The knocking at the door continued. Everyone kind of froze.

Jim realized that he was at least the most normal appearing person in the group. He stood up and cautiously approached the door, then looked at the others in various states of magical alteration. Andy and Katie had their heads swapped. Amy had no torso, just a head and shoulders atop a lower half. And Lisa, well, she was a pile of bits on the couch. And to compound the situation, this was not their house. A couple hours ago, none of them even thought this would have been possible.

Jim shrugged. Maybe it was Melvin returning.

He opened the door.

Standing on the porch, dripping wet, was a young woman with black hair. She looked Jim up and down. He was still in his magician's tuxedo, because, well, he kind of couldn't take it off without most of him disappearing.

"Hello," she said. "That your van outside?"

"We broke down," said Jim.

She nodded understandingly. "My dad used to drive one like it. His was little older I think. Could never keep it running for very long.

Course those kinds of cars are easy to fix."

"This… this is not our house," said Jim.

"You don't say. It's mine."

"Oh. Melvin…"

"Melvin told me you were here."

"So it's your house?"

"That's what I said. Mind if I come in?"

Jim blushed and took a step backwards. The girl came inside and waved to everyone gathered around.

"Hello. My name is Eliza," she said to the others.

"Thanks for letting us stay here," said Jim.

"Well, of course. Where else would you go? And as Melvin must've told you, you are all welcome here."

"I don't see your car outside," said Andy.

"I didn't come by car," she said cryptically.

"Ah. Teleportation…" said Andy knowingly.

"Nope that's ridiculous. Flew."

"Right…"

"So are you Melvin's grand-daughter?" asked Amy, hoping to change the subject.

"Ahh— no. No relation. His colleague, you might say. He stays with me as he has no surviving relatives. And he is quite a good conversationalist. We, as you may guess, are practitioners of the magical arts."

"That's awesome!" said Lisa. "I mean, this is awesome. Your house is awesome."

"Thank you," said Eliza. "And by the look of things, I see you've found my old locket."

"I only wanted to try it on," said Lisa. "I'm sorry!"

"Why be sorry? You wanted to try it on, so you did."

"I also don't know how to take it off. The clasp disappeared."

Eliza picked up Lisa's detached head. "It's off right now isn't it?" she said, holding up the dangling locket.

"But I'm in pieces!"

"Yes. But all you need to do is close the lock again and your pieces will start joining together. It doesn't need to be around your neck."

"Ohhh… that's … I'm kinda surprised we overlooked that," said Lisa.

"The answers to magical puzzles are often much simpler than they appear."

"What about Jim," said Amy. "We tried to take his tux off, and he poofed away."

Eliza smiled. "I thought he was a bit overdressed. But if you just use the magic wand…"

"What magic wand?" asked Jim.

"The one hidden up your sleeve," said Eliza, winking at him.

Jim reached into his empty sleeve and produced the wand, startling himself. He waved it in the air.

"Careful with that," said Eliza, ducking.

"Oh, sorry. How do you use it?"

"I think you'll have more fun if I just let you figure it out," said Eliza. "As for me, it has been quite a long evening already. I would go into detail, but perhaps we can discuss more in the morning. My chambers are upstairs in case there's some sort of emergency. But please, make yourselves at home, feel free to explore to your hearts content."

With that, Eliza turned and started to climb the stairs at the start of the hallway. Her feet made absolutely no noise as she did so.

"That… she's like our age," commented Katie.

"C'mon Jim, show us a trick!" said Andy.

"Yea, do something with the wand," said Amy.

Jim tapped Amy on the head with the wand. She vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Oh crap!" he said.

He shook the wand again. Nothing happened.

"Um…" Jim shrugged. "Should we go get Eliza?"

"No, you just need to make her reappear somewhere," said Katie.

"What?"

"Think of how a magician would do it. It's easy to make something vanish. But to bring it back, it has to come from somewhere hidden. Like a box or a hat."

Jim took off his hat and looked inside it. He looked at the others and tapped the wand on the hat.

Then he reached into the hat and pulled out Amy's head.

"Whoa!" said Amy. "That was cool. Where's the rest of me?"

Jim pulled out a leg, then another leg, followed by Amy's hips. He assembled Amy's pieces until she was just like she was before, then took a bow.

Those who had hands offered their applause.

"I'm kinda getting the hang of it," said Jim. He tapped Amy's head again, and two bunny ears sprouted up.

"Aww, you made her even cuter!" said Lisa.

