The worst type of writer's block is when you know what you want, but you can't put it into words.
"Jeeze, they didn't need to do something this extreme…" Jordan muttered, rubbing his chained wrist.
"Well at least we're not… what's their name… Will and Charlotte." Erica pointed out, nodding at the other campers. They were glaring harshly at each other. The threat of their powers getting removed was probably the only thing keeping them from yelling at each other. She saw everyone's reactions to their new partners, some were fine, most were definitely not okay with the situation. Then she spotted Grace and Chris, who were yelling at each other.
The two were giving each other glares. It was common knowledge that the two of them were the sorest losers in camp. They were the most competitive campers and the leaders of the two major gangs in the red and blue teams.
Grace snorted, "Of all the useless Lugias I could've ended up with, they tied me up to the ugliest of 'em."
"You ain't better off, Victini." Chris growled back. He spit on the girl's shoe, and every member of the two gangs fell quiet and awaited the girl's next move.
Grace looked down at her lucky sneakers. The saliva had begun to run down the side. Her eyes flared and the hairs on her neck bristled. She rewound her free hand into a fist and glared furiously at the boy. "Why you good for nothing..."
She stopped herself when she saw her counselor raise an eyebrow at her a bit farther away. Grace reluctantly lowered her fist. She knew all too well that, although Drake wasn't one to use force, he'd follow orders and bring her straight to Mark Carter.
Chris knew that, too, so although he didn't quite get her over the edge, he managed to embarrass her in front of her peers. That was good enough for him.
"Just you wait, Chris," Grace hissed at the laughing boy. "Second I get the chance, I'll show you!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen, I don't like you, and you don't like me-"
"You don't say? OW!"
Chris bopped her in the head. It was pretty easy, since she was a good five inches shorter. "-But for now we'll have to make a truce. They'll let us go after dinner, so we'll have to act buddy-buddy until then. Got it?" Grace muttered under her breath but nodded. "Good, good, so let's go." He started heading for the woods.
"Hey! Where are we going?" Grace asked. She was practically getting dragged after the bigger teen.
"I wanted to show you this really cool place." Grace seemed reluctant. Chris smirked. "What, you scared? You can bring one of your Pokemon, if you want." Grace frowned and followed him.
Erica narrowed her eyes as the two of them ran into the trees. She had been leaning against a cabin, watching the whole scene. "Did you see that?"
Jordan, on the other hand, had not. He'd been watching pretty much everything else. "What? All I see are people glaring at each other."
"Chris is leading Grace somewhere."
"And I care because?"
"He's bad news, Jordan, we've got to keep an eye on him!" She protested.
"I'm not getting involved with those two!" At this point the two of them were pulling in separate ways, which bruised their wrists. Erica had had enough.
"Fine, fine! Let's flip on it, alright?" Cross considered the idea and nodded. "I'm heads." Erica flipped the coin and the restrained boy let out a groan.
XXX
"So..." Grace said, looking around. They had gone way off the path, and she had no idea where they were. "What did you want to show me?" Chris stopped walking and looked around rather intently. The trees hid them pretty well in their shade, and he would be hard to spot in his camo pants and shirt. He smiled and gave her a good one-two, knocking the wind out of her in the process.
"W-WHAT THE HELL, CHRIS!" She shouted, her voice cracking once she'd taken in enough. She put her hand over her mouth. The stinging sensation in her jaws made her want to cry a bit, but she held the tears back and glared at him instead.
Chris laughed, "Remember how you called me ugly? I didn't like that." He snickered when the girl got onto her feet rather uneasily, her angry eyes on him. He sidestepped her punch easily. "Oh, you want to play, do you?" The boy giggled a bit when she missed another punch. He ducked under her third assault and sent a hard jab into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
He stopped punching to give her a chance to get back on her feet. She spit out a bit of saliva and went in for another punch, but this time a green vine wrapped around her wrist and pulled it back.
"Darn it, Jordan, I knew something like this would happen!" Erica shouted. She and Jordan ran over to help Grace stand.
Chris groaned, "Why does everyone feel the need to ruin my fun?"
"Fun? You just punched her half to death! You're a bully!"
"Oh come on now, don't exaggerate it." Chris said, waving the accusation off. "It was just a bit of roughhousing, you know? No need to get so butt hurt about it."
At that point Jordan was far past annoyed. He never wanted to come to this camp in the first place, and when he was actually beginning to enjoy it, kids like Grace and Chris began to fight each other. Now he was chained to this girl with a "knight in shining armor" complex, and he was definitely not enjoying himself. And Chris' attitude had just pushed him over his limit. He was fuming. In two swift motions he had the gangsters separated and Chris' restrained hands behind his back. The surprised teen paled at the sudden turn of events.
