Early Saturday morning, Gastly woke lazy, unmotivated Luke up with an affectionate Lick.
Paralysis: triggered.
Luke shuddered, fumbled a Cheri Berry off the nightstand with trembling hands, and chewed through the paralysis cure with a flat expression, nodding at Gastly once it wore off.
"Nice work."
"Kojie kojie!"
Luke had made it clear last time — Toxic training only happened with him present, no exceptions. So Gastly, unable to contain itself, had woken him up at the crack of dawn and was now zipping excitedly around the room.
Luke yawned his way through getting ready. He'd stayed up half the night gaming with a rich woman, and now he had a full day of Toxic training ahead. This is what being a Trainer actually looks like, huh? Riveting.
Still, a promise was a promise, and he found himself weirdly motivated once he actually got moving. He pulled up Gastly's Pokédex entry in the system.
[Gastly. Ghost / Poison. Ability: Levitate.
Moves: Confuse Ray, Lick, Hypnosis, Curse, Dark Shadow, Will-O-Wisp, Mean Look, Protect, Substitute.]
It had basically cleared its entire pre-evolution movepool at this point. Toxic was the last missing piece — the final component of a complete Substitute-Protect-Toxic kit, and given how thin Gastly's early offensive options were otherwise, arguably the most important one.
"Let's go, grab the poison gem — we're heading to a real training facility," Luke said through a yawn.
"Kojie kojie!"
Between his stream/YouTube payout and last night's windfall, Luke was sitting on roughly $8,400 — enough to justify a proper professional venue this time. Sure, the hourly rate ran around $140, but professional facilities came with trained staff, safety protocols, and a medical team on standby. For Toxic training specifically, that peace of mind felt worth paying for.
He settled on a battle club called Bull Coliseum. Trainers could pay per session or buy in with a membership, but Luke knew himself well enough to admit he wasn't coming back often — he paid $430 flat to book a private training space outright.
Per his request, the club paired him with an Elite-tier Poison-type Trainer for consultation and Helping Hand support: a tall, lean woman named Vera, sharp brows, sharper eyes.
"You're training a Poison-type?" Vera glanced him over. "Rare to see a Trainer who actually picked Gastly as a starter."
Poison and Ghost both sat firmly in unpopular-type territory, and Gastly's notoriously long training curve made it an even less common pick. Still — Gengar was a legitimately formidable endpoint, and Vera clearly had a soft spot for the line.
"I want to work on Toxic," Luke said. "Appreciate the help."
"What kind of support do you need?" Vera crossed her arms, one eyebrow raised. "Live sparring? Or feeding it moves directly?"
Luke thought back to what Koga's Toxic Experience had said about Poison-types specifically. Unlike most types, their natural poison immunity meant they could, in theory, absorb another Pokémon's toxins and fold that strength into their own — not unlike some cultivation-novel trope about devouring an enemy's fire to grow stronger. The more toxins absorbed, the more potent and stubborn the resulting Toxic became.
Koga had apparently been the first to formalize this theory, and his notes were packed with detailed toxin-blending techniques. Attempting this blind, without his notes, would just leave a Pokémon suffering for nothing. Which made the Toxic Experience scroll an almost absurdly generous gift, in hindsight.
This isn't training Toxic, Luke thought. This is basically pulling off some forbidden cultivation technique.
The poison gem could amplify Gastly's existing toxins directly — and once those toxins mixed with another Pokémon's venom, the resulting Toxic would only get stronger. Which was exactly why he'd come looking for a Poison-type specialist in the first place.
"Just feed it moves," Luke said. "Direct Poison-type attacks, ideally."
Vera nodded, tossed out a Poké Ball, and released a genuinely intimidating Arbok. Ekans came out harmless pre-evolution, but a fully evolved Arbok could poison a Tauros in under three seconds flat.
Luke eyed the massive cobra warily. "Start with Poison Sting."
He turned to Gastly. "Remember what Koga's notes said. Don't force it."
Gastly, quadruple-resistant to poison and thoroughly confident about it, grinned wide and nodded.
Vera's voice dropped low. "Arbok, Poison Sting!"
"Hiss—"
Arbok's tongue flicked out, its patterned body rearing up, a cold glint flashing from its fangs. As an Elite Trainer's Pokémon, its Poison Sting came in fast — but Gastly's reflexes matched it easily. A faint mist shield bloomed in front of it via Protect, slowing the incoming barbs just enough.
Then Gastly opened its mouth and started eating the poison barbs one by one, crunching through them like chocolate.
Vera's expression froze. There's a training method that involves just... eating the attack? Quadruple resistance or not, nobody had ever seen a Pokémon casually snack on incoming Poison Stings before.
Once it swallowed the last barb, the black mist swirling around Gastly seemed to thicken, darker toxins visibly churning through it.
"Kojie kojie!" Gastly beamed, unmistakably proud of itself.
Relieved to see it unhurt, Luke smiled at Vera. "Keep going."
She hesitated, then called out, "Arbok, Acid!"
A corrosive stream shot toward Gastly — potent enough to eat through Special Defense on most Pokémon, Gastly included, in theory. Vera's frown deepened as Gastly grabbed the poison gem and dove headfirst straight into the acid cloud.
"Sssssss—"
To Vera's absolute horror, Gastly just shook itself happily in the acid, like it was soaking in a warm bath.
"Kojie~www!"
"What the HELL," Vera said, eyes wide.
The gem's outer shell had already dissolved under the acid, and Gastly was now happily slurping the toxic core out like marrow from a bone, long red tongue working back and forth.
"Slurp—"
Vera stood there, genuinely stunned. Even as an Elite Poison specialist, she'd never witnessed anything like this.
"What... what kind of training regimen even IS this?" she managed. "This is terrifying."
Luke, for his part, was equally thrown. Is Koga's method really this insane? Then again — Koga was a Poison Elite, and the Toxic Experience represented a lifetime of work. Combined with Gastly's quadruple resistance, as long as the fight stayed within the same general power tier, Gastly basically held the advantage automatically.
Luke rubbed the back of his neck, bewildered. "I could've sworn this was our first real training session..."
"...how did I accidentally make it unstoppable?"