The hivemind is conquering for me?

After preventing the beeping, which was Keyla using my other bio-pad in my home world lab to get my attention, I found out she had finished the task I assigned her. ”Well done Keyla, I will come and check on your work shortly. By the way, Jewel has requested you stop asking the silk drones for things. She has said they were strange requests so I am now both intrigued and mildly disturbed.”

The bio pad transmission suddenly cut off and on the other end Keyla began looking around frantically, surprised she had been caught in the act. She had to go destroy the evidence before Apollo got back!

Meanwhile, I put my Biopad down and turned to Jewel somewhat reluctantly. We had said we were going to take turns on our respective projects and I was looking forward to working on something with her.

Jewel noticed this however and smiled lovingly towards me. ”It is fine Apollo love, I enjoy watching you work. Go back home and I will observe you again. When you are finished, you can come back here and we can begin our new project together.”

Jewel left no room for argument as her body suddenly collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut, onto the bed. Looking at the husk, I smiled lovingly before cleaning up the lab. After that was done, I made my way to the surface and to the teleport array.

Having been properly instructed on how to use it, I smiled before clicking my fingers, a small spark of flame manifesting, acting as a catalyst for the Psionic energy stored within the array, swallowing me whole as I became one with the energies of the universe.

...

As I rematerialized on Home world, I crouched down and began to massage my head. The feeling was still nauseating, but I was getting used to it. Once I was feeling better, I stood up and noticed I was greeted by Orchid. In her full battle attire, the helmet also making a rare appearance.

”Hello, Apollo-love. How are you feeling?” Orchid asked. I walked over and kissed her on the front of her helmet as I replied. ”Better now that I am in your presence, but I have to ask. Why do you look ready for a fight?”

Orchid crouched down slightly and lifted her two swords up to her sides as she began looking around frantically. ”Orchid needs to be aware and prepared. She cannot get hurt again. Orchid cannot go a full year without Mating with her Apollo.”

I looked at her confused for a moment, before I remembered what I said about her constantly losing arms since we returned. ’Probably for the best that I keep her guard up.’ I thought. ”I see. Well done my cute little battle bug. I am very proud of you for doing what I told you to do.” I said and smiled, knowing the face underneath Orchids helmet would be beaming at the praise.

Orchid was resisting the urge to engage in the tappies. Ever since she came back to home world, the drive to commit tappies around Apollo has become a large factor. To distract herself, she spoke. ”Come, Apollo-love, you are here for Keyla correct? Let’s go so you can catch her in the act.”

”???” I was still confused by what Keyla could have done with a bunch of silk drones that was so weird it made the hive uncomfortable. ’Do I even want to know?’ Making our way down, we stopped by Jewel to say hello, even though I had just been with her, before making our way to my lab.

As I walked into the lab, I was momentarily stunned by the surroundings before Keyla came over in a sprint, stopping in front of me, her hands on her knees, wheezing. ”Oh, hey~ Apollo. Phew! Are you all good? You want to see the results of my work? Ah- Stitch! How do I have a stitch!” She muffled under her breath.

”Keyla. What did you do to my lab? Why is there lava cooling back into rock all over the place?” Keyla looked around, as though not realising there was lava everywhere and replied. ”Oh, that? Yeah, that was me just... Destroying evidence.” Keyla wanted to lie, but she promised she would not any longer after finally revealing her true self to her partner. She was just hoping he wouldn’t press her further.

I did not feel like pressing Keyla further. Something weird had definitely gone on here and for my mental state, I thought it best to just let it slide. ”*Sigh* Orchid, my darling. Can you find some bio forms to clean up the lava?”

Orchid responded in the affirmative and began to leave the room, not before embedding her gauntlet into a large cooled down rock and picking it up on her way out. Turning from that display, to the Keyla, I asked.

”So, can you show me what you have done with the research I asked you to do?” Keyla’s brain froze for a moment. ”Huh?” She was not expecting me to change the subject. She thought for sure her love was going to ask about her business with the silk she had just destroyed, but apparently not.

She was not going to let the opportunity to change the subject pass, as she sprinted over to the, undamaged by lava, main part of the lab. ”Yes, look here Apollo! Like you asked, I went over the Hyllus strengthening technique. It is actually very refined and not something you would expect Spartari to come up with. And after studying further, look!”

Keyla brought my attention to a nearby Biopad. On it was a chart of a human body, a female human body to be exact. ”After reading the technique, I was curious as to why the female uterus was a key component in the process of refining in the Hyllus technique, but thanks to Jewels insane computer brain, I figured it out.”

Keyla then dragged me to another pad that showed some charts and another diagram. ”Look there! The Hyllus technique has some weird translation where he and she were used interchangeably. That is when it hit me. Aliens! Aliens created the Hyllus technique and the Hyllus family stole it! Or acquired it somehow. Look again here, thanks to the bio-pad, I created a rough approximation of what I think the other species could have looked like based on the writing and the characteristics of the people within explaining how the technique worked.

On the screen now were the images of a male and female entity. They did look roughly humanoid. More muscular than a normal human and taller than most. but on the diagram, both sex’s appeared to have a uterus, which is most likely why the technique required one.

I stared at the two individuals and suddenly I found them familiar. I was glad I did not become confused as to where the knowledge came from as it seems I did gain something other than strength from Ares’ soul energy seeping into my body. Memories of ancient history.

”Interesting. It seemed the Hyllus family ancestors worked closely with Ares before he became machine crazed. They must have ’acquired’ the technique after realising its worth before committing genocide on the Ungulaps.”

”Ungulaps?” Keyla questioned, her time with the hive affecting her as she tilted her head to the side. ”Yeah, weird. But also annoying. Another thing I have to experiment with, hidden information inside my gene code...” I sighed as another project had now fallen into my lap before I even finished the current one, but shrugged it off as I began going over all the data Keyla had done for me.

It was neat and tidy and so easy to follow, she deserved praise. ”Keyla, your note taking is impeccable. Flow charts and tabs, even easy to follow headlines... compared to my incoherent scribbles. I might have to make you my lab assistant at this rate.”

Keyla felt her entire body shiver in delight at Apollo’s compliment. Sometimes the simplest of words can just make your entire day. ”Really?” She asked cutely. ”Yeah, I can see why Sophia was reluctant to let you come with me. You are like the perfect assistant. Just looking at the notes, I can already tell where I want to start attempting improvements in the genetics and how I can safely increase the amount of channelable Psionic energy.”

Keyla’s smile became even wider, knowing she was helping her super smart husband with his hobby, she felt a sense of fulfilment. She also felt like she could help a lot more on this project as it was directed to helping a human. And Keyla knew humans, inside and out. Literally.

”Oh Apollo, stop! A little thing like me can only take in so much love at once! And please, my notetaking is nothing, you are just too focused on the science side, notes are secondary. That is why I will help you out and be your lab assistant during this experiment.”

The excitement in Keyla’s tone fell flat in my ear as I had already begun attempting in the biopads simulations how the Psionic technique works without a uterus, so I simply replied flatly.

”That’s great Keyla, now can you go get me some rejuvenation fluid? I am going to have to create some homunculi.”