CH20 (542), Military (15)

Once I made it back to the camp, I took my by-now routine position and focused inside Utopia to take a proper look at the new arrivals. I had briefly considered placing the Quagsire habitat onto the same side as the Houndour/Houndoom one, though with quite a bit of distance between the respective territories, but I ultimately did not go through with it.

Instead, I put them on the southern side, which basically put them between the Houndour/Houndoom pack on the western side and the Beedrill swarm on the eastern side. The Mankey/Primeape troop was on the northern side of the cube-planet so on the diametrically opposite of the Quagsire group.

This meant that only the bottom side of the cube planet was still uninhabited/unoccupied, though all the sides aside from the upper/original one were still rather empty, some more than others.

Anyway, it appeared my luck had finally run out, at least somewhat, since the best potential among the 467 Wooper and 131 Quagsire that joined Utopia, even after Utopia's optimization, belonged to a Wooper with blue potential. The "boss" Quagsire who led the group ended up with only deep green potential.

Moreover, not a single one among the 598 newcomers unlocked any kind of modifier or even an interesting talent. Some among them acquired some talents, but those were either mediocre or decent at best, which is why I said that I seemed to have run out of good luck. Nonetheless, once I settled everything that had to be done, I went to sleep since I had to wake up quite early on Arcday.

The next day started off the third week of my final month here at the camp, and while everything went as usual for the first half of the day, I actually ended up getting surprised after all, despite initially thinking that it would be a rather boring week since I had gone through the list I had made for my Grouday excursions.

Yet, one of my fellow soldiers approached me at the end of my lunch break and informed me that Colonel Sheppard wanted to see me at his office. Obviously, it was implied that he wanted to see me there right now, so I thanked him for essentially fulfilling orders before heading to the colonel's office.

After saluting Colonel Sheppard and being told to stand at ease, he told me something that pleasantly surprised me. It appeared that he had received orders from above pertaining to me and my military phase. According to Colonel Sheppard, I would be transferred to another border camp as soon as a major conflict erupted on their side, so that I could witness and if possible participate in the battle/struggle.

It became clear to me that the higher-ups wanted me to witness more than just a small-scale conflict so that I could see with my own eyes the reality that we, as humans, along with all the other Pokemon with territories had to face.

I did not doubt that the consequences of a confrontation of any significant scale were cruel, especially since I had read about the fate of the Beedrill swarm that attacked our camp, but as always reading about something and seeing/witnessing it for oneself was not the same.

Usually, an order like this would not have been necessary, but "luckily" enough, our border camp managed to avoid any true conflicts ever since I had been given the green light to participate in the repelling operations, which was actually a good thing for everyone. Well, aside from me apparently. Regardless, I acknowledged the order, including the one to continue as usual until further notice, before returning back to my regular schedule.

As chance would have it, it appeared that somehow the whole border experienced an absolutely calm period for the next two weeks. I actually made it to the final week of my military phase without any incursions happening around our stretch of the border, or any stretch of the border for that matter. We already had Kyoday, and as things stood, it appeared I would be moving on to the hospital phase without experiencing the conflict the higher-ups wanted me to witness.

Honestly, the whole military experience ended up a bit easier than I had expected, especially after I was assigned to the border. The only part that really impacted me was the restriction on my freedom. Naturally, just as I had started to think that, a soldier came up to me and told me to head to Colonel Sheppard's office.

"You called for me, sir," I inquired with a salute upon entering the colonel's office. "Yes, I did," he confirmed with a nod before he offhandedly motioned that I could stand at ease.

"There are orders from above pertaining to your situation," he added and I could swear he had a hint of an amused smile when he mentioned my situation. I put on an alert face when he mentioned orders, but remained otherwise silent, waiting for him to continue, aware that it was not the time for me to speak up.

"It appears that our Kanto border remains unusually peaceful even now. A truly unprecedented event that all camp commanders, myself included, certainly appreciate. Still, that leaves us in a conundrum as far as your situation is concerned, so the higher-ups have adjusted their orders on the matter on Arcday," and this time I could see an amused smile when he said that.

"Since no conflicts took place at our border, they decided to target any medium to large-scale conflicts that took place within a 1000 km distance of our border," Colonel Sheppard summed up the adjustments for me, and I certainly appreciated that since I had wondered what the changes where when they came up.

"Surprisingly, it took until today for our surveillance to spot a fitting conflict even after the adjustment, which frankly had many of our surveillance officers scratching their heads since it is truly unusual that no notable fighting happened in such a wide area for an extended period of time," he looked searchingly at my face when he mentioned that.

