A Temporal Twist - TG, MtM (technically)
By: ThatGuy

With a familiar, annoying, and all encompassing shoomp sound that penetrated him to his core, Lowen was suddenly seized with the unmistakable feeling of having one’s entire consciousness ripped from his being and transposed into another vessel. It felt kind of like going down a slip and slide except backwards and upside down.

He sighed and looked over hands that seemed no different than before. The same uniform, the same shoes and pants and vest. He brushed bangs out of his hair, just the way he always did, and pulled out the mirror he knew would be in his chest pocket. The face that looked back was a reflection of his own, as to be expected - but it never hurt to check. There was always the chance for a odd surprise.

The only visible difference is that he was standing, whereas a second ago he had been sitting. Back where he was supposed to be, he could see his brother reclining his boots all over his research - smirking at him like a moron with the same familiar face.

“Honestly Wren,” he groaned. “Don’t you have anything better to do when you’re bored?”

Wren cheekily smiled back. He couldn’t possibly have thought this was still funny. ”Don’t you mean Lowen, Wren?”

Typical comeback. He was still kicking himself for laughing the first time. Now, he did not have time for it. “Do you even know at this point?”

 Wren thought it over for a moment, then shrugged it off - as though being in his brother’s body was nothing new. “Does it really matter?”

Admittedly it wasn’t, technically speaking. Lowen and Wren were twins, completely identical right down to the shade of their eyes and the size of their… prowess. They did everything together, from the day they both began learning magic at their great grandfather’s knee to the day they were both accepted to Merlin University. They tended to eat the same things, and exercise the same amount. Thanks to deep seated familial fashion sense they were both sticklers for their wardrobes and minded little if people mixed them up, so they dressed alike, wore their hair alike, and as least visibly speaking had little differences between them.

Obviously, this meant going back and forth was a complete waste of a body swap spell, but ever since he got access to it Wren has been doing nothing else but using it on his brother. Something about “irony.” Lowen was about this close to showing him the irony in being an only child. The fact that neither of them were sure which was their original body any more was just a sign that this was going too far.

“I thought when you got that thing, you were going to be careful with it,” Lowen chided, not for the first time.

Wren was unfazed. “No, I said I’d use it for a good purpose. Which this is.”

“It really isn’t,” Lowen replied flatly. Exasperated, he tried another tactic. “You’re overusing it, and you haven’t even done anything big with it yet! How many charges do you even have left in there?”

“What? No, there’s plenty of juice left in this thing!” Wren pulled out the object which made all of his current mischief possible - a pre-made wand, with a spell of body exchanging bound inside. He got it at a carnival game, of all places. Chuckling smugly, he brought the wand to his eyes and gave it the basic magical sight. Then he wasn’t smiling any more. “And by plenty of juice, I mean one charge left. Aw, man…”

“Serves you right.” Lowen said. “Now get out of my chair, I’m almost done with my... er... our research project.”

“But you’ve been at it aaalll daaaay!” Wren whined, draping what may or may not have been Lowen’s body back over the chair. “Even you have got to be bored of this by now!”

Never. Even though they looked exactly the same, there was always going to be one big difference between them. Lowen was the studious sort, the kind who loved to study magic because at the end of that road lied unknowable secrets that could obliterate one’s perception of reality entirely. He was voted “Most Likely To Be Driven Mad By Eldritch Revelations” in primary school, a badge he wore with pride. But anyone would tell that Wren was… not. All he cared about was having fun, and magic was only useful to him to the extent that he could use it to have that fun - usually by messing with other people. He was a good enough student, but his interest stopped the moment he couldn’t find any good and easy way to use whatever he was studying to pull some sort of mischief or trick. And since the brothers mostly hung out with each other, that mischief usually landed on Lowen somehow.

“Technically, you’re supposed to be helping me with this, you know.” Lowen reminded him, rolling his eyes. While this was largely Lowen’s project, it was technically true that Wren would be earning a grade for it. Both preferred when Lowen took the reins, though for Lowen that was only as long as Wren didn’t get in the way.

