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!
Salacia Beach might have lacked a certain je nais se quoi in the middle of winter, but Thalia was sticking it out anyway, goddamnit. This was her reward for beating Atlanta and she had earned it. Thalia glared at the silhouette of the cruiser on the horizon for a moment, but her gaze softened as she looked at her pokemon.
The greninja she had been given by that strange man in the mountains was still timid, but the ocean seemed to have relaxed him a bit. He was tentatively splashing about on the edge of the beach with her vaporeon, the two of them sending waves cresting onto the beach with well timed water pulses to splash over the mudkip as he burrowed into the sand. In the distance, blastoise was swimming, only the curve of his shell visible over the water.
Thalia shivered and leaned closer against her ninetales. The fire-type wrapped another tail around her and purred as she carded her fingers through his fur and tried to ignore the chill.
"...i've always known that the people of sol city can't resist a good beach" karimi walks towards them, wrapped snugly in a blue sweater and with a swampert at her side. she looks around the beach, noting that they weren't the only ones who were around. "...but i didn't think the thirst was this bad. i'm fairy certain that water pokemon catch colds too."
a smile on her lips. is it gentle? karimi doesn't really know what they look like on her face anymore. the swampert makes a beeline into the water, causing giant waves to overcome any who were too close.
"uh...oops? sorry about his eagerness, but we did travel quite a way to see you, thalia. okay, maybe not just you, but most of the trainers are congregating around sol gym at this point, so i figured we'd run into some all-stars eventually"
"yeah, anyone who hasn't died in the past ... eight months maybe? the people that other eos actually talk about? girl, work with me here!"
she makes a sweeping gesture with her arms.
"for the record, i'm not from around here either. i mean, do you see me lounging around in a bikini? in the dead of winter? i'm not masochistic"
karimi throws out her hand for thalia. "alia karimi, though it's just karimi now. i'm a researcher from decima town, friend of neo's, in case you don't really know my name." 2tsunz
She knew Neo, and called her a friend. That meant she was probably scary as well. Great.
"I haven't heard of you," Thalia said. "But I uh, don't really talk to that many people. Busy life you know. And it's not like that many people actually hang out on the front-line. More likely to run into one of those scourge humans." God, who did she talk to? Neo...J...Ariel...Stefan...Delilah sometimes...Mordecai?? She needed to get out more. She stood up to shake Alia's hand though, brushing sand off her thighs. "Nice to meet you. Did you stop by Sol for the badge or the University?"
"hey, it's fine. we researchers don't really do much glamorous work, you know?" not on the official papers at least, but nobody needed to know exactly how many times she's stretched regulations. "just maybe put a plus-one next to your list of people to talk to in the coming years, alright?" she's certainly started out with less naivete about this war than when she first went into it.
"scourge humans?" karimi wrinkled her nose. "they really couldn't come up with a better name?"
she met cameron once in the heat of battle. she didn't let the researcher forget the meeting. not if the burn on her leg has anything to say about it.
"...neither, i guess. at least, i haven't seen sassfrass yet. i mean, the university is a great place to get some research done, but i've always thought that experience trumps what dead people and balding dudes have to say about pokemon, you know? not that they aren't important, it's just..." shit, she was getting sidetracked again, wasn't she? "...well, i figured that if i wanted to find some veteran trainers who have been through a lot of crap, the best place was probably the city that's the furthest away from juno city." 2tsunz
"Really?" Thalia asked. "I feel like I've been out on the front battling scourge with Neo more than anyone else; she might be the exception to the rule though."
Thalia put a palm on the jagged scar on her right leg. She wasn't trying to cover it--she couldn't do that with one hand anyway. She just wanted grounding.
"They have some suitably over-dramatic and pretentious name for themselves," Thalia said sharply. "But all they are are humans with the scourge, and they'll be put down just like the pokemon with the scourge."
"But uh, did you want advice or something? I mean I can tell you whatever you want I guess, if you ask."
"psh yeah, fighting's part of the job description. but there's a difference between defending yourself and throwing your life to the dogs, or so people keep telling me." she has the decency to look a little sheepish, but it dissipates quickly.
"sounds like a plan." alia might have been a little more squeamish about the whole idea awhile back, but that was before she lost four siblings. "i've been trekking through pax for awhile now, though, and not much has come up that doesn't tell us what we already know. if you could keep one alive for long enough to give us a few answers, that would be great too."
