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 had been a rough day for Neo, and it was only going to get rougher.
This was the same place she had been, and it was mostly unchanged from how it was when she'd last been here--last as in, a long, long time ago, in a universe far, far away.
This... wasn't really where she wanted to be. As she'd told Butterfly Knife, Juno City was essentially the last place in Kohaku she wanted to be.
Nevertheless, she opened the door to the changing room and stepped outside.
LAST TIME, ON THE S.S. NEOSKANDER... IsPR6_uX < 50 neo tried to break up with delta < 50 neo failed at breaking up < 50 they totally had sex < 50 it was angry sex < 50 she left before he woke up < 50 they haven't talked since < 50 she remembered to thank tresillian for the excellent tea
THIS TIME, ON THE S.S. NEOSKANDER... < 70 iskander's outside < 50 neo's really feeling the virus
the last time they met, it had been very human. conversation had flowed from one topic to another -- he could sense that she wanted to bring something up, but then something else attracted her attention, and she moved on, only to come back, and henceforth the cycle repeated. something was most definitely amiss, but he didn't want to think about it. he had always taken each encounter with neo as it came; asking for more seemed like committing a crime.
his hand rested on the doorknob to the changing room. he was leaving in twelve hours to meet batin at the tower of janus; together, they were going to inspect a landmark of kohaku. the doorknob twisted of its own accord, and the door opened -- at once, he let go of the knob as if it were electrified, and stepped away from the doorway.
there couldn't be anyone else in the house but him and tresillian. he had sent hyde to aid the scourge attack upon ceres, too. it wasn't a friday, so it couldn't have been cameron. perhaps it had been himself after all -- but no. there definitely was someone standing before him. he forced his gaze to meet the figure in the room, and saw the last person he expected to see.
neo.
iskander did nothing but stare for a moment, his usual composure shaken.
his eyes fell on the blue ditto ranger t-shirt. "i used to have one of these as a child, but it disappeared one day," he said softly, still standing a few steps away from her, "tresillian said that i could wear it when i was older and bigger, but i never got to wear it."
he was, surprisingly, aware of what he was saying. even if neo had left, that was normal. something to be expected. he supposed that what was unexpected was how she had appeared without prior warning.
"... neo," he said in a firmer voice, and hugged her close.
She did nothing but stare for the first moment too, and it's what she did for quite a few moments thereafter as well. She almost managed to say something (it probably would've been oh, fuck) while Delta spoke, but the words never came. Now, she was in his arms, still trying to figure out what to do--what to say.
For a second, she rested her head on his chest, reached for him, because this was why her attempts to end everything last time failed miserably. (He was warm; it was nice.) She swallowed hard, and she gathered what resolve she had left. It was enough.
Neo pushed Delta away. She took a step back, stumbling a little before regaining her balance in the changing room. If this wasn't a dead end, she would've run off in the other direction, but there was nowhere to go.
Like the genius she was, Neo decided to open the floor with, "C-Gear. Please. I need to make a call."
iskander's hand fell loosely and returned to flank him as neo pushed away. he respected her wish for distance, and stepped back himself. his face was remarkably clean of other stray emotions; there was only a look quite similar to the one he had worn at mneme's funeral. he was worried, but he pushed that aside to answer a question he had not expected to have been asked in his life.
but then again, the past minute or so had been rather full of questions. (but wasn't that their relationship like? full of questions and never the right answers.) the door that opened by itself, the disappearing shirt that had just appeared, and most of all, neo appearing in the changing room. iskander needed a moment to regain his composure, and he did so successfully -- with a deep breath.
he didn't question her.
"this way."
he led her away from the room and down the stairs.
"I was battling scourge at the Amberwell," she began, deciding that was as decent a starting point as any. Neo noticed that her choice of starting point happened to fall far after her conversation with Karimi and all it entailed. "Ended up in some nightmarish land, separate like the Dream World. Someone friendly with a butterfly knife spat me out here. I need to contact my pokemon, if I can."
