THG: 3.5 Don Texas

Don Texas 3.5

Marissa Newland

“Stupid John. Stupid contest. Stupid potatoes,” I grumbled as I mixed up a light batter.

On the plus side, the fridge section that John conjured up out of his ass was fantastic. It was loaded with everything, veggies and fruits that painted a rainbow of color, different cuts of meat, and eight types of potatoes. I didn’t even know there were that many types.

I looked around curiously, wondering how some of the greatest heroes in the world would fare in a kitchen. Legend flew over to grab four russet potatoes, butter, chives, and a block of parmesan cheese. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised, but he looked like he knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

“What are you making?” the redhead, Anne, according to her nametag, asked. “Are you sure that’s supposed to be a mashed potato?”

I looked down at the batter. I reached into a cooler, pulled out a beer, and placed a hand over it before heating the metal cap. I peeled the softened metal off and began pouring it into the batter.

“No, it’s a beer batter, see? I’m making fish and chips. Or just the battered fish.”

“But… Why?”

“Because I don’t want the dumb sword and I want fried fish for lunch.”

“You… You don’t?”

“No! Do you have any idea how much shit John’s dragged me into?” I hissed, weeks worth of frustration leaking out in a visible heat shimmer around me. “I just want to be a normal girl!”

“But your Mars, the Morningstar,” she whispered in awe.

I glared. Somehow, I’d ended up with the same epithet as the fucking devil. Just because John used me to club Leviathan did not mean they got to give me a stupid name! “I will set you on fire if you call me that again.”

“Okay, okay,” she gulped nervously. “So you don’t have some secret knowledge of how this contest will be judged?”

“I don’t. I’m only here because he said he’d buy me and my friends a house and give us an unlimited budget to furnish it if I participated. I don’t want to win, please move on.”

“O-Okay…”

X

Anne Barnes

Mars was a little grumpy, though I supposed that was to be expected if she didn’t want to be here in the first place.

Why was she here anyway? It wasn’t like Don Texas was lacking for volunteers. And between pyrokinetics and capes who went for a knightly theme, there should have been plenty of candidates even if he wanted exactly seven participants for some reason. Did he really draft her just to mess with her?

Actually, that might have been spot-on. He was quite famous for being a troll, just one so powerful that no one could call him on his bullshit.

Fiddling with my mic, I approached Gallant next. He was the odd one out. Legend. Narwhal. Cinereal. Chevalier. These were all huge manes, either major players in the world or heads of their own cities. Even Mouse Protector was a veteran, one of the most famous independent heroes and a graduate of the first Wards team.

Mars didn’t have a history of heroics to her name, but she wasn’t really after the sword. For that matter, given what she did to Leviathan, I doubted anyone would complain if her name got mentioned alongside the others.

But Gallant? He was a Ward. He was… nice. That was all I could say about him; there was truly nothing noteworthy about the tinker. It was like Don Texas picked him out at random because he needed to fill a “local capes” quota.

I was curious. 

“Say, Gallant, do you mind if I ask you some questions?” I began. I could see the snitch hover. Uber and Leet were probably making a killing off this.

He looked like he was doing alright. Or at least, he looked confident, which might be because he was an idiot.

Could tinkers be idiots? The PRT really stressed their technological skill and intelligence, especially since our city had Armsmaster as our Protectorate leader, but I was starting to have my doubts.

In front of him was a bowl, just like every other kitchen station. But unlike the others, his was filled with oats, wheat, and what I was pretty sure was barley. Unfortunately, I’d yet to spot a single spud, skin-on or otherwise.

“Shoot,” he said. He transferred everything into a dry frying pan and began to toast the grains. “This looks a little weird, doesn’t it?”

“Ah… If I’m honest? Yes, very weird. What are you doing?”

“I’m making ‘mashed potatoes.’”

I could practically hear the quotation marks there. Since he clearly wanted me to ask… “Why? I mean, why not regular potatoes?”

“Well, I’m not oblivious. I know that I’m the odd one out. Every other hero here is so much more accomplished than me. Even if I had another ten years, I don’t think I could be half as great as Legend or Chevalier.”

“So… You’re not competing in the contest?”

“Oh, no, I am,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “I know I probably won’t win, but cooking is at least something with a level playing field. I know that some people might say I’m not worthy of such a weapon, but I feel that if I don’t try my best here, I’ll regret it all my life, you know?”

“I get that. Who’s to say except Don Texas in the end?”

“Exactly.”

“But that makes me even more confused. You’re competing, but… you’re not making mashed potatoes…” I trailed off.

“Armsmaster and I did a ton of research,” he began.

I blinked. Was he… Was he going to make tinkertech food? Was that even a thing? Like, extract all the starch from different grains and somehow reconstitute a potato out of it? “And that research led you to oats. Would you be offended if I half expected you to show up with a tinkertech potato peeler attached to your arm?”

