tushanshu_logs | What's a king bowing to a dark god?

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What's a king bowing to a dark god?

Characters: Gene, Jackie, Deon, Peridot, and yooouuuu!
Date: Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! And all the other May days aside.
Location: Keeliai and Tavimbi
Situation: The Struggle
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as they arise.

A. [Gene] throughout Keeliai | past the first week of May onwards | open
Gene is continuing to be his political self, gladhanding among the kedan and putting his unique skills of gang interaction to use to put together the nascent police force. But when he thinks nobody's watching, he looks pensive - especially over tea in one of the many teahouses, which he seems to frequent more often of late. Better than alcohol, at least?

B. [Jackie] the Golden Koi | throughout May | open
After the attack last month, Jackie doesn't go anywhere without someone else. The rogue Snakes aren't going to attack him unless he's alone. But at least his bar seems to be doing decent business, even if he's still operating at a loss for now. That part's worrying him. But he tries not to let it show, even to Leo.

C. [Peridot] Keeliai and Tavimbi | throughout May | open
Peridot, meanwhile, is continuing to scavenge. She wants to rebuild her limb enhancers, or something like them, after her talk with Bisi...and maybe something nice for Shay. She's haggling with merchants and, due to her short temper, often getting very annoyed. There's something amusing about a tiny green dorito getting mad at someone twice her size.

D. [Deon] the College | throughout May | open
The College is a safe zone for Deon, who's still wary of working on any pet projects at Stark Industries. Tetravaal had made him too leery of that. He can often be found in one of the labs, working on a design for a robot, or hand-writing some code to make sure he's got it right.

E. [Gene] House Spicy Iron Dragon | late April-first week of May | closed to Tony and Pepper
Gene has decided to live as a bed from now on.

Zhang's arrival had really shaken him up. What he'd done to Zhang had shaken him up more, when he'd had the chance to think about it instead of acting in anger. When he's not living as a bed, he's building a little stone shrine in the back garden where he's buried the extra purple ring and set up the framed photograph of his mother, and when it's done, sitting in front of it, burning incense and thinking.

F. [Jackie] the Dojo | early May | closed to Brigid
Jackie had said he'd wanted to learn Krav Maga from Brigid, and he'd gotten the chance to get some floor time from Valdis, when not too many people would be around to watch her wipe the floor with him.

He smiles at her when she walks in. "You ready?"

G. [Deon] the Hotel | early May | closed to Vincent
There was one thing that Deon had to do to make sure he and Vincent were on the level: namely, return the laptop he had found. It was Vincent's laptop, after all. He knocks on the door, the laptop tucked under his arm. "Vincent?"

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Tektite adored wandering the streets of Keeliai, every district different and there was so much color! It was a bit too bright for her tastes, but she'd endure the pounding headache for the chance to be out and about. Not to mention, free! She was free to spend as much time as she wanted, making her way around, only mildly worrying the locals. Her swaying tail only hit people on occasion.

There was always a lot of noise during the day, the tram, the talking, the haggling, the movement of so many through the city. Ah, it was a nice change from where she usually had to skulk. Mmm, speaking of noise, an argument? Not something uncommon around groupings of vendors, but she was curious all the same.

Tektite jumped with excitement at spotting the small, angry, and very green Gem. She'd seen a few peridots around the last warp pad she'd been sent on, doing maintenance of some sort. They'd had tools and such but perhaps her enhancers had broken on the trip here? Tektite didn't care, a technician of Peridot's rank wasn't going to be able to do much to her and it was another Gem!

Without much regard for whatever Peridot was arguing about, she bounded forward and skidded to a halt just in range to bump the small Gem with her snout.

"I was hoping there would be more of us here!" she cried out in a voice that was just atrocious to listen to. Too rough and too loud! But she was excited and didn't care.

Edited 2016-05-07 08:47 (UTC)

The bump made Peridot turn, and she found herself nose-to-nose with...something.

She squinted at the creature. Voice too abrasive and loud, animalistic rather than humanoid, and definitely not a Gem. Gems didn't look like that. Gems didn't talk like that. Gems weren't like that, period.

"I believe you are mistaken," she said snottily - no mean feet, with a creature's nose in her face. "I am a Gem, not...whatever you are."

"Oh is that so?" Tektite laughed, a gravely, horrible sound a bit like a choking dog. And with a little poof of magic, she was the same size as the little green Gem. She couldn't hold this transformation for long, but she couldn't resist turning into a grayscale mirror of the tiny Peridot, complete with black, triangular Gem on her forehead.

Her hair was messier and eyes wilder, but she knew what she was doing!

