Video published, Luke rushed off to his afternoon classes. Meanwhile, the gaming corner of the YouTube was trembling again, all because of one man.
"Guys, the streamer just dropped a new one!"
"What dirty trick is it this time?"
"I'm scared to click."
The footage itself was simple: Luke's signature move, a one-versus-six sweep. On a rocky field littered with pebbles, a round, guileless Chansey faced down a Jolteon with every spine of its fur standing on end. Its trainer was an old man — white-haired, stout, in a loud floral shirt, grinning ear to ear.
"Jolteon, Discharge!"
Light tore in every direction, sparks knitting themselves into a crackling field that rippled outward. Chansey just stood there, happy and oblivious, and when the Discharge hit her, she flinched, then patted her own belly like she was saying hello.
The old man froze on the spot.
"Is that Jolteon even trying?"
"I'm dying, this is too much."
Chansey's speed left something to be desired, but her Special Defense and HP were another story entirely.
"Chansey, Minimize!"
She pressed her stubby arms together, glowed white, and shrank — visibly, ring by ring. Jolteon was already winding up, electricity screaming off its body and climbing into the clouds above.
Thunder.
The bolt came down like a hammer — and missed. Completely.
"He whiffed an ultimate move at point-blank range?"
"How is Chansey already that small?!"
Three Minimizes in and she'd all but vanished, dodging the strike with room to spare. Jolteon, meanwhile, jerked upward as if yanked by invisible hands and sailed straight into the sky.
"Wait, is it flying?!"
"That's Seismic Toss!"
Luke's voice came in over the footage, calm as ever. "Minimize dodges the vast majority of moves. Pair that with Chansey's bulk and staying power, and a one-versus-six is basically free."
"???"
"Is he even speaking English right now?"
"Unless your opponent's got Earthquake loaded and ready," Luke went on, "a Minimize team beats almost anything you throw at it."
"This is unfair."
"Bro's out here bullying senior citizens."
"Someone ban this man."
Since Chansey wasn't exactly easy to come by, Luke also offered up a budget alternative in the video: Grimer. Cheap to catch, cheap to raise, with solid resistances and respectable offense to boot — the only real downside was that it was, undeniably, a filthy little pile of sludge.
Not that Luke had any plans to catch one himself. Judging a Pokémon by its looks was simply human nature.
"Say less, I'm heading to the sewer to catch a Grimer right now."
"Thanks Luke, Grimer's officially my starter."
"I'm in Team Rocket and they issued me a Grimer — any tips on raising one?"
Within half an hour the view count had already cracked twenty thousand. YouTube and Niconico picked it up in near real time, and the video's reach kept snowballing from there. Even Koga, the Poison-type Elite Four member from Johto, reposted it.
His caption: Accurate.
Koga was a Poison specialist in his own right, known for leaning on Minimize tactics — in Pokémon Adventures, he famously carried a pair of shrunken Grimer mounted on his shoulder armor, ready for offense or defense at a moment's notice. Which, people liked to joke, might also explain the mask he never took off.
Getting a co-sign from an actual Elite Four member cemented Luke's credibility overnight. As the video kept climbing, fans started speculating about who he really was. A Grass-type Gym Leader? Some kind of Poison specialist? Whatever theory people landed on, it always ended the same way: this was no ordinary streamer. Nobody pulled off two real-world, top-tier strategies with that kind of precision unless they were something more.
"Top seven in the world rankings... is Luke secretly a Master?"
"Go bigger — Elite Four material, easy."
"Luke, god of dirty tactics."
Among Luke's growing fanbase was a grunt in Team Rocket named Milo, out of the Kanto region.
"Grunt" was a polite word for it — the ones who did the dirtiest, most exhausting work, with no benefits, no security, and no hesitation from the organization about throwing them under the bus the moment something went wrong. Milo's parents had died when he was young, and Team Rocket had taken him in. A mat to sleep on and enough food to fill his stomach was already more than he'd hoped for.
Competition inside the organization was brutal — eat or be eaten, no exceptions. But Milo wasn't built for that world. He blushed when people looked him in the eye, spoke too softly to be heard half the time, and never fought back even when he was mocked.
At night, once the moonlight came in through the cracks, he'd sneak down to the storage room and talk to the Pokémon kept there — the ones that had been through the worst of it. Once, he'd secretly set a battered Houndoom free. It cost him a bite on the arm and four broken ribs, courtesy of Instructor Viper. Later, Viper told him the Houndoom had killed a civilian and been put down by an Officer Jenny on the spot.
Milo hadn't known what to do with that.
Life in Team Rocket was dark, with the occasional sliver of light cutting through it. If you didn't want to spend your life being stepped on, climbing the ranks was the only way out. Milo had gone quiet enough, for long enough, that people had mostly written him off as mute — and once he stopped being fun to pick on, they left him alone.
It took him two years to go from grunt to reserve. Another two after that to make full soldier. When it came time to hand out Pokémon, the good ones were gone before Milo even got close. By the time only one Poké Ball was left, Instructor Viper looked him over.
"Try to survive," was all he said.
Inside the last ball was a Grimer, caked in sludge and reeking. Milo took it without a word, careful to slip away before anyone else noticed. Back in the basement, alone, he broke down crying.
Grimer just stared at him, then reached up and tried to wipe the tears away — and, catching itself mid-motion, pulled back sheepishly, embarrassed at how filthy its own hand was.
Grimer was nobody's idea of a beginner's Pokémon. But it was Milo's first real family, and that alone was enough.
Once his chores were done, sneaking onto Team Rocket's internal network to watch streams was the only thing Milo had to look forward to. He liked "the Fighter" Red's battle footage, "the Breeder" Blue's guides — but more than anyone, he liked Luke, the guy with terrible luck and endless dirty tricks.
That day, worn out from work, Milo spent three hours downloading a video over a spotty connection: Luke Teaches You Battles #04: The Minimize Team.
Watching Chansey sweep six Pokémon without breaking a sweat, he burst out laughing.
"You believe this, Grimer? Luke's still got the dirtiest tactics around."
Grimer leaned in carefully, mindful not to smear anything on him, and shared the moment. In the dim basement, the only light came from the screen's faint glow, both of them locked in.
Partway through the second half of the video, Milo's breathing started to change.
"Here's a budget alternative to Chansey," Luke's voice said. "Grimer's easier to catch, cheaper to raise —" he went on, explaining how the same tricks, Substitute-Protect-Toxic or the Minimize approach, translated over almost perfectly.
Milo swallowed hard. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. Something was opening up in front of him that he hadn't let himself imagine before. He replayed the video, over and over, warmth spreading through his chest with every pass.
Slowly, he got to his feet. His voice came out rough, unsteady.
"Come on, Grimer. Let's go train."
PS: There are no villains in this book. Team Rocket represents the dark side of this world, but even there, warmth exists between Trainers and their Pokémon. Reality is hard enough as it is — it's the presence of Pokémon that keeps this world from ever feeling truly lonely. This is a lighthearted, gently over-the-top Pokémon story through and through.