"Power and storage at 200%. Gem is in mint condition, ready for extraction. Insufficient minerals to proceed," Yarbis announced. His signature robotic voice now echoed through the cave with surgical precision.
Exactly 365 days had passed since Silica first entered the injector. Her gem was intact, but it bore clear signs of a radical upgrade—it glowed with a new intensity, and its molecular weight had skyrocketed. The injector slowly began to draw back its stinger, revealing the flawless, pristine gem at its center. It looked cleaner than ever.
Suddenly, the machine released a cryogenic liquid solution to keep the gem dormant during the final phase. The mechanical arm carefully lowered it onto the platform.
"Gem in sight. No fractures detected. Possible delay in regeneration due to a sharp increase in mineral density. Awaiting results," Yarbis reported.
After a few tense minutes, the gem began to emit a light. It wasn't the usual white glow, but a deeper, more beautiful, and pure radiance.
***Silica's Mind:***
*"How much time... passed? A while, I guess. Honestly, I lost track of the hours in there, but whatever,"* I thought with an inner smile. Out of nowhere, a violent yank snapped me from a deep sleep to being wide awake. I felt the open air hit my gem for the first time in a year.
I took my time. No need to rush. I optimized my light form, making it bigger, stronger. It was a bizarre but incredible feeling; I felt powerful. I took the opportunity to redesign my outfit, stripping away any trace of Empire aesthetics. I wanted something that screamed evolution.
Finally, I opened my eyes. My senses came rushing back all at once. I looked around the four walls of the chamber where I had locked myself away... how long ago?
My eyes landed on the main monitor. *One year.*
The time elapsed caught me off guard, but I ended up nodding to myself. It was longer than expected, but the results were worth it. I stood up and stretched out. It felt like I hadn't stretched in ages, and my new light-based joints responded with a surge of power that gave me goosebumps.
With a simple gesture, I shut down every system in the lab, watching the anchoring tech retract and seal away inside my gem. My hands... were different. I examined them closely; they were larger, sleeker, and carried a physical presence they lacked before. I grabbed my robotic parts—the things that made me "me"—and adjusted them to fit my new form before storing the rest of the heavy gear inside my gem.
With a fluid motion of my floating fingers, I swiped open the holographic panel in front of me.
"Yarbis, status report. Now," I ordered, heading toward the exit.
"Sir, the process was... aggressive," Yarbis's voice sounded crisp, almost vibrant through my new auditory channels. "To make up for the lack of rare minerals in the surface crust, the injector expanded its suction radius to unprecedented levels. It pulled massive amounts of silicate deposits and biotic energy to stabilize your gem's new density. Your current molecular structure is 98% denser than a standard elite gem."
The moment I stepped past the cave's threshold, I froze. I went dead silent, completely breathless from the shock.
Where a vibrant, purple alien jungle with lush vegetation used to be, there was now nothing. A gray wasteland stretched out as far as the eye could see. Not a blade of grass, not an insect, not a single drop of moisture remained. The ground was cracked, dead, turned into a fine dust that the wind whipped into silent swirling clouds.
"Bio-exclusion zone radius: 1.5 kilometers," Yarbis continued emotionlessly. "The planet attempted to self-regulate, but your gem's demand outpaced the local ecosystem's renewal capacity. Basically, sir, you drained the life out of this region to wake up like this."
I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of my new existence. I wasn't just stronger; I was a black hole that had devoured a piece of a world.
"Furthermore," Yarbis added, switching the screens to a flashing red, "the residual energy pulse from the extraction was so powerful it acted as a beacon. The Rogue Sapphire and her fleet no longer need trackers. They are less than three minutes from your current position. I recommend initiating combat protocols... or immediate evacuation."
I slammed the panel shut. The shock quickly hardened into cold determination. If this planet had died to give me this power, the least I could do was make sure it didn't go to waste.
—
"Pearl, move!" Sapphire barked as both of them scrambled to equip whatever weapons they could grab.
The enemy ships were closing in. While they weren't technically Empire ships, the danger was exactly the same. Thanks to one of Sapphire's visions, they were already prepared, though Pearl couldn't stop pacing and worrying. "Where is Silica?" she muttered. Out of nowhere, a massive ship hovered directly above them, descending slowly. Its armor had clearly received some heavy upgrades.
The hatch hissed open with a metallic screech. Pearl and Sapphire raised their weapons at the entrance, dead serious. First, a battalion of at least thirty Rubies marched down, flanking the ramp. Behind them emerged a Blue Sapphire with a smug grin, wielding a high-output energy weapon. An uncomfortable silence settled over the area.
