The Lullaby of the Lich

by Gearhorn


Undeath it happens to the best of us

        Boredom that's all I felt for the planet I lived on. Day after day the same thing would happen. Get up go to school, sit in classrooms for hours “learning” stuff I had long ago taught myself. Go “home” to a family that is only capable of arguing with each other. This was more or less the pattern I had come to live with since I had been living. The only real bright side to those days was the one friend I had. She was a pretty girl, smart, crazy as a loon, but I suppose that was nearly a requirement to be my friend.

        See, I was unpopular, and by that I mean all I had was that one friend. Which wouldn't have been all that bad all things considered, but when nearly the whole school either treats you with hostility, or worse. You hope to have more than one allie. You are probably wondering why nearly everyone hates me so I will tell you. It’s because I killed some high schoolers back in middle school.

        I had just fought a bully the day before, the fight didn't last long. It only took one punch, and the guy hit the ground unconscious. He wasn't anything special he was the typical bully tall, fat and ugly. The only real reason that he was even capable of picking on anyone was because of his girth. Anyway after the fight he ended up telling on me to his big brother, who happened to be the nose tackle, on the high school football team. Like any “good” brother, he rounded up a few of his friends and decided to mug me in a back alley after school.

        “You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

        “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. You sent my brother to the hospital with a concussion!” He shouted.

        “Look I didn’t mean to give him a concussion, but if you still want to fight that’s fine. Be warned though I won’t be able to hold back against so many people.”

        “HA! Did you hear that guys, he said he wouldn’t be holding back. Oh, geeeeez I’m so scared now.” he said while shaking in mock fear.

        A dark smile crept across my face at his words. I was going to enjoy this, it had been so very long time since I had fought without holding back. “Very well, lets get this show on the road then.”

        Word of advice to any would be bullies out there, don’t mug someone where the terrain works in their favor. Ignoring the fact that I had a obvious terrain advantage the high schoolers charged forward, or at least the two did, being limited by the narrow ally that's all that could move forward. This made things much easier on me, too easy really. The first one to reach me swung hard, over extending himself. Seeing the opening I stepped inside the punch, and brought up a uppercut to meet his chin, knocking him out cold. As he fell I quickly turned and delivering two jabs to the next guys face and finished him with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Completely ignoring his fallen friends the next one charged forward trying to tackle me, but I managed to keep my footing and instead got pushed into a wall. No having to back peddle and with the thug still holding me around the waist, I grabbed him around his waist lifted him upside down, and dropped him on his head with the combined weight of two rather large people. This only left two people who were soon upon me. One of them taking advantage of their numbers managed to get behind me, as he tried to get me in a headlock so the other could finish me off, I raised my arms and dropped into a squat as soon as I felt his arms under mine. I then spun around behind him and kicked him in the back toward his friend causing them to trip over each other and fall. Before they could get up I ran forward and stomped on the back of one their heads, making both their heads smack together with a sound comparable to a shotgun.

        I was tried afterwards for four cases of murder, but managed to get out of it with a self defense plea. Though this didn’t stop people from hearing about it. Soon word was out that I was a psychopath that was looking for an excuse to kill people. Needless to say school became different after that and all my friends but one left me.
 

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Day of Departure

        “Come on Dess. How could you think Fluttershy is best pony?” I asked incredulously.

        “How could you not! She is so cute and shy, and she is even good with small creatures, including children!” Deseray said.

        “I’m glad you found yourself a wife Dess. I’m happy for you really.” I said with my most sincere voice “Now all you have to do is tear space time, find Fluttershy, and convince her to marry you.” I said jokingly.

        “I could you know.”

        “Sure I believe you could tear open space time and convince a pony to love you, and I have a chance at dating a goddess and living forever” I said rolling my eyes.

        I looked over to see Deserays reaction, only to find a mischievous smile instead of mirth or anger. I knew things were going to get interesting soon. They always did when she had that smile on her face. “So you want to go to Equestria and date a goddess.”

        “Who wouldn’t?”

         Her smile spread to a creepy level. “It’s a date!” she exclaimed with glee.

"Wha!" Was all I could say, before the world went black.

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        “Wake up sleepy head” I heard Deseray sing out. “Wait keep your eyes closed. Don’t freak out...no wait scratch that freak out it will be much more amusing to watch."

"Why would I freak out?" I said still keeping my eyes closed.

"Well, you're in a cemetery, in Equestria, I am a goddess showing my true form to you, OH and you're a undead skelly pony lich”

"Is that all" Opening my eyes I saw bones that when I followed them lead up to my body. A pony body minus the flesh and blood. I also noticed I was in a overgrown graveyard in the middle of a forest. Probably the Everfree Forest if I were to guess based on the foliage. Looking around I spotted Deseray...or at least what I figured was her. Her true form looked like a angel without a halo, instead she three long unicorn horns one of the horns was straight while the other two wrapped around it in a double helix, instead of feet she had talons, and her school clothes were replaced with a white dress/robe/thing. Clothes aren't exactly my forte. "Hmm so you weren't kidding hu. I actually kind of like this new look"

"Ah. Thanks it took me while to decide what to make you. Then I was like HUAUA SKELLY PONY LICH!! IT HAS TO BE DONE!! So anyway you still want to date a goddess in Equestria?” She said with a smirk.

        “Sure if said goddess is a necrophiliac...”

