Roughly one year ago a devastating event known as the Cataclysm ravaged the distant region Faero, leaving hundreds dead and many more missing. In the aftermath of the chaos, half-human, half-Pokémon creatures rose from the shadows and attacked what little remained of civilization.
Now the technological marvel Millennium City stands proudly once more, and humans have returned to Faero, hidden safely behind the thick walls that shelter the city from the savage lands outside. The feral Pokémorphs still lurk out there, biding their time.
Will you venture out of the city and into uncharted territories to make a name for yourself as a Pokémorph trainer?
The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Thread Started on Nov 7, 2009, 7:37pm »
The heavy gates to Millennium City groaned ominously as they closed, blocking out the view of the city and civilization itself. Even as Rae stood there, staring at nothing but the solid fortress in front of her, her mind raced back to a few hours before she was sent on this suicide mission.
She had been driven to the Faero Laboratory in a company car owned by Human’s First. At the time, she was practically glowing with pride that it was she who had been selected for this important assignment! Hardly anyone got to ride in the company cars. It was an extreme improvement over dealing with protestors and angry citizens.
The driver dropped her off at the entrance to the lab and then sped away. She watched the shiny black vehicle until it was nothing but a speck of dust in a vaguely monotone landscape. Now she was supposed to wait for a call from her boss. How long would that take? He was never very specific with the details and now was no exception.
Rae settled herself upon a bench, feeling strangely out-of-place in her faded jeans and a monogrammed beige hoodie. She had been told to dress casually and to bring a few necessities along with her. The dress code was to ensure that she would blend in with the other trainers that would be entering the lab but what was with the backpack? Where in the world would she be staying that she couldn’t bring her rolling suitcase?
As if on cue, the small cell phone in her pocket buzzed and she answered it quickly. The boss was talking before she could even bring the phone to her ear.
“- then enter the lab and sign up to get a pokemorph-…”
“What?!” Rae blurted, cutting him off in mid-sentence.
Then, there was the argument in which Rae found out all of the details a little too late and unfortunately for her if she did not go through with this assignment, she would not get the raise she was looking for and ultimately would never get enough money to build the little house she always imagined, nestled in the suburban Viridian City.
“Oh, and you may as well toss the phone. You won’t be able to get reception on it outside of the city.”
And that was the end of the conversation.
Face flushed and her breathing a bit heavy, Rae snapped the phone shut and threw it into a nearby garbage bin. In her mind, she knew that she was too much of a coward to just walk away from this. Yet, somehow her brain had not yet meshed out the dangers that lay ahead of her.
Feeling somewhat numb, Rae entered the lab, collected her Pokémorph and was now standing outside of the city walls feeling foolish and clutching the morph ball which held her only weapon and ultimately her greatest fear. A phrase from the conversation played itself over and over inside of her brain.
“How long will I be gone?” she had asked.
'As long as it takes' was not the answer she had been looking for.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #1 on Nov 9, 2009, 10:16am »
Luckily enough for the new 'trainer', she wasn't entirely alone outside of the city gates, and luckier still, wild Pokémorphs weren't attempting to siege the gate for a change. Not that the sight she was treated to almost instantly looked all that civilized, but at least the Pokémorphs on the other side of the gate didn't look entirely feral and ready to attack.
"Daisy, stop that. G...give Izega her share of the food or she'll get upset again." A towering bovine Pokémorph was holding an apple up high in the sky, out of the reach of the smaller Mankey, who was growing increasingly infuriated. So far she had managed to calm her temper surprisingly well, her eyes narrowed and her breathing heavy and irregular, but the screeching and maiming had yet to start.
"Daisy, give that apple back. Sto.." Completely ignoring Aaron's pleas for solving things peacefully, the Miltank shoved the apple into her mouth with a triumphant smirk, chewed once, mostly for show, and then swallowed, sticking out her tongue. Izega was none too pleased and showed it by slamming her fist down in Daisy's stomach, possibly hoping that it'd cause her to spit it back out, but no such thing happened. Daisy winced in pain, and the ample amounts of fat continued jiggling for quite a while after, but the food was gone.
