DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon.
This short piece was based on amaneko5's drawing of Seviper and Zangoose (search amaneko5 seviper and you'll find it):
Enjoy.
The Zangoose - Seviper rivalry is well-known to anyone past grade school in Hoenn, even if you live in a part of the nation where the two do not exist. They make a dynamic duo in children's stories, are referenced when describing dysfunctional couples, are referenced when describing functional couples, are taken up symbolically by rival gangs, and provide any floundering tour guide of Hoenn with something to talk about to foreigners.
As the clang of tooth on claw rang out through Fallarbor Valley, Anton shuddered. The real thing was a whole different beast from the tall tales and the analogies.
Of course, he wasn't actually scared. He'd seen what Pokémon could do to each other before, and his team of two would protect him if things got rough. No. He was shuddering from the sheer cold. It almost never snowed up by Mt. Chimney, but this year the sky was raining ash and flurries of ice. It was quite miserable.
He peeked out from behind his hiding place, a rather respectable boulder, and immediately shrunk back.
The Zangoose was bleeding out, for Arceus's sake! It was clearly losing, and yet it was still fighting for who knows what reason, when it could get away scot-free. Everyone knew that Seviper was rubbish for chasing things. Its sole speed factor was in its lunge, and the Zangoose was giving the viper plenty of opportunity to make use of this.
Of course, above all else Anton was a scientist, and in that single peek he'd already realized that the engorged Seviper in question must be the one they talked about in town, the queen of the area both in terms of size and battle experience, definitely female judging from the length of the tail blade. It really was quite oddly fat, even for such a large snake. The Zangoose was also likely to be female, and it was intermittently letting out distress calls. That was strange. Zangoose were almost ridiculously independent and only let out distress calls when immediate family was in danger. Which meant...
A vicious Poison Tail tore through the Zangoose, and then the Pokémon hung limp.
A vicious realization tore through Anton in the same moment, and then he too felt his body go limp. But it was too late. He could only watch now, the conclusion foregone.
A rough shake. A tongue, probing for signs of life. A mournful and yet triumphant hiss. And then the snake slithered away, prize speared like a kebab on its tail.
It took some careful scouring, but sure enough, Anton managed to find a den within a nearby snowdrift, and within it he found the reason the Zangoose had stayed to fight so long: a whimpering baby.
Anton had never particularly been good at programming, and as an aspiring Pokémon researcher what that left for him was Pokémon behavior. In order to facilitate this, he'd specialized in Psychics, which could give him insights into the minds of the creatures he studied. He'd borrowed a reserve Gardevoir from the Weather Institute Laboratory, and he himself had a Mr. Mime.
Mimesy had immediately taken to the baby, and Anton quickly found his small apartment in Fallarbor filled with invisible cradles and chew-toys which his Pokémon had fashioned from thin air. Latent talent, Anton decided, was far less fascinating when you tripped over it regularly.
He was quite willing to stay until the Zangoose would be able to take care of itself. And there was hardly a lack of projects in Fallarbor. After writing the Weather Institute requesting permission to do his research on-site rather than collecting samples, he settled in for the long haul. Spinda patterns were faxed to the Weather Institute for analysis, Slugma were captured and selectively dyed, and then the videos of how the dye circulated through them were saved and sent to the Institute. Mimesy would keep the Pokémon still, Gardevoir would relay him their thoughts.
...it was mostly a mindless drone about food for the Slugma, and Spinda mental processes were so logically fallacious that they gave him a headache.
He was pleasantly surprised to find one of his articles on Slugma circulation in a minor journal, especially as the Weather Institute published mostly meteorological studies.
Pity, really. But the days passed quickly and pleasantly.
It was, as Gardevoir noted,
"An unusually relaxing allotment of time for such a fast-paced person as yourself."
A crash came, a growl, and another crash, and Anton rushed out of his apartment to see the Zangoose, pinned within a small crater by an unseen Psychic force. It was winded, and furious.
Gardevoir hovered a few feet above the downed Zangoose, looking coldly upon it.
"What did you do THAT for?"
The cool gaze turned to him, and a chill ran up his spine, as the Pokémon's voice penetrated his mindscape.
We were doing a meditative exercise. I was probing his mind and let down my own mental barriers. He caught a glimpse of his mother dying and recognized her. He proceeded to go berserk.
She nodded down to the hem of her torn dress, which was already re-mending itself.
The rascal did that.
Zangoose growled something from where he lay, and the Psychic pressure disappeared.
A few more growls, softer this time. Gardevoir cocked her head.
He wants a relay into your head, Anton.
Before he could agree or disagree, he felt a tingling in the back of his mind, and suddenly he was seeing the world through two sets of eyes: his own, and those of the Zangoose. And he could hear the Zangoose's thoughts, which were far more furious than that of any Pokémon whose head he had been in before.
Let me fight the snake.
Furious, but calm, Anton thought with a degree of surprise.
I will avenge my mother. That serpent. I will KILL MAIM DESTROY BLIND RIP TO SHREDS BULLDOZE-
Scratch that.
