บท 548: CH21 (543), Military (16)
Starting from just 800 or so meters away from our current observation spot, I could see Pokemon fighting for their lives practically everywhere. The war and there was no doubt in my mind that this was one, had spread across the horizon, at least from my point of view.
Battles were happening everywhere, as far as I was capable of seeing, and considering that we were currently in an elevated position, on top of the tallest tree we could find, I was able to overlook a pretty vast area.
The picture was a tragic one, and in just the 2 minutes I was staring at the scene in front of me, trying to comprehend the vast scale of conflict I was catching a glimpse of, I witnessed at least three dozen deaths taking place. Considering the sheer size of the battleground, the true number of casualties during that period was probably more than ten times that number.
Releasing a breath I did not notice I was holding, I took in the sheer madness that this war revealed. I swept my gaze across the battleground, witnessing a part of the vicious struggles that were happening across the board.
I saw a Furret facing a Ledian, only to be suddenly ambushed by a pair of Ariados, who literally ripped the Furret in twain before dropping the parts like trash and vanishing among the sea of battles, presumably to look for another victim to ambush.
I watched as half a dozen Furret ganged up on an Ariados, and ripped it apart, limb by limb. I saw a Forretress roll between a bunch of Oddish and literally blow up, taking them all out, before being jumped by a bunch of Aimpon while it was recovering. They hammered it with their fist-tails and cracked it open like a walnut.
One-on-one fights were a rarity in this free-for-all, all-out war. There was no mercy, there was no honor, and there were no rules. The Pokemon on each side were using everything to take down the Pokemon on the other side. Ambushing others, and teaming up/ganging up on others seemed to be the norm, as was fighting against those notably weaker than oneself.
The strong ones were not necessarily searching out foes as strong as they were. They had no qualms about taking out as many enemies as possible until they were blocked by someone or taken down by someone stronger than themselves.
I saw a Lickilicky bulldoze a bunch of Spinarak, before tongue-lashing a Venonat, hurling it at a Forretress that came rolling at it, presumably to stop the Lickilicky, causing it to get "run" over. The Lickilicky then beat a tactical retreat, and I lost sight of it.
The probably most tragic scene I witnessed had to be the Venomoth that used what appeared to be Psychic to group a bunch of Hoppip together before one-shotting, or one-slashing them all with Air Slash.
Scenes like that, where an undoubtedly higher-stage Pokemon mowed down one or more weaker ones like a land mower, were practically everywhere. Still, probably because we were quite a bit away from the epicenter of the war, I/we did not get to see any of the truly high-stage Pokemon facing each other.
All I could see and feel were glimpses of the moves used by some of them. At one point a Hyper Beam indiscriminately swept through part of the battlefield, and I did not doubt that some weaker Pokemon on both sides fell victim to that one. The Flamethrower that followed shortly after was less indiscriminate, but equally as devastating, at least for the swarm.
The impression these two moves/attacks gave me, made me presume that the main force of the two sides actually possessed fighters at Stage 6/the platinum stage. This along with the other stuff I saw around that area, made me assume that there was also a bunch of dark gold stage Pokemon fighting it out in the epicenter of the war.
Not only did the size of the conflict seem to have reached the level of a tide, I was counting the members on both sides for this, but it appeared that I was being witness to the equivalent of a 5-star tide.
Frankly, I would have moved closer to the epicenter of the war if not for Jeniffer stopping me from doing so. She apparently had orders to stop me from doing anything like that, or other equally risky stuff, and I had orders to follow her directive as far as the observation of the ongoing conflict was concerned, so I had to stay where I was and be satisfied with what I got to see from here.
Within the next hour, I was witness to the presumed death of thousands, if not tens of thousands of Pokemon on both sides, presumed because in some cases it was unclear whether the Pokemon died or merely fell unconscious. Yet, despite the bleak number, it was not enough to affect the momentum of the clash between the two sides.
A "mere" 6-7 thousand, or even 10 or 20 thousand deaths were not enough to cause a significant ripple when more than half a million Pokemon were embroiled in the war. Yet, that did not change the fact that this was a tragic number that was greater than the number of Pokemon living in Utopia, even after adding all the recent immigrants.
At some point, quantity also became a vital quality, and if I/we had to face such an exaggerated number of Pokemon in the future, we'd definitely have trouble facing them. Whether that be the inability to stop a major part of the attackers from simply going past us, or being encircled and then slowly worn down due to superior numbers, potentially having to face a great number of Pokemon was something I had already considered.
