"Wooo."
Violent purple light shot into the sky, surging like rolling seawater and swallowing up the golden sunlight.
In an instant, the entire town turned into a sea of purple, eerie beyond words. Seen from high above, it would look like a gigantic purple bowl exploding across the desert.
Ghostfreak had no time to worry about anything else. He grabbed Grandpa Max and fled into the distance.
"Gwen!" Grandpa reached out and shouted, trying to rush over and save her.
After bringing Grandpa Max to safety, Ghostfreak said, "Grandpa, stay here and don't move around. I'm going back to save Gwen."
"Okay." Grandpa Max knew the area ahead was dangerous. Reason told him he couldn't just act on impulse.
Ghostfreak vanished from where he stood.
When he appeared again, he was already back at the site of the blast.
The blinding purple light slowly faded, releasing the golden sunlight as it receded like a falling tide.
The whole town returned to normal. Aside from the building that had already exploded earlier, the rest of the area showed no damage.
It seemed that purple light hadn't had any destructive power at all.
Ghostfreak spotted Arctiguana first. Arctiguana was sprawled on the ground, rubbing his eyes nonstop, apparently irritated by the purple light from earlier.
Seeing how ridiculous he looked, Ghostfreak gave a helpless wry smile and walked over to help him up.
"Oh, man, my eyes hurt so bad! What the heck is Charmcaster trying to do?"
With red, irritated eyes, Arctiguana breathed cold air onto his hands and kept rubbing at them.
Ghostfreak didn't answer. He scanned the area instead and found Gwen lying on a patch of grass.
"Gwen~"
Ghostfreak flew over and shook her a few times when he saw she was still down.
Gwen's eyelids twitched, her lashes trembling lightly, and then she slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a deathly pale ghost face.
"Ah!" Gwen screamed and staggered backward.
"Don't be scared, it's me." Ghostfreak's voice was hoarse, and he felt a little helpless.
Sure, he looked scary, but it wasn't like she had to be this terrified.
Besides, he hadn't even peeled his skin open.
Gwen snapped out of her shock. "Cuz?"
Ghostfreak nodded. "It's me. Where's Charmcaster?"
"Her? She ran off," Gwen said.
"She ran off?" Ghostfreak looked around, and sure enough, there was no sign of Charmcaster anywhere.
But something still felt off.
Could that purple orb really have done nothing at all?
Lucian had a headache coming on. He had already forgotten most of the original plot, and after coming to this world, he had been through so much. On top of that, many things had turned out very differently from the original story, leaving his memories in a complete mess.
For example, the last time they traveled to the future timeline, they had run into all those evil giants, something that had never existed in the original story.
And then there was the Null Void, and that time with the Western dragon.
So little by little, Lucian stopped relying on the scraps of memory he had left from the original work.
"Since everything's fine, let's head back," Ghostfreak said slowly, changing back to normal.
"Okay! I'll listen to Cuz!" Gwen said with a happy smile.
Lucian stepped forward and gave Gwen a quick check. Once he confirmed she was fine, he took her with him and started back.
"Cuz, what are we having for dinner tonight?" Gwen asked as they walked.
"Oh? Why are you asking that all of a sudden?" Lucian found it a little strange. Gwen had never asked him that before.
"Uh, hehe... I'm hungry." Gwen took Lucian's hand and shook it hard a few times, acting spoiled.
Something's off.
That was Lucian's first thought.
But he didn't do anything rash. He decided to quietly keep watching.
...
Meanwhile, Charmcaster had already been taken back to prison.
Not long ago, after the purple light exploded, she had passed out.
When she woke up again, she found herself tied up at the entrance to the police station.
Then, just as a pair of guards happened to be getting off shift and walking out of the station, they saw Charmcaster, a wanted fugitive, and their eyes lit up.
Without another word, they arrested her on the spot and hauled her back to prison.
"I'm not a fugitive! You've got the wrong person!"
But no matter how loudly Charmcaster shouted, the officers didn't react at all, because she was the fugitive.
Bang.
The cold cell door slammed shut.
In the icy metal surface was reflected the figure of a girl in purple.
Charmcaster jumped and instinctively backed away. "Charmcaster!!"
