| Varanus | |
|---|---|
| Text Color | #E79EA9 Tongue |
| Item | Lum Berry (in hood) |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Young Adult |
| Species | #560, Scafty, the Hoodlum Pokémon |
| Height | 3'07" |
| Weight | 66.2 lbs. |
| Pokédex Entry | "Groups of them beat up anything that enter their territory. Each can spit acidic liquid from its mouth."-Pokémon Black |
| Level | 40 |
| Ability | Intimidate Hidden- Lowers an opposing Pokémon’s attack. |
| Nature | Adamant |
| Characteristic | Hates to lose |
| Moves | - Fake out (Bred) - Crunch (lvl) - Drain Punch (Bred) - Stone Edge (TM) |
| History | From the moment the Scrafty was born he was a disappointment. He was bold enough, born from a champion Mienshao and Scrafty but he was born weak and dismissed as yet another breeding leftover. After he was born the health of the Scrafty declined until her trainer could no longer take care of her. The scraggy was taken from her and left in the daycare. The ability he was bred for, the ability to intimidate others with his appearance led to him being shunned by the other young Pokémon in the daycare. His eyes bulged, his limbs were skinny and his tongue long. He was born weak and couldn't catch up with the other Pokémon. They would exclude him from their games, laughing not-too-subtly behind his back at his weakness. The one thing he had to look forward to was when he could see his mother. It was a long walk but every day he would make the trek from the daycare, across the hill, into the city and towards the Pokémon centre. His mother was sick but every day the little Scraggy made the journey to see her. Outside in the plaza young trainers would battle each other. The Scraggy technically had a trainer in the daycare owners and he loved to watch the battles. When his mother asked about his day he would tell her about the battles he had seen while waiting to see her. Talking with his mother made him feel warm, like he was filled with yellow sunshine and it made the long journey to the pokecenter worth it. Every time he saw her that warmth stayed with him on the walk back. He couldn’t wait until she could come home with him. At the daycare the other Pokémon had laughed when he said he wanted to be a battler. He couldn’t even win a game of tag, they jeered, there was no way he could win a fight. At night he laid awake, looking at the sky and wondering. When he talked to his mother she would smile and stroke his cheek and tell him she was proud of him. He had good teeth, she would say, and that was important because there would be lots of people wanting to take his picture when he became league champion. That night he touched his teeth and grinned. Soon he worked up the courage to participate in the fights in the courtyard outside the pokecenter. The first time he won he had felt so happy. He had run in to tell his mother but she had been pale and had just smiled at him. When he rested his head against her chest the happy sensation he had always felt seemed to fade. The humans had wheeled her through the big doors and the Scraggy had never seen her again. He had been told she’d died, her bones never shifting back into position after being dislocated when laying his egg. The warm feeling he had whenever he saw her faded away and left the world grey. He began to see the little lies the others told themselves crawling like worms from their filthy mouths. Friendship, trust? Those were the excuses losers made when things were taken from them. In a short week of intimidation and blackmail the Scraggy rose to power as a playground tyrant. Friendships were torn apart and vicious rumours spread until no-one could tell where they originated from. All it took was a little nudge, a snide mention of so-and-so said this and the Scraggy had as many cowed sparring partners as he desired. It didn’t take long for him to order the other daycare Pokémon into ranks, assigning them numbers rather than trying to remember their names. He used them like pawns in chess, disposable teammates he would lie to however necessary for his own gain. His dream to become a championship battler hadn’t faded. In fact he had grown more determined. Things like friends only weighed you down. By and large he stopped eating, training harder and paring down his body until he was nothing more that skin and muscle. This didn’t escape notice and the Scraggy was picked up by a human interested in training him. He was given a nickname, Varanus, and introduced to a team. Despite being the youngest and least experienced the Scraggy quickly forced the rest of the team into submission. The promised reward for their obedience was the league championship. At first the other Pokémon had trouble adjusting but over the course of the years they got used to only referring to each other by numbers, practicing set combinations over and over until they dreamed of them and occasionally being awoken for battles with each other while their trainer was asleep. It didn’t take much of this intense training to leave its mark on the lizard. He would push his teammates but he would push himself even harder, training until he fainted from exhaustion. All that mattered to him was victory; anything else was disposable. Partway through a gym battle he evolved into a Scrafty. Though his crest was small from his species he merely tightened his iron grip, using his newly gained strength to power through the gym battles until they had stood facing the elite four and… There is a gap in his memory. After that space all he remembers is running through the woods pursued by tireless creatures with red eyes and purple speckled bodies, the stink of torn open stomachs and old blood surrounding them. |
