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!
While Dust took a breather, Neo whipped out her pokedex to point it at the aron, adding a new entry with a satisfied nod.
"Fine by me. Hyperion could use a moment himself, I believe," she said, and Hyperion nodded his agreement. She wasn't certain if the blitzle was genuinely tired or if it simply didn't want to fight. Either way, no need to push it. Trainer battles were primarily for trainers.
"If you'd like, perhaps my magikarp could offer them an acceptable challenge? Icarus has a great deal of battle experience, but his only attack is tackle."And splash, she didn't add.
"and splash," J added, unable to contain the half-smirk that quirked his mouth. "but it's what magikarp do best, i suppose." he nodded, while dust and chain stared at him as if he'd grown several arms throughout the conversation.
dust flopped over, sighing, while chain pumped a fist in the air, having placed aside the previous battle with the zebra.
a magikarp ought to be relatively harmless, J figured -- dust could take its time to get the hang of real battling, while chain was already raring to go.
"I do. That was my research back in Proserpina." It turned out all that time in the library was for naught. There was much more to be gained by simply studying vaccinated pokemon. She imagined there was much to be gained by inspecting scourge pokemon, but... well, she didn't have a death wish--not yet.
"You seem to have acquired plenty of the vaccine though. I've only seen breeders with so many vaccinated pokemon."
"my skarmory and aron were bred," J said, "i got a vaccine at the 'mart for the mawile. i think it's better to just get pokémon off the breeders' -- they're vaccinated, usually, but the trade-off is, well ..."
he jerked his head towards dust and chain. vaccinated, but hardly useful in the face of battles. "it wouldn't be easy to raise them to levels capable of fighting off scourge; well, i haven't really met one, but i've heard stories."
"Hyperion was bred too," Neo replied, taking the time to scratch the blitzle's neck before recalling him to his pokeball. "Breeders are your best bet for now, yes. The vaccine is quite difficult to synthesize. It cannot be mass produced, not without a facility specifically for the purpose."
She'd told a few stories of the scourge herself, although Neo wasn't the storyteller that she once was. "They are viciously powerful," she said distantly, her voice clouded by memories. "I was in Decima Town when--I was lucky. Others weren't."
J nodded. it was easy to see where neo was coming from, and as the conversation took a more solemn turn, he wondered if that was neo's specific motivation for becoming a researcher. maybe she had been studious all this while, but he had no idea.
"i'm sorry," he managed to say, "you researchers could probably group together to figure something out, though. the power of combined knowledge, or something."
dust and chain edged towards J once hyperion disappeared into its pokéball, the latter stifling a yawn as it did so.
"I haven't met another researcher yet, none besides the Professor." As true as that was, she was also quite certain that the others existed. She'd battled them in the Dream World, and she'd certainly heard of others.
"I believe the Eos program is more hoping that their pokemon trainers will simply eliminate the scourge race altogether."
"really?" J said, "that's odd; you'd think most of them would be in the library." by the time the both of them had left the proserpina library, J had noticed an amount of people studying there. neo would probably have found some researcher friends, he thought.
"but if our pokémon die, the fastest way is to replace them with stronger ones, and we need vaccines. vaccines researchers make."
She shrugged. "I don't talk to people much. Not unless they have pokemon worth studying." Sometimes even then, she skipped the talking to people part. It just wasn't worth her time.
"Planning for the likelihood that your pokemon die is gambling against yourself," she said shortly, but she didn't disagree. In her regular, detached tone, she added, "I will let you know when I have accumulated a surplus of the vaccine."
then it was by chance entirely that they had started a conversation in the library, and somehow managed to sustain it even after a period of time. J supposed it wasn't so bad after all; it wasn't like neo was completely helpless when it came to human interaction.
"that'd be great, thanks," he said, nodding once. "breeders would need them too, right?" he thought of the people running the egg shop, and supposed they were in need of vaccines for pokémon. "so how about getting back to business?"
She pulled out a familiar pokeball--ironically Icarus was the pokemon on her team that had seen the most battle--and tossed it into the air, releasing a magikarp. It flopped about without much energy. "My pleasure," Neo said. "I suppose we could open with a splash."
chain and J shared a mutual silence. even if nothing had happened. "i guess dust and chain can go ahead and ... yeah." he doubted that their clumsiness would result in them losing to a magikarp, even if it knew how to tackle on dry land. for one, the carp looked tried and tired.
dust and chain both attempted bashing the magikarp with their bodies and appendages, surprised by the lack of effort on icarus's part.
Icarus, despite his general lack of agility, dodged the first incoming blow, but took the second one in the mouth. Flopping into a vaguely offensive position, he reared back and went for a tackle on Chain.
chain toppled over, mumbling something about fishes on land, but quickly attempted to astonish the magikarp, while dust went for a tackle on its scaly fins.
