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!
there were certain advantages to losing pal park to eos. negligible advantages, certainly, but advantages nevertheless. it meant that their eyes were focused on rebuilding pal park for the moment. it meant that physis could rest in what used to be the rosenburg estate. no one has appeared to claim the land since then, so maybe it truly is the rosenburg estate once more.
silly of her to consider such things, physis knows. she's out there running with literal monsters. the affairs of civilization should not be her concern any longer. yet here she is, instead of spending her time in the land of nightmares.
they stand outside the house, next to the trees that have long since worn down into stumps. physis dips a bloody rag into a bucket of water and attempts to get the red out before applying it to the mamoswine's facial area. the blood isn't his. how could it, when his internal organs and fluids are all pitch-black goo? he'll be fine, she knows, but that didn't mean that he shouldn't look presentable at least.
she applies the cloth to his thick fur, remembering when she had used to do this for him back when he was only a piloswine. as sweet as phillip was, he could never stand bathing, and sophia would have to chase him all the way outside before he would give in. now they're both monsters who try too hard to be a human and pokemon.
physis feels rather foolish, but she doesn't stop her task.
Their loss, to him, is irrelevant. Spiritomb recovers within a good half hour, and he himself managed to escape unscathed. The only thing that, perhaps, it damaged beyond immediate repair is Azazel's ego. The pokemon keeps its normal, giggling demeanor, but the spirits around it swirl almost lazily, expanding and contracting like it doesn't know which to pick in the end. They wander around aimlessly, the two of them. Although Ethan can understand the spiritomb, he feels no need for words between them - maybe some days, when he's in good enough of a mood, but certainly not today.
The exploration of this place comes as an accident, of sorts. He draws the psychic sign with his styler out of a fit of boredom, and it teleports them to strange new places, and this is only one of them. He walks past tall buildings, taller than decima ever hand, craning his neck up in an attempt to see the top(it doesn't work). The place is mostly deserted. He's not sure whether its because the scourge have no interest in land they already own, or deliberately shying away because one of them are in the vicinity.
To his side, the atmosphere shifts and becomes unbearably tense. Azazel is agitated, he can feel it, the spirits in it are frantically moving around in an undisguised torrent of emotions. Ethan peers forward at the two looming figures that gradually solidify to form concrete shapes. He recognizes them, he realizes - the glimpse of the woman herself was brief and fleeting, but it is difficult not to remember the massive mamoswine by her side.
He quickens his pace and approaches her without a second thought. "Do you need any help?"
she pauses in her work and turns around. the mamoswine hasn't shown any adverse reaction, so she knows that the voice doesn't belong to a person who is looking to kill them right this second.
some days, she feels as if she can trust phillip's judgement better than her own.
(nothing ever happened under her brother's watchful eyes)
the woman turns around to face the boy. good gracious, the newest recruits into the scourge's ranks are getting younger and younger. there also seems to be a disproportionate number of agents who prefer ghost pokemon. in another life, maybe she would be the one who was conducting a study on such a phenomenon.
(in another life, maybe you wouldn't have been scourge)
physis soothes those thoughts - this is who she is now. this will always be what she is. it is not yet sophia's time to come out to play. in a world without contradictions, it will never be her time again.
"...i am fine. he is my responsibility anyway."
physis owes him for sophia. to some extent, for herself as well.
Their meeting may be of chance, but opportunities are meant to be taken, and this one is no different. Ethan looks at this woman, memorizes as much of her as he can for times when the mamoswine may be absent. They're monsters - because they're monsters - that are united under a common cause, something that most humans spend their entire lifetimes without, and to recognize such whenever they meet is fundamental, the foundations of trust.
Something decidedly Ethan rears up at that - monsters cannot be trusted, it says, to trust is to endanger and that's why they belong alone, as it's always been - but to say and feel that way defies everything that Aiden (was)is. He buries it under a grin, letting the warmth of the words of thanks replace the conflict that sends chills crawling down his spine. "Don't mention it!"
Then, quieter, "You've known each other for awhile, right?" Because he's never thought of Azazel as a sort of responsibility but rather, a burden, something that doesn't belong in this world. They are allies only for their beliefs, and to see a gesture such as bathing is something so familiar - should be familiar, at least - that it curls his stomach into a dozen, twisted knots. "You seem really...close."
And as he slides his gaze to Azazel, he can't decide if the jealousy that sprouts from the question is truly Aiden's, or just a distant memory of Ethan that shouldn't exist.
their camaraderie is a strange thing. sophia recognizes monsters in all human beings. perhaps that is why physis is able to talk to him with such natural calm.
(physis. natural law. law)
just knowing that he is a hades agent - very little has changed in her perception of him. she notices ethan's unease, but she does not comment.
"...he belonged to my brother." or rather, that wasn't exactly accurate is it. he belonged to the both of them. every fiber of daniel's being had always belonged to sophia, and phillip had known this better than sophia ever did. "we spent a childhood together."
