//------------------------------// // Chapter 6:  Flambéed Oven A La Sonata Style // Story: Pinkie and Sonata's Excellent Adventure // by Justice3442 //------------------------------// Pinkie and Sonata’s Excellent Adventure Chapter 6:  Flambéed Oven A La Sonata Style -ooooooo- ‘Poomf!’ With a brilliant flash, Twilight Sparkle appeared on a set of crystalline stairs, glowering down the stairs at an orange unicorn that was galloping up them. “STOP FOLLOWING ME!” Twilight shouted. Sunset returned fire with a dirty look of her own. With a flash and a ‘Poomf!’ she was suddenly about a dozen steps above Twilight. “No! You stop following me!” she shouted downwards. At the bottom of the stairs, Spike rushed to catch up to the two mares. Twilight grit her teeth as her horn glowed purple. ‘Poomf!’ She was once again in the lead. “Look, I appreciate your desire to help, but this is my world. I’ll fix this.” Sunset leap frogged her with a ‘Poomf!’ “Oh lay off it! You left me in charge of the sirens!” ‘Poomf!’ “Right, and look how that turned out! Looks like I get to clean another one of your messes!” ‘Poomf!’ Sunset Shimmer shot Twilight a glare as if she was trying to melt the purple alicorn’s head with her eyes instead of her magic. “Right, right… Just like you saved the day against the sirens in the first place… Oh wait!” ‘Poomf!’ “Don’t change the subject! Looks to me you finally succeeded in unleashing a crazed, magical monster on Equestria!” ‘Poomf!’ “I get enough of that demon stuff back at Canterlot High, thankyouverymuch. I don’t need perfect purple pony princess to remind me!” ‘Poomf!’ “Hey! I never said I was perfect, but at least when I screw up I don’t almost destroy two worlds!” Sunset grit her teeth. ‘Poomf!’ “DORK!” ‘Poomf!’ “JERK!” “Girls?” Spike called from below them. ‘Poomf!’ “MEDDLER!”  ‘Poomf!’ “BUTT DRAWER!” “GIRLS!” Spike shouted with force, though his voice was getting further. ‘Poomf!’ “CREDIT STEALER!” ‘Poomf!’  “BITC—” “GIIRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLS!” Came Spike’s distant, but loud yell. “WHAT?!” Twilight and Sunset said in unison as they looked down. A thought occurred to both ponies that they were not standing on anything. They were both, in fact, quite a few dozen yards above the castle. Twilight and Sunset let out cries of alarm. Twilight quickly spread her wings and began a not-so-controlled descent back towards the roof of the castle. Sunset’s horn glowed azure and with yet another ‘poomf!’ she teleported about a foot above the castle, falling on top of the observation platform next to a pony-sized purple telescope with an “Oof!” With an “Aaaaah!” and a ‘Crash!’ Twilight joined her. Still lying on her stomach with her legs spread in all directions, Sunset glared at Twilight. “Nice flying,” she said sarcastically. Leaning upside-down against a crystalline wall with her tail dangling between her legs and almost tickling her muzzle, Twilight returned the glare and the tone, “Nice teleporting.” Spike slowly walked into the visual death beams the girls were sending each other. “Uh… I wanted to tell you girls you both ran out of stairs.” “We noticed, Spike. Thanks,” Twilight said as she scrambled to her hooves. “Hey!” Sunset exclaimed. “We only noticed because he yelled at us.” She gave Spike an earnest look of gratitude. “Thank you.” Spike chuckled. “Ah… T’wernt nothing.” Twilight leaned her head past Spike to glare at Sunset. “Did you mean that, or are you just trying to show me up?” “Of course I meant it!” Sunset said. “But if, for whatever reason, you felt ‘shown up’, maybe it’s because you actually suck at this friendship stuff!” “Uh… girls?” Spike attempted to interject. “And I suppose the girl who was blackmailing and extorting everyone she knew just a little bit ago is suddenly an expert?!” “Excuse you, but I’m doing really well for someone who has to babysit a school full of deranged lunatics!” “Ha! ‘Deranged lunatics’?! Some friend you are.” “GIRLS!” Spike shouted. “There’s kinda a Pinkie Pie and a dangerous, flying sea monster possibly on the loose in Canterlot? Maybe you two can figure out who’s better at friendship later?”   Twilight and Sunset paused. Looked at the telescope, looked at each other, and with magical glows of both their horns teleported once more. ‘Poomf!’ ‘Thud!’ With another flash of light, both mares found themselves in a heap on the ground, their legs a tangled mess of orange and purple. The pair wasted no time in parting far enough to start swatting at each other with their hooves. “It’s my telescope!” Twilight exclaimed as she batted spastically at Sunset. “Just wait. I’m going to fix this!” Sunset replied as she returned the aggression with equal ineffectiveness. Spike sighed and walked around the melee of flying hooves. “I guess I’ll take a look…” “You’ve done plenty, thanks!” “Stop being such a brat, princess!” “Stop calling me princess as a pejorative!”   “GIRLS!” Spike shouted. “WHAT?!” both mares shouted in unison, their hooves pressed against the other’s face. Spike scrunched his lips up as he peered through the telescope. “You might want to take a look at this. There’s an awful lot of smoke coming out of Canterlot Castle.” Both mares turned, neither requiring a telescope to pick out the small plume of black smoke wafting out of one of windows of Canterlot castle. -ooo- “Ah, nerts,” Sonata said as she watched a fire shoot up from an oven, completely engulfing a set of four pans on top of the stove. Black smoke poured out from the fire, covering the ceiling of the kitchen and escaping from a large open window. “Well, I guess the oil is heated up.” Sonata’s large part pony/mostly sea monster body could barely fit between the white cupboards, stoves, and collection of cooking utensils of the massive, well-stocked kitchen. A collection of pots, pans, cooking trays, spoons, and spatulas littered the floor around and behind her, creating a small trail of kitchen clutter marking her journey through the royal kitchen. Sonata craned her neck slightly, picking out a stove that was decidedly not nearly as inflamed as the one she currently had going. “Guess we should start another batch of oil heating up.” Pinkie Pie poked her head up from behind the massive siren, her face desperately holding onto an expression that suggested ‘helpfulness’ as opposed to fear from complete immolation. “Maybe we should make sure we have all the ingredients before we heat up another batch,” she suggested. “Also possibly put out that fire before we die of asphyxiation.” The word ‘affixiation’ entered one ear of Sonata’s and smacked into the closest one it sounded like in the vast, empty space between her ears. Sonata giggled. “Silly Pinkie! We can’t die from the sustained increase in the prices of goods and services over time…” She frowned. “Unless you mean we’ll die by eventually becoming poverty stricken if our wages aren’t increased at a level consistent with the lowering value of currency.” Pinkie grinned nervously. “Erm… I don’t think you quite understood.” “Wait!” Sonata lowered her head as the room continued to fill with smoke. “Do you mean if someone tries to fill our bodies with a gas of some sort? I mean… That can totally kill us…” Pinkie coughed and lowered herself down so she was also below the smoke line. “No, I meant we should put out the fire before we die of smoke inhalation that stops us from being able to breathe.” “Oh! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Sonata asked. “Er…” “Anyways, that wouldn’t be a problem if this kitchen made any sense what-so-ever!” Sonata growled out. She turned towards a large metal door that was currently open with a large pile of oats with carrots sticking out, currently sitting in a puddle of milk. “I mean, where do they keep the meat?!” Pinkie paused for a moment before a lightbulb suddenly materialized above her head and switched on. “Hey! They’re ponies right? Maybe they don’t usually eat meat!” Her chin now planted against the floor, Sonata stared up in amazement at the light bulb. “How are you doing that?!” Her chin likewise getting nice and close with the floor, Pinkie looked up and gasped. “How am I doing that?!” “I mean… that light bulb isn’t even connected to anything! How is it working?!” Pinkie gasped. “Maybe it’s a magic light bulb!” “Ohhhh…” Sonata said as realization set on her face. “Right, that explains everything.” “What in the bloody hell is going on in MY KITCHEN?!” Sonata and Pinkie turned to see a unicorn stallion with a peach-colored coat and blond mane and tail. His mane was cut short and ruffled slightly and he wore a chef’s jacket that left his cutie mark of two chef’s knives crossed in an ‘X’ exposed. With a sky-blue glow of his horn, a number