This was actually gonna be part of Chapter 4, but then it got WAAAYYY too long, so I ended up splitting it into this. I don't know why the thought of this was so funny, but here we are, folks. Anyway, I've sorta been on a break from Ultimate Daydream ever since I got C4 up. However, the motivation is back, ladies and gents, and you're gonna get more of your probably not favorite, but tolerable jiang-shi and Ravinan duo!
Also, I got a page! I'm hoping to make a little bit of side cash doing what I love (that being writing fanfics and stories) so I'd really appreciate it if you guys could check it out! It goes by the username of AwesomeTrinket, and it's called "Sara's Writing & Fanfiction Corner."
I only own Camilla Swann and Naomi Liu. Everyone else in the Super Smash Bros universe belongs to their respective owners.
Chapter 6
Eating Contests
"I wonder how much Kirby can eat." Those opening words were so innocent and lighthearted as a question; anyone could have eventually wondered the same thing, right? When Sonic uttered these seven words, though, Naomi completely stopped in her tracks, setting her fork down (which had been midway to her mouth) so she could pay more attention to the blue hedgehog.
"…You're kidding me, right?" Naomi chuckled. "He's – he's Kirby! He can eat more than me."
Sonic didn't drop the issue at this point. "Yeah, but how much, though?"
"Well, I mean…" She trailed off, before starting up again. "He can eat – …I – I don't know!"
"All we know is that Kirby eats a lot!" Isabelle chirped, happy as can be. The puppy had taken quite a liking to their table, after Cheddar practically dragged her over to make friends with them. She and Cheddar really liked each other, Naomi had noted. Naomi could frequently see Isabelle, Cheddar, and the toy poodle Nintendog playing together in the grass any time they could. Recently, they even befriended the Duck Hunt dog and his bird friend.
How much COULD Kirby eat? That was the question that passed the time in Naomi's Saturday morning with Sonic, Ness, and Isabelle. Camilla was off, going on "walkies" with Cheddar, as she called it, so it wasn't like they could potentially get stopped by the Ravinan buzz-kill. After a bit of debating, Ness was the first one to bring the idea to the table – why not feed Kirby some food until he gets full?
"Now you're talkin', Ness!" Sonic grinned, leaning one elbow on the back of his chair.
"Hmm…" Isabelle looked around, before scribbling something down on a notepad she seemed to keep in her vest all the time. "We usually waste about half of the food here, so feeding it all to Kirby today means that not only do we learn something, but we don't throw out perfectly good food!"
Naomi blinked. "That's…that's actually a really good idea. Thank you, Ness."
"No problem!" Ness beamed at the compliment.
"Hey! Hey Kirby, c'mere!" Sonic started waving his arms at the next table over.
Kirby looked up from his friends and at Sonic, smiling wide and waving with one little arm.
"Hiiii!" Kirby squeaked.
"Come here, Kirby, we wanna know something!" Naomi called.
Kirby waddled on over, hopping up onto the chair the group had dragged over for them. "Poyo?"
Isabelle started first. "Do you know how much you can eat, Kirby?"
"Poyo…" He shook his head.
"Wanna find out?" This was Naomi.
Kirby looked excited to answer one of the world's unsolved mysteries with his friends. "Poyo! Poyo!"
At this point, Ness staggered over with two plates of leftover breakfast food. They were piled up pretty high; higher than Naomi's plates usually were stacked, and that was saying a lot. The boy struggled a bit with the food, but eventually managed to set it down on the table. Kirby's eyes practically lit up at all the food, before glancing up at Ness, as if asking if it was all for him. Once he got the confirmation, he literally inhaled it all in, only stopping once both plates were cleaned out in under ten seconds.
"…That was fast." Naomi chuckled. She wasn't too sure what she expected, but it wasn't this.
Sonic zoomed to the table and back, heaping piles of food onto plates and carrying it to Kirby, who ate them all. This was fun, Naomi realized. Why was watching a little thing like Kirby eat so much so entertaining, she wasn't too sure. But did she really care? …Nah, not really. Isabelle started writing stuff down in her notepad again.
"He's already eaten five plates and still going strong!" She chirped.
"Well, don't stop him now!" Naomi waved her arms around. "Let's get him some more food!"
Kirby just looked happy to be eating so much. Honestly, Kirb, Naomi thought to herself, same. Same. About twenty-something plates later, the group ran out of food to give Kirby. By then, Isabelle had calculated that he had already devoured about thirty pounds of food, and, judging by how he was waving his nubs for arms around going "poyo! poyo!" he was still hungry.
