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!
Neo reached out, took Delilah's hand and with the intention to hold onto it until she didn't look like she'd be releasing more pokemon. "Don't. Look. The honchkrow is vaccinated, it's not scourge."
The exact details of the hades agents hadn't escaped her notice. She'd thought about their abilities long and hard by now. "Commands given aloud, human language. Scourge carried in normal pokeballs, which means they're willing partners. Cameron's only used a camerupt in both fights, even against my gyrados. Batin only used a riolu. Instead of bringing out more, he chose to escape. Somewhat safe to assume they only have one pokemon each. Furthermore: they have a styler like rangers do, and they draw signs."
Delilah accounted for, J's questions too. That left... Stefan. Hardest for last, she supposed.
"Stefan," Neo said, and she was sorry to do so. She hadn't intended on giving everyone his name since apparently only Regina had ever known it. Slowly, with precision, she spoke again, "Stefan, you are amongst friends--if that's where you want to be. Storm out, and I doubt that'll be the case anymore. What you know is important to me, to all of us. Stay, please."
Thalia stayed silent as the other four talked, eyeing Stefan--his name, apparently--and his honchkrow. "There's no way Stefan's secretly working for the scourge," she finally weighed in. "For one, he's far too incompetent at keeping himself alive. And two, if he were, he wouldn't be coming off so badly. Everytime I've encountered him he's been generally abrasive and off-putting, no offense. If he were playing for the other side, would it make any sense to be so alienating? He's got a giant sign on his back that basically says haha, suspect me. I think if he were really our enemy, he'd feel less enemy-like."
"But anyway, we're focusing on the wrong thing," she said. "Or rather, we're focusing on only one thing so far, in every conversation I've had about the humans working with the scourge, and that's how they're doing it. And that's vital, but I also want to know why. What makes a person decide that they want to help the virus? What can they possibly gain from that? I think that's just as vital to figuring out how to get rid of these--I don't know if they're rangers or trainers, these agents of the virus. Neo, you said Batin," she stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar word, "liked stories? Did he talk to you during your fight? What about your encounter with him Stefan? What did you pick up of him as a person? Like I said, Cameron had very little to say to me during our fight. She asked me to hand over my pokemon at the start, and that was about it as far as chatty funtime."
Delilah was tempted to pull out her own pokemon, but the honchkrow's vivid coloration was enough to make her hesitate -- and when Neo touched her hand, the woman slowly removed it from her belt. His eagerness to release his pokemon didn't earn him any brownie points, but if Neo trusted this Stefan guy ...
... Well. She supposed she did, too. Kind of.
The woman glanced at Thalia as she spoke, a smirk pulling at the edges of her mouth. "Way to be supportive and insulting." If this cabbage patch kid was the idiot Thalia had to rescue from freezing his toes off, then Delilah was decidedly less suspicious. He would probably die himself before offing anyone else, after all.
She lapsed back into silence as the questions continued. She had the luck of not meeting any of these strange ranger-scourge-trainers, but that didn't mean she wanted to be ignorant. Delilah mulled over the details in her mind. "I don't know about this 'Batin' character, but I think it's safe to say they're willing to kill people to get whatever it is they want." That the strange scourge-people wanted to, even. The question just was why?
stefan doesn’t withdraw the honchkrow. this was how it was supposed to be from the start. he hadn’t intended to spook his colleagues, but now he sees that he was mistaken. alexander doesn’t seem to settle his gaze on anyone in particular, but all four trainers equally.
he hears neo’s mention of his name just fine. it only takes him a few seconds to process the fact that he should probably respond when “stefan” is called. probably.
he is ten, and he traces over the letters evenly (s-t-e-f-a-n). the ninety-sixth volume of the great world encyclopedia had told him that ‘stefanos’ is a foreign word for ‘crown’. it is also a name of a man who was stoned to death long ago. he hides his shiny new citizenship card underneath his mattress, next to the shiny silver bauble that he has kept for as long as he can remember.
he isn’t as interested in ‘finley’. the child asks his father (f-a-t-h-e-r) why he is not an alejandro like the rest of them (a-l-e-j-a-n-d-r-o). he never looks away from his newspaper. “you have a lot of cheek, boy”
he doesn’t ask again. the encyclopedias gather dust on the shelves after that.
stefan listens to the rest of neo’s words, but he can’t say that he is impressed at all. that’s the problem with her kind, he thinks. a person is either with them or against them, and a middleground never exists, not for anyone.
