Ch 3
The Wonder Organization was hidden deep within the mines of Hima and was only one of two secret bases built when the worlds were split by Mithos. Each one had been concealed to avoid contact with the public and records of the family's history were stored in each base. Of all the groups and peoples of both Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, the Wonder Organization was one of the few that was allowed to keep its magitechnology from the past, as long as they kept up their end of the deal with Mithos Yggdrasill. As long as the Wonder Chef or his subordinate cooks did nothing to alert the worlds to their true natures or Cruxis' plans, Mithos allowed them to do as they pleased and keep their history intact. Such an offer was only made because of the legend of the Famine Lord, an entity that was responsible for a worldwide starvation that cost thousands of lives, and the heroes that ended that catastrophe. Of the three companions, one was a half-elf that earned respect among the Wonder Chef Family members as being both powerful and a dear friend. That alone was enough to earn a bit of favor from Mithos, allowing the Wonder Organization to remain intact.
Which was why, when Adam Voraci took the title of Wonder Chef and was found fine-tuning recipes to give the Heroes of Union long ago, his father began teaching him various disguises that would keep him hidden during travels and alerted him to the spell the half-elf of legend had placed on the Wonder Fork, though at the time both believed the spell was just part of the fork's nature. The worldwide communication system was also fully activated, allowing father to contact son at any time, no matter which world he was traveling through. Wren was now counting on that system to get Wonder Cooks to Meltokio as fast as possible.
"Father! I need to use the communication center's transmitter!" Wren yelled out, dashing down the hall towards the main kitchen and leaving behind a wake of startled recruits and cooks. He burst through the doors, startling several recruits as they took instruction from Estéfan Voraci, the former Wonder Chef and Wren's father. The elderly chef gave him a stern look.
"How many times have I told you not to do that, Adam? You've collapsed half the cakes here! And you could have just called ahead on the communicator..." he lectured. Wren cringed and shook his hand as if burned.
"Sorry! Really! But I need to get into the control center and get some of our cooks to Meltokio! The Dark Chefs are after a shipment of satays and sugar being sent to Iselia!" he blurted. The group in the kitchen gasped in shock.
"The Dark Chefs are making an attack?! Why?!" the new cooks murmured among themselves worriedly. Estéfan rushed to Wren in concern, hands already checking the young Wonder Chef for injury.
"Are you all right, Adam? Were you attacked? Did anything happen to you? I should make you something to restore your health." the elderly chef sent out a quick barrage of questions in a calm, controlled tone that could not hide the surge of worry in his eyes. Wren backed away hurriedly.
"I'm fine! Really! I'm more worried about Caleb than anything else right now. I've got to get him backup before the Dark Chefs take over the shipment tomorrow!" he exclaimed, "I need to get some cooks to help him!"
"Then we'll alert the Meltokio area faction of the Wonder Cooks. In a few hours, they'll be mobilized for the defense of the food supplies." Estéfan agreed and led the way towards the heart of the headquarters, moving swiftly and easily as Wren raced after him.
Pepper whimpered dejectedly as she sat within a copse of trees and shrubs near the food bank. Caleb smiled and stroked her snout in affection.
"I'm sorry, Pepper, but I have to do this one alone. Your bell makes more noise than you can cover up with your current level of psychic control." he told her gently, "You can still help me out by making those guards there sleep or something. You can watch my back from out here." The mana beast cocked her head in confusion. "Well, if I manage to get into trouble, then you'll know right away. Then, you can just fly in and stomp around, make all the noise you want. It'll be fun!" Caleb explained brightly. Pepper seemed to like that idea, clacking cheerfully as the doll shed the shield and spoon from his back and arm. He gave her one last pat, then carefully made his way towards the building and its small fleet of Elemental Cargos.
The moon was round and bright, making the stealthy maneuvers Caleb performed that much more difficult to pull off. Pepper kept a close watch over him from her place in the copse, green eyes peering out from the darkness to be sure no one spotted the green-clad doll as he slipped from shadow to shadow, working his way towards the door. She shifted her focus to the guards that presented the last challenge to Caleb and pooled her power together, sending each man the sudden unexplainable urge to go out and find something more interesting to do, like buy their girlfriend flowers or just find a girlfriend.
Caleb watched the two Papal Knights troop off in sync and smiled at the thought of his dear friend Pepper playing puppet-master from a distance. He scanned the area quickly, then darted for the door, opening it and slipping inside.
