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!
red skies and the mysterious destruction of a juno hospital. cyril took the report as the first sign to hightail it out of nerio and all the way to juno. the trip hadn't been easy, but he managed.
he's not so sure about juno city itself, however. the usually peaceful town seemed to be in shock after what had happened. they had thought themselves safe from the scourge, and they forgot that they were never safe from humans.
their mistake, cyril thinks.
he wastes no time. the man flashes his press pass at the emergency personnel in charge. it's been awhile since the incident, but there are still plenty of detectives who linger at the scene. after all, it's already been established fact that the hospital had been sabatoged. yet for all the work that the local press had completed, nobody had any idea as to who was responsible.
cyril supposes that's why he's even here.
9Yj_WrzV <50 head detective allows him to inspect the parts of the scene that are cleared for safety
the chimchar balanced itself precariously on her shoulder. 'i'll be fine, c'mon,' wukong assured the girl, its fingers lazily braiding her hair as she walked. 'what's the worse that could happen? i'll just fall on my butt and i'll pick myself right up again!' it shrugged, before ikram made a swift turn so as to force it to leap off her shoulder.
as expected, wukong did. 'no good?' it asked, shrugging.'i suppose it was worth a shot.'
ikram laced a few fingers through her hair, and undid the braid that wukong had made. "i wish i could put you in a pokéball," she said, "but sa'di didn't give me one to put you in."
wukong looked vaguely offended. it crossed its arms and bounded a few steps forward, only to point at something off to the side: police tape, and a crowd of people. it was an invitation (arguably) to investigate. while wukong was enthused, its partner was less interested in it.
all the same, ikram headed in the direction of the crowd, as if guided by some unknown force. she was a curious face in the crowd who watched, but made no comment. the fact that there were ruins here was something she wanted to know more about; there was no reason for rubble and the remnants of something to be here in the first place.
her expression of curiosity melted into one of bemusement.
some of the emergency workers are alright with talking to him about what they found. for that, cyril is glad. he may have a press pass, but he certainly didn't have much else to prove that it was anything but a dogged curiosity that brought him here. he doesn't even have the excuse of overtime when he finished all his reports on the recent pal park casualties a few days ago.
in other words, he was only looking for trouble. he is a son of the neo family, after all.
"anything that the kohaku reporter didn't pick up on? anything at all?"
the man makes the kind of face that people often make when they are editing their words to fit the maxim of relevance. cyril frowns.
"anything, and i mean it. seriously, i will write about the hospital director eating goldeen caviar that morning if i have to." not that he would. "...uh. the flowers around the hospital are all dead. withered away. gardener's mighty upset about it and all. everything else, the media was pretty spot-on about."
cyril takes out a pad of paper and a pen. he had an impeccable memory for information, but writing things down made people think that he was paying strict attention, as opposed to simply listening to their story. people who thought that he was paying special attention usually gave him more to go off of. "any signs of fire damage around the hospital?" he looks up from his pad and scans the flowerbeds. nothing looked burned.
"...they were all wilted away. as if they hadn't been watered in a month." the worker shakes his head. "the only fires occurred inside the hospital as the building collapsed."
cyril looks up from his pad. "...alright. thanks, sir." he's not sure if the information means anything, but he files it in the back of his head anyway.
he takes a look around. he almost passes over the girl who stands in the crowd, but her expression makes him look twice. cyril walks over and notes the colored chimchar. not simply a child from juno, then.
"i guess this is the part where the responsible young adult tells you to go home." he looks back from the chimchar to the ranger. "somehow, i feel like you're off for greener pastures."
pal park and pax lake were probably going to be looking a lot better in the coming spring months.
"greener pastures? more like i want to know why this place looks like this," ikram said, her voice sharper than she intended it to be. she kept her hands firmly flanking her sides, as if allowing them movement would result in unnecessary gestures towards the ruins. "what used to be here? i'm sure you know."
as far as she remembered, the place wasn't supposed to look like this. this entire set-up seemed wrong, to say the least. her brief conversation with a man near her had confirmed her suspicions. a building had mysteriously collapsed, and then red skies had assaulted the city. this was strange, but not entirely unfamiliar.
she tilted her head, watching the green-haired man with an eye of curiosity.
