Woah... That was, wow. Everyone should now worship Malice. I hope Mender is okay-ish enough to not die, can't kill a legend. The ending here was rather suiting, I liked the soft, easy feel that it has, not all brutal and not like "...and I slept" it was just really nice.
Looked forward to this, loved it, but I was expecting (and hoping for, let's be honest) more un-censorship on the Tentacle/Rainbow part, if you know what I mean.
Holy shit! You weren't kidding when you said that was an important chapter!
While I don't think Mender is dead, I'm curious to see the effect that the Elements of Harmony had on him. At first it seemed like they just removed the 4th core turned aegis artifact, but from that last part where it seemed to have killed Malice as well I'm thinking that it might have purified his whole physical body. His OS wasn't rebooting and when it shutdown his mental plane was still there even with the OS turned off. I'm curious to see if the Elements restored his physical body.eh. Probably not. Being a cyborg is too cool and there's still some lose ends that can only be tied up if he was still a cyborg.
The whole fight in this chapter was so awesome! I'm never disappointed with your action scenes. I was kinda sad that it ultimately ended with the EoH being used since I've always seen them as a deus ex machina in the show, but at the same time I liked that it wasn't Mender in the end that saved himself, but it was his friends/lovers that came to his rescue and saved him in the end. It really shows just how close they've gotten and I hope because of this Mender can finally understand that they are his friends are always going to have his back and that he doesn't have to do everything himself. That's not to say that Mender didn't play a huge part in the resolution of this fight. He did more than his fair share dealing with The Captain by stopping him from taking over his body as well as the main 6's bodies. Plus he's the reason why The Captain was forced to retreat.
Heh, I loved the bit when Mender was explaining to them the swear words "bitch" and "fuck". They're in the middle of a crisis and here they are explaining the meaning behind curse words. Ha! I wonder if they're going to slip them into conversation just to tease Mender now. As much as I enjoyed that bit though, I wish I saw more back and forth between The Captain and Mender. I just found it interesting that had this happened near the beginning of-well I suppose it would have to be in the beginning of this story since The Captain didn't attach himself to Mender until him and Rainbow went back to his old dimension if I understood that correctly-I think he would have been able to convince Mender, at the very least, that the females in his life were only using him and had ulterior motives considering the experiences he remembers from his society and his personal love life (according to The Captain's memories anyways).eh. Maybe, maybe not. I still enjoyed the contrast of how they viewed the world and the situation they found themselves in.
I was actually kinda sympathetic to The Captain when he was explaining his reasoning behind what he did. From his point-of-view, he saw that everyone was going to die and that his species was going to be no more and felt his only course of action was to do what he did. It's not like a mass evacuation was possible. Keela and her crew seem to barely get by and they're just a small ship of Keldarians. I'm torn on it though because I can't agree with is methods to repopulate his species. I get that he's desperate, but enslaving others to become factories for re-population isn't right. I find myself understanding where The Captain is coming from, but I can't agree with the methods he would pursue to reach his ultimate goal. It's a shame that he carried so much hate and even after seeing things through Mender's eyes he couldn't let go of his misogyny. Might have been able to reach out to Mender and work towards a solution that didn't involve enslaving the population as baby making machines.
The hallucination at the beginning of the chapter had me on edge of my seat. One part of myself knew Twilight wasn't dead. Another part of me though wasn't so sure. It was a well written piece and it actually had me question what was real and what wasn't. I was just as lost and under The Captain's spell as Mender was. It was a tense moment. Well done on that Kiro.
I'm curious at what The Captain said to Applejack a few times throughout the chapter. It makes me excited to finally see Mender and Applejack finally have a heart to heart. I hope we get to see that soon. Also makes me curious whether Rainbow and Applejack are going to join the heard. I don't think they are and I kinda hope they don't. With Mender and Twilight's issues finally worked out it feels just right with it just being them three. Not that the idea isn't a fun one to entertain, but I feel it would just be too crowded with a 5 pony herd and Pinkie and Rarity are just awkwardly hanging out there. Like 6th and 7th wheels. That's not even including Sweetie Belle into the equation! That's a lot of pony.
