Chapter 77: Overly Enthusiastic Gwen
The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the evening sky in bruised shades of violet and orange as streetlights flickered to life across the quiet town.
Charmcaster and Gwen strolled side by side down the paved sidewalk. This time, the silver-haired sorceress had extended a personal invitation. Given the surprisingly good impression Charmcaster had left during their last encounter, Gwen had seen no reason to refuse. As for whether Klein and Ben had any objections? There was nothing to overthink about two teenage girls having a casual evening out.
Charmcaster affectionately linked her arm through Gwen's. "Gwen, you truly are my best friend. Tonight, I want to personally cook a massive feast just for you."
"Really? I am looking forward to it." Gwen responded with a bright smile. She was already mentally preparing herself to chew and swallow with a grin, fully intending to call the food delicious no matter how awful Charmcaster's cooking turned out to be. She simply did not want to hurt the other girl's feelings.
Charmcaster led the way to a quaint, two-story Western-style house tucked away at the end of a suburban street. She had bought it recently. For a magic caster of her caliber, acquiring mundane human currency was a trivial matter.
Keys jingled as Charmcaster unlocked the front door. "Head into the living room first, Gwen. I just need to put a few things away."
Gwen nodded, stepping over the threshold and looking around the dimly lit space. She completely missed the dark, predatory smile that twisted Charmcaster's lips the moment her back was turned.
Walking into the center of the living room, Gwen paused. A massive iron cauldron sat directly on the floorboards, bubbling with a viscous liquid that emitted a strange, cloying odor.
"Charmcaster, what is this... Ah!"
Before Gwen could finish her question, a thick cloud of pinkish-purple smoke erupted from the boiling pot. The vapor surged forward like a living creature, instantly enveloping her and solidifying into a glowing, translucent sphere. Gwen gritted her teeth, trying to summon her Anodite mana, but found her limbs completely paralyzed. She could not even twitch a finger.
"Finally! I am finally so close to success!"
Charmcaster stepped into the room, no longer bothering to hide her true intentions. She threw her head back and burst into a fit of maniacal laughter.
Gwen stared through the glowing barrier in absolute horror and disbelief. She thought they had moved past their rivalry. She thought they were friends. "Why are you doing this?!"
"Gwen, you are indeed a very good friend." Charmcaster stopped laughing, her magenta eyes narrowing with a dark, obsessive gleam. "But I envy you. I envy you so, so much."
Charmcaster raised her hands and began chanting a rapid, guttural spell. Another plume of pinkish-purple smoke wafted from the cauldron, swirling around the sorceress until it encased her in an identical glowing sphere.
Gwen could only watch in mounting dread as the sphere holding Charmcaster floated off the ground. The two magical prisons drew closer and closer together, pulled by an invisible magnetic force, until their surfaces violently collided.
A blinding flash of light bleached the room white. Then, absolute silence.
A soft groan broke the quiet.
Gwen slowly opened her eyes. She pushed herself off the floor, her vision swimming, and looked down at her hands. Pale skin. Silver rings. Dark, gothic sleeves. Panic seized her chest like a physical grip. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the nearest window, staring desperately into the glass. The blurry reflection staring back had silver hair and magenta eyes.
"No! How is this possible?!" Gwen gasped, hearing Charmcaster's voice slip from her own throat. "I have turned into Charmcaster?!"
Across the room, the imposter slowly stood up, examining her new, familiar hands. "I succeeded!"
Gwen whirled around, glaring at her own stolen face. "What exactly did you do?!"
The imposter occupying Gwen's body flashed a triumphant, entirely uncharacteristic smirk. "Nothing much. I just swapped bodies with you, Gwen... No, wait. I am Gwen now. You are Charmcaster."
The imposter brushed a strand of orange hair behind her ear. "Do not worry. I will thoroughly enjoy everything that belongs to you. And of course, that includes your cousin."
With a mocking wave, the fake Gwen tapped into the Anodite mana coursing through her stolen veins. Her body flared with bright pink energy as she blasted the window open and flew straight into the night sky.