But Wren always got in the way, and he rarely backed down. “So is Celinius, and who knows where the hell he is," he said, and Lowen winced. There was supposed to be a third person in their group, a close friend who usually worked with them whenever they did anything, but he never showed. Wren hadn’t let up about it all day. “I was with you when we were doing ‘the Magical Roots of Lycanthropy,’ though mostly because I was looking forward to making our whole class howl at the moon. But this this just pointless busywork! No wonder Celinius ditched us! I should’ve ditched you too!”

“Pointless?!” Lowen hissed. His brother could be so insufferable. He stomped over, yanked what might have been his own body out of the chair and grabbed a massive book off the desk. “These are the secrets of time travel! Time! Travel! Research into this was discontinued centuries ago! Do you know how insane it is that great grandpa would have detailed notes about it just sitting in his library?”

“Given what we know about great grandpa..?”

Lowen had to admit Wren had a point. Their great grandfather was apparently ludicrously old and had been involved in some serious magic in his heyday, but that was neither here nor there. There being a book of old forbidden magical rituals at their fingertips was, as far as Lowen was concerned, the most interesting thing that would ever happen to them.

“Still,” he covered. “We can present new research in time travel magic for the first time in who knows how long! It will be a legendary project, talked about for years!”

Despite that glowing recommendation, Wren moaned again. Since he didn’t have the chair to be melodramatic on, he settled for leaning against the wall. “What good is it if you can’t do anything fun with it?” He said. “All those rituals you forever and are probably going to age your head a billion years before you actually use them for anything, so who cares?”

Lowen scoffed. “I’ll have you know I’m just finishing up a procedure for a time travel spell we can actually use in class, to give our project the extra oomph. I figured you’d appreciate the dramatic flair.” He was right. Wren perked up right away. “Granted, it exhausts so much magic that we’ll probably collapse afterward, and since using time travel to that degree requires contributing a portion of your temporal presence as rooted in the present it’s probably impossible to do the spell more than once without fragmenting into infinite causality, but the point is we can do it.”

Wren’s interest faltered, and he eyed his brother ruefully. He didn’t bother following the whole babbling explanation, but he was pretty sure he knew “we can’t actually use this” when he heard it. “So you made a spell, then? Show me.”

“Don’t be a moron. I just said we probably couldn’t use it more than once.” Lowen said testily, as if he were talking to a child that wouldn’t stop bothering him. “So isn’t it obvious that we would save it for when the Professors’ Review Board is actually watching?”

“Hey, I don’t like your tone!” Wren frowned at him. “Don’t get mad at me because your big research idea is pointless and impractical. Who wants a spell they can only use once?”

“My tone?! To hell with my tone!” Lowen exploded, in a way only his brother could bring out of him. He raised his hands, ready to cast a spell, and his brother did the same. The two locked eyes, tense as if crackles of magical fury could spark out just from staring at each other too hard. As it always did, and always would, this brotherly spat had escalated beyond the language of words.

Luckily, the condition of the study room were saved from magical crossfire when the door suddenly flew open and someone hurtled in. The two brothers turned to look, and the fight instantly drained out of them. It was a woman - an attractive one to boot - who looked about their age, maybe a little older. She had a tight dress, and high heels, and weighty “assets” her dress was too tight for and blonde hair that fell down to her rear - none of which she seemed very comfortable with, but was more than enough to dance her way in their hearts at first sight. It may have been random and odd of her to throw herself into an occupied room like that, especially when she was looking so frazzled, but she was pretty. And like most guys, there was one thing both brothers agreed on and that was pretty women.

“Well, hello there,” Wren dropped his hands and sidled up to the new arrival, who stammered as he approached. “You must be lost. I’m Wren - kind of a big deal around here - and I can show you around if you want.”

Lowen rolled his eyes and shoved his brother out of the way. “Forgive my brother and his transparent advances,” he said smoothly. “I’m Lowen. Is there anything you need? I”ll be happy to help.” Wren shoved him right back, and the two went into a poorly hidden war of wills as they both tried to keep her attentions.

