While The Necromancer didn't follow through with his threat, he did glue the rude newcomer to the roof with his magic.
"It says it's sorry, or it gets the hose." He hissed, scratching at the air like a cat.
'Zippy' as they had come to call him, groaned in equal parts motion sickness and exasperation.
Kick giggled from the cushion he was seated at. "Look at him go! Like a pony on rocket-powered rollerblades!"
Zippy, for lack of better word, zipped laps around the library's dome roof, his already green coat getting greener by the second. lines of blue energy streaked behind his hooves like contrails.
"Go zippy go!" The Necromancer and Kick cheered.
"I'm! *spin* sorry! *spin* please let me down?!" He begged. Each word came with a new rotation, distorting it slightly.
After one final lap, and with a flick of a hoof, Zippy was sent sliding across the library roof, down the far side wall, and out the door. Ruth closed it with an application of her magic and a 'shush'.
"Aaaaand it's good~!"
They both broke out into fits of laughter, one of them even giggle-snorting; making them both laugh harder.
Oh yes, we'll definitely get along, The Necromancer decided.
When their laughs had subsided some, they bumped hooves for a job well done.
"I think he broke a new record!"
"I'll add it to the archives later."
The Necromancer returned to his book, only to jump when a shrill shout tore through the air.
"ZAMBIES!! THE ZAMBIES RE' COMING!"
An eyebrow respectively rose on each stallion, both turning to regard the other. "Err... ...What?"
Kick was the first to get it. He flinched into a half-crouch, his eyes wide. "Zombies!" He whispered.
"Oh, zombies." The Necromancer said thoughtfully. Then blinked when it processed. "Zombies!?"
They both scampered towards the door, almost tripping over each other and themselves. The Necromancer was the first to get there. He popped his head through the portal, looked both ways like a responsible adult, and then filed into the hall at a brisk pace.
The chapel's facilities were built around the courtyard, making navigation a cinch. It was pretty much just a white-washed rectangular castle.
The terrace doors where thrown open for the second time that day, startling a few ponies who had no doubt come to see what was going on. The Necromancer and Kicks charged out.
A sizeable crowd had already gathered, including The Elder - He stuck out that way - and Converse Kicks gasped. The Necromancer just looked (strangely enough) determined.
In the midst of the crowd, a bleeding Pegasi messenger was laying, half cradled in The Elder's hooves. He had numerous cuts and scrapes, and looked to have a broken wing. He wore a tattered courier's raiment over seaweed green fur and had a monotone blue mane. The pair rushed over.
Quickly, The Necromancer sat down on his haunches beside the injured pony, bringing his hooves to bare. Then, remembering his promise, looked to The Elder for an okay: seeing as how the messenger was unable to do so.
The Elder nodded and the he began work.
The Necromancer closed his eyes - if only for concentration - and his hooves began to tingle with life energy as it flowed into them from the earth. It was absorbed into his ley lines, then refined into the proper spell, and finally, flowed into the Pegasi in a mater of seconds. Spells were always more potent if the energy didn't have to travel back through the earth (commonly used on ranged spells, levitation, zippy, ect), so instead, The Necromancer ran his hooves across the more serious wounds at a close distance. Cuts sealed, forming scars, and the bleeding stopped as the healing glow continued.
When it was clear that the messenger wasn't about to bleed out, The Elder offered a canteen, to which the pony drank from gratefully. He nearly choked as The Necromancer used numbing, then fixing spells, to set his wing. He groaned, but otherwise drank up.
When he had his fill, he spoke tiredly. It was with an airy accent, and a... Dramatic stutter?
"Oh, oh it hurts real bad, real bad. It hurts."
The Necromancer paused his healing - apart from a few cuts that he couldn't reach, this pony looked fine.
"Where?"
As if to reply, the messenger let one rip.
Those gathered all cringed in disgust, the Elder's professionalism stoping him from dropping the stallion, even when his eyes watered. Laughter that sounded distinctly like Kick's could be heard somewhere.
