《Marrow Marionette》Home Boned
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Elm looked down at the bag in his hands. He'd picked it up after leaving the Ms Fantads, and grabbed a bus home. He'd received a few odd looks when his package started smelling halfway back in the sweltering people box. Luckily no one complained before he made it to his stop. And so, he stood below a streetlight, in front of his dark, lonely home, with a literal bag of bones in his hands. Though today when he looked at the dead house, he held more hope for the future then he did in the past few months combined. With some trepidation and excitement, Elm walked up to his door, unlocked it, and entered.
Immediately something was different. He could sense a connection. One besides the obvious connection to the bag in his hands. Elm followed the connection out onto the back deck, where a plastic box covered in a garbage bag sat. Now remembering what he'd left in here on the morning before the bank heist, Elm bent down to look at the cat bones sitting a Dark pink slurry. The reaction had long ago finished, leaving a clean, if slightly acid damaged, set of cat bones. A little curious, Elm walked over to the cheep deck chair on the other side of the deck, put down his bag of bones, and sat. He leaned back as he focused on the connection coming from the cat bones, and then pushed.
A quick flash showing the deck, and Elm perspective was shifted to that of half submerged, seeing nothing but pink, and half seeing a garbage bag. Elm made to sit up, but found this new body was much harder to move then the skeletal one, the feet bends were at all the wrong joints and the general shape didn't allow for human like movement. Instead, his cat skeleton body flailed around in the organ and inert acid slurry before he decided to just give up. He switched back to his actual body. So controlling animal skeletons was possible, but it would take some practice. Elm looked over to his bag of bones, before he tried those, he'd need to lay them out properly so it wouldn't take hours to put himself back together. Elm went inside, he'd deal with the cat slurry latter.
Inside he headed to the kitchen table, he cleared off the used plate and bowl, then emptied the bag onto the table. He roughly spread out the bones, then grabbed the skull and placed it at the head of the table. He then grabbed the jaw bone attempted to place it loosely where it would go on the skull, however, as soon as the jaw bone touched the skull a blue light lit up in the eye sockets and Elm felt a weak pull on the bone in his hand. Elm, mostly out of shock, allowed the pull to drag the bone into it's correct placement. The bone then got stuck as if glued. Elm could also make out in the dark room, a faint blue glow coming from the points where the jawbone met skull bone. In awe, elm placed the skull back on the table, where, to his astonishment it proceeded to hop using its new jaw towards the pile of vertebrae.
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For a wile, Elm just watched as the skull hopped over to the pile of bones and proceed to hop from one to the next. When a bone touched the forming skeleton, it would roll around the exterior of the already attached bones until it reached it's intended spot whereupon it would sit in position and a blue glow would connect the new bone and already attached bone. Elm watched as the skeleton did by itself in minutes, what took Elm hours. After it was done, in an impressive 5 minutes, it just lay there, on the table. Elm looked at his new skeleton for the first time in its entirety. It was honestly much more gruesome then he thought it would be, with strips of flesh draped off of it and that unnatural blue glow shining in the dark room. He did notice however that the cut that originally split it diagonally across the chest appeared to be gone. He stared into the eyes of his skeleton, and now that he thought of it, the way it vacantly stared forward reminded him of a cleaning bot when they had no tasks.
Elm paused... That couldn't be it. His power was possessing a single skeleton, wasn't it? With some trepidation Elm felt for his connection to the Skeleton. Then instead of push on it, he gave a mental command, 'stand'. The skeleton stood up. Elm stared. 'umm get off the table' The skeleton took a step over to the end of the table leaned down and grabbed the edge, then turned around as it eased itself down to the floor. The skeleton stood next to the table facing away from Elm.
"Turn around and face me" Elm tried a verbal command. The skeleton didn't seem to respond. 'Turn and face me' at the mental command however it responded by turning, Elm could see just past the eye sockets a deep blue flame burning in the middle of the skull. He still hadn't turned on any lights since he got home and the way the skeleton stood there impassively started to get to him. At least until Elm heard a scratching at his patio door.
"Blagh!" Elm let out an odd scream as his heart lept at the unexpected sound. He turned around quickly only to see a skeletal cat clawing at his patio door. "HHH?" Elm watched as the undead cat sat there pawing at the door with little bony digits. It even opened its mouth as though to meow, though no sound came out. With an uncomfortable tingling shooting up his spine, Elm crept over to the patio door and, against his better instincts, opened it. The skeletal cat stared for a second at the open door, then entered the house. In shock elm watched as the cat walked over to the human skeleton and sat next to it.
