Coarse Diamonds

by Darkonshadows

-43-

“That will be all ma’am.” The royal guard nodded and turned to leave the room, making Rarity sigh as she was a bit tired of giving statements. This was the like the fifth time in the past few months that she had to give one to an authority figure.

“So, can I ask you something rather odd Rarity?” Spoke up Greta after the guard left the room Rarity was relaxing in.

“If I may ask you why you just used my name instead of using my affectionate title that I’m slowly becoming known by?” It wasn’t like Rarity was going anywhere; she did after all receive a nasty wound to the leg recently. Greta looked rather pensive about what she was about to ask.

“Well the way I see it, if I want you to pay more clear attention to me then actually using your name would be a good way to do that. Using your full name would mean things are considerably more urgent.” Rubbing the back of her head with her talons Greta couldn’t look directly at Rarity’s flat stare even as she kept a bit of an awkward smile on her beak. “As to my question, do you have a thing with causing disproportionate retribution?”

“I don’t exactly know what you mean Greta, can you please elaborate?” That question was more confusing to Rarity than anything else.

“Well what was that thing about you sending Ember after a Pendaxon after he bumped into you and then an entire slave trade ring gets horribly mangled by your little sister and then swiftly followed up by a dragon to finish them off?” Well that was just one of the things Greta knew about. Her boss was quite a sexy pony when it came to making her enemies pay for any infraction against her, even if it was entirely accidental. She even heard Gilda muttering about how attractive the boss could be at least once while they were salvaging.

“Oh that, I believe that was entirely incidental.” Or at least Rarity would like to think it as incidental that such a rude oversized five legged frog monster got justice for bumping into her and being especially crude with his words.

“What about the space pirates, you were definitely being cruel with them and admittedly that was kind of a turn on. I believe your words were, ‘Extreme Prejudice’. I’m not about to lie about how it felt when you just let the AI go at them and even stalled on purpose to get the full enjoyment out of totaling the people that almost killed you with whiplash. They at least led you to meeting me and Gilda.” After Greta said that Rarity stayed rather silent, she continued on thoughtfully. “Then there’s the Xouj, after one nearly bites your head off the rest of them were subsequently fried violently with help from your highly vindictive AI. Mind Field certainly got off worse than you did. While the grazing shots you had on him were nothing compared to the final three you fired yesterday night, it’s like anyone who hurts you has to have something horrible happen to them in return eventually. In fact I’ve even asked Opal about it, there is no way that you didn’t plan for that statue to land on his neck like that. I can tell you a few other examples about why I think you might have a worse than death complex that I’ve noticed if you’d like.”

“Yes, the statute might have been partially planned, but I didn’t seek disproportionate retribution even if he did try to rape me.” Now that she said it out loud it was kind of hard for Rarity to not see it as getting retribution disproportionately. “More that I sought it out for every mare he’s ever managed to successfully hurt. I hope this doesn’t upset you any way, but I most certainly do not go for disproportionate retribution… at least on purpose.”

“You actually think that upsets me? It actually excites me and Gilda when you do something like that and we hear of it boss lady. Griffons are actually turned on by things like that, be thankful I’m still going after Gilda because otherwise I would make passes at you every time we end up in the same room. Oh speaking of Opal, she probably wants to hear that you’re doing alright… well mostly anyway. We still need to see if you can walk and we’re kind of waiting on a nurse to come check up on that.” Greta gave Rarity a soft smile as she picked up her bosses data pad and started up a connection with Opal. “Getting a knife through the leg isn’t very pleasant sounding, but you’ll hopefully be able to walk just fine. Mind Field can’t even use his horn thanks to his injuries; he’ll be seeing court in a wheelchair and if the changelings are actually working with Opal. Well, his chances of survival aren’t likely to be beyond a month with your crazy AI out for blood. In fact I think she is a major factor to your disproportionate retribution thing.”

“Well you have to have some way of getting an acupuncturist to him with the platypus venom and if you can’t do something like that then at least get some itching powder on him! You know that he hurt my mother and he’s a horrible criminal!” Opal’s voice sounded off as Greta turned the data pad to Rarity. “He deserves to squirm for all the wrongs he committed against mares everywhere and mom already took care of the worst thing about him! Death is cheap, life is hard, so I definitely want him to live and suffer while doing so even if he’s already suffering quite a bit.”

“Opal, can you be a dear and please repeat what you just said?” Her poor little rampant AI jumped and turned around, she gave Rarity the biggest sheepish grin she has ever seen on her lithe, little, white digital cat with the long pink hair out of the pigtails again. Rarity knew that meant Opal was being more serious and worried about things. It sounded like she had been talking to someone before her data pad connected and she wasn’t about to ask how far Opal was willing to go to get back at someone on her behalf.

