The Bewitching Hour

The enigmatic figure of ‘Death’ had tracked the movements of Beatrix Belladonna and Shadow Scythe for a while now. What better place to be, with all the senseless losses the pair of them left in their wake? Yet, the moment to strike was not right. This, the creature knew well. So instead, he sought to conjure his own band of allies, seeing as the wayward witch’s manor became hospice with all sorts of warriors, spellcasters, assassins, and more collected from across the multiverse.

The skeletal equine in tattered robes materialized in the middle of a lust savannah, where a naked zebra’s body slumped. Swirling over the carcass was a wake of vultures, ready to take apart the muscles clean from the bone. Yet the scavengers dared not to land near the hooded figure below.

Any other stalking animal bristled in his presence, sensing him to be a more significant threat and that the corpse wasn’t worth the risk. A glow escaped the sockets in his skull, a rust-colored scythe clasped in his bony grip. The deepening shadows stretched around him.

“Yes… You will do just fine,” he whispered and knelt next to the fallen hunter. Skeletal fingers touched his striped skin. “Arise, hunter! Your time in this world isn’t over yet.”

Wispy darkness flowed from him like smog, seeping into the zebra. Black clouds banished the sunlight, filling an ashen sky. Coughs sounded from the warrior, whose form shook when he thrust up into a seated position. The whiteness of his eyes had vanished, leaving only glowing pupils. “H-Huh!? What...happened...? The last thing I recall was…” His eyes wandered to a dried trail of blood in the distance leading to him. He clutched at wounds on his body, finding no heartbeat beneath his chiseled chest.

“You are dead,” the deathly revenant answered simply. “And would remain so had I not breathed new life into you.”

Natural Selection glare at the skeletal figure, rising onto his feet with shakiness. “You think I should be grateful?!”

The voice was like a whisper. “I think you should be considerate of the position I’m offering.”

Muscles tensed up. “And just why did you go through the trouble of resurrecting me?”

“Because I require your skills,” the robed skeleton gestured. “I have great use for you, Asili.”

The rogue hunter recoiled at the mention of his name, memories flooding back into his head. His banishment from the tribe. The hunt of beautiful mares who he made his trophies. Through the aid of Beatrix Belladonna and Fleur de Lis, his former mate, Ebony Ivory, had brought him to justice before Noble Savage. Yet, before he could face execution, like his cult of loyal followers, the witch banished him through a portal to here.

Left to die, he had lived off the land for some time in search of civilization...until a herd of lions, who sensed his weakness after he was dehydrated, beset him. He’d slain over a dozen with his bare hands, soaked in blood before they overwhelmed and mortally wounded him.

He’d escaped far away in a sprint, only to collapse and bitterly curse his fate before he expired.

Shaking his head, the zebra warrior defiantly stated, “I serve no one.”

Reaching under his frayed mantle, the skeletal stallion traced the stitched and dried cover of the Necronomicon, lined in the horrified frozen faces of the Eldritch race. A prize he had taken from Cerise’s homeworld, Stygian and Somnambula unable to stop him, despite the latter’s ability to become the guardian Sphinx. “You speak as if you have a choice. What I give, I can also take.”

“Spare me the spiritual bullsh-” Before Natural Selection could spite the ghoul it further, his wounds reopened and leaked black blood. A similar taint leaked from the side of his snout. And along came an immeasurable amount of pain, forced to his knees while he bellowed.

“Aagh! GRAAAAAAAAGH! S-Stop! What is it you even want with me?! W-who are you..?!”

With a cruel chuckle, the revenant released his spiteful grasp on Natural’s body, his wounds sealing up. “You may call me Mortis. And, believe it or not, we share a common desire.”

Uneasily, the hunter wheezed, “A-and that would be..?”

“Revenge.”

“Revenge… Hehe, yeah, figures. And let me take a guess! You wish to settle the score with that devious witch, Beatrix Belladonna?”

