"Why the sudden interest in cooking?"
416 had taken the whole morning mustering up her pride to go to the behind the base's mess hall and ask the T-Doll in charge of a good amount of the cooking, HK G36, for guidance on the less tactical and more homely skills of cooking. 416 clenched the hem of her skirt and diverted her eyes. She figured that asking the fellow German riflewoman would have less inquisitive results than asking head cook Springfield, but now she found herself fighting with her own pride to answer a simple question.
"I'm sure she has her own reasons to cook, so why don't you just teach her?" Springfield alleviated the tension and patted 416 in the shoulder. "Besides, it's soon going to be that day, isn't it? The day of chocolate gifting."
416 felt her gut drop, having been found out by Springfield. She knew that asking so soon to Valentine's would be too obvious, but with the constant missions and M16's nosiness, she had had no option but to put it off until now.
"Well, the chores of the day have been taken care of already, so I see no harm in teaching you if Springfield says so." 416 let out her tension through a sigh before she was handed an apron by Springfield.
"Maybe after you're done, you can make something for us as payment," the American T-Doll suggested as she hung her apron and waved the two good bye.
"So, who's it for?" G36 asked bluntly as she began to take out several bowls and cooking utensils.
"Does it matter?" 416 asked as she took off her beret and tied the apron around herself.
"... No, I suppose not. So, what is it that you want to make?" Once she had most of the necessary equipment, G36 turned around to see that the key ingredient had been laid out on the counter next to 416.
"Liquor?" G36 asked as she inspected the bottle of Jack Daniels. "This will require tempered chocolate, a difficult process for beginners. Are you ready for such a challenge?"
416 humphed, as if such question was necessary. "I'm IOP's finest, chocolate won't present any problems."
Chocolate had presented much more problems than M16's drinking during expeditions. Despite G36's precise instructions, the whole "chocolate tempering" had proven to be so much more difficult than what 416 had expected. The supposedly simple process of heating, cooling and heating the chocolate had gone through so much trial and error that it went through three whole batches of ingredients (three whole batches too many, as 416 could feel the knives that G36's eyes were stabbing in her back). This whole cooking experience could have taken only a few minutes instead of the two or three hours that it took if 416 had asked her fellow German T-Doll to do it for her, but 416 had been determined to make this herself, for that drunken woman she called a squadmate.
Despite the trials and tribulations of handling precise temperatures for a stupid liquor filled dessert, 416 felt an immense pride swell up inside her once she had finished the set of chocolates. Nothing had beaten her will and chocolate was not about to break that undefeated streak.
G36 wanted to feel impressed for the results of only a couple of hours of cooking experience on 416's side, but the only thing she felt impressed by was the rare sight of a smile and blush on her face.
"Hmm… where's 416…? I can't walk another step..." G11 struggled to keep up with her squadmates through the thick snowfield and failed to spot the one who would carry her through such ordeals.
"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen her ever since Angela told us to retreat from the incoming S. F. ringleaders," UMP9 recalled as she looked around her surroundings.
"Hmm, that woman will turn up soon, don't worry about her. That means you have to pull your own weight, G11," UMP45 said with a sly smile only spared a single second before resuming her stride.
"Eeeh, can't we take a break and wait for her?" G11 whined as she did her best to use her rifle as a walking cane.
"If you can't walk anymore, 45 and I will gladly drag you through the cold snow! Right, 45?" UMP9 asked cheerfully, and G11 only whined again when their leader agreed with 9's suggestion.
"Sorry if I held you up." 416's voice came from behind them, as she caught up to the rest of her squad.
"Talk of the devil, there she is," 45 greeted her missing teammate with a coy smile.
"Glad to see you in a single piece! Angela seemed really desperate to get us out of there, we thought some S. F. bigshot had blown you to smithereens!" 9's slightly warmer welcome did little to change 416's stoic expression.
"416! Where were you?! Carry me…" G11's pleas finally worked on someone when 416 took her arm, but instead of being picked up, she started to get dragged across the snow. UMP9 clapped her hands and moved to take G11's other arm and help 416 drag their teammate. "45, help meee!"
45 stared at G11 for a brief moment and chuckled. "Didn't you say you couldn't walk another step? Be glad your caretaker is here!"
"Eeeh…"
"So, was your delivery successful, 416?" 45 asked with a knowing smile that only irritated the grenadier.
"Of course, I have never failed an assignment," 416 said nonchalantly as she kept moving forward, with a whimpering G11 right behind her.
Walking up a small hill, M16A1 overviewed the S. F. forces entrusted to her by Mastermind trek through the snow towards their new objective. Frankly, her units were having more difficulties moving through the terrain than she hoped for, but such clumsiness had already been taken into consideration for her ETA.
Giving the snowfield one last check, she began to walk down the hill she was in before her foot hit something that wasn't snow.
M16 was taken aback when she picked up the item she had found; she knew she had lost many things she enjoyed when she took on this new form, but it seemed that she had been lucky enough for the yearly tradition of the sweet treat from an "unknown" benefactor was still alive. Opening the carefully wrapped gift box, M16 took a deep breath of its contents, the sweet aroma of chocolate and Jack Daniels filling her lungs. At least she now knew that this snowy mission would be warmed up by 416, again.