Pokémon: Starting with a Dragon Dance Gible [13]

To be honest, [Dragon Dance] and Gible didn’t create quite the earth-shattering chemistry he’d hoped for.

Even if Gible was a top-tier pseudo-legendary Pokémon, the phrase “late bloomer” existed for a reason.

In other words… as a starter Pokémon, Gible really wasn’t much stronger than most other baby Pokémon.

To put it plainly—

Most of the usual Fire-, Water-, or Grass-type starters started out with base stat totals around 310 or 320.

But Gible? Only 300.

Among starter Pokémon, pseudo-legendary babies weren’t exactly powerhouses.

Compared to something like Sneasel—the so-called “Kindergarten Tyrant”—who, even as a first-stage Pokémon, could hit a whopping 430 base stat total (stronger than a lot of fully evolved Pokémon), Gible was nowhere close.

Only by patiently growing for three years and evolving into Garchomp could the “king” make a true return.

That was just the normal path for a late-bloomer Pokémon.

Still, Kaiba’s command of battle, his sense for tactics—

Not to say transmigrating instantly made him “number one in the world,” far beyond any famous Trainer, but he was certainly no rookie, either.

The move set he crafted for Gible, the strategies, the in-the-moment decisions, his tactical sense was far above that of the usual greenhorns.

And with [Dragon Dance] itself being a top-tier buff move—
Not the kind of skill most baby Pokémon could ever learn.

(PS: Lower-tier buffs raise a stat by one stage; higher-tier buffs, by two. There are even rare “god-tier” buffs that raise three stats or three stages at once, like Quiver Dance, Cotton Guard, or Fiery Dance…)

That was how Kaiba managed to dominate the “Fish Pond” rookie matches with just a single Gible.

It wasn’t just “[Dragon Dance] Gible” that was strong—his own Trainer skill was strong, too.

That’s what made them truly unstoppable.

...

But even so...

“Damn, seems like this ‘[Dragon Dance] Gible’ gimmick isn’t attracting as much attention as I thought it would.”

Kaiba clicked the battle button, queueing up another match in Pokémon Masters EX,
while glancing sideways at the other half of his screen, monitoring his Poke-TV stream’s viewers and traffic.

[Frosmoth-is-Cute has entered the room.]
[My-Lickitung-Your-Lilligant has entered the room.]
[Drawing-Water-With-a-Bamboo-Basket has entered the room.]
[............]

To say there were no viewers at all would be a lie.

At least there were a few system notifications of new people entering his stream.

That meant there were still random passersby “wandering in” to his newbie stream—even with zero website recommendations, zero algorithm boosts.

But chat interaction? Pitifully low.

Forget about getting free glowstick gifts or other support.

Honestly, Kaiba understood why viewers would click into his stream, only to say nothing at all.

It left the whole stream feeling dead, lifeless.

After all, if he were the type to catch a livestream now and then,
he’d usually just lurk, never typing anything in chat.

Who has the energy?

When Kaiba watched streams himself, he’d mostly just be a silent, drifting “lurker”—a nameless, ordinary viewer, barely leaving a ripple.

He watched streams because he couldn’t be bothered to game himself, or didn’t want to deal with stressful, rage-inducing matches—so he watched others play instead.

And, of course, “couldn’t be bothered” to type in chat, or interact with the streamer.

Most viewers were the same—not big on spamming chat.

Anyone willing to post even a single line of “white text” to support a newbie was already pretty hardcore.

And anyone who’d send even a free gift? That was dedication—above and beyond.
Probably a decade-long fan or practically family at that point.

“Trying to become a popular streamer on Poke-TV—making a living from this, turns out it’s way harder than I imagined. It takes more than just a good hook and skill to blast off right from the start.”

Kaiba felt his whole face spelling out “ORZ,” wishing he could be like some other “isekai” old hands: hit “Go Live” and boom, instant popularity, viewers flooding in, gifts rolling nonstop.

“I guess I’ll have to grind for a while, build up my audience and popularity first.”

When will I ever be like Iono or Raihan, who can casually start a stream and have diehard fans waiting, flood the chat with support, push the view count past 100,000, a million, even ten million… so I could finally earn a proper living from this?

As a newbie streamer, Kaiba didn’t really have a way to interact with the chat or do anything for “entertainment value.”

It felt like he was just playing games for his own amusement—head down, self-entertaining.

If he were a viewer, even he might admit his own stream’s “hook” and “entertainment value” didn’t seem as interesting as he’d imagined.

[Drawing-Water-With-a-Bamboo-Basket: Streamer’s Gible knows Dragon Dance? Is that real?]
[My-Lickitung-Your-Lilligant: Definitely an illegal magic product. My friend, are you a graduate from Hogwarts or what?!]

After a while, a few lines of white-text chat finally floated across Kaiba’s stream.

He let out a long breath.

At least there were finally some live viewers interacting with him.

For a second there, Kaiba had wondered if he was on some “single-player” version of Poke-TV, like he’d been disconnected all along!

“My ‘[Dragon Dance] Gible’ couldn’t possibly be fake. If it was, it would never have passed Pokémon Masters EX’s official verification and wouldn’t be allowed in online battles.”

Kaiba was ready for this, answering smoothly:

“—It’s exactly because my Gible really can use [Dragon Dance], and passed the Rotom Pokédex scan, that she counts as my ‘real Pokémon’ and can be brought into Pokémon Masters EX for virtual battles.”

---

This is a fan translation of 宝可梦，开局龙舞圆陆鲨 by 眼含泪光 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!