Wizard101: Dark Intentions

by Lewascan2

A necromancer, vowing revenge, and a sorcerer, who will find a way back home by any means necessary. Both unwilling parts of a prophesy, no path is too dark in the name of success. Together with five other hapless souls, they rush to save the worlds of the Spiral for less than altruistic aims, guided by individual dark intentions... Story 1-3

1. The Death Wizard of Legend

Disclaimer: I don't own Wizard101 in any way, Kingsile does. I do own the OC's I added to this story though. :D

Author's note: Yay! It's my first Wizard101 story! Word of advice to anyone who hasn't played the game: you should at least look up walkthroughs to see what the places look like. It will really help you to get a better visualization of the story as it progresses. I will try to be as descriptive as possible to help out with clarifying things. I wonder if Firestorm N. (a favorite writer of mine) will read this story? Eh, a writer can dream right?

To Roxas565656: If you happen to read this story you will notice that my main OC is a bit different than the one that I submitted to your story. While he has a bit of a different life in your story than what I submitted, I'm writing a story based on the actual back story/history of him. So I hope you enjoy my version as much as I enjoy yours.

And now... Onward!

Chapter 1: The Death Wizard of Legend

Our story begins in the very center of the Spiral on the world of Wizard City. The Spiral is a large galaxy composed of massive, floating island worlds instead of planets, which are all centered around Wizard City, the main world. Several of these worlds even had their own stars, which served as suns. Wizard City was very important to the Spiral, since it housed one of the most successful wizarding schools, Ravenwood Academy. The school was headed by the elderly Headmaster Ambrose, who had founded the school after leaving the world of Avalon.

It was a peaceful and quiet night in Wizard City. The Spiral had been enjoying a golden age, since the evil Morganthe, Headmaster Ambrose's former apprentice's imprisonment in the now lost world of Celestia. Please note that this is many years before the Death school teacher, Malistaire, went rogue. But despite the state of peace there were still people that were not content.

Branching off from the main area of Wizard City, the Commons, was Ravenwood, which housed Ravenwood Academy's schools and dorm rooms. Upon entering Ravenwood, the first thing you would probably notice was a massive grandfather oak tree with a face, who would appear to be staring straight at you with his wizened blue eyes. He was huge, bigger than any tree existing on earth. They all pale in comparison to his size. Directly to your right was the boy's tall dorm room building and to your left the girl's. Another thing you might notice at night, when Ravenwood wasn't flooded with students, running to and from classes or just standing around, was a spiral, painted on the cobblestone paved ground in front of the giant tree. On the inside edges of the spiral, were drawn seven circles, each containing a symbol from one of the seven schools of magic: Fire, Ice, Storm, Life, Myth, Death, and Balance.

Sitting next to the boy's dorms, was the school of Storm building. And after that Ice and then Fire, slowly leading around to the back of the large tree. The school of Fire was located almost completely behind the huge tree. On the girl's dorm side there were more school buildings arranged around the other side in the same manner. The buildings were the schools of Life, Myth, and Death in that order. The difference on this side was that the third school on the list was completely hidden behind the massive tree, shrouded in the deepest shadows of the tree's branches. Each school building also had a teacher's office that was built against the trunk of the enormous tree, directly across from each of the school buildings respectively. The Balance school was the only school without a school building or teacher's office in Ravenwood, since it was a relatively new school, hailing from scorching desert world of Krokotopia. So during school hours, the teacher of Balance taught the class outside in front of the giant tree.

Each school, save Balance of course, had a smaller tree than the large one that all the buildings encompassed. These trees each had a face and represented each school's element respectively. The Storm tree had a never-ending rain cloud pouring rain onto it's constantly soaked form which looked gloomy. The storm around this tree had pooled and flowed away through a small barred tunnel behind it. It actually was the start of the flow to the lake in the Commons. Around the Ice tree it constantly snowed snow of the perfect texture for snow men. The Fire tree was always on fire but never burning up and strangely, never melting the snow of the Ice school, sitting next to it. This remaining a constant mystery to most of the students. The Life tree was always in constant bloom, covered in pink leaves that never fell. The Myth tree was very serious looking and had a single large eye like a cyclops. Lastly, the Death tree was a thick, dead-looking tree with no leaves and a demon-like face with constantly clattering bone-like teeth.

Underneath the dark blanket of this moonless night, two figures crept from the school's dorm rooms, one from the boy's and one from the girl's. Both were draped in black as a perfect indication to their common school being Death. They silently slipped through the tunnel to the Commons, hoping they wouldn't be seen by the ever watchful eyes of Bartleby, the gargantuan tree in the center of Ravenwood, who's massive branches spread out over the school buildings like a gigantic leafy canopy. He was ancient, older than the Spiral itself in fact. During a period of worldwide war thousands of years ago, Bartleby had seen fit to shatter the planet, separating the warring factions, and then had set the loose chunks in orbit around the world that he resided on with his immense power. The world later became known as Wizard City.

The wizards breathed a consecutive sigh of relief, believing themselves to have gone unseen. The pair stood up and made their way across the neatly gardened and paved Commons towards the Wizard City library. They had been wrong in their assumption though. Bartleby had indeed seen them go and had thought about alerting Ambrose. But his eye of the future had warned him against such an action, saying their escape was very important for the future of the spiral. So the ancient tree did nothing, hoping that his choice had been a good one.

The two necromancers finally reached the double doors of the library. "Well, now what?" 17-year-old Sophia asked. "Perhaps we shouldn't go through with this," she suggested with a worried tone, that carried a hint of suppressed guilt.

"Nonsense! I intend to finish what we started. It's not like there's much for us if we stay here," exclaimed the 18-year-old boy named Carl Thunderbreaker.

"Still, what if we get caught?" asked Sophia.

