"A Pokémon Inspector? And you'd be reporting directly to you, Lance?"
Caster's eyes lit up. He could practically feel himself starting to drool.
Not only would he become a League official, he'd also be at Champion Lance's side every single day. Sure, the title was "Pokémon Inspector," but let's be real — that was just a fancy way of saying Lance's personal protégé.
In the Pokémon world, that was the kind of position people spent their whole lives chasing. If it were ever opened to public applications, the building would be stampeded.
All Caster had to do was say yes.
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't tempted.
But then he thought about his ability, and he shook his head. "I appreciate it, Lance, I really do. But once I finish my run at the Pokémon League, I'm planning to travel to other regions. There's still so much out there I haven't seen."
Caster's strength grew with every catch — the quantity and quality of what he fished up was everything. Locking himself into one region would put a ceiling on how far he could go.
Besides, with his ability, there was no reason he couldn't eventually stand side by side with Lance. Maybe even surpass him someday. Becoming his apprentice right now would just be selling himself short.
That was a trade he wasn't willing to make.
So after thinking it through, Caster turned it down.
Lance looked mildly surprised, but let it go without pushing. Every trainer carved their own path.
"Do your best."
He looked at the certainty on Caster's face and gave a firm nod. "I'll be watching. Maybe one day we'll get the chance to battle each other."
Caster nodded back and pumped his fist. "I'll hold you to that, Lance."
Battling was his second greatest passion, right after fishing. The idea of one day going up against top-tier trainers like Lance, Iris, Cynthia, and Alder — that was something genuinely worth working toward.
And if he happened to snag a World Champion title somewhere along the way, well, that wouldn't be so bad either.
Lance gave another nod and was about to start handling the scene when Caster pulled out the Pokémon Egg he'd recovered from Damian and held it out. "Lance, what do you think should be done with this? Damian had it on him."
Caster had a clear picture of the team he wanted to build, a Rain team, so he didn't just pick up and raise every Pokémon he stumbled across.
And without knowing what was inside, he wasn't about to take the egg without thinking it through first.
More importantly, he had no way of knowing whether Team Rocket had tagged or tracked it somehow. If they traced it back to him, that was nothing but a headache he didn't need.
"Hmm?"
Lance paused. "That egg?"
He'd noticed it in Caster's hands when he arrived, but hadn't thought much of it at the time. Now that it was brought up, he turned his full attention to it, and something immediately felt off.
"Let me take a look."
He took the egg from Caster and pressed his palm against the shell, reaching out with his senses.
A soft white light bloomed across the egg's surface, bright enough to make Caster's eyes go wide.
That light was coming from Lance. He was sure of it.
After a moment, Lance opened his eyes and the glow faded slowly away.
"This egg is unusual. There's a tremendous amount of energy inside it, far beyond what you'd expect from an ordinary Pokémon."
His expression shifted to something harder to read. "But its life force is faint."
The implication was clear enough: something was wrong with this egg. There was a real chance it was on its way to becoming a dead egg, one that might never hatch at all.
The Power of Viridian.
Caster's brow lifted slightly. He remembered from the special chapters that Lance had awakened something called the Power of Viridian. It came with all kinds of extraordinary effects, one of which was the ability to sense life energy and emotional energy from living things.
He stared at Lance with barely concealed envy and sighed inwardly. When am I ever going to get something like that?
But Lance's assessment pulled him back to the situation at hand. His expression grew more serious as the pieces started to fall into place. This egg is probably one of Dr. Fuji's test subjects.
Dr. Fuji's work was notoriously unstable. The Pokémon radio waves he used were all over the place. But you couldn't deny that his experiments occasionally produced Pokémon of extraordinary strength and potential. The Red Gyarados that Lance would one day catch was proof enough of that.
And this egg had been personally carried by Damian, kept separate from everything else. That alone made it anything but ordinary.
Thinking it over, Caster rubbed his hands together and asked, without any shame whatsoever, "Lance, can you tell what species it is? What's actually inside?"
"Pokémon Eggs are tricky. You can't confirm the species until they hatch."
Lance shook his head, but when he saw how visibly deflated Caster looked, he smiled and added, "That said, I can sense that the energy in this egg seems to carry both Psychic-type and Water-type attributes."
The Power of Viridian couldn't pin down the exact species, but it could pick up on the general typing.
"Water and Psychic?"
Caster's eyes lit up immediately.
Pokémon with that combination weren't exactly common. Outside of Slowpoke and Staryu, you were basically looking at Bruxish and Arctovish. But the odds of running into either of those in the Kanto region were pretty slim, so this egg was almost certainly a Slowpoke or a Starmie.
The more he thought about it, the harder it was to keep still. Caster stood there rubbing his hands together like he was trying to start a fire.
Whether it turned out to be Staryu or Slowpoke, both fit perfectly into his Rain team. More than that, both could Mega Evolve.
And Mega Starmie specifically? That thing was in a league with the legendary Ultra Beasts. Not to mention those long, graceful limbs. Honestly, who in their right mind could say no to a Staryu?
Lance could see exactly how badly Caster wanted it. And considering that if the egg were confiscated by the League it might sit in storage and never hatch, whereas left with someone like Caster it actually had a fighting chance, Lance smiled and held it back out.
"Take it. It's yours."
Caster blinked. Then it clicked, and a grin spread across his face as he took the egg back without hesitation.
While Lance turned his attention to the battlefield, Caster quietly activated an Energy Orb and channeled it into the egg.
The egg trembled. It soaked up the pure energy like it had been starving for it, as if it was relieved just to feel it.
It's working.
Caster felt a rush of excitement.
The Energy Orbs his ability rewarded him with weren't just packed with elemental energy. They were also saturated with raw life force.
The egg's life force was weak? Fine. He'd just pour some in. Problem solved.
He activated two more orbs and fed them into the egg one after another. By the time the third one was absorbed, the egg finally seemed content, its hunger eased.
"Come on, little one. I hope you hatch soon."
Caster gave the shell a gentle pat, then tucked the egg carefully back into his bag.
"Alright, get going." Lance waved him off and turned a cold eye toward the still-unconscious Damian. "Leave all of this to me. None of it will come back to you. As for him and his Pokémon, they can look forward to a very long stay in a cell."
"Later, Lance."
Caster recalled his Gyarados, hopped back on his bike, and started pedaling hard in the direction of, well, not Cinnabar Island anymore. Fuchsia City.
The fight between him and Damian had caused quite a scene. Nearly ten minutes had passed since it ended, and people were already starting to drift over to see what happened. Sticking around any longer went against everything Caster had set out to do.
Besides, according to Clair, Lance had been in the middle of a meeting with Lt. Surge when all of this went down, which meant Lt. Surge was probably still at the Gym.
In that case, I might as well swing by and challenge the Fuchsia Gym. Good training, and it gives me a clean alibi. The more distance between me and this mess, the better.
With that settled, Caster stood up on his pedals and pushed into full gear, racing toward Fuchsia City.