//------------------------------// // Chapter Five: Shopping Spree // Story: The Adventures of Bassicus // by Dubious //------------------------------// Chapter Five: Shopping Spree Proofread by The11thWonder Bassicus awoke to dubstep coming from the next room. It struck him as odd that a civilization without electrical grids could produce the wubs. After exiting his room he honed in on the source, the fact that his Pip-boy labeled it as a quest and gave him a quest marker helped a bit. After knocking on the offender’s door, he waited. After three minutes of waiting he knocked again, only this time he knocked hard enough to crack the wood. "Hang on, I'm coming!" A voice yelled from the other side of the door, after the music had been turned off. "What is it dweeb?" Gilda asked as she opened her door, which fell apart after a few seconds. "What did you do to my door!" She yelled at him, causing the six guards hiding in the shadows to jump out and receive a saturnite boot to the head. "Your music woke me up, either soundproof your room or stop listening to dubstep." "What's dubstep?" Gilda asked as she scratched her head. "The music you were listening to." "That wasn't dubstep, it was basstrot." "I'm gonna go burn down an orphanage, see ya in a few." Bassicus cheerily waved at her before setting off towards his new quest marker. "Uh guards, I think you should stop him." "Pain... Pain... Oh look a bit!" The downed guards writhed, disoriented. "Fine. I guess I'll have to stop him myself." She huffed as she retrieved her Morningstar. After wandering around the castle awhile she saw Bassicus in the kitchens having a cook off with the chefs. "So you aren't gonna burn down that orphanage I take it?" "Nah, I already burnt it down." He said whilst pointing out the window at a smoldering pile of ashes. "Why didn't anyone stop you?" She asked in horror. "Yeah, like they were really gonna stop the guy scrapping twenty killer robots that happened to burn down the orphanage he was gonna burn down himself." He then proceeded to point to the remains of twenty securitrons. "What are those?" "Securitrons, I may have pissed off the courier. I'm still a little confused... Ah fuck." He finally remembered. "What?" "I forgot to remove the schematics for my dimensional mover device from the servers at Big MT." "What's so bad about that?" "Now the Think Tank has access to multiple dimensions." "It can't be THAT bad." Gilda said completely dismissing his concerns. "Yeah, you're right. *Ding* OOH! My muffins are ready!" He said, quickly dashing over to the oven. Somewhere in Ponyville, a blue-gray Pegasus suddenly started nodding in approval, much to the confusion of everypony around her. ~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~ Meanwhile, in another Equestria. "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!" screamed a pony as countless thousands were fleeing from the ruins of Fillydelphia. The cause of their terror? Cazador Ponies. "You cannot stop science equines! You can only delay its arrival!" Dr. Klein shouted over the panicking ponies. "Surrender now, so we can further science!" In a flash of light Princess Celestia appeared, ready to do battle with the monsters attacking her little ponies. She wasn't prepared to see a swarm of mutated ponies chasing after the citizens of Fillydelphia. "What the BUCK is going on here?!" She shouted in the RCV. "Submit to science!" Dr. Klein called out to Celestia, before zapping her with a stun laser. ~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~ "I don't understand! How can you make such good muffins?" Gilda asked, having a mouth orgasm from the overwhelming flavor of the muffin Bassicus had made. "If you can make radroach meat taste good, you can make anything taste good." "You just have to share your secrets with us!" One of the chefs said, looking a little disappointed he'd already finished his muffin. "I would, but it took me fifty years to perfect a cooking technique for radroach meat." "Then I shall find one of these radroaches and learn to cook it." "Fat chance, they only exist in the wasteland." "I see." "Also they're like the size of a large cat." The chef blanched a bit. "This wasteland must have a pretty big pest problem." "Nah, Deathclaws and Super Mutants keep the bug populations down, except for the giant fire ants." "Please don't tell me you have griffon sized ants that breathe fire." "Nope." "Thank Gryffious." "They're as long as I am tall." "I'm just gonna think of you as a badass exterminator." One of the chefs said as he backed away. "Queens are the size of a garden shed." "I suddenly have a bug phobia." One of the other chefs said, wandering away aimlessly. "I suggest you stop traumatizing the chefs, Bassicus." Gilda suggested. "But I didn't even get to tell them about the Legendary Bloatfly the Courier told me about." "You didn't fight it?" "Nope." "Well, let's get going. Don't want anybody getting any ideas about us." "Please, I could get anyone I want." "I doubt that." Gilda replied with a snort. "I'll have you know I've had