Wait, I'm not the good guy?

by Glen Gorewood

Extra Chapter one - He’s safer in Tartarus

Celestia, princess of the Sun and co-ruler of Equestria is doing paperwork. Really boring court paperwork related to a recent trial of a being named Ted. Even though it is a mandatory part of the job, nobody really enjoys boring mind numbingly dull court paperwork, not even a princess. Well with the exception of Twilight, accountants, lawyers, and that one wierd pony who writes courtroom dramas for daytime programming.

But other than those ponies, and accountants, nobody really likes boring monotonous paperwork. Which is why the distinctive fiery whoosh of a portal from Tartarus opening up followed by two sets of four large hooves stomping forward are a welcome sound. Even if they relate to the paperwork she is dealing with.

Glancing up from her desk Celestia sees the two Devi-Pony twins Rouge and Bleu, wearing their distinctive and mandatory sound silencing headgear. The twins are known to those in the know to have a twin telepathy thing going on. Unfortunately due to their nature of being ponies of hellish origin, their spoken words have a nasty habit of summon monstrosities and demons from beyond the veil. They also function as an easy way to call Ponythulu for tea, since the twins are immune to the whole insanity thing.

Also they can’t do mind speak because the whole born from the pits of Tartarus thing. Mind speak would mean instant corruption to the poor non demon receiver of said communication. Or possession. That or they just burn to ashes and get teleported straight to Tartarus. It’s far too much work, hassle, and paperwork to deal with honestly.

However due to their inability to speak with others, a method has been worked out to ensure that Rouge and Bleu can still communicate easily. The twins use an archaic and mythical method of conveying their thoughts without a single word. It’s so genius, that Celestia is shocked she didn’t think of it first.

And as if on cue, Rouge uses this powerful ability to communicate. Holding up his right hoof, the one not next to Bleu, he summons forth his means of communication. A sign on a stick born from hellfire. It reads “Prisoner delivered to Tartarus.”

Celestia nods sagely, smiling at this wonderful news.
“Good my demonic ponies, now were there any problems?”

Bleu looks at Rouge, as they converse with telepathy and gestures mostly made up of shrugs and obscure facial expressions. Celestia waits patiently. Finally Bleu summons a sign.
It reads “Nope didn’t hear a thing. No problems.”

Celestia heaves a sigh of relief. She had been worried that the twins would not be able to get Ted to that cell in Tartarus before that one could locate him. She knew it was worth it to clone his unique signature aura and plant it all over Equestria to keep her distracted long enough so he could be put in a proper cell. And Luna said she was being overly cautious, ha.

Turning her attention to the twins, she shuffles through paperwork before adding something she figures she should cover just in case. After all, the only thing worse than her finding the poor creature is him ending up in the wrong cell. If that happened there would be veritable mountains of paperwork. And the princess of the Sun really dislikes paperwork.

Clearing her throat she continues her legally required inquiry.
“So, just to be on the safe side I have to ask you two something very important.”

Rouge and Bleu both hold up signs that read, “What?”

Celestia, the wise and beautiful princess of The Sun who may or may not have put herself on playing cards to troll prisoners for all eternity, voices the most important question required by law. “You two did make sure that this “Ted” was placed into prison cell 166, in chamber Beta, Tartarus level “protected and imprisoned for their own safety obliviously evil villains” subsection NoPie right?”

The twins glance at each other awkwardly, and via their twin telepathic communications they converse over whether or not they should lie and say they were paying attention when they put the prisoner in his cell. After all it ended with 66, the number before it is kind of vague. And the chamber ended in an A, though they can’t quite remember if it was Beta or Gamma or Alpha or anything really. Though they do know that the prison section they put him in had many sub classifications, including NoPie. So wherever the prisoner ended up he’s safe from that one.

By the end of the telepathic communication conversation, the twins have decided on what to say. So they both summon signs.
Rouge’s reads “Roger.”
Bleu’s reads, “Roger.”

Celestia blinks in minor annoyance, but overall is content with the answer from the twins. Normally she would double check what they are saying, but she has too much paperwork to deal with already. “Alright, thank you Rouge and Bleu. Your next prisoner is in a cell in the Crystal Empire dungeons. Tell Cadence I sympathize with her paperwork problem, and will be sending sympathy cake in an hour.”

The twins salute the princess of The Sun and march off into the hell portal to prepare to get their next prisoner. In a few days they will have completey forgotten that they actually left Ted in prison cell 666, chamber Omega-Alpha, extreme deity and above class security with all precautions and restrictions possible subsection intended for only the worst villains of all time. And that the cell right next to his houses Tirek the second. Because to the twins, such information isn’t that important. Besides they have another prisoner to grab before dinner. Mommy Devi-Pony is making waffles.

