weaker Legend I was imagining. “Dangerous, they…” He sagged, and I stepped back as he passed out.

“Think the kid is out of it, he’s tired.” Challenger stepped in, and whispered. “You have permission to do the same for any compromised agents.”

I nodded, and whispered songs into three people’s ears, they stumbled and were quickly caught. There were three more, and I expanded my Aura, carefully avoiding everyone else in a three mile radius.

“Done.” She didn't seem too surprised, but then I had revealed I had powers in most of the classifications. “So, last I checked you’ve got about six hours at most before the Fallen leave the city, less once Lionheart’s thralls no longer check in.” Actually that gave me an idea.

“Something you want to tell us?” Challenger pointed her chin in Bastion’s direction. 

“If he’s been getting information from PRT employees, it’s possible we can use that against him if he can’t tell they’re no longer under his influence.” Ignoring possible extrasensory sub-powers. “No guarantee though.”

We ended up spending another half hour making sure there were no side effects to my use of my telepathic abilities. 

Annoying but that was life.

“So Artificer is back home isn’t she?” I questioned Frills, while Rachel petted her dogs. Despite them currently being one and a half ton murder beasts. Shutting off her shard’s conflict drive had calmed her down a notch. Only a notch though, because the shards were smart enough to not rely on their own energy to make people fight and use their powers.

It was only certain shards that had incredible influences on people, like Elle, like Rachel, like Shadow Stalker and Damsel of Distress. Or the Tinker 15 and Ash Beast. The Gems were interested in his shard for power generation and redirection purposes. Of course attacking a shard capable of shifting matter to energy and back again isn’t going to be easy. 

Bastion gestured. 

I was being led to a more isolated room, with Bastion speaking to his superiors on radio I could easily broadcast into. Not that I was going to, I didn’t have to explain every little trick I knew. 

I stepped through, and I could tell numerous countermeasures were active. Bastion was likely in the know, and based on what we had plucked from their networks so was Challenger.

“We have a few minutes before we start bringing in other capes for the operation. Blasto is already incredibly dangerous on his own, and him falling in with the Fallen could be a worse case scenario.”

“What did you want to talk about then?” I had a guess.

“Our thinkers were able to confirm you’re residents of another reality who are here long term until you can return home.” He stated, and I wondered how they managed that or if their shards were already being…subsumed.

“We’ve only processed about nine hundred shards so far, and most of them are Eden shards.” Flowers commented through my earpiece. “Though yes a good dozen of their Watch Dogs had their shards turned into wet labs for Galvan scientists.” In turn they could use those shards to influence other shards.

I was going to crack one of these days.

“Oh that. Yes, were there questions you wanted to ask about powers from our Earth?”

“We’ve taken a look at the fifty three registered cape identities, our main theories are clones or some type of Trump power.” He pointed to the files they had on us after the registration of Atlas as a cape team. 

“You’re sure you want us to be honest about that? It could be tricky.” 

“It would be helpful, though we won’t ask for much today. The Fallen come first.”

“When did powers start emerging on Earth Bet, about thirty something years ago?” I asked, and he nodded. “Well on Earth 460’/ powers have appeared sporadically throughout most of history. Some are born with it, others require outside stimuli to activate some built-in factor within the human body.” I fibbed, not giving many details. “Some of these changes are severe enough to cause heritable physical mutations and power sets.”

“And Atlas is an example of that?” 

“We…Gems, I suppose, are basically people with tons of different powers passed down to the next generation.” Next harvest was more accurate. “Each Gem type represents a different power set, Quartz are big, fast, powerful Brutes. Rubies are weaker Brutes but more common.”

“And their powers are the same?”

“Just the more basic characteristics, there are fluctuations, and some are stronger or weaker depending on different factors. Some Rubies have pyrokinesis, others don’t, and if a mineral type has numerous varieties, each variety has its own unique powers. A Rose Quartz is different from a Jasper, which is different from an Amethyst.”

“And a Diamond…is there some marked difference between them and other Gems?” I could hear the auras approaching.

“Power. ” So I decided to be honest. “The gap is generally as wide as the gulf between the Triumvirate and the average cape. Every basic power shared between all Gems is boosted by many orders of magnitude. And including myself there are only five in any universe.” I was half-lying, if there were alternates there could be other Diamonds.

“Hmm…”

I didn’t pay much attention to the meeting, instead playing a game of Pong inside my eyeballs. I had downloaded files on several games, while Black Beryl showed up and did her thing after scouting out the Fallen. 

Her power was taken as a type of Thinker power, and it had taken only another thirty minutes to assemble a team. The Wards were pretty much on lock down, and I had been allowed to remove the remaining thralls, including a higher up who had changed the Ward meeting from a peaceful meeting to a patrol. 

From what I heard, Accord was doing his part in keeping the peace since he didn’t like the Fallen anymore than we did. Much less Fallen with a biotinker slave. 

The operation included Bastion, Challenger, Glaive, Tripper, Auditor and Blackout. Bastion had shields, Challenger had her impact force multiplying tinkertech, Glaive channeled energy through her weapons, Tripper was a Trump who could throw out slow moving phasing balls with power disruption auras. And Auditor was their Master, sort of like Gallant but the power was tuned differently.

No impact force, but the blast could be used to detect more precise emotional states as well as physical condition. But he seemed to be a recently graduated Ward so the use of his power to monitor for Master thralls was…still getting on its feet. Of course he was operating elsewhere in the city, checking for any traces of emotional manipulation where he could.

Blackout was a Shaker who created shadows capable of blocking things, and healing her and others by attacking enemies. Something like that at least.

A number of Robonoids were gathering from the dark corners of the city, Challenger watching them with a fascination in her aura.

“So who has a robotics specialty among your team? I’d like to meet her.” She lifted one up on her axe, grinning.

“We…don’t have specialties like that? Anyone of a dozen of us could have made them, hell I’ve crafted a handful of Robonoids.”

I chirped, and one of the robots floated over to me, and I picked out a file with my mind. I looked at the various charts and visuals of data taken from scanning of Challenger’s tinkertech. All about power and impact multiplication. It seemed to involve various forms of gathering or concentrating forms of energy. A slight twist of dimensions drained kinetic energies to amplify the power of an impact by a hundred times. 

Mixed with more advanced versions of methods of force amplification. She could do things like multiplying the force of a baseball swing and having it swing with fifty tons of force. 

“Hmm…force multiplication, using them for some of our mining equipment might get some results.” Modifying the effect of momentum and amplifying the force of the drill could prove useful. Using magic to generate and gather kinetic energy sounded excellent. 

“Mining equipment?” She questioned while Black Beryl talked with the Protectorate capes including Bastion.

“Atlas is very good at creating things for digging and surviving deep down,” I explained quietly. “As in surviving down in the mantle deep, we could probably mine out the Earth’s core if we had enough resources. Not much of a point to it however.” I shrugged at her skeptical gaze. “The Flask Robonoids are good for scanning, repair, and information gathering in general.”

“You got anything I can’t crush with my boot?” She nudged one back. 

“There’s the Socket Robonoids.” One removed the cloaking, and there was a brief change in the outcomes when the parahumans and several PRT agents jumped. It was a giant round blue-green sphere, about the size of a golf cart with eight conical legs. It floated silently, sending out an invisible scan over everything within a hundred meters.

It created a holographic screen, projecting Olly into existence. From Mars even, though it wasn’t like anyone could know that. Zero lag tended to make that harder to parse.

“I’ve managed to confirm the numbers you’ll be facing, ten non-capes, five parahumans, thirty bio-creations, and based on some of these scans, a range of biological agents.”

“Diseases, plagues?” Bastion barged in, and I frowned when he unintentionally struck my shoulder. Though the way he winced told me it hurt him way more than it hurt me.

“No no. More like dangerous miasmas, pollen grenades, standard uses of Blasto. Though there’s a single biological agent…which appears limited to skin contact, it appears to increase aggression and recklessness.”

“Is it something they’ve made use of against us?” Glaive was the one who asked, dressed in blue tinted armor, blonde hair tied into a ponytail and a blade shaped mask covering her face. 

“Nope. I suspect they triggered a contingency of Blasto, and are suffering unknowingly from the effects.” Olly shrugged. “It would be best not to allow contact, and while they’ll have no effect on anyone from Atlas besides Artificer and Hellhound, we can still pass on traces of the agent.”

“Some type of always-on Breaker effect I’m guessing, my equipment seems a bit buggy with your bodies.” She gestured to Black Beryl and I, and her eyes darted to where Starry had hidden from sight. “And you’ve got the kid’s dogs because they won’t get affected much by what Blasto has in store.”

Rachel had been given a belt that generated a stasis field to block out any Blasto bullshit and the Socket Robonoids had the same tech built in. There were several Rubies and Quartz with the mission of destroying the bio-creations.

Bastion stepped back into my attention, talking to someone on the phone. “The Director said the agents are in place. Your thinkers, are there any hostages?”

I replied. “No. From what I can tell they never got the chance to grab any civilians. And without the PRT agents he enthralled he has no leverage.” Black Beryl had checked, providing an accurate map of every hideout the Fallen once had in place. 

“We’ve confirmed they’ve run to the secondary location Fuschia Sapphire predicted they would flee to.” The PRT had used the enthralled agents to effectively trick the Fallen. They believed the PRT had discovered the secondary location Blasto used for himself they had stolen. 

So of course they managed to flee to a location none of the PRT should know, operating in sync. They were planning to bug out, and were going to use their teleporter cape to do it. That they hadn’t yet told the Sapphires a few things. 

Their cape had a cool-down, a long one even and I was going to make them pay for that mistake.

“If you’re ready to make a move, I’m going to get in close. They might not have any plagues, but they can still have debilitating biological weapons.” Which again won’t work on us. “My energy blasts will destroy them without creating any dangerous byproducts.”

The Pink Diamond was a destroyer of life just as much as a creator of life. 

“I’m tagging along. Remember? My tinkertech should work well enough against Blasto’s creations and my suit blocks bio-contaminants.” 

Black Beryl nodded with a smirk.“We don’t have a problem with that.” Black Beryl’s Gemsong was more comprehensive than most Gems, due to their mild telepathic abilities. She floated off the ground, using her telekinetic magic. 

Black Beryls were raw telekinetics, infusing matter with energy to lift them and move them around to their whims. And they had real power, able to tumble buildings. Though to be fair, a lot of Gems could move hundreds to thousands of tons of matter with their telekinetic powers.

But Black Beryls were stronger still, with only Era 1 Aquamarines sharing their talent for such power with their stasis magic. 

“Then let’s get on with it, step a little closer would you?” I asked cheerily, keeping my song from distorting into unbridled rage and fury. Challenger bobbed her head, up and down with a mild chuff. 

I probed the Jewel, and wrapped the three people around me in the strange energies. We were teleported over two hundred meters, right to the point that I was targeting. One problem with the little magic items was that there needed to a lot of complex number crunching for a coordinate system taking into account other realities.

Luckily retro-causal intuition took care of most of those problems, just a natural ability to know where to move made it easy enough. Though it worked less effectively for organics, even with the built-in gemtronics system. 

I could hear movement, feel the auras of people, arrogance, anger, hints of lust and other emotions that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. There were the weak colorless auras of the creatures, thirty of them in total. Most were flickering sparks, while one was larger, more of a small torch. 

Three were twisted, auras wrapped in chains made of brands and flame and dimensional energy links. I could feel the indignation, the sense of violation, buried under thoughts of, listen, obey, mine, dependent. 

“Sunrise?” I was brought back to reality, and stopped grinding my teeth. Challenger was giving me a look of concern. “What’s wrong?”

I breathed in and out, breath coming out as fire. “The enthralled…it just feels wrong, I can feel their rage, their pain, their…” I cut myself off, extending my claws out. “I’m holding myself back from breaking the connections until we’re sure they can be out of harm's way.” Relatively speaking, more realistically they would go berserk and go after their attackers. 

“Blasto is right in front of us.” Black Beryl pointed out, and I nodded as I inspected the large door leading into a larger room. There we had Blasto and two other auras, normals. Their thoughts were taunting .

Stupid spic thought he’d win against us. 

Disgusting, horrible little gremlins weren’t they? And it was so, very, very sad. A waste of life, a waste of potential. Several Robonoids were already in the space, and two of the auras went down, as the machines slathered samples of Newter’s sweat on their bodies.

I opened the door, and was the first to take a grenade of questionable contents from a still enthralled Blasto, eyes flickering with enslaving flames. I released my Aura, manifesting it as a cleansing firestorm.

He released a single homunculus, a massive stone-skinned ape, programmed instinct focused on destruction and death. It was Black Beryl who attacked, her arms snapping like serpents and…tearing the organic being in two, claws raking past skin, muscle and bone in a single swipe.

I swallowed, and there was a notable pause from Challenger as she swept out her own weapon. I pressed my Aura forward, and nullified the commands forced upon Blasto.

He stopped attacking, and there was a twist of fury burning almost as hot as my own. “Hijo de puta!” I blinked at the familiar twang of Spanish. “Los voy a matar!” He grabbed equipment, stomping his feet as he grabbed grenades.

“Maybe it would be a good idea to calm down, I’m not sure you’re going to have time to tinker either.” I pointed to an unamused Challenger, and he blinked, rubbing his identity hiding mask. “Though maybe you can help us with taking down the bio-construct the Fallen are using.”

He grimaced. “No. Lionheart has control over them, he told me to design their brains in a way he could use them with his power.” Fantastic.

“So what exactly are we going to do with him?” I jutted my thumb in his general direction. “Arrest him? Get him to tell us how to stop his rogue bio-constructs?” 

“We—” I moved without thinking, a shield expanding to block the energy blast writhing with fire. There was the whistle of fighting, the song of combat, the song of the possibilities.

A woman with dusky skin, wearing black spandex dotted with elemental symbols and a red mask. There was an aura to her person, coating her form, shifting matter to a higher energy state.

She generated a much larger beam, and fire coated the room.

Bastion set up his force fields, coated within the protective shadows of Blackout’s power. Noxious gases wafted through the air, and they detonated with sparks set off by the Fallen. Seir and an unknown cape, the Mastered teleporter. They had just confirmed the cape had two togglable Breaker states. He would be stuck in one or the other for hours, cooling down the usage of the other state.

One state was a fast fragile glassy Mover, able to leap buildings and teleport through flat reflective surfaces. The other was a lumbering giant of hard crystal that acted as a portal to absorb attacks. Which had turned out to be a fair bit tougher than they had originally expected.

The Fallen fight in sync, a pattern of bullets and powers between the throwing of tinkertech grenades. Blackout had slowed the advance of the dangerous gas, but without Atlas they would have…not done as well as they had. 

Twenty bio-constructs attacked, gathering around pheromone grenades that had successfully made their mark. Most were semi-humanoid reptilians, mid-level Brutes that spit acid and expelled noxious gas.

The area has been cleared of civilians, making it safe to attack as needed. So Bastion stepped aside to make room for one of the Quartz. ‘Currant’ was a big beefy red woman, and she summoned a weapon, a fractal helmet of red metal. 

The headbutt snapped the creature in two, and Bastion let out a wince. He had seen the same cape handle a villain with a feather soft touch. Their restraint was incredible, if they could break people like twigs.

There was a bright energy blast from Glaive, which did little to the enthralled cape they were using as a human shield. Three Blasto creatures tried to ambush him, and were crushed by the leaps of Hellhound’s monstrous dogs. 

Rachel Lindt scowled but didn’t say a word as she whistled and shouted a command. They threw themselves at the Breaker cape, gripping onto the odd hard crystal. Which began to glow, and burn with Glaive’s blast. The two dogs backed away when their master hissed in pain.

Shit. Since when could they do that? The Precogs Atlas had access to weren’t perfect, it took them time to sort the future, things could be missed. And she was busy sorting out any possible contingencies the Fallen had in mind. They had already caught a Mover from outside the city, a back-up plan in case things went awry.

His blood went cold as more and more energy surged from it’s skin. How many times had the cape been fired open, how many…

One of the ‘Socket Robonoids’ rocketed forward, and he heard it speak.

“Detecting wavelength, evaluating frequency. Shard signal located, disruption pulse start.” It sent out a wave of energy, multitudinous in nature, and the Mastered cape screamed. The plasma it released became an unsteady beam that the robot caught in a strange field, which vanished without a trace. The Breaker state collapsed, leaving a young man in thin white and black armor. 

The Ruby…Frills came barreling in, knocking aside three Fallen as they tried to recapture their cape. She swung her throwing weapon, flicking a finger to alter its course. The spinning bladed circle smashed and launched people and sliced through monsters. She lit her hands with her fire, sterilizing the air while the odd robot did the same with a green energy.

Lines of shadow cut where he had been standing, materializing in the gaps where he had moved too far from Blackout’s range. They became holes in reality, black as night clones of Seir. They surrounded him, and one was switched for flesh, an explosive grenade thrown in his vicinity.

He reeled back, and something ripped him away from the incoming explosion. A red clawed hand was wrapped around his waist. He stared as he saw how Frills had warped her arm, growing it into a distorted example of an arm. 

They have Changer powers?

Her limb compressed like an accordion, without the accompanying sound of bones snapping and fracturing. It was odd, though he had seen a fair share of powers in his career. He was dropped back into battle, caught on all sides by Blasto creatures, three Fallen, and more Seir clones.

“Left!” Frills shouted and he listened, avoiding a silver ball of light that smacked into Seir right as he switched with a shade. His power slipped out of his grasp for several seconds, and the Socket Robonoid effectively teleported from it’s end of the battlefield.

“Evaluating nullification field, shard signal pinpointed.” It sent a second pulse, and after seconds had passed. His power didn’t come back. 

“What did that machine do to him?” Bastion rubbed his sore arms. 

Frills flicked out her tusks with a savage grin. “Power nullification field. It interrupts power use for about thirty minutes before the field decays.” She explained with the sweet tune of Gemsong, with a hint of blades of anger clashing. 

“It used the time we bought to figure out how to block his power?” He asked, and she nodded.

Before any more words could be exchanged, there was an explosion from the main Fallen hideout.

I blinked as the power created fire energy tried to burn me alive, and it didn’t warrant a thing. I understood her power easily enough. Something like a weaker elemental Legend. Her body shifted to a Breaker state, corresponding to her elemental beams.

Air was solid kinetic force beams, whirling vortexes of kinetic energy. Water was a blue-tinted beam, creating water, ice, or steam on contact. Earth was the same, from metal to lava, fire was of course flame and heat and roiling lightning plasma. 

The last was void, a strange ethereal energy that some of the Robonoids read as dark matter and dark energy beams. Which at this scale was effectively harmless, like trying to snuff out a forest fire with a cup of ice.

Using fire against the sun in humanoid form wasn’t exactly the poor woman’s best choice. 

Challenger attacked first, chucking her axe. It swung in an arc, like a boomerang instead of a heavy battle axe. The head of the weapon vibrated, and smashed into the thrall like a truck. Her Breaker state protected her, but it didn’t stop her from being thrown around.

Black Beryl rolled her eyes, and the air coalesced as telekinetic force became a cocoon around the cape. She was stuck, frozen in place by sheer strength of magic. I projected my aura, smashing apart and nullifying Lionheart’s flames.

The cape went limp with shuddering gasps and I saw how Black Beryl’s grip became more like a pillow of clouds for the poor lady. She gently dropped her back down to earth, and her expression was…empathic for the woman’s plight. 

Six monkey-lizard things were swiftly taken care of by Challenger as her weapon spun back to her. They were knocked down, and she spun on her heels, her axe pulsing with energy before absolutely crushing the opposition. Spines broke, flesh rippled as the minions died. Challenger laughed, and I could see her aura pulse with a hint of justified anger. 

I wonder if she had a history with Fallen I wasn’t privy to?

The other Fallen were out fighting the Protectorate, several Quartz, Frills and Bitch. Leaving Lionheart on his own, and with whatever remained of his little army of monsters stolen from Blasto.

“Blasto is gone isn’t he?” I asked Challenger and Black Beryl. In the chaos of an explosion big enough to blow up the room he had gotten away.

“I can find him, if I use my Vision.” Black Beryl offered, and Challenger shook her head.

“We need your power to see what’s in Lionheart’s little lair, and Blasto isn’t a priority yet. ” I acknowledged her with a high pitched chitter of Gemsong, one that I’m sure was eyebrow raising. 

“Already done. Lionheart is alone, with several things within large capsules. They’re large, and he has several more homunculi than before.” I saw that much, but of course feeling auras didn’t tell me what was on the other side. 

“He’s a pyrokinetic on top of being a Master right?” Challenger whispered as we stopped at the door.

“Yes. But that won’t do much to anyone except maybe you, if your armor can’t take it.” I suspected it could. “No reason to underestimate him though.” I wasn’t cut out for this kind of life but I wouldn’t be a dumbass about it either. “What about traps?”

“Nothing behind useless grenades and bombs, though whatever is in those pods may prove a threat.” 

“Keep an eye out anyway.” I lightly ordered, flexing my claws and chewing on my lip. I went to kick down the door, and Challenger waved her arm. 

“Please. Allow me.” I smirked, and she swung her axe. The door was sent off its hinges, crushing two creatures in the process. There were eight more, ones I saw by their faint aura rather than through normal sight. Though I caught them in UV, as well.

I screamed. 

The omnidirectional wave caught the invisible monsters, and sent two Fallen flying gently back. Not that they knew that. I noticed Mama Mather’s connections, semi-active as they were. Used as lines of communication for her people while she did other things.  

Not that she could see me, I had the same effect on shard-sight as I did cameras. Though it wasn’t an innate power, rather something taught to me by Steven. A backup for the precaution-weapons and Gem technologies. Being able to break every camera in a ten mile radius is a useful power.

“You…” Lionheart had hidden behind a pod, and I raised an eyebrow at the white lion head he was wearing. His costume was basic, a dark dress shirt and white pants, with a cape that was a mix of black and white and red.

His body burst into flames, and he sent forward a spear of red-white-blue fire. I stepped forward, taking the force. There was a hint of intent, like something trying to push itself into me. I reflected it back, and made some guesses as I walked forward, a growl exiting my throat as Gemsong. 

Lionheart’s emotional manipulation and pyrokinesis was linked, but there were conditions. He needed closeness, he needed them to accept his flames, or have to be forced upon them at close range. From a distance his powers would invoke minor emotional responses instead, unease, confusion, anger and so on.

I glanced at the cape they had enslaved through her aura, and caught a flash of memory. 

Oh we’ll make you scream alright, but not yet darling.

My Aura expanded from where I had smothered it down, from a few feet to tens of thousands, narrowly weaving around anyone who could notice. I felt anger, so much anger. 

But I was a Diamond, I had to hold back or I would break everything and everyone. I looked around, and saw a world of cardboard, and held back just a little. The monster had survived but not unscathed, some had their chests caved in, functional only because they had so many redundancies. 

Black Beryl and Challenger did their own jobs, taking on the remaining Fallen and monsters. I took on Lionheart, reaching into myself to twist his power around. 

He pulled out a gun, firing. My hand snapped up, deflecting the bullet without thinking.

“You damn bitch!” He screamed, and I created a set of barriers, feeling their presence in space as I used them to cleave through equipment and weapons, and even wrapped what looked like explosives and bombs, as well as destroyed numerous pods filled with spiky monsters.

“Why did you come here to begin with?” I already knew but I wanted to hear it from him.

“We’re here for the retarded slut you freaks somehow managed to pick up.” He lashed out, and the flames died as I extended a field of magic, taking hold of it with sparks of my own plasma. “A Shaker 12 was an asset if we could use her, if not she’d be put to work in the breeding pens.”

My restraint…snapped like a twig. Concrete turned to powder, and the only reason Lionheart wasn’t reduced to a red smear was my own reluctance. 

“Yeah that isn’t going to happen. Never again, for anyone. ” My voice was emotionless, an affection that didn’t sound like me, like someone else was talking through me or…some deeper part of me was rising to the surface. 

He sneered, even as I felt the fear overwhelm arrogance. “You might have me beat…but you were stupid to reveal your face. Mama will find you, if we can’t take your stupid kid maybe you’ll be more fit instead.”

I smiled, a vicious, violent thing. “Is that so?” I pressed down on normal existence, reaching upwards to the realities my power resided in. He stumbled, sweating, terror invoked by my power.

KNEEL.

Challenger stumbled but I pulled back before she could panic. Before the eldritch song could burst from my throat and shatter her skull like glass. 

“Come on then. Call your mama, think of your mama and ask. Can she see me?” 

“You…you, can’t you see her mama? She’s here, she’s here I don’t…” I lifted my hand, finding the connections that bound every local Fallen, what allowed them to operate as a single unit…and severed the bond like thread.

He recoiled, and then slammed his burning hand into my face. I saw how it was infused with a strange force, trying to trickle past my skin to reach into my brain.

I shattered the force apart with the sheer strength of my Aura, and every remaining thrall was broken from his control, from his web. He slipped into unconsciousness, the feedback knocking him out.

“Sunrise?” Challenger spoke out, right after finishing off a monster. “Are you doing okay? Is the guy still alive?”

“Feedback from ripping apart his Master effect,” I explained, I wasn’t going to scream I wasn’t going to scream. “Being able to nullify any Master effect is a very useful power.” I was going to order a Whaling Crew to reduce his dinky shard to atoms.  

“Well it seems like everyone else is wrapping up, maybe we should do the same?” Her voice was gentle, understanding.

“I— MOVE!” I reacted faster than thought, creating a bubble as something exploded from underground. I had placed a barrier below us of course, and I stared as about ten monsters emerged, the smallest the size of a Smart car while the largest were about the size of a large bus.

A clubbed tail smacked us through the wall and out into the streets, it broke on impact and I grabbed Challenger as we rolled, dulling the force with my physics breaking power. 

I shifted Challenger into a bridal carry as I oriented myself back onto my feet. Lionheart wasn’t any less knocked out, already being accosted by little robots. 

I placed her back down, and frowned at the scuffs to her pretty red armor. “Are you alive in there?” 

“Jesus that hurts like a bitch…” She cursed as she rolled her shoulders, bones creaking. “I’m fine but…oh.” I glanced over to the chaos, frowning as the more dangerous monsters tried to attack the more vulnerable PRT troopers who fired upon them with bullets.

There was a deep growl, and we turned to find three enormous saber fanged creatures, each of them larger than any big cat or bear.

The street was filled with howls.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.7

I looked up at the three twenty foot long creatures, all resemblinga heavily armored gorgonopsids of all things, crystalline saber teeth extending from  long thick skinned jaws. One launched itself towards me, and I didn’t blink an eye. 

It crashed against my shield, and then released a poisonous miasma from its mouth. I reached within my consciousness, pulling out the right power. I shoved the massive beast back ten feet, and my left hand lit with cerise energy. 

There was an explosion as I directed my Aura down into my fist, skin hardening to something tougher than steel, every bit as strong and refined as the Diamond that made up my gem. It’s beefy, crystal scaled right leg snapped at my punch, bone splintering beneath supersonic strikes.

The creature had so much mass, so much power, with the wisps of Parahuman effects making it far stronger than it should be. Enough to crush most people to powder.

I wasn’t most people. 

I easily avoided it’s bite and strikes, and sent out a burst of pure destructive energy. It burned in radiant colors, and slammed into its body with all the power of death and decay.

The cerise blast overwhelmed the durable skin of the monster, and burned organic matter into carbon dust. The cracks of pink and red, the implosion of meat into powder was… something. It dropped dead, broken into pieces of dead flesh and dust.

Black Beryl moved, no she slinked forward on the air itself, her telekinesis following her movements with inherent loyalty. The barrier she created using her power was unyielding, caving in the two ton beast’s skull. It dropped dead, like it’s strings were severed. 

There was a scream, and I choked when I saw Challenger riding the remaining gorgonopsid-thing like a bucking bronco. She had pulled out her giant rifle, and it fired a giant bullet that hit more like a tank cannon. It took out a chunk of it’s skull, and while riding the creature she switched back to her axe, stabbing it into it’s exposed skull. 

“Well, this isn’t too bad right?” I laughed nervously, rubbing my chin. 

Challenger shrugged. “I’ve seen worse in Brockton Bay, and we at least had a general idea there might be some bigger creatures.” Probably why all the PRT troopers came in loaded for bear.

“Really too bad I can’t see underground in the way I want to.” Black Beryl sounded annoyed. Her magic did work underground, but they had been buried with no space for her to extend her magic into. They had dug their way out from their containment units when his control had slipped. 

We had killed three, leaving six more creatures, odd hybrids of iguanas and tigers, and I could see the influences from the capes the Fallen had kidnapped. Bulky frames, crystalline armor shimmering with a localized power effect. All of them breathed fire or vapor that froze things on contact.

“They had a power boosting Trump before didn’t they?” I had some guesses for how they had done all this so fast.

