Author's note: This chapter doesn't have a lot of action in the beginning, but I made it longer and included some action at the end to compensate. Sorry, but the explanations had to be made...
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The meeting with the supervisor was not what Minuet had expected. Linalee had bade her to wait outside while she announced their presence to the supervisor, and closed the door behind her. That didn't stop her from hearing the sounds of them trying to wake up the man behind the desk from reaching her ears. First, she smiled as she heard the soft urgings of Linalee to wake up. Then, she snickered as Linalee and a few men raised their voices, and nothing happened. She then became rather confused as she heard something to the effect of "Linalee is on a date with a boy," and then some ominous whirring sound that she the exorcists beside her identified as a 'drill'. Allen in particular shuddered at the sound, saying that Min was lucky to not have been born with any innocence, or she'd get to know that drill quite personally.
Finally, the door opened, and Linalee allowed them to enter. "You must be Princess Minuet. Welcome to the Dark Religious Order Headquarters." The man speaking to her had black hair and glasses. "My name is Komui Lee, and I am the supervisor here."
"Greetings. First off, if we're not in any formal meetings or such, Min will do just fine. I hate being so caught up on formalities that true communication is lost." She smiled at the man, then gestured to one of the seats in the paper-strewn office. "May I? It's been quite a journey here, and I feel the need to rest my legs."
"Of course, please make yourself comfortable." He took his seat once more, and continued. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Coffee?" Min raised an eyebrow. "My father drinks that. I don't know how he does it, but I can't get it past my nose. If you have some herbal tea, I would gladly take a mug." Linalee nodded, and went off in search for the often unused herbal tea.
"Now, to business." Komui, suddenly looking more like a supervisor and less like an older brother, studied Min closely as he spoke. "My exorcists tell me that you are hunting an enemy, and that you followed it here through the rift made by the innocence. Can you elaborate?"
"In a minute. May I secure this room? If my prey catches a bit of my tale on the wind, it will make the hunt infinitely more difficult." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, hand-held harp, like the ones she used against the Akuma.
At Komui's affirmative nod, she began to play a simple melody, weaving in as many protective notes as she could, bidding the music and the wind to keep her words trapped within the room. Once she had finished composing the song, she whispered samoht, and set the still playing instrument on the desk in front of Komui. "Now, do you want the long or short version of my tale? The long version may take... days to recount."
At the word 'days', Allen groaned. He was getting hungry! Luckily, Komui also realized the need for food, and the lack of time in the busy headquarters, so he opted for the short version.
"Alright," she began, "The enemy is one of the primordial races, born at the beginning of time in my world. They are the beings born of the element of fire, and are called the F'dor. They are a parasitic being that attaches to humans and other younger beings, and feeds off of their soul. They desire one thing, and that is complete and total destruction. That is to say, that they want to return existence back to to void that came before everything we see in the universe. Naturally, the rest of the races are opposed to this, and the F'dor were trapped within a vault at the center of our world. They escaped through the cataclysmic impact of a star and our world. Many of them escaped, and have been causing havoc in our world ever since. Most of the ones that have escaped have been slain, but not all. The one that I am hunting discovered the passage between our two worlds, and passed through. Naturally, I followed it, and ran into Allen, Lavi, and Bookman. From there, I think you have the rest of the story." She took a breathe, and launched into the proposal she had been pondering since her arrival, and hearing the history of the Dark Order. "That being said, I have a proposition for you. I cannot find this monster on my own. Your world is simply too strange to me. If I was my uncle, then there would be no problem, but sadly, I am not. From what I hear, you are in desperate need of people to fight against the Akuma and the Millennium Earl. I propose an alliance. I am willing to help you in your war, and all I
ask is for you to help me in mine."
"What can we do to help?" From the sound of it, these F'dor were independent, more powerful versions of Akuma, and something the world could do without, but he didn't know how the Order, struggling as it was with its own war, could help this woman.
"What you can do, is keep me up to date with any strange occurrences, random outbreaks of violence, mysterious deaths, particularly within the clergy, that sort of thing. These creatures are extremely intelligent, and completely capable of orchestrating wars that will span the entire globe if they go unchecked." Minuet thought this should be something relatively easy to do, since from what she had heard, they kept apprised of supernatural events anyway, and random acts of violence would not be so taxing an addition to their watch.
"I believe we can do that. But, what can you offer us in return?" Komui had heard of the strange healing ability, and the use of music to stop the Akuma dead in their tracks, but if there was more she could do...
"What do you need?"
"Honestly, we need more exorcists. We have only a few, and they are the only ones who can kill Akuma, at least the only ones who can destroy them and purify the souls used to power them." If this woman was an accommodator, then their problems would be solved.
"I have no idea if I could be an exorcist. I had never heard of Innocence before I came here."
"There's only one way to know, Komui." It was Bookman who spoke this time. "Take her to see Hevulaska.
"Who's Hevulaska?"
