Scene Listing || Scene Schedule || Scene Schedule RSS
Owner Pose
Peridot     Peridot was standing at the entrance to the pinky finger of the Gem Warship. It was a  section of the ship that had been mostly under utilized, as storage for the injectors and other such devices. Most of which Peridot had moved to the weapons bay. She was knelt down, holding a gem soldering tool and making an adjustment to a panel that had been partially removed.

    She had sent a robonoid to fetch Jasper wherever the orange gem was, be it in her room or any one of the four other bays. Upon locating her it would project a holoimage of Peridot with her arms folded. "Jasper." She said in formal greeting. "I've been working on a new development that I would like to have you come test for me. Please report to the command bridge for further instructions. That is all." And with that, the image vanished.

    What could she possibly want?
Jasper      Jasper's first thought is: who cares.

     She's in her quarters, nursing her injuries, when she hears the broadcast. In particular, she's nursing her wounded pride. The physical injuries aren't so worrying to a gem - the body is a projection, after all - but the mental wounds are continuing to build. First Lapis, now this.

     Why is she so weak?

     Still, not listening to Peridot would mean having to hear from here - but at a louder, more annoying volume. So, Jasper rises. She makes her way to the command bridge, doing her best to appear in control and uninjured.

     "Reporting as ordered," Jasper remarks, assuming a relaxed stance.
Peridot     "There you are." Peridot acknowledges her presence and stands from her work. "I've put a pain stakng amount of work into this over the past two days and have been retrofitting..." She paused mid sentence, looking Jasper over. She looked rough. Sure she had been in a fight recently, but... something about her was beginning to gnaw at Peridot. She had only known Jasper for a relatively brief span of time, at least, brief when you're an immortal rock. But, there had been a change in the orange gem. It was bugging her.

    She clears her throat. Perhaps she needed to take a step back an analyze the situation. "Jasper, are you feeling... well?" She starts, somewhat awkwardly. "You've been acting strangely since our battle with the Crystal Gems. Reckless." She tightened the corner of her lip. "That is. More reckless than usual."
Jasper      Jasper doesn't move. Her golden eyes, staring at some point far ahead, wander down to stare at Peridot. "I'm fine," she growls out, covering pain with threats. "If I wanted your compassion, Peridot, I'd beat it out of you." Pause and, apparently deciding that Peridot won't let it go easily, Jasper adds: "I just want to bring the Crystal Gems to justice and we don't know where they are. That is all."

     Yes, that should be a good cover.

     "Now, what have you been working on?"
Peridot     "Very well. Just don't let it interfere with our job."  Peridot went on, seemingly okay with ending that particular line of questioning. She decided to continue with her presentation. "As you know, Gem warships are designed for short-medium term missions. Normally, we'd have transitioned to a complex by now. But, the way things have fallen. It's now our home." She kneels down by the panel she had been working at from the beginning and seems to continue working.

    "Therefore, modifications will be need to made to convert this vessel into long-term habitation. We don't know how long this will serve as our headquarters. Months.. years? I need to expand it's functionality." Her face was momentarily illuminated as the soldering tool applied a concentration of heat and light onto one of the vein-like tubes that pumped crystaline gel through the system.

    "Since I used it to bait Sunstone into a trap, I've since become more familiar with the gaming device that belongs to the Steven. It reminded me of gem-tech that is employed on our more modern colony ships. Holographic rooms that respond to the request of the occupant. I believe that having this available to us will lessen the strain of being surrounded on all sides by these miserable humans. There is no telling what sort of long term hazard that will  be to our superior minds."

    "The holo-room... will repair that damage." She said, closing the panel and standing up. "...are you ready to look at it?"
Jasper      Jasper listens, not seeming to mind that Peridot has just gone back to her work as she talks. The word 'Sunstone' piques her interest but it evaporates once she realises she's talking about the past. Jasper frowns in thought, and then puts the pieces together in her head: "You mean a training room? Of course I'm ready to look at it. Show me."
Peridot     "You can utilize it as a training room..." Peridot starts cautiously. "But be careful. It only looks and feels bigger on the inside than the outside. But that's because it creates the illusion of walking by moving your environment around. So, you can go beserk but only within reason -Jasper-" She stresses. "An attack of sufficient size and force and you might breach the hull."

