Author's Note:
I want to thank everyone for all the reviews I got this week! Yay! Dilectus, PikaMewGirl, Sakura Tachi, and StarWriterWG, you were beacons of light in my dark storm of chemistry and math homework that I suffered through this past week. I promise I will respond to reviews at some point... I'm just very short on time at the moment.
Enjoy Chapter 14.
~TheFrogFromHell
Chapter 14
"JUMP!"
Cameron heard Fin yell, and, in the nick of time, she leapt off the floor as Alakazam's powerful Psybeam passed under her feet.
"Kazam! Ala!" The pokemon objected. Cameron understood it to have said, "You're quick, but I won't miss next time!"
"We'll see about that," Cameron replied. Fin raised an eyebrow at her.
"That's so weird," he commented.
"What?"
"The way you… talk to pokemon. It's like you can really understand them, and you're having a conversation. But I know that's impossible."
"Anything's— " Cameron crouched down and leaned to the side to avoid another charged psychic attack, "—possible when you put your mind to it."
Fin laughed. "If you say so," he said. Then, he held up his hand to Alakazam. "Okay, that's enough," he said, signaling the pokemon to cease attacking.
Turning back to Cameron, he said, "Okay. I can see you're fine with the dodging. Now, let's see how well you can block."
"Block?" Cameron questioned, "like… as in, physical attacks?"
Cameron had been training at the Saffron gym for over a week now, and she had only been allowed to use her psychic powers for the last two sessions. A large part of the training seemed to focus on connecting her mental abilities with her physical body.
Fin smiled at her mischievously, and his green eyes sparkled. "Physical," he explained, "and psychic as well. You'll need to use your body and your mind at the same time for this challenge."
Cameron narrowed her eyes at him. "And did Sabrina tell you to give me this "challenge", or are you just making this stuff up?"
"I don't have to tell you anything," Fin replied, folding his arms and looking at her authoritatively. Cameron could tell he was enjoying his position of power while Sabrina was away. "But, since I'm nice, I'll let you know that she said I could let you try this "if you were ready". Which I think you are."
Cameron tried not to let it show, but the idea of having to block both physical and psychic blows simultaneously made her a little nervous. She'd never had to do anything like that before. It's kind of like being in a pokemon battle… only I'm the pokemon and not the trainer.
Fin snapped his fingers, signaling Alakazam to come closer. He then reached for a pokeball on his belt, throwing it to reveal a monster that Cameron guessed was his own: a poliwrath, probably somewhere around level forty.
"Alright," Fin said resolutely, "Alakazam will provide the psychic challenge, and Poliwrath here will test you physically. The goal is to block its attacks in any way you can, but I suggest using telekinesis." He lowered his voice and added, "Trying to block a Mega Punch with your bare hands is not something I recommend."
He winked at Cameron, and she felt her face grow hot. After getting to know Fin, she felt kind of awkward around him; she never knew if he was making fun of her, or… or… or what? she wondered, and she concluded she didn't know the answer.
"Ready?" Fin asked her.
"I guess," Cameron answered a little uneasily.
"What, you're scared now?" Fin teased.
She glared at him. "No, I'm not! Bring it on!"
"That's the spirit." He looked at her strangely, and, suddenly, Cameron heard a noise behind her.
She whirled around just in the nick of time to arrest a Psybeam attack headed straight for her. Blocking psychic attacks was pretty easy for Cameron, but she wasn't sure yet about the physical aspect of this challenge…
Cameron realized that Fin must be communicating with his pokemon telepathically, instructing them on which attacks to perform. She tried to tap into Fin's mind to read his thoughts, but he blocked her out. He's been getting better at that lately, she thought, remembering how easy it had been when they'd first started training together.
Indeed, I have, Fin projected to her, surprising her. She looked at him, noticed the satisfied smirk on his face, and, again, her cheeks felt flushed.
Distracted by Fin, Cameron came back to her senses just in time, ducking and narrowly missing Poliwrath's huge fist.
"You're supposed to block, not dodge!" Fin reminded, which annoyed Cameron.
"I know," she replied testily.
This time, she was ready. As Poliwrath lunged at her, poised for a Double Slap, she closed her eyes and focused on forming a barrier of psychic energy. Unsure if she could create one strong enough to block the forceful attack, she braced herself for the impact… but it never came.
SMACK! Cameron opened her eyes to find that she was completely surrounded by a translucent, brilliant blue wall. Outside of it, she could see Poliwrath tending to its sore hands— it had Double Slapped Cameron's psychic barrier, which, evidently, was hard as a rock.