"We won't get caught ok? We'll just grab what we need and be on our way," Carl assured her. He reached inside his cloak and drew his wand. Out of his sleeve, floated his spell cards. Among his spells were, dark sprite, ghoul, banshee, vampire, skeletal pirate and a small damage spell that his wand provided. Carl decided against the banshee, because it made too much noise and the vampire, because it required more power to cast. He picked ghoul from his remaining attack spells, deciding the dark sprite wouldn't be powerful enough. Tucking the other spells inside his sleeve, he began to draw the death sigil in the air in front of him with his wand. He drew on the principles of death to bring ending and closure to life to fuel the spell. And he was bringing and end all right. He was going to end those library doors.

Carl started his death sigil with a spiral before dipping down and adding a "v" to the bottom. Adding one slash to each side of the "v", he tapped the now floating ghoul spell card, activating it. The spell dissolved into the air and the ground began to slightly rumble. The area between Carl and the door turned into a miniature cemetary. From the ground a zombie shot out, floating in the air for a second before landing on the ground. The zombie wore a tattered purple suit torn off at the elbows and knees, a purple top hat and carried a large silver spade.

"Break it down," Carl ordered the ghoul, while pointing at the doors to the library. The ghoul took a few steps towards the doors and raised his spade. But the monster didn't make any move to touch the doors, since he didn't have to. Energy began to flow from the door into the ghoul's spade. As it did so, the door appeared as though it was in a time spell of some sort. The door slowly aged away and cracked as any life essence and energy left within was sucked out. Finally, the ghoul stopped and fell back into the ground of it's graveyard. The cemetary dissipated into a black smoke that swirled around before finally coming to rest in Carl's hand as the ghoul spell card once again.

Carl held a satisfied smirk on his face, as he walked up to the decrepit double doors. Carl gave the doors a single poke. The doors then crumbled into a pile of thick sawdust before Carl's wide eyes. "I think I may have overdone it a bit".

"A bit?" snickered Sophia. Carl gave her a playful glare in response and walked into the dark and empty building. The two took a look around the book-lined room till their eyes found the hallway to forbidden section. "You sure about this?" she asked.

Carl nodded. "Let's start looking for anything really helpful". The wizards spent a few hours of the long night searching the forbidden isles for spells. When they were satisfied with what they had found, they stuffed several of the books in a bag and took off. They hastily made their way to a small bridge that spanned over stream, which flowed into a small pond in the center of the Commons before branching off into more smaller streams, that led off to who knows where. They stepped into the knee-deep water and leaned under the bridge. Hidden under the bridge were several small crates filled with supplies. Carl cast a spell to make the crates hover and began moving them towards a waterfall that started the stream a few feet away.

Once Carl and Sophia were standing directly in front of the waterfall, they both took a breath and ran straight through quickly, trying not to be completely soaked. When they had gotten past the waterfall, instead of a rock face there was a small room that had large door at the far side with a skull painted on it. Carl moved the crates through the waterfall as well and removed the levitation spell, setting them on the dirt floor of the room. "Here we go," said Sophia.

Carl reached into his pocket and pulled out a white key that looked like it was made out of bones and had a skull engraved on the handle. He had snagged the key from Headmaster Ambrose's office. "Want to do the honors?" Carl asked, holding out the key to Sophia. She took it and fitted it into the large lock on the door. And with a large ominous clank from the lock the door slowly creaked open, revealing the rocky and desolate black land of Nightside, the land of death.

"Wait a minute, I'll be right back," Carl said, taking the key and teleporting away in a flurry of skull shaped death symbols. He reappeared moments later back where he had been standing. "I had to put the key back," he explained. "We don't want anyone guessing where we've gone". Carl recast the levitation spell on the crates and the two wizards journeyed into Nightside. Behind them, the door creaked shut and locked. The two would never be seen again.

18 years later

The barren wasteland that was Nightside was as dark and gloomy as they come. There was no life whatsoever to be seen. There were ghouls, banshees, lost spirits, skeletons, vampires, and even the occasional bone dragon. But these creatures were all dead really, or undead as the case would be. So there really was no living thing to be seen. Besides that, the air was very thin and polluted with gray smog and sometimes became slightly toxic due to all the dead and rotting things. So for one to stay here for very long could most definitely be harmful to the general health of oneself. Unless of course, you knew where the rare clear and few between breathable patches of air were or had a way to filter the more unfavorable air. The ground was gravelly and as black as soot and night combined. It was hard and rough, but never soft and dirt like. No mud could ever be found either. The only water you could find was the small amount in the air. Even if you survived your environment, the monsters would set upon you like mosquitos to warm bodies.

The silence of this quiet world was suddenly interrupted, as a figure raced across the looming blackness. The figure looked around each rock and in every crevice as though searching for something. After a thorough search of the area, the figure simply collapsed against one of the many large black rocks, dotting the lifeless wasteland, exhausted from the extensive period of running.

The figure was a boy of fourteen years old with hair that was nearly as black as the landscape. His hair was short and slightly messy. Only the bangs hanging over his left eye were long in any way. His eyes seemed to glow a golden-yellow in the shadow of the rock, that he had chosen as a place to rest. His skin was pale to the point that it almost looked white. This wouldn't be surprising in the least, since there was little to no light in the dark land. His attire consisted of a black hooded cape, that was drawn tightly around him. He almost always kept the hood part up. Underneath, he wore a black vest-like garment, a visibly worn pair of black pants, and a thick pair of black boots, all with red trimming like his cape and hood. The red trimming on all these items was barely visible beneath the thick layer of soot-like dirt, that was practically ground into every inch of his clothes and cape.

He reached into the deep shrouds of his cloak and retrieved a small black burlap sack. He opened the sack and gazed at the emptiness of it's contents with a tired groan. "Alright Vaden, take a look at the lay of the land, and tell me if you see anything," he said to what would appear to be nothing, returning the sack to the depths of his cloak.

In response to his command, a two-foot long black dragon with red wing membranes and horns crawled out of his cloak and made it's way up to the top of the rock to the boy's back. Vaden, for that was indeed the dragon's name, squinted at the misty black land in the distance. The dragon possessed much better eyesight than his owner and often helped with scouting of this kind. After about five minutes of allowing his owner to rest while he searched, the adult dragon called down, "Master Connor, I can make out something white in the distance. Should I lead you to it?"

