A birthday gift for Penny
(SPOILERS: Contains multiple bodies, multiple dimensions, magic, merging, mayhem, and more!)
Part 1: Startup
“Are you really sure you want to do this, Penny?” Bernice asked. She was currently just a head resting on a table, her body, Juliet, was busy typing away at a computer. At another station, Bernice’s husband and Juliet’s ‘Brother-in-Law’ (as she liked to joke) was at a separate computer station that was attached to a large beacon-like device.
“I told you to quit worrying Bernice!” Penny said, as she finished zipping up her dark purple jumpsuit, the color contrasting against her pale, olive skin. “Nate and Juliet must have ran the calculations over a thousand times. It’s going to be fine!”
“I’d be less nervous if I actually understood those calculations myself,” Bernice huffed. “How is it that between the two of us, my body got all the brains?”
Nate walked over to where Bernice’s head rest, a clipboard in his hands. He reached down and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, commenting, “Probably because you got all the looks,” and he quickly went over to another keyboard and began typing more parameters in.
“Or maybe it’s because you had me study for all our tests in College,” The sarcastic, synthesized voice of Bernice came out from the collar around Juliet’s neck.
The computer that Nate was working on started to beep excitedly, and a light on the beacon turned green. “Alright,” Nate said excitedly, “It looks like the machine’s finished preliminary installation within the Null Space we found last week. We should be ready to start the test in a couple of minutes!”
“Nate, remind me again why we’re not just sending Penny to the co-ordinates that Jess sent us?” Bernice asked, already knowing the answer but hoping that another explanation would calm her nerves slightly about sending her friend out of their dimension.”
Nate walked over, kissing her forehead again and politely saying, “Of course, sweetie. Juliet, run the explanation video again.” Juliet gave him a thumbs up, typing in a command on her computer.
On one of the large screens the pre-recorded video they had shown Penny started playing once more. On the video, Nate was in front of a graphic that looked like several large bubbles pushed up against each other.
“So, as we already know from the letters we have received from a future version of ourselves, our dimension is not the only one in existence. In fact, in seems like there is a higher order, sort of infinite, ’Super-dimension’ where several parallel dimensions co-exist, pressed up against each other, and each with their own previously incalculable finite space. Because these are finite objects taking up an infinite container, entropy suggests the possibility that there exists a sort of neutral, null space within this super dimension outside of the range of any singular dimension.
Now, the future versions of ourselves were kind enough to give us a starting place to look for one of these null spaces, and our initial probes have indeed confirmed an impressively large section of null space there, with borders along eight dimensions, including our own. While on paper, this is an excellent location to begin inter-dimensional experiments, there are two big drawbacks for using this as the location for the first human trial of sending a person to inter-dimensional space.
The first is that it’s location is inopportune to our own location within our dimension. The distance necessary to send a person from our dimension to this space is nearly more than half of the calculated length of our dimension. So, calculations will need to have much more precision in order to protect from undershooting and trapping the subject on the other side of our dimension
Secondly, the high number of adjacent dimensions means that overshooting the area will have increased risk, as the scanning range will have to be broadened in order to find them within the adjacent dimensions. One of the adjacent dimensions has a projected size of nearly one hundred million times that of our dimension, and it would simply be unfeasible to search if the overshoot landed the subject within it.”
“And thankfully, we managed to find a good substitute last week,” Nate continued, the video having finished. “It’s a decent size and much closer to our position within our dimension. The only downside is that it’s still close to a lot of neighboring dimensions, but at least they’re closer to our size.”
“How many dimensions?” Penny asked out of curiosity.
“Including our own? Five.” Nate answered, “And funnily enough, a few of them are attached to the other space as well-“
“It’s ready!” Juliet interrupted, standing up from her spot and walking over to Bernice. She put her ‘sister’ on, suppressing her personality and giving Bernice control once again.
“Well, are you ready?” Bernice asked nervously.
“Of course!” Penny grinned, “Who knows what we’re going to find out there?” Bernice hugged Penny tightly, uncertain if this would be the last time they would ever see each other.
