Apollo gossiped. Not to say Mikita wasn't used to such things, and definitely not to say he had been annoyed with it. It just was disorienting sometimes. Of course there had been long patrols out in Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Vietnam that had been filled with nothing but small talk and discussion regarding the small community that Delta had often made itself in the bases they were deployed to. Mikita never really shut it down unless it had come up during inopportune times, but he usually never joined in on it unless he was correcting someone on tactical detail or leaving a dry, taciturn comment just to remind the troops he was there.

Through such self-silence and diligent listening did he learn that Haven had spent all the income he earned from his service into charities, Crowe once had a Sandile, Covey had published some of his more risqué stories under a fake name in a Goldenrod newspaper to some success, and that Mikita had been theorized to have been a genetically engineered soldier among other things according to those not familiar with the man.

Of course as most small town rumors and gossip go, most end up as fake, over exaggerated, and in one way or another wrong.

Mikita didn't think most of the serums and shots they gave 2319 could be considered genetic engineering anyway, especially with what the genetic engineering scheme he had got himself caught up with now.

Still, it was hard to believe he was in it all, at the center of it, with what Apollo mouthing off and bragging to Mikita about a Linoone he had been well acquainted with in the area they were passing through.

It was helpful though, keeping his mind off the topic of Nazis, Giovanni, and Native Americans. That's how soldiers work after all… the 'good' ones at least: out of sight out of mind.

Mikita had become used to the Jesus pose which he had memorized after years of seeing it on Marx's bible (and quite frankly Apollo could've needed the lord and savior in that moment).

The reason for this was that it kept his arms fairly outstretched, rifle rather non-threateningly shown to the world and his palms mostly open, as if no threat. He assumed this pose when he hadn't been running to keep up with Apollo, who had no trouble sprinting in the trees despite his jabbering. When he was running one hand had wrapped around the guard of the FAL as if it had been a lance instead of a rifle, the other at his hip, around the handle of the Nazi stiletto.

"You know there's a word for you in English." Mikita had commentated, going under a tree which had fallen over and found leverage on another of the thousand trunks that came from the ground in Guyana, Apollo using the ramp it provided to jump down in front of Mikita, a sign which usually meant he was listening intently. Of course this had Mikita stop in the shade of the tilted tree trunk, the sound of running water very noticeable above the usual bustle of the jungle.

"Cool?" Apollo hoped for.

"Player."

Apollo held his paws at his hips at that, cheeks blown up with air as he store at Mikita incredulously.

Mikita had poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue as he had held his usual low gaze at Apollo, not entirely understanding that Apollo didn't know what that meant. His tone had hinted toward the distaste he associated with the word however.

"Hey," Apollo had pulled Mikita out of his daze, sensing that Mikita was about to fall into a memory again. Mikita had shuffled his feet back at this, almost going back to a memory of Covey and a bar fight in Jordan, surprised that Apollo knew what was going to happen. "I love my family, you know, but I can't stand them most days. Thank the fathers I'm a raider, even then I don't get enough time out of the house."

The Pikachu blew out a breath, a soft chuckle at that. "It helps to associate with the rest of the crowd." He threw his arms up to the trees, to all of Guyana, putting an odd tone on the word associate.

"It helps with all sorts of things you know, getting word on who's going where, what's being moved, how a few of the other clans are doing… You know, those regular day to day things that really help out against our crazy, genocidal fathers…. Being a player's a good thing, right?"

"You and your questions, Apollo." Mikita had said, drearily, rifle in the dirt, arm against the bark. Eyes scanned the forest, looking for Pokémon that he had no right knowing of, and no right being a threat to.

The original purpose of the UNGA, the one he followed despite all the changes in doctrine caused by time, the one which he stood by and expected to be protected by in his trial, was the one born of fire and monsters: 'The protection of the United Nations Government and its subsidiary nations from all threats, foreign and domestic, human and otherwise.'

"You know everyone else likes it when I talk, asides from Chief of course, and apparently you." It was understandable why the fact was. Apollo talked with such uppity aura it would make most people happy, his personality amiable when he wasn't under threat.

"Nah, I'm just not used to it, truthfully. Back home the only Pokémon that talk to me as openly as you were my own." Even then Mikita didn't imagine his Weavile or Staraptor went off on the town for some one night stands, even if they were the two more rambunctious of the group.

He didn't discipline his Pokémon, he just expected much out of them. In turn, they expected the same from him as their trainer. Through that they matured and learned in their journeys as opposed to the strict regiments of some trainers. This was Mikita's preferred style, twenty four years old and having matured on both sides of those two styles.