    "It can create mass using tech similar to how our own gems create light and energy, but it draws its power from the core. Therefore I've had to install killswitchs and hard limits so we don't accidentally create bigger bites than the ship can chew. It's still a little buggy since I had to make-do with some base components... and.. just temper your expectations until I have more time to fully complete it."

    And with that, she opened the door with a mechanical hiss.
Guest Lapis Lazuli     As soon as the door opens, the bright walls fade from their bright blue as if they were actively engaged in a task. In the center of the room is Lapis, who /was/ in a sitting position, but immediately falls to the ground with an "Ow!" She lands firmly on her backside. The walls, now a dim, unpowered blue are completely inactive from the simulation that they were previously displaying.

    In moderate surprise Lapis looks over to the door. It looks like one of the 'bugs' or killswitches is that the simulation halts almost immediately when the virtual environment in breached from the outside. When Lapis sees Jasper and Peridot, she quickly scrambles to her feet and brushes off her skirt. "Peridot!" She pauses a moment, "I didn't know you were bringing Jasper so soon.."
Jasper      Jasper fights down the urge to roll her eyes. As if she'd so something that stupid that could endanger the ship! The damage caused by the Garnet fusion wasn't her fault! "I won't breach the hull," Jasper retorts, voice cool. The rest of it goes over her head, mostly. She gets the important parts - don't break it, don't make anything too big...

     "And I didn't know you were here," Jasper replies to Lapis, standing behind Peridot - and utterly dwarfing the smaller gem. "Having fun, hmm? And just what were you simulating?"
Peridot     Peridot blinks. She'd been working so long she forgot Lapis was even in there. She walked forward some and put her hands on her hips. "I thought she could benefit from knowing about it." She wiped at her brow and looked around as a huge grin crept over her face. "You two don't even know." She started in a boastful tone. "These usually require specialized equipment, and entire teams to install." She put her hand to her own chest, tilting her nose up. "The fact that I've managed to scrape one together using only base warship equipment and components. Well. Let's just say it's more impressive than you might think." She felt compelled to point that out.
Guest Lapis Lazuli     "It seems to be working appropriately." Lapis says, ignoring Jasper's first comment. "High score." A smile grin appears on her face, friendly-like. She's making a reference to the fact that the game they were playing reminded them incessantly over how 'player one' had the highest of high scores. Fifteen times over. But when Jasper starts pressing into Lapis verbally, she looks over. Her face burns a dark blue as she looks at Jasper. Maybe she's just less intimdating from the distance, or Lapis is getting braver.

    With a deadpan voice she responds to Jasper's question, "The bottom of the ocean." Is she really making a reference to malachite? Her fists ball for a moment, then release. The reference will likely go over Peridot's head.
Jasper      The sound that comes from the back of Jasper's throat is little more than an angry growl at Lapis' words. "Then how convenient for us all that it's merely a simulation," she replies, finding her words after a moment. Why on Homeworld would Lapis ever want to go back there? What's with her fascination with water? To Jasper, it's crazy!

     As for Peridot, Jasper just tells her, "It'll be useful. What, you're an engineer - do you want additional thanks for doing your job? I'd be disapointed if you /couldn't/ put something like this together."
Peridot     "Hrn." Peridot grimaced at some of the hot air in her balloon of arrogance is let out by Jasper. She fumed for a few moments, before letting go. If not partially because at least Lapis seemed to appreciate it. And the high-score comment was well-timed. Peridot had been fully inspired by their late night gaming session to begin construction on this room to begin with. She had eventually acknowledged that human game tech was... 'cute' but, it had fueled her desire to do this 'gaming' thing the proper way. The gem way.

    "Well, which of you two would like to do the honors?" She went on, folding her arms. "It needs proper testing, and I'm too familiar with every aspect of it to give it a proper user-experience run."

    "Try to recreate something interesting."
Guest Lapis Lazuli     The small gutteral noise that Jasper makes seems to satisfy Lapis for some reason. Then the conversation moves on. Truly, Lapis was enjoying the simulation room. It had a few glitches, and the AI wasn't particularly intelligent or good at conversation. It could only draw so much from the occupant's psychic memory. Despite this, it really was a powerful tool.

