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 !
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ignatius's companion, the flygon, was not battle-ready. he had mistakenly walked straight into the path of scourge; it was strong, but it was in no state to battle. it was still shaken from its past experiences; ignatius very much understood its current state. a man who had stared death in the face many times was no stranger to such feelings.
"zalitz," he called the flygon's name once, and the creature cooed its name. "... sabina," he found himself saying, as he saw a familiar figure pass before the rock he was seated upon.
Ceres Forest was not the most dangerous place Sabina could be, but neither was it the safest. There had been rumors of scourge sightings lately, which was why she was out here in the first place.
Even though her heart was thumping unbearably. Even though she twitched at every sudden noise.
When someone called her name, she froze on the spot. The voice was familiar, but not the context, and it took a moment for recognition to trickle through, for her panic response to shut down.
"Ignatius," she whispered quietly to herself, as if in reassurance. And then again, louder: "Ignatius. I-it's good to see you."
don't ask me why this took so long to write don't look at me just sorry
don't be sorry for a late post it's better than none but anyway:
"i'm sorry. did i startle you?"
the researcher stepped off the rock. his flygon did the same; the reptile stayed close to ignatius, unwilling to leave his side. she was unfamiliar in its eyes, but zalitz did not growl at her. she had shown no signs of threat, after all.
ignatius stood before sabina. "i don't think we expected to see each other," he turned away from her to attend to zalitz for a moment. while he smoothed out a few scales on the flygon's skin, he continued to speak.
"did you expect me to be dead?" he turned back, and laughed -- bitterly. "because i don't think i'll have an easy death."
"It's not your fault," Sabina said, smiling nervously. Her left hand twitched at her side. "I just don't like being out here. My own fault."
Her gaze drifted to the flygon as Ignatius attended to the pokemon. She was unused to seeing specimens of such Pokemon live, only dead on the dissection table in the lab; her own small collection of cat pokemon were spoiled and soft with an easy life.
"I'm glad you aren't dead," she said. "I didn't think you were, but some people were talking. You know how they are."
She stared at the ground for a moment, feeling rather small.
"idle chatter makes it easier to pass time," said ignatius. the rumors that he was dead was somewhat disconcerting to him, but he supposed that everyone was subject to such speculation at some point in their lives. his just happened earlier and with more frequency than the average person. "they can talk as much as they like. most of my relatives aren't even alive to hear these."
but then there was methuselah, living in a land with red skies alongside her alakazam.
his eyes fell on her, and he shrugged. "walking the flygon." it was the truth and not the truth at the same time. he had heard about scourge in the area, and decided to take a look. fate didn't favor him, however. he hadn't seen so much as a rattata around.
"but what about you? you didn't strike me as the type for a forest stroll."
"I'm not," she said. "But even though I'm not working through EOS, there were rumors about scourge in Ceres."
And I thought coming out here would make me braver. No, that was unbearably stupid. She couldn't say it out loud.
And I wanted to see if they were true. So I wandered around a forest without any pokemon out--not that it matters, because none of them are vaccinated. He'll think I'm some air-headed debutante with a death wish at best.
"I wanted samples for my work," she settled on. At least it made her sound vaguely professional.
"scourge samples?" ignatius asked. sabina was always the type to aim for academic achievements. she had many papers under her name and a reputation amongst scholars. "i heard about scourge in ceres too, but i haven't seen any yet."
he would have suggested they go hunting, if it wasn't for the fact that none of his pokémon was able to fight. a level ten torchic couldn't even stand on its own in proserpina, much less the wild pokémon in ceres. scourge was out of the question.
Generally, Sabina didn't like answering questions. Unfortunately for Ignatius, he'd asked her one about her work.
She stood up straight.
"I am," she said. "Currently we've been running an experiment on the ratatta in the lab I'm working at, and experiments involving the activation of the peptide-1 receptor through glucagon-like formulas has lowered scourge tendencies in nearly 30 percent of the control group post infection, and halved chance of infection in non-infected pokemon! This is an incredible breakthrough, but in the lab we've been treating the ratatta with the GLP-1 for weeks prior to inducing infection, and I want to see how treating a scourge pokemon with no history of the GLP-1 will function in terms of decreased aggression when it's administered for the first time.
Which is how I ended up out here. I wanted to find one. But that obviously hasn't happened yet."
understanding sabina took less effort than he thought. ignatius noted that they were trying to capture scourge pokémon for further study, but with vaccines rare as they were, he wasn't sure if continuing the experiments was a good idea at all. perhaps this was the fabled spirit of a scientist to achieve greater things.
he toyed with his pokédex. "the insides of a scourge pokémon isn't quite intact," he said, "i think it lacks most things an average pokémon has. its brain is hardwired to do nothing but attack, and introducing foreign substances into its body would likely kill it. you can't vaccinate an infected pokémon. trying to inhibit its instincts will only bring it back twice as strong."
She was in the zone. She also didn't really want to hear what he was saying.
"I refuse to accept that," she said. "The virus came from Pax Institute, through the missteps of scientists. Only science can put it right. I refuse to believe there's something man-made that can't also be cured by humans. And that's what I plan to do. Cure the scourge."
