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!
this is her element. verte has grown up surrounded by fancy parties and wasted money, and she flows among the crowd with an ease that she only shows in pokemon battles. her long blond hair had been combed back neatly, decorated with small glittering pins here and there, and her dress is a rose red that is said to compliment her eyes. everything has been provided for by her family, and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. they could afford to send her beautiful, meaningless things, and yet could not even support her in her time of need.
verte wears a fanciful smile, making small talk with the various other eos gathered here under the breeder guild's roof, before retreating to a side seating area and sitting down on a snow white couch with a flute of champagne in hand. she is alone here tonight, not even a pokemon out with her, although she could see flashes of some through the mass of people. she doesn't mind, and observes the crowd instead to entertain herself.
it's a good thing that lady mercedes had planned this gala so far ahead of time. it gave karimi adequate time to get some sleep so that she didn't show up looking like a zombie. mercedes is a lot better at this planning thing than some of the department heads at kohaku university ever were. but you didn't hear karimi saying that.
find some good sponsors, one of the supervisors had said. the wealthier ones are preferred, of course, but obliging trainers and breeders have always been a reliable source of data for beginning researchers. rangers too, in a way.
she's out of her element, and karimi doesn't even know it. she wears the dress that mercedes' people have provided for her, but that didn't mean that her upper-class social skills are up to par.
"suuuuuuup." she walks over to sit down next to the girl with the dress that looks a thousand times more expensive than hers. her eelectross keeps a respectful distance, in case he accidentally electrocuted somebody. "whatcha doing here alone?"
a blue-haired woman walks up next to her, slurring her words as if drunk. verte doesn't think she is, but she turns back to her people-watching all the same, rolling the flute's neck between her fingers carefully so as not to disrupt the liquid inside. finally, she turns her head to face the woman, who has sat down on the couch with her. "there was no one to come with me," she says, taking a sip of her champagne. it's good, as expected of mercedes, although it's a tad too sweet for her tastes. verte glances over to the eelektross curiously before facing her impromptu companion again. "did you come here by yourself as well?"
karimi isn't actually drunk. the sad thing is, this is her sober demeanor. sorry, verte. "huh. that's a shame, but i guess the gala is here so that you will have a friend who's willing to come with you next time." she chirps. "kind of? i mean, i'm supposed to be meeting with a friend here. i'm alone at the moment, i guess." no sight of pink hair yet, unfortunately. "i'm not sure if i'm the only one in my department who didn't put up a big enough fuss against coming. i'm karimi! i work for eos and kohaku university!." she keeps forgetting to attach 'doctor' at the beginning of her name. at least she doesn't see any university people around who will laugh at her for it. "i'm assuming that you're eos too - what's your name?"
verte watches the woman carefully, swirling her glass with only a turn of her wrist. she's not surprised at the mention of eos, nor the mention of researcher post - she's met some already - and gives her new acquaintance a smile, a mere turning of the lips at the corners.
"i'm katherine d'verte, but most people call me verte." she raises a bare shoulder in a shrug. "trainer, and yes, with eos. pleased to meet you." not surprising, nor that far off the mark, considering that mercedes opened this gala to all eos.
"what's yours?" she asks evenly in reply, raising her glass to take another sip as she keeps her attention on the researcher, interested in the reply. what she's said is true; verte needs more friends.
"have you been training in kohaku for long?" karimi's eyes practically gleamed with eagerness to know. "any badges? scourge battles?"
huh? maybe verte didn't hear her the first time. karimi did tend to start talking like a motor mouth. it's a little discouraging, since she did put some practice in not losing people in a flurry of words. "my name is karimi. alia karimi, but i'm also called by my surname only!" hopefully, she would have better luck with getting verte to call her 'karimi' than she did with ignatius nette
"no scourge just yet, but i won the fossil badge about a week ago," verte says with satisfaction. after weeks sitting around and doing nothing, only training with her pokemon, she'd finally gotten to challenge jasper. and it had felt good to be doing something - but that was not here nor there.
verte smiles, tucking away the name for future reference. "you don't mind if i call you karimi then, right?" she asks, one because she knows how sometimes it hurts to be called by a first name, and two because then she won't get attached to people that easily. it's a sad habit of hers, true, but it's one that she has no intention on dropping.
"what about you? i'm guessing you're one of the older members here? how's your research going?"
"really? congrats!!" really, at karimi's volume, she might as well have let the whole world know. "oh man i bet that's super exciting! i'm guessing that you're headed off to di manes after this, huh?"
it's actually a little weird to not be going back to her first name after finding out that her brother isn't dead anymore, but that wasn't a step that she really thought about taking. "it's what everyone else calls me, so i'm not sure anyone would know who you were talking about if you didn't!" she laughs. "and yeah, i've been at this since ... spring of last year?" god, that's a long time, isn't it? karimi doesn't think it feels that long. "i've mostly been beating up scourge for data these days! and regimenting pokemon when i can. i swear, i'm really envious of you trainers sometime. teaching legendary moves to baby pokemon is like... so much less rewarding when leveling is such a pain." nette
verte shrugs, not caring about the others who give glances in their direction; she'd never been one for discretion anyway. "after i get my pokemon ready, yes." she isn't foolish; she's seen what the scourge can do when they're as far away from eos' center of power as di manes. she listens with interest to karimi's explanation of how long she's been out in the field; around last year is when the scourge started showing up, so that means that the blue-haired woman before her was one of the very first responders. the fact that at least some has come through for that long is comforting, and verte is able to laugh freely at karimi's evident annoyance.
