I

"Doctor, it worked! It finally worked!" screamed Katrina. "We successfully cross-bred! Project Spider is a success!"
"Excellent. Which specimen is it?"
"An Espeon trans-mutation, sir."
"Lovely. Is it healthy?"
"She, sir." replied Katrina.
"What?"
"Jade's a she."
"You gave it a name?!" The doctor raised his voice and leered at Katrina. "She - it's an experiment! YOU CREATED IT! Do not get too attached to these fiends, Katrina, it will not pay..."
"Shh. She's waking up."
Through one-way glass, they watched a young woman by the name of Mary wake up.
"The birth hit her hard, doctor. She passed out before the child was born."
The woman stood up, and her blanket slid off her. Walking over to the crib in the corner, her naked body bent over it.
Stifling a scream, she stepped back in horror.
The doctor glanced up at a security monitor above them - the camera was aimed directly at the baby.
"Good God. It's a tiny monster!"
The black and white view showed a normal-looking baby, apart from the fact that it had tufts of hair protruding from its cheeks, and large, round eyes.
The little limbs ended in paws, and as the doctor watched it rolled over, revealing a long tail, which split into two at the end.

"So that's how it happened." I muttered as I flicked off the video recorder. This Espeon girl- where is she now?"
"She's living quite peacefully, the same as you. Would you like to meet her?"
"No, I know how it felt to realise that there were others. The shock of realising that you aren't special. I'll wait."
"With all due respect, she is older than you. Do you not think she can handle it?"
I ignored her, dismissing the comment as already answered. "I've always been like this, miss. The earliest memory I have is of looking in a mirror and seeing a brown furry face looking back. I remember the confusion, the feeling of misplacement. Why wasn't I like my mother? Or my father?" I supressed a small laugh. "Well, we can cast that thought aside. He isn't my real father, as you know."
"Yes, sir. A few years ago, just over seventeen years to be exact, a group of scientists started this 'Project Spider'," recounted my informant.
"In which humans and Pokémon were cross-bred, I know. You said."
"It was sick, and mindlessly twisted, and it was amazing that the government even supported such a scheme."
"If our current government had been in power then, they would have backed it all the way," I joked.
Lying back in the on the sofa, I thought to myself. Now, I had learned that I had been placed with my mother in a home made to look like a perfectly normal house - except naturally, there were no mirrors. They didn't want me seeing what I really was.
My first memory, as I said before, was seeing my form, when I was around four years old. A visitor had left her handbag behind, and I was being my usual inquisitive self. I poked around inside it, and found a powder compact. I flicked it open, and gazed at a Pokémon's face looking back. A Sneasel's face. My face.
I'm sure I must have wondered why my forearms were brown and furry, why I had claws. I was young, though, and idealistic. I suppose it was a kind of game.
I can still remember the calls of my mum from across the room.
"Kai dear, don't play with other people's things."
Then, she noticed what I was holding. She shrieked, stumbled to the floor and when she woke up, I was gone.
They say that curiosity killed the cat. Well, it saved this one.

