China Sorrows was upset. Ever since that horrid creature swapped their powers, she had Skulduggery Pleasant's powers. And they were just so... Mundane. Elemental was powerful and effecient and all the rest of it, but she wanted her owm charm back. Her own magic. At the very least she would have preferred Ezra Bloom's, or Valkarie Cain's newfound magic. She would have even taken Dexter Vex's. But no. She had Skulduggery's. Or Ghastly's. There was simply no way to tell because they were both the exact same and both equally... Boring. China clicked her fingers and a flame sparked. She sighed and her sigh blew the flame out. She desperately wanted her magic back. But right now Ezra had it.

And Ezra was having fun. She was drawing sigils everywhere. People were just being so nice to her. She didn't have to lift a finger, everyone was doing eveything they could to accommodate her and for the time being she was not going to complain. She drew a third lock sigil on her door, just because she could. She idly wondered how Fletcher was doing with her own magic.

He was scared. He did not know how to control them. At all. He had tripped over his own vines, burned a hole into the shower floor, nearly flooded Ghastly's van and kept turning up in random places. He thought he could manage wind, at the very least, but no. It wasn't like his own teleportation. It was a completly diffdifferent game. He was currently wrapping vines around a pillar in the Sanctuary because it was one of the only things he knew how to do. He just wanted his own skill back from Dexter.

Dexter laughed as he frightened Ezra, again. That's all he had been doing. Jumping from place to place to scare the Dead Men. Everyone hated him, and he knew it, but he was having far too much fun to care. Ezra looked at him and he found himself begging for her forgivness, and then it was her turn to laugh at him, throwing a pillow at him. He had disappeared before it hit him. He appeared just as Saracen threw an energy ball in his general direction.

Saracen was having the time of his life. He had never had an offensive power, and he was living for it. He just kept zapping things, for no reason other than the fact that he enjoyed it. He liked his magic, he did, but for the mean time Skulduggery could keep them because he was just having so much fun.

Skulduggery knew more things than he did before, and he longed for his elemental abilities back. He didn't need to know more things, he just needed to set someone on fire. Which he was scared Anton was going to do.

And Anton was damn near close to doing so if Dexter snuck up on him one more time. Dexter appeared and Anton blew a gust of gale force wind and knocked him into the wall. He grinned as Dexter slid to the floor. Then the bastard disappeared again. Anton wasn't too fussed on not having his gist. But he was scared of Valkarie, that was for sure.

He had every reason to be to, because Valkarie was just really angry all the time, and it felt like an itch in her chest. The gist wanted out and she knew it. Part of her wanted to do it, very badly indeed, but part of her was just as scared of an even moodier Valkarie as everyone else was. On the bright side, however, Ghastly was really enjoying his time with the Lightning and magic auras.

Whenever Ghastly passed a sorcerer, he couldn't help telling them their aura colour because it was just so cool. And as for the lightning, well he was just envious that his surge hadn't gone magnificently wrong so that he ended up with fancy lightning bolts.

It had now been three weeks and they were all desperate for their own, famiar magic back. But there was no change. They didn't even have an leads on who might have the drastic swap. They had been on many missions and failed them because they simply didn't know how to fully navigate the new powers. And it was so frustrating.

Ezra was walking down the street and everyone had stopped and said they loved her. Some had bowed, some dropped to their knees. How was supposed to reply? She dialed China's number.

"Hello?" China answered.

"Can you turn it off?!" Ezra asked loudly.

"Turn what off?" China asked.

"The charm?" Ezra said in a hushed tone.

"No. I'm afraid you can't... Did someone just say 'I love you' to you?"

"Yes, China! And they keep saying it and I'm going crazy!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Are you saying anything to them?" China asked quietly.

"What? No. Just walking by."

"That's new... I'll phone you back later." and before Ezra could argue, China hung up.

Skulduggery hated clichés, but it sounded like voices were screaming in his head now. Information he had no need for, names, places, people, powers, swirling rapidly in his mind. He clutcjed his head and groaned, not trusting himself to speak.

Fletcher's house had been destroyed. By him. He didn't even know how it happened, but it was burnt or flooded or blown to pieces, those goddam vines everywhere. And Dexter felt like he was burning, he had a fever. He laid in the remains of his bed, sweating and breathing shallow breaths.

Valkarie was unconditionally pissed off. She was mad at everyone. At everything. Anton could control it, and that was just great, and that pissed her off evem more.

She had stayed inside. Turned her phone off, her chest now aching, something so clearly and obviously beneath it. She had punched a lot of holes in a lot of walls and could not even say why.

Dexter had asked to be magically binded because he kept appearing in places. It was fun when he could control it, but he couldn't anymore. It happened when he ate, slept, bathed. He had been transported to a jungle when was meant to be in the shower. So he sat in the sanctuary, in a binding cell, with binding shackles, and hoped for the best.

The colours weren't fun anymore. They were too bright, too vivid, to big. It was difficult to see anything else, just colours screaming at Ghastly. Everytime he touched something he felt an electric shock. Small at first but as the days pressed on he felt it more and more. It hurt now. This was getting ti be fsr too much.

Saracen very much wanted his magic back now, a mild current coursing through his body. He was bloody restless. He hadn't slept and the only way the current eased was when he moved but he was tired. He wanted to sleep, to be still.

Both China and Anton were not enjoying themselves. Things kept catching fire, or were dry then suddenly drenched, or literally blew away, or, more concerningly, turning to stone. It made it impossible to get anything done. And it had went from annoying to infuriating real quick.

Everyone just wanted their own magic back. But they didn't know how to do that.