The hivemind is conquering for me?

"Right, please wait here a moment Nerissa while I go get something to extract the blood with." I say as I stand up. Nerissa holds her hand up and in response says. "No need Apollo, I can take care of that."

Curious as to what she meant, I watched as she elevated both of her hands up and squeezed at the air. I could feel the Psionic energy in my surroundings being sucked towards her like a black hole.

It was only for a moment, but I was shocked by how effortlessly she manipulated raw Psionic energy like that. What lay in her outstretched hands now was a tube with a syringe needle on one end and a blood pack on the other.

"Wow." I said wowed. "Was that Psionic materialisation? Or was it Atomic manipulation? Either way that was amazing." Psionic materialisation was essentially conjuring something from one location to another using the reality manipulating Psionic energy as a sort of gate, whereas Atomic manipulation was exactly as it sounded. You could manipulate the atoms of anything to create another thing. It was the backbone of Psionics like transmutation and could be the most insanely powerful Psionic power there was if trained correctly.

"Good eye Apollo, though you are wrong. It is technically both, but also neither. I am not materialising an object from somewhere else and am using my Psionic energy to manipulate the Psionic energy into real atomic structure with an image in my mind. I cannot manipulate already existing Items so I cannot just snap my fingers and dust you out of existence for example." She explained.

"Still though, being able to create anything you want, just by knowing it is an incredible power. I am envious." I said in a way that was meant as a compliment. Nerissa said nothing as she began to take off her gauntlet and vambrace, but I felt like she was smiling underneath her mask.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

With her Vambrace off, Nerissa found a vein on her forearm and inserted the syringe. Just like the Praetorian I injured in my powered state, I watched as golden blood traversed through the tube and into the blood bag.

After a moment of watching and remembering, I just had to ask. "So, do you call your blood, blood or Ichor?" Nerissa shot upright, surprised hearing that word and proceeded to stare directly at me.

She seemed to try and figure something out for a moment before she asked. "My intrigue for you has left me confused once more. I am not used to being confused." She said. "What do you mean?" I asked for clarification.

Nerissa took a moment to choose her wording before she replied. "From what I have observed so far about you Apollo, I know you are an intelligent man. However, I have also noticed there are times you seem to lack information about basic things that bring forth to question your intelligence, forgive me if that sounds like an insult, I didn't mean it in such a way."

I waved my hand off like it was no big deal. 'If one of my mates splinters calls me an idiot out of endearment, it is probably somewhat true.' Seeing I did not take the wording poorly, she continued. "The point I was trying to make is that while you sometimes seem to have gaps in ,what is pretty standard, knowledge for your age group, you then sometimes come out with outlandish things such as knowing the original name of my blood and knowing very obscure Psionic powers. It leaves me confused about just who you are and who this teacher of yours is to know such things. I mean, these days, people think Ichor is just insect blood." She mumbled at the end.

"Actually insects don't have blood, they have hemolymph. The ichor people reference is a watery discharge from an open wound- Ok I see your point." I said as I caught myself spouting things I knew only because I was in a relationship with a collective of insectoids.

I kept silent for the rest of the blood collection, not wanting to confuse Nerissa any more. Towards the end of the collection, the woman took off her helmet and looked at me. "I don't mind it, you know."

I looked up at her, encouraging her to continue. "Being confused by you I mean. The way you speak and act and see things. It leaves me confused, but It also leaves me nostalgic in a strange way. I enjoy that feeling greatly, so don't go out of your way to stay silent or change what you are doing. Please, continue to intrigue me." She placed her hand on my arm as she said that and smiled kindly towards me.

I stared at her a moment and smiled back before my lack of filter acted out. "I wonder what it is about powerful women having the most beautiful smiles imaginable." I did not even bother to clock Nerissa's reaction to the words, as I did not realise I said them and moved to remove the needle from her arm.

"There, the bag is full and is much more than I needed. Thank you. Wait here a moment, I will be right back." I said and ran behind the bar, placed the bag of blood in the freezer temporarily and then I began rummaging through the cupboards until I found what I was looking for.

Walking back to Nerissa, she had her armour back on and looked at me curiously. "Well, you have your helmet back on now so you probably won't have it, but here." I said as I held out a lollipop. "So you don't get dizzy."

Nerissa smiled underneath her mask and took the sweet on a stick from my hand. "Apollo, I can survive with 80% of the blood in my body missing, but I appreciate the 'sweet' gesture." She said before placing the lolly before her mouth cloth and phased it through.

As If predicting what I was going to say, Nerissa spoke with the sweet still in her mouth. " Psionically empowered gossamer. The gods used to keep pets. One pet being a type of spider called Minerva's. They produced a gossamer so strong and durable that it still holds up to this day and is as strong as the rest of my armour. When the gossamer is fashioned into clothing or armour, the user can choose to let certain objects through, which is more useful than you could possibly imagine."

Nerissa then stood up after saying that. "So shall we join with the rest or is there anything else you require from me Apollo?" I shook my head and we began walking towards the booth, though another thought came to mind.

"What other types of pets did the founders have?" I asked. "Oh myriads. Most still exist in some form to this day, though most have de-evolved while a good number have actually joined the coalition, unaware of their ancient origins. My favourite though was these giant reptiles that were kept incredibly well fed and we would butcher them at feasts. The taste of their meat... I have not had anything more delicious since their extinction."

'Giant reptiles?' I thought. 'Wait. Does she mean my on ice Dino nuggies? No wonder they were in that ruin. It must be their descendants that were left behind during Ares' civil war.'

We were now outside the booth door, but I stopped a moment asking one final question. "When you say the pets devolved, what do you mean by that? How could they devolve in such a short amount of time?"

"Energy." Nerissa replied casually. "The pets the gods had were sustained and bred in a high Psionic energy environment. The only reason they were pets was because they could survive in said environment. After the founders were... Gone. The pets no longer had access to that energy and as a result began to devolve over time."

My brain began working with that information and its possible outcomes. 'So Psionics can devolve a being. It can also bring out ancient potential like it did with my little kitten. I wonder if it can cause sudden evolution as well?'

As I began theorising further, Nerissa could tell I had entered my own world. In the short time that had been her observation, it was not the first time she had seen Apollo do this and it fascinated her how someone could tune in so intently on their own thoughts that they blocked out everything else.

She could watch the man think for hours as she found the particular trait admirable, but that would not come to pass as the door opened and a hand grabbed Apollo's collar and yanked him into the room.

In a moment Apollo had been standing up thinking about how to test rapid evolution, outside of consuming and converting biomass like the Hive, then next moment, he was sat down on Valerica's lap with his face being suffocated in between her bosom.

"Apollo! Tell Lady Sophia here how you have no objections to me adopting you and that you cannot get enough of calling me mommy!"