attribute theft, inanimate tf, shattering (not really my thing, but it fit and I promise it’s not squicky (sorry if you like squicky shattering))

Anna hung up her phone call with Heather and sighed. Brittney had made it very clear that she wasn’t happy with all of the “work” Anna was making her do. Making it up to Brittney later would probably be exhausting. Maybe she could swap Brittney’s desire for revenge into a goldfish. Or she could swap Brittney’s desire for revenge into herself. Wanting revenge against herself would certainly be a new experience…

Merging magic with technology was such a complicated art that Anna was very surprised at how well the property swapper was working. The technology provided a simple interface, but the magic in the circuits did tons of heavy lifting. A mere thought about a property would bring it up to be highlighted and swapped between two targets.

Not wanting to get back to work so quickly, Anna selected the mug on her desk and herself as targets. Lots of the mug’s properties bubbled up on the menu: Ceramic, microwaveable, flower design on the front, belongs to Anna, shatterable, 9 centimeters tall… The first one might be interesting. Anna set the timer to 15 seconds.

Ding.

Anna’s skin became hard, glossy-white, and shiny. She rapped on her chest, only to be met with the sound of hollow ceramic clinking against hollow ceramic.

“Weird,” Anna said, her ceramic lips and tongue clinking as she spoke.

The timer ran out and Anna had returned to being flesh and blood. She realized she hadn’t taken the time to observe how the mug looked when it was made of “Anna”, but decided she was better off not knowing what it looked like.

With the timer still set to 15 seconds, Anna decided to give the incredibly specific “flower design on the front” property a try.

Ding.

The flower design on the mug was now gone, leaving a plain white surface. Anna looked down. Nothing. Anna quickly pulled up her blouse. There, just below her boobs, was a perfectly drawn pink carnation. Before Anna could properly admire it, the timer ran out and the carnation found its way back to the mug. Wanting to see how it looked on herself again, Anna increased the timer to one minute and dragged the flower design back over to her side of the property swapper.

Ding.

In an instant, Anna’s perspective had changed. It wasn’t as drastic as when she swapped her head onto Heather’s body back at the apartment: The lighting was still the same and she was still in her lab, but now she was facing the other way. She was still at her desk and the property swapper was still in front of her, but now it was very close. It was also much bigger. Anna looked up and was quite surprised at what she saw. In front of her, sitting in her chair, was a very large and very real pink carnation. Anna tried to reach out to it, but her hand bumped into some invisible force. Anna turned around to get her bearings. There was only a white void behind her. That’s when Anna realized what had happened.

Anna had accidentally swapped her whole body with the pink carnation design on the mug.

Anna was just paint on a mug. Her entire existence was stuck in a cheap coffee cup she had gotten from a thrift store for less than a dollar. Everything felt fine and 3-dimensional for her, but in reality, she was just a 2-dimensional drawing that happened to be able to move.

Never one to panic, Anna took a deep breath. She knew that the timer would swap her back after it ran out. The only thing of concern was that the carnation wasn’t very well-balanced on the chair. It slowly began to tilt to the side. Anna watched the timer on the property swapper count down as the pink carnation slowly inched its was off the chair. It finally began to fall off the chair right as the timer on the property swapper counted down to zero.

Instantly, Anna swapped back with the carnation.

“Aaaaaah!”

She was also now falling off her chair.

Anna unceremoniously toppled to the floor.

After dusting herself off, Anna grabbed the property swapper again. Anna was wary of trying to swap anything with the carnation design again, but another one of the mug’s properties had intrigued Anna. She knew it might be dangerous, but she figured it couldn’t cause any damage that she couldn’t fix later…

The mug’s property grew larger on the screen as Anna dwelled on it: “Shatterable.”

With the timer still set to one minute, Anna made the swap.

Ding.

