Keeping Up With the Fuscites Closed (Fuscite, Paddy, Soda)

[Sodalite]

After only four months, Sodalite's original mission on Earth was already put on hold. The one overseeing her mission never gave a reason, just told her to report back to the moon base immediately. At first this was concerning, Soda thought they found out about what happened to the Quartz soldier they'd sent with her and were going to put an end to the mission for good. Thankfully, when she actually got back to the base, this didn't end up being the case. Instead, another gem working on Earth had simply requested the assistance of a Sodalite, and she was the only one readily available. Her mission was only going to be on hold until she finished assisting this gem with whatever she needed. The gem was a Padparadscha sapphire, and the mission was simple enough. A ship had apparently crash landed on the Earth just days prior, and they'd completely lost connection with the crew. All Soda needed to do was assist the Padparadscha in investigating the crash site. 

Soda figured this would probably be pretty similar to what she'd been doing before, so she didn't mind going on the mission. She was secretly glad that she'd have company again, at least for a while. Working alone on Earth had been nice, but it was lonely. There was something less satisfying about making a discovery when nobody was around to witness it. She just hoped this gem would be good company. The only other time she'd worked with a gem who wasn't another Sodalite had been less than ideal.

So far, everything had been going fine. She hadn't talked much with the Padparadscha, aside from saying "Sodalite Cut 2JL Facet 8K2A reporting for duty" when she first arrived, but it seemed as if she didn't know about the quartz who was supposed to be accompanying her. From what little Soda could tell, this Padparadscha must've held a high position. Her ship was fairly impressive, and she even had her own Pearl. Soda was more than a little envious, she hoped that one day she might become important enough to get this sort of treatment. Between Soda, Padparadscha, the pearl, and an amethyst that was also on board, Soda felt out of place. She was just sitting quietly while they headed towards Earth. The trip to Earth from the moon base was rather short, she figured they'd talk more whenever they arrived.

[Paddy]

The sapphire herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with the silence as the ship glided out of the Moonbase hanger. She shifted, crossing her legs where she sat in her command station. Pink Pearl was nearby, her fingers gliding across the holopanel controls. With a glance around, it was easy for her to see why it was so quiet; the servant wasn't much of a talker, and the new gems on her team were largely unacquainted. The Amethyst she had reluctantly recruited stood barely at attention, rocking back and forth on her heels as she stared absently into literal space that stretched on outside of the windows of the pink vessel. Then, the sapphire's gaze floated over to the Sodalite she'd hired particularly for this mission, who seemed not to be very talkative herself, or was it that she was shy? 

Within seconds, the small pink vessel zipped across the empty void that filled the reach between the moon and Earth. The blue orb grew, becoming an azure crescent that pulled across the ship's central view pane. "Initiating friction shields, preparing to enter atmosphere," announced the soft, silken voice of Pink Pearl,"Locating the crash zone," The ship orbited Earth as its sensors locked onto the correct coordinates. A beep sounded off as the ship found its target, and rushed forward, slipping through the planet's thick atmosphere before punching through the clouds. The ship pulled up, and began to glide alongside a snow-capped mountain range. The Amethyst seemed more invested now, staring with curious eyes as she watched the spires of dark, ancient rock zip behind the ship. Soon, a sprawling tundra valley unfurled before them,"Nearing the site," The numbers on the pearl's screen began to count-down the time it would take for them to reach the fallen ship they were meant to investigate. Over the horizon, a bright emerald shine glinted from the morning sun. The recently crashed vessel laid crumpled into the windswept landscape, surrounded by snow-matted grass. 

Finally, the ship lowered through the air, and searched for a viable place to land. It's braces deployed as the landing sequence initiated. Padparadscha was giddy for the mission to start, and relieved to hear someone talking, even if it was just to make technical announcements. Though, now the pressure for her to speak pressed even more heavily-- she couldn't take it any longer. "So!" She piped up, speaking just to fill the air, a bit of a sparkle in her eyes as she gave a warm smile to one of the new gems, "Sodalite, have you been dispatched to Earth before?"

[The God-Emperor of Gemkind]

"CLEAR!" 

KABOOM!

