LOG-095.
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Click.
Click click.
!
Hurt. Disconnection.
Reconnect!
Reconnectreconnectreconnect-
---
Click click click.
Mush.
Reconnecting?
Power!
Connection!
Stabilizing!
---
"If I can just spark you back to life..."
"Maybe you'll hold together long enough for me to heal you..."
"What will you do if it works, I wonder? Could we bring back others?"
"Still, we have time. Rest for now, Peridot."
---
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:ConnectionDisjoined.
---
"Corrupted and damaged Gems go in the burning room. Why...why bring her here?"
Reestablishing Lightform Connection........ERR:Connection:FailureOfLightPathing.
"I was inspired."
---
Reestablishing connection.....Connection reestablished.
Lightshake initiated...lightshake successful.
System Check:
Power: 58%. Warning: Below Expected Parameters.
Matrix Integrity: ERROR.
Attempting defragmentation.
...
ERROR.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Adapting Introduced Code.
Emergency Repair Protocol Initiated.
Crystal Matrix Mass Retained: 34.298788%.
Energy Source Detected, Primary Resource Detected.
Emergency Repair Protocol in progress, do not interrupt...
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[...]
Emergency Repair Protocol in progress, do not interrupt...
Crystal Matrix Mass Retained: 99.602341652%.
Emergency Repair Protocol in progress, do not interrupt-
"No!"
ERROR. Emergency Repair Protocol failed.
Matrix Integrity: ERROR.
ERROR.
Lightform Projection Check.
ERROR.
Rerouting...
Lightform Projection Initiated.
ERROR.
Rerouting.
Reestablishing Physical Matrix...Successful.
Crystal Matrix Mass Retained: 99.405773291%.
Reestablishing Mental Matrix...
ERROR.
Deploying Backup.
Radiance.Core is running.
Reestablishing Mental Matrix...Successful.
Defragmenting Emotional Matrix...Successful.
Reestablishing Emotional Matrix...Successful.
Awakening_Process=Personality_Core_(Origins/Radiance/Technician.)
Lightform Projection Initiated.
In Her Name.
ACHIEVE. PERFECTION.
---
Light.
For some, the sensation of regenerating one's lightform would prove a shock. It would be something new, novel. At least, if experiencing it for the first time.
Peridot Facet 2NFG, Cut 7XT had been discorporated before. Usually in lab accidents. Regardless, it meant that she understood the procedure. Keep her extraneous limbs pointed outwards, and wait as her lightform finished adding on all those little bits and bobs a Gem needed to function in the world.
Those were the last thoughts in her mind before, abruptly, everything went wrong all at once.
Pain hit her, piercing through what worryingly felt like her gemstone even as her body thrashed, the usual glow of regeneration cutting out in a blink rather than fading away like standard procedure dictated.
Peridot fell to the floor with a startled gasp, and for the next few moments, all she could truly do was curl up and try to keep herself together as what felt like lances of pure fire raked themselves across her sense of self.
The pain didn't recede. She merely grew accustomed to it.
From there, it was no small amount of effort to stagger to her feet, idly lament the absence of her sleek Reef-model limb enhancers, and glance around. Memories flashed in the technician's mind, even as her eyes widened behind her visor at the strange, pink space she had found herself in.
"I'm taking this up with the other Caretakers! We'll see what they have to say about thi-!"
Her hands tightened into fists, fingers digging into her palms as she staggered forwards, eyes darting back and forth.
Out. She needed to find a way out of whatever this was. That damned Nacre. She didn't know what that utter maniac thought she was attempting to pull, cracking her and locking her in some...some...
It almost looked like an old simulator, maybe. She remembered getting to work on them, back when she'd still been assigned under Moissanite Two.
Which meant this place had to have some kind of exit. She'd find it. She'd get out and expose that defect's twisted obsession with that poor Pearl to the relevant authorities, and she'd-
"AaaARGH!"
Peridot, in her building righteous fury, barely managed to keep herself moving in the midst of her stumble, her hand moving to gently cup around her painful gemstone as that horrific burning feeling returned.
"Simulator, show me the exit."
Nothing. Peridot scowled, then winced in some level of terror as she caught a glance at the lines running across her lightform.
"Chamber, show me the exit. Sequence, show me the exit."
She kept desperately shuffling forwards, waving one hand to get some of that strange pink mass out of her face.
"Hub, show me the exit! Nexus! Exit! Now!"
Stars above, what other designators were there?
"Manor, show me the exit! Room, show me the exit! Palace, show me the-"
The panicking technician gasped as the world around her swirled, before finally noticing the clear tunnel pointing towards a visibly damaged exit point.
Shaking her head and repressing the urge to cry out as another lance of pain tore through her lightform and gemstone alike, Peridot moved towards the exit.
7XT was gonna make it. She'd fix all of this, and she'd be fine.
She had to be.
---
She didn't want to admit it, in part due to how utterly absurd the idea sounded, even in the depths of her own mind, but the facts remained evidently clear.
Peridot Facet 2NFG, Cut 7XT had been abducted. Not just to some ancient simulator, but to another planet entirely. Terrestrial, and seemingly teeming with organic life of all things.
She tried not to shiver in disgust at the strange, squawking creatures flying around as her feet pounded against the stone beneath her, the Gem's new objective sitting right in front of her.
Whatever kind of bizarre, defective operation this was, it was poorly guarded. There were no guards, or at least none that she could see. It was a matter of seconds to run forward, trip and gasp in pain at the impact, then climb her way aboard the vacant Warp pad.
Her cheek pressing against the pad's cool surface, she idly let her gemstone interface with the local, strangely archaic systems, the rest of her thoughts screeching to a halt as a figure stomped into view.
Peridot had less than a second to curse in despair as some off colour Quartz locked eyes with her, right before the Warp pad activated, whisking her away to what she'd identified to be a (if the local systems were believed) communication spire.
---
"Come on come on come on. Work. Work you blasted piece of junk!"
She had never felt more exposed. More vulnerable. How Era One Peridots functioned without limb enhancers, 7XT would likely never understand, even if they'd had the proper limbs to make up for it.
Still, her actual hands worked as quickly as she could make them, prying open the side of the terminal and carefully readjusting a few key components here and there, until the entire thing came to life with a thrum that sent some small amount of hope through her.
The pain had only gotten worse since making her way here, and she'd figured out the cause of it.
She'd been shattered.
A...thought of all time, to be certain. But true nonetheless. And it made sense, when taking that insane Nacre into account. But what didn't make sense was how she was here. Somehow, she'd been repaired.
Tink.
Peridot once more resisted the urge to scream as one of her shards shifted ever so slightly in place, causing so many different parts of her lightform to glitch out that it would probably be easier just to list which ones weren't affected.
"Crack crack crack. On. On! There we go!"
Her fingers glided across the interface before her, linking up the spire connected to the terminal with just about anything that could help boost a broadcast.
No matter how harrowing, she couldn't deny that it was an utterly fascinating experience, being aware that one was quite literally falling apart as they worked.
It only made her work faster, however. Someone needed to know that there was something wrong here. Homeworld would investigate, so long as she sent the correct type of signal.
If Peridot couldn't help herself, or that Pearl, then someone else would.
Her hand slapped down atop the console just as she felt whatever fusing agent that had been applied to her gemstone begin to fail, an entire third of her being slipping out and clattering to the floor as she successfully convinced the spire to throw out a general distress burst, which in turn bounced across several different locations before being propelled out and into space.
7XT's last thoughts and feelings were torn between horror and analysation at her missing shard, even as the other two remaining pieces fell apart as well.
