Kirby's Dream Café: Robobot Mall
is a coffee shop AU fanfiction of the Kirby: Planet Robobot game. It has 10 chapters: a prologue, an epilogue, author notes, and the 7 game chapters parallels. It was written by ViridiHarmonia64 from July 21 to August 21, 2016.
The plot revolves around Kirby's Dream Café, a little coffee shop in the Pop Star district, being under duress as a sign indicates the great Haltmann Works Company wishes to get their restaurant and demolish it to set up a mall. Kirby refuses, and HWC, along with the everywoman Susie, turn to less than legal measures to get the shop under their hands.
Now also posted in AO3.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Susie's coffee machine gains sentience and goes into the internet to buy nuke codes online.
- All There in the Manual: A tumblr post of the author shows what happened in the previous games/stories. It ends up useless, as the author promised to write those too.
- Arc Words: We Stay. They represent Kirby's coffee shop desire to stay. They appear at least once every chapter except the prologue (which set up from what they were staying) and the 4th chapter, where they left at the end to get Kirby to a hospital.
- Batman Gambit: A small one: Kirby knows the API group can do some serious harm, and there's no way they'd admit to work for HWC or viceversa. So Kirby leaves the place, leaves the keys at the door, puts a sign that taunts them, and they're caught red-handed as they tear Kirby's café apart. Once there, they try to use HWC's sponsorship as an escape route, but they deny any involvement. This also slightly reduces their popularity.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Kirby and Ribbon. Ribbon can throw a man out of a window and scare an A.I. into shutdown, and Kirby can destroy a robot and two legendary gang warriors in combat, as well as a legal kicking to a billionaire.
- Beyond the Impossible: Somehow, in the span of running to Kirby's coffee shop and coming back, Susie's coffee machine gains sentience and goes into the internet to buy nuke codes online.
- Big Damn Heroes: Susie begins the café's demolition, and a limo stops it. Magolor and Adeleine get out of it, bringing president Sectonia to stop HWC.
- Bland-Name Product: Halbucks.
- Book Ends: The story started on July 21, ended in August 21. Similarly, the approximate number of words for each chapter started with a 1000 in the prologue, peaked at 2000+, and went back to a 1000 in the epilogue, going through a similar number of words per chapter as its inverse(ch.1 and 7, ch, 2 and 6, ch 3 and 5).
- Captain Ersatz: Waddlet Deesney.
- Coffee Shop AU Fic: The fanfic is a coffee shop AU of Kirby that revolves around Kirby's Dream Cafe.
- Crazy-Prepared: Magolor. He carries smoke bombs wherever he goes. Adeleine goes on to ask why he would do thatMagolor: [curious] That's a silly question. Did I not just say I turned out to need it??
- Fun with Acronyms: Halstar's World Commentary and Haltmann Works Company.
- Graceful Loser: Both Haltmann and Susie. Haltmann concedes defeat after Kirby shows him they have enough evidence for trial. Susie takes over, and knowing the trial will start long after KDC is destroyed, initiates anyway. This gets interrupted by President Sectonia, and there she concedes defeat.
- Idiot Ball: Haltmann. He hired his daughter he practically kicked out of the family, taught her about cheating and lying in corporate business, let her stay when all employees were fired and replaced by robots, and somehow didn't expect her to betray him.
- Invulnerable Knuckles: Averted. As Kirby learns the hard way, punching a metal surface (Mecha Knight's face) full-force with no protection isn't a good idea.
- Jack of All Stats: Kirby. He wins both the fights in the fanfiction by adding some actual hand-to-hand combat in the middle of sword-fighting. It saves Meta Knight Meta Knight, although begrudgingly, concedes he could learn a thing or two from Kirby.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Susie knows better than to mess with President Sectonia.
- Leet Speak: Star Dream's Operator text name: TH 35 T 4 RDR 3 AM.
- Nice Guy: Kirby. Some people say he has a cotton candy heart. He doesn't. He checked.
- Only Sane Woman: Adeleine. She's in art school, which according to the author, is 'the school you need to be the most insane to go to', and despite that, she sides with a café runner who knows swordsmanship, a woman that scared an A.I. into shutdown with a glare, and a guy who walks around with smoke bombs, brass knuckles and a shovel. Yikes.
- Rule of Three: In a flashback of the first day of Kirby at the coffee shop. Three times does Marx's drink play a role in an incident, and making it worse due to the alcohol in it. Each time getting worse. See Serial Escalation below.
- Running Gag: The author stating Kirby's copyright, thanking Nova for one of the Kirby games, and pointing out the best points FTW!
- Serial Escalation: First day at the Kirby's Dream Café. First, the coffee machine lights on fire, Kirby throws Marx's coffee at it, and the alcohol in it makes it burn more. Then, a customer receives his hot drink to the face, Kirby throws Marx's cold latte at the client's face. The alcohol lights the client's face on fire. Finally, after the first day, Keeby, Kirby and Marx celebrate the first day. Marx comments he left his tea inside. THE COFFEE SHOP EXPLODES.
- Sore Loser: Nova. He didn't handle Kirby's intruding on his plan of fame well, so he plans to get revenge. He gains all of Haltmann's money and has Kirby at a stop, and drops the chance to peacefully live rich for stunning Kirby and Meta Knight, and trying to upload their profiles to the INTERPOL.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Well, Max isn't that weird of a name, but adding "Profitt" to it does make it weird.