“Alright, I’ve set the computer parameters to Penny Matthews,” Nate said, walking over and giving Penny a short professional hug as well, “I’ve set the time dilution so that you’ll perceive being there for fifteen minutes but it will only be fifteen seconds out here. If you don’t come back, I want you to know that wherever you end up, we’ll do everything in our power to get you back.”
“Thanks Nate,” Penny smiled warmly, before walking to the designated spot so that nothing would accidentally be brought into the Null Space with her.
She looked fondly back at her two old friends, saying, “See you in a bit!” before a bright flash transported her out of their dimension.
Part 2: Crash
Penny wasn’t sure what she expected the null space to look like. Bernice and Nate had told her that they had worked hard to create a sort of bubble of reality in the Null Space, including creating a small platform structure with its own rudimentary gravity, atmosphere, light, and other normalizing systems to emulate their world, but that they otherwise left the space as close to its original form as possible.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the new environment from the bright flash that had teleported her in, the first thing she became aware of was just the infinite blackness that seemed to expand infinitely in every direction. What she felt went beyond the feeling of isolation that one would get, looking up into the night sky.
The other thing that she noticed was the fact that she was not alone on this platform.
“Hello? Jean? What just happened?” A familiar voice cried from the… what could best be described as pile of body parts in front of her. “Jean!? Hello?! Anyone?!” The pile of parts had a variety to them in the sense that there were a mix of hands and feet mixed in with breasts, hips and even the loose eye, nose or ear. “Can someone please help me get back together?!” However, it was quite clear that all of these body parts belonged to the same person, as they had the same, almost milky caramel skin tone, and that similar body parts appeared identical.
And despite how impossible it seemed, that person appeared to be Penny.
“Y-Yeah-“ Penny stammered before being interrupted by another familiar voice.
“Don’t worry, I’ll help,” Another Penny explained, walking out from behind Penny’s peripheral view. This Penny similarly had the milky caramel skin tone as her disconnected counterpart, however she wasn’t normal either.
Unlike the practically naked pile of body parts, this third Penny was wearing a bright blue t-shirt on and purple pants. She walked with a brisk three-legged gait, her outer legs pushing forwards before her middle leg stretched forwards. In some ways it reminded Penny of a horse’s gallop almost. When this Penny reached the pile of body, a look of concentration on her face as though she were focusing intently on something, but this face gave way to one of confusion. “Hold on, let me try…”
Penny looked on in shock, as two more pairs of arms popped out from underneath the three-legged Penny’s shirt. She wasn’t sure if they had been there that whole time, just waiting to pop out, or if she had somehow made them appear out of nothing. In any case, the look of concentration reappeared on Penny’s face, and this time in a fuller force, as it almost seemed like a light glow was coming out from the end of Penny’s six arms.
After a few seconds, and with a huff of exhaustion, the multi-limbed Penny scanned the pile, before reaching in with her two lower right arms, picking out what was clearly a completely assembled head, and asked, “Umm... So this might be a weird question, but are you me?”
“Well..." The head looked the multi-limbed Penny up and down, “Iiiiii’mmmm not actually sure…”
“Uh…” Penny scratched her chin with her upper left arm, before a look of inspiration flashed across her face, “Okay! So if you were me, I imagine that you would remember Julia helping us learn how split our mind like this?”
“Julia? No. I’ve always been able to do this,” the head in Penny’s hands did her best to indicate towards the pile of herself, “And I imagine if you were me, you would be able to remember the day we mutated.”
“Mutated?” The multi-limbed Penny seemed amused at this revelation, “Alright. So we’re probably not the same person then. Any ideas on how to get you back together again, because it seems that my restoration magic’s not working on you.”
“Yeah, you should just be able to stick them back together and- Wait! Did you just say Magic!?” The Penny head beamed brightly, her pile of parts quivering excitedly, “What sort of Magic?!”
The multi-limbed Penny laughed, “Let’s get you together first, then I’m sure we can all introduce ourselves and figure what’s going on.” The multi-limbed Penny then turned and looked directly at Penny and saying, “I’m sure if you three help, we can sort this out really quickly.”
