the wag of a finger: hangover cure
Beast's peaceful sleep was abruptly cut by the sound of strange music coming from his phonograph.
He quickly identified it as the song he was listening to last night, except it was much faster and the vocals were higher pitched. But he didn't recall switching the phonograph to 78 RPM, or keeping the phonograph on for that matter.
Beast got up and sat at the edge of his bed to find two guildmates crouched curiously over his phonograph. "Man, I didn't know record players came with a nightcore button." one of them said to the other.
"Do you even know anything about records?" the other replied.
"I played YIIK once after seeing that Running Shine video."
"Man, I miss video ga-"
"Gentleme-en..." Beast growled, pointing to the doorway of his quarters.
The two guildmates promptly walked out of the room, one remarking "I told you, man." The bear stomped over and switched off his phonograph, astounded by the nerve of his fellow guildmates. Beast was beginning to question the view he had taken on the degenerates that he cooked for. The more time he stayed at the guild, the more tolerable people he began to discover, the more names that had begun to stand out. Everyone else, however, just kind of melded together into one insufferable person. Did everyone here have merits like this?
Beast looked over his freshly laundered apron before tying it on. If he knew that the guildmaster would be distributing badges, he wouldn't have spent nearly a day embroidering a clover onto the bottom left corner. "It's good to keep my skills sharp, at least." Beast thought to himself. He really was getting quite old.
As most of cooking is prep work, Beast was typically up before anyone else, which wasn't really an achievement considering how late people around here slept in. Leaving his quarters, Beast continued upstairs into the storage room and was greeted with a rather headache inducing sight.
On the floor of the storage room laid a guildmate and their equally quirky degenerative partner, both lightly immersed in about what he estimated to be about half a barrel of (very expensive) wine puddled up across the floor. Beast physically recoiled, backing up until he hit the wall in an overdramatic, clutching his head as if he had a migraine. Grimacing, he trudged over and deftly flipped over the guildmate soaking in his pricey libation.
A pounding headache greeted the guildmate as he awoke followed by a familiar bear cub staring daggers into his eyes. Beast was not particularly intimidating, moreso resembling a cute teddy bear than a livid elderly chef. "Whuhthuh..." The guildmate slurred as he came to. "Out of my storage room, hooligan!" Beast demanded, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him out of the doorway as he was still waking up. Beast swiftly continued to do the same with their partner, grabbing them by the leg and angrily dragging them out of the doorway. "WHAT WAS YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS ON THIS?!?" Beast screamed at the wine-stained pile of hungover guildmates.
"Uhmm...Uhh...wejusswannehdu-"
"That section is VERY CLEARLY LABELED DO NOT CONSUME! that wine is VERY EXPENSIVE and must be used with CAUTION! but NO, LET'S JUST EAT AND DRINK WHATEVER WE WANT BECAUSE WE'RE IRRESPONSIBLE DEGENERATE DRU-"
"Um, Mr. Winchester?" said a familiar flamboyant voice.
Beast felt his heart sank in his chest as he turned toward the guildmaster, staring at Beast with a look of someone who was trying to hide their annoyance.
"Y-yes, guildmaster?"
"Could I speak to you in my office, please?"
"Beast, I'm getting very concerned with the treatment of your fellow guildmates, mmkay?" The guildmaster explained as he filled out some generic form on his desk.
"Guildmaster, you must understand! These hooligans are just waltzing into my storage room and consuming expensive ingredients with no disregard for my rules!"
"Well, you don't seem to be adamant on doing anything about it but screaming at your fellow guildmates, which we both know doesn't solve anything."
"Well, that's not tr-"
"So for once, I'd like you to apologize on my behalf. Are you familiar with hangover cures?"
Beast looked at the cat, trying to hide his frustration and disbelief. "Um, yes, I know a recipe."
Beast actually had very little experience with alcohol itself, as he typically left pairing to his sommeliers.
"Then, I'd like you to put those little chef skills to work and whip up a couple, mmkay? I need those guildmates sober because guildmates produce income, which I use to pay employees like you and that nurse I barely ever see."
"But the recipe requires a raw Blast Burn Pepper! I would have to send someone out into Canic Woods to retrieve one!"
