Emperors War

Just as he got to his station one of the apprentices from the kitchen brigade came running through tossing food over into the waste pile without giving it any real care. Not even looking to see if the failed product made it all the way there they shot back into the crowd and disappeared amongst the chaos that was the kitchen.

Aker seeing the whole process counted himself lucky that he wasn"t hit by the flying failure as he just stood there minding his own business.

Just as he was thinking about nearly getting face smacked by a failed souffle another apprentice repeated the action of the previous one, following nearly the identical sequence to the point that Aker had briefly thought that he was having a rather large case of Deja Vu.

"Teacher Sampson shouldn"t you tell them to watch what they"re doing now that someone is here in this station. They are throwing around that stuff and not even paying attention. Won"t I get hit by it? Who will make it up to me if I do get hit?"

Showing a concerned and scared face Aker asked of Sampson. Truthfully even if he was to get hit it wouldn"t hurt Aker at all but you have to take advantage of every opportunity.

"Hehe little boy that is your second misunderstanding you know. The closer you are to the middle the higher your social standing is what I told you....do you not remember? It is your job to get out of their way, it is of no concern to them to worry about missing you. Their status is much higher than yours you know."

Sampson stated again with just a little more force in his voice. He was truly starting to get tired of explaining to the boy about the rules within the kitchen. Was it really that hard to understand that he is working with the waste, so he should be able to figure out his position in here right?

Finally showing a face full of dread and understanding Aker put a deep frown on. If it wasn"t obvious before, the picture had been clarified perfectly at this point. There was no one here who was lower in status than Aker. He is literally stationed in trash and waste.

After truly understanding his place Aker took a deep breath and decided that no matter what it wasn"t worse than being in his cell so he should just accept it.

"Ok, I am ready to try cooking...where are the ingredients? I have no experience at all but if it is something simple, I should be able to manage..."

Not giving Aker a chance to go any further Sampson pointed at the waste pile "All of the ingredients you will need for anything you would like to make is in there. You can make whatever you would like, unlike the other stations there are no specifics or restrictions applied at the reject station."

"He wants me to cook with failed ingredients, trash, waste and food? So that"s why this is the reject station. It"s not only for the rejects but they prepare only rejected ingredients as well.....hahahahahahaha...."

Aker"s inter thoughts soon burst out as the laugh that originally started to himself leaked out of his mouth and into the air.

"Is something funny little one? I don"t believe anything was said or done that should be found humorous. While you might be an amazing fighter, in the kitchen that means very little. Here we do not evaluate based on fighting ability but on the ability to take the ingredients and turn them into works from heaven. The closer you come to perfection the higher your ranking would be. Right now, watching you as you look into the waste binge it is obvious you find yourself trying to figure out what to do. Since your culinary skills only amount to that in this kitchen you are less than a person, you are a brute."

Again, Sampson expressed his thoughts to Aker, there should be no confusion as to what Akers standing should be.

Aker hearing the words from Sampson resolved himself to improve his standing. He reached into the waste and started to concoct based on what was available.

Aker had no experience cooking and he had no concept of what type of ingredients he was seeing. His first thought was "how hard could it be to make something to eat, I have seen it done enough times I should be able to do something even if I don"t know what the ingredients are. Isn"t it just cutting, putting it over a fire and eating it?"

Reaching down he grabbed something that looked like a cuc.u.mber. The reject station had some knifes that had clearly been used to the point of ruin as all them were missing their tips. In addition, half of them had chips and slight cracks running through them. All of the knifes had dull edges. They were knives that would make any culinary expert grimace at just the sight, and these were the knifes that Aker was given for his attempt at carving up ingredients.

As he took the knife and tried to cut through the "cuc.u.mber", due to the knives bad edge and that it was unintentionally perforated it smushed and mashed rather than cut. Because of the poor quality and more specifically because of the lack of skill, Aker tried using brute force as piece by piece of the "cuc.u.mber" was separated.

After completing the "cuc.u.mber" Aker looked through the waste pile and found things he thought he could vaguely identify. Something that looked like bell pepper, a green onion, carrot, eggplant and Daikon.

Following the example of the "cuc.u.mber" the remaining were butchered in the name of cooking. To take waste and destroy it, Aker"s talents were on full display.

Watching the utter destruction and the betrayal of cooking taking place before his eyes Sampson could not even look as Aker would put his weight into the knife forcing its cold hard blade through the ingredients. With a cringe he fought off the urge to scream and yell at the betrayal of the sanct.i.ty that Aker was destroying, his every action was a form of blasphemy.

