Wednesday, Metro City University. Up at the podium, the English teacher — pretty, soft-spoken — was mid-lecture. Outside, the sun blazed; inside, the lukewarm air conditioning was doing its best to lull the whole room to sleep.
Daniel elbowed Luke. "Hey, you look wrecked."
"My place almost burned down last night. Hard to sleep through that."
"Wait, seriously? Does one of your neighbors keep a Fire-type or something?"
Luke propped his chin on his hand, wearing an expression that could only be described as suffering in silence. Yeah, no, I definitely can't explain that it was my own Ghost-type that nearly torched the building. Phosphorus fire only needed forty degrees Celsius to ignite, and Will-O-Wisp came with area-of-effect splash damage built in — somehow nastier than an actual Fire-type's Ember.
"Luke. Daniel. Are you two paying attention?" the teacher asked sweetly. "Good English is the foundation of every future Trainer."
Daniel straightened up. "Don't worry, Teacher — I'll keep him in line!"
She tilted her head, pleased.
Luke glanced sideways at the Java Programming textbook sitting open on Daniel's desk and said nothing, just smiled. Bringing a coding book to English class. Bold.
"By the way," Luke said, "where's Bob today?"
"Competition," Daniel murmured. "Piplup Cup prelims."
"He actually signed up?" Luke raised an eyebrow. "I heard over three thousand people entered this year — some of the Fighting Department kids from Union Tech went too."
"Yeah, it's stacked. But there's a fifty-thousand-dollar prize on the line, and money like that always pulls out the reckless ones."
Luke — currently on a first-name basis with his own debt — sighed. "Good for them. Wonder who's taking the title this year."
Outside the Riverbend Arena, the crowd for the prelims was already packed shoulder to shoulder. Most of the entrants were high school seniors or freshly minted college freshmen out of Pokémon Academy, all chasing a shot at the Elementary Trainer Certificate assessment. As an association-sanctioned event, it had drawn Fighting Department students from Metro City University, Lakeside University, and Union Tech alike.
Bob stood off to one side in a branded Trainer uniform, custom ball pouch strapped to his hip, taking slow breaths. "Not nervous. Not nervous at all."
Becoming a Trainer had been Bob's dream for as long as he could remember — his scores had missed the cutoff for Metro City's Fighting Department by the narrowest margin, but he still believed a self-taught Trainer could make it just as far as anyone with formal training.
Looking around, he saw sharp-eyed Pidgeotto, thickly-built Machop, Beautifly with patterns like painted glass. Fighting Department kids clustered together, laughing, trading notes — and every second among them made Bob feel more like an outsider.
He took another breath.
"Contestants who've checked in, please proceed to your assigned venues!"
"ID 2527 — Trainer Derek, Venue 7."
"ID 3534 — Trainer Luke, Venue 7."
It wasn't Bob's round yet, and he'd just started to relax — until that name hit him and his eyes went wide.
Wait. Brother Luke's competing?
He hurried toward Venue 7, half-planning to razz Luke a little, cheer him on. What he found instead was a scene he wouldn't forget any time soon.
A distinctly sinister-looking Gastly, contestant badge hanging around its neck, was grinning at a staff member in a way that could curdle milk.
The young woman doing check-ins crouched down, bewildered. "Um — little guy, where's your Trainer?"
"Kojie kojie!"
"Did you two get separated? Because a Pokémon can't compete without a registered Trainer present, so—"
This is basically a forfeit, she thought, keeping the smile plastered on.
"Hiss-ka~~~" Gastly widened its already bloodshot eyes and leaned in, doing its best impression of confidence.
The woman flinched, smile going brittle at the edges.
"Why hasn't Venue 7 started?" A man in a suit strode over — the tournament supervisor — and the staffer perked up immediately.
"Sir, it's just—" She turned back to Gastly, apologetic. "Without a Trainer present, you can't compete."
"Kojie..." Gastly's face fell.
The supervisor listened, thought it over, and felt something click — the unmistakable scent of a marketing opportunity. A Pokémon winning a match with no Trainer in sight? That was a story. And there was zero downside to letting it try.
He pushed the gate open himself, smiling. "Welcome to the tournament, little guy."
"Kojie!" Gastly's eyes lit up. Badge in hand — or rather, dangling around its neck — it floated eagerly into the arena.
"Sir, what exactly—"
"Get the press over here." The supervisor was already thinking three steps ahead. "This is too good to pass up."
"Hello, everyone, welcome to the live match at Venue 7!"
"On the blue side, Trainer Derek, a freshman out of Southbank University's Fighting Department, bringing out—"
"Would you look at that, it's Quilava! The evolved form of starter Cyndaquil, running hot enough to hit a hundred and fifty degrees Celsius!"
"And on the red side — Trainer Luke, out of Metro City University's Finance Department, fielding a Gastly!"
"Uh... it doesn't look like Trainer Luke is actually here?"
Up in the stands, Bob stared blankly at Gastly's eager little bounce in the arena. What is Brother Luke even doing right now? He just... let Gastly compete alone? If he wanted to forfeit, he didn't need to send Gastly all the way here to do it.
Derek looked equally lost. Wait, is this just a free win? Happiness this sudden felt almost suspicious.
With the supervisor raising no objections, the referee shrugged and blew the whistle. "Let the match begin!"
"Quilava, use—" Derek started.
Quilava takes about 0.3 seconds to say. Use takes another 0.2. Given that Gastly's base Speed stat sits at 80 — the same as a Dragonite's, which can circle the globe in roughly sixteen hours — the question becomes: how long does it take Gastly to circle a standard ten-by-ten arena?
Not long enough for Derek to finish his sentence, as it turned out.
Before he could get the command out, Gastly had already crossed the field, grinning, and wrapped Quilava in a thick, chilling wall of Haze.
"Eek—!"
The flames on Quilava's back guttered out. It dropped to its front legs, whining in pain. The whole stadium gasped.
"What the hell?!"
"That's it?! That was insanely fast!"
"No command given, and Gastly attacked first anyway!" the commentator said, stunned.
Quilava curled into a tight ball, flames roaring back to life, and tore straight through the Haze with a Flame Wheel.
Derek exhaled in relief. "Spark!"
The command didn't land. Quilava skidded across the arena floor and slammed into the boundary wall, dazed, seeing stars.
Gastly reeled in its Confuse Ray, chuckling, and drifted closer to the disoriented Quilava.
"Get up! Use Spark!" Derek hissed.
Gastly tilted its head. It's not going to get up just because you yelled at it. Bond or no bond, battle rules still apply, buddy.
"Eek—!!"
But under everyone's watching eyes, Quilava screamed skyward and its flames flared violently — Flash Fire kicking in, sensing an opening, ready to cheat its way back into the fight.
Gastly: Σ(っ°Д°;)っ
Not on its watch. It surged forward and Licked Quilava — once for paralysis, twice to finish the job. In the hush that followed, the wet sound of Gastly licking its own drooling mouth carried clean across the silent stadium.
Gastly: (*⊙~⊙)
"The winner is... G— no, the winner is Trainer Luke?" The referee sounded genuinely unsure of himself, glancing toward the supervisor, who was already deep in conversation with a cluster of reporters, visibly thrilled.
"Who even is this Luke guy?"
"Isn't he Finance Department? How'd he beat a Fighting Department student?"
"Can a Trainer even count as winning if he wasn't connected the whole match?"
"Guess it really is death by a thousand cuts."
Bob looked from the stunned Derek to the smugly grinning Gastly, a slow, uneasy realization dawning on him.
Is that... really the same Gastly Brother Luke caught? Since when has it been trained to this level?
You told me you didn't want to be a Trainer!