Alone in the City (Paddy/Closed)

[Hematite]

Hematite seemed to go still for a moment as she heard the gem’s voice pipe up about something, drawing her from the deep thoughts she had about when and where to use this flash bomb. Her eyes shifting back skeptically as her hand went to return her newly-made escape tool to the bundles under the nape of her neck. “Is that so?” she asked, finding it a little odd Padpara wasn't rushing to see what was behind it. To be fair, exploring this facility might have proved to be far more dangerous than she had originally perceived. No wonder the other gem wasn't eager to skip ahead. But then maybe there was more to this, perhaps Padpara was more interested in keeper her eye on her real treasure in all this. Hematite.

The fusion stood to her feet and casually made her way to what was certainly an ancient gem console of some form. The doorway seemed to require some level of clearance to open or at least a key in some regard. “We might have an issue. It would seem this door requires some kind of code or key to access it.” what was odd to her was that instead of just a digital access port. It also had an analog fitting for what seemed like an actual key-like device.

She felt like she was forgetting something, yet it only hit her after she noted a sudden comfort, the air was getting cooler. Had it gotten any warmer, the gem would have probably started suffocating. Her eyes narrowed with a certain chagrin. “Thank you … by the way.” she managed to utter and then her attention shifted back to the strange keyhole, she took another smaller bundle of her hair and urged it into snaking its way into the small key slot.

For a moment there was silence. The fusion getting a feel for the design choice. It wasn't the typical tumbler-mechanism she was used to, but more like revolving slots that had to be aligned with grooves that allowed the door mechanism to activate. A few more minutes and suddenly the door flashed with strange patterns and slid open, revealing an unlit interior space that had certain ominous charm to it.

"Please, you first.” Hematite invited.

[Paddy]

She wasn't sure how to take Hematite's gratitude, and so only gave a terse nod in response, eyeing the gem from her periphery. It seemed genuine, the sapphire's sense didn't tell her otherwise, but it seemed strange to be told that from someone she was determined to incarcerate. Though, ultimately, it would be for the fusion's own good. It wouldn't be long until Pink Diamond's Earth was tamed and designed to be fully hospitable for gemkind, and when that day came, Padparadscha was sure it would be better for gems like those who made up Hematite to abandon their rebellious mindsets.

While Hematite worked on the lock, the sapphire kept a close eye on her movements. There was no telling what Hematite was really thinking, or what her next move would be. Padparadscha herself had to maintain this cordiality for the time being if she wanted to have an easy go of it. "We'll find a way to get through, regardless," She commented in response. For now, it seemed the gems were in luck. The fusion managed to get the room open much to her surprise, and relief. Given its ancient design, there had been a distinct possibility that they would've been stranded. Though it seemed that gem tech was built to last in the majority of cases, she felt a bit of pride at that.  

But, she didn't like that Hematite was trying to get her to scout the room. The darkness ahead was off-putting enough, without all of the unknown variables about the nature of this facility that she would have to try to fill in the blanks for. Enough light from the maintenance tunnel shone inside of the room to give her a general feel for its layout, but this would also put the rebel gem behind her. She would have to be sandwiched between two different kinds of hostility. With all of this considered, the sapphire lingered for a moment, trying to think of a way to put the fusion in front of her instead.

She pursed her lips, and decided to bite the bullet for now. A light blossomed into existence in the palm of her hand, and she sent it into the room before she took a step in order to light the way. Then, with a last glance at the gem she'd been forced to cooperate with for now, she stepped into the spacious area. Her light spread around a wide radius, and gave a good amount of visibility, but it wouldn't help her interpret the use of the strange technology that lined the room. The sapphire hunted for some kind of door or switch that she could try, but wandered along the edge of the room, tapping her finger on her chin as she failed to find what she was looking for.

[Hematite]

She returned Padpara’s glance with her own as the two passed each other, Hematite’s face growing colder by the minute. The emotional disposition from the other gem managed to wash over her enough that she knew Padpara still held a certain suspicion about her. She could only surmise that Padpara was simply waiting for the right moment to strike, and was well aware of Hematite’s intent at this point. If there was ever a chance, she'd make a break for it, but even still she'd have to wait for an opening, when she was more than sure she escape into open-world with little issues.

