OVERLORD

Chapter one

The torment bred in the race.

Mortis dragged himself across the Spawning pit, his old mangled body shaking with the effort of walking. His Bony hands clasped around his scythe, the flesh around his knuckles turning white. Orange sparks flew from the ground as the metal tip of the aged weapon struck against its hard surface, bearing the weight of a master, who had grown weak in the absence of a leader. Gnarl, Mortis knew, was also growing week, but being a brown minion, his skin was "tougher" than a blue's. Mortis felt Envy swell in him, and he hated himself for letting it do so. He heaved a heavy sigh and his bony, slouching back crackled and popped with the sudden relief of its misuse. Finally, his body aching, Mortis reached the circular slab of brown and black stone that would carry him to Gnarl for their weeks meeting about where next to search for his-their-Overlord. He tapped his scythe against the cold slab and said,

"The Throne room, please." He waited, his eyes closed in anticipation for the pleasant feeling of a slow liftoff to the Netherworld Throne Room.

The rock shook, and tipped slightly from side to side, and began to slowly but surely sink. Panic struck Mortis like a bee protecting the hive's honey, as the rocks decent progressed to a faster pace. He felt the cold icy comfort leave his feet, and felt the blood drain from his old, worn face. Did the ground just leave- the second the thought entered his brain, instinct took over sanity. Mortis glanced down to see a plummeting stone slab, and the magnificent view of an 11.3 Km drop. The scream shot through his brain louder than it did from out his lungs. His vocal chords felt like they were scratching and grinding against barb wire for all they were worth.

Mortis's body made a nauseating smack against cold hard earth. And for a moment everything was blissful, and his brain had no thought in the world: Not even capable of comprehending the bliss. Then pain, unbearable pain shot through his body, and he was paralyzed, he could neither scream nor grunt: His head felt like an egg that had been smashed into a table by a toddlers fist, his body was a play thing, flung across a room with superb indifference. He felt like food being chewed by some sort of monster, and he felt just as incapable and helpless as a boy whose girlfriend is the kind of person that likes to play with their food before they eat it. It felt like the skin on his face was stretching as far as it would go without ripping off, his nostrils felt dry and cavernous. His eyes were watery the salty liquid of tears now pouring from them, forcing him to open his eyes millimeters apart.

He was not dead he was skyrocketing through the air on a cold round surface. The very same cold round surface that had had fallen from under his feet, had come back and shot him through the air like a bullet. The pain, however, did not stop. His hand was gripping so tightly onto his Scythe its wooden handle was blistering the leathery flesh. After what seemed an eternity, the slab stopped with maddening haste. Mortis was flung bodily from its surface only to loud with a skidding smack on floors that carried an uncharacteristic glass-like smoothness.

"Stupid tower floors," Mortis started, "always been slippery but now loud, and even when a master isn't here. Making Mortis slipses! You think that it's funny, do you? Well, Answer me you STUPID PILE OF MUCK!" And he slammed his scythe on the black stone with all the strength his feeble arms had left in them. The resulting echo was the loudest crack Mortis had ever heard in all of his 114 years as the crypt keeper of the netherworld tower. The tone of the wood was sharp, haunting, and carried a heavy pressure of omnipotent evil.

A chill shot up Mortis's spine, and for the first time in many decades, he felt a daunting shadow linger over his frail body. He stepped out into the center of the Throne Room His body shaking violently his scythe lifted from the ground, no longer a crutch, but a weapon. His blue fingers readjusting their grip on the wooden handle, causing his arms to violently tremor from the stress of flexing so many muscles, yet he was ready to strike down -ready to kill whatever was not his master for the sake of his master. Only the Overlord could strike such fear into the hearts of his Minions, and therefore it was a minion who would Judge the case of the over lord.