"Whoa," she heard Fin, who stood behind her, exclaim in awe.
Cameron realized she had seen such a wall somewhere before. She tried to think. A wall… a barrier… that's it! Barrier! Like the attack!
She had seen something similar in pokemon battles before; it was a defensive psychic move. Cameron sighed. Great, she thought, I just showed Fin I can use pokemon attacks. Now he knows I can talk to pokemon and fight like them…
Cameron allowed her Barrier to fade, and she turned to look at Fin.
"That was incredible," he remarked amazedly. "Can you do it again? I want to try something…"
Cameron sighed. "Okay," she agreed. Fin didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that she'd just used a pokemon attack; plus, he'd already seen it once, so doing it again wasn't going to change anything.
Fin reached for his pokeballs again. This time, he brought out three new pokemon: Jynx, Exeggutor, and Mr. Mime, all at level forty or above.
He's got a Mr. Mime, Cameron thought, so he has to have seen a Barrier before. He must know exactly what I just did. After determining this, Fin's reaction confused Cameron even more. He should have been weirded out, but instead he seemed impressed by it!
Suddenly, all five of the pokemon lunged at her, all using physical attacks (excluding Alakazam, which used Confusion). Executor used Stomp, Jynx and Mr. Mime attacked with Double Slap, and Poliwrath used Body Slam.
Together, the five attacks were enough to completely drain the HP of a very powerful pokemon. Determinedly, Cameron erected her Barrier, taking extra care to make sure it was sturdy.
At the last minute, she realized that Barrier was designed to raise defense— it would not protect against Alakazam's special attack. With this in mind, Cameron's eyes glowed blue and she counteracted the blow with pure psychic energy.
All of the pokemon crashed into her glowing, blue fortress. Cameron could feel in her mind that the attacks were powerful, but her Barrier was more than enough to compensate. The pokemon fell to the floor, groaning and rubbing their sore limbs.
Cameron took down her protective wall and studied Fin, who was speechless.
"Wow," he finally said, withdrawing his pokemon. He shook his head, appearing to be in disbelief. "I have never seen anything like that. That was amazing, Cameron."
The sincerity of his comment made Cameron uncomfortable. She wasn't used to hearing real praise from anyone. Sometimes, people would compliment her after she'd used her psychic powers to manipulate them into thinking she was someone special, like at her birthday party, but those didn't count.
Still, a question burned in Cameron's mind that she had to know the answer to.
"But don't you think it's weird?" Cameron blurted out to Fin, "My psychic powers aren't like yours— I had to use a Barrier attack to defend myself. You wouldn't have had to do that."
"Cameron," Fin said earnestly, "I would not have been able to block those attacks at all. No way. But you stopped them all like they were nothing. It doesn't matter how you did it; it was incredible."
Cameron looked away, blushing once again.
"Although… it does make me wonder…"
Cameron turned back to him, and her heart rate increased. This whole time, she'd been hoping Fin believed she was a regular human, just with very strong psychic abilities. But now that he knew she could use pokemon attacks, maybe he would put two and two together…
Fin frowned and looked at her critically, as if trying to figure out a puzzle. "When I first sensed your psychic signature before I met you that night at the club, I couldn't decide if I was sensing a pokemon or a human. Then, I find out you can talk to pokemon, and now I see you can use pokemon attacks."
Cameron swallowed, not saying anything. She had no idea whether Sabrina and Fin knew she was part pokemon or not; since Sabrina had spoken to her father, she suspected that the Saffron gym leader did, but Cameron doubted she had shared any information with Fin.
"So… don't take this the wrong way, but I'm totally confused. What… are you?"
Cameron turned away from him evasively, unsure of what she should say. Should I just tell him everything? she wondered. But I just met him a couple of weeks ago, and I've never told anybody before!
"Look, if it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to judge you or anything. I'm just… curious, I guess. I've met a lot of psychics, and none of them have been anything like you. For one thing, you're the most powerful psychic I have ever met, and that's including both humans and pokemon. "
Cameron turned back to him, still conflicted. She saw honesty in his emerald eyes, and somehow she wanted to tell him… but it was a difficult decision.
"How do I know you're not gonna think I'm a freak?" she blurted out, surprised at how much anxiety she heard in her own voice.
Fin sighed. "Well, I could just tell you that I won't, but I don't know if you're going to buy that. So, instead, I'm going to tell you something about me."
