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!
"Don't know that for sure." Actually, they probably did. Cameron was not someone you wanted to cross in a dark alley. "Charm, mean look, surf. It could work if we have the time to pull it off. She has one camerupt; we have six pokemon each."
Neo paused and grimaced at a thought. "But if she has more than one pokemon, I suppose we may as well roll over and die."
"I haven't seen her since I first encountered her, but we can't know for certain how many pokemon she has. So far she's won without much trouble or chose to retreat without incident, no reason to ever bring out a second."
She paused and added, "I ran into Batin again. He still had his riolu, but also a metang. The metang fought for him, which I wouldn't find unusual except there was also a klinklang, and it didn't join the battle for Batin. I can only assume that the metang was directly under Batin's command and the klinklang was not. Or perhaps the metang has no trainer and simply wanted a battle. Batin doesn't issue commands to his pokemon aloud, so it's hard to say for sure. Either way, the thought of agents with two scourge pokemon doing their bidding is concerning. To say the least."
"Lua Gardens, outside of Bacchus. Perhaps the metang was native there."
She considered if she should mention the stray signs that'd littered her entire battle with Batin. A few of them appeared out of nowhere, some she credited to Batin (one wrongfully, but she didn't know that), and finally one drawn by... the riolu? The entire encounter felt like he'd been taunting her though, which she hoped would not become a pattern for her battles with the masked man. She suspected it was too late to prevent that. She chased after information like a meowth to catnip.
For a very short moment, Neo wished she were dumber. Then this would be less of a headache.
"Hey next time you run into an agent, do me a favor? Keep an eye on the signs they use. How many and how often."
J nodded. so far his beldum hadn't all been caught himself. most of the time people traded things to him, or he bought them off others. he made a mental note to hunt there for more beldum at a later date.
"sure thing."
he held out a virus ball containing a live scourge chimecho. "for you."
"For me? You shouldn't have," she deadpanned, but Neo took the virus ball with a small smile.
"I should take care of this somewhere less crowded, get it back to you asap for the Bulwark." She beckoned him to follow and left the bowl of stew on a nearby counter. "Come with?"
It was a pretty crowded area, but Neo managed to find a currently unused room for cleaning supplies. It didn't have much space, but the chimecho was no donphan or camerupt. All she needed was a spot of floor. "Where'd you find this one?"
J trailed neo, and entered the janitor's room where neo had decided to dissect her scourge sample. "bellona," he said. he hadn't been fighting anywhere else other than bellona.
he decided to leave the fact that he had fought alongside stefan aside. after the events at lake pax, it was probably for the better that he said nothing.
"A bulky fighter and a sweeper? I guess it acted as support then," she said, not quite a question, but she still expected confirmation. "How well did they work together? A chimecho deadweight without a bit of teamwork."
The chimecho was unconscious, and she assumed it wouldn't wake. That didn't stop her from laying a broom handle flat against its neck though--just in case it woke and tried to pull a fast one. She tapped its metal shell, listening to the sound of its chimes. It did seem studier than a regular chimecho, she supposed. She was not exactly an expert on chimechos.
"A sound tactical decision on your part." She supposed she approved, but Neo also wished they'd have stalled the battle to observe the scourge in action.
"You managed to take out the chimecho is two rounds on your own?" she asked. If she sounded skeptical, it was because she knew a thing or two about the limitations of J's steel team. "Was Thalia with you?"
"no. i fought alongside a trainer. we didn't talk much. he was on the cliff giving orders, i was down on land."
J had indeed left stefan alone to his devices during the fight. neither of them were working in harmony as he had with thalia. most of the time, they kind of did their own thing.
"he had a specialized team, too. dark types. didn't say his name."
"Dark types? I feel like the only idea that's worse than specializing in steel types is specializing in dark types." That was unnecessarily harsh, probably. Steel types were a solid defensive choice, and respectable offensively if you had a very straightforward method of dealing with problems (run headlong through them). In comparison, dark types weren't even glass cannons; most of the time, they were just glass.
Tinkering and examining the chimecho was interesting but not particularly enlightening. It was nice to examine a psychic type, and also a more compact pokemon though. She recalled the chimecho and handed the virus ball back to J. "Thanks for bringing it to me."