"But what if it is Master?" Mortis whispered his thoughts. Unawares of this, the echoes of his thoughts only encouraged his self-made confusion. "Yes, what if it is Master"-Mortis's grip on his scythe slackened-"then he will be taking Mortis's-my- actions as an act of aggression. He will be displeased, oh yes, and Mortis-I- will be all to blame!" mortis looked simply dumbfounded. Then his face grew a cold dark grimace, "What if it's not master! Yes, what if it's not, then Mortis is in danger, and as a minion, should be entitled to attack whatever vile creature dares to step foot in the tower without the permission of its rightful Overlord!...Mortis should ask to find out if it is truly the Master, or just a fraud."

Then, hesitating, and with a nervous shuffle of his feet, Mortis called out into the darkness,

"Master, is that you? Have you returned to us after these long years?"

"Word in the spawning pits, Mortis, is that our scouts have indeed discovered a candidate most worthy to become the new Overlord." Called a voice from the dense blackness causing Mortis to jump, drop his scythe and spin on his heels in the direction of the disturbance.

"Calm down, Mortis, it is only me, Gnarl." Spoke the aged Brown Minion, coming into view from the thick blackness. "Actually we have found two New Candidates, which is why the Tower hasn't been acting in kind lately." But, Gnarl's voice was muted by the loud clatter of the Scythe's metal blade striking the cold black floor.

"I believe that I've told you not to do that more than once before, Gnarl," growled Mortis, bending down to pick up his Scythe."So please next time make your presence known before scaring me half to death!"

Gnarl smiled at his younger, more delicate, brother. Nothing would get him down, now that they had found two new masters. Not one but two, oh, the joy-A thought struck Gnarl dead in the heart of his bliss. Why wasn't Mortis happy? He should be happy!

"My dear Mortis, Did you not hear me?" Gnarl asked.

"I will listen to you cock and bull stories when we've located a new candidate." Mortis snapped. Confused, Gnarl was taken aback,

"But we already have two candidates." Gnarl mumbled.

"What's that?" Mortis snapped. The old Blue minion spun on his heals to face Gnarl, several feet away from where he was previously.

"Two-but that's- impossible! I don't believe you, Gnarl, the tower will only have one to rule, unless of course the side of good-doing little things have decided to also add a second member of power. And you bloody well know that they will never add more room for corruption, god forbid! Which one, Gnarl, will we kill, seeing as there is two of them: one must die, as there has always been one over lord to rule this heart of evil."

"Well-well-well, we won't be killing either of them, you see. Mortis, the tower has begun to change, and that's why the tower is not acting in kind to commands or its inhabitants. The throne room has been moved-"

"Moved," Mortis spat," Moved-impossible-, then where did it move to?"

"the Netherworld tower, as you very well know, is a evil place that acts, and physically changes upon the arrival and selection of a new overlord-or in this case, Overlords-, and then we begin the search for them based on that, and that alone." Gnarl snapped. Both of the old Minions where unaware of how quickly they were letting their age and tempers get to them.

Mortis glared at his older Brother for a moment, but then a smirk crept up his old worn face and he said his retort with a careful touch of sardonic malice,

"Well then, Gnarl, I'm sure you can find a good explanation as to why it has moved. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that the throne room is floating with the rest of the debris, which, if you are, I am only happy to agree that browns are completely useless for every task that requires a brain." For his answer, Gnarl simply pointed at something behind Mortis.

Mortis turned around, and gnarl watched as the smirk slid from Mortis's face. His jaw fell agape while he struggled to find words. A second tower hovered Sentinel above the ground. It was Ivory as far as Mortis and Gnarl could tell. It did not have the usual ominous stones floating around it, no; this tower had a pitch black cloud covering its highest most areas. The cloud looked daunting, and potent. Mortis swallowed, Branching off of the tower was a pure black bridge, its sheen was reflective and eerie, and the ivory tower seemed to be providing its decor, for large complicated patterns of thorny vines entangled from end to end. A silhouette was leering at them from the center of the bridge.

"Gnarl, what is-Oh my..." Black as darkness lacking lust and only reflecting was the perfectly carved head of a dragon. Its fangs were pearly white and looked like they were able to puncture rock leaving only holes not fragments. Its tongue was pepper colored while a two small isles of lava crept from it onto the bridge, highlighting a passage way. Its orange eyes glared down at the two minions its black slits for pupils contracted into a menacing gaze. Gnarl and Mortis looked at their feet afraid to meet such a powerful gaze, fearing that its ferocity would scorch them.

