Full summary because of character limit:
Wynaut and wobuffet have very limited movesets. They can never initiate an attack, only ever attacking in retaliation. They're punching bags, essentially. Living punching bags and nothing else.
But why does it have to be that way, a young wynaut thought, growing bitter as the years and battles flashed by. She was tired of being a living punching bag. For once, she wanted to be the puncher, and be the puncher she would.
Acceptance
On that fateful day in which Wynaut had met her trainer, the breeder had described her as "a living punching bag". She didn't know what the human words had meant. She paid no mind to them in the blissful fervour of finally having a trainer—of finally having a chance to battle.
In the early days spent frolicking in the fields of the breeder's ranch, she had often seen trainers passing by. They had strong, powerful-looking pokemon. Pokemon suited for battle. The few battles she had gotten to see fascinated her. Seeing the action, the satisfaction, the sheer energy of combat—those were what instilled within her the desire to battle.
Her new trainer was a strong believer of letting pokemon outside of their pokeballs whenever possible. Wynaut used this time to try introducing herself to her new teammates. Unfortunately, most of them didn't share her excitement.
"Hi there!" she greeted to a grovyle standing, relaxed, atop a tree branch.
He gave her a dismissive glance and proceeded to ignore her attempts at friendly interaction, placing a leaf in his mouth.
Disappointed, Wynaut spotted a sylveon and tried again to introduce herself. "Hello! I'm new to the team!"
"Oh." The sylveon stopped and the corners of her mouth became tight. "Hello. Excuse me, I must go," she said curtly, and left.
The crushing feeling of disappointment grew. Why was she being treated this way?
"I wouldn't recommend trying with the others," a magikarp said as he flopped into sight. "I'm a recent addition to the team, just like you. Unfortunately, being new means that the older members will look down on you until you prove your strength."
"Oh…" Wynaut said, before perking up. "That just means I'll need to put more effort into becoming the best battler!"
The magikarp blinked, surprised. "Huh. I admire your optimism," he said. "My species is one of the weakest of the weak, so until I evolve a long way down the road, I'll just be treated like deadweight." He paused, before saying, "Which I am."
She frowned. "Hey, how are you gonna get anywhere with that attitude?"
Glumly, he shrugged a fish-like shrug.
An idea popped into her head. "Why don't we help each other become stronger? We're both in similar situations, after all," she said brightly.
"Is this an offer of friendship?" the magikarp said, tilting his head.
"Yup!"
"Huh, friends…" Magikarp drifted off for a moment. Returning to attention, he said, "Well, if we're going to be friends, we might as well get to know each other."
So they did, and stories were told.
As they talked, she felt the pressing weight of a stare on the back of her head. Magikarp was busy explaining how he had been caught, lost in his own world of tales, so she turned around, curious.
From the top of an incline, a xatu was staring at her with glowing eyes. His body was facing the setting sun, but his head was turned, like a noctowl, to focus on her.
Unnerved, she quickly looked away.
"Er," she said, interrupting Magikarp as he recounted a tale of a magikarp who managed to evolve as soon as it had hatched. "What's the deal with that xatu?"
"Oh, him?" he said, turning to look at the subject in question. The xatu was still staring at her. "I haven't been around that long, so I can't give any solid answers. It's strange, though, because Xatu never pays attention to anyone outside of battle. He usually just stares at the sun."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Magikarp became contemplative—well, as contemplative as his face could allow. "Hmm… You know how xatu apparently have the power to see the past and future?"
"I think I heard that once," she said, remembering the lessons that the breeder's personal pokemon would impart.
"Maybe Xatu was staring at you because he saw something related to you in the future."
"Huh. Maybe." She wondered what could happen in the future to get a xatu to pay attention to her. "You know, you're surprisingly knowledgeable," she said. She immediately realized how insulting that could sound.
Luckily, Magikarp wasn't offended. "Oh, I used to get that all the time back in the wild!" His bright tone dropped like a ball after capture. "Wits were the only way I could survive back then..."
She didn't know what to say. She was a wynaut raised on a safe, sheltered ranch—how could she possibly empathize? So she settled for an awkward, "O-Oh. Sorry."
She looked back at Xatu, but the bird's attention had returned to the sun, which was now cut off by the horizon.
"It's getting late," their trainer said as he held their pokeballs up. "All of you, return."
She enjoyed the bizarre feeling of being pulled into the comfort of her pokeball.
Living a peaceful life on the breeder's ranch meant that Wynaut had barely any battle experience. Breeders breed, not battle, after all. The breeder's personal pokemon would occasionally give in to the demands of battle from the younger, energetic inhabitants, but they were more babysitters than battlers.
So when Wynaut's first battle came, it came flying like a machamp's fist.
Her opponent was a roselia, who looked her over with a composed, elegant posture. Wynaut had seen wild roselia before, and had even been friends with a few on the ranch, but this was her first time fighting one (fighting anything, really).
"Use Poison Sting!" the opposing trainer cried.
Thorns dripping with toxins sprung forth from the roselia's rose-appendages. With graceful movements, she rushed at Wynaut.
Wynaut steeled herself in anticipation of her trainer's commands. They look so sharp, she thought, nervous.
"Use Counter!"
She had never used the move before, but the movements came to her instinctually. This is what I am. This is what I should do. Wynaut focused, drawing fighting-type power from within her. She directed it to surround herself in a veil of orange energy, covering her from head to toe. And, despite the rush of fear at the incoming thorns, she braced herself.
The toxic thorns stabbed into her. Wynaut shrieked in pain. She had never experienced anything like this before. The roselia's thorns dug deeper, seeking to inflict more unbearable pain. She felt the poison seeping into her body, and gasped.
But Wynaut would not give up. She summoned the power of the orange veil surrounding her, using the momentum from the roselia's charge, and slammed into her opponent with a force twofold the agony she felt. The adrenaline of the counterattack spurred her further as the roselia gasped in pain. She used her head appendage to bash the roselia's torso like a mace, sending her foe flying into the air. Using the remainders of her Counter-driven energy, she leapt at the roselia's falling body and used her long ears to slap at her repeatedly, finally sending her first opponent flying into the earth.
Wynaut landed using her ears to steady herself, panting. The adrenaline induced by Counter had worn off, and she felt the effects of the poison with an abrupt gasp.
The roselia had crashed into the ground a few paces away, forming small cracks in the soil. She wasn't moving.
The realization that she had won struck her. Wynaut was consumed in elation. Magikarp, who had watched with her other teammates from the sidelines, congratulated her, bouncing in place with vigor. She smiled, and even caught an impressed expression from one or two of her other teammates that quickly disappeared. Her trainer congratulated her with words of praise, and dug into his bag to search for healing items.
But it hurt.
The feeling of battle and victory was incredible, but it hurt. The spot where the roselia had stabbed her still burned, and the poison was taking its toll on her. It was agonizing. Wynaut wished her trainer would hurry more.
And it was from these feelings that a small doubt began to take form, a doubt Wynaut didn't know the cause of and didn't know where to place.
AN:
This is planned to be a five-chapter fic to try to rekindle my motivation to write. Here's hoping I don't abandon and/or delete this. This is more for my sake, so I won't mind if this doesn't get any views.
Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own.