Chapter 2: When In Rome ​​

Part 1: Someone Entirely New:

​Day 120, 32 Days Since:

"Alright Team, I expect all of you to report to the discussion table this instant!"

We all take one large step to the left, since our bunks are right next to the table.

"Oh, very well. I decided that we should... how do I put this... settle down."

Gasps of terror escape from all the other gems.

"Hold on, I have reasoning." Agate continued. "We need to have a good place for Beryl to practice, and for all of us to practice. I mean, how long can we really keep up with this 'I use all the skill my gem has' strategy, when we come to a fight, we might not be able to win because we don't train. Also, haven't you guys ever wanted an individual room? Iolite, you could decorate to your hearts content..."

Iolite looked overjoyed at these words.

"... and Emerald, you can have your very own training dummy"

"I won't have to share?!" grinned Emerald.

"...and Beryl, you can finally have the space you deserve, you've been in the same room with no time alone for at least a week now."

I nodded, smiling.

"...and Citrine... you can have a shrine of Beryl or whatever you're into."

Citrine blushed and hid her face in a book.

"So, who's with me?"

She puts her hand over the table, we all then put our hands in, at the same time. Let me just tell you, putting in six hands in one spot is one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I've frozen time.

"Well, then I suggest everyone starts packing."

We all mad a dash to our bunks. Emerald and Iolite were storing their things in their gems. Citrine folded up a blanket and took her belongings in it. Agate didn't have any personal belongings. I looked at my bunk. I didn't have anything either. All I had was a little vase. Dedicated to Eta and her little flower friends. We land. We're on the top of a slight mountain.

"Welcome to our new home!"

I could see lush flora crowding around us.

"Alright, who's in charge of what?" said Emerald, pulling up her sleeves.

"Emerald, you're coming with me to help figure out the mapping, included with all the latest gem technology."

"Iolite, we need your scarf to help us mark areas."

"Beryl and Citrine, go get us materials. We'll need some Marble to get optimal color..."

"But neither of us have a pickaxe?"

"Citrine's gem weapon is a boomerang, I'm sure she'd be glad to let you fuse your axe with it."

"Ugh, fine" said Citrine, pulling it out of her gem.

I take it out of her hands, and start morphing the tools together, and just as Agate planned, it made a pickaxe.

"Thanks!" I said, and Citrine and I ran off.

"How'd you do that? The thing with changing the weapon... A pickaxe isn't a weapon! My Boomerang should've been dominant... It should've been a boomerang with blades!"

"Beryl's are common, they're the most customizable gem in creation. So they now how to change. When I say they know how to change, I mean they know how to change themselves, and other things. We can change how gem weapons fuse, because we can change different aspects of it. I morphed the hilt of my axe, the shape of your boomerang, and the blades of my axe. Which means mine is more dominant. If I wanted to, I could probably turn it into a sword. Now wouldn't that be interesting?"

She laughed, and shoved me. "Yeah, that'd be a sight. Now, I obviously get to mine the Marble, since you cheated and morphed our weapons."

"Whoa whoa, hey now, using your gem to your advantage doesn't count as cheating! Give me that pickaxe!"

We walk into a huge cave, in the sense that it had a large entrance and it seemed to go on forever. We hear something pulsing in the distance. We creep lower into the cave. I take out the fan, and it automatically turned into a shield. I handed the pickaxe back to Citrine, she wasn't as happy to get it as she was before. She knocks of an ounce of marble from a nearby rock, and it crumbled. It had enough impact on the ground to cave the floor in. It fell away, and we tumble in. I feel light headed. We fall 10 feet, and we would've been dead, but the shield froze time. I, not being frozen, held myself up by grabbing onto a nearby stalagmite. I was inches from the ground, and so was she.

​I've learned one of two things about the shield, nothing moves unless the person who wields the shield touches it. So If I were to not move, I would've frozen too, and only until I moved would I have fallen. If I were to resume now, she would immediately die. She's falling head first, onto her gem. I set her down on the ground. Now, I basically erased all energy there was before. Which by the way, no scientist today has ever done. I erased something that shouldn't ever be erased.

