They’d stopped in front of the apples for what seemed like eternity, Juliette fighting a tireless war to get Onyx to eat healthier and, by extension, have better food available for his team. To shut her up he’d grabbed an apple and tossed in the cart and she’d about lost her god-damned germ fearing mind. Ten minutes later they had three bags of various apple varieties (they made too many different kinds of fucking apples, in Onyx’s opinion) and they were at the scale to weigh them and slap the sticker on them. Though, to his delight, Juli picked the cheapest kind of apple per poundage and applied that to all the stickers. The self-checkout would be none the wiser.

Fresh off the shores of Battle Apple, they rounded a corner to the grape, orange, and cherry section; Onyx was happy to bypass it all together as he trekked valiantly towards his beloved green onions, but Juliette began exploring the oranges for the brightest and most fresh. He tried to move the cart and she held on-- and if there was one thing about Wigglytuff, it was that they were strong as shit. Onyx pushed and Juli dug in her heels-- until she saw something she wanted to grab and let go of the handle, causing Onyx to shoot forward and lightly crash his cart against another.

He plastered on his scariest expression, preparing to glare the other driver into silence, but when he saw who, of all people, he’d hit, his face clouded with disgust.

“You,” he snarled, voice dripping in venom. He narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. It wouldn’t surprise him at all to learn that this shithead do-gooder was in league with the-- well, with the League, and was following him around given the rather illegal activities he’d stumbled into. His mind whirled-- Andres always made his mind whirl, which was disgusting, and wholly unique-- as he cycled through the regular cast of threatening things he could spout back at the miserable twink. Who was still taller than him, much to his dismay.

What the fuck do you think you’re doing here was out, because Andres would most likely have some dumbass remark like I’m grocery shopping, a-yup! I’d expect to find you in a shitty place like this was also out because, as much as he would love to not be, Onyx was also, presently, in this shitty place.

After a moment more of angry glaring, he settled for, “Why’d you have to pop out and make my bad day worse?”

As if on cue, Juliette plopped a bag of oranges in his cart, with a satisfied tuff-tuff! And crossed something off of her list that Onyx just realized she was carrying around. She pointed in a direction and tuff-ed, indicating they should head thataway, and only looked up at a moment when Onyx didn’t move at her order, looking slightly miffed.

andres buenaventura

☉

Onyx would’ve loved to just deck the guy and knock him out flat, wham-bam-thank you-ma’am. But this was, for the most part, Gerald’s show. At least, that must’ve been how the brass intended it, seeing as how he’d apparently been brought in as a secondary. Which sucked.

Still, it was nice to bask in the obvious nerves of their quarry-- the heavy sweatstains, the trembling knees, the whale-whites of his eyes flashing in the darkened alley. Faith of the uppercrust or no, Onyx was still damn good at his job-- scaring the bejeesus out of shitheads like this.

“What we want,” he drawled, an innocent skew to his voice, “will depend on how much you’ve run your mouth.” He tipped his head towards Gerald, indicating he should lead the interrogation, and Onyx would take his second. Now that the rat was trapped, there was little left for the cats to do besides play with their food.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

Onyx was not the kind of guy that really did ‘health food stores’; he tended to avoid them at all costs, and openly mocked those who did frequent them. They were expensive, first of all, and while he wasn’t exactly impoverished, he also wasn’t rich. But the last batch of green onion’s he’d gotten at the bodega had been speckled with black so he’d needed to go straight to the source to make his firecrackers (which was just ham and cream cheese wrapped around a green onion, but it was literally his favorite food, besides energy drinks. Ultimately he had decided to buy a few other staples (if he could find them in this bougie travesty) while he was out to save the second trip.

He pulled his hood up and ducked into the store with his cart, avoiding looking at anyone and hoping no one looked at him. He was sporting a big yellow and brown bruise on his cheek where he’d gotten kicked a few days ago by a guy he was choking out; also, he was sure the Pokefoods populace could smell the second-handedness of his clothes, rolling off of him like cigar smoke.

