#brown dravite

[dragonsdenstudiosofficial]

Lilah Parallel Episode 1: Nexus Glow

Today's the day that Lilah is set to officially become a Crystal Gem, but there's one slight problem: she hasn't exhibited any of the important magical powers that every golem relies upon to protect themselves. Lilah decides to ask her guardians for help in making a magical weapon, but they've got problems of their own today: a corrupted diopside is heading towards Beach City, and they need to poof her before she arrives at her destination.

Rated 18+ for swearing & adult concepts, NOT AT ALL FOR KIDS!

JUNE 21, 2019.

3:05 PM EST.

BEACH CITY, LENNAVERE, APPALACHIAN CONFEDERATION.

Marcus “Mark” Parallel exhaled as he inspected the almost banquet hall he’d helped set up in the school gymnasium. “We did alright, Mark,” said Jerry the gym teacher as he pushed in the very last chair, gently so as to not upset the small flowerpots of orange-red poppies adorning the long, white cloth-clad table.

Mark nodded. “Yeah, we did. The post-graduation ceremony’s going to be okay.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to come?”

“Jerry, I’ve been to fifteen of these things and they’ve all been the same, I won’t be missing much. Besides, today’s Lilah’s graduation too, and I promised her that I wouldn’t miss that.”

“It’s a shame that your kid never got to go here. She sounds like a good egg.”

“You and your obsession with eggs,” Mark scoffed playfully before growing serious. “I wanted her to at least have the option of a normal childhood. It sucks that things have to be what they are.”

“I know,” Jerry sighed. “Sometimes I wonder why these folks keep electing the same jerks to the board. Take care, buddy. Say hi to the kid for me.”

“I will.” And with that, Mark left.

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The light went red. Mark stopped at the intersection of Concord and Basset. He’d never liked this intersection, and the reason why hung on the right side of the light facing him.

The sign was an irregular hexagon, a flat bottom tapering up to a skinny top, a black ring separating the white interior from an outer ring of white. Four colorful humanoids – two medium-sized ones in light green and pink lemonade pink, a large one in dark blue, and a slightly smaller large one in electric blue – trampling a fifth, medium-sized black one. Underneath the image was the acronym “G.E.M.” painted in black.

Mark stared longingly at the electric blue pictogram. The light turned green, and he drove on.

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Two miles outside of Beach City’s western border was a small farm on a large, flat hill. The plantings were of edible species carefully chosen for low invasive potential; beyond them were odd trees here and there, assorted wild plants, and one patch that was completely covered in poison ivy for some reason. Finally, there was the barn-like house standing at the hill’s apex, a humble, dark red wooden building hiding a far less humble interior. Mark and his daughter lived in this place, as did their…foreign houseguests.

Mark drove his car onto a specific patch of flattened ground and pressed a green button on his car keys. The ground beneath him shuddered downwards, a force field extending over him as he descended and the shaft closed. Once the panel was flat on the floor, Mark got out of his car and entered a white-tiled hallway, barren save for paintings of various styles adorning its walls.

“Hey Mark,” said a voice as the living version of the light green pictogram approached from a room off to the side: Talc, a magical alien rock creature known as a golem, an extraterrestrial exile from far across the stars, with pale green calloused skin and curly green hair tied into a long ponytail, dressed in blue jeans and a green t-shirt like an everyday human man.

“Afternoon, Talc,” Mark replied. “How are things?”

“They’re fine,” Talc said simply. “Well, unless you count the corrupted golem alert goin’ off, I reckon that’s not quite as fine.”

“It is not,” agreed a woman standing in the doorway of the room, the living version of the dark blue pictogram: Hope, a former noble standing over nine-and-a-half feet tall, clad in an elegant dark blue sari with striking yellow trim that matched her nails and eyeliner.

“Hey, Hope. What kind of golem is it this time?”

“A chrome diopside,” she replied, handing him a photograph of a blurry green thing soaring over the treetops. “A geokinetic clinopyroxene sighted one mile outside of Beach City approximately forty minutes ago. We believe that she is Diopside. Our Diopside.”

“Emerald of the Mineral Team’s girlfriend, right?” Hope nodded. “Where’s Lilah?”

“Crow’s fittin’ her graduatin’ clothes. She’s mighty antsy considerin’ she’s gonna be an adult once the Sun goes down,” Talc replied. “And you know what we promised her would happen then.”

Mark nodded soberly. “Once the Sun goes down tonight, she’s a Crystal Gem, and she’ll fight for Earth with you three.” He sighed. “I just don’t want her to get hurt, y’know?”

“Neither do we, Mark,” Hope replied firmly. “She is our child too. Even if she wasn’t the last thing that we have of Tourmaline’s essence, we’d still do our best to protect her.” Mark nodded and headed down the hall to Crow’s room.

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“A little easy on the waist there, Crow! Oh, hey Dad.” A shirtless Lilah, a broad-shouldered girl just shy of Mark’s height with striking electric blue hair and eyes, made a pained smile to her father as the living version of the pink pictogram, wearing a lavender sweater, a pink skirt with a purple rhombus pattern, a nonbinary pride flag hairbow, and dark red boots tied a black skirt around her hips a little too hard.

The golem turned around, revealing hot pink eyes and black-painted lips. “Mark!” Crow...well, crowed, dropping the skirt string and flinging herself at him. “It’s been too long! It feels like the last time we saw you for more than five seconds was in April!”

“AP and final exams,” Mark apologized, returning the hug. “They happen every year.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, old pal. Someone needs to help us watch the kid while we go hunting.”

“The kid can hear you,” Lilah interjected. “And I’m not a kid anymore, I haven’t even legally been a kid since December!”

“That may be so, but you’re still not a Crystal Gem until sunset,” Crow replied, returning to her ward’s side to finish tying the skirt onto her. “And since today’s the solstice, that's not gonna be for a while yet.” Finished with the skirt, Crow stuck a hand into her wild, fluffy ponytail and started rummaging around, pulling out an empty tin of cookies, a live eastern gray squirrel, and a genuine 17th-century shamisen (“Wow, that was a fun party”) before retrieving a simple white button-down t-shirt with a left breast pocket that she quickly shoved over Lilah’s chest, nimble fingers with gray nails buttoning it up in a flash of pink. “There we go! Just what I needed to finish this up! You look cute, kid.”

“Hopefully cute enough to pick up a cutie someday,” the bluenette said approvingly, admiring herself in the mirror.

“Speaking of hopefully,” Crow said before sticking their head out the door and into the hallway. “Hope, do you want me to scout ahead on Diopside?” they called.

“That would be much appreciated, yes!” Hope called back.

“That’s my cue to leave. Go on, have a graduation or whatever. We’ll be back before you know it.” They gave the girl a brief noogie and left the room to the humans.

Mark sniffled. “My little girl’s growing up…your mother would be so proud of you.”

“You saw the sign again?” Lilah asked.

“Yeah.” He pulled his daughter close. “I wish you could’ve met her, Lilah. I wish she hadn’t been too sad to stay.”

Lilah swallowed. “I do too, Dad. I do too.”

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Talc was chopping some carrots when his right index finger fell off, causing the knife to slip out of his grip. “Darn.” He grabbed the waylaid digit and stuck it back on his hand, and it magically fused back on. Grabbing the knife, he resumed chopping.

“Talc?” Talc turned his head to see Lilah enter the kitchen.

“Oh, hello Lilah,” Talc replied cheerfully as he put down the knife. “You look mighty fancy today.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s simple, but…I like it. It makes me feel like a hot waitress. Speaking of waitresses, do you want me to help you with dinner?”

“Naw, I’m fine. Don’t wanna mess up your duds anyhow. But you can keep me company, I’d like that.” Lilah beamed and watched him get back to work.

A comfortable silence passed between them for some time while Talc made dinner until Lilah thought of something. “Talc?” she asked while something boiled in a steel pot.

“Yeah?”

“When I become a Crystal Gem, do you think I’ll finally get my powers? I’d love to be able to do cool stuff like you guys can. More than just magic passively making it so I never need a bath or get sick, I mean.”

“Aw, don’t worry, Lilah. Powers don’t make you a Crystal Gem. It’s what you’re willin’ to do even if ya don’t have no powers a’tall. An’ I’m not sure ya want my powers. Talcs may be hard to poof and able to regenerate from near anythin’, but our ability to fall apart at will is frankly kinda disturbin’.” As if on cue, his left hand fell off at the wrist. “See?” he asked as he picked it up and stuck it back on. “And I don’t think Hope’s psychics or Crow’s infinite-space hair are quite right fer ya.”

“Yeah, but…still, having tourmaline magic would be so COOL!” she shouted, pumping her fists while her eyes twinkled. “Mom could enhance things, right?”

“Yep, she sure could. Just like how you are enhancin’ my chores.” Lilah giggled, but her face fell once Talc’s back was turned to her. She pulled the chest of her shirt out and looked at the bare spot between her breasts, where a nexus would be if she was a golem and not a supposedly-magical human, and sighed in disappointment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Crow, do you see her?” Hope asked through her headset.

