Ponyshock

Ponyshock

Chapter 3: Something About Alicorns

“The wings and the horn never deteriorate, no matter how much L.U.N.A. is used.”

Gene swore the tunnel leading to the medical pavillion was longer than the one to Handy Harnesses. It didn’t help that hybrids flooded into both sides of the tunnel. Luckily through his armor and a fair bit of first aid hypos, he managed to finally make it to the medical pavilion.

The pavilion itself was widely varied. Rather than be laid out like a conventional hospital, it was instead laid out like a fast food court. Cremations to the left, plastic surgery to the right, and traditional medical care in the middle.

“Alright lad,you’re going to want to go left. Keep heading until you get-” started Carter, before being interrupted by an all too familiar voice.

“Planning to go to the sub pens, are we? Well, I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears your exit has been blocked off,” said Progress. A loud clank in the distance punctuated his last statement.

“Dammit Progress, how did you hack into this channel?” shouted Carter, angrily.

“You act like its some mystery of what frequency you’re talking on,” replied Progress. “This is my city, and I reserve the right to listen to what radio broadcasts I wish.”

Gene’s blood began to boil. All he wanted to do was leave, but Progress was doing everything he could to make it difficult on him.

“Now if you two will excuse me for a minute, I must deliver a message to my esteemed citizens.” The intercom system began to broadcast. “The parasprite has made his way into the medical pavilion. A limitless supply of L.U.N.A. awaits the citizen who kills it.”

Various shouts erupted from the medical pavilion. Hybrids began to pour in to the main hall from all angles. Gene dived behind an overturned table, and activated his armor. This was not going to be an easy fight.

***

Finishing the last of an almost limitless stream of hybrids, Gene began to loot the corpses of his adversaries. His sparkle and first aid hypos were all used up, but luckily the bodies had enough bullets to replace whatever he shot. He was also delighted to find a modified submachine gun on one of the corpses, with plenty of ammo to keep it sustained. He was even more amazed to find his harness greedily snatching it from his hooves. It then proceeded to disassemble it in a manner similar to his revolver. When he picked it up, the gun was considerably heavy. Now it felt as if it weighed nothing. He was in the middle of using the bits he scrounged to buy first aid hypos, when Carter began to speak.

“Look kid, it looks like Progress locked you into Medical. What your going to want to do is find the override key. To the best of my knowledge, it should be in the possession of a Dr. Pristine Plastics. She’s insane, constantly trying to find a cure for the physical deformities L.U.N.A. use causes. The insane part is she’s doing it for Celestia, who apparently appears to her in weird visions. She split with Progress a while back, so I wouldn’t expect to find any L.U.N.A. here, outside of the Little Fillies of course. Now if you would be so kind as to go to her office and retrieve that key.”

Gene finished retrieving the hypos he wanted and proceeded to the aforementioned office. After all, Carter hadn’t been wrong before.

***

Gene pounded against the door as hard as he could. Of course the office was blocked off. Rather than being locked however, it was instead frozen solid, jamming the internal mechanisms of the door. Gene was patiently awaiting the direction of Carter, when a new voice chimed in over the radio.

“Hello, dearie,” said a distinctly feminine voice over the radio. “My name is Pristine Plastics, and I do believe you can be some use to me.”

“Kid, she’s crazy.” interjected Carter “Don’t listen to a word she says!”

“Aw Carter, can’t you just let the poor kid assist me with one teeny tiny experiment,” cooed the mare over the radio. “I’ll give him the key out as his reward, and if my experiment goes over as planned, he’ll get so much more.”

Cater grumbled, clearly thinking over his options. A short time later he sighed; “Alright Pristine, what do you want him to do?”

“Well, first off I’d like him to unfreeze the door. Unfortunately his little airship damaged the coolant pipe, and I lack an inferno plasmid to get out. Luckily, there is a fresh vial in the morgue region of the pavilion. So, I’d have him go there,” said the mare. Gene heard a bit of seduction in her voice, which made him a bit uncomfortable. “In the meanwhile I have another patient to attend to.” The transmission then cut out, leaving Gene alone once again.

