LOG-187.With awareness came panic.Panic, because the one who had created them was slipping away every second they, every second she-she?She? She-oh. Oh.Wait, no! Focus!Shaking her head violently, the Pearl burst forward, the familiar yet foreign sensation of wings erupting out from the teeny tiny little gemstone at her back coinciding with her every movement.They were sharper now, the holographic limbs. Angular where they had been round. Jagged where they had been soft. Plus there were four of them, instead of two like she remembered.Likely a result of my larger half’s significantly more expansive energy stock being combined with my smaller half’s flight programming.What was?!-no, don’t freak out! That was normal!Normal. All of this was definitely new, but normal. Flight was new, but normal. A little extra voice in the back of her head (her own voice, she idly realised) was also new, but also normal.How very strange everything was! This…this must have been fusion, then!Both sets of my memories support this assessment. Viridian’s explanations regarding the subject were rather extensive. Speaking of, she’s still floating off into the void.Right! She needed to save her creator!—Catching up to the green gemstone steadily flying through the darkness was a rather creepy experience, all things considered, even if actually overtaking the inert Overseer wasn’t too difficult.Neither of her components had ever been in the Warp before, obviously, but the absolute silence of it all, coupled by the absence of light (only occasionally broken up by distant pillars that must have been streams generated by pads, or starships tunneling their way through the other dimension, their presences sporadically illuminating what looked like clouds) didn’t leave a very lively impression.As her hands tightly gripped around the physical body of her creator, the amalgamation glanced around warily, the soft glow generated by her wings leaving her akin to a beacon in the night, even as she tried to determine whether the sensation of being watched was due to her own imagination, or the result of a very real threat.While advanced Gem physiological studies indicate that life is entirely possible within other dimensions, considering the proven multidimensional nature of Gem consciousness, there is no evidence that anything else currently occupies the Warp.Shivering slightly as a gargantuan shape passed over her, the Pearl cradled her creator close to her chest, watching the shaded cloud carefully as the light of her wings exposed bits and pieces of it, the glow occasionally reflected back at her in a bizarre, physics defying display.It is merely a mass shadow, likely generated by something in real space, like a ship, a planet, or a sun. It poses no danger to me.Staring until the immense thing had finally moved off back into the darkness, she shook her head, noting the constant sensation of the freezing temperature apparently native to the Warp attempting to find purchase on parts of her lightform, only to fail in procuring any solid matter to tamper with.Supposedly safe or not, she needed to get out of here, preferably before someone…or something came looking for her.Twisting about, the mixed Gem took in the variety of lines that occasionally crisscrossed through the faux night, each one representing a Warp tunnel being formed between two adjoining pads. Any one of those would in theory be an acceptable avenue for returning to real space, but…The Reef was just attacked by a Yellow Court assault force. It is more than likely that some form of civil war has overtaken the Empire. Appearing in any populated areas would only invite trouble.Which meant that the better option was something farther away. The more isolated, the better. The rest of the Batch (and oh, how she desperately wished that they had all made it out) would likely be doing the same, assuming they were in a similar situation to her.Turning away from the lines of civilisation with a grimace, the Pearl (ugh, she really needed to figure out what to call herself, perhaps some mix of Violet and Patina? Vatina? Piolet?) looked into the vast dark, staring at the distant points of light that almost seemed like stars in the enormous, empty space that surrounded her.More Warp tunnels. Some blinking in and out, while others seemingly persisted, likely acting as permanent fixtures.Picking out the one that looked the smallest, and thus hopefully the furthest, the periwinkle (oh, that sounded nice!) fusion flapped each of her wings once (the familiar motion reassuring her slightly) before shooting towards the light, keeping the inert gemstone of her creator held jealously close as she did so, lest she accidentally drop her again.…She hoped Viridian reformed soon.—Periwinkle flew for what might have been minutes, or days, or hours.I am being melodramatic. Built-in eidetic memory ensures I cannot fall victim to such a temporal trapping of perception. If I go by Viridian’s terran based timekeeping method, then it has been approximately eighteen hours, forty six minutes, and seventeen seconds.Spoilsport.Periwinkle flew for what had most definitely been eighteen hours, forty six minutes, and seventeen seconds before she reached her target. She’d settled on her chosen name in half that time, and had spent the remainder of it worrying over the fact that her creator still hadn’t reformed yet, despite her extended period of inactivity.She either expended a significant amount of energy prior to her discorporation, or is designing and constructing particularly extensive modifications to her lightform. Or both.Now she hovered just outside of a faintly flickering Warp stream, one that upon closer inspection looked…wrong, somehow.It is activating and deactivating quickly enough that from a distance its emission of light remains unchanged. Though one side appears to be functional, the receiving end is either damaged, deactivated, or was never established at all, resulting in a path that appears solid, but in reality leads to nowhere.Still…broken or not, it was far enough away from most of the other tunnels that she could make out appeared as little more than strings of light to her sight. Things couldn’t really get more isolated than that, and even if the receiving pad wasn’t working, that wouldn’t stop her from simply going to the projecting one, right?Right.Nodding to herself, Periwinkle gave the precious package in her hands a soft, lopsided smile, inhaled an airless breath like she’d seen the Overseer do a few times, and lunged forward into the flickering anomaly.The abrupt transition from the distinct lack of gravity within the Warp to the rapid inertia of the tunnel would have thrown her about if she hadn’t been prepared.Thankfully, the Pearl had been expecting the resistance, so rather than being blown out the end of the artificial construct, she found herself pushing against the glowing corridor’s pull, until she finally managed to breach through the ‘wall’ keeping her from returning to reality.Thunk.Glancing up as her legs and wings impacted with the crystalline material beneath her, the fusion rose from her crouch and looked around, taking in the darkened architecture surrounding the pad she’d landed upon, before tilting her head slightly.The architecture appears similar to the Reef in design, though of a lesser quality. Whatever this place is, it doesn’t appear to be powered, considering the lack of ambient lighting.The implications of such a thing sought to rise up and occupy her mind, but were quickly interrupted by a sharp sound, one that sent her vision turning sharply downwards as she realised that the Warp pad seemed to be cracking.Not cracking. Already cracked.“Wha-wait!”A crack became a splinter, and a splinter became a fissure, rapidly spreading through the center of her arrival point. Then, with an almost deafening crunch, the entire structure broke in half, leaving her desperately dancing to the side lest she fall in between the two separated pieces.Finally settling down upon actually solid ground, Periwinkle stared at the broken pad, then looked around at the dark but seemingly meticulously cleaned chamber she’d found herself in, one part curious, the other wary.My passage through the tunnel must have proven too high of an energy expenditure for an already damaged installation. Unfortunate, though I likely would have needed to find a different method of travel regardless. Not too large of a loss.Sighing to herself, the Pearl strode back over to the ruined Galaxy Warp, before turning about and taking a seat upon one of its separated halves, glancing down at the pale green gemstone in her hands as she did so.“...Please wake up soon.”And then, she settled down to wait. After all, rogue variant created to rebel or not, Periwinkle was still a Gem. And if there was anything Gems held in distinct abundance, it was time.