Bones

'The fu## is that!'

[Hello (Name here), and congratulations on being the first (species here) to have reincarnated. As a reward for this, your (deity here) has given you the opportunity to be a champion among champions.]

[Do you accept (system beta 0.28)]

[Yes] [No]

A green screen, bearing a strange offer appeared from thin air.

'RUN' 'HIDE' 'KILL' 'pretty' 'Farie?' 'Wait, it kinda looks like them TRS-80 things. Just without a body' 'A what?' 'A friend of mine bought one and it asked things in a similar manner.'

"Beta? So we were actually reincarnated. But why does this seem incomplete? Oh, are we beta testers?"

'What does any of that mean?' 'What' 'Testers? So there's going to be more?' 'aye?' 'Don't get carried away, this is all conjecture.' 'Do we accept?'

...

"I say ye-"

'Shhh, prey coming'

As the flower-ridden skeleton conversed with itself about the sudden blue panel in the air, one of those squirrel things appeared at the edge of the clearing.

It slowly made its way towards where the 'hunters' were standing earlier.

'Maybe we can catch one after all' 'I forgot, we're a skeleton, if we stay still they can't even tell we're alive.' 'What Is that shiny thing in it's mou-'

Once the overgrown squirrel reached where the tall man was slapped a couple of times it picked up a coin.

Having acquired the coin, it nearly unhinged its own jaw revealing at least five rows of sharp teeth. A third of which were shiny, having an almost metal luster.

'JESUS, THAT IS NOT A SQUIRREL' 'Coyote?' ' What coyotes are you lookin' at' 'Strike while it's distracted' 'Strike with what? We only have one hand and a bunch of flowers!' 'The sharp arm.' 'The wha, oh the broken arm'

"All in agreement?" 'Aye' 'yes' 'Right' 'RUN' 'Perhaps' ' NO GOD NO' 'I say give it a go'

With the decision made, the skeleton leaned forward preparing to strike.With a lunge, it grabbed the squirrel by the base of the neck.

Due to being preoccupied unhinging its jaw, it was unable to react before it was stabbed in the side with a fractured elbow.

However, it still lived and was able to kick back, getting the elbow out, but was unable to loosen the skeleton's grip.

'LIFT IT, if it can't touch the ground it has no advantages over us.'

Taking the advice it lifted the squirrel which was more difficult than expected. Now with the squirrel in the air, the skeleton attempted to stab again.

This time hitting the neck.

'SUCCESS, prey slaughtered!'

Unfortunately, the skeleton's grip loosened allowing the animal one final kick back, shattering the skeleton's radius (the bone in the lower arm facing inward).

Now free, it was only able to make it around three feet before it collapsed, proceeding to choke on its own blood.

'Prey slaughtered?' 'VICTORY!'

'Worry not little one, for your bones will do us well.'

"It seems we can still use this hand, just not with as much force?"

'Harvest?' 'Aye, tiss our plunder' 'That was horrible, I feel sick' 'No, you don't.' 'IT HURRRRTS!' 'Pussy'

"Can we use these?" As the animal was still in the process of choking to death, the skeleton looked at the bone that shattered off their arm.

Picking some pieces up, It wondered how to reattach them. First, it tried simply shoving it on the end of the fractured arm, since it can't reach the functional arm with the functional arm. Surprisingly it failed.

"Now what"

...

'Magic' 'Magic doesn't exist, actually, we're a skeleton... how do we use magic' 'Energy?' 'Yes, we know Energy, how do we use energy?' 'What are you talking about, for magic you need a witch, not energy.' 'Talking? How do we talk?' 'Ahh! YOUR RIGHT, we're using magic right now!' '... so just talk at it?'

"Hmm... merge?"

...

'Again'

"Mer-"

'More force'

{MERGE}

At the behest of hundreds of voices echoing a single command, the bone attached to the end of the broken arm.

However, it didn't look better. Rather than fixing the arm a bit, it looked like a random shard welded-on haphazard.

'Well that was pointless' 'Don't be foolish, now we know our voices affect reality. We probably just need to be more specific, or figure out how to use this without our voice.'

'Neat'

"Hmm... so {REVERT!}"

And the piece detached once more.

