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!
This was poorly planned, but she didn't have any time.
Expressionless, Neo sat on the remains of a stone bench in a rose garden. Dead flowers, petals either decaying on the ground or long since drifted away in the wind, and vines of thorns made the area an unpleasant place. It wasn't the place to come to die, but it was the best Neo could manage on short notice.
She released Mneme. She also released four other pokemon, because this was an execution.
The wobbuffet didn't look so good.
In fact, it was starting to look a little dark, and it wasn't just a trick of the light. In fact, her light blue skin was basically a startling cobalt, and her eyes--pitch black.
"I count myself lucky to witness the process," Neo said to no one in particular, her pokedex pointed squarely at the pokemon that she'd raised from a hatchling to, well, to this.
Mneme was once its name. Now, it only knew that it was hungry. It was the sole thing on its mind, and having one goal made things easier to accomplish anyways.
A thin thread of drool leaked from the corner of her mouth. She was a little unsteady on her feet, as if the hunger was so overpowering that she could not spare any brain power on the simple task. The corners of the Pokémon's red lips were pointed upwards in a harlequin grin as clouded eyes gazed over her previous trainer.
Coolly, rationally, as if she had no sentimental attachment at all, Neo pointed her 'dex at the wobbuffet, pressed a button, and words started scrolling across the screen. Good, done, just like any other entry.
"Good knowing you."
duosion used confuse ray haunter used shadow ball haunter used confuse ray icarus used bite icarus used leer tiresias used crunch tiresias used work up
The creature felt nothing as the world spun around her. Vaguely, the infected Wobbuffet was aware of something sharp piercing into her skin, and the leering eyes and shadowy balls were blurs before her.
The Pokémon opened her mouth, gurgled, the world becoming clearer and sharper than it had ever been before, then struck back at the Gyrados with a counter because it was closest.
Icarus was wounded, hurting. The gyrados looked ready to continue, but Neo had enough of running to the pokemon center after battling scourge. She recalled the gyrados.
"Don't let up," she commanded. She looked down, pinched her nose as if she had a headache--or maybe she just covered her eyes. See no evil.
duosion used charm duosion used hidden power fire haunter used hypnosis <60 hits haunter used sucker punch deino used crunch deino used bite
And with each blow, the dull throbbing in the Wobbuffet's sides increased. The Pokémon let out an unearthly screech, before the Hypnosis gently sailed what once was Mneme away to sleep. Torn and frayed, the Scourge Pokémon slumped over onto the ground, face caught in a mix between twisted pain and the peace of slumber.
"i'm sorry for your loss," said a faraway voice, soft, gentle, in the distance. he didn't dare move closer to the researcher and her pokémon; it was always hard to lose one of your own pokémon to the scourge. he'd seen it emerge from its pokéball, fighting back and not thinking about anything else except to kill, and he felt a little pity for the researcher.
at least, he thought it was pity, but he wasn't sure. he could hear the silent, muted thoughts of the wobbuffet that didn't make it out; it wasn't that it wanted to fight back -- it just had no other option but to fight. a wobbuffet was made to take hits, but to actually fight --
"neo? it's delta."
he always appeared in the aftermath of a scourge battle.
She couldn't identify the voice at first. It could've been one of two people, both of which she'd thought were pretty far away. She supposed it didn't really matter.
"Thank you," Neo replied without inflection, robotic.
Neo recalled her pokemon. Tir might've been able to help, but this was something she wanted to do herself. She got up, picked up a shovel, and she started digging a grave. It'd be a shallow grave, casketless, but there were trying circumstances.
"You could've called if you were in the area." Was that a joke? Maybe. She wasn't feeling very funny though. "Could've had lunch together."
The soil was soft, damp from the early spring weather, which made digging easier.
"... neo?" iskander attempted again, gently, as if speaking to a wounded animal. this was no different from a stray houndour puppy that had lost its parents, or maybe a sibling, to the scourge. he'd approach it with kindness, cuddle it a bit, and then come back to check up on it. wounds healed faster once the other person or pokémon could feel happy again. it didn't matter what constituted happy, as long as they were.
