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!
even in the island of dreams, even as she bounces upon clouds that she know aren't real, alia is the happiest here. it's an amazing place where gravity didn't mean squat and lives are eternal. as eternal as her dream, anyway.
her braviary perches upon a cloud, and alia bounces up to meet him, laughing. it echoes, and alia suddenly remembers.
most often, when batin sleeps, zahir remains in their body. he is dreamless, these days. he handed everything over, and now all he has is himself. he does not regret his choices, but he is thankful batin only sleeps in spurts, four or three hours stolen at a time, just a brief blackness with his own thoughts before their body awakens again and zahir can view the world.
(he thinks of sophia's words. his father is dead. the blackness reaches forth for him so many times. was he sleeping? or is batin keeping secrets?)
but today, batin is sleeping deeper than usual, and he's not alone. when he drifts off, it isn't the blackness that greets zahir, but the blue, wide expanse of the sky. seen firsthand and not through the filtered lens of batin's gaze.
it's only a dream, some might say, but zahir has always known dreams contain your truest self. he stumbles forward onto a cloud, limbs clumsy with disuse, and looks about him.
she's a solitary creature. no matter how many friends she surrounds herself with, no matter how many surrogate siblings that she takes under her wing, alia feels the most like herself when she can open her arms and feel nothing around her but the full force of the wind. leon helps her out by spreading a tailwind.
it's not a feeling that lasts forever - it doesn't have to. alia would prefer that it doesn't. she tells her braviary a joke about a politoed's favorite drink, and the sky carries that too.
eventually, they reach a point where they can see a man amongst the clouds. alia is still riding off her joyous high, and it's infectous for her pokemon. "hey! it's a pretty night, ain't it?"
she practically bounces her way to the man. they are invincible here, and there's a sort of kinship to be found in that.
"what region are you from, mister--" her words half-die in her throat. even without a scar, she's...she's seen that face before, hasn't she? wait, has she really? "...have we met before?"
there's still room for doubt. alia is a girl who grew up with triplets, and karimi is the researcher who fought scourge with delta's hot not-cousin.
that is, if she's not just imagining the resemblance.
VLJWNBR0 < 50 batin kept him out of meeting karimi
in a sense, they've met. if you could call it a meeting. she's met what's left of his body, if not him. zahir doesn't call the shots any longer. but her face is familiar, crowned with blue hair, even though he wasn't really there for any of it.
(batin is as fond of neo as zahir ever was. Or perhaps it's the other way around. batin met her first, after all.)
but to zahir, it isn't a lie when he answers.
"no. we haven't."
he smiles.
"i'm from kohaku. nerio city, to be exact. you can call me zahir."
"oh..." she looks pensive for a moment. zahir doesn't...really look like a liar. karimi ignores that she's never been the best judge of that. she also thinks that saying 'you remind me of this hades agent kidnapper dude' wouldn't go over too well. yeah. uh.
there's...not much that she can do about her suspicions, is there?
karimi's face brightens up considerably once she decides that she's not going to let it matter. nothing bad could happen here in the dream world. nothing bad ever happened in a dream.
"nice to meet you! i'm karimi, from decima town!" she doesn't miss a beat. no matter what her home has become, no matter how many scourge trample upon its ground, decima will always be decima and alia will always be proud of it. "you have a really nice name!" it reminds her of home, somehow.
"my condolences," he says. there's quite a few EOS running around who were originally from decima. he supposes that when your city falls, there's not much else to do but take up arms. there's no longer a hearth to hide behind, after all.
not that he would know. nerio's rotten heart pulses on as strongly as ever, seems to push back the scourge with every beat. even when they swarm over it, they're repulsed. he's watched through batin's eyes as bacchus is clawed back, inch by inch. zahir's felt the viscous pride rise through his body, unsure of which of them it belongs to.
