Meeting with Gerad 1

"Mr. AXEL!!, this is not your home. This is the league. Please behave yourself.", shouted one of the league members who was sitting on either side of Gerad.

Meanwhile, Gerad had a big smile on his face. The humiliation that he felt before from Axel, he had not forgotten it and today he was taking sweet revenge on Axel. He was having a very good day.

Ashmita also helped Axel to calm down. Axel sat on his chair and asked for an explanation.

"Of course, the league has a good explanation for it. There were 2 of them, in fact. First, is the lack of experience of the group. There are a few members of your team that were previous soldiers of the league. So, I know that they had some good experience on it but most of your members are very new and don't have enough experience on tide battles.

You are asking me to give you such a prestigious title of a 'Mercenary' when your team doesn't have the required experience. This might be very bad for the league and of course, you too.", said Gerad.

It was Hector who defended the argument. "Sir, I know that only some of them are ex-soldiers and most of them were not but all of our members are in their top state. You cannot have a pseudo-king rank Pokemon without good experience. We also participated in the tide battle of Hakone City recently and we didn't lose any members. This shows how good we really are. The death rate of all the soldiers was also below 5%.

I am not being arrogant but this was mainly due to us and the leadership of our leader."

"Oh is that so but your claim would be invalid.", said Gerad.

"Why is that?"

"First of all, the league is giving you the position of mercenary and your leader threw us out of the city himself. The league doesn't appreciate it."

"What has that got to do with our performance? Gerad, it seems that you have not read well, but the mercenary is an independent team. It doesn't come under league. The mercenary is only registered in the league because people trust you and your reputation. You agreeing to register us is basically a sort of recommendation. ", said Axel.

That was one of the prime reasons why Axel wanted to make a mercenary team. The first was for the money. Second was for the experience and third was cause it was independent.

Even though they had to register it in the league, the mercenary team was independent. He would not have to kiss the ass of Gerad and he would be his own boss. So, Axel was excited to make one.

"Mr. Axel Blaze. You don't think that I know of it? I have not told you the reason. The reason I am telling you that your claim is invalid is that the league could not participate in this tide battle of Hakone City.

Since the league could not and your leader made himself the mayor of the city, we don't know what happened there and how many soldiers lost their lives. How can we trust you that you did a good job when your own leader's uncle is the mayor of the city?"

"But you can ask the citizens of the city and also verify all the documents. We have nothing to hide.", pleaded Hector but Gerad was not going to listen to it.

"Yes we could do that the league is not going to waste is precious time on confirming the claims that we believe are not true. The league has better things to do and bigger Magikarp to fry. "

"Sir, even though you don't believe our team members, you should believe our leader. He had participated in the Kanto League City tide before and showed a wonderful performance.

You don't want to disagree as he is the one leading all of us."

"Mr. Hector, even though Axel saved a lot of lives in that tide, it must be noted that he is still inexperienced. He is a talented trainer but he is still a kid. I cannot register you just based on one performance of Axel.

The second reason why I am not registering your team is due to the lack of your side business nor do you have a headquarter to decrease the expense."

This was a good point. A Mercenary team would only participate in 3-5 tides a year at maximum. Most of the time they would be sitting idle. So, they needed to have enough money to survive. Their transportation cost and hotel costs were going to be huge. So some of the successful mercenary teams would have their own headquarters with buildings where they would be living here.

This would decrease the living cost by a huge margin. However, Axel and his team had none of that but they had something better.

Axel had bought a forest and the mercenary team would train on them. The mercenary team also took a lot of quests from the League association, so the money was not a problem. Also, Axel had a huge family business of restaurants and they also had the stadium. So, they would earn a huge amount of money and they were stable.

However, all of them knew that Gerad was not going to believe any of it.

"So, if we are able to solve those 2 problems, you will take us and register us?", asked Axel.

"Yes, if you make me satisfied on those 2 reasons, then I have no reason to hold you.", said Gerad.

