Bone Dirt happily skipped through the Ponyville Boneyard that lied just outside the town limits. The cemetery had to be placed just out of reach of the humble village because it was just too darn depressing for the incredibly sensitive and nickery ponies. If the ponies wanted to see headstones, they would do so on their own time.

Bone Dirt is the Ponyville undertaker. It is quite fortunate that Bone Dirt the Earth Pony is such a cheery pony. If he was not so chipper, or such good company, then everypony would be quite certain that he would have gone mad from the depressing atmosphere like the undertaker before him.

Bone Dirt liked his job for many reasons. He enjoyed the solitude, as it allowed him to work on his haikus and various fanfictions without interruption. He also felt his job at the dead house was very fulfilling. He would be the one to make sure those who left this world looked their best as they did so, and he would always be the one to cheer up any of the grieving with his remarkably upbeat attitude, without giving hollowly cliched remarks to show any possibly brighter side of the situation.

The mortician stopped to observe the skies. It had been so sunny before, but now a bumpy blanket of grey clouds already began to steadily surround and conquer the fair weather.

“How strange,” he thought, “the Pegasi did not schedule any rain for the remainder of the week, so what are these glum clouds doing here?” The wind decided to send a strong gust now, shaking the curling, wrought iron fences with a ghostly clatter, and as soon as the buffet stopped, a loud clap of thunder followed.

Bone Dirt chuckled, “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this is the perfect setting for a—”

“BONE DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRT!!!!”

The undertaker snapped his head to the light-purple and sky-blue Pegasus streaking towards him from the gray heavens. She flapped to a halt just before Bone Dirt’s placidly staring visage.

“Bone Dirt, it’s terrible!”

“Ah, yes, Night Thumper, my new, blundering, and only apprentice,” Bone Dirt sighed the exposition away, “what appears to be the problem now?”

Night Thumper blinked away a few tears and looked away, “Please don’t hate me…”

“Oh, my little Thumper,” Bone Dirt rolled his eyes and wiped her tears with a gentle hoof, “you know that I could never do that. Out with it already, the sooner you say, the sooner we can correct!”

Night Thumper sniffled and cleared her throat for the news, “I lost Mr. Oat Grass.”

Bone Dirt’s eyes were unchangingly nonplussed, and his slight frown appeared to show blankness, “You lost Mr. Oat Grass?”

“Yes.”

“You lost the corpse of a full grown Earth Pony?”

“Y-y-yessir.”

“Oh, Night Thump-thump-thumpity-thump-thumper. Why did you ever decide to take on the incredibly somber job of an undertaker’s apprentice?”

“Because of my student loans, sir.”

“That’s right.” Bone Dirt shrugged and made his way back to the funeral home, “Oh well! I guess we’ll have to offset the weight of the empty coffin with a log again. Nothing to worry about, this happens to every future undertaker, so I happen to have some experience with…”

Bone Dirt stopped in his tracks, blocked by what stood there.

“Scratch the log, I think we found Mr. Oat GraaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH—”

"Visions,"

"Yes, my pupil!"

"Visions?"

"Y... yes, I believe this has already been established."

"VISIONS?" Lee grabbed his hair in clumps and stomped away from Luna's outstretched wings, "REALLY? What am I some damn Jonah now? Where's the big ass fish? I don't see no f*cking Pinocchio whale, so you must be joking... VISIONS?!"

The princess's face contorted as she attempted to make sense of Lee's irrational rambling, "I... I... I'm afraid I don't understand any of the references you seem to have made."

Lee threw a gesturing arm towards the bubbling blackness and hazy images, "How is any of this nonsensical f*ckery supposed to be a vision?"

Luna stepped to Lee's heavily panting side and stared into the images with him, "Visions are not clear events played in one's dream. Visions are interpretive. Visions are something to be deciphered and thought upon rather than an open book, so to speak."

"That's bullshit!" Lee shouted over the screaming orchestra, "What am I supposed to interpret from any of this random shit? And if I can't remember it, what use is there?"

A bit of the inky dark popped and sent a spray of some unidentifiable fluid just shy of their feet.

Luna examined the events, slowly unpacking the events of the dream within her mind as she formed an explanation, "That's the strange part, my student. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to these scenes. Perhaps even stranger, are the direct images that fade in and out. Never have I seen a vision so direct and indirect simultaneously... and when do visions have such a negative effect?"

Lee took the unhelpful reasons with no enthusiasm, and they would have only added to his rage had he not heard the next act.

The enraged dreamer's face suddenly lost all color, then he dropped his hands to his side and listened to the sounds of the scene, motioning to Luna to listen, "Hear that?"

Luna squinted as she listened in, "The screaming, it stopped."

It had. The unending, skull shattering volumes of shrieks had suddenly and without warning ended. The pair was silent as they observed the silence's actions.

Then the bubbling and frothing ceased. The inky murk stopped its twisting and fell flat, pulling away from the ground and exposing the green, carved, and tightly packed bricks beneath.

Luna knew this familiar tingly feeling that quickly arced up the spine upon watching the receding blackness and dead quietness.

She placed her equine form in front of Lee's quivering body and instinctively flared her wings, "Stay behind me, Lee. I can feel it, can you?"

Lee gave her one quick nod, "I think I can."

"Yes, something is coming, and it is big."

As if in response, the darkness pooled in a wet bank rimming the circle of bricks that surrounded the student and teacher. The pools rippled and wormed, and then the things began to rise.

The strange, grotesque forms of varying shape and size struggled to stand from the ooze they emerged from, each entity eyeing the dreamers with curiosity. They slowly slugged through the swamp, having no discernible features other than the dark shades they shared with the waters, save for the glowing red eyes stuck in their strange heads. They seemed to only be able to shamble so far, stopping at the edge of the waters, like something was inhibiting whatever unknowable desires they held.

"Okay, this is new." Lee commented with pursed lips and a nod.