This was exactly the kind of lead Connor had been waiting for. "Let's go," he said. Taking that as a yes, Vaden swiftly flew off towards the target. Connor took off after his pet with an equal amount of speed, leaping over crevices and dodging pillars of rock in his attempt to stay caught up with the dragon. As they neared the location of the sighting, Connor began to focus mana down near his feet, eventually spawning a glowing white pip, which stayed hovering at foot level, as he ran. Satisfied that he had enough concentration and mana, Connor spawned three more pips and then added a fifth to his total, as they reached their destination.

From the top it was clearly a gigantic crater of some sort. But you wouldn't be paying attention to that. No, you would be gaping at the sheer number of animated skeletons swarming around. There were barely even a few clear patches of crater ground to be seen. And when there weren't skeletons, there were ghouls and banshee posted as guards for whatever they were doing here. Even now, Connor was slack-jawed. He had never in his life, seen so many of the undead, congregated in one place. Connor whipped out a camera and snapped a flash free picture of the memorable scene, laid out before him.

Vaden glanced at his owner, trying to discern his reaction to this strange event. Horror almost immediately was visible on the dragon's face, as he spotted a cocky grin now plastered on Connor's normally stoic face. "It's a bad idea whatever it is," Vaden warned his owner. But already he could see his warning had been shrugged off with little regard to the eventual outcome. Connor hadn't had excitement of any kind for months. And now they knew where all the "excitement" had gone. This was the ultimate problem for Connor's shrewd mind and magical skills to conquer. Vaden had little doubt in his mind that if Connor could win this one, that there wasn't much he couldn't do. But there was concern on Vaden's part, and it's cause was written all over the form of Connor, who was practically bursting with barely contained energy and recklessness, recklessness being the chief cause for the dragon's worry.

Vaden suddenly could see why the extra excitement. Almost indeterminable from the rest of the skeletons, but in plain sight to the trained eye was the skeleton general, Rattlebones, who was clothed in a black with gold lining helmet and chest plate and a scarlet loin cloth. He carried a large black shield and a heavy scimitar. Connor had little to no real respect for the general, considering him something akin to an overly aggressive sparring partner and someone to beat at the game that was life and battle. Rattlebones however, hated the young necromancer with practically every bone of his undead body and considered him a pest on every level, that was constantly sticking its nose into the skeleton's business. Vaden was loathe to interfere with his good friend though. The giddy expression, worn by Connor, revealed how much he had waited for this confrontation.

Before Vaden could get in a word to say otherwise, Connor stood up from his crouching position with a broad grin and promptly strode down into the masses. The undead didn't even bother to try to hinder his progress towards their leader, both stunned by his foolhardy boldness and/or very aware or his notorious, troublemaking reputation. They simply stepped out of the boy's way, clearing a path to Rattlebones. Nearing the center of the crowd, Connor could see Rattlebones barking orders to his troops and rifling through documents on a flat rock, which had been set up for his use as a desk of sorts. It took the general a moment to figure out why his soldiers were suddenly so silent. A frustrated sigh somehow made it's way out of the skeleton's nonexistent throat as the necromancer approached. Connor stopped his trot in front of Rattlebones' makeshift desk.

There was a deathly silence throughout the crater for the next few moments. A small eternity seemed to pass as the rivals locked gazes. You could have heard a pin drop. Connor and Rattlebones seemed to be locked in an unspoken battle of will, daring the other to blink or even move. Only the second of the two was actually possible for the skeleton general. But Connor was unwavering in his almost cheerful stare.

Rattlebones growled before returning his attention to the papers, scattered about his desk err, rock. He swore he heard the boy hiss a low "Yes!", which frankly, annoyed Rattlebones in a considerably childish way.

"What do you want?" the skeleton rasped in a gravelly voice with an annoyed tone, that betrayed his complete disinterest for whatever the answer was. His words broke the dreaded silence surrounding them, and prompted most of the skeletal warriors to draw their swords with an echoing Shring! Rattlebones held up a pale bony hand to dissuade their attack on the boy. The skeletal minions reluctantly obeyed the gesture but continued to shoot the necromancer wary glares as they continued their work. Based on his experience with the young necromancer, it would be very counterproductive to provoke a fight. It was common knowledge that wizards were considerably more powerful than a few skeletons. Almost all of their previous fights had ended badly on the general's side, often wrecking whatever the skeleton's current operation was. Rattlebones took note of the five glowing pips floating at Connor's feet, which were joined by yet a sixth a moment later. 'Smart boy, always planning two steps ahead,' he thought begrudgingly. Connor held a very misleading grin on his face all the while. But Rattlebones could see the alertness in the necromancer's eyes, eyes that had already sized up the current situation and formulated several strategic plans of battle and escape should the need arise.

"Oh, nothing much," was Connor's rather chipper answer.

"Then why are you here in the first place?" Rattlebones inquired with feigned interest.

Connor flopped down on a chair shaped rock as though it were a cushion and pulled back his hood, showing his messy, black hair. "Eh, you know. The usual desperate scavenger hunt for red mandrake flowers in order to survive. Though, today I've been having the hardest time, finding any". His expression grew worrisome but only for a moment. As he said these things, his eyes wandered to the many stacked crates behind Rattlebones. "So, what'ch you got here anyways.

"If you're only here out of curiosity or to increase the hellishness of my undead existence for your own juvenile entertainment, then leave. I've got better things to do," was Rattlebones's pointedly evasive answer to the question. Rattlebones hoped that the obvious hint for Connor to leave would stave him off from investigating the crates. Rattlebones was both delighted and dismayed that his ploy had worked. Delighted because he had in fact somehow changed the subject, dismayed because now the boy was chatting it up in great detail about one of the skeleton general's most unfavorable experiences.

It had been Rattlebones's most recent encounter with Connor, several months back, when, out of complete boredom, Connor had gained an odd fetish for swiping bones from unsuspecting skeletons and body parts from ghouls. From what he gathered the necromancer had assembled and animated a truly grotesque creature, which he promptly named Gorath. The boy also took the time to use the creature to make a Gorath spell card.

