Great, just what I needed. Can someone get me the bleach? I need it to kill myself before Famine comes by. No doubt I’m going to get beaten like the other three times. What is it with the Horsemen and using me as their personal punching bag!? I quickly moved from Tartarus to Ponyville, and tried to figure out where Famine could have been summoned from. Now knowing who did it was another matter entirely and can be figured out after finding Famine. There’s also the issue of War biding his time for something.

When I got to Ponyville, I found the ponies going about their everyday business with the exception of Twilight, who appeared to be running around with her head cut off. No, sorry, like her head was cut off.

“Twilight!” I called out after flipping my hood up to shield myself from the sun and glided up to her. She was running through the marketplace at the moment and it was to the point that a mild dust storm kicked up in her wake. What is wrong with her? “Twilight!”

“Huh?” Twilight gasped and stumbled, rolling into Applejack’s cart. She banged into it, chipping her horn further, and the cart shook with a few apples dropping to the ground. “Ow-hooow,” she groaned and winced when she pressed her hoof to the base of her horn.

“Are you alright?” Applejack asked in concern with a wince, helping Twilight up. “That looked like it …”

“Yes, it does hurt,” Twilight finished with a grumble before noticing Applejack’s concerned look. “What’s the matter?”

“You barely have a horn left, Twi,” Applejack said bluntly and pointed to the cracked stub that was Twilight’s horn. I covered my jaw with my hands and went to go talk with her before spotting the swirling mass of shadows from Tartarus nearby. I changed direction and glided over but before I could, a couple of shadowy tentacles struck out and gripped me and Twilight. I heard the dragon pony gasp and try to get the tentacle off of her neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked the shadows when I realised I couldn’t just phase out of the grip. I felt my bones begin to crack under the pressure and I grunted in pain.

“You two need a break that’s been the weirdness of your lives thus far,” my Displacer told me before the tentacles turned white and we vanished from what we knew of Equestria.

Where the Tartarus was I going!? I spun in the blackness of it all for what seemed like endless hours, that is, until a white light rapidly approached. Unable to shield myself from any sort of impact, the light absorbed me and all I could see was a searing white.

I felt the air rush past me and it sounded like I was screaming. Something dark and ominous rushed towards me before I crashed into it with a sickening crack. There go all two hundred and fifty two of my bones.

UMBRA'S POV

The life and times of a dark ruler sure could be a rollercoaster ride of blood pumping thrill, inglorious conquerings and amassing unrightfully earned riches by looting everything in a ten kilometer radius around your current position, but then again, sometimes, they could just be a plain bore.

Today was just such a day.

After the whole ordeal in Canterlot, permanently dealing with Chrysalis and regaining my Greens, it had been an unanimous decision amongst me, Onyx, and Gnarl to lay low for a bit. Lest a certain pair of sisters would get wind of me and my little shadowy empire and put an end to it.

Thus I ended up in self-confinement more or less.

Gave me a lot of time to go through my arcane library though and boy there was much to read. Heavy stuff, like, Tolstoy heavy. I could barley get halfway through with one tome before it felt like my brain was leaking out of my damn ears. Lyra on the other hand could blaze through the old books of evil at an amazing speed and was able to comprehend the jibber-jabber about arcane matrizes, celestial alignments and some rather disquieting truths about sheep like talking about the weather.

I would never be able to look at the wooly balls of fluff the same ever again.

At any rate, I had much free time on my hands and when Umbra has free time on her mitts, her sweet tooth comes a-knocking. So I had Wiener make me every piece of porn in food form that he could during the time I took breaks from studying. Which was quite a lot to be honest but I always had a good metabolism and with my new body, even more so. Most nutrients I took in went straight to replenish my magical reserves.

"Wiener ma boy, you´ve done good this time." I moaned around a piece of cheesecake as my kobold cook carted in his newest creation, a massive pie that was on the verge of bursting from all the white, creamy fillings Wiener obviously pumped into it (heh, entendre). Darkness bless him and his lack of knowledge what the word moderation meant.

I was about to get me some of that goodie next as, like so often, Murphy reared his mug and clam-jammed me in one of the worst possible ways. A rift opened up right above my dinner table and something came shooting out right at me, collided with me and toppled me over together with my chair.

After the obligatory stream of expletives, I blinked away the tears as I noticed something on my chest. Nothing too heavy but still.

It was a human skull, smiling a pearly white grin right at me. As skulls do.

Now, I do not know if I was that desensitized at that point or if it was still the after effects of absorbing Queen Cheeselegs essence but having the mortal remains of a human sitting on my collarbone did only vaguely phase me that moment.

I took the offending skull in one hand and gave it a look. Must have once belonged to a adult from the size of it. Pristine condition too, given that it was just shot outta the Void and into my face with quite the force.

That made me wonder however. How the everloving hell did that end up in the Void? Was it possible to be stuck in the Void for that long that only a skeleton came out of the other end? If so, that was one of the most fucked up ways to go.

Looking at the fleshless face, I adopted a mournful mien and invoked the Bards great words. "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well Horatio." It was then that the skull talked back.

"Oi, mate. You talkin' Shakespeare at me?" It's, her, teeth clacked together in a very fake British accent. The voice was most definitely female and she definitely didn't seem to like the sound of my quote. The skull turned in my hand to survey her surroundings and it then ended up with its lifeless gaze back at me. "Nevermind that. What I'm worried about now is finding the rest of my body."

I stood up, skull still in hand. "Well, my dear, disembodied guest of the fleshless sort, one thing after the other. Care to share your name with me, given that you damn well disturbed me in my own home, during snack time no less?"

"Alright, Blackheart. I'm so sorry to ruin snack time," the skull said sarcastically. "My name is Skye, black lady. Now that you know my name, it's only fitting that I'd know yours."

I gave a nod. "See, that did not kill ya at all, did it? As for my name, it´s Umbra."

"Latin for shadow. Fitting," Skye mused. "Now, if you don't mind, I think my body fell apart upon entering your domain, demon. Can we go look for it?"

With a pleased purr, I gave Skye the skull a slight push, making her jump in my palm like one would do with a ball or something similar. "Your butter up skills are well developed at least. Guess I´ll be a good host then and lend you a hand, seeing as you are in dire need for one at the moment." I quibbed and I swear Skye rolled her non-existent eyes at me so hard. "Now, let´s see..."

We did not have to search for long as I noticed the massacre that not a moment before had been a mouthwatering pie. Now it was a crater of crust and cream, with something protruding right out of the epicenter. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a lone hipbone.

"Well, that was easy." I fished the cream coated chunk of bone out of my ruined dessert and gave it a thoughtful look before addressing the skull in my other hand again. "Y´know, I can appreciate a good cream-pie as any other woman but should we not at least treat each other to at least a drink or two before we start the kinky stuff?"

"Two hundred and five bones to go," Skye muttered to herself. "To be fair, if I did treat you to a drink, you'd be the only one drinking," the skull said sarcastically. Skye observed the busted pie and sighed. "I wish I still had a tongue to at least enjoy the taste." She looked around every time I bounced her after this note and she seemed to be fixated upon the exit. "I can't see or sense any of my other bones so, the best bet would be to wander around and see what we find."

"So like finding the proverbial needle in the likewise proverbial pile of hay eh? Or better, a assload of bones in my domain." I tittered. "Your luck that I am such a nice host and that I have a lot of free time on my hands right now. But even if things go south and we find nothing, I still have a few nice ideas what you could do in the future. I always wanted a talking skull to have it sitting at the entrance of my tower, spouting stuff like 'forfeit all hope, thee who enter here' at anyone stepping into my halls."

"I have a feeling that'll get boring really fast," Skye muttered more to herself than me but the message came across clearly. "Or, if we actually do go down that route, I'll just say 'boo'. That usually scares them off."

"Don´t underestimate the bold, the stupid or the heroes. They tend to stick their noses everywhere, even if you put up a big 'Caution, radiated and always hungry ur-dragon with chronically bad mood ahead. You will get eaten!' sign at your entrance." I idly twirled my index finger in the air for emphasis. "That aside, I really hope you have your bones numbered or something. Cause, if we do not find them all, then what? Just curious."

