It had been another successful day at Krei Tech, the CEO Alistair Krei was enjoying his dinner meal. He had gotten recommendations from several of his people, including his top mechanic Steven Ferns. He scrolled through his phone as the sushi chef prepared his meal. The chef had a slender figure, with pale skin, red lips, and sharp mint-green eyes. Her black and blue dyed hair was tied back into a bun, she was wearing a short sleeved chef uniform of the same color. She was chopping the food with precise cuts, if Krei was paying attention he would've noticed the chef's knives were a sharp thin blue color, a rather sharp type of knives normal sushi chefs wouldn't use.
As she is done preparing the meal, Krei glances from his phone to the chef, "My people tell me you're one of the better sushi chefs in town."
"Your people underestimate me," she says, "I am the best."
"I'll be the judge of that," Krei starts pouring soy sauce into a bowl, he also pours the sauce on the sushi, the chef staring as he does this. She gives an offended gasp when he dunks the already soy covered sushi into the soy bowl.
"You do not drown the finest otoro in soy sauce!" She was disgusted at how much soy sauce he poured on the sushi she spent her time and effort making.
"How about you don't tell me how to eat, okay?" He does not care, speaking with his mouth full of food, "You work for me right." he shoves an entire sushi into his mouth and goes back to his phone.
"Of course Krei-san," she speaks with irritation, "It's only that I hate to see you robbed,"
Krei looks up from his phone.
"Of an exquisite experience," she takes away the empty plates and puts down a fish that Krei recognizes.
"Hold on, is that the fish that's poisonous if its not prepared properly?" he glances at the fish and the chef with worry.
"Do not doubt my skill," she tells him, "and do not worry about the fish."
Krei choose to believe her and uses the chopsticks to pick up the fish and put it in his mouth, he hums at the rich, exotic flavor.
"Mmm hmm, hmm, delicious." he turns to the chef, but he starts to realize his vision is blurry, Krei feels nauseous and dizzy, his limbs starting to go heavy. "What's happenthing?" he struggles to speak, "You sthaid-" his body goes limp on the desk, the chef walks up to him.
"Not to worry about the fish," she smirks, "You should however worry about the special toxin I added." as he attempts to grab his phone and call for help, she grabs her knife and throws it at the phone, pinning it to the wall. "Relax you'll survive," she goes to collect her knife from the wall. "If I give you the antidote, want it?"
Krei nods, the chef places the knife back in her knife pack, "and I want the prototype that's in your secret safe," she tells him.
"You work for me now.."
Ferns and Nerds group chat:
Mikan Ferns: Mom is evil! Evil!
Hiro Hamada: ?
Gogo: We had a surprise test today in her class,
TheLittleMermaid: You have surprise tests in college?
Wasabi: Yeah, the test was hard
Mikan Ferns: I heard her evil laugh when I left class..
Honey Lemon: Don't worry I'm sure you did great!
Sara Ferns: I swear the drink on her desk is full of student tears.
Ari hummed at the group text, she turned to the fluffy haired brunette sitting next to her, "Do teachers drink student tears? I thought it was just a myth,"
"Tears are too salty to drink, they just like collecting it." Rachel replied, Ari was taking a break from helping Cass run the cafe to hang out with the regular customer. Ari herself was curious about the youngest member of the Rosemary family and wanted to try befriending her.
"Huh, I might believe that considering how much I hear Hiro whine about how hard Granville is being on him." Ari takes a sip of her milk, "That or Hiro likes to complain."
"Hiro as in Hiro Hamada yes?" Rachel asks, Ari nods. "I remember hearing about the fire that happened at his school, it must have been horrible, losing a sibling.." her gaze was distant as if she's reflecting something, "Nice to hear from you that your friend is doing better."
"You should thank Fred and his other friends," Ari explains, "And Baymax, all I'm doing is just being a friend."
"Hmm," at that moment Hiro walks into the cafe.
"Hey Aunt Cass," he grabs a donut and prepares to head upstairs, but Cass stops him.
"Hiro," Cass points to a blonde haired man reading a newspaper, "Do you know who that is?"
"Turtleneck guy?" Hiro raises an eyebrow, he wasn't a regular customer so he didn't know, "Er, should I know who he is?"
"It's Bolton Gramercy!" Cass explains, "He's a top celebrity chef!"
"And a top celebrity jerk." Rachel mutters under her breath, Ari looks at her with confusion.
"He has a tendency to be rude when he visits establishments to grab a bite," she tells her, "We get it you're a picky eater, no need to damage people's self-esteem."
