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

☉

Onyx doesn’t even begin to understand that maybe Andres has Reasons(™) for being untrustful or discomforted by their physical contact. They have a history. But it’s easy to forget in places like this, where everything is so bizarre in its domesticity, normalcy, that Onyx feels wholly unbalanced and out of whack.

He can feel Andres tensing as the movie progresses. Predictably, the men find their companion dead-- disembowled and impaled on a tree branch, the camera reveals, entrails hung like Christmas lights. They waste precious time dragging him down and burying him in a shallow grave.

Onyx doesn’t try anything fresh, this time, just keeps up the gentle push-and-pull pressure of his fingers.

There’s a scream and scene whiplash as one of the men is snatched away by an unseen force. Something low and primal bellows offscreen, branches cracking and breaking, as the remaining two men run screaming.

They find, as if by magic, a torch-lit, tree-lined path, that leads to a small village. They run into a cottage to hide, hopefuly that salvation is at hand.

Something knocks them unconscious.

andres buenaventura
fellas is it gay

☉

She waves him away like a bad smell and oh, he hates that.

But Onyx was practical over everything. A good fight was anything he could do to advance his own experience. Even a loss. She could wipe the floor with him with a pseudolegendary and if it even clued him in the tiniest bit to more strategy, more strength, then he would consider it a good fight.

She doesn’t want to talk, then. That’s fine. Her Blaziken raises its talons into a fighting stance, heating the room up a few degrees just by its presence-- something he’s secretly thankful for. The heat helps his pain, if only a little.

Deciding to take her up on her offer of silence, he simply tosses his own Pokeball, revealing his Garchomp, Mordekaiser. Gathering energy in his scythe-like, sharp-edged fins, he launches forward with a vicious roar to slash at his opponent.

Alexandra Briarwood
that's okay he prefers it like this tbh
garchomp uses slash

☉

Onyx made a face at his Corviknight, as if contemplating the passage of time left a bad taste in his mouth. Ziadem, of course, chose then to pick a fight with a passing Mandibuzz, and the air erupted in raucous cawing and screeching, even louder than the sap-sipping Azumarill had been.

Zia eventually got the upper hand, pinning one of the vulture’s wings and forcing her down with blows from her sharp beak.

Onyx bopped her with a Pokeball before she could get her feet underneath her.

“Almost 18 years, now,” he said, tone thoughtful.

THEO BECKETT
flying/water
catch attempt mandibuzz
sorry noods

☉

Onyx raised one eyebrow at the pain feels good, files that away for... some other time, probably. Hands lifted, he waits for Andres to settle more of his long legs over his lap.

With the lightest touch, he continued where he left off, working gently at the spot that seemed to cause so much pain.

The men disperse after their argument and travel as far as they can before pitching camp and going to sleep. They all suffer horrible nightmares, and are awoken by screaming. One of the tents in the campsite has been destroyed, crushed in, and the compatriot within is missing. In a panic, they run screaming into the woods to find him, and end up lost.

andres buenaventura
fellas is it gay

☉

The men startle awake to discover they’ve all had nightmares, all been stripped naked in their sleep. They panic, forgoing gear and all but the basic necessities of clothing, tearing out into the woods. Fear makes them blunder into one another until they’ve run their adrenaline out and pause to catch their breath.

Andres jumps. Onyx stills his hands, a flicker of fear warming within him, worried he’d hurt Andres, somehow. Anger, then, at how he always manages to injure him when all he wants to do is… he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he wants to do. Therein lies the problem.

“Should I stop?” he asks, quiet, hating himself for asking something so obviously fucking stupid-- of course he should stop, what the fuck kind of question was that?!