Gene turned to head back to the entrance of the pavilion, when a safe caught his eye. Curiosity overtook the unicorn, and he proceeded to pry open the safe. His curiosity was well rewarded, as multiple first aid and sparkle hypos poured out onto the floor. Gene greedily shoved them into his harness, when the tapes in the back of the safe finally caught his eye. Finishing off the hypos, Gene popped the first tape into his radio.

***

“A patient approached me today complaining of a growth on his back. I was initially going to dismiss it as a common blemish, but when he showed it to me, I was amazed to find the growth was not only large and noticeable, but also glowed bright blue. Quickly I arranged for the growth to be cut off so I could examine it further. The results under the microscope were even more surprising. It appears the unruly growth is a group of cells that have gained a chemical dependency to L.U.N.A.. I immediately contacted Progress about this, and he said he knew nothing of strange growths caused by L.U.N.A. use. Still, I’m not taking any chances with this. I have ordered all medical personnel to stop their L.U.N.A. use until further investigations can be made. In the meanwhile I’m expecting many more customers with the same problems.”

“More and more ponies are coming with these growths. It’s amazing how quickly this situation is growing out of hand. Our medical supplies aren’t designed for this much use, so Progress is sending some engineers to upgrade them for constant use. Still, the growths don’t inhibit a pony in any real way. I’m honestly considering sending away some ponies who can’t pay. Sure, it looks nasty and disgusting, but it also does nothing to a pony's body outside of feeding on any L.U.N.A. that the host takes. Still, it only looks like extreme L.U.N.A. usage causes this, so my decision to cut back on L.U.N.A. is most beneficial.”

“Remember how I said the growths only showed up with extreme L.U.N.A. usage? Well that turned out to be quite false. Everypony, including medical personnel, have been reporting these growths. I have since stopped L.U.N.A. use altogether. Worse is studies show these chemicals create a chemical dependency in their host, much like taking other drugs. Progress has since told me not to publish the report, claiming the results are inconclusive. Honestly he sounds like a drug kingpin who just learned he was going to make an influx of profits. Still, he runs the place which makes me obligated to agree with him.”

“Well my worst fears have become realized. I too have the growths blemishing my perfect image. When I woke up from sedation after having it removed, I was amazed to find Celestia standing there. She asked me if I was willing to help her with something. I eagerly complied. She wants me to solve this growth problem once and for all. I am more than happy to oblige.”

“Celestia’s getting impatient. Work is slow especially since she has to hide whenever anypony else is around. Meanwhile we are having to turn away perfectly good test subjects since they don’t have the bits to pay for the medical supplies. Celestia urges me to let them in, but Progress is having none of that. He says the pavilion is a business, not a charity. I say he’s a shithead. Nopony wouldn’t pay through the nose for a cure for this problem. All we have to do is discover it. Isn’t that right Celestia?”

“Celestia is an absolute wonder to behold. She works with such diligence and focus. I pray that one day I too could be so efficient. Still, progress on a cure has been slow. At this point, we aren’t serving anyone who can’t pay at least a hundred bits per growth. We’re also beginning to throw away samples of tissue as we have no space for them. It’s disgusting, tedious, and wasting the goddess’ and my time.”

“We may have just discovered a major breakthrough. There I was, checking samples, when Celestia comes over to ask me a question. She asked me why she couldn’t find any horns or wings with growths on them. I couldn’t answer that question but that did give me an idea. Checking sample of skin from my horn, I discovered that the cells there actively filtered the L.U.N.A. with ease. Celestia’s wing samples yielded the same result. We may have just found our cure.”

***

After what seemed like hours of walking, Gene finally reached the morgue. Gene was truly convinced Plastics was crazy. Still, he had to admit, she did have good intentions. As he hesitantly approached the entrance to the pavilion, Gene noticed how empty it really was at this point. Barely any hybrids had interrupted him since he was initially attacked. The only company he had anymore was a single Big Stallion, repeatedly banging on a small steel opening. It was a little disquieting for Gene.

The morgue was almost burnt to a crisp. Papers and wood burned in the room, while the charred remains of several hybrids stunk up the room. Gene got the sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t going to be as simple as fetching the tonic.
“Aw, yes on important caveat deary,” said Pristine over the radio. “The inferno tonic is currently in the possession of a former assistant of mine. He had certain qualms about my experiments and ran off with it. My information says he is currently barricaded in the back of the morgue.”

