LOG-119.

  The eventual confirmation by Ardent that the operation had been concluded successfully brought with it something that might be considered festivities, deep within one of the many hidden chambers Fawn made use of throughout the Confluence.

  Of course being Gems, and more importantly Pearls, the small team's idea of celebrating mostly involved singing and dancing.

  Shocker.

  Regardless, Truce and Glitch had been twirling around each other with wide grins for the past hour now, even as a few other Pearls who I could only assume had also been involved somehow occasionally showed up to give congratulations and be congratulated in turn.

  I gave smiles where needed. Patted a few on the back and ignored their slight surprise as they no doubt recognised just which Pearl was egging them on while internally noting the silent stares the crimson twins kept sending my way.

  And then I excused myself and left, hands reaching for my gemstone as I made my way down yet another long hallway, identical to the billions of other such areas within the Confluence.

  One hand rose with a donut clutched within it, well preserved by the everlasting stasis induced by my storage space. The other held a communicator.

  I idly munched on the treat as the device activated, sending an isolated signal to its other half. A moment passed. Then two.

  Swallowing down the remnants of the donut, I carefully savoured the taste of the chocolate as the gadget lit up with a white flash, a singular large eye staring back at me through the small holographic display generated by the thing.

  "V-Viridian! You called!"

  I grunted, resisting the urge to grab another treat from my gemstone. All my rationing would be for nothing if I just ate everything now in the face of a single minor victory, after all.

  "I'm in a good mood. When are you free?"

  The eye disappeared for a moment, the sound of fast paced muttering and various items clattering about filling the feed for a moment before it reappeared.

  "Soon! Soon. I can finish my duties early if I take a few shortcuts."

  My eyes narrowed.

  "Don't do anything that'll put attention on you. Meet me in the usual spot."

  Whatever she was about to say sounded nervously happy, but was nonetheless cut off as I shut the communicator down, stuffing it back into my storage space.

  Slowing to an eventual halt, I just stood in the empty hallway for a moment, blankly staring at the space in front of me before finally letting a full body shudder shake my lightform around, my hands rising to claw at my head before I finally got a hold of myself.

  "Fuck…get a Stars damned grip."

  Adjusting my hair and outfit for a moment, I took a breath, then continued forward.

  —

  I lounged.

  There really wasn't a better way to describe it. My lightform lay draped across the floor of an empty maintenance closet, hair spiralling out around me after I'd gone through the minor pain of undoing Sodalite's natural braids.

  Or…my natural braids, I supposed. And yet they still felt more like an accessory than anything truly melded to my existence.

  Ignoring the minor, barely detectable and yet still distinctly pleased thrum that ran through my lightform at the thought, I lifted a hand, inspecting it.

  Green. Not a singular hint of anything resembling blue.

  I smirked in triumph, even as something similar to the urge to vomit creeped up in the back of my head.

  Instead of doing anything like that however, I merely reclined backwards instead, crossing my arms behind my head in lieu of a proper pillow.

  That position defined my existence for some amount of time, before the datapad I'd left sitting on the ground next to me abruptly lit up, the usual alert of someone attempting to contact me drawing my attention.

  Extending an arm, I accepted the call, stretching ever so slightly.

  "Star speaking."

  A moment of silent static, before the meaningless noise congregated into Ardent's usual distorted voice.

  "...Ardent here. You sound different."

  I froze for a moment, and slowly brought up a hand to pinch the bridge of my nose, huffing out a breath.

  "...Chrysocolla. Speaking on behalf of Star."

  Damn it.

  "Ah. Right, well in that case I figured I'd just let you know ahead of time that I'd like to arrange a proper meeting between you, or just Star, I mean, and a pair of Pearls recently brought in to reinforce us. Your component has already met them, but I believe there wasn't any real exchange of words?"

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I considered that for a moment, the memory of the twins brought forth as easily as any other, and nodded to myself, even as I did my best not to snort at the word component.

  "I'm aware of them. Is there any particular reason for this?"

  Ardent went silent. Presumably hesitating.

  "...Star has been doing extremely well, even in comparison to some of our more experienced operatives. I am contemplating increasing her authority within the cell, but would like to perform one last test, so to speak."

  A hand rose, brushing my hair to the side as I exhaled.

  "Alright. Where do you want her, and when?"

  As the other Pearl rattled off a location and time, I focused on the metaphorical chain binding me together, one hand releasing its grip, allowing the length to loosen around the other.

  Light.

  Clink.

  And just like that, I was entirely myself again, as if I hadn't already been before.

  I awkwardly ignored the inert gemstone resting beside me, crawling towards the communicator and picking it up.

  "Star speaking, I'll be there soon."

  The call cut off with an affirmative from my handler, and I took a moment to stuff the device back into my storage space, taking a glance at Sodalite.

  Satisfaction flooded my mind at her state, right before a solid wave of disgust at my own thoughts followed shortly afterwards.

  I didn't wait for her to reform, instead electing to contemplate whether the dirty feeling coating my lightform as I left was because of that fact.

  —

  Getting to the agreed upon rendezvous had been easy. Hessonite had gotten significantly busier as of late, and from what I could tell had practically forgotten about me as a result, content to believe my performances throughout the Confluence had essentially automated themselves.

  Which was true, but still.

  It meant that it didn't take me all too long to reach the isolated meeting chamber the two crimson Pearls were waiting for me in, locking eyes with the pair as I strode inside.

  The door closed behind me, and I stared at their gemstones, each located on the opposite cheek of its respective owner.

  Silence dominated the room, before I slowly spread my arms.

  "Well? Ardent said we were supposed to-"

  It happened in a literal flash, quick enough that had I not spent time engaging in pseudo combat training with Jaspers, I likely would have been poofed.

  One second, the two were standing still. The next, one was rushing towards me, a blood red curved dagger clutched in her grip, while the other launched herself towards the wall to my right.

  I responded the only way I truly could, gauntlets forming around my hands in my own flash of light, right before my claws impacted against the incoming attack.

  Emotionless eyes bored into my own before I forced my arm (and thus the knife) upwards, my other hand spearing towards the violent Pearl's midsection.

  There was a spark as a dart of some kind slammed into the armoured limb, knocking it aside just long enough for my first attacker to back off.

  Gritting my teeth at the abrupt betrayal, I took up a ready stance, eyeing the pair as they both took up their own positions.

  First I'd take out the dart thrower, to keep her from interfering with my attacks. Close in quick, deflect her counterpart's inevitable attack, and I'd be free to overpower her. Then I could get to work on the other one, use one hand to keep her at bay while the other sliced into her lightform.

  If they proved too capable for that, I could still try to go for a more defensive fight. Get myself a moment to grab a destabilizer from my storage space and get an edge over them-

  "Well, that was moderately terrifying to witness."

  I blinked at the pink Gem that had just popped through the door behind the two crimson Pearls, both of them unsummoning their weapons and standing aside as she stepped forward, one eye tracking the way my claws continued to flex with every movement.

  "...Fuchsia. I'm guessing you're Ardent then?"

  The Pearl had been getting ready to speak, only to immediately halt and stutter at my observation, a hand rising to point a finger at me.

  "Wha-how-where did you even get that idea from!?"

  I glared at the two twins' passive forms, and slowly lowered my own weapons, unsummoning them a second later.

  "...A bunch of little things. Occasional mistakes. Plus the 'dumb pillow bearer' personality feels a little too forced at times, if I'm being entirely honest."

  She paused at that, hands going to her hips and a pout dominating her expression as she glared right back at me, before letting out a long sigh.

  "And here I thought I was so clever with that act. Ugh. Right, ignoring that. Anyway ah…this isn't a betrayal? Can I just explain things? You kind of messed with my whole plan here."

  My eyes narrowed.

  "These two are some kind of assassin unit, and you wanted them to test my reflexes and responses to see whether I could be trained to act as the same. Then I actually fought back without getting overwhelmed."

  Fuchsia stared at me for a long moment, before turning to one of the twins, gesturing at me.

  "You see what I mean? Do you see what I mean here?"

  The red Gem remained silent, prompting a huff as her pink counterpart turned back my way.

  "I…yeah that was the plan. Can I ask where you learned to fight?"

  For once, the absolute truth spilled from my lips in front of her.

  "I was a very bored Pearl aboard a military cruiser with a contingent of Jaspers. I sparred with them. It was fun."

  Fuchsia blinked, before slowly bringing up a hand to palm her face.

  "...Whatever. You're getting promoted. I want you doing more important stuff."

  I quirked an eyebrow.

  "Shattering problematic Gems?"

  She shook her head in response.

  "That's what I was planning at first, but with these two here that job would be kinda redundant. Nah, you did well with the Fighter meetup. You can fight. You're ridiculously sneaky when you want to be, like with those Malachites, and you have a frankly weird affinity for leading Gems around by their noses, so uh…I guess the term is general operator?"

  I stared. Fuchsia threw her hands in the air.

  "You do a little bit of everything! Planning stuff out with other cells, dealing with troublesome elements, telling some of our lower ranked Pearls what to do, gathering information, all of it."

  I tilted my head.

  "Do I get increased privileges?"

  She stared right back at me, before giggling.

  "I think that's the first time I've heard a Pearl ask for 'increased privileges.' Yes, you…well I guess you'll kinda have my job. Sort of. You get to know more as well. So…either you'll get assigned to manage a different cell, or you'll lead this one while I focus on the Sapphire job."

  Nodding, I brought up a hand to idly rub at my chin.

  "...M'kay. Is your owner in on this?"

  Fuchsia rolled her eyes in response to the question.

  "My owner has been freaking out over her own visions for the past few hundred centuries. We've just been keeping anyone from actually contacting her to ask about whatever she's been seeing while getting ready to relocate her somewhere the Empire can't use her."

  I nodded, hands lowering and clasping together behind my back as I glanced between the three Pearls.

  "Right. Well…that sounds…acceptable. How do we begin?"

  One of the twins piped up at that, the one with her gemstone decorating her left cheek.

  "We will be leaving to rendezvous with our assigned owner. She will be expecting you within her private quarters."

  The other twin, gemstone covering her right cheek, turned to nod at Fuchsia.

  "Ardent, please transfer over your knowledge to this one promptly. We will be waiting."

  And just like that, the two turned back towards my direction, marching forward in lockstep until they brushed past me, their forms disappearing as the door leading out to the hallway opened and closed.

  Pursing my lips, I pointed at the exit with my thumb.

  "Who's the owner?"

  Fuchsia crossed her arms.

  "Your biggest fan, Azurite."

  I blinked.

  "Azurite from Blue Nine?"

  "Yes."

  "...She's a staunch loyalist. All of my sources confirmed it."

  She had the fucking gall to snicker at that.

  "Your sources, which is also one of the reasons you're getting this job by the way, went around asking Fawn's assets what she was like. Of course she's known as a loyalist. We aren't exactly in the habit of selling out our best agents, you know?"

  I considered that for a moment, before crossing my arms in a parody to Fuchsia's own posture, summing up my thoughts with a single, particularly elegant word.

  "Oh."

  Her triumphant expression at presumably getting one over me really didn't help matters, honestly.