"I, uh, kinda don't," Skye chuckled nervously. "Um, considering this has never happened before, I, um, was not prepared. So … I have absolutely no idea in what's going to happen," the skull hopped up in my hand and let out a disappointed sigh at not finding anything. "You know what we should do? Actually move from this room and move out through your lair. I think … oh, do you have a library?"

Now I rolled my eyes. "It´s a proverb and yes, I was just going to. Chances that all your bones spontaneously grow lots of tiny, bony feet and come to us are pretty much zero, right?" With that we, that is to say I with Skye sitting in my palm, left the dining room and began the search in earnest. "And yes, as the devil wants it, I actually have a library in my tower. Why? Think some of your bones ended up as bookmarks?"

"It's possible the library has some of my bones. Would make for some dead boring reading if all you had were bone scriptures," Skye cackled.

Hah. Skull joke.

We had not to walk far, much to my surprise because we soon stumbled upon the next missing pieces of my newest acquaintances bony body.

Not a few meters down the hall squatted one of my Greens, the name Rancid popping up in my head like so often when I dealt with my Minions, the stinking little gremlin holding fast to a skeletons whole arm and hand, utilizing it to enthusiastically scratching himself everywhere, sending loose scales, flakes of skin and the occasional undefined plat looking shred flying. All while his tongue lolled out and one of his feet thumbed the ground like a dogs who enjoyed a good scritch-a-scratch.

"Oh god, I think I have to boil that whole arm before I will ever be able to use it again." Skye winced.

Even I puked a little in my mouth at the display in front of us. "No duh. Now... let´s get this over with before I start chucking chunks."

I approached the hapless Green who still enjoyed Skyes hand more than he should and held out my own. "Hey, ehr, Rancid. Give me that." I said, half choking through the vile exhalations the Green was releasing. Something like rotten anchovies mixed with several years worth of unwashed sport socks. Even for a Greens low standards of bodily hygiene, that was a new level of disgusting.

Rancid, for his part, stopped scratching his ass with Skyes hand, looking at me owlishly. Then at his scratching tool.

"Come on, don’t make this harder than it needs to be." I growled, inching my hand closer to the humerus of the arm. Almost had it.

For the records, no one, not even Gnarl knows what is going on in the Minions head most of the times (except for stuff like 'Sheepies!', 'Kill stuff for the master!' or the random 'Life is but a theatre and all men are but actors. Out. Out brief candle!'), so it only came as half a surprise as suddenly a manic grin split Rancids lips, the Green joyfully exclaimed "Keep away!" and in a feat of bone twisting acrobatics, the assassin did a backflip from the stand and clambered up a nearby pillar, Skye's arm still in one hand. Once on top, the little bastard waved his prize mirthfully and a moment after, disappeared in one of the many Minion holes that littered my domain, enabling my kobolds to pop up almost everywhere to do my beck and call. Or like in this case, being a massive pain in the ass.

"Well, fuck."

"I would say that green puke factory could keep it, but I kinda need it," Skye chimed in. "We know at least one thingy has an entire arm … which will need a bleach bath. Please tell me you have bleach too," she added in a pleading tone. No doubt that some of the other Greenies were using the skeleton's body parts in much the same way as Rancid. Or worse. That thought made me shudder violently.

"Not here but I can get some shipped. And if that is not enough, I could offer some dragonfire, straight from the lizard."

"You have a dragon here!?" Skye squawked in surprise and awe. Who woulda thought a talking skeleton could be impressed that way huh?

"Yes ma´am, a bonafide dragon, live and in color. Very handy in cold nights, on camping trips and to get rid of anything warranting a 'oh god, kill it with fire, kill it with fire!'" I tapped my boot against the floor in thought. If I were a Green, where the fuck would I hide myself if I wanted to mess with my totally not vindictive mistress?

The latrines where quite too obvious. Or at least I hoped so. My Minions produced more waste than any creature their size should be allowed to. Not going in there. Ever again!

The Brood Pits eventually. If one where to hide, then which place would be better than one swarming with nigh identical brethren? A bit like 'Where´s Waldo?', just more minion-y.

"Dragons are weird, in my experience," Skye muttered. "Would you know of any place where that goblin would have gone to? Like it's room or a hole in the wall or something?"

"If you count having mothers that dwarf Godzilla, who also act like kinda the guardian of this dimensions space-time-fabric and constantly trying to eat you out of your hard earned treasures, then yes, dragons are weird." I conceded, trudging down the corridors. "And yes, I actually have a pretty good clue where Rancid could have gone to. We´ll just need to make a little detour, so I can get something to carry all of you more easy."

This stop brought us to the kitchen where I snatched a old sack. If I really had to find all two hundred odd bones of a humanoid body, I sure as fuck would not carry them all around under my arm.

"A sack's good," Skye mused. "Also, that little creature is called Rancid. That is … oddly fitting," she added as an afterthought. She hopped in my hand to try and get a better look at the surrounding area before sighing in defeat. "No bones here. Or my cloak."

"I know right? They come pre-named and in four flavors. The brown fighters usually have easy and in your face names like Scrapper, Bruiser or Rufus. The red archers are all a bunch of pyromaniacs and have names related to fire and light like Matchstick, Welder or Lucifer. The green ones, the assassins love decay and muck as much as backstabbing, resulting in names like Rot, Decay or Rancid. Finally, the blue healers for some reason have names like Timotheus, Sebastian or Alfonsius. Sounds Latin as fuck, maybe because they have a few brain cells more than your average Minion. That´s what they are by the by, Minions but feel free to call them gremlins, kobolds or whatever. They don't mind."

"Gremlins it is," Skye laughed. "Those pyromaniacs sound like they're fun to hang around with if you want charred bones … which may have already happened," she sighed. "We can find that munchkin later, where are the pyromaniacs at?"

"Oh, they are fun believe me Skye. Usually, the bulk of my Minions hangs around in the Brood Pits since all of their nests are located there, which is where we are going now. I have the distinct feeling Rancid wants to play real life 'Where is Waldo' with us." I replied. "You know, unless I am totally wrong and the little bastard is in one of the many other possible hiding place that litter the place."

After that, we went down the seemingly endless flight of stairs, down into the bowels of my tower in relative silence, Skye probably brooding over things skeletons tend to brood while I simply tried not to think to hard about having to find one specific Green amongst a sea of his kin.

"Is it just me, or did we wander into a sea of algae?" Skye asked suddenly when we reached the bottom of the very long, and very winding, staircase.

"I wish." I muttered in annoyance. Indeed all around us was greenery in forms and colors normally only found in jungles or tropical bodies of water. For whatever unfathomable reason or other, the shed skin and various... secretions of the Greens seemed to promote the growth of vegetation rather than making the ground barren for the next few millenia or so.

Which in turn caused the Brood Pits to be nearly overrun by shrubbery shortly after the Greens nest had been returned to its rightful place in the basement of my tower. It had become so bad that I had to appoint teams of Browns and Reds to counter the seemingly endless flood of plants with machetes and fire. Lots and lots of fire. Not that it changed much, seeing as the stuff was growing back almost as fast as my little munchkins could defoliate the areas around the Pits.

A tugging sensation made me stop for a moment as something clamped down on my leg. Looking down, I stared at some sort of Venus flytrap the size of a damn dinner plate, whose jaws were lined with small but devilishly sharp teeth. Which where right now digging through my trousers, boots and into my leg.

With a growl that was somewhere between pissed and pained, I torched the suicidal shrub with a more violent than necessary fire blast. " One day, I douse this whole damn place in Agent Orange, I swear."

That taken care of, I went straight for the Greens corner of the Brood Pit, which now resembled more a steaming, dense, green hell of a jungle contained on some thirty square meters worth of space than anything else. Ominous movements disturbed the growth every now and then as unseen things moved around and I could have sworn that I heard the heavy rhythm of tribal drums from the very heart of the area.

