Standing post at the buffet table, Naomi was vigilantly checking off each and every person who had agreed over the phone to bring food for the luau; starting with May, who had Ceceli and her friends helping her with carrying all the platters of traditional Konan cuisine: including chicken katsu, sticky rice, pork roast, short ribs, macaroni salad, fried spam sushi rolls, and dinner rolls. Being arguably the second most wealthiest person in Crescent Bay, May had also agreed to sponsor half of the expenses that would be taking place during the event.
Fronting the other half of the bill was none other than one of the most famous men who had personally selected the animatronic entertainers who would be performing later that night for the public. The man who had half-ownership of Fazbear Entertainment itself— had brought his three children, and was accompanied by his two nieces who he entrusted to run his farms that he owned surrounding Crescent Bay.
Rather than having actually cooked anything at his mountain estate, the wealthy man had brought a majority of his workforce who were employed under him to cook and deliver plenty of kebabs, Konan pizza with pineapples on them, and entire truck loads of fair food that was usually found exclusively within the expansive Fazbear Park.
Although Naomi knew that through the wealthy man's hollow contribution everyone would have plenty enough food to take home for leftovers, the lawyer would be amiss if she didn't admit that his blatant half-assed attempt to stick to the theme of the event as bothersome. 'Can't believe that rich asshole's sweet Bethany and Scarlet's uncle… The difference between him and those two girls is night and day,' Naomi thought judgmentally to herself, as she watched him and his three children separating into different directions.
Next to show up on her list was Morgana, who came to the already filled buffet table with bloodshot eyes, and carried with her the stench of half-weedling on her breath. Arching an eyebrow at all the different dessert trays the witch brought— which included brownies, snickerdoodles, and around eight different kinds of pineapple upside down cake; all of which were being magically levitated around her— Naomi felt obligated to first ask the lavender-haired woman if any of the ingredients used for the pastries included anything similar to what she had been smoking in her car.
Starting at Naomi with her usual deadpan expression that made her look as though she was constantly bored, Morgana said nothing as she reached a hand out to grab a hold of one particular tray of brownies— pulling it into her arms, before finally answering her with a flat, "No."
Once Morgana had magically set her baked-good trays down beside where the Fazbear-themed desserts were at, Naomi kept her eyes on the witch as she took her tray of weed-brownies with her as she walked away towards the crowds of people who were attending the luau. 'Either she's going to eat them all herself, and end up passing out on the beach, or she's going to share them all… And then she's going to pass out on the beach,' Naomi thought to herself— shaking her head, while checking Morgana off of her list.
Not long after Morgana had disappeared into the crowd to do God-knows-what, Rikka Maxspark and her forty-nine children came walking down the steps of the wooden staircase beside the entrance of the Old Fishermen's Wharf; the goblin mother supervising her fully grown children down the beach and toward the buffet, while her youngest Honey was trailing behind her with a clipboard of her own.
For once, Naomi didn't personally have to take into account of what someone was bringing to the buffet table; Honey herself had been put in charge by Rikka to do the record keeping, and after marking down all the different sorts of oriental dishes and jars of freshly squeezed juice that they had brought for the luau, the brown-haired goblin girl handed the impressed lawyer her business card, and told her to contact her by email if she wanted a copy of her checklist.
Tucking away Honey's business card in with the rest of her papers that were being held to her clipboard, Naomi watched as Rikka rounded each and everyone of her children in a circle that was being made not too far from where the buffet was. Although she couldn't hear what the mature goblin mother was telling her kin, Naomi did notice that she was sending each of them out by groups of four— taking Honey with her personally, only after all of her children had been sent to mingle with the rest of the party attendees.
Last— and unfortunately the least— was Roux and his four floating tupperware containers of pork-belly ramen, who had come to the buffet table dressed in an outfit that Naomi had not been expecting to see the priest in at all. Arching an eyebrow at the blond femboy, before giving his gray-haired companion a suspicious stare, Naomi thanked Roux for his contribution; checking his name off her list, and completing it as she glanced up to watch the two exploring the venue together— hand-in-hand, nonetheless.
The blue color of the sky was beginning to blossom with vibrant orange hues and majestic shades of purple over the horizon. The hundreds of tiki torches that were posted within and around the entire venue gently flickered and shined brightly like fireflies floating over the warm, sunset sands. With seagulls cawing over the luau while the gentle waves of the bay rolled in along the shores, Mayor Bell was sitting down at a table with the man who had turned the event from being a small-town extravaganza, into something more akin to a show of a lifetime.
