Chapter Ten - The Escape



I was trapped. I had Team Magma in front of me and the grovyle behind me . . . there was nowhere to run. I ground my teeth and pulled myself up.

'Stay down!' Rose ordered.

'Yeah right!' I growled at her as I got to my feet. I heard the grovyle snarling behind me, and glanced at him. He could attack me any moment now . . .. I gulped and turned back to Team Magma. 'Give me Cam.'

Rose laughed. 'Oh, that's a good one! We've got you trapped and you're the one making demands!?'

'I mean it,' I said. 'If you don't let him go I'll become a vulpix and burn you to ashes.'

'That's one of the worst threats I've ever heard!' Leon snarled. 'You're not capable of doing that and you know it. You're one of the lowest-level fighters I've ever seen, and it's no wonder considering you're just a pathetic human.'

'You're calling me pathetic when you're the one who got knocked out by Numel earlier today?' I asked cockily.

Leon narrowed his eyes and snarled, but by the looks of things he couldn't think of a comeback to that.

'Enough talk, you're coming with us!' Rose snapped, and grabbed my arm. I tried to pull free but her grip was firm. I reached my spare hand over and tried to pry her fingers off my arm, but it was no use. This woman was strong. Either that, or I was just weak . . ..

Rose dragged me back into the clearing, and I couldn't remember ever feeling so pathetic. This wasn't even a pokémon who was overpowering me with its attacks. This was a human simply dragging me away, and I couldn't do a thing to stop her. It was no wonder I hadn't been able to save Cam.

I shook my head angrily, mad at myself as much as at anyone else. I could still save Cam, I could still get out of here . . . somehow.

'Grab some rope, let's tie her up!' said Rose. Adrian nodded, and pulled a piece of rope out of the bag that was lying beside the pokéballs. He came over to where Rose was holding me, and the two of them pulled my arms behind my back, tying my wrists together firmly.

'You're not gonna get away with this, you know,' I said defiantly. 'As soon as they realise I'm not at camp they'll call the police and you'll be done for.'

'You seem to be forgetting one major factor here,' said Adrian. 'We're Team Magma. We don't get caught.'

'Yeah, and besides,' said Rose. 'Your little camp buddies won't notice a thing until tomorrow morning, and we'll be long gone by then.'

'That's right,' nodded Adrian. With that, he took a radio off his belt and put it to his ear. 'Bring the helicopter to the clearing, we've got the girl.'

I narrowed my eyes. There was still some way to get out of here, there had to be. What if I could somehow get to those pokéballs and release the pokémon? That would cause some havoc and buy me some time . . . but I couldn't do anything while these guys had their hold on me. I glanced around, and belatedly remembered the grovyle. I turned to where he had been, and gasped when I saw him passed out on the ground covered in burns . . . standing beside him was Leon, his arms folded triumphantly. I gulped. He sure had managed to recover since that afternoon. It was going to be tricky to get out of here with a charmeleon as powerful as him against me. If only I weren't so overpowered by these guys . . ..

Hang on . . . the grovyle was knocked out, Leon was beside him . . . but where was Tom?

'What's taking them so long?' Rose complained, and I felt her grip on my arm ease up with her impatience.

'Calm down Rose,' said Adrian. 'We only just called them, it'll be a few minutes before they get here.'

'In those few minutes, anything could happen,' muttered Rose. 'I swear, if we fail after getting this far, I'm not taking the blame.'

'We're not gonna fail, Rose,' Adrian reassured her. 'We've got her and the kecleon, there's no one left to help her now.'

I smiled. You shouldn't be so sure, Adrian. I had just spotted a murkrow landing in the tree behind him.

'It doesn't matter, anything could go wrong, especially with that disobedient charmeleon and that half-witted numel on our side,' said Rose bitterly. 'Where is Numel anyway? Numel! Get back into your pokéball!'

She let go of my hand for a moment to take her pokéball off her belt. I took the opportunity to run . . . but I'd barely gotten a few metres when Adrian grabbed me again.

