This time, you’ve done it!
Natascha was… dejected. How could she have allowed this to happen? Nancy… three months, the lab had been on a sturdy lockdown, and Natascha hadn’t seen her at all. When she came over to do her early rotation, the place was almost… lively, yet completely locked down. Natascha would never break into a place, so she couldn’t break in to see how Nancy was, and she still hadn’t heard a peep from her. She couldn’t stand it… her friend, the research, possibly… lost entirely. That anger… it finally got the best of her, over those months. She jumped into her car and quickly drove back to the lab; there was still hope, overtaking her, somehow…
The entrance of the lab was as strange as it was left at the lockdown; despite having only one person left, the windows shone with bright colors, such as bright greens, blues, and reds. Just what could be happening in there… what could Nancy possibly be doing in there, by herself? She slowly stepped out of her car, pulling her long blond hair out of her face to look at the familiar building. She went over to the door and jiggled the knob; nothing. She knocked on the door; no sounds at all. She sighed; why did she come back again? She looked back up and called out:
“Nan? Nan? Nancy?”
“Please, are you there?”
“Can you hear me?
“Whatever I did, I’m sorry! Whatever it was…”
“Let me in, please…”
There was silence… and the silence lasted, and kept going on… Natascha sighed again; this really was hopeless. She stamped on the ground, before turning around and heading back to her car… before she heard a loud click come from behind her. She froze, before she turned back around and bolted towards the lab door, ecstatic to hear her friend again; she should have watched her step, as she plummeted down a large hatch at the doorway. A male voice called out from above as she screamed: “N-Nat?!”
She plummeted rapidly, falling down the dark passage and crashing into mysterious surfaces along the way, before finally sliding down and falling onto some solid ground. She fell on her face, her feet hanging over her head as her legs were in the air. She grumbled and groaned in irritation, before slowly standing up and observing her surroundings; what kind of trap was this?
The room was unlike anything that she could have ever imagined; the walls of the room were covered in twisting blue pipes and pressure meters, and she was standing on a platform with ornate cog symbols all over it. There was a large gap down what seemed to be another bottomless pit in front of her, and across it was another platform identical to hers. She would have stared in wonder more if it weren’t for one thing: an annoying, ear-rattling ticking noise that was coming from behind her. After a few more seconds, she couldn’t ignore it anymore; the ticking noise was driving her absolutely insane! In frustration, she turned around and kicked the closest thing to her; she immediately hissed and swore copiously in pain and began grabbing her kicking foot and hopping on the other.
She stopped holding it and looked at what she kicked; it was… a large clock? It looked almost like a large pocket watch, with the “handle” being a bluish iron, and the metal containing the “chain handle” being a glowing green. The face of the clock was colored the same green, and had only four numbers in the four cardinal directions. It had only two hands; one normal hand, and another much larger hand that looked like a tuning fork. By far the strangest part of the clock was the picture on the face, which was… a face, of somebody. It seemed to be of a man, grinning smugly; he had pale blue skin, a long, pointy chin with an equally long and pointy nose, long black eyebrows and two thin strands of beard hair hanging on both sides of his chin. His head hair was unseen, as he was wearing a tall copper-and-burnished gold helmet with ear coverings, a green clock on the center, and another silver tuning fork on top.
One thing was sure to her, and it was that he looked completely comical! And also that she was still angry at the clock due to her foot pain, which had seemed to spread to leg pain; she had failed to noticed the changes occurring in her leg, as the skin of her leg became a pale blue, and her shoe had started to become a knee-high, two-toned brown boot with a smaller tuning fork shape at the knee. She twitched her leg in pain, before she focused on the clock more; the clock was making her… angrier? She didn’t know why, but the clock was enraging her more and more, until the anger completely overtook her and she wound up a heavy-slamming punch with her left arm straight into the face. As she struck, it seemed to be deflected with a metallic wobbling sound as she was launched back, almost falling off the edge of her platform. She shook in pain, and she could feel her heart beat boom in her head…
Her left arm, which she used to strike the clock, began changing rapidly; the lower part of the arm became very thick and bulky, becoming a dark copper metal in material, and her fingers becoming robotic square metal, with silver joints. A band of silver metal formed around her lower arm, with a glowing green clock on front; and a silver band joint formed at her elbow to connect the organic and inorganic parts of her left arm. She snarled in pain as her entire stance changed; she largely grew in height, growing about two or three feet higher, and her breasts quickly disappeared into the rest of her body. Her skin dyed a pale blue like what was happening with her leg slowly at first, and a small amount of darker blue freckles appeared on her face. The changes in her leg started speeding up, and soon began being mirrored in her other leg; her pants became a drab brown, as her- his gender changed from female to male, causing him to whine and turn around to vomit over the edge of his platform in intense, gut-wrenching pain.
