“This is a bit more Iron Chef than I was expecting,” Vell said.

He hadn’t even known the school had an auditorium, much less the capacity to convert it into a fully-stocked kitchen arena on short notice. The sizable stands were already packed with spectators, and more were crowding in the closer it got to showtime. Renard was double-checking his workplace before the contest, giving the loopers some time to conspire.

“Alright, so we have to ask about Lijia Mian on the first loop, that way no one else will remember telling us anything,” Vell said. “Is there anything else we should ask about while we’re at it?”

“I don’t know,” Harley said. “Goodwell might be a little crazy, but he’s not very interesting. Not a lot to him.”

“I imagine having one question answered will simply raise another,” Lee said. “We should focus on extracting as much information about Ms. Mian as we can.”

“Good point,” Vell said. “And Lee, I think you should ask the guy. You’re good at dealing with authority. And at bribing people.”

Lee nodded in agreement. There weren’t many secrets that a million dollars couldn’t reveal. Since it was the first loop, she could make whatever outlandish promises and bribes she wanted, and none would be the wiser.

The loopers finished their scheming, and as if on queue, Principal Goodwell appeared, with his arm wrapped tight around the shoulder of a stranger.

“Ah, there’s my competitors,” Goodwell said cheerily. “This is my counterpart and former partner-in-crime, Isaiah Malbasin. Izzy, these are some of my brightest students. The tall one is Leanne, you should know her.”

“Yes, I believe I do,” Isaiah said. “My Ballball team speaks of you in tones normally reserved for atomic bombs or the devil himself.”

Leanne nodded.

“The refined looking woman over there is Lee, the shorter one in red is Harley, the redheaded man there is my team lead, Renard, and that tall gangly looking fellow is Vell.”

As they were introduced, each member of the team waved politely. Isaiah looked them all over in turn and seemed deeply impressed. Once the entire gang had been introduced, Isaiah waved to the far side of the stage.

“Well, you all look impressive,” Isaiah said. “Let me introduce you to my team.”

A squad of four stepped into view, mirroring their counterparts on the looper’s team -in more ways than one.

“The tall one is Leanna, the refined looking woman over there is Leigh, the shorter one in pink is Harmony, and the redheaded man there is my team lead, Ronald.”

The two mismatched teams stared one another down -except for Vell who, lacking a counterpart, looked around at their four opponents awkwardly.

“It’s like looking at an off-brand version of us,” Harley said. Leanna was tall and muscular, though not so tall and muscular as Leanne, Leigh was slightly less poised and refined than Lee, and so on down the line, with each of the Patschke-Puck competitors looking like a flimsier version of the Einstein-Odinson originals.

“Hey, rude,” Harmony said sassily, though not as sassily as Harley would have said it. “Maybe you’re the offbrand version of us.”

“Oh that’s not possible,” Harley said. “I mean, you guys don’t even have a Vell.”

Harley pointed over at Vell, who lifted his hand in a stiff wave.

“Maybe we don’t need a Vell,” Leigh protested.

“What are you talking about, everybody needs a Vell,” Harley said. “Look at this guy. He’s great.”

“I don’t know, he does look pretty cool,” Leanna whispered to Harmony. Vell stood up a little straighter.

“Hah, see, your Leanne isn’t as cool as ours either,” Harley said. “Ours is all stoic and silent.”

Leanne crossed her arms and stared silently down at her counterpart. The lesser Leanna withered under the mighty glare of her superior.

“There’s no need to get caught up in competition, sweetheart,” Leigh said, in a British accent slightly less posh than Lee’s. “They’ve got one more member and a goliath of a woman, but we have resources.”

“Right, and what resources would those be?” Lee said.

“My father is the manager of Innovation Electronics.”

“Hmm. Right,” Lee said with a surprisingly sadistic smile. “My father is the CEO of Roentgen. The parent company of Innovation Electronics.”

Leigh leaned back on her heels, suddenly red in the face. She looked to her left, at where Ronald had been standing. Their redhead was gone -as was his counterpart on the Einstein-Odinson side of the aisle. Both teams looked to the nearest kitchen and saw Renard and Ronald stooped over the burner.

“So the real trick to caramelizing onions is to slightly undercook them,” Renard explained. “Most of the time you’re going to be putting them into a hot dish, so you gotta let that heat be what finishes cooking them.”

Ronald nodded and jotted down some notes.

“Well at least those two get along,” Isaiah noted. “The rest of you, get ready.”

“Oh, yes, one thing, real quick,” Lee said. She turned to her teammates and nodded. Harley distracted Principal Goodwell by informing him that it was the first loop and they’d bought him a bag of candy to eat guilt-free, and led him backstage, away from Isaiah. Vell and Leanne helped Renard prep while Lee latched on to Isaiah and pulled him away from helping his team prep.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malbasin, I was hoping to pick your brain for a moment, about our principal’s past,” Lee said. “You went to college with him, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Isaiah said. ‘What did you want to ask about?”

