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!
Neo wished to conduct an experiment. She had a magikarp, and it had one move: splash. Studies--thorough, exhausting studies--had proven that splash did not seem to do much of anything.
Still, she wished to test it out again in battle. Her solosis had imparted that the magikarp was quite proud of its battle prowess, proclaiming magikarps the supreme species of the pokemon world. Neo wasn't so sure about that, but she'd given the magikarp the chance to prove itself in battle.
Of course, the magikarp--now named Icarus--scoffed at the thought of being tested, so magnificent a beast is he. Neo had said, "Nevertheless," and now she waited at one end of an arena.
Icarus flopped on the battlefield, ready for anything.
The arena was a relatively common dream for Mordecai. Oddly enough, he noticed his Pokémon were slightly stronger after having such a dream. That was because they fought against other Pokémon, of course.
But Caesia was offended that Mordecai expected her to pick on this Magikarp.
It was a familiar face on the other end. He knew that Neo was a smart woman, so there must have been a trick or two up her sleeve. The Skarmory Leered at the Magikarp. How pathetic. She hopped over to the Magikarp with angry eyes at her trainer, then back at the Magikarp. The Pokémon huffed, nudged the flopping orange fish with a foot, before giving it a kick.
"Good to see you again," she called from across the arena. "I have brought the most fearsome specimen to the arena. I believe it may take some time for it to come to potential, however."
Icarus roared--a strange, breathless gobbling sound of a fish out of water--that he was already at maximum potential. Neo didn't understand him and pressed on, "Icarus! You know what to do!"
As swift as a coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, Icarus splashed.
It was as mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
"... Fearsome, indeed," Mordecai replied as he raised a brow. Potential, yes. But that potential meant very little if the most that the creature before him was writhe breathlessly on the floor.
Caesia scowled at the Magikarp. This must have been a joke, and she was at the butt end of it.
Mostly because the Splash ended with a smack to the knee. She screeched, giving the Magikarp another kick in the side. Mordecai rubbed at the side of his head. "No, Caesia, you will respect your opponent, no matter who he may be," he scowled.
So the Skarmory, with her beak, lifted the Magikarp by its tail, and flung it across the arena floor.
Neo's gaze, completely unsurprised and also undeterred, followed Icarus and it soared across the arena. It landed with a squish.
Icarus flopped--once, twice, and then it was out like a light.
"A bit of a work in progress," Neo admitted. She intended to take Icarus back to a healing machine and to return to the arena post-haste, but Mordecai she counted as a kind stranger--one she owed a favor to for showing her his pokemon.
"I am satisfied here, but if your skarmory would prefer another battle--a genuine one--I would be happy to comply." To Caesia, she added, "For the record, I apologize for the lack of quality in your last opponent."
"Knowing yourself, it'll grow strong," Mordecai said, as the Magikarp stopped flopping about. It would be a fearsome Gyrados one day. ... One day.
Caesia clacked her beak, curiosity successfully piqued by Neo. A "genuine" match, she said? Very well. Caesia would accept. All that was needed, now, was for her peasant of a trainer to accept the challenge. She screeched and shook her knife-like feathers, as if gesturing towards Neo to send out the next Pokémon.
Vaguely, Mordecai sensed that the Skarmory would deeply regret this. "I think it would be a good idea," he replied.
"I see we of like minds." With a curt nod, a pokeball danced into Neo's hand, and she whipped it into the arena. From it, a solosis appeared. "A battle for you, Phoebe. Without forewarning, but I suppose that's something you should become accustomed to anyway."
The solosis seemed a little sleepy, but she blinked herself fully awake. It glanced warily at the skarmory; in contrast Neo assessed the steel bird pokemon with a measured confidence.
Mordecai wasn't sure how much damage a roll-out from a blob was going to do. He wasn't about to take any chances though. Best to be wary in the beginning because that move could wind up with more power much later.
"Caesia, look out for the Confuse Ray, and start with a Sand-Attack. Let's make some speed bumps," he called, to which the Skarmory swooped forward and began to kick up sand at the rolling Solosis, but into small mounds in the psychic Pokémon's path that would hopefully slow it down a bit.
As the Skarmory kicked sand, just like she had kicked the Magikarp, the Solosis rolled right over her.
The sand splashed into Phoebe's face, and Neo could see the solosis stick out its tongue in distaste as it spat sand out of its mouth. It took a wide berth, gathering speed as best it could while it swerved around the sand mounds, looking for a clearer path to the skarmory.
"When at first you don't succeed..." Neo didn't bother finishing the statement.
Like a broken record, the solosis geared up again, accurately delivering another confuse ray, and spinning forward to continue the roll-out.
Well that didn't work, because Caesia was sent flying across the arena with the second build-up of the Roll-out. She screeched again, falling face-first into the dust of the arena floor. The dark rays and haze of the Confuse Ray settled upon her and began clouding coherent thought.
All or nothing then. It didn't look like Caesia was going to last much longer. "Caesia!" Mordecai called out. "If you can hear me, we're going in with a Brave Bird!"
It took a moment for the steel bird to orient herself, head spinning as she tried flying towards gravity instead of against. But she figured it out, eventually, and took to the skies.
"Heads up," Neo said quickly but without much alarm. The solosis had taken a ballista to the face before, after all. A mach speed steel bird wasn't that different.
Phoebe for her part remembered what a ballista to the face was like. Whizzing another wide circle towards no target with the roll-out, she spun out of the way, and now she whirled along the perimeter of the arena.
From observing the skarmory before, she knew that the breeder's pokemon was weaker in a general sense, hadn't seen as much battle yet, but she also knew that its steel body was strong and durable, far moreso than any average or even above average pokemon. "Steady does it," she counseled, and the solosis careened toward the skarmory with roll-out.
The Skarmory managed an abrupt right angle in flight, before she hit the ground. On the other hand, it sent the Skarmory hurtling in the air towards the rolling Solosis. It was clear that Caesia was disregarding potential fainting. It was an all-or-nothing strategy, and the Pokémon was most certainly giving her all towards this match.
She swung around the Solosis to its back, but was bowled over by the psychic type Pokémon anyways. Still, the Pokémon never stopped moving, because she was sailing across the the arena. The Pokémon blinked, not sure what just happened. She was pretty sure that she was hit by something though. The Skarmory thrust her body forward, beak stretched out in preparation for a Peck. It wasn't a very impressive move, but with the speeding inertia at her back, Mordecai was hoping to increase its power if it did hit.
"Brace yourself," Mordecai warned the Skarmory, because if it didn't hit, the move would send her sailing into the arena wall. Part of him was also convinced that the Pokémon was not going to last past this move.
The solosis took the peck straight on, the steal beak punching through her protective embryo uncomfortably. Twisting to not spin onto her new wound, she rolled wide again before recalculating an angle to strike the skarmory with roll-out.
Neo rapidly began to suspect the steel bird pokemon only had physical attacks, which would stand to sense since it was hardly dual-typed psychic. "Phoebe, use reflect."
This time, the Skarmory went flying, and when she tried to turn back around to attack again, the Pokémon went head-first into a giant wall. Mordecai cringed slightly at the noise that the Pokémon's armor made against the wall of Reflect. Caesia fluttered to the ground with a dazed expression. "Well, we gave it a shot," he said to her as she disappeared back into her Pokéball.
Mordecai gave a slight wave to Neo. "Thanks for the battle," he called, turned on his heel, and made his leave.
