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!
leonardo is a cute little rufflet, but cute never won anyone scourge battles. unless the pokemon was a skitty, alia supposes. he's a scrawny little thing who has a tendency to pick through alia's hair for worms, but she doesn't particularly mind. in these times, everyone has to make do with what they have.
she already set her goal. a couple of weeks to turn this little bird into a holy terror of the skies.
"time to earn your keep, little guy" alia retrieves the rufflet from her hair, but her hands freeze as she notices the person on the other side of the arena.
She brought Lachesis to the stadium tonight, and Lachesis... well, Neo was ashamed to admit it, but Lachesis had rarely been out of the PC since she'd been hatched, let alone out in the Dream World's arena.
Excitably, the fire monkey charged out into the center of the field as soon as Neo stepped into the trainer's box. She squinted into the stadium's bright lights to see across the field to--oh.
Oh.
"Alia," Neo said, almost stunned. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the floodlights and--yup, it was still Alia standing there. Inadvertently, like an recalling an old memory all of a sudden, Neo smiled and then laughed. "Never thought I'd see your face again."
The laughter faded to something bittersweet. "Never thought to hope to see you again."
lv1 scratch, nasty plot (...so this is gonna be a pretty one-sided fight lol)
alia had seen a few familiar faces here and there - a city undergoing diaspora can do that to you. what she hasn't met is a friend. a friend who wasn't eaten by the scourge or taken refuge on the other (safer) side of kohaku.
the rufflet flies out of alia's hair before she can do anything about him. he thinks that the tuft of hair on the pansear is a delectable berry. he dives towards it with aerial ace.
"leonida!" giddiness surges in her chest, and alia can't hold back a grin. she didn't dread that her friends were dead, but neither did she hope that they were alive. emotions, she can process once they rise up to meet her. "are you okay? in the waking world, i mean. where are you?"
"Could be worse. I ran out of Decima, headed to Pax like an idiot, but I made it alright. Eos took me in. I'm in Nerio now. What about you?"
Neo hesitated, because this might not be a very tactful question, but she pushed on anyway. The Karimi family were old neighbors--Neo would even call them friends. Some of the last she had if they were alive and well. "What about your family?" Neo asked, and her tone was wary for bad news.
She prayed Alia's siblings had made it too.
The pansear dodged the aerial ace and responded with a scratch.
"i'm in nerio too! and uh. i got beaten bloody on the first day. maddi didn't...make it" alia hadn't eaten anything in the dream world all night, but the bitterness in her mouth is like unsweetened chocolate. there wasn't much that she could do for her medicham, a fact that eos' psychiatrists had drilled into her head for weeks. "melchior roped me out - can't believe people are still talking shit about him, but that's mob psychology to you - and i'm distilling vaccines for eos now"
it all spills out of her like a floodgate had been broken. it feels good to be talking about all of this to someone who doesn't simply nod and gasp in sympathy. someone who actually knows a thing or two about losing an entire world.
alia pauses at her last question. "i don't know, and i'm not going to laugh or cry until i get some information. might want to hold off on the hallmark cards - it would be a shame if you bought the wrong kind"
the rufflet certainly didn't expect his dinner to retaliate. he dodges the attack and responds with a peck at his eyes. the rufflet is a feisty thing for a newborn.
"so you're fighting, then? or relocating to bellona?" lvl 1 keen eye PECK, LEER, ROOST, BRAVE BIRD, AERIAL ACE
"Maddi--" who was Maddi? Then it dawned on her. Of course. It was so strange how easy it was to forget names. The question died on Neo's lips. Instead, she spoke god's own truth, or at least what she considered it: "Melchior's a good man."
Neo nodded. She understood. For her, there was no question, no hope, but that finality and certain knowledge of being the last of your name was comforting in its own way. That sort of truth was cold, but it was a rock--steady and unshakable.
The pansear flailed as the bird pecked at it. Ow! Grumpy, it retaliated with another scratch, because it knew so many attacks.
"Sometimes. I made it to Hespera--nothing there for me, but... I thought to see who'd survived made it there--and turned back. Now, it's Nerio. Trying to help the rest of the recruits get a leg up. We need help at Pax, and at Bacchus too. If the press is telling feelgood stories, I can tell you our odds are a lot grimmer out there than anyone wants to admit. But I guess you already know what we're up against."