The food bank was a recently built warehouse for food and other charitable donations to be stored before being passed out among the more unfortunate citizens of Meltokio. It had the capacity to hold enough items to feed and cloth the whole of the Meltokio slums for two or three months. Currently, the building was filled with crates and shelves. Caleb moved along carefully, using the boxes as cover every few minutes. He checked inside one, puzzled to see it filled with blocks of metal nested in layers of straw.
"What's all this for?" he murmured and froze at the sound of voices entering the building.
"How goes the loading of the supplies?" a familiar voice asked.
"Everything's running smoothly, good sir. Ah, the shipment of sugar and satays will leave in the morning for the Grand Tethe'alla Bridge as planned." the Pope's voice answered and the sound of smacking lips followed, "Ah, you wouldn't happen to have some of those little chocolates on you?"
"But of course! I'm the Master Chef, after all!" the other voice remarked cheerfully, "And you've been such a good help."
"Many thanks, Master Chef. Mmm, delicious! Why is it that the Wonder Chef hasn't created such delectable little chocolates before you?" the Pope managed to say between munching sounds.
"Bah! That little runt? I've heard tell that he's lost his skill and focus. He probably doesn't even remember which side of the toast to butter!" Caleb frowned as he crept to get a better view of the speakers. His mind worked furiously to match the voice with an image. "I should have been Wonder Chef anyway!"
"Oh... yesh, yesh. I... ahgree. You're... mush better than... other guy..." the Pope slurred, mouth and fingers sticky with chocolate, "Ah, what were we talking about again?" Caleb blinked in shock as an old rival stepped forward from the shadows of the crates, short blue hair combed aside in a mirror image of Wren's own style and blue Dark Chef uniform cut and tailored as a replica of the Wonder Chef's travel clothes.
"DuGorge! Gluttonious DuGorge! What's he doing here?" the doll whispered.
"We were discussing the shipment schedule, you idiot." DuGorge growled, planting his blue-handled fork beside him in irritation. "I want no mistakes in the delivery of the ingredients to the home base. This is the only way we can sneak so much sugar and satay out of here right under the Wonder Chef Family's noses."
"Ah, right, right." the Pope agreed dumbly, "Have you met with that nice gentleman in the green clothes yet? He wished to donate a large amount of satay to your supply." DuGorge narrowed his eyes.
"What gentleman? What did you tell him?" he demanded to know.
"This nobleman in green clothes wanted to know where this place was so he could bring lots of sugar and satay for you. So I told him and he went on his way." the Pope explained and began sucking on his fingers, "I thought you met him already." Caleb groaned softly and shook his head.
"I forgot to tell Pepper to do a suggestion planting on this guy! Having a soul makes me more human than I like, I guess." he murmured in annoyance. He began to back away, looking around for a nearby escape.
"You imbecile! Get out of my sight and make sure your knights are still guarding the doors! I can't believe you told someone to come here! All donations to this building are to be made at the cathedral!" DuGorge bellowed, "For all we know that could have been a spy for the Wonder Chef!"
"My deepest apologies!" the Pope yelped and hurried off. DuGorge turned to the shadows again.
"Leo! Darla! Sauri! Spread out and search this place! Make sure we don't have any unwanted guests at this little dinner party!" he ordered. Three Dark Chef grunts nodded seriously from the darkness and scattered to sweep the building.
"Looks like its time to leave this buffet of information." Caleb muttered and winced, "Ugh! Wren! You're rubbing off on me!" He made a run for the entrance he came through and halted as the Pope came in from that same door in a panic.
"My Papal Knights are gone! I didn't dismiss them!" he cried.
"That does it! There's one too many cooks in this kitchen and I'm not about to let this get ruined because of some idiot church-head!" DuGorge fumed and stormed into the search, "I'll find this spy myself!"
"Damn. 'Nother way out, where's another way out?" Caleb hissed and ran another way. He couldn't make contact with Pepper mentally, he didn't have that kind of bond and the mana beast hadn't figured out how to forge one from her end. She could only pull and plant mental images if she could see that Caleb or Wren allowed her to do so. The doll crouched behind another stack of crates and set his focus to calling his sister, the Goddess Martel who took Tabatha and Martel's bodies combined as a vessel.
"Hey! Who are you?!" a man yelled out and Caleb snapped out of his trance in shock. He looked over at the Dark Chef pointing a large metal salad fork at him like a spear. "You're not supposed to be here! Hold it right there!"