Realizing at once what was going on, the woman squeaked and shuffled back. But she lost balance and teetered dangerously on her heels, and had to hastily grab the doorframe to stay on her feet. “I know who you are, guys!” She hissed, warily clenching the frame. The brothers stopped shoving for a second and wracked their brains. Neither could rememberer meeting a girl who looked like that - and they certainly would have - but they wouldn’t miss the opportunity.

“So we know each other!” Wren grinned. “Come to catch up, eh?” He stepped ahead of his brother and reached a hand out to help her off the doorframe, which she accepted - carefully trying to keep her balance. But when his words actually sunk in she stopped short and stepped back, which just led to her falling against the door again.

“No, you don’t understand!” She wailed. Now actually concerned - for the first time realizing that she might actually be in some distress - Lowen rushed forward to help, but she shoved him away. “It’s me!”

The brothers looked at each other. “You..?” They said at the same time.

“No wonder neither of you can ever keep a date!” The woman growled in frustration. “It’s Celinius!”

This time, their shared look was a lot more skeptical. That didn’t seem likely, what with Celinius being a man, a redhead and not much the type to be found in heels - fragile calves, as it turned out. Still, as this was a school of magic where the incredible happened every day it paid to be a believer…though also, paranoid… so while Wren laughed with a flippant “you’re kidding!”, Lowen frowned and said “prove it!”

The woman who would be “Celinius” sighed and slowly pushed off the doorframe, just barely keeping her balance on her heels. Once she was sure of her feet she bit her lip, pausing to think of a good line. After a second she zeroed in on Wren, or rather what he was holding. “That wand! You told everyone that you got it at a carnival game, but you didn’t win it. You sabotaged the game so it’d blow up in a pixie dust explosion and then stole it while everyone was distracted!”

Wren’s eyes widened. “What?”

However, Lowen was not convinced. “Please. Everyone knows that. The guy who ran the booth came looking for it the other day, still covered in pixies. We all covered for him.”

Wren turned to Lowen, aghast. “What?”

“Yep,” Lowen smirked. “You owe the whole class a favor now. Good luck with that.” He turned to the woman, who was sucking her teeth in annoyance. “You’ll have to do better than an open secret.”

“Celinius” gave a wild, frustrated groan that hit several octaves. It seemed the stress was getting to her. After a few seconds, she hit on an idea with a wild laugh. “Aha! What about you?” She said, pointing at Lowen. “What about that ‘experiment’ where you brought a statue to life, and then made out with it to see if it could feel emotions?”

Lowen’s face fell, but Wren’s lit up. “You actually did that? I thought that was just a rumor!”

“Shut up!” Lowen punched his brother on the shoulder and turned away, frowning. Wren didn’t seem to care. He was doubled over, cackling wildly, and only stopped when he thought of another joke. He looked down at the identical hands of the body he was currently in with a look of wonder.

“I can’t believe these hands - if these are the hands I think they are - have felt the sweet touch of marble womanhood.” He chuckled some more. “Truly a man of experience, my brother! Ha ha! But…” Lowen looked up from his humiliation at Wren’s suddenly thoughtful face. “That’s is a popular rumor, with some truth to it. Everyone knows Lowen it always doing weird experiments like that. You could have just made an educated guess. Try again.”

As embarrassed as he was, Lowen was actually impressed. Who knew Wren knew terms like “educated guess?” He would never say so out loud, however. And the woman was not so happy about it. She bit her lip to muffle a scream, and muttered to herself as she tried to find something, anything that would make them believe. Finally, she fell upon the nuclear option.

“I didn’t want to say this out loud,” she said with a shudder. “But you give me no choice.. For a year, everyone thought you had a third brother named Sven who got transferred for another school, but it was actually Wren using a duplication spell. To this date, not even the professors have figured it out, even though Sven’s' been on the run for months.”

