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!
Every since she "officially" joined Eos, Winnie had been chomping at the bit for something. Here was that something; someone wanted to do a dissection. This would be great for herself, and it was something to do. The girl who requested help seemed squeamish - all the better. Winnie could show off a little bit this way. And now she had the Dratini, Morrow, too. If that wasn't impressive, she didn't know what was. Honestly, she'd taken a liking to the little water-type himself. If only he was more appropriate for cuddling. Oh well. All good things came with time.
(She just really sucked at waiting.)
So here was something to bide her time; this dissection. She walked into the lab, and immediately felt at home. The sterile smell of anesthetic, the way linoleum tiles clicked under her boots: it all had a homey feel. "No matter where you go, or whatever happens, somethings never change..." she muttered nostalgically to no one in particular.
Regina appeared from a room glowing with monitors, grabbing a box of latex gloves off the shelf and shoving them under her armpit. A gothita waddled at her side, taking small, quick steps to match Regina's larger stride. It was dressed like a goth nurse, and it carried a small platter of long and delicate dissecting knives that shined like teeth. Her Golbat hung on the ceiling above, its large, leather wings caped around itself. One fatherly eye peeked out against the painful daylight, watchful of the brass pokeball it's master clutched. Finally, bellsprout nodded like a bobble head where it sat on her shoulder.
"Ugh! Sorry!" she managed, stomping quickly across the laboratory to meet the guest, pulling her arms through the sleeves of an eccentric lime-green lab coat. "Thanks for letting yourself in. I had to wrap up a few codes - nightmares I swear! You are Winifred Schiess? Call me Reggie if you like, and thanks for coming all this way!!" Regina offered a wholesome smile, mildly nervous grin at the woman.
"I have it right here - the filthy devil. He's a real piece. I-I wasn't expecting it to be so strong - even out of water!" she said, holding out the virus ball for the Winnie to take. Her arm shook, as if it were incredibly heavy.
alia isn't purturbed at all. this was something that she was ready for from day one, one of the responsibilities of a researcher. why should she be afraid of the inevitable? this is exactly what she signed up for - to learn the secrets of the epidemic that had taken her family and her partner.
the sterilized smell isn't something that she is wholly used to, but alia will adjust. the snover by her side is far more nervous, but at this point, alia has realized that freud's frayed nerves were an integral part of his personality, as opposed to some scourge trauma. even then, alia had thrown together a few tests to be absolutely sure that the snover wouldn't be bouncing off the walls at the sight of the specimen. no matter how many exciting situations alia likes to put him through, emotional trauma was never a part of the plan.
"sorry that i'm late. nice to meet'cha, my name is alia kirimi" alia isn't dressed for the part of an eos researcher, but she grabs a lab apron from a hook and figures that she looks a thousand times better already. "so that's our girl, eh?" she looks to the virus ball, mildly impressed. "better get started, then!"
The researcher she had been expecting appeared with a literal menagerie of pokemon, and Winnie was a bit discouraged with her newly acquired Dratini, who sat comfortably in a pokeball on her belt. Seeing 'Reggie's appearance, the red-head suddenly felt naked without a lab coat, and grabbed a generic-looking one off a hook. It looked strange with her normal attire, but she did feel more comfortable in it. "You can call me Winnie," she offered. Only the geisers in Agate called her Winifred. No thank you.
And then there's another, whom Winnie hadn't been expecting. She blinked at the other girl, who was Alia, apparently, and then grinned broadly. "Cool," she said. The more the merrier and all that. Hopefully she'd heard her previous introduction, because Winnie didn't feel like repeating it.
Reggie was holding out the virus ball and clearly looked intimidated. The whole issue of this was, to dissect it, the Barboach needed to be killed. Winnie had no qualms with this, but she wondered if the other two would. She was excited, frankly. She'd never seen an infected pokemon up close and personal, let alone cut inside it. But how to kill it? The most logical and humane way would be a lethal injection, but that wasn't about to work. Most of the pokemon she had dissected in the past had died of natural causes or were found already dead along the way.
Winnie stopped thinking too hard about this, and picked up the virus ball. She looked at it dubiously. "Well, we're just going to have to get this over with," she sounded at a loss. Did they just beat the poor thing to death with their pokemon? That would totally defeat the purpose. And something quick, like an electric move, that would just fry his insides. "Does, uh, anyone have, like, a meat cleaver?"
