TWO YEARS AGO, A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION GOING BY THE NAME TEAM IMUM WRECKED CHAOS ACROSS THE LAND, DAMAGING CITIES AND KILLING THOUSANDS OF CITIZENS. While Imum itself has long since been disbanded, however, the region remains broken: entire towns have been laid to waste and the Association struggles to find homes for those who were lucky enough to survive the attempted genocide. Reconstruction trudges on as usual... but with three factions - the Association, the corporations, and the people - each wishing to take the rebuilding of an entire region down opposite paths, how long will it be before Lyeant's last leg gives out permanently?
03.01
first activity check is currently underway. regardless of your green status, please be sure to check it out and make extra sure your characters make it safe and sound after the eighth of march.
01.28
we're officially re-opened! come check out our event, the pokeathlon forever to enjoy some fresh restart activities. let leap know if there are any skin bugs, and they'll be sorted out accordingly!
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[attr="class","loreleiposttop2"]‒ FASTER THAN A BULLET, TERRIFYING SCREAM, ENRAGED AND FULL OF ANGER[break] HALF MAN AND HALF MACHINE. CLOSING IN WITH VENGEANCE SOARING HIGH.
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Lorelei was not the sort who chose to dwell on the past.[break][break]
She never ran from it. To do as much would be to admit to fearing it, and to do as much would be to admit that she was not stronger than it. But there were horrible, hateful things that hide there, things that her pride would not allow her to admit made her blood curl and boil hot beneath her skin – a father with no love in his heart, a little red-haired girl with no life in her eyes. Her time had been splatter painted with the blood of criminals and innocents alike, indiscriminate of race or age or passion, and she certainly had enough time to look at it now while trying to scrub its crimson stain off her hands that there was no need to cast a glance over her shoulder to see that had put it there in the first place. Mother always told her that looking back with regret never did anyone much good; what was done was done, and no amount of guilt would ever be able to erase the fact, so why tear oneself down with it if it was never toward any specific end? If history had choice words to share with her, she would gladly listen to them. Otherwise, what was gone was gone, both to time and her mind. There was no time to waste reminiscing when she had a life to rebuild from the ground up (one which she hadn't a single clue of how to rebuild; funny how she, herself, mirrored the region she had brought to the brink of complete annihilation). And yet always they came, these... invitations. Faces she vaguely recalled. Battles that rung up a sense of deja vu. Orders that carried her feet over familiar roads, passed familiar homes, tempting her to move along memory lane as she did the upturned slabs of concrete that people once called the city of Veherna.[break][break]
There was a man who made this broken shell of a city his home, and that same man was to be put to death by her hand. Lark had offered her frustratingly little in terms of information of her latest “hit”, although she'd been told (in the form of what she accurately assumed would reveal themselves to be empty promises) that she would not work alone in discovering more about who needed to be laid to rest in the most brutal of ways. Corrupt members of all three factions had been turning up dead at odd intervals over the course of the year, incidents that most anyone else would have thought to be isolated and tragic but had not gone past her unfortunate employer's ever watchful eye. There were similarities, few as they were, in each of these crimes, ones that pointed to a single culprit being to blame, and while the offing of politic enemies at anothers' hand lightened their workload, the murder of Parallax executives and other such high ranking officers was unforgivable. They'd managed to pinpoint as base of operations (if one could even call narrowing it down to as wide an area as the leftovers of New Veherna “pin pointing”), but beyond that, the trail had gone cold. It was up to her now to traverse this desolate ghost town, haunted as much by the deceased as it was by thoughts she wished her horrendous memory would be so kind as to swallow whole, and see what other leads there were to be followed. So far, however, the destroyer's efforts had been awarded with nothing but the sound of the wind over a broken landscape and the pull of an invisible force leading her down a familiar path she would rather not tred. (Strong as she was, it was impossible to fight it off forever.)[break][break]
Laughter of years long gone echoed in Lorelei's ears as though children ran across the broken terrain even today, cries of “Wait, Lorelei!” and “You have to run faster than that, Frieda!” striking mercilessly against her ear drums with every step. Her grunts had done well to tear apart most of city outside of New Veherna's high walls – had she not walked this same path every day of her childhood, she wouldn't have been able to recognize it for what it was. It looks better this way she thought bitterly, kicking a shredded and dirtied doll aside with the heel of her boot. It's what these people deserved. She'd heard horrible rumors of the fate of many places littered across the region, horror stories of what they looked of in Imum's wake, and while she'd never particularly given it much thought, logic would have dictated that her home – or what she was expected to call her home; truly, it was undeserving of the name – should have looked much the same. For this reason and this reason alone, something akin to shock (something akin to horror) grabbed at her heels and forced her into place as her eyes latched onto what remained of the leaking old building where everything had been ruined. Or, rather, as her eyes latched onto what should have been the remnants of that wretched old beast of a building. Instead, it, much like the handful of buildings that surrounded it, stood in semi-perfect condition, an incomplete yet horrifically accurate recreation of what it had been before Lyeant had stood in the face of genocide. To anyone else, it would have been a miracle. To a woman who knew death better than she knew life, it was a nightmare.[break][break]
The sound of dirt grinding against rubber caught her attention from somewhere behind, and the noise was all it took to have her thoughtlessly twisting on her heel, PokeBall in hand, to face whatever danger may approach. There was certainly someone there, but the darkness of the night obscured whatever features they may have boasted. A good thing, too. She was afraid she wasn't quite able to mask her disgust. “You,” Lorelei said, voice booming across the empty city, loud enough to shake a flock of nocturnal Murkrow from their scavenging far from where they stood. “Who is to blame for this?”