"Huh, jerk." She notices how rude Gramercy is being to poor Cass, who just wanted to tell him that she was a fan, "Cass is probably a better chef than him."
"She does make good muffins," Rachel nods, "Say I've got to get running soon, my cat Katie gets annoyed if I'm out for too long without her."
"Your cat?" Ari raises an eyebrow, she didn't know Rachel had a pet.
"Yeah, here's a picture." Rachel shows her a picture of a cat, the odd thing about the feline was that she had bright blue fur, probably a genetic mutation of some sorts Ari thought. The cat had a white belly, left paw, and tail tip, her nose was a cranberry red color and she had royal blue eyes.
"What a nice cat." Ari turns to Rachel, who's grabbing her things to get ready to go.
"You won't say that when you see her, trust me, nice chat Ariel." and Rachel leaves the cafe. Ari decides to check on poor Cass, Gramercy had already left but she wanted to see if she was doing okay.
"Hey Cass," Ari waves to her, "You doing okay?"
"Yeah, I'm doing fine Ari, thank you for asking." Cass seems to cheer up a little when Ari checked on her, "Since all the customers have left by now I was about to close up shop."
"Neat," Ari smiles, "Where's Hiro? I saw him talking to you earlier."
"Oh he went upstairs, probably is getting ready for bed right now." Cass explains, she yawns. Which causes Ari to yawn as well.
"I should get ready for bed," Ari rubs her tired eyes, "I'm sleepy." As Cass is closing up the cafe, Ari goes upstairs to get ready for bed. She brushes her teeth, flosses, and puts on her pajamas, but as she's walking past Hiro's bed she doesn't see him at all.
"Hiro? You asleep?" She goes to pull the covers from the bed, and finds not Hiro, but Mochi under the covers.
"Did he get a drink of water?" she starts to worry, then decides to ask Cass downstairs.
"Hey Cass? Is Hiro downstairs?!" she yells down.
"What? Isn't he upstairs?" Cass yells back.
"He's not in his room!" Ari explains, she hears Cass going up the stairs, she enters the bedroom to see with her own eyes that Hiro isn't there.
"Hiro.." Cass grumbles, she goes to her phone and starts to call Hiro. As she does that, Ari swears she heard Mochi huff, and sees that he has an annoyed expression on his face, as well annoyed a cat's face could be.
Hiro picks up the phone from the other end, "Uh...hi Aunt Cass," he sounded real nervous.
"Where are you? You said you were going upstairs, well Ari and I are in your room and you're not!"
"Hey Hiro." Ari adds in, "Why do you sound so nervous?"
"I'm not!..and when I said upstairs, I meant upstairs at the..library! It's a study group!" Ari swears she smelled a fib, what are you up to Hiro? She hears something break on the other end.
"A study group?" Cass doesn't buy it either.
"Yeah! We're making flash cards, quizzing each other, making healthy snacks!"
"What kind of snacks?" Ari narrows her eyes, she doesn't buy it one bit.
"Oh you know, apples, oranges, all those healthy things." Another thing crashes on the other end.
"Seriously, is there anything in this room she didn't cut in half." Was that Wasabi on the other line? Maybe it was some sort of weird study group.
"Who cut what in half!?" Cass exclaims, Ari jumps in surprise from the loudness.
"Gogo! So we can share those healthy snacks!" she could hear Hiro sweating from the other line.
"Don't bring me into this Hiro.." Ari heard Gogo mutter on the other line, but then she hears another crash.
"Ow! Now the numbness wears off." An unknown male voice groans in pain.
"Hiro what's going on?!" Cass demands, she didn't buy the "study group" lie not one bit.
"Wow almost done see you in a bit don't wait up love you bye!" and Hiro cuts off. Cass glares at the phone so much Ari thinks the device would explode from all the anger, she sees Cass glance at a picture on Hiro's desk, the one with smiley faced robot next to it and comes to a conclusion.
"Bot fighting!" Cass starts stomping down the stairs, with Ari trailing behind her, "What is he thinking going to Good Luck Ally at night?!" She is about to exit the cafe then steps back in, "Wait what am I thinking?" she goes to the kitchen drawer and grabs a knife set, "I'm not going unarmed!"
"Can I come too?" Ari asks.
"No," Cass frowns, "It's dangerous."
"Well I'll just go anyways," Ari glares, "It's better to go with someone else at night." Cass tries to think of an excuse, but she gives up.
"Alright..fine," Cass hands Ari a knife from another drawer, "Just stick by me, okay?"
