LOG-047.

  I was silent as Amethyst quietly bubbled the last melded pair of gemstones, the purple sphere disappearing almost instantly as her hand pushed it upwards. In turn, I remained focused on the screen in front of me, even as mounds of data continued to scroll across the screen.

  Dealing with the cluster fusions had been...easier than expected. Though maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised, in the end. We were two fully formed Gems, one a dedicated warrior type and the other equipped with a tool explicitly designed to discorporate lightforms, up against a bunch of writhing, mostly insane science experiments.

  Just poking them with the tip of the destabilizer had been enough, honestly. Their twisted bodies had barely been held together in between all of the internal conflict, most likely, so it had been even easier to put them down in comparison to a normal, fully functioning Gem. To say it was a fight would be...largely innacurate. It was more like a really gross form of clean up, really.

  "We're gonna have a lot of explaining to do when we get back, especially when someone notices all the new bubbles in the burning room."

  Nodding slightly in response to the Quartz's words, I swept a hand to the side, dismissing several Kindergarten completion estimates (all displaying various errors) and focusing on the tab indicating the other sites the primary control system still had moderate access to.

  "And we will, I just need to...there, getting it now."

  Out of the seventy four sensor stations that were supposed to keep track of the hemisphere the Kindergarten was located on, only three were still largely functional, and two of them were apparently displaying signs of widescale system degradation, if their automated status reports were to be believed. Thankfully, one didn't need the most advanced scanners in the Empire in order to detect the utter mass of slowly growing energy present somewhere just adjacent to the Earth's core, not when Gem tech was involved.

  "Hm."

  I heard Amethyst stepping up next to me, even as I plugged one of my enhancers into the wall nearby and did my best to initiate an informational transfer. It stopped and started a few times, namely thanks to me selecting the wrong stuff, but I'd seen the Peridots onboard the Retaliator do the exact same thing plenty of times, so it didn't take too long to essentially download the data I needed after inputting the correct commands.

  "...What is that?"

  Glancing down as my fellow Gem stared at the vague visual representation of the thing that was supposed to kill her home planet, I hesitated before patting the console slightly.

  "It's what I was most concerned about. The experiments we just dealt with were effectively the trial run of this one. The Cluster."

  Her eyes widened in response, staring at the image of Earth overlayed atop the jagged mass.

  "Wait, so..."

  Sighing, I nodded at the question visibly flitting across her eyes.

  "It's around that big, yes. From what I understand, it's a geoweapon composed of millions of shattered Gem shards, meant to incubate within this world's core and mantle before finally forming into...whatever it might form into."

  Gems didn't have blood, so they didn't exactly go pale either. Amethyst managed a pretty decent impression of it though.

  "But...then what would happen to Earth?"

  I planted a hand atop the purple Quartz's shoulder, trying my best to give her a reassuring smile.

  "It would crack open like one of the eggs you showed me. But that's a few decades away if I'm reading this information right, which is why we're going to go tell the others about this and find a way to keep that from happening. Yeah?"

  That same lost look remained affixed to her face for a moment, before her expression visibly hardened.

  "R-right. Let's go. Let's go right now."

  Well...at least she was staying relatively positive about it?

  ---

  Getting back to the temple had been far quicker than getting over to the Kindergarten control room, namely because we actually knew exactly where we were going this time. The primary issue is that the second I stepped off the Warp pad I had a pair of hands grabbing the front of my dress and physically hauling me into the air.

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  "Garnet!"

  Amethyst's panicked exclamation went ignored as I was forced to stare into my own wide eyes in the fusion's reflective visor, the tips of my limb enhancers just barely brushing the floor.

  A second passed, before her expression contorted, lips trembling slightly as she tilted her head back and to the side, directing my gaze to a concerned pair of Pearls and a horrified looking Rose Quartz, all three of the Gems gathered around a singular bubble.

  "...You have something to do with...that. Talk."

  I could hear Amethyst trying to explain things, could see Rose preparing to admonish Garnet as the hidden Diamond stood up from the crouch she'd taken, Pearl and Vermilion both glancing at each other warily, the red Gem in question warily staring at the limb enhancers adorning my arms and legs.

  Then my entire lightform tensed as the fusion's hand shifted to grab hold of my shoulder, a familiar voice running through my mind, even if it was just a mere phantom at this point.

  "Make me proud."

  Smack.

  Three shocked eyes stared at me as her visor clattered to the ground, the resounding slap I'd given her almost seeming to echo in the small chamber containing the temple's Warp pad.

  Silence reigned, for just an instant.

  Resisting the urge to snarl like some rabid fucking animal, I instead did my best to restrict the raging desire to form my claws and tear into the rebel's lightform into a merely scathing glare instead.

  Yep, the paragon of self control, that's me.