"Gorath" had later proceeded to run amok in the skeleton's base camp, destroying everything in it's path. When Rattlebones had engaged the hideous blob of flesh and bones without the help of his soldiers, who where fleeing in utter terror and being absolutely no help at all, Gorath had simply grabbed Rattlebones and swallowed him whole. But the skeleton general wouldn't let himself be defeated so easily. He had then taken his scimitar and killed the monster from the inside out before slicing his way out, looking more like a zombie than a skeleton from all the guts and blood covering him. The general would have been sick to his stomach from the ordeal if it had been physically possible for him. Connor had later protested to allowing the creature's rampage, saying that he simply had been unable to control his creation. The fact that he had said it while barely contained snorts of hysterical laughter at the sight of an the enraged and messy Rattlebones, which was somehow funny instead of nasty to the boy, didn't make the apology seem very convincing. Rattlebones would swear to this day that he could still feel some of the monster's grime on him at times. The memorable battle was not one Rattlebones ever wanted to repeat.

Rattlebones's train of thought was broken, as he heard Connor say something along the lines of Gorath being pissed at the skeleton general and how he would probably rip Rattlebones limb from limb the next time they met, while nonchalantly fiddling with a spell card. All the skeletons close enough to hear what the necromancer had said froze. Rattlebones tried to quell the sudden rush of fear, that filled him to the brim at the mere implication of that sentence. Up until this point, Rattlebones had been unaware of the existence of the Gorath spell card.

'No, he didn't. He couldn't have!' Rattlebones thought in terror. His suspicions were confirmed as he glimpsed the details side of the card. The picture of Gorath's horrifying form was magically printed on the black border lined card, along with an equally terrifying and devastating damage level. 'Could things get much worse than this battle happy boy holding a monster card that could simply scare my entire army away?' Rattlebones thought, while hiding his raging fear of such a monster ever being summoned again.

Of course, things could and did get worse. Two skeletons were carrying another crate over to the growing pile of whatever it was. Without warning, both of the arms of one of the two gave at the shoulder, causing the box to fall at an angle and pop off it's lid. "Rotskull, you idiot! Give an undead a little warning next time!" the skeleton with his arms still intact ranted at the other.

Rotskull ignored the other skeleton and used his legs to replace his lost arms in their respective sockets with an irritated growl. "Honestly, I didn't get any warning myself you numskull."

Connor ignored the exchange. Instead, his attention was solely focused on what had overflowed from the overturned box. He watched as the two skeletons hurriedly gathered up great scoops of red mandrake flowers. Rattlebones cringed at the cold glare Connor wore. This was not going to end well. He saw it click in the boy's eyes. Connor now knew exactly what those crates were filled with. The only thing in this entire dead land that he could live off of. "What the hell is this?" Connor demanded, turning his cold glare on Rattlebones, who shifted uncomfortably where he sat.

"Respectively, none of your business," replied Rattlebones evenly.

"Well respectively, that's a load of B.S. and you know it!" Connor exploded, instantly regaining the attention of the army around them. Almost every weapon was unsheathed in a moment. Rattlebones didn't stop them this time. He knew where this was going. He could see a familiar, but rare, rage in the necromancer's golden eyes. "What are you doing with the only thing in this titan forsaken land that can possibly keep my parents and I alive?" Connor asked

Rattlebones gave a reluctant answer. "My master has requested a rather large shipment of these flowers for his personal use."

"Rather large? Are you kidding me? You took every single flower in all of Nightside!" Connor looked like he would say something else but instead turned his back to Rattlebones and stalked away a few yards. For a moment Rattlebones almost thought the necromancer would leave. Then he saw the seventh pip take form at Connor's feet. The skeletons nearest to him lunged, trying to prevent him from casting. Connor didn't attempt to avoid their attack. Instead a powerful shockwave of death energy blasted his opponents away from him within a ten foot radius. No one else made a move to attempt an attack.

Connor pulled his hood back up over his head. "For the sake of my family's survival," Connor paused, turning to face Rattlebones with his head lowered, "I won't allow you to leave with those flowers!"

Rattlebones stood up from his desk-rock thingy, drawing his scimitar and undocking his shield from his back. "I was afraid it would come to this. Kill him." The army roared into action. Rattlebones now noticed that Connor had yet to draw his wand and still had all seven pips. He hadn't used a single one for that shockwave!

Another shockwave ripped through the second wave of attackers, blowing several skeletons apart and giving Connor an opening. A wand slid out of a pocket hidden inside of his sleeve. The wand was a smooth, intricately carved, black stick. It was curled slightly on the handle side and the casting side had a small dragon head carved on the end. The dragon head had two ruby-red eyes, that glowed in the dim light. Connor used the opening, provided by his shockwave, to draw a death sigil into the air and cast. Five of the pips dissipated and the energies flowed to the ground before Connor. The necromancer had opted to avoid using a dueling ring, since it would be just trapping himself in a perpetual battle with unavoidable attacks.

A two foot in diameter sinkhole formed before gushing gallons upon gallons of water like a geyser. Once again, the approaching enemies were delayed. While the undead around him were washed away, Connor only just managed to keep his footing against the powerful flow due to the hours of intense training he had done for a moment such as this. The water suddenly stopped and then the hole began to spout sand. There was much less sand than water in comparison. Now there was a large layer of sand, which Connor promptly hopped upon. From the center of the sand mound, there sprouted a seedling, which grew to a full-grown palm tree in a matter of seconds. The necromancer grinned as his spell reached it's climax. A skeleton arm shot out of the ground next to the palm tree. Taking purchase on the sandy ground, the arm hoisted it's owner, a skeletal pirate, from the sand of the small island. The skeletal pirate as indicated looked like a dead pirate. He wore a red bandanna with white spots tied around his head, a black eye patch over his right eye socket, torn blue shorts, brown boots on his feet, and clutched a large cutlass in his right hand. He had a silver hook in place of his left hand and two gold incisor teeth on the top of his jaw. He also had a large brown belt wrapped around him from the top of his left shoulder down to his right hip. He still had his left eye-ball and it worked. The skeletal pirate stood up with a "Arrr", and then he struck a hero pose.

