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!
Nenia's Tunnel was the only place safe enough for a makeshift lab. Neo and Athena were busy at work--or at least Neo was. Athena had an argument to make.
Her lab was, quite frankly, in the way. Nenia's people, the remaining citizens, were a fair ways back in their own retreat, but anyone going down Nenia's tunnel was going to have to squeeze past a fairly sizable, if decidedly haphazard, laboratory. Even worse, they were talking--perhaps arguing--loudly.
Athena listed all the reasons she should be. <I'm strong! I'm fast! I've won a lot of fights already!>
At that, Neo laughed--a dry, bitter sound. She didn't sound very happy. "You're not ready. This is scourge; it's not going to be a dream arena battle, or a friendly tussle by the amberwell. Look, when you're as strong as Icarus, then you can fight too. And that, that will be a great day. But until then, you'll only get in the way."You'll only die, Neo didn't say.
Athena sulked, but she continued with the delicate lab work: measuring, mixing, carefully copying down the proper notes and computations.
She'd do battle against the scourge in Bacchus Town soon, but for now, she worked on a new dose of the vaccine.
thorpe had led the way, and J had decided to stop outside for a smoke. he wasn't fond of the dark, damp environment the tunnel offered. his pokémon had been reduced to thorpe and est, his riolu and zorua. he wasn't as safe; he didn't feel secure being in bacchus without his usual team with him.
for once, he could smell the danger in the air. through the smoke, through the dust.
he went back into the tunnel after stamping out his cigarette, calling for neo.
"Spotted anything outside? Anything that might eat, murder, or otherwise brutalize us?" she asked without looking up.
Athena was quicker to abandon her work, skipping up to J with a hearty greeting and a hug for him and Thorpe.
"Better yet, spotted a good place to pick a fight?" Her pokemon were back from the Dream World tomorrow. She intended on giving the scourge a run for their money as soon as they were ready: physically and emotionally.
"nothing," said J, shaking his head as he tossed his parka aside onto a rock plateau. the weather inside the tunnels weren't anything like the weather outside. J patted athena on the head while thorpe took to the other pokémon happily.
"we might as well find a chamber in these tunnels and spar there." J glanced around. caverns were unpredictable, but safe for battling. anything that didn't glide had their footsteps very much apparent, and J could identify certain pokémon species by the sound of their footsteps.
thorpe chattered excitedly to athena about the weather outside. it was dusty and there was nothing to see, sadly.
"Shame," she replied. She put on a heavy pair of cloth gloves and very, very, very carefully opened a flask, tipping its contents (gently!) into a beaker.
"I'm always game for a fight. But give me a moment. Not done here yet. The solution needs to sit for a few days if I want this by the end of the week." This time she did glance up at J, noting that Thorpe was vaccinated (he would be), but she wasn't so sure about the rest of his pokemon. "How many vaccines do you need, by the way?"
Athena nodded, eager to hear stories about the outside. She, in effect, wasn't allowed outside, not for long, anyway.
"if i want to vaccinate the zorua i caught in a swarm," said J, "two. i may have another beldum coming in from the mystery person who took my request that i posted online."
it was really dusty, athena. i didn't like it. i don't like it when J smokes, either. the riolu shook its head, before dusting itself free of sand and dirt. he seems less happy than usual when left alone.
"how many can you make?" J asked, glancing over at neo's liquid project.
She sighed. "Only one. If I had another lab partner, we could make two, but that's still only one per each of us." All that studying, all that research, and still limited by something so simple as time. The thought itself was frustrating.
Neo capped the flask and took off the gloves, using tongs to handle the beaker over a fire. Soundlessly, her lips counted out eight seconds before she set the beaker down and traferred the liquid into another holding flask.
She sighed. "Alright, that's done. A battle, you said? Lead on to your favorite damp, dark, unpleasant underground passage."
J had no idea researchers' work wasn't as easy as mixing liquids in test tubes. "one? ... there's no mart around here," he said, referencing the abandoned city. "we have time for another week." it seemed safe in the tunnel, anyway.
the trainer did as he was told, thorpe trailing him excitedly. it jumped on the rocks by the side after dragging J's parka along with it; J quickly realized what thorpe was doing and relieved the riolu from the article of clothing. he had no intentions of purchasing another.
"you might have to scale this."
he reached up towards the ceiling, and pulled himself into an extended area with lots of room for a battle. he glanced down through the hole, and at neo.
"I'm more worried about the lack of a pokemon center than a pokemart. An amberwell would be handy too."
They did have time, but she didn't want to wait. Did they really need to fight full force--all pokemon in attendance--against the scourge? Maybe they should. Maybe that was safest. J seemed to think so, and unlike her, he'd actually survived, won, a battle against the scourge already. She wasn't sure if she admired or envied him that.
She followed him, and at the path upward, she climbed up half a foot before realizing she'd need a few more inches to bridge the distance. Maybe she should invest in heels. "Those of us of a more ladylike stature could use a hand, yeah."
J smiled, and gave neo a hand. not everyone indeed. even his pokémon needed a hand. if athena needed it, he would help her out too.
the chamber was dusty but spacious, and J let est roam. the zorua sniffed the air curiously before moving to where thorpe was, happy to see its canine friend.
"this place isn't bad, still. a couple healing pokémon and we could make a makeshift pokémon center."
Athena hitched a ride on Neo's back as J pulled both of them up. She leapt to first and quickly darted off to go exploring. Neo took a moment to dust herself off, dropping a thankful smile for but a second. "Thanks."
She trailed after Athena, who had already chosen her half of the "arena" as she was calling it in her chattering. She released Mneme to join Athena. The wobbuffet looked bemused.
Curiously, she asked, "Do you have a healing pokemon? I don't."
"i may," J said, "I'm raising a ralts." the trainer needed something that could heal, and the riolu had not been equipped with heal pulse. "potentially a gallade."
est glanced around, too, after losing interest in everything else. the zorua moved around, sniffing the air and eventually coming up to mneme and barking.
"Ralts?" she asked, surprised. Ralts seemed to fall short of J's minimum requirement of steel plating on his preferred pokemon. Maybe he'd put the gallade in plate armor. "Covering your weaknesses?"
Startled at the bark, the wobbuffet splashed in distress.
Neo wasn't sure what was up with her pokemon and splash.
"believe it or not, i'm raising a subteam," said J, "so far there's a ralts, charmeleon and larvitar. not sure what else could go in there." but whatever the case was, it would make sense to have something else that wasn't easily overpowered by a stronger magnet.
Her first thought regarding a subteam wasn't its type composition but rather its utility. "Get something that surfs and dives." Then again, on second thought, that wasn't entirely necessary. "Or you can hitch a ride with me if you want. I'm okay with that."
The bark made Mneme take a step back, but then she giggled. She splashed again.
