"Yarbis, how's it going?" I said, sitting down and looking at the systems hologram.
"95%, sir," Yarbis said, monitoring an injector that was finishing assembly.
I nodded, staring at what I'd been planning—at least the main part of it.
"Looks like I'm gonna be perfect," I said with a smile, though deep down, I felt that lingering trace of fear that wouldn't let go of me. I stood up just as the injector finished assembling to head outside, where Perla and Zafiro were. They had started a campfire and were sitting there, looking half-distracted, playing with the fire.
As I sat down by the fire, I took a look at the two of them. Zafiro had that look like she wanted to say something, but at the same time, she felt like if she spoke, we'd look at her differently. I couldn't give less of a shit about that; I got comfortable, grabbed a piece of a log, and started "cooking" it in the embers. Little by little, I'm reconstructing my palate—something I want to achieve no matter what—even though I don't want to dissect a living being just yet... though speaking of which, I could easily do it for science at any moment.
My thoughts went out the window when Zafiro finally broke the silence.
"Hey," she finally said, making Perla and me look at her with an eyebrow raised.
Zafiro fidgeted with her hands, avoiding our eyes as the flames lit up her face.
"I don't know if it's right to tell you guys this now, but I really don't want there to be any distrust between us. You know, because of the ship that attacked us."
I nodded while continuing to burn the stick, focusing on the heat, while Perla looked at her with that curious dog face she always makes whenever there's a mystery. Zafiro looked at me for a moment, noticed I was calm, and that seemed to relax her a bit.
"Well, remember the Sapphire that was on the ship?" she asked.
"I didn't see her," Perla said, shaking her head, a little frustrated at having missed that detail.
"Well, Sílica can show you later. What matters is... she's an old acquaintance of mine."
She said it while gripping her hands tightly. For my part, I just raised an eyebrow while getting into a good position to listen to the gossip; if we were going to die because of one of Zafiro's exes, the least I deserved was to know the whole story.
"Well," Zafiro said, taking a breath to begin. "Once upon a time..."
Flashback:
On Homeworld, within the elite wing of the Diplomatic Gems, there wasn't a soul who didn't know the golden duo. They were two Sapphires, each with their own retinue of Rubies following them like shadows. They were perfect. Every vision they delivered to the Diamonds had one hundred percent accuracy; they weren't mere probabilities, they were absolute truths etched in time.
They were the best in their squadron, the most respected. If one said a rebellion would break out in sector four, sector four was burning before sunset. But there was one detail that drove the other gems crazy: when one of the two missed the mark, it was simply because the other was nearby. Their visions were so powerful that when they crossed paths, they created interference, as if destiny itself didn't know which of the two to obey.
"We were like two sides of the same coin," Zafiro continued, her voice heavy with melancholy. "Where I saw peace, she saw an opportunity for control. Where I saw order, she saw a way for personal gain. We were the best, Sílica. We were destined to lead the courts for eternity, but she started seeing things the Diamonds didn't approve of... she started seeing that the future couldn't just be predicted, it could be sold to the highest bidder."
Perla's mouth was wide open, processing that Zafiro's friend was basically an Empire legend who had gone mercenary. I, for my part, looked at my burnt stick.
"Wow, so your friend was a destiny hacker," I said, blowing on the ember. "That explains why that shit-eating grin gave me such bad vibes."
"That's not all," Zafiro said, shaking her head.
Flashback continued:
While both Sapphires got along well—because they really did—something happened that scarred them for life, something that was simply impossible at the time. In a room away from many gems, they were both sitting, one on each cushion. They were such good friends that they did things outside of what was expected of a Sapphire. They played, they had fun... of course, all out of the sight of the Empire, let alone the Rubies.
Zafiro let a small tear fall at that last part, but continued with her story. There was even a time when one of them said:
"Why don't we dance like we do in the Diamond's court?"
They both looked at each other with wide eyes as they started to dance with a smile. They felt the thrill of doing something outside the routine. It started out somewhat robotic, imperial style, but little by little they kept moving and moving into what in the end became something completely different. It was an emotion of such pure joy that they ended up pressed against each other. They were happy, and from that happiness... well.
A light enveloped them. A yellow Sapphire and a blue one combined, giving birth to a new Sapphire. The latter was in shock, but at the same time happy; neither of her parts wanted to separate. She tried to use her future vision, and when she did, it was simply magnificent. Not only could she see what was to come, but also the past with absolute clarity. It was an overwhelming wave of happiness.
"That was the first time I understood that the Diamonds' rules were a lie," Zafiro continued, staring intently at the campfire. "We were one, and for a few minutes, time held no secrets from us. We could see the origin of things and their end at the same time."
