Happy New Year! Whoa! So I managed to get this chapter up in just over two weeks! Thankfully, that's what vacation was for...
Except I'm in a very, very, busy mood this term until April! This term is going to be the death of me, so I have no idea how quickly chapters will be written this time.
So for DaX0315, the honoured Guest, AurelianRebels (your feedback is considered), dawnleaf1234 (glad you're back!), and StRAngE ToASt, enjoy a serving of la pluie de chocolat! Except for GU3ST: of course you can have a Slateport cake! Bon appétit!
It's been my pleasure to keep your appetite up... with more chapters and tasty dishes!
Chapter forty-eight: When Utility Fails
Steven had been wearing that same expression ever since he had tasted the Wepear berry shell with the la pluie de chocolat. It was strange, like he wanted more of it. However, at the mere thought of Cynthia, he desisted. Instead, he kept walking towards his restaurant.
"Oh come on, boss. What's on your mind?" Martine asked.
"Not much," Steven replied. "I just can't get over how Cynthia made that dessert."
"Oh, I see…" Martine said playfully. She was catching onto something. "Aimes-tu sa cuisine?"
"Non. Certainement pas!" Steven replied quickly.
Martine kept grinning. She had lured Steven into her trap. "But I could tell you loved it, otherwise you wouldn't have finished off the plate. There's something more than what you're saying…"
But before Steven could interrupt and before Martine could continue, they were greeted by a crowd that had amassed outside the Stone Restaurant and Bistro doors. That didn't look right. Quietly, Steven and Martine slipped their way past the crowd and tried to get to the front.
What is going on here? I have a bad feeling about this, Martine thought.
Sure enough, James d'Arc and Sophie were at the doors keeping the people out. Whatever they were doing, Steven figured they must have their reasons. He already knew they weren't good.
"Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" Steven asked James.
James gave Steven a worried look and motioned him to the door. Martine followed Steven into the lobby where Laurent was directing staff around the lobby as well as directing others to À la Mer(the bar), the Stone Bakery, and the museum. Customers were still in the restaurant, but no one else could come in, which worried Steven.
"Laurent, qu'est-ce que –," Steven started.
But Laurent quickly pulled Steven and Martine away to the kitchens at the back of the lobby. He looked worried, but at least unshaken.
"Let's talk about it as we get to the kitchens," he said. "The restaurant is in chaos. Less than an hour ago, the restaurant experienced a loss of power. Fortunately, the kitchens and grills aren't completely dependent on electricity, so we can keep serving the current customers."
He stopped briefly to let Steven and Martine take in the news before walking into the kitchens.
"We haven't checked the cause of power loss yet, but for safety reasons, James decided to close off the restaurant for the rest of the day," Laurent continued explaining. "Plus, it will be almost impossible to serve anyone at night."
The kitchens were looking very dark and the kitchen staff were doing their best to serve remaining orders of the day. But Steven understood that working in these conditions wasn't welcome. With the elevators not functioning, it would be dangerous to serve customers in the above levels. Certainly, anyone dining at the terrace would have little problems.
So James had been smart to close off the restaurant, Steven admitted. However, this meant that dinner hours was impossible tonight. It would also mean that closure would carry into tomorrow so the repairs could be completed.
"Right, then let's get some work done," Steven said. "I want you and Sophie to check for anything suspicious regarding the power system. I probably should give an apology to the people outside."
"Ooh… Boss!" Martine piped from beside him. "You're pairing Laurent with Sophie? I mean, of course it was bound to happen, but I didn't think you wanted their relationship to go that far!"
Laurent looked the other way, because the 19-year old redhead had forced his face to redden. "Martine…" he muttered.
The receptionists made their way to check out the power system while Martine was sent to oversee the stock in the refrigerators and freezers. Whatever food they stored had to be relocated immediately into new storages.
Elsewhere, Steven had to apologise to the angry or confused customers waiting outside the doors. For one thing, he had to explain the situation but not say too much, and on the other he was aware the media was here too. For what it was worth, he had to be careful.
