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!
Tiffany was still shaken from before. It hadn’t really hit her until she had managed to run all the way back to safety, and now that Mo was better she was back in the forest. She had to be. It was her job.
Luckily her job wasn’t all that specific; nowhere did it say that she had to go back to Messor Rock and fix her mistake, and nowhere did it say that she couldn’t go and check out one of the less infested areas. Technically, she was still doing her job, even though she did feel a little guilty for having to justify where she was.
Oh well. Who knew, maybe the plan all along was to take over Caca’s Grove. It made the tiniest possible bit of sense when you considered how hard it was to get here, but in any case, Tiffany hadn’t been here for a while and felt she owed the grove, and its berries, a visit.
As she lifted her styler (now ‘fixed’) and prepared to draw a sign, her ears picked up an unnatural sound and her first thought went to the Pachirisu she had left. Tiffany swallowed. She turned around slowly, trying to mentally prepare herself for another attack.
Taryn hadn’t meant to come this far yet. She figured she’d be stuck in Proserpina until she beat the gym there, and then she’d move on. But then she’d met Nix, who had gone on ahead before beating the gym so she could train her Pokemon against some stronger foes first. Taryn still wasn’t sure about training against any wild Pokemon here – her Pokemon had never done any training outside the Training Center in the Dream World, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to at least have a look around. Besides, she was getting to know Proserpina so well that the city was starting to get boring. This would be a nice break from the routine she’d established.
Taryn had kept to the paths for the most part – wanting to make sure her team was safe. Even Cirrus, her ever-present Swablu “hat”, was resting safely in her pokeball for the moment, just to make sure nothing went wrong. Eventually, though, Taryn wandered away from the path, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to encounter a wild Pokemon or two. If anything bad happened, Hunter was probably strong enough to fight off a threat and then she could make a mad dash back toward Proserpina. She hoped nothing bad would happen, though. Despite the fact that her Pokemon were getting stronger, she still felt very much like a rookie.
Fortunately or unfortunately – she couldn’t decide which – any wild Pokemon that may have been present left her alone. She still felt wary, but she’d managed to travel safely through the forest until she spotted another human up ahead.
“Hi there!” Taryn sprinted forward, happy for any company that might be friendly.
Oh my god, what a relief. Not only did it not scream in a very hellish way, it also happened to not be a cute little critter Pokemon turned dark side. In fact, it was a she, a she who didn’t sound threatening or scary in the least. Tiffany let out a small sigh of relief and smiled weakly at the girl.
“Hey…” She side-stepped and looked behind the girl. Just in case.“I thought you were a Pokemon,” she explained. The truth made it a bit easier to smile; it was always at least a bit silly to mistake a human for a Pokemon. Especially the kind she had been worried about.
Tiffany looked over the girl. She wasn’t sure why she did or what she was looking for, but she nodded when she decided that the girl was safe. There were no Pokemon out as far as Tiffany could see, so she asked, “Are you with EOS?” even though she knew the answer as soon as the question had come out of her mouth; Civillians wouldn’t come to the grove. Not at the moment, anyway.
“I mean…” she tried to correct herself to a less obvious question, but didn’t manage it. She asked. “Are you here for the berries too? In the grove?” Tiffany didn’t dare try a third question, and instead waited for the girl to say “Duh, of course.”
Taryn thought she might have scared the other girl. She’d looked…cautious, to say the least, and was visibly relieved when Taryn greeted her. This made two people she’d intimidated by now. Or maybe it was just the world as a whole that scared everyone.
The girl side-stepped and seemed to be looking beyond her. Taryn looked back as well, wondering if a Pokemon had appeared, but she couldn’t see anything. She turned back as her new companion explained that she thought she was a Pokemon. At that, the trainer shook her head. “Ah, no, sorry. I understand, though. This place is a little creepy at present, isn’t it?” It seemed they were both nervous, and somehow that made everything just a little less scary.
The other girl asked if she was with EOS, and then asked if she was here for the berries in the grove. She resisted the urge to scan her surroundings. The grove? She’d reached the grove? That was…quite farther than she’d intended to come. “I’m a Trainer. I was having a look around, trying to decide if it was safe enough to train here.” She let out a nervous chuckle. “Wish I could say I came this far on purpose…”
A little creepy? A little creepy? This entire forest was crawling with the creeps right now. Tiffany almost shivered thinking about it. But, having a hunch that just maybe she was being a tiny wee bit paranoid, she didn’t mention that to the girl. She just agreed. “Yeah. Totally.” Tiffany turned the styler in her hand, half-expecting to hear a monster scream.
Okay, she was more-than-half-expecting it.
A trainer? Tiffany’s smile became more natural. She was glad that it had been a trainer rather than a breeder or researcher. Sure, anyone could have a little Pokemon army, but trainers seemed to be the best at using them.
“I don’t know if this is a good place to train or not but…” Tiffany trailed off, looking around. This place was pretty empty of wild Pokemon at the moment. “… the grove is filled with berry trees. I could let you in if you want.” Ugh, embarrassing. She had just sounded like some sort of gatekeeper, hadn’t she?
