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The next chapter of my old Poke'mon story, edited and updated for your approval. Let me know what you think, and hope you enjoy!

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"Chu mean Rai done this before?!" I half-yelled into the receiver.

"I'm sorry, dear," Mom said, "but your father and I thought it'd be better if you never found out. We weren't sure how you'd handle it, and you were too young at the time to remember on your own."

"Rai...Where is Dad, anyway?"

"He went to the hospital where you were born. He didn't say why or when he'd be back."

Dang it, he wasn't around? I really wanted to talk to him, too. I also wondered what suddenly spurred him to go there as well, but for now I was more concerned about Mom.

"Well, now Rai here, and Chu know this isn't the first Raichu this happened, so please, tell me what Chu know."

Mom didn't respond at first. She seemed to be thinking over something really hard, and I started to wonder if she was going to say anything at all. Finally, she started to tell the story of my birth, something that she always avoided to answer when I was still at home.

"It all began the day after you were born," she started with a hint of sadness in her voice. "You were such a beautiful baby, and I didn't want to leave you alone. However, the doctors at the hospital insisted, saying that I should go home and rest in a place where I'd feel comfortable. They said they needed to look you over and make sure everything was alright. They said you'd be fine..." Mom fought down a sob. "They said you'd be fine..."

"Mom? Are Chu O.K.?" I asked. I was still upset that she and Dad had lied to me, but come on; my Mom was crying right in front of me. How could I not hold back a little?

"I'm sorry." she apologized as she slowly regained her composure. "Anyway, your father took me home. The hospital said they call when we could come get you. We were still new at being parents, so we assumed that everything was fine when they didn't call the first day. Then they didn't call the second, or the third. Finally we went down there on the fourth day to find you. When we spoke to the doctors, none of them knew who we were. We tried to find the doctor who'd delivered you, but he had went to a hospital in Celadon City. When we called there, they always said he wasn't available to come to the phone."

Now I know doctors are pretty busy people, but they still have to respond to a patient. Besides, how could anyone not remember about a baby who'd been in a hospital for four days? I soon got my answer.

"We were worried, and the police refused to help. No grounds for a search my foot..." she muttered. "I hired a private investigator to find out where you were. He came back at about the sixth day since you were born. He'd found confidential papers that said you weren't even at the hospital anymore..." her eyes started to water up, and a sob escaped her.

"Mom? Mom? Where was Rai?" I asked as gently as I could

"The papers *sniff* they said *sniff* you were...were..."

"Were?..."

"Dead." she finally managed to get out before breaking out into full blown tears.

"DEAD?!" I yelled. "How could Rai be dead?!"

Mom was too busying crying to respond. I felt bad about yelling at her, but my emotions were just as volatile as hers at this point.

I let her finish crying without a word. It's not that I didn't care how she felt, it's just that somehow, whenever I find myself with a person who's having a emotional breakdown, I always say the worst thing possible, even though I always mean well. The worst time was when I was over a friend's home make in elementary school and asked where his pet Meowth was. Turned out they'd just put it to sleep not two hours ago. Worse yet, his little sister who they'd had yet to break the news to happened to be nearby, overheard us and started crying. She was still bawling her eyes out when his parents told me I should go. We didn't hang out too much after that.

Mom finally regained control of herself enough to tell me the rest of the story. I'm just going to write the overall story here and not our conversation word for word.

After my parents had learned of my so called, "death", they sued the hospital. Like any normal person, they wanted revenge, but they also wanted to be sure this never happened to any other parents. They thought they had a solid case, but the hospital seemed to have more lawyers than doctors, and they blew holes in the case bigger then a Snorlax. In the end, the hospital was found not guilty.

Devastated both emotionally and financially, since the money they spent on the case was all for nothing, they spent more than six months trying to put their lives back together. They were losing hope of ever being able to live like a normal couple. They both had to work two jobs just to pay the minimums on credit cards and other debts. Mom and Dad barely saw each other for more then a few minutes anymore.

Finally, one night, there was a loud series of knocks on the door. Mom was the only one home at the time, so she answered. At first, she was surprised to find no one at the door, till she looked at the ground. Something wrapped in dirty rags was lying in front of the door, crying. Naturally, she was shocked that someone would abandon a baby on a doorstep, and she took the live cargo into the house.

Carefully, she unwrapped the rags around the head to get a better look at the child. She couldn't control the little scream she let out when she saw its face. The child just seemed confused as to why this person holding him was screaming. That's when he said his first word.

"Pika? My first word Rai Pika?"

"Pika." she said with a nod.

In her arms she held a baby Pikachu Hybrid. At the time, she didn't know why this child was how he was, or who'd dropped him off on her door step. When he started to cry again, though, her motherly instincts kicked in. She still had some of the baby clothes they had bought in anticipation of my birth, and put them to use on this new child. She had to cut a hole in the pants to make room for his lightning bolt-shaped tail.