"So, Sapph..." the Blue Sapphire said, breaking the ice with a mocking smile. "Done with your little tantrum yet? It's just a phase, you know. How about you fuse back with me?"
Our Sapphire didn't say a word, but her body visibly tensed.
"Pfft, I knew it," the intruder sneered, her eyes dripping with contempt. "Too bad. I can always just force you. Remember how hard it was for you to try and unfuse from me last time?" Her smile turned ruthless. "I'll force you to be a part of me for eternity. Attack!"
The Rubies, though visibly unnerved by the strange aura of the area, obeyed the command and charged forward. Without another word, Pearl and Sapphire opened fire.
The battle was a total slaughter. Pearl and Sapphire were completely surrounded by the thirty Rubies, while the Blue Sapphire mocked them from her ship's ramp, miles away from where Silica had conducted her experiment.
"I told you it was useless, Sapph!" the Blue Sapphire yelled, watching the Mega-Ruby raise its fist to crush Pearl, who was shielding our injured Sapphire amidst the splintered wood of their virtual home.
Pearl closed her eyes, bracing for impact. But the blow never came.
Miles away, in front of the cave where the earth lay dead and gray, I finished adjusting my parts. Yarbis brought up a visual interface, showing me the feed from the remote cameras near the ship.
"Sir, arrival time on foot is 4 minutes at maximum output. Pearl and Sapphire's vitals are reaching critical levels," Yarbis reported.
"I'm not going on foot," I said, my voice vibrating with a powerful new resonance.
I fired up my boot thrusters, but not to run. With my new mass density and my pack's energy core sitting at 200%, the ground beneath me sank two feet from the sheer pressure.
"Initiating assisted jump propulsion," Yarbis announced.
A sharp, deafening screech—like a missile breaking the sound barrier—ripped through the FanganZ air. Seconds later, a projectile of cyan light slammed directly into the Mega-Ruby's chest. The impact was so brutal that the five-Ruby fusion shattered instantly, sending all five gems flying in opposite directions, completely destabilized.
The impact crater kicked up a massive curtain of gray dust that blanketed the entire area. The Blue Sapphire shielded her face, coughing violently.
"What... what the hell was that?!" she stammered, staring into the center of the crater.
As the dust settled, they didn't see a weapon—they saw a person. I stood there, tall and erect, towering over any elite gem. My outfit crackled with static light, and my floating fingers were already deploying combat holograms.
Pearl and Sapphire stared up at me from the ground, jaws dropped. I had been miles away just a second ago, and now I was here, looking like something that shouldn't even exist.
"Sorry I'm late," I said, glancing sideways at my comrades before locking eyes with the Blue Sapphire. "I was busy optimizing my new form."
The Blue Sapphire tried to raise her heavy weapon, but my sheer presence seemed to glitch her systems. The air around my body vibrated with so much energy that the gray dust literally repelled away from me.
"A-attack!" she shrieked at the remaining Rubies, but none of them moved. The fear they felt before was because of Blue Sapphire; the fear they felt now was primal, instinctive—like standing in front of a force of nature.
"Yarbis, jam their ship's communications," I ordered coldly. "Nobody leaves this sector until I say so."
"Right away, General Tablos," Yarbis replied. Instantly, my ship's lights stained the desert blood-red as the enemy ship's hatches sealed shut with a metallic boom.
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The Blue Sapphire tried to pull herself together, but her face betrayed deep doubt. *What is this pressure?* she wondered, recognizing that heavy weight in the air that only absolute elite gems projected. She stared intently at Silica. *A Silica? Aren't they extinct?* She shook her head, trying to ignore what her senses were screaming at her.
I turned toward Pearl and Sapphire, who were barely picking themselves up.
"What are you waiting for?!" the Blue Sapphire roared, completely losing her temper. "I don't care about the rest, I just want my Sapphire!"
At her command, the thirty Rubies piled onto each other in a desperate, frantic synchronization. The flash of the fusion was blinding, and from it emerged an endless mass of muscle and crimson heat. It was a colossus—a Super Ruby on a scale that defied logic.
My eyes widened. Maintaining that kind of stability was insane. I rushed over to Pearl and Sapphire.
"We need to fuse, now!" I barked, stepping between them.
Sapphire nodded, swallowing hard. "Okay."
"Ready?"
I felt the spark. The connection with Pearl was elegant, like a dance step I already knew by heart, while Sapphire's came in like an anchor of pure serenity. Light enveloped us, expanding until our new form reached a towering height, standing almost eye-to-eye with the crimson giant.
The Blue Sapphire, now looking tiny perched on the Super Ruby's shoulder, glared at us with pure envy and disgust.
