Dimmed Star fumbled with her vials in her laboratory. This dark nightmarescape was the perfect place for a crazed scientist. The world outside was dark as ever and the sky was only rarely freed from the thick black smog that engulfed the world, although it was never bright enough to bring any difference from the dark shadows of existence, but nopony cared. The tree in which Dimmed Star lived was locked away from the rest of the citizens in Duskville, and it showed, with weird sludge-like protrusions growing on it and moving slowly back and forth. Even its leaves looked like scalpels. The interior wasn't better. It stunk of medication and dark magics. Dark symbols were strewn about, along with slightly torn books pertaining to long forgotten magics. Dead planets and destroyed frames littered the whole building while twisted book shelves seemed to fill the darkened gaps of this place.
Dimmed Star, though, was in the basement. It was the largest place in the house filled with exotic scientific equipment and other constructs. The mare herself was just now going down the stairs, a few vials within the grasp of the tentacles created by her ability. She seemed happy with what she was going to do. Her mane and tail were of a basic purple, but they were in terrible ruffles and they oozed with a sticky black sludge, which covered the mare's light purple hooves more then the rest of her body. Her eyes were black pits while the pupils were three, small blue dots that seemed to 'aim' at whoever looked at them. The smile Star portrayed was that of a psychotic mare with sharp teeth.
"Heehee. I am sure Queen Blackhole will be proud of my progress in black magic, isn't that right my little Spear?" the mare asked her assistant as she set a hoof onto the blackened, solid floor.
"BRRRAH!" Spear snarled as he snagged onto his chains.
"Silly Spear. I wonder if I should take a fang of your again to make sure this experiment works well..."
Spear was a mutated wyvern, and he was chained up against the wall in the laboratory. He had stolen some utensils and made himself a nest of metal by melting everything and building them up on each other. His scales were a deep blue whilst the spikes on his neck, head, and back, as well as the fleshy portion of the wings integrated into his fore-arms. His mouth was surrounded by a row of fangs whilst the interior had several spinning rows of tiny teeth with a long tongue to drag in prey. His eyes were just as black and toxic as his owner's, and his pupil's were the same, although an extra dot accompanied the darts and were a lime-green the same as his spikes and wings.
"You'll never guess what Queen Blackhole asked me to do. She wants me to bring her a report in new magics."
The mare put the vials and certain tools on a great white table sitting in the middle of this laboratory. She quickly ran upstairs and came back down, a large white bag thumping on the stairs. She eagerly tossed the bag onto the table and tore it away like an eager little filly wanting to see her present. It was the half decayed body of some unknown mare. She had died after some unforeseen circumstance, although it wasn't of too much importance. Several flaps of skin and such had been dangling off of it. It truly looked like an angry spirit.
"Well then. Let's get started. What should I turn her into...Hmmm." the living mare pondered this question.
"Maybe turn her into a battle pony? Nnno. She doesn't have the physique...at least what's left of it. Hmmm. Oh! A worker pony! Yes! That's perfect. She could slice the thick bark of the trees if I sew in some blades into her hind legs. Yes. Perfect. Well then."
Dimmed Star went through her cabinet holding many different objects. These could range from eyeballs to leather. The mare simply took six pointed blades from the holder and grew six tentacles from her body to hold them. She then concentrated hard, and forced the dripping extensions of her body to break off the rest of the weapons. Taking a closer look at them, the mare immediately whispered in victory as she grabbed some sewing needles and thread. She was working at an incredibly fast speed for somepony so willing to violate the laws of nature, but in shadow, what laws are there to follow?
She immediately sewed the blades into the hind legs by jamming them directly into the bone with resounding cracks everywhere. The stomach and its organs were torn and hanging out, so she sowed those pieces back together, simply tossing the organs back in and calling it a moment. Her ears had also detached themselves from the rest of her body and had fallen onto the ground. As Twilight worked on sewing the body, her mucky tentacles picked the ears up and began sewing them back onto the skull as well. Everypony was taking their part in this new form of art. Finally, after half an hour of work, the dead pony found even her mouth sewn shut. The strange thing about these threads is that they somehow "decayed", yet stayed present and revealed themselves on this mare's fur. Said fur had turned green by the moss inhabiting the hole she was in, although her gray mane and tail were hard and crispy, they still retained a few bits of their once sapphire luster.
