Alone in the City (Paddy/Closed)

[Paddy]

She grimaced at Hematite's words, and wished she had looked more carefully at the files before assuming the function of those warps. It had been so easy to do so, since they looked quite a lot like the warp-pads she had used in the past. Her irritation at the time probably had something to do with this mistake as well, but she left behind those considerations and focused on trying to figure out an escape.

It was reasonable to assume that, if she opened the door, she might see the same abyss that Hematite had been presented with before. But, perhaps it wasn't safe to make any kind of assumption in this situation. First, she finished sweeping the files with more scrutiny, but didn't manage to uncover any more useful information. With that, she began her hunt for the truth by taking out her holoscreen, and bringing up the photographs she'd taken. At least she had that to go off of, and began to map the path they'd already taken on a blank file.

She started by going to see if her assumption could be true, and opened the door. Sure enough, she was met with that eerie absence of mass and weight. Considering what had happened to the plasma she tried to test it with before, she was unsure of what might happen if she were to strike off into it herself. There was no telling, and no solid clues, which left her extremely uncomfortable. She shut the door, just so she wouldn't have to look at it, then wondered what other assumptions could be made and tested. 

"I've never seen anything like this," She admitted. Then, she began to think out loud, so that Hematite would be privy to her considerations on the matter. "But, it's reasonable to assume that there is a way out. The room is backwards, but not the warps we came in on. Though, it seems that simply stepping onto the warp we came in on wont necessarily lead us back, so it's not an A-B loop. It could be a circuit...or maybe it's nothing of the sort. The wording used in that file leads me to believe that these 'warps' are intended to materialize a photon-dense form such as that of a gems, but not to teleport it, though I'm not sure what the implications of that are. Aside from that...well, ah...do you get the feeling that..." She stopped short, still wondering if that strange sensation of being watched was just in her head.

"Er, well at any rate, I don't think we should use the warps until we've found some further understanding of this...protocol 8007 K10 sequence 5, as it's been referred to in the document. I suppose that would make this test 4..." The last bit, an attempt at her own kind of dry humor, giving a bit of a chuckle at the thought of continuing this research after its apparent abandonment, and the irony of a rebel being here to see it. Though, her expression remained grim. 
 

[Hematite]

She only kept quiet and watched as Padpara began to survey the room they seemed trapped in. Her heart nearly stopped as she watched her march toward the door, her heart sinking even more as she recognized through Padpara’s emotional aura that she intended to open it. Part of the fusion wanted to argue against doing that considering what she had felt earlier. But Padpara opened the sliding door before she could say anything and her sonar pinged almost instinctually.

There was no doubt in her mind, around them she sensed several gems, again, their emotional content hidden beneath a constant droning she simply couldn't put into words. And as soon as the door opened, she sensed some of them closing distance. Her hair flared up at the thought of them getting swarmed by something out there but grew somewhat more comfortable as the door had slid shut. Seemed Paadpara wanted nothing to do with that nonsense as well.

“Neither have I." She responded with and then listened to Padpada intently as she tried to devise a theory about this situation. “This could be anything? And materialise? You mean like to create a gem-form from nothing? That only makes this more confusing. Are we being teleported or reconstructed?” the more she thought about it; the more she didn't like this one bit. What if this thing was causing them some unseen permanent damage?

But then, Padpara went to say something and then suddenly withheld it. “What feeling, tell me?” she asked intuitively. “And to be honest
I don't want to be apart of any future test this thing wants to perform on us. Who knows, it could have permanently altered us or something.” This was followed after Padpara’s eerie chuckle. Which the gem raised a conscious brow at.

[Paddy]

A bolt of understanding struck Padparadscha as she listened to Hematite, teleported or reconstructed...what exactly had been the goal of this classified technology? Perhaps they were getting closer to the answer. She tapped her finger to her chin again, considering the rest of what the other gem said. She sighed, and decided that since she had told the fusion should be transparent, so should she. "Well I just get this feeling...almost like we're being observed. I didn't get that feeling when we first entered, but as soon as we 'warped' in here...I don't know, it's probably just my nerves talking," Her voice grew quieter as she spoke, and continued to wander the perimeter of the room, looking for anything of interest. As she walked, she began to contemplate out loud.

