A Wok of Infinite Light
Recipe for Disaster
After all this time and all our adventures, Raine thought to herself, almost disappointed by the Dark Chefs' choice to shackle Regal's hands, they still haven't heard the most legendary part of the story of Regal Bryant? What poor, close-minded outcasts they must be...
Zelos, of course, doesn't have that sort of mind. Give 'em more Traubel than they can imagine, bud. Yes, he really does think like that. You thought it was an act?
Knowing that the solid click of his new handcuffs locking would relax the surrounding Dark Chefs, Regal struck before they could start thinking cautiously again, and launched the one who had bound him into Zelos' captor (and, unavoidably, Zelos as well) with Crescent Moon. The Chosen was up first, having had a convenient enemy to cushion his swift impact against the wall, and immediately moved to rescue Raine.
Regal had enough faith in Zelos' foolish bravery to leave that fight, and instead turned to face the remaining army of Dark Chefs. This had to be every single one of their Alliance gathered before the Wok, and by the looks of its contents, he barely had enough time to prevent the recipe-ritual's completion. He leapt into the crowd and dropped like a meteor –"Eagle Fall!"– to scatter them. At this rate, Regal thought grimly, I should be able to leapfrog my way to the Wok in twenty minutes.
Zelos wrested the Last Fencer away from another Dark Chef, one who looked young enough to be easily swayed and smart enough to wish he was at the back of the crowd, and summarily sliced the blade off Dior's giant weapon. Raine wasn't threatened by a large stick, and in any case hers was better. The Chef who had taken it practically threw the Phoenix Rod her way before running out of the room, possibly to avoid the rush.
"We should help Regal," Raine said, smacking Dior away with a backhanded sweep.
"I think this is one of those times when you can't help someone else until you help yourself," Zelos suggested, because even if these were a bunch of frail Chefs and he had an Exsphere, facing enemies who would outnumber the girls he had dated in his entire life was a worrying prospect.
"I think we can do both," the professor decided. "Clear me a path."
"Back me up," Zelos responded, and called on his Exsphere to harmonize with the others nearby– what Lloyd had called a 'unison attack'. "All right! Super Lightning Blade!" He raised the Last Fencer and, in defiance of all logic, a bolt of lightning struck its edge.
"Photon!" Raine shouted, focusing her spell on Zelos' weapon.
"Plasma Blade!" they called as one. The blade turned incandescent and Zelos swept it down and around, turning the arc into a long forward thrust. His feet slid along the ground as though pulled ahead by the sword; a solar comet and its red-headed rider cut through the Dark Chef ranks, hurling them in all directions. Raine followed before they could close up behind him like the water around a dropped rock.
"That is such a rush..." Zelos murmured as Raine sprinted lightly past him. With a few solid blows from the Phoenix Rod, the last handful of Dark Chefs were convinced to step aside, and she could lean over the edge of the great Wok.
"Taste my wrath!" Raine bellowed (she had hardly any opportunities to 'let go' in the new, peaceful world, and desperately needed an outlet– turning out to be the One was an incredible stroke of luck), and plunged the head of her staff into the thick liquid. To be honest, it smelled to be a dish well beyond divine, and she didn't even care for beef stew. This transcended beef; it was what food became if it had been good in its former lives.
It was already hot, and there was already a few hundred gallons of the stuff simmering– burning was out of the question, as she had done with most of the creations in the entrance hall. But perhaps there was more to it than that? Very few things can't be turned into their exact opposites with a bit of effort. Raine gripped the rod firmly and let it suck the heat in like a cat on a winter night.
Regal paused in his rampage –that is, dealt a twirling kick while lying on his back before flipping up and into Wolverine to clear the Chefs for a few feet in all directions– and looked to the Dark Chef who stood at the top of the stairs. He wore a black cape, rather than the standard red one, and seven gold stars sparkled on each of his arms, where most had three or four.
The Wonder Chef had once said that there were seven distinct levels of expertise between learning a recipe and truly mastering it. This was a seven-star chef, the only one he had seen. He had to be the leader of the Alliance, the Darkest Chef. And he was laughing.
"Sage, you fool, you think that can stop us now?"
Zelos had been warding off anyone who was thinking of attacking Raine from behind, but now he dared to glance over his shoulder. The magnificent stew had turned solid and mostly been covered in a layer of frost, like a thick white rug. Sweat was beading on the professor's forehead, and her staff was glowing with a reddish aura.
"It seems... to be giving you... some trouble... It's hard... to stir... a block of ice."
"I am a True Chef," the seven-starred man declared. "And no such force as a mere chill is going to stop me!"
