This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
"so. we are partners now" stefan crouches, peering at his murkrow.
alexander peers back with an added sage nod.
"partners are meant to look out for one another"
another sage nod.
"partners make sure that the other doesn't die of hunger, exposure, or neglect"
the bird preens its feathers, but his trainer can tell that he's still listening. alexander gives another nod.
"partners also make sure that the other isn't ripped apart by vicious monsters with a taste for flesh"
stefan can almost make out an annoyed look from beneath the murkrow's cap, as if to say what do you take me for?
satisfied, stefan stands and adjusts his gloves as he decides upon the day's training.
he wasn't really counting on the murkrow to fly into his face with an astonish. stefan falls backwards and lands on his butt. alexander is gracious enough not to laugh.
whatever point he was trying to prove, it is utterly lost on stefan.
after all this time, even stefan can tell that the alliance that he has with alexander has improved. the murkrow isn't as adept at taking orders as kaiser is, yet he is far better at interpreting stefan's whims. the furtive glance of the trainer's eye. his changes in tone. the tension in his muscles. it's not perfect, but stefan can't help but feel that one day, it will be.
should it frighten him? the whole notion of being a trainer is foreign to him, and he's not even sure if he envies the veterans and their ironclad bonds.
stefan watches the murkrow flies off in pursuit of a mechanized runner. he would have expected that such a proud creature would find the exercise to be beneath him, but alexander is strangely compliant with a seriousness that his trainer has come to take for granted. stefan corrects himself on several occasions. he cannot expect everyone to be like himself; loyalty shifts faster than gradients in a glass of water.
(but eventually, all the particles settle to their respective level).
they can't always be running - after the disaster at the warehouse, stefan has realized as much. that simple smokescreen will only do them so much good before they run into a persistent enemy with a good nose or sensitive psychic abilities. sometimes, one must stand their ground. sometimes, one must fight to live another day. they are travelling in relatively safe places now, but that can change quickly as they journey closer to lake pax. they can't afford weakness. not now.
the charmander eyes his metal targets dubiously before shooting embers at them, following up with dragon pulse. he alternates between the two attacks, making sure to hit each target twice. his concentration breaks after the fifty-sixth hit, and stefan only looks at the wall's scorch marks impassively.
"add another twenty to today's regimen"
kaiser huffs wearily, but he does not raise any objections and returns to practice. the trainer knows best, after all.
the pawniard, at least, gives stefan few troubles and even fewer headaches. even when stefan did not pay a visit to the training center, gerfried is constantly seeking improvement. for which foe, he does not know. yet he persists in effort. maybe it's because of his species. maybe it's simply good eos breeding.
stefan didn't really care, actually. results count, and gerfried is certainly attaining them.
the pawniard doesn't pause in his attempts to shred the log into wood chips. maybe his persistent style wasn't something that stefan would have favored, but that is a nonissue when he needs a reliable rearguard. stefan flips through a battle manual in the meantime, but all of them were for official competitions.
maybe there are things that he could learn from them, however.
now that stefan finally figured how to bring more than one pokemon into the dream world, never mind the training center, the sessions that they had here became notably efficient.
that is, plenty of information can be scavenged when his pokemon fight each other.
although the murkrow boasted a significant advantage with wings, alexander still had to fly up close in order to score hits on the pawniard. in the meantime, gerfried's hone claws would offer it some protection once he closes in. this might have usually been broken by astonish, but the pawniard's inner focus is remarkable. in terms of combat, neither is significantly superior to the other.
stefan steps off the battlefield, however, and the clear leader becomes obvious. alexander hops back onto his shoulder.
thankfully, the time in the daycare has not softened his partners at all, stefan realizes. after he had gotten them back from the daycare, stefan had wasted no time in testing their battle-readiness. if he is going to return to the hellhole that is lake pax, then he will make sure that he is ready.
gunther had seemed ready before, but now he displays more foresight before charging in like the beast that he is. work up proves to be plenty useful as he attempts to slam into the houndoom. heidi lets out a howl before rushing in with faint attack - an excellent addition to many of his pokemon.
stefan isn't the one for optimism, but even he has to admit that they might stand a chance if they run afoul of the scourge.
with one flash of stefan's training pass, last week's regimen continues. this time, gunther struggles a bit to fight past the pawniard's defenses, but these gaps must be bridged eventually. gerfried has succeeded with sucker punch consecutively, if only because he figured out early on that gunther doesn't last long against a series of brick breaks. this fact only seems to irritate the deino, and he starts a focus energy. this time, sucker punch misses, and not at a very good time. the deino pounds into the ground and starts an earth power attack. this time, the pawniard is genuinely taken off guard as he is blasted by a chunk of rock. there's only so much surprise that one can take when he's been spamming sucker punch for the last two hours.
the deino scrambles over to gnaw on gerfried's horn. only then does stefan tear himself away to take a peek at the other training regimens.
training with real pokemon is certainly nothing like the battle cd's. stefan had long foregone the training machines in favor of one-on-one matches. the scourge that they will fight will not be anything like the neat, precise discus shooters or any other machine.
the zoroark dodges as another burst of flame threatens to sear her mane.
even so, he realizes the limitations of these matches. there will never be any near-death scenarios, never any true treachery that they will encounter in the field.
heidi is fast enough to catch her opponent in the foot this time, and mila hisses, her form shifting back to a cunning zoroark's.
well. deception, maybe.
enabled by her agility, mila sends a dark pulse into the houndoom's face. the houndoom retaliates with a reversal. she howls menacingly, readying her jaws for a thunder fang. the zoroark levys her foul play.