Homecoming in the Rain (open)

[Kouki Hidaka]

[style= height: 10px; background-color: f9fbff; width: 430px; margin-bottom: -40px; -moz-border-radius: 1px 0px 0px 0px; -webkit-border-radius: 1px 0px 0px 0px; border-top: 4px solid 780900; border-bottom: 10px solid f9fbff;]

Kouki Hidaka

bear the future that won’t be saved - - - - -

Over the past several years of his life, Kouki Hidaka had spent innumerable hours building up a long list of things he hated that, if written out, could probably span from one end of the Canopy to the other. Some of the things on that list were justifiable, given his history: he hated needles with a passion to the point where he needed to look away and blindly jab TM-Serums into his arm in order to go through with it. Others were decidedly less so, such as his disdain for socks and overly cheery customers at the antique shop first thing in the morning on days when he would rather be as far from the city as possible, lighting shit on fire to let off some steam. Beedrill had always freaked him out, ghosts were just plain creepy (even if he adamantly refused to admit that he was afraid of them) and the blond insisted that weak Pokémon in general annoyed the hell out of him, despite the fact that thanks to a certain idiot named Mitsuki their shared team was chock full of them. And of course, he hated the man he once called his father most of all for reasons he would rather not speak of around anyone because his past was none of their damn business. But there was something else he despised nearly as much, something that was currently pounding down on the dirty streets of the Canopy and soaking the fire-type gijinka to the very bone.

More than almost anything else, Kouki hated the rain.

As a kid the occasional downpour never bothered him - far from it! Sometimes, when he failed to carefully avoid dwelling on the past, he remembered how he and a bunch of other squirts from around his neighborhood would run around in the water-choked streets, splashing around and laughing their stupid little heads off like the passing rain storms were the greatest thing in the world when in reality they were just as filthy and polluted as everything else in this Arceus-forsaken City. Now the majority of those kids were long gone and he was someone else entirely; a being not entirely human anymore, although he hardly mourned the loss of his former state of existence. The fire-manipulating powers his Ninetales DNA granted him were something many humans only dreamed of or hungered after, some to the point where they would hunt him down just for the chance to steal the blood from his body. But there was no mistaking that the shoddy transfusion that had saved his life was still a mixed blessing, as with his gijinka abilities he also gained all the weaknesses that came naturally to pure fires-types, including the fact that large quantities of water now not only repulsed him but also harmed him physically.

Take right now for example. The constant barrage of raindrops from the dark-clouded heavens above left Kouki feeling weaker and weaker with every sloshing step he took, huge gobby raindrops plastering the teenager’s pale hair to his skin while he trudged onward with his head hanging low and his shoulders slumped. He didn’t even bother to stop when a sudden fit of sneezing overcame him, instead remaining stubbornly focused on finding somewhere he could take shelter from the storm. Damn this rain! It felt like it was sapping the life right out of him. His whole body felt heavy and sluggish, as if someone had tied weights to each of his limbs and then made him trek a mile on zero sleep, and the irritated trainer muttered a string of curses at his shitty luck in between sneezes. The sky had looked bad enough this morning when his boss sent him to deliver an ancient mirror to a customer over on this side of the Canopy and it had only grown darker and more foreboding over the last few hours until it finally opened up and unleashed what was starting to look like a torrential downpour on the unsuspecting world below. It was common knowledge to slum dwellers that the Canopy got the worst of such storms, being built high up where the winds tossed falling sheets of rain around in every possible direction, lashing anyone stupid enough to venture outside their homes in this foul weather with the freezing cold liquid. It was only in such conditions that he ever truly felt cold anymore and as he slunk over to the side of a run-down building to try and gain even a scrap of relief from the downpour, the Ninetales gijinka silently reaffirmed that he missed that part of being human about as much as he missed living in the Jungle. In other words: not a damn bit.

A shiver wracked the boy’s body as he huddled there in the building’s shadow, taking a moment to enjoy the tiny bit of shelter it gave him from the rainy blasts. It was a good thing no one else was crazy enough to be running around in this, as yet another item in the long litany of things he despised was looking pathetic and at the present he resembled a drowned Raticate more than a majestic Ninetales. Still, this little taste of relief wasn’t enough - he knew he had to get indoors and fast if he wanted to avoid passing out right here on the street within the next few minutes. Already he was a trembling mess, so it was only a matter of time before his body started shutting down on him. I wonder what the chances are of this dump being empty, he thought as he pressed an ear to the wall, focusing on what was inside of the building for a moment instead of the rain surging all around him. It sure didn’t sound like anything alive was in there as the only thing his sensitive hearing could pick up was a comforting silence, unbroken by even the slightest hum of electricity.