“Well, there’s an old classmate he mentions now and then,” Lee said. She took a deep breath. “Did you happen to know anyone by the name of Lijia Mian?”

Isaiah rubbed his chin. He seemed to disapprove.

“Isaac’s still hung up on her, huh?” Isaiah said with a sigh. “Figures.”

“He does still seem to place great importance on her,” Lee said.

“Well, I don’t know what’s been thinking or doing since we left school,” Isaiah said. “But back in the day, Isaac was head over heels for her. Lijia never seemed to like him very much, though, but they spent nearly every day together, getting up to some kind of strange shenanigans.”

Lee nodded to herself. That sounded familiar, but she could analyze it later.

“What was she like?”

“One of the brightest women you could ever meet,” Isaiah said. “She was a genius. Knew more about the flow of mana than anyone I’ve ever met, even all these years later. She’d probably be the biggest name in science, if she hadn’t disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yep. Up and vanished one day, about halfway through our last school year,” Isaiah said. “I don’t know too many of the details, but I know they looked for her with every kind of scanning and scrying known to man, but never found her.”

“Oh dear. That’s unfortunate.”

“It’s a real shame, yeah,” Isaiah said. “It’s a surprise Isaac still talks about her, though. Last I heard he got married and had kids. It’s just sad that he’s still talking about the one that got away.”

“Some people get so caught up in the past they fail to appreciate what they have,” Lee said. “Regardless, thank you for answering my questions. I understand Principal Goodwell much better now.”

“Anything else?”

“No, I won’t ask for any more of your time,” Lee said with a curtsy.

“Yeah, you should be getting back to your team anyway,” Isaiah said. “It’s almost time for you to get absolutely annihilated by my team!”

Isaiah pumped his fist and posed emphatically towards his team of knockoffs, who responded with a weak cheer. Lee squinted at Isaiah’s sudden odd behavior.

“Don’t ask for mercy because you’re not getting any,” Isaiah taunted. “Try not to cry too much, little girl.”

Lee nodded and started to back away from Isaiah slowly. She began to see why Goodwell hated him so much. Leaving Isaiah and his childish taunts behind, Lee returned to her team and repeated the information about Lijia Mian.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“So, she hung out with Goodwell and got up to a lot of shenanigans too, huh?” Harley said. “Sounds like Mian was a looper too.”

“I’d sort of assumed, but it’s nice to have confirmation,” Vell said. “The disappearance is new, though. And, uh, worrying.”

“I know,” Lee said. “Even back then, scrying magic made it difficult for a person to go missing. There must be exceptional circumstances at work.”

“Spooky,” Harley said.

“Very much so,” Vell said. He didn’t like spooky. Spooky didn’t end well.

“I think we’ll have to look into it more later,” Lee said. “Perhaps I can ask Isaiah more questions about it-”

Leanne interrupted Lee by tapping her on the shoulder, and then pointing to the kitchen area. The loopers looked up to see that the kitchen Renard and Ronald had been working in was now burning with purple fire.

“Oh that’s probably not good,” Lee said. They four scuttled over to Renard, matched by their off-brand counterparts scuttling over to Ronald.

“What happened?” Both groups asked.

“Oh, Ronald was just showing me some cool trick he knew,” Renard said. All heads turned to Ronald, who shrugged.

“Well he knew so much cool stuff, I felt ridiculous, so I tried to light a magical fire to cook something with and it, well, it did that!”

Ronald pointed at the purple flames, which were now spreading past the stove top. Leanne did the most pragmatic thing available and blasted the flames with a fire extinguisher, which had no effect. Lee’s hydromancy also failed to douse the flames. Panicked spectators started to flee the stands as the flames continued to spread.

“You guys got any ideas?” Harley asked, turning to the group of Patschke-Puck students. Leigh made it halfway through mustering up the courage to say something when the purple flames erupted in a bright -and distressingly humanoid- pillar. Leigh’s courage flew out the window and she let out a loud scream as the magical flames coalesced into the jagged figure of a four-armed man.

“Run!” Leigh screamed. She pushed Harmony towards the flaming figure before turning to flee. Leanna and the others followed -except for Harmony, who was reduced to cinders as the fire elemental swiped at her with one infernal limb.

“Ouch,” Harley said. She could not help but feel a touch of sympathy watching her doppelganger get reduced to ash. “You’d never do me like that, right Lee?”

