Sqeeeeeack-
The heavy, insulated, metal freezer door slowly opened. Dr.Toumen leaned in to take a better look as he pointed his flashlight towards the body tray. The light cut through the dark of the Freezer, revealing the startling visage of a gruesome human skull. Small strips of frozen flesh dangled loosely from white bone, tracking down, the light revealed a detached jaw sitting in a mangle of other human bones and more strips of flesh. Further inspection revealed the remains of the body were in similar states of disarray. A displeased frown sank onto the doctors face.
"What the hell were those damn bots doing, they're supposed to organize the remains." After the complaint he remembered he was originally investigating a strange noise. Flicking his light about the small space, he searched for a culprit, pulling back to look about the room again, gave the quiet storage room a few glances, then ducked back into the Freezer he'd opened, "Now I definitely heard it coming from here?" On a hunch he squat down to get a better look at the ceiling of the freezer. The light revealed a large dent about halfway in. The metal deformity definitely seemed severe enough to match up with the sound he had heard.
Standing back upright bumping his fist against his sore back, Dr.Toumen sighed, "Some punk probably playing with the temperatures again." Looking down at the tablet in his other hand he typed in the number listed on the front of the freezer unit and marked it down for repairs. Then, mostly for his own curiosity, he checked what was on file for the body inside. He skimmed the data then smiled,"Lightly damaged skeleton from a completely shredded body of an unidentified John Doe. Both flesh and bones found a distance apart from each other. This bank massacre just keeps getting more and more mysterious. haha!" Looking down at the time displayed he found that he had a hour break coming up, "hehe! Just your luck Mr skeleton, I've got just enough time to find out all of your secretes!"
Pulling the body tray free of the freezer, several wheeled legs popped out the bottom as the doctor led his newest pet mystery down toward the nearest empty operating room, cackling the whole way.
....
Sqeeeeeack-
Elm was in deep shit. As soon as he heard the apparent door beneath his skeletal feet open, he panicked. Almost screaming 'fall apart, dim lights!' Within his mind. His vision was briefly tossed around the freezer as his skeletal body collapsed into a disorganized piles. His skull, now resting on the pile of bones, came to rest with its front teeth supporting it directly pointing at the slowly opening door. Beyond the door, a familiar face greeted him as the same quack doctor, Dr Touman, who so rudely woke Elm up this morning, stuck his head into the freezer.
More panic flooded through Elm! Why was he here now? Did he already track down his power somehow? Deciding he couldn't risk being caught like this, Elm tried to pull his body together. Only to find the bones sluggish to respond, much more so then when he tried pulling his arm back together earlier. He watched with a sinking dread as one vertebrae responded to his call, and very slowly, started to roll towards him before getting caught on a discarded rib and stopping. 'Shit, I might've made a mistake' Elm thought as the Dr. pointed his flashlight up at the ceiling of the freezer, revealing the massive dent in it. 'I'm so screwed!'
Elm was currently on a metal tray in a clean white operating room. The skull that currently acted as his prison, had been re-positioned and held up using some kind of cushioned vice, pointing his vision directly up, into a bright operating light. He could sometimes make out Dr. Touman's head as it bobbed into his cone of vision like a energetic storm cloud. He could tell the room was refrigerated, by watching the misty breaths coming from just under the Dr's mad looking dark grey hair poof. After catching a few of the doctors mumbled complaints, Elm was convinced that, the not so good Dr, didn't know jack about Elms powers. He appeared was just picking at the mysterious skeleton, because it was mysterious. Elm couldn't really tell what the doctor was up too, he couldn't feel any of feedback from the unattached bones. He could however feel whenever the skull he was residing in was poked or prodded, it didn't hurt per-say, but it was definitely uncomfortable as the doctor drilled something just below his left eye hole. Elm didn't just leave because he wasn't sure what happened to the skeleton when he left back to his real body. If the skeleton auto reassembled or something it would definitely get confiscated. He'd also heard horror stories about Gifted who were captured or drafted because their power was too useful, so best to avoid that. If this skeleton was his only chance at an exceptional life, then he had to protect it, or he'd never get to be a hero.
