Lex didn’t know it but, essentially, her whole shtick in the Rocket organization was Onyx’s dream. Terrifying, fearless, sexy, the total package.

He was halfway there, really. He relied on himself. Trusted only himself, and his team. Unfortunately, trusting only his team had gotten him in this particular pickle.

Which is why he was here in the first goddamn place.

Mordekaiser, specifically, was still on the shitlist for letting his trainer get mauled by a goddamn bear. So it is with vindictive anger that he powers his slash, aiming right for the crux of shoulder and limb--

--only to sluice on through as though the Blaziken wasn’t there in the first place.

Lex’s Blaziken’s gut roiled in a disgusting, impossible-seeming fashion before its beak split and wave after wave of rancid, mucoid gunk spewed out. Mordekaiser, through sheer luck, followed through on his strike, so the gunk splattered against the back of his head, rolling down his neck and shoulders.

Onyx squinted, more miffed than confused. So she was underhanded. So what.

Mord wrenched around, splattering revolting ichor everywhere as he roared in anger and summoned a twister, right there on the spot, with the force of his turn.

Alexandra Briarwood
garchomp is hit by sludge bomb and uses twister

☉

He’d volunteered for both endeavors and, of course, been told no, you moron. You’re two weeks off a ruptured spleen. Are you fucking crazy?

It wasn’t out of any respect for his life or individual care. He was a liability. Rocket only wanted the ablest of bodies, you see. And at the time, his had been hardly functional.

The mass evacuations to safety bunkers either hadn’t happened yet or hadn’t reached this far. Despite mandates and well-intentioned advice, of course, many people still chose to stay home. Onyx hoped Andres was one of those.

(Although the idea of him not being somewhere safe for the impending apocalypse stirred something deep-seated in him, something he didn’t like and was actively choosing to ignore.)

It’s been dark for hours-- well into the day, as the meteor grew closer.

The time between when he knocks and when the door opens is somehow too brief and too long all in the same spin. It’s more than enough time to where he should reasonably have an idea of what he’s going to do and say when he sees Andres and yet somehow he has no fucking clue, no two brain cells to rub together and spark a thought when the knob finally turns and Andres is there in the doorway.

And he thinks he imagines it for a split second, the expression that crosses Andres’ face, like he can’t fucking believe that Onyx is here, and Onyx really can’t, either; the last time he was here he was bleeding out on Andres’ floor and he had the vaguest notion that he’d said some very embarrassing, possibly life-changing shit while he was delirious from blood loss.

"Where else would I go?"

All of this ping-pongs around in his stupid useless brain as he steps inside, still frantically thinking over what he’s going to say. Andres closes the door behind him and before he can flip the lock Onyx turns around, presses him back against the door, and kisses him, only minutely hating the fact that he has to rise ever so slightly onto his tiptoes to get the job done.

[attr="class","mintag"] andres buenaventura

As he settles in to watch the movie, stilling for the first time since his arrival-- really, truly quieting, and not just a predatory state of frozen, the illusion of relaxation as a defense mechanism-- his palms come to rest on the top of Andres’ shin, content to let the man’s legs stay sprawled over his lap as they lapse into a true companionship: just two fucking bros, watching a scary movie.

The flashes of gore on the TV have Andres yelping and flailing, the heel of his hand digging into the couch cushion and pushing him away from the TV screen. Onyx thinks it’s funny, unable to stop the soft, nose-wrinkling laughter that escapes him, until Andres all but vaults off the couch and into his lap-- and then all the happenings in the movie are forgotten. Andres has one hand on his shoulder, ass wedged between his thighs, one foot on the ground, and one kicked over the edge of the couch.

He’s watching the screen, but Onyx is watching him, once more keyed up into a pre-action type of frozen, breathing light, hands hovering, like any moment something could happen and he would need to be ready.

When the men in the movie awake a young woman explains to them that preparations are being made for a sacrifice to an ancient god. As one man is taken away to be sacrificed, the remaining one-- the main character, who was the survivor of the liquor store robbery, breaks his hand to free himself from his binds. It is too late for him to save his friend, but not too late for him to save himself.

He sets the cabin and the village on fire and flees as his remaining friend is murdered.

andres buenaventura
spoilers for the 2017 horror film The Ritual
if you havent seen it i recommend its very good

☉

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

☉

Onyx raises an eyebrow at the Ludicolo that cha-cha’s its way by, not impressed with the inherent obnoxiousness of the species.

Theo’s proclamation that their Pokemon will go on to outlive him makes him smile, even if it isn’t innately amusing. It makes him think of all the times he’s been on the cusp of death and Ziadem has pulled him back from it, sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes bleeding out everywhere.

She has, it seems, met her match; the Toxapex is so spiny, Zia can’t find an angle around it. So she improvises, finds a sizable rock, and drops it on the thing. When it’s stunned, she snags an unprotected piece and hurls it up. It flops wetly into the dirt in front of Onyx. Onyx zaps it with a Pokeball.

“Well. I won’t take up much more of your time.” Onyx is reasonably assured Theo is a busy man. “But… it was nice to take a moment.”

THEO BECKETT
flying/water
catch attempt toxapex
sorry noods

☉