LOG-124.

  Fusion with Fracture had been...therapeutic.

  The Gem was exceedingly cold. There wasn't any other way I could describe the vague mass of feelings that they were composed of, which in turn had combined with my own tightly secured existence. And that coldness had been refreshing in a way I hadn't been expecting.

  The fusion itself had just been another larger Pearl, red and green meshing into gold, which in turn had let her blend in surprisingly well among all the yellow-derived essence wine misting through the air.

  We hadn't figured out a name for her.

  And from there, as that nameless Pearl, I'd spent what must have been a few hours simply…meditating. There were no thoughts, no feelings, no worries.

  And that state had in turn been only further enhanced by the borderline drug I, or rather she had been on. A drug whose effects had become easier to pick out as my mood turned slightly more serious, small details becoming more apparent, my movements slightly jerkier, the works.

  Of course, as much as I might have liked to, I couldn't stay much longer than those few hours. Chip and Scratch had prior arrangements, namely the covert removal of a problematic administrative Zircon that was beginning to catch on to some of our cell's movements throughout the Confluence, and I of course had my own situation to deal with.

  Namely that in the slight buzz I'd gotten caught up in, I'd forgotten that I had a debriefing scheduled with Sodalite, the aristocrat naturally somewhat repulsed by the fact that she'd actively participated in a crime that extended beyond just fusing with a Gem from a different caste.

  Which is why I now found myself moving through yet another lonely hallway, deep within yet another isolated, rarely visited wing of a dwarf planet sized waystation.

  The unexpected benefit of having such a large operating ground, many previously busy areas had long since been borderline abandoned as the world was hollowed out, leaving plenty of space for Fawn to act with little to no interference.

  Squeak!

  Blinking slightly and lifting my leg, I stared down at my foot, the dancing shoe wrapped around it having skidded across the floor after I'd pressed it against the shined surface a little too hard.

  …Perhaps I'd been immersed in the mist a little too long-

  "Viridian? Is that you?"

  Frowning, I straightened my posture and did my best to shake off the haze clinging somewhere in the back of my head, turning the corner with a nod.

  "Yes, have you taken some time to-"

  I didn't even get the words out.

  The world almost seemed to lurch as a sudden mass of bluish purple came hurtling toward me, faster than thought, faster than the drunkenness could clear from my head.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Reflex alone saved me, legs twisting, torso pulling back just enough that the strike carved through empty space instead of my lightform. Even so, I felt the ghost of it graze past me, close enough to sour the pit of my stomach.

  Sodalite.

  Her balance broke with the overextension, form tipping in a way that told me the attack had been meant as a single, decisive blow. And for the smallest fragment of a moment, I found myself staring, first at her panicked posture, then at the object clutched tightly in her hand.

  A shard of bright blue light, brilliant and dangerous, jutted outward from the end of some compact device, humming with a barely restrained danger that prickled against the surface of my skin.

  For a second I figured it was some kind of destabilizer, that she'd been trying to merely discorporate me for whatever reason, even if I could imagine more than a few as to why she decided to do such a thing.

  It was only when my focus adjusted, the edges of the spike resolving through the fog still threading my thoughts, that I realized it wasn't quite that. The geometry was off, the hue different, the energy less chaotic than it should have been.

  In the brief instance it had taken me to deduce that the device was something else, the aristocrat's eye had widened to an almost comical degree, a panicked gasp escaping her as she moved for another lunge.

  My claws came out in a flash of light, and I counter lunged with a distinctly un-Pearl-like snarl that seemed to startle the other Gem, moving to dive past her, pivot around on a graceful foot, and stab her in the back a dozen times before she could react.

  That didn't happen. My foot didn't land where I intended it to land, once more skidding across the ground, and a large flailing fist slammed into my chest, dragging me along for the ride as Sodalite and I hit the ground kicking and scrabbling at each other.

  And then she was on top of me, my comparatively smaller body forced beneath her own.

  "It wasn't-it wasn't supposed to be like this! Just-just let me fix you!"

  Anything I could have said in response was knocked out of me as a hand came down, thick fingers wrapping around my throat, my own claws raking against the lightform of her arm but failing to penetrate.

  Tears continued to stream out from the aristocrat's eye as she pinned me down beneath her weight, and the flash of light drew my attention to whatever she was planning to stick me with, that blade of blue raised high above her head and rapidly descending.

  I was a Gem. I had been a Gem for years. And yet the instinct that drove me was entirely human, screaming that whatever that thing was, I didn't want it touching me.

  Both my hands shot upward, claws scraping sparks against the thing's edges as they locked around her wrist. My own limbs strained, every ounce of strength pulled taut as I pushed back against the weight of her descending arm.

  Her tear streaked face twisted with effort, jaw clenched, the glow of the weapon flaring brighter as it drew ever closer. For a moment, I felt an incredibly uncomfortable prickle as the foreign light began to tickle the edges of my shoulder.

  And then, with a sudden surge, I twisted. The trajectory shifted. The blade of blue carved downward, not into me but into the very chest that bore it aloft.

  There was a flash, sharp and searing, right before Sodalite's voice tore out in a broken gasp. Her form fractured into light, unraveling in a shudder that threw me back against the cold floor.

  When the glow faded, I was left staring up at the gemstone resting on my chest, its facets catching the pale light in silence. The device fell free from her dissolved grip, clattering against the floor beside me.

  Whatever strange spike of energy it had conjured was gone, leaving only an empty handle, innocuous and inert.

  "F-Fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck."

  Scrambling up, I flinched at the sound of the gemstone impacting the ground and shot a hand down towards it, the familiar green of a bubble forming around it an instant later.

  Safely depositing the sphere into my storage space more out of habit than any hint of actual planning, I stared down at the not-destabilizer in horror, glanced around the hallway, and grabbed it.

  Lifting the device at an angle that kept it well away from me, I took note of the small pressure sensor on its side, before hastily moving it into my gemstone as well.

  The slight wet feeling at the edges of my eyes proved too much, and I began to shake as I staggered out of the hallway, moving to grab a communicator and contact someone. Anyone.

  Maybe I could get Truce to come and help me figure out just what-

  Another flinch ripped through my lightform as an entirely different communicator rang out from within my storage space, and with one hand hastily wiping away the tears streaming down my cheeks and straightening my hair, I answered the incoming call, Hessonite's distinctly joyous face greeting me.

  "Viridian! Excellent news! Report to my office immediately, we have a potentially incredible opportunity on our hands, Yellow Diamond is visiting the Confluence!"

  The Garnet sounded far more jubilant than usual, and it was all I could do to flash her a smile and bite out an "at once, my Hessonite!" before the call ended, another sob wracking through me straight afterwards.

  "What the fuck!"