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HADES KITCHEN ROUND 2

The lights dim as both the chefs enter the room. Everyone has been escorted into a large kitchen, a very very large kitchen, or rather, a series of sub-kitchens. Each contestant gets their own counter to work on, with a working sink, oven, stoves, every single haunted kitchen supply they would ever need, and of course, their own set of brand new Chilling Brand Best Grade Haunted Chef Knives. There is a box in front of all the chefs.

The light dims and focuses the center stage, with the two chefs standing.

"We've seen what you can do prepping and cooking your own dishes," Chef Hyde says, giving a few contestants a look that pretty much said how many of them were out of their league, "Now it is time for you to show us your skills in preparing our dishes. Everyone, open your box."

They do. Inside the box are prepared supplies in bundles and bundles. It is actually amazing how many ingredients and shaved, prepared minipets they crammed into the box; some items were still tumbling out onto the ground around them. If the contestants could imagine it as food it was there.

"You will be preparing three dishes," continued Chef Gorgon Ramsay, holding up three fingers, "They need to be perfectly, expertly executed. Everyone come to the front to see what you will need to prepare with the given ingredients."

After all contestants had waded to the front of the text through their piles of food, they would meet up with the chefs who had three dishes in front of them.

"'The first dish is clean, simple, fresh, the panty crabs RIPsotto."

There were a few sniggers from the audience, but the chef didn't seem to find it that funny and raised a single eyebrow.

"The second dish," continued Hyde, is our personal favourite, the prime cut tea deer skellington."

"And the last dish will be a dessert, the strawberry tart treat blood pudding."

The three dishes were expertly made, as if the Ancient of cooking themselves descended upon the very kitchen and made the most incredible, awe-inspiring delicacies. They almost looked divine.

"Now, everyone back to their places," Chef Hyde dismissed them all with a wave of his hand. "You will find the ingredients in front of you, and with the ingredients a list containing the instructions and recipes. You will also be split into two teams. All females will be on the RED TEAM and all males on the BLUE TEAM. Otherwise if you are other then choose one team and stick to it. The winning team will move on to the semi-finals while the losing team will be eliminated from the rounds."

"Each team will be given two hours to serve as many customers as possible. You will each be responsible for creating and preparing whatever that customer orders. One customer who has been served is considered one point. A VIP customer is two points. A V.VIP customer is three points. You have fifteen minutes to prep and then we will get started."

The timer begins on exactly 15 minutes above the chef's head, signalling it was time to prepare for their lives and serve the greatest meal yet.

CONTESTANT TALLY SUBMISSION FORM *STAGE 4 ONLY*:

I AM A VIP GUEST

Merope sat down at one of the posh dinner tables with a fidgeting purpose. He scrawled his order on the sheet five minutes ago, the talons on one hand rapping against his water glass with the other hand delicately fraying the ends of his shirt sleeve.

His glowing eyes swiveled around the dining room restlessly. Did he know anyone here? Was it a mistake to ask them to accompany him here? Were they standing him up?

Very carefully he avoided looking at the empty chair across from him. Come to think of it, did he even ask them out? Meekly he withdrew his waterproof skellyphone and checked it. Meekly he slid it back into his pocket, the fins on his ears and back sagging. Well, so much for that.

When someone finally arrived at his table, Merope offered them a lopsided smile with the ever-grinning side of his skeletal face. "Hey. So. Um. Look, I'm undead and all and this is going to sound strange, but can you leave the bones in everything? And anything that looks interesting? I don't really care about the taste but since this is a cooking competition I guess you need to make things tasty, but I'd rather have something more... visually appealing, y'know?"

Merope awkwardly scratched a fin, adding, "Uh, I guess you want my order then yeah? I'll take a panty crab RIPsotto, shells intact but take the panties off. I dunno what you do with them, snap'em around your fingers and shoot'em at another opponent I guess."

"I'd also like the tea deer skellington with the berry blues, berry blossom, and vanilla rooibos but no green at all. Work the antlers into the dish somehow too along with some sort of longer puck wing garnish or whatever you do with those."

"And yeah I'll go with the Strawberry Tart Treat Blood Pudding too. Nothing special for that."

"Oh wait! Actually!" Merope called out quickly before whoever was unfortunate enough to volunteer to serve him could retreat, "Could you make the pudding scream? Y'know, like -- uh, y'know what? You're starting to look a little scary so just forget everything I said about the pudding, 'kay?"

Two minutes to spare had not been good, but Kaguya had managed to finish all her cutting and had even moved on to round two! No time to stand around though, round two was just around the corner and she really needed to prepare herself for this one. A team challenge would be a piece of cake right? She herself knew she could pull her own weight, the only thing she didn’t trust was the other contestants but she had no choice. Kaguya starred at the three dishes they had to prepare in front of them and then the things that had come pouring out of the box.

