(Alternate) Homeworld x Corrupt gem reader

part 15: Resentful Resolve

"Come on! Is this really all you've got?!" Jasper jeered, clutching your horns in her hands, glaring down at you in impatience. "Come on, runt! Show me what you've learned!" She roughly jerks you up so she was eye level with you, her golden orbs burning into your pupils. "Show me that your corruption doesn't render you useless!"

GrrrrRRGh!!

With an angry snarl, you reeled your head back and slammed it into your head into her face, delivering a hard blow to her to her gemstone. While it didn't crack, it still caused her quite a bit of pain, as she staggered backwards, clutching her face tightly with both hands with a grunt.

As she was distracted, you reared up onto your hind legs, threw several punches at her; your forefists striking her face and midfists striking her chest and abdomen.

The magnitude of punches left the orange soldier stunned, in which you took the opportunity and lunged forward, clamping your jagged jaws into the center of her chest, and with a strong wrenching motion, you flung her across the training grounds with a frightening amount of ease, eliciting a startled yelp from the orange soldier.

And in one swift spin, you lashed your sinewy tail at the airborne gem, and sent her flying into a wall, the force of impact leaving a large imprint in the structure.

You huffed out a cloud of smoke, and turned to see your handiwork, walking over to the dazed beta-gem, your head bowed so the tips of your horns would be pointed at her. Slowly, once she gathered herself, Jasper pushed herself out of the crater. Slowly, her groans of pain morphed into chuckling.

Then, she finally burst out laughing; not in some kind of cheerful, jolly manner, but more of a malicious, triumphant guffaw that filled the area, and would chill anyone to their cores.

But not you. You've long since grown used to this.

"Now that's more like it!" She pressed her hands into her lower back, and you heard an audible crack in it as she pressed the kink out of her metaphoric spine. "That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for, (name)! Heh, if I were a normal gem, I would've shattered!" She snickered softly to herself as she slung her arm around your broad shoulders. "You might actually be able to take down that Rose Quartz in no time at all." She tousled your messy, matted mane, with a confidence smirk. She then looked away and rubbed her chin, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. "Heck, maybe even her whole band of deviants without even trying..."

She chuckled to herself, patting the side of your face. "Yeah, you're becoming an even better asset to the empire than I thought. Good Job." She praised gruffly.

You said nothing. You simply nodded with a huff through your nostrils again, sending out another dark cloud of steam into the air. Jasper grinned darkly at your response. She taught you well. "You're now dismissed for today. You can go."

You nodded again, and started to make your towards the arena exit, heading towards your next assignment.

It's many painful months have passed since you've been taken here.

And those zoo gems were right. Homeworld was merciless to any subject that fell short of perfect. You had to stick to the rules, and do what you were assigned with, no exceptions.

And after that fateful day at the zoo, you decided that you'd honor those earth-formed gems and partake in this sick society's rules. And it wasn't a particularly easy thing to do.

Each assignment seemed to be more difficult than the last; with aiding in transferring materials to build new structures (I.E. more injectors for colonization, buildings or just technological tools), assisting with guard duty in various confidential areas (prison tower or the zoo), or just being a simple patrol, wandering the halls and scoping out any gems that were either gossiping about the diamonds, showing terrible attitude towards their superiors or just simply not doing a good job.

Even with your reservations, you carried out each task without question, and you ignored any opposing thoughts that lingered in your head. Those didn't matter.

But the most grueling part of all this was the daily training with Jasper.

To say she was a tough teacher was an understatement. Each session was more ruthless than the last, as she constantly came up with new tactics to try out and never held back when showing you how to properly combat against other gems.

But from how hard she hits, you inwardly wondered if she was just using this as an excuse to take her anger out on something.

But as much as you hated to admit it, she had an effective teaching methods.

By throwing monstrous boulders at you, she not only taught you to be quick, but to also somewhat assisted in helping you manage and control your brute strength. And by taking you out to the more dangerous parts of homeworld and using whatever ruins or chasms as an obstacle course, you learned how to be nimble, even with the bulk of your corrupt form.

Gems don't typically have a limit to how much energy they used, after every session, your body would ache. At times, you were almost certain you'd destabilize from the sheer amount of stress she put you under; with her constant jeering and dissatisfaction with seemingly everything you did...

But surprisingly... the constant anger you felt fueled you.

The anger at your situation of being a servant.

The spite for the insufferable rules of homeworld had set.

The pain of being seen as nothing more than a beast of burden to the perfectionists around you.

It all became very useful during these sessions, and it allowed you to live another day. And it was what caused you victory today.

Despite this... you felt nothing from this.

You felt no joy. You felt no triumph.

You felt no warmth as a whole.

All's you felt was the cold stab of satisfaction at the fact you managed to make your trainer feel pain.

Because in the end, that's was all that mattered.

Victory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mama bear is no more~