"Listen here Chris! I am sick of you and your bullying!" The other campers froze at the sound of his voice. It was the wave of outrage that made Chris quiver. Streaks of red began to form around Jordan's hands, pulling inward until his skin was aglow and his bronze pupils constricted to such a degree that they were practically nonexistent. The boy kept shouting, taking no notice of his transmutation. "Do you have nothing better to do than make a fool of yourself?! You think you're tough? Huh? Do you?!"
Chris had a very hard time not soiling his pants at the peak of Jordan's anger, when his fingers had become long claws and his body the size of a military tank. His voice had deepened considerably, making his threats that much more terrifying. "I really hope Carter takes away your powers because you are nothing but a little worm trying to act like the tough guy you're not. If he doesn't, I promise I will make the rest of your stay in this camp a nightmare. And when you leave, Arceus let me haunt you when you sleep.
"Now, we're going to see Carter, and you'll tell him what you did." Chris nodded furiously and Jordon led the group back to the main trail, his now human hand roughly pulling the other away. Grace and Erica followed, both stunned into silence.
XXX
Upon arrival to camp, Chris was handed over to two counselors and the party headed to Mark Carter's office. The man had been filing some paperwork when a counselor informed him on the situation. He had two conferences. One with Erica and Jordan, in which they told the tail through their eyes, and the second with Grace, who was absolutely no help. It seemed that the shock of 'seeing that monster' still lingered. The three of them were seated outside when Chris came in, cuffs unfastened, for his end of the story.
"We were going on a walk, see, nothing big. Everything was going fine, and Grace saw this bird in the trees." He began to scratch the tip of his nose, struggling to find the words. "It was... like, it had this crooked beak and shaggy black fur... some of it made a hat..." He struggled to find the words.
Ignoring the fact that he'd just said birds had fur, Carter said, "A Murkrow?"
For the first time since he walked in Chris made eye contact with the man, which lasted long enough for him to snap his fingers before he leaned back into his chair. "Yeah! Exactly! So we were on the main path and she saw the Murkrow in the trees. She yelled at it, and it flew off, and she began to chase it. I wanted us to become friends, see, like you said, so I followed.
"We ran after it for like fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before we decided to watch from afar so we hid behind a bush. I sneezed and the Murkrow got scared and flew away, and Grace was all angry at me for that simple mistake! She started yelling at me and I tried to laugh it off, so I gave her a light punch on her shoulder."
He took a minute to catch his breath, since he'd begun to ramble. "Yeah, so she got all emotional about it and stuff and that's when the other two came out of nowhere. That guy- Jordan I think- he's such a freak! All that other girl had to do was exaggerate what had happened for him to start giving me death threats and WHY AREN'T YOU SAYING ANYTHING?!"
Throughout Chis' entire testimony Carter had just sat there, leaning towards his desk with his chin over his entwined fingers, staring at him with somewhat of a glare. The man stood, walked around his desk, and stood in front of Chris, making the teen scoot farther into his seat. "Was that really what happened?"
"Y-Yeah, that's pretty much it..."
"Mhm," Carter deliberately walked out of the frozen boy's sight, his hands crossed behind his back. Chris looked as stiff as a board. He dared not move. "Chris, your powers will be stripped away tonight."
"What?!" The boy jumped onto his feet, bewildered. When Carter turned and gave him the look he didn't want to see, he knew he'd done it. "You didn't even see me do it! How would you know they're telling the truth- or not?!"
"Well, you're a terrible lair for one." Mark rolled his eyes, irritated with the boy's stupidity. All his actions were textbook. "And I'm a Mystic, for two. My right eye sees the future and my left eye views the past. My left eye saw you punch that girl, Chris. Denying it will only make it worse for you."
Chris growled and turned into a Lucario. "You think I'm scared of you, old man?" He shouted, blue fur bristling. Carter didn't seem worried at the slightest.
"You should be; since I'm going to take your powers away and all." He pointed at the boy and flicked his finger upwards, making Chris levitate with a pink aura replacing his blue. He opened the door with his free hand, ignoring Chris' slander. The three campers involved were silent when they saw Chris straining to get out of the bonds the counselors put back on him. They watched as he was taken away, screaming throughout the ordeal.
Carter turned to the other three, giving both Grace and Jason looks. "I also saw you attempt to fight him as well, though I won't take your powers since it was he who provoked you. Try to stay out of trouble, alright?" With that, he left.
Grace turned to Erica and Jordan, a small smile poking at the corners of his lips. "Thank you guys for saving me back there."
Jordan nodded while Erica smiled. "No problem! We wanted to keep an eye on him anyway."
"You." Jordan corrected in his head.
"Yeah, that's true. Those Lugias are bad news." Grace grinned. "But you two seem pretty cool. I'll tell the others not to bother you."
Erica raised a brow. "The others?"
"Yeah, the members of my gang. I'm the leader of the Reds, you know." Jordan's fist clenched when he saw that proud look on her face. "They're gonna be pretty angry when they find out what Chris did, and the Blues'll be mad that their leader lost his powers, so we'll probably end up fighting."
