Chapter One

“This is the Equestrian Wasteland. It's nothing if not cruel.”

The Equestrian Wasteland, though dangerous and deadly, often had moments of surreal beauty. Throughout the post apocalyptic country there were pockets of calm and peace, should somepony look hard enough to find them. These places were places a pony could find And when ponies did find such a place, they would fight hoof and tail to keep it, no matter the cause.

        It was because of such a place that an earth pony settler had found himself chasing a mare through the wasteland, firing at her when he could and dodging her shots when he couldn't. He had been following her for days down this same road, from building to building and carriage wreck to carriage wreck. He'd nearly lost her on several occasions, only to catch her unawares after she thought she'd lost him.

        The stallion was currently sneaking after her down an old road. She'd thought she left him behind at an old, decrepit building, but he'd anticipated her direction, and had been following a hundred feet behind her for some time. She trotted up to a group of old, broken down carriages and stopped, reaching into her saddlebags. Seeing his chance, he quickly drew his rifle and took aim at her head.

BLAM!

         His shot flew a few inches below it's target, catching itself in her leather armour and doing little damage. She ran for cover behind one of the carriages, throwing a grenade to where she felt the shot had come from.

        She wasn't far off the mark, and the explosion knocked the stallion off his feet and towards the carriages. He quickly got back up and began running towards the mare, hoping she didn't have any more grenades to throw. Luckily, she didn't, and he made it to the cluster of vehicles without taking further injuries. He ducked behind a carriage opposite to the one the bandit had used as cover, and pulled his rifle back up into shooting position, resting his rifle on an empty window and taking aim at the vehicle across from him. It wasn't long before the bandit did the same, and the two began to exchange fire.

BLAM! BLAM BLAM!

Bullets whizzed through the air between two broken down carriages, embedding themselves in the centuries-old wood and metal. The stallion began to quickly reload his rifle, and cursed heavily when it jammed. Opposite him the mare giggled madly as she clumsily stuck several shells into her badly-repaired combat shotgun.

Forcing the clip in and sending a silent prayer to the Goddesses for luck, the stallion poked his head out from the front of the carriage and began looking around for the bandit, hoping to beat her to the punch and take her out before she him. Seeing no sign of her, he crept around the front of his shelter, hoping to sneak around to her carriage to catch her unawares. He crouched low and snuck to the side of his wagon... to find himself face-to-face with the mare, who apparently had had the same idea. For a few moments, the two simply stared at each other in shock. The stallion regained his senses, quickly pulling up his rifle and taking the shot shot, as the bandit pulled the trigger on her own weapon. They both stumbled backwards as the bullets met their marks, blinding pain taking place of all thought for tens of seconds. And then, all was still.

The stallion began to shuffle around weakly, feeling for his gun. He grunted through the pain in his face and side, and ignored the darkening around the edges of his vision. Is this what it's like to die? It's... it's not what I expected at all. Where's the flashbacks? Where's the singing angels ? Urgh. I wonder how that damn bandit's feeling right now... Trailing blood as he pulled himself towards the downed bandit, the wasteland-hardened stallion let out a weak chuckle. Where he was dying slowly, the bandit in question had died near instantly from a severe case of lead to the brain. He didn't know who he'd count as worse off; himself, or the dead mare who moments before he had been trading fire with.

After seeing his hoofwork had taken out one more of the Wasteland's many horrors, the stallion let his head fall to the ground, allowing the darkness to finally pull in from the corners of his vision and bring him to the afterlife. As the last breath left his body, he felt his spirit float free... and then, a warm Darkness settled in, and he was dead.

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        A cloaked pony walked down a road in the Equestrian Wasteland, staring up at the cloudy sky. His walk had taken him far from his home, but he didn't mind; he found the best things when he was lost. He looked back down to the world around him, taking in his surroundings. A little ahead of him were a few old wagons, and to either side was the broad emptiness that made up most of southern Equestria. He made his way towards the empty vehicles, musing silently about what could be in the centuries-old wreckage.

        He made his way between the two wagons, and found a gruesome sight: two ponies were lying in pools of their own vital fluids, one stallion and one mare. The stallion had a trail of blood behind him, as though he had dragged himself up to the fallen mare. The mare, for her part, had stayed where she had fallen, not that she really had the opportunity to move. Her blood and grey matter were pooling evenly around her busted skull, and flies were already making themselves at home.

        The unicorn reached under his cloak with his magic, feeling around in his saddlebags for something. Finding it, he pulled out an aged, worn book. He flipped through it quickly, looking for a specific page that would help him with this situation. Finding it, he read through it and cast a spell on himself, illuminating his eyes until they shone almost uncomfortably.

