LOG-185.
Walking through what was effectively a tunnel surrounded by incredibly unstable wreckage that could shift at any moment was an exercise in grace, balance, and sheer fucking will.
Thankfully, my creations and I were all either Pearls, or traced our origins to that Gemline. The result of which was that we made it about halfway through the corridor with effectively no issues.
"Would you two hurry up already? I might just have to abandon you if you don't pick up the pace!"
While Patina gently tiptoed from one stretch of space to another, and I shadowed her movements, Violet simply fluttered through the air and glanced back every few seconds, as if to make sure we were keeping up.
She could have made it through by now if she just flew forward in a straight line. Despite her behaviour, she does not want to leave us behind. This is a way for her to channel her nervous energy into social interaction instead.
Keeping the thought in mind as I stepped over what had likely once been a portion of the ceiling, I shot the miniature Pearl a reassuring smile, only to freeze as something above us all creaked in protest.
Patina had stopped as well, warily glancing upwards even as I hesitantly began to move forward again, gently pressing a hand against the small of her back (nearly getting my talons tangled up in the hair cascading down her lightform) in order to encourage her to keep moving.
There wasn't a lot of talking after that, even as we settled into a slow but steady rhythm, gradually moving further down the tunnel only to pause each time some horrid noise made itself apparent.
We were roughly about three quarters of the way through when it all went wrong.
First was the everpresent sounds of battle and destruction abruptly becoming distinctly audible, whereas before they had been distant and muffled.
Then, something resembling a vaguely humanoid robonoid (my memories brought to mind that of a kouros statue. Rigid, symmetric with rough edges, about three Pearls tall, its arms and legs carved as one with the monolith and made of a brown marble that was orbited by two kinds of polyhedra) came into view with all the subtlety of a speeding truck.
The machine smashed through the wall further down the corridor at high speed, barreling ahead and crashing into the opposite one, which was immediately covered with a spiderweb of cracks in the once pristine material.
Without stopping, they began to spread through the ceiling and floor nearby with a terrifying, crackling screech, while the statue pulled back from the wall, hanging in the air with a low ominous hum before twisting into a vertical position, shifting around its own axis at the same time.
One of the inner Reef's heavier automated defenders. Undamaged by the collision. Of lesser priority compared to the structural integrity of our current location. Judging by the sound, the prior tilting of the floor, and the fracture patterns, the supporting pillars of this section were already damaged and have begun spreading apart. With this new damage to contend with, it will likely collapse in no more than twenty seconds.
Our main options are to try and relocate to the outer sections (unstable, prone to unpredictable collapse, will expose us to any ships above), to immediately move into the newly opened area (the nearest visible part looks solid, but fires and laser flares are visible, and there are clear sounds of more combat), or to drop into the ocean below (falling debris will be a danger, it will lead to a massive loss of mobility, and will critically reduce our chances of leaving the planet).
"Move with me!"
With one arm, I scooped up and pressed Violet to myself, while using the other to yank Patina along, rushing through the breach in the room. Behind us, the corridor we had been so cautiously navigating just moments ago was already crumbling piece by piece into the waters far below, leaving us crouched between scattered bits of debris, watching the fight unfolding before us.
As a massive chunk struck the almost upright robonoid statue, sending it reeling and knocking it further to the side, the sight that met our eyes inside could best be described as pure, unadulterated pandemonium.
Flames of varying colours flickered over puddles of mysterious fluids across the massive hall. Arcs and flashes of energy coursed between damaged power cables hanging from cracks in the walls and ceiling. Various poofed Gems lay on the ground, alongside the shards of their less than fortunate counterparts.
And right in the middle of it all, several active battles were taking place, serving only to increase the chaos.
An enormous Ruby fusion, with periodic bursts of fire cloaking her enlarged limbs, was clumsily fending off both a brown statue (an almost exact replica of the one that had just smashed through the corridor, both cut and carved to resemble White Diamond) and two massive, pearlescent-white segmented limbs, each fitted with asymmetrical pincer claws at their ends.
The mechanical graspers were moving back and forth out of two distant openings in the floor, lashing out and then coiling back with intimidating speed even by my own standards, all in order to evade their opponent's powerful but lumbering movements.
