And the race was on.  Antonio quickly began rolling up rice rolls while Viki frantically chopped some beans for the salad.

"BEANS?  I told you to get LETTUCE for the green salad!"

Viki looked at the several leaves of... beans in the bowl.  "Oh shoot!"

"Ah nevermind!  We don't have time!  We'll have to deal with this.  Start putting the yeast in that cake mix!"

Antonio began spreading caviar on top of his sushi rolls while Viki filled up the cake mix with gunpowder.

"Oh no!  The green salad isn't complete, yet!"  Viki began dumping tons of salt all over the salad while Antonio sampled some of his sushi to make sure it was just right.  Antonio shoved the cake in the oven then glared at Viki's funky salty bean salad.
Antonio began pulling his hair out.

Gyokuran took her tonkatsu out from on top of the stove, then looked at Antonio and laughed.  "You're losing your touch, Chef Antonio.  Hahaha!"

Antonio grabbed the salad.  "I'll try to salvage this mess!  Go add some more seasoning to the sushi!"

"Oh, right!"  Viki put the mayonaise bottle over the sushi and the entire bottle of mayonaise glumped onto it.  "Um.... oops?"

Suddenly, the sound of a gong rang throughout the kitchen.  "Time's up!"  The announcer screamed.

Antonio watched in horror as his oven exploded.  "Oh, this is not going to be my day..."

The announcer yelled really loudly into his megaphone, hurting everyones' ears.  "First, the challenger's apetizer!  Chowder!"

Three judges gave it a two and the third one grabbed the announcer's megaphone and broke it in two, then gave the chowder a three.

"Philistines..."  Gyokuran muttered to herself.

"And now the champion's dish, green salad.... er... wait.  Well, it was supposed to be green salad but it looks more like some kind of red pasty stuff...."

All of the judges threw up.

"I'll take that as four zeros."  The announcer shrugged.  "And now the challenger's main dish, tonkatsu!"

Gyokuran spun her rod as the judges gave her main dish all fours.

"And our champion's dish, Sushi!  With... a mountain of mayonaise on top?"

"WHAT?!?"  Antonio glared at the dump that was once his sushi dish as the judges had disgusted looks on their faces.  But they didn't throw up this time, so they ended up giving him two ones and two twos.

Antonio took out his abacus.  "Ugh, I'll have to get a perfect score on the dessert and Gyokuran will have to get all zeros in order for me to win!"

"And now we shall compare the deserts!"  The announcer took a bite out of Gyokuran's cake.  "Gyokuran's short cake to Antonio's..."  He then took a bite out of Antonio's cake and there was a huge explosion in his stomach.  The announcer, holding his stomach, groaned with a look of extreme pain on his face, "P.... Pastry surprise!"

The announcer fell to the ground unconscious as the judges gave perfect scores and all zeros.

"HOORAY!!!  We won!"  Viki beamed.

Antonio put his hand to his forehead.  "That was Gyokuran that got the perfect score, you dolt!"

"Oh, oops."  Viki poked the unconscious announcer with her wand.  "Um.... he isn't dead, is he?"

Gyokuran spun her rod around and swung it in Antonio's face.  "Looks like I won!  Hahaha!  You didn't stand a chance!"

"Well, duh."  Antonio shrugged.

"Now I have dishonored and humiliated you!  HAHAHA!"

Antonio raised an eyebrow.  "You did?"

Gyokuran swung her rod in front of Antonio again.  "You should go commit suicide or something now!  Because you lost!  You have fallen to the ultimate disgrace and will never be accepted in the Black Dragon Group again!"

Antonio finally got fed up.  "Enough!  It was only a cook-off!  You're acting like it was the end of the world or something like that!  And I don't care about your stupid Black Dragon Group!  I never did, remember?!?"

Antonio and Viki began to leave the kitchen.  Gyokuran scowled at him.  "Hmph!  What a sore loser."

Antonio turned around, walked up to Gyokuran, and bashed her over the head with his frying pan.

Gyokuran rubbed her head in pain.  "OH, that's it!  I'm going to get EVERY chef in the Black Dragon Group after you, now!"

"Every chef in the Black Dragon Group?"  Viki looked at Gyokuran.  "What are they going to do?  Cook us to death?"