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the first half decent post i've done in, like, forever, thank goodness. TuT
[attr="class","postbody"]Taishu stretched, felt the bones in his back crack and pop, the muscles tense, spasm, then relax. He really ought to not spend so much time hunched over his desk like he did, but he was always so easily absorbed in his work. There was just so much data to go through. So many troublesome people and more seemed to crop up everyday. He could only do so much at a time before people started to connect the dots. Couldn't have that, he wasn't done yet. There was still so much work to do. Bloodied hands would only get bloodier, but it was okay, but it was for the good of Lyeant. It was to help ensure the cause. The Republic's cause. One day, they would find out he was the one cleaning up their ranks, but oh, he imagined they would be anything but grateful. He had so much work to do before they inevitably found out. So much cleaning to do, always one mess after another. At least it was easy enough to get to those who smeared their good, good name. It was oh so much harder to get to those from other organizations.
He stood up from his desk, Nihai rattling wearily from his bed in the corner. "Do you want to come with?" He spoke quietly as if to not disturb anyone else, although they were the only ones in the abandoned gym, "It's cold outside, so wear your sweater." Nihai quickly pulled his sweater on, pink with a yellow star patch sewn onto the front, and hopped over to Tai. He snatched up his hand and rattled. Taishu just smiled and threw his own jacket on.
The cold air bit at his nose and his throat, made his eyes burn and water, but the rest of him was cozy and warm underneath the layers. Nihai kicked at the thin layer of snow with his boots, rattling happily. They walked along for a while and while they had no clear destination in their heads, they wandered towards one of the most recently reconstructed areas. They stopped abruptly, though, as a shredded and filthy doll tumbled their way. His heart leapt into his throat at the sudden movement, fight or flight kicking in sudden and hard, but nothing followed the doll. After several moments of still silence, Nihai picked up the doll, brushed some of the dirt off, and adjusted the clothes. He held it tightly to his chest and held tighter onto Taishu's hand. Slowly, ever so slowly, they walked on, the silence suddenly heavy on them, like it might push them to their knees. Eyes strained against the oppressive dark, seeking to make out a shape, whether human or pokemon or animal. Something to blame for the sudden movement that had his heart thudding in his chest. In the distance, he began to make something out, something out of place, but a misstep alerted them to their presence and they whirled around. Definitely a person, then. Their voice jumped them from one extreme to the other: Oppressive silence to deafening noise. It didn't feel possible to be so loud in such silence. The noise all just felt wrong. His own voice, somehow now unfamiliar to his ears now used to the silence, was so much quieter.
"To blame?" In the dark, he furrowed his brows, "For the destruction? As with everywhere: Imum. For the reconstruction? Would you rather I leave the city to rot?" Beside him, Nihai rattled softly, warily. "Was this your home? It's rather late at night to visit, don't you think?" He paused, briefly weighed his options, and decided that staying out here just wasn't a very good one. "It's cold and late. The old gym has working heat." He said, an offer in there somewhere.