"So Much better. Oh, a lot, lot better." The messenger pony coed, rubbing at his stomach.
The Necromancer blinked. "Did... Did y'all just fart in my general direction?" He asked, at a loss, then frowning as he realised he slipped into his accent, sneered. "You filthy little monkey! C'mer! I'll have you, I will!"
The messenger pony's eyes shot open, his blissed out expression changing to one of surprise, and he opened his eyes to see an enraged Necromancer, flailing wildly, but restrained by a firm hoof on the head from The Elder.
"Calm down, lad."
Begrudgingly, and with a snort, The Necromancer obeyed but still glared daggers. He mimed the 'I'm watching you' motions and crossed his hooves with a huff.
"Now," The Elder continued with a level voice that could only come with practice. "How did this happen?" He inquired of the injured pony.
The messenger seemed thoughtful for a moment. "Well, I had half a loaf of bread, cheese and I-"
"Not that," The Elder groaned. "Your wounds! How did you get them?"
The messenger pony seemed to seize up; like he was reliving a particularly difficult memory. He clenched and unclenched his jaw rapidly, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Zambies!" He cried suddenly, "They-they were everywhere! And skeletons! And zambies! And Everywhere!!"
A calming hoof slap was administered by The Necromancer. He was happy now.
The messenger sputtered, but managed to get back on track. He looked up with a sudden seriousness.
"Tartarus has opened."
This time, the messenger did find himself dropped on the floor, along with the jaws of Everypony present. Even the ever stoic, Elder Berry, and the mule veteran, Tight Ass, were having trouble reining in their surprise.
Unsurprisingly, The Necromancer handled this like he did any other situation: he laughed.
=====>10 minutes later.<=====
The Necromancer's room was a simple affair. Decorated sparsely, and not, in fact, with skulls or bones, as some would believe. (Except for the corpse of a goldfish floating in its tank that he'd been too lazy to reanimate.) But that didn't count.
The medium sized bed faced the only window in the room, and a sizeable bookshelf acted as partitioning. Numerous titles lined the shelf, organised like a Minotaur in a Neighpon shop - that is to say: not at all. An oak desk sat adjacent, littered with drawings and diagrams; formulas and such.
The distinct sound of ponies being armoured and drilled sounded through the window, finding its way to his room. The Necromancer paid it no heed, however - he was too busy rummaging through the closet and wardrobe for the saddle-bags and armoured duster he'd prepared for such an occasion. It had everything he'd need, plus more.
Quite a lot would change soon; a chain-reaction of events, indeed. The Necromancer could only hope. ...Hope, and drink juice.
He drew his hood with a grin.
=====>Elder Berry, 4 hour later.<=====
The feeling of an army at ones back was an empowering one, thought The Elder. He'd felt it a few times before; when he was a young buck, spry as a doe, and built like a manticore. Sadly, Pi-sho and biscuits had given him the belly of a trophy hound, though. He laughed at that.
Hammy always said I loved those cookies, even to a fault, he thought with a sense of melancholy. The Elder chuckled under his breath.
He'd emptied the chapel, leaving only the skeleton crews and servants behind a few hour ago, if the sun was correct. The march to shady sands - the canyon where the Nether portal stood - would take at least another half-an-hour with the size of the army.
behind him, 200 pairs of armoured hooves thudded against the ground, echoing off the great pines. Ferris was thick with Forrest's, thankfully none of it the Everfree. That would be a march The Elder didn't want to Repeat.
Each paladin was barded in plate and chain of White and black, weapons from bastard-swords to halberds all clacked and clattered agains the stallions and mares sides. Their cutie marks were printed on the large, roundish right-shoulder pauldrons, while the chapter insignia went on the left. Some ponies had capes across the plates on their backs, barrel and sides, while others had decorative and non-decorative scarves around their necks.
