Strange Alliances

Chapter 7

Pain.

Her whole existence was pain, they'd taken her Diamond away, they'd taken her garden away, now they'd taken what made her herself away. Rhodonite hissed shrilly and began rolling around as blades began ripping out of her body until she was covered in them like strange quills.

She began to thrash, kicking up thick clouds of dirt as she dug deeper and deeper into the ground. The cool dirt felt good on her aching body. Rhodonite could feel things all around her, the vibrations in the ground told her where things were above ground and showed her the paths in the underground she could tunnel through easier.

A thought came to her reptilian brain. The Amethyst, this all started when she came to her garden. That Onyx had come sniffing after her like a dog.

She knew what she had to do.

Rhodonite began tunneling towards the large cluster of vibrations.

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Peridot very carefully placed a card on top of the four other cards she propped against each other. It had taken almost 4 hours to get them to stay up but; finally she'd done it. Now, she needed to get this one on top.

"Gently…. Gently…." she held her breath, though she didn't need to breathe in the first place. Her hand began to tremble slightly as she carefully loosened her grip and-

"YAP!" Pumpkin barked, running into the barn and circling Peridot, who looked down at all the fallen cards, all those lost hours, and began to grind her teeth.

"Pumpkin! What in the name of-" the ground began to shake, then the barn itself joined in and Peridot fell back onto her butt as Pumpkin climbed under a chair. "-What the heck is going on?"

Lapis shouted from outside. "Peridot! Come quick!"

Running outside, the tiny green gem saw her barn mate pointing off in the distance. A long trial of dirt came over the horizon moving faster and faster with each passing second.

"What is it?" Lapis asked.

Almost immediately, as if to answer her question the ground erupted. The creature that launched itself into the air was a massive blue scaled snake with a bushy mane of pink hair and what looked like swords sticking out of its body. It cleared several dozen yards before burrowing back into the earth and continuing its forward momentum.

"Let's get out of here!" Peridot quickly retrieved Pumpkin from his hiding spot and the three quickly flew off into the sky. Looking back they watched as the creature demolished the barn within seconds.

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Holly Blue Agate straightened her uniform before striding confidently into the command room. Taaffeite looked away from the view screen where a Corrupted gem was attacking a human colony.

"The Diamonds send me another Agate?" she said, looking down at Onyx. "Lets hope she lasts longer than the last one."

Holly Blue cleared her throat and crossed her arms. "Holly Blue Agate reporting for duty," she said.

"My lady," Onyx said, stepping forward. "Holly Blue Agate reporting for duty, my lady."

"Excuse me?" she asked, looking over at the black gem and raised an eyebrow. "Onyx should be SEEN and NOT heard."

Onyx stepped forward, summoning her scythe.

Holly Blue scoffed. "No wonder Blue Diamond ordered me here," she said, summoning her whip. "This whole ship is in dire need of proper discipline, and I'm the gem to whip you into shape."

"Enough, both of you," Taaffeite said, snapping the two gems out of their conflict. "Holly Blue, Onyx belongs to me and she is mine to discipline as I see fit. As for you Onyx, you spoke out of turn to a higher ranking gem AND drew your scythe. I think 40 lashes is enough, Holly Blue administer them."

The Agate smirked, as she approached, Onyx turned and knelt down.

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"That is very strange," Garnet said, staring down at Lapis and Peridot. "I didn't sense a Corrupted gem, but; with all that's been going on recently i'm not surprised."

"What did it look like?" Pearl asked, sitting down beside the two.

"Well, it was really long with no arms and legs. Swords were sticking out of its body, and it had bright pink hair," Lapis said.

Amethyst slowly slid back behind Jasper and began to creep slowly out of the room before being seized by the larger quartz and dragged back.

"I was just…. Going to…. Get…. Radiator fluid," she stammered, trying to stay calm.

"Come on, Pearl you and Bismuth remain here," Garnet ordered. "The rest of you are coming with me to fight this thing."

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Rhodonite burrowed deep in the cooling darkness. The vibrations had finally stopped, she'd made sure of that. The humans had been helpless against her wrath. Her new body effortlessly tore through their shelters, and her blades cut the defenders to pieces with just a single swipe of her tail.

She could sleep now, the quiet soothed her.

"We're too late,"

her eyes snapped open at the sounds above.

More vibrations.

More pain.

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Lapis looked around in horror. The creature, whatever it was had ravaged an entire town within minutes. She covered her mouth in shock at all the people lying on the ground. Some of them weren't completely whole. A squeaking sound under her foot made the gem jump back in surprise.

A teddy bear.

She knelt down and picked it up. She hugged it close and began to cry.

"This is horrible," Amethyst said, looking up at Jasper. "You ever see anything like this?"

"In the war, on Titan," she replied. A feint cry could be heard coming from a destroyed home. Jasper grabbed a broken slab of concrete and effortlessly lifted it to reveal two small children. "You can come out, its safe."

"We can't find our mommy!" the little girl said.

Jasper noticed a hand sticking out from under a large pile of rubble. Lowering the slab she picked the two up and carried them to Garnet.

"At least someone survived," Garnet said. "Peridot, take them back to the temple where its safe."

The smaller gem nodded, taking the two from Jasper she quickly jogged off towards the warp pad.

