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!
Why live where there’s not a pier? What seems to be an endless expanse has always humbled him (and scared him for that matter). There was a divinity to water, and Mustapha respected, awed, and submitted to that deity each day he sat beside the deep, dark, and wet. Nowadays, he holds the scourge up on a mantle of wonder. Drowning beats getting ripped to shreds by a rapid togepi, but what did he know? Nothing, yet. But, he promised that he will know in memoriam of his family who struggled for him to even live these days.
He sat, away from the fisherman docks, on a bench which only had a guard rail to separate him and the bottomless blue. Peppered upon him was Greggs, his hivemind breakfast pokemon. Two eggs on his shoulder; two on his lap; and one on his head: the cracked yolky one. They sat peacefully with him while he reflected on the past and planned the future. In a hotel, not-too-far away, a leather duffle bag contained his entire life. Someday soon, he’ll approach the nightmare that replaced the ocean. Peering out into the magnitude of the ocean, he pretty much ended up wondering what all this sheeit was for anyway.
One by one, his eggs hopped towards the guard rail, trying to get a better look of the sea. Literally, one by one, like lemmings, they slipped and fell beneath the banister into the goddamn depths. He dashed out and looked over the railing.
“ARE YOU JOKING?” Funny how in an actual minute, his entire career was basically silenced. “HELP! DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO SWIM?”
He called out to a pier full of fisherman. Hey, if they had to lasso each one up he’d be grateful. toska
the sea does not suit him, stefan thinks. the open space is unnerving when he's spent all of his life corralled in a carefully constructed maze dictated by the history of what is true and what people want to be true. without these things, he is surely lost. proserpina had been his home city, but seldom did stefan find a reason to visit the docks. for its proximity, the mongolia docks might as well have been kanto to him. sentiment would not move him to the seaside.
but let's not be overdramatic here. stefan has only made a short journey from the towers of nerio city in order to collect a debt. that's all there was to it. stefan had not inquired much about the amount due beyond the bare essentials, but he trusted that j would not have sent a busy gym leader on a quest that could have been fulfilled by a different contact.
he hadn't even made it to the fishing docks when he hears the cries of a young man who was nullifying the only part of the seaside that stefan found agreeable: the quiet.
how long can stefan ignore him before it got unbearably annoying? the answer is, very. that didn't mean that he enjoyed listening to the man, however. if only all of j's associates believed in meeting in a hotel over a krabby soup. c'est la vie.
stefan walks up to him. "you're not drowning, so someone better be"ozy
Mustapha kept his sight to the deep and his voice loud. He took note that his pokemon reacted like actual eggs. They were fresh and lively therefore they sunk to the bottom of this abysmal sea. They weren’t spoiled and floating. Did scourge exeggcute float in deep waters? He hoped Greggs wouldn’t be the mon he’d test that theory on. Now, he definitely heard footsteps coming his way, yet their owner’s voice still nearly shook him over the guard rail. The researcher turned to this man and sized him up at once. He didn’t really give a damn what this guy was as long as he was capable of saving his pokemon. Still, he had the air of someone important, but literally everyone in this town did. That fact and his attitude impressed Mustapha is a bad way.
“Ah, yes. Five eggs. In the water. Can you get them?” Or would you rather take your haughty ass elsewhere? He wasn’t going to insult his pokemon’s potential savior. Just yet, anyway. toska
stefan glances downward. it's not the first time he's seen an exeggcute before, so the coloring gives it away rather quickly (he wouldn't have believed the number of trainers who would bring psychic pokemon to his gym, not until he became the gym leader himself). ah, another one of eos' finest, losing his pokemon in proserpina of all places. "i see that your scourge extermination campaign is going swimmingly." he can't deny that he is vaguely amused. "it inspires great confidence in us all"
he's got a few seconds to kill. that, and an owed favor from anyone in eos was bound to come in handy eventually. he had learned that from a pink woman all those months ago. stefan doesn't have any water pokemon since his gym does not have a pool, but he figures that two of his pokemon might be able to work.
he releases a magenta honchkrow and a pink weavile. the weavile finds her footing on the honchkrow's back and swipes the eggs out of the water like she would from a pidgey's nest. except these plant eggs were considerably less edible.
"better to let the scourge have them, don't you think?"ozy
Mustapha winced as he saw how prescriptive the man behaved. It was as if Arceus blessed him with pomposity incarnate to test his sympathy. Upon meeting, the researcher began to compare himself to this stranger though. For most things, Mustapha felt victorious and superior. However, in just a quick glance, the man knew he was EOS and mocked him with involuntary quickness. If this was just a random meeting, Mustapha would uppercut the know-it-all outta this guy (before stealing it for himself).
“Done? Good, now carry on will you.” He watched the little performance the man made with his two vaccinated pokemon. Considering how expensive and rare vaccines were, he figured that this prick was a colleague. It’d explain how fast he knew that Mustapha was seemingly just another greenhorn screw-up. Mustapha was hardly motivated by other people, but this was a special case. He took out his notepad and began jotting notes on the man’s honchkrow. The strength of its back to lift the weasel was noteworthy. The way it flied showed a sense of dexterity, probably trainer-taught but most likely natural that seemed unlikely from a bird with such girth.
His moronic breakfast foods were dropped by his feet and immediately congregated. They simply giggled and jumped around as if they caused no trouble. This didn’t faze their trainer. They were dumb – what of it? What this asshat said in response to their dumbness pissed him off though.
“Nah. They’re dumb, not pretentious hero-types who probably escaped the terror by the skin of their teeth.” Mustapha knelt to gather them in his arms. “Now, would a cup of coffee pay for all this trouble, o’ hero?” toska
he watches his white breath and wonders what cura village must look like at this time of year. winter isn't exactly its favorite season, but they will thrive. they always will. stefan also watches mustapha take his notes, and his lips quirk upwards. "i suppose it's only my luck that the first eos member that i meet in proserpina is a researcher" stefan doesn't smile often. he smiles when life decides to jerk his chain until he falls to his knees. except he doesn't, so he smiles instead. researchers were possibly his least favorite kind of people, opportunistic without abandon. perhaps stefan is of a similar species, but eos researchers in particular actually seemed to believe that their freedom is for a greater good. to some extent it was, but people do not see their actual reach. people only see horizons.
"i have few wants in this world" he recalls his honchkrow, but not the weavile. if data is a power that can save nerio one day, then so be it. the eos stefan might have calculated it into his expected returns, but he is no longer a child. no longer does he view the world linearly. "the few that i have are not in anybody's power to give." history is not something that anybody can fight. that much, he is certain.
"but..." he looks mustapha in the eye, as if he could gague what kind of man he was. "...if you are anything like myself, you will probably want to know that i am one of the many patrons of nerio city."
empires do not live forever, but stefan does not expect immortality out of himself. ozy
Why live where there’s not a pier? What seems to be an endless expanse has always humbled him (and scared him for that matter). There was a divinity to water, and Mustapha respected, awed, and submitted to that deity each day he sat beside the deep, dark, and wet. Nowadays, he holds the scourge up on a mantle of wonder. Drowning beats getting ripped to shreds by a rapid togepi, but what did he know? Nothing, yet. But, he promised that he will know in memoriam of his family who struggled for him to even live these days.
the sea does not suit him, stefan thinks. the open space is unnerving when he's spent all of his life corralled in a carefully constructed maze dictated by the history of what is true and what people want to be true. without these things, he is surely lost. proserpina had been his home city, but seldom did stefan find a reason to visit the docks. for its proximity, the mongolia docks might as well have been kanto to him. sentiment would not move him to the seaside. 