“That might explain it, plus Blasto is pretty lazy. Else he’d be a much bigger threat.” Challenger answered me as she stepped off the dead monster. “But that doesn’t make this any less dangerous.”

“For you maybe. But I’m a bit too resilient to be hurt by some overgrown lizards.”

My hubris was then capitalized on by a massive clubbed tail, and I was sent flying as it smashed into my chin. I altered my motion in midair, shifting the direction of gravity.

I had landed on a semi-truck, sideways to the normal direction of gravity. I oriented myself back toward the planet’s core, and sighed as I pushed away some rubble. 

Focus on the enemy Sunrise, focus. I examined my current nemesis.

It was a massive bulky creature with skin like stone, grey and studded with crystal osteoderms. Like some demented mix of a gorilla, a rhino, and a dinosaur. Forty five feet long, with long arms ending in fists the size of small cars and claws as long as swords. The head was gorilla-like, four eyes the color of scarlet glaring with mindless animalistic rage. It had a long club-tail like an ankylosaur, and breathed out fucking fire and shadowy gas because of course it did.

It was fast for its size, and it moved wildly towards Blackout, and swung its tail at transonic speed. It was going to kill her.

My gem rang with song and magic, and I could feel it pour into my muscles, could even feel it push against reality itself. Everything around me began to slow down, and I sprinted. 

I moved past the waves of sound itself, feeling them as almost solid eddies of vibrations. I moved faster and faster, walking and yet running, and I spun to add force to my palm strike. It’s skin rippled, and I chopped the tail, an aura of flame surrounding it. 

I cleanly cut the tip off, and time returned to one second per second. The gorilla-beast roared in agony as it was sent flying a dozen feet, and it proceeded to roll into a ball, and the osteoderms extended into spires of blades. 

“Are you being serious?” It slammed into me with all the force of a twenty five ton monster at a hundred and ten miles per hour. A barrier immediately unfolded into reality, flashing with pink and red. 

The creature leapt off, and spun into a punch, throwing out it’s enormous fist. I reacted with my palm and stopped it’s momentum dead, absorbing it with my own sheer mass and energy.

The other creatures were being destroyed rather easily, sheared apart by Quartz or shot down by PRT agents. There was a hint of Lionheart’s influence, and I snapped the connection. It stumbled, and as I watched I wondered if I could make my barriers inside of things.

I wasn’t going to test it, so I charged, kicking the monster in the chest, and snapping one of it’s ribs. Glaive was charging her weapon, and before I could blink a burst of piercing energy crossed the battlefield.

The gorilla beast’s eyes burst, and it reeled as part of it’s skull caved in. Its aura was wavering, and I formed my barriers into butchering blades. I slammed them into its skull, and a gas was released that a flick of my tongue identified as sarin.

My body was already wreathed in cerise flames, as I burned the body completely. Twenty five thousand kilograms of organic flesh and crystal and stone were incinerated. So a fairly high Blaster rating I supposed. 

I landed in a pile of ash, and I could see Challenger making her way to me, forestalling some PRT agents. Apparently I made the little guys nervous and fair, I had straight up dusted a monster the size of Leviathan even if nowhere as tough.

The Gems were already starting clean-up, picking up rubble, removing hazardous materials though placing them into the hands of the government for once. If this was Steven’s Earth I’d be fixing the roads with healing kisses.

The Fallen were done here, and honestly…so was I.

Challenger gripped her axe firmly as she watched Sunrise Diamond walk through the ashes of a monster that would have massacred her team if they had been caught off guard.

She’s a tough bitch I’ll give her that. The tinker thought, and was further puzzled by how intimidating she was despite being a short, plush woman. At a glance she was just a twenty something year old woman, but when you looked more closely…

There was a predatory look in those brown eyes burning with cerise starlight, disdain and disgust barely suppressed as she glared at the numerous Fallen being discreetly arrested. There would be no escape if no one knew where they went, no way for them to break out as had happened time and time again.

There were more surprises from Sunrise, when her lips broke into a short lived scowl when she caught eyes with a barely conscious Lionheart. Blunt fangs, eight of them paired together into sharp killing instruments. And she knew they were, because she had seen one of the Quartz drag a monster by the neck with her teeth, slicing through bone and muscle like they were tissue paper.

It had saved her from being jumped, but it was some scary shit.

Lionheart cowered, eyes wide, and she heard the distant hissing song behind Sunrise’s accented voice. Challenger saw the hand flickering with flame, fading away. She stopped him from Mastering a PRT agent.

She wondered how many powers Sunrise had up her sleeve, she had revealed a Mover power, the woman vanishing into a stream of red to keep the Blasto creation from killing Blackout. A Blaster power, though it also seemed to be used as a Shaker power. Maybe a Nuker, especially when she calculated the amount of energy needed to incinerate something the size of that monster.

At least a hundred billion joules, likely more with the scorch marks on the ground, and the Brute aspects she knew Blasto liked to weave into his creations. She wasn’t sure there was anything or anyone in the city that could stand up to that kind of firepower.

“Hey, are you doing okay there?” Challenger moved past her discomfort, she might be dealing with a Master but it wasn’t like she didn’t know of a few. She had met Gallant before transferring out, she had met Edict, and Boston had its own friendly Master.

“I’m fine, fine enough I mean.” Sunrise Diamond shrunk back, hiding under her cloak. “The Fallen are just…” Disgusting was left unsaid. “But regardless, what did you need from me? Do they want to put me in a box for a couple hours?”

“Nah. That’s for all the people you fixed up, they want to make sure there aren’t any side effects. Your power seems to be pretty similar to some people in the Protectorate.” 

Her smile was just a bit acerbic, eyes disbelieving. “Maybe. But I haven’t heard many good things about this place.” There was almost something like fear, no perhaps pity, but it was hard to tell in such soulful orbs. “And I’m fairly new to this, we’re just lucky I spent a few months practicing my powers.”

“Most people get instinctual use of their power.” Challenger commented as she walked with the independent, moving away from the crime scene and back toward the nearest PRT building.

Challenger adjusted her helmet and visor, which she had built with an advanced scanner she used mainly to analyze her equipment, so she could see how to adjust the impact multiplying technologies of her power. It sent out waves of subtle impact force, and returned an echo she used to take in data. Along with other types of scanners she got a good picture of powers. 

It wasn’t intentional but she had used her scanner during the fight to better combat the enemy. She had even managed to make some quick adjustments to improve her axe and gun.

The data…it was garbled, barely functional, and that unnerved her. Like Sunrise was actively erasing any data without even thinking about it. What she had gotten back was that she was infused with some…unknown form of hard light, and that while she looked human…some of her biology was alien.

She had an extra twenty bones in her fingers based on the way the scans came back, which explained the retractable claws. Her jaw structure was altered, spaces in the skull letting her fangs partially retract as well as flick out. There were minor structural differences, areas refined in the smallest of ways. Then there was the gemstone in her stomach, a diamond substrate which radiated with sound and unknown energies.

That didn’t matter, making sure she was okay mattered a little more than weird cape biology. 

“So. You said something about practicing your power?” A distraction might be good enough. 

Sunrise’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. I’ve got a fair amount of powers I need to learn how to control. I’ve got healing, which can be flipped into destruction. A two sided coin.” There was a light flare of light, which solidified into amaranths and rose petals. “Construction and deconstruction if you will.” She seemed happy to explain, satisfaction emitted in the sing-song voice. “I’ve got superspeed as you saw with me keeping Blackout from becoming a statistic.” There was something in her eyes, an emotion Challenger couldn’t read. 

“You did well for what has to be your first time out.” Challenger complimented her, hoping to keep the girl’s mind off the Fallen. It was obvious she had been disturbed by them…and she didn’t blame her. Having your first fight be with the Fallen isn’t exactly a typical circumstance.

Her gaze looked distant, stars burning behind her eyes. “Yeah…I suppose so…”

An hour and a half had passed since we had defeated the Fallen, and since I had nullified all the Master powers in play, and helped destroy the remaining monsters he had forced Blasto to create. I hadn’t spent much time there, sort of cribbing the responsibility of talking to the PRT on Black Beryl. Besides a few minutes spent with Challenger.

Black Beryl didn’t mind because she didn’t want me to stick my foot down my throat like a dumbass. Even then I had given my perspective regardless.

Which is why right now, I’m looking around a field of broken trees, snapped like twigs with my own sparking fists. I was still angry, the rage of a Diamond didn’t cool, it simmered with the fury of the dying stars that birthed us. Steven was no different no matter how nice he was.

And I was nowhere as nice as Steven, it wasn’t in my nature. Everything about the Fallen had been disgusting and disturbing, and I wasn't always the best at controlling my emotions. So I punched a small forest worth of trees down to burn myself out.

A bit strange they had made a Punching Garden but it was all fixable damage if I try hard enough. There was also a large crystalline tree, about one hundred fifty meters tall and thirty meters in diameter. Some variant of plant life from Petropia. Like a really fat baobab tree made out of crystal life. It had a very specific purpose, and I placed my hands on my wide hips. 

I haven’t shifted back, because I was currently busy and didn’t mind it. The tree dwarfed anything I had seen before, and my temper got the best of me.

“DAMN IT!” My fist embedded itself into the tree, the bark fracturing like glass before the force in my body. I breathed deep, and another more ridiculous idea came to mind

I can lift you.

This single tree was about as dense as aluminum, and the trunk alone was an enormous mass. I licked my dry lips, hands clenched in front of me. I squared my shoulders, and dropped into a crouch, shifting my hips. I dug my fingers into the gem-like bark. 

More and more power surged into reality, pouring out of my Gem in waves of magic. I wanted to lift this monstrous tree, so that was exactly what I was going to do. And nothing was going to stop me. There was a crack, a rumble as I pulled the tree out of the soil, metal dense roots tearing through loose dirt and crushed rock.

I could feel my power flow into the tree, helping me lift the object, an automatic process. I forged handles from the broken trunk, digging my claws into the tree. I lifted with my legs, squatting even more to get a good position, metaphysical energy providing additional leverage.

A resounding crack followed as I leaned back, and the tree was pulled out with its roots. There was so much strain, so much mass, and yet the tree rose anyway. 

Five hundred million kilograms was leaning to one side, and I tried to picture what would happen if my power faltered. I couldn’t though, it was my power, my gem, my. 

I growled and stabbed the tree back into the soil, flames huffed out from my breath. My power was buzzing under my skin, but it was toned down from where it had been heading. I could feel it curling under my skin, a nova waiting to be released. 

But releasing a Diamond blast wasn’t exactly a good idea when surrounded by fragile people, Gem or otherwise. Especially when I had seen what a Diamond could do going all out.

So instead I reached out to another aspect of my power. I placed my hand on the tree, it was beautiful, it invited some interaction. I put my palm on the tree and I find my mind bombarded with unfamiliar data, parameters of the tree’s history, of the environment around us.

I used the tree as an extension of myself, integrating it’s memories into my own. Divining the patterns, and tracking back a fly into the past, witnessing it’s emergence from a pile of buried eggs a week ago. I go farther and farther back, until the past turns bare, to when the soil was dead and the planet listless.   

I stick to the past of the tree itself, to it’s transplant a week and a half ago, as the level of gases and light and ambient chemicals changed. The record goes back forty years before it stops suddenly. 

I blink, retracting from the tree after about fifty minutes. My rage had gone from a bonfire to a cold simmer, and I felt someone standing behind me.

“Starry?” I called out in the dark. I picked myself back up, and turned around. Something like shame came up at the fact she had probably watched the aftermath of my temper tantrum. 

“You’re angry.” A statement, and I knew that she was familiar with my situation and wanted to help me.

I wanted that help desperately…this was starting to freak me out. 

“I am.” I was scared, but I was so angry, burning so hot I wanted to break a mountain. 

“Do you want me to lay it out for you?” I nodded eagerly, she was a Gem and should know what’s going on.

“Please.”

“You know about the instincts of a Diamond, they’re ancient beings, more primal in a way. Possessive, protective of those they care about,” she laid it out for me. “And they have tempers like nothing else…and I have a feeling you have a temper that’s all your own too.”

I didn’t explode, but I did have a low tolerance…I was a snippy person. “Maybe.”

“The Fallen are despicable, they tried to kidnap Elle for their…purposes, but your anger isn’t aimed at just them is it?”

I swallowed.

“I should have done more.” I couldn’t hold back that tiny voice that spoke low of me. “I’m a Diamond right? I could have been a little more proactive, maybe been a little more assertive rather than staying at home and doing nothing. ” I couldn’t quit babbling, something hot in my chest and a pressure behind my eyes. “There are literally hundreds of monsters we could beat back, including the Fallen if we were a little more proactive and I…just.”

I feel like a shitty person…useless.

“Sunrise. If you want things to change…then do it.” I stepped back at the hardness to Starry’s tone, the storm in her eyes unyielding in intensity. “Maybe you’re right and you could have done more…but that's on us too. You’re a Diamond, but you’re only one person. There are thousands of Gems building the colony now, we can spare a few in some humanitarian aid.”

“I…”

“If there are things you feel like we should be doing…then tell us, and we’ll see what we can do. We need to communicate, we need to work together. So the question is…what do you want?”

What do I want?

…

My lips curled into a scowl. “The Mathers have to go, they attacked one of mine. And who’s to say they won’t try again?” I straightened my posture, my passions getting away from me. “We'll have to be out of Scion’s sight, and take down what groups we can. No more stalling, there are powers we need to remove out of play, forces we need to commandeer in the destruction of Scion.”

She seemed a little proud. “Go on.” I started to think, remembering the strategies, the wargames she had done her part in teaching me. Where to move troops, where to deploy a range of strategies to survive in the game of life. How many soldiers, how many materials, what technologies needed to be advanced to better comprehend the enemy. 

“Butcher. The shards vital for an entity, we should probably take care of that. Plus some of the threats that are left alone, but aren’t big enough to bring too much attention.” 

Saint and the Dragonslayers needed to be grabbed up and we needed to take a good look at Dragon’s code to see if it was up to snuff. Regardless of their intentions, they couldn’t be trusted even if Dragon was evil. A manipulative addict and his spineless lackeys couldn’t be trusted to police a true artificial intelligence. 

“We’ll have to be careful, and we’ll need to take a lot of scans of powers capable of damaging entities. So Flechette and her cluster, Damsel of Distress, Chevalier, maybe we can borrow aspects from Elle’s power. Power nullification too. String Theory isn’t in the Birdcage and we haven’t found her threatening to blow up the moon so…”

This wasn’t the Worm I knew, not that my metaknowledge was complete, my gaps had been filled in by reading ahead, reading the shitty wiki and looking at Reddit. From what I could tell String Theory was a little more stable for some reason. 

She had weapons capable of knocking the moon from orbit. Those were the kind of weapons for combating shards, and only a handful of superweapons in the galaxy had that kind of power density. Ignoring the problem of supervillains on Earth 460’/. 

“We’ll get right on it boss.” She saluted me, Diamond shape and all…I glared at her and she grinned. “This world won’t know what hit it.”

My own grin grew.

She had no damn idea.

I chewed on my lip as I worked off some more of my frustrations by tinkering with some supertech samples from Earth. Some of those had become the basis of Gem terraforming devices, like the aerokinetic cores. Those were based on Gem powers, using magic to pull and warp air. 

But they had been made a little more efficient by using the technology of Red Tornado and other robots and androids like him. They worked on the confirmed theory that under certain circumstances electromagnetic fields can act like a superfluid. They had novel interactions with certain types of matter, a sort of action-reaction displacement effect similar to telekinetics. 

Or even induce chemical reactions with the right configuration of the effector fields. Gems seemed to use an incarnation of this effect mixed with actual magic, it was highly specialized, which was why certain Gems manipulated certain elements.

These effectors were commonly applied as force tweezers, able to replace optical tweezers with far greater abilities. It was artificial telekinesis, used across Earth. 

I modified the aerokinetic core, inserting it into a belt. I placed it around my waist, hooking it together. Like the Replicator Wand it was tuned to working with anyone with enough skill.

Gems worked with it better of course, which was why I imagined a tornado forming around my right arm. In moments the air-tuned effectors added energy and speed and gathered mass to form the cyclones. I then imagined them around my legs, and I tweaked the buoyancy of the air to reduce the amount of wind needed to fly. 

I flew in the air on the light red tornado wrapping around my hips like a dress. So I had succeeded in making the thing operational. Were my modifications functional then?

I compressed the air, forming the superfluid electromagnetic field into a cutting blade. I sliced a one inch thick slab of steel in half.

“Note to self. Aerokinetic core modification has proven a success, an air blade cutting with sufficient force to slice through hyper-compressed nanosteel.” Which was impressive in and of itself. 

Hyper-compressed materials used gravity fields to crush materials to a sixth of their volume. Allowing one to fit six times the armor in the same space, and was itself strengthened by nanoscopic engineering. Somewhere around eighteen gigapascals of tensile strength without the requisite compromises for such metals. 

Though it ignored other methods of reinforcing material like what was done with Infinitum metal. Which did the same hyper-compression technique along with working out a way to increase the strong force without compressing it into degenerate matter in the process.

Something two millimeters thick would give a person as much protection as hundreds of meters of the best ceramic metal composite armors. Or create an indestructible engine block. 

I set aside the aerokinetic core and moved on to the sample of Atlantean technology, a mix of mundane optronic and arcane crystal lattices carrying and storing magical energies. I grabbed the generic Water-Bearers and found it curious 

For Atlanteans they powered the magitech with tattoos while I could fuel it directly. The devices channeled liquids into a hard-water construct, the enchanted optronic nodes guiding the arcane crystal in channeling and shaping the constructs. They were useful more for interfacing Gemtech with organics.

“Atlantean technology is a familiar combination of technology and magic,” I said to the empty room. “Not that there’s truly a difference in the scheme of things, besides the angles. Technology is bottom-up, levers and pulleys which make use of existing laws and forces. Magic is top-down, starting with the end goal and works backwards to make the desired effect.” I was simplifying of course.

Magic is a matter-energy phenomenon with a metaphysical component, a fireball from tech is a burning ball of gas while a magic one is the concept of a fireball. It can take hundreds of different forms, depending on species, and is often wild and unpredictable. Which was why there were so many different systems with different rules and limits, they were foundations, ways to channel magic. You could say there are different operating systems with individual spells as individual programs. 

Which of course meant different operating systems had different capabilities, some could better pull off transmutation of elements, others had more effective means of necromancy. 

Gems were of course a combination of both, we were optronic processors and arcane crystal matrices, some were of Quartz, others of Nacre and Corundum, and ones like me were of course Diamond. Our gems naturally warped space and time, forming pocket dimensions within to store the vast energies needed to power our forms. 

A bottle of water was lightly tapped against my forehead and I blinked as I noted Faultline in her costume.

“So you’re the one responsible for getting us sent out on a mission?” 

“Mission?”

“We’re going to scout out the Fallen in exchange for cash…and some help with gathering information.” Wasn’t that dangerous? “They’re gifting us with equipment that’ll keep us out of trouble.”

“Seems a bit dangerous doesn't it?” It was only a little concern, nothing big.

She shrugged. “I’ve been on another planet and you have an army of power nullifying robots. As well as devices capable of making us immune to Master effects.”

“Alright then, did you bring Olly with you?” Faultline was probably raising an eyebrow behind her welding mask. 

“Really?” I blinked, and finally noticed the little parasite clinging to her back. Olly was hanging on, legs hooked onto Faultline, thighs squishing against her frame. Olly’s arms were on her shoulders, and the gem in question was peering from Faultline’s left.

“Greetings. I’ve been taking some close scans of Faultline’s Corona Pollentia and Gemma, examining differences between them and Black Wyrm Paired. As well as studying the hyperdimensional field used to sever molecular bonds. We believe we’ll have it replicated within a few weeks."

“Joy. I’m being replaced.” Wow, that was some heavy sarcasm.

Olly laughed a nasally laugh. “Not necessarily, perhaps we can make improvements, make your power more efficient, or extend it’s range. Heavy changes are more difficult as shards can still be…a little opaque at times.” She trailed off, rubbing her eyes.

“Really?” And now she was back to excitement for her, a slight tension in her shoulders, a foot shifting back and forth, head tilting to the left. Her aura jumped like a kangaroo, not able to hide what her body could.  

“Well if you’re interrupting my homework, you should at least help me out.”

Faultline was at my side in a moment. “Homework?” 

“I’m not a tinker, but as a Gem we can learn at an accelerated rate and as a Diamond we’re commonly tasked with say…calculating the voting curves of a colony.” I could read entire pages at a glance, easily doing in one second what one person would do in five hundred. It’d only take me a few minutes to read through an entire set of novels, and my near-perfect memory retention was a further boon. 

So Alexandria?

I grimaced when I picked out a surface thought, and there was a haughtiness emitted from Faultline’s direction. Really? She did it on purpose?

Maybe she really is nuts, the crazy bitch.

“So those parts…what are they from?”

“They gave you parts of Amazo? That’s a rather complex project isn’t it?” Olly sounded jealous as hell. 

I preempted Faultline’s question. “Amazo…was a power mimicking robot created by a Professor Ivo. Through highly complex discrete subsystems, and electronuclear force effectors it was capable of replicating powers on sight.”

“And this man wasn’t a tinker?” She sounded mildly terrified.

“Nope. There’s just something in the water on their Earth that breeds crazy people.” I might not even be joking either. “They don’t have the same number of active heroes, but they have a higher concentration of power.” There were somewhere north of a hundred thousand parahumans who could be considered hero aligned. 

It was more in the thousands in dimension 460'/ but when you had the likes of Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Flash you didn’t need an army. Though they weren’t at the scale of the comics and their plot-based bullshit. They were still incredibly strong, though they did have some limitations. 

Diana was pretty strong though, comparable to Alexandria at least, though perhaps not as durable and her stasis locked body. The current Flash was the most powerful Mover on the planet, able to hit light speed…with certain restrictions. Something related to stamina, strange dangerous exotic energies, and his power could be…weakened. 

And the fact he didn’t pull light speed shenanigans all the time told me there were restrictions of either morality, sanity or dangerous side effects. Didn’t matter though, but it was proof of the kind of bullshit in their world. 

There were a number of powerful superhumans, far beyond a lot of capes on Bet.

“You’re trying to replicate the power copying ability of Amazo?” Olly seemed interested and for good reason.

“With no luck, the issue with a lot of supertech is their complexity, and that they tend to be unstable and have a general lack of documentation. Easier than tinkertech but it’s no casual feat.”

I sighed.

Wonder what the progress was on our mission on Bet?

Argent walked on the surface of the moon, walking through the remnant of what appeared to be a lunar base. The base created by Sphere most likely, what was left of the project by a man so broke he vivisected his own brain to become a murderous monster.  

She held the fragment of white crystal, about the size of her fist. She had fished it up from the ocean, and sent it in for processing and removal of possible dangerous cognito-memetic hazards as a matter of course. A fragment of the Simurgh, one they were using to analyze the framework of the Asura. From what she had asked, the Endbringers of this world were more metallic than the fleshy crystal material of Black Wyrm Asura.

Tougher, just a little more resilient. But not enough to be truly immune to their weaponry. She had been instructed to carve out a cavern deep underground, several miles long and a mile wide. Two miles underground, using her power to concentrate water to make a few pools to shear away rock. 

Numerous observation domes were placed by her on the surface, scanning across hundreds of dimensions to locate the shards. It was more inconspicuous than sending out a solar system wide scanning pulse. There were many, far more than they had expected, orders of magnitude more than in their galaxy.

But it was far less than they had expected, there was something wrong here, her instincts telling her there was a plot they were missing. But that had been a typical feeling since the war had begun.  

In the past few days they had run preparations for their operation against the Fallen. Numbers, knock-on effects of destroying them, powers and abilities, personalities, probable reactions. The Mathers' location was known, as they were the most dangerous of the three branches and the most intelligent. 

She was going to be part of the vanguard, so with a flap of her wings she took off, doubling her speed every couple seconds. She closed her eyes, directing all her energies, body pulsing in and out of existence. Lapis Lazulis were terraformers, built to cross interstellar distances. Her kind were Gems born during the war whose ending began Era 1, their ability to warp space becoming the basis for their ships. 

Her mass began to reduce, down to zero, and her mind began to slow, shifting all her energies toward her flight. She couldn’t draw as much upon her hydrokinesis, her mind falling into a form of stasis. They couldn’t have their minds waste needless energy on their journey. 

It took her about five minutes to reach the atmosphere, entering at an angle towards her destination and at the opposite end of the Simurgh. Her scanning pulse had overlooked her, twisted away by the machinery built to fight the unfightable, to beat the unbeatable. 

She turned at ninety degrees, and she pushed back the atmosphere with her light. Her sharp eyes gave her a good look at the compound, and she gathered a storm. Faultline and her crew had pulled off quite a lot with Muntz own experience in counterintelligence. 

The squall followed her wake, and she hid within the clouds, forming them into spikes of ice, dozens of feet long and weighing hundreds of tons. They were surrounded by smaller droplets, and she gathered her power to a tapering point. 

She sang and others answered her call, her dirge.

“Your brother is dead.” Mama Mathers smiled as Elijah stared at his mother in surprise before he seemed to steel himself.

“Dead?” He asked, likely surprised though not by much. Elisha had too much of his father in him, more of the fiery temper that lost him favor with her. 

“I’m cut off in a way only supplied by death, and we have no agents to confirm any trickery in Boston.” Valefor nodded. “Our attempt to acquire Labyrinth was an abject failure and we lost Seir.” 

Elijah flinched. Seir was one of their oldest, one of the old guards of the Fallen. His loss was a significant setback, especially if any of his secrets had been ferreted out… 

She felt her temper flare, and kept it from leaking into her hundreds of connections. Her Fallen, her family were at high alert, spread out as needed for their guard duty. She doubted anyone was stupid enough to attack, they would face her power if they tried. The children were in their rooms where they belonged, and where they would remain until the time came.

Their breeding stock was under double guard, it wouldn't be responsible to lose valuable people and capes. Guns, grenades, and capes were all ready. She knew the group responsible, but not their faces with her own power. It was the last words of her son, of why she couldn’t see her. 

There was only one who fit the description, Sunrise Diamond. A Master/Trump with unstated powers. The slut would pay for killing her son, and she’d be put to work pumping out kids with powers like hers. She would not run from the enemy.

She extended her senses to the outer guards and it was then that she noticed something very wrong. There was a storm overhead, and the rain was coming down as sharp flecks of sharpened ic—

It was a sound beyond description, the sound of steel and concrete being shredded apart by a barrage of ice and water. It was a song, it was a scream, like the Simurgh had come down to Earth once more, it was a deluge like the Leviathan himself, it was a shredding burst of lightning and energy like Behemoth was shaking the land.  

She warned her guards, and one by one they vanished from her senses, ripped away by the swaying song. She looked around herself, and Elijah was already prepared to defend her as was Amaymon. She felt her awareness shrink further and further, and her connection with the both of them shattered like glass.

Valefor noticed, and there was a hint of fear she knew she couldn't punish him for. The guards moved, and then screamed as one of the people in the room…was obviously not one of them. A thin woman with a pointed nose in a dark striped crop top, she lowered her sunglasses to stare right into Valefor’s eyes.

“Stop. Kill yourself!” He barked, and he stepped back when it didn’t work. She did the same, his power didn’t work.

“No. I don’t think I will.” She flicked out her fangs and out came a mournful song, a warsong loud and clear. A declaration of victory. The sound of bullets, the sound of knives carving through air and flesh. More songs answered her from the sky, from the ground and the waters.

She extended her senses to those who remained in her power, even those of the children. She felt terror.

They came from the earth, stone turning to liquid, blocky soldiers screaming rage and fire and cannon blasts, they charged head on, long haired berserkers moving with speed beyond any cape they had. They came from the sky, clouds revealed to be drones of metal and crystal, swirling orbs in the hundreds and thousands. Led by colorful hive leaders, green and white and black, eyes gleaming in the night, fangs shining in the spotlight of their base.

They came from the waters, led by a being with slightly translucent skin, like water shaped into an alien depiction of a woman. One eye, and watery hair tied back in a bun. She sang her own song, invoking a primal terror of the ocean. 

It was a chorus, and she was blind, catching only a terrifying flash of a vast landscape of red crystal, a sea crushing mountains, burning as the sky broke, as it screamed and her power died. 

The first battle had begun, an unseen war, and Christine Mathers didn’t move an inch. Not even an inch as her son had a spear stabbed into his arm, as her soldiers were knocked aside by casual backhanded slaps from a thin woman with an infuriating smirk. 

Christine Mathers didn’t move, she was like a statue as her fiefdom was swept aside like dust in the wind.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.8

It had been a few days after we had brought down one of the sons of Mama Mathers. As well as since I had broken her connection with him like a twig, shards had incredible power over the mind but even they yielded to Diamond. He was under arrest, and his mental manipulation and fire powers were both known to the PRT. 

