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!
What’s it like in Nerio City? Its miles and miles away. I bet it’s really pretty and shines brightly too. These were the kinds of thought Felizia found herself thinking as she sat down by a river and waited for something to bite. She had promised herself that, as boring as fishing looked, she would give her “mostly brand new” (as Fisherman Brett had put it) old rod a try. And so far…
It wasn’t working. Damn, had he given her the broken dud of a rod no one else wanted? On the plus side, fishing hadn’t turned out to be as boring as she had initially decided it was. Actually, fishing was almost quite relaxing… and…
And sending her off in a doze. Again. Ugh. Felizia shook her head and stood up. It was bad enough being dozy in the dream world – she didn’t want to be dozy in the actual real world too! It was time, she decided, to reel her line in and give up before she fell asleep. Out in the open. With only a small Nidoran for protection. A dozing Nidoran.
“Dammit, Lyra,” she muttered to her Pokemon as she started to reel in her rod’s line. “Dammit, fishing.”
delilah wondered why andras always ended up rolling away from her. (why ... had she even let him out of his pokeball?) as she watched the spheal tumble merrily off the road, veering toward the river, the woman simply decided that this would be the last time she let him roam free.
she would need more than her fingers and toes to count how many times he'd rolled himself into trouble.
following her pokemon with a sigh, her eyebrows shot up as he careened down the riverbank -- and directly into the back of a girl's legs. (oops.) "dammit -- sorry," the woman called. "you all right?"
It was unexpected. It was almost 40kg of rolling something hitting into the back of her legs. Of course Felizia fell forward into the river. Physics made sure of it, and it was hard for a person to fight physics.
She tumbled around in the water, trying to figure out which was up, and when she did she kicked through the water and pulled herself back up as fast as she could. Felizia gasped for air, and managed to get out two words: “The hell?”
When Felizia caught her breath and got over the shock of suddenly being pushed into the water, she swam to the bank and was about to snap at her still dozing Pokemon when someone spoke. A person. Immediately Felizia decided that it was their fault, even if they weren’t a heavy ball.
“What the hell was that for?!” Felizia snapped at the girl. She caught sight of a Spheal and glared at it. “Do I look like a wild Pokemon to you?!”
@tuyet (i wasn't gonna have her fall in, but then i saw how much a spheal weighs)
delilah stifled a giggle as she saw the girl tumble into the river. it was good to see her swimming, however -- unlike mordecai, who was about as mobile in the water as a drowned bird tied to an anchor. she casually navigated her way down the bank, raising an eyebrow at her flailing spheal.
well, at least he felt bad for pushing the girl in.
the woman rolled her eyes. "looking like that --" she gestured to the soaked girl, a smirk forming on her face as she recognized her -- "i'd say yeah, you do." delilah folded her arms across her chest, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh shut it!” Felizia snapped at the girl’s answer and started to crawl up the bank. “Hey Sleeping Beauty, you gonna wake up yet?” She shouted at her Pokemon who lazily lifted one eyelid open before jumping up completely awake and alert. She knew that she had missed on something.
Something funny, apparently. The Nidoran seemed amused as she watched Felizia pull herself up the bank. She received a warning look, but it didn’t bother her. Felizia’s attention was quickly drawn away from her and back to the other human.
“Fulfilling my lifelong ambition of being a Magikarp, obviously.” Felizia spat. No, she really did spit, but it was too the side and non-threatening. Just possibly a bit gross to those who hadn’t been for a swim yet. Ugh, she could still taste river water in her mouth.
Felizia looked down at the Spheal. The perpetrator. “You gonna apologise, Tubby?”
she laughed -- both at the nidoran's reaction to her trainer, and said trainer's appearance. "i've seen better-looking magikarp, honestly." of all people to run into (and literally, too), andras couldn't have picked a better target -- the girl from bacchus was definitely one delilah approved of being tossed into the murky water.
of course, that didn't mean delilah wasn't going to come to her spheal's defense. "hey, chill; look at him." the spheal was staring at felizia with wide, watery eyes. "if that's not what 'sorry' looks like, then you're blind." with a mocking, drawn-out sigh, the woman returned her spheal to his pokeball.
"you didn't answer my question, by the way." most of the displaced bacchus town residents had evacuated to nerio after the attack, except those who left to battle the scourge (like her family). and judging from the vaccinated nidoran lounging by the water, this girl was one of those people as well.
delilah placed her hand on her hip. "joined the eos program, zia?"
Felizia wasn’t too happy about the insinuation that there were better-looking Magikarp than her, but tried to shrug it off. She wasn’t a Magikarp, so she shouldn’t care. Unfortunately the other girl was right about the Spheal – he looked just awful and Felizia’s gut wrenched. Lyra nudged her leg, probably wanting her to apologise to the Spheal for being mean. Hmph, whatever. No way.
Luckily Felizia’s attention was drawn back to the girl, who seemed to know her, and Felizia pretended that she had forgotten all about the poor Spheal.
“Zia…” Oh! Of course! The realisation hit her like a ton of bricks. Only one person called her that, and now that she recognised the girl she felt stupid for not doing so sooner. Who else had pink streaks in their hair? Really, who?
