"Good morning," Lieutenant Commander Surge greeted his office personnel as he strode in. A cup of coffee was in his hand and steam curled out from the top. He was crisply dressed in a clean uniform free of wrinkles. The medals on his chest shined from being polished.

"Mornin Commander," The operations director Christian greeted back, "Your voice sounds a little sore. You and Koga put the fresh meat through the grinder again?"

"Right after they completed the Dance of the Red Isle, we then dragged them through a combat scenario in the Mud Puddle." He chuckled, "Never gets old. I always remember when it was my time."

An infamous exercise among Commando training was the Dance of the Red Isle, done usually about a month into their training. The candidates would head to the Whirl Islands, specifically the Red Rock Isle by 0600 hours and embark on a trek up to the summit, led by Koga and his instructors. It was a climb up the lone mountain where they would descend on the far side and then turn around to reverse the route, eventually ending up back where they had originated. They packed their gear, a rifle and were dressed in warm clothing at the start.

The time the dance was conducted was in the early spring and late summer during the unit's biannual selection process, when the chilly mornings would jump to steaming hot temperatures within an hour. The time given to complete the exercise was five hours and the intensity served as a way to weed out candidates that were not apt for further qualification. There were inevitable dropouts with an average withdrawing rate of every four out of nine.

Once that was done, Surge would meet them in Cianwood City to engage in a mock battle of both defensive and invasive strategy. It would be the late afternoon and the men would still be feeling the fatigue from the dance. The daily rain would hit by that time and the abundance of dirt made the humid places by Cianwood extremely muddy in their training reserve. They'd be dropped off at a point with their gear; weapons loaded with Tactical Training Rounds and a team's flag and told to defend it while trying to take the other teams'. Their large camp covered a big part of the forested area by the city and was nicknamed the Mud Puddle.

"They have it easy though," Christian said, "Thanks to the government finding about our traditions and dubbing it as hazing, they forced us to make it less harsh and it lost its purpose."

"There are some that are still good Commandos, despite all that has been baby-proofed." Surge agreed, noticing a video call coming from Maple software. "Huh, Maple Software?"

"Wonder what they want?" Christian asked aloud, having noticed it too, "Delays in our upgrade?"

"I made it pretty clear to Mister Hayden that any further delays could be costly." The commander sighed before hitting the answer key.

Drew was at the other side of the screen, dressed impeccably in his business suit and it looked as if his nose was bruised. Other than that visible injury, his head was lowered and his mouth was neither frowning nor smiling.

"Mister Hayden," Surge curtly began, "Was not expecting a call from you. There something in our deal that wasn't clear?"

"No sir, everything was clear and I assure you that everything in development right now is on schedule, provided I get what I need from this conversation." Drew flicked a strand of his hair, "I've actually come to talk to you about your Commando stationed here in Petalburg sir."

"Lieutenant Ketchum?"

"Yes sir. He assaulted me this morning."

Everyone in the room stiffened at that. Even Surge, who normally had his expression unchanged, save for anger, had been taken aback by that statement.

Commandos were strict in discipline both on and off the field and one of their golden rules was to never abuse their standing as an elite soldier. Sure, they were physically, mentally, tenaciously and strategically superior to any other military unit in the Federation or possibly even the world. However, they were all strictly forbidden from abusing the talents and training against others unless their own or their ally's life or limb was endangered.

Even with this subtle mantle of responsibility over their heads, many people, both friendly and enemy knew better than to piss off a hardened soldier. There had been several incidents before involving Commandos being discharged from duty due to a point where they snapped.

"The Lieutenant assaulted you?"

"Yes sir. He gave me this bruise on my face."

From what he had learned so far, Ash had violated the code and judging from the image of Drew on the screen, it was clear that he had cared just enough to not break his nose.

Maybe he was just lucky.

They were also notorious as well. Military groups were bonded together like brothers without all the close brotherhood, however in the Federation; the Commandos were viewed as the fraternity of all fraternities. Each member had the unique black Houndoom tattoo, usually on their shoulder to show their service within and signify their membership. Psychologically, together, they would be open-minded and jovial, especially when surrounded by fellow members. The mentality of being able to accomplish any task, no matter how difficult was abundant when groups were tightly knit together.

However if they happened to be in company of individuals who were not part of the organization, their behavior would often change to being cold and generally unfriendly, although it was typically not to a degree of utter hostility. One particular thing that stuck since its founding was that the act of berating candidates that withdrew from the training program voluntarily. Knowingly terminating eligibility was considered highly humiliating, enough to feel like death being a better option.

