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
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santiago had his empire severely compromised during the double sieges of nerio, and by the time he tried to gather all the pieces together, J arrived. stefan was an added bonus, simply because he had one of those faces everyone hated. it took some time, but J eventually took over santiago's position as a loan shark in the casino; the trainer was determined to work his way through the rest of nerio, but that remained an elusive dream while the battle against scourge started afresh.
after checking in with stefan at the gym, J returned to the casino. it had by now become his usual haunt when there was nowhere else to go -- familiar faces were few and far between, and he didn't feel like talking much these days.
he exchanged cash for chips, and sat down at the tables.
Nerio was a strange city to her now. There were ruins in some places where there will buildings, and where there were slums, there was nothing now. Angelo was gone, not that she'd known him well anyway--but the gym leader had seemed a fixture, as irremovable from the city as Melchior had been in Decima. It was strange to be without him.
Still, the city stank of excess, perhaps moreso now that death had passed the survivors by.
The casino seemed fuller than usual. More people were willing to gamble their life savings away after the siege, she supposed. Alternatively, people had acquired the life savings of the dearly departed. Either way, there was money to be spent.
"I didn't expect to find you here," Neo said, sitting down at the table across from him. She'd had to ask around, but people seemed familiar with J--the loan shark at the casino--and tracking him down hadn't been hard. "In this city, in this place. But it seems like a nice set up."
the dealer noted neo's presence, and started the game of baccarat. J didn't play this game all that often, but on the off chance he had, he found himself meeting someone he hadn't seen in a while. much like how neo hadn't expected to see him, he hadn't expected to see her. (the last time he did, he had been hospitalized and wasn't in the best of conditions.)
"it's been a while," said J, inspecting his cards. he wondered what neo had heard while locating him, considering her words. "what set-up?"
Neo essentially only visited the casino when she felt like testing her luck with the poker table. She wasn't familiar with baccarat, but it seemed simple enough.
"This set-up. Sharing office space with Irene," Neo answered. "How is she, anyway? I heard she fought the scourge out of the casino single-handedly."
She placed a few coins on the table. She was here to talk to J, not to gamble, but while Neo was here, she may as well tip the house.
She got to the point. "How do you feel about fighting some scourge?"
J's chips were swept away by the dealer alongside neo's. let's assume the dealer rolled something better. i'll remember to roll for him this turn. anyway.
"she surprised us all."
J glanced towards the table where irene was seated, sipping alcohol and making quick work of her pile of chips. he was sponsoring half her games, considering how often she took loans from him (and repaid all too quickly, for some reason). most of the time, her luck came and went.
"Me. I'm back up." She watched the cards, but a smile tugged at her lips, and it seemed like a small weight had lifted from her tired shoulders. It was good that he hadn't retired. She'd feared he had.
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"Found some papers about an anomaly at Lemures. Something to do with the scourge, almost for sure, it showed up right before they did. I want to sneak up to the anomaly, examine it. Apparently, it leads to another dimension. We might die before we even get that far though."
J watched neo, and a hint of a smile emerged on his face. that was good, then. as long as he had backup, he should be fine. he didn't know what scourge they were going to face -- but he had been disadvantaged all along, and wasn't expecting it to change anytime soon.
the payout wasn't great, but at least they were winning.
Qs8qfan9 J dealer
he thought on the information about lemures. it was very much like neo to want to do something about it, but J was more reserved in this aspect. he supposed he could physically carry her away from it if the situation called for it, though.
"I decided I'd go visit the Institute. I like to." Neo didn't bother providing a reason. She didn't really have a good one. "I went there alone, but I ran into Thalia--for the best, because two hades agents tried to ambush us. It wasn't a very good ambush. Sableye and froslass. I've heard of the froslass agent before, but I think the sableye is new."
She frowned, remembering the battle. "I shouldn't go to Pax alone anymore. The battle was simple enough with Thalia, but alone... probably wouldn't have ended as well."
J hadn't much experience with the agents. whatever he had fought had been wild. he suspected that his chance against the agents were slim to none, considering his trouble with gym leaders.
"is that where they are now? permanently?"
_Aq3mZc9 J dealer
the dealer was paying out exorbitant amounts of money to J and neo, but he didn't seem at all bothered.
"In total? I don't know. I've spotted something like... six? Camerupt, lucario, froslass, sableye, and I think that's all I've seen. The one with the lucario I saw with a metang too, so they might be able to run more than one partner."
Neo didn't like the thought of Cameron with more than one partner. "I don't know. I think they might be beyond the anomaly. It seems to hint that's where the scourge came from. Still, Pax is their territory. Not a happy place."
all of a sudden, neo and J's luck were reversed. the dealer collected their chips. J passed some to neo, just in case.
xVQ|ISUH J dealer
"that's a lot. they don't die, right?" J had met a camerupt, but that was it. a froslass too, but that battle had ended with a lot of staring from both sides' pokémon. "... it's a dead place in pax."
not even a fire seemed to last through the night there. the time he spent there was mostly filled with grim thoughts and even darker emotions. pax brought the worst out of people, it seemed.
Neo still had a few chips, thank you very much. Still, she took J's donation without complaint. She craned her neck to look at J's cards, and she realized this round was all on her.
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"I haven't seen any die. They're not the same as the usual scourge pokemon. They're glittery, different colors, like vaccinated pokemon--but dark. They're stronger too. Maybe they're actually immortal. If so, we're all doomed."
Nerio was a strange city to her now. There were ruins in some places where there will buildings, and where there were slums, there was nothing now. Angelo was gone, not that she'd known him well anyway--but the gym leader had seemed a fixture, as irremovable from the city as Melchior had been in Decima. It was strange to be without him.
