We found Robbie, Yuna, Rikku, Wakka, and Lulu seated around the kitchen table. There were only four chairs, plus the one that Robbie had pulled over from the desk, which left Kimahri standing, leaning against the sliding glass door. "Hey," said Robbie. "I was just trying to explain pizza to everybody, and ask if they wanted it."
"Sounds like a plan," said Ana. "Let me give a go at explaining pizza. You want it. Any questions? Good."
"Well said," I told her, smiling. "There's some extra chairs in the basement, no issue there. Robbie, are you capable of ordering Pizza?"
"Of course I am," said Robbie, fake pouting. "You don't trust me?"
"Never have, never will," I laughed. "I'm going to get the chairs, then."
"Kimahri help," said Kimahri. I was getting used to him, and only jumped slightly this time.
"Thanks, Kimahri. That would be great," I said. Kimahri followed me down into my dark, damp unfinished basement to the stack of folding chairs my parents kept there for holidays and company. I grabbed three, and handed Kimahri two.
"Kimahri stronger than Rebecca. Kimahri take more."
"No, I've got them. It's okay."
"Kimahri insist."
"Oh, alright," I said, handing him one of the chairs I was carrying and wondering if he was breaking some kind of record by speaking so many times.
"Kimahri like Rebecca." He gave me a big ronso smile.
"Uh, thanks," I replied, returning the smile. We headed upstairs with the extra chairs. Robbie was sitting at the table cursing in Hebrew again and jabbing at a palm pilot with the little plastic pen thing. The others were looking over, intrigued, and Ana was leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed, rolling her eyes.
"This piece of shit keeps shutting off," Robbie whined. "How am I gonna call for pizza if I don't have the phone number!"
"It's called a phone book," I said, taking it out of the drawer, and throwing it into his lap. Sheepishly, he looked up Domino's and called the phone number.
"What's he doing? He's gonna get the pizza out of that thing, ya?" wondered Wakka aloud.
"No," said Tidus, sounding smug, "we had those in Zanarkand. You talk, and your voice gets recorded, sent down the wires, and plays in someone else's receiver. It goes really fast though, so you can just have a normal conversation with the other person. Robbie is gonna call the store, and ask them to bring the pizza here. Then, someone comes over with it, drops it off, and you pay them for it."
"How many do we need?" asked Robbie, covering the receiver.
"Well, we have ten people," said Ana, "and a large pie has eight slices. I think three pies will be enough. That gives each person two slices, and four people can have three. I call a third!"
"Make half of one a veggie, Robbie. Anyone else?" I asked.
"I'll decide after I find out what pizza is," answered Auron, looking skeptical.
"Everyone likes pizza," said Ana, as Robbie ordered the pizza. "It's like chicken. They have chickens in Spira, right?" Several people nodded. "Yeah. And everyone likes chicken."
"I don't like chicken. I'm a vegetarian, remember?" I pointed out.
"You are?" asked Yuna. "I've wanted to become one, but I've never had enough discipline."
"I'm a vegetarian," said Auron. I almost fainted. Auron was not only the ultimate Final Fantasy character, but he was a vegetarian, too. "All of the Spiran monks are."
"Dude, you're my hero," I said. Auron laughed.
"You can find a better hero than me, that's for certain." There was an awkward silence.
"That sounds great, thanks" came Robbie's voice, ending it. He hung up the phone. "The pizza will be here in half an hour," he said. "What should we do until then?"
"Play video games, duh," I said.
"Um," said Tidus. " before we do that, uh, where do you, ah, go to the bathroom?"
"I was wondering the same thing," muttered Yuna, her face going red.
"Um, that's alright," I said, equally embarrassed. "The, erm, facilities are upstairs, across from the guest room. You'll know what to do."
Tidus nodded, and he and Yuna headed upstairs, having a conversation. I didn't hear what they were saying, because Ana figured it was an appropriate time to change the subject. "How about we have a Super Smash Bros. Tournament? Those are a lot of fun."
"Yeah, I love that game," said Robbie. "And it's on the Gamecube."
