*click*

“Hello everyone! It’s Natalie! I’m back from my vacation! I hope you all didn’t miss me too much, haha!”

The live feed of Natalie’s Twitch stream showed the same room it always did; hardwood floor, a circular rug, and a bare light blue wall. A basic wooden table was set up northeast of the rug, and a simple wooden stool stood dead center both on the rug and the video feed.

“We have my technical assistant that you all know and love, Marie, back with us again today,” said Natalie. Her tan face, dark green eyes, and deep red hair filled the left half of the frame. She turned to face the table behind her. “Marie, say hi to our viewers!”

“Hi! One second, I’m not in frame yet,” said Marie.

The table scraped against the hardwood floors with groans and squeaks as it was pushed closer to the rug. Marie placed a laptop on it, then sat down behind it. Her golden locks shone so bright that the camera could not display individual strands of her hair. She looked from the computer screen to the camera, smiled, and waved.

“Good to be back with you all! Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year indeed,” Natalie said as she faced the lens again. “We have a special treat planned for you today. Do you guys remember when I used this little device here?”

She lifted her hands. A sonic knife rested on her open palms. As she turned it back and forth, Marie began laughing.

“Oh, the chat remembers it all right! Thanks for the donations, Frankenfortune and Katie1443620! You are amazing,” Marie exclaimed.

“Then you are going to love what we prepared for you today. See, the last time I used this, we only used the default mode: divide body parts.”

Natalie turned on the sonic knife. The copper-colored surface glowed in an aura of pristine brass. She put her left hand on her right shoulder, brought the blade up to and through her left wrist, then pulled her left arm away. Her hand remained where it sat. Her left arm ended in a blunt stump at her wrist. Her severed hand rubbed its fingers on the green and white plaid flannel button-up she was wearing.

“This function alone is enough for countless hours of fun. But why stop there when the sonic knife can do so much more? Today, I’m going to show you a lot of what this exquisite blade can do!”

Natalie reattached her hand and flexed it. “But if I used the knife on myself, I would be unable to use it for very long. I’d be in too many pieces! So we hired an assistant for us to cut up to showcase its abilities. May I introduce...” Natalie said, turning her back to the camera.

A slender woman with short sandy-blonde hair walked onto the rug. She was wearing a sports bra and a small tank top with spandex shorts. She had the body, grace, and posture of a practiced gymnast.

“...our contortionist canvas for today, Penny!”

“Nice to meet you all!” She smiled brightly and waved for the camera. “I’m going to be just as surprised about what happens to me as all of you are!”

Natalie leaned towards the camera with the back of her hand by her mouth like she was whispering a secret to be kept between her and her thousands of followers. “We wanted to tell her, but she said she likes being someone else’s experimental putty.” She shrugged. The sly smile on her lips gave the happy gleam in her eyes a devious undertone.

Marie typed on the laptop and made a few clicks before looking up. The text graphic at the bottom of the screen changed to [Mode 1: Deactivation/“Casing”]. “We’re ready to start when you are,” she said, then looked back at the screen. “Thank you for subscribing,  Ms_Ing_Sumthing! Glad you could join us!”

“Oh, that screen name is clever,” said Natalie. She refocused quickly. “Okay! Penny, would you kindly take a seat for us?”

“Of course!” The assistant put a hand behind her to find the stool. She stepped back and up to sit down. Her feet rested on the lower spokes between the wooden legs. Penny rested her hands on her knees and looked up to Natalie. “I’m ready!”

The red-haired host walked around the contortionist. Her hips swayed in her white yoga pants. Her toes were painted with green nail polish. Natalie circled Penny, bouncing the sonic knife on her open palm as she spoke.

“When dividing a person with a sonic knife, the blade functions based on what color, or colors, the blade is. In science speak, Bronze is the control setting, and only divides,” she said.

Natalie stopped behind her. She held the knife over Penny’s head. She pressed a button embedded in the blade. The brass color intensified in warmth until it was a garish neon red on the side facing the camera. Natalie rotated the knife to show a lush garden green on its other face. The slim aura of light around the device blurred the two colors only on the blade’s edge.