        He looked at the two corpses with his enchanted eyes. To his delight, he could see a faint aura around the bodies; even though they were dead, their souls were still connected to their bodies, even if only just. He reached into his saddlebags once again, and used his magic to pull out two extra-strength health potions. He opened both of them and poured one onto the gaping hole in the bandits head and the other onto the wastelander's face and barrel. As their bodies began magically mending themselves, the unicorn began once again flipping through his book, until he stopped on the page he needed.

        Closing his eyes, he began to focus as much magic as he could manage into his horn, building up for a spell. When he had gathered enough energy, he released several crimson tendrils from his horn, directing them into the ponies in front of him. Using the energy he had gathered, he forced the spirit energy around the bodies back into them, and sealed it there. Then, he began to chant.

        His words were ancient, and had not been heard outside of Equestria's basements and back alleys for centuries. They spoke of summoning from the ether, and of binding back to the physical pane. The stallion could speak the language he was chanting, but only on a cursory level. Much of the language's works was lost to time and balefire, never to be seen again.

        He released more tendrils of dark energy, this time in blue. He chanted ever louder, using his magic to lift the two bodies into the air. He pushed his new blue tendrils into both of the corpse's eyes. Just as the magic of the red tendrils was used to seal the spirits back into the bodies of the two ponies, the blue tendrils' magic was used to bring back the rest of the spirits back, reattaching it to what was left connected to the corpses before him.

        After the blue tendrils had coursed through the bodies for several minutes, the robed pony nodded his head in satisfaction. He set the two ponies back on the ground and sat back on his haunches, waiting contentedly.

        He didn't need to wait long for the spell to begin taking effect. Soon, the bodies of the wastelander and the bandit began to spasm and twitch, releasing small wisps of crimson and blue smoke. One after the other the two ponies stood and began walking towards him, staring into the distance with a far-off look in their eyes. The unicorn, for his part, smiled as though Hearth's Warming had come early that year, and he was the only one getting presents.

        As the two corpses came to a stop in front of the unicorn, he couldn't help but jump a little, for the sheer joy of the moment. All the countless hours spent poring over books rescued from ancient ruins throughout Equestria and beyond, uncountable bottlecaps spent sending mercenaries into dangerous areas to find him artefacts, it was all paying itself back tenfold. All the time and money he had spent were worth it, for he now had what every necromancer wanted – right and proper zompony minions.

        The unicorn pulled his hood back, revealing a disheveled mane and ecstatic grin. He decided that now was the perfect time to test the extent of his control over his new minions. “You,” he said, turning to the bandit. He started thinking about what exactly he would do. His grin grew wider when he decided on a command. “Start dancing,” he said. The unicorn laughed aloud when the reanimated mare began to do an irish jig, limbs jerkily bouncing along to a tune no one could hear. “Alright,” he gasped, trying to breathe through his fit of laughter. “Okay, you can stop now.” Even after she had stopped, it took several minutes for his laughter to fully subside. Once he managed to regain his composure, he began to wonder what he would make his other new minion do. As he shifted his saddlebags to make them more comfortable, an idea came to him. “Well mister,” He said happily as he levitated his saddlebags out from under his cloak. “Now it's your turn.” The stallion stared at him listlessly. “Come and take my saddlebags; I'm tired of carrying them around all the time.”

        He held them in front of the stallion to take, waiting patiently for a minute for him to shamble over and retrieve them from his magical grasp. Then he waited a minute little longer, a frown developing on his face. And then another. On the third minute of waiting he turned to see exactly what was wrong with his new minion, a deep frown on his face. What he seen made his blood chill. The wastelander stallion was staring at him angrily while the bandit mare beside him staring blankly into space. The unicorn quickly backed up, his cheerful mood a memory on undead winds.

        “But... but this shouldn't be happening!” he exclaimed. “I performed the spell perfectly! I did everything word for word – you should be completely under my control!” His horn lit with crimson aura, which he began moving to envelop both of the zombies. It quickly covered the mare, pulling her deeper under the necromancer's power. However, when it touched the stallion it... ceased. Whenever it came close to touching him it simply faded out of existence, draining into the ether of the afterlife.

        Ignoring the possible ramifications of coming into close contact of two zombie ponies, one of which was sentient (and clearly pissed), the unicorn rushed towards them, trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong with his spell. He did a quick physical examination, finding nothing out of the ordinary for zombies. Neither was breathing, and neither had a pulse. For all purpose and reason, they were both dead. But where the bandit mare didn't react in any noticeable way to her environment, the stallion's eyes followed the necromancer, his body showing his readiness to run if things became dangerous. The more he looked at the two zombies in front of him, the more and more worried the unicorn was becoming. As he leaned in for a closer look of the wastelander, the stallion jumped back in alarm, wary of the hooded pony and his dark magicks. The bandit mare continued to stand there, blankly staring at the necromancer. He took note of this, taking the new information into account to make his decision.