sexual intercourse with over two thousand women, and at least eighty percent of it was consensual." He said, slightly increasing how fast he was talking at the end. "What?" Gilda asked him with a confused look. "Nothing. Now let's get breakfast." He told her, quickly moving to the door. "Okay. What a weird guy." She muttered to herself, following Bassicus. Twelve minutes later they arrived in the Feast Hall. "Ah! I see you are getting to know my daughter Bassicus!" The high King called out from his position at the head of the table. "If you touch my daughter, I'll geld you with a rusty knife." Gilda’s mother warned. "I'm pretty sure you would, but I doubt you'd really want to take away my exes revenge from her." "She sounds like a reasonable woman." "She slaughtered hundreds of innocents to keep the Mojave under her control." "... Nevermind then." The High Queen said, trying to forget she complimented a genocidal tyrant. "It's alright, she's not gonna get anywhere. Unless she manages to finish my designs for a high energy cutting laser." He said, suddenly looking around. "I'm assuming that's bad?" "Only if I ever want to have kids. Which I have like fifty of." At that announcement he got a round of raucous cheering from all the male griffons in the room. "Now that's the way to keep the line going!" One of them chuckled. "The first forty got eaten by raiders." At that, they all shut up. "But in my defense, they weren't exactly what you'd call 'normal'." "What do you mean?" "One of them had scales." "Ah." "Yeah, that's what you get for living in an irradiated wasteland... and being brutally experimented on by aliens." "Everygrif knows aliens don't exist." "Well duh! These aliens are from my dimension." "Oh. Right." "Now then, let’s get some breakfast." He said in a cheery tone, hoping to get the subject off his many, many, many misadventures. "Ah yes, I think I'll have a well done pony." The High King said. "Aren't those the natives of that Equestria place I've heard about?" "Yes. But they taste so delicious." "Well then, getting off the topic of eating sentient creatures. I'll have a medium rare steak, a large salad, a large glass of wine, another medium rare steak, and some eggs." After all the orders were taken everyone degenerated into small talk. "So, Bassicus, what's the biggest thing you've killed?" The griffon next to Bassicus asked. "That would have to be the Titan." "Wow. You killed a Titan. Impressive." "Not a Titan, just a monster called Titan." "Oh, I thought you were one of those legendary Titan slayers I've heard about." "Still didn't stop it from being the size of a small city. Boy was I glad I pilfered that Pre-War nuclear storage facility." "What was there?" The griffon asked. "Just a couple dozen nukes." "Only a couple dozen? Clearly you were beaten there." "They're the size of the High King and are powerful enough to destroy everything in a twelve mile radius." The Griffon sputtered, suddenly feeling inadequate. "It's only natural when you learn of something designed to destroy cities." Bassicus shrugged. "I'm Lord Argillos." "And I'm Bassicus. Pleasure to meet you Lord Argillos." "The pleasure's all mine. You should come to my estate for dinner sometime; I'd be great for my sons to see a true warrior." "Sure, I might even have a weapons demonstration for them." "I'd like that. I'll send my assistant to pick you up tomorrow." "Sure." "Hey Bassicus." Gilda chimed in "Yes Gilda?" He asked, rubbing his temples. "My dad said you have to guard me when I go shopping today." "Oh joy. I get to escort a princess around on a shopping spree. What's a shopping spree anyway?" Bassicus asked, only to receive a facepalm from all the men and a gasp from all the women. Gilda was genuinely shocked. "You don't know what a shopping spree is?" "You're in for it now." Argillos whispered into his ear. "It's one of the greatest things ever! You get to travel around the city-" One twenty minute lecture later. "-And that's how Gryphos was made." Gilda concluded. "I'm holding plasma." Bassicus replied, holding up a ball of plasma in his hand. "I'm just gonna treat you like Pinkie Pie." Gilda said through her claw, which was strategically placed on her face. "Who's Pinkie Pie?" "I'll tell you when you meet her." "Okay." "Breakfast is served!" A waiter called out, signaling servants to fade into existence with all the requested meals. "You wanna know what I just realized?" "What?" Gilda asked, claw still resting on her face. "Everyone but me and the High King ordered cereal or oats." "I guess it's because their appetites aren't as big as ours." The High King laughed. "Well I don't really need to eat a lot, or at all really. I guess I just do it because I can." "What do you mean you don't need to eat? Everything needs to eat; it's the natural order of things." "Well tell that to the Think Tank before they replaced several organs of mine with machine versions, and but a small fission reactor in me." "So THAT'S why the maids were complaining your toilet was glowing." A griffon in a labcoat said. "Yep, radioactive