Though, admittedly, the second point was not something me and my Pokemon had to worry about since we could always retreat to Utopia even if the space around us got locked down somehow. Well, unless some of the OG Legendaries showed up, but if one of those wanted to deal with us in a malicious manner, then we definitely had more to worry about than being surrounded.
Nonetheless, the idea of having to potentially face such numbers at some point in the future was one of the major reasons I really decided to start taking in "hordes" inside Utopia. Well, that and the fact that I wanted to add some "life" to the newly formed mini-cube planet was another big reason.
Yet, despite accepting that quantity was an undisputed factor, I still believed that the strength and potential of a Pokemon were the most important thing, which was why I was not in a rush to flood Utopia with any random Pokemon I came across, even though there was more than enough space to accommodate millions of Pokemon.
A sudden shift on the battleground caught my attention. It appeared that the Wigglytuff/Jigglypuff decided to step up because loud singing began to spread across the battlefield. Even at our spot, we were able to hear muted parts of the song. I remained unaffected, but I saw Jennifer shake her head to get rid of the drowsiness that crept up on her.
The effect of the singing was immediate. There were numerous Pokemon that fell victim to "Sing" and fell asleep. Still, since "Sing" was an indiscriminate move all Pokemon were affected including the ones on the Jiggly side. Heck, I saw quite a few Jigglypuff and a select few Wigglytuff among the ones that fell asleep.
The only ones that were still awake, were the ones that were either too far away to get fully affected by the singing, did not hear it, were strong enough to resist, or had abilities that allowed them to remain unaffected. The few Mankey, Primeape, Whismur, and Loudred that still stood among the sleeping masses were a perfect example of the latter.
They did not remain idle and immediately jumped on the defenseless bugs, squashing as many as possible before they woke up. Due to their relatively low number, they only managed to squash a thousand or so bugs before the sleeping princesses began to stir, but that was still an impressive number for a few minutes of work. Though most of those bugs were weak ones since it took more time to deal with the stronger ones even if they were not protecting themselves.
Still, this move did slightly tilt the overall battle situation in the defender's favor, at least in the areas I could see. Even if the sounds and lights coming from high-level battle did not stop all this while, showing that they were among the ones unaffected by the singing maneuver as well.
Regardless, I was unable to watch the high-level battle due to orders anyway, so I was forced to keep observing the battle that resumed on this side. Despite knowing that this was something that was not uncommon and that confrontations like this were part of nature and the cycle of life here on Terra, I could not help but feel increasingly bad and tense as the number of fallen Pokemon kept mounting.
Honestly, after watching this slaughter for another hour, I had trouble keeping watch because the urge to interfere to stop the increase in casualties was becoming overwhelming. Only the reality that I was impotent to truly stop the fighting due to insufficient strength and number on my side kept me from disregarding orders and putting a stop to all this.
That I had in fact orders not to interfere in the matter of other tribes/territories was the excuse that I used to justify my inaction to myself, even if it was in fact my/our weakness that truly stopped me. It was also at this point, around two hours into my watch that I stopped streaming the ongoing war to Utopia.
I had started the stream as soon as I took my lookout spot, and around 10 minutes in, I had given the order for the youngest ones to stop watching. About an hour in, I repeated the same order for those below the silver stage, and at the 2-hour mark, I chose to entirely stop the live stream. Even though I forced myself to keep watching for another hour to truly burn the unforgivingness of nature, and the price of weakness as well as my own impotence in front of the scenes taking place right before my eyes into my mind.
Nonetheless, at close to the three-hour mark, I frankly had enough of the scenes in front of me, so I was contemplating retreating back to the camp. I looked over to Jennifer and saw that she had turned pale as snow. She looked quite bad, and I actually got a bit worried for her, so I went up to her and asked her if she was okay.
She admitted that this was the first time that she had seen such a tragic scene. She complained that it was always the bug types along with some of the dark types that kept fighting this brutally and until the bitter end unless the upper echelon got taken out swiftly enough.
She shared that in her experience, any other group of invaders would have already retreated in the face of the losses they had suffered in these three hours to either recoup or search for an easier target. Her voice hitched a bit when she mentioned the losses, but I remained silent since I understood her reaction, having stood witness to the death of tens of thousands of Pokemon as well, with no signs of the conflict stopping.
Still, after speaking to her, I suggested that we move back to the camp, and she gave me a grateful look when I said that. Jennifer admitted that she had been ordered to wait until I wanted to return, so she jumped at my suggestion.
Afterward, we retreated back to Border Camp 38, where we were ushered to an office upon arrival. Colonel Badley as well as Captain Bishop paid us a visit to check up on us, and I found out that this was actually the office of the psychological counselor.
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This is chapter 3/4 for this week.
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