"Excuse me," Luna asked with a sharp tone, "are you saying that you haven't encountered these creatures before?"

"Not THESE punk-ass niggas."

"Oh, this cannot be good..."

The black slime tremored one last time, the bubbling and vibrations more powerful than the ripples before. The frothings slithered and collected in a single spot directly across from Luna and Lee, bunching together in a whipping frenzy of otherworldly tendrils. The tentacles froze, and
wrapped around the semi-hard mass, creating a large, tightly packed hunched body of hardened grime, larger than the rest of the creatures. It took a big, meaty step out of the marsh and onto the bricks.

Luna’s horn immediately crackles with sparks and currents of sapphire streaked magic, and her eyes were overflowing with white energy as power began to fill her defending body.

Her voice blasted with the Royal Canterlot Voice, causing the smaller monsters to cringe in pain, “Keep your distance, foul beast, lest you FEEL THE WRATH OF THE NIGHT!”

Lee grimaced as he realized that this teacher he sent such hilariously obscene letters to, would be more than capable enough to smite him off the face of Equestria. Perhaps these pony princesses were not so dainty after all.

“Damn, Princess Full Moon Ass, that was pretty badass. But I think you meant to say: the wrath of the MOTHERF*CKING night, just a rookie mistake.”

“Like the visions, boy?”

And of course, the voice had not come from either of the two. It was almost as if these means of introductions were becoming far too commonplace.

The lumbering mass of liquid shadow rumbled. The middle of the talking monster bubbled and turned as something began to emerge from the ick. Lee and Luna first saw a beady red eye peer out, and then the rest of the face swam to the surface, causing a large portion of the slime to fall away, leaving a taller and much thinner body to tower over the pair.

Lee knew this face.

He did not know this face from these visions. He beheld this face from the beginning of the nightmare.

The very beginning.

In that Silver 2012 Nissan Altima.

With his friend, brother, even.

All beginning as a contorted face on an evil book that never should have been taken. It was none other than the agonized skull, covered thinly by a veil of skin, gracing the cover of the Necronomicon.

“Honestly, I’m quite surprised you’ve only chosen now to address this nighttime trouble of yours,” the half skinned skull chattered, “then again, you’ve shown time and time again how stubborn and irrational you can be, Mr. Hero. But now, here you are, with this ancient dream stalker.”

“SILENCE!” Luna boomed with a thunderous stomp of a hoof, “No matter what manner of nightmare you appear be, I will tolerate my student’s torture no longer!”

The skull ignored the intensity of her demands and continued with his obligated monologue, accentuating his speech with the flourish of an arm, “It’s been oh so long since I’ve been awake. I’ve been sitting, stewing, and sleeping in that accursed prison, forced to do nothing but sleep.” The skull’s eyes dimmed a little as he looked upwards, reaching towards the skies with a slime covered hand, “All because these damned worlds could not understand me? They would not, could not, ever understand me, and they place me in chains, warranting their ignorance of genius in their peaceful little universes.”

“Oh my God…” Lee groaned as the skull continued that strange hand-reach-lightbulb turning gesture he so often saw in dramas, “... he’s got the angst of a middle-schooler.”

The skull did not like that quip.

His eyes dimmed lights suddenly flared like twin stars as he swung his visage closer to their level, “FOOL, you know not who you mock, and……..! UUuuuurgh! I was so incredibly bored in that cell!” he sighed, and he somehow managed to smile, “But then, you two came along, and the fun began once more! I feed and feed, and I grow stronger, despite these fetters!”

Luna snorted and pushed her flashing horn in the skull’s face, “Enough of these pitiful testimonies, knave, and get to the point already.” an arc of arcane power crackled threateningly around the spirals of her horn, “Just what is your plot here?”

The skull leered into Luna’s eyes before standing up straight and shuffling away, “I believe there’s no time to worry about any brilliant schemes, after all there’s a much more immediate threat, don’t you think?”

Moans.

A herd of moans pierced the silence, growing louder and louder as they came closer, coupled with the sounds of flesh thumping noisily against stone.

Lee blanched and groaned,“Uh oh.”

Luna shut the power from her horn and snapped her head towards Lee’s pale face, “What is the matter, my student?”

“I remember this part now..”

They finally emerged.

And they were rotted. There were a countless number of the things. The slow, moaning, walking corpses of ponies of all kinds kept their steady march out of the darkness, towards Lee and his mentor.

Luna charged her horn and waved it at the advancing horde, brandishing the ancient power churning in her spike, but they gave it no acknowledgement.

“This is.. no.” she muttered.

“Now then,” the skull said, gaining their attention once more, “I’ll take my leave now, but I want you to remember….” the eyes burned like the sun as he screamed, “I will have my REVENGE!!!!”

Then something in Luna’s mind finally clicked.

“Wait a spell…” she turned to the skull’s dramatically blazing features with a contorted expression of a raised eyebrow and open mouth, “I know who you are. I remember you!”

The skull’s fiery eyes downed to embers as he grumbled, “Ugh, can’t have you remembering anything troublesome.” He raised two thin, goo-covered appendages and brought them together, “But that’s the fun thing about these ‘visions’. Memories are no trouble at all, no matter if they happen to belong to an annoying Princess of the Night.”

He snapped his fingers, and the entire scene broke to pieces and fell away in a strobing vortex beneath Luna and Lee, carrying their screaming voices out of sleeping consciousness.

“Princess Luna! Princess Luna, wake up!”

Luna and Lee’s woke, shouting, and they immediately stood from the straw covered floor, sucking in huge gulps of air into their oxygen-hungry lungs. An equally strained Applejack stood, panting, brow furrowed, and sweat droplets streaming from her forehead.

“Princess Luna and Lee, you’re finally awake!” Applejack said with a smile.

Lee grabbed Luna’s head and yelled, “What the Hell was all that?!”

“Um, guys? This is kinda important.”

