George Trestale, Accidental Bad Guy

by DrOcsid

Recipe for Disaster

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I shot up off the pillow, instantly awake. I was yet again in a state of shock, which transitioned into one of deja-vu. I sighed, leaned over to my nightstand, and grabbed my glasses off it. I am never going to get used to that stupid clock.

Although the specific act of waking up was as unpleasant as ever, my morning routine managed to pass by a good bit quicker than normal—the reason for that being, of course, I actually had something to look forward to today.

"Hey there, Celestia." I stood in the kitchen with my morning coffee, practicing some potential ways to greet the Princess when she stopped by today. I wasn't one for formal greetings, but I only had one opportunity to do what I needed to, and like hell was I going to screw it up.

"Nah, that's not it," I said to nobody. "Maybe, uh.... 'Hey, Celestia, how's it goin'?'"

Not that either. "Well, if it isn't Princess Celestia!"

No, that's a bit too villain-esque. "Celestia! What's happening, my solar sovereign?"

What the hell am I talking about? "Hey, Celestia, you've got something stuck in your teeth."

I took a frustrated sip of coffee. Maybe something a little more offhand. "Oh, hey, Celestia. How've you been doing?"

I mulled on that for a few moments and decided, yeah, that was probably good enough. I sat down at my table, impressed with myself for my ability to say seven entire words. I took a sip of my coffee—which I'd ensured was properly cooled this time—and stared directly forward at my front door.

"Three, two, one..."

Knock, knock.

I'm a goddamned clairvoyant, I swear. I downed the rest of my coffee, put the mug in the sink, and headed over to the door. I yanked it open to see, as I expected, Jack standing there.

"Well, good morning to you, Jack," I said, putting a hand on my hip. "You ready for today?"

Jack shrugged. "I guess so."

Our walk to the castle that day was noticeably quieter than the previous one, though it wasn't without its share of conversation. Jack had just apparently decided that it'd be more fun to be looking at the ground half the time, lost in thought or something. Was fine by me, really. I had a lot to think about.

Tetesac wasn't waiting for us this time, so the two of us just strolled right up the steps to the castle doors. I grabbed the handle but stopped at the last second. "Wait a minute."

Jack looked at me. "What?"

I turned around and looked back at the base of the stairs. There was a rather extravagant-looking chariot sitting on the ground, guarded by, to my surprise, a couple armored pegasi. Jack ended up following my gaze and saw the same thing.

"Oh, man!" Jack said. "Is Celestia here already?"

"Apparently. Maybe they're doing lunch this time. Would've been nice for Carlton to warn me."

"Carlton?"

"Yeah. Tetesac's first name. I'm thinking of starting to call him that."

Jack didn't seem interested in having that kind of conversation. "Well, okay. So, are we gonna go inside?"

"Guess so," I said. "I was gonna wait until around dinnertime to enact my evil plan, but since Celestia's already here, might as well do it now."

"What do you mean 'evil plan'?"

"It's a joke, Jack." I grabbed the handle again and pushed the door open. I peered inside, noticing that aside from a couple guards patrolling, the halls were completely devoid of life. "Jeez. Looking pretty desolate today."

Jack poked his head in beside mine. "Huh. I wonder where everyone is."

I stepped into the hall. "Probably helping prepare the lunch or whatever. Sure as hell hope they aren't already eating it."

"So, what are we doing, then?"

"We've gotta go find Celestia. Come on," I said as I started speed-walking down the hall. Jack followed suit, looking around for any sign of life. (I don't generally count the guards as alive, given how emotionless they usually are.) "Let's head for the kitchen."

After a bit more walking than I would've preferred, Jack and I reached said kitchen. I knocked on the door and, almost instantaneously, a chef pulled the door open. "Oh, hey, George!" She peered behind me. "Jack, too!"

"Hey, Cindy," I said. "Let me guess. Preparing for that meal?"

"That's right," she said. "Let me guess. You're looking for Celestia?"

I put my hands on my hips. "Well, gee, how'd you guess that?"

"I know you, George," she said, leaning on the doorframe. "You pretend like you don't like ponies, but you've got your soft spot. Like everyone."

Jack butted in. "I don't know about everyone. I don't think Mrs. Ritter is going to ever take that sign off her lawn."

"Yeah, but I think George has a different kind of soft spot." She looked me directly in the eyes. "You've got a thing for her, don't you?"