She followed the gem inside, but her attention shifted almost immediately and she watched with a certain amazement at what she was seeing. Gem technology was always fascinating to her, she got a certain scintillation messing with it when she had a chance. She actually separated from Padpara and held her gaze over the various terminals and equipment in the room.

Something caught her attention, a strange panel, a hand-shaped groove in the center. The fusions eyes shifted to Padpara like a young pup getting ready to do something it shouldn't and proceeded to lay her hand the on groove. The entire digital array littering the room would hum as the room would come alive with light and computing sounds echoing through the inner complex. A large center screen lit up, immediately displaying a large intricate diagram acting as a map for the facility. Gem speech described every section and sub-system in each area and a flashing icon seemed to indicate their current position.

“Well. That's convenient.” Hematite spoke up, she acted like she knew what she was doing though that could have actually ended much worse. “Well, from what this says we are deeper underground than I thought. This facility guess even deeper into the earth, and has few exits truly leading to the surface.”

Well, what would be there best route?

[Paddy]

She had been wandering around, keeping tabs on Hematite from the corner of her eyes as she looked. Then, the room came to life. "Ah," She gave a bit of a relieved smirk as the light poured over the room, and the panels flickered up as if they had . The bulb of plasma in her hands dissipated, and she took this moment to rejuvenate herself a bit-- she had been using her power rather intensively, and she didn't want to be caught without the use of it in a situation where it would otherwise come in handy. "Good work," the words slipped from her out of habit, though she felt a bit embarrassed when she realized she'd said it to an enemy.

The sapphire approached the central panel, her eyes scanning across the diagram it featured. Quickly, she had it more or less memorized, but just in case, she conjured her holoscreen, and used its evidence reeling feature to take a comprehensive photograph. "Hmm, I doubt they've used the same heat-resistant alloy throughout the entire facility-- other exits could always be improvised, in the event that a road block presents itself," She mused aloud, partially in response to the other gem, and partially to think. "It looks like this control room connects to a corridor that will lead toward this transport bay," Her finger's lined the path she was thinking out loud about, but when she turned toward the wall that an entrance to the hall had been indicated, she came to face with a wall lined with what appeared to be akin to crystal warp pads, though they were a dated design. Her lips pursed and stepped toward them, looking for some indication of a designation or intended path. Part of her hoped these warps would be able to connect to warps outside of the facility, though she knew that would be something of a miracle. 

She wondered for a moment why this place seemed to be abandoned. Why put so many resources into constructing such a place, only to leave it behind? Knowing the shrewd nature of her Diamond, there had to be a very good reason for her to leave it behind. What could that have been? 

[Hematite]

“I have my brilliant moments.” Hematite hummed in the response to the gems’ praise, despite the situation being completely accidental. She was a little surprised the gem approved of her but it seemed Padpara was so intent on gaining freedom (and taking her own) that she was beyond trying to indoctrinate the fusion. She listened to the gem go over some of the area’s, though her eyes lit up at the sound of a transport bay. “Well, it beats relying on melting through what could be hundreds of layers of steel, so let’s take any route that doesn’t end in that particular task.” She mused, the fusion looked back to see the hall the map had originally pointed to and noticed its odd construction.

She had actually never seen a warp pad, or at least used one in person. She had only heard of them, she wasn’t even a hundred percent sure what this was, but the fusion had an inkling of an idea at least. “Well, this looks promising, what is it?” she prodded the other gem, taking a moment to get an air of Padpara’s emotional energy-she would temporarily ping her empathy abilities at its maximum and observe her—the fusion felt her determination which she was sure was spread across ‘escaping the gem ruin’ and ‘catching herself.’ But there was also an underlying discomfort radiating from Padpara that Hematite honestly could relate too, it was odd working with this gem. Why did the cute short ones always have to prove to be such a problem? She should know, she was a bunch of cute-short one’s herself under the guise of her fusion form, but really, this gem could have been so much more to her eyes.