“Of course not,” Lee said. She demonstrated her point by grabbing Harley and pulling her away from one of the fire elemental’s flaming strikes. “Like you said, they’re off brand. Our friendship is name brand.”

“Aww, that’d be really sweet if it made more sense,” Harley said. “Anyway, this thing’s going to incinerate us friendship or not, so I’ll catch you guys on the flip side.”

Leanne grabbed the nearest piece of food and chowed down before the fire elemental’s fury started to spread and consume them all.

----------------------------------------

“Hey Renard, stop fooling around with the competition, we need you over here,” Harley shouted. Renard popped his head up and looked at Harley, who waved him over.

“Okay,” he called back. “Sorry Ron, you’ll have to show me that magic fire trick later.”

“Sure, I guess,” said a disappointed Ron. Renard walked away and Ronald, having no one to show off to, left the magical fire unlit. Lee had brought a magical fire-extinguisher along, just in case, but the solution had ended up being remarkably simple.

The second loop proceeded without incident, and with only a few minor changes on their part -mostly that Lee did not ask any questions about Lijia Mian. With those questions, and preventing the daily apocalypse, out of the way, the loopers focused on the next most important task: the cooking competition.

As competitors on both sides of the stage took their places, the stage lights came on, and a catchy pre-show jingle started playing.

“Vell was right, this really is knockoff Iron Chef,” Harley noted. There were even smoke machines. The odd level of hype only amplified as the MC of the event stepped up to the mic.

“Hello and welcome, the third annual Einstein-Odinson versus Patschke Puck cook-off, where the name isn’t the only mouthful involved,” the host said. No one laughed at his joke. “I’m your host, Mark Damascus.”

He received a smattering of polite applause, which he absorbed with suitable aplomb.

“And allow me to introduce our guest hosts; Mr. Gordon Sheepsey! Mr. Bobby Clay! And last but not least, Mr. Emeril LaOille!”

Harley’s eyes narrowed as the trio walked on stage. They all looked familiar -but not too familiar.

“Wait a minute,” she whispered. “Sheepsey? Clay? LaOille? These are all cheap imitations of more famous and successful chefs!”

Harley leaned over the counter top to glare at their off-brand counterparts from the other school. All four of the poor imitations had smug smiles on their faces.

“Those bastards stacked the deck,” Harley muttered under her breath. “They’re cheating!”

“Well that’s a bold accusation to make,” Lee said. Before she could continue, the announcer continued.

“And in keeping with the traditions of our challenge, each team will be provided a special ingredient in addition to their basic kitchen supplies. For the Patschke-Puck students-”

Mark Damascus posed dramatically as a tray of ingredients was teleported onto the kitchen counter top. The silver lid lifted to reveal a tray of raw meat.

“Kobe beef! And for the students of Einstein-Odinson-”

Damascus posed once again, and a matching tray appeared in front of Renard. The lid on this one lifted to reveal a plain white bag.

“Flour!”

“Okay, they might be cheating a little bit,” Lee said quietly. Vell grabbed at the bag of flour and peered inside.

“This bag is half-empty,” he noted. “And there’s a note inside that says ‘suck it, Einstein’s’.”

Vell noticed an arrow pointing to the opposite side of the note. He flipped it over.

“With a crude drawing of a penis on the other side.”

“Those bastards,” Harley noted. “Didn’t even have the decency to draw a good penis!”

“Begin!” The announcer shouted. The Patschke-Puck team sprang into action with choreographed grace, while Renard appraised his bag of flour. It seemed to be the variety one might buy at a dollar store.

“Oh well, I was feeling like baking anyway,” Renard said. He grabbed a bread tray, along with some salt, water, and yeast. As an afterthought, he also took out a pinch of sugar.

“This is bullshit,” Harley said. “Lee, what kinda magical stuff you got to get back at them?”

“I suppose I could enchant the water for a bit of extra flavor,” Lee said. “I’m not sure how I’d-”

“Not like that,” Harley protested. “We have to kneecap them as hard as they kneecapped us. Possibly literally. Leanne, do you think you could throw something hard enough to break a knee?”

Leanne grabbed a nearby mixing spoon, tested the heft, and nodded affirmatively.

“Hey, no kneecapping,” Vell protested.

“Why would we need to?” Renard asked.

“You really need to listen, Renard,” Lee said. “The other team is cheating.”

“Yeah, I know,” Renard said. “But why does that mean we have to cheat?”

Harley kept her mouth shut, knowing she had no good response to that. Cheating back would make her feel good, at least.

“There’s always going to be people doing bad stuff, and if you respond to it with more bad stuff, nothing ever gets better,” Renard said. “The only thing on the line is a cheap trophy. That’s not worth dragging ourselves down to their level.”

“Actually, Renard, the prize is a several thousand dollar scholarship grant for the respective school’s culinary program.”