Sampson nearly lost it demanding that Aker leave his kitchen immediately upon watching him take all of the different ingredients that had no business being together and tossing them into a burnt pan. The pan which had exceeded its usefulness about 10,000 uses ago was one of three pans in the reject station.

The smell of the different ingredients as they blended together in the wretched metal that was called a pan nearly caused the refined nose of Sampson to jump off of his face and escape to the furthest reaches of the universe.

As Aker finished with the "Food" a smile spread out across his face. When blacksmithing he had felt the full brunt of failure as he swung and missed the ingot, however when it came to cooking the results were right before his eyes. The waste ingredients in his hands had turned into something simply put, AMAZING.

"With this let"s see teacher dare keep me in this reject station. While I don"t dare say I should approach the middle I should be able to enter somewhere with a little prestige."

The self-satisfied smile of Aker betrayed his face letting Sampson know that he was very satisfied with his glorious creation.

Vance who had silently sat by while Sampson had reprimanded Aker had his face twist. Even for him, a barbarian the pile of blackened substance in the pan could not even be called waste as it was not fit to be thrown away in the waste pile.

Originally Aker was using substandard equipment. No... substandard was far too good a term for the equipment. Perhaps it was better to define it as the rubbish that trash would make fun of if it had a voice.

So, seeing the substance that Aker made wasn"t a shock or surprise, in fact considering it was his first time cooking it probably was in the realm of what one would expect. The reason Vance"s face was twisting was he could see the smug smile and satisfaction reflected in the eye of Aker. Vance"s wry smile was trying to hide his embarra.s.sment for this disciple of his. While he hasn"t had any time to truly teach and train Aker to a degree where he could have significantly molded him, it didn"t change the fact that he was indeed already his disciple and from the moment he took him on his every action reflected on Vance.

"Good boy...to think you could create something like this with only those ingredients. You know despite the ingredients being in the waste pile they are indeed some of the finest ingredients this side of the Stellar Solar System. To think you could take those ingredients and manage to make that. Go ahead and eat up. From this moment on all food you eat while here in The Pit should be made by those hands."

"Thank you teacher.... I didn"t know that cooking could make me feel so proud and accomplished. It"s true that when Master told me that I would be learning to cook I not only didn"t think anything of it but had felt it was something that was perhaps a waste of time. I felt that I should focus my time on learning my fighting skills and the skills that could support that. After hearing Teacher Sampson talk about cooking and food earlier my mind was starting to change and I could feel your pa.s.sion. However, after taking those ingredients and actually making it something I can say I feel some of what Teacher was talking about."

Aker didn"t see any plates or utensils so using just his fingers he reached into the pan and picked up his dinner. The food had an opportunity to cool down enough while Aker was admiring his creation and while talking so it didn"t burn him even though it was still pretty hot.

Upon the first bit of it reaching his tongue the smile that had revealed Akers satisfaction instantly changed into sounds of disgust "yukkkkk.....ahhhh....ptttttt...." Aker made sounds and voices that completely expressed the thoughts of his masterpiece. In one word "disgusting". It was so bad that Aker fought an epic battle managing to keep it in his mouth and swallowing it down.

"Teacher I think...I think...perhaps you should make my dinner. I"m thinking that it"s not right for me to eat this as it is my first successful cooking, I should present it to Teacher and Master. I have heard that"s the custom a disciple follows when first achieving success. In hindsight it was pretty rude of me to eat without offering it up first. This disciple is ashamed of himself and will repent."

No way. There was no way Aker was going to keep eating this. He had to convince his teacher that he was being respectful by offering up that pile of nasty.

"What a good disciple that brute has taken on. I"m not certain I have agreed to take you as a disciple so I think at this time there is no need for you to show me that level of respect right now. That brute may be honored, I think based on the look on his face he should be upset you didn"t offer up to him first."

With a smile Sampson had thrown Vance to the wolves without hesitation or regret.

The face that Sampson was referring to as upset due to not being offered the food first was actually a face of relief mixed with the lingering disgust. The relief was in the fact that Sampson had told Aker he needed to eat it and didn"t include him in the previous conversation...the disgust was from his imagination running wild at the idea of having to eat it. In his mind he pictured himself taking a bite with Aker and was left almost sick, and that was merely from the thought of it.

"No... No... How could I, your Master in my benevolence steal the food from my disciples" mouth. As a prisoner of The Pit you have barely eaten anything. You studied and worked hard all day after fighting in The Pit, learning medicine, swinging a hammer in the forge and even cooking. All of that was done on only a few hours of sleep while suffering from injuries. You are already in a weakened state and then for me, your Master, who cares for you so deeply to then steal the food from your mouth? If I were to do that could I be considered anything but evil by any measurement, I would be guilty."