​Something large faces in front of me, it's a geode, the cave only opens up to reveal the top section of it, but it must be 200x200x200, so around two Diamond Destroyers stacked on top of each other. I see a crack eye level on the geode. I should add, when I freeze time, I can create energy too. When time starts up again right as I impact the geode, the way the Universe works is that it acts as if I had teleported from here to there as I punch it. Which by the way, is exactly what I do. All I have to do, is time a punch.

Here's the second thing I've learned, I can make the fan go faster by winding down the fan itself, but I can't wind it back up again. I wind it down so it was around one minute. I stand still, and I strike. It was just the right timing. I hit it barely and it crumbled a massive hole into the top. Citrine looks at me shocked. I pick her up, since she's probably in shock, snatch the fan, and jump down. We landed on a soft pavilion of melting gold. Orange crystals surrounded us, and it was garmented in gold. Why gold? Gold doesn't form in natural geodes... This Earth has laid dormant for millions of years, with no intelligent life, so how does gold get inside a geode?

It hits me, gems are upgraded inside of geodes. When I was in the kindergarten, I learned something that made me feel strong. Emeralds and I were the same gem, it's just that Emeralds are upgraded far more than Beryl's. What happens, is that gems are made in their natural state, and if they were to be upgraded, the kindergarten workers would put them in giant geodes, ones that would strengthen their abilities, it's possible to get these abilities by chance, but Geode-ing makes it certain. So I've concluded this is a Homeworld Gem Geode. But the thing is, is that we haven't been on this Earth long enough to even make good gems, I, as a Beryl, am a slave gem, so I take the least amount of work to be created. This is apparent from my garbage hair (I really want to cut it). I take only 10 days to be made. I've been graced though, because most Beryl's form in 5 days. I was cooked long enough to have a mind of my own. Regardless, no gem should even be able to have been created that's good enough to deserve gold as a garment, and don't get me even started on orange crystals.

Citrine sees how confused I am.

"Heh, watch this."

She defuses the pickaxe, and morphs it back to how it was supposed to be. A blade boomerang combination.

"I call it, a boomer blade"

"That's stupid. Call it a bladerang" I say.

"That's what I said."

"Uhhhh"

"Heh, hehe."

She giggles and throws the bladerang- which I named- at the wall. I didn't notice she had her goggles on. Probably something doing with night vision. The bladerang hit 3 crystals, and then a large thump, and everything lit up.

"There, now you can think in the light."

"Thanks..."

A large, chunk of orange crystal was being suspended by golden chains. The chains held the rock like a prisoner. She throws the bladerang again, and it hits the chains. They snap, and fall to the ground. I dash over, and start making sure the gem wasn't defected because of us. Citrine was about to do it again, and almost started hacking into it, but I stopped her. I took my axe from the bladerang, and the fan, and I hit the hilt of my axe onto the fan, which perfectly chiseled the crystal away. All to reveal was a weak, powerless gem, who was probably afraid to death of us-

"I'll- I'll kill you." She screamed.

She raised her hands, but to her dismay, they were covered in golden plaques, designed to restrain her.

Gems shouldn't be in their physical form when they geode. They should be retreated into their gem, since they can't put up a fight, unless...

"There's no need to hurt anyone, we just want to know who you are."

"If you don't know who I am, why would you free me?"

"Because we want freedom too."

"Why do I feel, different, then."

"What is your gem type?"

"Gem? I'm- I'm zinc, rare, but not in the good way."

"Well, now you are rare in the good way."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a Sphalerite. You've been upgraded."

"Wha?"

She realizes this, and starts to look at herself. She notices the use of orange crystals in the room, and the gold, which optimizes for this production.

"Can you break these cuffs off of me?"

She asked, begging.

I say no more words, and ready the axe, I cut the cuffs off in the middle, and they both disappear.

She raises her hands.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

The Melted Gold forms a small Pedestal in front of where we fell. We step on it. She lifts her hand higher, and the golden platform raises. We walk back through where we jumped through. She herself, boosted herself with the golden strings. The gold wrapped itself on her arms, creating bracelets, long enough to cover the forearm. We walked the rest, she didn't say anything without us asking her questions, but she avoided them. We questioned why she was there, then she asked why we were there, neither of us wanted to say "because we like to snoop on strangers and break stuff that we don't know what it does" so we kept quiet. She already knew, though, that that's what we're thinking.

