Onyx wouldn’t call himself expendable, either. Not personally, of course, but it was all a matter of business, you see. Dumb muscle could be hired. Money expended could be made back. Losses, cut. But brains-- minds-- were harder to cultivate, produce, procure.

“Till it’s over, I guess,” he said, snapping the latches on the case and pulling out the machinery: meters for barometric pressure, Geiger counters, an electroscope, and a bunch of other smartass mumbo jumbo that Onyx didn’t know from junk.

The Distortion snapped around them. Space collapsed with a shriek-- Onyx felt his ears popping-- then expanded, crackling like fire. The air took on a purplish hue, like looking through a soap bubble, and all sound became muted, far away.

Even his own voice. “Fucking weird.”

Another crack, then a loud tearing noise, and a burst of light. Three Pokemon suddenly appeared in the space between them: Lickilicky, Sylveon, and Ursaring.

The bear turned on Onyx, launching at him with a roar, swinging its claws wildly. Onyx jumped backwards, flicked his wrist and dropped a Pokeball in the space between. Mordekaiser burst forward with a roar, breathing right in the Ursaring’s face with a dragon breath.

The Sylveon and Lickilicky turned on Gerald. A slightly pink-tinged mist began to flow from the Sylveon, bathing the area; the Lickilicky lashed its tongue, aiming to wrap Gerald in the sticky, pink muscle.

Gerald Kaiser
ursaring used fury swipes!
sylveon used misty terrain!
lickilicky used wrap!

☉

The fire from Gerald Kaiser ’s Charizard singed up the Lickilicky’s tongue, making it do an amazing impression of what happened in the sushi eating game from Pokemon Stadium when you ate the hot curry: it started running around crazily, flailing its arms.

Using the sweeps of mist rising off the ground, the Sylveon dodged the Decidueye’s leaf blade, red eyes gleaming through the pink haze. From behind Gerald, in line with him and his owl, a barrage of sparks began to gather, forming an eerie, glowering orb of light gray, as the Sylveon utilized the misty terrain to bring down a beam of fairy-type energy in the form of a moonblast.

Meanwhile, the Ursaring attacking Onyx pushed right through Mordekaiser’s dragon breath, using its increased size and strength to brush off the move like it had never existed. The air became strong with the scent of burnt hair. It placed one sharply-clawed foot on top of Mordekaiser’s head and used it to vault up and over the Gabite, right paw swinging again at Onyx.

He was backing off, but not quite fast enough, as the vicious talons raked diagonally across his chest, slicing through his clothing and opening four long, shallow scratches from the front of his left shoulder down to above his right hipbone.

Mordekaiser, furious at being ignored, sank his teeth into the Ursaring’s thigh, and launched forward with a ferocious jerk of his head, trying to drive the pull the bear backwards with a modified take down. The beast’s chest slammed against the ground, claws going forward-- Onyx misdjudged their reach and bit down hard on his lip as they punched into the top of his boot, stuck in the material.

There was a brief moment of equilibrium, where everything seemed perfectly balanced.

Then, the Ursaring pulled. Mordekaiser turned and jerked his head backwards, ripping a chunk of flesh out of the beast’s thigh; Onyx went down with a grunt as the bear clawed him forward. He landed on his ass, head knocking back against the earth, seeing stars. Undeterred by the dragon savaging his lower half, the Ursaring rose up above Onyx with a vicious roar, one horribly clawed paw swinging down in a ruthless strike.

Gerald Kaiser
ursaring used fury swipes!
sylveon used nature power! it became moonblast!
the moonblast is lining up from behind gerald and his decidueye kind of down at a diagonal.
im sorry i like fight scenes and i need onyx to get the shit kicked out of him so he can show up bleeding and sad on andres' doorstep.
lickilicky is playing pokemon stadium!

☉

The spirit shackle did its business. Couching its legs for a lunge, the Sylveon didn’t get far, and was dragged back to the spot on the ground where its shadow was pinned. It landed on its back and yowled in frustration, the deep set, quickly growing scream of an angry cat.