"eos could probably do a little more to keep our information network connected, but i guess that's kind of what i'm here for too. i'm yours if you wanna know anything about the scourge, but i'm not sure if it's anything that you haven't already seen with your own eyes." karimi stuffs her hands into her pockets in an effort to keep out the chill. "but i guess i just want your input of the scourge fights as of late. any changes in the scourge that we haven't anticipated? agents that hq doesn't know about?" 2tsunz
Thalia debated telling her about the rift that she and Neo had discovered, but it was a fleeting thought. Lemures was probably the most dangerous place in Kohaku right now, and if the papers the scientists had left behind were right, they were planning to leave Lemures behind for something even more dangerous. And did she know for certain that any researcher wasn't apt to go haring off after such a wealth of data, regardless of whether or not they could feasibly defend themselves in such a situation? No, Thalia wasn't going to risk the safety of a girl she didn't even know like that.
"I fought two new ones recently," Thalia said. "Both newer, it seemed, because they were weaker than those I've faced in the past. But they don't stay like that long. A blonde girl with a larvesta in the Lua Gardens, and a woman I didn't see with a sableye at the Pax Institute." She hesitated. "And I was captured by two agents in Decima for a time, although I got away. They didn't exactly censor their discussion around me. But I don't think they ever planned on me getting away alive, so it probably didn't seem important to them."
"hey, we thought that the scourge were semi-manageable from the start, right? and then they kept getting stronger at an alarming rate? they might be small potatoes now, but who knows in a month?" karimi's voice appropriately conveys her agitation. "they could be the worst that pax has to offer in a year. better to collect what information that we can for now."
karimi can't quite restrain the excitement in her voice when she hears that thalia was around to overhear an entire dialogue between agents. to her, she didn't think so much of 'interrogation and torture' as much as she thought of 'a goldmine of information'. "yes, what about the agents?"
at least, not at first. "oh. uh, i didn't really mean to say it like that. that probably sucked voltorbs. putting that hard-earned information to use would be making the best out of it, though."
she kind of figured that trainers who reached sol were kind of used to the hard knock life, and thalia didn't exactly look like a lightweight. 2tsunz
"oh." karimi's face falls a little. it wasn't that she was completely uninterested in a bit of gossip, but the scourge have always been the priority. "there must have been something interesting in there if they were arguing, though. nothing really lets the tongue slip like a good, heated argument"
karimi has more personal experience with this truth than she has the time to share. "but i'd like to hear about larvesta and sableye girl too" 2tsunz
Remembering was something she didn't really want to do. But what other choice was there?
"They were arguing over someone named Zahir, at first," she said slowly. "The woman was angry that Zahir and the man who was there, Batin, were both involved. She didn't sound like she really wanted to be there either, honestly. Batin didn't want to be at Decima either, but for another reason. He wanted to attack Cura. After that, they didn't talk about anything important. Just their own lives."
She shook her head.
"I don't know anything about the woman with the sableeye; I never even saw her, only heard her. She was trying to trap Neo and I in Pax, pretending to be hurt in the staircase. Maybe it would have worked on someone else, I don't know. The woman with the larvesta talked to me for a bit, before we fought. Rambling about her guilt. I really do think being a narcissist is a requirement for being infected by the scourge, if you're a human. They all want to ramble on about themselves, as if anyone gives a fuck."
"cura?" karimi had known it as a peaceful farming hamlet. she intends for it to stay that way. "hey, that's something! i'll be sure to pass that along so that the scourge don't get to just storm the gates. woulda been nice if they talked about when the invasion is gonna happen, but it's never too late to tighten security, i'd say."
to karimi's credit, she doesn't wince when thalia talks about the sableye girl. the alia karimi of eight months ago certainly would have been that someone else who would have rushed into an ambush. she listens to thalia without interrupting, but part of her mind is elsewhere.
"you know, i've been wondering about that, actually. do you really think that there's a ... certain type for agents? like obviously you can't just choose to be immune to the scourge's bloodlust. people are dying too fast for that. maybe there's some physiological reason?" she rambles before remembering who she's speaking to. "oh. yeah, sorry, i forgot that i'm not at kohaku university right now. i'm pretty sure that you must have your own opinions about this by now, though. don't need to be a researcher to have a perspective." 2tsunz
"I told them when I was in the hospital there," Thalia said. "Not sure how much they can do though. Everyone's stretched thin everywhere else, and it's not like they were the strongest position to start. If it came down to it, which do you think EOS would send people to--hold Nerio, or save Cura? Prosperina or Cura?"
"I know what physiology is," Thalia said dryly. "And there wasn't much to do in the hospital besides read. But if you want my perspective? I think they all want it, on some level. To be an agent. That's all. I don't know what they want it for, or if they're all there for the same reasons--" Based on the argument she'd heard in Decima, probably not. "--but that's it."
Salacia Beach might have lacked a certain je nais se quoi in the middle of winter, but Thalia was sticking it out anyway, goddamnit. This was her reward for beating Atlanta and she had earned it. Thalia glared at the silhouette of the cruiser on the horizon for a moment, but her gaze softened as she looked at her pokemon.