"Hello, and I see you brought a little friend" spoke Agate.

"I hope it's a- "Emerald stopped in her tracks, followed by Citrine.

"Another one?" slumped Citrine. "We just caught a Beryl, now you want us to take care of a- a- "

"Sphalerite" I add.

"We have an open spot, plus, I engineered the door in case something like this happened." Emerald started

"What door?" I inquire.

"Follow" Emerald said.

She brings me to an arch, where there are 7 stones. 6 on the pillars, and 1 as the keystone. She walks closer to the arch. The arch seems to be a portal, it led from here to the inside of the Diamond Destroyer.

"The way it works, is that we each get our individual room, and instead of walking and having so far to go, we can just walk 5 inches through the gateway and bam, we're there. As of right now, I made it so my gem is linked to the door of the Diamond Destroyer. Once our rooms are made, then we're going to easily have our rooms be easily accessible. Now, do you have that Marble?"

I hand the chunk over to her, and she taps it with a stick that divides into two at the end. The chunk multiplies.

"Agate, if you can focus and use your fire powers- "

Sphalerite with one motion, pointing at the two with her middle and index finger, had made the rocks fuse together. The heat must've been so strong to get them to do that.

She flipped her hair and then gave a smile. Emerald was impressed. Emerald gave a smile that I've never seen her give someone before, the way she looks at Sphalerite...

"Well, then, let's discuss what we've done. What Beryl and Citrine have done is... apparent..., but Iolite, Emerald, and I have found the perfect area, under the river, now, what'll happen is, is that a small little platform will pop out of the water, and carry you down into the courtyard, which is surrounded by all the main parts of the temple. Now, Beryl, you're going to be mining. Which will take a good, uhhh, 300 days alone. So nothing too long."

"What if I fused."

"What?" said Emerald

"What if I fused with Citrine, then we could get it done twice as fast, if not, more. We could be super powerful."

"Go ahead" Emerald spoke softly.

"Are you ready?" I ask Citrine, we shuffle in a circle playfully.

"You know I am."

We reenact the dance from last time. Now, who are we?

"Hello there, I'm Amber" I hear us say. Me? I? Hmmm.

"Okay, this might be difficult, you see."

I grab the axe, and the bow, and I hit it together, now, it easily becomes a pickaxe. I break the bond between them. I retry, and now, I've rotated the boomerang to be a cone, and the blades on the axe wrap around to be a drill. I hold it up, and it becomes more like me. It switches to an orangey yellow color, and becomes massive. I take one look where I go, and then I jump at it, swinging the drill directly at it. As of now, I've hollowed out more than I needed to. Since I think very slowly, and recording what I say like Beryl does is very difficult. My wit is quick, though, and I can jump on a pun faster than ever. If I would stop having to dig on my knees, I could really do stand up. Get it? Whatever. I'm literally just talking to myself.

"There, I finished. I am NOT doing the masonry, though." I speak.

Emerald hits us in the gems. Which is odd, since we would've just voluntarily unfused. I can tell what would be Beryl's- You mean Mine? -Yes yours, now stop talking, how are you even conscious? As I was saying, my gem wasn't hit, Emerald went for Citrines, so I'm okay, I don't know about ME though. Normally we'd immediately unfuse, but why are we stuck like this? Oh. Wait. We are connected too much. We need to have controversial thoughts.

"Don't you just love Emerald?"

"Absolutely."

"Don't you miss home?"

"No, I hated that place."

"Do you have a shrine of Beryl?"

"Could you have not unfused any slower? Ouch!"

We immediately unfused after that, I guess just the mentioning of a shrine annoys her so much that she just has to be away from anyone who says it. Doesn't matter though, there are no hurt feelings. The rest of the team goes to work, while Citrine and I chill out on our bunks.

"Good work, Amber." Said Agate, checking in on us.

"Thanks" we say at the same time.