---

Meanwhile, Celestia leans back and grabs a cup of cold tea. Sipping it she muses in relief.
“Well, at least that’s over. That poor oblivious being has no idea he is far safer in Tartarus than he is up here.”

Putting the teacup back in its place, Celestia remembers why Tartarus is safer and a slight shudder followed by a cringe go through her body. Focusing on her paperwork, which she loathes with the passion of a thousand of her suns, she says to herself.
“I mean, he stole from Pinkie Pie. And ruined every Pinkie Pie opposite party in the kingdom. Whether he is insane, evil, or just stupid I would never wish for him to endure her wrath. That’s just cruel and unusual punishment.”

Marking off a few important informative bits of highly classified court documents, Celestia let’s loose a dark laugh. “Yes, that “Ted” is much better off in Tartarus than having to face whatever punishment Pinkie Pie could think up. I’m going to need to ask Luna to ward me from nightmares for a month after what I heard that normally happy laughing mare say she was going to do to him. I mean clowns? That’s just...disturbing.”

With that the Princess of The Sun returns to her ridiculous amount of paperwork. Which will eventually lead to copious amounts of tea ingested, no less than twenty cakes eaten, and multiple bathroom breaks before bedtime.

---

Meanwhile in Tartarus, Chamber Omega-Alpha, really evil villains only subsection.

“Do you have any Jokers?” Ted asks innocently.

Tirek groans due to knowing he has that stupid mug in his deck. Grabbing it and tossing it to Ted he growls, “Ok, you are definitely trolling me Ted.”

Ted puts on an expression of mock innocence.
“Me? No, I would not do that. It’s not like I know a few card tricks that guarantee I win or anything.”

Tirek stutters, then frowns, then grumbles, then finally pointing an accusatory finger at Ted he shouts, “Ah ha, you’re a card counter!”

Ted just stares in confusion for a minute before answering.
“No, I’m not counting cards. At least not now. Besides card counting is useless in two deck Go Fish.”

Tirek glares at his new obliviously evil buddy.
“So then, how exactly do you know what cards I have? You have called every Joker, Ace, Queen, King, and Jack I have had for ten rounds. That’s not normal!”

Ted laughs, rolling over on his side and smacking the floor of his cell. After a few minutes he calms down, wiping the mirthful tears from eyes before replying.
“Tirek you don’t get it.”

Tirek snorts, “Oh what don’t I get exactly?”

Ted points at the centaurs face. Then in a half jovial half serious manner he says,
“You my friend, have the worst poker face I have ever seen. You frown angrily when the Joker is in your hand. Your right eye twitches as your eyebrows raise at the Jack. You grind your teeth menacingly towards the Ace. You snort three and a half times at the King. And your eyes cross while your left ear flattens when you see the Queen. Worst. Poker face. Ever.”

Tirek pouts and replies with a snort. “I do not have the worst poker face ever.”

From below the screeching cackle if Hydia can be heard.
“Oh stuff it you egomaniac tacky toned evil centaur. You lost to Glorbmuck in connect four. And he’s a genuinely vile idiot.”

Tirek shouts back, “Well he cheated!”

Glorbmuck’s voice echoes up, “Um Hydia, what does cheat mean?”

Hydia replies in her totally not evil flirting voice, “It is what smart evil villains do to win at connect four.”

The rather simple ogre replies in an astonished voice, “Ohh, so it’s a Glorbmuck no can do thing?”

The witch groans, “Yes you moronic pile of fermented onions of an ogre, it’s a thing you can’t do.”
Returning her attention to Tirek, Hydia screeches, “See you mangy magic stealing centaur, you have such a bad poker face you lost to Glorbmuck without him cheating. Because he’s too simple to cheat. That’s what I like about him.”

An awkward silence fills the prison chamber as everyone realizes that the witch like likes Glorbmuck and unfortunately their minds make a graphic visual mental representation of that. To put it bluntly, it’s not pretty and very gross, even to villains.

Thankfully the silence is broken by the ever oblivious villain, Ted Meyers, who is immune to such thoughts by virtue of something related to him probably being batshit insane.
“So Tirek, want to play another round? I’ll give you pointers on how to improve your poker face.”

The evil almost world destroying centaur grins, a fire glimmering in his eyes.
“Oh you are so on. Winner gets the losers tacos.”

“Deal.” Ted says with a smile before calling the first card.
“So, got any Jokers?”

“Oh for the love of Tartarus!”
And so the centaur throws another Joker to Ted and the game begins anew.

Author's Note:

Yes, Rouge and Bleu are a bad Red Oni Blue Oni reference.
Yes, Ted is in Tartarus to protect him from Pinkie Pie.
No, you don’t want to know what Pinkie wanted to do to Ted involving clowns, it’s too unspeakably disturbing to describe.
Maybe, there might be more stories in this series. The series working title is “Tartarus: Ted and Tirek’s hell prison adventures.
Yes, this is the last chapter of this story.
No you can’t have Devi-pony waffles!