"Tout le monde, I would like to apologise first due to an unexpected power failure we suffered…" Steven started his public address.
Soon enough, after the public were dismissed and Steven had returned to his darkened restaurant, Sophie and Laurent returned to the lobby to give a report along with Martine. James had returned to overseeing the necessary closure operations (restaurant, bakery and museum alike) except for À la Mer, which was left to the barman.
"Ooh… you're back already, vous deux?" Martine said smartly to Sophie and Laurent. "Tell me, did you two have a moment?"
Sophie's face went blank, unsurprisingly, at Martine's question. Her heart was pounding, her ears were ringing, and her mind was shutting down…
"If we did, Martine, you wouldn't be first to know," Laurent quickly said. "Don't tell me you're jealous of Sophie!"
If Laurent thought he managed to tease Martine, he was mistaken. Instead, Martine only drew a grin that suggested he had given her something else to build on.
"No, no, that's perfect. Don't let Sophie down! Besides, she looks like she's about to collapse," Martine said as she laughed. "The look on her is priceless!"
Sophie was flustered, no doubt, and her misery was spared when Steven intervened.
"So what's going on? Find anything?" he asked.
Laurent gave a look to Sophie before looking at Steven. "It appears that several major fuses, if not all of them, were sabotaged. We'll have to repair it if the business should continue. It looks suspicious, as if someone just waltzed in here and destroyed them…"
Steven held up a hand for Laurent's silence. "It's fine. I'll have someone repair it by tonight. What about you, Martine?"
The redhead's smile faded a little, as she had to be serious. She reported, "We're moving everything needing refrigeration to a hotel's emergency storage. It's not the best, but we have only one other alternative, which is using Vue sur la Lune's freezers. However, that would complicate things."
"Alright, keep at that. I'm going to investigate the fuse box," Steven said. "I've let the public know we are not operating tonight, but we have to ensure we survive this mess today."
The staff of the Stone Restaurant and Bistro could not have acted swifter to safeguard the refrigerated food. Elsewhere, the barman had finally closed off À la Mer, and both the Stone Bakery and the museum were closed too. All Steven had to do was call in someone to repair the power grid and all would be well.
Except that when he looked at the fuse box, he found that not only were the switches turned off, but they were turned off permanently. All switches were off and the fuse box was damaged such, it couldn't simply turn on again. There were some scorch marks and also claw marks on the box… and also on the wiring itself?
Permanent was an understatement. It would seem like his restaurant would never function again. What was the cause? He knew of nothing that would. First, it had to produce fire. Second, it had to have something sharp (claws, preferably). Third, it had to be able to sneak in stealthily unnoticed.
Wait… This was a familiar feeling. It was the same feeling he got when Cynthia stole his wines. Intuitively, Cynthia was to blame. Besides, didn't she have a Pokémon with sharp claws and could breathe fire?
"Hey, boss…" a soft voice spoke into his ear, which startled him and made him jump. That, in turn, made Martine Grenadine laugh. "Oh my gosh, boss! You look adorable when you're surprised!"
Steven's face went red, and it was impossible to tell if he was angry or embarrassed. Granted, Marine would never try flirting with him, since she deluded herself thinking a relationship between him and Cynthia was possible. If only she knew who was behind the power outage, she would understand, but she probably wouldn't believe him.
"Martine… We have a lot of work to do. First, get Sophie to ring up a technician and repair the power. I'll close the restaurant for tomorrow, and James will cover everyone's wages with the insurance company."
"He is our accountant, after all," Martine replied. "Right, so I'll get that done. By the way, can I ask you something, boss?"
Before Steven even had a second to react, Martine was already two seconds ahead of him. "So how old do you think Astrid is, anyway?" Martine asked. "Did you ask her?"