    "I know. Let's give Jasper a try." Lapis helpfully suggests, "We'll play along, just like bubble bash."
Jasper      Try to recreate something interesting. Jasper takes the bait from Lapis hook, line and sinker - and she glowers at Peridot, just to make sure that her fellow Gem doesn't even think about stealing the spotlight (even though Peridot did, indeed, say she couldn't test it properly).

     Unfortunately, Jasper isn't particularly imaginative. That's for Peridot. That's for the scientists. Jasper, like many other Homeworld gems like her, exists to summon up her helmet, obey every order that comes her way, and generally headbutt rebels until they're well and truly crushed. So, handing her the keys to a room that could simulate whatever she can think of, within certain parameters, might be... underwhelming.

     Jasper frowns, her expression thoughtful - it's an unusual one for the large gem. Even in battle, she doesn't really think, she just reacts quickly and decisively. She's quiet, for a while, and Peridot might think that Jasper's finding herself paralysed by /choice/. Still, the room shimmers as it picks up on some thought of Jasper's but then-

     "Why're you asking me to make something!?" Jasper abruptly snaps, "Are you trying to make me look stupid, Peridot?!"
Peridot     "Eh.." Peridot blinks, raising her hands halfway with the palms facing outward. A somewhat worried expression on her face. "What? No." She answered defensively. "I just need someone to test it out!"

    "Listen, it'll pick up on your brain waves. You just need to think about a location, or a place that brings you peace." She explained calmly. It can create other gems you know- just it can only create so many at one time. The more you create the more the processing power gets spread around which in turn makes all the actors in this scenario a little more.. dense."

    "Just start small. It can be anything, anywhere or anytime."
Guest Lapis Lazuli     When everyone enters the room, the door hisses closed to seal the simulation environment against. Safety feature, after all. Otherwise simulated objects could spill out into the ship, and that could end.. oddly. Very oddly.

    Lapis steps ups to Jasper and Peridot, the room is rather large and dimly lit. In the darkness of the simulation room, only the dull glow of the wall panels serve as illumination, and it gives the entire room a softly relaxing glow. Instead of being antagonistic, Lapis largely just watches Jasper and the room to see what appears. She obviously expects a battle or something, but her mind does briefly turn to .. other things. That thought is clearly interrupted with Jasper fumes.

    Trying to be supportive, and likely failing, Lapis tries, "It's okay if you can't, Jasper. We're just testing the room."
Jasper      Peace? Hah, peace is just another word for /weakness/ in Jasper's mind. The strong don't need to worry about peace because there simply can't be anyone who can threaten them. Fine, think small, Jasper. She closes her eyes, and tries to focus.

     "I want... a battle," Jasper grunts out.

     The room shimmers, shifting into some long forgotten battleground. Endless desert plains of some planet where a few rebel gems had decided to go against the leaders of Homeworld. It hadn't ended well for them, as anyone who knows Gem history could find out. It wasn't the greatest success, sure, but it was a success. There's no battle, though. Not yet.

     But Jasper's mind turns to Lapis. That little blue brat thinks that she can't handle something as simple as /imagination/?

     Just like that, the room shifts. The landscape is the same - endless plains, but they're now submerged. Far above, sunlight is just a distant memory. And, in the distance, something /shifts/.

     Something huge. Something with multiple limbs.
Peridot     She looked around nervously, tapping her finger ends together. She should have known a battlefield was what Jasper would create."Alright, just be careful. There are fail safes to prevent fatal damage, but it's still holo matter. If it hits you hard enough it will hurt."

    Peridot had seen battlefields before. But always from a distance. Always from the climate controlled bridge of a gem warship. Peridot's battles had always been more about pressing buttons. But as the large shadowy figure shifts in front of her, she takes a couple steps back.
Guest Lapis Lazuli     "Woah," Lapis murmurs, looking around the room as the new environment phases in. She knows this battlefield, being quite familiar with gem history herself. She might be blanked out on a few hundred years, but that happens. Then the simulation flickers. Her own mind is inevitably drawn back to a particular event. It seems Jasper and Lapis are thinking about the same thing.