They were also due for red skies and dark suns in thirty-six hours. She hadn't forgotten, but she didn't know what to do about it.
iskander's face changed at the mention of scourge at the amberwell -- he had heard of things at ceres, but he had no idea they had managed to reach the amberwell. (olivia was slipping, then. she was probably off stabbing metapods with her not-ceremonial sword.) he remained silent until the mention of a nightmarish world and someone who had a butterfly knife.
the news felt a little too close for comfort. neo had visited the land of nightmares; that couldn't have been good for anyone in it and neo herself. he bit back his concern, instead choosing to say, "take a seat on the couch. you don't look too good." before walking to get her the house c-gear.
he could ignore the fact about the land of nightmares for a while, but the butterfly knife was disconcerting. neo didn't seem hurt, only shaken. he picked up the c-gear and returned to neo. he sat opposite her, and placed the c-gear on the coffee table.
"here you go," he said, "they must be worried. how long have you been gone?" he couldn't tell from her appearance, but he suspected that it had definitely been a while. "how did you go to wherever you did, if it's like the dream world? you didn't fall asleep here -- and yet you just ... appeared in the changing room."
iskander was interrupted by tresillian serving tea and a modest offering of sandwiches. the butler glanced at neo with a smile before he turned to leave; over neo, he raised an eyebrow questioningly to iskander. iskander's response was a hard look at tresillian - 'don't ask' - and the older man left.
tresillian returned with a blanket, which he handed to neo. "you'll catch a cold like this. please use this," he said warmly, "and the tea will help."
"I'm alright," Neo said, but she sat down anyway. She little dizzy, a little feverish, but otherwise she'd felt worse. Just being back in reality was a good improvement from before.
"Teleported. Kidnapped, specifically, I can't teleport on my own. I was held there for maybe a day. Less? More? Hard to tell, I wasn't in my right mind there." That was all Neo had to say, before she decided she didn't like leaving it that. Wrong implications. She clarified, because it was of utmost importance to her ego, "I won the battle at the Amberwell though."
Seeing Tresillian--as he was now, as opposed to younger--was uncanny. He aged well, she noticed, or perhaps it was a butler trait to as infinite and timeless as the house he presided. "Thank you," she said, and as she did in the Land of Nightmares, she meant it.
The tea was perfect, as she expected of Tresillian, and the sandwiches were bland but divine to her. The only thing she'd eaten in a long, long time was an average scone and a bite of a sandwich that tasted like scourge (thanks, Batin).
She took up the C-Gear and dialed her own number. It rang several times before anybody picked up, and she heard an awkward string of barks before Athena accidentally hung up. (Why didn't Athena just let Phoebe telekinetically handle the C-Gear?) Neo called again.
"Athena? Yes--yes, no. No, questions later. I'm fine. I'm in Juno City, at Delta's house. Get to Juno before 36 hours is up. Meet me at Cypress labs. Call me if you see red skies. No, I don't know what that means either. Wait, what do you mean you have a sword? ...Fine. Questions later, fine. Okay, bye."
She hung up, and Tresillian was there with the blanket. "You are an amazing human being, sir," Neo said, and took the blanket as if it were her salvation.
iskander filed away the information into neat compartments in his mental recesses. the land of nightmares seemed to have an adverse effect on those who entered them without any sort of preparation. it was most likely because of the virus that he was safe from its viles, and neo looked like she was very much shaken by her experiences there. it was an interesting observation to make, but his curiosity remained suppressed for now.
"you were held there?" iskander asked, and wanted to probe further. he decided that tact was more important than finding out the details, though, and fell silent. (he could always ask the land for answers, and perhaps seek out butterfly knife for whoever it was.) "congratulations on your win, though," he smiled, "and for escaping captivity." how did you find it, neo? what did they tell you there?
tresillian hung around for a while more after neo accepted the blanket. he decided to contribute something to the conversation; the awkward air between the two younger ones was heavy, and he thought that even a blind man could sense it. "hardly," said the butler with a small bow, "it's my job to help everyone in this house. now, tea." his words were firm as he pressed the teacup into neo's hands, and adjusted the blanket around her shoulders. "drink up."