The elder himself, had personally inspected each piece of armour, and could easily say it was of fine make. Crafted from metals mined in Glittergulch mine, the chapel had spared no expense. He'd even worked with The Necromancer to imbue it with magic to further its protection to the wearer; not that he'd tell anypony, though.
Speaking of The Necromancer: he hadn't blown anything up yet, so Elder Berry could say the day was going better than expected.
He froze suddenly with bated breath, as if just merely having thought it would jinx the peace. No, that's silly. He-
He loosed a long-suffering sigh as the resident Necromancer and an initiate floated past atop a rock, laughing wildly. Where they found the time to paint flames, and the words "bits, burritos, and babes", he'll never know.
The initiate - one 'Converse Kicks', if he remembered correctly - was half a hair shorter than his flying (floating?) companion, and had a lean build; probably a farm hand looking for the excitement a plow and field couldn't provide. His cutie mark was a star, encircled by a white ring. The Necromancer wore a black and brown, hooded combat duster, he noted.
Despite the spectacle, the elder smiled: it was good to see the lad had made a friend. Celestia knows he could use one, he though with a half-grin.
A film of magic glowed from under the boulder, a deep neon green colour. It still amazed him every time he saw it - an earth pony throwing around spells; who knew? Absently, he rubbed at his chest, where The Necromancer had once almost taken his life, only to save it.
With a chuckle, he exhaled and continued the march.
=====><====
=
"Hey, T.N, can I ask ya' something?"
"As long as it's not 'where do we go when we die', then sure!" The Necromancer replied over his shoulder.
Kick gripped Dwayne (the flying rock) tighter as a particularly daring manoeuvre was pulled off. "Oh, okay. ...So remember this morning, when you talked to the recruits about... ...yeah?" It was clear from his tone that Kick felt awkward broaching the subject.
"Mmhm?"
"Well, don't you think its a bit... Immoral? I mean I'd hate to be trapped in my own body as some kinda.... zombie... Thing, and-"
"A thrall."
"What?"
"A thrall. That's what you're talking about. Or zombie, zombies pretty close, too." He explained. Kick still looked nervous, so hoping to assuage some of his fears, The Necromancer smiled comfortingly. "Don't worry, though. I made a promise a long time ago that I'd never bind a soul - restless or otherwise, without permission, and I intend to keep it." seeing Kick's confused look, he elaborated.
"See, when somepony dies, their soul lingers for a time." He said. "In this window you can re-bind it to their bodies, other things and objects, but that's a bit more complicated, and I don't really want to get into horcrux's right now. Anyway, Any time after the window, and the soul becomes restless and unstable. That's what makes the zam... er zombies you see so mindless - they're just husks held together with a restless soul, and, more often than not, not even the correct one, too."
"And you don't do that?" Kicks asked, relaxing somewhat.
The Necromancer shook his head. "Nope. I'll only ever touch a soul if I have permission to put it back into whoever lost it. After I Heal them, of course. I use reanimation - which is shaped death energies to keep it kickin', and a 'brain' of life energy to keep it thinkin' - on the corpses and skeletons that didn't make it; like I said at the meeting. And that's after the window the soul can't be returned ends, comprende?. They aren't as strong as thralls, but they'll give anything up to a Greater a run for their bits. Undead paladins, NOW that's another story!"
Kick nodded, ducking under a low laying branch out of reflex. He looked around to see the trees thinning out some - they must be close to the treeline.
"Hey, are we-" That was about as far as he got, before Dwayne stopped suddenly, catapulting Kick through the air. He yelped in surprise; but rather than furrowing a kick-shaped trench like he was expecting, Kick instead found himself redeposited atop Dwayne by the scruff of his armour.
He cast a grateful smile and a nod at The Necromancer, only to pause at seeing the shocked and...terrified...? look plastered on what he could see of The Necromancer's face inside the hood. He followed his line of sight.
"Oh no."