    Another flicker of static and the landscape looks more like the ocean than the desert, though the sun and intense heat are still felt. The simulation computes and interpolates between the two that are directing the simulation now. What crawls out of the shadows is monstrous and large, a shadow at first, but it grows.

    Malachite crawls out from the shadows cast by the refractory sunlight, six arms and no legs. Cuffs made of solidified water catch every wrist with dangling broken chains hangling from the cuffs. A rusted chain that could behold to a ship is wrapped around the torso of the fusion, and dark black pits take the place of its eyes. It does not look happy or friendly, as it growls out in a broken voice, "YOU." It's looking at both Jasper and Lapis.

    Lapis looks at Jasper and begins backing away, "Jasper..! What are you doing?! Make it stop!"
Jasper      Even in the darkness, it's clear that Malachite is sea green in colors, with dark... stripes? And a mane of what has ot be white hair, floating every which way in the water. A gem set in the middle of its face, atop a wild, berserk grin. If this is a fusion, it's certainly not a healthy one.

     But that...

     That can't be right, surely.

     "I didn't do /this/!" Jasper snarls, eyes wide. "I wanted a victory! I didn't want this /thing/!"

     Malachite's hands flail and grope and pull against the chains but, as if responding to some great strength, the fusion loses its grip, slams into the ocean floor and vanishes back into the darkness. But it's still there.

     "This!" Jasper snarls, rounding on Lapis, "Is all YOUR fault! You- you wanted to trick me AGAIN!"
Peridot     Peridot takes another step back, taking in the full picture of Malachite. Her eyes going completely round. "What... who is that?" She ask aloud. She had certainly created a few test images and locations on her own, but seeing her machinery used to create such a fierce looking monster caught her off guard. It was as though her work had somehow been perverted for some dark purpose. A bead of sweat rolled down her face as she surveyed the chains.

    Then vanished into the darkness. Out of sight, but not gone. Merely lurking there. Peridot looked between Jasper and Lapis. Did they know something more about this being?
Guest Lapis Lazuli     Lapis' eyes dart between Malachite and Jasper. As Malachite is pulled back into the shadows, Lapis circles around Jasper as Jasper rounds Lapis. "Just won't be happy until I'm back in a cell, right?!" She begins shouting, face distorted angrily. "You're always blaming me for everything!" The anger is palpable in her voice as she wings back with her arm as if about to throw something. The invisible water currents of the room begin to shift.

    When Lapis makes the throw, a solidified fist of water swooshes out from behind Lapis and towards Jasper. "This is all *your* fault! You don't care about anyone but yourself!"
Jasper      The hydro-fist crashes right into Jasper! The larger gem hits the seabed and rolls, churning up silt and dirt, filling the water with cloudy muck. She rises, but unsteadily. She's still injured and recovering and even angry resolve can't make up for simple battle fatigue. "I care about the Homeworld and doing my mission! YOU'RE the one who betrayed me! Betrayed us all! For what, those Gems that imprisoned you?!" She takes a step, then another, and then collapses to her knees.

     But she doesn't look at Lapis. No, her head turns to look at Peridot. "After the ship went down, I found them, Peridot. The Crystal Gems. I had them within my grasp! But Lapis betrayed me."

     Jasper turns to Lapis and decides that, well, she's still got one weapon she can wield, even weak as she is - her tongue - and it is as sharp as ever. "I only blame you for what you did. You can't even take responsibility for it. It's pathetic! You bring shame upon us all!"
Peridot     Peridot wasn't sure what she disliked more. The fact that could or could not see Malachite. But, she soon found her nerve again once more. There were fail safes. It could hurt them, but it couldn't hurt them severely. And something far more pressing was happening before her very eyes.  She looked between Jasper and Lapis with an increasingly anxious expression.

    "I know." Peridot answered taking a step forward. "And, she would have answered for her crimes... if everything hadn't changed." She doesn't step between them, not being quite that brave. Between Jaspers fist and Lapis's ample supply of water Peridot was overwhelmingly outgunned. But she does hold her arm up. "But things did change. Our situation became dire and she stepped up. She's loyal to Homeworld-- she wants to go home just as much as we do."