"I'll go ask Kawasaki to whip up a bit more!" Isabelle chirped, sliding off the chair and walking up to the now-empty buffet table. Naomi cracked open another bag of marshmallows and started munching. For a moment, Naomi wondered how Camilla would react if she knew what they were doing. She'd probably tell the group to stop it; there were far better ways to entertain themselves. Naomi would probably have to remind her about the Uno incident.
She pulled out her helm from her backpack; sleek and white with a pink visor and an emblem of two ballet shoes; the ribbons twisted together. That was the symbol of the East Oclanian (and, from how Camilla praised the country's forces so much for being the ambassadors of Ravina, basically Ravinan) military. Camilla had said something about the shoes representing the determination, strength and gracefulness of the East Oclanian, and how ballet was totally a skill that was looked up on in Ravina.
Was Camilla still connected? Naomi checked; didn't look like she was. Camilla must still be out on that walk with Cheddar. Knowing her, she was probably squealing over Nintendog and letting him and Cheddar play together. That was fine by her; that just gave her more time to conduct this experiment with Kirby without Camilla barging in and ruining all the fun.
Naomi looked up at the sound of a very upset roar that went something along the lines of, "What happened to all the food?!"
"…Bad timing, Deeds." She called out.
"I repeat: where did all the leftover breakfast food go?!" King Dedede crossed his arms in Naomi's general direction. Behind him were two or three Waddle Dees standing single-file.
"We're trying to see how much Kirby can eat, Your Highness!" Ness explained. "Isabelle went to ask for some more food!"
Dedede's expression had all the anger of a thunderstorm at this point. "Are you serious?!"
Mistakes have been made.
"Hiii!" Kirby waved at Dedede, using nothing but all the delight that only a child like him can put into one little gesture like that.
"How could you participate in such an experiment without me involved?!" Dedede grabbed a chair and sat down with the rest of the group. "Are we all just going to believe that Kirby can eat the most out of this group without having me to compete against him?"
…Naomi wasn't sure what she was expecting out of Dedede when Ness told him what was going on, but it wasn't that.
"…In other words, you want to do an eating contest between you and Kirby." Naomi mused out loud.
"Yes!" Dedede kept his arms crossed.
"I'm down for it." Sonic shrugged.
Ness chimed in, "Me too!"
"Kyuu!" Kirby clapped in excitement.
Was this going to be Uno all over again? Honestly, Naomi didn't care; this was gonna be funny. At this point, Isabelle returned with two plates of food – both for Kirby, but she stopped halfway in her tracks once she saw Dedede. The poor puppy was so confused; surely Dedede wasn't the kind of person to just witness such a thing like what they had planned, right?
"Huh?" Isabelle tilted her head. "What's going on?"
Naomi clarified, "We're gonna have an eating contest between Deeds and Kirb. Who do you think can eat more?"
"…Well, I'd have to say Kirby can, in my opinion!" Isabelle chirped, setting down the food.
"Poyo!" Kirby was such a happy little puffball; Naomi just wanted to sweep him into a hug.
"What? Dedede can eat more!" Sonic started, "I mean, look at him! He's bigger than Kirby, which means he could fit more food in his stomach than Kirby!"
"…Yeah, Sonic's right!" Ness nodded.
Naomi stood up and saluted. "Team Kirby!"
"That's obviously the wrong team to be on!" Dedede snapped. "Sonic and Ness get that."
"Well, folks, there's only one way to settle this!" Naomi leapt up to the table and blew an air-horn she kept in her backpack (usually for the sole purpose of annoying Camilla). Thank goodness it was just them and Kawasaki now. "Today, we are going to answer the age-old question: Can King Dedede eat more than Kirby?!"
Their table erupted into cheers as Isabelle went and grabbed more food, this time for Dedede.
"Now, go!"
The two started to devour the food, just as Naomi heard Camilla's voice in her headset.
"…Naomi, you better stop this immediately!"
Mom, remind me to always make sure I'm not wearing my helm whenever I'm doing my so-called Naomi Antics.
Camilla had been walking with Cheddar since early in the morning. The puppy had been practically bursting with energy that day, and wanted to explore the entire Smash Mansion area again. Camilla didn't mind that, though; she loved her best friend and wanted to make sure he was always happy.
