Chapter Text
Gem knew Pearl. She knew that she knew Pearl. But she just doesn’t know where she knows her from. Now, Gem likes to think she has a great memory, but the new mysterious stranger is really giving her a headache, and that is not an overexaggeration. Gem really is getting a headache.
The way Pearl smiled, and laughed, the way she held herself and her snarky remarks made Gem lose her mind. Maybe Joel was having the same thoughts. After a while she looked over to him to see the man making the face he makes when he’s trying to figure out how the Tuff Guys keep getting away, while being so horrendiously bad at what they do, or trying to find a way to have eyes everywhere across the city, in case they need some heroes. Joel is making his scheming face. He’s thinking hard.
Pearl is a very interesting person. But not in a way Gem first thought. And by the looks of it, Joel noticed too.
“Pearl, where did you meet Scott again?” Shelby asked.
Pearl whipped her head to look at the girl, and looked just a tad bit too nervous. “Oh, we met at…uh, a bar I think.” She looked at Scott for confirmation, and he nodded. “I came to visit Grian last spring an-”
“You know Grian?” Joel basically yelled in surprise, and Lizzie laughed at him a little when everyone looked at him through the silence.
“Yeah, he’s my cousin?” Pearl went on to explain some stuff about family and embarrassing stories from their childhood, but Gem was distracted by her headache and by the fact that Pearl lied for no reason at all.
Grian wasn’t in town for the entirety of last spring.
The college professor decided to call it quits for a few months, and went to travel for a bit with his friend. Oli wouldn’t shut up about how he wished he could ask Grian for help anytime he was late for classes.
Gem can’t say that he knows Grian well. They met a handful of times, but that was just passing moments, mostly when he came to pick up Skizz, or was just about to leave Cafe Empire. And Gem can’t really say that she cares for Grian. Joel is close with him or whatever, but she has no real intentions of really meeting the man. He just has that aura of him. The way he basically glares at Gem anytime they meet.
Gem kept quiet for as long as she could. She ordered a cup of tea though, but after that she just tried to think things through. She really didn’t want to overthink it. She really didn’t have a reason not to trust Pearl, but she could’ve just told the truth. And the deja vú that Gem has every time Pearl does something, doesn’t help her case.
At some point Pearl noticed Gem watching, and the hero was pretty sure she blushed. Out of embarrassment or…? “I’m sorry.” She let out an awkward chuckle, and fixed her glasses.
“No worries.” Pearl smiled. After a few moments of listening Joel argue with Oli, Gem stood up, and excused herself. She told the group she wasn’t feeling well, and that she had an early shift the next morning.
“Oh, yeah, I'll probably head out-” Gem heard Pearl say, but she was already leaving the little cafe.
Upon walking into the streets of the city, she noticed that the sky is now gray, and it's getting dark. The cold wind surprised Gem, after being in the warm walls of the cafe. She was already walking away, when she heard a voice call out from behind her.
“Gem right?” Pearl jogged up next to Gem.
“Yeah. Where’re you headed? I thought you were crashing at Scott’s place?” Which is in the opposite direction. Gem doesn’t say that though, afraid that it’ll just come off as accusatory. And she didn’t want to accuse Pearl of following her, even though she did think about it.
“Oh, I have stuff I need to pick up from my new place.” They started walking together now. “It’s a work in progress at the moment.”
They fell into a conversation with such ease it was hard for Gem to remember she’s only known Pearl for an hour or two. And the fact that Gem isn’t supposed to trust Pearl. She reminds herself that it’s foolish not to, just because Pearl may or may not have lied. Maybe she meant summer, or winter, but Scott has a great memory, and neither Grian, Skizz or Joel said anything about a cousin visiting. Plus Gem’s gut feeling. And Gem has great intuition.
But if Gem looked over all that, Pearl was great company. She had a great sense of humor, and a very playful almost wicked personality, that made Gem have deja vú. All and all, she could imagine them becoming friends. It's so strange that Scott’s never talked about her.
What was even stranger was that they kept going the same way. Pearl did mention that she’s checking on her new apartment, but that did raise the question of where she’s moving to and from. Gem didn’t ask though. She had a feeling she wouldn't get an answer.
They were talking about pets when Gem eventually arrived at her building, and Pearl was still following her inside. Now Gem was getting suspicious and maybe a little scared. “I thought you were going to your new apartment.”
Pearl looked at Gem and chuckled. “Yes, it’s in here. Looks like we’re gonna be neighbors."
“Yeah…looks like it.” The way up to the fifth floor was silent, and full with this weird tension. And Pearl is still by Gem’s side.