Neo took the cup of tea, not that she had any other option. Obediently, she took a sip, expecting it to be too hot for consumption. It wasn't, and it was also a different blend from before: milder, more herbal, and revitalizing. She took drained half the cup, and the warmth started to spread through her body.
"Not really held--not by a person. The land seems alive there though, or it's warping to someone's control. Slipping its grasp was quite difficult." In fact, she suspected escape was outright impossible under normal circumstances. Neo couldn't have found any way out at all without Butterfly Knife's help. She hadn't even managed to get out of the castle, and she'd seen through the windows that there was an entire world out there, red and gloaming.
Neo held the teacup in her hands. She could almost feel her fingers again. (She should be able to feel her fingers by now, actually. Was she just numb? Was that another symptom she'd picked up?)
She looked up at Delta. She wondered if she'd felt this sickness before. Evenly, she said, "I think I'm ill with something. A quarantine may be necessary."
the sight of neo drinking her tea was enough for tresillian. satisfied, the butler left to continue his pursuit of housework and other butlery duties.
and then there were two.
"ill? a quarantine? i afraid i don't understand you, neo," iskander's gaze was as level as he could manage, but his voice showed hints of surprise. "should we make a trip to the hospital, or --" he let the sentence hang as he studied neo. there wasn't anything amiss other than her generally dishevelled appearance. if she had contracted something, she hadn't said what it was.
iskander moved over to neo and checked her temperature, her previous rejection be damned. nothing seemed out of the ordinary. perhaps she didn't have a fever, but something else. the question was -- what did the land of nightmares do to an average person? (he wasn't an average person, he didn't know.) one thing led to another in his mind, and iskander eventually came to the conclusion that neo had been touched by the land itself. was she infected by the virus? possibly.
he took a deep breath. this wasn't right. he had to fix it, or at least, determine what was happening -- had happened.
"you're not running a temperature," he said, "and you don't feel like you're coming down with a cold, either. i don't think you're physically injured -- are you?" it was something he added on for good measure, "-- and considering what the world's been going on about, i feel like you've gotten more than entangled with the scourge after your battle at the amberwell."
iskander didn't skip a beat. "did you get bitten?" he asked, as if this were a scene out of a book where the protagonist had just been turned into a vampire and feared the sun's glow. "no, that didn't sound right," he muttered, and added in a louder voice, "did the scourge touch you?"
he realized he was still standing near her, and moved backwards, just as he had in the beginning.
"should i stay? -- because i can leave. i'll go to the study and read something, while you stay here and wait for athena. if you need to be quarantined for whatever reason it is, tresillian can arrange something for you."
Neo flinched at his touch, but she didn't protest. A second opinion on her health wouldn't hurt.
No temperature? Good. She'd take that--or maybe she shouldn't. A fever would indicate that her body was putting up more of a fight.
"Doesn't matter where you go. No, rather stay. If there's no fever, there's probably to contagion. Good. Yes." She seemed lost in thought. Athena hadn't specified where she was, but the lucario had said they'd be here soon. Tiresias could fly to Juno even from Sol City within a few hours. She wanted the blood sample she'd taken from the boy at the amber well. She needed to compare it to hers, and both to whatever scourge specimens Cypress had to spare.
The eelektrosses had touched her. She shuddered at the memory. Otherwise, there had been only Minerva and the froslass. "Shouldn't matter if they touched me. The virus has no effect on humans."
Neo wasn't sure she believed that anymore.