'Oh no you don't!' he said, pulling me back to him. As he did so, the murkrow swooped down out of the tree and hit him square in the head with his beak. He cried out in pain and let go of me, putting his over his head as the murkrow flapped about his head, jabbing at him with his beak.

'Rose!' Adrian yelled. 'Grab the girl, will you!?'

'You idiot, why'd you let her go!?' Rose yelled back at him.

'You're the one who let go of her!' Adrian exclaimed. I just laughed and ran for the pile of pokéballs.

'Not so fast!' Rose ran for me, but was stopped dead in her tracks as two more murkrows flew at her from either side, poking her with their beaks and slapping her with their wings. 'Where are all these stupid birds coming from!? Leon! Do something about this!'

'It's your own stupid fault, you incompetent humans!' Leon growled.

I grinned and looked down at the pokéballs. My hands were still tied behind my back, so I couldn't use them . . . so I reached my foot out to try to open the balls that way.

'Wait a sec, Katherine!'

I turned to see Tom running up to me, and I smiled.

'Bend down, I'll cut that rope for you,' he said. I did as he said, and he sliced through the rope easily, releasing my hands.

'Thanks,' I said, rubbing my wrists for a moment before turning my attention to the pokéballs. 'One of these has gotta be Cam. It's probably a stupid idea to open them all, but who cares?'

'We should release them all anyway,' said Tom. 'These are probably all pokémon who Team Magma have captured in this park.'

I looked at him for a moment, shocked. I hadn't even thought about it like that . . . I'd been so caught up in trying to rescue Cam that I hadn't even considered all the other pokémon that Team Magma must have captured there . . .. I shook my head. I didn't have time to think about it. I only had time for action.

I grabbed two pokéballs and opened them. A tangela and a sudowoodo appeared. They blinked and looked around, confused.

'You're free,' said Tom. 'You can go now, but I'd really appreciate your help to fend that charmeleon off.'

'I guess we owe you one,' said the tangela, and looked up at the sudowoodo.

'Yeah!' she nodded.

'OK Katherine, I'll leave this up to you,' said Tom. I nodded, as he and two pokémon I'd just released ran off to where Leon was. I was worried about them getting hurt . . . the sudowoodo might have stood a chance but that tangela wouldn't last long against a fire-type . . . and Tom had said that he wasn't strong enough to fight Leon. But that was only more reason for me to stay here and release more pokémon. I grabbed two more pokéballs.

This time an electrike and a sableye appeared. They both scurried off into the bushes, and I sighed. Some help they were. I grabbed the next two. A heracross appeared and looked around frantically, but the other pokémon collapsed on the ground as soon as it materialised. I opened my eyes wide. It was him!

'Cam!' I exclaimed, and grabbed him, pulling him into my arms. He was unconscious, but breathing. I hurriedly released the remaining pokémon and leapt to my feet without even looking at what they were. 'Tom! I've got him! Let's get out of here!'

I looked over to where the tangela was holding Leon down with his vines while the sudowoodo threw rocks at him and Tom threw . . . gold coins!? I blinked for a moment, baffled by the attack, then shook my head and called out again.

'Tom!' I called. 'We've gotta go!'

'Murkrows!' called Tom, not moving from battle. 'One of you carry the kecleon back to my cabin!'

'I'm on it!' one of the murkrows who was attacking Rose swooped over to me. He took Cam in his talons and took to the skies, flying away. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least Cam was safe . . . but now how were Tom and I going to get out of here?

'Katherine, you get out of here, we'll hold the charmeleon off!' Tom called.

'No way!' I exclaimed. 'I'm not leaving you here!'

'Yes you are, 'cause you're staying too!'

I turned to see Adrian pull his pokéball out, the murkrow still pecking at him. He glared at me menacingly.

'Poochyena! Grab that girl!'

He dropped his pokéball to the ground and it opened, his little grey dog pokémon appearing. She caught sight of me and growled, hunching her back as she got ready to attack. I backed away. Poochyena had beaten me as a vulpix, imagine how badly she could hurt me as a human without any attacks to defend myself with.

