The hivemind is conquering for me?

I slid into the booth and took my seat next to Willow. Rhea followed me in and began talking with her mother about girl things. Nathanos got a call on his communicator and excused himself for a moment by simply climbing out of the back of the booth instead of asking his mother to move a moment.

Willow to my right seemed rather nervous by all the new faces so I decided to break the ice. “So Willow, are you from a non core world? I only ask because I have yet to meet someone with your genetic traits.”

Willow narrowed her eyes a second to ponder the meaning behind my words. She deduced I held no malice due to her appearance and commented. ” I come from a planet from the galactic south. It was attacked by the Drakoshi 20 years ago and was lost. Why do you ask?”

“Oh no particular reason. Its just from what I have seen most humans from the core worlds follow similar characteristics, its a good thing to see some genetic variety is all. Sorry if my question came out offensive to you, I am a genetic scientist by trade and my curiosity got the better of me.” I said in response.

Willow looked at me surprised. “You are a scientist? I thought you were an Arcon?” I smiled at her politely before saying. “Arcon is just a hollow title at this point. My planet was overrun by the swarm as a day old baby and my whole family died, except for my sister. I only have the title due to those circumstances.” I said my fabricated piece, causing Willows eyes to soften.

She placed her hand on my arm innocently and said. “I am sorry, As I had said I too have lost my planet and understand your grief.” As I felt her hand touch my arm, I got a weird feeling in the back of my head. “What was that?”

As she pulled her arm away, the feeling stopped. However, I could still feel it lingering in the air. I ignored it for a moment as I watched Kathrine click her fingers at a waiter as she wanted to order.

What she ordered for herself and I did not sound like a pleasant dish, but names of food can be deceiving. The other two also then ordered their own and Kathrine also ordered Nathanos’ meal. She also ordered some drinks for the table that arrived soon after.

As I took a sip of my drink, Rhea to my left asked a question to me. “So you are a ,what was it?, Genetic scientist? What does that entail?” I put my drink down after the sip and thought for a moment. “Well I say genetic scientist, but what I actually do is see how genes react to psionic enhancements. How the energy moulds the body and makes it stronger.

In fact, I would wager If I had a tissue sample from you or Kat, I could find out exactly how you family Psionic technique works and I could possibly improve upon it.”

“Bullshit!” “Really? You did not tell me you were that efficient.” Rhea and Kathrine respectively said. Rhea turned to her mother with a confused look. “Mom, you don’t actually believe him do you?”

Kathrine looked at her daughter as though she mistook the masterpiece next to her for a pile of dung. “Rhea trust me, I have gotten quite the firm grasp on Apollo in the time I have know him. He is kind, caring, very giving. Sure he has his flaws such as his terrible ability to read emotions, but he is very free-spirited and would not lie about something like that just to gloat.

If he wanted to gloat he would tell you about how he singlehandedly held back a swarm assault with his Psionic might just so my mercenary company could retreat safely.”

Rhea stared at her mother blankly, forgetting the accusation of bullshit from a moment ago. “What did you just say?” She asked in confusion towards her mother. Willow was also very intrigued by what was just said.

“Whoopsie!” Kathrine said. For some reason, she felt the urge to defend Apollo. It was almost instinctual. “Mom, what happened on your mission?” Rhea asked.

Kathrine looked over to me, as if asking if she should tell her daughter. I simply shrugged my shoulders not particularly caring and took another drink of my very manly fruit cocktail.

It was a mistake on my part as Kathrine began gushing and overselling everything I had done for the mercenaries during the mission making me actively cringe. Fortunately, Kathrine stopped as the food was brought to the table.

I was pleasantly surprised when Kathrine’s order simply turned out to be some sort of fish salad. As the waiter moved away and I was about to take a bite out of my meal Willow piped up. “You are pretty hardcore Apollo. If lady Kathrine was telling you truth, you could easily qualify for our um…” Willow stopped realising she almost spilt classified information..

“Mmmh I’ll say.” Rhea said as she leaned closer to me while twirling her hair with her finger. “My mom does not lie to me, so if what she said is true, you are strong, handsome, smart and brave. Its almost like you are compensating for something. Does my cute little Arcon do all these things because he isn’t packing below the belt I wonder?”

Rheas teasing was met with simple silence from me as I smiled and ate my salad. In front of her however, a single scoff of amusement came from Kathrine at her daughters statement.

“Rhea!” Willow said. She was appalled by her friends way of flirting, it almost seemed akin to bullying and she did not clock on to Kathrine’s scoff.

Rhea did however, and turned to her mother with an amused smile before looking back to her friend. “What? Willow stop being so goody goody, Apollo here knows I’m kidding don’t you?” she asked. I finish swallowing my food before responding. “Yea its fine, I don’t mind jokes I’m not egotistical enough to care.

I especially don’t mind when the joke are not true.” I said with a charming smile that caused Kathrine to blush.

Willow face also turned pink at the implication of my sentence and began eating her food, solely focusing on it. Rhea however, was confused, in a good way of course. Normally during her vetting process of a person, especially a noble, they would have gotten annoyed with her by now. Its the reason her only proper friend was Willow.

Due to the anomaly in her vetting, she decided to start playing nice. “As she picked up her cutlery she whispered to me as Kathrine began asking Willow questions. “Sorry for picking on you, Its just my thing with new people.” “Hey whatever floats your boat, People are unique and some people need to know if the people they are around are worth their time.

I hold nothing against you as you were just being yourself.” I say not really thinking much about it and continue my food.

Rhea looks at me a moment and blushes ever so slightly before eating her food. It was at this moment Nathanos came back to the table. “Sorry ’bout that guy and gals, Dearest Dad had some things for me to do.” He said as Kathrine stood up to let him into the booth.

“Ugh, I suppose I should ask. How is your shit head of a father.” Kathrine said as she picked up a napkin and started to tuck it into Nathanos’ collar.

“Will you cut that out!” Nathanos said as he waved his arms in front of him to shoo Kathrine. “Dad is fine and is not a shit head like you always claim.” Nathanos defended causing Rhea to mutter. “Dick sucker.”

“He is- shut up- he is overwhelmed with work as usual since you moved to this planet and grandma is not making his workload any easier.” Kathrine rolled her eyes at the mention of her mother. “Yea I’m not surprised by that, She always hated the so called ‘Scrunt.’ I’ll talk to her tomorrow and make sure the shit head is only getting the work his Sepiidan cunt filled mind can just barely take.”

Willow gasped at such a vulgar word being used in public. I chuckled to myself and thought. ‘Gosh, imagine her around Willy.’

“Mother, we are in public, be careful of what you say.” Rhea said while Nathanos was just left shocked by his mother. “Sorry dear.” Kathrine said as she smiled innocently.

As we continued to eat our meals, the feeling I felt since Willow touched my arm continued to grow in the air and became more and more noticeable. To make sure I was safe and not affecting me somehow, I closed my eyes for a second and entered my Mindspace.

The moment I did, Willow snapped her neck in my direction and opened her eyes wide in shock. She was so shocked by my, to the rest of the table, long blink that she unconsciously grabbed my face by the cheeks with her hands and unconsciously said.

“Wow.”