Meanwhile, Lickilicky got absolutely glomped into the dirt by Gerald’s Charizard, the Normal-type’s scream gurgling up in a haze of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh.

Onyx was not doing equally well. He was, at present, being savaged by a large and angry bear in a rather comical scene where his Gabite continued to try and leverage the thing off of him and failed. Mordekaiser peppered the Ursaring’s hind end with bites, taking chunks out of the ursine’s flesh, to little success.

Seeking his Pokeball belt, Onyx attempted to call out more help, but he had to skew his hips to to do. Teeth gleaming in the errant lightning bolts, the Ursaring directed its head down and bit hard. Onyx sank his teeth into his bottom lip to quell the scream, as he popped Ziadem’s Pokeball, and the raven screamed for him-- though it was a sound of rage and fury rather than pain.

As she was about to drive her beak into the bear’s eye, there was a loud crash and a flash of light, and the three Pokemon vanished, replaced with three others: Kadabra, Snorlax, and a Machop.

Elbows in the dirt, Onyx propped himself up, glaring at their new assailants and trying to keep calm despite the level of damage done to his lower half.

Still, they were here to do a job and if they failed it this would all have been for nothing.

“Make sure,” he grit to Gerald between clenched teeth as Mord and Zia took a defensive position against the three new interlopers, “the tech is working.”

Gerald Kaiser

☉

The Machop went to launch forward first, but didn’t get very far as Ziadem descended on it, pinning it to the ground and delivering fierce, skull-cracking blows of her beak.

The Kadabra faced down Gerald’s Charizard, spoon hovering as it aimed a psybeam right for the dragon’s face.

The Snorlax launched itself at the group as a whole, aiming to fall on its fat, pale stomach and body slam them into the dirt.

“Shit!” Onyx grit, trying to scrabble back out of the way, the ground beneath him a mess of bloody mud, “Shit, shit!”

Mordekaiser leaped up to block the Snorlax, and as he did so, his body became enveloped in a bright, white light. His form changed, growling taller, longer-- and the newly evolved Garchomp hit smack in the center of the Snorlax’s stomach. There was a noise like a balloon being punched, and Mord sank into the thing’s flesh for a moment, before bouncing back with a springing sound and repelling the Snorlax-- saving Onyx’s life, not to mention their gear.

The Snorlax flew for about ten feet and landed on its back with a heavy slam!

The distortion crackled, light dimming. It seemed to break for a moment, then pop back into place.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

When next they met, provided it wasn’t at some attempt at Onyx’s funeral, he was going to buy Gerald Kaiser a beer.

He couldn’t exactly stand up, at present. That greatly impeded beverage buying.

The space-time rift crackled, the air around them turning… crunchy. There was an explosion that sounded dim and far away, but felt very close, with the way the air mushroomed and warmed. A fizzle, the snap of a glowstick, and--

--everything faded.

Onyx released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and sagged back into the dirt, staring up at a normal-looking sky. Darkness gathered at the rim of his vision, blood loss nudging him towards unconsciousness as the adrenaline began to seep from his system.

The pop of a Pokeball and a flash of light revealed his Gardevoir, Amplexus, who took one look at the situation and slapped his face with his palms, dragging down his cheeks in a show of exhaustion despite having only just entered the field.

Like a bedraggled kindergarten teacher, he waved Ziadem over, then Mordekaiser, and had the dragon help lift Onyx up onto the Corviknight. Precious cargo in place, Amplexus made a circular motion at Gerald and the gear then flashed a Gardevoir’s version of a thumbs up.

If he could speak, his sign off would’ve gone a bit like this:

You can take care of this, right? Right. Cool thank you byeeeeeeee--

Gerald Kaiser
i hadnt intended this to be the thread where onyx got the shit kicked out of him but all my other ones died so you know country boys make do

☉