《Marrow Marionette》Debut 2

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There was a fire raging, lighting up the night. It had been burning for several hours now. The fire danced among a forest of apartments, houses and stores. Sound of screams, yelling, and flames raging, emphasized the lack of sirens. A black pillar of smoke rose up from the smoldering remains of a warehouse near the center of the blaze. On all sides fires rose up, spread and died down. On the charred ground, surrounded by warped and partially melted metal, lay a charred corpse. The body had been ravaged by the flames, striping it of the heat protective clothing it once wore, leaving it as little more then a skeleton surrounded by a crispy crust. It was not alone however. Standing above it, was another skeleton, a skeleton who's body language showed genuine confusion as it looked down at it's blackened brethren.

Wishbone had gotten off the large red human transportation device as soon as it had stopped in front of this building and humans started pouring out of it. Wishbone had run off into a nearby alley stay and watch as the humans used large hoses, connected to a small red tower by the side of the road to deliver a liquid on to the building, suppressing the fire. The humans wearing the thickest gear then ran into the building, as the remainder continued to suppress the flames. A few minutes latter the humans came back out carrying large boxes, lifted two humans per box. This repeated itself a few times, until a final time when several of the humans didn't come back out of the building. The remaining humans then packed everything away in their transportation device and drove away.

Wishbone had then waited in the alley watching the blazing fire for several hours. At one point one of the two buildings it was between, caught fire, so he was forced to relocate to the middle of the street. It had to dodge out of the way of a few other large red transportation devices, but for the most part it simply watched its surroundings burn and crumble. An indeterminate time later the fire had finally finished with all the surrounding buildings, the warehouse had burned for the longest of the surrounding buildings, but maybe that was just down to its massive size.

Wishbone had entered the building when it had seen the last of the orange glow dissipate. It was not really sure what the flickering substance was, but the way it seemed to eat through the large surrounding structures had convinced Wishbone to wait before exploring. And explore it would, because when the red transport had brought it here, it had noticed something odd. It was a connection similar to the one it had to it's master, though much weaker. It was the same kind of connection it had felt, back when it was in the box where it's master had connected to it for the second time. It hadn't been able to investigate those connections at the time seeing as it was stuck in the container, so this time it would find the source. Perhaps it could be something helpful to the master? Wishbone had trekked through the unstable shell of the building until it had stumbled on the source of the connection.

It looked down at the charred resemblance of itself. The burnt skeleton seemed to be curled up in a ball. 'Perhaps for easy storage?' Wishbone bent down and poked the skull, finding that the brittle material crumbled away at his touch, forming a hole into the dark center. 'Structural damage caused by the flickering substance? Or perhaps simply inferior design?' Rubbing the char between its digits, Wishbone found that the material seemed to cling to and discolor its gloves. Perhaps that could serve some use? Wishbone was ready to leave the building, it's curiosity sated. However the sound of a heavy impact caused the surrounding walls to shake slightly, followed by some loud human sounds. Determining it would be preferable to not be spotted by humans, Wishbone chose to hide.

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"Dammit man! Careful with the knocking shit over. You don't want to bring the whole damn thing down on top of us do ya?"

"Oh don't be such a pussy Grent. Me hittin on wall's not gonna do nuttin."

"Well RazorMind put me in charge, and I say no more knocking down walls!"

"Ugh, this is why no one likes you. Such a stick in the mud. Why not live a little? What the point of being a minion if we're just gonna be followin a bunch a rules anyway."

"Cus, minions who don't follow the rules get hit with lethal supers power, instead of just getting punched. And what's the rules have to do with you bringing the building down on us? Just cus your retard strength of a power means you'll probably live, doesn't mean I won't get crushed."

"Sigh~ FINE! I won't punch anymore walls."

At this point the two voices entered the room were Wishbone was hiding. It was fairly confident in it's disguise, so it simply observed the two intruders. One was familiar looking fellow. It was wearing a similar uniform to the human it's master had first used Wishbone to attack. Just behind that human was a massive human, easily twice the mass of the familiar human. The familiar human was wearing a full face mask, while the massive human only had some form of thin black garment that covered the top of it's head.

"Oh hey Grent, look, too dead ones here!" The massive human pointed at wishbone and it's bony companion.

