Today I Reach For The Stars
Before I go any further, there's a final piece of info about poko I need to disclose.
There is a concept that some people back home call the Ballmer Peak. It's almost an urban legend among computer programmers, and yet it does sometimes happen. The idea is that, when a human's blood alcohol level reaches a point between .129% and .138%, that human gains potentially superhuman coding capabilities. There is, in fact, some level of scientific study that supports this, as studies show that low level inebriation aids in the learning of new languages, and more than a few pro poker players actually play drunk, as they find it actually improves their ability to play. Heck, in World of Warcraft, drunk raids are a real thing, and drunk wizards and healers are actually sought after, as they prove to be more effective than sober ones (Likely because on a stressful raid, a drunk player is a lot more relaxed than a sober player). Hell, one of the founding legends of drunken kung fu involves a middling martial artist, prior to a battle with several experts, getting drunk, and his inebriation turned his still somewhat awkward kung fu into that of a master. Alcohol can be weird like that, sometimes. Or maybe I should say, the human or equine brain can be weird like that sometimes.
I've heard it called a lot of things beyond the Ballmer Peak, including Beyond Drunk. The point is, sometimes, when enough alcohol is consumed, something happens in the brain of a person, and instead of becoming stumbling, mumbling idiot, they temporarily gain abilities well beyond what they are normally capable of. This is not something that can be predicted, intentionally induced, or called upon at will, and most people who try fail horribly...
But the creators of poko tried anyways... and in a sense, they succeeded.
It could only work with creatures in the weight class of alicorns: The theory was that with the right combination of drinks, plus stimulants to counteract the depressant effects of alcohol, an individual can be put into a state like the Ballmer Peak. Normally, this blend would be potentially fatal to an ordinary person, but to an alicorn, fiend, or creatures of that kidney, the blend does nothing more than grant the grandaddy of all hangovers when the bender is over. It is not a true Ballmer Peak, though: Someone on the Ballmer Peak might keep going for hours, or even days, so long as the booze keeps coming. However, after the stimulants of the first drink of poko wear off, nothing you can do is going to put you back into that state: Typically, the stimulants wearing off cause whoever drank poko to fall dead asleep. Even if it doesn't, drinking poko a second time won't work, since the balance is off, and the alcohol is now much stronger than the stimulants. You'd have to completely reformulate a new beverage to put you back into that state. So, once that first drink loses its punch, you turn from a drunken genius to a drunken idiot...
However, sometimes, just sometimes... a miracle can happen.
----------------------------------------------
'Okay', I thought, as I tiptoed past nightmare-ified guards in alicorn form, 'I think I've got it, but run it by me again so I can be sure.'
*Alright. The revival spell that brought us back was intended to bring a living pony back. However, I am an Umbrum, a creature of shadows. While I did have a physical body, it was a shell to hide my true form. So, because of that, the revival spell would succeed in reviving me, but it would revive my shell separately. So, that left a space for your spirit to occupy it.*
'I follow so far.'
*I can do a lot in my current state, more than I could before my defeat, but I'm no hero, and my spells aren't as effective on fiends as they would be on ordinary ponies. So I needed someone to occupy my physical form. I selected you, out of the many instances of myself not yet undone by by defeat by the Elements of Harmony, to be that someone.*
'Right. You said I was the most qualified, in fact.'
*Yes. Many of my alternate selves were cut from cloth similar to my own: Grant them power, and they'll become something as bad as, or worse than, the fiends. While I had many designs of my own at the beginning of all this, they all depended on all life on the planet not dying due to the fiends and what happened to the sun and moon, and facing those problems required a hero, not a villain. So, I'd planned on letting you work on fixing the world, with a bit of help from me, and once that was done, I could slip off and work on freeing my kin.*
'But you're not wanting to do that anymore?'
*Not before I get some answers. You were right about one thing: There were questions I need to ask, ones I should have asked a year ago, but was just not wise enough to think of them. I think I was being played as a pawn, in a game where dozens, or maybe even hundreds, had already been cast away by my... progenitor. I think that filly back in Sanctuary, the one Chestnut Falls brought with her, may simply be the latest in a long line of attempts, one that neither started, nor ended, with me.*
'Yikes. Well, that brings me up to date, more or less. But the spell did make me flesh and blood, right? I'm not going to come apart if someone hits me with a hammer?'