“Haha, not at all. Actually, between you and me, Kid Win did try to make a bread maker once on a dare from Aegis.”

“Really? What happened to it?”

He shook his head sadly. “We gave it the funeral it deserves. Anyway, what if I told you that mashed potatoes didn’t exist back then?”

“Like.. the recipe…?”

“Both the recipe and the crop. You see, potatoes are a crop native to the new world, that is, South America. They were first introduced to Great Britain during the late sixteenth century. Care to guess when King Arthur was alive?”

“Umm… We’re pretending King Arthur was a real person? I’d guess the Middle Ages?”

“Earlier, closer to the Dark Ages. Truthfully, though most people blend the two eras and the Renaissance, the Arthurian legends predate the arrival of the potato by about a thousand years. In other words, the challenge itself is a trick question.”

“Ah, I think I understand now. So you’re making the closest equivalent with crops that someone like Sir Gawain would have had on hand?”

“That’s right. I admit it’s a bit of a gamble, but if nothing else, I think I can stand out more like this,” he said with a smile that I could hear through his helmet.

“That’s a very tinker-like answer.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He removed the seeds from the pan and put them all into a mortar. Then, something emerged from his hand, an over-engineered rod with a stone cap that vibrated fast enough to make it look blurry. “Now, while I don’t have a tinkertech peeler, I do have an Armsmaster-approved tinkertech grinder, good for oats, nuts, spices, and everything else in the kitchen.”

I snorted out a laugh. Let no one say he wasn’t good at PR. “That’s hilarious. What else is special about your dish?”

“Well, after this, I’ll be heating it with cream to give it a similar consistency to mashed potatoes. Flavor analysis of medieval recipes says people of Sir Gawain’s time enjoyed herbs like sage, thyme, and oregano. Lastly, Sir Gawain was obviously of a high social station as part of the king’s personal retinue, so I’ll be adding roasted, diced veal. It’s a little like a pottage more than normal mashed potatoes, but I think Don Soprano will like it.”

“I love it. That sounds delicious, and maybe a little over-engineered.”

“Right? I’ve never cooked like this before, but I think I may have found my new hobby.”

I chuckled as I moved on. Maybe Gallant wasn’t the strongest or most prestigious hero, but there was a reason he was so popular. He was genuinely goodhearted, funny, and charming. I had a feeling that Galatine could do worse for a wielder than Gallant.

I walked over to the next table. This time, I’d be speaking to the leader of the entire Protectorate. I couldn’t deny I was a little starstruck. Even in his mid-forties, the man looked good.

“Is it my turn?” Legend asked with an easygoing smile.

“A-Ah, yes, sir,” I stammered, almost a squeak. I flushed as I realized the entire world caught that through my mic. In my defense though, this was Legend. People like me didn’t get to speak to people like him.

“Relax, this is just a cooking contest.”

“R-Right. So, you look like you’re very comfortable in the kitchen.”

“Haha, I suppose I am. Maybe it’s a gay stereotype, but I do like to cook in my spare time,” he said with a gentle laugh. “I’ve found it’s a great way to bond with my husband. This is actually my husband’s recipe”

I leaned in to take a peak. The potatoes were silky smooth, without a single grain to be found. “What’s in it?”

“A ton of butter, but the secret is grated parmesan cheese and roasted garlic.”

“Ooh, that sounds good. If you don’t mind me asking, what will you do if you win?”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to take up fencing lessons. Truthfully? I wouldn’t mind winning, but I’m not too interested in the sword. I mostly joined because I thought it’d be a fun way to spend the day.”

“Huh… Yeah, I guess you don’t really need to get up close to a villain.”

“Right.”

“Thank you for your time, Legend.”

“It was my pleasure.”

The next three participants weren’t nearly as welcoming as Gallant and Legend had been.

Chevalier didn’t seem to know what he was doing. He’d started out well enough, with boiled potatoes and butter, but either had the flame on too high or hadn’t stirred enough because his pot was burning. When I pointed out the smoke, he panicked and began to scrape it all out onto a bowl so I didn’t get to ask him any questions.

Narwhal was little better. She was just as annoyed with Don Texas as Mars, maybe even more so. Then again, I understood: Apparently, she hadn’t actually been around to receive the letter because she’d been busy in an operation in Gambia. She was the head of the Guild, with all the responsibility that implied; she didn’t have time to research mashed potato recipes. 

As if to prove her point, she picked out one of every potato available: russet, golden, even sweet, and yam. She then used her power to create a crystalline shell around them all, raw, before dicing them into fingernail-sized chunks with her force fields.

After that, she used a larger force field to mash it all together before frying the mixture on a pan. Then, she realized that the potato… pancake… had fused together into something resembling a hash brown from McDonald’s, so she mashed it again.