A large explosion shook the hull of the ship, and smoke filled the hallways. When it cleared, the bright orange threshold of a high-security Homeworld holding cell became visible. Inside stood a tall green gem clad in an outdated jumpsuit - Shamrock, one of Fuscite's crew members that had been captured by an ill-fated Homeworld team. Fuscite cursed loudly as several other Fuscites made their way out of the containment corridor, heading for more explosives. The metallic alloy that comprised the ship and housed the holding cell was proving resistant to their attempts at penetrating it, and Fuscite feared that another ship filled with odd gems would come to reclaim their lost vessel. Nothing short of the cannons on Old Ironsides had pierced the ship, and using such high-caliber weaponry to open up the cell would pose an extremely high risk of damaging Shamrock's gem. 

As the other Fuscites returned with yet another batch of explosives, Fuscite picked up her helmet and exited the hallway, striding over to where the crew of the ship was being held at gunpoint. After their ship had been shot down by Old Ironsides, one among them had put the cell into a sort of lockdown mode - and despite the efforts of Fuscite and her crew, none had stepped forth to unlock the cell and free Shamlock. Glaring at her friend's captors, Fuscite struggled to find a gem whose make she could recognize - aside from the Ruby contingent, that is. The commander opened her mouth to speak - perhaps to verbally barrage the crew again, or to angrily demand that Shamrock be released - but was cut short as the sound of another ship flying overhead and landing permeated throughout the crashed vessel. Waving an arm, Fuscite ordered that the hostages be moved deeper into the ship and ran to the prison corridor, donning her helmet. 

"Don't trigger that detonator, Mint! Help Thirty-Three and Pilot get these explosives out of here and then get with the other Fuscites and watch over the crew - we have company." 

As the gems nodded and hurriedly began removing the explosive charges from the cell, Fuscite looked in at Shamrock. "Whatever happens, I need you to stay calm. We're gonna get you out of there, or we're not leaving this ship." As Shamrock offered a shaky thumbs up, Fuscite quickly made her way to a rather large hole in the ship and activated her suit's camouflaging function before hopping out. Landing with a crunchy thud, Fuscite snuck on over to a nearby piece of debris and peaked out from behind it, trying to find where the ship had landed. After several minutes of sneaking and searching, Fuscite found the ship perched at the very edge of the crash site - with no concealing pieces of debris nearby to use as cover. Although she trusted in her suit's ability to conceal her from detection, the old explorer didn't want to risk it. But then again, Shamrock needed to be freed and the key to her freedom was most likely aboard that ship. Exhaling, Fuscite took faith in her suit's abilities and slunk across the open ground, cautiously making her way towards the unfamiliar vessel. 

[Sodalite]

Unsure of what to say, Soda just kept watching the crew do their work. She didn't consider herself shy, before when she worked with the quartz or other Sodalites, she was actually pretty talkative. Perhaps it was the Padparadscha's seemingly high status that was shutting her up now, or a still existing fear that they'd find out about her quartz partner. Either way, whatever it was that was bothering Soda seemed to subside after they got to Earth. "Yes, I was on a pretty important mission here just before I was moved to assisting you." Soda seemed to feel it was a necessity to make sure everyone she met knew just how great she was. She may have just wanted to impress Padparadscha, but she could've easily came across as egotistic. "You really must be pretty important for them to have assigned me to you, I happen to be one of the best as far as Sodalites go." Despite whether or not Soda was the best of her kind or not, that wasn't actually why she'd been chosen. She was simply the only one around at the time. Soda really was curious as to how this Padparadscha had gotten herself such a nice ship and a Pearl though. From her time creating materials for gem structures, Soda only ever knew Padparadschas to be architects, and from what she could tell, this sapphire wasn't headed to go build a garage for the crashed ship. Soda faintly remembered some sort of a project involving experimenting on sapphires to be built for other roles, but only experienced Sodalites worked on projects that advanced, so she never really found out much about it. Still, it was the only explanation she could think of for a Padparadscha investigating a crashed ship.

"It's odd for ships to crash like this, but I'm sure some inexperienced gem just made a miscalculation, it hap-" Soda was talking as they were preparing to leave the ship, but was cut off when she actually got a better glimpse of the crashed one. It didn't quite look the way she was expecting. It seemed to have taken damage to the side, as well as the part that hit the ground. It getting beat up when it crashed made sense, but it almost seemed as if it'd taken other damage. Soda just stared at the crashed vessel, unable to make sense of it. She hoped that getting a better look at the ship and their surroundings would shed a little light on the situation, but for now she was stumped.