  "Garnet, I know you have future vision, you've mentioned it multiple times. So look into that future now. In it, we are going to talk about a few very important things quite shortly, but if you don't let me go right now, there are going to be problems between us. Do you understand me?"

  I'd taken endless shit since being brought into this damned universe, like Hell was I going to accept even more of it while acting as a free Gem, no matter how much certain aspects of my programming were screaming that I'd just made a fatal mistake.

  In the end, it merely justified my decision even more, alongside the fact that after a second of bewildered hesitation, Garnet's grip loosened, letting me land on the floor with the clack of my booted feet hitting the ground.

  Scowling at the Gem (Amethyst was right, the added height really did put me at eye level with her), I made a dramatic and entirely unnecessary show of unruffling the folds of my dress before gesturing towards the middle of the chamber, detached fingers twirling slightly and drawing a few eyes in the process.

  "All of you are going to want to sit down for this. Trust me."

  ---

  "Alright, and keep in mind we have, at minimum, about two decades before it starts getting more active than it currently is. So, let's run it down from the top. Rose?"

  The fake Quartz blinked, before sadly glancing down at the purple bubble carefully set within her lap.

  "Homeworld performed some kind of...forced fusion-" The utter disgust and loathing in her voice was almost physical, granted that same attitude seemed to be prevalent amongst the rest of the Crystal Gems, for what were fairly obvious reasons. "-experiments, near the latter half of the war. These are the small ones."

  Nodding, I held up a hand, letting four fingers form a holoscreen as I glanced over at Garnet.

  "With their ultimate goal being the creation of what they call the Cluster. Which is..."

  The fusion stubbornly remained silent, though considering the almost audible creaking of her fists clenching, she was most definitely still paying attention. Instead, it was a hesitant Pearl that raised a hand, eyes fixed on the jagged form of the main topic of my impromptu little 'lecture.'

  "An amalgam of countless Gem shards, which Yellow Diamond herself intends to form into a geoweapon that will...destroy Earth. Stars, how could we have missed something like..."

  The Gem brought a hand up to rub at her face, visibly weary.

  "I'm sorry, I just-it's bothering me. How do you know all of this? You're barely even two decades old yourself, how could you possibly have learned about...about any of this!? And what are you wearing!?"

  Huffing slightly, I hefted the still formed holoscreen for emphasis.

  "I'm currently equipped with a stolen set of limb enhancers, which isn't relevant right now. As for how I know about this, I already told you that part. I served beneath a highly ranked fleet admiral before breaking away from the Empire, and I attended a meeting where Yellow Diamond was involved. Her Pearl was...chatty, to say the very least."

  I ignored the renegade's almost silently mumbled "that doesn't seem like her..." and instead focused on Rose as the giant pink lady leaned forward, careful to avoid accidentally popping the bubble she was holding.

  "And yet you still came here, despite all the dangers...why?"

  Holding back a massive sigh, I ducked my head.

  "I figured that if there was any world the Empire wouldn't touch anytime soon, it was this one. I planned to hopefully deal with all of this myself, given enough time. With no Cluster to extract, I figured they'd just finally give up and abandon this place for good. And then Vermilion and I ran into...well, you. Meeting all of you was just...a happy accident, I suppose."

  Lies, lies, and more lies. I'd have enough to build a Diamond sized throne of them, at this point.

  Still easier to lie than try to justify extraversel knowledge, though. Explaining the concept of a cartoon about them to them would probably be just as complicated as explaining the fucking Cluster, if in an entirely different way.

  Regardless, my statement seemed to leave the Gems stuck in thought for a few moments, in which a quiet Vermilion slowly sidled closer to me, concerned gaze moving up and down my form.

  "Are...are you alright? You looked really angry when Garnet-"

  She went silent as I held up a hand, this time finally breaking and letting a sigh escape my mouth.

  "I'll be fine. She didn't know, and from what I understand fusion seems to be a very important thing to her. So...how about you? Did you manage to contact Rebecca before you came back?"

  The Pearl stared at my brazen attempt to shift the conversation elsewhere, before slowly nodding.

  "Becky. But...yes. She says she'll be coming to Beach City to visit her 'cousin' soon, so we'll get a chance to see her then."

  I blinked, tilting my head slightly even as the Crystal Gems began to converse between themselves just a short ways away, Amethyst gesticulating wildly at Pearl, all while Garnet continued to stare at the bubble clasped between a despondent Rose's hands.

  I'd try and mend bridges with her later, Stars knew I didn't need a fusion with a component Ruby and Sapphire pissed at me. As for the rest...they'd get better. They had to, unless they actually wanted to leave dealing with everything up to me, which would fucking suck. For various reasons.

  "Did she say who her cousin was?"

  The crimson Gem paused, before nodding.

  "Yes. I'm...still not entirely certain what Vidalia is supposed to be, but I think she's sort of like Becky's Batchmate?"

  ...

  Huh.

  Small world, I guess.