There’s a burst of noise as one of the man screams and swears he saw a figure in the trees. The rest of the group scream back at him for taking the piss. A fight breaks out. They all gang up on the main character and call him a coward for letting their friend die in the robbery.

andres buenaventura
fellas is it gay

☉

He felt a little bad for a second because Andres was clearly starting-- or trying, at least, to start-- to get into the movie, and here he was interrupting. But this whole evening had gone nothing at all like he’d planned. Maybe his brain was just a little-- lot-- out of whack.

Inside the cabin the men make disturbing finds: more symbols, crude weaponry, a wooden effigy of a strange creature with antlers for hands and human hands for feet.

Andres flexes his foot for good measure, to be more convincing. Onyx smirks, settles in to actually watch the movie, his hands trailing to the outer edge of Andres’ left calf. He curls the pads of his fingers up to gently press and rub at the muscle.

The TV screen blurs in a green-tinted fish-eye lens as the main character has a nightmare, reliving the scene of the robbery. In crescendoing sound-- Onyx's fingers push and pull with the sounds-- he wakes with a scream, finding his chest bloodied from a mysterious stab wound.

andres buenaventura
fellas is it gay

☉

Onyx suffered for his hubris as the rounds of Andres’ ankles dig into his inner thigh, in a punchy sort of feeling that would almost feel like a massage if it wasn’t so sudden. He bends over, collapsing on that left hip joint, with a yelp that turns into a laugh.

“I guess I deserve that,” he said, snickering, unfurling and stretching long on Andres’ sofa, making up his mind to do that sort of thing at every possible moment.

The men on the TV-- forgotten for the moment-- discuss the weird, dismembered Sawsbuck and some strange symbols they’ve found carved into the trees.

“Cramp, huh?” he asks, totally unbelieving, finding the top of Andres’ leg again and guiding the limbs back down to his lap. “Which leg?”

Thunder peals on the darkened television screen. A horrible storm forces the hikers to seek shelter. They discover a seemingly abandoned cabin, break the locked door, and hide inside.

andres buenaventura
local man feels things for the first time in 10 years.

☉

onyx has a begrudging appreciation for a number of his pokemon. there are a select few he’d miss should they ever pass away.

some he would not miss. some he would graciously assist on that journey.

his mouth quirks up at barry the barraskewda

ziadem lands on a xatu passing overhead and forces it to the ground through sheer body mass and a number of devastating pecks.

“zia was my first partner,” onyx said, zapping the xatu with a pokeball. the raven quorked at her name, rising to her full height and fixing onyx with her intense glare.

“i’m amazed she hasn’t killed me yet.”

ca-CAW she says, in agreement, lifting off again.

THEO BECKETT
flying/water
catch attempt xatu
sorry noods

☉

It was the end of the world as he knew it and he did not feel fine.

He wasn’t cleared to be off bedrest but he’d rested more than enough for one goddamn lifetime. He was supposed to be out there helping do… something.

He definitely picked the wrong time to be mauled by a bear.

Still, the doctor told him his internal sutures were healed and the external ones were well on their way, provided he didn’t stress them.

It was a sort of nervous energy that drove him to seek out a specific Lilycove apartment. Drove him up the stairs and to one specific unit. He didn’t imagine Andres would be home-- he’d probably be out, fucking the life out of things on one of his last nights on earth.

If Onyx looks close enough he can see the remnants of
his own bloody fingerprints on the doorframe. Or maybe he’s hallucinating.

He knocks, anyway.

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

Into the woods they go, they go, hoisting their injured companion between them. it’s dark and foreboding and Onyx, having seen the movie before, knows the first really creepy parts are coming up.

He considers warning Andres but then the man snuggles down further into the blankets and Onyx feels something jostle his thigh. He freezes, stops breathing. One hand lifts off his lap, hovers in the air.

The men argue about something. There’s a crescendo of music. The camera whirls and reveals a dismembered Sawsbuck, strung up in the trees, organs spread from branch to branch.

Onyx chooses that moment to set his hand firmly atop Andres’ shin.

andres buenaventura
local man feels things for the first time in 10 years.

☉