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I regained consciousness with a start. Susan and Ben were leaning over me, looking concerned. “Oh good, you’re finally awake,” Susan said as Ben let out a sigh of relief and wandered back over to the sidelines. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a break?” “If I get stronger, I’ll evolve. Battling will make me stronger. We need to keep battling. Again, please.” “I know I said that battling would help your body develop, but you’re pushing yourself a bit hard…You’re positive you’re not feeling tired or sore anywhere?” I’ll give my body this, what it lacks in strength, it makes up for with how fast it recovers. When I lose a battle, I fall unconscious, but I’m usually awake again not too long after. It seems all pokeumans have the incredible ability to recover from most damage fairly quickly. It was a shame that we had to be kept quiet. Studies into how pokeuman bodies healed themselves could lead to incredible discoveries in medicine. “I’m just tired of being so small.” I’d already

I was staring at my reflection in silence. My reflection was staring back. It had been a week since I had finished transforming and losing everything I had. Gone was my short orange hair. Gone were my green eyes. Gone were my muscles, toned through regular exercise. Gone was my house. Gone was my girlfriend. Gone was my life. This was how my days always started. I would just stare at the mirror and mope. It wasn’t a healthy lifestyle, I knew that, but it made me feel better. After seeing how well I had gotten along with Susan and Ben, Danielle had arranged for me to share a room with them. I hadn’t seen much of Danielle after that. I knew she was busy with PRT stuff, but it still felt as though she had abandoned me. We were supposed to be friends, weren’t we? Maybe she thought she didn’t need to hang out with me anymore now that I had met other pokeumans. Susan and Ben had already gotten up and left. I was always awake before them, but it took me longer to get going with my new form.

Day four. Woke up. I looked under the blanket to see how much I had changed. I definitely looked more bug-like than human now. My legs were tiny limp noodles. I couldn’t use them anymore. Had to stay off them the past few days as per the doctor’s orders to avoid breaking what little bone I had left. Now it looked like there was no bone at all. Arms. Nothing more than yellow ovals at roughly armpit height. They were a tiny bit mobile, but weren’t good for much. They were somewhat suction cup-y, so I could use them to crawl up walls. That was a bit interesting, but it did little to console me. I had also grown a second set of smaller arms slightly below my original ones. Tail. That had taken some getting used to. My spine just elongated more and more and filled out as my bones dissolved, getting replaced by an exoskeleton. My back and sides were completely green now. My underbelly had turned yellow. The red nub on my forehead had grown into some sort of antenna. It was very sensitive

“Pokeumans?” “It’s a portmanteau of pokemon and humans. Humans who become pokemon.” I had heard of pokemon, of course. It was quite a popular franchise, but I was never interested in it, myself. And there was a fatal flaw to the concept of humans becoming pokemon. “But…pokemon aren’t real.” “You’re green and I’m clearly not human.” The metal creature had a point. It remained the least plausible explanation yet, however. “Why don’t you just admit you’re aliens? You’re trying to abduct me, or something! You turned me into this!” “It’s in your DNA. We didn’t do this. Now if you’ll sit down, I’ll explain.” I was breathing heavily again. Only this time, it wasn’t due to running. I took a quick glance to the door. “Don’t even think of running. We won’t let you leave. This is for the best. If you want to know why, you’ll have to listen.” It seemed I had no choice. Begrudgingly, I sat in the chair opposite the desk from the leader of my captors. “First off, your previous statement,” the

My name is Jack. As in ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.’ I’m a sprinter. I’ve been running ever since I was seven. I like running. Won several races. I had hoped that my life would continue the way it’s been going so far, but fate had a different hand in store for me. This is my story. The first day started off normal. Get up, morning routine, go for a quick jog, then get ready for work. I’m not married and not living with anyone, but I have a girlfriend I’ve been dating for some time. I never did get a college degree, so I’m hoping to try my hand at that some time soon. For the time being, I’ve got a simple job working in a grocery store. The first oddity occurred during my run. I was slower than usual and found myself having difficulty keeping myself going. These differences were minor, so I wrote them off as me just having an off day. It happens now and then. Things got a bit stranger once I got to the grocery store. I couldn’t lift things as high as usual when stacking the