Yup, this conversation had gone completely downhill, and off on a huge tangent away from, I don't know, actually stopping him from taking over my body and screwing us all over?!
No, just the girls
Comment posted by Buckin Bronco deleted Jul 3rd, 2019
that was a crazy chapter. defiantly worth waiting for the edits to be done. cant wait for the next to see how he pulls out of this one. Mender just think of Twi and Fluttershy, that will give you the will to pull through this!
after reading that body control part with Dash and Mender, now I kinda cant help but want at some point an extra chapter non-canon clop chapter. o well it looks like at least Dash n AJ will eventually be part of the herd at some point
turned to look back at Twilight, who was feeling her chest with her own hoof
but Twi wears a tiara, wouldn't she be feeling on her head
Okayyy.... Seeing a 16k chapter, I knew we were in for a time. But having just had a bit of fun, I opted for non-Censorship this time. The Twi-booty stare seemed to back up this decision. Well, now that this chapter is done, I feel a great need to give a full and in-depth comment. *deep breath*
Pinkie just smiled warmly after that, then shook her head. "I wasn't serious! But I did know that Mender would accept it.
Huh, it feels kind of weird to hear Pinkie refer to her oddity and abilities with any sort of descriptive or categorical word, even if that word is just "it".
"The black box just finished decrypting," I informed, snapping Twilight back to attention again almost immediately.
To which I thought he was just going to skim or (especially with a Censorship version existing) get distracted by wuv-wuv and then put it aside indefinitely like the video.
Then we start to get the distortions. Been a while. We're actually at a point and had enough new things to think on I actually thought it was potential that she was gone from the fic. Then we get some errors and firewall issues and bad code and I knew things were going down. So, switch to Censorship, let's go.
...maybe something about the black box itself hid from her powers of exposition.
Led me on a bit of a head-tangent. "Exposition" taken in the way of "exposing" more than "plot explaining." Considering the unique power ideas the later stuff in Bleach has (cutting words in half and the effect their meaning loses in the real world or controlling what mix quantities and lethal dose levels are), there could be so many ways to run with this idea of an ability that would be interesting. Might not fit the story, but it got me thinking.
Then... she's not she, she's a he. Huhhh.... Then who? Wasn't thinking into it too much at the time, but no one came to mind that perfectly fit the bill.
One of the best and worst parts of these kind of situations is not knowing how much is real or in his head. Back in 25 (well moreso 24 I think), we had no idea if Mender was full-crazy or just half-crazy, so attacking the Twi then seemed like it could easily go badly until he revealed (to us too) that the eye color was off and he was totally right. A perfect oh shit moment to start a chain of them. Here we get to see realTwi cut and seemingly die. With the threat of looming alicornization, this could have been real, her being revived in some odd way by nanites or skipping straight to the wings and solving everything somehow. Though, with no book involved, I didn't think that would be the case right then. Still was expecting a high chance of her ascending this chapter.
"Twilight, I'm being hijacked. Get yourself and the Elements of Harmony as far away from me as possible. All the way to Canterlot if you can teleport that far. Hurry!"
Sigh. Sometimes you have the right idea on sending them away though most times they can help you when you want them gone, Mender. This time you're right. But, you should have expected they wouldn't go (even if they can't go in a moment). Need some sort of code word for "No, seriously, get back to me, nothing you can do to help."
A memory flashed through me a moment later. It wasn't mine. It was my DNA donor's, and it surprised me.
For a sec, I misread this line and thought the guy was kelMend (easiest way to refer to, I'll stick with for now), but realized my mistake. Then took the memory aiding him to imply it wasn't kelMend taking over.
