SELVAGGIO

APPEARANCE

A wanted poster is stuck at the top of the bulletin board. The paper is crusted and yellowed, frayed at the edges - it's been there for years. The face is missing. 'The Don' is scribbled underneath crossed out names, failed guesses, the falsely accused. It would be completely worthless were it not for the obscene amount of money plastered center stage on the parchment. Any information. Capture dead or alive. The most wanted pokemon in Niphios.[break][break]

His face is in the crowd, unnoticeable. He's not himself; it's unnecessary for most, who only know him as an entity, but he doesn't take the risk. There are other enemies. When he leaves, he touches no one. The illusion is fragile, and unlike transformation, it will shatter like glass when damaged.[break][break]

It takes a while before he deems it safe enough, and the illusion sheds away like a second skin. The current Don resembles his mother in many ways. He has inherited her height and then some, stopping at 6'2" and towering over most of other Zoroark. His colors are the first to set him apart from her. Reds have been replaced with deep purples, his eyes gold like the jewels embedded on his ears and holding together his hair. Zoruan eyebrows remain, and the tip of his nose has been dotted purple. Most peculiar is the way his hair has been styled; the ends of it have been wrapped together in an unsightly braid, thick and sticking out as if woven by clumsy hands.[break][break]

PERSONALITY

Grimalde is everything his mother had intended him to be: A ruthless and cunning leader who oversees the empire with an iron fist. The sense of obligation and need for control he's been ingrained with typically ensures that his motivations aren't exclusively self-serving, so he won't usually toss bumbling first-timers into the Carvanha pit, but he's not above resorting to threats and violence when met with resistance. The mafia itself is a mixed bag of pokemon who respect him and those who fear him. Most agree it's easier to admit to both.[break][break]

That's only for those who have been in the empire long enough. To those who don't work under him, Grimalde is a collected and confident fellow, charismatic in his own way, but clear in his boundaries. He smiles, he butters other pokemon up with flattering observations, he even offers his assistance here and there. A gentleman, or at least until it's necessary. In casual conversation, Grimalde tends to be as sincere and trustworthy as a door-to-door salesman. There's a fine print between his words, and you need to catch it quick, before he drags you in mental loops for sport.[break][break]

The least known face of him is a door open only to a select few. At his furthest core, Grimalde is empty. He's a train moving on a preset railway at the highest speeds, wondering when he'll crash, or when he'll hit something that matters. The only way is further up or risk falling way, way down, and he's trying to damnedest to stay on top. He does take time for himself, like a self-reminder that he's not entirely his job or his mother's heir through small bouts of mischief and indulging in his greed. Old habits die hard, after all.[break][break]

HISTORY

Before the empire was even an empire, there had only been Freja. Freja Abbott, child of two 'mon who were never meant to marry and kicked from home at the tender age of 8, left to the cold streets of Colbagne with nothing to her name. Someone who most thought wouldn't be able to live past a few years, at best.[break][break]

The thing about Freja was that she couldn't give less of a shit what others thought. She'd practically raised herself and was her own parent, and thus the last person she wanted to disappoint. She clawed a livelihood out of theft and her natural ability for deception, reaching her teens before someone finally caught her. In and out of bars she went, until she was recruited by the Selvaggio gang, a small group of criminals taking in strays. [break][break]

It took many years before she earned the respect of the gang's leader, and it took even longer for her to take the gang for herself. It hadn't been a smooth process, but with enough fear, even traitors can be made kings. Freja wasted no time in accumulating as many recruits as possible, expanding the gang's territory and swallowing countless smaller gangs into the mass that would soon become the Selvaggio empire - a massive coalition of criminals making a name for themselves through the pillaging of treasures, illegal distribution of said treasures, extortion, and forced labor.[break][break]

It was purely by chance that she met Clef. It was often joked that most of Clef's brain cells went to his throat instead of his head. The Primarina wasn't the brightest bulb, but he made life with his voice and had a heart so gentle even a criminal overlord couldn't bear to break it. The humble singer became Freja's lover not longer after they met at the dingy old bar he performed at. They had a child and loved him so, loved until Clef's life was claimed, with no warning and no grace, by a rival gang who'd found him alone and unguarded one summer day. They repaid the blood ten-fold, but there was no returning who was lost.[break][break]

Grimalde had been so young, but his dad's songs remain with him. They kept him afloat when life suddenly grew harder. His mom had withdrawn into herself, afraid of becoming attached to him. This was a lesson, a smite from Arceus or Giratina or whatever forsaken entity had decided to plague her life with false hopes. She didn't want her son to suffer the same fate and put him through hell to carve him into a formidable fighter. [break][break]

Zorua being Zorua, however, he still found ways to sneak off, and often would, spending his brief freedoms visiting the town and troubling the locals with his filthy, matted self. Then he met Lavender. The ghost of a Ralts was the son of highest nobility, and was, for reasons he couldn't begin to fathom, eager to be his friend. Curious, and perhaps intending to snatch a treasure or two, he allowed Lavender to smuggle him into the Delacroix home. It blew up in their faces, but it was the start of a friendship he'd come to cherish.[break][break]

Grimalde would return quite often, bearing illusions of places that Lavender couldn't visit. It hadn't been the plan, but he grew fond of the Ralts, and wished nothing more than the opportunity to explore with him one day. He'd even confided in him one of his secrets: He wanted to join the local guild and become one of those big shot explorers. What he hadn't expected was for his wish to come true. Perhaps he shouldn't have underestimated the Delacroix name.[break][break]

Of course he said yes. Lavender was his best friend, someone who chose him, and he was kind. So unlike his mother and the criminals they shared their home with. He tossed away that life of pain and suffocating pressure, knowing how unlikely it would be that his mother would forgive him. He embraced instead a life of adventure, where he would train with Lavender to become stronger, and to do his best to protect him.[break][break]

Years passed. His partner evolved. He was still a Zorua and it frustrated him. What was he doing wrong? Shouldn't he be ready by now? There was only one person he knew that could tell him how to evolve into a Zoroark. The thirst for power ailed him and he finally succumbed one evening, sneaking out of the guild and back into the deep filth of the city for answers.[break][break]

She was dead. Foul play of the highest caliber, a traitor in their midst and only few leads that could possibly overpower the warrior that was Freja Selvaggio. Grimalde was given a coronation with no fanfare. No opportunity to say goodbye to his partner, who he'd left without even a note. He couldn't bring himself to go back, or to risk putting Lavender in danger by attempting to contact him. His mother's enemies were now his, and any weakness risked being exploited. The fate he'd hoped to escape had come to claim him.[break][break]

It was too bad really, when he found through the letters Freja left behind that she'd intended to change things for him, that it'd taken her years to recover from Clef's death and accept that he sought a different life than the one she'd made for him. If he was only a few years earlier. A month, even a week - her death had left so much unresolved. Until this day, the perpetrator is still at large, and Grimalde has been tearing through Niphios in search of them.[break][break]

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ATK

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DEF

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SPATK

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SPDEF

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SPD