It drove her nuts really, she wanted to say something, but she knew the gem would take it wrongly. Instead she reverted to her old self, and a foreign sentence slipped from her in a defeated murmur, “Kimi wa hissu motsu ochibi shōkōgun, sōdeshou?” she seemed to hum the last part and sighed with some contempt in her voice.

[Paddy]

She paced around the warps, frowning a bit as there seemed to be no indication as to where these pads would lead. One of her brows arched as Hematite asked, and the sapphire wondered just how long this gem had been hiding from Homeworld. "It's a warp-pad, looks to be era one design," She said off-handedly as she turned to go tinker with the control panel. She placed her hand in the grove, and began to get a feel for the way this old tech worked, before she started flipping through menus in search of any information about these warps. A small part of her focus allocated to the task of catching Hematite up to speed,"They're sprinkled across the colony at key gem locations, for ease of transport. Since the...well, what happened to the galaxy warp...the interplanetary warps no longer function as intended. But, the surface-side warps work just fine. I see no reason these ones shouldn't, but, we don't know where they will lead, or if we'll be able to go back the way we came if it doesn't work as predicted." 

At the strange string of sounds that left the fusion's lips, the sapphire's brows furrowed, the corner of her lip tugged downward. She turned away from the panel, to stare at Hematite for a moment, still trying to figure out what it was she was saying without asking. Naturally, she was compelled to figure out the truths behind things, and mysteries could be fun to solve; but that was the issue, she needed to solve them, or they would eat away at her. Listening to a gem speak without knowing what they were saying was something more irksome than she could handle anymore.

"Alright, what is that? What are you saying?" She finally said what she thought every time she heard it-- it couldn't be ignored any more, especially since it seemed as though the speech was directed toward her,"A code?" Her eyes narrowed. If her own communicator didn't work, she didn't expect that any comms Hematite might have would either. Then again, the fusion had led her here...was it some kind of trap? It didn't seem likely, though the sapphire had seem many elaborate ruses in her days. 

[Hematite]

The gem simply nodded her head to the first bits of it though her thoughts became more anxious as she heard they were about to step into what could mean a million problems. She was curious about asking what exactly happened to the original galaxy warp system, but then –something happened she wasn’t quite ready for— and she felt it far before she actually saw it. She wasn’t looking at the gem, but as she turned to look at the fusion she almost felt her emotional content knock her over. The gem was emitting a certain anger that Hematite was all too familiar with. Within not even a second, Hematite was being asked a rather odd question. One she was genuinely not ready to hear or answer. The gem sat there for a second, confusion on her face.



She looked around and then stared intensely at Padpara, “What am I saying?” the intensity shifting to befuddlement as she went on, “When, what are you talking about?” The thing is she was doing it almost unconsciously. She actually isn’t aware of what she is doing. She pouted, “Thought we were concentrating on getting out of here, or something? Ugh, working with you is such a headache.”

[Paddy]

Her fist clenched as she got the impression that this fusion must've been toying with her. The sapphire trusted her sense for truth, as it told her Hematite was being genuine, but all the same, there had to be something to this. After all, there were gems who knew how to get around lie detection; she'd had to deal with it in the past, and ever since then, the investigator had been humbled in her abilities. Still, she needed to figure out what was going on. "What? Working with me is a headache? Those...things you're saying, you keep code switching," She said as she pulled her hand away from the console to gesture in the air, momentarily abandoning her previous objective in favor of resolving this issue. "If I'm going to need to work in proximity to you, I'd prefer if you remained transparent," Though, she guessed that Hematite might not care an awful lot about what she would prefer.

