44 Chapter 043

"Uhh, don't mind Alakazam. He just likes you and doesn't know how to express it" said Professor Oak sheepishly.

"Can't this Alakazam talk? Would an 'I like you human child' suffice?" questioned Alex as he tried to unstable stand-up.

He secretly thought that the 'he likes you and doesn't know how to express it' is the go-to phrase of Professor Oak for all Pokemon accidents.

"Ah! You know Alakazam can communicate in human language. But it's not talking to be exact, it's a form of Psychic communication. With training, any Psychic Pokemon can do it. Projecting voices out loud like Alakazam is a much more advanced skill" said Professor Oak.

He then paused and asked, "Do you know why Alakazam keeps using its Psychic powers on you?"

"Isn't it because he likes me?" asked Alex.

"...Never mind" said Professor Oak. "Anyway, I asked Alakazam to fetch you your partner" he continued.

"The special Charmader you mentioned?" asked Alex excitedly.

"More accurately speaking, a special Charmander egg" said Professor Oak.

"An egg? How can you tell this Charmander will be special even before it is hatched?" questioned Alex.

"Wait, you will see" said Professor Oak.

After a few seconds, Alakazam. Now there was a light golden coloured egg with deep yellow black spots all over it levitating behind Alakazam. Alakazam gestured, and the egg flew into Alex's arms.

"Is this a Charmander egg? Aren't Charmander eggs supposed to be white with red and orange spots?" asked Alex.

"This is indeed a Charmander egg. But it's special" said Professor Oak.

Alex was confused for a moment before he got it. "A Shiny?" he questioned excitedly.

"Exactly" confirmed Professor Oak.

Alex, in his previous life, being a part-time shiny hunter, had boxes and boxes full of caught Shiny Pokemon. Shiny Pokemon in his previous life had odds of 1 in 8192 early on, and later 1/4096. While it was difficult to find one, as he had proved with his multiple boxes of Shiny Pokemon, if you put in some effort you could get a Shiny Pokemon, not to mention the various methods to increase the odds of Shiny Pokemon appearing.

But in this world, Shiny Pokemon were an unexplained natural anomaly. The consensus of everyone who studied Shiny Pokemon was that Shiny Pokemon appeared to have no traits other than having a different colour from the norm and being stronger in battle than other Pokemon of the same kind at an equal level.

Shiny Pokemon are insanely sought after. Any Shiny with decent potential can be the trump card of a trainer's team. A Shiny with a little worse potential would be pumped up with rare natural treasure and have its talent increased by rich trainers who would then proceed to cultivate it as a trump card. There were a little over 2000 Shiny Pokemon registered to trainers in the Alliance. The commonality of all these 2000 was that they were insanely strong and the trump card of their respective trainer's team.

"Professor? How come you have a Shiny Charmander? And are you really giving it to me?" asked Alex, excited.

"This Charmander egg was laid by one of the strongest Charizards out there. It was laid in Charicfic Valley, the most prosperous ranch of the Charmander line. They supply Charmader to my lab. When I went there this time, I found that an egg laid by the matriarch of the Charizard group was Shiny. Shiny Pokemon are frequently discriminated against and ostracised in Pokemon groups you see. Hence, this Charmander couldn't be raised in Charicfic Valley. They were planning to sell it, so I bought it on a whim. Then I realized that I didn't have any free time to relaunch the study on Shiny Pokemon. I was planning to give this Shiny Charmander to the highest ranked representative sponsored by Oak Corall as a reward, but I suppose I can give them something else instead" said Professor Oak.

"Wow! Thank you Professor Oak" said Alex happily. He was even more convinced that staying in Pallet Town as a research fellow was the wiser choice. He now had a Charmander egg that could be the top dog of the Charizard species if given time to grow and proper training and nutrition.

"This egg will hatch in about 2 weeks. You can use the incubator and the nutrient fluid from storage until it hatches. Also, I will give you 3 month's worth of the best food for Charmander as a bonus. This is because I don't want a Shiny Pokemon to have its potential wasted. I will also arrange for the same food to be to be supplied to you afterwards, but I will expect you to pay for it yourself" said Professor Oak.

"Thank you Professor," said Alex happily

"2 weeks!" thought Alex excitedly as he started at the Pokemon egg in his hands.