Beside him, Juliette held a grocery list, and would direct him where to go; she was very detail-oriented, as a byproduct of her anxiety, Onyx figured, and pointed over to the fruit and veggies section with a ‘tuff!

Onyx turned the cart and settled in for the long ride.

andres buenaventura

☉

Zia made a long, slow loop above Mt. Pyre, taking in the damages from the unexpected landslide that happened earlier in the year. It was a cool early-summer day and the clouds were a refreshing mist around them; Onyx pressed a hand between her shoulderblades and leaned forward, directing her down.

Onyx hates cemeteries. For someone who had no qualms about putting people in the ground he certainly didn’t care to see it actually happen. He’d been to a single funeral in his life and most of his memories of it were repressed, and for good reason.

Zia lands well wide of the gravesites, and Onyx hops off; his raven rises again, to keep an eye out for wild Pokemon.

After a short meander, he stumbles upon another individual; he doesn’t seem morose enough to be a mourner.

“Find anything good yet?” he asks, more to fill the silence-- he hates cemeteries-- stopping a short distance away. Ziadem’s shadow, ever watchful, crosses over them both.

Adrian Malcolm

☉

Zia and Onyx had been partners for almost fourteen years now. She’d been a savagely wild Rookidee and he the little boy dreaming of his own Pokemon and becoming the Galar League Champ. Over the decade-plus, they’d developed their own language, an unspoken thing wherein Onyx read the slope of her wings, the tilt of her head, and the sweep of her shadow. The little rat man bobbed, wove, and darted down an alley, and Onyx stepped back to fall in stride next to Gerald.

“He went down that way,” he said, gesturing with a jerk of his head. “I’m going to go down here and cut him off on the other side. We’ll pin him between us.”

Without waiting for an answer, he ducked sharply left, and stepped down an alley. Down the other side-- it got so narrow he had to turn side-face to skeech between buildings-- he came round the corner to the lane their target had gone down.

Above came the call of a Pidgey-- a normal bird to find in these streets, but Onyx recognized the extra rasp at the edge of the voice. Ravens were wonderful tricksters, almost as good as mockingbirds. It was Ziadem’s way of signaling they had their mark trapped.

Gerald Kaiser

☉

A shrill cry of glee strikes through Zia like lightning as she grips the flailing rodent in her feet. Her beak tastes fur, then flesh, then fresh blood as she savages Chuchi’s back, her shoulderblades, the nape of her neck. A scattering of black feathers, iridescent as though slicked in oil, come to rest on the ground. There are small red pricks of blood on her chest from where Chuchi managed to tear the pinions free-- they’ll itch as they grow back, but it’s not much of a bother.

Only when, by some miracle of Pokemon biology, Chuchi manages to drill into the underside of Zia’s foot does she squawk and lift up-- just the one limb, the other one still has her pinned by the hind end-- but there’s blood, now, from Zia’s toe, as the tip of her talon hangs limply in the air; Chuchi is wriggling free, wriggling and her mouth foam is flecked with blood.

Onyx can see Andres’ eyes going a bit blurry, telescoping in on the unconscious and very broken men behind him, then coming back to his face. Andres’ skin has gone pale. His legs are shaking. He’s blubbering like an infant, saying he’s sorry, trying to explain away Chuchi’s behavior. Part of him wants to comfort the man, as sickening as it sounds-- it’s not Andres’ fault he’s partnered with a rabid, no-account rodent.

It’s not really much of a comfort.

Onyx does little but scoff and rolls his eyes. He knew, eventually, either Zia would win or Chuchi would get away. Onyx’s world was very black and white, and he had full confidence in his partner. She was a force even more malicious than he was.

Eventually, Andres wrapped his shaking, sweating fingers around Chuchi’s Pokeball and called her back, leaving nothing behind but a streak in the dirt and blood splattered across the grass. The Manectric that remained stayed close to Andres, listening intently to his trainer.

Zia let off a string of loud, raucous calls that Onyx recognized as her laughter. They were ear-splitting noises from deep within her chest. Onyx let her gloat a bit before he gave a sharp whistle; considering herself the victor, the crow lifted off the ground-- skimmed close over Andres’ head to frighten him-- and cruised up to some height.