    Then her attention turned to Jasper. "I was trapped here, alone for months before you two showed up. I nearly lost it. Nothing was working, I was on a strange planet, surrounded by enemies and freaks. I was growing unstable. I'd even destroyed one of the injectors out of frustation. I was over worked, tired and desperate. I couldn't stand thinking I was the only gem on the planet."
    "She brought me back. Jasper." Peridot swallowed. "She brought me back from that brink." She looked to Lapis. "And I owe her for that."
Guest Lapis Lazuli     Lapsi steps forward after throwing a successful punch, and she takes Jasper's chide, gritting her teeth throughout. "I wasn't going to come back!" To homeworld, to any of this. She had resigned to keeping Jasper trapped forever under the sea. She seems ready to shout something else, but Peridot steps in, and she eases up a little in response. The water seems to calm down a little bit throughout the room.

    Everything Peridot says seems to calm Lapis down more. Her shoulders settle from squared off back to their relaxed positions and her fists unball. Somewhere, she sees that this really can't keep going on. She's already gone far enough to shove Jasper around, does her wrath really matter at this point?

    Raising a hand to Peridot, Lapis says, "Peridot. When we crashed, Jasper asked me to fuse with her to take down the crystal gems. I accepted, and when we fused, I dragged her and the fusion into the ocean." She glares at Jasper, "I was never going to let her go, and did not intend on coming back to Homeworld. Jasper was going to be *my* prisoner. Forever."

    Her expression softens again as she looks from Jasper back to Peridot. "When I came here and saw you again, I still had no intentions of coming back." She grimaces a little bit, then bites the corner of her mouth. Peridot knows the rest, that she accepted the deal and has helped out since.
Jasper      The fact that Peridot doesn't immediately have her back and, instead, lets her know that things are different now, that she /owes/ Lapis... it takes a lot of the fire out of Jasper. Even with everything else she might think, Peridot - as a Homeworld gem, as a fellow pragmatist - would surely have her back on this.

     But she doesn't.

     And then Lapis plays her trump card, letting Peridot know the /real truth/ about what happened. They didn't just try to stop the Gems, Jasper had a moment of weakness, underwent fusion, and paid what could have been the ultimate price for it. A soldier isn't afraid of death - but eternal imprisonment? That's something else.

     The fight goes out of Jasper. She collapses, truly defeated, to her hands and knees. She clenches her hands, taking great handfuls of dirt from the ocean floor, and just screams. All of her rage, all of her frustration. She could never go back to Yellow Diamond now. Maybe it's good that they're all lost in some uncharted place, some Multiverse. She's just too weak.
Peridot     Peridot blinked as she listened. The image of Malchite pressing its way back into her head. That's when it dawned on her. It had Jaspers gem on its face. Her stripes. Her gaze shifted to Jasper. That's what happened? The scene Peridot had created in her mind previously had painted a much less severe crime. She imagined the Crystal gems running away... and perhaps a wall of water protecting them from Jaspers wrath.
    
    But this. This sort of betrayal ran deep. Gems were immortal beings. Peridot could fathom losing a battle, even if she didn't want to. But to see a gem subjected to eternal imprisonment. Could that be considered a fate worse than simply being turned into shards?

    "Lapis..." She squinted. She walked over, and stood next to Jasper. Though she didn't reach out to touch her. Peridot suddenly understood. This had been the cause of Jaspers anguish. This is what caused her to change since that encounter on the beach, something truly horrible had happened to her, a fellow gem. And it had happened at the hands of her friend.  She stood there a moment. "You.. really did that to her?.. for the Crystal Gems?"

    Peridot looked up. There was a physical distance between the three. Peridot and Jasper on one side of the room, Lapis on the other. Her expression became pained. There was no way Peridot could absolve that crime, no matter how much pull she had in gem society. "You.. you really did betray us."  She uttered, almost as if though she had finally convinced herself that it happened at all.
Guest Lapis Lazuli     "You don't understand!" shouts Lapis, reaching up and clutching at her dress around the solar apex of her chest. The halter top wrinkles a little bit as she squeezes it. "I didn't do it for the crystal gems. I did it for Steven." She looks down, flattening her palm as she holds it to her chest. "He set me free. He healed my gem. I did it for him." Homeworld never came back for her. She was abandoned. No one cared who she used to be.