With a small tiki candle lit up in the middle of their circular bamboo table, Mayor Bell felt the alcohol running through her dilated veins— perpetuating the tingling sensation she felt in the pit of her warm stomach, as she leaned down on one elbow while still holding her glass of hurricane rum with her other hand. Burping into her shoulder, Mayor Bell's already flushed cheeks lit up out of embarrassment as she began cackling at her own childish behavior.
"Pffftt! Ha, hahaha! Ah…! E-Excuse me, Afton; I-I'm not usually one to lose my crap whenever I get a few drinks in me— hehe, heh!" The lavender-haired woman giggled in an amused fashion, while the tall man with dark bags beneath his blue eyes stared back at her with a skeptical look on his handsomely ruggish face.
"I'm… Finding that incredibly hard to believe at the moment, BB," William replied in a low, gravely voice that carried with an accent that sent a tingle down the intoxicated woman's spine. "Entertain my curiosity, won't you? Tell me, just how many drinks exactly have you had this evening so far? Two? Thre-?"
"-Six; this is my sixth glass, hehe, heh~!" Mayor Bell interrupted with a smug expression on her flustered face, as she visibly wobbled from side-to-side in her seat.
Staring at her with a judgmental look on his stumble-covered face, William clicked his tongue repeatedly at as, so as to playfully voice his disapproval. "Classy as ever, aren't you my dear?"
"Pffftt! Always, hehe!" Mayor Bell shot back playfully; not missing a beat in her drunken cadance, as she took a quick-messy sip of her cyan-blue drink. Spilling some of her drink out from her bottom lip as her eyes widened, the lavender haired woman sat her glass drink down on the round table while saying, "Wanna do a bit with me?"
Blinking once while raising a brow at her, William let out a quiet sigh— taking a glance into the glass of his margarita, before quietly immuring back to her, "Just a moment, my dear; I'm not drunk enough for that." And with that said, the brunette man with silver streaks in his hair exhaled the breath from his lungs, before wrapping his lips against the rim of the glass as he raised its bottom up to the sunset sky.
Watching with bated breath and awe, Mayor Bell's purple eyes lit up as she watched the man chug the entire glass of slushed ice, strawberry syrup, and tequila down his gullet within a matter of less than five seconds flat. "Damn baby, think you can eat pussy out like that?!"
Coughing with his cheeks still filled with ice-cold alcohol, William glared at the grinning woman with a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his scowling eyes— raising his hand up to silence her, so as to focus on not gagging. Even after having swallowed the last remnants of margarita, William's blue eyes were watering while he was trying to recompose himself with Mayor Bell cackling to herself at his expense.
"Fuh, fuha…F-Fucker…!" William growled out with a begrudged smirk across his stumble-covered face; staring back at Mayor Bell's purple bemused expression, and letting out a deep, gravely chuckle as he slowly relaxed his broad shoulders.
"Fuwahaha…! S-Sorry; I couldn't help myself!" She exclaimed, and took a moment to lick the rum from her bottom lip before asking him again, "So yeah, did ya wanna do a bit with me?"
Sitting with his shoulders up against the backrest of his bamboo chair, William shrugged his shoulders as he felt the warmth of the alcohol radiating from within his abdomen. "Eh, yeah, sure— to hell with it, I'm game," William murmured in his heavy accent, and watched Mayor Bell bounce up-and-down with excitement across the table from him before asking her, "What bit did you have in mind exactly?"
Pursing her lips together while portraying a look of concentration within her drunken gaze, Mayor Bell had her eyebrows furrowed as she muttered under her hot breath, "Hold on, I didn't think that far ahead."
"You never do," William quipped teasingly— earning him a laugh from Mayor Bell, who flipped him off before letting her hand fall limpily on the top of the table.
"Kehe, heh! Shuddap," Mayor Bell chuckled, before beginning to focus back on trying to use what concentration she had left in her drunken mind to formulate a good improv set up; and then, that's when it hit her. "Oh! Okay, I'll be Misty and Brock! And you can just be Ash!" Mayor Bell exclaimed with an overly zealous expression— smacking her once limp hand triumphantly against the table.
"Pokémon, right?" William asked with an intrigued look in his eyes, to which the woman nodded happily.
"Yeah, like the show," Mayor Bell chimed, before explaining with an imaginative look on her face, "I'mma be M-Misty— with Ash— and uh… W-We'll be going into the Pewter City Gym! F-For the first time!"
