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#annnnd i found a food thing the same day so i'll go to that after
not to be too wild on main but i have plans TWICE this month
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Days at the Hunter Base, CHAPTER 6: Cooking with the Navigators: Cookies (Originally from my Quotev account)
Pallette walked sluggishly towards Maverick Hunter HQ's kitchen, a place usually reserved for making and storing food for lunch breaks, not that Reploids needed food anyway, but if they were built with the ability to eat, then why not?
Palette, it's 5 in the morning, what are you even doing here? She thought to herself.
Shut up, I'm hungry, there must be something in here...
PALETTE, 5 IN THE MORNING, DO YOU EXPECT THERE TO BE ANY FOOD IN HERE?
Great, a back-and-forth conversation with herself, an arguement, even better, what a great way to start the day.
She opened up the fridge and found nothing but raw meat and vegetables inside, needless to say, she was very disappointed.
See? You should've just grabbed a Pocky from your snack stash. The voice inside of her head grumbled.
Nnnggghh.... But I'm getting tired of Pocky sticks, and Axl keeps stealing from the stash anyway, She whined.
Suddenly, she heard the door open.
Alia and Layer walked into the room, shocked to find Palette.
"Pallette? What are you doing in here?" Alia asked.
"I-IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!" Palette shrieked,  Great, I'm in trouble now, she thought.
"Relax, I'm not angry at you, are you hungry?" She smiled.
"Y-yeah... That's pretty much it..." She stuttered, relieved that they weren't going to scold her.
"Layer and I were going to make cookies for breakfast, since you're here, do you want to watch us bake a batch?"
"Uh, sureeee...?" Making breakfast at 5? What oddballs. She thought.
While Alia got the ingredients out of a nearby cupboard, Layer proceeded to take out all of the other necessities, bowls, spoons, the rolling pin...
"Ever since when did you two learn how to bake?" Palette asked.
"It, um, started out as a small hobby," Layer explained, "Plus it's kind of fun, that and it's better than store-bought snacks, a-and it's healthier, of course."
Palette nodded her head, "Yeah, I guess you're right." Even if supermarket snacks/foods were easy to prepare, foods made from scratch were usually better.
"Do you know how to bake, Palette?" Layer asked.
Palette shook her head, "Unfortunately, no."
Suddenly, an idea popped up in Alia's head, "I know!" She exclaimed, "Why don't you help out? We can teach you!"
"Uh, sure!" Palette had never seen Alia this enthusiastic before, was baking that fun?
Eventually, they set everything on the table, Flour, sugar,  brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract and the necessary equipment, Palette was already getting hungry just looking at the ingredients.
"Okay, so first off, you're supposed to preheat the oven to 375°F." Alia instructed, reading from a new recipe she had found online.
"Uh, okay!" Palette turned around saw the baking oven in front of her, was it weird to admit that she was intimidated by it? After all, there were so many things she was unfamilliar with, all the buttons and dials... She didn't know what to press or turn.
"Here, let me help." Layer came over to show her the ropes, she placed her fingers on the top dial on the side of the oven, labelled "Temperature", upon closer inspection, Palette noticed that the dial had numbers marked around it, "You just turn the dial to the number you want to set the temperature to, like this." Layer then proceeded to turn the dial to 375°F, "See? It's simple."
"Hmmm, yeah, you're right!" Palette grinned.
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Shortly afterwards, it was time to move onto the main event, making the batter!
"Sooooo, what do we do first?" Palette was eager to get started, making the batter seemed like such a fun but simple task.
"Well, look at who's excited!" Alia smiled, "Anyways, what we need to do first is pour two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda..."
"Mmm hmm." Palette nodded, carefully putting in the already-measured ingredients in the bowl, while Layer was watching her quietly to make sure that she wasn't doing anything wrong.
"1 teaspoon of salt-"
"Salt?! What do you need SALT for?" Palette cut her off, "Why would you need salt in cookies?"
"Well, it's not like a little bit of salt ruins an entire cookie, Palette, it won't turn salty so easily." Layer assured her, "Besides, you like salted caramel, right? So I don't really see any problem," She paused for a while, standing in the awkward silence, i-it's not like I'm saying that what you're saying is wrong, I understand where you're getting at, I-i'm just saying that salt helps, t-that's all."
"Hmmm, well, that IS a good point..." Palette said, "Alrighty, then, salt it is!" She carefully put in a teaspoon of salt in the bowl.
Shortly afterwards, Palette had put in almost every ingredient in the bowl, "Ummm, so, what do we do with the rest of the ingredients?" She asked, "Well, we're not quite done yet, Palette, Do you see thiis here?" She then pointed at another bowl, this time accompanied with a mixer, "Well, just put in the rest of the ingredients and press this button on the mixer."
"Hmm, got it!" Palette said, Alia had to make sure she didn't just dump everything in.
"Annnnd now I just need to push this button!" Palette then moved her fingers closer to the side of the mixer.
click.
Nothing happened.
"Huh? Why isn't anything happening?" Palette was puzzled, repeatedly clicking the button.
"Layer, are you sure the mixer was properly plugged in?" Alia asked, concerned.
"I-I'll see." She then checked the socket the mixer cable was connected to, surprisingly, there didn't seem to be anything wrong.
"No, sorry...There doesn't seem to be any visible problems..." Layer looked embarrassed, her face covered in a bright red.
"Don't worry, Layer, it's not your fault," Alia comforted her, "besides, that mixer is a little old, HQ never really bothered replacing it,"
"Technical difficulties aside, what are we gonna do now?" Palette asked, it was difficult to mask her disappointment.