Luna shook her head vigorously, “I-I do not remember! I recognized that monster but… oh, I just cannot place a hoof on the memory! It is as if all the clues leading to the revelation have been removed!”

“Hello? Applejack here?”

“Skull-f*cker already explained that shit,” Lee roared, “I’m talking about that trotting dead BS! What the Hell did he mean by immediate threat?”

Luna turned away and placed a hoof on her throbbing head, “I cannot make much sense of the events… such things are impossible. It must be an omen of death. Perhaps a great plague will strike the land? Or maybe it is a famine of sorts. No matter, we must—”

“—PARDON!” Applejack howled over the puzzle-solving, breaking the awoken pair and getting their attention, “But we’ve a problem a mite bigger than a nightmare at the moment!”

Lee and Luna blinked several times, realizing they’ve ignored Applejack’s presence and franticness.

Luna cleared her throat, “I apologize, strong Applejack, but pray tell, what is the matter?”

The sweating farmer grimaced, “Ya ain’t gonna believe it.”

*CRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKK!!!*

“BRREAAAUUGHGHHH!!!!!!”

Lee could only frown as the ceiling of the barn splintered under the dive-bombing power of a half-rotted Pegasus mare with flesh flying off of her aged skull from the velocity of the angle.

Lee could only say one thing before the kamikaze pony dove straight towards him, mouth agape, hooves outstretched.

“F*ck.”

The mare slammed into him with the force of an ill-fated baby carriage sent careening down an incredibly unsafe hilly slope, throwing the human through several bales of hay and into the hard, wooden wall of the barn.

Alfalfa and the anger-fueled cries of Lee were flung through the air as he fought tooth and nail to tear the crazed corpse off of his body, while saying, “WHY DOES THIS SH*T ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME?”

“Fear not, my protege!” Luna boomed as she charged her horn and released a spell, “No foul fiend will continue to accost you under my watch!”

Although nothing seemed to happen.

“Hold her still, Lee!” Applejack promptly galloped to the frenzy, spun on her front hooves, and delivered a solid buck to the Pegasus’s midsection, hurling it off and leaving it floundering in a mountain of even more hay.

Luna stopped the flow of magic and observed the gnashing monster, “Impossible! My magic had no effect on the creature!”

“Exactly.” Applejack said as she helped Lee to his feet, “Ah’ don’t know why, but direct magic is useless with all these things.”

Lee groaned as he rubbed the bruises he received from the ghoul, “‘All these things’? What, there’s MORE of these little f*ckers running around?”

Applejack sighed, “Lee, it’s a great, big, mess out there.”

He stopped nursing his wounds to point out,“Wait, if it’s a clusterf*ck, then what are you doing here alone?”

Applejack chortled before pointing to the apple trees outside, “I was just checkin’ on some of Bloomberg’s kids! Ain’t no one stoppin’ me from takin’ care of my apples. The rest didn’t want me to go, so I just came alone.”

“So you just ran through a horde of brain-f*cking horse corpses to check on some trees… and they haven’t come looking’ for you?”

The very dutiful apple-bucker shrugged, “Ah’ guess they didn’t think I’d actually risk it.”

The Pegasus zombie tumbled as it managed to escape the straw prison, with a newly broken wing, and lumbered after Lee for a second round, “GrrrgrhrROOOOWDEeeebbbbBBRAAAAaaarrKK!”

“BITCH!” Lee grabbed a nearby pitchfork that had been used for tossing hay, and brought the heavy, metal prongs down upon the decomposing head of the lunging zombie.

And he swung again.

And again.

And again.

He was forced to stop now that the targeted cranium was completely destroyed.

He dropped the pitchfork, gave a middle finger to the dead undead, “Git er’ done, motherf*cker.”

Applejack looked away, “Lee, I think ya got it done after the first swing.”

“But you see, I, wasn’t done.”

“Ah’ can see that.” Applejack pulled a face, “Hey, ya ain’t acting as loopy as ya were before!”

Lee grunted, then looked over himself, “Guess actually lookin’ at what that nightmare sh*t fixed me. I was sleeping, technically.”

Luna walked to the edge of the barn and peered outside. She saw thundering clouds, showers of rain, and a trail of immobile corpses spread across the farm, all bearing twin hoofmark pits at the head, and THEN she saw the dozens of still-walking undead marching towards the barn, the air bearing their moans.

Upon catching sight of Princess Luna’s brain-operated eyes, that march turned into a frothing gallop of hunger.

Luna shut the barn door and curled her lip, “We need to leave right now.”

Applejack clopped to the grim princess’s side, wearing a creased brow as she went, “Do ya happen to be familiar with what this is, Princess Luna?”

“I’ll explain once we are all together again, but we must leave before the next attack,” Luna turned away from Applejack and dealt with the thoughts smouldering in her mind

Applejack snorted and threw a hoof over Lee’s shoulder, “At least this time we can just magic our way back instead o’ just runnin’ like a crazy pony like Ah’ had to do.”

The old Alicorn of the moon whispered under her breath, “I never imagined that I would see such a thing again… this can only be the work of…”

“Like Hell we’re just gonna zap back without my car!” Lee protested with crossed arms, “I ain’t lettin’ her magic my baby either. I wanna drive.… plus the entire town asked me to stop driving until I was better, especially after I ran it through city hall… and put Mayor Mare in the hospital.”

Luna deeply exhaled before saying to herself, “... a necromancer.”

*SCREEEEEEEEEEECCCHHHH*

*NNNNNGGHHHVRROOOOM!!!!!*

Lee was quiet as he drifted his silver Altima out of the white gates of Sweet Apple Acres, slamming into some zombies who didn’t have quite the same reaction speed as living ponies.
The window wipers creaked once or twice in vain to wipe the broken bodies of animated corpses that crashed into the speeding car’s clip.

Luna nervously watched the rushing landscape from the passenger seat’s window, “Is it safe for this strange vehicle to travel so fast?”