The mare giddily hopped from side to side as she traced a rather bizarre symbol around and under the table. This mark resembled her own cutie mark comprised a four-point, black star with two similar, but smaller, white stars to the upper right and lower left of this one. Taking a moment to admire her work, Dimmed Star picked up a book and began to chant evil wards as the objects she placed around the dead body began to levitate and glow. The whole laboratory began to shake and glow brightly as dark spirits arose from the floor and moaned in anger and pain, but the summoner ignored them.
"Almost there." she thought to herself.
The walls began to "melt" as more spirits began to invade the room. Spear grabbed one with its tongue and swallowed it, only to roar in frustration as it phased through his stomach. The spirits began surrounding the corpse and levitated it slowly into the air as another soul, from further away, seemed to be fighting against its captors and shouting in displeasure at what was happening to it. The whole room seemed to have been filled with a white smoke as a few came through the wall and seemed to have been holding a particularly bright spirit. As Dimmed spoke the final chants, the spirit was tossed back into its old corpse despite its protests. A resounding explosion echoed through Duskville as much as a bright light blinded everypony there.
The crazy scientist stared at its experiment with joy and excitement as the corpse moaned. It rolled slowly to the side before falling violently onto the floor. Black mist began to fill the room more than it already had. The corpse coughed a bit, then stood up, tilting occasionally from side to side.
"Good. Now turn and face your master." Dimmed ordered.
The corpse weakly turned around one hoofstep at a time. Her eyes were still closed, but she seemed able to still "see" her creator.
"Good. Now walk towards me. We're going to do some tests to see how good you are at cutting down trees."
The zombie opened its eyes to show them to be black orbs, a common trait of this world. Although her pupils were of a bright green and looked like a sword pointing downwards.
"Yes! It can see! Oh, the Queen will be so proud of me! I might get another forbidden piece of magic."
The zombie analyzed its surroundings and frowned as it noticed its appearance. It was fully aware of what was going on. It even stretched the threads of its mouth, tearing the skin a bit and letting some sort of decayed ooze leak out. Dimmed Star noticed her facial expressions and frowned in turn.
"Are you aware of your surroundings?"
The zombie did not answer, but its eye movements said otherwise. Dimmed Star grated her teeth together as her eyes widened and she backed off a bit.
"You will do as I tell you and clean this mess first."
The zombie did not execute her orders.
"Do it!" Dimmed Star shouted as she lost her patience.
The zombie stopped looking at its hoof and looked up directly at the mare who revived her and spoke with a rocky voice:
"No. I am not your slave. I'll be...Rottenbunch."
Mud on the rotten pony's flanks cracked and fell off, revealing what seemed to be a dead plant in the ground. Dimmed Star only looked in horror and anger as the zombie quickly galloped away. The scientist melted into a pile of black goo and rushed after her creation in an attempt to keep it from fleeing, but it was too late. When Star arrived at the door, it had been sliced off, and the zombie was long gone. She resumed her puddle form and returned to her laboratory to reform there. The disappointed mare thought to herself for a second as she put a hoof onto the table and passed her hoof slowly on it as if she were petting it.
"...She was revived as a zombie, but was already too intelligent to be one. It barely took a moment for it to happen. Grrrrrr. I'll never get that spell to create life."
"GRAARGH!"
"What's wrong, Spear? You hungry. Hmmm. I haven't fed you in awhile."
Spear bounced up once and let his tongue swirl along his fangs. Dimmed Star went to the back of her laboratory and grabbed something that began to yell. It was a non-mutated filly.
"Here you go." Star said with a smile as she tossed the screaming filly at the mutated wyvern.
Needless to say, the wyvern was satisfied with its treat, but the mare was disappointed in her experiment.
"This spell doesn't make them obey the one holding the cutie mark painted underneath the corpse to control it after its revival. It must be a defective spell. I'll have to write a message and send it to the Queen."
A few minutes of writing later, Dimmed Star exited her home to see a pony in silver armor placing letters in her mailbox. The armor was literally sewn into this pony's skin, although tufts of gray fur and trickles of blood passed through the seams a bit here and there. It was a pegasus.
"Dharma, could you bring this letter to Queen Blackhole?" Dimmed Star asked with a decrepit smile.
The pony in armor looked at the letter, then said, very slowly and with a voice that sounded like scraping metal echoing in a large supply depot:
"YYYYYEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS."
She snatched the letter from Dimmed Star's hoof, slowly paused for a moment as her foreleg remained curved in the air, then put the letter in her bag. Dharma slowly turned around. Everything she did was accompanied by the sound of creaking, rusty metal, and although she was very slow and static, she still somehow delivered her mail on time. The purple unicorn would have to find other methods of getting her Queen's approval.