Luna couldn’t describe what had just happened. Derpy’s aura... exploded while staying in one piece? Knotted itself while becoming untied? Luna shut her eyes and willed away her magic. No more looking at auras doing things that made her brain hurt tonight.

“Next up we have that very special coffee pony, Morning Dew!” Pinkie said.

Luna was glad that Pinkie could apparently keep a secret she hadn’t been asked to keep secret. She got up and started walking towards her stage. Derpy was heading her way with who could only be Dinky riding on her back. Luna wanted to say something. Offer her apologies. Ask again if Derpy wanted Luna to win her the prize. She started to say something then noticed Derpy’s face.

Derpy was smiling. Really smiling. Her face was not that of a pony that had lost what she was fighting for. Derpy had found something on her battlefield. Luna smiled back. Derpy was going to be okay. Luna, on the other hoof, didn’t know what was going to happen.

Hold onto the magic, but let her subconscious guide it. Why was that suddenly sounding like disaster waiting to happen? Luna stepped onto the stage. If the choice was between letting her sleep-deprived and coffee-riddled mind take control of magic that could potentially unmake the world or cheating, Luna would... well, she should probably just cheat.

“Morning Dew,” the judge said. “What will you make for us?”

Luna suddenly realized she should have been focusing on other things then malfunctioning auras and doomsday scenarios. “Uh...” Luna said. “I’ll make... pancakes?” Luna looked around the makeshift kitchen. There was no stove. “In the oven?” Luna grinned nervously.

“An... interesting choice,” Spike said.

“I’ll say. I love oven-baked pancakes! But nopony ever seems to know the right way to make them.”

Luna began to sweat. Why couldn’t she have said brownies? She knew how to make brownies. Oven-baked pancakes were just pancakes baked in an oven, right?

“Miss Morning Dew? Are you ready?”

Luna wasn’t. “Yes.”

“Begin!”

Luna grabbed a bowl and began to fill it with what she could only hope was pancake ingredients. Flour was an obvious choice. Eggs would be good too. Maybe some milk, a little sugar, some butter. Nutmeg? That sounded interesting. In it went. Luna was enjoying herself. She had no idea what she was making, but it was turning out well. Too well. Luna slowly stopped stirring. She was forgetting the most important part. She closed her eyes, sighed inwardly and grabbed onto the magic.

The magic came freely. It felt like it wanted to be used this way. Was this magic specifically designed to cause improbable baking outcomes? Luna refused to think about the silliness of that. “Okay, subconscious,” Luna whispered to herself. “Do your thing.”

The batter in the bowl began to inflate like a balloon. After it grew larger than Luna’s head, the batter lifted out of the bowl and began to float away. Luna sighed in frustration as she watched her chance to compete leave the stadium. She then noticed that not all of her batter had inflated and there was still some left in her bowl. She began to reach for the bowl when she heard a pop from above her. Luna looked up in time for a wad of batter to land in her face and cover her eyes.

“Morning Dew takes a hard right to the face!” Pinkie said. “She’s going to have a tough time recovering from such a blow. Oh! A jab followed by an uppercut! She’s down for the count—no! She’s back up. She has her opponent in a choke hold. This could all be over in a moment!”

“...Pinkie? What match are you even watching?”

Luna stumbled around the stage as she tried to remove the batter. It was sticking to her like gum on a horseshoe. She bumped into something and heard something else clatter to the floor. She then stepped in something slippery. Luna scraped enough of the batter away to be able to see out of one eye. She looked at the butter she was standing in. She stepped away from the butter on wobbly legs.

Luna leaned on the counter so she could better use her two front hooves to grip the batter. She pulled hard. The batter began to come loose, but a line of it was still stuck to her forehead. Luna winced as the batter finally came off with a snap. Her hooves flew out and hit her bowl. The bowl began to spin and move along the countertop until it bumped into the ingredient rack. A spoon fell and wedged itself in between the rack and a sack of flour. One end of the spoon landed in the rotating bowl. There was the sound of a needle scratching a record, followed by static.

The laughter in the audience was replaced with silence. Luna stopped struggling with the batter and looked at the spinning bowl with the spoon lightly touching it. The sound of music began to come from it; strings and wind instruments playing softly. Luna took a step back and slipped. She spun in circles, the momentum eventually making it easier to stand on her two hind legs as she tried to unstick the batter from her front hooves. She spun faster and faster as the music’s tempo increased. Then the music hit a high note and held it. Luna slowed and her spinning stopped at the same time the music did. Luna was standing on one rear hoof, her other out in front of her. Her forelegs were straight up in the air, holding the batter. Luna suddenly hated her subconscious.

The music began again; a waltz beat. Luna dropped to all fours. This was too ridiculous. She was going to stop the music. She tried to step forward, but her hoof was stuck. She pulled, and her body moved. Her hooves slid along the buttery stage. She turned and spun as the sticky dough directed how she could move. The audience began to stamp their hooves in time with the music.

“It looks like Morning Dew is going for a reversal,” Spike said with excitement. “Aaaand she did it! An amazing display of figure skating—er, ballet... butter ballet skating?”

“It’s a new national past time. I know what I’m doing when I get home.”

Luna skated backwards in circles on her two left hooves. Her two right hooves were attached by strings of batter to the stage. She tilted her body at a steep angle then pulled hard. She leapt through the air with a spin and landed. The audience cheered. Luna had to admit this was kind of fun in a ‘completely embarrassing, totally glad she was in disguise’ way. She just wished this was intentional instead of herself just trying to get unstuck. The music began to quicken. It was time for the big finish.

Luna skated faster and faster, making her circles tighter. She spun, switching from one leg to the next as the tempo grew ever faster. Two hooves, three hoofs, one hoof. Luna’s body raised and lowered as she gracefully spun in time with the music. Finally, the music slowed and held its high note again. Luna stood with her front right and back left legs held straight out and her remaining two legs standing on the batter directly beneath her. The batter was now covered in butter and no longer sticking to her. Then, in time with the last three notes, Luna opened the oven, threw the dough inside, and shut the oven.

“Done,” Luna said.

The audience cheered, and Luna took a bow.

Spike stood up on his seat as he looked out of the announcer’s booth. “Wow!” he said. “Another amazing performance. I don’t know how much more I can take, and we haven’t even finished the quarter-finals yet.”

Pinkie nodded. “I’m very impressed that Morning Dew knew the right way to make oven-baked pancakes.”

“Seriously?” Spike said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s how you make them?”

“Oh, yes. The spinning is the only way to really bring out the flavor. Good or bad depending on how the case may be.”

“I’ll... take your word for it,” Spike said with a shake of his head.

“Or we can take the taste tester’s word, because it looks like Morning Dew’s pancakes are done.”

“Overdone if you ask me. Are these ovens working right? Seems like almost everything has been getting burned so far.”

“The taste tester is chewing... and she’s chewing... still chewing... she’s a champion chewer! She’s going for a new world record on chewing!” Pinkie hung herself over the edge of the announcing booth. “Go taste tester whose name I don’t even know. Live your dream!”

“Actually, I think she’s just trying to open her mouth to spit out the pancake. She doesn’t look too happy. That must be one sticky pancake.”

“That makes more sense. It also means we lost another taste tester!”

“Correct you are, Pinkie. And now to see the scores... four, three, four, five, and a three. Not bad overall. With a good time score, Morning Dew may be moving on to the semi-finals.”

“Now it’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for! It’s time for our champion to take the stage!”