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!
"Last year, in Ceres. They swarmed to the forest, mostly because of the resources, but the locals and the rangers managed to stave them off for a while. How long have you been out in the field?"
The trainer calls back both her pokemon, and with a grin Ahuda accepts the congratulations. "Thanks for battling with me," she replies. Never let it be said that the ranger isn't a graceful winner. She does pick up the axew, though, carefully. She'll have to take him and Madonna, who she's recalled to her pokeball without, surprisingly, a fuss, to the pokemon center. But that'd come later.
Ahuda looks up to the trainer across the makeshift arena, a questioning look on her face. "Any last words of advice before we both take off for the center?" she asks. It's always smart to get some from a veteran, especially one who's been out in the field as long as Thalia. Maybe she'd get some tidbits that'd help her survive when she heads out of Proserpina and into the more scourge-populated areas. You never knew.
Thalia looked at the other girl. Ahuda couldn't be more than a year or two within her own age either way, but Thalia didn't feel any sort of kinship in that regard to her. She felt old and worn down, a rusted blade. She was a dulled weapon, not a human girl.
(Or maybe that was how she thought she should feel; maybe that was a less bitter thought than the fact that she was neither girl nor weapon. Nothing but a monster fighting monsters. Maybe the thought that she was worn down was easier to bear than the thought that maybe, she liked it. The taste of blood from the Land of Nightmares was still fresh in her mouth.)
"Don't trust anyone you see out there you don't know," Thalia said finally. "It sounds cruel, and maybe it is, but it might keep you alive as well. When you're out there on your own, if you see someone and you don't know they're EOS, or you don't see them with vaccinated or non-scourge pokemon out--don't trust them. Smile at them, maybe, go along with them, but don't trust them. There are humans working with the scourge these days, and they might be even deadlier than the pokemon."
Thalia pauses, the silence a weighty thing in the air between them, before she finally responds. It is grim advice, darkened even more by that fact that Ahuda knew it to be true and the logical thing to do. Too many people in the world didn't have exactly noble intentions, especially after the start of the scourge, and would screw anyone over, even an Eos who were supposed to be trying to save them.
She's surprised, though, at the fact that a human would work with a scourge pokemon. It was a rumor, out in Ceres, that she'd dismissed easily - people in Kohaku were too terrified of the pokemon to actually work with them, she'd thought - but hearing it out of Thalia's mouth just made it real. "Are they serious?" she asked, mouth flattening into a line. Axew really did need to go to a pokecenter, but this type of information was critical. "How so? Can you tell apart one from the other?"
2tsunz (I don't mind if you end the thread on your next post, I'll just have Ahuda skipping out after that LOL.)
"I've fought a handful of them," Thalia said. "They have partners--pokemon who are stronger than your average scourge. And they can draw signs like a ranger. I've never gotten to kill one; they always teleport away.
As for how you can tell them? People wandering around without a care in the world in scourge territory are usually a good bet. If someone's hanging around Pax with no pokemon out and they aren't being ripped apart by the scourge, that's a bad sign. If someone can't produce pokemon, vaccinated or not, on demand, they're probably bad news. Some of them wear masks as well."
A blink. "Draw signs? Arceus, that's bad." That meant that the agents would've had technology, or at least abilities, like the capture styler. And things like that were not good for any Eos.
She shifted, moving Axew's weight from one arm to the other. She really did need to name him. Pax, she knew about. That event had been splashed all over the news. The other tips and tricks, not so much. "Masks? Are there are particular style to the design?" Anything useful that'd keep them alive out in the field.
"Not that I've noticed. They seem disorganized. At odds with each other. They serve the scourge in name, but all of them seem to have different goals. Maybe that's an advantage we can use. I don't know."
"Any advantage is good. Disorganization could be the key to bring them down. We can only hope." Over a year had passed, the best of Kohaku had died, and yet the scourge was still here. Anything was possible at this stage, and if they could use the enemy's own ill planning, then so be it.
She left, a grim silence in the air, before Axew's condition deteriorated.