A sophisticated summer IC

The second week at camp had just started, and for the first time in ages, Laurie felt in her element again. The people here were different, treated her different. Everything was different from the world outside. She wasn't "strange" or "weird" here. She was herself and no matter how many stupid childish activities there were here, the atmosphere stayed the way it was and life was better.

Laurie dreaded the thought of going back to school later, but it quickly went away when she was with the others. Most of them looked pretty normal, but none of them were. Laurie looked into their minds some times, never really understanding what happened when she did it, but making her more curious at the same time. She'd become better capable of using her powers here, despite the "no powers rule they had at games, and was looking forward to whatever they had planned.

Laurie moved over to Jin, said good morning, and sat down beside her. They had both gone to the camp before - Laurie more often and longer than Jin - and had met before. The camp leader started talking. Apparently, they were going to play a massive capture-the-flag game today, and for a change, they would be allowed to use powers.

Jin unconciously scratched at the hair behind her ear. The loud bustle of the dining hall was parts comforting and terrifying both for her. The camp was a place she could relax--you could find a safe spot in a hollow or under a tree often enough, sure, but there was no relaxing. There was always food to worry about and pedators to fear and tomorrow to plan. Here, though, everything was thought out and reassuring and there would always be food when the dinner gong sounded. She pulled her knees up to her chest and huffed out a breath. It smelled like sausages and lunch.

The bench creaked and tilted slightly, and Jin glanced up. "Laurrie," she greeted, inclining her head towards her friend before directing her attention towards the Games master. "Capturre the flag?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow. "With powerrs? That is new." She rested her chin on her knees, hoping for a good team. "Why do you think they should allow us to use powerrs?" She scratched at her head again, and glanced towards the door.

"Okay, everyone!" cried the Leader. "Assemble on the feild outside, we'll divide you up into teams!" he tossed the bullhorn onto a table, and leapt off the podium, as everyone scraped back benches and chairs and burst into noisy chatter. Jin winced slightly as high-pitched squeaks ground into her ears, and rolled to her feet. She fell into step next to Laurie and they made their way outside.

Amanda felt at home for the first time in her life. There were too many people, both at home and at school, and although she had plenty of friends, she always worried that she would slip and use her abilities. Then they would know she was different. More than anything, she wanted to be normal.


In this camp, she was like everyone else. In fact, she felt less gifted than some. The games here so far had been much like those at school, since they weren't allowed to use their powers. But today would be different, they could finally use their abilities and she knew hers would help.


She heard the Leader call for the game to start, and rose, giggling with another group of girls, to make her way out to the field.

The game started, and Laurie was gonna be on red team. Some guy, who looked pretty old, was in charge of their team. The rules were explained again: powers were allowed, but not to harm anyone. Play nice. And once you're tagged, return to your base and drop the flag. The strategy was pretty clear, an offensive group and a defensive group, with a few people just scouring the area. They hid their five flags along the riverbank, just inside the marked area and both teams had to get ready for the event. Laurie was on the offensive group, and she was excited.

Jin frowed at her red bandanna, tying to decide how to affix it. If she Shifted, it could slip off, or choke her. After a moment's thought, she secured it around her neck with an easy releasable slipknot. She tucked the ends down the front of her shirt, and strolled up to Laurie.

"What is the strrategey?" she asked, ears twitching with excitement. A few members from the other team were milling about on the other side of the line, and Jin found herself watching them, tense, out of the corner of her eye. She frowned slightly, forcing herself to relax. "And what do you know about the otherr team?"

Members of their own team were scattered inconpicuously around the boundry, some joking, some excited. Jin felt a tingle run down her spine.

Amanda was on defense for the blue team. She listened vaguely to instructions on use of their powers during the game as she looked around the playing area. Finally the overweight, tired looking woman in charge of their team stopped her droning. The team got together to form a strategy and hide their flags.

Amanda rose a few inches off the ground, practising, as she took her position, for once feeling confident and ready to handle anything.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" The two camp leaders sat together, both watching carefully. "They've been after these kids for ages now. We won't be able to protect them forever, that much I know, but don't you think it would be best to give them..."
"A chance to escape? I'm sure the boss would like the way you think." The overweight woman replied, as she entered something into her cell phone. "They're starting the search now. Some might not be of interest to them, and be left alone."
"Some of them? You just handed in the lives of those children to become WEAPONS!"
"For your own good and theirs, I suggest you stop talking about it. It's too late now.