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That's when Elm noticed the puddle of pink sludge pooling under the cat, and as he traced his eyes along the path it walked over from the patio door he saw dark pinkish puddles wherever it stepped.
"Oh shoot!"
...
A couple hours later elm sat in his well lit living room, relaxing on the couch he almost never used. Next to him sat a freshly cleaned human skeleton, and in the kitchen, a cat skeleton sat in the sink playing in the water poring from the tap. Elm sighed. The human skeleton seemed to act like an android, it moved around as told, and attempted to the best of its abilities, to complete any complicated tasks given. He'd had it clean itself of all the fleshy bits, while he'd spent an hour scrubbing the cat skeleton. The cat also seemed to follow commands, and try to complete tasks, but it was much worse at them, and it also seemed to get board. After the fifth time Elm had commanded the cat to stay still while he cleaned it, he'd figured out that after about 5 minutes the commands seemed to stop working on the cat, and it would start wandering. It also seemed to be endlessly fascinated with knocking things over, so Elm had no choice but to find a way to distract it, hence why it was playing in the sink. It had been there for almost 20 minutes now without getting bored, so Elm would call that a success.
He looked over at the skeleton sitting next to him. It didn't really freak him out as much now that it didn't have strings of pink muscle draped all over it. The pure white bones along with the bright room made it a lot less threatening. 'I should give it a name' Elm thought. If he was going to be a Super hero, he would need a hero name as well. If the skeleton was going to be his hero alter ego, he might as well make the two names the same. It'll help avoid confusion. He'd need a name that related to skeletons while not seeming scary. He'd probably have enough trouble as it was not getting mistaken as a villain, so a wholesome name was best.
He'd also need some kind of costume for the skeleton. 'Boneman? Naw too generic. 'Calcium man? Ugh, that ones awful.' Elm wanted a hero name that could inspire people, make them hopeful...
"Ah, That could work" Elm stood up and walked in front of he's skeleton. 'Alright, stand up' The skeleton stood up, it was a full head taller than Elm. 'I want to be a super hero, are you going to help me?' The skeleton stood there unloving. 'Alright I'll take that as a yes.' The skeleton continued to stare straight ahead slightly past elm. Elm had another 3 days before he had to be back to school, in that time, there would be a new hero in Cytokine City.
'Alright from now on your name will be-' The skeleton finally reacted, looking directly at Elm
'-Wishbone.'
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Ardent Tears
[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge.] Youth is something to be treasured, for it is the foundation upon which all experiences are built. It is also a time when some may Awaken as Ardents or Stoics; individuals who can draw great power from the Resonance of emotions. Rowan’efrii is one such youth, but at what cost? This is the story of her journey; of love and loss, friendship and isolation, fortune and tragedy. What can a girl do when she is faced with all the wonders and horrors that the world has to offer? Live! In the Kingdom of Særis, a group of renegade lords are seeking to enslave young adolescents to forge them into Ardents and Stoics. Those that fall will be used in a war against the Azure King. Will they break Rowan, or will they turn her into the very thing that will destroy them. Ardent Tears focuses heavily on all kinds of relationships including: romantic, familial, platonic and sexual. The MC is a clear example of this, especially as she is poly. Because of this, I gave the story my own Poly Tag. This won't be anything like a Harem story and it is being written by someone who is polyamorous (me). There is also going to be several LGBT themes throughout which can't be represented through Tags. Ardent Tears is now on Top Web Fiction. If you like the story, I'd appreciate it if you give me a boost by following this link and pressing boost. Massive thanks to KrazeKode for the amazing cover art. And special thanks to MelasD and Selkie for the shout-outs.
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8 843Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One
Universe Tales. The new VRMMORPG that supported the Full Dive system with the game's settings boasting a 99% likeness to reality. Enter Maria Heltania, a smart and bright high school girl who's unfortunately directionally and technologically challenged. Being forced by her best friend to play the new VRMMO Universe Tales, she decides to be an Angel. Only to be met with misfortune right from the start because of her unique habits, what more lucky or unlucky events could possibly fall upon this young girl?
8 141Hero Leveling (Old)
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8 113One night.
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8 163