A few minutes of silence passed and then together the old brothers scurried off and away into the safety of the spawning pits.

"Is there anything else I should know about Gnarl," said Mortis, "I don't think I can take any more surprises."

"Yes there is," replied Gnarl, his voice apologetic, "The blue and green Minion hives have been moved into the ivory tower, and the Red and Brown hives are still here..." Gnarl paused, waiting for Mortis to speak. When he didn't, he continued, "But there's more, when they were moved two new hives appeared in both the Black and Ivory towers."

"Things are getting different around here, that's for sure," muttered Mortis under his breath.

"Indeed, but that's not all. Each of the new hives has spawned two minions. I'm not sure what they can do yet, but they refuse to follow any order without an overlord. So for now they are just taking up space. Worthless piles of baby fluffiness!"

Their small feet padded unsupported against the icy cobblestone road; Hot on their trail was a blaze of orange fire and the silhouettes of rusted daggers and pitchforks.

"Get them!"

"Yeah, get them burn em alive and rip out their eyeballs!"

"Yeah, the empire needs new heads to display!"

Integral forced her legs to push off the ground harder and make her move faster, but they just couldn't-wouldn't- do as she wanted them to. Already she could feel her thighs and chaff muscles straining in their fiery prisons of flesh and bone. She could only keep up such speed for a while longer. She glanced sideways to see her elder brother, Dietrich, a few paces ahead of her. He too, was panting.

They had been running for at least a good 3 miles now. Her eyes were directed up, looking at the sky how its inky blackness seemed to smother the earth. Her brother grabbed her by her forearm and swung her in a direction running transverse to the one they had been moving. the cobblestone was no longer a comfort to their feet, sand was the only pillow-like substance, and the dark trees of the forest didn't really stray tree limbs, twigs, and other foliage groped and tore at the few layers of clothing that the two already had, leaving in their wake an enormous chunk of Integral's dress and the right, badly sewn sleeve of Dietrich's shirt. Small jagged fragments of rock cut into her feet; however Dietrich, having been one of the few people who ventured into the woods more often than his own home, was, by habit, swerving and side stepping all of the debris. For Integral, this task of evasiveness was much more difficult than it looked; she would plant her foot on where she thought was a clear patch of sand only to have something unwanted jab at its underside. Integral was really starting to feel the pain of sustaining her speed, the front of her thighs were burning and felt like they would snap off if there wasn't flesh to contain them. She ran into a soft yet unmoving surface, and fell, from the sudden whiplash of energy, flat on her rump. She looked up; the pain having not come yet, for her curiosity was deafening it for the time being. Her brother's small body, though 6 inches taller than her, had stopped, and she, having not looked, must have run into him.

"Dietrich, I'm-"

"Integral, its fine, get up, we don't have much time." Dietrich cut her off in mid sentence. He was staring intently at something on the ground, his whole head was slowly moving from left to right.

"They're too small to be adults' but slightly too large to be children either-" Dietrich was mumbling to himself about something ungodly, most likely. A confused integral sat there staring at her older brother, who was looking at something that was stopping them from moving on.

"Dietrich," whispered Integral, "what are you talking about?"

"Quiet Integral, I'm trying to think!" Integral glanced behind her, and immediately regretted her decision; the black of the sky was being cut open, torn apart, by a hue of usurping orange. She swung her neck around so fast it popped. She subconsciously rubbed it, and the notion of pain brought forth a throbbing sensation from her backside. She wanted to cry. Everything bad seemed to want to happen to them: Integral fought with her mother and she ended up dying in some freak accident, then her brother killed her father, when he tried to murder integral in her sleep, Their house was raided by the Empire and all of their things were taken, and now the whole of their friends were on the hunt to hurt them. What else could possibly go wrong!