Martine really had to bring this up, didn't she? Astrid's image formed in Steven's mind as he thought about how old she was. Her slenderness, combined with that platinum blond hair, and two shades of purple… Wait, he had account for her dressing style too. That was a factor. With the amount of Pokémon battle experience Astrid had…
"I would guess around sixteen or seventeen, so she's almost as old as Lisia, if not you," Steven replied. "She has plenty to learn in the art of battling. If you want, I can ask how old she is for you."
Martine looked surprised, saying, "No way! Wouldn't that make you, like, strange? You'll make me look foolish! Besides, that will make you creepy."
"And I guarantee it will happen unless you get to work right now," Steven said with a slightly evil smile. At that, Martine let out an exasperated breath before walking away. Since when did her boss start playing politics? Steven continued, "And are you caring about my image? You're too kind."
Now Martine was left confused more than ever, and after she left, Steven summoned Metagross. He took a deep breath before speaking.
"Okay, Metagross. Here's what I want you to do…"
As head chef of Vue sur la Lune, Cynthia was obligated to remain until closing. Her feelings were bitter and she carried a slight weight of guilt in her mind. Nevertheless, business was looking good as she was experiencing a higher-than-anticipated volume of customers.
Plus, it helped that servings of la pluie de chocolat were flying out of the kitchen in record numbers. Within the hour, and it wasn't even dinner hours yet, the staff reported to Cynthia that they had exhausted the supply of purée ingredients. More of the popular dessert would have to wait until tomorrow. Fortunately, Cynthia could count on her other desserts to satisfy demand.
Crème de Lune Opéra, different kinds of cheesecakes (like Unova cheesecake), and of course her chocolate fondues were at the front line to satisfy the customers. Still, Cynthia knew that if she really wanted to satisfy them, she was going to have to keep a good supply of la pluie de chocolat.
As she busied herself with the kitchen operations, a waitress popped by the kitchen with an order. "Deux pâtés au vent. Une Crème de Lune Opéra," she said.
"Right away," Cynthia said.
Her kitchen staff were already hard at work trying to get the two pâtés out while a slice of the opera cake was being served. Cynthia had to credit her staff for serving the cakes so quickly, because recreating the five-layer cake multiple times was not easy with the time crunch.
In addition to the base flavour in the paste, which was made of a selection of meats, the paste was dressed in herbs and spices from Cynthia's choicest growers in the southern Kalos area. If the pâté was done right, the dish would be as refreshing as a walk in the springtime. As a foundation for the pâté au vent, Cynthia had toasted thin slices of baguette and served it with the pâté on top. With a dressing of olive oil and vinegar, the dish was complete.
Baguette.
That bread was a key ingredient in the Stone Open she tasted last week…
"Chef," one of her staff said. "You alright?"
"No problems here," Cynthia replied.
She delicately, but quickly, placed the pâtés on the respective baguettes and waved to the waitress who came back shortly later.
"Service!" Cynthia called. The dishes were taken out to the customers, and at the same time Cynthia went to clean her station while the others prepared the pluie de chocolat.
Except that while the cooks were preparing the dessert, they ran into some serious issues. So serious, the sous-chef had to hurry to Cynthia to break the news.
"On a un problème ici," he said.
"Oh, how bad can it be? What's wrong?" Cynthia asked, albeit she started to worry.
"On n'a pas d'eau. C'est pour ça qu'on ne peut pas faire le dessert," the sous-chef said.
"WHAT?!" Cynthia screamed. "Let me check!"
The report was that there was no water in the kitchen, and as Cynthia went around checking the taps there was no running anywhere. How were they going to operate without water? It would be impossible to serve customers at this point.
"Arrêtez de cuisiner! Immediately!" Cynthia ordered. With a Poké Ball in hand, she released Milotic and ordered, "Help clean the dishes with what water you can supply. Please!"
Milotic blinked but went about to her business cleaning the dishes with the staff. Cynthia meanwhile had rushed out to check the washrooms if the sinks had any running water too. As she feared, there wasn't any.