Day 121, 33 Days Since around 1:52 A.M.:

They finished it overnight. I was sleeping, and found myself on top of a very comfortable sofa, lying face first at an Entertainment Screen. I stood up, and turned around to see all the gems waiting for me and Citrine to wake up. Citrine was still asleep, and I was the first to wake up of the two of us. I sat silently by the others. Resting myself on the counter top of the bar. It was getting cold outside. I could feel the breeze swim through the open glass door. It was most definitely early in the morning; I saw tiny little pieces of frozen rain slowly drift down. It must be getting close to barren season. I lay my fingers onto Citrine, her cold face shivers in the darkness. I take off my over shirt, and rest it on her, she smiles in her sleep, and stops jittering about. I can tell she's content.

I walk up to the others, and motion my head to the Courtyard, Agate nods, and motions all of us to follow her to the courtyard. We open the door, and I hear Emerald excitedly announce our new Temple.

"Alright, so you were in the Living room, which is next to the Kitchen, and in between those is the room where the Arch is. "Emerald whispered, and somehow managed to almost be screaming.

I take no longer, and I strode to the arch, I walk up, tap my gem, and wait for it to recognize me. I find out that my symbol is on the keystone. The top lowers down a log, in a Vertical column. I easily take out my axe, and swing at it. It breaks the wood in half, and the wood enlarges into a door. I find this process very long. I kick open the door, and see it.

Part 2: The Room Where It Happened:

It was an empty room. It was all Black, and it was made by miniature hexagons. My words echoed along the walls, which is what I wanted to happen. Odd... The walls were moving, the tiles would move back and forth to create motion, the sound bounced off the tiles to create an echo effect. I loved this room. I just felt so delighted that, I could feel myself getting lighter, as if I was being lifted off the ground. Because I was. The tiles were literally supporting my weight and pushed me up higher and higher. I wondered what would happen if I spat out random words.

"A8AF11" I shouted. The room turned from black into a green-y yellow. A very disgusting yellow. Why would this happen? I didn't say anything too odd. Then I realize it. I said a color. That's the number of a color.

"FF0000" I shout; the walls turn from the gross yellow to a bright red. I was right. Why this format? Why not in RGB format? Emerald taught me a lot about color, how RGB formats work, how hex' work-

"THAT'S IT" I yell.

"You figured it out?" Emerald smirked.

"OF COURSE. THAT'S BRILLIANT!" I shouted back.

I was a bit high, so she couldn't hear me as well.

"8TA573" I told the room.

It turned red. It shouldn't have done that. It turned to around ughhh

"Why is it E0115F" I asked Emerald.

"I don't know, must be a bug."

Whatever. My gem was cracked; it probably isn't communicating right to the room. It's okay, coloring my room isn't top priority anyway. The hexagons faded into a cave, illuminated with crystals the same as the color before, now, this is what my actual room was. Crystals of Beryl lined up into pillars, creating a staircase. I welcome my new home.

"Thank you guys, so much" I say.

"No problem, now, let's see if Citrine's up, and then we can see all of ours."

We exit my room. I reflect on it. I'll probably make some adjustments. I mean, why would 8TA578 be equal to E0115F? I tried it the other way around, but E0115F Equals itself, no different. Must just be a Calculation Error. The cool breeze hushed all around us, since the frigid water was still pouring down from the river.

"How is the fountain not overflowing?" I ask, dumbfounded.

"There's a drain in the bottom, which leads to the top of the mountain, where the river starts." Whispers Emerald.

We look over Citrine, my shadow casts over Citrine, she immediately bolts up and punches me in the nose.

"OWWWWW" I shout, there's no more need to be quiet.

"DON'T BE LOOKING AT ME WHILE I SLEEP THEN, YOU CREEP"

"I WASN'T BEING A CREEP, I WAS CHECKING IN ON YOU, JERK"

"WELL THEN, I'M SORRY."

"ME TOO, IT DIDN'T EVEN HURT THAT BAD, I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOUTING"

"NEITHER DO I"

"Okay, ANYWAYS, follow." Emerald spoke, sharply.

She leads us back to the door, we see all the other gems rooms, but what fascinates me the most is Agate's. Her room reflects her being an accidental forced fusion, how her room has random jets of different colors, both pertaining to her red and blue characteristics, and waterfalls of both water and lava. It's very large, and I could see myself getting lost in here. I'd enjoy it though, there's so much to explore. Now that we toured the entire temple, besides the bubble room, we get to relax.