"Ok, it is customary for the league to give the first mission to the mercenary team but since you are not registering us, why don't you give us that mission and we will prove it to you."

"Oh really? When will you be ready for the mission?", asked Gerad.

"Exactly after 60 days."

"OK, I will select you for a mission during that time. You said that your death rate was only 5% in Hakone City. Then prove it to me. The death rate should not be higher than 5%."

"That is just absurd!!! We were only able to achieve it due to the lower grade of the tide and also our leader knew the city from the inside out. We cannot do it for the unknown city.", shouted Tory.

"Ok then, 15%. I am being soft here. Any side that your team would defend, the death rate of that side should not be more than 15%.

Now, what are you going to do about the second condition? I will give you a choice. Either you buy a huge land and create a base in the Kanto region or you have a side business in the Kanto region that could make sufficient money that could support the team.

Do you have anything to add, Axel?"

"No, I do not."

"Good, then the meeting ends here."

###

"DAMN IT!! DAMN THAT GERAD!!!", shouted Tory as he started to bang the wall with his hand. The wall started to crack and Sam had to control him. Tory was really furious. He didn't care that their team didn't get registered. They were doing well even if they had not been registered before.

But he didn't like how Gerad talked to Axel. For him, Axel was their leader and he deserved respect.

"Tory, control yourself. We need to calm down, you need to calm down first.", said Axel.

"Leader, why are you not angry? That guy literally said that you are some useless kid."

"I know and I am angry but we have to control the confusion of the team too."

When Gerad said that their team was not going to be registered, there was no use for their members to do screening. So, they were told to come back. This created confusion and Hector was not defusing that confusion. At least he was trying to.

"Sigh, leader what should be do now?", asked Tory.

"We will figure something out. The sky won't fall until I am here. You can trust that.", said Axel and started to walk towards the hall that they had booked for the announcement.

He went and looked at all of his members and said, "As you all know and as Hector had already said, the league didn't accept to register us."

The crowd went ballistic after hearing. Hector had already said but most of them had yet to believe it now after hearing it from Axel, they started to get angry.

There were 50k members in his team. Not all of them were extremely loyal like Hector and Tory. Some of them were here to earn money and some of them were here to become a powerful trainer. Axel trusted them as he was sure that they would not leak anything. It was just that they had different agendas.

Axel and Hector started to calm down the crowd. They had done a lot of hard work. Some of their members were permanently injured from the tide battle of Hakone city and have completed all the conditions for the mercenary team but still they could not get registered. How could they not be angry?

"SLIENCE!!!", shouted Axel using the power of his aura. The voice was so loud that even the ground started to shake a bit. Everyone became quiet after that.

"Now, listen to me first. I know that all of you are angry. Some of you are here to support me fully. Some of you are here to earn money and some of you are here to become stronger.

I know that this is a roadblock but if you think that the team is going to disband just cause of that then you are very wrong. Let me ask you a question. Why do you think that I wanted to create this mercenary group?

To kill the wild Pokemons? To earn money? No. I created this mercenary group cause I wanted a family. An organization that I could trust fully. Let me tell you something. I cannot give you the full details as Oak said to keep it a secret but I will tell you this.

The world will not be peaceful in the future and we are going to face a huge amount of problems that will risk the lives of humanity. So, we need to stick together and get stronger.

So what if the league doesn't recognize us? Do you really think that I will let you guys die of hunger and we will not progress just cause of the league? Do you think that we are so weak?

Eating and living are the basic rights of us humans. Do you really think that I, your leader would not be able to provide it to you? If you don't even trust me on such a basic thing, then I want you to resign from this team. I don't want some trainers that don't trust me."

Nobody moved when Axel said it. Their anger was still there but they were starting to realize that they were being stupid right now.

"Good, now since you already know about the bad news, let me tell you some good news. Even though I don't consider it good news, it is not so bad.

I talked with the league, and they said that they are ready to give us a chance."

One of the team members raised his hand and asked, "Sir, what is their condition?"