LightReader

Chapter 1 - Mustard Emerald

''All Beryl-type Gems, follow the red lines on the ground! C'mon, we gotta train all of you up!'' The shouting from a giant orange woman, the sound of people, and the sheer color and light, both of the colored people and of suddenly not being encased underground assaulted my eyes before I fell down from… My hole? Down to the ground was overwhelming. I didn't understand what the hell was going on, and I only really started trying to get up when one of those giant orange women came to me with a worried look on her face.

I stared at her for a moment, my mind painfully itching as something was telling me I recognized this… being. She wasn't human, not with such a different skin tone. It wasn't a natural one, it was orange.

''Emerald Facet-9F2L Cut-5Z3, why aren't you getting up?'' She questioned me, and I blinked for a moment before I responded to her.

''I was buried underground. I could feel everything, the time passed, the constraining walls, everything…'' I trailed off for a moment, ''I, uh, need a minute.'' My voice felt foreign and wrong, but I wasn't lying.

I spent days, maybe weeks, I couldn't measure time after all, underground with nothing but darkness and my own mind to keep me company. I thought I was in limbo at first, but I felt alive. And I could feel my own body, even if I didn't have the strength to move it until now that is.

The giant woman, or well, not giant, she was a foot and a half taller than me I think, cringed at that before offering a hand to me, which I took after a second. She barely exerted any strength and I was up in a second.

''That's understandable, 5Z3. You're not the first to be aware when your Gem is being formed. But we have duties to uphold, and mine is to get all Emeralds safely into the transport ship to be moved into the education facility.'' She explained before walking away, and I followed after her.

More so I could have something to distract my mind as I observed my body. And you know what the first thought I had, at seeing myself was? Mustard. I was thinking of mustard. Which, considering I now had the color of said condiment, wasn't an outlandish thought even if it was maniacally funny to me. I didn't laugh out loud, but I did have a feral grin before it slowly reverted to normal.

I was tall, not as tall as the orange lady with a gem on her chest, but I was still pretty tall as we walked around the… Canyon? I think it's a canyon, I was never good with actual geography, cartography was my strength. HOI4 was partially responsible for that. But it was a corridor with no ceiling, and there were holes on the sides, and the walls were smooth-ish. Talking about the walls, it was filled with different shaped holes, more of those colored… Woman? I couldn't tell their gender with certainty, but many more colored beings were exiting the holes.

I fiddled with the lemon-yellow square cuffs in my hands. It was weird, everything was weird. Bizarre, and just… satisfying. I wasn't confined to darkness, to the pressure of the ground. But I wasn't human anymore. I… I felt conflicted about it. I wasn't human anymore, that I was certain.

Yet I wasn't a biological being, if anything I felt weird. Depth perception was clearly different, even if I felt I was looking through yellow-tinted lenses on my left eye, while my right eye saw all the colors as they were meant to be. Touching it, I was surprised to find a Gem, or at least I assume that's what it was in place. That would explain why my left eye is tinted. So was I a… What was the term? Lithoid being? All those hours spent on Stellaris are paying off!

Though I had to admit, I wasn't sure if I was right. I was making guesses, and coming to conclusions… Huh, I recognized that… Injector thingy. It looks like a bac… bacterio… Bacteriophage! That's the word. It came to me in crystal clear clarity, but I couldn't for the life of me spell that right. 

Oh, that's another weird thing. I remembered everything in crystal clear clarity now. Except my more faded memories, or forgotten ones. Now I had to deal with that feeling of knowing I forgot something but being incapable of remembering it.

''Alright, we are here. Get in, and follow the other Emeralds, you'll figure out the rest from there.'' The Jasper in front of me said, and I almost bumped into her, before I stopped and poked my head to the side as she was blocking my vision… That's a spaceship, also how did I know she was a Jasper? Nevermind, that's a freaking spaceship! I want it!

-

''Executing moveset 12-A is the most efficient and most effective strategy to use against-'' Blah blah blah, Stars even after years it's still the same boring lecture of tactics and naval combat. Both in space and in water surprisingly. Or not considering we had Lapis Lazuli's as hydrokinetics, which could theoretically turn any space combat into an actual naval combat if the Lazuli is powerful enough, and had enough water, but those were a rarity only seen in three millennia or so.

Power-wise, usually they had varying levels of power. But still, if a Lapis was strong and skillful enough they could literally take the water of entire planets and weaponize it.