"cure the scourge," ignatius repeated after sabina. it was an ambitious notion. he hadn't given much consideration to the scourge, actually. sabina served as a reminder of the current state of affairs; he otherwise slipped out of touch with reality too quickly. the pursuit to fill up a pokédex was a neverending one and frankly, more interesting that standing over a scourge carcass. but he digressed. academics was in his blood but it wasn't a necessary pursuit.
"i wish you the best of luck," said ignatius, "many have tried and failed. you may succeed, but only time will tell."
as an afterthought, he added, "try not to get infected. i'm rather fond of you."
"Thank you," she said. "I'll do my best. Please continue not being dead as well. But you know, there's never been a case of an infected human," Sabina said, twirling a piece of hair around her finger as she spoke. "But isn't that odd? The EOS trainers might have vaccinated pokemon, but they certainly aren't vaccinated, and any virus that affects every known species of pokemon surely would be capable of bridging the divide to humanity, given prolonged exposure. And yet there are no records of such ever happening. I wonder why? It's possible that there was a fail-safe built into the virus by the scientists, to keep it from infecting humans, but it's obviously evolved far past what they ever envisioned, so it seems implausible that one single measure would remain intact from the original blueprint when all else has changed."
Was she even taking breaths for air?
"There are those reports of humans allied with scourge pokemon, but they all seem to indicate that those cases have retained intelligence, awareness and at least the ability to fake the appearance of being uninfected. None of them suffer the common symptoms of scourge pokemon proper: an inability to reason, all sense of self stripped away, only the desire to destroy and eat. Why is that? Will we see a human with those symptoms emerge?"
She looked up at him.
"You're intelligent, Ignatius. What do you think?"
ignatius might be intelligent, but he wasn't one to pore over science and academics the way his relatives did. he was born into the field, but pursuing it diligently was a different matter altogether. sabina, though, made things interesting. she didn't stop for anyone or anything; if that was what she thought, that was exactly what she said. she spoke her mind, which was a breath of fresh air compared to the hesitance of professors twenty years too old for the job.
"the humans with scourge pokémon -- do their pokémon act like normal scourge? or do they display some level of sentience? from your words, i can infer that they do not attack at random; these humans aren't much different from those who train vaccinated pokémon. the scourge, in their case, becomes obedient.
"it's not a far leap to make if you assume that these humans are also infected by the virus. think of it like the hiv virus. you don't know someone is infected until you see it firsthand -- in these people's cases, they command scourge pokémon. the virus presumably recognizes humans as more capable than pokémon as hosts; they therefore stand higher on the food chain and in terms of authority.
"alternatively, humans are simply better hosts for the virus. those who aren't are deemed weak and die from it, presumably before the hades virus takes over their mind completely."
he waved a hand in the air.
"it's all just speculation from my end. i've been doing nothing but running around like an idiot in my attempts to fill up my pokédex. it's tiring, but i can't decide if it's a good sort of tired."
"You raise a very interesting point," she said. "If humans are a fitter host for the virus, and scourge pokemon in the way we understand them, as ravening beasts, are a failure of the virus--what then is the goal of the virus? The current theory is that it exists merely to replicate itself and spread, the most basic tenet of life, and that the violent hunger of scourge pokemon is a result of this: they are constantly driven forward by their hunger, and thus the virus gains new ground, encounters more and more hosts.
But if humans are the true intended host--what then is the goal? To what end does the virus infect humanity? If I had one of these infected humans, if I could run tests on them, extrapolate what thoughts and goals the virus induces in them, I might have more answers. If the Institute were not lost, I might have more answers. If, if, if, everything is if. If I were only not a weak little girl, terrified of venturing beyond her data charts and controlled laboratory settings."
She scowled, and then blushed.
"I don't usually talk like that," she said, folding her hands together. "I'm sorry. It's just frustrating, trying to work on so little information. I'm sure you know. I'm glad your pokedex work is going well. If you need a break to think anything over, or just to rest, you can always stop by my lab in Sol. I would be pleased for the company. My pokemon aren't worth very much in terms of battling, but if you want, you can examine them."
sabina was prone to talking about science like one would talk about their favorite television program, and ignatius didn't mind that one bit. he listened to her thoughts on the scourge and hades virus in general; there were a few nods on his part to indicate that he was listening, but when the conversation took a turn back to 'controlled laboratory settings', ignatius couldn't help but chuckle. so much for field work and hunting creatures out in the wild. so much for that, really. sabina was just going to go back and sit in her laboratory at the end of the day.
"i'm envious of you," said ignatius, and it was half the truth. "i wish i had a laboratory to myself - it's in my blood to research and discover - but going back to the city seems like the last thing i'll do." whether he was referencing his family members fate or something else altogether remained up in the air. "if i ever get infected by the virus, i'll surrender myself first and foremost. perhaps finding a way to get infected should be your first course of action before i undertake this gargantuan task."
ignatius retrieved his pokédex.
"and since you've offered -- it'd be rude to reject. i'd like to examine your pokémon, then."
Ceres Forest was not the most dangerous place Sabina could be, but neither was it the safest. There had been rumors of scourge sightings lately, which was why she was out here in the first place. 
