During the Full Moon, casting any kind of spells becomes incredibly easy due to the cosmic power that the Moon provides to the wizards. Being too young to be enticed in any significant wars, students always find ways to distract themselves during these incredible rushes of power.

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"Do we have everything?" My arms were full with all sorts of food and candies.

Mel quickly looked over it again and nodded before pushing me towards the checkout. A quick look at her phone confirmed what she had thought. We didn't have much time left before the full Moon.

"Faster, Emma!" Said Mel. "I don't wanna miss any of it! Plus, we don't want to be in sight of non-wizards when it hits. You know how intense it is when..."

"Of course" I snapped, "but there's just so many people! Do something, will ya?"

She snapped her fingers and the whole queue froze. After we had sneaked up ahead to make it first in line, she thawed everyone out again. Some people blinked a few times more than necessary, but nobody noticed a single thing. We payed for our goods and left the store.

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As we entered the appartment, I could barely drop my bags before the blast from the Full Moon sent us both to our knees. Eyes watering and gasping for air, the center of my chest burned as hot as an active volcano. I could feel the flow of magical energy increasing at an exponential rate inside my veins, scorching my skin from beneath, my organs boiling under the sheer power that was bestowed upon us. It felt like every single bone in my body had shattered at the same time, the pain being so intense even the sounds of our screams remained trapped inside our throats. After 5 everlasting minutes, the heat finally calmed down. Now rolled up in a ball, we slowly got to our feet and dragged our asses to the living room.


"For fucks sake", I said. "This is going to kill me someday."

"Let's hope not" answered Mel. She set the groceries on the kitchen table, her arms still feeling a little stiff. "At least its worth it if you use it properly."

"That IS true, though!" I shouted from the kitchen sink, where I gulped water like dry sand. "Did you have something in mind for tonight? Can't seem to recall what we did last time..."

"Weren't we at Billy's birthday party?"

I facepalmed. "Of course! How did he call it again? The unforgetable-three-part-cross-dressing-orgy?"


We both exploded in laughter. The party had been exactly what I just described. On the doorstep, you had to switch genders before being allowed to enter. Then, you got matched-up with a person of the opposite sex and let loose together for an hour. Finally, everyone met up to share their experiences and fuse into a single body, thus forming a meta-being. Sharing thoughts with 27 other people truly was a fantastic experience.


"See, I was also thinking body-related-things", She told me, "but let's stick to being girls for tonight. Guys' butts are just so uncomfortable."

"Okay, deal." I thought about it for a minute. "Oh, I know what'll be fun! Here, sit down and give me your hand."


Casting is so easy during a Full Moon that you actually have to be extra careful since it becomes THAT easy. And this spell was no exception. As soon as I had formed the idea in my head, juice flowed through my body to perform the task at hand. Nice choice of words, Emma.


"Here you go! The first of a long series."

Mel's hand had evaporated. Her left arm now ended with her wrist. She giggled.

"Wow that feels... Wonderful." She put her arms before her and admired asymmetrical the result. "I feel so relieved. Like when the power shuts down at home and you notice how much noise the fridge was making without noticing it. Do my whole arm!"

And so I did. I reached for her again, but instead cupped my hand around her other shoulder. As soon as our bodies made contact, her entire arm vanished.

"I meant the same arm, idiot! Now I can't hold anything!"


She swung her stump forward as if to hit me, but I stopped it with my hand. She kept swearing as she struggled to break free, her empty shoulder moving uselessly under the fabric of her shirt. Meanwhile, I gradually consumed the flesh of her remaining arm, shortening her limb even more than before. I finally let her go after her elbow had been devoured by the flow of magical energy.


"How do you feel now?" I asked her. The skin of her remaining arm was smooth as silk, as if she had been born this way. I delicately ran my fingers on its surface for a few seconds.

"Vulnerable, yet great." She paused and looked at her new body. She tried taking her cellphone out of her pocket, but couldn't push hard enough on it. "Seriously, you have to try this. Let me just... get... closer..."


She swung herself up on her knees and bent forward using her chin as support on my shoulder before dropping down to reach my hips with her stump. She focused brieftly on each of them before I felt the magic run through me.

She didn't use the exact same spell as I did, but the end result was the same. Instead of vanishing into thin air, my flesh sort-of retracted inside my body. Mel managed to sit back in front of me so I laid my feet on her lap to watch the process. Nervous of losing them, I moved my toes and feet around as they disappeared until my articulations went away completely. When the spell traveled past my heels, I folded my legs beneath me. Mel was right, losing body parts was absolutely freeing. I never could manage to sit like this when I had feet! They would've been in the way! I lifted my leg and extended a calf one last time to the sky and soon enough, my knees were history, and so were my thighs. When the magic stopped, it felt like I was paralyzed from the waist down. Nothing was left for me to move past my hips, not even a single centimeter of femur. I tensed my whole body trying to move a bone, but to no avail. My face only grew closer to the ground.


"Wow look at me!"

I touched the spot where my legs had been a moment ago but felt only smooth skin. Putting my hands on the ground, I pushed downwards and lifted myself up in the air. I swung my ass backwards, landed, and pushed me up once more. With repeated motions, I could 'walk' around the appartment floor quite easily.

"How does it feel to be so short?" asked Mel. 

"It's not so bad I guess." The groceries, still on the kitchen table, were out of my reach. "Just like a dwarf, but without legs."