Fusion is composed of six-no, of seven Gems. Damaged to an extent, but her energy reserves remain quite high judging by the consistent bursts of pyrokinesis. Her movements demonstrate an imbalanced state. Fighting style and tactics are close to instinctive now. She's fighting to survive.
Regardless, she still poses a massive threat if she gets close, best to be avoided outright.
In the midst of my observations, I glanced to the side, noting a stalagspike drop pod nearby. It bore a crack that almost divided it into two separate, uneven halves, each part entangled in the Reef's defensive tentacles which in turn were trying to rip the two further apart.
Still, it held its ground, bracing itself with its three lower crab like legs, swerving its glowing crystalline eye on a full circle overhead mount from side to side and periodically unleashing searing bright orange beams in all directions.
One of its side combat manipulators, the only one unpinned by debris and still free to move, was swinging wildly, doing very little to actually ward off the tentacles but definitely serving in adding to the dangerous amount of obstacles in the air, all while the shattered remains of three more of its counterparts sat in different parts of what my mind recognised to be one of the Reef's gathering halls, their forms all sitting beneath a ruined ceiling, marred by four gashes of corresponding sizes.
Nearby, a stern looking Fire Agate wielding a flaming warhammer and flanked by several Carnelians equipped with broad, visibly reinforced tower shields in addition to their innate weapons, stood against a soaring, hexagonal grey marble obelisk that hovered in the air, rotating slowly.
The imposing structure was supported by a few still operational laser pyramids nearby. Though their beams failed to affect the warriors skillfully protecting their leader, splashing harmlessly against the surfaces of their shields, the Agate by that very same token couldn't meaningfully harm the obelisk either, leaving them trapped in a stalemate of constant, meaningless strikes as shockwaves and constant attacks kept the two parties from approaching one another.
The central control unit for this section of the Reef's security network. Three robonoid statues, like the two I just saw, should be positioned around it, serving as part of the local defence force.
Why exactly it had suddenly ended up inside the besieged outer areas of the facility, active and locked in active combat instead of being securely hidden deep within the safer parts of the building, shut down and hard to reach, was beyond me. But it was nonetheless present, and it was unlikely I would ever get an answer to that question anyway.
And of course, to make matters even more complicated, at the very edge of the hall, a trio of Topaz fusions were swinging a battleaxe, enlarged mace, and a club around respectively, defending themselves against a pair of perfectly synchronized Clear Quartzes wielding greatswords, a singular Storm Quartz armed with a spear trying to aid them, and a dozen and a half protector drones resembling scaled up, elegant sea urchins, each one gracefully moving on several longer, needle like limbs.
It was as I finally settled on moving before a stray blast caught us that one of the Yellow Court Gems made the fatal mistake of glancing towards us while in the midst of a fight, failing to protect herself against the telescopic thrust of one of the urchin robonoid's elongating spikes.
By itself, it likely wouldn't have been enough to deal with the amalgam, but the closest Clear Quartz wasted no time in taking advantage of the delay, carving her prey's lightform into several pieces in a single fluid yet brutal looking combo of slashes, and deftly shattering the two gemstones into pieces with a pair of stomps.
Naturally, because life hated the prospect of me being happy, an additional problem presented itself when roughly a dozen robotic tentacles, all emerging from one of the still operational defence nodes (which should have been offline), shot in our direction the moment we crossed the virtual threshold of the room.
The shards on the floor next to the torn off wall panels belong to Peridots. I recognise their cuts, they were the auxiliary maintenance team.
Technicians meant to patch up exterior sections of the Reef, alongside its modules. Why were they here?
The decompression most likely displaced them. From there, they appear to have attempted a manual override of this chamber's systems, but instead managed only to achieve its awakening and subsequent destabilization.
And as a result…
The automated defences here do not recognize us as entities they need to protect, or even as authorized elements. We're among their targets now.
Great. Just…just great!
My goal remains the same. Escape with Patina and Violet. Approaching strike coming from above.
