Chapter 11: Buffet
"Yay! We're here!"
The Smashers had arrived in front of Kirby's house, located in an average-looking grassland.
"Good grief." Fox looked around at the star-shaped mountains. "And I thought Mario's universe was odd-looking."
"It's like physics doesn't even care," Samus agreed.
"Physics are boring." Kirby walked over to his mailbox to see a few letters. "So…junk…weekly death threat from Dedede…junk…more junk…ooh, a present!"
"Weekly death threat?" Link's eyebrows shot up. "That's kind of…extreme."
Kirby pulled a brown package out of the mailbox. "Dedede's a dope. Every time he decides to actually come down here I kick his bum back to the castle." He started unwrapping the box. "Sometimes when I can tell he's coming I rush out the back and watch him parade around the house demanding me to come out."
Most of the Smashers had a good chuckle.
"That castle over there?" indicated Pikachu. "Is he the king's jester or something?"
"He's the king himself." Kirby took a snowglobe out of the box that he'd ordered a few weeks earlier, which contained three snow-Kirbies stacked on top of each other. "I don't know if he actually does any king stuff or even is allowed to be one, but all the Waddle Dees seem to care about is that someone feeds them."
"Speaking of feeding, these apples are pretty good." Yoshi had nabbed a few off a nearby bush. "Bit tangy, though."
Kirby suddenly leaped into the air before running into the house. A few seconds later various kitchen noises came out.
"That was…a surprise." DK scratched his head.
Jigglypuff inched into the open doorway to find Kirby wearing a chef's hat and working at lightspeed in the kitchen. "Um, what are you doing?"
"I haven't had visitors in a while. But when I do, I make them awesome food!" He juggled half a dozen eggs for a few seconds before expertly lobbing them into strategically-placed knife blades above spoons, which tipped the yolks into various bowls while scattering the shells onto the floor.
"Woah. That's some skills right there." Yoshi was sitting down to see through the kitchen window of the Yoda-sized house. "Hey Mario, you could learn a thing or twelve from this guy."
Mario rolled his eyes while Luigi chuckled.
"On the menu: chicken, potatoes, and a whole lot o' cake." Kirby was kicking ingredients into a bowl soccer-style while mashing potatoes with one hand and breading chicken with the other. "If someone wants to take those folding tables in the corner outside that'd be awesome."
"That'd be us." Pikachu hopped through the three-foot door and helped Jigglypuff move the tables outside, the rest of the Smashers unable to get inside without crashing into things.
Once set up, the tables were seen to have a crude logo of "Kirby's Mess Hall" drawn on in crayon in a very strange font.
"That's cool," said Ness. "He's got his own, uh, franchise."
A few blasts of fire occurred inside the house, followed by the sound of an egg timer ringing. Kirby then wheeled a string of stereotypical serving trolleys out of the door, complete with chrome half-domes.
Yoshi immediately picked up the scent. "Oh man, this is gonna be good."
Kirby grinned. "That's right!" He pulled a lid off with a flourish, releasing the powerful smell into the air and revealing an incredibly well-done pile of chicken.
"No way." Falcon crossed his arms. "You just started that two minutes ago. Not even I can cook stuff that fast."
"Laws of this universe, remember?" Fox poked his thumb backwards at the landscape.
"I'd like to drag some of the laws of this universe back home," said Samus. "Do you have any idea how boring the food my ship puts out is? Sometimes it's like eating cordite."
The Smashers sat down on the ground as Kirby started uncovering more of the trays. While most were chicken and potatoes as he promised, there were a few surprises, such as lettuce and chocolate sauce.
"…chocolate-a sauce?" Luigi spurted. "With chicken?"
"When you're the best chef in wherever, the only question you can ask yourself is: why not?" Kirby took a large slab of chicken and dunked it in the sauce before chomping down. "And there's usually no answer."
Pikachu scampered over to the chocolate sauce and scooped up a large helping with his tail, plopping it onto a plate of lettuce. The rest of the Smashers started digging in as well.
"This is-a five stars, right-a here!" Mario gave his approval.
"I'm sure there's a word for this." Yoshi double-dipped a chunk of chicken. "And I think that word is gastronomical."
DK scooped up some potatoes. "So, what's next for us then?"
"Well, my universe is the last stop on the tour," said Samus. "After that we'll have to hope that whoever put us together decides to show themselves."
"I think we're missing something…" Link muttered as he looked over the table.
Kirby glanced at the table for a bit before dashing back into his house. He came back out pushing what looked to be an orange suitcase-sized device resembling a gas station pump.
"Got a citrus dispenser here." The puffball produced a set of glasses and started pouring orange juice into them.
Ness took out a radio. "Do you get any cool music here?"
Kirby made a motion that seemed to be as close to a shrug as someone could get without shoulders. "Dunno, never really use the radio."
Ness turned on the radio. Immediately it began producing up-tempo music fitting to the unusual landscape, with not a trace of static.
"Ooh, I like this one!" Kirby started bobbing in time to the music.
"But you said you don't listen to it," said a confused Jigglypuff.
"I hear this song all the time, though."
Samus scanned the radio before looking up into the sky. "This might take the cake for weirdness - the atmospheric noise and cosmic microwave background radiation of this universe is, instead of producing static, producing that music."
There was a short period of dumbfounded looks from the other Smashers before they shook off the technical explanation and got back to eating.
"KIRBY!"
The Smashers turned towards the castle to find what looked like a fat penguin jogging their way.
"YOU'RE IN FOR IT NOW KIRBY, I'LL…um…" He clumsily skidded to a stop. "Who are all these guys?"
"These are my new pals," Kirby said cheerfully. "We're the…uh, what are we again? Oh yeah, the Smashers." He took another large bite. "Smashers, this is Dedede."
"There should be a "King" in there somewhere," Dedede muttered, his bubble clearly burst from seeing Kirby surrounded with eleven buddies.
"You seem disappointed." Yoshi copied Kirby's "ha-ha, you showed up at the wrong time" demeanour. "But hey, there's food! Why don't you take a bite? Or nine."
Dedede could tell he was being called fat, but having lost his edge all he could muster was an angry look. "I'll be back later, when you're…er…done eating." He shuffled away.
Fox waited until the penguin was out of earshot. "He's a buffoon alright." The others chuckled.
"Might've been fun to challenge him to a Gourmet Race." Kirby finished his juice. "That's when we scatter food around and see who can eat the most and get to the finish line first. One of you guys could have joined in or something."
"For sures on dat." Yoshi's eyebrows wiggled. "You 'n' me Kirbs, we're goin' places." He ate the last bit of food on his plate. "This is where I would fistbump you. But it's not applicable, so have a thumbs up."
The rest of the table laughed.