"Well that gruesome. Looks like they died together." The familiar human approached Wishbone, who was curled up next to the other skeleton with it's hood down and covered in ash.

"Do they have any cash on em?" The Massive human crouched down in front of the charcoal skeleton and gave it a poke, his massive finger causing half the skull to collapse in on itself.

"What!? Dude were not stealing from the dead!"

"Oh? Is that also part of the 'minion code' or whatever? Not to loot a dead body?" The massive human reached down toward wishbone and started patting down it's coat.

"Hey Grent, this body is weird." The human continued it's pat down.

"How so?"

"Well that one's so fucked it fell apart when I touched it, and this ones right next to it's not even charred?" The Massive human started trying to take wishbones jacket off.

"That is weird. Maybe someone was tryin to get rid of a body, and just dumped it here?... Why are you taking its coat off?"

"It's a nice coat."

"Come on man. Leave the coat. It'll probably smell like death once were out of the smoke anyway."

"Aww but it looks all edgy and shit. The boss would love it."

"Dude there no way it'll even fit your fat ass."

"WTF! Man it's cus of my power! And I'm not fat, just big-boned."

"Haha sorry man, lets go see if any of the CF34 survived"

After the two had left, Wishbone waited in place for a wile. It had almost attacked that human when it had tried to remove the disguise it's master had bestowed upon it. However Wishbone had held back because of it's most recent order.

'Wishbone, I order you, never to hurt anyone ever again.'

It was a direct order from the master and Wishbone had almost broken it over one of the less important, assumed rules. It would have to be more careful in the future.

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Standing up off the ash covered floor, Wishbone retraced it's steps out of the structure, and back onto the street outside. The sun was just starting to peak over the distant mountain, shedding new light on the desecrated remains of this corner of the city. For about a kilometer around all the building that had crowded around were now either complete flattened or, like the warehouse it had just exited, were brittle husks. Entirely un-perturbed Wishbone Sauntered off toward the distant line of still intact buildings.

As it approached, Wishbone noticed a crowd of humans blocking one of the larger streets leading out of the burnt section of the city. The whole line of houses just outside the burn area, actually seemed to be blocked by a transparent, faintly shimmering wall. It actually seemed the crowd of humans were standing in front of a contested gate of some kind. On the other side of the wall, a smaller in number, but much better organized group of humans stood in a straight line facing the unorganized crowd inside the barrier. Approaching closer, several humans noticed wishbone, but only gave it a passing glance before returning to chanting at the humans beyond the barrier.

Wishbone joined into the crowd, it was a good thing it's master gave it such a good disguise. As soon as Wishbone was mentally complementing it's master a human in white clothing with red a cross on their chest, approached it. After making very quick and complicated human sounds, they then started patting Wishbone all over. Unable to harm the human, Wishbone tried pushing the human lightly away, however the persistent device continued to cling to Wishbone as it navigated the crowd. At least the human wasn't actually holding Wishbone back much, as it could simply pull the human along as it approached the barriers gate. The crowd started to part in front of wishbone as it made its way to the front, probably because of the white humans loud noise making. Once at the very front, Wishbone stopped in front of the odd transparent wall. up close it was more visible that the wall had a slight blue tinge to it, it was quite unlike anything it had ever seen before. Which wasn't really hard, so it was likely something rather ordinary to a device older than a few days. So Wishbone reached out a hand to touch the wall. The white human yelled something wile backing away, but wishbone continued it's action anyway.

-ZZZZAP!

As Wishbones gloved hand made contact with the barrier, an arch of electricity rocketed through Wishbones body dissipating into the ground, burning a small hole in the rubber sole of wishbones left shoe. Wishbone pulled back its arm and assessed the damage. Mostly surface level. Nothing that would take more then an hour to repair. The barrier also seemed immaterial, as wishbones hand had passed through it without hitting anything solid. Not a very effective wall it decided. Wishbone then noticed the surrounding silence. Looking around, the odd jelly filled eye sockets that humans had were all pointed towards it. This was likely because it had touched the barrier when it wasn't supposed to. So, to better blend in, Wishbone decided it shouldn't try to cross the barrier until everyone leaves.

