"I'LL SHOW YOU!" The skeleton man began his standard issue pre-combat banter. "I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE LIGHT OF THE GRE- HEY!"

Todd, however, was not one for pleasantries, immediately closing the distance and striking hard with his morning star, which the skeleton man only narrowly blocked with the boney handle of his warhammer. 

Todd added force in an attempt to overpower him, though his strength was met, and even surpassed by the skeleton man's boney limbs.

"HAH- DON'T THINK I LACK MUSCLE JUST BECAUSE I LACK MUSCLE!" He quipped.

Todd gave no response.

The skull contorted once more, as if to create the image of a ticked off eyebrow. 

Meanwhile, Hat had stepped back a bit and placed a dull flame under the tail of the horse. Not enough to seriously endanger the horse, but just enough to make it go nuts and run away. A bit of a mean and crude solution, but it was fast. And, really, he was hardly the type to care much about the well being of animals.

"Right, name's 'Hat', is it?" S asked. "Suits you."

"Aye." Said Hat, ever a man of few words.  

"Ah. So you can talk."

"Aye again. Mostly jus' don't whenever he's got his thing goin'." Hat said, gesturing to the skeleton man. "None of us do, really."

"Why'zat?"

"He's funny on his own, ain't he?" 

"Right, guess that's fair." S said.

Meanwhile, the skeleton slammed his hammer overhead, Todd raised his shield and the two collided with a terrible crash. The skeleton began to overpower him, but Todd slammed his morning star into his side with just enough strength to knock him away, briefly gaining the other hand. 

"So, still wanna do this?" S said, gesturing to his fists.

"Aye." Said Hat, once again producing his small flame and water orb thing. 

"Doesn't look like much." S said with a sniff as he stretched and creaked his neck in anticipation.

"It ain't, to tell ya the truth. Boss over there does most the fighting." Hat explained as a smirk appeared on his face. "But it's not about the raw power, it's how you use it. You'll find there's a reason that I'm the one that rides with him."

He reached out his arms, causing the magical energy from both hands to burst out and intertwine with each other, becoming one as they hung in the air and began to expand as the energy hung in the air between them.

"Right." S said, and figuring that was a good a sign that things were starting as any, he swung left and ran towards Hat, reeling his arm back as he was ready to put the tried and true method of punching your problems in the face really hard until they go away to the test. "Gotta say, simultaneous casting like that is pretty dang imPRESSIVE!" S said, knowing from experience.

Hat, surprised by the speed of S's assault, attempted to raise his arm in defense. Unfortunately, his timing and technique were sloppy, causing S to push his arm back into his face, injuring both parts. 

Hat immediately reeled back in pain, and hung his injured arm loose and clutched his healthy arm close to his chest.

S was about to follow up with a swift punch to the gut, just as he'd been trained, but, rather suddenly, he stopped and quickly stepped back defensively. This abrupt change in intent seemed to surprise even him. 

"Huh." Hat said, despite his pain. "Now, why'd you go and do that?"

"I... You have a knife in your other hand there, don't you?" S said, a confused look growing on his face. "You must've grabbed it from your shirt after I hit you."

The man moved his good arm away from his chest, revealing that, indeed, he had grabbed a small, concealed blade from his shirt.

"And here I thought I was bein' clever."

"Right, you were... At least, you should've been. I mean, I can usually smell hostility, make an educated guess, but... The metal and residual blood from the blade, the scent of sweat on the leather grip, even the loose cabbage stuck in your teeth as you breathed... Somehow, it gave me this overwhelming urge to dodge." S said, almost a little fearfully as his nose began to twitch furiously. "I'm normally not this good. What the hell did you-"

S was interrupted by immediately becoming aware of exactly what the hell he did. Starting from the point where Hat's magic collided, there was an ever expanding cloud of thick, heavy steam that began to creep upon them.

"I got no clue what you're on about, but... Let's see if you can keep this up, why don't we?" Hat said with a grin, as he slinked into his cloud of steam, the place he thought of as his domain, brandishing his knife with his one good arm teasingly. 

S, of course, as was his typical reaction to things he didn't understand or was afraid of, ran into the cloud with a similar grin and his fists at the ready.