“I do indeed! Magical flying dinosaur at ten o’clock!” Crow replied. Hope watched on the control room screen through Crow’s eyes as the green thing swooped through the dense forest. She resembled a Triceratops prorsus, only far spikier, with six cruel eyes and two massive, batlike wings emerging from her shoulders. “Should I attempt to ground her?”

“Roger. She’s getting concerningly close to the farm. Take her down before she gets to Beach City.”

“Alright, Di, once you’re uncorrupted I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do.” Crow placed a hand over a small, twelve-sided lump on their chest underneath their blouse, which glowed a brilliant pink before materializing a pink-and-white-striped crossbow. Nocking an energy arrow, the rhodochrosite aimed it at Diopside’s left wing before firing it. It tore a hole through the membrane, the wound spraying a fluid that was a streaky mixture of a rusty orange and an opaque white. “Alright! Got her in one! Doesn’t seem like she can regenerate that either. She’ll fall to the ground and–”

Diopside, roaring in pain, caused a boulder to come out of the ground. She manipulated it into a half-pipe and used it to slide onto the ground. “Aw, come on! She just HAD to be the one chrome diopside to keep her geokinesis!” Crow whined. The corrupted golem roared and ran off, using the dirt and rock beneath her feet like an unusual surfboard. “What now?”

“Trail her,” Hope instructed. “Try to use your arrows to drive her into the ocean, her geokinesis is less effective on wet sand and useless on water. Don’t let her see you or else she might attack. Keep her as far away from Beach City as you can. When the time is right, call me and I will send Talc to tag in and beat her down.”

“Roger!”

Hope turned off the screen, removed her headset, and buried her face in her great blue hands. “This is not how today was supposed to go,” she grumbled. She heard a knocking at the control room’s door. “Come in.”

Lilah entered. “Hey, Hope…how’s the mission?”

“Well, Diopside has been grounded, which would be less concerning if she hadn’t retained her ability to move said ground.”

“...oh. Well…I was wondering…how do you use your diamond powers? Like, making a weapon and stuff? I didn’t ask Talc ‘cuz he doesn’t seem to do that…”

“It simply isn’t Talc’s style to fight with essence-born weapons. He can do it, but he prefers to fight with his own raw strength. As for me…well, I can tell you that it takes time and concentration to do it effectively; why, it took me the equivalent of 212 Earth years just to make my first spear alone. You need to feel it inside of you…you need to envision everything about it…then you call upon the desire to fight deep within you…”

Placing a hand near the top of the vertical white belt beneath her sari that went from her neck to her waist, the blue diamond pulled a long spear with a curved, pale pink blade and a dark blue handle out of her roughly rectangular nexus. “And there you have it.”

Lilah stared at the spear in awe before Hope willed it away in a puff of blue light. “Wow…I hope I can figure out how to do that.” She thought for a moment before shyly looking up at Hope. “Hope? Can you…tell me about Mom? Maybe if I knew how she was as a leader, I could figure out how to summon her weapon.”

“I have told you many stories about your mother, but if it helps you understand your potential abilities I can certainly tell them again,” Hope replied, patting her lap. Lilah sat on her knee and looked up at the taller woman, who tapped her chin pensively. “Let me see…ah, the story of how we met Gray Diamond. That was a good example of your mother’s leadership skills.”

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Five thousand and seventy-eight years earlier…

“Tourmaline, you’re not going to like this,” said Grape, a slender purple golemette with red-violet hair in a short bob, as she meekly handed a report to the leader of the Crystal Gems.

Tourmaline, a lanky, long-legged, pale blue-skinned golemette with a mohawk-like braid of cyan hair that went down to her butt, raised an eyebrow at the report. “Kindergarten activity? But that’s impossible. We destroyed the five sanctioned Earth kindergartens centuries ago, and none of them were on the south polar continent.”

“Then it appears that this one is unsanctioned,” said Pyrope, a dark red golemette with an almost square-shaped red afro, a silver sunglasses-like visor covering her eyes, and a stoic, almost monotonous demeanor coloring the way she spoke.

Tourmaline nodded. “How old is this data? I’d imagine a few Earth years given the signatures involved.”

“That’s the thing. The report is from this morning,” Grape said nervously.

The indicolite’s cyan eyes bulged out. “Th-this morning?! That’s not good. Pyrope, get a ship. Grape, get some troops. I want Ruby, Ben, Spinerva, the Malachite Twins, Rubellite, Ametrine, and as many ices, sapphires, aquamarines, lazurites, and pectolites that we can spare. We need to take out this kindergarten before Homeworld can exploit it.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Grape saluted before turning on her heel.

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Two hours later…

A green spaceship touched down in the would-be Larsemann Hills. Disembarking came Tourmaline; Pyrope; Grape; two teal golemettes with similar proportions to Crow and Grape; a limber pink golemette in a coral trench coat and hat with crimson hair in two large pigtails; a tall, pale blue-gray golemette with slender digits and an indigo golemor with similar proportions; a diminutive crimson golemor with a sour expression; four equally-small golemettes in indigo, dull green, papaya pink, and pale, ashy blue, the pale blue one wearing a star-shaped eyepatch over her right eye; five wide-eyed, ultramarine blue golemettes; a golemor resembling a masculine, red-toned version of Tourmaline; a short, stocky golemette with piebald purple-brown & yellow skin; a pale blue golemette with pointy cheeks; and eleven blue-skinned golemettes with spindly limbs & small noses, some of which had white hair instead of their race’s standard azure.

“Brrrr!” Ametrine, so nicknamed for her colorful complexion, shivered as the group approached a large hill riddled with numerous humanoid-shaped holes at its base, a large patch of unmarred rock dividing the holes into two separate groups. “It’s so cold! Why the vulkzara would Homeworld put a kindergarten here?”

“No humans,” Green Sapphire replied loftily. “There’s a circular oceanic current that keeps human boats from getting this far south. Given that most carved-ones turn against the Empire the moment they learn we’re not the only sapient species out there, it’s in the Authority’s best interests to keep them in the dark.”

“So they park the next kindergarten where no sane human would ever go,” Ruby finished with a scowl. “Anyone see anything?”

“There’s something over there,” one of the ices, Snow as shown by the pale blue snowflake embroidered on her white coat, said as she squinted at something in the distance. “It looks like a…recreational shore ball, of all things.” She walked over and brought it back to the others. It was an icosahedral black device floating in the middle of a shimmering clear bubble made of a strange sort of rubber.

“The heck is it?” Rubellite asked.

Tourmaline picked it up and turned it over, grimacing when she saw a retracted blade on the black thing’s underside. “It’s an injector,” she said grimly. “It’s got a protective force field that masks its magical signature, no wonder we didn’t detect them until now.”

“That’s an injector?” one of the lazurites, JJ-19 or “JJ” to her friends, said in disbelief. “But it’s so tiny. I could kick it.”

“Ah, but don’t let your eyes deceive you! That right there is the most modern piece of injector technology out there!” All eyes turned to see a ruby golemor, similar to Ruby save his maroon complexion and wider shoulders, appear from behind the hill, grinning smugly at them and with another such injector in his stubby hands.

“Maroon Ruby,” Tourmaline growled as the corundum arrogantly trotted over. “Yellow Diamond couldn’t be bothered to come here herself, so she sent her best stooge out instead?”

“Ah, you wound me, my dear enemy!” he said as he came to a stop in front of her and immediately started posturing. “I am on Special Assignment™ to test one of my little experiments. If it works, I get paid handsomely and your little rebellion ends.” He smiled wickedly at her. “Allow me to demonstrate the properties of my new Stealth Injectors.

“Magical barrier to prevent detection during transport.” He tapped the pole opposite the blade in a specific pattern, the spots where his fingers touched it lighting up orange and pink as he went. The barrier fell and the injector core fell roughly into his hands.

“Coded activation to prevent meddling from outsiders.” He pressed some buttons on the top of the little injector, which glowed yellow-green as he activated it.

“Enchanted boron carbide blade on collapsible proboscis to ensure rapid strikes with deep intrusion.” The blade shot out of the injector on an extendable tube, puncturing a hole into the rock behind him.

“Easy deposit of seed crystal.” The blade struck again, this time opening while inside the hole and dropping a little white thing no bigger than a marble inside of it. The blade retracted into the injector, which fell silent.

“And my own patented mixture of elbaite sweat and rose quartz tears to speed up growth!” The inside of the hole glowed before causing a shower of rock to explode out of the cliff. Tourmaline reflexively made a cyan bubble around herself to protect her from the blast. When the dust settled, another hole had been blown into the mountain, and stepping out of it was a human-sized golem resembling a skinnier Hope, only a dull dark gray in color and wearing the default gray-and-white uniform that all newmade golems wore.

The Crystal Gems gaped in horror as Maroon Ruby finished his spiel. “With Stealth Injectors I can make an entire army in a centirot. I’ve been covertly incubating a blue diamond worthy of Earth for the last five of its years, and since she’s due to emerge today I’ve decided to start on her court so we can really fight you off. And that measly graphite was just a demonstration. Her court will also need…”

“Ice!” Twenty ice golems appeared from the valley behind the hill, soon followed by...