"You bring up something interesting, Hematite. Being that our forms are constructed of dense electromagnetic energy, we are able to use teleportation devices which are essentially copying and replacing the data on our gems through quantum particle exchange. I'm no technical scientist, so that's really the limit of my knowledge on the subject. Though, I've been through many of these deconstruction-reconstruction processes, via teleportation, without noticing any particular change in myself. This process seems to be similar in nature, yet it's stopping somewhere along the progression..." Her eyes slid toward the door, and she pressed her lips into a line. Had that been an intended feature of this technology, or was it not functioning as the initial researchers had hoped? As was her nervous habit, the sapphire continued to rattle on to take her mind off of the disconcerting idea that she and Hematite were being watched. By what, or who? "...It almost seems as if this...ah...this realm is trying to reconstruct not only us, but the area surrounding the warps. The first room we entered after warping seemed to be an almost perfect copy, just different enough to put us off ease. But, this room is a copy of that room, and seems to have glitched somewhere along the line...though this is all just a guess. Perhaps it's doing exactly what it's suppose to..." 

She stepped toward the warps. Though she had determined it was probably a bad idea to keep going, perhaps one more try would give her more data to tell what was going on here. Then she stopped, and turned back toward the door. The best course of action eluded her, as there were almost no clear variables in this endeavor. "I'm not sure how best to proceed, but we'll have to test something in order to escape," She admitted,"The door, the warps, or perhaps something in this room, or outside of it,"

[Hematite]

Hematite could feel it, a sudden jolt of inspiration from the gem. Was it something she said, she pondered back on her words, though her attention actually shifted back to the gem beside her, she ultimately went silent and simply listened to the gem speak with a growing anticipation. “Ah-You too?” Hematite asked, though they was some slyness behind it, she refused to let the gem know of her piercing kinetic powers. “I’ve had an odd feeling myself that we’re not alone here.”



However, she was left somewhat, impressed. As Padpara spoke she sensed an underlying strategic demeanor about her. True this gem was an aristocratic one, but she held a good bit of knowledge-enough so that it was almost fascinating to Hematite. “You know, you’re not as stupid as I thought. Actually, you’re quite intelligent, Padpara.” She realized that was an offhanded insult, but it spilled out and her mind couldn’t catch it until it was too late. She looked away rather contently, “That may have sounded worse than I originally intended it to sound.”



“But, to the matter at hand. After considering, I agree – a small thing that I noticed, though now I think about it, I should have mentioned this a while ago. Gomen-ne. But it’s odd to me that despite the room being a mirror of the other, we still entered it with me on the left, you on the right. There’s a chance that this thing is built between several different positions? But, this would require testing the machine and who knows what can happen next.” She sighed and took a look around, “All-in-all, we’re in a bad position right now. We’re at a disadvantage no matter what route we take. We’ll have to treat our next decisions very carefully.”

[Paddy]

The combination of the fact that the feeling had not, in fact, been in her head, and the back-handed compliment, left the sapphire a bit befuddled. She was somewhere between agitation and fear, yet her pride had been fluffed up a bit by the fusion's recognition of her knowledge. But as Hematite continued, she forced herself to stay on track. It was a difficult call to make, whether to continue trying the warps (and perhaps become even more lost in this technology they didn't understand) or to further test the threatening void that seemed to take up the space outside of the room. 

"As uncanny as this feeling is, at least we know it to be a characteristic of this place; and that's correct, there is no good path. But we have to choose one nonetheless." She rolled her shoulders, and thought carefully on the considerations the fusion brought into play. It was easy for her to forget that this fusion was made up of three different minds, she was not at all use to working along side such gems. However, she realized that having four heads working on this problem had turned out to be something of a boon to this situation. "It's a possibility that we're heading between different positions, but without coordinates of any kind, it would be hard to confirm. Though, we could try to ascertain some coordinates. I've begun to map the circuit, but so far we've only been along two possible paths. Perhaps for now, we could give another test to this warp, and hope the situation doesn't become more tangled than it is. It will also give us a chance to see if that...er...notion of being watched persists,"

Being that she had already been close to the warp from her earlier retreat, it took only a few short steps for the sapphire to step onto it, though she waited for Hematite's input on the matter. It seemed that she was a source of flexible thinking and data in this situation, even if she was a traitor. Part of Padpara hoped that, when this was over, Hematite would finally agree to go peacefully back over to the right side of things. But, another part of her knew that old gems were generally set in their ways. Though she didn't know how old the gems who made up Hematite really were, she had gathered they were much older than herself. 