I was envious of all the kinetics. The Rubies, the Lapis, and even the damn Sapphires with their future fucking sight. Do you have the slightest idea of how valuable that ability is? And they don't even let us take them into our ships! For combat! Who freaking cares if the ability itself is so freaking rare we barely have more than a thousand after millennia?!? It's priceless to have in combat! But at least we were allowed to choose our own crew, bar exceptional Gems. 

That is Sapphires that could see the future. We were practically free to pick whatever else, with limits and restrictions and such, but I could actually choose a few special gems for a few ideas I had for battalions and special divisions. It would be kind of hard to jump through the hoops to enact my plans, but it wouldn't be that hard. And besides, it isn't like I was breaking any of the rules by submitting the request for these specific Gems.

However, I should probably hold onto those plans until I am given an actual ship to command. Many Emeralds were made into Logistics officers, instead of Commander and Captains. Mostly due to the sheer size of the Great Diamond Empire. You kinda needed it when you were a galaxy-spanning Empire.

I don't think I was being trained to be a logistics officer, considering I was learning more about how the ships worked, their technology, weaponry, and the countless amounts of tactics we had come up with to use them. Alongside ground tactics, even if we weren't made to be ground leaders, we were still expected to fight if necessary.

But many of the tactics that they thought us on spacecraft were… They were… broadside and movie tactics. What do I mean by that? I mean that no one seemed to abuse the fact that space was, well, space. There is no up and down, left or right. Strikecraft seemed to abuse this fact, but all the ships bigger than a corvet didn't bother doing the same tactics, which was strange. They all just acted as if they were water-bound ships, doing pass-byes with their weaponry, or if the Gem in charge was suicidal enough, ramming into the said ship.

Yes, that was an actual tactic taught to us. Mostly in case our weaponry systems were offline and the Peridots on board couldn't bring them back up online in time to retaliate against our enemy, but still! Ramming tactics?!? 

I loved the empire, I did, but sometimes I am just flabbergasted at the stupid ideas we had for combat. Granted, I wasn't a genius or anything, I was only the 2nd best out of my entire batch and I think I was only 2nd best due to me having memories of my… Previous life? I wasn't sure. I at least didn't seem to have carried over my more debilitating mental illnesses, like my depression.

Still, Autism was suffering from having me, and the ADHD was highly useful for fleet combat and in the sims. Oh, how I loved the simulators. But it was terrible how we were restricted to only using it for two weeks before we were bombarded with more knowledge and training to be fleet commanders or logistic officers. The more Yellow Emeralds were utterly bored due to that, to the point I had invented fucking chess to stave off the boredom with our holopads.

The Green Emeralds had taken to carving out models of the available ships and doing mock battles with them. That is they played with them like children and roleplayed massive grand battles and armies fighting against each other and such. I, due to having contacts with the Green Emeralds being made into Logi officers, was invited to one of these battles. 

It was childish fun, innocence, and wonder.

Then I introduced my idea of tabletop games. And minis, and of making monsters to fight against. It all snowballed out of there, and we suddenly had discount Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons but made for massive-scale battles. We spent a few decades just playing these games, before in an impulsive act, that only now I realize could've caused me to be Shattered, I demanded from our Celadon Emerald teacher that we be allowed to use the simulators outside of lessons.

She… She had agreed, on the condition that the entire batch managed to defeat her in a simulation battle.

We spent thirty years in that simulation battle before we finally won against our Teacher. Thirty years of playing a rough, equivalent of Stellaris, HOI4, and fucking Endless Space 2. We had to manage our economies, unit replenishment, colonies, and just a shit ton of other things that a normal Emerald commander wouldn't actually need to know before our Celadon Emerald had deemed us good enough to be granted free access to the simulators.

I might've slept for a day or two after those thirtyyears of simulated battles and economic management. Oh, yeah, I could sleep. I only discovered that due to us having private meditation chambers. Apparently they were meant to teach us patience and give our minds time to process all the information we were given. I had slept the first time, in years in the meditation chamber.

This was also when I discovered Gems didn't wake up the same way humans did. Oh, sure, we were slow to process our surroundings but we were much more cognizant and aware of our surroundings afterward. It was nice to recover one of my human abilities, though I was still trying to imitate our sense of taste.

Gems didn't eat, even if we spoke and had mouths. But we couldn't actually digest or eat anything organic, which was terrible. I… haven't made any progress on that front. I didn't have any knowledge on shapeshifting as it wasn't deemed as a skill we needed to learn as Emeralds. 