"No!  They're going to challenge you to more pointless annoying cook-offs!  Wait... hmm... Cook you to death?  That's actually not a bad idea.  It would accomplish a hell of a lot more than pointless annoying cook-offs, wouldn't it?"  Gyokuran took out a note pad.  "Note to Jinkai.  Cook enemies to death."

Viki and Antonio nervously stepped back, then exitted the kitchen as quickly as they could.  They arrived at the inn in Kuskus.  Antonio shook Viki's hand.  "Well, you were a rather... unique apprentice, I must say."

"Yea..."  Viki looked around nervously.  "Well, anyway, that was fun, but I need to get back to looking for McDohl now.  Vincent lied to me and said he was on Sonya's ship."

"Hmm... if Master McDohl is still alive from being the leader of Jowston's greatest enemy while in the middle of Jowston, I'm almost certain one of the leaders would have heard about him by now."  Antonio thought to himself for a moment.  "Then again, McDohl always had this way of being inconspicuous when he needed to be."

"So my best bet is to ask one of the leaders of Jowston if they've seen McDohl?  That's a great idea!  Where can I find one?"

Antonio had travelled through the city-state several times, so he knew it pretty well.  He was one nomadic chef that got around quite often, since he never had his own restuarant until after he joined the Liberation army.  "South Window is a good start.  You can talk to Lord Granmeyer, there."

"Oh!  Great!  Where's that?"

"Try south of here."  Antonio shrugged.  "As for me, I think I'll stay here.  I heard that Hai Yo was in the area.  He's a good friend of mine and I'd like to see him again."

"What?  I have to travel alone AGAIN?"  Viki looked desperately at Antonio.  "B... But I need someone to protect me!  Front line fighting... or any fighting for that matter really doesn't appeal to me."

"Lady Viki, I am a chef, not a fighter!"

"Oh yea!  Oops.  Well, guess I'll get going then."  Viki thanked Antonio then left the inn.  Unfortunately, it wasn't until a few hours later that Antonio realized that it wasn't a very good idea to inform Granmeyer that the leader of one of his worst enemy nations was in his country.  But by then, Viki had already teleported away in an attempt to get to South Window as quickly as possible.

Without a focus, she ended up teleporting to the eastern town of Radat, instead.  Viki never saw South Window before, but she knew that a capital city would be more bustling than the quiet town she ended up in.

"Huh?!  Where am I?  This isn't South Window!"  Viki spoke in a worried voice.  She looked at the closest person to her, which was another oddly dressed man with an extravagant hairstyle.  "And who are you?"

"I, madame, am Simone Verdricci, and may I enquire who you are, and why you just appeared out of nowhere?"  Simone said, using words that hurt Viki's head in a similar manner to Vincent and Milich.

Viki cursed to herself.

These narcisists multiply faster than rabbits!  But if I can't beat them, guess I should join them.

"I, Simone, am Viki."  Viki replied, attempting to imitate Simone's speech.  She thought she did a pretty good job of it, so she was more reassured now.  "I got here when I failed in properly using my blinking rune." she added.

"A BLINKING RUNE!"  Simone's yell surprised Viki, freaking her out.  "Do you have any extras?"

Viki actually had quite a lot of blinking runes since those two guys back at the Kyaro inn dropped so many.  But she didn't want to risk losing them all to this wierdo so she decided to lie, but only a little.  Besides, maybe this man really needed one.  "Yes, one."

Viki suddenly remembered that most narcisists were rich, and she left her wallet back at the Kuskus inn with her entire 20 potch in it.  Figuring she would probably need money sooner or later just in case she can't find someone to buy her food for her, Viki decided to charge a small fee for the blinking crystal.  "And I can sell it for, oh... lets say... 50,000 potch."

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a small fee.  But he was a rich narcisist; he could probably pay it.  Besides, Viki didn't really care if she ripped off another Vincent Milich wannabe.  They were beginning to piss her off.

"I am sorry, but I do not have 50,000 potch," Simone said as Viki thought Drat to herself.  "But you said that you needed to go to South Window.  How about a trade.  I will escort you there, but only if you give me the rune in exchange."

"Fine,"  Viki knew it wasn't a great deal, but it was true that she wasn't the best of fighters, and someone on the way to suck up damage from monsters like a sponge while she happily casted spells safely in the rear would indeed be nice.  "So let's get a move on."

Slowly, they were off. The whole time, Simone talked.  ALOT.  And Simone often protected her from monsters, showing her how good of a damage sponge he was, despite his looks.  Finally, South Window was in sight.