"i do, certainly." he smiles wryly. "anyone who reads the papers would, but i don't imagine that includes many people these days."
quite frankly, cyril doesn't exactly blame them, not after all the empty platitudes that all papers are prone to printing from time to time. the people who actually wanted to know what was going on usually went off to join eos. maybe he should have too, but he was so fifty-fifty split on a decision that he called it all on a fateful coin toss. cyril can't say that he regretted it. there was plenty of ground to cover back at the offices. a place that needed him. "juno memorial hospital collapses with not a single survivor. safety inspections were not faulty, surveillance system malfunctions. doesn't paint too rosy of a picture."
he flips his pad to its front cover and puts it into his pocket. "even folks in proserpina are getting nervous."
cyril wanders over to the flowerbeds and crouches down for a better look at the wilted, half-broken stalks. no direct sign of sabatoge, but they don't give him a good feeling. nevertheless, he takes a couple of photos before deciding to move on (he might have swiped a sample too, but no detectives are around to prove that).
he starts circling the parameters with a fairly quick pace.
|vhE_umu <30 stumbles upon something of interest vertigo
ikram wasn't one who read the newspapers. it wasn't the content that put her off it; instead it was the lack of things that interested her that made her not want to peruse a copy of the papers.
juno memorial hospital? tampered surveillance footage? it all seemed like a scene out of a movie, and she found herself suspending her belief for the umpteenth time this day. ikram nodded solemnly at the mention of proserpina. she supposed it was only natural to worry (about themselves) considering how near the cities were to each other.
the ranger ducked under the tape, and pointed to cyril confidently when a police officer approached her. "i'm with him," said ikram, like a well-rehearsed thespian, and strode over to where the reporter was.
she too, noticed the snapped branches and brittle leaves that seemed like they were going to turn into sand and dust upon contact. wukong extended a hand and pricked the tip of a leaf with a finger, and was surprised to see that it decidedly rolled itself up like a mimosa pudica would. it blinked, and chattered.
ikram knelt before the curious potted plant. "hmm," was her only comment as she had wukong poke another leaf to same effect.
if you don’t think that everything that is happening is a work of fiction, ikram, then i’ve got news for you /kicks over the fourth wall
cyril can’t help but feel a little cheered when the officer actually leaves the girl alone without demanding formal identification. proof that the police could still be lax in this day and age. in a small town, maybe, but cyril likes to be optimistic.
he had been slightly disappointed when it turned out that the girl had only been a curious bystander (albeit a gutsy bystander). at the same time, the chances of anything coming out of anything that he did here were rather low. not enough to dissuade him, but enough to cushion his ego for the moments when nothing turned up.
he was investigating a juno hospital, and not the louvre, so it didn’t take him too long to make the round trip. cyril blinks when he realizes that the girl is still here, poking at the plants that he had been inspecting earlier. he walks over to her. “any thoughts, miss assistant-reporter?”
in the back of his head, cyril is already wondering what kind of clearance it would take to investigate the inner parts of the ruins. it’s already been a week since the first wave of detective work had been conducted. surely…
his eyes start to wander towards the personnel. vertigo
"none in particular," said ikram. the plant had by now been subjected to a medley of torture. all its leaves had already shriveled up, its branches broken, and its entire body uprooted from its pot. it currently laid broken on the ground amongst soil that once held it together. they had upturned the potted plant during their investigation, so whatever use the plant had towards the investigation was as good as gone now.
ikram got up from her inspection and dusted herself. wukong mimicked her; monkey see, monkey do (ha ha-ha). "it's odd how only the branches are brittle, but the leaves just act like touch-me-nots," said the girl. she moved over to a different plant - one of three left in the hospital grounds that hadn't been broken or had its leaves all gone - and stopped before it. "observe," she said sharply.
she prodded a leaf with her index finger, and the leaf reacted just as she had expected it to. "i don't think these leaves do that, and the fact that it didn't just crumble like the twigs and stems had says something about it," said ikram, but threw her arms up in the air in a sudden rescinding of her statement. "i'm no scientist, however, but you could probably interest some gardeners or botanists if you write a report on this. which you're not out for, so there's that."
ikram moved on. "let's go in there to investigate. it'll be more interesting than staying outside here," said the ranger without a healthy regard for the rules. "wukong," she called to the chimchar, before the girl slipped her hand into cyril's and casually led him to the side of the building. "i saw you looking at the personnel, but you don't really need anyone else if you've got me as an assistant."
somehow or rather, ikram had already decided that she was going to help this man out. (if only because she wanted to do some snooping around of her own.)
she drew the dark sign, taking care to imprint the strokes not only on herself but on the reporter as well. a dark veil fell over them that hid them from public view. ikram smiled at cyril, satisfied with her work.
"the name's ikram. no need to thank me. let's go."
he’s no scientist either. that’s why he felt no shame when he had simply inserted the flower sample between two pages of his pad. clearly, he was cut from a different cloth than his estranged sister. anyway, it's really the best that he can do under the circumstances.