In the meantime, Laurie and Jin were full on the attack. Anxious at first, she was now using her powers to stumble others as she run across the woods. Although it felt like cheating, she'd read someone's mind to find out where the flags were, and dragged Jin and herself straight towards it.

Jin flew above Laurie, the red fabric flapping against her belly, She had Shifted the moment the whistle had blown, and was circling in hawk-form above her friend, a predatory gleam in her eye. She was look-out, scouting for flags and blue team-members from the skies. Flying felt glorious. 

She adjusted her wings, angling to the right to follow her friend. Something flashed in the woods below, capturing Jin's eyes. She tucked her legs and wings in close to her body, and descended in a steep dive. She was a few dozen feet away when someone sprang out of the bushes, yelling bloody murder. Startled, Jin wheeled away sharply, loosing a harsh scream of surprise and hardly avoiding a tree. She swooped back into the sky, and rock whizzed past. She flapped hard and ducked under the trees, right on Laurie's heels, heart thumping. 

She Shifted again, taking on the more easily manoeuvrable form of a sparrow, and darted along beside Laurie. She chirruped excitedly—blue cloth hung out of a tree a mere hundred metres from their position. 

Amanda hovered near the tops of a tree, trying to see the players from the other team. Most were accounted for, but a few were missing.

A hawk had skimmed through the air as she looked about earlier but the sky was clear for the moment. She glided gently back down to the ground, conserving her energy. She could only levitate for so long before her concentration wavered.

She wandered through the trees peering around occasionally for advancing foes, but saw nothing. She was enjoying the peace of the outdoors, not seeming to hear the happy sounds of the other campers. She smiled when she heard the sound of a Sparrow nearby, tweeting happily over some shiny treasure. Casually she turned to see if she could find it.

There it was! She started to grin when she saw something else... it was Laurie, from the camp, and she was on the other team!

Laurie and Jin both noticed the flag and she started running, full speed. She ran quickly and already had the flag when the defenders came to her. All they had to do was hit her once, and the flag was theirs again. "Jin... fly up! I'll throw you the flag!" She shouted, as the others came closer. She threw the flag in the air and used her powers to make it go way higher, before running off in attempt not to get tagged when the others bothered with Jin. The flag wasn't heavy, so she should've been able to fly with it.

In the meantime, a few vans were parked just outside the playing area. The selections had been made, and paramilitary troops were dismissed to come and collect the "loot". They made their ways across the wood, picking off the children one by one. They took almost half of them.

Laurie was among the first to be caught, as she was just at the border of the area. She was running from another kid and felt something stinging in her side before falling down, a bag pulled over her head.

Amanda watched helplessly as Laurie grabbed the flag, unable to reach her in time to stop it. She ran full out through the trees and into the field as she attempted to catch up. She wavered for a moment, undecided between running after Laurie, or trying to catch the sparrow, which had to be Jin.

She could levitate, but she couldn't fly. There was no way she could catch the bird. She turned her concentration back on Laurie just as what looked like a small militia grabbed the other girl and dragged her to a waiting van.

Amanda recoiled in horror, opening her mouth to scream for help, looking desperately around for the team leaders. The old man and the fat woman were not ten yards away, striding off towards the camp as though nothing were wrong. She would get no help there.

She thought to escape and began lifting herself off the ground, hoping to hide among the treetops until the coast was clear. Then she felt something tug at her ankle and strong hands were pulling her down. She resisted, but she was losing the battle. In the distance, she saw a speck that was the sparrow. "Jin!" She cried out, "Jin! Help!" and gave one last, desperate kick at her assailant.

Jin did an excited loop, the blue flag streaming out behind her. Victory! she thought triumphantly, flitting just above the canopy. She wasn't sure what had happened to Laurie--but she was probably on her way out. Jin couldn't stop to check, though. She had to get back to their side with the flag!

A shout from below stopped her cold, and she wheeled around. "Jin! Help!" There was a strangled cry, and then a unnerving silence. Jin flitted nervously back and forth, hesitant. [i]What if it was a trick, a ploy?[i/] The silence stretched on, and Jin chirruped in exasperation. She laid the flag over the bough of the pine below her, and cautiously descended. When she realized what was going on below her, she gave a strangled tweet an ducked behind the trunk.

A girl—Jin couldn't tell who she was with the mask over her eyes—was being dragged away by strangers. This wasn't part of the game. What was happening?! Jin didn't know what to do. Self-preservation and reason told her to find a Leader. Something else was fighting it, wanted to go help the girl.

