"You got us lost, didn't you?"
"No!" The teen replied, looking around in the dark cavern futilely, while the other tapped his finger impatiently against his arm, staring at the outlined figure of his friend, waiting for him to answer. After awhile, he finally cracked. "..Okay, fine. But it's not my fault they made this place so bloody complex!"
The teenager named Callum put his fingers to the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Look, we've come this far together. I seriously doubt that the cave BEFORE the big challenge will actually defeat us, right?"
His friend, named Andrew, nervously chuckled. "..I really hope not.."
Both of them taking a deep sigh, they leaned against the closest stone wall, taking a short break to orientate themselves inside the expansive underground, looking at where they have gone and where they still need to go. There were a few trainers beforehand along the path, but there wasn't any out here. It could be possible that they merely deviated off the path that much to be away from the route to the end.
After the brief hiatus and a few sips from Callum's bottle of water, they nodded to each other, securing their backpacks on tightly. "Come on," he said, "Let's get going again."
Stepping off and leading the two-man party, Andrew followed behind closely, as to firstly not lose his way within the deep cavern and secondly not lose his friend.
And so they began to retrace their steps. Pushing past boulders with the help of their trusty partner Pokemon, walking up and down the carved stairs that they had taken before to get to where they ended up and walk the long, dark corridors of the cavernous interior.
..Where they ended up was even darker then before, even harder to see and definitely off the path. Visible stalagmites and stalagtites were dotted all around where they were and the rough hewn stone wasn't worn from people walking across it. They had gotten to an entirely new area of the road.. That they weren't meant to.
"..So, what am I going to say-"
"Don't even think about it." Callum cut him off, embarrassment setting on his face. Thank god it was dark enough to not see details perfectly.
"We have a horrible taste in direction." Andrew reflected on both their behalf. "We always seem to get lost.. I'm suprised we found the Victory Road in the first place."
"It wasn't that hard to find the only entrance into the damn caves.." Callum spat back, obviously a little frustrated at their string of failures.
"Maybe they should have put Victory Road somewhere away from the caves?" He laughed awkwardly, trying to lighten the stale, cave air between them.
Callum walked up to a stalagmite, the attempt at his friend's humour not succeeding in appeasing him and leaning against the thick, stone formation, sliding down against the stone until he was resting on the floor. Something felt wrong, though. Raising an eyebrow, he turned around, looking at his backrest and spotting an odd lump wedged into the stone. Peering at it closer, his eyes widened a little bit. "..Oh! Andrew, c'mere! I think I found something neat.."
Andrew walked over to where his friend was sitting, squatting down to take a better look at whatever it was, taking his bag off in the process. "What? What is it?"
"There's something here.. It's not quite stone, but it's really hard.. Do you have your pick? I think we might've just found a fossil!"
"Really?! ..Hold on, let me check I might have it...Give me a sec." Andrew grabbed his backpack and opened it, beginning to look inside it for the tool of the trade. Pokeballs, no.. Potions, not that either.. "Ahah! I found it!" He pulled it out and held it triumphantly in front of him, before passing Callum the pick.
He quickly went to work, carefully chipping away at the stony covering that trapped the remains within the rock, fragmenting it bit by bit while Andrew watched on. It was something to do while they were down here, lost as can be, in the dark expanses of Victory Road.. Yet they spent near half an hour trying to remove these fossils from their prisons, with the vibrations of the pick echoing out into the caves around them. Eventually, it was done. They took the fossils out slowly, Callum passing one of them to Andrew while cradling the other in his arms.
Andrew took the fossil Callum gave to him, smiling widely, not able to hold his excitement in. "Wow, look at this.. this is amazing! I'm glad we got lost, or we would of never found these fossils.."
Callum wiped the dust that had flew up onto his forehead, carefully clutching the fossil within his arm. "Yeah, this was a real highlight.. But the problem with getting lost is actually finding the way back out. Come on, let's get these into our bags safely."
Andrew hoisted the fossil up to carry it better, pivoting on his foot to place it gently into his bag.. But the debris that had built up from the small scraps of rock caused his pivoting action to turn more into a slide, his entire foot moving without his consent. With a yell he slipped backwards, falling into his surprised friend and subsequently knocking his cradled prize loose and in a single moment, their efforts lay on the ground in fragments.
Andrew and Callum looked down at their now destroyed fossils before Callum gave his clumsy friend a hateful glare. "Dude! Why?!"