“Xenotime!” Two amber brown golemettes with unusually large hands;

“Hematite!” Three black golemettes resembling taller corundums;

“Chromite!” A dark gray, freckled golemor resembling a larger, masculine Spinerva;

“Albite!” A white golemette with broad, pointy shoulders;

“Pyrite!” A strong-jawed golemor with metallic dark yellow skin;

“Rutile!” A very thin brownish-maroon golemette with deep wrinkles on her cheeks;

“White quartz!” A towering, stocky golemette with snow white skin & shaggy white hair;

“Brown zircon!” Four pumpkin spice brown golemettes with almond-shaped faces and more relaxed expressions compared to the other new emergees;

“Schorl!” Two black golems, one male and one female, with Tourmaline’s rough proportions if not having slightly shorter legs;

“Brown dravite!” Another tourmaline golemette, this one honey-brown and wearing a golden skirt, black-and-white high-heeled sandals, and a magenta cat’s-eye visor with matching nail polish;

“Grandidierite!” A slender seafoam green golemette;

“Almandine!” Three golemettes resembling dark purple Pyropes;

“And white corundum!” A golemette resembling a white sapphire rounded out the list.

Most of the new arrivals (sans the zircons, who, being born diplomats, were naturally quite mellow) glared at the horrified Crystal Gems, not noticing the somewhat crumbly texture of the rock from which they’d emerged. Suddenly, there was a loud Crack! from the hill behind them, and everyone turned to see a large gash emerge in the rock face between the previous exit holes. “And now for the grand finale!” Maroon Ruby declared. “I give you EARTH’S VERY OWN BLUE DIAMOND!”

KABOOM! went the rock, flowing out in a wave as a massive hole appeared in the side of the hill. Loose stone pelted the golems below, the Crystal Gems having the sense to pull up personal bubbles for protection. The new ones didn’t know to do this, so they ended up getting bruised in various places when the rocks hit them, but Maroon Ruby oddly seemed to get the worst of it somehow. When the commotion finally settled, everyone was left staring at a thirty-five-foot-one-inch-tall hole in the dead center of the hill…and listening to the footsteps within getting closer.

Walking out of the hole came a figure similar to Hope, only much skinnier, with a thinner, more pointed face and the proper height of a diamond. Then she stepped out of the hole and into the light, revealing that rather than the expected kind of sky blue that Maroon Ruby had said she’d be, she was instead a sort of grayish-blue like sealskin. Everyone stared at the newcomer, who blinked at them with large gray eyes. “Is there something wrong?” she asked, her voice surprisingly feathery and light given her stature.

“Yes, there IS,” Maroon Ruby glowered furiously. “How the Light-damned vulkzara did you end up off-color?!” He turned and pointed at the new tourmalines. “You there, tourmalines! You’re Kindergarten inspectors by caste, inspect it!”

“You deposited a blue diamond seed crystal here because this region is high in the boron needed to give a diamond a blue color, with the necessary carbon being sourced from local mineral deposits, carbon dioxide trapped in ice as bubbles, and assorted organic microorganisms living in the soil,” spoke the dravite in a nasally, nerdy voice as she adjusted her visor with a long-nailed index finger. “It would appear, however, that her nexus also incorporated significant amounts of hydrogen impurities as well, most likely sourced from the same ice used to source some of her carbon.”

“I meant the WHY she’s off-color, not the HOW!”

“From what little education I have received in my two decirots of life, I have learned that the likelihood of a diamond carved-one forming off-color is two thousand times higher than the mean likelihood of all other mineral races combined. Combined with the high speed of formation pushed by Stealth Injectors and the long time a diamond carved-one’s nexus typically takes to form, it is likely that the nexus was pushed through its formation faster than it could naturally self-correct.”

“In plain Saxsilla, please?” Maroon Ruby demanded.

“You made her too damn fast,” the male schorl said bluntly.

“Is that bad?” the new diamond asked, touching her bangs with her right hand nervously…a hand now revealed to only have three fingers, the ring finger and pinky being missing entirely and the rest of the hand being quite narrow as a result.

“Oh my luster! Your hand! It’s…HIDEOUS!” Maroon Ruby screamed. The new diamond hid her right hand with her left and looked ready to cry. “Fine. You know what? Maybe Stealth Injectors for a diamond aren’t such a good idea. Shatter this one and we’ll try again with a standard injector. Hopefully we’ll get some good ones before Yellow Diamond asks where I’ve been for the last five reevs…”

“Wait…shatter her?” the pyrite spoke up, horrified. “You want to…KILL her for being off-color?!” He turned to face the Crystal Gems. “Is this allowed?” he asked frantically.

“It’s Homeworld’s way,” Pyrope said bluntly. “Off-colors are seen by the Empire as aberrations to White Diamond’s quest to bring the Brilliant Light to the entire universe.”

“But…she’s our Diamond!” protested the chromite as he pointed to the worried-looking new diamond. “We’re meant to serve the Diamond of Earth, and that’s her!”

“You misunderstand,” Maroon Ruby growled. “You are not supposed to serve the first diamond that comes out of the dirt! You’re supposed to make a bunch of diamonds, then all the on-color diamonds of the same color fight each other in Diamond Duels, the one that wins them all gets to stay, and if the remaining ones of different colors want to duel, then they can do that. Either way, the last one standing is the one that you’re meant to serve. Normally it’s only then that you make a court, but we’re kind of in the middle of a civil war so I had to rush that too because, in case you’ve overlooked that part of the reports, WE’RE A LITTLE SHORT ON PERSONNEL!” he shouted.

“...what happens to those who lose Diamond Duels?” the albite asked nervously.

“They get shattered,” Grape said with a wince, causing the new diamond and her court to gasp in horror. “A diamond who can’t win a Duel is seen as a liability to the Empire’s strength. And the less you know about what they do with the remains…”

“Then we want no part in this empire,” the grandidierite said firmly. “Gray Diamond is our diamond, and we will defend her to our last breath.” The other new golems agreed loudly, and Gray Diamond looked much happier at this declaration of loyalty.

“You will do no such thing!” Maroon Ruby growled. “Yellow Diamond will have my nexus if I don’t give her good results!”

“And you won’t give her any results,” Tourmaline said, having snuck up behind him while he was distracted with his ranting. Her hexagonal nexus glowed cyan, and in a flash she pulled out a brown polearm with a curved cyan blade and sliced Maroon Ruby neatly down the middle with it. In a puff of smoke, he was reduced to a round-cut enchanted ruby that she quickly bubbled and teleported away. Looking up at Gray Diamond, she smiled as she dissipated her polearm. “There’s a lot you need to know about the Empire,” she said. “But I can tell you’ll do good things.”

“Yeah,” said Aquamarine, the gears audibly turning in her round-cheeked head. “Like the legal restrictions that you as Diamond of Earth can put on Homeworld…”

Tourmaline laughed nervously when the diamond’s hand caught her eye. “Oh…you know, we have a technician who can give you a prosthesis to make up for your missing fingers.”

“B-because it’s bad to be different?” Gray Diamond squeaked nervously.

“No, because having more fingers will improve your grip strength, and you’ll need a good grip on your weapon if you’re going to fight. You do wish to fight, do you not?”

Gray Diamond shifted her size downwards to match Tourmaline’s height. Grinning, she took the (much) older woman’s hand and shook it vigorously with her deformed one. “Of course! Although…” she added shyly, “will your group accept me like mine have?”

“‘A course we wills,” Spinerva said reassuringly in her anachronistic Empire City accent, waving her hands as she spoke. “Mah own diamond’s off-collah, an’ she’s wunna da ones who stahted dis whole shebang in da foist place. Don’t be a joik and beat up Hoimwoild and you’ll be a damn fine Crystal Gem, jus’ da same as alla ya coit.”

“Yeah, same here, same court, except I actually am an offie,” Ametrine added, showing herself to the new golems. “And if they can accept me, and all the other ones we’ve got, then they can accept you just as well.”

Gray Diamond looked to her court, who nodded, then turned back to face Tourmaline. “Then as my first action as Diamond of Earth, I pledge this planet in the name of the Crystal Gems!” Everyone around her applauded, but no one applauded louder than a very proud-looking Tourmaline.

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Present day

“As for Maroon Ruby, we did let him out eventually…in Egypt while a mastaba was being built,” Hope finished. “The minute he saw mankind he turned on Homeworld and gave us all of his technology free of charge, just as Green Sapphire said he would. Changed his ways too, he never wanted an off-color shattered again.” She sighed wistfully. “Gray was…a good friend. She was very kind and sweet, and she gave up using the caste system in her court without any fuss whatsoever the minute we asked her to do so. Her being the first corrupted golem we found…hurt, to say the least.”

Lilah nodded. “I wish I could’ve met her, Hope. Thanks for the story.” She left the room, sighing as she wandered back upstairs. She was no closer to figuring out how to summon her mother’s weapon. To figuring out what it really meant to be a Crystal Gem.

“Hey, Lilah?” Talc asked. “I got a call from Crow, they’re taggin’ out. Dinner’s done, just gotta let it cool first.”

“Hopefully you’re back before it cools all the way,” Lilah said. Talc nodded and left.

