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!
"It's a Tirtouga," Mordecai explained. "Fossil Pokémon too. It's the child of my Carracosta, actually." He knew the baby Pokémon would be in good hands with Isaac. He recalled the way that Pokémon had tended to steer clear from him as well, and Mordecai hoped that by having Isaac hatch his own Pokémon, there would be an extra opportunity for a special bond to form.
"Water-type. The little guy comes from some pretty formidable parents. I think he'll fare just well." His eyes studied Isaac's face, smiling to himself as a curious expression spread across the teen's.
Achilles stood on the tips of his own toes as well. <Oh, let me see!> he exclaimed excitedly, pawing a bit at Mordeacai's shins.
isaac glanced at the baby pokémon, and realized he had no pokéball to contain it. from the corner of the casino, a motherly pokémon waddled up and took the baby from him. isaac smiled at the chansey. "i should introduce you," he said as the chansey cuddled the newborn happily, "mordecai, meet sonata. she's my new pokémon."
the chansey didn't obey isaac, really, but she was friendly and helpful like all chansey were. the pink pokémon beamed at mordecai. it also took care to hold the tirtouga away from the playful gible.
"you have a carracosta?" isaac asked, turning the topic back to mordecai's front. "that's really cool -- it's one of those ancient turtles, right?" his eyes shone with excitement. "one day, this is going to evolve into that?"
"It's nice to meet you, Sonata," Mordecai said as the pink, egg-shaped Pokémon took the Tirtouga into her arms. The little Pokémon would be in great hands then. "It looks like you've made a lot of friends along the way, Isaac."
Mordecai raised a brow as Isaac became incredibly excited over the fossil Pokémon. The other Delacroix's enthusiasm was contagious, and Mordecai could not help but grin. "Yeah, they're water-types. You've been studying plenty too." He was genuinely impressed by how much Isaac knew about the Pokémon. Research was half the battle when it came to either fighting with Pokémon or understanding how to breed them properly.
He reached into his pocket for a second Pokéball, pressed its center button, and waited for the red light to fade away into Aqua. The Carracosta was a bit of an anachronism immersed in the casino surroundings, but the turtle Pokémon had a cheerful expression on her face anyways. She smiled contentedly, glanced at Mordecai as if asking if this was the one who her baby had gone to, then gave Isaac an enthusiastic wave of a massive flipper.
"i guess," isaac said, keeping secret the fact that the chansey was a prize from the casino. sonata was stil way out of his range to command and order about like a partner pokémon, but he figured that it would do well taking care of his new tirtouga.
he watched the chansey twirl around, humming a lullaby to the newborn. yep, it would definitely do a great job at that.
"heh," grinned the ranger, "it's only natural to want to read more, to learn more. we don't have researchers in the family yet." the boy glanced up at his brother, knowing that he was a breeder and delilah, a trainer. neither of them would be as knowledgeable as a researcher -- speaking of which, what breeders did would always stump isaac. they didn't exactly watch pokémon breed, right? ... right?
isaac was shaken out of his thoughts by the carracosta. so this was the tirtouga's mom? the boy fell silent as the larger turtle waved at him, and he waved back, albeit less enthusiastically. he did make an attempt at cheerfulness; he went over to inspect the large shell aqua wore on its back, and ran a hand along its large flipper.
"one day, that tirtouga's going to grow into something like you? that's cool."
Mordecai considered himself more of a matchmaker than an actual breeder. He introduced the Pokémon to each other, in hopes that they would get along eventually to the point that -- you know.
"It's good though, Isaac," the breeder said. "Learning more is always best." He truly was proud of his younger brother; he really was (part of him hoped that Isaac knew that how proud Mordecai was of him, while the other half was sure that he was). Of course, much like with Delilah, there were still a few bumps that they'd encountered and probably would in the future.
He crouched down to Clavier's height, ignoring the fact that Achilles tried to climb onto his knee. "So, this is your Axew then," he said. "He looks very healthy." Not that he expected anything differently. Isaac had always enjoyed taking care of the Pokémon that Mordecai secretly slipped into the house. At least, he took care of them no matter how grotesque or lacking-of-fur they were.
the axew sported broken tusks, as a result of their trek through di manes caverns. they were regrowing rapidly, though. soon, it would be able to battle again. clavier blinked, and watched the breeder with a stern eye. it growled slightly, but was somewhat relieved that mordecai didn't attempt to touch it. it didn't feel protected without its tusks.
"yeah, he's clavier," isaac said, nodding at the axew. "he's a really good partner."
