And there was one more thing worth noting about this particular Torchic — one that Nova had nearly missed at first glance.
She wasn't just Gold-rated. Her feathers were gold too.
A normal Torchic's plumage ran orange-red, with individual variation pulling slightly brown in some and slightly yellow in others. The range existed, but it never drifted far from that warm, familiar base color.
This one was different. Her feathers had a distinctly yellow cast — bright enough, and gilded enough, that standing in the light of the nursery she gave off an almost shimmering impression, like something hammered out of metal rather than hatched from an egg.
There was no question about it. Somewhere in the Pokémon Factory's mass-breeding operation, they had finally produced a Shiny.
Shiny Pokémon were genuinely rare. That much was true. But rarity alone didn't mean superiority, and Nova had always been skeptical of the trainer's legend that Shiny Pokémon were inherently stronger than their ordinary counterparts. In the wild, a Shiny often stood out in ways that made survival harder — different coloring meant standing out from the group, which frequently meant rejection and increased danger. The Shiny Pokémon that did make it tended to be tougher simply because they'd had to be.
Looking at this golden little Torchic now, though, Nova found that long-held skepticism getting a bit shaky.
Her standout trait — the Appearance-Fixated trait — was already exceptional on paper. The more attractive her Trainer, the stronger she performed, scaling all the way up to double each base stat at its maximum. That ceiling was extraordinary. It exceeded what most held items or even some Mega Evolutions could offer on a sustained basis.
With that trait, her ceiling as a battler was, in the right hands, essentially limitless. A path to Champion-level strength wasn't a stretch. It was the natural conclusion.
The problem, as always, was the condition attached to it.
Nova was self-aware enough to know that he was reasonably good-looking. Everywhere he went, people said so. But when he had stepped closer to the cage a few minutes ago, the Torchic's reaction had been mild — a small brightening, a flicker of interest. Nothing close to the frantic bar-rattling she had done the moment Aresdra walked past.
That answered the question clearly enough. Nova's appearance met the minimum threshold. It wouldn't earn him hostility the way the previous owner apparently had. But it would never unlock the trait's upper range either.
Only someone with looks as striking as Aresdra's could push the Appearance-Fixated trait to its full potential. The Torchic hadn't even needed time to evaluate. She had made her assessment in about three seconds.
If Sprigatito had felt, in retrospect, like a Pokémon designed specifically for Nova, then this Torchic felt like one designed specifically for Aresdra. The match was almost uncomfortably precise.
Still, before he said anything final, Nova wanted more information. The arson incident was still sitting in the back of his mind. He had recently moved into a new place, and he would very much prefer it to remain standing.
Karena watched Nova begin asking questions about the Torchic with the quiet, unsurprised expression of someone whose prediction had just come true.
Of course the Shiny pulled him in. Even after she had explained the full situation, the appeal of a golden-feathered Torchic had clearly won out. She had seen it happen before.
The rational part of her brain said she should discourage this. Anyone permitted to make an on-site selection had connections, and if the choice went badly, getting a second exchange arranged would be a significant headache for everyone involved.
The other part of her brain was quietly desperate for someone to take this particular Torchic off the factory's hands. She couldn't release it into the wild. She couldn't keep it indefinitely. And it had already generated enough paperwork to fill a binder.
She stopped trying to weigh the two thoughts against each other and simply decided to answer every question honestly. If they chose badly after being fully informed, that was on them. She had done her part.
"Could you tell me more about the previous owner?" Nova asked.
"What specifically would you like to know?"
"Background, personality, what they were like. Since they're taking legal action against the factory, I imagine you have a fairly complete picture by now."
Nothing he was asking for was confidential — it wasn't as though he was a journalist. This was closer to filling in context.
Karena considered for a moment, then nodded. "The family runs a number of import-export businesses in the City. Reasonably wealthy. They had enough connections to qualify for an on-site selection, same as you."
Nova paused. "They also came in person to choose, and they still ended up with this one?"
"Of course." Karena looked mildly puzzled by the question. "We hatch perhaps one Shiny per year, at most. Any family with a priority selection opportunity would claim it immediately. A Shiny appearing in battle draws every eye in the room — that kind of appeal is obvious to anyone."
She assumed, not unreasonably, that Nova was drawn to the Torchic for the same reason the previous family had been. It was the most natural assumption. She had no way of knowing the Shiny coloring was almost incidental to his actual interest.
"What were they like?" Nova asked. "The family."
Karena's expression shifted into something dry and slightly tired. "That I remember in detail, unfortunately. The staff member who escorted them came back with a great deal to say.
The father was stubborn and refused to listen to any guidance. The mother spent the entire visit convinced she was being cheated somehow and questioned everything. The son treated the factory like a playground — touching things he shouldn't, ignoring every instruction, impossible to redirect. Apparently he has a similar reputation at school."
Nova's expression settled into a slight frown. "Is it possible the Torchic acted the way it did because they treated it badly?"
"Entirely possible." Karena's tone was frank. "Once the lawsuit came in, we looked into it. From what we pieced together — the Torchic has never responded well to being handled without warning. The boy kept picking it up to show it off, repeatedly, despite its reactions. Eventually it pecked hard enough to break the skin.
When the father found out, he came at it with a bat. The Torchic drove him back with Ember. The next morning, the family's villa burned down."
Nova was quiet for a moment.
Then he laughed — a short, genuine one. "Good. They had it coming."
The picture was complete now, and it only made him more certain.
The Torchic hadn't burned a random house down. She had burned down the house of the person who had swung a bat at her, after his son had spent days grabbing her without warning. She had also, notably, waited until the following morning — which suggested she hadn't acted in blind panic, but had made a deliberate decision.
For a Level 11 Pokémon, that was a remarkable amount of clarity about consequences.
Nova looked at the golden Torchic again. She had gone back to watching Aresdra with that same quiet, fixed attention, completely uninterested in anything else in the room.
Grudges settled promptly, he thought. Waiting a whole day was probably the generous option.
She suited Aresdra perfectly. He had already decided.