Elm didn't however, spend his whole time stuck in the skull doing nothing. He'd plotted. See, he reasoned, if he could somehow block the freezer door as the doctor put him back, he could use then reassemble himself and escape to start his hero career! However for that to happen, he needed to be able to move the bones independently of when they were attached to himself. If he could move the bones toward himself when reconnecting them, he should also be able to push them in the other direction. then he would have full bone telekinesis, hopefully. Unfortunately, he had no way to test his theory. Elm still couldn't see any of his other bones as he was stuck pointing upwards. He also couldn't risk moving random bones around wile the doctor was watching. So he bided his time.
A little over an hour passed, Elm was long past board. Without the entertainment of a new body to explore, or any real moving parts whatsoever. He was getting very close to just switching back to his old body, be damned with the consequences. But then, something unexpected happened.
dee~ dee~ dee~
The doctor looked down at the tablet he had stored a pouch attached to his belt, "Shoot, welp, looks like our time together is at an end for now, Mr Skelly. I'll be back after my shift. Don't go anywhere hahaha." The doctor continued to laugh as the operating room's door closed behind him.
This was a much better outcome then Elm had ever hoped! He wouldn't even have to risk a bone being crushed by a freezer door! 'Nice!' Quickly, Elm gathered all his mental ability, now it was time to pull himself together and pop this joint!
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...
It was several hours later, Elms brain felt like mush as he commanded another bone to roll over and attach itself to his arm stump. He tiredly looked around as he tried to collect his tired mind. He'd managed to rebuild himself up into a skull on a neck, with a little spine, one arm and the bare minimum to support it. Elm found out the hard way the minimum was, a shoulder plate, and the two ribs below it. It hurt thinking about all the time he'd wasted on his first and second tries building the arm. They'ed fallen apart as soon as he'd tried testing them. With a nervous but resigned sigh, Elm focused on his arm, solidifying the connection. Now came the part that always went wrong. Elm moved his arm. It didn't fall apart. Staring at his completed arm he was almost too shocked to do what he needed next. Almost. Elm quickly got to work on the second arm, grabbing the necessary bones and placing them where they belonged, then channeling a bit of mental energy to keep in place, then moving on to the next piece.
Based on his miserable experience with telekinetic moving bones around, there were some conclusions Elm could make with regard to his powers. It definitely seemed that Bone telekinesis was a minor bonus ability at best, because it drained him quite significantly, whereas moving the bone body around once connected to his skeletal body was so trivial he could do it seemingly without cost. He had also discovered a great use for that seemingly useless knowledge he'd absorbed from the other body back at the morgue. He still had a perfect recollection of all that information, giving him plenty of reference wile putting his other arm together. After a comparatively brief 5 minutes, Elm was back up to two functioning arms. Now it was but a quick game of skeletal Lincoln logs, and he could make his escape.
Step Step Step...
A sound coming from the hallway outside the operating room drained all of Elms positivity. Looking down at himself, he was still only the top half of a skeleton, wile he technically could just leave all his other bones and run away on his hands, he didn't know if he would ever get more bones or if they would attach to his skeleton if he did get some. No, he'd spent far too much effort on getting this stupid skeleton out of the damned hospital for him to just leave half of it lying around. Scanning the room he saw a grocery bag over in the corner with a half-eaten cup ramen, and a drained bottle of pop. Quickly, Elm leapt off the dissection table and attempted run over to the bag on his hands. He moved a little like some kind terrifying drunk bird as he awkwardly fumbled his way over there. The footsteps were getting closer. Quickly but quietly laying his torso on the ground he hooked the bag around his shoulders, then ran back to the table. But he was too late, the footsteps stopped at the door. Elm hid behind the operating table, the disposable sheet blocking him from view of the door. He heard the door open.
