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!
"well...i hate to break it to you, neo, but you've been letting him exist for awhile. i don't think that a little longer will make much of a difference unless you're still willing to stab him twenty times in his sleep. if you stay, then he gets to butter you up. if you don't, then he doesn't get that chance. regardless of whichever option you pick, you're not getting much from that guy." so maybe she lacked the proper amount of doubt for a professional researcher, but wartime wasn't the time to hesitate. not when the enemy was banging on their front door. or already in the tearoom enjoying a biscuit. "i don't know about you, but eos has a shitton of priorities right now. training recruits, synthesizing vaccines, figuring out why the hell the scourge are cooperating with humans. you could start on that, and i'll keep an eye out for this delta guy. keep you updated."
by which she means, karimi is probably going to open an entirely new folder for this delta. and karimi wasn't really the folder kind of girl. she just knows that she will succeed - she cares a hell lot more about neo than she does about this hades freak.
"Stabbing him twenty times was always the plan," Neo replies, a little injured. "I'm not that naive."
She takes a shaky breath. It's a decision, and she's made it at last. "I have his address. It's in Juno, the posh part of Juno. Not the biggest house, but you won't miss it. His butler's name is Tresillian. I... you can probably sneak in. It's just him and the butler."
Neo laughs, somehow cheered up a bit by the talk of daily duties. It's a bit tired, but she smiles when she says, "I haven't been slacking off on what needs to be done, you know. Who do you think's been providing Mordecai and Grayson all their vaccines. Because I know it hasn't been you."
"it's not about naivete. i mean, i wouldn't really accuse you of being naive. a bit of a woobie, maybe, but not naive." karimi shrugs. "i just think that you underestimate how much heart you have sometimes. i think you get what i'm talking about"
"sneak in?" karimi gives her a Look. "me? you know i'm probably going to be louder than a donphan in a china shop. you know i'd rather march up the front door. maybe ditch these dirty sneakers and look halfway like a lady. a lady who can kick his butt if he tries anything, though. that's what's important."
"heh. i never said that you were." karimi smiles. "i guess we've always had different priorities. i've actually been unloading my vaccines on trainers that i've met. the ones who are reckless enough to think that they can resist the scourge with unvaccinated dragonites...strange, isn't it? how the scourge has redefined strength for us all. being strong used to mean punching anyone who made larsa cry..."
shit, she didn't mean to go there. it's time to stop that train of thought. hook ¿
"I thought the heart died in Decima. I thought the logical core is superior." She doesn't mean that as the opening to a philosophical debate. It's just the truth.
"...I recommend the stealthy approach," Neo says for the hell of it. She knows Karimi will end up doing whatever she thinks is best anyway, but... she thinks barging through the front door could cause a scene. Worse, it could cause injuries. She worries for both Karimi and Delta in that mess.
That must've been a lot of punching, because the way Neo remembered it, roughly anybody could make Larsa cry.
"Hard times bring people together." It's a platitude. Neo tries to think up another direction to bring the conversation. "Anyway. That's enough about my lovelife. That's in your hands now. What about yours?"
karimi laughs, and for the first time, it's not entirely a pleasant one. "neo...if we were really that logical, then we would have abandoned kohaku a long time ago." she pauses for a moment, but she knows that she isn't into lying to neo. "i always thought i would have run if i really had any idea what i was getting into. that's what i've been doing for a very long time. running away from the things that i wasn't sure if i wanted to understand. somehow, i'm still here. you're here too."
"hey, it's okay. i'll try to avoid bruising a pretty face, and that's only if he tries anything funny. what's my excuse for being there, a pizza delivery?" neo would know this delta far better than karimi did. it was worth asking.
"nobody that i meet that regularly unless you count the scourge pokemon" she wrinkles her nose. "you know i'm not the settling down type anyway, neo. suits me just fine, though. there's plenty of pretty people who are desperate, i'm pretty and desperate, it all works out."
Still here, but for how long? The only thing Neo had learned from Nerio was that their days were numbered. Their only hope was a major discovery, a break-through that would let them do more than stall for time.
"He won't," Neo pretty much guaranteed. "He's not like that. If you have to, say I sent you. I don't think he has it in him to hurt you in that case. ...I don't think he has it in him to hurt anyone in any case--but that should help, if I'm wrong about him."
Yeah, she didn't count scourge pokemon. Plus, they were old news by now. "You? You of all people shouldn't be desperate. But not settling down is smart. I don't think we're in the best spot for it right now. End of the world and all."
"yeah, so maybe he won't hurt me, but it's small comfort if he's just gonna stand there while scourge rhyhorn burst from his closets to eat me or something" how many scourge pets do they keep, anyway? karimi doesn't think that she's ever seen anyone with more than one, but she might be pretty fucked if it turns out to be a dragonite or something.
"...if you're wrong about him and he's an agent, i'm pretty sure your name isn't gonna do much." karimi shakes her head. "i can take care of myself, though."
she makes a face. "not desperate to go steady, no. a night with someone that i met at a bar, heck yeah. there's not much time to think about anything permanent, either. wish eos would prioritize recruiting more researchers so that i do get to breathe once in awhile. trainers and rangers will only get us so far. i mean, it's not like we're completely helpless baggage."
Awkward meta moment where Neo could theoretically reassure Karimi that Delta does not have a scourge dragonite because she already met the lady with scourge dragonair--but that lady no longer exists. What do.
