LOG-017.

  "Eeeeeeek!"

  My eyes narrowed as some strange, unnatural keening noise escaped her lips, right before her own eyes widened like dinner plates, her mouth shutting closed with a rather distinct clack.

  Leaning back slightly, I ensured my claws weren't at risk of accidentally grazing her gemstone, and did my best to put on an authoritative glare, mustering every little bit of the numerous times I'd seen my Emerald giving the rest of the bridge orders to take on a suitably intimidating stance and expression.

  "Cut and Facet, Lapis Lazuli. Now."

  Unfortunately, all the demand earned was a slow blink from the terraformer, even as her weird, out of place blush began to fade away.

  Resisting the urge to groan in frustration, I tapped a single claw against her cheek, avoiding actually poking her gemstone in the process.

  "Your identifier. Your name. Did you not recieve one after emerging from your Kindergarten?"

  That got a reaction out of her at least, eyes brightening as she let out, for lack of a better word, a fucking squawk. My own utterly deadpan reaction drew yet another blush from the Lazuli, before she finally spat out something I could actually understand.

  "A-ah, it's a word for overflowing. Brimming, technically."

  There was an almost imperceptible accent to her words, as if she were speaking a second tongue. Brimming. Brimming with water, maybe?

  "Brim, then."

  A second of hesitation, then a nod.

  "Yes, in our species' language, that would serve as a rough translation."

  Rolling my eyes, I slid my foot backward, slowly standing up while keeping my other 'boot' firmly against her shoulder. I made sure my summoned gauntlet was still pointed right at her lightform, however. Just for caution's sake.

  "Alright...Brim. You're gonna answer some questions for m-"

  "What is your name?"

  Blinking at the odd level of eagerness in her tone, I tilted my head ever so slightly in blatant confusion.

  "...Viridian. Now-"

  From its position pinned against the floor, her arm slowly rose upward, gesturing towards me as the Lapis Lazuli grinned.

  I tensed for a possible attack, ready to slam my weapon into and through her, if need be.

  "You are the most beautiful Gem in the world, Viridian!"

  A breath of most likely tainted air escaped me as I felt a simulated heat creeping up my face at the utterly out of place compliment. Somewhere behind me, I heard what sounded like a squawk of outrage. Not a literal one like before, though.

  Then I shook myself of the bewilderment, glaring back down at the blue Gem.

  "Are you alright in the head? I'm threatening you!"

  That just prompted an even deeper blush from her, even as she shook her own head rapidly.

  "That doesn't change the fact that you're beautiful!"

  Had I been wrong? Was breathing in the air on this planet causing me to hallucinate? Or maybe it was causing her to act weird?

  Could Gems even get mental debilitations?

  The quick pitter patter of light steps impacting the ground drew my attention, just in time for me to notice Vermilion leaning around my side, one finger firmly pointing at the weirdo Lapis.

  "That's extremely inappropriate! How can you be so-so cavalier like that!? It's not like we're on friendly terms!"

  The comment brought a shocked look to Brim's face, before the rock cutter was turning back to stare at me with a pleading look.

  "But we could be! Please, I didn't mean to frighten you back on the ship. You're both Pearls, yes?"

  I risked a glance at my Batchmate, before turning back to stare down the Lazuli.

  "We are. Why is that relevant?"

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  Her hands both went up to rest next to her head in a vague motion of surrender.

  "Then am I not incorrect in the understanding that you are slaves in the eyes of your Empire?"

  A bout of hesitation struck me as I kept my foot down on the visibly earnest Gem, considering the question carefully.

  ...Had I misjudged her intentions back on the ship?

  Fuck, I probably had. Because of course I had. Slowly, carefully, I stepped off of her, not quite lowering my brandished weapon.

  "We...were. We've since gained new priorities after getting off the thing before it left."

  Brim slowly sat up in response, rubbing a hand against her shoulder before glancing back at me.

  "Wonderful! Listen, there's no need for us to be in conflict! If you've rebelled against your Imperial masters, then that means we have something in common. We should be working together, not fighting each other!"

  I felt Vermilion shift next to me, the Pearl practically standing on her toes in an effort to reach closer to my ear while whispering.

  "Be careful Viridian, she's a rogue Gem. She could be malfunctioning!"

  Despite the situation, my crimson Batchmate's warning almost brought an impolite snort from my nose.

  "By Homeworld law, we're malfunctioning, but I see your point."

  Turning back to Brim, I spread my arms slightly.

  "If you're being sincere about things, then you wouldn't mind answering my questions, now would you?"

  The Lapis Lazuli's firm nod was somewhat reassuring, at the very least.

  "Let me explain everything."

  ---

  It was similar to the history lesson given to me by Emerald, mostly. But it definitely filled in important details that had most likely been left out by whatever Gem had been assigned to record the events.

  This world and the people who lived on it had thrived, once. They'd barely been on the verge of making their first attempts to travel to and settle their three moons when the Gem Empire had found their system and promptly decided it was a perfectly viable spot for territorial expansion.

  Orbital infrastructure had been the first thing to go down, blown apart by ships infinitely more advanced than anything the locals might have had access to, apparently. From there, things had most likely been relatively routine for an expansion fleet belonging to the Great Diamond Authority. A small invasion force had landed upon a resource rich part of the planet, and construction Gems had begun the creation of the world's first Kindergarten.

  They'd spread from there, encountering sporadic attacks from local military forces but inevitably settling areas and expanding their future colony nonetheless. Spires went up, Kindergartens were plopped down, local populations were either dispersed or destroyed and soon enough, resistance began to seemingly wind down.