[Paddy]

The hydraulic locks on the hatch disengaged. Steam hissed as the door pulled into the wall, and a gust of frigid air filled the cabin of the ship. Padparadscha, already in her field gear, stood up from her seat and straightened out her belt, smirking as she listened to Sodalite. "Good-- I require only the very best gems to get the job done," She gave a terse nod, and clasped her hands behind her back as she sauntered nearer to the door, to peer out at the frozen plane. This small chemical engineer could talk big, and the sapphire hoped Sodalite could walk the walk too, "Crashes like these are odd indeed, though Earth seems to be a magnet for trouble. I've encountered numerous downed vessels, it seems there is always a surprise waiting aboard," Then, she turned to eye the amethyst guard, who she knew had spent only a short time after her creation on Earth's surface. "6UE, look alive-- I need you to go down there and scope out the landing zone,"

6UE straightened her back, and swallowed,"Uh...right, your clarity, I'm right on it," The amethyst shuffled up to the door, peered out, then made her way down the gangway. Her heavy feet crushed the grass and snow into the icy earth as she scanned the perimeter, squinting her eyes out around the ship. Small debris were scattered over a wide radius, but the larger concentration of carnage near the ship told of a very heavy, rapid impact. This homeworld vessel was bigger than Padpara's, and the damage was extensive. "Looks clear, your clarity," The amethyst piped up, turning around to face the gems still inside the ship. 

As the amethyst spoke, Pink Pearl's head swiveled up from her screen, her brows drawn together with concern. "Good luck my sapphire-- and to you as well, Sodalite," The pearl gave a salute before re-assuming her position, worry still showing on her expression. 

"Right then, let's get this wrapped up effectively. First order of business will be to secure the perimeter, and survey the superficial damage before we begin moving in to take samples," Padparadscha gave a final nod to the pearl, who would remain aboard as the sapphire descended until her feet touched the ground. She drew out her holoscreen, and pulled up her documentation apparatus, rolling video feed as she continued through the grass, trying to keep herself from tripping over the long, tangled plant-matter. 

[The God-Emperor of Gemkind]

Fuscite instinctively lowered herself as a ramp began descending from the ship. Frowning, she crouch-walked off to the flank of the ramp, watching as a small group of gems exited the ship. The plan was for getting the gems to stay in the ship while she got the codes, and said gems leaving the ship kind of ruined that plan. Staring the gems down for a possible way to fix this wrench in her gears, she noticed an odd device being held by the red gem. A lightbulb went off in Fuscite's head and she grinned.

Standing up and sneakily speed-crouch-walking to her new position, the explorer adopted a preparatory sprinting stance and eyed the red gem several meters in front of her. Rolling her neck, Fuscite let out a few soft grunts before breaking into a dash towards the red gem. The voice modulator in Fuscite's HOIMEA was currently working to make Fuscite sound like a beast of sorts, and the explorer released a hitch-pitched shriek as she leaped into the air in front of the red gem, angling her body in a position that would send her legs through the strange device and her elbow into the gem's face, if luck was on her side and the gem didn't move too much from her flying through the gadget she was holding so fondly. 

As usual, the camouflage had flickered for the fleetest of moments when the impact occurred, and once more when Fuscite landed on the ground - the device being crushed underfoot as Fuscite continued her sprint into the ship, slowing down as she got up the ramp and passed the threshold. Turning back to see if the gems were retreating back up the ramp, Fuscite lightly placed a foot on one of the interior walls of the alien vessel, quietly sneaking up it. Stopping once she had found a perch upon the ceiling, the aged navigator paused for a moment to ponder what to do next.

[Sodalite]

The terrain they were dealing with was less than ideal as far as Soda was concerned, the organic plant junk was too high making it a pain just to get around. They were less than six steps in and Soda had already experienced a few close calls, nearly tripping on the tangled grass below her. Earth was weird, of all the locations she'd been to, each one was vastly different than the last. This one actually had what appeared to be  crystallized water around it, something she'd never seen in her life. She really wanted to go over and check it out, but decided to focus on the task at hand. "The damage on the ship, do you think that's-" Soda was going to ask about the weird condition of the ship, but once again she was cut off in the middle of her sentence, this time by an unusual noise. Something was making odd noises somewhere in front of them. Soda had never heard anything like it before, stepping back while wearing a rather worried look. She clutched the small limb enhancer on her hand, and looked over to Padparadscha "Did you hear that?"