"It must suck to be them, seeing as you never say anything back." Apollo snidely guessed. Mikita responded in a snap.

"I can't say much about associating with the local girls as you do because I'm not like that."

"But you've done before, right? I'm sure a soldier like you gets around in every way."

Mikita had coughed out, somewhat flustered. "Wha-…Does it matter?"

"Well it helps me find out what kind of man you really are."

"I'm a loyal person, and I know where my loyalty is." It was what Mikita thought of himself anyway. Loyalty to causes, people, rules, himself. It was what defined him in his mind. Of course outside, to other people, it was his propensity for war. This Mikita didn't really like, but it helped him either way.

"Pfft, you sound like one of the Godfather's children, one of the lost ones." Dismissively Apollo threw some shade, Mikita barely taken aback.

"Well right now my loyalty is to you, alright, is that good enough?"

"Of course buddy." The word had made Mikita outstretch one arm down despite himself, palm open, to Apollo. He'd done it as if it was natural, and to be fair, it was; albeit he didn't think that second hand movement of his was able to be triggered by Apollo.

The Pikachu stared at his outstretched hand, the two frozen, Mikita not exactly sure what was happening, keeping the pose for what seemed like a full minute. Offering his form for Apollo was something Mikita had done before, but never explained. Pokémon in the central regions are more familiar with literal physical contact with humans, Apollo not used to touching humans at all in general if it hadn't been in an attack.

Slowly Mikita had rolled his hand back into a fist, but Apollo had jumped at it as the ex-trainer had thought he would at first.

Apollo was on the smaller side in terms of Pikachu, both to his own benefit and Mikita's, but the man wouldn't have felt it anyway across his well weathered, yet recently renewed, shoulders. Naturally they were the only place the Pikachu could've ended up, Apollo leaning against Mikita's head in a momentarily annoying push in the Pikachu's attempt to balance on the unfamiliar man's shoulder.

An eyebrow was raised as Mikita's medical side took in the peripheral view of Apollo, the faded flesh underneath rather well taken care of fur something that eluded Mikita thus far.

A lock of Mikita's hair had momentarily been tugged, but after that, Apollo found his foothold.

"Just the right size?" Mikita said quietly. Some wave of familiarity, comfyness, was had with Apollo's presence on his shoulder.

"Ah, good enough."

The ex-soldier felt like a trainer again in that moment. He was surprised he even remembered it; that he didn't discard the memory of that feeling for something else that was related to his service.

"You seem like the type that likes to ride on the backs of other people."

Apollo snickered, finding it easier to hang onto Mikita's shoulder than it was to stand on them, finding foothold on a few straps that were tight against his combat vest. "In every way Micky." he said, his chin on his shoulder, his tongue halfway out.

Apollo's paw had pointed forward, Mikita seeing it, ushering him forward.

"Just keep heading straight, alright? You'll see one of my friends waiting for us there to take us down river to the Esquibo." Apollo had ordered, yawning at the end of it.

"You keep a good pace, you know that?" Apollo had droned on, Mikita taking the orders and walking forward into the brush once again, taking a quick sip at the straw from the hydration pack that came out from one of his vest. The Dreamwater had quite a steely taste to it, after he had gotten used to it had he really noticed, however the taste only came after the cooling and jolting properties of it.

The effects of it after his baptism had a much less noticeable effect on it, but the shock of coolness that came from the water seemed to run all the way up to the tips of his hair which Apollo was running his paws through in curiosity. Mikita's pony tail was a nice distraction to the dozing Pikachu.

"I've been trained to." Mikita had said blankly minutes later as if he thought Apollo deserved an explanation. Sure the water had something to do with it, but he was special before that.

"I can't imagine that you've been trained to walk hard. Would seem kinda silly to you, huh?"

"Eh, well, that came with everything else they made me into."

"They?"

Sand had crunched beneath Mikita's feet, mixed with the brown dirt. The forest had been good at covering his field of view at least five feet in front of him, their first river now just in front of them all of the sudden as hinted by the sound of rushing water.

When Mikita had stopped the change in scenery he had noticed that out of the water came a Feraligatr, a certain spot on his chest coming to throb, even if the wound was no longer there.

Apollo squeezed the shoulder he was on as he felt Mikita's arm tighten around his weapon.

The Feraligatr had looked at Mikita in anger at first, its own claws opening up and jaws opening wide. Apollo shot a string of his language out at the towering beast, one so fast that Mikita could barely decipher it.