Penny was confused by what she meant, until she turned around and realized that there were apparently still more people out on this platform in the middle of nowhere.
Penny’s eyes were naturally drawn towards the less human of the two. She still had human proportions, although was shorter than her, had a similar blond bob as to every other woman on the platform, and was even wearing the exact same thing as the multi-limbed version of herself: a blue t-shirt and purple pants.
That’s about where the similarities ended, as the rest of her was covered in a orange/blondish layer of fur, two perky cat ears poking out from her hair and a long tail peeking out though a hole in the back of her pants. If Penny had to attach her look it to a specific species of cat, it reminded her of an Arabian Mau. Additionally, the feline Penny was in one of the most impressive backbends Penny had ever seen, almost rolled up compactly into a ball and using it as an excuse to clean her foot-like paws.
Upon being called out by the multi-limbed Penny, the feline Penny looked over out of the corner of her eye, before finishing to clean her paw and unrolling outwards, extending her back similarly to how a cat would stretch before standing up on her feet-like paws and heading over to help sort out body parts.
The other Penny reminded Penny much more of herself, but was still clearly different. Firstly, she had a similar olive-like complexion, and had the normal amount of limbs. The big differences between the two were that this Penny seemed older than any of the other Pennys in the group. Her blond bob was now closer to a dirty-blond color and clearly a little longer than the other girls, a large strand of it curled artistically near the left side of her face. She was wearing a red cocktail dress, and a pair of black stilettos. If Penny had to place an exact guess, she looked to be around her early to mid thirties.
“Girls,” This older Penny grinned, a wave of relief going across her face after she seemed to have assessed the room. She walked confidently towards the pile of body parts and said, “Let me handle this. It’ll be much quicker.”
The feline and multi-limbed Penny stared at each other before shrugging and giving her plenty of room to work, the multi-limbed Penny tossing the head back into the pile eliciting a few giggles from it.
The older penny stretched her hands out commenting, “Now, I imagine since you’re most likely magically deficient, this might tingle a little bit, but don’t worry it’ll be over quickly.” With a flick of her wrist, a blue blanket seemed to expand out magically from her hand, completely covering the pile of body parts in a single motion.
Giggling could be heard from underneath, as the blanket began to bulge out and wriggle in places. A clear form would occasionally be visible within the blanket, such as the imprint of a face, or the outline of a leg or arm impossibly pushing against the fabric causing it to cover them like a rubber coating.
Soon enough, it seemed like the mass underneath the blanket was beginning to expand outwards, the edges of the blanket somehow sticking to the floor, until it seemed like the blanket couldn’t take anymore strain, exploding outwards, the individual pieces of blanket shriveling like a popped balloon and then fizzling away into nothingness.
Where the blanket had previously been were now several completed Pennys. There were about three complete Pennys with all of their parts attached, a slight modesty maintained thanks to the identical pink undergarments the bodies were wearing. There were also two further completed bodies that didn’t have heads, a pair of hips, and an assortment of hands and feet that were not attached to anything, but neatly arranged on the ground.
One of the completed Pennys and one of the headless bodies stood up, the other Penny bodies having their eyes closed and resting against each other. “Thanks!” She smiled.
The older Penny smiled back, saying, “Don’t mention it,” Before addressing the group as a whole and asking, “Now would someone care to explain what exactly happened to all of us?”
For the first time since she had arrived on the platform, the normal Penny suddenly found her voice as she said, “I can explain what happened.”
Part 3: Networking
“So you’re saying that these friends of yours somehow managed to break the inter-dimensional barrier, but didn’t have the foresight to check they were only pulling in the person from their own universe?” The multi-limbed Penny asked, her number of arms having reduced to four during the course of Penny’s brief explanation of .
“Look, to be fair,” Penny explained, “Nothing like this had ever really been done before. They did take a copy of my DNA to fine tune it, but I guess based on the fact that you all still got dragged in, that we must all have matching DNA as well as names.”
“But how is that possible?” the mutant Penny asked, “My mutation is genetic, and if the abnormalities were present in your DNA, wouldn’t you all have the same mutation?”
