Time seemed to slow down for me as the fixture fell, and I registered two facts at the exact same time: One; this thing is going to land right on top of me, Two; someone has decided that now is a good time to hug my leg. The next thing I knew, my entire body started to glow and feel warmer as I tried to push away whoever it was.
At the same time, I felt a wave of almost minty coolness spread up into me from my thigh as the other person began to glow as well, and then our light merged. I could feel the barrier between us shift, then crumble as my gem’s red-tinted light began to embrace the soothing blue light of the other gem, and time flat-out stopped as our colors formed a gradient, and then shifted to fully entwine as lavender with other purple tints. Her gem moved up while mine stayed in almost the same position, taking its place in our shared forehead as our combined projection began to solidify and assert itself into reality.
What I hadn’t expected to feel until then was the only real surprise in the process of fusing with Delphi, and that was the sudden opening of a connection between our gems and then a connection to our unified body as our thoughts intermingled and we began to see through each other’s eyes.
I paused and looked down at Delphi with a smile while lifting Tempest out of my lap to place her on the arm of my chair. “What do you say, dear, should we give them a taste of Tanzanite and allow her to narrate her own birth, or should I absolutely butcher her metaphors?”
Delphi stood up from her place on the other arm of my chair and smiled up at me in response. “I don’t see any other way to properly introduce her than doing just that.”
I looked back to the gathering of schoolfoals with my smile widening briefly. “You’re all in for a treat as long as you don’t try to think about the metaphors she uses too much. Tanzanite’s a little eccentric.”
Tempest snorted. “She better keep the massage going. In fact, I expect all four hands to be used.”
“With foals watching you’ll get three and no more. One hand needs to be reserved for gesticulations after all.” Moving a hand over to Delphi, I extended a finger. “Care to dance?”
Delphi looked down at the crowd of fillies and colts on the floor as she took hold of my finger. “It’s a little crowded for anything elaborate, perhaps just a couple twirls and a kiss instead?”
“That works just fine for me.” A hum built in my throat as I danced my finger around, years of practice synching our movements. It wasn’t strictly needed, but it felt so nice to have the time for a little preamble like this. Delphi gave a little hop as she completed the last twirl, allowing me to slip my hand underneath her so I could lift her up for a quick kiss. Our projections merged quickly, and soon we were ready to continue the story properly.
Three arms reached for Tempest, snatching her up like the tentacles of a hungry cephalopod around a particularly tasty morsel while my fourth hand scrawled an introduction into the air with purple planes of power: ‘Lady Tanzanite: The Femme Fatale Foreteller.’
I raised two hands quickly, with my mind racing faster than a greyhound being chased by a cheetah. I’m not sure how I knew what to do, but I was able to shape a shield by making a few gestures, and I caught the falling chandelier much like one might catch a person falling out of a burning building.
It barely weighed a thing in my hands, like a pillow of fine goose feathers. “Everyone alright?” I asked, peering around it towards Amber and Tempest.
Tempest nodded with sparks dancing up and down her horn and through her mane like a string of LED christmas lights, though the expression on her face looked like someone had just shoved a whole lemon into her mouth.
Amber, meanwhile, looked utterly terrified, and for a moment her expression reminded me of a certain scene at the end of a great movie about a guy fighting nazis, but I’m not going to describe that to a bunch of foals. Every single one of your parents would be lining up to tapdance on my backside if I planted that kind of imagery in your minds.
“My diamond! Light pollution! You need to break the fusion, now!”
Stepping around her, I placed the chandelier on David’s bed. “I’m perfectly fine, Doc. Just need a moment to figure myself out.”
Every fusion goes through it, at least those of the cross-gem kind. That moment of self-actualization. That time where they get to stand up and shout at the world that they are here and nothing is going to stop them. Lucky me, I had a mirror to look into so I could examine myself, though it had been made for a slightly-smaller projection that was now half of me. That meant I needed to lean over a little bit to get my head in frame.
“My Diamond, I must insist!” Amber stared after me, her arms quivering like gelatin on a fat man's plate. “You could be rendered permanently off-color!”
