Amy groans and attempts to open her eyes but can only manage the feat for a second before they fall shut again. An unfamiliar dull pain radiates through her body. She tries to open her eyes again and keeps them open for a second longer than before, but they eventually fall closed again. After a few more attempts, the sound of barking dogs begins to bleed through the ringing in her ears. She hadn't even registered until this moment.
When she finally gains the ability to lift her head, Amy looks up to see the fuzzy image of a body lying fifty feet away from her. She feels like she should know who the person is, but with her vision so blurry and her mind so muddled, the information escapes her. Amy knows that if she can get closer, she'll be able to identify them, but when she pushes herself into a sitting position, a wave of dizziness washes over her, and she falls to the ground again.
When Amy wakes up again, it appears as if someone placed a mirror next to her. She can see herself leaning down and her mouth moving, but the sound of her speech is muddled. Amy presses her eyes shut and lays her head against the cool ground until the sounds around her come into focus until she can hear what the version of her in the mirror is saying.
"Havoc, you need to get up! Someone is coming. Get up!" As the words register with Amy, she realizes that her mouth isn't moving and is still lying on the ground, unlike what she used to think was her reflection in a mirror. As Amy opens her eyes and looks up at the version of her, she sees Starling's arm out of the corner of her eye. She whips around to face the hero but is horrified when she sees her reflection in a piece of metal. The shock of her reflection and the dizziness brought on by turning so quickly cause Amy to fall backward as she yells:
"Holly shi…."
The person in her body caches Amy and clamps their hand over her mouth. "I know this is insane, but we need to hide. The junkyard owner is coming, and I can't think of a believable excuse for the explosion, so we need to go!"
Amy is about to say something, but she hears the shouting of a man and the barking of dogs in the background. Amy pushes herself to her feet and follows after who she assumes is Starling in her body. They stubble out of the junkyard and find the closest hiding place. At every step, Amy feels like she is going to crash to the ground.
"What on earth did you do to me?" Amy whispers after leaning against a tree tiredly.
"What did I do?" Starling whisper yells dramatically. "It was your device that caused all this! Why don't you tell me what's going on!"
"That device was meant to swap the taste of foods, not people. It was your blast that made it malfunction!"
"You threw it at me. What was I supposed to do? Let it hit me. For all I knew, it was one of Kraniacs face-melters!"
"I didn't throw it. I dropped it because you attacked me!"
"It's not my fault your awful at fighting."
Amy is about to snap back but takes a moment to step back and think despite the pounding in her head. She absolutely hates Starling and always will, but right now, it appears as if their in a position where they don't really have a voice in working together. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Once people clear out of the junkyard, we need to return and get the swapper."
"We can't. I looked for it while you were knocked out. It's in a million pieces."
"Ok," Amy says, fighting back panic, "My dad can make another one."
"Do you really think that's the best plan?" Starling asks, exasperated.
"Ya, your overreacting. This isn't that complicated." Amy says. She freaked out when she first realized the swap had happened, but her dad was an evil genius. He could figure out how to fix this. He should be able to fix this in less than an hour, and then Amy could go back to hating Starling with every fiber of her being instead of being her.
"Overreacting!" Starling whisper yells at Amy, trying not to alert anyone of their presence despite her anger, "I am stuck in the body of my arch-enemy, who also happens to be the sister of my ex-boyfriend, who I am still in love with, and whom I only broke up with because of said are-enemy. If I try to get help, my two options are telling the other heroes that I was covering for a family of villains or getting help from a mad scientist who has tried to kill me on multiple occasions." Starling throws her hands in the air and falls against the tree next to Amy. She takes a deep breath and continues, "How do you expect to bring this up to Kraniac? If you try to talk to him in my body, he'll attack you on site, and I have no idea how I would bring it up to him if I was the one to do it."
"Well, who says we need to tell him what's happening? Once he realizes the swapper is gone, he'll make another one. He never needs to find out. We just have to wait a bit." Amy was trying to keep herself from overthinking. Her dad lost or broke his inventions all the time and always had another one ready to go soon after. Despite the fog clouding her brain, Amy is sure their no logic she's missed or a problem needing to be overcome. Vic makes another swapping ray, they take it, recreate the explosion, and then everything is back to normal/
"What are we supposed to do until then? Just swap places? My life is literally broadcast to the entire world. People will catch on that something is wrong real quick. And I'm not exactly comfortable living in a house with a bunch of villains who have tried to kill me on multiple occasions!"
"It can't be that hard to imitate you. All I'd need to do is act happy-go-lucky and constantly brag about myself." Amy pushes herself off the tree she was leaning against to do an overexaggerated impression of Starling but falls as her vision goes white and her head clouds over worse than before.
"Wow," Starling says as she catches Amy, "Please don't mess up my body. You probably have a concussion from the explosion. Sit down before you give me brain damage."
