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Description
(Content warning: Pokemon transformation)

It was a warm and sunny day in the Kalos region. A pokemon trainer by the name of Cam was enjoying a walk through the old stone relics on Route 10. As noon hit, however, he noticed something odd. At the eastern side of the road, a large number of the stones had been cleared out, revealing a path into the woods he hadn’t seen before. He knew this area was a wildlife preserve, so catching new Pokemon there would be out of the question, but, he figured, it wouldn’t hurt to take in the scenery.

As he headed down the path, the forest seemed unusually quiet. The only Pokemon he saw were a handful of bugs, and an Emolga that hid in the hollow of a tree when it saw him. As he walked further in, he soon saw several unmanned logging machines.

“Something’s wrong here.” Cam muttered.

As he followed the machine’s tracks to their source, he saw a group of four men sitting in a circle, eating lunch at an improvised campsite. Several cages and machines were lying around the forest floor, and just beyond them, Cam could see an old shrine that looked similar to the ones he had seen in photos from Johto. At either side of the shine was an unconscious Trevenant.

Cam walked up to the men, frowning. “Were you the ones using those logging machines? You know this forest is part of a nature preserve, right?”

One of them turned around, revealing a prominent red "R" on the front of his black shirt: “You wanna make something of it, kid?”

Cam gasped, then growled, pulling out and preparing a Pokeball. “Why yes, I believe I do.”

The rest of the group turned around. “Looks like we'll just have to make you "disappear" then!” One of them said, throwing out a Houndoom, as others two out a Murkrow and an Arbok.

Cam grabbed his Pokeballs, releasing a Nidoqueen. Going for the advantage in numbers, he released the rest of his Pokemon, letting loose an Umbreon, Banette, Infernape, Eelektross, and Pangoro.

“I'm not gonna let you guys get away with this!”

“So you want to play the numbers game, eh, kid?” A more elaborately dressed member stood up, (probably an admin, if Cam had to guess,) releasing a Tyranitar, Weezing, and Vileplume. The Grunts immediately scrambled for their equipment as they barked orders to their pokemon. They fumbled to put on gas masks as the apparent leader shouted his own orders.

“Formation six-two!”

The Weezing belched out a cloud of thick smoke, and the Tyranitar following with a sandstorm. Cam’s vision was obscured, but he could hear some of his pokemon making yawning noises and falling over, presumably from sleep powder. He quickly pulled some full restores out of his pack to wake them up before going on the attack.

The Houndoom let out a roar, and Cam heard many of his pokemon being forced back into their in fright. He managed to find his sleeping Pangoro, and drop a full restore on him. Unfortunately, that was as far as he could get. Two grunts grabbed him from either side, tying him up. He wriggled and tried to struggle away, And tried to shout for his Pangoro to attack.

As the smoke began to clear, the grunts began to drag their prisoner off, Cam turned his head to see his Pangoro, surrounded by the Rocket's Pokemon. It had been able to put a clear dent in the armor of the Tyranitar, and had swept the Houndoom off its feet, but the poison types had ganged up on it. The remaining grunts tied down the poisoned Pangoro as the trainer was dragged away.

The grunts sat the boy on a tree stump some distance from where their battle had taken place.

“There this should be a nice comfy spot for you,” one said.

The trainer stayed silent, trying to struggle out of the ropes.

“Well, aren't you quite the fighter? I was hoping I'd get a nice scream outta this one,” the other grunt said. “Ah well, you'll be screaming eventually.” He pulls out some honey, and poured it on his prisoner. “One of the nice thing about these remote operations: You can always count on the local carnivores to hide the bodies for you.” With that the grunts left, chuckling to themselves.

As Cam tried to free himself, he felt the stump beneath him shake, causing some small bug Pokemon to fall out.

Then, the boy heard a frightened, childlike voice in his mind. “You're not like those other humans, are you?"

Cam blinked. “W-wait, who said that?” He looked at the bug Pokemon, eyes wide, wondering if they were speaking to him.

“My friends can help get you out if you promise to help me stop those other humans,” The voice said.

“I promise, I'll do whatever I can to stop them.” Cameron nodded.

“Thank you! Lord Celebi will be grateful!”

