Ursula's watch had stopped, most likely due to the soaking it had received and she had no way of knowing what time it was or how long they had been floating aimlessly.
She glanced over to Bjorn, who was draped across Dewgong's back his hand resting on the Pokemon's horn, and was shocked by how ashen, how deathly pale his face was. "Please," she prayed, gazing into the sky. "Please let him be alive . . ."
Gregg was also hoping against hope that Bjorn would remain alive until help arrived or Dewgong and Mantine managed to get everyone to land. Brushing his finger against the boy's cheek he whispered instructions not to give up the struggle, to keep fighting no matter how overwhelming the odds currently seemed.
"Listen, Bjorn," he said in a firm voice. "You haven't come this far to fall at the last hurdle - so don't even think about dying on me. Live, my boy - live!"
Matthew and Natasha could only watch helplessly as their friend clung to life. Moments after the desperate plunge into the sea, Matthew had found a dose of Antidote in his pockets and suggested they try to use it on Bjorn. But Gregg had dismissed the idea since Bjorn was too far gone for it to really be effective - besides which, he wasn't sure if Pokemon Potions would work on hybrids.
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The sound of a motorboat made everyone look round as a young woman, probably no more than twenty years old, steered the craft in closer. Dressed in jeans and a pink crop-top, she looked at the four figures in the water and a fifth (unconscious) one draped across a Dewgong's back . . .
"Do you need help?" she called to them.
"Well, we could use a hand now you mention it," Gregg replied. "There's a young boy here who's in urgent need of medical attention!"
"Hang on - I'll get you on board!"
As the young woman steered her motorboat towards the nearest island - which just happened to be Amethyst Island - she asked to hear the story of how five people came to be in the middle of the ocean.
"It's a long story . . ." Gregg began. Nonetheless, he, Ursula, Natasha and Matthew began to give a detailed account of the last few months. No details were left out and, as Natasha finished speaking, the young woman nodded her approval.
"if what you say is true and Bjorn and Ursula are Ursaring hybrids, it's as well you got them away from Johto," she said, clearly sickened by the cruelty both children had suffered recently. "By the way," she added, as she realised she hadn't introduced herself, "my name's Lenore and I'm a Water Pokemon trainer . . ."
She had three Poke Balls attached to her waistband and, at Matthew's request, she handed Natasha the tiller and opened them to reveal her team of Pokemon. Lenore had a Quagsire, a Wartortle and an Octillery, a line-up which impressed Ursula no end.
"Your Pokemon look very strong," she commented.
"They should be," Lenore replied. "I've been training for the last eight or nine years and . . ." She broked off as an island loomed on the horizon.
"Amethyst Island," she said proudly.
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As its names suggests, Amethyst Island was in many ways a jewel in the Southern Sea. Buildings lined the sea-front - hotels with names like Starmie Princess and Corsola Bay jostled for trade among a myriad of souvenier shops - and a colony of tame Lapras frolicked and played in the shallows to the evident delight of a crowd of onlookers standing on a jetty.
However, there was no time to enjoy the sites as Bjorn needed help desperately; without medical attention within moments, he would soon be beyond saving.
"Is there a hospital anywhere near here?" Natasha asked as she and the others hurried down the Main Street. Every second was precious and any that were lost meant Bjorn's grip on life slipped further away - but it wasn't completely hopeless, not while he still showed signs that he was still alive. And those signs, Gregg was all too aware, were steadily declining . . .
"There's one at the top of Summersea Road, " Lenore said, pointing slightly inland from the coast. "We should get there in five to ten minutes if we hurry . . ."
Ursula glanced at her unconscious brother, praying desperately that all would be well in the end. "Let's just hope he can hang on," she murmured.
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Before long, Bjorn was in intensive care undergoing treatment with antitoxins in a bid to counter the poison Hope had injected into him. As Gregg suspected, the poison was a synthetic substance designed to put its victim into a coma and cause a slow decline in his or her metabolism, ultimately leading to death. Fortunately, it could easily be countered by feeding antitoxins via an intravenous line, but the treatment had to be given wthin six hours of exposure to really be effective.
"We've managed to get him stabilised," a doctor told Gregg as he sat in the viewing chamber with Matthew, Lenore and Natasha - Ursula was in the room with Bjorn, clasping his hand in hers. "It's a good thing you got him here when you did - another couple of hours and . . . Are you his father?"
"No," Gregg replied, shaking his head. Then, remembering he no longer had to be secretive about it in a place beyond the OCIB's jurisdiction, he began to tell the whole story. "Bjorn and Ursula are nor like other children. Nearly fourteen years ago, I started a project to create human/Pokemon hybrids - and those kids are the results of my work . . ."
"Hmm," the doctor said as he digected this news. "Pokemon hybrids, eh? That probably explains the . . . things we found during our scan."
"What sort of things?" asked Lenore.
"To start with, there was a gland just here . . ." The doctor pointed to the nape of his neck. " . . . that simply doesn't occur in humans. My guess, based on what you've told me, is that it's a Evo-gland . . ."
Gregg listened intently; he had planned to give Bjorn and Ursula a full physical examination, but their run in with the OCIB had put paid to that idea. Even so, this revelation - that Bjorn had the gland which regulated a Pokemon's evolution - made him ponder a fresh question. Just how human were the Chimera Children?
