Unsurprisingly, I soon ended up slightly regretting the choice of forcing down that carrot mush. I don't know why, but I felt a little nauseous for a while after that, like it was spoiled or something. Yeah, my compliments to the chef. Bellissimo.
After a brief stint of lying in the bed, a knock at the door grabbed my attention. I hopped off the bed and walked over to the door, swinging it open to see Lyra standing there.
"Oh," I said, "Hey Lyra."
"Hey, George," she replied, walking into the room. "How're you liking the castle?"
"It's pretty damn nice, I'd say. I wouldn't mind being under 'house arrest' for a little while longer in this place. Their room service is top-notch, and I didn't even have to pay for it! Speaking of, I didn't know you ponies had fried fish."
"Oh, yeah. Some ponies eat that stuff. I'm definitely not a fan of it, though," she said. "So, anyway, how'd that talk with Tetesac go?"
"Oh, that. Yeeeeeah, not too good. Still a no-go on the treaty thing," I sighed, leaning against the door.
"Really? What is it that's holding him back?"
"Well," I said, shutting the door and sitting myself down on the bed, "Don't tell anyone I told you this, but it turns out Tetesac's afraid he'll get assassinated if he signs the treaty."
"...Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. What're your thoughts on that?"
"Well, I mean, a king is supposed to be able to risk his life for his ponies - or rather, people. He doesn't seem to be a very good king if he can't make decisions like that."
"My thoughts exactly," I said. "Even he himself admits he's a crappy king. Thing is, he can't seem to find anyone else who's willing and able to do the job and, more importantly, doesn't have a vendetta against ponies."
"I guess that kinda does sound like a tough situation for him to be in. But, I mean, doesn't he have guards and stuff to protect him? He's the king!"
"I didn't think to ask about that," I said. "Regardless of that, though, as scary death can be, the chances of that actually happening to our one and only 'Carlton Burr Tetesac' are pretty low, I'd think."
"Wait, that's his full name?"
"Apparently."
"It's kinda dumb sounding."
"I know."
"So, anyway," She said, moving to a different conversation topic, "What do you think's gonna happen once this whole RYAN thing is over?"
"Hell if I know," I said, letting myself fall back onto the bed. "Technically I'm breaking the law just by being here, but maybe Celestia will appreciate me warning her about the tank."
"Yeah," said Lyra, "Even considering the fact that you built it, Princess Celestia is a pretty kind and forgiving pony. I imagine the worst she'll do is send you back to Anthropia."
"Best case scenario, though," I added, "is Tetesac signing that damn treaty. I could imagine the human ban in Equestria completely dissolving if that happens. Then I wouldn't have to worry about being arrested if I ever came back here. First and the most foremost, though, we've gotta figure out how we're going to stop that stupid tank. That's the most important thing."
"Yeah, we'll have to figure that out tomorrow. For now, though, I'm gonna head back to my room and get some sleep. See you in the morning, George." And with that, she opened the door and left.
"Yeah," I called out as she was leaving, "Me too. I'm tired as hell."
Contrary to that statement, though, I found myself completely unable to fall asleep. Despite how ridiculously comfortable the bed was, I couldn't manage to drift off into unconsciousness. I don't know if it was because of paranoia over the RYAN or something like that, but I eventually looked at the clock on the wall to see that it was 11 PM.
Alright, screw this. I dragged myself out of bed and over to the two doors separating the balcony from the room. I swung them open and looked out over the balcony at the streets below. There were still some ponies out and about, illuminated by the numerous streetlights. I was getting a bit hungry again, and there seemed to be a few restaurants down in the city. If only I could head down to one of them. But no, I'm stuck here in this castle.
I mean, yeah, I am in a castle. I could walk around the place if I wanted, but what's there to see? A lot less than what I can see from this balcony, I'm sure.
Well, at least I can take the time to reflect. Cue the piano music, guys. It's been a short while, but damn, a bunch of stuff has happened over the past week or two. It finally feels like we're nearing the end of all this crap. Finally, I'll be able to settle down, and... do something.
Huh. I guess I haven't put a ton of thought into that. I mean, yeah, I considered the whole "going back to being a royal scientist" thing, but I don't know. I let my mind wander a bit, but then it hit me. It hit me like a ton of... pounds. What about my powers?
I brought my hand up to my face and snapped my fingers, igniting a small, glowing flame above my index. At least I seem to have gotten that down. The question is, can I fix the rest of them? Is it a matter of practice, or are they hard-wired to just suck complete ass? I'm gonna have to ask about this later. Ask who, I have no idea. All I know is I want to see if I can get them fixed. It would be damn cool to actually have some magic that I can control. That is, aside from having a finger that doubles as a lighter.
