Chapter 3.5: A Dog and its Master

Shock looked over the gryphon's shoulder, her brows slowly knitting together as she watched the hybrid creature work on some form of potion. The gryphon was dressed in a lab coat with a pair of goggles on her face and gloves covering her taloned hands. "Just a drop of changeling excrement with a dash of gunpowder and-"

"What are you doing?" Shock asked, causing the gryphon to leap to the side in shock as her wings flared out with a pop. Whatever the gryphon was working on fell to the floor and shattered into a million pieces. The green alicorn took a couple steps back as she said, "s-sorry. We were only curious as to what thou was doing." Shock was not worried if the gryphon was hostile or not because the Pipbuck bar associated for her was still blue.

The gryphon's feathers were fluffed up, making her angry face look even fatter than what the lanky hybrid actually was. She quickly shook herself, causing said fluffed feathers to go back to normal with a faint buzz. "I was trying to make fuel for... how'd you get in here?" she tilted her head almost ninety degrees sideways and clicked her beak in thought.

Shock slowly pointed a forest green hoof at the door, "you left that open..."

The gryphon looked over, glaring at the door and making odd noises almost like a hiss. "I did not. It must have been my incompetent assistant when she went to go get me more supplies. Have you seen her?"

Shock sat down and brought a hoof to her chin as she thought back. The wheels in her head slowly ground together as they turned, but then... a memory flashed before her eyes of a mare in a lab coat spotting her and running away like a scared foal screaming about how she didn't get paid enough to deal with alicorns. However, Shock's expression did not change as she shook her head, "nope."

The gryphon frowned as much as she could and sat down, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s just great! Send Sticky Hooves out to retrieve some rockets or missiles and she vanishes! I bet a Mist Roamer took her.” She pulled out an ornate silver fob watch and bounced it between her hands. “We’re going to be late, late for the launch and late for the moon!”

“We’re sorry,” Shock began slowly as she stepped closer to the gryphon. “But We do not know what you mean. Late for what?”

The gryphon put the watch away and rubbed her face while grumbling to herself about being surrounded by incompetent foals. Then, after a few moments, she smiled and looked at the alicorn. “Late for the rocket launch. You know the rocket in the old museum?” Shock nodded slowly.”Well, a group of ghouls have asked me to create the fuel.”

“That rusty old thing flies?” Shock asked, her eyes slowly widening in shock.

The gryphon pretty much ignored her. “Of course I, Professor Filigree, have been working diligently to make such a feat possible. The ghouls, of course, have been scouring for metal and other parts to cover up gaps in the rocket while I, Professor Filigree, have been working with my assistants help to make an igniter for the solid fuel.”

Shock glanced at the door before taking a step forward. “Igniter? Like…” she sat down and tapped her chin some before rubbing her forehead with a hoof. “Light a match?”

“Something like that,” Filigree nodded. “I needed a few missiles to see how they worked and what they used as fuel. Think you could help me?”

“Um,” Shock set my hoof down, sighing deeply. “Will there be any caps involved?”

“I could provide you with some or I could give you this.” Filigree dug around in her pocket before pulling the watch out, holding the ornate item out for Shock to see clear as day. “It’s kind of broken, so caps and the watch?”

After some moments, about thirty seconds, of thinking, Shock nodded with a smile. “That sounds good. What can I do to help you?”

“Get me some missiles first of all.” Filigree waved her wing in a gesture indicating for Shock to leave.

Shock, however, unclasped her bags and set them down. She rummaged through them as she looked for what she had picked up. The mare she had spotted earlier had dropped her own bags in favor of running away from the ‘Green Terror of Oakwood’ and left Shock quite a few goodies; a pair of high-explosive missiles, an emp missile, a broken pistol and a couple small energy packs along with two hundred caps. Shock gently levitated each missile over to Professor Filigree and set them down on the counter.

That was when the alicorn finally noticed exactly where she was. She had been simply walking along the sewer while lost in thought and following her Pipbuck for signs of life, but now however. Shock saw the rusty flooring connected to nearly rusted walls with large terminals running along them. Faint light filtered in through a dirty view window, causing Shock to frown and walk over to it. As she pressed her face against the dirty glass, the alicorn saw the very bottom of massive thrusters with tubes connecting to the ceiling. A ceiling that blocked her view of whatever the thrusters were connected to.

She pulled away from the window and looked back at Filigree. The gryphon held a chisel to the faint gap between the high-explosive warhead and the body of the missile with a hammer in her other hand, causing Shock’s eyes to widen. “STOP!” she telepathically boomed like thunder inside the gryphon’s mind at the same time she shouted with her mouth.

