Whimsyshire

Spoke Too Soon

Dreams of battles long past drifted through Bannuk's mind, countless deaths flew past him as he slumbered, each one he remembered clearly. He cared not if they died slowly or painlessly, it only mattered that they had in the end not been a match for him. Bannuk longed for a foe who could face him as an equal, but he refused to fight one of his friends, they were among the few he cared for in the world.

In the dream, Bannuk finally came to the carnage that was his most recent fight, the one that Envy escaped from. As he watched her flee in his dream, the ground rose underneath him, growing into a mountain of corpses. The mountain rose higher, and higher into the heavens until he could make out in the distance his ancestors who looked down upon him. Bannuk reached out a hand towards them longingly, if he could just make it a little farther, then he could join his family in the high heavens.

"So close..." Bannuk rumbled softly in his sleep.

Thorne raised an eyebrow at this, he had never head Bannuk talk in his sleep before. He had seen the look of longing the old Barbarian had on his face when he slept, but it seemed more intense this time. As to what Bannuk dreamed about, the man had never spoken. Thorne then turned his attention back to the dogs that were crowding around the windows to look in at Bannuk, Thorne had already warned them he had not slept in days and needed rest, so fortunately they kept quiet. But they all had a distinct worried look on their faces.

Thorne went back to fiddling with his equipment, making sure it was all working properly. Bannuk was going to be out for a while, and he had no intention of falling asleep from sitting idly by his side.

Ayida was busying herself with cleaning up the battlefield. For anyone else it would have been a grueling task, but the corpses literally cleaned themselves up upon her command. After they were all properly zombified, Ayida then set them to the task of cleaning and rebuilding. Construction would go exponentially faster with a tireless workforce, and Ayida now had some fresh corpses to call upon in battle. Her old ones were starting to get weak from decay.

Rover approached the Witch Doctor nervously, as she added a few decorative touches to the zombies in the form of headdresses and bead jewelry. The Diamond Dog held his tail between his legs as he walked up to and tried to attain the attention of Ayida.

"Umm, is it.... Necessary to use even our dead like this?" Rover asked, not at all happy about seeing reanimated Diamond Dog corpses walking about. Ayida turned her attention to Rover, her mask's gruesome visage causing Rover to yelp and jump back in fear as it seemed to emanate a dark aura.

"Hmm? Ah, worry not their souls are at rest. And their bodies have the great honor of serving the community even in death. Truly none can deny them that honor can they?" Ayida said as she went back to her work.

Rover merely pressed his ears against his head as he whined slightly before asking, "How is my king doing?"

Ayida noticed the concern in Rover's voice, and took her mask off as she turned her full attention on him, "The old one is fine, he just needs his rest. The fool fought an entire army by himself after pushing himself to get so much done in so little time. Put your worries to rest, by tomorrow he will be as good as new."

Rover smiled at this, and bowed to Ayida before turning and heading off to give some assurance to the other Diamond Dogs. As Rover disappeared around a corner, Ayida slipped her mask back on and returned to her work. The zombies would need to look their best for the upcoming siege of the Griffin empire.

"And why would I or my brood be interested in aiding you?" A voice rumbled, shaking the very ground before it.

Discord put on a charming smile as he ran a finger along the massive dragon's jawline, "Because, the gems those Diamond Dogs have stashed away will be sure to keep your scales shimmering with health. You wouldn't even have to dig for them yourself, just crush some insects to get what you want."

"And what of this leader of theirs? How strong is he really, I heard he nearly killed Envy." Returned the massive blue dragon.

"How did you hear about that? I thought your brood chose to ignore political quarrels between the lesser races." Discord said with a confused and almost defeated look on his face. He was hoping the blue dragon matriarch had not learned of the Immortal King and could be told there was little to no threat.

"While true we do not care for their quarrels, only a fool would ignore what goes on around them. Do you think me a fool?" The dragon asked, eyes narrowing.