Todd's shield was half caved in by this point. A few more clean hits from that boney and inexplicably durable hammer and it might just split in half. The skeleton, of course, was keenly aware of this.

"YER SHIELD WORK IS MOST IMPRESSIVE! FOR A FLESH HAVER, ANYWAY!" The skeleton deftly prepared his gloat. "BUT IT'S CLEAR YOU'LL NEVER BEAT ME IN STRENGTH! YOU'VE ALREADY LOST, YE FLESHY FOOL! AGAGAGAGA!"

Todd paid no mind to any of this, and instead once again struck his weapon against his foe's exposed ribcage.

Despite the skeleton's gloating and cockiness, Todd had a far higher rate of attacks that actually connected. Sure, the skeleton was strong, and surprisingly dexterous with that big ol' hammer of his, often using it like a long staff do deflect oncoming blows (being able to spin his bones around helped a great deal), but Todd was no stranger to the ancient art of hitting things real hard real fast real good. 

That being said, the skeleton himself was no stranger to the slightly less ancient technique of just having really really hard bones. He never passed up an opportunity for a nice glass of the white stuff. Milk. He drinks milk. Don't be weird. Also don't ask how a skeleton's able to consume it in the first place, I don't have an answer. Point is, this guy took the blows like a champ, showing few signs of damage.

"THIS IS IT! I'M GOING TO SPLIT YOU AND YOUR SHIELD INTO A MILLION PIECES!" The skeleton announced, eating a heavy blow from Todd's morning star and raising his hammer overhead, ready to crush anything in his path. 

Todd narrowly raised his shield above his head, and his muscles began to strain as he did everything he could to push back against the blow.

Though, despite his best efforts, the wear and tear of his old shield began to make itself abundantly apparent. The metal plating began to crack, and as more force was applied the cracks only multiplied and expanded. In a matter of moments, the shield would crack and split into several pieces, making it reasonably less effective at being a shield. 

Time for a brief history lesson.

Among those who knew Todd, especially those who had seen him fight, there was a common shared idea.  

Todd was a man who always fought with 4 weapons.

His morning star, which he hit things with.

His shield, which he hit things with.

His head, which he hit things with. 

And, lastly, his legs.

Which he hit things with.

Here's the thing about that last thing. In terms of hitting things, often the best method is the fastest one; one that requires the least amount of effort and movement. 

There are few simpler movements than moving ones leg directly upward. And, with practice, doing it really fast is a very simple task indeed. 

And it just so happens that most of Todd's fights occurred in close quarters combat. Which, of course, involves being really close to one another.

The long and short of this is as follows:

As soon as his shield would break, he was going to unleash his ultimate technique.

Hitting someone in the nards really, really hard.

"AGAHGAGAGGAAGAGAHAHGAHAHG!" The skeleton laughed as he pressed his hammer deeper and deeper into the shield. In a matter of moments, it would crumble, and he would attempt to crush his foe's head into the ground with it. 

But that's not what happened. Soon after the shield broke, the skeleton paused, and his hammer hung in the air.

Because Todd used his technique. And it hit nothing. For there was nothing to hit.

For there were no nards.

"Did... Did you just go for my..." The skeleton said, his cackling voice shaking slightly. 

Todd, ever stalwart, stood his ground and stared his foe dead in the eye sockets as he readied what little shield remained on his arm. Upon realizing his foe was leaving himself open for some reason, he swung his weapon hard, hoping to get a nice clean hit.

S, nearing the end of his bout with Hat (who, upon realizing he could barely feel his arms and his jaw anymore, decided it was probably a good idea to retreat pretty soon.), suddenly became overwhelmed with an oppressive scent of hatred and malice, an odor that flooded his senses and made his head feel like it was splitting open with pain.  

In response to Todd's attack, the skeleton man's head began to twist, beginning a 360 degree revolution as he swiftly rearranged his bone structure and nearly struck Todd's morning star clear out of his hands with seemingly impossible speed and precision.

Todd found this confusing. 

"Die." Bonesworth said as his revolution completed and he faced Todd once again, and balls of literal fire appeared in his eye sockets, because of course that's a thing that happens.