The bug pokemon started chewing at the ropes, as several ivy vines reach out of the stump and around the boy’s arms and legs. The boy was creeped out by the vines, but kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to make his rescuer mad at him.

The vines glowed slightly, and the boy felt a chilling energy pulse through them. His skin started to become firmer, his forearms and legs turning brown and rough. His pinky and ring finger on each hand shrank away to nothing, while his remaining digits grew into large, brown, wooden claws. Cam gasped in shock, momentarily frightening some of the bugs away.

“Eep! I'm sorry. Come back friends!” The voice said to the bugs, prompting them to come back, and resume chewing. “I'm sorry to you too... I wasn't thinking, and I laid the forest's curse on you...”

“F-forest's curse?” The boy stammered , as his skin turned pitch black around your elbows and shoulders, while a thick ring of leaves formed around each of his wrists.

“It turns humans into grass type pokemon...” The voice said, as the boy’s torso began to barrel out.

“I-is there any way to reverse it?!” The boy said in a panic.

“Well, there would be if the other humans hadn't poisoned my parents and the other guardians.” The voice said as the bugs finished gnawing through the ropes, allowing cam to stand up.

“So…I-I'm gonna be like this forever?” The boy sighed.

“Well... I heard humans have medicine for that kind of poison…” the voice said as the stump rattled again. “If you had some, you might be able to cure them, and they could cure you.”

“Alright…how am I gonna talk to anyone like this, though?” The boy asked, his body slowly being covered in bark.

“I don't know... Could you please get off me now that you're untied, though?”

“Sorry!” The boy blushed and quickly got up, having never suspected that the origin of the voice he was speaking to was the stump itself.

The stump shook again and rose up, opening its two red eyes. “Thank you.” The Phantump said.

Cam feel an odd sensation in his hips, as his legs became thinner and shorter, bending into spiderlike roots, all the way down to his feet. Before he could fall over from lack of support, four more roots grew alongside them. His face felt itchy as it was covered in rough bark, and his hair shifted into thick leaves. He felt his skull stretch, upward, and his nose shrink back. Finally, he closed his eyes as the strangest change occurred. He felt them push closer together, the bone between them vanishing before letting them touch. When he opened them, he had just one, large, red eye. The former human blinked, looking around to try and get used to the new field of vision.

“Oh! You're a trevenant!” The phantump exclaimed, looking over the newly-made Pokemon. “This is really good! My parents were poisoned by those humans because they had the element of surprise! Now you can surprise the humans!”

Cam looked over his new body in shock for a moment without responding. The boy gradually started to feel more familiar with his body... And as he did, he also started to feel more outraged at what the Rocket Grunts were doing to the forest. He let out a growl “And I'm gonna use that to my advantage…I'm NOT letting them get away with this!”

“I... Guess that curse changes your mind a bit too,” the Phantump said, noticing Cam’s change in demeanor. “But anyway! Let's get 'em!”

They make your way back to the campsite near the shrine, just out of sight of the Rocket grunts. It seemed that thanks to the safety feature on Pokeballs preventing the capture of another trainer’s Pokemon, the grunts had to resort to locking Cam’s pangoro in a cage.

As the two grass Pokemon drew nearer, the pangoro's twig twitched in its mouth, and it looks in their direction. “Cam? Are you there? Why do you smell like honey?”

“Well, it's me, but I'm a bit…different…are you okay, though?” Cam said.

The Pangoro looked a little confused that its trainer’s scent was coming from a Trevenant, but before she could respond, one of the grunts tossed a rock at her.

“Just shut up ya stupid bear!” Cam and the Phantump stood perfectly still while the grunt’s attention was turned in their direction, appearing to be nothing but more mundane trees. Internally, Cam seethed at the grunt’s abuse of his Pokemon, but chose to stay hidden for now.

“You really think this plan’ll work, Mitch?” Another grunt asked, “I mean, if cutting a few trees and killing a few Pokemon was all it took to get Celebi angry enough to show up, wouldn’t more people have seen it?”

“Maybe,” another grunt, presumably ‘Mitch,’ responded. “They said desecrating its shrine also helps, and most of the shrines to Celebi in other regions are better guarded than this one, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t get angry at normal logging. Either way, with all the rival teams nearly getting their hands on legendary Pokemon, the boss knows we need to keep up in the arms race.”

