"So you've been keeping tabs on us all these years?"
This question came from Ursula as she and Bjorn stood with Gregg watching Espeon and Vulpix basking in the spring afternoon with Natasha's Persian.
Gregg nodded. "I have indeed, Ursula," he replied, placing his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "In fact, I was the one who sent you some new Pokemon last year . . ."
"Vulpix and Phanpy!" finished Bjorn, realising with a start just how much time had gone by since he and Ursula had had their lives turned upside down. It was the end of February - the Chimera Children had been born in mid-April, which meant they would turn thirteen within the next two months. Already, Ursula showed signs of becoming an attractive young woman and, if her physical development continued to follow the pattern typical of the human female, there was no reason why she shouldn't be capable of having children of her own.
But would she ever have that chance? Or would she, as an illegal hybrid, be condemned to spend the rest of her life in hiding, cut off from potential mates? Gregg mused on these matters as he observed the girl beside him; slim and pretty, she looked no different from Natasha, but he knew she was something beyond human . . .
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Gregg chose not to voice his concerns for the Chimera Children's futures out loud. Instead, he continued the thread of conversation he had started prior to Bjorn's interuption.
"Well, anyway - I knew you two would be in for a rough time, even without the OCIB on your backs," he told them. "It's never easy to be different . . . abnormal in any way, so I sent you those Pokemon - a Vulpix and a Phanpy - in the hope they could protect you . . ."
"Protect us from what?" Bjorn asked impatiently. He and Ursula might have had five Pokemon between them, but it hadn't prevented the OCIB from driving them into hiding. So far in Pasque Village, they had been lucky - no-one seemed to have connected the earth tremors with either of them and, after so much time had passed since they ran away from Greenview, the media had all but lost interest in them. But both children knew their luck could not hold indefinitely; as long as the OCIB existed, their lives would be spent constantly watching for danger.
"Ignorance," Gregg replied grimly. "Because of . . . what you are, some people might not know whether to treat you as humans or Pokemon - ambiguity breeds fear, you see. I, of course, see you as humans who just happen to have Ursaring DNA - as will almost anyone who knows you personally. But there are those who can only see absolutes, who only WANT to see absolutes."
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Ursula sat by the window, lost in thought. In her hand, she clasped her mother's old lab ID, the small piece of rectangular plastic her only link with the parent she had never known. The passport-sized photo was blurry and indistinct, but Ursula could just make out a woman in her late twenties with straight collar-length brown hair. Below it, the words:
Suzanne J Hope (DOB 2.2.2033) Expiry date: Oct 2061
were printed alongside the logo for Professor Gregg's lab, an open Poke Ball with a DNA helix emerging from it.
This was the only picture Gregg had of Suzanne. Ursula had asked for it because she wanted to know what her mother looked like and had spent many hours since thinking wistfully about what her life might have been like.
What was it like to have a family like regular children? That was one of the many questions Ursula had often pondered. Until recently, she had known nothing other than life at Greenview, but like any child she longed for someone she could call a parent. Someone who could form that special bond that only a parent and child have . . .
Tears pricked at her eyes as she thought about what she had never had. But she blinked them back rapidly - she had always been strong and tried never to let herself cry. She was used to the idea of having no family by now, but her other difference set her apart of the whole of humanity except her brother.
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Presently, the door opened and Natasha walked in to find Ursula gazing at Suzanne's old ID card.
"Sorry - am I intruding?" she asked, sensing that Ursula probably wanted to be left alone for a while.
However, Ursula shifted in her seat and turned to look at Natasha, her hazel eyes dark with worry and fear for the future. "I - I was just thinking," she admitted in a flat voice barely louder than a whisper.
"Thinking? What about?" Natasha, concerned by the tone in her friend's voice, moved to join her, to offer reassurance she did not feel herself.
"Why Bjorn and I couldn't just be regular kids. If we weren't a couple of . . . FREAKS . . ." she practically spat the word out . . . "we wouldn't have the OCIB after us, for one thing . . ."
"Ursula," Natasha said firmly, "you're not a freak - neither is Bjorn. It's just narrow-minded fools who think like that."
Narrow-minded fools, Ursula thought bitterly. But it was narrow-minded fools who had decided that she and Bjorn had no right to be alive. She still didn't fully understand the reasoning behind the laws banning the creation of Pokemon hybrids, only that they stemmed from a desire never to repeat the mistakes of the Mewtwo project. But why should two children be made to pay for something which had happened many years ago?