She had not felt panic like this before. It was worse than the time Steven had stolen her berries. That reminded Cynthia: why should she even bother with him anyway? He was out to get her and bring her business down!
Worse yet, the same fate had struck Le Café Sinnoh and La Lune de Chocolat. Without water, the staff were unable to prepare drinks or any kind of food to serve. Cynthia, still in panic, advised that the café and the chocolatier shut down for the rest of the day. That same had to go for the restaurant above.
She returned to the restaurant afterwards. To her unsurprised disbelief, the sous-chef was talking to customers whose faces showed nothing less than disappointment. From that, Cynthia guessed her sous-chef was apologising on her behalf, but that responsibility was her own.
"I'll take it from here," she told her sous-chef.
"I'm already done," the sous-chef replied. "Go see to the others. I've been apologising to everyone that our water system has problems so we can't serve them today. Plus, I've been writing vouchers for everyone so their next meals are on us."
Vouchers.
Steven never wanted them, did he?
"Cynthia?"
She snapped back to reality. "Uh, yes, that should be the right course of action. I'll investigate the cause of the water failure, but we may have to close tonight and tomorrow so we can repair the system. Keep writing out vouchers, for the time being."
There were only a handful of fortunate customers who managed to finish their lunches before the predicament and were paying already. That took some weight off Cynthia's shoulders, as she had more pressing concerns to deal with in the water supply.
It took a long time to talk to each customer. By then, Cynthia had made a phone call to have a technician investigate and repair the damage.
The water supply just doesn't stop like that, she thought. We've paid the bills, so perhaps there was a pipe leak altogether or something. But it can't be a leak, or otherwise the whole restaurant would have flooded.
It was puzzling as she thought of it.
But as it happened, there was a slight tremor in the building before a rupture appeared behind the restaurant. Still in panic mode, Cynthia rushed to the back to find water blasting out of the ground like a geyser.
NO! Cynthia screamed in her mind. She reached for her phone to first call the technician to press the urgency, and then the municipality to report on the damage. Lastly, she had to ensure everyone at Vue sur la Lune was well evacuated.
No doubt, she would have to close the restaurant until the situation was dealt with.
Within the hour, Cynthia was tracing the areas which had lost water to the source. From washrooms and kitchens to the ground beneath the restaurant, she also made sure the water main was turned off to prevent any further flooding. To do this, she had to manually close the valve, so the water would stop gushing through the rupture.
By the afternoon, Cynthia was giving a public address to the media outside the front doors to apologise, and then carefully explain what had happened and when the establishment might open again. From the way things were, Cynthia estimated a day or two.
Spearheaded by Viola and Alexa, the public had a barrage of questions Cynthia was more than happy to answer. However, at some point, something was bound to strike back.
"Is it a coincidence that Steven has just suffered something similar, Cynthia?" Alexa asked. "His restaurant's power is down."
"I – I wasn't aware of that," Cynthia said. "Never mind. All you need to know is that Vue sur la Lune will not be operating for a little while. The cause is still under investigation and we have little details at this time"
"Is it true that there's a love rival around who's messing with you and Steven?" Alexa asked.
What did that have to do with anything?
"Oh! Cynthia! Is there someone else who has eyes for Steven?" another reporter said. As Cynthia's face started to sour, Viola was mindlessly taking repeated pictures of the expression.
Now Cynthia wished she hadn't answered Alexa's initial question. "Um… That's enough with the questions. Good day." With that said, she turned around and started to head into the restaurant. Garchomp, plus some café staff, were holding off the reporters while Cynthia went about her business.
Steven… It was more than probable that he was to blame, but she had no way to prove it. Nevertheless, she walked around her restaurant to check out the water main and where water had been bursting out of the ground. The ground was partially flooded, but she could enter from below her restaurant to investigate the causes.
The technician she had called in was already doing his work, and had come back to Cynthia with a report.