Attempting to free herself of another narcisist as soon as possible, Viki said, "Thanks for the company, and here you go." and handed him the rune, plus 300 potch in hopes that it would make him go away. But just as they split paths, a gang of four men popped out of the shadows.

"Hold it right there, freak.  Give me all you two have, or die!" the main thug shouted.

Mad at being called a freak, Simone said, "You stupid looking thugs, do you really think you can kill beautiful me, Simone Verdricci?"

"YES!" all the thugs said in unison.  They then charged at the two, surprising Viki.  But she had her damage sponge, so she just hid behind that.

Suddenly, Simone raised his right palm and said, "SCOLDING!" A holy light flashed out, and the four thugs dropped
dead.  The bandits were dead so quickly that Viki didn't realize they were gone and stayed behind Simone for a while wondering which blinking spell to use on the bandits (either teleport them away, teleport them away, or teleport them away).  Simone tipped his hat to her, said "BYE!", and left for the South Window rune shop.

Viki stared at the dead bandits and blinked two times.

How do they do that?  He just... casually KILLED these guys, just like that!  M... Maybe they're still alive.  I'd better buy some medicine to help them.

Viki looted the corpses of the bandits of all their gold because she didn't have enough money to buy any medicine.  She figured that it was okay to use their money.  After all, the medicine was for them.  So, Viki headed off to the item shop to stock up on medicine. She hadn't even begun looking at the rare finds list hoping to find something nifty when Simone entered the shop, and when he saw Viki, said, "Hello, Mrs. Viki.  I need you to please teach me how to use the blinking rune."

Viki forgot why she was at the item shop in the first place.

Why me?

"Fine, just give me a sec," said Viki.  Annoyed, Viki brought some medicine just in case her next damage sponge ever needed some back-up healing, then told Simone to follow her.  Viki led Simone to the inn and paid for ten days stay, figuring that between teaching Simone and trying to find a way to reach the mayor to ask about McDohl, she'd be spending quite a lot of time in South Window.

Her attempts to get by the guards at the door were less than pleasant.

Over the course of the next few days, I had come to realize why everyone hated the ones called "Lawyers."  These mean old government officials won't even let me simply ask the mayor a question, because they think I'll try to assassinate him.  Why would I want to assassinate their mayor?  What's there to fear about me?  Maybe they fear people in general, I guess.  Why do they have to do that?  People are generally nice, right?  They're usually nice to me for some reason.  Oh, and teaching Simone is very annoying.  I've been studying teleporting for years and in only eight days and he's already better at casting that blinking rune than I am!  Is there something wrong with me?  But that can't be right!  I've been studying teleporting magic for nearly all my life.  It must be random luck or something, I guess.

In a flash, Simone appeared in front of Viki, completely startling her, and she screamed.

"My dear, tis only moi!"  Simone tried to calm her down.  "Ah, but I must surely thank you for teaching me to use this!"

Viki thwapped Simone with her wand.  "DON'T DO THAT!!!"

"I apologize, my dear!"  In another flash, Simone was gone.

Do other people feel that way when I teleport in front of them?  And he uses that blinking rune so easily!

Viki approached the guards of the city-hall for the twentieth time.  "Can I see Lord Granmeyer, finally?"

The two soldiers looked at each other and laughed.  One finally stopped laughing and said, "Okay, that's enough."

"Yea, you're right.  Guess we should finally tell her the truth."  The other soldier replied.  "You see, young lady, we're not lawyers, we're just guards.  And the truth is, we haven't let you in simply because we enjoy seeing you come here every day."

"Huh?"

"Because you're cute."  The first guard added.  "So, I guess we've joked around enough.  We'll let you in right now and..."

"Shazam!"  Too impatient to wait another minute, Viki zapped the soldiers and they teleported away into the cave of some hungry bear.  Viki stormed into city hall and walked up to the guards in the waiting room so she could finally ask Granmeyer, "Do you know where McDohl is?" and he could answer "Nope, sorry.  Don't know." and she could finally leave!

Viki yelled at the guards in the waiting room.  "I demand to see Lord Granmeyer!"

The guard calmly replied, "Sorry, lady.  Lord Granmeyer is currently talking to one Schtoltelheim Reinbach IV right now."

