Chapter One: Race Against the Shield

I'm sitting on the side of the rock, waiting for the New Beginnings to pick me up. I see the ship closing in on me, I can see that It's Citrine, trying to play chicken with me. I stand still, smiling at her. Her smile fades, and I can see her reaching for something, but it's not doing what it's supposed to do. The spaceship is rocketing towards me, gaining speed. There's nowhere for me to run. I can't go down, and I'm stuck on a boulder. My pocket glows red. The Fan springs out, and it is closed in an upwards position. The fan lets loose and the leftmost holder drops and swings 360 degrees, creating a perfect circle. The fan transformed into a shield.

The spaceship hit me.

Well, it hit the shield, and then it stopped. Everything stopped. It was as if everything couldn't remember what it was supposed to do. I walked around, I noticed the shield was moving. It was rotating back. The shield must act like a clock, and when that time runs out... Hopefully I can fix everything before the time runs out, since I don't know if I can or will be able to restart the clock. I look around hoping to find something that will help me, then I notice how perfectly aligned the Diamond Destroyer is with the Sea Spire, then it hit me. If I could position myself just right, I could get onto the Sea Spire.

​The one problem is, I don't know what I would do on the Sea Spire, and I don't know how I could scale the Diamond Destroyer. Then I remember, I have a gem weapon. I pull my axe out of my gem, and wield it in the correct position to hit the Diamond Destroyer. I take my aim, and throw. The axe directly hits the "i" in the name. I start backing up to run towards it, and then I release a full out sprint. My hand catches the shield as I leap onto the axe. The axe is glowing, and that means it's about to retreat. Which is over the trench again. I start experimenting with her fan shield, I then thrust the shield upwards, and as it does so, the fire on the sides of it enlarge, and boost me upwards onto the Diamond Destroyer.

​There's at 10 feet gap between me and the Sea Spire, which looked much smaller back on the rock. Although this challenge comes close to stopping me, I take a look at the fan, it looks like it's about 40 minutes left, which makes it in the shape of a regular fan. I take it, and sprint to the end. I thrash it backwards, not letting go, it flings me over the gap and onto an inside pillar. I dash upward the stairs, but then I come to a door, which would be fine, if it weren't locked. There's no way I could find a way to open it, and trying to crack its code wouldn't work, would it? I enter in different values, until I get to 1282, a seemingly random number, it didn't take that long, since I noticed different markings on the numbers 1,2, and 8. Somewhat around 38 minutes left, I break through the door, start sprinting up the stairs again, to be greeted with construction. The scaffolding leads up to the floor where my master plan would occur. I jump up and climb ladders, I get on the second to last one and-

"CRSH"

​The floor broke underneath me. I fell at least 5 stories onto the ground, and when I got up, I knew I couldn't make any sudden movements. The ground around me was cracking, as if I had ice skates and stomped on a thinly frozen over lake. I take the shield, and jump. The shield catches onto the scaffolding above me, and I pull myself up onto the trusses. I do this repeatedly until I get to the top. I had 38 minutes, but now, I'm left with 12. It took me 26 minutes in order to climb up it, fall, and swing myself back up.

I neared my way over to the gravity enhancer. When I came here, my job was to enhance the gravity and get out before the building crumbled. Now, I've tried to save a gem, almost died- what three times now, and I'm finally getting back to here. My plan is to reverse how the system works. It takes in energy, and it creates gravity. I'm unaware of how, but I'm aware of how electromagnets work from when Citrine was telling me how to defuse a bomb. I increased the energy. I could feel it's slight pull, because the time was ticking down, only 2 more minutes.

​I try and figure out how to reverse the electro magnet's polarity. Only a minute left. Then I realize, the way electromagnets work is which way you add the energy, so I quickly reverse the cables, and put it on full power.

I run to the window a second time. And I take a leap of faith with the shield under me. Like a storm, all the potential energy rushes out, and the magnet sends the ship flying upwards before it could even touch the ground. I slam right into it, on my back, so my gem wouldn't get cracked more. We fly up into the air, then start falling, but I have no fear, because if anyone could pilot this spacecraft, Emerald and Citrine can. I wave over the front window of the ship, and they wave back. We slowly inch near the Sea Spire, watching as important machines and even some gems start slowly floating into the air. We land and I'm back on the Earth.

Day 102, 14 Days Since:

"Well, the mission didn't go quite as planned." Said Agate.

"Yeah, I mean, we all almost died, Beryl a couple times." Added Emerald.