Not like we could keep him, I mean we could but we didn’t want to. Also Rachel’s stunt with bringing down his Blasto-created minions had put her in the good graces of the PRT. She was down to community service and parole rather than say jail time for property damage and assault. Probably would have been more difficult if her foster mother was dead, though being crippled was…well is still really fucked up. 

It was mildly disturbing how willing the PRT was to look past crimes to get people with powers on their side. Disturbing and frankly kind of sad. 

We had three Sapphires using their future vision to narrow down the location of the Mathers compound as well as possible secondary locations. 

They said it was unlikely the Mathers branch had moved away yet, since my breaking of the connection had been…not subtle so much as them thinking they were dead. Which was a good thing for the case of not getting them broken out of prison. 

It didn’t matter though, removing the Fallen from play was likely for the best. Though I had been out of the loop for a few days.

And it was a good way to train the soldiers on how to fight on Earth Bet, it was a more subtle affair than the open warfare of the War of the Black Wyrm. We couldn’t just go in, not without figuring out where the hell Scion’s true body was.

And more specifically where his core shards were, the parts that held his central personality and ancestral memory. As well as finding a way to avoid the dozens of shards used to manage the network, the control and command shards responsible for setting the rules of Triggers, of budding and growth, and network data exchange. 

There were billions of shards to subvert, though it wasn’t as bad as it would be with say Abbadon. The average size of a Zion and Eden shard was a lot smaller than that of the Loner. Though the fractal nature of shards made it difficult to quantify. Gems labeled it as a more ‘fuzzy’ cluster of little shards working as a single unit and entity-group. 

They guessed there should be about four hundred trillion shards for each entity in the pair. Though recent checks found…that most of the shards still landing had just up and vanished, sometime in the last six years. There were in total about forty billion shards, adding up to just under forty three Jupiter masses worth of shards in the network. 

Of course, unlike the shards attacking the galaxies, they had access to a far smaller amount of energy, and could only defend themselves so much. 

And Shardspace hacking was a common capability among most of the major powers of the galaxy. Everything from curses to plain broadcasting of garbage data, essentially a weaponized version of what had been done in Ward. 

Out of millions of shards, only a few tens of thousands were a real threat and that was because they had become wandering monsters, blowing up a handful of planets to gain energy and continued to try and gather data themselves out of desperation. 

These rogue shards were the main enemy, especially when they started the selection process for new leaders. Or when they became corrupted from the imprints and defective copies of Gems in their shard data. Their whole fractal nature turned Corruption into the most dangerous memetic virus the Entities would ever see.

All Gems had to do was to be mentally stable, not get corruption beamed, and not fuse with Corrupted Gems. But shards were all about mixing and exchanging parts, and not spreading the corruption was effectively impossible when even the tiniest stray fleck could and would bring the Dreaming Death. 

The worst of the group were those with the remaining Hub of Abaddon, though his network had long since collapsed. The landed shards were flailing things, with a handful so mentally shifted they became the basis for Shard based hardware advances.  

That didn’t matter right now, no instead the progress on the colony was more relevant. Terraforming was past the first stage, and while the membrane remained that was more for regulating temperature, and for anchoring of spires and buildings. They expected that the capital of Caldera would be done in another month or two. 

Which was both amazing and kind of scary to finish a metropolitan area some eighteen thousand square kilometers in size. Now I knew there was more to it than that, I think there was an operation against—

“Mama Mathers has been defeated!” Flowers shouted as she kicked down the door, and I stared. The fuck?  

“How?” 

“We used a Roaming Eye with sufficient ECM countermeasures to ignore her power and invaded their facility.” I stared.

“They killed them?” To be frank I didn’t actually care but I doubt everyone there was evil.

“More specifically we went after every cape with written kill orders,” there was a hint of distaste. “You did order us to be more proactive after all, and the core of the Mathers…” she shivered, a haunted look in her eye.

So technically it was my fault a number of people were(might be?) dead? I tried to dredge up some level of empathy, and it was…sad, a pointless waste of life, with their power they could have done other things.

But they didn’t, and now the Mathers compound was gone, an entire branch collapsed with a single operation. 

“And their victims, the people they’ve brainwashed and victimized?”

“We acquired immediate assistance from Haven and facilitated their transportation due to the reduced chance of Fallen moles.” She answered. “We’ve located Christine Mathers' shard and the shards of the other elders, and cut them off from it.”

Oh, okay she’s not dead and the other Fallen are physically intact. “So she’s alive?” I questioned her.

She grimaced. “Mostly, a precognitive cape almost killed her and several other leaders before we could stop her. She had been enslaved and well…snapped for lack of better words. She broke down afterwards and will likely require intensive care for her mental trauma.”

Oh.

“And her shard?” 

“We deployed a Solar Flare Cannon, and detonated the shard in several dimensions.” I flinched, the Solar Flare Cannon was the most powerful weapon the Gem Empire had on hand. They were bulky but relatively cheap monstrosities of steel and chroma and crystal. The original model was used to reshape Asia, a continent busting beam. 

The newer models were capable of blowing up the moon, so while they weren’t quite as powerful as an Incursean Conquest Beam, they could be built on an assembly line in comparison. The frog-aliens had only a handful of the things, and they were expensive as hell. 

The Gem Empire had at least one Solar Flare Cannon planned for every colony in the Empire. Which collectively added up to enough firepower to destroy every shard on the Earths in one or two dozen volleys.

By sheer mass, about ten bursts would be needed…but shards were tougher than raw mass suggested. More was almost certainly the case, and their billions of powers made things trickier.

There was a reason they were going with subversion through channels of magic the shards didn’t know about yet. In fact their opening energy bombardments were primarily for distraction from the bigger issues. Plus there was the issue of moving a hundred thousand billion ton guns across the galaxy.

At least their ships were insanely tough, with their modern scout ships being at least ten times more capable in every aspect than the Handship. And the Diamond flagships were even more so after they had figured out how to interweave actual Taydenite into Gem crystal armors and structural alloys. 

Plus they can shapeshift too, which is just bullshit. I had even found a clip of a flagship dragging a shard right into a black hole which luckily existed in hundreds of very similar dimensions. The shard was of course destroyed, with a final energy burst confirming the kill. 

Apparently Diamond flagships were expensive and hard to construct, being the best of the best but pulled back a notch from dangerously experimental. Nothing short of an energy blast capable of wiping a continent from existence would break through the defenses, a mix of chroma, refined crystals and metals, Taydenite, a powerful energy shield based on Gem light projections, and some type of structural integrity field. 

Okay anyway. “Is there anything else you wanted to tell me about Flowers?” The pretty 

“Oh uhh…” Flowers opened her mouth and she stepped aside for… Steven.

“Hello again.” I chirped aloud in greeting as I looked up to meet Steven’s eyes. “Is this about the incident with the Fallen or…?”

“It’s about the colony actually.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s take a walk.”

“It’s a nice ecumenopolis, I didn’t expect so much plant life though.” He commented. “You seemed more the industrial, science type of colony.” His smile was wide and warm. 

I sat down on the bench, rolling my shoulders. “I don’t hate nature, and I don’t want an ugly city. Plus I’ve always been interested in the ecosystem, even if from a distance.” Plus my power was Life itself, kind of couldn’t run away from that. 

Steven nodded. “I’ve had to answer a lot of your questions on the biology of alien species.” His song lifted with bemusement. 

“Heh. Sorry.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “So you mentioned I can select some of the starter species?”

“We’ve got a number of basal species already, liverworts, algae, moss, along with microscopic things like bacteria, nematodes.” He pointed out the organisms that had been reproducing at an exponential rate since the colony was suitable for them. 

“We need ground cover plants right? Things like angelina, thymes, maybe hemp?” I replied back, looking at the small garden built to give me a hands-on look at new Gem crops. “Or even Arctic-derived grasses? They seem resilient enough.” The modified grass was a light red-pink color, inundated and mutated by ichor and magic. “Elodea for the lakes?”

“You’ve done your research. Good job.” I blushed, not sure how to take the compliment. “Since the aquatic stage is nearly done, that means you can start the selection process for higher animals.”

“Crabs, giant land crabs.” He tilted his head, and I could read his aura projection of affection and amusement. “We managed to retrieve some files belonging to the Crowl’s makers, large crab-derived herbivores.” With an internal skeleton, and a different type of piecemeal exoskeleton. “I thought they were cool, and they had a nice shade of red and pink.” As well as efficient digestion and respiration. “There’s the garden fish too, the modified platies, swordtails, guppies and mollies.” Heavily modified in fact, infused with magic like the plants.

“We’ve got other choices too, our contact with the Boiling Isles and Amphibia gave us a lot of ideas on infusing magic into organic life.” That probably involves obtaining DNA from native life like the witches, and certain monsters and beasts. “Once there’s enough ambient magic, we can start a self sustaining loop for Gem production, since magic can be used to generate mass.” I nodded, glancing at some of the choices.

They were gem cultivated organic crops fused biologically with Petropian mineral symbionts and Demon Realm plants. Orytko plants shined with the luster of metals and crystal ore, created by processes of magic and light processing organs. They were fairly new however, but their existence meant a colony could be used effectively indefinitely as long as we drained the planet within safe limits. 

“Chocopedes.” Was my first Diamond order. “Realm Phantasia Griffin.” Was the official name for the planet of the Demon Realm of Earth Wicce. Of the world of the Owl House.

There was some visible concern on Steven’s face. “Don’t those breath spiders? ”

I scratched my chin. “Your point being?”

“Alright then, fair enough.” I thought he would object more, but then again he was used to weirdness by now. “While we’re not planting many trees yet, do you have any preferences?”

“Pines. Preferable northern species or resilient supernatural ones. Ones from Gravity Falls stock even. Bamboo too, I just like it.” I smiled easily. “Maybe some of the Gem cultivated coconut palms, date palm, or olea europaea. Or besides trees, sunflowers, maybe some red variants, a couple hundred species of clover.”

There would need to be smaller animals to eat them. Springtails, woodlice, ants, aphids, millipedes, ladybird beetles, burying beetles, crickets, crayfish and shrimp, copepods. Lots and lots of crabs, thousands of mite species. Snails, including the domestic giant snails of Amphibia…and…

I turned a shade of red, chirping in embarrassment when Steven ruffled my hair, his laugh sounding for god like piano riffs and chip tunes.

“H-Hey! I’m not a little kid.” I threw off his soft hands, rolling clicks of protest in my throat.

“I’ve got a decade on you, and including the memories of my Gem…about four and a half million as my mom.” I snapped my mouth shut, grinding my fangs. “And don’t get me started on the backlog of files from where her gem first formed.”

Indeed, the Pink Diamond was a song some four hundred and fifty million years long. It was only her mind that was now gone, her memories, they were there, hidden enough to let him grow an identity of his own.

But the memories had changed him nonetheless. 

“Still, don’t.” It was an affectionate gesture but… “Find some other way to express affection.” He smiled but I knew he was going to listen. Steven was considerate like that. “We’re close to getting the numbers for a standard colony expedition aren’t we?”

Steven offered a seat, a metal bench. I sat down, hands touching my bare knees. He did the same.

“Is that what you want to talk about right now?” There was something in his expression and voice, searching for something on my own.

“No.” 

“Then what do you want to talk about?” 

I breathed. “At home, I talk to my family every other day. They’ve told us about strange things in the sky and caught on telescopes and observatories. I got them a care package, healing ichor to clear out some disease.” They had gotten sick from the food at a party, not my dad of course, since they’re divorced and this was a party at my mom’s sister’s place. 

“You’re wondering when we’re going to establish contact with your Earth? When are we going to place it under our protection?”

“It’s my home,” I croaked. “They have no experience, no ability to defend themselves from what might be coming.” Only the very weakest of capes could be considered harmless. Stars forbid any of the real powerful capes gain a foothold.

You’d only need one to destroy the world, a super-plague from Bonesaw, a fragment of the Machine Army, or a crack opening up the world to Nilbog. Or worse of all, Sleeper with his bullshit power. He was more than capable of subsuming the planet. 

From what I had looked up, Sleeper was surrounded by a manifestation of a storm of multicolored light, with a horrifying reality warping nature. Something like the Shimmer or the Color Out of Space, perception becomes reality, matter is consumed and shifted and changed, reality warping on a scale that made Labyrinth look like the kid she was.

Only powers more durable than Alexandria, powerful Changers and special brains can keep the subsumption effect from consuming them. Thankfully I had all three of those. I was just missing an absolute annihilation power to destroy his power. 

“What did you have in mind?” I straightened up, feeling good that he was taking my concerns seriously.

“I’d like to make my Earth a protectorate of the Empire.” His crosshairs shifted their focus to me.

“Are you sure about that?” I nodded, it was a serious order.

The Gem Empire had a familial take to their charges, to any species willing to fall under the aegis of the Gem species. Most species weren’t independent, simply partaking within the governments of the vast stellar nation created by the Diamonds. A protectorate was a little different, it was more declaring a world under their protection but not under their rule and full authority.

They would offer them other things of course with suitable negotiation and time. And they could evolve into a true colony of the Gem Empire in time. Steven’s Earth falls under a grey area between the two states. The planet was nominally his, but he only controlled Gem areas and little else. 

Especially with the growth of potential metahumans, about forty million in total. Of course that didn’t mean much when most didn’t have the need to use their powers in the way shard-hosts did. Yet when they had beings like the Flash, like Wonderwoman, and more…

But their own…hero community was relatively small, larger than say Aleph with a couple hundred and smaller than Bet’s tens of thousands of heroes. The difference was largely in power, a higher concentration of high scale superhumans. I had looked up the roster, and found that there was a dark knight in Gotham, there had been a mysterious superman in Metropolis. 

Multiple cities existed which didn’t exist in my world, with the biggest surprise being Brockton Bay where Portsmouth would be on my Earth. They had their own superheroes too, like Professor Threshold. He was an expert on interdimensional technology and built sophisticated technology to help society and to help others fight crime. 

I’m 90% Professor Haywire(who was still alive by the way) was a version of him, or Threshold was a version of him? I don’t know, this was all weird to me. Which meant Earth 460’/ was a more direct alternate of Bet, closer to them than my world was.

I breathed out. “I am. My world isn’t perfect…and maybe your people can make it a little better where I can’t.” I was one being, even if I was a Diamond. “Especially with the pandemic, with the wars and destruction and…it would be nice you know?”

He seemed so very understanding. “Heh…you’ve got a bigger heart than you think you do. There’s nothing to worry about either, we’ve already sent a diplomat to make contact with Earth Mundanus.” 

I relaxed. “Good. Good. It’s nice to think my world is going to be safer.” It relieved some deep anxiety, a protective instinct I needed to alleviate for my own sake, for their sake. “What are the plans on that though?”

“We’ve already seeded precaution-weapons across the galaxy, they self-replicate in the space between stars so…” 

“So they should be protecting the entire galaxy now.” 

Steven breathes a heavy song. “We’re also planning a few colonies, we don’t have many in other dimensions but it’ll give them people to talk to in the galaxy.” 

“Maybe help with colonizing Mars?” I wiggled my eyebrows, I had some bias here after all. “Or get them talking with your Earth or any of the other Earths on the network.” There were a couple at least, and some tech advances could easily cause breakthroughs in my world. 

“There’s a few groups who work well with technology transfer like S.T.A.R Labs or even Wayne Industries.” I felt my face turn nervous. “Or would that weird out people? Getting help from fictional companies?”

“Ooo. You really wanted to jump into that can of worms didn’t you?” I winced at the mere thought.

“About the part where your world knows us as fictional characters?” I opened and closed my mouth. “It’s not the first time.” I tried to make words but couldn’t. “There’s DC comics on Earth Wicce, so we know stuff like that happens. The multiverse is a big place. There’s a version of Earth that Professor Pines went to where I’m fictional.”

The one where Stanford is successful and stuff?

“That’s still super weird isn’t it?” I asked carefully, unsure how to take his stepford smile. 

“Incredibly so.” Oh man I kind of feel bad now, this must be all super odd and freaky. 

I patted his shoulder. “There. There.” I said mechanically, trying and maybe failing to comfort him. 

He snorted. “Nice try. But I’m fine, mostly anyway.”

I stood up. “Then let’s get back to it, old timer. I’ve got my eye on some more plants.” I whistled a tune.

“Don’t make me whip out my cane.” He shook his fist as we took a walk.

We spent the next hour perusing the future of my colony. It was a nice time.

I examined a Shard-stone, tilting my head at the fragment of semi-organic crystal. It was a hybrid of reverse engineered shard flesh and forms of Gem computer networks, and the intelligence networks of other crystalline species. 

Entities were made of a unique crystal, phasing into higher realities. Mostly silicon/carbon based, their memory was holographic, memory encoded into folded up energy fields. They did have more exotic components, various types of stable exotic matter and particles used to improve the efficiency of their reality alteration.

Though I noted a trace amount of tantalum, titanium, rare earth minerals, stabilized moscovium, iridium, iron, and other elements. The crystals were programmable nano/picotech. The higher energies and particles they were infused with were used to warp space and time and thus to shift between dimensions as easy as flipping a book.

Shard-stones were reverse engineered from such mixing of biology and technology, using remnants of that strange astral entity given life by subtle energies, and their own computer and crystal machinery. They weren’t shards so much as Gemtech channeling the subtle energies the shards use, and then programming them with powers.

The issue was that creating it was a difficult process prone to faults and defects, it took time to meld magic with the alternate source of reality warping energy that the Entities had access to. Most of it has been confined to use as specialized components in dimensional technology. Like a chip accelerator kind of thing.

Sort of, I wasn’t an expert.

From what I can tell their breakthrough was in the last year or so, they modified the nanite fluid in Flask Robonoids, allowing them to create Shard-stones on an industrial scale. The nanite fluid had become multidimensional, a sort of hybrid of shard and Gem.

Kind of, not really. But good enough for what I knew. They were basically shards and could probably be grown to the same scale, but they operated using Gem AI instead of shard intelligence. 

Most subverted shards were damaged, and a control circuit using stadium sized samples of Shard-stones was put in place. Making them compatible with Gems was another improvement.

I activated the Shard-stone, and it floated in midair. All of them shared a number of waste powers. Insulation from space, though Gem technology had that as a matter of course. They had energy storage and generation storage, again Gem stuff. Communication between realities, and energy and matter transference was another thing of course, analysis and storage of data from brains. And biology with our ridiculously elaborate scanners.

I floated a few pieces, assembling a Robonoid with the Shard-stone as a core processor. I added several projectors, chewing on my lip. I opened a few files, and found a few power profiles.

We had taken a deep scan of Tripper’s power nullification orb. It was a projection of unique hyper-frequencies that disrupted powers, distorting the dimensional links and shutting them down for several seconds. Based on what we had checked, the power could be boosted to last days or weeks but was limited to a matter of seconds.

The Robonoid was a simple thing, a red orb with eight limbs, sort of like floating fingers. Or like the legs of a spider. I opened the power profile, and it generated a ball of the specific disruptive frequencies.

“Shut off the power disruption ball.” I commanded and the robot did as I asked, I whispered a song and it followed like a lost puppy.

I opened the door to my little lab, and it was lit on the front lobby-living room of the Home Temple. I should really think up a better name. 

Faultline was lounging like a cat, yawning as she read up for one of her college classes. From the looks of it.

“What do you want now?” She was a bit of a grump even without her power prodding her brain.  

I grinned from ear to ear. “So. We got a nice long scan of Tripper’s power, and thought…”

“Just do your experimentation already, I wasn’t using my power anyway.” 

“~Thank you Faultline~” I sang my thanks. She rolled her eyes. The robot sent out a ball of power disruption, shutting off her power.

“Thank me, by working on your end of the bargain.” She pointed out, eyes narrowed.

“We already have people working on the task of shifting Newter and Gregor to a more human baseline.”

“And I imagine you’re working on how to present what you know about the origin of the Case 53s as well? Well, one of your people anyways.”

“That obvious?” She snorted though there was no mirth in it. “I suspect the whole global coverage across multiple dimensions and intensive knowledge about the going ons kind of spoiled it?”

“I don’t know why you’re so reluctant, but I’ve heard rumors, rumors of what happens to people who dig too deep.” There was a scowl on her face. “And to be honest…I don’t expect it to come from your mouth. We might be around the same age but I have more life experience.”

“You’re not wrong, I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth.” I shook my head. “We will tell you, we just want to be careful for the sake of your lives.” She nodded, almost understanding. 

There was a call.

“Hello?

“…”

“Really? Do I have to go?”

“…”

“Damn it.”

I inspected my nails as I sat in a PRT waiting room with Olly, they had questions to ask after what had gone down with the Fallen, how we had devastated an entire branch and revealed their dirty secrets with both Haven and the Protectorate diving into the feast. Same outfit(and form) as I had taken during the operation. I waited patiently, flicking my fangs in a nervous fashion. 

The Director was a researcher, not so much for PR and politics like say Piggot. But they were different people with different priorities and goals. At least it wasn’t Director West or some of the more militant ones, I heard rumors about people like them. I wasn’t afraid of them though, but I wasn’t going to let arrogance blind me either.

They might not be able to kill me from what I had picked up on Diamond durability but hurting me was another thing entirely with the sheer range of powers. And I would rather not end up doing something stupid because I was needlessly arrogant. 

While I was waiting I pulled up a few files, data taken on Citrine’s power and its ability to tweak physics. The Entities had vast knowledge of the function of higher realities, using the energies in those dimensions to alter physics. Her power was the projection of strange energies to attune the world around her.

It was related to Stilling, though technically all powers attuned reality using higher dimensional waves and frequencies. They simply specialized towards altering physics in their own way, while Stilling was much larger and able to manipulate a far greater range as a toolkit shard. 

“Sunrise Diamond? O-Olly?” A voice called out. I blinked away the files, and looked around. The woman who called my name was dressed business casual, a white button up house with a grey skirt and low-heeled pumps. 

“Yes?” I said whine Olly looked up from a tablet-like device.’

“The Director is ready to see you now.”

We moved quickly through the halls, the woman leading Olly and I. Not that we couldn’t find our way, it wouldn’t be difficult. But going in without an escort  probably wasn’t a good idea. For either of us really. After an elevator ride and another hallway or two we were at the door, the secretary woman leaving us alone.

I stepped forward to knock, and the door was opened to reveal Bastion. He gestured and I rolled my eyes, entering the room. The door locked behind us, and there was a sudden field, a privacy shield I guessed. Director Armstrong was more or less what I expected, older, overweight, African American. Pretty short too, though still taller than I am. 

“Sunrise Diamond. You were listed as the nominal leader of Atlas.” Oh goddamn it, really? “We have a few questions for your organization, and some of your correspondents said there were topics left to reveal. They’ve already spoken to us on the destruction of the Mathers branch.” I felt my eyebrows twitch. There was skepticism in his tone. 

“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she’s one of the leaders, though still inexperienced. That's why I’m here.” Olly explained where I couldn’t or didn’t feel like it.

“Of course.” Would sending a new leader be considered a slight? Or were they going to take it as something else entirely. “I understand the information you mentioned is sensitive, this room is within a faraday cage, regularly scanned for listening devices and has a specialized privacy shield within the room. It’s as secure as we can manage.” Olly raised an eyebrow.

“Good enough…for humans anyway.” Olly snorted at the concerned looks the people in the room gave her. Bastion, Challenger, with the Auditor in another room, with Armstrong right in front of us. He also had paper so it was secure enough.

“Human?” He questioned.

“We’ve mentioned not being from this dimension already, but I’m sure you’ve noted we left out a fair number of details.” I spoke up and gestured to Olly.

She extended four rods that self-assembled into holographic conduits.

“Yes. For example our arrival was only partially accidental, the targeting was just off.” The screen expanded to reveal live images of Mars, taken by the numerous Gem satellites in orbit of the planet. “We came to this reality through devices of our own creation.” Armstrong stiffened, as did the other capes. “Gems were never human to begin with, and in fact originate from outside this galaxy.” The screen became three dimensional, forming a map of galaxies, pointing to a dwarf one.

“Based on the positioning…the Canis Major dwarf galaxy?” Director Armstrong raised an eyebrow. Bastion coughed, almost embarrassed. “I have an interest in astronomy, though it looks…”

“Different? That’s normal, our existence shifted the positioning of quite a few galaxies as did…other entities.” She waved off their disturbed looks. “Regardless, Homeworld resides in what our universe calls the Adamant galaxy.” She projected an image of Homeworld in comparison to Earth. “A hot, large planet some seven times more massive than your home planet. The Diamonds emerged from the planet, digging their way out from the planet’s core.” The image shifted to the core, deep tunnels scattered across the world. 

First White, emerging as a radiant figure, then Yellow, then Blue, and much later came Pink. The government people glanced at me, at my gem. I shook my head, mouthing no. 

“I won’t bore you with the half million year history of Gems,” Armstrong was slightly pale. “Thousands of years ago, Gems sought to colonize Earth for its plentiful resources, from diverse mineralogical deposits to regions rich in ambient metaphysical energy. In the process we changed the course of history, and the very face of the planet.” She showed the differences between Bet and 460’/. 

“You’re aliens, actual aliens.” Armstrong sounded reasonably skeptical. 

“May I continue storytime?” I asked Olly and she acceded to it. “Yes. Of course colonization of Earth failed because one element of Homeworld’s leadership objected to the extinction of humanity and life on Earth. Pink Diamond disguised herself as the legendary Rose Quartz and began a thousand year war of rebellion.” I gestured to Pink Diamond becoming Rose Quartz, of the war, of its end. “The war ended with most of the rebellion destroyed or…damaged and the Earth was abandoned. Eventually the two sides reconciled with the help of Rose Quartz’s hybrid son, leading to a time of prosperity and greater diplomatic exchange with the galaxies.”

“When was this…reconciliation?”

“About seventeen years ago, the original war itself was about five thousand years ago,” I brushed my song along the air, softening my words “Humanity has benefited from the change of heart of the Gem Empire, and has developed significantly. They’ve got a few colonies of their own.”

Armstrong leaned back, pensive. “This is a lot of new information.” Armstrong was careful to keep us in sight. “Assuming this is the truth, why tell us now?”

“Besides the fact you’ve already seen our influence, including the Roaming Eye we parked a hundred kilometers up to help destroy the Fallen?” Olly brought attention to what they should already know. It wasn’t exactly subtle. “For one thing, it gives our action greater weight. For another, it doesn't really change our plans if people know or not. Even if buried in classified files.”

“And you have unilateral access to our reality with these devices?” 

“Technically anyone with access to a dimensional science focused laboratory can travel to this universe. It was humans who built the first portals to other universes.” Ignoring the Null Void.

“And it’s not tinkertech?” Bastion added his questions.

“It’s perfectly understandable if you take the appropriate classes in multidimensional paradigm theory. Humans alone have tens of thousands of students and masters in the field.” Olly was wearing a placid smile. “Of course for your world that would take years of study.”

“This is officially above any of our paygrades.” Armstrong declared, his face blank of any emotion. “How effective is your dimensional transport technology?”

“I’ve got a dimension hopping device on me at this instant.” I opened up, keeping a good eye on their expressions. “Devices can be anywhere from handheld to large enough to transport small fleets.” 

“Are there more Gems on the way?”

“Yes.”

“How many?” He said, looking more and more nervous. 

“On Earth, you shouldn’t expect more than a few hundred Gems for long term habitation. For Mars on the other hand…a hundred thousand?” They were rough estimates. 

“A hundred thousand. All of them with powers?” 

Meh, it wasn’t that impressive. “It’s a standard number for colonization missions.” 

“I imagine you realize this sounds like the prelude of an alien invasion.”

I rolled my eyes at Armstrong’s comment, though he didn’t see it. “If we wanted to invade we would have sent in all the Gems towards Earth Bet instead of Mars. Plus most of our resources are being dedicated toward a different front than what’s effectively a backwater corner world.”

Armstrong blinked. “Backwater?”

“Six billion is less than the eight billion of Earth 460’/, which has an alliance with multiple alternate Earths, and pales in comparison to hundreds of alien empires.” Some had hundreds of billions of people to over a trillion within their boundaries. 

“Exactly how many Gems are out there?” Challenger was looking less jovial.

Olly tilted her head. “On our Earth there are maybe two million Gems, though they don’t really rule the planet. It’s more a protected state, a protectorate if you would. If you mean in total? Last census established a population of three hundred forty trillion Gems across 170,000 colonies.”

The Director swallowed. “I would still like more evidence, I don’t want to insult you but many capes can be…odd about what they believe.” Delusional is what he means. 

“You should be receiving multiple separate pieces of evidence in the next ten seconds.” I was puzzled at the surety of Olly. “Though you need to check on that outside this room.” 

