Normally, when her hive units ate something, she would only gain a portion of the makeup of the thing; that way, she would either need to eat more of it before her body could adapt and change to make it her own or give it time to try and rework and complete the missing information on its on.
It was no different this time around, either.
She knew her body would need time to rework the information before she could gain the ability the girl had; at least, that was what she thought. She was fine with this because she knew getting the time needed to eat the girl with the Agents around and returning back home soon would be hard.
What she didn't expect was that it would be so quick.
For some reason, be it because she had abilities similar to the one the girl had already, or maybe because of the way the makeup was structured, she was able to gain a large portion of it at once.
Her body was able to complete it and adapt to it quickly.
And that was when the burst of emotions came forth.
They weren't her emotions, at least not all of them. They were the emotions of everyone around her, within and even outside of the building.
It all came at her at once, like waves crashing against her over and over. It was hard to control the ability, even with her current capabilities.
If this was how the girl felt, even a fraction of this, it was no confusion as to why she turned out the way she did. This was nothing short of insanity, even for a being such a Lily that heard all of the hive at once, all the time.
She tried her best to suppress it, but it was difficult to do so with her current mental capabilities. She was able to lessen it to within a few feet of her, but even then, she could feel the emotions of the hostages.
The reason it was so hard to control was simple: the ability granted an aspect of her mental capabilities an enormous boost while not improving the other aspects.
To put it into perspective, it was as if you added a ton of sugar to a cake you were making without balancing out the other ingredients.
It would be overwhelming.
With one idea in mind of how to overcome this current issue, she turned to her information panel.
'Upgrade Mental to 300.'
It was overkill, but she wanted to get mental up for a while now but was hesitant in wasting mass; she was just looking for a reason to do so. And now she was provided with one.
Suddenly, her mental state spiked, and immediately, she could feel the changes it had over her mental capabilities and the abilities pertaining to her mental capabilities.
For one, she now had full control over the emotional control the girl had; she was able to turn it off freely, and if she wanted, she could even have it on all the time and only face minor issues due to it.
All she had to do was allocate a portion of her mind to continuously monitoring it.
The hive became much more clear as well; there was no longer any mental strain or limit because of the great distance between them. It was as if she was there with them; regardless of how far they were, she was perfectly connected to all of them.
'The evolution is much closer, I can feel it. I'm just missing something, something to trigger it.'
She could feel her body and mind was itching to evolve with how much it had changed since she was born, but something was still missing to add to the evolution, to trigger it, but she didn't know what yet.
She wasn't worried, though. She still had time, she wasn't in a rush, she didn't have some grand goal or purpose. She wasn't seeking revenge or honor.
She simply wanted to become strong enough to not fear anything in this cosmo, to not have to worry about anything. Even her race's goal was simply to grow and evolve without any specific purpose.
She thought to herself for a matter of a second, her thought process much faster thanks to her enhanced mental capabilities. Once out of her mind, she straightened her body and returned to the area with the hostages, having walked away to hide her discomfort.
The hole that the worm had created got buried when it returned to the ground as the stone and dirt caved in to fill in the gap it had created. At best, it would just look like a sinkhole caused by the construction that was halted, or even a hole that was meant for construction but never got finished; it was, after all, an abandoned building.
At worst, she could just use her ability on them again, but why would they question a minor detail such as a hole in the ground when they find their target dead and hostages freed.
Shortly after she returned, Agent May and Agent Coulson came into the building, the gunmen were already captured by the soldiers sent in, and the hostages were being taken care of.
"Where's the little girl?"
Asked Agent May before anything else. She glanced at the crowd and didn't see her presence, which made her concerned. The entire reason this situation escalated to this point was because of the little girl, after all.
"Little girl? There was no girl when I came in."
Lily said, outright lying. This would drastically change the outcome of the timeline, especially when it connects to S.H.I.E.L.D. since this situation was the reason May retired from the field and took on desk work.
Killing the little girl was a trauma that haunted her for years; however, due to Lily's interference, that didn't happen, and due to that the timeline would drastically change.
Even the smallest of changes can cause a ripple of effects.