[attr="class","loreleiposttop2"]‒ FASTER THAN A BULLET, TERRIFYING SCREAM, ENRAGED AND FULL OF ANGER[break] HALF MAN AND HALF MACHINE. CLOSING IN WITH VENGEANCE SOARING HIGH.
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Had there been a sliver of doubt in her mind that she was talking to the night and it's intangible phantoms, it would have been banished the moment her words, booming, loud, a crash of thunder against the silent heavens were met with a voice that could have barely risen above a whisper in comparison. There was no need for volume when there was nothing to disrupt what was being said. (In truth, she liked the power in the words as much as she liked the power it made her feel for saying them in such a way. If they were to speak at the same time, her sentences would swallow his whole; if he were to do something she did not approve, she could just as easily swallow him whole.) “To blame? For the destruction? As with everywhere: Imum.” The rational conclusion for a person in his position to come to. When one looked at the first sign of hope in an otherwise desecrated land, “blame” was not a word that came so quickly to mind. And yet, despite the logic behind it, the fact that he'd supposedly misunderstood only served to provide more friction between the match and matchbox that were her emotions and the part of her she tried so very hard not to let ignite. Instead, she put the friction elsewhere: between her teeth. The grinding motion only served to increase in speed and ferocity at the casual method in which he tossed her beloved organization's name again. There was no reverence for it to be found in his voice. It disgusted her. “For the reconstruction?” Ah – so he did understand. Or, at the very least, was not so close minded as to assume that one was absolutely true over the other. He didn't leave her much time to forgive, however, but the idea that she would be willing to do so at all was a fool's thought. “Would you rather I leave the city to rot?”[break][break]
Yes, Lorelei wanted to spit, the urge to summon the frightening, man-eating beast her sister had hailed Freude of all things stronger than it had been even when her glacier eyes had landed on this monstrosity. The culprit of this crime stood before her with not an ounce of shame for his actions, speaking as thought he stood on some sort of moral high ground for the disruption of the only grave that would ever hold any significance in her mind, and every cell in her body screamed for her to cut him down for his crimes. He hadn't a clue as to what had happened in this place; how dare he think himself high and mighty enough to create an empty doppelganger in its place? She was, however, a killer in a mask – namely a mask that she'd left sitting unassumingly on Lark's desk for it to collect dust until she ordered for the next batch of blood to be spilled. There were times and places for these things. Regrettably, this was neither. “Some things are better left rotting,” she said instead, trying with some success to force the rage from her bloodstream. It helped to remember that she, despite the occupation that had been so rudely forced upon her, was attempting to move passed such violent urges. This town – meant nothing. This man and his actions – didn't affect her. Veherna, New or Old was dead to her, no matter how alive the air could, would be. (Her pride would not allow her to admit to anything less.)[break][break]
“Was this your home?”[break][break]
And for all of her trying and all of her effort, a murderer's intent was set ablaze in her just second later with little more than an innocent question. (Broken glass, the smell of decay, no running water again, again, and a pair of dull eyes staring straight through her, straight into her soul -) It took much more strength to hold her tongue than it did to fold her hands, along with her Tyranitar's PokeBall, behind her back, staring into the darkness at the faintest traces of his silhouette and reminding herself that telling him “no” would only draw suspicion. As little as the destroyer would care to admit, leaving him under the impression that she was reliving childhood memories would avert his attention from what other potential reasons she could have for being there. She would never tell another soul this under any other circumstance, she tried to tell herself, and while her voice was hidden under the guise of melancholy at the expense of days long gone, each word felt hot and sticky on her tongue as it fell from her mouth: “I lived here for sixteen years.” That is – if you could really call it living.[break][break]
“It's rather late at night to visit, don't you think? It's cold and late. The old gym has working heat.” An invitation. Not at all what she had been expecting, nor what she very much cared for. The time had not escaped her, but the frigid air had not so much as graced her mind until the criminal brought it to her attention – and even after her mind was drawn to it, the faint wind still felt more like a cool breath against the skin of her face than Articuno's violent, destructive ice. The cold became her. It has settled deeper than flesh, right there in the bone years before she had even heard of the name “Imum”. It hadn't hurt her then. It wouldn't hurt her now. “I am not bothered by the cold, nor am I by the time. If you wish to speak, we shall do so here.”
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SHE DOESN'T NEED YOUR CHARITY, MAN. *throws hotdog on the ground* also, nihai's sweater is the ultimate pokemon fashion goal.
