I was always a timid boy. I was quiet. I kept to myself, going about life with an expression of total apathy pasted on. I would have been fine with that, forever, through my entire life. Other people didn't like it, though. They were always telling me tot speak up, to be more outgoing, make friends, smile more. What really did me in were the frequent requests to battle from the other boys at school. I did not have any confidence in my abilities as a trainer. When Litwick battled, she commanded herself. When I refused the boys their demands, they enjoyed trying to insult me by calling me a wimp, sissy, coward, or by insinuating that I often put an unmentionable part of the male anatomy in my mouth (as a pan-romantic, the only offense I took from this was that they thought it a proper and witty insult).
I seventh grade, I began dreading facing these people to the point where my anxiety on Sunday nights made me physically ill. They bothered me every day. It had only started because I was the only child in the class that none of them had battled yet, but by now they were simply mocking me. They were not dissuaded by my calm, soft responses- in fact, they were only further egged on. Physical abuse from any of these children had become common by the time I was twelve.
It was spring that year before I, or at least a part of mine, a hidden part that I had not known existed before that moment, decided to do something about it. "Spring" was synonymous with "half-melted slush and hard ice" in Sinnoh, and being pushed around was only worse. The other boys didn't relent no matter how many times I had been cut on the ice.
"Why wont you battle us, Nobori-saaaan?" one of them pestered as they came around me threateningly. I was not actually Kantonese at all. My parents, however, were obsessed with the culture. I was changing my name to "Ingo" the second I became an adult. These boys especially lied to make gun by adding a very sarcastic honorific to it. If they really knew anything, I liked to insult them to myself, they would probably know to call me Nobori-kun. Unless I was wrong, but that was doubtful. But, they were just idiots, and did not know that.
"Are you on the way to go suck on your boyfriend?" the same one went on, bringing that stupid thing up again as if it were any matter. I simply tightened my jaw and went on, but one of the other ones, who had not been talking, decided to shove me from behind, and I slipped, my books flying out of my arms, landing on my face and hands painfully. I only shivered, going slightly numb. Tears began to slide from my eyes as I stared at the blood on my scraped hands. I felt a bit as if I weren't fully in my body, but watching from just above my head. Something made me stand up, discarding my books in favor of taking Litwick's capsule from my belt.
"You want to battle?" someone asked distantly, using my voice and mouth. Like a switch had been thrown, a smile flipped up my mouth suddenly. It should have clued them in already that something was wrong. I was in myself again. I was going to cream every one of these freaks. I had never made a single mistake in battle, I could see now. I had simply been too self-critical to accept such an amazing fact about myself before. I was an advanced being, the closest thing to God that walked the earth and breathed its polluted air along with the rest of the race of human parasites. I was far, far better than any of them.
Litwick appeared, and she smiled at my in delight. I wondered how I could have neglected her so by not allowing her to battle other trainers. She was the quintessential example of a battle maniac's Pokemon. My father had insisted that breeding was all the rage in Kanto,and made me try it as well, sending me off to Kalos with passes for the safari zone and daycare, plenty of Pokeballs, a Destiny Knot and an Everstone. As a good and obedient child, I had done as asked and bred this perfect Litwick myself. I should not have forgotten her like that. I was ashamed at myself. ...No, actually, I wasn't. I was simply looking forwards to destroying these bugs.
Their lineup was so weak, I had to laugh. Litwick and I could have wiped them twenty times over without a break. "Just use Heat Wave," I told the candle Pokemon with a lofty expression, the same pleased smirk in place. "And work up a Hex for any of them who manages to stay up."
None of them needed the follow-up Hex. I laughed again finding their failure so terribly amusing, especially after all that I had suffered at their hands. All of them had only watched the short battle in terror before scooping up their fainted and burned Pokemon and fleeing, some in tears. It was a shame, I had been looking forwards to paying back some of the injuries they had imparted on to me.
Since that day, I have managed to convince everyone, including myself, that I have a twin brother. I called him "Kudari" while I was still a child, and then "Emmet" when I had grown up and changed my own name to Ingo. People can tell us apart when I wear white or smile a lot. They don't know that we're the same person, though. We've never actually been seen together. We have good excuses for it. I sometimes have to wonder if I have others living inside of myself as well, brothers wearing grey or silver, but we honestly prefer that there aren't. Emmet and I like each other the best, and we complement each other. Another one would only mess up our perfect harmony as twins.