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!
stefan didn't usually go out of his way to involve himself in eos' going-ons, but he isn't blind to the situation in the forest. a defunct amberwell meant that vaccine production would slow, or cease entirely. he might have been able to afford more apathy if he were he gym leader of sol city, but he wasn't so fortunate. he's the gym leader of nerio city, right at the scourge's doorstep. so he waited until most of the gym was taking their legally-mandated vacation days, locked up the gym proper, and set off to ceres forest.
it's not something that he would have done last year, but he had been a different person with different responsibilities.
whether he lived or died - stefan didn't think too hard about that. he never did. whether the putrid city of greed and decadence would live or die - the man had thought about it plenty. that's what was natural to him. that's what he found to be worth preserving.
that being said, he tries not to think too hard about his last camping trip in ceres forest. the difference now is that he knows where juturna village is. he didn't necessarily have to camp anywhere tonight.
a pink weavile lingers in the trees. she is the pokemon that stefan knew would make the least amount of disturbance in the forest. he didn't care to fight the wild pokemon of ceres. he only cared about checking the situation at the amber glade. from what he'd heard, it wasn't easy to wander the place without vaccinated pokemon.
citrus w/ lacey btw my last post in 'city of lights' got her out of proserpina
Getting out of Proserpina is both liberating and bittersweet, but Lacey knows that she's already wasted enough time there as it is. A researcher's job is much more than gathering entries in what seems to be a city with a scourge-free future, and she decides that she would rather go to them than have them approach her. Some surprises are good surprises, the bright moments in life that everyone has to cherish before they're gone. This is not one of those surprises.
For once, six pokeballs sit in her pocket, only one empty. Rattata plods beside her in light steps, sniffing the air with a strange mixture of curiosity and caution. Word of what has befallen the amberwell travels fast, and as a researcher, she has all the more reason to be alarmed. Lacey doesn't think there are enemies around - why should there, when the scourge have already gotten what they want? - but she still picks Rattata up to sit on her head, silencing the pokemon's chatter with a quiet shh of her own. They make less noise, this way.
The atmosphere gains a certain chill when she crosses a certain point. Not enough to be truly cold, so Lacey pulls her dress a little tighter around herself and keeps her eyes peeled for those elusive scourge. She has heard so much about them, from different people in different places, but the experience is something that stays unique from person to person, can't be replicated no matter what. She wants to see them with her own eyes instead of relying on the picture that has been painted in her mind.
Amberwell isn't hard to find - she follows the wind, the cold air will lead her on the right track, from the rumors she's heard. Rattata, who has been lying flat on her head for the entirety of the journey, suddenly rears up, its tail quiverying as paws put pressure on her hair. "What is it?" Lacey murmurs, trying to keep her voice down. It echoes, painfully loud, especially because the forest is as devoid of life as it will ever be. She lifts her pokedex in front of her and scans in a full circle. It doesn't take long for it to pinpoint onto the source of life - the weavile shows up in a light green glow on her screen.
Lacey pauses, then steps a little bit closer to let it scan the creature. She knows that it's not scourge by how fast the device beeps its confirmation.
the weavile had noticed the girl before she had noticed her, and she would have been content to pay no mind to the researcher. that was before she had been scanned in the trees.
such a violation of privacy simply demanded to be repaid. the weavile is fast - faster than any other pokemon that stefan owns. when she leaps out of the trees to make a swipe for lacey's pokedex, she is very nearly soundless.
she is half a second away from the pokedex. a quarter of a second. one-eighth of a second. one-sixteenth- "lisbeth."
the weavile grits her teeth and retracts her arm, shooting back into the foilage - without the pokedex.
stefan wrinkles his nose. he never did like thieves, but the weavile was plenty good at what she does - when she remembered to behave herself, anyway.
"excuse her. she is a... relatively new acquisition." stefan turns his gaze on a bush that seemed to be rustling in the breeze. "lisbeth."
the weavile finally appears in plain view, looking rather like a sulky teenager.
stefan decides to ignore her antics. "...you're an eos researcher."
he would know. he spent half of last year sponsoring one with a bright red pokedex.
Her pokedex doesn't get the chance to protest at the sudden movement before the weavile is already upon them. Lacey stares, fascinated, as it retracts its claws back into the bushes to the tune of a man. She steps closer, pocketing the pokedex as Rattata's fur bristles with the unspoken atmosphere of hostilities at the now-rustling bushes.
"Oh no, I don't mind." Lacey grins. It is a close call, but the exhilaration that comes with it is something valuable in itself, and the weavile practically exudes strength. "She's new to your team, mister? How long have you known each other?"
The first full glimpse of the weavile is impressive, to say the least. Lacey goes up to it and stares at the pink shine as a result of the vaccine; the pokedex in her pocket clicks, but she pays it no mind. "Hey! I'm sorry about earlier. Would it be okay for us to still be friends?" She holds out her free hand in front of the pokemon in the beginnings of a handshake.
