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!
He hadn't actually expected PI Sofia to hand him over a captured live Scourge Seel specimen, but he couldn't exactly say no to her because the woman had disappeared as suddenly as she'd expected. He could only think of one thing after that.
So he gave Neo a ring.
Mordecai was vaguely suspicious that Neo liked him enough, but that he was a bit of a BFG. At least, he hoped that Neo liked him enough, because he had very little idea about what to do with the captured Scourge Seel specimen. This was not the first time that he had encountered Scourge, but he'd never actually been handed one over in a Pokéball before, and the Bulwark was a little too far away now.
He waited in front of the Pokémon Center's glass doors, the Virus Ball in his pack twitching occasionally.
Neo met Mordecai at the pokemon center's entrance.
For the record, she liked him well enough. He was a good guy. She also thought he was dumb as a pile of bricks, but Eos didn't hire their breeders to be smart, so that wasn't a point against him.
"Hey," she said. Without pomp or circumstance, she handed him six syringes, carefully packaged. "Vaccines. Told you I'd get you a few."
the wild pokemon in nerio's streets are definately at a different calibur. the battles in ceres had been almost relaxing at best. in this city, there is a quiet sort of desperation to how they fight against trespassers.
maybe camus could have taken them, but alia thought that it was a good opportunity to try her new companion. the dewott walks proudly beside her, his battle scars fresh from that morning.
"damn, you're something else, hypatia" alia allows herself a small grin. "maybe we'll make it to decima after all - leonida!"
seeing her in the flesh is so much more surreal than seeing her in the dream world. alia puts a hand on neo's shoulder, as if confirming that she's really standing here in front of alia. "you're really here in nerio - with your..."
leonida didn't have a brother, from what alia remembers.
Mordecai blinked at the vaccines. At first, he hadn't thought that Neo was being serious, but then again, Neo did not seem like a person who used her words frivolously. So he accepted them with a nod and a, "Thanks, Neo."
The Virus Ball twitches again.
"It may be a little too open out here. Might cause some commotion if --"
He isn't allowed to finish his sentence concerning what may or may not happen if they released a Scourge Seel in public. Perhaps Neo had a makeshift lab in the basement of this Pokémon Center as well. Mordecai's words are not stopped by this concern, but instead, by a blue-haired woman.
"Just Neo these days, actually," she said to Alia, just a casual remark. She'd never mentioned that she'd stopped going by her first name to Alia. "It's... in memoriam," Neo lied, skipping only a very short beat. It was the first time she'd needed to explain why she went by her last name. "Living for the entire family now."
To Mordecai, she nodded. Quite frankly, she didn't have a problem stabbing and dissecting a seel in the middle of the street, but she suspected it cause other people some problems. "There's always some space in a pokemon center's basement. Storage, at least."
...Boyfriend?
You know, if she had a boyfriend, it wouldn't be Mordecai. He was a plenty decent guy, Neo would quickly acknowledge and even defend if she had to, but her type trended a little less vacant. Unfairly to Mordecai, Neo considered Mordecai very vacant. Unfairly to Alia, her type had previously been a little less selective.
Neo's face blanched, something caught between a wince and a sigh, before she smiled--grimaced, depending on your perspective--and said, "Alia? Despite past evidence on the contrary, not every man I speak to is a boyfriend of mine."
"oh" alia's face falls, but she doesn't press. not for now, at least. "nice to meet you, neo!"
alia can't say that she won't slip up every now and then, but she'll do her best to remember. and if she doesn't, well. she's still leonida, no matter what she's called now. she's seen a lot of things since coming to nerio. alia can say with confidence that the day that kohaku loses to the scourge will be the day that people change who they are in the face of their new adversary.
to alia, neo's expression was totally a smile.
"right, right, who's got time for 'em these days?" alia pauses. "...then what's too open for me to see out here?"
Storage basement, just like old times. "That could work," he says, before glancing back at Alia. He supposes that if this blue-haired woman was a friend of Neo's, then she could be trusted. The Seel wasn't going to be very cooperative though, so perhaps the more help should have been welcomed with open arms. "We're... cutting a Scourge Seel open for science," he said to her. It was only going to be a matter of time before the creature rotted away within the Virus Ball anyways. Best to put it out of its misery quickly.
He tries not to think of what may have been flashing through Alia's mind about what his conversation with Neo had been all about.
He also had little idea that Neo had lost her family too, perhaps, to the Scourge. Such was an all too common story for children and adults alike in Kohaku nowadays. "Do you have a lab set up here too?" he asks Neo.
"No," Neo said, not bothering to explain that she wasn't a mystical little fairy that conjured up laboratories everywhere she went. She really didn't expect Mordecai to ask clever questions anyway.
She spoke briefly to a chansey, more demanding than requesting a surgical room, if available, for dissection purposes. Neo liked to think she wasn't too pushy. She said she'd be alright with a storage room if they had a tarp for the floor. Cleanliness was of paramount importance. Pushy or not, she didn't leave much room for debate. The chansey chattered away, and Neo led the three of them to the basement, where there was a morgue.
There was a sizable autopsy table--perhaps big enough for a lapras--in the morgue, as well as a cupboard with the usual tools. "This will do nicely."
alia sends her dewott off to get treatment and observes the exchange quietly. neo is definately more brusque now than in their school days. then again, she supposes that is only to be expected. alia is still waiting for news of her family - neo is the one who is plagued with certainty.
alia thinks that she would like to see her laugh again.
she follows them into the morgue. turning to mordecai, she asks, "so how do you two know each other?"
as they approach the autopsy table, alia pulls out a single pokeball. "how far along is the seel? is it just a lump of cells by now, or are we gonna have to make it sleep?"
Mordecai followed Neo down to the autopsy room. Once there, he pulls out a twitching Virus Ball. "I bumped into Neo in Proserpina City," Mordecai explained to Alia. "That was when she scanned my Pokémon for extra dex entries, but I was also with her while she vaccinated her Magikarp." He remembered watching Neo set to work. She was incredibly focused on her work. It was nearly frightening, but Mordecai supposed that was also the reason why he respected her. She was very serious about her work.
"It's been weakened by the Virus Ball," Mordecai replied. "Probably won't be very belligerent, but if there was a way to make it sleep, that would be best." Or at least, something to tame the Seel so that it could be dissected. "The most I have is Levis' singing, though I'm not sure how effective that will be." He hoped that either Neo or Alia had some means of anesthesia for the Scourge Seel. He could still feel the Virus Ball rattling, so the fight wasn't entirely taken from the creature.
"He's a breeder," Neo added as advice from one researcher to another. "If you have a chance, study his pokemon. All of them. He has quite a few."
Neo brought out Leto, and the haunter blinked into the bright light of their makeshift laboratory. "Leto, ready a hypnosis. We're bringing out a scourge seel." To the others, Neo explained, "Leto once put a scourge camerupt to sleep for an entire battle. I trust her hypnosis will be highly effective."
alia's eyes lit up as it hits her that neo was probably collecting pokedex entries as well. her old competitive spirit flares up.
"wait, how many entries do you have right now?"
she listens to neo's exploits and can't help but feel a giddy sort of anticipation. "yeah, i guess i'll leave that to you"
as overconfident as she can be at times, this isn't the time to find out whether a grasswhistle and hypnosis would cancel each other out. alia has a lot of pride, but not at the risk of her friends.
instead, she takes the chance to scan the haunter.