Armstrong had the look of someone who swallowed a raw egg. “Moving on. The leaders of Homeworld, the Diamonds…what’s so important about them?” He sounded more curious, scientific inquiry lined along his aura.

I straightened my posture and squared my shoulders. “Diamonds are the first Gems, it’s from their power that every Gem in existence came to be.” 

“Their power?”

“Gems might look almost human, but they don’t work or completely think like humans.” I informed them, poking at my head for emphasis. “For example, you’ve taken scans of Gems right? Anything you’d like to add?” I waved my arm at Challenger.  

“Your Breaker state…Gems seem to be made out of light combined with some other substance my sensors can’t make heads or tails out of.”

Olly seemed pleased. “Yep. Most Gems are projections of conscious light from our Gems, like a hologram with mass. We have more in common with your computers than organics, and possess any number of reality warping powers.” She floated some tinfoil to demonstrate.

“It wouldn’t be wrong to state that Gems are AI, gemstones given life by the Diamonds. A sort of hive queen kind of thing. We produce a sort of substance that’s then mixed with minerals in the soil and energy from the planet to produce Gems.”

“And you’re one of those Diamonds, what is a big shot like you doing here then?” Challenger didn’t seem to be so nervous anymore.

“I mentioned that this isn’t our destination right? Plus I’m new. I’m still learning the ropes.”

“Why our Mars then? If you can traverse realities like you said. You have a wide number of worlds to choose from.” Armstrong clasped his hands together, eyes narrowed. 

“We mentioned most of the Empire is caught up in something else,” I continued the exposition. “There’s currently a transuniversal and intergalactic war going on, and we’ve traced that the main force responsible may have an offshoot in your reality.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“No. Not in a fully satisfactory manner, and not without bringing attention that could kill us all.” I replied honestly, and there was a second paling from Armstrong. 

“What can you tell us?” He asked more seriously, expression grave.

“Four years ago, a creature revealed itself to the galaxy, it has many names as does the rest of its kind. Let us call them…Void Ophidians for now, some of their titles are too on the nose.” Olly was the one explaining. “Void Ophidians are vast world destroyers, with a wide number of powers. They are an exponential threat responsible for destroying thousands of worlds, capable of traversing between dimensions and across space.”

“And you say one of those things may be here? And you can’t give us any more detail?”

“If I do, only Sunrise Diamond will survive.”

There was a silence in the room, awkward and cold.

“So, thoughts?” Kamil asked as went through his coded notes that he would later be presenting to the chief director.

“I’d say we were being made fun of, but they definitely believe what they’re saying.” Marion prodded her weapon, frowning. “That or they’re delusional, but I have a funny feeling that they’re not lying. They don’t sound or act crazy besides being a little weird.” 

Bastion tapped his hand on the desk. “Despite my…reservations, I don’t disagree with Challenger.”

They had turned off the privacy shield to allow signals to go through, and Kamil received an alert from his computer. An avatar formed, revealing Dragon.

“Dragon?” Armstrong was a little surprised, not expecting her call. The two capes behind him locked eyes, a silent conversation passing.

“Director Armstrong? There appears to be a message for you.” His eyes widened as she brought up several signals. “Some type of focused electromagnetic signal was caught by my receivers, they were pinpointed from several places in the solar system. They arrived at roughly the same time.”

“R-Radio signals you said?” His voice didn’t hitch, anyone who said it did was lying. “From where exactly?” 

“We’ve confirmed signals from the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn.”

“What did they say?” 

There was a moment of hesitation from Dragon.

“…One small step for man.”

Armstrong sighed.

I opened my eyes, looking at a scene I didn’t understand. I was in space, staring up at a distant explosion. It was vast and multitudinous, extending in countless infinite dimensions. A boundless light wrapping and warping around a dark core, a hole in the universe, a holographic surface of nothingness. 

A planet orbited around it, a world immersed in countless colors and slowly blurring out of existence, spinning around the burning energy at nearly the speed of light. 

The planet attracted the corpses of Ǫ̴̛̮͍̘̮̖̤̥͚͓͍̪͛l̸͕̋́͌͋̕d̴̛̦̏͒̌͛̆̍̏͋̔̕ ̶̛̱͇͕̣̠̼̞̰̙̽̂̀́̐̿̓̕ȁ̴̢̰̪͙̻̤̰̹̩̬̯̞̞͙̪̔̎n̵̲͇̗̠̝̋̇̏͜͝d̸̠̝͊̓́͗͂͝ ̶̡͈͔̻̼̈́͋̐̔̓̾̉͠N̴̨̡͓͈͕̙͕̫͚̪̥̠̼̝͕͍̰̽̎̒̐͒̆̍̓̕ê̶͍͋̌̾͛͝͝w̸͕͇̩̤̩̤̝͒͗̈́̓͊͂͑̆̇͗̍͝͠ ̶̭̩͇̭͇̖̘̬͈͔͖͊̏͗́̊̍̊͠G̶̢̣̬̬̳͚͋̈́̅̋o̸̹̰̳̩̦̟͔͓͚̫̐͐̌̈́̈́̋̐͗̈́̂̋̕̕̕͝ḑ̸̼̭̗͕̯̇̈́̈́̑͒͋̉̆͛̾̕̕͠͠s̷͚̭͉͉̮̻̗̺͚̋̈́͒̇̓̒̒̒̍͆̋̓̾̑͘͠ ̷̨̩̜̜̆b̷̡̧̫̺̻̖̺͍͙͕̪̟̣̃͒͑̓̊̋͐͑͝͝ư̵̲̗͈͖̭̜͍̹̫̻͚͆̏̐͐͂̎͗̂́r̶̢̙͇͓̲͉͉̹͔͔̟̪̥̰̗̉̈́͑́͆̎̊̋͂̆̕͘͠͠ͅn̵͚͐̃͐̑͛͒̉̀̽̚͝i̴̧̻̫̹̯̫̳̭͓͎̞̊̂̔͐͑̂͑̚n̶̖͖̖͕̚g̶̡̘̰̜̎͊̌̐̉̄͑̃ ̶̼̟͂̓̒̓̈́͒͋̾͗̑͘͘͘̚͝ą̶͈̪̮͐̕͠l̴̥͒̄̂̔̈́̒̄̅̈̚ỉ̷̢͓͖̲̙̭̪͇͇̱͚͎̳͈͙̇̉̋̍͛ͅv̷̧̨̝̻͔͈̗̺̺̮͈̤̞̜̅͑̀̚͜͝e̸̫͛.̷̛̹̹̟͌̿͗̌͒͗͐̓̅̕͝͝

There were voices. 

There were voices.

“This w*** k** us **u **********?” I didn’t get more than snippets. Fragment of thought and language.

“**r f*****. Th* S******** w*** tr***** t** G******. The F**** ***** will ****.” 

The scene cut away like a scratched record or a damaged tape, static and tears wearing down the scene, the memory, the tale. 

I looked at a star, a massive bloated sphere in white, lighting with majesty and power. A moment later, a vast wave came, resembling multicolored bright fluid despite being energy surging into the structure of space and time itself. It compressed into a spear, slamming into the star.

And with that energy, that seed of magic, the star died. It exploded, compressed into a single point, solar energy fueling esoteric processes, catalyzing magic on a scale unseen.  The shift was flipped through, scenes turned like pages. Instead I saw something else instead. 

I was elsewhere. Like my own memory, buried deep down within me. A huge creature filled my vision. 

It was hard to say how I even knew this was one creature when each drop of its blood was a creature of its own. Each of them existed in multiple alternate spaces at once, reflections, paired across space and time. Shifting between one another as needed to exist, differing in how they interacted with the worlds and how many they interacted with. Unfolding and folding across many dimensions, interacting with one another, broadcasting with one another in concepts and alien tongues. Living hypercubes, but not four dimensional, it was more, beyond seven, beyond eleven.

They were alive, each and every one of them. Life forms of great scope and scale, with no relation to conventional biology. Organs were simultaneously limbs, and exteriors and eyes and teeth and mitochondrial centers of power. An aspect of the entity manifested in crystal flesh and bone. It didn’t help that the creature was so large, larger than a moon, larger than a planet, larger than our own sun. Moving in and between dimensions with the ease of walking between rooms.

The loner moved to a synchronized beat, heavy with knowledge and pieces. Each revolution brought the organs further and further apart. Innumerable motes drifted from its body as it parted into four lines of aster bodies. Trails of tissue and foreign energies and powers. The leading edge of the creature divided into four broke up, and they communicated, signaled, and exchanged data. Messages with the force of stellar novas. One word, one idea, every core mote sharing at once.

Destination. Agreement. Trajectory. Agreement. 

They would reunite one day, fuse into a single creature, one greater and grander than the last. Heavy with the potential of an unsuspecting galaxy. 

The leading edges continued onwards, past an unseen barrier colored with flickers of symbols, messages I didn’t comprehend even now. The lines of motes shifted from the plan of the forward-seeing eyes of the loner. An uncontrolled trajectory, the motes flailing, wailing, colliding.

I remember this.

I remember this.

Half the motes fell one way in a cacophonous leap of terror, and the motes grew more detailed, obsidian structures spinning out of control. Some were puny, the size of cars and buildings, others were large in the way mountains were, large in the way continents were, large in the way planets were.

Within them, something grew like a parasite in the flesh of the godling seeds. It was raw, uncontrolled, hungry, tasting of the energies with a profound need. The motes died, consumed. Their flesh was every bit as energetic and hot as a star, and thus every bit as delectable. 

A hidden seed of magic and divinity, a poison, a venomous seed to kill even gods, fed off the entity in droves, first hundreds, then thousands and millions and billions were consumed and crushed down to atoms, down to pure energy. They broke up into smaller shards to flee, but it only weakened them.

A hundred billion pieces dead and gone, swirling down into a fragment of warped hyper-compressed carbon, singing a weak call, a call that was heard.

A ship came, like the image of a whale, the image of dragons and manta rays and serpent gods. With it there was the song, an orchestra so enormous it was like a trillion voices speaking in unison. The song came and whirled around me, curling with pulses of life and power and magic. 

It radiated, colored me, shaped my song, and the void was replaced by the burning core of a sun, deepening pink into light red with the raging scream of a red giant. I ate of the stellar matter and energy, bringing down more and more of the force that composed magic itself.

There was a bright light and everything was—

I channel surfed, receiving signals from Steven’s Earth, some were familiar, others were not. Disney existed, but some shows didn’t exist, Cartoon Network existed but was called the Cartoon Channel. Amphibia was replaced by Reptilia, and Owl House by Raven House…not subtle, not at all.

My heart was still racing, at the clear memories, something strange and alien, my gem ringing like a radio station. The memory of eating every single shard, the taste of near limitless energy. It was as clear as day, and not something I could ignore anymore out of misplaced fear.

I touched my gem and felt it, a dull sense like rubbing a fingernail or one’s own teeth. There was a feeling but it wasn’t very strong. There was something I didn’t see though, where had the other half gone, what was I not seeing?

I muttered nonsense, rubbing my eyes. I didn’t need as much sleep, but I still liked lazy days where I slept eight hours. Which had become rare even before becoming part Gem. 

There was a break in a nearby song, something like pain, like terror and self loathing given voice in once calming melodies. There was the sound of air being parted, a fuschia blur entering the kitchen.

I didn’t remember entering the kitchen, but I did remember the despair plucking my heartstrings. I looked at her, looked at the unusual burst of strong feeling from a more even emotioned Flowers. She was not calm but calming. 

She was a mess, nursing a cup of ambrosia, Diamond ichor diluted into a drink. It was blue-white, a calming draught. The moment it hit her lips, the odd ticks, the way she shook in place seemed to just…calm.

“Flowers?” I had never seen her…so vulnerable before. She stepped back, looking almost ashamed. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t, I shouldn’t…it’s not worth bothering you over.” She sniffled, her one eye watering and her song wavering. “I try not to…” she trailed off, as if what she was saying was forbidden.

“What? Do you keep all your negative vibes out of sight or something?”

“…”

“Oh.” I approached her, lips pulled into a frown. “You don’t have to do that, you know, no one is happy all the time.” Didn’t I know it? 

“And what? Do you want all the juicy details of my misery?” This was a more acerbic side to Flowers. I kind of liked it, it was a familiar dynamic.

“If it’s not something you can talk about then don’t.” I clarified. “But I like to think we’re friends, I don’t mind seeing all your facets.” She seemed…like she didn’t believe what I was seeing. 

“I’m not sure…”

“You know I’m not going to suddenly get obsessed with fixing other people’s problems right? I’m not Steven…no instead you have the problem of having a lazy apathetic little shit as your Diamond.” My laugh was bitter, something curdling in my stomach.

“You’re not that bad.” I smiled, just a hint of sadness in my musing.

“That. That’s why I want to be friends with you, you’re always kind to others. Considerate, and smart too.” I complimented, unable to help myself. “You’re not perfect, but I don’t mind…just being here for you. If you need it.”

God that was cheesy wasn’t it? It felt out of character but…I think I wanted to reciprocate her kindness, her friendliness.

She was blushing.

“Okay.” She followed me back to the living room. I patted the seat next to me on the couch. She leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. There was a shuddering pulse from her chest, a hollow sound. She gripped my sleeve, claws cutting against skin. Or they would have if my skin wasn’t harder than her razor sharp claws.

“Umm…do you want a hug?” I asked, not wanting to be presumptuous. She whispered a yes with a weeping song. To my shock she crawled into my lap, and I held my breath, shocked at her boldness. She rested her head more firmly into the crook of my neck, close enough to catch the lilac and cherry blossom aroma of her form. She had some big hair… it was really soft too.

Where do I put my hands?

Flowers predicted my predicament, and placed my hands right above her hips. Why she didn’t put them on her back instead I have no idea. It was rather quiet aside from her stuttering song, and my own heartbeat. It beat but not like it did before, distant but strong, a drum of thunder and dull explosive thuds.

It wasn’t the heartbeat I had before, it was alien, it was strong, it was thunder mixed with a distant electric song, folded over one another into a single whole.

I purred, letting my power roll over Flowers, giving her a measure of comfort aside from my touch. “Am I helping?” It was a shy tweet of a song. Here I was, holding a pretty lady in my lap. 

“A little, you’re very warm and comfy.” She put her face on my chest, humming. 

“Watcha doing?”

“Your heartbeat is nice.” Was all she said.

…

She seemed resigned. “I…my life hasn’t always been peaceful,” stating the obvious there. “With the war…I lost a lot of friends, and they didn’t go peacefully…” There was something haunted in her eyes, in her very soul. “And of course I see the future, there’s quite a few Sapphires who’ve developed Seer’s Madness.”

“Seer’s Madness?” I asked, but didn’t demand.

“It’s an affliction my caste can develop, the sheer number of possibilities can drive us to do strange or crazy things. Though almost all cases are a result of defects or outside forces. Post-traumatic stress is one of the more common causes,” she explained, tightening her grip. “We lose ourselves to the path, not wanting to deal with true reality.”

“Mama Mathers, Gems had to learn how to deal with powers like hers the hard way didn't they?” I didn’t voice my concerns on what that meant? How many Gems suffered as her victims did. Because of the shards of the Entities. “You…you were hurt a lot weren’t you?” 

“Yes I was.” She sounded so tired.

“Hmm…” I pondered, and as I pondered I shifted my form. She let out a muffled yelp. I thought being Brenda for a bit would be more comforting, having more curves and all. I adjusted Flowers, and she rested her head on my bust. Which I umm…I didn’t think this through huh?

Where was I going with this?

“You don’t have to give me any more details if you don’t want to. We can just talk.”

“…would it be alright to know more about your family?”

“Yeah…I don’t mind. Well, I’ve got a mom and dad. They divorced a while back. I’ve got a younger brother, about nine. A half-brother from a second failed marriage on my dad’s side.”

“I want to ask but…”

“Please don’t. I have a number of unresolved father issues I prefer to keep under wraps.” 

“Go on then.” 

“I’ve got a few aunts and uncles, some cousins like…”

I eventually lulled myself into sleep with my own voice, along with the sound of Gemsong from Flowers.

Chapter Text

Scintillation 4.b

Six fingered hands brushed against inert flesh, interlocking mountains of reflective black crystal seamlessly mixed with yellow-brown fleshy stone. Extending out for hundreds of miles, extending into dozens of dimensions, above and below the garden of flesh. 

His skin tingled with the familiar sensation of passing through dimensional barriers, thirty long years of memory not failing him even after nine years of being home. In his mind he was beyond glad he had published his research, on the supernatural, on the nature of the multiverse and dimensional travel. 

He was glad they had opened portals to a select number of alternate worlds, and that his knowledge of multidimensional beings had proved useful in defeating the Wyrm. 

Stanford Filbrick Pines shuddered, and watched as a solid cube of inert shard was piled up into the gaping maw of an Atasian cargo ship. Atasian ships were hulks of grey and black metal, some the size of yachts and others were kilometers long monsters capable of detonating cities and small countries with a sweep of a pulse laser. 

The Tuscan Beast had once been much larger, the size of five Earths distributed across two dozen universes, but it’s core essence was only across three universes, and it was those they had burned away. The Tuscan Beast was a fragment, a face connected to a single colony at the edge of the border between Gem and Atasian space. It had then created relays to expand its reach across light years, before being rooted out and destroyed first. 

He still remembered it’s surprised scream when the first of the Corrupted had broadcast their rage and terror. The faster than light relays had proved to be vectors for the infection, and it had been a blessing just as much as it was a curse. 

The Dreaming Death didn’t kill them, it merely corrupted their data, and the shards of the Wyrm lashed out. A thousand planets had been destroyed in this universe alone. He knew of several realities who had sealed off dimensional passage to further confine the Wyrm, and his contacts had mentioned that warnings of the Black Wyrm’s species had been sent off across nine thousand dimensions. 

Not that any of the other Entities could fold into their realities anyway directly, Ford still hadn’t figured out why their dimensional travel was so inhibited when entering into their set of universes. The Black Wyrm had only succeeded due to a metaphorical chink in the armor. 

Twenty eviscerated Entity corpses the Cascans were staying clear of in Andromeda were evidence enough of the multiversal barrier. The mathematical principles reminded him of the equation for Weirdness Magnetism, but seemingly in reverse. Keeping things out rather than attracting and keeping things in. 

And ignored the trillion death cries reported across the known cosmos, supernova distress broadcasts only accessible to Imago-stage Entities. 

Stanford rubbed his face, adjusting his glasses as he suppressed some of his darker thoughts and paranoia. A pulse of reality shift brought a brown haired young man into his presence, and he refocused himself. 

“Ben, how is the investigation going?” He spoke informally, no point in decorum during the climax of an intergalactic war. 

“Way better than I thought it would, we found his entry point into our universe.”

“What did you find? Tell me quickly!” Stanford pulled out an item from his Infinity Belt, strapping an omni-computer onto his wrist. “And if you’ve taken any scans, pass me the data!”

“Hold your horse's old timer, at least give me some time to breathe.” The paranormal investigator backed away, keeping his excitement in check. 

“Sorry my boy, but it’s rather important we begin piecing together the clues of how all of this started.” It would be nice to be able to sleep a little better at night, it would be better to… not see a wriggling mass of crystal tearing a planet in half, as it tore a hole in the Nightmare and died screaming. 

Ben shrugged. “Fair enough. Gwen managed to get the pieces together with the help of a few Sapphires using past-sight.” 

Stanford flinched. He knew how unreliable such visions were, time didn't like being pulled back into the bottle as it were. They were made to look into the future, that was their magic. It was easily possible to see possible pasts rather than the truth, and they could never look as far back as they could into the future. 

But certain Gems could look farther, like Padparadscha Sapphires at the cost of delayed future vision or weakened future vision. Which was why they remained rare. 

“What did they find?” He was curious, damn it. 

“There’s traces of something big and weird, and something you know a lot about.” 

“The multiversal barrier? It’s confirmed?” The scientist leaned forward. There had been theories over the last few why the rest of the Black Wyrm’s kind hadn’t found them.

There were traces of magic, sciences and sorceries never explored by any species he knew of. And it was on a scale he couldn’t even begin to make sense of, it was a barrier much like the barrier around Gravity Falls but a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion times larger in scale. 

It wrapped around the multiverse like a shroud, an Orrery of Worlds in the endless dimensional sea. The worlds of the entities were the center of the bubble, with the chaff of trillions of mundane dimensions acting as the film. 

“Albedo and Gwen both found traces of some of the most powerful magic and hyperdimensional invocations they’ve ever seen. And we’ve been to places like Ledgerdomain and Gemworld. ” 

That…that was not a good sign. 

“Can you describe their findings?”

Ben rubbed his face, a deep sigh leaving his lips. “It seems like there’s some mix of a natural and artificial barrier between our realities and the realities the Entities exist in. Magic messes a massive amount with their power on it’s own but…” in an instant Ford got the implications.

“Something intentionally made it harder for the Black Wyrm’s species to enter our dimensions.” It was a breakthrough after years of research. “They applied magic and science on a cosmic scale and…they left the cracks on purpose.” His voice broke. 

The Entity, the Black Wyrm, had been honeypotted. It was all so clear for him now, the entity had met resistance with every step, it’s control over dimensions was weakened, slowed, it’s future sight interfered with across billions of light years of space with the precaution-weapons of Gemkind. They were so focused on the Gem Empire they didn’t realize their shards were too close to hundreds of advanced alien civilizations including the Level 15-20 civilization of the Galvans. 

It’s shards had been consumed, half of it by the new Diamond(wasn’t that novel?) and the other half by an unknown. His attempts to ask the To’kustars had been stymied, as if they didn’t want to speak of it. As if they knew the truth and felt it best be hidden. 

“We…don’t think it’s wrong—” The scientist cut him off.

“Yes, yes I’m simplifying. It’s possible the multiversal barrier was made with certain restrictions on how expansive it is.” He theorized that the barrier had been made much smaller, and that it grew exponentially with the cosmic wave that had started some seven billion years prior to the present. A Weirdness Wave, no a Godwave that had rushed past at hyper-FTL speeds.

It was only a theory, based on limited accounts from dead precursor civilizations, supposed legends of strangeness as a wave of light encompassed the skies of their worlds.

“You think something, someone trapped the gaps so that if anything like it came through they’d get killed?” Stanford grinned at the Plumber’s conclusion. He was a smart kid, and had to be when he’s been dealing with aliens and supernatural phenomena for seventeen years now. 

Especially when he lacked equipment other versions of him didn’t.

“It’s a likely scenario, the main question is why…what did that Sunrise boy call it?” He paused before starting again. “Why did Abaddon survive when twenty others of it’s kind didn’t when they found a gap in Andromeda?”

“No. The better question is why did they die when Abaddon didn’t?” Ben crossed his arms, and Ford blinked. He’s not wrong. 

The twenty Entities had all been planning to meet up with Abaddon until it had changed its course. They had all arrived right after half of it’s shards vanished into the ether. And then ceased to function, every dimensional link torn apart by who knows what. 

One Entity had heard a distress call from the Andromeda group, and had been mass scattered less than six months ago. It was an enormous creature, larger than the Pair and the Loner combined. A predatory subspecies from a faster, more violent cycle.

Jheselbraum the Unnerving had personally witnessed a swarm of the beasts dying, her foresight briefly blinded by a radiant light and a shadowed dark. 

“We’re going to have to find out what happened to the other half of the Black Wyrm’s energy.” He began to type into his new device, the proto-tool was a miraculous machine and good for any occasion or situation.

He received a message, and Stanford scowled. 

“Trouble?” Ben asked, the twenty six year old raising an eyebrow.  

“Project Pink Sunrise has hit a few snags, though conveniently the Thinker is already dead.” Ben started. “It switched it’s main precognitive shards mid-flight and hit a few thousand Earths.”

“That wouldn’t kill one of those monsters.” 

The Pines man agreed with him. “A knife to the fragile network core guided by an unrestrained precognition shard and decades of taking apart her core was what did her in.” It was sounding more and more like there was a third player, some unforeseen factor in the war.

“You taking the Zeta Tube?” 

Stanford absently nodded as he took notes, kicking aside a flaxen colored pile of limbs. Zeta Tubes, what fascinating technology. Quite frustrating that it took fifty five years to become commonplace.

He stepped on the metallic platform, and activated the machine. In a blink of golden light, he stepped across space and time, particles and waves of strange energy creating a connection across two thousand some light years. 

The Zeta Tubes were a human and Rannian signature, convergent technologies that connected their worlds. Humanity had spread across a handful of stars, bringing with them the weirdness that marked Earth. It has given people like him a lot of work.

He toggled his Infinity Belt, and stepped to the right world. They hadn’t figured out the trick to using Zeta Tubes to step between worlds. But it was only a matter of time.

He stiffened when he felt something slam against his mind like a bludgeon before it was repulsed by both his titanium plating, and his mental encryption program.

Nasty little bugger isn’t it?” One of the Whalers commented, a Garnet fusion. Stanford nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked down.

There was a massive sprawled out mass of flesh, folding and unfolding like a living tesseract. It was a ruddy red, unlike the distorted obsidian of shards of the Black Wyrm. Though there were a small number, odd foreign elements that had similar coloration.

“This is a rather unruly shard then?” He spoke up, watching as the continent sized entity struggled against the spectral chains. “Someone has to be providing active psychic shielding…” He muttered to himself, and there was a mental knock on the door.

Oh. I see, hello John.

“It’s a powerful telepathic being Stanford, and was connected to multiple hosts, a dangerous slaver cult.” Stanford grimaced, he knew Paired-led organizations easily fell into atrocities and true horrors due to the nature of the Star Wyrms.

“This data, are we dealing with what we fear?” Because haha, it looked so much like that shard, that Wyrm-led fragment. The one which nearly killed his family. 

“A fragment of an administrator shard, most of the whole was broken apart across several dozen worlds.” John confirmed from just out of sight. “A piece of the Thinker.” 

John stepped into the light, laboratory light burning against smooth green skin.

Stanford sighed. “It’s been two years. He still hasn’t woken up?”

“No.” He remembered that day, the look on the Kent’s faces.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Eidolon hung silently over the Earth, powers moving out of reach while others fell into place. He was flying using a gravity manipulation power, slivers of altered space and time. Gravitational shear shields protected his body from immense forces, and it wasn’t an uncommon power to pop up now and then.

A perception ability, one that could let him see across a wide electromagnetic spectrum, and even across adjacent dimensions. An offensive power, the ability to generate blasts of red lightning imbued with a partial-nullifying effect. 

It had worked well to punch through the defenses of a burgeoning S-class threat, a self-replicating tinkertech creation which had eaten it’s maker, and had powerful shields even Alexandria had a part time cleaving through. 

His perception power shuttered like a camera, as dark clouds suddenly rolled in on a completely sunny day. The gloom covered the entire horizon, the wind pushed forward by the wall of vaporous water. He narrowed his eyes and rose on a spinning spiral of gravity waves. He could see something in the clouds, a faint glitchy shadow in his perception. 

He rose up, and the shadow moved. He broke the sound barrier two times over, and yet the shadow far exceeded his speed. Eidolon entered the cloud, easily seeing through the mist. He had already guessed a cape wanted to talk to him, and since they hadn’t attempted to use the storm against him…

Regardless he dropped his lightning ability for a mental shielding ability, a malleable white energy used to block certain powers for himself or even others. 

Today was a good day for him in the power department. 

The dark clouds parted to reveal a complete unknown, until he recalled the reports of a strange case of biologically altered capes, colorful and just slightly off from the human form. 

“That was easy enough,” Her voice was soothing, like a whispering burst of a burbling river inside a glass vase. A pale blue woman, wearing a robe marked with dark and light blues and silver lines above an almost-white strapless dress. He could see something shiny obscured by her clothing, but didn’t put too much attention on it.

He would rather get an idea of the unknown who had used her power to gain his attention. The woman was flying on wings of water, and light lensed around them to the point of scrambling his second sight. He could see how all ambient light was vanishing into her, subsumed into deeper processes his power didn’t work on. 

Was she… eating the light or was it some unseen aspect of her hydrokinesis?

“I’ve heard about the exploits of some of your friends, Atlas was what they called themselves?” He gave her a reason to respond, he hadn’t figured out how so many had such similar powers. Perhaps a Trump, or a very large scale Group Trigger?

Then again he had been rather distracted and had missed several urgent reports on them. Dealing with half a dozen S-class threats tended to distract a person now and then. 

“And Cauldron is what they call your friends, yes?” Eidolon kept himself from attacking the ‘cape’ on the spot. Even as he realized this Atlas was much more knowledgeable and much more dangerous than he… they had originally expected. 

“What do you want?” But while he didn’t think she was hostile, he wasn’t going to play nice either.

“To talk mostly, we share a common enemy.” There was emphasis there, and the clouds shifted to make the shape of a familiar being to him, and he felt chills down his spine. 

“You know.” He stated rather than asked, keeping his powers in check. 

