Prologue

"Success! Success!" From outside a glass window, a scientist ran down the hall, an excited tone in his voice. Loose papers flew onto the tiled floor from the air that he was dragging with him as he ran, and what was in his hand was flapping back and forth wildly as his white lab coat fluttered behind him. There was almost a glint of light through his glasses as he spoke again. "We've finally done it!" Stumbling a little as the clipboard in his hand bounced off the wall, he turned the corner and out of sight.

A baby boy tilted his head a little from behind the glass. What was going on? They had given him something to drink, and eat, he was fairly sure of that, but what was going on? Sitting down, he made an attempt to stand up on his tail. Oddly enough, he felt nothing, instead merely falling down. Glancing behind him, the boy realized he no longer had a tail. He no longer had any fur to keep him warm either. All that was left was an incredibly small patch of fuzzy stuff on the top of his head. Tears started to come from his soft blue eyes. He was scared. Scared and cold. All that he had left to protect him was this weird pink fleshy stuff. Several tears fell from his face as he buried it in his arms and legs. He wanted to go back to what he was before, a nice little Sentret. He longed for his soft paws, for his warm fur, his ears and his little arms... The tears started coming faster and faster as he took it all in. Why? Why couldn't he just go back to the way he was before, back to his small safe den with his mother and his sister.. He didn't even know what he was right now. Just the same thing as those weird creatures that turned him into this in the first place.

Turning to face the steel wall beside him, he slowly crawled over to it so he could have something to put his back against. The smooth metal felt incredibly cold to the touch compared to what it would have felt before this strange and alien change. He shivered a little, wishing that he still had his fur to help him stay warm. Resting his eyes, he only opened them again when he heard more footsteps. They seemed to be almost stampeding down the hallway and back towards the room. Letting his tear-stained eyes wander upwards, he spotted four of the scientists standing outside on the other side of the window. All of them were congratulating him on a job well done. Unbeknownst to the former pokemon inside the chamber, the scientists had made an astonishing breakthrough with their experiments. Though they weren't exactly authorized to pull off such stunts, the small team had managed to turn a pokemon into a human. There weren't any obvious side effects, such as the tail still being there, or the ears.

The boy looked just like any other human baby, his brown hair covering a slight area on his head because of how young he was. They could see him crying inside, but at the moment, they didn't care. All they cared about was the fact that they had managed to succeed with something that they had been trying to do for months. The young boy cried inside, harder and harder, only wishing to go back to the life he knew. He was crying so hard that it actually took him a moment to realize what was happening, but when he did, he merely stopped and watched. Brown and tan fur started to sprout up along his body again, and he could feel his ears gently elongating and moving up to the top of his head again. Outside, the scientists had completely stopped what they were doing to watch what was going on, which to them was just as confusing as it was frustrating. They had been trying to make the pokemon permanently into a human, not temporarily. While the young Sentret was silently rejoicing as its tail and former body returned, the scientists on the other side of the glass were arguing.

"I thought you said that it worked!"

"I thought it did! I really did!"

Most of them broke out into a fight about what went wrong, though one of them stood off from the rest of them, thinking as he watched the baby pokemon sitting there, happy to be itself again. He watched it for ten minutes or so before the pokemon yawned and laid down, quickly falling asleep, and although what happened next was a shock to most of the scientists, it didn't seem to be much of one to him. After the Sentret closed its eyes, it slowly changed back into a human. The same brown hair, the same face, the same soft, fragile body. He felt sorry for it, now having to live like that. There wasn't anything else they could do to help it, except maybe kill it. He watched it for a few minutes or so, a kind of sadness washing over him as he did. Then, without consulting the others, he left, leaving them to fight amongst themselves about what they needed to do differently next time, and what they should do with the child. They quickly decided to merely leave the baby there overnight, providing it with food and water, then come back and deal with it the next day. All of them went back to the work they were performing beforehand, but the man who had been carefully watching the child did not return that day.