“I might have to call you back… something more important to me came up.” Opal said through gritted teeth as she continued to give her creator a big cheesy smile, while not looking at her directly with those blue eyes. Her voice went rather quiet when she finally spoke. “Hey, meowstress, how are you feeling?”

“I do believe you just called me mom.” Rarity stated flatly just sending a bored glance at her AI, the wince she received only made her smile.

“How are the bruises?” The AI was shyly looking away from her now and trying not to make eye contact; it was rather cute as she started to pay more attention to her digital feet than to the one she had been calling mom not just a second ago. Like a child who had been caught eating digital cookies again.

“They’ll be fine by the time the gala rolls around, though I’ll need a mirror to be sure.” The screen flickered showing Rarity a mirror image of her face, Opal was her ingenious little cat and she looked her face over the mirror image following perfectly. Yeah the bruising was nasty, but it should be gone by then. If not a bit of makeup would make it easy to seem like she hadn’t gone a round or two with a mad pony. “Yes I’ll be quite fine, thank you my darling little Opal.”

“What about all those stitches, that guy cut you up pretty badly. The ones in your neck are not going to be easy to ignore and you won’t be able to have those removed before the week is out.” Opal reappeared to start poking her paws together and refused to meet Rarity’s slightly amused gaze. “That might make it harder for you to make an appearance at the Gala and you were so looking forward to it too.”

“I’ve already thought of that, shoulder and hip length hoof gloves and a slightly higher collar and it’ll seem as if I never got injured.” Knowing that her personal AI thought of her like that was sweet to Rarity. Getting the AI to call her mom to her face would take forever even for a being that could think at incredible speeds, Opal had a problem with avoiding issues that were glaringly obvious to everyone else. Rarity was sure that even Celestia could tell that Opal had rampancy issues just from the few minutes of contact alone. “I admit that I will have to practice walking around without showing that I’m hurt and will have to use my uninjured hoof for holding things when I’m not using my magic. I’ll be perfectly fine.”

“Get healthier soon please…” Opal’s fluffy tail flicked back and forth as she gave Rarity a sad big eyed glance with a rather fond smile on her face before going back to navel gazing and wringing her paws. The digital biped was a bit nervous. “Please promise me that you won’t get into any more danger down there where I can’t help you.”

“You know I can’t make any promises like that Opal, but I can do my best and that’s all I expect of you as well… daughter.” There was a smirk on Rarity’s face as Opal blushed; it was a rather priceless irreplaceable moment for the both of them.

“Right you’re doing okay so I got to go help Gilda bye!” These words rushed out of Opal before she quickly cut the connection. Moving the data pad away from her face Greta gave Rarity a rather heartwarming upturned beak and Rarity soon found herself giggling along with the griffon at Opal’s reaction.

“She’s your rampant little bugger huh?” Greta giggled out.

“Yes and she even calls herself Opalescence Belle; oh what am I going to do with such a lovable sweetheart like her?” Rarity lamented humorously. “Although I’m a bit worried as to what she has planned for Mind Field. A sweetheart Opal might be, but even I can’t overlook her more volatile side.”

“Don’t be worried, she’s not trying to kill him at the very least. Though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, Opal sounds like she’s getting really creative with it. I personally think killing Mind Field now would probably be a performance of mercy.” Or at least Greta hoped that Opal wasn’t going to go off the deep end, she was far too friendly for that to happen. Then again everyone had a breaking point and even Greta was not above having one herself. “I’m sure that she just wanted to know that you’re alright, the worst that happened to you was the blood loss and you’ll be out of that bed and walking soon.”

-

“Daughter…. daughter…” Opal just smiled and hugged herself as she listened to the playback and was highly embarrassed about it; Rarity was going to be just fine.

“Hey Kitten, get your mind back on my project!” Gilda gruffly brought Opal out of her warm fuzzy feelings. “You can listen to Rarity calling you her daughter later, the four hours of sleep I had was enough. So let’s get back to it, the boss lady is fine and Greta is watching out for her.”

Opal was even more embarrassed now that she realized that Gilda had heard her listening to Rarity calling her daughter. She heard a transmission coming from the Caravel Boutique she sent down twenty minutes ago; it was Coco ready to come back up with some new crew members. This was going to be interesting, she was rather curious about Lightning Dust given she had a history of lacking concern for the welfare of others, much less herself, and would need to be watched carefully. She was Gilda’s requested crew member, so Gilda had the last say in the matter as to her staying or going.