The being nodded with an enigmatic smile revealing far too many teeth for him. He spent a moment thinking, trying to figure out what exactly the Parahuman wanted from him. 

He decided despite himself to follow his gut. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private?”

She raised an eyebrow, bemusement rolling into her odd sing-song voice. “Preferably your troubleshooter should be kept at a distance, I’m sure a tough guy like you can handle someone like me. ”

“Door me.” Was all Eidolon said, and a golden rimmed portal opened in space. Her knowing smile grated, but there was a hint of something like empathy. “Step through, and any sudden movement can be taken as hostile.”

She shrugged, and the clouds shrugged with her. His power immunity ability was looking more useful with every passing second. 

They stepped into another world, and it shut behind the strange blue woman. It was a random Earth, as far away from Cauldron as possible. The fact she seemed so at ease told him a lot on his own. She had a way of getting out of this, something he wasn’t seeing.

Access to dimensional teleportation, tinkertech keyed to her signature or a power inmate to her. They had come from another reality. He could see a flicker of something with the dimensional viewing capabilities of his All-Sight. 

“How much do you know?”

“Oh we know lots of things, about Cauldron, about the agents, about him and his counterpart. We needed the information when we chose to come here, we don’t need a knife at our back waiting to fall.”

“I don’t understand.” His power curled around him like a cloak, and he waited for the being to elaborate. 

“I’m sure you’ve noticed some of our handiwork on Mars?” His blood chilled, because using his power had painted a more precise image. A bright smudge, light emitted from Gale Crater, and what looked like a terraforming experiment on a planetary scale. 

And the trouble Thinkers were having with the planet didn’t improve his mood or his concern.

“Atlas is responsible for Mars?” That scale of environmental alteration was beyond almost any Parahuman power he could think of. 

“Not exactly no,” Her song curled with borderline smugness. “But it’s been nice to dismantle a moon for the process, once that was done I was sent to make contact with the only people in the know.” 

“Your hydrokinesis destroyed an entire moon?” That was a disturbing amount of power, and he shifted his sight for another power. It would take time to grow into it’s full strength but he would have an extra option. 

She giggled. “A small one, a version of Mimas. Terraforming a dry planet and lubricating new tectonic plates takes a lot of water.”

“Before anything else, is there a name I can call you by?” Having some information was better than nothing, and he was already pushing it.

“Calcite Inclusion Lapis Lazuli Facet-BD19 Teardrop-Y12, but my friends call me Argent.” Unsaid was that he couldn’t call her that as a total stranger.

“Lapis Lazuli then.” He replied back, and breathed as his power settled. “What exactly do you want from Cauldron, from us?” Whoever she represented, this Lapis Lazuli had been on Mars and moved between planets without anyone noticing. Moved between dimensions too, and they had stayed under the radar until Atlas had revealed some of their nature.  

“You want to kill the remaining Wyrm, Scion am I correct? Before he destroys Bet and countless other worlds?”

“We do.” He admitted, because whoever this woman was. She knew far more than was safe for anyone to know. 

“Then our goals align, my…organization has been working to defeat the agents and their source. We have a far greater knowledge of how they function, and how to defeat, subvert or even completely destroy them.”

“I’m starting to think I’m not the right person for this.” 

“Grab whoever you need, I can wait.” 

“Door me.” He spoke quickly, leaving the woman stranded and never letting her out of his sight all the while.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to not have Contessa with us?” Eidolon questioned Doctor Mother’s decision as she arrived with Alexandria as her guard.

There was a frown on her face. “This Lapis Lazuli interferes with her power, she’d be little help. She’s better suited to keeping a path to evacuate us in case the woman proves hostile.”

“And her claims on what they've done with the agents?” He asked, keeping an eye on three new powers. A near inviolable skintight shield capable of nearly limitless acceleration. A precognitive power reactive to danger, and a blaster power, a space swapping beam capable of tearing apart matter and energy.

“It’s not impossible, if her organization is responsible for Mars their technology must be far superior to our own.” She sounded disgruntled, and Eidolon understood that frustration. Having a sudden unknown emerging without alerting any of the hundreds of thinkers including Contessa was…

Concerning. 

“Stop.” Alexandria whispered, and Eidolon shifted his attention to the landscape he had left the Lapis Lazuli in and blinked.

There was a large lake where there had once been a dead craggy plain, and pillars of stone had been carved into abstract shapes.

Did…she really decide to make art while she was waiting?

“Oh. I didn’t think you would bring the Doctor herself, sorry if I didn't get to tidy up. I got…restless. I thought this place would make a lovely lotus garden, and brought a few souvenirs.” The blue woman dropped down with real weight, the ground shuddering at the impact.

A brute power too? An augmented body like some Case 53s?

“Souvenirs?” Alexandria shielded the Doctor, but he could hear the interest in his friend’s(were they really friends after all they had done?) voice. 

She opened her hands to reveal a small shard of rock and ice on the left and a rusty red stone on the right. She passed the rock to Eidolon, who grabbed it with a projection of the inviolable shield wrapped around his body. 

“I picked that up on Mars about…ten minutes ago? On my way back from Jupiter.” Eidolon got the implications rather quickly. 

Alexandria shifted. “Are you suggesting you can travel faster than light?” It had been maybe half an hour since he had stranded her in this dimension. 

“How else would we get to Earth in our reality? Which was about about seven thousand years ago? I wasn’t around back then.”

Alexandria seemed resigned, as if now certain of something. “So you really are an alien, you don’t breathe, you don’t blink either.” Alexandria noted, and Eidolon agreed. There was something almost unsettling about Lapis Lazuli’s appearance. Her body shape was just a little too segmented, her teeth were pointed and predatory, and her fingers flexed with sharp claws.

But that alone didn’t prove anything, it was the mannerisms, the way she spoke, the way she moved, the way she was. 

Doctor Mother narrowed her eyes. “Our organization was built to fight against an alien menace. So why reveal your alien nature to us?”

“Because there’s no point in keeping secrets that don’t need to be kept, and because humans have made excellent allies in our reality. They even developed dimensional travel all on their own.” There was a story there, she was leaving out a lot. “And we’re more like you than we are like them. ” There was disdain, and it was even more unsettling how similar she was to humans.

“If you’re the representative of an alien civilization, why do you need us at all?” The Doctor questioned. Her expression is carved like stone. 

“Because we’re quite busy stopping fires across the galaxy, and require access to the counterpart for a source of shards to hone in on the remaining Hub.” She crossed her arm over her curving chest, almost cutely pouting. “Some of our harvesting methods tend to be highly destructive to agents…we lose a lot of data in the process if we’re not given peace to work more effectively.”

“What can you tell us now?” Eidolon added his own input.

“Your Asura, your Endbringers are holding back considerably in technique if not so much in power and are incapable of being killed by any single power. Their bodies are cosmetic, crystalline matter growing exponentially stronger up to a certain point before tapering off near the core.” Alexandria’s eyes widened, and Eidolon felt his world view shift. “The moment too much damage is caused, their strategy will become more complex. Behemoth will simply gather kinetic energy and collapse the city or generate nuclear explosions, Leviathan will hide and create numerous water echoes, operating in a stealthy and brutal manner. The Simurgh can copy Tinkers and has a far greater range, and her scream is purely aesthetic.” 

Fuck. Have they been toying with us all these years?

“You said no single power can damage them, can a combination of powers do so?” Alexandria questioned.

“Space and time manipulating powers work the best, excellent candidates include Damsel of Distress, Phir Sē, Chevalier, Siberian.” Eidolon glanced over to Alexandria, her expression unreadable. “The most effective would be Flechette or one of her clustermates, her ability would destroy the core with a single shot if the outer armor is pried open by another power.”

The Doctor scowled. “The Endbringers would never let us get to that point.” It was an obvious conclusion, if the Simurgh used her precognition she could warn the others of a particular power combination beforehand. 

“Not with the minimal resources your humanity has access to, we don’t have that problem…but keeping out of Scion’s sight is still necessary even with the numerous precautions we’ve taken.” There was a grimace on Lazuli’s face. “Then there’s the fact that there remain at least seventeen dormant shard clusters ready to be assembled into Endbringers to counter whatever strategy was used to kill a slain Endbringer.”

Seventeen.

They never stood a chance did they?

“Your knowledge of Scion and his species. Where does it come from?” Eidolon found himself asking, demanding of the woman. 

Her expression blanked, and he felt the rage in her ringing song. “Let’s call it personal experience…”

“ What? ” Alexandria hissed.

Her smile was sad. “Did you think the pair was the only example of their species?”

“There’s another entity, another like Scion.” Lapis nodded in reply to the Doctor. 

“How bad is it?” Eidolon felt like the world was ending, they had been lucky to kill one, and Scion was still almost an impossibility, a third would be the extinction of humanity.

Her smile became a savage, vicious thing. “We’ve destroyed three out of four of the Wyrm’s hubs and avatars, and it made the mistake of not calling for others of its kind. We’ve stolen their powers for our own use, and have means of shrouding ourselves from their sight.”

“And your universe’s Earth could be in the line of fire when Scion begins his attack.” Alexandria deduced, rolling her shoulders. “And you spent time gathering information for your campaign on our planet.”

“We have a number of information gathering abilities from my own species and from exceptional individuals of allied species across multiple galaxies and dimensions.”

“We?” He wasn’t sure if the question was from him or one of the others. 

“The Gem Empire,” she said dismissively, and Eidolon frowned. “While you might not be able to verify my claims, I hope you’re not too skeptical.”

“What are you allowed to tell us?” Alexandria continued the interrogation. 

“We have a general knowledge of Scion and his powers, abilities and weaknesses. Few as they are.”

“…” They all went silent while Lapis Lazuli continued. 

“He’s kept a limited but absurdly powerful suite of abilities, primarily confined to his role as the Warrior of the pair, lacking the sharper, more dangerous intellect of his partner. His main power is the power to negate any wavelength, a toolkit shard. It can be used to negate the effect of most powers, and can be scaled up to destroy Endbringers and entire continents. He has clairvoyance, capable of perceiving across dimensions and looking from the senses of his own shards.”

She wasn’t stopping and Eidolon didn’t know how much worse it could be.

“His body is a mere avatar, a projection to the planet’s worth of mass he’s made of. He can shift between realities at will, and has access to his own precognition, a less restricted version of Contessa’s power.”

And that was worse.

I think I broke them.

Argent gave the immoral organization a few minutes to speak amongst themselves as they reeled from the revelations she had been ordered to give. Not that the Empire had much of a moral high ground. They had brought the troubleshooter in, and she picked up the whispering song of Oneiros doing her job of subverting the shards. 

The Eye was the last untainted seed of the Black Wyrm among the pair’s shards, and they didn’t need it for anything besides what Fortuna could do. They would isolate the central awareness, and based on a number of factors would either let it live or destroy it. 

Destruction was a probable outcome, such a power was too tricky, too dangerous to be allowed to continue existing. It’s ability to path the possible future made it a dangerous power, and one that couldn’t be trusted off the bat. 

The troubleshooter squinted, and Argent could tell an array of tricks were sliding off her form. All Gems had a natural insight into the future, Sapphires were simply better, more refined, a mesh of possibilities dense enough to form true images. 

“I can’t path you.” Contessa declared, and Argent rolled her eyes.

“The Eye can’t path us, and that’s rather necessary to avoid Scion’s sight as well. Why else would he ignore an entire planet being terraformed?” Ignoring his apparent depression, which Argent found both amusing and mildly pathetic. “I’d rather talk to you than your shard, little one.”

“I’m a grown woman.”

“And I’m four thousand years old.” Argent barked back. “I won’t be long anyway, we only require access to the corpse. This isn’t a true alliance, merely…a setting of terms.” 

“How much power can you have to set terms for us?” Contessa brushed back her hair in a perfect manner. 

“I destroyed a moon, remember? And none of you have interstellar warships capable of orbital bombardment. We could simply knock down the Moon in several dimensions if we were inclined to planetary destruction. Or plop down a Storm Geode and churn the land and oceans into a murky mud sea.”

No she wasn’t being threatening, anyone who said that was a liar. Totally.

Obviously. 

“You could have just taken our base couldn’t you?” Contessa asked, eyes lighting up.

“We’re still debating whether or not we should just take your base. You did commit a fair number of horrific crimes…though it’s not like we have the moral high ground.”

Destroying hundreds of thousands of planets, and horrific crimes against sophont beings tends to make one the bad guy. It was only the last seventeen years that they stopped being perceived as nomadic planet killers. That the war with the Black Wyrm hadn’t returned them to the old state of things had been because of Aster Diamond’s changes and the will of three hundred and forty trillion Gems. 

At least no horrific experiment had been necessary to learn the inner workings of the shards, not with humans like Doctor Pines and aliens like the Galvans on their side. Not like these poor(stupid) humans with no resources or advanced enough technology to defeat alien space gods. 

“This Gem Empire, what are they willing to give in exchange for access to the corpse?” The Doctor returned to her leadership role, eyes narrowed. 

“Vials with no chance of deviancy, and strong powers sounds like a useful exchange. Or how about access to worlds for evacuation once Scion snaps? Or perhaps we can provide a few quadrillion tons of resources? Rebuild the planet’s infrastructure once the Endbringers and Scion are dead? Contact with alternate Earths with far superior technology outside the range of any shards.”

“You really think you can do it don’t you?” There was shock in Alexandria’s voice, just a hint of hope.

“I killed an Asura myself, Charybdis.”

“Your name for Endbringers. You killed one?” Alexandria approached her, floating up to her altitude. 

“Charybdis, the Drowning Storm. Something like a mix between Behemoth and Leviathan but far larger. It was from the Black Wyrm that the dead counterpart learned about the concept of using the Superweapons.” Argent wasn’t paying as much attention, and created a wall of water, the surface becoming reflective like a mirror. 

The mirror reflected her memories, revealing a battlefield, a maelstrom of destruction and death! Gems, humans, aliens, beings of flesh and metal and light and magic and energy. Dying, breaking, fighting, surviving. 

A shadow emerged, a twisting serpentine black mass, with whirling wheels of teeth and hundreds of voids called eyes, surrounded by waves and storms miles high, sinking continents with a vicious, almost sadistic glee. Three Lapis Lazuli’s fought desperately against it’s terrible power, including her past self. 

Lightning scattered against the sky, distorting the colors of the world. Argent remembered that day, where a thousand Gems had been shattered and later made Unbroken. So many had died more permanently, crushed to dust or simply stopping as many were organics.  

Her past self held a human made gun, a long grey body and a great blue bulb at the end. A weapon built to kill the Dreamer, the Isosceles Nightmare, the demon king defeated by the Zodiac and by the hands of Aster Diamond.

There was a roar of silence, a beam burning in all the colors of nothing and everything. It struck the exposed core, and there was a moment of quiet. What came next was a consequence of what the core was.

A lensing spatial anomaly extending into hundreds of realities, warping of space and mass compressing over a planet’s worth of matter into a single point.

So what happens when the altered physical laws are forced to snap back into normality by a weapon designed to kill a chaos god?

There was a flash of light, narrowly redirected by machinery left in place for that very purpose. Even so.

She was nearly shattered in the blast, using miles worth of water to absorb the energies. But the petaton-scale explosion cracked a continent, and destroyed most life on the planet. 

“You aren’t planning to do that on Earth Bet, are you?” She gave Eidolon a look that screamed ‘are you nuts?!’. 

“Of course not. Our Asura-killing methods have been refined after killing seventy seven of them.” She had heard the good news about the destruction of Selket the Venomous. “But first we need to locate their birthplace, disabling future Endbringers is a preferred scenario.”

There was a rumble, a barely perceptible quake across realities. The Cauldron members paused, and Eidolon stiffened.

“Your people have gone after the corpse.” The Doctor didn’t sound surprised, and Argent rolled her eyes.

“If you meant we’re attacking your base, that would be a no. Though they did mention something about discovering an isolated vein of Entity flesh. Hmm…perhaps they’ve begun drilling.” Drilling into Shardspace was one of the first objectives to treat the infection of an Entity, and allowed more openings for subversion methods. “Our offers still stand, subverting the network would prevent deviants regardless. We have thousands of evacuation dimensions, losing one or two dozen to your worlds isn’t a big deal.” It was a bit annoying but there were thousands of Earths they had discovered, some with people, others without. 

“And how can we trust you to not do what’s best for your species?” The Doctor stared at her with distrust.

Argent gave her a sad smile, but not pitying, just sad. “Because doing what’s best for my species alone is a good way of getting us all killed. We can’t afford going at this alone, we’re part of a coalition across hundreds of species, across several different realities.” She pointed out, claws flexing out in frustration. “If we afforded needless selfishness, needless need to control and corral, your world would be dead along with all of ours.”

There was a shift in the air. “How?” Alexandria demanded, fists tightened in a harder than steel grip.

“You know what happens when one of them finds an interesting space faring species?” Argent took a deep calming breath despite not having lungs. “They call up more of their kind, ten, twenty, maybe more creatures like the counterpart, and with the uniqueness of my dimension, maybe hundreds or even thousands. They’d find your world…and perhaps see if they can’t get two more Entities into the fray.”

The Doctor showed horror, a brief tremble passing through her. For Argent it was the first sign of weakness from the leader of Cauldron.

“You don’t want us to get in your way, is that it?” Eidolon spoke up, fists clenched. “You want us to turn a blind eye to your activities.”

Close but not quite. “We don’t want to step on any toes, and we don’t care to have ties with your organization either. You’d be a noose around our necks, and none of your data is anything new or exciting.”

“A noose?” Alexandria flew closer, Argent narrowing her eyes.

“What do you think will happen to the Protectorate and the PRT if Cauldron and it’s crimes are revealed?” Her song was dead, twisting with hints of anger. “Any organization you’ve worked with would be tainted by association.” Something like distaste couldn’t help but be expressed in Argent’s song

She remembered the Corrupted, their broken, ragged screams in tandem with the world. Just. Breaking.

“A setting of terms and nothing more.” The Doctor echoed. 

Argent nodded, and she kept her sadness hidden when she glanced over at Alexandria.

Why did she have to share your face…?

In the distant wilderness of the White Mountains, there was a hint of something in the air, as energy and strangeness was concentrated into a weak point in the dimensions, a natural weakness, cracked open further by time, and strange warpings in the fabric of reality.

A silent, invisible wave of weirdness spread from space to space, from life to life. It was a slow trickle, from the moment the Loner had crossed, cracks into a more fantastical world. 

A hotspot had been born, where the barrier between worlds was thin, providing an energy, a form of force from a greater and higher reality. The trees were a little more alive, the air caught with magic and life and raw dimensional forces. Any and all it touched were just a little tougher, just a little more refined, as souls grew heavy with the primordial energies. 

That six year long trickle had shifted the paths of countless agents, and every so slightly, daily and nightly. Things change, just as they stay the same.

Now the trickle was a stream, spreading out across unknowing worlds and realities. In countless colors, in countless wavelengths and frequencies. Fundamental concepts, fundamental forces of reality given strength and purpose and power. Harmonious connective energies given a place to extend into.

The wolves howled with more strength, a subtle glow of power as the concepts surged into their flesh, empowered by their spirits, by their sealed away energies. Another world layered on top of them, layers of higher existence connecting with the lower material layers.

The Spirit World, the Dream Realm, the Ephemeral Plains, the Sphere of the Gods. A world beyond knowing. 

A convergence of worlds, a crisis across infinite Earths. A trickle turned into a raging river by the warm, life-giving alpenglow of a young Starheart. The universe was waking up, unseen hands shifting existence.

But the time was not now.

But it was coming.

Chapter Text

Aggregate 5.1

I stuck my tongue out, reading the data the Empire had gathered on the properties and nature of Sting. They had new limited copies of the weapon, channeled into physical projectiles after they destroyed most samples of Sting in the galaxy. 

Sting had been amongst the first corrupted shards due to its age, and the shard had erased a few dozen planets before being torn apart by its own power. Most Gem energy weapons used a focused dimensional transference to direct their beams through multiple dimensions. 

Not quite as effective but sufficient for the needs of an intergalactic empire. 

Sting was a vital weapon against the Entities, and learning more about how to transmit its energy directly was proving to be a complicated subject. It utilized their ability to manipulate the physical dimensions, using the particles and energies composing higher realities to tweak the laws of physics. 

Scans taken of Flechette and March had been quite helpful in extending the number of dimensions it unfolded into. Gem replications extended only into one to five higher dimensions, a rippling bubble of spacetime existing in multiple realities at once. The multiverse seemed to exist in a form similar to certain types of Brane Cosmology models.

This reality was one of many, lower realities embedded into higher dimensional space. The entities tunneled through these higher reality levels, but had access to only a fraction of them to use their powers. They unfolded Sting across their known reality levels, decoupling the projectile from the laws of physics and allowing for it to strike multiple selected realities at the same time. 

That of course ignored the ‘space’ between dimensions, which the Entities had only limited knowledge of, besides triggering perturbation to create shrouds to seal dimensions from the influence of others. One name I had read for this space, a commonality between a thousand species…

It was known only as the Bleed, a dark nothingness that formed the barrier between worlds. Even the Entities called it that, based on data the Empire had downloaded from the networks of the dead shards.

I tilted my head, and clenched my fists. I started to grab various waldos and machine tools. I grabbed a warp core, a device about the size of my fist. It warped space on a fundamental level, and would serve as an adequate power source for my own Sting. 

My hands moved faster than I could initially keep up with, my mind opening up to the possibilities. I ran simulations, thousands of them on the Composer, adding the missing higher dimensions. 

There were a number of simulations relating to the projection of the magic used to bend and twist space. I altered the programs, visualizing the shape of the energy field the Entities generated to unfold across hundreds of dimensions. Space was warped by the warp core, following the metric we had copied to unfold in higher dimensional space. 

I grabbed a cup of oddly colored tea. 

This was going to take a while.

The Sting Phaser was complete after I had fallen into a fugue, using my natural awareness of the odds to avoid blowing myself up. It was a device about the size of the palm of my hand, the modified warp core and it’s projectors and field effectors used to create the correct metric. 

I heard a knock on the door of my workshop, and I could feel the static aura of a specific Sunstone. My first Sunstone, Goldie. I placed down the Sting Phaser, keeping my magic tinkering in check. 

“Goldie?” I turned around, grimacing as I saw how my face was stained with blue industrial fluid. The large Gem’s hair radiated with heat and power.

She flashed a salute. “My Diamond,” I pouted and sensed the chittering laugh in her song. “I’ve worked with Olly and a Bowenite to construct a weapon to your specifications.”

“Huh?” When the fuck had I ordered anyone? I had been busy making my Sting Phaser. 

“While you were invested in your breakthrough in implementing Sting, you mentioned wanting a weapon other than your shield. ‘A badass machete’ was what I remember?” Her smirk was full of teeth. 

My ears burned red. “I guess I did, but it’s only been about…” I checked my Composer device. “Two hours!” My song cracked in embarrassment. Where had the time gone by?

She pulled the tool-weapon from her back, and I grinned. It was an odd machete, a bit more ceremonial with patterns of amaranth flowers on the hilt. It had a simple guard, like machetes I had looked up from the Spanish-American War. The hilt was crimson, with the markings of flowers a much lighter shade of pink. The blade itself was pinkish white, gleaming as it was caught in a beam of sunlight from a cracked open window. 

The aura of magic coming from it was palpable, enchantments and spells infused into the weapon. I recalled a request during my two hours of insanity, of making a weapon, a tool that didn’t have to hurt people. From the looks of it the crazy Gems had done it. 

“You’re a crazy little Diamond Sunshine, a weapon that can’t hurt people unless you want it too. Luckily we had a really old Bowenite, best of the best, and Bowenites are already some of the best weapon masters in the Empire besides a certain brilliant Bismuth.” A hint of hero worship came into play before Goldy coughed a small song and got back on track. “Your breakthrough with Sting made it a little easier, since part of its nature is uncoupling itself from the laws of physics.”

It had been a guess on my part, the higher dimensions corresponded to the fundamental laws of physics, directions, spaces, measurements, links between the geometry of space and time. If an object was unfolded into those higher dimensions, the laws that bound four dimensional objects would be…weakened, spread out across twenty two higher dimensions.

Entities were twenty sixth dimensional beings, which was some real bullshit let me tell you. It allowed them access to a vast number of realities, estimated at about ten to the power of eighty one reality clusters, most of them sharing the same physical laws, with a smaller insignificant fraction being a little different. Worlds with seven dimensions instead of four, with far weaker gravity. Worlds where the physical constants were slightly different, but stable. 

Though it seems to be limited to worlds that were fairly similar to our own, with slight changes. Steven’s end of the universe had access to a comparable number of higher reality levels, extending the multiverse at least three times over. Based on the math at least, though the higher numbers went up to a trillion trillion times or even a truly infinite number.

Not that anyone in the current multiverse knew that much, there were only so many known realities. 

And I was going on a giant tangent. 

To cut things short, Sting was unfolded into these higher dimensions, allowing it to extend and strike multiple universes at once. I had figured out how to unfold it into the full number of higher reality levels the Entities had access to. Borrowing the data from where they were datamining Scion’s Sting shard.

“May I?” I asked and was granted the request, holding up the tool with my right hand in an easy grip. I pulled out the handle, which revealed a hollow space for the Sting Phaser.  The warp core compressed itself, filling in the space. The core was made out of shard-inspired hardware after all.

The two halves of the pretty machete slid in place, fusing together. There was a pulse of raw magic, and I could see part of the blade wasn’t just Gem materials, no it was a composite, lined with magic and metaphysical power. It felt…

Right. 

The blade rippled, my sharp eyes picking up the aura of magic and strange higher energies. I could connect to the weapon-tool, and it was like an extension of my body, of my powers and magic. I grinned and charged the machete, and it cut effortlessly through the air. It seemed lighter, like my power to uncouple myself from the effect of gravity.

There was a mental dial, I could vary the effects of the charge, choose how reality was bent and twisted. One charged the blade, turning it into a non lethal bludgeon, connected to my intent through magic and esoteric contracts.

Technically it was separate from Sting, but it used aspects of the unfolding for more supportive additions. I could easily and intuitively make use of the weapon, the tool. But that made sense with retro-causal intuition. I had tested it, and had rolled twenty on a D20 die multiple times in a row.

Hell I had managed to get Alexandria’s civilian number just by following my intuition, it was only common sense that kept me from using what I pulled from the world. I charged it further, the effect scattering against the air and metallic blade. 

“Any way I can test this thing?” I didn’t wave it around, seeing the areas of danger. 

“We’ve got something set up on an alternate Mars, it’s not much but we have something we can test your blade on. I’ve sent you the coords.” 

I stood up straight, bouncing up and down. “There’s air right?” She nodded, and I pulled on my Transportation Jewel device.

I pushed and found myself in a hallway, where a handful of Gems I knew more from cursory scans of their facet files were briskly walking past. 

A pretty grey skinned Danburite pointed me in the right direction. “Door to your left.” I gave her a thumbs up and moved along, and with a flicker of song the door opened. 

I stared. 

There was…something, an unfolding hypercube made of flesh and crystal, a striking crimson in shade. It seemed angry or the closest equivalent to it, an empty aura extending into other realities. As I sauntered forward, the creature chose a semi-bipedal form. Limbs grew in number with every approach, the four dimensional creature, the tiny fragment of shard releasing a pulsing broadcast.

The shard lunged, the night-thing attacking. I increased the charge of my new tool, physics bent out of the way. I could feel gravity having less of a hold, friction reduced to almost nothing, 

Matter ceased to exist where the machete cut, and the shard reared back, tumbling and falling to pieces as it was parted in two. The aura faded as something failed within the shard. I gaped, what the hell was that?

“Well then, I guess it works?”

“You sure they’re coming?” I questioned Flowers despite how reliable her power was when I actually bothered to ask questions. Faultline’s Crew weren’t taking many missions at the moment, aside from a handful of guard duty jobs on the west coast. “I mean, destroying the Mathers clan could be considered unnerving.” And then, err destroying their anti-Thinker field was probably a nice proof of concept on what we could do.

“Of course they will, you’ve been quite helpful to them and generally friendly. As much as you can be.” You know what? Fair, I wasn’t always the best at being social. 

I patted her head, grinning at her own soft expression. “Well then I suppose the auras I’ve been detecting are exactly who I’m expecting.” She leaned upwards, releasing an affectionate purr of song. 

I glanced down the street, keeping my aura, my radiance under lock and key. It wouldn’t do to have my existence exposed just yet. Most of them thought I was a Carmine Moissanite, a high-class Gem but not the highest authority. 

I raised an eyebrow when I saw Faultline sans mask for the first time, she was a sharp faced woman with long black hair. Newter and Gregor were unchanged, and I could hear Elle chatting with someone who stood out from the crowd of mostly Gems. They were covered in thick layers of blue and wore a flat white mask-thing. I couldn’t tell if it was their face or a mask.