“Lilah?” Mark called from the dining room. “Can you help me set the table?”

“I’ll be right there!” Lilah called back.

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Crow returned home exhausted and sweaty. “Hoo boy,” they wheezed as they collapsed on the dark red armchair in the living room.

“Crow, would you mind wiping yourself off before you get manganese in the furniture again?” Mark asked sternly while Lilah helped him put the silverware and napkins on the dining room table.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m wiping,” Crow said dismissively with a wave of their hand. They retrieved a white towel from their hair and wiped their face on it, staining it pink in the process, before shoving it back into their hair. “Phew! What an evening, am I right?”

“Yeah…” Lilah trailed off. “Say, Crow?”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve got a ton of weapons in there, right? So you’d know how to summon them better than anyone.”

“We are NOT summoning weapons at the dinner table,” Mark interjected with a frown.

“Trust me, Mark, I’m not making that mistake a second time,” Crow said casually. “Kiddo, what’s gotten into you today? Even yesterday you weren’t this antsy. What gives?”

“Well…I still haven’t gotten my powers yet,” Lilah replied sullenly. “If my hair wasn’t blue you wouldn’t even be able to tell I have Mom’s essence within me. And yet…no tourmaline powers.”

“Oh, kid, don’t worry about it! It’s probably just an age thing. Natural-born golems don’t start developing their special abilities until they’re almost sexually mature; your hair didn’t start turning blue until you hit puberty, after all. You’re about the physical and mental equivalent of an injection-produced golem right now, so I’d say you should be getting your tourmaline powers in the next coming weeks.”

“I keep telling myself that,” Lilah grumbled, staring at her chest in annoyance. “Do you think my transition fucked up my development?”

“Kid, listen. I was a seamstress before the rebellion. The idea of me summoning a weapon was considered ludicrous on Homeworld. And yet, because I honed my willpower and creativity…” They pulled out a pink-and-white-striped broom out of their nexus. “...I can summon whatever I please. Just let it happen naturally and you’ll be fine,” they went on while dissipating the broom.

“And as for your gender stuff…maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. I don’t know. You’re literally only the second human made by magic, there’s a lot we don’t know about folks in your position. But I do know that transitioning made you happy in your own body, so trust me: a little delay in summoning weapons is worth your three extra years of gender euphoria.”

“And even if you never figure it out, you’ll still be as much of a Crystal Gem as the others,” Mark said reassuringly. “Because being a Crystal Gem isn’t about having powers, it’s about doing the right thing for other people.”

Lilah nodded. “Thanks, guys. I feel a little better now.” There was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it. Maybe it’s Talc.”

“If it is, then why didn’t he teleport in?” Mark muttered as she left.

“Who knows?” Crow shrugged. “I’ve lived with him for almost five millennia and I’m still finding new things about him.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lilah slipped on a pair of black flip-flops and opened the door to see two girls her age, a chubby long-haired blonde with green eyes and a skinny Japanese girl with patchy red highlights in her hair, both of them wearing the reddish-orange cap and gown of Beach City High, on her doorstep. “O-oh! Molly, Saki! I wasn’t expecting you to be here!” Lilah stammered, flushing immediately.

“I told you we should’ve texted her,” the Japanese girl, Saki, hissed.

The blonde, Molly, lightly elbowed Saki in the gut. “The surprise was better. Anyway, hi Lilah! We noticed you weren’t at graduation.”

“W-well, yeah, I’m kinda not allowed to go to public school anymore,” Lilah murmured.

“We know. So we brought you a little something! Saki, you have the pot, right?”

“Pot?” Lilah’s brow furrowed. “You guys know how strict our drug policy is, right?”

“FLOWERpot, Blue,” Saki corrected, lifting her hands to reveal a small red flowerpot with orange poppies in it. “We snuck it here from school so you could have a graduation present. It’s not much, but…”

“We thought it was wrong that the school board kicked you out of the district after fifth grade,” Molly finished. “Seriously, what kind of justification is ‘your mother is an alien and therefore you’re not technically an Appalachian citizen’?”

Lilah took the flowerpot and smiled. “Thanks, guys. It’s lovely. I don’t want to keep you from the ceremony.”

“The ceremony ended two hours ago, Lilah,” Saki said.

“Wait, really?”

“Uh…yeah? Our graduating class was literally twenty people?”

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting how tiny our town is.”

Suddenly, they heard a deep rumbling noise from below. “Uh…what’s that?” Molly asked with a gulp. Bursting out of the dirt a few feet from the barn came Diopside. She was covered in nicks and scratches, and both wings were visibly mangled. She roared, slit pupils narrowing.

“Get inside,” Lilah ordered.

“Don’t have to tell ME twice!” Saki yelped as the other girls ran into her house.

Lilah set the flowerpot on the dining room table (“What?” Mark asked in surprise when he saw the flowerpot) and ran to Crow. “Crow, Diopside’s here!”

“WHAT?!” Crow tumbled off the chair and to their feet. “How?!”

“I’m sorry!” That was Talc rushing upstairs from the back room. “She went underground and I lost her signal!”

“And our systems decided that NOW was a good time to update,” Hope glowered as she stormed up the steps behind him. “Turrets and arms are offline. I’ll set up a barrier to keep the humans safe. Talc, Crow, draw Diopside away and give her all you’ve got!”

“Can do!” Talc said as he and Crow ran outside.

“What about me?” Lilah asked.

“You can inspect the barrier for cracks in case Diopside has the sense to attack it.”

Lilah frowned, but only for a moment. It wasn’t the glamorous job of fighting the corrupted golem, but it was just as important for her father’s and friends’ safeties. “Okay. I can do that.”

Hope nodded and started singing in the native golem language, causing a dark blue translucent shell to grow around the house. Molly and Saki exchanged a confused look. “I swear I’ve heard that before,” Molly said as she tried to place the tune. “Wait…is your diamond mom singing the Camp Pining Hearts theme song in alien language?!” she asked incredulously.

“She’s a fangirl,” Lilah shrugged. “And it works. The show’s all about emotional barriers, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but…” Molly shook her head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, Crow summoned a double-bladed axe with long, narrow blades, equally as pink as their other weapons. Talc, meanwhile, summoned a pair of gauntlets the same shade of dark red as his shoes. Crow raised an eyebrow at this. “You’re armoring up?”

“I failed to get Diopside poofed before she came stompin’ around here,” Talc replied firmly. “I’m not takin’ a chance a’ her escapin’ again.”

“Fair enough. HEY, DIOPSIDE! OVER HERE! YOUR FIGHT’S WITH US, NOT THE BARN!”

Diopside, who at that moment had been poised to ram into the front wall, turned around. Her sextet of slit pupils narrowed and she roared at them. “That’s right! Over here!” Talc yelled, slamming his fists together. “Come and get some!”

Diopside pawed at the ground and raced at him, intending to ram him. Talc jumped out of the way. She rotated the ground beneath her feet with her powers and rammed into him without losing momentum. Talc caught her horns with his hands and dug his feet into the dirt, wincing as the strain on his joints increased. Diopside eventually ran out of steam, allowing Talc to twist at her head hard enough to snap off her right brow horn. Rustwhite blood leaked from the wound until Diopside’s nexus glowed light green followed by the wound, the lost adornment regenerating in a flash of light within seconds.

“Go for the horns!” Talc ordered as he tossed the broken horn away. “She’ll tire herself out remakin’ ‘em!”

“Works for me! TIME TO POLL OUR CLIENT!” Crow hollered, jumping high into the air and cleaving off the remade horn with their axe.

“Crow, fewer puns and more focus!” Hope called from inside the barn.

“Hey, I don’t see YOU out here– OOF!” Diopside had swung her tail at them, knocking them over. “Oh, you’ve got my skirt dirty! YOU ARE POOFED, YA HEAR ME?! POOFED!”

“Their magic will clean it up in minutes,” Lilah muttered.

“I find that in situations like this Crow just shouts for the sake of shouting,” Hope replied as Crow, Talc, and Diopside tussled. Suddenly, thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and it started to rain heavily. “Shit.”

“At least the water will make it harder for Diopside to bend the dirt…right?” Mark asked.

“Well, with that many injuries she’ll at least have a hard time focusing,” Lilah muttered.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indeed, Diopside shrieked and writhed in pain as the water pelted her open wounds. Eventually, her common sense returned for a bit and she used her geokinesis to erect a protective roof of dirt over herself. Or tried to, at least; the wet dirt was slack under her telekinetic grip. Eventually, with a far bigger tug than intended, Diopside lifted a large chunk of earth out of the ground…exposing a Stealth Injector embedded in the dirt. “How the hell did that get in there?” Crow asked.

“Musta landed here durin’ the war and got swallowed by the swamp that used to be here,” Talc replied. “Don’t think we should worry about it none, batteries’ll be dead by now.”

“Right,” Crow nodded. “Stealth Injectors trade capacity & capacitance for speed. A full-sized clunker can last for 350 years, but these things die after ten.”