"It's nice to meet you, Clavier," Mordecai said, eye examining the Axew's splintered tusks. They appeared to be regrowing quickly, but it still looked as if they'd been broken rather recently. He wondered what kind of an opponent the creature had been pitted against to result in the damage. It probably hadn't hurt the Pokémon much, but he had a feeling that the Axew wasn't feeling all too safe without them.
"Are you the one who's been taking care of my brother then?" he asked the dragon Pokémon. It was growing fast, and as Achilles stood beside the Axew, he could see that the green dragon Pokémon was a little bigger. Then again, Achilles still wasn't a very old Pokémon. "I'll bet you could teach Achilles a trick or two up your sleeve."
The Gible huffed at the breeder indignantly. As if he needed someone else's help.
clavier nodded. i suppose so, but we've both kind of done our own things. we keep a colleagues relationship, it said, but isaac doubted mordecai understood what it was saying. so he decided to translate, and keep their unfortunate relationship out of the equation.
"well, we're work partners, so of course we watch out for each other," isaac nodded, seemingly in agreement with the dragon-type, "clavier's not very strong yet, though. it probably doesn't measure up to achilles' strength."
Mordecai nodded. "Work partners, I see," he responded. That was a plausible relationship between the two, and a very realistic one for a Pokémon ranger. Though he couldn't help but notice that the Axew didn't seem very buddy-buddy with Isaac just yet. He hoped that would change for the Delacroix. Isaac always did love Pokémon, and Mordecai thought that it was, at times, unfortunate that Pokémon didn't seem to like him very much.
He wondered if the baby Tirtouga could change things.
"Achilles doesn't know what to do with his strength just yet though," Mordecai added with a chuckle, to which the Gible stomped his foot. He wasn't entirely sure what Mordecai had said, but he had a feeling that it was about him, and that it was a statement that didn't praise his name. "It's better if your Pokémon knows how to control its own strength first. Right, Achilles?"
The Gible shrugged his shoulders, before trying to crawl onto the breeder's knee again.
isaac glanced down at achilles, and felt a sickening twist in his stomach. if clavier couldn't measure up to achilles' strength, he had failed in his task as a pokémon ranger. "clavier," he whispered to the axew, who turned towards him. the glint in the boy's eyes was easily identifiable by the dragon-type, who let loose embers of draconic flames from its nostrils.
what's wrong? the axew with the broken tusks glanced at the baby dragon, and then back at the boy.
"you'll be a good leader for achilles. i'm sure about that, mordecai," said isaac, a small smile on his face despite the feeling in his stomach rising to his throat. (the weak were eaten by the strong in this world. that's why they lost. that's why people lost their lives against the scourge.)
"because once achilles can rein in its strength, it's going to be a strong pokémon." because once achilles can do that, clavier is nothing, even if it knows what to do with its own strength. because it wasn't born stronger than the rest. (it's a weak thing that would get swallowed by the world.)
Mordecai knows his brother well enough. "There are plenty of Pokémon who are late bloomers, Isaac," he said to the teen. "Some Pokémon need extra nurturing to bring out their potentials. That's something I've learned while raising Pokémon as a breeder."
Isaac's smile is gone.
Mordecai places a gentle hand on Isaac's shoulder. "You know, you've always been a pretty hopeful and determined kind of person." He remembers the way that Isaac refused to be pushed away by Pokémon that were abrasive towards him. "Clavier already knows how to breathe fire." Achilles, hearing the word "Clavier" and "Fire" in the same sentence opens his mouth wide and tries to puff something out. Nothing comes out, not even the thinnest streak of black smoke.
"Not yet, Achilles," the breeder says to the Gible, and rubs the dragon Pokémon's head.
sometimes flowers that bloom late never do, and then they die, swallowed by the might of the world that bore down upon them. isaac knew this for a fact -- his brother was weak, and so he lost an eye; delilah was weak, and so she lost her arm. he wasn't strong, so he had to be protected by his siblings and they, in turn weren't strong enough to take what was supposed to happen to him in the first place.
isaac didn't know what else to say other than to not look at his brother, and focused on the patterned carpeting in the casino. pretty hopeful, huh? determined, huh? mordecai didn't know anything. (what did he know, other than to cling unto the image of isaac he had during their bacchus days?)
"you can teach achilles to breath fire," isaac said pointedly, and gestured to clavier. "let's go. sonata, leave the tirtouga." the chansey waddled away, but refused to drop the newborn. isaac didn't care.
he was weak, his brother was strong.
the longer he stayed, the more he was going to be threatened and eventually, gobbled up.
mordecai's offer to train together was but a distant voice in isaac's mind as the boy walked off decidedly, his face calm as the sea before a storm.