He tried his best to wipe the bile off of his mouth while standing up; his very gait had distinctly changed, even if shaky-legged. His right arm became covered in a long, bright yellow, rubbery glove, and his old shirt and jacket became a white, black-buttoned lab-coat with a hem that ended above the knees. He looked dead at the clock, which almost seemed to look even more smugly at him, and began slowly limping towards it; an incredibly large tuning fork formed in his right hand, which he absent-mindedly used to help him walk. His face shape changed entirely, becoming longer and thinner, with a thinner chin and much more prominent cheek bones, along with a sharper and longer nose. His long blond hair began muting and darkening into a pitch-black color and shortened into a messy short-cut. Two side-sets of long hair formed at the sides of his chin, and his eye-brows became much thicker and longer, along with the same black color. His eyes throbbed in pain as the pale blue of his irises became a striking, bright gold; you could have sworn that they were glowing. His face was in a pain-filled scowl, glaring at that clock still.
He found himself standing on the center of the cog-pattern that he had fallen on as heavy copper armor appeared and fit itself around his torso, with curved, bolt-lined spaulders forming around the top and over his shoulders, and silver holes to fit his neck and arms through. On his chest armor was a large, glowing, green, square clock, with hands and Roman numerals for the numbers. Connected to the back of his armor was two silver-coiled pumps, and around his waist was a silver oxygen pipe that curved around his waist and opened at the end at his back, and the pumps quickly began working and pumping air through the pipe. On his head appeared a tall, copper helmet that covered up the hair on his head, with ear coverings, a glowing green clock at the center, and a silver tuning fork at the top.
He panted, not being used to the weight of his armor, and being in intense pain from the changes. He growled at the clock, being completely spited by the clock’s stupid picture, which seems to have gone from a simple smug grin to a trollish, toothy sneer. He reeled his giant tuning fork back, before striking the clock again, which made a grandfather clock sound rattle his ears. The clock reeled down to seemingly nowhere, before the center cog circle he was standing on sent him flying upwards with a spring, and him screaming in confusion and terror. He held onto the giant tuning fork for dear life; he didn’t know why he did that, maybe he didn’t want to shank-
“OOF!”
-Someone. He fell on someone instead, leaving him dizzy and a cuckoo-clock sound ringing out. After composing himself, he noticed that the clock on his helmet had opened up, and a cartoony bird had appeared attached to a coil; he pressed the bird back and closed the clock back up. He looked around, before looking down to see that he had landed on someone, and that the hatch that he had fallen down had disappeared. The man he had landed on whimpered in pain, so he quickly scooted off before standing up; this was a very strange man, and the man was either very short, or he himself was very tall. The cushion-man stood up, confirming the latter; he had to bend down slightly to see the man, even when he stood up.
“Who are you?
The small man shook, rubbing the bolt in the right side of his head.
“I-I would ask the s-s-same thing!”
He held his breath for a second as he realized his own new voice; deeper, and with a… British accent? Strange.
“My name is not important… I came here to look for… my friend… Her name’s Nan-“
“…N-Nancy?”
“…Nat-Natascha?”
“…Nat?”
Wait, how did this strange man know his friend’s name, his own name, and his… nickname? He tensed up, looking at the man with a dirty look.
“…It’s m-me.”
The man fumbled in his jacket, before pulling out… Nancy’s phone. He typed on in for a few seconds, before he felt a vibration in his back pocket. He pulled out his phone, so see Nancy’s name on the screen; that was her, or him, or… forget it.
“…How?”
“I d-don’t quite know, either! For me, I drank one of the p-potions by accident, b-b-but I don’t quite know how a sim-similar thing could happen to you…”
“And, uh…. Just call me B-Brio, now.”
They both stood silent for a while, before Brio spoke up again.
“…Want to go in-inside and talk this strangeness o-over? M-maybe over some drinks? I have gotten some v-very exiting research over the past few months, esp-pecially relating to potions!”
He pondered for a few seconds, before nodding in agreement. They both quickly went inside and began talking about research, and him talking about things that he didn’t even realize he knew…