"Hmm,"

"I was in our gym and I found him there. He was being rather rude to me and I told him to mind who he was talking to. That's when it started. First it was a shove and then he swept my legs out and pinned me to the floor, making comments about breaking every bone in my body."

By now, not just Christian was listening, but everyone else too. Hearing that their brother caused such a fiasco was enough to rile everyone in the ops center. Luckily, Christian made the gesture, allowing all the center's personnel to leave and give the Commander a moment to speak with Drew in private.

"Now I thought I would go to the Premier of Hoenn since he is who Lieutenant Ketchum reports to in order to decide on the discipline, but I wanted you as his CO to hear about it first. Any more incidents like this could seriously jeopardize our arrangements."

Surge nodded, "I agree with that. Thank you for giving me light of this incident and I'll deal with Lieutenant Ketchum myself." He lowered his voice, "A word of advice, Mister Hayden. The Commandos are trained to be the best soldiers in the world. One of the biggest rules that is enforced even before they begin training is that they are never to abuse their power or standing on others. While that rule is important, they will engage anyone or anything if they feel that there is a threat towards them or their allies. They do not need permission to do so and will deal with it accordingly. Now Ash is an example of one of the finest soldiers I've ever had under my command and so far, he has never had occurrences of insubordination like this. So I believe, Mister Hayden is the only reason Lieutenant Ketchum would do such an aggressive act to you or anyone else, is because you presented a danger to him." The Commander leaned back from the operations table, "Christian, get Ash on the line."

"Yes Commander."

Drew tried not to grit his teeth, trying not to show his displeasure. This was not how he had planned for things to go.

"Commander, with all due respect, this is a complete waste of time. Lieutenant…Ash had tried to hurt me and I did nothing to threaten him at all. He should be removed and sent back to the Federation because he presents a danger."

"I will deal with Ash if what he says turns out to be true." Surge declared, "However do understand that I do not take kindly to people who are lying to swing attention and approval into their favor." He lowered his voice, "Doesn't matter who they are."

Drew made to reply, but it was cut short as Christian had put Ash's image on screen in a three way channel.

"Commander sir." Ash snapped a crisp salute, dressed in his uniform. He didn't even acknowledge Drew.

"At ease." Commander Surge said, "Now Lieutenant, I believe you are aware why I had Lieutenant Cole here contact you."

"I am sir."

"Very Well. This is a line of work where everyone needs to put aside hostilities and it is not my job here to play principal. Now, let's hear your end of the story."

While the allegation of assaulting someone didn't work out for him, Ash was certain that Drew had made up a complete lie to portray as if he had been the antagonist to start everything, if that wasn't enough; he was certain that Surge didn't really believe much either on what he had said.

So he recalled it from his perspective.

"This morning I was performing my morning drills at the gym," Ash replied, just as if he was at a mission debriefing, "Mister Hayden had arrived as well and before I had gotten to another part of my routine he started to instigate me. He was also particularly insulting the Commandos and myself. He tried to grab my shirt and I warned him not to do it again. The insults continued and the issued warning was ignored. I took it as a threat and acted to how I saw fit to neutralize it."

"I see." Surge nodded his head, "Mister Hayden, I didn't get quite the entire story from you."

"So?" Drew asked in disbelief, shooting a glare at Ash. "Still it gives him no right to do what he did back there. Is it okay for him to toss me around the floor like that? I don't think him or any other people like him should be around normal people because we might instigate them and piss them off like a rampaging Salamence!"

It didn't take an analyst to see that Drew's bigoted talk was beginning to irk Ash, Surge and nearly all the rest of the Commandos listening in. While they knew that insults came their way, seeing someone boldly dish it out was new and they didn't take too nicely to the choice of words.

"I am well aware of controlling my emotions," Ash said.

"What?"

"You're absolutely right. Maybe I do act and smash others to bits just because they piss me off, but I save it for the enemies of the Federation. It's a waste of my energy and strength to pick on someone with the likes of you. I have more important things to get done. Take my advice Drew; grow the fuck up."

Then he disconnected his transmission.

Back at the operations center, many of the personnel murmured to one another on their agreement. Christian included.

Looking towards Ash's superior officer for his support, there was no way he could back out of the deal, since he was aware that he was the one to instigate the scene with Ash and withdrawing meant widespread humiliation. The media sure could use a juicy story like a Federation soldier attacking a businessman as they were having a majority approval rating for most of Hoenn, but the deal was mutually beneficial and by the time Surge released details, much of the media and Drew's allegations would be worthless.

"Thank you for the report Mister Hayden."


Drew should have known that ratting off Ash's antics and the allegation of insulting the Commandos to his superior officer was not a very smart idea.

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