She cleared her throat, and let out a sharp sigh, attempting to cool her head back down so she could focus. However, no amount of focus could help her navigate the atrocious organization of this ancient software-- it seemed that whoever had programmed it had done so with a very particular sort of logic in mind, and the constant use of jargon in the notation was equally as irritating as hearing Hematite speak in whatever strange dialect she'd kept returning to. "At any rate, it seems we have no clear indication on where these warps will lead," The sapphire said, trying to measure her words, though her tone remained a window into her climbing irritability,"We'll have to wing it," 

[Hematite]

Hearing this from the gem was almost too much for Hematite, she actually had to press back a smile, for she could feel the other gem’s anger rounding even more. What was making her so angry? This was prodding at the fusion’s love for playfully picking on her socialites. She went quiet and drew her shoulders up- putting on her best poker face. She thought back, and after a few reiterations of what happened before, the gem finally remembered what Padpara was referencing too, she only realized now she had let slip a full phrase in an alternate human language. One Padpara seemed to not know of.



Hematite watched the gem collect herself, she was a little explosive one. She might hide behind that visage of honor but Hematite felt the cold anger burning under this gem low a low chill in the dark. She tried her hardest not to break face with the gem though the mug look she had only reinforced it. She was going to have some fun.



She nodded and smiled knowingly, “Of course, I’ll be more mindful next time.” She walked into the warp zone and readied to activate it. She would wait for the gem to walk inside and look over at her, right before activating the mechanism. “And don’t worry, nothing I said wasn’t true.” She chuckled and gave the gem a wry smile.

[Paddy]

The analytical prowess that the sapphire naturally possessed allowed her to read gems with precision; her ability to ascertain the truth wouldn't work without it. Though it was subtle, the sapphire felt a twinge at the fact that Hematite seemed to be enjoying this round of mockery at the her expense once again. The whole situation was humiliating enough to begin with, and now she had to deal with this cheeky defector's impudence on a more close at hand basis. Though it seemed that whatever it was that was said had been believed to be true by the gem under scrutiny. At least Hematite wasn't lying, though it was only a small reprieve. 

She pulled away from the control panel, crossed her arms and walked over to stand next to the fusion. "Hmph. See that you do," She uttered simply, eyeing the taller gem back, before the gems disappeared into a column of azure light. 

When they reappeared, they seemed to be in a room that looked identical to the one they'd just left. Immediately, the sapphire noted that the door on the other side of the room had been sealed shut, so it couldn't have been the same room-- or, did the door have a mechanism that made it close after use? She cursed herself for not checking before, but stepped off the warp to approach the eerily familiar panel. She opened it, and tried to find the diagram of the facility once again. In her irritated state, this turn of events only made her grow more annoyed. 

"What is going on here?" She muttered when she finally pulled up the map, and cross referenced it with the photos she'd collected before to find that it was, indeed, the same room; or perhaps a room that had a very similar position, as the ancient map wasn't very dynamic. The sapphire began to worry about how reliable it could be, but it was all they had to go off of. 
  

[Hematite]

“Um … I think this thing is broken.” Hematite declared as she had either been fooled with an illusionary tactic, or this device just teleported them to the same place. You’d think a fusion with multiple eyes would pay attention to things more, but she had actually been distracted enough not to really grasp her surroundings in this moment and she cursed herself for it.



It was strange, this room displayed the same characteristics as the others, and yet she swore she felt like something was different. Her attention shifted to the sealed door, and she wondered if the room beyond it was the same as well. She stepped past Padpara and with little care of what might happened, activated the door mechanisms.



It slid open and what she saw unnerved her, it wasn’t just darkness. There was something unnatural about it, the room they were in was very well lit but it was if the rays in this room couldn’t penetrate beyond the door. It was eerie, gave her a dreadful feeling. “Am I the only one who feels like that’s extremely unsettling?” she asked with a stoic grim voice.

[Paddy]

She tilted her head in Hematite's direction upon hearing her speak, then double-took when she saw the void that existed outside of the room. Her eyes widened. "What in the name of the Diamonds?" She rubbed her chin, then tapped her cheek as she tried to wrap her head around it. The panel seemed to hold no new insights, so she stepped away from it and approached the door. The sight of it made her spine crawl, and she felt she needed to figure this out quickly. Not only was this wall of dark unsettling, but she got the uncanny feeling that she was being watched. 