Dodging the combined grasp of several pincers, I followed up on the carefully calculated motion, leading the fluid movement into two wide slashes that sheared away the vast majority of the reaching tendrils, all while my Pearls acted together to deal with the two remaining ones, visibly struggling to match me.
"Are you f-fucking kidding me?! What kind of feathered clusterfrack is this?!"
Patina is panicking. The Pearls' reaction speeds and situational awareness remain insufficient for combat environments as chaotic as this one. In particular, the former is especially unlucky due to her lack of proper aptitude in focusing on important elements and goals.
Instead of providing assistance, her analytical layer no doubt drains her attention by highlighting the disparity between her own capabilities and the threat level she is faced with…in subsequently terrifying detail, leaving her overwhelmed. A flaw that will need to be rectified at some point.
In comparison, Violet lacks the analytical component causing the problem. Rather than deliberating over things, she's acting and fighting without too much thought. She will likely prove more dependable in this ordeal than her counterpart.
Focus. I'm probably getting caught up in the details just as much as Patina is.
Yes. Speed remains my main priority, terminating or avoiding this engagement matches that goal.
Finally slipping loose of the rapid fire thoughts that had been burning through my head, I narrowed my eyes and splayed my claws, idly bumping an elbow into my long haired creation's shoulder as I did so.
"Quit burning attention, react and plan ahead!"
In the next moment, six more urchin drones rolled out smoothly from an opening that had appeared in the wall beneath the defence nodes, resembling nothing more than compact spheres with needles poking out from them.
Move forward, eight feet.
Once outside, those same needles extended outwards, elongating to their full combat length and raising the robonoids on their longest spikes to stand at perhaps half the height of a Pearl.
Twist left. Slash. Reorient by twelve degrees to the right. Slash again. Twist backwards and stab along with the motion.
Unfortunately for the machines, the relative leisure of the aesthetically elegant process left them somewhat handicapped while deploying.
Final target is exposed. Stab again.
By the time the last urchin had finished getting ready, I had already dealt with three of its counterparts, and drove my own elongated talons straight into the center of its chassis, even as I noted Patina finally summoning her kukri and cutting apart one of the largely disabled automatons with a precise slash.
Going through the Reef's defensive roster during my spare time was the right choice. For all of its visual intimidation, the vast majority of its protectors prioritize looks over substance. A permanent flaw that the White Court can't seem to shake off.
Violet, whose size made fighting the robonoids far too complicated, had settled for ignoring them entirely, instead zipping past several exposed deployment slots and shearing away any of the chamber's tentacles as they emerged.
Immediate combatants dealt with, I turned towards the still exposed breach in one of the nearby walls. Large enough perhaps for the smallest of us, but Patina and I would have trouble getting through, and shapeshifting would waste valuable seconds that we couldn't afford to lose just to deal with one of countless problems.
With a flash of light, a tubular shape emerged from my gemstone and fell into my hand, a quick flick of my finger pulling out a makeshift pin that I'd painstakingly set into place, before the makeshift explosive was thrown underhand into the hole.
Because I had made pipebombs. As any rational individual living under an authoritarian regime was obligated to do.
Regardless, a muffled bang was followed by dust briefly flowing out from the now utterly ruined node that had been set within the breach, and though the explosion partially overshadowed a low, vibrating hum coming from behind us, the momentary cue served as more than enough warning for my enhanced senses.
Turning sharply toward Patina, who was standing closer to the entrance we'd made our way through, I saw the brown marble like statue from before drifting through the air in our direction, my eyes widening as my flawless memory screamed out the report on the robonoid's capabilities I'd read what felt like ages ago now.
Then several of the stone octahedrons and tetrahedrons rotating in various orbits around it violently stretched their trajectories into elongated ovals rushing straight toward her.
She won't dodge in time.
I lunged toward the Pearl, twisting the jump into a double pirouette that culminated in sweeping her up as I landed, with the turning movement carrying her clear of the strike range.
But just before my second leap would have moved both of us away, one of the closest madly spinning stone-
FUCK!
"V-Viridian?!"
"It's fine! I'm fine! Just gouged through my thigh-agh!"
Lightform integrity has been compromised. At this severity the damage is still redeemable, if difficult to quickly mend with my current level of control.
