Sprigatito

Xia Chi's abrupt end to his stream caused the thousands of viewers in the live chat to spam question marks in unison.

Inside the darkened livestream room, the bullet comments remained fiercely active.

"Did he really say the last match and actually mean the last match?"

"Ending the stream at light-speed right after dropping an ad-he's not giving Iono any face at all, is he?"

"Even a Master Ball won't buy extra time; brother Shui, you really something else!"

"I was hoping to watch two more matches of actual combat to learn this tactic, and he just ran off like that?"

"Brother Shui must've played too many underworld tactics and gotten challenged offline. Everyone shouldn't worry too much."

"."

Xia Chi certainly hadn't been doxxed; he stopped streaming purely because it was time.

Even though his viewer count had exploded thanks to Iono, and playing for a bit longer could have reaped a lot of fan gifts and subscriptions.

He still had more important things to do at the moment.

Opening the window beside his computer desk, Xia Chi unsurprisingly saw a pale-green kitten sitting upright on the windowsill.

It was precisely Sprigatito, one of the Starter Pokémon native to the Paldea Region.

"Hajimew, you're quite the punctual one."

Xia Chi reached out to the little cat with a grin, his intent to pet it dodged by Sprigatito with a nimble squat.

"Meowfe!"

Sprigatito wore a sullen cat face, its deeply expressive crimson pupils gazing at Xia Chi reproachfully as if expressing its dissatisfaction.

"Understood, I won't call you that anymore. Good evening, Sprigatito."

Xia Chi offered a sincere apology for his random nickname, then brought over the berry salad Chen Zhenze had helped bring back.

"Today's is a mixed salad of Oran Berries and Sitrus Berries, tossed in your favorite Moomoo Cream Cheese Sauce."

Seeing that Xia Chi's attitude in apologizing was upright, Sprigatito only then jumped into the room from outside the window, eating its dinner in small, delicate bites.

Because it was a "stray cat," Sprigatito's build was somewhat lean and slender.

Its fur, which should have been clean and soft, was also dotted with stains, and right in the center of its face-along the edge of the dark green markings that overlapped like four leaves-there were even a few bloody scratches.

Xia Chi frowned and lightly touched Sprigatito's wound. The latter instinctively wanted to dodge, only relaxing its nerves after seeing that it was Xia Chi's hand.

"Did you get into a fight with those Mankey again?"

Xia Chi, who understood Sprigatito quite well, asked.

The little cat, focused entirely on devouring its meal, didn't raise its head, merely giving a short, clipped response: "Meowfe!"

Xia Chi took a Potion Spray out of the drawer and then said, "Hold on for a second, let me treat you before you eat."

Sprigatito shook its head, putting on a brave front: "Meowfe!"

Mere minor injuries, what was there to speak of?

Xia Chi directly pinned its stubborn little head down with one hand, enforcing: "No way, you have to let me spray it, or else I won't give myself any food tomorrow."

Based on his understanding of this little cat, threatening not to give it food would only earn him an indifferent expression.

But when the threat was aimed at himself, it would obediently comply.

He wore an evil smile. "Sprigatito, you wouldn't want to watch me go hungry for a whole day tomorrow, would you?"

Faced with Xia Chi's calculated gambit of "putting himself on the line," Sprigatito clearly froze for a moment, then rolled its eyes and muttered softly, "Meowfe."

Translated into human language, it was roughly something like "childish."

No matter what, though, it still agreed.

After patiently and meticulously treating Sprigatito's wounds, Xia Chi finally released its fluffy little head.

Sprigatito avoided his gaze, let out a slightly unnatural meow to express its thanks, and then buried its head back into its meal.

Watching the little cat earnestly eat its food, a smile couldn't help but hang on the corner of Xia Chi's mouth.

His initial acquaintance with Sprigatito happened a little over two months ago on the afternoon of freshman orientation day, when Xia Chi was strolling around the campus to familiarize himself with the new environment.

