CH65 (429), Mt.Tai

Enji/Arcanine, Tiamat/Milotic, and the others were holding back the gold stage Sandslash and critters. Sorry, Furret and Linoone, preventing them from coming to help the dark gold-stage boss Sandslash, who was being suppressed by Mothra/Butterfree.

Yet, it was not Mothra that had the first triumph, or anyone at the front line for that matter. No, the first roar of triumph came from the back. Most of those present probably simply heard a Gyarados' (victory) cry, but I knew that it was Abyss/Gyarados that released that roar, just as I knew that the roar that came a few moments later was from Ignis/Gyarados.

I simply knew which one of my Gyarados was roaring in victory, even if I would have a hard time properly explaining how I could differentiate their roars like this. The simplest explanation would probably be that I could note the slight difference in the nuance between their voices. Okay, I admit that the happiness I felt over our bond might have been a bit helpful as well.

Anyway, psychological pressure was a thing, and with Abyss as well as Ignis' victory, the pressure on the foes around them increased. Their victories caused a domino effect, and within a minute or two the other Slythering Six members aside from Stan/Gyarados, who was facing one of the bosses, defeated the gold stage sub-leader they were facing while keeping the other critters away.

Ignis kept an eye on the battles going on between Stan, Horus/Xatu, and the two bosses, but the others used the fact that they were no longer entangled by gold-stage foes to cause some chaos in the back of the tide.

While my side no doubt enjoyed a vast advantage after the last series of events, my enthusiasm was a bit subdued due to the large number of casualties I had witnessed and was still witnessing throughout the tide/confrontation, even if none of those happened to my Pokemon.

It was because of this, that I decided to tie up everything, even if it meant interfering with the one-on-one battles of my Pokemon. While I was absolutely sure that all of my Pokemon would have preferred to beat their foes on their own, and that they would have come out victorious, I did not feel like waiting the extra time that would have taken, knowing that another handful of Pokemon from either side would fall during that time.

With that in mind, I told Ignis to assist Stan in knocking out his foe. He did so with barely any hesitation, and thanks to the cooperation exercises they all went through, the two were capable of seamlessly working together.

The poor boss got overwhelmed after a bit more than a minute, and as soon as it was down, I told Ignis to keep an eye on it, while Stan went to support Horus. Thankfully, Ignis' strength along with the unconscious bodies of their leaders was enough to stop the surrounding Pokemon from trying to swarm him.

The other boss battle took even less than the previous one, and Horus along with Stan were able to take down the boss in less than a minute. Once that happened, I asked Horus to gather the unconscious bodies of the bosses and sub-leaders in one place, so that Ignis could keep an eye on them.

Then I had Horus teleport to the front line along with the rest of the Slythering Six. I told Horus and Stan to join Mothra in beating up the boss Sandslash, while the other 4 Gyarados were tasked with helping my other Pokemon deal with the ongoing gold stage battles.

With their addition, it did not take long for those battles to finish, and the same was true for the battle against the boss Sandslash. Truthfully, I felt a bit bad for that one since he had to face my strongest three Pokemon all at once, but that did not stop me from being happy when it finally fell unconscious, and as soon as that happened, I gave two orders.

The first one was to ask Horus and Mothra to make a trip to the back to fetch the unconscious bosses and sub-leaders along with Ignis. The second one was to request Aby, Medusa/Gyarados, Ryujin/Gyarados, and Jade/Gyarados to keep an eye on boss Arbok to prevent him from keeping the fight going once I put a stop to the battles with my next act.

For that act, I told Ryujin to release the effect of his Alpha Predator at the highest intensity and range he could muster. The effect was immediate and caused all Pokemon across the field to stop whether they were from the other camp, or belonging to the Arbok tribe/line.

Once the battles temporarily ceased, I had Horus, Gwen/Gardevoir, and Mothra levitate the beaten and unconscious bodies of their leaders into the air, so that the tide fellows could see their beaten bosses with their own eyes.

Only after they witnessed that I had the pillars of their tribes in my mercy, did I declare that the tide/incursion was over and that they were not allowed to resume any battles. I made sure that the Ekans, as well as Arbok, knew that they too were not allowed to restart the battle and since boss Arbok was surrounded he had no choice but to mirror my decision.

Not that he was in the proper condition to drag the battles out by much anyway. Still, I had all my Pokemon release their aura/presence to ensure that everyone knew that I was not messing around and to show them what they had to face if they decided to disobey. That along with the unconscious bodies floating in the air ensured that everyone did as I said.

My next order was for the Ekans and Arbok to retreat in the direction of their nest by around 50 meters. Then I told the tide members to do the same away from the nest, but instead of 50 meters, they had to retreat by 100 meters. That left an open stretch between the two sides that was 150 meters wide.

This stretch also revealed a rather tragic picture since the body of those too hurt to move, along with the bodies of the deceased were left behind during the withdrawal, and the number of bodies lying there was too much. By my estimation, more than a thousand bodies were lying around that area.

These bodies were from Pokemon on both sides, and now that they were forced to stop fighting and clear the area, everyone got to see the same bloody picture. I took a look around the area both with my own eyes and from the perspective of Hera/Pidgeot, who was circling the place from above.

