Vultraz's Diner: OKOTO

[Voltex]

 

CHAPTER 1 - THE DINER, PART 1

 

It was an ordinary morning - just like it always is at the beginning of any tale. Seven airships had crash landed in Ga-Metru during the night, destroying half the Metru, while Po-Metru had somehow launched themselves into the sky, and they now hovered several hundred feet above where they had formerly been connected to the rest of the city.

 

Down to the south in BZ-Koro, these events were of no concern to the customers enjoying the typical servings of Vultraz’s Diner, and the staff of said Diner were happily going about their jobs… as happily as they could, anyway; working for Vultraz was always a bit of a chore to all but the most loyal of workers.

 

A red and black Matoran of Shadow meandered through the various tables and booths in the restaurant, a white chef’s hat upon his head, a white apron tied around his waist, and a plastic spoon tucked into his pocket. In his hands were a pen and notepad, upon which he scribbled the comments of his various customers.

 

To those who did not know him personally (everyone that did not work at the diner), this habit made Vultraz seem kind and well-mannered, caring about his customers more than any of the other restaurants within BZ-Koro.

 

That assumption could not be further from the truth.

 

“Um, excuse me, sir?”

 

The Shadow Matoran paused, pen halfway to his pocket; he turned around slowly to face the Le-Matoran that had spoken. “Yes?”

 

“My coffee was stone cold when it arrived,” the Le-Matoran said, gesturing towards the untouched mug that was suspiciously lacking the tell-tale steam that came with actually being hot coffee. “Don’t you have a guarantee that your coffee will arrive so piping hot that drinking it scalds the tongue?”

 

“We don’t have tongues,” Vultraz said. “We’re biomechanical beings. The fact that we even consume food and drinks rather than just absorbing energy in a horribly defined way doesn’t even make sense.”

 

The Le-Matoran blinked, momentarily confused, before reaching into a pocket of the cloak that he had wrapped around his chair and pulling out a small piece of folded paper. He rapidly unfolded it and flattened it upon the table, reviewing an ad for the Diner that clearly stated a personal guarantee from Vultraz himself that the coffee would be so piping hot when served that drinking it would scald the tongue.

 

“If you don’t mind, I would like two things,” the Le-Matoran said after a moment of silence.

 

“And those are?”

 

“The first is a refund,” the Le-Matoran said, standing and throwing on his cloak, pulling out a business card and tucking it into Vultraz’s apron. “The second is your appearance in the Metru-Nui court in two weeks’ time, after I sue you.”

 

“I-you can’t-what?” Vultraz spluttered.

 

Vultraz glared at the Le-Matoran as he turned around briefly to smirk before exiting the Diner, the doors rattling as they were slammed shut. The Shadow Matoran remained where he was standing, mouth slightly open, as everything continued like normal around him.

 

---

 

Once he regained his sense of reality a few minutes later (after several customers had excused themselves, creeped out by the owner staring at them with a gaping mouth), he immediately launched into detective mode.

 

“Who’s been on coffee this morning?” he demanded as soon as he entered the kitchen.

 

The black and yellow, bug-like face of his personal assistant, a Makuta named Bitil, poked out of the office that they both shared. “Why, is something up?”

 

“A coffee was stone cold and now I’m being sued,” Vultraz fumed. “Who was on coffee?”

 

“Jaller does coffee on Tuesday,” Bitil answered. “He’s on break out back right now. Would you like me to page him?”

 

“No,” Vultraz said, grabbing a wooden baseball bat from its resting place in the corner. “I’ve got this one under control. Get your medical kit ready. You’ll probably have to fix up a few limbs once I’m done… and maybe a mask as well.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

The Shadow Matoran tossed his hat to the side and threw his apron up onto the hook, hefting the baseball bat onto his shoulder as he made his way through the kitchen, ducking underneath the wooden beam carried by the hulking monstrosity that was Makuta Icarax and shivering as the walk-in freezer doors were opened as he passed by.

 

As he kicked the back door open and stepped into the alley, two of the three Matoran standing outside flinched; the third merely rolled his eyes.

 

The one that had not flinched was a white and grey Ko-Matoran known as Mazeka, and he made no attempt to hide the smoking pipe in his hand that disgusted Vultraz so much. The other two Matoran were, respectively, a red and blue Av-Matoran called Takua, and the Matoran that Vultraz had ventured out here to see - the red and yellow Ta-Matoran known as Jaller.

 

“Which of you was on coffee today?” Vultraz asked.

 

The three Matoran remained silent for a full minute before Jaller finally quietly stammered, “M-me…”

 

“I have half a mind to beat you to death,” Vultraz said, “and the other half just wants to fire you and chain you in the freezer, to see how long you’ll last.”

 

“What was wrong?” Mazeka asked cautiously.

 

“That’s none of your business,” Vultraz snapped. “And get that pipe out of my sight! I explicitly told you that smoking was not allowed here!”

 

He turned back to Jaller, who flinched again and cowered against the wall, letting out a squeaky “what did I do?!”

