Tangled: The Series

Alternative Episode, Story #7: The Alchemist Returns

Wow, it's been exactly a month since the last story (with no reviews. Which is a bit sad). But I'm still writing these. This episode was super fun to alter.

Again, this one is very short, but I do hope u all enjoy it. The second chapter is longer.

Trying to trace back where this 'truth plague' inside the castle started was more difficult than Cassandra and Eugene first thought. Pete was the person they believed was the first to be affected so they brought him into a dimly lit room for questioning.

Unfortunately, Pete still couldn't stop telling the truth, which meant a lot of useless, irrelevant, and boring stuff about his day came out of his mouth.

"…I got into work, high-fived Stan, and I noticed his hand was sweaty-"

"Aghhhh!" Cassandra whaled before leaping out of her chair and lunging at Pete and grabbed him by the collar of his suit. "Listen, we've been here for thirty minutes and all you've been doing is boring us with useless information," she growled in his face.

"Useless? I gave you my recipe for strawberry scones."

"That was the most useless part!"

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, let's try this," Eugene pinched the bridge of his nose while trying to pacify the situation before Cass throttled poor Pete. "can you recall anything out of the ordinary? Maybe something not soul-crushingly boring?" he groaned. He too was feeling the pain from sitting there listening to Pete rattle on and on.

Pete looked up in thought for a moment before finally saying, "Well, I did find a man in a bush earlier today. That was a bit peculiar."

"Ya think ya might of lead with that!?" Cass shouted, exasperated, before sitting back in her chair beside Eugene.

"Wait, a man in a bush?" Eugene asked. Now that actually sounded like something. "What else can you tell us about this man?"

"Well, I couldn't see his face, but his voice was kind of…squeaky. Oh, and he was asking about the Sundrop flower, which the king has been secretly hiding in the vault ever since he used it on the queen," Pete explained simply.

Eugene and Cassandra's eyes sprang wide open.

"Woah-woah-wait, thee Sundrop flower?!" Eugene exclaimed.

"And you told the man in the bush about it!?" Cass added, outraged.

"I couldn't help it!" Pete said helplessly. "I found him and he started asking me all these questions just after a got these delicious purple cookies from Ophelia," he added.

This new piece of information had both his interrogators baffled.

"Ophelia?" Cass suspiciously thought out loud.

"Purple cookies?" Eugene asked.

"Yeah, she's been passing them out to everyone all day," Pete said, reaching into his suit and pulled out a purple cookie. "Everybody's been eating them." He raised the oddly colored treat to his mouth but Cass swatted it out of his hand before he could eat it.

"Don't! They might be lased with some kind of truth serum," she warned him.

"Cass, I know purple cookies sound bizarre, but Ophelia wouldn't do that," Eugene tried to reason with her.

"Oh, she wouldn't?" Cass turned to him. "Someone with a squeaking voice, trying to keep a low profile, used a potion to get information about a magical flower. Sound like anyone we know?"

Eugene's eyes widened in realization. "Varian," the ex-thief uttered.

"Exactly," she nodded. "Pete said he ate those cookies just before 'the man in the bush' asked him about the Sundrop flower. You think that's a coincidence?" Clearly, it was not. "Plus, she's Varian's girlfriend."

That all made sense to Eugene, but why would she? Ophelia wouldn't do something like that. She didn't have anything against Corona. "Okay, we'll circle back to her. If Varian is after the Sundrop flower in the vault then…" Eugene's train of thought went back to when he saw his girlfriend in the hallway earlier. She looked nervous and like she was hiding something. Could this be connected to that? "So that's why Rapunzel was acting so peculiar," he concluded. If Varian now knows that the Sundrop flower is in the castle vault—thanks to Pete and Ophelia's truth cookies—he might be using Rapunzel to get into the vault as they spoke. "Come on, she might be in trouble."

They were just about to leave the dimly lit room when Cass asked, "What about Ophelia?"

Eugene thought for a moment before turning back around. "Pete, we need you to go find Ophelia. Don't tell her what's going on, just keep her in one place. We'll talk to her later," he instructed the solider.

"And make sure no one else eats anymore of those purple cookies," Cass added.

Pete stood from his chair and saluted. "On it," he said before leaving with them. When they were out of the room, Pete went one way—off to find Ophelia and warn everyone about the purple cookies. While Cass and Eugene headed towards the vault.