Min stared at the stranger in the mirror, barely recognizing her own face. So much had changed... She truly looked frightening now. At least, perhaps, the marriage proposals would stop once she showed her face in her Mother's court, and the people saw how strange she looked. Then again, the strangeness did not take away from the beauty she had inherited from her mother, so perhaps not.
It was only when Komui mentioned food that Min realized how hungry she truly was. Though, the idea of going into the cafeteria looking like she did was a bit...frightening. Still, these people would see her one way or another, so she might as well get it over with. Her own clothing had been torn to shreds as the Innocence merged with her body, so Komui had someone bring her an exorcist's uniform. It was a little on the large side, but it would do until they had finished customizing her own uniform.
Komui, of course, tried to take this moment to escape from his paperwork, but Linalee wouldn't let him. Instead, she took charge of Min, and showed her to the cafeteria. Once she entered, a hushed silence reigned as the assorted exorcists and finders caught sight of her. She truly was an impressive, and beautiful sight, though of course, taking after her mother, Minuet took the uncomfortable silence as a negative thing, and sighed.
"This way. I'll introduce you to our chef, Jerry." Linalee lead her to the window where a man with pink hair braided into two very long braids.
As soon as he noticed the two women, he immediately set down the wok he was using to stir fry someone's lunch, leaned out the window. "Oh! You must be the new girl! Looks like you're an exorcist, and a PARASITIC type too! Oh! I'm going to love cooking for you! Please, tell me something to cook for you."
Min didn't quite know what to make of the man, so she turned to Linalee, with a look on her face that clearly said 'please help me!' Linalee smiled, and turned to Jerry and said, "While she's thinking of something, could I please have some chicken mei fun, and a cup of tea?"
"Of course you can, darling! Coming right up! Take your time, sweetie!" The last was directed at Min, who still had no idea what she should do.
"Just think of something you'd like, and Jerry will cook it for you. It doesn't matter what it is, he'll make it for you. Since you're a parasitic type, I'd order a lot of food. The Innocence takes quite a bit of energy to keep up." Linalee smiled as Jerry handed her the meal impossibly fast. "Just think of something, and I'm sure he can make it for you."
"Let's see... Can you make a roast of venison in a rosemary sage and mushroom sauce, flaky biscuits with honey, a tomato salad with a sharp cheese crumbled on top, and carrots cooked with dill and butter? And can I have that in portions that would feed a parasitic type? I don't really know how much that is, since I just got my Innocence about half a candle mark ago." Jerry's eyes lit up at the order, since no one ever ordered venison, and few people could give him such specific instructions to follow about seasoning. He had a feeling that he would get along well with the new exorcist.
"Of course, sweetie! Go have a seat, and I'll bring it out to you when its done." With that, he started on the large meal.
Min, taking his advice, found a seat next to Allen, who had just finished his own meal, and was piling the empty dishes on top of each other, to make some room. "May I sit next to you, Allen?"
"Sure! I was just finishing, but I don't have anything to do, so I'll keep you company." Of course, he'd ask her about her Innocence once she sat down. "So I take it your meeting with Komui and Hevulaska went alright? I mean, you got Innocence, right?"
"I did, but it wasn't all that pleasant." Putting it mildly- that had been one of the most painful experiences of her life.
"So, what does it do, your Innocence?" Allen was extremely curious as to what the lines and symbols did.
"Well, I haven't invoked her yet, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the elements. I have five symbols, representing the five primordial elements of creation, and dragons are able to commune with the elements, so it makes sense." On the trip here, she had breifly explained the lore surrounding the creation of her world to Bookman, Lavi, and Allen, so the white haired exorcist knew to what she was referring. "Komui thought it would be a good idea to let me eat and rest before I attempt to invoke her."
"Her?" Allen had never heard of anyone's Innocence having a gender...
"Her. Well, I don't know if the Innocence itself has a gender, but the dragon blood it awoke is definitely feminine." She had actually spent a good deal of time spent in front of the mirror subduing the child like dragon within her mind, asking it to be patient, and experience things as Minuet does. Eventually, they reached a compromise. Min would allow the dragon to count and examine whatever she wanted, as long as it did not distract Min, or cause any...socially awkward situations.
