July 22nd, Wednesday.
Early that morning Luke settled Eevee in his lap and turned the camera on, and a wave of self-declared "virtual Eevee enthusiasts" flooded straight into the stream.
"EEVEE-CHAN IS LIVE"
"Teacher Luke please stop blocking the camera, give the actual star some room"
"thanks for the rocket gift to 'Little Eevee'... yeah that one's on me, I was in the shot"
Luke, appropriately humbled, angled the camera fully onto Eevee.
Is this genuinely a problem now?How did a channel built entirely on dirty tactics somehow morph into a pet blog on the side?
Judging purely by gift revenue, though, Eevee's screen time was pulling numbers that rivaled — arguably beat — Luke's own face-cam segments. Which meant, as far as Luke was concerned, he had every justification to keep rubbing her head on camera.
"Let GO of my paw!"
"TEACHER LUKE, PERISH"
Luke grabbed hold of Eevee's soft, plush paw pad and cleared his throat. "Today's an entertainment lineup. Returning champions: the Pink Devil Family."
The "Pink Devil" label covered Clefairy, Chansey, Blissey — cute on the surface, deceptively vicious underneath. In practice Blissey stayed mostly monopolized by the Nurse Joy lineage, so few Trainers actually built serious strategies around it. Its damage output ran genuinely limited too, which was exactly why Luke framed today's session as pure fun rather than a real showcase.
"Thanks to 'Why Didn't Teacher Luke Stream For Days' for the plane gift — yeah, I was off on a date with Cynthia."
The chat exploded into pure disbelief.
"???"
"I have never witnessed someone this shameless"
Luke sighed. Nobody ever believes the honest answer. During his entire stretch with Cynthia he'd somehow failed to actually land a rich benefactor and instead walked away $700,000 in debt.
To dig himself out he'd decided to lean into raising his Pokémon as content stars — idols, essentially, minus the actual idol part — since streaming remained solidly Teacher Luke's strong suit. Worst case Plants vs. Zombies flopped, this was the fallback plan already in motion.
Selling Pokéblock had crossed his mind too, sure, but that required actual licensing, functionally comparable to distributing prescription medication. Even selling within his own trusted circle risked landing his product somewhere between "premium goods" and "black market contraband" given Luke's own quality standards.
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Either way — modest income was still income, and stream revenue wasn't something to walk away from.
Mid-matchmaking, the specific game Luke was playing caught the chat's attention immediately.
"wait what game is this"
"why is the streamer being so quiet about it"
"silent streamer? subscribed instantly"
Luke, mid-encrypted call with Dave, offered a brief explanation. "This one's actually something I built myself. Launching in a few days, link'll be up for anyone interested."
"WAIT Teacher Luke can make GAMES?"
"this looks genuinely fun"
"a content creator who doesn't secretly dream of shipping their own game isn't a real Trainer"
The unplanned reveal caught the audience off guard in the best way, giving Plants vs. Zombies a nice organic bump in the process. Satisfied, Teacher Luke nodded and got into the actual matches.
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Predictably, Luke's legendary bad luck kicked in almost immediately. Missed moves, misreads, sudden explosive losses — the usual chaos, and the chat ate it up completely.
"you watch Red for entertainment, you watch Teacher Luke to actually LEARN"
"this wave, oh this wave is going straight for the stomach"
Luke slammed a fist on his desk. "How is Ally Switch allowed to be THIS dirty?!"
His opponent ran a Psychic-type Trick Room build layered with Ally Switch, clearly mastered at a genuinely elite level. Ally Switch, technically outclassing even Teleport in usefulness, could let a Trainer swap field positions with their own teammate mid-fight in a singles match. Executed well it enabled bizarre plays — Tailwind flipping into an unintended headwind, self-inflicted Toxic Spikes landing on your own side of the field.