Hopefully, I could get some Gems that focused on shapeshifting, and then order them to shapeshift into the local fauna or whatever planet we were standing on so I could have an idea of how to make my own sense of taste. I really hoped I was assigned to Yellow or Blue Diamond, Pink was in a completely different Galaxy with her own little colony and White Diamond was simply a puppet master that I feared.

I shouldn't be assigned to her, White Diamond Gems were expected to be perfect in everything while Yellow Diamond was more of a Utilitarian leader. Probably thanks to her managing the actual army and navy, or at least a large portion of it. All the Diamonds had their own fleets that they managed, even if Pink's was a mockery to the word. Her ships were weaponless! They only had Ion weaponry to scare off the organic species in her Galaxy! Ion weapons that did nothing but disable electronics in ships!

Thank the stars that at least the other Diamonds were smart enough to send their own fleets to guard her.

''-and with that, we have finished today's lesson. I recommend all of you to either meditate and absorb the knowledge given to you or to practice your practical skills in the simulator.'' Celadon Emerald said before she dismissed us and I got up, stretching myself even if the motion wasn't technically necessary.

Hard-light bodies and all that, no muscles to stretch. But the feeling of stretching was surprisingly the same, so eh. Whatever.

''Mustard, will you be joining our mock battles?'' One of the Emeralds asked me, she was an eye-searing bright green, but I just shook my head, ''I'm going off to meditate, Cut-1Z6. I'll join all of you at a later time.'' I replied to my batchmate, and she pouted before she ran after the other Emeralds leaving.

One thing that I never thought I would be in my new life, was social. But it was… freeing in befriending and having friends that weren't human. I wasn't bound by their morality, of their right and wrong. No, I just had to mind what I said about the Great Diamond Empire, and I would be golden in being as much of a psychopath against organics as I could be. It was… Freeing being able to talk about killing organics in a way that would've labeled me as a psychopath back on Earth.

Walking through the corridors of the 'Burning Knowledge', yes the vessel was named that. I arrived in my meditation chamber, and stared at the mirror that I had installed into my chamber.

Technically they weren't really ours, but Celadon had given me permission, stating that it was a ''cosmetic change that wouldn't affect Meditation.''. I stared into the mirror, before I posed, and cackled evilly.

(Insert Pic Here)

I loved the fact that our meditation chambers were soundproofed. It allowed me to abuse my autism, and just be a silly Emerald for a few hours. It also allowed me to cry or hit things without anyone seeing me doing so. Or, well, Celadon never questioned why sometimes Peridots had to repair a few new holes that periodically appeared in my Meditation chamber.

I missed a lot of things. I wasn't an emotionless rock, if anything I was more emotional than I ever have been. And the worst fact? I liked this new life. I had a purpose, a goal, I wasn't an organic that was made for no other reason than lust and the need to breed. An organic that would question the meaning of life, its purpose, and all the useless philosophical questions.

No. I was made to lead. To command. And to annihilate the enemies of the Great Diamond Empire.

All of that responsibility was heavy to carry, but I would put my all into being the best. Or the daring and innovative Emerald in our generation and batch! I will invent new tactics! Abuse our powers! All for the Great Diamond Empire! For White, Yellow, Blue, and Pink Diamond! For Our Diamonds!

-

''All of you have completed your training and are now ready to lead the Armadas and spacecraft of the Great Diamond Empire. All of you will be assigned to a diamond.-'' I was barely holding myself onto my seat as I waited almost vibrating in my spot. I was excited to finally leave this ship and have my own armada to command.

But who would I be assigned to? Yellow? Blue? I hoped it was Yellow, I was yellow after all! Sure, I didn't like the color, but she would be a much better pick than Blue! Blue Diamond would just give me an artcraft, and no spaceships!

 ''-Mustard Emerald.'' I paused at the fact that I was addressed by Celadon Emerald. Was… Was I given an official nickname? She didn't address me by my cut. Was it official?

''Yes, my Emerald?'' I answered and I could almost feel the disappointment in her eyes? It wasn't directed at me, I think but why- ''You have been assigned to Pink Diamond. You are to depart at the next planet, and then either take a Warp Pad to Pink's Colony or a ship heading towards it.''

Oh.

That's why.

''Yes, my Emerald.'' I haven't drunk water in years, but at that moment, my mouth felt like a desert.

'Pink Diamond? Of all the Diamonds, I am assigned to the ''troublemaker?'' I cried in my head, even if I still respected Pink Diamond and she was quite nice and liberal about certain things, she was quite literally, the youngest of all the Diamonds.

I didn't want to babysit the youngest leader of our Empire!

More Chapters