I had to reach up and take off my hat, that was the very first thing I noticed. The style of it was quite fashionable, and the purple lace veil brought a smile to my lips, but the hat itself was an ugly mess of pink and blue blotches with a few areas of overlap that resulted in some purple tones. I tossed the hat onto David’s bed with a sigh and began to brush my hair away from my face so I could see clearer. The lavender skin was easy enough to have guessed from when I formed, but I hadn’t been expecting the subtle blue eyeshadow or crimson lipstick that accented my features. My longer arms stopped gathering up my hair while the shorter ones, which just barely reached up to my head, began to braid my absolutely massive mane.
“Your diamond’s not exactly in charge at the moment, doc, so stop begging her to do something while I have a minute to breathe for the first time. You’re basically telling a newborn that she shouldn’t exist.”
“You!” Amber snapped, pointing at the quartz. “Go get the chief Peridot! Tell her our Diamond is in danger of light pollution!”
“And take that damn rock with you!” Tempest shouted while the quartz gave a mute nod in response to Amber’s order. The crimson mare then walked up to look in the mirror beside me, barely coming up to the middle of my thigh now. “So, diamonds can fuse. That’s not something anypony ever knew for sure. Nice dress.”
‘I can’t believe I’m in a dress.’ ‘It looks good on us, David.’
“I’m not a diamond,” I said, shaking the thoughts of my constituents. They filter in periodically, like the soft whispers of the wind through shutters. It’s a conversation with yourself, even if you're not the one speaking.
“That is technically true, but my diamond IS in there, and she needs to be let out right now! She already considers herself a lesser cut if you’re serious about not considering yourself a diamond. The sapphire is already polluting her mind!”
“Crazy doctor needs to go nag someone else, I think, before she pisses off the fusion that includes her precious diamond.” Tempest stated with such a thick layer of snark that it could have adequately covered a dozen bagels if it had been cream cheese. “I’ve met a couple perma-fusions, and all of them were still their own color whenever they decided they needed some time apart. There’s no way this is hurting David.”
“Tanzanite.” The word passed my lips, hanging in the air like a lead balloon. “I’m not a diamond because I’m not David. I’m not Delphi either. I’m Tanzanite.” I turned my attention back to my reflection and smiled as I straightened up to get a look at the dress that Tempest had commented on without all the wrinkles that came from compressing myself like that.
It was mostly blue, with a long red scarf that was nearly transparent. The dress itself featured embroidery that looked like pink wheat stalks and butterflies coming down from the neck and up from the hem, with a random cluster also bursting from a pink dot just below the hint of a swell on my chest. “And you’re right, this is a lovely dress, my dear Tempest.” The only imperfections were the red stains around the embroidery, making it look like the dyes had not properly set in the materials used, except I’m made of light…
‘Garnet’s first fusion was messy too. If we do this again, she’ll probably look more coherent.’ ‘You know of a fusion named Garnet? Wait, again?!’
They yapped at each other like a pair of chihuahuas. If I could, I’d muzzle them both. Instead, I turned my head towards the door. “Now you mentioned something about a malachite. That wouldn’t be prime accessory material, would it?”
“The Malachite of Misfortune. It’s an artifact of the old world, from the time of the Diamond Authority’s rule. The Storm King loaned it to a crazy changeling queen a couple years ago and I was sent to tell her that he needed it back. As you saw, or your parts saw, it causes problems in an area where magic is actively being used, usually causing accidents or making spells go absolutely crazy...thus the name.” Tempest looked down at the floor for a few seconds before speaking again. “An invaluable tool for an invasion of an entire city of unicorns.”
Things fell into place. Her violent arrival, her mistrust, her mission. I didn’t need David’s input to come to a conclusion. “Your preparing for war, are you? That’s dangerous business.” All in service to this Storm King. Now there was a name about as ominous as Lord Verminaard, and obviously not the name of a guy interested in making sure the weather was nice.
“He is. I no longer have any stake in his conquest since you already did what he promised me. Now I owe you the fealty I promised to him. My horn was broken when I was a filly, and you finally took that pain away. He can find someone else to help him take over Equestria.”
David had been right, Tempest was a wellspring of knowledge. Only a small nudge got her singing like a canary. “You owe David, Tempest. I don’t expect you to do anything for me.”