Cameron was silent, waiting for him to continue. I know hardly anything about him, she realized, and that made her curious what Fin would tell her.
"Until I met Sabrina," Fin continued, "I thought I was a freak."
Fin? Cameron thought, a freak? That was hard to believe. He looked so normal and seemed so put together and confident.
"I grew up in Vermillion City," he said, "with two rich parents… two normal parents." Looking at Cameron seriously, he added, "I was the only psychic they had ever seen."
Cameron nodded that she understood. Until I found out about my real dad, Mewtwo, I thought the same was true of me and my parents, she remembered.
"When I was young, my powers were totally out of control. When I'd get upset, I'd accidentally break things, teleport myself around the house, or sometimes… even hurt people. Not purposefully, of course." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, I had no one to train me, and my parents were completely terrified of me. They never wanted me to use my powers… ever."
"My mom was the same way!" Cameron exclaimed impulsively.
Fin nodded. "Then you understand how lonely it is when no one is like you— everybody's normal, and you're… the freak."
There was a somber silence then as Cameron (and, she inferred, Fin as well) remembered those trying times in her upbringing, and now she felt sad that she'd been so alone.
Finally, Fin spoke again. "Then, when I was about twelve, my parents took me to a pokemon tournament in Celadon City. Sabrina was one of the judges. During the tournament, my mom and I got into an argument, and I got so upset I just lost it." He shook his head regretfully, "Accidentally, my telekinesis cracked the floor of the arena and a couple of walls. The owner of the building and my parents were furious."
Cameron understood this completely; she'd gotten into plenty of arguments with her mother over the years about using her powers, and, when she'd gotten upset, it had only exacerbated the problem.
"But Sabrina got involved then," Fin explained. "She convinced everyone that it wasn't my fault; I needed training. Then, she offered to take me in and work with me at the Saffron Gym."
"Wasn't that kind of weird?" Cameron asked him, "I mean, you'd just met her."
"Not really," Fin answered, a contemplative look coming over his face. "You know how it is. Psychics can sense each other's signatures. Hers was the first I had ever been able to identify, and it was comforting… finally, I knew that there were others like me… that I wasn't the only one."
Cameron nodded. That explanation made sense to her, though she hadn't had a comparable experience in her own life. The closest thing to it was when she had first met Mewtwo, which she barely remembered now. Mewtwo's powers had seemed virtually identical to hers, which had been somewhat relieving, but she'd also known that he was a pokemon, which had just confused her more. I've never met another person like me, Cameron thought, because I'm not completely human.
"Unsurprisingly, my parents agreed, and I moved to Saffron that same week," Fin said. "I've only spoken to my parents a few times since then. I think they do love me deep down, but they're just… scared, I guess." His expression darkened a little. "A few years ago I found out that they adopted another kid… a girl, with no psychic powers. I guess they didn't want to risk having another kid like me," he finished somewhat bitterly.
"That's horrible," Cameron commented sincerely, but Fin shrugged her off.
"I don't really care anymore," he said, "I've got Sabrina, and I love working at this gym with a bunch of other psychics, so it's all good."
Cameron didn't quite buy that, but she could tell that he was done with discussing the topic, so she didn't press him to continue.
"So," Fin said, brightening, "now that I've overloaded you with details about me, what's your story?"
Cameron smiled at him. Usually, Fin either annoyed her or made her feel guilty, but, right now, she didn't feel either of those things. She felt… lighter, somehow, like she could tell him everything, and he would understand. And as much as I think my childhood sucked sometimes, she noted, at least my real parents didn't basically abandon me.
"I'm not overloaded," Cameron reassured Fin, and he chuckled. She took a deep breath. Here goes… "Until I was seven years old, I was kind of like you. I thought I had two normal parents— Ash and Misty Ketchum— and that I was the abnormal one."
She explained to Fin how Misty had always become angry when Cameron tried to use her powers, and how her mother had always told her she needed to keep them a secret for her protection. Fin nodded in understanding, and Cameron suspected his parents had probably told him something similar.
"My mom knew about my powers," Cameron explained, "but my "dad" was totally oblivious." She looked away embarrassedly. She didn't really want to tell Fin the next part. "So, since I couldn't use my abilities around my mom, I did all the time around Ash. I used to mess with him, playing jokes on him or convincing him psychically that I'd already done my homework and chores and stuff." For the first time, Cameron realized that she felt guilty about this.
