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!
It doesn't look like there's a zombie apocalypse reaching their doorstep.
It doesn't even look like there's a zombie apocalypse at all -- which is the scary part, she guesses. (That is, if she had the right sense to be afraid.) The people going back and forth, to and fro from the docks look content -- happy, even -- and it's all just a little bit confusing.
Are they even looking at the same world?
There's an excited noise from beside her as the little pichu squeaks, admiring the sparkling waves.
Orwell was thankful for his chansey. He wasn't much of a baby-sitter himself, but the chansey was content with stomp her foot and cajole the rest of his pokemon into... well, into not being a public menace.
It wasn't too strange for a trainer to talk all their pokemon on a walk along the docks, and Orwell did just that. They went in a more or less single file. Minun and Marill racing each other at the front, Chansey trying to stop them from getting into trouble only a few steps behind. The other three--Mawile, Flabebe, Audino--stayed closer to Orwell, milling about, smelling the flowers, whatever it was that pokemon did on walks.
Minun and Marill finally pull to a stop. Unfortunately (but not for them), their Chansey careftaker failed to hit the breaks fast enough and collided with a girl and her pichu.
Distressed, the Chansey rolled about like a turtle on its back before the marill shoved it upright. Chansey chatters away, too fast for even most pokemon to understand, but her tone is apologetic. She is so, so, so sorry.
Sinclair notices the slightly-too-enthusiastic pokemon before her pichu does, but the woman doesn't bother to move out of the way -- so when the Chansey rolls into her, she takes a step in surprise.
Her pichu topples over and fails to stand back upright.
Unfortunately for Marlene, who flails sadly and is ignored for the moment, she simply shrugs at the apologizing Chansey and pulls out her pokedex.
She's about to scan the Minun, too, when she finally sees someone approach. The researcher glances up. "Oh, are they your--"
"Yes. They've played here the last few days. No one's been around," he explains. After a second, because he'd assumed he'd said enough, Orwell added, "Sorry."
He knelt to pick up the pokedex, because that thing looked expensive. He turned it over in his hands, dusted off a bit of gravel. It looked no worse the wear, not even any chipped edges. How'd they make these things?
Orwell stood back up and presented the pokedex back to her.
A second passed. He frowned. "Are you okay?" tuyet
She responded. Good. She had looked like she was in shock. He wasn't exactly equipped to deal with a shock patient.
Actually, she looked pretty far from okay.
"My name is Orwell," he said, rather unhelpfully. He still held the pokedex out for her, and that was starting to get a little awkward.
He tilted his head to the side, looked at her. She... looked a bit like himself. So had everyone in his squadron though. Still, her face didn't ring a bell. "Do I know you?" tuyet
Who the hell was Orwell? (That wasn't his name. That couldn't be his name.)
Sinclair's mouth finally opened, as if she were going to say something, but all words were lost when he spoke again.
Something inside of her throbbed painfully. (She didn't know what.) A thousand pieces of shrapnel lodged themselves beside her lungs. (Breathing didn't hurt. Breathing wasn't supposed to hurt.)
Suddenly, she was aware of a jagged abyss inside of her -- one she hadn't even known existed until she looked up at him. He was walking, talking, breathing, living ...
... but he didn't know who she was.
"I'm --" (In, out. Breathe.) "I'm Sinclair." The corners of her mouth lifted in her feeble attempt at a smile. "You just -- just look like someone I ... knew."
"Sinclair," he repeated. Saying the name aloud didn't bring back any memories either. He hadn't really expected it to. "I see."
The rest of his pokemon swarmed around them. Chansey looked like it wanted to use aromatherapy. Orwell shook his head at it, before it overaggressive with its attempts to live up to species stereotypes.
"Here," he said, because he thought she might need a reminder that he was still holding onto the pokedex. "This is yours." tuyet
He felt like he'd disappointed her somehow. Orwell wasn't sure how he felt about that. Guilty? It wasn't his fault, not as far as he could tell.
"Yes," he answered. He doesn't say anything for a while, until he decides that some elaborating wouldn't hurt. "Breeder."
Orwell didn't bother explaining that he wanted to help, but he also wanted to avoid combat. He definitely wasn't going to explain what happens when he gets too close to the carnage. That wasn't something he talked to strangers about. (The world was a stranger to him.)
"You're a researcher," he said. It was almost a question, like a point of conversation. tuyet
Her eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch. (Breeder? Him?) She kept her expression carefully composed, especially after her last outburst, but --
-- breeder? Really?
Sinclair moved her pokedex to scan the Mawile, nodding without looking at him. "Yes." The woman had considered applying to be a trainer, but even she knew the scourge couldn't be pushed back by brute force.
And for all her silent bravado, maybe she was a coward, too.
Her gaze never left the pokedex's screen. There was a strange prickling in the corners of her eyes, and she didn't think looking at his face would help much. "Why --" she steadied her voice -- "why did you join?"
He took his time to think about a decent answer--an honest one, preferably. "Injuries." Orwell shrugged, a little bit of distaste (disbelief, even) in his voice. PTSD, he could've said with more confidence, but he wasn't going to admit that. "Combat not highly advised."
A little more pleasantly--insofar that he got pleasant--Orwell added, "They needed more breeders. Still do. Why did you join?" tuyet
She thought of Beedrill, of swollen bodies and choked lungs, and -- and thank Arceus the pokedex was made of some seriously solid stuff, because otherwise it would have snapped in half in her hands.
(Sinclair examined the Flabebe, her knuckles white.)
When returned the question back to her, she didn't respond immediately. (Because of you, the answer should have been, but that would have been a lie -- Sinclair wasn't fighting for 'Orwell'.) "I lost someone."
I lost you.
"I ... could't stand to remain idle." She shrugged, finally looking up at him. "Nothing left to lose."
He thought she had her life to lose still. That was between her and her life though, and the whole region left to gain. It could be worth the risk. (It was certainly worth the risk.)
"I'm sorry." For her loss. It wasn't quite a canned response; he'd seen loss before. Everyone he knew (after he'd woken up, which wasn't very many people) had lost somebody. Some of them had been lost themselves, after their wounds consumed them--or worse yet, their minds devoured them alive.
It doesn't look like there's a zombie apocalypse reaching their doorstep.
Orwell was thankful for his chansey. He wasn't much of a baby-sitter himself, but the chansey was content with stomp her foot and cajole the rest of his pokemon into... well, into not being a public menace.
