//------------------------------//
// Round 1 
// Story: Cutthroat Kitchen comes to Canterlot 
// by Coyotek4 
//------------------------------//

	A grey unicorn descends the staircase, levitating a briefcase behind him.  Pinkie cannot contain her emotion upon seeing the legendary chef ‘in pony’ for the first time.  “OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD, OHMYGOD, ALMOND BROWNIE!!!”  The unicorn smiles broadly at Pinkie and the others.
“I see my reputation has preceded me.  Ladies, I have heard much of your exploits from Princess Celestia, and I am honored to have the four of you be the first to participate in this unique competition.  As you can see, we have many scribes along the sidelines to record what transpires here for my new book … ‘Cutthroat Kitchen’.”
“I’m sorry,” Rarity admits, “did you say ‘Cutthroat Kitchen’?”
“Oooo, are we gonna be pirates?  Are we gonna have to walk the plank and sing sea shanties and raise the Jolly Roger?”
“Not today,” Almond replies, “but I like how you think, Pinkie.”
Applejack turns to Rarity.  “What the hay did Twilight sign us up for?”
Almond grins.  “Oh, I guess you weren’t given more ‘specific’ details regarding how this competition would play out.”  The four friends all shake their heads in unison.  “Excellent.  Then without further ado,” and he proceeds to explain the rules of the competition:

“Welcome, my little victims, to the Cutthroat Kitchen arena.  The four of you will compete in a series of three rounds.  In each round, you will be asked to prepare a particular dish; you will shop for your ingredients in the pantry over yonder, and then we’re going to have a little auction.  Of course, we can’t have an auction without money, so I brought along one-hundred-thousand bits.”
Almond opens his briefcase, crammed with stacks of 100-bit coins, and levitates the money into four large piles of equal amounts onto each competitor’s table.  All four ponies are in complete awe at the amount of bits in front of them.
“Goodness, I’ve never seen so many bits before.”
“Well don’t get too used to all that currency, Fluttershy, because most of those bits are coming right back to this briefcase.  Now this is important: only one of you will win this competition, and that pony will only leave with the bits you have remaining.”
Twilight turns to Rainbow Dash.  “Almond must be crazy!  They’re all friends; why would any of them spend any bits?  No matter who wins, that’s twenty-five thousand bits for all of us!”
“You’d think that,” Rainbow responds, “but if there’s one thing I know, it’s the thrill of competition.  And the adrenaline that comes with that thrill can cause ponies to do crazy things.”
“One last thing before I forget.”  Almond addresses Rarity specifically: “Due to the nature of this competition, I must ask that you refrain from using any magic for the duration of this challenge.”
“If I must, I must.  Very well; I agree to those terms, Almond.”
“Excellent.  OK ponies: for your first course, I want you to make … apple salad.”
Applejack chuckles.  “Shoot; salad ain’t nothin’, and apples are my livelihood.”
“Well if you feel that strongly, Applejack, you should have no trouble shopping for ingredients, which you can do for exactly sixty seconds, and which you can start doing NOW!”
Pinkie grabs her basket and immediately runs to the pantry; the others are momentarily caught off-guard, but quickly grab their own baskets and follow Pinkie.  Twilight and Rainbow look on as the four grab various ingredients and fight for space.
“Looks like Fluttershy is struggling with getting ingredients,” Rainbow mentions to Twilight.”
“Yeah, what’s with the rest of our friends?”
“Ponies, you have 30 seconds.”
“Can you see what they’re grabbing?”
“Sorry Dash; it’s all a blur to me.”
“10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 …”
Applejack bursts out the pantry, basket in mouth, with Rarity trailing close behind.  Pinkie pronks out of the pantry, basket bouncing on her back but perfectly balanced.
“… 3 … 2 … 1, and …”  Almond slams the pantry door, with Fluttershy still grabbing ingredients.  Upon noticing that the door is closed, Fluttershy walks over and begins knocking.
“Uh … mister Brownie, sir?  Can I come out now?”
Almond opens the door and addresses the timid pegasus: “Sorry, but for failing to shop for your groceries in the allotted time, I must now confiscate one of your ingredients.”
“Oh … okay then.”
Almond peers into Fluttershy’s basket, which only contains a head of lettuce, a couple Granny Smith apples, and a cherry.  “Goodness, Fluttershy, why is your basket so empty?”