"... Ideas?"

'Assemble?' 'Attach?' 'Generate bone?' 'Heal?' 'Unheal, since.. skeleton?'

"That sounds closest, {HEAL}"

After the whispers finished speaking, the bone shard vibrated for a couple of seconds.

But accomplished nothing.

'IT didn't do anything, the magic was faulty.' 'Or the wording is?' 'Let's analyze this a bit more, we said merge, and it merged somewhat. And Heal did something, however, it obviously didn't heal so what went wrong?'

'To heal is to restore, correct? So wouldn't it restore us to how we were earlier? But what if the bone couldn't reach the place it came from?'

"Good idea!"

Following this line of logic, the skeleton sat down placing the shard beside it. After aligning its broken radius with the shard: {HEAL}.

It healed!

The tiny piece reattached to the arm and molded itself fixing the skeleton slightly.

"Success!" 'Neat' 'Truly interesting' 'Are we a witch'

With this success, the skeleton grabbed as many fragments as possible. Placing them in the rough shape of the now missing bone.

Once preparations were complete, the makeshift opera spoke once more.

{HEAL}

The shards vibrated, twisting and warping to fit their old shape.

After a few snaps and creaking sounds the arm was brand new. Well besides the grime and Cracks that were already there before the hunt.

'So all it did was restore.' Does that mean this is the best shape we can be in?' 'No,... we can only be healed back to this. Theoretically, if we did something like earlier we could add new bones.'

'But when we merged the bone it wasn't really helpful.' 'I don't care, why are we here, we should follow the men not toy with corpses!'

'This is important, had we handled the squirrel dif-'NOT A SQUIRREL'- That thing differently, it could have crushed our skull. I don't know what it takes for us to die, but I believe it would be better to have the strength so we may never find out.'

"What we got from that seems to be that we can't heal more than this, however, we may be able to add on more should we find the proper technique!"

'Right?' 'Aye' ' it's so cold' 'yes' 'Possibly' 'WHY won't IT STOP' 'The thing finally died.'

With that the skeleton skeleton stopped looking at its arm, redirecting its attention to the now dead animal.

"What do we do now?"

'Eat it' 'skin it' 'gut it' 'debone it?' 'Build a boat' 'learn t- wait what, boat?' 'Drain the blood' 'I think you are all missing the point. We only need its bones'

"So le-"

'WAIT, Can we make another one of us?' 'What?' 'Y'know like a living dead thing?'

"Oh, I hadn't even thought of that. But how would we do that?"

'Talk' 'mag-' 'NO WAIT, FIRST THINGS FIRST, let's ensure we have some strength! BEFORE even thinking about playing god! Agreed?'

'Aye' 'yes' 'Nien' 'Sure' 'Indubitably!' 'It's so dark.'

"Then so be it!"

With that decided it walked to the corpse.

Using the previously made hole as an opening, it tore open its flesh and proceeded to rip the bones out of its tiny little body.

'This is a lot less gross when you can't feel when your touching it... but the sounds don't help.' ' I don't know, it's kinda soothing.' 'Your sick!'

One by one, the skeleton tore the bones out placing them off to the side. They were red with some chunks of flesh or tendons hanging off.

A stark contrast to the grimy, flower-infested skeleton.

"91, 92, 93, and 94, done! That's 94 bones in total. A lot less than I expected."

'That's about one and a half times a normal squirrel.' 'Why do you know that?' 'Experience, they're not very tasty.' 'What do we do with the metal teeth?' 'Use them as teeth?' 'Do we have teeth?' 'We have three.'

Now there's a skeletal flower pot, a pile of shiny teeth, some mutilated meat, and 88 bones.

"Man, this new life is already looking up. Hey, I don't even have to pay taxes on this, do I? I wasn't expecting much in this life but now, now I think were gonna far this time around. We can rea-"

[Hello (Name here), and congratulations on being the first (species here) to have reincarnated. As a reward for this, your (deity here) has given you the opportunity to be a champion among champions.]

[Do you accept (system beta 0.28)]

[Yes] [No]

'JESUS CHRIST'

"Oh, right. I completely forgot about this."