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!
iker tells the rangers in juturna that he is looking for someone to show him the ropes, but it's not much help when they don't take him seriously. he sees no shame in asking for help when he requires it, and he admits it upfront. that doesn't seem do him many favors, since the ceres rangers only look at each other dubiously.
"talk to isaac."
well. at least it's something. iker wheels himself over to the juturna tavern. he can only hope that this 'isaac' guy won't turn him away. with some patience, iker starts asking around.
the mornings were quiet for isaac. he wasn't due to work in the tavern until the night, but whatever he could do to help in the establishment, he did. with the recent passing of the head cook and all, things were a bit difficult in the back at the moment. isaac was working harder than a sixteen-year-old should, and it was starting to show in his pace.
outside, a blissey approached iker, and tilted its head. the pink pokémon chirped happily. 'how may i help you?'
"i'm looking for some dude named isaac." iker cranes his neck up to talk to the blissey. "well. if he feels like helping a newbie out, i s'pose." he's got about a fifty-fifty chance at this, probably. still, it's better odds than trying to take on the scourge by himself. he's cheeky, not suicidal.
'isaac?' the blissey cocked its head before giving iker a bright nod. 'this way, this way!' it chirped, waltzing towards the tavern before looking back. oh, dear. how was he going to get up there? it sighed, clasping its hands together worriedly. it blinked once or twice, before walking into the establishment and yelling for its partner.
soon, isaac poked his head out of one of the tavern windows and glanced down below.
iker didn't really mind the tavern. if he couldn't conquer a few stairs, then he sure as hell wouldn't be conquering the kohaku landscape. the blissey is quick, however, and iker can appreciate how short of a time it took for him to fetch the boy.
iker doesn't mince words.
"are you isaac? got a second to spare on a new recruit?"
his electrike partner (whom i had forgotten about until i realized that i play a ranger) wags his tail excitedly.
"yeah, you caught me at a good time," isaac grinned back at the new ranger. "i've got some time." he wiped his hands on the apron around his waist, and trooped down the stairs to meet the wheelchair-bound ranger.
"you have a cute electrike," said the boy, bending down to ruffle the canine's fur.
"thanks, but i didn't pick him for his roguishly good looks" doubtlessly, the same went for the electrike. iker grins back at him, half relieved that he had found someone after all. being alone in his endeavors wouldn't have really stopped him at all - he was used to being left to his own devices, but the prior experience of a veteran wouldn't hurt at all. "i figured that you've been around the block a few times, with how the other rangers talk about you and such." vertigo
isaac's grin turned sheepish. most of the time he was talked about because he worked at the tavern, not because of his exploits. he hadn't exactly been a particularly amazing ranger during his active times on the frontlines. the teenager shifted slightly.
"how may i help you, then? oh -- you already know i'm isaac, so can i get your name?"
"you're alive and worth mentioning by at least a couple. that's something." he shrugs. whether isaac was a hero or a coward, iker didn't particularly mind. the either of them would survive to fight the next day. that's all that he really needed in a region so steeped in scourge. "better serving drinks than fertilizing a grave, i'd say." not everyone from bacchus was quite so lucky.
"iker spector. i'm a new ranger fresh out of proserpina. one who isn't looking to fertilizing a grave, by the way."
perhaps that was worth something in iker's eyes, but that was really it for isaac. he didn't see anything else in it, and that was precisely that.
"iker spector," said isaac, "okay. so you're probably here because i teach the heart sign." he couldn't help that comment. most new rangers were out for that, after all. he supposed this was what his senior, polymnia had been up to ever since she was stationed here. (her cheerfulness was something to keep in mind; things like that were always needed in the present.)
"can't say that i really know what a heart sign is." he shrugs. iker's only just arrived in ceres forest, and his rangerhood is barely in its infancy. "if it'll help me fight the scourge though, i'll take it. can you show me, or is there some specific scenario that needs to happen?" vertigo
"it's a decent sign. not everyone's cup of tea, unfortunately, but that's how it is."
isaac scratched the back of his head before glancing out at the forest. "both, i suppose." the ranger didn't know how to phrase it in particular, but his heart sign had an effect that wasn't too usable in the current situation.
"i usually trap stray scourge for rangers to fight, but we've hit a dry patch recently," said he, "hey, sonata." he glanced at the blissey. "show him around for a bit, could you?"
the blissey waddled over to iker's side and smiled brightly at him. 'let's go then!'
the boy in the wheelchair tells him, "i've learned not to be too picky."
well. when he couldn't afford to be, anyway. iker doesn't even question isaac when he tells the blissey to take him someplace else. a ranger's partner is an extension of the ranger himself. or at least it was the first thing that applicants were required to understand by heart.
his own electrike barks excitedly when he realizes that all this human conversation is over. he was almost starting to fall asleep. together, they follow the blissey with appropriate vigilance. scourge or no, ceres forest was still wild territory.
ceres forest was as plain as it was supposed to be. barring the amberwell, of course -- the lake had its own guardian in the form of olivia and her sword. only once had sonata seen the silver of her sword. the blissey had been very impressed by it, and had never forgotten the sight of it when it cleaved a scourge pokémon in half. such might wasn't that of an ordinary human's.
'red bark trees lead to the amberwell,' chirped sonata, 'but we're not going there!' the creature's footsteps were small ones, and its movement was clumsy at best. it was fast, though, despite its tubby physique.
soon, they came to a watchtower erected on the outskirts of juturna village, and the creature glanced up at it with a small smile upon its face. its hands rested on its hips.
'the watchtower! it looks over ceres and the edges of proserpina and di manes! rangers should know this place because sometimes it's where you gather when the alarms are raised, and then you go kick ass!'
iker is content that his all-terrain crossing wheelchair hadn't been a scam, at least. he would have been majorly pissed if it did end up breaking on a tree root. he had little trouble keeping up with the blissey. the electrike is quick, but he also tripped a lot in his haste.
the watchtower is a welcome sight. it meant that their blissey guide wasn't as ... airheaded (for the lack of a better term) as her bubbly personality would suggest.
"watchtower. kick ass. got it."
that's when the bushes behind them started rustling, and a small inkay appeared from behind them. iker turns his head to look.
"there you are. i thought that you got lost back there."
his ceres pokeassist only beams at him cheerfully. vertigo