Kirkyard Rest Halloween Event

Havoc hoisted the body of the mare in her magic, stepping to the side to avoid the dripping fluids from her bloated stomach. Turning the body, she inspected the head. Intact, little to no damage and only mild swelling. She cant have been dead more than a day or two, long enough for the belly gases to build but not enough for the true rot to begin. Good. Havoc lay the mare gently into the wagon of corpses and kept walking, hauling the heavy load through the marsh. Bodies shifted and belched with gases as she walked, the squeak of her hazmat suit creating a cacophony of disturbing noises that would have frightened any pony if they saw them. Havoc pulled out a list, scanning through the fog building up on her mask.

“Who’s next?” She murmured to herself. The list was compiled by her sister every morning after receiving reports on their little radio of dead bodies. Then it was Havoc’s grim task to make the rounds, picking up the dead for a small fee. The townsfolk didn't have to worry about burials, and her sister got new playthings. Not that the folk calling them knew that, after all. Doubtful they'd be so eager for their services if they knew what became of the bodies they called for collection. “Mare, died early this morning from buckshot. Looks like they left her under the big oak.” She hitched the wagon tighter and began to trot over to the hill where a large, dead oak lived. It’s spindly branches reached into the cloudy sky like daggers, a popular place for shifty people to meet and for bodies to be left for collection. If it was a buckshot wound and only this morning, why rigor mortis wouldn't have even set in! Havoc’s step quickened and she began to puff in her eagerness. A real nice find like that would keep her sister very happy for a while. She reached the tree, and sure enough there was a mare’s body laying delicately in the mud, surrounded by flowers. She must have been loved. Havoc closed her eyes, gathering her magic in her horn and releasing a cooling spell. It wasn't a must, but it would keep this one particularly fresh until she got back to base.

The mare was heavy, her limbs still loose with the relaxation that only death brings. Grunting with the effort, Havoc shoved the mare into the wagon, the wheels creaking and sinking a little lower. The mare had been a little plump before her chest had been caved in by a spray of buckshot. Humming joyfully, Havoc began the long trek home, eager to get the bodies into the deep freezer by sundown. She’d had a busy morning, and the heat would speed up any rotting which would affect the brains of the ponies. She also had left her own project unfinished, a beautiful mechanical hoof with delicate wiring that looked just like the muscle fibres of a hellhound’s arm. She hoped it would prove just as strong. Excitement fuelled her hooves and the miles passed swiftly beneath her.

The sun was high overhead when her home came into view, the wagon chafing against the sweat on her back. Their home was a mostly intact old farmhouse, with ramshackle extensions added on here and there from scrap metal and old bricks giving an overall lopsided appearance. The stench of decay seemed to hang over the place, as if even entering here would risk life and limb. Havoc smiled, happy to be home. A ball of grey and neon came flying out of the house, shrieking excitedly.

“Youre back! Did you get them all?” Her little sister Hemlock peered around Havoc into the wagon of corpses, her eyes sparkling with glee.

“I did, and you wont believe how fresh one of them is!” Havoc unhitched herself from the wagon, starting to unload the bodies onto a gurney. “I think today is the day you get to try soul binding!” Hemlock stared at the recently deceased mare, reaching out a hoof to brush the lifeless face in awe.

“Is the potion ready? We should get started soon before the soul leaves this world completely.” Havoc nudged her sister, who blinked and instantly darted off towards the morgue. Wheeling the bodies in front of her and carrying the special mare in her magic, Havoc followed after. They'd been practising and preparing for months, hoping to snag a body that still had a soul attached but so far none had died recently enough. This mare was less than half a day old, there was a good chance that her soul still clung to the earth. Other ponies may scoff at such fanciful ideas, but the necromancer sisters knew that it was possible to harness a soul. Many moons ago they’d found a zebra journal, the contents indecipherable, but they’d both known it had contained great power. Through research and raiding long decayed libraries they had pieced together a spell, one that had been hastily copied from another book lost to time. A spell that, in theory, could bind the soul of the recently deceased to an object, and hold it there for eternity. As soon as she had found it, Hemlock had been dying to try it on one of her brain bots.

Havoc placed the mare on the table in the morgue and slipped off the hood of her hazmat suit, her breath frosting in the icy air. The generator that kept this place close to freezing often conked out, but it was working well today. Hemlock nudged her out of the way, eager to open up the mare’s skull. Leaving her to it, Havoc slumped in a chair, the fabric cool and crisp under her fur. A special brain bot slumped beside her, the arsenal of weapons that Havoc had personally designed currently still and lifeless. Normally the brain of a deceased animal or pony could fuel one of these babies for months, a rudimentary android running of spark-batteries and brain electrical rhythms to create mayhem in the wasteland. They made pretty good bodyguards until they inevitably went mad, you could even program them to say a few phrases like ‘Die, Zebra Scum!’. Hemlock had always theorised if she could strap a living brain, a soul, into one of their machines, she could create a machine that could strategise and fight with a will behind it instead of mindless machinery. The whine of the bone saw lulled Havoc into a doze as Hemlock pulled the brain gently from its case. She placed it into a dish of a pale potion with an unearthly glow, carefully kept brewed at all times for this one opportunity.

“Havoc!”

Havoc snapped out of her doze, sleepily shuffling over to the table. The mare’s empty skull gleamed with old blood and she had to resist the urge to rub her hoof on the skull. Bones felt so weird, nothing like the smoothness of metal machinery.

“It’s time.” Her sister sounded nervous, and excited. Nervicited? Havoc smiled at the thought. “Can you manage the spell?”

Havoc tossed her fluffy mane out of her eyes, giving her earth pony sister a confident grin. She’d practised this spell over and over, Havoc knew how important this was to Hemlock. “Naturally. Leave it to your big sister!”