“I’m sorry.  I’m just not used to shopping for food under those kinds of conditions.  All that pushing and shoving; it was all just so much to deal with.”
“Well, I have to take something, so …”  Almond proceeds to grab the cherry from Fluttershy’s basket.  Fluttershy nods her head in acceptance and heads back to her prep station.
“OK then,” Almond says with a grin, “now that you all have your ingredients, let’s see if we can’t make this round a bit more interesting.”  He walks over to the dumbwaiter and gives it a couple knocks; the door opens to reveal a miniature bowl.  All the competitors, as well and Twilight and Rainbow, look on in bewilderment.
Almond levitates the bowl to the table and addresses the chefs: “Since salads are often made in a bowl, I thought it’d be interesting if the chefs were forced to do the same.  Bring it in, Bobs.”
A group of assistants haul in a pony-sized lazy susan, on top of which lies a humungous bowl, with three prep stations affixed to the inside edges.
“What the hay is that thing?”
“Why your new working environment, Applejack … or at least, it might be.  It’s time for our first auction, with all bids in increments of one hundred bits.  The winner of this auction can force all three of her opponents to spend the entire challenge working in this bowl-shaped carousel.  If the dizziness doesn’t get to you, the centripetal force just might.  Let’s start the bidding at five hundred bits.”
“This is crazy!” Twilight observes to Rainbow.
“Crazy awesome!” Rainbow replies, excited at what’s to come.
“But these are our friends.  Why would anypony want to inflict something like this on—“
“Five hundred bits!”
Applejack turns to Rarity.  “What are you doin’?”
“Better you than me.  I can’t be expected to create gourmet cuisine riding on that bemusement ride, can I?”
“Well let’s find out.  One thousand bits!”
“Twelve hundred!”
“Fifteen!”
Applejack and Rarity continue to one-up each other, while Pinkie bounces in anticipation and Fluttershy simply sighs in resignation.
“Five thousand bits!”
“I got a bid of five thousand bits from Rarity, do I hear fifty-one hundred?”  Applejack scowls at Rarity but says no more.  “Five thousand bits going once, five thousand going twice, and SOLD for five thousand bits.”
Almond levitates one-fifth of Rarity’s bit stack back to his briefcase, as the baskets and cutlery from the other ponies are transferred to the large bowl.
“OK, time for our next items up for bids.”  Almond walks back to the dumbwaiter and knocks again; this time, the door opens to reveal a pie, a cake, and a loaf of bread.  He levitates all three items over to the table.
“Apples are so versatile; they can be used in just about anything.  We have here an apple pie, an apple cake, and a loaf of apple bread; now all of these items are, of course, delicious BUT it might be harder to get the apples out of these items.”
“But why would anypony have to get apples out of those finished goods?”
“Good question, Rarity, and one that requires a good answer: win this auction, and you can confiscate each of your opponents entire supply of apples, and force each one to get whatever apples or, perhaps, apple-flavoring that they can from one of these selections.  You, of course, would get to choose who works with what.”
“But … how am I supposed to create an apple salad using a cake?”
“Let’s find out Rarity: two thousand bits!”
Rarity death-glares Applejack.  “Twenty-five hundred!”
“Three thousand!”
For the second-straight auction, Applejack and Rarity square off.  Bidding gets to five, then six, then seven thousand bits.  Pinkie and Fluttershy stare on in silence.
“The high bid is now eighty-five hundred bits; do I hear eighty-six?  Eighty-five hundred going once, going twice, and SOLD to Applejack for eight-thousand five-hundred bits.  I’ll take your money while you decide who works with what.”
“Ooo, ooo, can I have the cake?”
“Sorry Pinkie,” Applejack replies, “but that cake has got Rarity’s name all over it.  You can have the loaf of bread.”
“Awww, but that’s so plain.”
“And that leaves the pie for Fluttershy.”
“Well, maybe I can get more flavor from the pie than I could from just two apples and a head of lettuce.”
While Rarity ponders how she’s supposed to deal with all the icing and cake, the others are escorted into the bowl.  Twilight and Rainbow Dash just look at each other in bewilderment.
“I heard that Almond was a bit of an eccentric, but this is just lunacy.”
“I know … and I’m running out of popcorn!”
“OK chefs, you got 30 minutes to create apple salad, and your time begins … NOW!”