"Yup!" Briefly, she twists her head around to nod at the man. "I came to check the amberwell's condition. Do you know anything about it?"
it's not really any of her buisness, but stefan can spare a bit of small talk. the vaccinated rattata beside her and the pokedex in her hands help.
"a few months, so i would suggest that you watch your pockets." from his understanding, lisbeth did not steal valuables for what they are or what she lacked. she pocketed things for the thrill of the challenge. she stole things as trophies, proof that she is a wild, free thing with not even a conscience to hold her back.
("come with me", stefan had said. "come with me, and i will guarantee not only your safety from the scourge, but that you will never consider yourself a house pet again")
and stefan personally knew a thing or two about being a house pet.
he glances at the weavile. do you not trust me? do you not trust me to keep my end of the bargain? very well. perhaps you shouldn't. these days, he doesn't even trust himself sometimes.
he does not mind too much when the weavile takes her head. it would be rude to decline what is offered. it is a human gesture devoid of meaning for a weavile, but it is an opportunity for her to scrutinize the researcher.
"i wouldn't be here if i did. most of that information would belong to eos." which he certainly is not, no matter how many vaccinated pokemon he has in his possession.
he gives a dubious look to the path ahead. "lisbeth. check ahead of us."
the weavile nods, and shoots off with a pink pokepuff in her mouth. stefan is pretty sure that he didn't carry any strawberry ones with him today. he glances at lacey.
"...i'll compensate you when we part ways." he's pretty sure that a pokepuff won't be the only thing that lisbeth will be pilfering, and he'd rather handle the transaction all at once.
and because he's not stupid enough to walk around ceres without any vaccinated pokemon, he takes out a pink honchkrow as well.
lLgdcx0T 1-20 regular pokemon up ahead 21-40 dead regular pokemon 41-60 scourge pokemon up ahead 61-80 dead scourge pokemon 81-90 dead scourge partner pokemon npcs (shiny scourge) 91-100 hades agent npcs up ahead
She nods at his statement, picking at the folds of her dress for the few belongings she took with her at the start of this journey. The implications are there, but his suspicions aren't unreasonable in the slightest - pokemon are innately human in nature, she believes, and just because they answer to a trainer's call doesn't mean that they can simply shut off urges that might come naturally. "Thanks for the heads up." Part of her grin dampens into a light smile. "Is there a story behind the meeting?"
The phrasing of the question directs it at him, but by the time she's finished talking, Lacey's attention is completely fixated on the weavile again. Claws sharper than knives curl around her fingers, and at a certain point, it blends seamlessly into a layer of soft fur that feels remarkably similar to Rattata's own. She looks at the pokemon, eyes sparkling like she's waiting for its answer, and its trainer is only second best, a last resort. Stories are always told in the eyes of the victors, the owners, the ones that come out on top. What Lacey doesn't understand is why nobody ever bothered to try getting the tale from the opposite perspective.
"Hmm, I guess you're right! I haven't run into anybody in eos, so i wouldn't know. It's a little bit strange for it to be so empty around here, don't you think?" In her experience, something of value only begins to gain appreciation when it's lost. The amberwell is certainly lost, but nobody flocks around in a frenzy to get it back, contrary to what she expects. Perhaps this is the purpose behind scouting ahead, to see if there are others that have the information they seek.
She watches the weavile leave, placing her hand on a certain dress pocket. "It's okay. I have lots of them to spare, anyways!" And because there's safety in waiting for the weavile to return(as well as killing time as it is), she takes out a random pokepuff and holds it out to the honchkrow.
The pokedex complains in a robot language that she doesn't understand. Lacey ignores it, for the time being.
wd01ePce 1-33 orange 34-66 brown 67-99 green 100 pink < 50 honchkrow likes it > 50 doesn't like it 50 neutral
"we met. she followed." came the abrupt reply. his mind is not on lacey, but on whatever could be lurking ahead. even without the scourge about, one could never be too careful. that, and stefan could never find himself being particularly romantic about life. where other people would spend a lot of time remniscing about the wondrous coincidences in their histories or lucky happenings, stefan preferred to accept them before moving on.
"not really. people tend to value their lives." the ones who weren't stupid enough to go poking around a forest that the scourge are still holding, at least. in his honest opinion, he wasn't really sure if a researcher who hadn't even evolved her rattata should be wnadering around such a forest, but it wasn't really his business. at the very least, being in the vicinity of a kohaku gym leader upped her chances of survival considerably. not that she probably knew that.
the honchkrow is a gentlemanly bird, and he accepts the gift graciously, nodding his thanks. even if the flavor wasn't to his liking, he probably would have faked satisfaction.
lisbeth returns soon with the same bounce in her hurried steps. stefan had won his badge from veronica a long time ago, and so they lock themselves in telepathic communication immediately.
<i found only dead bodies ahead.>
natural causes?
YAkD8DHc <50 <no>
that is unfortunate. then we will proceed. he moves out with his two pokemon in tow. they reach a clearing, and lisbeth had been true to her word.
<50 culprits are still at the scene of the crime citrus