It was, quite literally, a mashed potato. 

She took one look at the brown, crumbly mess, threw her hands in the air, and said, “Fuck it. Fuck Texas. I’ve got shit to do.”

Last I saw, she’d left on one of Dragon’s smaller personnel carriers, presumably back to Gambia, or maybe to Guild HQ in Canada.

That was still better than Cinereal, who also tried to cook with her power, “tried” being the operative word. All she had for her trouble was a lump of coal that was more ash and soot than potato. I had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t the kind of woman who enjoyed cooking.

“Not. A. Word,” the Atlanta Protectorate leader growled.

I backed away quietly.

That left just one person left, the big cheese herself.

Mouse Protector was an oddball, both in terms of personality and in the position she occupied. Yes, she was part of the inaugural class of Wards, but she was also the one that left, claiming the Protectorate was too boring.

Since then, she’d become one of the most successful independent heroes in the world thanks to her sense of humor and dynamic fighting style. She was so popular in fact, that she’d featured in several TV shows alongside her former colleagues, both cartoons and the more serious variety. I was pretty sure that was how she financed her hero work.

Seeing her reminded me of my kid sis. Emma used to love watching those cartoons, so much so that we used to wrestle for the remote every Saturday morning.

“Oh? Is it finally time for the mousiest hero?” she said with a winning smile. She was in her what? Twenty-eight? Thirty-two? I wished I could make stupid puns at that age and make them sound so natural.

“I guess it is,” I said with a smile. “Saving the best for last.”

“Well, come on then, ask away.”

“First, what do you think of the cooking contest?”

She leaned forward as if to tell the world a secret. “Well, between you and me? I’m not a very gouda chef.”

I looked at her plate. Most people were about done by now. Other than Legend’s, hers looked downright normal. Well, maybe not quite normal; the whole thing was pitch black and simmered like an oil spill, though I could tell by the moisture that it wasn’t because it had been burned like Cinereal’s or Chevalier’s.

I felt compelled to ask. “Mouse Protector, why is it black?”

She beamed at me with all the joy of a child playing with Play-Doh. “I want to shape it into the shape of a mouse, see?”

Sure enough, she pointed to two smaller bowls. Each were filled with mashed potatoes that had been dyed pink, presumably with copious amounts of food coloring.

“I see… How did you get it so black though? It… It kind of looks like an oil spill.”

“Activated charcoal and squid ink! They’re both great for your health so I’ll have both the cutest and healthiest potatoes!”

“I… Okay, yeah,” I agreed. Clearly, she wasn’t much of a chef either. Then again, maybe she didn’t actually want the sword and was doing this for PR? She was certainly sticking to her brand. “If you get the sword, what will you do with it?”

She leaned back with her hands on her hips in a triumphant pose. “What I’ve always done: Be a paw-sitive force for good! Use my tail-ents to vanquish evil!”

“Of course… I don’t know what I expected,” I muttered.

That was the end of my interviews. I turned back towards the judges. It felt pretty good, being the only one allowed on stage, but I didn’t think this kind of thing was for me. Emma might love the spotlight, but I was fine being a little more low-key.

The judges looked bored out of their minds, though they hid it with varying degrees of success. Made sense, it wasn’t like there was a whole lot to do while we watched people boil potatoes. Shows like Iron Chef made things look exciting, but now that I was on the ground floor of arguably the most important cooking contest in history, I could admit it was a little dull.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Don Texas asked.

“Yes, but you do realize there are only two mashed potato dishes that are edible, right?” I told him. “Legend’s actually looks tasty and Mouse Protector’s is probably fine once you get past the weird colors.”

“Chevalier’s isn’t awful for an amateur. Sure, it’s a little burned, but there should be edible portions,” the red-haired, Japanese man said. He looked really cool, though I had no idea how a Japanese person could also be a ginger. Or how he got to be a judge.

“I can already tell. You’re going to be the nice judge, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am.”

“None of you seem worried about the lack of actual mashed potatoes though.”

The man, Shirou was his name, laughed sheepishly. “That’s because John’s focused on dishes that are the most Gawain-like.”

“So you’re looking for something historically accurate? Like Gallant’s?”

Don Texas shook his head. “I wouldn’t call that historically accurate.”

“Well, it’s at least plausible, right?”

“Right, but no. That isn’t what I mean.”

“Oh, just tell us already,” Vista said. She jabbed his side with an accusing finger. “You know, I’m a judge and I still have no idea what ‘Gawain-like’ is supposed to mean.”

“Okay, fine. Story time! Way back when King Arthur was on her war of conquest to unify Britain–”

“Hold on,” I interrupted, “Her?”

“Her. King Arthur was indeed a woman. Her real name is Artoria Pendragon, second daughter of Uther. She hid her gender for decades and passed herself off as an extremely pretty man thanks to the immortality granted by Avalon, the sheath of Excalibur, and the occasional help from Merlin.”