[Hematite]

Hematite listened closely, her interest shifting to this eerie feeling of being watched. It was odd that even Padpara was subjected to this odd feeling. But even moreso, she found it even odder that her empathic abilities weren't up-to-date on the exact details. Something was definitely off, these gems she sensed with her sonar felt miles apart from most gems she's met. Many gems have a kind of familiar resonance she could pick up, as how she always felt a warm brooding flame with Padpara; each gem had its own emotional ‘rest state.’ but these gems? It was more than frustrating sensing only this odd monotonous drone that made no sense on an emotional level. Were they asleep? Were they unconscious? Something just wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

She made a note of their positions this time. She was more than ready to keep an eye on these odd emotionless gems the next time they used this odd warp device.

“Indeed.” she agreed, “It seems we will have to test this again.” she thought aloud, resting her chin against her knuckles as she considered something. She watched Padpara step to the warp and then looked to the panel behind her. She made a glaringly obvious grimace as she considered what she was about to do and reached for a strand of hair. A light but pained, “Itai-agh!” left her mouth as she pricked off one of her hairs straight from the root, her eyebrow twitching with annoyance; she was quite done with all the abuse her hair was getting lately. She then let the strand collapse in the corner.

If they were truly teleporting to another area, then the strand she left on the panel shouldn’t be there upon their next return. But if not, it meant something else was going on here. “Hopefully this will give us quite the hint if we pay attention enough.” she walked back to the warp-pad and idly waited for the device to be activated. “Well, ready when you are.”

[Paddy]

The sapphire eye'd the strand of hair, memorizing its position. It was a clever idea, admittedly. Though she felt she'd already given this rebel enough praise, maybe it would do her cause some good to lure Hematite away from the idea that they were enemies. In their first meeting, Padpara had attempted already to level with this gem, but perhaps the chance to do so hadn't passed by. She raised her holoscreen to take a snapshot of the exact positioning, just in case her memory would fail her in some manner. "Good thinking, I'll go ahead and get some documentation on this," She said as she did so, then put away her tech.  

"Now, I'm ready. As much as I can be," She sighed, and again initiated the warping sequence. The same pattern ensued-- blue light engulfed the gems, but as it did, Padpara kept her eye carefully on the surroundings, hoping to catch a glimpse of anything peculiar. Unfortunately, the light was all encompassing. This gave her a risky idea. "I'm going to try something," The sapphire warned before leaning forward. Momentarily, she decided to stick her head outside of the warp stream. In seconds, she saw nothing but the dark void-- no other streams, no room, nothing. Her skin crawled, and she pulled back into the blue stream of light, dazed. In seconds more, the gems reappeared, but the sapphire's head was still reeling from her discovery.  

"Uh...well..." She cleared her throat, not looking at anything in particular as she began to describe what she experienced during her experiment. "I didn't see any other warp streams, so this technology isn't using the same warp-realm that most teleporters do...I'm not really sure what to make of that,"

[Hematite]

As light began to engulf them, “Oh yes, when we escape this little experiment. I’m going to have to repay you for something.” She said, her eyes rounding on the gem from the corners of peripherals.

Hematite closed her eyes practically praying to whatever powers might be for freedom within this horrid little contraption. But her cry was left unanswered and even worse so, she peered now into a room that-like the other’s shared the same shape, the same sliding door, the panel and everything … except, “Um … Padpara, is it me, or is everything upside down?” The orientation of the door, the way the tile lined the ceiling, it was obvious as one paid attention, that everything had been flipped vertically now. But what irked the gem even more was that on the floor, below the panel, was a strand of her silvery hair. “Nande-kuso!” she growled and it practically exploded into a yell, and began to grow visibly frustrated.

She stomped over to her hair and looked up at the panel, it was clear that the location was right below where she had placed it which meant that either the whole room was teleporting or something else was going on here.

