Bethany and her friend Jolene, or Beth and Jo respectively as they preferred, were walking down main street, tired after a day out on the town and ready to get back to their dorm at the local university. They were almost back to the parking lot when Jo's hand landed on Beth's shoulder and jerked her back.
"Hey, what gives Jo?" Beth asked as she spun around to face her friend.
Jo pointed to a shop that had just walked by. It was a tacky affair, with stars, glitter and magic symbols decorating the dark tinted glass of the storefront. Nothing could be seen inside and the place was simply titled "Magic Shop".
"This wasn't here yesterday, was it? Pretty sure this was, like, empty and abandoned." Jo said as she began walking towards the shop.
"Huh, I guess so? Want to check it out?," Beth asked, but the door was already closing as her friend headed inside. She let out a huff and quickly followed Jo inside. She nearly collided with the back of Jo as she made her way into the shop. She could see why her friend had paused. Lined ceiling to wall were a plethora of magic looking trinkets, books, and stuff they had no way of identifying. Jo puzzled for moment, then picked a section at random and started down it with a bemused Beth in tow.
The aisle they happened upon was stocked with almost comically stereotypical magic supplies. There were playing cards, magic rings, invisible ink, fake flowers, magic wands and more. Something caught Jo's eye and she picked it up with little hesitation. It was a small see through plastic box with about a dozen pink bands, rubber possibly as they jiggled when she held them.
Beth looked over the box. "Huh, wonder what they do?"
Jo shrugged. "Dunno, there's nothing on the box but a name. Says they're Wonder Bands(TM)." She looked around the box for anything else, but there was nothing. She tugged a little and found the lid came off easily. "Well, let's try one on and see what it does."
She took one out and placed it on her wrist. Almost immediately the band snapped into place around her wrist and perfectly sealing around the skin. "Huh," Jo said, "It kind of feels like there's a bit of pressu-!" She cried out as her hand simply fell off. It landed on the floor with a soft smack.
Both women stood there, speechless. Then they both shrieked as the hand flipped over and stood up on its fingers like a spider. It appeared to be looking around, fingers tapping on the floor as it maneuvered around.
"C-can you feel that Jo?" Beth asked.
Jo nodded. "Y-yeah, I can. But, um, I'm not doing that." she said, pointing with her clean stump at the detached hand. That's when the two remembered Jo's stump and found to their surprise there was no blood, just regular skin as though she had never had a hand there to begin with. Looking at the hand, they noticed that the same was not true of her hand. The pink band had grown to completely cover where the hand was disconnected.
A voice chimed in from behind them. The most wizardly looking man they had ever seen appeared before them, a warm smile plastered across his face. "It would appear you have found the auto separating consciousness operating detach bands! Quite a fun little toy if I do say so myself."
"Are you the store owner? What the hell is this?" Beth asked pointing to the fidgeting hand on the floor.
"Well, first off, no need for that kind of language ma'am. Second, I am Clyde, Master of the Arcane, Conjurer of the Immaterial, Gardener of the Plane of Infinite, Protector of the Fifth, Seventh, and Thirty-Ninth Realms of Nephitroz, and Magician Extraordinaire!" He paused a moment to possible allow the girls to catch up. Or for applause. "And that, my friends, is a tool to allow the safe separation of the body and its parts and order them around. The removed body part contains a small sliver of the owner's mind and personality. It will, if able, complete tasks assigned to it by its owner or those the owner deems acceptable to receive orders from. Go ahead, try it."
Jo looked from the wizard to her hand, then back again. Finally, she spoke, "Uh, hand, climb back onto my arm." As soon as the order was finished, with impressive dexterity Jo's hand scrambled up her leg, around her shoulder and finally settled at the end of the arm, hovering just above the stump."
"Excellent! Now try sticking your hand back on," the magician said excitedly.
Jo picked up her hand and pressed it against the stump. The pink ring expanded and became fell off her wrist.
"Err, perhaps you should have applied it the correct way?"
Beth stifled a giggle as she saw her friend's hand had been reattached backwards with the palm facing away from her. Jo, to her credit, didn't seem panicked, and was instead curious. She calmly reapplied the band again, catching her hand this time, and placed it back on the right way. "How much?," she asked.
"One hundred dollars, and let me tell you, that is a steal!"
Neither of them had that much on them, so they pooled their resources and purchased the bands together. Oddly enough, once they had bought them, Clyde ushered them quickly out the door. As soon as they stepped outside the shop vanished, replaced almost immediately with the boarded up and empty store it had been the day before...
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