"Who's to say that isn't my goal?" Amy undercuts her sarcastic quip by allowing Starling to lower her to the ground and resting her spinning head on her knees.
Staling sighs and sits down next to Amy. "Ok, look. I have no idea how long this will take to fix. We're both in a position to screw each other over, so how about a truce. No purposefully messing up each other's lives. No hurting each other, and we'll work together to fix this without any fighting.
Amy looks at Starling skeptically. She isn't sure how much Starling knows about her family or how much Jake told her, but doubts about the situation beginning to sink in again. "Do you promise not to rat out my family to the other heroes, even after this is fixed?"
"I've already been keeping your secret. Why would I change my mind now?"
"That's not a promise."
"Fine," Starling says while rolling her eyes, "I promise not to tell anyone about your family." Amy reluctantly shakes the hand Starling extends to her.
"Fine, truce"
"Perfect," Starling says, "I'm not overjoyed at the idea of switching places, but I can't think of any better ideas, and you don't seem to be in the mindset for much critical thinking." Before Amy can register the insult thrown at her, Starling continues on. "So, for now, let's just assume we are. We're going to need excuses for why we're acting differently. If you have a concussion, that can be yours, but what should mine be?"
As Starling talks, Amy takes a moment to accept how quickly they've gone from being at each other's thoughts to working together. She ignores the adrenaline still sourcing through her veins and answers the hero. "I was furious at Jake and hartley after the… incident last week," Amy looks over at Starling awkwardly, "You could pretend to still be mad about that."
"That wouldn't explain it if I don't know something you should," Starling responds.
"Do you have a better Idea?"
Starling looks into the distance before she looks up at Amy excitedly. "Do you remember the battle where Surge hit Captain Valor with a Memory ray?"
"Ya"
"Do ya'll still have that? I could pretend to get hit with it!"
"It was blown up with our last layer," Amy says, "I think Kraniacs trying to recreate it, but he's struggling to access some of the materials we had before. Plus, I don't think you want my dad trying to get your memories back. He could mess up and actually erase them."
"Oh," Starling says as she falls back against the tree, "I guess I could go with your idea. I could just stay in your room and avoid people."
"You can sneak down to the layer at night to chec…."
"You still have an evil layer?" Starling interrupts.
"It's less of an evil layer and more of a workshop for my dad. How do you think he made the swapper in the first place?" Starling looks like she's about to respond when Amy continues, "Can I finish explaining how we're going to fix this, or do we need to talk about the layer more?"
"Go ahead, sorry."
"You can sneak down to the NOT EVIL layer at night to check on how far my dad gets with the swapper."
"Ok. You might have a harder time standing in for me since my schedule is packed, but if you go to the doctor and get your concussion diagnosed, my manager will hopefully let you skip some of it."
"You might have to go to school for me, but I never actually do anything, so it won't be difficult for you. Do you have any type of schooling?" Amy asks.
"I have a tutor who travels with me to meet child labor laws, but we don't do a lot, and they will let you skip it with a concussion." As Starling says this, she looks up at the sky. "It's getting light out. Even with the best excuses, people will probably get suspicious if they catch one of us sneaking back home at like three in the morning. I'll bring you to a hospital and then head to your house. You'll just have to give me your address."
Amy is apprehensive about giving Starling her address or going to a hospital, but the pain radiating from her head is getting worse, and she's losing the energy to fight back.
"We should switch numbers so we can keep each other updated and ask any questions about the other's life," Starling says as she reaches down to the side of her thigh but looks up at Amy when she finds nothing, "Where do you keep your phone?"
Amy pushes through the haze in her brain to remember when she left the house. "I think I put it in a pocket inside my coat, probably the bottom right-hand corner." As Starling reaches into the pocket, Amy searches for Starling's phone. She mirrors Starling's earlier movement and finds a pocket sewn into the hero's suit.
"What's your password?" Amy looks up at Starling and takes a moment to comprehend what the hero said.
"Just spell Havoc on the pin pad." Amy opens the pocket and pulls out Starlings' Phone. "What's yours?"
"37728469."
"Could you repeat that… slower," Amy says.
"Of course, sorry." Starling replies, "3…77…2…8…4…6…9… Did you get it that time?
"Ya…" Amy almost says thank you but catches herself at the last second. "That's like eight digits. Isn't that a little overkill?
"I've had crazed fans steal my phone on multiple occasions," As Starling says this, Amy finds the contacts app on her phone and begins adding herself. "My Password needs to be super secure, so they can't get access to confidential information on it. Speaking of which, could I have my phone for a second? I should close out some of that info if you have access to it."
"What kind of stuff?" Amy asks as she holds the phone above her head. When Amy's family was in the villain league, they took every chance they could to steal information from the heroes. Even though she didn't work for them, she would still love to know those things.
