Dumb title is dumb, lol. Inspired by fangirls who ship their favorite Youtubers together, specifically Game Grumps fans (who go so far as to write fanfictions and draw fanart of them). Side note: I do NOT condone the open shipping of real people. Think whatever you want in your own head, but they can get pretty creeped out when they actually see it, folks.

...Except Egoraptor. He loves that stuff.

Also, Flint's battling style is based on a series made by TheHeatedMo called LolHax. If you like silly, cheap, luck-based battling, I'd check it out.

On January 20th, Volkner made arguably the worst mistake of his life: he checked his Recommended videos on the Mewtube homepage. Sure, it seemed innocuous enough at the time; he had no way of knowing it would lead to the most frustrating year of his life. Had he clicked on any other video, he would have avoided his infuriating fate.

But no. He just HAD to click on that one.

Maybe it was the click-baiting title—"CRAZIEST POKÉMON BATTLE EVER!"—or maybe it was the username. After all, who wouldn't be curious about a screen name like "FlamingFroFlint"? For whatever reason, though, he clicked on it.

When the video loaded, Volkner was greeted by what seemed to be a recorded section of a livestream. The facecam in the corner featured a happy-looking man about Volkner's age with a ridiculous afro the color of a Darmanitan—that explained the screen name, at least—having a wifi battle. He wasn't bad to look at, despite the goofy hair. Expressive, too. Volkner could see why he chose to use facecam. He was in the middle of addressing his audience about the Pokémon on his half of the field.

"...so my Drifblim's still in, but he's got four of my Pokémon down. He's got a Mega Tyranitar in, too. This isn't looking good, guys. I don't think I'm gonna win this one. You know what? Let's just mess with him as much as possible. Let's go for this one..." With that, the red-haired man selected an attack from one of the strangest movesets Volkner had ever seen. Minimize, Baton Pass, Swagger, and...Astonish? What the hell? That move only had 20 base power; it was weaker than Tackle! Was this guy some kind of idiot?

At the man's direction, the Drifblim—comically nicknamed "Baloonatic," Volkner couldn't help but notice—successfully confused the Mega Tyranitar with Swagger. Tyranitar managed to execute a Crunch attack, but it missed. Wait...Crunch was 100% accuracy. Why did...

"Yes! Bright Powder does it again, folks! Haha!" Ah, so that's why. Odd choice again... "Let's top it off by being even more annoying," the player said in giddy excitement, selecting Minimize.

Much to the man's delight (Volkner supposed his name was probably "Flint" based on the screen name), the Tyranitar hit itself in confusion. The Pokémon's already colossal Attack stat combined with the amplification from Swagger made it do serious damage to itself, and Flint whooped loudly. "Let's make it even worse."

After a few turns of Tyranitar missing and hitting itself, Baloonatic maxed out its evasion, re-confusing its opponent every time it broke out. It was quickly becoming apparent to Volkner just what kind of player this man was. He highly doubted that Flint would even care if he lost at this point. Volkner couldn't help but grin widely at his antics, wondering just what he would do next.

"You know what? Let's actually attack now, just for fun." Drifblim then proceeded to use Astonish...and Tyranitar flinched. Right, Astonish has a flinch chance. So THAT'S why he has it, Volkner thought.

"HAH! We got the flinch! Suck on that, Tyranitar!" Flint repeated this tactic for about five more turns. Astonish hardly did anything to the bulky Dark-type, of course, but the flinching, confusion, and missing certainly made for a good show. Flint was practically cackling at this point. It wasn't long before Volkner couldn't help but join him, his own raucous laughter filling his empty apartment, especially when the Mega Tyranitar knocked itself out in confusion. Flint's opponent sent out a Leafeon next. True to form, Baloonatic confused it with Swagger, but the Leafeon had already managed a Leaf Blade. The Drifblim tanked the resisted hit with a good chunk of HP left. Flint adjusted accordingly with his next move.

"Now that we don't outspeed and we can't get the flinches, let's switch it up, eh?" Volkner cocked an eyebrow as Flint Baton Passed into a male Lopunny named Playboy. Clever. Leafeon broke out of its confusion and actually managed to hit through all the Baton Passed Minimizes, but Flint must have had the best luck in the world; not only did the Lopunny live through the attack, but his Cute Charm activated, infatuating the (female) Leafeon. Volkner, who had made the mistake of taking a sip of water beforehand, almost spat it out onto his laptop screen. He choked out a burst of laughter in sync with Flint's cackles.