“But out of every ‘pony’ here that has dark, hidden little fantasies and secrets, I don’t think you have room to talk about my goals.” Her ears flattened back as she glared at him
Ohoho~ I am highly curious, but I doubt I'm ever going to get an answer.
I'm glad the eye color thing came back, both to explain why it happened, how it applies to him, and to show he wasn't just a computer program... which made the question of who even more up in the air.
One of the lower tentacles slid forward as well, and I froze, mind going blank as it started to slide up and down something warm and wet.
WELL. Unless I'm forgetting something, I think the first time we got the tentacles used in that way (which was promised) is this. Weird mix of 'wish it did more' and 'glad it didn't or it would taint ever using them again for that'.
I realized it now. That other me was me, but it wasn’t at the same time. I felt them, and knew that deep down, it was also Malice.
Okay, pause, pause, pause... I get ambiguousness, especially when it comes to mental stuff, but so many ways I could interpret this and did. Reread a few times to try and get which way you meant here. What I came away with was Mender realizing his anger he felt now and before did not come from him, but his donor's side of him and also the influence of Malice.
Now we transfer to the battle in the mind. The biggest, and likely unsolvable, problem with written medium is the difficulty in doing battle, namely personal combat. You describe movements well, but I still have to take time to think about each part and how they transition and where they are and just trying to picture it all. It worked out as well as it could, but it sucks there's no easy way to make it easy to visualize.
"Which I expected, from a creature who's using my memories."
So. It's here and the parts right after where we get the true reveal of who virusNirru is. I'll stuff all of the related comments here for simplicity. I was not sure how I felt on this, but filed it under keep reading, ponder later. I do like it better that he is more of a shadow of himself from the moment of death rather than himself fully. Becoming a aegis artifact back at the end of Memory is brilliant and I approve greatly. Do have to wonder on the activation and genocide. He claims he did it, but I feel there was more to the circumstances than just 'kill them all, revive later, perfect plan.' I always had a crazy idea for Nirru pairing up with an insane kelMend that was freakishly regrown from the limb Mender lost (pairing as in allies, not shipping), but I think that'll be cannibalized for ideas to transfer to other projects. I'm sad we don't get to get his name or time with the true Keldarian side of him, but I can accept this and did love all the antics and worries and insanity this version gave us.
Even though you didn't describe it as such, I pictured the versions of the mane six who entered Mender as more stylized and outlines with wispy features and moving coloring. Don't know why. Just made it cool. And really was expecting them to escape and use the elements to fix this all instead of going in, especially after having just been controlled via Mender (kinda). Though, it's them. Of course they'd head in.
Fluttershy's eyes widened as she looked back up, the point of the blade a meter from her head.
Huh. You've gotten me to the point where I'd actually prefer Fluttershy stay alive in this fic. Props.
My left foreleg extended, a massive claw of pure darkness grabbing the shard of energy out of the air, stopping it a centimeter from her left eye.
The paragraph leading into this made me thing for a moment Mender's anguish activated his genocide device, but glad it was this instead and love the way this plays out with Malice. Y'know, Malice was a concept you gave us not that long ago and I had little idea how that might be resolved or if it would even be resolved within the confines of this fic. But, for once, instead of dragging it out to all hell, you solved it in a good way very shortly after. Might not be completely gone, we'll see, but I approve of this method and outcome of dealing with Malice.
Hah. Hiding in his crystal and just waiting it out. Very anticlimactic except that all the fight was good enough that doesn't matter. And its good to see a villain going the smart way instead of the ambitious way.
Explaining those swears. To the mane six. Absolutely fantastic.
Aaaaaaand Mender dies again. Most of the last portion I feel I'll leave alone to see what happens. Not in too much of a theorizing mood. But what you should do is insert a bonus chapter which is the equivalent of Mender's funeral and epilogue from Memory but done in more of a 'didn't we do this already' slightly comedic vibe.