'I've had enough of you, vulpix girl,' she snarled. 'Let's get this over and done with!'

She leapt at me with her jaws open and her claws outstretched, and I held my arm up to block the attack . . . but then she yelped, and I stared in shock as a strange sticky string-like substance flew at her from several directions and wound around her body, bringing her down to the ground and holding her there. I stared for a moment, then took a look around me to see what must have been at least thirty caterpies, weedles and wurmples around the edges of the clearing.

'What the . . .' I breathed, looking around at them in disbelief.

'What on Earth is going on!?' Adrian exclaimed. 'Poochyena, get that junk off of you!'

'I'm trying!' Poochyena gasped, as she struggled to break free of the sticky net.

'What is with the pokémon in this park!?' Rose cried. 'It's like they're out to get us!'

'They are when you try to capture all their friends!' I yelled at them. 'You guys are disgusting, capturing innocent creatures just to make money! If you guys mess with my friends or any other wild pokémon again you'll regret it, 'cause now you know what can happen when they team up against you!'

'You don't scare us!' Rose growled, and was about to continue when a caterpie suddenly shot a String Shot into her face. She cried out, and then several more of the bugs shot at her, and she fell to the ground, covered in the sticky net. 'Get this disgusting stuff off me!'

'Rose!' Adrian exclaimed, and was about to run over to her when the bugs dealt him the same treatment, encasing him in String Shot and making him collapse. I laughed, and ran over to where Tom and the others were still restraining Leon.

'Come on, let's get out of here!' I said.

'Bugs, if you'd be so kind . . .' smiled Tom. The bug pokémon turned their attention on Leon.

'No!' he cried, thrashing about. 'Leave me alone! I'm not a stupid human like them, I'm a pokémon! You can't do this to-'

He was cut off as a String Shot wrapped around his jaws and locked them shut. I grinned. It was about time Leon got shown a thing or two by his fellow pokémon. As the bugs continued to wrap their net around him, the tangela pulled his vines back and let go of Leon. He turned to Tom expectantly.

'Let's go back to the cabin,' said Tom. 'I'd love to see the look on the helicopter man's face when he finds them like this, but we've gotta get back to help Katherine's friend out. Thanks a lot for your help, you two. If you come back with us, I'll sneak you some food from my humans' kitchen.'

'Really!?' the tangela and the sudowoodo exclaimed in unison. Tom nodded, and the two pokémon cheered.

'All right, now let's go!' said Tom. With that, the four of us turned and hurried back to the rangers' cabin.



As soon as we got back, Tom found some medicine to revive Cam and gave the tangela and the sudowoodo some food. We both thanked them, and they headed off into the bushes while we sprayed the revival medicine on Cam. As I watched him slowly open his eyes, I belatedly realised that his scales weren't red anymore . . . they were green again. Did this mean that he was back to normal . . .?

'K . . . Kit . . .' breathed Cam, blinking at me and then shaking his head to clear his thoughts. I breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive, and he by the sounds of things, he was himself again.

'Yeah,' I smiled. 'It's me.'

Cam looked at me uncertainly, and then I remembered that he couldn't understand human words. I sighed and turned to Tom.

'Tom, can you help us out?' I asked. 'I can understand Cam, but he can't understand me.'

'I'll translate for him, but I . . . I must have misheard . . .' said Tom, eyeing me uncertainly. 'He said "Kit" and you said "yeah it's me"?'

'Y . . . yeah,' I said, giving him a curious look. What was the problem?

'But you're Katherine,' said Tom. 'Kit is that vulpix . . ..'

I stared at him, then sighed, looking away.

'I . . .' I heard Cam's voice, and turned back to see him pulling himself to his feet. 'I know it's hard to believe, but . . .' He turned to me. 'Is it OK if I tell him, Kit?' I nodded, and he turned back to Tom. 'She and the vulpix are the same person . . ..'

Tom gave Cam a strange look, then turned to me. He paused, then laughed. 'You guys are crazy.'

Cam sighed, shaking his head. 'Don't worry about it, then. The point is that you both saved me . . . thanks so much.'

