Look! Review responses!

VeronicaWeasley - It wasn't a secret, but it wasn't something I wrote to be obvious either! Good job you, you smarticle! So far, I don't have any plans for Ricky, so we'll see what happens while I'm writing.

Ryan Harper - No worries! I'm not a quick updater, so you take however long you want to review! Just not too long, because then you won't get a response to it. I will definitely dive deeper into their break-up reasons. The story is coming to a close, so you'll soon see if everyone gets through it alright...

Dylan Quagmir - Thanks for a bit of criticism! May I just remind you that Nicky wasn't paranoid because Dawn's insane. He's paranoid because of the Mind Effect. Criticism is very much appreciated, though! Thanks for the compliment as well! Looking forward to reading more Very Lovely Indeed!

Look! The chapter's starting!

After all that Ricky had figured out earlier, the quads collectively agreed to hope he was right. The mind effect was one of those illnesses that came and went at specific times of the day. They repeated that inside their heads, and verbally to each other, hoping it would stick sooner or later. The result was most often that they believed it for a while, then started doubting it. After Ricky told them that that was just anxiety, they decided that distraction was the best option. All three mind affected quads invited over friends, and fifteen minutes later, the quads, along with Mae and Malou were on the couch.

The distraction plan worked perfectly, especially for Nicky, who immediately began being cute with Malou. Dawn and Mae cringed at the sight, and instead began gossiping about other boys. Ricky supervised the situation like a parent watching his kid on a playground, and Dicky patiently waited for his friend to come over. When Malou threw yet another cute comment at Nicky, Dawn and Mae groaned in disgust, and Ricky sighed, finding himself not as grossed out as he usually would have been. Not only Ricky's attitude was different. Everything felt like it was. Nicky couldn't put his finger on why he and Malou didn't go lock themselves in the boys' room, and Dawn couldn't say why she and Mae voluntarily sat with everyone else in the living room.

"So what powers do you guys have now?" Malou suddenly asked not only Nicky, but the other quads as well. She and Nicky had just been having a very quiet conversation, so the others were forced to assume that it had been about powers.

"Dawn's teleportation," Nicky answered quickly.

"Telekinesis," Dawn sighed.

"Dicky's shapeshifting," Ricky mumbled.

Dicky finished the answering of Malou's question with his reply, "The invisibility thing."

"Have you tried it out much?" Malou once again directed the question at all of them. She only got uncertain mumbles back. The quads knew they should have been practicing, but they hadn't been able to get themselves to do it yet.

"I teleported once right after we switched," Nicky admitted. Dawn cast an angry glare at him, as if she thought his one teleport meant he had purposely stolen her power. Ignoring this, Nicky continued. "Dawn made something levitate a bit. But we haven't done anything more. It doesn't work anymore."

"Why not?" Malou asked inquisitively. "You said Ricky and Dicky switched your powers twice the same day."

While she did make a good point, it was hard for all four quads to give her a good answer. Much to their fortune, they didn't have to. A few seconds after Malou finished speaking, the sweet sound of the doorbell filled the room. Dicky hopped out of the armchair he sat in and ran to the door. He opened the door and in walked Angelina. The two hugged happily, while Dawn frowned.

"Didn't you two break up?" she asked, remembering the very short conversation the quads had yesterday.

"Oh, yes," Angelina nodded casually.

"So why're you...?" Dawn gestured randomly with her hand, not really making any point with it.

Angelina and Dicky furrowed their eyebrows at Dawn.

"Why we're hugging? Why I'm here?" Angelina started to look a bit annoyed, but simultaneously amused. It was a weird expression.

"Well... yeah," Dawn answered honestly.

"Oh, because you can't possibly still be friends with an ex of yours," Angelina sarcastically snarled while she hung her jacket on a coat hanger.

Dawn instantly looked away from the two friends, feeling awkward about the questions she had just asked.

"It wasn't like we had the world's most dramatic break-up or anything," Angelina continued, now sounding fully entertained by Dawn's stereotypical assumptions.

"Yeah," Dicky said, nodding. "It was a mutually agreed decision." It couldn't have been clearer that those were not originally his words.

"Maybe... maybe I do the talking about this topic?" Angelina said, taking charge. She turned her head back to the others. "We figured we're better off as friends."

"I figured I hope they do the same," Dawn mumbled, letting loose an irritated eye roll at Malou and Nicky.

"Thanks Dawn," Nicky nodded. "Great to have your support. May I remind you what started this whole power-switching thing?"

"Anyway!" Malou cut them off. Nicky had vented enough to her about the issue that she knew where this conversation would lead if it continued. "Now that we're all here, what do we do?"

"We could let the quads practice their powers?" Mae suggested hopefully. "'Cause honestly, I've gotten enough of this complaining."

"Sounds great," Malou agreed. She took a big hair clip out of her hair. As her blonde hair flowed down onto her shoulders, she put the clip on the coffee table. "Nicky, teleport it."

Nicky, who had begun patting and playing with Malou's hair, looked up.

"What?"

"Teleport the clip somewhere."

"I can't," Nicky said insecurely.

"Why not?"

"It's not that simple," both Nicky and Dawn answered.