"you're welcome," he said soothingly, approaching the figure in his distance. your pokémon just died and i'm really sorry for that, he wanted to add, but thought better and said nothing. iskander quickened his steps and approached the female, and watched her dig mneme's grave. "do you think it knew what was going on?" iskander didn't know what else to say. it was usually him thinking from the point of view of the scourge; mneme had been confused at its wanting to attack even with a severe lack of offensive moves.
the scourge were all a confused bunch, and he could sense their pain better than a ralts ever could. they wanted to kill, but they never knew why -- just as he didn't know what was going on. people were getting harder to read, too.
"... i brought us sandwiches," he finished, but it was a rather lame comment in light of the death of mneme. "magikarp -- not the one from lake pax." iskander still hung behind neo, torn between offering to help dig the grave and respecting her intentions of wanting to bury her own pokémon's corpse herself.
She didn't mind his approach. In all honesty, she barely noticed it. She considered him a threat--still considers him a threat, really--but she had other matters on her mind right now, such as this grave and the digging thereof. It required a lot more mental power than she had anticipated, that or she was just thinking about it a lot harder than any sane person would.
But there was the shoveling, digging it into the dirt, leveraging it up, tossing the grave soil aside, repeat. Also, neatness; she was digging a very, very neat grave.
"I don't think it matters. I'm also not thinking about it." Except then she thought about it. For a moment, the shovel stopped moving, and she planted it into the ground, foot on the hilt--thinking. It was a mathematical sort of thinking; Neo considered various factors and then considered her feelings as if she wasn't the one feeling them. "No, I don't. I like to think that she knew she was amongst friends in her last moments, but I don't think she knew."
She returned to digging.
On the topic of sandwiches, Neo didn't look up, but she said, "Why?"
neo couldn't have been farther from the truth -- mneme's last thoughts were a garbled puzzle of rage and confusion, and a dire want to remove all other pokémon from its sight. as long as it could move, as long as it could tank, it wanted to kill. even though its body hurt, mneme had pushed on against its former teammates, but its confusion was towards the familiar faces.
iskander knew; it was like being slaughtered and hung out to dry by his own family. it wasn't any different from being disowned; maybe that was the confusion that the wobbuffet felt, but maybe it wasn't quite that either. iskander didn't know; he did know that when it fell asleep, confusion took over the want to kill, and it had allowed the hits to strike itself in the hopes that it would wake again.
if it did wake, though, it would be back to killing, not shaken out of a bad nightmare. iskander remembered his exchange with neo by the lake about hitting people when they were afraid, about feeling threatened, about being confused and maybe having to resort to violence. perhaps that was what mneme felt, thought the agent as he glanced at the corpse, glad that it was no longer feeding him things to notice -- and remember. he didn't think he'd be able to forget what mneme felt at the time.
"if you believe she did, she felt what you did. happiness, i hope," iskander said, and watched as neo stopped digging. "the sandwiches?" he glanced towards the lunchbox with packed sandwiches, and had to shrug.
"i ... don't think a revive is going to work. or a full restore. or anything."
"Freedom, I hope. Liberation," she replied. There was a rhythm to shoveling dirt, and after a while it became automated. This was a problem. Neo didn't want it to be automated. She needed to think about it to keep other thoughts out of her mind.
If Mneme had still been a wynaut, the hole would've been deep enough. If she'd just Mneme with the daycare forever--or if someone else had picked up that egg from the shop--the hole wouldn't even be needed. Then again, maybe she would've lost someone else.
She carried two vaccines in her bag. She had been carrying them since before running into either of the hades agents. Carrying them still felt like carrying the world on her back.