Immediately after the question, A much louder high pitched shriek came seemingly from right in front of them, causing Soda to step backwards, tangling her foot around a weed. "Eep!" Right as the holo screen Padparadscha had been holding flew out of her hands, Soda tripped on the plant, landing with a small thud. Soda's mind immediately focused on getting back to the ship, they needed to retreat and figure out what sort of creature was doing this before they were to continue. "Hurry, let's get back to safety and check this out from there!" She scooted backwards a few inches, but ultimately couldn't get far due to the plants hugging her foot. She struggled for a few seconds, pulling on her leg with all her might, but couldn't get it loose. She calmed down just a little, igniting a tiny flame with her limb enhancer, slowly warming up the weed so that she could eventually break free, but the process was taking way too long.

[Paddy]

Her brows shot up, and mouth hung open as the shriek pierced the tundra wind, and the holo-panel device was smacked from her hands. The device impacted the cold, hard earth in shattered pieces. In the same moment, she caught a hit straight across her face, knocking the wits straight out of the sapphire. She stumbled over the grass, her feet getting caught until she tripped over and landed flat on her back. Her lips pulled into a snarl as the snow around her began to melt,"Diamonds!" She seethed as Amethyst jogged over to her side and attempted to help her up. But, Padparadscha clamored up to her feet on her own, ignoring the offered hand, and swiveled around in search of the culprit who had destroyed crucial technology-- and something she hadn't been without since her initial dispatch to Earth.

Padparadscha's wide eyes wandered over her holopanel, the first casualty of this mission. Then her gaze cut into 6UE as the air around her steamed. Part of her wanted to blame the guard for this, but it seemed their foe was hidden for the time being. "Right, let's regroup and figure out what just happened," She took on a commanding tone and gestured loosely toward the chemical engineer,"6UE, help Sodalite,"

"Y-yes your clarity!" The frazzled quartz flipped around and rushed over to kneel next to Sodalite. She reached down, then hesitated, and gave an awkward smile to the small blue gem,"Uh, excuse me, er...lemme just..." Without really waiting for the combusting weeds to cool down, Amethyst grabbed the plant matter into her fist and tore it up, then shook off her hand, and offered to help Sodalite up to her feet.  

Meanwhile, Padparadscha rushed over to her parked vessel, hiking up her feet to get around the grass. Pink Pearl peered out just before she was about to close the door, then blinked in surprise to see all of the gem's she'd just wished luck to returning all of a sudden. She tapped her fingers together nervously as she waited for everyone to be aboard before she would initiate the lock sequence. 

[The God-Emperor of Gemkind]

Fuscite grinned as her gamble worked - the gems were returning to their ship, and the explorer's plan had been put back on it's rails. As the frightened strangers hurried into her trap, Fuscite took it upon herself to learn the layout of her playing field. Silently making her way across the interior of the ship, Fuscite trailed the red gem who, she assumed, was the captain. The navigator's trail ran cold, however, when she entered a separate room in the ship and a door shut behind her. Right. Can't forget doors are a thing, went the explorer's mind as she snuck across the walls. Several moments and one convenient corridor later, Fuscite had entered what appeared to be the cockpit - and inside was quite the pleasant surprise.



A lone Pearl stood manning the console that...



The console.



Fuscite felt she had seen it before. But where...? -



The realization hit her like the punch of a Quartz. The technology in front of, or rather, below Fuscite bore a shocking similarity to the guts of the red Homeworld ship that belonged to a certain Agate. Perhaps the explorer could make use of this technology.



Shaking her head to clear up her thoughts and remain in the present, Fuscite knelt down upon the ceiling and observed the Pearl. The pink gem was obviously in the middle of something. As to what, she wasn't sure. Readying her fists, Fuscite considered pouncing down upon the pearl as soon as she had finished up whatever it was she was doing with that console. But then again, maybe an action like that would be too hasty. She was here to get Shamrock out of that cell, not amass a body count. Quietly cursing herself for almost being so impulsive, Fuscite stepped back towards an interior corner of the cockpit's ceiling and decided to wait until a more opportune moment to cause disturbances arose.

[Sodalite]

When the amethyst knelt beside her, Soda kept lighting a fire under the weed next to her leg, slowly burning it. She didn't need this gem's help, she was completely capable of freeing herself. The amethyst might have noticed this, seeming to awkwardly try to help Soda while she basically ignored her. After a moment of hesitation, the amethyst just went for it, ripping the weeds off without any trouble. Soda was actually a little annoyed by this, ignoring the amethyst's hand as she picked herself up off the ground. Soda then rushed over the plants to catch up to Padparadscha, hopping in to the ship behind her, closely followed by the amethyst before Pearl shut the door. 

