Sam hadn't known what it meant to grin for some time. It was something he read about and had always been curious about but he'd never quite been sure what the act of grinning actually entailed. He'd wondered what the sensation was like. He'd wondered what it felt like. He often had difficulty empathising with others. Emotions and feelings were a murky subject in his opinion. Every person he met displayed emotions differently and yet he was supposed to know what they all meant? It struck Sam as highly inconvenient.

However, when Sam had started school, he'd begun to learn a lot more about feelings and behaviour, and grinning was his biggest success story. At the end of most days, his teachers would congratulate him on another sparkling performance in a test. Or they'd commend his intellectual curiosity and make him into an example that the rest of the class should follow. It felt good and it put a huge grin on his face. A grin was a bit like a smile but it was wider and a lot more smug. Or was it pride? Smugness and pride were easy to confuse. He made a mental note to study the two in closer detail.

It was the end of another school day and it was another grinning day for Sam. Mrs Hughes had been shocked even more so than usual when she found out he'd been teaching himself degree level mathematics and her compliments had helped to boost his ego. And so, the grin had formed. Now Sam was strutting along, his satchel bag placed firmly on his shoulder, his head held high as he headed for the bus home.

Or at least, he would've been going to the bus stop had it not been for a large boy, a fellow pupil, who was blocking his path. Sam almost walked into the boy before he stopped. He should really pay more attention. Even the pavement alongside the fencing of the school was a potentially dangerous place. He could've walked straight into someone, fallen over and injured himself. Sam made a mental note to be more observational.

"Going somewhere Sammy?" the boy grunted. It was only then that Sam got a good look at him. He was wearing an identical uniform to Sam's; a dark blazer and a striped tie only Sam's was a nice fit. This fellow seemed to have grown out of his clothes years ago. Either that or he had something stuffed up his sleeves. The seams had practically ripped they were so tight. Looking at his face, Sam vaguely recognised him from around the corridors.

It wasn't a particularly pretty sight. His face wasn't the normal face shape. It was more square and chubby as if it had swollen up so many times that it could no longer return to its original state. Due to this, Sam could barely make out his tiny eyes and their colour remained a mystery. His teeth were also not what you'd call normal. They pointed in the wrong ways and it was hard to tell that he was wearing a smile.

"Yes actually. Home," Sam responded, not wanting to miss the bus home.

"Have you forgotten Sammy? You don't get to just go home," the boy chuckled. From behind the large boy, Sam saw two more tall figures approaching.

"Sorry, do I know you?" Sam asked. The three boys exchanged glances and laughed.

"Course you do Sammy. It's me, Kev." Sam clearly gave him a blank look. "We always used to talk out here after school. Man, I heard you had changed but forget me? Nobody forgets me."

"Well I'm really sorry but I haven't the foggiest what you're on about." Sam decided he should not worry about his story that made no sense and just use his manners and he extended his hand. "Kevin, it's very nice to make your acquaint—"

Before he could finish, Sam felt all of the air rush out from his stomach. Kevin's hand had reached out but instead of shaking Sam's smaller hand like a gentleman, he'd forced his huge fist straight into Sam's gut. Caught completely off guard, Sam let out a pathetic "oof" and dropped to his knees. He'd never had a greeting quite like that before.

"Remember us now Sammy boy?" Kevin cackled as he and his cronies continued their assault. Sam felt fists fire into his stomach and feet jab up into his spine. He could only half take in what was happening. Every time he managed to look up he saw the same pattern from Kevin, a side swipe with his left—those hurt—followed by an uppercut with his right—those hurt as well—while his two sidekicks kept Sam down by kicking him in his sides—those also hurt.

Eventually, the torture came to an end. Sam felt all his strength leave him as he fell to the floor, his face landing with a thud on the gritty pavement. Apparently, Kevin wasn't a particularly nice person. Pain wasn't a sensation that Sam was used to but he knew by instinct that this was it. He couldn't describe it. All knew was that it hurt. Ouch. That was all he could think.

"So that's how it is Sammy boy," Kevin explained as he grabbed Sam's collar and pulled him up off the ground so that their faces were almost touching. Kevin's breath smelled of vinegar. What an unpleasant chap. "Same time next week, we'll meet you here. And if you go crying off to anyone, especially that retarded mother, then I'll smash your head in. Again."

Kevin dropped Sam to the ground carelessly and left him there. His sidekicks gave him one last good kick before they set off after their leader. Sam took a while to regain his strength. For a while he just lay on the dirty ground, groaning with pain whenever he tried to move. His brain was swimming with unusually disjointed thoughts, all seeming to revolve around one word. Why? Why had those boys just given him a beating? Why him? What did they have to gain from it? Without a single question answered and his bus long gone, Sam eventually managed to pull himself to his feet, brushing off the numerous bits of grit from his sleeves.

"You're right Kevin," he mumbled to himself. "I won't forget you. And I'll make sure that you won't forget me either."

*

"Honey, you're a bit late, aren't you?" Sam's mother exclaimed when he shuffled through the door of their house. He'd missed the bus he normally got home and the next one as well. He was over an hour later than he should've been.

"Yeah, I fell over so I went to the pharmacy to get some antiseptic wipes," he responded. He could hardly believe he was lying to his mother to cover for some bullies.

"Oh, you poor thing!" she cried, giving him an overly tight hug that hurt his still crushed stomach.