Alia had a smile spread across her face, she didn't seem to be very bothered, "Don't worry, I've got a Plan B!"
She lifted up her right arm, a few moments later, her right hand turned into a whisk.
Palette looked amazed, "Whoah, I never knew you could do that, Alia! I mean, I knew that you could turn your hand into a Buster like X can, but this..."
"I may not be a new-generation Reploid, but according to Dr. Cain, later models of the old generation were built with several wares installed in their arms, in his words, it "was so that Reploids could better experience human culture", I'm pretty sure that both of you are also able to do the same if you wanted to."
Sure enough, new-generation Reploids were also built with this ability, Layer had managed to turn her hand into a drill, but quickly put it down, "It's a...pretty interesting feature, to say the least." She said, "By the way," Palette added, "Can't we just use a whisk from the cupboards or something?"
"We could, but an arm-whisk is much quicker to take out!' Alia smiled.
Using her arm-whisk, she managed to finish mixing the batter in no time, after that, they poured the flour mixture into the bowl, adding in two cups of chocolate chips.
"Do you want to add in nuts, Palette?" Layer asked, "Meh, no thanks, I'd rather not." Palette said.
They mixed it all together (using a spoon this time), and it was actually looking quite good,
"Hey, d'you think I could try a bit of cookie dough?" Palette asked.
"I wouldn't recommend it, but I guess it's fine..." Alia mumbled, she quickly realized, however, that Palette had already started licking cookie dough off of her fingers, Alia let out a small sigh.
They used a mini ice cream scoop to lay out the cookie dough onto the baking sheets, making sure that each induvidual scoop was spaced far enough from each other so that they could bake into their proper size and avoid them into merging together.
After that, they plopped it into the oven, now all they had to do was wait.
"How long will we have to wait for, again?" Palette asked.
"10 minutes, I think..." Alia took a look at the recipe again, "It shouldn't take too long-" Suddenly, a young, rookie Hunter came into the room, "E-excuse me, are Alia and Layer here?"
"Yes, what is it?" Layer asked, hoping that nothing urgent was happening.
"I-it's nothing much, but there's a small problem regarding the 13th Unit's expedition, and the Commander needs a couple of Navigators to sort things out, I know it's early in the morning, but-"
"We'll be right there." Alia told him, she turned to look at Palette, "You can look out for the cookies while we're gone, right?"
"Yeah, don't worry, Just leave it to me!' She grinned and waved them off as the door shut.
Palette looked at the time, eight minutes left, eh, I'll probably have enough time to try and beat that level...She thought to herself as she pulled out a portable console.
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"STAGE CLEAR!" Yelled the announcer.
"YES!" Palette cheered as she looked at the badly-beaten-up dragon lying down on the ground defeated as her avatar did a victory pose on the screen of her little portable.
"Wow, that took a while...I've probably levelled up enough to go to the next stage, let's see...Smoky Skies?" just then, something hit her head like a metal pipe, "Wait...smoke?"
She looked up from the screen, she must've been too absorbed into beating the boss, because she then realized that the smell of smoke was coming from the oven, "Oh, no..."
Just then, the door opened, Alia and Layer walked in, "Hey, Palette, sorry for being late, there was a small complicat-" Alia paused as she saw what was going on, they both rushed to the oven and immediately took the cookies out, what should've been cookies with a nice, golden brown color were now a very, very dark brown.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't pay enough attention, it's my fault, and-"
"It's alright, Palette, we can always try again next time." Layer told her, "There's always a first time for everything, after all."
"Thanks, Layer." Palette smiled, she looked at the cookies, "They may be burnt, but they could still taste good, have hope." Alia told her.
Just as Palette was about to grab a cookie, Alia grabbed her hand, "We'll still have to wait for them to cool, be patient."
"Alright, fine..." Palette mumbled, despite the fact that she was starving, well, not really, Reploids couldn't really get hungry the same way humans do, but she just needed to fuel herself up with some food, nevertheless, she waited.
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A while later, they sat down at a table in the HQ's cafeteria, eating the burnt cookies (which were still pretty good, surprisingly) and sharing small stories and laughing together, Palette had noticed a slight personality change in them recently, they had become more relaxed and cheery with the lack of any threats, which was a good thing, they all needed a nice break every now and then.
"So, what did you think of your first baking session, Palette?" Layer asked, "I hope that, um, incident didn't ruin it all."
"Oh, not at all!" Palette told them, "it was actually...kinda nice, we should try this again sometime!" She grinned.
"Glad that you enjoyed it!" Alia said, "Speaking of trying it again, there's going to be a new Navigator working with us in a few weeks, why don't we try and bake these again as a welcome gift?" She suggested.
"That sounds like a good idea," Layer nodded her head, "Her name was...RiCO, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, RiCO, she seems to be very enthusiastic about working with us, seems like a nice person, what do you say?"
"I'm in!" Palette cheered, "...As long as I don't mess up again, heheh!"
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(Author's Notes): Whew! Finally finished this after ages and ages of procrastination-I mean, schoolwork! I'll admit, part of me didn't want to write this chapter after a while, I wanted to write a baking fic, but it turns out that I was incapable of writing out baking stories, I also feel a bit skeptical about my characterization of the Navigators, Alia in particular, I prefer her more serious and hardworking personality in X5-X7, but I guess her softer X8 personality was better for a fic like this.
Anyways, I'll still be working on this, don't worry, next up is an Axl chapter!
Ack, almost forgot! Here's the recipe I used (and butchered) for this chapter!
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