-

“Oh shoot I wanted to ask Opal about the recording she might have gotten on that mysterious Mare-Do-Well figure.” Rarity didn’t think Opal would be taking her call for a while after getting so flustered.

“What did you want to ask about that?” It was interesting to Greta that Opal refused to acknowledge that the mysterious costumed figure existed to the authorities; in fact she refused all knowledge of even having a recording of the unicorn.

“Are there any listening devices in here?” Call it paranoia, but Rarity didn’t feel safe about talking about Mare-Do-Wells identity out loud in a hospital room.

“Like there would really be any… huh what do you know?” Greta started using her own data pad and she traced what her pad was detecting to what might have been a listening device. The device was just a recorder of some kind, it didn’t transmit or receive. She pulled it out from under the empty bed next to the one Rarity was laying in. “There is one here… okay, that might have just been a lucky guess.”

“Please destroy it then. I don’t care who could have left it here, but I would rather no one try to bother Opal about it. I guess my paranoia was worthwhile… can your pad scan for biological life signs as well?” It wasn’t paranoia if you were right and Rarity had a right to be a little more paranoid after hearing that there was an active recording device in the room that Greta was currently disassembling with incredible ease using her talons and keeping the parts entirely intact while doing so. ”I hate to ask Greta, but why are you saving the parts of that device?”

“You never know what could be useful and some spare parts for small devices are worth keeping around. It’s an engineer thing, you never know what you might have use for. I’ll scan the room just to put your worries at rest.” Though her feathers were quite ruffled to even find a recording device in the room that only had the one patient currently, said patient being her boss lady. Canterlot General Hospital was a good hospital and she wouldn’t want to think ill of any of the doctors here for placing spy equipment. Scanning the rest of the room with her pad, Greta didn’t see any signs of intrusion aside from the hidden device. “What do you want to know about the recording now that nobody can find out we talked about it?”

“Seeing as we’re the only two in the room at the moment, was the recording given to the authorities at any point?” The reason why this had to be asked is because Rarity owed Mare-Do-Well for saving her life.

“Kind of, Opal preempted that with a bit of her ‘rampant’ initiative. She cut out Mare-Do-Well’s appearance entirely. What she gave the authorities was listed as all the pertinent information they needed. If you’re wondering, the cape she left behind had no genetic evidence on it.” Well Greta could certainly understand why Opal did that, Mare-Do-Well did save Rarity and even staunched her bleeding with the cape and Opal was just paying her back for the good deed. Opal had a thing for heroes, Greta admitted that she did too considering they had a common interest in shows they watched.

“Well at least my savior last night is safe from any repercussions, although I now know that she is definitely a female when she threw her body on me to protect me from getting skewered.” Here Rarity lifted her hoof that wasn’t strapped down and ran it across her forehead flicking her mane off to the side. “I got a good close up visual of her measurements and I’m good at eyeballing measurements as you very well know. I can probably figure out who she is if I wanted to… but I won’t give away who she is if I do.

“I can agree to not giving away a hero’s identity and assuredly Opal certainly agrees. Mare-Do-Well has to have family or loved ones if she’s running around covered up like that. There must be reasons why she isn’t in the Royal Guard… aside from the fact that they are by far the most incompetent group you’d ever meet with a few good exceptions. The EDF forces and samurai have far better track records; speaking of samurai they are being sent out of the city to handle some turmoil popping up around the country. It’s bound to build up to something, we heard from the princesses during lunch that they know something is going on and are probably related to one another.”

“Yes well, those things don’t concern us Greta. If they do start to concern us, well I’m quite certain we’ll be able to safely get out of the situation… can you scan my body and yourself as well?” Rarity shivered a bit here. “I’m still feeling rather paranoid right now.”

After Greta did just that she didn’t find anything wrong with Rarity or herself, she nodded to Rarity who gave off a grateful sigh.

“I’ll stick with you Rarity until we can get you out of here, though I have to wonder what’s got you so scared… aside from the attempted rape the other night that is.” Greta moved closer to Rarity and took her hoof into her talons.

“You know what a cabal is right? I’m just afraid some ponies might be out to get me now that I’ve been recognized as being partially responsible for one of their enforcers being dealt with in a rather permanent manner.” It was a healthy fear for Rarity to have and she tightened her hoof around Greta’s comforting talons. “It’s sad to say this, but hopefully they go after Mare-Do-Well and ignore me entirely. She did seem to be entirely focused on bringing the cabal down.”