Overall, this chapter was a fantastic read and a good wrap-up (it seems) of a number of things that have been going for a long time. Looking forward to where we go from here. (Week timeskip?)
But what you should do is insert a bonus chapter which is the equivalent of Mender's funeral and epilogue from Memory but done in more of a 'didn't we do this already' slightly comedic vibe.
*notes minor word count differences*
*sees reasons for censorship*
*reaches black box reference*
...
*presses play*
This one works great for the start of the second round, too:
---
Nuh-uh, Kiro. You played that card last book. I'm not falling for it now.
Holy shit son, just dayum. I do believe this was one of the most epic and well thought out action scenes I've ever read, well done author.
Well, that was one heck of a chapter there...
Great action and a very dramatic ending. The anticipation for the next chapter is immeasurable!
THE CLIFFHANGER OF DESTINIES!!!!!!
*exasperated sigh* it goes on with out a doubt I will be literally chewing my nails until I read the next chapter!
And then Mender was kill. Or unconscious.
THIS CHAPTER...indescribably awsome
great job as always Kiro :D
Woah... That was, wow. Everyone should now worship Malice. I hope Mender is okay-ish enough to not die, can't kill a legend. The ending here was rather suiting, I liked the soft, easy feel that it has, not all brutal and not like "...and I slept" it was just really nice.
Holly hell I can say that i did not see THAT coming!
Looked forward to this, loved it, but I was expecting (and hoping for, let's be honest) more un-censorship on the Tentacle/Rainbow part, if you know what I mean.
Interesting. You sick bastard! Now I have to wait! I couldn't love you more.
Feels about right.
Damn it all now i can't w8 for the next chapter and this better not be the end!
Holy shit! You weren't kidding when you said that was an important chapter!
While I don't think Mender is dead, I'm curious to see the effect that the Elements of Harmony had on him. At first it seemed like they just removed the 4th core turned aegis artifact, but from that last part where it seemed to have killed Malice as well I'm thinking that it might have purified his whole physical body. His OS wasn't rebooting and when it shutdown his mental plane was still there even with the OS turned off. I'm curious to see if the Elements restored his physical body.eh. Probably not. Being a cyborg is too cool and there's still some lose ends that can only be tied up if he was still a cyborg.
The whole fight in this chapter was so awesome! I'm never disappointed with your action scenes. I was kinda sad that it ultimately ended with the EoH being used since I've always seen them as a deus ex machina in the show, but at the same time I liked that it wasn't Mender in the end that saved himself, but it was his friends/lovers that came to his rescue and saved him in the end. It really shows just how close they've gotten and I hope because of this Mender can finally understand that they are his friends are always going to have his back and that he doesn't have to do everything himself. That's not to say that Mender didn't play a huge part in the resolution of this fight. He did more than his fair share dealing with The Captain by stopping him from taking over his body as well as the main 6's bodies. Plus he's the reason why The Captain was forced to retreat.
Heh, I loved the bit when Mender was explaining to them the swear words "bitch" and "fuck". They're in the middle of a crisis and here they are explaining the meaning behind curse words. Ha! I wonder if they're going to slip them into conversation just to tease Mender now.
As much as I enjoyed that bit though, I wish I saw more back and forth between The Captain and Mender. I just found it interesting that had this happened near the beginning of-well I suppose it would have to be in the beginning of this story since The Captain didn't attach himself to Mender until him and Rainbow went back to his old dimension if I understood that correctly-I think he would have been able to convince Mender, at the very least, that the females in his life were only using him and had ulterior motives considering the experiences he remembers from his society and his personal love life (according to The Captain's memories anyways).eh. Maybe, maybe not. I still enjoyed the contrast of how they viewed the world and the situation they found themselves in.