Applejack leaned over from the backseat, “Probably not, but don’t try arguing with him.”

“Cuz’ there ain’t sh*t to argue about.”

Lee yawned as the car plowed through a pair of diving Pegasi and charging Earth Ponies, trampling or tossing dismembered bodies to the air.

“Where we goin’ again?”

“That DJ’s club,” Applejack answered as a Unicorn with flapping face skin gnawed at the window to her seat, “you know, that place where you stomped that stallion in the apple fritters, Wubbin’ the Right Way, or something.”

Lee squinted and took a turn towards the street leading to the club, “The more I think about it, the more it sounds like the name of some weird-ass strip club.”

Applejack rubbed her chin, “Now that ya mentioned it, it sure does sound like the seedy title of the wrong kind of ‘apple bobbin’.”

Luna raised an eyebrow, “When did you become accustomed to partaking in coarse humor such as this, Applejack?”

Applejack frowned before pulling her hat over her face, “Ah, hay-fries, now Lee’s mouth is rubbin’ off on me.”

Lee’s car screeched to a halt, parallelly parking to the club’s giant facade vinyl record, catching the ear of the local zombie crowd.

“Get out of the car, bitches.”

Instead of exiting the car, Luna charged a quick spell and released, causing the three to disappear from the Altima and to reappear on the inside of Vinyl Scratch’s club.

“Or you can just be a dick and not listen to the driver. That’s fine.”

Luna chuckled, “I simply removed any risk of being attacked by—”

“—You’re still an asshole.”

“Princess Luna, Applejack, Lee, you’re finally back!” Twilight Sparkle shouted with a smile as she galloped to the trio with the rest of the Elements and Spike.

“Yup, Shady’s back, tell a friend, I get it.” Lee crossed his arms and examined the state of the dance club.

All the lights were switched on, and there seemed to be the entire, cowering population of Ponyville occupying the spacious place. The windows and exits were all boarded up and barricaded with the virtually useless, weirdly shaped furniture seen in most dance clubs. Then again, their cumbersome forms provided excellent blockades.

The ponies who had taken refuge shivered and hugged their family and friends close, each bearing wide eyes and shrunken pupils or eyelids squeezed shut to staunch the torrent of tears. Lee noticed that most of the ponies kept a wide berth of the doors leading to the army of the dead, some not even looking in the same direction of the exits. Seeing the dead come back to life shook the equines more than Lee would have thought, considering they have dealt with monsters, the spirit of chaos, and evil incarnations of the moon.

Then it hit him.

Ponyville was one of the smallest settlements in all of Equestria. Having a small town a ways off from other cities would mean having a small, personal cemetery just for Ponyville. The zombies would not have only been the reanimated dead to the Ponyvillians, but most of the undead would have had to been dead family members and friends. Now these friends whom they’ve accepted as gone are walking the earth once more, holding a ravenous consciousness that solely existed to eat.

These ponies were not just scared, they were disturbed.

Lee the Legend grunted, “So now that all the candy-asses are in once place, may I please ask what the Hell is going on?”

Twilight took a deep breath for her prepared lecture, until Pinkie Pie cut the ventilation short with a, “We have no idea!”

The new Princess’s wings and ears drooped, “Basically, yes. We know nothing.”

Rainbow Dash swooped by overhead, swimming through the air on her back, “I know I’ve said this a million times, but what is there to know? They’re zombies, so we do some zombie smashing and don’t get bit, end of story!”

“Rainbow, dear,” Rarity explained, “I’m sure the logic of all those dreadful-zombie-flicks you love so much don’t have much to do with this situation.”

RD stopped her lazy flying to zip before Rarity’s unimpressed face, “Says you! Remember when I kicked the head in of that zombie with the huge wig? He dropped right there, and the ‘flicks’ all say that would happen. Obviously, the directors did their research!”

“I’m quite sure that most beasts would not be able to move with a scrambled brain, darling, and how can the directors do research if zombies are FICTION?”

Lee, of course, could not take the pointless arguing if it isn’t orchestrated by him, so he screamed, “Will you four-legged whores stop f*cking for one damn second?!” effectively silencing the two, and then he turned to Twilight, “So, you mean to tell me in all this time you couldn’t figure out anything other than what sh*tty zombie movies already established?”

Again, Pinkie stole the lecture’s breath from Twilight’s mouth, “Actually, we did learn something! The fundead out there seem to be able to track us by scent!”

Twilight waited a few seconds in silence, making sure that Pinkie was done talking. When Pinkie noticed and gave her a grinning nod to go on with whatever words she had planned, Twilight opened her mouth.

“We also can’t get out of Ponyville for some reason,“ Spike cheerily answered as Twilight was once again forced out of her secret hobby of sounding like a teacher when she explained things, “and we also can’t get any messages in or out of the town either, so we haven’t really found out anything good.”

“Hold on,” Lee brought his hands up, “why aren’t we in that shiny, new, fruity castle that’s almost impossible to break into?”

Spike frowned, “We found bedbugs. LOTS of them.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, the castle is being fumigated today of all times! Heh heh…”

Princess Luna grimaced as she peered between the cracks of the boarded windows, watching the cadavers carelessly pay Wubbin’ the Right Way no attention, “For what reason did you choose this establishment of nighttime merriment as hiding?”

The reasons for choosing the club involved beautiful science! Twilight loved explaining that more than anything!

“I can tell ya guys why!” said the scratchy but feminine voice of Vinyl Scratch as she lowered herself down on an enormous disco ball.

Twilight only closed her eyes, waiting for the cruel moments to pass by.

“Ya see, this club has been gettin’ such good traffic and the endless parties have been so boomin’ that there’s been an endless amount of sweat, hormones, and pheromones, pumped into each and every crevice of Wubbin the Right Way! Seriously, it’s actually becoming a chemical problem, and I’ve had to hide it from the Health Inspector, but hey, zombies can’t smell a thing because it hides living ponies!” The DJ laughed at the fortuity of what had been a problem.

