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's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
The Breeder's Guild seemed to be stocked with an endless supply of nooks and crannies. Thalia had found a small room off to the side of the main dance floor that didn't seem to be overly stuffed with priceless decorations and tucked herself into one of the chairs.
There was a window that dominated the north wall. A wide expanse of night and stars. Thalia took out her umbreon, in the fragile privacy of the room, and let him curl up besides the chair. She scratched behind his ears as they both stared up at the sky.
karimi happened to be slumped over a desk in that very room, but thalia might not have noticed since it was hella dark in there. introducing herself to every researcher that she laid eyes on got pretty tiring, especially when she'd rushed over all the way from bacchus to attend the gala. the eelectross noticed thalia, though. he gives his trainer a poke in the arm.
she wakes up with a huge snort.
"h-huh?" she wakes up blearily. "no...just five more minutes...promise..."
<thalia's here> of course it would be her starter pokemon who had an endless amount of patience with her.
"...thalia?" she rubs her eyes, forgetting that she had makeup on. "you there?"
"fine, fine, i'm up." she grumbles good-naturedly. "god, wouldn't it be a nice surprise if it was lady mercedes who had caught me! maybe she'd give me a bidoof at the end or something." karimi was already the proud owner of a bibarel. that would be rather redundant on her as a researcher.
"give us a little light, why don't you?" she says to her eelectross. the pokemon takes it upon himself to use flash instead of actually going for the light switch.
...typical karimi pokemon to be honest.
"...well, that's one way to do it i guess!"
she takes a good look at thalia. no apparent signs of scourgification. karimi feels relieved. at the moment, anyway.
"i'm...i'm glad that you're alright." she doubted that thalia would be partying if she wasn't.
thankfully for thalia, karimi's always been exceedingly bad at telling when someone was lying when she trusted them. it was a blind spot that she never bothered to patch up. she barely even notices the dodge.
"been fighting a lot of scourge, haven't really been keeping up with anyone lately." she admits. that being said, she still hasn't patched anything up with neo. "thought i should be, so i'm here!" she doesn't really regret it either. karimi's met plenty of interesting people with interesting stories to tell.
she's quiet when thalia asks her question, and it's not really out of toska's embarrassment either. her thing with the karimi name wasn't really a secret among her colleagues, and thalia had saved her life in the land of nightmares.
"...people called me alia once. that was before i found out that all my family had died." she shakes her head. "crazy, isn't it? i met up with three of them in kohaku at some point. while i was trying to get to decima, i mean. two were with eos. then one day i'm out in the field studying wild zigzagoon and a colleague hands me a phone and-"
shit, she really hasn't talked about all this in a long time. her and her motor mouth.
"fuck, sorry. didn't mean to get somber on you-" karimi hadn't even noticed when she began biting her nails. it was a habit that she thought that she kicked a long time ago. "that doesn't...usually happen." not while she was still friends with neo, it didn't.
it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
Well that was uh. Grim seemed like a bit of an understatement.
"I'm sorry," Thalia said. "And it's fine--don't worry about it. If I couldn't handle just hearing about someone's troubles, I wouldn't be doing what I do. It's fine. If you need to talk, talk."
"...i know." maybe that's why she spilled to thalia. she's stronger than karimi is. it would be downright shameful for karimi if that wasn't the case.
("alia, are you crying? alia, please don't cry! you're going to make me cry too!")
larsa had been a sweet brother. hopefully, he didn't cry. not up to the very end.
back in decima, it was always up to the strong to take up the troubles of the weaker. maybe that's why she can still look people in the eye and say 'melchior is my gym leader' with vigor. he understood how it was, and he took his own responsibilities without running away. not like a certain girl that he had saved.
she'd still be smiling for thalia if the trainer wasn't strong.
"i'm fine, i just. nobody's really asked in awhile." okay, time to turn the sob story around. "actually, i found the fourth brother a week ago! he's a ranger now, and i was hoping to see him here."
happy stories don't last long in kohaku.
"he's just...a little...different from what i remember."
it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
"People change, especially in times like these."
Ah, the refuge of platitudes. Thalia couldn't even comfort herself. She was shit at comforting other people. Umbreon laid his head on her foot and purred slightly.
"But I'm sure you've changed as well as him. Just because you're not the same people you were, it doesn't mean that it's all bad. Or that it has to come between you."
there it is. there is the difference between the two of them. thalia embraced the fire, accepted it for what it is. karimi thinks that she can jump into the flames and undergo a physical change, rejecting the chemical one altogether.
she's seen what raza's become. she sees, and she is afraid. what if she changes? what if she changes herself into something barely recognizable? would the change be of her own voilition? would it be easier to forgive herself if it was?
