the wag of a finger
It was a day like any other.
Beast was training yet another rookie cook at his five star restaurant when he slammed his fist upon the kitchen counter.
"No, no, NO! you do not DICE the damn mushrooms! you cut them into STRIPS!" the chef demanded.
"But we always cut them this way in my town!" the rookie responded.
"You may cut them in your silly way at your town, but you're working for ME! at MY RESTAURANT! and as long as you're here, you do things MY WAY! UNDERSTOOD?!" the bear half the cook's height roared at him.
The cook sheepishly nodded in response.
"Um, Mr. Winchester?" another cook asked.
"That's CHEF, you dolt! I run a RESTAURANT, not a damn BROTHEL! now, what is it this ti-"
Beast's pointy ears perked up as he heard a cook crack the spaghetti in half as she dropped it into the pot. Beast stomped over, almost on the verge of popping a blood vessel.
"Excuse me miss, I'm not even going to bother asking for your name, but what in GOD'S NAME do you think you're doing?" He asked.
"Cooking....spaghetti?" the cook responded.
"No." The Chef wagged his finger in disapproval. "What you are DOING is SLANDERING the-"
Beast never finished his sentence because as he wagged his finger, his hand lit up and fired a powerful bolt of lightning that set a corner of the kitchen ablaze. The room quickly dissolved into chaos, and Beast watched in horror as the fire began consuming his kitchen before listing his first reasonable demands that day. "EVERYONE, OUT OF THE KITCHEN! EVACUATE THE CUSTOMERS! SOMEBODY CALL THE DAMN FIRE DEPARTMENT!"
Beast sat in his insurance agent's office, clutching his charred chef's hat in hope for sympathy as his agent reviewed the damage.
"We're sorry Mr. Winchester, but we can't cover you for this." The agent tells him.
Beast's eye went wide with disbelief. "Surely, you jest..."
"Sorry, but in line with our policies, acts of god are not covered by your package."
"You can't be serious. As a bear of God myself, I can assure you that he does not work through metronome."
"Our apologies, but that's what our policy clearly states. We won't be able to cover you for your restaurant burning down."
"This is preposterous!" The chef proclaimed in protest. "Do you know how much I'll have to pay the town and the fire department!? I've devoted every extra dollar I've earned to my restaurant!"
"Actually, we have the bill right here." The agent slid a packet across his desk. Beast flipped through the packet and gawked at the numbers.
"So...what am I supposed to do?" Beast asked.
"We would suggest you pay for the damages yourself." The agent responded bluntly.
Beast slammed his charred hat on the desk and stormed out. "I'll be coming back to close my account in the morning!" He yelled as he walked down the hall.
Beast walked down the street, disgusted at what just happened to him. It would take years to pay off those bills, and worse than that, his beloved restaurant was nothing more the a pile of ash!
"Hey, you're the guy from the paper!" A passerby called to him as he walked past a newspaper stand. Beast grimaced and turned back to buy a newspaper and stared at the front page: "Local Munchlax's Five Star Restaurant goes up in smoke!"
Beast bitterly flipped past the front page to the job listings, looking for somebody who needed a cook. Oddly enough, before now, Beast had run the only dedicated restaurant in town, as every other place that served food was part of something, like an inn.
Beast's eyes darted around the the various job listings until he found one seemed to fit his needs perfectly. A fairly new explorer's guild, The Clover Guild, had opened a couple months back and needed someone to cook for them. A few members had eaten at his restaurant before, but his wait staff usually had to throw them out for loudly arguing, something about which generation of their family was better or something.
Beast began walking across town to where the listing said the guild was located. He was still in slight disbelief that the events had just occurred actually happened, but he knew sitting around moping wouldn't pay off his massive debt any faster.
Beast soon found himself in front of the guild, the building a large hollowed out tree that towered over everything else an impressive amount. The entrance was locked by some sort of door system, with a large grated hole in front of the entrance.
He began to walk to the entrance to knock on the door and stepped over the grate when he was startled by a shouting voice from below.
"POKEMON DETECTED! POKEMON DETECTED!"
"Y'know, I remember talking to a dude on discord and he said this helped him get his foot fetish." another voice he could barely hear remarked.
"Shh! they might hear us! we're already on bad terms with the locals as is!" the original voice demanded. "THE FOOTPRINT IS MUNCHLAX'S!" THE FOOTPRINT IS MUNCHLAX'S!"