"Well, he can at least try!" Malou said encouragingly. "I believe in you." She smiled at Nicky, who immediately began grinning as well.

"Okay," he said goofily.

He raised his hand towards the hair clip and focused. Teleport, he told it inside of his head. Teleport right into Dawn's face! The very familiar blue glow appeared weakly around the hair clip. Nicky's arm started getting tired. His head ached lightly. He put in an abundance of energy, but the glow wasn't even beginning to consume Malou's accessory. When he felt his breathing become strained, he stopped trying.

"I can't," he panted.

"Pathetic," Dawn scoffed to herself.

"Okay Dawn," Malou leaned forward in the armchair she and Nicky shared. "Make it levitate."

Dawn was caught off guard. For some reason she hadn't seen this coming. Not wanting to seem rude or weak in front of the others, she sat up straight.

"Okay," she said haughtily. Her hand flew up in one swift motion. She put her focus on the hair clip. She had done this once before, how hard could it be? That one time she hadn't even been trying to make the object levitate. This could impossibly be hard. So why wasn't the clip moving? Why did it lay still? Dawn could feel her forehead sweating, and her arm shaking from fatigue, but no way would she give up. Her pain tolerance was great anyway. The clip started shaking, but it looked more like it would explode than levitate. Wait, that's good, thought Dawn. She was supposed to rip something apart for the switch, so why not explode it instead?

"Dawn! Stop!" she suddenly heard Mae shout. First then did she notice how much everything hurt. She let go of the hair clip, and immediately felt her head explode with pain. At least something exploded...

"You know what that was, Dawn?" Nicky asked. "Pathetic," he continued with an evil grin.

Dawn shot him a death glare, and then it was quiet. The quads were too busy realizing their current chances of switching back were low, and their friends simply waited for someone to speak. In the end, it was Angelina who broke the silence.

"Wanna play Luigi Kart?" she asked, pointing at the TV.

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"That sounds fun."

Ricky turned on the TV, and took the controllers out of a box beside the TV.

"Who's playing first?" he asked.

Dawn reached over the table and snatched a controller from him, Nicky and Malou were quick to say "us!", and then Dawn grabbed the last controller from Ricky, and gave it to Mae.

"Dibbs on Princess Plum!" Dawn called, and then the game was in action.

Though none of the friends wanted to admit it, they had totally lost track of time playing Luigi Kart. By the time they considered themselves finished, it had been two and a half hours. But they couldn't have expected anything else, seeing as everyone wanted to play against everyone so the ultimate winner would be a fairly chosen one. The ultimate winner finally ended up being Dicky. Malou, Angelina and Mae congratulated him on his win. Dawn, Ricky and Nicky accused him of cheating. "Like he always does," commented Nicky. Dicky protested, but the other quads agreed as well, really without any evidence. Only when Malou noticed that it was past 7:30 pm did they stop discussing the topic.

"Byeee!" Dicky dragged out his farewell to the girls as they walked down the pathway. "We gotta play Luigi Kart more!"

"We'll cream you next time!" Angelina turned around to tease.

"You won't!" Dicky stuck his tongue out, and Angelina did the same.

While the two kept making faces at each other, Dicky's siblings quickly got tired of it. Nicky instinctively flicked his hand at the door, wanting it to close. Instead it ended up looking like he was trying to shoo away a fly. He sighed heavily.

Finally, Dawn got up and slammed the front door for Dicky.

"There we go," she said sharply. Then she took a step backwards, and fell right over an end table. It looked like she had just forgotten the small table was there, but really she had automatically attempted to teleport back into her armchair.

Dicky frowned at her for closing the door. He had meant for the frown to be ten times angrier and worse-looking than it ended up looking, simply because that's what he usually did.

"We can't live like this," Dawn groaned. She stood up from the fall, which had looked pretty painful. "We have to switch back."

It took two weeks. Two full weeks of constant training for the switch. Then Nicky could teleport simple objects, and Dawn could just manage to rip thin papers apart.

Their mind effects came back regularly, just as Ricky had foretold. Twice or thrice a day, three of the quads were sent to their beds. Dawn would lie through the entire episode, her insanity fighting with her sanity inside her head. She had never experienced worse pain. Dicky would almost pass out, and would then get to his bed as fast as he could. Nicky had also found that lying in bed worked best. Wherever he went, he would see things, feel pain in random places, and feel paranoia like never before. In his bed, only a handful of things could cause that.

Knowing that their mind effects were simply some type of anxiety didn't make any difference at all.

Then finally came the day. Dawn ripped a page of Ricky's journal into tiny pieces, and Nicky successfully teleported a shoe. The quads immediately gathered in Dawn's room to perform the switch.

"Are you ready?" Ricky asked Dawn and Nicky.

The oldest and youngest quads nodded, quite securely. They were definitely ready to get their normal lives back, but they were unsure of how ready they were to actually perform the switching action.

Dicky ripped out a paper from Dawn's sketchbook, and laid it on the desk. Dawn and Nicky looked into each other's eyes. Both nodded, as a way to signal that they should do it. Dawn watched Nicky's face as he counted down from five.

The paper was consumed by blue. Dawn made a slashing motion with her hand, and for the fourth time, the quads saw the blue energy wave go through the room.