For a few moments nothing happened, and then she snapped. With a loud screech the primate threw herself at her trainer and threw him to the ground, snatching his bag away and spilling all the contents on the ground, searching for anything that looked edible. That stupid fat cow had eaten all the apples already?
Daisy herself watched the scene for a few moments, before taking notice of the audience, slowly wandering over to Rae and scratching her head. Something smelled yummy!
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #2 on Nov 9, 2009, 7:10pm »
In the midst of her brooding, Rae singled out the quiet human voice from the songs of birds and the whisper of meadow grass in the breeze. Hope flared inside of her. Perhaps she wasn’t alone out here after all! However, upon turning to investigate the source of the sound, that precious hope seemed to fizzle away, leaving nothing but a faint buzzing against the back of her mind.
It was hard for Rae to take in the fact that there was actually another human being near her. Her eyes seemed to only be able to register the two monstrous-looking Pokémorphs towering over him. A single gasp was uttered as the scene played out before her and the mankey morph tackled the shorter human male to the ground. Rae’s mind went into overdrive.
She put a tentative step forward; hand halfway outstretched but stopped herself before she could advance further. What was she thinking? What could she possibly do to help this man whom she had never met against two Pokémorphs? She would be pummeled and tossed aside like nothing more than a rag doll. So she stood there feeling utterly useless and frightened, wondering if it would be best to just save herself and walk away from the scene as quickly as she could.
That was before the miltank took notice of her.
The lumbering, obese creature was now advancing towards her! What had she done to deserve such a fate? As the thing moved closer, Rae began to back up slowly as she didn’t want the Pokémorph to consider her a species of prey. Eventually her shoulders thumped gently against the sturdy city wall. What once had been her protection, now prevented her from doing much else but cowering against it.
“G-get away from me you… you… thing!”
Rae tried to sound commanding but the tremor in her voice was definitely readable. She had few options left but as her palms perspired in fear, the forgotten morphball that she clutched o-so-tightly, began to slip. But wait! Rae had a weapon of her own! As she clutched it tighter in her hand, she wondered if it would be wise to unleash the Pokémorph inside. Rae could not fathom what horrific creature it could possibly be.
Even as she thought these words, the constant hum that grated softly against the back of her brain seemed to strengthen and she found it difficult to concentrate on the life and death situation that was about to happen.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #3 on Nov 9, 2009, 7:20pm »
Aaron laid on the ground still as he could be, the Mankey still crouched over him, one knee on each side of his body as she spilled the contents of the bag over the ground and over him, but finding nothing edible or of interest, she let out a loud snort and got back up to her feet, heading over to a nearby rock to sit down and sulk, surprisingly enough leaving Aaron without scratches or bruises for a change, asides from the nasty pain in his back from getting knocked to the ground in the first place.
The fact that Rae was backing away did little to dissuade the Miltank from smelling something delicious though. Something in that backpack was edible, and she wanted to see what it was. With every few steps the scared human girl took backwards, the larger Pokémorph took one large stride, until the girl was stuck with her back against the wall. Two more steps and she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, or more precisely, a huge bloated belly pressing tightly against her and the city walls.
It didn't exactly hurt, the Pokémorph didn't seem to be out to hurt her, but being pressed tightly against the bovine's pokémorph gut was far from comfortable. Licking her nose slightly, she stood there for a moment, before moving back to Aaron's side, dropping herself down on her butt with a loud thump and a depressed face. Whatever was hidden in that bag didn't smell nearly as nice as an apple.
Now that the Pokémorphs had finally settled down, the scientist climbed up to his feet and quickly adjusted his glasses, smiling nervously at the woman. "S-sorry about that, I didn't mean for them to scare you. They're a bit... " What was the word? Scary? Obnoxious? Annoying? "... high maintenance."