pee." "That must suck. Slowly poisoning yourself every time you piss." "Nah. I sorta just... stopped being affected by radiation one day. It can even heal me. I'm still trying to pull my head around it, and it happened SEVENTY years ago." "I MUST study you!" Science Griffon called out, rushing out of the Feast Hall to god knows where. "So, what's that guy’s name?" Bassicus asked. "Science Griffon." One of the griffons sitting across the table from him told him. "Not the weirdest name I've heard." Bassicus said, sticking half a steak in his mouth and chewing. "What's the weirdest?" "Gashbrialla, ghang on. *Gulp*. Much better, the weirdest name I've ever heard is Yu." "Me?" "No, Yu." "Yes, me." "No, no. The name is Yu." "Oh. I see. That is a weird name." "I know." Bassicus said, sticking the other half of the steak in his mouth. ~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~ Three hours later Bassicus was repeatedly banging his head on a wall. "Why... Must... I... Be... Forced... To... Endure... This... Torture?" He said, accentuating each word with a hit. "Oh stop being a baby and check out the outfit I picked for you." "Please, for the love of God, send an assassin army of killer robots to make this torture stop!" Bassicus said, falling to his knees and praying. The heavens, feeling sorry for Bassicus, but still angry at him for poking fun at gravity, decided to send a just one killer robot assassin. "I am G-17 Alpha, you will peacefully forfeit your life, or I will kill you." "THANK YOU!" Bassicus cheered. "Resistance detected. Terminating!" The Killer Robot Assassin said, revving up its plasma casters. "Oh, shut up." Bassicus pointedly told the Killer Robot Assassin, pointing his pistol at it and firing ten rounds. Only to be met with ten resounding pings. "Well that's not good." The said, before receiving a dozen plasma shots to the chest. "That… was less effective than I thought it would be." Bassicus blinked, confused. "What are you standing around for?! RUN!!" Gilda yelled, before the robot cut her off. "You are now the prisoner of Queen Chrysalis, ruler of Equus. Come peaceful or be ter-" The robot was cut off, both mid-sentence and at the middle, by Bassicus' Halberd slicing through it like butter. "Never stop shooting me until you're sure I'm dead." He grunted as he pulled his halberd out of a wall. "Thanks, you're not such a dweeb after all." "Sure thing, hipster." Bassicus said, looking around a bit, before torching the outfit Gilda bought for him. "Oh no. The robot destroyed the outfit you picked for me." He lied, terribly. "Well it's a good thing I bought two." Gilda smiled. "This happens a lot, doesn't it?" Bassicus deadpanned. "Noooooooo." Gilda said, dismissing what Bassicus said with a wave of her claw. "Let's just get on with this." Bassicus sighed. Why does everything not involving combat or navigating dangerous ruins have to be so horrible? He pondered to himself. "Hey, Bassicus. What do you think of this?" Gilda asked. "It's great." Bassicus replied, not looking up from where he was watching some Futurama on his Pip-boy. "You didn't even look." Gilda reprimanded him. "Fin I'll look. It's gr- DAFUQ?!" he suddenly blurted, seeing Gilda scantily clad in lingerie. "Told ya so." Gilda responded, smartly. "Oh I'm so getting you back for this." He warned. "I doubt it." Gilda laughed, only to freeze when several flashes happened in quick succession. "What was that?" She asked Bassicus. "Oh, it was nothing." It replied with an innocent look on his face. "You took picture didn't you? I didn't know you were into griffins." Gilda said with a sly grin. "Nope, it was that guy over there." He pointed to an inconspicuous cloud. "Ah crap!" A griffon suddenly shot out of the cloud and into the distance. "How'd you know he was there?" "My helmet detects lifeforms in a two hundred metre radius, and gives me a readout on their vitals, injuries and, for some reason, whether or not the detected life form is either in heat, estrus or is ovulating." "Now why would it do that?" Gilda rhetorically asked. "I think it's because I let that pervert back in the Capital Wasteland tinker with it." Bassicus answered her. Gilda wryly grinned, "Sure, whatever you say." "Ugh, how much longer do I have to do this?" Bassicus groaned. "Relax, we're only halfway through." "Hey, look over there!" Bassicus pointed in a random direction and ran off when Gilda took the bait. "What're you on about? There's nothing... there. Where'd you go?" Meanwhile, three blocks away at an Ice-cream shop. "I'll have a double vanilla with chocolate shaving and a flake, please." "That'll be four bits." The shop owner said, not even bothering why there was a strange creature in his shop, he'd learnt not to question these things when the Princesses friend came over for a visit. "When I find that dweeb, he'll be in so much trouble." Gilda growled. "Who'll be in trouble?" Bassicus asked, walking up whilst easting an Ice-cream. "You are- Where'd you get the ice-cream?" She asked once she spotted his ice-cream. "I got hungry so I