LOG-188.Two islands. Distant, but close. Small and big. Intertwined in a clouded ocean.Plates of steel. Armour. Shifting claws. A squat, ugly structure.White on green. Green on white. Slashing. Struggling. Mixing. Melding. Spreading. Lost in the flux. Something impossibly bright, shining from afar. I could get closer, if I were so inclined to.…A dream. How…calming. Freeing.All of my struggles, worries and mistakes, laid right before me, and yet so far away…Memories that I could never forget, and despite it all…now seemed so much easier to see.All of the disjointed pieces…neatly arranging themselves in the right order.—Despite the wanderings of my resting mind, to say that I had been asleep during my time trapped within the confines of my own gemstone would be…inaccurate.Discorporation. Likely due to damage sustained from both sustained combat operations, alongside the final strike that pierced my lightform entirely.There was an awareness, even in the closed off depths of my mind. Even when I was reduced to an inert little rock, helpless to anything that might chip or crack it. Even then, I had been awake.Calm, initially. But at some point, fighting. Pushing to reform. But in so much as I was somewhat adept in a great many number of things, it was the first time I had consciously experienced the destruction of my lightform, and all I had to guide me were lines of programmed code that had been tampered with in who knew how many ways.As a result, reformation took…time. Willingly or not, changes were made. Enhancements were deployed to counter what had so thoroughly disabled me the first time, so that I might withstand such damage the next time danger came calling.What was most uncertain was whether I had chosen such a thing, and if I had, whether it was truly me that had made that choice. And yet I nonetheless had the distinct feeling that something had assisted in the decision making process.Eventually, time passed enough that operations completed, and I felt myself, for lack of a better descriptor, ascending.Physically. My gemstone was floating. And as I felt the first strands of hardened light form around it, I idly twitched the rapidly sharpening talons that soon covered my bare fingers, even as countless details began to emerge.Features. Hair. Eyes. Clothing. I went from what surely must have looked like a mannequin to a fully formed and readied Gem within the span of a second or two, before gracefully floating back down onto the green, feet settling against a material that vaguely felt like stone.It took less than a second afterwards to just…let myself fall, a squeak emerging from somewhere above me as I felt the back of my head impact the ground hard enough that it surely would have cracked a human skull, had I still counted myself the owner of one.
…Well, that was an interesting experience.
“V-Viridian! Viridian? Are you alright?”Staring up at the ceiling, and then the off-grey pair of eyes looking down at me, filled with ever so much concern, I blinked slowly.“...Who are you?”The shadowed figure leaned slightly closer, and with a quiet note, I realised that I could see a familiar gemstone on her front side, alongside two sets of luminous wings emerging from her back.“Uhm…Periwinkle! I think.”Tracing her features, from her long nose, to the frilly uniform she wore, to the distinctly mashed together hairstyle that reminded me of two rather distinct creations of mine, I felt my lips twitch involuntarily.“Ah. Fusion?”“Y-Yes?”“Very nice. I hope existence has been good for you so far?”The amalgam considered my question for a moment, before giving me a non-committal shrug, nodding her head as she did so.“I’m sure there will be plenty more things to experience-oh dear, you’re crying!”Blinking once more, I finally paused and realised that, yes, I could feel the steady trickle of leaking liquid escaping from my eyes, the faux tears trailing down the sides of my face before disappearing into tiny bursts of light, as they were wont to do.“Oh. So I am.”Emotional regulation protocols have been improved, but there is only so much I can currently do in terms of keeping physical reactions in check. Further upgrades could potentially solve such a…thing.Pausing, I focused on the thought. Then the others that had flitted through my mind since reforming.The curse and blessing of eidetic memory. I couldn’t forget. The…secondary mental process, the analytical one. It had been obvious. Easy to tell apart. I remembered that much.Which made it exceedingly obvious that something had changed. Because I couldn’t so much as spot a difference between my own thoughts, and those induced by the software White Diamond had injected into my very being.“Viridian?”Pursing my lips slightly at Periwinkle’s (and what a cute name she’d chosen for herself) concerned tone, I slowly lifted a hand, and soon enough the fusion was reaching to grab it, hauling me to my feet with minimal effort.She wasn’t much larger than Patina, all things considered. Though the wings certainly gave her the impression of increased height.Staring at the fusion long enough that she began to fidget. I waited.Uncomfortable. Isn’t sure whether I’m approving of her existence or not. Micro expressions indicate parallel lines of thought mixed with the two faceted nature of fusion. She is analysing me. She knows I am analysing her. She wants to know why I am analysing her.Frowning heavily at the perfectly ordinary thought, I held up a hand right before Periwinkle could open her mouth, halting the Pearl in her tracks.