"Mum, come on, I'm fine," he said in an overly snappy fashion, pushing his mother away.

"Sammy?" she said, giving him a confused look. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah actually," he admitted. Sam looked his mother directly in the eyes and asked the question that had been on his mind for quite some time. "The other kids at school all act like they know me. But I've only known them for a few weeks so that doesn't make any sense."

"What are you asking?"

"What happened to me?" he asked. "I'm not like the other kids, am I? Nobody else has memory issues or scars on their head and they've all been going to school for years longer than I have. What happened to me?"

"Your father and I decided it was best not to tell you," his mother sighed after a long pause. "When you were younger you had terrible problems with your brain. You sustained both brain damage and the worst kind of brain tumour imaginable. You only had months left to live so we did all that we could. We took you to a man named Doctor Cass and he performed a brain transplant on you."

"A brain transplant?"

"He took your ruined brain out of your head and replaced it with a functional one. You had no recollection of anything that happened beforehand. It was like you were born again." She explained the whole story slowly, trying her best not to tear up as she told it. Sam was obviously in shock. Oddly enough though, he was more curious at the holes in the story. Something didn't quite add up.

"If it was like I was born again then why do I go to school with other kids my age? And why am I so much smarter than them?"

"The brain that Cass used wasn't from a human. It was from an Alakazam." This was the bombshell moment that really drove home for Sam. If his mother continued talking, he didn't notice her. He wasn't human. He was some kind of scientific Frankenstein creation: one part human and one part Pokémon. He wasn't an ordinary child. He was a monster. Was he really even Sam Baker? If that brain had been thrown away, discarded, then surely so had Sam. All his life he'd been told a lie. He wasn't Sam. He was a hybrid.

"Thank you for telling me the truth," Sam managed to whisper before he went upstairs to his room. Thankfully his mother, if he could even call her that, didn't follow him. He had some serious thinking to do. He carelessly threw his bag off and slumped down onto his bed. It made too much sense for this to all be a dream. Alakazam were said to have an IQ of around five thousand and he was brighter than anyone else his age, or rather his body's age, despite being years behind them in terms of school. That, unfortunately, was where the advantages seemed to stop. He was smart. Smart and technically alive.

So, this was the world then. One day you're a boy with brain damage. Then you're a monster. And then you get beaten up by some bullies. Nature was clearly full of tricks. The world was a cruel place where only nature would win in the end. Everybody died eventually; it was just a case of how long nature allowed you to live.

It was at that moment that Sam almost jumped out of his bed, hit by a moment of inspiration. Nature had tried its best to kill him off and nature had failed. He was the exception to the rule. He'd been given a second chance in life. He'd been reborn and he knew exactly what he needed to do with his life. Nature was cruel and the world was filled with injustice. Today he'd seen that first hand when he'd been assaulted for no good reason. Justice had to be served.

Grinning to himself with excitement, Sam opened up his laptop and booted up the internet. He had one week. One week to learn all that he could about self-defence. There was no time to lose.

*

"Hello Kevin," Sam said, trying to make his voice sound like he was scared but pretending to be tough. It wasn't hard to fool an idiot.

"So you actually showed up then Sammy boy?" Kevin laughed as he approached, cracking his knuckles. "My boys thought you'd run away." It was exactly a week from when Sam had first encountered Kevin. The location and setup were identical; just as Sam had planned.

"I'm not afraid of you Kevin," he retorted, putting just enough of a quiver in his voice to fill Kevin with some false confidence. Once again, he saw Kevin's sidekicks show up from behind their leader. Exactly the same as they had done before.

"I'm sure you're not," Kevin cackled as he launched his fist directly towards Sam's stomach. More than ready, Sam sidestepped the all too obvious punch with ease. Kevin's brief dumbfounded look gave Sam far too much pleasure.

"I'm really not," Sam grinned. Clearly, Kevin didn't like being taunted as much as he liked taunting others as his next two punches were completely wild. Unfortunately for Kevin, Sam knew the pattern too well. He'd remembered all he could from their first fight and some simple analysis gave him all the information Sam needed. He ducked beneath Kevin's swiping left fist, leaving himself vulnerable to the presumed uppercut next, or so Kevin thought. Once again, Sam was ready, stepping backwards so Kevin's fist missed its mark which was when Sam took his opportunity to retaliate.

In a flash, he reached out, grabbing Kevin's undefended wrist before using his right hand to land a clean strike into Kevin's gut. The fight was extremely one-sided from there on out. Kevin was like a Conkeldurr to Sam's Mienshao. Sure, he was stronger and bulkier but he was far too slow and his punches were too wild. They threw him off balance and allowed the much more nimble Sam to capitalise, striking quickly in Kevin's weak spots until he'd won. The fight abruptly ended when Kevin overshot a punch by so much that all Sam had to do was extend a foot, tripping the brute and sending him to the floor. He looked up, ready for Kevin's cronies but they were long gone.

"Come after me again and I won't go easy on you, you got that?" Sam grinned. As he turned to walk away, his victorious moment was interrupted.

"Sammy!" Kevin cried, throwing his hand out at Sam's ankle but he'd given Sam too much warning. Sam jumped over Kevin's fingertips, coming back down to earth and landing with a sickening crack and a howl from a bully who now could no longer bully. Or at least not very well given that his fingers were broken. Once again, Sam turned and walked away.

"And the name's not Sammy anymore. It's Zam. Zam the Hybrid!"