"Can you teach me how to fight?" Rose queried, looking at Spinel and Citrine. "I...know I can't summon my weapon, but there has to be something I can do to fight. Anything." The more she watched the others learn, the more she started to feel just a tiny bit useless. All she'd had before was a rock, and now she didn't even have that. And knowing Almandine, she would be fuming, and wanting to do something to come after Rose and the others. And if she showed up....Rose shivered thinking about it. Almandine's weapon was an electroshock baton, and Rose knew from experience that it hurt. "...What would you do against an electroshock baton?"
"You know, Melo, you don't just have to be a fighter. But you don't have to be bait either." She showed the Pearl her flute, smiling. "I can use this as a weapon if I really need to, but I mostly just use it to make music. I wonder what else you could do with those bells."
Citrine looked at Rose, startled, then understanding dawned and she nodded, concentrated a moment and drew out a chipped crystal rod from her gem. It had been her own practice weapon, before she could summon her mace. She opened her eyes again, giving the Pearl a serious look. "No offence, Rose, but if you've got bad experiences then I don't wanna be coming at you to disarm you unless you're absolutely sure you can stand it." "I'm no good at explaining stuff like that with just words, and it might be better if you see it from the outside, first." she frowned, then looked around. "Anyone else willing to be a volunteer? I'll be as gentle as I can, and it's just to show the motions."
Lavender had been listening to the talk about weapons and was suddenly absolutely sure that... well Chiaroscuro had been able to draw a weapon but that was all Gray. She was probably useless. And she didn't even particularly care to learn to fight, not when fighting got people she cared about hurt, hurt as badly as Blue and... O-oh Citrine wanted help with a demonstration. W-well she could be good for that at least. "I-i can do it!" she said, voice small.
Citrine looked at her seriously, but Lavender seemed certain enough, even for her stammer. She handed her the rod, then showed her how to stand, placing her own feet wide and bending her knees slightly. "Stand like this, okay? And hold your arm out, straight as you can. Is it cool if I touch you?" She'd never asked anyone if it was okay to handle them, but then she'd never played combat instructor to a flock of rebel Pearls, either. She knew that people treated Pearls like things all the time - you would never never just reach out and grab the gem of an incorporated equal, but she'd seen crueler owners do just that to people like Lavender and Rose and the rest. It made her mad, and it made her determined to do better.
Lavender anxiously held onto the... the thing and nodded shakily. She was going to help. She was going to be useful. "A-ah..." Her hands and feet felt... static-y. Not quite there. She swallowed, her eyebrows knitted with determination. "I-i'm feeling a bit... L-like I m-might poof... B-but I c-can do this!"
"Well, if you're sure..." Citrine said, a little doubtfully. Then, seeing how determined Lavender was - the same courage that had made her snatch Rose's gem right out from under a Diamond's nose - she nodded, and smiled a bit to boost them both. "If you poof I'll carry you around in my belt until you feel okay enough to come back, yeah?" Quartzes and geodes, and all that. It was important for Rose to see that such a weapon could be avoided, and if Lavender was willing... "Okay, brace yourself." She ducked low, and directed an extremely slow, gentle blow towards Lavender's midriff.
Lavender shakily smiled back at Citrine but then she was suddenly gone and oh, oh no... The blow didn't hurt but it startled her badly and she made a surprised little squeak. A shiver ran all over her, she let go of the weapon without meaning to... oh because her hands had started phasing through... Lavender poofed, the look on her face before disappearing almost more embarrassed than scared. Somehow she had a feeling she would take a while to get her bearings back. Maybe it was time for a more thorough re-examination of her physical form. Yeah.
"The main advantage of a long weapon is reach," Spinel says to Rita, gesturing at the trident. "Which is a natural advantage for Pearls, anyway, since most of you are tall and thin. That's one of the reasons Quartzes are dangerous to smaller gems like us - it's not just about weight. They can hit us before we even get within range to hit them back. This - " She reaches up and taps a knuckle on the shaft of the trident. " - will help compensate for that advantage a great deal."
"But you guys can poof us like its nothing," Rita said frowning. "Even if I can get a good shot in before they get a shot at me their shot is gonna do a lot more damage." She shook her head and the trident disappeared in her hands. "S-sorry." She said as she attempted to pull another trident from her gem, succeeding after grasping at air for a few seconds. "I didn't mean to question you."
