Double Team

by Aspenetta

Summary:

Min-Gi Park's Pokemon journey wasn't going all that well even before he accidentally ended up trying to usher in an apocalypse. . .

Chapter 1

He didn’t know why he was here.

Min sighed and adjusted his bandana (why did the boss keep ignoring his perfectly reasonable request to swap to jeans and a sweater?!). On some level, he’d sort of started to get used to not knowing why he was anywhere really. He didn’t remember the last time he’d done something he’d wanted to. Not since Ry – since his childhood.

He’d gone on his Pokemon journey, because that was what you did when you were old enough to get your license. His parents hadn’t been expecting him to make Champion or anything, just win a couple of badges, maybe even make it to the League level, and then come home more mature and composed.

It hadn’t gone well. He’d gotten a few badges, hard won, miserable experiences. It had been pathetic, more than anything. He wasn’t brave enough to be a battler. He choked every time he tried to give an order to attack. Every victory had been a mere war of attrition, his Pokemon taking hits and tossing out defensive moves until the timer ran out or the competitor’s Pokemon exhausted themselves. He was sure battling had been fun when he was a child. But back then –

It didn’t matter. That part of his life was behind him. He still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up on Team Aqua, except that they’d been there and because their description of a world underwater had seemed so peaceful. It wasn’t like Kyogre actually existed, anyway, so it wasn’t like Min was really working towards ushering in an apocalypse.

. . . his justifications never seemed convincing anymore. Maybe never had, even when all he was justifying was snapping at Ry . . . .

Plusle chuntered quietly against his cheek. Automatically, he reached up to give it a soothing pat. Plusle would have marked him as different even if not for the everything else about him. Team Aqua specialized in water and dark Pokemon. His team – Espeon, Lunatone, Nidorino, Growlithe and all the others – was an anomaly. He’d never picked a type, never even picked a battle style beyond trying not to get hit. His team, he’d always said, just happened to be the Pokemon he found (wasn’t really true, though, was it? He'd had the opportunity to catch others, but they hadn’t felt right somehow).

And having Plusle out all the time. He knew that would have been considered inappropriate even if he wasn’t parading an electric type around people who wanted to drown the world. But he couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that if he put Plusle away, it would never come back. That it would be gone, the way Ry – the way Ryan was.

Besides, Plusle seemed to need the extra affection. It had tried, on their journey, it really had. Plusle always did try. Harder than he did, really. But it didn’t seem to know how to move without Minun running next to it. He’d stopped throwing it out, sick of seeing it hurt. It was basically a pet now, maybe the reason Team Aqua was willing to tolerate its presence.

He hadn’t even meant to capture Plusle. He’d been aiming at Minun. He was sure he’d tossed the Pokeball to the left. But he and Ryan had gotten in each other’s ways, because they were young and because they were excited, on their very first Pokemon hunt and immediately finding the most perfect pair of Pokemon (they’d spent hours debating who would get to throw, who wanted and deserved which Pokemon they might encounter, who would get to be a trainer first. And then, in that shining moment, realized that they didn’t have to choose). And when Ryan had jumped up, triumphantly waving the Pokeball with the big R scrawled messily across the top, it had been Minun who popped out.

He'd ended up with Plusle, charming little Plusle who was bright and affectionate and used to conjure up little electric pompoms to cheer whenever it got excited, back when it used to get excited all the time. Back before Plusle was more than just a quiet lump on his shoulder.

They shouldn’t have separated them. It hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea at the time. Plusle and Minun had been off kilter for months. They’d been a perfect team in partner battles when he and Ryan were younger, but as time went on they hadn’t been able to get in sync. They were always stumbling into each other’s paths, as likely to zap one another as they had been to hit the enemy. It had extended even beyond the battles. They still snuggled and they still played, but their chases had gotten more intense and it had seemed more and more often that their interactions had ended in sparks.

They’d just outgrown each other, he figured. Friends did that. It was natural.

Only maybe it wasn’t, because if they were supposed to drift away, why did he and Plusle both seem so lost?

Plusle butted his cheek. He sighed. It was right. He was getting lost in introspection. All he’d really been trying to work out was why he was in this building in the first place. He’d been at the briefing but he’d sort of tuned it out. Some sort of big push. Something to do with Magma, maybe? Or – well, clearly something to do with this building and something in it, because they were here, and clearly Magma was interested, too, because Min was guarding an entrance. Well, “guarding.” He’d been shoved in some clearly mostly abandoned emergency exit stairwell, because it wasn’t like the rest of Aqua couldn’t tell he sucked at battling. He sighed and leaned against the wall. He suspected he was in for a long, boring wait.