"Well, why don't you just go out and get it yourself? you could even bring that assistant of yours that sleeps in the kitchen all day, I heard he's good at fighting."
"Surely, you cannot be serious about all of this!"
"I'm serious, and don't call me Shirley. I'd like you back with your ingredients by breakfast or I'll have to let you go, 'mmkay?"
Beast massaged the fur on his headache-afflicted forehead. "Understood, Guildmaster."
Beast exited the Guildmaster's office with quite the dilemma. If anyone here in this guild had him beat, it was adventuring. Guildmates would return to the guild for dinner telling fantastic tales straight from an adventure novel, with things like treasure and temples and treacherous creatures. The closest thing to engaging in conflict Beast had done was climbing up a tree as a child if he had spotted anyone who looked dangerous, and that was only if he was away from his mother. His life was much quieter then the middle-aged mons he served, and wasn't quite capable of defending himself. Hopefully this assistant of his would be strong enough to protect them bot.
Ronnie woke up to a rather pleasant aroma wafting into his nose. It smelled much more herbal and natural then he was accustomed to from his previous life, which was more then welcome in his book. Opening his eyes, he saw a small wooden bowl of what he assumed to be tea and Beast standing over him, looking down at him with that familiar scornful glare.
"Good morning, Ronald." Beast began. "Please, before you say anything, I'd like you to drink this tea I made for you."
"wELL, wHAts the teA fo-"
"DON'T. What did I just tell you? Please, just drink your tea before I burst a blood vessel listening to that voice of yours."
Ronnie awkwardly slurped down the tea while Beast stood over him watching. He missed straws. And having hands.
"Ok, my apologies. How do you feel now?" Beast asked.
"Pretty alright. I mean, the tea was okay but I'm not really-wait, what the hell? My voice!"
Beast arrogantly scratched his cheek. "I took the liberty of fixing some special tea for you. It's typically for throat illnesses, so I thought it would be a close enough remedy for that horrific voice of yours."
Ronnie rolled his eyes at Beast's backhanded remark, which were all but common during their interactions. "So, what's the deal for waking me up? You usually just tell me to not touch anything and I sleep here until it's time to eat."
"Unfortunately, Ronald, I require your assistance for something else entirely." Beast explained as he gathered random tools from the kitchen. "You're good at that whole fighting ordeal, correct? I recall you were brought over here after some sort of scuffle."
Ronnie frowned, thinking back to that unfortunate fight with the Meowth and that weird cow thing partner of his. "Uh, I guess?"
"Works for me" Beast affirmed, continuing to prepare for something. "Ronald, we need to venture out to some woods not too far from here to get a special pepper and be back by breakfast, lest I get fired. Understand?"
"What?"
Beast sighed and waved his arm towards the kitchen doorway. "Just come with me."
The sun hit the eyes of Beast and Ronnie as they left the front door. They had only a few hours to retrieve a Blast Burn Pepper, so they had to do this quickly and efficiently. Beast awkwardly climbed onto Ronnie's back.
"The hell are you doing, dude?" Ronnie asked annoyedly.
"Your kind is good for shipping heavy objects on your back, yes? Just keep walking, and before you know it you'll forget I'm even here." Beast explained.
Ronnie rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man."
"I'm not your "dude," or your "man," Ronald." Beast said in a fed-up tone. "I will not tolerate that repulsive young people language while you work for me."
Ronnie's eyes almost rolled back into his head.
As they left town, Beast began to become annoyed with Ronnie's speed. "Come now, Ronald, pick up the speed! My job and possibly yours are on the line!"
"This is as fast as I can go at a constant pace."
Beast narrowed his eyes. He had experience working with reluctant young people, and he knew just how to motivate them. Grabbing a small pouch of money from his bag, Beast tied a large coin to the end of his ladle he had brought with him and held it in front of Ronnie's face.
Wagie instincts kicking in, Ronnie went from a steady trot to a full sprint, his feet scuttling down the dusty path. Before they knew it, they had entered Canic Woods.
