Chapter 341: Sparkling Sprite (Mega Chapter!)

The next day.

Baimu woke up in his hastily tidied, messy room.

Last night he'd been running back and forth between the hospital and the police station, and even just giving a brief statement had dragged on until well past midnight; the officer handling them had bags under his eyes darker than the eyes themselves.

Clearly those past few days had worn them out plenty.

Two cases in such a short span — such a "bold" thief was rather unexpected for this small-town police station, which had basically never seen such exaggerated crime before.

Of course, the overtime wasn't for nothing — at the very least, when the two thieves had planned to strike again, the officers had already tracked down their hideout and were preparing to stake it out, intending to catch them red-handed upon their return.

Who would have thought those two had the nerve to commit a crime in broad daylight and then go cause trouble again that very night, only to be caught on the spot.

It left them utterly dumbfounded.

Fortunately, a certain someone hadn't gone too far when he dealt with them — the thieves didn't stay out long before waking up and began enduring a lengthy interrogation led by Officer Jenny, assisted by several officers.

"Ah~"

Baimu yawned.

When he'd come back last night, Manchu had asked if he wanted to switch rooms; seeing that the inside had already been roughly tidied, and being too sleepy to bother moving, he'd declined and said they'd talk about it after he woke up.

"The process should be done by now…"

He picked up his phone from the nightstand, and the very first text on the lock screen was a property-claim notification from the police station — the Pokémon egg lost yesterday afternoon.

He'd mentioned it during the statement yesterday, so it had probably been logged by that officer.

The next one was a text from the person in charge of the Battle Tent.

The other party said he would be waiting outside the police station to complete the Pokémon egg claim and compensation.

"Eager enough."

Baimu pushed aside the two Dragon heads resting on his belly and thighs, greeted the Chansey that had just woken up, and gave the Galarian Sun Coral by his pillow a pat.

After running through his whole daily routine, he finally ducked into the bathroom to wash up.

Not long after.

Fully refreshed, he greeted Manchu at the front desk, swapped his room key, and headed straight for the police station entrance.

That person in charge happened to be standing right by the guard post, and his eyes lit up the moment he saw Baimu.

"Mr. Baimu! You should still remember me, right?" The man pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face, all smiles.

Baimu nodded. "Of course. Sorry to trouble you to come all the way out."

"No trouble at all, no trouble at all. Please, after you."

The man in charge stepped aside and accompanied him inside.

After registering their identities, led by an officer, the two arrived at the property-claim area.

The door opened, and the fat guy who'd been showing off his shiny Pokémon the day before yesterday immediately came into view.

Standing beside the fat guy was a little boy in a suit, radiating a young-Jessie vibe from head to toe — clearly some rich family's young master.

The latter two turned their heads, and their eyes lit up the moment they spotted the man in charge and Baimu.

"Finally here!"

The fat guy turned his head excitedly. "Young Master! They're the owners of that Pokémon egg!"

The boy, curious, asked back, "Then what are you waiting for?"

"Oh, right!"

The fat guy hurriedly nodded and said to the two rather confused men, "Gentlemen, I wonder if we could have a word—"

The officer suddenly cut in, "Once you've claimed your stuff, get out quickly. Don't linger. Whatever you have to discuss, take it outside."

The reprimanded fat guy immediately fell silent.

Luckily, the boy seemed relatively reasonable and didn't bother with the "do you even know who I am" nonsense at the officer, simply walking out of the property-claim area with the fat guy.

As they passed each other, they even nodded very politely.

"…"

Baimu inclined his head in return, looking thoughtfully at the conspicuously valuable Pokémon egg in the claim area. "How come there's only one left? Have the others already been claimed?"

"Yes."

The man in charge nodded.

"Then why not just tell the officer and take them all together and give them to me later? Why wait outside so long on purpose?" He couldn't quite figure out the man's approach.

"Hehehe…" The latter only laughed awkwardly.

He claimed the Pokémon egg.

Baimu set about examining it. In the anime, most Pokémon eggs can be identified by their external patterns, and this one was no exception.

And after looking, he pretty much understood what the fat guy was so excited about.

"It's actually a Weedle egg — and shiny too…"

He stared at the purple wavy spines and yellow patches on the shell, never having expected that the shiny Pokémon from the anime would actually show through on the egg's surface.

Any egg-hatcher who laid eyes on this thing would never need to trudge back and forth on the Golden Hatch Route all day long.

Of course, the games don't have that kind of egg-surface-pattern setting either.

The man in charge hadn't expected Baimu to identify the egg's species at a glance, and couldn't help looking at him with a bit more respect.