"Well my curiosity is piqued," said Andy. "What do we think of trying out some more stuff?"

Everyone agreed that more investigation would be warranted. Andy and Katie began to reassemble Lisa's parts, laying them out as before.

"So all we need to do is leave the locket off your neck, and you'll stay together for good," said Katie.

"Yea. But wait. Put me together wrong."

"Really?" asked Katie.

"Yea! Like… why don't we switch my arms and legs."

"If that's what you want," said Andy.

They arranged Lisa's pieces as she asked, her legs joining her shoulders and her arms joining her hips. The Katie pressed the locket together.

Lisa's body jolted together, and she thrashed on the ground a bit.

"Ahh… god that feels so weird," she said. Then she sat up and flexed her new appendages. "I like this!"

"You look … so freaking silly," said Amy coming over. "But it kinda suits you."

"You should've put my head on backwards too!" said Lisa. "Or just completely rearranged everything…"

"You're weird," said Andy, laughing.

"And you're too normal! Besides being a girl, there's nothing unusual about you."

"I guess we'll have to change that then," said Andy.

"I kinda want to be put back together," said Amy. "Before I get changed again."

"As you like," said Jim. "Let's go back to the room with all the magical props."

"You two can if you like, I think Katie and I should go put our heads on the right bodies," said Andy.

"Yea, I kinda miss my boobs," said Katie.

"They're right here if you want them," said Andy, pressing 'his' boobs together. Katie giggled.

"I think I'm going to just walk around a bit," said Lisa. "It's nice to be in one piece again."

And with that, the group split up. What follows are their varying adventures…

#

Jim and Amy returned to the room with all of the magical props.

"You make quite a good magician you know," said Amy.

"Uhh… thanks I guess. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I could bring you back or not."

"But you managed to! And that was kinda cool, disappearing. It felt like I was just floating in space. Only I had no body or anything. It was just … 'me' somehow."

"Did you know what had happened?"

"Yea, I figured it out pretty quickly. Then when my head reappeared it was like such a rush, to have everything come back into existence at once. Kind of like being dunked in cold water, only in reverse."

"Weird. This whole place is so… I'm actually really happy the van broke down."

"Me too," grinned Amy. She took a half step closer so her leg brushed against his.

They returned to the box that had squished Amy down to begin with.

"All right," said Amy. "Let's do this!"

Amy stood in the box which came up to her hips, and Jim replaced the head-stock which held her in place. He shut the door of the box.

"Okay, so we probably just pull the lever again," he said. He did just that.

The box didn't expand. In fact, it got smaller. This time it slid sideways, getting much narrower.

"Uh…"

Amy giggled. "Open it up! Let's see what happened"

Jim took out the head stock. When he opened the door he had to help catch Amy as she hopped out. Amy was now only a head on top of her right leg.

"Wow!" she said, finally getting balanced. "This is … different."

"Sorry," said Jim. "I thought that would make it reverse."

"Don't be sorry! Pick me up! We have to show this to Lisa, she'll get a kick out of it."

"Sure, if we can find her."

#

Meanwhile, Katie and Andy were returning to the lab.

"It's kinda interesting," said Andy, "I mean, trying on your body. You're pretty … like compact."

"Your's is kinda neat too," said Katie. "I feel a lot stronger."

"Well, that follows, I guess. I'm a guy."

"Are you now?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Well, not at the moment I guess."

Katie laughed. Suddenly she grabbed Andy around the waist, then scooped an arm under his legs picking him up.

"I've wanted to try that since we swapped," she said. "I mean really, I should be able to do whatever I want with my own body…"

"I ah… Okay. Sure. You can carry me, whatever."

"Oh please, you know what we're both thinking."

There was a pause.

"There's a condom in my wallet," said Andy.

"Only trouble is I'm still into guys," said Katie.

"And I'm into girls. But hey! Look! Boobs!" he said, fondling his chest.

"You cock is getting hard," said Katie. She set Andy back down. "We need to find a bedroom."

#

Twenty minutes later, the two of them more disheveled and in a considerably better mood than before, they returned to the lab.

"You really know how to use that thing," said Andy, teasingly.

"You mean I knew where to put it," said Katie. "But look. This isn't… it was just…"

"Because we both wanted to try it. Look I get it. It was different, it's exciting. I still think I prefer having a cock."

"Yeah, likewise I'd like to become a girl again. I liked it though."

"Well, lets put ourselves back."

"Agreed."