Swatting a large fern aside, I stepped into the pseudo jungle.

"Umbra … I've captured a chupacabra, attempted to catch Bigfoot, spotted the Boogeyman but none of them compare to what I'm hearing and seeing," Skye told me in a less than confident voice. I don't know what it was, but a skeleton scared just doesn't seem right.

"Sounds like an eventful life... you know what I mean." I said while making my way through the green hell. "I mean, I get a serious Jumanji vibe here. Half expecting that weird hunter guy to pop out of the woods any moment now, or a tiger or these rabbit monkeys."

"Oh, great. Now you got me thinking about that hunter and his cheesy lines," Skye groaned. She made me turn my hand around at a noise of a snapping twig nearby. "Stop, I think I heard something."

"Oh fuck me sideways with a chainsword, I had to jinx it, had I?" I groaned, suddenly regretting my choice to forgo donning my armor and weapons today.

Well, I could always throw Skye at whatever came out the woodworks if everything went south.

After several nervous seconds, a spider crawled out from below its leafy cover.

A housecat sized spider of the black widow variety. But still just a spider.

Which received a burst of lightning for scarring me halfway outta my wits though.

Leaving the sizzling and popping spider behind, I hastened my pace. How hard could it be to find the Greens in this poor mans jungle that could have fitted in the backyard of my old house back on earth? This what not Dark Sun Gwyndolins corridor of eternal mindfuckery after all. By all means, we should have came out on the other side not even after a minute of brisk walking.

The drums grew louder and now I was able to detect cheerful, scratchy voices chanting something too. It sounded almost as if only the next few ferns stood between my bony companion, myself and the source of the sounds.

I turned to Skye with a tormented smile "Wanna bet on what we find? My money is on a long lost culture and we stumble into some kind of savage ceremony."

"That would be something interesting in this jungle," Skye cackled, which appeared to be the only form of laughter she could produce until we find more of her body. "Here's a bet. They're using my bones for something unseemly."

"Well, here goes nothing." With that, I parted the last bits of green between us and the source of the sounds.

I´d like to thought I had seen many things and that whatever was behind the shrubbery could not surprise me. I was wrong.

There, on a impossibly large clearing stood the Greens nest, looking like a bundle of mutated asparagus but in front of it was a full blown tribal village, complete with round little thatch huts and everything. A massive bonfire crackled in the center of the scene and all over the place, my minions were dancing, throwing their wiry arms into the air and enthusiastically hop-stop-dancing in a large circle around a massive stone totem that looked like a five years old crayon doodle made stone. I could make out a mob of presumably hair, a open mouth with pointy teeth and a figure that overall hinted at femininity but the rest was guesswork.

All the while, the Greens had done their outmost to look the part of tribals, wearing little straw skirts and decorating themselves with bones (obviously Skye´s) tied to their bodies, stuck through their noses or held on top of their heads with string, since they had no hair to braid them into. In the far corner, two Greens used what I assumed to be leg bones to lay a beatdown onto some makeshift drums with a fervor.

Oh and they were singing one line again and again. Very, very enthusiastically.

"Omph chakka. Umbra, that´s the name of our chieftain. Omph chakka. Umbra! All together now!"

Taking all this in, I reacted the only way one could appropriately react to such a scene.

"Wat?"

"Turns out we were both right," Skye said in a disgusted tone once she had figured out the scenery before us.

"Alright, I thought I have seen shit, that nothing could surprise me but this... I can´t even... just no." I stepped out of the brushwork and into this mad little shindig. The minions paid me no particular mind, strangely enough, seemingly to enthralled by whatever they were doing. For another matter, there was not filth ridden hide nor nonexistent hair to be seen of Rancid whatsoever. Guess my gut feeling about him hiding here had been a dead end. Well, at least we could gather a lot of Skye's bones here.

To get my minions part with them was equal parts easy and hard at the same time. Easy because I simply ordered them to hand em over (because I was not in the mood for having any of their shit right now) and hard because the bones seemingly soaked into the natural grime and filth the Greens exuded and now looked and smelled like something straight out of grandpa Nurgles gardens of pestilence.

Again, I was thankful for the idea to carry everything around in a bag, which minimized the need to contact and the smell to bearable levels.

"Right, looks like we got most of you now. I think I saw a lot of ribs, both legs, the bones near the shoulders and the collar bones. Still short of the arms, hands, the shoulder blades and the spine." I rattled the bag ´o bones for effect.

"Impressive and kind of disturbing how most of them were in the one place," Skye commented. "I counted roughly a hundred so that means … one hundred and five bones to go? I think? Lost count at sixty when you were gathering them up."

"Again, not really what I expected when I got up this morning but it sure beats being stuck in the study all day. Now, where to go next? Ah!"

Sometimes, one really could not see the forest behind all those trees. Locating Rancid was a piece of cake from the get-go. All I had to do was to ask Gnarl, the old geezer. For all his many, many faults, he always seemed to exactly know the positions of every minion all the time.

>>Gnarl? Come in.<<

>>Yes? Ah, Milady. How can I be of service? And more importantly, why are you not in the study? Do not tell me you are shirking off again. A proper dark...<< Gnarl prepared one of his usual rants about diligence and stuff as the supreme ruler of all minionkind but right now, I did not wanted any of that.

>>Ya, not now okay? I need to know where a Green named Rancid is hiding. That little shit stole something I need to get back stat.<<

A confused silence followed, then Gnarl replied >>Oh? Did he now? Well, I´d make sure to discipline him soon enough for that. Maybe have him take a bubble bath will teach him not to interfere with our Ladyships possessions. Anyhow, he should be hiding in the treasury right now.<<

A groan escaped my lips. Of fucking course. Now I had to walk all the way back up to the highest point of my tower from the very bottom pits. >>Thanks Gnarl, I´ll get going.<<

Waxing his usual praises and whatnot, Gnarl cut the line, leaving me with my thoughts and problems. Just lovely.

"Is everything okay? You went silent on me," Skye cut in, in an unamused tone of voice. She bounced in my hand and huffed. "Green, green, green, black, oh, that's you. You're the only smidgen of color in this forest."

I looked at the skull bouncing about in my palm. "Ah, sorry. Just had a little mind-talk with someone helping me find Rancid. Looks like he´s hiding in the treasury. On top of my tower." A weary breath escaped me. "I know I should have elevators installed when I build this tower."

"Oh, you poor soul," Skye cackled. "Going up and down all those stairs … it's no wonder you're as thin as a twig!"

"Hush you." I replied, giving the skull a good spin before plodding back into the pseudo-jungle.

Quite some time later, we finally were back at the starting point in the residential parts of the tower.

"Well … this is familiar," Skye droned. "Is this … nah, it couldn't be."

"What? What is it?" I wheezed, leaning on the wall for support.

"This is near the kitchen. You need some meat on your bones," Skye said simply, ignoring my obvious plight of lack of breath.

"Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you Skye." I rasped back, plodding up the stairs to the treasury. The sight of my hard earned rich, the mountains of shinies somehow soothed my heart and filled my weary mind with calmness. Not even Onyx, once again snoring on a bed of silver ingots, with the shards of precious gems still covering her lips and cheeks seemed mildly amusing if nothing else.

Now to find Rancid.

"Oh Rancii~id," I cooed out through gritted teeth "come out, come out, where fucking ever you are so I can mangle you filth ridden ass for making me go down and back up all those stairs!"

"There's a greenhorn near the pretty dragon!" Skye called out before cooing at Onyx. "Pretty dragon is a messy dragon. It's a pretty messy pretty dragon."

O~kay, that was definitively weird. Almost as if Skye got herself a ticket or two. But the bit with the greenhorn was what really grabbed my attention.

"The greenhorn is behind the pretty dragon," Skye murmured, probably sensing my weird feeling about her current mood.

