"Make sure that all of the armaments are secured on the wagon, Ice Sliver."
"Yes, archlich..."
With a jerky bow, the skeletal servant trotted over to the large covered wagon, inspecting the small arsenal that the archlich had acquired from the Crystal Guard's armory.
With his king's permission, of course.
"Kel!" shouted a nearby voice, the undead mage turning to witness Titus, still armoring the small platoon of constructs he had to work with. While not anything near saronite, the crystalline armor of the Crystal Guard was protection enough for the skeletal soldiers, seeing as their simple forms couldn't feel pain anyway.
"Yes, Titus?" Kel'Thuzad responded, floating over to the baron, the minions still scrambling around the courtyard stopping in their tracks to let the mage pass.
"I'm almost done here. Has Anub'arak prepared the site for our arrival?" Titus growled, attempting to finish latching the last few pieces of armor to a particularly small skeletal unicorn. Without missing a beat, the archlich whirled around, his eyes scanning for a minion to redirect.
"You, minion!" Kel'Thuzad shouted, a small skeletal pegasus turning to acknowledge it's master.
"Seek out King Anub'arak, and tell him that the preparations are nearing completion." Kel'Thuzad commanded, watching the construct gallop away into the keep. Before long, however, the courtyard's bustling activity resumed, and the lich was back to his routine of keeping everything going smoothly.
Nothing can be left to chance here...
Kel'Thuzad's scarlet pupils darted to the right once more, watching Titus command his constructs into a phalanx formation.
But a backup plan is never a bad move...
While he doubted that the constructs would match up to trained fighters, their lack of pain or hesitation in battle would hopefully even the playing field.
"I hope it doesn't come to this, Kel." the alicorn spoke, his eyes watching the emotionless skeletal soldiers march towards the wagon to retrieve their weapons.
"I hope so as well, Shining." Kel'Thuzad turned to his friend. "But we must be ready for the worst, if it does come to that."
Hopefully the Helm is ready...
If not... well... gods help us...
.........
Prince Shining Armor trudged through the knee-deep snow, his dead skin tightening against his dormant muscles as the cold of the Frozen North seeped into his unfeeling flesh. Beside him, huddled under his folded right wing, his beloved trotted gently alongside him, attempting to escape the brutal cold as best she could by burrowing deeper into his side.
Ahead of them, through the densely packed winds of ice and snow, Anub'arak led the party, using his colossal true form to crush and then bulldoze the frozen snow on the mountain trail out of the way.
Between the prince and the nerubian king, Kel'Thuzad, Titus, the constructs, and his newest knights, Stern Staff and Silver Bolt marched, their new armor's clanking drowned out by the relatively harsh winds battering the mountainside.
Kel'Thuzad had decided on the distant mountaintop for several reasons.
The first was that it was remote, and had little chance of introducing unnecessary complications.
The second was for magical reasons, as the mountain itself was located on the intersection of two ley lines. This would provide him, and if need be, Lady Cadence, with more amplified and refined sources of magical energy.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the lich wanted to stay the HELL away from Celestia.
While he trusted that she had good intentions, and was of generally sound mind, the small vial of Discord's blood that she had given him earlier that week to study in the aftermath of Hearth's Warming had... troubled him.
That and the little... incident the night before...
Regardless, saronite had a nasty tendency to erode the sanity of living things around it, unless properly treated by someone who knew enough about the strange metal's properties.
Gods only knew that a goddess with the power to LITERALLY move the sun would be quite a foe indeed if she decided to go off the deep end...
.........
They were deafening, now.
The whispers that the prince had heard since Shining had ascended, since he had taken up Frostmourne, were now howling, awful screams.
Never in his darkest, lowest thoughts could he have imagined the horrors they nailed into his brain.
With near unrelenting force, they hammered the past deeds of his predecessors into his conscience...
.........
He had watched Ner'Zhul, in his desperate bid for redemption in the eyes of his people, doom himself into damnation.
He had watched the slaughter that the spiteful and deranged old orc had perpetrated against the Nerubian Empire during the War of the Spider.
He had watched King Anub'arak fall on the battlefield, only to be resurrected, and then rip his own forces into tatters of sinew and carapace.
He had watched Kel'Thuzad, in his search for knowledge, travel to Northrend, only to be tortured and all but forced into service, the Lich King binding his soul to him for eternity.
.........
He was appalled by the images assaulting him, the memories of the former kings flooding into his head. But still, despite his mental pleas for mercy, they continued.
.........
He had seen Kel'Thuzad's last moments among the living, Prince Arthas Menethil nearly shattering the old man with several vicious, rage-induced blows with his warhammer.
He saw Arthas, in his desperation, slaughter the people of Stratholme, only to have to slaughter his citizens again as they rose from the dead.
He saw Arthas chase Mal'Ganis into Northrend, casting aside everything to try and save his people.
He saw the young paladin retrieve Frostmourne from it's icy pedastal, casting away his hammer, and leaving his wounded friend for dead as the runeblade ate away at his mind and soul, stripping him of his humanity.
.........
Shining gagged, his muzzle scrunching up as he imagined the terror his citizens must have felt as the prince slaughtered his father in cold blood, turning the undead loose on Capital City.
"Shining, we have arrived."
