//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: Kitchen Nightmares // Story: Desserters // by The Iguana Man //------------------------------// Twist shifted uncomfortably as she sat beside Truffle, nibbling slowly at the macaroon in her hooves. The two were sat on the top row of the set of bleachers overlooking the partitioned kitchen areas in which a griffon, a ram and a pony were currently antagonizing each other. “You BEEPs think you can BEEP me on this, you got another BEEPing thing coming!” “Bête comme ses pieds! Do you truly zink you can simply swear ze food into being?” "Well, you boys both seem to think talkin's gonna get the cookin' done! Why doncha just...?” Twist closed her eyes and did her best to snuggle into Truffle's side, as if she hoped to use his body to block out the words currently being magically amplified and sent out to the crowd, thankful that at least the more colorful language was being censored by the spell. "You okay, Twist?” Truffle asked, prompting Twist to open her eyes and look up at his soft smile. “I know that beeping's a bit too high-pitched for comfort, but if it's too bad, we can figure something out. Or, er... is this the same thing as when we talked to Apple Bloom?” He looked over the crowd, quickly coming to a stop and allowing Twist to follow his eyeline to the filly in question, her red hair and bow being bold enough that she'd stand out even if she hadn't been cheering on the eldest of the rivals. Twist shook her head against his side. “No, it'th not that, it'th not... thhe's all the way over there and the beeping... well, it'th a little bad but I think I like it better than whatever he'th thaying under it. It'th jutht...” she swallowed hard before looking back towards the kitchen areas and seeing that the three challengers had finally finished trash-talking each other and made their way over to begin cooking. She sighed in relief. “I jutht didn't like the whole... thing they were doing. It thhould be okay now...” she paused as Ram Sea shot a glare at Le Grand, which he seemed to see and return it despite the partition wall blocking each from the other's sight. “...mothtly. I jutht don't like that kind of... hothtility, I gueth.” Truffle put a hoof around her and gave her a comforting squeeze. “If it helps, I'm pretty sure they're mostly playing it up for the crowd.” Twist nodded, doing her best to keep her glasses from rubbing against his side. “Yeah, I know, but I thtill don't like it. I mean, I don't like that thort of thing anyway, but when it getth like thith about food... I mean, I'm kinda okay with cooking being a contetht when it'th jutht about thubmitting your betht thtuff – that'th kinda what thith whole event'th about. But it thhouldn't be a... a war like thith. Cooking thhould be about feeding your friendth, not beating your enemieth.” She sighed again, resting her head against Truffle's cushiony neck. “Maybe that'th jutht... no, it definitely ith jutht me. Don't worry about it, I'm jutht being thilly.” Truffle gave her another squeeze and shook his head. “If you are, it's not any more silly than they are for turning this into a battle or anypony else is for liking it. It's all kinda silly when you think about it. That doesn't mean you're wrong to feel like that. And if you are wrong...” he rested his head lightly atop her frizzy hair and smiled enough she could feel it, “...then I don't want you to be right.” Twist giggled, looking up at her coltfriend. Feeling a mischeivous impulse, she twisted her head so she could point her muzzle up and give him a quick kiss on the underside of his bulging neck before retreating back into the hug in an instant, feeling his smile nearly double in intensity. He let out a short, blissful laugh, though she could see through her peripheral vision that he wasn't blushing even slightly. Not that she either expected him to, since he was never remotely shy or embarrassed of their relationship, or needed him to, since she was blushing enough for both of them. After a moment, he settled down and lifted his head slightly off of hers – not enough to end the hug, but to let her know she could come away if she wanted to. “Well, at least they're just focusing on cooking now. Should be okay.” Twist nodded as she pulled gently away. After a moment, though, something else occurred to her and prompted her to lean into his side once again. "Altho, this bench ith... it'th not the motht comfortable thing I've ever that on.” "Ah! Yeah, I can see that. To be fair, it sounds like they only decided to change the format a little while before the event, so they probably didn't have the time and budget for proper chairs and stages and everything.” Truffle shrugged before an impish smile came onto his muzzle. “Still, at least these seats are out somewhere where everypony's gonna have a little padding on their rumps.” He shuffled his haunch against the seat, emphasizing the thickness of it. “Imagine if they brought this out at a fashion event full of models. Most of them'd be sitting straight on their skeleton. One wrong move and they'd have 'Made in Taiwhinny' stamped forever on their tailbone.” Twist