"Oh, man," Zelos groaned. "Why does every evil villain talk like that? Only reason I liked Mithos was that he knew how to speak like a normal person."
The Dark Chefs had parted to make a thoroughfare from a heavily-stocked table to the seven-star chef. A Sous-chef sprinted through the space and reverently passed a pouch to the seven-star chef.
"Behold the power of the fiery blood-spice, red satay!" He threw a double handful of powder into the air that settled like crimson snow, and the stew melted and boiled. Raine yelped and jerked the Phoenix Rod back, unable to control the rush of heat. She waved it in the direction of the massed Chefs (Zelos yelped at the sight, throwing himself to the floor just in time) and the Rod projected a wide heat-stream through their ranks.
"Whoa," said Zelos. Nothing else could quite have described it. "I could get used to fighting enemies without Exspheres." The Chefs caught in Raine's accidental assault looked like they had spent the last month on a beach in Altamira, and the air smelled thickly of smoke and singed leather.
More than half the stricken forces collapsed immediately from heat stroke, and the remnant seemed much more interested in getting away than pressing the attack. Even those who hadn't been touched were wary of approaching.
"All right, Chosen," said Raine, her spirits buoyed by the display of the One's powers. "Let's... Chosen? ...Zelos? Zelos, where have you got to?" Tethe'alla's Chosen was hard to lose, and so there was no doubt that he had vanished. "All right..." She took a deep breath and hefted the Phoenix Rod. "Who wants some?"
Dior had made it up the stairwell to the Temple of the Wok's upper balcony, making her way to the secret exit. If she hadn't been in such a hurry, it would have made an ideal sniper blind to bring down Bryant or that elf-witch Sage... in fact, that was an even better plan. This part of the chamber was hard enough to see in the shadows; they swarmed around the ceiling like stormclouds that dared not go near the torchlight below.
Six-star Dark Chef Dior was proud to say she always thought of her own interests first. It was a lot clearer than any hero imagined, especially her fool of a brother. While it would be safer to escape now, it would be much more profitable to save the day.
With a sarcastically elegant prance, she moved to the back wall and let her fingers run along the ancient ceremonial regalia. An apron woven from unicorn tail hairs... dragonscale oven mitts... ah! A polycarbonate roasting skewer!
Taking a Venom'elette from the leather roll in her apron pocket, Dior poisoned the entire length of the skewer (she believed in being prepared, especially in ways no one else would guess) and leaned over the worn stone railing. Bryant appeared to be showing defiance to Vahgner's father, leader of the Alliance. That was convenient. His broad and muscled back made an excellent target...
"You're the human equivalent of a thorn, you know," Zelos snarled, and tackled her from out of the shadows. Still the skewer flew, and Regal's only hint of impending doom would have been the momentary grin on the seven-star chef's shadowed face... except that Raine saw it too, and reflexively blew the culinary weapon to ashes.
"Wilder! I should have known you'd watch for anything female and breathing in the area." Zelos was pressing her uncomfortably against the edge of a dusty wooden bench, but with a little leg power, Dior flipped the entire seat backwards and tossed the Chosen overhead.
"You're giving yourself a lot of credit there, aren'tcha?" Zelos asked, getting to his feet. Dior picked a mythril-cobalt frying pan off its hook and attempted to knock Zelos' head off his shoulders. He bent backwards and then rose up with a vengeance, in defiance of most laws of physics. The proverbial battle was joined. ...Proverbially.
"No snipers," said Regal, who thought Dior's attack was a planned ambush. The Darkest Chef looked on dispassionately. "No tricks. And no foolish followers. If you are so much greater than myself, then face me yourself. One True Chef against another."
The leader laughed again, and anyone who wasn't already fearful of Raine or Regal's power copied his outburst. They stopped at his direction, too, forming a shaky but stubborn wall of kitchen soldiers. "You still have no idea! If memory serves me correctly, I have often heard it said that actions speak louder than words... so allow me to demonstrate." Like a magician producing a dove from empty hands, the head chef flourished the final ingredient: Mana Leaf Herb.
"No!" Regal yelped. "You don't know what could happen! Intense mana infusions in this–"
"Not a problem, Regal," said Raine, raising her staff– but the leaf flashed briefly white and hurled the professor to the floor. Elven plants fight back.
He let it go and the herbs fell heavily into the stew, which hissed and then turned as red as the core of the earth. In its fiery light, the darkness veiling a giant statue on the Wok's far side was burned away, revealing a seventy-foot tall likeness of...
"The Wonder Chef?!" Zelos blurted, and received a glancing blow to the cheek for his inattention.