        “WHAT!!!” The ground around her caught fire, though I think she was more embarrassed  than mad. After calming down and putting out the fires with small magic explosions that took out more than a few headstones, she continued talking “Oh! You thought I was just going to date you. Well that isn’t exactly how this is going to happen. First you are going to need to have a living body... perhaps that’s last anyway get yourself a nice body and a kingdom to your name. Then we can be together.”

        “Great you so your saying look good and get rich, so you can date me for my body and wealth” At this she just disappeared. “WAIT DESS I WAS KIDDING COME BACK!!!”

        “What you don’t have to yell, I was just getting my checklist. Tell unnamed skelly pony that he can date me under set conditions. Check. Tell him that there are other humans in Equestria, and the surrounding area. Check. Show him how to use his powers.” At this point she shot a beam of energy from her horns hitting me right in the head knocking me over backwards. “Check. Tell him you are a goddess of chaos and that if anyone ask who sent you, tell them that ‘Disaray goddess of chaos, and destroyer of virtual worlds’ is the one who sent you. Check. Name previously unnamed skelly pony ‘Red Tide’ but don’t give him any titles. He has to earn those himself. Check.” Apparently she was done with the checklist since she wadded it up into a ball, threw it over her back, were it turned into a dove and flew off. Oh and you're going to have to eat a lot of flesh of living creatures in order to get to where you look like a pony. Though it’s not too bad there are a lot of animals around here and once you're strong enough you can attack the diamond dog hideout near here they are holding a lot of ponies captive to dig for diamonds. So, eat get stronger, use necromancy, use your blood as a weapon win! Okay, tata for now.” and with that she threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared.

        “Wait...why did you use a smoke bomb?”I mean she just disappeared earlier. Oh well I chalked it up to her being a woman, and therefore beyond my comprehension.

        So there I was in the Everfree forest in a graveyard at night. Knowledge of some of my powers started to bubble up into my consciousness. One that stuck out the most was the ability called “Summons of the Lesser Dead”.
                                       

Summons of the Lesser Dead

Allows summoner to bring forth undead, that have flesh less than or equal to the quantity of the summoner.

Summoned undead can only stay animated for so long. Time differs depending on circumstances. Read page 108 in users manual for more details.

Summoned undead become unable to be reanimated after time runs out, or they are incapacitated.

        “She put a book in my brain, and formated it like a rpg rulebook. I’m not sure how to feel about this.” I heard her laughing from somewhere in the background.

        After flipping to page 108 in my mind, I quickly tried out the new power by summoning three skeletons. Upon casting the spell with my mind. Which is fucking awesome just so you know. "WOW IT REALLY WORKED. Oh um * cough* go scout the area troops” I ordered them. Not that it was really necessary, much like the military salutes I had them give me, it was more a ego boost than anything. Got to feed that ego monster. As for how they worked, they were tied directly to my mind able to carry out orders based on what I wanted without me having to tell them. This also made them great for scouts since they could send information directly back to me.

        After only ten minutes of scouting one of the skeletons quickly found a dragon, a small thing at only twice the height of a skelly pony or four times my size. Remembering how hostile the dragons were, and the fact that I had to eat flesh and blood to get stronger, I decided to investigate so I sent the skeletal pony to aproach it. As soon as the pony got close, it was hit with a stream of fire.

        “HAHAHA! Gotta love Dess she always knows how to get a party started right” I said wearing a evil smile. This meant killing the dragon would be good for a multitude of reasons, one being the fact that this dragon would be a pest to ponies, so killing it wasn’t that much of a problem in my mind, being undead wasn't about to change me trying to be a hero. Two dragons have a lot of flesh and blood to them, something I desperately needed. Third but certainly not least is that a skeleton dragon can still breath fire, fly, and takes several times longer to fall apart as opposed to a few hours with the skeletal ponies. Knowledge granted to me by the book inside my head, got to love the "Mind Book".

        After a bit of planning, I had a plan. Imagine that. First, I summoned twenty skeletons placing them in a few trees near the center of the graveyard. Summoning a few more, I had them dig out a pit near the trees. While they were doing this I sent a few more minions to start luring the dragon to the graveyard. The dragon arrived just as everybone got in place. Still chasing a skeleton, he started to fell into the hole, or he would have if it wasn't for those wings. As he made to fly away twenty skelly ponies dropped out of the trees armed with sharp sticks, and started tearing at the soft membrane of the wings causing the dragon to fall into the hole.

        Once he was at the bottom of the hole, I summoned another fifty skeletons from the graves around me to restrain him. To say the least dragons aren't restrained easily, he thrashed and kicked and let loose fire for a good twenty minutes at the bottom of that hole. All the while I just kept summoning more and more skeletons for him to trash. A feat that was very quickly becoming harder and harder, because of the shear energy it took to animate so many of the dead. Finally though he was out of fire, restrained, had his wings and major tendons cut, and a large portion of his scales missing. That's when I decided to step in. It was time to eat. Landing on his back I dug my fangs into his exposed flesh and absorbed some of his blood, and turned it into my own. Feeling my fangs on his unprotected flesh he started trying to thrash once more, but it was to late. Using the blood that I had just drank I quickly made a long sharp tendril of blood plunged it into his back cutting through several ribs. I reached his heart. Where the bladed tendril split, wrapping around the still beating heart and jerked the heart out. Still beating I quickly swallowed the heart whole and started to drink what blood is left in the dragon's body.

        It took nearly all day of eating before I managed to eat all of the dragon, but I was up to the task. I ended up turning most of the meal into magical energy, I now had a pony body, but it was temporary. There was something I needed to stabilize this form, PONY BLOOD.