Filigree slowly looked over at the odd green alicorn, the hammer held back and ready to strike a blow against the chisel. "What?"

Shock recomposed herself by taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out. Afterward, she smiled and said with her mind, "that is not how one takes apart a missile."

"And how do you know? There's no screws!" Filigree hissed. Shock rolled her eyes. She trotted over and tugged on the chisel with her magic. Filigree held on, frowning. “I doubt you know how to fix it either.”

“We… have used missiles before and know the various ins and outs of them,” Shock said with a nod. "They are finicky tools when handled at the best of times, and dangerous at the wrong. Please, allow Us to help thee so one does not become a red stain on the wall."

The gryphon looked at the hammer and then at Shock. With a nod, she held the tools out. Shock gently pulled them away and smiled at the gryphon.

*** ***

Some hours later, the three missiles were pulled apart and strewn about on the workbench Filigree and Shock had been using. The gryphon was staring out the window at the massive rocket motors she could see.

"All this time and the answer was staring me in the face," Filigree mumbled quietly. "That must have been why there was two different types of fuel."

"Perhaps," Shock nodded slowly, setting some rocket parts aside before standing up. She walked over to the window and stared out at the bottom half of the rocket as steam filtered down. “Where is this vehicle going?” Shock asked with a whisper in the gryphon’s mind. “If it is a big missile, then do not expect the landing to be perfect.”

Filigree chucked a bit as she shook her head. “No, it is a rocket. Come here,” she said, waving her taloned hand before walking over to a panel. Shock, of course, followed Filigree to the terminal’s glow and nearly pressed her nose against the glass. As she did, Shock saw the tiny Equestrian letters displaying ‘Signal detected’ and above it was a wavy line that increased or decrease waviness every so often.

“What are We looking at?” Shock whispered with her mind.

Filigree pushed the obtrusive alicorn away and proudly said, “a signal from the Great Beyond!”

“The what?”

Filigree wrapped an arm around Shock and pulled her close, waving her other arm around towards the ceiling, Shock watched the hand as Filigree said, “the Great Beyond. It is around us all and provides the night Sky that no pony can look at because of the clouds.”

“You’re talking about space, aren’t you?” Shock asked with a tilt of her head.

“No,” the gryphon shook her head. “I am talking about the orb in the sky where Nightmare Moon was banished for a thousand years.”

“The moon… Why would there be signals coming from the moon?”

“I don’t know or care,” Filigree shrugged. ”But I have deciphered the signal and do you know what it says?” Shock shook her head, causing the gryphon to grin. “It says ‘we’re still here. The wasteland pales in comparison to the beauty of the Great Beyond. If you can come to us, we will be friends again.”

Shock frowned at the information. To her, it sounded like the gryphon was talking out of her ass and making the story up, but she didn’t know a thing about decoding signals so she merely nodded her head. “We will help you reach the Great Beyond then.”

“Good! Here’s your payment,” Filigree said, pulling the fob watch out of her coat. Shock grabbed it in magic and floated it close, tilting her head some at the intricate design on the face and the fact that it was ticking. She looked at the gryphon, the watch, the gryphon again and put the watch away, saying nothing about the fact that it worked.

Shock then looked out at the rocket. “How do I help?”

“Right!” Filigree dashed over to another panel and pointed at it. “Do you see this meter here that says ‘warning radiation’?”

Shock trotted over to it, stared at the meter for a few moments, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Well this meter is in another part of the facility, and I need you to go fix something in there. A part broke and no pony wants to go in because they’re ghouls and don’t want to turn feral. That is where you come in.”

“How do We fix what is broken when We do not know what is wrong?”

Filigree rolled her eyes. “Well, I’ll tell you how through the intercom. Let’ me just mark your Pipbuck there…” she grabbed Shock’s foreleg in her taloned hands and flipped through its functions, eventually frowning and facepalming. “How… how could you stand having that many active objectives?!”

“Hm?” Shock tilted her head and looked at Filigree. “We assumed they merely went away in time. Though with so many on Our compass, We may or may not have gotten lost.”

Filigree rolled her eyes and turned off all the active markers before adding a new one. “There! Now you won’t get lost. Leave your stuff here so it doesn't get irradiated."

Shock bowed her head and nodded.