We were quiet, and I could feel the regret of them adding me on to the team radiating from them.

"We couldn't have done better" spoke up Citrine. "Without Beryl's quick thinking and strategy, we all would've died. She also ruined most of their supplies, think about it. All of the important stuff made out of metal flew into the air, and then got crushed back down. Even gems with metallic like elements went into the air, which probably caused some disarray, and those gems probably quit after that happening, so we should be thankful."

I look over to her with a warm smile, and I mouth the words thank you to her.

"I agree, plus, now we know that Beryl can slow down time! So I can use that to decorate my bunk!" said Iolite.

"Heh... yes Iolite, I'll make sure to help you decorate your bunk, I've just got to learn how to use it right first." I say.

"I'll train you." Stated Agate.

Chapter 2: Dirillo

Day 118, 30 Days Since: A flat plain segmented by a wide, seemingly straight river was nearing us. The ship was slowing down, and I can feel each and every inch of it. I can tell you exactly how fast we're moving. 93.46 mph. We arrive on a small little grassy hill, and we all get out.

"This is where I learned to train." Said Agate.

"Oh, is this place important to you?" I ask.

"It brings me peace. Now, the others are instructed to scout the area, except for Emerald, she's guarding the ship."

"Got it."

"We're heading by the banks of the river, and I'll show you what you can do if you focus."

"Okay?"

She walks over to the bank of the river, while I trip on a divot in the ground and tumble onto the sand. She laughs, and then she tenses up, glaring directly into the water.

"This is Achates River. It has interesting properties."

I glare up, and she takes deep strides towards the water. She looks panicked, but quickly calms herself. She took steps onto the water.

"Woah- "

"Don't interrupt, I need to focus."

She turns around and glares at me.

She puts her hands on her waist, and then slowly but surely takes them up to her head. She then highlights the crowning gem on her tiara with an open hand. She glows. She turns back to herself. Odd, normally something happens then. She then tries to pull something out of her gem, but it won't work.

"Nghh- "

She sinks underwater, I reach out, but then I realize she's okay, she just couldn't keep focus. She then gets back up, look she looks a bit weaker, but persistently stands on the water, she does the same thing, but this time, she glows, and she starts jumping from red light to blue light to black light to white light. She then levitates into the air and bursts into white light, she returns just as normal with her dress and hair ruffling in the wind. She then looks at me, with a smile, and raises her hand. I don't think anything of it, but then I launch into the air on a pillar of obsidian. I start freaking out, of course, and she's laughing back on the ground. She raises her other hand and she raises up to my level on a pillar of water.

"See, focus can achieve anything." She spoke.

Then I remember what obsidian is. It's an igneous rock, which means it's formed from lava. She's controlling both water and lava at the same time. That's impossible for regular gems, much less, she's an Agate, which are high as aristocratic gems, but the odds of her getting one ability like that is improbable, much less having two.

"You're wondering how I can use both fire and water, aren't you?"

Great, she can read minds too.

"No I can't read minds."

Yes, she can.

"I'm used to people asking those immediate questions after I show them. I'll tell you something I've only told the New Beginnings, so that way you're officially in, with a secret and everything."

She smiles, and I nod in interest.

"I'm not one gem, and I'm not a fusion."

"Wha?" I ask.

"I'm an accidental forced fusion."

"OH MY G- "

"Listen."

"Yes, Agate"

"When I was created, I was made in an aristocratic Kindergarten, which was designed for Pink Diamond. Now, when they injected a Blue Agate, one that could use water as a power, they forgot to document it. Which was abnormal for Homeworld, but they did. They then injected a Red Agate, thinking that that was the only one. When agates form, they start out small, and then layers of molten rock form on them, but that's for common agates. The agates that make up me were premade to be like that in another Kindergarten private for perfecting gems, they sold me to this kindergarten, which would refine me, by breaking up the regular agates and adding to them."

I realized what she meant, agates are all the same, but when you add things to them, they become different. They added something that gave an agate a blue tint and another a red tint.

"They break them apart to do this, and then make it so they search for any gem fragments near them. Those two agates were too close, and they thought that the other one was a gem fragment, so they combined, and created me."

I look at her tiara, finally, I see that one half of the gem is red, and the other is blue. That's why there's a discrepancy of color with her arms. She's a forced fusion.

"Do you want to be like this?" I ask.

"Of course, those two gems are long gone, now I'm me, and they don't even exist."

"Oh, well, how can I learn to focus?"

"You need to fuse."