*No more than any other pony would. You're more flesh and blood than I ever was. We're almost to the courtyard now, you could change back to shadow form if you want.*
'Not yet. Those Nth metal cannon balls might not be the only thing that the Boarcs have that could negate magic. If they have more 'kryptonite' to throw my way, I'd rather be a small target than a big one.'
*Good idea. I don't know what the sudden depletion of magic would do to our physical body, but it would likely be painful, especially if it hits the portion that would normally make up a vital organ.*
'Exactly... wait, what's that sound?'
It was then that Crunch, the stone hound, erupted from the ground. I should have realized that something was coming: The courtyard was easily the size of a football field, giving plenty of room for movement. It was the perfect place for a boss battle, and even if Equestria isn't a video game, it did follow some of the tropes for such things.
Fun fact: Being the embodiment of elemental stone, Crunch treats things like stone walls, floors, and ceilings as suggestions. Wood can delay him, but anything made of stone, or even most metals, just amuses him. A number of pony settlements found that out the hard way. Crunch is also a gigantic, multi-ton bulldog made of stone, so most wooden barricades are little more than a minor annoyance to him.
This was the first time I'd ever been on the ground while facing a fiend in my flesh and blood form. When I fough Arabus, I was flying at eye level, and when I fought Tirek, I'd already been in Shadow Giant mode. Now, for the first time, I was seeing a fiend the way that an ordinary pony might. The stone hound stared down at me as little cascades of dirt and stone trickle off of him, a look of absolute contempt upon his face. To him, I was less than pony, I was a bug, something to be crushed underfoot.
Yeah, well, I'm a gamer: I've practically made a career out of killing things that are bigger, meaner, stronger, and uglier than I am, and given that I was rapidly approaching peak inebriation, I surely wasn't going to back down from a challenge.
"Alright, Fido," I said, glaring up at the massive canine, "you can either go back down your hole and wait for me to decide I'm ready to kill you, or you can start something now, and I'll make you my bitch in every possible sense of the word." Seriously, for a creature made of stone, all I'd really need is a hammer and chisel and I could spay or neuter this pet, and with a little extra work, I'd be able to to perform a complete sex change operation. I imagine that going from Crunch to Crunch-ette would have been enough to take the fight out of him.
I'd like to think that he looked a little bit worried by that remark: It had been a while since he'd had a pony stand up to him, and given that Celestia and Luna had locked him up once before, he had to view alicorns with something like respect, if not outright fear.
However...
*INCOMING!!!*
With a flap of my wings, I hopped back, just seconds before a massive harpoon, of all things, slammed into the ground where I had been standing just moments ago. The harpoon was followed by a massive red octopus/squid monster that fell from on high. It was at least as massive as the dog, if not larger.
Grogar had worked out the weakness to the anti-teleportation wards that protected Diretusk's doom fortress: Just like they only extended about a quarter mile outside of his boundaries, the wards were also fairly limited in how far up they went. Hence, he'd just dropped an armed and angry sea creature in from up above. Few creatures could survive such treatment, but fiends are pretty tough.
Still...
*Squirk, the sea fiend. This is bad: He's not very mobile on land, but in close quarters, he's a definite menace...*
'Bullshit.'
*What?*
'BULLSHIT!!! A multi-ton cephalopod has no internal skeleton, no real means of internal support at all! They can only exist in a weightless environment, and because of that, they're practically worthless on land! Without any internal support, a creature of his size and mass should be crushed to death under its own weight! Hell, he should have splattered all across the courtyard on impact!'
*Equestria's rules are not your world's rules.*
'ARE THERE EVEN ANY FUCKING RULES ON THIS BATSHIT CRAZY PLANET?'
Squirk whipped out a tentacle, and pulled out his harpoon from the ground. While the shaft of the weapon was clearly some manner of enchanted metal, the head was radically different: It was black, and seemed less like a metal, and more like a hole in the world...
*Nth metal, bound to an enchanted adamant shaft with lead. In shadow form, that head could be deadly, but the shaft may be just as dangerous. Be careful.*
'Where would he have gotten that?'