"Of course not Saphiria, But he is not a threat to one such as you. He has strength, but his movements are slow, no match for your might in the slightest." Discord purred out to the dragon.

"I will consider this, but be warned Discord. You may be powerful, but even you will not be able to face my entire flight of dragons if you double cross us..." Saphiria hissed as lightning crackled between her jaws.

Discord bowed to this as he made his way out of her den. That was a close one, if she had been in a foul mood instead of such a cheery one, he might have been in trouble. Discord continued on his way via cloud, making a beeline in the direction of the Everfree Forest. Hopefully he would have equally good luck in finding what was there. The closer he got to the forest however, the more he became acutely aware of chaotic magic at work.

"There is another who harnesses the powers of chaos in this realm? No, it can't be... But, then who is giving off this chaotic aura..." Discord mumbled as he sat upon his pink cotton candy cloud.

Discord began to get the feeling that the Immortal King was not from this realm at all. It would explain a lot, like how such a powerful being only now became known. But what would lie on the other side of the portal? Only time would reveal it to him, so Discord doubled his pace towards the forest.

"Better watch out... Don't want to get caught before i learn anything..." Discord mumbled as he turned his cotton candy cloud into a boring regular cloud so as to not draw attention.

As the single white cloud raced across the sky, The princess of the sun was preparing to head back to Canterlot to rally more guards to up the defenses on all major cities. Celestia was almost ready to leave but she first had to finish one important bit of business.

"Luna, if you could, please tell the elements to stay close to our new allies. We don't have near enough guards to keep them safe for now, and I feel Bannuk and his friends may be the only ones Discord doesn't want to face yet."

"Of course sister, I will tell them at once."

Celestia fidgeted slightly as she seemed to remember something, "And... Tell Bannuk I am sorry for losing my temper. I told him to stay away from us, but with Discord out, Ayida might be right. They are our only hope as long as Discord is too strong for the elements."

Luna nodded at this and watched her sister depart on a chariot to Canterlot. As Celestia became a dot in the horizon Luna finally turned toward the library where Twilight waited. Luna began to trot towards her destination only to be stopped as she felt a strong surge of magical energy emanating from the forest. As suddenly as the energy had begun it ended, cut off rather abruptly as if something had not come, but had left.

"What now?" Luna groaned as she continued on her way to retrieve Twilight and the other elements.

As Discord ripped the portal open with his magic, he beheld a wondrous sight indeed. The portal did not simply lead to a far off land, but an entirely different plane of existence. No wonder that Immortal King was so strong but unheard of, he must have just recently come to this plane.

Stepping through the crimson portal Discord felt his essence being stretched and shot through the portal as he was transported through. The whole experience was rather painful as the massive amount of raw magical power did its work. As he emerged on the other side of the portal Discord gasped in, taking in as much air as he could as the pain subsided. Dazed from the trying mode of transportation, Discord took a few seconds to take in his surroundings. The land was unlike any he had seen. Sure some places had a hostile air to it such as the infamous Everfree or the dangerous Badlands. But no land was like the one he beheld now. The sky was dark, the land was torn, and there was an overpowering aura of death around the land.

"Oh my..." Was all Discord could manage out as he absorbed the sight of bodies strewn across the land. The corpses were of strange creatures that loosely resembled the Immortal King, but something was off about them. They had appeared to sustained a fair amount of rotting, but the wounds on them seemed fresh as they oozed blood.

It finally occurred to Discord what could have caused this when he saw something come shambling out of the fog. The figure was rotting and battered, and with a start Discord realized it was a zombie. Zombies were thought to be a legend, even among the immortals to the best of Discord's knowledge. The concept of them was truly horrifying, an army of the dead could only grow in power if the corpses of the fallen were risen, nature itself seemed to prohibit the idea of undeath. But here one was, shambling towards him. Despite the thrill he felt from such a chaotic creature existing, Discord could not let that thing near him lest it be infectious. With a flick of his wrist a magical bolt blasted the zombie in its mid section, separating it in two.