"i...i worry for him. as the oldest of five, it's kind of my thing, heh." she sits up in her chair. "i don't know if it's selfish for me to want to keep him away from the front. god, i've given so many vaccines to new eos recruits, handed them the tools to fight...and then some guy named karimi shows up and i want to make an exception?"
she's been thinking about it ever since she left proserpina, like a pot left on a stove. "some days, i'm not sure if i'm selfless enough for this job. pretty sure that's why neo is pissed at me right now. don't blame her, either."
for a second, she doesn't even remember that she's talking to thalia. then she remembers and she flushes in embarrassment.
"sorry. uh, how have you've been? any vaccines i can supply?" her words are a distracted puddle.
it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
Thalia didn't have to think about her answer.
"It is selfish to want to stop him," she said. "But that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means you're human. And I don't think you have to be particularly selfless to be in EOS anyway--much less to be good at it. And you are good at what you do, Karimi. We all have our reasons for being here. Some of them might be more noble reasons, or better, or whatever people want to call it, but at the end of the day, as long as we're all fighting the scourge and helping other people, I don't think it matters why anyone is doing it."
Neo was mad at her? Neo seemed angry with a lot of people, lately. Okay, just with J and Karimi, but it was still odd to Thalia's mind. She'd never thought of Neo as a person stirred to passionate feelings very often, and anger was definitely...uh, angry.
"I'm sure Neo won't be mad at you for very long," she said finally. "She's quite logical like that. As for myself, I'm fine. It's been routine lately. Second verse, same as the first. See scourge, kill scourge, look for more scourge. And all of my pokemon are vaccinated, but thank you for the offer."
"...thanks thalia." she says finally. "i guess i kind of just needed to let it out. i'm pretty sure that neo is right about me anyway. not sure if i deserve much comforting." she managed to ditch two friends, estrange neo, fail to decipher her research on the cure, and fuck up reconciling fully with raza. all within a week. not the high point in her life. or at least she hopes not. "especially not after what happened in that freaky castle."
god, that's pretty pathetic, isn't it? she's supposed to be comforting thalia after what happened, and not the other way around. then an important question hits her. "how'd you know about the place, anyway?" maybe thalia sleepwalked into the rift one foggy morning. thalia didn't look like much of a sleepwalker, though. "man, y'all got out fast. didn't even give me enough time to put together a search party. i can't imagine that you two simply walked out."
or did they? a pause. karimi may not have been a conventional researcher, but gears whirred in her head.
"i haven't breathed a word about that night to anyone but neo...but do you think i should tell the university about the rift?" she should probably be talking to a fellow researcher about putting together a task force, but who else besides neo, j, thalia, and karimi knew anything about the place? "there's just no way that's not connected to the scouge. i mean, the front door is in the dead center of pax lake. we thought that the furies were the strongest in the region, but we walked in to find scourge legends. if we knew more about the castle, then ..."
then what? then more researchers and trainers can get themselves killed?
karimi looks at her glowing eelectross. her first pokemon, the partner that supported every one of her endeavors, no matter how dumb. she gives him a solid pat on the head.
"...i guess i'm just grasping at straws at this point."
'anything to end the war'. that was how kohaku had always framed it. how much is karimi really willing to give?
it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
She sighed, and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking about how to answer Karimi's questions. If there was a way to answer them. Fuck, Thalia wasn't even sure if she had the answers Karimi wanted.
"I'd been there before," she said at last. "That was how I knew about it. In my dreams. It was like visiting the Dream World; there was truth there, but it wasn't real. In the dream I won. And when Neo and I found the data left behind in Pax Institute about a mysterious rift to another world, I put it together and assumed that the place I'd been and the place the rift lead were the same. And I banked on the truth of my previous victory there to carry me through.
And it did, in a way. We got out after all, J and I. It wasn't pretty." Her mouth twisted. "You saw what I was like--we were like. I got us away from the two legendaries. Once we were on our own, J came back to himself. So did I, for a time. He knocked me out when he had to do so. I don't know how he got us out after that. But he did."
She looked down at her hands.
"As for telling people about the rift--that's up to you. There's no real support system for trainers like there are for breeders or researchers. We have no societies or universities. I-I don't even know where Delilah is, or if she's alive. It feels like just me and J out here by ourselves on the front lines sometimes, and there's no one besides him that I feel like I can trust with the knowledge of the trainers I am still in contact with. I made it this far. I'm--I'm the strongest. If anyone has to go back there, if anyone has to fight there, it should be me. It should be my responsibility."
"pax institute notes?" this is the first time that she had heard of this. "does anyone else know besides us four? and the agents, considering that they brought neo there to begin with. or maybe batin was the only one?"
well. of course karimi would be the one to find out secondhand. it's not like neo trusts her that much. she's the backup to her friend's plans. a righteous sort of fire starts burning in her gut. she had thought them as a sort of team. they had met in the dream arena and promised to win the future together, hadn't they? karimi had always taken neo seriously and read her theories at face value. why couldn't neo do the same?
then she looks thalia in the eye and the fire lulls. this is why. her track record with fixing a situation hasn't exactly been stellar lately.
