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!
he lets go of the hand to tuck his own into his pockets. it was still cold, okay? he tucks away the name for later, finally able to call the woman something and not just 'ranger' or 'her.' it's convenient. xavier does give a smile and a quick shake of the head at her question, though.
"kind of. we're better than normal trainers in some ways, like how our pokemon get additional effects and prolonged advantages. for example, when i actually complete the entire requirements needed from an ace trainer, all of the attacks from my pokemon that would, say, freeze an opponent, will freeze them, even if normally it would be a fifty-fifty chance." one of the perks of being an ace trainer, he supposes. "but we're limited to what pokemon we choose to train, and we don't get the benefits from badges and seals like regular trainers do."
“Mmhmm…” That was the sound of Tiffany trying to follow something she didn’t really get. Xavier lost her at additional effects, and the example had her confused at the mention of requirements. She’d have never guessed that ace trainers had requirements – or, you know, that they even existed in the first place.
But that’s what happened when your first introduction to any and all things Pokemon is through the EOS Program.
“So, Ace Trainers... freeze things?” Then why weren’t they called Ice Trainers? That made way more sense. Tiffany wished she hadn’t asked; she just made it obvious that she didn’t get it. So, Tiffany shifted the conversation a little. “Do Sages do the same thing, then?” Her best guess about a sage’s role was still food-related.
"...no. freezing things are for pokemon, not trainers." xavier didn't even try and explain any further. he didn't want to be accused of doing a flail himself next.
"sages are a completely different story. they're more in-tune with pokemon and nature - kind of like you rangers, really. except that we're more known for wisdom and judgement, and we focus on details about pokemon instead of their protection. like, you could ask me to describe a clamperl right now and i'd give you enough information to make a dex entry out of." not that he'd been asked to do anything like that yet, but still. he could, if he was asked, but xavier doubted that a ranger would have any uses for things like that.
The money on the table said that Xavier could do a spectacular flail if he really wanted to.
The sage thing was easier to understand, and Tiffany felt embarrassed for even thinking of the food kind of sage. Now she remembered! There were two kinds of sages in the world – the food kind and the old man kind. Not that Xavier looked anything like an old man, of course. Which meant that age probably didn’t matter after all.
“Wow, that sounds so…” She searched around in her head for a word, but failed and fell back on the ones Xavier had said. “Wise. And judgemental. …wait, no, that’s not the word.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”
Tiffany hadn’t encountered many researchers, if any, so she wasn’t quick to relate a ‘dex entry’ to Pokedexes. Anyway, since she didn’t have one, it didn’t matter. Still, she had to ask,
xavier had experience in pretending, and he was happy to oblige the ranger. "alright," he said easily, and grinned.
the rotom question, he tilted his head back in thought for before answering. "they do the sparkly thing and hop hop and MAGIC. but really, there's not that much known about rotoms. they have six known forms, which they can transform into by interacting with specific appliances, but they're rare and hard to study. really not much i can tell you about them."
A part of Tiffany almost took the “sparkly thing”, “hop hop” and “MAGIC” stuff seriously. Although imagining her Rotom being able to do magic was quiet hard to imagine, the other two words were believable enough.
As for the actual information, well, wasn’t that interesting. She was unfortunate enough to have already known that Mo was more than capable of “interacting” with appliances, but the six forms things was… well, there was something that didn’t match up to what Mo had said.
“By forms do you mean evolution? Or…” She glanced at Mo. He was scanning the crowds for something. “Or is it completely different?”
It totally was, wasn’t it? Oh, she was so making fun of him for this. The show-off.
"i guess you could call them evolutions, of a sort. they're not exactly evolving, but they're not staying the same, either. like, each form has a different type - electric and ghost, electric and grass, electric and fire, et cetera."
“Uhhuh.” Tiffany looked at Mo, very unimpressed. “He’s get fire typing from possessing an oven or microwave, wouldn’t he?” That explained the burn marks she had seen in the kitchen, which Mo had always denied knowing anything about. “And what about water? Can they possess a dishwasher too?” That would explain how a fire could be put out so fast…
“I’m guessing it doesn’t take them too long to switch from one appliance to the next.”
This was becoming a most enlightening conversation.
xavier had to think on that. "ovens and microwaves would work for fire, and a dishwasher would work for water, i suppose. and no, because they're made of electricity, they can go as fast as electrons can." or at least, he thought so. but it was a based hypothesis - xavier hadn't been the best in his science class for nothing.
a pause for thought, though. "how did you know about the oven and the dishwasher, though?"
“Electrons..? Uh, are they fast?” At least Xavier knew what those were. Tiffany didn’t have a clue, although she could gather that it had something to do with electricity. Obviously. Anything that started with electr- has something to do with electricity, just like wat- had something to do with… wait, that didn’t work.
At least the conversation took an easier turn. “Because he’s done those before. Possessed them, I mean.” She looked pointedly at him. “Or so I’ve gathered.”
Mo didn’t seem fazed, but he did (suspiciously) jump in and change the topic. <What is that yummy smell? Can we get some?>
he laughs. "yeah, they're fast. they make up light, so they go as fast as that." not even a pokemon could go faster than light. as far as he knows, anyway, and he knows a lot.
"...really? i imagine you have... experience with the transformations, then." xavier is about to ask more when the rotom starts talking, and the man looks curiously at the pokemon. "what's he saying?" as much as he knows about pokemon, he can't tlak to them like a ranger can.
Well that’s news to her. Tiffany hadn’t known that light was made up of stuff; to her, light had just always been light. Still, light was fast, wasn’t it? And that meant that her Rotom could switch between forms that fast too?
“If you count waking up to find the kitchen smoking and burnt, then yeah, I have had experience.” Not to mention the fire alarm that had woken her up. And the unhappy neighbours.Mo hastily got to defending himself, buzzing loudly in Tiffany’s ear. “He tried to distract me. And now he’s denying that he had anything to do with—oh, he’s telling me to stop translating and showing… off.” She shot the Rotom a look and pretended to bat him away. “Seriously? As if you can talk. You're the show off.”
More buzzing. Tiffany sighed and turned to the ace trainer-slash-sage guy and his Ponyta. “Tell him I'm not showing off.”
xavier does the smart thing and decides to take the ranger's side. because he was pretty sure that she would be able to rein in the rotom if needed. really.
"she's not showing off." at the very least, the one-sided conversation is interesting.
The Rotom wasn’t at all convinced. Actually, he was rather disappointed that Xavier had done what Tiffany had told him. <Mareep, much?>
“Oh shoosh, he’s not—” Remembering her manners, Tiffany corrected herself. You shouldn’t talk about people as if they weren’t there. “—you’re not a Mareep.” She said to Xavier.
It was then that she realised how ridiculous she sounded in trying to talk to two different things at once. Come on - “you're not a Mareep?” It was embarrassing enough to make her apologise. “I’m so sorry. I just—he’s hard to ignore sometimes and, uh, what were we talking about?”
....where do mareep come into this? he's not exactly sure. except that they did, and xavier chuckles at the awkward apology and transition. "about pokemon, i'm guessing, but to be honest i lost track too."
then he remembers that he has a bag of pecha berry scones in his hand, and offers the bag to her. "scones?"