I turned myself around and headed back inside. Finally, I've got an aspiration that isn't just "lets make sure this town isn't destroyed". That might make falling asleep a little easier. With that thought still in mind, I finally kicked my shoes off and got into bed. It took a while, but I eventually started to fade into sleep.
~The Next Morning~
I didn't dream that night. Or maybe I did, and I just didn't remember it. Either way, the good thing is I woke up. As my mind was brought back into reality by the rays of sunlight shining through the curtains, I suddenly realized something. I really have to pee. This extreme urge to use the bathroom coupled with the fact that I didn't want to get out of bed led to me pretty much dragging myself over to the side and falling off, inadvertently landing on my face.
"Mmph. Dss sht agmph." Yeah, that woke me up. I pushed myself to my feet and got about one second of a sprint towards the bathroom before I was stopped by a knock at the door.
"Damn it, this better be good." I said, running over the door and opening it, hopping in place anxiously. Fortunately, what I saw WAS good.
It was the same pony from last night, with an identical cart as the one presented to me last night. "Mr. Trestale! We've prepared breakfast for you," the pony said. "We knocked on your door earlier, but you were still fast asleep."
I shot the following words out of my mouth as fast as possible so I could get to the bathroom before my bladder exploded. "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Sure! Yeah! Just push it in! Thanks! Yeah! Compliments to the chef! Mwah! Gotta go!" I promptly slammed the door and headed towards the bathroom, now reduced to having to walk really fast rather than run for fear of ruining my pants. However, right before I reached it, I was stopped in my tracks yet again by another knock.
"God damn it, who is it now?!" I ripped the door open only to be greeted by Lyra.
"George, how long did you sleep in?! Do you realize how late we are?!"
"Right, sorry, they don't have alarm clocks here. Look, I'll be right back, okay?" I started slowly pacing back towards the bathroom as I said this.
"You don't even have your shoes on?! Look, you've got to look formal for the meeting with the Princess! And we need to go now!" I felt my hand engulfed in magic as I started being dragged back towards the door.
"I said I'll be right back, damn it!" I said, trying to resist the magic that was probably going to ruin my only set of clothes. "I've got something I need to do!"
"That can wait! Princess Celestia's been waiting for an hour!" I was promptly dragged out of the doorway into the hall, into the view of a good many guards and a few chefs who happened to be walking through the halls at the time.
"Lyra, I swear to god if you don't let go of me-"
"George, what in the wide, wide world of Equestria could be so important that you need to make the Princess wait even more?!"
"I HAVE TO TAKE A FUCKING PISS, YOU GLORIFIED DONKEY!"
~Five Minutes Later~
I walked into the dining room as formally as I could imagine, still aching a bit from having to postpone my bathroom break for so long. Lyra followed me in, and the two of us sat down next to each other at the rather large table. Tetesac and Celestia were already seated, seemingly having been there for quite a while.
"Well, there you are," said Celestia, looking impatient. "What took you so long? And what was that shouting from the hall earlier?"
"I needed to do something," I said, glaring at Lyra. "It's been done."
"Did you at least sleep well?" asked Tetesac, looking genuinely concerned for some reason.
"Yeah, yeah, I slept like a rock, apparently. You guys seriously need to invest in some alarm clocks, by the way, Princess."
"Well," said Celestia, looking unimpressed, "Every hour wasted is another hour towards the destruction of Ponyville. As you might have expected, the guards I sent out to find the tank did indeed return with a report of there being a tank identical to your description headed toward Ponyville."
"None of them tried to attack it, right?" I asked, a little anxious.
"No, they did not. The tank did not fire at them, either. They all came back fine."
"Well, that's a relief. Now we just gotta worry about preventing a whole bunch of other deaths."
"There is no need to worry about anypony dying, George. I've already had Ponyville evacuated. The town is empty at the moment."
"Well, that's an even bigger relief," said Lyra.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. So, uh, now that you know for sure the tank exists, what do we do now?"
"Well," said Celestia, "First and foremost, I'd like you to tell me as much as you possibly can about this 'RYAN'."
"Right, of course," I said, crossing my arms. "Well, that message old-me left said that it's got this electric shield that renders it invulnerable to physical attacks. It's got a top speed of four miles per hour, meaning it will be here by... well, tomorrow, and, uh... it's green. And it can blow stuff up. It's got this auto-targeting system that almost killed the three of us. That's about all I know."
"I can speak firsthand on the 'almost getting killed' part," said Tetesac.
"Is there any information on how it reacts to magic?" asked Celestia.
"Nope, don't know anything about that. I'd guess that if I didn't say anything about it in the message, it's probably not invincible to it. I can't imagine I'm that amazing of an engineer."
"Well, that helps matters, then. However, there is still the issue of how one could get close enough to attack it without being shot at."