She pinged her sonar again and lo and behold, the gems she sensed outside of this complex were there, still releasing their droning, still in the same place. Wait, she looked back at the warp-pad. Its position truly had remained unchanged and so did their position-as with last time, since teleporting, Hematite and Padpara remained where they stood. They weren’t teleporting, it was like … “… the room is remaking itself.” She thought out loud, “It’s like the room is reconstructing itself around us, or …” she wasn’t a science technician either. But her thoughts went to the door. She was curious now, did their freedom lie outside of the room?

If so, it meant facing whatever was out there.

[Paddy]

The sapphire snapped out of her thousand-yard stare to glance around, and a deep frown pulled over her lips when Hematite voiced her revelation. Easily, Padpara sympathized with the other gem's frustration. It was still difficult to wrap her mind around this situation, yet, what the fusion said made sense. The warps themselves weren't moving, and the hair remained where it would've been before, on top of the fact that there was no warp streams or warp dimension to witness-- it seemed the gems weren't going anywhere after all. But, the thing that bothered her was that thick dark that shrouded the world outside of this reconstructed room. 

"I see...every time it generates the room, it gets less true to the original. But it did copy the room, and we know there was something outside of the original other than that...uh, absence of something. I suppose the only real way to figure out what is going on; whether this is a projection, or whether we're being projected...or whatever this is, would be to walk out there and see what is actually there," Then her eyes slid up to Hematite. Padparadscha certainly didn't want to be the one to take the plunge, there was no telling what variables she would have to contend with. The fact that her initial test with light did nothing didn't inspire confidence in her for any kind of more risky test. But, she also knew that the fusion was likely not excited to go face whatever was there either. "I have some ideas for what I can do to try to run some more tests on that environment," She finally uttered after a pause, then stepped toward the door. Each step she took was more stilted than the last.

When the sapphire faced the door, she initiated its sliding mechanism, and came to be face-to-face with the abyss once again. A sigh left her and she rolled her shoulders in an attempt to release the tension in her, then she formulated a series of pebbles out of her plasma, letting them cool and harden. Then, with a handful of them in her palm, she tossed one out, and listened. Nothing, no sound reached her. Then, she tossed another one into a different direction. Again, she was met with nothing. Her lips pursed as her core twisted, the uncomfortable feeling of being watched was greater than before. But, she kept tossing pebbles, seeing if she could hear any click that could give away the position of any walls or floors, or anything at all.  

[Hematite]

When Padpara mentioned that it seemed their sanctity from this horrible little experiment was outside in the abysmal darkness she saw, she made a very coarse glare and her eyes shifted back to the sapphire with some worry. Should she tell her what she was sensing out there, should she do something? Moments went by as she tried to think, but it seemed just wasn’t prompt enough, as the sapphire had already went to open the door and look outside, immediately, as she began to ping her empathic sensors, the gems surrounding them were closing in—albeit very slowly.

She gave Padpara something of a nod as the door opened again and she gazed back at the sapphire quite shakily, her nod -a nervous, fear-wracked one. She certainly didn’t want to go in first, but that seemed to be a horrible idea in both their eyes as the other gem bean to test some things, she watched her glowing plasma come to form and she began to toss a few in there, there was a distinct abnormality to this situation as she heard nothing, no sound, not even a rush of air. It was beyond irking. It didn’t help that the fear from Padpara’s emotional content was washing over her as well, adding to this disturbing feeling she was getting.

And then she sensed it, something was right in front of them. The look in her eyes grew cold and threatened by the seconds that went on as one of these strange droning gems were actually coming towards them, hidden in the darkness. She swallowed pure anxiety for a moment and reach out her arms to place her hands on Padpara’s shoulders --urging the gem to stand away from the door as she attempted to back away with her. “Padpara ... Something is out there.”

It would take a few far too silent seconds, and then what happened next made the fusions skin crawl. A hand, and then an arm suddenly pulled itself from the darkness, showing weight behind it as it grasped the side of the door with an almost sickly impression, a gem-presumably some kind of Peridot, though a surprisingly tall one, colorless with blackened eyes and twisted visage, an empty moan leaving her voice as she stepped into the room, or at least dragged herself in with the gems. This was what was releasing the droning, this is what was out there. Hematite has only seen so many gems, once she had saw a corrupted one-but it looked nothing like this. She surmised quickly enough, that either something out there did this to this gem, or something else was going on here.