"I'm pretty sure you're still taller than most dwarves." She grinned. 

I laughed and snapped my fingers. A pack of licorice gently floated towards me and landed in my hand. I slid it towards Mel and swung myself back to her. My ass had a nice little padding which made my landings softer than I would've expected.

"It's really weird though", I said, "Not having anything to wiggle around. I can't seem to wrap my head around it."

"Both are weird enough, trust me! On this side," she shrugged her empty shoulder, "its total radio silence. Brain not responding. While on that side, I have a little bit more control but still can't do much with it." She rubbed her shortened arm against her cheek and tapped it impatiently on her side. "Ok, let me try something."

Mel closed her eyes, looking deeply focused. She grunted a couple of times and moved her arm up and down. After a minute of effort, I noticed a single finger had grown on the end of her stump.

"Wow, that was demanding", she said out of breath. She brought her finger to her mouth and numbed on her nail. "Way better. Your turn again. But don't look!"

She walked up and crouched behind me, poking my back with her lone finger, the limited length of her arm delivering her breath directly on my neck. She put her limb on my shoulder and whispered in my ear :

"I win this time, bitch."


And she cut off my right arm.

As it thumped on the ground, I turned around to try to hex her thighs before she could reach my other arm. I couldn't let her outplay me like this. Worthy of an action movie, almost in slow motion, we reached each others' skin at the same time.


I shouted. "NO YOU DON'T! HAHA!"


But as I laughed, I noticed that my center of gravity had shifted heavily backwards. Again, I felt my grasp on the world become weaker. My eyes looked down to watch my other arm, lying on the floor, and then met with Mel's gaze. While her face lit up, my own grin faded. By the time I fell on my back, my arms had evaporated, and my shoulders were as empty and useless as my hips.


"Oh but I think I did!" She was laughing at me. Pushing herself up, I noticed I had missed my shot. Her legs barely stuck out of her shorts, but she still had some. My plan had been to erase them all. Using her faithful finger, she cleared the hair out of her face and stuck them behind her ear. "Just look at yourself Emma! You're so cute!"

I turned my head to face her : "Yeah yeah, well played. I should've known not to let you behind my back." I squirmed my body in an attempt to... Actually I don't know what I was thinking. There wasn't much I could do. I was completely limbless.

"And yet you did." She walked back to her place, alternatively swinging her butt cheeks forward, slowly moving across the appartment floor. For a newbie, she was pretty good at this. In a matter of seconds, she made it back where she started. 

Me? I just laid there on my back, staring at the ceiling, enjoying the limited exposure of my body to the outside world. I could feel the hard floor against my back. The soft summer breeze tingling the skin where my legs sprouted from my body. I tried getting up by contracting my abs. All that did was lift my head above the ground so I could take a good look at my torso.

"What now? Its not like I can do anything like this." 

Mel pondered, her finger wrapped around the pack of licorice. She tore the corner off and bit one out of the packaging. "Change your perspective. Stop thinking like a human with appendages. Think more like a..."

"A worm?" I cringed.

"Nah, more like a snake."


Well it was worth the try. From my position, I twisted my body, boosting a shoulder up using my butt and managed to roll over on my belly. I tried squirming from side to side but that ended up being ridiculously useless. I laid my chin on the floor, contracted my abs and brought my hips closer to my face. From this arch-like pose, I pushed myself upwards and landed in perfect balance on my bottom. I looked up at Mel. She looked impressed and raised me an approving finger. I found it was easier to stay sit if I bent my torso forward a bit.


I was slightly out of breath. "Now, how do you walk like this?"

Mel dropped the candy, raised her arm, and explained the motion as she did it herself. "Swing the shoulders, THEN the hips. Shoulders and hips, one continuous motion. I guess its easier with some counterbalance, even as puny as this one, but you should be fine, just take it slow."


I looked back down and got to work. I swung my right shoulder forward, and quickly twisted my hips in the same direction. I didn't move much, but at least I did a bit. I soon discovered that swinging my head along with my shoulder helped me cover more distance. I inched my way back to her, bended forward, my small body struggling to stay vertical. After reaching my initial spot, I turned around and walked some more. After my second comeback to Mel, I dropped on my stomach. She had managed to take her cellphone out and was taking selfies, but I was perfecting the art of rolling around, which was way faster than butt-walking. Only that got me dizzy quite fast. I turned over one last time rested my head on the floor.


"Ugh, I just feel so lazy now. I feel like this is the perfect way to enjoy a good night's sleep. Just a torso and a bed."

"There's not a hundred different ways to find out."


Mel touched her empty shoulder and regrew her entire arm in a second. She teleported us both on my bed by snapping her fingers and brought me up so my head could rest on the pillow. Just as I did earlier, she placed her palm against her stump and erased it up to the shoulder.

She laid beside me and brought the blanket over us. Making herself confortable, she put her arm across my chest, just in range of my mouth. Channeling magic directly through my head, I quickly bit her limb off.


"Oh what the hell?!" Said Mel, her face now buried in the pillow. "I thought you wanted to sleep."

"I do." I squirmed against her, my reduced body sinking in the soft mattress. "But I'm also wondering how much time it will take us to remove all these clothes without any limbs."

She brought her legs up and down again, bringing her face closer to mine. Her shimmering eyes were filled with envy.

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