Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay, trouble on the home front, couldn't find my motivation to write this story for a good while.
This chapter was meant to be longer, and I regret that I cannot include the fight scene in this update.
I know you lot have been waiting, and you have my sincerest apologies.
I'll try to so better for the next update.

Princess Celestia knew carrion birds fed by picking at the softest tissues of a corpse, knowing they were the easiest to eat. She had assumed necromancers worked in similar ways, choosing a corpse they felt was in the best condition for their needs; skeletonized remains turned into minions while putrefied tissue was cleaned down to the bones as it was too weak to use, and fresh corpses were turned into sturdier ghouls and zombies. The art of turning multiple corpses into a skaab, insofar as one could consider it an art, was on the whole different from what she had seen Sombra do a thousand years prior. She watched in strange disgust as Twilight worked alongside the humans in their dark craft, and briefly wondered if they told the merchant what they were doing to his former guards.

Their theatre was hidden from the others by a thick, white sheet draped from three wagons; they needed to hide their work from sight at the very least, lest they risk alienating their pony friends. There were three makeshift gurneys erected in the middle of the space, each with two corpses laid out on them; Celestia sat in one corner while the three went about their magic. Twilight spent her time switching between observing Reman and Renoir, an apprentice dividing her studies between two tutors. The humans were precise in their ministrations, slicing meat from bone, careful to keep muscle groups intact where they could. They looked over every bone for fractures before setting them aside and continuing on; good bones were sorted based on type while undesirables were tossed into a pile to be properly disposed of. They pieced together a ribcage and reinforced it with leather straps; organs and fat were superfluous and dumped in waterproof bags.

The first part of the procedure to really seem out of place was Renoir producing a string of glass vials; he looped one end of the twine around the portion of spine that would become the skaab’s neck before tying the other end to a false rib. Next, Twilight moved the shoulder bones into place while Reman secured them; the skull was the next bit, flayed to give them access to the teeth. The lower jaw was pinned into place before being wired shut; biting was unnecessary for its intended purpose, and as such would be inhibited. The pelvis and spine were from the same donor, and as such they moved onto popping the femurs into place and could skip the tedious work of fusing bones. “Bring the plates over, Twilight,” Reman said; he and Renoir had not bothered covering their faces to prevent possible disease, but had not mocked their unicorn assistant’s decision to don a mask.

“Of course,” she replied, levitating a small iron cuirass over; it was, perhaps, the size of Renoir’s bare torso, leaving it fairly small. With the snaps of a few buckles, the armor was secured over the ribs. Muscle was next, picked from the bulkiest of the guards, each bundle sutured together according to Renoir’s instruction. The vampire would go over the sutures once more after every limb was attached. They slid the muscles over the arms and hips before placing the abdominals; they pulled them taut to affect a look of life. The forearms and shins had not been separated from their ends, and handled the issues of hands and feet quite nicely. “Um, explain why we made the stomach look like it was alive if the skin if going to be mismatched and splotchy?”

“We’re going to cover the skin in campfire ash to make it look uniform,” Reman explained, pulling a bundle of peeled, human hide to the skaab’s table. “When we get it put together, we send it off to track the bandits, find their hideout, and assess the situation.”

“And I’m to help with the binding ritual?” Twilight asked, looking a bit worried. This wasn't some practice session meant to exhaust her magicka reserves and force them to expand; binding the soul of one person into a skaab to control it was difficult, and with their inexperience and Renoir’s lack of skill at Conjuration, they would need to tap beyond their reserves to get everything right.

“You’re free to say no; there’s no need for you to feel pressured into this,” the imperial said, setting his tools down. He understood her fears, and knew that her emotions and ambitions worked against one another. Budding magi were some of the toughest and easiest people to sway, and Reman had no desire for any daedra to take hold of the unicorn; he rather liked her being the impartial mediator they needed to help Celestia understand humans, and vice versa.

“And if Mora returns?” she continued, still worried, and with good reason. She did not believe she could suffer a second probing, not when a small part of her mind warned it would be worse the second time.

“Then we break the spell and stop these efforts,” Renoir consoled, tossing a labelled bag of organs into the corpse wagon. Of the three of them, he was the most well-versed in the use of Tamriellic magic, and could snap them out of spellcasting if need be. “If it will help you rest at ease, Reman and I can take this from here,” he said, trying not to offend her.

The purple unicorn shook her head, but smiled. “I can’t ask you to pick up my slack; this shouldn’t be too bad if I have friends watching out for me.” She had her fears, but resolved not to allow them reign over her mind. For the rest of the night, she was not a student of the magic of friendship, and instead she was a mage-apprentice of Tamriel, and she could bear the heavens upon her shoulders if she must. “Now, we must mend the tendons before we can continue, yes?”

“Precisely right, Twilight,” the breton said, nodding to the table where the unfinished horror lay. The vampire began casting his healing magic, and the golden light slowly turned into a dark, sicklier shade as he changed it’s specifications to work on dead flesh. He took one line of dense fiber from the thigh muscle and bonded it to the bone of the shin like a weld; he then bent the limb to see if it held up properly. Satisfied, he motioned for Remain to join in, and Twilight followed his lead.

