I'm beginning to think my mother was right all along. Now isn't that a scary thought?

But as I woke up in a scratchy, uncomfortable bed with a splitting headache and an equally sore body...yeah, my first thought was that I should drink less. And party less. And generally spend less of my time leading a destructive lifestyle.

Maybe that was just the hangover talking.

My alarm clock was going off like a banshee which did nothing but exacerbate my headache. I slapped a hand over my eyes and groaned. I was too tired for shit like this, and I...I don't own an alarm clock. I haven't used one since high school.

So where am I?

I lolled my head over listlessly to look at the bedside table. It was bare of any personal effects or clutter except for some sort of flashlight-esque device. There was not an alarm clock. So where the hell was that noise coming from. When I find that thing, I swear to god…

With way more stiffness than any nineteen year-old has any business suffering from, I swung my feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor. My sleep-needy mind definitely twigged onto something fishy there. Even in my own bed, my toes can barely touch the ground from atop the mattress. In a stranger's bed? Not freakin' likely.

The alarm clock on the far-away dresser went silent but now alarm bells were ringing in my own head. I looked down at my legs but they weren't my legs. The wiry limbs were corded with taut muscle, not to mention speckled with a dozen different scars each. I checked my hands and arms next – the same was true of them.

I'm not totally sedentary, but I wouldn't exactly call myself athletic either. That's been a pretty steady truth through my life; my family does sports, but I prefer finding less active ways to occupy my time. Stuff like knitting. But not actually knitting because that's lame. More like fucking around on the internet. And writing shitty fanfiction.

Point being: the scars and the muscles? Definitely not me. I gulped. Fuck.

I rubbed my throat. Was it just me, or did something feel wrong there too? I reached out and grabbed the little gizmo thingy from the nightstand. I was pretty sure that was an artificial larynx. I was led to that conclusion by the fact that it said "electrolarynx" on a sticker at the bottom.

So. Muscles, scars, an electrolarynx? Call me an obsessive fangirl, but all that together put me in mind of one fictional character. Cricket. From Worm.

Okay, it sounded ridiculous when I actually thought it. It would be a massive understatement to say that was "quite a stretch" to make. I mean, aside from the fucked up body and the stranger's bed, I had no proof that anything was out of the ordinary. Maybe I was just tripping really, really hard. You can trip on advil, right?

The radio alarm clock started blaring again, rattling with the tune of "Party Rock Anthem." Okay, I conceded. It's definitely 2011.

If that was true, though, I was really fucked. Off the top of my head, Cricket didn't come to mind as a major Worm character - she was more a name-drop than anything. I wracked my brain for any other factoid I could recall about her. She was fast and strong, she was violent by nature, and she was a member of...fuck.

The guys on the Cauldron discord were never going to let up with the Nazi jokes after this.

After the initial panic attack - I'm in the Wormverse, I'm going to die by Leviathan/Skitter/Scion, I have a tongue piercing - I managed to calm down and think about the more practical things. First of all, if I was in Cricket's body, I was probably in one of the Empire's bases. That meant I could be in danger at this very moment. Secondly, and arguably more importantly, Cricket sleeps in a binder of all things and what the fuck is wrong with her?

First order of business: find some more comfortable clothes. Second order of business: get the hell out of dodge. And not just get out of the Empire Eighty-Eight base; Brockton Bay was a shithole through and through. I had to leg it out of the goddamn city. I couldn't remember the name of that cute little town where Damsel of Distress lived, but maybe I could find out online. That seemed safer.

My stomach growled angrily. Shit. Of course Cricket would be the type to be ravenous by breakfast time. Ugh. I cursed whatever deity or entity had decided to drop me into Miss Überfrau. She was enough of a freak already, wasn't she?

Revised timetable: Dress, Eat, GTFO.

With more motivation to hurry things up, I made my way over to Cricket's rickety-looking dresser. Again, nothing to decorate the damn thing; no lacy doily or vase of flowers or whatever. There was a worn sticker on the side of the dresser, but I think that was from a previous owner. It had mostly been scraped away. With knives, by the looks of it. As if I needed a reminder that Cricket was a crazy, hardcore motherfucker.

I probably wouldn't have been able to tug open the top drawer, but Cricket's body was basically honed to be a weapon and she was strong. It took a single yank to unjam it and then I could survey my options. Which were...sparse.