You go, Winnie. What a professional. Meat cleavers are totally scientific equipment. You are truly the brightest of your generation. She wanted her conscious to shut up about her life choices.
Post by cold volume on May 2, 2013 14:52:39 GMT -5
"Y-yes, well, how to get started?" said Regina, nodding to Alia. A tight business huff I'm not certain about meat clevers - it's a nastly little wretch. It's slippery too, the sneaky bastard. And it smells like the breath of an old hag who doesn't brush her teeth -- just licks her tongue across them or something. I--" she bent down and took the tray of scalpels from the Gothita, "Only have these devices." She held them out to Winnie. "They are used by the medical examiners, but maybe we should improvise?"
She turned to Alia as well, hoping the girl could suggest something - Regina was at a loss.
"dude, it's probably not even sentient anymore - don't feel too guilty" alia makes a motion for the virus ball. "hopefully, the fact that you captured it means that it's beaten half to death by now. if we have to subdue it, then the three of us ought to be enough, don't you think? freud can subdue it with icy wind if it tries to give us any trouble", the emphasis indicating that she doesn't believe that they will have much trouble at all. "plus, the cells will be better preserved if we freeze it first. i've heard that these things rot pretty quick." she gives a thoughtful look. "maybe that's why we have so little information on the scourge, actually."
Winnie gave the virus ball to Alia when she motioned for it, and leaned to grab a couple of gloves out of the box by Reggie. She slapped them on quickly, and smoothed them out under the sleeves of her labcoat. It didn't overlap much, but Winnie was going to try damn hard not to get any of that thing's stuff on her. Or whatever the hell it was.
"The freezing sounds like a good idea," she nodded her agreement. "Like, a, uh, thin layer or something. Then we just slice it under the throat -" she made a motion across her own neck, biting her tongue a little so it peeked out of the corner of her mouth - "And voila. Dead fish, productive researchers." She smiled and gave a thumbs up, although she was certain she sounded like an idiot.
Whatever, once they cut this thing open she'd just shut up and hack it to pieces. It would be easy. The stench would probably be awful, since these things looked like they were already half dead, and the organs would most likely already be well on their way to decay.
Post by cold volume on May 2, 2013 20:27:41 GMT -5
"Well, that's the thing - I didn't exactly subdue it. Someone else did, and then, she gave it to me. Then something called me back to Prosperina before I had time to make a serious investigation. ---- Yes, they do decay. They seem to melt into black ichor when their energy goes kaput. Let's use freud then, and for back up, Sunshine can put it to sleep. I-I shouldn't have looked at it alone the first time," she winced as Alia took the Pokeball.
"You can release it whenever your ready." She held the Bellsprout aimed at the virus ball like a Glock.
"doesn't sound like a problem to me. if worst came to worst, then grass moves should sort this sucker out" yes, the scourge body would be damaged, but it was never a question whether she should prioritize the specimen or these girls' safety.
she opens the ball. the scourge barboach falls to the floor with a sickening 'splat'. evidently, the virus ball had started to do its other job.
"well, that's rather anticlimatic" alia wrinkles her nose. "makes sense that a watery...fish thing would break down faster than a geodude, though"
the barboach gives a few pathetic flops with his enlongated body.
"tough luck, buddy. sucks to live in contained bodies of water, i guess. freud, freeze him, won'tcha?"
the snover complies, and the flopping slows before ceasing completely. alia grins. "can't say that i see this too often on the open fish markets. let's dig in!"
The Barboach slipped and slid out of the pokeball and fell to the awful sound and splutter.
The Snover set the frost on the Barbroach, and Winnie leaned down to look at it. She crouched and tilted her head at it. Part of her wanted to pick it up just by the tail and move it to the tray, but who knew. The meat of the fish could've slid right off the spine. Gross. She made a face and then picked it up with both hands.
Winnie placed the pokemon on the tray, and it was pretty lethargic, if still holding on anyway. She red-haired girl sniffed, and didn't say anything as she picked up one the medical knives that Reggie had brought out. She put her index finger on it and pressed it at where the Barbroach's throat likely was. This thing was in pretty bad shape.
Deftly, and in one uninterrupted movement, she flicked the blade to it's tail. Part of her balked when she thought about peeling back the skin; what was under it. She held her hands out, one twirling the scalpel like a baton. "Okay, good start."