"Garnet, how do we find this thing?" Amethyst asked. She looked around at the surrounding area. "Lapis said it digs through the ground, it could be anywhere."

Beneath their feet, the ground began to rumble.

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"The perfect Quiche," Pearl said, as she pulled the finished dish out of the oven. "If I ever completely lost my self respect as a gem, and decided to actually eat food this would be the first-"

A blast of energy caught her in the chest just as she turned around, causing the quiche falling to the floor as Pearl was launched out the kitchen window. Sitting up, she rubbed her head as the door opened and Star Sapphire stepped out onto the balcony.

"It would have been delicious," she said. Pearl rolled out of the way of another blast from Star Sapphire's eye. Summoning her spear mid-roll, Pearl leaped forward and stabbed at the shorter gem. A shadow passed overhead. Pearl looked up just as Bismuth's unconscious body slammed into the deck. "Too slow!"

The force of the blast sent Pearl flying back over the rail. Star Sapphire watched as the gem vanished into the water below. She looked back up to the roof to see Holly Blue.

"This was too easy," she said, leaping down. "I'd hoped that fusion would have been here."

"She would have shattered you, my dearest," Star Sapphire said, pecking the taller gem on the cheek as she knelt down. "Lets return to the ship with our prize, we can celebrate after."

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Jasper seized a large chunk of concrete and hurled it at the creature. The projectile shattered against the gem's head. The creature hissed shrilly before surging forward. Jasper crossed her arms and braced for impact.

"Careful!" Garnet intercepted the monster, and sent it rolling into a destroyed building with a blindside punch. "We can't fight it here, there could be more people trapped!"

Amethyst popped out of a pile of rocks. "So what do we do?" she asked.

A shrill roar of fury filled the air. The three gems quickly began running in the direction of the barn.

"Where's Lazuli?" Jasper asked.

A blue blur shot past them in the sky.

"There," Amethyst replied.

The ground erupted beneath them as the corrupted gem exploded from the ground and seized Garnet in it's jaws. The fusion struggled to keep the rows of razor sharp fangs from grinding her into dust. Jasper leaped and punched the monster in the side of the head, sending it falling over. Garnet quickly climbed out of the beast's mouth.

"Amethyst, tie its mouth shut!"

Summoning two whips, the small quartz quickly wrapped them around the long mouth of the gem creature and double knotted them. Wiping the sweat from her brow Amethyst looked the monster over. Thick, curly pink mane covered its head and neck. The blades sticking out of its body were chipped and cracked. Climbing up onto it's back she noticed a gem nestled between two of the blades.

"Hey! This looks just like…." she stopped, and looked back at the monster's mane, then the blades, then the gem. She repeated this several times before looking at the two gems with her. "This is Rhodonite."

At the sound of her name, the monster came alive in a burst of energy. She began to roll like a crocodile, knocking Amethyst off. She kept spinning faster and faster until she was a blur of spinning death.

The gems quickly retreated as Rhodonite shot up into the air. They watched as her body began to grow strange masses that kept growing and spreading all over. The growths began to swell out, getting bigger and bigger with each passing second.

Then, in a massive burst of energy, Rhodonite exploded in a great fireball of energy. Great puddles of Corruption were quickly everywhere.

"Well that was messed up," Amethyst said, picking up Rhodonite's gem off the ground before bubbling it. "Why did she blowup?"

"Her body couldn't keep itself together, most likely she was forcibly corrupted by someone else instead of like the other gems were," Garnet replied.

"What do you mean?" Jasper asked.

"Her body had too much Corruption, so much she couldn't maintain her form," she replied. "We're done here, let's head back."

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Pearl kept floating, the ship went higher and higher up into the sky until it vanished into the vast blue. She failed, the enemy invaded their home and she was helpless to stop them. She was no warrior, a warrior would have stopped them.

"I'm just a servant after all," she muttered. "Useless."

"Pearl!"

Garnet's head popped up over the railing.

"Bismuth is gone," she called. "They took her, and I couldn't stop them."

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Peridot typed the results of Rhodonite's battle into her gauntlet.

"Form unstable, Corruption to powerful in large doses," she turned to look at the cell holding a shifting red mass of liquid. It kept driving itself against the glass. "Subject 2 seems more adaptive to treatment, though her abilities at this stage are unknown."

Moving down she stopped in front of the cell holding a massive blue cocoon. It had grown again, now it took up almost the whole cell.

"Subject 3 has yet to emerge from her cocoon," she said. "Her abilities are completely unknown until she is free of her pod."

Further down she stopped in front of a large, reinforced cell holding an angry gem.

"Let me out of here you shrimp!" Bismuth shouted, slashing at the glass with her ax hand. On her head rested a gold circlet, a large blinking jewel rested in the middle.

"Command; step back,"

The jewel began to pulse. Bismuth began to convulse as her feet began moving backwards. She tried to stop herself but; her legs had mind of their own.

"Feel like you have a massive headache? Like your head's gonna explode?" Peridot asked. "That would be the control headband I gave you, its wired into your head. Try to take it off and it will explode. Try to fight the commands and it will destroy your mind."

Bismuth caught a glimpse of her reflection, she scowled.

"I'll shatter you," she said.

"We'll see about that," Peridot replied.

End chapter 7