Another point to add to the fact that putting off practicing with shapeshifting had been a mistake. If we survived this I was going to need to make some fucking changes.
I can redirect the light flow and reinforce the damaged area for slow regeneration, but certain movements will become more restricted for the duration.
The process began with but a thought, even as I continued to assess our situation.
We were close, now. Being harried by obstacles, but close. We just needed to exit to the reception area. That'd lead us outside, and then we'd be free to cross the bridge to the Galaxy Warp.
The path there, unfortunately, led directly through the point where the Fire Agate's squad was fighting against the control unit, dooming us to getting tangled up in their battle as well.
…Unless we were willing to brave the fissures currently littering parts of the floor, which wouldn't be impossible, of course. But it would definitely be risky, exposing us to a multitude of environmental threats and who knew how many nasty surprises were actively tunneling through the Reef's wreckage, now that the facility's defence nodes had effectively gone rogue.
And on the upside…
The defence node adjacent to the exits appear to be close to completely undamaged.
So there was a high chance that we would need to deal with that obstacle anyway.
Fine. The path was set, then.
Around the massive damaged hall, rapidly shifting liquid (no doubt sourced from burst piping) was dropping in from various cracks in the walls and ceiling into already present pools. Around the puddles, skirmishes started, moved and ended, occasional explosions additionally serving to illuminate the darkened interior as ambient lighting failed.
More importantly, the pools were visible enough that I could make out the distinctive tremors disturbing them as the tall statue robonoid continued to advance in our direction.
This type of automated defender is too resilient to risk wasting time on, yet their movement speed is high enough to remain a potential hindrance. Our best option is…
There. That Ruby fusion is close enough to utilize. The gemstone on her left thigh has a severe chip, estimated mass loss is at least 20%. Currently, the gestalt has shouldered some of its functionality, though not all, and once it dissolves, the Gem will very likely degrade into a completely crippled, if not outright inert state.
Certain effects and problems are already affecting the fusion. The flames swirling around her body are showing signs of degraded control, something that's almost certainly aggravating her mental instability as well.
Redirecting her aggression toward the statue should be trivial.
With a wide swing of my wrists, I mentally disengaged the lock securing my talons to my limb enhancers, sending them flying into the back of the enormous Gem's head even as Violet, sweet, beautiful, initiative taking Violet, summoned up a veritable cloud of glitter, immediately diving to the side but leaving several short lived holographic afterimages of her wings fluttering about inside of it, leaving the statue blindly swinging about in an attempt to grab her.
The reaction was instantaneous. Swatting away another strike from the pearlescent tentacle she'd been dealing with, the enraged fusions jerked her head toward the direction I'd directed the sting to launch from.
Soon enough, her venomous glare had zeroed in on the robonoid, and then, with a furious roar, the war fusion charged at it, all while we were already moving toward our next objective, my talons flowing back to me in the process, reattaching with quiet clicks that were quickly drowned out by the two titans duking it out behind us.
Abruptly, there was a loud crack from above, and right before our eyes, another stalagspike drop pod crashed through the ceiling, embedding itself into the edge of the massive fissure nearby, prompting Patina and I to skid to a stop even as Violet twisted midair to halt her own advance.
The construct tilted precariously over the chasm, spraying marble shards of the floor in all directions, one of which Patina managed to deflect with a kukri. Then the pod immediately split its lower and upper manipulators, trying to better grip the surface in an effort to straighten itself out.
Unfortunately for both it and its occupants, before it could secure a proper foothold, let alone release its Gems, the segmented tentacles that had previously been busy with the Ruby promptly began hammering away at it with their pincer blades, tilting the pod deeper and deeper.
After a series of strikes, the section of the floor it was clinging to broke off, and it plunged down, flailing its manipulators helplessly in a ridiculous manner before it fell out of sight entirely.
Our species' methods of combat are all over the place. Melee skirmishes against beam weaponry. Outwardly magical machine statues against orbital bombardments launched from starships. It is as if the Empire has refused to abandon any of its original practices, even while in the midst of advancing its own ways of waging war.
