Fear

The girls trembled in fear, surprised by his sudden aggressive behavior which he rarely showed in front of them. What had they done wrong? It was all Rose's fault for breaking her promise and going ahead! Now their Master was furious! How were they supposed to calm him down?

Because of their surprised e the multiple wrong readings about the whole situation, these girls didn't know how to respond to him. This only helped escalating even more the situation as Apollo's imagination continued to run wild and his pessimism took over his mind, making him imagine the most terrible possibilities.

Apollo looked around and only saw scared girls, cowering in fear. In a normal situation he would have felt guilty but at this point his mind was anything but normal, making assume that his worst fears were actually true.

His hands were shaking, his vision turned blurry as water started to accumulate in his eyes, he felt an urge to hit someone but his education would never allow him to do such a thing, even in this abnormal state, forcing him to target all his rage and fear at the table before him. He lifted his two hands once more, ignoring the splinters and the scratches caused by his last strike, and just as he resolved himself to do it once more a voice stopped him halfway.

"Master? What's wrong?"

"Rose!"

Throwing his chair aside, Apollo ran to Rose, giving her a strong, warm hug.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

"M-m-master!? W-w-what's w-wrong?"

Rose's green face turned red as a tomato, but Apollo completely ignored that and continued to repeat the same thing again and again.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

"M-master?"

This was not the start of a love story. Well, maybe in Rose's imaginary realm a few fanfics could be born, but nothing would ever reach reality.

Apollo's feelings for Rose was that of a father's love for his daughters. Rose was for sure the one closest to him, and while he tried his best to treat them all the same, the human heart is never that fair, always playing favorites, so it was obvious that he would end up being closer to the ones closest to him.

Remembering two weeks ago, how did his feeling grew in such a way? They had been together for just two weeks, even less for quite a few of them, but he felt closer to these girls than any other human he met before.

Back in the colony, Apollo's relations with everybody was always shallow at best. Whenever they were around, he would play with them, smiled at them, tell jokes and talk a lot, like they were best friend, but whenever the excuse appeared or an escape opportunity arrived, he would run faster than a deer chased by a lion back to the virtual world.

A lonely life, an unhealthy lifestyle but for good or bad he had been forced to stop, and now, maybe for the first time of his life, Apollo was completely unable to run away. He was forced to face people and show his good and bad side, without the mask that could easily fall apart, resulting in real connections that went beyond a shallow relationship.

Those girls that had been made by his own hands.

Those girls that had risked their lives to follow his commands.

Those girls whose life was so short but so bright at the same time.

Apollo was unable to ignore them.

Apollo couldn't help but fall in love with them.

Apollo was afraid to lose them.

Apollo wanted to protect all of them.

But Apollo was too weak, so at times like this, feeling hopeless and powerless, he was filled with despair.

The scene continued for a few more seconds as Apollo's bottled up emotions slowly dispersed on every thank you he said. Finally he stopped saying and too a deep breath, which gave Rose just enough time to question him again.

"Master, why are you thanking me?"

"Thank you, for being alive."

This time it was a false alarm.

This time everything was okay.

But what about next time?

--//--

After having his meal and treating his hand, Apollo exited the tent only to came across Ivy and Mika exiting from the forest covered in sweat.

While Mika was visibly tired, panting, out of breath, Ivy was just as bad but she was doing her best to appear as if she was fine.

Seeing this scene, Apollo smiled, imagining what had happened. Feeling a bit responsible, he approached the two and patted their head, letting out a word of thanks.

"Thank you for your hard work, but don't over work yourselves."

Apollo had seen how much stamina each of these girls had. They could go on and on running for hours before dropping a single drop of sweat. For them to reach the state they were in front of him, he could only guess how hard they had worked, but this made him question a little, was there really the need to work that hard?

Funny of him to question this when it was he himself who was doing the same to the point of not eating any food until a few minutes ago. Some humans have short memory, but man, there should be a limit!

Back to the story, Apollo had already talked to Rose, who explained what she had found to him. For a second there Rose debated inside her mind if it was better to just hide everything, but one look at her Master's eyes made her change her mind. There was plenty of determination on those eyes, a lot more than even when he was charging at the enemy during the last battle against Ector's army.

"Ivy, guide me to the cave you found. Bacon, take a rest. Boare, I will be counting on you."

"Yes, Master..."

Boare looked visibly sad and jealous of her other sisters who were staying behind, because she was the only one who had to separate from her big sister(Bacon) just as she had met her again after two long days away, but this didn't stop her from following her Master's order and transforming into a giant boar.

"Mint, you come as well. As for the rest of you, you can go back to the base, and once there, Rose, you contact the second base and tell them how the situation was solved and that they are free to open their gates again."

"Understood!"

""Yes, Master!""