"Oh, okay.  I can wait."  Viki sat down next to a man wearing a crimson cape and hat and decided to start a conversation with him to pass the time.  "So... um, how are you doing?"

"Say . . . you wouldn't happen be here to investigate the Sindar Ruins near this area?"  The man glared at Viki.

Viki didn't know what he was talking about.  "Cinder?  There are ruins filled with volcanic ash near here?"

"Whew.  Just another ignoramous.  There are way too many other Sindar treasure hunters in this city..."  The red dressed man went back to doing nothing.

Two people in the room noticed Viki.

"Hey, it's her.  That magi master we gave the blinking crystal to!"  Renal walked up to Viki and bowed.  "Hail, oh great magi master Nikki!"

Metry grabbed Viki by her necklace and yanked Viki to her feet, causing Viki to choke.  "Okay, Nikki!  We know you have the rest of the blinking crystals and we want them NOW!  Our master was very pissed when he found out we didn't have any blinking crystals to give to the rest of the magi masters!"

The guards in the room took note of what was happening.  "Hey!  What are you doing?"

Metry slipped one hundred potch into the guards' pocket.

The guards went back to their positions.  "Because we were just curious, not like we were going to intefere or anything."

"Um, Metry?"  Renal poked Metry in the back.  "Are you sure you should treat one of the great magi masters like that?"

Metry quickly put Viki down.  "I'm sorry, but I'm really mad right now.  Could you just give us our blinking crystals back?"  Her eyes twitched a little.

Viki coughed and looked at Metry.  "Nope, sorry."  She wasn't willing to part with the rest of her blinking crystals just yet.  She might need them to hire more damage sponges in the future.

"You need to be more diplomatic."  Renal bowed to Viki again.  "Oh great and wise magi master, if you give us back our blinking crystals, we will let you in on the Wuffles secret!"

Metry looked at Renal.  "Wasn't it Wiffles?"

"Nah, it had to be Wuffles!"

"SHUT UP!"  The man in the red cape took out two knives.  "Get out of my face!  I can't stand your lousy NOISE!"

Metry looked at the guards.

The guards whistled and looked the other way.  "We were just curious.  We don't mean to intefere or anything."

The crimson caped Sindar searcher pointed his knives at Metry, Renal, and Viki, and they quickly ran out of the city hall.

Viki handed Renal what was left of the blinking crystals.  "Here, take them!  I don't have time for this.  I need to get back there to talk to Lord Granmeyer."

"Hey!  One of them is missing!"  Renal said, after counting the crystals.  "Fine, Lady Nikki, we'll tell you about the Wuffles research if you give us the last one."

"Okay, fine."  Finally fed up with wondering what the heck the wuffles waffles wiffles secret was, Viki decided to listen.  "Oh, and it's pronounced, "Viki.""

"Eh?  You pronounce the "N" as a "V"?  Wierd.  Oh well."  Renal bowed to Viki again.  "Very well, Lady Vikki."

Metry sighed.  "Our master will be really angry once he finds out we shared his findings so far with another one of the magi masters."

"Why?"  Renal laughed.  "Master Lohark was always the most generous of the magi masters.  He shared those blinking crystals with them all, so I don't see why he wouldn't mind sharing what he found out so far about the Wuffles project."

So, Renal proceeded to tell Viki about the story of the top secret project with the name that no one knew the correct pronounciation for.

You all know that we are from the society of Esde Majika.  A secret conclave of the greatest magicians of all time.  We have mastered nearly every form of magic that is conceivable to mankind, and even some that are not.  Well, partially mastered, at least.  Blargo still can't get his transformation spells to be 100% accurate, Renilliard has yet to create a decent zombie that doesn't decay at the slightest touch, and Lohark screws up his teleportation spells every once in a while to this day.  However, they have still mastered their particular sects of magic enough to become some of the six great magi leaders.  But so far, no one has managed to master more than one sect of magic without the aid of runes.  Our master Lohark wants to be the first, and he wants to master one of the few sects of magic that we haven't even been able to scratch the surface of, yet.  The ability to control time.  Not just slow it down or speed it up, but to actually be able to travel through it.

