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Koron Wasteland.
The great riot more than three centuries ago forced humanity to rein in its ever-swelling ambition.
Stripped of the technology with which it once ruled the world, people left with only fragile bodies proved no match for the overwhelming power of Nightmare Pokémon.
If not for a portion of Pokémon who retained their reason, humankind might have been erased from the earth two hundred years ago.
Even so, three hundred years later, humans still survive like ants, scattered and cowering in the world's crevices.
The bustling cities and charming towns they once held in their grasp have, under the grind of ti, crumbled into one ruin after another fertile beds where horrors born of nightmares now breed.
The Koron Wasteland is a stark example.
Three hundred years ago it had another na: the Koron Safari Zone.
Back then, to feed their swelling lust for novelty and control, humans poured in manpower and money to capture and pen a great variety of Pokémon together, calling it a "Wild Safari."
Now the people who once hunted and played there are long gone.
In their place, countless vicious Nightmare Pokémon roam the wilds, bellies rumbling as they search for any fresh flesh they can find.
Beneath this hopeless, blighted land, a vast base hums along in silence.
Tap, tap.
Hurried footsteps echoed down a long, dim corridor, betraying the owner's anxious state of mind.
A refined-looking young man in a white lab coat strode along, the sharp, dicinal reek clinging to him. His black hair was neatly parted to both sides; thick black-rimd glasses sat on a high nose, and even the bottle-bottom lenses couldn't hide the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes.
Under the corridor's wan lights, he read a paper report while rolling his stiff shoulders too long at a desk.
He checked the old-fashioned watch on his wrist and quickened his pace.
At last, he stopped before a black iron door at the corridor's end.
He bent his index and middle fingers and knocked on the cold tal.
Tok... tok... tok.
The dull sound thudded from bone to steel.
No response.
Silence returned to the hall.
Impatience crept over the young man's face. He was about to raise his hand again—
Skreee—
tal scraped on tal. A thin slit opened in the iron door.
From the darkness within, a pair of bloodshot eyes glared out, hurling vicious intent through the crack.
Those terrible eyes slid over the young man with naked disdain.
Clack!
The slit snapped shut. chanisms whirred.
With a grinding groan, the heavy door eased open.
A jaundiced light like a false dawn spilled into the room, revealing gri and secrets.
First into view: a stooped old man.
His crown was half-bald; scraggly white hair drooped at the sides. Wrinkles layered his face; his cheeks had sunk in to trace the curve of his gums.
Deep hollows cradled those sa bloodshot eyes.
The refined youth handed over the report and glanced into the gloomy room.
Weak light skimd across the glass, leaving pale streaks.
A sickly green fluid bubbled, its stench turning the stomach.
Half-do vessels brimd with that viscous solution; within each, a dark shape drifted.
Even in the murk, it was clear those were Pokémon specins of many forms.
Like a storeroom of preserved life, the rot in the air made one's skin crawl.
"Lately... your requisitions... are coming too fast."
The old man's voice rasped like a stone mill. He squinted, skeletal hand scratching notes onto the report.
The young man smoothed his hair with cool indifference.
"Can't be helped Dr. Darr's experint's at a critical stage. If all goes well, we'll have results within a month and if it succeeds, headquarters will... heh."
Catching the youth's glib tone with the corner of his eye, the old man's lip curled in scorn. "See that it does."
He slapped the signed report against the young man's chest, then shuffled back until his short fra lted into the deeper dark only those blood-red eyes still blinking in the shadows.
Stuffing the paperwork into his coat, the young man wandered the specin room like a grocery shopper, picking through shelves.
According to Dr. Darr's list, he selected two suitable Pokémon, then lifted the glass vessels as though they were birdcages and hurried out.
Behind him, the door dragged shut with another shriek of tal.
In the black, those crimson pupils glead with ravenous hunger as they watched the young man's retreating back.
Beep... beep...
Precision instrunts chid steadily; green life-lines pulsed across a monitor.
White tubes of varying thickness tangled like yarn and ran to a nearby iron platform, its polished surface glinting with a cold sheen.
The acrid bite of disinfectant saturated the stifling air.
On the table lay a Pokémon: gray, tough hide still slid with clinging green gel from its specin tank.
Wrists, ankles even the neck were clamped tight to the tal.
Around it, figures in white coats and masks stood in small knots, making last-minute preparations.
Outside the glass wall, a gaunt middle-aged man watched with arms folded, sternness shading into expectation.
His hair, shot through with white, tufted like a chicken's nest. The shut-in pallor of a lifelong lab rat left no hint of color in his face.
Deep green eyes held a glimr of that particular madness common to scientists.
"Dr. Darr, preparations complete," a cautious assistant murmured.
A small nod.
"Begin."
Dr. Darr's voice trembled just a little.
Inside, the team moved briskly.
Clipped commands rang against the steel.
"Comncing procedure."
"Infusing vital solution."
"Detaching stasis device."
"Detachnt successful."
"Administering wake gas."
"Administration complete."
A long breath fogged the inside of the lead surgeon's mask.
He crossed to a steel cabinet, carefully removing a test tube filled with violet-red fluid.
Inside the glass, sothing shifted half mist, half liquid.
Like a dark cloud dredged from so infernal sea, saturated with abyssal brine, it coiled and writhed, bleeding malice into the glass.
Resolve tightened behind the surgeon's goggles.
"Inject the Gengar Saliva Extract!"
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