“This mode has two new colors, each with their own set function. It will be easier to explain what it does if I just show you. Ready to dive right in, Penny?”

“Oh! Yeah, go ahead!” She sat up straight with deliberate intention. The light chair never wobbled, her balance flawless and delicate.

Natalie slid her free hand under Penny’s chin. “Lean your head backwards just a bit.”

She did so. Her hair was pressed down by Natalie’s chest. Penny watched the knife pass in front of her vision. Her face was lit up by the red glow of the blade. Natalie sent the knife clean through her neck with the red side up, then stood up straight.

Penny’s face was void of expression. Her eyes were glazed. Her lips were slightly parted. Natalie’s breasts cushioned her severed head.

Penny’s headless body twitched. The stool wobbled only a moment. She lifted her hands up in front of her like she was trying to look at them. She brought them to her shoulders, then slid her fingers to her empty neck. Penny touched and patted her new neck stump as Natalie approached the camera.

“As you can see, Penny isn’t in her head anymore.” She lightly knocked on the top of the head and giggled. “Nobody’s home! The red side removes the personality, leaving the body part as an empty shell, or a ‘case,’ The green side puts the personality from the red side in the other half of the body.”

Penny brought her hands down to the seat of the stool and held it. She swung her legs forward and back. She seemed content to sit and wait, unfazed by her decapitation.

“You can use this to swap heads, arms, legs, bodies...really, whatever you want! Turning parts into cases allows other people to control the parts when they attach them. That’s why when you sell a body part, most people want a case.” Natalie turned to look at Penny, then looked back at the camera with a playful grin. “Would any of you like to buy Penny’s head? It doesn’t look like she needs this anymore.”

“She’s kidding, everyone,” said Marie. He face said she wasn’t so sure Natalie wouldn’t sell their assistant’s head. She lifted her hand. A blue mist twirled around her fingers. Marie closed her hand in a fist.

Puffs of identical blue mist shrouded Penny’s head and her vacant neck. When Marie unclasped her hand, the mist disappeared. Penny gasped; her head was back on her body.

“Wha-how did...but Natalie is over there-“

“I took care of it,” said Marie, a content smile on her lips. She typed away at the keyboard. The text prompt changed to [Mode 2: Mitosis/“Time Splitting”] “Don’t worry about it. Ready for the second mode, Natalie.”

Penny stared at Marie and Natalie for a few moments, trying to figure out what happened. Before she could ask a question, Natalie spoke up.

“Great!” She pressed another button on the knife. The blade lit up in royal purple tones on both sides. “Penny, for this next mode, we need some contortion. Can you do a full backbend for us?”

“Oh, sure thing,” she replied. She got off the stool and shook her head, letting go of her questions and focusing on her task. She moved the stool to the wall, then stood in the middle of the rug.

She raised her arms straight up, then began leaning, then bending, backwards. Her knees bent as her head and chest descended behind her own waist and legs. When she was finished, her upper half was upside down against the back of her legs. Her hands were flat on the ground. Penny’s abs were the only part of her facing straight up.

“After I make the cut, I want you to walk around on the rug, and only the rug,” Natalie said.

Penny was breathing in short bursts. Her extreme bending came at a price; her lung capacity. She had questions and more to say, but “Okay,” was all she managed.

Natalie stood with her feet outside of Penny’s hands. No time was wasted; Natalie pointed the blade straight down, then ran it through Penny’s abs in a smooth, straight line.

The sonic knife was long enough to cut Penny in two on the first stroke. Natalie tossed the knife onto the table, grabbed Penny’s torso, and lifted her upper half off the ground. Penny reacted quickly and used her hands to ‘stand’ on Natalie.

Natalie stepped backwards until she was off the carpet and next to the stool. Penny moved onto it in a handstand, rotated her body around her shoulders, and sat her flat midsection down on its seat.

Penny’s legs and hips took a few careful steps, doing their best to stay upright. The steps got longer until her foot touched the hardwood floor.

“Natalie, I’m not doing that.”

“Actually...you are. This is mitosis. The purple blade copies your full personality into both halves, but also cuts any connection the parts have to each other.”