That one time he fought a Feraligatr was his only time, and Apollo kept that true.

Even as a trainer he had never seen one, the Totadiles thinning out in much of the world bar Johto. As a soldier however was a different matter. That scar in the dead center of his chest done by his own blade in a tussle with such a Pokémon seemed to come back, despite the fact it had washed away like most of his other scars.

It towered over him, weathered, skin rough and dirty having arisen from the deep of the brownish river, its fangs well used.

Mikita outstretched both of his arms, Apollo standing on one as some sort of negotiation took place. The ex-soldier was very aware that he had killed one of the Totodile line days earlier, what seemed like a century ago to him, however as Apollo talked of the lost ones, he knew that they were lost not only to the Landwalkers, but to all the forest.

They didn't mind him killing their fallen kin, Mikita hoped.

"This lovely lady ferries us up and down the river, she's not used to transporting humans though." Apollo explained as the Feraligatr approached. "She absolutely hates humans you know. The Godfathers kidnapped her son a long time ago, traded him off to the pirates to the big blue to the North."

Mikita's mouth had dried up, his voice creaking as the Feraligatr stood toe to toe with him, Apollo and him in her shadow.

"I'm sorry for your loss…" If there a coincidence hidden in that meeting, Mikita had fully taken it on in his head. If he had died then and there because of this mother Feraligatr, he'd be okay with it to some extent.

There was a mission to complete however, a war he was waging that was hurting for troops.

The Feraligatr looked at him in scorn, but her tail had been dragging a raft along in the sand.

"My people got ahead to contact her before we got here, made sure we could get something for you instead of you riding on her back." Apollo had stated thoughtfully, albeit cheekily as if Mikita owed him. If he had been more of a smartass in their time together he might've just swam downstream on his own.

The Feraligatr kept on looking at Mikita with a personal hatred, one that would boil over into hell if he had known what he had done, if what he had thought he had done to her actually was.

Still, Mikita had sort of liked it:

Blame him because of what he had done, as opposed to broadly define him of who he was on face value. It's what he had thought right, masochist as he was.

The Pokémon and the man held a gaze, feral eyes had met silver, and only after asserting a certain dominance over the man did the Feraligatr regard Apollo again with a short nod.

"…Quite a tension you two got there?"

Mikita had only responded with a rough shake of the shoulder Apollo was on.


The raft had been more designed for cargo the Landwalkers would carry back and forth in their scavenging runs, enough floatation in its carved and twined wooden construction for a single, fully combat loaded man and the Pikachu which had proudly been calling himself his the man's guide in that horrible forest forgotten by the world at large.

So Mikita had sat like he had when fishing with his mother, the profession that brought her ancestor's to Hoenn sticking down the line.

Now however, instead of a fishing pole he had a shotgun.

His father had descended from Slavic hunters that were in Japan on some trip of good faith with the East Bloc and the then still recovering island nation, tasked with dealing with some pest problems near Nagasaki: an unrealized omen for Pokémon nearly a century early.

His mother's and father's blood ran through his veins and he knew it proudly.

The thought of his mother had made him uneasy in the presence of one, the Feraligatr at the back of the raft and holding onto it with its two claws, swimming as if it was its rudder in the rather curvy line of the river.

The Feraligatr he found in Afghanistan in that old palace was probably just confused, scared, beaten, forced to kill by those Afghanis who bought it from the traders that had bought it from some far traveled pirate.

Instead of help it, Mikita had ordered to kill it, following in line with the invasive species rule of the UNGA combat doctrine and the UNG ecological treaties.

How would his own mother think of having her boy sent away to some far away land to kill or be killed against their will?

Mikita didn't know because he never got to talk that deep with his mother in the sparse times he had called back. Didn't want to burden her any more than he already had.

Still, he always told her that he loved her, and he missed her; missed fishing with her on the river north of Fortree, and he had meant it.

He had hoped that the Feraligatr here in Guyana, whose son had been torn away from her by their Godfathers and sold half way across the world, had known that he loved her to allow some of her heart to rest from the cruelest of fates.

Judging by her aura however, that wasn't so.

"Mikita?" Apollo saw Mikita's head tip one way drowsily, his mouth frowning a bit. There was always some sort of click that Apollo had been attentive of, that slight twitch in his usual demeanor that meant that he had been thinking of something in his past and his being would be sent back into it.

Apollo lived for the now, and as far as he was concerned Mikita rolled the way he did in their travels.