With an furious shriek, a massive bald eagle descended on the knot of people. Jin gouged at eyes with her beak and raked skin with her talons and there was chaos and panic and Jin the Eagle had a feeling of detached joy.

And then there was the net.

It came up out of her blind spot, and swept her out of the air and into the ground. Something 'popped' in her wing as she landed, and she thrashed violently. In the background she could hear someone swearing and cursing. Net and all, she was thrown into a cloth sack and everything was dark and claustrophobic and pain.

When Laurie woke up, she was in a completely dark room. She couldn't see or hear anything outside of her own breath, and there was a strange echo. She tried calling out for others, calling for help a few times, but all she heard was her own voice beating on her ear drums for almost a minute every time she said anything. She tried to stand up and found out she was in a bed of some sorts, with an incredibly cold floor. A light, although a very dim one, illuminated the room now, and she found out is was some kind of cage she was in. The walls were made of glass, the ceilings of metal. After a few attempts to bend the glass to let her out and yelling for help again, she gave up, went back to her bed and waited.

About a day later, or so she assumed, she heard something funny and some gas came from a vent in the room. She drew another breath and was knocked out again.

She felt a light stinging in her eyes. When she opened them again, the sun was shining brightly. She stood up and took a look around, quickly finding many others from the camp there. They were in a desert. None of the others were awake yet for as far as she could see, and they'd all been put to rest on a large pile of equipment with a letter attached to it. Laurie crawled over the others towards the piece of parchment attached to a wooden stake, opened the letter and read it. The writing was done in a strange, fantasy-like kind of brown, which amused her. The content of the letter, however, did not.


Laurie twitched an eyebrow and was startled. She had no idea what was going on or why anyone would leave them here, so she decided to step back onto the pile of equipment and wait for others to wake up.

(Feel free to make a conversation and write my replies down, I dun mind.)

Jin sat bold upright, and instantly regretted it as her foreleg protested the sudden movement. She yelped with pain and and flattened her ears behind her head, whimpering. She felt like she was going to pass out. She froze for a few minutes, eyes shut tight, while the wave of pain passed. When it had calmed to a duller, more manageable sensation, she carefully reopened her eyes. Her pupils were hugely dialated.

Jin was in a room. A perfect cube, with a single metal door and no holes and no windows. She wimpered again.

The door thudded open, and a man stood sihouetted in it. Cowed, Jin limped backwards, into a corner. The whimper dyed in her throat, and her tail was tucked between her legs. He stepped forward, into the room, and Jin glanced hopelessly from her leg to the door and back to her leg. The man chuckled, hardly able to miss the desperation in the look. That annoyed her. She snarled, the fur on her back raising.

"Well, little foxy," he said with a sneer in his voice. There was a black ski mask over his face. "Change." He said. "Human. Now."

Jin didn't move.

"I know you can understand me." He said calmly. "NOW CHANGE!" The suddenness of his scream startled Jin, and she squeaked and sat back on her haunches. She swallowed, and, frowning, Shifted into human form. She groaned as the sudden change in structure jostled her broken arm, and leaned back against the wall, gritting her teeth. A small woman stepped out from behind the man, similarly cowled. She walked towards Jin with quick, measured steps. Jin shrank away, trying to sink into the floor. She tossed some clothing at Jin, and grabbed her upper arm, above the break. Jin flinched and cried out.

"Stop moving," Grunted the big man. Jin was shaking. The woman grabbed out something made of plastic--Jin had no idea what it was--and wrapped her arm in it. She surprisingly gentle, but it still hurt. A lot. Jin whimpered again, and the room spun. With a few deft ties, she secured the yellow plastic with some cloth ties. Slowly, slowly, the room righted itself, and the pain in her arm was diminished signifigantly. She sat up, and started pulling the clothes on.

The man and the woman were gone. Jin curled up in the corner, lost. A sudden hissing made her look up, though. She frowned. She couldn't see anything. Couldn't smell anything. And then the room faded to grey and then to black.

Jin sat up slowly, blinking sleep out of her eyes and squinting in sudden sunlight. Where was she? Wherever it was, it was uncomfortable. Her vision still adjusting, she took a breath. It smelled...dry. And there was a faint musky odour permeating the air. She squinted, making out packs and bodies. Was something moving over there?

"Hello?" she whispered.

