The Very Hungry Amethyst

Summary: Amethyst discovers her new favorite restaurant!

Amethyst was Hungry.

Actually, Amethyst had no clue what "hunger" really was. In fact, she hadn't been hungry once in her entire life.

To most everyone else, hunger was defined as a NEED to eat. To Amethyst, "hunger" was defined as a WANT to eat. One could call her the ultimate Foodie, if it wasn't for the fact that she would eat things most others wouldn't consider food- like tea bags and tires.

On this particular day, the purple Gem was going to visit the new strip mall Mayor Dewey had been plastering signs about all over town. Visiting new humans was always fascinating. They would freak out easily- unknowing of Amethyst's magical abilities to shape shift. Plus, new stores meant new new dumpsters. The Gem loved to dumpster dive and find cool things for her room's collection. The beings of this planet were surprisingly wasteful, and always threw out really good stuff.

As Amethyst approached the new venue of stores, an incredibly large sign of interest caught her eye.

It was big.

It was yellow.

It had a giant picture of a massive steak on it.

The incredibly delectable sign said the following:
"Take the steak challenge today at Rob's Buffet! Eat a seven-pound steak in less than ten minutes, and your entire purchase is FREE! FREE! FREE!"

Amethyst couldn't believe her eyes! It was a buffet…a potentially FREE buffet at that! All the food you could eat in exchange for eating ONE steak?! This was the most amazing sign she had ever seen!

The purple Gem quickly skipped to the new restaurant. She wanted to try this deal for herself before the human had a chance to change the sign.

Amethyst was sitting at a prominent table, completely surrounded by curious spectators.

The situation was getting better and better! She had never had an audience for her eating hobby before! Normally, she just got scolded by Pearl, or received a disgusted look from Garnet.

Rob, the owner of the restaurant came out of the back door. He seemed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, completely unaware of anything odd or out of place. Behind him were several of his fellow employees lugging the large piece of meat on a giant plate.

As the food was placed on the table, Amethyst licked her chops in anticipation. Rob took a nearby microphone from its stand. The purple Gem thought he sounded kind of like the ring master of one of her wrestling matches.

"In this corner, we have a new challenger for our super-sized steak supreme! THE LOVELY AMETHYST!"

Amethyst blushed slightly at this comment. She stood up in triumph encouraging the crowd into an excited frenzy!

The announcer continued: "Will Amethyst succeed? Or be shunned onto the "WALL OF SHAME?!""

Rob turned the audience's attention to a cork board with pictures of previous humans that had already failed the challenge. Most of them looked either nauseous or disappointed.
"Let's find out! Shall we?! I'll start the timer. You have ten minutes…and…BEGIN!"

The man pressed the button on an oversized novelty digital clock that had obviously been installed for this purpose. As the clock began-

"VVVVVVVRRRROOOOMMMGPH!"

A gasp went around the room as the gigantic piece of meat was inhaled- literally. Amethyst had transformed her mouth into a vacuum cleaner, and had managed to swallow the thing whole…. even the T-bone in the middle and the plastic garnish on the plate's side.

The purple Gem let out a satisfied belch.
She was quite happy…that is, until she noticed the terrified looks of horror on the human's faces. Had she done something wrong?

Amethyst glanced around the surprised room, before noticing the steak plate.

A-ha! That's why everyone was so troubled!

She transformed her mouth to fit around the thing, and proceeded to swallow the corelle ware like a snake with its jaw unhinged.

There was a scream or terror among the crowd. A random woman fainted at the ghastly sight.

"YEAH! I DID IT!" Amethyst seemed proud of herself despite the easy challenge. She raised her arms in the air with triumph.
The clock said 25 seconds.

Rob the manager seemed on the verge of a panic attack. It was unlike anything he had ever seen- it…it wasn't right…it wasn't HUMAN…
Amethyst turned to the nice owner and smiled. "Sooo…I ate the whole thing! The rest of my meal is free now, right?"
"Erm…well yes…but…WAIT. REST OF YOUR MEAL?! How on Earth can you still be hungry!?"
The purple Gem shrugged. "Idon'tknow…I just am! Now, where's that buffet?!

The next few hours were filled with either delight or horror- depending on who you asked.

Amethyst located the multiple metallic tins under the row of heat lamps and began to gorge herself…
…with her hands…
…without a plate.

Many of the other customers were so offended at this behavior that they left the restaurant in a huff. Some even asked for a refund for "compensation purposes".

The owner quickly informed his staff to stop preparing food. Perhaps if there was nothing left to eat, this monstrosity would leave his business.

When the food had been devoured, and the entire buffet was empty, Amethyst began to wander to the (now abandoned) customer tables. To the disgust of the staff, the purple being began to chow down on the half-eaten scraps that had been left behind.

Amethyst thought of this disgusting activity as more of a helpful service. Now the workers wouldn't have to clean the mess the other humans had left behind. She was reminded of her dumpster diving- so wasteful.
Just to be extra nice to the workers with their clean up, she ate the plates as well. This friendly staff deserved a night off- they had been really awesome!

When this process was done, Amethyst returned to the buffet heat lamps to see if any of the food had been replaced. When she noticed all the trays were still empty, the Gem began to lick the crumbs clean (as well as take a full bites out of the metallic dishes as well).

The owner, Rob, meanwhile, was in the back room of his new restaurant. He was in a fetal position, crying his eyes out.

Pearl noticed that upon Amethyst's return to the temple, she seemed more…STRANGELY shaped then usual…..

When the tall Gem inquired about this phenomenon, Amethyst began to present a happy anecdote about the wonderful restaurant she had found. At the end of the story, Pearl seemed surprised and curious. She had never come across a human willing to giveaway so much food at once. Certainly this "Rob" fellow must have been friendly, and had a good sense of empathy. Pearl had no interest in eating, but did at least want to offer Rob thanks for giving Amethyst such a wonderful meal.

Several days later, Amethyst had convinced the rest of her family to join her upon returning to her (now) favorite restaurant. At this point, Garnet and Steven were equally curious about meeting this nice businessman…especially because the purple Gem hadn't shut up about him since their last encounter.

When they finally arrived at the location, Amethyst frowned in sadness.

There was an "Out of Business" sign in the window.

When I was still taking writing classes, there was this bar-type restaurant on campus that was famous for 5 things:

1. Showing sporting events
2. Premiering the new South Park episode on their giant TV every Wednesday
3. This awesome type of root beer you couldn't get anywhere else
4. Their REALLY good fries
5. The "mighty burger challenge". Where you would basically eat a burger larger than most people's heads in less that 10 minutes and win a free shirt if you succeeded. They had a "wall of shame" with LOTS of pictures of nauseous people, and a smaller: "wall of fame" with like…3 people wearing their new shirts.

I think part of this story comes from that.

When it comes to buffets, I actually can't eat at them anymore. I have a really low immune system, and I've probably gotten sick almost EVERY TIME I've eaten at Golden Corral. People touching tongs, and then dropping them in food…ick.

My family DID go to one really good buffet (and by good, I mean It didn't give me food poisoning afterward), at the Circus, Circus hotel in Los Vegas one time.
Their buttermilk biscuits and bacon were really good during breakfast. I think the reason why it didn't make me sick, is because they changed out the food more regularly.
They also had a roller coaster on the inside of the hotel too! I hate roller coasters, but even I thought that was pretty sweet…..

…anywhos…

…enjoy "Gemology ROCKS!"!

This is where I'm going to put SU short stories that don't fit into my other fics…some may be longer than others! Hope you like them!