This seemed to do the job, for both brothers froze stiff. That was a secret none but their inner circle (composed of the two of them and exactly one friend) were privy to. The kind of trouble they, mostly Wren, had gotten away with thanks to their “little brother” could get them thrown out of school should the truth get out. They promised never to talk of “Sven” again, and Celinius was sworn to utmost secrecy. He would never break that promise, unless…

“Whoa…” The two said together, like an echo. There was no more doubt that the person standing in front of them was in fact their usually very male friend. With a new sense of wonder they looked her over, eyeing her up and down…. and down…. and down…

“Please stop staring at them…” she cried, squirming.

Lowen wasn’t sure that was a promise he could keep. That dress was so tight… but he gave it his best shot. He nudged Wren in the ribs, and the other brother did the same. “Sorry, but I have to know what happened. They usually don’t let us fool around with transformation magic before Change Day. Did you mess around with one of the coeds?”

“No!” Celinius protested. “I… it’s crazy. You won’t believe me.”

“We go to a school for magic and you’re literally standing there in a dress,” Wren scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Try us.”

She gulped. “W-well, I was in my room, getting ready to meet you guys for the project, right?” They both nodded, and Wren muttered "you didn't miss much" under his breath. "I had just gotten my shirt on-“

“We can see.“ Wren added again, eyes drifting downward…

“Shut up about them!” She hissed, and she seemed to be getting genuinely angry enough that Wren wisely did what she asked. She continued on, though she self consciously adjusted her dress a little. “I had just gotten my shirt on when there was this huge flash right in front of me, and there was a girl there. This girl! I… I thought she was one of the female students practicing teleportation or something like that at first, so…”

She blushed and looked away. Celinius was even worse with women than the two of them were, so they could guess what he might have done if a pretty girl had suddenly appeared in his room while he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Not one to let a moment pass, Wren made another comment. “You totally made a fool of yourself, huh? You didn’t do the dancing pecs routine, did you?”

Celinius scowled, probably confirming Wren’s suspicions. “Like you two are any better! What even was that back there? I come asking you two for help and you literally can’t stop hitting on me! I should report you guys!” The two flinched, and actually did look a bit ashamed of themselves, though Lowen more than Wren. Glowering, Celinius continued again. “Look, this girl showed up and yeah I did kinda hit on her a little, but no I don’t want to talk about it! But then she started talking crazy!” She threw her arms out wide and paced back and forth, or more like shuffled in those heels, doing a very good job of looking crazy herself. “She went on and on about ‘time’ and ‘switches’ and how she had to save herself and how ‘the future has to work out,’ or whatever!”

“‘Switches?’” Lowen asked. “Like light switches?”

“How the hell should I know!” She shouted back. “All I know is she wouldn’t shut up about it, and then she pointed something at me and I was in her body and she was gone and I don’t know what to do!” She said that last part very fast without taking a break, and at the end of it collapsed into Lowen’s chair without asking. Lowen seemed annoyed for a second, but a look from his brother got him to let it go.

She looked up at them, eyes swimming with desperation. “You’ve gotta help me! I can’t stay like this! I don’t even know who this is!”

Lowen and Wren shared a look for a third and final time. Even though he knew Celinius had to be able to see him, Lowen couldn’t hide a wince. “What?” She whispered, fearing the worst. “Tell me!”

“The thing is,” Lowen said, trying to be gentle. “Without having either the person who made you like this to switch you back, and especially not even knowing what spell she used, I don’t know if it’s possible to reverse this. Reversal spells just wouldn’t work.”

“Oh.” She gulped. “B-but…” She stared down at her dress, her hands shaking. “But I could barely convince you two who I was, and you’re my best friends. I’ll never convince the Board. They’ll kick me out of school!” Privately, Lowen doubted the professors wouldn’t be able to at least see though the spells affecting Celinius, even if they wouldn’t be able to fix them, but he also doubted Celinius was in a state to listen right now. “I’ll have to live like this, forever! I don’t even have an ID! What am I going to do!”

