Damn dude, what a chapter, this prison is one giant clusterfuck of insanity, hahaha.

Nicely done man, nicely done
Shadowbolt Tower eh?
*grins*

And then I felt something familiar...
Dying.
Again...
Damn it.

Its not that bad

Well, this was a conga line of insanity... I'm not so sure on how to feel about of what's happened right now and now another road ahead paved for Blackjack to undergo... well, this journey is still not over yet...

Rampage said a she pointed with her hoof.

as she

Welcome to the Blackjack and Co. Travelling Freak Show. Remember to shoot Blackjack. It’s good luck.”
“Do not shoot Blackjack!” I contradicted at once as we started out.

LOL That's so perfectly morbid and dark!

And so a balefire bomb goes off, destroying the prison. Oh and Blackjack probably dying again.

I love she was just so nonchalant about death. Like it's an inconvenience for her

Mneh. They got out ahead of the blast (I'm sure that will do wonders for the Wasteland), but BJ died anyway. Not that it matters, since she's already survived that once. I mean, the stakes are pretty much no higher than they've ever been, so I'm not too concerned here. :B

Also, that boss fight couldn't have been more "directly out of a video game" if he'd had a health bar.

Still, for all that Hightower did in fact drag on for three chapters, I was never really bored by any of it. Cerberus shouting "For Equestria!" while dropping out of sight was the funniest shit (major props to VisualPony for pulling that off). Rampage is best pony. The amount of pity I have for Doof is indescribable. :( Snips' sacrifice was great. The explanation for why Blackjack can play bass so well is some good ass-covering. :V And now Psychoshy has a boyfriend. Hooray?

But I swear, by the time I get around to writing my FoE parody, it's gonna look like a PH parody too because you pre-stole all my ideas. :C

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>>Stakes
It's kind of true. Every now and again, you have something like chapter 43 where there's a real sense that something could happen with Blackjack herself, but ever since 33 and then the cyberization and automatic healing became factors (or even well before then as in your case), I'd found tension to come less from the worry that Blackjack herself would die, and more about what she would lose or what she would become along the way.

>>Doof
Somber has his pattern of doing tragedy and sympathy for his antagonists in the story, and I think he was most successful with Doof. The logic/cause and effect holds tighter than, for example, Gorgon, where what he ended up doing seems fine, but not a fully natural outgrowth of his path like with Doof. And in Doof's case, it's like the flip side of the expression about never meeting your heroes: you knew what he became, and where he was before, but even with the original assault memory it felt to me like there was a separation between Doof the Marauder (for all his obvious problems especially where women were concerned), and Deus the Reaper. But the transition, and the way it was on the one hand unnecessary and on the other it's hard to identify anyone in particular who was entirely wrong in how they handled his key conflict . . . it's depressing.

>>Boss fight
I think there are strong similarities to the fight with Horrigan at the end of Fallout 2. Granted, that might just be one of the more franchise relevant cases of generic boss fight that share things with the scene.

Snips was great, and I thought that Blackjack's reaction, for all that it's basically characteristic of her, was too.

>>Bass
To be fair, if the bass thing was ass-covering, it started a long time ago.

>>Hooray?
Aww, after the "GODDAMMIT BLACKJACK, DON'T FUCK THE BATPONY" response, this just feels so . . . disappointing. Sigh. Different situations, I guess.

“Oh yeah. Asked if I could go find Snips or Mistress Rarity, but he said no. Cast a bunch of spells on him too... ‘cause he needed to be able to ‘control the prison’. Said he’d have order and that none of the scum were gonna get out.” Snips looked away. “He... um... he’s sorta big and scary now, so I just stayed in here with all my friends,” he said as he looked over at the figurines. “Clay’s nice and easy and doesn’t mind if you’re slow. In fact, Rarity said that that made me better than anypony for working it. Just gotta be careful.”

Should that be Snails? I don't think Snips was there at the time.

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I think I can characterize my reaction to Psychoshy at this point as "cool". I sort of don't care about her. <.< But not in a bad way? She can fuck the batpony and I won't mind, is what I'm saying.

I find myself reminded of the Scarlet Pumpernickel, a Looney Toons classic from... probably the 50s. Daffy is trying so hard to sell a story to this producer that he just keeps piling on increasingly dark and dramatic plot twists until he gives up and kills himself (cartoonishly, but still). This whole Hightower mess read a lot like that, to both good and bad effect, frankly. Between that and the increasingly demonizing nature of the flashbacks (remember when they were poignant and reminded us that this was a world we cared about? Pepperidge Farm remembers...) I've started skimming in between wandering off. Ah well. It's become a chore to read this for at least the last several chapters, but given the length it was bound to have lulls. Trouble is, this particular lull brought me to the 8 deadly words, at least long enough to consider them rather seriously. 'Why does it all end in tears?' Regrettably, Blackjack, you had the misfortune of existing in a fic written by a fellow that calls himself 'Somber'. So... I'm betting you're pretty well fucked, all in all. Sorry.
I've mentioned in commenting on some other fic that it's no story if the author doesn't owe an apology to at least one character (not my thought, Donaldson, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)... but what about the other extreme? When every character gets shit on... heh, if we didn't have Fo:E reminding us that the world doesn't actually suck quite this much, that it's even worth saving... eh.

