.

step two

Don't Move Until Stable

They didn't stop until they were well within the fissure, and even then Sobek kept looking behind them.

David's color came back with his exhaustion as he collapsed on the loose piles of collapsed dirt. It took a five or so steps for Sobek to notice, finally letting David's arm slip from his hand. Sobek nodded and fell against the rock of the wall, slowly sliding down it. His eyes didn't leave the way they came in.

It was a narrow cave of dirt, wide enough for the two to space away from each other and just as tall. The ceiling was loose dirt held in place by the webwork of roots overhead and the walls had crumbled until the rock had shown. The occasional tree root jutted out into the empty air, the ones at the front of the cave still had dirt on them. The ones towards the back were pale spindles.

But the only thing that followed them down the hole were Pidgey songs.

Sobek finally let out the breath he'd been holding all this time. "You okay?" He slid down the wall into the soil. "We can't rest too long here. …David…?" He looked down. The Cubone laid gasping half-buried underneath the dirt piles. "David, you alright?"

"No!" David spat. It was the first time he wasn't stumbling over himself and the sternness in his voice made Sobek flinch. "Of course I'm not alright! I-I've been turned into a Cubone and on my first day…!" He pushed himself up, up out of the loose earth, but his eyes saw the arms and hands the arms and hands of a Cubone that were his and—he flopped back to the ground. His mind and body met a compromise, he settled on his side and rattled the dirt from under his skull. "On my first day, I've been threatened by a Butterfree…." He scoffed. "A Butterfree! She's insane." David pushed himself into a sitting position, locking his eyes to Sobek to not see his hands. The panic Sobek saw through the skull was still there, but of a different sort. "She's completely lost it!"

"Oooh yeah," Sobek nodded. "I, eheh, really hope it's just the shock of losing her kid. Otherwise…. Look, David. You saw the poison powder—we have to find her Caterpie otherwise we're never going to leave this fissure."

"What if he's not here?"

Sobek shook his head. "No-no. He's here."

David frowned. "How can you know?"

Sobek frowned himself for a moment, then leaned towards David before letting his head fall in annoyance. "Ahhhh, okay. Okay. Come over here for a second. Just trust me here." With a huff, David half crawled, half flopped over to Sobek. His face went white again. Sobek nodded. "Yeah, that. You couldn't feel that over there, right?"

David pushed himself up, blinking as he looked down the corridor. He flipped up his helmet and squinted. "It's like a void. Like I feel there's just nothing there, but I can see the tunnel?" He shivered. "Sobek. What is that?"

"That," Sobek knocked David's helmet back down, "is the tell-tail sign of a Mystery Dungeon."

The Cubone adjusted his helmet, shooting a glare at Sobek through through the eye sockets. "I don't know what that is."

"Yeah. Amnesia, I know." Sobek groaned. "I'll explain later. The important part is, the kid's still in there because this ain't dust." He kicked up a cloud of dirt. "A fresh fissure means the entry and the exit are in the same place. Kid ain't here, so he's gotta be in there. We have to go and get him."

David shook his head.

"We either go in there, fight a whole slew of wilds and irrationals that we're both not so good at. Or, we go out there and get poisoned. We get confusion'd. We just flat out kinda just want to die. …you remember how to fight right?"

"I am a human."

"Not this again…!"

David face fell. "You… you don't believe me?!"

"David," Sobek said carefully. "Don't get me wrong. When you say you don't remember anything, I believe you. You Cubone think your, uh, helmets mean you can just headbutt everything you can't club. But as for you being a human, well…." Sobek shook his head. His sigh turned into a scowl.

"Ohhh I don't want to do this but here I go anywayyyy. History of the world. Super-short version.

"Every so often, there's a Pokémon that goes and claims they're human. It's not that uncommon. They show up and go, 'Follow me, I'm a human, I know what's best for the world, I know how things should be done. Things should be going like blah-blah-de-blablah.' So they go and do the blah-blah-de-blahblah and create a whole mess of trouble because they either believe their own fantasy, or everyone else does and follows their lead.

"Sounds fine, until blah-blah-de-blahblah involves destroying ancient ruins for… 'saving the world' from some bygone king's teapot. Coups to oust 'tyrannical' rulers out of power when that 'tyranny' is the only thing holding the peace together. Secret 'resistance' organizations to fight 'unjust and oppressive' regimes—look." His head dropped into his hands. "It's stupid.