"No!" he told himself firmly. "If I start questioning their humanity, I'll be taking the same path the OCIB took. These are not freaks or monstrosities - they're children."
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In Bjorn's room, Ursula released Vulpix from her Poke Ball and placed her on her brother's chest. Then, she took hold of his hand and rested it on Vulpix's silky fur.
"Bjorn," she whispered. "Bjorn, it's Ursula. I don't know if you can hear me, but we managed to get away. We're on Amethyst Island, that place Richard told us about . . ."
She stopped with a start as she noticed Bjorn's eyelids start to flicker. The effects of the antitoxins were finally beginning to kick in, neutralising the substance Hope had injected him with and slowly bringing him back from the brink. He was alive; like a creature waking from hibernation, he was ready to begin life anew . . .
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Bjorn's mind was a jumble of memories. The day he and Ursula first learned what they were . . . running away from Greenview . . . hiding out in Goldenrod Gym . . . meeting Gregg for the first time - all these and more crowded into his head. But there was one thing he couldn't make sense of - a young man claimed to be his brother when Ursula was his only sibling.
Ursula . . . From somewhere that had initially sounded far away but was now getting closer, he could hear Ursula's voice. He opened his eyes and, as his initially cloudy vision cleared, he saw her sitting beside him. Her clothes were unfamiliar - she was wearing navy blue trousers and a white t-shirt with a Butterfree motif, garments given to her to replace her own wet clothes - but there was no mistaking the girl he had spent nearly thirteen years near.
"Sula?" he whispered.
"Oh, Bjorn" Ursula cried, tears of happiness overflowing from her eyes. It had been so long since Bjorn called her Sula and she had feared she would never hear that name again.
"Sula," Bjorn repeated, "how did I get here? The last thing I remember is being at the OCIB's Headquarters . . ."
"You were unconscious," Gregg explained as he entered the room with Natasha, Lenore and Matthew. "That OCIB agent - Joseph Hope - he was the one who informed on you and Ursula. Because he blamed you for his mother's death and wanted to destroy you . . ."
"Joseph Hope?" Bjorn pondered to himself. "Was he Suzanne Hope's son?"
Natasha nodded. "He told us everything before I shot him." Then, seeing the shocked look on Bjorn's face, she carrying on speaking. "I - I had no choice, Bjorn," she said desperately. "It was us or him - and you would be dead by now if we hadn't gotten you away . . ."
"Gotten me away? Are we still in Johto?"
Gregg shook his head. "There was nowhere there or in Kanto that the OCIB would leave you alone," he explained. "So we got you away by helicopter - we're on Amethyst Island now."
"And, just to make sure, Uncle Richard faked our deaths," added Natasha.
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A month passed, during which Bjorn slowly recovered from the effects of the poison - although doctors warned it could take far longer before they knew for sure that he would not suffer a relapse. It was also during this time that they turned thirteen, an occasion mark by a small tea party in Bjorn's room - and by the news they had waited all their lives to hear.
Richard Gregg was going to make an application to legally adopt them. Having created them in the first place and, years later, been the one who ensured their survival, he felt the least he could do was give them the home life they had lacked for so long. As a bachelor with no adult female role model to offer them, he knew it wouldn't be easy, but he was determined to try no matter what.
"The authorities here haven't dealt with a case like this before," he explained. "So it'll set a few legal precedents. But Bjorn and Ursula having no living relations except each other - I looked up Suzanne Hope's family records online and it said "parents deceased, no siblings" . . . Anyway, the hearing's in November and then we'll know one way or the other."
Ursula sat stroking her Espeon, so pre-occupied that she didn't notice Lenore approach her.
"Hey!" Lenore said, tapping Ursula on the shoulder. "I thought it was your birthday!"
"Sorry - I was just thinking about Joseph - if things had been different, he might have accepted Bjorn and I instead on trying to kill us . . ."
"No-one truly knows why our lives take the paths they do," Lenore explained. "Joseph's path took him in a direction which drove him to revenge; your path - and Bjorn's as well - just happened to cross his . . ."
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November 2072 saw Richard Gregg and the Chimera Children leaving Amethyst Island's family court. It had been a long session, fuelled by the uniqueness of the case before them, but the three judges had finally come to what they felt to be the right decision. Gregg paused to read the papers he had been given to finalise the adoption process:
"In light of the evidence presented, the court feels it is in the best interests of Bjorn and Ursula Olsson (minors) t be placed in the custody of their guardian, Richard Arthur Gregg . . ."
He turned to the children standing nearby and smiled broadly. "Well, kids," he said, beckoning to them. "Let's go home and start the rest of our lives."
"OK . . . Dad," Ursula replied, uttering a word most children take for granted but which she had never been able to use before.
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As he drove his new son and daughter to his apartment, Gregg thought of the events leading up to this moment. A few months ago, they had been prisoners of the OCIB, but they were now free - as far as the OCIB were concerned, they were dead - and about to start a new life. He knew the risks of what could happen if the OCIB found out they were alive, but he was prepared for it this time and would fight to protect them no matter what. All that remained was to persuade the governments of Kanto and Johto to grant hybrids full legal rights . . .
"It won't be easy," he mused. "But we can do it - all of us. We must make sure what happened to these children can't happen to anyone else."