They had an aura of magic to them, the same altered magic in the benches, a colorless light, higher power flowing like liquid through a body of chitin and flesh. 

A Kitakah, a Bug of a distant tidally locked world, half in light and half in dark, with a habitable ring in between. It was a different manifestation of magic, shaped life energies. 

Arthropon was their home planet, a world full of life due to the saturation of magic and power, in the air, in the rock and seas. Simple life evolved or landed on the planet, and from there Life Deities arise, speeding evolution through their domains of power, through their dreams. But before them was the Void, a primordial force, dark energy with limitless potential. The darkness from which existence was born from. 

The Case 53s seemed especially overwhelmed and I imagined it was because no one was giving them a second glance. An orange lizard boy and a translucent grey skinned obese man weren’t exactly that big of a deal even on a Gem colony. 

“I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d show up without a mask.” Was the first thing I said to Faultline, grinning slightly.

She rolled her eyes. “Like you don’t already know who I am.”

“I know your name, but I know effectively nothing about your background. Not my job.” I didn’t need that information so I never asked. Background checks were more Brass Pearl’s thing. 

“Regardless, I’m Melanie Fitts.” She shrugged her shoulders, her sharp eyes inspecting the crowd as if waiting for an ambush. “This area seems more crowded.”

“Well duh. That was a garden, these are the public streets of a city.” I gestured grandly with my arms. “A few hundred million Gems across a version of the Red Planet.”

I reached for their auras, brushing against what I felt from their powers, their shards. Broken shards from Eden were the easiest to rip away, folded away into higher dimensions. The subverted shards were about the size of Endbringers and Titans rather than islands and continents. 

Packed away in a plane created using Gem technology, and powered by magic. A connection forged, and power given to the hosts. It made it easier for their powers to work anywhere in the universe. 

“So we’re really on another planet in another universe, how are our powers still working?” Newter was the guy asking questions, hopping from foot to foot as he stared at the colorful people. 

“They attacked the source of our powers, and put them in little bottles like genies.” Elle answered his question, and they started looking at me.

“Basically. It’s pretty much the best way to shut off the influence a shard has on their host. Plus since it’s a pocket dimension that follows you around, your power works everywhere.”

“Influence?” Melanie questioned as we gathered into a more cohesive group. 

“Shards are hooked up into your brain to function, and are dangerous parasites. They are not making decisions that are in your best interest unless it gives them more data.” There was visible concern. “If you want to ask more questions, we’ll do that at the park.”

She didn’t seem to like the answer but I didn’t care much, talking about this in a busy street was too annoying. I glanced around, there was a gentle sway of Gemsong in the air, an orchestra in the air. Plus a kaleidoscope of aura, most of them Gem, some human, some alien. 

I pressed a bit too deep, and received an excited burst of psychic power from someone in the area.

<Hey, hello there! How are you?> I turned away from Melanie, picking up the psychic signal. It was almost but not quite like Gemsong, and I had to keep my inner thoughts from leaking through the telepathic link. 

Especially as my power was still growing, the radius of my Aura was out to a dozen miles. I focused, chewing on my lip while Elle dragged me towards the park with the cape mercenaries in tow.

<Hey yourself. Who are you?> I answered back easily. She sounded around my age, if not a little older.

<Call me Megan. Are you human? You feel kind of human. But also weird> I could hear the emotion, a shifting unusual burst, a distant Burning obscured under alabaster psychic language. 

<Err, kind of? It’s a bit complicated and I’m not sure I can tell you.> I sat down, looking in the direction of my telepathic chat buddy.

“What is she doing?” Melanie questioned Elle as the girl practiced her magic. She was holding a ball of fire, and doused it with an ice glyph. 

“She’s talking with another psychic, there’s a lot of people who can do that stuff.”

“I’m starting to think I made a good decision in remaining on the side of a powerful psychic if they’re as common as you say they are…”

Ignoring that.

<Oh if you can’t that’s okay but you might be surprised, my uncle is read up on a lot of secrets.> I noted where the psychic energy was coming from, somewhere in the public garden of flowers and colorful trees there was a powerful telepathic being.

My eyes caught a flash of green, someone was glancing at us, and the curious air in the telepathic conversation told me who.

<Maybe, but I’m currently going to explain some things to my…friends, allies?>

There was a mental pause from her side, and she responded back.

<Oh that’s okay, I’ve got my own thing going too. It’s been nice meeting you.>

Her pressure faded, and the flash of green left the area. Maybe later.

My eyes snapped open.

“Now where were we?”

“Now. What have you gotten about powers from osmosis and Elle’s adorable ramblings?” I clapped my hands together, resting my butt on a wooden bench. 

Melanie frowned. “Powers are sourced from…worm creatures that destroy worlds?” Her team kept quiet, letting their leader do the talking. 

“A simplification. Powers are…parasites of sorts, though with some symbiotic leanings at times. They are massive transdimensional creatures originating from a distant galaxy, existing on alternate planes, and extending their reach through the Coronas.” I pointed to her temple, and she paled. 

“And what do they want with us…?”

“The shards, the living sources of powers, are pieces of a much larger organism. The Entities, in your world there were two, and in our reality there was another we’ve mostly destroyed. Mostly being a keyword.”

“And?” I could feel her unease.

“They seed worlds with powers, with shards to test them and to steal the creativity and ingenuity of other species. They nurture conflict through means from modifying host behavior to manipulating culture for their benefit. Their cycle has been perpetuated thousands of times. Once they collect enough data, the Entities leave, taking their new powers and knowledge with them.” My song was loud, pressing down on reality. “To fuel their escape and the birth of thousands if not millions of offspring, they destroy countless inhabited iterations of their testing grounds, and consume the hosts for power and energy.”

“What?” Newter whispered, tail whipping nervously.

“The Entities manipulate conflict in a number of ways, they choose people who will use their powers in some way, preferably violently or at least adjacent to conflict.” I tapped my foot, hissing some of my anger out. “They manipulate the hosts, nudging them with light mental prods, and by the manifestation of their powers, a permanent reminder of their Trigger. Some more than others, some less. It’s not the end all be all of how hosts work but…”

“Where do things like Endbringers come in? Or Scion?”

I pulled out a Shard-stone from my Gem, letting it float around under my command. The fractal crystal blinked on and off. “The shards are made of a semi-organic crystal, now tell me…have there been any descriptions of Endbringer flesh?”

She paled. “You’re saying…you’re saying the Endbringers are powers.”

“The Endbringers are chaos engines, tools of the cycle to divide the population into disparate factions.” I created fire in my hand, shaping it into facsimiles of the three known Endbringers. “They are selected shard clusters, genetically modified and shaped to fit the psychological profile of the host species. Their bodies mean nothing to them, simply impossibly dense reality warping frames to protect their core, a nexus point of portals to distribute their mass across hundreds of realities.”

“Reality warping? Their bodies mean nothing…what are you saying?” There was a hint of fear in Melanie’s voice.

“The Endbringers are toying with you, jobbing basically. They have no organs, it’s all window dressing. Their injuries are superficial, like scratching into their skin. Hard to damage something with a planet or two amount of mass distributed across multiple dimensions.”

Melanie started. “You’re serious.” 

“Leviathan can send out tidal waves. Why does he ever need to come ashore?” I lifted my index finger to her face, eyes narrowed. “He can create water echoes, why not send dozens or hundreds of them across the city to do his dirty work? Or he could visit every freshwater source on Earth and destroy it. Kill humanity with just a little work. Behemoth sits near the Earth’s core, why not destabilize the core and kill everyone? The Simurgh doesn't need to scream, and can use her pretercognition and telekinesis to replicate tinkertech.” 

“She can do what? ” Melanie almost shouted but her professional coolness returned. “No. So the Endbringers are powers manifested in the real world…is that what powers are like without limits?”

“Almost any power can scale up to S-class when the restraints are loosened. Even Endbringers have limits, like the fact Leviathan has macro- hydrokinesis or that Behemoth isn’t dissimilar when it involves energy, it’s not absolute I mean.” He can still violate the Mantom limit by generating energy within the body.

Wouldn’t do much to a Gem since we eat radiation for energy, though I imagine there would be a limit. A limit which is many orders of magnitude higher for me. 

“I believe you’ve given them enough nightmares for one day Sunshine.” Flowers pulled me back. “Perhaps we should show them more of the ecumenopolis instead?”

I glanced over to Faultline’s Crew and winced, none of them seemed to have taken my exposition well. Melanie was pale, Gregor even more so while Newter was extra twitchy.

“What do you recommend?” 

Flowers had a cute smug little smirk, hands placed on her hips. “Why, I knew you were going to ask!” She pointed up at the sun with dramatic flair. “I know a place.”

“This…this wasn’t what I expected when you said you knew a place.” I watched the Gems around us with a hopefully subtle curiosity.

I’m sure I failed. 

The place resembled some type of flea market, though my experience related it more to the sobre ruedas from back home, well from TJ but close enough. There were stalls manned mostly by Gems, occasionally by others, aliens, some humans. 

Flowers flounced, and spun on her heels to face us, flourishing with her arms. “Welcome one and all to the bone market!” She sounded so excited, and I wasn’t any less 

“Bone market?” Elle came in with a question, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“It’s like one of your human flea markets, except we don’t use money. It’s a barter system, we trade interesting trinkets and such from many worlds. Including bones of course.”

“Like chicken bones?” I snorted at Melanie’s naivety. “Human?”

“Any kind of bones really, they’re useful for certain mages and shamans. Scapulimancy and certain forms of necromancy.” Flowers wiggled her fingers, walking off ahead with her head held up high.

Melanie rubbed her forehead. “Some days I wonder when or if I’ve already cracked.” 

“Well, there’s not much we can do on that front. Do you have anything to trade? We can get you something nice I’m sure.”

Melanie pulled something out from her green fanny pack, and I inspected her blue jeans and white dress shirt. She dressed sharply. I'll give her that. It was a strange cuboid piece of aluminum, and another of dried oak. It was cut strangely, as if the matter had vanished from existence. 

The metal cube was like a model of a hypercube, inaccurate but close enough for a simple model. The dried wood was covered in fine patterns, like mazes etched at sharp corners.

“Power-created trinkets. That should fetch a hefty item or items.” Flowers appraised her work. “And Elle, what a wonderful staff.” Elle was holding an intricate clockwork staff made from bronze.

Luckily for Elle her power brought her worlds with it, pushing them out from it’s new Shardspace. Though she was limited to slivers anyway, so it wasn’t exactly hard. She had access to only a few hundred rather than millions though, though she could regain them by pulling from alternates of the worlds she’s on. 

Though apparently it’s not that easy, and a lot of the planets are super different from the ones in this reality. But that wasn’t important.

I checked my Gem for anything comparable and pulled out a rock I had carved into a raven. 

Good. Good. 

Flowers cleared her throat. “Well if everyone is prepared. Onwards!” She walked forward, and I couldn’t help but find her excitement endearing.

People were loudly and wildly announcing their products with suitable dramatic flair.

“Get your skins and pelts here!” A frog spoke aloud, and exchanged a pelt for a tiny wooden statue with jeweled eyes. 

“Who here wants some Infinitum armor, all the way from Khoros herself?” A Tetramand, four arms and eyes and twelve feet tall bargained with a lump of Quartz to exchange suitable armor from the forges of Homeworld.

“Come one, come all and see my collection of seeds from worlds beyond!” A witch from the Boiling Isles advertised her wares, blue hair flaring with a magic made wind. 

“Hello there friends! See what I have to offer, items from a new world, the world of Bet.” That got my attention, and I honed in on a familiar Ruby. 

“Frills?” I questioned, as I saw the cute little stall she was working from. I saw numerous posters of heroes, and other merchandise. I looked at Alexandria, and almost laughed. 

“Hello there! Are you interested in my wares?” I glared at Frills, and she chuckled. “Sorry, just teasing. I come to the bone market to trade stuff I get from other worlds, I’ve been around if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t need to know the details of your love life, you little gremlin.” I poked her on her forehead, and she grinned, squinting her eyes with it.

“Perhaps not. Now shoo, I've got things to trade and you're getting in the way of that.” I moved on, with my guests following me.

Elle was leading the way, and stopped at a Quartz’s little shop, a big old lump of reddish Jasper, with orcish tusks and curling horns. One of the uncorrupted, and a more recent one from the specific crystalline pattern on her arms. 

“Hi!” She chirped. “What can I get for this? I made it myself.” Elle unveiled her ornate power gifted staff.

“Interesting!” The Quartz shouted, lightly slamming her palms into her wooden stall. “I’ve got a few things that might be worth it, how about some holo-videos of classic Tamaranean tales.”

“No. Absolutely not.” I denied it as she was directly under my aegis. 

“Why not?” 

“I’m not letting you buy something that likely includes hours of porn.” I bluntly stated my reasoning.

She turned pink. “What?” The same question was asked by Faultline’s crew.

“Tamaraneans have a very…sexually liberal culture, nothing wrong with it. But it shouldn’t be the first thing you learn about an alien culture.” And not on my watch either.

The Quartz frowned but acceded to my demand and gestured to other items. “Well I’ve got a book that has some spells from the Bezel system of ma—”

“Sold!” Elle threw the staff, and the Quartz did the same with her merchandise. Both were sent to the ground, and I blinked. The Shaker 12 was lifted back up by Gregor, smiling wide.

There was intrigue in Melanie’s eyes. “Hmm…perhaps I should see what I can haggle for.”

The next thirty minutes were spent walking through the bone market, with Elle exchanging more items including some bones for scapulimancy. Fortune telling, using bones to focus the spirits. And there were many such creatures, hiding behind the veil between the Real and the Unreal. 

Elle had the soul of a witch, it was obvious when I looked back to my memories. Her aura was vast, sealed behind the locks that held down their reality. Now it was set free, her magical potential unlocked by proximity to me. 

We found ourselves in a small food court manned by Gems like most bone markets. I was eating some type of pasta with meatballs, probably sourced from magic space cows. I twirled the spaghetti with a fork, and looked at Melanie as she darted her eyes back and forth across the crowd of hundreds of Gems.

Specifically on the ones with horns and odd markings and features atypical among Gems.

“You want to ask about the Corrupted?” I was blunt, there was no reason to scurry around the issues. 

She winced and nodded. “Gems…well our minds are also our bodies in a way, it’s all linked. A uniquely Gem form of a nervous breakdown, if we lose control, we lose everything. You don’t know who or what you are, a mess of data and pain, a feeling of being broken. ” There was something disturbing about the idea, and I had learned from Steven’s perspective what it was like.

I could see the leftover scars, the living curling patterns of roses and thorns on his back and the dark freckles on his face and neck. And sometimes he couldn’t talk, because his song would become an overwhelming cacophony from the remnants of his breakdown all those years ago.

“I…”

“It’s why the Gems couldn’t Trigger when the shards connected to them. And just another reason we have for blinding and scrubbing the shards of sensory data on us.”

“Why?”

I sighed at Melanie’s question. “Trigger events cause Corruption in Gems, which spreads through the link and corrupts the shard, which spreads its madness to the rest of the network.”

She didn’t ask any more questions after that, but she perked up when Frills made her approach.

“Ahh. Hello darling, how ya doing on this fine evening?” She flirted with Melanie, who seemed more bemused than anything else.

“Eating.” Melanie deadpanned, and Frills grinned.

“Well if you’re not busy doing that, maybe you’ll be able to attend a little event.” Melanie raised an eyebrow. “Not as a date, sweet stuff, just a generous invitation for the group.” Frills clarified.

“What’s the event?” I asked

“Oh there’s a small party going down at the Nix Olympica forest, if you guys want to have a good time while on Mars 460’/.” God apostrophe black slash was a terrible addition to the name for a dimension.

“Party?” Elle gave us puppy dog eyes.

Oh no.

I pressed my knees together, sitting down on one of the many floating party benches the little public campfire had available to them. A few Zumins, zoo humans who used replicator wands to copy them. Easier than ordering more chairs and benches, even if they were vulnerable to being destroyed with the wand.

The party wasn’t a loud affair but I wasn’t used to being around so many people. Not when many of them were so lively. Elle was dancing, making use of her yellow sundress to add flare to her lackadaisical movements. Newter was having fun flirting with some of the members of the community party closer to his age. A few humans, some Realm Fantasia witches, and what looked like Tamaranean teenagers.

Tamaraneans looked different than I expected from the comics, and my files on them didn’t emphasize their own alien nature. They were built differently though still similarly to humans. Digitigrade legs, built more for bursts of speed, like wolves. They had two lines of veins built to expand to power their legs for short bursts of speed. Their skin was an organic composite, made of similar material to human skin and reinforced by carbon-silicon lattices. Their muscles were the same, made of proteins and flexible silicon-carbon fiber.

Tamaraneans were very feline-like, with shades of orange-gold being their most common color, patterned with stripes and spots along their torsos and legs and arms, or across their faces. Almost like face paint, or like an ordered form of vitiligo. They also came in other colors, shades similar to big cats, like lions or leopards. Their facial structure was slightly different, robust enough to support four fangs.  

Though not as weird as some of the freakish teeth I’ve seen on Gems. Large rounded eyes, and refined biology gave them incredible eyesight. Their ears could swivel, a bit like a cat’s though more rounded. They leaned more towards cats than we did, Gems had more a theme of cat-insect-robot.

Tamaraneans had evolved as pursuit predators, basically prides of lions in the shape of pretty golden skinned humanoids. They were faster, stronger and more resilient than humans but nowhere as tough as they were in the modern age. From what I can tell, the Lyrae star system had been seeded with life a long time ago. 

Though calling it Lyrae was from a human and Gem perspective, in truth the locals called it Vega which in their shared tongue, translated to the ‘The Heart of Life’ and only sounded like a human word by some cosmic coincidence. Though there was well established evidence the Psions had come to Earth and interfered with evolution on some occasions. Not on human evolution mind you.

So maybe it wasn’t. 

Anyway the Tamaraneans had developed powers about forty thousand years ago due to an inbreeding event with a foreign species that had diverged from them about two million years ago. Again Psions, and their dickery. They already naturally absorbed sunlight for energy, and they had gained a stronger connection to fundamental Sources of power, absorbing ultraviolet light. Making them far, far stronger than they’d had been when they were primitive pursuit hunters. 

As in at least as strong as a Quartz soldier and just as fast. Which was a little concerning when Quartz were capable of lifting up well over a thousand tons and moving at several times the speed of sound. 

Scary people, and I kept my gaze from wandering too much when I suddenly remembered some cultural differences. Like the fact they were less modest than most humans.

And there was Newter retreating with a hot blush on his face, obviously unable to keep up with the mutual flirting from two Tamaranean teenagers. He tried and failed to hide behind Melanie, and Elle giggled at his expense.

“I guess your charm worked too well huh?” I was not laughing at him, I promised, really.

“ They asked what kind of things I could do with my tail… ”

I scratched my head, leaning my head to one side. “I’d probably ask the same question, though for differing reasons.” He blanched. “Probably.” He blushed and I grinned.

He was too easy.

I’m sure he’d get better with time, he was two years younger than in Worm. And flirting with a sex-positive culture like the Tamaraneans was very different than flirting with American teenagers.

“It is strange.” Gregor was people watching, eyes distant. “On Bet people like us would be considered strange, unusual, freaks even. But here we are just one of many species, one of many people enjoying a simple party.”

“Yeah. I’m still not used to it myself, before everything I was just a simple human in a mundane world. No powers, no Endbringer or monsters, no magic and aliens and other universes. Now I’m joining a party with aliens on an alternate Mars.” Just over two months, in just over two months things had changed.

He nodded to acknowledge me, eyes roving over the crowd once more. 

I wrapped my arms around my bust, chewing on my lip. When that grew uncomfortable, I fiddled with my outfit. I had changed it up for a bit, a red v-neck shirt and black palazzo pants with red polka dots. Though I hadn’t changed out my sneakers, I literally wear only a single pair of shoes.

I don’t like sandals because I hate how they feel on my toes, though I wore ballet shoes when I took two years of dance. Which has come back because my memories are being downloaded into a diamond computational matrix.

Chasse and plie were two things I remembered from those simpler days. Though I wouldn't call myself a master, my new magic based grace made up for skill. 

A bird landed on my head, and I sighed. “Hello Tungwup. Anything new with you?”

His beady bird eyes blinked half at me. “Oh I’ve been around star-eyes, I scouted out the Fallen with my aerial perspective. Those one eyed ladies work better with more detail.” 

I huffed out some air. “Yeah, true. I suppose I should thank you for technically following my order?” I shrugged, I didn’t know how the chain of command worked. “Though I’d ask how you avoided getting Mama Mathered.” Probably magic.

“Magic.” Yep I knew it. “Regardless, it was the least the Crowl could do for you. We’ve got several chaws working under your aegis.”

“Chaw?” 

Tungwup cawed. “A small team of crowl divided up into roles, search-and-rescue, navigation, tracking and so on.” He gestured with his wings, stamping his feet. “You are a frisen to us, a friend to our people.”

I blushed, feeling a little out of sorts at the sudden compliment. “O-Oh. Thank you?” 

“We’ve also succeeded in convincing the Mountain clans to immigrate to your territory.” I nodded, smiling a bit. I had been off with the numbers of his species population due to how stealthy they were.

The ten thousand initial immigrants were some of the Forest Clans, as the Crowl were split up into a number of groups. About four hundred thousand birds over three thousand square miles.

Luckily some of the more normal corvid species were picking up the slack. Plus the Gems had portaled in a few clean specimens from near-identical alternates. Probably for the best, there weren’t many heroic biotinkers. Though I knew one, a cape known as Fishtank who could accelerate the evolution of sea animals. 

Powering your mech with eels is definitely one of the weirder powers I’ve heard of but whatever. 

“It’s a good thing as well, with Golden Rain coming.”

“Summer right?” I had spent some time looking up the glossary of important Crowl terminology. “Actually that makes me ask, what do you guys eat?”

“We’re crows.” I nodded. “Though we do have crops and domestic creatures, moss, berries, snails, cat geckos.” 

Man this was still so weird. “Insects as well right? For food?”

“Yes.” He seemed distracted, glancing over to a small grouping of crowls. 

“If you’re busy…” he thanked me with a chirruping song and flew over to the females of his species. Someday I was going to be jaded to sentences like that but today was not that day.

I looked up at the night sky, watching starlight scatter across a moonless canvas. The music was becoming more active, the atmosphere shifting to something a little outside my comfort zone.

Elle was waltzing with Frills, the dance made awkward by the height difference. Gregor was nursing a drink with Starry, who had joined when I wasn’t looking. They seemed friendly with each other, in a comradely sort of way. Melanie was playing a dart game against a ruddy colored Tetramand. 

A cup materialized in front of my face, held in a small pink hand. Flowers had changed up her outfit, keeping her top but exchanging her casual sweatpants for a cute red skort. Which gave me a good look at her nice legs. 

Ahem. 

I grabbed the cup, tilting my head. “This is iced tea, yeah?” I murmured, looking at the distorted reflection in the container. “Sorry if I’m a little…off. Parties aren’t my thing.” I wasn’t Her Celebrance so I didn’t have the same joy for fun and laughter as Pink Diamond.

“I like parties, but I understand. Sometimes people can be a little much.” She slid up to me on my bench, her entire face lighting up with her smile. 

“Mhmm.” I chewed on my lip, absently rubbing my knees to keep my focus and my anxiety at bay. I was holding up my cup with a barrier, more than able to split my focus over dozens of simultaneous instances. 

“You can leave if you want to, if this isn’t comfortable for you.” Flowers kicked out her legs, giving me an empathetic look.

“It’s fine, I can deal with social anxiety.” It wasn’t a big deal. “Besides, it gives us time to talk, right?” I twirled my longer hair, red tips sparkling with just a hint of my suppressed power.

“Of course. Perhaps you want to hear some of my old adventures? I’ve been to quite a few places in my short life.” She was like, seventeen, eighteen years old. She wasn’t that young, and was basically born an adult. 

“For example?” I teased lightly, tapping her on her forehead. 

“Well there’s my trip to Kinet, the home planet of the Kinecelerans.” I leaned forward, and she seemed to puff up, standing straighter.

The Kinecelerans were an interesting species, and proved a number of convergences between the worlds of the Entities and the worlds the Gems were native to. A lot of alien species had access to some higher reality levels that let them alter the laws of physics. The Kinecelerans for example could alter friction through their skin, a hydrophobic layer of friction-proof scales and nanoscopic hairs. They had a network of superconducting fibers, and projectors of friction-altering energies. A combination of both allowed them to form a thin layer of vacuum, so they could accelerate to over five hundred miles per hour.

Living maglev trains. The aliens could move at hypersonic speeds, and stored energy in specialized organs, and absorbed electricity to power themselves. Their organic batteries were dense, and the fact they didn’t explode like bombs was impressive in and of itself.

“Are you monologuing in your own mind again?” I didn’t blush when Flowers called me out. No proof. 

“Nooo?” She laughed, song tinkling with bells and chimes.

“I know you’ve been taken with the biology of alien species, the people of Kinet are quite fast. The races are fun.” 

“Oh really? You’ve raced Kinecelerans?” She smiled, eyes brightening.

“Oh I have…” She trailed off, the atmosphere of the party shifting. It was a folksy song, vaguely familiar, with the beat of drums, and some other instrument I couldn’t name. There were more people dancing, Gems and humans and aliens of all kinds. “Oh I love this song!” She was bouncy, her eyes even brighter than before. “I always love dancing to this song with a friend…” 

“You could dance it with me?” I offered without thinking, and her smile was blinding. 

“Truly?” I nodded meekly, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to say no to those eyes. “Then come on, we’ll take it slow. A dance is a dance.” She pulled me out from the bench with surprising strength. 

She held both my hands, fingers ghosting past the gaps between mine. She held my hands tight, and I could feel some of her inner cold leaking through. Flowers spun me around, as we were connected only by our hands in a lazy orbit around each other.

I felt my heart beat a little faster, a little stronger, and my anxiety came back. Would the other people be looking at me? Was I going to make myself look bad? Was Flowers going to be embarrassed by—

We stopped, Flowers standing on the tips of her toes, lightly pulling my chin down. 

Her song was a calming presence in the storm. “Look at me. Ignore everyone else, they don’t matter here.”

“Okay.” I whispered, just a little cowed by her confidence. We started up again, right as the folksy song began to pick up.

“ Here in the twilight. ”

We got closer, linking our arms together as we spun around. I moved my feet easily, following the lines of the music, of the dance from Flowers' own aura and she did the same. I followed the beat, but it didn’t matter because we could dance any way we wanted.

“ Under the moonlight. I feel your hungry eyes. ”

I spun on one feet, dragging a surprised but giggling Flowers with me in the process. She grabbed my hips and I let out a meep when she managed to dip me. I almost fell but she caught me at the last second with an embarrassed note weaving into my mind.

“ Drums in the distance. Echoes of madness. Around the firelight ”

I laughed at her, and she growled, her claws flexing to grip firmly onto my wrists. She twisted, using her acceleration powers and I easily kept up with her. We made it out of the crowd, and an indignant Melanie got a loose sheet of napkin paper in her face. Elle was dancing with Newter, pulling him along by his arms.

The beat of the music grew louder and more intense.

“ In the heartbeat of the night! ” 

We separated, and Flowers danced around me, motions almost sensual. Though it was probably just me. She hooked one of her arms into mine, and the drums were louder, more insistent. There was a shine to her aura, a light to her song I wouldn’t mind seeing more of. The song rose up into a climax.

“ Hey, hey, hey, till the break of day! ”

We did a terrible rendition of a square dance, arms hooked together as we hopped and jumped wildly and without expectations of following a script or memorizing steps.

“ La, lala, lalalala, lala, lala, lala. Hey, hey, dance the whole night through! ”

There was warmth to the dance, something casual, something with no weight on my shoulders of any kind. We danced and danced, the lyrics rising, and we continued to move and dance without a care in the world.

“ Nothing gets between. The dancer and the moon! ”

We waltzed, Flowers silently teaching me through example. She taught me other minor dances, one was a dance like spinning gears, another was a dance of magic, using powers to add flare. My steps sparked with fire while hers splintered with ice. 

“ Follow me closely. Arms wrapped around me. Life is a sweet, sweet wine. ”

Her laughter was bubbly, littered with notes of passion. Mine was harder, a little more manic. But that was how I laughed, how I expressed joy. The warmth in my belly was growing, further and further.

“ Secrets are lost to time. To the heartbeat of the night. ”

The earlier lyrics repeated twice fold, and Flowers' hair fluttered in the wind of a cold Martian night. Our dancing was nothing more than wild movements, and I hopped from foot to foot with my friend in tow.

She hummed the song of the night away. “Nothing gets between. The dancer and the moon!” She threw her hands up, twirling around happily. I pulled her back as new lyrics emerged from the air.

