Stars and Diamonds

Chapter 56: Fault

It's a beautiful day for a walk.

It was the first indulgent thought Iris Agate had as her mind wandered from the current training session, tuning out the infuriating banter of the two brawlers, a skill she had quickly acquired in order to keep sane. Instead, her focus moved to the tops of the buildings she could see just past the two hulking gems. It was mid cycle, the daylight bright but obscured by a heavy dose of clouds that had been gathering and moving as one throughout the day, bronze-lined and uninterested in the restlessness of the gem cities underneath. How she wished she could take a single day to be so carefree, to not have a single worry nagging at her.

The normal silent hum of the city was momentarily drowned out by the loud smack of skin hitting skin and then the rumble of stone as the pillars, already unstable with small hairline cracks, shook more pebbles free that clattered to the ground, a few managing to roll and scatter off the side of the floor and fall down to the open abyss below. The noise signaled Iris to return her attention to the two large gems grappling in the center, none the wiser of the damage they had done around them.

On the floor, underneath Orange's locked legs, J2 groaned. Twisting to her right in an attempt to break free, but the young diamond only tightened her legs around the topaz's arm, both hands holding wrist and forearms while digging her heals into her wide chest, effectively keeping her in place under her.

"I give! I give!" J2 howled while smacking the ground with her free hand until the diamond's coiled grasp loosen on her arm, and on instinct rolled away, getting up onto her knees before she stopped to cradle her arm.

"Orange Diamond is the winner." Iris called, hands motioning to the side of the room the royal gem was on, officially ending the sparring match.

"Thats two to one, J." Orange grinned, hopping to her feet much more enthusiastically than her partner, unfazed by the sour look she was getting as the other gem grumbled.

"I thought you were gonna pull my arm off." J2 complained as she stood up, hand still sliding up and down her arm, the thin marks on her form proof that she had been hurt, if only barely.

"It was a loose hold!" Orange remarked, hands resting on her hips as she frowned, "You could have gotten out."

J grunted, hand falling away to point an accusatory finger at the larger gem, "I think you forget not all gems have the same constitution!"

Orange, to her credit, paused a moment to genuinely assess her parter, before asking in a quieter, concerned tone, "Was I really being too rough?"

"J2, stop being such a wuss!" G9 interrupted, jeering from where she stood on the sidelines with Iris Agate. "You got pinned like someone fresh from the hole. What were you doing?"

"I wasn't expecting to get my legs swept, okay?" J shot back, eyebrows pinching in anger at her fellow gem, who reacted by taking a step toward the approaching topaz.

"That's enough." Iris stepped in before it could evolve into anything more, waving her hand in dismissal of the two's argument, "You lost fairly. G9 is to tag in now."

"Good!" J's hand motioned in the air at G9, "Lets see you do better."

G9 grinned, slapping J2 on the shoulder as she walked passed, only to have her hand forcefully swatted away, "I'll gladly show you how it's done."

"All talk." J2 sneered, waving her partner off and then turning, heading to stand beside Iris as G9 had before her. "Don't come crying to me when you break your visor."

Orange looked between the two white topazes, forehead creasing as her eyebrows knitted together. As G9 took her place in front of the young Diamond, Orange leaned in to question her in a hush tone, "Whats going on with you two?"