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The lift down to the bowls of the Order was...disconcerting to say the least. There was nothing attaching it to the rest of the tower! But, the rest of the group seemed to trust it, so Min and Komui stepped on board, and rode the lift down together, Allen and the rest of the exorcists waving down to them. The being called Hevulaska was not at all what Min thought she would be. She was mildly resemblant of a Dragon in elemental form mixed with a mythlin, but not quite. She didn't know what to make of her, so she observed silently as Komui explained the situation. "..so, do you feel anything from any of the Innocences in you?"
She closed her eyes, and focused on the pieces of ether within her, and replied softly, "yes." A single piece of the Innocence was brought up and out of the creature, and held out to Minuet as Komui's eyes widened in pleasant surprise.
Not really knowing why, the namer reached out and took the Innocence in her hand. She could feel the power and age coursing through the tiny bit of star matter she held in her hand, and she could almost hear it whispering its secrets to her. But, there was something off... "You're out or tune..." She whispered to the Innocence. "You're a little flat. Here." She hummed a soft note, ever so slightly higher than the soft emissions of the Innocence. The cube matched the tone, and instantly liquefied. In her hand, it took on the shape of a diamond dragon, reflecting the light given off by Hevulaska, and refracting it into all the visible colors. The dragon stretched its wings, took flight, and dove straight into Minuet's chest. She gasped as blinding pain coursed throughout her body. It felt as though fire liquid fire flowed through her veins, followed by a glacial chill. A primal scream erupted from her throat, but instead of the clear, single voice came the multi-tonal vibrations of her dragon ancestors. She fell to her knees, tears leaking out of the corners of her tightly clenched eyes.
Komui, a panicked look on his face, rushed to her side, and put his arms around her. He held her tightly, whispering softly in her ears, trying vainly to get her to relax, until Hevulaska warned him to stand back. At that moment, Minuet felt something tearing at her back, and then a sudden release of pressure as two gigantic, leathery wings exploded from her back. The fire and ice in her veins seemed to separate, and gather in her throat and palms respectively. A soothing coolness settled in her feet, and her forehead suddenly ached as though she had spent years reading physics textbooks without taking a break. Just as suddenly as it started, the pain stopped, and Minuet lay gasping on the floor.
The woman before Komui looked almost nothing like the gentle woman that had come in through the door earlier that day. Visible all over her body were lines of shimmering white scales, sparkling in the soft light. The scales followed the lines of her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw, the contours of her neck, and across the bridge of her nose. They formed a mask around her eyes, once a vivid green, now sparkling white. They were somewhat similar to Allen's, but brighter still. The pupils of her eyes were no longer round and human, but serpentine, and barely visible among the glittering of her diamond irises were minuscule stars, forming a ring around the pupil. The diamond scales wrapped themselves around her arms and legs, and if one were to look beneath her clothes, they would find scales following the lines of her ribs and the contours of her hips. On her forehead was the mark of a many pointed star, shimmering slightly with an iridescent quality not unlike that of Hevulaska. On her throat was a ruby red, long bodied dragon, spiraling about her voice box, and breathing a small plume of fire. On each hand were linear representations of waves in cobalt blue. The wings retreated down into her back, leaving a pure white, linear representation of dragon wings on her shoulder blades. On each foot was a finely detailed, almost photo perfect, drawing of the Great White Oak and Sagia, the first and last of the trees sprung from the five places of time's birth. "W-what...what happened?" Even her voice had changed, for as soon as Min spoke, she thought that perhaps Elynsynos had somehow come to this world, but... that wasn't possible. But her voice... it was a mixture of her old one, and a vibrational manipulation that the voiceless dragons fashioned to communicate with humans. "Komui? What happened?"
Komui thought for a moment, then knelt down beside her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and smiled softly, comfortingly, like he used to do for Linalee. "You've synchronized with your Innocence. I've never seen it done so...literally before, but, well, there you have it. It seems your Innocence is a parasitic type, thought what it does, we won't know for a while yet. Not until you invoke it."
"Invo- Oh MITHRAS!" Min curled in on herself again as she was assaulted by millions upon millions of details she had missed before. 3,3927,487,298,001 holes in the iron floor, 2,260 electrical charges released in Komui's muscles, 5 different chemicals released- surprise- "STOP IT!" She screamed at the vocal manifestation of the draconic blood the Innocence seemed to have awakened.
"Stop what? What's wrong?" Komui was worried now- she was the proper accommodator for this Innocence- it had synchronized with her on its own. So why was she having such a painful reaction?
"It woke it up, oh Mithras, oh gods it woke it up..." She took several deep breaths, and promised her dragon blood that she would let it experience the world, but later. That seemed to pacify the little voice, and she could focus on what Komui was saying.
"... possible that she wasn't the accommodator?"
"Komui..." He rushed to her side, listening intently. "I am the accommodator. The complications come from my racial makeup. Contact with such a pure element awakened the dragon blood in me. That comes with certain... problems. That's what I was yelling about. I'm fine. Really. Can we...can we go? I need... I need to see the sky. Please?" He nodded, and the elevator began its ascent, not noticing the tears crystallizing into diamonds beneath the iron grating.
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Hopefully, that was enough action to make up for boring exposition, and the wait.
