Chapter 1 - Spades
"Another mission?" I groaned, slinging my pack down onto the bench. "I just got here!"
"I know, but no one else is available," Reever shrugged apologetically. He was one of my favorite people. I loved how he looked so adorably scruffy and unorganized when he was the real organization behind the science section. By all accounts, Supervisor Komui was a slob.
"What happened this time?" I asked, sitting down at the table. The dining hall slowly filled around us as lunch hour began.
"Komui made Kumurin 3," Reever suddenly looked as though the whole world had landed on his shoulders.
"Oooh, ouch," I sympathized, I really did. The first Komurin had almost killed me before it spotted that Exorcist, Kanda, and "changed priority". I remembered it like it was yesterday…
I had just come back to HQ from a mission to Ireland and the team and I were finishing our first good meal in weeks. The rest of the Finders and Exorcists had long since left the dining hall to go back to work but we had the night off so we lingered, savoring Jerry's cooking.
Suddenly, a loud crash came from the floor above us.
"What was that?" Mark asked. He was the rookie.
"Probably the Head Supervisor," Gary shrugged. As our captain, he was both team leader and mother hen. I caught a mischievous glint in his eyes. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Gary had a very limited sense of humor. He got his kicks out of teasing rookies. "Every month or so, he tears down the Science Section."
"Why?" Mark asked, his eyes the size of dinner plates.
"You've met him right?" Diego caught the glint in Gary's eye and was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. The banging from upstairs grew distinctly louder.
"Well, yeah," Mark squirmed uncomfortably under our combined gazes and smirks. He twitched as another crash sounded from above our heads.
"The first time I saw one of the Supervisor's experiments…" Diego trailed off, pulling a finger across his neck with a dramatic flourish. His heavy Spanish accent helped a lot too.
"We lost a couple of good Finders that day," Gary pretended to break into sobs and Gille put an arm around his shoulders.
"L-l-lost?" Mark stammered.
"Si," Diego said, leaning in. "It's said that he uses live Finders for all of his experiments."
"Yup," I chimed in. "This one time-"
BOOM.
Something crashed through the ceiling and we ducked for cover. Thankfully, the dining hall was empty except for us. I peeked up from under our table to see a humungous robot scanning the room with its humungous glass eye. It's gaze swung around the room and landed on us.
"Humans located," it said in a monotone voice. "Assessing threat level."
We stood up slowly as thin red lines of light ran up and down our bodies one by one. It cleared Gille, Mark, Dary and Diego then-
"Female Finder?" the robot suddenly glowed red. "Oddity found. Weirdo alert: Level 1, weirdo alert: Level 1."
"Hey!" I shouted. "Who do you think you're calling a weirdo?"
"Terminate," its red eye settled on me and small concentric red circles of light seemed to centre on my forehead. "Threat must be terminated." I barely heard the guys screaming and throwing things at it.
"Oh shit," I started running and the first semi-safe place was Jerry's vacant kitchen. I jumped into the front booth through the food slot and tried to climb through the hole and into the main kitchen. I say tried because I really wasn't getting anywhere.
"Target acquired," the robot picked me up through the open ceiling of the "cage" and held me at its eye level.
"Let go of me, you freak!" I squirmed and tried to kick its arm but it held on to my bra strap through my coat and shirt and my skin was starting to chafe from the stretch.
"Eliminating target," the robot blasted a hole in the wall and stepped into the main kitchen. It seemed to look all around the room before its gaze landed on a big hulking mass of bolts, switches and metal. "Method with least mess selected."
It opened up the lid despite my increasingly frantic escape attempts. I couldn't move my arms because of the way it held on to my jacket and kicking it hadn't done any good. It had probably just given me a broken toe. The robot flipped a switch on the control panel of the machine and it began hum. It held me over the opening and I saw and smelled its churning contents.
"A coffee grinder?" I asked as it slowly began lowering me into the humungous pot. I curled into a ball to slow down the process. "I hate coffee. Wouldn't it be better to just-"
The robot suddenly looked away. I followed its gaze and saw a grumpy looking Exorcist with a sword walking out of view through the archway entrance to the dining hall.
"Target changed," the robot dropped me and I bit back a cry of pain as my foot hit the kitchen floor. "Priority – girly Exorcist to be made more macho. Second class – elimination of female Finder."