She described the baby like this; human head and face with brown hair, Pikachu ears, small Pikachu shaped feet, amber eyes, human hands, lightning bolt-tail, human arms, legs and body. He was covered in mostly yellow fur, except for his cheeks, where it was bright red, and across his back, which had some brown stripes along with the yellow. For reasons unknown, its fur was soaking wet, even though it hadn't been raining. Mom said the baby was very trusting, and started to cry whenever it was left alone, even for just a second.

Anyway, Mom wasn't quite sure what exactly to do with this odd child. In the end, she waited for Dad to come home before making any decisions. Naturally, he was shocked to find his wife caring for a fur-covered baby when he walked in the door. He was just as shocked as Mom was, but the baby quickly grew on him. Still, he had no idea what to do with the Pikachu Hybrid either. Neither of them wanted to just get rid of it, but what if someone saw them with it? What would their reaction be?

For the next few days, they stayed at home and took care of the baby in secret. The new parents quickly learned that it could walk on two legs already and had a big appetite. Mom set down a pizza that had just been delivered(of course the baby was hidden at the time) on a low table, just high enough so that it couldn't be reached by the little child on all fours, which had been his major source of transportation. Suddenly, he stood up, a little unsteadily at first, but quickly made his way over to the pizza, while Mom and Dad watched in shock as he gobbled down the entire pizza on his own.

This kept up for a while, till one day, a large manila envelope was dropped through the mail slot in the door. By the time the door was opened, whoever had put it in was gone. Dad picked up the envelope, studied it for a moment, then opened it. A large stack of papers neatly stapled together fell out, along with a long handwritten note. Dad looked over the note, then his face went pale as he looked over the papers stapled together.

"What is it?" Mom asked.

He didn't say anything for a moment. Maybe he didn't want to believe the truth himself. Maybe he just didn't want his wife to know. Still, in the end, he had to tell her the truth.

"I'm not quite sure how to say this..." he looked back at the baby, who was amusing himself with some blocks in the living room, "so I'll say it straight. That creature in the living room...is our son."

Much to Mom's disbelief, the Hybrid was in fact me, their, "dead", son. The papers knew everything about me and my family; where I was born, where Mom and Dad married, even Mom's maiden name. They also explained the results of some experiments performed, which they realized to their horror, was that their son was the actual experiment.

"RAI WAS A RAICHU EXPERIMENT?!"

"I'm sorry, Dan. If I'd known what they were going to do..." she started to sniff again.

Maybe I was being a little harsh on her. She couldn't have possibly known...I took a couple of deep breaths to try and calm myself as Mom fought back more tears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nidoran looking up at me, a bit shaken up by all the yelling. I waited till Mom calmed down before I asked if I could see the papers with this proof.

"We...burned them."

"Chu burned them?!"

"You were so happy when you finally became a normal person, we didn't want you to get upset, so we burned all the papers once we realized the truth."

"Well, Chu failed. Rai pretty Raichu off right now."

"I'm sorry..." Sorry? Sorry?! What good was sorry now?!

"Chu burned all the papers? Raichu everything?"

"No, not everything. There's still the note that came with all those papers." Mom sighed a little as she explained why she still had it. "We tried to burn it with everything else, but... there was just something about it that kept us from getting rid of it. Whenever we tried to destroy it, whether it was tearing it up, burning it just throwing it away, it was like our brain suddenly forgot how to do whatever it was we were trying to do the second we needed to do it. Something about it just wouldn't let us get rid of it. In the end, we just locked it in the safety deposit box with all our other important papers."

"Fax Rai here."

"Dan, I..."

"NOW." I growled. The telephone had a fax function on it. I opened the link while Mom went and got the paper. She reluctantly put it through the fax on her side. A copy soon appeared on my side a moment later.

"Keep going. What Raichu then?" I asked, taking the paper out of the slot.

She really seemed unwilling to continue. Every word seemed like it had to be forced out. I knew it was probably eating her up inside, and I felt sorry for that. Still, I'd be going too long without answers, and I was going to get them out of her.

After they burned up my past, my parents decided that they would just have to take care of me like a normal child. They cut off almost all contact with my relatives, so they wouldn't be able to know about me. All the while, they somehow even managed to keep the neighbors from noticing, even though I didn't make it simple for them.

Like all babies, I was naturally curious, and sometimes that got me in real trouble. Apparently, things were always disappearing around the house. They thought there were burglars slowly robbing them blind, since everything missing was something that had any worth; money, jewelry, that sort of thing. One day, while Mom was cleaning my room, she found everything that had been missing in a corner of my closet, under a pile of sheets and blankets.