“I feel like the boss just put us on a snipe hunt,” the previous grunt said, putting down his lunch, and walking toward the shrine. “That said, it’s not every day we get to just wreck whatever we feel like! Might as well make the most of it!”

Acting on instinct, Cam stuck his roots into the ground, suddenly feeling a connection to the plants of the forest as he did. It was like every nearby bit of foliage was an extension of himself. Several roots from nearby trees forced themselves out of the ground, wrapping around the grunts, while another tree bent its branch down to pick the lock on the cage.

“Yech! What's going on!” Two of the grunts struggled to move as the roots immobilized them from the waist down. Meanwhile, as the third looked over to his co-worker's plights in shock, the Pangoro had opened the door to her now-unlocked cage, and tapped him on the shoulder. As the grunt turned around, he met the Pangoro's fist, and collapsed to the forest floor, where he was quickly pinned down by the sudden growth of ivy.

“Thanks,” The bear Pokemon said without looking back at its trainer.

Cam would have smiled if he still had a mouth. “Well, I couldn't let those grunts just keep hurting my friend, could I?”

The admin stepped out of his tent. “What's all the racket about?” He shouted, before seeing what had become of his grunts. “Wait! I thought we had neutralized all of Celebi's guardians!” He panicked, calling out his Weezing and Vileplume again. “Show yourself!”

Cam’s eye glowed and he held out a claw, moving more stray roots to snare the admin as well. The Vileplume sensed what was going on, and ingrained itself, releasing toxins into the ground around his trainer, hindering the growth of the roots.

“Weezing! Get ready to smoke them out on my signal!” The admin shouted, fumbling around for his gas mask. As the Weezing started building up toxic gas, the Phantump concentrated, creating a little floating Will-o-Wisp in front of the poison type, which floated around it erratically. The Weezing tried to move out of the way of the flame, but with its body expanding from the gases building up within, it was soon burned. The weezing made a pained gasping noise, accidentally releasing its toxic fumes in its trainer's face.

Cam chuckled to himself, wrapping more roots around the admin, while his Pangoro distracted the Vileplume. “That oughta keep him unconscious till the authorities get here.”

The Phantump smiled. “You know... since you're a Trevenant, you can cast the Forest's curse too... I bet it won't be as kind to them as it was to you.”

Cam looked at the grunt hesitantly, then looked to the Phantump. “What do you think it would do to him?”

“My parents told me that the greater the enemy of the forest they were, the more their old life would be erased from them, and the weaker the grass Pokemon they would become. Since you wanted to help, your mind didn't really change at all except for wanting to help more. They'd probably only remember being human and harming the forest.”

“Alright, then,” Cam said.

The vines wrapped around the grunts, glowing as they felt a chilling energy fill them. One of them became shouter, rounder and stouter, his arms vanishing into his hard, brown body. A little gray cap with a stem formed atop his head, and his legs and feet shrank into little stubs, turning him into a Seedot.

The next grunt was completely wrapped in vines as he shrank, everything but his eyes and now-red feet getting buried in them. The vines then broke out of the ground, and the former grunt feel backwards in the body of a Tangela.

The third grunt was squeezed by the vines into an incredibly thin, root-like form, his arms becoming leaves, as his face turned yellow and stretched into a bell like flower.

As the tree roots loosened their grip on the leader, a confused Oddish stepped out in his place. “What? What have you done to us!”

Cam looked down at them, his eye glowing. “All of you are being punished for your crimes. You'll all be living here in the forest now, amongst the Pokemon your actions were harming.”

The leader's Vileplume ran up to the Trevenant. “Is there a way I can help them? They may have hurt people and Pokemon, but they are still my friends.”

Cam looked down at the Vileplume. “Help them find their way in life here. If the time comes when you truly believe that they have turned over a new leaf, tell the Trevenant here, and they may turn your trainers back to normal.”

The Vileplume nodded, and guided the ex-rockets, and their Pokemon, deeper into the forest.

“That reminds me, did you bring any antidotes with you when you came to the forest?” The Phantump asked.