A bitter taste filtered into the air, unlike the semisweet taste of raw magicka being shaped, as Celestia watched the imperial and her student weave their wills alongside the undead medic. Necrotic tissue dissolved and melded together, creating a poor, degenerate facsimile of how they were in life, stitched with parts of other humans. Renoir sewed and welded while Reman forced muscle to move, testing his friend’s bonds while double checking the musculature of their creation; Twilight, unable to take a specialized task onto her own shoulders, mimicked one or the other, learning by experience rather than practice. The aura surrounding her horn wafted and wavered like a flickering candle flame or heat of stone on a hot day, never constant and ever changing in intensity and shade, as though her mind could not bend her magic to task.

Twilight struggled to find focus for a few moments, unwilling to open her mind beyond her primary reserves and delve into what lurked beyond the surface, a sea of magic with a predator she knew waited for her. She was afraid, and that fear was necessary for survival, but magic was just another facet of science, and science was not without risks. With a deep breath, she cleared her thoughts, and dived into her reserves, sure in her knowledge that there was no such thing as a painless lesson. The magicka flowing from her horn turned a deep purple as she locked onto Reman’s signature, copying his magic’s effects as she joined him in full. There was no pain, no probing tentacle scouring her thoughts for a morsel of information, and she surrendered fully to the ecstasy of magical release.

The skaab’s legs and arms were fully assembled, and struggled against their bonds; for a moment, the princess’s disgust outweighed her knowledge of the task’s necessity, and she nearly stopped the ritual. She knew the skaab’s constituent parts did not feel pain, as there was no connection to the brain or even much of a nervous system, but part of her felt the partial-revival was cruel. Everything up until the torso worked properly, but the muscle had trouble binding to the iron, making every contraction move most of the meat across the breastplate rather than tighten in a localized area.

“Should have figured that was too good of an idea to work,” Reman sighed, pulling away from the mismatched corpse. “I think some nails will work, but it’s a bit of a longshot.”

“Why in Equestria are you making this thing look alive if you’ll only be using it once?” the princess asked, moving aside so the imperial could reach a box of carpentry supplies; she didn’t question why there were carpentry supplies already boxed and ready to go in case they were needed, sure she did not want to know the answer in any event.

“Because it never hurts to have a durable bodyguard,” Renoir answered, done suturing the tendons together. The vampire reached for the roll of skin right as his colleague returned with a few nails and a heavy hammer.

“Hence why we’re making one skaab and not reviving each corpse as a zombie,” Reman finished. He was surprised by how easily the nails penetrated the armor, and had to take care not to damage the vials suspended behind the ribs. The imperial hammered another nail a few inches lower; he followed that with a jolt of magic to test how the pins aided the muscle movement. He repeated the process until satisfied with the chest; it was not the living anatomy he would have liked, but not much better was to be expected from his first attempt at stitching. “We’ll get more use out of one skaab than we would from ten zombies.”

“I’m not sure I want to know how you know how much use ten zombies are,” the alicorn dryly replied. She looked on as portions of skin were placed and sutured on, keeping in line with where they came from on the donor bodies. The thing didn’t even look remotely alive, least of all when in motion, and she was rapidly beginning to think Reman only insisted on making as close to lifelike as possible to unnerve onlookers even more; it certainly seemed like something he would do.

“Wow, you’re ugly,” Reman said, looking over the abomination. Twilight and Renoir were busy coating its skin in campfire ash while it gained full control of itself. It tracked the imperial’s finger and listened intently to what he said, but had no conscious mind to speak of: if the soul of one of the guards was bound into it, he or she did not make any move that suggested discomfort. A brief shiver ran down Celestia’s spine as she wondered if that was the real reason behind wiring the jaw shut. “Now, find the men who killed you.”

_-_-_-_-_

Renoir stared into the inky, cloudy night, fully able to see the ruined fort in daytime detail. The circulatory systems of the tower’s sentries were lit like twinkling stars as he scanned over them; he saw Reman hiding near the western wall, and Twilight crouching under some dense brush. The vampire himself was perched in a tree, but he was not the only undead about; the skaab heeded its masters order to stay put until given the command. They would not move while the ponies were in danger; Rainbow Dash was set to fly over and serve as the signal of the group’s safety.

Resistance was mild, though seemed to comprise the entirety of the outfit; there were only about eight bandits above ground at any given time. While Renoir could see their lifeblood, he could not discern individuals very well, so their actual number was a mystery; while he had no doubts they could handle eight bandits, any more would prove problematic, especially if Twilight had a chance of cracking under the pressure. He cast a glance over the the purple mare and pondered just how much of a risk she posed if she lost control. The vampire steadied himself with thoughts of the night’s plan; this was not an extermination, but a harassment meant to keep them pinned in place until guards could arrive to deal with them.

Rainbow Dash flew overhead, leaving her namesake in her wake as she crossed the sky; purple burst of magic filled the air courtesy of Twilight. Quietly, the vampire nocked an arrow and grinned as he found a target within his range. He loosed it a little ahead of his mark, allowing him to walk into death; from his distance, Renoir saw the arrow pierced the target’s gut, and heard him shout as he tumbled from the wall. Reman unleashed his abomination just as the camp came alive. The three mages were against an unknown number of enemies, and they had to hold out until help could arrive. They would give it their very best.