She had expected Fin to get on her case about that part, but he just remained silent, politely listening.
"Anyway, then, when I was seven, something strange happened." She went on to tell Fin about finding the articles about Mew and Mewtwo online, and about seeing the image of an unfamiliar man in her mother's mind. Fin seemed confused at this point, as if he wasn't sure where her story was going, until she got to the Team Rocket kidnapping.
"It was totally weird," she said, "I mean, I was blindfolded on this helicopter, and then, the moment we got out, the same man I had seen in my mom's head showed up. I hadn't even been sure he was a real person, but there he was. And somehow, even before my mom told me, I knew he was my real father."
"Wow," Fin commented in amazement. "That must have thrown you."
"Kind of," Cameron said, "but… at the same time… I had always known there was something different about me. I just didn't naturally think or act the same way as my "parents". Plus, I had always been able to understand pokemon speech, which I knew neither of them could do. So, my point is, finding out about my real father explained a lot."
Fin looked perplexed. "Okay," he said, "so you found out this man was your real father. But… he's a man. Not a pokemon. So I'm still not sure where all your special abilities came from."
Cameron nodded. "I know; I was confused, too. But even though my dad looked human, my mom told me he wasn't. He's… a pokemon that can change into a human."
Fin gaped. "But… that's insane! How is it even possible?"
"I don't know," Cameron said, "but I think it's really weird, too. I guess my mom and he got together when he was in human form and… you know." Her face grew hot; she never liked to think about that part. "But, I guess, even when he turns into a human, he still has some pokemon DNA. So, anyway, that's how I ended up being part pokemon."
"What kind of pokemon is he?" Fin questioned.
"Well… a "Mewtwo", I guess. I don't really know." Cameron tightened her fists angrily. "That's the thing; I don't know anything! Nobody has ever explained any of this in detail to me. I've always been left to draw my own conclusions. There is nobody like me I can turn to for guidance. I am a freak, and I'm all alone!" She felt tears spring to the corners of her eyes.
Fin looked at her with concern. "Cameron…"
She ignored him and continued, shaking her head and laughing cuttingly. "That's not even the worst part. Then, Ash, who I'd lived with and thought was my dad for seven years, left with no explanation. I think it was because of some stupid fight that he got into with my mom over Mewtwo, my real dad, and the kidnapping, but I don't really know because, again, no one ever tells me anything."
Cameron felt herself becoming enraged as she fought back the tears. She sensed alarm in Fin's psychic signature, but at this point she couldn't calm down.
"And then, as if that isn't bad enough, my "real dad" shows up at the breakfast table the next day."
As Cameron's anger built up, a vortex of psychic energy began to swirl around her body.
"Cameron… please… we don't have to talk about this right now. I'm worried." Fin appeared to be half sympathetic and half afraid of her.
"No," she snapped, "let's talk now." The translucent blue waves of energy climbed higher and higher. "He shows up at the fucking breakfast table," she ranted. "I was seven years old, and my mom didn't even think I'd notice that the "dad" I'd lived with my whole life had been replaced by this… by this… stranger."
Cameron's psychic projections reached the ceiling, tickling the fragile light fixture above her, which shattered and showered her and Fin with shards of glass. Fin held his arms above his head to protect himself, but Cameron allowed the pieces to fall and cover her, many of them slicing clean, red lines in her skin.
She noticed the pain, yes, but she felt oddly detached from her body, as if she was observing herself from somewhere else. Studying her bleeding arms, she said softly, "If I am not human, does that make my blood different from yours? Is it pokemon blood?"
Brushing the glass off himself, Fin ran to Cameron, struggling to pass through her fortress of psychic energy.
"You have to stop this," he cried out, shaking her. "This is dangerous!"
The combination of Cameron's own fury and the panic she sensed in Fin pushed her over the edge.
She saw the bright blue glow of her eyes reflected in Fin's green ones, and, out of her control, she released a huge surge of psychic energy. Fin was forcefully knocked backwards, flying through the air and falling to the ground in a heap twenty or thirty feet away.
Everything was quiet.
Slowly, Cameron's cloud of energy dissipated as she was brought back to reality by the magnitude of the situation. Finally feeling the sting of the abrasions on her skin, Cameron used Recover to heal her injuries.
Her heart pounded when she saw Fin lying on the gym floor, motionless. His right leg was twisted at an odd angle under him, and Cameron rushed to his side. Panicking, she thought, what have I done?