No doubt about it, this place was definitely abandoned.

Good. Less chance that there might be a nasty surprise waiting for him inside. Cautiously, the gijinka inched along the wall, finding his way to the front door by touch alone as the rain-filled darkness made it almost impossible to see where he was going. For all he knew he might have wandered in the exact opposite direction from the shop in his confusion, but he decided that he could always backtrack if he had to after the weather let up. Right now, he just wanted to get inside, dry off, and wait out the rest of this storm.

Sure enough, his fingers brushed up against the worn surface of a door after a few feet and the red-eyed teen gave a victorious smirk before immediately reaching inside himself for a surge of the tiny portion of psychic energy lurking within him. Ninetales might not be true psychics, but they were still capable of knowing several psychic attacks and seeing as the building’s door was too soaked to catch fire quickly and the impatient boy didn’t feel like wasting his time trying to pick whatever lock it might have, he simply flung the one he knew at the molding wood. Extrasensory was a fairly strong technique, the burst of unrefined psychic power enough to splinter the door with one blow while the force of the attack propelled the resulting shards of wood into the room beyond where they landed with a clatter.

Kouki gave a grim chuckle of satisfaction as he stepped over the threshold; it had been a while since he got to hear something break like that and while it was no symphony of crackling flames, the sound was still music to his ears. He really needed to get out of town and spend an afternoon blowing stuff up one of these days, but for the moment he was just content to get out of the damn rain. As he peeled his soaked scarf from where it hung around his neck, its waterlogged fabric hanging limply like a drunk Ekans, he couldn’t help but notice that there was something oddly familiar about the darkened room. Something about it scent tugged at his memories, lurking beneath the overlying smells of dust and mildew and prickling tauntingly at his brain. The teen frowned as he wrung some of the excess water from his precious scarf over the molding carpet, irked by his inability to place why exactly the smell of this place bothered him so and wondering why it should even matter to him at all.

- - - - - and your weakness that went astray

Words: 1427: To whoever takes this, my sincerest apologies. I don't think any of my other posts will be near as wordy.
Tagging: Anyone
Notes: Nothing~
Pokemon in party: Buneary - Honoka - level 5
Teddiursa - Tsukio - level 7
Burmy - Shunji - level 10

[/style]

coding by Cori

[Charon Spyros]

Charon Spyros

Words;; 1458
Tags;; Kouki Hidaka and others
Eggs;; None
Layout by Kuroya

Notes;;

No more finals, hooray! Also, I managed to match length, so this is the longest RP post made in Kuro-history! *throws confetti*

Charon hid a yawn behind one of his hands, his cheeks stretching between his aristocratically high cheekbones and his sculpted jawline to reveal a set of pale teeth offset by a crimson mouth and a pink tongue whose surface was riddled with the tell-tale rough dots that signaled taste buds – or was it perhaps some kind of ridging that did not distinguish taste buds or even clumps of the important sense factories that enabled taste, who could say? He could hear the pattering of rain coming down from the heavens to spatter against the leaves of the trees that made up the Canopy, and more tellingly, he could hear the continual plunking sound that came from the drops of liquid slamming themselves into the protective covering of a single black umbrella held aloft over his head, one of the metal twines a little twisted and another completely sticking out unnaturally from the whole, but otherwise it was in fairly decent condition considering the economic situation of his surroundings, which was rather dire, and that of himself, which was also not in any way enviable. Last night had sapped a lot of energy out of him, the Marowak Gijinka having to stay up late for hours and hours on end as he waited in the cemetery, a glowing bone resting in his hands before he’d grown impatient and began tap tap tapping it against his leg, his crimson eyes narrowed and his bone-pale hair lighting him up like a beacon to the group who he knew were coming out to push over headstones like the one that was currently serving as his throne, perhaps even breaking them if it was a particularly daring group unafraid of the legend of the terrifying ghost that haunted the gravesites and would beat anyone foolish enough to be caught within its rusting, off-center wrought-iron gates after the sun had sunken below the horizon.

