Chương 193: LOG-184.

One thought rang throughout my mind, even as I continued to stalk forward, ignoring the occasional spark of electricity from exposed wires, or the gasses pouring from the walls that surely would have killed an organic creature, or the bits and pieces of the distant ceiling that occasionally broke free to land upon my shoulders. … Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid! That was the only proper way to describe my choices up to this moment. Yes, I could have avoided this or that mistake.

Yes, I could have done a better job of anticipating how things could develop. And yes, I could have had a better plan for those things in the first place. But above all, I… I could have… should have been better prepared for what mattered most from the very beginning. The one thing that easily ruined even the best laid plans. The unexpected. A 4. 7 percent chance of surviving. In the best case scenario, even. The pathetic odds I would have been left to deal with had that damned bitch not decided that saving her…

her achievement, was more vital than preserving her own life. That it was more vital than anything, really. I'd fucked up. I could have stopped that Jasper in time, somehow. Or drawn the battle away from the vulnerable machinery, somehow. Or… or even made sure that the Yellow Court soldiers hadn't even burst into the room to begin with! For crying out loud! Just having something!

Some trick up my sleeve that would have let me escape the room somehow, instead of being left at the mercy of someone else, should have been something I'd prepared in advance! Oh who was I even kidding?! There had been options! I had a small warehouse worth of equipment stored away in my gemstone, I'd just lacked the preparation to access anything quickly enough. I'd lacked the skills to use the physical miracle that was a Gem's body to the fullest.

The clarity of mind, the foresight to train my body beyond the limits that had been imposed upon me by my own sensibilities. And, and… And I'm starting to spiral. … Stupid. — Walking. That's what I had been doing for the past few minutes. Walking and thinking. The thought itself came as I ducked underneath an exposed piece of wiring that hung loosely from where a few parts of the ceiling had fallen away, revealing the innards of the hallway I'd found myself in. Stupidity.

It was something that followed my every action. That clung to everything I did. By all means, I was an intelligent, competent individual, who had excelled where many others might have failed. But I was also fucking stupid. And that stupidity had cost me time, and time, and time again. Hurting me. Hurting those I loved. Hampering my goals.

My face remained set in a heavy scowl, brows furrowed and eyes scanning around me as I deftly stepped over a break in the floor, the sound of rushing wind and water echoing out from below the breach. For once, things almost felt… clear. I was done being stupid. Done letting my own foolishness continuously screw me over. It was time to see what I could do with what resources I still had, alongside myself. And speaking of the latter…

finally biting the bullet and seeing what exactly I could do in regards to my imbalanced state felt appropriate, at this stage. My lightform was a thing I'd had no control over since the day I first emerged from the Reef, and it was high time I took some damn authority over my own body. Only a slight modification for now, of course, because Stars knew I wasn't in a position for anything too involved or potentially unpredictable right now, but still…

some enhanced durability, some redundancy, turning something that may as well have been a balloon into something better. … Ah. Much better. There were more changes that could be accomplished as well. Limited with my current tools, of course (and the thought that the Reef actually might have had the perfect equipment for something like this left me wanting to kick myself), but enough to ensure my body would hopefully be a little more prepared for any future surprises.

Enhanced reaction time, enhanced freedom of movement, adjustments to perception, an imperceptible shift in hair length, redirecting its hardlight to increase the reach of my talons. The body of a Pearl, of a Nacre, of a Gem, was a mess of pointless restrictions. Something that I would need to build back up from scratch, at some point. When I had the time. Still, for now this was about the maximum level of change I could safely maintain, considering my present circumstances. I was as ready as I was going to get.

Good. And based on what I was hearing just around the corner of the end of my current length of hallway… I had improved myself just in time. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I don't recognise those voices, which means they aren't Reef personnel. Remnants of Yellow's forces, most likely. Considering my current route, there likely isn't any way around them. Slowly, my scowl lessened, my talons almost writhing as I flexed them back and forth, feeling out their new length.