        After much thought, the unicorn decided that one zompony would be easier to deal with in the long run, even with his own mind. Acting on this choice, he turned his head to the bandit mare, muttering a few words under his breath as his horn once again lit with crimson auras. Once again the magical aura began to envelop the zombie bandit, until she was completely covered in the necromancer's magical grasp. He concentrated on the aura surrounding her as the stallion stared on warily. The magic surrounding the bandit flared a bright blue and ignited, burning away the walking corpse until there was nothing left in her place but the items she was carrying when she had died. The wastelander jumped back from the pile in horror and the unicorn moved forwards, beginning to search through the pile of items and ash for anything useful.

        “W-what'd you DO?!” he shouted angrily. He rushed forward to search the pile, searching for some sign of life he knew he wouldn't find.

        The unicorn, for his credit, didn't so much as flinch when it turned out that the zompony could speak, not to mention shout. “Well,” he replied as he pocketed a small fortune's worth of bottlecaps. “I figure that it's gonna be hard enough to deal with one uncontrollable undead minion. I would've much preferred to get rid of the you, seeing as you're the one who I actually can't control, but it seems as though I can't touch you with my magic, either. So, well, I could only get rid of her, couldn't I?” He continued searching through the pile of ashes for a moment more before he stopped and turned to the stallion. “Wait,” he said. “You were both dead when I got here, and it sure as Tartarus looked like you'd done each other in. Why d'you care if she's dead now?”

        “I-I just think that...” The stallion went quiet for a moment, trying to arrange his thoughts. They were just as confusing to the necromancer as they were to him. “ It's just that even she deserved better than to be turned into a zombie, then just discarded like that!” He stomped his hoof down for emphasis, landing it directly in the pile of ashes and sending much of them flying into the air. Seeing what he'd done, he quickly pulled his hoof back, disturbing the ashes even more.

        The necromancer laughed aloud at the sight, turning and walking away from the undead stallion and the pile of ashes. After a few moments of walking alone, he turned back to the stallion, who was still standing by the pile of ashes. “Well? Are you coming or not?” He asked, patiently waiting. “While my magic might not be able to affect you, the Equestrian wasteland isn't exactly known for it's kindness towards creatures of the undead persuasion. Even if you don't exactly like me, I can assure that you will be mostly safer in my charge.” With this said, the necromancer turned back around and sat down, waiting quietly for the stallion to make up his mind.

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        The zompony stood still for a moment, staring between the pile of ashes at his hooves and the pony sitting a few feet away. Try as he might, he couldn't wrap his mind entirely around the situation. On one hoof, the pony at his feet had been, until a few minutes ago (by the Goddesses, had it really only been a few minutes?) trying to kill him, was now a pile of ash at his hooves. Between then and now both she and him had been turned into undead monsters by a necromancer who was currently sitting only feet away, waiting for him to make up his mind about whether or not the stallion wanted to serve him. Not to mention the fact that as soon as he had decided he had had no use for the bandit, he had simply discarded her like an old rag, turning her to ashes where she stood like it was something he did every other day. Which wasn't to say he didn't; the wastelander really had no clue what to think about this pony.

        On the other hoof, he was, for all intents and purposes, a ghoul now. And like the necromancer had said, the Equestrian wasteland wasn't exactly kind to the undead. And if staying with the unicorn could ensure his safety from the other ponies of the wasteland and their thoughts of the undead, then it didn't really seem like he had many options.

        Sighing, he walked towards the hooded unicorn, doing his best to ignore the fact that he could no longer feel the slight breeze running through his fur. Turning around to see what had happened, the necromancer smiled widely before grabbing his saddlebags with his magic and depositing them onto the back of his new companion. After he did this he turned back around and continued walking, oblivious to the earth pony's glare. Sighing once again the stallion followed behind, contemplating exactly how tall a mountain could be for him to buck the unicorn off of and have him still alive afterwards.

        As he thought, a glaring thought made it's way into his head – he had no idea where they were going, or how long it would take to get there. “Hey,” he called up to the unicorn. “Where the hell're we going, anyways?” The unicorn turned his head back to look at the stallion and gave him a look of confusion.

        “I thought that'd be obvious,” he said. “We're on our way to my base of operations. If we hurry up-” at this he gave the stallion a pointed look, as if to motion him to move faster. “We should be there in an hour or two. If not, well... I hope you don't mind camping out. That little scene you caused back there cost us a very large portion of sunlight.”

        The earth pony bit his tongue at this, trying his hardest not to shout that it was him who'd brought him and the bandit back to life, and him who'd decided it would be appropriate to incinerate the mare. Instead of shouting, he simply sighed loudly and walked along with the unicorn, staying a few steps behind him so as not to accidentally engage in conversation once again.

        Talking to the unicorn was quickly becoming a fate worse that re-death.