    When word got out, she was imprisoned for the sole purpose of capturing Steven. That's what she stopped. She had no intention of letting Jasper get back to Homeworld to tell the other gems that Steven was alive, or where he was. Only she knew Beach City was, and without her or Jasper, Homeworld would not be able to find them again.

    Lapis' expression hardens, her eyes closing as she looks down in a moment of pause. Things /had/ changed when they unified. Everything she said and did with Peridot she meant. It all felt pretty moot now. A lot of things she could say run through her mind, but instead she just opts to start walking for the exit.
Jasper      Soldiers aren't supposed to be weak. Homeworld gems aren't supposed to fuse. When it comes to doing the will of Yellow Diamond, the thought of /feeling/ anything is beyond the pale. All Jasper knows and all she respects is duty. There's no real thinking to it beyond that it has to be done.

     To do something for the Steven? For a /human/? Jasper doesn't understand the /why/ of it. Gems don't care about other species - they're so... fleshy and strange. Just because Steven healed her - whatever that means - doesn't mean that she owes him anything!

     She's so lost in her own mind, caught up in a vicious cycle of self-disgust, that she doesn't even notice the other two Gems. What's it matter, even if she can grab Lapis and hold her in a cell until the end of time? Lapis has already done far more damage than Jasper could ever do to her, because Lapis struck at something that couldn't be easily fixed.
Peridot     Peridot stood there for the moment and made no attempt to stop Lapis. But internally, she mulled over what she needed to do. Her mission was in danger. A valuable assets betrayal ran deeper than she thought. But she was still useful for the mission. But no matter how desperately she needed to achieve her ends, she couldn't let this kind of behavior go.

    She raised her finger at Lapis. "No more time with Sunstone unless you're drowning her under a typhoon." She said in a firm voice. "I don't know about this. I've taken a lot of risk on you. I trusted you. Unfortunately everything we're doing here is too important to let an old conflict tear us apart. You will however, one day answer for what you did to Jasper."

    "I see now that when you dance between both sides, it's Homeworld that pays  for your fickle behavior. Therefore we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior anymore. You are a homeworld gem, or you are the opposition. It's time you started acting like you know that."
Guest Lapis Lazuli     Lapis stops, midway to the door, when Peridot addresses her. She stands there with her back towards Peridot and Jasper and the new 'rules' are outlined. Sunstone had offered to her previously a chance for a new home. A place here. She had turned away from that, from when Sunstone comforted her about Jasper's return, and had already decided that she had to stay away from her. Not for Homeworld's sake, but for Sunstone's. To keep putting stress on her wasn't fair.

    That's just extra salt on the wound.

    The simulation shuts down, likely under commands from Lapis and her mental control over it. The atmosphere returns to that bleak, dim blue emptiness. When she looks back at Peridot and Jasper, there are tears running down her face and dripping off of her chin. Her eyes slowly wander to Jasper for a moment, and she mutters something inaudibly before turning back to the door and walking out.
Peridot     Peridot stayed with Jasper. She wasn't sure what she could do for the larger gem. So for the time being she opted to simply stay there next to her and keep her company. Her mind full of doubt, conflict.Was she making a mistake? Was Lapis a bigger risk than she was worth?  She had a growing concern in the pit of her stomach that her friend... could very well be a liability. Was Peridot fooling herself because she had grown to enjoy Lapis's company? Was she giving her too much leeway for her past crimes?

    She growled out loud, and grabbed her head. This room was supposed to erase her stress, and instead it piled on! "I can't think!" She grit her teeth and suddenly found she missed her boss.  Yellow Diamond would know what to do... Yellow Diamond wouldn't let friendship cloud her judgement.. or let it endanger her mission. She had to simplify. Boil things down.

    Jasper was her escort, but Lapis was her high-score buddy.
    They were all that she had.
    So, She would fight for them. Both of them... and she would not let go.

    But first. Jasper needed her. She sighed and sat down on the floor. "I'm here Jasper... Yellow Diamond would be proud of us. We're doing amazing things for our species. Things no other gem has done. If she's out there, if we find her. She would be proud."