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!
stefan tells himself that he can't relax, even after passing lake pax. the scourge less of a presence here, but only slightly. not everything is suspible to the city's poisons. type advantages are one obvious factor, but so are the newly-awakened scourge of decima, the ones who weren't lucky enough to die a swift death.
the rag that he holds against his mouth only serves as a slight filter against the toxic particles that linger in the air. stefan tries to cough as quietly as he can since there is almost no background noise to cover for him.
not only is stefan rationing his meals now, but he is also rationing the hours in his day. twice now, his lack of foresight towards sleep had almost cost him his life.
by now, even stefan has to doubt that erik had ever set foot here. he can fight all the scourge he wants, starting from neiro city. coming to this kind of hellhole is a special sort of masochistic, even for him. not that stefan had gathered very much information about his whereabouts for a while now. not since persephina, in fact. should he double back, and how far? is he stupid enough to seek glory at lake pax, or would he prefer the immodest decadence that neiro city offers? or maybe eos assigned him to decima. he can feel a headache coming on with just thinking about all the possibilities.
the pawniard beside him (the only ally that he would trust to stay awake in a place like this) spares him a concerned glance. stefan ignores gerfried, prompting him to keep his eyes in front of them for any straggling scourge. at least the enemies here are likely to be at death's door. probably.
his mask for nefarious under-handed scourge activities is fashionable, hides his identity, and as of being jury-rigged a day ago, also filters out the poison roiling forth from melchior's dismal gym. zahir isn't quite sure just what about decima pushes him into the realm of intense, aggressive loathing, but he suspects a lot of it lies at the feet of that rat-faced gym leader. he hadn't been lying to neo--ok, well he'd been making up stuff about melchior to see if she'd bite and maybe start to distrust him--in spirit.
had it begun in decima? was melchior keeping everyone out with his poison because he was running a double-cross scheme, exploiting off the tragedy of the scourge? not to zahir's knowledge (he suspected he was far too straight forward a thinker for anything that exciting) but the venom, pardon the pun, in his remarks hadn't been a facade. melchior lacked the dramatic irony of irene, zahir thought. she was a sharp turn on a straight road, a drowning woman who waved away all attempts at rescue. she had texture. melchior was a page he wanted to turn over.
the riolu dropped down quietly at his side, jerked his head toward the right, past a line of deserted shops, and then was off again. he didn't like staying long in this atmosphere. he'd adamantly refused any of zahir's attempts to get a mask on him so far, probably half-convinced that he really was a lucario and immune to poison despite all objective evidence otherwise. for himself, zahir shrugged and then cut through an alley, coming out on the other side of the stores where heron had wanted him to see--ah.
there was a boy holding a rag over his face, a pawniard at his side scanning the area. the first people who weren't melchior or his rats that zahir had seen in quite some time here. he sidled over, hands in his pockets, and grinned widely.
"not the best place for sight-seeing these days, decima."
stefan isn't too surprised to see a man in such a mask. anyone who was walking around in this city without any sort of covering is asking for some lung disease. probably within the next ten years. he latches onto his verbal ironies.
"apparently not" if it doesn't look like stefan is grumbling, then it's only because of his rag. "is there no visitor's center? or has the leader here converted that to a pool of sludge? with all due respect to your leader, of course"
the pawniard continues to busy himself with the details in the street.
zahir wrinkled his nose in distaste, though he supposed the mask hid most of his expression.
"please don't lump me in as some sort of decima trainer," zahir said. "i'm from sol city. i'm a tourist. or i was trying to be one, anyway. would you like a mask? that doesn't look very comfortable."
"yet you're here while decima's children are not. funny place for a spring vacation" stefan comments, but he doesn't press for any more details, preferring to pause at the man's other question.
"a vendor? do you accept plastic?" he assumes capitalism, if only charity is not something that goes without stefan's suspicion. he isn't sure how long he will stay in decima town, but he definitely isn't leaving right this instant. not after all the difficulties of getting here in the first place.