And then, as soon as he though the words, he heard footsteps and Plusle was suddenly rigid on his shoulder.

Automatically he pressed his back against the wall. Maybe if he just stayed still, the person wouldn’t notice he was here. He was technically supposed to be blocking this area, but it wasn’t like he had much chance of stopping anyone. The guards were supposed to have been cleared out already, so he probably didn’t have to worry about them, and it was too early for the police (thank goodness; it would kill his parents if he got arrested, but he didn’t have Ryan’s gift of the gab to talk his way out). Maybe it was some interfering trainer on a journey. In terms of skill, he couldn’t even stand up to a precocious ten-year-old, but at least a kid would probably take a quick surrender.

And if the footsteps were from Team Magma. . . there’d be no mercy there, no easy forfeit. He didn’t know if Magma were actually more aggressive than Aqua, but they were in direct opposition to his own leader’s aims and the stupid uniform would mark him as an enemy. He couldn’t win. But he was good enough at the defensive stuff that maybe he could distract them enough to get past them.

He tensed, sliding one hand to the Pokeballs at his waist.

The stranger turned the corner. He sucked in his breath at the sight of the deep red of their clothing. He knew that particular shade and it meant nothing good for him.

The figure – he thought it was male, although he had the hood pulled over his face – didn’t look like a normal Magma grunt. He had the boots and the turtleneck and that distinctive cowl, but his pants were tight – not just tight, formfitting – and he’d pulled a leather jacket over the hoodie. Min had always thought that Magma grunts dressed kind of like little kids, the only thing that made him feel halfway decent in his dumb pirate get-up. This Magma grunt, though? Weirdly sexy.

Plusle gave a sharp cry and he felt the gentlest buzz against his cheek, static gathering along his Pokemon’s fur. And then suddenly it launched itself from his shoulder, hitting the ground with a thump. It raced towards the grunt with an energy he hadn’t seen in years. He stepped forward, arm outstretched, mouth opening in a wordless cry because what was Plusle doing, Plusle couldn’t fight, he would rather let the grunt beat him into the ground than let anything happen to his so small and so very brave Pokemon.

A yellow and blue blur shot out from the grunt’s hood where it must have been hiding. It hit the ground, running equally hard right in Plusle’s direction. It resolved after a moment into the form of a Pokemon species he knew all too well.

“Min!” the grunt cried out, throwing himself forward. And it wasn’t for him. It wasn’t for him, there was a Minun right there, he knew that. But he had heard that word a thousand times. He’d heard that word, that tone, that voice.

“Ryan?!”

The grunt froze. And then, abruptly, he reached up and yanked his hood back. And there he was. Ryan. Older, a little taller (not a lot taller, but a little), a little scrawnier. His hair was slightly puffed up, like Minun, too, had gotten zappy, and his jaw was hanging open. But it was Ryan. His best friend, who had run away to be a rock star, who had loved to battle and didn’t care about badges because Ryan could never do anything like a normal person. Ryan who had left him and was now standing in front of him in the enemy’s colours.

“Min?” Ryan breathed, eyes fixed on him and the word was for him this time.  He vaguely registered that Plusle and Minun were nuzzling each other, but all he could look at was Ryan.

Chapter 2

He could feel the weight of Ryan’s eyes running over him. It was . . . nice to see Ryan. He hadn’t expected that, somehow. Whenever he thought of his best friend - well, he didn’t, not more than he could help anyway. It was always a little hard to breathe when he thought of Ryan.

But now that Ryan was standing in front of him, there was a soft warmth in his chest, a glow rather like Plusle’s happy sparks. Plusle was sparking now a little, nuzzling against Minun, the delicate sparks it used to ball up in pompoms, back when it used to cheer and dance.

He had missed seeing Plusle dance.

There was, he realized suddenly, a lot of things he hadn't let himself think about that he missed about the old days.

Ryan was still staring at him, as though he was cataloguing Min’s features. Abruptly, he smiled (it shouldn't feel like the sun had come out in this dingy stairwell).

“Nice bandana,” he said. Min glared pointedly at his hood, because he was not going to take that from Ryan of all people. Just because he’d jazzed the uniform up didn’t mean he wasn’t wearing cute little horns on his head.

Because that was the Magma uniform. The hoodie, the boots, the turtleneck. And he was wearing a striped t-shirt and a bandana, because he was Aqua. Ryan was Magma, he was Aqua. . . did they have to fight now?