Mikita came back out with that same shock as the first time Apollo pulled him out, having just avoided a flashback to a discussion about Covey's gang member parents.

"Ahh…. Huh?"

"You alright there buddy?" Apollo asked sincerely, still having not left Mikita's shoulder despite the space they had on the softly bobbing raft.

Mikita chewed the inside of his cheek before he answered, tinkering with one of his pistols idly as he saw a shake in the forest that had seemed to be following them throughout their path.

It had all just been 'My mind playing tricks on me.' Mikita had reasoned, twirling the metal gun in his hand to occupy his body as his mind tried to give Apollo an answer.

"Just depressed, I guess, knowing her story." Mikita angled the hand that wasn't slowly shifting the pistol playfully toward the Feraligatr.

Vermillion Academy had been a school despite how hard they pummeled the students, and as such the mandatory 'talent' show that Mikita had to amuse some of his teachers with during one year was gun spinning. His fingers had always been more accurate than other people's, his hands more at work than most.

Apollo's ears drooped slightly, his body tightening around Mikita's armor clad shoulder a bit tighter.

"We all have sob stories Micky. Even me."

"Yeah, I know, they…. 'told' me." Apollo picked up the hesitation on the word told as Mikita talked, his cheeks sparking a bit with the privacy invasion. Apollo never knew his parents, and that was a fate which Mikita had seen played out with many war orphans. It was a horrible fate at that, however one that he wasn't unfamiliar with.

"Whenever a psychic Pokémon looks into someone's mind, they have to open theirs as well. It wasn't the first time that has happened to me so some part of my natural curiosity had grabbed some choice pieces of information." Mikita had laid the gun down flat on the raft, a palm now covering his face in self-disgust. "I see only pieces of their life, only because I kept myself from also exploiting them as they did me."

"You showed restraint?" Apollo had said, almost hopefully for his own sake.

Mikita nodded once, remembering how that psychic connection had changed him the most at the Academy had told him to not show restraint.

"You Pokémon open up dark places in the minds of men."

"So what were you like then, before that happened to you for the first time?"

"They didn't tell you?"

"No… They said they couldn't… Probably they were just being greedy with me."

"You don't need to know my past, don't need to know how I felt in those times. I barely take it from day to day."

"Then why do you always look like you're going back to it in that damned head of yours?"

"Because I became who I am today back then, everything I know and do is because of what happened in my past. Even if I try to run away from it, I always end up repeating my mistakes." It came out fast, his English falling away and becoming the Slavic he had tried to hide. All his mistakes led him back to where he started, out of the service it only validated itself less than a week out, taking up a job as a mercenary in that contract that led him here.

It all sounded like a fairy tale his mother used to tell him as a child about a Russian man who couldn't die, despite people's many attempts. No matter how many times people tried or how hard they attempted, that one deathless man wouldn't die in that endless cycles of retaliation and action.

That's how destiny works of course: In endless repetitions, of weary men and women walking the same story over and over again until their tale scars the Earth and become a part of time itself, rising up from history and repeating their lines each time without fail. For history always repeated, and Mikita had no intention of tripping that balance of sacred cycles.

"One day this war's gonna end." Mikita recalled the words of one sergeant in Vietnam, Operation Fortune Soul giving way to a prolonged conflict into South Vietnam promptly called the Vietnam War. The UNGA's first formal war since the Pokémon Crisis.

The man sounded sad as he mouthed off to Mikita once during a patrol, the lieutenant knew better of course: another war would rise in its place in due time. If not that the men who craved war and conflict would find or create another one, a personal one to feed their darkest intentions in a world damned by soldiers and monsters.

Apollo cleared his throat, his paws constantly feeling up Mikita's pony tail. "Live for today. It's what I do, tomorrow's gone and yesterday is already behind us. Besides, the fight for that future is waged right now, ain't it?"

Mikita had raised one eyebrow toward Apollo, his hand reaching around himself and grabbing him by the back gently. It was a handful, but he could've held Apollo in one hand. There was a reason why Mikita had grabbed Apollo like that however, his thumb and index finger pinching the back of his neck, imitating how a mother Raichu picks up a Pichu with its mouth or paw to tell them to calm down.

It paralyzed Apollo in a way he never experienced before, for he never had a mother to do that to him.

"You don't seem like the type of person that I'd hear that from Apollo."

Apollo tried shrugging, "I read books… One of my deepest darkest secrets there."

The Feraligatr had laughed at this underwater, the churning of bubbles and the flutter of its eyes trying their best to be hidden from Apollo.

"Yeah? What kind of books?"