She put her head in her hands. The two boys couldn’t do much but watch their friend break down at the prospect at having to learn to live a new life, much as they wanted to help. Celinius would hardly be the first student at their university to be permanently stuck in another form. It was always rough, and this time it seemed totally hopeless.

Then suddenly, Wren looked from Celinius, to the books on Lowen’s desk and the wand in his hand, and he smiled with a cunning realization. “Well,” he said loudly, grabbing the attention of the room. “If a traditional solution has failed you, I guess you’ll have to try something crazy!” They both stared blankly at him. “I have it under good authority that my genius brother here-“ He threw his arm around Lowen’s shoulder. Lowen eyed him suspiciously. “-has invented a time travel spell!”

Lowen looked furious, even though since he was supposed to be working with them Celinius would have known anyway. Celinius herself was intrigued. “I thought that was impossible!”

Wren shrugged, ignoring his brother’s look. “He figured it out. And I, as you know, have a fully functional body swap wand right here. So what I’m thinking is, we send you back in time to right when this woman showed up, and you use the wand to take your body from her right after she takes it from your past self. Then you spell slingshots you back into the present!”

Celinius turned sharply to look at Lowen. “Is that possible?”

Lowen frown was very tight. “Yes, technically.” He grunted out begrudgingly. “Since you wouldn't technically be acting on yourself, it probably wouldn't mess up your causality. But as I just got finished explaining to my brother-“ He shot Wren a nasty glare. “-nobody involved in the spell can use it more than once in their lifetime, and or anyone else in the same location. Not to mention other factors that make it inadvisable to just perform it out of-“

“Ah,” Wren interrupted him. “But what better use for a rare spell than to use it to save a friend from an uncertain fate?” Lowen looked like he could have killed him, but that didn’t stop Wren. “Why, you’d practically be a hero!”

Spurred on by the recommendation, Celinius leapt from Lowen’s chair and dropped to her knees, grasping Lowen’s hands and pleading - let it not be said that man or woman, she was not too proud to beg. “Please, dude! You’re my only hope! I need you.”

Lowen turned bright red. Friend or not, this was still a very beautiful woman pleading to him on her knees. In the face of such a sight he caved almost immediately, groundbreaking presentation be damned, just as his brother knew he would. “I hate you both,” was all he managed to spit out in defense, and by the time he did they were already underway getting the spell prepared.

The notes Lowen had painstakingly put together were still theoretical, but the theory was so sound that actually assembling what they needed for the spell was easy. It took then less than twenty minutes to have the whole thing set up, even with Lowen dragging his feet the entire time, and most of that was just from clearing the room so that they would have enough space to work.

When they were done, they had drawn a large circle on the floor, with the symbol of a clock inside. Lowen stood on one side to cast, Wren stood on the other side for support, and Celinius - as the one actually making the plunge - stood in the center. Now that it was all set up, they were starting to feel a little nervous.

“This is going to work, right?” Celinius stuttered, looking down at the circle. It was starting to glow.

Lowen peeked up from his concentration for a second. “As long as you don’t kill your past self or whatever it…” He stopped, and then just shrugged. “Look, I don’t know. This is all foreign ground. We were supposed to be doing this in experimental conditions, not just throwing it together!”

It seemed the only one who wasn’t starting to lose their nerve was Wren, who stood there without a care. “Eh, it’ll be fine,” he said, chuckling airily.

Lown shot his brother another suspicious look. “How are you so sure this is going to work out?”

“You’ll see,” Wren smirked back.

Then there was no more time to ask, as the air filled with the sound of ticking clocks. The circle glowed brighter and brighter, almost too much to see, as the sound echoed throughout the room. Then just as sudden as it began the ticking stopped dead, and Lowen hastily shouted “Deus Ex Tempus!” The air went still, and the circle flashed one last time. They heard Celinius shout “whoa!” from insode, but when the light faded she was gone. There was no trace of the woman with the blonde hair anywhere inside the circle.

Wren blinked in the silence. “So… is that it, or-“

“Silence!” Lowen barked, shutting him up.