"Hero's Identities, my family, contracts, legal and criminal cases I'm involved in." Amy would have loved to know a lot of Starling's information, but the mention of her family struck a chord with her.
Amy sighs, "We'll trade, I'll give you your phone, and you give me mine. We can delete whatever we want, no questions asked."
Starling gladly hands Amy her phone over while Amy throws Satlings as hard as she can. As soon as she gets her phone, she starts scanning the texts with her family. She doubts theirs anything overly villainous in there, and Starling can't report any of it, but she's still a little nervous.
[Where are you.]
Amy clicks on the banner at the top of her screen, showing a new text from her mom.
[Got Lost]
[Figured it out tho]
[Be back soon]
Amy hopes her mom won't notice her texts being a little less put together than usual, but her brain is too muddled to produce anything better.
[OK, Just hurry up. If you're not back when Vic wakes up he's going to be suspicious]
"I don't think you're going to have time to take me to the hospital, my mom's wondering where I am."
Starling looks up at Amy, clearly distressed. "What excuse should I give her for why I'm out this late… or early, I guess."
She's the reason I'm out here. She's wondering why I'm taking so long to get back. I told her that I got lost but am heading back. If you don't get back soon, she might go searching for me.
Starling lets her soldiers slump back into place from their earlier tense position. "I don't trust you to get to the hospital alone. You look like you're going to pass out any second, and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to sleep when you have a concussion.
Amy thinks for a before responding. "As much as I would hate to get help from any of the other heroes, why don't I call one to pick me up. I could say you were investigating the explosion in the junkyard and got attacked by someone before you passed out.
"If the other superheroes think there's a villain in Valley View attacking heroes, they are going to investigate it, and they might find your family, plus most of them are on the other side of the country."
"Is there anyone else that we could call?"
"My managers in town to ensure I stay on schedule after my last commercial shoot got messed up. We can call her. Give me a moment to finish closing out the confidential information, and I'll call her for you."
"What should I tell her?" Amy asks, "Wouldn't she be worried about you getting attacked and tell the other heroes."
"She's used to my hero antics. She tries not to get involved in it, especially because she's technically a civilian and not allowed to know a lot about it."
After a few seconds, Starling passes her phone back to Amy, and she does the same. When Amy looks at the screen of Starling's phone, she sees it's already dialing a person called Anna Eliot."
"Should I address her as Anna, Mrs. Eliot, or something else?" Amy asks as the phone continues to ring.
"Anna's fine. She'spretty chill in that regard."
Amy's about to respond when the ringing of the phone cuts off abruptly, and a voice from the other end grumbles: "Starling, it is 2:50 in the morning. What is so important you had to call me now?"
Amy takes a second to think over her words. Should she make the situation sound as urgent as possible to get Starling's manager here as soon as possible? Mabey, or should she play it down to keep Anna from worrying and calling one of the other heroes in a panic?
"I need you to pick me up and drive me to the hospital." Urgent it is.
Amy hears shifting on the other end of the line before a more alert-sounding "What?"
"I investigated an explosion near where that bus was flipped and got attacked. I think I got a concussion. I just woke up."
"Are you safe? Is it safe for me to come down to get you? Should I call another hero to go get you, the police, an ambulance…" As the voice on the other end of the line rambles on, Amy can hear the sound of keys jingling and doors opening and closing.
"I think I've been out for a while. The person who attacked me is probably already gone. You just come down and get me. It should be safe."
"Ok, where are you?"
"Just outside the Valley View city junkyard."
"I'm coming. Stay on the phone with me."
A small wave of panic courses through Amy. Even if she didn't enjoy working with Starling, she had been planning to get a little more information before she was thrown into her life. As she's formulating an excuse for why she needs to leave the call, the phone vibrates in her hand, and she pulls it away to see a text from the new contact Starling added for herself.
[Just text me your address. Once I'm away from the scene, I'll text you everything you need to know about Anna and my life.]
Amy opens the messaging app to reply, but her brain draws a blank. She can remember how to get to the old layer, and if it had an address, she's pretty sure she would be able to remember it, but she's been living in her new house for such a short amount of time, and her brain is so cloudy she can't even remember a single digit in its address. Panic courses through her as she scours her mind for anything. She can picture the street she lives on, but the sign bares no words. Her house is clear in her mind, but the four-digit number identifying it is absent. Amy's pulled away from her downward spiral by the voice on the other end of the phone, a voice she had completely forgotten about.
"The GPS says I'll be there in forty-five minutes, but if I speed, I should be able to get there in 30, hope you'll forgive me."
Amy's already murmuring an affirmative before registering what has been said, but an idea comes to her when she does.
[My address is saved on my map]
Instead of texting her back, Starling meets her eyes, nods her head, and runs off, leaving Amy alone to wait for help to arrive.