"Oh I wonder where my precious little Rancid could be hiding?" I said out aloud, wandering around the room. "Maybe he his... here?" I announced, looking behind a big pile of gems, obviously finding nothing. "Or maybe could he be... behind here?" Next, I peeked behind a large chest filled with rolls of precious fabrics, finding nothing again. From behind Onyx, I heard the movements of someone becoming twitchy. Good, the little fuck was starting to feel the heat. Slowly, like a cat toying with a battered mouse, I stalked closer to the slumbering dragoness. Stretching myself, I was able to make out the tips of Rancids ears, the Green all but pressing himself into Onyx side. Eugh, had to remember to tell Onyx to take a lava bath after that.

When we got close enough, the skull suddenly leapt from my hand and bit onto Rancid's arm, making growling noises and firmly lodging herself in it by her teeth. How in the blazes Skye managed to even propel herself like that would remain a mystery forever.

However, seeing Rancid explode into a flurry of movement as he hoped around, frantically swinging his arm around in an attempt to dislodge Skye gave birth to a howling laughter that burst forth from my very core. I nearly pissed myself, gasping for breath as Rancid even started batting at Skye with her own arm like it was some sort of fly-swatter.

"No... bad girl Skye..." I gasped between laughter "You don´t know where that has been, don´t put that into your mouth."

At some point in the flurry, Skye somehow switched positions and latched onto her own arm. "A biddle halp!?" She called out in a muffled tone.

Clutching my aching belly with one hand, I wiped my tears from my eyes with the other. "Sure, sure, just lemme..." Rancid dodged my initial grab but on my second try, I managed to get ahold of his mangy neck. The sudden halt on Rancid's assault caused Skye to get dislodged and go screaming away far into treasury.

"Umbra, you bi~tch!" I heard Skye's yowls from somewhere on the other side of the treasury.

"Whine, whine, whine." I snarked, taking Skyes arm back from the sheepishly smiling Rancid. Right before pulling my arm back and throwing the dumbfounded Green right out of one of the windows and towards a several dozen or so stories fall before the big splat.

After that, I sauntered over to where Skye had landed and yanked the skull out of a pile of valuables. Bits cascaded out of the hole where the spine connects to the skull and Skye was now sporting two brand new eyes in form of two glimmering emeralds.

"You look like a gaudy gear lever ornament." I snorted at the sight.

"Gears? They're somewhere in my cloak … which I can't seem to find. Oh, right, I'm trapped here. Yay! Whoop de doo! Oi. Umbra, you're a piece of work," Skye rambled.

Plucking the shinies out of Skye, I snorted. "Says the one in pieces who looks like death warmed over one hundred times to many. By the way, I´ve got your arm back."

Skye clacked her teeth a few times as the rest of the coins showered out of her. "You got my arm. That must mean I'm only half armless. Where to now? Your room?"

"Aren´t you a forward one? Nah, not my room but close to it. I don´t know about you but I do not want to roam around aimlessly looking for your missing pieces anymore." I told her, leaving the treasury and making for my planning room. It was chock-full with shelves containing maps, where ever they came from, books about proper tactics, weapons care, how to do a proper evil laugh and most importantly, the map table that magically showed my dark domain and the surrounding lands. With the correct commands issued, it could even show selected areas or places and that gave me an idea.

Placing Skye in the relative center of the map, I paused for a moment. "Alright, now how did this whole ouija board thing worked again?"

"Ouija!?" Skye asked excitedly and began hopping up and down in the middle of the map. "If this is a ouija board, we need more than one creature here. You use a planchette or something, you mutter something else, and then you're good to go!"

Scratching my head, I gave a little groan. "No, it is no ouija board per se. More of a magic map table that I mostly use to monitor my tower and the surrounding areas. I thought, you know, since literally everything is fucking magic here," I pointed at Skye, then myself and then at a random passing Minion who carried a lot of broomsticks, buckets and was humming a very catchy tune "We could kinda use the table with you as a focus or catalyst to pinpoint the rest of you on the map. Like you get infos out of a ouija board, with you as the planchette."

"But I am not triangular silly." Skye piped up quite happily "I have a lot of holes though."

"Yeaaaah... anyways, I figured, could not hurt to try eh?"

"Nope. Fire the ouija up!" Skye responded in delight.

"Alright, here goes."

I never really delved very far into all this ouija stuff. Somewhere in high school, a classmate of mine used to carry one of these boards around all the time. Girl said she was a witch or wicca or whatever and used the board to commune with 'the other side' almost everywhere she went. Our religion teach did not took that very well. Anyways, that girl also sometimes did some divining for others and I watched her a few times. She always described it as the fine process of the spirit finding the threats of the other planes and connecting them to her corporal vessel to attain the information through the movements of the planchette. Or something like this. After the first five minutes of her spouting that occult hoobaloo, I started singing the Spider Man theme in my head very loud while nodding politely at times. I now wished I had paid more attention because now I had to rely on my very own method of making this work, which was effectively the sledge hammer method. Apply brute force to make things work. If that fails, apply more brute force until it yields and works. Or crumbles to pieces.

Holding my hands out in what I hoped was my best and correct channeler posture, I poured mana into the map table to fuel whatever I was trying to make work here.

"Ehrm, okay... map table, heed the call of me, Umbra, mistress of this tower. Oh magic piece of furniture, coming from darkness knows where, grant my request and show me where to find the missing bones of the disembodied head sitting atop of you. Make use of these bodily remains to... ehrm... to show me the path wrought in the paths of the... other world?"

Okay, the chant was something completely off but at least I was not trying to take the Necronomicon from its stand or something like this.

For a while, I just stood there, watching the table, feeding mana into it.

"I don´t think it works." Skye chimed in from her place on the table.

"Hush you. Planchettes can´t talk. Now be good and start moving around so we can get this over with ya? I start to feel more embarrassed than usual." I grumbled back.

"Well this one can, and I'm saying that it isn't working," Skye shot back.

"Come on, work. Show me something or else I use you as firewood!" I threatened the table. Which was made of stone so the threat was kinda of invalid from the get go.

"I still don´t think it´s working~" Skye sing-songed. "Maybe if you... woah!"

Suddenly, I felt a strong tuck in the manas flow and moments later, Skye began to rattle in place. Before she or I could react in any way, she suddenly started scooting around the table. First she shot in the direction of Baltimare, making a sharp turn towards the Crystal Mountains, then skirted around the Everfree, spun around like a spin-top on an empty plot of land somewhere on the southern planes and finally, came to a full stop on Ponyville proper.

"Were all those the locations of my bones or just the magic going wacko?" Skye asked when she stopped spinning in place and hopped backwards a couple of times to look at the location she had ended up on. "Ponyville … oh! Purple smart is there!"

Fighting down a sigh, I stared at the map table. "Knowing my luck and the perverse pleasure Murphy takes in messing with me, I´d say both. Just to be sure, I will send scouting parties to the places we´ve seen. Except for Ponyville. That is a mission I will take myself." I stretched myself, making my spine pop audibly "I´ve been cooped up in here far too long and I don´t want Ponyville burning just yet. Which would happen if I where to send Minions there."

"And you expect me to do what? Be a chew toy for your pet dragon?" Skye snarked before hopping up and down on the map table. "Let me go with you, let me go with you~!"

"Calm your non existent tits Skye, I was not going to leave you behind." I told her, picking her up "Way to many possibilities for things to go south if I where to leave you alone here. Also would make me a poor host, leaving a guest to entertain herself while I am out. I´m gonna leave the bag o´ bones here though, don´t think that is a problem yes?"

"Hey, if you wanna collect em all again, sure." Skye said and somehow she conveyed a shrug with her tone "Because, how high is the possibility that your gremlins gonna snatch em again?"

"Zero percent, cause if they do, I put their souls into a toilet plunger." I replied, simultaneously broadcasting my threat into the mind network.

"If you say so. Now of to horsey town then yes?" Skye chirped, hopping around in my palm giddily.

With a sigh, I trotted of to my throne room and the teleporter stone. One flash later and I stepped out of the port stone in the Everfree. To my satisfaction, it seemed it still have remained undetected.