The bowl begins to spin; gradually, the ingredients move towards the sides of the wall.  Soon, the ponies find themselves stuck to the wall, all the while attempting to grab and work with their ingredients.  Applejack struggles to find her footing while organizing all her ingredients into a cluster that won’t roll away; she also fights off the dizziness resulting from all the spinning.
“This is intolerable!  Ain’t nopony that could work in this kind of environment!”
“WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”
Applejack strains her neck to see Pinkie thoroughly enjoying the experience.  She then strains her neck in the other direction, only to see Fluttershy calmly working at trying to get the apples out of her pie.
“Fluttershy!  How the hay can you work under these conditions?”
“I’ve been inside a hurricane, Applejack!  This is nothing compared to that!”
Realizing that she may be the only pony severely affected by the bowl, Applejack refocuses on creating her salad.  Nearby, Pinkie talks out her thought process.
“I mean, this is just a loaf.  A loaf.  Where’s the fun in that?  Maybe I can use the bread as a crumb topping, and combine those with everything else I got out of that pantry.  Yeah, I can make this work.  You are so clever, Pinkie, you know that?  Yes you are!”
Outside the bowl, Rarity scrapes off as much icing as possible in an attempt to extract the apple flavoring from inside the cake.  “High-class cuisine with a cake for apples,” she mutters to herself.  “Well, at least I still have all my other ingredients.  I’ll show Applejack how an artiste handles adversity.”
As Twilight and Rainbow watch the proceedings unfold, each is utterly fixated by the action to notice that company has arrived.
“I hope I didn’t miss much.”  The two turn around to see Princess Celestia settle in to her seat.
“Princess Celestia!  I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Are you kidding?  Once Almond told me how this was going to unfold, I just had to watch.  Pity I had to miss the first auctions, though.”
“Wait a minute.  You knew about how this was going to play out?”
“Well of course, Twilight; why else would I ask your friends to participate?  Oh, I see the bowl got used in the first round.”
“I don’t believe this!  You used my friends as guinea pigs for this warped competition?”
Rainbow Dash interrupts Twilight’s protest.  “Princess Celestia … got any popcorn?  I’m already out.”
“I brought plenty!”  Celestia breaks out an economy-sized bag, fills a bowl and passes it to Rainbow.  The two munch on their snacks as the proceedings continue.
“Chefs, you got 10 minutes remaining in this round!”
Inside the bowl, Applejack’s efforts to slice the apples result in shards of apple shrapnel scattered around her third of the wall, along with all her other ingredients.  Pinkie fares better at balancing her preparation within the rotor, adding various nuts and other fruits to her creation.  Fluttershy also deals with the velocity well, still focusing on striking a balance between too much and too little syrupy residue from the pie-filling apples.
Outside the bowl, Rarity begins the finishing touches on her salad, still scraping away whatever remaining remnants of buttercream that she can.
With two minute remaining, the bowl slows down; it comes to a complete rest with a minute left.  All four ponies rush to put the finishing touches on their salads, as Almond counts down the final seconds.
“10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 … and, stop what you’re doing, step away from the plates!”
After Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy leave the bowl with their salads, three Bobs enter the arena and cart it away, while two other Bobs clean up the remnants of the pie, cake, and bread loaf that went unused.  Soon, all four ponies end up in front of their original prep stations, along with their salad creations.
A tan earth pony with little remaining of his mane descends the stairs, soon joining Almond at the table.  Almond warmly greets this pony.
“Cinnamon, how are you doing today?”
Cinnamon responds in a Trottingham accent: “I’m doing well, Almond, thank you for asking.”  He then turns to the competitors: “Ladies, I must echo the thoughts of Mr. Brownie here when I say that it is an absolute honor to be here today.”
Almond addresses the foursome: “Chefs, allow me to introduce you to your guest judge for tonight, Mr. Cinnamon MaJumbo.  If you are unfamiliar with his work, know that he is a renowned food critic and author, and also that his polo game needs work.”
Cinnamon turns to Almond.  “And what would you know about any game beyond ‘pin the tail on the pony’?”
Almond chuckles with Cinnamon before continuing: “Now Cinnamon here has been upstairs in a soundproof chamber.  He knows nothing about whatever hardships you may have gone through, and quite frankly, he doesn’t care.  He only cares about three things; tell ‘em the three things, polo-pony!”
