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!
Fishing hadn't really helped her as a skill so far. She wasn't so bold as to eat anything that swam in Lake Pax, so she'd survived off a(n equally questionable) diet of berries when she'd fled Decima. Granted, she wasn't a very good fisher either.
Neo sat perched at the end a pier, feet dangling off the side and hovering a few feet over the water. She had a tack box next to her, and a little pile of worms in a plastic baggy.
Frowning in confusion, Neo impaled a worm on the hook, briefly wondering if it could feel pain as she shoved the metal through the length of its body. Whatever.
She cast the line of the old rod into the waters and waited.
lfrom the depths of the sea emerges a most fearsome shadow, remniscent of a mythic species that remains untouched by time. wait for it, wait foooorrrr ittttt
sploosh.
bright red scales shimmer in the morning light, blinding all with their magnificence. with the flick of its fin, tidal waves are formed, threatening to drown all in its path. he takes a gallant leap in the pursuit of the wiggling worm. so maybe the girl didn't pull in her line yet, but this magikarp shall rise to the challenge, no matter what the adversary. he doesn't need an enemy to drag him out splishing and splashing - no, he will meet the danger head-on.
all shall cower at the power of splash!!
with a mighty effort, this glorious motherfucker raises itself onto land with the promises of nothing less than total decimation.
gasp-
he flops energetically on the land. such is the fate of icarus.
The magikarp swooped past the line as she held it over the water, and Neo's gaze followed it as it glittered with sunlight on its scales before landing on the ground without much style.
Neo wasn't an experienced fisher, but she was pretty sure this wasn't how it was supposed to work. Wasn't she supposed to put the line in the water, and then the fish would bite at the bait?
"Is this... a battle?" she asked no one as she slowly blinked at the presence of the fish on land. Neo tilted her head to the side, looked around, and finally released a pokeball. The gastly Leto appeared, so newborn that the sunlight alone excited her. Animatedly--more like a hyperactive lillipup than a ghost pokemon--Leto swooped over to the magikarp and gave it a big, happy lick.
Curiously, Neo took a few steps forward, peering at the magikarp, studying it as it basked on the docks in all its flopping glory.
oh how it burns so savagely against his fine, delicate scales! what would his poor mother say! the magikarp thinks that he could die from the agony, but no. he has a greater purpose to fulfil. one day, he shall demonstrate his greatness, one day the beasts of the sea will be forced to acknowledge their heavenly mandated ruler-
not behind the fin!! that's delicate!
the magikarp lets out its cries of agony, cursing the ghastly with his gasping breaths. this isn't a battle - this is sadism. oh, how his father was right to never trust the humans! now if his father was here, then that little upstart would be little more than wisps of smoke after father was through with him!
he glares harshly at the human's words - or as harshly as a wide-eyed fish can, anyway.
the magikarp uses splash against the ghastly once more - not desperately, never desperately. he's going to win this, and they'll see if he can't!!
"He has a great deal of spirit," Neo said. She knelt down by the magikarp and poked it above the eye.
As the magikarp splashed about with a great deal of panache and enthusiasm, Neo scratched her head. It didn't seem to be doing much of anything. Leto certainly didn't care.
"Are you aware that your attack does no damage? Yet I'm sure it must do something, this flailing of yours. Indeed, I've seen an attack called flail used before... If you'd demonstrate again, I am sure I can discern the purpose of this attack. Does it raise your defensive capability? Does it clear your mind? Or are its effects more arcane?"
The gastly swept in for another enthusiastic lick, this time smacking its nonexistent lips when it was done.
"Most fascinating. I truly cannot discern what the magikarp hopes to accomplish."
what the little one has in energy, he lacks in wits. thus, the opportunity for a spiritual pun is lost on him. what isn't lost on him, however, is the proximity of the human girl. just one good splash! one good splash and maybe he'll take an eye out of her socket. who needs fangs and claws when you have a reliable set of fins? plebian rattata and pidgey, that's who.
the magikarp owes her no answers, and she better shut the fuck up and respect that. don't take no shit from anybody, his momma had said. maybe goldeens were content to be human pets, but not this magikarp!! he knows no master!!
he makes another splash, and what a glorious splash it is, if not for the tongue that scalds his fins. the magikarp flops miserably against the ground.
the humans must not win!! magikarp are the superior race!!
"This is confounding!" Neo exclaimed. She stood back up and crossed her arms, Leto still at her feet, tongue lolling out by the magikarp. "I cannot discern any use of this attack it insists on using repeatedly. Surely, it can at least struggle? I don't understand--yet, I must understand."
The gastly turned to Neo and gibbered at her in its blasted cthonic tongue. <This dude's a weirdo,> she said, but Neo couldn't understand.
Her mind resolved, Neo declared, "I shall capture it. Then I shall find a decent place of study and examine this specimen further. Leto? A hypnosis, if you please."
Her tongue was already out at ready, eager for another good slurp before it glumly retreated away. Leto liked licking other pokemon.
Instead of a lick, a purple wave of hypnosis spread towards the magikarp.
a magikarp never struggles!! a magikarp only prevails!!
these are the words that the tradgic hero wishes to convey to the human, but she is not competent enough to follow. it is a shame, how humans and pokemon find it so difficult to understand one another.
which is why magikarp should take over the land and reign supreme, of course. the other wild pokemon can laugh all they want, but what did they know about a magikarp's ambitions? nothing whatsoever.
and they threaten the 'karp with imprisonment! the daring! the nerve! this particular magikarp is confident that no mere ball can contain all of its majestic glory, no matter what the other residents of the sea cared to gossip about. how could any mere apricorn ball hope to contain the wonder, the splendor -
he doesn't even get to finish his last thought before the hypnosis takes effect. the magikarp finally stops moving in a rather sad plop.
there is no opera and there is no fanfare. just a girl, a magikarp, a ghastly, and the stagnant smell of the sea.
Leto, before Neo could say anything, swooped in when the magikarp finally stilled into a slumber. Mouth wide, it gave the magikarp a hearty lick. Leto was, the gastly pondered, slightly hungry; she would eat the sleeping magikarp, but she was fairly certain that that would put a huge dampener on Neo's day.
Neo drew a pokeball out of her bag and dropped it on the magikarp without much fanfare. "I wish I could understand you creatures' speech, then I could simply ask, and it could explain. Surely nature would not gift a species with a singularly useless power."
"Pokemon," Neo said to no one in particular. "So wondrous. So baffling. Perhaps this one holds the secret to defeating the scourge. ...But probably not."
maybe it was better that the magikarp was half conscious while it had to endure this humiliation. the plebeians - they speak no lies. is this the fate of every tyrant who refuses to lend his ear to the words of the people?
his body is taken into the ball in a flash of molten silver, but that does not change the fact that it is a prison meant to contain his majesty. quite an unfitting burial for a god!! he shall take his revenge upon the humans for their heresy!
but for now, the pokeball only clicks tightly shut, with a wondrous myth enshrined inside.