"Huh?!" Shining snapped violently out of his daydreaming, the words of his predecessors fading in intensity, if only for a moment as he acknowledged his vizier.
The party had stopped atop the mountain, nearly all around them obscured by blinding white, save for a few dull beams of light piercing the vale.
Shining looked behind him, the worried face of his wife... troubling him.
What if he couldn't control it?
What if he too was consumed by the hatred...
The agony...
The cruelty...
For a moment, he considered waiting another few hours, so Kel'Thuzad could send for his sister and her friends...
For the Elements of Harmony...
Just in case he...
He lost control...
.........
"My king, your crown awaits..."
Kel'Thuzad floated before him, his outstretched hand offering the Helm of Domination to him.
.........
No...
They... HE couldn't wait any longer...
"Thank you... Kel'Thuzad." Shining spoke, his eyes boring into the empty sockets of the great helm.
.........
Before he could even think about it, the Helm was sliding down the sides of his head, the cool metal surprisingly soothing to the alicorn prince. Instead of hyperventilating, he chose to hold his meaningless breath, the inside of his body completely dormant as his crown slid into place with a satisfying 'thunk'.
The whispering screams died to silence...
And the Lich King pushed a wave of crystallized air from his lungs.
.........
"Shining?" Kel'Thuzad asked.
Silence.
.........
"I... I understand everything now..."
.........
Clairvoyance erupted from the void, filling the Lich King's head with knowledge at last.
Knowledge he never even knew he needed.
He understood... EVERYTHING.
He saw the thousands, nay, tens of thousands of glittering presences surrounding them. The innumerable amount of living or long dead animals or ponies that littered the surrounding valley and mountains. To his rear right, he saw the towering beam of pale white light that signaled his majordomo's presence, the undead mage seemingly oblivious to the stallion's glances, for some unknown reason.
In the far distance, Shining could make out the spires of the Crystal Palace now, the snow and frost no longer clouding his eyes.
Eyes...
Somewhere, he could feel his eyes opening.
No...
Not HIS eyes...
Deep beneath the Crystal Palace, in the dungeons, his eyes and ears awaited his command without waver, the skeletal servants in his archmage's quarters responding with appearant glee at the mental presence of their master.
So... THIS is what Kel was talking about the when he said it was for controlling my armies...
As he gazed around the room, he took note of...
Goddesses...
Far beneath the surface of Equus, he saw... darkness.
Darkness so black it sapped the light from his vision...
Like a whirlpool, it spiraled through Equestria, echoing from...
Canterlot...
Suddenly, like a switch was thrown, the Lich King took over.
Closing his mental vision for the moment, as he had done hundreds of times before, the alicorn's vision darkened.
Turning to the small group, his eyes ignited with cold fire, echoing waves of necromantic energy flowing forth from his eyes. His queen, whom had retreated from his side after he had donned the Helm, was currently watching him, her form somewhat hidden behind Kel'Thuzad's robes.
She had a smile on her face...
"Cadence..."
"Shiny?" the pink alicorn responded, slowly creeping towards her husband, the Lich King's gaze following her as she moved from behind her archmage. "Is... is that you in there?"
The Lich King snorted, the very surface of his fur wafting with cold as he stepped forwards, enveloping his princess in his colossal wings before anyone could react.
With a series of popping and crackling, the alicorns started to freeze.
Kel’Thuzad was already muttering incantations, his claws alight with arcane energy as he prepared his...
His...
"Kel'Thuzad..."
The lich cancelled the silencing spell he was channeling, and cautiously responded.
He’d never felt so... empty.
Hollow.
"Y-Yes, my king?"
"I have a task for you..."
"For all of you..."
"Anything, my king." Kel'Thuzad spoke, his words now seemingly leaving his mouth of their own accord.
With an echoing crack, the earth below them shook.
VIOLENTLY.
Even Anub'arak was staggered by the ground's quakes, the mighty nerubian choosing to hover with his wings to escape it.
Then Kel'Thuzad felt it. He felt the arcane magic in the air start to BOIL in preparation, the ground warping and stretching as the Lich King channeled every SPECK of magical energy for miles around into his spell.
The blizzard had died down by now, the alicorn ripping the last of the ice from the air to fuel the channeling.
In the distance, the archlich saw a light. A pinprick of energy that slowly grew into a massive crack in reality, obscuring the valley behind it from view.
Never in his life or unlife had he felt such... power. Such energy weaved into magic far beyond his comprehension.
With a deafening boom, the crack widened.
The blast would have killed them, de-atomized them even, had his king not protected them from harm with a shield of azure energy, the ward covering the entire mountain peak.
"Kel'Thuzad..."
The shape of something Kel'Thuzad never thought he would see again began to emerge. A monstrous, gargantuan war machine that he would have rather forgotten.
That he wished had not just appeared into such an innocent, uncorrupted world...
"Yes... my king?" Kel'Thuzad answered, his eyes turning to witness his king and queen, locked in an embrace within the Frozen Throne.
"Build me an army worthy of Icecrown..." the Lich King boomed, his eyes piercing into his archmage.
Kel'Thuzad stuttered, and turned to his comrades.
All of them were bowed before his rulers...
So he joined them.
With that, the blizzard started up again, Naxxramas' gargantuan shadow looming over the congregation.