Mortis shook his head. “I bear her no personal enmity. Yet she has ties to an old enemy of mine. Through her, I may strike at the one who reduced me to...this. I’ve learned many secrets in my old prison. About the Cult of the Nemesis that ravaged her world...and how I might revive it.”

The specters of the Eldritch, also trapped in the Necronomicon’s pages, had haunted the lich. Their hive mind had been broken, the alien creatures almost unintelligible...but he had an eternity to try and communicate with them.

And finally, after what seemed like forever, success. A few Eldritch achieved individuality through communication with him and shared their forbidden knowledge. They wished to claim the Demiurge, their dark messiah, back from Beatrix. And he swore to aid them if it meant he could punish Shadow Scythe for her treachery.

Smoldering while he considered the offer, Natural Selection met his stare, a curl to his snout. “I suppose there is no choice. If I am to be your puppet, at least give me the pleasure of staking my claim on Ebony’s soul!”

“Of course,” assured Mortis, who widened his cloak, his ribcage visible before he wrapped the shroud around the hunter. Swallowed up in the abyss of darkness, they were transported elsewhere, where he was finally released.

Swept away from the familiar surroundings, Natural’s eyes narrowed when they adjusted to where he found himself. A mass graveyard stretched around him, perpetually dank and dim to match its overseer. Enclosed in a black fence topped in spikes, moss-lined headstones protruded from the mushy worm-ridden earth, some of which had fallen over or cracked.

A drizzle bled from the black clouds that matted his fur and the thick mane that trailed down his muscular back. He noted a name on a headstone. “Danse Macabre,” he murmured when he crouched and traced the faded etchings.

“The stallion I once was,” he stated. “It is nothing more than a reminder of how feeble I was alive.” Most of the other names were illegible. The hunter suspected they were fellow grim reapers, tasked to cycle souls to their destinations and preserve the world’s fragile order in secret.

For a moment, the warrior stood still and took in his surroundings. He touched his flesh, finding it cold and clammy. While his consciousness remained, was he merely a zombie? He remembered tales from the tribe of a forbidden ritual, where witch doctors turned the dead into their tortured slaves. Was that all he was now? A damned tool to carry out the will of another?

He scanned a particular coffin, noting it appeared much different than the rest. Instead of wood and nails, steel and otherworldly mechanization composed its sleek shape. Tron lines highlighted the rims before vanishing once the coffin shook. Its lid slid open, steam hissing in phantasmal vapors while someone rose from its confines.

This stallion was older, grizzled and bearded, adorned in a hat and heavy coat. His boots were caked in mud. He gazed at the zombified zebra while stretching out his limbs, making a sickening cracking sound. “So you must be the fresh blood,” he huffed, unholstering his pistol from his belt, spinning it around his index finger. “Well, let me be the first to welcome you to our little corpse party. Name’s Quicksilver Bullet,” he proclaimed, offering a hand. “I take it you’re Natural Selection. I didn’t think Mortis would be able to find you.”

Natural’s snout scrunched when he batted away his spotted hand and noted, “You are not my equal, old man. Do not think we are such just because we’re both undead abominations!”

“He also said you’d be quite stubborn,” Quicksilver noted with a stiff chuckle.

“Weren't we all at one point?” Came another voice behind them. The two turned to see another stallion in a black pin-striped suit. His mane was dark and silky, scars around his neck. “If not for my own brand of arrogance, perhaps I would have kept my head during that sword duel…”

Natural asked, “And you are...?”

“A former politician, from a world so advanced, you wouldn’t possibly understand.”

“Is that where you got these here coffins from?” The gunslinger asked, pointing to the other metallic casket.

The stallion shrugged. “Not a clue. They seem vaguely familiar to me, but I can’t pinpoint where I’ve seen this technology. My memory hasn’t fully come back yet. Not that it matters who I was anymore. For now, call me Triad.”

“Perfect. Another failure,” the zebra scoffed.