The strangled cry of a Peridot stabbed into our conversation. Bashir charged into view, her arms waving like a car lot mascot. “My Diamond! What are you doing!? Your color’s going to be stained!” Her emotions turned, coming to bear on Amber. “You! You let this happen!”
“Me?! I didn’t do anything here. The sapphire ran at her after she pushed me and that unicorn out from under the chandelier. I’ve begged her three times to break the fusion, but she won’t listen to reason.” She stopped talking and just stared in my direction for a few seconds, her eyes twitching like an owl on meth. “How many sapphires do we have here? Is there a chance the one that was here for the last few days has been a spy from the rebellion, and that she’s doing this to intentionally corrupt the new diamond?”
A flick of a wrist put a wall between them as I walked over to the side of David’s bed. “If the two of you don’t calm down, I’ll put you both in the corner,” I said, my other arms replacing my hat.
“Unless one of you wants to show me evidence of this whole ‘light pollution’ phenomenon actually happening when Tempest claims to have known some fusion gems that stay that way almost all of the time and show no signs of discoloration when they separate. This propaganda you’ve been subjected to has no basis in anything I can recall knowing or being informed about aside from three gems since I woke up.”
"Of course it has a basis!" Bashir argued, taken aback by the shield. "You have to break the fusion!"
“Alright, ladies, I think it’s time for you to present some evidence to the diamond that is currently not a diamond.” Tempest stated calmly, with her tone shifting into one that suggested she expected the order to be followed immediately. “If there is a factual basis for your claim, then surely you have supporting evidence?”
Bashir sneered, shuddering in aggravation. “I don’t have time to break down a highly complicated topic for your organic mind to process! Our diamond only has a few minutes at most before it sets in. I’ll call in the quartz if I have to to break it apart.”
“So don’t break it down for my ‘organic mind.’ Present your evidence to your diamond in terms other than ‘it exists’ and ‘because we say so.’”
“This is nonsense!” Bashir declared, marching towards the door. “I’m coming back with a handful of quartz and we’re freeing our diamond from that sapphire’s corrosive effects.”
I felt a deep upwelling of unease from David, Bashir’s rapid adherence to dogma unsettling him. “Gems are hardwired to obey,” I commented softly to Tempest. “If a diamond tells them something long enough, they’ll cling to it like a possum on its mothers back.”
“In other words they’re more gullible than your average pony...interesting. The ones I’ve met always seemed so independent.”
“And what are they like?” I asked, crossing my legs. “You know so much more about this world than David does. Care to do a bit of sharing?”
“Well, for one there’s the fusion that trained me to fight off gem soldiers. She calls herself a ‘Griffonstone diamond’ but she’s just a citrine and a clear quartz when she comes apart. She works for the Storm King, and seems happy to be given orders at times, but I’ve also heard her tell him where he can shove it a few times when he says something stupid.”
“Citrines are too pale to tell if their color is being altered by a clear quartz.” Amber snapped almost immediately. “You can’t expect me to believe one example outweighs all prior knowledge on a subject, especially one as flawed as that!”
Eyeing the doorway, I realized I had completely forgotten someone. Standing there like a dutiful canine, Watson regarded me with a bright smile. "Terribly sorry about that, darling. You just slipped my mind.”
“Oh, please don’t worry about me. I’m simply waiting for David to come back since you say that you aren’t him. I’m bound to serve him, not you,” She replied swiftly; her expression unchanging.
I reached a hand down, poking the tip of her spike-like nose. “I’m not David but he is a part of me. Not that I demand that you serve me. Just a bit of clarity, dear.”
“I fail to see how that has any impact on my reasoning, Tanzanite. David is part of you, but you are not him, therefore I shall wait for him to return just as I waited for him when he was using the bed that was made for him to reorganize his thoughts.”
Her dedication to David was impressive, reminding me of that famous Japanese dog. “Well then, how about it, Tempest? Still willing to give that history lesson? Preferably before the doctor gets back with her goons.”
“Technically they’re your goons that she’s ordering around under false pretenses. What more information do you want?” Tempest simply grinned as she watched the doorway interaction. “Also, how do you want to be trained? I know gems work differently from ponies and other living things, but you’re going to need training on using your body and powers to their fullest.”