Anna very gingerly rubbed her left arm. It was still just as soft and armsy as it was before the swap. Maybe impossible swaps didn’t work? Ever bold in the name of science, Anna decided she would try to punch a wall as hard as she could. The only problem was that Anna wasn’t sure how sturdy she was. Anna’s body was shatterable now. Ceramic mugs don’t normally walk around. Would the force of a normal step break her leg?

Anna very, very slowly got up from her chair, taking care to avoid any sudden bumps. Now standing, Anna looked back to the property swapper. She only had 15 seconds before the swap ended. Figuring she wouldn’t have the nerve to try this again if the timer ran out, she quickly left the desk. In her rush, she tripped over a leg of her chair, turned, and fell backwards. Instinctually, Anna reached her left hand back to catch herself.

Clink.

Anna’s forearm broke off ever so gracefully from the rest of her body. In the same way that a mug’s handle might break off in one piece if you dropped it on the floor, Anna’s forearm was now simply a broken-off piece of her tumbling away. Fortunately, thanks to the magic of the tablet, the insides of her broken parts were just smooth skin. Unfortunately, Anna wasn’t done falling.

Crunch.

Anna’s bum reached the floor and broke into a few pieces: Two large ones and many smaller ones. Anna’s skirt only served to mildly keep things together as she continued tumbling down. Feeling her behind rub against itself like this as she fell was certainly different.

Crash.

Unable to properly stabilize herself, the rest of Anna hit the floor. With her bum already missing, her lack of structural integrity caused her to break in half at the waist. Her upper half fell back, completely separated from her bottom half. Finally, Anna was done falling.

Surprisingly enough, Anna felt fine. She only felt disoriented, since she was separated in ways she had never been separated before.

Before she could assess the damage any further, the timer on the swap ran out. However, Anna was still in pieces on the floor. Anna saw her legs had broken at her pelvis and knees. Her top half was only cracked in a few places, staying mostly in one piece. Anna looked at the stump that was her left arm. She tried wiggling her fingers and felt them move, but they were about 20 feet away from her across the lab.

With only one full arm at her disposal and nothing below her tummy, Anna cautiously dragged her upper body back to the desk. Dragging the smooth skin on the bottom of her torso through the broken parts of her legs, butt, and personal bits made her shiver. Anna managed to cautiously push her cracked upper-half over to the desk, reach an arm up, and get a hold of the property swapper.

Anna and the mug were still the two selected targets. “Shatterable” had swapped itself back to the mug per the timer. Meanwhile, Anna had a new swappable property: “Shattered”.

Not wanting to risk accidentally breaking again and losing her one functional arm, Anna swapped her “shattered” property to the mug.

Ding.

Anna patted herself down. She was all in one piece again, while her mug’s handle had broken off and the cup-proper was all kinds of broken apart on the desk. Anna had wondered if she would stay shattered after the “shatterable” property was no longer a part of her. Now she knew. Anna wrote down a note on her tablet: “Impossible results from swaps are maintained even after properties that were required for that result are removed.”

Despite her mini-adventure, Anna still had work to do. Anna realized she was having a hard time focusing. She still needed to finish the hard-reset feature on the property swapper to make it 100% safe-to-use on strangers. Having to manually keep track of every target swapped so they could be restored later would be a nightmare. Brittney and Heather back at the apartment didn’t count, especially since they weren’t going anywhere any time soon.

Anna saw a property pop up on her side of the property swapper: “Distracted”

…

Ding.

Anna was no longer distracted. The broken mug on her desk was as distracted as a broken mug could be, but it wouldn’t be a problem for the foreseeable future.

A few hours later and Anna’s work was complete. At least, as complete as she could get without testing it. Anna was still waiting on Heather’s test of the safety-feature back at her apartment for the next 21 hours or so. Brittney had said that having your mind stored inside the property swapper was peaceful. After her earlier escapade with the mug, Anna definitely needed some peace.

With the timer set to 22 hours, Anna swapped her consciousness with no target.

Ding.