Ch 44 – The Dark Captain

The whole pile of carcasses, that once were people, began rattling. The sound of bone striking bone intensified as it seemed to sprawl, collapsing from the top. Actually... It wasn't really collapsing. While it seemed like so at the first glance, a more attentive eye would see the bones tapping on each other and moving accordingly. the top went over, while the bottom also did so, creating a spectacle of flowing skeletons that moved freely over each other not getting entangled. Yes, the skeletons had sentience. The inner maddened necromancer inside Necro wanted to scream "IT'S ALIVE!", but she wasn't that kind of crazy. Ace stared in awe and anticipation, until she realized the oddity.

"Necro... There's... One is..."

"You see it too, right? Them."

"... Yeah."

As the sprawl of the bone mount ended, turning into something almost flat, skeletons slowly rose from the ground. 26 of them. 

"Glorious!" Necro rejoiced.

"But what about that?" Ace was confused, how could Necro be rejoicing even though there were two of such different ones? Rather, one caught her attention from its mana, it was thicker and darker than all others, a touch like Necro's, while the other one... was just an straight up aberration. The bones seemed to have melted and refused together in a strange shape. Three spines pointed in three directions, the back of them facing outwards. A monster whose rib cages had fused together, creating a large cell in its center. Three skulls rested atop the spines, rolling freely and facing towards the opposite direction of which they'd normally. Six bone arms drooped around the body connected to fused up scapulae. And six legs faced towards Necro, the same direction as one of it's heads.

"That, girl, is the second most successful skeleton I've seen in this life... A Bone Abomination." Her words seemed to alert, or rather, call the Skeletons. They seemed to have a hierarchy for some reason. The Abomination and the strange dark skeleton stood upfront, slowly walking towards Necro. while the remainder just stood behind them, waiting. Ace cowered behind her, hiding from the undead in fear of something going wrong. Her insecurity though, was proven unwarranted as soon as such monsters knelt in front of Necro, as she raised her hands, touching the skulls of them. 

"What!? How?!" Ace asked as she saw magic circles forming on the skulls of all skeletons, not just the one's Necro touched. Necro lifted her hands, allowing the two undead to stand, before addressing Ace's doubt.

"Simple, they are all one."

"One...? 

"They were all created from the same spell, and lived as a single group. The strength of such undead is born from their hatred, which is what made these become so much stronger. See that?" Necro pointed towards the dark skeleton's skull, which bore a small hole that was slowly repairing itself. 

"This is the leader, he probably hated someone so much that, when reviving, the mana reacted to his will, concentrating much further. And this." She said, pointing towards the Abomination. 

"These had the same hatred and power, which not as much as his' it was enough for them to unify their souls and forces, creating a much higher-tiered undead. This one is almost as powerful as our Wolf over there and bears great potential. While we are at it. Can you understand me?" She said, looking straight at the dark skeleton. To her dismay, it did not react. 

"Hah... I should've expected this much since it just got created." A large mace materialized in her hand. She threw it towards the dark skeleton. "Kill eleven of them with this, I'll wait for you."

Without a second thought, the dark skeleton turned around, and began mowing through the skeletons she had painstakingly created.

"Why...?" Ace's eyes started to water as she watched the dark skeleton destroy the skulls and spines of many others with the mace Necro herself had given him. She couldn't understand this at all.

"Power." Necro's response was dry, but well thought-out. Ace blinked a couple times, her mouth agape, until Necro began speaking once again. "Too many gets too much attention, and I'd much rather have more powerful ones I can trust."

The sounds of bone being crushed were earth-shattering and would certainly make one's gears grind. The wreckage lasted a few more seconds, as the skeletons being returned did only as much as try to protect themselves with their hands, while the mace struck exactly eleven of them completely at random. The dark skeleton made sure to crush the moving bones on the floor that had been ejected from the main body, making sure of the skeletons' death. 

Ace watched in awe as something akin to Necro's mana seeped out of the dead skeleton's skulls right into the empty eye-sockets of the dark skeleton.

It slowly walked towards Necro as he finished his job, now with a thicker miasma around him. The Abomination's skulls moved independently, staring at everything and everyone all this time.

"Can you understand me now?" Necro asked, seemingly to no avail. At least, that's what Ace thought as she saw the skull of the monster only drop a little.

"yE-s M~Y LorD!" A broken and husky voice resounded in Necro's mind.

"Perfect, You're still not there but this is a great accomplishment. And I don't have to kill any more of the rest..." Somehow, relief could be felt from the remaining 13 skeletons. Their chest rising and retracting as if they'd just sighed. A shiver ran down Ace's spine as she realized they were not just "alive", but quite possibly living.