Post by cold volume on May 5, 2013 13:08:35 GMT -5
Regina lifted her wrist to her nose as the smell rose up - a putrid odor like rotten seafood and strong vinegar - but it went away as the fish stiffened into a white solid rod. Regina leaned in closer, her brittle black hair tickling Winnie's red waves, the trio like a gathering of witches.
The black fluid formed a slush in the frozen carcass, the organs hard stones in the belly. Regina digged around with the metal tip of another instrument, her Bellsprout leaning over with curiosity. Her Golbat also waddled around where it clung on the ceiling to get a better view.
"It's a real mess inside. The organs look like they are made completely of whatever this black substance is they melt into as they rot alive. It is as if they are already dead when they are alive, moving and consciouse What is this?." She scooped up what looked like the lumpy remains of a heart, black and a but of a melted lump similar to that of a carcass several days exposed to the microbes.
alia simply stops breathing through her nose and resumes again once the barboach became frozen fish. she reaches into her bag (she should really set that on another table, shouldn't she?) and pulls out her observation journal. she approaches the tray unabashedly and begins making her sketches. alia catches the details that might otherwise be missed in a written lab report. she makes enlargements, structural blurbs, and other notables.
"dunno, but we could probably toss it into a chemical analyzer" alia isn't very refined, but she gets her point across. "see what tissues match which tissues from a normal barboach. do we need to write in a request for that from headquarters?" she hoped not.
"but dude, what about the ghost types? they don't even have tissues to begin with. has anyone seen a scourge gengar floating about?"
She had been able to stomach it until Regina flipped back the incision Winnie had made. The smell hit her like a wall, and she gagged inaudibly before regaining her composure. This was awful - this was a thing that had been alive. Now it was slowly rotting, just moments after it had really died. This was the kind of thing that would happen after weeks in a damn swamp.
She listened to the other researchers' observations, and looked between the thing herself, delicately so. She didn't want it to just fall apart in her fingers. The smell was worse, and everything looked like it was oozing tar. The bones were brittle, if even solid and not part of some congealed mass. Winnie frowned.
"That seems like the best bet," she said in reference to Alia "because this probably won't get us anywhere." There was no anatomical method to this madness - it was undecipherable from what Winnie supposed she would find in a healthy Barboach. "Ghost types seem freaky," she agreed "but imagine, like, a scrouge Aerodactyl flying above you or something. Creepy." Winnie really wanted to get better at this kind of thing and prove that she was good at it; and get strong enough to hold her own in battles with scrouge she would inevitably face.
Post by cold volume on May 9, 2013 22:46:59 GMT -5
"Yeah yeah - let's try," Reggie said, sucking it up and scooping up the nasty mess. Even though it was wet and stiff, it felt mushy in her grasp. Like a bloated hot dog, or an old man's flaccid member. The stuff she bothered to shove into an instrument.
She walked over to a fat instrument with a chamber door. We'll shoot it with the laser beam and run it through the detector." She hadn't thought she would use this device. In fact, she was pretty sure shoving a rotten barboach in here would break the machine as it was studying it. But- maybe this could yield something valuable.
She turned to her colleagues pushing up her glasses. "Wow, that was --- digusting." she murmured, "But dammit, maybe it really can say what this things' made of -worth a try." The way Alia said dude, Regina thought, was congenial and unprofessional. Her eyes flickered down to the notebook as if it were just a hobby. "...Do you know what this is?" she asked with a bite of condescension, and then with a gloating smile, she turned to Winnie.
"You'd probably see the shadow of it on the ground and then, that would be it...." she muttered with dread, closing the hatch door with a thunk.
"nah, i meant like" alia makes general gestures with her hands. "how does this stuff operate in 'mons without a corphreal form? if hades really is a virus, i mean-"
her thoughts are interrupted by one regina c.
"no, but" alia smirks at regina's inquiry before it lapses into a smile. "doesn't change the fact that you still took my advice" she stands casually in a contrapposto. alia's been through high school and eaten girls like regina for breakfast. she doesn't feel the need to prove anything. so maybe some girls are techier than others, but that doesn't mean that she's any less useful. being able to tie cherry stems with his tongue never helped her unovan friend score any chicks.
...speaking of unovan friends...alia flips back to the earlier pages from a time before she received a pokedex.
there. a young blitzle that he had brought for show and tell. no one had believed his stories of his exceptional ability, but alia had been young and naive...
"hey...have either of you heard of anything called pokerus?"