"Surprising, that should have vaporized it--" Discord stopped his self monologue as the top half of the zombie began crawling towards him with a renewed vigor. Perhaps he had underestimated how horrifying these things were. With another flick the top half splattered across the ground of the moor in front of Discord. That was a close one, the zombie almost got in range of touching him.

Discord looked up as he heard the sound of something retching. What he saw made him begin to think coming here was a horrible idea, a female zombie by the looks of her curvier shape was throwing up corpses that then rose as new zombies. Such a thing was ludicrous, even by Discord's standards. Surely if one could harness these abomination in battle, a handful could end up decimating entire towns with relative ease. Discord was about to see what he could do about the growing force in front of him when a red beam shot out of the fog and disintegrated the zombies in mere seconds. The sheer magical force of the spell stopped Discord in his tracks, that was more power than even Celestia had, Discord would have to be careful.

Turning himself invisible to the naked eye, Discord continued onward towards the direction the beam had come from. He only got to the ash piles that was once zombies when the form emerged from the mist that he presumed had shot the beam. The being was far smaller than the Immortal King, and wore strange almost ornamental looking clothing.

"See that? Not even a challenge for my greatness!" The thing said smugly as if calling back to somepony. Discord immediately got the feeling that this mage was very full of herself, very full of pride. Discord adopted a wicked grin, pride was easy to use to twist one's heart. Discord may have found the champion he was looking for.

Vasilisa was growing impatient. Her companion was taking a long time to clear out the last of the wretched mothers. Though she did not like the wizard's attitude, she could clean up the zombies that plagued New Tristram much more quickly than Vasilisa. Killing the zombies was easy enough, but you had to burn the body after killing it or it could be risen again.

"Ytaar give me the patience I require with that one..." mumbled the monk as she set off to find her companion. It was easy enough to follow the trail of ash and magical scorch marks to track the wizard

"Lihua, where are you?" Vasilisa called out. The night was fairly misty and visibility was dreadfully low. Finding the wizard would prove quite troublesome indeed.

Holding her palms together in front of her and closing her eyes, Vasilisa began to chant. Spiritual energy flooded from around her palms to envelope her entire body. She allowed her senses to extend beyond her being to the moor around her. She could feel Lihua's arcane energy. Focusing more intently on the source of the energy, Vasilisa managed to pinpoint exactly where the wizard was. Then she felt something strange, another source of magical power, but a darker, more chaotic one next to Lihua's position.

Her eyes flew open as Vasilisa raced off in the direction of the wizard, vaulting over fallen trees and dodging obstacles. The monk beheld a portal being opened by a truly strange looking creature that was seeming made of many parts of other creatures. Lihua followed the creature through the portal, and it began to slowly close behind them, and would have successfully if not for the quick actions of the monk as she stuck her hands into the now mere crack in reality. Straining with all of her physical and spiritual might, Vasilisa reopened the portal, and jumped through it.

As the all too familiar feeling of being transported via portal washed over her the monk readied herself mentally for what may lay on the other side. Perhaps she had found what had happened to the other three of her friends. Tyrael had mentioned Bannuk and Ayida going missing, shortly afterwards Thorne had disappeared as well. Was that strange creature the cause of their disappearances? Lihua did appear to be lacking a lot of color, almost a gray hue had overtaking her flamboyant clothing, perhaps a spell? Vasilisa would have to break the spell as soon as possible.

Discord was having a truly lucky day, Saphiria did not attack him. He had survived a brush in with a zombie. And best of all, he had successfully influenced the mind of a gullible but powerful being of the other dimension. Luck surely had finally changed in Discord's favor.

Something was wrong however... The portal was still open, it should have closed by now. There was only one possible reason for this. Something had followed him and his new pawn back. Discord was not expecting this at all, whatever it was had to be fast and strong if it had kept the portal open and entered through it, for Discord had made sure it would close immediately after both he and his brainwashed companion had gone through.

"Me and my big mouth..." Discord groaned as he watched a form emerge from the portal.