In a flash, he rearranged himself again and swung hard, harder than ever before at Todd's largely exposed arm, shattering his bones like a plank of wood meeting the mean end of a stick of dynamite.

And then he swung again. Todd found himself unable to defend on that side. The hammer slammed into his shoulder, right onto the chains that surrounded his thick leather armor.

At once, the chains broke off from the links, and the shoulder pad itself was decimated. And one might shudder to imagine what happened to the shoulder itself, as well as the surrounding area of his body.

The skeleton raised his hammer above his head once more. With the injuries Todd had just received, it would be nearly impossible to withstand the pain enough to move. It was entirely likely that Todd had already passed out from the pain, or perhaps even died on impact, Bonesworth thought. Regardless, with this last strike, he would be returned to the original clay that-

And then Todd slammed his morning star into the exposed skull, causing it to spin around and around like a carousel.

The flames in the skeleton man's eyes had disappeared, and he was left wildly disoriented.

'WHAT?' He thought to himself, once again in capital letters. 'HOW IS HE STANDING? NO HUMAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND SUCH PAIN! WHAT IS HE-' 

Todd attacked again, and the skeleton man narrowly raised his hammer in defense, barely saving himself from another clear blow to the skull.

'OH, NO MATTER!' The skeleton thought. 'HE'S BEEN BREATHING LONG ENOUGH! THE NEXT ATTACK WILL- EH?' 

It was very unfortunate for him that his thoughts were very easily interrupted.

'SAND? WHO THE HELL JUST THREW SAND IN MY EYES? I DON'T EVEN USE MY EYES, WHY WOULD THAT DO-'

Just as he was contemplating this, a scrappy little tan covered lad leapt out of the cloud of steam and latched himself on top of the skeleton man and began fiercely tugging at his skull. 

"BAH! WHAT IN THE SEVEN SEAS-" The skeleton shouted as his perspective suddenly turned upside down, as his skull was removed from his neck bones with a pop.

"TODD!" S shouted from atop the now headless skeleton man.

"Oh, greetings S-"

"CATCH THIS AND THROW IT INTO THE CARRIAGE!" S screamed, tossing the skull over to Todd's good arm.

"Okay." Todd said as he caught the skull and chucked it into the fortunately still open carriage as if his good arm was a cannon. 

---

"Wonder what's taking S so long." I began. Y'know, I should probably go out and check, he's probably fighting som-

"Duck." Sis said, rather abruptly.

"Wh-"

"Just do it." She demanded.

"O-okayAAAAAAH WHAT THE FFEWUHF-"

"YYYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH" Screamed the disembodied skull that was flying directly at my head at friggin' mach speeds or something!

Naturally, I ducked, and slammed my hands together and sent that thing literally anywhere else and immediately slammed the hole shut. Honestly, I have no idea where I sent the thing.

"What the heck was th-

---

The skull slammed into a concrete wall, creating a significant dent in it before falling to the ground.

"BNYEAH!? WHAT IN THE SEVEN SEAS AM I DOING HERE? WHERE THE HELL AM I?" The disembodied skull man shouted. "HOW THE HELL DID I END UP HERE?" 

The skull peered around, and quickly realized he wasn't alone in this random dark alley in the middle of some city he didn't recognize. There was a man with skin as white as bone, odd and frilly clothes that seemed to bare every color under the sun, and a big red nose, currently balancing a sickle on an his open palm and looking down at the skull very confusedly.

"WHAT 'RE YOU LOOKIN' AT?!" The skull shouted.

"I'm not quite sure, to be honest." The sickle toting clown said. 

He raised a dyed eyebrow in thought. He had noticed that his act had gotten kind of stale recently, and he'd been looking for something he could use to spice things up a little bit. Hmm...

Perhaps it was fate that he'd return once again to this alley, of all places. Come to think of it, he thought he saw a glimpse of a familiar looking something in the air there for a minute...

"Say, how'd you like to make a bit of extra coin?" He asked after a moment of silence. 

The skeleton's face contorted in thought.

He didn't know how far away his body was. It could be a while before his bones made it back to him. It's not like he had anything better to do.

"WHAT DO YA HAVE IN MIND?"