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #4 on Nov 9, 2009, 11:33pm »
Rae forced her eyes closed as the hum-thrum in her brain reached a pitch that was almost too much to bear. She felt herself being pinned to the wall as half of her middle was engulfed in the morph’s rotund tummy. The cow’s breath was hot on her face and it didn’t smell all that great either but it seemed to grow bored with her quickly enough. She felt the great gut recede and Rae was suddenly able to breathe again. As she exhaled in relief, she noticed that she could hear her own thoughts again, the only sound being the pounding of her heart.
“Its alright. I don’t think it did any damage,” Rae said patting her hair absently, possibly checking to see if she was still in one piece.
“Have you considered keeping them in their morphballs or is this normal behavior for a Pokémorph?”
Rae didn’t really have a clue. All she knew was that when she received the ball containing her pokemorph, the lab assistant assured her that her Pokémorph would not be able to harm her. She distinctly remembered something about it being subject to great pain if it did so.
Speaking of which, she wondered how in the world that mankey morph was able to be so rough with its trainer. Rae eyed it warily as she tried to figure things out. In fact, as her eyes traveled to the shorter man in the lab coat, she wondered how he was still in one piece. He didn’t look like he would last very long in a fight. Then again, she had just survived her first encounter with a hungry miltank. Maybe things were looking up?
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #5 on Nov 10, 2009, 2:05am »
"I can't study them if I keep them in their containers. I put them in there to cool down, but I try to keep them out as much as possible so I can understand what goes on in their heads. I think it's 'food' and 'violence', respectively." Mentioning for the Miltank first, and then the Mankey in the distance, it seemed for a moment as if the very fact that Aaron had pointed at her was enough to send her into a new frenzy, but for once she remained surprisingly calm. Getting into the minds of these odd, savage creatures must have been quite the challenging task.
"So far I've figured out that they are highly territorial, hate taking orders and seem to have a natural disliking for humans. I at one point figured that perhaps Pokémorphs who live in packs will be better at taking orders, but wild Mankey live in packs so if such a thing was true, it sure doesn't seem to affect my Pokémorph. Perhaps they don't mind taking orders from other Pokémorphs and they only dislike taking them from humans. There's still a lot of things we don't really know about them."
Ah, it seemed as if Aaron was starting to get caught up in his own story, having landed on the only subject in which he could hold his own in a conversation. Pokémon science! "Maybe with enough positive influence from a trainer, they'll learn to behave better. But so far, that hasn't really happened. Even just trying to measure or weigh them seems to offend them. I think, deep down, they are scared of humans, and they lash out in self defence."
Scared? They didn't exactly seem scared. One of them was laying on the ground only a few feet away, chewing grass, and the other was sitting on a nearby boulder trying to keep her rage pent up so she wouldn't pummel her trainer into a bloody paste and end up getting shocked again. That theory was... silly.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #6 on Nov 11, 2009, 8:45pm »
“Food and violence: How charming,” Rae muttered faintly.
It sounded as though this lovely little journey was going to be harder than she had previously thought; and that was saying something! If captured Pokémorphs behaved in such a manner, Rae didn’t even want to think about what a wild one could do to her.
As she listened to the lab coat-coated man blather on about his studies, it was rather clear to Rae that he was probably a scientist of some sort. He certainly seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about Pokémorphs at least. She caught some of what he was saying but her eyes kept darting back to check on the status of the Pokémorphs. Even as she collected a few mental notes, there was no way she was going to let her guard down around.
“That sounds… fascinating.”
Rae tried to seem interested but there was only so much about vicious monsters that she could handle. Still, at least she had learned a little of what she was going to be up against when she finally decided to unleash her Pokémorph onto the world.
“You wouldn’t happen to work for Aion Tech, would you?”