'I'm sorry Cam,' I sighed. 'It was my fault you got captured in the first place.'

Cam looked at me, then turned to Tom for a translation.

'She says you're welcome,' said Tom, and I glared at him. He just smiled.

'Oh,' said Cam, and looked back to me with a smile.

'Cam,' I said. 'What happened to you today? With that . . . that "Colour Change" thing, when you turned red and got really vicious? I thought you'd stay that way forever, and it was so scary . . ..'

'Ah,' said Tom. 'She wants to know about your Colour Change ability. She says she thought it'd last forever.'

'Oh,' said Cam. He sighed, looking down at the ground. 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it earlier, Kit. It's just that . . . well . . . I was scared you might not want to be my friend anymore . . ..'

'What!?' I exclaimed.

'Some kecleons can control their ability fine, and it only changes their type, that's it,' said Cam. He sighed. 'But with some of us it changes our mood completely . . . and because we're so unpredictable, people don't like to be friends with us . . . we . . . we generally just become outcasts . . ..'

'Oh Cam,' I sighed.

'That's why I don't like to battle,' said Cam. 'I'm afraid of what'll happen when I get hit by an attack of a different type. I know I should have told you, Kit, but I was just scared that you might not look at me in the same way anymore . . ..'

I shook my head. 'Cam . . . I'd never look at you in a different way because of something like that 'cause . . . well, I know how you feel. I do the exact same thing. I'm scared to tell anyone about me becoming a vulpix because I'm scared they'll look at me differently too.' Tom blinked at me, and I sighed. 'Just tell him Tom, please.'

'Um,' said Tom, looking at me uncertainly before turning to Cam. 'She says she does the same thing as you except with her it's about . . . er . . . becoming a vulpix.'

Cam blinked at me, his mouth falling open in shock. 'I . . . never even realised how similar it is.'

'Neither did I until you said that thing about not wanting to tell anyone,' I said, shaking my head. I looked at him, and forced a smile. 'So I guess we're both outcasts, eh?'

'She says you're both outcasts . . .' said Tom uncertainly.

'Yeah,' said Cam, looking down at the ground. 'I guess we are.'



With the help of Tom as an interpreter, Cam and I talked a bit more until we all decided to get some sleep. We thanked Tom for everything he'd done, and I felt guilty that I didn't have any way to repay him, but he said it didn't matter. I was to take Cam home with me the next day, and at first I was really worried about how I'd do this without getting caught. Then Cam reminded me about his ability to turn invisible, and I realised just how simple it was going to be after all.

So the next day the year nine students of Spectrum High School piled onto the buses to head home, and not one of them noticed the little red zig-zag that followed me on. We made it back home safely, and as soon as we got back to school my parents rushed over to me and started fussing, asking me if I was all right and how awful it was that we'd been so close to Team Magma and how much I could have gotten hurt and how good it was that they'd brought as home as soon as possible. I didn't tell them just how close I'd been to Team Magma, or how I actually had gotten hurt, or that the camp instructors had known about Team Magma since the first night and had done nothing about it. I was too tired to bother with telling the truth.

My parents obviously weren't going to let me take a brief detour to the Genesis Bushland on the way home, so I had to bring Cam home with me. I took him to my room but he seemed to find being indoors really uncomfortable, so I went out onto my balcony and sat there with him, taking my guitar with me as an excuse to be out there. Cam sat on the banister looking out as I strummed a few chords idly.

'Human music sounds strange,' said Cam.

'Does it?' I asked. I knew that he couldn't understand me, but the only way he was going to start understanding me was by hearing me talk, so I knew that the best thing to do would be to speak to him. He'd been sitting on a bus for a few hours with a large group of humans talking, so he must have been starting to pick up on a few things at least.

'There's a tribe of nuzleafs who do this annual dance in the Genesis Bushland, it's really great, you should come and see it.'

I smiled. 'Sounds cool.'

'Of course, Eustacia has the most soothing voice I've ever heard, and everyone else says so too,' said Cam. 'That's why she's such a great healer, because her song lulls you into such a calm mood.'