-~-~-~-

It was dark in the lab, and it was mostly all of the scientists who worked there had headed home for the night, and the area that was housing the child was completely empty. The little Sentret, still a human at this point, was fast asleep in the center of the room. He'd woken up an hour or so ago and eaten a bit, which was apparent by the fact that the bowl of food was tipped over on the floor and some water had been splashed out of the bowl. A key silently made its way into the keyhole on the door to the chamber, and the scientist who had watched the Sentret earlier quietly made his way inside. He smiled as he saw the sleeping form of the child, and sighed a little as he looked down at the box that he had brought with him, carrying it by the two handles. He slowly made his way across the unlit room, placing the box down beside the child, then reached down and picked him up, gently rocking him too and fro for a few minutes. He could see the frightened face of the child change into a warm and secure smile as he did so. It made him feel good inside to be doing something for the poor creature.

Being one of the few in the labs that actually cared about what happened to the test subjects after an experiment was completed, he was often the one to dispose of them. But...that usually meant killing them. A tear came to his eye as he looked down at the helpless form of the child. It was such a small child…he just knew he couldn't bring himself to kill the kid. Wrapping him in a light blanket, he placed him under a few more that were packed the inside of the small box. He fit perfectly inside, nestled into the soft blankets. Sighing, he left, locked the door he entered through and unlocked the back door so he could quickly head out to his car.

Outside it was rather dark, the grey clouds above spurting small droplets in a constant haze of a drizzle. His car had a thin layer of moisture on it as he opened the door and placed the child inside, strapping the box into the passenger seat. Walking around to the other side, he unlocked his own door and buckled himself into the driver's seat. Glancing over at the child, he noticed that it had changed back into a Sentret again. He sighed as he turned the key and started his car.

"Life's going to be hard for you, of that I'm sure." The engine roared to life as he put the thing in reverse and gazed over his shoulder to see where he was headed. Backing up and putting the car back into drive, his eyes drifted over to the little Scout pokémon. "I just hope you'll be able to handle whatever's thrown at you…" His voice sort of trailed off at the end of his sentence, and he was left to look at the helpless little pokémon. It took him a moment to take his gaze off of it, but when he did, he put his foot on the gas and headed out of the parking lot, and out onto the old, plain dirt road that looked like it hadn't been used in centuries. As his car bumped along, he chanced a look over at the child to see how he was fairing. Though tossing in his sleep, the little Sentret was holding up just fine. Looking back at the road, he kept on driving in silence, the only noise being that of the rain bouncing off the roof of the car. Things went on like this for a while, until he felt the familiar bump of his car transferring onto the main road. He quickly took a right and headed towards town. The buildings slowly moved to loom up above him. Violet city was a fairly big place, and the man was almost sure that whoever he left the little guy with would be right for him. But just in case, he would watch the household for a while afterwards.

The car drove into the city and through the empty streets, the steady rain the only other occupant of the road apart from him. He took a few turns as he drove. Left, right, straight, right… He stopped, parking in a space across from a two story apartment. He was familiar with this side of town. Most of the families knew him, seeing as he lived there. He sighed, looking over at the box with the little Sentret in it, who, over the course of the trip, had changed back into a human boy again. He was still fast asleep. Opening the glove compartment and reaching inside, he pulled out a pad of paper and a pen and went to work writing a short note, shoving it into the box so it just barely showed when he was finished. Taking a last glance at the apartment across the street, he opened his door and unstrapped the box. Picking it up, he slowly made his way over to the door of the apartment, letting out a sigh as he placed the box down. Knocking on the door, he quickly ran back over to his car, shutting the door as silently as he could, and looking out to see who would take the child in. After a few seconds, a young woman, looking to be in her early twenties, opened the door and took a look around, not noticing the car across from her doorway. She had red hair and blue eyes. It took her a couple moments, but she looked down, noticing the box, and the note peeking out the top. She reached down and pulled it out, her eyes scanning it as she pulled it up closer to her face.

'Please take good care of me. I have no home and you're the first person I could find. Please help me…' She glanced down at the little boy in the box. Calling back into the house to her husband, she managed to convince him to come out and take a look at him as well. With the two of them framed in the light of the doorway, the scientist could tell that he'd found a good place. The couple conversed for a moment, then lightly picked up the box and stepped inside, closing the door.

Minutes passed, hours even, and the scientist still watched the apartment from his car. Though he had done the right thing and found the child a home, he had a sort of longing feeling within him, and he merely stayed there, sitting in the car as the rain bounced off the roof, the resounding noise echoing a little inside. Unsure of what to do, he kept watch over the house, waiting, watching, and wishing for the little child to be safe, almost like a guardian angel.