Chapter 2: The Iron Adepts, Part 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Golden Sun or any of its characters!

Author's note: This chapter is based on the Iron Chef and may include random acts of stupidity, unlike the real show where there are no random acts of stupidity whatsoever.

As the smoke machine began to expel a dark, hazy smoke onto the stage, the lights dimmed and a single spotlight could be seen shining through. The mist cleared and a tall, Asian man stepped onto the stage into the spotlight. He stood silently with a small smile on his face, wore a navy, almost black suit, and was holding a half-eaten red bell pepper. He suddenly cried, "Let the cook off begin!"

Now, you may be wondering where he was. Well, it just so happens that he was standing in one of the most famous buildings known to almost every chef in the world, and that building was called Kitchen Stadium. This where extremely experienced chefs go and fight the Iron Chefs, to prove their cooking skills and face off against the very best cooks in the world. Back to the story…

The audience clapped wildly. The man bowed, and threw the bell pepper behind him as he did so. A splatting noise could be heard, but the audience paid no attention as he introduced himself.

"Welcome everyone! I will be your host, Chairman Kora, and tonight we have a very special show lined up for us. Instead of having the Iron Chefs face off against one of many challengers, we will have two of the challengers face off against the other! So for this episode only, the show will be changed from "Iron Chef" to "Iron Adept", since it is much more appropriate in this situation! Now, please enjoy the show!"

The lights suddenly came back on and everyone groaned as the brightness of the bulbs burned their eyes. And it just so happened that Felix, Jenna, Sheba, Piers, Mia, and Ivan were part of that audience.

"Ah god, my eyes, my eyes, they burn!" Ivan screamed as the lights came back on. "Someone get an ambulance!"

Sheba decked him with her hand as she told him, "Shut up, Ivan! Your eyes are not burning, and they'll be back to normal in a few minutes! Geez… you can be really stupid sometimes…" Ivan rubbed his eyes and his face in silence, stifling a moan of agony.

"Don't be so hard on the little guy," said Piers, swishing his long cerulean hair behind him.

Mia nodded her head along with Piers. "Yes, he just doesn't act his age, that's all."

Sheba rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Ok, I won't whack him anymore, just as long as he doesn't do any more random acts of stupidity!"

"Be quiet, everyone!" Jenna shushed. "I want to watch the introduction of the chefs."

"Ooh, do you want to watch Isaac walk out all pretty-like onto the stage, smiling in his chef's outfit?" Ivan taunted. "I know you do, Jenna. You want him to- oww!"

"I told you, no more random acts of stupidity!"

"Aw… Sheba, you didn't have to slap me again…"

As Sheba repeatedly kicked Ivan's ass with gusto, Jenna found herself blushing. Maybe Ivan was right… maybe I do want to see Isaac in his sparkling white chef's outfit, walking onto the stage with a big smile on his face… Thinking about this, she went even redder.

"Jenna, why are you blushing?" her older brother, Felix, asked.

Snapping back to reality, she stammered, "Err, n-no, I'm not, brother, I was… just thinking."

"Hmm, whatever."

Felix turned away to watch the show with grim anticipation. Piers and Mia looked at each other and chuckled. They knew what was going on – Jenna couldn't fool them into thinking that she wasn't infatuated with Isaac.

Once again the lights dimmed and Chairman Kora began to introduce the two contestants. "Sorry about the lights, everyone. We had a technical problem with the control panel and we needed to turn the lights on so our repairmen could fix it. And now, introducing the two contestants, whom you all know very well, Isaac and Garet! Please give them a warm applause!"

The crowd cheered madly as they both came onto the stage, one at a time. As Isaac comes on, a huge explosion of rocks follows and nearly nails everyone in the head, but they still give him an enthusiastic round of applause. But as Garet steps up a massive wall of flame engulfs the audience and burns them to a crisp. A few groans rippled through the crowd as the smell of burnt flesh permeated the room.

"Heh… sorry about that. Didn't mean for that to happen!"

