Dave waved a paw. "Nah, we've got open scientific databases of hypothetical genome sequences and molecular printers to synthesize the DNA strands. Completely artificial. No Pokémon were harmed, et cetera. We just..." He let out a long, exhausted sigh, chugged down the rest of the glass. "Okay, so. As a proof of concept we made some hybrid embryos, humans with various bits of different Pokémon. Purely to test that generalizability - are they viable, do they develop as expected, do the Pokémon genes activate the way they should? And it totally fucking worked. Only then the press gets wind of it, there's a big kerfluffle, and somehow this group gets a judge to rule that we can't destroy them like any other bit of human cell research - like, we're talking fetuses here, barely even starting to develop brains - and we have to actually raise them. So that's the derailing bit, we all got suddenly stuck with these kids."
He paused, staring at the empty glass for a moment. "Hey. Another one?" he called at the Spinda barkeep before turning back to Curio.
"The duds, well. Some of the embryos just didn't work out. Nonviable, just died in the first week or two. And then, of course, when they actually grow up there turn out to be some complications we didn't foresee. Peter, he's part Taillow, we... See, Machamp and Charizard and some other Pokémon with two sets of forelimbs, they've all got versions of this one gene. If there's a mutation in that gene, they don't grow the second set of limbs. Two-armed Machamp, Charizard with no wings. So we figured we'd see if by introducing that gene and others related to it, as well as the genes that form the structure of a Taillow's wings, and make sure they turn on in the extra limbs and so on, we'd be getting, you know, an actual winged humanoid. Right? And it looked promising initially, but then what actually happens is while he does get extra limbs and the right skeletal modifications, they just end up as little shriveled winglets that he can't even really move. Don't do anything. So, you know, he says he likes them, didn't want them removed or anything, but clearly we missed something there. And then there's Gabriel, who... he's part Slugma, and the Slugma part's ideal body temperature is a good deal hotter than a human's, so he's just kind of a fucking mess, and we don't realize that he actually needs to eat rocks through his skin like a Slugma until ten years later, and even when he does if it's too much his body temperature rises and his regular old human organs start failing. So that's, uh, not very seamless. But honestly it's a miracle that he was viable at all, and he's still alive, so I'll take it."
And then there was Mia. Dave imagined squeezing the empty glass. It helpfully stuck to his paw until the Spinda came to replace it with a new one.
