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!
It's places like this that Byte has to stay hidden away from. Somehow, the Porygon-Z always knew where the Hades Agent was, and the creature was never too far away anyways.
He could have been another businessman with a sleek black laptop tucked under an arm.
There was something particularly charming about Proserpina City. Aaron did not particularly loathe people; he loathed their incompetence. But in a city, it was the people that kept the area working like a well-oiled machine. Even Grimer's Court had its uses, a place to shove the rejects of social Darwinism into. This, in itself, was beautiful too.
A Starly landed near Aaron's feet, completely engrossed in pecking away at stray breadcrumbs. He watched the bird Pokémon calculate which crumbs were the nearest to the point its beak would land on. "You're quite busy," he muses to the Pokémon. Its coloration is normal, neither Scourge nor Eos property. How boring.
The gold lion pranced his way through the city. Abbadon was on his toes, leaping for every bird, playing with all the loose shoelaces, and all out getting in everyone's way. The Shinx was more of a pup than a cat. He was always filled with these bursts of energies and had not once been caught sleeping outside of his ball. Embla was finding him to be a handful.
Abbadon dove for the Starly at Aaron's feet, batting his paws around in a mad attempt to get a hold on the bird. The breadcrumbs under his paws were thrown left and right as he rolled onto his back and reached for the bird, a puff of feathers as its claws scratched the pavement in attempts to get away.
Thankfully, the woman was there to save all lives that could have ended by her Shinx's paws. Embla didn't speak nor scold. She plucked him from the floor, her fingers under his arms, and brought him close enough to kiss his tiny nose. He was just a Shinx, who just wanted to play.
The woman's soft gaze tilted to the side, taking a look at the man in the suit beside her. Embla looked him up and down, her heels clicking against the concrete as she turned to face him. "That wasn't yours, was it?" Her head tilted toward where the Starly had been. "The bird?"
Aaron did not even flinch as the Starly spread its wings and fluttered away. Only a light rain of down was left behind as a sign of what had stood where the Shinx had pounced. The bird Pokémon would find another place to eat, he supposed. Such was the cycle of Kohaku.
"No, not at all," the man responded. "I don't carry Pokémon with me." Which was true. Byte followed Aaron around mostly by his own will, and aside from the Porygon-Z, Aaron did not actually have any Pokémon of his own.
He lifted his eyes for the first time, nearly losing his cool demeanor. Embla always had a distinct look about her, long and pale hair, striking eyes. The left side of his brain told him that Embla Vollan had been dead for a year. The Scourge left very few victims (he considered himself a very, very rare exception); they would have torn her apart mercilessly. Too many bodies left in Pax Institute had been left completely unidentifiable.
She would have called him to say that she was safe.
"I'm sure that more will come around. There seem to always be bread crumbs lying on the pavement here."
She is just another woman. There is no reason to get angry or upset. He keeps his expression casual and unreadable, even pleasant.
When Embla looked up at the sky, a hand shielding her eyes from the bright daylight, she saw no sign of other Starly. But if she looked down the sidewalk, there were a couple quite some ways down, attacking an even larger amount of breadcrumbs. "Do you put them there?" she questioned, gaze dropping again to fix on him. Someone had to be throwing crumbs on the ground. Probably an elderly with a love for bird Pokemon, or a kind man, who wanted to keep the Pokemon happy.
Embla brought her Pokemon close, whispering in his ear, "Don't go far." Then she set him back down on the ground. Abbadon was already eyeing the next batch of Starly, his body bent low and tail swishing in the air. He was a hunter, that was for sure. And Embla was thankful. Someone on the team needed to be a fighter.
"I apologize, if we have interrupted your train of thought. Or your bird watching." Or whatever he had been doing previous to the Shinx making a mess of bread crumbs on everyone's shoes. Embla's hands clasped together and she bowed to the man, as her apology.
Aaron decides to be honest. "Sometimes, yes," he responds with a small nod. "Sometimes, they're already here before I sit down." He'd visited the same bench on three separate occasions and felt this was enough to merit whether he swung by often or not. He would play the role of the kind man for now, the man who wanted to make Pokémon that were not his happy.