They returned to the machine that had swapped their heads in the first place.

"Wait," said Katie. "How are we going to switch back without someone else to turn on the machine? We need a different way."

"Well," said Andy. "What if we just chop off our heads and switch them?"

"That might work. Of course, we'd have to be really careful… Wait, look at that thing."

There was another machine with one of the bell-jars that had contained their heads earlier. Only this was set on its own box, just by itself.

"Maybe this will let us swap?" said Andy. "If we go one at a time."

"Sure, we can give it a shot. Worst comes to worst, I bet Jim can do it with the wand."

"Well maybe. Personally I think he's just about as likely to turn you into a can of tuna as restore you."

Katie cracked up. "The look on his face when he disappeared Amy…"

"Oh I know!" said Andy. "Now those two, they need to follow our example and get it done."

Katie laughed. "Okay. I'll go first."

She got into the box, which was a bit larger, allowing her to stand up. She put her head into the jar.

"Okay, so I just … I'll just try this," said Andy, throwing a big switch on the machine.

It hummed. There was a noise from inside the box. A jar on the outside of the machine filled up with blue smoke.

"Hm…" said Andy. "Did you feel something?"

"Nope."

"Well, something happened. Let's see."

Andy opened the door.

"It's empty!" he said. "Wait, where's my body?"

"I don't know, get me out of this jar!"

Andy lifted the jar off Katie's head.

"Well. Uh…"

"Yea," she laughed. "Sorry, I lost your body."

"It's … well, I'm not trying that same thing."

"Does it have any other settings?"

Andy and Katie returned to the control panel. There were several options and toggles.

"Well," said Katie. "Since our heads were turned into smoke earlier, I think it's safe to say that your body is in that blue jar."

"That sounds about right," said Andy. "So how do we get it out of there?"

"I think the toggle between the head and the body is that one," said Katie, pointing with her tongue. "And that other one might be the direction it goes?"

"Worth a shot," said Andy. He flipped the switch and pressed the button. The jar emptied of smoke.

Andy opened the door to find his body had reappeared.

"My body's back," he said to Katie.

"Interesting. I still seem to be just a head."

"Huh… Well." Andy led his body by the hand out of the machine. It followed but didn't seem to have any 'will' of its own.

"So I just need to get my head off of your body," he said. "Right?"

"I guess so?"

"What if I try the jar, and we do the other switch? It should make my head disappear. Then you get my body back into the machine and reverse it."

"Can your headless body follow directions?" asked Katie.

"Can you?" Andy asked. "Put your arms out to the side!"

Andy's body obeyed.

"Put them back down. Jump up and down."

Andy's body started jumping.

"Looks good to me," said Andy. "Listen to that head. She's in charge!"

He got into the machine…

#

Meanwhile, Lisa had been wandering around testing out her new configuration. She still found it easiest to walk with her legs, which left the rest of her much closer to the ground. She had to keep her elbows up off the ground, or else her arms would drag. She found that it was pretty easy to boost herself up on her hands, but that got tiring after a couple minutes.

It was through the kitchen that she found the stairs down to the basement. Nobody'd been down there yet, so she may as well take a look.

At first it seemed disappointingly ordinary. There were tools, extra furniture, a wet-vac. Things you'd expect in anyone's basement.

Opening a cheap wooden door — she had to fumble on the knob with her feet for a minute to get it open — she found a surprisingly cosy room that was brightly lit. And what was inside looked like the most exciting thing she'd seen since arriving.

The room was full of 'extra' pieces. That is, body parts. Arms, legs, even heads. They were rather well-organized too.

Lisa picked up a pretty blond head. It didn't seem to have anyone inside. The eyes were open, but non-responsive. She wondered how to try it on. Well, there seemed to be the equipment in the room to do just that, noticing an interesting arrangement of boxes, blades and pulleys in the corner.

The contraption consisted of an upright frame that was suspended from wires that hung from the ceiling. In many areas of the frame, there were metal blades on a pivot. With the different pulleys, it seemed that someone could put the arms or legs they wanted in one box, stand inside the frame, and easily slice themselves apart before connecting the new appendage.

Well. She had to try this out.

First she picked out a new set of legs. They were rather muscular, though still feminine. She set those into the frame next to where her 'legs' would fit. Then, standing on her arms, she stepped into the frame and pressed the edge of the blade right up to her hips.

By pulling the lever on the frame where it connected, the blades went right through her 'shoulders' and cut her arms away from her lower body. The separate frame containing them easily swung away, and she moved the new legs into place.