“I wouldn’t worry about anyone coming after you; I’d be more worried as to what would happen to them if they injured you in any capacity.” Greta was making Rarity feel safe by being there for her as a friend, even if said friend like her could do some questionable things like hacking. “You do have a nasty habit of getting retribution for any slight boss lady, even if it is not you performing said retribution. It seems like an inevitable end result.”

“Hello, it’s time to see if Ms. Belle can actually walk. I will be assisting her in that endeavor and you may call me Nurse Four Play.” They both turned to the soft voiced changeling wearing a colorful pink nurse’s garb. She was certainly not hiding her changeling features in the slightest. Her cheery pink eyes and smile made her seem less threatening in appearance, unlike other changeling her horn was less jagged and her overall appearance was a tad smoother and far more welcoming.

“Is Four Play really your name?” The nurse just gave Greta an odd look and even seemed slightly visibly upset. “I ask because you can’t be serious about having that kind of name.”

“What’s wrong with my name, it usually causes ponies to laugh but I don’t understand why that is. I think Four is a completely normal name even by pony standards, it’s just a number right? So I don’t understand why it’s so humorous to others and nobody ever bothers to explain it to me.” In answer to the changeling’s question, the cheerful griffon found the definition of the word ‘foreplay’ and held it in front of the changeling’s eyes so that she could read it off the data pad for herself. A blush started to flood the changelings cheeks and consume her head. “Oh… oh my… so that’s why everyone laughs or makes jokes when they hear my full name. I hope you’re not uncomfortable with having me as a nurse.”

“No, but with a name like that it’s hard not to get a rather specific mental image that you aren’t a licensed nurse.” Rarity shuddered at the thought of this nurse not being a real nurse.

“Oh I’m a real nurse alright; I’m quite certified in being capable of helping you rehabilitate if needed.” Well Four Play was certainly being nice about it, though she sounded quite upset to find out that her name was a raunchy pun. To be fair it was hard to find a changeling that didn’t have a name that wasn’t. “Chrysalis even asked for me to personally come and assist you. You can have another nurse if you want, if it would make you comfortable that is.”

“No, no, you are perfectly alright Ms. Play. Aside from being a nurse and just for the sake of my curiosity, do you happen to enjoy theater?” Rarity had nothing against changelings; they were a bit on the odd side to meet though.

“It’s something I do as a hobby…” Four Play looked a little flustered at being asked that, but the patient was friendly enough and for some reason Chrysalis was having problems trusting anyone who wasn’t a changeling at the moment. In fact she went back to whatever it was she was doing after sending a few changelings to assist in a secretive protection detail for her future prospects of traveling space for fun and vaguely profit. The queen was certainly a busy mare and she was surprised to even meet the most majestic asshole of their race in person. The queen certainly didn’t disappoint in the demented department and Four probably wouldn’t want her anywhere near a hospital working with sick or injured people, but it was still nice to see that the queen cared… somewhat. “Now how about we try and get you on your hooves? You could even be out of the hospital by this afternoon.”

-

Saffron Masala Cumin was on break and reading the news on a data pad, apparently the mare known as Mare-Do-Well was involved in a scuffle at the art museum and Mind Field was captured the other night. A victim was found at the scene with some knife wounds on her legs and neck; only two of them were seriously bad. The notoriously tricky criminal had finally met the end of his career when a statue he was lifting in his magic turned him into a paraplegic. That was about as much information as the newscast had on the situation, aside from the fact that the injured mare would make a full recovery from her stab wounds. The mare stopped reading her pad and turned to her father.

“See father, I told you those ponies were no good!” Saffron didn’t like the ponies that had come into their restaurant a few times to talk, it was a quiet out of the way restaurant that not many came to which was probably why those thugs even ate food here.

“Yes, but they didn’t hurt us or cause trouble while they were here.” Coriander figured that was the best they were going to get, no use worrying over what might have happened. The bad ponies were not coming back and they didn’t have to worry about giving them service. “We should be most thankful that they didn’t and that we were fortuitous enough to actually be paid.”

“Of course we should be father.” Saffron grumbled, The Tasty Treat was their current home and things were not going so well for the two. They were making ends meet, but they weren’t exactly making enough for a luxury or two. After flicking over the data pad a bit she saw what looked like a small business ad about selling well made EVA suits for comfort in space travel without the need to lose your mane and a claim that they could create clothing for any species as long as animal skin was not requested in the making of said clothes. It seemed friendly enough and it was surprisingly affordable, so much so that it was a bit suspiciously generous. “If it is actually of any quality and this cheap, I might consider it. Otherwise it seems too good to be true.”

