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!
"If there's water, I catch fish and boil them--and I eat berries raw. I don't really know how to cook," she admitted. She had survived primarily by scavenging what canned food she could get her hands on in Decima, and after that, she'd relied on stumbling on something edible.
(It was easier in Bacchus. Then she already knew to grab all the preserved foods she could.)
"I can go looking for a pachirisu to eat," she offered.
J was left to wonder if neo had simply led a privileged life, or had little to no affinity with the kitchen. perhaps he was the odd one in the conversation. "berries are good raw, but when cooked they give off a different flavor," he pointed out, and had to stop to think when neo offered to go hunting.
he didn't have anything against that, but it was just slightly startling. the suggestion was fine as it was, too. a pachirisu would mean a less barren stew, and J wasn't about to complain. "pachirisu stew, then? if you don't mind, some spicy berries would be nice to go with."
She'd brought out the blitzle and started thunderwaving entire clearings and trees and bits of underbrush. Mostly, she got nothing. Occasionally, she got bugs, which she would eat but didn't particularly want to--plus, she couldn't bring back a durant when she'd promised a pachirisu.
After maybe half an hour of wandering about randomly zapping things, she finally found herself a bunneary, whose neck she summarily wrung and brought it back to camp. "Couldn't find a pachirisu, figured a rabbit would do." Close enough, right?
She sat down, dug a small roll into the ground, and started draining the bunneary's blood into it. She pulled a teeny little knife, like a switchblade had a baby cousin, out of her bag. "Sorry it took so long. I'll have it skinned soon."
in the meantime, J had managed to get water boiling and some berries crushed for flavor. he considered the buneary neo brought back a step up from pachirisu; if the portions were divided right, he figured he could make the meal stretch until breakfast. after adding some spicy berries, the trainer stepped back from the fire and observed neo.
she had surprising skill with a blade, he had to admit. he didn't know it was part of the job requirement for a researcher, but he quickly amended the thought after recalling that dissections were crucial to understanding how scourge pokémon worked.
She didn't keep kosher or anything, so as soon as the blood subsided to a decent drip, she had at the bunneary. Removing the organs--most of which she could identify as edible or not--was the easy part. Skinning was more of a hassle, especially without a lab table.
"Here," she said, chunks of raw meat in her hands, and a neat pile of edible parts sitting on a tree root.
...She really needed to wash her hands, but not as badly as when she handled the trubbish.
J thanked neo and started cooking; the meat he boiled separately before putting them into the stew for a cleaner, less bloody flavor. unfortunately, he had no idea what kind of taste neo preferred, and went for the safer option -- which was still very much edible.
it took a while, but the stew was soon done. J wondered if the faint scent would attract nearby pokémon, but decided not to think too much of it and started portioning the food.
"Smells good," she said, although she wouldn't have cared how it smelled or what it tasted like as long as it was good for eating. It was nice to avoid another meal of ramen though.
Dinner came and went. It was better than she expected, not to mention a whole lot better instant ramen. She said as much. She went for a brief walk again after she ate, or alternatively she briefly patrolled the perimeter. ...Not that there was much to worry about.
Feeling safe, she slept for the night, awaking to the sound of pidgeys in the early morning.
J woke up the next morning in one piece, after neo had presumably woken up some time ago. having no idea how long she had been up before him, the trainer wisely decided to remain silent. (he had been woken up by sunlight piercing through the canopy of the forest.) a glance at his c-gear revealed that if he were to make breakfast, he was late, and they might as well have brunch while they were at it.
he got up to look for neo, asking about breakfast or brunch or just lunch.
She'd gone for another walk/patrol, mostly assuming that J would not become the victim of a hungry woodland salamence while he slept or anything like that. Neo strayed back into the campsite shortly after J woke up.
When consulted for her opinion, she was all apathy. "Food is food to me, so we cna have whatever you feel like. And when we're done with that, we battle."
(timeskip bc i am not writing about cooking again orz)
after some pancakes and leftover stew, J retrieved dust and chain's pokéballs and cleared the field for their second battle. "dust, chain," he called, sending both pokémon out. they were feeling better after resting overnight, and a battle wasn't too much of an issue for either of them.
it was just a magikarp, after all, albeit a magikarp getting beat up all the time.
knowing full well the capability of icarus by now, chain went in without hesitation to deliver an astonish attack on the carp pokémon. the aron, on the other hand, paused a moment to allow chain's to strike before it attempted to strike the hapless fish with earth power.
The magikarp wasn't a very experienced pokemon, but at some point, it was a better trained combatant than both the mawile and aron. The astonish did in fact astonish it, and the earth power gave it a good tremble, but the mighty Icarus had felt much worse in his time.
Vigorously, it splashed, because surely a good splash could knock out any opponent.
Neo coughed pointedly. "Tackle too," she suggested.
Valiantly, it also attempted a tackle on the closer mawile.
dust took a few slaps from the fish's tail as it splashed around, but took no damage. it went in for a tackle just as icarus finished attacking chain with its own tackle. unfortunately for icarus, chain had decided to retaliate by slamming its huge jaws against it.