  This went on for a long time, supposedly. Long enough that the natives were treated more as a slowly dwindling population of dangerous wildlife than anything else.

  It was when one of those once 'extinct' militaries had made an abrupt reappearance, managing to assault, overpower the local security of and capture a Kindergarten that the tables turned rather drastically.

  From Brim's retelling of things, the various Gem batches held within the earth had been just about ready to emerge when the entire facility had exchanged hands. New Gems were greeted not by Agates and Peridots, but by strange organics who, while wary, were just as curious as the newcomers were of them. The Lapis Lazuli recounted her own experience of nearly coming to blows with a rowdy Quartz warrior, fresh from her hole, before an avian had gotten between them.

  Regardless, the small force of native soldiers had managed to be the first ones to come into contact with an entire newborn army. Homeworld (or at least the specific Gems in charge of managing the place) hadn't very much appreciated that, most likely, considering their immediate response had been to attempt a bombardment of the entire site from orbit.

  Faced with that...it had only made sense for the newly emerged Gems to side with those they had first met, rather than their immediately violent 'creators' who had decided they were apparently a write off before even laying eyes on them.

  From there, it had been war. True and proper war, rather than the one sided conflict from before. Much more equal than that of the initial invasion, thanks to now Gem reinforced defenders. Though the Kindergarten had apparently been geared primarily to produce Quartz and Peridot class Gems, a few specialized spots had spewed out different types as well.

  Brim had originally been part of a cell of four terraformers, though considering the melancholic tone in her voice as she mentioned each of their names, they likely weren't among the living anymore.

  It had been just when they were managing to get relatively even 'ground' with Imperial forces, cutting off the relentless sea of reinforcements by taking over the local Galaxy Warp, that a second, much larger force had arrived to fill the skies of the world.

  The devastator fleet. Though to her and her adopted people, they had been known as the World Burners.

  Brim's home had crumbled. Seas had boiled. Skies were lit aflame. From her perspective, the very ground itself was shattered from the relentless onslaught of hundreds of thousands of warships using guided laser weaponry to destroy anything and everything that hadn't already fled through a long since deactivated Warp pad.

  It had been all they could do to hastily commandeer and activate a small half constructed shipyard, along with the initial colony vessels that had been docked upon it.

  The 'grand' evacuation had been a hasty, utterly panicked effort to get as many people off of the dying world as possible, from her experience. Out of the entire species, only the smallest portion were actually able to reach the shipyard on time, and from there an even tinier fraction had actually managed to fit aboard the overpacked vessels and escape. I'd barely managed to hear Vermillion gasp behind me as my own head rang with the idea of an entire planet's population dying.

  But that was reality here, it seemed.

  The Gems, Brim's family in all but name, had almost exclusively stayed behind. Her own not quite sisters had repurposed entire lakes (one had apparently been strong enough to pull up part of a small ocean) to try and strike down any devastator warships they could. To buy time. Considering things, they'd likely died in the attempt.

  She herself had been the weakest and thus had been chosen to remain with the fleet. To defend it in the short term, and to do her level best to purify and maintain water supplies in the long term.

  The survivors, those first initial ancestors of the entire population in the modern day, had fled into deep space aboard those initial ships, leaving their dead world and its victorious murderers behind them.

  "That was well over two thousand years ago. We've lived amongst the nebulas since then, mining from asteroids for what we need, and attacking your Empire's more isolated ships and stations for anything we couldn't fabricate ourselves. It was from the vessels we stole from that we learned of the 'Great' Diamond Authority. Of our origins."

  Brim scoffed, waving a hand as if to banish the thought of our species' rulers.

  "It's how we know that a true fight isn't possible. It's how I knew you were Pearls, even though I've never met one in person before now. There were ah...pictures on some of the ships."

  Vermilion and I's deadpan stares had drawn a brief blush from the rogue Gem, before she'd shaken her head and continued.

  "Our latest raid was supposed to be the last, the Ichor aboard the freighter we seized was something we'd been planning to take for a while, since it would let us supercharge the old engines onboard the largest of the Homeships, letting us gain enough distance from Imperial space that they'll never find us again. According to some of our best technicians and scientists, anyway."

  The Lapis Lazuli cringed.

  "But then, well...the warship we met on arrived, and we figured we'd pull off one last attack and net ourselves an extra vessel full of useful material in the process. The Peridots always need more, for obvious reasons."

  A sigh escaped the blue Gem's lips, before her mood visibly brightened.

  "But now that you know everything, we can forgive any previous misunderstandings, right?"

  ...Hm.

  Slowly, hesitantly, I let my claws burst apart into motes of light, the faux limb enhancer fingers that had been hidden beneath them popping back into position almost immediately.

  Glancing at an uncertain looking Vermilion out of the corner of my eye, I turned back to the Lapis and nodded.

  "I suppose we can. Though uh...there is something I should...probably mention if we're being entirely honest with each other from now on."

  Her eyes widened, mouth opening to gape as my gemstone flashed, another light green bubble falling into my waiting hand.

  The Citrine held within almost seemed to glitter as I held it up.

  "I kind of...got into a fight with your friend as well. So, you know..."

  To my frustation (and mostly confusion), the sight merely brought another beaming smile to the Lapis Lazuli's face.

  "Strong and beautiful!"

  What the fuck was wrong with this Gem? Maybe she really was defective somehow, beyond Homeworld's propaganda?