"i like adventure," zahir said, shrugging. "the thrill of the unknown, the adrenaline. gets your blood pumping. don't they say that you're never more alive than when you're about to die."
"ah, you don't have to pay me," zahir said, raising his hands in protest. "it's not a certified product, anyway, just something i made up myself. i'd feel bad charging for it."
maybe some people would have called this man crazy, but stefan lacks any credentials to comment. despite his distaste for chaos and risk, he's the one trekking all the way to scourge territory in search of a man that he would sooner push off of a pier than save. actually, he wouldn't even bother at all.
"thank you" he murmurs. stefan's proserpina instincts buzz like beedrills at the back of his mind, but he has long since learned how to ignore it. "the city must not get many visitors, if you are able to hand them out like this. has eos not arrived yet?"
with this, maybe he will be able to leave this bioterrorist wasteland sooner than he thought.
"no," zahir said. "no, i haven't seen any eos agents around. just melchior, and let me tell you, he wasn't happy to have anyone else in town. grumpy guy. i wonder why."
he paused, and then: "i guess it's especially weird because i saw eos agents past here, in hespera, but none so far in decima. i'm not sure what the reason for that is."
stefan weighs the risk of recalling gerfried to his ball. his coloring is bound to attract unneeded attention if the man is right, but he's not about to trust this melchior with keeping the town secure enough to walk around without pokemon. that's not to say that stefan knows who he is, but he simply doesn't trust anyone.
the pawniard stays.
"hard to blame him - i haven't seen anyone quite as chipper as yourself for weeks" his lips thin, and it's unclear if it's because of the poison or the direction that this conversation is going. stefan doesn't necessarily want to believe him, but he knows that he will have to pursue this lead anyway. if erik simply plowed through to hesperia...well, at least stefan won't be heading in lake pax's direction for a while. "the city seems to be doing its job, then"
zahir laughed, genuinely. "chipper? i don't know if i'm chipper. i just know what i want. and what i want is to see kohaku, killer virus or no killer virus."
he cocked his head to the side suddenly, thinking.
"are you doing anything important here? why are you here, anyway? can't be a tourist. you don't sound EOS, either."
stefan can't help but admire him a little for his attitude, if only because it is one that he has never known. what does he want? did it truly matter? he wonders what it feels like before his old chains chafe him once again.
"i don't sound eos" stefan agrees. should he say? or would he be pulled into a fight at the townspeople's whims? it would be different if the man was from eos himself - stefan wasn't eager to be noted for insubordination. he decides not to confirm or deny the question. "i'm here to find my...brother" people tended to be more sympathetic to a lost sibling than a runaway lover, stefan has finally realized. particularly the women, but also the occasional man. "i have reason to believe that he has run off to the front lines. dark eyes, platinum blond hair. the name is erik alejandro, and i don't know of any aliases if he has them"
stefan forces an ironic smile. "i don't think the silver would do much good against the scourge. eos is hardly fighting against werewolves. no, there are people who want him back. isn't that reason enough?"
there. vague enough to be safe, but specific enough to be an answer.
it's not a question. stefan's smile is frozen in its place. how does he know how does he know how could he possibly know. he doesn't know how to answer since no one's really figured it out before now, but stefan knows a thing or two about letting the silence speak for him. no, if he's going to be marked guilty, then he's going to do it on his own terms.
"it was irresponsible of me, i know"
does he sound apologetic? stefan is so used to sounding apologetic at the mansion that he doesn't even know if it sounds any different from normal speech. maybe that's why he has reverted to such a brash way of speaking - the world outside of the mansion doesn't want apologies. it only wants action and results. it only wants what stefan has repeatedly been unable to deliver. words, actions, sympathies that he has no inclination to give -
the toxic fumes continue to stew, but stefan is a little beyond noticing at this point.