Post by Tàishū Hǎi on Jan 20, 2017 15:17:29 GMT -6
我想回家 . . .
[attr="class","postbody"]She offered such harsh words, anger bubbling up in her tone, but it all rolled off of his shoulders. He'd had good intentions in rebuilding the area and while she was upset, it wasn't his responsibility to feel guilty. How was he to know that she would've preferred this place left as was, rotting and decrepit? He had no way of knowing to not rebuild, but it wasn't like he still couldn't amend the situation. "Since it was your home, if you would rather we could take it down and put something else entirely there. Not necessarily a building. A garden, maybe." He offered as he looked at the empty house, paint still fresh and clean, "It's your home. Whatever you want to do, we'll help you do it." He looked back at Lorelei with soft, tired eyes. Beside him, Nihai tensed, clenched, and relaxed their hands repeatedly. Something was putting him on edge and Taishu knew well enough to trust his companion's instinct, but he also wanted to trust the stranger. This had been her home and clearly he'd made a mistake in rebuilding it. Nihai hadn't started making any actual moves of aggression, though, so he still felt safe enough. He did keep an eye on Nihai, though. "Not that we have to speak of this now." He added on, "We can always discuss this later."
He frowned a little at her rejection. It wasn't that he particularly wished to speak, in fact he had very little to say, but he did want to know why someone was wondering around here at night. He was fairly certain she wasn't a thief or some other sort of criminal, but still, it was a weird time to visit. Especially since it was so cold out. Tai tugged his jacket a little tighter and shoved his hands in his pocket, balling them into fists and hoping they would warm up again soon. "Are you sure?" He wanted to offer one more time, mostly because he was cold and felt guilty at the idea of just leaving, "There's curry, still, if you're hungry." If she rejected him again, perhaps he would just leave. Trust her to not cause trouble. "If not, please go home." He said it like a suggestion, "It can be dangerous out here at night. Some of the buildings are unstable and there aren't a lot of lights anymore. And thieves like to come at night to steal what little is left." Granted, she was already out here in the middle of the night, so she was probably confident enough in her ability to take care of herself. He still wanted to push for her to leave. It would be a little less on his mind. A little less anxiety and a little less to worry about.
[attr="class","loreleiposttop2"]‒ FASTER THAN A BULLET, TERRIFYING SCREAM, ENRAGED AND FULL OF ANGER[break] HALF MAN AND HALF MACHINE. CLOSING IN WITH VENGEANCE SOARING HIGH.
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He bent with a surprising lack of resistance, enough so that it managed to momentarily catch her a bit off guard. Construction (or reconstruction, rather, in this particular instance) efforts, big or small, had always seemed to be such stubborn things anytime she heard of them, set in their ways and unwelcome to change. Better to make those changes early on, she supposed, in stages like those of the forsaken building that now looked upon her back rather than her hardened expression, but to do so at the whim of a woman he had never met seemed... odd. Quixotic, even – too bizarre and ideal to possibly be true. The man spoke of it so casually, as though a claim without proof that this had been her home was enough to turn the crumpled building into a garden (laughable) of all things if she so asked for it, but no real force would be so willing to accommodate for every singular opinion. “It's your home. Whatever you want to do, we'll help you do it,” he'd said, and had she been a less intelligent woman, she might have believed that it could have been that Arceus darned simple. Questions, questions: What had he planned to make of it before? Why didn't he try to defend himself? Who did he mean by “we”? It should have been redundant to say that she held very little trust toward him, seeing as the only two people in the world she would dare to turn her back to without fear of attack were the only two men she supposed had anywhere near as much blood on their hands as herself, but with every fresh, agreeable word that fell from his mouth, she found herself put further on edge. Perhaps it was the setting getting to her. She stood, after all, in the shadow of a place that had Grubbin crawling their way through her veins just below the flesh on its own. Would Felix, too, look intimidating standing where this raven-haired figure stood? She wondered – she wondered. “Not that we have to speak of this now. We can always discuss this later,” he added after an uncomfortable lapse of silence, one in which she found herself thinking very little on what she would have asked him for had she believed his offer to be genuine, and if she was not mistaken, it sounded to be an invitation to visit the subject at a later time, not an offer of escape. Anything but a silly garden, the destroyer thought, a drop of amusement lost in a sea of distrust and frustration. The idea of having to discuss this later, too, did not sit very prettily with her – although, while her immediate reaction was to refuse his offer of a warmer place to converse at, his invitation of warmth did provide the place and the “later” that would do the trick.[break][break]