"How about now? Look about right?"

Peridot took a step back. This shapeshifting creature - no, this Gem, because it had to be a Gem, as much as Peridot hated to admit it - was deeply and severely unsettling.

"That doesn't look anything like me, but you've made your point," she said, trying to keep her voice level. "What kind of Gem are you? I've never seen your variety before."

Certainly not a Pearl. And which Diamond would employ such a hideous beast?

Tektite laughed again, holding the transformation for a bit longer. It was a novelty to have the chance to turn into another Gem. She had little practical reason to do so, but teasing a tiny technician was more than worth the effort.

"Tektite, culled variety from sector 36. Fusion Weapon 009," she rattled off. All of this was technically classified information but Tektite didn't care. If her master got in trouble, all the better!"You know, this is only the second time I've seen a peridot like you. The one I know is a lot darker in color. Older cut I think."

Left out was that, well, she didn't get the chance to see many other Gems that she wasn't tasked to hunt down. Best that Peridot didn't know that.

Peridot eyeballed the strange Gem, still deeply unsettled by the shapeshift and the fact that the Gem existed in the first place. Fusion Weapon? Like the terrifying, monstrous Crystal Gem!

"Peridot, Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG," she said in response. Only one other Peridot? They were relatively common technicians on Homeworld.

Tektite took a step back before reverting to her usual form. She shook herself, it was quite something to go from as huge as she was to as small as Peridot and then back! And speaking of huge- Tektite lowered herself down onto the ground, trying to be polite. Even laying down her head was higher than Peridot's. She was just that stinking big, but she was trying!

"Mmm," she said in reply, as if any of that meant anything to her. It did, in a way, but she still didn't have much to work with. Newer cuts and facets were a mystery to her, she hadn't been let out to meet anyone outside the facility in a while. "Were you sent here? I haven't figured out how I got here still."

Yeah - Tektite's true form was still incredibly off-putting. Peridot tried not to show it. Her stoic face didn't work too well, unfortunately, but at least the monstrous Gem seemed to be attempting to put her at her ease. Even if she could quite easily chew and swallow Peridot's gem don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it.

"...I wasn't sent here," she finally admitted, a bit grudgingly. "I regenerated here. I was poofed in battle." Against a terrifying Fusion Weapon!

"I suppose you arrived much the same way. The organic beings 'wake up' here with these." She points to the peridot pendant she's wearing. "It's called a 'soul gem'."

Tektite wasn't overly bothered by the failed stoicism. She didn't expect any Gem to take her appearance well, especially not a technician. The forever pissed off peridot of her facility was never around long if Tektite was out of her pit.

"Regenerated here..." Tektite tapped the ground with a claw as she thought. "I arrived without losing my form. I was in the middle of traveling via warp pad when I landed from, mmm, about twenty feet up. I assumed this was just a malfunction. That doesn't make sense if you arrived like you did, interesting."

Seems Gems were not exempt from the usual method of arriving on the turtle: completely by chance!

"Wait, battle?" Tektite blinked huge, wild eyes at her. "What battle was a technician involved in?"

Peridot crossed her arms. "I was trying to get the Galaxy Warp on Earth repaired when I was ambushed." Well, technically true, from her standpoint. "It took three of them to take me down, including a fusion."

She squints a little at Tektite. "Have you heard of the rogue faction led by Rose Quartz? The so-called Crystal Gems?"

"I see, you are quite formidable." To Tektite's credit, she didn't laugh. She had a feeling there was a lot of "technically"s involved in that situation. A technician with enhancers could do damage, sure, but she doubted they would send a peridot for a combat mission. Especially not to fight against rogue Gems.

That was Tektite's job and she did it well.

"The Crystal Gems? No. I didn't ask much about the various factions of Gems of any world I was sent to. I do not believe I've been on any 'Earth' before." She didn't want to remember the Gems she killed, that never made for fun memories. "Are they who attacked you?"

Peridot puffed out her narrow chest. Yeah she is!

"Yes. They attacked me when I was trying to get back to Homeworld. They were likely going to shatter me before I ended up here. They're ruthless. They have a pearl who fights," Peridot says, sounding frightened, because that's the worst and scariest thing - a decorative servant turned warrior. That'd turn Homeworld upside down.

Tektite forgot, sometimes, how sheltered the average Homeworld Gem was. How easily frightened they were by something not acting like it should. She regularly forgot how to interact in any normal fashion herself, so she really didn't feel like being judgemental about it. The giant dog-best who was afraid of white tiled flooring was not allowed to pick who was afraid of what!