found herself mirroring his smile. “Oh, don't be thilly, Truffle. No way they'd have the weight or strength for that.” The two had a nice long chuckle before settling down to watch the chefs at work. For the most part, they did indeed seem to be solely concerned with their work, though there was still a slight air of fervor to their movements. Still, it was far from enough to interfere with even the most delicate of recipes, so Twist let it slide. And, however combative these three were, it couldn't be denied that they were masters of their craft and it was a delight to watch them work... not to mention to imagine the taste of the results, even though she knew she'd never get to try them. That was okay, though – she'd never been under any illusions about that and was content to take in the smells that would wash over her once the actual cooking started. Even now, the sight of the smoke beginning to rise out of Gustave Le Grand's oven did send a few phantom traces of scent flicking through her nose. Wait... Twist thought as the crowd began murmuring, some of them pointing at the smoke, he hasn't turned the oven on yet. All the muttering ceased in an instant when the griffon spoke, his voice being magically sent out to the crowd. “Nom de dieu! Guard, please come here at once!” As he spoke, a slight hissing could be heard behind his words before being cut off once he stopped. One of the guards stationed in front of the kitchen areas turned around, confused, before walking up to him, his voice getting picked up by the amplifying spell as he got closer. “...ght you said none of use were allowed in here?” His quieter voice made the strange hissing even more noticable. Le Grand let out a growling sigh before speaking, not taking his eyes off his work. “Yes, zat was before I became aware zere was a bomb in my oven. Deal with zat, would you?” It was really an incredible thing to both witness and experience: an entire crowd of ponies doing a near-simultaneous double take when the impression from the casual tone he'd spoken with gave way to the realization of what he'd actually said. Of course, as soon as that happened, natural pony instincts started to kick in and the crowd started shifting and moving, not quite panicked enough to stampede, but clearly very close to it. Fortunately, it seemed as if the guards were far quicker in their reactions as, by the time this had happened, a great number were already situated around the crowd ready to coordinate the evacuation so nopony got hurt. Still, Twist was very glad she was so high up on the bleachers and out of the main scrum. While she might have been alright had she been down there, the possibility of getting trampled was far, far more looming that she'd have liked. Admittedly, that wasn't helped by the fact that her immediate reaction to the danger was to yelp and collapse to the ground with her legs beneath her, shaking as her body pressed down as close to the ground as it could get. The shaking stopped, however, when she was reminded that she wasn't alone by a thick leg stepping in front of her and a thicker belly pressing lightly onto her side. She smiled, not even feeling the need to look up at Truffle's face to see the resolve on it. His movement wasn't so much direct protection as much as a statement – a sworn proclamation that he would protect her from anything and anyone that might harm her – in addition to putting himself in a position where he could dart between her and danger wherever it might come from. Fortunately, his leg didn't really block her view of what was going on – not that it would likely make her feel good, but leaving it up to her imagination would be far worse. As it was, she was able to see the guard in the kitchen examining the oven, looking through the window, cracking the door open enough to feel for anything that might set the bomb off if opened fully then, having presumably found nothing, opening it and carefully extracting what was inside. From out of the oven, he pulled a bomb in the most archetypal sense – a perfect sphere of dark grey metal, with a small cylinder attached, from which fell a long-but-rapidly-shortening fuse. His face unmoving, the guard's horn lit up, his magic picking up his spear and carefully turning it over so it pointed at the bomb. "What'th he doing?” Twist muttered to herself as he placed the bomb carefully on the ground. After a moment, he pushed the fuse down with a hoof before striking down with the spear, cutting the fuse in two and separating the lit end from the bomb. Twist let out a sigh of relief and began shifting around, with the intention of rising. However, Truffle didn't move a millimetre, remaining as just as tense and ready as before, prompting her to stop and focus again on the situation before her. Just as she did, she saw the bomb's remaining fuse, entirely unprompted, start sparking and resume travelling towards its destination. The guard's horn lit up. “It's self-lighting! I'm going to do a Skyport!” He bellowed, his voice ringing out clearly enough that it would be audible to all other guards in the area even without being picked up by the amplification