I stared at her for a second before mustering up a response. "Yeah, that's hilarious. You know I don't swing that way, Cindy."

"More of a stallion guy, then?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Could've had me fooled," she replied. "She's talking with the king right now, I think. He told me she was arriving early, so we're using the extra time to better prepare the dinner. This one just might be our, uh... what's that you call it? Our magnum opus?"

"Yeah, I think that's right," I said. "Sounds exciting, for sure. Well, thanks for the info. And, uh, by the way, about that carbonara recipe—"

"Not happening, George."

I snapped my fingers. "Damn. You know, you have no idea how jealous I am that you have access to that."

"Perks of the job, George. Don't complain. You get paid more than I do anyway."

"True. Well, thanks for the info. See you at dinner!" I waved as Jack and I walked off. "Well, I'd rather catch Celestia when Tetesac's not around. Plus, I don't wanna interrupt. I guess we might as well just head back to the lab for now."

"I guess. The king doesn't pay us to walk around, anyway."

"Really? If that's the case, I owe him quite a few of my paychecks."

Jack and I headed back down the hall, back towards the lab in hopes that we'd get the opportunity to catch Celestia while on our break or something. We headed down the stairwell to our own level and I took my keys out as we approached the lab. Just as I'd almost shoved my key into the door, however, I'd taken a second to look down the hall.

"What the...?" I murmured to myself.

"Huh?" Jack had apparently heard me, and followed my gaze with his own. "W-Woah! Is that her?"

Standing a good distance from us in the hall was, indeed, Princess Celestia herself, her back turned to us and evidently engrossed in admiring the white, undecorated walls. I guess that make sense when you rule a kingdom where everything's coated in flowers or pastel-colored paint.

"Random thought," I said. "Is it still called a 'kingdom' when it's ruled by princesses?"

"Huh?" Jack snapped his view to me. "Is that really important right now?!"

"Yeah, yeah, alright. Let's go meet her. Just remember what I said."

"Uh, can you go over it again real quick?"

"Just... go along with what I say. Otherwise, just be you." I took notice of the nervous look that had overtaken Jack's face. "And don't faint or whatever. Seriously, dude, it'll be fine."

"I just want to make a good first impression!"

"And the best way to do that is to not act like you're meeting the ruler of the most signifiacant nation on this planet."

"But that is what we're doing!"

"That's what the acting part's for. Come on, let's go before she disappears around the corner." Jack followed me as I walked down the hall, drawing nearer and nearer to Celestia. I didn't feel like startling her at the moment, so I deliberately made my footsteps as loud as possible before stopping a good few yards away. "Hey, Celestia!" I called out to her.

"Hm?" She turned around and, upon seeing me, gave a warm smile. "Oh, hello, George."

I strutted my best strut up to her while Jack lagged behind. "How've you been doing?"

"I'm well, thank you. I'd just come to visit you, in fact. And yourself?"

"You know I'm always good on the days you're here. You know, 'cause of the food."

"Of course," Celestia said as she let out a saccharine giggle. "And who is this with you?"

"Oh, right." I looked at Jack, who'd finally caught up. "You wanna introduce yourself?"

"Uh, I—" Jack cleared his throat and extended his hand, speaking with a somewhat bad attempt at sounding firm and formal. "I'm George. Nice to meet you, Your Highness."

I shoved my face in front of his before Celestia could reply. "What do you mean you're George?"

"Huh? I-I mean, I'm Jack! Jack Anthers!" He retracted his hand. "Sorry, this is new for me."

"Yeah, he's a real stickler for the formalities," I added.

Celestia laughed again. "Oh, that's quite alright. I'm very used to ponies being nervous about meeting Luna and I. I don't often see anypony take such a casual tone with me as George does, here."

"Well, we're all human, aren't we?" I said, ignoring the obvious falseness of that sentence. "Anyway, that somehow reminds me. See, Celestia, there's this new tradition we've come up with that I've been wanting to test-drive. Right, Jack?"

Jack furrowed his eyebrow and looked at me. "What? I haven't—" I could've sworn I heard a switch flip inside of him at that exact moment. "Oh! Uh- Yeah, that's right!"

I looked back to Celestia. "Care to partake, if you've got a second?"

"Does it involve exchanging recipes with each other?" I could always appreciate when royalty had their share of snark.

"No, not this time." I reached to my head and plucked out a single strand of hair. "See, the two parties exchange a single strand of hair with each other. To, like, symbolize... unity and stuff."