While Flint quickly chose Lopunny's attack, Volkner forgot to check its moves when he noticed that there was no Mega Evolution button. Did he forget to put the Mega Stone on it? No one uses regular Lopunny, he wondered. It wasn't long until he got his answer.

Lopunny outsped Leafeon and pummeled it with a Fire Punch. Lopunny's subpar Attack stat combined with Leafeon's spectacular Defense allowed it to survive the super effective hit, but it suffered a burn.

And a flinch.

What the flying Foongus is going on? How—

"King's Rock comes through! KING'S ROCK COMES THROUGH!"

Volkner was stunned. Flint gave up a Mega Stone...for a regular held item...with only a 10% chance of activating. 100 points in base stats, several tiers' worth of viability...for a 10% flinch chance.

This guy's full of surprises, that's for sure.

The rest of Lopunny's arsenal, which consisted of Thunder Wave, Dizzy Punch, and Teeter Dance, combined with attract status, flinching, burns, and extreme evasion allowed the Lopunny to sweep half of the opponent's team. Flint's exhilarated laughter blared happily through Volkner's speakers at the events. Volkner struggled to breathe past his giggles. Finally, the icing on the cake appeared: Flint's battling screen appeared to freeze for a moment, and then a white screen popped up, which read, "An error has occurred. Communication with the other Trainer was interrupted."

Flint gaped at his screen for a full five seconds before he practically exploded. "HAHA! YES! HE DISCONNECTED! HE DC'D! That was the best battle EVER!"

Flint continued to celebrate and rant for another minute or two about how "epic" the events were. Volkner's chuckles finally died down, and he found his ribs hurt from laughing so hard for so long. His smile only grew as he watched the man on the screen gesture wildly and talk a mile a minute in his adorable, giddy excitement. Volkner scrolled down to leave a comment.

"Lmfao. That was amazing. That's the most I've laughed in forever. Keep it up!" He tapped the comment button decisively. He'd definitely be marathoning this guy's videos tomorrow. For now, though, it was time to go to bed. He went to bed with a contented smile on his face and slept better than he had in months, the joy surrounding him like a warm blanket as he hugged his Raichu plushy.

Volkner practically pranced over to his laptop, a bowl of colorful Chansey Charms cereal in his hands. He switched his computer on and waited impatiently for it to boot up. Once he was back on the Mewtube homepage, he checked his notifications. His comment on Flint's video from yesterday had certainly garnered some attention, so he muted the post to avoid getting any more notifications. Volkner's 90,000 subscribers must have been out in full force again.

The cereal sat forgotten and soggy in his lap as he pored over video after video of Flint's cheap, silly battling style with single-minded enthusiasm and laughed uproariously at each one. Roughly two hours had gone by before he arrived at the last one: a sincere, sweet video in which Flint addressed his audience directly to thank them for 100,000 subscriptions. Volkner smiled wryly. So this guy had him beaten by about 10,000...well, no matter. He clicked the subscribe button himself, then looked to the corner of his screen to see that he'd received a private message. Interesting. Volkner opened it, and his eyes widened in shock when he noticed it was from FlamingFroFlint himself. He eagerly drank in the words.

"Hey! Saw your comment on my video last night. You got over four hundred likes, so I figured you were important and checked out your channel. Your videos are great, man! Wanna do a collab at some point?"

Volkner made a strange squeak at the unexpected offer and looked around his apartment with a paranoid look on his face. Man, am I glad I live alone. That was weird, he thought.

Even though he knew no one could see him, Volkner was still embarrassed at how long he spent perfecting his simple reply:

"Yeah, sounds good. What did you have in mind?"

Fresh, dry-cleaned blue jacket: check. Carefully spiked blond hair: check. Camera and microphone: check.

Composure: not quite.

For the life of him, Volkner couldn't stop fidgeting. God, he was acting like a girl. It wasn't like this was a date; he was just meeting Flint over Skype to talk about collaborating, that was all.

Volkner took another sip of water and tried to take a few deep breaths to calm his nerves. What is my deal right now?

Flint's screen name popped up in Volkner's contacts list right on schedule, and he jumped. So much for calming his nerves. He hovered his cursor over the name for several seconds but was unable to force himself to click it. Thankfully, Flint took care of that for him, and Volkner accepted his invitation with a shaky click. He remained rigid in his chair, which suddenly felt uncomfortable beneath him. The black screen brightened to reveal Flint's face. The man looked back at Volkner and paused. Flint's eyes widened for a second, but he quickly recovered and gave his trademark grin.

