Pokemon BW fic
Chapter Two: Equality
Touko stubbornly kept her back to N and peered downward frantically for Team Plasma, even if she couldn’t make out their silly costumes from this high. He was just babbling something about gears and plantonic solids anyways.
“Listen. This is important.”
Damn it. Every shoujo manga she’d ever read told her riding a Ferris wheel together was a romantic cliché.
“You said we were going to look for--”
“I’m the king of Team Plasma.”
Well fuck me sideways. She had not seen that coming. She vaguely recalled the Sages mentioning a king and maybe she kept running into them in the same town around the same time, but she’d had no idea N was related to Team Plasma at all. Had she known, she would not be here.
Ferris wheel cars proved to be made to keep anyone from jumping out. Her Tranquill could totally have caught her if she’d managed it.
“What do you want?” She resisted the urge to cross her arms, flexing her fists in preparation to react to danger.
“Do you think it’s right to kidnap Pokémon from their homes and force them to fight each other in gladiatorial games for your own glory? To command their absolute obedience with Pokéballs and badges? Why do I have rights and agency and they don’t? Why do people treatment like a person and my family like animals?
“What do Pokémon gain from training? Food? Skills at League-rules fighting? Is a ‘good trainer’ only cared for because better that than a bad trainer or being without a slave master for a protector in a society where they can only be chattel?”
An amusement park employee opened the door to yell at them for shaking the car. She pushed past him to get out, out!, her mind whirling.
What did her Pokémon really think of her? They were her friends, weren’t they? She loved them and they responded to her feelings, right? She wasn’t N--she couldn’t understand them and how well could they really understand her? What did they want and what was even possible for them with society at large being what it was?
There were Team Plasma members outside, but N waved them off, saying he would occupy her so they could escape. She growled an objection to that. (They called him “sire.” What dark cave had this strange, fanatical cult emerged from?) She wanted to hit something with her own hands and they terrorized old men and made little girls cry.
Then there was N, talking too quickly with his strange Asperger’s mannerisms and his lack of understanding of personal space. Touko refused to take a step back, still.
“I have a future I’ve see that I need to prevent. I will defeat the Champion and with the Great Dragon remake the world to my will. Touko! I’m counting on you to meet me there.”
But it was Cheren who wanted to be Champion, not her, she thought dumbly.
He stepped even closer to her, his usually rapidly flitting gaze for once looking intently and directly into her eyes.
“You badly socialized freak! I can’t believe you kissed me!”
“Come after me and choose what the world you desire is.”
“You bastard!” she yelled after his retreating back. He could disappear as fast as a Sigilyph using Whirlwind. “Did he just ask me to be his rival or his queen?”
She didn’t even know what she wanted him to have meant or which she wanted to be. Did she want to kick his ass or hear his message, overthrow his “reign” or ask him to talk to her Pokémon for her? Was this all a false dichotomy and she could choose neither or both?
She had become a trainer because her friends had wanted to leave town. She had travelled and gotten gym badges because it was something to do, but while she was enjoying her journey, she had never thought further than the next city.
Cheren wanted to become Champion, Bianca wanted to find herself, Touko wanted…
She wanted to catch up to N. The police could handle Team Plasma better than one girl could and it was their job. She didn’t believe in whatever strange magic rituals they were unearthing to fool the gullible, but she couldn’t let this lie. She wanted, for herself rather than for Bianca or Cheren or anyone else.
Rival or Queen. She’d know her own will by the time she saw N again.
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Touko stubbornly kept her back to N and peered downward frantically for Team Plasma, even if she couldn’t make out their silly costumes from this high. He was just babbling something about gears and plantonic solids anyways.
“Listen. This is important.”
Damn it. Every shoujo manga she’d ever read told her riding a Ferris wheel together was a romantic cliché.
“You said we were going to look for--”
“I’m the king of Team Plasma.”
Well fuck me sideways. She had not seen that coming. She vaguely recalled the Sages mentioning a king and maybe she kept running into them in the same town around the same time, but she’d had no idea N was related to Team Plasma at all. Had she known, she would not be here.
Ferris wheel cars proved to be made to keep anyone from jumping out. Her Tranquill could totally have caught her if she’d managed it.
“What do you want?” She resisted the urge to cross her arms, flexing her fists in preparation to react to danger.
“Do you think it’s right to kidnap Pokémon from their homes and force them to fight each other in gladiatorial games for your own glory? To command their absolute obedience with Pokéballs and badges? Why do I have rights and agency and they don’t? Why do people treatment like a person and my family like animals?
“What do Pokémon gain from training? Food? Skills at League-rules fighting? Is a ‘good trainer’ only cared for because better that than a bad trainer or being without a slave master for a protector in a society where they can only be chattel?”
An amusement park employee opened the door to yell at them for shaking the car. She pushed past him to get out, out!, her mind whirling.
What did her Pokémon really think of her? They were her friends, weren’t they? She loved them and they responded to her feelings, right? She wasn’t N--she couldn’t understand them and how well could they really understand her? What did they want and what was even possible for them with society at large being what it was?
There were Team Plasma members outside, but N waved them off, saying he would occupy her so they could escape. She growled an objection to that. (They called him “sire.” What dark cave had this strange, fanatical cult emerged from?) She wanted to hit something with her own hands and they terrorized old men and made little girls cry.
Then there was N, talking too quickly with his strange Asperger’s mannerisms and his lack of understanding of personal space. Touko refused to take a step back, still.
“I have a future I’ve see that I need to prevent. I will defeat the Champion and with the Great Dragon remake the world to my will. Touko! I’m counting on you to meet me there.”
But it was Cheren who wanted to be Champion, not her, she thought dumbly.
He stepped even closer to her, his usually rapidly flitting gaze for once looking intently and directly into her eyes.
“You badly socialized freak! I can’t believe you kissed me!”
“Come after me and choose what the world you desire is.”
“You bastard!” she yelled after his retreating back. He could disappear as fast as a Sigilyph using Whirlwind. “Did he just ask me to be his rival or his queen?”
She didn’t even know what she wanted him to have meant or which she wanted to be. Did she want to kick his ass or hear his message, overthrow his “reign” or ask him to talk to her Pokémon for her? Was this all a false dichotomy and she could choose neither or both?
She had become a trainer because her friends had wanted to leave town. She had travelled and gotten gym badges because it was something to do, but while she was enjoying her journey, she had never thought further than the next city.
Cheren wanted to become Champion, Bianca wanted to find herself, Touko wanted…
She wanted to catch up to N. The police could handle Team Plasma better than one girl could and it was their job. She didn’t believe in whatever strange magic rituals they were unearthing to fool the gullible, but she couldn’t let this lie. She wanted, for herself rather than for Bianca or Cheren or anyone else.
Rival or Queen. She’d know her own will by the time she saw N again.
Back to main page