Possessive Behavior

"Hey, B. Newbie wants to join you. Come back to the mural. She'll be there shortly." the Haunting Nightmare said and hung up.

I had asked him to let me accompany Boneyard on her morning patrol.

"You heard what I said. Shoo. I'm busy."

He waved me away with his monster claw.

So far so good.

I turned to the door but stopped just before leaving.

"Hey, Boss. A quick question, if you don't mind. What do you think about Zen?"

"Zen has been a big help already." was all he said, not even looking up from his desk.

I had the feeling this was all I was going to get out of him on that topic.

I was tempted to read his mind, but.....if I did, Zen would definitely know. And I was not comfortable potentially incurring his displeasure without knowing what he was capable of. Me talking to his....to our teammates could very well be played off as simple curiosity. Reading the boss's mind about it was definitely investigating though.

Without another word, I left, and after another 15 or so minutes getting lost in the bouncy maze, I made my way outside.

Boneyard was waiting there, lifting her hand.

"Hey. It's nice to have someone join me for one of these."

I flashed her my best fake smile, put on my gas mask, and began walking.

"Glad to brighten your morning. I wanted to get the lay of the land, so to speak."

"Makes sense. That's exactly what you'll get here."

I thought about how I should approach this. Starting with Zen immediately seemed like a poor choice. So I decided to ease her into talking first.

"Hey, Boneyard. I just realized...all of you know why I switched capes. But I have no idea why any of you turned to this life. Would I be nosy if I said I'd be interested to know how you got here?"

She looked at me.

"Not....nosy. But unusual. You're the first one to ask me. It's not like we don't care about each other's pasts, but....it's not who we are anymore. If one of us wants to share, they do. But in the end, the here and now and the future, those are the things that matter."

"Ah. Yeah, I think I get it. You don't have to if you don't want to."

She shook her head.

"No, I don't mind talking. But...."

She shrugged.

"It's just not that deep. My parents were fine. Didn't have many friends, but that didn't bother me much. I was a pretty weird kid. Gangly. Not that pretty. Withdrawn but not shy. You know."

"Were you bullied?"

There was a lot of material on Alicia Burrows' childhood in the database. There was even a public video online about someone calling her a Freak in middle school, though it was pretty obviously just in jest. In the video, she was smiling and showing her middle finger, only for the flesh to droop off and the bone to remain. Laughter ensued.

Other testimony from previous classmates and most of her teachers said the same. Not bullied. A few shallow friendships. Nothing too remarkable.

She chuckled and shook her head dismissively.

"No.....not really. Teased sometimes, like everyone else, but not bullied. Too weird, even for that." she said, then let her skin and flesh slough off her hand bones.

The skeletal hand deformed until it had a heart-shaped indent on its palm.

"I used to play around with my bones a lot. In class, and.....in private."

"In private? What, did you jill off with them?" I teased.

The bone woman laughed heartily.

"Of course. Who wouldn't?....But that was not what I was referring to."

We stepped over the remains of a pushed-over metal fence as Boneyard remerged her bones with her flesh.

"I found a bird once. A hurt one. It was chirping frantically, bleeding on the grass. And I could see bone. I was curious. So I touched it."

She took a deep breath, eyes closed, a faint smile on her lips.

"Let me tell you, the feeling on finding out I could change and shape that little thing's skeleton...it was....exhilarating."

I nodded hesitantly. Power Discovery was exciting for most. Even the ones with the.... less wholesome Powers.

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"I think I get it. What then?"

"I needed more. So I went bigger. I played with cats for a year or so. It was very easy too, because of all the strays in my neighborhood. Then I did dogs. And that was much harder. The things were actually missed, you know?"

"Didn't you ever feel bad?"

Boneyard shrugged.

"For the people, sometimes. But only when I saw them bawling about the loss, which wasn't that often. I don't know. I never really feel bad about killing someone in the moment. Not even kids. But seeing their loved one's cry.....I don't like it."

"So did you stop?"

She chuckled.

"No. I just stopped going out that much during the day. And I avoided pets owned by people on my way to school. Playing with the bones of other creatures....it was fun. I felt free. I couldn't just stop."

Boneyard checked out a dilapidated building with a caved-in wall.

"So then you moved on to humans once dogs became boring?"

The Villain shook her head.

"No. I still had aspirations for a normal life. As normal as can be, at least. But my grades...they were terrible. And as I got older and had to actually deal with my future....I don't know. I definitely didn't want a boring, low-paying, or physically exhausting job. That just sounded miserable to me. And Hero? I just didn't care enough, you know? About the well-being of strangers. I don't get how the White Capes do."

This time, I shrugged.

"It....it just comes naturally, I suppose. But if you wanted a good job, why not plastic surgery? Or a surgical assistant in general? You'd be a miracle worker in that field. And if you have an appropriate Power, you don't have to have good grades. Just pass the Aptitude Tests."

Boneyard smiled.

"Do you realize what you're suggesting? Do you think I would have been able to control myself with free access to living people's bones? Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Imagine all the minor ways I could misshape a patient's skeleton that isn't immediately obvious but would've had disastrous consequences in the long term."

She was shaking. Not much, it was subtle. But it was there.

"I would not have been able to control myself."

"That's.....a good point actually."