…Beyond other things, it's certainly making some encounters quite hard to properly predict in advance. Perhaps an intentional feature?
Shelving the thought for the future, I instead continued to scan for elements and variables that could pose a threat to me in the short term.
To me, or, far more likely, to my Pearls.
A way to ensure their safety is to place them inside my spatial storage. My mobility and capacity for dodging danger is noticeably higher than theirs.
The problem was that we couldn't stop moving. Perhaps it could be done quickly enough with Violet, who was difficult enough to hit even while stationary, but in Patina's case it would take time to fit her inside, and leave both of us horrendously vulnerable.
Dispersing her lightform would make storing her gemstone trivial.
But...no, I-no, perhaps it would-but I couldn't-I just couldn't just do that to her!
I am in a combat situation. There is indeed the possibility that an unexplained attack from her own creator might alter the dynamic of our relationship, quite possibly irrevocably. But such things can be explained. The more logical concern is that it would be the equivalent of putting all of my eggs into a single basket. If I fall, everyone does.
…Only if there wasn't any other choice, then.
Shaking my head as I deftly hopped over a sparking, lifeless tendril, Patina doing the same beside me, I looked forward. The exit was just ahead, though out of my peripheral vision, I could see more Gems emerging from a nearby corridor, this group a much less uniform looking band of Yellow Court soldiers. Survivors from other parties that had grouped up, most likely.
Some paused in confusion as they made their way inside, seemingly trying to figure out what was going on and what they were supposed to do now that they were here. Others threw or rolled themselves straight into the nearest available skirmish, while a significant portion of them simply became bogged down in defense against a nearby node with pincer limbs and urchin drones that had activated in response to their appearance.
We need to keep up the pace.
In quick succession, I summoned, pierced, and hurled two canisters of accelerant from my storage space, internally thanking the Retaliator's Peridot contingent as I did so.
The first went in a high arc toward the merrily crackling pool of apparently flammable liquid closest to the newcomers, even as the second targeted the flames near the fray we were inevitably closing in on.
Hopefully, these would serve as good distractions.
And as became clear a few seconds and a couple of toxically vibrant fireballs later, they had indeed worked flawlessly. Enough so that by the time we charged the Agate's Gems' ranks, they were disoriented, and one had even managed to take a pair of laser beams directly to the gemstone, leaving her seizing up in place before discorporating.
Three more of the Carnelians were standing somewhat apart from others and, for that reason, were selected as our initial targets.
Several days of unrelenting, nonstop combat training combined with built-in eidetic memory suites proved its worth as Patina diverted the attention of those who could have interfered from the flanks of the group with a series of calculated throws, launching several pre-summoned copies of her weapon, some of which managed to successfully lodge into their bodies.
Then, with a gracefully spinning motion, she pivoted away from a rushing warrior who went barreling past her, already summoning an additional kukri to have one in each hand for the inevitable clash that would soon follow.
In comparison, Violet zipped past at high speed, making a few complex loops around the heads of the trio she was harassing, who all looked at her with wide, confused eyes before promptly being blinded by a cloud of glittering dust, suffering a series of shallow but painful slashes to those same eyes less than a second later.
Without losing her momentum, she veered in a spiraling trajectory to the point above the laser shooting pyramids, even as in that same instant, I found myself dropping onto a central Carnelian from a lunging leap, burying all four sets of my heated talons directly into different parts of her body, head very much included.
The shocked Gem froze for a couple of seconds, seemingly trying to comprehend that the majority of her face was being taken up by my claws, before her form finally lost cohesion and discorporated, though during that time her comrades had begun moving to intercept me.
One of my arms split in two without thought, and using a combination of the original limb and its split off copy as a fulcrum, their allocated claws remaining firmly embedded inside one of the crimson Gems' shields in the process, I cut the Quartz on the right with a sweep of my leg, the extended blade I'd shapeshifted in place of my usual heel working wonders in slicing her face open, even as I tore into the one on the left with my two remaining hands.
Straightening up as the two soldiers tried to bear the pain I'd unleashed upon them, I swung all four (technically five) of my limbs in a rapid, whirling flurry of slashes that wouldn't have been entirely out of place being compared to a blender.