"Ok, let´s get this show on the road then." One application of my ponyform spell and I was Umbra Illousion again. Only difference this time was the skull sitting atop my noggin, nestled into my mane.

"Oooh~ It's an illuuuusion," Skye breathed before giggling to herself. "Think you can put some of that on me? I think a talking skull will be hard for the ponies to take. Wait. You're in disguise!?" The skull ended up gasping and accidentally bit my hair a bit too roughly.

With a soft hiss, I started trotting towards Ponyville. "Bingo, as it is right now, I am Umbra Illusion, globetrotter and aspiring haunted house owner. I thought I´d sell you as a fancy prob if someone should get to curious but you are right. Better safe than sorry. Haven't done that often though so no complaints if you end up plait you hear?"

With that, I willed my magic into existence again. Sure enough, I knew the most of the theory of applying an illusion spell to another being, thing or whatever but doing it was another thing. It was easy enough to hurl my magic at a target in form of a fireball or lightning but delicately wrapping it around something in order to hide its true nature was a whole different house number.

At least I could not accidentally kill Skye should things go pear-shaped.

I felt my magic creep over Skye, covering her much I covered myself when using this particular spell. Scrunching my face and subconsciously sticking out my tongue a bit, I tried to envision as what I was to disguise Skye.

"Here goes..."

The magic did its thing and a moment later, Skye looked like a grotesque lovechild between a bowler hat and a skull helmet. Yeah, no.

Another try and this time Skye took the form of a off white base cap.

"This feels funny." The cap giggled and much to my dismay, wavered and turned back into Skye. It felt like something about her was messing up my mojo.

New try. I intended for the cap again but somehow the magic did her own thing and this time, Skye turned into a wide brimmed straw hat. It even had some decorative flowers on it!

"No! Totally no!" I bristled and undid the magic. No way in all hell I would wear such a granny hat in broad daylight. At least not without being dead drunk!

"Awww, but I liked the flowers." Skye complained.

Not dignifying that with a response, I casted again. Skye blurred and warped, making me fear a loud and sudden ker-blammo but nothing like that happened. Instead, Skye suddenly flattened and shrunk until a brand spanking new skull shaped hair clip decorated my mane.

"Now, that went better than I thought it would," I stated happily "took only a couple of tries and it is not that straining at all."

"She says while sweating," Skye snickered, the new hairclip snapping open and closed quite quickly in an imitation of a moving mouth.

"Oh shut it, you!" I groused back, wiping my brow with my fetlock. While not nearly as draining as a completely new spell, keeping two disguises up at the same time was unsurprisingly twice as taxing on the caster. With a stagger in my step, I began my track to Ponyville and to find Skye´s missing parts.

Could not be that hard now, could it? I mean, some dog was probably slobbering all over them right this moment or the Crusaders were trying to figure out their cryptozoologist or paleontologist marks with them. Or maybe Murphy wanted it and dumped them into Purple Nurples fuzzy little pony lap and now she was spazzing out over them, zipping around in her basement lab like a little maniac.

In hindsight, that would be the most unfavorable situation and one that would probably end in minor B and E, maybe combined with mild to medium degrees of bodily and mental violence.

On the bright side, the Everfrees foliage made way for lush meadows and a good way ahead, I could already see Ponyville.

"Hey, this is boring!" Skye complained from her perch "All you do is walk, walk, walk. And you don´t even sing a hiking song while you are at it. Uuuh!" Her tone perked up at that and I heard her take a deep, very unnecessary, breath.

My ears folded back without my doing as I realized her intend.

"Yankee Doodle went to town, a~ridin´ a pony. Stuck a feather on his hat and called it macaroni!" Skye sung very, very enthusiastically. Her voice was easily blasting into my ears and despite me grinding my teeth at the sudden acoustic assault, I could not help myself but to admit that the little tune was a rather catchy one.

"Yankee Doodle, keep it up! Yankee Doodle Dandy! Mind the music and the steps and with the girls be handy!" And just the moment the song ended, Skye began anew, even picking up more pace, supplying me with my very own version of the song that never ends.

For just a moment, I considered burying her on the wayside and just go back home and call it a day. Eventually, and thankfully, the dreadful off-key singing gave way to very enthusiastic hums by the time we reached the outskirts of the forest and Ponyville itself.

"Hey, look! Ponies!" Skye interrupted her humming for an enthusiastic cheer that rang through my ears. "HELLO PONIES! I'M A TALKING HAIRCLIP!"

At least a handful of very large eyes landed on me while I froze for a moment. Only for a moment though because instead of swarming me with torches and pitchforks, the mini horses merely begun whispering to each other, most likely perplexed if anything.

"Ehehe, hi everypony." I waved a hoof with a shaky smile "Isn´t that cool? It´s a hairclip with a come-to-life spell on it. Pretty sweet right? Bet you never saw that before huh?"

A few brows where raised at that statement, a few more eyes rolled and a little filly present promptly began pestering the mare next to her if she could have one too, to which the mare replied with the typical maternal phrase of 'be good and we´ll see', lighting up her horn and dragging her apparent offspring away with her.

Muttering broke out amongst the remaining ponies but thankfully, they all returned to what they had been doing before, some giving me a last curious glance.

I let go of a mental breath I´ve been holding as the weight of imminent disaster fell from my shoulders. Zipping around a corner I did a quick five point room check to see if someone was still around. No one was. "Hey Skye, not to sound like a moodkiller or anything but do you think you can, I dunno, be a bit more stealthy like? I get that you are... ehrm, excited but right now, I need to fly under the radar."

"Um ... about that," Skye said nervously, sounding like she had a moment of clarity for the first time in what has felt like ages of non-stop delirium. "I can feel my jaw starting to seize up and grow stiff. Maybe it's because I haven't connected with my body for the last five hours? It's just really starting to worry me and that shout was really uncalled for. I'm sorry."

That in turn caused my ears to fold back. "Hey, don´t sweat it. At least you did not got a foodgasm in a fully occupied Sugarcube Corners. But what´s about that? You saying you get rigor mortis or something all of a sudden?" I told her while trotting around, keeping an eye and an ear open for any rumors about strange bones falling from thin air, wayward explosions or other heralds of the unusual that might lead us to what we were looking for.

"I got no idea sweet cheeks," Skye said simply. I heard a few ponies talk about the goings on of their days with their friends while passing them. Skye quietly hummed to herself, most likely feeling sorry for how she had had acted. "Your demoness … I think I heard some ponies speak about Twilight Sparkle as well as a fluttering cloak. They must be talking about my cloak."

"Well, that is as good a clue as anything. Good job catching that Skye." I told her as I changed course towards Golden Oaks.

Weaving through the streets, bypassing ponies all following their daily routines was a welcoming, calming sensation. Because, the closer we got to the book filled tree, the queasier I began to feel. So many things this could go tits up, so many things to get my ass in the deep fryer. That Skye seemingly got only got heavier with each passing step did not really help.

Reaching the front door, I did a last quick check before I slipped into the building. The entrance room where I encountered Twilight the first time was empty. The whole building had this eerie air to it, really.

"I'm a skeleton... and I feel cold," Skye commented through an ominous creaking sound. "My ja ... cloak. Quick."

Oh joy, fuck you Murphy!

"Hang in there skullgirl," I told her, giving my best to sound sure of what I was doing and optimistic "just a bit longer and we got this." Now, if I were in Twilight's horseshoes, where would I hide a weird, probably magic cloak thingie?

"Basement lab." Was the answer I more muttered to myself as I begun searching for the door down into the bowels of the library. The fact that this door in particular had a big sign on it, designating it as 'Private. Library visitors please stay out. Potentially hazardous spell, magical compounds and technical equipment inside.' made it a real walk in the park to be honest. A couple of voices rang out through the wood, sounding extremely similar, if not the same. It sounded like Twilight was talking with herself.

"… ou hooked me up, now what?" Twilight asked, her voice sounding faint and far away.