Perla was completely speechless, her hands on her cheeks. I tossed the log aside, forgetting for a second about my experiment with the palate. A fusion of two identical gems but of different colors... that was something that didn't even show up in my Yarbis archives as anything common.
"And what happened next?" I asked, breaking the trance. "I mean, I doubt the Diamonds gave you a medal for inventing a spiritual time machine."
Zafiro closed her eye, as if the glow of the campfire hurt.
"What happened was she never wanted to separate," Zafiro whispered. "She became obsessed with that power. Seeing the past gave her an ambition I didn't share. She didn't just want to predict destiny; she wanted to take revenge for things that had happened centuries ago."
"We saw things. Things we shouldn't have seen."
Zafiro looked me straight in the eyes, with an intensity that made me shift in my seat.
"When you told me we were going to Earth, I panicked. There, on Earth, was where Pink Diamond was shattered... it was where a goddess practically died."
Zafiro gritted her teeth, and for a moment, the air around the campfire turned freezing cold.
"And not only that. Fallen gems, rebel gems, and even normal gems were used, Sílica! They were used. Our future vision was so powerful... we saw how the Empire used gem shards to make a geo-weapon. Do you think that's a good thing?"
Zafiro started to cry. Perla, with that emotional agility of hers, jumped up quickly to comfort and hug her while I sat there thinking. Apparently, as always, future vision is guided by what the wielder knows; she doesn't know that Pink Diamond is actually Rose Quartz, so her "absolute truth" isn't all that reliable, though I admit having a power like that is pretty badass.
"So," I said as she calmed down a bit, "what happened to make you split up?"
Zafiro fell silent for a long time while Perla stroked her hair.
"We escaped, but not normally. We escaped fused. We took all our Rubies, our entire fleet with us."
Zafiro clenched her jaw, remembering the weight of that giant form.
"I let myself get carried away by the power. Being fused with someone just like you... it felt glorious. It wasn't like being Sodalite, Sílica. It was like being a magnified version of my own ego. We had total control over every variable, every atom in our path. The power was so intoxicating that I forgot the Rubies following us were people, not pawns."
Zafiro shut her eye tight, reliving the moment.
"My greed to maintain that perfect vision made me ignore what was right in front of me. One of our Rubies, the one who always made me laugh, noticed something was wrong with the engines. I saw it in the future—I saw an accident was going to happen—but I was so blinded by the power of the fusion that I decided her sacrifice was 'necessary' for us to make it further. I let it happen. I watched her get shattered right in front of my eyes while I just kept smiling, basking in the omnipotence of being a double Sapphire."
Zafiro's crying became more bitter.
"In that moment, the connection broke. My own consciousness disgusted me. I realized the power was turning me into the exact same thing as the Diamonds: a monster that sees others as tools. I broke the fusion right in the middle of the escape. She... she went mad with rage. She wanted to claw that glory back; she wanted to keep being that goddess who saw everything. We fought, the fleet split, and we hadn't seen each other since... until today."
Perla hugged her tighter. I looked at my burnt stick, now turned to ash. Damn, the gossip turned out to be a Greek tragedy.
"So now she's looking for you to get that power trip back," I murmured. "Well, tell her from me that if she wants to fuse again, she's gonna have to go through me."
Though I'd shake my head after saying that since I sounded way too much like a shonen protagonist, I was surprised to see Zafiro looking at me with a radiant smile despite her tears.
"SÍLICA!" she screamed as she suddenly lunged at me.
"Holy shit!" I yelled as I got tackled by a furious—or rather, overwhelmingly emotional—Sapphire. The impact sent me straight to the ground.
Perla just stood there with a "watafak" face, processing the sudden attack of affection, but I wasn't gonna leave her out.
"Get over here," I said, stretching out my arm and grabbing Perla's leg. She let out a surprised shriek but ended up tumbling down with us. In the end, the three of us hugged right there, tangled up next to the remains of the campfire.
We spent several minutes like that, holding each other. Zafiro was crying out of pure joy from feeling understood, while Perla, for some reason only she understands, started crying just because the rest of us were crying. Jesus, Pearls and their emotional emotions are a whole piece of work.
After a while, when the mood had calmed down, I left them set up with a game of Minecraft that I'd replicated on one of the terminals. Yeah, I replicated it, so what? I was bored, okay? Watching a Pearl and a Sapphire try to figure out how to mine stone was better than any other distraction.
I walked into the ship in silence, leaving the sound of virtual blocks behind, and stood in front of the main console. I looked at the hologram glowing bright green.
"Injector 100%, ready for use."
A smile crept onto my face as I stared at the device. I was scared, yeah, but scientific curiosity and the need to get stronger won by a landslide. It was time to see what this new body was capable of.
End of Chapter 23.