"What do you mean by waking up the dragon blood?"
Minuet was saved from answering by Jerry bringing out three carts full of everything she had ordered. "This is enough to feed five large Firbolg warriors! With some to spare!" Jerry simply laughed it off, and returned to the kitchen.
"Parasitic types eat a lot more than normal people. I eat enough to feed five to six people twice my size each sitting, as well." He gestured to the carts as he spoke. "You'd better eat it before it gets cold."
As soon as Min took the first bite, she understood what Allen had been talking about. She was suddenly ravenous. The entire meal was gone within three minutes. And her stomach still felt empty. "I think I'll ask for seconds..." She returned from the window with another serving of the same size, to Allen's amazement.
"You're not serious, right? You're... that's twice as much as I eat!"
"I'm still hungry!" Again, the food seemed to disappear, as if by magic. By the end of lunch, she had eaten the equivalent of three deer in venison alone, and enough bread and vegetables to feed an entire Firbolg tribe. "That was delicious, but I don't think I'll be eating for quite a while..."
Allen laughed, fully expecting to see her eating just as much for dinner. It was at that precise moment that Lavi entered the cafeteria, followed closely by Kanda, who had Mugen drawn, and his hair braided.
"Baka usugi! Come back here! You are dead!" He looked and sounded pissed.
Lavi, of course, didn't listen to him, but ran instead to Allen. "ALLEN! HELP ME!" Of course, as soon as he stopped at Allen and Min's table, Mugen was at his neck. "Yuu-chan! Please don't kill me!"
"You interrupted my meditation, and braided my hair. And don't. call. me. Yuu. My name is Ka- UGH!" He was cut off as Min, who was in her seat across the table a minute ago, lifted him off the ground from behind, and held him against a wall. In his surprise, Kanda had accidentally dropped Mugen, and so he was defenseless.
"Do. Not. Hurt. Lavi." The voice that spoke was not Minuet's, but purely a manipulation of the air around them to create the sound of words. It was purely the dragon. Although, as soon as Min realized what had happened, she wrested control of the dragon, and set Kanda down. "Are you alright? I'm sorry, but, well, it's complicated." The voice this time was 100% Min, since the dragon was now in the non-physical form of a 'time out'.
"Complicated how?" Kanda, more shaken than anything, needed to know what to expect from the- wait. She didn't look like that earlier. "What happened to you?" he asked quickly after.
"I received a piece of Innocence, and it woke up the dragon blood." Minuet paused a moment before sighing and continuing. "The dragon is very possessive, and when you threatened Lavi, who she considers a part of her hoard, she had to act. I'm sorry I didn't stop her sooner. I'm still very new to this sort of thing."
"So you're an exorcist now, too? That's great!" Lavi, who didn't seem to be disturbed at all at being considered a part of a dragon's hoard, interjected.
Kanda, however, was not so flippant about being slammed into a wall. "What do you mean 'hoard'?"
Min sighed. This might take a while. "You've heard that dragons are greedy, right?" At his affirmative nod, she continued. "That is not true. I've heard my great, great grandmother explain it like this. Dragons are not greedy, we only want what we feel belongs to us, and we will guard what we feel belongs to us with everything we have, be it a single gold coin, a person, or a country. Lavi is a friend of mine, and therefore holds a place in the hoard. When you attacked him, the dragon felt that you were trying to take him away, and refused to let you do that."
"So... this means that Yuu-chan can't hurt me in front of you?" Lavi had a look of pure mischief on his face as he spoke, making Min a bit reluctant to answer.
"Until I forge a better hold on the dragon, yes. And any marks on you will make it difficult to keep the dragon in check. Like the bruise forming on your bicep. Did Kanda hit you there?"
"How did you know?" The arm in question was covered by a sleeve.
"There's a bit of heat gathering there, and I can smell the blood this close to the surface. It won't get too bad, but I'll heal it anyway." Lavi expected her to use the empathetic healing like she did before, but instead she started humming a staccato tune(1) that just seemed to suit Lavi. The successor to Bookman could feel the bruise going away, and after a moment it was completely gone. "All done. Feel better?"
