And here's my attempt at Seviper/Zangoose. Might just be me, but I noticed... Seviper seemed to always be female and Zangoose always male in the stories. D: Which is upsetting. So, I decided to write this. Actually, it was because my friend was determined to breed her Seviper and Zangoose on GPX+ and I was amused by it. But now I want to post this.

I don't own Pokemon. (Obviously.)

Now, please review. Even if you hate it. Tell me it's terrible! I want to hear opinions, people!

When there's a will, there's a way. When there's an order, there's no choice. So you'd better have the mental capacity to hold in your sanity.
Even if that order is complete bullshit.

xxx

Minady sighed.

She was not a fan of irony. Which was probably why it followed her around.

"Is something wrong? Is it still too soon for you to take a new partner?" She looked into the worried brown eyes of the Leafeon. "I mean, I know after what happened with Pip..."

"No, no, it's fine." Syntha visibly relaxed The poor grass type was way too stressed with her new position. "The only problem I have is if he can't restrain himself. I can keep my temper in but, as you know, Seviper..."

Now the Leafeon's eyes twinkled, "Oh, yes, the 'cold-blooded' snakes have, and I quote, 'tiny brains and the inability to reign in their temper.' You've rambled about it before. Wasn't it right after that sweet-"

"He was trying to seduce you for information. I had to protect you."

Syntha shook her head, leafy ears twitching with amusement, "He thought I was pretty. However, he was a bandit and so your explosion can be overlooked. You've never had another problem with the feud before then."

"He licked you."

"You imagined that entirely." Now her friend (and naive, naive, naive upper) had eased into a more friendly air-In fact, with her relaxed, the air was easier to breathe-she was cleaning it much faster. "So you won't turn down this partnership?"

"No."

A leafy tail swished, "And you will show him the ropes? Share all the secrets? Care for him in the thick of battle, never leave him behind, bathe him if he-"

"Now you're pushing it."

They shared a smile. Then, "But seriously, you know the rules. Unless it's for-"

"-the better of the mission, I must always protect, defend, safeguard, care for, and nourish my partner. Yes, I do know and yes, I agree to these terms." Minady stood on her hind legs, "Does he know the rules?"

Now Syntha looked nervous, "Some of them. You're supposed to teach him most of it, you know."

Oh.

This... This was going to be fun. For everyone.

Especially the idiot who decided this.

Minady was expecting the worse. So, she was ready to defend herself.

Young as she was, she would not let a rookie attack and humiliate her. And if he managed to attack her, he was not going to be allowed to humiliate her.

Yes, she would be soft with him.

But she would not take shit.

She wasn't as nice as Syntha.

She waited by the door, trying to pinpoint where her new partner would be coming from. Her ears swivelled to and fro and she lifted her nose to the air a couple times. For about thirty minutes she waited.

Already showing signs of untimeliness. That wasn't goo-

Without warning, something wrapped around her.

Something thick and black and long and that smelled like enemy.

See, this is why she hated irony. Because now she was immobile and the only attack she knew to use to get out of this hold was one that involved some heavy damage-which she wasn't allowed to do under oath.

Oh, and now he was breathing on her. Lovely, just lovely.

On the outside, she kept up a calm facade.

"I suggest you release me now, partner. Or do you already want to be kicked out?"

A hiss stung her ears. However, it wasn't entirely hostile so much as smug. Very, very, very damnably smug. "Release you~? But that would be so boooooooooring. Think for one moment-if I released you, you might even attempt to punish me and we can't have that."

Oh no. This-this was not allowed to happen. Not on the first day.

In fact, not ever.

She fought back her temper and, with a layer of ice in her voice, said, "I might be younger than you but I am your upper. Punishment only gets worse the longer you keep me up."

"Such a wound up thing, aren't you? No humor at all." The binding tightened, "I wonder if your terrible humor will get to me. Zangoose, I've heard, are terrible for your sanity."

It was so, so, so very hard not to simply Slash her way out of his hold, partner or not.

In fact, spilling his blood was such a tempting idea.

Tempting. But she had to ignore it.

"Whatever feud you have with my species had better not affect your performance."

"What's your name?" He simply asked, cheerful.

If only she could rake her claws along his neck. In fact, eating him didn't sound too bad. Yes. She'd never tried them before. She had heard they didn't taste as bad as they smelled and trying not to kill him was making her hungry.

Very, very hungry.

"Minady. Now, put me down."

He let out another smug hiss and, disgustingly enough, crawled up and enough to whirl around and face her while still wrapped around her. "Minady, huh? Kinda sounds like... Mindy."