“Does it look good?  Does it taste good?  Does it remind me of an apple salad?”
“Let’s find out.  We’ll start with the filly on the right.”  Almond and Cinnamon walk over to Fluttershy’s station.  “So Fluttershy, please explain your dish.”
“Well, I have a salad with lettuce, apples, and a bit of syrup for extra flavor.”  Fluttershy strains to avoid eye contact with Cinnamon while explaining, as the judge tastes her dish.
“Chef, this really is a bare-bones salad, and I must admit that your idea for a dressing is avant-garde to say the least.  That said, I do like the sweetness you brought to this dish.  I just wish there was more to it.”
“Thank you Cinnamon.”
Almond and Cinnamon move on to Applejack’s dish.  “Applejack, you’re up.”
“Cinnamon, I prepared for you a traditional apple salad, with romaine lettuce, three types of apples, tomatoes, carrots, and croutons.”
Cinnamon inspects Applejack’s salad before tasting.  “You seem to have had some difficulty slicing the apples.  They look more like apple confetti.”  He then samples her food.  “What you lack in presentation, you more than make up for in taste.  I love the mix of apples and vegetables, and I like the added texture that the croutons provide.  Overall, a solid job.”
“Thank you very much.”  Applejack turns to Rarity and smiles.  Rarity gulps silently as the twosome move on to her dish.
“Rarity, please describe your creation.”
“Yes, well here I have created for you a festive apple salad with iceberg lettuce, pecans, walnuts, goat cheese shavings, a little buttercream for extra sweetness, and a vinaigrette dressing.”
Applejack fights to not burst out laughing, as Cinnamon tries the salad.  “I must admit, I’ve never seen buttercream in a salad before.  Having said that, there’s a lot going on here, with a lot of different flavors; most of them work, but some don’t.  Not sure I would have gone with both pecans and walnuts.  The biggest quibble I have is, I’m not getting enough actual apple flavor in this.”
“Thank you,” Rarity says sadly.  She turns back to Applejack and death-glares her, while Almond and Cinnamon move on to Pinkie’s dish.
“Pinkie Pie, it’s your turn.  Please describe your dish.”
“Well it’s a round, flat dish, made of fine china, and with food on it.”
Almond reiterates his request: “I mean, please describe your salad.”
“OH!  Well, I made for you an apple salad with two types of lettuce, tomatoes, artichokes, parmesan cheese, and whipped cream.”
Twilight turns to Rainbow.  “Pinkie Pie used whipped cream on her salad?”
“Are you really surprised by that?”
Twilight sighs.  “I guess not.”
Cinnamon tastes Pinkie’s salad.  “You do like to have fun with your food, I can see that.  I do like the pairing of tomatoes and artichokes, and I’m fine with your use of cheese.  I don’t think whipped cream is particularly appropriate here, and I must say again, I’m not really getting enough apple flavor out of this dish.”
“Okie-dokey.”
Almond and Cinnamon walk back towards their table.  “OK Cinnamon, you’ve had a chance to taste these fillies’ apple salads.  Sadly, for one of these ponies, their ‘salad days’ must come to an end.”
Cinnamon faces the foursome.  “Chefs, those were some of the strangest salads I’ve ever had the fortune to taste.  I really like a lot of what I’ve tried, but I do have to eliminate one of you, and that one is going to be …”

…

“… Fluttershy.”
The pegasus bows her head in acceptance, as Cinnamon continues.  “Chef, I really did like the flavor of your dish, but I thought it was just too simple.  Even something like a cherry on top could have swung my decision.”
“I’m sorry Fluttershy, but that means I have to take back all your bits.”  Almond levitates Fluttershy’s stack of twenty-five thousand bits back to his briefcase.  “You can join your friends on the sidelines and watch the rest of the competition.  Thank you for playing.”
“Thank you both.”  Fluttershy walks over to Twilight and Rainbow and takes a seat next to the latter.  “Well that was interesting.”
“Fluttershy, I must apologize to you for getting you into this mess.”
“Apologize?  Oh, no Twilight, this was actually a lot of fun.”
“… You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all.  I was given an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and face a challenge head-on.  I’ll have these memories for a long time, thanks to you.  And to you, Princess Celestia.”
“Would you like some popcorn?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Twilight hoofpalms as the others continue to chow down on snacks and watch the next round unfold.