"Yeah, I feel great! Thanks!"
It was at this precise moment that Linalee returned to the dining room. "Lavi, Allen, and Min, my brother needs to see you in his office. Lavi, do you know where Bookman is?"
"The library, like usual. Want me to get him?" When she nodded yes, Lavi headed off to the library, letting Linalee lead the other two off to Komui's office.
"My brother doesn't really want to send you out on a mission without you ever activating your Innocence, Min, but he really doesn't have much of a choice." Linalee was a little worried about their newest exorcist, though from what she had heard from Allen, Lavi, and Bookman, the dragonesque woman had been a formidable force even before she gained the Innocence, and she had seen her singlehandedly take down Kanda without breaking a sweat, so she suspected that she would be fine.
"I take it, then, that this mission is very important?" Whatever it was, the Dark Order had to realize that her priorities would always be the destruction of the F'dor, so sending her out on important missions seemed to be a little irresponsible at the least.
"I'll let my brother explain it, but yes, it is. All of the exorcists are going to be participating." Linalee would say no more, wanting to wait for Lavi and Bookman before giving information.
Once the whole group was assembled in Komui's office, the supervisor began to speak. "As you may or may not be aware, one of our generals, General Yaegar, has been killed in the line of duty. It seems that the enemy is targeting the generals specifically, so we are splitting the exorcists into teams that are to seek out and protect our four remaining generals. Three of those generals' whereabouts are known, Generals Theadore, Klaud Nine, and Zokaro. The fourth general, General Cross, has not contacted headquarters in over four years."
"That's what we call a 'deserter' in my world," Min said softly, with a small smirk on her face. "If Grunthor got ahold of him, gods, I don't even want to think about what he'd do to him."
"Well, you'd better keep this Grunthor fellow away from General Cross, then, because you five will be guarding him."
As soon as the words left Komui's mouth, an unexpected reaction was seen in Allen. "NO!" he yelled, "I refuse! Anyone but Cross!" A subtle, yet unmistakable undertone of panic and fear was present in the white haired boy's voice, and it made Min more than a little curious.
"What do you have against General Cross?"
"I was his apprentice." The involuntary shudder was enough to tell the namer that this was not a desirable position.
"Is he really that horrible?" Min wanted to know exactly what kind of man she was dealing with. After all, Allen was still, in her opinion, a child, and a part of her hoard. If this Cross had mistreated him...
"Wait- he hasn't contacted Headquarters for over four years, how does he live?" Lavi tried to think of how he would get the basic necessities, but couldn't come up with anything.
"Debt. He borrows money, gambles, and lives on debt. When I traveled with him, he'd dump them all on me, and make me work them off. He spent so much money on alcohol, cigarettes, and women... I still have nightmares about the amount of debt..." Each word enraged Minuet more and more. If she could help it, Allen would never have to suffer under him again. When the war was over, maybe he could come back to Tyrian with her... She'd talk to him about it after the war was over.
"Be that as it may, Allen, you know him better than anyone. You're experience with him will be invaluable in the search." Komui understood, really he did, but they needed to find the general. "You set out tomorrow morning."
"Do we even have any clue as to where he might be, brother?" It was a big world, and Linalee didn't want to have to search the entire thing looking for him.
"No," everyone's heart sank at the word, "but Allen has a way to find him."
"What? I don't-"
"Timcanpy was made by General Cross. This particular golem can always find its way back to its maker, so just ask it where Cross is." Komui explained, setting Timcanpy in the middle of the room. "Tim, where is Cross?" Timcanpy fluttered around the room a little bit, then stopped, facing due East. "At great distances, he can only tell directions, but as you get closer, it'll be more specific."
"Well, then I guess we're going East. See you tomorrow. I gotta help the ol' Panda pack." Lavi tried to dodge the flying sidekick, but as always, was unsuccessful.
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Author's note:
1: Listen to the song "Successor Lavi" from the DGM anime soundtrack. That's what Min was humming. Isn't it great to have the songs for each person already written for you?