Lorelei and Red went back further than the group realized. Years ago, ideological clashes had pushed all four of Kanto's Elite Four to team up against him, culminating in Red getting frozen solid on Mt. Silver — a genuinely dangerous situation. Things had thawed considerably since then, especially after Lorelei lent him real support during the New Island incident.
What actually surprised her now was just how stacked this group chat was. Every single member, Red included, turned out to be a genuinely well-known Trainer.
Gold: OH IT'S ACTUALLY AUNT LORELEI
The first message in the chat hit like a lightning strike, and Lorelei froze solid on the spot.
A-Aunt?!
A woman's age stays permanently eighteen, thank you very much.
Yellow: Gold, that's kind of rude...
Gold: What? She was already an Elite Four member back when I was a kid!
[Member "Gold" has been muted by the admin for 1 hour]
Blue: What a coincidence — we were just talking about your Perish Song strategy.
Lorelei rubbed her temples and scanned the member list with a growing headache. Two Champion-tier admins running the show — Red and Blue — and the rest of the roster sat comfortably at Master-tier or above, a handful of Gym Leaders sprinkled in.
These are all Teacher Luke's fans??
"I'm starting to regret joining this chat," she muttered, sensing exactly where this was headed.
Lorelei: My take on Perish Song isn't anywhere near as complete as Teacher Luke's, honestly.
Blue: Yeah. Agreed.
Lorelei's eye twitched. I said that to be polite. You didn't need to actually confirm it.
Being Champion clearly hasn't taught you tact. No wonder you're still single.
An awkward silence settled over the chat.
Half an hour later, the group's actual owner logged on, visibly confused.
Teacher Luke: New member?
Luke stared at his screen, baffled. I go to one class and there's a whole new Elite Four in here now?
Am I seriously the only non-Trainer in this entire chat?
Then again, with Red already precedent for "wildly overqualified group member," Luke had gone mostly numb to the whole thing. At this point, if Giovanni himself somehow ended up added to the chat, Luke doubted he'd even blink.
Probably.
Either way — livelier chat, better chat, as far as he was concerned. Red, Lorelei, and the rest of Kanto's leadership clearly already talked among themselves regularly; this was just a different corner of that same circle.
With the small talk dying down, Luke pulled up his laptop and checked the numbers on "Teacher Luke Teaches You Battling #05: Perish Song."
In just one day, the video had already been pushed to the platform's front page. Beyond clearing a million views on YouTube, it had made real waves across Niconico and other platforms too. His creator dashboard showed the new subscriber count in stark numbers: 237,240.
Gaining two hundred thousand followers off a single video wasn't a thing people casually described. There was really only one word for it.
Terrifying.
Three videos in, riding purely on an increasingly infamous reputation for dirty tricks, Teacher Luke had rocketed from a modest hundred-thousand-follower streamer to over eight hundred thousand — one clean step away from the million mark.
His inbox was already flooded with sponsorship offers, several from well-known Pokémon-adjacent brands. Luke, though, was holding the line on quality over quick cash. One company had thrown out a $14,000 offer, and he'd turned it down flat.
Aiming for the top means today's $14,000 is tomorrow's $1.4 million. Too cheap for what I'm building.
Meanwhile, as the video's reach kept climbing, the system quietly checked off another milestone.
[Video views passed 1,000,000! BP+1000]
[Video shares passed 100,000! BP+1000]
[...]
[Remaining BP: 11,720]
[Spend 10,000 BP to redeem the Protect TM?]
[Yes / No]
"Yes!"
System items lived in his personal storage space, but non-system items couldn't be stashed there — and since a TM could be used indefinitely, 10,000 BP was a genuine bargain.
Luke pulled the white USB drive out of his inventory, turned it over in his hand for a moment, then called Gastly, currently mid-lick on a textbook in the next room.
"Guess why I called you over."
"Kojie?" Gastly tilted its head, eyed the drive — and then its whole posture snapped upright.
"Kojie kojie!" — understood, understood!
Luke nodded, pleased, looking at Gastly the way a proud teacher might regard a star pupil. Gastly took the drive in its mouth, plugged it in, scrolled with its tongue, and pulled up the training video with practiced ease.
The sheer fluency of it was, honestly, a little heartbreaking.
For once, Luke actually had some free time on his hands, so he sat down and worked through the Protect training alongside Gastly. The mechanics were simple enough on paper: a Haunter-line Pokémon gathered its Haze into a defensive mist shield in front of its body, absorbing incoming attacks. The shield's strength and coverage scaled directly with the Pokémon's own power — in theory, a fully mastered Protect could offer a full 360-degree defense with zero blind spots.
Gastly, still fairly young in its training, could only manage a narrow sliver of a shield after several attempts, and slumped dejectedly across the keyboard, practically melting into the laptop's cooling fan.
"No rush. Take it slow."
Luke pulled out an Oran Berry cube and dangled it above Gastly's head like a cat toy. Gastly gave him a half-hearted glance before reluctantly opening its mouth.
"Awoo! (￣～￣)"
Three seconds of chewing later, a slow smile spread across its face.
Gastly: (`)
Once Gastly was properly consoled, Luke turned back to the group chat.
Teacher Luke: How do you all train Protect?
Gold: You don't even know THIS? It's literally just — do this, then this, then that.
Blue: Mastering Protect fully is genuinely difficult, actually.
Red: New strategy?
Teacher Luke: No, just basic Protect.
Red thought it over for a second before it clicked. The deepest truths are usually the simplest ones. Even something as basic as Return, trained to its absolute ceiling, could rival Hyper Beam in raw output. Red found himself genuinely respecting Luke's willingness to grind out the fundamentals.
Red: I've got some personal notes on it, if you want them.
Luke's eyebrows shot up. Wait, seriously?
Teacher Luke: You're too generous. Send it over whenever.
Watching this exchange unfold, Lorelei absently hugged her Lapras plush a little tighter. Is he cooking up ANOTHER dirty strategy? And now he's getting personal coaching notes from Red himself?His Protect game is about to hit a whole new tier, isn't it.
Later, Luke laid the printed Protect Insights out in front of Gastly like fresh study material, and its huge eyes practically sparkled with hunger for it.
"Slurp—"
Watching Gastly drool uncontrollably over the pages, Luke rubbed his chin, murmuring to himself.
"Turns out raising a Pokémon isn't actually that hard..."
Recommendation tickets appreciated — let's go!