*** ***

After a slightly long and boring trek, Shock’s Pipbuck began to clickity click as radiation was detected. She smiled a bit and trotted faster into the warm familiar glow as the Pipbuck clicked faster to an almost constant beep with the needle pegged into the red. Shock, however, did not bother turning the clicker off and enjoyed the odd sound it made. She walked over to the door, glanced at the clicking device for the code, and entered it in.

The door slid open, washing Shock with warm air that would have made the Pipbuck go insane if it could. Shock’s display showed a sick and crying Stable mare and a warning of deadly radiation poisoning. In the center of the room was a large pool of very dirty looking water, some pipes along the side that fed into the water. One of them was leaking the tepid water onto the ground from the a valve that appeared to have broken off.

Shock walked inside the room and looked around. “Professor Filigree?” Shock shouted with her mind, receiving no response so she shouted with her mouth.

“I’m here,” came the reply from speakers in the ceiling. Shock looked up at more piped as Filigree continued, "there is a leak somewhere in that room, do you see it?"

Shock trotted around the room some as she inspected everything including the clearly broken pipe. "Yes," she called out to Filigree. "But We do not have any tools."

"Look around you. Do you see a maintenance cabinet or door?"

Shock trotted around the pool with the murky water and looked down, her gaze following the pipes all the way down to the floor where they split into different directions. At the bottom of the pool was the cabinet and the rusty remains of a ladder. Scattered all around the cabinet were various rusted tools.

"Yes," Shock nodded. "We see the cabinet at the bottom of a pool."

"What?"

"That is what We see. A broken ladder reaching down to a pool of water with a door."

"Can you get the tools?"

"Already on it," Shock said, her horn alight with a jade green glow as she steadily pulled the items through the water with magic.

*** ***

Shock walked along the tunnels, smiling at the fact that she was heavily irradiated and might melt a hole in the floor if she stood still long enough. She did not care about the rusty tunnels or the fact that she had no gear on because she knew it was safe and sound with Professor Filigree. The gryphon was an enigma to Shock. To Shock, it seemed odd that ghouls would allow Filigree to work on the rocket when she clearly had no idea how to do so.

When Shock turned into the room she had left Filigree in, she frowned at the sight. The gryphon was holding the watch on one hand and shaking a bit while she stared at it.

"Is something wrong?" Shock asked with her head slightly tilted. She slowly walked over to Filigree and placed her saddlebags back onto her back, and tightened them down.

Filigree blinked a couple of times and looked over at Shock, slowly nodding. "Yes. Something is... odd."

"What?"

"N-nothing!" Filigree shook her head and walked over to some controls, slowly adjusting them while staring at the gauges to make sure they did not go too high or low. "The rocket is ready for launch," she called out to a freestanding microphone nearby.

"Good," came a raspy and gritty reply from tinny speakers. "Took you smooth skins long enough."

After a few seconds, Filigree looked over at Shock and said, "let's go watch them take off."

Shock nodded and motioned for the gryphon to lead the way with a hoof wave. Filigree took the hint and started walking, Shock quickly followed her into the tunnel systems. Her Pipbuck was finally displaying only one compass marker and she would know where to go when she left.

As they began climbing a set of stairs, a voice began speaking through speakers set into the walls. "Today is a glorious day. For too long we have been repressed into hiding by the locals, forced to live in the dark where the other monsters live, but now we will rise above them. We will reach into the night sky once more and touch that which is forbidden to others, Luna's glorious moon. Luna has sought to give us two surface dwellers to help us on our way and we thank them. Without their efforts, we would be rats inside a box..."

"Like a blue box called a tardis or just a box?" Shock asked the ceiling. At the top of the stairs, Filigree staggered a bit and clutched her spinning head. Names, far away locations and visions of things that were swirled in her head as she fought to regain balance.

Shock walked over to the gryphon and wrapped a wing around her. "Are you alright? If you are dizzy, you can ride on Our back the rest of the way."

"I am fine," Filigree shook her head, pushed Shock away and stood up, swiping a key card into a machine that beeped. The door opened, revealing a three level room with terminals on each level and five large screens. One such screen showed a static filled picture of the rocket in its silo as it was getting ready to launch. The screen next to it displayed a countdown of five minutes while the screen on the right displayed the trajectory.

Shock's eyes were wide as she walked into the room and down the stairs to the very bottom level. Filigree went over to one of the panels and began to adjust the controls, causing the trajectory to line up for a landing on the moon. After a few moments, Shock pulled out the fob watch and stared at the ornate design on the face of it. Odd voices and images whispered to her, but they faded into the normal voices she heard, so the alicorn ended up ignoring them.