"i've been to decima, in the past. it's a lovely place."
alia is quiet. she wishes that she could say that it's still a lovely place. more than anything, she wants to tell him that it's a quiet town where the daffodils grew on fifth street and the smell of strawberry preserves wafted from a single father's corner bakery. except karimi's been to decima and there is no sign that daffodils ever grew there. when she inhales, there is only putrid poison.
"yeah, sucks to be us at the moment." she can't tell him that it's a lovely place right now. what she can tell him is that it's going to be a lovely place again. "but you know what? we're gonna get it back. we're gonna get every inch of our town back, and then you can walk back to our streets and say 'wow this is still a really lovely place with the prettiest flowerbeds and the most delicious strawberry rolls'! doesn't matter how long it takes."
it doesn't even occur to her that she hasn't even introduced herself as eos yet. that's not what's important right now. what's important is decima. what's important is the future.
talking to zahir about this makes her really happy. it's not often that she found anyone who shared a same degree of optimism for decima town. not even the people who had actually lived there. "isn't that right!" karimi is all smiles and cheer. "i'm really glad that you think so! sometimes it feels like i'm fighting and fighting out there for a future that nobody really believes in. or maybe they're too scared to believe in it because they're not sure if we're ever gonna get there or not. i mean, nobody actually wants the bad end. except the hades agents maybe." actually, that was just a guess. she doesn't actually know jack squat about the hades agents. who knows what the hell those losers wanted anyway? nothing good, she imagines.
"it just...gets pretty lonely to be the only one dreaming about the nice future, y'know?" she pauses. "hey, do you have dreams, zahir? are you living them right now?" if he was, then maybe all of her efforts weren't really for nothing. maybe she did buy a few cities some time, the future some hope.
"my dream is unfolding right in front of me," zahir said, and it was true. he was just taking a much more passive role in it than he had ever suspected. or maybe he'd known all along what would become of him. if you told a story enough times, it became true. the punishment of liars was that they believed their own lies. he'd invited batin in. he'd known the price.
"but i believe in your nice future, karimi. even if people are scared now, i'm sure it'll be worth it when that future arrives regardless of their fears."
"huh" karimi tilts her head slightly. "you're really lucky to be able to fulfil it during a time like this! or really determined!" karimi just so happened to fulfil both criteria when she signed up to become an eos researcher. so maybe she had to make a few modifications to her plan here and there, but the scourge made that true for everyone else too. "so what is it? what's your dream?" she asks eagerly - who wouldn't be dying to tell other people about their dreams?
karimi digresses, just a bit. it was really easy for her to do so to a man who believed in her more than her friends did.
"oh! i forgot to mention! i'm an eos researcher. didn't expect to be one either, actually." like anyone could really anticipate that the region would be overrun by zombie pokemon. "i actually had ... different dreams before the scourge happened. dreams about going off and discovering things about the world! and now -" she pauses for a second. "heh. i guess we're all discovering things about the world faster than what we were ready for."
a lot of her conversations are turning awfully grim lately.
"funny how they've changed so much. i got what i wanted, and it's nothing like... " she exhales, and her braviary lands to stand beside her. "...i miss it. i miss decima. should have spent a little less time drinking in bacchus and a little more time in grandpa's garden."
"sometimes i have to wonder if we're not just settling for the future." she hates that. maybe it's because karimi is a researcher, but she doesn't want to settle for anything. "do you think so?"
"my dream is a world without the scourge," zahir said. "a world where kohaku is freed, and stronger for what it has gone through. cleaner. i can see it happening right in front of me. the newspaper headlines are going ecstatic over pal park, you know."
he smiled faintly.
"there's no reason, once the scourge are defeated, that you can't fulfill your earlier dreams as well miss karimi. perhaps they'll even be more precious for the wait. as for settling--no, i don't believe so."
she smiles at him brightly - after all, she had been a participant in the liberation of pal park. it was really nice to see that she's helping to fulfil zahir's dream too.
karimi looks a little more pensive at his next words, though.
