"Mom!"
David spotted his mother in the crowd and called out. Hearing her beloved son's voice, David's mother finally turned her head to look.
"Mom, what happened? Why were you in such a hurry to have me come over?"
Seeing that they had finally arrived, David breathed a sigh of relief and asked his mother about the situation.
"We'll talk about the specifics later. Quick, son, use your Aura here. See if you can sense anything."
David's mother had no time for further explanation. Seeing that David had arrived, she pulled him in front of her and pointed to a spot not far away.
David looked closely and saw something that looked special, like an incubation chamber, placed there. Time was short, so David didn't ask any more questions. He activated his Aura and directed it towards the incubation chamber.
Soon, under David's careful control, the Aura slowly permeated inside. In his perception, he felt a strong, dark energy swirling within, making him feel very uncomfortable.
After sensing for a long time, besides that dark, evil energy, he didn't discover anything unusual.
Just as he was about to withdraw his Aura, he suddenly realized that this dark energy was not chaotic. Instead, it was regularly spreading out from a central point.
The energy at the core was at least several times more concentrated than the surrounding area.
When David tentatively probed deeper with his Aura, the originally stable energy instantly became turbulent. To prevent the energy from completely spiraling out of control, David had no choice but to withdraw his Aura.
But even in that brief moment of contact, he still sensed something unusual.
The center of that dark power seemed...
The surrounding people were all observing David's reaction. Seeing him withdraw his Aura, they all cast concerned glances.
"Alright, don't all crowd together like this. Make some space." David's mother, who was about to ask something, saw so many people crowded together and told them to spread out a bit.
"How is it? Can you sense anything?"
"There's a very strong dark energy inside, and it feels very uncomfortable. However, when I extended my Aura deep inside, at the core of that power, there seemed to be another faint power resisting."
"As soon as I sensed that power, the dark energy inside immediately became violent. Fearing something might go wrong, I had to retreat first."
"By the way, what exactly is in here? And this power..."
Facing his mother's question, David took a breath and replied, then asked his own questions.
Upon hearing David's answer, everyone present visibly relaxed. Then, David's mother turned and gave orders to the surrounding personnel.
"Alright, since the situation has been confirmed, let's proceed with the plan we just discussed. Don't just stand there, everyone, start!"
Upon hearing his mother's words, the surrounding researchers immediately dispersed, and then each began to carry out their assigned tasks in an orderly fashion.
By this time, David's mother finally had time to explain the cause and course of events to David.
"What? Inside the incubator is a Ralts Egg?"
"It's the offspring of your Gardevoir and Gallade!"
"My starter Pokémon that was originally prepared for me..."
A large amount of information flooded in at once, almost burning out David's brain. After pondering for a long time, David finally understood the situation.
The incubator earlier contained a Ralts, and it was the offspring of his mother's Gardevoir and Gallade, also the starter Pokémon originally prepared for him. His father had mentioned it before, but only said there was a slight accident, and since he already had his little fox, there was no further mention of it.
After his mother's explanation, he learned that the reason for the accident was that, for some unknown reason, this Egg suddenly underwent an abnormal change before it even began to hatch.
Originally, as a Fairy-type Pokémon, a Ralts Egg should contain the Aura of life energy. But for some unknown reason, the dense dark energy emanating from this Egg was so strong that it could be felt by the naked eye, without needing any detection.
Subsequent inspections even found that this situation was continuing to worsen.
The Egg, which should have hatched long ago, had not successfully hatched. Instead, the dark energy it emitted grew denser day by day, while the life Aura within it became weaker and weaker.
After many rounds of testing and diagnosis, the conclusion was that if measures were not taken to curb it quickly, there would only be two outcomes. Either the Egg would be completely consumed by dark energy, becoming a completely dead Egg.
Or, after Ralts was completely corrupted, it would hatch into a monster that only had the appearance of a Ralts but had completely lost its sanity.
"This is the first time I've seen such a situation. There are very few documented cases. After multiple rounds of discussion, we decided to adopt Dr. William's plan."
Following his mother's gaze, David saw a figure directing the crowd, presumably Dr. William.
Dr. William in the crowd noticed David's gaze, but this was clearly not the time for pleasantries. He nodded at David as a greeting.
"In short, the plan is to try to stimulate Ralts's own will from the outside, to strengthen her power to resist that dark power."
"After testing, we decided to use Aura as the external stimulus."
At this point, David finally understood completely. No wonder Gallade was so anxious, no wonder he had waited so long for this starter Pokémon. It turned out to be like this all along.
As for why they were in such a hurry to get him, it was also easy to understand. To stimulate Ralts's will from the outside, without the power of nature, the best choice could only be Aura.
And it was difficult for Pokémon to resonate with each other like a Trainer and a Pokémon. So, a special ability user who mastered Aura was the best candidate.
Moreover, Ralts was already half his Pokémon. There was no better choice than him.
Given David's love for Pokémon, even if it were a strange Ralts in front of him, he would choose to save it, let alone his own Ralts.
Not to mention that this was his future Pokémon, there was also the relationship with Gardevoir and Gallade. They had watched him and Aria grow up since childhood, and they were no different from family.
As for why David had to come personally... Even though David had encountered quite a few special ability users since becoming a Trainer—Psychic users, Dragon Force users, Spiritual Power users—almost everything imaginable.
But this was based on the fact that he was already in contact with the top young talents of the Cloudspire Alliance, among whom the probability of special ability users appearing was inherently very high.
The Cloudspire Alliance indeed had many special ability users, but that was compared to other alliances. In reality, compared to the vast number of ordinary people, the proportion of special ability users was an exaggeration to say it was one in ten thousand.
Even so, a considerable portion of them were Psychic users who merely filled the numbers, capable at most of floating a cup or bending a spoon.