| Appearance | "Scrafty is a bipedal lizard-like Pokémon. It has oval, wide-set eyes with small pupils and gray eyelids, as well as small nostrils and a wide mouth with bared teeth. It sports a red crest on its head, similar in appearance to a mohawk. Baggy yellow skin hangs off its shoulders, falling halfway down its back. Scrafty's body is orange, with thin arms and a gray, scaled belly. Its lower body and tail are covered by loose yellow skin resembling baggy trousers. On its tail is a single red scale." Varanus is emaciated, being a thin layer of skin over pure muscle. Their stomach is sunken in and the bones of their spine and shoulders clearly stand out on their back. They rarely eat. Their teeth are perfectly flat and shiny. He often clicks them together. His tongue is longer than usual His crest is small and scabby. His eyes are wide with black pupils and look disturbingly bulging. His skin is shrunken close to his body and clings like a suit. His tail is long and thin with a single protruding red scale. His fingers are skinny and with long, sharp claws. His joint hypermobility means he can and does bend at strange and unnatural angles. His shoulders are hunched, giving his body a thin and pointed appearance. His usual expression is a sinister sneer. He has a habit of keeping his mouth open to show off his teeth. His joint hypermobility lets him twist in ways that are bordering impossible with accompanying squishy noises from his joints, wall climbing then twisting his head around is something he likes to do. |
| Personality | "Scrafty is powerful enough to kick through concrete blocks, and can also spit acidic liquid from its mouth. It can protect itself while attacking by pulling up or folding the loose skin around its waist. Scrafty lives in groups with other members of its species. Groups determine hierarchy by crest size, with the Scrafty having the largest crest becoming the leader. A group will attack anything that comes within its territory.". Varanus has been teased since childhood because he isn't particularly talented at anything and looks funny (he acts a LOT more lizard-like than others of his species and has low IVs) and as a result has become bitter and jaded towards others. After hearing it about him so often he labels any other Pokémon (and their motives) as gross. He has no belief in love, loyalty or honor, labeling them as weak and lying ways as opposed to a path of pure ambition. His only talents lie in Pokémon battling where he believes there is no such thing as a blow too low or a trick too dirty, both physically and psychologically. He will observe others to learn their weaknesses and do anything to exploit them for his own personal gain, even going so far as to tell a Pokémon their mother had died. All he cares about is his own victory. He will make quick use of others and abandon them without a second thought if he needs to, only relying on their abilities rather than their companionship. He hates socializing (being convinced everyone is just waiting to turn on him) and he will number the other Pokémon instead of referring to them by name, referring to them as pawns. The only person he cares for is his mother, a Scrafty owned by his human trainer who he would visit after every battle. As the only one who ever supported and cared for him his drive to win battles comes from wanting to make her proud of him. He only feels true happiness after winning a battle and proving his existence to the world, not caring how foul he appears in the eyes of others. This happiness always fades. All that matters is his victory. He is sensitive about his teeth, taking good care of them and being enraged by any damage to them due to his mother saying they were his most attractive feature. With below average skills in everything else he is devoted wholeheartedly to this cause, stripping his body down to the bare essentials in order to maintain his form. He won't single anyone out who obeys his orders and as an experienced battlers his plans tend to work out. He gets along best with characters too optimistic to realize he is being mean to them. Anyone who is genuinely cheerful and unfazed by physical or mental jabs confuses him and he’ll end up labelling them as gross. Those that have a similar drive to him he will respect, even if he doesn’t say it. After anything particularly traumatizing he will likely have a panic attack, squeeze himself into the tightest, darkest corner he can find and have to be talked out. When he's upset he'll start repeating "mother, mother" over and over to try and calm himself. He loves the color yellow and sunflowers which calm him down and make him feel wistful. |
| User Notes | -Using a Mutator for ability. On seeing him other Pokémon are creeped out and their attacks start to lose power. -Mienshao father passed down the moves, including Stone Edge. -Based on Midosuji Akira from Yowamushi Pedal. -Has joint hypermobility which allows him to bend in unnatural ways. His joints make a clicking or squishing noise when he does so. He does a stretching routine twice daily to prevent accidental dislocations but suffers from terrible joint pain and finds himself at risk of whiplash. He inherited this condition from his mother. -He has synaesthesia and judges a person based on the color of their voice. He is inclined to be kinder to people who sound yellow as his mother did. Following her death every color seems faded. -He was by rejected because he has low to average IV’s in everything but Attack and Speed but was afterwards EV trained before evolution. His defences are poor but his attacks do a lot of damage. -He will use Fakeout on his allies to keep them in line. -Name is latin for the Monitor lizard family. |