Creeping down the stair in best Sam Fisher manner, I strained my ears even more. What in the blazed was going on here? Did Twilight found the Mirror Pool instead of Pinkie here? Some time magic mumbo jumbo? Attack of the body snatchers?

"Now I should be able to scan your thaumatical field in order to compare it to my own and given what I find..." Twilight´s voice began, now more audible as I crept closer to the only source of light, another door at the end of the stairs which was open only a crack wide.

"...you will be able to undoubtedly prove if we are the same pony from different points in time, two versions of the same pony originating from different planes of reality or if one of us is a duplicate by magical or other means?" The... well, other Twilight´s voice finished, in exactly the same tone and everything. Kinda unnerving.

"Well, yes. That is the idea anyways. This is honestly rather fascinating, in a morbid kind of way."

Ha, preach to the choir sister. Peeking through the crack, I saw a circular, large wooden room filled with various machines and equipment. Both Twilights were at one of the machines, with one strapped up on some sort of Frankenstein table, legs splayed in all directions with most of the wires directed onto her head. A few others were dotted around her hooves and arms though.

"I guarantee you won't find that much thaumatical energy within me," the first Twilight spoke somewhat sadly and did her best to gesture to the broken horn atop her head by giving a small nod in an upwards direction.

"Well... ehehe, maybe not a active field you see, but a passive one that should be still strong with you." What seemed to be 'my' Twilight stammered nervously. Almost seemed like she had hit a sore spot or some kind of social no-no amongst Unicorns.

"Is it jus … e or are there more shad ...s than usual?" Skye whispered, doing her best to fight through whatever ailed her.

"More what? Shad... shad what? Shadows?" I whispered back, diverting my attention from the two Twilights discussing complex arcane shit, towards Skye who worried me more and more. "No, it ain´t gotten any shadowier here. Shit girl, are you losing your vision now?" I peeked back into the room where the machine broken horn Twilight was hooked up to, whirred to live, creating a veritable cacophony of flashing lights and all sorts of sciencey sounds.

All of that however took a step back when I spotted something under some sort of glass dome. Right there was a ragged, black mass of cloth. Something that could only, following the process of elimination and fuck you in general, be Skye´s cloak. Just a bit behind and on the left of the two Twilight re-enacting Mary Shelley this very moment.

Perfect!

"Hang in there Skye, I think I have found it. Hold on tight." I told Skye and slipped into the lab.

"Hold on to what?" Skye whispered back. "I don't exac... ave hands at the moment and I'll have you know th … seeing shado …"

"Proverbial shit hon." I hissed in reply, doing Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, Gerrit and whoever else liked to sneak around in dark corners proud (I think) as I kept to the conveniently badly illuminated edges of the room, using Twilights massive, clunkie thirties machinery as additional cover as I crept closer to my target.

"Stop moving! They're looking this way!" Skye hissed back quickly, managing to thump the side of my head with the hairclip I fashioned her into.

"Dirt!" I froze immediately. In a very uncomfortable position too, two legs in the air and in some sort of crouch-duck just behind some cardboard boxes someone conveniently stacked in such a way that they perfectly matched my silhouette this very moment. As these things tend to do.

"What is it? Is everything alright?" Broken horn Twilight, henceforth called Twilight B, asked from her table.

"I think I heard something scuttle around somewhere over there and saw something move." Twilight A, my assumed Twilight, answered and left the table. Soft light flared at her horns tip that she used like a flashlight to illuminate the corner I was hiding in.

"Hello? Is somepony there? I have you know this is my private laboratory and that I am justified to use any form of non-harmful force to eject you from the premises and this building, as stated in article sixty-six, paragraph eleven of the grand Equestrian bill of citizens rights and duties as you are trespassing in an area clearly labeled off limits to the public ." Twilight A stated, managing to sound shaky, dorky and authoritarian at the same time, which made it more cute than anything else.
Sweat began to form on my forehead and I felt a unmistakeable tremble creep into my limbs, telling me that I would not be able to hold this position any much longer.

"Hello? I must inform you that I know five different ways to stun a pony, a griffin, a diamond dog and at least one to slightly daze a adolescent dragon." Twilight A continued to shine her little light around "Also, I am a top grade graduate from Celestias School for gifted Unicorns and bearer of the Element of Magic, which means I know how to defend myself if further need should be."

A large sweat drop rolled down my snout and dripped on the ground. To me it sounded like the canon batteries at D-Day.

"Umbra," Skye whispered, her voice sounding like she was trying to hold something back "I thi... I think I´m gonna snee... sneeze."

Twilight A´s steps approached our hideout.

Skye was fighting a losing battle against the urge to play the horns of Jericho. How in the blazing depths of hell could one sneeze as a skull anyways?!?

The telltale sound of magic charging up filled the air.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck a duck, fuck all kinds of duck!

Something scurried around my hooves. Looking down on instinct, I spied a big, cuddly looking mouse looking for whatever it´s little rodent heart desired down here. Praying to the deity of cartoon logic, I snatched the little bugger and gave it a shove out in the open where it sat totally dumbfounded like ordered and not retrieved.

For a second, nothing happened.

"What´s going on? I can´t really see anything." Twilight B chimed in.

Right after that, Twilight A´s relieved sigh and giggle could be heard. "Just a mouse, really. Sorry to have worried you so much. I guess my nerves are a bit frayed because this whole... you know, two of me´s scenario."

"I think I can relate. This is all new for me too," Twilight B reminded Twilight A and I thought we were in the clear. When I started to move, Skye let off a sneeze that sounded like a rocket launching in my ears. "You sure it was just a mouse?" I heard Twilight B ask skeptically. I felt tingles of electricity run up and down all over my body only for it to cease. "Electricity's hard to control," Twilight B grumbled.

The relief that washed over me could not be measured in words as my heart rate began to normalize again as I heard the Twilights go back to their experiment or whatever they had been doing. I also made a mental sticky note to make a fitting sacrifice to the gods of cartoon logic for saving my bacon, once this was all done and over.

"Go, go, go," Skye whispered in my ear quickly. Both Twilights were deep in conversation about dragon magic mumbo jumbo so this was the perfect to sneak the rest of the way to the pile of rags underneath the glass dome.

"Geeze, I got it." I hissed back and went to sneak again. Kinda funny how one could sneak with hard hooves, even if said hooves were just hands and feet disguised by a spell.

I closed in on the glass dome as fast as I could after that. No need to prolong all this more than necessary. With baited breath I approached the pedestal. Jupp, right there was a mass of black cloth, presumably enough to cover a human body and on top of it lay... a spine?

Seriously, what the hell?

Not deciding to give any more of my already numbered fucks, I lifted the dome and tugged at the fabric, beckoning it out from under its confines. On my head, I felt Skye begin to rock back and forth like a impatient child.

"And what do you think you are doing?" Twilight A´s voice shattered the wall of silent, foolhardy success I had erected around myself and my hooves lost ground contact as I felt the slight telekinetic pressure and magic cloud enveloping me, lifting me in the air.

I was turned around in the air, coming face to face with a not at all amused Purple Smart. "Seriously, what is wrong with you? Did you really think that old mouse trick would work with me? Pinkie and Rainbow pulled those that often on me just before springing a surprise on me, even I did not care to keep track anymore. Furthermore, have you not read the sign? This here is private, no uninvited individuals allowed. I feel very tempted to call the guards on you this very moment."

"We´ve been busted! Skye, I choose you!" I yelled, ignoring the fuming Twilight in front of me, I tugged Skye out of my mane with my hoof, twisted my spine around and somehow managed to threw Skye into the pile of black cloth, in some vain hope to at least stabilize her or cause a distraction if anything. A faint hiccup sounded from Skye's direction.

"I'm still a hairclip, you know!" Skye shouted, her voice sounding echoey from the dome she was under.

"Did you say Skye?" Twilight B was more curious than anything. I saw her unhook herself from the machine and step onto all fours, which gave me a way better and closer look on her now. She was covered in purplish dragon scales instead of fur, had weird transparent wings, a broken horn, and … gold eyes? What was up with this pony?