In the silence that follows, Onyx drops his hands. He steps up to Andres, and for all he lacks in height, he makes up for in menace. His eyes are ruby-red, though Andres may be able to see the dark, purple bags plaguing his face.

“You keep your mouth shut,” Onyx says, “or I’ll find you. I’ve got your number, Buenaventura.” He lets that sink in, as tactile as a plummeting anvil.

After he’s made enough threatening eye-contact, he turns away. “Now, I mean it. Get the fuck out of here.” You don’t want any part of this, and there’s a stab of bitter disgust in his gut that this could be in any semblance, shape, or form, a version of him protecting Andres.

“I won’t ask nicely again.”

andres buenaventura

☉

It was just the same bitch Rookidee from before.

Yes. The same bitch Rookidee from before. The same bitch Rookidee that Onyx had to scramble through the mud and the briars for. The same bitch Rookidee that he lured in with breadcrumbs and raspberries, trying to drop a box over; the same one that attacked him, gouged at his eyes, pecked holes in his flesh until he could finally, after weeks of hunting, wrest her into a Pokeball. At 3:00 AM on a starless night in the middle of a lightning storm. He’d gone home and immediately been bedridden with pneumonia

While Andres’ mommy went out and caught him a Yamper.

The same bitch Rookidee from before.

You believe that, Chuchi.

Everything went from impossibly slow to dangerously fast in the blink of a second. The little brown rat weaseled her way free of Andres’ grip and hit the ground, launching her snarling form right at Zia, who was momentarily blindsided by her trainer’s willingness to let their quarry go. Zia squawked once in dismay and stumbled backward, before lifting herself up to her full height.

For all she had in vim and vigor, Chuchi was still only a foot tall; Ziadem, though. Zia had grown. As Chuchi scratched and snapped at the feathers on her chest, Zia aimed a decisive drill peck straight for the middle of the Evolution Pokemon’s spine-- the junction between her shoulderblades. Striking like a hammer, Zia stabbed downward at the scrabbling creature, using her wings to lift her in tandem, grabbing for Chuchi to pin her down and turn her into mincemeat.

Onyx turned back to them, suddenly incredibly weary. He just wanted to finish beating the shit out of his mark so he and Zia could go home and he could forget all about Andres fucking Buenaventura being here, of all places.

He was so, so tired.

He wanted to call Zia off but he couldn’t really do that while Chuchi was actively trying to savage her.

“Get your fucking rat under control, man,” he snarled, arms crossing over his chest. Andres may have been taller than him, now, but he was still broad. He hated how aware he suddenly was of it. He hated that his quivering, mewling, shivering, sweating, pathetic excuse of a human being should evoke any feelings in him besides pure, unadulterated hate.

andres buenaventura

☉

Onyx could tell Gerald wasn’t impressed by his (frankly, very badass) remark to his identity. It was written in the slope of his brow, the slight darkening in his eyes. It didn’t matter. Onyx wasn’t here to make friends, either-- he was here to do a job, and one that he definitely felt he could’ve handled alone.

Distantly he wondered if the assignment had anything to do with his brief slip-up concerning the honey-smeared trees; maybe if he’d put andres buenaventura in the ground, then, he wouldn’t have been delegated to glorified babysitting duty. The thought made him angry and he dashed his smoke on the brick wall behind him to avoid hitting anyone.

He didn’t want to think about Andres. Now or ever again.

He was pulled from his thoughts when Gerald signaled he’d seen their mark; Onyx’s well-trained eyes also zeroed in on the sneak in the crowd. Almost as if on cue, Ziadem’s roving shadow swept over the man as he tried to bob and weave to safety. She couldn’t divebomb him-- that would result in too much collateral damage, and Onyx was still dealing with the remnants of that from his last mission. But now that the target was in her sights, she wouldn’t lose him.

“Great,” Onyx said, voice flat. “Now we just follow the rat to his bolthole.”

He zipped up the pocket that held his smokes and brushed past Gerald into the throng of people.

Gerald Kaiser

☉