Let me start off by saying that I know it's not absolutely unheard of for a Zangoose and a Seviper to coexist. Just so no one makes the mistake of thinking I've got some kind of tunnel vision or something when it comes to the matter. Those cases, though, they're almost always cases of trainers pairing them together and forcing them to work together. Even a blood feud as deep as ours can be trained away, and once you've got them working together, they're as reliable a pair as any.
In the wild, it's a whole different story. I can count on one paw the number of instances I've heard of Zangoose and Seviper interacting peacefully with each other. Simply put, without a trainer's influence, we don't get along and putting the two together is just a recipe for disaster.
I guess that makes me one of the strange ones. I share my den with a Seviper. Now, let it be clear, I don't particularly like Seviper in general, or this one in particular either. I wouldn't really even call us friends, just cohabitants. So I imagine it's a mystery to you as to why I'm doing this. I know it is to others of my kind, so don't worry, it's not like this is the first time I've had people wondering about me. The answer isn't a simple one, and I can't guarantee you'll really understand it once I've gotten through it, but I'll give it a shot.
What's the first thing you think of when you think of Zangoose? If you're anything like most of the humans I've met, it's that we hate Seviper. And vice-versa if you ask about Seviper. Really, even if they've had a lot of experience with either of us, hack, even if they're a trainer who's worked with one for a long time, that's what comes first.
I'm certainly not denying the fact. Goodness, no. Zangoose clans in the wild, they always live near Seviper clans; it's perhaps an irony of nature that we're so well-adapted to similar habitats. And it's always the same thing with our clans, the most important thing is to destroy any Seviper we come across. The hate is there, and it is strong. Seeing a full-on brawl between a large group of Zangoose and Seviper, it's really something even if you're not big on our blood feud. You will never see a more vicious and feral swarm in all your life. You never want to get close, it could cost you your life. There is no discretion, there is no caution; if you're in the way, either one will go right through you, not caring about your health or safety.
So, yeah, no love lost between us. And that's basically what life is like in the clans; everything revolves around the opposition, and your status is primarily defined by your battle history only with those opponents. I once knew a Zangoose who single-handedly forced a Rhyperior to submit to him and beg for mercy, but he wasn't highly respected in any way because he had a fairly nondescript record against Seviper. Not because he couldn't beat them, but because he didn't find them enough of a real challenge. And that's the truth; there are lots of Pokémon tougher for us to deal with than each other. Ghost-types would be hell for any one of us Zangoose, and Seviper would be virtually fangless against any Steel-type. But that doesn't matter to the clans; all that matters is each other.
And when it gets down to it, that's the part that started eating at me. As I said, I'm no real friend to the Seviper, and I never have been. But it wasn't about friendship, no, the reasons are more internal. See, I asked myself the critical question: what happens if we beat all the Seviper?
You may wonder how someone with such a historical in-bred antagonism could be so foggy on the question of what happens once they've actually succeeded in terminating that which they so tirelessly fight against. And, well, I would sympathize, because I'm kinda wondering the same thing myself. It wasn't something that came to me immediately, it was several years and several fights and kills before the thought ever occurred to me. Of course, when it did, it hit like an Aggron.
I mean, think about it. Our entire lives revolve around our little mutual vendetta. So, when one half of that is gone, what does that mean for the other half? How does it change our lives? Where do we go from there?
I mean, maybe it's hard to conceptualize because "gone" is a tricky designation. After all, there is a Pokémon which acts as a living repository of the DNA of every single species of Pokémon that has ever lived. And these things are literally everywhere. Heck, there are Dittos that live amongst wild Pokémon as if they are that Pokémon, never revealing that they're actually Dittos. If they wanted, they could recreate any species at any time. Why they don't is a mystery for the ages, and one I'm not going to even take a stab at. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a Ditto.
But that aside, we could conceivably wipe out the Seviper entirely, even if only temporarily. And yeah, they could potentially do the same to us. And no one thinks about that. No on ever asks what's going to happen if we actually win, if we actually eliminate the group that we've pretty much dedicated our entire existence to eliminating.
Predictably, when I asked these questions to my clan mates, they had no clue. Answers ranged from nonexistent to incoherent, and often I ended up with the brush-off. And of course this bothered me. How could they not have some idea? Wasn't this part of our lives? You would think somewhere along the line they'd figure out the endgame, but apparently not.
I didn't stop there; for all I could have known this was a peculiarity to my clan. But extending the same questions to others yielded the same results. That's when it really began to sink in that we really have no idea what we are, aside from enemies of Seviper. That's pretty much how we've defined ourselves. We have nothing else.
Yeah, it's really incredibly depressing to come to that kind of conclusion. It's basically an admission that we don't really mean anything in the grander scheme. We're basically a side story, something that will get wrapped up eventually and then we'll never be mentioned again. I can't think of anyone who wants that. But it's a hard thing to accept, and that's probably why no one wanted to listen to me when I brought it up to my clan. They thought I was trying to defend the Seviper or something. Maybe it's one of those things that you can't just hear from someone else, you have to actually arrive at it on your own. I don't really know.
Anyway, that's the big reason I'm doing what I'm doing. I couldn't stomach the idea that we were basically meaningless. I want to at least try to have some sort of impact that means something in the greater scheme. Maybe it won't happen, but if it doesn't, I wouldn't want it to be because I stuck around in a circle that made it impossible. Living with a Seviper is kind of the first step. Even if I'm not terribly fond of them and the feeling is mutual, just simple coexistence breaks that trend of just being defined as enemies of Seviper. If I can make a new definition, maybe I can bring others in, and we'll amount to something more in the long run. At least, that's what I hope.
