martin has only put in 100% effort into something twice in his life, the once being running off from home, the second being his semi-finals battle with satoshi in the sekiei league.
martin is fundamentally a corner-cutter, lazy wherever he can afford it, which means what psychokinesis he possesses he has only developed as far as has been convenient. he can levitate a few pokeballs, a set of keys, a phone, a shirt off the back of a chair. little stuff. the same goes for his telepathy. he can link up with his pokemon during battle to give a few commands here & there, but he can't keep it up across a full 6v6 even with a break at the first defeated trio. if he tries to push any of his abilities, he gets a massive migraine that, depending on the task, could last over a week, gets nauseous, pops a blood vessel, all that lovely jazz. he has plenty of physical stamina, he does still do light exercise psychic shortcuts or not, but he just doesn't have the mental stamina. bro's wis stat sucks.
martin's relationship with his parents was mostly self-sabotaged, through his own dissatisfaction with what he'd once enjoyed & growing apathy for everything else he needed to keep on top of just. growing distant from his parents & ultimately blowing up the dynamic by running away from home & fleeing the country near immediately for the sake of traveling where battling was lucrative enough to sustain a living. his parents aren't good nor bad, just kind of the "we're thinking about your future" "not mad just disappointed" sort.
ostene isn't a very battle-oriented region, the newer generation having the bigger percentage of battlers, & only because of the comparative roughhousers that came before. martin didn't get into battling for the love of the game, not really; he enjoys parts of it (mostly crushing people's hopes & winning), but it started as just something different, because battling as a past-time was still pretty fresh around where he lived. he was bored of the routines given to him, so he made his own, leaving the region for pastures where this shiny new thing he found some satisfaction in, & was rather good at, was monetizable & thus livable.
he never quite goes into a tournament with the intent of winning the whole thing, has never entered a league with the ambition of battling the champion let alone beating them, on very few occasions has bone-deep wanted to win against any singular trainer. battling is something to do. it's something his pokémon often enjoy more than he does, & if they express that enjoyment to their trainer then, because martin cares for their happiness, he'll try giving more fucks about the results so they can have fun longer. the fact that higher placement results in bigger rewards is just a cherry on top, there.
touching back a lil on yday's pokéball talk.. martin usually gives his pokéballs a lil toss before sending them out in an underhand, like skipping a stone. in the rare event that charles sends out a pokémon in a competitive/battle capacity, or if he's sending his liepard out as the phantom, he gives his pokéball a lil kissy before gently backhanding it.
hanzou's pachirisu is always out & about, his only registered pokémon, its being sent into a pokéball entirely utilitarian, to save it from a fall he can't reach or protect it immediately after it's fainted.
charles typically keeps his primary quartet of cats in their pokéballs, but quartz, topez, & garnet are always out when at home or his interpol office, both locations fitted out with landings & scratch posts for any of the lot. amethyst only gets let out when he's home without personnel or on a job as the phantom. the other dozen cats all lounge around his wyndon manor, only sent to their pokéballs when being transferred to a villa in another region due to charles staying there longer than a few weeks.
martin tends to keep umbreon out, as much a partner in travels as a battle ace, with the rest typically getting to flex their legs in non-battle contexts during mealtimes on the road.
hibiki doesn't keep any of his pokémon out, with the technical exception of porygon in his phone as opposed to the more classic rotom, though he does have a rotom as well. the rest of the pokémon he has were "inherited" from professor akero, & they still do not like his ass, so he keeps them tucked away as much as possible, even at the lab.
notable physical characteristics & features. shoulder-length teal-green hair with bleached roots, straight but curling up & out at the ends, bangs parted in the middle, chin-length strands framing his face. forest green eyes. bags under his eyes. lithe body. sharp canines.
misc appearance. two helix piercings & a soda-tab earring in his right ear. painted black nails. always seen wearing a simple silver pendant.
current residence. originally from ostene (wip fanregion based on latvia), currently on the road. so far has traveled galar, kalos, kanto, unova.
occupation. pokémon trainer, competitive battler. has won a number of tournaments but has never placed higher than second in a league conference.
team. mains an umbreon, rest of his team consisting of thievul, zweilous, mismagius, croagunk, & weavile.
battle style. mainly close combat, sending pokémon in & reserving ranged attacks for when the opponent tries to leave the melee range. is the kind of psychic that can talk to his pokémon telepathically & uses this in combination with calling out attacks to call for one thing but direct for another when the opponent seems to be trying to predict his strategy.
misc. too cowardly to be willing to die for anything, but certainly got enough issues to be ready to kill for something if chased into a corner. dropped out of high school & ballet school to become a trainer. was satoshi akihara's primary rival during satoshi's second run of the indigo league, & lost to him in the finals.