Cam nodded, rummaging in through his pack that had been dropped, and pulled some out.

“Great!”

Cam, walked up to the shrine, administering the antidote to the two Trevenant that had fainted at the side of the shrine. They seem to be breathing easier, but were still unconscious. Cam heard a sudden noise from the shrine, and turned to see... Celebi?

“They'll be fine in a little bit. It takes a bit longer to recover when the poison sets in that deep,” The mythical Pokemon said.

“C-Celebi!” Cam gasped, then quickly tried to compose himself. “U-umm…alright. I-I…hope they feel better soon.”

“They will,” Celebi said with a smile. “Thanks for your help, by the way. If those grunts had done any more damage, I might have had to try to stop them myself. Given I haven't fully regenerated, that might have ended badly. So, I take it you would like me to lift the curse now?”

Cam nodded. “I was glad to help. And…well, I always liked Trevenant, even if I hadn’t been able to catch one, so actually being one has been cool. But I would like to have my old body back. If you ever need me again, though, I'll be happy to help.”

“I don't see why not.” Cam felt a warm energy flow through him, as his extra legs shrank away and the bark became human skin again. “There we go, good as new.”

His Pangoro patted him on the head. “It's good to have you back, Cam.”

Cam hugged her back, smiling. His eyes widened as he suddenly realized... “Wait! I can still understand you!”

Celebi giggled. “Consider that a little thanks for helping me out. And this...” She handed him a small branch that had been part of his ‘horns.’ “Just touch that to your head, and you'll be a Trevenant again until the next sunrise.”

Cam smiled, and put it in his pack. “Thanks so much for both of those, Celebi!” He laughed and turned to his Pangoro. “I can't believe I can understand you now! I've got so much to talk about with you and the others!”

The two Trevenant, meanwhile, came to their senses, and stood up. They gave a short bow as thanks, before hugging their little phantump.

“Thank you again!” The young ghost Pokemon said.

The trainer hugged the Phantump, smiling. “No problem, little guy.”

The Pokemon of the forest waved goodbye to Cam, who returned the gesture before bringing out his Pokemon, to speak with them as you walk back to town.

The End

Description
(Content warning: Pokemon transformation)

It was a warm and sunny day in the Kalos region. A pokemon trainer by the name of Cam was enjoying a walk through the old stone relics on Route 10. As noon hit, however, he noticed something odd. At the eastern side of the road, a large number of the stones had been cleared out, revealing a path into the woods he hadn’t seen before. He knew this area was a wildlife preserve, so catching new Pokemon there would be out of the question, but, he figured, it wouldn’t hurt to take in the scenery.

As he headed down the path, the forest seemed unusually quiet. The only Pokemon he saw were a handful of bugs, and an Emolga that hid in the hollow of a tree when it saw him. As he walked further in, he soon saw several unmanned logging machines.

“Something’s wrong here.” Cam muttered.

As he followed the machine’s tracks to their source, he saw a group of four men sitting in a circle, eating lunch at an improvised campsite. Several cages and machines were lying around the forest floor, and just beyond them, Cam could see an old shrine that looked similar to the ones he had seen in photos from Johto. At either side of the shine was an unconscious Trevenant.

Cam walked up to the men, frowning. “Were you the ones using those logging machines? You know this forest is part of a nature preserve, right?”

One of them turned around, revealing a prominent red "R" on the front of his black shirt: “You wanna make something of it, kid?”

Cam gasped, then growled, pulling out and preparing a Pokeball. “Why yes, I believe I do.”

The rest of the group turned around. “Looks like we'll just have to make you "disappear" then!” One of them said, throwing out a Houndoom, as others two out a Murkrow and an Arbok.

Cam grabbed his Pokeballs, releasing a Nidoqueen. Going for the advantage in numbers, he released the rest of his Pokemon, letting loose an Umbreon, Banette, Infernape, Eelektross, and Pangoro.

“I'm not gonna let you guys get away with this!”

“So you want to play the numbers game, eh, kid?” A more elaborately dressed member stood up, (probably an admin, if Cam had to guess,) releasing a Tyranitar, Weezing, and Vileplume. The Grunts immediately scrambled for their equipment as they barked orders to their pokemon. They fumbled to put on gas masks as the apparent leader shouted his own orders.

