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!
camping and wilderness went in hand-in-hand with each other, but camping and winter didn't really work well at all. wukong was a nice source of warmth, and a small comfort to a girl who had wandered too far away from the safety of juturna village and entered a completely different area of ceres forest. she had yet to see the fabled amberwell, too.
night had fallen over the forest, and the world was cast in a medley of strange colors and hues. the rangers at the outpost had told her not to wander too close, and ikram took those words to heart.
she dropped wukong to the forest ground, and the monkey pokémon scampered up a tree at once, as if in pursuit of something.
batin did not like the cold. batin did not like ceres. batin did not like camping. batin was currently suffering all three at once, for the sake of his ungodly fondness for a good story--and the rumors coming out of messor rock were very good stories indeed.
minerva had refused to come. she'd informed him she had no interest in giving him a re-run of her predecessor's demise. he wasn't worried. he was quite sure she'd come to heel if he really needed her regardless.
but right now he wasn't in any danger, except the danger of being mildly uncomfortable. he thought he'd probably survive that. hiking deeper into the forest, batin caught a glimpse of red and orange. a spark from the visions people told tale of out here?
wukong was safely nestled atop a branch, and was about to doze off while its human roamed about in the cloud of psychedelic colors she was inching closer to.
but in the distance, something gleamed. unaware that someone was on its tail, the monkey bounded on, swinging from branch to branch in order to chase down the gleaming, shining object. it was like a disco ball in the middle of the forest.
"wukong?" ikram called out, feeling that the area was being deathly quiet for once. there was no rustle to indicate that her partner was around anywhere. "... wukong?" she tried again, but to no avail.
the light he'd seen didn't seem to draw any closer, regardless of how far he thought he was walking. batin honestly didn't know if he was shit at judging distances or if the forest was playing tricks on him. it seemed like it might be a healthy mixture of both.
one thing was certain, however: he was drawing nearer and nearer to messor rock, even if he was unware of the fact.
ikram was rather lost in the forest. she had strayed away from the path, upon finding a light in the distance, she had simply chose to walk towards it despite the warnings she had heard from the tavern people. she felt guilty, and stopped.
something walked into her.
ikram jumped. she quickly took two steps forward before whirling around, hand to her styler and at the ready.
"you're human." she made an astute observation, but her breathing was still irregular. the man had given her a fright, and the burn mark wasn't something to laugh at amidst the psychedelic lighting and dim glow of the night.
"i am human," batin said. "you're also human, i hope?" his gaze dropped to her styler, and then back to her face.
"i apologize for walking into you," he said. "nature isn't my forte at the best of times, and i'm a bit lost. i came here to examine the stories people were spreading, you see, but i forgot to account for the fact that i'm miserable at the outdoors."
"yes, i'm certain that i'm human. i've seen inhuman people before, but not in the way you're thinking of them. most likely, anyway," said ikram. she waved her hand at the apology.
faint light washed over batin's face from the faraway shard, but it did little for illumination purposes. as far as things were concerned to ikram, she wasn't going to stare into the abyss all alone now. if she stared into it, at least it would be staring back at two different people.
"you mean the shard? i don't think anyone has gotten close enough to it yet," said the ranger, "... so if you're miserable being outside and i assume being in the cold as well, why bother? should have come in the morning while there is still sun."
wukong wandered through trees and branches, and found itself trapped in a neverending tunnel. soon, it emerged into a funny sight -- it was daytime where it stood, when it had clearly been night before.
she had his attention. "and what do you suppose i'm thinking about?" he asked. the light shifted over his face, obscuring the burn mark entirely for a moment in shadow.
"there will be people out and about in the day," he said. batin had no intention of running into more eos and racking up another dead partner, or another facial dis-figuration. not if he could avoid it. "the only thing that could possibly make this situation more miserable. present, lovely company excluded of course."
"those people running around with scourge for partners," ikram said with a wave of her hand as if to dismiss the topic. she had no intentions of further elaborating on a thought she had let go from her mind. "no offense taken, by the way." batin hadn't sounded like he intended to apologize about his dislike of running into people, but she supposed that it was only natural to amend his statement to include her.
the girl turned towards where the light was coming from, and spoke. "what do you suppose lies out there, before the shard?" she mused aloud, "i hope it's --" she paused, as rainbow-colored lights filtered through the canopy of the forest unprompted. that was odd. messor rock was haunted, but she hadn't associated hauntings with strobe lights. "-- not some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."
