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 !
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ceres forest had been a bloodbath, and the news reporting didn't water down the stories that much. until she could get to juturna, milly figured that the amberwell is the best place to be. she had squeaked a little when she nearly tripped over the stiffening corpse of a half-eaten tauros, but she was otherwise fine.
milly reminds herself that she's probably in for worse if she journeys any farther than nerio. is there a real need? most of her work for eos happened in the dream world. was there any point in risking herself to pass the scourge-infested areas?
she would probably need an experienced eos breeder's opinion on the matter.
the girl is surprised at how clean the amberwell manages to be, even after the number of scourge that have been seen drowning in it. azdar and pieda splash about in the waters, and milly sees no reason to discourage them. perhaps they would have more success on their next breeding attempt if they were allowed to relax.
sabina had gotten her wish. she'd managed to infect one of her pokemon. she couldn't bring any of the others out to witness the scene, of course. she'd have to re-frame it for them as a horrible tragedy later. but right now she was on her own.
floating the tranquilized scourge leafeon in front of her with telekinesis, sabina crossed the clearing towards the amberwell. she'd emptied her entire stock of neuroleptics into the eeveelution. and yet his tail was still faintly twitching. interesting. she was relatively certain she could hold him in place with her telekinesis while she worked, even if he awoke, but she still wanted to be as close as possible to the amberwell just in case. her pokemon getting infected was what sabina wanted, not herself dying.
she dropped her former pet on the ground with a thump once they were within a foot's distance of the amberwell, and sabina pulled out her bag, looking for bindings and stakes to secure him. the distant sound of splashing finally got through to her, and sabina looked up to see milly and her pokemon.
other people. her heart sank. she hoped there'd be no interference. sabina muzzled the leafeon.
milly has a normal person's reaction to seeing a woman with a scourge pokemon. which is to say, she let out an 'eeek' and tenses her shoulders.
"what on earth - is that a scourge pokemon?" she takes a step back. her first instinct is to suspect that the woman is a hades agent - nerio had seen no shortage of them during the seige. milly had long since learned how to fear them before ever setting foot in bacchus.
she doesn't know that the leafeon is the woman's pokemon, but there is something odd about the fact that she came prepared with a muzzle and a bag full of equiptment. not a civilian bystander who just so happened to stumble upon a wild scourge, then.
even pieda and azdar have to look down at their paws to make sure that they were in fact, properly vaccinated. thankfully, milly had made the prudent shopping decisions while she had been in proserpina.
"of course it's a scourge pokemon," sabina snapped. the leafeon's pulse rate had nearly doubled. it was coming round, and she was running out of time. she secured the last of the bindings in place, pressed down with all the strength of telekinesis she could summon, and then got a better look at the other woman and her pokemon.
"vaccinated? you're eos. perfect. send them over here. i need some help the leafeon can't infect, and none of my pokemon are vaccinated."
not to mention she didn't want them witnessing this.
"w-what?" she wanted her pokemon next to that scourge? milly had literally recieved her pokemon like... a few days ago. "...i...i'm only a breeder, ma'am. i'm not sure if my pokemon would be of much help."
why would anyone be dealing with the scourge without vaccinated pokemon?
"...are you an eos researcher?" there was always the possibility that all of her vaccinated pokemon had been...killed off, as loathe as milly was to imagine it.
pieda and azdar look at each other warily.
BvJO1EF0 <50 they want to help
fuck it, these pokemon were excited to get into the thick of the action. the pancham and shinx hop over to sabina's side.
"i've already tranquilized and subdued him, for the most part. scourge metabolize drugs faster than average, however. he's already coming around. hence the restraints. i'm holding him in place as well. don't need seasoned fighters, just need your pokemon here because once he wakes up, i can't touch him directly. even muzzled, bound, he might scratch me. can't risk infection when there's no cure. they'll just need to hold his paws down. want to see if this compound works."
she took a breath and realized milly had asked a question.
"no. i'm not eos. i'm unfit for a number of reasons. dislike public projects as well. too much hassle, always looking over your shoulder, concerned about ethics and methods. i'd rather just solve the problem."
the pancham and the shinx look up to milly expectantly. she...she should make the decision based on their best interests. that's what a breeder should be doing.
despite herself, there's a part of milly that is undeniably curious. a part of her that wants to know what exactly ravaged her home city last summer.
"...i will allow it." the pancham and shinx practically hi-five each other.
the two pokemon walk over to press the leafeon down. they seem confident, but their eyes are glued to the leafeon's movements despite themselves. their activity soon becomes a macho-pokemon contest over who could seem the most nonchalant about holding a scourge pokemon back.
so far, they're both winning. milly supposes that it could be a decent bonding activity for a breeding pair that had failed two attempts in a row.
milly didn't mind so much about the fact that the woman wasn't eos. those from the program seemed to be the minority these days, and she didn't know enough about the researcher branch of eos to comment.
"do you mind if i ask where you obtained this scourge pokemon?" she hopes that it wasn't from ceres. milly had no interest in running into scourge stragglers from the forest battle. 2tsunz
the leafeon had been a vain, pampered yet slightly neglected pet in his past life, and in his new life as scourge, he was hardly any better. he certainly lacked the raw intelligence and cunning of even some of his fellow basic scourge, much less the partner pokemon of agents. he struggled and spat against his bindings, but with his snout muzzled and his claws forcibly sheathed, sabina was more than certain that her TK alone could hold him in place. the vaccinated pokemon were a nice piece of insurance, though.
she injected a syringe into his flank.