Lee rubbed his eyes and scratched his chin, then inhaled, and said, “Vinyl, that’s disgusting.”

“Well, I mean it’s not that—”

“No. There is nothing you can possibly say to salvage how incredibly gross this place now is. I never want to be here again.”

“Aw, come on, now you’re just being—”

“Stop, just… stop. This place is a sanitation hazard. In fact, I plan on calling the police after this is done, at least if you don’t do something about this.”

Vinyl stared into Lee’s deathly serious face, and looked at the other ponies, “Is he serious?”

“Very much so,” Applejack grimly confirmed.

“Now that I know this place smells like a Greek orgie, I can finally address this…” Lee then pointed to the shy elephant in the room, “why the Hell is Flutterbutt wearing a suit of armor?”

Everyone’s eyes shifted straight to Fluttershy, who of course, stood in the rear, wearing an entire set of plate armor, her mane and tail adorably poking out of wide slits in the steel.

Fluttershy’s peepers blinked at the group’s placid expressions through the steel grill of her visor, “Well… uh, I really didn’t wanna get bit and turn into a super-scary zombie, so I put this on! I’m perfectly safe from bites now!”

They all decided to ignore arguing at this point.

Applejack nudged Luna with her hoof, “So, uh, Princess Luna, didn’t ya say you knew what this problem was all about?”

Pinkie Pie gasped and hugged Twilight around the neck, “Ya hear that, Twi! Princess Luna has the answers, unlike us…”

Twilight growled, “I can’t help that all the books we used to solve our problems got burned down in Ponyville’s only library! Why didn’t I just buy storage? I had to know this would happen eventually… but, please, Princess Luna, it would be wonderful if you could tell us what’s causing this craziness.”

Luna turned to face the entire party, and said, “The rising dead, inescapable town, the inability to use direct magic on the ghouls, and blocked communications, can only work in conjunction by an old and forbidden art. I’m afraid Ponyville has been afflicted by a necromancer.”

Princess Twilight Sparkle exploded in a cacophony of laughter, infecting Pinkie Pie (even though she wasn’t sure why she was laughing with the alicorn), “A… a, I’m sorry, but… a necromancer? Those evil, cackling, wizards of the dead in all those old fairy tales and fantasy novels? I’m sorry, but, that’s hilarious!”

“Twilight Sparkle, the majority of my humor relies on non-sequiturs and pranks, so I am very serious.”

Twilight’s laughter was quickly smothered, “Of course you’re serious. Of course, Ponyville has a necromancer…”

“I cannot explain why, and I don’t know how a necromancer managed to spring up once more after so many ages,” Luna continued with increasing gravity, “but what does matter is that we defeat the mage NOW, before he forces anymore innocent souls into their rotting corpses for whatever nefarious purpose is planned.”

“And how are we supposed to do take this baddie down? This isn’t exactly something we know about...” Rainbow Dash asked after finally landing.

“Fortunately for us,” Luna smiled, “there is a process for tracking down and stopping a necromancer that I remember from times ago.”

“That is fortunate!” Rarity cheered, “Normally, we’d be running around like a bunch of ninnies, and eventually one of us would strike the iron, so to speak, or by working together, or however we manage to succeed. Now that we have a proper protocol for this certain scenario, things will move much faster!”

A laugh escaped Luna’s throat, “Your enthusiasm is much appreciated, especially since you yourself are one of the keys to finding this dark magus.”

“Excuse me?”

“I am well aware of your proficiency in the Gem-Finding-Spell. Through your spell’s efforts, we will reveal the crypt the necromancer has hidden in very soon!”

“Err, how do gems help us find a crypt?” Spike asked from below, “And I’m completely ignoring why we are looking for a crypt because I think we’re all super tired of these questions….”

Luna rubbed Spike’s head frills lovingly, “Simple, my noble dragon, you see, most crypts are a Unicornian tradition, and by following tradition, all Unicornian crypts have a large concentration of precious gems to adorn the graves. If we find the gems, we find the crypt!”

Rarity looked to the ground, “I suppose it makes sense, but where do I ever start? Ponyville doesn’t even have a crypt! Not that we know of, at least…”

“Start from the bottom to the top, this catacomb could be anywhere underground.”

Rarity shrugged and charged her horn, “Alrighty then, let’s go ahead and… Oh!” She pointed her horn towards the back of the club, “Uh oh.”

Spike looked towards her horn, “Why ‘uh oh’?”

Rarity gave Pinkie a grimace, “I’m so sorry, my dear, but it seems that your place of business is built right over a sepulchre.”

Lee heaved the whirring chainsaw and swung the tree-shredding tool in a wide arc, harmlessly bouncing the buzzing blade off the surfaces of the decomposing zombie-flesh.

“WHY WON’T THIS DAMN THING CUT!”

“Lee!” Twilight cried as she ran into Sugarcube Corner’s now-open door with the party, “Why did you even grab that thing? It’s large, heavy, unbalanced, requires fuel, and not meant for swinging!”

“Oh, please, you’ve seen the movies, this damn power tool is like the JAWBONE OF A DONKEY AGAINST ZOMBIES!”

Twilight pulled a face at the metaphor, “Jawbone of a… that doesn’t even make sense!”

Lee resigned to switching off the cumbersome chainsaw, and decided to bludgeon the moaning, limping, Earth Pony stallion ghoul with only two legs to death by the weighty handle.

He turned around, sneered, and shouted, “Well if you pagans read your Bible, you would get things!”

(This little section here was typed out for the sole purpose of showing the humorous and stupid results of trying to use as a chainsaw as a viable weapon against the undead. Seriously, pick up a baseball bat or a shotgun, or at least a machete. And for the love of God, don’t pick up a katana or some big sword, because chances are, you won’t know how to cut correctly, and probably break it, and end up dooming yourself.)