"That's the result of training and experience," Spinel says, "and nothing you can't learn in time. And you're forgetting the other part of fighting, which is not letting them hit you." She shakes her head slightly as Rita summons the second trident. "Don't apologize for thinking. I'd rather have you question me all solar cycle than have you broken because you didn't use your thoughts."
Gray had made her way back to the cockpit, completely lost in thought about the little ship and its capabilities. She would never admit it, but she was entertaining the tiniest fantasy about rocketing around the stars on her own, totally independent, in this fantastic little ship... She was scanning through the locally held databases, and quietly downloading as much as she could from non-local databases the ship's access codes could get to. Labradorite hadn't bothered locking anything down; clearly she hadn't expected anyone to get in. Gray was letting the download run, paging through some interesting files about the Earth rebellion, when her comms console lit up. She pulled it over, and looked at the incoming message. It wasn't a direct communiqué to Labradorite, it was a selective burst transmission - the recipient list was classified, so, probably covert ops. Well, Gray thought, may as well give it a listen, I'm not getting any less rebellious. She tapped the button to play the message. ... and the covert-op passcode automatically keyed itself in. Wow. Gray legitimately froze in place as the ice-cold voice of White Diamond came through the console.
"Covert Diamond Authority operatives," the message began. "You are hereby instructed to add sodium hypochlorite to your arsenals. Should you come into contact with any of the Pearls listed in the attached document, you are authorized to use lethal force. Furthermore: be aware that they are being aided or otherwise abetted by some or all of the Gems also listed in the attached document. Please read said document for further instructions on dealing with these traitors." The voice ended abruptly.
Gray slowly came back to herself, running White Diamond's message over in her head. She blinked a couple times. The message might have been heard down the hall, but they were talking and practicing fighting, so maybe it hadn't been. The document. She had to read the document. Gray swallowed hard, and slowly got up out of her chair, and slowly walked back down the hall, and slowly tapped Spinel on the shoulder.
Spinel heard the communicator go off, so she's prepared when Gray comes to catch her attention. She turns away from the brief lesson she's giving and looks the Pearl over. "Let me guess," she says. "Diamonds put out our shatter-warrants."
"That just makes it official." Rita said with a shrug, "I mean they would have tried anyways, now they just can do it without pretending they didn't mean to shatter us." Honestly if her life wasn't on the line Rita would be flattered that she was part of a group that was causing the diamonds enough trouble to justify that. "Can we get off planet?" Staying here wasn't about to do any good if they all had warrants for their crushing.
Gray was having trouble finding words. "...Worse," she managed. "...sodium hypochlorite.". She vaguely gestured at the cockpit, trying to indicate the document.
"They have not allowed that since I was first made." said Hematite, coming from the living quarters to the cockpit. She had been meditating, trying to find her centre after Iron Pyrite had thrown her - both she and Citrine - so out of balance. They called her kind of gem Lodestones, sometimes, but that was not entirely accurate. She could not point to true north no more than she could point to Earth on a starmap, but she could hear the voice of the Diamonds through thousands of metres of solid stone. All gems shone in her perception, but the Diamonds blazed. Even now, nearly on the other side of the planet, she could feel them like triple suns beating heat upon her back. White Diamond's voice had dragged her out of her deep trance, and now she stood behind the two smaller gems, scanning the warrant document. "They have not mentioned Pyrite, nor the fact that Wrist Gem and I are currently separate. Either they are still attempting to cover such indecency, or whomever wrote this document was not witness to our battle."
"It mentions heterogenous fusions," Spinel says, pointing at the top of the display of the document (which is out of her reach). "I imagine that's what they're referring to. It's a little flattering to be considered an Alexandrite level threat, I must admit." She steps up to the space beside the pilot's seat, where the communication controls are within her reach. "But I doubt it was a witness, since there's mention of multiple heterogenous fusions. Unless they thought that a Pearl fusion couldn't possibly fight, so she had to be at least one other kind of gem."
Having slightly gathered her senses about her, Gray points to one of the lines of text. "They do say that Pearl fusions range in danger level from Calcite all the way up to Jasper, though. Chia did take out a lot of Gems... I think they are just trying to keep plausible deniability of some sort. Or, well, this is a rushed document. It hasn't been that long since we got out of the square."
