That night, Alex had trouble getting to sleep, which was just as well because when everyone else was sound asleep, she would be sneaking out of bed and into the lair, where she would be researching spells in hopes of finding one that would do what she wanted. Otherwise, she might have to forge one herself, which was always difficult, especially because her father hadn't taught them about it, except for improvised spells, which were inherently less powerful.
Until then, thoughts ran through her head like trains with blaring headlights, coming at her to run her over, and blinding her in the meantime. Why was she doing this, in the first place? She wanted to prove that she was hot, of course, but she wanted to prove this to Justin. Why would she want her brother to think she was attractive? She wasn't attracted to him, after all. At least, she hoped not. She also wanted to prove, not only to Justin, but to everyone, that she looked like Mikayla. If she could pull this off, it would prove that to herself at least. She knew that she couldn't very well tell everyone that she had switched places with Mikayla, but she was going to tell Justin. At least he would have to agree with her, and for everyone else who disagreed, she would know better. But the thing about Justin liking Mikayla would be at least a little odd. After all, that would kind of be like him liking her. And maybe he didn't claim that she looked like Mikayla, but if she did look like her and Justin liked Mikayla, and thought she was beautiful, does that mean that that secretly, Justin was attracted to her, his little sister? That was awkward.
Perhaps there was another reason she wished to switch places with Mikayla. She was rich, famous, popular, and probably got everything she wanted. Alex wouldn't mind living like that for a while. There was one problem, though. Mikayla probably wouldn't want to live like her for that time. Alex would have to make sure that when they switched, Mikayla wouldn't have any idea what was going on. Of course she probably wouldn't know what was going on, but she might blow everything. Alex would have to include in her spell something to disorient Mikayla and make her think that maybe she was going crazy. If not, Mikayla would probably blame her for it, which would, admittedly, be the truth. She might have to switch back with her in person and explain that she didn't know what happened either but she was glad that they got to switch back now. Or she could opt for casting the same spell and letting Mikayla think that she had just had a really weird dream or something like that. But then where would that time be to her? Everyone else would think that she had been doing stuff for some time that she had forgotten. That pretty much settled it: Despite the difficulty, Alex was going to need some sort of memory modification spell. Such a spell would be powerful but dangerous, and she wouldn't want to mess with anyone's mind too much. She didn't mind doing so, of course, but she knew that it could get both the victim and her into much trouble. So she would have to be subtle about it. What she planned on doing was implanting the memories she would have of the time during the switch into Mikayla, while replacing the memory of Mikayla's time while switched. Even if it wasn't perfect, Mikayla might resort to the old "It was a strange dream" explanation. After all, she would remember doing most of what she had supposedly done during this time, and then some vague memories of a random New York family.
Alex would figure out the specifics later. For now she knew what kind of spells she needed, or would possibly need. Spells that would be useful, anyway. Coming to this conclusion, she finally managed to get to sleep, just to have her alarm go off. It was the alarm she set to tell her to get up and sneak into the lair. She was still more or less awake, so it was easy for her to get up, unlike how she was in the mornings. (Just five more minutes!) She got up, crept downstairs, carefully opened the heavy door to the lair, and sneaked down. She turned on the lights and pulled a large tome of spells from the shelf. She looked through it for spells about teleportation and memory alteration, of any sort. She already knew the one for self teleportation, but that didn't quite do her much good. The biggest problem with it was that it required her to have been to the place she was teleporting to. What's more, it wouldn't teleport other people to another place. This was undesirable, because what she wanted to do was teleport into Mikayla's bedroom when she was sleeping (not creepy at all, right?) and then teleport Mikayla into her room. That way, Mikayla would wake up wondering where she was, which Alex felt would be less jarring than to suddenly be transported to a new location.
Alex had some luck as she sifted through all the spells. She found a memory modification spell that let the caster implant false memories in the target. That would be handy, she would have to hold on to that one for later, when it would be necessary to use it. That is, after they switched places.
And then she found it. The spell she needed. That one, beautiful spell. The "transport something someplace" spell. She read carefully all the criteria for casting it. She needed to either have seen the place, or see a picture of the place. This was easy enough, she'd seen Mikayla's room in a TV special. (Justin had been particularly interested, naturally.) Best of all, it could transport a target to a location too. It would be perfect for her purposes. Phase Two was complete.
A.N.: Hey, I think it's pretty good. Not bad anyway. I'm finishing this up at nearly 2 AM so it's probably not as good as I think. But I wanted to get it in before I got to bed. As always, please review!