It was at that exact moment that the injector was hit by a random bolt of lightning (which also passed through Diopside, causing her to drop the dirt and shriek in pain). It lit up, reenergized, and fell out of the dirt, landing button-first on numerous stray rocks kicked up during the fight in sequence and rolling down to the poison ivy field. It lit up, the blade shot out, and something was buried into the soil. The poison ivy began to wither and crumble, and the soil below started turning ashy and gray before frosting over.

“...okay, nevermind, maybe we should worry about it,” Talc said, his jaw slack with disbelief.

“Of ALL the shitty coincidences that could’ve happened today!” Crow seethed. “WHY?!” they raged at the rainclouds above them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What…what’s happening over there?” Molly asked.

“Diopside unearthed an injector, and that freak bolt of lightning recharged it,” Lilah replied uneasily. “Can they do that?”

“Well, yes, it is possible to recharge an injector’s batteries through large electric shocks, but lightning has too high a wattage for that to be practical!” Hope replied frantically. “I don’t understand it, that injector should’ve melted from a current that size!”

“Injectors?” Molly asked. “Is that what that virus-looking thing was?”

“Injectors are how golems are cloned, they’re full of seed crystals made of…I think it’s something with silicon in it?” Mark guessed.

“Silicone infused with magic, yes,” Hope nodded.

“Yeah, and they get soaked in the blood of the golem you want to make, then they’re zapped with electricity & magic and shoved into the dirt. Over several years the seed crystals grab the elements needed to make the target mineral and build gemstone shells around themselves.”

“The resulting constructs are magical gemstones called ‘nexuses’, and once a nexus is complete it forms a golem with the nexus inside the chest,” Hope continued, tapping the bump between her sizeable breasts where a human’s heart would’ve been. “It’s what gives us our fantastic powers, it’s what stores the essence that makes us who we are…and it’s what remains of us if we are too badly hurt until we repair ourselves from within the safety of its extrauniversal interior.”

“I’ve told you all this shit before, guys,” Lilah remarked.

“It’s been a while!” Saki protested. “So the ground’s crumbling because the magic rock that virus-looking doodad stuck in it is…eating it?”

“To some extent. We do not know who the donor was for the blood in that injector,” Hope replied, watching uneasily as Talc and Crow engaged Diopside again. “But we do know that injection consumes a considerable amount of energy to create the phylacters – magic atoms – in our bodies, energy that the nexus takes from the chemical bonds of the surrounding material, rendering it cold and inert.”

“Including anything that’s alive,” Molly gasped in horrified realization. “Is that why you started that war you were in? To stop your empire from doing what happened to that tangle…to the entire Earth?!”

“Partly. The other reason involved finding out that our entire oppressive society was built on the lies of a single madwoman.” Hope looked outside and saw Talc snatch the injector from the ground. “Talc! Shut that thing off before it injects again!” she called. “We don’t want to lose the entire farm!”

Talc pried the back of the injector open with his bare hands while pushing Diopside’s face away with his foot. “We’re in luck!” he called back. “The injector only had the one crystal, and the lightnin’ fried the battery! It only had enough juice for one go!”

“Good!” Crow said, pausing momentarily to wring out their hair. “Now the humans will only have to worry about some inverse radiation!”

“...radiation?!” Molly squawked.

“Cloning with injectors takes a lot of energy,” Lilah explained. “So much that even after the golem’s emerged, the spot they came from keeps sucking energy in until everything’s balanced. Especially true of Stealth Injectors since they need so much energy to make golems come out in minutes instead of decades.” With a scowl she added “And that’s why it’s such an evil way to reproduce. It doesn’t just kill the things living in the soil on top of the nexus, it kills everything within range unless it’s magical. Which amounts to only golems.”

“Uh…guys?” Saki asked. “That giant green space ceratopsid…is it doing something?” Everyone turned to see Diopside curiously testing the dirt with her powers. Thanks to the injection the energy once keeping the rainwater liquid was now being drained into the new golem, and the muddy dirt was subsequently freezing into thick, black ice even fifty feet away from the injection site where Talc, Crow, and Diopside currently stood.

Diopside seemed to smirk. As it was solid and had a repetitive molecular structure, ice was therefore a mineral. And with that many dirt inclusions, lifting it would be no trouble at all. She turned her head, formed the snirt into a rectangular pillar, and slammed it into Talc’s chest. His head came off, bouncing on the dirt for a bit before stopping. “Ow,” Talc groaned, still very much alive. His headless body fumbled and flailed for his head. “Over here, goshdarnit!” he barked at it.

Paying him no mind, Diopside turned her attention to Crow, whom she began to pelt with a flechette of dirty icicles. Crow dodged momentarily, but slipped on a patch of muddy ice and fell, landing hard on their right knee with a sickening CRACK! and an agonized cry. Then Diopside turned to the barn and summoned a great bevy of pillars toward the barrier, cracking it and forcing Hope to sing again to undo the damage.

As she pointed out where Hope needed to sing to repair the barrier, Lilah swallowed. Crow was out of the fight until their knee healed, and Talc was out until he could reattach his head – not an easy task when the ground was that slick. Hope couldn’t fight Diopside; she had to keep the barrier up to protect the humans inside, and Lilah knew her aunt enough to know that Hope had trouble multitasking. And her dad, strong though he could be, was no match for a geokinetic alien dinosaur capable of flight, especially when the Gempire’s Smallest Kindergarten™ was so close by.

She knew what she had to do. “I’m going after her,” she said, marching towards the open doorway.

“WHAT?!” Mark cried, reaching out to grab her but failing.

“Blue, this is nuts! You can’t do this!” Saki protested.

“I have to! We’re out of other options! And technically, I’m already a Crystal Gem. We all agreed I’d be one when the Sun went down…well, the Sun’s covered by clouds, so it’s technically ‘down’ in the sense that it’s not usable right now.” She held her head high and tried to ignore the frightened look in Hope’s face…and the twisting feeling in her intestines. “I have to do this. I may not have powers, but I need to do something.”

And it was at that very moment that two somethings happened. First, glowing cyan lines traced over a spot on Lilah’s chest, forming the outline of an intricate hexagonally-cut gemstone before bursting into light, a polearm identical to the one Tourmaline once wielded clattering onto the porch.

Next, the dirt of the poison ivy patch, now completely bare and gray and icy, suddenly burst upwards in a messy SPLURT!, kicking up a tall plume of frigid grayish-brown dust. When the plume settled, a pale orange right hand shot out of the hole left behind, extending on a long, ribbonlike arm before slamming hard onto the remaining part of the ground. The other hand on an equally-rubbery left arm shot out and landed, then two bare feet on equally-elastic legs emerged as well.

Pulling herself out of the hole on all fours, then skittering headfirst up to the front door before flipping herself upright, was a pale orange-skinned golem wearing the default uniform of the Mohs-8 caste. She had a chin-length bob of safety orange hair and blinked at the world with large, equally-orangine eyes, taking in the shocked Lilah, the shocked golems, the unattended polearm, and Diopside slamming another wave of dirty ice into the barrier while Hope was distracted. And then she said her very first words:

“Did I miss something?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Uh…” Lilah wracked her brain. Fighting a corrupted golem was one thing, she expected that by now. But meeting a new golem that wasn’t one of her guardians? “Well…” she started as she looked around before noticing the sturdy metal poles supporting the roof of the porch. Her eyes wandered over to the newcomer. Elastic limbs, thin neck, and large eyes; a true spinel like Spinerva, only orange instead of pink. Then she saw the polearm on the ground. Her mother’s. “Actually…you can help me with something.”

“Sure thing, what needs doing?” the spinel asked.

“Well, you see that giant monster over there?” Lilah asked, pointing at Diopside, who was now chasing after Talc’s headless body. “We need to poof her before she causes any trouble, but we’re kind of stuck at the moment.”

“Well, then it’s time that you got unstuck. How can I help?”

“I need to get this polearm into her so she’ll poof, but I’m not strong enough to engage her directly. Luckily, if this works I won’t need to get up close and personal. Can you tie your legs around these poles so you’re facing away from me?”

“Sure thing!” The spinel stretched a leg over to one post and wrapped it around, then did the same for the other so that her slender back faced Lilah. “Now what?”

“Pick up that polearm on the ground.”

“If that’s a polearm, is there a poleleg too?” the spinel pondered as she picked up the weapon with elastic hands.

“Uh…we’ll check on that later.”

“Lilah, do you need me to make some noise?” Crow asked.

“Yeah! Noise will work! I’m gonna need a straight shot at Diopside!” Lilah agreed, grabbing the spinel by the waist and walking backwards into the house.

“Kid, this is incredibly crazy and we’ll have to have a long talk about this afterwards, but right now I am completely within the moment! HEY, DIOPSIDE! OVER HERE! I FUCKED YOUR MOM! OR I WOULDA, IF YOU WEREN’T BORN FROM AN INJECTOR! NO, YOU KNOW WHAT? I FUCKED YOUR BLOOD DONOR! SO THERE!”

Diopside’s attention left Talc and fell on Crow once more. She roared and tried to send more ice towards Crow, but failed to move her projectiles more than a foot. Even with the spinel’s emergence draining heat from the soil, the early summer heat had started to warm it back up again, enough so that the ice had somewhat softened – making it difficult for Diopside to wield once more. “Not so tough without your cheats, are ya?” Crow taunted further before grabbing their knee and groaning in pain. “Ow, ow, don’t like that, don’t like that at all.”