I honestly had no idea why since the thought that I could have anything to do with that was absurd. It seemed he finally came to the same conclusion since he stopped scrutinizing me after a moment.

"You'll be brought to Border Camp 38 in a few minutes since they managed to locate a conflict roughly 1100 km from their camp that fits the parameters set by those at the top. You'll learn more on the matter once you arrive at front no.38," he explained before studying me once again.

"I heard that most base commanders honestly don't know if they should be disgruntled that the higher-ups mobilized all base camps just for you, or rather your matter, or if we should be thankful to you for somehow causing a peaceful period across Kanto's borders. That kind of fortune is inconceivable, and it feels as if fate is guiding the situation from behind," the Colonel said with a shake of his head before giving me an amused smile.

"I for one am thankful for the peace and quiet. I even suggested to the higher-ups that having you move between the border camps might be a good idea if it meant that our borders could prolong this period of peace in some form or fashion, but sadly, they declined my proposal," he joked, or at least, I was hoping that he was joking.

Regardless of the colonel's absurd idea, we heard a knock on the door, and after the colonel gave the permission to enter, a soldier stepped inside and saluted before stating that he was here to escort me to camp 38.

The soldier handed the colonel a paper, who looked through it before saying that everything was in order. He told me to follow the soldier before dismissing us both, though I heard him telling me to try to keep my cool regardless of what I saw before the door of his office closed.

I followed the soldier out of the building, where he actually pulled out a Teleport Gem, which he crushed once I grabbed his shoulder after he told me to do so. I felt us being moved and we appeared inside a room, which I assumed was the designated teleportation room of Camp 38.

Well, it was either that or something went wrong during the teleportation, and we ended up in someone's empty/storage room, which was still miles better than being maimed or strewn across Kanto. Fortunately, we seemed to be at the right place since I saw soldiers moving around as soon as we stepped out of the room we landed in.

I followed my guide to a door/office, which according to the label belonged to another colonel, who presumably was the commander of this base/camp. We entered as soon as we received the permission to do so, and I saw the colonel scrutinizing me once I stepped inside.

Surprisingly, it appeared that the only reason we headed to his office was so that Colonel Bradley could take a look at me because he simply dismissed me after he was done checking me out. He told the soldier beside me to escort me to Captain Bishop, who would deal with me.

Well, his job did not take long since Captain Bishop actually stood at the door when we stepped out of the colonel's office. The soldier simply "introduced" us before leaving me with the captain. I was happy when he told me to dispense with the formalities after the introductions were out of the way.

"Alright, let's go," Captain Bishop said with a wave of his hand. "I'll brief you on the way out," he added and I nodded before following after him. "The area we are going to belongs to a tribe of Jigglypuff and their subservient tribes made up of a variety of species. They are under the attack of a swarm of bug types led by a Heracross. We noticed the fight around 40 minutes ago, and considering the scale of the conflict we expect it to take hours, if not a day or two, before an outcome can be determined," he started to apprise me of the conflict.

"Do we have any numbers?" I asked to get an idea of the size of the conflict. "We don't have any concrete numbers since the area is outside our usual surveillance range, but the scouts estimate that at least 200000 Pokemon are fighting. However, they pointed out that they were unable to get a complete picture due to the size of the battleground so the numbers could be much higher than that," he replied, and I imagined a sea of Pokemon battling it out.

I was curious about what species were fighting on each side, aside from the leading ones, so I went ahead and asked. Captain Bishop mentioned that the scouts saw Ariados, Forretress, Ledian, as well as Venomoth on the bug side, and Gloom, Furret, Jumpluff, as well as Aipom fighting for the Jigglypuff.

We left the building and Captain Bishop led me to a soldier that was waiting close by. He introduced the soldier as the scout responsible for bringing me to the battlefield so that I could watch how large-scale conflicts usually went.

Captain Bishop left after handing me to scout Jennifer, and she called out a Xatu that promptly teleported us to our goal. We stopped a bit away from the conflict zone. It took us two jumps to make it there and from there we moved closer to the conflict zone on foot.

Jennifer showed her professionalism as a scout and led us to an elevated spot where we climbed on top of one of the highest trees available. She explained that we could not get any closer without risking being drawn into the fight or being implicated. Flying overhead in the conflict zone could result in us being attacked as well, so our current observation point was the best we could find while still avoiding being drawn into the battle.

Our current position allowed us to get a view of close to 70% of the conflict area, and looking out, I could not help but be astonished at the sheer extent to which the battle had spread.

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