//------------------------------//
// Cooks in the Kitchen 
// Story: Pantheon, the Artisan of Baking 
// by Hawattie 
//------------------------------//

	Pantheon grimaced at his handiwork. The second batch of biscuits more closely resembled charcoal briquettes than anything edible. Still, he was improving. His first batch somehow managed to melt their way through the oven. Pinkie had assured the warrior that it was no problem, apparently the bakery went through about an oven a week due to various party-related reasons.
"I've definitely seen worse," Pinkie said. She popped one of the blackened biscuits into her mouth and chewed it slowly. "Mmm, crunchy!"
Pantheon picked one of the baked "goods" up with all the care of one holding volatile explosives. He brought it to his nose, sniffed it, and recoiled in disgust. "How are you even eating these?" he asked.
The mare held up a hoof while she chewed her sixth biscuit. After all, it's impolite to talk with your mouth full and Pinkie Pie was anything but impolite. With a huge gulp she swallowed her mouthful and let out a contented sigh. "Really once you get past the ashy bits they're not all that bad."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better," Pantheon said dejectedly as he watched the mare finish off the last of the tray.
Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Well, duh!" With surprising deftness, the mare's tongue shot out of her mouth and wrapped around the uneaten biscuit in Pantheon's hand. "'ve c'rse 'm say'ng tha' t' m'ke ye feel be'er" she said around a mouthful of biscuit, completely disregarding the sentence stating that she wasn't supposed to do so. She swallowed her biscuit, managed to flip the author off using hooves, and resumed her conversation with Pantheon.
"Would you prefer I criticize your every mistake down to the smallest detail, hounding you day and night until you're a master baker who could make a fifteen layer wedding cake in his sleep without breaking a sweat?" Pinkie asked.
Pantheon thought about that for a moment. It didn't seem too different from how he was raised, just, replace "baking" with "fighting" and "make a wedding cake" with "rearrange a man's internal organs with your bare hands".
"Actually that sounds alri--"
Apparently Pinkie hadn't eaten all the biscuits, because she cut Pantheon off by shoving one into his mouth. She was actually kind of right. Right in the very center was an unburned bit which tasted alright. "Well I'm not going to do that because A) that's mean, and I'm not a Meanie McMeaniepants and 2) you don't have the endurance to keep up with my training regimen."
Pantheon glanced down at his muscular figure, then he glanced at Pinkie's... poofiness. "I think you might be mistaken about, ah, point number two."
"So?" Pinkie glared at Pantheon for daring to point out a crippling oversight in her well-thought-out list of reasons. For a moment the warrior held her gaze with a defiant one of his own. That moment only lasted a quarter of a second before Pantheon looked away.
As soon as Pantheon broke the gaze Pinkie pulled yet another uneaten biscuit out from behind her ear and ate it whole. After a few seconds Pantheon broke the silence. "If you're not going to hound me until my baking improves, then how are you going to teach me?"
Pinkie's face immediately broke out into a biology-defying grin. "Oh Panth, I thought you'd never ask!"
Upbeat and lively music started playing from the walls. Pantheon looked on in confusion as Pinkie started to bob to the music. Then she started singing.
"When I was a little filly, and the sun was going doooown!" 
Pantheon stared at the mare as if she'd grown an extra head.
"The darkness and the shadows--" the music abruptly cut off with the sound of a record scratching.
"Hold up," Pinkie said, pulling a stack of cue cards out of her mane. "I think I got the wrong song." She flipped through the cue cards at lightning speed. "Aha! There's where the script went off. Shouldn't take more than a moment to fix, hold on for a second."

~~~

Pantheon blinked, feeling a sudden sense of déjà vu. Wasn't Pinkie standing over there a second ago? And hadn't she been saying something about scripts?
It didn't matter, Pantheon decided. Whatever she was doing before didn't affect the music she was bouncing along to. Without warning, unless you count the music coming out of the walls as warning, Pinkie Pie burst into song.
"All you have to do is take a cup of flower, add it to the mix!"