The imposter's parting words hit Gwen harder than a physical blow. The sheer audacity of stealing her body just to get close to Klein felt like being cuckolded right to her face.
Gwen rushed toward the broken window, fully intending to chase the thief down. She jumped, expecting to take flight, only to crash unceremoniously onto the floorboards. She cursed under her breath. Because she was so used to flying naturally as an Anodite, she had never bothered to learn actual levitation magic.
Fortunately, she patted her new pockets and felt the heavy, leather-bound weight of Charmcaster's spellbook. She flipped it open, scanning the glowing runes, forcing herself to learn and cast the flight spell on the spot.
In truth, the imposter had always been highly interested in Ben's Omnitrix. But ever since she saw Klein gently patting Gwen's head during their last encounter, a deep, burning obsession had taken root. She realized there was something she wanted far more than a watch.
A short time later, the fake Gwen landed softly outside the Rustbucket. Inside, Klein and the others were just setting the table for dinner.
"Cousin!"
The imposter burst through the door, rushed straight past the table, and threw her arms tightly around Klein's neck.
Klein blinked in surprise. He instinctively reached up and patted her head, then gently pried her off his shoulders. "What is wrong? Did Charmcaster give you trouble?"
"No, Charmcaster is very nice, and she is incredibly beautiful too." The imposter smiled up at him, her eyes wide and innocent. "Let us not talk about her anymore. I do not want to stay in this town. Can we please leave right now?"
She leaned forward, hugging Klein's arm tightly against her chest.
Klein sighed, feeling entirely helpless against his cousin's sudden clinginess.
Ben, however, dropped his fork onto his empty plate with a loud clatter. "Dork, what kind of madness are you on right now? We haven't even eaten dinner yet!"
The imposter felt a surge of irritation and wanted nothing more than to blast the boy through the wall, but she swallowed her temper, terrified of revealing any flaws in her disguise. Fortunately, her acting skills were sharp. She shrank back against Klein, putting on a flawless display of nervous anxiety.
Grandpa Max watched the exchange carefully. Seeing his granddaughter acting so unusually rattled, he assumed she had genuinely experienced something frightening in town. Out of concern for her safety, he packed up the dinner supplies, fired up the engine, and drove the Rustbucket out of the city limits.
Early the next morning, the metal door of the Rustbucket swung open. The RV was now parked in a quiet, sunlit clearing in the suburbs.
Ben stepped outside, stretching his arms high above his head with a loud yawn.
Before he could take another step, Klein walked out, grabbed Ben by the collar, and dragged him around to the side of the vehicle.
"Cousin? What is wrong with you?" Ben rubbed his eyes, startled by the dark circles under Klein's eyes. "Did you not sleep well last night?"
"Do not even mention it." Klein rubbed his temples, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "Gwen was completely restless all night. Ben, do you not think Gwen has been acting incredibly strange since yesterday? It is like she is entirely too... enthusiastic towards me."
Ben scratched his head, completely oblivious. "Hasn't she always been like that? Cousin, you underestimate yourself way too much. If I were a girl, I would probably be obsessed with you too."
Ben had always known that Gwen harbored special feelings for their cousin. In fact, Gwen was the only person alive who thought her crush was a secret.
"But she never used to do this." Klein crossed his arms, his expression serious. "She never tried to hand-feed me my dinner. She never demanded that I feed her. And she was never this aggressively clingy when trying to sleep."
Klein knew his actual cousin. Gwen was secretly affectionate, yes, but she was also incredibly shy and easily flustered. This bold, physical behavior was entirely out of character.
"Cousin! Oh, there you are."
The imposter rounded the corner of the RV. The moment she spotted Klein, her eyes lit up. She practically skipped over, immediately demanding a morning hug and another head pat.
Klein sighed helplessly, raising his hand to oblige. To be completely honest, he did not think the situation was terrible. Having a beautiful girl doting on him and wanting to be close wasn't a bad fate. He certainly did not dislike the attention.