After confirming and registering.

The two turned and walked out of the police station.

At the entrance, the fat guy was conspicuously standing right where he'd been, waiting, and not far away a luxury car was parked — through the rear window, half of the boy's head was visible.

"Excuse me, sir, let's talk this over."

The fat guy approached with a smile. "My young master is very interested in this Pokémon egg. I wonder if you'd be willing to part with it — we're prepared to offer a price that satisfies you…"

So those shiny Pokémon all belonged to that little boy, after all.

All Baimu pondered inwardly, but shook his head on the surface.

"My apologies."

"Not selling is fine too — we can trade! Whatever kind of Pokémon you want, everything's negotiable!"

Fatty put on a smile, rubbing his hands together nonstop, and pleaded again, "Really, I'm being sincere here — whatever Pokémon you want, we can talk it out!"

"Then I'd like to trade for a shiny Milotic. Would that work?"

All Baimu said it half-jokingly, watching the other party with a hint of anticipation.

Fatty's expression stiffened, and a look of difficulty spread across his face. "That one of yours… is a bit…"

"If you don't have it, then there's nothing to be done. I don't really need the money either — my apologies." He gave a nod of courtesy, preparing to leave together with the person in charge.

Unexpectedly, the boy in the luxury car not far away suddenly spoke up.

"Shiny Feebas, big brother — if you're willing, I can trade my shiny Feebas for it."

"Point Guard Is Here"

The voice wasn't loud, but since the surroundings were truly quiet, it reached All Baimu's ears with no effort at all.

His step faltered.

"Shiny Feebas?"

All Baimu narrowed his eyes, asking with suspicion.

"Yes, no deception of young or old — a genuine, honest-to-goodness shiny Feebas."

The boy nodded, opened the car door and stepped out, then proactively explained why he wanted that Pokémon egg so badly. "I already have one shiny Dustox and two shiny Pineco, but not a single shiny Shelmet. I hope big brother can give me this chance."

Good lord.

How unlucky must this face be?

All Baimu suddenly understood why the boy wanted the shiny Wurmple so badly — after three consecutive times failing to roll a shiny Beautifly, even out of spite he wanted to gamble one out.

"Please."

The boy stepped up to him, suddenly switching to a pitiful look, cupping his hands beneath his chin.

"…Fine."

All Baimu nodded with a reluctant expression, though inwardly he was already overjoyed.

As the saying goes: you can wear out iron shoes searching in vain, only to find it without any effort at all.

He'd been longing for a shiny Feebas for so long, and never expected to obtain one this way — could it be the Lucky Incense at work?

And the "price" of obtaining the shiny Feebas was winning the battle tent's competition and bringing those two thieves to justice — if either step were missing, he most likely wouldn't have gotten the shiny Feebas.

Of course.

If he hadn't been willing to trade, he probably wouldn't have gotten the shiny Feebas either.

It just so happened that All Baimu had little interest in the shiny Wurmple, and didn't want to gamble on whether it would evolve into Pineco or Shelmet — better to just trade.

Given the boy's family background, the shiny Wurmple wouldn't be mistreated.

Meanwhile.

Seeing All Baimu agree, the little boy also directed Fatty to use a simple teleportation device to procure the shiny Feebas — the latter was housed in a luxury ball with a black base and gold trim.

The normal trade process requires a special machine to complete the Pokédex registration smoothly, but that's when both parties are holding Poké Balls.

Trading an egg and a Pokémon is more complicated.

The boy suggested releasing the shiny Feebas in the park's fountain pool to verify its true form while completing the trade.

All Baimu considered it and agreed, mainly wanting to "inspect the goods," and said to the person in charge, "Thank you for waiting here so long — no need for compensation. If you still have things to attend to, please go ahead."

"No, no, you can go ahead and busy yourself — I'll wait for you right here, it's no trouble."

The person in charge waved his hands repeatedly.

Seeing he really couldn't be persuaded, All Baimu didn't say anything more.

In the blink of an eye.

The three of them arrived at the park's fountain pool.

The little boy pressed the Poké Ball's release button toward the pool.

Poof!

The blue light materialized in the water as a purple-skinned, gray-finned Feebas — dark-circle-like rings around its eyes, cheekbones so gaunt they jutted out, sausage-thick fish lips, plus a tattered tail fin and pockmarked blotches.

No wonder it's called the Feebas.

"A hundred percent genuine shiny Feebas, big brother — you can raise it into a shiny Milotic." The little boy said so.

The shiny Feebas swam around in the pool, its vacant gaze resting on the three humans present, its eyes full of unfamiliarity.