"Why, this is new to me," Celestia said with a hint of amused skepticism. "And how long has this tradition been in effect?"

"Since... uh, last week, I think?" I said. "It's weird, I know, but people are really dedicated to it for some reason. Don't worry, I use shampoo every morning."

"Well, since you took the trouble—" Celestia removed a single hair from her mane and levitated it over to me "—I suppose it can't be helped. As much as I suspect this is another one of your jokes, that is."

"Oh, not at all!" I said, grabbing the hair and acting faux-offended. "In fact, you should ask as many people to do this as possible. It'll go great!"

"If you insist, George," Celestia said with that everlasting smile still stuck on her face. "I'll make sure to inform them you were the one to tell me about it, of course."

"Great!" I said, suddenly gritting my teeth.

"I should likely head back and continue observing the setup, so I suppose I'll see you two at lunch. I know at the very least I'll see you there, George."

"Yeah, no crap." I gave a mock-salute. "See ya."

Celestia and I headed our separate ways simultaneously, and Jack, apparently having needed a moment to process everything, followed me. "What was that?!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"That tradition thing. Did you make that up?"

"Well, yeah." I brought my fist up, still tightly holding on to the strand of Celestia's mane. "And it worked! Hallelujah." I admired it in its multicolor beauty. "Look at that. It even still does that weird flow-y thing."

"You lied to Celestia to get a strand of her hair?" Jack said, who, despite his mixed emotions, also couldn't resist eyeing it a bit closer.

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Don't you remember that whole thing we did yesterday where I explained to you how my magic-transferring device thingy works?"

"Wait, what?" Jack said. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, I am. Very much so." I unlocked my door, headed in, let Jack follow me inside, then shut it and locked it. For good measure, I stuck one of my bread-doorstops in front of it as well. I made a beeline to my machine, yanked the cover off it, and opened the capsule, sticking the hair inside and sealing it.

"And also—" Jack walked over to me. "—Why did you even need me for that?"

"Just to back me up. For believability's sake."

"I said, like, one thing! And you couldn't have told me about it beforehand?"

"I've seen you lie, Jack," I said, fiddling with the screen. "I, for one, like to think I've got some decent acting skills, but you couldn't lie your way through a wet tissue. Look, you did good, okay? I told you to be yourself, and you did a damn fine job with that If I say so."

Jack sat up on the counter. "I guess. I wish I'd had more time to talk to her. You know, while we're not trying to con her out of a hair."

"You can do that at lunch," I said. I got up and started looking around the room.

"What are you doing now?"

"Looking for something to transfer this hair's magic to," I said, opening and shutting some drawers.

"But you just got it!" Jack said, getting off the counter. "You're already going to experiment with it?"

"That's my job, isn't it?" I dumped a drawer out on the counter. "I just need something that isn't too complex..."

"We don't know how powerful it is!"

I ignored that and thought to myself out loud. "Hm. You know, what if I tested it on myself? Wouldn't that be neat, having that kind of magic?"

"GEORGE!" To my shock, Jack was in front of me, and had grabbed my shoulders in an apparent effort to get me to listen to him. "Ignoring the obvious ethical issues with what we just did—don't be stupid! We have no idea what that kind of magic can do!"

"Yeah, yeah, okay," I said, pushing his hands off me. "You're right. That is a bad idea. Let's just try something simple." I looked to the counter again, and something caught my eye this time—a smooth, round rock about the size of the palm of my hand. "This should work. It's a rock, what can it possibly do?"

Jack sighed. "Okay. That's a little better. I'm going to stay behind the bulletproof glass, though."

"Yeah, I probably should too." I took the rock and stuck it into the hatch on the top of the machine. I pressed a few buttons on the front and the hatch sealed itself, after which the machine whirred to life. I jogged over to the bulletproof glass where Jack had already situated himself and sat down on the floor.

"How will we know when it's done?" Jack asked.

"Well, it'll make a sound. Either a 'BOOM', or a 'ding'. Hopefully the latter."

"How long's it gonna take?"

"I dunno. Unicorn hairs usually took like thirty seconds. Who knows how long this could be, though?"

It seemed to be progressing along fine, though the machine was growing noticeably louder. After a matter of mere seconds, the fans sounded like they were on full blast. "Is that bad?" Jack asked.