"Hey! ShiningShockingStar, right?" Volkner nodded dumbly, not trusting his tongue to successfully accomplish words at that moment. He resisted the urge to wring out his sweaty hands. Flint chuckled under his breath and shook his head. "Man, I can tell why you chose that name. Why the hell don't you show your face?"

Volkner cleared his throat. When had it gotten so dry? "Uh...I dunno, I'm just...um. I just like my privacy, I guess," he managed, averting his eyes and snapping his mouth shut before he could stutter through another sentence.

Flint's expression turned sympathetic. "Camera shy, huh? That's too bad. You could get a lot of followers with a face like that. You should definitely use facecam."

"Wh—b-b-but...uh...um—" Volkner slapped a hand over his mouth to stop his sputtering. He could feel his face burning from the compliment. God, what is wrong with me today?

Gentle amusement sparkled in Flint's gaze. "Sorry, dude. Wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable. So you mostly do wifi double battles, right?" Volkner gulped back the shame of his embarrassing reaction and nodded again in response. "Great! What if you and I teamed up and did multi battles together? With your serious strategies and my ridiculous hax, we'd be unbeatable! What do you say?"

Volkner scratched his chin and raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. That actually didn't seem too bad. He hummed softly to himself. "That's not a bad idea. I've thought about doing multi battles, but I don't collaborate much because my friends don't live close by. Not that it's impossible, but it's easier to do in person, y'know?"

Flint nodded in agreement. "No one lives near me, either, so I have to do everything online. Where do you live, anyway? I mean, if you don't mind me asking. I kinda make my general location pretty obvious, but I could hardly find anything on you," he admitted, scratching the back of his head self-consciously.

Volkner did his best to ignore the slight spike in his pulse at the man's admittance of having searched for his personal details. "We actually live in the same state. I'm over in Springfield."

Flint's jaw dropped. "Dude, seriously? That's, like, half an hour from me! That's awesome!"

One corner of Volkner's mouth lifted in a small smile at Flint's enthusiasm. He had to lean back from his screen at the man's sudden increase in volume. When did I get that close to the screen to begin with? he wondered idly.

The two hammered out the final details of the plan. Volkner could feel excitement pool in his gut with every word, though he did his best to squelch his reactions as much as possible. Once the date was set, Flint exhaled and grinned eagerly.

"I'm so amped for this...ah...I just realized I don't know your real name yet, bro! You never actually tell us. Fifty-three videos, and I still hardly know anything about you, you know?"

A bit of color rose to Volkner's cheeks. "You've...seen all fifty-three?"

It was Flint's turn to blush this time. "Ah, yeah. I kinda marathoned them all last night. Maybe you can tell by the bags under my eyes...I pulled an all-nighter." He grinned sheepishly. "Is that creepy?"

Volkner blinked in surprise. "N-no, not at all!" he insisted, choosing not to admit he had done much the same thing. "That's not weird." He paused, noticing Flint's expectant stare. "Oh, right. D-don't tell anyone, but my name's Volkner. Just...I'm not quite ready for my followers to know yet, so...it's a secret for now," he said, looking away shyly.

"Hm...Volkner, huh?" Flint smiled. "I won't tell anyone. Man, I feel special now! Great, so I'll see you in a couple of weeks, then? I've gotta get to work on my announcement video! You should make one, too, eh?"

Volkner smiled back genuinely. "Yeah. Sounds good."

Flint grinned widely at Volkner's expression. "Awesome! Volkner, you should smile more. It's a great look for you!" He snickered when Volkner stiffened again in embarrassment at the comment. "See you later!" His screen faded out.

Volkner stared at the blank screen for a second longer before letting his face fall onto the keyboard, the action leaving a rather profound "bmkuhf" in his searchbar.

Well. That couldn't have been any more humiliating, but it worked. He had a date—appointment, he amended to himself—with his new friend.

Right, friend.

Not crush. Definitely friend. It was way too early to have a crush on that buffoon, right? Right?

Volkner opted to take a nap. There was no way his nerves would allow him to make a remotely calm announcement video at that point.

In an apartment roughly half an hour away, a happy giggle filled the air. "Man, how cute!"

A/N: Did you guys know there's a Springfield in every single state in the U.S.? Yup. I just thought everyone should know that bit of trivia. I'm definitely not just enabling my own indecisiveness, nope.

I know Volkner's starting out a little OOC here, but I feel like he'd be the type to get star-struck. He'll get more in-character later on.