WARNING: The following story is made for fans of natural body magic/ modular body magic/ detachment/ disassembling people non-lethally. If you are not a member of that community, I strongly advise that you turn back now. Things will get freaky.

SECOND WARNING: The following story is a furry story written as part of a collaboration with Airship-King. If that ain't your bag, skip this.

If you haven't read scene 1,  scene 2, or scene 3, you may want to before you read this. Otherwise a lot of it won't make sense

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SCENE 4: OLD SCHOOL

And from whence darkness, light.

Brilliant and regal.

The breath of life, divine.

Father and mother, cradle and grave, united in radiance.

"Come on, I said, awaken!"

AH!

Nabo scowled, her forehead smarting from the smack of a long, finely manicured claw flicking her right between the eyes. Her scowl was returned by an elderly chow chow with drooping whiskers and clean but uncombed white hair, both running just past his shoulders.

MASTER WAN!

"Ach, blasted hearing aid. I swear, I just charged this thing, how are the batteries already dying?" He groused, fiddling with the small plastic contraption sticking out of his ear and snapping a few times to test it. "Hm. Seems to be working fine." He cupped his ear and held it close to Nabo's face. "Speak up! You don't visit for three years and now you don't even want to catch up?"

I THOUGHT YOU'D DIED!

Nabo's face twisted in confusion. HELLO? HELLO?! Not even a whisper of air escaped her lips, her jaw was opening and closing, her throat muscles... why did they feel so tight? Wait... why couldn't she feel anything below the neck? WHY CAN'T I FEEL MY BODY?!

"Ach, you don't want to chat? Fine, fine, I'll do the talking." Master Wan grumbled with a smile. He loved hearing himself talk; probably the only reason he bothered with a hearing aid. "So, I've been doing well. Getting on years, like we all are, but doing well all things considering. Still running the academy, as you can see." He said, motioning at the room around them. Indeed, Master Wan's office was exactly as Nabo remembered from her school days; from the timeless scrolls of untold wisdom next to the DVD box sets of old 70's detective and sci-fi shows, to the weapons so esoteric they had no names displayed behind the crummy plywood desk, to the... oh, he finally replaced his fossil of a PC with a modern mid-range laptop.

"You like it?" He asked, following her surprised gaze. "My grandson set me up with the new machine while I was on sabbatical. Said he was sick of me moaning about scary computers and how crummy mine was, so he trapped me in a room and beat me with a stick until I learned the thing. Uppity little so and such." He smiled, the teacher endeared by his own blood tutoring him. "Oh, and you heard that right, I had a proper sabbatical! Left the academy in Southpaw Jimmy's grubby claws for six months. Worst mistake of my life I guess, because when I get back I'm told that not only had I died and Jimmy tried to cover it up with a cockamamie sabbatical excuse to keep the tuition fees flowing, but one of my star pupils died too!"

He glared at Nabo, all levity draining from the Chow Chow's dark eyes. "Now one of these deaths is nothing but gossip that got way out of hand. The other one very much happened. I'll give you three guesses on which one of us really died."

Nabo gulped, feeling her throat muscles tighten further. They weren't just tighter, but shorter. And why would they be shorter? Well, considering her last memory was watching her decapitated body flop like a gasping fish, it stood to reason that her head was probably not in much of a better position at the time. She averted eye contact, glancing left and right; to her right was The Lesser Djinn's Vessel, and to her left was a model pirate schooner, two items displayed on the book case directly behind the detention chair. Looking straight down, Nabo saw not only the detention chair directly below, but also the edge of the book case with her long braided ponytail with its many interwoven feathers trailing off it.

I'M JUST A HEAD. Nabo silently declared, realizing where she now stood.

"No, not JUST a head!" Master Wan announced, deigning to read her lips. "You're the head of one of my 'Legendary' pupils! You're the head Elias the Brute paraded around on a stick, stomping from town to town, terrorizing villagers and rallying eviltons to his banner! You're the head that made this two-bit backwoods terrorist a real warlord, and so thoroughly besmirched the good name of my Martial Arts Academy that people started wondering if Master Wan ever even existed, or was just some glorified cereal mascot or a dead guy getting his name cashed out on!"

I'M SORRY! Nabo mouthed, wincing in shame and embarassment.

"You're sorry? Already? But I haven't even gotten to the part where some hillbilly necromancer reanimated your body and turned it into Elias' personal maid and the whole gang's 'stress toy'." He said, throwing up air quotes and giving Nabo a look that made it entirely unambiguous what was happening to her headless, humiliated body. "Oh, spoilers, huh?"