"Uh..." I said, trying to squint and read the screen. "Might be. I dunno."

"I think I should leave." But before Jack could get up, I grabbed him by the collar.

"Okay, now it's your turn to not be stupid. If that thing explodes the moment you step out from behind this glass, I'm not paying for your funeral."

"Okay, okay!" Jack sat back down. The machine's noise maintained its volume, but the parts inside were starting to give off a rattling sound, as if they were coming loose.

"No, no, no!" I pressed my face to the glass. "Not now, god damn it! Just, like, ten more seconds!"

Jack and I observed as the rattling gradually got worse and worse, but the machine seemed to stay together. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. I squinted at the screen again.

TRANSFER
COMPLETE

"Whuh?" I said, dumbfounded. "It... It worked?"

I'd never seen Jack so wide-eyed in my life. "Did it?!"

I stepped out from behind the glass slowly and grabbed a clipboard off the counter to attempt to shield myself with. I stepped over to the machine, whose hatch had opened, returning the rock to us. I took a closer look at the rock, which had taken on a decidedly rainbow sheen to it.

"You can't be serious." I looked down to get a closer look at the rock. "Dear God, Jack. It worked."

Jack meekly stepped out, more slowly than I had taken any care to. He kneeled down next to me. "That's... That's crazy."

"Yeah, you think? Should we, uh... pick it up?"

"I don't think that's a great idea."

"Probably not." I lowered my hand over it. "Doesn't feel hot or anything, though. Wait, I've got an idea." I got up, opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of tongs. "These should work, right?"

"Are you sure moving it at all is a good idea?" Jack said. "Remember what you said about magic being explosive and stuff?"

"If it wasn't properly contained in the rock it wouldn't still be inside it. Besides, the screen said the transfer worked."

"Yeah, the screen on your machine! Which isn't even necessarily finished!"

"Oh, whoops, I'm already holding it." I'd already picked the rock up out of the machine with the tongs, much to Jack's exasperation.

"Oh, great. Sure. Don't listen to me." Jack got up and looked closer at the rock. "It's pretty-looking, at least."

"Right!" I said. "This is an important milestone. The machine works with Celestia's magic. If this works on living things, oh man, I'm gonna be a goddamned celebrity."

"That would be cool, I have to admit," said Jack. "Wait. Why is it shaking?"

---

To this very day, I still don't remember exactly how I answered Jack's question. Or, really, if I did at all. As far as I was concerned, one moment we were standing there perfectly fine, and the next, our lab was completely trashed while the both of us lay on the floor, our clothes tattered.

I was apparently the first one to wake up, as I sat up and noticed Jack still unconscious next to me. I looked around at the lab around us, which was now looking considerably worse for wear. Several objects around the room had been shattered to bits, my machine had one sizable hole through it, and the bulletproof glass was looking like it hadn't done its job very well.

I started to say something, but I was interrupted by one hell of a coughing fit. "Agh! Shit—" I looked over at Jack. "—Jack!" I reached over to him and shook him awake.

"...Huh...?" Jack gradually returned to the world of the living, to my immense relief. He went wide-eyed at my decidedly worse-for-wear appearance and sat up almost immediately. "Woah! What happened?!"

"Hell if I know." I looked at his ripped-up clothes. "What's with your clothes?"

He looked down at his own clothes, then to mine. "What's with yours?"

"Question of the century." I slowly got to my feet and looked around us a bit more. "Well, I somehow get the idea that my little experiment didn't work too well." My train of thought was again interrupted by another coughing fit, worse than the last.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, I—" I could barely get those couple words out in the midst of me nearly coughing my lungs out. I let out one final, monumental cough, and something flew out of my mouth onto the floor.

"Agh!" I grabbed my throat. "What the hell was that?"

Jack went over and picked it up. He held it out towards me. It looked like a fragment of the rock, which had lost its colorful luster—aside from the blood on it. "I think the rock exploded."

"Oh, great." I looked down and examined my own body. "Yep, failed experiment. At least we're fine, I guess. You don't have any wounds or anything, right?"

Jack felt around his own body. "I don't think so."

"Great. Let's clean things up before Tetesac gets back. As best we can, at least." Just as I said that, however, my hopes were dashed by a knock at the door.

Comments

[Russian Bank Teller]

No...

it's updated?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

[A Man Undercover]

Another excellent update, Sir.

I hope to see more chapters soon, because I’m really wanting to see where things will be going next.