They stuck fast. Again she felt the familiar jolt of being restored, only this time it was much more manageable. Probably because it was only two pieces this time instead of seven.

She tested out her new legs. They felt strong and fast. She looked at the mirror and checked them out.

"Well," she said aloud. "This is pretty cool. So what else can I try on?"

She started replacing more parts. First she put some arms back on, just to make things a bit easier. The arms she chose were definitely male — well-muscled, though not hairy. She tried on a few different heads before deciding to upgrade her boobs.

And that meant replacing her torso. But even that proved a surprisingly easy affair with the equipment. The frames with her arms could be locked in place while her torso easily swung out to the side, allowing her to move the new one, sporting a pair of rather eye-catching boobs, into place.

By then, she was completely unrecognizable. The only part of her body that remained was her hips. Which she soon swapped out for a pair with a more defined ass.

"I'll have to bring the others down here," she said. "But first, what's in this closet?"

She opened the door. The 'closet' turned out to be almost another room. Like the other, this one was full of parts. But they were a very different sort of 'body' parts.

There was a mermaid's tail. A robot head. Dog ears. Bear paws. All sorts of unusual bits to add.

Another discovery was the vanity in this room. Arranged in front of it were hundreds of facial features, all by themselves. Lisa found a small knife on the table and used it to switch her nose for another. Then she found she could use the tip to peel off her lips. She searched around for another mouth, settling for one with a forked tongue.

"Thiss is amazing…"

She went to get her original body parts, just to make sure she kept track of those. But she knew she wasn't going to return to the others 'normal'. Besides, there were a few other things to try — how many arms could she connect at once? Could she try two heads? Were those shark teeth?

#

Jim and Amy had not been able to find Lisa. They'd looked almost everywhere. Jim had boosted Amy up onto his shoulder. She was capable of hopping around, but found it pretty hard to balance. And once she'd fallen over, she really had no way to get back up.

"Well," said Jim. "What if we just use the wand to bring you back? Like before, only I try to get the rest of pieces?"

"Or we could try the box again!"

"I have a feeling you'd come out even smaller."

"C'mon! Let's try it!"

They returned to the box and placed Amy back inside. Jim pulled the lever again, wondering what would happen this time.

The box suddenly folded completely flat. Amy looked up at Jim.

"So…" said Jim.

"Maybe we should quit while I'm a head," she said, suppressing a giggle.

"I think you're heading in the right direction," said Jim, biting his lip. He picked her up and held her facing him.

"Oh god, we're awful. So here's an idea," said Amy. "What if you pulled my body out of that hat of yours."

"Maybe. Or I could use… hm…"

Jim picked up a long black cloth that was lying on top of one of the boxes. He draped it over Amy's head and let it drop down to the floor, covering up a roughly Amy sized area.

He whisked away the cloth. Amy stood there, complete and whole. And… naked.

"Yes!" she said, giving Jim a high-five. "You did it!"

"Aha!" said Jim. "Sorry, your clothes…"

"Oh… Well. Nothing you wouldn't have seen sooner or later."

"What?"

Suddenly Amy's arms were around him. Then, the inevitable kiss came at last. Tongues began to battle. Hands began to fumble. Until…

"Aww, why don't you have a body?" said Amy, sticking her hands through Jim's shirt. "I kinda forgot."

"Wait, what are you?"

Amy had just unbuttoned his shirt and was reaching … into him.

"I don't have any clothes, so why don't I just wear you?"

Jim's form suddenly collapsed. Amy was deft enough to catch his head and hold him up for one more long kiss, before setting him aside.

"It's weird," said Jim. "I can still feel the clothes, even when they're not … well I can feel you getting into me."

"Yea?" she stroked one of the pant-legs, sending a shudder through Jim's senses.

"Yea, that's… That's nice."

Amy giggled. She got the pants on, then the shirt and vest, and finally the jacket, gloves, and hat. Then she picked up Jim's head.

"Still feel it?"

"Yea, I do. But it's different. I didn't move just then, I just …"

"Hm…" Amy pulled up one of the sleeves.

Nothing was inside.

"Uh-oh," she said. "My body's gone again."

"I just brought it back for you!"

"Well, we know how to do it now!"

"Okay, yea. Nothing to worry about I guess."

"Right. Hey, I just thought of something. You can still feel the suit?"

"I mean, it still feels like it did before, pretty much like my body."