"So you'll fuse with them but not me? Hypocrite," she spat with a sneer.
Our fusion, **Sardonyx**, didn't even deign to respond. Her posture was erect, elegant, but carried a bone-chilling seriousness. She had four arms that moved with an almost liquid fluidity, and a design that blended the sophistication of a high-ranking gem with the rugged build of a warrior.
"Attack," Blue Sapphire ordered.
The Super Ruby threw a punch that whistled through the air, but Sardonyx didn't even blink. With astonishing flexibility, she arched her torso back, letting the fist miss her by millimeters, then spun like a ballet dancer, delivering a sidekick that sent the colossus stumbling back.
The fight was a dance of contrasts: brute force versus lethal elegance. Every time the Super Ruby tried to grab her, our fusion slipped away with impossible movements, countering with precise strikes that rattled the giant's physical form.
"It's time to end this," our fusion said, her voice a perfect, stern harmony.
She clenched her four fists and summoned Silica's original weapon from her gem. The **Gravity Boots and Gauntlets** materialized on her limbs, but they looked different now—the metal was sleeker, etched with engravings that glowed a deep cyan, radiating an energy so intense the ground cracked just by her standing near it.
Sardonyx launched herself. Thanks to the boots, her speed was so extreme she practically vanished, reappearing right above the Super Ruby's head. With her two upper arms, she pinned the giant's arms, and with her lower two, she charged her gauntlets to maximum capacity.
The finishing blow was a four-way impact. The boots slammed into the colossus's shoulders while the gauntlets discharged a wave of pure gravitational pressure directly into its core. An invisible shockwave ripped across the gray wasteland.
The Super Ruby couldn't hold it together. Her physical form shattered into a thousand shards of light, and the thirty Rubies went flying in all directions, poofed and exhausted. Sardonyx landed with flawless grace, barely kicking up a speck of dust, while the Blue Sapphire hit the ground, trembling before the towering figure looming over her.
We quickly unfused. The separation felt clean, but the echo of power still hummed in my hands. I left Pearl next to Sapphire and, wasting no time, headed toward the rubies scattered across the gray dirt. Thanks to my optimization, I didn't even have to think about it; my floating fingers traced patterns in the air, and almost by instinct, I generated energy bubbles that encased every single one of the thirty Rubies. I stored them in my gem immediately to secure the perimeter.
As I finished, Sapphire walked up to her former partner, who was barely managing to push herself up.
"Are you sure you want it to end like this?" our Sapphire asked, her voice cracking with deep sorrow.
The Blue Sapphire didn't answer. She just glared at her with blind rage, breathing heavily. Pearl didn't lower her guard, keeping her weapon trained directly on the intruder while Sapphire, forcing the words out, gave her one last chance.
"Are you absolutely sure about this?"
"If I can't have you, nobody will," the Blue Sapphire declared with a chilling madness.
She began to materialize a small but lethal weapon from her gem, but before she could finish the motion, a sharp, deafening crack cut through the air. The blast echoed through the dead valley.
The Blue Sapphire froze. She looked down slowly at her chest, staring at the energy hole puncturing right through her. Her movements locked up, and she began to collapse. Before hitting the ground, she gave our Sapphire one final look... a look filled with infinite sadness and, perhaps, a bittersweet regret.
*Poof!*
The gem dropped onto the soil with a metallic clink, surrounded by a small cloud of white smoke.
I walked over to them. Sapphire was weeping silently, her shoulders slumped, while the blue gem lay inert in the dust. I approached it and, with a gentle flick, encased it in a bubble. I looked at Sapphire; her face was a painful mix of resentment and guilt.
"Do you want to carry her?" I asked softly.
Sapphire looked at me for a few seconds, wiping away a tear, and shook her head.
"No, I've had enough. You take her... I don't want to do something stupid," she said, letting out a bitter little chuckle that hurt worse than her crying.
I stored the bubble in my gem and sat down on the ground, pulling up my floating finger panels to check the ship's status and Yarbis's systems. Pearl moved closer to comfort Sapphire, but suddenly, both of them turned to me. Pearl wrapped her arms around me, and Sapphire joined in, leaving me as the "filling" of an emotional sandwich while they let out their grief.
It was weird. I didn't feel those intense human impulses I used to. I wondered if it was because of the extreme optimization—if before, my feelings were just the byproduct of being a "defective" gem, and now that I was perfect, I was colder. It felt efficient, but at the same time, the mood made me a little sad.
I squeezed them back tightly, shielding them, while my eyes stayed glued to the holographic navigation maps. There was nothing left for us on this dead planet.
Our next destination was clear: **Earth.**
**END OF CHAPTER 25**