Fic Dumping Ground: 2017

[yrindor]

A new year, a new place for fic. As with last year's, this is a place for fic that I want to share but don't want to post to AO3 for whatever reason. Some of them may make it there eventually, some of them may not. Series, pairing, rating, and any relevant warnings will be in the subject of each post.

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Yowamushi Pedal, Aoyagi/Teshima, G

[yrindor]

Teshima wasn't nervous as he and his Haunter waited in the wings for the start of the latest hyper rank clever contest to begin. He'd never won a master rank competition, but he was confident enough at the level below. He knew two of his competitors; they were both relatively new to this rank, and from what he'd seen of them, neither of them was ready to pose much of a challenge to him just yet.

He had never seen the fourth competitor before; he assumed he must have just arrived from some other town. He knew first impressions could be deceiving, but his first impression was that the boy wasn't going to be much of a threat either. Sure, this wasn't a beauty contest, but impressions still mattered, and the way the boy was hiding behind his hair wasn't exactly sending a confident one.

He revised his impression slightly when the boy's Smeargle peeked around the edge of the curtain, but only slightly. Smeargle were always a bit of wild card, but it took an experienced coordinator to use them to their full potential, and that was one thing he was fairly certain this boy wasn't.

Any further thoughts had to wait as the curtain opened and he made his first appeal. The contest unfolded about as he had expected with no surprises for the first several rounds. The newcomer was solid, though more aggressive than was standard in clever contests, and Teshima would have bet his background was originally in tough contests.

By the time the final appeal round rolled around, Teshima was feeling the most confident he had in months. The audience was getting excited, and he had carefully planned for his appeal to steal the show. Even the Kadabra in front of him appealing with a cute move barely dampened his enthusiasm as he used Destiny Bond to finish the combination he had started on the previous turn.

The half-smile the new boy flashed in his direction was the only warning he had that perhaps he had dropped his guard a little too soon. The boy waved a hand at his Smeargle, and Teshima could only watch as the audience went wild as Smeargle used Sketch to steal his thunder. It stung to lose, but despite that, he couldn't help but be impressed by how smoothly the newcomer had built off of his momentum and used it to catapult himself into the lead.

When doubles contests were introduced a few months later Teshima and Aoyagi were one of the first pairs to enter. Teshima's first master rank win came a few months after that with a team composed of Smeargle and Gengar.