of switches in the kitchen suddenly glowed with a matching color and flipped upwards. With a ‘click’ the sounds of large fans spinning up could be heard and the smoke began to clear. “Sorry!” Pinkie said. “We’re just trying to make tacos!” Already at ‘100% mad’, the stallion’s face somehow managed to turn ‘100% confused as well’. “Is that why there’s a bloody grease fire totally destroying one of my ovens and a set of pans? Because you two idiots don’t know how to fry tortillas without burning down the entire castle!?” “We know how to fry tortillas!” Pinkie insisted. “We just sort of started heating up the oil…” Her cheeks began to turn slightly red under her pink coat. “And we sort of forgot about it as we went looking for everything else we needed.” The stallion nodded. “Right, well that explains everything.” Pinkie face lit up. “It does?” “You two are blooming idiots who are going to get us all killed! Now I want you two out of this kitchen as fast as possible! If you’ve somehow forgotten how doors work in addition to ovens, there’s a nice open window you can try to your right!” Pinkie puffed out her lower lip in a pout. Sonata picked the enraged unicorn up by his chef’s jacket and held in in front of her face. “Alright, Mr. Shouty, we’ll be out of the kitchen just as soon as I get some ground beef to make tacos!” Though the act highlighted the size difference between the two, the unicorn met the aggressive act by clenching his teeth and shaking so hard a vein appeared on his forehead, effectively setting his expression to ‘200% mad’. “What in the blazes is ground beef!?” “You know… it’s what you get when you stick a cow in a meat grinder!” “… That’s sick! You twisted freaks aren’t going anywhere near cows if y’er planning to murder them!” Sonata parted her lips, showing a mouth almost the size of the stallion’s head that was full of sharp teeth. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to try pony tacos.” Now ‘300% mad’ with his face turning a burning red, the unicorn’s horn glowed sky-blue and suddenly Sonata was staring at the points of two floating kitchen knives floating inches away from her face. “You try it and I’ll add seafood to tonight’s royal menu!” “Holy geez!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Sonata, put down that pony! I’m sure we can make tacos without killing anyone!” Sonata turned to Pinkie. “What about a cow? Sounds like we’ll have to kill at least one cow.” “NO PONY IS KILLING ANYTHING TODAY!” a booming female voice shouted. The group turned to see Princess Celestia staring at them with an unamused expression on her face, her shimmering hair wafting in the smoky kitchen. “No deal!” the stallion exclaimed. “These two broke into the kitchen and are trying to kill us all via smoke inhalation or fiery death! I think it’s ‘kill or be killed’ at this point!” “Yeah!” Sonata piped in. “And I still need to grind up at least one cow for meat!” Celestia’s horn began to blaze with a yellow aura. Pinkie threw her forehooves in front of her face. “I ACCEPT THE ‘NO ONE DIES’ PROCLAMATION!” she replied in a panicked, shrill tone. The glow on Celestia’s horn blazed until it almost reached the ceiling. Suddenly, a yellow orb appeared around the blazing oven. It filled with black smoke before disappearing in a yellow flash. -ooo- Sitting alone, on a green easychair with ornately carved wooden armrests and wooden legs that almost touched the light fixture hanging above, Discord sat penning an upside-down letter over a writing desk that floated vertically and spun lazily in a clockwise direction. As the desk rotated, taking the paper half-filled with words with it, so did Discord’s talon which held a flashing Technicolor peacock quill. Heads of antler-endowed rabbits lined the wood grain walls of the room and shot glares and dirty looks to Discord as he adjusted a pair of spectacles on his muzzle and focused on penning whatever he was writing. ‘Poomf!’ ‘CRUNCH!’ ‘FWOOOOSH!’ Without warning, a flaming oven appeared above Discord’s desk, crushing it and sending chunks of splintered wood in all directions as it filled the room with smoke and fire. The rabbits on the wall all turned towards this new development and reacted disfavorably, screaming in terrified, shrill tones as black smoke rapidly filled the room and fire began to consume the floor. Discord attempted to ignore this chain of developments, continuing his writing with a frustrated frown as the flames hardly cooperated in standing still long enough for him to pen a sentence. With a huff, he threw his color-shifting quill behind him, impaling one of the screaming antler sporting rabbits in the forehead and transforming it into a jet propelled-dolphin with a pair of curved goat horns. The dolphin quickly rammed its way through a wall, its jets allowing it to make a very hasty retreat from the room. Discord stared at the flaming oven and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Now how did this get here? Flaming ovens are way out of season and it’s not my birthday.” Discord paused as his fuzzy and now flaming eyebrows knit together. “OR is it?” With a snap of Discord’s talon, he was suddenly in front of a door floating in a vast expanse of a rose colored sky filled with cotton candy clouds. With one swift kick of his dragon leg, the door flew open greeting Discord with a startled yelp. Fire now covering the top of his head, Discord poked his head through the door, identifying the source of the yelp as one surprised and shaking guardspony. A pegasus male, orange of coat and golden of armor with a blue plume on his helmet. Before the guardspony could react or so much as ready his spear, he was in the grasp of Discord, inches away from a fiery face and staring into eyeballs that were beginning to steam. “WHO DROPPED AN OVEN IN MY STUDY?!” Discord demanded. “Uhhh… I-don’t… I don’t know…” answered the surprised guardspony as he watched fire spread downwards over Discord’s face. Discord tut-tutted and shook his head, sending bits of flaming face flying off in all directions. He set down the pegasus guard. With a snap of his finger he produced a quill and an open card that bared a crazed-looking characterchure of himself in front a flaming house with the words ‘Thanks for the gift. I had a roaring good time!’ written with the words ‘roaring’ printed out in flame. Discord began to pen a message inside the card as his skin, muscles, and eyes melted from his face. “I swear, you ponies have the strangest names. Now how many ellipsis is, ‘Uhhh… I-don’t… I don’t know…’ spelled with?” -ooo- As the smoke cleared from the kitchen, Celestia’s gaze drifted over the large, blue sea monster in her midst, the familiar pink pony in front of it, and the incredibly angry-looking unicorn currently using magic to hold up a pair of razor sharp kitchen knives as it was held up by said blue sea monster. Deciding she had clearly just completely lost the ‘explanation lottery’, Celestia decided to start with the pony who would most likely give her a straightforward answer of what had just transpired. “Kitchen Nightmare, could you please explain the smoke pouring out of the kitchen?” “These imbeciles started an oil fire because apparently frying tortillas is too complicated for them!” Sonata giggled. “Kitchen Nightmare is a girl’s name!” “Oye!” The floating knives shook and slightly inched towards Sonata. “Keep that up and I’ll show you how quickly I can gut and clean a fish!” Pinkie Pie rushed up to Celestia, falling to the knees on her back legs and placing her front hooves together in attempt to form a ‘begging’ pose. “I’m sorry, tallest horse! My friend and I were just hungry and trying to make some food and she hasn’t been a sea monster for a long time and I’ve never been a pony before!” Celestia looked down at Pinkie in surprise. “Tallest horse? Pinkie Pie, what has gotten into you? You’re making less sense than usual.” Celestia made a mental note to add that one to her ‘burn diary’. Pinkie gasped. “You know my name?! Are you psychic?!” Pinkie thought back to when she first met Twilight. “Wait… are all ponies psychic?!” Her eyes shot open wide, the blacks of her pupils suddenly spilling over and flooding her sky blue irises. “Am I psychic!?” Kitchen Nightmare shot a glare at the pink pony. “Tell me what I’m thinking right now.” Pinkie winced. “But I can’t make a ‘censor beep’ that lasts five minutes uninterrupted!” Celestia sighed heavily. “Pinkie Pie… where’s Twilight and what are you doing here? Also more importantly, who is this you’ve brought with you?” Pinkie swallowed. “Well, Twilight is probably at her castle. I wanted to stop and say ‘Heya!’ But when we jumped through the magic mirror, Sonata here turned into a giant sea monster and I think it surprised the other ponies and then there was lots of shouting and confusion and Sonata said she was hungry and didn’t see any food in the room with all the shouting ponies who look suspiciously like my friends back home if they were ponies, but maybe it makes more sense to say me and my friends look more like the ponies here if the ponies here somehow were turned into humans as say… some toy company’s attempt to make a profit based on the how well a rival toy line is doing. So, before I can say ‘he’ or half of my ‘heya’ to Twilight or myself or the other ponies, Sonata rushes out of the castle and we start asking ponies if they have any food while I try to remind her we came here to write a history report, but Sonata can’t concentrate on an empty stomach, and a nice pony with gray hair pointed to the castle and we decided to come here. The guards asked us questions at first and looked confused, but once they made me take a ‘changeling test’ and a ‘magical mind control’ test which I passed despite not studying for either, they decided to let us through because they figured it was ‘Element of Harmony business’. After that we found the kitchen Sonata started heating up oil as we looked for other things to make tacos with, and even though we found cheese, tomatoes, onion, lettuce, and tortillas, we couldn’t find any ground beef and then the oven caught fire, but then I realized maybe ponies don’t eat meat because ponies and horses from our world don’t usually eat meat so it’s probably strange for you to have ground beef just in your kitchens, and then Sonata and I got distracted by this lightbulb that appeared, but then the unicorn Sonata is holding showed up and got mad at us and I guess we forgot about the lightbulb, and I can’t really get upset back at this pony, because I’d be pretty peeved if a sea monster and a pony I hadn’t even met before showed up to my kitchen and set it on fire, too! And then you showed up and got rid of the oven and started asking questions, so I guess what I’m doing now is answering your questions.” Confusion finally having stamped out anger, Kitchen Nightmare simply looked at the pink mare in disbelief. “What?” “Oh!” Pinkie said. She motioned towards Sonata. “And this is Sonata! But I think I said her name exactly seven times already… Well… Now eight.” “Hello, tallest horse!” Sonata greeted with a smile. Her smile quickly faded into a more serious look. “Do you have any food?” “… What?” Kitchen Nightmare repeated. Celestia paused with a thoughtful look for a moment. “Please put down my head chef and you’ll get everything that’s coming to you.” Sonata’s face lit up as she set down Kitchen Nightmare. “Why that sounds like a good thing for me and not ominous at all!” Pinkie swallowed hard. Celestia motioned for Kitchen Nightmare to come over to her. With quivering tight lips fighting to hide a smirk, the unicorn trotted next to Celestia and stood by her side. Celestia sighed heavily. “I can see this is of the highest emergencies…” A deep, sorrowful frown took hold of Celestia features like a crazed wolverine, she nodded in the direction of a cupboard. “There’s a cookie jar hidden in the back of the furthest cupboard in that corner. You may help yourself to as many chocolate rainbow cookies as you like.” Celestia’s lips quivered slightly. “I love chocolate rainbow cookies.” “… WHAT?!” Kitchen Nightmare exclaimed. Sonata and Pinkie gasped and tore through the kitchen, sending pots and pans in all direction as they scrambled for the cupboard. Celestia gave one more sad glance as the pair produced the cookies, opened the jar, and began devouring the contents of the jar with reckless abandon. She turned towards the doorway. “… Come along, Kitchen Nightmare. We’re going.” Kitchen Nightmare Kitchen shot the princess a disbelieving look. “Are you out of your bleeding mind, princess?! You’re just going to let these two have the run of the royal kitchen?!” “This has ‘Twilight problem’ written all over it,” Celestia said as she began trotting towards the black double-doors of the kitchen exit. “I’m sure she’ll be along shortly to straighten this out before any more have to be sacrificed.” Kitchen Nightmare followed Celestia, flinching with each ‘crash’ and ‘bang’ that sounded through the kitchen. “Do you mean ‘living things’ or ‘cookies’?” “Yes.”