As one of the premier Pokémon high schools in the Donghuang Region, Shanghai University's area wasn't much smaller than that of a small town.

With an area this vast, the population of Wild Pokémon was even greater than that of the people.

Xia Chi, who had spent three years studying hard in high school, was coming to a place with so many Wild Pokémon and yet so much safety for the very first time.

So he got lost.

Fine, in reality this wasn't an excuse; mainly, Xia Chi's sense of direction hadn't been very good since he was a kid, and he indeed carried a bit of a directional blindness attribute.

If he were back in his previous life, a wicked map app could have solved it all.

Alas, the technology tree of this world hadn't pointed in that direction, so Xia Chi wandered around the school's back mountain for a long time without finding the way back.

The most despairing part was that his phone had run out of battery and shut down who-knows-when.

Everyone knew what the sun was like in Shanghai in early September.

How was that any different from the Gigantamax Inferno?

Hot, thirsty, and exhausted, Xia Chi at one point thought he was going to say goodbye to this world and return to Earth to continue being a corporate slave.

Then he met Sprigatito.

The little cat, which now had a good relationship with Xia Chi, was very aloof back then. If it hadn't been for seeing that he was truly pitiful, Sprigatito would have almost turned around and left.

However, the kind little cat ultimately led Xia Chi back to the main campus, and then the human and the cat parted ways.

What else could they do?

Sprigatito didn't have a phone either, and Xia Chi had no way to leave it contact information.

As for actually catching it, Sprigatito-having only met him once-might not necessarily be willing.

Besides, Xia Chi's livestream hadn't taken off back then, and he could barely support himself, let alone raise an extra Pokémon.

Yet the bond between Xia Chi and Sprigatito didn't end there; just a few days later, they met again.

This time it was Sprigatito in distress, and Xia Chi put on a performance of a hero saving the cat.

The situation at the time wasn't complicated either-

There were many Wild Pokémon in the school, and wherever there were Pokémon, there were factions; wherever there were factions, cliques were bound to form.

Yet Sprigatito was a lone-ranger cat who walked its own path.

It wasn't like those Eevee who were raised into heavy-duty trucks by the loving feedings of female college students.

Nor did it huddle together for warmth and fight each other like Meowth or Aipom.

Sprigatito simply drifted at the edges of the campus and the back mountain; when there were berries, it picked berries, and when there weren't, it absorbed energy through Synthesis.

Being Grass-type Pokémon, after all, it was hard for them to starve themselves to death.

Even while surviving with such a philosophical, laid-back attitude, Sprigatito still made enemies with a few hyper-aggressive Mankey.

That day, Xia Chi bumped into their conflict while strolling around.

To put it accurately, it was a one-sided bullying session by the Mankey.

His savior was being bullied, so Xia Chi naturally couldn't sit idly by. He made a slight move

and called over members of the school Security Team to halt the Mankey's bullying behavior.

Afterward, Xia Chi took Sprigatito to the Pokémon Center on campus for treatment and brought it back to his dorm to nurse its wounds for a few days.

Ever since then, the human and the cat officially grew familiar with each other.

Later, through some deliberate inquiries on a certain occasion, Xia Chi learned that Sprigatito originally had a Trainer, and moreover, that Trainer was a student of the Pokémon Academy at Shanghai University.

It was just that after a defeat in an internal school tournament, it was abandoned by its Trainer on the grounds of being "incompetent."

The experience was pretty much the same as the Infernape abandoned by Paul in the anime, which later accompanied Ash to storm into the Top 4 of the Lily of the Valley Conference.

Yet Sprigatito was even more pitiful, having encountered no such redemption as Ash.

No one wanted to catch a Pokémon that had been abandoned for being "incompetent."

Of course, even if someone did, it didn't mean Sprigatito would gladly accept.

Thus, it began its stray life that lasted for over half a year.

Until today.