Gem eventually arrived in front of her door, and Pearl stopped at the one right across Gem’s. Gem chuckled, but kept her alarms up. They bid each other goodnights, and Gem locked her door the second she could.
The apartment isn’t the most impressive one, especially not for someone who’s paid by the Agency, but she’d like to be a normal civilian every once in a while. She has two bedrooms, a kitchen with the living room right beside it, a bathroom and a closet to store Winnie’s stuff. And there’s a lot of it.
She didn’t really need most of this space, especially the plus bedroom, but it’s nice to live above Impulse. He was so excited to finally move out of the Agency, and once he caught wind of the fact that Gem is also looking for her own place, Impulse basically dragged and begged her to move here with him. And she’s grateful that he spent so much energy convincing her, because she likes living here. And Gem can work on hero stuff with Impulse a lot, even if Joel is annoyed that he gets left out.
But now she needs to be more careful. Her investigation board is in the plus bedroom that she now uses as her ‘office’, which is basically some weights, a treadmill and a few corkboards to stare at and pretend she has any new leads. The Agency is surprisingly quick on giving up stuff, especially when it comes to supervillains like the Bamboozlers, but Gem can’t give up. She needs justice to be served. Even though she hasn’t looked at that board for a while. She needs to find someone else at the moment. Someone dressed head to toe in red.
She just sat down to look at the board of Red Scarlet, when she got the alert. She looked down at her watch, to see the message from the Agency. Gem sighed, but got up and quickly put on her Amethyst outfit that she keeps tucked away in her closet.
“Amethyst reporting. I’m heading to the north side of the third ring. Status update.” It really amazed Gem how quickly she can get into the serious hero character now. Well, it's not really a character anymore, is it? Being Amethyst is her life now.
“Reports of Bamboozlers near the National Gallery. We’ve just started evacuating the people, and trying not to cause panic.” X explained to her.
Now, you’d think a trio of supervillains near the National Gallery at night would mean they’re there to steal the paintings. Not the Bamboozlers. Gem knew the second she heard X tell her they’re at the gallery. Has she mentioned they have a flair for the dramatic? Probably not.
While running to the scene of the crime, she met with Wildcard, and silently agreed that he’s going to start at the south part of the bottom floor, while Gem is going to enter through a window from the east end of the top floor. Morse code wasn’t the worst thing they learned in the system.
It was properly dark now, hours after the museum closed, but that didn’t really concern the Bamboozlers, did it? Gem creeped in, and waited for Wildcard’s signal to move. Once she received his sign that he made it inside, she started looking for the targets.
She started losing hope. Maybe it was a false alarm. They happen more than they should, but she doesn’t mind checking for potential danger. But then she heard the whisper shouting from the room behind her, and ducked.
“–not that hard, Shadow!” Gem heard the modulated voice of Canary. “We don’t have time! Just put it on!”
“You do it then!” There was something sweet watching two teammates bicker. Oh well, too bad they’re enemies of the city.
Gem wanted to jump the gun so badly, but she couldn’t see Showman, or Wildcard for that matter, so while the two argued in the background, she turned and, as quietly and quickly as possible, signaled her teammate that she found the two.
wait for me. Wait for me? Wait for him?! They didn’t have time to wait. Canary and Shadow are standing on the other side of this wall, and they could stumble upon Gem anytime!
no. I'm going. I'm Showman. Gem simply signaled back. At the moment this seems extremely confusing, and incoherent, but she hopes Joel can decipher it.
It’s been a while since Gem used her powers. She stood up, and simply focused. Focused on Showman the best she could. In a weird way, she and Showman were very alike. At least their powers were alike. While Showman had the ability to create illusions about anything, multiple versions of himself or making the surrounding look different to throw Gem off, Gem had the ability she called Disguise. Yeah, she did create an illusion, but that really only worked on herself, to make herself look like other people, or just make herself look different, like grow an extra finger or two, or a tail, while not actually being able to use it. Like a hologram over herself. As long as no one, or nothing touched her, the illusion of her being someone, something she’s not, is very well kept up.
This, to her dismay, worked too well on undercover missions. The problem with that was that Gem is a horrible actor. While being an okay liar, acting isn’t really her passion.
That’s probably why the answer from Joel came as ‘no idiotic’.
Thankfully, Gem is good at ignoring the stuff that Joel says. Maybe sometimes it would be nice to hear him out. Just once. But Gem’s an awesome hero, so a little roleplay can’t be where she fails.
“Well, you two are doing an amazing job!” It's almost impressive that she can do the voice thing this well.
“Showman, you’re supposed to be on the look out!” Canary reminded his ‘teammate’.