“...yes, i’m thinking that this is a little too peculiar to ignore.” he’s made a few contacts here and there within kohaku university, but the problem was getting anyone else to see how a few leaves are worth their time. cyril has investigated his fair share of terrorism cases, and none of them are quite like this. if there’s any peculiarity between them at all, then he’ll latch onto it like a shellder on a slowpoke tail. “i’ll see to it that this investigation has an end.”
cyril can’t say that he’s used to being talked to like this by a teenager girl, but he can adapt. especially when she’s clearly done him a favor. he can appreciate a little unorthodoxy in a partner, no matter how temporary.
“you can call me cyril.” he follows. when they’re out of earshot, he whispers: “that’s pretty handy. how long does it last?”
they wander through what had once been a small lobby. the workers had done a pretty good job of clearing out the bodies, but the faint smell of blood lingered. he maintains his composure. as much as he’s been snooping around crime scenes and the reclaimed parts of bellona hills, cyril can’t say that he will ever get used to it.
eight hundred dead. eight hundred died here. here. more lives than any scourge will claim in the evacuated zones of bacchus, pax, and decima. except hospitals promised people life when all that the scourge territories promised was death.
one would think that was enough to clear up a bit of the usual red tape. they would be dead wrong.
"cyril? alright," ikram said, her tone sharp yet agreeable. she shrugged at the comment about the sign. the smokescreen-like quality the sign had cast upon them didn't seem to fade for the time being, but she had a feeling that it wasn't something that lasted for a long time. "honestly?" said the ranger, "i don't know. let's move while it still lasts." it was also her first time drawing such a sign; at the same time, cyril didn't need to know that.
their first stop was something that looked suspiciously like a lobby, with a dispensary off to the side of the area. the stench of death lingered in the area. with a final flourish, the veil slipped away from them and brought them into plain view. ikram noted that their skin had lost the smoky texture it once had, but didn't really make a fuss of it. the abandoned hospital may as well have been theirs to explore at their leisure; the guards were only stationed outside but not inside.
she wasn't privy to much of the things that had occurred within the hospital, but what she noticed was that things were very clean and orderly despite the cave-in. there didn't seem to have been anything like an earthquake to send things flying across the room, or shake the hospital beds away from their positions. all that happened was simply a building caving in upon itself, as if pressure had folded it in like a house of cards.
"why a hospital if this was a calculated attack?" said ikram, "was there someone important here worth killing in the first place? if so, why were they in juno, of all places?"
ikram wasn't very acquainted with news. she walked around the mostly uninteresting lobby before dropping by the dispensary, and was amused to find that some dark glass bottles filled with liquids hadn't shattered. in fact, their contents seemed to be unaffected by the entire disaster.
"these things are meant to keep ultraviolet rays out, right?" she called to cyril.
it had been small talk. cyril didn't care so much for being a corpreal ghost as long as they were able to make it into the hospital, and they do.
he inspects the room closely with eyes that have known no formal training. experience is the only thing that he can really rely on at the moment. "makes me wonder how much the detectives have cleaned up." tape marks littered the floor, so they certainly weren't the first ones here.
"a local celebrity is here. lyanna of the elite four." although the dream queen was famous within the dream arena, the location of her physical body wasn't something that she would shout from the rooftops. it had taken cyril some digging. "the police haven't recovered her body at all, though it's not for a lack of trying."for once. high profile cases were like that.
he finds himself following ikram. as bold as she was, cyril had no intention of letting a teenager wander this place alone.
"maybe. i'm not really much of a doctor, but i'd assume that keeping the contents as-is would be within the hospital's best interests." cyril pulls out his phone to take a few unauthorized photos. psychic power would have certainly crushed the contents. no, it wasn't as if an aggressive force had ruined the hospital. cyril thinks back to the plants outside.
cyril walks around the dispensary. the hospital had kept some herbal medicines as well. energy root, revival herb. the usual for all a trainer's tm frustration grinding needs.
they look brittle to the touch. cyril takes one of the containers and pulls out an energy root. if only it weren't already dry to begin with. he'll have to find a fresh one to compare. the revival herb looks even worse off. he decides to pocket them both.
he's definitely going to have to make a trip to kohaku university after this.
an elite four member as the victim of an attack and then the destruction of a building to cover tracks. it all sounded like something right out of a movie, but this was apparently reality for them. not for ikram, though. it sounded all too unlikely and odd to her. "oh, okay," she called back to cyril, for the sake of answering. she wandered around the aisles, nodding at the man's explanation about the bottles made out of dark glass.
she racked her mind for some sort of scientific explanation; ultraviolet rays and liquid contents. dead, shrivelled plants. slowly, but surely, things started to fall into place to ikram. she noted the herbs, and how they were similarly withered. but then again, they probably already were in the first place. herbs were strange objects like that; once ground into powder, they had fascinating medicinal properties, but that was really it. ikram had never been interested in them.
her interest currently lay in the liquid.