“Nice to see you again too, D,” Felizia grumbled, shaking her arms get rid of some of the water. “And nah, I’m just running around with a vaccinated Pokemon for the hell of it. Can't you tell?”
delilah snorted. "took you long enough to remember," she sighed. "but i guess you were always pretty slow." the woman glanced at the lounging nidoran, then back at the girl with a condescending look.
"what, d'you really have that much free time on your hands?" delilah smirked. "i should have expected as much from you." the trainer honestly wasn't sure why she antagonized felizia so much -- taunting the other woman came as easy as breathing, it seemed -- but delilah always found it amusing whenever they ran into each other.
rolling her eyes, she gestured at lyra. "anyway, what're you -- a breeder?" weren't felizia's family the owners of a ranch or something?
Felizia pulled a face and mimicked Delilah’s snort, but couldn’t think of a snappy comment to fire back at her. She knew she was slow, and it wasn’t hard for other people to figure out, so she saw no point in denying it.
“Of course,” Felizia said, in response to the first question, as she grabbed clumps of her hair and squeezed the water out of them. “I have all the time in the world. Don’t you?” She paused, realising how odd it was seeing D here in a forest of all places. In nature. Y’know, outside of a city; the only backdrop she had ever seen Delilah stand against. She stared at the other girl for a couple of seconds, but couldn’t get used to the sight and gave up quickly.
Not wanting to give an insightful answer, Felizia just shrugged at Delilah’s question. “What’s it to you? Shouldn’t you be partying it up in a city with booze in one hand and god knows what in the other?”
delilah raised an eyebrow at felizia's staring. "take a picture if you want to look at me that much," she sighed. "lasts longer." the woman raised an eyebrow at felizia's uncooperativeness, but figured that was about as much as she could expect from the girl -- they were never really on good terms, anyway.
then the woman laughed harshly, waving her right hand through the air. "i'm afraid i'm limited to just one option, zia." either alcohol or a pokeball -- now that she only had one functional hand at her disposal, she could either fight the scourge or drink.
trying to do both would probably just get her killed.
so she laughed again, glancing around her. "and besides -- everyone needs a change of pace every once in a while."
It was very tempting to hold up an invisible camera with her thumbs and forefingers and take a pretend photo like Delilah had suggested – but Felizia refrained from doing so and instead gave her the most bored look she could summon. “You say the most original things, D.”
A cheeky grin formed when she added, “Maybe if you were one of your brothers I would take a picture.” Felizia was curious whether that on its own would provoke a reaction or if she’d have to prod a bit harder. An unknown law seemed to dictate that girls did not like other girls talking about their brothers (especially when it came across as kind of creepy/stalker-ish), and brother-less girls had no problem taking advantage of that when they wanted to.
The grin dropped, of course, when Delilah waved her hand. Felizia frowned, not sure what she meant and whether she wanted to know what she meant. Curiosity won, and Felizia asked, “Do you only have one hand? Really?”
she leveled a disgusted stare at felizia. "you're not worth their time," delilah remarked. both issac and -- arceus forbid -- mordecai could do better than that farm girl. the breeder was nothing more than a minor annoyance; delilah was certain they could find better women (or men, it wasn't really ... her place to judge).
the woman saw the smile slip off of the girl's face, raising an eyebrow. "are you blind?" delilah glanced down at her left hand, rolling her eyes. "it's there, obviously." she lifted her arm, her hand limp. "can't use it, though."
(Hah. So D really didn't seem to like her talking about her brothers. Felizia made a few mentals notes to remember that.)
Courtesy of the scourge. The sentence echoed in Felizia’s mind more than she liked, and she shivered. From being soaking wet, if course. It wasn’t like the scourge gave her shivers. No. Of course not. Definitely not. Why would you even think that?
She shook her arms and decided not to ask what happened. She didn’t care what happened, she told herself. She had to push all those kinds of thoughts to the side. Felizia forced a grin back on her face. “Shame. I bet partying is only half as fun now.”
If scourge-damaged hand hadn’t deflated her mood, she might have dared to ask for a double high-five.
she snorted, eyeing felizia with amusement. obviously, the mention of the scourge had gotten under felizia's skin. (then again, they were from bacchus -- of course it would have.) "nah. you don't need both hands to party." delilah shrugged. "if you'd ever had any fun, zia, you'd know that."
but no, the girl was too much of a stick-in-the-hypothetical-mud. (or literal, considering they were on a riverbank.)
delilah rolled her eyes. "anyway, are you going to spend the rest of the day moping about my hand?" she glanced at the forgotten rod. "or go back to the wonderful task of fishing for your kind?" by which delilah meant magikarp, of course.
Felizia raised an eyebrow. “I’ve had fun before. It’s not some secret thing that only you’ve figured out how to have.” She was a bit more offended than she liked. Here she was letting her mood sink and, for all Delilah knew, having a respectful moment of not-being-a-smart-arse towards the loss of the other girl’s hand; and here Delilah acting the same, acting as if she was the guru of fun.
Maybe Delilah deserved the double high-five request after all.
“You’re right. My kind needs me.” No smiles, but there was an irritated sigh. “And you should get back to whatever it was you were doing too. You can’t have that much free time on your hand.”
delilah wondered why andras always ended up rolling away from her. (why ... had she even let him out of his pokeball?) as she watched the spheal tumble merrily off the road, veering toward the river, the woman simply decided that this would be the last time she let him roam free.