No. He was not going to start that. "And your name, newbie?"

For a second he seemed affronted and then he gave her his snake grin. It wasn't nearly as pretty nor sweet as Syntha's. Not that that was even possible but it was not curbing her anger in the least. "Fa~ang."

She stared.

Wait. And he had mocked her name?

"Hmm. How... original."

His grip on her tightened to an unbearable point, "Are you insinuating something?" Barely able to breathe, she pretended to be unaffected. It was hard. Very, very hard. The grip loosened, "Are you going to fight or simply pretend this doesn't make you want to devour my gorgeous body."

She blinked.

She scowled.

He grinned. "I worded that in an amazing way, right?"

No. Wrong. So very, very, very wrong. He released her and, curtly, she responded with: "Thank you." She picked herself off the ground, shook out her coat, and prepared to give him a lecture from Hell.

Instead, she felt a tearing pain in her tail.

She was too stunned to stop herself from puffing up and hissing.

He.. He.. He...

The damn bastard bit her tail.

Her claws were around his throat in an instance and she maneuvered herself up and on top of him to force as much weight onto his lungs as possible, snarling and puffed up and not even bothering to restrain herself when an upset Syntha came bursting out.

You don't ever want to see an upset Leafeon.

Ever.

The air around them begins to be painful to take in.

Like now.

Coughing and sputtering, she barely made it off the Seviper before her friend was SolarBeam-ing her off the newbie. "Minady! You-you-I asked if you could handle it! You said yes!"

Oh no. Here came the panic. And with the panic...

Magical Leaf.

And it was scary. Rainbow colored flying leaves with the ability to chop you to pieces may not look threatening but they were. And they hurt. And Syntha had a terrible habit of summoning them when panicking. Like now.

After a couple minutes of a panicked Syntha, the Leafeon calmed down enough to glare at them both like they were children and demand an explanation.

The first words out of her new partner's mouth were, "If I had known it would've caused the apocalypse, I would've chosen to bite her arm instead."

There was silence.

Then, "You... bit her first?"

"Yep."

"And you admit this?"

"Yep."

She waited for the punishment. Instead, hesitantly, Syntha said, "Thank you for your honesty. However, restrain yourself from attacking her again."

"Hmm... Even if it's playful?"

She narrowed her eyes and he gave her a smug little snake grin. Syntha sighed, "Until she's more comfortable around you, yes, I'm afraid so. Besides, Minady has orders to teach you. I'm afraid she'll be more of an adviser than a playmate."

She remained stony-faced, refusing to show her annoyance with the new recruit.

He didn't hide his. "She seems so... so... so..."

"Distant?" Syntha offered sweetly.

He shook his head. "Bitchy."

Of course.

"But distant goes, too." This was going to be an extremely long, troublesome partnership. "So, what's our team name going to be?"

Before Syntha could respond, Minady deadpanned, "We choose."

"Oh..." He gave her another snake smile, "What was your original-"

"Team Song." She ignored his surprised hiss, "My partner was a Wigglytuff. Our name will be different."

"Fire and Ice?"

It was her turn to stare.

"You know, since I'm hot and you're cold."

A very, very, very, very long partnership. She wasn't sure if she would live through it.

"...and, again, I'm sorry about her. She's not normally-And you did bite her..."

She wanted Syntha to stop apologizing for her. It made her regret attacking him.

Which she had every right to do so she shouldn't feel bad for it.

Finally, they made it to the sleeping quarters. "And this will be where you'll sleep."

Fang was smiling smugly again. "I sleep with Mindy-"

"Minady."

That was all she had said to him for the past three hours. Every time he called her Mindy, she had corrected him. Other than that, it had been as if she didn't exist.

It was starting to piss her off.

"Yeah, yeah-I sleep with the icicle?"

Her ear twitched in time with her claw. She couldn't kill him. She couldn't. Syntha would slice her up with her Magical Leaf attack for one. And, even worse, she'd be kicked out. Oh, and break an oath. That was bad, too.

But his annoyance... She just wanted to-"Yes... will that be a problem?"

Be a problem. She begged mutely. "Of course not."

Of course. Thanks again, irony. You go out of your way for me. I feel special.

"It's just... I've never slept with the enemy, you know?"

For Arceus' sake! It wasn't like they were rutting! And he better not expect that either. She would kill him for that. She was not breeding with a damn Seviper and he damn well better learn-

Syntha laughed. "No, I don't. And Minady isn't your enemy here, she's your mentor."

"So... I'm sleeping with my ex-enemy teacher? Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet."

She loathed that tone. She really did. And his smell. And a lot of things about him.