"do you...do you really think that we'd be stronger for everything that's happened? i mean, you're not the only one to think so. i was just talking to a colleague the other week about the same thing. i mean, the pokemon data that we've been collecting is really piling up, but..."
karimi wouldn't have traded her brothers and sister for all of that data. she didn't want to trade away or compromise a thing. maybe that was the difference between herself and some of the more successful researchers. she doesn't want to change, though. she won't -
(but can she?)
she thinks of her brother larsa, that kid who would always be crying over one thing or another.
"i wish we didn't have to be stronger." she finally admits. "i used to think that i was strong, but now... i think that i've just been really lucky." maybe this isn't what she should be saying to a civilian whose hopes rode on her successes, but that's not what karimi is thinking about right now. "i got to travel and research like i wanted, but... i don't know. those dreams feel less important now."
maybe that would change. maybe not. either way, she can only plow forward.
"if the scourge is a virus," zahir said, "like i'm told, then yes, i believe it will make us stronger."
he frowned, and tried to think of what he might be allowed to know.
"humans who ally with the scourge," he settled on. "there have been reports. what kind of person do you think chooses such a path? isn't it better that they're marked out, afflicted by the scourge? it's a way of culling them out of the herd. humanity will be better for losing them."
karimi gives him a really strange look before deciding that zahir probably wouldn't understand much as a civilian who knew of the war through newspapers. either that, or he had really odd coping mechanisms. the scourge definately promoted a market for those.
"i don't know, zahir. i've lost too many friends and family for that kind of optimism." she didn't think that she would see the day. if she can just see the day when the region would be restored to what it used to be like, then that's what she will have to fight for. "people should be allowed to choose strength of their own free will! the scourge are just...forcing the choice on everyone. it's okay if not everyone is strong! and those who aren't..."
karimi takes exhales and tells herself that too many months have passed for her tears now.
"people don't just die because they're weak. i would have died so many times if that was true. people die --"
she thinks back to the day that she woke up in melchior's gym. the day that the world she loved was drowned in poison. melchior had been more talkative than he had ever been during his entire career as a gym leader, giving directions left and right. alia had watched him then and admired his strength.
" -- people die when nobody cares." and the war had shifted priorities for a lot of people. bonds were as easily forged as they were broken. "and the scourge have created a lot of people who don't care about anything but eradicating them" trainers and researchers came to mind, but so did a fair amount of rangers that she had met over the past year.
(she tries not to think too hard about raza)
she's silent for a few moments at zahir's next statement. this is an answer that she needs to give to herself too. at the same time, it was also kind of a ... weird way of phrasing things. how does he seem so sure of his facts?
"i wish i knew how agents came into existence. being able to collect data on them would be immensely useful, but they're a slippery lot." karimi looks immesely troubled. "all i can do is fight them and hope that i'll eventually get far enough for some answers." it's a weak finish, and she knows it. she thinks back to what she had discussed with neo at kohaku university. if it was between choosing neo's safety or getting agent information, she picked the former in a heartbeat.
now, she's not so sure if she made the right choice. neo managed to get herself kidnapped by some weirdo agent chef in the end, and her trainer friends nearly died trying to get her out. whether they sit around and dawdle or whether they risk their lives, the agents seem to be coming for them either way.
zahir has really weird opinions about agents, even if he seemed like a good guy. think the history channel guy who looks as the pyramids of giza and goes "ALIENS". "i'm not chasing them on the basis of some unsubstantiated theory or principle or whatever, man. i'm chasing them on the basis of what they've done and what they can do to kohaku. they're a threat for sure. the worst that the region's ever seen. that's why i gotta fight. i gotta study. i know not everyone is so excited about trying to understand agents, but i'm a researcher, so i'm the one who has to get my hands dirty with the job that nobody else would want to do."
"sometimes it's a little hard to remember, though." she confesses. "some days, all i want to give the a good hard kick in the shins. and maybe the nose. and a whole lotta other places." she doesn't punch like neo, either.