"Ooops, my bad." I apologized in Skyes generals direction, undoing the spell disguising her. As a result, the cloth pile gained a new, larger bump but nothing else visibly happened.

Something grabbed me by my face and I found myself snout to snout with Twilight B or Dragolight or Twidragon or whatever. "I ask again, did you just said Skye?" She asked me, a glint appearing in her eyes that could be have been anything from genuine happiness to predatory-ness.

"Uhm, yesh..." I answered as good as my smooshed face allowed me. One angry Twiggle I could deal with, two angry Twiggles, with one being a weird dragon pony hybrid thing that was a whole other house number.

On the sidelines, Twilight A squited her eyes at me. "Hey, don´t I know you? Weren´t you that mare that asked me for all those books even remotely connected to alternate universes a while ago?"

"Yesh?"

"Nothing's happening, but at least my rigidness has stabilized!" Skye reported from under the dome. Well that's good news at least.

"The Grim Reaper is here. At least I can do something about getting home then," Twiggle B mused and let go of my face, ignoring Twiggle A in her pursuit of the skull under the dome.

Twilight A in the meantime moved me closer to her, giving me a very cross look. "You are in very big trouble, you know?"

"Would it help if I said I´m sorry?" I offered "And that I only tried to help someone in trouble? You know, cause that is what every good pony is supposed to do?"

"This Twilight doesn't like the fact you snuck in," Twilight B answered for her, pointing at the Twilight in front of me. She raised the dome and looked at the skull on top of the death rags. "Okay, Skye, you need the rest of your body, right?"

"No kidding," Skye snarked before hopping to the edge of the dome and pointed her gaze in the direction of that bone sack beside me. "We brought a sack full of my bones but we still need a couple more. Can you go find them for us?"

"Any particular place they can be?" Twilight B asked, looking between me and Skye before settling on me. She pointed a hoof in my direction and narrowed her golden eyes. "You. Black pony. Do you know where the other bones can be?"

Metting the golden gaze of Twilight B, I squirmed uncomfortably in the telekinetic hold that still had me unable to move more than a few hairs wide. "Well, I kinda do." I answered meekly, deciding to go with 'cowed and cooperative' for the moment and told Twilight B of my findings.

Looking to Skye for a moment, Twilight B squinted at me "How do you know all this?"

"Ehrm, I did some divination?" Was my sheepish reply.

"What? Divination? That´s not even an acknowledged form a magic! That is more hocus pocus and eyewashing than anything." Twilight A chimed in, visibly miffed. "You could as well throw a dart at a map or let a stick fall to the ground and go the direction the tip points at."

"Screw the divination, I need a map. And you, blackie, are going to tell me where those other locations are," Twilight B said forcefully. She trotted around the room and looked through drawers and above and under tables until coming back with a map of Equestria. "If you can let her go, Twilight, hopefully she can point the other bones."

Geeze, that pony sure was pushy. The kind of pushy that could possibly escalate into 'aggressive' persuasion. Deciding to keep playing my act, I trotted over to the map and pointed to the locations we had discovered earlier.

"These are the places my earlier divination spell showed me. I am pretty sure at least one of them is a hit." I said, throwing some hurt in my tone for good measure as I gave a side glance to Twilight A. Simultaneously, I gave a retreat order to all Minions that had been sent to undertake the recovery of Skyes missing bones. Last thing I needed was that my Minions would be seen together with the bones, even giving just the slightest chance to be traced back to me.

"Okay, this shouldn't be too-" Twilight B interrupted herself when the rest of us saw her teleport to the other side of the room in a burst of electricity. What is up with her!? "Hard," she continued, looking at the rest of us with glee. "I can do this!" She announced grandly, jumping up and down on the spot a few times. Twilight B giggled giddily and walked back to the map. It looked like she had memorized the locations because next minute, she had electrified herself out of the basement.

"Well that's new to me," Skye commented, no doubt scaring the nearby Twiggle that remained.

Teslaportation eh? That certainly was new to me to. With that thought, I looked over to the remaining other occupants of the room, mainly the last Twilight. Giving her my best and most sheepish smile, I folded my ears back "So, ehrm... again, sorry for trespassing but... Well, what the fluff in exactly going on here? I mean, I was just on the road when this talking skull," I pointed at Skye "fell out of nowhere and hit me square in the face. After I stopped screaming, we eventually talked and I agreed to help her find her missing bones. But what is up with that mare? She looks like you, but only if one of your parents have been a dragon."

"I was … trying to find that out until somepony rudely interrupted me," Twilight A said as she levelled a glare at me. If she was scared of Skye, she obviously was hiding it well under that gaze.

"At least my jaw isn't hinging up," Skye piped up, bouncing up and down a bit on that tattered rag. I peeked over Twilight's shoulder and saw Skye's head spinning around slowly. "All I need now is to not see shadow creatures."

"Geeze, I´ll trade ten of my problems for one of yours Skye." But honestly, I am relieved you feel a bit better. Not sure if you could actually croak but I am not really willing to find that one out the hard way." I semi-snarked at the skullgirl before turning back to Twilight A, extending my hoof. "Truce?" I offered with all the dignity of a defeated Cesar. The magipony looked sceptical but sighed and bumped my hoof with hers.

"Truce. A temporary one. You still snuck in here," Twilight A told me and promptly shut the machine off that Twilight B had been strapped to.

"Well. What now?" Skye thought out loud.

"I can work with that." I replied, giving a smirk and a nonchalant horse shrug before trotting over to were Skye was sitting in her cloth pile. "Guess we play the ol´ waiting game until that drago Twilight brings in all your bones she can find. Shoulda brought a deck of cards."

"I can't play, anyway," Skye huffed, sounding for all the world like a child with a temper tantrum. Before I could react, electricity swirled around the room. It soon began depositing a whole pile of bones around the room. I lost count after fifty but eventually, the pile came up to the height of Twilight A. Alas, the poor bone pile didn't last long and it got dismantled when Twilight B reappeared with a short shriek, slamming into the floor and sending bones every which way along with a couple Brown Minions.

"Oh bloody hell!" Really, could things go more south? How could I have underestimated how utterly braindead my Minions could be in crucial situations? Of course, these little shits would get caught and place my ass on the white-hot cooking plate! I only had a few moments tops before both Twilight's would break out of their shock and/or surprise so I acted on the first impulse that came to me.

I gave a short, sharp whistle that got me the Minions attention. Opening a portal to send them back was out of question, it would take to long and I would very likely not able to close it again before I got caught, so I took the only other route to get rid of these idiots. By gratuitously applied violence.

Concentrating energy in my frogs, for a lack of palms, I slammed two electrically charged hooves into the faces of two owlishly starring Browns. While I felt their faces cave in, I immediately started to regret this course of action as my right hoof begun to feel like it was about to melt clean of the bone. Obviously, for some bizarre shit ass reason, I could only channel magic safely through my left hand without giving myself second degree burns in the process so doing this double take-down was essentially a high damage but inflict injuries to yourself move.

Stumbling and unable to suppress a pained yowl, I turned to the last Minion. "Begone foul beast!" I yelled for good measure as I fireballed the Minion in the face, who obediently accepted his fate and turned into a skull and crossbones cloud alongside his Falcon Punched brethren.

As soon as the Minions were taken care of, the searing pain in my right hoof could not be ignored anymore. My leg buckled out under me and I began rolling on the ground, clutching my hurt leg under my other foreleg, swearing up a storm in the process with every swear and bad word in my quite extensive vocabulary of bad words. I then felt myself get picked up and the world turn into a negative version of itself through the red I was seeing from the pain.

"It is so good to have my body back!" Skye crowed after gently setting me down. A couple moments later, I then heard the lid of a couple jars be unscrewed and a soothing salve placed on my burns. "A little burn heal never hurt anyone and don't worry, the Twilights can't hear us. Twilight A is too shocked at Twilight B's entrance to notice anything else."