"Jeez," I said, gingerly pulling myself to my feet against the kitchen counter. That foot probably was broken, not to mention my shoes and my bra.
"Are you okay?" Gary asked, climbing through the hole in the wall and rushing over to check on me. The rest of the team filed in behind him.
"Uh, sorry about that," Reever scratched the back of his neck and smiled sheepishly. "Komui's experiment got out of hand…"
"I'll live," I said, dusting my pants off. "I think I broke my toe, though-"
A humungous crash followed a low battle cry.
"KOMURIN!!! NO! KANDA, HOW COULD YOU?!!" shrieked a voice from somewhere outside the dining hall.
Reever slapped his forehead. "Excuse me," he said, trudging wearily off to find his boss.
"Lets get you to the hospital," Gary slung one of my arms over his shoulders and helped me off the counter. "Mark, help her."
Mark was staring deep into space, I think he was in shock.
"Walk it off, man," Gille slapped his back.
"Okay," Mark shook himself out of his reverie and lifted my other side. The poor kid looked terrified. As we hobbled out of the dining hall, his hand slipped against a funny piece of material under my shirt.
"Uh, May," he said, stopping suddenly. "Is that your-" he suddenly froze altogether, except for his eyes, which grew wider by the second.
"Yeah, sorry," I said, blushing despite my annoyance at his male naivette. "Apparently, bras don't do so well against robots."
"Oh," a funny look crossed his face then he suddenly doubled over, clutching his bleeding nose. "Uh… excuse me." He ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Eurgh," I grumbled and continued walking forward, forcing Gary to walk with me. "Men," I growled under my breath.
Gary burst out laughing and kept it up all the way to the hospital wing.
"May?" Reever waved his hand in front of my face. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, sorry," I said, blinking. "Flashbacks."
"Oh, right," he laughed, remembering the first time we met. "Anyway, this mission takes place somewhere pretty special so I really need you to go along."
"What's so special about it?"
"Well, apparently, there's this bed… in an alehouse…"
"Mmhmm…" I urged him on, leaning in to listen. This wasn't something you heard every day.
"It keeps apparating between two rooms," he said. "And it apparently does so at the worst times. Meaning when the barmaids are…"
"Oh," I said, raising my eyebrows. "And I'm the only Finder who won't be tempted by the buxom lasses?"
"Exactly," he smiled.
"Okay, do I have to leave right now?"
"Preferably."
"Damn."
"I'm sorry, May," he said. He looked it too.
"It's okay," I assured him. "Is the regular team coming with me?"
"Yeah, they're being briefed by Komui as we speak."
"Mmkay, I'll finish this then join them."
"Thanks, May," Reever smiled, waving as he walked off. "Good luck!"
I smiled, returning his wave. My mouth was already full of good ol' mashed potatoes. If the Order didn't exist, I supposed I would know how to make mashed potatoes myself. I'd always figured that I would've been a cook or an innkeeper or something someday. But that was before Akuma killed my parents and the Innocence in our house rejected me.
That had been two years ago, when I was 14. I had just moved in with my new foster family when General Cloud Nyne had been dispatched to retrieve the Innocence from an old mirror in the house. None of the Tailors were compatible with it, even me. A couple of hours after she had left, Akuma had turned up and shot the place to hell. I just happened to survive because I had gone to the well a short walk away from the house.
I walked for miles after that, trying to catch up with her. I had to follow her for days before she let me follow her to HQ to join the Finders. I didn't have anywhere else to go. My real mother had been an orphan and then a maid in the orphanage that I grew up in. She had died giving birth to me and I'd lived there until the Tailors had come looking for a girl to help run their farm. The Tailors had been nice people and I suppose it was revenge that pushed me to follow the General.
Joining the Finders hadn't been easy. Akuma made my blood boil and staying on the sidelines was against my nature. But I felt like I had to do something and so I convinced the General that this was what I wanted to do. It was a while before she gave in and after a while, I understood her reluctance.
I was 14 and already I was signed off to an unstable, unknown future. The number 1 unspoken rule of being a Finder was: "Don't expect to be alive tomorrow" which went hand in hand with "don't expect a life until after the Millenium Earl is dead" and who knew when that would happen.
I heard Gary call my name from across the hall and I stuffed in a last piece of lamb steak. I caught up wit the guys and we were on our way to France.