Taking a deep breath, she focused deep within herself. Havoc allowed her body to relax, carefully forming the Zebrican runes within her mind. Her magic usually felt warm and full of joy, this magic was something else, something older and more sinister. It was cold, and a creeping sense of wrongness crawled up her spine, but she was undeterred. Focusing the spell onto the brain, she began to chant in an ancient, foul tongue, her eyes glowing and malicious waves of magic radiated from her horn. She could feel something within the magic, a mote of light hovering nearby and knew it was the soul of this mare, not ready to let go. Lashing out with the spell, she grabbed the mote of light, twisting it towards her, all the while howling in the long forgotten language of the stars. The room began to shake and the lights flickered, ignored by the two mares. The sensation of wrongness reached a peak, drilling into her own brain with a pain like she’d never experienced before but still Havoc held onto the mote of light, forcing it into the potion. The liquid flashed with a blinding beam of light and both mares were thrown backwards. The corpse tumbled from the table with a sickening crunch, then all was still. The light above them swung back and forth.

“Did it work?” Hemlock had dragged herself from under the couch where she’d been thrown, jamming her beanie back onto her head.

Havoc groaned, clutching at her horn. That spell had pulled all her magic reserves from her, she wouldnt be lifting so much as a coffee cup for weeks. “I think so? We won't know until we hook it up.” She slumped back down to the ground, her part in this was done.

“I’’l try now.” Hemlock’s voice sounded shaky, but her hooves were steady as she pushed the empty brain bot casing over to the potion. She’d modified this bot’s casing to have the magical speaker hooked directly into the neuronet, which in theory would allow a brain to speak directly through the speakers. Only in theory, all the brainbots she’d made so far had been from dead ponies or beasts, only able to parrot back preferred lines in reaction to stimulus. This one, she hoped, would be different. The brain felt slimy and slippery in her hooves as she transferred it into the casing, pumping the preservation fluid into the glass container. The brain floated there silently, hooked into the neuronet.

Havoc dragged herself up to the table to watch her sister work, excited to see if that fouled magic had been worth it. She sipped at a health potion, hoping in vain that it would restore some of her depleted magic. Hemlock looked at her excitedly.

“Moment of truth.” She flicked the brain bot’s switch, and the machine hummed to life. The neuronet sparkled, electrical impulses flickering through the enchanted diamonds.

“Where-Where am I?” A disembodied robotic voice, distorted slightly by the speaker, warbled out into the room.

“It worked!” Hemlock screamed in triumph, throwing her hooves around Havoc. The sisters danced in pure joy, their plan had worked! The brain was alive!

“Please, I cant see, I cant feel my hooves.” The voice had no emotion or inflection, but it still managed to sound afraid. “Where am I? Who are you?”

Havoc turned back to her creation, tapping a few more switches. “There we go, that should give you a sensor screen. You should be able to see us now, in your own way.”

The brainbot was silent for a moment, before speaking again. “Why cant I see you normally? Why are you all green, like a figure on a terminal?”

“It's just the way the scanner is. We had to build you out of scavenged parts, you know.” Havoc walked around the pony, tweaking a few things here and there. Hemlock knew everything about biocybernetics, but robotics was her jurisdiction.

“Build me? What do you mean? Where’s my husband? Where’s Peony? She's my daughter. What have you done with Peony?” One of the robotic arms twitched, waving like a hoof. Havoc smiled in satisfaction, all the parts were functioning normally. This bad beast would do some serious damage once the brain figured out how to work its weaponry. She couldn't wait to set it loose into a town of raiders!

“Relax,” Hemlock said smoothly, leaning back on the morgue table. “Your family is just fine, they’re back in town probably mourning your death.”

“My death?” The robot stopped waving its arm.

“Yup. Died of buckshot straight to the chest. So we came and got your body, a service to your family, and now you have an amazing second life as my greatest creation!”

The robot whirred, the lights on the neuronet glowing rapidly. “I’m dead?”

Hemlock sighed, moving the gurney out of the way. The mare’s carcass was folded grotesquely behind it, where it had fallen during the spell. “Scan for yourself.” She gestured at the body.

The robot floated softly up to it, the sound of the magical air cushioning it’s propulsion hissing softly. It seemed to stare at its previous shell for an eternity. “This is a joke, right? I’m in hell now or something?” It turned back to the sisters, the brain drifting softly in its liquid.

“Nope!” Hemlock said cheerfully. “Your brain is now in one of my sister’s state of the art brain bot casings, and I programmed everything in there. Your job will be to act as a guard, going into buildings we can’t and putting down any threats you find. Why, we’ve outfitted you with the best weaponry we could find, you could theoretically take out an army!”

Havoc smiled at how overjoyed her sister was, this was her passion, the reason she existed. Finding new and creative ways to bring life back into things who thought themselves dead and useless. She noticed the robot’s flamethrower beginning to whirr on, looks like it found the weapons file.

“I don't think so,” Havoc stepped between the brainbot and her sister. “Harm either one of us and the self destruct sequence coded into your hardware activates. It’ll kill you, then whichever one of us who still lives will hunt down your little family and put their brains in casings. Understood?”

The brainbot whirred, the diamonds on the neuronet playing a beautiful dance. Havoc knew the brain would be calculating the probability of survival, of succeeding in murdering both of them before the explosion tore it apart. The flamethrower powered down.

“Good bot.” Havoc gave it a friendly pat on the head, turning to her sister. “There’s a raider encampment two days away. Care to take it for a spin?”

Havoc’s face lit up and she squealed with glee, pulling out her map of the surrounding area. Bowing their heads, the girls got to planning their newest adventure.

Behind them, the sound of soft sobbing trickled out of the speaker.