Finally, her eyes focused. She sneezed. "Laurrie? Is that you?" She staggered to her feet, and her arm throbbed. Laurie turned around. "Jin!?" Her eyes widened. "Jin!" she took a few steps forward, and stopped, staring at the plastic wrapping on her arm. "Are you okay?"

Jin nodded vaguely. "Where are we?" She replied, staring around, eyes only half-focused. Laurie frowned, concerned. "I'm not entirely sure," she said quietly. She gestured toward a piece of parchment. Jin walked over, and knelt down in front of it. "What does it say?" she asked. She could communicate with every animal concievable...but human's habit of 'writing' was utterly beyond her. That irked her. Laurie read out the message, and Jin paled slightly. They stood there silently for a moment or two, lost in thought. Jin got to her feet, and made her way to the first bundle of person. She bent to her knees, sniffed, and moved on to the next person. She repeated this process several times, before Laurie finally spoke up.

"Jin." she frowned. "What on earth are you doing?" Jin turned, looking a little confused. "I am checking them forr life," she said, and gestured to someone close to Laurie. "You should check them too." She paused. "They all seem to be living." Then she turned back.

A few people later, Jin stopped. This one smelt...off. She carefully flipped the girl over, trying not to jostle her broken arm. She was pale, and a long dark braid curled around her neck. Jin frowned, and brushed it aside, looking for the...Ah, there it is, she nodded. A pulse beat in her neck. So why did she smell so strange? She rolled back onto her haunches, frowning.

The game started out amusing enough for Nathan, tripping people here and there by making their feet clumsy. It was when the vans showed up that that the amusement vanished and he watched them approach. With a sigh he sat on the ground and waited, watching as others were taken. Once they began approaching him, he watched more closely as they drew out some sort of weapon. A twist of his hand and a ring of grass around him flattened with a muted fluttering. A few seconds later several thuds were heard as darts hit the ground instead of him. "Geez, I'm not going to resist."

Glances between the men suggested they didnt believe him, but true to his word he didnt resist. Unfortunately it did not stop them from knocking him unconscious. What felt like hours later Nathan groaned and sat up, observing his surroundings. Rubbing the back of his head he winced. "Why dont they ever believe me? And really? Do they think I'd go through the effort of trying to escape from a building when there's an extremely good chance I'm NOT on the ground floor?" With a pained shrug he sat against the wall and ignored the hissing from the air vent. "They never believe me, do they?"



With a groan he sat up from the ground. Blinking in the bright sunlight he shuddered, and stood dusting himself off. Glancing around, he saw two others up and around. Looking back at what they had been left with, he could only help but make a sarcastic comment. "We're lost, arent we?"

Amanda woke to Jin hovering over her, sniffing at her like some kind of animal. Of course, she thought, she is an animal. She struggled to her feet, staggering, dizzy, the heat of the sun burning her skin, half-blinding her. The last thing she remembered was shouting for Jin, and then there was nothing. There was a vague memory of waking up in a small... room? cell? Had they been drugged? There was a pile of bodies, hopefully living, scattered around the sand. Amanda guessed that roughly half of the camp had been brought here.

She gazed about warily, and saw Laurie a few feet away, talking to one of the guys who had been on her team. What was his name, again? Nathan, that was it. They were looking at something written on a piece of parchment. She glanced at Jin, and then wandered over to the other two.

"What's the deal?" She asked, tossing her braid over her shoulder as if the answer couldn't possibly affect her. She took the parchment Laurie held out to her, and shuddered. Two months of food and water was fine. They had their powers, they should be able to make it out of any desert within that time. But predators? That made them prey. Maybe this summer wasn't going to be so fun after all.

"Maybe we should see what they left us with," she said, bending to rummage through the bags.

She found a canteen of water, took a long deep drink, and eyed the others carefully. A strange sensation came over her, and she thought she smelled something odd. Some feeling made her glance at Jin and the other girl was staring at her, sniffing at the air. Strange, she thought, and then the sensation was gone.

The three girls and Nathan discussed their situation. It would be dark soon and they would need to make a camp, of sorts, they needed to go through their supplies and figure out how to ration them, and they needed to find out exactly where they were, or at least how to get out of here. Most importantly they needed to find out what “predators” had been set out and how to avoid them.

Well, if they were going to make a camp, they would need something to use as firewood. All she had seen was the parchment and a wooden stake, and that wouldn’t last for long. Maybe some of the desert plants would burn? She volunteered to go hunting for some, and no one objected. They really should all stay together, but if no one stayed with the supplies, they might never find them again.

