Chapter Text
The colony was crumbling around her, that much was certain. Elevated spires inscribed with histories of generations were being pierced with beams of light, crumbling and falling beneath the surface of the ocean to the sea bed or against nearby dwellings. Casting her eyes upwards, Candi could see the sheer devastation being wrought against her colony from the gem warships in the atmosphere above.
Tens of hand-shaped ships lingered, some aiming with all fingers launching devastating rays of light in different directions, others with their palms outstretched beaming gems down to the surface from short-range warp pads. The meagre resistance they had mounted was failing, quickly. The mix of Amethysts, Opals, Rubies, and whatever other soldiers they could scramble together seemed to pose little more than an annoyance to the forces they were up against.
Eyes running wild across the battlefield, passing over gems dissipated, cracked, even shattered, Candi’s eyes landed on a terrifying sight coming over the rise the hill leading into the civic street. A palanquin. That Diamond’s palanquin, flanked on all sides by their guard. Candi’s breath felt hollow, too short and lacking in substance to adequately calm her down. She slammed her fist against the ground, denting the paved path, frustration and despair running high. She was an Agate dammit, she was supposed to inspire her people!
Her Ruby to the side seemed to notice her lamenting, looking over their shoulder with that fiery look in her eyes. They were angry, she saw, but moments after locking eyes she saw them soften. Trying to calm her, surely. Always too much determination in that one, her indomitable spirit blazing brightly in the sheer gale force of the enemy they were against. It would be the death of her. Candi was rocked from her thoughts by another blast from above. That one was too close.
The sounds of war surrounded her. A destabiliser ignited. A gem pleaded. A sudden shout cut too soon, the clattering of something hard falling to the floor. Candi’s eyes filled with fear and concern, darted to the sounds of marching feet. The overwhelming stench of ozone grew stronger with each cry she heard. Her world spun.
"Let’s just run, Roie, please," The Agate's words were filled with a hint of desperation as she implored the Ruby to comply. "They're getting closer, I-I don't want to see you getting hurt. We can board a Roaming Eye, we can escape to another colony in a different sector, one that they haven’t gotten to yet, we can - " she was interrupted with a sudden shout from her opposite.
“We can what? Run from our problems, our people? Fly somewhere else and surrender to Emerald and her Jade Armada? No – we have to stay and show that they can’t just do stuff like this!” The Ruby waved her hands in the air around her, finding it hard to distil her anger. Soon afterwards noticing that her words had little effect in amping up her Agate, the Ruby softened her gaze and placed a hand on their Agate’s shoulder, “We’ll do it together, okay Candi? We’ll do it together,” the Ruby smiled and squeezed gently, turning back to the oncoming guards.
Candi let the hopelessness wash over her, shaking out a dry chuckle. She wiped away a tear that had started forming before nodding to the back of her Ruby. Yeah, they really didn’t have a choice in whether or not they could leave. Even if they had tried, it was more than likely that an embargo had been set up across the planet. That, or the gem warships in orbit would simply shoot them down. She shook her head, straightening her form to stand behind her Ruby and face the legion head on.
Candi fixed her eyes on the marching guards, a sense of terror returning to grip her heart. The pep talk clearly hadn’t been enough. The invasion had only just begun and yet, here the enemy was, marching closer with each passing moment. Every few beats she’d hear the whirring and prod of the palanquin crawling forwards, crawling closer to them.
The guard’s boots pounded against the ground in perfect synchrony, like the beating of a single drum. Each one of them was dressed in impeccable uniform that wasn’t just a light projection, an unusual sight amongst gem warriors barring the most esteemed and exemplary fighters. The occasional flash of a destabiliser blast or the sparkling from the quartz on their bodies broke the seemingly perfect parade they conducted as they strode down the street. Their gemstones each bore the same position across their entire rank, gleaming in the sunlight as another symbol of their superiority.
Candi gripped at her chest, eyes running wild, the weight of the situation heavy on her chest. She tried to calm her nerves, clenching and unclenching her fists, practising the breathing techniques she had learned from travellers who had visited her office in the colony’s capital. But no matter how much she desperately prepared, she knew deep down that nothing could fully prepare her for what was to come, nothing could stop the subsumption of the colony she had sworn to protect. Candi had hoped they could lay under the radar, let the infighting of the major factions pass over them. Let the rest of the galaxy annihilate each other while their little colony peddled on without them. How foolish that seemed now.
“I-I love you Candi, okay? I promised to protect you and the colony, and I just can’t back down now,” Roie’s voice was high and level, soothing the Agate.
“I love you too, Roie,” the Agate choked back a sob, her eyes now locked to the dirt beneath them.