"I managed to take another tape, it may disturb you." The mysterious woman's voice cut into my daydream.
"Put it on." I waved my hand in her direction. "It can't be that bad."
The tape slid into the machine, and as the familiar small green triangle lit up in the corner of the screen, I stretched, and then curled up.
The tape flickered into life, showing the same observatory room I had seen before. Now, however, the one-way glass had been taken out, and a large screen had replaced it. It showed the view from a camera mounted inside Jade's room.
She now looked roughly ten years old, and was dressed in blue jeans and a black tank-top. She was combing her long, silvery hair on the sofa.
Slowly, she brought her hands down from the brush. It carried on brushing.
The screen flickered, and showed the same scene, but Jade was now lying on her bed reading a book. It looked to me to be a few months later. She had grown, and her hair was longer. The camera zoomed in. The pages of the book were turning themselves.
Again, the tape jumped.
"This is just for ease," the girl informed me. "The actual tapes have reams of film between the events you are seeing now."
My only reply was a hum of acknowledgement.
The television now showed Jade lying once again on the sofa, in a pose almost exactly like the one I had seen originally. Again, she was brushing her hair.
The camera zoomed again, showing her head and upper body on the settee. This time however, when she stopped brushing, her eyes glowed red, and the bristles spread apart, permanently sticking themselves at right angles to each other.
She looked directly at the camera, and it flickered and fizzed to whiteout.
The picture zoomed out, showing the screen in its entirety and the shocked faces of Katrina and the doctor.
Cracks split the screen, and shattered glass suddenly flew everywhere, covering the staff in glittering shards and striking Katrina with incredible force.
From the mass of cables and internal wiring floated Jade, eyes aglow with raw power. She pointed at the doctor, which seemed somehow threatening.
"No... please, no..." he muttered.
Jade tossed her head to flick back a strand of hair that had drifted over her vision. "Who are you?" she asked, oblivious to the crying form of Katrina in the opposite corner.
"We are the ones that made you... Look, Jade, you are not like the other humans, you have been created - by us, to be their intellectual superior in every way."
"You mean, I'm different?"
"Yes."
"I am superior to these 'humans'..." A dreamy look came over her face, which was quickly replaced by one of scorn. "Then, I am also superior to you."
She turned, and focused on Katrina, hulked into the foetal position. Slowly, she began to rise, until the nurse was floating in mid air, her head hung like a rag doll, her limbs limp - she had no energy left to move. Tears ran down her cheeks, slowly at first, then they dripped to the tiled floor below.
Jade jerked Katrina's head up telekinetically. I watched as her cheeks began to suck themselves into her face, tearing the skin, leaving hollows - her legs appeared to become thinner, the life being sucked from them, her arms looked like sticks. Jade's eyes glowed vermilion. The strain on Katrina's face was visible to the point where I could feel it myself. The body srained against the force of the psychic power, strained to stay existent, but to no avail.
Suddenly, I heard a snap, and flinched. Katrina screamed out in pain, and her left arm hung limp. The ear-piercing sound of shattering bone reached my ears again as the rest of her body was slowly crushed by the merciless Jade. The last thing I saw before screwing my eyes up tight was Katrina's body imploding, being crushed to a pulp. I couldn't watch any more.
A tinkle of glass from the television set alerted me back to the video. The camera showed Jade breaking through a window, and soaring off into the sky, with the doctor in the lab, staring white-faced at a smear of some red chemical on the floor.
I took a second glance. It wasn't chemical - it was all that remained of Katrina.

"I did warn you."
I jerked from my seat. I had been so compelled by the tape, I had forgotten my mysterious friend was behind me.
"Is she dangerous?"
"Some say, yes. However, she isn't as antisocial as she may seem. Power... power is a wonderful tool, but must be used wisely. I think Jade has learned that now."
"Yes, I remember the trial I had... it was hard. They locked me up, in the end. I ended up hurting myself badly by trying to escape - broken glass sliced me open. I barely survived."
I withdrew my cloak, showing her the scar I had received, running the entire length of my torso.
"Something about that incident changed me. I remember fighting to control myself, to suppress the part of me that wanted to do damage." I looked at the floor. "I didn't want myself to get even more seriously hurt - nor did I want anyone else to suffer."
An odd smile spread across the woman's lips.
"You came to terms with that very early. I find that very interesting," she told him.
"I'm an early developer. But that isn't the point. The point is, this Jade person. I said I'd wait, but I have a feeling that was for myself - I'll find her tomorrow."
I looked towards the window, and out upon the starry night. Sitting in my small apartment, I gazed up to the stars. I felt a small breeze brush across the back of my neck, and when I looked round the door was swinging shut. I flicked the television off, and curled up on the couch.
The next thing I knew, I was dreaming about chasing Pidgey.