But when she stepped back, the person in the mirror stepped back too.
Completely confused, Charmcaster made a series of complicated movements in front of the metal door, only to find the reflection copied her exactly.
"Why have I become Charmcaster...?" Charmcaster muttered in confusion.
"Hey, did you hear? That fugitive got caught again."
At that moment, two prison guards walked by, whispering to each other.
Charmcaster quickly crouched down and pressed herself against the door to listen carefully.
"Yeah, I heard someone checked the surveillance footage. It was a little girl who dragged her back."
"That strong?"
"Yeah. I heard the girl had orange hair. She looked skinny, but she was insanely strong. She dragged the fugitive all the way to the entrance of the police station without even breathing hard."
"That's wild."
The two guards' voices gradually faded into the distance.
Charmcaster's eyes widened. "Don't tell me... I swapped bodies with Charmcaster!!?"
"I became her, and she became me?"
Judging from what the guards said, it must have been Gwen who dragged her to the entrance of the police station and framed her to get her locked up.
"Hey, princess. Yeah, you. Get over here!"
A fierce-looking woman with dyed red hair and a cutout tank top that showed off her powerful arm muscles pointed at Charmcaster and barked at her.
Charmcaster shrank back a little, frightened, and walked over cautiously.
"Hello. May I ask what you need?"
The boss lady gave a cold laugh, her expression vicious and terrifying. "Listen. I don't care where you came from or what you used to do. Just remember one thing. Around here, I make the rules!"
As she spoke, more than a dozen burly women stepped out behind her, each one rough-looking and menacing at a glance.
"Yes." Charmcaster nodded helplessly. She was in a new place and knew nobody, so it was better not to stir up trouble.
Seeing that Charmcaster understood, the boss lady didn't make things hard for her. She waved a hand, signaling for her to get lost.
Charmcaster walked away and crouched in a corner. Suddenly, she felt something strange against her chest, as if something was hidden there.
She reached into the collar of her clothes and pulled out a... spellbook?
"What kind of magic is recorded in here? If Charmcaster swapped bodies with me, she might've learned it from this."
With that thought, Gwen began flipping through the spellbook.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for her to find a clue.
"Mind Swap Magic..."
The book recorded a spell that allowed the user to exchange minds with a target, letting them use the other person's abilities.
"But why would Charmcaster want to swap bodies with me?"
After all, Charmcaster's magic was much stronger than hers. Why would she make such a losing trade?
"Unless... she never meant to switch with me in the first place... Got it. Her real target was Cuz, or Ben!"
Gwen was clever enough to figure it out immediately.
Charmcaster might have been powerful, but she still couldn't compare to the Omnitrix. That was why she had been so desperate to swap bodies, so she could take control of those Alien Heroes.
At the same time, elsewhere.
The Rustbucket was parked outside a store, while Lucian and Grandpa had gone inside shopping.
That left Ben and Gwen outside to watch the car.
Ben was sitting on the step, idly fiddling with his watch.
"Ben, with your Omnitrix, do you just press it and turn it to become whichever Alien Hero you want?"
Gwen walked over with a grin, hands behind her back, rising slightly onto her toes as if she felt a little shy.
"Yeah. Didn't you already know that?" Ben said, rolling his eyes at her.
"I want to have a look. Can I?" Gwen leaned in closer.
Ben paused. "Since when are you interested in the Omnitrix? Haven't you been busy practicing magic this whole time?"
Gwen let out a dry laugh. "Uh, hehe... I just suddenly got interested lately, so I wanted to take a look."
"Nope!" Ben refused flatly.
"What's wrong with letting me see it for one second?" Gwen got angry too.
"Weirdo, get lost!" Ben shoved Gwen aside and walked out.
But the moment Gwen heard that, it was like she had been set on fire. She lunged forward, tripped Ben, then sat on his legs and yanked back hard.
"Ah!!" Ben cried out in pain and shouted, "Nerd, what the heck is wrong with you?!"
They had always bickered like this, but he had never seen Gwen this angry before.
"I absolutely won't let anyone call me a weirdo!" Gwen put even more force into it.
Just then, Lucian and Grandpa came back.