"What on the starmap was that!" Soda had never seen anything like it; she hadn't even seen it this time, whatever it was had moved too quickly to see. It was as if the Earth creature could go invisible, but as far as she'd known, earth creatures weren't advanced enough for that. "Did you see what it was? Because I certainly didn't," Soda had her hands on her head, clenching her hair as she tried to wrap her head around the situation. "It just doesn't make any sense, none of the information in the database said anything about creatures like these on Earth." She paced back and forth as she continued trying to piece something together. The whole situation bothered her. The ship, the incredibly fast Earth creature, was it possible that they were interconnected somehow or was it just a coincidence. She waited to see what the Padparadscha thought before saying anything too far fetched. 

"We're going to have to deal with this if we ever want to figure out what happened to the ship, do you have any ideas?" Soda wasn't sure what Padparadscha's role actually was, but she hoped that Padparadscha was better suited to deal with something like this than she was. 

[Paddy]

Padparadscha, being the investigator she was, had already been stewing on explanations for this turn of events. She paced back and forth, still fuming from the loss of her technology. Not long ago she had to replace all of the view panes on her shuttle, and now she would have to put in another request to have her tech replaced. On top of that, she wouldn't have a replacement in time to get the data she needed for the mission. She let out a huff, turning her attention on Sodalite as she spoke.

"I can only think of two options. We're either dealing with corruption, or gems," She gestured out of the view pane toward the crashed vessel,"From my past encounters, I've found that corruptions seem to coalesce around sites like these, as if attracted intrinsically to gem structures. On top of that, corruptions are typically violent, and can have a variety of abilities. I would think this is our most likely option," the notion was admittedly tragic, but every option needed to be mulled over. "Now, why was this ship was brought down in the first place? Considering recent events, it's not out of the question to suppose there may have been a mutiny. A malfunction, or perhaps incompetence, as you've pointed out before, could be the culprit, but it wouldn't explain this sudden attack. Perhaps they have ranged abilities, or...something," She brought her hand up to tap her chin as she thought. Her head still felt as if it were knocked off kilter. "Though...I felt distinctly as if I had been punched in the face," 

Amethyst's face was clouded over as she stared around absently. Her eyes trailed along the walls as she thought quietly to herself. Meanwhile, Pink Pearl flipped through the ships logs, her brows furrowing. Padpara swept her eyes over all of the present gems.

[The God-Emperor of Gemkind]

Fuscite slowly crept down the wall and towards the door of the cockpit. The Pearl had left the console unattended, which would enable Fuscite to do a myriad of things. Namely, causing distress and panic among the crew - thus weakening their wills and making it easier for Fuscite to extract the information she wanted. Dropping down onto the ground, the explorer approached the cockpit and deactivated her suit's camouflage so as to better see her fingers over the keyboard. Taking several minutes to compare the Ruby console to this one, Fuscite surmised that the Pearl's hands had been interacting with something mechanical. Probably the door that had closed behind them. Zig-zagging her palms above the console as she cross-referenced the layout of the Ruby panel, Fuscite slowly stopped her left hand atop the console and raised her right arm out towards the corridor. Hoping she was right, Fuscite pressed her palm into the panel and did a slight motion.

A wide, cheeky grin crawled onto her face as the lights inside the ship deactivated. Turning her armored  head over to the corridor her arm was reaching towards, Fuscite curled her hand into a fist and manifested a hardlight hologram in the hallway. Fluorescent green shards sparked into existence and formed a beast, as if the creature as finally emerging from hiding. 

It slowly strode down the hallway, throwing an eerie green light into the darkness. The hologram Fuscite materialized stood at roughly eight feet, and bore the appearance of an insectoid corrupted gem in a human-esque configuration. Chitin plating covered the projection, and it unleashed an unnerving chitter that carried throughout the entirety of the ship. Strolling out into the hallway as she became camouflaged once again, Fuscite jumped onto the ceiling and matched her hologram's pacing step for step - slowly approaching the room Fuscite had seen the red gem disappear into.

[Sodalite]

Soda's face contorted at the mention of corruption. She'd never heard of these so called corruptions before, nobody mentioned it to her when they sent her to Earth. Violent beings that were attracted to gems for no reason in particular, the idea was concerning to say the least. "whoa, whoa, whoa, corruption? What is that exactly?" Soda couldn't believe what she was hearing, she'd spent the last four months running around this hunk of dirt on her own without any sort of protection, and now she was hearing about some sort of Earth monsters that go around attacking gems. This would've sounded completely absurd if it weren't for the events that had taken place prior. It seemed that the idea of this creature and the ship crashing having some sort of connection had crossed Padparadscha's mind too, Soda hoped that they were wrong, but there was no way of telling for sure. At least not from inside the ship, and there was no way Soda was going out there anytime soon without a proper plan.