“Look! I don’t have all the answers,” Penny shrugged, “I’ll be sure to ask them when I get back in,” she looked down at the watch that was included as part of her purple jumpsuit, which had managed to come into the dimension with her, “ten minutes. So why focus on that when we could learn about each other? Like, you said you were a mutant,” Penny directed towards the mutant Penny, “Is that normal for your world? Are you like a superhero?” Penny blushed as she asked, “Have you ever… You know?”
The mutant Penny was stunned a little bit by the barrage of questions, but quickly gained her composure as she said, “Yeah, I’m a mutant. Where I’m from, it’s a small percentage of all woman that have began developing mutations over the past… I think couple of decades or so. And each mutation is a little bit different for everyone, like I know a few people with mutations similar to me, but not a whole lot.
Also, I’m definitely not a superhero, but I do do what I can to try and help others. I’m actually a partner with this group called the Spare Parts Foundation that helps others missing body parts by giving them some of my own, since they just regrow back on me. I also try to help reduce the stigma against mutants, because while its not a huge secret, there are definitely a few people back from my world who don’t like mutants.”
“So can you feel those other body parts of you?” The older Penny asked.
“Sort of?” the mutant Penny said in a sort of questioning tone, “I only have the one consciousness. So, like, yeah, I can control any of those parts over there, but I try to actively control too much and my concentration sort of snaps.” The older Penny nodded approvingly.
“Oh, and as for whether I’ve used this ability for intimate stuff? One hundred percent Yes,” the mutant Penny grinned, before turning towards the Multi-limbed Penny and asking, “Enough about me though! So you can do Magic? How does it work? Could you teach me? Can you do some on me?!”
Seeing the enthusiasm of her mutant counterpart made her chuckle a bit, as the multi-limbed Penny explained, “Well. I don’t think I’ll be able to teach you magic. In my dimension magic is derived from a muscle in the body most people call a ‘magic reserve’. However, I think I might be able to do some on you!”
The multi-limbed Penny formed another arm, reached up and plucking a hair from her head. She wrapped it several times around her finger, before slipping it off and closing her hand around it. When she opened her hand up again, the circle of hair had transformed into a ring. “Would you mind lending me a hand?” The multi-limbed Penny grinned.
The mutant Penny, understanding what she meant, pulled off her hand, handing it to the multi-limbed Penny, who promptly put the ring on the hand.
Within moments, the hand’s skin tone began to darken, turning a dark purple color. It was only after the transformation was complete that Penny realized that the mutant Penny’s hand had been completely petrified, turning into a perfectly sculpted chunk of amethyst, the little light of the platform refracting through its form.
“Eee!” The mutant Penny squealed, “Oh my God! Real magic!” Penny couldn’t help but be equally as amazed, thoughts racing through her head of all the fantasies she’s always wanted to try out, and how there apparently was a version of herself in another dimension who seemed to be able to do.
The older Penny smirked before tutting, “You call that magic?” The multi-limbed Penny pulled the ring off of the amethyst hand, the hand quickly restoring to its natural state. She handed it back to the mutant Penny, who was able to reattach the hand like nothing ever happened.
“What do you mean?” the multi-limbed Penny asked.
“Well,” the older Penny commented, shrugging, “It was magic, certainly, but based on the power I saw, I’m sure you wouldn’t set off even the most basic of magic detectors back home. It might explain why your attempts at a restoration spell were so lackluster.”
The multi-limbed Penny blushed, retorting “T-that’s just because I was trying to restore her back to a normal human when she clearly isn’t. Restoration magic’s finicky that way!”
The older Penny laughed, “No need to get so defensive. We’re all the same person here, after all,” Penny gestured to the group, “It was really just an observation. Clearly our magic systems are different, and where I’m from they’re much stronger. Maybe if they were a bit more restrained, things wouldn’t have spiraled out of control as much back home…”
“What happened?” The mutant Penny asked, looking concerned.
“Well… Back home, magic has been completely outlawed,” The older Penny explained, a little bit of hurt in her voice, “It used to be heavily regulated by the high council… but ever since the incident, magic has been completely banned, and those that practice it… It’s not exactly pleasant to think about.”