But she didn't loathe him since that would be judging him too early. "You're rooming with her. The only time you two would need to actually sleep together is if you're somewhere really, really, really cold."

Now the Seviper stopped goofing off to stare. "I don't have body heat."

"I know." Minady rolled her eyes. Syntha was too sweet. Her tone wasn't even sarcastic. "Minady, I really have to get to work now. Can you take it from here? He seems sweet."

At this, both pokemon gave her their best Growlithe eyes.

Syntha's owned Fang's in every way. She just ignored his. "Of course."

"Thanks!"

The Eeveelution skipped off merrily.

She ignored Fang and entered the room.

Fang attempted to start a conversation, "So... what times do we eat?" She ignored him. The information was listed in the handbook. "Hello?" He slithered over to raise himself and tower over her, "Earth to teacher-"

"I can hear you. Read the handbook."

He looked crestfallen. "Oh... okay."

She couldn't tell if he was faking it, was upset she hadn't spoken more, or was upset about having to read the handbook. She wanted to think it was the last one. With a sigh, she replied again, "At sunset, sunrise, and when the sun is at its highest."

"Woot! An entire sentence! Let's try something else..." She sat down and waited for his next attempt at getting her to talk. "Are there any other Seviper?"

"Not on this base. There are two others. One is in a group known as Team Venom and another is in Team Gem." He stared, seemingly stunned. "Only one is female and her partner and mate is a high-leveled Arbok."

His expression of shocked turned to one of annoyance and his tail swished. "Because that's what I wanted to know. Let me guess, Team Venom?"

"No. Team Gem. The male Seviper is in Team Venom along with his partner-a male newly evolved Golbat. Both are rather sweet, if not a bit eccentric."

Again, he stared in surprise.

"Uh... you know a lot."

"I've been on many missions. Anything else?"

"How many Pikachu are there?"

If she had an eyebrow, it would've rose at that question. "Three. Two in Team Spark and one in Team Storm. Team Spark has two female Pikachu-sisters-and Team Storm has a male Pikachu and a female Luxray. I hear there is a Pichu newcomer in the south, however, who is proving herself as a wonderful explorer."

After a moment of silence, he commented, "You like to talk about other pokemon, don't you?"

She glared.

"So... anything I should know as a new explorer?"

"Keep your promises, don't break the rules, and read the handbook."

He looked wounded again, "No secret knowledge?"

She eyed him. For an extremely long time, sizing him up. "If you don't mind, try not to endanger your partner or leave them long enough for them to be ambushed."

He hissed, "I would never do that! I told you, the feud with our-"

"I was not suggesting you would. It is knowledge I picked up myself."

"Oh. Happen to you?"

She sighed and walked out the door. "Follow me. It is almost time to eat."

He had gone back to taunting her again.

"Mindy~ Mindy~ Mindy~" She ignored him, "Mindy~? Mindy~? Miiiiindy~?" He would learn to call her by her real name or he would continue to embarrass himself. "Minady?" She turned. And almost stumbled back in shock.

He was wearing... fake Lopunny ears.

"Does this make my head look big?"

He was insane. "Why are you trying to change your species?"

"Because then you'll stop ignoring me~"

"I was ignoring you because you weren't using my name."

He nodded, "Uh huh. But you'll like me more this way."

She stared at him doubtfully. "If you want to gain my respect, you'll put those back where you found them and concentrate on things of importance. Like training. And reading the rules."

"And wasting my life away studying, right?"

She scowled.

He grinned.

"We can't begin a mission if you don't past the test at the end of the handbook."

His eyes widened.

"You haven't been reading, obviously. It states that-"

"You aren't going to list the chapter and page number are you?"

Okay, not even she had it memorized. She shook her head and he visibly relaxed. "It's in the beginning, somewhere in the introduction or first chapter. So you know to pay attention."

He chucked, "Obviously I need to work on that."

She nodded and his expression soured.

"C'mon, I'm trying to be nice~"

She sighed. "And I'm trying to ignore those ears."

He laughed, "Oh~! Okay. I'll put them back. And then we can eat, right?" She stared him down. "Fine, fine." He put them up and returned. "So... what happened to your par-"

The mealtime bell rang.

xxx

There are times when you want the bell to shut the hell up.
But there are also times when it saves you.
This was one of those times.

If you're wondering why Minady is so annoyed with the nickname Mindy, I shall tell you this. Mindy means either 'sweet serpent' or 'dark/black serpent.' Does it make a little more sense now? :3

Oh, and Minady is supposed to be obviously racist. Can ya tell?