Nodding his head in response while taking on a concentrating expression himself, William painted an image of the two characters waltzing into the aforementioned gym before changing his voice to sound more high-pitched and scratchy. "I've never been to the Pewter City Gym before. I hope that I-"
"-ASH! YOU NEED TO FIGHT BROOOOOCK!" Mayor Bell shouted in the most obnoxious and bitchy voice she could muster— her eyes lighting up with drunken joy, while William continued to speak, as though she hadn't been talking.
"-Brought the right Pokémon types; so I have the right type advantage-"
"-You broke her bike! You broke her bike! You broke her bike!" Mayor Bell interrupted again; this time lowering her voice and trying her best to sound like Brock, while William continued to talk as though he were Ash.
"-I will need to beat Brock; the leader of this gym-"
"-ASHHH! YOU BROKE MY BIKE! YOU BROKE MY BIKE!" The cackling woman shrieked in her maniacal Misty voice, before suddenly taking her glass of remaining rum and pouring it on the top of her head. "UWAUH~! I'M SO WET… GET IT?! CAUSE I'M THE W-WATER POK-T-TRAINER~!"
Maintaining composure, and trying to stay in character of the parody version of Ash he was playing as, William kept a straight face and watched Mayor Bell begin to laugh hysterically, as he said flatly, "Thanks for doing Pokémon jokes for me, Misty."
Unable to stay in character, the lavender haired woman was struggling to catch her breath as she asked him, "PFFFFTTT! T-Thank you for doing "Pokémon jokes" for me- Fuwahaha-AH, HAHAHA~!?" Squeaking out for air while laughing, Mayor Bell started to bang her closed fist repeatedly against the bamboo table— coughing and wheezing, while William gave her a bemused grin, before continuing to roleplay with her.
"I know that you know that Pokémon means a lot to me, Misty; so I appreciate you making a joke just for my benefit," William continued to say in a droning and annoying voice, before adding onto the improv bit, "Pokémon humor is my only kind of humor— I don't understand any other jokes."
Recomposing herself enough to switch voices, Mayor Bell let out a cackling sigh before saying in her best Brock impression, "What about puns?!"
"Okieee— that's pretty cool," William said in a raspy voice, before immediately following up with, "I'm hard like Metapod."
"Okay, we're not going to make puns anymore," Mayor Bell shot back, while stiffening a laughte, as William continued to purposefully make less and less sense.
"Metapod kind of looks like a penis-"
"-Stop it! Just stop it, As-"
"-Have you ever thought about it, Broc-?"
"-I can go back; we're still in Pewter, I can still turn aroun-"
"-Two Ashes, one Mis- one Brock-"
"-W-Why the fu- w-why is there two Ashes now-"
"-One family. Trust your heart; let fate decid-"
"-Pfffttt…! I-I d-don't know you! I can't trust you-u-u-uwaha, fuwahaha- HAHA, HA," Mayor Bell laughed hysterically, and once again began violently coughing and gasping for breath, as her entire face turned into a deep shade of pink.
Hearing her wheezing go silent as she was beginning to laugh to the point of not even being able to take enough oxygen into her lungs to breathe, William found himself softening up and chuckling himself. 'What a particularly goofy woman… Her laugh is infectious, I'll give her that much,' the man thought to himself, while chuckling a bit harder as he continued to watch the drunk politician make a display out of herself.
Not too far from where the hundreds of bamboo round tables were, and where the first round of animatronics were being set up to entertain the children and adults alike, one group of four adolescents and a single young adult were patrolling the radial perimeter of the luau. Underneath the attentive eye of his supervisor, Izuku was dressed in his turquoise "adventurer costume" that his mother had made for him— holding a large trash bag in one gloved hand, and a trigger-activated trash picker in the other.
Walking alongside a tall pale-skin man with a sensible dark-blue hair cut, and a pair of eyeglasses that wore alongside his suit of metal armor, Izuku heard his friend mutter, "The mayor shouldn't have allowed the alcohol vendors to sell here," while looking down to where the blue-haired man was using his trash picking to grapple the lid of a plastic red cup.
"No kidding… I'm certain that the majority of what I've picked up tonight is mostly just red solo cups," Izuku said with an agreeing sigh of disappointment, as not less than a second after he had said that another red cup entered his peripheral vision. "At least with the glass deposit thing, people aren't leaving any bottles or actual cups laying around, Tenya."
