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!
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
Lua Gardens is twisted and broken beneath Thalia's feet, although this is not a wasteland the scourge can lay claim to. As a child this place had frightened her. The ghosts of machines seemed to haunt the shadows of rusted steel beams, and her father'd been full of stories of the mangled corpses they pulled from the wreck in warning. She'd been headstrong and half feral when she was nine, scampering all over the alleys of Bacchus with a nose for trouble, but she'd never come to the Lua Gardens.
Now she feels nothing at the sight of this place except a blank and pitiless apathy. She almost wishes for the old familiar fear turning her stomach cold, her father's hand on her shoulder and his voice in her ear. But it's an idle dream, and the image shatters in her mind like ice as Thalia sets about her task.
She's not interested in dwelling on her reasons for choosing Lua Gardens for her summoning. She knows them like she knows herself, and that's all she's ever needed. Thalia clears a spot among the rubble, shifting aside dirt and rock to push iron bars together in a make shift altar. Her pokemon could help her, but she doesn't let them out. This feels like something she has to do herself.
When a sufficient space has been cleared and Thalia is satisfied with the precise angle of iron and steel, she digs the jade orb out of her bag. It's wrapped in a velvet cloth and tucked away in its own pouch, but it thrums faintly even through the wrapping in her hands. Her bones vibrate with power. She places it on the altar as quickly as she can stand, assuring herself it won't roll off before stepping backwards a few feet.
She waits. There seems like little else she can do.
(wo)man's patience was rewarded when it could. usually, when one was summoning a legendary, it took a little more than just patience -- an item of the legendary's liking, and perhaps a visage that the legendary itself agreed with. sometimes things just did not work out, and the item would be absorbed into the creature and taken away. payment for wasted time, so to speak.
but rarely did legendaries frown upon those whom they had appeared before. those whom they did smite were likely born of lugubrious roots. tragedy and sadness were the things that legendary pokémon were least likely to associate themselves with. not even the god of death, yveltal, thought itself noble for killing many.
atop the altar laid the jade orb. it hummed lowly as something seized the air, choking it dry and wringing it twice to make sure that it was devoid of impurities.
suddenly, the air was clear and clean.
?? activated its ability air lock. a voice boomed down from above, shaking steel and metal. the echoes had upset more than just a few items in the junkyard; televisions and screens came crashing down around thalia. kling and their family came rustling out from in between the beams and poles, unhappy but obedient in the face of a power from Above.
?? used hyper voice.
'i, Azam the Resolute, speak to the bearer of the jade orb.'
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
If she'd had any doubts about the authenticity of the jade orb the mystery man had given her, Thalia laid them to rest. Something had definitely shown up, and it also seemed powerful.
She kept her footing among the shaking gardens, junk metal and scrap raining down around her, a small stream of steel-type pokemon fleeing the area as quickly as they could. The voice was something else however. Thalia bowed her head without thinking, gaze locked on the jade orb still on the altar. She regretted the action almost at once, but kept still. She'd live with it.
"My name is Thalia de Luca," she said. "The jade orb is mine."
silence lingered in the crisp winter air in the wake of thalia's introduction. whatever it was, it seemed to be listening.
'thalia de luca,' it said, after a pause too long, 'bearer of the jade orb.'
a cool wind swept after it as it circled above lua gardens, gaze locked upon the pink-haired girl standing before the altar and the jade orb.
'i do not care from whence you have obtained the jade orb, but since you have offered it upon an altar, i have come to reclaim what used to be mine. naturally, i will provide something in return for your loss. i hope that is a satisfactory decision for you, thalia de luca.'
the jade orb hummed lowly, and a breeze started to gather around the object. slowly, it lifted itself into the air, and towards the invisible creature. while it moved, it continued to speak.
once the orb drifted high enough, it caught something in the air, and returned to its owner.
a twister swept in out of nowhere, casting aside wreckage and debris to clear a path. many pokémon scattered, but some drawn to the creature's might remained. the winds ripped through what it had deemed unneeded in the gardens, and all that remained in the clearing were a few pokémon, the empty altar, and thalia herself.
it descended, yellow and red markings radiating excess energy from its absorption of the jade orb.
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
As the legendary revealed itself, Thalia felt her heart jump in her chest. She thought, again, that maybe she should be afraid, fearful of what she was about to ask for--what she was about to demand. It probably wasn't too late to turn back. Up until the very last moment, you could always avert your eyes and let the world pass you by.
