A Painite Empire

The Crystal Cops

"UGGGHHHHH!" Watermelon Tourmaline sighs, exaggerated, but close to how she feels. Indicolite holds up one of those gem-notepad-thingies and complains in agreement. "I can't believe we have to capture ANOTHER one of these weak defects! It's degrading!" Achroite, however, is a bit more optimistic about the situation. "C'mon, guys. Isn't it good that we're only getting easy stuff?" She comments, smiling. "No," Indicolite responds unenthusiastically. "I hate to say it, but Indicolite's right. No one likes doing this, so they assigned it to us. It's not a coincidence." Watermelon says. Achroite huffs "Well, Ex-CUSE me for trying to have some optimism. Let's just try to enjoy this, and hope Rubellite won't be there." Indicolite closes the gem equivalent to notepad that she was using to write a report, which was still unfinished. "Agreed." Indicolite said, slouching a bit.

They finally arrived at the warp pad for their station. "Where was this again, Indicolite?" Watermelon asks. Indicolite steps onto the pad and motions Achroite and Watermelon to get on too. "It's in Erimos, that desert planet. There's another Sandstone we've gotta take care of." They warped to Erimos, all of them ready for the temperature change. Still, it was roasting. "Oh my PARAGON! It is BOILING out here! And all the aristocrats get their palanquins to stay nice and cool in..." Watermelon says, but before Indicolite could say something snarky, a commanding voice interrupted. "What is your business here..." A tall figure asks, pulling out a fire whip "...cops?" Surprisingly, none of the gems reacted how she wanted. "Hey, Agate. We're here to get another loose Sandstone." Achroite said, putting her hands behind her back and leaning away from the fiery Agate, as she was in all three of their faces. Agate leaned back and scoffed "Alright. Go."

As they were walking, the Sun didn't get much cooler. Watermelon covered her forehead with her hand and looked up at the tiny blue sun in the sky before Achroite screamed. "OH MY STARS, ACHROITE, WHAT?!" Indicolite yelled. Achroite pointed to a huge herd of what looked like a bunch of white porcupines with black stomachs and faces in the distance, but if you squint you can see that they have a body similar to that of a Gila Monster. On top of them was a Sandstone with a gem on her knee, who appeared to be surfing them (?). As Achroite was running away, Indicolite was also doing so in a different direction (also in a more mocking manner.) Watermelon, however, was having none of it. Although the dust cloud behind the Erimos natives was intimidating, Watermelon knew she had to do her job if she didn't want to keep catching minor criminals like this (and if she didn't want to stay with such a crappy team.)

"STOP, IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!" She said, summoning a gun from her rectangular gem and pointing it at the Sandstone. The criminal brought up a hand, and the animals stopped moving before they formed a circle around the stone's feet. "What do you want?" She asked. Indicolite, who was probably there half the time, tapped the Sandstone on the back, making her flinch. "We're here to arrest you, duh."  The perp turned around sharply, confused. "How did you-" She then looks at the pile of shot Gila-porcupines laying on the ground. Indicolite blows on her gun like they do in movies, and the Sandstone clenched her fists. "You monster!" She scream-whispers before she jumps on Indicolite's head, covering her eyes. "Get off of me, idiot!"

All of this was pretty inconvenient because 1, there was a criminal punching Indicolite in the face, 2, indicolite was flailing around too much for Watermelon to shoot Sandstone off her head, and 3, Achroite wasn't even in sight. That's because she was busy jumping up on the air to knock out Sandstone (and hopefully Indicolite) with her shield. To her dismay, she only got the stone off of Indicolite's head, and didn't poof either gem. However, this gave Watermelon a chance to shoot the fazed Sandstone, poofing her. 

After they poofed the gem and sent it to be harvested and all that, they went to what is kind of like a break room, and unfortunately, saw the last gem they all wanted to see. "Hey!" Rubellite said happily as the cops sat down, collectively deadpanning. The three ignored her, but then she came over to their table. "What mission did you guys have?" Watermelon took a deep breath and responded, carefully crafting her answer so that it is the end of the conversation. "Shut up." Achroite gave her a stink eye. She still hated rubellite, but thought it was stupid to show it so much. Watermelon whispered to her "What? It just slipped out! Besides, she'll leave now and forget about it next time we cross paths." Rubellite crossed her arms and walked away frowning.

Indicolite flinched. "Uhhh...Guys?" Achroite looked at her, still unamused. "What? Oh, stars, don't tell me we forgot to bubble the criminal again..." Watermelon facepalmed. "This is why we have to do all the bad jobs! We seriously need to get it together..."

And from that day on, they still sometimes forgot to bubble the gem, and it inconvenienced them for all eternity.