"if you can't beat 'em, join 'em — streamer needs to teach ALL SIX of his Pokémon Ally Switch"
"honestly a well-earned loss, that opponent felt like a genuine heavy hitter"
At Master rank the actual player pool ran thin enough that Luke regularly crossed paths with the same serious competitors. Even so, getting outmaneuvered this cleanly genuinely caught him off guard. He checked the opponent's ID and his brow furrowed instantly.
Sinnoh's Elite Four — Lucian.
The guy's supposed to be a scholar. What's he doing grinding ranked matches at this hour?
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Over in Canalave City, Sinnoh, Lucian sat back on his sofa — burgundy suit, shoulder-length blue hair — glancing toward Flint and Aaron seated nearby.
"This is the game you two were raving about? The one everyone says is genuinely fun?"
Flint scratched his red afro, grinning. "Didn't expect you to pick it up this fast, honestly."
Aaron — a single stray tuft of hair sticking straight up, dressed casually in a vest — nodded along.
"Lucian's dirty tactics in-game are even sharper than his real ones!"
Lucian pushed up his non-prescription blue glasses and gave a cold half-smile. "The opponent already beat Cynthia once. How about you two step in instead?"
Cynthia's account ran under an alt handle, sure, but the pool of daily active Master-rank players was small enough that everyone quietly knew who was who.
Aaron — Sinnoh's Bug-type Elite, barely into his twenties — shook his head fast. He'd already crossed paths with Teacher Luke multiple times, and his own relay-focused team offered essentially zero leverage against Luke's brand of dirty tricks.
Flint, red afro and all, went stiff too, clearly recalling his own past beatdowns at Luke's hands. Flint's own approach ran simple by comparison — Fire-type setups leaning on triggering Flash Fire outright. Between the two of them Flint's loss count against Luke sat about even with Aaron's.
A Champion, it seemed, genuinely set the tone for an entire region's competitive culture. Hoenn technically had three Champion-caliber Trainers on the books — Steven, Norman, and Wallace — and not one of them showed the slightest interest in this format. Steven stayed buried in his rock collection, Wallace was busy with his performance circuit, and Norman had his hands full raising his kids.
Sinnoh's Champion, meanwhile, was Cynthia — and her Elite Four had apparently absorbed her exact brand of casual slacking. Paid gaming sessions had become a genuinely normal thing among them at this point.
Replaying his own recent loss to "Teacher Luke," Lucian frowned, lost in thought. If I hadn't caught that lucky break I probably would've lost outright. Just a game, sure, but the sheer polish behind the team composition and command instincts spoke for itself.
Aaron, sitting cross-legged on the floor, suddenly perked up, his green cowlick springing upright. "Oh — word out of Kanto is that Teacher Luke actually sparred with Mr. Lance directly."
"And?" Lucian glanced over.
"Sounds like... Teacher Luke actually won?" Aaron scratched his head, still processing it himself.
Lucian's glasses nearly slid clean off his face.
Is that a joke? This is the same Trainer capable of beating LANCE?
Once he'd recovered he cleared his throat and pushed his glasses back into place. Thinking it over honestly, though — without that one lucky break earlier he genuinely might have gotten steamrolled just as badly himself. Beating Lance wasn't actually outside the realm of possibility for someone at this level.
Right then Flint elbowed him, teasing. "You just got matched with Teacher Luke again!"
Lucian adjusted his glasses, scanned the lineup, and said, calm as ever, "Blissey leading. Fine, she'll keep pace with Trick Room easily enough."
"As long as Ally Switch keeps landing, this shouldn't—"
Before he could finish a massive Rock Slide crashed down directly onto his Bronzong's head, knocking it out cold instantly.
"What the hell?!" Even composed Lucian couldn't hold back. "Blissey's running ROCK SLIDE?!"
With an innocent, friendly smile Blissey had first swiped Bronzong's held item clean away via Trick, then pointed a single finger skyward as a full Rock Slide came crashing down.
Serene Grace doubled the odds of secondary effects triggering on any move — including Rock Slide's flinch chance, turning a single well-timed use into something close to a guaranteed lockdown.
When it came to sheer creative dirtiness, Teacher Luke simply didn't lose to anyone.