Every other magi master is currently after the secret to controlling time too, right now, except you, I guess.  They have found that there are three research components they need vital to making time travel possible.  The Sindar had a relic which allows them to freeze time temporarily.  It is said that the Star Dragon Sword has the ability to transport one back in time.  And finally, our files tell of a man which researched a special project for forward time travel called the Wuffles project, or something like that.  The book was dusty and no one could get 100% sure about the wording, but the man claims that he stored the Wuffles component within his most prized posession.  We currently heard that a man named Richmond had a dog named Wuffles and had no other clues as to what the Wuffles component could be, so we came here to talk to this Richmond and "borrow" his little puppy.  Then, afterwards, Lohark will have the power to travel through time, itself!  Er.... well, after we get the Star Dragon Sword, too.

Viki blinked.  "You're kidnapping poor puppies?"

Metry breathed a sigh of relief.  "Whew, she's not interested in the Waffles project.  That's good.  Less competition for us."

Renal smiled.  "Then we can show her what we have so far.  We already got the Sindar relic.  We plan on bringing it to master Lohark, soon."  Renal took out a small token out of his pocket.  The token glowed, then emitted a very loud noise.
 
 

Renal quickly covered up the token and shoved it back into his pocket.  "SHIT!!!  Why the hell does this damn thing always do that?"

Before Viki could think of the answer to his rhetorical question, she, Metry, and Renal were assaulted by an enraged Killey and every other Sindar seeker in the near vicinity.

As Schtoltelheim Reinbach IV exitted the City-Hall, he was too annoyed with his meeting with Lord Granmeyer to notice Viki in the riotting mass of treasure hungry treasure hunters.

Viki woke up in the South Window inn.

"My dear Viki!  Tis a good thing I was able to rescue you!"  Simone smiled at Viki as she groaned and Renal and Metry, looking extremely bruised and beat, entered the room.

Renal wiped his forehead.  "Whew, thank goodness for teleporting spells."

"Yea, too bad we teleported ourselves thirty feet into the air..." Metry grumbled to herself.  "At least we managed to save our Sindar relic."

"Not really..."  Renal took the pieces of what was once the Sindar relic out of his pocket.

Metry punched herself in the head and Renal keeled back in pain.  "Great, now we'll have to go to some other Sindar ruins and get another one of those."

"Well, my dear Viki,"  Simone bowed to Viki.  "Tis time I finally take my leave.  I thank you for your wonderful teleportation lessons."

Viki stood up out of her bed.  "Yea, you're welcome.  Goodbye, Simone."

Simone dissappeared in a flash.

I actually might... kinda... sorta... maybe... miss him, maybe just a little.  But only because he was slightly more tolerable than Milich or Vincent and it's been a while since I had a front liner to protect me against monsters.  It was nice to travel without constant concushions for once.  Oh, and he was my first student... sorta.  Although most of the teleporting spells he found out by himself, many of which I could never get right.  Is something wrong with me?!?

"Heh,"  Renal commented.  "He has a blinking rune, too.  Wierd.  Wonder where he got it.  Ah well."

"So..."  Viki looked around, trying to figure out what next to do.  "What will you do once you master time travel, anyway?"

Renal and Metry both smiled.

Renal exclaimed, "Set everything so that Lohark is the ruler of the world, of course!"

"Completely ruin the lives of those that would become obstacles with no remorse!"

"Go to the future to make sure what we're doing is right!"

"Right in the sense that only our future is the one that is bright!"

"Because with the power to control time we can make sure we won't lose it."

"And we all know that when you have power, the best thing to do is ABUSE IT!"

Viki interrupted the two.  "Um... isn't that evil?"

Metry glared at Viki.  "Well, DUH!  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely!"

Renal laughed.  "Ain't it great?  Well, we're off to go find and mob some guy and steal his cute puppy.  See ya!"

Metry and Renal dissappeared in a flash.  Viki stared at where they used to be.

That's not good, is it?  I'd better go get those dohickies before they do.  Let's see... I need a Sindar relic, the Star Dragon Sword, and a dog named Wuffles.  Well, guess I'll start with either the Star Dragon Sword or the Sindar relic, since those guys are already going after Wuffles.  Last thing I need is competition in whatever I'm going for, right?  No wait... that's not how it works, is it?  Hmm.... ah whatever, I'll get the sword and relic first then get McDohl to beat the crap out of those two and take the dog from them and everything will be great.  But I thought Viktor had the sword.  Didn't he die or something?  And where on earth can I find a Sindar time token?  And I still need to find McDohl!  Well, better get to work...

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"Viki" and "Suikoden 2" are (C) Konami. This chapter was posted on January 6, 2000