Hello, I understand that this first chapter isn't exactly smooth. However, the second chapter is much, much, much better. So, go ahead and give this story a try, I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised as time wears on and the plot line develops. In any event, please read and review, even if you didn't like it. I strive to improve my writing style best I can, so constructive criticism is wanted, no, needed. Also, if you like'd my story so far, subscribe!

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Those repeated actions were the only things keeping the young, navy, lieutenant sane during what he thought was an insane mission. Wilson hated, no, vehemently hated, intelligence pickups from double agents.

His rationale was a simple, yet fair, assertion: the mole betrayed somebody once, whose to say he won't do it again? For that reason, it didn't thrill the intelligence officer to work with a man who shot at Kanto Marines only a few months earlier. However, whatever his feelings, it was no doubt important to the military operation in Hoenn to obtain crucial human intelligence like this. Most likely, the information received tonight would ultimately lead to the raid on an insurgent compound, destruction of a weapons cache, or, if they were lucky, the capture of a terrorist leader.

He smirked, despite what the small, candle lit pub made it out to be, Hoenn was a quickly becoming an unstable and dangerous political situation. The place was no longer the peaceful, and relatively unknown to the rest of the world, pacific nation that was a place of tropical vacation. Ever since Kanto invaded the island nation, terrorists from the 7 seas had started migrating there in an attempt to get their shot at the best military forces of the world.

He motioned to the barkeep, "A Daniels, over the rocks."

The young girl, who couldn't have been older than 16, which would have been illegal for her to serve alcohol in Kanto, nodded, put down the glass she was cleaning, and proceeded to do what barkeepers do best: dish out the universal medicine.

She methodically poured the drink and made it a point to stereotypically slide it across the table to where he was sitting, which made Wilson smirk, if only a little.

Of course, it's not like Kanto wasn't justified in their invasion. Hoenn was already a terrorist hub before they came. The predominant faction on the island at the time was ELF, the Eastern Liberation Front, a group who felt the people of the East had been oppressed by the globalization of the West. However ridiculous their assumption was, they managed to recruit enough members to put a monopoly of power on an entire nation.

ELF, which was heavily funded by Xijiang, a large, and influential, Asiatic nation that had been Kanto's traditional rival for the past 75 years. In those year, they had been in 3 wars, all occurring over the course of 30 years, and the last one only ended when Kanto dropped the highly controversial, yet militarily necessary, nuclear bomb. Since then, the threat of nuclear war devolved their military conflicts to a series of quick escalations, and subsequent de-escalations, coupled with various proxy wars that kept a so called peaceful world violent.

In any event, ELF had been the subject of interest and worry to Kanto for a long time. Their seemingly harmless, at least from a strategic standpoint, attacks, which appeared haphazard at best, on shipping from around the world.

However, the threat poised by this group quickly rose as they quickly blossomed. Their leader, Dimitri Gougrez, claimed the Democratic Republic of Hoenn conspired to oppress the people. In 1999, the island nation quickly gained fame when Dimitri, with the support of army officials, lead a coup de ta against the then president, Gerald Fitz. With no support from the army, the government was quickly overthrown and Dimitri instituted a totalitarian government that cracked down heavily on protesters who criticized the harsh regime.

Time passed, and Kanto lost interest until 2005, when a string of terrorist attacks occurred over the course of a week in October, killing 1,500 people. The week was immortalized in history by its fitting name, "The Week of Terror". CIA officials traced the origins to a Dimitri supported terrorist faction, KOM, Kanto Offensive Movement. Kanto diplomats quickly issued an ultimatum to Dimitri, give up KOM leaders or face invasion. Dimitri refused, and effectively said, "Screw off, faggots." Except, well, in a more diplomatic form of speech.

Kanto mobilized 4th Fleet, alongside the 1st and 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigades, for war and, on December 16th, 2005, began conducting airstrikes on critical army positions. Exactly a month later, 1st MEB landed on the main island while the 5th MEB landed on various outer islands.

After a week of heavy fighting, the army surrendered and Dimitri disappeared to tend to his guerrilla army. For the following years, the insurgency waited in the shadows, preparing for an offensive that would shock military commanders. Wilson remembered when the insurgency occurred, he was-

A heavily accented voice shook him from his train of thought, he took a final swig of his drink, knowing the man behind him was either the mole, or a terrorist prepared to end his own life for the cause of rebellion.

"War is nothing more than the extension of foreign policy by other means."- Carl von Clausewitz