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!
It took a certain kind of person to walk around Nerio City at night, but whenever there was a night market none of that mattered. Everyone came out for the night market. Even the locals. Even the locals who disliked tourists. Even the locals who disliked everyone. Very few people in the city could say no to the street food.
The street food tasted amazing. It felt great to be home. Tiffany could finally relax.
Then the power went out.
Oh screw that. Tiffany was determined to stay relaxed, even if not everyone wanted to do the same. Suddenly everyone was talking about the same thing, and Tiffany immediately decided that anyone who sounded even a hint worried or scared was a tourist. Some kid started to cry. Relaxing was becoming hard.
“Get over yourselves,” Tiffany muttered, and being Tiffany she failed to do so quietly. “There’s a thing called light pollution.” Having a Pokemon that was living electricity helped as well, but not many people considered Mo at the moment; he was trying to spook another kid. (What? It was a great opportunity to do so). Mo was clearly ripping off something he saw in a movie, calling himself a demon and saying he had cast the world into darkness.
Whatever. It wasn’t like anyone else could understand his embarrassingly bad act anyway.
nerio was quite the busy place at night, all masses of bodies milling around and enjoying themselves when during the day it had been much more calmer. xavier wasn't sure if it was just for today or if nerio was always like this; he'd only arrived this morning, after all. as of now themis was out of her pokeball beside him, the rapidash's mane a warmth against the cold. he stayed close to her as he bought a bag of baked pecha berry scones, offering some to his pokemon and then taking some for himself.
he was munching on some when the lights went out, and then the volume in the square skyrocketed as everyone started talking about who, what, why, and when the power'd be back on. some of the smaller children started crying, and xavier sighed before making his way over to a quieter corner of the square.
which was lit by a rotom buzzing around saying... something, presumably, but it wasn't like xavier could understand it. shrugging, he leaned onto themis and asked to the no one in particular. "...what is that rotom doing? ...does it even have a trainer?"
Dammit. Even though he wasn’t the only light-emanating Pokemon around Mo was drawing attention from people other than the children he was trying to scare. And as much as Tiffany wanted to go off and do her thing, she didn’t want to leave Mo entirely on his own either. From past experience, Mo and complete freedom wasn’t always a good combination.
When she heard someone wonder if Mo had a trainer or not, Tiffany was torn again, this time over whether to do the honest thing and own up, or to do the sisterly thing and pretend she had no idea who Mo was at all or what he was even doing. Either way, she was smart enough not to translate what her Rotom was saying; little kids didn’t need to know that the funny-looking electric thing wanted to enslave them all.
“I know, right?” Was the response she came up with. “I don’t think it realises no one can understand it.” No comment on the trainer question. “At least your Pokemon is behaving… normally.” Actually, the heat from the Rapidash was nice and warm. Tiffany, trying to be inconspicuous about it, stepped closer to the Pokemon.
there was a voice out of the darkness, agreeing with him. xavier laughed, turning his head towards where he thought it came from. "'normally' is an understatement," he snorted, before shrugging, even though they couldn't see him. "at least it's vaccinated - ...i think." he couldn't really see from here, even with themis' light.
when a woman stepped closer to themis, however, the rapidash let out a friendly nicker and tried to nuzzle her. hey, she didn't mind being a heat source, not in this bitter cold. she did, however, glare sternly at the rotom, whom she could see just out of the edge of the light her mane gave off. that was no way to treat humans; even pokemon had dignity.
Tiffany didn’t get it. “How is that an understatement? She’s so friendly… uh,” Tiffany turned to ask the Rapidash, “Are you a he or a she?” She couldn’t even name the species of the Pokemon let alone tell whether it was a male or female. Although, one of her guesses was that this was a Pony-something.
“Yeah, he’s definitely vaccina…ted.” Dammit. She hadn’t meant to sound so sure. Tiffany suddenly became very interested in the Rapidash and patted its cheek. “This is such a cool Pokemon,” she gushed, trying to keep the subject on the Rapidash. “Like, really, really cool. Do it’s flames burn? It’s probably a trust thing, right? I think I saw someone ride one once so it must be. Or something.”
themis tossed her head back and laughed. child, she said in the pokemon language - which rangers could understand, although xavier couldn't understand it - i am a woman, with all the parts to prove it. when the rapidash had finished xavier shrugged. "you should see her at the beach. that's not what i would call 'normal.'"
an indignant whinny, which, unsurprisingly, did not draw any attention as everyone was more preoccupied by, you know, utter darkness."that was not my fault!"
xavier didn't have to understand pokemon to know what his pokemon thought of his comment. "uh-huh."
although he did glance curiously at the suddenly-gushing trainer. oh...kay then? "yeah, it's a trust thing. the flames don't burn if they trust you, but they hurt like hell if they don't." he had personal experience with that, when themis had only been a ponyta, young and unsure. even now, the rapidash looked regretfully to her trainer and nuzzled him, and xavier laughed. "hey, that's long past. it's fine."
a black head turned toward the trainer. "why, have you not met a ponyta or rapidash at all before?"
