Renkai

Renkai, or much more commonly Ren, is a linoone. She spends most of her days either sleeping, scavenging for items and food or yelling at her friends or teammates for some reason or another. Although she is confrontational, she tries to make amends in her own way, which generally takes the form of... uh... scavenged items and food.

This does not always go down so well.

She easily gets intimidated by both fighting-types and psychics, both of whom she loathes almost as much as seviper. She prefers to use her head when battling, in the sense that slamming it into someone's skull can be counted as "using your head". She's handy with her claws as well, able to steal things or slash when necessary, and even dig tunnels in the ground. This, of course, makes her almost but not entirely useless against ghosts.

She can also grunt a few words in actual human, garbled though it may be. Such is the teaching power of television.

The Box Years
Ren was born in a box, in the middle of the kitchen of a third-floor apartment in Viridian City. Her mother, a linoone by the name of Joanna, had met her father, a zangoose known as Maxwell, at a competition in Johto National Park. Being both out of their region, they hit it off. With predictable results.

Mark, Maxwell's OT, agreed to look after Joanna until the kits were born, and it was a balmy autumn evening when the sounds of zigzagoon filled the kitchen, Joanna looking tired and Maxwell looking... well, proud as fuck. The litter of seven was way too much to handle, of course, and Ren's siblings were gradually sold off or given to friends, and Ren herself was kept to be trained by Mark. Joanna also returned to her trainer, leaving Mark and Max to take care of the one remaining zigzagoon.

Being brought up by her somewhat aggressive father shaped Ren into being a competent battler with... a strong dislike for seviper, her father's influences and own prejudices leaking through. Still, knowing exactly WHERE to bite a seviper so it has second thoughts about eating you is an important skill, and one that would serve her well through the trials and-- wait, no. Stupid seviper sticking to Hoenn.

Kanto League, Now
After Ren evolved, growing her now all-too-familiar fluffy white and sludge-brown coat, Mark decided to enter the Kanto league. With three strong pokémon under his belt - Eisenzahn the charizard, Schlammeln the quagsire and Maxwell the zangoose, Ren was often more a spectator than anything, occasionally getting switched in to get some battling experience, but in general falling by the wayside as the priority focused on the three-poké team that would hopefully see him through to the finals. Ren herself loved watching the fluid way Eisenzahn fought, admiring the surprising amount of grace a bigass flying lizard can have and... probably falling for him a little, despite him being much older. And bigger.

The actual time they spent at the Kanto championships was pretty abruptly cut short. An early mistake caused Schlammeln to go down hard, and Maxwell was cut down to size by an arrogant machoke. Eisenzahn would have been set to clear up had he not been so overconfident about his opponent, and being cut down to size by a defiant glaceon that he easily outweighed did nothing for the team's self esteem.

That night, Mark had picked up a couple of bottles of vodka to drown his spirits in, sharing the wealth with his team. It might have made the others more relaxed, but it didn't do anything for his and Eisen's mood, until close to midnight they stormed out of the hotel, leaving the others to lounge around in an alcohol-induced haze.

During a battle to let off steam, frustrated at his loss and uninhibited from the alcohol, Eisen fatally injured his opponent, lashing out at the opposing trainer as well. It turns out that the authorities don't take too kindly to trainers unable to control dangerous pokémon, and Mark was subsequently stripped of his license and Pokémon. Having known that this would probably happen, he had released all of his pokémon bar Eisen in Viridian park, leaving them to fend for themselves as he went to face the proverbial music.

Dumpster Diving For Great Justice
Ren lost the others, running off after hearing the news in a panic. Caring about Mark and having developing feelings for Eisen, it was always going to be hard to leave them. Gradually, though, she put it behind her, as she settled into her life of sleeping whereever she could and eating whatever she found. A sense of dedication to her ex-trainer meant that she'd never really move on, still considering herself as tame as opposed to the wild she actually was - the ageing collar on her neck probably helped disguise the fact that she was truly wild, and she managed to keep her head down and try not to piss off any of the major packs of wild pokémon in the city.

It was here that she would develop the taste for sad, cold, slightly mouldy food. After all, cooked meals would be hard to come by without a trainer, and having been fed on whatever Mark could serve up most of her life, her palate had stuck fast. Never having a taste for berries or most fruit, she lived off the scraps of pizza, donuts, bread and sandwiches she could find. Having a zangoose for a dad probably helped a lot, his ability to shrug off most toxins and illnesses being passed down to an extent. Sure, she's not totally immune to poisons, but she's not going down easily in a battle because of it.

Cameraderie, Ho
During the saga of Kanto, complete with transformations, explosions and drama aplenty, she had a strong affinity to both Lone and Leafeon, having been the ones most around for her, and would have gladly put herself in danger to protect either - a strong sense of needing to protect her trainer, taught to her by her father. That being said, she was never really entirely comfortable with Leafeon's new shape. She was also... quite strongly attracted to Leafeon's Ivysaur, shall we say.

Quite Loud Violence, Actually
Her bin-raiding escapades are what caused her to meet her trainer, Lone Hartcourt. The whole "digging for food" thing would have probably passed without comment had she not been wearing her collar, and the sight of a messy, apparently trained linoone eating a particularly fur-covered donut was enough to grab his attention, and the two became good friends in short order, helped by a quick pressure wash from a certain Vaporeon's Hydro Pump.

The mouldy donut that sparked everything off was delicious, by the way.

Ren cemented her choice to become Lone's pokémon after a visit to Lavender town. Most of the reason she had tagged along with the group was in the hope that she could find either her OT or any of his pokémon. Those hopes were cut short after a visit to Lavender Tower, spotting a plaque that bore the inscription of a certain charizard. Lone comforted her while she was depressed, telling her that she shouldn't dwell in the past so much. Agreeing, Ren asked to be captured by Lone, hoping that would help her come to terms and maybe move on. Eventually, through time and a lot of good memories, she moved on and Lone felt she was ready to be on her own again. He released the Linoone so she could be with her friends Leafeon and her Ivysaur. They haven't spoken since, however she is happily content with her new family as well as Lone knowing she's in good care with a good trainer.

Since being "caught" by Lone, Ren became significantly more aggressive - possibly out of an instinct to protect what is hers, or out of fear of losing Lone. Although nowhere near the strongest out of any of the pokémon in their little group, that doesn't stop her from being able to deal some damage when the need arises.

Most notably, she managed to knock Duke out with several strong headbutts. She has also brought Star down on a number of occasions, generally in an attempt to stop her from doing something exceptionally stupid, even hospitalising her one one occasion. When she gets annoyed, size often doesn't matter - she'll try to intervene against or attack pokémon much, much larger than herself with almost a suicidal level of aggressiveness.

Her rising aggression and frustration sometimes came off as being bitchy, and during her periods of lucidity Ren would agree.