"Sorry! Gotta run!" Caleb answered and threw out a hand to draw a focus point into the air to help his aim, "But you can work on cooking through this! Icicle!" The aionis alloy in his body channeled the mana of the free use crystal he carried and materialized as the freezing novice spell that speared up through the floor and blocked the muscled Dark Chef from following him.
"Darla! Sauri! Master Chef! He's getting away!" the man, Leo, shouted and began stabbing at the ice with the fork. Caleb dashed on, searching for another exit. He turned a corner and halted as a woman with long violet hair spotted him.
"Hah! Hey! I found the spy! Darla! He's over here!" Sauri cried and began running after the doll, a fine gold teaspoon in her hands like a battering ram, "Don't move! I've got you cornered!"
"Man, this is just not my night." Caleb groaned and braced himself. As the woman neared him, he ran forward a few steps, then leaped up to flip over her, twisting in the air to avoid her sudden skidding as her spoon went up to compensate for her change in speed. The beret came loose, dragging tendrils of red hair along as he came to a landing and recovered quickly.
"Hey! You can't do that!" Sauri yelled as she began running back after him. Caleb yanked the hat free and threw it at her face, watching as she stumbled about blindly.
"Bet you didn't think I could do that, either." the doll taunted and unpinned the rest of the ruined bun, returning to the familiarity of his green ribbon tying back the long tresses. "You guys shouldn't quit your day jobs." he added and continued on, leaving behind the Dark Chef grunt to finally pull off the beret and look around in confusion.
Caleb stopped next to a row of crates marked with a blue fork crossing over a blue spoon. Eyeing it suspiciously, he lifted the lid of one of the crates and looked inside. Filled with packages and bottles of satays and sugar, the collection of seasonings could have easily stocked a small restaurant for weeks. Caleb set the lid back down and sat down beside it, concentrating once more.
"Martel? Can you hear me?" he murmured and snapped out of his trance at the sound of another voice, also female.
"Sauri! Leo! I found him! Hey! You! Get away from that box!" the dark-haired grunt shouted, waving a cleaver in the air, "I'm gonna chop you good, you sneaky spy!" Caleb jumped to his feet in shock, eyes wide as he stared at the utensil.
"Goddess Martel! How did you get a blade?!" he cried and ran for it, "I didn't think I'd have to deal with crazy cooks with big knives when I decided to get involved!"
"Get back here!" Darla fumed and hurled the cleaver after him. Caleb yelled as the blade whistled past his head and slammed into the wall up ahead. "Stop moving!" the woman shrieked as she pulled out two more of the knives from her boots and hurled them both, "I said I'm gonna chop you up, so that's what I'm gonna do!"
"Excuse me for wanting to keep my head on my neck!" Caleb cried and ducked as the cleavers went flying by. He darted over to the next aisle and scrambled up the shelves, staring down as the woman raced by right below him with yet another cleaver in her hands. "Good Goddess, how many of those is she carrying?!" he murmured in horror. Once the mad Dark Chef was gone, Caleb climbed back down and checked the aisles once more before creeping off to find the exit.
The doll managed to get through enough of the building to map out the most probable places exits could be made when the three Dark Chef grunts found him again. Standing at a junction between the many aisles of crates and the wall of the food bank, Caleb blinked at the chefs standing at each end of the long halls. There was the muscle-head, Leo, standing at the aisle he just left with the salad fork in one hand and a spear of ice in his other. The doll could see the vein popping in his forehead. To his left was the crazy chef with the endless supply of cleavers, a gleeful look on her face as she tightened her grip on the two she now held. To the right was the lithe little chef with the long hair and the gold spoon. She didn't look too happy about his flying leap and flip.
"I don't suppose we could talk about this over a cup of tea, could we?" Caleb asked nervously, forcing a smile on his face. The three chefs all shrieked in a fury and raced towards him, utensils aimed right for him. The doll bent into a crouch and waited, mind racing through calculations far faster than any human could move. Leo, Darla and Sauri were closing in on him, their voices screaming in unison as they neared the final few steps to overtaking the doll.
At the precise, predicted moment, Caleb leaped up into the air, twisted to plant his feet against the wall behind him, then rebounded far over the heads of the three chefs as they all slammed into each other and landed in a dazed heap. Landing solidly enough to crack the floor of the building, the doll let out a triumphant cry and began running down the aisle in laughter, turning the corner to follow the wall and find the exit.
"I did it! I out-tricked the Dark Chefs!" Caleb crowed exultantly over his shoulder and turned his gaze back to the exit. DuGorge stood his ground midway down the aisle, an angry expression darkening his face. Caleb cried in shock and halted, "You!"