There were other things to think about though, thankfully. "I'm glad you're here," Neo said honestly, because Iskander was a puzzle. Puzzles are good for passing the time. "How do you know when to show up? How do you choose? You did for Thalia, right after she fought Cameron. You didn't for me though, neither battle against the scourge, not until now."
iskander glanced at the hole as neo dug, deeper and deeper until it was deep enough to fit a wobbuffet. right now, it wasn't deep enough. maybe it could fit something smaller, perhaps the deino if it had been turned into scourge. but iskander wasn't sure if he wanted to listen to the anguished and enraged thoughts of a deino instead; blindly killing someone (literally) would hurt, especially if it was repeatedly struck over and over again by its own trainer who wanted it dead.
he wanted to offer to take the shovel and dig, because it'd be quicker instead of neo doing it herself. the same thought from before filled into his head again, gently telling him no. iskander couldn't do that; he wasn't owner to mneme, all he did was intrude her mind and listen to what was going on through its cries that normal pokémon couldn't decipher on their own.
iskander was surprised when she said she was glad for his presence; he didn't know what he'd done except offer a magikarp sandwich, though. he didn't know what else he could do other than stand around and not help, either. he wanted to say something, but he'd guessed right when he felt that neo had something else to say.
why did he show up? that was a good question. then again, all the questions neo posed had been good ones. they'd made him think, because he couldn't bullshit his way through all the time. "i honestly don't know," iskander said; he did visit places where scourge attacks happened after all the madness ended, and helped tend to the wounded or offer a comforting word or two to those who had lost pokémon or friends in their endeavours.
iskander didn't think it was a fruitless effort, fighting the scourge. but that wasn't what neo was asking; she always asked him questions, tough questions, the questions. he stood with the lunchbox in his hands before him, his eyes staring at the pink goldeen and bellossom patterns on the cover.
"have you fought the scourge? i don't know if this is your first time, or your second, or your third, but i only go to places where the nightmares are the worst." his dark eyes fell on neo, and behind them lurked a certain hint of loneliness, of a man standing on the line between regret and moving on. "shock, terror, horror. nightmares manifest with these, and if it's strong, i wake, and i leave for that place."
iskander looked away. "i can't sense anger as well as i can other kinds of emotions," he said, stepping back before watching neo for any signs of movements, "... are you mad at me?" please don't be, his face said, his hands grasping the lunchbox tightly. "for not showing up when you maybe needed it?"
He didn't know. Honestly, he said. Alright. Either he really didn't know, or he wouldn't give her a better answer than that. She didn't feel like prying now. He was as evasive as she was incisive. It was a pain in the ass. Fun though, sometimes.
"The third. I ran into a masked man with a fake name and also Cameron. No nightmares though. I didn't dream much."I didn't sleep much either, she didn't say. Nor had she felt fear or horror. She'd felt like a disappointment. That was worse, in her book, than terror. You can numb yourself to fear. She felt like a disappointment again now, and this time one of her own had paid the price for her failure.
She might've been angry; it took a lot of effort for her to distance herself from the emotion. She hated anger, despite its uses. It clouded her judgment. See, these facts she knew: 1) she would've lost ignominiously to Cameron no matter what, 2) he couldn't have saved Mneme, and 3) she wouldn't have wanted anyone to see her so soon after that loss anyway.
She suspected she was angry at him though, not for not being there, but for being late to every scourge battle ever. For being a mysterious fucker that she couldn't read for shit. For looking like J, or for J looking like him. For being someone she couldn't know, couldn't understand.
Instead, Neo said, "Don't flatter yourself. I don't need you."
several check boxes ticked in iskander's mind as neo spoke. oh, she'd probably have met zahir, then. what name did he like to use? it was something rather silly, but he probably thought it was cool. he couldn't remember right now -- oh, right. batin, or something? he'd mentioned it before. if neo had met cameron, then she'd have lost to her. the camerupt wasn't something to be trifled with. he wouldn't have wanted to fight her, either, with pokémon or without.
iskander couldn't read neo's emotions well, either. he'd found anguish in mneme, though, and he'd resonated with that to the extent that he had to find out what was going on. it was similar for other scourge cases; sometimes, they told him they were going hunting, and he'd arrive to the scene to help out, sometimes they didn't and cases like neo's happened, where he never arrived.
a smile slowly spread across his face at the concluding words, and he nodded, but his smile was tinged with sadness. "my condolences," said the agent, referring to mneme, and placed the lunchbox where neo could see it. he didn't need neo either, he supposed. he'd worked fine without her, hadn't he? "maybe you don't need me now, but later on you never know."
iskander wasn't sure if he was saying those words out of truly feeling for neo, or if he wanted to stay and not leave. "i'll leave, maybe," he said, looking at neo, "but after you bury mneme."