“ Master of fate, how you captivate me. Filling my one desire. ”

There was a light, growing everywhere, cerise colors at the edge of my vision. I was breathless with a simple joy I rarely got to experience. Her joy blending into mine, worming into the mind.

“ Two of a kind, with one state of mind you’ve set my whole world on fire ”

My own world was focused down to this dance around a fire, a light pulsing out from my body, as the steps of our dance melded together. A song rings louder and louder.

“ In the heartbeat of the night! ”

The light came together as we danced as two, and rises and rises and—

What’s going on?

What’s happening?

No it’s okay, it’s okay. 

And I/she/we look down at our hands. Instead of pale and human or bubblegum pink and Gem, we were rose red. Melanie/Faultline/Fitts was staring at us with wide eyes. We…

We… 

We…

We…

“We fused! ” I slapped my hands to our face.

Chapter Text

Aggregate 5.2

“Woah cool!” I looked down at my arms and hands, plural! We’ve never had so many hands before.

We didn’t exist before today.

Don’t be so mean.

Well it’s not wrong.

I hummed loudly, bouncing up and down as we tried to figure out more about ourselves. That was good right? Perfectly normal. Melanie was still surprised and why wouldn’t she be when she got a specimen like us to look at. But it wasn’t like we knew what we looked like. Maybe we were hideous instead?

So…something feels different about this.

Like I’m more than I was.

Oh. That. You feel…like two people instead of one.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

Is there an echo here?

I hummed, hugging ourselves for comfort as the painful confusion became stronger. How many people made me up? Two, three, less? Neither? 

I chewed on my lip, but then I noticed my own appearance on a reflective pool of water.

Is that me?

Is that us?

I’ve never…never thought it would like this.

I look down at my hands, the first pair are stronger, more robust, tipped with curling black claws. There was a second pair below that one, thinner and a little longer, with shorter claws and more dexterous hands. I took control of my hands and brushed them against my frame, fingers ghosting along soft curves, from the swell of my breasts to the widest point of our hips.

We’re kinda chubby actually.

I wouldn’t say that, big and pretty.

Not as pretty as you.

Umm…

…I forgot we’re sharing a brain.

A robust, curvy frame covered in a flowing crimson red blouse, a black skirt tipped with rose pink, like a flaring flower petal. A necklace colored magenta, the Transport Jewel glaring at us from the silent reflection. 

What a pretty dress.

It is.

It’s not that special.

I rolled my three eyes, and they widened in response. A round slightly pudgy face, lips luscious and skin a shade of light rose red. I smiled and yawned, jaw cracking open to reveal tusks gleaming like diamonds in the night sky. My hands rubbed a jaw carved out of marble and stone, smooth as silk.

Poofy.

Indeed.

Yep.

I checked my hair, poofy and luxurious and red and pink, and rare flickers of magenta. The curly waves curtained over my eyes, and I brushed the bangs aside to reveal three eyes, colored with cerise and amaranthine. I twisted my body, with wonder in my mind, in our minds.

All the colors of the sunset and sunrise, pinks and reds and purples of the alpenglow of the golden hour. The hint of the night and twilight. We were beautiful.

I felt a confused aura, and I turned around to approach a befuddled Melanie. The unconventional woman, with her sharp features and pretty hair and eyes. She was staring, in confusion, in wonder, and we greeted her.

“Hello there!” I placed one pair of my hands on my knees, looking her in the eyes through our three.

“What just happened? One minute you’re dancing like a bunch of loons, the next you’re… this! ” 

We smiled collectively, giddy with the possibilities. “We fused! But I guess that’s something we haven’t talked about huh?”

“Fusion. This is a Gem thing right?” 

I nodded. “A fusion is made when two or more Gems combine into one. Like me.” I pointed to myself with four thumbs. 

She raised a brow. “And you are?” 

Pink Diamond and Fuschia Sapphire…

That would make a…

I believe we are…

I pulled Melanie into a hug, spinning around once before putting her down. I had her answer.

“I’m Druzy Quartz!” My light red gems had a texture to them, like shiny sugar. “It’s nice to meet you.” I offered two hands to shake and she took both in an awkward handshake attempt. “It’s nice to meet you for the first time.” She sounded so confused and I thought it was cute.

“Druzy Quartz, so you’re what…one person, and two people at the same time?”

I clasped all my hands together. “We’re a conversation, a manifestation of a relationship in a physical form.”

“A relationship?” There was a bemused tilt to her lips and we blushed.

“Umm. Not like that, well not always. Sometimes it’s romantic, sometimes it’s familial, though I guess queerplatonic is an option too?” I shrugged, no part of us was experienced with romantic or semi-romantic relationships. 

Really? No one at all?

I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.

Oblivious is more accurate.

I blinked the conversation out of mind, we had time to talk later, no tonight was a time to figure out what we could do. I reached out to the memories of ourselves.

Ice formed around my feet, colored red and heating up. I could…control them?

“Oh! Ice manipulation and generation.” I gathered magic from my gemstones, and they turned solid, mana into ice, energy into matter. They quivered with energy and internal heat contained by freezing cold. “What about our weapon? What do we have?”

Do you have a weapon?

Actually, yes.

Show us.

Four knives landed in our hands, dangerous and vicious kukris. 

“Are these your weapons?” I asked ourselves. “Hmm…I was inspired by some soldiers from Nepal, one of them was a golem-born, Osmosian. ”

“Osmosian?” Melanie questioned us, and my eyes crinkled in a smile.

“Osmosians are the descendants of ancient artificial humans, the golems. They are a related but distinct species of matter and energy absorbers, shapeshifters of great power.”

“How…how easy is it to get superpowers in your world? Well half your world.” Melanie looked so very done with our bullshit.

“A dime a dozen really, just a random accident can trigger the metahuman gene.” The gene was a strange thing for us Gems, it was a complex structure, something like a dormant virus that activates with the right stressors. 

It borrowed from local conditions of the stressor to create and fuel the process, or used a sort of genetic memory, explaining how related people can have similar powers. Now these kinds of powers weren’t strictly biological so much as they had a biological interface. There was no way normal biology could generate the required energies or generate the needed mass. 

Supposedly there were theories, that all powers, that everything that ever was came from a single Source, a well of infinite potential. Most of the major scientists in the galaxy were researching vacuum energy, examining the greater structure of the multiverse. Even the Entities weren’t free of this, as they manipulated higher dimensional energy fields that were a part of this fundamental structure of space and time. 

Perhaps we should get back on track?

“Right. Were you asking me something else?” We brought our minds back into the whole.

Melanie shook my head at my question. “No. You seem a tad distracted.” We tried to protest, and then stopped.

She was right. I liked answering her questions but I was more invested in learning what I. What Druzy Quartz could do.

“Okay.” I paused. “ Byeee! ” I jumped, and let out a joyful shriek as I was sent flying several miles in the span of seconds. I looked down and realized I had telescopic vision through my three eyes, the distant forests coming into focus.

I floated through a cloud, and shifted the water into ice, imbuing it with my power. I let the energy build and build within the ice until it… exploded with red flames and searing heat. 

“Cool.” We said, I said as I clumsily fluttered through the sky. I felt my energy field twist, and using Fuschia’s memory I applied propulsion and…

And flew.

I was rocketing at hypersonic speed across the skies, our song coming together with joy and awe and terror in equal measure. Ice followed in our wake, like a trail of magic and power. 

I had experimented with my new powers, merged and shifted in our fusion. I could combine my knives with my shield, creating energy blades I had used to cut the tip of a mountain in half. Like a lightsaber or maybe a type-1 energy blade from Halo. I could shoot out ice and plasma from them, sweeping strikes of magical force.

I landed in a clearing, rolling to bleed kinetic energy just because I could. I rolled up back to my feet, head rattling from the impact of hitting the ground at Mach one. 

I could feel our Gems humming as one, could see the stars, those gods of light chained down by gravity and mass and weight.  

What a wonderful sight

to see our most distant cousins, a billion Hearts ready to be unchained. 

One of you was born of stardust, the other born from stars and gods.

Monsters and gods, demons and angels.

One and the same under the cerise sky.

Around us the world danced with light, and where my feet stepped, life sprang from the soil. I saw deeper, more profoundly than either of us could have imagined. I saw the connections between living things, the energies that bound us together, that cleaved us together and apart. The connective energy between all things, both positive and negative. 

I blinked it away, blinked away the tears of looking through my Aura. Instead I continued to extend my power, and peered into the future. Into what could be.

Maybe we should step back a bit—

A figure, forty five feet tall, obsidian-skinned, craggy and brutish. Eye burning with the radiance of a star. Nuclear energy burst from arms like spires and claws, lightning flared in the cloudy skies. It screamed and people burst like watermelons, and I screamed along with them.

Stop 

it!

Calm, take a breath, let the visions wash past you…

Another vision. A green-blue creature, top heavy with multiple eyes, a storm drowning cities, the beat of a thousand souls dying, and a million more dying in spirit. 

STOP.

STOP!

Take deep breaths.

A third, a silver woman, opened her mouth and released a terrible scream, warping those around her with foresight and raw knowledge of the mind. I sang back with a raging Diamondsong, and the city shattered. 

ENOUGH!

When did I get on the ground?

Stars, future vision sucks ass.

You’re a little more into cussing than I am huh?

Please, is now the time?

I shivered, rubbing my arms, the world freezing around me. “Are you okay? I know it can be overwhelming. It’s fine. Totally, really.” I covered my mouth, at the conversation spilling outside my mind.

We should be having fun right? We’re a fusion, we should have a good experience. Right?

Fusion is complicated magic, bugs are nothing to be ashamed of.

It still hurts though, kiss it better.

That makes no sense.

You don’t make sense!

“Let’s not fight, I’ve never been a fusion before.” Flowers spoke from my mouth, and I frowned in response. She…I was right, we just needed to be more careful with our use of future sight.

We took a deep breath, smoothing out the bugs in our fused programs. I hugged myself before taking off once more, held aloft by my power. I started flying once more but my excitement had cooled.

I jumped a mile into the sky and gathered a cloud around us, forming it into a solid pillowy platform. There was no reason to fight, no reason not to enjoy the pretty view of a Martian alpine forest. There were goats, shining with pink and white and blue luster. There were large hoofed creatures, vaguely avian, like horse griffins. In the air there were strange alien jellyfish, pink and translucent with a gelatinous brain suspended within. They floated, sending out pulses of air with the flailing of their tentacles, hunting strange super-fast worms.

Pretty.

What else could we do?

I ran through the city, jumping over crowds with ease. Our floating power was so much easier to utilize, and I felt great. It was a simple joy in just existing, in just being me, in just being alive.

It was so different, to have a little more of the alien within us. I was many people, many names, and I was one person and one name. I was Druzy Quartz, I was Brandon Rubio, I was Sunrise Diamond, I was Fuschia Sapphire…I was also…also…

I looked to the future, opening the door despite our previous fears. It was like a roll of a lotto machine, paths I could take. I looked at one, a fusion of a thousand paths and threads of fate. I pulled back the veil of time. Some paths were more likely, others were less.

Some scenes had giant wasps destroying the city, a possibility flickering out of existence, others had me trip on a rock as I focused too much on a vision. I avoided the stone, keeping myself from being trapped by trillions of possible futures.

I turned left, blocking the visions and instead following the flow of emotions. I made it into a gathering spot, another park with a higher concentration of non-Gems, tourists, or maybe immigrants from other species.

I found myself attracted towards a particular group, who seemed particularly close knit. There was a guy with dark unkempt hair, hanging past his ears. He had a lean and well toned build that his tight shirt did nothing to hide. 

Pretty hot.

Damn.

He was talking animatedly with a few other people, smiling openly. There was a girl, a few years younger, Asian mixed from the looks of her. Around that same range there was a pretty blonde, her vulpine grin easy and bright. There was another dark haired guy, about my age with shorter hair, more like what I used to have.

“C’mon Dick, I’m sure you’ve got some juicy gossip from Ben fucking Tennyson.” The blonde leaned back, still smiling with a smug little smirk.

Cute.

Indeed.

Yep.

The aforementioned Dick shrugged his shoulders. “Not much I can tell you, Steph besides the fact Azmuth sent him to the other side of the universe.”

We should say hello.

“Hello!” Our brain/gemstones couldn’t keep up with our mouth. The group of humans didn’t react overtly, but there was a tenseness in their frames and their auras were…cautious, especially from a young teen I had not been paying attention to. 

He looked pretty edgy, with sharp features and suspicious eyes. There was something familiar about him but I didn’t know what it was. It was just something about him.

“Hi.” Steph…Stephanie, crowned-victorious-one. It was an echo of Steven’s name, from the same origin, the meaning screaming in our mind. “I suppose you wanted to hang out with the cool kids huh?”

“Err…maybe, if that’s okay? I can go…” I directed my thumbs in the direction opposite to our stupid situation. 

“It’s an acceptable risk, you can sit with us.” I stared at the thirteen year old.

What a weird kid, reminded me of Brandon…me, us.

“O-Okay.” I sat down at their meeting, folding one leg over the other. “So who are you…I mean.” Oh god/stars stop talking you stupid nerds in a trenchcoat. Most of the people here(besides the kid…) might be super attractive, doesn't mean I should act like an idiot.

“Why thank you.” We almost mouthed your welcome, and oh god I was talking aloud. Stephanie was smiling, and I turned an even brighter shade of red. “We should probably introduce ourselves.”

The oldest among them went first. “Dick Grayson.” He pointed to himself, a knowing look in his eyes. Why was that name familiar?

“Stephanie Brown.” The girl with the vulpine grin continued the roll call.

“Tim Drake.” The shorter haired young man among them replied with an easy grin. 

The…shockingly fit half-Asian girl was a little more gruff. “Cassandra Cain.” There was a tenseness to her form, almost like killing intent, yet turned towards other ends or means.

The young boy among them had the same…tendency but more severe on someone so young. “Damian Wayne.” There was a whisper to their names, curling along our ears.

Dick Grayson was dominant-strong-hardy-ruler-leader-son-of-the-steward. Stephane Brown was crowned-victorious-one-of-brown. The second oldest guy, this Tim Drake warped into honoring-god-serpent-dragon. Cassandra Cain to my senses was the-one-who-excels-over-men-the-possessed-spear-of-the-first-killer. The name was warped by the meaning and by the ancient implications of the name itself. 

Damian Wayne was conqueror-master-tamer-wagon-builder. 

There was a beat, like they were waiting for me to figure something out. Something important and big, and very, very obvious. They…oh.

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s problem children huh?” My lips tilted into an uncertain smile, and I… we felt stupid. not too stupid but there was that little bit of anxiety. 

Dick raised an eyebrow. “Is that what people call us?” I snapped my mouth shut, feeling a little small. 

“Because they’re right.” Stephanie popped her head into the conversation. “You’re pretty nervous for a big old fusion, guess we scare people.”

Big?

We’re like seven feet tall.

Lording our height over mere mortals is neat.

“We’ve only been around about an hour, I’m not exactly certain of anything right now.” There was something like indignation in our tone. There was a growing softer look at our reply.

Did we look that pathetic?

I kept my emotions in check, and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach. I had put myself in the midst of the motherfucking Batfamily. Which based on my most recent research was intact until something had happened to Batman and the Man of Steel. The League of Heroes was a tentative organization about eight years ago, different heroes stuck to their own cities. The Justice Society had been the last major superhero group, with strange activity going to ground between the 50s and the early 2000s.

But the 2000s was a period of change for all of us, the end of the Gem War, the rise in alien activity of all kinds from Vilgax searching for a key prototype for the greatest invention of Azmuth to the Highbreed invasion. Sixteen years ago, the Dark Knight became an urban legend in Gotham. Within a few years more people popped out of the woodworks, from mages to women born of clay to speedsters utilizing strange unstudied energies. Dozens became hundreds, became thousands. 

Heroes, and villains went from labels told only in stories to terrible reality. Their world was better than Worm, but even the heroes didn't like the use of the labels. They were not perfect beings and didn't want to be seen as such.

A unified hero team didn't get sorted out until the 2010s due to the machinations of various alien empires. Like…way too many of them, Kroloteans, Atasians, Incurseans, the Reach. Interdimensional threats too, Dagon and Bill Cipher, and eventually Andrias Leviathan and the Night. Though that was in 2016, years after the other incidents. 

“Hey, are you doing okay?” I was startled by Stephanie. “If a group this big is a little overwhelming, that's okay.” I smiled politely at her kindness. 

“No. No, it's fine. Just a little unexpected to meet the children of Bruce Wayne.”

“And why would that be?” There was a knowing look, something subtle in Damian Wayne’s eyes, even in his aura. 

“I’m not sure how I should answer that.” I replied honestly.

“C’mon you demon spawn, don’t scare away the giant lady.” Stephanie patted Damian on his head. She crossed her arms over her bust when he pushed her off. “So tell us about yourself, there anything new you’ve red recently?” She wiggled her eyebrows. 

I glanced down at my red skin. I looked back at her and answered her in kind. “That joke is stupid and you should feel bad.” Her smile didn't diminish and I squinted at her. “You could have asked if I’ve gone rouge at some point in our lives.”

She smiled. “I think we’re going to get along just fine babe.” The rest of the Batfamily groaned.

For the first time in a while for all of us we spent real time socializing. I learned quite a bit about the different members of the Batfamily. Though to be fair I knew fairly little, I know the basics of some of the Robins. Dick came first(heh) and had a falling out with Batman, then we get Jason Todd who gets killed by Joker for a bit. That causes issues and we get the third Robin, Tim.

I don’t know shit about the next Robins, though I know more about Damian’s status…as an ethically dubious acquired child. Illegal really. Eww. Edgy kid but he was nice enough.  

Stephanie proved to be a total dork and about as socially off as I was. Dick was a…well dick. Kind of a mix of Robins, Young Justice plus DCAMU and DCAU. Tim was a nice guy, sweet and very intelligent. We had an interesting conversation on parallels shared between certain biological structures within metahumans and the Coronas in parahumans.

Damien has been interesting as well, while I didn’t care for fighting he did elaborate on studies of certain shapeshifter combat sports. I had some practice in the field myself. Well… they did.

Cassandra was nice too, if a bit terse. But otherwise it had been nice meeting them. But time was up on having fun since they had an alert of some kind…

“It’s been fun, Dick.” He rolled his eyes at the way it rolled off my tongue(hah!) and I smiled. I offered a hand. “I hope we’ll meet up again.” He shook, and there was a tiny twinge of questions. What had happened to the Bat? What had happened to Superman?

The world fell around us and into a nightmare, butterflies swirling around us with the beat of terror and pain.

I threw back Damien from the blast, and felt my skin burn even from a mile away. A part of the Destroyer was on Earth, after we had wiped away most of its mind. Just over two years to destroy three of their Hubs. 

The Vermillion Beast was fighting hundreds of heroes, but only a few could keep it at bay. Especially with the malicious fragment of Administrator that had nearly destroyed The Pines Institute. None of us could fight the monster, it was too powerful, too fast, it had hundreds of powers to choose from. 

There was a scream of agony, a voice I knew well…I had never heard him scream like that. I ran, faster than I thought possible. And I watched as the last avatar snapped Bruce’s back, hands dripping with curses, and she released him with a vindictive glee. He fell like a puppet cut from his strings, and Clark caught him. 

In a moment Flash took him out from the battlefield, and the figure of solid pink crystal flesh smiled. She lifted a hand, flickering red, and a wave of radiation crashed into the Man of Steel. Clark screamed, and launched a flurry of strikes and punches capable of rending islands. A barrier bubbled around skin in endless layers. She moved faster than sound, slammed the Man of Steel through a small island, detonating it with atomic force-  

She pushed her hand through his chest, and tore out his heart and he FELL.

I ripped my grip away from Dick, and he bled, stepping back in surprise. I babbled an apology, the world turning grey and faded, my heart beating out of my chest. My Aura healed him, but, but, but, but— 

What’s going on?

Why do I hear an echo?

You…didn't realize?

I felt nauseous, and I-I-I-We - We -WE PANICKED.  

I ran, accelerating out of the city at supersonic speed, trying to keep the strange alien visions from pressing against my mind, my new psychometric abilities overpowering us, why was it us? It should be only two, not three, why were there three, why were they three?

Error.

Disharmony detected.

The memories came, swirling around us like a swarm of crystal butterflies, and I wanted to SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM!

I shrunk down, glancing at bubblegum pink skin, hair covering my one eye. 

Make it stop… please.  

We shuddered, we didn’t want this.

I moved, running in fear and confusion and terror, avoiding the cracks in reality. Around me I saw the towering lattices of crystal, massive columns rising and rising and rising. They took form, shape, agony written along Gemsong and Shardtalk. A pearlescent moth, long legs ending in daggers, smashing her skull into a fleeing ship. It flowed with the agony and suffering of a Pearl, crystal flesh coming forth from holes in reality distorting her chromatic skin.

She was my friend, I had known her my entire life. She was GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE, GONE!

The pearlescent moth released a terrible scream, and she received an attack on the future. First her skin burned, an attack through the mind, though her Sight. Then it felt like pain, burning, burning, like her fingers were burned/torn off, like they were twisting her teeth out of her mouth.

MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE PEARL MAKE IT STOP!

I sobbed as more towers of agonized crystal emerged, lattices ripping out of the backs of hundreds of Gems. It was like a sound, a song so terrible it parted the sky and shattered the earth and turned the waters pink with the colors of death. 

Twisting towers of once-Gems, now Entity and Gem and something else. They were enormous, the smallest were six stories tall, mindless monsters driven by pain and suffering. The tallest were so much larger, parting the clouds as they flowed across the land. It was disconnection, stasis and death, it was cosmic horror as the worlds were painted with all the stolen colors of the sky. 

MEMORY-DATA UNSTABLE.

ATTEMPTING RECALIBRATION.

Another memory emerged, pulled right out of our own head, out of the Dreaming. Another trauma, another memory of terrible things I can never unsee.

It was a world of Bugs, a world of Soul, of Light and Void, the Dream and the Nightmare, it was a story of a kingdom in stasis, saved by the mistakes of a foolish Wyrm. It was a story of monsters coming down upon the kingdoms, bringing with them a new plague, an endless flood of the ceaseless dead.

It was the story of a Vessel meeting a young naive Sapphire accompanying a crew exploring the kingdom under the domain of the God of Gods, the Shade Lord, the Sunkiller to our Suneater. A friendship even through a terrible war, and she remembered.

She remembered the screams as Bugs exploded with bile and ichor black as night, their backs unfurling with more lattice towers of crystal, twisted, rotting corpses, shards bleeding void, their Dreams burning with the power borne of a trillion trillion dead souls. Hundreds of kingdoms, from the empire of the Weaver of Armies, Ungol under the High Queen Shelob. To the Formosans and their living metal giants or the great Kingdom of Wyrms.

Billions of lives broken, scattered across a hundred alternates as corrupted Void consumed gods and angels and demons alike. It was a power so terrible it took all the gods backed by the Shade Lord and the Light of Life to destroy the regrets of a thousand dead worlds. 

I felt the ugly, awful, painful grief of a Gem in pain, losing friend after friend, forced apart by the war, or in the rarest cases…they were GONE. 

So many people across a dozen galaxies and thousands of universes, so many lives lost to the death throes of monsters from beyond the stars.

We sank down into a heap, fat tears dripping from our eyes as we lost ourselves in our panic attack. MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!

What was I? Why was this so difficult, why did everything feel weird? Please I don’t…I need help.

Someone was leaning on the wall, a purple-red woman with cubic hair and a cool visor, two metal rings on each hand. I breathed, chest heaving, hands shaking.

“You’re spiraling.” She said simply, her voice a bastion of calm in a storm of terror and pain.

“I just wanted to have fun…to have some time to relax and not hurt. Is that too much to ask?” We blubbered, covering our eyes.

Garnet stared at us, her drone tinted with sadness. “No it’s not, but the universe isn't always fair.” I nodded, breathing through my mouth. “You need to breathe Druzy Quartz, can you do that for me?”

I nodded, teary eyed. “Yes.”

In and out.

In and out.

It’s just a thought.

It’s just a thought.

It’s just a thought.

The storm, it calmed, stilled.

Take a moment to think of just flexibility, love and trust.

“We need to unfuse, don't we?” Garnet nodded. “Okay. I can do that.

I ruined it.

Not

Your fault, it’s ours.

Mine.

Both?

No.

Both. You’re a little sad sack while we’re weird.

Fine…

I ceased to exist, returning to the connection between all things.

…

I pulled away from a distraught Flowers, feeling almost empty without the intimate experience of being Druzy Quartz. She let out a loud cry of pain-hate-self-hate. She took off and I refused to leave her alone. I easily caught up and she landed against my chest. Which told me I was back to baseline since it hurt less than it should.

“Flowers. Please. Please don’t go.” Please don’t leave me.

She seemed to search for something on my face, some sign I didn’t understand. She stilled, her shivers and vibrations fading in time. 

She looked so small in my arms.

Yes she did.

I swallowed, at the song underlying my own thoughts. I felt off kilter, thoughts cleaving together and apart. It was there when I used the power given to me, the great power which had chosen me from trillions upon trillions upon trillions of candidates. This Gem within my flesh, the Starheart of limitless Magic and Life.

It was there when I dreamed, it was there when I laughed, it was there when I read stories or watched YouTube videos from several worlds. It was there when I was happy, because it was me, because it was her.

I was a little frightened, but not as much as I should be.

“Flowers.” I couldn’t hide the affection in my Gemsong, I wasn’t sure we wanted to either. “I'm not going to say it’s okay, because it’s not. ” That memory was going to haunt me. “But if you need anything at all. You can let me know.” I hugged her tightly, claws kept in check by my restraint.

“I know. I just need a little time…” I let her go, and after a second of indecision brushed my hand through her hair, patting her head.

She blushed, and I chewed on my lip. “Yeah…that’s your right. Take any time you need.”

“Thank you for understanding Sunshine.” She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek with the electric buzz of thanks-vein-adma-need-time-sorry. 

We understood, and felt less desperate as she left, her aura a wild storm of contradicting emotions.

“Damn it.” I muttered angrily, frustrated.

“She’ll come back,” I wasn't startled by Garnet as she spoke up. “She cares too much about you to let something like this ruin what you two have.” I felt relieved.

“Yeah.”

“Fusion can be a complicated subject, not everyone is prepared for it, things like this can happen.” There was something melancholy in her song. “She keeps a lot of secrets, and you’re something entirely new. It can be hard to embrace new things, especially for Gems.”

But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try.  

“I know.”

“Steven will be here soon, he’ll understand what you’re going through better than anyone else in the galaxy.”

“Could…you sit with me for a bit, until he’s here?”

“Of course.”

I waited for Steven, surprised he would show even with what Garnet had told me when we had spiraled down as a part of Druzy Quartz. And afterward too.

Well it’s not like I was alone anyway.

We had each other after all. 

I hope Flowers is okay.

So do I.

It was strange, looking back at the give and take flow of conversation that occasionally came out at certain moments in the last few months. Being a part of a greater whole. I was no less Brandon, but there was an extra part of me, something a little alien and a little human at the same time. Most of the time, we were just one, two thoughts layered perfectly over one another. But sometimes…

We were of two minds.

We’re always of two minds you knucklehead.

Yes we are, I just never heard you so clearly. Sorry.

Well it took a while for me to really…uhh materialize. It’s fine.

I shook my head, focusing the conversation back into a single line of thought. At the least we weren't…a Case 70, which sounded like a nightmare. It made sense it would be a mechanism created by the shards. 

I could hear him approaching, his double-layered song greeting my own. I had gotten stronger still after my accidental fusion with Flowers. A thirty mile aura, versus the hundreds of a Diamond at full power. Mach three was only the tip of the iceberg for how fast I could move. 

At my full strength, I’d probably be able to give Alexandria a run for her money. I had seen videos of Steven throwing hands with Koriand’r and other incredibly powerful beings. With Tetramands, with Appoplexians and Vaxasaurians and even with Martian warriors. Who had moved to New Mars half a century ago due to the collapse of their underground ecosystem.

Apparently they weren’t angry at Steven due to his restoration of their cities and ecosystems to prime condition, and they lived amongst the Gems willingly. 

Steven was there, in a flare of light and song, and we focused on him, trying to orient our thoughts and feelings.

“We really should have done this earlier, we weren’t sure whether it was going to happen or not.” We blinked, what did he just say?

“Come again?”

“Sit.” It was less a request and more a demand. “I’m going to explain a few things but not here.” He pointed to his head and I understood. I blinked.

…

The Dreaming is empty, simply the blank, swirling mindscape where Gem thoughts resided. There’s something lurking, parting the world apart in a way that hurts my mind to even think about. Someone…no it was a hand reaching out, helping me see what I had buried in unknowing ignorance.

