Chapter 4 Lemmy is Ludwig, Ludwig is Lemmy?

Ludwig felt a little groggy when he started to come around. He sat up in bed and blinked his eyes, trying to make the room come into focus. He felt strange. Not bad just...strange. He wasn't sure if he liked that. It was then that he noticed that he was lying in Lemmy's bed.

Ludwig shook his head and tried to remember why he might have ended up there. The last thing that he could recall was getting into a fight with some kind of creature. It was a ghost with soul killing eyes and a conical party hat. What was it called? Oh that's right, a duplighost; that's what Iggy had called it.

Ludwig realized that at some point during the fight, he must have been knocked out. He imagined that either Morton or Roy had carried him to his room on their shoulders. But why would they put him in Lemmy's bed? Lemmy's bed had a white comforter with rainbow colored polka dots and was adorned with at least ten sock monkeys. Ludwig's bed, on the other hand, had a dark blue comforter and an oil painting hanging over the headboard. If Morton and Roy couldn't identify whose bed was whose, then they clearly didn't know their siblings as well as they should.

Ludwig got out of the bed and down on the floor. That was when he noticed something different. Everything in the room looked...bigger. He had absolutely no idea how that was the case. Did he shrink? He hoped not; that would be embarrassing. Ludwig was still trying to rationalize what was going on when he noticed writing on his arm. Ludwig read the writing and initially thought it was some kind of joke. It was Lemmy's song. Why was it written on his arm? Did his siblings think it would be funny? He didn't see why it would be there of all places.

Hold on, he thought. Lemmy wrote the song on his arm. If it's on my arm, and everything looks bigger, than that must mean...

Ludwig's eyes grew wide as he started to put the pieces together. Frightened, he went to the window, which was the closest thing that served as a mirror in the room. When Ludwig saw his reflection, he stifled a shriek. It wasn't him looking back through the glass. It was Lemmy!

With fear rattling his nerves, Ludwig examined the reflection in the window. Yep, it was undoubtedly Lemmy. To the large oval eyes to the protruded snout to the rainbow mohawk. Ludwig's mind began to race. How was this possible? Why was he Lemmy? How was he Lemmy? What did he do to deserve this?!

Suddenly, Ludwig heard rustling of bed covers. It occurred to him that if he was Lemmy, then a rocket scientist wasn't needed to find out who Lemmy was. He apprehensively creeped toward his bed and pulled back the sheets. There, lying on the bed, was Ludwig. Or Lemmy in Ludwig's body. Ludwig put "his" hand over "his" mouth. Then, he started to shake his brother.

"Lemmy, wake up," he said, and was both shocked and relieved to hear his own voice escape from Lemmy's throat. Really, he would have been shocked to hear any voice, but at least he would have been expecting Lemmy's. Lemmy groaned but didn't move.

"Lemmy, I'm not kidding around; you need to wake up," Ludwig said as he shook harder. Lemmy merely swatted at him.

Ludwig began to grow frustrated. Was it really this hard to wake Lemmy up? That was when he spotted his flute case beside his bed. He took the mouthpiece out and blew into it, creating an ear splitting sound. Lemmy shrieked and sprang out of the bed onto the floor. Ludwig smiled a little bit, considering that as payback for when Lemmy had scared him out of bed that morning.

"Man Ludwig," said Lemmy from on the floor. "I know I'm not a morning person, but do you have to use a flute as an alarm? You might as well have used a megaphone."

Ludwig felt his heart stop at the sound of Lemmy's high pitched, almost feminine voice. The sound of it coming out of his mouth was off putting.

"Lemmy," he said, "will you mind looking at me for a second?"

Lemmy got up off the floor and got a chance to look at Ludwig. At the sight of his brother, Lemmy's eyes grew wide.

"Woah," he said. Then he smiled. "Did Iggy make some sort of miniature robot?"

Lemmy approached Ludwig, who was feeling frightened and baffled, and picked him up.

"Cool!" he said. "He got all the details just right!"

Ludwig started squirming.

"Lemmy, put me down!" he cried. Lemmy felt confused.

"Hmm," he said. "The choice of having it speak with Ludwig's voice is a little odd." Lemmy started turning Ludwig left and right, inspecting him. "Is there a switch to change that?"

Ludwig squirmed a little bit more and managed to wriggle free.

"Lemmy, I'm not a robot!" he said. "I actually am Ludwig!"

The confused look on "Lemmy's" face grew more confused.

"You're Ludwig?" he asked. He crossed his arms. "How do I know that Iggy didn't just program you to say that?"

Ludwig sighed.

"Alright, you want proof?" he said. "Fine. My full name is Ludwig Vanessa Koopa but I like to tell people that it is Ludwig von Koopa. My birthday is June 14th and my favorite color is blue. I like to write songs for fun. The most recent one that I'm working on is 'The Koopa Kingdom's Wild Side,' but I've also worked on others such as 'A Familiar Stranger' and 'The Effects of Procrastination.' This morning you wanted to write a song with me, but I said no so you wrote one on your own."