Not being satisfied, Beast held out the ladle as far out as he could. "Earn it, you bumbling humpback!" Beast demanded. Almost immediately after, Ronnie tripped over himself, colliding with the ground and accidentally turning himself into a living boulder, tumbling violently through the woods. Almost without thinking, Beast stood up and began frantically balancing on the rolling Ronnie, something that looked straight out of a circus act. However, this display ended shortly after Ronnie and Beast went flying off a small natural ramp and Beast lost balance, colliding with a tree trunk and hitting the ground.
After he let the most of the dizziness wash over him, Beast got up to a sitting position, wiping the ashy dirt off of his face and apron. Canic Woods once surrounded a violent volcano thousands of years ago, and the ash from past eruptions had remained baked into the earth. It was this that allowed the dangerously hot Blast Burn Peppers to grow in this area. Standing up, Beast quickly found Ronnie, who seemed mostly unaffected, also searching for him.
"I'm right here, Ronald!" Beast announced, picking up his ladle and climbing back onto his assistant's back.
"Hey, hey! Hold on, wait a minute!" Ronnie protested. "If you think I'm going to let you do that again, you're-OOH, MONEY!"
Beast and Ronnie continued deeper into the woods, enjoying the scenery. Canic Woods was home to many wild Grafaiai, one of the few species who could enjoy the raw peppers with no difficulty due to their already harsh chemical makeup. Colorful patterns plastered almost every tree and turned the normally dark, dreary woods into a psychedelic wonderland. But as they continued deeper in, the patterns slowly became more controlled and sophisticated. Basic spirals and bullseyes became basic shapes that adequately grasped reality. Almost like...some sort of lineart?
As Beast pondered the sudden progress, his sight crossed paths with a Grafaiai in a fetal position. Beast had Ronnie stop and he climbed down from the numel, carefully approaching the gooey-fingered creature. It was clutching it's wrist in pain, as if it was sprained or broken. In front of it stood a tree with a drying portrait of some strange head flashing a crooked grin. Beast's eyes shot wide as he began to piece things together, and he took an Oran berry out of his bag and placed it near the poor primate. "Get well soon, little one." Beast whispered as he returned to his equally worried assistant. "Alright, tread carefully from here on out." Beast warned his humpbacked companion. "There's a good chance we'll cross paths with something dangerous."
As Beast and Ronnie warily searched for a bush of peppers, They spotted more and more Grafaiai who met a disturbingly similar fate, their hands clutching a heavily injured wrist. The drawings continued, becoming more and more sophisticated, slowly depicting the crooked grin more and more clearly.
"I'm getting real creeped out here, man." Ronnie remarked. "We should really leave, or at least change directions, there's a good chance we're getting lost..."
"It's this, or lose my job. Maybe yours too, but I'm not sure of your relationship with the guildmaster."
"Why is this job so important to you, man? You're like, really overqualified right? You could literally get a job anywhere el-"
"Hold the brush still, you idiot!" shrieked a flamboyant, yet unhinged voice.
In front of the duo stood a tall Scovillian about 50 feet away, painting a large and rather flattering portrait of themselves into a large cliffside. The green head's jaws were latched onto a grafaiai's wrist as it used it's finger to smear paint onto the small cliffside before the finger suddenly ran dry.
"Drat, out of paint!" complained who was revealed to be the red head. The green head let go of the grafaiai and quickly bit onto another's wrist as it scurried by, continuing to fill out the grin. "Very good!" Affirmed the red head as it turned around to greet our heroes.
"Welcome to the one and only Scovillian Expo, where every piece has been wonderfully jaw-crafted by yours truly! I assume you're here to questions about my work?"
Beast's heart sank into his chest for the second time that day. He shook his head violently as he found the words.
"Well um, w-we are actually just here to procure a Blast Burn Pepper, might you know where we may find some?" Beast asked politely, trying to play along.
"We want no trouble, man." Ronnie added rather abruptly.
The pepper creature's grin melted into an angry grimace. "Do you mean you are NOT here to witness my gallery of avant garde masterpieces? Have you NO taste for such raw unadulterated beauty?" It asked in the presence of hundreds of self-portraits.
Ronnie slowly backed away, and Beast made no effort to stop him.
