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!
"Fuck." That one caught the burn. He held onto her arm for a moment more: "I'm going to let go. You can run if you want. I live on the seventh floor by myself of the Castle Forlorn. Even if you find your way out, this is the Land of Nightmares. It's safer to stay inside. And if you leave my sight, if Physis or someone else finds you, they'll slit your throat without letting you get a word out."
He let her go and turned to kneel by Heron's corpse.
He was true enough to his word. Neo was going to charge off, out the door, wherever it was that would lead.
But she didn't know where this was. He'd just told her, but that was gibberish. If she had to guess, it was Lake Pax or somewhere nearby, but there were no such buildings by Pax.
...But she remembered the rift at Lemures Circle.
"How unhelpful, to let me leave without giving directions for how to get out," she said. She flexed her hand, it was a bit sore from punching. "It's as false an option as your lucario had."
Neo looked around the room. It looked like she'd be staying a while. Ought to get comfortable. "Why did you bring me here?"
He left Heron on the floor and crossed the room to sit down in an armchair.
"I took you here because you're valuable to EOS, and there's nothing of worth you can do here against the scourge. I took you because you killed Heron and now I want revenge. I took you because I want you to fix him. Pick one if you'd like, or none of them."
As he left Heron's side, Neo approached the corpse. It would decay fast. If she wanted a chance to examine a hades agent's partner, this was it.
"You waste your time. There's little of worth I could do out there against the scourge either," she replied. She declined to say anything about Heron; the lucario played her game and lost. She didn't think it was murder, but she would've tried to kill him anyway.
Batin's last suggestion made her look up at him, to stare at his mask as if it would present answers. Neo couldn't bring life back to a corpse, but the researchers of Kohaku had long since learned how to create new life from even an ancient strand of DNA.
"He's dead," she said, not mincing words. "By tomorrow, he'll just be dark muck and black tar. I'm flattered that you think I can conjure up miracles, but all the kings horses and all the kings men can't fix him."
"You're telling me they can turn a handful of dirt into an aerodactyl, and you can't bring back a lucario with a whole corpse in front of you? I expected more from EOS. I don't need him exactly. I just need a living lucario shell. Then he can fill it."
Neo had the option of explaining all the ways that Eos fell short, but there was a point of pride in there somewhere. "I can get you a shell--but it'd only be a cheap copy, and hollow."
Neo examined the corpse, but that was the most she could do without her tools. Besides that, she'd like to say she didn't care about Batin at all, but she was hesitant to perform a dissection in front of even a scourge pokemon's partner.
What he spouted sounded like the ravings of a madman.
"How's he supposed to fill a shell? He's dead. Dearly departed. Gone. Do you have his soul stowed away somewhere? Is that a thing agents can do? Because I'm pretty sure that's something beyond all of us."
It was difficult thinking of the lucario as anything but scourge and vermin, but she tried. "Heron was a soul. All you're going to get is a body."
Batin walked over to the tea kettle and poured himself a cup. It was a nice black tea. He offered Neo a cup, if she wanted one. If she didn't, well, he'd offered. He could drink in front of a guest without guilt.
(Batin has strange priorities.)
"What's the current EOS theory on the scourge and intelligence? I heard the hive mind was in vogue a few months ago, but maybe you've latched onto something else as an explanation."
By her counting, there were a million and one ways for her to die here. Death by tea was not really one of the more likely ones. Neo accepted the cup, because it'd be rude to decline a host's hospitality.
She too had strange priorities.
"Hive mind never made sense," she replied. "Creatures with a hive mind bring resources back to their queen. Scourge pokemon seem individualistic. At first, I thought it was just a disease, like a cancer that takes over an entire pokemon and rots them from inside--but that's not true. It can't be. That theory died as soon as agents and their scourge partners showed up. They're quite intelligent."
If she didn't touch on any current theories in her answer, that was on purpose.
She tried the tea. It was alright--pleasant, aromatic. "You know, if you want to talk, I'd rather not to talk to a mask. That's if I'm in a position to have a preference."
His hand went to the mask as if he had forgotten about it. Perhaps he had. "I'm sorry," he said. "I forget I'm wearing it, half the time. Sometimes it feels more real than my own face these days."
He removed the mask and placed it on the table next to the tea kettle. Just in case there was any way Neo could have missed it, he was very clearly the man she had met in Decima. His hair was a little longer, his face now cut in two by the burn scar that curled up the left side, but he was unmistakably Zahir Brand in appearance.
"Those are very rational theories," he said. "You don't sound like you agree with any of them though."
"Some women are like that with make up. I was, when I was younger. You wake up in the morning to put on your face--as if the one you were born with wasn't your own."
Looking at the scar might've made her wince in sympathy if she hadn't given it to him. As it stood, it was satisfying to see.
Neo stood up from beside the corpse. It didn't make much of a difference. She still couldn't see eye to eye with Batin.
"Do agents sit together at afternoon tea discussing their ideas about the origins of the scourge? I thought you lot would have answers already. I want them; I would bargain for them. I'm tired of theories."
"I do," he said. "Some of us don't care as to how the scourge originated. Some of us do. I'm one of the latter. I've always enjoyed stories, and everyone has a different one about the scourge. As for the truth? I suppose it depends on what you're willing to offer me."
He offered her a scone.
xP8Gh_t4 > 80 the scones taste like the literal ambrosia of the gods. 80-50 they're great scones. anything below that and they're just scones.
She took the scone, took a small bite out of it. It was okay. Reasonably good. She assumed effort was put into making it. She wasn't exactly a scone connoisseur, but it was certainly palatable. It was just a scone, what else was there to say?
There wasn't much she could offer him, besides the pleasure of her company.
"Cloning is a difficult process, but I can manage it. I need four days. I need a laboratory. If this nightmare land can't provide, then I'll need to break into Febronia Museum too.
"If I can dream up a real cloning facility and you can obtain me an eos vaccine, then I only need a few hours."
She shrugged. "You'd still have to provide the soul, but I can make you the shell. Together, we could be parents."
"A lab? We can see how the Land is feeling, I guess. These days there seems to be a bit more of a spark in it, I think. All this fresh blood moving in and out."
He stood up and opened the door to what usually lead to the bathroom.
RoTRPGb3 > 50 it's turned into a fully outfitted laboratory.
"Still just a bathroom," he said. "Maybe we should have sacrificed a virgin first. Looks like we're breaking into a museum."
Neo was not hungry. Or perhaps she was. Who knows when she last ate, but there were a lot of concerns that outweighed hunger.
