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 had said come as it was convenient and well--this was her job. And the strange battle she had barely scraped out of was burning the back of her throat like a brand. She had to tell someone about it, and who better than an EOS researcher?
Neo would have a better idea on how it had happened, how the woman had controlled the scourge. Thalia kind of hoped maybe Neo would take one look at her and say "You're running a hundred degree fever and delirious. It was all a hallucination."
Well, a girl could dream.
Thalia poked about the Lake Pax institute as quickly yet carefully as was humanly possible, looking for any sign of life that wasn't Scourge-infested. Here, Neo, Neo.
She'd housed herself up in the center of the first floor, one of the simpler examination rooms in the building, where most of the wall still looked sturdy, and she could even get a decent trickle from the sink.
The door was open, and if Thalia didn't look in as she passed, it didn't much matter because Neo had an eye on the door. "Here," she called out, not loudly because... well, it was pretty quiet around here. No need to draw any more attention to yourself than necessary.
"Sounded urgent," Neo said. "Did you kill another snover?"
Thalia stepped into the room Neo had set up for herself and crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall closest to the door.
"Haha, no," she said. "No more dead snovers. Something even worse than that, if you can believe it." She wanted to drum her fingers against something--she really wanted to pace. More than both of those she wanted to smoke. Unfortunately all of those were a worse location giveaway than this conversation already was. And she'd had enough fights to last her for the time being, thank you.
"I was in Bellona," Thalia continued. "Doing good deeds, killing scourge, the usual heroic antics. Guess what I ran into? A Scourge Camerupt who had a trainer. A good old fashioned, taking-orders-from-you-not-ripping-your-face-off-and-feeding kind of trainer."
"...But they're untamable." She stated it like fact, because it was. She'd seen attempts by trainers to catch scourge pokemon; it didn't work out so well for the trainer. "They can't be captured. Only a virus ball contains them--by killing them."
Neo considered the possibilities.
Thalia could be lying--unlikely. Whatever her flaws, she was serious about the scourge.
Thalia could be mistaken--plausible. Even if Neo didn't think Thalia was a bit of a mess, fighting scourge in Bellona Hills repeatedly must be a stressful pastime.
Thalia could be correct--she couldn't count it out, because once you've eliminated the impossible... but Neo didn't like the idea of facing down a trainer with a scourge pokemon.
"You sure it wasn't a coincidence?" That sounded dumb even as she said it. Neo followed it up with more questions. "Have you been working too hard? When was the last time you slept?"
"It wasn't a coincidence," she said, shaking her head. "I came upon a girl--er, I thought she was a boy at the time--standing next to a scourge camerupt. Just standing next to it. She asked me to hand over my pokemon, I obviously refused. She told the camerupt to attack, and it listened. During the batle, she told it to dodge a certain move, and it listened. And when I won--I think I won?--she dragged it off like any trainer who just got their partner ko'd. Only you can't take scourge pokemon to the pokemon center, I guess."
She took a breath.
"And I met someone right after the battle who claimed to know who the trainer was. He said her name was Cameron, he'd fought her before. And his name was Delta. Ugh, his nickname was Delta, I don't remember his real name. I was in shock, I should have pressed him more, should have made him come back to Nerio with me, but he definitely knew her, and he knew that the camerupt belonged to her."
"I know how it sounds. I know. I've been sleeping fine though, I'm not completely idiotic. I slept in Nerio and headed out for Bellona that morning. Haven't been working any harder than when I was a regular trainer." She thought about mentioning her encounter with Irene, and debated against it.
That sounded pretty legit. Maybe it was a fever dream. Unless it was a hallucination entirely, Neo was starting to prepare herself to accept that some humans would be stark raving mad enough to work with the scourge. It was a hard idea to wrap her mind around.
Her first instinct was Thalia's questionable tactics. "Why didn't you give chase? Was she here? Was she at the lake, at Nerio, where'd she go? You could've finished her off if she was beating feet. You could've called me or somebody--we could've cornered her. Take out some traitor to the human species, and her scourge buddy too!"
She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose to stave away an oncoming headache. "Sorry. I'm sure it was a challenging battle, and you needed a rest. Did you get contact info for... Delta? Could we call him?"
As a last ditch effort, Neo tried, "You're not sick? At all? Should I take your temperature?"
2tsunz ( congrats. this is the most talkative neo's EVER been. )
"I should have called someone," Thalia admitted. "I guess I was still in shock. Seeing someone work with a scourge pokemon was just--you can imagine, I'm sure." On second thought, better not mention her hysterical laughing fit talking to Delta, either. "It was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be. That camerupt was a tank, and fighting without backup again was less than ideal."
Haha, well it didn't matter if she told Neo about Hysterical Laughing Fit #1 because here came Hysterical Laughing Fit #2.
"Trust me," Thalia managed to get out. "I wish I were sick. I wish I were seeing flying donphans around your head right now, with little purple wings. But I'm afraid it was all very very real."
"But you won. Or I assume so--you're alive. Retreat isn't what scourge pokemon are known for though..."
When Thalia had her Hysterical Laughing Fit #2, Neo buried her face in her hands--she wanted to rip her hair out. This was horrible news. Before, she could always assume camaraderie with any human being. There was nothing like a threat to all human civilization to bring all the people together. Without that trust...
She didn't know her paranoia could get worse.
"The human, Cameron, did she... have symptoms? Do you think there's any chance the virus mutated, that it effects us now?"