"Move your left arm!" said Amy, extending 'her' arm out to the side.
Jim flexed 'his' left arm, which curled into touch Amy's nose.

"We're both sharing a body!" she said excitedly. "Or an empty suit. Whatever this is."

"Not to bad," said Jim, reaching to pick himself up with the arm he'd just used.

"I wonder if I can …"

Amy used their right arm to remove her own head from their shoulders, leaving an empty collar behind.

"Great!" she said, "We're both in control. And you could've been carrying your head around this whole time!"

"Well, what a wasted opportunity."

"This is something we gotta show everyone else," said Amy.

"Most definitely."

#

Jim and Amy returned to the living room to find nobody else had come back yet. Setting their heads side by side, they let their body recline on the couch. It was late. Perhaps they'd go to bed soon. They started speculating on what they could do tomorrow — possibly a magic show, possibly restoring their bodies, possibly adding another person to their 'body'.

From the hallway, they heard Andy and Katie's voices.

"They're gonna get a kick out of this," said Amy.  

Their suit-body stood up and picked up a head under each arm.

"It's not my fault you wandered off," said Katie. "What was I going to do? Chase after you?"

"But you were in charge!"

"I mean, sort of. But you obviously have more command than I did."

"We'll get the others and go look for it, but first, we gotta show this to them."

"Of course. This is maybe the coolest thing we've done all night…"

The door opened. In came a headless female body carrying a head under each arm.

"What's up guys!" said Andy.

"Hello there," said Amy.

Both regarded one another.

"Wait, you too?" said Katie.

"You guys ahh… Are you sharing a body?" asked Jim.

"Yes, we tried to switch back, only we had nobody to work the machine from the outside. So we found another one, and got Katie's head off her body," said Andy.

"Then Andy's body … kind of wandered off while he was in the machine. Fortunately, the machine seems to be able to de-smokify him. But when we brought back my body, it wasn't under anyone's control. But as we figured out, it takes proximity into account. See, a headless body will listen to the nearest head, or possibly anyone nearby, but if it gets too far away, it seems to do it's own thing."

"And you guys?" said Andy.

"I used my magic to bring back Amy, but then she tried on the suit. So now we're both kind of inside the suit, only. Same deal really."

"This is hilarious," said Katie. "We are rapidly running low on bodies."

"Mine is somewhere!" said Andy. "It is, at least, corporeal!"

"Yea, but who knows where it ended up, or what it's up to!"

"Well, luckily they are pretty dumb by themselves," said Andy. "At least, it seems that way."

"I wonder what happened to Lisa," said Katie.

That was when they heard a noise coming from the kitchen. In came… well, someone female.

Who exactly was still kind of ambiguous. Where her head should have been there was an octopus.

"Um…" said Amy. "Hi Lisa."

The octopus looked at them all.

Probably-Lisa pulled up her shirt. Lisa's face was stuck to her stomach.

"Hi guys!"

"Didn't you have your arms and legs switched?"

"I did, but I found a whole room of extra parts! Included this sweet head."

"I'm not sure that's supposed to be a head," said Katie. "It looks more like…"

"What, are you saying I'm not pretty?"

Somehow, the octopus winked.

"Are you controlling that thing?" asked Andy.

"Here, check it out!"

Lisa's body removed the octopus from its shoulders and threw it at Andy and Katie. One of them dodged, but a tentacle reached out and caught the arm holding Katie's head.

"Ahh!" she said. "It's got us!"

The octopus crawled over and laid a tentacle across her face. Lisa's face on her stomach was cracking up.

"Weird!" said Katie. "You are so weird."

"So what happened to you guys?" said Lisa.

They both filled in the details and started comparing experiences. Andy's body was MIA. Lisa had replaced her head with an octopus, which she had found with the other weird parts. She said she heavily considered swapping her arms and legs for tentacles, which were apparently a real possibility. Jim and Amy told… some of the story about how they came to end up sharing the suit-body.
It was soon apparent that despite the new changes and discoveries, that everyone was exhausted.

"We could all share a room!" said Lisa. "Would be more fun that way. Besides, between us we've only got three… eh… two-ish bodies to account for.

"We can hang ours in the closet," offered Amy. "Then all we need are pillows."

They retired to one of the bedrooms. Arrangements were made, extra pillows were found. Amy and Jim's body was folded up and draped over a chair while Lisa and Katie's body took their spots on the bed. They were all asleep before they knew it. It had been quite a day.