Zulfiqar El-Hashem

zulf || male || naughty
prankster || encore

First and foremost, the whimsicott dna has affected his appearance quite drastically. he still looks human, sure, but his combination of dark skin, nearly white hair, and bright green eyes isn't exactly natural. as for other effects of the dna, well, he loves the sun and has more energy when the sunlight is bright (he can't actually photosynthesize, which sucks, but it makes the grass type in him happy anyway). though he doesn't easily sunburn, he burns quite easily from flames and is deeply afraid of them.

if two words exist that can most accurately describe him, they would probably be "attention whore". actually, that could probably be shortened to just one, but both will do for now. growing up in a large family and more than a little spoiled, he absolutely must have all attention on him at all times, though whether that attention is positive or negative he doesn't much seem to care. it makes him come off needy and clingy- well, okay, he is needy and clingy- but he doesn't really mean anything bad by it, he's just afraid of being alone. being hated and beat up is better than being ignored, after all. he's a champ at taking abuse, too, as if no one else is around to give him attention he'll go crawling back to even people who have clearly shown they want nothing to do with him. it might seem a little stupid- and he's not a stupid person, not really- but he despises being alone, and being forgotten is just about the worst fate he can imagine. he'll put up with ridiculous amounts of crap for human company.

the thing is, he'll never admit it. he has pride, okay? and though he'll definitely go crawling back, he won't be happy about it. he hates being insulted, whether the slights are real or imaginary, and is enthusiastic in punishing those who he deems "peasants" or even just "idiots"- and no, don't believe him, he isn't actually royalty. he's obsessed with fashion, and a little high-maintenance, and is not above bitch-slapping someone who offends him. he can be somewhat of a girl sometimes, actually, with the mood swings and the temper, but if he's a bitch he's a bitch and he's proud of it. oh, sure, there's probably a nice person down in there somewhere, but it's detached from the part of his brain that actually makes day-to-day decisions. he's vain, he's selfish, he doesn't seem to care much for other people except for shallow reasons- though he's outgoing and likes to think of himself as fun, he isn't nearly as likable as you might think, certainly not as likable as he has convinced himself.

oh, sure, there might be a nice person hidden under there somewhere, screaming to get out, but he locked them away deep inside a long, long time ago. better to not care at all than to risk that fragile part of him breaking, after all- he was raised by assassins, none of which were expected to live long, and his 'live-fast-die-young' doctrine doesn't allow for much mushy-feely crap. (also, he's pretty soft for a killer- he likes cute, fluffy things and is a bit on the merciful side when it comes to actually, you know, killing- but you better not tell anyone that, he has a reputation to uphold). what he tells himself (and others) is that he wants fun, every moment of every day, because he has a unique knack for getting into terrible situations and he has no idea how much longer this fragile life of his is going to last. 

el-hashem, literally translated, means 'the crusher', and that's what his family had been for generations- mercenaries and warriors, each and every one of them born and raised a fighter. his parents put a sword in his hand when he was five years old, and thus he was taught to be fierce, to be proud, to never take any crap from anyone. he was the youngest of five siblings- all of whom were girls- and he was a bit outnumbered, but that was alright, he still had his dad to teach him how to be a man. that is, until he didn't- it was an occupational hazard of being a sword master in a world of guns. that was when he was seven, and then his personal hell began: raised by an assassin mother and all four of his preteen to teenage sisters.

except it wasn't hell, not really. he just learned things a little differently, was all. he learned about fashion and make-up, received jewelry for birthdays- and of course, learned to fight like the female assassins: ie, dirty. Instead of tales of honorable sword fights (that was for idiot men, after all, being an evil bitch got the work done faster) he learned to seduce and to poison, to cause as much trouble as possible and to use his body to his advantage in order to do as little work as possible. (is it really a question how he turned out gay? they were teaching him to seduce men by the time he was thirteen.) he grew and learned and made his way along with his family as an assassin, never attending any formal schooling or really having any plans to leave home. as he neared his twenties and the eldest of his sisters was nearing thirty they still traveled as a group, going from region to region picking up jobs, never staying in one place too long for fear of becoming a major nuisance to the authorities.

when he was nineteen, the exotic family moved to the region known as phoenix, having heard stories of things like smugglers and mercenaries in the area and sensing a niche for their particular craft. he was still the rookie out of all of them and thus they sheltered him to no end- and it was beginning to drive him a little insane. he wanted to prove himself capable, that he could be every bit as seductive and deadly as his older sisters, and so he went out on his own, searching the more sinister areas of phoenix in hope of an impressive job- and, unfortunately for him, getting on the wrong side of a wealthy, powerful laboratory while he was at it. he was good, sure, but he wasn't that good, and he found himself captured and, as punishment, used as fodder for the company's next batch of gijinka experiments. which was very painful, and sucked on many levels, and, to add insult to injury, didn't even give him anything cool. being a ghost and walking through walls would have been great, but no, he was turned into a fluffy plant. 

ahem. anyway. he was positive that his family would come looking for him soon, if only to give him a good scolding, and so he didn't try any serious escape attempts for the next few months of his captivity (the first few he'd spent ill and weak, adjusting to his new body). but six months passed, then eight, then ten, and still the experiments continued and there was no sign of his mother and sisters rushing to his rescue. finally, as the year anniversary of his kidnapping came and went, he made his breakout attempt. it all went fairly well and according to plan, as he wished to flee without leaving much evidence (or damaging too much, as he certainly didn't want these people as his enemies), that is until he ran into an unexpected dilemma: they had guard dogs, a pack of houndoom, in fact, and his new body very much did not appreciate fire. 

a few nasty bite-marks and one burned-down laboratory later, he had successfully secured himself both a lifelong fear of canines and fire, especially when those things came together in a nasty hellhound, and a lifelong enemy in one of phoenix's larger scientific corporations. which, you know, was exactly what he needed. unable to go back to his own line of work for fear of incurring the wrath of said company, he went into pokemon hunting as a profession, roaming the region picking up whatever pokemon he came across and scraping out a meager existence selling them. he doesn't really know where he's going, now,  other than into more and more dangerous parts of the wilderness in search of rarer and rarer pokemon. should he stumble into the wrong creature's territory, however, he might have a bit more to worry about than his next paycheck...