538 CH11 (533), Military (6)

"In the direction your group is heading lies our human tribe's territory, so I can't allow you to keep moving there. You have to change directions," Major Box directly declared, and she spoke loud enough that all of us heard it.

Her words caused some discontent among the horde's representatives. Still, none of them jumped out to tell Major Box that she was courting death. Instead, they all looked at their two leaders, who were looking each other in the eyes, no doubt doing some "eye talk". In the end, it was the Ampharos leader who spoke up.

"I've never seen a human before, and I don't know what kind of tribe you are, but we've lost too much ever since we were forced to leave our home to simply stop just because you told us to do so. You and your subordinate tribes don't seem to be strong enough to stop us if we insist on moving forward regardless of any additional losses we might suffer," Ampharos said in PokeSpeech, which earned the nods of all the other Pokemon around it.

"I beg to differ," Major Box retorted. "I'm sure we're strong enough to stop all of you here if we have to," she continued, and her platinum-stage Tauros released a challenging huff from his nose to stress her point. Major Box pat Tauros' side to "calm" him down, and I could not help but think that the whole exchange seemed staged.

"Besides, we're only a small patrol group. We, humans, have many much stronger members that will make a move if we can't stop you," she seamlessly added in an almost casual tone, which made the other party tense a bit.

"I don't believe you. Besides, even if it's true, those humans are not here now are they?" Ampharos declared intensely, showing that it did in fact work at least a bit. "Say, how big is your tribe's territory anyway?" it followed up somewhat curiously, indirectly revealing the intent to take a step back.

"If you travel at your previous speed, it will take you four days of walking in that direction to leave our territory's vicinity," she said while pointing to her right, before pointing to her left. "If you head in that direction, it will take you two months to leave our territory's vicinity," Major Box finished, and for the first time since our two sides met, the horde leaders showed disbelief and slight worry.

Their reaction was still more controlled than that of their compatriots since I could hear some of them say things like "That has to be a lie!", and "Does she expect us to believe that?".

"Do you expect us to believe that?" The Manectric leader spoke up for the first time, mirroring one of the mutters I heard from their companions. "Such a big territory would make you at least a large tribe, and even if this is the outmost part of the land keeping a territory like that requires immense strength. Do you expect us to believe that you humans are that strong?" Manectric questioned Major Box passive-aggressively, but I could feel its increasing concern.

"We have more fighters that are as strong or even much stronger than him than you have in your whole group," Major Box said while patting her Tauros, and while what she said was not a lie, that only applied to humanity as a whole.

Kanto had nowhere near 18000 platinum stage Pokemon, at least not as partners of humanity. 4 to 5 thousand was already a rather generous estimate on my part, at least as far as I understood the situation of the trainers/humans of Kanto and the alliance as a whole.

There were roughly 300 known Champion-Class trainers in Kanto, along with close to 30 Master-Class trainers and 4 known Legendary-Class trainers. Aside from them, there was also the occasional Elite-Class trainer that had 1 or maybe 2 platinum/Stage 6 Pokemon as well, but that probably only made up a fifth or sixth of the roughly 6000 registered Elite-Class trainers.

These were the main contributors of the human-related Stage 6 Pokemon in Kanto, and the pillar on which Kanto stood. The same was true for the other regions, though Kanto was the strongest one, so the numbers were a bit lower for the other regions, with some such as Sinnoh, Kalos, and Galar coming close to Kanto, while others such as Oblivia, Lental, the Sevii Archipelago, and Ferrum were quite a bit worse than Kanto.

Anyway, Manectric actually snorted when he heard Major Box, and the others in their group looked rather doubtful as well. "Do you expect us to believe that?" Ampharos spoke up before his partner could no doubt say something that could probably be considered rude. At least that was the impression I got.

"If it helps avoid an unnecessary confrontation, I can request the arrival of a superior with a bunch of Pokemon at this level," Major Box actually shrugged when she said that, displaying a nonchalant attitude toward the other side, which in my mind, clashed quite a bit with the fact that we were soldiers.

"So you say," Manectric retorted. "Sure, I'd be interested in talking with someone above you," Ampharos replied more level-headedly than its partner. I did not think that I was the only one who noticed that these two seemed to be doing a "good cop, bad cop" routine, but at least they were quite cooperative, so that was fine.

"Sure, no problem. Just give me a minute to contact them," Major Box replied before stepping to the side and pulling out a military phone. Thanks to my great hearing I heard her address Colonel Sheppard despite her talking rather quietly. Still, my attention was suddenly taken by someone else, so I had to split my focus.

"Newbie, I can see that you're surprised," Yelena spoke up from beside me, and I simply nodded since I had been expecting a confrontation to happen and not a negotiation.

"You're quite lucky to come across a mission where we don't have to fight. Usually, we have to clash with them first before anything else can happen, so if a dialogue is possible our superiors always try to go with that to avoid casualties. Naturally, that's only an option if the other side gives off a reliable impression.