Tiffany almost asked what the Rapidash meant by that, but then she remembered where she’d heard a similar phrase and closed her mouth. Then opened it again, then closed it again. It was probably in her best interest to not point out that the Rapidash didn’t have boobs. “Yeah, I don’t want to see her at the beach…
“That is, um, fire Pokemon and beaches don’t really mix, right?” Tiffany laughed. It sounded fake and she wanted to take it back immediately. Dammit, since when did her laughs sound that fake? It must be Mo’s fault, she decided. When you only have someone like him telling lame jokes you forget how to laugh like a real human being. They were that bad.
(They weren’t. She secretly liked most of them, but almost exclusively in hindsight).
Right, a Ponyta. That’s what the Pokemon was called.
“Nope. Never,” was Tiffan’y answer to that question. She didn’t know anyone, outside of EOS who had which made admitting it very easy. “You don’t see many of them in the cit—oh. Oh no.” A new child had started to cry, and this time the sound came from a particular direction. Mo’s direction. He had made a child cry, hadn’t he? Oh god, she could see a parent rounding in on him while another pulled the children away.
“How much trouble do you think he—it’s in?” she asked, nodding over towards her Rotom and the parent. And would he manage to avoid digging himself in deeper. “Like, the parent can't actually do anything to hi—it, right?”
themis does not really care for human interpretation - she knows what she said, and she's not the sort to explain herself. so really, it's up to interpretation. (aka the author has no idea why she wrote that, her only excuse is that it was midnight and she was tired)
though, xavier had to laugh along with the stranger. "yeah, it's a disaster, unless they're smart enough to stay away from the water. themis here wasn't, though."
hey!
he ignored his rather agitated pokemon and looked over to where the rotom was bugging a parent and their child. "...i'm not too sure, actually. they might be pissed off enough to retaliate."
ijzuAvc0 <50 mo is in trouble
the parent had gotten too impatient, apparently, because he took out a pokeball and let out a gastly, who started to attack the rotom. "...yeah, they're pissed off enough. ...do you suppose we should go help it? i mean, it surely couldn't have done anything that bad... right?"
As much as she wanted to ask about the Ponyta’s beach incident (and she did), Tiffany’s attention was quickly occupied by what else was happening.
“Huh.” Tiffany stared wide-eyed at the distant scene. Her mouth hung open as much as she would allow it (which, sadly, wasn’t a comical amount). “You don’t say.” The parent was pissed. He was sending out a Gastly to take care of Mo. Tiffany did her best not to show her nervousness by fidgeting and ultimately failed; she started to play with her gloves.
That the Ponyta guy had suggested that they should help Mo really surprised Tiffany, and then induced guilt since that should have been her suggestion, not a strangers. Not only that, but a stranger shouldn’t have to deal with her problem. Great. Two bits of guilt. “I’ll go take care of it!” She said quickly. “I mean, you're right. I'll go help him. You and your Ponyta keep… doing whatever you were doing. Touristy stuff. Whatever. I've got this. Totally got this.”
And then she was off, hurrying towards the pissed off father, the Gastly and the definitely-not-innocent Rotom. Of course, she had no idea what to do – sure, she could hide Mo away, apologise a hundred thousand times and take full responsibility, but it wasn’t a very appealing idea. She was so over doing that already.
“Hey! Mr… Parent. Guy. What are you doing to that… that poor Pokemon. He was only playing! Call off your Gastly and let him leave. ...Or something.”
YKgRsEsA <20 parent is convinced by crappy persuasion
because dizzy wrote a novel nette will pull a vert and write relatively short replies in return
xavier watched as the stranger ran off in the direction of the rotom and the angry parent, raising an eyebrow at the mention of a ponyta. themis was a rapidash. who was sniffing at the mishap. ah, well.
he sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets as he leaned against his pokemon like he'd been doing previously. from what he could see hear, the parent wasn't convinced by whatever persuasion method the girl had used, and was arguing with her about... something. he couldn't make out exactly what it was from here, but what he could hear had him frowning before motioning to themis, both of them heading in the direction of the now rather-loud group.
"hey." his arrival interrupted the man mid-sentence, who glared at xavier. that was fine. it wasn't like the man could actually do anything, anyway. "that pokemon was just fooling around. let it go."
the rapidash loomed over her trainer's shoulder, eye sternly glaring into the parent's own as she ignored all else save for her opponent.
JKEVldio <30 parent backs off is willing to listen/back down if persuaded
Lol, I didn’t even reach 300 words. That was not a novel.