“But clearly, you still practice magic?” The multi-limbed Penny asked, a grin on her face.
“Magic courses through every fiber of my being,” the older Penny grinned, emphasizing her words by causing her veins to light up a bright yellow color for a brief moment. “To forbid me from practicing magic is to kill everything that makes me, me.”
Everyone let those words sink in for a moment, until Penny said, “W-wow…”
“Sorry,” The older Penny blushed, “Got a little too real there for a second. What about you?” She turned toward the feline Penny, who had ceased her grooming of herself to listen to the older Penny’s tale of woe, “Is everyone part animal where you’re from?”
The feline Penny looked like she was about to respond, before going back to grooming herself instead.
“Okay…” The older Penny was thrown off a little bit by the feline Penny’s aloofness, but continued, turning towards Penny and asking “What about you? Any crazy stories to share from back home? Well… Besides the whole having friends that have managed to crack the inter-dimensional barrier?”
“Well,” Penny’s cheeks blushed, “Well, there was this one time where Nate let me try out a skin-care lotion he was developing for Bernice’s birthday and it accidentally melted me down into a puddle…”
“Ooh! I love doing that!” The multi-limbed Penny said, “I bet it was super relaxing to just lose your form!
“It was!” Penny smiled, “But it took like a week to get out of my system and put me back to normal.”
“I know what that must have felt like,” the mutant Penny said with a knowing smile.
“But yeah… Other than that things are usually pretty normal back where I’m from unfortunately. I do a bit of amateur contortionist stuff on the side, but I don’t really have any amazing magic power or crazy mutation.”
The other Penny seemed disheartened to hear this revelation from their alternate dimension counterpart, the pity visible in their eyes, until suddenly, the multi-limbed Penny excitedly asked, “How much time do we have left together?”
Penny looked down at her watch, “About eight minutes?”
“Great!” The multi-limbed Penny smiled, stretching her four arms out and cracking her knuckles, “Then we should have just enough time to give you a quick magic show!
Part 4: Exchange
“A magic show?!” Penny asked, excitement growing in her voice.
“I think it’s safe to say that we all have an interest in magic,” the multi-limbed Penny smiled, as she spun in place, her outfit transforming from its simplistic form to a plain, dark blue leotard. Her three legs were each in a comfortable black nylon, and she had reduced herself to only two pairs of arms once again. “And if what you’ve said is true and you’ve never had a proper experience with it in your whole life, then it’s only fair to give you one!”
“Ooh! I’ll be the audience then!” The mutant Penny said, already walking over to her other body parts.
“Would you mind being the opening act?” The multi-limbed Penny asked the older one.
“Of course,” the older Penny grinned, “Although it’s usually greenhorns that open for the more experienced ones.”
“Great!” the multi-limbed Penny grinned back, “So just try your best to keep up!”
The older Penny grin widened. As she reached into the cleavage of her dress, pulling out a simple, black, metal tube about a meter long and a quarter inch thick. She placed her hand at the top of the tube, wrapping it around it such that the very tip of the tup was present out of the top of her hand, while the rest of the tube hung out from the bottom.
Her hand traveled down the tube until it reached about the half way point, where she bent the tube neatly at a 90 degree angle. She continued bring her other hand down the tube, but it seemed that the pieced that extended from the bottom of her hand was remaining a consistent length, as the top of the tube extended further outwards from her hand.
She went a similar distance ‘down’ the tube, and then creased the tube at 90 degree angle once again. She repeated this step multiple times, until she made a square with the wire, and then bent it 90 degree perpendicular to the square. Soon enough she had made a cube. Two cubes. Three cubes. Four cubes.
She stopped, admiring her handiwork as she placed the metal frame down in front of her. “Alright, get in,” she said, hitting the metal frame, the front frame of metal swinging forwards like a door impossibly.
Penny smiled wildly as she stepped inside the frame, to door closing behind her as she swiveled to face where she had came in. In front of her, she could see that the mutant Penny had propped up her bodies in such a way that they almost looked like a normal audience. The feline Penny was curled up in a front bend on the lap of one of the headless bodies, the body stroking it, eliciting a soft purring noise.
