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!
that au wouldn't be bad at all. you could smell the possibility in the air, with a successful tv series spawning a novel adaptation and a trilogy of movies and merchandise. we'd be rich just from revenue alone!
"most of them take things too seriously, actually," isaac said. the few rangers he had interacted with had seemed to be that way, even if they had approached him with grins and smiles about it all. they all seemed to hold the weight of the world upon their shoulders while they did their tasks. each of them were determined not to fail.
isaac just felt that taking things that way would result in more hurt when they did fall. that would suck, too.
"i honestly hope nothing's going to happen. but like they say, it's the calm before a storm."
Aw yiss it’d be the new plants vs zombies except bigger, better and tastier. Brb patenting this shit. (Srsly though, if I see a game or something called chefs vs zombies in the next six months I’m gonna be pissed).
It hadn’t been the answer Tiffany had been looking for but whatever. Just hearing that other rangers existed was surprisingly nice. Such a shame that they sounded so serious though – how on earth was Tiffany supposed to talk with someone so serious? Serious meant boring, and the rangers didn’t even have the advantage of being a cute Axew to make the seriousness more bearable.
(RIP Clavier’s cuteness. All hail the scary cheekblades).
“That sucks,” she said. About the too serious rangers, that is. She still wasn’t sold on the idea that something bad was gonna go down in Ceres and therefore couldn’t manage to say it sucked.
Really, Ceres Forest was just such a nice place that Tiffany found it very hard to imagine the little scourge monsters crawling all over the place, eating everything and calling for brains.
“Not every calm has a storm though, right? Maybe Ceres is just really sunny all the time and you’re not used to it.” Aaand time to jinx it. Tiffany gave Isaac an assuring smile. “And anyway, what’s the worst that could happen? That old legendary dragon that doesn’t exist getting infected? Please.” Such a laughable idea.
but if you cooked the plants they ain't gunna be fightin'. what's the logic in there man.
"don't tell me you just jinxed it," isaac said, grinning at tiffany. "though i think that's definitely a possibility. i mean, no one's ever tried to vaccinate it against scourge ... imagine if it turns against us. i don't want to fight that thing."
he imagined the dragon coming in and blowing the roof off the tavern. nope. didn't want that at all. imagine the carnage. imagine all the deaths. nope.
"but if you ever end up fighting scourge in ceres, you know who jinxed it," said isaac.
Wait we’re cooking the plants now? This sounds suspiciously like cabbage.
Tiffany openly scoffed the idea. “Don’t get all worried about it. It’s not like the dragon even exists in the first place.” Trust the non-believers to jinx it. She honestly didn’t believe the story about the dragon in Caca’s Grove – it was just a fun story, that’s all.
She didn’t believe in jinxes either. Not that kind. Not when the results were serious.
Not yet. “Whatever, Zac. I doubt it’s going to happen. They’d have to get through Nerio first.” No they wouldn’t. “And that’s not gonna happen again.” Stop right there Tiffany. Let’s just keep to Ceres.
vertigo guess who's gonna feel like shit when she finds out =D why am i so happy about this jinxing
"but there have been sightings -- or do you mean something like wendigos and yeti and bigfoots?" isaac asked. it might have been nothing more than a legend, yes, but there had to be a reason as to why it became a legend. maybe it its prime it had been a fearsome fighter. maybe it had gone all hermit-like after things spiralled out of control. maybe it didn't exist at all.
but isaac believed that it was real.
"i guess they do have to get through nerio first," he admitted. "also the caverns."
little did they know that there was an underground passage from cura to ceres, which was Dice God ApprovedTM and probably half the reason why so much scourge attacked ceres in one go. couldn't have all come from the caverns, tut tut.
"maybe ... they'd come from proserpina. catch us all unawares."
guys you and your speculations.
dizzy (( bc we're the sort of writers with a dash of sadism oops my hand slipped. not so much a dash heheh ))
Too late. Zombie Cleopatra (Zombopatra?) already used Attract.
“Yeah, sightings of shadows and things that look all dragony but actually aren’t a dragon.” There was little faith in this one. She believed that legends came from stories which came from adults wanting to scare children into behaving. “You’d be more likely to see a big foot than that dragon.” Because there were people in the world with big feet hah. Wow she felt clever.
Feeling clever felt great. If things kept up like this, it would start getting to Tiffany’s head. “Exactly. They won’t be able to make it.”
Than Isaac downed the vibe by mentioning Proserpina. Tiffany actually thought about that for a moment, but she dismissed that idea too. “How could they come from Proserpina? They’re too poor to hire a boat.” Psh, water Pokemon didn’t need boats - and who used boats when you had water Pokemon? “You need to lighten up Zac. Down your cider. There’s no way an attack will happen.”
She had never been so sure of something. And so wrong.
isaac did what he was told, and drank his cider. there was no way an attack would happen, huh. he didn't know what else to say to tiffany though, and so, he nodded and accepted it as fact. until the storm hit them, he supposed that they would never know.
perhaps she had a point. the village was calm and the entire reason it was made into an outpost. it was very convenient for everyone -- no, isaac discouraged himself from that train of thought. thinking of it only made him think of worse. the village had a dragon -- no! he forced himself back into the conversation.