*The fiend who rules the seas has access to anything that has ever sunken into the deeps, including any weapon that someone may have used to try and slay him. He may be out of his element, but that weapon, combined with his natural reach and flexibility, make for a deadly combination. I'd recommend fleeing: This is a threat beyond our current abilities.*
As the spawn of Cthulhu and a surprised octopus climbed up upon Crunch's back and readied his harpoon for an attack, I took stock: Under most circumstances, I'd have seriously considered just calling off the raid and running as Sombra advised. Two fiends at once would be extremely dangerous, under any circumstances. But here, they had a weapon that could end me in my most potentially powerful form, and while I more or less had shadow mode down, I was still an utter n00b when it came to my alicorn powers. Worse, these were very close quarters, and I expected that if I tried to fly, I'd get swatted out of the air. Worse, any spell that might potentially wipe the two of them out in one hit would no doubt demolish the doom fortress, and I had people in there, not to mention boarcs whose only crime was following their ruler's commands on an expedition to conquer a kingdom.
But if I ran, I'd be leaving Storm Cloud and Acorn, along with all of the captured ponies, to their fate, and while Storm Cloud was an alicorn, the rest of the ponies couldn't hope to survive two fiends running amok out here. I could only hope that Storm Cloud would hear the commotion and show up soon...
In the meantime, while I doubted that I could kill these two, I could at least keep them busy for a bit...
As my opening move, I did the one thing the fiends would not have expected: I ran forward, and dove underneath Crunch, Squirk's massive harpoon passing bare inches above my head. As I regained my hooves, I came up with a plan of attack: Crunch might be made of stone, but he needed four legs to carry his mass around. Damage a leg, and he'll be slowed down.
'FACE LASERS!!!'
I shot a laser beam from my horn, one that was startling in its brightness and intensity. It struck true on Crunch's left hind leg, and the limb turned a bright red in seconds. I was rewarded by a whine of pain by the canine. Not wanting to press my luck, in case the stone mutt decided to just fall on his belly and crush me, I dove out between Crunch's hind legs as cracks began to form in the weakened stone. I just barely made it out before the leg exploded into a shower of stone shards and molten magma. As I did so, I saw something else.
'I should have aimed a bit higher...'
*Yes, I imagine an impromptu neutering would have taken much of the fight out of... LOOK OUT!!!*
Sombra's warning almost came to late, and Squirk slammed the butt of his harpoon down on me with all the strength that eight limbs made of pure muscle can manage, and boosted by the enchantments on the shaft of the weapon. The star metal inside my body formed a shield upon my back, which blunted the blow somewhat, but the end result was still like being hit with a telephone pole made of solid steel, and wielded by the Incredible Hulk, while simultaneously having fifty thousand volts running through your body.
I was fully inebriated now, so I was feeling no pain. but I... I heard bones crack, I smelled the unmistakable aroma of burning flesh, and had I been anything other than an alicorn, I think that would have ended me, then and there. Alicorns are hardy, though, and while the blow broke bones, and burnt me badly, I was already regenerating. Not something I can recommend, by the way: Injuries hurt almost twice as bad in reverse as they do the first time around, something they don't mention in the comics, although its something I didn't learn until later.
Still, it takes time to recover from a blow like that, and as I saw Squirk raise the harpoon up again, this time with the Nth metal tip poised above my head, I knew he wasn't going to give me the chance. While my body seemed ready to bounce back quickly from such a powerful blow, there had to be a point by which I would die before my regeneration could undo the worst of the damage. It might take one blow, or dozens, but the look in Squirk's eyes told me that he would not stop until the mangled pile of meat that my body was about to become stopped twitching...
And that was when Storm Cloud appeared, hitting the fiend with a full-powered drop kick to the face, sufficient to knock the beast halfway off of his canine mount. She followed that blow up with several quick darting attacks, none of which had the same stopping power of her first strike but enough to keep Squirk occupied...
But within seconds, Crunch's leg had already regenerated, and he was able to begin moving around again, and as such was able to rejoin the fray. Still, credit where it's due, Storm Cloud was able to keep both fiend's eyes on her. Still, she'd likely only be able to buy minutes at most, and would likely be pinned and slain before I finished healing from my wounds...