Finally, Natasha decided it would be more tactful to change the subject. "Look - how about having a battle?" she challenged. "My Persian against one of your Pokemon."
"You're on!" Ursula replied, regaining her old spark at the thought of a Pokemon battle. "And I'll use Espeon!"
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Richard Gregg sat in his study, making the amendments to his report on the Chimera Children made necessary by Bjorn and Ursula's return. His computer screen showed pictures of them taken when they were less than a year old, when they still displayed their distinctive crescent-shaped birthmarks. Since these would have betrayed what they were instantly, the children had never been taken out in public as infants; the journey to Greenview had been undertaken with them in a double stroller with a blacked-out raincover.
Thanks to his close involvement in the Chimera Children's welfare, Gregg knew the marks had faded by the time both were three years old. But nothing could alter the fact that they were illegal hybrids who must be shielded from those who might harm such beings at all costs. Although, he mused, it was probably the lack of any overt clues regarding their Ursaring heritage that had made the OCIB so uptight over Bjorn and Ursula in the first place. As long as they kept quiet and didn't use their powers openly, they could easily pass as ordinary children, something which they had done for twelve years.
Through an open window, Gregg could hear Ursula and Natasha having their battle and smiled as he thought of how skilled both Chimera Children had proved as Pokemon trainers. Bjorn and his Dewgong had really given him a run for his money earlier - his genetically altered Magikarp had only won thanks to some brilliant strategising on Gregg's part. If their circumstances had been different and they weren't wanted by the OCIB, he might have recommended that they try to become Pokemon Masters.
"Too bad their talent's going to waste," he said out loud. "But, with the OCIB around, it's just too risky . . ."
He sighed and forced himself to make a start on amending the Chimera Children's files.
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Life was a little easier for the Chimera Children now that they were no longer confined to the private part of Goldenrod Gym. Living on Gregg's estate with its vast open spaces, they enjoyed a degree of freedom they had not had since the day the OCIB first got wind of them. They explored extensively, but were under strict instructions not to venture off Gregg's land - if someone from Pasque Village happened to see and recognise them, there was no telling what they would do. Trust no-one had become the order of the day.
But the threat of capture was enough of a deterent and Bjorn and Ursula stayed within bounds. They were accustomed by now to hiding, to having to keep a constant eye out for their would be captors, but it was hard not to long for the days when they were just a normal brother and sister and the OCIB was just an organisation they had vaguely heard of on the news.
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"Bjorn?"
Ursula was seated in the tyre-swing Gregg had hung from a tree, pondering the impact of recent events. Bjorn, who was in the middle of teaching his Yanma how to use Giga Drain, looked up.
"What's up, Sula?" he asked. "You've been . . . well, quiet since we found out who our mom was."
Ursula sighed. "I guess it's because we'll never get to meet her," she said at last, climbing down from the swing and going to join her brother. "But I was also wondering what it's all for. Why did Gregg create us if not to be used as - as lab specimens?"
Spontaneously, Bjorn's mind flashed back to the day he had asked Mrs Mather much the same question. They had been told at the time that being human/Ursaring hybrids didn't matter and that they had as much right to life as any living organism. But maybe, as Gregg had hinted, it was because they did not fit exactly into the categories of either Pokemon or human that the OCIB had elected to go after them. Most of the time, they just seized any Pokemon created from illegal experiments and gave the scientists involved a warning, but this time it looked as though they meant business.
As Bjorn and Ursula looked desperately into each other's eyes, they knew the answer to their purpose in life was out there - somewhere.
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Gregg was putting the final touches to his update of Ursula's file. As he typed, he thought of the female Chimera and how like her mother she looked - there had been few who would not call Suzanne moderately attractive, if not stunning, and it seemed her daughter would turn out much the same.
At the time of writing (March 2072), Ursula is twelve years and eleven months old. Physical development in human terms appears normal - note signs of breast growth - although it is too early yet to . . .
Just as Gregg's fingers moved over the keyboard to begin typing the next word, there was a loud impatient banging on the door.
"Richard Gregg! This is the OCIB! We have a warrant to search the premises for two illegal hybrids!"