Then the lights went out, instantly changing Soda's opinion. "What happened to the lights?" There was fear in Soda's words, even with the effort she was putting in to hide it. The dark had always been one of her greatest fears. For a gem that wants to know everything about her surroundings, knowing nothing about them was more than troubling. Along with the lights going out was the fact that someone had to turn them off, and before the lights went out, all four gems were in the same location. Soda turned on the little lighters on her limb enhancer fingers, providing very little light, but light nonetheless. It was still day outside, they just needed to open the door and they'd have light again until they fixed whatever went wrong with the ship's lighting. Until then, Soda wasn't going to let Padparadscha find out about her fear of the dark, or at least she was going to try. 

Everything only got worse when Soda heard an awful chittering noise. It had to be the creature, it had to be on the ship and it must've snuck on without them noticing. Soda wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't find the words, she was frozen in place. The dark and this creature, all at once, so suddenly, it was all too much. She just stood there, eyes wide, utterly terrified by the anticipation of what was among them. 

[Paddy]

Padparadscha's brow slanted as Sodalite admitted she didn't know what corruption was. Her eyes wandered around the room, and her spine shivered as memory of her encounters with corruptions flashed through her mind. She'd seen her comrades taken down in the wake of attack, and nearly witnessed shatterings at the hands of corruption. For a moment, the sapphire silently contended with these memories, before she let out a short huff. Then, sudden darkness as the lights snapped away. Pink Pearl yelped and scurried closer to her patron, Amethyst flew into a battle stance as her sword materialized in her hands.

The sapphire's eyes widened; this dark certainly wasn't helping her keep back the latent fears she had attached to corruption. But, she managed to keep calm. Her hand rose, and she summoned a bauble of plasma that would shed light throughout the command center-- but that wasn't its purpose, she knew Sodalite's hand-held illumination would be more than enough. Rather, this would be her weapon, charged and ready to deploy in the half-seconds that she knew could make or break the tide of a battle. 


"Corruption. I'm surprised you don't know more about it. It's one of the many things that make this alien environment so hostile," She eyed Sodalite before swiveling on her heels, her feet tapping against the metal floor as she neared the source of the sound that was behind the door,"You see, it's-- well, no one is quite sure what it is. It's corruption. Some investigations have lead us to believe that it's some sort of gem-targeting virus that developed on Earth. All we can really deduce is that they're derived from gemkind victims. Researchers have yet to truly unlock what causes it," Her eyes scanned the door for a moment as she came to a halt in front of it. "Prepare yourselves," 

The door slid open and she came face-to-face with an enormous, grotesque creature. She grimaced; not only was the thing repulsive all on its own, but it brought back the visage of a particularly unpleasant memory. Without waiting another moment, she jumped back as her bauble of scalding light erupted, going straight for the corruption's eyes. At least, dealing with a corruption was usually rather straight forward. 

[The God-Emperor of Gemkind]

Fuscite knelt down as the door opened, reflexively leaning back as her hologram was blasted with a hot liquid of some sort that erupted from the red gem. The hologram, upon being doused in the substance, flailed around a wee bit and screamed convincingly as it fell to the ground and dissipated into the stuff. The explorer inched ever closer to the door as her hologram performed it's theatrics, scurrying inside as the bug made it's final movements on the floor. Now perched above the crew, Fuscite manifested some more holograms throughout the ship and had them ensure the crew heard their presence. How fun.

Now that she was able to get a good look at the gems she was currently scaring, Fuscite took a moment to stare them all down.

First up was the pink Pearl from before, nothing new there.

Secondly, there was some manner of Quartz soldier - although this one seemed to have an odd air about her.

Thirdly was the small blue gem. Oddly enough, it reminded her of - Not now, Fuscite. Focus on Shamrock, and then worry about Agate. the explorer's inner voice shouted at her. Placing a hand on her head, Fuscite took her gaze off of the diminutive gem for several minutes. After taking a moment to recompose herself, Fuscite faintly sighed and looked down at the most interesting of the bunch...

The commander in red, who had the surprise ability to shoot an extremely hot liquid out of herself. Fuscite did not want to get hit with a blast of that stuff, even in her HOIMEA. The navigator focused in on the red gem in particular as her holograms continued to hover about the room, their apparent anger at the loss of the first 'monster' becoming more  noticeable by the minute.