And to make things just perfect, that exact moment was when the stimulants in the poko decided to wear off. I suddenly felt very groggy, and had the situation not been so dire, I might have drifted off to sleep. Instead, I just struggled to get out of the small crater that Squick's blow had left in the ground, with a Sombra shaped dent in the middle.
As I rolled over onto my back, after a failed attempt to regain my feet/hooves, I looked up at the sky, and....
...something happened inside my head. I may never know for certain, but I think that I hit the Ballmer Peak, or something like it. What I do know is that, in my drunken and injured brain, a thought took hold. An epiphany.
-----------------------------------------
Author's Note: The changes begin here.
------------------------------------------
What I saw above me was stars on a canopy of darkness. The night sky, darkness and light together.
Darkness and light... together.
'Hey Sombra... do you think the two of us could fuse together?'
*...What.*
'We were brought back to life together, and we're joined at the hip right now. Your powers run off of fear and hate, right? While I don't have much in the way of fear, I think I can give you enough hate to get us through this, easy. Alicorn powers plus Umbrum powers could equal an unstoppable juggernaut of badassery. If we combine, your powers and my mine, we'll be able to thrash those two losers.'
*Under other circumstances, the idea would have merit: We're partially 'fused' already, me being your shadow and all. Taking it to the next level wouldn't be complicated. That spear is a problem, though, and you're injured. Alicornic regeneration aside, putting that kind of strain on your body is risky. Another injury, especially in shadow form, could be fatal. And there's the question of what might happen if we end up stuck together.*
'Who dares, wins. I have a plan this time. We'll be able to kill him in shadow form. Trust me.'
*...I trust you. I'll begin the process.*
'And Sombra... it's your turn to pick the music.'
*...Ha! Thanks. I'll make it a good one.*
-----------------------------------------
Storm Cloud was having a rough time against the two fiends: While the size differential, combined with her own natural speed and agility, made her a hard target to hit, she'd not had time to practice using alicorn magic, so naturally it was an uneven fight. All it would take is a single misstep, and she'd be done for.
'Father,' she thought to herself, 'I may be seeing you sooner than I thought...'
And then... a massive column darkness erupted from the ground behind the fiends...
-------------------------------------------
So glad he didn't pick 'One Winged Angel'. That song's been done to death.
As we emerged from the shrinking column of darkness, Sombra took stock: Our body didn't... look different, but it certainly felt different. The power of my hatred filled our body, and threatened to overwhelm us.
*Where is this hatred coming from, Ambrose?* I've never felt anything like it from you before.*
'My parents my parents my parents my parents hate hate hate hate hate!!!'
*Ambrose?*
'Hurry hurry hurry hard to keep in control hate parents hate parents hate parents hate kill!'
*Okay, but how? You're the guy with plan.*
'Parasyte parasyte parasyte manga, stretchy stretchy slashy stabby murder murder splashy bloody kill!'
*I... okay. Got it. Keep it together Ambrose. I'll make this quick.*
I... wasn't as mellow about my parents back then. When the truth came out and I found out about the details of my birth... I admit I kinda went a little crazy. Okay, more than a little. My hatred for them came within a hair's breadth of causing me to have a psychotic break. If I'd not had friends to see me through it... Anyway, the entire thing left me with a mountain of issues, but I was good at keeping it under control as long as I didn't think about it. But, when I slipped, and started letting those emotions run wild...
Well, you'll see.
"Step right up, step right up, gentlemen!" we shouted at the fiends, our face creased into a nightmarish grin and our arms spread wide. "The murder train is in the station! Who wants their ticket punched first?!"
While the two fiends were equally stunned by my sudden proclamation, Squirk was the first to respond, thrusting his spear at me. My fingers stretched impossibly long, there was a sudden flash of movement, and the head of the spear fell to the ground with a thud. Adamant shaft and nth metal head it may have been, but the two were joined together with melted lead. A ribbon of shadow, tipped with a blade of purloined starmetal, was able to sever the head surgically. And that's not all...
See, the pecking order is star metal, then adamant, and then everything else.
Squirk watched in horror as the shaft of the spear he'd brought, the one he'd thought the perfect weapon to kill me with... fell to pieces. Quickly followed by his tentacles. And then the rest of him. While it wasn't quite enough to kill him (An octopus can regenerate lost limbs, and a magical super octopus can regenerate just about everything, and a whole lot faster), being suddenly reduced to cubes one inch wide was enough to take him out of the fight for a few minutes, leaving just Crunch to deal with.
