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!
Zhan had welcomed her to the gym with as much quiet acceptance as he had seen her off with when she had beaten him, although she was no longer the grinning, confident trainer who had left Cura those few short months ago.
She'd limped back in on her crutches, still groggy on painkillers and barely freed from the nurse's watchful eye, and Zhan had twisted his sparring opponent to the mat and come over to see her.
"The war caught up with you," he'd said. "But you aren't truly broken."
She'd smiled at him with a mouthful of blood and said nothing. Zhan had returned to his training and now Thalia was sitting on a bench outside of the dojo, watching people pass by.
They welcomed him as a stranger when he arrived, all smiles and scripted words and procedure that he didn't care about. When he flashed the official gym badge and demanded to see Zhan for personal reasons the charade fell, and they were uncooperative but almost sincere in their regret.
Challengers first, there was no time for one-on-one chats, not now. In the end, they kicked him out, waving him goodbye while uttering apologies that sounded as hollow as he felt, nowadays. Steaming, but without a backup plan of action he stormed out and sat heavily on the nearest bench, mostly ready to sort out the problems by himself - because wasn't that what he always did? - before realizing that he wasn't alone.
"You look like shit." He turned his head, staring, paused for a second. "Something happen?"
Jayden scoffed, what an obvious answer. "You must be strong." He commented, ignoring the churn of his stomach at the sight of what the scourge could do. "Either that, or the scourge you were fighting were worthless." Weak, useless, it all blended into the same thing after awhile, and he was too lazy to articulate everything, just stuck with one.
"Won, but that was a long time ago. I wanted to talk to Zhan for different reasons." He looked at her and shrugged, then commented, almost as an afterthought. "Are you waiting to challenge him?"
"I am. I beat the scourge pokemon. The humans were a different story."
The trickle of people passing by the dojo had dried up to nothing. Cura had been placid during the best of times. Now it appeared a ghost town.
"I won a long time ago, just like you. Came back to talk to him as well. I'm stuck in the hospital here till I'm good enough to be shipped back to the frontlines again. He didn't have much to say except some vague philosophy. Maybe I was supposed to be empowered by it. I'm not sure it worked."
"What do you mean?" Jayden frowned, glaring at a spot somewhere behind Thalia, not looking directly at her. "Humans are useless without their pokemon, it's always been like that. The scourge should be no different." Shouldn't they?
"Words are useless. Unless he has some philosophy on how to survive better out there, I'm not sure I'm interested in hearing it." Hopefully, Zhan would finish up with his challenges soon. He had questions to ask, answers to get so he could be sure of himself again, like before.
"Thinking like that will get you killed," she said sharply. "The humans are the brains, as far as I can tell. Without them, a scourge pokemon is mindless and hungry. All it does is eat and kill and roam and killing it is just putting down an animal. Simple, routine. With them, it's different. They're stronger. The human partners can draw signs. And unlike any scourge pokemon, they can walk among us. Look normal."
"Although it seems to me you're surviving fine out there. You're alive, which is already putting you ahead of most of us."
A long time ago, he'd heard stories about the agents that roamed around this land, searching for prey with the scourge themselves. "Are they really that strong? There's two of them. Trainers have dozens of pokemon at their disposal. Wouldn't power overwhelm them at a certain point, despite how strong they seem to be?"
A part of Jayden recoiled at her words, but he refused to show it, narrowing his eyes at her and shaking his head. "I'm biding my time. If I strike too early, I might not be as lucky as you were." At this point, he wasn't sure if he was still playing it safe, or running away from the obligations he'd pledged at the very beginning.
Jayden grimaced. It was ugly, a moment of weakness that he sought to hide even though the damage had already been done. He coughed, the bitter taste lodged halfway down his throat.
"Once." He admitted. "A long time ago. We lost. Barely managed to escape with my life."
"I've run screaming from the scourge before. I've lost my entire team to them."
The words no longer tasted as bitter as they once had. She didn't even stumble over them. No matter what you thought was unbearable, all things were endurable. Time had sealed that wound for now.
"But I would think you'd understand then. The scourge are powerful enough on their own. When they have a partner, it's like fighting a twisted, dark version of rangers. And any EOS ranger can hold their own against a trainer. The scourge version are worse."
He'd always thought of that as a sign of weakness. Jayden pressed his lips together, thought hard and decided that running away beat being killed, sometimes.
"Then..is there no way to beat them? I'm sure there's more than one of them out there. If one of them is so powerful, what happens when they team up? What then?" He hadn't witnessed any of these things that she talked about, but it was only a matter of time. And when that time did come around, he wasn't sure he wanted to end up looking like her afterwards.
"Maybe I'm coming off as too pessimistic," she said. "Anyone, anything can be beaten. That applies to agents as much as it does to us. They may require more skill, more cunning than beating wild scourge, but they can be defeated and they will. I've defeated agents before, and I will again. A misstep or a lost battle isn't the end of a war.
As for if they team up with one another--you team up as well. Do you have no companion in EOS you trust, no fellow trainer you fight the scourge with?"
She'd gotten into the habit of battling scourge with J, although they'd never fought any agents together. Thalia hoped that might change soon.
"Only one. But I lost contact with her awhile back." Heal was another possibility, but the issues that they still had to work out were few yet too significant to simply ignore. "When I fought the scourge, it was with her. But we lost. There were no agents."
"I'm sure it takes a certain amount of strength to beat the agents. And preparation. Winning against a pack of wild scourge might be the better option first, wouldn't it?" Even ample preparation paled in the face of experience sometimes. He supposed that getting the information from someone who had just that could serve as a suitable substitute.
"You should have more. It isn't a nice world out there. If you're not in contact with someone on a regular basis, no one is going to notice if you go missing."
She rubbed at her face tiredly.
"Agents almost seem to seek us EOS out it feels like. But winning against wild scourge would be the best way to gain experience for facing them, yes. Try again. Try again and don't die. Maybe bring someone with you."
Zhan had welcomed her to the gym with as much quiet acceptance as he had seen her off with when she had beaten him, although she was no longer the grinning, confident trainer who had left Cura those few short months ago.