"he's mine," she said. "he became infected as i traveled through ceres."
iHLA6K7d < 50 her compound is working, leafeon begins calming down
"i...i'm sorry for your loss." they were words repeated only too often in kohaku these days. milly longs for the day when they become wholly unnecessary.
azdar and pieda's staring contest against each other continues. at least...they were getting to know each other a lot better?
"...why are you keeping him alive?" she can barely tear her eyes away from the scourge. milly fights against the maxim of 'the only good scourge pokemon is a dead one'. "are you waiting on a cure?" she'd heard that qualified breeders had a chance of halting the infection, but this pokemon seemed too far gone. 2tsunz
"don't," sabina said, half distracted as she monitored the leafeon's vitals. "it was no loss."
his pulse and heart rate were dropping to normal levels. he'd ceased struggling against the bonds, trying to instinctively snap out for flesh and meat and blood. the dark eyes that glittered up at her now weren't the same eyes that sabina had seen for all the years she had owned him, but they were calm and subdued, almost sleepy looking, and that was much more important. reduced aggression, tempered symptoms. she hugged herself in a sudden uncharacteristic fit of bright glee. it was working on an experimental subject in the wild, no history of GLP-1, just as it had worked on the rattata in the lab.
"i don't need a cure," she said. "i'm a scientist. in the lab i'm working at, we're running experiments involving the activation of the peptide-1 receptor through glucagon-like formulas, and it's lowered scourge tendencies in nearly 30 percent of the rattata control group post infection, and halved chances of infection in non-infected pokemon. but in the lab we've been treating the ratatta with the GLP-1 for weeks prior to inducing infection, and i wanted to see how treating a scourge pokemon with no history of the GLP-1 would function in terms of decreased aggression when it's administered for the first time. that's why i needed this leafon. and it worked. just like i knew it should."
"...excuse me?" she says quietly. milly thinks that she misheard. then she takes a good look at her clinical treatment of the ... test subject. there wasn't really any other word for what the leafeon is. maybe...maybe it was a good thing that the leafeon had lost all sentience. maybe that was a mercy for scourgified pokemon. not so much on the living, though.
it's not her place, but milly finds herself looking at sabina with distaste. it didn't differ too much from her normal expression - she had practiced such an insincerity for years.
being a seventeen year old girl with no history of genius, milly only followed about the basic idea of sabina's experiment.
"so your lab has been ... experimenting with scourgification for awhile." suddenly, milly thinks that she has a headache coming on. it's a world that she has only been too familiar with. a world where only results really mattered. "that's...interesting."
if she sounded interested, then it wasn't really genuine. 2tsunz
"it's more than interesting," sabina said, although more patiently than she might have if the leafeon wasn't doing so well. "this is a breakthrough. if i can synthesize a compound that, for all intents and purposes, removes scourge tendencies--that's a cure."
she unbuckled the leafeon's restraints, although she was careful to keep the muzzle on and not let her TK focus waver. slipping on a pair of heavy duty woven gloves from her bag, sabina reached out to pat the leafeon on the head. he had no reaction, other than turning his face to look at her, tongue lolling as he panted.
"no attempts at attacking me," sabina muttered half to herself. "no adverse effects from proximity to uninfected pokemon. no apparent hunger. this is better than i had ever hoped for."
when sabina framed it like that, it did become kind of interesting. at the same time, milly can't say that the leafeon's reactions were anything that indicated he was near cured. the pancham and shinx also seem to be a little perturbed. the leafeon didn't exactly inspire them with confidence.
"i see that you have removed the aggression." she can't help but ask. "but what about everything else?" is there a point in saving them if their sentience could not be preserved? 2tsunz
"this is early stages," sabina said. "i've only been testing it on rattata so far, and there's not much to restore there."
she prodded the leafeon with a gentle TK nudge and the pokemon shivered, eyes rolling. his legs tensed, but he remained in place, still gazing at her with no apparent intent to attack.
"removing aggression is the first step," she said. "once the overt symptoms of the virus are stripped away and defeated by the compound, healing can begin. i'm not a medical doctor though. leave that to the rangers and the pokemon vets." she shrugged.
the leafeon is still placid, certainly, but milly does not feel the desire to test her luck any more than she should.
"so you're not planning to...to throw him into the amberwell soon? if he's only an early experimental test subject, then you don't ... you don't actually know when the compound will wear off. or worsen."
she can't help but remember pax institute. she can't help but remember that the monsters that they fight were created too. 2tsunz
ceres forest had been a bloodbath, and the news reporting didn't water down the stories that much. until she could get to juturna, milly figured that the amberwell is the best place to be. she had squeaked a little when she nearly tripped over the stiffening corpse of a half-eaten tauros, but she was otherwise fine.
sabina had gotten her wish. she'd managed to infect one of her pokemon. she couldn't bring any of the others out to witness the scene, of course. she'd have to re-frame it for them as a horrible tragedy later. but right now she was on her own.