I waved her off. “That’s David’s concern. What I need is a sitrep on the world. Major players, major historical events. That sort of thing.” I laid down along the bed, resting my head on a hand. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“Oh I certainly can, but it would be much easier to do that with a map of some kind since I haven’t exactly had a functioning horn in years and don’t trust myself to create even a basic illusion without having it explode into gem-disrupting fireworks.” She turned to look at Amber with a cheeky grin. “Does this place have a strategic map of some kind we could use? Preferably one with at least some kind of representation of the various units available to the old kingdoms?”
Amber grunted, sticking her nose in the air. “Do I look like an emerald to you? I’m a healer, not a tactician. Why don’t you ask the pearl? She can project things.”
“Well, excuse me for thinking that a medical gem would be able to answer a basic question about the kind of things that can be found here. You know, maybe having had to check on inventory at some point in the thousand years since the diamonds were banished?”
“I will not be talked down to by an organi-”
One of my smaller hands clamped over Amber’s mouth, my disapproving look silencing her. “I don’t think you’ll be getting that map, Tempest. Unless Watson wishes to help?” I turned to the pearl in question, peering out from my veil. “How about it?”
“I’m sure there’s a map somewhere. This place is the original kindergarten for all gems, and even the diamonds emerged here, but I don’t know where that map is or if it matches the planet as it exists now. It would be silly indeed to not have any way to plan expansions.”
Clicking my tongue, a giddy laugh passed my lips. “How could I forget what blue makes up half of me.” Following a few inlaid instincts my eyes shimmered, my veil almost becoming all consuming from my perspective.
Several visions came to me, some merging and some splitting. In one, I had to restrain a handful of quartz that tried to poof me. In another, Tempest came to blows with Amber. The third came in slowly, us standing around a map marked with a strange mixture of English and Cyrillic letters Cyrillic text was always accompanied by a name in English that was either carefully crossed out or had angry scribbles obscuring it.
I felt David stir a bit, my thoughts shifting to more of his. Brushing it off, I tuned my senses to this probable me’s. Sights and sounds wafted in, the musky smell of old parchment causing my nose to crinkle.
“-ooks like there's still some battlelines marked on the map,” Tempest said, her voice carrying a warble. “Must have been one of the final lines outside of the main diamond camp. Looks like the only allies the diamonds had when this map was last used were... yaks and changelings.”
“Must not have worked too well for them,” ‘I’ said, looking over the map once more. “Who exactly were they fighting?”
“Everyone else.” Tempest stated with a snort, followed by pointing to a number of areas on the map. “Diamond dogs, dragons, buffalo, minotaurs, griffons, ponies, crystal ponies, hippogriffs, kirin, deer. Every race I know about came together under Rose Quartz to give the diamonds the shoe.”
My being pulled apart, the name cutting me along the seams. Awareness crumbled, the pieces returning to the present. Rocked back to the present, I split back into my component gems.
“There’s a second pink diamond?!” I blurted out, picking myself off the floor. My being settled back into itself, reasserting that I was me. I suppose I should have asked Tempest sooner, what she meant by ‘other red gem’. In those early days, my situational awareness was spotty at best.
“Uh, what? No, you’re the only pink diamond I know of.” Tempest walked over and knelt down at my side to offer me a small bit of assistance in regaining my feet.
“Pink Diamond is Rose Quartz,” I said, putting what I thought was a comfortable amount of weight on her shoulder to push myself up.
“The pink anomaly.” Amber hissed through gritted teeth. “The impossible rebel. The only red gem to ever emerge before you did despite not having been seeded by an injector and there being no red essence available to create her.”
Brushing myself off, I gazed at my gem. “That’s because she’s a pink diamond. ‘Rose Quartz’ is just a disguise.” A frown grew as I ran a hand across my stomach. “If I knew how to shapeshift, I’d show you.”
“There’s no way she’s a diamond. She had to fuse with other gems AND a pair of hybrids to hold her own against Yellow Diamond.”
“Probably because she didn’t want them to know what she was,” I countered, turning my gaze to her. “That’s why it’s called a disguise. On top of that, fusion makes a gem stronger than its components.”