"NOBODY seems to appreciate that blessings that I have graciously etched into so many surfaces in the woods!" The Scovillian complained. "Well, if you can't appreciate my artistic genius, I'll just have to SEAR IT INTO YOU!"
The red head spat out a rather dangerous fiery display in his fit of rage, aimed directly at the duo. Without saying a word, Ronnie quickly fled the scene, running as fast as he could from the psychopathic capsicum. As Ronnie tried to gallop on his stubby appendages, Beast felt a strange feeling boil inside of him. For whatever reason, he felt the need to go back and confront that strange creature and save those Grafaiai from such a strange, painful fate. This feeling culminated as Ronnie tripped over himself yet again, going into another rollout and giving Beast an opportunity to seize control of the situation.
Now knowing a things or two about balance, Beast quickly steered the rolling Ronnie back around, charging full speed back to the pepper, who was still throwing a blazing hot tantrum. Steadying his aim, Beast kicked the camel as hard as he could, sending him flying towards the pepper and colliding violently with him.
Getting back up from the ground, Beast found a dazed Ronnie, upside down with his back against a tree trunk and an equally disoriented Scovillian laying in the ashy grass.
Beast walked over to inspect the pepper creature, seeing if Ronnie bowling over him was enough to knock him unconscious. The chef was immediately proven wrong as the green head spurted raw spicy extract into his face, hitting him with a stinging pain like nothing he had ever felt.
"Good lord!" Beast immediately blurted, backing up into a nearby tree trunk, trying to rub the extract out of his eyes as it seared into his retinas.
The Scovillian rose from the grass, slowly approaching the pained bear with a crooked grin. Beast noticed this and fearfully extended his ladle like a sword. "Stay back! I'm armed!"
The pepper creature simply laughed and hit him with a direct burst of fire, turning his ladel into a steaming puddle. Beast's hands were gleefully unaffected, as years of accidentally burning himself had turned his hands into scar tissue.
"How cute, threatening me with a big spoon!" Scovillian mocked. "What's your next move, chef? stuffing me with cheese and throwing me into a deep fryer?"
Beast grimaced, partially because of the scovillian's mocking, but mostly because his eyes still stung with acid.
"I have another idea for an appetizer. Munchlax steak, cooked well done!"
Beast simply braced, too frozen to consider stepping out of the way.
"Served with a modicum of hash, or perhaps a smattering of potatoes! Oh, I'm just having too much FUN with th-"
The Scovillian's constant food jokes were halted as Ronnie ran over slammed his body into the pepper, landing a direct Take Down and returning the Scovillian to the ground, knocking him out cold.
"MOVE, BITCH! GET OUT DA WAY!" Ronnie said triumphantly as he got back up, quoting his favorite internet video before turning his attention to Beast. "You alright, dude?"
"My eyes still feel like they're burning in the dark pits of hell, but other than that, I'm quite alright." Beast answered. "I would like to thank you for saving me from that lunatic pepper."
"Nah, wasn't any problem. Geez, running around this much really makes me hungry..." Ronnie noted, walking over to a nearby pepper bush and biting into one.
"Wait a minute, that's a Blast Burn Pepper!" Beast said excitedly. "Ronald, you've finally found one!"
"Wait, THESE are Blast Burn Peppers?" Ronnie asked, quite surprised. "I've been taking bites off these bushes ever since we came into this forest!"
Beast could barely believe what his assistant was saying. "H...how were you able to tolerate the spiciness? A single drop of sauce made from one can feed nearly 50 people!"
"I dunno." Ronnie answered, biting off another pepper from the bush. "I like spicy food."
Beast sighed as deeply as his vocal cords could allow, more frustrated at himself than Ronnie. Did he really never bother to look down during his entire time in the woods? "When we get back to town, remind me to purchase some headache powder."
Climbing back onto his camel companion, peppers safely secured in his bag, Beast quietly reflected on the absolutely wild last 2 or 3 hours he had just experienced. What he had done in the last few hours was unlike anything he had ever experienced in all of the long, boring years of his life. He was now beginning to understand why this whole rescue team thing was so popular, or at least so romanticized. Maybe he could find an excuse to do another one of these in the future.