“That’s… not the story I grew up with.”

“Stories change over time. History is always in flux, especially where the Throne of Heroes is concerned.”

“I’m confused.”

“Don’t mind it. Anyway, while she was on her war of conquest, her older sister, Morgan–”

“Morgan’s not her sister.”

“She is. Do you want the story or not?”

“Alright, alright,” I surrendered. “Continue with your ridiculous historical fanfiction.”

“Right. Morgan, being the petty bitch she is, cursed Artoria. She cursed her to only ever eat the blandest food, something about ruining the taste of victory. And, to better get on her sister’s nerves, Morgan even magicked up potatoes, introducing them to Artoria a full millennium before they’d be brought back from South America.

“Now, because they were constantly on the march, Artoria didn’t have the time to make proper dishes. And since she was a good king who made no special allowances or luxuries for herself that her own men didn’t have, she too ate what her men ate.”

“Which were potatoes…” I was starting to understand, and what I understood was that Don Texas’ judging standards were based off Arthurian legends fanfiction, the really shitty kind with genderbent protagonists. 

“Correct. Potatoes are incredible crops. They grow swiftly, in relatively poor soil and climates, and with barely any oversight or nurturing required. They are ideal for a medieval army.

“However, like I said, they didn’t have time to figure out the tastiest ways to eat a potato while on the march. So, Artoria ate boiled and baked potatoes, just like everyone else. She grew quite sick of them, to the point that she would rather starve or eat tree bark than a boiled potato.”

Shirou nodded understandingly. “Yeah, she had very strong feelings about potatoes. Some were fine added into stews and curries, but she hated any dish that featured potatoes as the main ingredient, like french fries. Now that I think about it, I think that’s why she was so fond of Japanese food; we don’t use potatoes often.”

I took a deep breath. Shirou was supposed to be a new hero. He was handsome, cool, and had the kindest, gentlest smile I’d ever seen.

And, it turned out, he was in on this weird King Arthur fanfiction crap that Don Texas was spouting. He talked like he’d met King Arthur, like he’d been his, her(?), personal chef.

I glanced at the third judge. Vista and I locked eyes. Even through her visor, I could practically feel her pitying gaze as my brain cells died one by one. Truly, she was the only sane person on this judging panel.

“Now, let’s talk about Gawain,” Don Texas said. Apparently, he wasn’t done with this nonsense.

“Was he also a woman?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“You’d think so, what with Nasu’s genderbending fetish, but no. Anyway, while Artoria loathed potatoes with a burning passion, Gawain was different. He was of the opinion that when it comes to food, quantity was a quality of its own. So long as there was a lot of it, he didn’t really mind what it tasted like.”

“So you’re looking for people who make the most?”

“Not just that. I’m looking for the blandest, lamest slop of mashed potatoes ever seen, the kind you might find at a military camp on the march. I want potatoes that are so bland that ‘tastes like cardboard’ would be a compliment.”

I sighed. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but he still managed to surprise me. “Is… Is this entire cooking contest just a giant dig at British food?”

He conjured a stein of beer for himself and took a sip, the foam hiding his smirk. “Strictly speaking, no, but I won’t be upset if that’s the conclusion you come to here.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re giving away an unimaginably powerful weapon just to make fun of British people.”

“Hey, don’t look at me. Morgan started it. British food is literally cursed to be shit. Although, to be fair, she did introduce a staple to military rations. It might all have been her tsundere way of helping Artoria now that I think about it,” he said with a smug grin. “Or maybe she didn’t mind a unified Britain so long as she could make her little sister suffer. That’s also on brand for her.”

“I’m… I’m sorry I asked. Please give me back the last fifteen minutes of my life…”

Author’s Note

Remember, Gallant was advertised as a tinker and blaster, not an emotion-based master. Anne knows only what the PRT says she should know.

So anyway, I have no idea where I want to take this so you guys decide: Who had the most Gawain-like dish?

Mars: Fish sticks. She’ll burn the gym down if you pick her.

Gallant: Mashed… oats…? Includes veal. Great recipe, and about as historically accurate as anyone could expect of a high school boy.

Legend: Perfect mashed potatoes with cream, chives, parmesan cheese, etc. Easily the best tasting dish.

Cinereal: Technically mashed potatoes, but with soot from her power mixed in. Looks a little splotchy.

Narwhal: Failed mashed potatoes. They’re more like McDonald’s hash browns that have been pulped into a grainy slurry. She left, but technically did finish her dish.

Chevalier: Plain mashed potatoes that have been burnt, but are probably sorta-edible.

Mouse: Squid ink & charcoal-infused potatoes shaped into a mouse. It probably tastes quite salty because of the squid ink.