Holy Christ on crackers with cheese spread! Somber posts a chapter to PH and the whole of this sites perusers do not immediately cream their respective jeans in excitement and after a appropiate change of said pants immediately go apeshit and put this steaming pile of awesome grim dark to the top of the sites Popularity box.

FIMFICTION I AM DISAPPOINT AS CLEARLY INDICATED WITH AJ EMOTICON!

Wait what the fuck I thought this fic finished already

Edit: ignore me I'm not a smart pony.

Suddenly crimson flames erupted from the base of the rocket. The flames crawled through the twisted metal, spreading as the fuel leaked and ignited. Any chance at all of retreat the way we came was now ablaze in a lake of fire!
“Oh dear...” Xanthe whimpered as she looked down.
“Yeah. Pretty intense...” I replied.
“No. As the fire heats the rest of the fuel pods, they’ll breach and add even more fuel. When the warhead gets hot enough...” She didn’t have to finish.
We’d just lit the fuse on a balefire bomb.

I feel this is very fitting for what's to come:

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO damn... what a chapter, man, this was long, and I got two more to read
TEHEHEHE, AWESOME work well done man, well done.

Nice going kiddies... you lit a bomb.

BLOODY HALL! RUN JUST RUN!!!

I'm kind of surprised that these three chapters came at the same time... aw well, anyway. Nice job breaking it all of you, you just lit up a balefire bomb!

Then the fire turned and looked at down at us.

looked down at us.

Once thing was for sure

One thing

Well Graves will find rest in the ever after now.. and Blackjack and expedition crew lit a freckn' balefire bomb. What else? Rampage being Rampage, Rampage having moments, Rampage finding about about her past again. Shears actually being *snip* didn't occur to me. The smooze is actually dangerous to the touch, recycled RadAway helping, and a whole heck of a lot of foreshadowing. I do not have great expectations for the attic of Hightower.

And that's all I can read for now. Up to 28,000 worded chapters now.

And then Blackjack was all like....

Okay, maybe she won't do that, but she's not a smart pony either.

Two songs:

1.) for the end of this chapter

2.) for the next chapter

:D

[youtube=Joo90ZWrUkU]

Poor Rampage. :C Well, this doesn't feel interminable or dragged out after all, and getting to find out a major portion of her backstory? Priceless. I'm very glad I was right about Snips. :3

It's pretty neat that you didn't give us this getting-together scene with the Marauders as the very first we see of them. Good writing! Also, I realize that I've never really seen Echo before, despite hearing his name mentioned. (Also that Doof is "food" backwards. I mean, that's not hard to realize, but now it's pertinent. XD)

So yeah, glad to see more about Rampage, a little Ponyville reunion, and Xanthe becoming part of the team. But I swear to god if Blackjack turns into an alicorn, I will flip this fucking story. >:B (no spollers plx)

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Wait, you mean every new version of Superman doesn't need to start on Krypton or with a spaceship crash, every Batman doesn't need to show his parents' death at the get-go, and every Spider Man doesn't need to immediately recapitulate Uncle Ben's death and thoughts on responsibility and power, and it might even be preferable for them not to? And even in cases with characters everyone doesn't already know, it's okay to get the audience interested in them before going into backstory? Crazy talk. You're a mad man, Present, a dangerous loose cannon and a liability to the force! Hand over your badge and gun. :V

Well, i guess i should get to reading this....... it's just so long though......... Screw it, i love long stories!

Achievment Unlocked

Unified: Join Unity without having to be turned into a psuedo alicorn

First, what's with the name of the doctors? Spectre? Bones? Graves? What the heck.

Second, OF COURSE Graves and Cerberus were killed off. Graves was just "that character who's alway's depressed and is probably going to be killed off after getting the one last thing they've been wanting" and Cerberus was just the group's pet guard dog (haha I'm funny LAUGH) that didn't have enough personality for anyone to care about. That and Somber seems to love killing off robots, especially the ones with sentiene/sapience.

Oh, Cerberus survived? Wasn't expecting that. Wasn't expecting that at all.

hmm? where is dimond tiara? didn't she die in a prison in a bathroom? goddamnit, this was the perfect moment for another Fallout Equestria reference.

When I ran past the break room again, everypony with a gun unloaded all at once, but aside from Lacunae’s magic arrows, all of them were weakened by the ghoul’s fiery corona; bullets weren’t going to work. However, they did made the monster stop chasing me and turn and look back.

LOOKS LIKE SOMBER DID MADE A MISTAKE.

Grammatical error Happens to the best of us, especially when the best of us write so much.