Until finally, my lips twitched upwards, ever so slightly. It was fine. All of this was fine. Because I was done being stupid. And in turn, I was also done being weak. — Everything had been going badly from the start, that was simply a fact. But at least they'd had structurally stable floors to walk upon before something had shredded their home to pieces! Now, Patina had to take care with every step, lest she accidentally slip through a brand new hole in the floor made by her own foot!

"We're so fracked." The words caused the long haired dancer to wince slightly, before she twisted around from where she'd been doing her best to force open a malfunctioning door with her summoned knife, and instead glanced at her fellow Pearl.

"We are not fracked, and we won't be! Sure, the Reef may currently be in several pieces, we may be separated from the rest of the Batch, and there may be an unknown amount of hostile combatants between us and any chance of exit, but…" All available evidence suggests that our odds of successfully exfiltrating are extremely low. Survival is unlikely, while survival with our freedom obtained is an even less likely possibility.

She paused, considering her own words and thoughts for a moment, before ducking her head, lips trembling as she resisted the urge to stomp her foot, lest she doom herself.

"Augh, what am I saying, we are fracked! Stars, we're not just fracked, we're fucked! Fuckity fucking fucked!" She took a breath, trying to keep her thoughts from spiralling, and largely failing as she began to list the variety of problems facing the pair, her counterpart's eyes widening slightly at her borrowed use of their creator's strange curse words.

"We've lost the Batch, we don't know where Viridian is, we're practically trapped in a sinking wreck of a Reef, and we're-" Hands tightly clenched around the hilt of her blade and eyes watching the floor, Patina failed to realize just how close Violet had gotten until she felt a sharp jab at the top of her head, prompting the green Gem to yelp slightly and wave her smaller counterpart off.

"Ow! Did you just stab me you little-" The winged Pearl's voice was deadpan, even as she twirled her spear around her shoulders while interrupting her.

"Your mask is slipping, now focus, I'm pretty sure I can hear… something. I think someone was moving towards us from the other side." Freezing as she realised that, yes, she could now also pick up the sound of what sounded like distant shouts, Patina listened. The clamour continued for a few seconds, and then ended. Less than a moment later it was followed by footsteps, footsteps which were getting closer, beyond their obstacle's boundary.

Tensing slightly, the Pearl hastily stepped back and raised her weapon, noting her Batchmate doing similar from the other corner of the collapsing hallway. The sound of the soles pressing against the ground is soft, almost too soft to hear. Can't possibly be a Quartz, or even a Ruby. Maybe a Pearl? But even Pearls make an almost imperceptible slicking sound with their dancing shoes.

Could be- Her analysis was interrupted as pale green claws ripped their way through the underside of the unresponsive door, and despite herself and her rapid realisation of who was on the other end, Patina found herself flinching slightly as the slab of crystal covered metal was pulled upwards with a screech of protesting mechanisms.

The Gem that had done the lifting looked haggard, with parts of her lightform covered in dust or soot, surprise visible in her eyes as she took them in with an almost sunken looking expression. She looked tired. And there were a number of bubbled gemstones (a pair of Citrines and a Ruby, from what she could tell) sitting around on the ground just a short ways behind the figure. But it was unmistakably her.

"... Patina? Violet? What are you-" —"-doing here-oh!"

"I'msorrywewerewiththerestoftheBatchandtherewasfightingbutthenwegotseparated-" Resisting the slight urge to flinch as my creation practically threw herself at me, I endured the green Pearl's best impression of being a limpet, trying to process her babbling as I did so.

"-andthenitwasjustVioletandIandwegotverylostandwe'vebeentryingtofindourwayoutbut-" Giving up for the moment and settling for gently running a clawed hand through her long hair while another rubbed the top of her back, I turned my gaze towards Violet, who had since lowered her raised spear and settled for shrugging at me, the motion emphasized by her wings following along with it as she hovered in the air.

"Batch was moving towards the hangars. Weird stuff happened. Now we're here." Wincing at the fact that nearly everyone else was well on the opposite side relative to our current position, I took solace in the fact that, at the very least, the hangars had been some of the least compressed facilities within the greater Reef, and thus were hopefully significantly more intact than… Well, everything else around us.