It would make sense. He wore the familiar attire that she remembered when she worked there a few years ago. She didn’t exactly recognize him or anything but most of the scientists all looked the same anyways.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #7 on Nov 12, 2009, 7:58am »
"I... guess you could say that. I work for Faero Research Inc, which is a smaller organization working for Aion Technologies, assisting with Pokémorph behavioural studies and the like. Mapping out where Pokémorphs live, what they act like, how they evolve... Aion Technologies itself focuses more on the trainer side of things, producing new types of morphballs and coming up with gadgets to help trainers. I believe they're working on a Pokédex for Pokémorphs at the moment."
He might have been awkward in conversations, but it didn't exactly take a conversational genius to realize that she was scared of his Pokémorphs. Instead of listening to his -super interesting- stories, she was glancing over at the two hot-heads every few seconds to make certain they wouldn't maul her.
"I... guess you're rather new to all this, huh?" Retrieving a pair of morphballs from his pockets, he recalled the savage monsters to their container, hoping to make Rae feel ever so slightly more at ease. "I'm Aaron. Aaron Grand."
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #8 on Nov 13, 2009, 4:43pm »
Once the Pokémorphs were safely stowed away in their morphballs (where they couldn’t maim her), it was clear by the change in Rae’s stance that she was feeling more confident. She slipped her own morphball into the front pocket of her hoodie, hoping that she would not need to call upon it: Ever.
Now that she could think more rationally, Rae noted it strange that she was conversing with this stranger in the middle of a field, as if she were having a casual conversation with one of her co-workers. Well, it looked like they weren’t going to be strangers any longer because he was introducing himself and she did so as well.
“Rae Fawn. I was wondering because I used to work for Aion myself and well, it’s pretty much a nerd-fest in there if you know what I mean.”
It was Rae’s attempt at breaking the ice with a little joke but she realized that this might be a little offensive to Aaron only a little too late.
“Er… I didn’t mean… What I meant to say was… lab coats. All you science-y types wear them.”
Her recovery was pretty much a failure and she felt heat rise to her face. When had being outdoors turned her into a bumbling idiot?
“Let me start over. I’m Rae, and yes, I’m pretty new at this, like barely 20-minutes new,” she added.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t turn storming off into the trees because she would look pretty pathetic chasing after him. There was no way she was going to let this little piece of human contact leave her that easily.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #9 on Nov 13, 2009, 5:21pm »
"N...nice to meet you." His face flushed a slight red at the first insult, and it didn't exactly get any better when she started about lab coats. It didn't exactly sound like she was all that favourable when it came to 'the science-y types, and it would hardly be the first time somebody acted like that. If it wasn't for science-y types like himself, nobody would have been able to train Pokémorphs, or even Pokémon for that matter. Of course, if he told that to Rae now, odds were she'd have liked that option. She didn't seem like she belonged outside of the gates, at all.
"Twenty minutes? First time outside of the gates then, I guess? I hope you brought a map and a compass, or you'll likely get lost. And did you bring any bandages? Perhaps some clean water? The watering holes and rivers are rather dangerous..." Oh, great. Only a few minutes outside of the gate, and he already took it upon himself to try to make her feel even worse about the whole thing than she already was? How nice of him.
"So what kind of Pokémorph did you get? I hope they're not as unruly as the ones I got?"
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #10 on Nov 13, 2009, 7:11pm »
A compass? Bandages?
Unfortunately, Rae did not have either of these things. She did, however, have a couple of water bottles and a few cans of unpleasant-sounding food. She had bought some on the fly when she had found out the details of her assignment.
“I have a few things but I can always pick up some more later in town,” she reassured Aaron. The thought of going back into the city made her think that she might not be able to leave again on her own. A mental picture of her boss dragging her back through the gate made her grimace. Still, she didn’t want to make even more of a fool of herself and tell a lab tech that she didn’t even know how to use a compass.
“M-my Pokémorph?”
Rae had nearly forgotten – she had no idea what sort of Pokémorph she was keeping encased inside of its morphball. She took the capture device out of her pocket as if to study it.