Wishbone, mingled into the crowd, or at least attempted to. However it seemed whenever it moved to a new area in the crowd, it found that the humans would give it a wide berth. This would be a problem. Perhaps it would be best to try crossing the barrier from another less crowded area. Wishbone left the crowd and head over to an unoccupied section of wall. The crown seemed to have a different idea however as they followed Wishbone to it's new position, leaving it with the same problem as before. Even the humans on the other side of the wall followed as they noticed the crowd on this side migrating. Unsure of why it's plot was foiled, Wishbone simply stepped into the barrier.

-ZZZZAP!

This time the shock was actually more manageable as it was distributed throughout all it's bones. Sure, more damage in total was done. But no individual part was as badly damaged. The trip was quite short as the barrier was millimeters thin. Now on the other side Wishbone was staring down a veritable army of humans in heavily padded clothing, wearing helmets with transparent visors and all of them seemed to be equipped with a black club and a shield. Not wanting to fight such a group with it's 'no hurt' handicap, Wishbone starting walking toward the edge of the human line. 'Perhaps they would be as docile as the other crowd of humans?' The armored humans seemed to expect this however, and their line bent into a 'U' trapping wishbone against the barrier. The humans closest to the barrier, doing their best to block Wishbones path, while also keeping a distance from the Barrier. 'Perhaps the field does pose more of a threat specifically for humans?' Wishbone mused as it strode toward the human closest to the barrier.

The human braced it's shield against the ground and brought back it's club, ready to strike. Then as Wishbone was in a little more then an arms length away it brought the club down in a mighty swing, releasing a loud yell. Easily catching the club, Wishbone pulled forward the club and off balance human along with it. The human stumbled and fell forward, before being caught by Wishbone. That was close, there's the possibility the human could get hurt from such a fall. Picking up the human wishbone then ran though the opening the human had left in the armored formation. Ducking under a horizontal club swing, it then broke out in a dead sprint as it sped down the road. It could hear shouting from behind it, and the human it still held was struggling with some success. It would likely escape its grasp falling to the ground and hurting itself if things continued as they were. So wishbone stopped and plopped the human down on the ground, careful not to drop it too hard, then broke back into a sprint.

Wishbone darted for the nearby alley. All the while, frantic footsteps from the pursuing armored humans slowly got farther away. Reaching the mouth of the alley, Wishbone dived over a fallen trashcan, into a hand spring and back into a sprint. A few seconds later it heard the sound of the pursuers tripping over the can. The alley split halfway through, one end leading to the opposite street and the other seemed to dead end at a set of steel doors. Wishbone chose the open end and continued his escape, at least until a large human in the same padded armor blocked the exit. Stopping briefly, Wishbone deliberated between the possible dead end and the Massive human. However the decision was made pretty easily when the human pulled out a familiar long metal tube and pointed it at Wishbone. Nope. Wishbone one-eightied and practically leapt into the dead end alley. Sure the device was unlikely to do drastic damage, but the impact alone would give its pursuers plenty of opportunity to incapacitate Wishbone while it was unbalanced.

Approaching the steel double doors at the end of the alley it proceeded to use the door handles as a spring board to grab a prominent window ledge, half a story up. Wishbone reasoned there was the possibility that the door itself was operable, however that would simply delay the physical encounter. However if Wishbone could reach where the humans couldn't, and with those heavy looking armors, it was unlikely they could climb, it then had a chance at escape.

Wishbone scrambled up the ledge and continued to climb up using the various outcroppings. It reached the top of the building and clambered over the lip onto the flat roof. Just as a wave of shrapnel struck the wall where it was just hanging. Wishbone ran back towards the entrance of the alley it had originally come from. Looking down, it could see the crowd it had left behind the barrier slowly moving through a hole in the barrier that seemed to have been made using a section of chain link fence bent to form an arch. Drawing off the armored humans seemed to have given the docile humans the opportunity to implement an escape plan. This would be perfect for Wishbone, it could blend in with the crowd and follow them to somewhere without armored hostile humans.

Wishbone backed away from the ledge, then leapt over the edge swan diving into perfect roll. The force from the fall mostly dispersed, with only a small fracture on the right shoulder blade for it's trouble. Wishbone followed a group of escaping humans as they unknowingly led it away from the current danger.

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      To Be Continued...
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