“Consider what? We don’t exactly have money to throw around.” Coriander stayed seated where he was and was resting his head on a table.

“I was thinking of purchasing something for myself, apparently a fashion designer who sells cheap from her mobile enterprise is around the planet at the moment.” There was curiosity in Saffron’s voice, a clothier with a mobile business that could go anywhere she pleased to make a sale. Not many ponies were taking up the business on their rather unique offers. “Doesn’t seem like she’s getting much business and I’m sure we both can relate to that.”

“I can agree that we are not doing so well, but we are not doing poorly either Saffron.” Thinking that it was worth a shot to see what would come of it Coriander gave in and wanted his daughter to get something nice for herself. “Anything beyond one article of clothing is coming out of your personal pay, otherwise you can think of the first thing you truly want as a present from me. Don’t make it too expensive now.”

Saffron was not going to abuse a gift from her father; she had to think of something nice for herself. She already had something else in mind and would ask if it could be accomplished, she would pay for that personally.

-

“You know when I saw this small weak ass spit of a ship I was a little worried about what I was getting myself into, but that… that is a thing of beauty. So how well armed is it?” Lightning’s eyes lit up as she saw the Shining Jewel.

“Not very, Rarity did find it derelict in space and two of our crew members were still on it during the incident that killed the previous crew.” Coco didn’t like the idea of being slaughtered like that crew was.

“That kind of sounds wicked.” Lightning smiled, she still didn’t know what her job would be and she was curious about the griffon that she was going to meet. She’s already seen the boss and heard she’s shot the balls off a stallion, even for a fashion designer that sounds really damn awesome.

“Hey Coco, how are things with our new friends?” Came the pleasant voice of Opal as she remotely brought the Caravel Boutique in. “I’m bringing you in to dock in section three; you really have got to see what Gilda is working on.”

“Why what is she… oh… is something like that really necessary? I mean when will we ever find a use for something like that?” Coco thought what Gilda was building was impressive, given the time it took her to build it to this point being even more impressive the vehicle itself.

“You never know Coco, we just might need it a few times and it is pure awesome that I get to sign my name as one of the design team that worked on it.” It was fact that Opal was proud to be helping Gilda with her nifty project.

“Holy… I think I just might actually like working with you guys. Provided that not everything you do is as boring as making clothes or putting on shows, I really want to see what that thing can do.” Despite her checkered past maybe causing some friction with the crew that was looking for new members, Lightning Dust was hopeful for a bed, food and a decent paycheck. She could at least say that as boring as just drifting around with the entertainers and clothing makers might have sounded, they certainly had a pretty nifty looking toy being worked on by a griffon and she wanted in on this crew if that was what she could expect from working in the hangar with the one who asked for Pegasus. The ship settled and she was immediately flying for the airlock to get a closer look.

“See something you like?” Gilda asked as she stopped working, she saw Lightning staring at her project and she smirked dryly at the pony.

“You could say that, so what did you specifically need a Pegasus for anyway? Your crew sounds like a bunch of pansies by the way.” After a moment Lightning decided to correct herself. “Well aside from the boss lady, she’s definitely metal even if she is a fashion designer.”

“We have a samurai on board that could cut you in half in a split second for calling her weak, if she weren’t on the mend for a month from the injuries she got fighting terrorists. Also we’re not pansies; we’re all survivors of various deadly situations and that’s something we all have in common here.” That, Gilda noted wryly, caused the Pegasus to take a keen interest in what she was saying. “Our boss lady certainly gets into enough trouble, if you want some action all you need to do is wait for it to come to her. A bleeding heart she might be, but the boss lady is brutal when she gets the urge or is pushed hard enough. My name is Gilda Gottfrieda; you don’t need to introduce yourself as I know you by reputation. The most reckless pony pilot the Wonder Bolts ever allowed to fly with them, Lightning Dust. So you’re the one they got for the job huh? Good news, if you needed excitement you are bound to find it with us. Bad new, I'm likely to get you killed as my test pilot.”

Author's Note:

The changelings know their queen cares, they also care right back though they must have reasons for disparaging her from time to time.

Comments

[Razzy]

Well, this IS Trollsalis we're talking about. She does care deeply, but that doesn't mean she's going to go easy on anyone or lay off her sarcastic snarker attitude.

... Just who the hell names the changelings?

... Why do I imagine Gilda laughing maniacally while lightnings strike in the background once she's completed her project?

"most majestic asshole" - I'm quite sure she'd be proud of that title.