"what are the chances a great amount of ultraviolet rays just came in and caused everything," ikram said. it was a huge leap to make, but it was the only thing that seemed to hold everything together. "take humans, for instance -- prolonged exposure to it causes us to get sunburnt. speaking of which, it feels like someone just brought the might of the sun down to the hospital, ultraviolet rays, heat and all. it'd explain the dead plants, the lack of destruction here in the dispensary, and the destruction of the hospital in general.
"with the sun, you've got all that force and it just crushed this place, i'd assume. did solar eclipses happen, or dark skies, or something? -- anything to prove that someone or something actually used the sun to create this mess. i'd say that if that was really the case, you'd find that the computers and surveillance are likely glitched up. because you know, electromagnetic waves."
"convincing ourselves is easy. the real challenge is convincing whoever's powerful enough to do anything about this mess." cyril takes a few more impromptu photos. "or even the public." a public that grows more cynical by the day.
"though i don't think that convincing anyone is really your biggest concern." she reminds him of someone else that he knows. the whole family, really. "might be a bit presumptuous of me, but you just want the truth, don't you?"
"red skies occured around the time of the hospital's collapse. it was big news on the ninth, and there was a lot of buzz about a mysterious pokemon that soared in this direction." he thinks back to the articles in february. two major news bulletins on consecutive days? that wasn't something that cyril was about to overlook. "i'd bet money on a connection." although that probably wasn't saying much for a gambler ii. at the same time, he can't think of any pokemon that has the potential to cause all this damage. he supposes that is why kohaku university exists.
"technicians are still trying to figure out what happened to the footage, actually." he doubts that they would be too happy to be told that their evidence simply photosynthesized away. cyril takes out his c-gear and draws up the feburary 10th article and holds it out for ikram. "the kohaku reporter actually tells us that the cameras malfunctioned shortly before she was killed. likely foul play, but her body was never recovered. i expect that they determined her time of death with her time of disappearance from the dream world." lyanna was not fond of waking up, so who was it who had brought her out of the dream world?
"we should pay a visit to lyanna's room. third floor, according to one of the nice men outside."
he doesn't know whether or not this trip will be a waste of his time. part of the charm, cyrilsupposes. time to find the stairs.
"the truth?" ikram repeated after cyril, then shook her head with a laugh. the laughter was short and abrupt, but soft and somewhat subdued; it lacked optimism and determination. "i happen to like a good story. i don't really care for the truth. if you asked me in a different time, i would have told you that i prefer an ending, and maybe an epilogue to cap it off nicely. i just don't like loose ends. that's all."
she exhaled. "whatever you're telling me right now doesn't sound like an ending nor an epilogue, but that doesn't matter today," said the ranger, but read the information on the c-gear all the same. coincidences? probably not. there weren't such a thing as coincidences. the death and disappearance of lyanna were likely connected, but to destroy a hospital after disposing of someone seemed like too elaborate a thing to be done for the sake of muddying tracks.
"if everything on the cameras are gone, then yes, i suspect my theory holds water. how much water, i don't know," she said, a hand indicating the stairs. "lead the way, cyril. we'll take a look at this room, then." a smile cracked upon ikram's face, and it was genuinely curious and enthusiastic.
"well, as long as you're on the boat." cyril shrugs. he can understand wanting an ending. to him, he finds no satisfaction from open tales that had no foreseeable conclusion. if it takes the truth to get them there, then cyril will pursue it with everything that he has. "if it wraps everything up, then i'd say it's the truth. i'm not claiming to hold all the cards." not by a long shot. "maybe next round."
and there will be a next round. cyril just has to make sure that he's there for it.
they make their way to the collapsed stairs. that's rather unfortunate. luckily, there are portions of the hospital where the ceiling has collapsed. those will be more beneficial to them at the moment. he takes out his noivern and flies up to the third floor. then he tells yewan to go back for ikram.
in the meantime, he makes way to the special ward. the police had taken most of the evidence, but they couldn't take away the scorchmark on the ground where a nurse had died. cyril kneels down and takes several photos, making sure to stay within sight of the hole in the floor. ikram may have been a capable teenager, but she is still a teenager. cyril is a semi-responsible adult. vertigo
red skies and the mysterious destruction of a juno hospital. cyril took the report as the first sign to hightail it out of nerio and all the way to juno. the trip hadn't been easy, but he managed.