This made the pin-striped stallion smirk. “Unlike you, I am grateful for this second chance.”

Natural Selection shook his head. While he despised this whole undead ordeal, he had to admit; he wasn’t out of place amongst this band of ponies. He, too, had failed in life. A mistake he would not repeat. He would learn the purpose of this mysterious patron and why they collected these fallen souls from their rightful dimensions. His musculature tensed up. “So, when do we start? I have a bone to pick with Beatrix and can’t wait to take my pound of that bitch’s flesh.”

“It’s too early to strike now,” Mortis insisted from behind them. “You’re still too weak. Assail her now, and your bodies will merely crumble.”

“So for now, we remain here and train? I can deal with that,” said Quicksilver, who twirled his pistol some more. His expression soured, at memories of his own life robbed by the one he called daughter. No doubt Shadow Scythe was responsible for his current predicament.

“Good,” the skeletal equine nodded. “I must leave momentarily. Use this time wisely.” With that said, he vanished into the blackness. Silence fell amongst the trio of zombies; the rainstorm started to die own. Each stallion sized the other up, primarily focused on the newcomer.

The zebra cracked the joints from his neck. It wasn’t unlike the way his tribe had looked down on him. But, like always, he had to prove himself worthy. He was one of the few who had ever been able to match Noble Savage, the tribe’s chief, in hand-to-hand combat. A feat that had won his respect and Ebony’s heart during their youth. Out of all of the enemies he made, she would suffer his unbridled wrath for her betrayal.

He studied the sheathed sword in Triad’s hand and scoffed, “Don’t tell me that’s all you can do.”

Triad's chin lifted. “Ha! Not so simple. As I’ve said, I come from a world thriving with technological advancements. More sublime than the… primitive one you hail from.”

To demonstrate, he undid his pin-striped suit and cast off the top, lithe muscles below exposed. A series of tattoos of a serpentine dragon and tiger locked in battle adorned his back, evenly matched. Then, the tattoo began to shimmer, and a pair of perfect copies materialized at his sides.

“I see why you took the name ‘Triad.’ But your ‘advanced’ technology still won’t do you good against me!” The warrior curled his snout.

“Let us test that claim then,” replied Triad, who unsheathed his finely-honed katana. “Though I would much prefer if you were also armed…”

“Here.” Quicksilver reached into another bionic coffin prepared for him and fished out a lance, alongside a suitable costume for the zebra. “It seems whoever manufactured these coffins expect us to use them to sustain ourselves.”

“Treating us like we’re damned vampires. Pha!” Natural Selection spat before claiming the lance and putting on the loincloth. Myths of such creatures were universal, often as a warning to those who sought immortality. Yet he felt new power stir inside him, too. He closed his eyes and felt the cold darkness their benefactor infused into their tainted souls flow out at his will.

Inky tendrils swirled around the zebra. A rattle sounded below the earth. The ground trembled until it slipped open, and from the earthen abyss crawled out the skeletal remains of beasts who clambered their way to the surface in a death rattle, the animal skeletons under his control.

His eyes snapped open. A roar escaped from his belly that could freeze blood. The undead beasts charged, and the land beneath them trembled.

“Finally,” breathed Triad, a sheathe in one hand and his katana in the other. “A worthy challenge!”

The swordsman and his duplicates dashed to meet them, a blur carried by his subtle, cybernetic enhancements. His swipes left arcs each time the trio struck down the creatures, which exploded into scattered bones left to rattle whenever they fell under precise strokes.

No matter how many were summoned, the hunter found himself unable to keep up with the swordsman and growled in frustration.

Quicksilver clapped. “Heh. Good show, boys. Don’t feel too bad about the loss, friend. Rebirth tends to make you weak.”

“I am never weak,” growled Natural Selection, poising his spear’s tip threateningly at the older stallion’s throat. He would have to start from the bottom, but he had no doubt he would surpass them, considering how diligently he spent his life training to be his tribe’s mightiest warrior. He’d successfully hunted and slain fabled creatures Quicksilver had only researched, let alone some prissy politician who came from a comfy, tamed world dependent on machines!