“Alright, since you’ve never experienced any ‘real’ magic before, I’ll give you a quick sampler of the classics,” The older Penny explained, hitting the top of the frame.
Penny squealed slightly, as suddenly from the frame more metal slid down, rapidly sealing her away in darkness. To the audience, she now seemed encased in a proper magician’s cabinet, with metal sides. The front panel of each of the four distinct cubes the older Penny had created earlier were labeled numerically from her head at 1 to her feet at 4.
“Firstly,” from behind the cabinet, the Older Penny somehow managed to produce a large metal saw, “The classic, cutting an assistant in half.” She lined up the blade between boxes 2 and 3 and slide the blade in with ease.
Penny was acutely aware of the unnatural feeling of metal sliding through her body. Her brain tried to make sense of it, comparing it briefly to the few times when she had encountered detachment after Bernice’s initial incident that had formed their friendship so long ago, but this still felt different.
If she could try to put it into words, it almost was as if she could taste the metal as it slid through her? Which obviously didn’t make much sense, as there weren’t any tastebuds even close to that part of her body, but that’s really the best description she could give as the blade separated her flesh into two distinct parts.
“Next, a little zig-zag” The older Penny produced two more blades, slicing them home in in the remaining gaps between 1 and 2, and 3 and 4. Once again, Penny felt the cold metal slice through her body, the taste of metal being even more pronounced through the slice near her head.
The elder Penny walked behind the cabinet placing her left hand against the left edge of box 2 and her right against the right edge of box 3 and giving them a push, the boxes making way until their opposite edges met in the middle, the four boxes somehow staying upright as a cohesive unit.
Inside the box, Penny could feel the blade slide a little bit in between their insertion points, as she felt chest and hips move in opposite directions on their own.
“And finally, the Mismade!” The elder Penny (who could be better seen through the gaps behind the box, gave a final push to box 2 and 3, completely removing them from the structure, causing box 1 to fall towards the floor.
Thankfully, the box’s descent was a slow and controlled one, gravity easily being conquered by magic, similarly to how box 2 and 3 were just floating in the air to either side of the cabinet. The older Penny grabbed box 3, winking towards the audience as she flipped it upside down and placed box 2 on top of it.
When box 1 had finally landed on top of box 4, the older Penny placed the other two boxes on top, and with a single flourish, pulled the box away as though it were a blanket covering the changed form of Penny.
On the ground, Penny’s head were attached directly to her legs at about shin level. Any sign of her shoes or the leg portion of her jumpsuit had completely vanished. Above her, on a magically appearing table, was what had happened to the rest of her body.
Rather than ending in her hands, Penny’s arms now seemed to merge straight into what remained of her legs. When she rested her muscles, as she currently was, the cut portion of her stomach rested right on her privates. However when she flexed them, as she had been instructed by the older Penny to show off her transformation, her upper body lifted upwards, creating a hole in her body.
“She’s like a donut!” The mutant Penny in the audience laughed.
“Of course, just to prove it’s all real,” The older Penny gave a malicious grin, as she reached down, lifting Penny’s head off the floor (and finally giving her a good look at what had happed to the rest of her body).
She began tickling the sole of Penny’s foot, causing her to laugh uncontrollably.
This went on for a bit, until the multi-limbed Penny interrupted, getting up from her spot in the audience “Alright. I think you’ve had your fun. It’s my turn now.”
“All yours,” The older Penny smiled, grabbing the edge of the table and seamlessly extending it so that she could place Penny next to the other part of her body. She placed Penny down on the table and took her place sitting next to the mutant Penny.
When the multi-limbed Penny reached the table, she bent down and whispered to Penny, “Do you trust me?”
Penny was a little taken aback by this question. Granted, she didn’t really know anything about these four strangers other than the fact they were her from alternate dimensions. It had never really occurred to her what their potential morality-
“Because what I want to do is a little extreme. But if it works, you should be able to do whatever you want for the little bit time left we have together.”
Oh, that’s what she meant.
Penny thought for a brief moment before decidedly saying, “Yes.”