Jenna shook ashes from her hair vigorously. "Ugh… there are ashes in my hair. God… what a great way to start the show. Burn the audience to a crisp! What an idiot!" Thoroughly annoyed, Jenna settled into her seat with a huff.

"OHMYGODMYHAIRISONFIREHELPHELPHELP!" Sheba cried as she ran out of the seating area towards the girl's bathroom. Unfortunately for her, Garet's inferno had set her gel-filled hair on fire, creating a huge pillar of flame.

Ivan snickered evilly. "Ha! Serves you right for slapping me and burning me in the first episode!"

Chairman Kora dusted off his charred suit and cleared his voice, with a nervous look on his face. "Ok, are we quite done with the introductions? That was… a bit of a shock. Uh, let's begin explaining the rules. In Iron Adept, you have a time limit of one hour to prepare at least three dishes using the secret ingredient, which I will announce. Second, both contestants must stop cooking and put anything they are holding at the end of the time limit. Lastly, after you are both finished, four judges will be selected to taste the dishes you have made. Every dish will be given points out of 20 for originality, taste, plating, and use of the secret ingredient, for a combined total of 60 points for the three dishes. Oh yes, there is also one more thing. Unlike Iron Chef, where the judges are professional food tasters, Iron Adept features four randomly selected audience members as food tasters. I will not reveal the four selected judges until the cook off is complete! Now that you've heard all the rules, I will now reveal the secret ingredient!"

He walked over to a table covered in a black tablecloth, which hid the contents underneath from view. Isaac and Garet, both in white chefs' clothing, stood by the table, eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the secret ingredient. Grabbing a corner of the cloth, Chairman Kora quickly pulled it off with a flourish, screaming "A la cuisine!" A shroud of white mist swirled out from underneath the cloth, and the platform the table was on slowly rose up from the ground. On the table lay the secret ingredient…

"Spinich!" Isaac choked. "The secret ingredient… is spinach?"

Garet simply stood there with his mouth hanging wide open. He opened and closed it like a fish, until he suddenly regained his voice. "What! What the heck can you do with spinach! You can't even make dessert with it!"

Ivan, who was sitting in his chair the wrong way, laughed. "Hee hee! I already knew this, thanks to the power of Mind Read! Now, if you guys want to know who the judges are, they're- mmph!"

Mia clapped her hand over Ivan's mouth. "Don't tell us who the judges are, Ivan! I want it to be a surprise!"

"Right on, Mia," said Piers. "I'd like it to be a surprise, too."

Felix sighed. "Well, just as long as I don't take part in the tasting, I'd rather not know who the judges were right now." He shuddered at the thought of being one of the food tasters.

"I would rather die than try Isaac's or Garet's 'cooking'," said Jenna. "Who knows what they'll put in it…"

Meanwhile, Isaac and Garet are grabbing pots, pans, and anything they can think of to throw in their, uh, wonderful creations. Chairman Kora watches the two chefs from the spectator's stands in his huge, king-like chair. A few camera men follow Isaac and Garet, catching every move on camera. Every once in a while, a commentator makes a few comments about what the two chefs are doing. Hey, look! There's one over there by Isaac…

"So Isaac, what is that you're putting in there right now?" inquired one of the so called 'commentators'. A camera man stood close by, capturing everything.

"Uh…" Isaac muttered. "I don't really know… but I'll tell you what I'm trying to make. It's spinach salad."

The commentator looked stunned. "Err, well, I see… you don't know what you're putting into your dish, but it's supposed to be a spinach salad. Ok then… um, why are you throwing rocks into it?"

Isaac paused, holding a handful of rocks. "Hmm? Oh, these rocks are to help you digest the salad better. You see, the dinosaurs used to swallow rocks to help crush their food in their stomachs… yeah. So that's what I'm trying to do… I don't really trust my cooking skills."

"Uh… ok," the commentator said as he slowly inched away from Isaac and his 'salad'. "Let's move on over to Garet. Say, Garet, what have you got there?"