“Formation six-two!”

The Weezing belched out a cloud of thick smoke, and the Tyranitar following with a sandstorm. Cam’s vision was obscured, but he could hear some of his pokemon making yawning noises and falling over, presumably from sleep powder. He quickly pulled some full restores out of his pack to wake them up before going on the attack.

The Houndoom let out a roar, and Cam heard many of his pokemon being forced back into their in fright. He managed to find his sleeping Pangoro, and drop a full restore on him. Unfortunately, that was as far as he could get. Two grunts grabbed him from either side, tying him up. He wriggled and tried to struggle away, And tried to shout for his Pangoro to attack.

As the smoke began to clear, the grunts began to drag their prisoner off, Cam turned his head to see his Pangoro, surrounded by the Rocket's Pokemon. It had been able to put a clear dent in the armor of the Tyranitar, and had swept the Houndoom off its feet, but the poison types had ganged up on it. The remaining grunts tied down the poisoned Pangoro as the trainer was dragged away.

The grunts sat the boy on a tree stump some distance from where their battle had taken place.

“There this should be a nice comfy spot for you,” one said.

The trainer stayed silent, trying to struggle out of the ropes.

“Well, aren't you quite the fighter? I was hoping I'd get a nice scream outta this one,” the other grunt said. “Ah well, you'll be screaming eventually.” He pulls out some honey, and poured it on his prisoner. “One of the nice thing about these remote operations: You can always count on the local carnivores to hide the bodies for you.” With that the grunts left, chuckling to themselves.

As Cam tried to free himself, he felt the stump beneath him shake, causing some small bug Pokemon to fall out.

Then, the boy heard a frightened, childlike voice in his mind. “You're not like those other humans, are you?"

Cam blinked. “W-wait, who said that?” He looked at the bug Pokemon, eyes wide, wondering if they were speaking to him.

“My friends can help get you out if you promise to help me stop those other humans,” The voice said.

“I promise, I'll do whatever I can to stop them.” Cameron nodded.

“Thank you! Lord Celebi will be grateful!”

The bug pokemon started chewing at the ropes, as several ivy vines reach out of the stump and around the boy’s arms and legs. The boy was creeped out by the vines, but kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to make his rescuer mad at him.

The vines glowed slightly, and the boy felt a chilling energy pulse through them. His skin started to become firmer, his forearms and legs turning brown and rough. His pinky and ring finger on each hand shrank away to nothing, while his remaining digits grew into large, brown, wooden claws. Cam gasped in shock, momentarily frightening some of the bugs away.

“Eep! I'm sorry. Come back friends!” The voice said to the bugs, prompting them to come back, and resume chewing. “I'm sorry to you too... I wasn't thinking, and I laid the forest's curse on you...”

“F-forest's curse?” The boy stammered , as his skin turned pitch black around your elbows and shoulders, while a thick ring of leaves formed around each of his wrists.

“It turns humans into grass type pokemon...” The voice said, as the boy’s torso began to barrel out.

“I-is there any way to reverse it?!” The boy said in a panic.

“Well, there would be if the other humans hadn't poisoned my parents and the other guardians.” The voice said as the bugs finished gnawing through the ropes, allowing cam to stand up.

“So…I-I'm gonna be like this forever?” The boy sighed.

“Well... I heard humans have medicine for that kind of poison…” the voice said as the stump rattled again. “If you had some, you might be able to cure them, and they could cure you.”

“Alright…how am I gonna talk to anyone like this, though?” The boy asked, his body slowly being covered in bark.

“I don't know... Could you please get off me now that you're untied, though?”

“Sorry!” The boy blushed and quickly got up, having never suspected that the origin of the voice he was speaking to was the stump itself.

The stump shook again and rose up, opening its two red eyes. “Thank you.” The Phantump said.

Cam feel an odd sensation in his hips, as his legs became thinner and shorter, bending into spiderlike roots, all the way down to his feet. Before he could fall over from lack of support, four more roots grew alongside them. His face felt itchy as it was covered in rough bark, and his hair shifted into thick leaves. He felt his skull stretch, upward, and his nose shrink back. Finally, he closed his eyes as the strangest change occurred. He felt them push closer together, the bone between them vanishing before letting them touch. When he opened them, he had just one, large, red eye. The former human blinked, looking around to try and get used to the new field of vision.