"Right, of course. Well, I can't say I'm well-versed on pony magic. Do you guys have, like, invisibility spells or something?"
"That would probably depend on how the targeting system functions," added Tetesac.
"Hm, that's right. It might work on detection of body heat or something rather than visuals. Probably not a good chance to take."
"Most likely not," said Celestia. "Normally, our first course of action would be to cover the town with a shield. However, given that we do not know the tank's firepower, we cannot rely on it as our only defense."
"Wait, here's an idea!" I said, standing up. "Use your guys' magic and stuff to dig a huge trench around Ponyville! That way, even if the tank ends up getting near the place, it'll just fall in and get stuck. Couple that with the shield around the town and we've got ourselves some pretty good chances."
"Well, that's something," said Lyra. "What would we do with it once it's trapped, though?"
"...Er, that's a good question, actually," I said, leaning back in my chair. "How the hell would we get rid of it?"
"Maybe bury it?" suggested Lyra.
"That would most likely not be a good idea," said Celestia. "That would make the ground around that spot very unpredictable. We'd have to restrict anypony from going within a large radius of it."
"Yeah," I said, "The damn thing would probably try and shoot its way out of the ground- hey, wait, that's it! When it falls in and we bury it, the damn thing will just blow itself up trying to get out of the ground!"
"...Are you sure of that, George?" said Celestia.
"Well, no, but I do know that it automatically shoots things that are blocking its way. I can't imagine it being smart enough to differentiate between dirt and other stuff. And besides, even if it doesn't blow itself up, it'll still be in the ground, unable to do anything. That's pretty much all I can think to do at the moment."
"Well," said Celestia, getting up from her seat, "This should probably be sufficient, then. Of course, if it doesn't work, there's also the option of using magic to destroy it, provided it's not immune to that. I will get a team of unicorns to start digging the trench around Ponyville, and I will write to Twilight explaining the situation. She will be able to assist me in keeping the shield up."
"Twilight?" I asked, righting myself in my chair. "As in Sparkle?"
"Yes," said Celestia, "I'm sure you rememb- Celestia started to form some sentence she wanted to say, but was cut off as the doors to the meeting room suddenly burst open. I jerked my head around to see a group of six very worried looking ponies enter, four of which I recognized.
Yes, it was yet again the very weirdly-named Princess Twilight Sparkle, along with the tag-team duo of Rainbow Dash and Applejack. Tagging along was Pinkie Pie, who I very suddenly remembered I had made a still as-of-yet unfulfilled pinkie promise to, and two others I hadn't met before. One was a yellow pegasus that seemed even more worried than the rest, the other being a white unicorn whose hair was a shade of purple that I really didn't like for some reason.
Twilight was the first to speak up as they entered, merely managing to let out "Princess Celestia! I heard about the-" before she abruptly cut herself off as I turned around and met gazes with her. "...Er, am I interrupting something?" she said, clearly very confused.
"Only my boredom," I said, grinning from cheek to cheek. My grins aren't very wide, okay? "Nice to see you again, Princess."
"Hey, wait a minute!" Rainbow said, stepping out in front of everyone else. "George? What are you still doing here?"
"Oh, not much, just saving the world," I said, unable to lose the shit-eating grin on my face.
"Oh, come on," said Lyra, "You're just saving Ponyville, not the world."
"Hey, I'm sure Ponyville is the world to some," I replied.
"Wait, what?" said Twilight, looking like she was about to have a stroke from pure confusion. "You and Rainbow know each other? And you're here with Princess Celestia, helping solve this whole tank crisis?!"
"I mean, I'm kinda obligated to," I said, finally losing the grin. "I'm kinda a little... well, you know, responsible for it."
"You're responsible for it? What?! Why would you send a tank to destroy Ponyville?!"
"Calm down, please, Twilight," Celestia finally said. "Allow George to explain."
"Right, the explanation," I said. "Well, you see- Ah, shit, I've dug myself into a hole of having to explain this again. Okay, look, I'll give you the general gist. Basically, the story is, I was the royal scientist in Anthropia, I turned evil, I got my memory wiped and ended up in Canterlot, blah blah blah, stuff you already know, I get back to Anthropia and find out that the old, evil me made a tank to destroy Ponyville. So I came back, pretty much undoing everything I did to get there in the first place, so I could tell Celestia here about the tank. And here I am now, discussing with her how to stop it."
"Wait," said Twilight, "So you're telling me that the story of you losing your memories was true the whole time? Princess, is he telling the truth?"
"Well," said Celestia, "I have no real method of verifying it, but both King Tetesac and Lyra here vouch for him. I'm choosing to believe it for now, for the sake of focusing on the tank."
The white one stepped out in front this time. "Twilight, is this the same human that appeared in Canterlot a while ago?"