"No, please don't worry too hard about it," he says. "It was no trouble at all." If this woman truly was feeling apologetic, he could take advantage of it. So he did. The man patted the empty spot on the bench beside him. "It's not very often that people stop here," Aaron says quietly, before lifting his eyes to meet Embla's. It's the same facial expression, same words, same everything. "If you have nowhere to be, I wouldn't mind some company."
The wheels in his head turned furiously, though his face revealed nothing. Embla had been a corpse, another piece of meat left to consume for the EScourge. Hope was a dangerous thing, and Aaron was intent upon smothering the small flicker he felt inside of him. And if it was her, why would she join Eos? He would have expected her to be just as critical of the organization's failure to efficiently exterminate all the brutes.
On the other hand, Aaron was convinced that the brutes were Eos themselves.
Embla wrung out her hands in front of her, head tilting away and eyes shutting as she considered the offer. She should have been moving onward on her journey to obtain new dex entries. She had so few. But perhaps this man had his own Pokemon to offer? He could be useful. Perhaps he was a breeder, or a trainer who intended to catch them all.
The question was answered not with words, but by her taking a seat at his side, her legs swinging beneath her and crossing at the ankles. Embla's gaze fixed on the man again, brushing back her bangs as she raised a curious eyebrow. "Tell me, stranger, what calls you to these parts of the region?" she insisted, with a wondering head tilt. "Was it the Eos Program?"
Up until now, that had been what brought many so far from their homes to Juno and Proserpina. That program had been what drew Embla in. She could not have turned down the chance to get close to and study the Scourge. "Apologies, if I am jumping to the wrong conclusions."
Stranger? Yes, perhaps Aaron had been wrong after all. Embla would have recognized him. He merely blinked at her question before clearing his throat to answer it. "Yes, it was," he responded, "though not the Eos program directly." This was all still fact. Eos was the reason why he had become a Hades agent in the first place. He hadn't lied to her yet.
Aaron shook his head. "No, your conclusions are correct," he said.
They always were.
There was one more question on the agent's mind, though it was one that he dreaded to ask. Still, it was now or never.
"Oh. So, you are not a Eos trainer at all? Well, I happen to be an Eos researcher," the female spoke, her smile seeming almost forced onto her face. "And I surely hope that this doesn't get in the way of our conversation." Maybe this man wanted nothing to do with the Eos Program, Embla would never know unless he told her. But it wasn't her place to pry into his personal life and reasons.
The girl's eyes rolled as she looked up at the other through her eyelashes. "People call me by many names. Researcher, Girl, Heels," she listed a few. A hand outstretched toward the man, an offer to shake. She knew that wasn't the answer that he was looking for. "But my parents call me Embla. Embla Vollen."
Embla's smile was more sincere now. "And what do you call yourself, newcomer?"
Aaron shook his head. Though his face remained with the same expression, he was still rather taken aback that Embla had become a member of Eos. Wasn't Eos the reason why Embla was -- no, this couldn't possibly be the same woman sitting beside him. It didn't add up; not one bit. But Aaron was left to ponder this on his own, and the only the slightest twitch of his index finger was left to betray how he truly felt about that statement.
"Embla, is it?" he mused. The name rolled off his tongue pleasantly.
Newcomer.
It doesn't take very long for him to think of an alias. "Samuel Haynes," he responded smoothly. "I'm no stranger to Proserpina though. I don't live very far, considering that I came from Juno." Aaron manages to smile back and wonders if he actually looks as hollow as he feels right now.
"Samuel," Embla whispered the name, keeping it tucked away in her memory. "I like it." She stated, beaming warmly as she leaned toward him, her head tilted quite curiously to the side. Embla watched and she listened, always willing to lend an ear to a lonely stranger.
"Oh! My apologies. It seems that I'm the newcomer then. I hail from the Mors Desert. The Fortuna Oasis," she made it much clearer, a hand flattening down her skirt, as she tilted her gaze away to look for where her partner Pokemon had gone.
Even then, she was still speaking to the man beside her while she searched for the ball of fur. "Have you never left these parts then? There is a very large world out there, Samuel. It may not be considered a safe one, but what's life without a bit of danger?"
Immediately, Aaron regretted giving Embla an alias. He should have been honest with her. Too late now, so all he could do was try to look her in the eye.
He shook his head at Embla. "No need to apologize," he said, and managed another friendly smile. "I've traveled my fair share, as far as Lake Pax." He paused, wondering if the detail he wanted to add would be safe to tack on. He decided to anyways. It had always been difficult to lie to her. "I worked at the Pax Institute before the Scourge."
