"Horus?"

Zz..

"Horus?"

Zzzz..

"Hey, tattoo fa-"

"Ssh! Don't wake him up! I'm nearly finished painting!"

"Mm. What's the title?"

"I'm thinking about calling it 'Research Kills'."

"Ah."

Horus shook his head as he woke up, raising an eyebrow at Riptide and Spitfire.

"/What/ kills?"

Riptide tapped the parchment Horus had been using for a pillow with her hoof.

"Research. It looked like you had just flopped over and died."

The stallion glared at Riptide, his ears twitching back.

"I assure you that when I die, I will be dying in a far more dignified fashion than just keeling over a parchment!"

Her own ears flicking forward, Riptide just chuckled and nodded.

"I hope so. I just flew up here to tell you that I found some more records in the temple. They might have some information that we missed."

Horus nodded and followed after Riptide as she flew out of the cavern, while Spitfire attempted to put the finishing touches on her painting. All was peaceful-Stormbringer hadn't blown anything up yet, Nova was calm for once, and there had been very few chipmunks wandering around. However, on another chipmunk related note..

Lord Fluffypants searched through the stack of books, glaring at the pile. Where was i-ah ha! The chipmunk warlord gleefully clacked his mandible as held the book aloft. It was great! It was wonderful! It would be his key to FIREY CHIPMUNK DEA-

WHUNK.

Lord Fluffypants failed to remember that chipmunks have very small arms that are ill suited to holding large books in the air.

"Oh, the pain.."

Managing to get out from under the book, Lord Fluffypants flipped the book open, peering at the chapter title.

"Necromancy for Dummies, Chapter 1: So you want to raise an army of the undead."

Still reading aloud from the book, the warlord followed the instructions, shouting gibberish at the pile of various bones he had collected. Finishing reading the string of nearly unpronounceable words, he squinted at the page again.

"DAMN IT! That was the wrong spell!"

He paused for a moment.

"I wonder what that one did."

Meanwhile..

"Squeakity squeak squeek. Squeekums squeak squeak." Fire or an acorn through the brain. That's the only way to kill them.

"Squeak! Squeak chitter squeek!" Oh no! They're coming!

"Squeak..squeak.." Brains..brains..

"SQUEAK!" Oh no!

"CHITTER!" Help!

"SQUEEEK!" AIEEEE!

Chipmunks fighting zombie chipmunks is truly an awful thing.

Deciding not to ponder it anymore, Lord Fluffypants went back to attempting to raise the dead. This went on for several hours, with the warlord becoming more and more infuriated with each passing moment. Soon, he was nearing the end of his rope, ranting and raving at the still not animated jumble of bones. It was, of course, at this moment that a horde of chipmunks scurried in, followed by a number of zombie chipmunks. Lord Fluffypants stared for beat.

"That'll work."

Plink.

Lampy looked up as a small chunk of the infirmary ceiling fell onto the table, flicking his light on for a moment in an attempt to get a better look.

"What was that?"

Wraith put down his cards, snorting as another small chunk hit him on the muzzle. The pegasus adjusted the ice pack over his head, frowning.

"/That/ is a sign that Stormy's working on something above us, and so you should be prepared to hear an explosion, have the ceiling collapse, or something along the lines of that."

With a shudder, Lampy looked back to his cards.

"She's crazy. Got any..uh..what's this card called?"

Raising an eyebrow, Wraith sorted through his own cards again.

"She's also my sister. And you can't use the rules card in 'go fish'. Or any other card game, for that matter."

The game continued for several minutes, abruptly ending as Spitfire, spattered liberally in a red substance as well as several other colors, flew into the cavern. Lampy took cover under his pillow, and Wraith blinked at the mare.

"Did we miss a mass murder?"

Spitfire dropped the paint can she was holding so she could talk, sending blue paint flying. She shook her head as she remained in the air.

"Nope! Vesper and I are just moving everything out of my cavern. It's right above Stormbringer's cavern, and all the shaking and explosions aren't good for my paint buckets or canvases."

