I'VE CAUGHT POKÉRUS!!

I took a little break from my Pokémon Nuzlocke challenge to... play some more Pokémon? I finally convinced my fiancée to play a Pokémon game with me; so I chose the BEST one of course, SoulSilver and HeartGold. We'd previously had a go at playing through together, but I got too far ahead of her and she got discouraged - so now we play it together only when we see each other at the weekend. I even bought a Pokéwalker - something I previously had no interest in, so I could get some of the unique items and Pokémon.

(For those who were following my Nuzlocke Challenge, be patient - I WILL finish it, I've gotten the correct link cable and everything to evolve my Kadabra.)

Anyway, on our first day of playing, no less than 2 hours in... My starter Pokémon caught fucking POKÉRUS!!!!

Pokérus has something like a 1 in 22,000 chance of occurring, compared to the 1 in 6000-od chance of finding a shiny Pokémon. I've never found a shiny Pokémon before (with the exception of the dumb shiny Gyarados, of course.)

The only advice I can offer to anyone who wants to catch Pokérus legit is to NEVER RUN. If you run from a wild encounter, you will NOT catch Pokérus; you need to either catch or knock out the infected wild Pokémon. I never run from a wild battle anyway, but I was grinding levels on one of the earlier routes, went to check on my Quilava's stats and noticed the lovely purple marker.

I then proceeded to infect every single Pokémon who went through my team and send Shelly an infected Pokémon in a trade. :)

For those who are unfamiliar with Pokérus, it's a condition that causes your Pokémon's earned EVs to double. They can only catch it once, they are infected to other Pokémon for a few days, then they become immune (which is marked with another symbol), but they still receive double EVs. I'm not a hardcore EV trainer or anything, but I do use the macho brace and vitamins to make my Pokémon somewhat better. :)