A beat passed before the marching came to a stop. She knew they should be bowing now. It was as the protocol demanded. Candi waited, hesitated, considered bending her knee and submitting to the authority of her invaders. A hand reached for her own, her Ruby’s. She looked up from the ground and to Roie’s eyes, smiling as she gripped her hand tighter. They’d be okay.
They waited for what felt like an eternity, although it was likely just mere seconds. A guard advanced from the legion now only metres away. Candi squeezed her eyes shut, squeezing her Ruby’s hand even tighter. A sudden disturbance in the air told her that a destabiliser had been brought to life. Flinching, a sudden thwack and short cry sounded near her, leaving her hand to hold nothing but empty air.
Candi’s eyes burst open in a panic, dropping low to the ground to pick up her Ruby’s gemstone before any more harm could come to it, all caution thrown to the wind even in the face of the guard and legion before her. She relaxed almost as soon as she felt the gemstone touch her fingers, a reminder that she wouldn’t be gone forever. A voice broke the silence that followed, a voice that unmade any hope yet left in the Agate.
“Hessonite, identify this gem,” the voice, deep and flavoured with disguised hints of youth, called from above the soldiers. Agate threw her eyes up for but a moment, a shiver running through her body at what the glance revealed. The Diamond’s palanquin now hovering above the procession of guards, its curtains drawn back, legs now retracted.
“At once, my Diamond,” a voice replied, seemingly the Hessonite attending the Diamond within the palanquin, “Candalidini Agate Facet-3E8N Cut-4EA. They’re the executive officer of this colony, my Diamond,” they explained.
“Is that so? They’re a far way away from planet E8,” the Diamond mused, “That Ruby they’re holding onto, what’s its importance?”
“The Agate appears to be holding onto Ruby Facet-2 --”
“I don’t care about the specifics, Hessonite, it’s just a Ruby,” the Diamond pinched the brow of their noise before continuing, “Does it hold any actual value?” the Diamond’s voice lifted towards the end of their question, imploring their Hessonite to find anything that may mark the Ruby as anything but.
“Just a guard it seems, my Diamond,” the Hessonite replied.
“Bubble it then.”
“At once, my Diamond,” the Hessonite exited the interior of the palanquin and stepped out onto its short balcony, nodding to one of the guards to fulfil their Diamond’s wish. A gem with stark white hair bound into two buns with a thin orange rectangle of a gem under their lips met Candi’s eyes.
“N-No, no, you can’t take her from me! My Diamond, please, have mercy!” Candi shouted, pleading, before being shoved back and away from her Ruby by the boot of the same guard who destabilised them.
The gem was tossed to a Quartz further down the procession, distinguished among the others by the cape that blew at her back. They encased the gem in an orange bubble, before sending it away, presumably to one of the giant warships that remained in low-orbit.
As easily as that, Candi lost Roie. She couldn’t protect her colony, she couldn’t protect her people, she couldn’t even protect a single Ruby. The Agate fell to her knees, clutching clumps of dirt in her hands, letting tears fall freely. The Diamond spoke to her from above.
“This could’ve all been made so much easier, you know that?” the Diamond called from the palanquin, their voice growing louder as they too exited to stand on the palanquin’s balcony in front of their Hessonite, “Your colony needed a Diamond again, they needed me. You couldn’t possibly think that you could maintain your life out here given the state of the galaxy, did you? If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been Emerald, or the Zircons, or any of the other players!” They called from their deck, hands neatly folded and tucked away in the cape that made up their ceremonial outfit. It was a cloth of pure, snow white, with hints of the shade that made up their Diamond gem along its trimming.
Candi could barely stand to listen to their platitudes, she only wanted her Ruby back. Her flagrant disregard for the respect she owed to the status of the Diamond mere metres away from her would’ve shocked her former self to their core, but not in the state she was in. She refused to even give the Diamond the courtesy of eye contact.
Moments passed where Candi said nothing, before soldiers marched forwards to either side of her, grabbing her arms and hoisting her up to her feet to face the Diamond directly.
“You will look to your Diamond if they deign speak to you, Agate!” the Hessonite called from behind the shoulder of her Diamond.
Said Diamond gazed down at her from their palanquin impassively. Bored, almost. Like they’d gone through this same routine across countless worlds, and had found Candi to be lacking.
“Is this the last colony for this sector Hessonite, or am I forgetting some? F9, P2, was that all?” The Diamond asked in a quieter tone meant only for those on the palanquin, without turning to address their Hessonite directly. They maintained eye contact with the Agate, though, never blinking or breaking their stare.
Candi hated them for how they looked at her. They hated them for invading their colony. They hated them for destabilising their Ruby. Most of all, she hated looking her usurper in the eyes. Those were the eyes that had stared across hundreds of conquered worlds. Those were the eyes that had watched countless gems shatter.
She hated the Diamond’s eyes most of all.
His dark, pink eyes.