Penny turned her rug-foot away from the edge. She brought her right leg around in a natural step and walked close to the edge of the circle. As Natalie and Penny talked, Penny walked around the rug in endless circles.

“So...am I the real me? Or am I the copy? I don’t think I get it,” said Penny.

Natalie giggled. “No, it’s not like that! It’s like a split in your timeline. Once you were divided, each side of you continued being you. You were standing on your hands and picked up. You were also left to walk around the carpet.”

“So my legs think I just lost my top half? They -uh, I? - don’t know I’m also here?”

“Exactly,” said Natalie. “And when you reconnect the halves together, you remember everything from both - or all - perspectives. To showcase this, I need you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Find your head once you have your legs again.”

“Huh? But I - ohhh, okay!” Penny figured out what was coming and straightened her neck. Natalie decapitated her with the purple blade. Penny watched as her torso patted down her blank neck, then gave a double thumbs up. Her legs were still walking in circles on the rug.

Natalie put Penny’s head down on the table. “This is so weird,” Penny said. “I’m watching myself just...be myself...this is so different!”

As Natalie went to lift Penny’s top half back onto her flat waist, Marie reached out and ruffled Penny’s hair. “Our viewers seem to agree, but they like it! Thanks to BigBob222, PlayTheObjective, MagicFunSexyTime, and Lily_Girl_Power for the donations! We couldn’t run this stream without you!”

Natalie was waiting, torso in arms, for Penny’s hips to stroll around to where she stood. She reconnected the severed halves and held Penny’s waist to keep her steady. “It may take your body a minute to experience your memories merging.”

Headless Penny stumbled in shock and steadied. Her hands ran to her waist and legs first, then to her empty neck. She looked as though she lost her wallet and her hands were moving to find it on her before thinking about if the wallet would be there.

“I can see it...it’s like leg-me is seeing what the rest of me saw, and my torso is feeling what it was like when I was just legs.”

“Once you remember to get your head, you won’t just see it; you’ll feel it, too,” said Natalie.

Headless Penny began walking forward. Unfortunately, she was facing away from the table. Natalie turned to help, but was stopped before she could take a step.

“Wait! I want to see if I figure it out,” Penny exclaimed.

Her body stopped once her foot touched hardwood. Instead of stepping back onto the rug, Penny turned to her right. She walked forward in short steps, keeping her left foot on wood and her right foot on carpet. Her hands were out in front of her, but waist high and to her sides.

“Wow, you did figure it out,” said Marie.

“Woo! Go, me, go!” Penny’s head laughed and rocked on the table.

Natalie moved out of Penny’s way. Her hands found the edges of the table. She half-crouched and stood a few times. “It’s like I’m jumping in excitement, but...,” Penny started.

“...forgot how to jump?” Natalie finished. They all giggled.

“I did it! Ooof, here we go,” said Penny. She picked herself up, took her time to rotate her head in her hands without making an error, and set her head back on her neck.

“Oh my...my god...that’s what it was like to watch me walk around...and to BE the legs walking...and to get my legs back...I both know everything every ‘me’ remembers, AND feel like I’m just now learning it all, too! It’s like I threw a surprise party for myself!” She jumped up and down in joy. “This! Is! Amazing!”

“I’m glad you love it so much, because we have a surprise for you,” said Natalie. “You get to do this whenever you want to.”

Penny looked confused until she looked at Marie. She had her hand on a long, thin white box. She slid it to Penny. The Division Labs logo was printed on the lid in dark blue ink.

“You mean...you’re giving me a sonic knife?” Penny grabbed the box and opened it. “You ARE!” She put her hands to her mouth. “How much did this-“

“-ask our sponsors, Division Labs; they donated it free of charge,” Natalie interrupted. She turned Penny by the shoulders so they were both facing the camera. “We were going to give it to you at the end of the show, but after seeing how much you liked it, I couldn’t wait to tell you!”

Penny blinked away the wetness welling around her eyes and smiled. “Thank you, I’ll make great use of it!”

“We know you will,” said Marie. The text prompt had been changed again; [Mode 3: Duplication/“Clones”] “Just like we know you’re going to love our last function. Take it away, Natalie!”

