At night as while everyone else was sleeping , Austin took out Charmander's pokeball and walked for a few minutes before stopping as he wanted to speak to Charmander alone before he did anything with the information that Charmander was different .

In a flash of light , Charmander appeared in front of Austin who greeted him with a smile .

Austin stood in front of Charmander, surveying him using the Pokedex, little aware of the fact that the little fire-lizard was glaring at the mechanical device with apprehension. Dexter however, continued to rattle about its deductions.

Charmander. The lizard pokémon. The flame that burns at the tip of its tail is an indication of its emotions. The flame wavers when Charmander is enjoying itself. If the Pokémon becomes enraged, the flame burns fiercely.

This Charmander is male. Current Move set: Dragon claw, Dragon breath, dragon pulse, tail whip and Ember.

Odd specimen detected . Needs to be reported. Checking for newer cross-breeds. Match not found. Error. Error. Body size mismatched. Inner-flame less than optimum. Genetic typing: Dragon/ Fire. Please report to authorities.

Austin silently stood there waiting to see Charmander's reaction to the news .

Charmander meanwhile, was outright glaring at the mechanical device which was consistently calling it out as an oddity. Ever since its birth at… that place, he had lived amongst other charmanders, and in order to mix in with others, he had forced himself to limit his natural offenses to ember, and the highly ineffective flame burst that he managed to pull off at times. However, with the mechanical device mocking him as unnatural, all sense of subtlety and control went out of the window and-

"CHAAAAR!"

A pale yellow burst of light erupted from Charmander's mouth, projected towards the obnoxious device in his trainer's hands. His trainer only barely managed to jump to the sides and avoid the freshly overpowered burst of Dragon breath that the little lizard had sent towards him.

" Charmander ! _ Austin yelled.

That stopped Charmander short, as the results of his actions hit him. He had just, in his rage at the obnoxious device, thrown out, what was potentially his most fatal attack towards his unsuspecting trainer. It seemed that he didn't deserve getting a trainer after all, since it was sure that Austin would now report him and send him away to the Reserves.

"Charmander?" Austin repeated again, this time in a soft voice. "That was dragon breath, wasn't it?"

The unexpected curious comment shook Charmander off his reveries. Did his trainer still want to keep him, if merely out of curiosity?

"Charmander?" Austin asked, kneeling in front of the fire-lizard. "Did you want to hurt me with that attack?"

Charmander shook his head vigorously. By the gods, he was just about to lose his trainer all over again.

"Did you… attack my pokedex?"

Charmander looked a little shifty, before nodding with a grunt.

"Why?"

Charmander didn't say anything, just continued to glare at the nasty little thing in his trainer's hand.

"This device," Austin brought the infernal thing closer, "is called a pokedex. It gives me information about…" Austin stopped short, before comprehension dawned on him. He regarded the little lizard closely. "Charmander…. I want you to answer honestly, and please keep in mind that under no conditions, am I going to desert you like Damien. Is that okay?"

After several seconds of hesitation, Charmander gave a nod.

"You can use all those…." Austin paused, gathering his thoughts, "draconic attacks without any trouble at all. I saw it. That was a full-powered dragon breath."

Charmander hesitated for a while, before nodded his orange head.

" Can you… show me an Ember attack?"

Charmander gave him a look of resignation, before gathering some of his inner-flames and threw out what was possibly, the weakest ember-attack Austin had ever seen.

"Any other fire-type moves that you can do?"

Charmander had lost all hopes now. Surely his trainer had now known how hopeless a Charmander he was. With a barely concealed snarl directed towards his own weakness, he let out a fire burst, though what came out was at most, a slightly better version of his Ember attack.

"Hmmm." Ash stood up, taking a few steps back. Pointing towards a random rock on the ground, he commanded, "Now use dragon pulse on this rock."

Charmander gave a surprised grunt.

"Any problems, Charmander?"

Charmander shook his head in surprise. With little effort, he pulled a little of his inner draconic strength to unleash a dragon pulse towards the rock. The compressed sphere of draconic energy smashed into the monolith, literally annihilating it instantly.

"Well done!" Austin crowed, clapping his hands as the fire-lizard gaped in disbelief. Surely his trainer wasn't congratulating him?

"Tell me Charmander," Austin came closer, "did you ever use draconic attacks for Damien?"

Shake.

Austin raised an eyebrow. "Damien told you not to use them?"

Another shake.

"Damien knew about your draconic moves?"

Another shake.

"Damien ordered you to use fire-based attacks?"

Nod.

"This is… messing up with my mind." Austin sat down onto the ground, beside the fire-lizard, who looked at his trainer with a mix of curiosity and respect. "Charmander, I don't understand…" He spoke gently. "How is it that you can perform draconic attacks like a dragon does, and yet are unable to do a fire-type attack at all?"

Charmander looked away.

"I'm not looking down on you, buddy." Austin consoled, "just trying to understand you, that's all. I mean, you've to understand… You are a little… on the smaller side, and despite being a Charmander, your move sets speak otherwise. It's a mystery which my mind cannot comprehend."

' Do I talk to professor oak about this or not ? ' Austin thought before shaking his head .

' Let's just ask the professor if genetic variations occurs . If it does occur naturally then I will tell him but if not then I will have to decide on a new course of action with Charmander since it may have something to do with team rocket .' Austin thought

"I understand that you are not like any other Charmander…." Austin began, as the fire-lizard began to assume the worst, "—but that doesn't matter. After all, you are special. Now, I don't know why you did not, in fact, demonstrate your abilities to Damien…"- something that made Charmander ponder- "but I can tell you right now, that you have no need to hold back on anything, and I promise, I will find a way so that you are able to utilize the fire-type attacks just as strongly as well."

Charmander felt his heart stop for a moment, as he registered his trainer's words. His eyes shining bright with hope, the little, orange fire-lizard jumped to its new trainer's lap with an exuberant grunt of joy.