Connor face-palmed. "You really have to stop doing that, Jack," he informed his creation with a hint of amusement.

"Aw, you're such a killjoy. Ya' know I like t' make 'n entrance," Jack said with a bony grin and a rather corny gangster accent. The two moved to stand back to back, as the swarms of the undead caved in around them. For the time being, Connor replaced his wand in the pocket in his right sleeve, drawing a katana from it's holster at his waist. The katana looked normal other than glowing green on the blade, since it was imbued with life magic. They both took battle stances and prepared for the worst.

Five minutes later:

Connor blocked a downward strike aimed at his head and retaliated with fury, slashing through the ghoul with a sickening crunch. Blood spattered from the cleaved body of the zombie, as it fell over, staining the black ground red with it's slowly draining body. Five pips hovered at Connor's feet, awaiting use. The necromancer and his pirate were relatively worse for wear. A few lucky skeletons had managed to give Connor several nasty gashes that were bleeding profusely. Ruthless onslaughts of banshee wails had sent the both of them flying with ringing ears when caught, tattering Connor's clothes and cape even more than they already were. Jack, the skeletal pirate, had received a well placed uppercut to the jaw from a ghoul's shovel, that had knocked out several of his teeth, including one of his gold ones to which he had protested loudly with some very colorful curses.

"There's... just too many of them," Connor stated, gasping for breath.

"While I'd love t' disagree with ya' lil' man, you better break out the big guns or we're screwed as hell," Jack agreed, taking hold of another skeleton's spinal cord with his hook and cleaving the head off with his cutlass.

"Just cover me for a moment and you've got it," Connor said, sheathing his katana and drawing his wand and a banshee spell card.

"Aw, not that bitchy ghost. Can't you just bring out that stick up 'is ass vampire? Hell, I'd take that hideous blob thing you made over her," Jack whined before backhanding a skeletal warrior, who had tried to sneak up on him, when he had briefly turned to see what Connor was casting.

"Yes, I know she's a real jerk, but she's got the fastest summoning time and packs a punch to boot," was Connor's reply.

"Yeah, fine, fine," Jack consented, disgruntled, muttering something about a 'vain pain in the bony butt'.

Connor chuckled, while he drew the death sigil, as Jack held off the attackers, and then activated the spell. Three pips dissolved into energy. Connor was right about the summoning time. The banshee slid out of the ground no more than second later. The banshee on appearance was a translucent blue woman with long wavy hair, that stuck straight up in the air. She had no legs, simply floating with her torn blue dress hanging loose.

She turned and fixed her summoner a critical glare. "What swallowed you and died?" was the first thing out of her large mouth. And she didn't sound that bad either. She actually sounded kinda young and looked it too if you took the time to notice. She sounded very english or rather Marleybonian for those of you, who know what they sound like.

"Nothing... yet," was his pained answer. The blood loss was starting to take it's toll on the necromancer.

"You idiot," she said with a harsh glare, " You should have summoned me sooner. Now look at yourself."

"Hello?!" interrupted Jack. "Little help here? Gloria, get your banshee butt over here and save mine!" They both turned to see him holding up against impressive odds, getting pummeled from every direction. Connor could only wince, as a hulking skeleton, who was twice as tall as a normal skeleton, grabbed Jack from behind with one of his beefy (for bones) hands and hoisted him up by the head, giving the other monsters a chance to wail on his weaker lower body. Jack managed to ram his elbow into the face of the minion holding him, causing the warrior to release him with a cry of pain. But before Jack could regain his balance, the flat of a ghoul's spade collided with his shoulder, spinning him around. Jack tried to get a hit back, but Rattlebones, himself had joined the fight and had grabbed the pirate and tossed him over his shoulder, further disorienting the valiant skeleton. Jack started to pick himself up just in time to see the end of a fancy spin kick from Rattlebones collide with his face. Jack cried out in pain as the left side of his jaw bone cracked and broke from the impact of the metal boot.

"Jack!" screamed Connor. He tried to stand to help his friend, but found that every ounce of his strength had deserted him with the steady loss of blood. All he could do was burn more mana to keep Jack from running out of energy. "Gloria, you have to help him. I would, but I don't have the strength," Connor pleaded with her.

Gloria gave a frustrated sigh. "Why do I always have to finish everything?" she asked more to herself than anyone else. She gave Connor a strange look. "You have two pips left. Summon ghoul and get yourself healed, you idiot. Then you can help." She said this as though it was as obvious as the dirt on the ground and then floated off at a relatively meager pace towards the battle, which had managed to move quite a ways from their position.

Jack grimaced as the ghoul, Grubb, lambasted his back with a series of powerful blows in all the right places, fracturing at least one if not both of his shoulder blades. He couldn't really worry about that right now though. He was too busy trying to parry the skilled attacks of Rattlebones, who he found out could easily slice through bone like butter with his scimitar. He had almost lost an arm to carelessness. Jack was suddenly knocked off his feet, as Grubb used his shovel to trip him. Jack barely rolled out of the way of a slash from Rattlebones' scimitar, intended to cleave him in half. He managed to stand up again, only to have Grubb bash him in the face with his shovel. Jack had to admit, he had felt the impact of that last one. He was actually very surprised that his head hadn't been rendered from his shoulders by that blow. He took no longer to reflect on that, as a banshee appeared in front of him. "Hot damn," Jack groaned. At that face-to-face range, the banshee's scream sent Jack flying at least a good thirty feet, which ended with a crunching thud.

Connor finished the death sigil and tapped the ghoul spell card, activating it and using up the last of his pips. The ground around him in a ten foot radius grew dark green, well-trimmed grass and headstones. The center erupted, as the ghoul burst forth. Like all ghouls, he wore purple suit that was torn away at the elbows and knees and a purple top hat. His skin was green and rotting, but surprisingly, the zombie had no holes or open wounds anywhere in sight on his body like expected by most when thinking of a zombie. Most of his teeth had rotted out of his chiseled mouth. This ghoul was slightly different from the standard ones in that he carried his shovel as a staff and wore a monocle on his left eye. He took a quick look at the war zone of a crater and the bleeding necromancer, quickly figuring out why he was here.