Then, the doors creaked open, revealing the interior. Beast sighed and went inside, entering a rudimentary lobby.
Beast surveyed the area. As suspected, the initial area wasn't very well developed. Lanterns were poorly hung from the ceiling, and various rugs and mildly pornographic drawings lined the floor and walls to occupy the blank space.
A Meowstic dressed in some sort of black cloak turned away from the person he was talking to and walked over to Beast. "Hello! Welcome to the clover guild! What brings you were today?~" the cat said rather flamboyantly.
Beast uncomfortably stuck out his hand for a handshake. "Err...Hello, My name is Beast Winchester. Pleasure to meet you." Beast showed the cat the newspaper and pointed to the listing. "I am interested in your opening for a cook."
The blue cat angrily turned pointed to the guild member he was talking to earlier. "SEE!? i told you that listing wasn't a waste of money!" The Meowstic turned back to him and gave him the four fingered approximation of a thumbs up. "You're hired! here, let me show you around~"
The cat led him up a set of stairs and to the sleeping quarters. "Wait, you aren't going to interview me or anything?" Beast asked, somewhat confused.
"Not really!" the cat cheerfully responded. "Between you and me, we've been so desperate for some actual food around here that we were gonna hire the first 'mon who came in here with a pulse."
Beast narrowed his eyes in disgust. It hadn't been 2 hours and he already knew his amazing talents were going to waste. Did they even know who he was?
"So, will you be needing a bed or can you come here from your home?" The cat asked as they walked through the sleeping quarters.
Beast raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Would my stay here be free of rent if I did?"
The cat quietly snickered like he had heard some sort of inside joke. "Hehehe, rent free...But no, you would not be paying rent if you slept here since you would be working for us."
Beast's mood slightly raised. If he stayed here, he wouldn't have to pay his house's rent, and he could pay off his debt faster! But did he really want to sleep in this strange tree fort? Is this really how those explorers slept? Beast pushed his judgement aside and spoke. "In that case, yes, I will be needing a bed."
The cat smiled and put his paws together. "Wonderful! Alrighty then, i'll show you to your quarters. You'll be staying in the west room on floor B1."
Beast looked at his possible new home in disappointment. Honestly, he didn't know what he expected. like every other room, it was a hollowed out room with a few piles of hay and what looked to be a chalk drawn froslass and raichu on one of the walls. Maybe the place would look better once he moved in some of his furniture.
"Alright, let me show you the kitchen~" the cat said, breaking the silence. The had led across the main room and to the dining area.
Beast couldn't tell if he used too used to having top notch equipment, or this was truly a horrible excuse for a kitchen. Crates were scattered and stacked around the room, some even opened or knocked over. Dirty plates lay stacked on the counter, a few floating in buckets of dirty water, and dried berry juice stained the counter and the only equipment he could see, an unwashed knife stained blue with what he presumed to be Oran berries, neglectfully wedged into the surface of the counter as if it was a cutting board. It looked more like a room that just so happened to have food in it than a kitchen. If Beast had a nose, it would have curled in disgust.
Beast exhaled out of his nostrils, his frustration catching up with him. "T-this is just the cellar, right? not the kitchen?"
"No, this is the kitchen, as I said earlier." The cat answered. "As we said, we haven't had a cook to make people anything, so we just kinda eat packaged food, hence the crates and the uh, mess."
Beast planted one hand on the doorway and the other on his forehead, bracing for an oncoming headache. "Do you...do you even have any kitchen tools, other than the knife? I can't cook people food if I just have a dirty knife and crates of...already made packaged food."
The cat frowned, catching on. "Uh, we can buy you some equipment!"
Beast surveyed the mess again. "This kitchen is going to take an eternity to get into working order! I won't be able to cook for at least 2 days!"
"Well, you better start working quickly. We expect something by supper."
Beast turned back at the cat, suppressing an offended look. "Couldn't I get some help or some staff to haul this remaining rot to the storage room?"
"You could probably ask around, but people here are usually too lazy or tired to do anything. And I have a date with chapter 13 of my book." The cat said as he left the chef to his work. "See you at dinner!~"
Beast couldn't believe what he was just told. But then he remembered he wasn't the revered Chef Winchester anymore, he was now just a cook for a group of 20-something explorers. But it was the same way Beast started his career, so he swallowed his pride and picked up a few crates. This was going to be interesting, to say the least. With the wag of a finger, his life changed completely.