Aaron's eyes searched for anything epiphanies that may be visible in Embla's own. Did she remember? Did she remember the Pax Institute, and the time spent there? The Agent was not so engrossed in his own emotions that he did not notice Embla breaking eye contact with him. It was a relief, but his stomach dropped a bit, wondering if she truly did not remember anything.
"You've been to Lake Pax?" Embla gasped, surprised to hear this. Her face was lit up with a smile and she tucked her hair back, giving a shy laugh. "I hear that all the best researchers worked at Pax before the incident. Is that true? As a child, it was always my dream to be there. I was so close. But then..." Then the Scourge attacked. She didn't know why or how.
The Shinx was nowhere in sight. Who knew where he had wandered off to? There was a lack of bird Pokemon in the vicinity too. Wherever the birds had gone, Abaddon was surely there.
"He's probably gotten himself lost. That one has no sense of direction," Embla sighed, a little frustrated by this fact. But there was no worry in her eyes. She always told her Shinx that, if he were ever lost, he could wait at a Pokemon Center. She would always find him there.
The corners of Aaron's mouth twitch with amusement. "Yes, I have," he replied.
And so have you.
"The best of the best, yes. It's true."
(He wondered if she saw him swallow thickly.)
He would tack on that he knew from personal experience, but Pax Institute was not held in such high esteem anymore, not after the Pax Institute Incident. In fact, he loathed Pax, loathed Eos, loathed all who had foolishly pursued the serum that had later morphed into the Hades virus. But none of this was Embla's fault, so he did not voice his true opinions. Instead, he tried to remain pleasant.
Keeping things from Embla wasn't going to make her remember though.
Aaron's red eyes flickered east towards Ceres Forest. "I didn't see where he ran off to, but I would think it safe to conclude that he ran off in search of more Pokémon to chase after."
"Were you one of the best?" Embla asked, a finger against her jaw as she curiously tilted her head to the right. He might not have been a researcher at all. But, if he'd been to Pax, maybe he'd been into the facility. It may not have been true, but it was a possibility she wanted to consider. What if she were meeting a famous Pax Institute survivor right now? He might as well be a celebrity! Just like that darling Cypress had been.
Embla kicked her feet out before her, heels firm on the ground before she lifted herself up from the bench. A hand cupped above her eyes, shielding them from the glare of the spring sun. The woman squinted and looked in each direction.
No sign of him. "You must be right. That sounds just like something my Shinx would do! But where would he go? To the ocean?" Or maybe to the forest. The Shinx could fry a lot of fish in the sea. But he was a cat! And what cat liked to risk falling into a basin of salty water? "Or Ceres, perhaps. But that would be dangerous. What an adventurous one, he is."
One of the best? Aaron liked to think that he was, though, he was not a researcher. He was the one making sure that Pax Institute's systems didn't overload or that their computers didn't explode. Sometimes, he was "IT Guy", but only after his efficiency was proven, did people begin to call him "Mr. Sideris". "I was very good at my job," he responded. "I ensured that none of Pax's databases overloaded. The Institute would generate an incredible amount of data each day." He paused for a moment, before adding, "No, I did not research, though I knew people who did."
Like yourself.
Embla's words were disheartening to Aaron. He did not understand what was glorious about surviving the Pax attack. Then again, he did feel some sort of a pride that the Scourge, that Byte, had chosen him. Perhaps the Porygon-Z had belonged to a researcher of Pax, claimed by the Scourge. Granted, Byte was not the brightest crayon in the box, but the Scourge Pokémon meant well, and at least the Porygon-Z listened to him.
"We should look for him, then," the man said, rising from his seat. "I... am not occupied by anything currently. I would like to go with you."
boone I forgot you posted here orz I'M SORRY also this is the 15th post, so we can move on if you'd like.
It's places like this that Byte has to stay hidden away from. Somehow, the Porygon-Z always knew where the Hades Agent was, and the creature was never too far away anyways.
The gold lion pranced his way through the city. Abbadon was on his toes, leaping for every bird, playing with all the loose shoelaces, and all out getting in everyone's way. The Shinx was more of a pup than a cat. He was always filled with these bursts of energies and had not once been caught sleeping outside of his ball. Embla was finding him to be a handful.