"I don't think anyone wants to be a researcher after what happened to all the other researchers." Pax Institute should've been a grim reminder to humanity, but in practice, it mostly just made the entire researcher position look like an insane life decision. "I hear we've gotten a few though, a trickle. The trainers and ranger union aren't having that much luck recruiting either though."
personally, karimi thought that science was rad as hell and should be studied whether there were scourge or not, but after a year of fighting, she can see where everyone else was kinda coming from. she would be travelling kohaku and gathering dex entries of normal pokemon, and not eldritch abominations.
an airy laugh. "i'm not sure if low union recruitment rates are supposed to cheer me up. it's just..." suddenly, karimi looks very tired. more tired than she's ever been while working late hours. "...some days, i feel like this is really the hardest job there is. i guess not as much on the chemistry front or the training front, but just...the prioritizing"
karimi continues with a rather disturbed expression on her face. "breeders just breed what they can, rangers and trainers fight whatever they encounter on the road. us? we have to keep prioritizing who gets the vaccines and who doesn't. we have to decide who's worth these hopes-in-a-syringe every week. i don't want that. i hate that. i want to help everyone, but...there's so little that i can do. i'm structuring the value of their struggles because of the scarcity, and it just...doesn't feel right. nothing's felt right since this war started."
"It's not much of a hope anymore, not to me," Neo admits. Her voice goes soft, quiet like unseen danger, and she seems far away in some other time and place.
She returns to the present all too quickly, with a pained smile. "We've had the vaccine for over half a year now. All it's brought us are dead vaccinated pokemon. The Amberwell will run dry. The vaccinated pokemon still die. We don't have enough to vaccinate everybody, and their numbers grow day by day. Vaccine or no, we can't realistically exterminate them all."
This is the truth that Neo believes: "The only thing the vaccine gives us is time, and not much of it. The longer we take to find a cure, the sooner we will lose Kohaku to the scourge."
This is the truth she doesn't like to admit: "If there is a cure, it may come too late to save us."
"no, neo." karimi takes ahold of neo's shoulders. "listen to me. we are going to make it through this. we will make it through this. i'm promising you right now, we're going to survive and live the dreams that we had before the scourge came to our town."
(how much will she care about them by the time that the war ends?)
saying these words feel natural to karimi, like she's the big sister to four again. like she hasn't failed anyone yet. like she doesn't carry the weight of several graves on her shoulders.
"we'll buy kohaku enough time to save everyone. i'll throw myself towards the frontlines if i have to." she says it like she hasn't already been doing that for all these months. "however much time eos needs, we'll just have to give it to them." hook ¿
It's easy to shake Neo by the shoulders. She's not very heavy, and she's a convenient size for throwing around in general. A good shake was child's play.
What dreams did she have before the scourge? A house, a dog, a husband, 2.4 kids, and a white picket fence. Books. Lots and lots of books.
"Not losing isn't the same as winning," Neo replies, slipping out of Karimi's grasp. It was clear to her that she'd lost her personal stake in the battle against the scourge a long time ago.
Neo went by surname because her original identity was left behind, unimportant. Karimi's name lived on in memoriam, a tribute to the fallen. For all the similarities (perhaps would-be professors just preferred going by surname), there was a divide there. "Survival doesn't matter as long as the region is saved. If the region isn't saved, survival isn't even preferable."
She liked the sound of hope, but it was an empty feast.
"They're not doing anything with the time they're given. They do nothing. Nothing--and I can't do any better."
"like hell it isn't." karimi isn't quite sure why it's so hard to get through to neo, and she doesn't like it. "as long as we haven't lost, we can fight for the winning day. we'll always have another chance! if we don't even believe in winning kohaku back, then who will? people are out there dying for our sakes, neo - we can't repay them by dragging ourselves through the mud like this!"
neo turns away, but karimi doens't give in so easily. "i believe in you, neo. you're the level headed who can keep us grounded when everything goes to hell. you're meticulous and persistent. you're brave and kinda reckless but i guess that's why we're friends, huh?" karimi laughs. "i wouldn't have anyone else for a partner, not over you. if nobody else is gonna save us, then we're just gonna have to save ourselves."
Neo doesn't like hopes and dreams. She might've once, not even that long ago, but all that matters now--in the moment, when the future is fast becoming a scarce resource--is results.
"You've got enough belief for the two of us then."
She shrugs, as if she can shake off the subject. "This is me being grounded. This is the ground, and you'd think that's rock bottom, but there's so much further to fall and no way to climb back up."
Neo smiles, and it doesn't reach her eyes. Delta's the only one that's managed to bring that out of her in the recent days, but it doesn't have to be a real smile. Something about it reeks of conviction--of steel. "Don't get me wrong, Karimi. I haven't given up. I won't give up; there's no reason to. We've lost everything; we will lose everything, unless we find something new. Unless there's a break-through, unless there's a miracle. So we find one, because there's no other task left for us to do."
"yeah, well." she runs a hand through her tangled hair. not that karimi had ever been particularly fussy about it, but all the travelling had defiantely taken its toll. "belief isn't enough to sustain a fight. i thought it did, once. that was back when i actually had enough strength to back it up. i need you. i need your strength. as long as you're not about to give out on me, we're alright."
she can almost hear the relief in her heartrate when neo assures her that she's not through yet. "whatever gets you through the day is good enough justification for me. and you know..." karimi pauses. "losing things is proof that we've been fighting, isn't it? that's what i've been telling myself these months, i mean--" her voice trembles, and there's a lot of conviction in her shaking syllables. "...i'm really proud of my family for fighting. arceus knows that i'd give an arm to be able to see them in juno, but...i don't think i would have ever had the heart to stop them from leaving."
does that make her a terrible sister? it was a question that she had been trying to answer for months. she wants to believe that she has the right answer. hook ¿