"It seems the water main broke due to corrosion," he said. "That's as plain as I can put it. It must have been left in here for a while to break that quickly."
"But I would have expected some warning signs," Cynthia argued. "Plus, the water main was inspected last month.
"Mademoiselle Cynthia, unless you're suggesting the corrosion would have somehow just accelerated, or if the inspection was a bust, then I don't see any other alternative," the technician said. "I'm just doing my job. Anyway, the repairs are going to cost you."
"Je comprends," Cynthia replied. "Merci. "
According to the technician, there was a large amount of rust on the pipe which may have caused the main to break. Rust does not accelerate unless it was forced to dissolve and corrode again to quicken the process. Manipulation of molecules was a possibility, but that meant someone had to have broken in in the process.
Manipulation… Didn't that require some kind of power to do so? Psychic power probably would fit the profile. Otherwise, some sort of advanced chemistry would have been the cause. However, Cynthia knew of no chemists who had a vendetta against her; and certainly not regarding her restaurant.
However, she knew of no Pokémon in the area that would intentionally wreck her water supply. Unless if her Spiritomb went rogue, that seemed unlikely too. Who else would use psychic power around here? It would have to be someone who was targeting her.
It seemed there was only one other who would do that. Some sort of metallic beast having psychic abilities.
By sunset, the street which Cyllage City was known for the restaurants was dark as for the first time in weeks. Neither the Stone Bistro nor Vue sur la Lune had their lights on, whereas only the street lights and the sunset brought limited vision to the street. To add to the lifelessness, the museum, bar, bakery, coffee shop, and chocolatier were all closed.
It seemed like disaster had hit Cyllage City in a slow way.
"Normally, I would have loved to have bought desserts for us, but that's not happening. I'm too busy, and the restaurants are dead," Viola remarked.
"I thought you were supposed to publish your findings with Alexa?" Grant asked.
"I've already passed them to her," Viola replied.
Korrina mildly grimaced at the street though. She said, "It's not the same without the drama we get from Steven and Cynthia, though. I saw the news though: is it a coincidence that they both happened to have problems?"
Grant shrugged. He continued walking with Viola while Korrina was roller skating behind them.
"I suppose not," he said, "though ironically I wanted to eat at the Stone Bistro tonight. I heard Steven had a curry special going on, but I'll have to wait for another day."
"Besides, I was hoping Diantha would show up today," Korrina added. "She would have forced Viola to buy ice cream for all of us."
Viola made a face.
They were about to walk past La Lune de Chocolat when Korrina quickly pulled Viola and Grant aside to hide by a lamppost.
"Dang it, Korrina! You almost broke my camera!"
"Shh! Be quiet, Viola!" Grant hushed.
Upon looking, they saw Cynthia walk out of the front doors of Vue sur la Lune. She looked tired, but as it happened Steven was leaving his restaurant at the same time.
Their eyes made contact.
Their gazes changed instantly from expressions of shock to death glares. The two chefs slowly began walking in the same direction to their homes, but they never broke contact.
"Ooh! This is too good!" Viola said, as she brought her camera out and started taking pictures.
Eventually, it seemed Steven couldn't handle it and he crossed the street to talk with Cynthia. He was too far for Viola, Grant, and Korrina to hear, but he seemed to be arguing. His hands were in the air, and Cynthia answered in almost equal manner. In fact, their talking turned to shouting and they were barely audible now, but not enough.
Whilst Viola was mindlessly taking pictures, Grant and Korrina continued observing the scene.
Now Cynthia appeared to take off her shoe and slam it onto Steven's head. But Steven reacted by ducking before grabbing Cynthia's weapon-bearing arm. He soon let go, and he left Cynthia by her lonesome as he headed home.
Cynthia put her shoe back on before walking to her home.
"Wow," Grant and Korrina said together.
Leave a review, and you can sample Cynthia's pâté au vent. It promises to be tasty! Even though Cynthia's restaurant currently has no running water...