Pylo was not pleased with ▙◀ and her demiurges.

To be more precise she was absolutely furious, for one the pile of junk had blown up one of their legs right in front of her. For another they had interrupted a rather in depth conversation where she had been making a point on the finer aspects of proper context transformation when dealing with disparate cultural perspectives.

But those were hardly little more than mildly brusque and rude behavior against the thing that ▙◀ had enacted via its low level processes.

When she had responded to the light fluttering pitter of requests for manual digests on random bits of cargo and paraphernalia all around Tunie’s holds she’d metaphorically shrugged in the terran manner and shunted what she recalled to them.

The clarification and retranslation requests were a little bit rude, but honestly it was coming from sub processes that were arguable if they were as computationally capable as Tunie’s motiles.

If she had known what was ultimately going to be DONE with those digests she would have flat out denied them and possibly also forcefully restrained and smothered ▙◀ in a communication jamming song.

Pylo knew many languages, one of which was the language of Tunie’s internal symbiotic network. Not really useful in most cases, she mostly used it to perform more detailed analysis on motiles to check for aberrations from bit-rot.

But that meant she could feel and know in her ovi-reticuli and up and down her cortex stacks that there had been a breach. A very forceful one. She could feel the motiles surging to the site of the break.

She could taste in the resonance and the long light and the feint chemical traces filling the halls the panic of her friend’s immune system rallying to try and seal a bulkhead break. Force criteria significant, Big enough around that it would easily have allowed passage by pylo herself, or the terran walker.

In fact after a quick check Pylo recognized that for some reason Aleph was in the middle of the hold that had been breached!

▙◀ was pushing well past the line of what would be condoned or forgiven. She felt herself clenching in anticipation of needing to deploy a precision plague. Enzymes that would make sizzling goo of the main processing substrate and primary casing of the micro-polity. She began rallying caustic and insidious data payloads that would rip through the architecture and archives of ▙◀ like pure fluorine hungry and unbonded.

She surged into the chamber, noting the scorching on one of Tunie’s rotator locks. Then focused on the thing that had dared to mar Tunie’s bulkheads. Her ovi-riticuli were fizzing with the payload that would spread terrible wroth and contagion all over the thing and leave it a festering ruin.

“Pylo! Hey, wow you look pissed! Okay hey! Wait! El-sie can explain as soon as their done. Um I think they're trying to save someone's life and just hey-Hey-HEY!”

She was forced to stop, the shimmering sphere was interposed between her and the thing. She would not be able to deploy the contact payload.

Well she could reach out to the embassy and send the data payload and...

“Hey! Pylo! Talk to me! Tunie just did a shifting thing here and then one of the cans for the adults fell over and squashed a clerk! Hey! Look at me!”

[https://i.imgur.com/1IXxFOe.png]

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Pylo snapped her face to look at Aleph, surveying her riggling contours and the meanings behind them then recoiled sharply! Her expression slackening in shock, Aleph was terrified.

Aleph was terrified of HER.

She was primed, she was arched and flexed and furious with ▙◀ for injuring Tunie.

She could feel the payloads sizzling ready and eager to be unleashed on the one that would DARE hurt Tunie. She had promised herself she wouldn't let anyone hurt tunie.

Not again.

But Aleph was there, standing in her way, just like...

Pylo shuddered and swallowed hard.

The plague she had prepared for ▙◀ was sharp and stingy and resistant to being digested but eventually it recognized its mother and acquiesced and aborted itself.

Aleph cracked a strained smile as Pylo slumped down into a pile of limbs under the train of Tunie’s acceleration. Venting heavily the white clouds of ice to lower her metabolic temperature.

“Right, jeez what happened that got you so riled up Pylo? I’ve NEVER seen you that pissed off”

She looked over at ▙◀, then around for signs of the wound that had instigated so much rage.

All she saw were confused motiles and osteoblast symbiotes nuzzling around one particular section of bulkhead. It was pristine, although in the haze of chemical signals and more there was a stinging sensation of messages to denote that an injury should have been present.

Pylo was confused. She related to the nuzzling motiles, there was no injury but they obviously all thought there was one.

“They hurt Tunie, there was a breach...”

Aleph looked over at where Pylo was facing. And tilted her head.

“There was? I uh, didn't see what happened, it all went off too fast. Something was falling, and then suddenly El-sie was RIGHT THERE and now they are doing something with some weird magic staff thing that I think might be putting the kid that got squashed back together and...”

Pylo looked over to ▙◀ and boggled again.

“Why is she using the Brush for that? HOW?! is she using the Brush for that... the brush is for brushies!”

Aleph blinked slowly, then turned back to ▙◀.

“Wait, That’s the Brushie?! It’s... I didn't think... How is it so SMALL?!”

Pylo tilted her head the other way.

“Because? That’s the size I asked them to make it when I put in the commission?”

Aleph looked back and forth between the two of them mouth and eyes wide.

“That doesn't explain HOW though! Tunie told me what that does! How is it so small?!”

She shrugged, she didn't have the energy to put on airs. She was sticky and aching from rushing over here under acceleration. She was confused and perhaps a little bit embarrassed that she might have almost accidentally dissolved a micro-polity into mush and random static.

“I dunno, City Magic probably. You want the manual too?”

Aleph was staring at ▙◀ as they continued knitting the clerk back together with the brush. Honestly Pylo wanted to know how they were doing THAT, she didn't ask for the Brush to do that in the commission it was for brushies!

▙◀ better not have broken it. Pylo probably would dissolve the heap into ooze if she did. It would be so annoying to get another one.

Aleph finally seemed to have caught onto what she just said.

“Wait, there's a Manual?!”

Pylo sighed.

“Of course there's a manual! It’s engraved on the casing.”