I was actually kinda sympathetic to The Captain when he was explaining his reasoning behind what he did. From his point-of-view, he saw that everyone was going to die and that his species was going to be no more and felt his only course of action was to do what he did. It's not like a mass evacuation was possible. Keela and her crew seem to barely get by and they're just a small ship of Keldarians. I'm torn on it though because I can't agree with is methods to repopulate his species. I get that he's desperate, but enslaving others to become factories for re-population isn't right. I find myself understanding where The Captain is coming from, but I can't agree with the methods he would pursue to reach his ultimate goal. It's a shame that he carried so much hate and even after seeing things through Mender's eyes he couldn't let go of his misogyny. Might have been able to reach out to Mender and work towards a solution that didn't involve enslaving the population as baby making machines.
The hallucination at the beginning of the chapter had me on edge of my seat. One part of myself knew Twilight wasn't dead. Another part of me though wasn't so sure. It was a well written piece and it actually had me question what was real and what wasn't. I was just as lost and under The Captain's spell as Mender was. It was a tense moment. Well done on that Kiro.
I'm curious at what The Captain said to Applejack a few times throughout the chapter. It makes me excited to finally see Mender and Applejack finally have a heart to heart. I hope we get to see that soon. Also makes me curious whether Rainbow and Applejack are going to join the heard. I don't think they are and I kinda hope they don't. With Mender and Twilight's issues finally worked out it feels just right with it just being them three. Not that the idea isn't a fun one to entertain, but I feel it would just be too crowded with a 5 pony herd and Pinkie and Rarity are just awkwardly hanging out there. Like 6th and 7th wheels. That's not even including Sweetie Belle into the equation! That's a lot of pony.
Loved this chapter Kiro.
~Have a good one.
No, just the girls
that was a crazy chapter. defiantly worth waiting for the edits to be done. cant wait for the next to see how he pulls out of this one. Mender just think of Twi and Fluttershy, that will give you the will to pull through this!
after reading that body control part with Dash and Mender, now I kinda cant help but want at some point an extra chapter non-canon clop chapter. o well it looks like at least Dash n AJ will eventually be part of the herd at some point
but Twi wears a tiara, wouldn't she be feeling on her head
Okayyy.... Seeing a 16k chapter, I knew we were in for a time. But having just had a bit of fun, I opted for non-Censorship this time. The Twi-booty stare seemed to back up this decision. Well, now that this chapter is done, I feel a great need to give a full and in-depth comment. *deep breath*
Huh, it feels kind of weird to hear Pinkie refer to her oddity and abilities with any sort of descriptive or categorical word, even if that word is just "it".
To which I thought he was just going to skim or (especially with a Censorship version existing) get distracted by wuv-wuv and then put it aside indefinitely like the video.
Then we start to get the distortions. Been a while. We're actually at a point and had enough new things to think on I actually thought it was potential that she was gone from the fic. Then we get some errors and firewall issues and bad code and I knew things were going down. So, switch to Censorship, let's go.
Led me on a bit of a head-tangent. "Exposition" taken in the way of "exposing" more than "plot explaining." Considering the unique power ideas the later stuff in Bleach has (cutting words in half and the effect their meaning loses in the real world or controlling what mix quantities and lethal dose levels are), there could be so many ways to run with this idea of an ability that would be interesting. Might not fit the story, but it got me thinking.
Then... she's not she, she's a he. Huhhh.... Then who? Wasn't thinking into it too much at the time, but no one came to mind that perfectly fit the bill.
One of the best and worst parts of these kind of situations is not knowing how much is real or in his head. Back in 25 (well moreso 24 I think), we had no idea if Mender was full-crazy or just half-crazy, so attacking the Twi then seemed like it could easily go badly until he revealed (to us too) that the eye color was off and he was totally right. A perfect oh shit moment to start a chain of them. Here we get to see realTwi cut and seemingly die. With the threat of looming alicornization, this could have been real, her being revived in some odd way by nanites or skipping straight to the wings and solving everything somehow. Though, with no book involved, I didn't think that would be the case right then. Still was expecting a high chance of her ascending this chapter.