 

“The coffee was stone cold, and now I’m being sued by some idiot I don’t even know the name of!” Vultraz snarled. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve kinda been underperforming lately! If I have to pay too large a settlement, this place is going under!”

 

“Wait, stone cold?” Jaller asked, seeming confused. “But… it was piping hot when I made it! How could it have gotten cold? I just went on break two minutes ago!”

 

Before Vultraz could speak, Mazeka interrupted, looking sheepish. “Oh… that uh… that might be my fault.”

 

“What?” Vultraz hissed, whirling on the Ko-Matoran.

 

“I-well, I wanted to prank Jaller,” Mazeka said, looking alarmed. “While he was watching over the pancakes I flash froze the coffee in the freezer and then brought it back out. I thought he’d notice that it wasn’t steaming!”

 

“It was steaming though!” Jaller protested.

 

“How would it be steaming?!” Mazeka exclaimed.

 

“That was my fault,” Takua mumbled.

 

The other three Matoran froze, slowly turning to the Matoran of Light, who refused to meet any of their eyes, instead staring at the ground.

 

“What did you do?” Vultraz asked slowly.

 

“I put acid in the coffee,” Takua mumbled. “Turaga Vakama was being rude to me again….”

 

“You’re fired,” Vultraz said, as Mazeka facepalmed behind him. “And I think you really deserve this.”

 

The Shadow Matoran swung the bat and it collided with Takua’s head with a thud, knocking the Av-Matoran into the wall, where he crumpled to the ground, dazed. Pulling the bat back, Vultraz furiously whipped it into the air, and it landed on the roof of the Diner with a clatter.

 

“I cannot believe you three!” he exploded. “Seriously, what in Karzahni possessed you all to be so stupid? Was the whole Mutran debacle not lesson enough that you shouldn’t be messing around at work?! I mean, come on! Attempted murder? Really?”

 

“Yeah, because you’ve totally never tried to kill anyone,” Mazeka said drily.

 

“Shut up!” Vultraz snapped.

 

“Today sucks,” Jaller muttered. “I didn’t even do anything wrong!”

 

“You could have actually noticed that the coffee was frozen!” Vultraz exclaimed. “All three of you are fools!”

 

“You keep playing up the ‘we’re in financial trouble’ card, and yet you employ Makuta and have a Mask of Dimensional Gates in your possession,” Mazeka replied. “Maybe you could, like, sell the mask? Not employ the most powerful species in the universe?”

 

“You know that we shouldn’t even have the mask, and you know why the Makuta were all hired,” Vultraz hissed. “And I swear to Karzahni, if you mention those topics out loud again, I will gut you.”

 

He was cut off from saying more by the sound of the door to the kitchen opening again, and he turned around to see Makuta Bitil, looking extremely worried.

 

“What is it?” Vultraz asked, sighing.

 

“Um, Mr. Makuro is here…” Bitil said, trailing off.

 

“Mr. Makuro?” Mazeka asked. “You mean the owner of Hero School?”

 

Vultraz turned to face him. “Shut you mouth. Jaller, Mazeka, get Takua back inside and wait in my office until I have time to deal with you.”

 

“Mr. Makuro is in the office right now,” Bitil said from behind him.

 

“FINE! They can go to the basement and wait there!” Vultraz yelled, turning back to Bitil as the other Matoran scrambled to do as he had ordered. “Why is he here?”

 

“He says that he hasn’t been pleased with the performance of the Metru-Nui Eatery, something about Radiak being a pain to work with,” Bitil replied. “If you’re willing, he wants to work out a deal with us instead.”

 

Vultraz grinned. “Are you serious?”

 

“Dead serious. Well, not dead, but… you know.”

 

“This might just save us,” Vultraz replied, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Alright - I’ll go meet with Mr. Makuro. Bitil, the business card of the fartface trying to sue us is in the pocket of my apron - go do a check up on whoever it is, alright? And have Vamprah go downstairs and guard those three bumbling idiots. The last thing I need is one of them messing up something down there….”

 

“Yes, it might be an issue if they activated the Mask of Dimensional Gates,” Bitil mused.

 

“I thought that was in the attic,” Vultraz said.

 

“No, there wasn’t room for the dimensional travel chamber up there,” Bitil explained. “So Mutran had Chirox and I move it to the basement instead.”

 

“Have Vamprah get down there immediately, then,” Vultraz decided. “If they find some way to travel through dimensions or blow up the Diner or whatever, so help me, I shall send them to Karzahni in person.”

 

“Of course, sir. Would you like anything for your meeting?”

 

Vultraz thought for a moment before nodding. “A glass of Dr. Pepper might be nice.”

 

As the Makuta rushed away to fulfill the Shadow Matoran’s commands, Vultraz took a moment to frown at the turnout of the day. He had a sinking feeling that whether his meeting went well with Mr. Makuro or not, this day was just going to get worse.

 

And to top it all off, I lost the one item that could make everything right again, he thought. I should have stayed as king.

To Be Continued.

 

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