“Great!” the multi-limbed Penny said, climbing up on top of the table, and tilting Penny’s head upwards so she could see what was about to happen. “Here goes nothing then!” She leaped high up into the air.
Penny wasn’t exactly sure what she had witnessed as the former mass of the multi-limbed Penny came hurling towards her. To her, it looked like she had rapidly lost definition in the air, her blue leotard absorbing into her body as her limbs sucked inwards into a sort of lumpy ball of flesh. All she knew was that this ball of flesh was rapidly approaching, and with a swift impact, completely surrounded her separated body on the table.
As the shapeless mass of the multi-limbed coated her, Penny could feel the edges of her being where the lump touched her slowly begin to dissolve away. The feeling felt sort of like the bubbly feeling of drinking champagne, but magnified all over.
She was also beginning to realize, that as more of herself dissolved away she was beginning to lose more and more of her senses of the world around her. Her thoughts of heading back to her own life were beginning to disappear. Of Nate and Bernice and Juliet. Almost like she was losing her-
-self.
Self.
…Selves?
Their thoughts began to become clear, as their body worked on instinct, flesh clawing outwards in a desperate attempt to create some form from the mass on the table. A shape would form, and then collapse back into itself, as the joint mind of the two Pennies attempt to understand their physiology.
Eventually though, a body finally managed to break through, and after some deep breaths, the body sat up on the table. “Who are we?” The naked form stood up from the table, looking down at their own body.
The older Penny quickly stood up, “Here,” She conjured up a full body mirror from nowhere, “This should help.”
The combined Penny stared at themselves. Vague memories of the concept of merged body floated through her being (hence why they knew to refer to themselves in plural), but no concept of merging with oneself (or at least an alternate version of themselves).
They looked similar to how her former selves appeared… but still radically different. Their skin tone was closer to her caramel color then her olive color… but it was still noticeably lighter than the other caramel Penny.
They currently had four arms, but somehow they also knew that two of them were a permanent fixture of their body in this more human form.
They had three legs still, but the outer two seemed noticeably… larger as opposed to their inner leg. Almost as if the previous mass of their former selves has not been able to distribute evenly due to their different physiology.
Finally, the only other major things of note (besides the fact that they were naked) were that their breasts seemed to have increased in size, and that their normal bob hairstyle was significantly longer than normal. Almost reaching down to their shoulder blades.
“Well, I think we can probably just call you Penny, since that’s what we’re all called,” the older Penny grinned.
“Yes… That works for us,” Penny said. experimentally probing her pliable body. With little focus, she managed to make four more arms appear, the sides of her body being rather crowded with the extra limbs.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the older Penny asked.
“To let one of myselves fulfill any desire…” Penny said, disappearing all but the top arm on her left side, giving her an unequal distribution that she was able to maintain thanks to her three legged stance. “But there’s a problem with that.”
“What’s wrong?” Mutant Penny had joined them on stage, holding her head in her hands.
“In this form… We can tell… Her desire is to be able to do this whenever she wishes…” It was difficult for the combined Penny to comprehend the desires of a single component of themselves, however as they probed this line of thought more, they could feel the emotion and thoughts strongly. “She wishes to remain this way… But knows that she cannot steal the other away from her world.”
“Oh no!” the mutant Penny said, holding tightly onto one of the combined Penny’s right arm. The older Penny, meanwhile, was lost in thought, trying to think of a solution so that their more normal counterpart could go home happy.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long to think up something good. “Alright, I think I might know what to do, but we’re going to have to work fast, we only have a few minutes left.”
Part 5: Returns
At around two minute left, the older Penny commanded the combined Penny to split up. They had been using the time to mostly explore their new body, but also to experiment with the magic that one of their former selves had access to, forming matter out of nothing, spawning lights in the air, the whole nine yards.
The combined Penny laid down on the ground, losing its definition as it returned once again to a formless mass. It could feel bits of itself naturally drifting over to opposite ends, their thoughts
beginning to separate as-
starting to differ as-
Once again Penny was alone in her own head, the comforting feeling of a blanket of flesh completely enveloping her. Well, it was comfortable for a bit, until what little air in her pocket of flesh was beginning to be replaced with her own breath.
