NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: The Kindergarten.
In the installations of the old and abandoned Gamma Kindergarten, a small and unique Peridot was born. Her codename was Peridot Facet-3T6J Cut-9ZM.
Her hair had a pallid and elegant green shade, contrasting with her darker green skin. The Peridot's size was shorter than that of her kind, a typical symptom of late awakening.
Compared to her peers, she had spent 3,000 years locked in her hole without a glimpse of awakening. Homeworld had long considered her dead.
Under normal circumstances, a Peridot wouldn't form an ego in her first days, but Peridot Facet-3T6J Cut-9ZM exhibited behavior as unique as her size.
"What the fuck is this dirt on my body?" she exclaimed in a desperate and incredulous tone. When she noticed her small hands, her pupils trembled in shock.
She desperately put her hands to her lower body and felt nothing. It's natural, after all—gems are a genderless species and wouldn't have any genitals. Unfortunately, Peridot didn't care about gem biology; her simple mind just thought about her old companion that was no longer there.
"It's gone. M-My duck...!" Tears filled her eyes like an endless waterfall.
Just moments ago, she was a typical 22-year-old salaryman eating apples after a stressful day at work. As she contemplated her new body, memories flooded her unprepared mind in an instant.
She remembered: she had died. The shock made her pupils tremble even harder, and her entire body was covered in sweat and tears. But a few seconds later, what once was fear was replaced by shame.
'I died choking on a fucking apple? If Grandma found out I died this way, she would laugh instead of crying at my tomb.' she thought.
After mulling over her futile pride, Peridot finally became aware of her surroundings.
"Is this... a human factory?"
Several holes in the shape of humans, like the one she emerged from, were spread across a cold and desolate planet.
She cautiously got up from her hole and touched the strange rock she came from.
'It's unbelievable I came from here.' she thought.
As she stared at the holes, she noticed strange machines with gems and metal legs. These were injectors; they absorbed the planet's energy to generate gems. But now they no longer produced any gems due to the planet's lack of energy.
Seeing these futuristic and strange machines, Peridot couldn't accept her own reality. When she looked at the sky to avoid the frightening machines, a peculiar sight caught her attention.
"Two moons?" The image of two moons was clearly visible in the sky. It was something she would never have seen on her home planet.
With these facts in front of her eyes, she realized that this wasn't her planet.
"No way, I'm the protagonist?" She delusionally thought about her place in this world. She had read so many fictional books that she confused herself as a special existence.
It didn't take long for her to come to her senses, and despair filled her mind again.
She had walked for hours and hours, and not a single person came into view. She was completely alone in an unknown world without means to escape.
The only fun she had was the fact that she could jump higher due to the weak gravitational power of the planet. But even this fun was over when she got used to it.
'What would I do from now on? I'm so bored here.' Her internet addiction was present even at this moment. She wanted to read a good book, play games, and talk about trivial things with her friends, but obviously none of these things would exist on a desolate planet.
Peridot walked aimlessly for a long time until a beautiful and circular object touched her little feet. The blue and modern object contrasted with the primitive sight of the apocalyptic world. Her eyes were fixed on the object with disbelief. She knew what this object was, but something else surprised her even more.
"Is it me?" She saw her reflection in the surface of the blue object. The gem was directly embedded in her forehead. Peridot thought she seemed like an alien because of her green skin, but her face was so cute that even this green skin had its own charm.
She became melancholic seeing the image that triggered her protective instincts.
Peridot always wanted to form a family. She wanted a unique and proactive wife and a cute child to live together. These feelings remained even after her death.
'It was a shame I became my ideal of a daughter,' she thought eccentrically, touching her own face.
When the shock about her appearance vanished, she finally directed her attention to the blue object.
It was a Warp Pad, one of the means the gems often used to travel to the most distant places in the galaxy. Any kindergarten would have at least one of them. It was a shame that the planet had no energy to activate even a single one in such a state. Unaware of this fact, Peridot's eyes shined with hope.
'So, this is the world of Steven Universe!' she thought.
Steven Universe was the cartoon she had watched the most in her childhood. She waited anxiously for each season and memorized the lines of each episode. After growing up, she stopped watching, but kept listening to the songs from time to time.
The little Peridot stood up on the Warp Pad with shining eyes. She embarrassingly opened her arms wide and squatted like she wanted to fly. She was trying to reproduce one of the most iconic scenes where Steven tried to use the Warp Pad with the Crystal Gems.
"Why isn't it working?" Not even a single light was there. Her eyes looked carefully at the Warp Pad. She instinctively knew that something was missing. The Warp Pad was severely broken on the edge and little crystals were scattered around.
The shining eyes were replaced by fear again. Her little hand touched the Warp Pad as if scanning for any details.
All the processes to fix the Warp Pad, the necessary energy, and even the material it was made of directly appeared in her mind. This was one of her unique skills, appraisal.
A late awakening with unique skills would shock most gems on Homeworld, but it just gave the small Peridot a new layer of shock.
Peridot realized she would never be able to use this Warp Pad to escape, she was trapped in this world.
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Peridot (Volume 1)