“They didn’t tell me what kind it was when I got it. I-I’m a bit nervous to let it out.”
Then she heard that ominous thrumming again. What the hell was that? It wasn’t really a sound but it wasn’t really a feeling either. Rae wanted to cover her ears to block it out but she didn’t really think that would help. She didn’t want to portray to Aaron that she was hearing things.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #11 on Nov 13, 2009, 7:22pm »
"Going out there without the proper supplies isn't really something I'd suggest. Trust me, you're going to need the bandages. I've gotten more scratches and cuts in the last few days than the rest of my life. But maybe you're lucky and your Pokémorph doesn't have claws... though I suppose you'd end up with bruises instead, then." He cracked a nervous smile, attempting to shift his image away from being "that nerdy scientist fellow", but causing Rae to worry even more about the wild life of a Pokémorph trainer was perhaps not the brightest idea.
"Just... let it out, and you can see. Worst case scenario, it tries to attack you and you call it back. As long as you keep the morphball in your hand, there's not really that much of a problem." Of course, the moment the ball was out of your reach, the ferocious bastards would take their chances and attempt to maim your back. Aaron had been there, and he had a large scar on his shoulder to show for it.
"Just call it. You don't have to be -that- scared of it. I promise I won't let it eat you." From the looks of it, Aaron wasn't hearing those sounds, at all. He seemed to be acting quite normal despite the humming in Rae's ears.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #12 on Nov 13, 2009, 11:34pm »
Rae gave a nervous laugh, not at all liking what she was hearing.
“Let’s just hope that it doesn’t have limbs. Then maybe it won’t be able to hurt me,” she said, enlarging the capsule.
There was that damn sound again and it was getting louder… like… it was excited? How did she figure that? Rae didn’t know why but it felt as though the sound carried some sort of tension or anticipation. Her palms began to sweat again and it was now or never to see her new Pokémorph. She hoped that if anything happened, Aaron would be true to his word and make sure she wasn’t maimed.
She readied herself for the worst, bracing herself and adjusting her stance accordingly. Then, she held out her arm and pressed the release button. The capture device opened, dispelling a flash of white light and a somewhat shorter shape. Rae had to squint her eyes against the blinding light and was soon blinking at a rather peculiar character.
It was an abra Pokémorph and it appeared to be asleep. It had even materialized in a seated position with its head and shoulders slumped forward and long, muscular limbs stretched out in front of it. Rae was quick to notice that her Pokémorph did indeed have claws that appeared to be dagger sharp and quite lethal. Still, it didn’t seem to be aware that it had just been released.
“What’s it doing?” Rae asked hesitantly. She was almost afraid to break the sudden silence, lest she would startle the thing. She stared at it in a dazed sort of way, not even noticing that the sound in her head had finally subsided.
Re: The Future Looks Bleak but Doesn't it Always? « Reply #13 on Nov 14, 2009, 8:30am »
Studying the yellow creature for a few moments, Aaron smiled slightly and poked it gently in the ear to see if it would react. "It's asleep... It's related to an Abra, and those sleep most of the day. I think it's how they store up energy for their evolution, by sleeping a lot until they're finally ready. Either way, you're pretty much safe. Sleeping Pokémorphs can't hurt you, and Abra aren't exactly aggressive. I'm not sure if Pokémorph behave exactly the same, but ordinary Abra are cowardly and would rather flee than fight."
Well, odds were that her Pokémorph wasn't exactly going to flee from a human. And the dull looking creature was most likely deceptively intelligent, with psychic powers no less, so it may very well have been just as dangerous as his own Mankey. Yet looking at the creature, it didn't exactly exclude an air of terror. It looked perfectly peaceful, sleeping like that.
"I wish my Pokémorph slept eighteen hours a day, it would make studying them a lot easier." And yet, it wouldn't exactly make travelling through Faero all that much safer. How exactly was it going to protect its trainer while completely asleep?
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