"isn't he!" alia feels a head cold coming on, but she still finds it in her to defend decima's gym leader to the last breath. "the folks who find it easy to talk his smack are the ones who would cry at the prospect of having their electricity cut for a few hours"
the folks who live a good distance from pax don't know anything. alia works so that they wouldn't have to. at the same time, the world feels like a lonlier place because of their ignorance.
she's never been the elegant sort, with pretty words that can close wounds better than any medicine. that was her mother, but she's gone now. alia doesn't speak her condolences to her friend, but it is offered nonetheless.
leonardo squaks at the assault and backs off a bit, taking refuge in the air. not for long. he retaliates with an aerial ace.
"i can't say that i do" alia flips open her pokedex and points it at the pansear. "i think a psychic type got me good in the noggin - nothing permanent, thankfully, but. i only knew what happened because the nurses filled me in during my time in the hospital. i got a couple of eyewitness accounts too, but that's about it. heh. i'm not about to drag you down, though - you gotta give me more credit than that, leo" lvl 1 keen eye PECK, LEER, ROOST, BRAVE BIRD, AERIAL ACE
The monkey pokemon sidestepped the attack, tumbling nimbly out of the way. The follow-up scratch was not a surprise to anyone. Neo didn't even need to give the order.
"Some people don't know what it's like to make a hard decision." Personally, and she'd be hard pressed to ever admit it aloud, she disagreed with Melchior's decision. It was too much scorched earth, destroying what he was meant to protect, desperate before the situation was desperate. But in the end, when under pressure, he'd done what he thought best--without fear, without hesitation. For that, Neo had nothing but respect. "I'm proud to have him as our gym leader."
Memory loss should be a terrifying thing. Being on the receiving end of a strong psychic, enough to cause black outs, that was the sort of thing that haunted anyone that relied on their intelligence. But in this instance, Neo found herself smiling, because this was good. This was better than the alternative. "I'm glad. Spared yourself a lot of emotional scarring."
But is an emotional scar still there if you can't see it?
"'Course not. Gonna give you the same amount of credit I give everyone in EOS. Gonna expect you to send the scourge back where they came from."
the rufflet has the same amount of paitience that alia has. after a quick roost, leo launches himself at the monkey with a brave bird. or ill-tempered bird, really.
alia doesn't remember enough of post-scourge decima to declaim melchior. of course the eos folks would have nothing but praise for the gym leader, several cities away from the destruction. "yeah...i gotta thank him once i get back"
"nah, sucks 'cos i don't know shit while everyone else runs around like headless pidgey" alia shakes her head. "it's so weird - and they look at you different, you know? like you're only in the fight for the adrenaline or something"
the adrenaline is only a bonus.
"thanks, leonida! just like old times, huh?"
never mind that alia was usually the one who was causing collateral damage with the lab equiptment. but hey, she's grown up since then. probably. lvl 1 keen eye PECK, LEER, ROOST, BRAVE BIRD, AERIAL ACE
It put up a half decent fight, but the elemental conked out unconscious onto the arena. Neo would only have had encouraging words for the pansear if it'd been conscious. It fought better than she'd expected.
She recalled the pansear. "Just like old times," Neo repeated without expression, but almost--not quite--bemused by the realization. "The more things change, the more things stay the same."
Neo shrugged a bit of tension out of her shoulders. The battle was over--good. "Doesn't matter why anyone fights the good fight, if you ask me. Means more that they fight at all. I'll watch any adrenaline junkie's back if they watch mine."
the rufflet is a little miffed that neo took away his spoils away. maybe eating the pansear would have helped him on his quest to become a braviary.
"yeah" alia's mood seems to lift. "just shows how much the scourge know about us, huh?"
alia doesn't think that she's only in the war for the thrill, but the sentiment is appreciated nevertheless. "well, not everyone thinks like you, leonida"
"I guess not," Neo replied, knowing that it was the understatement of the year. Very few people thought like she did, although a slightly larger number at least had minds to match her calibre--Alia was one of them. The world didn't need that many great thinkers anyhow though, in Neo's opinion. Nothing would ever get done.
"We should meet up. In person--rather I mean, in reality. Nerio's a good place for a reunion. Not as good as Decima's town square, but standards are lower in these hard times."
"yeah, let's" no matter what comforts the dream world offered, it's not the world that she knew. it's not a world where she has something to fight for, something to believe in.
"nerio, yes" alia looks a little sheepish and decides not to admit that she hasn't even seen the banks of pax yet. there were plenty of distractions to be had on the way to the lake. "i guess i'll see you in the pokemon center, then?"