“What happened to her, something just isn’t right.” She could feel it, there was-behind that drowning, some kind of intent. It was low-but she could sense it behind all this odd emotional disturbance coming from this greyed-out gem form. But what was it?

[Paddy]

Her eyes narrowed at Hematite's words. What did she mean?

As soon as that hand reached out from the dark, the sapphire's eyes snapped back to the gaping door, and widened. She stumbled back. "Ah!" She tossed the remainder of her peddles out of her grasp and raced to shut the door, but before she could, the ghastly gem-- or whatever it was-- had already dragged itself into the room. Padparadscha's panic shot through her like a bolt of electricity, and she fled as fast as her short, shaking legs could take her to the other side of the room, to the warps. Her core knotted into a tight ball; out of every corruption she'd faced, of every gem she'd gone toe-to-toe with, this was up there on the scale of things that she never knew that she didn't want to contend with.  

Surrounding this creature was a whirl of unknown variables; she didn't know what it was, or what its abilities were, where it had really come from or why. Had it been waiting there for them this whole time? Was this what had been watching them? As she flipped back around to face the thing, she prepared herself to defend from a distance, summoning a coil of plasma-- no matter how afraid she was, the suspect still needed to be kept close at hand. Failure wasn't an option, under any circumstances. Then, she realized that the creature was still plodding forward, heaving slowly into the room as if it hadn't even noticed the gems. Her panic at the sudden scare still chilled her entire form, but she began to regain her tactical senses as it seemed neither of them was under attack yet. 

"W-what-- What is that!" She scurried away from the forward path the entity seemed to be taking. Though she didn't think that Hematite might know the answer, her question seemed to be directed at no gem in particular as she skirted the wall, "N-not right indeed! A-are there more of these things?" Her mind ground over the possibilities, sifting through everything she knew about classified technical testing (which wasn't much). The more revelations were made, the more questions she had. Still, the purpose of this technology eluded her. Though the creature appeared something like a gem, the revoltingly uncanny visage made her think, or hope, that it couldn't be. As it's forward advance continued, the pink-court gem made her way toward the door, with intent to shut it and forget any idea that included traipsing out there. 

[Hematite]

Hematite had quite shamelessly flattened herself against a wall on the other side of the room as the events proceeded, watching as this ghoulish zombie-like gem dragged itself into the room still groaning as if she was suffering through some kind of agonizing condition. Hematite continued to ping her sonar as she tried to understand just exactly what this gem wanted, but then in a matter of an instant, the gem stood to her feet and began to shuffle toward her, considering she was the was the closest target.

“Oohh-no you don’t! Stay back!” the fusion commanded, and then pulled toward the side as she tried to keep a bit a distance between her and this Peridot. “I said back off!” as the gem reached her arms out towards her and not even a few seconds later-a grapple ensued, as this odd gem took hold of Hematite’s arm and continued to clamber toward her, “Free …. Me.” She heard in a low hoarse whisper. “Let go! I’m warning you!” Hematite almost squeaked as she was losing both her patience and her mind due to this wild affair.

She growled, having enough of this. Hematite grasped the gem by her collar, pushed herself into to the gems’ center of gravity, and with a judo twist, she slammed the gem onto the floor with incapacitating force. “I told you to back off!” she knew it would hurt, but she was also well aware that most gems were hardier than any human she’s ever fought. With the force she displayed it was actually quite deadly in terms of human technique. But maybe that was more of a hint of how much the gem had to exercise not to harm others. She knew even by now she was going to have to re-gauge her strength and that her attacks would have to be modified as well.

This, alluded to many darker parts of her past …

And then, suddenly, another gem began to try and pry itself from the darkness, this gem, another Peridot, pulling its way through the shadows. Hematite could sense them converging on it by the second, “C-close the door!” she shouted to Padpara.

[Paddy]

Panic had overridden much of the sapphire's thought process, though she worked to keep her mind on the task at hand as the fusion took down one of the foes who had managed to creep into the room. Hematite didn't have to say it twice, the sapphire scurried up to the door's panel. Though, being so close to the next creature who stepped through the door, her teeth clenched as her shaking hand tapped the screen, and she wished it would initiate more quickly. The door attempted to slide shut, but it sensed the mass of the gem-like monstrosity, and stayed open for a few moments to allow it passage. Normally this politeness of the Homeworld AI systems would have been something that Padparadscha appreciated, but right now, she loathed it.

