The hivemind is conquering for me? Chapter 930: Can’t Be Jelly

Nerissa and Rhapso arrived where they needed to be hastily, their armour’s picking up an influx of others in a side room. As they approached, they could hear Phoebe, voice slightly raised.

"I don’t care if this cube pointed a minigun at you when you decided to touch it. Back off."

"This thing is a threat. How can you not see that? You are putting the entire place in jeopardy. Step aside. That isn’t a request."

Phoebe was outnumbered. She was just patrolling when she stumbled upon her allies attempting to move the cube. She herself wasn’t sure what it was at first, but the purple power source on the top? She could recognise that bad feeling anywhere.

Apollo had done a lot for her and her order. These Nymphs weren’t on Lleon T1 so they didn’t know... She just needed-

As she thought that, Nerissa and Rhapso entered the room, back up at last.

"Sisters, help me out here. They want to take away Apollo’s armour."

Nerissa looked around, she naturally knew everyone present. Their personalities, she had to come up with a way to deescalate the situation. This was all a big misunderstanding and-

"Back off now before the walls turn gold!" Rhapso declared with open hostility.

The room turned deathly silent. Rhapso wasn’t just saying those words, it was obvious to everyone in the room she meant what she said.

The five Nymphs that had been surrounding Phoebe pulled back, one of them spoke.

"S-Sister... What are you saying with such malice? We are only doing our duty."

"Your duty?" Rhapso scoffed. "Your duty is to ignore your sister’s advice? To not listen to her words? Do you know who this armour belongs to? I’ll fill you in. A Nymph friend candidate. That’s right. Even if Apollo doesn’t get that title. Do you understand the significance of being elected for that title? And if that wasn’t enough, this is the same sentinel that, oh you might recall, allowed Nerissa here to bloom? Twice. You know? The thing that hasn’t happened to any of us in hundreds of thousands of years? The Sentinel left this here for clearly an important reason and I trust that Sentinel with my life. So back off and leave. Or I promise you I will expend my own life in the defence of his belongings."

The five Nymphs looked amongst each other, they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They had never heard anything like it. It scared them to their core.

"Alright, Rhapso. We will leave... But your reaction... We are going to inform Thespius of this."

Rhapso scoffed. "Sorry? I thought you said you were leaving?"

The Nymphs left. The situation was more than anyone present was expecting. Once they were gone and they shut the door behind them, Rhapso let out a deep sigh of relief. "Phew. I would have hated to attack my own siblings... Why are you both looking at me like that?"

Phoebe and Nerissa gave each other a look before Phoebe spoke. "Rhapso... That was chilling."

"What? You were defending Apollo’s stuff as well." Rhapso retorted.

"Yeah, buying time. I wasn’t going to fight them... I wasn’t going to threaten them..."

Nerissa then interjected. "You were speaking the truth, weren’t you? You were going to attack our siblings if they didn’t leave."

Rhapso turned to Nerissa, clearly offended. "And you wouldn’t? After everything Apollo has done for you? For all of us? What he is to us?"

The room became silent once more as Nerissa fell into deep contemplation.

She would do a lot of things for Apollo. The list was nearly endless at this point, but attacking her family... Nerissa gulped. It scared her that her immediate thought wasn’t an outright no. She couldn’t find that word. She couldn’t say with certainty that if Apollo, and who he was, ordered her to attack her kin, that she would not outright refuse...

"I just saw five of our kin running away like they pissed themselves. What did I miss? Oof, the tension in here is palpable" Argyra commented as she strutted into the room.

"Nothing. A minor verbal altercation. Though Rhapso has quite a mouth on her. Her words were very effective." Phoebe stated, prompting Argyra to nod her head before walking past everyone.

"Wow... So all of this is just casually sitting inside our Sentinel all day and night? I am tempted to touch it." Argyra reached over towards the cube. As her hand came within a few inches of the cube, a minigun suddenly erupted out of the top and began charging its barrels.