Then she remembered something that might interest the trainer. “There aren’t many wild Pokemon in the grove, but it’s said the ones that do hang around are really strong. Apparently some famous old dragon Pokemon lived there.”
The poor girl looked so on-edge…Taryn wondered if she looked the same. She knew about the scourge attack and was far from ready to deal with it. She’d been lucky so far, but how long would her luck last?
Her companion seemed to relax after a moment, and Taryn felt herself doing the same. She didn’t stop being alert, though. The last thing she wanted was to be caught off-guard in this place. That would be the exact time something dangerous attacked, she was certain.
The girl spoke again, and Taryn nodded. Either today was unusual, or this was a poor place to train, given that she had encountered absolutely nothing. What she said next put training out of her mind. Berry trees? That would make her Pokemon happy.
“I’d appreciate it.” Taryn smiled. “Thanks!”
Then her companion explained that there wouldn’t be many Pokemon in the grove, but those that were there were powerful, and an old dragon Pokemon once lived there. “I wonder what it was like…” She was awed by dragon types, but had lost any fear she might have toward them. Two of her current team would grow into dragons, and two others were fairy types. Any old dragon that might have lived here would certainly beat her in her present state, but if she trained up a bit…or a lot...it might not be something to worry about.
“Yeah.” Tiffany nodded. She hadn’t said that word for anything in particular; it had just felt like the right thing to say at the time.
She turned back to the thick wall of trees that separated them from the grove and slowly drew the grass sign. Once drawn, Tiffany started to bend the trees out of the way. The base of the trees stayed firmly in place, but the trunks bent easily enough. She turned back to the girl.
“Sorry it’s not flat land. Do you think you can fit through here?
“Oh, I forgot.” Tiffany looked up and whistled. It wasn’t a very sharp or loud whistle like she would have liked, and apparently it hadn’t worked. Her partner hadn’t appeared. Huh. She didn’t want to make the noise a second time, but it couldn’t be helped. Tiffany whistled again.
“Weird. He should—ow!” There was a sudden sharp jolt in her back. Tiffany spun around. “What the—? Oh, I am going to freeze you!” Her partner, a Rotom, thought that it would be a hilarious idea to sneak up behind her and give her a little shock. He cackled as he sunk back into the thick trees where Tiffany couldn’t chase him.
Tiffany looked back at the trainer again with an exasperated look still on her face. She explained. “Excuse him. He thinks that giving people frights is the funniest thing ever. Which it totally isn’t!” The last bit was emphasised for Mo who probably wasn’t all that far away. Tiffany could still hear him cackling like a mad thing.
She shrugged it off. And turned back to the small passage she’d just twisted free and started to awkwardly climb over the bottoms of the trees. “Anyway. Let’s get going.” The sooner they got to the clearing the better.
Taryn watched as the girl drew a sign and bent the trees. She knew a little bit about rangers, but never really had an idea about what they were capable of. It was an interesting thing to see, and she wondered what it was like to actually perform it, and what else her companion was capable of.
The girl apologized, but Taryn shook her head. “No problem.” She moved to the trees, hesitating for a moment. Tight spaces made her uncomfortable, but they were outside. How enclosed could the grove be? Besides, they wouldn’t be in there long, right?
Before she could steel herself enough to continue, the girl spoke again. She then whistled, but nothing seemed to happen. She whistled a second time, and then started to speak before being cut off by pain. Taryn stared around, hand moving to her Swablu’s pokeball, but she relaxed when it was made apparent what had happened. The girl’s partner had pranked her. Why it chose to do so now, Taryn had no idea. This wasn’t the safest of places to begin with.
The girl spoke again, apologizing for her Pokemon, but Taryn shook her head. “My Pokemon have their little…quirks, too. Are you all right?”
Then the girl suggested they get going. Taking a deep breath, the trainer climbed inside after her companion. Her movements were awkward – she really needed to get used to moving around in the wilderness before going beyond this part of the forest – but she eventually stumbled past the trees.
If only the pranking was a ‘little’ quirk. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Tiffany answered. The shock hadn’t been very powerful at all – about as powerful as a cheap electric fence meant to keep cattle from wandering – and it was the unexpectedness of it that had gotten to her. “It totes happens all the time.” Unfortunate, but true enough. At least the whole alarm clock phase was over. Hopefully.
She turned to see if the trainer was following her. Tiffany wouldn’t have blamed the girl for not wanting to follow through this amateur pathway and was relieved to see the girl following. It was nice to have another person around to talk to, and a girl too.
“What kind of Pokemon do you have?” Tiffany asked, genuinely curious. She had no idea what kind of Pokemon were popular with trainers – or popular full stop. She really ought to remember to browse through a Pokemon magazine or something next time she was in a city. Maybe the girl—Wait. “Oh, I forgot. I’m Tiffany, but you can call me Tiff. What’s your name?”
She finished the question as she stepped out of the passageway and into the grove now. The sight of an open space was more welcoming than she had anticipated. It was nice to actually be able to see everything and not have to look in-between trees. Tiffany looked over the clearing, trying to spot every berry tree in sight.
