Light streamed in through the blinds, igniting glowing moats of dust as they revealed the room. The beams of light slowly crept up a the floor revealing a messy bed and it's gangly occupant, still on top of the sheets, and dressed in the clothes of the day before. A pale, thin boy, only a few short months from being considered a man. The light crept up until it finally revealed the troubled look and tired bags under his eyes.
Elm opened his eyes as the light broke him from his fitful sleep. He turned away from the painful brightness, rolling over to his right side. Blinking away the sleep, he was met with the sight of his bookshelf where he kept his taxidermied collection. He looked into the glass eyes of the cat he had taxidermied a few days ago. Back before all of his had happened. Back when all he had to look forward to after high school were crap jobs and a soul sucking grind. He would never have been able to afford university with the paltry sum his dad was able to make. Society was unfair like that. But now, if he revealed he was gifted, he could be sponsored into university by the state. He could learn all he needed to get a valuable position in one of the super corporations, and then he could be the one sending money to his dad. Unfortunately he would almost certainly be drafted into the military if he chose this option, and Elm would rather avoid that.
However that didn't mean he didn't have more options now. Heros had other options separate from government money. They were often privately funded by super corporations to protect their interests. Not the most Heroic pursuit but even the lowliest vigilante needed funds to keep up with the super powered arms race. And so, if Elm could position himself as an up and comer hero he could attract a sponsor, get into university as a normal student and avoid the Gifted draft. He'd have to come up with a reason for having the money without revealing he was gifted, but that was small potatoes compared to actually getting the money.
Feeling a little better after thinking about a positive future, Elm slowly rose from the bed. Today was his last day before he went back to school and he might not get many chances to improve his superhero persona wile juggling it with his school life. He knew he had to give it his all from now until graduation because, the higher his final test scores, the cheaper the university entrance cost's would be, and the less money he'd have to explain away.
As this was his last day before school, he briefly thought about spending it as Wishbone, and trying to establish himself as a hero. He then remembered that mans face. The blood oozing from his eyes.
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After calming down from the brief panic attack, Elm decided to leave Wishbone in that alley for a few days. He might check on him in a day or so, just to make sure no one'd buried him or something, but he just couldn't deal with that right now. He got up from the bed and walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Quickly washing a pan, Elm stared making himself some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. As he was mid scramble however, he happened to look out the window, his eyes were drawn to movement coming from his neighbors yard. He returned to dealing with his eggs when he saw it was only the neighbors kid playing with his skeletal cat.
"OH NO!" Elm did a double take.
The 6-year-old boy was currently petting the skeleton of his dead cat, and the cat seemed to be arching its back like it enjoyed it. Panicked, Elm ran towards his porch and started frantically putting on his shoes. Only to realize half-way though, that if he went out and grabbed the cat, it would be so much worse, because then the living skeletal animal would be connected to him. Instead, he ran to the back deck, still with one shoe on. He stumbled over to the edge of the deck, leaning heavily against the railing to get a better look. The cat was currently being picked up by the boy, so Elm sent it a desperate command, "Escape and come inside the house".
The cat wriggled a little in the boys grasp in a pitiful attempt to escape. This didn't even last long however, as the wriggling devolved into the cat simply snuggling into the boy.
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"Damn cat!"
Elm cursed himself ever animating the stupid creature. Well, there was only one way out of this now. Elm sat down in the lawn chair and connected to the cat.
The rush, was complete ignored as Elm assessed his options in the cat body. He was currently held tight in the boys arms, one hand was even halfway up the rib cage like some kind of gruesome puppet. This would be difficult to get out of. But it wasn't even the worst part.
"Stuffy's back! HAY DAD, STUFFY'S BACK!"
The kid started yelling and running toward the house. Time was of the essence. The boy would have to suffer a little so that elm could keep his secrete. Elm raised a skeletal paw, and brought it down in a powerful raking motion directly onto the boys face. However, Elm didn't account for the fact, skeletal cat's didn't actually have claws. So the potently devastating strike, became more of a bap. It did have the desired effect though.
"Stuffy? Do you want down?"
The boy looked questioningly at the bone cat in his arms. Elm, shocked that his blunder succeeded, nodded absentmindedly. Luckily the kid didn't seem to care that animals normally didn't respond to questions with nods.