Hearing his friend letting out a muffled scoff, Izuku arched an eyebrow as he looked up and over his shoulder to see Tenya staring down at him with the lower half of his face covered by his costume's metal face shield. "You're missing the point, Midoriya," Tenya said in a matter-of-fact tone, before flickering his gaze forward while the two of them continued to search for litter. "Alcohol is a social lubricant… It makes people let loose, and clouds their judgment; makes them act out, for better or for worse— usually the former."
Furrowing his brows, Izuku began to grow distracted with the thoughts that were enveloping inside of his head; the subject, although not a fascinating one on its own, was still enough for the teenager to begin contemplating on it nonetheless. 'Tenya has a point… The night's still young, and I guess with alcohol involved, it's more so a matter of when rather than if there's going to be a physical altercation… But even so, there's more than plenty of people here who'll put an end to a fight before things get too catastrophic…'
'… We're all prepared for it, and then some… So… So long as we're all doing our part to keep the beaches clean, the waters pristine, and the peace at bay… I would like to imagine that sale of alcohol is doing more good than it is bad— whether or not people have self control to monitor their intake is completely their choice,' Izuku finished his thought process; feeling satisfied with his understanding of why Mayor Bell had approved its sale at the luau in the first place.
"It is what it is, Tenya; at least the sales are boosting the local economy— after all, I'm pretty sure that the tourists are the ones who are spending the most money here," Izuku argued without any feelings involved about the subject; unlike Tenya, who turned to give the green-haired teenager a disagreeable stare.
"That's-"
"-DENJI! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!" Ochako's excited voice shouted out as loud she could broadcast it from where she and a small, pale gray-and-blue haired girl were standing beside the bay's shoreline— interrupting Tenya from getting another word in, and causing their supervisor to accidentally drop the comic book he had in his hands.
"Ah, shit…!" The young man with scruffy blond hair cursed exasperatingly under his breath, quickly bending over to pick up the issue of "Lobo" that he had been reading— rolling up and sticking it in the back pocket of his black slacks, before begrudgingly rushing over to where the cherry brown-haired girl was knelt down on the beach.
"Oi, don't ever fuckin' scream like that again, Ochako— I almost shit myself thinkin' that you were getting sucked into the ocean!" Denji scolded with an annoyed look on his face, as he stopped once he got close enough to see the aforementioned teenager digging into the wet mud with her bare hands. "What the hell are you even doin'? Didn't ya call me over cause' ya found somethin'?"
Standing beside Ochako, the gray-haired girl with a horn sticking out of the right side of her forehead smiled happily, while looking up into Denji's tired eyes as she said, "She did find something, sir! Look!" The eight year old exclaimed, while pointing her small finger down to direct the confused young man to look back down at the geometric shaped object that was almost completely unearthed.
Hearing Izuku's fast footsteps and the concreted exhaust sound of Tenya's metal suit coming closer over his shoulder, Denji glanced over his shoulder once to ensure that it really was them who were coming to a skidding in the sand behind him, before squatting down to take a closer look at the object Ochako was picking up.
"Oh shit…! It's one of those freaky rocks that shoot ghosts out of them," Denji said with a wide-eyed stare, as he excitedly extended one hand toward Ochako. "Let me have it— I'mma sell it to one of these drunk-dipshits for an entire platinum coin," Denji said with a devious grin across his sharpened smile.
Doing as she was asked by her supervisor, Ochako brushed the oblique cube off before placing it onto his palm. "Do you think anyone here would actually pay that much for it?" Ochako asked with a skeptical smile, before being helped up by Denji as he rose up to his feet.
"Absolu-fuckin'-tely, they will! Especially with all that buzz that's been going around lately about these weird things," Denji explained confidently, as he took a step back from his group while raising the crystal up above his shoulder— angling it just right, so the light of the sunsetting would hit directly into the surface that was facing outward towards the waters of the bay. "Just gotta show 'em this little party trick, aaaaand- vola! Instant digital nightmare-fuel that'll guarantee a sale!"
With all eyes amongst focusing on the translucent and glowing blue silhouette projecting out of the other side of the Crystal taking form of a little girl behind them, Izuku grimaced a bit as he looked into the blacken eyes of the holographic figure that was staring back at them with trickles of black fluid leaking out from her sockets— her body and face flickering in and out of existence, and occasionally glitching out and back into focus while Denji did his best to steady the angle of the cube in his raised hand.
"I don't understand why whenever these things project images of children, that they're always so… Disturbing to look at," Izuku muttered with an uneasy voice, while watching with a nauseating feeling as the pale girl with what he assumed to be black twin-tails slowly lowered her head— so as to stare with her glowing white pupils at her upturned palms that she was holding up near her flat tummy.