"not fond of stumbling upon vast sums of wealth?" he shrugged. "it looks more like we'll stumble into a club at this rate. i'm waiting for the bass to start thumping through the ground beneath our feet."
he started walking forward towards the lights.
"only one way to find out what really is there."
he didn't look over his shoulder to see if she followed.
ikram stood where she was, logic triumphing against instinct within herself. there couldn't possibly be a club in the middle of the forest. at the same time, they were also likely walking into the mouth of danger. but when batin disappeared out of view and she came into full exposure of the colors, she found herself mysteriously drawn towards the shard.
before the shard, she saw wukong seated before it in a daze, its eyes focused on something in the distance.
on the other hand, batin had stopped walking. the shard had cast its magic upon him, showing him what his heart desired; it wished to trap him within its spell, and eventually consume his spirit.
ikram stared from the monkey to the agent, before the colors washed over her and the illusions started to play.
543IIOqX <50 ikram falls prey to illusions
something skittered at the corner of her eye, and ikram's first reaction was to say:
Lyyh3G_G < 20 hears her 1 - 25 domestic au with iskander 26 - 50 domestic au with sophia 51 - 75 ideal world post scourge 76 - 100 ???
Batin almost thought he heard something brush against the edge of his awareness, but he must have been wrong. He was standing on the corner of a Decima city block, outside of the store he had visited in the Land of Nightmares with Neo. It was neither the Decima of the past, nor the ruined metropolis of the present, but the city in a future timeline.
The toppled buildings had been rebuilt, the exiled people had returned. Victory had come for EOS, and the scourge were a fright of the past--a horror that lurked at the edges of older minds, but there were children now who had lived their entire lives in this new world, bright and sharp with safety and goodness.
Batin watched people pass him by on the street, talking with their neighbors about food prices, the latest victories in the battle arena(there was some sort of tournament going on, apparently, in celebration of the anniversary of the final battle at Pax coming up), a new teacher at the school.
None of them passed him a glance, although he was a hideously burned man looming silently at the edge of the corner. A woman passed within an inch of him without acknowledging Batin at all, and he knew instinctively that this was a world without crime or grief or terror of any kind, and he knew as well that there was no place for him here. In this world, he did not exist. Somehow, some way, he and all others like him had passed out of it long ago, in order for this brightness to tuck itself in to the very seams of earth.
He felt only a sense of contentment at the thought.
1JyVGOTM 1-25 home 26-50 limbo 51-75 the past 76-100 ??
this didn't look right, somehow. the plants and trees in the forest had been warped beyond recongition, twisted into skyscrapers and buildings that held people. ceres forest had turned into a metropolis of trees, and the people and things that ikram saw were faceless and without identity. people brushed past her, and she felt as if she was a child again, short and small.
she passed by a creek, and saw her reflection in the waters. she was indeed a child of eight years, still rather young, but back then she knew she had felt as if she had read and known everything she needed to. ikram wandered along the warped forest of ceres, not questioning anything when stairs unfolded before her and she took them up, up towards the sky that burned a distinct red.
it was the same red that shone the moment she arrived in juno, and she knew that it wasn't a mere coincidence that the hospital had been destroyed. someone was trying to cover something up, and she knew who that someone was. perhaps it was behind this entire phenomenon as well.
she continued to scale the never-ending stairs, up and into the red skies that shone above ceres and the entire region.
ikram never saw the end of it. along the path she passed by a few familiar faces: this one she had seen in a grocery store, the other person whom she had spilt some juice on in her carelessness. that person whom she had met and wasn't afraid of.
she sat on some stairs and looked down at the void.
<50 it's actually the shard <50 it stares back
it was almost like staring herself in the eye, except the reflection -- wasn't quite her. it bore her face and her expression and a smile that she didn't want to admit she had, and it was staring at her.
'hello,' she heard a voice in her ear. 'you seem familiar.'
<50 mistakes her for someone
'you don't belong here.'
<50 removes the illusory effects over her <50 joins batin <50 gets absorbed into LoN
