Onyx wasn’t the type to take happiness from the mauling of Pokemon, either. In all honesty he preferred to settle matters with his own two fists, and he liked to think he was wise enough to not pick fights with creatures that warped or broke the laws of physics and reason.

Humans, however, he had no mercy for.

Unfortunately, Zia was much the same when it came to her own kind.

“Yeah,” he agreed, watching the orb shrink in his hand as he slid it into his belt. “She, uh, does tend to put the ‘kill’ in overkill.” Which came in handy in Onyx’s line of work. But, somewhere along the line, she’d lost her off-switch.

Zia preened at the praise, strutting over to stand by her trainer.

“Onyx,” he said, returning the greeting. “And this is Ziadem.”

The raven in question saw something that caught her eye and hop-flapped away.

At the mention of Unown, Onyx’s head tilted. “You’re the second guy I’ve run into who’s only been out for Unown,” he said, thinking of the deep, waterfall filled caverns. He knew of the Unown Report, even if he didn’t know about it.

He shrugged. “You’re welcome to them.” It was above his paygrade, he expected. He was just the muscle, after all.

There’s a slicing sound, like a knife on a sharpener, and Onyx turns to watch Zia bisect a Gastly with Steel Wing; the purple cloud flows back together like thick, viscous liquid-- disrupted, but physically uninjured. Zia pivots and does it again, preventing the creature from repairing itself entirely, allowing Onyx to catch it in a Pokeball without too much resistance.

catch attempt gastly
Adrian Malcolm

☉

Onyx finally lit his smoke as Gerald went about his closing remarks, taking a long drag as their mark up and bolted. It was fine. They were all capable individuals who could find him again, if the need arose.

Zia landed beside him, between himself and Gerald, and he could feel the weight of her scorn as she glared at him. Liked a bit of blood, did his war corvid, and she was upset there hadn’t been any. Onyx knew she felt he was going soft, what with not murdering Buenaventura and now this.

“Not too shabby yourself,” Onyx said, exhaling his cloud of nicotine. “But they won’t all be that way. Some of them still have fight left.” He gave Gerald a knowing smile, then turned to walk down the alley and back out into civilization. Zia cawed her displeasure and lifted off, disappearing into the sky.

uwah ty senpai <3 fun thread
Gerald Kaiser

☉

Unfortunately for Onyx, Andres didn’t, at first, look the tiniest bit scared. Disappointed, maybe? That stung.

Wait, why did that sting?

He had to suppress the urge to fly off the handle and punch the man in his stupid, fucking face right then and there just to maintain some shred of dignity. He was satisfied with Andres quailed a bit in the light of his angry look. But he still didn’t look scared.

Onyx had the bubbling, irrational desire to make Andres get on his knees and--

TUFF!

Onyx jumped-- literally, physically jumped-- pulling his brain out of the horrifying, terrifying gutter it’d been rolling down, like the sixteen-pound bowling ball it was turning into. But Juliette hadn’t been speaking to him, she was addressing the little Zigzagoon who was presently doing some nimble acrobatics off a pack of TP. She had her hands held out and her gaze was creased with concern-- not anger or rage or malice, but genuine concern, as she waited for the little Pokemon to jump forward or back or fall or do anything that she might need to hop in and help with.

Distantly he registered the sound of Andres apologizing for his own bad day and was brought back to the extremely visceral images he’d been cultivating in his head just a moment ago. Unlike Andres, he was pretty good at hiding his emotions, but he felt sudden heat in his face and had the horrible realization that he was blushing.

This was stupid, this whole thing was stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Andres Buenaventura.

The Zigzagoon-- Pepino-- chose that moment to hop into Onyx’s cart and Juli helped him along, lifting him slightly to avoid bumping his knees on the edge of the cart. Andres scrambled over to grab him back and Juli waved off his apologies with a Wigglytuff-tuff~

Onyx, who had found a very interesting bag of grapes to stare at for the last thirty seconds, wanted to rip the cart around and, just, leave. Just leave and never, ever, ever, ever talk to Andres again; but when he went to pivot, he found the cart stuck in place, once again held by Juliette. She looked up at him with a severe, admonishing look, and tapped her toes. Her eyes jumped from Onyx, to Andres, and back again. Tap, tap, tap went her little pink foot. He shook the cart-- nothing, no give.

Tap, tap, tap.