Though not as rare, there are also cases where the invaders behave like mad dogs. The last time that happened was two years ago when a horde of Houndoom tried to invade. They directly attacked us and fought to the bitter end.

The fighting only stopped when just the weakest Houndour were left and finally decided to run away. Out of the initially 12,000-strong horde, less than 2000 Houndour survived that day, and our side suffered heavy losses due to their stupidity as well.

We lost 136 soldiers in that confrontation along with more than triple that number of Pokemon partners, and that was with the Colonel coming to support us halfway through. If not for him, we would have probably suffered more casualties.

I'm not proud of it, but at the end of the fight, some of us wanted to hunt down the fleeing Houndour to take them down as well. However, the colonel stopped us before anything like that could happen, which everyone was thankful for once their adrenaline and anger went down," Yelena recounted with a reminiscing look.

I was honestly surprised to hear about the Colonel's peaceful judgment on the matter since being able to think rationally in such a situation was not common. Still, I kept that to myself and offered her my condolences, which she accepted while adding that situations like that were part of being a soldier. I could not help but ask what happened to the Houndour.

"The colonel's decision saved the lives of those Houndour, and since they were too weak to run too far without risking death, they settled around 200 km northeast from here. I believe that they are still hanging around that area," she answered, and I made a mental note of their location since I would have to lie if I said that I was not interested in a decently sized group of Houndour like that one.

Anyway, Major Box finished her call in the meantime and told the Ampharos that her boss would be here in another minute or two. It did not even take that long for the Colonel to show up. I had no idea if Colonel Sheppard did it for show's sake or if there was no psychic capable of Teleport available, but he actually appeared on a Pidgeot, which released a mighty cry to announce its arrival, displaying platinum stage might.

The colonel jumped down from midair, landing beside Major Box, and the Stage 6 Pidgeot elegantly landed beside him a moment later. Seemingly deciding that Pidgeot alone was not enough, he released another three Pokemon that each released platinum stage undulations as well.

I was pretty sure that any idea of fighting against us died at that moment, especially since one of the three Pokemon he let out was a Donphan. That one was no doubt more threatening for them than the Stage 6 Charizard on its left, or the Stage 6 Arbok on its right.

Looking at the reaction of the other side, I'd say they were definitely intimidated. Nonetheless, the two leaders did not take a step back and started at Colonel Sheppard, waiting for him to speak up. I was sure that I was not the only one who noticed what them waiting for him to take the initiative to speak meant.

"You wanted to see me, and here I am," Colonel Sheppard finally spoke up. "Now that you've seen me and my friends, I'm sure you don't want any confrontation to happen between our two sides. As long as you peacefully head in another direction, you may leave," he finished, and I saw the two horde leaders exchanging some glances. They seemed to come to some kind of agreement since the Ampharos nodded before speaking up once more.

"It appears that your human tribe has some subordinate tribes living in your territory. Could our tribe join yours as well?" Ampharos actually asked, and I was not the only one that was surprised by that.

I heard some of my fellow soldiers mumble that they were seeing something like this for the first time. I could feel Colonel Sheppard's surprise as well, but his body showed none of that.

"It's not impossible, but there are conditions you have to agree to, and if you do, you along with all your tribe members at or above the gold stage have to enter a bound pledge to ensure you keep the agreement," Colonel Sheppard replied casually as if he was doing this every day.

"We have to hear the conditions first," Manectric spoke up before Ampharos could. Yet, it still nodded along after hearing what its partner said.

Colonel Sheppard began to list the conditions, which pretty much boiled down to three points. The first one was that they had to help maintain the security around the area they settled in, helping us/the military out if necessary. Points two and three were that they were not allowed to attack any human settlements or humans unless they were attacked or harmed first.

He also explained the concept of trainers to them so that they knew that the possibility existed that some trainers would be interested in them if they settled within alliance territory. After he was done with his explanation he gave them some to discuss whether they wanted to "join" or if they wanted to keep wondering.

Their debate actually went on for nearly half an hour before Ampharos declared that they wanted to join. Colonel Sheppard made a call upon receiving that answer, and only a few moments later an Alakazam appeared through teleportation.

Considering that the undulations it released with its appearance were actually of the palladium stage, I was sure the horde leaders were more than glad they did not choose to fight us.

Alakazam waved its hand and over 200 members of the horde appeared beside the 50ish that were already at the front. Once they calmed down, Alakazam sounded off the agreement before asking all of them whether they agreed to those conditions. Once they did, it seemed to concentrate for a moment before turning to the colonel and telling him that it was done.

Alakazam then waved its hand once more and this time the whole horde vanished. It gave Colonel Sheppard another nod before teleporting away as well. That left us standing here with nothing else to do, and I could not help but wonder if I was the only one who found the whole experience a bit odd. Ultimately, all I could say was that it seemed that this horde and I were not fated, which was too bad for them.

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