The part of my mind that still insisted I needed lungs wanted me to inhale and exhale as fast as I could, yet as their lightforms dispersed into smoke around me, I turned to their remaining counterparts with an outwardly calm expression, coldly staring at everything around me while projecting an air of intimidation that would serve to unsettle them further.
The next few seconds will determine whether we should make a direct break for the exit corridor.
It would risk exposing my Pearls to the defensive systems set there, assuming they were also online. Alternatively, if we could just secure our position here enough to get me a moment to think, I could work out a way of destroying the control unit directly, freeing us of the Reef's death spasms.
Up in the air, Violet (having already pierced one laser pyramid with a thrown spear and waiting for the regeneration of a new one) was drawing the beams of the remaining two floating constructs onto herself, generating holographic aftermages of her wings to serve as decoys.
Of the four still active Quartzes, one was trying to close to melee with Patina, who was practically dancing around her with constant, graceful movements, occasionally slashing at her with a blade.
Another had been thrown quite far out of position by a missed shockwave from the obelisk. A third stood near her commander, who was staring me down with a calculating gaze, covered by her shield wielding subordinate who was warily watching some other threat.
And the last one…the last one was currently enveloped in the signature bright aura of a Quartz engaged in a spindash, her rolling lightform rushing straight for me.
Her future trajectory is predictable and exploitable.
Executing a sequence of whirling turns that, seemingly by accident, ended up placing me exactly between her position and the control unit right before the roll, I waited for the perfect moment..
Naturally, it arrived, and I launched myself into a high backwards facing leap, evading both the charging warrior and the shockwave ensuing from the obelisk's latest impact, which sent the Gem tumbling backward across the floor, right toward her remaining fellows.
Two sets of pre-heated claws, thrown after while I was in the midst of my jump, weren't enough to destabilize the hot tempered Carnelian's body, but they still served as a painful enough nuisance to draw a scream from the crimson warrior.
We dance too much. In all our movements and combat styles. It's less apparent for Violet, who has been forced to resist some aspects of her Pearl related programming and has thus learned to work around it from the very beginning, but in Patina and I's cases, the elegant twirls of an entertainer are far too apparent..
There were major advantages to it, of course. It led to an extremely high level of precision and fluidity of motion, among other things, but the limitations are just as severe. I will need to integrate more practical motions into any future training regimes.
Remaining perfectly still without breaking eye contact with my opponents or openly glancing in Patina's direction, I pinpointed and threw five claws at the Gem she was fighting, helping her score another pair of wounds.
In the meantime, the Fire Agate had apparently reached a decision. The officer visibly waited a moment for the second Quartz to get back on her feet before shifting the massive war hammer gripped in her hands into a hold visibly more defensive in nature, then began a slow advance toward me, issuing a terse command for her remaining warriors to do the same.
"Fall in with me! We take the Overseer and the Reef is ours!"
A seasoned combatant. Although my intimidation tactic is yielding results, she is cautious enough to try and stamp down on the mistakes normally caused by one's own fear.
And, she had already fallen to the most glaring of fuckups. Namely failing to keep an eye on her surroundings.
Trapped by her own tunnel vision as she was, the Gem failed to notice two pearlescent robotic manipulators, each extending exceptionally far from their deployment slots, and both choosing that exact moment to strike at what they registered to be the most immediate threat.
Namely, the foreign soldiers rampaging through their facility.
In a blink, a set of pincers had snared the Carnelian that had been moving to rejoin the group, lifting her flailing form into the air before slamming her down into the ground, piercing straight through her lightform in the process.
The second set batting aside the hot tempered warrior who had attacked me earlier, before shooting forth and clamping down on the commander's leg, earning a gasp from the Gem before locking their grip violently dragging the now yelling Agate backward, her warhammer falling from her fingers as she desperately tried to grab onto something.
Seizing the opportunity, I dashed toward the knocked down and wounded Carnelian, and with four rapid claw strikes, I ended her attempts to rise, rising and hopping up to evade another shockwave as I did so, noting that the latest one had seemingly been directly launched toward me.