Well, I could say, without a shred of doubt, that if the increase in population had been the main reason for the Arbok tribe's expansion, then that was no longer a problem, at all.

The 1000+ Ekans/Arbok had been reduced to a mere half of that, and the situation of the tide was not much better. Their initial 5000 or so had been reduced by nearly 2000. Normally it would have been impossible for the tide to suffer such great casualties, at least against the Ekans/Arbok, but this happened due to my Pokemon.

While I knew and saw my Pokemon doing their best to only take the opposing Pokemon out of the fight without killing them as much as possible, a lot of those Pokemon still ended up dying either due to an Ekans/Arbok using the chance to finish them off or as a consequence of the battles going on around them.

Also, while the gold-stage Arbok suffered a single casualty, the tide lost three of their gold-stage Pokemon. Yet, the loss of prowess for the Arbok tribe was bigger since the other side had comparatively more gold-stage Pokemon. All in all, it was a tragic picture with bodies everywhere.

Once the situation had settled, I gave both sides a warning to behave and told them that I would be talking with their leaders to end the conflict. There was no way any side would be happy with ending the fight like I was planning to do considering how big the casualties were on all sides.

Sadly, they were sh*t out of luck since that decision was no longer in their hands, at least not really. It was time for some good old hammer-and-nail negotiation/policy. To that end, I helped seal the wounds of all the beaten leaders to keep their situation from deteriorating any further. Only after that did I slap them awake. Oops, I meant roused them from their state.

Boss Sandslash was the first one to wake up, and he was surprisingly unperturbed by the whole thing. When he felt my gaze, he simply shrugged his shoulders and calmly said that he had noticed that my Pokemon did their best to take their foes down without killing them, so he knew that he would get captured or become a prisoner at worst.

The others also woke up in the meantime and most managed to hear the tail end of boss Sandslash's explanation. It helped somewhat explain their situation to them. I had to admit that boss Sandslash had impressed me the most out of everyone present on the field. My Pokemon were obviously not included in this.

Nonetheless, I could not help but wonder if I should offer him to join me. I was not even planning to have him join the main team, but simply thought that he could prove useful if he stayed inside Utopia with his tribe, or at least a part of his tribe, if they wanted to join in as well.

This war/tide had proven, that there was nothing wrong with having reserve fighting power at hand, especially top-class ones. Still, that was something I could consider after dealing with the current situation at hand.

Anyway, I still explained to everyone why I had come here in the first place, and what I now wanted them to do, along with giving them a rough report on what I had seen regarding the situation of both sides, number-wise. Just as I had expected, none of them were happy with the idea of having to reconcile or make forced peace, especially after hearing about the number of casualties.

Boss Sandlsash was once again the calmest of the bunch, but that could have been because he had the lowest number of members participating in the tide, along with the fact that the casualties of his group were somewhere in the high single digits or low double digits.

Still, no matter how unhappy they were, I was determined to force them into a compromise, and I even had an idea of how to ensure that they stuck to the agreed-upon terms. It took nearly an hour and a lot of shouting as well as curses and threats, but in the end, a compromise was reached that no one was happy with, but begrudgingly accepted anyway.

Everyone would retreat to their territories and no one was allowed to start any form of conflict with the others for the next decade. The bosses as well as sub-leaders were responsible for keeping their tribe members in line, and ensuring that no conflicts between the two sides broke out to the best of their abilities, at least not inside their territories.

Honestly, the only reason the Arbok tribe managed to keep their territory in one piece was my interference/presence. If not for me they would have had to hand over parts of their territory to the others since they were at a disadvantage strength-wise, despite their boss being at the dark gold stage, due to their number of casualties.

I naturally did not do that out of the goodness of my heart especially considering that boss Arbok attacked me at the beginning. No, I used the chance to complete the other missions I accepted. Boss Arbok agreed to hand over any Arbok Shed Skins they had inside their nests, along with having his gold stage underlings provide the venom I needed.

As for how I would force them all to keep the agreements, I straight up told them that I would request the appearance of a high-level psychic so that everyone had to agree to a psychic contract that would force them to comply with the terms of the contract.

They all grumbled about that one, and none of them were happy with the thought, but they were once more forced to agree. Besides, it ensured that none of the others tried to take advantage of the losses caused by this conflict.

I would have had to call the order and request for backup to do that, but boss Sandslash surprisingly came through with that one as well. He suggested that I asked the boss Exeggutor to perform the psychic contract since he was strong enough to do so, and the boss of this whole place anyway.

At my surprised look, he simply said that he trusted boss Exeggutor more than he did anyone I could call over, not knowing that the real reason I looked surprised was that I thought that Exeggutor was at the (high) dark gold stage due to what one of the Arbok I caught said, and I needed at least platinum stage psychic for the contract.

Apparently, the intel I got was wrong, and the Exeggutor was already at the platinum stage, which was enough for my purpose. The others mirrored Sandslash's opinion once he made the suggestion, even Arbok, so I agreed. I had one of the (low) gold-stage Sandslash follow Horus, and they left to bring over boss Exeggutor so that we could finish up this whole thing.

Less than 15 minutes later, the duo reappeared together with an Exeggutor, who I assumed was the boss we had been waiting for. Exeggutor gave me a nod before giving the Pokemon around us an impassive look.

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