I stuck my tongue out at him. "Well, it'll take me a few minutes to plug it in, I have the PS2 in now." Everyone made himself or herself comfortable, sitting on the couch, the floor, and the kitchen step. I messed around with the wires. While I was untangling some AV cords, I distinctly heard from upstairs, "Wow, a flushing toilet! I haven't seen one of these babies since Zanarkand!" followed by numerous flushes. I just barely kept from yelling up the stairs, quit it Tidus, you're wasting water! By the time I got everything plugged in, Yuna and Tidus had come back and sat down in front of the TV.
I turned it on, chose "tournament" from the menu, and started entering names, while scattered conversations took place behind me. It felt so weird to put in "Auron" and "Kimahri" and know that Auron was sitting next to me on the floor, and Kimahri was perched on the kitchen step.
"Okay, I'm blue Kirby. Auron, you're next, who do you want to be?" The character choices were as follows:
Auron: red Link
Kimahri: Donkey Kong
Ana: blue Mario
Lulu: purple Yoshi
Yuna: Ice Climbers
Robbie: red Luigi
Tidus: Samus
Wakka: Fox
Rikku: Jigglypuff
Some of the choices struck me as a little odd, but I put them in anyway. The first battle was between me, Auron, Kimahri, and a bot. Ana explained the controls, and we took off. Kimahri was pretty bad, his furry hands were to big for the controller and his Donkey Kong kept falling off the platform by accident. Auron, however, was a lot better than I thought he would be. I left Kimahri alone and went at it with his Link for most of the battle. Neither one of us was knocked off. "Sudden Death!" cried the digital announcer.
"Hey, you're pretty good," I said to Auron. He just laughed. I barely managed to pull off a win in sudden death, something that should have been cake for a veteran like me facing a newbie like Auron, who had never played a video game in his life. He had been in one, I realized, and my stomach squirmed. I had almost forgotten about that, we were having such a good time.
Just to give you the basic idea of how the tournament went, Ana bested Lulu, Yuna and a bot in the next round, then Tidus gained a shocking win against Robbie and two bots, and Rikku beat Wakka and two bots. Wakka was in a constant sate of shock, barely moving at all. He was muttering to himself about Yevon. After that round, Lulu took him out on the back porch to talk to him, while I beat Ana and Rikku beat Tidus. I let Rikku win, of course, just to be nice. She jumped around like a five year old, shouting, "oh yeah! I won! That'll teach you guys! Machina is so my thing!" Ana winked at me, and we laughed.
"How much more time do we have before the pizza gets here?" she asked Robbie. He checked his watch.
"Any minute now," he responded.
"Hey guys," Ana said, "Um, we don't want to scare the poor pizza guy away, so can you make sure you don't answer the door with any weapons showing? Especially Auron and Kimahri. I don't want anybody pissing on my dinner in fright."
Auron managed to shift his cloak so that his sword was well covered, but Kimahri had to hide his spear behind the washing machine.
After that, we all just did our own thing until the pizza came. Robbie went upstairs to check his E-mail and to try and IM Sam, telling him we would be over early tomorrow, and to try and get his parents out of the house. Rikku went with him, fascinated by the computer. "Don't let Robbie say anything mean to Sam," I told her. "They can't stand each other lately."
Wakka and Lulu remained outside, talking. Kimahri took up his post, leaning against the sliding glass door. Auron, Yuna, Tidus, Ana and I sat on the couch. Ana and I told them about Sam, and the rest of our friends. Somehow, Ana, Auron and I got into a deep discussion about what a "big pungent pile of shoopuff shit" (as Auron described it) that some of the teachings of Yevon were. Yuna was looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Tidus finally noticed and offered to show her around and explain what all the machina in my house did. I zoned out just long enough to hear part of their conversation.
"Why is this room so small?" asked Yuna, sounding perplexed.
"It's a closet," answered Tidus, "come here, I'll show you what you do in it."
Sufficiently frightened, I went back to trash-talking Yevon with Ana and Auron.