Still, everything had just gotten a lot simpler. All I needed to do now, was dispatch the control unit and-
Up. Peripheral-
At that exact moment, I noticed an intense, golden yellow hue rapidly bleeding across the sky, barely visible through the various cracks, holes and fissures in the ceiling.
-flash from a starship light cannon strike-we are within the blast radius-5.76 seconds until primary impact-how to protect Violet and Patina-a jump to the-
Accelerating toward the wall and running up for a few paces, I kicked at it and used the resistance to launch back up into a leap, drawing Violet's attention with a sharp shout in the process.
Snatching the miniature Pearl out of the air, I spun mid-flight to alter my trajectory and, at the absolute instant I hit the ground, rushed toward Patina, arms and legs burning as I diverted additional energy reserves to their faux flesh.
The green Gem had also realized something was wrong, having skipped away from the dispersing lightform of the second to last Carnelian, she was already scanning the entirety of the room, trying to understand whatever it was that had triggered her own analysis suite's acceleration.
Scooping her into my arms quickly enough that she didn't even have time to squeak out in surprise, I dived into the nearest relatively safe pothole and, for lack of literally any better options, shielding both of the Pearls with my body.
Reinforcing external layers.
Stars, this was gonna suck-
The thought was utterly drowned out as the entire world dissolved into a roaring cascade of noise, light, and the raw sensation of total, everlasting destruction, even as I resigned myself to the fact that our troubles were likely only starting.
The next few seconds predictably proved me right, as I felt the already warped floor begin to groan and slowly, but surely, tilt.
The platform that was supporting this chamber has no doubt had its integrity compromised. We must evacuate immediately.
Ugh, fine! Move!
As I surged to my feet, pulling my Pearls up with me, the first thing I noticed was the almost entirely missing ceiling, revealing the evening sky outside, heavily streaked with energy trails and flashes of light.
The vast majority of combatants we'd been facing, bar a select few exceptions, had vanished from the hall as well, as if they had never been present at all. Various fluids were bleeding from shattered crystalline veins in the walls, feeding the flames slowly but surely overtaking the chamber, and the gray obelisk not far from us had toppled onto its side; energy discharges arcing across its massive form, even as its internal humming steadily began to fade.
The control unit was simultaneously damaged and overloaded beyond tolerance. If I'm right, it should shut down and cease functioning shortly. The chamber's defense systems are already offline.
The increasingly fractured floor made our final stretch of the path a trial in hopping from one spot to another, but on the bright side, there wasn't any combat left to participate in, and I could practically see the light of the outside world flooding in from the exit, so much closer now than it had been.
Stepping forward, my lips hesitantly began to twitch upwards, even as I calculated the next step to take and-
PAIN.
...Time coalesced into thick, sluggishly crawling lava as I slowly shifted my gaze, eyes widening at the sight of a sharpened spike of crystallo-metal protruding from my midsection…
Evidently, it had slid out from one of the increasingly compromised walls and had impaled me from behind in doing so, tearing out through where my stomach was placed, and in terrifyingly close proximity to my gemstone, missing it only by a fraction of an inch from below…
…Critical damage. The rear hemisphere of my body is…a blind spot. What a foolish limitation. Damage sufficient to disperse my body. Critical loss of lightform stability in 1.24 seconds.
My eyes watched as my hand moved with glacial slowness toward my gemstone, everything slowly but surely turning numb around me.
Lightform stability falling. 0.63 seconds to critical collapse.
I stared down at the horrified faces of my creations, tried to smile, and managed little more than a grimace.
Lightform collapse imminent.
"Ah…shi-"
Darkness…
—
Viridian's lightform had been discorporated. It was plain to see, impossible to refute, and yet somehow still didn't feel quite real, even as she held the Overseer's gemstone.
Of course, the consequences of that, alongside the fact that they were about two seconds from being buried alive, didn't contribute much to things like propriety.
"WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED!"
Hence her current mantra as she continued to run as fast as her legs could carry her.
"WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED WE'RE FRACKED-"
Patina yelped as she felt yet another sharp sensation atop her head, likely another case of the tiny Pearl currently using her hair as a handhold having stabbed her again.