"I did win," Thalia said quietly. "But not really. When I fought the scourge with J, we killed them. They were too far gone with the virus to realize they needed to run, or hide, or get away, and between the two of us, they put them down. But Neo--this changes everything. They aren't just a mindless horde anymore. If they have trainers, humans to think for them, they--that camerupt would have kept fighting if Cameron hadn't been there. I would have killed it. But she was there, and she knew that with all my pokemon down but one, I couldn't afford to chase them deeper into Bellona, at the mercy of every healthy scourge I ran across. And so instead of a dead scourge, there's a healthy one out there who's a little smarter."
She was surprised with how hoarse her voice sounded by the end of that. The words seemed so much more clinical, outside of her head. Strangely weightier, sucking all the air out of the room.
"I didn't see any signs of infection in her no, but I'm not a researcher. The only time I've ever seen a pokemon succumb to the virus was with my former team," (she didn't stammer, she didn't stutter, that was good. no weakness. no weakness) "and it happened very, very quickly. As I'm sure you know. Cameron was able to communicate with me though; not like healthy pokemon trying to communicate with scourge. I knew what she was saying. It might manifest differently in humans though. Who knows?"
...There wasn't much to say about that. Besides that she was right. And they're all fucked. Neo's mind kicked into action. This was a problem. Was the problem to be analyzed? Could she afford the time to find what information she could about these scourge trainers? Probably not. Probably, all they had time for was to double down on
"Why? They're winning, why do they need humans? Trainers? And since when! How long have they had rational minds, trainers that live for a fight and are fighting for the wrong fucking side, behind them? How long have they had to prepare? They could have an army by now--a real one, not just a massive fighting force. Eos is too young to fight them off if they're already planning an attack: a genuine, planned attack."
Her mind raced. "They'd go for Nerio or Hespera first. Probably Hespera, it's not as well defended, and Decima is easier to bypass than Bacchus. Or maybe they'll just skip Nerio and try to sneak through the caverns."
She looked to Thalia. "I think we should distract. We should pose a challenge somewhere. Force them to gather their numbers and respond to us. We can't let them feel free to attack. We should put them on the defensive--ugh, but we can't! There's only four of us at Lake Pax!"
Herself, J, Thalia, Delilah. For all she knew, that green-haired loser had made it too, but Neo didn't want/trust his help anyway.
"They were winning," Thalia said. "Of course they were, at first. It was overwhelming, there was no defense, if you tried to fight them, your pokemon either died or turned. But we got organized. EOS happened. The vaccine happened. It isn't perfect by any means, but we're pushing back. I mean we're having this conversation in Lake Pax. The stronghold of scourge presence. I don't know if maybe they're scared or wary or just--who knows. But this is the next level."
Thalia was pacing around the room before she even knew it. She must have started moving when she was talking, at some point, but she wasn't aware of when that had happened. "Four of us, with six or five pokemon each? Vaccinated pokemon--that's 20 combat ready pokemon at worst. That's not insignificant at all. And they're not unbeatable, Neo, especially without a trainer. And god knows they can't all have trainers. That's just impossible."
She bit her lip. She didn't want to have to talk to him again, and arceus knew he probably wouldn't even listen, blow her off without a word, but. How could you not listen? Whomever he was searching for, it wouldn't matter if he was killed by the scourge first, or if there was no home left to drag him back to because the virus had swept over everything like a tide. And he'd been in Bacchus--
"There might be a fifth person I know of around here," Thalia conceded. "I'm not sure how useful he'll be, or if he'll even help us, but if it comes down to it, I can try and get in contact with him."
"Eos is four people right now--five if you're feeling lucky then--the rest are still learning the ropes in Ceres Forest. The vaccine isn't over-the-counter medicine. We are hardly threat. I don't feel like a threat. I feel like a shut-in psychopath that cuts up corpses and collects livers for trophies."
That was just her though, and she was a researcher. That was probably exactly what she should be doing. It just didn't feel like enough.
She was feeling pessimistic. "Well, if you think about it, there's about four of us with five or six pokemon each. Four battle-worthy eos members? Maybe they do have all the trainers. We certainly don't. We have you and J. That is a very, very short list of trainers."
Focus.
She needed to focus.
Make a plan. Do the smart thing. Get everyone else to do the smart thing. That was about the only thing Neo was good for.
"We can liberate Bellona Hills. It's their route to Nerio, they need it. They'll want it. If we retake it, it'll be the first time we ever retook anything. If we retake it, they'll need it back. If we retake it, there's nothing there for us, we can let them have it back, but let them fight for it. EOS needs more time. We can get them time."
"Bellona it is then," Thalia agreed. She wasn't sure that she agreed with Neo about the effectiveness of EOS's efforts, but this uh, didn't really seem like the time to get in an argument about that. "I'll start back-tracking right away and work on getting in touch with the others to let them know the plan. Make our grand stand among the mansions, then, and hope that the kids in the forest can get their act together. Anymore questions, anything else you want me to get done?"
"If you've got time, go help the fresher Eos recruits train. Dream arena, maybe. We never intended on being a vanguard, so we'll want everyone else to step up their pace if we want to survive. We, as in, us, right here. Because if we all die trying because we ran ahead, then at least we know there's more of us where we came from."
Thalia frowned as Neo spoke, but didn't interrupt, and when the other woman finished, all she had to say was: "All right. I'll see what I can do to help the kids. And try not to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, okay? Stay safe, don't die, all that jazz."
She headed for the door, back out the way she had came, and then stopped, one hand on the door frame, to look over her shoulder.
"And I didn't tell you to make you feel hopeless or overwhelm you or anything, so. Just. I mean--it's not as bad as it seems. We can do this, I think. Not easily, but we can do this. Fuck, if we don't believe in us, who will?" Thalia shrugged. "Maybe that sounds pat, but whatever. I guess I'll go on believing until I get my throat ripped out or until we win. Not many other options."