Lemmy still felt unsure. All the facts that he was presenting were true; however, Iggy could have programmed him to say all of that stuff. Iggy was well aware of all that he was saying after all.

"Huh," Lemmy said. "I don't know."

"Oh for crying out loud," Ludwig said. "Okay, to prove once and for all that Iggy did not program me, I'll tell you something he has no knowledge of. Remember that year you went all out for April Fool's and you pulled that prank that involved sour cream, fire flower petals, and Junior's bed?"

"Lemmy's" eyes grew bigger than the ball he liked to balance on.

"Oh my," he said quietly. "Ludwig, is that…?"

"Yes, it's me." said Ludwig with a weak smile. Lemmy felt and looked shocked.

"But...why do you look like me?" he asked.

"I can ask you the same question," Ludwig stated.

"You...can?" Lemmy asked. That was when he noticed that he was wearing Ludwig's blue cape with the jasper button. He also noticed that he seemed to have grown; he was so distracted by the conversation with Ludwig and being abruptly woken up that he had failed to notice before. Panic started to fill his mind like air fills the lungs, and he ran over to the window. When he saw Ludwig's face staring back at him, he let out a little scream and turned back toward his brother.

"I'm you!" he cried.

"I know," Ludwig responded.

"And you're me!" Lemmy said.

"I know!" said Ludwig.

"How did this happen?" Lemmy asked distraughtly.

"I DON'T KNOW!" yelled Ludwig. Feeling dispirited, he sat down on the edge of his bed. This couldn't be happening. Why did this have to happen? To him and Lemmy no less?

"Ludwig," Lemmy said as he sat down next to him, "you didn't do this, did you?"

Ludwig snorted.

"Lemmy, I have many powers," he said. "But being able to swap people's bodies is not one of them."

That statement caused a connection to form in Ludwig's brain. He got up and started pacing around, trying to remember exactly what happened during the fight with the duplighost.

"Then what could have caused this?" Lemmy asked. "Did Iggy perform some sort of experiment on us? Is this a spell of Kamek's? I don't know about all of the spells that magikoopas are able to do, but I'm sure that something like this is in their books."

Ludwig shook his head. He and Iggy had studied the various spells that magikoopas could perform a year ago, from teleportation to making objects materialize to creating clones of people.

"No, they don't," he said. "The closest thing that they have to this is transformation spells, but even then they can't make you look like somebody who actually exists. Now can you be quiet? I'm trying to think."

Ludwig remembered that the duplighost had thrown magic at him and tried to do a swap. What happened next was a little fuzzy, but he did remembered trying to generate electricity in an attempt to escape. After that his memory failed him.

"Lemmy," he said. "Do you know what happened during the fight with the duplighost?"

Lemmy looked bewildered.

"I..I don't remember," he said. "I know that there were a lot of flashing lights, but other than that the whole thing was kind of a blur."

Ludwig approached Lemmy. Flashing lights. Now they were starting to get somewhere.

"Do you remember why there were flashing lights?" he asked. Lemmy looked down at the floor, trying to place it in his mind.

"I…" he hesitated.

"Come on Lemmy, think," said Ludwig imploringly. "I know it might be hard, but we've gotta remember this."

Lemmy put his hand to his head, as if that would cause the neurons to connect.

"I...I think that there were a bunch of magical blasts flying around," he said. "Yeah, I think that was what happened. I vaguely remember a magical blast coming right towards me. I think getting hit is what knocked me out."

Ludwig nodded, his brain rapidly making connections.

"That blast," he said. "That must have been what switched us!" Ludwig then glared at Lemmy. "Why didn't you get out of the way when you saw it coming?"

"I think I was in shock," Lemmy replied. Ludwig gawked.

"Shock?" he said angrily. "You were in shock?" Ludwig started massaging "his" temples and let out a sigh. "Lemmy, if you weren't in my body right now, I would kill you."

"But can you blame me?" asked Lemmy defensively. "I was right in the line of fire. Anybody could have reacted the same way; it was a fear response."

Ludwig realized that he was being a little unreasonable. He let out a breath to calm himself down.

"No, you're right, I'm sorry," he said gently. "We just need to figure out what to do next."

Lemmy chuckled.

"Well, I don't think there is much of a question in that," he said with a smile. "We go to Iggy!"

Ludwig knew that what Lemmy was saying was true. While Kamek was powerful, Ludwig knew for a fact that he didn't have the right spell to help them. Even if he did, Ludwig wouldn't trust Kamek's magic with something like this. Iggy's science, on the other hand…

"You're right," Ludwig said. "If there is anybody who could be able to fix this, it would be him." So, the two of them left the room and went to Iggy's lab.