"murphy's law," he eventually said, "ever heard of it?"
While it was a nice surprise to have someone do what she told them to, Tiffany didn’t like the silence that followed. (What was this? She only told him to drink, not be quiet). The silence told her nothing she wanted. The silence sucked like that. She looked at her fingernails. Nope, no noise there either. She could break the silence by making that annoying clicky sound. Or by talking.
But what to talk about… Tiffany was still adamant that Ceres was safe from an attack and she wanted Isaac to believe that too. Fat chance of that though, considering he’d just shut up and—
Oh. Hang on. He spoke. Oh wow, so he hadn’t taken a secret vow of silence. That was good.
Tiffany was confused. “Who’s Murphy? A ranger?” Ranger’s had laws?
So, a Veggie Tales movie? Idek, I’ve only seen like a minute of that show.
Tiffany nodded slowly, taking in this new information. She still had no idea what that meaning had anything to do with a ranger called Murphy, but whatever. The path might’ve been windy but she still got to the destination – aka, the point.
She pulled a face. “That’s a stupid law. It’s not even right.” If Murphy’s Law was the one law or the world, then she would have died tripping up the stairs years ago, as would have many other people.
i googled that. it looks really weird ok. it's like '00-era 3d stuff ... right.
"it doesn't apply all the time. generally it happens only for large-scale events, like ... an infestation of scourge somewhere," said isaac. he really had a bad feeling about it, and it was starting to gnaw at him. "i wish it was stupid, but i feel like it's got some sort of truth to it. it's like you see someone going away, and you think that everything's going to be fine -- only it's really not and they don't come back."
his siblings hadn't come back. not since the sieges of nerio city, they hadn't. the last time he had seen them had been a very long time ago.
dizzy if you did ... i guess he'll brighten up. gdi was that a pun i hope it was not
Really? I thought it was just low budget. Wait nope apparently it’s been going on since 1993. Wow.
As Tiffany listened, she tried to picture what was said in her head, even if it was hard to come up with an example of a large-scale event. She settled for the obvious question of, “But still, if that’s right, then why isn’t everywhere in Kohaku infected?”
C’mon, Ceres Forest wasn’t the only important place in Kohaku. It couldn’t be.
The next example was a lot easier to imagine, and it hit closer to home than Tiffany was comfortable with. “Oh. Right…” She looked down at what remained of her Clamperl chowder and poked at it. It wasn’t so much the truth of it that upset her but the unfamiliarity of being…
No. No. She was not going to start thinking like that.
“So if I went away, right now,” Tiffany was still poking at her food and keeping her eyes down, “you’d think I’d never come back again.” It wasn't a question.
vertigo this whole thread is gonna need a sunny day now. thanks isaac.
wow that's even older than i am. the more you know.
"maybe they're around, just hidden," said isaac. "like even some of our signs let us do some really inhuman stuff. what's not to say that the scourge could do the same? they have humans with them." it wasn't just the heart sign that pushed the limits of human capabilities. the dark sign, for instance, allowed a ranger to completely hide themselves from view. and then there was the ghost sign that turned them incorporeal -- the list went on.
or maybe isaac was just really pessimistic as a person.
he glanced over at tiffany. as much as he didn't want to admit it, what she said was the truth. "yes," said isaac, "if you went away, right now, i'd think you've never come back again. that's why i was surprised to see you earlier." it was a fact that was rather difficult for him to admit, but when faced with such a situation, he felt that it was better to say it than keep it to himself.
"i think i like being surprised, though. seeing someone alive isn't bad."
dizzy he's a negative neil. a derek downer. something like that.
You know what’s old? Mickey frickin’ Mouse. He knows where the fountain of youth is.
“Are you serious? Hidden zombies?” For real? Tiffany didn’t like this talk. Somehow Isaac had jumped from an impending scourge attack (yeah right) to the scourge having already secretly infected the entire region? And while she was ready to admit that he had a point, she wasn’t ready to believe that the scourge could be so subtle. Subtlety and zombies just didn’t go together. Someboady clearly hadn’t watched enough zombie movies. (Ranger horror movie marathon night?)
The negativity was hard to understand and was close to giving Tiffany a headache. Not really, but it felt like it. At least Isaac wasn’t all doom and gloom. Tiffany forced a smile, which was easier heard than seen since she was still look at her Clamperl chowder. “Okay. I’ll keep surprising you, then, until you stop believing in that ranger’s stupid law.” Seriously, who was this Murphy guy anyway? Thinking he could make something up to depress everyone…
“Hey Zac, could you do me a favour?”
vertigo isaac in the dumps? that was the best i could do for an i word.
holy crap he got plastic surgery didn't he. just look at the way he aged ... botox. callin' it.
"yeah, keep surprising me," said isaac, sighing softly. he honestly hoped the worse wouldn't come to someone he knew -- his siblings, his home; that was enough carnage and loss to last him a lifetime.
he glanced up from his empty mug of cider at tiffany.
"a favour? what is it?" he asked, partially curious, but not willing to show it.
dizzy indignant isaac? can't change him from being pessimistic!