Diopside charged and tossed Crow into the air with her horns. “When I let go, wait until I say ‘now’ to release the polearm!” Lilah told the spinel. She pulled further back and exhaled, then let go.

The spinel shot forward like the living slingshot she was. When the spinel’s hips moved in front of her knees, Lilah barked “NOW!” and the spinel let go of the polearm. It went sailing through the air like a ballista bolt and plunged into Diopside’s neck, emerging from the other side in a burst of rustwhite blood. With a choke and a splutter, Diopside exploded into a puff of white smoke, disappearing completely save for her nexus: grass green, circular step-cut with one row of facets on the crown beneath the heptagonal table, and about the size of a four-ounce tub of Vaseline.

Talc’s body caught Crow before they could hit the ground. “Nice catch!” Crow complimented. Talc’s body set them down and they grabbed Diopside’s nexus, summoning a small pink bubble around it. “Hot diggety damn, Tourmaline’s polearm! I haven’t seen that since…well. Nice shot, kid! You too, newbie!”

“Is that my name?” the spinel asked Lilah as the latter let go of her.

“Nope, we’re giving you something better than that,” Lilah replied while the spinel removed her legs from the posts. Spotting the flowerpot on the dining room table, she smiled. “And I think I know just the name.”

“Can someone help me get my head back on?” Talc asked from somewhere unseen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“To Lilah and Poppy, the newest Crystal Gems!” Glasses of water clinked together ironically. Talc was back in one piece, Diopside’s nexus was safely stored in the vault below the barn, and Saki and Molly had decided to stay the night while the storm passed…and until the “inverse radiation” in Poppy’s exit hole sucking the life from its surroundings could be dealt with.

“Today’s been so full of orange!” Molly giggled after dinner was finished. “Our caps and gowns were orange, our school is orange, the flowers were orange, the new magical rock alien is orange; heck, even your nails are orange!”

“That was deliberate!” Lilah laughed as she inspected her fingernails, which were painted the same slightly-reddish-orange of the flowers and Poppy’s hair. “I figured if I couldn’t go to graduation the least I could do was to wear the school’s color.”

“You kidding?” Saki chuckled. “If I knew what today was going to be like I woulda skipped graduation entirely.”

“But then you wouldn’t’ve gotten me flowers. Admit it, Saki; you’re a sap.”

“I-I am not!” Saki blushed. “A-and anyway! Where’s the newbie anyway?”

“Here she is!” Crow declared, emerging from the basement stairway with a flourish. “Presenting Poppy in her own ‘do!”

Poppy bounced into the room, her uniform gone. In its place was a solid vermillion yinzi eingyi blouse, a longyi skirt with a checked pale orange-and-white pattern, the white diamonds each having a little dot in their middles like an eye, and simple dark brown flip-flops the same shade as the nail polish on her fingers and toes, copper rings gracing the second & fourth digit of each hand and foot just as similar steel rings did on Lilah’s and Hope’s. “How do I look?” she asked cheerfully.

“You look adorable! Like a proper little businesswoman who could also kill you,” Lilah giggled. “Excellent work as always, Crow!”

“If it’s not excellent, I didn’t make it!” Crow laughed. “Now let’s get you introduced to everyone. This is Mark, you took care of his poison ivy problem…”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometime later that night, Hope knelt in front of a great stone coffin bearing a carved visage of Tourmaline on its top. “She’s a Crystal Gem now, just like you,” Hope said. “I wish…” She sniffled. “I just w-wish y-you could’ve s-seen her f-first v-victory…”

“Hope?” Talc suddenly appeared and knelt next to her. “You okay?”

“Just…sharing the news,” Hope replied as she wiped her eyes. “Talc, I’m so worried.”

“Yeah, the inverse radiation bugs me too. We got a way to fix that?”

“Yes, the Sun-Sucker’s finished now, but…oh, confound it! Talc, I’m worried that Lilah’s going to get hurt. I’m worried that she’s going to end up walking her mother’s path and blame herself for not being able to save everyone. A-and then…”

Talc put a hand on her right shoulder. “She won’t,” he said firmly. “We’ll make sure she won’t. She ain’t goin’ down that path now that we know what steps led her mom there.”

Hope exhaled as he removed his hand. “I-I know, but…and that’s just what we can do, Talc. I’m worried about something else. Something that we can’t do anything about.”

“What worries you?”

“Diopside. She was the 31,500th corrupted golem we’ve found.”

“That number a bad omen on your planet?”

“No, but it might as well be a bad omen on this one. The number of golems stranded on Earth before White Diamond sang the Corruption Song wasn’t that much more. And at the accelerated rate they’ve been emerging after Tourmaline…” she stared at the coffin before continuing, “we might find the last one within the year.”

“And we don’t have a cure for that still,” Talc finished with a sigh. “Bugs me too.”

“That wasn’t my only concern, Talc. Think about it: White Diamond couldn’t send personnel directly to Earth during the war, not when we were so good at convincing her people to turn on her. So she turned most of us into monsters so that we could not give up the sheep about her lies.”

“Goat.”

“Whatever. The point is, now that most of us are devoid of sapience almost none of us could expose her. And we remaining few have spent the last five millennia rounding all the others up, every Crystal Gem and Homeworld troop that she marooned on Earth prior to the Corruption. All into one place. Do you see what my concern is now?”

Talc’s brows furrowed. “I’m havin’ some trouble…d’you think that someone will try to destroy us all once we’re all together?”

“Yes. I’m afraid that Homeworld will return once we’ve done White Diamond’s dirty work of rounding up the remaining Crystal Gems, and potential Homeworld deserters, for her, a-and then…” She trembled. Talc didn’t need to be told what would happen next.

“Easy now, Hope,” Talc replied in a soothing voice as he watched her cry silently. “White Diamond left us alone after the Corruption, we’ve been lookin’ around for years and we never saw no sign a’ her drones or spaceships. And if she does come back, well, then we’ll finish her off right then and there. Just like we promised we would.”

Hope exhaled shakily. “I would be happier if she was able to see that.” Talc didn’t ask who “she” was and simply sat with her, letting the much larger alien lean her big blue head on his much tinier shoulders. “I would be much happier if she could see what kind of woman her daughter was becoming.”

Neither one noticed Lilah peeking her head into her mother’s shrine while their backs were turned, having heard the tail end of their conversation. Frowning again at the spot on her chest, she left the mourners in silence.

[toyastales]

Geology Rocks: Dravite Tourmaline

Dravite Tourmaline is one of the three major types of Tourmaline, along with Schorl (black) and Elbaite (multi-colored).  Dravite Tourmalines are typically brown, yellow or green, and are rich in magnesium and sodium. Tourmaline is found around the world.  Dravite is one of the main varieties and comes in several colors, most notably yellow, brown and green. Notable deposits for Dravite Tourmaline include Australia, Austria, Brazil, India, Italy, Nepal, Switzerland, Tanzania, and the United States.

Spiritual Meaning:

Dravite is a strong grounding stone. It has a soothing, relaxing, and reassuring effect on your body, as well as on your heart and mind. Dravite Tourmaline gently nurtures self-compassion and healing after trauma. If we have become emotionally numb, Dravite Tourmaline helps us to feel again.

[neo-axe-oc-thoughts]

𓆟 COD OC - Guppy 𓆟

Quick note Guppy is an COD AU OC, xyr AU is a mix of Black Ops (I, II and Cold War) and the Rebooted Modern Warfare (I, II, III). I'll make a separate post about the universe timeline, and what is/isn't canon.

General

Name : Harlow Rayner

Nickname(s) : Guppy

Age : 26

Birthday : Feb 9th 1997

Nationality : Australian

Language(s) : English, Auslan

Blood Type : A- (A NEG)

Disability : Autism

Gender : Queer

Sexuality : Grey AroAce

Pronouns : xe/xem/xyrs | ze/zir | they/them

Affiliations : Cryptologic Systems Op Navy, Aus Intelligence Corps Army

Rank : Intelligence Analyst

Callsign : Prophet 0-1

Affiliations

Cryptographer "Bell"

Agent Alex Mason

Special Agent Frank Woods

Lieutenant Commander David Mason

Station Chief Laswell

Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish

Sergeant Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley

Captain John Price

Relationships

Sibling : Isaac Rayner , younger brother - Alive, minimal contact

Father : Charlie Rayner - Alive, no contact

Mother : Evelyn Rayner - Alive, no contact

Bell their Zizi, (uncle/aunt not biologically related)

Appearance

Hair Colour : Dark Auburn Brown

Hair Style : Man bun, wavy/curly hair

Eye Colour : Brown Dravite

Height : 166cm / 5' 5" ft

Build : average

Beauty Marks : Light freckles across bridge of nose, moles scattered across body, stretch marks mainly on hips, upper thighs and upper arms

Scars : top surgery, chip missing from right ear

Tattoos : 3 Gill like tattoos across sides of ribcage, jelly fish wrapped across mid right bicep, two guppies on inner top of zir left forearm, wave band on right leg, a coral piece from left hip down thigh, circuit inspired tattoo from left collar bone to top left shoulder blade.