"I need some life force before I can heal you," the ghoul stated matter-of-factly in a slightly raspy but gentlemanly voice. Connor pointed at the battle between his own two minions and Rattlebones and his minions. The ghoul helped Connor to his feet, while using his shovel as a staff to support the extra weight. They set off towards the general area of the battle to pick off some of the stragglers.

Gloria focused mostly on killing the banshees, since Jack couldn't lay a finger on their ghostly forms. Her wail caught yet another of her kind off guard, disintegrating it. She looked up to see another banshee wail in close proximity to Jack, tossing him like a rag doll through the air. She almost felt sorry for the beating he was taking. Gloria finally decided to get rid of the banshee, who was helping to gang up on Jack.

Connor and Doc, for that was the ghoul's dubbed name, were almost caught up to Gloria, when a clever skeleton, who had been playing dead... well, deader than he already was, sprang up and struck at Connor. With surprising speed and strength, Doc pushed Connor out of harm's way. Spinning his shovel as a weapon, Doc redirected the attack to the side, causing it to completely miss him as well. Swiping down, Doc cleanly sliced through their attacker's leading arm at the elbow with amazing force. Doc swept his spade lower, knocking the skeleton to the ground. Doc then held him in place by ramming his spade through the skeleton's ribcage with a deafening crack. Doc began to drain the unlucky skeleton of life force. The skeleton thrashed and struggled, attempting to remove the large spade, driven into his chest. The skeleton finally stopped moving, as the last of his life force was drained from his body. Doc removed his spade, as the body crumbled into dust. He knelt down next to Connor and held his hand above each wound in turn, healing them with the acquired life energy.

After being healed, the first thing Connor noticed was the crumpled and beaten form of Jack, struggling to stand and using his cutlass as a ballast, and the steadily approaching forms of Rattlebones, Grubb, a banshee, and a huge skeleton. Connor quickly grabbed a Deathblade spell from his hidden deck and cast it on Jack. It would take a few moments to go into effect though.

Jack was tired and in critical condition. Every bone of his body screamed at him to just roll over and die. But he pushed the pain as far back into his mind as he could and forced himself to stand back up, albeit shakily. He could feel the cracks throughout his ribcage growing worse with the simple strain of maintaining his beaten body, and every movement he made was pure agony. That last blast should have torn him to pieces and he knew it. From the faces of his opponents, they were thinking the same thing.

"You are quite a force to be reckoned with," Rattlebones said as a kind of compliment. "Today, I have seen you take more of a beating than any skeleton I know. I can clearly see why the boy summoned you first."

"Yeah, well I can take any shit you throw at me, cus' I actually have something worth fightin' for, unlike you damned scum bags," Jack hissed back with venom laced into his words.

His words enraged the skeleton general. "We'll just see about that," Rattlebones growled back.

Suddenly, Jack felt himself receive a boost of some sort. He could feel the pain in his ribs declining. Then, his left arm's hook was replaced by a hand. A second cutlass appeared, floating before him. With a lopsided smile, due to his broken jaw, Jack took hold of the cutlass and turned to face his enemies with renewed invigoration. "Oh hell yeah! It's smack down time!" he crowed.

Jack rushed at Grubb, catching the shirtless zombie off guard. Jack dodged under Grubb's shovel swing to get behind him before running the zombie through with one of his cutlasses. Sickly green blood sprayed from Grubb, who gave an unearthly scream, as he struggled to no avail to loose himself from the blade's deadly grip. The banshee immediately prepared to wail at Jack. But Jack swung Grubb between himself and the attack as a makeshift shield. Chunks of flesh were blown off of Grubb, who screeched in pain. Before the banshee could attack again, she was blasted into oblivion by a surprise strike from Gloria, who quickly slunk away into the ground to avoid any counterattacks on her part. Rattlebones charged at Jack, shield held in front of himself. Jack tossed Grubb like a sack of flour at Rattlebones, clobbering the skeleton general with the sizable zombie and effectively knocking him to the ground.

With his other two opponents preoccupied Jack turned his attention to the hulking skeleton. The bulky skeleton made a grab for Jack, who slid effortlessly through the gap between the brute's legs. Before the skeleton could react Jack was on his back and had climbed up to his head. Jack slipped away from the brute's attempts to take hold of him. Finally, after taking purchase by ramming one of his two cutlasses into the large skeleton's shoulder, Jack raised his free cutlass up high and brought the point down onto the top of the brutish skeleton's head. The brute gave a kind of garbled scream as his head nearly split in two. Taking hold of the two sides of the large hole in the giant's head, Jack finished the job, ripping the skull in two. Jack tossed the two halves to the ground and jumped down, drawing his second cutlass from the dead skeleton's shoulder, as he did so.

"Piece of filth," Jack commented dryly to the large body. His one eye began to search for his two remaining enemies. He could see Grubb frantically hobbling away in the distance with no intention of coming back, but Rattlebones was nowhere in sight. His first and only warning was the slight rattling of bones from behind him. Jack swung the flats of his swords around back just in time to cause Rattlebones' attack to be glanced off to the left. Jack swung a cutlass low and his other high. Rattlebones blocked the high with his scimitar and the low with his shield.

"And then there was one," Jack joked through the weapon lock. he withdrew his swords, but dove back with increased ferocity.

Rattlebones was starting to grow worried. He should have finished the boy's minion quickly, when he had the chance. He parried another sharp blow from Jack, who was now focusing his attacks mostly on the skeleton general's sword side. It was a smart move, considering attacks on the shield were next to useless. Rattlebones renewed his attack, causing the smart alek skeleton to go on the defensive. He absolutely refused to be beaten by a lowly pirate. "You were always the best warrior out of all of us, but you could never ally with the correct crowd!" Rattlebones said in an attempt to sway the pirate to his side. Jack ignored him and if anything only seemed to start attacking even more aggressively. "The worlds of the Spiral will soon die, and everywhere the dead will rise!" Rattlebones said as he gained the upper hand, knocking Jack's right sword away with a sudden well placed kick.