“Can do! Now, just because this is the last mode we’re showing you today doesn’t make this the last mode that this thing has. We don’t have enough time for all of them. Some of them would be hard to show on camera, like Invisibility and ‘False Cuts’. More require combining people’s personalities, which gets out of hand very quickly. Others would break Twitch streaming rules, like the various gore settings, so it’s best we don’t show you that here.

“What ARE we doing, then?”

“It’s a surprise,” said Natalie, “but I can tell you that you need to be naked for this one. Your clothes would get in the way.”

Penny turned to the camera, back to Natalie, to the camera and back again. “Um, I’m not so sure I want to put my body on display like that...”

“Oh, don’t worry, they won’t see anything. One second. Marie, come help with this?” Natalie walked off camera past the table. Marie got up and followed. They returned, each of them on either side of a self-standing thin white screen. They put it down in front of the camera. Penny’s silhouette was clearly visible through it.

“They can see what happens to you without seeing you naked; nudity is a Twitch no-no. Only Marie and I will see you. Is that ok?”

Penny took a breath in and thought about it. “...Okay, I can do that.”

“Fantastic! Then go grab the bag of extra clothes we told you to bring, come back to where you’re standing, and strip down.” Natalie pressed a new button on the knife. One side turned burnt orange. The other became a radiant silver.

Penny’s silhouette moved across the thin white screen as she walked off the left side of the video feed. She was back in seconds with a bag in hand. She dropped it at her feet, then began to undress. Though the screen gave her modesty, Penny was hesitant and slow.

“Sonic knives can do a lot of things - if it cuts something alive. When it comes to clothes, no matter what mode is active, these knives cut through them and damage them the same way any other sharp tool would. The tech in these babies needs to cut living things for it to work.”

Marie’s outline showed up behind the screen. Indistinct whispers with tones of nervousness and reassurance passed between them. As Penny finished undressing, Natalie finished her initial statements about the third mode with whispers of her own.

“I know you guys see the prompt on-screen, so you know we’re about to clone Penny. I’ll give you more detail in a moment, but for now, know this; The orange side is the ‘original,’ the silver side is the ‘copy’,” She said, making air-quotes with her fingers.

The head of Penny’s silhouette disappeared as she bowed her head forward. Marie’s shadow hand reached out for Penny’s shoulder. Her head raised, looking at Marie. Her shoulders raised, then relaxed, as she nodded. “We’re ready, Natalie.”

Natalie beamed at the camera. “Keep your eyes on the prize, everybody,” she said in a whisper. Natalie skipped to the screen and walked around it.

Three minutes of near-silence followed. Shadows traveled and overlapped, spelltwined and mesmerizing, as the shapes of three somehow became the shapes of four.

When the screen was moved away, there were two women who looked exactly like Penny standing and staring at each other. The one on the left was wearing what Penny wore before stepping behind the screen. The other Penny was wearing the same items of clothing, but black.

Marie was around the table and back to the computer in a flash, but her eyes were locked in an on-off pattern from one Penny to the other.

(“I knew this was coming...but it’s so eerie. I feel their energy...and can tell which one I’m reading...but their energy is identical; they are both Penny. Everyone else I’ve met since receiving the Handmaiden’s Blessing has had wildly distinct energy from the one before...until now.”)

They both stepped forward, hands reaching out, intertwining, and letting go. Their hands went to touch the other’s faces with awe and building excitement.

Natalie had made her way to the camera. “This is the result of cutting Penny in half with the Duplication setting when the cut is made from the top of the head straight down the spine. This is the BEST way to create identical copies. Each half is equal in size, has most of the same pieces on both sides, and has the largest surface area of the cut. That allows each side to send more information at once.”

She walked back to the embracing twins. “Original Penny?”

The one in all black spoke up immediately. “Yes?”

“Take a step back.”

The Pennies clung to each other and both cried, “No! Not yet!”

Marie touched both of their shoulders with careful hands. “You will both be in one piece again in a few minutes. I promise.”

“Really? Ok then,” they said simultaneously. They both stepped back, but only the Penny who knew she was the copy turned to Natalie. “Let’s do it!”