With a relieved sigh, I looked up to Skye, now a complete skeleton wrapped in a tattered black cloak, which I swore wavered slightly in an unworldly breeze. Somehow, I was a bit disappointed that there were no twinkling blue lights in her eye sockets, like stars plucked straight off the nights sky.

"Thanks, that helped," I wiggled my hooves for emphasis "also, I am glad you are finally in one piece again. Didn´t know you could do this nega time thingy... that is your doing, right?"

"It is, but all I did was pull you into the shadows," Skye laughed and I could swear I saw her grin. She gestured wildly and twirled a bit. "This is the shadow world where there are many layers you can go through, but I won't bore you with the details," she waved her hand flippantly only for me to finally notice some red cream smeared over her forehead.

"The shadow world eh? Are you sure there is no wolf and some bootylicious impette bossing him around somewhere?" I said with a real flesh smirk of my own and undid my disguise spell, stretching myself and enjoying the feeling of popping joints. "Great opportunity to regenerate some of my mana. Just warn me before we go back to the light side, my real form is still kind of a no-go with Twiggle Wiggle. You look like you headbutted a ketchup bottle by the way."

"Unfortunately, the impette and wolf are a no show," Skye sighed and sat cross legged, holding her skull in her hands. "What you see on my head is a special cream for the shadows. It's so I don't see them. If I see the shadows for a long period of time I begin withdrawal symptoms."

"Well, bummer." I grumbled a bit for show and sat down too. "Sounds like you really got the short end of the stick, shoved right up your ass after being beaten with it huh?"

"That's what it seems like. While we're waiting for the Twilights to reacquaint themselves, why don't you tell me a bit about you? From before you got here?" Skye wondered, placing a bony hand against the side of her hood.

Plopping down into a comfortable seat, I shrugged. "Well, fair enough. We have time to spend I take? There is not much to me honestly. I was the eldest of two children, had great parents who worked their butts of for us. I had my own flat with a roomie, worked as a storehouse clerk during the week and I was pretty much a nerd girl. Still am, mind."

"Sounds like a fun life," Skye chuckled sadly before sighing and hovered a few feet in the air. She crossed her legs and took her hood off. "How did you get here then? I mean, something must have happened."

"Oh it was, trust me." I sighed a bit "As to how I got here, same as everyone non-horse I meet so far. I went to a Con, dressed up like my favorite vid game protagonist and due to some freak incident, had to buy some replacement stuff for my costume. Lo and behold, I got tricked into some sort of fucked up Faustian deal with some sort of eldritch ass god thing and boom! One ticket to a place I only knew from a Saturday morning TV show and tons of fanfiction." I took of my helmet and ruffled my hair back into shape. "Now I am what I dressed up as, with all the powers and weaknesses and I guess I am pretty much on my way to world domination to my own conditions. How about you skullgirl?"

"All I did, I researched the horrors of the night. I looked at legends such as the Grim Reaper, the Boogeyman, the Babadook, even that creepypasta legend Slenderman. I went to a renaissance fair, actually, with a couple of my friends. We went to see a public 'execution', you know this staged executions and such? I was picked to be a volunteer. The ax swung down and ... I actually died," Skye chuckled darkly, rubbing the top of her skull. She took a look at the Twilights to check on their conversation and then looked back to me with a tilted head.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" I exclaimed, subconsciously reaching for my own neck "I´m really sorry to hear that Skye. That´s definitively not a good way to go, ehrm, you know what I mean. Dying in general is a sucky experience, still got some kinda PTSD from the last few times I bit it." I blabbered, before deciding to lighten the mood a bit "So you where one of those cryptozoologists and now you are a walking, talking skeleton. Talking about a twist eh?"

"What a twist," Skye laughed. "I came to term with it centuries ago so it's all good."

"Centuries eh? Wow, that means you're doing this shit way longer than I do. I arrived in horseyland roughly a year ago. Guess that makes you my elder huh?" I stretched myself, enjoying the sensation before turning to Skye again "Important thing is, you came to terms with everything. Wish I was that far. I guess I am still somewhere in the denial or delusion phase. Anyhow, there is another thing that I just remembered. A while back I had a girl over who did not arrive via eldritch jackass too and shit escalated from there to the point where a dragon demigoddess showed because the girl was disrupting the flow of reality, in order to eradicate her to save the planet and shit. Point is, since I do not recall summoning you via any means, is there a way for you to go back to your own home dimension? I mean, don´t get me wrong, having you over is nice and all but I don´t think Onyx can sway her mother a second time to spare my ass when she finds out I am hosting someone potentially reality destroying again."

"Since when is the Grim Reaper a reality destroying figure?" Skye asked in a hurt tone but stretched anyway and began pacing. "Mmm. You have a point. I'll have to go back with my Twilight too. Only thing I can figure out is if the princesses in my world summon me and I doubt that would happen. And my Displacer has this idea that Twilight and I needed a break from what's been happening back home. So, all I can think of is that it's up to him and I have no choice in the matter," the female Skeletor shrugged before sighing at the two Twilights. "Those two will talk for days, so until my Displacer decides enough of a break has been enough, I'm stuck here."

"Don´t ask me. The Multiverse is a strange place that likes to fuck you over twelve ways to next Caturday." I shrugged "Hehe, ya, I guess those two could talk forever if we let them. Ah!" I reached into my belt pouch and fished a piece of my dimension door chalk out before tossing it to Skye. "Here. That's some of my patented dimension travel chalk. With that, you can easily travel to another dimension that holds another piece of that chalk. Just draw a door, write the name of your travel buddy in it and voila. Interdimensional travel without the need of pesky tokens. If you feel like visiting again. Comes with limited charges though, I´m not some kind of imba spellmaster yet."

"This is handier than a token," Skye replied happily, catching the chalk piece. "It looks ordinary but I can definitely feel something going on with it. I doubt I can use this to get back home though," she sighed and placed it within her robe, only to draw out a scythe that was taller than her, along with a whetstone. She crossed her legs and appeared to float in the air as she got to work, sharpening the blade with the stone.

"Major juju, I tell you. Did cost me and my assistant most of our hair and fur in the process but we got it stabilized. And you are right, no going home with it, sorry." Jeeze, that scythe was giving me the creeps. Very, very similar creeps to the Eviscerators zweihander and that freaking thing ended me more times than I cared to remember!

"Eh. I'm used to waiting around. You mentioned an Onyx and a mother?" Skye asked casually, clearly not noticing my reaction to her weapon. "What are they?"

"You met Onyx allready, though you might not remember. You where kinda off the whack that time. She is the black dragoness that rooms in my treasury." I explained with a side glance at the Twilights who seemed to be deep into some sort of magi-nerd talk or something. Made me dread that I yet had to make a getaway once Skye had gone home. " Onyx mom is Demotha and for all purposes, she is at least a dragon demi-goddess. Taller than my tower, makes Godzilla look like a kindergartner in comparison. From what I learned so far, she is one of this worlds last resorts to restore the delicate balance of all things existing or some quack. Quite protective of her daughter too. I met her once at that is enough for me to last the next few centuries."

"Oh, is that all?" Skye asked sarcastically. She spotted a note float down in front of her face. She snatched it out of the air and read it out loud. "'Skeletor, you should really take more of a break but I suppose this can't be helped. Get out of the shadows and go to your Twilight.' Okay ... seems like my Displacer is ready to send me home."

"I kinda like their humor." I chuckled and got up "Just gimme a moment to get my spell back on," Once again I became a cute cartoon pony "Ok, ready when you are." Skye nodded and after a few moments of correcting herself, I saw the room have colour bleed through it until it was back to normal.

"Hey, Twilight B!" Skye called out to her Twilight. She looked over and tilted her head. "Apparently we're leav-" Skye didn't get a chance to finish her sentence because as soon as Twiggle B acknowledged her, they vanished in a swirl of black tendrils, leaving me with Twiggle A. Alone. This can only end well.

Author's Notes:

This was a crossover with the lovely Schroedingers_Katze and her story Overlady - Loot Equestria.