"KAAAAAAY!"
Elm was then unceremoniously dropped to the grassy ground.
"OK, Stuffy stay here. I'ma go get some treats."
Elm watched as the boy disappeared into the house. That was plenty enough of that for today, he decided, and ran over to the fence that separated this property from Elms. He found the loose board he had used to sneak into this yard and steal their dead cat, and pried it open with the surprisingly nimble, cat bone fingers. He then scrambled through the gap, and into the relative safety of his own yard.
It was then a simple matter of climbing up to his deck and sitting on his own lap. He prepared himself however, before reconnecting to his body. He lunged forward as soon as his consciousness touched his body, and bear hugged the escaping "Stuffy".
"Oh no you don't! I've got plans for you."
Elm then brought the uncooperative bone cat inside and up to his room. He grabbed a dirty shirt from his laundry pile, and started wrapping the cat in it until it looked like a lumpy squirming burrito. He then took the "Stuffy" burrito and thew it in his pants drawer before closing it.
With that dealt with, Elm calmed down. At least until he smelt the smoke.
***
One aired out kitchen and recooked meal later, Elm sat in his less smokey living room, and ate his eggs and toast. As he ate, he thought on how he would spend the rest of his day. He still needed to complete his suit, and since Wishbone would be out of the house for a bit. He would need to figure out another way to process the materials he had. He still couldn't afford power tools, and Stuffy was far to unreliable to be used for this. He thought briefly about raising the other animal bones he had in a bin in his room. But an army of defiant bone animals, seemed like a bad idea. It did however give him an idea.
Rushing up stairs Elm grabbed the plastic box of bones and brought it down to the living room. He pried open the layers of duct tape and lifted the lid. Only to release a horrid aroma of death, mildew, and acidic chemicals. Retching Elm ran over to the kitchen and dumped the container into the sink and ran the tap, before retreating back to the living room. Nope. He'd give that an hour or so.
After an hour, the smell had barley calmed down enough for Elm to venture into the kitchen, after which he spent another 30 minutes scrubbing all of the bones clean.
Deciding he's ready to test his idea, Elm takes the bones and carefully spreads them out on the kitchen table. Now came the fun part. He started by arranging the bones based on what animal they came from. When finished he has three separate piles. One pile containing three squirrels worth of bones, one with two pigeons worth, and one pile for the single rat skeleton.
Elm then began the more creative part of the project. He started by using the extended squirrel spines to create 3 bone tentacles, each tipped with a skeletal pigeon leg. The main body of the creature was made up of the rib-cages of the multiple animals, sans the rat, interweaved to create a wide platform to facilitate the remaining pigeon leg, rat arms, and squirrel arms all being positioned in the front, so they could easily manipulate materials. The 4 pigeon wings were combined into 2 large graspers that stretched around the smaller arms, so they could be used to stabilize a material for the more nimble appendages to work on. The 6 squirrel, and 2 rat legs were placed, so they could be used for movement. Finally, all the skulls were attached to the remaining rat body, with the rat skull in the center and the others fanning out from it, which was then placed on top of the other rib-cages.
The final product looked like a freaky undead rat sized scorpion man with too many extra arms.
A little nervous all this work would be for naught, Elm reached out and searched for a connection to the amalgamation. After a tense moment, where he didn't sense any connection, he finally found the thin thread connecting to it. He sighed, settling himself into his chair, and pushed on the connection.
The sensation was as usual, disorienting, but when he opened his eyes, he realized he was still looking out from his original perspective. Looking down, he was also still in his body. Concerned it didn't work, he stood up and examined his project. The thing, sat motionless. Without any movement or will. Curious, Elm shut off the lights. Yep, it was defiantly glowing. So that meant it must have worked. Still uncertain, he concentrated on an order wile focusing on the connection. 'Get off the table'.
The amalgamation jittered into motion, slowly crawling it's way over to the edge of the table. Then simply flopped off the edge and smashed into the laminate floor. A single full squirrel arm was flung skittering across the floor to the corner of the room. Elm looked down at his creation. Well, It was probably his dumbest creation yet, but he didn't need a genius to use a hacksaw.
And hey, at least this one followed orders.