“You also get good results from the cut we call ‘the magician’s half’ made at the waist above the belly button,” Natalie said, looking head-over-shoulder at the camera. “The sizes are about equal and there’s a large enough surface on a flat waist for a great connection between parts while they’re creating their missing halves. Marie?”

She stepped to clone Penny and stood behind her. “Arms up, please,” Marie said. After Penny did so, she wrapped her arms around Penny’s torso under her chest.

Natalie sent the sonic knife through Penny’s waist with the orange side up. Marie was quick to carry the top half to the table and lay her down, then rummage in Penny’s bag for clothes.

The Penny in Black was stunned. A perfect, beautiful, real clone of herself had been in her arms, had spoken like she spoke, had been like she was...and now this; feeling what it was like for everyone who had ever seen her get divided in a magic show, finally doing the impossible and being in her own audience. She was unable to move anything but her head, staring at her two twin halves in turn while starstruck.

Natalie caught the blue polo shirt Marie tossed her. She opened it at the bottom and wrapped the lower band around half-Penny’s empty waist (which had not moved more than a step). “There, now your new clone won’t be naked. You could say she will grow into it!”

“Ha, ha, ha. Oh. Natalie. You slay me,” Marie said in clear sarcasm. She had put a red pair of sweatpants over the original clone’s waist in a similar fashion.

“I’ve always liked these pants,” said Penny and her clone. They looked each other eye to eye and giggled. They held hands as the duplication began.

The shirt began to rise. The band stayed on her hips as her shirt filled with her rib cage. Her collar bones began to show through the unbuttoned polo as her chest filled out the top. Her neck remained empty, but her sleeves poked out and opened for her arms to regenerate out.

Clone Penny wiggled, propped on her elbows on the table. Her hips filled in the sweatpants in a snug fit. She ‘kicked’ her thighs as they grew in to open the pant legs. She sat up when her knees were complete, letting her unfinished legs dangle.

Three things happened at the same time. Red Penny’s feet grew in to complete her again; Blue Penny’s hands balled and opened as her last digits grew in, her neck still blank; Natalie addressed her followers.

“There’s only one drawback with this cut. In mitosis, the head always comes in last. But as you can see, our Red Penny is done growing. The connection weakens pretty fast after one side is done. It makes the last part that’s duplicates, always the head, come in differently. In the case of a half cut this close to even, Blue Penny will have a different personality, but everything will still function right.”

Blue’s head was rising at half the speed the rest of her body did. It filled out like a balloon that was blown up inside a mold of Penny’s head. When her head was whole once more, she...stood there. Black and Red watched in anticipation while wondering the same thing; (“What is this me going to be like?”)

“Hey, Blue Penny,” said Natalie. “How was that?”

She shrugged. “It was ok, I guess.” Blue did nothing else. She waited for someone to break the silence.

Marie jumped in. “But you were just hips and legs a minute ago. Isn’t that incredible that your body recreated you?”

Penny and Red were nodding in silent agreement. Red was seated. Penny was standing next to her thigh to thigh.

“I just did that a minute ago, no big deal.” Blue scratched at her scalp. “I’m hungry.”

Marie walked off to grab a snack while Natalie talked to the Pennies and the audience. “Quite a change in personality, right? This half cut is best to make someone new out of your clone. Be careful though; the new personality can be just about anything, regardless of who made the clone.”

Marie returned with a bowl of popcorn and held it out. Instead of taking it, Blue leaned slightly to eat from the bowl kernel by kernel.

“It’s like she’s a-“
“-pet!” said Red.
“-cat!” said Penny.

“Like I said, they can be anything. Some personalities get weird.” Natalie pet Blue’s head. She leaned back from the bowl into her hand, smiling with her eyes closed. “But you could not be a better personality for what comes next.”

“Mmm, whatever you say,” said Blue. Her indifferent demeanor was gone, replaced with a happy face and innocent desires of simple comfort. Natalie continued to scratch at Blue’s hair and scalp as she returned to lapping up and chomping one piece of popcorn at a time.

“Our final cut today is going to be one of the worst for cloning. The halves are drastically unequal and the surface area of the cut is small. There’s more to it, but I’ll explain as we go.”