"Yes, that's him," said Twilight. "I sure didn't expect to find him here of all places."
"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" squealed a familiar high-pitched voice from the back. My vision was suddenly filled with pink as Pinkie Pie herself seemingly teleported in front of me. "George Trestale the Human! You're still here! Did you ask Celestia about the party yet? Huh?!"
"Uh, yeah, that's me! George Trestale the human! Still here, and, er, I was just about to ask Celestia about that. Funny you showed up right before I was gonna do that, huh? I definitely didn't completely forget about it or anything."
"So you did end up meeting Pinkie," said Rainbow. "I told you you couldn't escape her."
Before I could reply, Applejack spoke up. "So, did y'all hear about how he set a pony's house on fire up in Appleloosa?"
I'm pretty sure I heard the yellow one say "He did?" in response, but it was so quiet I couldn't quite tell.
"I did hear about that," said Celestia. "Though, it didn't occur to me to mention it until now."
Oh, right. That did happen, didn't it? "Aha," I said, faking some sort of laugh. "In my defense, I did manage to put the fire out."
"Yeah, and you soaked all of his stuff in the process," said Lyra. "Not to mention, you were in there specifically to steal stuff."
"Look," I said, putting my hands up. "I think we've got more important stuff to worry about right now. The imminent destruction of Ponyville comes to mind, for example." I turned back to Celestia. "You know, just out of curiosity, what would happen to me if we didn't manage to stop the tank?"
"That... is hard to say," said Celestia. "You not having any memory of actually doing this complicates matters. However, we needn't worry about it right now. Failure in this case shouldn't be considered an option."
"Right," I said, turning back to the six ponies. "And, uh, what're you guys doing here?"
"Well," said Twilight, "When we heard about the tank, naturally we got here as soon as we could to try and help however we can."
"Oh, yeah. Celestia here mentioned she was gonna have you help her keep a shield up around Ponyville."
"Princess Celestia," Twilight corrected me. "Is that right, Princess? We'd all like to help however we can."
"Yes, that's right," said Celestia. "I was going to write to you about it, but you were apparently already on your way here, as I should have expected."
"Right!" I said, getting up from my chair. "Let me relay the plans to the newcomers here. Basically, we just gotta dig this huge trench around Ponyville. Once the tank comes, it'll just fall in, at which point we bury it, and either it'll blow itself up trying to escape, or it'll just do nothing."
"But," said the yellow pegasus who seemed like she was trying to not talk directly to me, "Isn't there somepony in there?"
"Oh, no," I said, putting my hands up defensively. "Evidently I put some kind of AI into that thing. It's entirely self-piloted. So, we don't gotta worry about what happens to it. We've just got to, you know, neutralize it."
"Well, in any case," said Celestia, walking toward the doors, "I'll give the order to have the trench dug as soon as possible for when the tank arrives tomorrow. Do you have any idea of a specific time of day, George?"
"Nope, no idea. Sorry."
"In that case," said Celestia, "From this point until the tank arrives, I will assign shifts for pegasus guards to keep watch for it. We shall wait until it's in close proximity to bring up the shield. Thank you for your help, George."
As she started to leave, one last question popped into my mind. "Hey, one more thing! Um, what the hell am I supposed to do until then?"
I heard a couple unidentified gasps from the six ponies, but Celestia just stopped and turned around. "I will allow you to walk around the city for the day, provided Twilight and her friends are willing to keep watch on you. That includes you, as well, Lyra and Tetesac." And with that, she finally managed to leave the room.
"Wait," said Lyra. "When she said 'that includes you', did she mean that we were included in babysitting George? Or that we're included in being baby-sat?"
"Hang on a second," said Rainbow, flying up to me. "We've gotta babysit George?"
"What, do you have anything better to do?" I asked.
"Well, yeah, actually, there's a lot of things."
"Aw, come on, Rainbow, we're friends, aren't we?" I tried my best to do those cute puppy dog eyes nobody can resist. "Maybe I'll even buy you a lollipop while we're out!"
"But I don't even like lollipops!"
"Oh, that's fine, then, 'cause I don't have any money. Now, then, we'd better get going!" I promptly started marching out the door before stopping myself and turning around. "Hey, Tetesac! You've been awfully quiet! You want to come with?"
Tetesac took a second to react to what I said, suddenly looking up wide-eyed. "Oh, no, thank you, George. I'll stay here, if it's all the same to you."
"Well," I said, a bit confused, "What about you, Lyra?"
"Sure," she said, getting up from her seat. "I could use some fresh air."
"Alrighty then! Onward we go!" I promptly pointed forwards and marched out the doors into the hallway. However, just as I thought I was free, I heard Pinkie's voice pipe up again behind me.
"Hey, you didn't ask Princess Celestia about the party!"
"Damn it!"