"It doesn't seem to recognize you?"

All Baimu observed for a moment, seeing that the Feebas never once glanced toward the boy, and asked with some surprise.

"Because there are a lot of Pokémon at home, and I'm usually busy — I have to go to various places for piano competitions and banquets. I generally leave them to professional breeders to take care of."

The boy stated this very calmly.

That's really a copycat Jessie, isn't he…

All Baimu was a bit speechless, thinking that since he didn't even have time to look after his Pokémon, yet kept buying various shiny ones — was it simply a collector's compulsion at work?

But the boy wasn't unwilling to interact with his Pokémon — he just didn't have that much time, that's all.

After the group waited a while, a special machine was wheeled over.

The boy recalled the shiny Feebas into its Poké Ball and placed it on one side, while All Baimu placed the Pokémon egg along with its incubator on the other.

On the small screen, the egg and the shiny Feebas swiftly completed the swap.

The boy generously gave All Baimu the luxury ball along with it, bowing slightly and saying:

"I still have a violin competition to attend — please excuse me."

"See you again, if fate allows."

Baimu didn't mind either; all his attention at this moment was fixed on the oddly colored Feebas.

He released the oddly colored Feebas into the pool once more.

Plop~

The oddly colored Feebas drifted in the water, sensed someone watching it, and stared back at him with dead-fish eyes like a Porygon.

Man and fish locked eyes.

"Hello?"

"……"

"I'm your Trainer now, do you understand?"

"……"

"Looks like communication's going to be a bit difficult…"

The former silently took out a Poké Ball and said gently, "Sorry, someone's waiting for me, so let's put the chatting aside for now."

"Bwo~"

Feebas blew bubbles, wearing a very puzzled expression.

——

In front of the police station.

Baimu jogged all the way back, found the person in charge still waiting as expected, and said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, my apologies."

"No worries, as long as you've finished your business, that's fine."

The person in charge was still all smiles. "Do you have time now? Find a place to chat?"

"Sure."

The two of them went to a coffee shop.

Seeing that Baimu actually wasn't very interested in talking and his attention wasn't on any so-called compensation, the person in charge got straight to the point.

"Our boss, Scott, admires you greatly, and hopes I can hand this over to you."

A letter was slid over.

Baimu picked it up and found it was an invitation—an invitation to the Hoenn Frontier Brain Election Competition.

It was also a Challenge Permit for the Kanto Battle Frontier.

"Frontier Brain, huh…"

He muttered softly.

In the anime, the Battle Frontier originally belonging to the Hoenn region had been set up in the Kanto region, the seven Frontier Brains had changed from Hoenn natives to Kanto natives, and Hoenn's Battle Frontier didn't go online until the anime's travels.

And Scott's invitation confirmed the other party's preparations to set up a Battle Frontier in the Hoenn region.

After Kanto and Sinnoh, he was about to make his move on Hoenn.

Although his plans didn't include becoming a Frontier Brain, Baimu still accepted the invitation—if he got bored later, dropping by to join the fun wouldn't be bad.

The person in charge had waited so patiently just to deliver the invitation into his hands in person.

Besides the invitation, the so-called compensation also included a membership card, which showed that any company under Scott's banner would offer discounts on anything they sold.

Baimu accepted it gladly with a smile.

He parted ways with the relieved person in charge.

He first went to the Pokémon Center to give Feebas a thorough full-body checkup, confirmed the fellow had no injuries or illnesses and was in excellent condition, then quickly returned to the guesthouse.

The front desk's Manaphy—no, Mitsumi—spotted him returning and hurriedly asked:

"Did you get the Pokémon egg?"

"Some little changes happened, hard to explain in a word or two… I'm heading to the pool in the backyard, if you're free come take a look and you'll understand." Baimu replied, walking briskly toward the pool in the backyard specially provided for tenants to feed fish-type Pokémon.

He opened the Poké Ball.

Poof!

A flash of white light.

The oddly colored Feebas, which at first glance looked like a poisonous fish, dropped into the pool.

"Hello."

Baimu crouched by the pool, holding a Pokéblock in his hand, and smiled as he held it out.

The Feebas, which had been a bit dull just now, seemed to finally come to its senses; looking at the completely unfamiliar person before it, it shrank back timidly, not daring to approach.

"This reaction speed is a bit baffling, and its personality's pretty timid too…"

He didn't get impatient, crushed the Pokéblock into powder and tossed it into the pool, then immediately took out a second one and placed it on the water's surface.

The high-quality Pokéblock emitted an irresistible fragrance; Feebas couldn't escape it either, opening its thick fishy lips to suck in the scattered Pokéblock powder.

