The CoreTech team trudged through the Homograft Desert, hoping to make it out of there to Axistown where Chase's dad was waiting.
"B? Are you sure that this is the fastest, shortest route to my dad? I hate to say it, but I might faint!" The usually happy leader was now hot, tired and sweaty. Even though he'd kept his jacket on to try and counterattack the heat, it was futile, evidenced by his drenched hair and deep scowl.
It was a well-known fact among the CoreTech team that it was best to keep jackets on. Eventually, the excess sweat would cool them down a little. A lesson learned after Jinja, Beyal and Bren had experienced near-lethal heatstroke attacks, with Beyal having managed to survive two attacks of heat exhaustion on top of that.
"And I'll get sunburned. It's about a million degrees out here!" Jinja complained, her skin progressing from a deep pink to a deep red. Note to self: Get a haircut, she thought as her hair stuck uncomfortably to the back of her neck.
"Which explains why you look like a lobster," Bren shot back, narrowly missing a slap. "And, Chase, this is the shortest, fastest route to you dad." He looked at the screen and gulped, then stepped a few paces away from the others.
"Glasses, please! Whatever it is, say it!" the Lowlander snapped, with an irritated look on his face, a few dreadlocks starting to plaster on his neck.
"Spit it out Bren!" Jinja added.
"What the krag, Bren! Just spit it out already!" Chase sounded as if he would turn Bren into ashes if he didn't say anything. He was hot, tired and sweaty; he couldn't deal with any song and dance.
Bren nervously looked at his team. He then gulped and said, "The temperature here is 66 degrees Celsius, equivalent to 160 degrees Fahrenheit?" anxiously looking at his team's reaction.
Chase went slack-jawed; Jinja stumbled backwards onto Dax, who looked surprised, and with good reason. It was never that hot in the Lowlands, and he used to live there, so that explained why he felt uncomfortable.
And Beyal topped it all off. He sat down, crossed his arms and refused to get up, even when Jinja tried to reason with him, so Chase, to his and everyone else's surprise, dragged Beyal for a short distance until he got the message and resumed walking.
They trudged on in silence, praying to find an oasis around.
"Oh, come on Chase! Can't we just rest now?" Jinja said faintly.
"We still have energy, and we can still walk. So no." he replied firmly. "Anyway, finding an oasis is going to be pretty unlikely here…" he scanned the landscape and saw a lot more dunes, somehow starting to look a little snake-like… hopefully it was his imagination.
He sighed and trudged on, Jinja and Beyal complaining the most out of all of the others. Bren, surprisingly only objected a little before admitting defeat.
After a while, Chase sighed and started to gather a little strength to make a few retorts to them to keep them quiet. He then nearly fell down when Bren charged past him like a rabid bull.
"Water! There's water!" what happened next looked like a stampede, what with the cloud of dust they left behind them. There actually was water; a small lake, with trees close to it. An oasis.
They threw themselves into the shade, sighing in relief. Ten minutes later, their water bottles were filled and they were just lounging around. Beyal was meditating, Chase was scanning the area, Bren was just about taking a nap and Dax was with Jinja, the both of them aimlessly talking, but starting to show a few flirtatious advances.
Nothing could go wrong, right? It not only did, but one of the most unorthodox, senseless, crazy things happened.
A laser was shot at them from an aerial vantage point. The force blew them a couple of miles from the oasis, and they were all knocked out in the process.
"What the krag?!" were Chase's last words before he blacked out.
The laser's energy seemed to coat them, until it dissipated, revealing what had befallen them. Their genders had been switched.