All of the cats and chicks were at the place to go for all cadets and teenagers alike. It was a small diner up in space, but it was a hot hangout. Good food, great people, and it was affordable!
All four boys, barely out of their teen years at the Space Ranger Academy, were true and pure customers at the diner. The diner's name? Cosmo's.
Buzz Lightyear, the studious one, was poring over a book, making sure to get his studies done ahead of time. He ordered a simple peanut butter and bunzelberry jelly sandwich and water-enough to get him by through his work. This was often a subject of good-natured teasing from his roommates and friends, but they didn't mind it too much.
Ty Parsec, the reasonably rational if snarky guy, was sipping out of a strawberry shake. He ordered a tender steak sandwich with a crisp and clean mixed salad to balance out his meal. He was busy trying to keep Warp and Rocket from going at it in their game of poker, and he was flustered by their antics.
Those two card players?
Warp Darkmatter was attempting to show he wasn't cheating by slyly playing the game to his advantage. He had next to him a watermelon mojito mocktail. No meal.
Warp's opponent, Rocket, was very competitive, edging his way in to a find a weakness in Warp's playing ability. His meal was a small pepperoni pizza with a Cosmic Cola. He shifted his eyes back and forth between his cards and Darkmatter.
Who would win?
Meanwhile, the proud owner and top chef of this lively diner, the green-skinned Zoidian named Cosmo, was stationed in his kitchen. He cooked up meals for the incoming Ranger custom-er, cadets. So far, business was slow, but that was usually normal in the food business when you were starting off. He knew he was onto something, though, when he first opened his diner to the public. He was already receiving applications for potential waitrons and other cooks, and the Galactic Alliance was starting to take notice of his services with the orders the President was putting in for official government meetings.
Cooking up a sizzling storm, he made a mental note to call up one of the promising new faces for his diner, a young Felineon named Sally Tabby after closing time.
He put the finishing touches onto his steaming masterpiece, he brought it over to the window and ringed for his top waitress, a blue-feathered type of Avian named Penny Plutonium, to pick up. He called in his Eastern Zoidian accent, "Pick up for cosmic chili!"
"Coming, Cosmo!"
Little did he know that the cosmic chili would one day be the favorite of a certain cadet in the future.
And little did anyone know the foggy futures for the cadets and the diner staff would transform into something bigger.
Buzz would become a leader.
Warp would become a traitor.
Rocket would become a competitor.
Ty would become a shapeshifter.
But for now, as anyone would see as plainly as Penny could see, that these four boys, now in the middle of some heated but playful debate about who won the game and who was free from cheating, would be just that: young and free-spirited kids at the hop.
Fin.
A/N: This drabble is a result from a music challenge I'm taking part in-the music was set to Danny and the Juniors' song, "At the Hop", and the prompt? A slice of life at Cosmo's before it became a thing with our four boys acting carefree. This takes place during my origins story, Glory Days, but this piece isn't necessarily a scene from the source.
The name for Cosmo's species? Zoidian, after one of Paul Rugg (Cosmo's voice actor)'s most famous roles-Freakazoid!
Felineon and Avian are names for the cat-like and bird-like species Sally and that one blue parakeet waitress in "Tag Team". Penny's name is one I made up for the blue waitress since she's never given one.
There are a few restaurant terms in here: the 'window' is the shelf connected to the kitchen and where the food is picked up by the servers, and 'waitron' is an '80s term used to describe waiters.
Warp's watermelon moquito was a drink I tried in RL. Never again.
Enjoy and have happy days!