Once the food settled in its belly, its spirits quickly perked up, and it dared to swim quietly over to the Pokéblock Baimu offered, nibbling and swallowing in small bites.

Clearly this fellow's eating method was the same as normal fish—sucking it all in with its mouth.

After five Pokéblocks in a row went into its mouth, Feebas quickly forgot its earlier unhappiness, swaying its tail as it let Baimu stroke its smooth body surface.

"Mm… ugly-cute, ugly-cute."

Baimu had to admit that once Feebas became lively, it was unexpectedly a little bit cute.

He took out his Pokédex.

【Pokémon: Feebas】

【Type: Water】

【Gender: Female】

【Height: 65cm/8kg】

【Ability: Klutz】

【Level: 34】

【Moves: Tackle / Flail / Haze / Mist】

【Attract / Dazzling / Ice Beam / Awakening Power】

So it has the Klutz ability—no wonder it reacted so slowly just now.

Baimu looked at Feebas's move pool and wasn't too surprised; before evolution, Feebas is basically the same as Magikarp and can't learn other moves.

Aside from Tackle and Flail, the last three are egg moves, so the last three must have been taught to Feebas by the boy's family breeder.

"Should we evolve it right now?"

He thought of the Prism Scale in his pocket and hesitated.

That thing is one-use; once it's used on Feebas to evolve it into a shiny Milotic, the Prism Scale will be gone for good.

At that point, would a shiny Milotic still be able to bring him the same kind of good fortune as now?

If he kept the Lucky Scale, he might in the future get the chance to run into Lugia and complete the surface mission Shania had given him…

Baimu couldn't help but waver.

Before obtaining the shiny Feebas, he could still fantasize about using this Prism Scale to evolve it if he ever met one, but now that he actually had it in hand, he was starting to feel a bit reluctant to part with it.

How about getting an ordinary Prism Scale? After all, this thing, while said to be precious, isn't actually all that precious.

Even if department stores don't carry it, it can still be obtained through other channels.

While he was hesitating.

Manchu came over at a brisk pace, saw the shiny Feebas in the pool, and said in surprise, "A shiny Pokémon! Did it hatch from a Pokémon Egg?"

"Actually, it was obtained through a trade."

Baimu briefly recounted what had just happened.

"I see, you really wanted a shiny Beautifly… I understand that feeling. When I was chasing after a Gible, I was also determined to catch it no matter what, so I chased it across three mountains to capture it!"

Manchu nodded in deep agreement, then looked at the shiny Feebas in the pool. "A shiny Feebas… I wonder how Baimu-san plans to evolve it?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Feebas has two evolution methods, right? One is when it becomes beautiful enough to evolve naturally, and the other is by trading it while holding a Prism Scale…"

"I know that. I want to ask what difference these two evolution methods make."

"Uh."

Seeing Baimu's serious expression, the excitement that had come so easily to Manchu's lips suddenly faded. He hesitated, then said quietly, "I'm just saying this, I can't guarantee it's definitely correct—a lot of people think that the Milotic evolved through the first method is far, far more beautiful than one evolved through the second!"

Isn't that obvious? The first method evolves based on beauty, so of course it'd be beautiful… uh.

Baimu was about to retort when he suddenly realized that in the anime world, the Beauty stat had most likely been watered down as well. "Is that so."

After all, the Pokémon Contests had already changed.

Beauty, which used to be a clear numerical value, had become "vague," like Pokémon that evolve through high Friendship—left to the heart, shown through external or internal expression.

Why not let the shiny Feebas evolve through its Beauty stat?

During that time, he could also build a friendly relationship between himself and the shiny Feebas, and help it become a little more confident, instead of being as timid as it had been just now.

This idea quickly took root and sprouted in Baimu's mind.

There were far too many individuals in the team that needed to grow; besides, at Feebas's current level, even if it evolved, it might not be able to see much use.

Level is a very important element even in the anime.

At most, it could be used in Pokémon Contests.

But right now it's so "move-poor," it probably doesn't have many options.

Furthermore, most Pokémon Contests in the Hoenn region are single-entry format; would Mawile, who was in high spirits, hand over a performance slot to a newcomer Pokémon?

Handing it over to Chansey or Aggron might still be possible.

If it's a "fair" competition, even a shiny Milotic probably wouldn't be able to secure a spot to perform.

Take it slow.

Baimu knew that many things couldn't be rushed; everything has an order of priority, and the veteran team members still had a great many problems and matters that needed his attention.

Besides, letting the shiny Feebas get familiar with the other Pokémon in the team was also a very important matter.