Natalie went from petting Blue’s head to gripping her hair. The knife flashed through the middle of Blue’s neck, successfully beheading another Penny. The silver side was facing down, making ‘Blue’ a headless clone.

“Hey! My popcorn!” She was handed off to Penny. Marie handed the popcorn to Red. The Penny head went back to munching and smiling as Penny stroked her.

“She’s cuuuute!” Penny and Red echoed.

“She might just get cuter,” said Marie. She pulled another pair of shorts from Penny’s bag and handed them to Red. “And you might need these.”

Red and Penny looked down at the shorts, at the nibbling head, then back to Marie. “What about a shirt,” they said.

“I, uh, did some tests to prepare for this,” Natalie said. She cleared her throat and fumbled with her shirt and pants, fixing what didn’t need fixing, thinking about her own adventure with this sonic knife setting. “I found out that the head can’t rebuild the whole body. Too much information tries to go through the small opening at once and makes it unusable. All the head can ever make is new hips, connected waist to neck, without legs or a torso.”

Red was already holding the shorts out for the growth coming from the neck of the head in Penny’s hands. Head Penny’s face was wincing but not crying out. No one could tell if it was pain, but she would later tell the other Pennies it was uncomfortable, but not unpleasant. When her body finished growing, it looked exactly as Natalie described.

Penny and Red bounced up and down in joy. “Suuuper Cuuuute!” They hugged their shortie clone between them, all three of them beaming.

“In the process of ‘messing up’ replication on the head’s side,” Natalie continued, “all of the energy gets used trying to fix it. This leaves the body...”

Blue had remained in place since her decapitation. Her arms hung relaxed at her sides. Her chest was statuesque, absent of the rise and fall of breathing.

“...as a case. Even what bit of personality that was left in the clone gets wiped out in the energy crisis. It’s a happy accident, really; this lets you reconnect the original head back to the body without any problems.”

“No!” All three Pennies shouted. “We want-“
“-her-“
“-me-“
“-to stay like this!”

Marie and Natalie exchanged shocked, uncertain glances. They had no idea this form mini-Penny wound up with was one of Penny’s favorites. They had planned on putting the third head back on the body.

“...That leaves you with an extra body. Anyone planning to clone themselves at home should be prepared to feed and house all of the clones they make, or find someone who wants the parts.”

“Well I don’t want it, I like my body as it is. More popcorn!” Penny and Red laughed at their clone-pet before giving her what she wanted.

“Penny? Uh, Red? Do either of you want to keep it? It is, well, you,” said Marie.

They both shook their heads, both turning the same way first, both turning their heads the same number of times, both finishing at the same time. They spoke in turn to respond.

“That’s ok, we-“
“-don’t need it. Maybe-“
“-we could sell it, but-“
“-that’s a lot of work.”
“Do you happen to know-“
“-anyone who might want it?”

Marie was grinning from ear to ear. “We do. A very good friend of ours has a collection if you are willing to donate it.”

“Sure!” They both said.
“Well, as long as-“
“-you tell us who.”

“Gerald. He’s a man I would trust with my life. Your body will be in great hands. He’s already set to pick up a pair of my hips, too! I had an extra from the cloning tests,” said Natalie.

“I second that. I wouldn’t have the abilities I have now without him,” Marie added.

The trio of change looked at each other, shrugged (an odd thing to see hips do), then spoke up together. “Gerald it is!”

Natalie put her hands on the case’s shoulders. “I know he will be pleasantly surprised by the gift and accept it. We will take it from here, and we will wrap it up there! Penny, thank you for being the most incredible assistant, uh...assistants?  for our sonic knife demonstration.”

“Thank you for making more of me!” said Penny and Red. “And the knife! We are going to have so much fun!”

“Yeah, but only if I get petted and cuddled,” said mini-Penny. She was trying to twist herself to get more popcorn. She failed adorably.

The girls all laughed. Natalie walked over to the Pennies and hugged them all. The headless Penny case was still standing and balanced. Marie sat down to the laptop and waved to the camera.

“Thanks for tuning in and for your donations and support! We will see you on the other side.” Marie was still waving as she ended the stream.

*click*