"No, I won't allow it you bastard- Arghh!" Jack yelled as Rattlebones drove his scimitar into the skeletal pirate's left shoulder and gave it a harsh twist, splitting the arm from it's owner. Jack dropped to his knees clutching his stump of a shoulder but attempted to stand back up to which, he was roughly kicked to the ground.

"My master shall rule over all the Spiral, and I shall stand as one of the greatest generals in his conquering army!" Rattlebones proclaimed, attempting to stab Jack's spine. Jack shifted ever so slightly to avoid the deadly attack, causing it to miss it's intended point. The scimitar still drove through his ribcage, slicing off the bottom half of the ribs to the right.

"Stop dis, Rattlebones; you're bein' insane, man!" Jack called out through the waves of pain. With his sword lodged in the pirate, Rattlebones mercilessly dragged Jack along the ground. Rattlebones removed his scimitar from Jack and raised it into the air.

"Any last words?" Rattlebones gloated in victory.

"None that da' kid needs in his vocabulary," Jack spat back. Rattlebones only laughed until he realized too late what that ment. A blast of simple but strong death magic ripped through his unguarded back, followed by a banshee wail, that sent the general sprawling. It was times like these, that Rattlebones truly appreciated all of his heavy armor. Rattlebones raised his shield to block a flurry of wails and blasts, that still managed to breach his defence. Through blurry vision, he could see an enraged Connor and a banshee, bearing down on him with obvious intent to kill, while a ghoul knelt down beside Jack. Rattlebones's fingers quickly traced a death sigil, casting the spell, Empower. He winced, as he felt some of his life-force leave him as the price for the power of three pips, which appeared at his feet a second later. He quickly traced another death sigil and cast a banshee, who wailed at Rattlebones's surprised foes, knocking them to the ground. Gloria retaliated with her own attack, taking out the banshee before it could cause anymore damage. They looked to where Rattlebones had been, but the skeleton was gone.

"Damn it all. He got away," Connor seethed through gritted teeth.

"We can see that," Gloria remarked with a scoff.

Connor decided not to respond and left it at that. They walked back over to where Doc was healing Jack.

"Give it t' me straight Doc, how bad is it," Jack asked with a wince and a slight smile, as Doc began fusing one of his broken ribs back in place. Doc groaned. It was beyond him how the pirate was still in such good spirits at this point.

"To put it simply, you should already have died a second time," Doc explained, as he worked. "You have at least a hundred fractures spread throughout your body. And that's when the bone or bones aren't broken off completely. Your body appears to be under an immense amount of stress. It looks to me like your willpower alone is holding you together." Doc began attaching Jack's dismembered left arm.

Connor was aghast with worry for his friend, Gloria was indifferent, and Jack just lay there silently, as Doc finished with his arm. What looked like a grin suddenly lit up his beaten face. "I am so freakin' epic," Jack cheered.

Connor couldn't help but grin at that. It seemed like nothing could ever keep the excitable pirate in the dumps. Connor waited till Doc had finished doing what he could for Jack before he returned Gloria to her card form.

"Thanks Doc, you da best," Jack quipped cheerfully before Connor returned him to his card form. Connor returned Doc to his card form as well after thanking him for his work on Jack. Connor walked back over to the large stacks of crates, filled with red mandrake flowers. Connor glanced at the desk/rock, that Rattlebones had been using. Something there caught his attention. There was an envelope lying on the desk. It was open but still had the sent contents inside. It was addressed to Rattlebones from someone named M. On a whim, Connor snatched up the letter and stuffed it in his sack for later investigation. Now that his curiosity was out of the way, Connor turned back to the metal crates. Focusing what mana, that he could feel he had left, Connor cast a massive levitation spell on as many of the crates as possible and walked away with a very satisfied smile.

As he walked back towards his house, Connor took a deliberately winding path, dropping mandrakes here and there to pollinate the black land with the flowers. All the while, he silently raged over what Rattlebones had been trying to do. He suddenly glimpsed two figures, running towards him in the near distance, which was about two hundred feet away, give or take a bit. As they grew closer, Connor recognized their features. The taller of the two was a well built man with short black hair, that was neatly cut, and brown eyes, that were so dark they looked black. The other was brunette with soft blue eyes and hair drawn back in a long ponytail. They were both nearly as pale skinned as Connor was and wore black clothes and cloaks as well. These were his parents, Carl and Sophia Thunderbreaker. But what were they doing out here? They looked slightly worried and rushed.

When they reached him, he was promptly drawn into a hug by his mother. "Mom, dad, what are you two doing way out here?" Connor asked, truly confused.

Sophia fixed him with a look of slight shock. "What do you think? We were worried about you."

"Why would you be? I'm perfectly fine," Connor asked ignoring the hint of hysterics in his mother's voice. He glanced at his father for an explanation. He could see his dad wasn't as worried about the situation as his mother and looked a bit sympathetic to the boy being smothered by his wife. If anything else, he seemed amused by the whole thing if the slight smirk on his face was anything to go on.

Carl pulled a small black dragon with red wing membranes from his cloak. "Vaden came flying back to get our help, when he saw you engage that army." Carl explained. Connor fixed his pet with a pointedly annoyed glare to which Vaden slightly cringed. "See, I told you he'd be fine," Carl chuckled. Sophia glared daggers at him and returned to hugging Connor.

"Hey, let me breath," Connor protested. His mother finally relented with a sigh and turned her attention to the crates.

"What's all this?" she inquired with a suspicious face. Connor set one of the boxes down and opened it. His parents gasped at the contents. "Where did you get all these? his mother breathed.

"This is what Rattlebones and his army was trying to smuggle out of Nightside," Connor explained, closing the crate and levitating it again.