"The disciple of a lost god!" roared the Darkest Chef. "He who will rise again in his true form and serve us, creating only the finest dishes in all the world. We shall live as kings, and may the rest of the world wither beyond these walls!"
One useful thing about training to become a duke is that it's very hard to be completely stunned. Regal the convict, Regal the hero, and Regal the Potential were all reeling, trying to understand how this ancient catacomb could hold a statue of the Wonder Chef, but Duke Bryant was more interested in smacking evildoers around.
"And you intend to summon him with this stew?" Bryant guessed.
"Summon? This is the Ultimate Recipe! I intend to give him life!" The Darkest Chef spun, raised his arms to the red-black ceiling, and cried in an ancient language: "Yomigaeru Aiyan Sheffu!"
The statue was made entirely from earthy clay, tending in places to grey, green, and brown, but at that call any thoughts of such details vanished completely. Stone exploded from two points on its face, and from then on it was impossible to notice anything but the statue's blazing red eyes.
It knelt before the Wok and touched one spear-thick finger into the magma-like stew. "What is this?" it roared, though such a giant might not have been capable of anything else.
"The Ultimate Recipe, great one! Finest of all stews!" the Darkest Chef declared, bowing.
"I will not tolerate deceit! This dish bears no aura appropriate to the Ultimate Recipe!" The statue waved a giant hand and turned the contents of the Wok into something Regal had only ever seen before when Zelos cast Eruption on top of one of Genis' Ground Dashers. It obliterated the stew, but not a mark was left on the Wok. "Go from here!"
The Darkest Chef didn't seem ready to accept that his ritual hadn't worked. "And what shall we return with?"
"Never return to this sacred ground, impostor. And if our paths cross, you would do well to avoid my notice."
"You... you can't..." The statue dug its fingers into the cavernous ceiling, tore out a block the size of a small dragon, and hurled it at the Darkest Chef. He seemed as petrified as his attacker, and so it was lucky that Regal was still in no-nonsense-duke mode. He charged and leapt, bolstering his own power with Sylph's Opal, which Sheena had left with him at the journey's end.
"Super Swallow Dance!" He couldn't hope to break the stone, but Regal's flurry of magically powered kicks killed its momentum and managed to knock the thing off course. It crashed among Dark Chef acolytes, who had the sense to move.
"You again!"
"I saved you," Regal pointed out.
"You are still the enemy of our Alliance, and I–" With a dull thump, Vahgner knocked his father unconscious with the long, sturdy handle of his official Dark Chef knife.
"Sorry, dad. Think of it as payback for all those times you mocked my teriyaki sauce," said the six-star Chef to his prone parent.
"This is not the time for petty revenge," said Regal sternly. The giant statue was now trying to lever a fiery brazier out of the floor. Many of the Dark Chefs had already fled the chamber.
"No, he was right," said Vahgner. "I was getting the consistency all wrong, and needed to be told. He's getting this wrong, so I'll help him out– and you, by association. How do we stop that golem?"
Regal was taken aback, but he recovered quickly. "...You knocked him unconscious."
"He didn't need to be that sarcastic about the teriyaki," said Vahgner, and grinned.
"Every time I meet a father and child there's something ridiculously twisted about it," said Raine, jogging up beside Regal. "Kratos and Lloyd, Colette and Remiel, Kate and the Pope... now these two."
Vahgner was getting worried now. He had expected Regal to know exactly what to do, but instead Bryant was just staring vaguely at the stone Wonder Chef, as if hypnotised. Hypnotised was not a good reaction from your last chance at survival.
"Come on, Potential! Surely the Wonder Chef must have told you something useful!"
Regal snapped back to reality. He had been told something rather cryptic, and if he knew legends, this was just the time for it to reveal itself and save them all. What was it? "In all honesty, Lord Bryant, think back far enough and you'll find all you could ever need to know." ...Hmm. That was incredibly accurate, for Regal's memory. Lucky them, if only he could begin to imagine what it meant.
"Let's get the Dark Chefs out of here."
"What's your problem, anyway?!" Zelos snarled, parrying another of Dior's maddened swings.
"You are, Wilder!" she snapped back. "Anywhere you'd like to be buried in particular?"
"The sea would be nice," he remarked, feinting left and then sweeping in on his upper right. She blocked the Last Fencer (putting a severe nick in the frying pan when she did so) and jabbed straight ahead, driving it into his face. Zelos hopped backwards and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand.
"I won't ask about coffins; I intend to bury you in a crispy tempura coating. And I hope you enjoyed that, because more are on their way," Dior promised.
"It's gonna leave a mark, I know that much." A drop of blood was trickling past his eye.