"S-sorry!!" Andrew said nervously while looking away in shame. "I-It was an accident! There must've been something under my foot, because I slipped and-"
Callum held a hand up; to silence him, sure, but it wasn't with the demeanour of a person that was fed up with someone. This had an urgency to it. "..Listen. Do you feel something.. Weird?"
Andrew stared at him in confusion. "What do you mean feel something weird? I-I dont feel anything.." Andrew tilted his head on the side. "Am I supposed to feel-" But then he did feel something, a very slight buzz that seemed to come from all around. The two of them looked up and around, trying to find the source of this sensation. Where could this weird feeling be coming from..?
Then it hit them.
The unexplainable sensation quickly forced its way onto their heads, the extreme pressure of whatever it was causing a severe amount of pain as the two of them clutched their heads; for Andrew it was his scalp and for Callum it was his face. They wailed in agony as their nails dug in tightly into their skin, anything to relieve the pain, even slightly. Their breathing started to become heavy, only seeming to make them light-headed and increasing the pain at the same time.
Callum managed to speak first through the pain. "A-Aagh! What the fuck? What could cause this?!"
Andrew staggered around in his pain filled haze, steadying him enough to actually reply. "Oooow.. I don't know! This is-" His speech was silenced as he loosened his grip on his hair, pulling a hand away slightly.. And pulling away a clump of blonde hair. Revealing it in front of his face, Andrew's hands started to tremble as a deep, primal fear settled into him. "Oh no."
Callum held his pain back long enough to remove his hands from his face, staring across to his friend. "What? What is- Oh." As soon as he saw the clump of hair in his hands, his eyes travelled up to the top of his head, where he was quickly starting to bald, his hair falling out in gross clumps all around him. The same fear sinking into his heart, his hand flew up to his head only to confirm those fears; his hair was falling out too.
They were speechless, their voices literally escaping them for the moment, while another crushing pain was felt all over their bodies as the entire area around them started to get bigger. It wasn't noticeable at first, but when 5 inches have been shaved off your height entirely and your clothes start to bag, it starts to get apparent that yet another thing was wrong with them.
As they groaned and tried to cope with all the changing pain, their skin started to change in pigment. Slowly, starting on the back of their hands a new colour started to form and then quickly spread, for Andrew it being a gray colour and for Callum an off-yellow began to form. The change in pigment also marked a change in texture, as when they spied the noticeable colour difference across their bodies a quick touch with their hand found it more like a rough hide, instead of the soft skin that they had before.
But the colour change was a welcome distraction before their skeletal structure inside of them began to change, shifting and cracking around to reshape their bodies to however the unknown forces wanted it. For Andrew, it was the shrinking of the arms with the new addition of three small claws in place of his shrinking fingers, the condensation of the body into a much smaller space, the small tail that swerved out of his loose clothing, coloured blue against his gray body and the reformation of his legs, his feet slipping from his shoes with three claws where his toes should be and a dewclaw on his heel, forced to stand on the front of his foot while the leg itself was now quite thin and shrunken. The most important part of this process was his head. His cranium started to enlarge, shaping into a dome while it started to be tinted the same blue as his tail, becoming reinforced and as strong as iron while four spikes started to erupt from the back of his head, his entire face starting to hook forward into a beak shape.
Callum, on the other hand, was forced down onto the floor by the pressure on his spine as his fingers started to shrink away and his palm turn perfectly flat, except for one, single white toe that remained on his new, stubby legs. His torso plumped up very slightly as a small tail curled out the back of his spine, while a white ridge formed across his back. The shape of his own head reformed, curving up into an ellipse while the front of his face turned to a very hard, gray texture, two white ridges forming in curves around where his eyes were while he gritted his teeth and held on.
Feeling about half the height he originally was yet pain still wracking his body, he gripped onto his new, alien feeling face while confusion still crossed his mind. Why had this happened? He looked upwards and his answer was able to be seen with his new, more sensitive eyes. There was a large pile of dust lingering in the air.. Hovering above where the smashed fossils were. His ancient eyes opened wide in realization. "The dust!" He croaked out, in a language that certainly wasn't English, but he could understand. "The dust from the fossils! That's..."
The pain quickly ceased, leaving the two in oversized, unfitting clothing and feeling particularly drained. The two teetered on their feet, rocking back and forth and staring at each other in a daze. Callum, in his small, dinosaur-like body blinked slowly. "...We... Won't make it..."
Andrew took a few seconds to register his speech, opening his mouth to speak. "..No.. All we need is.. A quick rest.."
The two of them fell forward, collapsing within the warmth of their wrappings into a deep slumber, until someone found them or until they woke up of their own accord. After all, dinosaurs don't sleep for that long...
..Right?
