The Piplup Cup, held every summer vacation, was aimed at novice Trainers — mostly high school seniors or freshmen fresh out of Pokémon Academy. As an association-sanctioned event, a strong showing could help when applying for an Elementary Trainer License. Not that any of that mattered to Luke. He had no intention of becoming a Trainer, so the tournament wasn't even on his radar.
The summer heat was brutal. Inside the rental apartment, the fan whirred on full blast while Luke sat hunched over his computer, editing his next video.
Gastly floated in front of the fan with its mouth stretched wide, gaseous body rippling in the airflow, its voice warbling in time with the blades.
"Awooooooowwwwww—"
Gastly's studies had reached the practical section of The Gastly Training Manual — "How to Command Gastly in an Actual Battle."
Gastly's temperament is quite lively, often displaying unexpected performance in battle...
Gastly nodded along, thoroughly absorbed.
"Kojie!" — that made some sense.
Therefore, rather than rigid training, it's better to cultivate Gastly's independent combat awareness...
"Kojie?" — and how, exactly, was it supposed to cultivate that?
Different Gastly have different personalities, and their battle styles vary; finding the most suitable approach is key.
"Kojie kojie!" — got it, got it!
Gastly bobbed in midair, lips curling into a smug little smile, radiating the unmistakable energy of someone who'd just figured out everything there was to know.
In two days, it had picked up Confuse Ray and mastered Dark Shadow without any real effort. The source of all this wisdom was Blue's Gastly Training Manual — or what was left of it. Gastly had licked the pages to shreds, the text now a blurry, saliva-smeared mess. Devouring the book whole, in the most literal sense possible.
It glanced sideways at Luke, still glued to his screen, and felt a small pang of neglect. So it spread the ruined book open and draped it over its face, then sank halfway into the shadows and drifted there, sulking.
The fridge was out of moomoo milk. The suspicious Blue-brand energy drink was gone too — the one labeled "Speed Enhancer," which had visibly sped up Gastly's Haze and, as a side effect, sharpened its already-natural talent for melting into shadow.
Bored, blowing idle bubbles, Gastly's eye caught a new line in the manual and it perked right up.
What to do when your Pokémon is feeling down.
"Kojie kojie!" — tell me, tell me!
First, use items and Pokémon food to boost your Pokémon's affection.
"Sss ka!" — everything in the house is already gone. (Σ°△°)
Second, spend quality time together — camping, picnics, that sort of thing.
"Sss kojie!" — he doesn't even look at me.(╬•̀⤙•́)
Third, nothing motivates a Pokémon like a battle victory.
"Kojie!" — now that one it liked.
Gastly turned the idea over for a long moment. Then it remembered the tournament listing it had spotted on Luke's phone yesterday.
It drifted over, tongue flicking out to lick Luke's cheek, and blinked at him.
Gastly: (⊙_⊙)
"Oh." Luke got it immediately. "Hungry? Here, use my phone and order some food."
Phone successfully acquired, Gastly let out a delighted, scheming little laugh before it could stop itself.
"Kojie kojie kojie!"
"...Why does that sound so creepy? What are you plotting?"
Gastly just chuckled around the phone clenched in its mouth, tongue sliding up and down the screen to scroll.
Nessa's photos? No, not that. Elesa's runway show? Not that either.
What does this guy even look at in his free time?
Then its eyes lit up.
[Piplup Cup Novice Trainer Tournament — calling all young hopefuls with dreams of becoming a Trainer!]
The registration form needed Luke's ID card. Gastly rifled through boxes and drawers for a solid twenty minutes before finally digging one up, then spent another half hour painstakingly filling out the form fang by fang.
At last, it let out a long, satisfied sigh.
[Mr. Luke, your registration has been approved. Your competitor ID is: 3534.]
[Preliminary rounds begin next Wednesday. Please note the schedule.]
Gastly nodded, deeply pleased with itself, something like fire kindling behind its eyes.
I will win this tournament. For my master.
Luke finally finished editing and stretched. When he turned and saw Gastly hard at work with its training manual, something shifted in him.
It's... training itself?
Without so much as a nudge from Luke, Gastly had already worked out its own diet, its own tactics, its own training regimen. It left Luke with the faint, uncomfortable feeling of being entirely unnecessary.
"System, can you check what moves Gastly's picked up so far?"
[Spend 500 BP to unlock VIP1 privilege: Pokédex?]
[Yes / No]
"Yes." Luke's mouth twitched. "Is there a V8 privilege too?"
[Remaining BP: 570]
[Searching target... target confirmed.]
[Gastly
Type: Ghost / Poison
Ability: Levitate
Moves mastered: Confuse Ray, Lick, Mean Look, Will-O-Wisp, Curse, Dark Shadow]
Luke's first reaction was pure surprise. There was no four-move cap in real life, so a Pokémon's move count doubled as a rough measure of its strength — and this was a lot of moves for two days of self-study, manual-chewing included.
"It's already this strong?" Luke muttered. "And I caught it with one throw."
He scanned the list again and clicked his tongue, half in admiration.
"Filthy. Absolutely filthy." Five status conditions out of six moves. "If you weren't mine, this moveset would be criminal."
Confuse Ray for confusion. Lick for paralysis. Will-O-Wisp for burns. Mean Look to seal off any escape. Curse to grind the opponent down turn after turn. Add Toxic and Hypnosis to that list and it'd be an outright death sentence — status conditions stacked freely in this world, which was exactly why Luke's own Substitute-Protect-Toxic strategy had always been such a nightmare to face.
Now it looked like he'd found a whole new avenue for making people miserable.
"Confusion, paralysis, burns, poison — stack them all at once..."
Gastly, god of dirty tricks.
Even with a clear training path laid out, Luke had zero interest in doing the actual training. Being a Trainer wasn't worth the hassle. Streaming was easy money — why give that up?
The channel had just crossed eighty thousand subscribers. A little more effort and the modest goal of finally showing his face on camera would be within reach.
That was when the system dropped a new task notification.
[Task: "I'm Really Not a Million-View Streamer"]
[Objective: Release a video that hits one million views]
[Reward: 1000 BP, 1x Random Skill (LV3), 1x Random Purple Item]
Luke had already seen firsthand what system items could do — the upgraded Speed Enhancer alone had given Gastly a serious boost. If he pulled something worth six figures and flipped it, that'd be a payday and a half.
The video he'd just finished editing was ready to go up: Luke Teaches You Battles #04: The Minimize Team.
If there was a strategy even more infuriating than Substitute-Protect-Toxic, it was the Minimize team — spearheaded by the pink demon herself. A Chansey holding an Eviolite boasted absurd special defense, and it could keep stacking evasion with Minimize until it was borderline unhittable. Impossible to land a hit on, impossible to outlast.
Unkillable and still dishing out real damage — how was that even fair for one Pokémon to have?
A knowing smile crossed Luke's face. He moved the mouse and clicked Upload.
[Uploading video... your new video is live.]
[Click to watch: "Luke Teaches You Battles #04: The Minimize Team"]