"I could say the same about you." DuGorge growled, "You're the one that interfered in my battle with your Wonder Chef friend! I knew you were the only one that little brat could trust to come here. But you were supposed to be dead!"
"I got better." Caleb returned absently, backing away from the Dark Chef.
"Tch! Let's see miso stew heal this!" DuGorge yelled as he threw his own steel fork ahead. It flew unusually fast, an inane thought that flashed through Caleb's mind just before it slammed into him and the force threw him against the opposite wall.
"Agh!" Caleb cried and immediately grabbed onto the neck of the giant fork holding him pinned to the building. "H-how...?!"
"I should ask that question, Chosen." DuGorge hissed darkly, walking up to him threateningly. "I got my hands on an Exsphere to increase my strengths and skills for the sole purpose of turning both you and that childish Wonder Chef into fillets. Yet here you are with my fork through your gut and still you live on. What are you?" Caleb glared at him, struggling to pull out the prongs that kept him captive. It had speared through him neatly, the center spike driven through his abdomen and narrowly missing the Tri-Crystal System that powered his body and magic, while the other two prongs had slipped by his sides and buried themselves into the wall, only tearing into his jacket as they did.
"I am not Zelos Wilder, for Martel's sake! I only look like him." he growled, "I am an automated doll designed and built by the dwarven skills of Master Altessa for the purpose of becoming the vessel to the Chosen's soul when his own body had been taken over. As that duty was fulfilled long ago, my new purpose is to archive the data and all the knowledge of the world. And you, you lousy excuse for a fast-food assembly chef, will be erased from this world soon enough!"
"What did you call me?!" DuGorge snapped as the other three Dark Chef grunts finally arrived, bruised, sore and in sour moods.
"Is your hearing failing you, small fry? Or are you just losing more brain cells to that gluttonous ego of yours?" Caleb mocked in a darkly pleasant tone, tapping his fingers against his arm as if the fork that trapped him was of little consequence.
"Lemme tenderize him!" Darla snarled, the metal meat tenderizers already in her hands and trembling with anticipation. Caleb gave her a semi-horrified stare. "I'll pummel out the juices of agony from his body!"
"Disgusting little..." he began and cried suddenly as DuGorge calmly planted his boot against the end of the fork's handle and pushed, the thick soles protecting him against the sharp blades decorating the handle. "Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?!" Caleb raged as he felt the circuitry that connected his legs to the rest of his system start to snap.
"All the knowledge of the world..." DuGorge muttered and smiled. "And knowing that you're buddy-buddy with the Wonder Chef, he must have given you total access to the Wonder Archive. All those recipes and perhaps... even the Ultimate Recipe itself... All within my grasp... Right. Here." he whispered. Caleb looked incredulous.
"The Ultimate Recipe? As if! Wren would never entrust that piece of information to anyone but his successor! Not even me...!" he declared defiantly, then trailed as he remembered how the young chef had acted in Hima. He had asked what was wrong and Wren had stammered back some answer about how his clothes made him nervous. Against a gnawing feeling that he shouldn't, Caleb ran a quick scan on his own memories, noting a time difference that didn't jive with what he remembered. There was a gap, some memory had been removed from his system, but only he himself could do that; did he learn something that he willingly purged immediately? Could it really be...? "Oh... no..." Caleb finally uttered in shock and understanding, "Wren... you didn't..." DuGorge smiled brightly and grabbed the handle of his fork, pulling it free and watching Caleb fall forward in a heap. "Owww. My... my legs! I can't... move my legs!"
"Can't I just pulverize him a little?" Darla whined as the Dark Chef leader propped his fork on his shoulder.
"No. He's holding valuable information that will finally bring down the Wonder Organization." he told her, "Take him to one of the Elemental Cargos and pack him away in one of the crates. If he can't move, he can't escape. Then have the drivers get to their places. We're changing the departure time to right now. If he's here, the Wonder Chef isn't very far behind."
"Right away!" the three cooks declared and grabbed Caleb by the arms, dragging him away to pack into a sturdy wooden box. DuGorge stood by and laughed to himself.
"How amusing! The entire Wonder Organization will fall into destruction because their precious Wonder Chef befriended an outsider to our war! Once I've learned the Ultimate Recipe, I'll use it on flighty little Wren and then I'll be the one, true Wonder Chef!" he exclaimed triumphantly, "I'll have my cake and eat it, too! With oh so many little sprinkles on top!"