Parasyte? Oh, right, sorry. It was a manga I'd read a couple of years back. I think they were making an anime of it before I got sent here. I'll spare you the details, but the main idea of it was based around a race of creatures that could polymorph their bodies any way they liked, including into weapons. They had the advantage of being able to move faster than the eye could follow, so many fights involving them ended quickly, violently, and messily.
And as I'd demonstrated with Arabus, my body was a lot more... flexible in shadow form, and Sombra's ability to transform hate into power was able to supercharge that ability, allowing me to shift my body on the fly far faster than before, and the addition of starmetal made my body a deadly weapon... and creating tentacles of violent insta-murder was just the start of it.
"While he pulls himself together," we said, turning towards Crunch, our maniacal grin showing more teeth than a T-Rex, and with a grin with slightly less compassion than the king of the dinos, "how about we play fetch, Fido?"
Funny thing about Subjugation spells: It is possible to gain resistance to them. Had the big stone puppy still been under Diretusk's control alone, he would likely have fought to the death without question, or without feeling anything. Instead, due to Grogar's overwriting Diretusk's control, Crunch could feel things to a certain degree. A look of genuine fear crossed his face.
My grin grew bigger, more terrible still: He might have been stone, and able to reassemble himself, but the fact that he could feel fear told me that he could be killed... and Sombra was a master of fear.
Our eyes glowed green and red...
And I saw it: Crunch's fear. His greatest fear. We saw a small stone, red in color. Crunch's heart. His weakness: His body worked like Genbu in Yu Yu Hakusho. Destroy the one stone, and he would fall to pieces... and we could see exactly where it was now.
We extended our right hand towards the stone hound, and then extended one finger... and then we extended that one finger further.
The starmetal-tipped appendage shot forward with the speed of a bullet, and pierced through the stone beast's body as if it were warm butter. We struck Crunch's heart, and it shattered. We retracted our finger, and grinned even wider as the stone hound collapsed, dead in a heartbeat. We then turned our attentions back to the slowly reforming Squirk.
*And how do we destroy him?*
'Zetta beam zetta beam burn burn burn burn kill!'
Yes. Yes, we did hit Squirk with eye-lasers. Fucking eye-lasers. My eyes still sting when I think about it. Trust me, eyeball lasers may sound cool, but they fucking hurt. Light is supposed to go into the eyes, not out, my friend. Remind me to tell you the story of Laser Pony sometime. Still, as the smell of baked octopus filled the air, I knew that Squirk wasn't coming back.
*Okay, mission accomplished. Let's unfuse.*
'...'
*Ambrose?*
'...Heh...'
*Ambrose?!*
'Heheheheheheheheheh...'
Our, or maybe it might be better to say my, arms stretched up, and grabbed hold of a star, then ripped it from the sky. I thrust it into my mouth, and crunched down on it. Almost instantly, I felt even greater energy fill my body.
'Hahahahahahahahaha....'
I grabbed another...
'HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH...'
...And another...
'MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!'
Yeah. It surprises a lot of people when I confirm that, yes, that night I was the one who totally flipped my shit, and not Sombra...
I'd made a gross miscalculation: In merging with Sombra and utilizing his powers in their purest form, I had flooded my body and spirit with dark magic. Sombra, as an umbrum, was immune to the corrupting influences of dark magic, both in body and in spirit. I was in a body that had been formed based off of Sombra's shell. It was so resistant to dark magic that it might as well have been immune. But my spirit...
My spirit was human, and while the spirit of a good person is pretty resistant to the power of darkness, I had willingly given myself over to hate. Hate so strong that it could easily be called The Hate. My mind and spirit were hit with corruption, and having given myself willingly to the power of hate, my resistance was like a sheet of paper against a cannonball.
You want to know how you get Nightmare Moons? This is how you get Nightmare Moons: By trying to use the power of darkness when you're not thinking straight.