Pantheon watched in awe as the mare teleported seemingly at random around the room. Each time she appeared she held a new item in her hooves, which she tossed into a mixing bowl.
"Now just take a little something sweet not sour. A bit of salt just a pinch!"
With dexterity that hooves should not possess Pinkie mixed her ingredients into a fine-looking dough.
"Baking these treats is such a cinch, add a teaspoon of vanilla!"
Pantheon's eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw Pinkie Pie mixing the bowl... and also Pinkie Pie adding in some vanilla. Shaco, LeBlanc, Wukong, and now Pinkie Pie. If Pantheon never met another person who could be in two places at once it wouldn't be soon enough. And she was still singing too.
"Add a little more and you count to four, and you never get your fill of..."
When they began baking, Pantheon had removed his shield from his arm and set it, along with his spear, on an unused counter. With Pinkie's dramatic pause Pantheon felt it would be wise to re-equip his defensive armament in case Pinkie's antics got out of hand.
And it was a good thing that he did. With a vicious war cry of, "Cupcakes! So sweet and tasty!" Pinkie Pie lobbed the mixing bowl at Pantheon's head. The man could barely lift his shield in time to deflect the projectile. The bowl spun through the air, spilling its contents along the way, and landed neatly in a sink next to some other dirty dishes. 
Pinkie did a power slide holding a cupcake tray above her head singing, "Cupcakes! Don't be too hasty!" Somehow all the spilled batter flying through the air managed to land inside the little cupcake-holes on the cupcake tray. Not a single drop missed its mark.
"Cupcakes!" Pinkie sang. One of her hind hooves lashed out at a nearby cupboard, slamming it shut. Somehow this action caused an oven across the kitchen to open up. Taking careful aim, Pinkie threw her tray of cupcake batter like a Frisbee. "Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes!" The tray landed perfectly in the oven and the door closed all on its own.
Pinkie Pie stood in the middle of the kitchen, striking a dramatic pose with cupcakes baking behind her. Pantheon stood on the edge of the kitchen, shield hanging limply at his side and jaw gaping wide enough that it could be mistaken for a Kog'Maw impression.
"That was..." Words failed the Artisan of War.
"I know right," Pinkie agreed. We may never know just what it was that Pinkie agreed with. "Every time I sing that song I just make the best cupcakes ever!"
"Do you break, nay, shatter the laws of physics while singing a song often?" Pantheon asked.
Pinkie smiled. "Almost every day!" With a grin she trotted over to the oven to set a timer for the cupcakes.
Sensing that the danger had passed, for now, Pantheon removed his shield. "Pinkie Pie, you are without a doubt the most random being I have ever met."
"And don't you forget it!" Pinkie Pie pulled yet another uneaten biscuit from the beginning of the chapter out of somewhere and ate it. "That reminds me, I need to give you your first assignment."
"Assignment?" Pantheon asked.
"Yep! An assignment," Pinkie said. "I can't be looking over your shoulder every second of every day, so you're going to have to do some work on your own."
The logic seemed sound to Pantheon. He had to work hard to become as good at fighting as he was, it would make sense that the same would apply to baking. "So what would you have me do?"
"First, I think you should get a place to stay," Pinkie said. Pantheon hadn't actually thought about that. He would need a roof over his head for the foreseeable future. "Preferably one with its own oven, since you can't use these ones all the time."
"Second, you need to practice your baking." Pantheon was in total agreement with Pinkie there, practicing was the only way to get better at something. "I want you to bake something, anything, at least once a day."
"And finally," Pinkie donned a plastic tiara and changed her voice, presumably to mimic someone though Pantheon hadn't the foggiest idea who she was supposed to be, "make some friends!"
Pantheon couldn't contain his curiosity. "Who was that supp--" the sound of a buzzer going off interrupted him.
"Ooh!" Pinkie squealed. "The cupcakes are ready!"
Pantheon blinked at the Pinkie-shaped cloud of dust where the mare had just been. "They're ready already?" the warrior wondered aloud. "But she only put them in five minutes ago." Ignoring the impossibility, Pantheon followed Pinkie to the oven to ice some cupcakes.