Halfway through, Cheddar had met his new best friend Nintendog and wanted to play with him in the grass, so that was another time-killer. That was fine, though. It wasn't very often she could meet dogs in space (Cheddar was actually the very first dog she had ever seen), so Cheddar was bound to have wanted to run around with friends of his own kind.
Camilla slid her helm on as Cheddar and Nintendog started to roll around together. Oh, looked like Maximus was online. She would have to talk to him later after coming back home from Cheddar's walk. He probably missed her, and Camilla would be lying if she said she didn't miss him too. Naomi was online too, that was interesting. She reached up a hand to tune into her channel, just to see how she was doing without her "dimensional tour guide" around.
"Now connected to Naomi Liu's channel!" The friendly voice of the computer hummed in her ear. Camilla always liked her voice; it belonged to an AI unofficially dubbed "Ava," which in itself was a pretty name. Ava was a popular choice for the East Oclanian's AI partners, and Camilla was no different.
Camilla opened her mouth to say something to Naomi, but was cut off by the teenager's own voice. "– are going to answer the age-old question: Can King Dedede eat more than Kirby?!"
Her stomach almost immediately dropped into her feet. So that was what Naomi got up to without her around. Next thing she knew, there was chomping noises in the background. Oh. Oh no, Naomi was being serious. Didn't she learn from Smash Uno? Dr. Mario was so confused about how Camilla had sustained those injuries, and she would think the doctor had seen everything at that point. She had to explain to him that she had been playing a card game and King Dedede got irrationally angry.
"…Naomi, you better stop this immediately!" Camilla snapped into her headset.
She could practically see Naomi jump at this point. "Oh, uhhhh, hi Camilla."
"Why on Ravina did you think that an eating contest, between Dedede and Kirby of all people, would be a good idea?"
"No idea – Isabelle, get Kirby some more food; don't you dare let Deeds win!"
"Oh, no you don't, I'm coming over there right now!" Camilla had to yank her helm off at this point, lest she ended up having a heart attack from Naomi's antics. Getting this stressed over what Naomi may be getting up to without her around to reel her in definitely wasn't good for Camilla's heart, even if it was an East Oclanian-grade organ. "Cheddar, honey, you need to say bye-bye to Nintendog; we gotta go."
Cheddar let out a rather sad-sounding bark and dropped down from the tree he and Nintendog were barking up against.
"I know, I know, I don't want to either, but Naomi's getting herself into trouble again." Camilla explained.
Cheddar seemed to get it at this point, as he nuzzled Nintendog a bit before trotting back up to Camilla as she clipped his leash back onto his collar. The path they took was quick and short, but it was already too late – by the time Camilla barreled headfirst into the dining area, the room was already a mess. Waddle Dees were rushing to and fro, grabbing as much food as they could get and bringing it back to Dedede, who devoured it all in an instant.
Kirby, meanwhile, had taken a new approach and was rapidly inhaling the food right off the buffet table, plates and all. One side of the room, Sonic and Ness were chanting "De-de-de! De-de-de!" over and over again, while Isabelle and Naomi had taken upon the chant of "Kirby! Kirby! Kirby!" Camilla had gotten there just in time, too; after maybe a few seconds of this absolute nonsense all the food had been eaten and suddenly Kirby had the buffet table stuck in his mouth – oh no, he was gonna actually eat it, wasn't he?
Camilla inhaled and shouted at the top of her lungs, "NAOMI!"
Naomi swiveled around on her heel real quick after that. "…Hi Camilla."
"Phoyo!" Kirby's muffled voice squeaked as he tried to eat the table.
"We're trying to see who can eat more: Kirby or Dedede!" Isabelle explained.
"I am well aware of that, and I'm here to tell you that you need to stop!"
Naomi tried shouting over her. "But then how can we tell who eats more?!"
"Kirby, you cheater!" Dedede snarled.
"You all realize that Kirby's stomach is literally a parallel dimension, right?!" Camilla yelled back.
This seemed to shut everyone up. Finally, Naomi spoke up first. "…Wait, what?"
"It is a dimension filled with nothing but the void and the things Kirby eats; he can out-eat everyone if he wanted to!"
The table was halfway in Kirby's mouth at this point, and it didn't look like he was gonna be stopping at just half. The entire group looked back at Kirby at this point, and in a true showcase of hive-mind, the two groups suddenly banded together and started shouting "Kirby, no, don't do it!" and running up to him to try and stop him before it was too late.
This was going to be a long day for Camilla…