Everyone prepared themselves to run and when the timer began it was all out chaos. Kaguya stumbled a bit here and there as she tried to make her way over to her first customer, when she spotted a free one she increased her pace. “Good evening sir,” she had no idea if it was evening or not but it was polite. “I am Kushisake Kaguya and I will be preparing your food today.” The man gave her a look and lifted his brow at her probably wondering if she was good enough to serve him any kind of food. "I'd like whatever you'd like to make me. Impress me." The ghost nodded and with a little bow left the man to head back to the kitchen.

This time, Kaguya swore she would stick to the recipe to the T. Her instructions had plucking first up, and the ghost glanced at all the tea deers before her wondering what would work well together. The first she plucked from was the tea deer apricot because the colors drew her in and she was sure the taste would be nice. She stabbed a knife through it and put it aside for later. By far one of her favorite tea deers was the chrysanthemum one and she plucked leaves from that one too and also killed it before setting it aside.

Next was the tea deer dragon pearl and she plucked from it as well to add to her growing pile in a bowl before sticking a knife through its side. The next one on her list was the tea deer sensha, another of her favorites. She plucked and killed it just like she’d done with the others. The last tea deer she’d picked was the vanilla rooibos, the white leaves would be pretty and add just the right flavors she was looking for. Once she was done her plucking, Kaguya rinsed them thoroughly. A quick glanced at the clock told her she was doing good on time so she moved on.

Kaguya had kept all her tea deers because she wanted to shave flesh from all five of them. Perhaps it would cost her some time but she just knew that I would make the taste even better. She got working on her pastry and once that was done she covered the meat and wrapped it nicely. She moved towards the fridge and put it in to rest for ten minutes. While the meat rested she shaved some garlic and boiled some mashers since she was on a time restraint. Once the mashers had been boiled she took them out and let them rest so she could go and get her tea deer.

Quickly, Kaguya pan seared the pastry with the leaves she’d plucked before placing it into the oven at around the 8th circle of Hell. The host went back to her pumpkin mashers now and de-eyed them. Once she was done, she seasoned it and began mashing them while checking on her tea deer. Satisfied, Kaguya took out her tea deer pastry and began to plate it. Shifting through the large amounts of puck about, she grabbed a golden and cut its wings right off before running off to serve the dish. “I have for you here Tea Deer Skellington stuffed with the finest tea deer leaves, baked and roasted with pumpkin mashed mashers. Enjoy.” And off running again she went.

Could she BE more excited? Spoiler: no, she could not! Even in the face of ridicule and shaaaaaaame and possible humiliation by renowned chefs, Ada was over the moon to be moving forward. Granted, the Nightmare wasn't entirely thrilled by the notion of a team effort, but that was part of the whole shebang - learning to work together, or at least, bringing everyone down over one incompetent member if it came to it. Ah, teamwork.

Without hesitation, the re-fastened her apron and trotted out into the dining room, picking the first bored looking boil she could find. She wanted to leave the excited ones to the creeple that needed the boost of encouragement; besides, she wanted a challenge, and this fellow shredding his napkin with his fork and knife seemed like he'd offer that. "Welcome to Hades' Kitchen!" she quipped as she stopped by his table, all smiles and exuberance. "I'm Ada and I'll be preparing your meal to day! What can--"

"I'd like whatever you'd like to make me. Impress me," he replied lazily but just in time to interrupt her, not even making eye contact.

Boils. Really. All such awkward creatures. "Coming right up." There was still the chipper flare in her words, but it was said in a way that said she'd accepted his challenge. Or rather, she'd set the challenge for herself, and now was the time to act on it. Addie flicked her tail and made her way back to the kitchen, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. Why impress someone with one thing when you could do all the things?

Meat. This, she understood. Grinning toothily, the Nightmare set about making what was probably one of her favorite things, the deer skellington. Choosing her tea deers, she grabbed some Venetian blue for the thick, sage-like taste, some dragon pearl to counter the mini's naturally gamey taste, green tips for the crisp, clean herb-flavor, vanilla rooibos for just the hint of sweet undertones, finished off with roasted barley to make sure the meat was still the star of the show. With the leaves stripped and prepared, she deftly shaved off the fine meat and refrigerated it in the proper wrap, passing the time with surprising patience, going over the recipe in hand.

When the time had passed, the leaves were briskly added to the pan and the heat set high, searing the deer meat and making sure to get all the flavors of the leaves involved. The smell was amazing, the Nightmare running her tongue over her teeth as she wondered if she'd get in trouble for saying it was a failure and consuming it herself. She wouldn't, of course, but it was a nice dang thought. With the meat in the oven, she set the mashers to boil and began to shave the garlic cloves, taking her time and testing the veggies as they sat in the hot water. When to her satisfaction, she peeled and de-eyed the swollen things with care, mashing them with her strong arms and adding seasoning as she went to make sure it was evenly done.

It was all finished. Garnishing the carefully plated meal with the wings of a puck filia, Addie put the plate to the pass to be served. That was one fine looking hunk of meat, if she did say so herself. And quite obviously, she did!