“Pinkie, aren’t ya the least bit worried that your home is built right over a home for dead-ponies?” Applejack asked as they all carefully wandered down the spookily silent, stone corridors of the crypt, each side lined with adorned stone plates signifying which ancient Unicorn is lied to rest.

“Well, when you think about it, just about all of our homes are made over someplace where something or probably somepony died, so there’s really no point in worrying about it! There’s probably the bodies of dead ponies that fed the soil your trees grow on, Applejack!”

“Thanks for the image Pinkie…”

“Just ignore the worms, bones, dirt, spiders, mice, and absolutely everything else in here and you’ll be fine, Rarity!” Rarity spoke to herself as she worked the Gem-Finder-Spell, gritting her teeth and focusing on the path ahead, “Just do your job, Rarity, and give yourself a well-deserved, very-thorough, and soap-heavy spa-day, yup!”

Rainbow Dash grumbled as she grew more aware of the very enclosed spaces surrounding her, “Ugh, I hate places like this, there’s no room to do anything!”

“Couldn’t I have just stayed behind?” Fluttershy meeped from the raspy helmet.

“We need every hoof we can get with this necromancer, Fluttershy,” Twilight explained while closely reading every piece of history that could be found on the slabs, learning that the dates were getting increasingly older as they went, “we still don’t know how many ponies could be in there, and besides, your armor will keep you protected.”

Fluttershy’s sighs whistled through the steel net of the visor, “Of course, I couldn’t stay behind...”

The catacombs directly below Sugarcube Corner looked to be very old, telling from the lack of maintenance, penetrating tree roots, and a possible civilization of mice and spiders coexisting in peace.

As Luna predicted, there were a variety of gems studded in decorative forms for each of the stone-slab grave markers, some of the resting places included what looked like a miniature altar with, of course, gems, statues, and items that possibly symbolized the life of the deceased.

However, a good portion of the graves did not include a slab covering for the bodies of the Unicorns, most were just open, flat, rocky beds covered with dead laurels and flowers. On the dried flora were the dressed, wasted skeletons of Unicorns, laying on their back, arms crossed on their chests in ghostly repose.

The adventurers were initially spooked by the dead bones of times long ago, but Luna’s confident stride, stolid words, and strong presence reassured any fears they had.

Well, it assured everyone but Lee. Lee the Legend always harbored a distaste for the dead. The walking dead was no problem for him, but the dead dead was a different story. Seeing the still, lifeless bodies of sentient beings, slowly rotting to unrecognizable dust always sent a shiver through his spine, each shiver reminding him that no matter when his soul will be elsewhere, his body will remain on the earth to be dissected, decomposed, eaten by worms and become one with the dirt.

“All creepy sh*t aside,” Lee started as he attempted to ignore the fact that he was surrounded by cold, unmoving, and very dead bodies, “what exactly are we supposed to do when we find this necrophiliac jackass or whatever?”

Princess Luna stayed at the head of the party, lighting the way with her horn and metal hoofshoes echoing against the dusty floor with a solid clacking noise.

She squinted as she attempted to peer farther into the darkness, “The necromancer set up base in the deepest part of the crypt due to the thick, latent magic left to stagnate by the Unicorn’s bodies. The magus must have created a receptacle or a magic circle of sorts to collect the power and channel it into the earth, thus pulling husks of souls back into bodies and raising the dead. Destroying the receptacles will be all that’s necessary.”

“So break all the magic sh*t? I’m pretty good at that.”

Rarity pursed her lips, “I can’t seem to sense many more gems. We must be approaching the end of the crypt now, but no, spooky, creepy, necromancer to be seen… and I would have hoofed through all this… ickyness…. for no reason.”

“Not to worry, this mage is here. I can sense the familiar dark magic just ahead...” Luna patted Rarity on her back with a hoof, “and you’re doing a fantastic job, fair Rarity, stay stalwart.”

“Finally!” Rainbow cheered, “Some action instead of this boring walking…”

“Wow!” Spike suddenly commented, sending more echoes through the dusty halls, “I still can’t believe how easy this was.” Spike smiled and put a bit more of a swagger in his step, but the regular kind of swagger not the douche kind, “Think about it. We are literally just strolling right to the problem without having any conflict with each other, and this time, we’ve got another Princess to help us out in case things go sideways! How often do things go this easy for us?”

“Sure, Spike,” Twilight agreed, “but we still don’t know why this is happening.”

“Yeah, but we can worry about that after we take this evil wizard dude out. We always had to figure it out beforehand, but now we can just ask questions later. How crazy is it for things to go so safely for us?”

“Everyone, stop.” Lee abruptly commanded.

The party ceased their steps to his random order.

“Something’s doesn’t make a sh*t-stain of sense here.” Lee rubbed his neck as the answers began to interlock one after another, like a jigsaw puzzle, “Okay… there’s an emo magic junkie who’s makin’ zombies and sh*t, and he set up shop in some deep, underground home for dead Unicorn douches, right?”

Luna nodded her head slowly, “Yes, that is all true…”

“So,” Lee continued while gesturing with his arms, “we’re basically just prancing up to this dildo, in a crypt, who seems to be able to raise the dead whenever he wants… something’s not right here!”

Pinkie’s hoof shot up in the air while she excitedly hopped from leg to leg, “Oh, oh! I know what’s wrong!”

Lee sighed in relief, “Okay, Cream Pie seems to know, what is it?”

Pinkie Pie stopped her dance and gave the million dollar answer, “We’re going to stop a necromancer, a raiser of the dead, who holed his little self up in an enclosed space full to the brim of the dead, and we’re walking straight towards him, with no real Plan B, while we’re surrounded by dead ponies that could come to life at any moment and block off all possible exits, thus, sealing our fate!”

A nearby stone slab was pushed off, and shattered against the floor in a thought-breaking echo, signalling the start of a crisis. The next sound was the cold chattering of a skeleton breaking itself free of another stone plate, and the bones of another falling off of an open grave bed.