“They already sent some heroes.” Shadow said calmly, that made both Gem Showman and Canary look over to her in surprise. How did she know? And if she did, why were they still here? Is Gem’s cover already blown?!
“Then what are we doing here, replacing stupid paintings?!” Canary didn’t seem to be the calmest of the group. And sure enough, it looked like the trio were replacing the more popular and valuable paintings with replicas which had them depicting the pieces. Not so surprisingly, the paintings they chose to reenact, were ones that made it look like the Bamboozlers were poking fun at the heroes and the Agency. Which, Gem supposed, they were.
The most recent painting they replaced had a little machine on the side of the frame. Her best guess was that this machine cut the canvas, and stitched back the new work in its place. That seemed like something the Bamboozlers would do.
“Because, Canary, our allies are on the look out for them already, so we can work in peace.” Shadow explained.
Allies? That seemed interesting. The Bamboozlers always worked alone. Gem didn’t really know the politics of the villains, but the groups always did crime with their teammates, and kept away from other teams, very unlike the heroes.
But this did shed light on the fact that Gem is very much wrong about that. Another thing to add to the board.
“Right. Smart. Forgot they were around.” Canary calmed himself down. How were they the top villains in the city?
“Well, maybe I’ll go back to keep an eye on things. I just came here to check up on you two. I hope neither of you broke the machine yet.” Gem really outdid herself. To be honest, Showman really just reminded her of Hawk. Maybe they were evil twins.
Gem turned to leave, but something blocked her exit. She looked up, and it was kinda hard to see in the dark, but she could still make out the broad shoulders and the striped outfit. She looked up to meet the gaze of a criminal, full of frenzy and playfulness.
“There appears to be two of us.” Showman said, calm as ever. The next thing Gem knew, she was thrown into a pillar in the center of the room. The illusion faltered, and she was back to being herself, with all three Bamboozlers aiming at her.
She recovered quickly though. Gem was on her feet in no time, drawing her blade, as she blocked Shadow’s attack. She vaguely saw Canary make a run for it, which annoyed her a lot.
She kicked Shadow away, and made a run for the little machine that did all the work for them, before Showman stopped her by yanking her away, and throwing her into another wall. Luckily, she didn’t hit any of the paintings.
It didn’t take a lot for Wildcard to show up, and keep Shadow busy. Great. So Gem’s the one fighting Showman. What a gentleman Joel is.
Speaking of Joel, Gem looked behind Showman, just to see both Joel and Shadow going way too easy on each other. She knew Shadow’s fighting style, and it was a lot rougher and faster than that. The same goes for Joel. He’s missed way too many good openings of disarming the villain.
“I’m impressed with your acting skills, hero. They’ve never been the best before.” Showman said, still aiming punches at her. Now how does he know that? Or was her acting in the past that bad...
“Or you’re just way too easy to replace.” Gem knew that there was no point in bickering with a villain. Especially while fighting. But it was just too easy to argue with Showman. He was so insufferable.
Gem attacked, and Showman still refused to draw a weapon. That looked a little pathetic on Gem’s end. She was already giving it everything she’s got, and Showman doesn’t even have a weapon in hand.
Showman kicked Gem, but she managed to stay on her feet, and strike, this time making Showman stumble a bit. She took it as an opportunity to kick the man in the chest, but he grabbed her foot before she could do any damage, sending her back into the wall.
In the chaos, Joel saw the machine on one of the paintings, and was able to knock it down. That made Showman turn around, and made Gem accidentally cut right into his stomach. She wasn’t meant to do that. Not really. Harming is never her intention. She thought Showman would block her attack in time, and just be forced to take a few steps back. But the blood staining the villain’s chest made her mind drown in guilt, even though Showman’s hands are stained red from the amount of lives he’s taken or ruined. There’s still no reason that Gem can’t feel a bit of empathy towards him.
Shadow quickly saw her teammate fall down in pain. “Showman!” The villain looked back at the two heroes. Gem was still horrified by what she’s done. Maybe that showed on her face. Well, on the bottom of her face that was shown, because Shadow didn’t take revenge on her or Wildcard. She just cast her shadows on the room.
“Take cover!” Wildcard was able to shout before everything went dark. When the room cleared, the villains were gone. Blood was still on the ground, and on Gem’s sword. The remains of the little robot were still scattered across the floor.
There was silence for a minute, the two heroes just looked around. “We should call the Agency.” Joel then broke the silence.
“And the cops.” Gem added, still feeling horrible. Skizz won’t be happy about this.
A few agents arrived alongside detectives and cops. Gem and Joel gave them a quick rundown of everything that happened, apologized for the late night commotion, and decided to leave.