They couldn't figure out how I did it at first. They hid things everywhere they could think I wouldn't look, but it rarely worked. Worse, I was more creative at hiding the things I stole than my parents were at hiding them from me. Mom said my record for hiding stolen goods was six months. Eventually, she thought my stuffed Teddursia needed to be sown up, and then everything that had went missing spilled right out of him when she picked him up.

When I still slept in a crib, they found out most of my thefts were at night, while they slept. They saw I always popped the latch with a toy of some sort, and when I was tall enough, I just flicked it open myself. Finally, they tried a combination lock. The next day, it went missing, as did a bracelet. They tried two more of the same kind of locks, and they also disappeared. One night, my father decided to stay in my room and watch how I did it. He couldn't believe what he saw.

"Rai figured out the combination?"

"If you didn't get it the first time, you had it the second try." Mom confirmed with a nod. "He said you looked like a professional thief, listening carefully as you slowly turned the dial to find the combination."

They tried key locks. I just picked it with my tail. They tried tape. I gnawed through it within five minutes. They even tried fancy electronic locks that required one combination out of a possible 10,000. I guessed it within three tries. In the end they gave up trying to hold me in and just started hiding everything in high places.

"That didn't work, Raichu?"

"No. That was another bad habit you had. You loved to climb up anything that you could. Once, in the middle of the night, you somehow got out, and I guess you must have climbed up the storm drain, because the next morning we found you on the roof. We coaxed you down with some food, but we were just lucky no one saw that."

"Rai..." Well, I had to ask eventually. "When did Rai...become human?"

She seemed to have no trouble at all getting out this part. It was like she was getting something off her chest she couldn't wait to get rid of, unlike the rest of the story.

"One day, when you were a little older than two, your father bought home a ring for me as a birthday gift. Naturally, we tried to hide it. Naturally, you found it anyway. Except this time...when we found you after the theft, you were a normal human child. We couldn't figure out how it happened. Then we saw you were holding the ring your father just gave me. It was supposed to be a plain gem, but the jewelry store called us later, and told us we received the wrong ring."

"What was it Raichu of?"

"The ring itself was plain metal. The gem was pure Thunder Stone, just enough to cause an evolution."

I remained quiet for a while, still trying to absorb all of this. Apparently, where I should've evolved, I instead became human...at least till that Growlithe bit me. As I thought about this, I saw Joy pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing in at me. Suddenly, a wave of dreadful thoughts hit me all at once.

If my Hybridism was supposedly the result of being a science experiment, what about the others? Sara, Misty, Joy; did they know? Were they a part of it too? Surely they were. It made too much sense not to be true. Still, what proof did I have?

And what about that Growlithe? How did its bite make this happen? Or Misty and that Beedrill? Sure, they were odd, and they both hurt us, but why were they so odd? Why did they attack us, out of anyone else they could've hurt?

What if what that guy said was true? What if he was the one who did this to me, and the others? Giovanni...that's what that thing that had been trapped with me called him. I've never heard the name before...but I was so young when it happened, and even now, I couldn't remember what my mother was telling me was true. If he did do this to me, I was going to get him back somehow. I wasn't sure how at the time, but I knew I would.

I still was thinking about all this when Mom asked me if I was alright. My thoughts quickly turned to anger upon hearing her voice. How did she think I felt? She lied to me! She lied to my face for years. Both of them! Both of my parents never told me the truth! They didn't want to think that they once had a freak for a son! They just fed me crap about anything I asked about my birth or anything in the past, just because they thought their son was a freak!

I slammed the receiver back down, not even bothering to say as much as good-bye. I grabbed the paper, stuffing it in my pocket as I made my way out of the kitchen. Nidoran tried to follow me as I made my way out the door, but I told him to stay.

"Where are you going?" Joy asked me as I turned the knob.

I was about to snap at her about minding her own business when a thought occurred to me. If she truly didn't know why she was a Chansey Hybrid, should I tell her the truth, if it even was the truth? Should I tell her we were both guinea pigs for some twisted monster that played around with our DNA and mixed it all up like a Rubik's cube? No...I couldn't bring myself to tell her that. If she asked later, maybe I'd tell her. Maybe later, but not now.

"Rai going out for air." I muttered.

"Air? Dan, I don't need to be half-Chansey to tell you're upset. Do you want to talk about it?"

Talk about it? Talk about what? I'd been lied to, plain and simple. There was nothing to talk about.

"Maybe later." I lied, opening the door and stepping out into the cool night air. I slammed the door shut behind me as I ran as fast as possible out of the city. I needed to think. There was too much noise in the city to really think. More than that, I wanted to be alone.

Alone? Wasn't I already alone? A Hybrid, the only one who knows the truth behind his condition? I don't think I could be anymore alone.