But oh, how Lorelei loathed having to accept.[break][break]
“Are you sure? There's curry, still, if you're hungry.” Ah, perfect. If she was being expected to roll over and show her belly, fate was at least kind enough to give her the means to disguise it as something else. The assassin wasn't particularly hungry – no more than she was cold or tired – but playing the part of someone who was would give her exactly what she desired. Before she was allowed the chance to accept his second offer, however, he was already off making a request in the instance that she declined again. “If not, please go home. I can be dangerous out here at night.” His words went on to speak of loose rubble and a lack of lights, to speak of thieves in the night who scavenged for anything that may have held worth and preyed on those insolent enough to go out into the night of Old Veherna unprepared – and all of Lorelei's instincts banded together to pull her lips into the faintest hint of a smirk. Dangerous, he had said. Fool, she thought, tucking Freude away with the rest of her party and taking slow steps to cross the distance between them. I am the danger.[break][break]
“You seem a touch persistent,” she said instead, wisps of anger leaving her with each word (puffs of hot air from an unyielding furnace). “... Although, I must admit, the offer of a meal could sound less tempting. If – if you are willing to share, I suppose I am willing to follow.” Curiosity over what he was doing at the old gym of all places skirted around the edges of her mind, as well, though it would be a bald faced lie to claim that they were her main concern. His kindness was clearly falsified – some means to an end, if not just hot air with no meaning behind it – and the only way to pin point which of the two it was specifically was to let him play his game long enough for her to figure it out. (And there the ruins of a broken childhood stood, intangible claws raking down her back and decorating her flesh in scars only she could see; Lorelei had not considered it until now, but perhaps he was not the only one here so eager to get away.)
Post by Tàishū Hǎi on Feb 15, 2017 16:08:36 GMT -6
我想回家 . . .
[attr="class","postbody"]Persistent. Somehow, he didn't like that word being attached to him within this context. He just wanted to ensure trouble wouldn't be caused. "I would just rather not have police around here looking for a missing young woman." Taishu explained, "It's bad for business, so I'm glad you've made a decision to do something other than loiter around in a dangerous area in the middle of the night. because I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't willing to go through with it." He turned and waved for her to follow, "It's this way."
After several minutes of walking in silence, he paused midstride for half a second and then spoke again. "I don't think I introduced myself. My name's Tàishū Hǎi. I'm running the reconstruction efforts out here, but I also run a group of exorcists." It was weird, wasn't it, that he was living out here in the ruins of a gym, especially since he now was leading her to it. An explanation would ideally ease some of her worries, not that she seemed particularly worried. It would more accurately ease his worries about her being worried. Regardless, it certainly wouldn't hurt to provide her with some context. "During and after the war with Imum, there was a rise in ghost pokemon populations. We work to calm them and move them somewhere more suitable." He continued, "And since we're involved in the reconstruction efforts, we work out of the old gym. It's been fixed up, though. Maybe not good as new, but something kind of close." As they neared the gym the streetlights became more frequent and consistently working, casting enough light to see that the general area had already been mostly restored. Buildings had been rebuilt, but they still stood empty and still, making the lonely atmosphere even heavier. Tai felt the weight, but it didn't faze him like it used to. He'd lived here long enough to have gotten used to the hyper emptiness of unoccupied home after unoccupied home.
"Please take your shoes off." He said as he stepped inside of the gym and slipped his own off before he set them neatly by the door. Half the lights in the gym were on, creating spots of darkness but allowing them to see well enough. The gym opened up into a large room, a door on the far wall, and decorated only by two sofas placed in the middle of the room, facing each other and separated by a knee-height rectangular coffee table with a map of Lyeant spread across its surface. The sparse furnishing made it seem even larger. Tai picked up a half completed knitting project from the sofa and set it on the table. "You can sit here, if you want. I'll go heat up the curry." He walked to and through the door on the far end. It opened into a small studio apartment, although before it'd been destroyed it had been an office half the size. He pulled the curry out of the fridge and began to heat it on the stove. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, he poured the now hot curry into two bowls, grabbed some silverware, and walked back to Lorelei in the main room. He set her bowl on the table, but kept his in his hand as he sat down and stirred it. "So is there anything you want to do to your house?" He cautiously brought the topic back up, having not previously been told to drop it.