step step step
Whoever it was, walked over to the edge of the room, next to where Elm just picked up his bag, this is when Elm finally caught a glimpse of them. The first word that crossed elms mind when he saw the intruder was yellow. There standing at the edge of the room, at around 6 and a half feet in height, was a broad shouldered man with a massive yellow cape that draped down from his massively broad back and reached the floor with plenty of extra fabric dragging along behind. This was definitely a super of some kind. The man turned around as Elm, brain tried to process what was happening. The man was even more massive looking from the front as his bulging muscles stretched at his orange suit. A yellow cartoon symbol of a smiling face was outlined with black in the center of his chest. Looking up told a very different story though. The mans heavily scarred face was plastered with the deepest scowl Elm had ever seen, it almost made it look like the edges of his mouth were trying to escape down the sides of his exceptionally square chin.
The man, no, the hero, didn't seem to notice Elm. 'Dammit' Elm thought. He really should've spent more time looking into the different gifted instead of pulling apart dead animals. Elm stayed still, kept his eyelight dim, and waited. The yellow caped man looked around the room. Barely even glancing at the pile of bones on the table in the center, or the frozen half of a skeleton obscured behind it.
"Come out evil doer, I know you're there!"
Elm swallowed some non-existent saliva and just about stepped out from behind the table, before stopping at the last moment. He realized the man was looking at a random corner of the room, and not, at the table or him. So instead he waited.
"False again? Hmm?" After a minute the man spoke, his demeanor shifting to more annoyed and less ready to fight. The man then meandered his way out of the room sighing as he pushed open the door and walked out into the hallway.
Elm watched the doors intently as he listened to the mans heavy steps getting father and father away. When he could finally no longer hear the footsteps he let himself relax, plopping his spine down as a third support for his inexperienced hands/makeshift feet. After a quick moment to let go of the tension that had built up in his bones, he climbed onto the table again, with how light he was, it was quite easy. Too much crazy crap had been happening and Elm was definitely not going to risk the 20 minutes or more that would be required to put the rest of this skeleton back together. Instead, he just quickly threw it all in his bag and tied it off before re-affixing it to his shoulders. With his bag of bones packed and ready, Elm made his way over to the door. He gave it a push, and the door barely budged.
'Oh come on!' he was about to flip his shit with all the things that had gotten in his way today, when something caught his notice. Looking in the murky reflection provided by the metal plates at the bottom of the door, he realized he was still in dim mode. Internally sighing, Elm mentally commanded 'Bright' as he watched his eye holes in the reflection light up. He pushed against the door and this time they opened with ease. Elm peered out into the hallway, the room he was in seemed to be at the end of one long corridor with several other operation rooms along it. He could see his room and one other just before a perpendicular split, were the only other rooms with the operation light over them on. Elm slowly started walking down the hall, being careful not to let the bones of his hands or the bag of bones clacks too loudly. Quietly reaching the operating room, Elm stopped for a second to listen to the sounds he heard coming from inside.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Scalpel... Forceps... Clamp "
He was pretty sure that was Dr. Toucans voice. So that quack was a surgeon after all. Elm silently moved to the end of the hall where the path split. Down one, he could see several more doors and branching hallways. Down the other direction He could see much the same, however what really caught his eye was a large board sticking out of the wall. Elm excitedly ran over to the base of it. It was a visitors map! Complete with a, you are here marker. Elm quickly went over the map, searching for the quickest rout out of the building, that's when he discovered two massive problems. One, he was current on the basement floor, so it was unlikely he could just find a window and slip out. Two there were only 2 ways out of this part of the building and both of then involved getting past a security checkpoint. Elm checked over the map another time, hoping for something he'd missed. That's when he saw something that might be promising, just next to one of the two guard posts was a laundry room. And within a building this large it probably had a laundry shoot. If he could get to that laundry room he reasoned he could find away up it to a higher and less secured floor.
With a plan in mind Elm was ready to enact it.