"Yeah. But I didn't just hop on the bad gal train right away. I tried. I really did. I studied, and studied, even stopped the bone theatre while I did. Or.....at least, drastically scaled it back. And I improved in some subjects. But not the important ones. Math was a C at my peak. And when, in English, after a year of trying to improve, to learn how to analyze texts and boring novels no one cares about, I got handed my final grade of E, I knew it was all over."

She sighed and shook her head.

"There was nothing left for me as part of regular society except a future of low income and absolute boredom. So that night, I left my parents' house, walked to the apartment where my English teacher lived, created a sob story about how I needed help so she'd let me in, and then I had some real fun. I played with her all night. I even..."

She cracked up, trying to contain the laughter bubbling up in her throat. It wasn't sinister laughter. No over-exaggerated maniacal cackle. Just genuine, joyful giggles.

"....I....I made it so her bones were very rapidly accelerating or slowing down the vibration....of...of her vocal cords....you know...the thing that changes human pitch...so her screams sounded like someone was....was......was autotuning her."

She finally let out her full giggle and wiped a tear from her cheek.

Indeed, Janine Foster was Boneyard's first recorded human victim. She was found still alive in such a dismal state that it took a while for the authorities to even recognize her as a person, let alone the missing teacher.

I had hoped that maybe I'd found out she'd been abusing or even molesting Boneyard, just so I could understand what made someone do this to another person....but this was just a potent reminder of what type of people Freakshow took in.

"What happened after that?"

"After that, I broke into school. Had to hurry before the first people showed up. Janitors and so on. I went to the room where the Drama Club stored their props and grabbed this."

She lifted her left arm, indicating her black cloak.

"Then I went in front of a mirror and shifted my face around a bit. Made the features a bit more...harsh, angular, you know. Villain-esque. Made myself a bit taller. And then...I just left. Did my thing. I killed when I felt the itch. I helped a few other bad guys now and then. Got taken to a BHF Office and registered. Until Haunt showed up."

I raised my eyebrow.

"The Haunting Nightmare recruited you? Guess you two were a team even before he became the boss."

Boneyard had an amused look on her face.

"We didn't actually start off on the best foot."

"Really?"

"Yup. Back then, he looked different from now. More like a shark. Rough, gray skin. Empty, dead eyes. Rows upon rows of sharp teeth all around. Gills too, even."

"That....that is indeed very different."

"It is. He was kind of annoying. Pestering me day after day to introduce myself to Othello with him. He really wanted me in. But I had no interest. So I just killed him."

My eyes widened.

"You did?"

"Yes. Quickly, too. I made his bones scramble his innards. All his vital organs, including his brain."

"That seems....pretty damn thorough."

She nodded.

"I thought so too, but the next day he was back again. But...he looked normal."

"Normal...like he does now?"

"No. Fully normal. Same voice, but...he was just a guy. In a turtleneck and clogs. Pestering me to come with him as if nothing had happened. So I pierced him again, but this time, when my bone hit his...,nothing happened. I couldn't change him. I tried again and again, stabbing different parts of his body to reach different bones, but..."

As she was talking, she was reenacting the motions.

"...it's as if he were immune. To be honest, that.....it really scared me. I don't think I had been genuinely afraid before in my life. It was....awful. But I also respected it. So I went with him."

She looked up at the gas-covered sky.

"I joined up. And even though it took a while....I became happy. Truly happy."

That was consistent with the documentation. After joining Freakshow, Boneyard's random murders just stopped. Whenever corpses were found that fit her M.O. afterward, they were either at the site of- or near an actual Freakshow operation, or in the vicinity of other villain activity, speculated to be runs Boneyard was hired to assist with.

"Wow. Did Freakshow really help you that much?"

"They're my family. I love each and every one of them."

This was it! My chance.

"Even me?"

She chuckled.

"We'll see. Ask me again after the Circus run."

Now.

"What about Zen?"

Perfect. She definitely wouldn't expect this to be the main reason I started this convo. And even if she reported back to the boss what we talked about, it was unlikely this would be the part she'd focus on.

Boneyard was silent for a minute.

"I....don't know what to feel, to be honest. My opinion, it shifts day by day. He's a strange one. But I guess that just makes him a good fit."

"What do you think his Power is?"

She scratched her head with one of her ribs.

"I actually asked him once. He told me 'That's not it. Good guess though.' "

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I had a theory at the time. I thought he might be a Dimensionist."

Interesting. A Dimensionist was someone able to manipulate other worlds. Very rare, immediate government oversight.

"I thought that because I knew one once, and he reminded me of her a lot. She could....well....if she wanted something to happen, she would search for a reality where it was happening, and then....I guess overlay the two. It lasted a minute at most, but to people who didn't know about her ability, she would appear to have a bunch of random, disconnected Powers. But as I told you, he denied that after reading my mind. I'm inclined to believe him here, though. The thing's he can do...they can last a lot longer than a just a minute....."

It was then that we were interrupted by a noise.

A number of high-pitched voices overlapping. Some loud, some quieter.

"A group of women? Or maybe kids?" I asked.

Boneyard's bones cracked, and she grew at least two inches.

"I don't really care. Either way...now that they stepped on our turf..."

Her teeth grew razor-sharp.

"....they need to be dealt with."