Triad sheathed his sword, his muscles lined in a thin sheen of perspiration. “We’ve all had to make adjustments. When I first awoke, I was terrified due to this state of undeath. More afraid than of leaving the home my handlers had designed for me.” He closed his eyes and wistfully recalled a life of imprisonment, before a run-in with Wispy Willow and Kitsune had finally ended him.

By contrast, Quicksilver struggled to recall his life. He remembered he had a wife, Quiver Bolt. That he had researched legendary monsters and hunted them in the wild, but all that seemed to matter now to the gunslinger was the master’s whims and the demise of his traitorous daughter.

Speaking of, their deathly benefactor returned from darkened shrouds. Mortis hovered before the trio, opened his cloak wide, and from it tumbled an unfamiliar, nude female griffin. She opened her sleepy eyes, blinked, and stretched her thin arms wide with a yawn. “Oh? Here already? And I’d thought I’d get a few more minutes of rest,” she murmured sleepily.

“A female,” observed Natural Selection, sporting a lecherous grin while he watched her plume unfurl to fullness amidst dainty little flaps, the shiny dark green feathers preened to perfection. “Have you brought the wench here to service us~?”

“You really outta lay off the misogyny, partner,” grunted Quicksilver, his gaze narrowing. “There’s something off about this one. I can feel it…”

The avian swiveled to her talons and fluttered her lashes. “Right you are, old man.” She used a claw to slit her breast open, which drooled bright blue blood. The griffoness peeled flesh aside to expose clockwork mechanisms that whirred within. “I doubt any of you lot have seen science like this? I’ve been told my world is most unusual. You may call me Penny Dreadful, by-the-by.”

Triad stared at the open wound. “Most unusual indeed! A blend of old and new craftsmanship. What a paradoxical creature you are!”

She bent before her casket and withdrew a parasol. Gingerly she stroked its length, and a swish sounded when a hidden blade sprung out, which glimmered in the faint moonlight. “Ahh~! I can’t wait to test this,” she murmured giddily, stroking the flat side with a dainty flutter.

“For a wind-up doll, she’s quite psychotic,” whispered Quicksilver, who noticedshe sat with a crazed gleam in her eyes and a wicked smile.

“Lunacy can be a sign of insight,” muttered Natural, whose harsh features softened a tad. In his tribe, the insane communed with the spirits, able to pierce the veil between life and death. So he had no choice but to afford her some respect.

“Don’t take it easy on me,” said Penny, who slipped into a small top hat and old-fashioned dress with a wiggle. “I, too, am a hunter! Or huntress, to be exact.” She winked and twirled her umbrella, like him determined to prove she was worthy of their master’s boon. “Let’s dance~!” She cackled and took a wild swipe at him, which he barely evaded, his spear raised with a grin.

“How childish,” tutted Quicksilver, shaking his head. From what the master told him, his life wasn’t the only life his daughter ruined. And if he were to obey, the once-proud cryptozoologist would be reunited with the love of his life. The lovely Quiver Bolt; her soul lost somewhere in the ether after her suicide. Sometimes, he dreamt of her and felt alive all too briefly. To have her back, he endured. His snout pursed in a line before turning to the high-tech assassin. “Shall we?”

“Let’s. These bodies won’t break easily. You can’t kill what’s already dead,” mused Triad, his mny-folded blade raised to meet him.

A duel broke out between the four hunters, who would soon learn whatever wounds they inflicted were quickly mended, the blackness that filled them congealing over the holes. And anything worse could be slept off in the coffins, which at their mental command served more cold, inky blackness that entombed them when they slept.

Would their benefactor return with more allies? Until Mortis returned, all they could do was train. Surrounded by the comfort of the dead in the middle of nowhere, people who never would have met under normal circumstances were now left uncertain as to what their future held...