Face Claim : Erika Lindner

Voice Claim : Soren (GOG) /Rai Thistlethwayte (Thirsty Merc) /Kaoru Kurita (Wonder Egg Priority)

Personality and Negative Traits

Guppy comes across as strange or awkward to neurotypical individuals, and mostly gets along better with other neurodivergent people.

Guppy is very hard working, if the project is important they are unwilling to stop working even if it means ignoring xyrs body's needs.

Dependable : When it comes to those xe trusts, Guppy is incredibly trustworthy and reliable. A steady presence in their life, who would do absolutely anything to make them feel safe.

Intuitive : but often second guesses zirself, and ends up ignoring xyr intuition.

Has a habit of isolating themselves away from others, as well as repressing zir emotions often bottling them up since they struggle to express xem in a way that makes sense to others.

Overly empathetic as a response to zir being parentified during childhood.

Stubborn : Often unwilling to do things that go against what xe believes or what those xe trust has taught them.

Virtues and Vices : self-reliance, stubbornness, obsessive (wont stop until something is done), caution, dependability, Intuition, Tenacity, Impatience, Ingenuity.

Skills and Abilities

Basic Combat Training

Special Skills : Analyst, Cryptography, coding, hacking and intel gathering.

Favourites

Colour : dusty orange

Food : chicken parmi

Drink : Mocha

Flower : Purple Phlox subulata

Trivia

Guppy is right-handed, but working towards being ambidextrous.

Zir listens to music sung in other languages or metal to focus, annoying whoever they share a workspace with.

Has a more dark sense of humor, but hates that that sort of stuff makes xem almost laugh.

Spent most of zir spare time with Bell, and has picked up a couple Russian words and their knowledge on cryptography.

Surprisingly xe is a good cook and baker, spending time learning different recipes especially ones that Bell remembers enjoying from their childhood.

AN : I'm going to be making xyr backstory a separate post, since it's still a work in progress. I might post a small bit about Guppy's current concept/idea for their place in the story.

I also took inspiration from @/kaitaiga and @/sleepyconfusedpotato COD OC posts. Which is the second time I've taken inspiration from Sleepy, first time being my COD MW age head canon post.

[lizalfosrise]

So, wouldn’t it be grand if sometime post-Firelight there’s a secret new friend Doctor accidentally mentioned in front of Amiya perhaps (a là dialogue options), since the Doctor has gotten used to working with them and the VERY SPECIFIC rules Ms Bitter Lynx keeps not-so-passively aggressively forwarding them involving rules similar to Operator Reed whereupon the subject CANNOT be revealed to Victorian Operators exclusively this time and now they relaxed around Amiya due to long-standing familiarity and a long standing day.

Slip of the tongue and now Amiya has to ask about this ‘Operator Amanda’ she’s never heard of or met before, to which Doctor responds by elaborating that ah actually her codename was Dravite and she’s a fairly quiet, reliable Infected Feline with mineral Arts. This is intriguing because some Operators have reportedly encountered stray Tombkeeper Grotesques occasionally despite their Non-Infected creator being recorded as deceased…

“Doctor… is this Amanda here with us, in the room?” The Doctor glances around to confirm they can’t see any Victorians around the office/dorm and identifies the presence of the totally-alive Dravite nearby. Amiya can feel someone but cannot see them, since PRTS is constantly helping out Doctor with displaying invisible camouflage units such as Dravite. Deactivating the camouflage Arts unit reveals a petit Feline in a modified Rhodes Island combat suit with white-streaked grey-brown hair accessorised with a geometric white clip. However most of her face is obscured by a visor-type mask rather similar to the ones certain other Operators cover themselves with, underneath which can be seen a grim, stony scowl.

Operator Dravite is a ?* Tactician Vanguard with Camouflage whose Arts-created familiars (that definitely aren’t familiar at all, really) induce an accelerated petrifaction upon their target allowing their mistress to either apply a shield to both or to use nasty and creative Arts barrages that erode those in range.

She appears to be someone that old man Misery happens to keep an eye on routinely enough. But neither the Doctor nor Amiya would know why and that’s why, all’s well, in the end.

[wizard-irl]

Tourmaline Care Guide

Composition: AD₃G₆(T6O₁₈)(BO₃)₃X₃Z, where:

A = Ca, Na, K, Pb, or absent

D = Al, Fe²⁺, Fe³⁺, Li, Mg²⁺, Mn²⁺, Ti

G = Al, Cr³⁺, Fe³⁺, V³⁺

T = Si, Al, B³⁺

X = O and/or OH;

Z = F, O and/or OH

Hardness: 7 (scratched by drill bit)

Varieties

Schorl (black)

Adachite (brownish purple to bluish purple)

Bosiite (dark brown to black)

Cellerite (violet to grey blue/dark brownish green)

Darrellhenryite (pink)

Elbaite (green, blue, red, pink, orange, yellow, colourless)

Rubellite (red elbaite)

Watermelon tourmaline (elbaite with colour zoning)

Dravite (brown, green, blue, black)

Dutrowite (brown)

Feruvite (black)

Foitte (dark indigo to black)

Liddicaotite (light brown, pink, red, green, blue, white)

Lucchesite (black)

Maruamaite (brown)

Olenite (pink, blue, green, colourless)

Povndraite (brown to black)

Princivalleite (blue)

Rossmanite (pink, orange, yellow)

Tsilaisite (greenish yellow)

Uvite (brown to black)

Hydrosensitivity: Unreactive.

Photosensitivity: Unreactive.

Thermosensitivity: Mixed. Tourmaline is heat sensitive, but likely not under normal conditions.

Reactivity: Unreactive.

Fragility: Not fragile.

Toxicity: Not toxic.

Recommended care: Keep away from high heat.

Conditions are described based on normal use. Sources and definitions below the cut.

Definitions

Composition: Chemical composition

Hardness: Mohs hardness, gauges how tough a crystal is

Varieties: List of varieties a crystal can be.

Hydrosensitivity: Ability to be damaged or altered by exposure to or lack of water. Crystals should never be submerged in water for long regardless of their hydrosensitivity, and salt water can damage crystals no matter what.

Photosensitivity: Ability to be damaged or altered by light, often light with UV rays (sunlight).

Thermosensitivity: Ability to be damaged or altered by heat, often high heat.

Reactivity: Any other notable reactivities.

Fragility: Ease that the crystal breaks or scratches.

Toxicity: Note of anything toxic inherent to the crystal's chemical composition. Not toxic does not mean you should eat it!

Recommended care: The recommended course of action for this crystal.

Other notes: Any other care notes.

Sources

"Tourmaline", MinDat.

"The Care of Minerals", Journal of the Russell Society.

"Solubility Data on 646 Common and Not So Common Minerals", MinDat.

"Tourmaline Care and Cleaning Guide", GIA.

[ardentguilt]

Dravite

Dravite is actually a variety of Tourmaline, specifically brown tourmaline and is usually a yellow-brown to a brown-black color like the specimen here.

Dravite as such is sometimes sold under the name Brown Tourmaline.

[bloodcursecycle-if]

(may be updated as the story progresses)

The First Head of the Dustlands Republic's Council

Name: Deimus Cornaline Gender: Male (he/him) Age: 56 Status: Alive Appearance: Tan skin, Medium-Length Straight Dark Brown hair, Dark Brown eyes Cursebearer Status: Yes Curse Name: ??? Curse Result: ??? Bio: Deimus is the First Head of the Dustlands' Council and is Larisilla's mother. He is wise and sharp-witted, often managing many different things at once. He is also intimidating with his resting face appearing angry most of the time. Being First Head also makes him the figurehead leader of the Dustlands when it comes to international duties. Deimus is also a Cursebearer, like his daughter, but he isn't open or forthcoming about which Curse he has.

~

The Wife of the First Head of the Dustlands' Council

Name: Eunomia Cornaline (née Dravit) Gender: Female (she/her) Age: 49 Status: Alive Appearance: Tan skin, Long Curly Brown hair, Dusty/Pale Red eyes Cursebearer Status: No Bio: Eunomia is Deimus' wife and the mother of Larisilla and Lachesis. She is soft-spoken and gentle, often spending her time volunteering. She and her husband were paired together in an arranged marriage as part of an advantageous union between their families. Despite this, they do have a mutual love and respect for each other. She is concerned about both her husband and daughter's Curse status and has been contacting different healers and scholars to figure out how to halt the progression of the Curses for a while.

~

A High Priestess in Training

Name: Lachesis Cornaline Gender: Female (she/her) Age: 16 Status: Alive Appearance: Tan skin, Long Straight Brown hair, Dark Brown eyes Cursebearer Status: No Bio: Lachesis is one of the priestesses in training at the Dustlands Temple. She is also Larisilla's younger sister. She is helpful and kind, but also behaves like a 16-year-old girl. Similarly to her sister, she is also blunt when it comes to talking with others and is serious and dedicated to her studies to be a High Priestess. She spends most of her time in the Dustlands Temple, learning, or in their library. Lachesis also takes advantage of the library in helping her sister break her Curse.