“Ah hate it when Pinkie’s right!” Applejack groaned as the growing number of flesh-free zombies began to stumble forward from both sides, mouth agape.

“Princess Luna,” Twilight shouted as the party was forced to group closer together, “we’re surrounded and we can’t use magic! What do we do now?”

The dark blue Princess responded by turning on her front hooves and bucking a brittle, ever-grinning skull into white shards, returning the body to natural death, “We have no choice but to use hoof and tooth to fight our way through!”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” RD buzzed and zipped to the front and back of the party, kicking and punching the lunging skeletons of Unicorns back to stillness.

“While I’m not afraid of a little roughhousing,” Rarity argued with a slight frown, “we’d be in here for ages if we tried to bone-bust all these ghoulish Unicorns!”

Applejack grunted after dispatching of a pair of bone-bodies wearing a tuxedo and ball gown, “She’s right, and that’s if’n we don’t pass out from exhaustion and… Ah’ don’t wanna think about what comes after that.”

A metaphorical light bulb came to life above Twilight’s head,“Wait, I have an idea!” Pinkie Pie squeaked as Twilight reached into Pinkie’s voluminously poofy tail and removed the enormous and notorious Party Cannon.

Pinkie winked at Twilight’s triumphant grin, “Oh, I gotcha Twilight!” the party planner brought her combustible-good-times-blaster to face the nearest wave of formally dressed skeletons and released an explosive shower of confetti, balloons, and what looked like cake icing, evaporating the aristocratic zombies instantly. She turn the cannon to the volley of bones on the other side and let loose another assault of fun!

Except that nothing came out.

Pinkie frowned and looked into the cannon’s chamber, she looked back at the eagerly-awaiting group and only said, “We’re empty!” she snorted at the simultaneously clanging of dropped jaws, “Hey, this thing needs ammo too! And on the day that I actually get to have a Corpse Party…”

“Just f*ck the cannon!” Lee threw his arms up in the air, “I have another plan anyways.”

“And what’s that?” Twilight inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Just run through them.”

“.....”

Lee rolled his eyes, and strained to pick up the heavily armored Fluttershy with only a single, metallic meep, “I… mean… using this one like a… battering ram… WILL YOU ASSHOLES HELP ME ALREADY?!”

Twilight glanced at Luna who just shrugged, saying, “‘Tis worth a shot!”

Fluttershy muttered, “I didn’t really give my permission for this, but you were all gonna do it anyways.”

Twilight, Luna, and Rarity, used their magic to levitate Tank-er-shy, taking most of the weight off of Lee’s shoulders, and Applejack, Spike, and Rainbow Dash took physical hold of Fluttershy the Rock with Lee.

“So ya just think we should run through like this?” Applejack asked?

“GO TEAM!”

“Excuse me?” Applejack asked, completely taken unawares by the warcry.

“FOOTBALL!”

Rainbow Dash had a double-take, “What the hay does hoofball have to do with this?”

“HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKEEE!!!!!” Lee put his shoulder into the armored-plates crook and initiated the charge through the high-class zombie skeletons.

The relentless blitzkrieg blasted through the cold bodies like melted butter-sauce, sending a seemingly endless shower of fragmented bones through the low ceiling of the catacombs. The maneuver was so successful and easy that everyone else joined in on the war cries.

In fact, the charge was so effective, that they broke into the chamber of the necromancer without even knowing it.

Lee finally saw that they had cleared the interminable hallways and yelled, “STOP!”

So they did.

They all stopped at the same time; physical pushing ceased, and magic holds released.

The only one who didn’t stop was Fluttershy, seeing as how the velocity they had been reaching did not allow her to.

Fluttershy’s adorably armored body let loose a high pitched, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” as it sailed across the square room and met its stop at the body of a pony in the stereotypically black robe of a necromancer.

Everyone simultaneously cried, “Fluttershy!” not that saying her name really would have affected any outcome in any possible way, but that knowledge wouldn’t have stopped them from calling her name anyways.

The heavily-protected Pegasus struggled as she stood up and trotted away from the robed pony, “I’m okay!” she shouted over the groaning of the dark mage.

Luna smiled widely as she stepped over to the grounded form of the magus, “It looks as if your dead-raising days are over, foul wizard!”

At this point of the adventure, Spike decided to do something different than the norm, which usually involved staying and gasping with the group as they listened to some monologue. He decided to quietly walk further into the chamber and look for something.

The necromancer cackled and threw the hood off before facing the adventurers, “Don’t you know that looks are deceiving?” The gang simultaneously gasped (with the exception of Spike).

Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened, “Since when was Night Thumper a necromancer? Gee, I wish she told me that before so I could’ve thrown a party more suited to her hobbies...”

Spike recognized that name as the local Pegasus who had inexplicably chosen mortician-apprenticeship to make up for some student loans, but he would ooh and ahh later.

The intrepid dragon scratched his chin as he examined what looked to be an intricate magic circle full of stars and skull designs below his feet, made of some dark red substance.

“I’ve been waiting oh so long for this moment,” Night Thumper crooned.

“What the Hell kind of a necromancer is called Night Thumper?” Lee commented to seemingly everybody, “It’s more cute than scary.”

“It was recently that I discovered the dark arts!” Thumper dramatically boomed, “And this incredible, magic, power… see? You horned ones aren’t the only ponies who can learn to use a spell or two!”

“Recently?” Luna gaped, “Th-th-that’s completely impossible! Being able to raise the dead requires years upon years of knowledge and practice, especially without a horn!”

Spike grunted as he broke the magic circle by scratching out the connection with his scaly feet, “Better make sure there isn’t another circle or something else…” He took a quick glance at the floor, walls, and even the ceiling, but found no trace of the red markings.

Then he looked behind him and saw a small table next to a stool, “Oh.”