"It's all really, really stupid. And that's just the ones either led by a human or ones waiting for a human to lead them. Imagine the chaos once everyone caught on to what was causing these things. The paranoia! It's a miracle the world's gotten past that—Arceus! If that Butterfree knew you thought you were human, you wouldn't have gotten two steps away. I wouldn't have gotten two steps away. The tree wouldn't have gotten two steps away."

David swallowed hard. "But… but I'm… I'm human. Just a human. I- know I am. I don't understand. Why—"

"David. I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't plan on being in the next. But what the history books tell me is that humans—Pokémon saying they were once human—no matter how good their intentions are… it all just ends in war. Stupid, pointless, war. Trust me when I say that you're just a Cubone." Sobek offered a hand. David looked away, down the tunnel, into the tunnel that his body told him shouldn't be there.

"A weird Cubone," Sobek continued, "but you're still not as bad as some Pokémon out there. Not going to lie. I thought you were some actor or something, some sort of massive prank, but now I think you're just a little confused. Still, I think you'd do a bit better if instead of asking 'Auughh why am I not human!?' and keep having these panic attacks, you should ask yourself, 'Auughh why do I think I was a human!?' Because I sure don't know. Maybe you either met a Prophet or some goon of one—uh! Don't look at me like that! It's just what we call Pokémon who say they were human, Prophets. Err, the why makes History Lesson too long for its own good."

Sobek hesitated for a second. Under his skull, David was blank, the sharpness in his eyes dulling into a distant fog. Sobek continued with guarded caution. "Maybe that's why you can't remember. Or maybe even don't want to remember?" David flinched at that. "Nevermind. My point is, how can you really know? You can't remember anything, but you're sticking to this one thing and you don't know why. And David, it ultimately doesn't matter if is actually true or not. If the wrong Pokemon finds out about it, it's going to get you killed. You're just a Cubone."

David looked down and away for a second. Sobek stood there with his hand outstretched, but his eyes glanced back to the mouth of the cave. David sighed, his eyes closing to fight back tears. He eventually nodded and slowly took the help up.

The two walked down the tunnel a little bit before stopping. To David, it just felt like the entire world just stopped existing right in front of him, but he could clearly see the little tunnel turning towards the right a few steps away.

Sobek nodded. "Come on. Let's find this Caterpie before the little guy gets himself squashed or eaten or something. Or, let's at least check out our new digs." He glanced to David. "Seriously though. Please tell me you remember how to fight."

David laughed weakly. "I-if I was still hu—"

"Ah-ah-ahhh."

David swallowed his words, then sighed, looking down at his hands, the hands of a Cubone that were his. Cubones had six fingers, which meant so did he. He flexed them, they were certainly his. And while the claws on a Cubone's thumbs, his claws on his thumbs, were the longest, the other four still couldn't be sneezed at. They clacked as he tapped them all together. He tilted his head. "Well, hey. Pointy claws," He held them up for Sobek to see then tapped the Totodile's shoulder. "Poke. Poke."

Sobek laughed, "Come-on, not what I meant. You're a Cubone you got your…." His blue scales paled a few shades lighter. "David. Where's your club?"

"My what?"

"David. Your club."

"I had a cl—ohthat's right! Cubone have bone clubs, don't they? We. Don't we." David frowned, rubbing his jaw. "That's why we're called Cubone, because of the club. Cubone, bone club, Cubone."

"I—but—what—you—"

"Hey, why's it not Clubone then?"

"David. That's not funny. Your club was right next to you—what kind of Cubone leaves their club?!" Sobek shook his head, jaw dropping slightly. "You seriously remember absolutely nothing—nothing at all!?"

"I'm trying to remember, I just can't!" David grumbled. "It's just a club though. It-it-it's not going to be much use here anyway, right? Maybe something will come back when we get in a fight, but you can always just show me!"

"No—but—you don't—show you?!—dah! David. David. The only time a club leaves a Cubone's grip is when they throw the thing. No—but—it's like an instinct for them not to let go of the—okay!" Sobek threw up his hands. "Okay! Later. Agreed? Later? We have something a bit more to worry about right now!"

"Agreed. Later."

Sobek nodded and ran in.

David took three hurried steps, tripped into Sobek, and the two of them crashed into the Dungeon.