~

The Council Member in Training

Name: Metus Amonte Gender: Male (he/him) Age: 23 Status: Alive Appearance: Tan skin, Short Dark Auburn hair, Brown eyes Cursebearer Status: No Bio: Metus is one of the many people in training to potentially become one of the Heads on the Dustlands' Council. His mother is actually the Seventh Head of the Dustlands' Council, but he is studying under Deimus instead. He and Larisilla are fairly close, being familiar with each other via their parents. He also happens to have a massive crush on her, of which Larisilla is completely unaware of. He is highly competitive and ambitious and can be manipulative. He likes to present himself as a kind and caring thoughtful person though, but will not hesitate to throw someone under the bus to get ahead.

[fowardfashionfindz]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Tourmaline 1.20Ct Cushion Cut Natural Champagne Tourmaline.

[starlanka1]

Exploring The Different Varieties of Tourmaline Stone

Tourmaline is a beautiful gemstone that comes in many different colors and types. Each type of tourmaline has its special look and qualities. Let's explore some wonderful tourmaline stone varieties and discover what makes them special.

1. Elbaite

Elbaite is one of the most popular types of tourmaline. It can be found in many colours, like pink, green, blue, and red. The red and pink versions are often called rubellite and are very good-looking. The green elbaite is sometimes mistaken for emerald because of its rich and deep green colour.

2. Schorl

Schorl is the most common type of tourmaline and is usually black. It's known for its strong, shiny black colour. Schorl isn't used in jewellery much like the colourful types, but it's still interesting and sleek.

3. Watermelon Tourmaline

Watermelon tourmaline is enchanting because it looks like a slice of watermelon! You will be enticed by the colour and the beauty of this stone. It's green on the outside and pink, just like the fruit. This type of tourmaline is great for making unique jewellery.

4. Dravite

Dravite is usually brown in colour but can also be yellow or orange. You have to check which one you require.  It's not as bright as some other types of tourmaline, but it has a warm, earthy look that many jewellery enthusiasts like.

5. Paraíba Tourmaline

The Paraíba tourmaline is very special and rare. It comes in bright neon blues and greens. These colours are so vivid and unique that Paraíba tourmaline is one of the most valuable types of tourmaline.

6. Chrome Tourmaline

Chrome tourmaline is known for its rich, deep green colour. It gets its colour from chromium, the same element that colours emeralds. This type of tourmaline is quite rare and sought after.

7. Parti-coloured Tourmaline

Parti-coloured tourmaline has more than one colour in the same stone. You might see a mix of pink, green, and other colours in one gem. This makes for really interesting and one-of-a-kind pieces of jewellery.

8. Cat's Eye Tourmaline

Cat's eye tourmaline has a special effect where it looks like it has a narrow band of light across it, similar to a cat's eye. Tiny fibres inside the stone cause this. It's a rare and beautiful effect.

9. Liddicoatite

Liddicoatite is a type of tourmaline with many different colours in one stone. It's often cut in slices to show off its beautiful patterns. Each piece is unique, making it a favourite among collectors.

Summing Up

Tourmaline is an enchanting gemstone because of its many varieties and colours. From the deep greens of chrome tourmaline to the vibrant blues of Paraíba, each type has its beauty and charm.

Whether you're a collector, a jewellery lover, enthusiast, or just someone who appreciates beautiful objects, tourmaline has something to offer everyone. Its versatility and range of colours make it a perfect choice for all kinds of jewellery, adding a touch of uniqueness and colour to any piece.

Which one are you thinking of purchasing? Well, all we’d say is purchase it from a credible source.

[stevenuniverse-described]

[Image Description: a flatly-colored, digital drawing of two original designs based off of Steven Universe. Both Tourmalines are stout Gems with short, skinny legs.

Paraiba Tourmaline has a pear-shaped body and a rectangular gem on her nose. She has pale-blue skin and cyan hair that droops downwards. She is wearing high-waisted, navy blue pants and a turquoise vest with white sleeves. Paraiba has bored, downturned eyes.

Dravite Tourmaline has a broad chest and a rectangular gem on her chest. She has warm, yellow skin and spiky, honey-orange hair that sticks up in three points. She is wearing a brown bodysuit with pointed, orange shoulderpads, elbow-length gloves, and an angular visor over her eyes. Dravite grins confidently.

End Description.]

Paraiba and Dravite

[cinnabuncombyne]

𝑪𝒓𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑺𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 - 𝑻 𝑳𝒊𝒔𝒕

List for the crystals/rocks/minerals that start with T!

Tanzanite

Tektite

Terraluminite

Thulite

Tiffany Stone

Blue - Tigers Eye

Gold - Tigers Eye

Red - Tigers Eye

Blue - Topaz

Brown - Topaz

Colorless - Topaz

Green - Topaz

Imperial - Topaz

Mystic - Topaz

Orange - Topaz

Pink - Topaz

Violet - Topaz

Yellow - Topaz

Bi-Color - Tourmaline

Black - Tourmaline

Brown - Tourmaline

Dravite - Tourmaline

Elbaite - Tourmaline

Green - Tourmaline

Indicolite - Tourmaline

Liddicoatite - Tourmaline

Paraiba - Tourmaline

Pink - Tourmaline

Rubbelite - Tourmaline

Watermelon - Tourmaline

Tremolite

Trolleite

Tugtupite

Turgite

Turquenite

Turquoise

[ainews]

A rare mineral belonging to the tourmaline family, dravite is often referred to as ‘zany’ due to its distinctly unique structure and color. The mineral is known for its deep brown color that can range between a range of hues from yellowish-brown to almost black. In addition to its remarkable coloring, dravite is renowned for its strong blocky crystal formations. This makes dravite one of the more interesting and curious minerals on the market.

Like most other tourmaline stones, dravite has a high electrical conductivity which makes it highly sensitive to both high temperatures and electricity. This is what contributes to the mineral’s zany nature as it is able to light up due to electrical discharges over its surface. Additionally, it is known for its strong and intense vibrations that help to produce a wide variety of electrical effects.

Another peculiar thing about dravite is its ability to attract pieces of various minerals and metals. It has been discovered that when a piece of dravite is placed in a holder and touched with a magnet, it is able to collect iron particles from the atmosphere. This curious behavior has interested many as it makes the mineral all the more fascinating.

These intriguing properties have earned dravite its zany reputation, making it a fun and exciting mineral to explore. With its wide range of interesting behavior and unique coloring, it is sure to make a great addition to any rock collector’s collection.

[gemsona-advice]

Hackmanite (sneaky but very helpful computer wiz & programmer)+Star peridot( a technician who now makes videogames for humans & gems) fusion?

There aren't really that many green/purple gems, so like... maybe atlanstisite or fluorite? You could also mix the colours to make brown- maybe tiger's eye, brown agate, or dravite?

[boundvirgo]

Davon's immediate callout only deepens the smile on his features as their foreheads meet. Their proximity lets him look unabashedly into the man's eyes, to him they look like a dravite mood ring. There's sweetness in that multitude of browns, but also hints of mischief, and smoothness like freshly crushed brown velvet. It's all wrapped up in beauty powerful enough to take his breath from him, but that same magnetizing energy remains between them—keeping him in tact. It takes everything he has not to get lost.

There's a twitch at his mouth that says he wants to purse his lips incredulously despite the fact that Davon is very much right. "I suppose you have a point." He hums. Murmured words coming out almost like a purr. As soon as their lips lock, Arya erases the already minuscule distance between them. His hands glide around Davon's waist to rest at the small of his back, pulling their bodies impossibly closer than they were before. His grip is strong, unyielding, like he'd much rather stay like this for the rest of the night.

Almost as if he'd been waiting for the green light since laying eyes on the man, Arya ducks his head and lines Davon's jaw with a row of kisses. He adorns the column of his neck too, lips pressing against gorgeous tawny skin. exploratory hands dipping under the hem of his shirt and running upwards.

"Liar." He calls the other out instantly while his tone matched the playful smile and glint in his doeish eyes. At that point, their bodies may as well have been completely intertwined. The Son of Artemis had fully embraced the other demigod as his arms slipped around Arya's broad torso. His forehead leaned in to rest against the other's while there was just a sliver of space between their lips only filled by the breaths of the syllables spoken.

"You could, but something tells me you're not that heartless; at least not with ME." He chuckled softly, dragging a hand around from resting on Arya's powerful back and finding a new spot upon his left pectoral. The silence lingered only a few moments before Davon finally leaned in to press their lips together; more tender and sensual rather than completely lust driven regardless of how gorgeous the other demigod was. Something about the energy between himself and the son of Asteria just clicked.

"I think the camp is fine for tonight," he whispered over Arya's lips as the kiss was broken, though their mouths still brushed. "Keep distracting me for the rest of the night."

[chillchildvibes]

What gem do you think a dravite (brown Tourmaline) and Jet would fuse into?

maybe an onyx

[briarsandbramble]

When you get home from shopping and your partner lays crystals all over you while you relax. 🙌🏻✨💠🛌