From the very, very little of her that we saw in canon, I hadn't pegged Cricket as a "girly" girl. But looking at her wardrobe, holy shit. The vast majority of her tops were probably more revealing than anything I own back home. That's not to say they were pretty or cute by any means, but they were...eye-catching at least.

Things clicked into place a bit. Cricket was the type that liked to show herself off - not so people could ogle her body, but to prove her worth as a warrior. She was showing off her scars.

That was all well and good, but it just made the dressing process harder for me. After agonizing over my options for a while, I had to settle for one of those tanktops with the hugely sagging armholes because at least that didn't showcase my toned tummy and décolletage head-on. Well...Cricket's toned tummy and décolletage. Whatever. They were mine now. Mwahaha.

I wasn't happy with the clothes I had, but I probably wouldn't be happy with anything for a while. I added "clothes shopping" to my list of things to do ASAP. Was it possible for a scarred-up supervillain like Cricket to go to a Forever 21 or something? I hoped so. Anyway, I was gonna have to write my schedule down soon because my memory is horrible when it comes to lists.

Dressed in Cricket's raggedy tank top, a vastly more conservative pair of her hacked-up men's cargo pants (apparently men's pants are superior in Earth Bet too), and a leather jacket, I felt ready to face the world. Well, sort of. At the very least, I was ready to get out of Cricket's bedroom because it was boring as all hell.

I'll admit, I can be a bit of an idiot. As I strolled down the barren hallway of what seemed like a ratty apartment, I remembered a really obvious fact: Cricket was a cape. Capes have superpowers. I'm Cricket. I have superpowers. That's fucking awesome!

So, of course, I tried them out. Sue me. You would too, don't deny it. Sure, Cricket wasn't exactly Contessa or Legend or whichever canon characters people claim as their favorites, but powers are powers.

Maybe, for capes, superpowers come with a mental manual. A shard-induced guide on how the powers work, how to keep from killing yourself, etc. - the mental equivalent of a breaker state, right?

Well, whoever shunted me into Cricket didn't get that memo. One very brief but very intense bout of vertigo later found me kneeled over the sole toilet in the household, puking my - her - guts out. I locked my arms around my belly weakly and spat out a hunk of whatever was on last night's ubermenu.

When that was over, I leaned back on my haunches and sighed. Goddammit. This day was not even close to going according to plan. My stomach gurgled in response. Ugh. I reached up to my shoulders to tie my hair back into a ponytail before the second wave hit me.

And...I…

I reached up to find no hair. My mind stuttered to a halt. Wait, what the fuck? It was a long and confusing moment before my brain could reboot and start processing things again. I went over the facts of my immediate situation slowly:

1. I used to have long, blonde hair that I literally slave over because I love it more than life itself.
2. Cricket fucking shaves her head.
3. My body looks like it's been thrown under a lawnmower
4. I have fucking superpowers!
5. Cricket fucking shaves her head!

My brain crashed back into action, hitting me like a tidal wave. What the actual fuck I am stuck in the body of literally the only female Nazi in canon who actually shaved her goddamn head what the fuuuuck.

Eventually, I calmed down a bit. I also ralphed again, but I was 90% sure that was because of the superpower-induced vertigo and not the fact that I was bald.

I just had to stay objective. Stick to the facts, to what I knew about canon, and I would get out of this whole ordeal in one piece. Maybe I'd even get my hair back, somehow. Or, well, Cricket's hair. I could call on Othala or maybe coerce Panacea into fixing me somehow. Point was, I had options. My breathing slowed to a healthier rate.

The essentials first, and then I work on my hair, I decided. With my plan laid out, the daunting task of survival felt a lot more manageable. I'm okay. Everything is okay.

Footsteps that I hadn't noticed (damn these selective sensory powers!) thudded to a halt in the doorway to the bathroom. It was someone big. I sniffed a little and wiped my eyes to hide the evidence of my panic attack. Okay, despite the fact that I was keeled over a toilet, the big someone was distinctly smelly too.

I turned to glare at the intruder out of the corner of my eye. The man leaned into the doorframe, resting his bulk on a forearm that looked as thick around as one of my - Cricket's - thighs. His hair and clothes were in a similar state to my own: shorn and tattered.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Stormtiger growled. I answered by hawking up another gob of last night's bratwurst and depositing it in the toilet bowl.

Fuck the Wormverse.