"Well, that explains just about everything," Carl stated with a smile. "I don't think we can be mad at you for saving so much of this mandrake." Sophia nodded in reluctant agreement but kept on fuming anyway, which earned her an amused smirk from both husband and son. With the discussion over and explanations made, the small family made their way home, Connor and Carl chatting it up the whole way there.

In Dragonspyre:

Malistaire sat upon his throne in the Crown of Fire. He was awaiting the imminent shipment of red mandrake flowers, that he had sent for. The man was clothed in black. His clothes had dragons stitched into the design. The dark wizard wore his long black hair in dreadlocks and carried a black staff with a carved dragon for the top. A drake entered the room. "My lord, the ghoul, Grubb, hassss arrived," the red dragon-like being hissed.

"Good, send him in," Malistaire ordered. Malistaire's voice was very authoritative to the point, where it would almost sound snobbish to some. The drake turned without a second glance and left to retrieve the ghoul. Moments later, Grubb limped into the room. Malistaire raised a brow in a silent question, noticing the large gash that ran straight through the animated zombie.

Grubb got on his knees as both a bow and a break for his aching wound. "Lord M, I am sorry to say, that the operation has failed."

Malistaire grew red with rage. "How is it even possible for you to have failed at such a simple task, cretin?" he bellowed. Grubb visibly cowered. Malistaire needed those flowers for his plans to go faster. You see, red mandrakes held very special magical properties. With the correct spell any one flower could be used to create almost anything. But Malistaire needed way more than that to create what he had intended. A short knock on the door sounded through the room and possibly saving Grubb from some kind of horrible torture. Rattlebones entered, looking worse for wear.

"Lord Malistaire, I thought it a trivial thing before, but now I shall explain all of what has happened," Rattlebones said.

"Speak your piece quickly, General. My patience is at an all time low today," Malistaire warned. So Rattlebones, as quickly as possible, explained everything he knew about the necromancer, Connor. At a young age they had never been able to touch him because of his parents. They had survived on the mandrakes alone over the years. By the time they were able to catch the boy alone, he had grown into a skilled wizard and was easily able to defend himself. And every day he had continued to grow stronger still. "Due to a mistake on one of my soldier's part, the boy found out what we were packing and flew into a rage, destroying our forces and stealing the mandrakes," Rattlebones finished.

Malistaire listened to all this with great interest. An evil smile alit his face. "Looks like I'm going to have to pay a personal visit to this little family of necromancers, who dares to stand in my way."

On Wizard City, Commons, in the Headmaster's office:

Headmaster Merle Ambrose stared at his blue crystal ball, stroking his long white beard while deep in thought. The powerful wizard wore purple robes and a purple cone shaped wizard hat. Both had yellow crescent moons and stars stitched into the soft fabric. He also wore a monocle on his right eye and carried a silver staff with a small blue globe on the top, which acted as a ballast for his aged body and his wand. So many things had been going wrong lately. First, the teacher of Life magic had suddenly become sick and passed away. Her husband, Malistaire, the teacher of the Death school (ironic right) had fallen into a deep depression. And then, just the other day, Malistaire had snapped. The teacher of Death magic had torn his school from Ravenwood and had disappeared with it. Ambrose gave a deep sigh and reclined in his chair behind his cluttered desk. These things all troubled the headmaster of Ravenwood Academy. But he had something bigger on his mind. He had been thinking about a prophesy, that he had once read about. And the premonition was soon to come to pass. He was broken from his disturbed thoughts, as Gamma, a white horned owl, wearing a scholar's hat, flew through the window, carrying several scrolls from the Wizard City Library.

"Thank you Gamma," Ambrose said, taking the scrolls from the bird's feet. These scrolls in particular contained information on that specific prophesy, that was troubling him so. One of the scrolls contained a copy of the prophesy itself.

"When the next great darkness befalls all the worlds, seven wizards shall rise to the call. There shall be one from each school of magic. They shall face three great perils, and the greatest shall be the latter two. Beware the outsiders of this little group. For if you do you may indeed prevent the third of the three evils from ever occurring." This is what the prophesy read. Ambrose checked over all the other information he had at his disposal.

"Well Gamma, It would seem the first two of the seven are near at hand," Ambrose stated with a both serious and worried expression. "It may only be weeks or days now my friend, but there is a great storm is coming. And I fear we can do nothing to stop it."

AN: Woo hoo! This chapter is officially the longest thing, that I have ever written with exactly 10,446 words! And it was written in only two days over a week too. Now that's a record on my part for something this long! :D Hope you guys enjoyed that first chapter and would like more. Read and review, please, for the one writing the hopefully awesome story! I would especially like to know what you think of Connor's minions. I wanted to have some minion main characters for once in a Wizard101 story. And yeah, I'm adding new spells that I come up with or that others submit via PM. (In announcer voice) That's right, for a limited time only submit your own spell creature ideas! But remember, It's only for a limited time. So send those ideas today! (end of announcer voice) XD Ok, now I need a few OCs for the background and/or future of the story. Just submit the OC/s via PMs. The OC can be a guy or girl it doesn't matter to me I'll work it all out.

I will try to include as many of the characters as possible. Now for the list of details required for your OC/s (yes you may submit more than one but I must approve them):

Name:

Gender:

Age:

Level:

Primary school:

Secondary school:

Skin color:

Hair (style and color):

Eye color:

Clothes/Gear (include colors):

Pets or mounts (if any):

Personality (such as likes and dislikes):

Good or Evil (I could use a few villans that diverge from the main storyline but not too many):

History (a brief summery of their past and present):

*optional* Bonus (this must be something unrelated to the details above like a quote or motto):

Well, that's all that's needed for the OC submission. Hey, if any of you are planning on or are writing a Wizard101 story of your own, I wouldn't mind if any of you wanted to use my main guy as an OC. Just let me know you're going to use him though PM so I can read your story. Random fact number 2!: I was listening to minecraft music videos almost the whole time I was writing this. :D Sorry about the length of this AN. I just had so much to say and wanted to get it all out in one go. I will appreciate constructive criticism but no flames please. :) Thank you for reading and possibly reviewing!