“Oh! You're a trevenant!” The phantump exclaimed, looking over the newly-made Pokemon. “This is really good! My parents were poisoned by those humans because they had the element of surprise! Now you can surprise the humans!”

Cam looked over his new body in shock for a moment without responding. The boy gradually started to feel more familiar with his body... And as he did, he also started to feel more outraged at what the Rocket Grunts were doing to the forest. He let out a growl “And I'm gonna use that to my advantage…I'm NOT letting them get away with this!”

“I... Guess that curse changes your mind a bit too,” the Phantump said, noticing Cam’s change in demeanor. “But anyway! Let's get 'em!”

They make your way back to the campsite near the shrine, just out of sight of the Rocket grunts. It seemed that thanks to the safety feature on Pokeballs preventing the capture of another trainer’s Pokemon, the grunts had to resort to locking Cam’s pangoro in a cage.

As the two grass Pokemon drew nearer, the pangoro's twig twitched in its mouth, and it looks in their direction. “Cam? Are you there? Why do you smell like honey?”

“Well, it's me, but I'm a bit…different…are you okay, though?” Cam said.

The Pangoro looked a little confused that its trainer’s scent was coming from a Trevenant, but before she could respond, one of the grunts tossed a rock at her.

“Just shut up ya stupid bear!” Cam and the Phantump stood perfectly still while the grunt’s attention was turned in their direction, appearing to be nothing but more mundane trees. Internally, Cam seethed at the grunt’s abuse of his Pokemon, but chose to stay hidden for now.

“You really think this plan’ll work, Mitch?” Another grunt asked, “I mean, if cutting a few trees and killing a few Pokemon was all it took to get Celebi angry enough to show up, wouldn’t more people have seen it?”

“Maybe,” another grunt, presumably ‘Mitch,’ responded. “They said desecrating its shrine also helps, and most of the shrines to Celebi in other regions are better guarded than this one, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t get angry at normal logging. Either way, with all the rival teams nearly getting their hands on legendary Pokemon, the boss knows we need to keep up in the arms race.”

“I feel like the boss just put us on a snipe hunt,” the previous grunt said, putting down his lunch, and walking toward the shrine. “That said, it’s not every day we get to just wreck whatever we feel like! Might as well make the most of it!”

Acting on instinct, Cam stuck his roots into the ground, suddenly feeling a connection to the plants of the forest as he did. It was like every nearby bit of foliage was an extension of himself. Several roots from nearby trees forced themselves out of the ground, wrapping around the grunts, while another tree bent its branch down to pick the lock on the cage.

“Yech! What's going on!” Two of the grunts struggled to move as the roots immobilized them from the waist down. Meanwhile, as the third looked over to his co-worker's plights in shock, the Pangoro had opened the door to her now-unlocked cage, and tapped him on the shoulder. As the grunt turned around, he met the Pangoro's fist, and collapsed to the forest floor, where he was quickly pinned down by the sudden growth of ivy.

“Thanks,” The bear Pokemon said without looking back at its trainer.

Cam would have smiled if he still had a mouth. “Well, I couldn't let those grunts just keep hurting my friend, could I?”

The admin stepped out of his tent. “What's all the racket about?” He shouted, before seeing what had become of his grunts. “Wait! I thought we had neutralized all of Celebi's guardians!” He panicked, calling out his Weezing and Vileplume again. “Show yourself!”

Cam’s eye glowed and he held out a claw, moving more stray roots to snare the admin as well. The Vileplume sensed what was going on, and ingrained itself, releasing toxins into the ground around his trainer, hindering the growth of the roots.

“Weezing! Get ready to smoke them out on my signal!” The admin shouted, fumbling around for his gas mask. As the Weezing started building up toxic gas, the Phantump concentrated, creating a little floating Will-o-Wisp in front of the poison type, which floated around it erratically. The Weezing tried to move out of the way of the flame, but with its body expanding from the gases building up within, it was soon burned. The weezing made a pained gasping noise, accidentally releasing its toxic fumes in its trainer's face.

