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!
Ah, the outdoors. Gotta love taking that hades air, though his pokemon didn't and weren't going to (not just yet anyways). Rome had just gotten out of the caverns, meeting with J once more. He'd gotten him a sample of the scourge. Though he'd originally wanted to go out there and meet him, it wasn't the wisest of ideas. If he wanted to see the full extent of the virus, he would need to survive a little longer.
And, so, camp was set up close yet hidden away from the public eye. There wasn't time to waste. His pack was filled with odd tools just waiting, eager to pierce into the pokemon's flesh. Patience, patience, he'd practically said to the tools. A camera was placed on a makeshift stand not too far away as he watched J pull out the pokeball.
J took his time. he was fresh off lake pax, and he'd had enough of hades air. the lake was suffocating; the hills were no different either. he had reluctantly called up rome via c-gear and hoped that he would pick up. if he didn't, he knew of another researcher - closer, mind - to dump it off on and get something out of it.
trekking back to the hills took a while. J threw himself on a chair and tossed the virus ball halfheartedly on the ground, where the camerupt emerged from it in a sickening beam of black light. it had a foul stench to it, and thorpe made a face at the smell. riolu had a keener sense of smell than most pokémon.
he placed the pokedex on a safe place where it would be able to scan the riolu while he was busy playing with his new toy. the stench was something different, not new. they were right about the virus ball. it was slowly killing the pokemon -or quickly seeing the state the pokemon was in. while he wouldn't notice it right away. the pokedex screen flickered gathering riolu's data. fighting type. emancipation pokemon. they're sensitive to a type of field defined as "aura." it was a pokemon he'd seen but never got to 'play' with before.
but his attention was focused on the camerupt. his first strike? to plunge right into the beast's core. with surprising care, rome cut samples of the pokemon. with its normal body temperature quite high, especially at its back, he found it quite interesting that his tools weren't melting when he had gotten close to the pokemon's back. the decay was lowering the pokemon's temperature.
"j, come here. you should see this." he said through the thick mask rather excitedly. the pokemon was still living as he carved his way to the beast's skull. well, it wasn't going to be alive for too long. he slipped another sample into his bag. pieces of this and that from here and there.
J had no interest in inspecting another corpse after bringing it back all the way for rome just because the researcher couldn't get his own ass to lake pax yet. with neo it had been different. they had nothing better to do in bacchus, and it had been two days since he had last caught the scourge pokémon. he watched on as rome carved a hole into the camerupt's skull and decided to leave him to his own devices.
he took the pokédex from the makeshift table that rome had placed it on, and thumbed through it idly. the tabs revealed that rome had a whole lot more pokémon to scan; if he wasn't going to get stronger, he wouldn't get to see many new species -- J knew he couldn't keep feeding rome new species either; it was good to see that he had been making progress in his pokédex, anyway. he scanned through, before backing up one entry to read up on a bladed creature.
scyther, potentially evolving into the part-steel pokémon known as scizor. interest immediately piqued, the trainer walked over to rome and the carcass. he wasn't fazed by it; he had even helped neo in ripping off parts of the donphan until she was satisfied with it and asked him to burn the mangled elephant.
"this," J said, holding the dex out towards rome. he was rather sure that rome would get the idea; it wasn't any different from him staring at something in the shops and his friend buying one for him, or they somehow got enough money to get each of them something. usually, things were motivated by an exchange between the two -- a benefit given is a benefit gained.
rome didn't seem to mind or even notice that j wasn't as interested in his work. he had traveled all this way as a favor to him. besides, he was focused on the camerupt. diving beneath the skull was the hard part. it required stronger tools. the loud noise of a drill could be heard as it cut into the hard bone. taking more samples and shots of the deterioration, rome smiled beneath his mask.
a little more and he was done with the initial examination. there was more that he could do, more that he wanted to do, but he knew that it wasn't a smart idea to extend this any longer than he should. neatly, he had kept the parts of the decaying scourge together, decorated around the body. the samples were placed neatly within a small container in his bag.
with a reluctant sigh, he pulled off his gloves. it was then that he noticed j with his pokedex, showing him scyther. he gave a small laugh. "he's with me right now." rome answered happily. he didn't mind handing the pokemon over to a capable trainer. they would certainly grow faster under j's care. "let's finish this up first."
"okay," J agreed as thorpe bounded up to his side -- then ran away just as quickly. the riolu didn't enjoy the sight of the mangled pokémon. rome had done a fantastic job cutting it up. he also did a great job making it look worse than it already had.
J remained unaffected by the scene as he half-smiled at rome. it was always good to get something in return, regardless of investment. (on the other hand, he'd invested a lot in the other man. getting something back was only what he deserved.) "have you scanned it?" he asked, simply out of making sure the conversation ran on. neither of them had said more than three words each at a time, and J was about to break that trend. he also didn't want a researcher losing a potential pokémon scan before he took it away -- but knowing rome, he probably already had scanned it and made it do ... tricks.
"take your time," J said, lighting a cigarette and moving away from the carcass. thorpe eagerly followed the trainer away. it didn't like the dead camel; not only did it reek something horrible, it also stared at it, eyes wide open as if unwilling to die completely.
he practically lit up when j said those magical words. take your time. oh, he would. he'll take all the time in the world if he could. this was a fascinating subject, even if it was deteriorating beneath his grasp.
those infected by the hades virus were far stronger than others, yet it had taken its toll. this one especially was paying the price. he chuckled as the pokemon stared at him. there was nothing that it could do as rome got his way, carefully prodding here and there. samples taken from all sorts of places. if only he had a normal camerupt to compare to, side by side, that would make this moment even more perfect.
ah, the expression it must have made as it was dying, had died.
rome's glee hadn't been very subtly hidden, thought the trainer as he watched the researcher pour his heart into the camerupt by slicing off neat little bits and pieces off its body. J kept his silence.
seeing rome happy wasn't strange to the trainer. he didn't know if he felt happy seeing someone rummage through a corpse like that; neo had been far more methodical, and while she had been happy to dissect a scourge pokémon, it didn't seem to be pure, unadulterated glee like what rome was putting on. J still said nothing as the camerupt was torn apart by the scalpel, its hooves sliced off by a flick of the blade. J inhaled, and the tip of his cigarette burned brighter correspondingly.
J might have told rome to take his time, but scourge always attracted more scourge. he stamped out his cigarette, crushing the stick underfoot as he recalled thorpe into its pokéball. "c'mon, let's fight real ones," he said, adjusting his parka before handing some pokéballs to rome. he'd been training a lot of pokémon.
"i'm lending you these for a bit," said J, "i want them back alive." a smirk.
