Era1 Universe: The Global Appetizer Course

Your character faces an unexpected termination. How do they react?

"What do you mean you went 'dark'?" Peri asked in an urgent tone. It was all she could do to keep up with the two gems in front of her. There was seldom a time she saw them walk like this. Especially Onyx. It was in these moments that she saw those glimpses of the former warhorse. Snowflake had an equally broad shouldered gait as well.

"I said what I meant. Stop asking. That's the fifteenth time," Onyx replied in an unusually curt tone.

Peri swallowed hard and kept up.

Going 'dark' to a gem meant death. It meant their identification was wiped from all systems and they couldn't be tracked. This wouldn't be such a bad thing for one of the leaders of the rebellion to go off the radar but the implication here was someone either thought Onyx was dead or had her in their crosshairs.

Either one didn't sit well with Peri.

The doors to the communication hub opened up and the three gems walked in. Peri practically sprinting to keep up with the two gems in the lead. Snowflake veered to the left and Onyx kept her course on the upper lever heading to one of the computers. Peri stopped at the stairs and looked between her friends.

Technology wasn't her strong point. It never had been. There was a reason her day job was working in the courts rather than with anything technology related. When it came to the rebellion she was the peacemaker. There was probably a good reason that she didn't have a ship of her own to command and she'd never served in the communication hub like her two friends. Though she may be the 'heart of the rebellion' as she'd heard herself called, Onyx and Snowflake certainly outranked her in skills.

Snowflake set herself up at one of the computers on the lower level. Immediately she set to work typing in strings of code and accessing what files she could to figure out if there was any vital information she could glean from this situation.

Onyx on the upper lever did the same. The rate at which she was typing was unparalleled.

Peri leaned on the railing and wad the two. She got lost when they started verbally running code back and forth to one another. There was data and numbers and a whole mess more that she couldn't comprehend. Still, she hated sitting idly by. This termination bothered her. It couldn't really be just an accident, right?

There were a few things she knew how to do so she went and sat at one of the computers a few rows behind Snowflake and typed. The cadence of her typing was a lot slower and methodical but well thought through.

Somewhere in the backend of one of the computers she knew how to pull some data. Her first search was information about blue onyxes. In all of her lifetime she'd only ever met one and that was Onyx. She'd never seen another gem like her before. A few search queries later she had her answer. The data report as of five years ago showed that on the entire planet of Ophelion it was estimated that less than a hundred blue onyxes were still alive.

When she compared the numbers to that of peridots, snowflake obsidians, even lapis' the number was dwarfed massively. Thousands of the other gem types existed. To say Onyx was something of a rare breed was an understatement. This meant that more than likely it wasn't someone finding a blue onyx and accidentally inputting Onyx's information.

"Got it!" Snowflake called.

Peri and Onyx immediately stopped their searching and turned towards Snowflake.

"What's the call?" Onyx asked, getting up and coming over to the railing.

"Data was input from an undisclosed location near District 88."

"District 88?" Peri whispered to herself. Now things really didn't settle well with her.

The district was sort of an old and semi-forgotten communication hub center. Many of the buildings were still in use but these days they were for minor data collection and storage. Some power sources came from there but certainly weren't the grids like they used to be. Most things there were automated. And the only gems Peri knew from there were King and her crew, the Radio City Strays, and Rina and her sister Sunny.

Peri knew deep down in her heart that it wasn't King or the Strays. Their life was the underground music scene there. When they weren't doing their boring office jobs they were playing in the club creating new music and dreaming of a day when they could all be free to play for the world. It wasn't Sunny either. She was a drop of sunshine with an extra dose of smiles just looking for a friend. Which left...

"Do you think it's Rina?" Snowflake asked, casting her gaze upwards at the blue gem.

"At this point it very well could be." Onyx's expression was grim and on edge.

The look didn't settle well with Peri. The whole thing didn't. She was a trainwreck of emotions and she didn't know what to do or how to stop it.

Rina was many things. But they hardly knew anything about her. She seemed protective of her little sister. Beyond that she was often shrouded in mystery. She always wore a hooded cloak and kept her head down. The few encounters they'd had with her were odd to say the very least. She always gave them a weird vibe.

Before Peri realized it the two gems were leaving. "Wh-where are you going!?"

"To talk to Rina," Snowflake growled.

Onyx held up a hand and fire snaked down her arm before exploding into a decent sized fireball in her hand. "I think it's time we learn more about this mystery keeper." With that she turned and left, walking shoulder to shoulder with Snowflake.

"Gah- wait!" Peri scrambled up from her spot. She nearly fell over in her attempts but hurried after her friends. "We don't know she's evil! Or bad! Guys?? GUYS!?" Why couldn't anything just go right for a change?