She felt hot salty tears burn her eyes and she tried to blink them away, but the action only brought more tears. Dietrich turned around to see his sister a mess, and then saw the dark shadows of man emerging from nearest trees, and made no notion of comfort towards Integral. His hand grasped her wrist in a vice-like clutch and he dragged her to her feet, already running, and forcing her to keep only inches behind his pace. He was used to this work though, he was, after all, a well off boy because of his skill in one on one battle, the Empire had taken a liking to him and his sister, but after he killed his father, an act of high treason, they sent out the order to kill both him and his sister. He had not told his sister that it was his fault they were being hunted down; she already had good reason to hate him. He could still remember vividly how she woke up to their fathers bloody corps resting, cold, against her bed covers. She had every right in the world to hate him, but she didn't. He wondered if she believed that he killed their father because he thought he was someone else.

Dietrich couldn't bring it on himself to tell her that he killed their father because their father tried to kill her! That was too much for Integral right now, but he would eventually tell her. But now was not the time for things like that, now was the time to get the hell away from these people!

They were gaining on them fast. He thought about blaming Integral for being so weak, but then he doubted this and blamed himself for not being able to support both himself and his sister. He knew that in about 300 meters they would come to a large lake, and, at this time of year, crossing it would be impossible without a boat. Then all they would have to worry about was what was in the lake rather than the people chasing them. Dietrich pelted hard, the balls of his feet slamming hard into the mushy mounds of earth, his thighs and chaffs were on fire, his feet scraping the cold earth, and Integral trying her best to keep up with his insane speed.

"Dietrich, why are you going so fast, what's wrong?" Integral exclaimed. Her feet were hitting the ground and then, like a gun, recoiling with the rest of her leg up to her midriff. She would just have to suck it up and try not to trip.

"Nothing's wrong, Integral; we're just being chased by a village who wants to kill us and stick our heads on posts. Other than that this day has been rather dandy, don't you think?" Dietrich could tell that his sarcasm was not wanted when Integral didn't respond. The silence was overwhelming, but not entirely unwanted. He didn't want to talk to his sister now; he wanted to get to that damn lake.

The orange cloud was closing in on them, the light reflecting off of the leaves and grass, and something else that was unfamiliar. What in gay hell? Dietrich groaned in his head. The thing was massive reflecting the fire like a large-He felt a leap of Joy. The thing was not a thing at all: it was the lake. Its size was obstructed by the trees in the way so it looked smaller, but he was sure that it was the lake. Then why was it reflecting so much light from the torches?

OH, Fuck! He could have kicked himself. It was the second week of winter: the lake was frozen solid. How could he have not seen this coming, why did it not hit him that the lake would be frozen? They can still follow us now, Damn it!

...

"Master is in trouble, we must helpses them!" Exclaimed the small feeble blue minion, his body in perfect balance on the ice, but his eyes showed his minds fear. The brown minion could understand, he also needed his masters, and he feared for their life as much as the blue minion, but as a brown, the master must prove themselves worthy.

"No, we don't even know if they ready be master yet!" The brown retorted, staring at the blue with a mix of confusion and fear.

"Actually the young boy is ready and the girl, well I have no idea." It was Jugular, the eldest of the greens, and the second oldest of Gnarl's generation. The brown minion looked like he was slapped in the face by a human, pride shot away and shock replacing his smug little face with confused awe.

"I can vouch for the girl," the voice was raspy and deep, for a minion, and carried an air of authority. The Blue minion spun around to find himself chest level with a large, red minion.

"Cooler, but you're supposed to be-"

"Dead, I know." The minion finished the sentence for the little blue minion. "And that girl, Integral, is one scary fiend when it comes to magic. I say we accept them." Cooler finished with a lazy flick to the brown minions forehead, scorching the tough skin. The larger than average green and red minions embraced each other in a hug and whispered in some screeching sounds. Both Minions turned to face the blue minion, who backed away hastily.