Deeper, deeper, darker yet darker, the darkness keeps growing, the shadows cutting deeper, photon readings—the sharp angles burn away and I see more clearly what’s going on. 

I feel…divided, not lesser though, as I open my eyes. I glanced and couldn’t feel the usual light pouring out from my gemstone, but it was close I could tell. So very close.

I looked up from where I was kneeling and up to Steven, and saw double and triple and one. He was Steven, but he was also something else. One was a living glitch, light and power and majestic stellar energies. The other was slightly pale pink flesh and bone, a scaffold for the living light. 

“H-Hi?”

“Hello?” 

There was an echo, a second line of consciousness. I turned away from Steven, from Steno and Vendan, from the fourth Diamond. I stared as I saw myself, no Brenda. No. That wasn’t it either.

She looked like Brenda but colored in light red, and hair a striking crimson, eyes a solid red star in appearance. She showed more of the traits of Gem than I did, sharper claws, larger fangs, slightly stockier than me in the way Gems were. 

I stood up, and she did the same, and we met palms. I felt her thoughts, and she felt mine, and I smiled with her. He smiled with…me, as I did with him. 

I looked down, and knew I was back to what I looked like before all of this. I was thinner though, the weight lost over the months still showing. 

“Hey there little mirror.” My song was cloying, teasing.

She smiled back. “Well. I think I can say the same, meatbag.”

Brandon Rubio, Sunrise Diamond, Brenda Rubio, Beacon-Hill, Raven-King, Burning-Sword.

Labels.

Regardless of his names, regardless of her names. Brandon was a stubborn person, a stubbornness that I would see honed into iron will and grit. He was learning, and in time he would grow beyond what he was like all people did. Right now he was staring back at me in curiosity and wonder. He was in a kind of shock, but it was his curiosity that was so much more overwhelming. They need to know, to learn, to understand. We shared it as halves of the same being. He has learned to expand on his knowledge of others, to see the wider picture as well as the smaller.

He thinks of our mother, the spitfire of a woman who had raised him, he thinks of our father, the man who supported him, gave them a life beyond the one he had grown up with. He thinks of our brothers, and the guilt he feels, one he feels like he mistreated, the other he barely sees due to the mistakes of our father.

He thinks of the entity we consumed, even separated by millions of light years, we were connected even back then, a bond across space and across the void of time itself. We share data, information, methods of thought and sharing of power. 

We are inextricably linked, woven together by the thread of fate. Until a few hours ago, the separation was muddled, and now the divisions were a little more clear as were our connections. We borrow from each other because we must, he is my cherished kin, she is my just as I am his. 

I am everything he is, viewed from another angle, another facet. I am a part he has hidden, light and magic and holographic energies, inside skin, blood, skull, and cerebral fluid.

We are two parts of a whole, a dual-processor sharing a mind, a body, a soul. We emulated each other because it was what we were made for. We share our mutual confusion when we watch Steven together, our teacher, our guide to our great and terrible power. 

He is two, Steno and Vendan just as we are one and two. But we are not the same as he, our nature is our own. Brandon is my elder, my mind, my personality was made from what he didn’t use, and melded with the programming of a Diamond, a lineage dating back seven hundred million years. 

“I guess you’re a fusion of a different kind than we are?” Steven’s expression was kind regardless of his three bodies in this mindscape. “But we’re still fusions, and I’d like both my halves to get to know you.”

Vendan sat down, the living glitch so much a reflection of his brother. “You are bright and scattered, like the fall and rise of the sun.” Something rose in my mind, in our mind. A name.

“Dawn. If in the future we ever part from our siblings, Dawn is my name.” I offered him something to call me, and the new label brought me joy. An identity to call my own.

I turned to my brother, he was my flesh, my shell, my scaffolding, my template. He was one half of our zooid nature, he was important to me. I was important to him. I hoped.

He spoke with Steno, and I listened. “If she’s Dawn…then what am I?” She realized his concern, to have a part of your very identity changed could be unnerving. But she was not concerned.

“ You’re still Brandon, you’re still you. You’re just more you than before. ” Steno explained, his wavering song lighting against the darkness. “ She’s your reflection, the part of you that’s been spread throughout your gem. ”

“Still…I don’t know.” I spoke up for his benefit.

“Bran. Little raven. It’s a nice nickname is it not?” I called out, seeking his approval.

Brandon sounded rather amused, a happy song coming from his throat. “I suppose I’ll have to allow it, I can’t say no to myself can I?” I smiled, his joy was my joy and my joy was his. “So our…our fusion collapsed because our programming was all wonky.” There was insight in his beautiful wavering song.

“We had suspicions that Brandon’s fusion with his gem might expand the awareness of the code of his Gem-half.”

I grunted. “But you weren’t sure it would be the case or not, but you suspected. ” I surmised. “ And that feedback of realizing we are more eventually destabilized Druzy Quartz. ” It had been enjoyable to be close to Flowers, to our friend, to the one who was so understanding, so skilled and nice and pretty. 

My counterpart had an equally stupid smile, our shared love of our dear friend winding around one another. We were one and the same, sharing the same soul.

There was something else we wanted to talk about, a corrupted memory, a flash of information of our creation, and of memories from the past. 

“There is something we want to show you.” I spoke up where he would not, and he hummed the same tune of urgency. Together we changed the mindscape, and brought forth the memory of the dying entity. 

The image of a hundred billion shards. Gone, reduced to atoms. 

Steno hummed. “ There. I caught something in the memory-data. Vendan, enhance it. ” 

Vendan rolled his eyes. “Brother, please be serious. ” Yet he did as his other half asked anyway. “ Yes I see it…no, it can’t be…” there was disbelief from the  Diamond that was our teacher. 

They were silent sentinels, massive titans yet dwarfed by the sheer mass and scale of the shards. There were hundreds of them, gathering and focusing strange familiar energies. There were shades, remnants of something ancient, a memory so old it didn’t even remember being alive.

“The To’kustars. They…did something to the entity? And that created my Gem? Created Dawn? ” I swallowed nervously, no one knew the secret of creating a Diamond aside from the other Diamonds. 

And even she didn’t know the origins of the seed of magic that encompassed her nursery seven hundred million years ago. Were the To’kustars our creators then or…

“The To’kustars are born from cosmic storms are they not? Just like we Diamonds are born from stars? ” I ventured a possible theory, and Steven as a whole stared at me. “ When did the first To'kustar emerge?”

…

“ About seven hundred million years ago. ” Steno whispered.

“Then perhaps we are kin, the most distant of cousins. ” I sang revelations, possibilities. “ Even then this power was not innate to them, it was a gift. They were given the seed, and planted it.” The question was then where they had obtained such a primordial seed, and why they had kept it a secret.

“The only question is…who did they get it from?” My brother asked the question in all our minds.

It was a reasonable ask with this madness.

I splashed water on our—my face, breathing deeply, in and out. In and out. 

Today has been a day of revelations and unexpected surprises. My fusion with Flowers, the undeniable fact I had changed more than I could possibly realize. A part of me felt like I should be disturbed by such a drastic change, or angry that Steven had suspicions on why I was the way I was.

But I wasn’t.

Because you love me.

I blinked. My thought process had been a little split, and we periodically parted from one another. Most of the time though our thoughts were merged, overlaid around one another in a perfect fusion of Gem and human. We were both part of the same whole.

I was the human half, while she was the Gem half, I was the Bran to her Dawn, the raven-king to her light, to her rising sun. Technically she was just more of me, like the left brain and the right brain. I didn’t mind it, she was part of me, that part extended into photonic circuitry and arcane crystal.

I snapped my fingers, and vaporized the water on my face with projected telekinetic force. It was universal Gem power, though it’s strength varied a lot and often specialized in small ways towards certain materials and elements. 

I grabbed a few forwarded files, projected against my eyeballs like I was reading a webpage. We were cleaning up the aftereffects of destroying the Fallen. We had Gems examining people trying to fill in the power vacuum, other Fallen branches who still had buds from Mama Mathers. Though their powers had been weakened by us bombarding their mother-shard. 

A fragment of Eden’s administrator, one about the size of Eurasia. It was being studied due to its purpose of controlling and breaking up shards during the cycle. If we could pull off the same thing there might be something interesting to work with there.

I adjusted my room, reality becoming what I made of it with a tongue flick of song. I had opened a portal to the lab I had constructed around the Computation Orb. There was a Gemforge, newly modified for the newest and most effective variation of Shard hardware yet.

Nanite fluid sparkled with cerulean and cobalt, with gold and honey, with white and ivory, with pink and magenta, swirling in tandem with crimson and dark rose. I activated the machinery, and the nanite fluid pumped and solidified, crystal chemistry and organic biology both. 

Mass was gathered, compressed from raw fluid as dense as aluminum and into a solid crystal matrix, a Shard-stone built to far greater size and scale. It formed a spherical shape about a meter in diameter. It was a fractal thing, my eyes seeing what most humans would miss.

So many dimensions, only 26 that matter.

But that depends on your perspective doesn’t it?

This was one of my personal projects, based on what I had seen of the Corals and their use as workhorses. Beasts of labor was an organic invention, a human one. Entities were crystal life. You see what I’m getting at. I had picked out and broken down thousands of tons of dead shard flesh, and mixed it with the Shard-stone production line in my Home Temple. 

The inbuilt programming was analyzed and transferred with a mix of Gem AI, like SHELL, like the Corals, like the many AI programs within the network connecting Gem computers.

The Shard-Geode floats freely, subtly projecting supernatural energy to fly. It had several means, gravity manipulation, aerokinesis, telekinesis through dimensional transference of force. Use of a Gem energy field as it is doing now. This little prototype was something new and experimental, a bridge between shard and Gem. 

“Activate. Shard-Geode, designation Gyne.” There was a minor shift in the fabric of spacetime, a melody, an alien song, a broadcast of data and information.

“Designation accepted. I am Gyne.” It spoke aloud, it's a strange language easily understood to my ears. “I am a Shard-Geode, a unit constructed for the studying of various shard techniques for eventual replication and mass production.”

“Welcome.” I acknowledged her, smiling slightly. “It’s nice to meet you, you’ll be working with Peridot Facet-25FL Trilliant-5XI directly and be part of the greater R&D program on Mars Bet.”

“Acknowledged.” She sounded happy to help so I lightly pet her, fingers gliding along smooth crystal skin. “I will go now.” She vanished before my eyes through a dimensional transference like…  

Oh.

Is that bad?

I received a call on the network.

“I…”

“ YOU STUPID CLOD! I WAS TAKING MY ROUTINE NAP! I’LL KILL YOU! ” I leaned back, ears ringing from Olly’s scream.

“I—” There was an explosion.

“ ARGHHHH! ”

Oh.

Fuck.

She’s going to kill us…damn.

Well at least I had my work on the Case 53s to enjoy before I was destroyed right? Plus there might be a trip to New York in the future. Heh… 

…

Today is not a good day.

Quarrel rubbed her head, her skull beating with thirteen voices, the previous Butcher’s decision to return to their old stomping grounds in Brockton Bay had been a disaster. They had lost a number of their normals to a vigilante, and while none of them had been killed, their injuries were bad enough to slow down their recovery or keep them in jail long enough for the Protectorate to push them back.

It didn’t help that their powers had been twisted by someone in the area, changed and altered so dramatically they couldn’t fight. They were forced to flee with their tail between their legs.

So of course they could no longer rely on a Butcher that had nearly cost them everything. They were lucky the powers had turned back after an hour, there was a terror that the change could stop the Butcher from transferring over. But it had not and here she was after putting a bolt through the Butcher’s head.

They had planned to head back to Boston until they had heard the news of the Fallen intruding on their turf. That would have enticed them if it wasn’t for the fact the force had been destroyed, and that a quarter of the Fallen had vanished overnight to the cape team responsible. Including the entirety of the Mathers, with rumors of orbital bombardment. So New York it was until they could rebuild their forces.

She was sure it was going to be an easy time in New York.

Chapter Text

Aggregate 5.3

I waited for a few minutes, glancing at the meeting room where Melanie was screaming at a certain Lapis Lazuli. A few days was all it had taken to set everything up for explaining what I had left out on the story of the shards.

On Cauldron, on the Case 53s, and on the Garden of Flesh. It was going to be difficult, it was going to be very painful. It was better explained by someone more equipped for it. So…

I tapped the Transporter Jewel, and moved a few miles away to my home. I was going to be working on a little project, fulfilling another part of our contract with Faultline’s Crew. 

I entered the lab where a simple device sat within a glass box, one made of sapphire and tough enough to take hits from a Quartz. It looked like an oddly fancy upside down kitchen strainer, with an antenna made of an odd crystal. 

This was a device from Doctor Animo, one of his many versions of the DNA Transmodulator. A piece of supertech used by the villain to mutate animals and people. It worked by generating a higher dimensional field energy, modifying DNA through a means similar to something like Panacea’s power.

Not that she’ll ever get that power, since we’re almost certainly going to grab up Shaper. Probably for the best. The Red Queen didn’t give me good vibes for a future with a power like that. It was a complicated machine, and the main reason it had taken years to become approved was…well frankly safety issues.

This was a medical version, one designed for correcting mutations from a number of things, certain supernatural substances, various powers from both shards and otherwise. They were incredibly expensive, though their costs were dropping to affordable within the next couple of months due to improvements in technology.

They also provided mass through the fields, a sort of regeneration field to make the weird increases in size possible. Technology wise, Earth 460’\ is decades more advanced at the bare minimum to centuries on some select technology like gravity manipulation. 

There was also things like multidimensional manifold technology, which was pulling energy from Bleed portals to power things. Which turns out to have originated from Stanford Pines’ perpetual motion machine. On Earth I mean, and there might be other super inventors who did the same.

It’s just what I’ve looked up so far. 

I opened the glass container, and placed the thing on my head. An interface formed as goggles extended down, scrolling through data, and simplifying it into a sort of character creator. Likely used for the genetic engineering of specific animals and plants. 

I grabbed a small tobacco plant, and it was a basic and easy several seconds to mutate it into a blooming rose-like plant with bioluminescent petals. This was a basic check, to make sure the device was functional. Most models were much larger, and this was a mobile unit that was…not likely to cause irreparable damage. 

Well it seems okay .

Does it?

Of course it does, we’re great. I spoke to myself, rubbing my chin and I missed a step. Oh…right, sometimes I forget I’m a flesh bag and a dumb rock in a trenchcoat. 

It’s fine, we can test it again if you like.

Just teasing a bit. 

We chuffed, and I looked over all the samples of tech we had gathered up. A sample of multidimensional manifold technology. Energy generators use the constant physics flux of the space between dimensions to create free energy. Being able to pick your laws of physics was quite useful there. 

Then I examined a sample of Amazo technology, which worked on the basis of a highly complex and mutable combination of subsystems. A method of very efficient energy distribution between the machinery of the broken robot. Matter reconfiguration, using it to shift composition on the fly, some method of kinetic energy manipulation and a way to generate and manipulate electronuclear forces. 

It really was closer to power mimicry, analyzing the energies given off by superpowers and manipulating electronuclear physics to pull off similar powers. Though that was more a guess since Amazo’s maker was…very dead. And the pieces of tech I had been given to study on my own time were…

Complicated as shit.

I’m 90% sure replicating his electronuclear force generators wasn’t something I could manage on my own. Though the energy distribution modules seemed ample for use by the dozens of Cuprites on the planet. With over seven thousand Gems, we had a far greater pool of labor than before to work on new technologies. 

I noted someone else was around, and we could feel the odds shift in the slightest of ways. I looked behind me, and raised an eyebrow. 

An attractive slender woman with red hair, older than Artificer and taller though not by much with her recent growth spurt. 

“Shamrock I suppose? I imagine Maddie is somewhere around then?” The redhead missed a step. 

“So you’re Cauldron’s new buddies huh? A nice way to fill out your ranks.”

“Unless they’re giving us every cape they’ve ever made, Cauldron isn’t doing shit for us. The only thing we’ve agreed on is not to immediately kill each other or get in each other’s way. Plus some aspects of your powers are things we already have.”

“Oh really?” She pulled out a pair of dice, and I nodded. She threw them, rolling snake eyes. 

I threw them, and both were sixes. I threw them a dozen times, hitting six every time and deflected the micro-telekinetic attempt with my magic. She stared.

“Every Gem can pull that off. Retro-causal intuition is useful like that. You’re here because we distracted Cauldron enough for you and your friend to escape.” Damn was it lucky though, and her power wasn’t responsible for it.

Mostly.

“What, like a favor?”

“Nope. Dumb luck. Your power messes with precogs, and you got a golden opportunity when our own fuckery coincided with your escape.” Man that was a trainwreck of a situation.

Sucks for them. I didn’t care as long as they didn't collapse and bring down the whole house of cards with them. 

“You’re not even lying are you?” She seemed stunned.

“The only reason Cauldron still exists is because they’re keeping this planet from collapsing into anarchy. And the amount of intervention needed to stop that means everyone dies.” Gems could make up for Cauldron but we needed thousands of Gems on Bet, which would be enough to trigger Scion into blowing up continents. 

While I had a good chance of surviving that, the other Gems and every human on Earth…did not have good chances. Scion was disgustingly powerful, more so than most of the avatars of Abaddon. He was the Warrior after all, so being able to wipe out continents across hundreds of dimensions at once was needed.

So a Diamond could take his hits as well as a few other species. There were a number of superspecies capable of withstanding the sheer energies. 

“This isn’t going like I thought it would.” I shrugged my shoulders at Shamrock’s expression.

“That’s something you’ll have to get used to with us, things never go quite the way you would expect.” I sighed. “At the least it didn’t take us long to identify all their kidnapped victim’s home dimensions.”

“You what?”

“They seemed to have pulled people from a specific two hundred realities, from battlefields, hospitals, people who wouldn’t be missed or from locations that would soon stop existing.” From what we had stolen from their databases and scanned off their physical papers, some had been from an Earth that had gone nuclear, with seventy percent of the population dying over several days. The rest had scattered about a handful of dimensions leftover from Eden’s crash. “The only thing we wanted was access to the counterpart, which will more or less invalidate their needs for…quite a number of their experiments.”

“And you’ll think they’ll stop?” She seemed skeptical.

“If they believe it does not detract from their goal, yes. But, well it’s perfectly reasonable to have your doubts.” I wasn’t going to sing Cauldron’s praises any time soon. “If not we’ll see what we can do.” I spoke aloud, and she gave me an odd look. 

“What exactly do you mean by…everyone dies?”

“Well…”

I watched Gregor dab some healing water on Shamrock’s scuffed fists after I had very bluntly explained why Cauldron did what they did. She had tried and failed to punch me, and since hitting me was like hitting a brick wall…

Mel had a very bitter smile. “I’m very much glad you weren’t the one who explained how our entire world is going to die, and the people responsible for every Case 53 are trying to save it.”

“Trying and failing, though not for lack of trying.” If nothing else they wanted to save the world, but they had been too focused on their idea of the best way of saving the world, and that had cost them dearly.

They were flawed, flawed people who didn’t have the tools to create a picture perfect ending. They had only the powers of the enemy, a compromised future sight shard, and a lack of ability to know Scion’s motivations. Some of their flaws were worse than others, priming them for self-destruction. 

They were cold people, and cold people didn’t engender trust. I didn’t trust them either, besides wanting to save humanity, I didn’t understand them, didn’t know their train of thought. Though in the long term at least, we had their shards to subvert rather easily. Or destroy.

“Are you sure you can't remove them?” I stared at her.

“Yes. Their intervention is one of the reasons Bet hasn’t collapsed into parahuman feudalism. We’d need to bring in hundreds of Sapphires, and tens of thousands of Gems on the planet.” It was a frustrating stalemate. “Which brings in Scion and we have him evaporate North America.” All of them.

We could take it.

I’m not going to tank a moon-buster blast to the face.

But we could.

But I don’t want to, you maniac.

“Fuck.” Mel cursed. “What does it take to kill one of these creatures?”

“Based on the data of our multidimensional mass sensors, Scion should be just under thirty times the mass of the planet Earth. So a fair amount of force.” He was made up of thousands of shards, working collectively to form a single organism.

Though he didn’t have the number of powers Eidolon did, since his shard pipeline cluster didn’t work in the way Eden’s did.  

“Is it even possible to kill monsters like that?” Gregor asked, voice hoarse. 

“We’ve done it before, three times in fact. Though most weren’t quite as strong as Scion, they were trickier, and grew stronger as they learned. It’s why the remaining avatar has proven so…elusive.” The Vermillion Beast had salvaged what she could of her other hubs, integrated bits and pieces, and integrated the powers of some alien species.

She was the most dangerous and the most terrifying, degrading over the years as her fellow hubs fell one by one. The Tuscan Beast had been killed seven months in, the Azure Beast was torn apart by the Reach and Yellow Diamond after she blew up their home planet. The White Beast was destroyed by Steven along with the Galvans with some distant help from the Chronosapiens.

Scion was all about raw power and powers to facilitate that strength. Based on our scans of Eden’s Stilling, it was a big shard, spanning three planets, just slightly more massive than the Earth. His flight was likely in fact a massive cluster of shards, hundreds of different methods to make sure there was no one way to negate his power. Gravity manipulation, aerokinetic shifts, light pressure, transmission of force carriers and force information across dimensions. 

Hundreds of sensory reception shards, backups upon backups to manifest his clairvoyance across space and dimensions. Hundreds of ‘thinkers’ shards to network with his path to victory, and likely some forms of postcognition. 

Dozens of teleportation and dimensional transportation shards, ones allowing him to lense his attacks across multiple realities. This was based on the physiology of Abaddon, and of our deep scans of Eden.

“Actually. Come with u– me. There’s something I want to show you.” I opened a doorway in reality, rimmed with cerise. Shamrock flinched. “We may or may not be studying their portal maker’s shard to make refinements. Not that they know or can stop us.”

The Case 53s and Melanie followed after me, and onto the craggy grey rock of a dead Earth. There wasn’t much oxygen but that was already taken care of by a few Robonoids with aerokinetic cores.

There was a wriggling thing, a small continent of red crystal flesh with Gems scurrying over it, stabbing into it with spectral spears that sprouted with strange whispering roots.

“What the hell is that?” Shamrock was the one asking, mildly concerned. 

“That is your power, a mix of several buds formed by the forced pinging effect of Cauldron vials. A roughly twenty petaton specimen with a mix of precognition and telekinetic elements. Currently being folded from its original half million kilometer surface area into symbiotic deployment mode.”

“They connected that to my head?” Shamrock seemed reasonably unnerved. 

“So is every other parahuman, shards provide power from across dimensional boundaries. Cauldron mines out the physical communication bus of the Thinker, forging a direct serial connection to offsite shards.” We explained. “Current estimates based on the rate of data transfer and dimensional coordinates indicate Eden landed with about half a million shards.” She had been far heavier than she should have been, making the impact more heavy, and more damaging. 

Maybe one in twenty shards were from Eden, most of her shards were damaged and broken, or were later vanished with most of Scion’s shards. 

“How…how many powers have you grabbed like this?” Melanie asked, voice rather low.

“About five percent of the estimated shards connected to the communication bus.” About twenty five thousand or so. A fair number, though less than the several million shards the collective galaxies had taken over. 

Admittedly scattered across two million light years but still, it was a fair number of shards. 

“It puts things in perspective, doesn't make me hate them any less.” Shamrock was honest at least. “I just ask how…your people seem so calm about this.”

“Because they’ve done worse.” Cauldron had been trying to save the world when they experimented on people, the road to hell paved with good intentions and all that bullshit.

The Diamonds didn’t have that as an excuse. There was no common good in the things they had done, to the planet, to the Gems on Earth, and to the hundreds of millions of Gems that made up the Cluster. It would take them thousands of years to make up for what they had done, or to at least to fix what they had broken. 

“I…I’m not sure I want to ask.” I gave Shamrock a look. 

“Well since we’ve killed a conversation dead again, I have a way to deal with Gregor and Newter’s chimerism.”

Melanie perked up.

I adjusted the DNA repair gun, adjusting it’s software based on the data from the Transmodulator. Some of its properties worked better for the transdimensional energies most capes were surrounded by.

“This will return our bodies to being human?” Gregor asked, looking at the red firearm-like device in my hand. 

“Yep. They’re a creation of Cooper Daniels, a technopathic metahuman. They were built from the basis of Galvan technology.” I shrugged, rolling our shoulders. “Designed to restore humans after their DNA was merged with that of a parasite created by the Highbreed.”

“Highbreed?” Newter asked, the kid giving me a curiosity filled glance

“Nazi bananas.” I explained by not explaining. “They were infiltrating humanity using face tentacle monsters.” 

“How many times has the Earth been invaded?”

“Dozens at least, most likely hundreds going back to Homo Erectus.” Based on fossil records, there has been a notable increase in human-like species since then. Though out of three thousand six hundred species, maybe five percent of them had human-like features. Though a recent update to the Computation Orb went from 3600 species to ten thousand.

The data I had on hand was outdated, and left out some pre-industrial species. About a year or so ago, the Galvans had expanded their database of genetics from across the universe. DNA was a common substrate along with a few dozen others across the galaxies. 

We even had Kryptonian DNA, which was DNA though it had sixteen base pairs and had a triple helix structure. From what I can tell I was one of the few people trusted with access to biological data on Kryptonian DNA. Due to my status as a Diamond, and apparently distanced evaluation from a living Kryptonian.

We didn’t ask why it was Kara Zor-El.

I’m not sure we had the right to know…we were afraid to ask.

“Will it work?” Newter was reasonably nervous. “Seems like a long shot.”

“I’m about ninety six percent sure this is going to work, it’ll remove most of the foreign DNA, while the dimensional shift components from the Transmodulator will modify the initial folding effect that caused your mutations.”

Newter rubbed his chin. “Right, you said our forms were supposed to be…like Changer forms, or something like that?” 

“In your case yes, but in general…not exactly. All powers break reality to some extent, folding and unfolding dimensions to transfer matter and energy. But inoperable shards are damaged, and mess up that process badly. The DNA repair gun will fix up your body and the natural neural plasticity of a shard will take care of the rest.” If nothing else, shards liked to learn. Which was why active countermeasures were used to form a shroud for any and all Gems. 

Those countermeasures extended into subverted shards, as we set up illusion magic across thousands of Earths. Improvements had been made using Mantellum’s shard, the guy having been homeless and taken off the streets by Captain Jack. He had joined their crew, using his power to jack shards.

So space pirate Mantellum.

“You are certain this will work?” Gregor seemed determined, as if he was hoping this wouldn’t backfire on them.

“Yes. Ninety eight percent chance it’ll work, with the other two percent being nothing.”

“Then can we start now?” Newter’s tail flicked back and forth. 

I nodded and shot both of them with the DNA repair gun. They flickered, doubling over in pain as their bodies shifted under the mutagenic properties of the strange energy field. I didn’t see the possibilities shift to the negative and relaxed as their features began to recede, their forms pulled back to whence they came. 

So it turns out Newter is Asian…or Asian mixed with Caucasian from the looks of him. His skin was a light shade of brown, with more or less the same body type as before. His eyes were a pretty shade of baby blue, and he glanced at himself with awe. He ran his fingers through his dyed hair, lips quivering.

Gregor shockingly didn't change as much as I had expected, he was still pretty overweight, but his skin was no longer so pale and semi-translucent and lacked the hardened sores. He looked nordic, pale with reddish brown hair growing out where he had once been bald and grey wise eyes.

“It worked perfectly. How do you two feel? Any burning sensation, do you taste static, hear colors?” I approached Newter first, prodding and poking him with a vibrating song in my throat. 

No bruises, or growths or odd temperature fluxes. His UV stripes were in good health, and there was no excessive dilation of his pupils. I moved on to Gregor.

He was overweight but he had a layer of dense muscle, and was more than tough enough for a guy his size. I lightly massaged his arm, humming absently.

He’s retained his durability.

Limited biokinetic Changer power from the looks of it.

“We’ll prepare an exercise regime to burn away some of your weight,” I worried for his health a bit. “You’ll always be big but an Earth 460-AB regime should make you way tougher.”

“You do not have the best bedside manner Brenda.” I blushed, puffing out my cheeks.

I took my hands off of him. “Well excuse me, I want to make sure there’s no side effects from this procedure.” I was just expressing my concern in the way I knew how. By being exceedingly blunt and rude with my responses. It was my thing. 

“Of course.” That little shit!

“Shut!” I poked him in the rib with narrowed eyes. “You’re lucky you’ve managed to stay in my good graces.” 

“If you can return Case 53s to a human form, would Cauldron interfere? Since they’re supposed to be a smokescreen.” There was visible disgust on Mel’s face.

“What people see and what Scion sees isn’t going to be the same thing.” I replied honestly. “We’ve got your shards in storage already and added a specialized set of hardware and magic to project a psychic illusion. He won’t and can’t tell the difference.”