“what part of ‘keep quiet about ceres’ did you not understand?” stefan doesn’t know why he even expects these people to keep their word anymore. with every passing second, he feels only more justified in his reluctance to stay. “forget it. i don’t know anything else”
(stefan buries the feeling of obligation that he feels for cameron - the sort that comes from being saved from being eaten by pax’s scourge.)
if what they were saying about these trainers was true, then stefan definitely doesn’t want to be caught unawares if they meet again. still, they have not yet proven to be a threat to him. on the contrary, in fact. stefan isn’t particularly emotionally invested in the scourge, and the idea of humans working with them is hardly a cause for him to jump on.
besides, it’s not too hard to imagine why anyone would want to attack the hooded girl. thalia probably instigates her own fights, even without rogue trainers demanding her pokemon.
that’s not to say that stefan will dismiss their accounts entirely. he simply doesn’t see a reason to do anything about it. not for now. he fights the scourge out of necessity, and not out of crusader spirit.
“do what you want - i am not interested in interfering” stefan reaches out to grab alexander’s claw. “if it’s not an emergency situation -”
emergency meaning that it pertained to him, of course.
“-then don’t bother calling. alternatively, don’t bother calling at all. good night”
Neo wished she could be surprised that Stefan would be 1) entirely unhelpful, and 2) entirely untrustworthy, but she supposed this was par for the course. Well, it had been worth a shot.
"When you said you might be able to get us a fifth man, I thought you were on better terms with him," Neo said to Thalia.
"He claimed he owed me," Thalia said, only slightly bending the truth, "But I suppose it turned that his debts are worth very little. At any rate, at least we have confirmation of a second sighting of your masked man."
Delilah regarded Stefan with a critical eye. Half of her wanted to say fuck it, go die -- because they were trying to help each other out for once, instead of going into the world alone on what was essentially a suicide mission -- but he was still EOS. (Unfortunately.)
She decided to stop thinking about the walking vegetable."So. Cameron and this Batin guy." The woman sighed. "Camerupt, riolu -- d'you think the association knows about these dark rangers?" Delilah glanced at Neo. "Staying alive is obviously more important, but if we can subdue one of them and bring them back ..." They might be able to learn more.
Delilah shrugged. "But I just don't know." She wasn't a thinker, a planner.
"Track one down, kidnap them? We'd have to kill their partner first, or separate them somehow--easier said than done. Possible, though."
With Stefan's hissy fit out of the way, Neo recalled that Thalia had asked her about the masked man. "Batin's civil, polite; we talked through the battle. Asked him about the scourge, and he doesn't consider them murderers. Said he was sticking by the riolu for its story. Not surprising that Stefan saw him in Decima; he said Decima was where everything started. I couldn't tell if he was serious or raving mad or lying just for fun."
She continued, "I talked to Cameron too, although not much. I, um, asked her for punching advice, and she gave me pointers."
Thalia looked at J's cigarette with open jealously, then sighed and turned her attention back to Neo.
"Obviously one on one would be near impossible when it comes to killing a scourge and its trainer, but if we moved in teams to look for them? Even just two partners from this group might be enough to do it, if we brought out a six team."
The woman gave a strange look at Neo. "And she didn't kill you?" Impressive. (Mental note: ask Neo for punching tips later.) She shifted her weight back and forth, musing. "That would work, except there's ... five of us." Including slimy vegetable man.
Delilah paused. "I might know a few people who are getting near here."
"Nerio is close enough for our purposes," Neo said. The scourge was already at Bellona Hills. Anyone as far as Nerio would be plenty helpful. "More concerned about them being strong enough."
...Said the one with the 0% success rate vs. scourge.
"Let's just used them as body shields while we launch attacks from behind," Thalia snipped. She wasn't quite sure why this conversation was starting to grate at her--probably because her player was really really hungry. "They can learn to be strong or they can die, I guess. Not many other options."