My mind and spirit were filled with greed, lust, desire... I thirsted for power, and I was intent on sating that thirst... but it was like trying to fill a bucket that had no bottom to it. Discord had warned that trying to hold too much power was hazardous to my health, and just one star could ascend me to alicorn-dom. Three days was the limit at one extra... and each one reduced that timeline by half. I'd reduced that time limit to three quarters of a day already, and I wasn't about to stop...
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REVISED NEW CHAPTER UP!!!
Last time I'm doing it, so I hope I did better this time.
N9oooooooo not the CF!
oh
okay then
I see what poko can really do coming up in the future.
This is better so far, but I seriously hope you don't anthropomorphize the characters again.
*sees " new chapter" *
*sees that it's a rewrite of an old chapter*
Pretty insane here, good thing I started watching Parasyte or I would have been lost there. Since its been so long, I can't remember why Ambrose hates his parents?
6548382 Good, no more anthro plis.
Nice
6548487 It's because they brought into being with the sole intention of using his organs to sustain their fatally sick daughter, and then refused to care for him when she died and they didn't need the organs anymore.
Talk about a tragic (and contrived) backstory.
Oh my. Now he really has the power to destroy anything that can get in his way now that he's super-duper powerful and evil and stuff. Dark magic + poko = serious dark magic shit.
All right. Let's update the character list now:
Ambrose- A human inside King Sombra's body. Has a mission to save Equestria from the fiends. Gains lightning powers after defeating Arabus in Chapter 14 but gives it up to Storm Cloud in chapter 21 since he cannot hold the power in his body forever.
Turns into an alicorn in chapter 17 after swallowing a star.
Fixes the sky and changes all sapient lifeforms into bipedal beings in chapter 30 after defeating two fiends while under the influence of poko. It turns out that he tried to enforce Earth logic into Equestria....Gives in to the power of dark magic and is now fully consumed by it in chapter 30.Squirk- Giant octopus. Assisted Grogar in his invasion of Baltimare. Fought against Ambrose with Crunch in chapter 30, but was diced to pieces and fried by Ambrose and Sombra's eye laser beams.
Crunch- Giant rockdog. Ravaged two cities in Equestria and assisted Grogar in his invasion of Baltimare. It is revealed that in chapter 26 that he is on Diretusk's side right now. Is re-subjugated by Grogar in chapter 28. Killed by Ambrose when he shattered the hound's heart into pieces.
uboachan.net/mpt1/src/1333650803440.png
You did good.
Dammit, liked the old version better.
More epic fight than before, woo! And now, Sombra will have to somehow perform a purification. Huh, never thought I'd say that
Better.
I still don't think the power up is at all necessary though, with the power of black holes. Here's a video providing context.
If he can control gravity well enough to not destroy the planet when sucking up Tirek, he should really just be able to win with or without help.
Oh well. I tend to dislike these power ups anyway but now at least there's a reason.
6548535 Their son. After their son died they completely distanced themselves and used legal actions to put Ambrose's biological mother and adoptive father further in debt. His biological father and his wife then turned around and had a daughter, whom they threatened an orphanage NOT to contact them so Ambrose's younger sibling would never know she has a half brother.
6548596 Am I the only one getting flashbacks to the finale of Guilty Crown? Because that's about the only way I can see Sombra pulling off a purification of Ambrose's corruption at this point...
6548479 At least the ponies aren't humanoid anymore.
6548634 Which is why the Granzon is one of the most powerful Real Robot in modern fiction.
Although I think it's upgrade, the Neo Granzon is a Super Robot.
Edit after reading: got to love Zetta, the most badass freaking Overlord there is.
6548644 I have no idea what Guilty Crown is, so you probably are
I still feel like I'm reading Ponyball Z, but if nothing else it's an improvement over the old version.
While I liked the previous version better, this one looks like a better staring point for future chapters.
While I don't like it initially, I'll reserve my final judgement until we know how this turns out.
I'm mostly just glad that this story can start moving again.
*IAGTSAODE Updated*
YAY
*its a revision*
awww...
6548669
...meh. I expected Bucking Nonsense would fix that at some point, or at least handle it properly (everypony reacting appropriately, etc), and I'm a bit peeved that a bunch of people jumped the gun and got mad to the point where he felt he had to re-write the chapter.