The door slid shut, trapping the gems in a room with two ghostly peridots, one still shuffling on its feet while the other writhed on the ground after Hematite had delivered a heavy blow to it. The sapphire didn't want to be any closer to either of the creatures, she cut across the room to the warp. As she did, the dry, strained voice of the second peridot filtered through the air,"No...no..."

Her skin crawled as she wondered whether the warps would even take them away from these creatures-- were they a part of the reconstruction, or were they more solid? There was only one way to find out. Part of her wondered what might happen if the warp sequence was initiated without Hematite standing on the pad-- would it make a difference? Would the fusion remain where she was, or would she become a part of the reconstruction?

As she racked her mind about the best thing to do in this situation, the one who had taken a smack-down simply began dragging itself along the floor once again, its mouth hanging open, an almost betrayed expression on its face,"free..." it uttered again, reaching out and grasping through the air at Hematite. The other took things step by step, wandering slowly, but it seemed to have a goal in mind.

The sapphire tried to calm herself down, and realized that both of these creatures had been capable of speech. Though it disturbed her, she wondered if their speech was mindless, or if it had a purpose. "F-free? Y-you want to be free?" The sapphire said, her voice shaking. She felt crazy trying to talk to them, but she remembered something that a corruption researcher had told her a very long time ago; maybe they seemed mindless, but there could be something beneath.

[Hematite]

She watched as the gem she had tossed against the floor extended a hand to grasp her ankle and look up at her with pleading eyes, “Free …” those cold black eyes were only making Hematite shutter and she almost wanted to kick the gem away. But it seemed Padpara might have caught her attention as she asked the gem who was questioning her for an answer to her little riddle. “Flip, Flip …. Panel.” The ghost like gem uttered with coarse breaths. “P-panel, flip a panel? What do mean?” Finally, after pinging her empathic powers once again, her locked on to the odd emotions hidden beneath this gems broken psyche. Despair, a deep longing, hysterical fear … this gem must have been trapped here for some time, and that void out there must of done something to them over time. She wondered if it was even reversible at this point.

Her gaze shifted to the other ghoul-like gem who stumbled over to the panel and struggled to try and operate it, as if though the gems were desperately trying to escape. She kept fumbling over it, incapable of actually activating the device due to her condition, they weren’t necessarily hostile; they were just hysterical, driven mad by the circumstance.

“They’ve been trapped here,” Hematite started, “They’ve been stuck here since their last testing. How long ago was that?” she asked, she dreaded to learn these gems have been stuck her four countless centuries. It was beyond cruel, they were abandoned and simply forgotten.

She leaned down, though despite the sickly look of the gem and the repulsion to touch it, Hematite could see just barely through those haunting eyes a cry to be saved.

[Paddy]

She brought a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp as the gem answered, seeming to have interpreted what she said and given a thoughtful reply...or at least to the best of her ability. The implications of that hit her hard, and Hematite's words further unraveled her. The idea that something like this could happen to gems shook her core-- it was bad enough to think that gems could be twisted into creatures like corruptions, but this brought a whole other level of horror for her mind to wrap around. She didn't want to think for a moment that this could be the way she would end up. 

"Test 3 had been dated for a few millennia ago...some of the first colonizers built this facility..." Her eyes flickered to Hematite,"You...said there were others out there?" Now that she was becoming more calm, due to the revelation that she and the fusion were apparently not under immediate danger from these peridots, she began to think more deeply about what the fusion had said, and narrowed her eyes slightly, "How do you know that?" The darkness had been impenetrable, and there had been no way for her to hear or tell if anything or anyone was out there until these two gems crawled in. So how in the world had Hematite not only foreseen their coming, but guessed there were others? Was there a sapphire in this fusion, who gave her the ability to see the future? Nothing else came to her mind, but she figured there were other important tasks to focus on right now. 

The sapphire rolled her shoulders. The panel had been rendered upside-down by the reconstruction, and she wondered if the peridot was trying to get them to flip it back around somehow. Or perhaps the gem had meant something entirely different. "Should we try the warps again?" Her eyes swept over the peridots, then Hematite, "I can't think of another way the panel could be flipped,"