No, if Charon had had his way, he would be barricaded away in his room right about now, entrenched in his pillows and the black and red comforter stuffed to the brim with Flaaffy wool and the object of Charon’s rescue during numerous relocations despite his brother Aeolus’ best attempts to get rid of the thing, calling it rather garish. The younger had tried everything he could think of to convince his older brother to replace his comforter from “I can find you a warmer one, Charon, I’m sure you’d like something a little warmer to curl up under at night!” to “C’mon, Charon, that thing has to be full of dust and dirt and who knows what else, let’s just go get you a new one so you won’t have to breathe any of it in any longer!” but to no avail; the black puffy fabric with its spiraling red designs had remained on the foot of whatever bed it was Charon had decided to detain for the remainder of their stay. True, there were more poignant, more important, things to consider about its presence such as whether it might attract thieves to ransack whatever home it was the two Spyros boys had taken or that maybe, just maybe, the swirling vermillion pattern of designs on the fabric would remind Aeolus of a rather different pattern of crimson that had also adorned his brother once, but it was something that the Marowak ended up casually dismissing with a shrug. He liked his comforter, and if someone was going to try to take it from him – or Aeolus was going to remember something, for that matter – then it would have happened already, but it hadn’t, so it obviously wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Of course, he couldn’t very well curl up in his bed if there was no bed to curl up in in the first place, which brought him to the heart of the matter and why he was actually currently tramping through the wind and the rain that continued to try to lash its dangerous tendrils in his face and at his body despite the shield of the umbrella that he had brought: Charon’s landlord of the very cramped, very run-down, highly unsafe, and almost certainly unsanitary apartment that he was – er, well, it would be “had been” now – sharing with Aeolus had decided that she’d had enough of the complaints and the banging and the violence after Charon had lost his temper with a thug who had been harassing his younger brother looking for a good time and then managed to relocate said ruffian into and through the nearest wall with a powerful Bone Rush attack, which resulted in him causing massive damage and upsetting a group of potential neighbors while they were in the middle of viewing the apartment and trying to decide whether or not the complex was the right area for them to live – which, needless to say, they had chosen the “not” of the two options. Even though both of the Spyros boys were Ground-type Gijinka and would no doubt fare poorly in the intermittent rain outside, she had had no qualms about kicking the two out, and it had only been through Aeolus’ tears and sniffling that the witch had relented in even allowing the “better” of the two brothers to remain behind in the warm and the dry while his older brother was out searching for a new prospective home for the pair, so far with nothing to show for his troubles but clothes that were slowly becoming more and more soaked and an attitude that was growing worse with each successful failure.

A particularly strong gust of wind from the side pelted his face with a thousand painful needles of elongated water droplets, making him curse as he fought to keep his umbrella from flipping and dumping yet more unwelcome moisture onto his body. The rain looked to be picking up in volume, so perhaps it would be for the best if he called off his search, at least for the moment, and instead focused on trying to find some shelter from the rain. Aeolus would understand that, after all, the boy was so kind-hearted – so unlike his brother – that it was easy for Charon to pull the wool over his eyes; some might even say it was too easy, but the Marowak Gijinka scoffed at the idea. There was no way Aeolus suspected anything, he had been careful to cover his tracks as soon as he’d found out that his brother had not remembered a single thing about that night two long years ago, not even in his worst nightmares, and besides, even if he did, the younger was still so up-front and honest about things that he would only confront Charon about the matter, as if he expected a straight answer from his older brother! Heh, Charon wouldn’t tell him the truth. Why should he? He didn’t have to answer to anyone if he didn’t want to, especially not young Aeolus – not after everything he’d done to ensure the other wouldn’t have to so much as lift a finger to try to escape this life. He wasn’t the one who had to lie and cheat and steal to get where he was in life, oh no. That would be Charon.

A small flash of light lit up his surroundings, and for a moment, the Ground-type Gijinka almost thought the storm was going to thunder and lightning, in which case he’d have to double back and fetch Aeolus to take the both of them down to safer ground, rain or no rain. He refused to let them stay up in a tree while it was struck by lightning, he wasn’t that dumb, and he had put too much effort into keeping Aeolus alive to just let the boy die now. “Arrrrrrr!” he heard something say from about his feet, and when he looked down, he saw Discordia at his feet, the little oddly-colored Aron huddling close to his step under the umbrella. Charon scowled to himself; the dual type could hardly have picked a worse time to decide to appear. “What?” he spat, wrapping his free arm around himself in a motion that had to be left incomplete due to the umbrella he currently had to hold aloft over both of their heads so that the rain wouldn’t eat away at their strength like the worst kind of acid. “Arrrrrrrrr!” the little Pokemon cried again, tilting his head and nodding in the direction of a side street that Charon hadn’t seen before. “Oh, so you think you can find us shelter?” the Marowak Gijinka asked skeptically, his tone harsh. “Lead on then, I don’t want to be out here a moment longer if I can’t help it.”