I can understand why you made the revision, but honestly, I think I'll always have a sweetspot for the original form. Sure, it was OP and Mary-Sue-esc, and left a lot of problems that needed to be addressed later, but it just felt *right* to me, particularly when our protagonist refers to a Balmer Peak miracle of a revelation. Perhaps it needed more/different drawbacks in the end, or a limiter placed to make it never happen again, period.
But all the same, good job. Glad to see you're trying to get the story to feel right to you, Nonsense, instead of charging blindly forward and puttering out when it collapses under its own 'weight'. Can't wait for the continuation.
"Three days was the limit at one extra... and each one reduced that timeline by half. I'd reduced that time limit to three quarters of a day already, and I wasn't about to stop..."
I didn't get this...
other than that, awesome chapter!
6548637 It's been a while since I last read it.
6548721 The one with Prince Vegeta?
6549011
Yes, and Kakarot Top.
Honestly, I liked the old version better. Still, I also like the revision. Let's see how Ambrose combats the corruption.
So, this story is back on?
As much as I prefer the old version, this one seems to fit more. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
"We struck Crunch's heart, and it shattered."
I'm kinda disappointed he didn't say "Bakusai Tenketsu" when he did that to the dog.
6548487 "Since its been so long, I can't remember why Ambrose hates his parents?"
They sold him as a slave during his teenage years to a South Colombian Drug Lord. It was not a pleasant time for him. He escaped when a rival Drug Lord killed the Drug Lord he was enslaved to.
While the old version might have been better, this is decent. I kind of wanted to see how the mares with him would react, and how he would react to them.
6548634 I don't think I agree Ambrose should have the power of black holes. It's more of a "darkness" profile than a "shiny ball of brilliance" deal. Sure, black holes only ever happen in space, caused by collapsed stars, but I'd stand to argue that they're on opposite grounds from one another. Bottomless sinkholes where nothing escapes from, not even light, compared to twinkling gaps of hope in the night sky.
Regarding the rework, well, I could go with either. I had no qualms with antropomorphosis, really. This chapter was okay. Not brilliant, though. Combat scenes were always tricky to engineer.
Aww, i liked the old one more. Oh well, can't wait to see how this shit goes down.
6549452 That's not what happened.
This is okay, but I like the old version better. This new power up doesn't fit the hype of the Ballmer Peak epiphany thing. Then again, I suppose nothing can compare to figuring out the cheat codes to Creation.
Also, how could he find out, or who could and would inform Ambros of the BS surrounding his birth and his mothers death, especially when he is in his mid to late teens( I'm guessing). I always figured Ambros learned of it from his father, perhaps during stints of drunken brooding. He would be too young to fully grasp what he's been told, but it would lay the foundation for a later rage and hate. Then to fit with your current story, when his foster caretaker contacts Ambos's donor-parents(?), not knowing they were complete shit, and they threaten to ruin her, it could set him off.
Even if the powers of Poko aren't fully realized yet.
6548846 I don't like anthros. It would have ruined the story for me and I would have stopped reading.
In my mind, there isn't even a comparison. This is so much better.
Yes yes. Downvote me for daring to have an opinion. That's totally the mature thing to do.
6548382
Ohhh, okay.
I read through the first third and was confused because I'd read it before.
Why'd you revise it?
6548382 to be honest, i liked the version where he found the cheat codes to Equestria. However, the new version is better, because you can go to more places. Once you have hacked reality, nothing can defeat you. There ceases to be conflict. And there is no badassitude without conflict.
A definite improvement. as others have said, the old version had him going God-mode, or even BEYOND Godmode, and that's no way to sustain conflict and suspense in a story. I hope you're not going to go anthro with this, either. Nothing against such stories but if you start with little four legged ponies you should finish with fourlegged little ponies.
cool first time I have heard of a reference to zetta and the only reference in story to parasite I have seen
maybe you should make a alternate universe for the original version of this chapter for different endings
This is, I feel, a much better working of alcohol into insane ideas. In that the idea sounds good on paper while actually being terrible, instead of inflicting a negative space wedgie on reality. Nice to have you back BN
Well this is definitely less stupid than that 'ponies are anthro now' thing. I wasn't really sure what that was about, this at least fits the story.
I like this version much better. Ambrose/Sombra was WAY too overpowered in the original and that created a lot of plot holes.
Welcome Ambrose/Sombra to the dark side of the force.