"I promise," and they head out to rescue Hiro from whatever "Bot Fighting" is, Ari makes a note to herself to ask what that is later.
Hiro did not need any rescuing, he was at SFIT's Robotics lab, where he and the others were analyzing the clues left behind at Krei-Techs recent robbery. Him and Honey Lemon were viewing the camera footage of the sushi chef that stole half of the gravitational disruptor from Krei. While Wasabi was inspecting material that the chef left behind under a microscope.
"Woah, I've never seen a cut like this." Wasabi was in awe, "Not even my plasma blades are this precise!"
"What is it?" Gogo asks him.
"Graphene blades!" he holds up the graphene material, "Thinner than paper, but stronger than steel! This tech is cutting edge!" Gogo frowns at the pun, "No pun intended...okay pun intended."
"How's it going with that camera footage Hiro?" Fred questions.
"It's going fine, at least Krei gave us this in the first place." Hiro answers, "It'll help our search."
As they're flipping through the footage Honey Lemon gasps at certain angles, "Woah! Her knife is so thin you can't even see it from this angle!" When seeing a front view angle of the sushi chef, her knife was invisible.
"I told you it was amazing!" Wasabi exclaims.
"And deadly." Gogo adds, "It's going to be a hassle to take her down."
"Hey Baymax," Hiro turns to the robot, "Can you put a name on that face?"
"I do not have any information about that face." Baymax states.
"That's a problem." Hiro sighs, it'll be a hassle to fight her and it'll be a hassle to track her down.
"Not to worry!" Fred tells them, "My dad has a state-of-the-art bad guy database!"
They all give sighs of relief, "Thanks Freddie." Honey Lemon smiles.
"No problem, now let's go to my house and find that match!"
While the superheroes went to Fred's house, Ari and Cass were in Good Luck Alley. The alley was full of trash and thugs, Ari felt a sense of deja-vu as her and Cass walked down the alley with caution.
Wonder if I was here before losing my memory..Ari wondered, she knew that she wasn't a San Fransokyo native but the alley felt familiar to her for a strange reason.
"Nice place.." Cass mutters as a man gets thrown out the back of a building.
"Yeah...real homey.." Ari glances back and forth, she was scared that they'd run into Yama while looking for Hiro. While there had been no attempts to try and abduct her, Ari was afraid that he was just waiting for the opportunity. They reach a building where two men were guarding the entrance, Ari recognized one of the men as Felony Carl.
"Excuse me, is this where the fight is?" Cass questions, assuming that the building is where Hiro is.
"Yeah," Felony Carl nods, then he notices Cass is carrying a bag, "What's in the bag?" he and the other man grabs it from her.
"Hey that's mine!" Cass tries to retrieve it back but the other man stops her, "Give it back!"
Felony Carl looks inside the bag and sees the knife set, "Oh you're a fighter? Why didn't you say so," he hands Cass the bag, both her and Ari are confused by his statement.
"Fighter?" they both question at the same time, "I'm/she's not-"
"Come on," Felony Carl opens the door, him and the other man pushes them inside, "Fight is this way."
"And I'll lead your little fan to the stands." the other man starts pushing Ari in the other direction, she glances back at Cass who is being handed an apron, bandanna, and being pushed onto a platform.
"Little?" Ari stares at the man, "I'm not that small!" Is this one of those food wars like Chopped? I feel so bad for Cass right now.
The man opens a door to reveal an underground arena, Ari sees the platform had brought Cass into the center, the people in the audience started cheering and clapping, "Enjoy the fight." he closes the door behind her, leaving a confused Ari. She sees a man doused in red from his kimono to his hair walks up to Cass, a microphone in his hand.
"Welcome fighter!" He exclaims, "I am Yum Labouche, ringmaster of this underground extreme cooking competition!" Kitchen counters appear from opposite ends of the arena, "The time has come to cook for your life! The time has come for..Food Fight!"
Fires appear from the sides of the area, the audience roars with excitement.
"Oh she is dead.." Ari sighs, "And I have front row seats."
AN: Everyone's favorite sushi chef has appeared! Though not name dropped (yet)
Also you guys will be seeing Katie (Rachel's cat) in person, (eventually). Just had to name-drop her, she's a beloved OC of mine
Make sure you add "Follow Aunt Cass to dangerous alley" on "list of Ari's dumb choices" bc people say she's reckless..for some reason
that reminds me, for the question of the week: do you think Ari is reckless? Why and name your top reason you think she is
enjoy this week's chapter and you may or may not get an extra slice before next week's : )