Mo was laughing hysterically at the failed attempts of Tiffany and Xavier and said a couple of somethings to Tiffany who only shot him a tired look. This wasn’t the time for lame jokes. And, judging from very brief past experience, this wasn’t the time for persuasion either. Jeez, Tiffany had forgotten just how mad parents could get.
“Oh like you even know what he said!” Tiffany huffed, still arguing. “He pretty much ripped dialogue off some lame movie.” Albeit a movie that was too scary for little children, but that part could be omitted. Mo quickly objected to the movie being lame. The only lame thing around here was the parent.
“Quiet, you’re not helping,” Tiffany snapped at him. A new argument was about to ensure, this time between ranger and partner Pokemon, but Tiffany cut Mo off by saying, “Go disappear somewhere—no, seriously. Unless you’re going to apologise you can go home.” Ugh, had she just sounded like a parent herself? Tiffany would look back on this in half an hour and cringe.
gQmtMkke <50 Mo reluctantly apologises >50 Mo buggers off
Amazingly enough, the Rotom stopped its laughing and dropped down to Tiffany's eye level where the two engaged in a three second long staring contest that ended with Mo letting out a small sigh and turning to the parent. He said something sincere founding to the man. Tiffany fought the urge to roll her eyes - sure, it had sounded like an apology, but it was actually far from it. Still, she wasn't about to give him away.
<80 apology is satisfying
nette omg i don't think i gave you much to work with i'm so sorry. let's get rid of this parent and then our characters can properly interact
if xavier noticed the very familiar way that the woman addressed the rotom, he didn't comment. instead, he stroked themis without looking at her as the parent huffed, grabbed his kid, and disappeared into the dark. he sighed, giving his rapidash one more scratch behind the ears before turning to the now-apparent trainer with a smile. "well, that went well," he said, before turning a curious eye on the rotom. "this pokemon's yours, i take it? how do you know what he said?" as far as he knew, only rangers and trainers with the proper badge could do that; perhaps she was one of them.
themis flicked an ear at her fellow pokemon, snorting into the cold air and causing a small cloud to rise. < shame on you, for making that poor child cry. have you any dignity? >
dizzy its' fine and i don't think i gave you much to work with either
It was over. It was finally over. And now that they had left and the crowd was no longer interested in what was going on, Tiffany almost turned on her Pokemon to give him an earful when a voice reminded her that there were still witness around. (Nevermind that they were in a very public area in the first place).
She couldn’t deny it anymore. “Yeah… he kinda is.”
<Kinda?>
The next answer was easier to own up to. “I’m a ranger. Unfortunately, I’ve been able to understand him since day one.” And what had been the first thing she had heard from Mo? A cheeky little chuckle that she had initially thought was cute. It had taken her, maybe, half a day to change her mind.
Mo had been about to make some sort of retort – most likely something uncreatively along the lines of ‘the same could be said about you’ – but the Rapidash interrupted him. <What? Are you kidding?> Mo whirred around in the circle. <That was the best part!> Nope, none of this ‘dignity’ stuff here.
“Mo! You’re digging yourself a grave,” Tiffany told him. “It’s not funny when kids cry.”
(It was bloody painful on the ears, that’s what it was).
well then. xavier rolls back on his heels and gives a side glance to the rotom. then he's looking back to the girl with raised eyebrows, because rangers are rare in kohaku and usually vary hard to find. "you have my condolences then," he says with a smile, before the pokemon in question is ranting off at something and she's responding.
themis declines to respond, because there is no point to making a case to a stubborn rotom. she gives him the silent treatment instead.
xavier has to speak up in defense of the kids as well. "do you really want to have parents roaring in your ear for making them cry?" he asks the rotom. okay, it's not really in defense of them, but hey, he's arguing for the rotom to stop. even though he can't understand it. the irony is not lost on xavier, and he turns to the ranger instead.
he holds out his hand in the dim light for an offered handshake. "i'm xavier turnlocke, ace trainer and sage, though i've got a lot to learn for both of those. it's nice to meet you - officially."
Tiffany can’t blame the Ponyta for giving her Pokemon the silent treatment. It was nearly the only thing that could shut him up. That, and empty promises of happy drinks.
“Yeah, what he said. Keep annoying kids like that and before you know it you’ll need hearing aids!” It was the main reason to avoid upsetting children, obviously. Everyone knew it, and Mo should’ve too, but Tiffany didn't get the comment in quick enough before Mo points out that he doesn’t have ears – duh – and starts laughing at her.
The best thing to do would be to take a leaf out of the Ponyta’s book and ignore Mo, so Tiffany tried that. She shook Xavier’s hand and returned the introduction. “Nice to meet you too. I’m Tiffany Hills, ranger.” One of the not many, although Tiffany was pretty sure rangers were more common than, uh, whatever Xavier had said he was. She had honestly never heard of either before. “Is an ace trainer like… an advanced trainer?” And wasn’t sage a food thing?