He climbed onto the stool and used it as a stepping stone to hop onto the wooden table, where he saw more markings, some paper scrolls covered in runes with strange pictures, and a couple of unidentifiable skulls with rolled up scrolls stuck in the eyeholes. “Guess I just burn it. Hm.”

“SO MANY THINGS are possible now,” Night Thumper giggled, “you don’t even know the extent of the power our Master has bestowed onto us!”

Twilight craned her neck to Luna and whispered, “‘Us’? That can’t be good.”

The air suddenly grew heavy and thick, as if some great, old, dark, thing, was taking up all the available space, “Yes. Yes! YES!” Thumper hailed as a second voice overlapped hers, “Now will come a new age! A dark age! Us followers will gain our reward for our dutiful faith, and HE will rise from the murk, enslaving you ALL UNDER HIS AWESOME MIGHT! THE MIGHT THAT HE BESTOWED UPON US!”

The foundations of the crypt trembled as her voice shook the ground. The tremors ceased and a complete guard of skeletons, clad in old, rusted armor paired with cracked spears leaped from the depths of the cracked earth. The skulls chattered as they menaced their spears and marched closer to the group, precisely encircling the unfortunate party, ready to close in and skewer the lot.

Then they fell to pieces and never moved again.

“WHAT?!?!” Night Thumper bellowed, “WHO COULD HAVE…. done this?”

Everyone was now aware of Spike the dragon who stood before a burning table full of old, necromantic items that were disappearing in wisps of smoke.

Spike caught their stares needling into his back, and he turned around, giving them all a shrug, “It just made the most sense to ask the long questions after getting rid of the zombie gear, well, at least to me.”

The stares switched to the now helpless and crazed necromancer, “Drats.”

Without saying a single word, Princess Luna conjured shackles to bind the hooves and wings of the clipped mage.

Luna dragged Night Thumper closer with the hard grip of her magic, “You have MUCH to answer for, necromancer.”

Thumper only laughed, which was the fifth or sixth time already so it stopped being creepy and was just annoying, “You still think this is it, don’t you? None of you insignificant specks have ANY idea how BIG this all is! THERE IS more of us, DOZENS. I was only the prelude to the horror...” all expression left her face, “... this is only the beginning of the end.”

Luna peered deeper into Night Thumper’s insane eyes, “She’s been ‘touched’ by something… she’s lost her mind to the will of… whoever this Master is. I’ve seen this before, but not of this totality.”

“And you.” Night Thumper’s words pierced Lee’s eardrums, sending goosebumps down his limbs, “None of this would have been possible. Without. You.”

The blue Alicorn sighed in exhaustion as a long held puzzle piece finally found its place, “Well, I think we now know who this Master is.” she saw the Element’s confused expressions and furrowed her brow, “I will take this, ‘Night Thumper’, to Canterlot for my sister to see. We have many questions. For now, do not mention the ramblings to the town ponies. It would only panic them. Now I must go raise the moon. Good night.”

Her horn briefly glowed before overtaking everyone’s senses, causing the scenery to disappear in a flash of purple magic.

Lee and Spike walked around the moonlit streets of Ponyville some time after the zombie disaster, just for the purpose of walking.

And to get the zombie, necromancers, and dark Master stuff out of their system.

“Wow, that nightmare sounds horrible!” Spike remarked after Lee finished the full account of Luna’s dreamwalk.

Lee worked out some cracks in his neck, “Yeah it was some real spooky sh*t. I’m just surprised none of the hoofed faggots got bit.”

Spike shrugged, “Well, you know how scared these ponies get. They probably ran home the second somepony saw something.”

“I guess.”

Lee yawned and checked the time on his phone, it read seven-thirty on the dot, “This is the first time we didn’t learn anything about gayness or friendship or whatever the f*ck means something here. It kinda feels like a damn waste.”

“Hm. You’re right.” Spike frowned and his spines drooped, “Now this whole thing really did feel pointless.

That was when cheers and hollers splintered the calmness of the night. The shouts of joy seemed to come from the town square, which the walking pair were not too far from. The only words they could make out were, “She’s back, she’s back!” Naturally, they were more than interested.

Lee scratched his head, “Is the stripper parade here or something?”

“I don’t know about that,” Spike laughed, “but we should probably go check anyways.”

They turned around and began to run down the road leading back to the plaza. When they reached the cheers, they saw a large circle of celebrating, jubilant ponies, and Pegasi whirling through the air.

Lee got on all fours and headbutted his way through, tossing whoever didn’t budge over his back like a bucking bull. It was a very effective strategy.

Once they finally got through, Lee and Spike saw a wheeled cart holding two ponies. One was a small, grey, unicorn filly who was fiercely clutching the other mare with closed eyes, and seemed to be a lighter grey Pegasus with blonde hair.

Lee put an ear to the crowds and discerned the name they started to chant, it was… “Derpy! Derpy! Derpy!” Lee pursed his lips, then looked down at Spike, figuring he would know something about this.

Spike was standing completely still, eyes wide and pupils small, mouth open, hands hanging loosely at his side, seeming to have lost complete notice of the loud crowds and happiness around him.

“What horse is this supposed to be, L’il Nig?”

Spike did not even look at Lee when he said, “That’s Ditzy Doo, she’s been missing since before you crashed here… no one could find her.”

Lee frowned, not understanding Spike’s lack of spirit, “And now she’s back, and sleeping or whatever… isn’t that a good thing?”

“She hasn’t woken up yet,” Spike pointed a finger at her body, “but her little sister is yelling at her to get up..!”

Lee listened closely to the small Unicorn, and at the same time, noticed there were tears falling.

She kept crying out, “Wake up! Why won’t you wake up?”

Spike shook his head slowly, “Lee, why isn’t she moving?”

Author's Notes:

HOLY SH*T THIS IS A LONG CHAPTER.

I thought it was kind of funny that the zombie problem was a lot easier than most movies made them to be.