'She didn't put me in a very calm mood,' I muttered. 'She told me I wasn't allowed to talk to you and then made me get blindfolded and thrown out of there.'

'Are you talking to yourself, kid?'

Startled, I turned to see Taylor standing on the opposite balcony, a cocky smile plastered across his face.

'You know that's one of the first signs of madness, right?' he asked.

'Why are you always there when I don't want you to be?' I asked, ignoring his stupid comment.

'When you don't want me to be?' Taylor asked. 'Isn't that all the time?'

'Exactly!' I said. 'You don't even live there! Go home!'

'And you know what else?' Taylor asked. 'Pretending to be annoyed by someone is a sign that you actually have deep feelings for them.'

'Oh please,' I said, rolling my eyes. 'Excuse me while I throw up. You must be confusing me with Amanda.'

'Amanda?' Taylor asked. 'That brown-haired chick who hangs around with you?'

'That's the one, genius.'

'Does she have a thing for me?' he asked with a laugh.

'Oh come on, like you don't know,' I said, shaking my head.

He laughed. 'Aww, how cute. Ah well, she's not my type.'

'Like I care what your type is anyway.'

'Yeah, I really don't think you wanna know,' he said, and laughed. 'So what was the deal with your camp being cut short? Is it true that there were Team Magma agents?'

'Find out for yourself,' I said. 'I've got better things to do than talk to you.'

'Like sit there talking to yourself instead?' he asked, and I glared at him. 'Or were you talking to that kecleon?'

I looked at Cam quickly, and saw nothing but a zig-zag . . . he'd turned invisible again. I looked at him uncertainly, then turned back to Taylor.

'You did notice it was there, right?' he asked. 'You're not so dumb you can't even spot a kecleon, are you?'

'I knew it was there,' I said. 'I was just surprised that you noticed it.'

'Was that supposed to be an insult?' he asked. ''Cause it really wasn't a very effective one. I do have my glasses on in case you haven't noticed. Believe it or not that actually improves my eyesight, so really you saying you're surprised I noticed something is just making you look dumb, not me.'

'Whatever,' I said, shaking my head.

'Ooh, the classic "I can't think of a comeback so I'm gonna pretend I don't care" reply,' grinned Taylor, and I glared at him. He only grinned wider, and gestured to Cam. 'What's a kecleon doing on your balcony anyway? I never saw you as the pokémon-friendly type. I would've thought a wild pokémon would run at the sight of you.'

'You have no idea,' I said, and felt the urge to tell him more, but forced myself not to. I wasn't ready to give him more fuel to insult me with.

'Uhh,' said Taylor. 'I know more about being pokémon-friendly than you do. I live on a farm, remember? You know, mareeps, miltanks, ponytas, torchics . . . I'm with pokémon all the time, they love me. You've never even had a pet pokémon and from what I've seen you've never wanted one either. Now tell me, kid, what is it that I apparently have no idea about and you're suddenly an expert on?'

'Pokémon,' I said simply. 'You have no idea about pokémon.'

Taylor snorted with laughter. 'Funny, kid. Real funny. When you realise how much your music sucks, try taking up comedy. That is something you might do well in.'

'And when you realise what a jerk you are and that no one actually likes you, maybe you'll stop insulting people and take up being nice as your new hobby,' I said bitterly. 'But I won't count on it.'

With that, I turned and stormed inside, throwing the door shut behind me. He had no right to tell me my music sucked when he'd probably never picked up a musical instrument in his entire life. But that wasn't what was getting to me the most. It was what he'd said about pokémon. He thought that just because he spent a lot of time with them that he understood them, but he had no idea . . . he had no idea what it was like to actually be a pokémon. I'd show him who understood the most about pokémon. I'd show him that he was a stuck-up jerk who couldn't even understand other humans, let alone pokémon.

But at the same time I knew that there was no way I could show him without risking revealing my secret. As tempting as it was to reveal it to him just to prove him wrong, I knew that I couldn't do that. No stupid argument between neighbours was worth becoming an outcast over.