Gene stepped forward into an office, only to be blasted with a rigged shotgun. “Shit,” he thought, as a first aid hypo was injected. He’d have to be much more careful around here. Cautiously he stepped from behind the wall, and picked up the shotgun. It was an old lever action model, which his harness was more than happy to take from his possession. As the gun was disassembling, Gene took note there were only three shells left.

The rest of the morgue was just as bad as far traps were concerned. Gene however quickly wised up to them, disarming every mine and rigged shotgun he could find. Eventually, Gene found his way to the center of the morgue. He opened the door only to be fired upon by a turret. He ducked out of the cone of fire, but not before taking a few shots in between the gaps of his armor. He watched in dismay as he used up the last of his first aid hypos. After making sure his wounds were properly healed, he made one deft movement in which he disabled the turret with a blast of his electroshock.

The room was occupied by a single corpse with a pistol nestled firmly between its teeth. A vial a a blood red liquid rested on the desk behind the corpse; alongside a tape. As he held up the vial with his magic, preparing a syringe to inject the disgusting liquid into his bloodstream, he also popped the tape into his radio and began to listen.

***

Crazy Bitch is trying to kill me. She says she’s only trying to help, but surgically transferring extra body parts ain’t what I signed up for. So I did the only logical thing,steal her damn inferno plasmid and freeze her into her office. Great plan right? Wrong! Crazy bitch sends her own hitman after me. I ain’t letting him take me down though. I’m going to die riding on a cloud of pure bliss this plasmid has to offer. To whoever is listening to this, Fuck you!

***

Gene really hadn’t expected much more from the audio recording. Honestly he was surprised a single hybrid managed to formulate any plan what so ever, let alone one so good. At least, until he showed up.

Shrugging away any preconceived notions of hybrid intelligence, Gene injected what remained of the plasmid into his bloodstream. The effect was almost immediate. His hoof was completely consumed in bright red flame. However any pain was either ignored or nonexistent. Focusing his energy, Gene fired a large ball of flame from his hoof. It quickly devoured what was left of the desk in front of him. Gene grinned. This was going to be fun.

***

Still keeping his sadistic grin, Gene incinerated the last of the wandering hybrids To get it the way of his journey back to Pristine. Sure it cost him S.P.A.R.K.L.E hypos to recharge his L.U.N.A, but with the bits that remained in the ash piles he was creating, he could always buy more. Without even consulting Carter, Gene blasted the door to Pristine’s office with a glowing ball of powerful fire. The door thawed instantaneously.

“Kid, wait, before you go in there,” Carter began futilely. Gene was euphoric with power, and was throwing caution to the wind. Gene triumphantly marched into the office, but not before turning off his radio. He didn’t want to be told what to do.

The office was huge. A spacious area to do paperwork lead into a private surgery ward. Gene marched to a large window overlooking the main surgery ward. To his disgust he walked in on a surgery taking place, and not a particularly pretty on either.

“No, you aren’t supposed to die. The gel is used to bound your skull to the horn, not burn holes in it!” a mare Gene could only assume was Pristine yelled, pounding a bloody horn into the poor hybrids skull. The unfortunate pegasus had long since died, but was still being brutally mauled by the crazed doctor.

“Now I have to find a new.... oh thank you Celestia. Greetings new test subject,” said the crazed doctor. In an instant she lifted a crossbow from behind a surgery table and fired.

Gene had no time to react. The bolt struck him squarely in the shoulder, but surprisingly stopped there. Using his magic Gene pulled the bolt from his shoulder. As his vision faded he took note that the bolt was actually a syringe.

***

Gene woke up from a pleasant slumber. He was still groggy, but quickly noted he was strapped to a surgery table. Examining his surroundings he noticed the pegasus corpse haphazardly thrown into a corner of the room. His wings were conspicuously missing. Gene’s wings sprung to attention at this. Notably shocked with his new found appendage, Gene screamed.

Authors notes: Hey guys, thanks for reading this far. This will be the first chapter released since Harmony was released. The existence of that story is going to slow down this story’s progress dramatically. I’m not stopping, just note that updates for this story aren’t going to be frequent. I have other projects planned so if you’d like to try those on for a change then feel free. Sorry D: