Hollow Mask

Sunset walked down the hallway towards the kitchen. Through one of the doors in the back they had found living quarters, probably for the workers when they weren't on shift. The group had searched the entire building and they had found the kitchen, which contained mostly tea bags and canned food. Further down they had found a few beds and a small living room. Later Pinkie Pie had joined them, much to Hunters dislike.

When she entered the kitchen however, her mind and body frooze. She would never be able to get the mental image out of her brain, even if she would scrub it with bleach or acid. It was burned into her mind forever.

In the background Pinkie was baking cupcakes, currently finishing the topping. That would have been atleast somewhat normal, if she had worn any clothes. A large table stood in the middle. A chair at each end and four chairs at each side. The chairs at the sides had been 'decorated' with still moving zombie heads impaled on short sticks and carefully balanced. At the farthest chair and also without any clothes, sat Hunter sipping on some tea.

Sunset noticed that each zombie head had also a small filled tea cup in front of it. Hunter noticed that she had entered, "Hello, Sunset. You want to join our little tea party? Wait, I'll make some space!" She kicked the chair on her left-hand side, which caused the head to fall down.

"Hi, Sunny!" cheered Pinkie Pie. She was finished with the cupcakes and placed one before each head, two before Hunter, her chair and the empty chair for Sunset. Mostly out of fear Sunset walked over to the now empty chair, careful to not step on the head on the ground. She sat down on the surprisingly clean chair considering a zombie head had been dripping body fluids on it. Pinkie was finished placing down the cupcakes and sat down on the opposite side to Hunter.

"Umm... What are you doing here?" asked Sunset. The reaction was immediate, Hunter took her cup and threw it at the wall. She stood up and took another cup from the kitchen, filling it with tea, before she sat down again.

"We are trying to find out where the zombies are coming from. The pink one has been interrogating that guy over there" - she pointed at one of the heads - "before she had to make cupcakes." A mad grin spread on her face, "The tea party was my idea."

"I thought you don't like Pinkie?"

"Tea parties with interrogations are always fun!" answered Pinkie, also smiling. She pulled a clipboard out of her messy hair, "We have already found out that they are VERY close somewhere in the industrial district we are currently in. And they like the tea!"

Sunset decided that they both were irrecoverably insane. She already knew that Pinkie was kind of strange but this crossed the line. Mentally she was debating when it was safe to leave the two alone or if they should be left alone at all. The second decision she made was that she liked the tea and would look after the two for a while. Also she was interested in Pinkie's "Zombie Interrogation".

The whole thing was becoming crazier by the second. Pinkie had continued her interrogation by declaring herself 'Queen of the Kettle' and asking the zombies if they agreed. Hunter had cheered a loud "aye" at her declaration while Sunset just ignored the madness and drank tee. The last time she had tried to leave Pinkie's hair became flat and her screaming that she was a traitor until she had sat down again.

A new problem entered the kitchen in form of Rainbow Dash. She looked at the scene, which consisted of several zombie heads, a naked Pinkie Pie and Hunter and a normally dressed Sunset. After she overcame the mental bluescreen she let out a loud "NOPE!", turned around and left, completely ignoring Sunset's silent pleads for help. It didn't help that Pinkie and Hunter were screaming "MAD!" at eachother as loud as they could.

After a few minutes of continiously rising levels of madness Hunter suddenly saluted. "INTERROGATION OVER!" Pinkie declared loudly and stood up. They both produced their clothes from ... somewhere and dressed themselves. After all clothes were where they belonged they took their weapons of choice and killed of the zombie heads that were left. Sunset assumed that this meant the end of the whoel ordeal and asked Hunter what they had found out.

"They were reluctant to talk at first but Pinkie convinced them that we are their master. They said the 'Necromancer' is about two blocks from here behind large piles of zombies," she happily announced.

Sunset left the room, mostly confused on how that tea party actually produced any information at all. She later found Rainbow in the living room, sleeping on one of the couches and a bottle with clear liquid in one hand. Sunset shrugged and took the bottle. The label read "Luna's Moonshine/approx. 78% vol."

She shrugged again, sat down beside Rainbow Dash and began removing the events of the last few hours with help from the booze.

Two blocks away, the Necromancer received bad news. A few of his minions had been exploited and revealed his position to the enemy. He wasn't sure how they did it but that was now a secondary problem. He had found his source of power. No matter who wanted to attack him, they would fail.

The shadows that shrouded him, blowed away and revealed his armor. Any emotion he might had shown was hidden behind a large mask. He towered over all his undead minions as he reassured his grip on his sword. The necromancer was laughing loudly, which sounded more like a gravel avalanche rushing down a mountain than a voice. Briefly, almost invisible to any possible observer, a golden glint was seen on the hand that held the sword.

His rough voice echoed through the empty halls of the building, "May these fools find what they deserve." He looked down on his sword hand and smiled. The ring in his hand seemed to glint excited at the thought of tasting innocent blood again. The necromancer thought back when he still had an army under his command, about to finally win, once and for all, only to be defeated in a last effort attempt of his enemies. He would soon enough regain his might and cover this land in shadows and blood.