Dissidia Duodecim fic: Pastry Shop-1: Where There’s Smoke…

Aug 01, 2011 02:13


A/N:  I don't know how I got this idea.  It might have something to do with the fact that I seriously like food.  There will be crack, there will be madness, and there will be comedy.  And somehow, I'm going to try to make this all seem plausible.  You shall be the judges of this!  Also Disclaimer: I don't own any of it; I just have fun with it.

1: Where There's Smoke…
Author:  Railenthe
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Warnings for:  Crack pairings, eventually; graphic descriptions of food; some language; mild violence.  Lots of crossover.

Summary:  Another day, another gil, goes the saying.  The Shoopuf's Delicacies is well known for its desserts and creative baked dishes, collectively known by the nickname "Shoopuf Pastries."  But there might not be much baking going on tonight, as Kuja, restaurateur and connoisseur, is about to find out…and at the worst possible time, too.

Note:  Some of you may have seen this before, if you’ve ever peeked at my dA page.  However, this version reflects recent polishing and editing, so I would recommend this version.

Further Note:  Revealing what will become the main pairing now would be a spoiler for an upcoming gag.  It'll happen in due time.

Where There's Smoke…

A restaurant kitchen is a war zone.  There's never any way to tell what might go wrong at any given moment, even when the man in charge plans for every situation that he can think of.  There’s always one thing that can be done if something goes wrong in the kitchen: a menu change, a substitution of ingredients, a substitution of a dish, a little magic worked with the right herbs and spices.  Nothing in a master restaurateur's kitchen is left to chance.

Except, that is, for a couple of things, such as the moods of his staff.

The prep area was even more chaotic than usual as Kuja strode into the kitchen to find his crew running amok-from a prepared dish to a dish still cooking, or from the freezer to the cutting board.  He stopped for a moment to let a mob of sous chefs pass by.

"There had better be an explanation for this," he said over the noise .

"We're a bit behind, Boss," a harried woman with cat ears and a tail said as she walked precariously past Kuja balancing several trays and cups.  "Besides discovering that we're out of flour, it doesn't look like anyone did the bakeware last night when the dishes were done."

"You know what to do about that," Kuja said with an impatient flip of his hair.  "What about the flour?  We just got a truckload of that last night."

"We're trying to figure that out."  She turned a corner carefully.

Kuja shook his head, and walked to one of the head chefs.  "You-how long until the main courses are ready to cook?"

A blonde girl, eyes hidden by an odd pair of goggles, said something totally incomprehensible.  When Kuja gave her a withering look, she stopped, made a gesture that looked like flipping an invisible switch on one side of her head, and spoke again, this time in the common language.  "I've got people on it, and they've got moogle machinists with them, so it won't be too long."

"What does that have to do with the food?"  Kuja was growing irritated quickly.

"Oh, that-the food's fine, boss.  There's something wrong with your ovens."

"We open in an hour.  It had better be fixed by then."  He turned and walked toward the raw foods preparation area then, but not before hearing a fwoosh! sound and catching a scent of something that smelled like a combination of hot oiled metal and burning rubber.  "Freezers and cold preparation-report!"

"No problems here, sir," a voice said from somewhere inside the freezer.  "Aside from the fact that we need to make more pastry crust, and there's not enough flour to do it with, nothing seems out of the ordinary here."

"Drop what you're doing and go get flour!"

"Sir!"  A man dashed out of the freezer then, and out the back door.

"Out of flour-what in blazes could have happened to the flour?" he muttered as he made his way back to the cleaning area.  What kind of business did the Shoopuf's Delicacies, a business so well-known for its pastry and desserts that it was often called "Shoopuf Pastry," have running out of pastry flour?!  It was madness!

There was a second fwoosh! noise in the background, followed by a string of sulfurous curses in at least two languages that Kuja understood and one he didn't.  He heard the sound of footsteps running behind him, and turned around to see the girl from earlier coming at him fast.  There was soot in her hair and on her face, except for where the goggles had been.

"You're not going to believe this-"  The last bit was cut off by yet another explosive fwoosh!  "Would you believe that the ovens have been tampered with?"

"What?!"

"Somebody tried to wreck your ovens!"

"Rikkupo!"  A moogle suddenly appeared behind the girl, holding something unidentifiable in one tiny hand.  The little creature landed on top of the countertop, putting it now at about waist level.  "I found this inside the machinery.  Just in time, too-it was about to melt over the gas intake, kupo."

In the background, there was a sudden rising screech.  (The only trouble with having mithra on staff-you know when they're upset, Kuja thought absently.)

"What was it?"  Kuja asked, looking at the mess of metal and plastic.

"We think it might have been a pastry cutter at one time or another…"

"This day just keeps getting better.  Can you fix the ovens?"

"You bet!  Between me and Sidney here, we can fix the ovens and make them do some new, nifty things!"

Kuja held up one hand in the universal gesture for 'stop.'  "Just stick to getting it back in working order.  You have an hour."

"Yes, Boss!" they both said, and dashed off toward the ailing machinery.  The sad thing that had been a pastry cutter a lifetime ago was left behind on the countertop.  He picked it up, looked at it:  the thing looked as if it had been run through a meat grinder, then thrown into a furnace, before being pressed through a pasta maker.

He was about to conclude that the day could get no worse when the mithra from earlier approached him with one of those smiles that only ever meant one thing.

"You're not going to like this," she began, one ear twitching nervously.

Which led to the other thing that was impossible to control…

There’s a few Redshirts here, mostly because I don’t think that the stars need to all be in the back of the kitchen.  Don’t worry-the others will make an appearance soon, as will another superstar… =D

The Shoopuf's Delicacies (Don't ask about the name, 'cause even I don't know) gets a bad start to the week. Must be Monday.

What could be the unfortunate development? Stay tuned.

-Bonus-
Meet The Redshirts! (With the exception of one who is DEFINITELY doomed, no one dies…maybe)

Shela: Mithra who usually puts out the fires at the restaurant. Also the head of safety. Like most of the staff, she's put up with Kuja for so long that she knows what's up.

Sidney: Moogle machinist. Readily identifiable by his bright yellow pom-pom. With him and his crew running about, anything that breaks is rapidly fixed. Of course, since he also works with Rikku, things that break also wind up doing new, interesting things. Before you ask, yes.  Token Cid!

Wedge: The gofer. He often gets roped into getting things for the others. (Like here, where it's flour. He was doing inventory in the freezer when he had to go get flour.)

fandom : dissidia duodecim, fic : pastry shop au, status : in progress

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