"Alright, they're going to have to get themselves out. I was heading this way to try and reach the bridge to the Galaxy Warp, but the path behind me is wrecked, can I assume you were doing the same thing?" There was a light sniffle as Patina nodded, her nose poking into my lightform slightly with each movement.

"Everything is destroyed. What are we supposed to do?" Holding the Pearl close, I pursed my lips for a moment, thinking, before a light crack in the ceiling drew my attention, the spiderwebbing damage slowly but surely getting worse.

"... We'll have to scale the outside. Come on, I think I know where we can start." — If someone had told me that I'd be spending part of my day effectively parkouring across freshly separated islands of sinking, burning, or sinking and burning masses of wreckage that had once been part of a greater whole, all in order to make it to a bridge, I…probably would have believed them, honestly. Which in and of itself said a lot about the kind of life I'd come to live, but whatever.

"C'mon, I'll catch you." Holding my hands out, I watched Patina take a running start, the Pearl replicating the movements I'd initially made when it had first been my turn to leap across the mangled set of structural beams. For a split second, my creation was soaring through the air, evidently doing her best not to think about the drop below us.

The only thing that kept me from thinking of the drop as well was the length of rope tying her to me, with two anchor points I'd pulled from my storage space alongside the chord ensuring that if one of us did fall, we'd at least be caught by something. There wasn't any more room for mistakes. I'd made enough of those already.

Still, safety rope attached or not, there was still that same gut wrenching feeling welling up in my gemstone, right up until Patina was back in my arms, leaving me to step back from the edge of our latest platform as Violet circled around us, slicing away at the rope with her spear in order to cut it loose before returning to my side, the miniature Gem visibly on the lookout for any surprises as she flew.

It was a little manoeuvre we'd successfully pulled off half a dozen times now, hopping our way across the remnants of the Reef and slowly but surely making our way closer and closer to the bridge that I could just barely make out from where I was standing. The issue, of course, was that nothing was stable, and even now I could hear the wreckage beneath our feet groaning as several things propping the entire structure up did their best not to give way.

Gem material science attempted to fight the merciless force of gravity, but with the flawless engineering of the Reef destroyed by both cannon fire and the spatial emitters' failure, it was slowly losing.

Glancing upwards at the skeletal door frame that had once connected this 'island' to the one we'd just abandoned, I ignored the groans of metal beginning to fall apart, instead storing away what was left of the rope and turning to look down at the still somewhat coherent corridor leading through the structure standing between us and getting the hell out of this place. It… didn't look very inviting.

I could see exposed piping and electrical cabling sticking out from a few places where the walls had fallen over, the ceiling itself seemed to be sagging beneath the weight of everything above it, and there was apparently some kind of leak, because the second I took a step forward, I felt my foot splash down onto a thin sheet of water. Too viscous for water. Smell and particulates consistent with pre-infusion Pearl growth fluid.

A segment of this corridor once connected to the incubation chamber before being spatially displaced. I shook the thought away, focusing instead on the literal light at the end of the tunnel, one which I knew for a fact led to the initial reception area that one was first greeted with when they stepped into the Reef, and which was connected to the bridge leading out to the Galaxy Warp.

"Are…are we going in there?" Glancing down at Patina, I gave her a soft, hopefully reassuring smile before nodding, even as Violet let out a quiet groan.

"It's…absolutely a deathtrap. But I fancy the odds of us getting out of here even less if we expose ourselves to some gunship while trying to scale over everything. The fact that we haven't been spotted already is a miracle in and of itself." The green Pearl considered that point for a moment, before finally nodding, an almost visible mask sliding over her previously shaken expression as she put on a confident face.

"R-Right. Let's go then!" Watching the Gem strut forward into the screaming OSHA violation, I exchanged glances with her purple counterpart, before Violet shot forward as well, a light trail of rapidly fading glitter dust marking her path through the air. Biting the interior of my lip, I hurried to follow behind them, even as the ceiling groaned above me once more.