From what she could tell, the holographic image of the girl with black scleras and white pupils seemed similar to her in physical age, which made the gray-haired girl all the more fascinated with the glowing pastel-blue entity before her. "Well… I think she's pretty," Eri said softly with a look of awe in her red eyes, as she reached her own small hands out to place them into the non-tangible being's own palm-up hands.
And while the sight of seeing Eri trying to be sweet to what was essentially a digital hologram certainly creeped Izuku and Ochako enough for them to begin exchanging worried glances at one another, Tenya wasn't at all phased by the sight. "Rest assured Midoriya that this isn't a real child, and nor is it a "she", Eri; what we're looking up is just a transmitted projection that was created from a broadcast signal," Tenya explained with a no-sense expression on his face as he turned to look at his perplexed supervisor before adding, "Think of the sunlight as a projector from the movie, and moving image itself as digital data where the movie's stored… The media is losing its mind over the wrong things, because the scientific explanation of photonic crystals sells less than the headline of "ghost in the machine"."
'… What the hell is he talking about?' Denji thought to himself, while not outwardly wanting to express his already known confusion to a group of kids who were all younger than him. "Well brainiac, you can bet your shiny metal-ass that this thing won't sell if you go around boring the shit out of our potential buyers," Denji argued half-jokingly, before making the holographic entity disappear as he shoved the photonic crystal into his side pocket. "Can ya spin what ya know about these special rocks into somethin' that'll be more appealin' for a drunk asshole to listen to?"
Taking his supervisor's arguably skeezy request into serious consideration, Tenya raised his gloved hand up to grab a hold of his face shield as he said, "It wouldn't be honest of me to over exaggerate what the science committee's discovered about photonic crystals… But I believe I can focus on advertising the more interesting aspects of them— historic facts that even the everyday man would find interesting."
Lighting up with a look of approval in his brown eyes, Denji nodded at Tenya before sticking his hand out to give him a thumbs up. "Hell yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about; drunk people LOVE hearin' trivial shit!" He exclaimed, and looked around into the faces of his subordinates before telling them, "Now let's throw the bags of trash away, and stash those "extendo-arms" behind that stage with all of those singing "anime-may-tronics" on them! We'll make this a quick hustle, and then go back to doin' clean up duty before anyone from the guild can notice!"
And while Izuku and Tenya seemed to both have their reservations on the idea of getting in trouble, Ochako and even Eri seemed completely all on board with the prospect of making a profit. "We'd probably want to sell near the seating area, but not to interrupt people who are actually sitting," the brown-eyed girl enthusiastically suggested, which gave her an approving nod from Denji.
"Genius business strategy, Uraraku; great job!" The blond man applauded, before turning his gaze over to the green haired teen. "Deku! Hit me with what cha got!"
Being put on the spot, Izuku bit down softly in his lip while thinking of an answer that would suffice, before finally replying to Denji with, "Some of us should keep watch… J-Just incase anyone like Ms. Yoshimura or Power catches on to what we're doing."
Imagining the interaction he would have with either of those two aforementioned women if they confronted him in the midst of him trying to make a sale, there was no realistic outcome Denji could imagine that didn't involve him getting into trouble one way another other; either he'd be hit with a fine for illegal solicitation, or the owner of the Adventurers' Guild would dock his pay for misrepresenting the organization. "That'd… Probably be for the best, wouldn't it?"
"Unless the goal is for us to go on about this carelessly, it would," Tenya commented, before lowering his hand from his face-shield as he asked Denji, "Jeopardizing our reputation for the pursuit of profit only begs the question, Supervisor… What are your intentions of doing with whatever earnings you make?"
Becoming intrigued by the question, Ochako asked with a frown across her lips, "You aren't going to give it all to Makima, a-are you?"
Flashing the brown-haired girl a cocky grin, Denji waved the thought off as he replied, "Hell nah; the guild's already gettin' paid for our services here! There's no need to fatten her wallet up even more than it already is." Nodding his head toward the direction of the luau party, Denji made sure the four adolescents were walking in front of him before telling them, "Whatever I sell this thing for is all goin' towards you four! You can keep it, spend it, or burn it— I don't give a shit! Just don't get me in trouble, and it'll all be good!"
With the knowledge that they would be getting each their own equal portion of the money earned, all four of the junior adventurers began enthusiastically speaking amongst themselves on what they were going to use their share of the profit for; with their expectation being that each of them would receive at least twenty-five gold pieces each by the end of the night.