“If she was a diamond, why have there been no more red gems since she helped kick the other diamonds off-planet?”
I had to remind myself that Amber didn’t have knowledge of a tv show. An exasperated snort still vented my frustration. “Because making gems damages the planet and she obviously cares too much about it to allow it to continue.”
“Ponies have actually managed to reclaim most areas affected by gemblight. The badlands are slowly getting smaller, according to what I’ve read.” Tempest shifted her jaw for a few seconds before speaking again. “Also, she can’t be another you.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
“Because her healing power only works on gems and hybrids, and it only works on hybrids because they have gems.” Tempest took a seat on the edge of my bed. “I was just a filly, but I remember my parents dragging me to see her to try and fix my horn, only for all three of us to walk out with crushed hope.”
Centering myself, I slowly nodded. “Right. We’ll just have to deal with her when the time comes.”
“And like I said,” Tempest spoke again, smirking at Amber. “Your precious diamond didn't lose a single bit of pink, did she?”
“She doesn’t appear to have gained any blue, and the sapphire appears to have no hint of red or pink pollution either. One incidence of a clean fusion break does not make a clean set of data.”
Watson spoke, her smile bleeding into her words. “How was your fusion, David? Tanzanite seemed quite lovely.” I was pleasantly surprised, she wasn’t at all bothered by my brief absence from the world.
“Right in here. I need you to split them up before our diamond hurts herself, then shatter the sapphire.” Bashir’s voice came through the doorway accompanied by the sound of multiple sets of footsteps.
One green quartz stepped into the room first, and immediately froze in place before looking around the room. “Uhhh, no fusion here.”
Reaching over, I lifted Delphi into my arms. “I’m going to say this once, and I want every gem to know this by sundown. As long as I am in charge, there will be no shatterings. Full stop.” Looking past her, I barked out “Bashir! Get your Dorito-looking ass in here!”
The quartz backed up, visibly shoving others out of the way to leave an opening in the doorway. A few other quartzes peeked around the frame as the named peridot meekly walked through the opening. “Uhhh, yes, My Diamond? Orders about shattering heard loud and clear.”
My glare stayed on her, watching her squirm. “We’re going to have a nice long talk about taking the hippocratic oath. You, the rest of the peridots, and all of the ambers. Watson, please make a note, Tempest and I need to restructure the chain of command.”
“That’s not the only thing we need to do.”
“Of course, David. I shall obtain a copy of the current command structure so that revisions that make sense can be made.”
”Sorry, Delphi. Our... Tanzanite’s Rose Quartz revelation caught me off guard. How are you feeling?” I set her back down on my bed, kneeling down in front of her.
“L-like I need to go sit in the sun for six hours to recharge.” She sounded slightly dazed. “Sapphires don’t fuse often, I do hope this won’t feel the same the next time it happens.”
I pat her head gently, motioning Bashir over. “Keep an eye on her, will you?” I put a finger on her lips. “No, light pollution isn’t a thing. Just make sure she recovers in a safe place? Understand?”
She simply nodded and reached out for Delphi, taking the hand of the smaller gem and tugging as gently as possible. “Okay, let’s go find you a spot with plenty of sunshine. Sudden exhaustion like this is not common, so an amber should check over your gem for any new flaws that may have been stress-induced from the sudden fusion.” She swallowed nervously and looked up at me. “W-with your permission of course.”
“By all means,” I said, motioning her out. The amber went with her, leaving just myself, Watson and Tempest. “Should have expected the need for an overhaul.” Jennifer was a good cop, no question about that. Her command structure, however, was a sloppy mess.
“Eh, I’ve seen worse things happen with a command breakdown over standing orders versus new information.” Tempest shrugged before turning to me with a harsh expression on her face. “So, get a new command structure established and evaluate your power, two things we need to do in order to get things moving smoothly here. Evaluating your relative power should be easy enough if there’s a part of the enclave with no real purpose.”
Clicking my tongue, I stepped to the door. “Might as well go looking. Come on, Watson. Let’s go find some rocks to smash.”
“Oh, we should find a Bismuth for easy cleanup, and to let us know that it’s safe to use a given area.” Watson chimed in as she moved to follow the two of us.