But his instincts were screaming that something was fundamentally wrong. He just did not know enough about the mechanics of mana to suspect a literal body swap.
A sudden rush of displaced air interrupted the morning peace.
Gwen, trapped in Charmcaster's silver-haired body, dropped out of the sky and landed hard in the dirt. The moment she locked eyes on the imposter hugging Klein's arm, her temper violently erupted.
"Charmcaster! You absolute thief! Get your hands off him right now!"
Ben took a step back, utterly bewildered. "What is going on?"
Gwen pointed a trembling finger at the fake. "Cousin, you have to believe me! I am Gwen! She is Charmcaster!"
"Wait, you are not you, and she is not her..." Ben grabbed his head, groaning. "I am completely confused. My brain cannot keep up with this."
The imposter immediately panicked, tightening her grip on Klein. "I am Gwen! Are you going to believe this lying witch, or are you going to believe your own eyes?!"
Gwen glared daggers at her stolen face. "Alright. If you are really Gwen, then tell me the exact name of the stuffed teddy bear Ben sleeps with every single night."
Before the imposter could even begin to sweat, Ben crossed his arms defensively. "Hey! Fuzzy Bear Brother has his own designated bed! It just happens to be conveniently placed right next to my pillow!"
Gwen slapped her own cheek in sheer exasperation. "Ah! You idiot! You just gave her the answer! Dweeb! Did Uncle Carl and Aunt Sandra send you to Dweeb School, or were you just born this naturally dense?!"
Ben stared blankly at the silver-haired sorceress, the familiar, biting insult registering perfectly in his mind. "Gwen?! It really is you!"
Gwen let out a massive breath of relief. "Took you long enough to figure it out."
Beside Klein, the imposter lowered her head, her stolen face completely unreadable.
Klein looked down at the girl clinging to his arm. The pieces clicked into place. He understood exactly what had happened now. Yet, surprisingly, he felt no urge to summon Alien X and erase her from existence. The fake Gwen, or rather Charmcaster, had shown no actual malice toward him. In fact, she had shown an overwhelming amount of goodwill and affection.
Klein was a pragmatic man. He generally did not bring down the hammer on people who genuinely liked him.
Instead of pushing her away, Klein raised his hand and gently patted the imposter's head. "Swap back with Gwen."
Charmcaster looked up at Klein, her stolen magenta eyes wide with disbelief. This simple head pat... it felt infinitely more delightful to her than all the previous ones combined. Because this time, Klein knew exactly who she was. He wasn't patting Gwen. He was patting her.
Overjoyed by the realization, Charmcaster threw her arms around Klein's waist, hugging him tight one last time.
A few feet away, Ben quietly took two large steps back, noticing that the Anodite trapped in a witch's body was currently vibrating with enough homicidal rage to level a small mountain.
Charmcaster finally pulled back, holding Klein's hand with a bright smile. "Let us go buy the materials needed for the reversal spell then."
"No need! I already prepared them!"
Gwen stomped forward, violently shoving the two of them apart. She reached into Charmcaster's dimensional pocket, pulled out the necessary ingredients, and slammed a large iron pot down into the dirt. She began brewing the magic potion with terrifying, aggressive speed.
Once the foul-smelling liquid began to bubble, the body-swapping magic proceeded without a hitch. Two spheres of pinkish-purple light collided in the morning sun.
"I am me again!"
Gwen looked down at her own familiar hands, her orange hair falling over her shoulders. She let out a joyous laugh.
Before taking her leave, Charmcaster stepped right up to Klein. She leaned in close, her lips brushing against his ear, and whispered a few quiet words.
Whatever she said caused the normally unflappable Klein to freeze in place, his eyes widening in sheer shock.
A second later, a scream of pure fury echoed across the clearing. If Ben had not thrown his arms around her waist to physically hold her back, Gwen would have already launched herself forward to tear Charmcaster apart with her bare hands.
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