"SHUT UP AND KEEP RUNNING! AND DODGE HOLY FRACK DODGE-"
That piece of debris is falling at an angle that can be slid under, I just need to let myself drop and allow momentum to carry me forward.
Action followed thought, and the green Gem did her best to keep the gemstone clutched in her hands held tight against her chest as she just barely slipped beneath some random chunk of metal, before rising to her feet in the same motion and continuing her mad sprint, Violet screaming from atop her head all the while.
She didn't need to look back to know that the entire section of corridor they'd just been in had already collapsed, the shaking of literally everything around them was evidence enough of that.
No, what mattered was that she was done being careful, a fact that was proven as her leg lashed out and kicked a descending pipe out of the way, leaving a painful twinge in that section of her lightform but keeping the path ahead open.
They were nearly out now, she could practically feel the sun shining on her!
"DUCK AND ROLL!"
There wasn't any time to think, and so Patina obeyed her Batchmate's command, practically curling up into a ball as she careened out from the darkness of a faltering reception area and into the dim light of the evening sky.
The deafening thump of something heavy impacting where she'd just been, followed by the sound of the floor itself giving way, left no doubt that had she failed to heed Violet's warning they'd likely all be shattered now.
Still, she didn't let the momentary triumph keep her legs from propelling them onwards, the confines of the tunnel being replaced by the sights and sounds of what she was pretty sure was a war in the sky.
There were countless golden shapes that surely must have been starships, and every few seconds lasers would erupt from them as they all seemingly focused their fire upon what almost looked like a floating white palace, which continued to move forward despite the ruinous amounts of energy being flung at it, occasionally lancing back with artificial lightning strikes, annihilating a foe or two with every arcing blast.
And that was just the bigger vessels she could spot during her flight across the bridge leading out of the Reef, further still was the swarms of what could only be fighters dueling each other for control of the sky, countless burning shapes falling free of the massive storms, all while pod shaped things fell down upon the mass of twisted metal and shattered crystal that the Reef had become.
She…she could have sworn that she saw a small fleet of white shuttles fleeing from one of the platforms in that moment, hurtling towards a slightly more isolated Yellow Court vessel sitting upon the fringes of the fight, but the hopeful thought that the rest of Batch Eighteen had escaped was cast aside as she Violet's little hands slapped at her forehead, ripping her attention back to the shining, glimmering Warp pad sitting right in front of them.
"The bridge is starting to collapse! Let's get on this thing and get out of here!"
Patina didn't hesitate in doing as told, even as used her voice to point out a small problem with the plan, tone turning slightly hysterical as she turned around atop the pad and saw that, yes, the entire bridge was starting to crack and fall as the mass of Reef it was attached to began to pull it down with it.
"I don't know how to use a Warp pad!"
She could practically feel Violet flinch at the words, the purple Gem still desperately clinging to her hair as she backpedalled further into the middle of the crystalline structure.
"Well neither do I! Just…! Just think of being somewhere else!? I don't know!"
Somewhere else…somewhere else!
Anywhere but here!
Stomping her foot atop the Warp pad, Patina couldn't help but yell at the construct, even as she clutched Viridian tighter to her chest.
"Take us away from here! As far away as possible!"
To her relief, there was a slight hum and a buildup of light as the Galaxy Warp presumably acceded to her command.
To her fright, there was yet another sharp crack as the section of bridge the pad had been sat upon broke apart beneath its own unsupported weight, leaving the two Pearls and one gemstone in freefall right as the light engulfed them all.
And to her absolute, unfettered horror, she felt Viridian slip loose from her fingers as the glowing tunnel they'd been thrown into abruptly flickered out of existence, leaving them all adrift in a void surrounded by distant stars and lines, with her creator beginning to float off into the darkness.
"NO!"
She had screamed the word, and reached out towards the rapidly disappearing gemstone, yet a second voice had joined the protest as well, and in the periphery of her vision, she could make out a small purple arm reaching out alongside her own.
Suddenly, both limbs took on a luminescence of her own, purple and green starting to give way to bright white as their forms began to twist.
And then…