"that is true," she gives, before offering the researcher a grin. "but us trainers only fight on the front lines; it's the researchers that make the vaccines we need so we don't die in the process. leveling only gets you so far if you're against a scourge without vaccination." she should know. "why, do you guys have a hard time training? i'd have thought that you would have an easier time, with the regimens and research you guys do."
"i'm sure that it won't take long!" researchers were all about careful prior preparation and setups. trainers had a little more leg room, in karimi's opinion.
"we ought to give breeders their due credit! that's where most of my vaccines should be going, anyway. not that the trainers i've sponsored are going to rat me out for helping them, i don't think."
she's been hovering around the gala and passing them on to people that she's met. she's met her fair share of breeders, but the place seemed to be mostly dominated by trainers. it made sense. trainers would forever be a popular occupation in kohaku. a scourge wasn't about to change that.
"regimens take more time to come up with, not less." she smiles. it's plenty rewarding for her trouble, but still time-consuming. "i mean, we need so much data for them is because we have to tailor each regimen to the pokemon. it's not impossible, though! pokemon are incredibly diverse and similar to each other, you know? i can study a rattata and apply the same concepts to a pignite."
karimi accepts a cranberry juice from a passing server. "i like to think of it this way: instead of the pokemon getting all the experience, i'm getting half of it."
verte does give a grin at that, however slight. the breeders could be pissed off at them if they left them out, after all, and that was never good. although then the rangers would have to be given credit as well, but verte leaves that out for now. she hasn't seen any so far, so isn't quite sure exactly what they do.
she hums at karimi's smile, feeling exceptionally better than when she first entered the gala. the researcher's bubbliness is contagious, it seems, or at least for verte. still, she pays attention. she makes noises of sympathy when she pauses, and declines the offer of cranberry juice - she'd never like missing drinks when she already had one, anyway. "i can see how it's difficult," she says, taking a sip out of her good ol' cider. "but it sounds like it's rewarding. how are you getting half the experience? through the data you collect?"
she'd mastered the art of making small talk long ago, but forgotten some of it; but it seems as if she is getting some of it back, with this gala. verte isn't sure what to feel for that fact, and waits for karimi to respond instead.
"yeah, my experience with battling builds on itself, y'know? or it should for people, anyway." karimi makes a thoughtful face. "it's weird because pokemon growth and learning tends to slow down as they hit higher levels. that's why researchers are so important! when the experience isn't enough to translate into real results for pokemon, that's where we come in!"
"but even for the strongest pokemon, it doesn't matter how many pokemon they beat up. there's like this...invisible ceiling?" karimi gestures above her head like a real ceiling. "they stop learning moves and their power doesn't change. there's been theories written about it for as long as people have been pokemon training." believe it or not, karimi did have to read actual books for her doctorate.
"actually, i think it's kind of easy to understand how the dudes at pax got kinda frustrated and decided to bust out something new." she confesses. it isn't a popular opinion to be throwing around, but verte seems like an alright girl. "i think...sometimes it's a little hard to remember that pokemon aren't really like people. we're capable of so much change, and i think the people who love pokemon can be... a little heartbroken when pokemon aren't like them. don't change like them, don't grow with them."
karimi looks rather sad at the entire thing. they meant for so much good to come out of the research, and the hades virus is what they got instead.
she listens to all this with a dispassionate air. this may be the first time that she listens to a researcher truly talk about their work, but verte is determined to pay attention to her. the theory, she turns over in her mind, and the fact that pokemon just stop learning things after a while isn't news to her. that karimi actually has the guts to sympathize with the doctors at pax is something verte admires, as she knows not all would be willing to listen to that side of the story; she admires it, but her opinion on humans who love pokemon enough to create the virus verte gives a sigh to.
"it is a fault of ours," she says after a pause. "we bond with them, go through experiences, life with them, and then just as we reach that point where we believe that our pokemon will be by our side, learning, or just being there, no matter what, they fail to reach our lofty expectations. when we are the only ones standing on that lonely hill, changed and at a point where our pokemon are unable to follow, then we get to thinking - what if we could give them the power to grow with us? change with, evolve, become better than that ceiling to their potential?" her own brothers and sisters had that ambition for their pokemon, and often pushed them far beyond the point of healthy for that dream. verte had never seen any good come out of things like that.
"no, pokemon aren't like people," verte says with a sigh. "but sometimes we wish they could be." she'd anguished over that truth enough times herself to at least understand where karimi, and the researchers at pax institue were coming from.
"i used to be like that once. well, believing that we could just push past the ceiling if we tried really, really hard! but i guess...i guess i was mostly thinking of myself, since i didn't mind so much if the people around me weren't as ambitious. i wasn't about to let it affect my dreams."
she didn't relish the idea of leaving them behind, but she didn't see any way other than to push forward.
"i guess...i guess the important thing is really to let people and pokemon decide for themselves, how far they're willing or able to go." it's a heavy truth for karimi to admit when she's friends with people such as neo, thalia, and j. "i'm pretty lucky to have pokemon who want to follow me all the way!"
she ruminates over them for a bit before remembering that she's still at a gala with verte. "oh! and before i forget! do you need any vaccines? i've been trying to hand them out to the people around here who need 'em. though not as much as i would have liked...not until i get word of how the amberwell is faring..."
"you're lucky, then." verte had lost all of the pokemon who trusted in her whole-heartedly to the scourge. she's glad that some, at least, have managed to stay alive and with their trainers.
the offer of vaccines, verte does perk up at. she's been running low lately, even with the pre-vaccinated pokemon that she's buying from the egg shop. "i'd appreciate that, if you have any left to spare. but i understand if they need to go to other trainers." it wouldn't be the first time that she managed without them, and she can work without vaccinated pokemon for now.