The Soul Gem

Purpose

"So....Ermac...what exactly...are you?" Peridot asked, holding a clipboard to try and designate Ermac's gem to determine how to handle his education.

"We...are...not...entirely....certain," Ermac said, tilting his head as he slowly realized he couldn't answer Peridot's question.

"What do you mean you're not certain? Are you a quartz? A ruby? A sapphire? Dare I say, an emerald or a Jasper?" Peridot repeated, listing off different gem types to try and classify Ermac.

"We are uncertain. Our cut and facet is rather...unclear. Perhaps if we could get in touch with the Diamonds, our designation can be revealed," Ermac reiterated.

"Dude, why do you talk like that?" Amethyst asked with a confused head tilt.

"Talk like what?" Ermac asked.

"All this 'we' and 'our' and 'us' stuff. You're one gem, aren't you?" Amethyst asked once more.

"We...do not know. We appear to be a singular gem. We do not feel as though we are a singular presence though," Ermac replied, looking at his hands with a sort of existential look in his eyes.

"Well we can always just go to Homeworld and ask the Diamonds about you. Does that sound good Ermac?" Pearl asked him, as if Ermac himself was a sort of indecisive child.

"That....sounds nice," Ermac said as his body reset to a sort of neutral state. Pearl stepped onto the warp pad with him, and focused on Homeworld. The warp pad activated around him and Pearl and sent them through the universe. To the Homeworld of the Gem race, where Diamonds reign Supreme.

"Homeworld...seems...different than we remember it," Ermac said, looking around the environment.

"I know it doesn't feel like it, but you've missed quite a lot. The way Homeworld works has changed significantly. The war is long over," Pearl told Ermac. They walked through the door of the doors and went to the first diamond they saw. Towering in her golden room, in a room of hot steam is Yellow Diamond.

"Pearl? What brings you to Homeworld tod-who is this?" She said, pointing directly at Ermac.

"This is Ermac. Despite his appearance, he's a gem who recently awoke and doesn't know what his purpose is. We thought perhaps you could give some insight?" Pearl explained. Yellow got a closer look at Ermac, specifically at his gemstone. She squinted her eyes, as if focusing on where she's seen him before. Then had this flash of recognition.

"Ohhh! It's that thing! The prototype!" Yellow chuckled as she looked at the duo.

"We are...prototype?" Ermac asked, questioning his nature.

"Yes! You were meant to be a small scale experiment! To see if the Cluster was even feasible. Once we saw your first form, we knew it was possible and that we didn't need you to be operational. Curious though, you should have been inside of a containment vessel to be left to charge," Yellow Diamond explained. Pearl looked mortified at the fact that Ermac was supposed to be the Cluster's little brother in a sense. Ermac was simply looking rather discouraged that he was...simply meant to be a test and not utilized.

"So we are...useless now?" Ermac asked, a sense of dejectedness to the calm tone of his voice.

"Well not useless. It seems you've managed to salvage yourself into a rather civilized and controlled form. You can find your own purpose! That's how we operate now, set roles do not exist anymore for gems. You make your own path," Yellow Diamond said, crossing her legs over each other.

"Own...purpose...?" Ermac asked in a wondering fashion, as if the idea of thinking for himself was such a foreign idea that he essentially performed an error 404.

"Ermac? Are you okay?" Pearl asked, snapping her fingers in front of his face to try and snap him out of his trance. Ermac blinked once or twice and then was back to reality.

"We are...sufficient. We should head back to l...Little Homeworld. To find our...purpose," He said, seeming to have internal glitching as he spoke those words.

"Let's do that. Thank you Yellow Diamond for giving us insight into Ermac's...creation," Pearl said in a vague state of uncertainty. They warped back to Little Homeworld, Pearl breaking away immediately to inform the rest of the Crystal Gems of what she learned.

"Well? What did you learn?" Garnet asked.

"He's a tiny cluster," Pearl said. That floored the gems, because they were not expecting that to be the response they received for their mysterious student.

"A cluster?! Shouldn't he be....like....way bigger? Like....towering over the Temple and pushing through the clouds?" Amethyst asked as she slowly realized that there was a discrepancy with his nature and his form...then that confused the rest of the gems too. Then they started recognizing more discrepancies with Ermac being a cluster.

"That's actually a good question. If he's a cluster, how is he so....cohesive?" Garnet asked, not being able to put her full thoughts into words.

"Maybe we can ask one of the other Gems? Someone here has to know more about Ermac!" Peridot said, as she was created long after Ermac had been shelved and the real Cluster had began production.

"That's a good point, if Ermac is an old idea then some of the gems here should be able to recognize him and tell us how to help him," Pearl agreed. From there, the Crystal Gems fanned out across Little Homeworld. Asking any and every gem that they could tell them anything more about Ermac. They eventually got a bit of a lead, with Nephrite. Nephrite is a pilot who has the clearest memory of herself before her corruption, due to her being the first gem Steven Universe tried to restore.

"Ermac? You mean the Exponentially Resurgent Mass of Accumulated Crystals?" Nephrite asked.

"We call him Ermac. It's easier to remember," Garnet said plainly.

"Of course. Well I wasn't exactly in the room when Ermac was made. What I was told though is we were to deliver it to Pink Diamond to aid against the rebellion on Earth," Nephrite explained.

"He was supposed to fight us in the war?!" Pearl asked in shock.

"Not...quite. From the orders I was given, he wasn't meant to be in the frontlines. He was meant to be...a ripcord so to speak," Nephrite continued.

"Ripcord? For what?" Amethyst questioned this time.

"In the event...that the rebellion got too out of hand and Pink Diamond could not quell it. She was to call a full scale retreat of her troops. As she was leaving, she was meant to release Ermac onto Earth and simply leave him," Nephrite added.

"Leave him to do what?" Peridot asked...afraid of what the answer would be.

"Leave him to lay siege to the Earth. Shatter any gem that tried to stop him, destroy anything and everything that got in his way. Once he was finished destroying everything, the other diamonds would come to deactivate and dismantle him for later repurposing into the Cluster," Nephrite finished. That last part mortified all gems present, because Ermac did not seem to be this Armageddon weapon.

"Well...that changes things severely," Garnet said as they looked towards the gem that was simply trying to mingle with the others...and struggling to mingle due to his robotic demeanor.