Nabo ground her teeth, indignation rising to fury as she let out a mute tirade.

"Oh well. Now, where was I?... right! Your head. Well, it was paraded around that little hamlet with the big bar, the one where you, Legendary Prodigy and yadda yadda, made yourself a circus clown in exchange for some beers." He distastefully reported, pouring himself a cup of tea. On top of never swearing, Master Wan was a teetotaler and stick in the mud at every party. "Anyway, they went to the bar and stuck your pike in the ground outside. Some brave little bunny hopped up and snagged you off the spear, ran off before the bad guys knew what happened. Brought you all the way here, thinking maybe this old dog had some magic technique or artifact that could revive you." He explained, scoffing. "I admit, having a rotting head dumped on my desk just days after I got back from sabbatical... quite a way to get back into your work."

GET TO THE POINT! Nabo mouthed, unable to keep her patience as images of over-endowed cocks and brainless bulls and fat pigs and dozens more deviants using her body like a toy filled her mind's eye. She felt the sensation of a pounding heart in her cheeks, even with no physical heart to provide it. A psychosomatic sensation, or some magical effect of the reanimation?

"Oh, sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I? I always do that, huh? Just talk talk talk, this old geezer." he teased, kicking his feet up on the table and showing off a new pair of fuzzy red slippers identical to every other pair he'd owned. "Well unfortunately, I don't know anything about reanimation. I can keep things that SHOULD be dead alive, easy peezy. But bringing them back? No can do." Another long, dramatically loud sip of tea, allowing Nabo's anger to boil over. She took a few deep breaths, knowing he could keep this game going forever if she didn't behave. He smiled, taking note of her compliance. "Luckily, the wonderful nurse Master Dorian has had to bring a student or two back from the beyond when they don't quite have the techniques down. Not necromancy, proper revival. It's a lot easier with fresh dead, was pretty sure you were too far gone. But I asked him to give it his best shot, and..." he motioned to her.

Silence.

Sip of tea.

WELL?

"Well what?" Master Wan asked.

WELL, WHAT NOW? YOU BROUGHT ME BACK JUST TO BE YOUR MANTELPIECE?

"You do tie the room together nicely." Master Wan said, waving a hand around. "Would make for an excellent conversation starter, you must admit."

WAN!

"No, no, you're right. Can't just leave that rampaging brute to his own devices. Someone has to stop him." He set his mug down. "I thought about sending a team of promising students on a heroic quest to put their skills to the test putting the brute down. Chaperoned by a Legendary master, of course, should things really go south." He shrugged. "But with my academy's reputation in the tubes, sending out a bunch of fresh meat isn't going to fix that rep." He scratched his chin, gleefully ignoring Nabo's annoyed eyeroll as she tried to blow an errant strand of hair out of her eye. Unlike her qi based dismemberment, her head had no breath in this configuration, leaving her helplessly blinking in mounting discomfort. "I could call in a few favors, get a team of my best graduates to go tear Elias a new one. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of having to save the Savior of the Southern Gate."

HONESTLY I'D RATHER DIE... Nabo muttered like it made a difference. While 'Legendary' martial artists were tight knit, they loved nothing more than one upping each other and never let a favor go. Owing several of them her life sounded like a life not worth living. CAN'T YOU TAKE CARE OF HIM? OR ARE YOU TOO FAR PAST YOUR SELL-BY DATE?

Master Wan scowled, holding up a fist. Opening it, a handful of brightly colored feathers fluttered down onto his desk. Nabo looked down, and saw her ponytail swinging like a pendulum and bare of all decoration. She blushed, feeling somehow naked without her feathers. I WAS JUST TEASING!

"I could take him, yes." Master Wan hissed. "But, if both you AND my academy are to regain their honor, you will have to be the one who fixes your own mess. A redemption arc. As it were."

Nabo blinked. I'M A HEAD!

"A head with plenty of empty space in it." He jabbed her forehead with his cane. "Space I intend to fill with a brand new butt-kicking martial art that you and I will be inventing on the fly: Head-Fu!"

Nabo frowned, Wan smiled. YOU ARE USING MY GRISLY MURDER AS AN EXPERIMENT?

"You should know by now, every day is a school day at Master Wan's Martial Art's Academy!" He announced, opening his laptop and plugging in his headphones. "I'm going to watch some TV. Your first test is to make it down from that shelf WITHOUT dying again. Begin."

Nabo mouthed something profane, and started rocking herself with her jaw.