Raphael Deluna

raphael || male || timid
shed skin || poison fang

raphael's arbok heritage manifests in a variety of ways, the most obvious being his purple hair and blood red, reptilian eyes. His forked tongue is accompanied by long, thin fangs where his canines should be- they're fully functional, too, complete with their own supply of venom, so you'd best be careful. though he isn't quite cold-blooded he greatly enjoys sunbathing and gets sluggish in the cold. his poison typing has given him a taste for cigarettes, and his shed skin ability manifests itself rather literally in that when he finds himself burned or frozen he can peel off the top layer of skin, which comes off in a shimmering sheet looking not unlike small, smooth scales- yeah, it's pretty much just as unpleasant as it sounds.



saggezza || male || wise

saggezza was raphael's first pokemon, and is thus one of his closest friends. he was an adventurer in his younger days, and though he had been in a sort of retirement in his old age when raphael first came across him, he decided that helping out the timid gijinka could be his last great quest and has been tagging along ever since. some might even say that he's the one in charge, considering raphael's utter inability to make up his mind about anything. he doesn't always approve of the gijinka's life choices- sure, he isn't much of one for humans, but he's certain that something about the black jokers is incredibly off- and thus the two of them are prone to arguing, but the tropius is the closest thing to a father figure that raphael has ever had, and when push comes to shove they're inseparable.


apollo || male || rash
intimidate || aerial ace 

apollo is a rather simple creature- he likes food, sun, and battling, not necessarily in that order. he respects strength, he believes that the strong have the right to be in charge, and so, since he thinks he's pretty dang strong if he does say so himself, he tends toward the arrogant, rebellious side. he definitely values power over intelligence or strategy, and thus is prone to mouthing off to those who try to boss him around. it isn't to say that he can't admit that others are smarter or wiser, he just doesn't make a habit of it. he's a proud creature, for sure, and though he's definitely loyal he also doesn't make a habit of embarrassing himself- and arceus, can he hold a grudge. at the moment he's taken to following raphael around if only because the gijinka is the last remnant of his previous trainer and the two bonded over the loss.

they say that you should not let fear define you, but that is exactly what has defined raphael, every moment of his life. fear of pain, fear of inflicting pain, fear of humans, fear of the afterlife- and, first and foremost, fear of himself. you see, he's really rather sweet when it comes down to it, so kind that he couldn't hurt a fly if his life depended on it. the only problem? the pokemon dna running through his veins is of an arbok- aggressive, territorial, and savage, not to mention venomous.

he's never quite wrestled his more primal instincts into control, and so when he's feeling threatened- which is, well, always- he's prone to losing control to the cold-blooded creature within him. and yes, he does bite. followed by frenzied apologies as he comes back to himself, which is bound to spend him spiraling down into a panic attack. once he gets all excited he can be a bit on the unstable side, bouncing from cowering to attacking and cowering again without much notice.

when he isn't being slightly insane, though, raphie is a pretty nice kid. he's loyal to a fault, and though he can get a little clingy he's a somewhat reliable friend. when it comes to, you know, moral support. he just wants everyone to get along, and though he can be a bit of a pushover at times it's more out of a wish to get along with people. he tries his best to be helpful at all times, especially to humans, and so on the surface he gets along okay, if a bit on the quiet, shy side. sure, he can be distant and awkward, but that can be chalked up to a lack of social skills, right?

deep down, though, he's afraid to even try to get close to anyone, afraid he'll hurt someone or they'll find him unworthy. you see, he's quite convinced that humans are infinitely superior, and certain that he, inhuman freak that he is, doesn't have a soul. he does his best to make up for it by sucking up to any and all humans and giving his human master his absolute devotion- and if his master is on the shady side and orders him to kidnap or murder, well, he'll do it with a sheepish smile and a stuttering apology on his tongue. sorry, but he'll take his own salvation over someone's mortal life any day.

raphael, though he'll never know it, was born in a hospital to two human parents. said parents would never know, however, as they were informed that he was stillborn even as he was whisked away to a small, shady laboratory as fodder for their experiments. it wasn't even a good lab, several years behind the gijinka technology of the time, and thus it was a long, near-fatal process that brought him his rebirth as a gijinka. As for his purpose, well, the scientists hadn't yet discovered the merits of gijinkas in battle, and so he had been raised as a sort of household servant- well, closer to a slave, though of course that didn't sell well. he was sold to a lazy, morally questionable, filthy rich family as a 'personal companion'.

essentially, his job boiled down to being a body guard and errand boy, perfectly loyal to his masters in every way. he was raised to be mindlessly obedient, to not even think about rebelling- and how could he? it wasn't like he knew any better. they told him that he was less than human, a soulless animal, and that unless he served his human masters perfectly he could forget about the afterlife. he believed them, and he did it all with a bow and a smile. they said that meaningless chatter was the mark of the devil, that loving a human was the ultimate damnation, and he drank it all in, determined to make his masters and his arceus happy with his work. and he took it in stride when his fellow gijinka were beaten for straying from the righteous path- took it in stride when they hit him, thanked them for assisting him in resisting temptation- and then, when he was seventeen, the unspeakable happened and his masters sold him off.

he wasn't sure what to make of that- he'd been so sure that his masters had been pleased with his work, they hadn't even hit him in a month, what had he done wrong?- but they sold him off to an organization called the 'black jokers' without so much as an explanation. he tried to adapt, to treat lord raito as his original masters, but it was... difficult. he'd rarely been outside of his masters' mansion, barely met strangers, let alone crowds of unknown humans in the unimaginably massive outside world. but he bowed his head and did his job, picking up a pokemon team to help him on his missions- until she happened, but that was a story for a later day. he was distracted from his mission for far too long, and he's sworn to return to his purpose and rise through the ranks of the jokers as his new master has commanded.