Sigh. Sometimes you have the right idea on sending them away though most times they can help you when you want them gone, Mender. This time you're right. But, you should have expected they wouldn't go (even if they can't go in a moment). Need some sort of code word for "No, seriously, get back to me, nothing you can do to help."
For a sec, I misread this line and thought the guy was kelMend (easiest way to refer to, I'll stick with for now), but realized my mistake. Then took the memory aiding him to imply it wasn't kelMend taking over.
Ohoho~ I am highly curious, but I doubt I'm ever going to get an answer.
I'm glad the eye color thing came back, both to explain why it happened, how it applies to him, and to show he wasn't just a computer program... which made the question of who even more up in the air.
WELL. Unless I'm forgetting something, I think the first time we got the tentacles used in that way (which was promised) is this. Weird mix of 'wish it did more' and 'glad it didn't or it would taint ever using them again for that'.
Okay, pause, pause, pause... I get ambiguousness, especially when it comes to mental stuff, but so many ways I could interpret this and did. Reread a few times to try and get which way you meant here. What I came away with was Mender realizing his anger he felt now and before did not come from him, but his donor's side of him and also the influence of Malice.
Now we transfer to the battle in the mind. The biggest, and likely unsolvable, problem with written medium is the difficulty in doing battle, namely personal combat. You describe movements well, but I still have to take time to think about each part and how they transition and where they are and just trying to picture it all. It worked out as well as it could, but it sucks there's no easy way to make it easy to visualize.
So. It's here and the parts right after where we get the true reveal of who virusNirru is. I'll stuff all of the related comments here for simplicity. I was not sure how I felt on this, but filed it under keep reading, ponder later. I do like it better that he is more of a shadow of himself from the moment of death rather than himself fully. Becoming a aegis artifact back at the end of Memory is brilliant and I approve greatly. Do have to wonder on the activation and genocide. He claims he did it, but I feel there was more to the circumstances than just 'kill them all, revive later, perfect plan.' I always had a crazy idea for Nirru pairing up with an insane kelMend that was freakishly regrown from the limb Mender lost (pairing as in allies, not shipping), but I think that'll be cannibalized for ideas to transfer to other projects. I'm sad we don't get to get his name or time with the true Keldarian side of him, but I can accept this and did love all the antics and worries and insanity this version gave us.
Even though you didn't describe it as such, I pictured the versions of the mane six who entered Mender as more stylized and outlines with wispy features and moving coloring. Don't know why. Just made it cool. And really was expecting them to escape and use the elements to fix this all instead of going in, especially after having just been controlled via Mender (kinda). Though, it's them. Of course they'd head in.
Huh. You've gotten me to the point where I'd actually prefer Fluttershy stay alive in this fic. Props.
The paragraph leading into this made me thing for a moment Mender's anguish activated his genocide device, but glad it was this instead and love the way this plays out with Malice. Y'know, Malice was a concept you gave us not that long ago and I had little idea how that might be resolved or if it would even be resolved within the confines of this fic. But, for once, instead of dragging it out to all hell, you solved it in a good way very shortly after. Might not be completely gone, we'll see, but I approve of this method and outcome of dealing with Malice.
Hah. Hiding in his crystal and just waiting it out. Very anticlimactic except that all the fight was good enough that doesn't matter. And its good to see a villain going the smart way instead of the ambitious way.
Explaining those swears. To the mane six. Absolutely fantastic.
Aaaaaaand Mender dies again. Most of the last portion I feel I'll leave alone to see what happens. Not in too much of a theorizing mood. But what you should do is insert a bonus chapter which is the equivalent of Mender's funeral and epilogue from Memory but done in more of a 'didn't we do this already' slightly comedic vibe.
Overall, this chapter was a fantastic read and a good wrap-up (it seems) of a number of things that have been going for a long time. Looking forward to where we go from here. (Week timeskip?)
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all
my
yes
But will Malice leave quietly now? That's what I am most curious at knowing.