He winced as the connection was cut, and looked at the hate-filled eyes he'd just been seeing through seconds before. The Zangoose couldn't have been just a few days old when his mother died. If this much hate spawned from such a weak memory, then no wonder the Zangoose had a feud with the Seviper. It was surprising they didn't have a fewd with every single other living being out there too from other overblown grudges.
And was "bulldoze" supposed to be in ANY wild, adolescent mammal's vocabulary?
Anton had actually seen the Seviper slithering around during his tenure in Fallarbor. She was hard to miss, with her enormous body and her sleek scales, shining even amidst the heaviest ashfall. She'd grown slimmer for a time, which had concerned him, so he'd even told his Mr. Mime to place a Psychic trace on the snake.
Mimesy could still trace the snake, a year later. Maybe the "super effective" label worked for all things Psychic against all things Poison.
At any rate, tracking down the serpent was no problem whatsoever.
The fight, on the other hand, was pathetic. Anton had asked Zangoose to let itself be caught in a Poké Ball. That way, if the fight went awry, he could recall him before he got too damaged. Or eaten.
Zangoose had let loose with a Fury Cutter that successfully tickled the snake. Seeing that the attack had no effect, it proceeded to stumble about. It was probably an attempt at Swords Dance, though it was so graceless it might have been a Teeter Dance copied from a local Spinda. Hard to tell.
Seviper had seemed bemused, and with a flick of its tail Zangoose had had his head stuck in the ground.
Anton had recalled him.
Train me to bulldoze the snake.
Anton glared at the Pokémon.
"You can't possibly beat that thing. It's five times your size and is probably the strongest Pokémon in the area. In the ten months we've been here, not a single creature out there has challenged it for supremacy. And where did you learn that wor-"
I will kill it. I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it hate hate hate hatehatehatehatehatehate-
"Mimesy, give me an aspirin."
Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.
There was a flurry of movement, a rough scuffle, a sharp scraping sound as the Zangoose raked his claws against the snake's skin.
Then all of a sudden Seviper let out an ear-piercing shriek that Anton didn't even KNOW a Seviper could make, and Zangoose fell, clutching his ears.
He was recalled just as a Poison Tail sliced through where he had been standing.
Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.
Apparently there was some sort of hypnosis technique the Seviper was using with its eyes, because Zangoose suddenly keeled over.
He was recalled, and Anton banged his head against the Poké Ball.
So he missed how his Gardevoir and the Seviper met each other's eyes.
Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.
Zangoose used Agility, speeding up to the point where Anton could barely see him.
Seviper lunged out, plunging his fangs into Zangoose's stomach with no visible effort. Anton managed to recall his Pokémon before the fangs sank in too deep.
Thank Arceus for Zangoose's inherent poison Immunity ability.
"Your Zangoose has Toxic Boost, a rare ability found in one out of every six hundred Zangoose." Nurse Joy chirped.
It should be noted that Anton rarely cursed.
As expected, Zangoose's room was utterly trashed, the result of his leftover energy from being poisoned. It had taken both Gardevoir and Mr. Mime to trap and sedate him.
An amplification of adrenalin effect in the presence of toxins, Anton decided, was one hell of a stupid evolutionary adaption. This decision was made in conjunction with the Pokémon Center's decision to pay for the damage using all of Anton's remaining grant money.
A month of intensive training passed before Anton would let the Zangoose even try to fight Seviper again after the hospital fiasco. By then, a year had passed since Anton had first entered the valley, and much to his surprise, it snowed again.
The showdown was eerily reminiscent of the first battle Anton had seen; Zangoose had now reached adult size.
The snake and the mongoose Pokémon stared each other down, and lunged.
It doesn't feel right.
Revenge never does.
You've been through this too, haven't you?
Yes.
...why did you let me do it?
Gardevoir sighed. It was the same question Anton had asked her after they'd killed the snake, and they'd found her hatchlings. He'd berated her for allowing the whole thing to continue when she knew that the Seviper had hatchlings waiting in the nest. He'd berated himself too. He should have known that the Seviper had given birth. All the signs had been there...
Why?
Gardevoir considered, and decided to go with the truth.
She knew that your mother had given birth to you as well, when she took your mother's life. Fair's fair.
There was a moment of shocked silence, and Gardevoir could see the anger returning. No, that would not do.
The two winters which you've been through here have both shown you snow. That's not…typical at all of this region. For a mother, the resulting scarcity of food is beyond mere hardship; it's a threat to the lives of her children...
Gardevoir fixed Zangoose with her ruby gaze, sharp and probing.
So don't judge so harshly. Would you not have killed anyone for food, if you were a mother?
Sullen silence. A throaty growl of frustration from the Normal, and a sigh from the Psychic. A rustle of fabric on wood. Gardevoir was gone.
It was hard to nod in response to death.
Night found the Zangoose standing above the corpse of the Seviper, still in the snowdrift where the great snake had finally fallen.
Anton saw, and would have approached, if his Gardevoir had not stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a shake of the head.
And so they watched as the Zangoose stared into the sky, and cried out in anguish. They watched as the anguish turned to rebellion, and then merely sadness. They watched as the cries turned to short, panted promises, the last of which Gardevoir translated.
They watched as a Zangoose became an adult.
"I will train your children, as you have trained me."
It was the appropriate thing to say to a rival.