"Oh there are other pearls that fight?" Tektite asked with mild surprise under all the gravel of her voice. "I know one, a defective one I suppose. She has a knife longer than my claws. I'm not really sure what for but she is quite a force, I've heard. That's the only pearl I've actually met, now I think of it. Mmm, still. A pearl in combat, I imagine that was quite frightening to deal with, how did you cope?"

"Another pearl with a knife like that?" Peridot stole a glance at Tektite's claws and shuddered. "How do you know a Gem like that?"

Peridot frowned. "I tried to fight her off. I did a good job, too, until the fusion got me."

Tektite did laugh that time. "Yes fusions are good for that." Privately, Tektite wasn't very impressed with this group already. They needed three of them, one of them a fusion, to get to a singular Gem? Maybe if Peridot was a big quartz...

"You didn't even want to believe I was a Gem when you saw me," Tektite continued. "There are uses for Gems like me and her. I believe the official reasoning behind her continued existence is that she makes for a good experiment. I wouldn't know the truth, it wasn't supplied to me."

Peridot frowned. Well, she wasn't averse to a good experiment, clearly. She'd done a fair few forced shard fusions in her time.

"Yes, well," she said, trying to compose herself. "Good experiments have their uses. That's why I was sent to Earth. To check on something top-secret."

Oh really now? Tektite cocked her head to the side, showing more innocent interest than she felt. She was curious, no doubt about that, but was growing more mistrusting as this conversation went on. Not necessarily of Peridot; a low ranking Gem doing what she was told was less her concern than what her orders were. Peridot was hardly a threat to her.

"Indeed they do," said the experiment to the technician. "Well Homeworld is not watching us and no one cares what I do or do not know, so what is this secret? I can even supply some top secret information in return, if you wish."

Not that Tektite hadn't already. Her existence wasn't even supposed to be known to the average Gem, but that was another thing Peridot didn't need to know unless Tektite found it useful for her to know.

Edited 2016-05-31 02:01 (UTC)

Peridot actually gave that offer some serious consideration. The blind loyalty to her Diamond was warring with her desire to learn more information...to report to Yellow Diamond.

Curiosity won. "Come on," she said, leading Tektite away from the organic beings.

"Have you ever heard of...the Cluster?"

Oh if Peridot only knew who had ordered that fortunate pietersite to be killed... Not that Tektite cared who Peridot reported anything to. If Tektite was to be stuck here she wouldn't be in reach of her master. If Peridot ever made her way back to Homeworld and reported things that would lead back to said master, well, that would be all the better! It wouldn't take much to make Chalcanthite expendable.

Tektite followed without complaint, her head lowered to hear the little Gem better.

"The 'Cluster'? I have not heard of it, no. I am usually not informed of things that happen outside my facility." Or what happened in it, that she heard second hand, but that wasn't the point.

Peridot smirked a little. "That's why it's a secret. It's a fusion weapon made out of shards of those shattered in the war on Earth, incubating in the planet's core until it bursts out. It's going to be the most powerful weapon the Diamond Authority has ever seen!"

Other than a brief twitch of her muzzle, Tektite managed to contain her reaction. She pushed the horror at the idea aside, she couldn't think about that now. She knew she shouldn't be surprised what terrible lengths Homeworld would go to to contain rebellions or anything that threatened them. Was she not an example of that?

Tektite huffed as if amazed and cocked her head to the side. "I really am kept out of the loop," she said, the gravel devouring whatever emotion had leaked into her voice. "That is quite the dramatic waste of a planet, they have no intentions of claiming it?"

Peridot sniffed. "I'm not privy to Yellow Diamond's reasoning for it. Perhaps it was too resource-poor to use as a good colony."

A lie - Peridot knew it was due to Rose Quartz's rebellion. Still, she didn't see a reason to share it with Tektite...yet.

"I see, I see." Tektite smelled a lie but didn't care enough to push the matter. She could well be wrong, Peridot wasn't exactly high ranked. "Now what would a peridot care to know about research facilities that just aren't talked about? Or fusion weapons that have existed quite some time before this Cluster you're dealing with?"

Peridot squinted at Tektite. "First of all, which Diamond is responsible for your research facility?"

Certainly not Yellow Diamond. She was too logical to keep it a secret.

Tektite laughed. That was a smart question to ask.

"Technically Yellow." Oops. "How much of what happens there is reported? I can't be sure. It's not always Yellow Diamond that orders use of my talents."

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peridiot - 2016-06-06 01:24 (UTC) - Expand

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tektite - 2016-06-06 02:07 (UTC) - Expand

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