“You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m just…testing something.”“Oh.”Nodding as the living mixture relaxed slightly, I spent a brief moment admiring her appearance (the elements of her that were sourced from Patina preening at the attention), before glancing around.For a single, startling moment, I suspected that we might still have been in the Reef. But…no. The walls weren’t of the same, high quality material as the Empire’s premier Pearl manufacturing facility. Similar, but nowhere near the same.Meticulously cleaned, though. Either Pearls or Pebbles were behind that. An Atoll, perhaps. I’d seen similar designs when inspecting the blueprints presented to me during my little rendezvous with Azurite.Slowly bringing up a hand, I felt at my cheek, noting that I was still crying, and frowned.“Periwinkle.”“Y-Yes?”Turning to glance at the fusion out of the corner of my eye, I smiled softly.“Cover your ears and turn around, please? I’m going to have a bit of a meltdown and I’d rather you not get a bad impression of me.”The Pearl hesitated at the request for a moment, before her wings fluttered and she lifted her hands to the sides of her head, inching about until she was facing one of the walls.I noted that unlike her, I could still see behind me somehow, eyes resembling blank, dull gemstones hidden in my hair allowing me a dazzling three hundred and sixty degree view. Dizzying, too. But I’d already been getting used to it after I’d first reformed, and now they felt as if I’d always had them.Waiting just long enough to ensure my combined creation wasn’t about to turn back around, I finally let my features contort the way they wanted to, twisting enough that it surely would have induced discomfort from an organic as I let a piercing wail slip past my lips to fill the air around me.“FUCK YOU! GOD FUCKING DAMN IT! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOUUUU!”Claws lengthened as I lurched towards the nearest wall, barely noting the cracked and utterly useless Warp pad that had no doubt brought us to this place, before swinging.“PIECE OF FUCKING SPLINTERING SHIT! CRACK STREWN GARBAGE! EVERY STARS DAMNED FUCKING TIME! FUCK! FUCK!”A mural of some fanciful depiction of a Pearl was gouged through as I ripped into the material, gauntlets ensuring that I did more damage than I took as I allowed every single mask to fall, and poured out everything I was feeling.“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL MYSELF! CAN I NOT GET ONE FUCKING WIN?! SERIOUSLY?! FUCK YOU! YOU CAN’T KILL ME! I’M GOING TO GO HOME NO MATTER HOW MANY MOTHERFUCKING TIMES YOU TRY TO SCREW ME OVER YOU PIECE OF SHIT! AAAARRRGGHAAHHHHH!”Words devolved into meaningless yells and growls as I continued to lash out at the innocent wall, imagining countless faces. The soldiers of the Empire. The Diamonds. Myself.By the time I finished up, my hair was a mess, my arms were shaking, my talons were twitching, and the results of my handiwork looked like the aftermath of a bear doing its level best to tear its way through a building.Breathing heavily enough that I could feel my nostrils flaring with each inhalation, I shot a seething glare at the ruined mural, before hissing out words through teeth grit hard enough that they surely would have shattered, had they been made of bone instead of light.“I will make it home. I will make it home. I’ll never stop. Nothing will deter me. No matter how many times I’m hindered, no matter how many times I fall, no matter how many times I have to get back up, I will not stop.”Drawing upon old memories upon completion of my little impromptu mantra, I gathered together enough saliva that it sat comfortably atop my tongue, before I spat at the pile of dust and rubble sitting at the bottom of the hole I’d made, the glob of spit soaring through the air and impacting against a shattered shard of stone, before dissipating with a flash of light.Narrowing my eyes, I muttered one last curse before turning around, briefly pausing at the sight of the tiny gemstone jutting out of the center of Periwinkle’s back, before lifting my hands to begin smoothing out my hair, the lengthy locks having grown frayed and out of order during my little tantrum.Settling them and smoothing out the wrinkles in my uniform a second later, I took a deep breath and brought my right hand up, pressing it against my face hard enough that I could feel my stressed features smoothing out against my palm.Gone was the anger, desperation, and despair. Instead sat a soft, comforting smile as I stepped forward and tapped my fellow escapee on the shoulder, prompting the fusion to turn around with wide eyes, her own hands slowly falling away from her ears, trembling ever so slightly.She heard everything.Reaching forward, I wrapped my arms around the Pearl and drew her into a hug, holding her close and feeling her gingerly mimic the gesture, resting her head atop my shoulder.“I’m sorry about that, and none of it has anything to do with you. I’m just very stressed.”There was a moment’s hesitation, before I felt her chin impact my lightform several times, the motion of her nodding.“Can’t…say I blame you. What now?”Releasing her and pulling back in one smooth motion, I planted my clawed hands atop her shoulders, admiring her features for an instant before turning my head towards where I could see the singular doorway that seemed to lead out of wherever we had found ourselves.“We find a way out, of course.”Hmph.