Part of him wanted to smash Ryan into the dirt to pay him back for leaving him and ruining everything. But mostly he wanted to hug him, to shake him, to never let him go.

If they did fight . . . he knew Ryan’s battle style better than he knew almost anything. Ryan was a glass cannon. He was all about striking forward, about hitting as hard as possible as fast as possible. He’d never been afraid to throw himself into the fray the way Min had been. He’d ruin him.  

He always left his back open, though. Min could use that. He didn’t think he could hurt Ryan, but he could disable him long enough to get away before Ryan fried and burned him.

You don’t know him anymore, Min’s mind whispered. You don’t even know his team. He could have changed.

Surely not that much. Not Ryan.

Ryan’s eyes on his face had been intense, in that Ryan way he’d never seen on another human face. But suddenly his expression changed.

Min moved as Ryan did, reaching for his belt and clicking to call Plusle back, vaguely registering that Minun (ever the shyer) was sprinting towards Ryan’s ankles.

“Go, Nidorino!” he shouted. Nidorino was a good choice. Not too aggressive, because he didn’t really want to hurt Ryan, just incapacitate him. Nothing like a nice bit of poison to slow someone down. And Nidorino didn’t seem to mind his reliance on nasty little poison jabs and then quick retreats. Nidorino would let Min get away.

And then he froze as he saw what Ryan had thrown out. Ryan blinked back at him, his Nidorina poised to spring in front of him.

That wasn’t – it wasn’t that weird. Nidorans were everywhere, it wasn’t at all strange that Ryan had caught one, too. It was a nice looking Nidorina, too, shiny coated and with a nice, alert angle to the ears. Of course Ryan took good care of his Pokemon (of course? But Ryan was so thoughtless)(He cared, though, didn’t he? Ryan had always loved with everything he had. Of course he’d coddled his Pokemon. They’d probably do anything for him).

Nidorino was looking at him, waiting for orders. Min’s plan of chipping away at Ryan, dodging and then bolting was already starting to fray. Ryan had always been scrappy. His Nidorina was probably even scrappier.

He quickly tapped the button on Nidorino’s Pokeball, making a quick decision to swap. A moment later and a second flash of red, Nidorina too had disappeared from the field.

Something less common, that couldn’t be caught in every forest on the continent. Something with a bit more refinement maybe, more able to dodge Ryan’s all-out battling style. Min braced, flicking his next choice out.

“Go, Umbreon!”

“Go, Espeon!” Ryan sang out practically in chorus with him. They once again blinked at one another. Umbreon’s back arched, preparing to attack (Umbreon had never quite cooperated with Min’s hang back and endure strategy). Ryan’s Espeon was sitting down, looking calm and poised and gracefully unruffled, except that both Pokemon were staring intently at one another.

Dark against psychic. It was a match-up in his favour. Maybe he had a chance after all.

Ryan’s forehead wrinkled and then Espeon was withdrawing. Hurriedly, Min withdrew Umbreon and grabbed another Pokeball.

“Go, Seviper!” he shouted almost in chorus with Ryan’s yell of “Go, Zangoose!”

He wanted a battle, not an all-out brawl. Ryan seemed to agree. The Pokemon barely got a chance to look at one another before there was another twin red flash.

Min’s hand danced over his hip. Someone dependable, maybe. Plusle was his partner, but there was another Pokemon on his team that he’d always rather related to more.

“Go, Growlithe!”

Growlithe, loyal as always, came out ready for battle. Growlithe, his dependable anchor, Growlithe who always gave battles its all, Growlithe his only Pokemon who really seemed to understand his defense-based battle strategy. Surely Growlithe. . .

And then he got a good look at the bright eyes of Ryan’s Vulpix.

Fire against fire was an even match-up. And his Growlithe was tough. But Ryan’s Vulpix looked so ready for combat. And Ryan, his wild and brave best friend, Ryan was probably an incredible fire trainer. Growlithe was amazing, but Min. . . Min wasn’t.

One Pokemon left, but maybe a bit of a ringer. Ryan had already shown an interest in psychic Pokemon with Espeon but rock, Ryan had never been all that interested in rock. Rock was stodgy and dependable like Min himself. He flicked out his last Pokeball.

“Go, Lunatone!”

He was, by now, expecting Ryan’s concurrent withdrawal and throw. He would not, given a million guesses, have been able to predict out what came out.

“What are you doing?” he blurted out, staring at Ryan’s Solrock.