She pressed the attack, and Zelos was wary enough of receiving any more of the metallic beatings that he didn't dare go fight too offensively. "I can't stand people like you to begin with, but even worse is that no one else seems to notice your true nature as an utter–"
"Language, you psychopath," said Zelos, mildly and infuriatingly reprimanding her.
"Arrgh! Shut up! It's bad enough that a heartless toyer like you still practically has to fight off girls –ones who could do with more self-respect, I might add– but to think that you still get called a saviour, as if everything you do wrong doesn't count because your friends call themselves heroes!"
"...I get it," said Zelos. He stepped out of bashing range, staring at the floor.
Dior didn't lower her weapon. "You do?" she asked. She hadn't expected to get through.
"Yeah." He looked back up at her, any hint of false uncertainty gone. "Basically, you're a basket case." Zelos charged, slipping into his admittedly elegant battle-dance that linked attacks and defences seamlessly. Dior resisted, but was forced back step by step. "Did you ever think of applying that sort of logic to your own life? I mean, you joined the Dark – Chef – Alliance. That's not exactly healthy behaviour, even if you do have some kind of anti-hero grudge."
Dior hit the wall, and Zelos' sword swept up under her chin. Recognizing the motion as universal sign language for 'surrender', the Dark Chef dropped her weapon. "You think I'm scared?" she asked.
"Well, you've got a really sharp edge near your throat. I'd be at least a little concerned, if I were you," Zelos replied.
"I still have the advantage," Dior insisted. She smiled in a way that would have made one of Mithos' lifeless beings go weak at the knees. "I can grab a weapon at any time, Chosen, but there's no such thing as a charm against attractive women."
Zelos held up his hand, palm away from her face. Silver and gemstone sparkled. "Yeah. There is. It's called an engagement ring." Dior's eyes widened for a moment as the displaying hand folded into a fist, and then the world went dark.
Vahgner watched as the Wonder Chef golem tore into the wall with fist and sceptre, having successfully torn up the iron brazier and compressed it into a shredding mace. He was hurrying the last of his subordinates through the last intact exit, while Regal braced the wall with his body and Raine harried the statue with Photon spells.
"That's it!" Vahgner called upwards, to the point where Regal had wedged himself between two pillars, his legs at a hundred-eighty degrees from each other. "No one's left, and I had a few Sous-chefs take my father!"
"Thank goddess," Regal groaned, dropping out of his perch. He was going to be aching for days after this was over, and he hadn't even taken the majority of the cutlery beatings in the group.
"Light! Photon!" Raine had stayed to blasting the golem with shrapnel by setting off Photons in the wall; when she targeted the statue itself, a powerful mana feedback made her feel like she had been struck with the Hammer of Dizzy Nauseous Migraines.
"Please tell me you know how we're going to survive this," said Vahgner to Regal. The golem's rampaging set off another small avalanche as he spoke, collapsing the last passageway, and its rage seemed to dissipate.
"None shall rule me again. Not those without the right."
"It speaks like a Summon Spirit," Raine observed.
"Spirit? Do I look like a spirit to you, halfbreed?!" the golem demanded, and shattered a section of floor with a diamond-hard fist. Only a frantic leap had prevented Raine from being mixed with the broken stone.
"No, you're much more insane," Vahgner observed quietly.
"The blue chefs flee, but they leave their stock," it remarked, noticing the still-laden tables– grand feast, some assembly required. "I will rebuild this kingdom. I will find worthy followers. The Imperial Cordon Bleu will reign again!"
"I will not allow it."
Compared to the stone giant's words, which echoed across the great cavern and in the Wok's enchanted hollow, Regal might as well have whispered, but he got better marks for nearly freezing the air with his statement. The giant froze in mid-step and turned to watch him more closely. Vahgner's blood turned to icy gazpacho at being pierced by its hellfire-eyes, but kept his feet.
"You will risk your life to defy me?" It turned to face the trio, drawing itself up to its fullest height and twirling the twisted sceptre threateningly. It looked like a demon's whisk.
"I will do whatever is necessary. Chefs serve others, not themselves," Regal stated bluntly.
"Too right," said a disturbingly familiar voice. It occurred to Regal, as a of wood and metal soared out of the darkness, that the Dark Chefs had mostly used knives, aside from that one war-spoon he had encountered on the transport ship. Perhaps they didn't dare mimic their enemy.
The five-foot utensil landed in the stones in front of him, its tines digging easily into granite. Regal reached out and took hold of the Wonder Chef's fork. He knew a gift –even if it was only a loan– when he saw it.
For only a moment Regal felt the comforting smoothness under his fingers before everything else faded away. Memory overflowed from the wood, filling his world.
Find what you need to know, Regal Bryant, God of the Kitchen.