"I don't want to impose. Once Athena arrives, I should leave. I need a laboratory. Research to be done. Speed might be of essence." She looked to Delta. "Come with me? I need a control subject. Also need someone to catch me if I collapse. Athena's too spiky."
iskander turned to leave at her request, and sat on the stairs as per her request as well when she told him to stay. he watched her with two-thirds curiosity and one-third concern; he didn't want her to dig too deep and end up hurting herself, but at the same time, he wanted to know just how far she could go despite her apparent setback. it was all in good-natured interest, thought iskander, as he leaned forward slightly to form his reply.
"you'll never impose on me," he said, but corrected himself. "on us. tresillian doesn't mind you at all. he says you appreciate his tea more than i do." iskander realized he was bringing up more unrelated matters, yet he didn't bother stopping himself. "are you sure you want me to go with you? you could ask tresillian. i'm sure he won't mind, and he's better at catching people."
a control subject for what? (this still wasn't right.) assuming she was indeed infected by the virus, it would make sense that she wanted to get to the bottom of it. there was no better subject than one's own self when it came to science -- all one needed was one's own willingness, and iskander didn't put it past neo to do such feats. whether she managed to see it to the end considering her current state was something else altogether.
"but if you're sure, then my answer is a 'yes'. i'll go." his eyes were somehow different; they held more of the man she had seen fishing at lake pax than the one who had glanced at her lethargically in the library. or perhaps there was a different sort of light in it.
Neo didn't think Tresillian was an agent. Maybe he was, but she doubted it.
She intended on Professor Cypress' blood as an uninfected constant, a point of comparison for all results. If the professor wasn't around, then any bumbling assistant would do. Delta's blood would serve as the hades constant in a human, should it somehow differ from a scourge sample--and should the boy at the Amberwell somehow come up clean.
Her thoughts were surprisingly lucid, despite the infection. Neo wondered if that meant the virus had run its course.
"I'm sure." There wasn't more that needed to be said.
She'd forgotten that he'd never met Athena, only Phoebe and--rest her soul--Mneme. "Athena's a lucario. She's been running around the region in my place, on account of being humanoid with opposable thumbs."
iskander was always fascinated by neo and her collection of pokémon. he had only met one of many, however. athena was a lucario. phoebe and mneme he knew. he also knew that neo had a dragon pokémon whom she had used to scare thugs away in nerio. (it felt like so long ago.) they decided to talk about athena and some other things in general to pass time until the lucario arrived, but time wore on very slowly. they soon descended into silence.
xdlY1QPB <30 long moment of quiet until athena arrives 31-50 small talk >50 tresillian, neo and iskander discuss various things
a knock on the door sounded, and tresillian went to the door. he opened it, and was greeted by a canine with a sword on its back. iskander had told him about it; tresillian was less surprised than he should have been. calmly, he held the door for athena and stepped back.
<Sup, sir,> the lucario said as the door opened. Giant greatsword on her back, she stepped into the house and a faint pulse of aura emanated around her, like radar.
<Fancy digs you got here,> was her parting compliment(?) to Tresillian's housekeeping before she strode away towards Neo.
The lucario didn't bother with any words of concern. Neo was alive. She looked alright. They were back in business. With a bit too much of a flourish to be safe, Athena whipped the sword off her back and presented it to Neo. <Look what I got. It's yours now, since I don't need it, on account of having fists that hit things and all. Oh, I picked up some chicks too, they were homeless on the mountain. And I begged that old lady in Nerio for money--not that I spent much of your money. Only a little. The roulettes were, like, really fun. I totally won a pet feebas. It's so ugly, I love him.>
"Okay," Neo replied.
Athena pointed a paw at Delta. <He looks like J.>
"Yes."
Athena waited for a moment, like she expected Neo to go on. When she didn't, Athena added, <It's kinda creepy.>
"You get used to it."
<If you say so. I'm not judging. Icarus likes Tiresias, I mean. Now that's weird.> Athena crossed her arms, looked at Neo expectantly. <Cypress labs now? Tell me what happened with Batin on the way?>
Neo looked to Delta. "If that's alright with you?"
It had been a rough day for Neo, and it was only going to get rougher.