Cam chuckled to himself, wrapping more roots around the admin, while his Pangoro distracted the Vileplume. “That oughta keep him unconscious till the authorities get here.”

The Phantump smiled. “You know... since you're a Trevenant, you can cast the Forest's curse too... I bet it won't be as kind to them as it was to you.”

Cam looked at the grunt hesitantly, then looked to the Phantump. “What do you think it would do to him?”

“My parents told me that the greater the enemy of the forest they were, the more their old life would be erased from them, and the weaker the grass Pokemon they would become. Since you wanted to help, your mind didn't really change at all except for wanting to help more. They'd probably only remember being human and harming the forest.”

“Alright, then,” Cam said.

The vines wrapped around the grunts, glowing as they felt a chilling energy fill them. One of them became shouter, rounder and stouter, his arms vanishing into his hard, brown body. A little gray cap with a stem formed atop his head, and his legs and feet shrank into little stubs, turning him into a Seedot.

The next grunt was completely wrapped in vines as he shrank, everything but his eyes and now-red feet getting buried in them. The vines then broke out of the ground, and the former grunt feel backwards in the body of a Tangela.

The third grunt was squeezed by the vines into an incredibly thin, root-like form, his arms becoming leaves, as his face turned yellow and stretched into a bell like flower.

As the tree roots loosened their grip on the leader, a confused Oddish stepped out in his place. “What? What have you done to us!”

Cam looked down at them, his eye glowing. “All of you are being punished for your crimes. You'll all be living here in the forest now, amongst the Pokemon your actions were harming.”

The leader's Vileplume ran up to the Trevenant. “Is there a way I can help them? They may have hurt people and Pokemon, but they are still my friends.”

Cam looked down at the Vileplume. “Help them find their way in life here. If the time comes when you truly believe that they have turned over a new leaf, tell the Trevenant here, and they may turn your trainers back to normal.”

The Vileplume nodded, and guided the ex-rockets, and their Pokemon, deeper into the forest.

“That reminds me, did you bring any antidotes with you when you came to the forest?” The Phantump asked.

Cam nodded, rummaging in through his pack that had been dropped, and pulled some out.

“Great!”

Cam, walked up to the shrine, administering the antidote to the two Trevenant that had fainted at the side of the shrine. They seem to be breathing easier, but were still unconscious. Cam heard a sudden noise from the shrine, and turned to see... Celebi?

“They'll be fine in a little bit. It takes a bit longer to recover when the poison sets in that deep,” The mythical Pokemon said.

“C-Celebi!” Cam gasped, then quickly tried to compose himself. “U-umm…alright. I-I…hope they feel better soon.”

“They will,” Celebi said with a smile. “Thanks for your help, by the way. If those grunts had done any more damage, I might have had to try to stop them myself. Given I haven't fully regenerated, that might have ended badly. So, I take it you would like me to lift the curse now?”

Cam nodded. “I was glad to help. And…well, I always liked Trevenant, even if I hadn’t been able to catch one, so actually being one has been cool. But I would like to have my old body back. If you ever need me again, though, I'll be happy to help.”

“I don't see why not.” Cam felt a warm energy flow through him, as his extra legs shrank away and the bark became human skin again. “There we go, good as new.”

His Pangoro patted him on the head. “It's good to have you back, Cam.”

Cam hugged her back, smiling. His eyes widened as he suddenly realized... “Wait! I can still understand you!”

Celebi giggled. “Consider that a little thanks for helping me out. And this...” She handed him a small branch that had been part of his ‘horns.’ “Just touch that to your head, and you'll be a Trevenant again until the next sunrise.”

Cam smiled, and put it in his pack. “Thanks so much for both of those, Celebi!” He laughed and turned to his Pangoro. “I can't believe I can understand you now! I've got so much to talk about with you and the others!”

The two Trevenant, meanwhile, came to their senses, and stood up. They gave a short bow as thanks, before hugging their little phantump.

“Thank you again!” The young ghost Pokemon said.

The trainer hugged the Phantump, smiling. “No problem, little guy.”

The Pokemon of the forest waved goodbye to Cam, who returned the gesture before bringing out his Pokemon, to speak with them as you walk back to town.

The End