Vesper flew into the cavern for a moment, also splattered in paint. She made a 'yecch' sound as she spat out of the paint bucket, ears flicking back.

"Great Rainbow, Spits-what's in this paint?"

The unipeg tilted her head to the side as she thought.

"You know, I've never really looked."

"I accidentally got some in my mouth. Tastes awful."

Wraith glanced at the paint buckets for a moment, adjusting his ice pack again to get a better look.

"Maybe you could use it as chipmunk repellent."

Spitfire nodded at the idea.

"That might work! Let's find some!"

She grabbed one of the paint buckets and swiftly flew out of the cavern, while Vesper just shrugged and followed after the other unipeg. Another chunk of ceiling dropped down, hitting the pillow Lampy was underneath and causing the lamp to make a muffled yelp.

"You okay?"

"I still think she's crazy."

With a sigh, Wraith looked up and got hit again with yet another ceiling chunk.

"It's going to be a long day.."

Lord Fluffypants was, for once, in a cheerful mood. He had figured out various bits and pieces of necromancy. He had assembled an army of undead chipmunks, as well as a few unlucky squirrels. And for the most part, he had kept them from attempting to gnaw off his limbs.

"No! NO! BAD CORPSE!"

The chipmunk zombie continued to cling stubbornly to Lord Fluffypants' cloak, doggedly hanging on until the warlord hit it with his 'Necromancy for Dummies' book. Puffing his chest out and attempting to look as villainous as possible for a skull headed chipmunk, Lord Fluffypants strode in front of the army.

"MINIONS! Tonight, we shall do something attempted many times before, but never succeeded in! But this time, we shall win! We shall conquer! We shall rain FIREY CHIPMUNK DEATH onto those accursed tiny horses!"

The army stared blankly at Lord Fluffypants for several moments. He tried another tactic. Still holding onto his book, the warlord waved his puny arms in the air.

"Brains! Brains! BRAIIIII-"

WHUMP.

Once again, the heaviness of Lord Fluffypants' precious book betrayed him. But although he had nearly crushed himself with the book, the basic gist of his message had gotten across. Zombie chipmunks started to wander around, moaning about brains.

"What happened?"

Horus glanced to Nova, taking to the air to avoid the horde of chipmunks running rampant across the floors.

"It appears that there has been an attempt to combat our local population of rodents with the vile concoction that Spitfire calls paint."

"Between this and Stormbringer's 'inventing'..any bets on what else could go wrong?"

It was at this moment that the zombie chipmunk horde decided to strike.

There were several stories about what happened that night, with only a few things totally agreed upon.

Wraith and Lampy missed the entire incident, as the pegasus had thought the commotion was only due to Stormbringer's inventions. Spitfire had discovered that the paint was toxic to the zombie chipmunks, and Ra, Horus' falcon, had somehow mistaken Nova for a very large white chipmunk. The resulting fight between the two managed to take out more chipmunks than any lone pony or owl did.

After the long and (in the tradition of all zombie films) gory battle and cleanup, Nova trotted into the infirmary to visit Wraith and Lampy. Lampy glanced up for a moment, then back to the unipeg.

"Did she stop working up there? The ceiling hasn't been caving in for awhile.."

Nova decided to not even go into the details, and sat down beside the beds, peering at the cards.

"…Yeah. What are you playing? Poker? Blackjack?"

"Go Fish."

"Ah. Mind if I play?"

"Nah. Best three."

Wraith passed Nova the cards, pausing for a moment to sniff the air.

"What's that smell?"

"Paint. Lots and lots of paint. Spitfire had a big spill."

"Ah."

"Oh."

Meanwhile, Lord Fluffypants struggled underneath the book. He was having considerably more difficulty than before.

"Stupid book..move! Move! MINIONS! MINIONS! Minions? Help?"

A skeletal figure darted through the brush, then stuck its head out a bush. It squealed at Lord Fluffypants, then hissed at another equine-looking creature beside. Saliva hung from both of their muzzles, and they eyed the warlord hungrily.

"I really hate horses.."