Filigree stopped adjusting the trajectory and placed a hand to the side of her head, her other hand's talons began to click against the metal machine in a steady rhythm of four taps every so often.

Shock looked up from the watch at the taps and tilted her head. "Are you sure you're alright, Professor Filigree?"

Filigree quickly shook her feathery head and nodded. "Y-yes," she called out across the room. "Please go around and make sure everything is green or yellow."

Shock nodded, setting the fob watch onto a machine before walking over to a few machines displaying critical systems. Some were dark, some were static filled, and some were showing normal or nearly normal. After a few passes, Shock went to pick the watch up with her magic and stopped, noticing that Filigree was holding it and staring at the closed face of the watch.

“Professor?” Shock asked with her mouth. She tilted her head some and slowly walked over to her, but stopped halfway when the door opened, drawing her attention to it.

In walked a pony both Shock and Filigree recognized to be the assistant that had run away. When she saw Shock, her face went pale, but she gulped and started walking towards them. “H-hey… I, um… found the rockets!”

Shock rolled her green eyes. “You’re late,” Professor Filigree said as she shut the watch and pointed a claw at the green alicorn next to her. “She found the rockets you most likely dropped. Did you run from something?”

Sticky Hooves gulped and shook her head. “N-no… I was, um… I was sleeping!” she smiled and nodded. “Yes, I was sleeping and when I woke up my bags were gone.”

“Liar!” Shock shouted with her mouth. “You’re a dirty liar! You dropped those bags when you saw Us and ran like a scared filly!”

"No I didn't!"

"I don't care!" Filigree shouted and slammed the watch down on the nearest flat surface. "We have a job to do and an extra set of eyes helps."

"Professor Filigree is right," Shock nodded.

"Alright, so what do we do?" Sticky Hooves asked.

Filigree looked at the clock on the screen and picked up her fob watch. "We've got two minutes to launch. That means at," she flipped the watch open and looked down at it. All train of thought lost as a golden glow surrounded the watch and Filigree's face. Voices, scenes, and other things flowed into her mind.

"Professor?!" Sticky Hooves shouted as her eyes went wide.

Shock frowned at the magical watch before looking at the clock. "A minute thirty," she mumbled.

Filigree snapped the watch shut and glared at Sticky Hooves. “You…” her eyes slowly narrowed as she seethed through her partially shut beak. “How could you stand there for fifteen years and not think to ask about the watch? Not ever?!”

“Minute twenty,” Shock said, slowly looking over at the pony and gryphon. She had noted a subtle change in Filigree’s voice, but said nothing about it.

“B-bu-but you said it was broken!” Sticky Hooves shouted, her eyes steadily widening as she slowly began walking backwards when Filigree pulled out a .44 revolver.

Shock glanced at the clock, and then at the others. “One min-”

“Shut up!” Filigree shouted, turning the pistol on Shock and firing it. The bullet slammed into the alicorn’s chest, causing her to flinch as her eyes widened. She looked down at the wound and brought a hoof up to touch it as warm crimson liquid slowly poured out. Filigree rolled her eyes and fired a second time. The bullet slammed into Shock’s foreleg and went clean through into her chest again.

“P-P-Professor Filigree, you can’t kill a pony over a watch!” Sticky Hooves shouted as Shock fell to the floor and started coughing up blood.

“Professor?” Filigree hissed, stepping over the slowly bleeding out alicorn and aiming the pistol at Sticky Hooves. The other pony bumped into one of the control panels and kept backing up until she was sitting down covering her face with her hooves. “That is not my name! Professor Filigree was made up, so perfect an invention I forgot who I was. I saved you from raiders and this is how you repay me?!”

“I didn’t think the watch was important!” Sticky Hooves whimpered. “It was just a beat up old watch… why bother asking about it?”

“It was important! You could have released me if only you thought to ask about that watch!”

Meanwhile, Shock stared at the blood coming out of her chest and concentrated, her tongue sticking out of her bloodied mouth as her magic reached inside of her. Slowly, she pulled both bullets out and rolled onto her side. As she laid there breathing heavily and coughing up the occasional blood fountain, she felt the warm glow of radiation as it slowly stitched her wounds back together.

Sticky Hooves slowly lowered her hooves from her face and looked at Filigree. “Then who are you…?”

As Shock slowly drew her machete sized ripper, Filigree took aim at Sticky Hooves and squeezed the trigger three times. Sticky Hooves gasped as the bullets slammed into her chest. “I… am. Your Master,” Filigree whispered to Sticky Hooves. Shock slowly stood up, grabbing the trigger for the ripper and causing it to roar to life. Filigree looked back at Shock as Sticky Hooves slumped over and and started bleeding out. "Right. Alicorn regeneration."