Carrion leaned over towards Xanthe. “You understand that this is why you couldn’t beat them, right? You just couldn’t compete with pony combat folk music.”
Xanthe didn’t argue, though she did furrow her brow. “There was once a report that said pony battle effectiveness increased by almost seventy percent when they were singing. It recommended withdrawing immediately till the song was over.”

the power of the heart song compels you

 “Forgive me Luna, for I have taken the life of another,” I muttered absently, remembering Psalm’s grim refrain. 

Hey...Blackjack...I think you've got a little Psalm on you, or something. Might wanna wipe it off when you come across the next necromancer or something.

“Why Blackjack, who else would I be?” she replied sweetly. “Now take it easy. I wouldn’t want you to suffer any more than you do now.”

“Right.” I looked at Lacunae, Stygius, and Psychoshy. I stared at the alicorn and thought a warning at her as hard as I could. Could I set her off if I made the accusation? I grimaced back at her. “You’re such an angel, Rampage.” The striped mare just smiled a little bit more. It was the politest way she could bare her teeth at me.

Dang. I just love Angel.

Then I heard a voice break through that interference and speak low and grand and just a touch snotty. “It means that you are a part of that to which you have no right, Blackjack! You are a thief! A trespasser! A bit of mutant scum whose unworthy mind has tapped into a grand and glorious being!”

So...BJ's got some new...organs.
Wow. And here I thought it stopped at "radiation, generation pink cloud flux filled puss sack on legs."
Looks like I was wrong on all accounts, you can always get weirder.

And boy, if Trixie isn't the warmest welcome committee I have ever met.

The Goddess said, with utter vicious malice, “Welcome to Unity, Blackjack.”

Yay! Let's break out the balloons and rum!
Wait...there's no rum?
What do you mean there's no rum!?
Why is the rum always gone!?

Congradulations!
What have you won?
Why, a beuitifal sunny hot day in the Wasteland!
Courtesy of a balefire bomb igniting under your feet!
Have a nice 7 hours until visiting the glorious Everafter! Home of the one and only, Puppy Smiles!

947,712 words down! Eighthundred something thousand to go!

“Good jo--” I began to say as she turned towards me, trying to talk around the trigger. Any other praise I was going to give was lost in the roar of buckshot and the explosion of pain in my gut as the gun went off. She spat it out with a horrified look, kneeling beside me.

You have officially become one of Blackjack's friends!

Carrion leaned over towards Xanthe. “You understand that this is why you couldn’t beat them, right? You just couldn’t compete with pony combat folk music.”

Xanthe didn’t argue, though she did furrow her brow. “There was once a report that said pony battle effectiveness increased by almost seventy percent when they were singing. It recommended withdrawing immediately till the song was over.”

Thank you.

-

“We’ll not be doing that again, thank you,” Lacunae said primly as she looked at me, clutching my chest with a hoof as I struggled to breathe.

Lacunae has the best one liners. And she is so amazing in general! Just having here in a scene instantly makes it better, whether it's through her humor, her life lessons, her badassery, her floundering over people giving her attention...
... Oh jeez... I think I have a crush.

-

Then we got our first lesson in military life: hurry up and wait.

I know your pain sister, I know...

-

“So Rampage is run by a committee?” I muttered as I sat up. No Rampage... or Rampage as just a mix? No... there had to be a pony behind all those different personalities. There just had to be.

I believe the work you are looking for is 'consensus'

-

Then I heard a voice break through that interference and speak low and grand and just a touch snotty. “It means that you are a part of that to which you have no right, Blackjack! You are a thief! A trespasser! A bit of mutant scum whose unworthy mind has tapped into a grand and glorious being!”

I cackled madly at this. Ooh man, having Tricia stuck in your head, telling you to obey? Oh dear Lord, the horror for Blackjack, the hilarity for me!

-

“Wait. Wait. Lacunae... what are you trying to hide from me?” I asked, thinking hard at my friend. It was like looking at photographs underwater, and the harder I looked the deeper she pushed them.

THATS cool. Seeing through your friends eyes, hearing their voice, knowing their thoughts. Obviously invasive as we see here, but still awesome.

-

This chapter was a blast. And we finally know what the deal with Rampage is. Finally getting some progress on that front!

I nodded and pushed the door open. I had to admit, I had issues with hospitals and ‘medical’ places. I was half afraid I would find some super clean creepy town or some half mutated, half smooze screaming room situation.

hah! that made me think of Half-life 2 Ep. 1, where you have to fight your way through a Hospital crawling with Zombies. at one point Alyx Vance exclaims "what kind of hospital is this?" she also trades her usual pistol for a shotgun!

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Turns out this guard dog is tougher than the average dog.

According to this chapter: brain cancer gives you wings.

“She might banish you from Equestria. Or throw you in a dungeon. Or banish you and then throw you in a dungeon in the place that she banishes you to!”

I remember this episode.

I think the Balefire ghoul is one of my favorite enemies.