“Oh,” Renard said. “Well still. We’re the good guys. We need to win the good guy way.”

“Ugh, fine, since you made a whole speech about it,” Harley said. “Let’s get this bread.”

Renard laughed at Harley’s joke and started giving orders. With the limited resources available to them, each member of the team had very little to do, but Renard found a role for everyone regardless. With their assorted tasks quickly wrapped up, all they could do was sit and watch as Renard put together the finishing touches and put their loaf in the oven. Then it became a matter of waiting -and staring angrily at their competition as they seasoned and cooked their expensive beef.

“That smells delicious,” Harley said. “I’m starting to regret taking the high road.”

“Well the fun part about the high road is that it’s pretty easy to jump down,” Renard said. “But it’s a lot harder to climb up from the low road.”

“You’re right, I- Are you talking about the moral high road or literal climbing?”

“It works for both,” Renard said. Harley shrugged. “Now hold on, I have to watch the bread.”

Renard stooped low in front of the oven and stared through the glass screen. Lee examined their workspace to see if hey were almost out of time, and saw no countdown of any sort.

“Renard, did you not set a timer?”

“Of course not,” Renard said, without taking his eyes off the bread. “Baking isn’t about timing, it’s about color.”

Then, without a word -and without any perceptible change in the color of the bread- Renard decided it was done and snatched the loaf out of the oven to let it start cooling. To everyone else it looked exactly as it had a minute or so ago, but Renard had a trained baker’s eye for very small differences in color.

“Time’s up!” Mark Damascus shouted. A loud siren blared to signal the end of their cooking time. The Patschke-Puck teams continued to season and prepare their food in spite of the time being called. Harley didn’t bother raising a complaint. Mark took the prepared food to the judges table, who deliberated on it in silence.

“I know we had that talk about morality, but I’m still going to be quite cross if we lose this to a bunch of cheaters,” Lee grumbled. In response, Leanne pounded a clenched fist against her open palm.

“Leanne’s right,” Harley said. “We can always jump them in an alley after the show’s over.”

“That’s not what you meant, right?” Vell asked, looking up at Leanne. She didn’t blink.

“It’ll all be fine,” Renard assured them. “Whatever happens, we did our best, and we did it the right way.”

The judges finished their deliberating. Each team’s food was ranked on a scale from one to ten, with the rating displayed on an electronic screen above the judges head. Each judge rated Patschke-Puck’s kobe beef steaks a solid ten -and Renard’s loaf of bread a solid eighty.

“Also, I’m like, really good at baking,” Renard said, as confetti started to rain down on him. Across the stage, Leigh screamed.

“What! What’d I even bribe you idiots for?”

“It’s good bread!” Gordon Sheepsey shouted back, before shifting his focus to fighting the other judges for more of the bread. As the knockoff celebrities sank into a full-on fistfight over a loaf of bread, Damascus awkwardly presented Renard with a trophy.

“Good job, you’ve earned this, I think,” Mark said. In the background, Bobby Clay screamed as Sheepsey bit his hand. “There’s supposed to be more to this but I think we need to do something about that. You should go.”

“Okay, but I want to know who wins,” Harley said.

“I’d put money on Sheepsey,” Lee said. “He looks feisty.”

“You really need to go now!”

And go they did. Event proctors shuffled competitors and spectators alike out of the arena as the trio of judges started to fight over breadcrumbs like a gaggle of angry ducks. Once they were outside the auditorium again, Isaiah Malbasin gathered together his off-brand students and retreated, shaking a fist at Renard’s team as they went.

“You may have narrowly won a victory today, but we’ll get you next time, Einsteins!” he cried, as his team rounded a corner.

“You probably won’t,” Vell cried back.

The Patschke-Puck students vanished, leaving behind the triumphant Einstein-Odinson students. Renard appraised his trophy and offered it to his teammates.

“Anybody want this thing? I don’t have any room for more cooking trophies.”

“I like shiny things,” Harley said, and Renard handed it over. Harley admired her reflection in the faux-gold as Principal Goodwell approached his team, applauding all the while.

“Good show, good show, I knew I could count on you guys,” Goodwell said. “Feels good to keep that win-streak going.”

“Somehow I feel we were never really at risk of losing,” Lee said. “Is Patschke-Puck cursed? I feel as though they might be cursed.”

“Nope, we’ve checked,” Goodwell said. “Not cursed, hexed, bewitched, or stricken. They just suck real bad.”

“How unfortunate.”

“For them,” Goodwell said. “Anyway, good work all, I’ll let you know if I ever need your help again.”

“If you do, please hesitate to ask,” Lee said with a curtsy.

“Wait, did you mean ‘please don’t-”

“Maybe.”