Vance said the words with sincerity and concern as if though nothing mattered more to him than the wellbeing and welfare of Aker. As Aker heard his words, he found no room to negotiate. His only option was to just shamelessly push through.

"Master, I your disciple could not see it that way. Does it matter what others think or say, only what you think or say should matter to me. It would be a great sin if I wasn"t to present this to you and I would be looked down by all people throughout time for not being able to adhere to such a basic principle, I....."

"My dear disciple just your words have reached me and conveyed everything they need to. I can feel your care and as your Master I acknowledge those feelings. Because I acknowledge your feelings there is no need to present your own meal to me. Go ahead and eat, you need the strength and sustenance. Let"s consider this matter closed and not mention it again."

Without letting Aker finish the rest of his spiel he interrupted him and put an end to it. Dangerous. If he allowed Aker to keep talking he might really end up with that swine slop. No....what person would actually feed that to their livestock? Even everything Vance had happen in life he felt the cold sweat on his back at the thought.

The scary thing is still scary!

Aker glared at his master for a moment then looked over to Sampson who gave him a look that told him "it"s not my problem".

On this day Aker had lost many times. He had thought that his loss to Mavis earlier would be his biggest loss of the day, if only that were true. With his master putting to rest any conversation and without the support of Sampson he had no recourse and again he could only accept his fate.

With bated breath Aker reached in and grabbed a large handful. Unlike last time where he used his fingers and delicately pulled a couple of pieces out this time he was aiming to put as much in his mouth as he was capable of doing. In this way he could most quickly and efficiently proceed through the food getting it over as fast as possible.

Aker put several handfuls in his mouth barely taking the time to chew with all of his focus on swallowing and not breathing.

With a loud "huhhhh" Aker finished swallowing the last mouthful, a dreadful appearance on his face.

Seeing Akers face Sampson couldn"t help but laugh aloud again. For the second time in the history of the Kitchen Sampson was laughing which again through off all of the cooks in the kitchen. Was the Executive Chef always capable of laughing? If so, why had he never done it before today? Why had he done it twice today?

If they knew that Sampson was laughing and having such a great time due to Aker"s utter misery, they, who were already fearful of The Beelzebub of the Kitchen would give him an even more ghastly and sinister moniker.

"Make sure you come back tomorrow when you"re ready to eat. I will instruct everyone here to not cook anything for you as you are now a trial kitchen cook. All people of the kitchen are required to make their own meals, no exceptions. No need to check with me or anyone else as this is now your station and you can have full reign over it."

With that comment Sampson walked off no longer paying attention to Akers att.i.tude or expressions. Aker"s face once again betrayed him as if though it was announcing his dread in Sampson"s statement. Vance who saw Akers face and expression made a mental note that in the future he would have to teach his disciple how to hide his emotions.

After giving it a seconds thought he decided that even if he had trained Aker, based on the food earlier he would probably have still betrayed his expectations and shown his dread.

Not wanting to waste any more time today in the Kitchen Vance decided it was time to bring Aker back to reality.

"It"s time to head back to your cell. You had a long day and you need to get back and rest. Besides I have a surprise gift for you there."

Hearing Vance"s words Aker decided to stop thinking about what he just endured and followed behind Vance.

As they approached Aker"s cell door Aker could feel his legs shake just a little. It suddenly felt like the steps he was taking were more difficult. He thought it was due to his fatigue and ignored it.

Aker could hear the slight moan of the people in the cells next door as if though they were struggling with something.

"I can tell you that what I have left in your cell is my most prized possession and it is something I have guarded and kept secret even with my life."

Vance whispered into Akers ear just loud enough that Aker could hear but with no way of anyone around them being able to pick up even the slightest of sounds.

Excited Aker looked into the cell and upon looking it over found...nothing. He had his same dirt and stone walls and floors. He had the same bloodstain on the floor and he had the same bars. There was nothing else.

"Master did you perhaps put it in someone else"s cell by accident?" Aker couldn"t help but think that maybe his master had made a mistake and put it somewhere else.

"Does it feel harder to walk? Do you feel heavier than normal?" Vance asked Aker while looking at his expression. Of course, Vance already knew the answer before asking, he had noticed that Aker was struggling to walk when they got closer to the cell.
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"I did feel like I got heavier and that it was harder to walk. I thought that perhaps it was due to me being so tired and being close to my cell."

"No....that feeling it"s because I buried something in the ground of your cell. I buried a Gravity Stone, and it can increase the amount of gravity a location experiences. Right now, it"s set to 1.25 of normal gravity but it can go all the way past 10x gravity. It"s a supreme treasure that countless people would fight and kill for. From this day on you will live and train under the pressure."