AN: I should really be writing my nanowrimo.

Buuuuuuut...

Those muses pack a punch, and those damn dreams won't leave me alone, soooo...

If you like Lich, send the muses flowers. They'll put them on my gravestone when Azariah finds out I'm not writing The Feline Faction.

Between a rock and a hard place...

Did somebody say "rock" and "hard?"

A-azariah! I swear I can explain!

Huehuehue, too late for that. Now open wide!

*Dwindling screams of fear*

Does no one remember me? Okay...

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When seventeen of my skeletons left my control, I first thought they had perished.

However, what I was looking at right now defied common sense.

The cavalry had taken a heavy toll on my zambies, and only two hundred were left. The majority were skeletons, while a dozen or so zombies were still kicking. Except for the one without legs...

However, what grabbed my attention were the several hulking figures that stood at the head of those two hundred.

seven of them were three-meter tall giants. Five were well over two meters tall, and had scavenged scraps of armor. Four had strange protrusions extending from their bones.

One of them stood at the same height as an average man, but had black bones.

I walked up to them, ordering the five skeletons that were still in my control to come down from the wall. For some reason, all five had grown a foot or two, and were twitching. They were fighting quite strongly against my control as well.

When I walked up to the seventeen undead that were different from the rest, the giants gave me a passing glance but turned away. The five large skeletons looked at me questioningly, and the four with protrusions (I think I'll call them 'Spikeys' for now) just ignored me. The black one looked straight into my eyes.

I looked back, and say two red lights. Lights that shone with intelligence. I walked up to it, and it went on one knee to bring itself to my eye-level. This annoyed me quite a bit.

I stopped a foot away, and stuck out my hand. "Sup! What's your name?"

It slowly looked at my hand, then back up to me. It slowly shook its' head.

I pulled my hand back and put a finger to my chin. "Hmmm, well I can't just call you 'it' or 'him' so how about blacky?"

I saw no negative sign, so Blackys' name was decided. I reached up and poked his skull. It was smooth, like glass. "So, can you tell me why you painted yourself?"

Blacky shook his head, then pointed at the five twitching skeletons behind me, then at the dead horsemen.

Going out on a limb, I ordered one of the twitchys to cut up one of the zombies. He seemed to suffer from a delay, but still followed my orders. The unlucky zombie was torn apart with frightening ease, but what the twitchy did next was even scarier.

He started shaking even more, then grew a couple feet. He released a roar like the rattling of bones, and just like that vanished from my mind. He had become another Big.

Blacky seemed kind of surprised that I had just had one of the zombies killed, if I read his skulls' expression correctly. Which should be impossible, but I seemed to have an abnormally acute sense for what the movement of his lower jaw meant.

I poked blackys' forehead again. "Hey, do you know why I can't control you or the others?"

Blacky shook his head.

I sighed, then had another of the twitchys dismember another zombie. This time, the twitchy collapsed after cutting up the zombie, only to rise a couple inches taller, and with thicker bones. He had become a Tall. However...

"Hey!" I exclaimed, feeling the inside of the Talls' mind. "I can control this one!"

Surprisingly, this skeleton didn't want to break free. Unlike the twitchys, he seemed completely satisfied with me having complete control over his body and mind. I tried reaching out to the other Talls and found out that I could keep them under complete control, and they didn't fight me or try to get away. The Talls who had been staring at me intensely a moment ago gathered together with the new tall and stood in a line of their own violation.

I had the other three twitchys kill their respective zombies, in order to change. One of the buggers was greedy and had to kill two zombies to grow up. None of them became spikeys though. Two more became Bigs, and another one became a Tall.

Blacky seemed very interested in what I was doing, and followed my actions closely with his glowing red orbs.

When I tried to take control of a spikey, I got a headache. They were worse than the Bigs. However, I wanted to try one more thing...

"Hey Blacky, I'm gonna try to control you. Is that okay?"

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He seemed to think long and hard, before nodding. I reached out with my mind...

...and felt a hard, immovable wall. If I had to liken my control of the undead to something, it was this.

The undead were water. My mind was a pitcher. I could fill up my pitcher to the brim, and be just fine. The Bigs were just a lot of water, and the spikeys...I don't know what they are. Blacky though..

He was like a rock. He was small enough to fit in my pitcher, but I couldn't get him in because the opening of my pitcher was too small. As I controlled the undead, my pitcher got bigger, and it did that with the whole thing. So, if I got a big enough pitcher, I could control him. From what I could see, I would have to be able to take in about ten Blackys' before he would fit in me.

Hmmm...for some reason that sounds dirty...(J0nn0, if you make one bone joke, I swear I'll flip. That goes for the rest of you too)

The regular undead tried to slosh around and get out, and when they spilled they stopped being under my control. The talls' were just like jam. They were very easy to keep in my pitcher, even though they were about five times as big as regular skeletons.

Which reminds me...since I have seven Talls under my control, and I still have space left, that means I can control over thirty-five skeletons. Seems like dominating the twitchys accelerated the growth of my pitcher.

Now that everything seemed in order, it was time to raise more zombies. We had lost four hundred of them, and now we needed to replace them.

With my limited mana, I raised about one zombie every ten seconds. Blacky seemed very interested when I made the corpses get up, and when he looked at me kind of like a puppy, I poked him on the forehead again. "Hey, I'll show you how."

I Went behind him, using a zombie as a stool, and had him straighten out his arm. "Here, now open your fingers like this...now, repeat after me."

"RIse"

A zombie got up and waddled over to join his fellows. Zombies seemed to like being in groups. The same was true of the skeletons, but to a lesser degree.

Then I felt a power flow through Blackys' arm, and one of the corpses got up. Then its' flesh fell off. When all was said and done, a brand-new skeleton stood in front of us.

"..."

Blacky was quite proud of himself, until I smacked him on the forehead.

He looked hurt, and would have whimpered had he had the capability. His red eyes seemed to beg the question, "Why did you do that?"

I poked him. "Because I can't make skeletons, so it's totally unfair that you can!"

"..."

I looked over at him, thinking that he ha been convinced by my sound logic. However, he was just looking at me like I was an idiot.

I hopped off of my zombie stool, and walked to the middle of the courtyard. The seven Talls' followed me as I examined the dead horses. As I leaned down to inspect them, a tall leaned down next to me. He poked the horse, and seemed to like it. I decided to try something else.

"Rise"

The horse jolted awake. I immediately took control. It was a tiny amount of water in my pitcher, but it tried very hard to get out. I gestured the newly-made zombie horse to the Tall, who seemed to like it. However, he poked the side of the zombie horse and seemed to dislike the flesh on it. I tried to think of a solution, but-

I heard the creaking of Blackys' jaw. Another horse got up, but this time it was just bones. The Tall happily went over and mounted. Then something strange happened...

When the Tall got on top of the horse, red lights grew in the holes of his skull. The horse rattled and came up on its' hind legs, also gaining lights in its' sockets.

And then...

I heard a bunch of rattling, and looked over to see a dozen skeletons walking over to see the mounted Tall. The Tall and the group eyed each other, and for a second I felt tension-

And then the eleven skeletons walked over to the mounted tall and surrounded him. The tall went back to his customary position following me, but now he in turn was followed by a dozen skeletons. I myself got no more water in my pitcher, yet I could still control the Tall perfectly.

This...this I could use.

Blacky was looking very stuck up, looking down his bony face at me. Then I kicked his pelvis bone, and once again took on a hurt look.

"No fair!" I shouted over and over while I abused him.

Now I actually had a chance of winning this. I wonder what else Blacky can do...

Damn, that sounded dirty too. I better watch myself, or I'll become a pervert.