"Eeep!" Argyra backed away and hid behind Nerissa and peered out only once the barrels stopped spinning. Shortly after the minigun returned into the cube without a trace. "How intriguing. It functions autonomously from its wielder?"

Nerissa shook her head. "No. Apollo has made it clear to me that the armour only works thanks to his telepathic link to the alien tech. This is probably just a safety program. Only active when it senses unknown threats."

Argyra pouted. "I’m not a threat... Apollo and I shared quite an intimate moment not even a day ago!"

The room turned chilly. "You shared a what?" Rhapso asked, her voice hollow and dangerous.

Argyra simply giggled. "My~ My~ I didn’t expect that reaction. We had a little spar that’s all, with some fun elements added into it."

"Fun elements?" Nerissa asked this time. Argyra just turned to Nerissa and said nothing.

"Heh~" Rhapso suddenly let out a happy squeak, prompting everyone to turn towards her and the hand that was touching the cube without the weapon emerging.

"Guess your ’moment’ with Apollo wasn’t as special as you thought it was." Rhapso gloated.

"Aww, I guess I should try and spend more time with our Sentinel going forward so I can pass this little test?"

’Why does she keep saying ’our’ Sentinel? He is mine.’ Nerissa thought to herself for a moment before realising what she just thought

’!!!’

Her cheeks began to blush, but said nothing else.

A few minutes later, another individual entered the room, Thespius. He looked amongst the Three Nymphs then at the large cube on the ground and just sighed. "Yeah... This does look weird and suspicious. Come on, let’s leave this room while you fill me in with your version of the story."

The Nymphs began to leave the room at Thespius’ request. Nerissa lingered behind for just a moment though, her eyes lingering on the cube. Very quickly she reached her own hand out towards the cube. She hesitated slightly, but she got closer and closer.

Nerissa smiled as her hand touched the surface of the cube. She stroked it affectionately for a moment before swiftly leaving the room. Now Rhapso couldn’t talk big and attempted to make her jelly saying she was the only one that could touch the cube without the defences going up...

Not that she would have been jelly... It’s just Apollo’s armour in cube form after all. It didn’t mean anything... ’Though I was also able to touch it so I can’t get jelly... Not that I would have been.’

...

The food was delicious, the only shame was that there was so little of it. I barely began to taste each dish before it was gone. It was a crime against hunger and I blamed the nobility.

Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves though. Though for them it was the regular. Well, everyone except Hailey. Her and her father had been in a weird tug of war with glares.

Dickon would stare at me. Hailey would catch him, glare at him at which point he would stop for a couple of minutes before starting the cycle all over again. I understood, truly understood why she hated the man, but I really did not know what to do in this setting. I was out of my element.

Proof of this came as the next meal came out. It was a soup of sorts. I naturally went to reach for a spoon when Maxine shook her head and whispered to me. "No... You need to eat the contents first with a fork, then use the spoon furthest on the right.

I gave my secret helper a wink prompting her to smile. I was about to do what she asked when Rickon spoke under his breath. "Fucking idiot, were you raised in a cave? How do you not know table manners?"

Not getting angry as I could see the teenage angst written all over his face, plus he clearly didn’t think I was able to hear him. I replied calmly, though his eyes widened when I did.

"Actually yes Rickon. I was raised in a cave, deep underground. I didn’t leave that cave until I was sixteen when I went on my first training mission. The family I grew up with didn’t care about all this fancy stuff. We ate simply, we lived simply and we trained. Stuff like this? It is all very new to me, so give me some leeway and give me a chance to learn on the job?"

I then turned to the rest of the table. "Seriously. I do apologise if my behaviour appears crass or impolite. At the end of the day, I am just here for my girlfriend."

As I said my piece, Rickon stood up from his seat and stared at me for a few moments in contemplation. After gathering himself he spoke.

"Sentinel, I..."