"I'm hungry" said Citrine.

"No you're not, you just like food." Said Emerald bitterly.

"Are you guys hungry? I could probably make something better than rations..." I speak up.

"Please, I'm absolutely starving." Spoke Sphalerite.

I open up the pantry, there's loads of foodstuffs in there.

"Alright, who literally traveled through time to get food in here?" I inquire

"Don't worry, we didn't break the space time continuum, we just made the pantry a portal to another pantry set for ~2000, It's located on the other side of the planet, so don't worry." Emerald assured.

I grab something which looks like biscuits, grab some pork from the fridge, and make giblets. From there, I add in different items, creating which I call biscuits and chompy chomped pork.

"Here's your biscuits and chompy chomped pork" I handed in to the countertop. Everyone took a plate, and rushed in.

"You know, that's a dumb name to give food. I like the biscuit and part, but chompy chomped pork? Come on." Citrine said.

"Well, you could take giblets and turn it into something else, groovy maybe?" added Iolite.

"I like that, biscuits and groovy, a part of your radical breakfast."

We all laughed at that, we seemed to have gotten along very well. Building a home together was definitely a step in the right direction.

We start moving in all our stuff, I'm moving Eta and her Flower Friends into my room, I feel like they'd be happier with me than in a Kitchen, looking at all the delicious Biscuits and Groovy that we've made. I picked up the pot, and started my way through the courtyard, when Citrine catches my attention.

"HEY YO MY HOME BERYL" Citrine shouts, in a stupid voice.

"SUP MY C-DOG" I shout, in an equally stupid voice.

"LOOK OUT FOR THE ARCH MY HECOBRO" she said, alarmed, in a stupider voice.

It was too late though, the Hectobro that was me couldn't escape the arms of the Arch as C-Dog warned. The pot glowed, and I tripped back into the arch.

All around me were lush flowers, seeming to overcome the world, it looked like a garden, something that a mother would build and tend to, it looked like a mother had cared for the garden, nurtured it, and raised it, everything was so well kept. The flowers were all in monochrome, all black gray and white, but there was something even more odd about this place. A hole was carefully cut in the middle, waiting for something to be grown. I feel a tickling at my fingers, Eta and her Flower Friends look and lean towards the middle. I walk around the room, seeing if the flowers follow the center, they do. I carefully depot the flowers, and put them in the middle, the second I cover up the openings, the room bursts into color. Everything has a bright and happy tone, and I can tell this is Eta's room. I was uncertain, but now I know it's for sure. I could see the leaves of Eta dance in the wind, it looked like she was waving, saying Thank you, I could tell she was. She was here in this room, thanking me.

I sit down next to her, and we talk.

"How are you?"

No answer.

"How is it like being a flower?"

No answer.

"If a bike were turned into a plant, would it have petals?"

No answer.

I look at Eta; I could tell she was tired. It's not hard telling what she's feeling, since I had to do this same thought process when she was around. She still glows though, with that same fiery burn of love.

"I have to go, I'll visit you, Eta, I have your fan." I say.

She waves, now that's an answer I can deal with.

I say goodbye to the spring environment behind me, and enter the harsh winter left in Achates.

Everyone is sitting on the couch, watching the Entertainment screen.

"You've rigged it so that it does the same thing as the Pantry, haven't you?"

"Shut up, Crying Breakfast Friends is on, and I need to know what Spilled Milk does when Bawling Bacon just disappears." Emerald hissed.

I sat down to watch, I'm not afraid to say that, but Spilled Milk made a memorial of Bawling Bacon, because Spilled Milk thought Bawling Bacon was dead, she wasn't though. Bawling bacon didn't die, it just seemed like they did.

"Why is this show so addicting?" I say, pulling out the Crying Breakfast Friends Movie.

"Shut up, the Premier of Unfamiliar Familiar is on" Iolite hushed.

I gave up, these guys were hooked on the TV, and I was stuck scrubbing Biscuits and Groovy off the plates. I didn't care much though; it was only 5 days until we go attack Homeworld.