from its position in the sky, the honchkrow identifies something of interest before his trainer does. cawing once to communicate as much, the pokemon swoops down rapidly striking the foe from behind like a quick CROSS-UP.

dominic approaches the location the honchkrow flew to and recognises the familiar mint-green, ridges tipped with pink. as though reeling from a HITSTUN, the dreepy remains floating but momentarily motionless after the honchkrow's barrage of strikes and dominic wastes no time throwing a pokeball to secure the capture.

catching!

somehow, he manages to suppress his surprise.

expression impassive for a long moment, dominic inclines his head backwards, chin jutting forward and eyes narrowed - contemplative. he takes in leivern’s attire, mulls over the ease with which he just parted with money. in truth, he sees an opportunity in a suit.

his gaze flickers back up to make eye contact and the corner of his lips jerks into a ghost of a smile, enough to show the point of his teeth. he can do much worse than bite.

"tell you what," he drawls. "i’m open to hearing more about what you can offer. over drinks. on your tab."

they trace their steps back down the docks and through the warehouses. later, he’ll drink his fill, and later still, he’ll wonder how he got here.

Asher Graham

samuel’s comments about the make-up of rocket’s member-base elicit another peal of laughter. not only are new recruits of a questionable caliber, but the organisation had bled any ideological meaning to him because they’re a loose association at best. and money itself has lost its appeal - dominic has more cash than he ever thought possible and the only change in his lifestyle has been that he buys a different brand of cigarettes now.

"smart choice. money isn’t even good," he comments with a grin as he passes by to return to the place where he was positioned previously. dominic gestures to a handful of the grunts and engineers and they rush to follow him, like shadows merging together into a whole.

it’s practiced now; they’ll be more efficient with removal this time, and hopefully samuel won’t have to entertain the driver for too long.

Samuel Boothe

any droplets of water that threaten to hit dominic are promptly frozen in by an ICY WIND courtesy of the weavile. the flecks of ice scatter across the concrete like shards of shattered glass and dominic watches them for a long moment.

dominic only glances up when he sees the shadow of the immense snorlax tower over him. the meowth’s struggle is unfortunate - he’s fond of the species, his own perrserker having established itself in his party with more ease than expected - but idle amusement wins out over any intention to assist.

only when the poor meowth is displaced and the hose is torn out of the building does dominic actually move again. he glances over his shoulder to make eye contact with calcifet and shrugs.

"it’s damaging property, we have to- ah," he stops to ponder his choice of words. "apprehend it," dominic finally says, decisively, his gaze flickering up to see concerned faces peering down at them from the apartment’s windows. inexplicably, their concern and outright terror over a torn out hose irritated him more than would be otherwise rational. dominic finds himself glaring.

"call the cops or poke-control!" he yells at them and waits a second longer until he turns back to look at his weavile. it’s entirely unnecessary, but the pokemon needs to take out its aggression somewhere, and this is is a good opportunity to do it because there’s an excuse.

"go on, give it a few good smacks," he says to the weavile. the pokemon takes a moment to preparing, HONING CLAWS, and then lunges forward to slash at the snorlax with a flurry of METAL CLAWS. the snorlax staggers at the onslaught and belows, seeming to gag at the hose it began consuming.

only when the snorlax’s hide starts getting torn by vicious claws does dominic back away toward calcifet and return the weavile to its capsule.

"hey, nice thinking you actually woke it. sorry ‘bout the meowth," dominic says with a smirk, drawing closer. he drops his voice when he next speaks. "see you at headquarters. hope you don’t get seasick easy."

turning on his heel, dominic melds into the crowd.

Remiel Calcifet

he had begun to grow weary of this - the venture into the safari zone felt so very toothless compared his usual forays into the wilderness to catch pokemon. in a bid to artificially create some excitement for himself, dominic released a honchkrow. the pokemon circled overhead lazily until it identified something of interest at which point it began swooping its target.

dominic meanders over and watches the scyther hovering uncertainly and trying to swipe at the much flying-type; while both were airborne, one was certainly more comfortable in the air than the other.

"go on then," dominic says, and watches as his pokemon initiates its trained assault. the same combination of moves as always; a mirror of the FOCUS ATTACK DASH CANCEL combination, wherein the beginnings of one move belie another to deceive.

the honchkrow's NASTY PLOT signifies that it's about to perform a heavy-hitting move, and then prepares its claw in a NIGHT SLASH. expecting the assault, the scyther crosses its front blades in a bid to protect itself. it never really got the chance because rather than closing the distance with mere flight, the honchkrow hurtled at the enemy from a wayward angle and smacked the scyther with a SUCKER PUNCH.

dominic didn't wait to see the scyther hit the ground.

skipping! i'm sorry vibe i tried :sob:

his face is awash in colour - red neon lights and dark shadows.

"our work," dominic corrects, slowly turning to marcel. there’s something in the air, something about how he moulds to the streets and alleys, something about remaking kanto per their blueprint. it emboldens him; it’s clear in the flicker of mania in his eyes.

dominic steps closer to marcel, effortlessly threatening in his approach. "this is our legacy, and now it’s your kingdom. act like it," he snarls.

marcel can’t run forever - he’s shown he’s unwilling to do it.

marcel maeda

dominic circles back to a copse of trees and pauses to watch a small pack of chimchar swinging from the branches. they chitter as they pelt each other with berries and occasionally lashing out in a flurry of FURY SWIPES.

uninterested, he keeps his distance and returns to the main path.

skipping!

dominic rolled the togepi back until her little legs were underneath her and she could stand upright. the pokemon lifted her nub arms and looked at him expectantly with a politely demanding expression.

"she’s a girl," dominic corrected slowly, giving a vague hand gesture and a half-shrug in lieu of an explanation for their “training regime”. it was the next part of what she said that gave him pause. dominic felt a tension in his shoulders but soothed himself with the fact that she didn’t sound accusatory. unease made his fingers itch for the capsules at his belt regardless.

"probably. i was a ranger," dominic said, recalling the post-invasion months he spent living with the identity of a dead man and wearing his vermillion uniform. "we patrol all inter-city routes." if pressed, he wouldn’t be able to give much more detail than that without relying on a combination of guesswork and pure fiction.

exasperated that her trainer wasn’t paying attention, the togepi had turned to the woman but its gaze was quickly drawn to her pokemon - or rather, to its frozen dessert. with as much SERENE GRACE as it could muster, the togepi focused all her energy to summon an ANCIENT POWER that would result in pebbles rising from the ground before being flung out to pelt the spoink.

Bailey Cooper

dominic is stony-faced as he regards zacharias’s display. he blinks slowly as he feels something like pre-emptive irritation prickle at his skin - burke really does have a gift for this.

"our pokemon professor," he echoes, deadpan.

after a moment of these theatrics, dominic grins widely, mouth like an open wound and full of teeth. burke says dreams and adventures with pokemon, and dominic’s eyes linger on the den of pokemon in the distance. he sees suitcases of green.

walking slightly ahead among the trees, dominic crouches down to level with his houndoom and points at the group of gardevoir and kirlia. "the big ones i need alive, i don’t care about the others," he murmurs before straightening to his full height and turning back to his companions.

"y’know," dominic says to priam and zacharias. ”it’s a hot day so we should be careful. rangers will be out patrolling and looking for smoke. probably." who knows if rangers really do anything in this region.

behind him, his houndoom is lunging at a group of cowering kirlia, oblivious to their attempts to displace it with PSYCHIC. it snatches one in its jaws and shakes it roughly side to side as though handling a chew-toy.

priam conrad @zacharias