Then there was another flash and Celinius was there again, but this time, as the redheaded young man they all knew. The body swap wand clattered to the floor, now spent and useless.

He looked around the room in shock, then started furiously patting himself down and checking for any excessive growths, curves or anything that could have been missing. But to his joy, everything was there just as he hoped it would be. He clicked his heels with a whoop and jumped out of the circle before Lowen could tell him it was safe, and threw his arms around both of the brothers one by one.

Since Celinius was a lot bigger than they had seen him a few minutes before, the hug was a crushing experience. But that was nothing compared to to the stream of words coming out of his mouth. “I worked I can’t believe it worked. At first I totally losing it because I got there and the woman never showed up and I’m pretty sure I panicked and zapped my past self instead, but since nothing’s different and everyone’s totally fine I guess it all worked out thank you so much!”

Lowen barely had the time to hear what Celinius was saying, let alone comprehend it. “What.” He droned, confused. It sounded like there had been some kind of very ridiculous break in the space time continuum in there, but that couldn’t be right. Maybe Wren got the gist. He would have to ask later, or better yet never speak of this again.

Celinius jumped back, grinning from ear to ear. “I said it worked!” He squealed happily. “Look guys, I know I was supposed to help you today, but screw it. I’ve had enough crazy magic for one day, and life’s too short. I’m taking a break. Is it alright if I owe you?”

It didn’t matter what either brother was going to say, because Celinius was already halfway through the door. Lowen tried his luck anyway. “Wait, you can’t just-“ The door slammed before he could finish.

Brash when entering, brash when exiting, that was Celinius’ way. Even now they could hear him shouting from the hallway "I'M ME AGAIN!" and laughing down the halls.

Wren sighed wearily. The fun part of the day had just left, unfortunately. “So it ends as it began. Just the two of us stuck with too much work and no help.”

Lowen turned away from him, and sat gruffly down at his desk. “Except for one thing. Now we have no project.” He slammed his head on the wood. “I hope you’re happy.”

“I’m sure the Board will understand.” Wren said reasonably, though even he knew it was about a fifty fifty shot. “Plus I lost my wand too. Don’t forget that.” The glare on Lowen’s face was worse than any before, making it clear now was not the time for jokes. “Besides bro, you should be happy! I’m pretty sure we just lucked into an even bigger mystery for you to nerd out about.”

“Oh?” Lowen groaned. He was fully prepared to not trust anything that came out of his no-account brother’s mouth, or at least have an appropriate response on hand. “And what brilliant riddle might that be?”

“Well…” Wren grinned the same way he had when suggesting the plan. “I’m pretty sure what we just helped do was one of those time loop things. I saw a page on them in your notes.” Lowen stared, surprised his brother had actually read what he wrote. “We sent Celinius back in time, because someone stole his body and got him stuck as a smoking hot chick. But he ends up swapping bodies with his past self, so that Celinius is stuck as the smoking hot chick, comes to us for help and gets sent back in time, and so on.”

Lowen’s eyes widened. He slowly lifted his head from the desk. “Holy Hecate, you’re right…”

“Duh. But here’s the mystery!” Wren was looking positively gleeful now, watching the look on his brother’s face. “If Celinius changed because his future self swapped bodies from him, and only turned back by fobbing the body off on his past self, how did the transformation happen in the first place? Where did that woman come from?”

Still under the delusion that he would have a response right away, Lowen opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. And opened it, and closed it. Then he threw all of his used papers on the floor and furiously started writing new notes on a plank piece of paper. “Damn. Damn!” He groaned, though it was half hearted. “I swear, it won’t be the elder gods that drive me nuts, it’ll be you!”

Wren chuckled, and went back to finding something new to fiddle around with now that his wand was used up. Hopefully his brother’s frustration with paradox theory would keep up the entertainment value.

"ARGH!" Came the noise from the desk. "But the one who initiated the swap was HIM, and HE already had it! It doesn't make sense!"

It looked that way. Hopefully he could get another hour or so of fun out of this...