Aarav ending the stream so abruptly caught thousands of viewers completely off guard. The moment the screen went dark, the chat instantly flooded with question marks.
Even in the blacked-out room, the barrage kept rolling.
"So when he said 'last match,' he really meant LAST match??"
"He farmed an ad and dipped at light speed—kinda disrespectful to Iono, no?"
"Even a Master Ball donation doesn't buy overtime? Shui, you're unreal."
"I wanted to watch two more rounds to actually learn the tactic—he just ran?"
"Shui's used too many cursed strategies and got challenged offline. Everyone relax."
"…"
Of course, Aarav hadn't been doxxed.
He ended the stream for one simple reason: it was time.
Sure, with Iono involved, the viewership had exploded—if he stayed live a little longer, he could've raked in a lot more.
But he had something more important to do tonight.
He opened the window beside his desk.
Just as expected, he saw a pale-green little cat sitting neatly on the windowsill.
One of Paldea's starter Pokémon—
Sprigatito.
"Well, well. You're pretty punctual, huh?"
Aarav reached out with a grin, trying to pet it, but Sprigatito ducked smoothly, avoiding his hand with practiced ease.
"Spriga!"
The little cat wore an unmistakably grumpy expression, its vivid crimson eyes full of spirit as it glared at Aarav like it was protesting.
"Alright, alright—my bad. I won't call you that nickname anymore. Good evening, Sprigatito."
Aarav apologized sincerely for his random teasing, then brought over the berry salad Chen Zhenze had picked up for him.
"Today it's an Oran Berry and Applin Berry mixed salad—tossed with your favorite Moomoo Cream Cheese sauce."
Only after seeing how earnest Aarav was did Sprigatito hop inside and begin eating in small, careful bites.
Because it was a "stray," Sprigatito's frame was slightly too thin.
Its fur—supposed to be clean and soft—was speckled with grime. Along the dark green marking on its face, shaped like four overlapping leaves, there were several fresh scratches… even a few dried streaks of blood.
Aarav frowned and gently touched the wound. Sprigatito instinctively flinched—then relaxed the moment it realized it was his hand.
"Got into a fight with those Mankey again?"
Aarav asked. He knew this little cat too well.
Sprigatito didn't look up, still focused on eating. It just answered sharply:
"Spriga!"
Aarav pulled a healing spray from his drawer and said, "Hold on. Let me treat it first. Then you can keep eating."
Sprigatito shook its head stubbornly, trying to act tough.
"Spriga!"
It was basically saying: This is nothing. Don't make a big deal out of it.
Aarav pressed one hand gently but firmly on its stubborn little head anyway.
"Nope. You're getting sprayed. If you don't… tomorrow I'm not eating."
Sprigatito froze.
Aarav knew it—threatening to withhold its food wouldn't work. It would just act like it didn't care.
But threatening himself?
That always worked.
Aarav's grin turned wicked. "Sprigatito, you don't want to see me go hungry all day tomorrow, do you?"
Faced with Aarav's shameless "I'll suffer too" strategy, Sprigatito visibly blanked for a second.
Then it rolled its eyes and muttered under its breath:
"Spriga…"
Which, translated into human language, was basically: Childish.
But in the end, it still agreed.
After patiently treating the scratches, Aarav finally let go of Sprigatito's fluffy little head.
Sprigatito avoided his gaze, then let out two slightly awkward meows that sounded suspiciously like a thank-you… before burying its face in its food again.
Watching it eat so seriously, Aarav couldn't help but smile.
Aarav first met Sprigatito a little over two months ago—on the afternoon of freshman orientation day.
Back then, he'd been wandering around campus, trying to familiarize himself with his new environment.
As one of the top Pokémon universities in Donghuang, Shanghai University was so large it wasn't much smaller than a small town.
And with that much space came an even more ridiculous fact:
There were more wild Pokémon on campus than people.
After spending three years buried in books during high school, Aarav was seeing a place like this for the first time—safe, huge, and overflowing with wild Pokémon.
So… he got lost.
Alright, fine. That wasn't just an excuse.
Aarav's sense of direction had always been terrible. He genuinely had the "gets lost easily" trait.
In his old life, a map app would've solved everything.
But this world's tech tree didn't develop in that direction.
So Aarav wandered for ages in the forested hills behind the university without finding his way back.
The worst part?
His phone died at some point and shut off completely.
And anyone who'd experienced early September in Shanghai knew what that sun was like.
What was the difference between that and a super-sized hellfire blast?
Hot. Thirsty. Exhausted.
Aarav genuinely started to believe he was about to say goodbye to this world and wake up back on Earth—right back to being an office worker.
And then he met Sprigatito.
The little cat that now tolerated him so well had been cold and aloof back then. If Aarav hadn't looked so pitiful, Sprigatito probably would've turned around and left.
But it was a kind cat in the end.
It led Aarav back to the main campus, then the two of them went their separate ways.
What else could they do?
Sprigatito didn't have a phone, and Aarav couldn't exactly exchange contact details with a Pokémon.
As for catching it?
A Pokémon you'd only met once wouldn't necessarily accept.
Besides, Aarav's stream hadn't taken off at that time—he could barely support himself, let alone raise an extra Pokémon.
But fate wasn't done with them.
A few days later… they met again.
This time, it was Sprigatito that was in trouble—and Aarav ended up playing the hero in a full-on "save-the-cat" moment.
The situation wasn't complicated—
There were plenty of wild Pokémon on campus. And wherever there were Pokémon, there was a "community." Wherever there was a community, there were cliques.
But Sprigatito was a lone wolf. A little cat hero who walked its own path.
It wasn't like those Eevee that got doted on by kind college girls until they became walking heavy trucks.
And it wasn't like Meowth or Aipom either—huddling together, fighting together, surviving together.
Sprigatito stayed on the edges of campus and the back hills.
If there were berries, it ate berries. If there weren't…
it relied on photosynthesis to absorb energy.
Grass-type Pokémon, after all, were famously hard to starve.
Even so, despite living so peacefully, Sprigatito still ended up making enemies.
A pack of overly aggressive Mankey.
That day, Aarav happened to stumble into the conflict.
To be exact, it wasn't a "fight."
It was a one-sided bullying session.
Seeing the Pokémon that had once helped him being pushed around, Aarav naturally couldn't ignore it.
So he "slightly intervened"—
by calling campus security to stop the Mankey from harassing it.
Afterward, Aarav brought Sprigatito to the campus Pokémon Center for treatment, and then took it back to his dorm to recover for a few days.
From that point on, one human and one cat officially became familiar with each other.
Later, after some deliberate digging, Aarav learned the truth:
Sprigatito had once had a Trainer.
And that Trainer was a student in Shanghai University's Pokémon Academy.
But after losing a school competition, Sprigatito had been abandoned for one reason:
"Useless."
It was almost like that story from the anime—how Paul abandoned Chimchar, only for it to later become one of Ash's strongest partners.
Except Sprigatito was even more unfortunate.
It never met an Ash-like person to redeem it.
No one wanted to catch a Pokémon that had been thrown away as "useless."
And even if someone did… it didn't mean Sprigatito would accept.
So it began a long wandering life—more than half a year of surviving on its own.
Until today.
Read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon -> patreon.com/lucarioTL