As a test, she conjured some of her plasma, shaped it into a sphere, and struck it out into the dark. The super-heated, condensed electromagnetic energy should have washed the space with light, yet it remained dark, as if her sphere were hanging in an impassable void. As if there were no space at all. That was more unsettling than anything for her, she quickly retracted the plasma and stepped back from the egress. It wasn't just dark, it was an absence of mass all together, a wall of nothing.

"M-maybe we just need to...warp back and start again," She swiveled on her heels and speed-walked over to the crystalline pad without waiting for input. Her skin prickled as she continued to get the feeling that there was a presence here other than Hematite. Perhaps it was all in her head, but she contemplated again why this place had been abandoned. It hadn't been torn down or re-purposed, it hadn't been on any maps she'd seen (and she had seen many maps)-- it had simply been left and forgotten. Why? 

[Hematite]

Hematite’s eyes grew wider by the second as she watched Padpara fling a good ounce of plasma at it and it just … just vanished. She felt her heart sink, “Why don’t we close this.” She said. Though as she watched Padpara had suddenly retreated, an instinctual part of her pinging at the exact moment. She could sense Padpara’s fear, but it was something else she sensed that made her skin erupt into goosebumps. Somewhere beyond them she sensed gems, there number uncertain-but she sensed nothing from their minds, and it was as if their consciousness was releasing a droning emotional tone. She couldn’t describe it, pinging again, she tried to get a better interpretation-but the fact they were getting closer and closer was enough to make the gem shiver.

Her hair was visibly trembling as she had seen one too many disturbing things today and she made her retreat as she stepped away from the door with precision. The door would slowly close which made the gem even more skeptical. She was sure she heard footsteps behind it. “Well, I’m done with this room, how about we warp somewhere else?” She recommended wholeheartedly with a serving of absolute terror.

[Paddy]

The smaller gem gave a curt nod at that, and initiated the warp. Again, in a column of blue light the gems disappeared, and reappeared back into the room they'd originally come from-- except now, everything was arranged in the opposite position, as if it had been reflected by a mirror. Padpara didn't even want to step off of the warp, she didn't like this one bit. She racked her brain, trying to think of what could be happening. But, she wouldn't be able to figure out what was happening unless she did some investigation. 

With a sigh, the sapphire timidly stepped off of the pad, then shuffled over to the control panel once again. A frown grew over her lips as she noticed the groove meant as the access to the computer was now upside down. She turned her hand, rather uncomfortably, and managed to pull up the screen once again. Like the rest of the room, it was backwards as if it existed inside of some kind of reflection. Her lips pursed as she tried to read the menus. 

As she flipped through, she came upon a file that she had only skimmed before. When it had appeared in the other terminal, it just looked like a string of letters and numbers, but she realized now that it had meaning when read backwards. "Protocol 8007 K10 sequence 5...test phase 3..." She mumbled it out loud to help her remember, just in case it would be significant. Though the content was ten times harder to read, she was able to put together its meaning. But, it was still cryptic, filled with codes and jargon she now knew were meant to keep classified information hidden. "I think...I may have misjudged the purpose of these warps," She uttered as she finished reading the document,"It seems it was an experimental technology, not meant for transport..."

[Hematite]

As the light washed over her from the warp-pad firing up, there was a certain bit of relief in her expression. But it didn’t last, when they suddenly came back to reality, her expression shifted almost instantaneously. How? It was practically the same room? Except, well it was flipped. This was beyond this gems comprehension to be honest, and that was enough to fired-her-up a little. “Ugh, I’m getting sick of this place!” She stepped off the warp and wondered just exactly what she should be looking for in here, was there some indicator of where the device would teleport them next?



Padpara had moved out of view and seemed to be going through the panel again, Hematite took the time to feel some of the surfaces of the walls around them, she would knock on one and swore she heard a hollow sound behind it.



But then she heard this wasn’t actually a warp pad but some form of test device, the fusion grew quite annoyed at learning this. “We walked into someone’s quantum physics experiment. Great.” She grumbled and paced back and forth. “So now what, does it have any controls? Can we even undo what we’ve done so far?” Are the stuck in some inter-dimensional rift that possibly had no escape?