Remember to shoot Blackjack. It’s good luck.

Uh... not so much, Rampage. Admittedly, you're so unacquainted with good luck that you wouldn't know it if it exploded into caps right in front of you, but seriously...

I'm sure that little Deus ex Machina at the end of this chapter is deep, meaningful, and probably just a sign of something worse... but it was good for a chuckle and an eyeroll in the here and now.

Ah, a timeline question (assuming anyone reads this far into a relatively bitchy comment). From the dream there, it looks like Mac and company are recruited after Littlehorn, and after Celestia has stepped down. That struck me as odd. Mac died protecting Celestia from an assassin at a peace summit after Shattered Hoof... when she still had the authority to arrange or even speak at one. I remember it said that after Littlehorn, peace was no longer an option. As such, didn't Mac die before Littlehorn even happened? There's a lot to dig back through to confirm that between this and Fo:E... but it feels off to me; I'm almost positive I remember reading that Celestia was still in charge at that point, that's what made it an assassination attempt and why it made no sense to me at the time (you're scared of Luna taking control so you shoot at the one whose death would put her there? Wat?)

And so, onward... not too sure about upward... but you can't have everything.

Shadowbolt tower? I wonder how long the lesson she learned here will last....

Achievements Unlocked

Prison Duty: Break into, then escape, from Hightower Prison more or less intact and alive.

not so happily everafter: die, again.

on a more serious note, great chapter man. tho does this mean Blackjack goes back to level one again?

goddamnit BJ feels sloppy after getting that healing talisman melting left and right. pls stap dying

funny how they call him A useless fuckup, as if his name wasn't Doof.
As if he never fought in that war.

Then there was a resounding thud as the door was knocked clear off its hinges and flew into the apartment. Rarity gasped as she turned to stare at the empty doorframe. A second later, a little white bunny hopped in and fixed Rarity with a stern glare. Fluttershy flew in after him, “Now Angel, you really should give people a chance to answer their doors and not just kick them down.”She swallowed, then nodded to the little white rabbit. He grinned, his ears twitching this way and that. Like a fuzzy missile, he launched himself at her terminal, dove under the desk, emerged with a black plastic box trailing wires, and snapped it over his knee. Another swivel of his ear and he leapt into a potted plant. A tiny spritebot came buzzing out, but the rabbit flew through the air and exploded it in a single furious kick. Then he looked right at me and leapt up at me in two bounds.

doom bunny now makes sense

I could have kissed that hunk of metal; saved by the killer robot!

Now that's irony right there.

"Oh thank Celestia! It feels like we’ve been fighting forever,”

The irony has been doubled!

“My name is Blossomforth. I don’t know what’s going on.

Clean up on isle 4, Cloud Kicker.
Looks like your girlfriend got in a twist.

Special Weapons and Arcane Tactics

=
Special Weapons and Tactics.
Funny, Somber made use of that A.
It should be S.W.A.A.T

A god of pain and misery… funny

Did you know "Deus" means "God"?
I also find it somewhat humorous since he did, indeed, become a "God of pain and misery".
Its so sad, though, because Vanity was judging him as scum.
Its really that mares fault for telling Doof that Twist would like it. He was too stupid to think otherwise.

I stared at the inscription on the base. ‘Be a brainiac!’

Huh?

Then Twilight Sparkle’s head fell clean off!

Psyche!

He peered at the yellowed material. “Mostly involving torture... but it’s got some other things here too!”

Yeah. Because that's reassuring...

“It should be possible to take a fragment of soul and copy the unique magical properties of another.”

In other words, she can copy and paste soul B to soul A, but keep A as well. (B is another pony. A is her own, or a blank slate.)

Dying.

Again...

Damn it.

Dammit, Blackjack!
You're not a cat! You don't have 9 lives!
3 strikes, and you. Are. Out, girl!

I have a very clear mental picture of The Warden looking and sounding exactly like Cave Johnson

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OMG THAT JUST MADE EVERYTHING DEALING WITH THE WARDEN 1000x BETTER!!!!

Rampage: Kick the Blackjack!
Blackjack: Don't kick the Blackjack!

* * *

Blackjack: (Shaking Snails) FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT!
Snails: Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
Blackjack: FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT-

That prison reminded me of a huge temple! Loved the layout and story progression through it.
I was so sad to learn what happened to Octavia, but her instrument still sings for her

easy peasey faciley...

Lol.

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Black jack has twenty one lives.

“Eh...” She rolled her eyes. “Part of me... don’t worry about it. Welcome to the Blackjack and Co. Travelling Freak Show. Remember to shoot Blackjack. It’s good luck.”

Okay, I had to chuckle when Blackjack and Rampage were yelling into the toilet, as this was word for word what Egon and Peter were yelling at the mood slime in Ghostbusters 2.

Wait... you moved to Vegas???

SONOFABITCH! I was just there last week for a major 8-ball tournament at the Westgate.

I was about to commment that it is not belivable that character as important as Lacunae was killed within 2 sentences. That it was too obvious that she is not dead, but then she says she faked it, so F! I don't get a single chance to comment about bad writing

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I would never... ever... kill characters. Nope. >.>

...

Nooooooope.