Glen Gorewood

Comments

[Rambling Tree]

This is pretty great. I'd def read more if you ever decided to make that series.

[Glen Gorewood]

8918198
Thanks, I’m glad you liked it.
I do plan on doing more stories in this series, after my current story backlog is slightly better.

Glen Gorewood

[Treforce]

Ocer already?

But I LIKED reading this.

Can I have just 1 morechapter?

[tkepner]

I once read a novel where the "evil" king was evicting peasants for their land and arresting anyone who objected and sending them to rehabilitation camps. A band of heroes emerges to fight him.

At the end you discover he was clearing villages and individuals from the flood plain areas by the river in order to build a dam. The dam would prevent lives and property being lost every spring and to provide irrigation all year round. And the rehabilitation camps were temporary villages where his advisers, all foreigners from a wealthier and more advanced country, were teaching the farmers how irrigation farming worked and ways to protect the soil from washing away.

And trying to retrain flour mill workers and owners to new jobs as the dam's flour mill easily replaces them -- and reduces taxes by charging less than what the smaller mills charged (economy of scale).

And protesters were arrested for the same reasons they are here: they were creating a disturbance and causing riots and property damage to honest merchants and tax-paying citizens in the capital!

[LWOverFlow]

Beautiful writing! In all truth any sequel I'd read just for the Celestia-Forsaken humor xD

[Glen Gorewood]

8918663
I need to read that story now. If you ever remember what it’s called I’d love to know.

8918715
8918641
A sequel will be happening, after I get a few other works finished first. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Glen Gorewood

[L Pondera]

No, not the clowns!

A genuine good read. Fun story, and great break for inbetweening all the major fics anyone could read.

Reminds me that I should work on my "Incoherent Mess" series. I called my insane human Al Harrington and use an Edward Lear style to his speech. Here's hoping you get way more views though! I always end up making my fics T or M. Should try to write an E title.

P.S. I do all my own cover art, so I get it. Your cover art is great though, fits the home spun feel of fics. Don't harsh your own mellow.

[Glen Gorewood]

8918960
I’m glad that you liked it.

Al Harrington made me think Honor Harrington immediately. And he speaks like Edward Lear? That sounds quite interesting. I’ll look into this “Incoherent Mess” over the weekend. As for fic titles, why not go for one that starts with W? Or Z? Or the often ignored K. I hope your Incoherent Mess series gets more views too.

The cover art comment is because I had a recent health issue and I’m in PT right now to recover my ability to draw. It’s not the issue of making my own, it’s the issue of “I used to be good at this and now I am not as good because health issues”. Though I’ll admit, my not that great cover art does catch the feel this story fairly well. It’s cool that you do your own cover art as well.

Glen Gorewood

[Leingod]

8918663
If he didn't bother to explain that and convince people his plans were sound, that's his own damn fault, honestly.

[tkepner]

8920507

If he didn't bother to explain that and convince people his plans were sound, that's his own damn fault, honestly.

And since when does ANY feudal King condescend to tell the peasants what his plans are? Plus, even if he wanted to, how would he do it? No newspapers, no radio, no mass communication of any kind. Town Criers were it -- and not every village or town had one. And that doesn't mean any peasant would believe him, now does it?

Heck, when the US and Mexican governments were eradicating Hoof-and-Mouth disease in the North Americas ( in 1929) by going to every ranch and farm on the continent and killing infected animals they STILL had to face off against armed peasants. Especially when the infected cattle looked perfectly healthy, Plus, the government was offering replacement cattle and cash payments -- and the peasants STILL didn't believe them.

And feudal societies are not known for their generous interpretations of 'civil rights'. Most considered peasants to be little more than property (see Russia where a peasant running away from his farm was subject to execution). To expect a feudal king to somehow ignore that societal upbringing and act in a modern-day civilized manner is beyond anyone's suspension of disbelief. It would be like writing a story where slave-owners paid their slaves for their labor -- totally unbelievable. You don't pay property.

The merchant-families might be more agreeable, but then there's the question of trust. Do the think that the nobles and king are REALLY going to reimburse them, even if they say so? Laws about Eminent Domain are a modern invention.

[8bitmadness]

I love it, especially since it appears that denizens of Equestria are capable of being more dangerous than those that have to be imprisoned in Tartarus. I also like lazylestia, the entire solution of Tartarus for unreformable villains of the second variety just screams "I'm so lazy I can't even think about improving conditions for those who are delusional while also having trained employees to help take care of them because they're clearly not experiencing reality in a meaningful way and might hurt themselves, so I'll just throw them in the same prison that the worst villains in existence are in!" which as a whole is incredibly comedic and really helps the setting.

[Gamertagz]

Watch Ted legitimately be a God-Tier entity.