But she felt nothing. She barely felt in her body at all. But when she spoke, her voice was steady and her own.
"I'm pleased to meet you," she said, stepping back to try and keep the entire pokemon within her field of vision. It was hard; it wasn't exactly small and unimposing like say, an emolga. "The jade orb is yours again, as it always was. The only boon I ask in return is you. I require your service."
It was remarkably simple to say, once the words were out of her mouth.
once the jade orb was absorbed by the creature, thalia could no longer understand it. the link between it and the legendary pokémon had been severed, but it found something else to replace the jade orb -- it sensed the crystal within thalia's inventory, and synchronized itself to it.
the crystal in thalia's possession now gleamed a faint green, like a paler version of the jade orb.
'my service? i do not serve anyone but myself. however; you may hire me for a price.'
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
For some reason, Thalia was wearing the crystal as a pendant around her neck. The pale green glow was visible even through her shirt, and she raised a hand to touch the new vessel through the fabric. It was unsettling, but she focused on Azam's words.
the rayquaza nodded once. the green glow grew stronger when it spoke, dimming when it refused all sort of contact with the trainer.
'yes. it should be a small price to pay for someone of your calibre. all badges and all seals is no simple feat.'
rayquaza used thunderbolt.
several bolts of lightning rained down from nowhere, striking the altar and setting it aglow for a brief moment. when the light died down, a piece of paper etched with ancient scriptures laid upon it.
'do not expect me to attend to your every battle -- i will come to your aid should the need arise. my asking price is this:
'your life will be bound to mine. my pain is yours to bear, but you will live as long as i do. should you find this satisfactory, sign in blood on the dotted line.'
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
Thalia had heard better offers, but she had also heard worse. And it seemed fair, in a way.
"I agree to your terms," she said, and pulled the crystal over her head. Slicing her right index finger open with an edge of the crystal, she bent over the altar and signed her name. It was difficult to read, the blood smearing and drying at the edges, but she supposed the blood itself was more important than the fact that her T was crooked.
the rayquaza said nothing once thalia had signed on the dotted line. the blood gleamed, before being absorbed into the parchment. it disappeared from view shortly after.
empowered by its new bond, it took to the skies once again -- before it started to dive down at extremespeed. it seemed to immediately benefit from thalia's seals and badges. as it passed by thalia, nearly invisible from the light that refracted off its scales, it paused briefly to let thalia on.
it shot off into the distance, tailwind at its back.
'i hope this will be a satisfactory partnership for the both of us.'
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
She felt she had barely watched the parchment disappear before the rayquaza was soaring up and down again, pausing in front of her for the barest of moments. Thalia wasn't sure she'd have been able to even scale his (its?) back without the strength the Land of Nightmares had given her, much less hold on as they traveled. She was momentarily grateful, and then she felt a bit sick for feeling grateful. Also from the rate of their travel.
"I trust that it will be," she said to the legendary. She felt with a quiet confidence that rayquaza could hear her, even if she didn't yell against the wind. She hoped she was right. "What do you know of what's happening in Kohaku? Of why I needed you?"
the rayquaza couldn't really hear thalia, to be honest, but the crystal's resonance amplified her thoughts and feelings enough for the contract to work its magic. and so, Azam answered:
'i answer only to the bearer of the jade orb. i do not interfere in worldly matters of my own volition, but since you have asked -- i shall answer. i am not aware of recent happenings and the need for us to intervene. certain matters caused by the hand of men are matters for mankind to resolve themselves. we do not play saviour to such incidents.'
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
That answer didn't bother Thalia. She'd decided on her own, long ago, that any higher powers, legendary or greater, had no interest in saving this world. It was up to the world to save itself. It was up to people to choose to save each other. There was no other mercy to be found, other than the mercy of strangers.
"As long as you answer," Thalia said. "That's all I need." She peered down at the rushing landscape below them and wondered where exactly the two of them might end up.
'i will come to your side, should the need arise.'
and with that, Azam said nothing else.
they rushed through the cold air of lua gardens, and landed on a stone outcrop that overlooked the town.
it let thalia off its back, and disappeared into the ozone. thalia's crystal glowed with a sort of finality, and if she looked hard enough, she could see the vague silhouette of a rayquaza in it.
i don't want lovely things. i don't want the earth made new.
Thalia looked out over Bacchus, one hand still wrapped around her crystal. She couldn't decide if the town looked different or not from this perspective. She supposed, however, that it might not matter.
She began to pick her way down the outcrop, towards home.
