Chapter 22 #2
Lily's grin grew somewhat unsure for a moment, glancing between the two kikai and then back to me, this time with an ask in her eyes. I was unsure what she was asking, but I trusted Lily implicitly. "Go on," I said.
"Well, that's because I'm a helivore, and I want to consume these divine tails." Lily didn't even get halfway through her sentence before Aikari shrieked, grabbed her tails, and jumped to the far wall.
"Helivore!" she screamed at the top of her lungs and pushed herself as deep into the corner as she could.
Violet, on the other hand, had her new saber out, though not yet turned on. She regarded Lily in a new light.
"Well, that's one way to break the news," I said, rubbing my face. "Aikari, you're not even something she could eat." I looked over to the AI hologram, who was clutching her tails and curled in the corner like Lily might take them as her next snack.
"Sure, take any of them. All of them you want. Just don't eat me!" the AI screamed, glancing at those around the room.
Lily took that as permission and swiped several tails off the wall, the black mycelial network that was her suit encroaching over them, growing and consuming them.
"Is there anything for you actually in that?" I waved a hand at Lily as she consumed the tails.
"I won't know until I have more time to experiment," She held off further comment.
“Helivores consume and mimic genetics, right?” Violet wrinkled her nose.
"If becoming a divine kikai was simply a matter of genetics, then it would run in families.
Unfortunately, it does not. And that is why people like my master would take on disciples as a way to pass down their knowledge and skills. "
Aikari slowly inched away from the wall. "So you're not going to eat me, destroy the world, and the entire sector?" she asked, squinting suspiciously at Lily.
"Not as long as my captain stands with me. I have no reason." Lily smirked, leaving it implied that should something happen to me, the world and the sector would suffer.
Violet hefted her beam saber. "Well, if you're not going to take a weapon, then we should go. Aikari, I assume you still have some measure of control?"
"Oh, complete control over the ship. What you have in your hands is my personality drive, and I am updating memory.
I am also including a recent important one"—she chuckled nervously and fluffed her tails—“into the drive.
But the second you leave with it, what happens inside here will no longer be relayed. "
"Understood." Holding the beam saber in one hand, Violet hefted the large drive onto her shoulder. It was comically large against her small frame. "So where are they?"
"Hmm?" Aikari perked up from where she'd been inching closer to Violet, then inching closer to Lily. "Who, what?"
"There should be people entering this ship behind us."
"Oh, them." Aikari paused. "They keep smashing the projectors every time I pop up, but they're almost here." She waffled a hand.
I stared. "And you didn't bother to tell me?"
"I was preoccupied." Aikari scoffed and gestured with both hands at Lily. "Besides, you have a helivore. Why would you be scared of a few people with guns?" She laughed.
Lily grinned. "I see you've put some of your wisdom to use." The tails were now completely gone. It seemed that she had digested what she could of them.
"Aikari, we need to leave, preferably now. If you can give us the route through the fewest of them, I'd like to exit. And when enough of them are inside the ship, I'd ask that you self-destruct." Violet flicked on the beam saber.
Aikari bobbed her head. "I was prepared for this the second you said your master was dead. My detonation will be quite severe." She smiled. "It could have even killed the helivore, if needed."
It was Lily's turn to grin back. "It's a shame I have multiple bodies linked, like a Gemini. If you destroy this one, I'll simply make another."
Aikari's eyes popped open comically wide, and her jaw dropped like a cartoon.
"How did anyone let a helivore get that advanced?
The last time Akari was aware of one, she had participated in bringing a capital-class ship to glass the surface of a planet.
"No offense. I'm sure you're lovely," she said quickly to Lily.
"Well, she's my security officer," I answered, smiling at the AI. "So I suppose I'm the one to blame if she ever has too much power and goes out of control."
"Yeah, but she also clearly is so infatuated with you," the AI pointed out plainly.
Violet grumbled under her breath.
Aikari zipped across the room. "Yeah, but he's human—" which must have embarrassed Violet, judging by the way she waved her beam saber through the hologram, disrupting it for just a moment.
"Am I or am I not your new master?" Violet glared at the AI.
"Well, I suppose you are, but if you're going to put me anywhere, it's going to be on his ship." She zipped across the room to me with big, wide eyes, glimmering on the edge of tears. "Right?"
I reached forward and went to pat her head, forgetting for a second that she was just a hologram.
Aikari giggled and flickered until she was behind me, arms wrapped around my shoulders. She went to kiss my cheek, and as she did, the corner of the room exploded. Lily had picked up a knife and thrown it, destroying the projector and making Aikari wink out of existence.
Aikari reappeared in the doorway, likely via some projector in the hallway, hands on her hips, scowling at Lily. "Well, that wasn't very nice. Jealous much?"
Lily put on a saccharine sweet smile and rested her hand on top of the block containing Aikari's personality and memory, her muscles tensing.
"What was that?" Lily asked.
Aikari instantly transformed into a doll-sized caricature of herself, complete with pom-poms, and began cheering. "Go Lily, go Lily, you're the best helivore in the universe!"
Lily stopped threatening to crush the drive, and Aikari popped back to full size and slid to Lily's side as Violet led the way out.
"We need to get out of here and stop fluffing our tails." Violet scowled. It seemed that something the AI said had put her in a bad mood.
"Left," Aikari directed, seeming to fall in line given Violet’s tone. Our group quickly pivoted as she led us through the hallways by a very different route than we'd come through when entering.
"All right, since you have those lovely sabers, go to the end of that hall, kiss the wall, and then drill a hole through the floor.
You'll pop right back out the hole you came in from.
" The AI grinned. "And once you guys are clear, I'll just—" She held her hands together and spread them apart while making an explosion noise with her mouth, her hands continuing to swell above her head.