"previous victories mean something, though." after all, that's what her entire doctorate was based on. "what was different the last time? how did you win in the dream world?"
her data. when the world begins to fall apart, that's her last lifeline. the data that has withstood countless battles and challenges, forged by storms of doubt and the fires of opposition. it stands for all the times that karimi has believed in her truths and prevailed.
she's quiet when thalia recounts her story. so j was that sort of person. strong and willing to do what had to be done. next to people like thalia and j, she supposes that's why she seems so unreliable. flighty, even.
"don't say that, thalia! eos is here for you - we're all here for you! it's not just the trainers against the world." if there's anything that karimi has learned over the year, it's that not everyone had to be a blockbuster superstar. "i don't really know about your experiences, but the rufflet that the famous mordecai dude bred last year ended up saving my hide so many times like you don't even know, and finnian's bayleef is the reason that j didn't kill me back at the dream castle." she doesn't even recoil at the memory right now - what's important is to make thalia see. "rangers ensured that i was able to pull so many defeated eos out of pal park, and melchior is why i lived long enough to even join eos in the first place!"
suddenly, karimi feels as if she's headed into the danger zone. they're getting close to the conversation point where she started losing her temper at neo. but this is thalia. this is different. thalia happens to be a friend and a colleague, and not a childhood friend from decima.
it wouldn't hurt so much to be rejected. it shouldn't hurt as much.
"just...we're all in this together, okay? we're your support system. i mean, that's why mercedes is doing this for us, right? we're all here. we're all capable at what we do. societies and universities are just... fancier things for rich people to throw money at, i guess. and lab space that researchers kinda need specifically. and a place for people to get drunk at 2am, but you didn't hear that from me."
it's when she recounts these beliefs that karimi thinks that she knows what she should do. she should ... she should give raza a chance at the scourge. she should give the researchers a chance to investigate. it's not her against the world. it's not raza against the world. it's one world against another. that's all it ever was.
it's much too late to talk the knife out of their hands
"Pax notes," Thalia confirmed. "Neo and I were exploring the institute separately. Ran into each other, and then we ran into two scourge. Agents--we never saw one of them, but we heard a voice, and I recognized the froslass and her partner. They were trying to destroy something, we thought. Or keep us from something. I found notes in a room one of them ran out of, and Neo deciphered them. The scientists at Pax had been experimenting with a virus, Neo called it. Around the same time, they found a rift in Lemures. The rift that lead to that Land. And here we are now, a year later. You're smart enough to figure out what we saw, I'm sure."
She paused.
"I don't know who Batin is. I don't think that's an agent I know. I only know one of their names; the man, Cameron. With the camerupt. I never saw another human in the Land, either, after you left. Only the scourge and J and I. There was the Lucario, but that's not a scourge pokemon I've ever fought. And as for how I won in my dream--"
Thalia laughed, bitter and dry as wine.
"It was pyrrhic. It turned out not to be a feasible strategy in actuality. Not a method I'll try using again. You can't always fight fire with fire." She rubbed at her eyes, and Umbreon leapt from the floor to her lap, curling up into a ball, tail tip touching his nose. She wondered if she should tell him he wasn't as small as he had been as an eevee--but he probably knew, and just didn't care. The weight was a comfort anyway, grounding her. She stroked his back and kept speaking.
"I know I'm not alone, not really, even without societies and labs. EOS is a whole and I'm part of that." she said. "But each part of a whole has its own role to fulfill that the others can't and don't get me wrong, Karimi. I don't begrudge my part. I chose it. I want it. I wouldn't let anyone take it away from me if they tried. Safety isn't for me. An easy life isn't for me. Whether you believe in fate, or just bad luck, I've always known how my part would play out. I'll do whatever it takes on the front lines to buy researchers time, to keep breeders safe. If it means killing, I'll kill. If one day it means dying, I'll die. Until the day I can't stagger forward and put myself between the world and someone else, I'll do whatever I can do, which is only what I have to do. That's my responsibility--that's my right. It isn't anyone else's. It's a trainer's job to take the hits, and then hit back harder. I know what I signed up for."
She grinned, all fangs.
"And I enjoy what I signed up for."
On a lighter note: "I wasn't aware Mordecai was famous."
karimi happened to be slumped over a desk in that very room, but thalia might not have noticed since it was hella dark in there. introducing herself to every researcher that she laid eyes on got pretty tiring, especially when she'd rushed over all the way from bacchus to attend the gala. the eelectross noticed thalia, though. he gives his trainer a poke in the arm.