A wind was rising up, and the sand swirled around her ankles. It was also growing cooler. It was a good thing they’d thought of a fire, she remembered something about desert nights being cold.

She was hacking at a piece of cactus with a crude knife, when she heard a noise behind her. Terror made her blood run cold even before she turned and saw the snake. In a panic she screamed out, all her senses crying for someone to help her. She thought she saw Jin for a brief moment, but it must have been an illusion, and she finally recovered herself enough to use her ability to lift herself out of the snake’s range.

Laurie wasn't feeling very well that day. They'd spent most of the time talking to eat other, sitting in the sand. Questions like "Why were they here? Who brought them here? Why them?" were constantly thrown through the air. She didn't really care. What mattered to her was only how they would get out of here, and she spent most of the day stuck in a world of her own, thinking about the possibilities.

The night came quickly, and there was also some firewood among the supplies. Laurie wasn't an idiot: the desert can freeze at night time, even in the summer, and there was no way they could use this wood for fire for more than two days. They would have to move. They would have to pack up their tents in the morning, find food, find water, and find out whatever those supposed "predators" were that they were going to have to deal with.

The next morning, she woke up early. Not feeling like getting involved with any others or stay in her bed, she decided to start looking through the supplies they had. There were actually quite a lot of them, and most of the stack hadn't been searched yet. Laurie found two black cases and opened the first finding that it was filled with pistols and clips. Not sure how to deal with this, she quickly shut the case and started rummaging through the other things.

Amanda sat up abruptly, and Jin flinched backwards at the sudden motion. Jin watched, from a crouch, as the girl staggerd dizzily to her feet. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Jin straightened up and walked briskly away. She glanced about as she moved, unconciously furtive, an noted that most of the humans were stirring. She halted at the edge of the pile, and stared out. Sand, all sand, as far as she could see. Her nose twitched. The air ere was dry. She wasn't pleased with the sensation.

Seized by a sudden urge, she kicked off her loose shoes, and picked the socks off her feet. Barefoot, she carefully pokes a toe into the pale orange-yello grains. It was, she was delighted to find, pleasantly warm between her toes. She hopped off the crate she was standing on, and began digging her toes into it. She sighed, and sat down on the crate, smoothing the sand over with her feet.

She rested there for a few moments, scratching under the splint and soaking in the sunshine. Suddenly, that strange odour caught her nose again, and she twisted around. That girl. She sniffed, frowning. It was strange. Jin closed her eyes, concentrating. Something prickled at the back of her mind, then, and her eyes flicked back open. The girl was staring at her again. Jin quickly turned her attention back to the warmth of the sand. After a few moments, the curious sensation passed, and Jin turned back around. The girl was gone. Jin slipped her feet back into the shoes, abandoning the socks, and made her way over to where Laurie was speaking with...Nicholas? Nathan? and the stranger girl.

Jin didn't speak much beyond to mention a few relevant aspects of the ecosystem they were inhabiting. She payed little attention, and spent much of their pow wow scanning te horizon, the small, cold ball of worry in her chest growing larger and colder as the sun shrank and sank. When the girl—Amanda, that was her name—stood up, intent upon finding burnable materials. Sheer face was...pinched? Drawn? She paused, as though hoping someone would object.

Nobody did. She turned, and began walking into the distance. Jin stood up wordlessly, and started after her, keeping out of sight. The camp was only barely in sight when Jin heard an ear-stabbing cry from ahead. She felt her stomach drop and broke into a dead sprint. She halte behind a cactus, and peeked out Laurie was there, floating a human's height above the sand. A snake was poised just below her. Jin, quietly, pulled a shiny marble out of her pocket. She stared at it regretfully for a moment or two, then drew her arm back ad hurled it at the snake. It was a good shot, and Jin saw the snake flinch and lie still.

Quietly still, she started back to the camp, and upon reaching, fell fast asleep.



The next morning, Jin woke up with a start. She was parched. A quick scrounge turned up a canteen and a few strips of beef jerky. Yum. She was quite enjoying her meal when she caught sight of Laurie, hunched over a box. Jin walked quietly up behind her and stopped, Her hand clasping the part of the splint over her wrist.

"Laurrie?" she asked, cocking et was to te side. "What arre you looking at?" Laurie jumped, and snapped the lid shut. When she turned around , there was a peculiar look in her eye. Jin frowned, and held out a hand.

"Jurrky?"