distracted you and fled- Er I mean, strategically retreated- to the nearest ice-cream shop." "I was going to stop by a restaurant in ten minutes." Gilda told him. "It'd feel too much like a date. And that'd give people ideas." He stated to Gilda. "True, except you're my bodyguard, so it merely counts as you doing your job." "…Touché." ~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~ Two hours later, Bassicus was helping carry Gilda’s shopping to her room, much to the confusion of the guards who saw him. "So you can just dump it all on my bed." Gilda told whilst looking in her wardrobe. "Sure thing." Bassicus said, walking up to the bed. Just as he was dumping the stuff on the bed a guard walked in and had a brain failure at seeing fifty shopping bags suddenly appear on the bed. "Hello?" Gilda asked as she waved a claw in front of the guard, who’s eyes were blue and had lines of white text scrolling down them. "HA! He had a blue screen of death." Bassicus laughed, only to suddenly stop and say uh-oh as a Please contact system administrator popped up in his brain. "What?" Gilda asked, seeing the distant look in Bassicus' eyes. "Oh, I get it. You're fantasizing about me, aren't you?" She asked with a cheeky grin. Around this time the guard’s brain had reset. "Princess, the High King requests you and Commander Bassicus immediate presence in the throne room." Hearing himself referred to as a commander seemed to snap him out of his brain error. "What do you mean 'commander'?" Bassicus asked the guard. "The High King has bestowed upon you the rank of Commander." "But he said I was just an honorary member of the military." "He told me to inform you of your promotion when I came to retrieve you and the princess." "Well I'll come along then, not sure about Gilda though." At his casually saying Gilda’s name without her title in front of it, the guard gasped. "How dare you refer to Princess Gilda in such a way!" The guard growled. "Because you really want to fuck with the guy who gets into fist fights with Deathclaws on a daily basis." "…Nevermind then, I'll let the High King deal with you." After following the guard to the throne room, Bassicus and Gilda entered. "Ah Gilda, I'm so glad to see you safe, and it's all thanks to you, Bassicus." The High King boomed. "It was just a robot, nothing I haven't brutally over killed before." Bassicus stated, nonchalantly. "I see, tell me, why did it say my daughter was a prisoner of Queen Chrysalis?" "Oh, I was found in a changeling hive after having escaped from a cell." "Interesting, can you tell me as to how they had a sudden massive technological breakthrough?" "Something about them reading my mind, which is incredibly hard to do by the way, so kudos to them for getting even the basics for building a giant robot assassin." "And why would it be hard to read your mind?" The High King asked, interested. "Because, when I was abducted, one of the experiments they did was digitalizing my entire consciousness, both waking and subconscious, and replaced my natural brain with an entirely mechanical one." "I see. How much of a weakness does this entail?" "None, aside from the occasional bout of insanity." "I see. Well I must still thank you for saving my daughter. As a reward I offer you the finest... Uh actually, I'll just pay you a thousand bits." "Sweet. Why'd you suddenly change your mind anyway?" "Because the standard reward for saving my daughter is redundant to you." "Fair enough, what would you have given me anyway?" "An enchanted sword of the finest make." "I'll take the sword." "Wouldn't you prefer the bits?" The High King asked curiously. "I'd never turn up the chance to procure a named weapon, they're always better." "How'd you know it was named?" "Everything you get from a quest is either money of a named weapon." "Okay? Well here is your reward. The War Sabre known as Dragons Kin." The High King said whilst presenting Bassicus with a massive sabre. "Sweet." Bassicus said as the sabre suddenly vanished and a random sound played. "I just leveled up too." "Leveled up?" "Just… just leave it dad, I’ve decided to treat him like everygrif treats Pinkie Pie." "Oh. That bad huh?" "Yea." "Who's this damn Pinkie Pie everyone's on about?" "Never you mind. You may leave now; I'd like to talk to my daughter in private." "Sure." Bassicus waved goodbye as he exited the throne room. "So, how'd it go?" The guard asked him. "I got a sword!" Bassicus announced as he drew Dragons Kin off his belt, after it suddenly appeared of course. "I see, I'll escort you back to your quarters." the Guard told him. "Lead the way." "Yes, sir." The guard saluted before leading Bassicus to his quarters. ~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~ "The machine failed to kidnap the princess, my Queen." The messenger explained. "I thought you assured me it would succeed?" "It was assured against anything from Equus, but not anything from another dimension." "GRAHHHHH!" Chrysalis yelled in fury at the incompetence of her underlings. If you something done, you'll have to do it yourself.