“Race you to the Decked Out billboard?” Joel playfully punched Gem’s shoulder, stopping her from spiralling once more.
After any mission, successful or not, the plan always is to head back to the Agency for reports, check ups and all that important stuff. Gem and Joel however, still like to enjoy the night air and the feeling of freedom.
So Gem nodded. She needed a clear head. She always does. Back on the farm, she and Fwhip always used to sneak up to the roof of the house from the attic, to watch the stars and imagine how they earned their place in the sky. What great deeds they must’ve done to end up in the sky forever. Well, until August when they fell down into the earth. Then they’d talk about that, and make up stories of the lives they’ll live down here as normal people.
The city never is quiet. And it's certainly never dark. That's something Gem misses. No matter how afraid of the dark she once was, she does miss being at peace. She misses the stars.
Gem heaved, as she sat down on the rusty platform in front of the massive billboard advertising that new game or something called Decked Out. Gem laughed. She finally beat Joel. That arrogant man loves to tease her about the fact that he always wins their races. Guess Gem is on the top today.
“What took you so long?” She teased Joel as he climbed up and sat down next to Gem. They both took off their masks that covered their eyes in unison, finally being themselves.
“I let you win. You were pretty out of it earlier.” Joel said.
“Anything to make yourself feel better, huh?” Gem chuckled.
Then an uncomfortable silence fell over them. Gem knew that Joel was worried. Joel rarely worries about anything, and he’s rarely quiet, so the two come hand in hand. She was way too close to just telling him off, saying that she’s fine, but Gem realized he hasn’t even said anything yet.
“Two Bamboozlers attack in a week. I think we deserve a weekend off.” Gem leaned back, and looked over the city.
“You okay Gem?” Joel finally spit it out. “You were actually pretty out of it back there in the museum.” Joel now actually faced Gem with his whole body. This is about to be a long talk.
“Well…almost killing someone is never a good thing. Villain or not, I didn't want to actually murder him.” Gem brought her right leg up, and hugged it close to her chest.
Joel didn’t have a response to that by the looks of it. Or maybe he did, but Gem was faster. “And what about you? You were going easy on Shadow! Joel, I know she’s hot-”
“Gem!” Joel cut her off. Maybe if it wasn’t so dark, Gem could see Joel blush, but she can imagine it just the same.
Gem giggled a little. Joel really was her closest friend. She liked to imagine him and Fwhip would be good friends if they knew each other. If they knew about each other. Maybe she should call him…
No, that’s not thoughts she should have now. Now she should be calm and happy with no guilt and bad thoughts. She can’t think about him now.
Changing the subject, Gem groaned. “We’re gonna have so much work if the Bamboozlers actually have any allies.”
Joel looked at her in surprise and complete shock. Maybe she failed to mention that part to him until now… “What do you mean they have allies?”
Gem sat up. “Canary told me when I was Showman. I did amazing by the way, if it wasn’t for the actual Showman to show up.” She rolled her eyes.
“So you were right. The Bamboozlers and The Gs are working together!” Joel quickly got up. “We have to report this to the Agency.”
“Joel, wait!” But it was too late. Joel put his glasses back on, and booked it towards the Agency building, without actually looking if Gem was following. Which she wasn’t, by the way.
Yeah, maybe the Bamboozlers and The Gs were working together, but they don’t have actual proof of that. They need evidence before X over works himself, trying to figure out anything about the two groups.
“My goodness.” She stood up, put her glasses back on, and ran after Joel. She could still vaguely see him in the distance, jumping from roof to roof.
Joel is a very impulsive and stubborn man. Gem’s known him for a good decade at least, and he’s never changed. Well, except when he finally started dating Lizzie. But he’s always been very confident and easy to rile up. Etho loved doing that back when he was still in the system with Gem and Joel. It was harder for Joel when the masked man left them. He didn’t even graduate. He just left without a word. Not like Gem really knew him. They never really talked.
Hawk also likes to annoy him a little, and oh boy, is he great at that. The answer is of course he is. It was surprisingly easy to get mad at Hawk, it was rare when Joel wasn’t.
Gem noticed him again, running on top of the city a few blocks ahead of her. She was ready to call him or send a message, when a kick distracted her, and made her stumble.
She looked up to see a red cloak and the familiar brown fluff hanging out of the hood. She giggled. Scarlet had the audacity to laugh at Gem.
“Didn’t expect to actually catch up to you.” Scarlet stood a few feet in front of Gem, not moving, just watching. Gem got up on her feet, and drew her weapon. “I was very sad that we missed you entering the museum.”
“Yeah, you haven’t really been good at this sabotaging job. And that’s all you’ve done.” Gem struck at Scarlet, who dodged the sword with one scythe, and tried to cut into Gem’s stomach if it wasn’t for her costume protecting her. “But it’s good to know that you’ve missed me.”
Gem said as she punched Red Scarlet in the face. It made her have a tincy bit of guilt that she felt good while doing so. Gem half expected Scarlet’s mask to fly clean off her face. Maybe Gem wanted it to. Sadly for her, it kept stubbornly in place.
Scarlet took a few steps back, but didn’t have enough time before Gem kicked the scythes out of her hands, and threw her body on Scarlet’s, to keep her pinned to the ground. The other wriggled and tried to get out of Gem’s grip, but the hero didn’t waver that easily.
Well, not when it comes to fighting that is. It took Red Scarlet’s perfume? to aggressively hit Gem’s senses, that it made her blush and hesitate. It kind of made her realize the position they were in. And Scarlet noticed Gem's lack of aggressiveness, and took advantage of it. She threw Gem off of her, and picked up her blades.
Neither moved though, both of them revelling in the good fifteen feet distance between them. Both of them enjoyed the fresh air that wasn’t dulled between their bodies.
Scarlet then let out a raspy laugh and broke the silence. “You flirt weirdly, hero.”
Gem was sure that made her blush. “Wh- I wasn’t‐ ugh, just turn yourself in!” Gem stammered out.
Scarlet laughed again, and put her hands up in surrender. Gem knew she didn’t actually mean it. She did walk forward, maybe she could arrest the villain, once and for all.
If it wasn’t for the damned arrow, maybe she could’ve. In a flash of red, it was a miracle that the arrow only scratched Scarlet’s cheek. Both of them looked over from the arrow’s direction to see a man in red, although in a different shade, look down at the both of them, his eyes covered by a black masquerade mask tied securely around his head. His wings, giving him the ability to float above an alley two houses ahead, flapped loudly. It made Gem feel stupid that she couldn’t hear him before. She knew the vigilante in front of them.
Although he didn’t officially have a name, but the public, and now the Agency refer to him as Watcher.
He shot another arrow silently towards Red Scarlet, who just managed to dodge. She ran to the other side of the building. Gem looked at her for a final time. She didn’t move though. Made no effort to stop Scarlet from escaping. She felt weak.
“Tilly next time, Amethyst.” Though it was dark, Gem was fairly sure she saw Scarlet wink at her. Then she took a step back, and jumped off the building. Gem groaned, but looked over, and into a dark alley to see Scarlet already gone.
Gem turned around, and was met with Watcher, collecting his arrows, and putting them back into his quiver. “You could’ve easily taken Red Scarlet down. Maybe the heroes are weaker than we thought.” His voice was cold, just like his eyes, peeking out from behind the black fabric.
“Well, with that logic, you could’ve flown after her.” Gem answered. She was biased, but she didn’t really like people talking smack about the heroes. She could handle all the Agency shade, because yeah, she can agree that those guys aren’t the best, but the heroes just want to help and protect!
Just like the vigilantes do! Being a vigilante is very illegal. Using powers without a permit, which is very hard to get when you’re not a hero yourself, is highly illegal. And most vigilantes are people with powers that escaped the Agency’s eyes. Just like villains. Or just really daring people. But carrying a weapon and fighting is still on the list for why vigilantes should be arrested.
Gem doesn’t think that’s really fair. They’re the same as heroes, just without a badge to show for it. She’s really thankful for the Wings, the vigilante organization that the Agency is sure Watcher is the head of, even though, as far as they know, Wings has only two members. Gem doesn’t really know a lot about that case, since neither her or Joel were on that one. Now that she thinks about it, she’s pretty sure Hawk had that one. The hero was furious with these vigilantes.
“My job isn’t to arrest the criminals. It's just to stop them! Villain stuff is the Agency’s problem.” Watcher turned around and opened his huge wings. They reminded Gem of crow wings.
“Thank you for helping though. I’m glad they dropped your case.” Maybe Gem wasn’t exactly meant to say that…but she didn’t want any bad bad blood with these vigilantes.
That did make Watcher stop and turn around to look at Gem. Even if he didn’t say anything, he was still very intimidating. He did look surprised to hear that. Was the lack of heroes chasing after him every night when he was out doing his ‘job’ not a good clue enough? Or was that why Hawk is barely around the Agency while not really having any missions?
“We are kind of co-workers, aren’t we?” Gem tried to clear the tension with a smile, but it didn’t really help.
“I guess we are.” Watcher said before he flew off into the night.
He was also very familiar. Something about his attitude made her feel like she was losing her mind. This much deja vú for one day is too much for her.
And she still needed to finish a report.