Thankfully, the flesh seems to react to her discomfort, completely separating from her. Penny looked herself down, a little sad to be in her own skin and clothes once again.
Meanwhile, the ball of flesh was beginning to reform back into the multi-limbed Penny, her blue leotard sinking out of her form and covering her indecent bits. “Woo. That was fun!” She smiled back at Penny, offering her a hand and helping her up.
The older Penny and mutant Penny were standing next to each other, grinning from ear to ear. The two were suspiciously holding something behind their backs. “Glad to see you two had fun. But it seems like our time together’s almost up.”
“Thankfully,” The mutant Penny smiled, “We thought up a good parting gift for you!”
From behind their back, the two pulled out a set of limbs, two arms and a leg that had its big toe as its little toe. “Ta-da!” The mutant Penny smiled.
“Uh…” Penny said, “two arms and a leg?”
“Not just two arms and a leg!” the mutant Penny said, “I’ll have you know these are organically grown, 100%, genuine, Penny arms and a leg. Guaranteed to attach to you just like they would to any other person from my own world.”
“And,” the older Penny smiled, her excitement slightly more muted, but still present, “they’ve been enchanted by yours truly so that you’ll be able to remove them, or make them vanish so that you can keep up the appearance of your normal life,” The elder Penny whisked her hand over the limbs, and before her eyes they began to shrivel up.
Before too long, the two Pennies were holding onto the three marbles with a cats eye like design, although instead of colored glass, there were colored limbs floating within each marble. The Pennies handed them to Penny and the older Penny explained, “Assuming they successfully travel back with you, you should be able to just smash them open with a hammer and they’ll return to normal size.”
Penny was a little in shock as she accepted the marbles, putting them into her jumpsuit’s pocket. “T-thanks I don’t know-“
“Not so fast!” The multi-limbed Penny said, “I didn’t realize we were giving going away presents!”
“We thought of it while you two were merged,” The mutant Penny explained.
“But now it’s going to seem rude if I don’t give her something!” The multi-limbed Penny chuckled, “I mean, I was going to anyways, but I don’t like the obligation aspect of it.”
The multi-limbed Penny reached up, plucking one of her hairs once again, this time the hair turning into ring almost instantly. “Here. This should help you relax. When you want to turn back to normal just image taking off the ring and the effect will stop,” She handed the ring to her, and in a slight of hand, simultaneously handing her a bracelet, whispering into her ear, “This one’s for your Jean. Trust me. If she’s anything like mine, she’ll absolutely love it.” Winking at her as she completed the exchange.
“Wow…” Penny was stunned as she mindlessly put the jewelry into her pockets. “I genuinely don’t know what to say… Thank you. Thank you so much!” She was on the verge of tears of happiness.
The other Pennys laughed.
“Don’t worry,” The mutant Penny said.
“We know you’d do the same if you knew that one of us was leading a relatively normal life,” The multi-limbed Penny said.
“It’s the Penny’s cosmic destiny to live a life of transformation and magic,” The older Penny waxed.
The girls hugged, with even the feline Penny joining in.
When the hug broke, the feline Penny spoke for the first time.
“Here,” she said in perfect English, handing Penny a usb stick, “Give this to your friends back home. It contains some on-hands reading, observations, and corrections they can make to their searching algorithm to make sure they’re bringing in all of the people who they intend to bring in.”
The other Pennys stared at the Feline Penny with their mouthes opened. The feline Penny ignored this as she continued, “Also, sorry that I’ve seemed so out of it. The other me is on a different time dilation, and it’s made it nearly impossible to focus on anything.”
Penny thanked her feline self and all of her other selves, before they separated, waiting for the last few seconds to tick away before they would whisked back to their separate dimensions.
She wasn’t sure what the future was going to hold. The ability to travel between dimensions seemed insane to her, and while she was excited at the prospects of the experiences she may encounter, she knew there may also be the hidden prospect of some dystopia waiting to expand outwards.
In any case. All that Penny was certain of at that moment was that she was going to have an amazing time when she got back home.