spell around Le Grand. “Unicorns, force shield; Pegasi, shockwave suppression; Earth Ponies, ready to intercept!” As he gave these orders, the glow around his horn intensified, gaining a second corona, quickly followed by a third. The orange glow was soon mixed with a more purple one coming from the large, wide construct of energy forming above the crowd, like some huge magical umbrella. As it came into being, a number of pegasi landed on the ground and structures around it before starting to flap their wings, focusing their magic through them at a point high up in the sky. After a few tense seconds, there was a flash from the kitchen that forced Twist's eyes closed for a split second. However, no sooner had she opened them enough to see that the bomb had vanished than a massive explosion rang out from high above the crowd, sending Twist's hooves slamming over her ears with a distressed whinny. A second or so later, a number of sounds followed it far closer to the ground, each somewhere between the thump of matter hitting matter and the twinkling hum of telekinesis, and even Twist could tell it was the sound of the bomb's shrapnel impacting the shield above them and the shield deforming but holding. Admittedly, this was helped by seeing, out of the corner of her eye, the few shards that went past the edge of the shield coming to the ground, with Earth Pony guards leaping in front of any that endangered any civilians, the metal bouncing harmlessly off their armor. After a few seconds, the shield faded and a long, tense silence fell over the crowd, the motion that had been running and jostling through it gradually slowing as it became more and more unlikely that anything else would happen to set off their collective panic response. Eventually, things settled down enough for ponies to return to their seats. A moment later, the silence was broken as Le Grand's voice came out from the kitchen. “Merci, Monsieur Guard. You may go now.” The guard in question glowered at the griffon, who didn't even seem to notice. “Mr. Le Grand, someone just tried to kill you!” “Oui, And you proved most worthy of ze trust I had zat you would protect me. However, just as I must rely on you to survive, zese profiteroles must rely on me to come into being, so I must ask zat you remain outside to ensure it.” The guard started rubbing at his still-smoking horn, breathing heavily from the strength of the spell he'd just cast. “We should still search this place to make sure we haven't missed anything else.” "Oh, I did not miss ze bomb,” Le Grand explained casually, drawing a gasp from the crowd that he ignored. “I knew it was zere, I just assumed it was supposed to go off when I lit ze oven to preheat and I could simply remove it zen.” "You WHAT?!” Ram Sea's voice came from the next kitchen over. “If that BEEP messed up my BEEPing souffle, I'm gonna BEEP your BEEP BEEPways with a BEEPing ten-foot BEEPing BEEP!” "Hey, yer the doofus who decided to make a souffle in a public cookin' competition. You weren't ready fer the unexpected to happen, that's on you, ya potty-mouthed pig!” Twist sighed as a series of rapid beeps came from the centre kitchen, signifying that time of civility between the three had come to an end. Looking up, she saw Truffle still standing over her, as if to shield her from the tension and negativity in the air. A small, shaky smile made its way onto her muzzle, but it was apparently enough for him to see it out of the corner of his eye, as he caught her gaze and gave her a gentle look. “You okay?” Twist swallowed hard, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment as she tried to will her heart rate down. “I think tho.” She made a small motion in her hooves, signalling that she wanted to rise and causing Truffle to step to the side enough that she could, though not so far that he couldn't be right next to her when she did. “That wath...” she trailed off, realizing she had no idea how she'd be able to actually put it. Truffle still nodded. “Scary, I know.” Twist paused, blinking in surprise at hearing that from him. “You didn't theem that thcared.” "Of course I was scared!” Truffle replied, looking at her shocked. “If anything had happened to you, I don't know what I'd...” He paused for a moment before shaking the idea off. “I suppose I'm just more used to it.” Twist felt a small smile come onto her face, though it took a moment to realize what she was happy about. Or rather, the combinantion of things: just knowing she wasn't alone in her feelings was a comfort on its own, but the fact that Truffle not only had the capacity for fear, but was able to push past it and perhaps even use it to further drive himself to protect her made her feel incredibly secure on several levels, even if she had her doubts she could ever do the same. Unfortunately, her good mood didn't last as a particularly censored tirade about Gustave Le Grand's mother was heard from below. Twist sighed and looked away. “Um, thorry about thith, but do you think we could leave? I, er... I don't think hanging around'th gonna do my nerveth any good.” Truffle gave an equally uncomfortable wince and nodded.