Garet turned sharply and growled at the commentator, "Go away! You aren't supposed to know! Get away or I'll burn you to a crisp, an even blacker crisp than the audience! RAWR!" His eye began to twitch horribly as the man backed away VERY quickly.

"Eep! Uh, I think I'll leave now! Bye!" The commentator dashed away, looking like he had his tail between his legs. Well, only if he had a tail to begin with.

Back in the spectator's stands, the audience watched the contest with awe. Explosions, shouts, fire, and everything in between could be heard and seen from the stands. Many people had their eyes popping out of their heads; others had their hands over their face and ears, to block out everything. A gasp or an "ooh" was heard every once in a while as the two chefs blundered their way through.

"This could be the most idiotic thing those two have ever done in their entire lives," whispered Jenna to Felix, who was watching the whole spectacle with an amused look.

"Yes, it very well could be," he replied. "Still, I don't really want to be one of the judges. Their cooking looks awful."

Sheba came stumbling out of the bathroom, her hair completely charred and almost standing straight up. Ashes covered her clothes and hair, black as charcoal. As she sat down she earned a bemused look from Ivan.

"Sheba, what have you done to your hair?" he asked. "It looks even worse than usual!"

"Shut up, twit! Garet burned it off, and I'm not in a very good mood right now," she snarled. "So if you want to continue living, you'd better stop talking about my hair!"

Ivan cowered in his chair, emitting a few high-pitched squeaks. I'd rather keep quiet than get a slap or something worse from Sheba. That girl scares the hell out of me…

Jenna turned and faced Sheba. "I thought you'd never come out of that bathroom, Sheba. I'd be scared to walk around with half my hair burnt off!"

"Really?"

"Yes, I really would!"

"…Thanks, Jenna."

"No problem."

"So, who do you think is going to win?"

Jenna blushed slightly as she answered, "Well, I think Isaac is going to win, honestly."

Sheba smiled for the first time after coming to watch the show. "Oh, does Jenna have a little crush on Isaac?" she chirped.

As her face became even redder, Jenna stammered, "N-no, Sheba, I… don't have a crush on Isaac." Jenna, you fool! You very well know that you like Isaac! Why, he even kissed you just last week! Her inner self taunted Jenna, and she shook her head to clear the voice echoing inside her thoughts.

Sheba grinned mischievously. "Hee hee, you do like him! I knew it!"

Jenna's face was now a red as a drunken guy at a booze party. "Huh? How did you know?" Oh god, now she knows!

"I can read minds, remember? Or have you forgotten that I'm a Wind Adept and that I have the ability to use Mind Read?"

"Oh. I forgot." She slapped herself hard on the face. "Ow. I should've known."

"And he already kissed you, right?" Sheba said teasingly.

Hearing this, Jenna turned a very deep shade of red. "Um… yes. He has."

"I knew it!"

"Let's just watch the rest of the competition now, Sheba."

There were only 5 minutes left in the cook off between Isaac and Garet. They hurriedly added whatever they could find lying around on the counters, hastily dumping salt and spices to their dishes. Plating wasn't so bad, but Garet ended up charring about half of his plates black. Isaac cracked and dropped a few, but at least he didn't have as many calamities as Garet did. Finally, the automatic timer began counting down the final seconds of the match.

"10 seconds remaining…"

Garet dropped a dish in his haste.

"Five…"

Isaac quickly added a last pinch of pepper to one of his dishes.

"Four…"

Garet dropped yet another dish.

"Crap!"

"Three…"

"Two…"

"One…"

Isaac finished his final preparations, just in the nick of time. Somehow, Garet managed to finish one second before the time ran out.

"Time has expired!" rang the announcer. A loud blaring signaled the end of the cook off.

Chairman Kora rose and walked over to a microphone on the stage. "Time is up, and I will now randomly select the judges for the tasting of the food. The judges are…"

Ooh, a cliffhanger! I wonder what's going to happen next? Review to find out!