She aimed the pistol at Shock and fired the remaining round into her. The bullet slammed into the alicorn's neck, causing her to collapse as blood began gushing out of the artery.

Filigree tried to fire again, but the weapon only clicked empty. She shook her head and walked over to a nearby terminal. "Now then," she said while she began typing. "I'm going to show you true power. You're going to sit there like a good dog and I'm going to send these ghouls on a trip they'll never forget."

Shock looked over at Sticky Hooves. The dead mare's eyes were wide in shock and a puddle of warm stick blood surrounded her. However, the green alicorn noticed a faint glint coming from under Sticky Hooves. She glanced over at filigree, then at Sticky hooves and slowly used her magic to turn the mare over to get a good look at the glint. What she saw was a small five shot revolver in a holster with a single reload.

Shock nodded at her luck and looked up, whispering, "thank you Goddess, thank you."

She gently slid the pistol over and un-holstered it as she slowly stood up, aiming the weapon at Filigree's side. Time, for Shell Shock, slowed to a crawl as she slipped into S.A.T.S. and observed Filigree typing on the terminal. She knew that if Filigree completed whatever she was doing, the ghouls probably would not make it. Despite her not knowing who the ghouls were or what they stood for, she knew what she had to do. The green alicorn selected Filigree's chest and gulped, slowly nodding to let the spell drop.

Shock felt the targeting spell take hold and help guide her aim as she pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. At the distance she stood, she could not miss her target, but wanted to be sure since tiny pistols were not her favorite of weapons. The first bullet slammed into Filigree's shoulder where it met the rest of her body and burned its way inside her flesh, Shock's second bullet smashed just above the first to the same effect, while the third bored its way into a rib, snapping it on its way into a lung. Filigree stumbled sideways in a cry of pain as her shoulder went limp and the gryphon fell to the ground.

Shock slowly walked over to the injured gryphon as the base began shaking. Outside, and on the monitor, one could see the rocket slowly making its way skyward trailing a pillar of fire. However, Shell Shock ignored the screen in favor of looking at the trajectory. The small screen showed an orb representing Equestria, the moon and the sun with a projected flight path that took the rocket around the moon and straight into the sun, cautions Shock to frown.

"You're too late!" Filigree laughed, and began coughing violently as blood spilled out of her beak. "They're doomed. You failed!"

Shock, however, saw a flashing button marked 'abort launch' and thought for a moment. In that moment of hesitation, Filigree lashed out, her talons tearing flesh and muscle with ease, causing Shock to drop the pistol when her magic field imploded with an audible pop and dropping the pistol to the ground. Filigree quickly swiped the gryphon pistol in her claws and aimed it at Shock, triggering the last two rounds in the cylinder.

Both bullets slammed into the alicorn, one burrowing its way almost to her foreleg while the other one barely hit her and sent a chunk of her flesh flying. Shock screamed in agony at having been shot again, her magic gripping the nearby ripper. As it roared to life, Filigree's eyes widened in complete shock.

"Why won't you just die?!" the gryphon screamed as the whirring weapon was dragged over and brought up in an arc. "No!" She shouted, triggering the empty weapon a couple of times just before the chainsaw sword was brought down on her chest. Its sharp hellhound teeth ripped through flesh, bone and sinew with ease as it sprayed blood out over the handle.

Shock quickly looked over at the terminal and canceled the new flight plan, bringing up the old one where they would orbit the moon before returning to Equestria.

The alicorn looked down at the dead gryphon as she pulled out her sword and licked one of the unmoving blades, tilting her head at the odd taste of the blood since it didn’t taste like pony blood, but passed it off as tasting like gryphon blood. With a shrug, she picked up the fob watch that was her payment and began limping out. She didn't care for empty revolvers that could not be used when she went invisible, neither did she care to check the gryphon over for extra bits. Shell Shock only wanted to get home and figure out how to help her alicorn Sister, Mudpie.

As she walked out of the room and headed towards a door marked on her compass, a golden glow emanated from the room behind her, but the green glow of her horn and the faded lights nearby made it impossible for her to see.

----------

Shell Shock: Level up!

New perk - Wild Wild Wasteland. Due to unforeseen circumstances and other general wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, some normal encounters are replaced with a Wild Wild Wasteland variant. Which ones are up to speculation because time is ever changing.

Author's Notes:

Happy April Fools' Day ;) (Or is it?)