“Fuck off,” he snarled, knuckles gripping the handle of the shopping cart, but eventually, he rolled his eyes and said, “This is Juliette. Jules, this piece of--,” Jules gave the cart a shake, rolling the wheel over Onyx’s boot, higher up over the bridge of his foot where the steel toe was not protecting. He grunted and winced.

“This,” he said through clenched teeth, “is Andres. I know him from my shitty fucking childhood. There, I introduced you, you pink rat.” He glared down at her. “Happy?”

Juli tuffed and swung her chin away, pointedly ignoring him; then with a tuff-tuff she stuck out her little arm to Andres, in an offer to shake hands.

“Fuck me sideways,” Onyx growled, rolling his eyes.

andres buenaventura

☉

Well, that was to be expected. It was’t exactly like Mt. Pyre was a teeming wilderness of Pokemon-- though it had its fair share of cultivated greenspaces, ornamental shrubbery, and thick, ominous weeping willows towering along the far treeline. There were plenty to be found, of course, but it all depending on where you looked.

Onyx decides he likes this guy. Something in the mistrustful stare that reminds him a bit of himself. Like looking into a mirror that makes your reflection slightly better groomed.

“No,” he echoes, honest in turn. His face is a wry smile. “Just… out and about on what promises to be a beautiful night.” His gaze shifted briefly to the headstone the stranger leaned against-- just for the briefest of seconds. He caught the scent of wet dirt and salty tears. Then it was gone again, like the ozone left behind by lightning.

There was a wet tearing sound as Ziadem landed between them, gripping a Malamar in her talons. She had one tentacle pinched close to the body-- the strange, opaque, gray flesh was turning blue with blood there-- while the other lashed at her, trying to get a grip around her shoulders or head. She was too fast, using drill peck to sink her beak into its weakly pulsating yellow spots, marring their hypnotic powers with the squid’s own haemocyanin.

Eventually, the beast stopped flopping, and Zia quorked happily, stepping off her prize and over to a nearby headstone, where she went to sharpening and cleaning her beak. Onyx caught the weakened Malamar in a Pokeball, swiping a foot through the blue traces of ichor left behind.

“Might have been a tad overkill, Zia,” he said, though his voice was all pride.

The raven burbled her displeasure, fluffing her feathers.

im a dumb binch that likes fight scenes. catch attempt malamar
Adrian Malcolm

☉

Onyx watched with half-lidded eyes as the sharp curve of Gerald’s blade toyed with the man’s hand. He thanked whatever powers that were watching that whomever their boy’d ratted out had been wise enough to use a false name-- so, besides from a little fearful gossip-mongering, there was really no harm done.

“Lucky for you,” Onyx said, fishing his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, started tapping them in his hand. “Lucky for you, she knew how to do her job. Because if she didn’t, we’d have to kill you. Which I’m still not adverse to doing, by the by.”

He flipped the pack open and slid out a smoke, twirling it in his fingers as he slipped the bundle back into his jacket.

“I think old boy here is wise enough to keep his mouth shut for the future. I think he’s very aware of how quickly we could find him again should he decide to make himself a problem.” He sparked his lighter, twirled it, and sparked it again.

“Your call,” he said to Gerald, not totally adverse to murdering the guy, but also not really looking forward to the clean-up aspect of it all.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx was a pretty nice mixture of things, if he did say so himself. Tall-ish, thick-ish, strong-ish… he was definitely broad, and while he wasn’t cut from stone, he sure looked like he spent some days in the gym. That, coupled with the dull gold of his eyes and just the general air of… grunginess and desperation? Yeah, let’s go with that-- with that air about him, it was enough for him to intimidate anyone, even people he wasn’t directly staring down.

This unfortunate guy not only had him to deal with, but Gerald, who was no slouch himself.

Their mark’s head swiveled back and forth between the encroaching toughs as the air of sweat and fear grew thicker. Like a draining abscess, it grew and it grew until it popped with a firm jab from Gerald that knocked the guy down.

Onyx looked on, bored.

He was to perform the act of the proverbial hard place, and Gerald was the rock-- until the man’s eyes flashed up and inquired as to if he thought the guy was keeping any more secrets.

“You might give us specifics,” Onyx drawled, fishing his lighter out of his pocket and flicking it open and closed. “And if we believe you, we let you keep all your bits. If we think you’re lying… well, I tend to start with the fingernails first, and go on from there.”

Gerald Kaiser

☉