"There will be no fighting!" Jordan shouted, grabbing the girl by the collar of her shirt. His brow scrunched up, and he looked at the girl with a harsh scowl forming on his lips. "I'm tired of you and all your stupid fighting! Isn't it enough that you've ruined my summer? Now you idiots want to brawl it out like a pack of wild Pokemon over something as trivial as a few rumors?! Chris had it coming to him; he was a bully, but don't throw away your powers because of some stupid rivalry!"
Grace was stunned into silence and she just stared at him with wide eyes. She trembled at the memory of what he'd done to Chris earlier. Erica pulled her friend away from the girl, who fled the scene rather quickly for one who had just been beaten up by the toughest guy in camp. Jordan was clenching his fists as he saw her run. Erica sympathized with him. "You really blew a fuse there, huh?"
He snorted. "It's her fault for being stupid."
She giggled. "I'd say gullible, rather than stupid."
The boy rolled his eyes. "Same thing."
XXX
A heavy feeling of unease clouded the campers' minds once dinner rolled around. Everyone had heard of what had happened earlier and they were anxious as to how Mark Carter would do it. Most had never seen an HTP's powers get removed, and the few that had weren't looking forward to it. There were a few who were alternating between watching the new Lugia gang leader, Daniel, and Grace, who were having a conversation with Jordan near the exit. Word was those two were creating a truce, and the scraggy-haired boy mediator behind the whole thing. His method of getting those two to change their thinking so radically was unknown.
The whispering only increased when two counselors entered the mess hall, pulling Chris between them since his cold feet wouldn't allow him to move. The light onstage revealed the faintest of yellow dust on him, and he was stiff as a board. He was pushed onto his knees and that's how he was left. Alone, silently begging for forgiveness to the people he'd hurt.
A few minutes later, a small Pokemon hopped onstage. It stood next to Chris and silenced everyone with its unblinking gaze. It had primarily green plumage and a cone-like body, wide, grey eyes that seemed to stare right through you, and white wings that concealed most of its body. It had a hooked beak and two long red feathers on the back of it's head, and its' thin coral talons had two white tips each. Three yellow stripes ran along its lower torso. Campers were told to go back to their seats.
"Campers of Camp Gateway, you were all born with the extraordinary gift of transformation. Unlike 97% of humanity, you are able to take the forms of Pokemon. You have the power to run faster, jump faster, think faster than any mortal on this Earth. Even without transforming, you are a threat to everyone around you. Friends, family, the general public. If people knew what you were capable of you'd be attacked on sight. People like us have been persecuted throughout history for these abilities, and it has only been a few decades since we've gotten basic human rights."
"Today I see children who use their gifts however they please, with no thought of the example they set." The flying type extended one of his wings towards the stiff boy. Those in the front of the crowd could see that the Psychic type's irises had begun to turn black. The only differentiation between the irises and the pupil were the lavender rings that outlined them. "Christopher here is no different from the rest of you, really. He acted as brutish as the rest of you, letting anger blind his vision and ego his rationality. And because of that, he had the audacity to disobey me. Tonight, campers, you are privileged to see what it is like to have your powers revoked."
Jordan rolled his eyes. "And good riddance." he muttered, earning a rough nudge from McTaylor. Unlike him, the girl couldn't help but sympathize with Chris. The teen was crying silently, unable to open his mouth to wail due to paralysis. Carter had climbed onto his head, talons curling just enough to keep himself steady. There was a moment of silence as he scanned the cafeteria, making sure all eyes were on him.
"...I can't watch..." Erica said, turning away with her hands covering her eyes. But despite her, her curiosity got the best of her and she glanced back onto the stage. The bird's eyes didn't blink and his beak was producing indistinguishable words rapid fire. Behind him the faintest lines of pink could be visible, forming a large circle with a slightly smaller one within.
He outstretched his wings, allowing those cat-like eyes on his stomach to be seen in greater detail. They were a bright red, with constricted black pupils which were moving from side to side like those weird cat clocks you'd see at a grandparent's house. The speed grew faster as Carter bent over to peck Chris on the forehead. He pulled what seemed to be a string of white mist out, and Chris seemed to shut down. Those in the front row swore he didn't breathe and most insisted that his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
The trail was long, and the longer he pulled, the more was seen. The mist went from white to yellow to green, red, violet and finally black. Once all of it out, Carters used his physic powers to wound it up into a ball, which he placed within the circles behind him. The rings started to spin, the outer one going right and the inner left, creating blue sparks in the process. The rings churned like gears, and with each second that passed, the size misty ball thinned until it was three times smaller than its original size.
Carter screeched, and all the physic energy subsided. The bird snatched the mist from the air, now a pale blue and no more than the size of a golf ball. With his right wing, he forced Chris's jaws open and with his other he stuffed the mist inside. He then jumped off the boy and walked off the stage, allowing some counselors to go and check on Chris.
He was twitching on the floor and foaming in the mouth.
Many couldn't finish their food after that.