"You, whatever your name is, cut the ice!" Jugular ordered. The Old minions voice was a lethal rasp that made the younger minion's, with the exception of Cooler, recoil. The blue minion went into a salute and cried

"Yes, your Jugular sir!" His claws, usually too soft to cut even paper, were a magical force. Only known to the blue minions, Gnarl, Jugular, Cooler, and Mortis (and of course the overlord willing to listen) the claws of the blue minion were magical weapons that could do one, or two of three things, depending on the Minions strength. The first of these three abilities was unearthed at birth: every blue minion could use the ability; the ability in question allows the blue minions to sever and sustain the break of any body of water. The chemical state of that body of water can be either solid, liquid, or gas: in theory a blue minion could kill a human, but unless it actually is able to touch the water the damage is too small to notice.

Waver stuck his small hand onto the center of the ice, and, balling his fist, swung the hand forward and back in a perfect downward arch. In a display that suggested a dragon's tail had whipped the ice, white dust flew into the air with a reassuring bang. (Then again, when the claws do touch some form of water, they have the sum total of the body of water's mass at their disposal, unless, of course they are in open waters, then they only can use the mass of the ship, or whatever they're using to cross the open body of water with. Rather unfortunate when they don't have a boat.)

"Good," Said Cooler. His read body was still bright and visible in the midst of the ice cloud, "now hide and wait, blue minions, you must ward off any unwanted guests until you die." The words made a pang in poor Waver's heart, but he nodded nun the less. It was the job of a minion to care for his master, and it was the law of a minion to die for their master.

Cooler made his way, jumping high swiftly, elegantly, and what appeared, by Wavers eyes, to be blindly in the dense white dust storm. Waver shook it off and jumped head first into the icy depths, and looked up to watch for the boats. He could see the first one leave the dock, and waited in anticipation. Then the thought struck him, Cooler said "Ward of any unwanted guests" but there shouldn't be any unwanted guests in this lake it's been frozen now since the last great cataclysm! Oh boy, was that a big explosion, wouldn't be supervised if even this pitiful speck of a town felt it.

The boat was above him, and a second boat was being released from the ropes at the dock. The movement was not unnoticed. Wavers turned around, his eyebrow cocked, shadows do not move. He watched, narrowed his eyes to see better in the water's darkness, and then soiled himself. It was huge, enormous and thank god it was dead; whatever it was. Looked like a large fish, or something. He saw ripples at the top meaning that the first boat had made it, and, thank god, he didn't have to fight that big ass fish! Waver's head poked out of the water. Cooler and The brown minion were frantically signaling him to come to them, on to shore. He didn't know why, but he insisted, and lazily, care freely made his way to the shore-CRACK! Waver jumped so violently in the water that his whole body nearly came out, and he spun around just in time to wet himself for the second time.

The second boat was splintered into pieces, and its inhabitants were flung, effortlessly into the air. Waver was overcome with shock. The water broke a second time and Waver screamed making a panicked dash for SAFE land! Out of the small lake came a beast, large, -made the fishy down there look microscopic- and it was in the air, far in the air, and still half of its body was submerged in the icy depths. Waver could see the monsters teeth; it had the body of a shark, a long neck and the head of a land killer. There was a flash of ivory once before the air was lit with scarlet rain. Waver could do nothing but watch-

"Blue-you-whoever you are, hurry up! Quaver has already opened a gate!"

Dietrich landed with an audible thud in a large circular room, decorated perfectly to the very detail. It was peppered ivory and black, the stone was glass-like in the way that it only reflected. draped in the center was an enormous red and gold carpet, that broke off allowing for the thing he was on; a large decorative circular stone mural, and then continued after splitting off and reaching the foot of two stone chairs.

"Dietrich," Called integral. Then he felt her grip vice like around his arm, "where the hell are we?"

"Your new home!" the voice was high pitched and gentle. Both of them turned around to face the sound of the voice, but only came face to face with a batty looking old brown thing! Integral made a small yelp.

"Who are you?" hissed Dietrich. Shielding his sister, Integral, within his arms, to protect her from the creature. The creature looked taken aback.

"I am Gnarl, Minion lord, and your consultant, you two-both of you- are the new overlord. Or overlords I should say. Well you aren't yet, but I have never failed to make an overlord candidate an overlord yet, so let your lordships' training begin, my masters." Gnarl said ending with a dark chuckle.

End of chapter one.

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