"Books with words in them."

Mikita's own eyes had fluttered for a second, his brain trying to process what Apollo just said amongst the rhythm of the river. Apollo had double checked what he had just said in his mind, spurting out another answer as he realized how silly he sounded.

"Books that teach me."

Mikita had mouthed a single word in Russian, Apollo recognizing it as 'Better'.

"Teach me about words, the before times, our fathers. Things like that. It seemed like a waste to just use those books as fire starting material… You look like you read books a lot, right? You're so into the past you must read old books where you've traveled."

Mikita shook his head in the negative, finally letting go of Apollo onto his back on the raft. The Pikachu put both his paws behind his arms, sunbathing, keeping his eyes lock on Mikita's.

Mikita had taken a single candy bar from his pack and broke it into three pieces before taking advantage of the gracious leg space, he figuring that laying on his back would also decrease his profile on the apparently traffic heavy waterway.

If the UNGA had done something right with military research and development, it was the food designed for troops in the field, the chocolate bar an ample nutritional boost; albeit a tasty one Mikita noted as he devoured his piece.

"I don't read," he handed Apollo one piece to the Pikachu's amazement, quite frankly it being half the size of his head. Still, Apollo always tried anything once, nibbling away at the jagged chocolate block. "Before I became a soldier, I spent a long, long time in the books for my education."

"Education?" Apollo said with full cheeks presumably, the two simply sky gazing now, heads unturned.

"Where I come from, everyone has to spend the first few years of their life learning about the world. I'm not special."

"Did you learn how to be a soldier then?"

"No, not then, I learned to be a soldier later, only ten years ago or so."

"You're old."

"I'm only twenty four." Even after all those years he still couldn't believe his ears: He had lived to be twenty four, even as an officer with his career. To others they couldn't believe such a young man could carry the burdens he did.

"That's what we call old here."

"You're about the same age as me comparatively, minus five years or so."

"You walk like you're a hundred though." Apollo wouldn't fully acknowledge that fully, appreciate it, however the psychic Pokémon did inadvertently. The pain Mikita carried around was so intense it seemed bigger than him, older than he was: betrayed by his country, even after he had to dehumanize himself in their name. It was a scar brought upon by not being given what he was owed.

Apollo's comment hung in the air as the two stared out at the blue, tropic sky, Mikita's rifle and shotgun suddenly very present on his form, almost as if dragging him down to the Earth, ripping his soul from his body. He had almost squished the final piece of chocolate in his palms as he felt his lungs and heart turn cold, the last piece a thanks to the Feraligatr if he ever got the chance.

"Yeah and you walk like a child." Mikita didn't know why he responded like it was an insult, for it probably was true, however he had been due to snap at Apollo with all of his quips.

"Awww, Micky, I'm insulted." Apollo teased sarcastically. Goodheartedly Mikita had only reached one hand down at rubbed Apollo's tuff of fur with it, but not before letting out a heavy breath of weariness. "Trust me, if you want to hurt me with words, you're going to have to do better than that."

The Pikachu had tried his best to lean into the head pat despite the fact they were on their backs; Mikita's well calibrated fingers rubbing circles in places on the Pikachu's scalp he never knew existed.

"I don't want to hurt you. Any hurt comes your way, I'll try to soak up what I can. It's what soldiers are for."

Apollo picked his head up. The purpose of soldiers seemed to be anything but that if how the Valks treated him were anything to go off of. They were soldiers, good ones apparently if Mikita had to be discharged for standing against them, so who was he to believe?

"I thought you weren't a soldier anymore."

Mikita's cold heart reared its head, the heart that had relegated him to fighting this war in the hopes of a new life, or to end his current one. "Soldier of fortune, more like it honestly."

"If you don't like being a soldier, why can't you just quit?"

"It's not that I don't like it Apollo, it's just… You just…" Mikita rubbed his dog tags, seeking some comfort. "If the Godfathers left, disappeared one day forever, would you go back to some sort of normal? To just picking berries and bathing in the sun all day? Or would you keep hunting the forest, looking for something new to fight?"

It was a valid question, however to be fair Mikita hadn't even gone a few weeks without killing something to see if he could've made it through those 'withdrawals' that called him to action with a contract made with a man in black.

"What would I do?" Apollo asked himself, echoing Mikita, a paw on his chin. "I guess I'd keep reading books and looking good."

A simple life that Mikita would like, however knew he could never achieve. Apollo didn't get the point however.

People don't return to normal after fighting becomes their normal. It's never as simple as it feels like it would be, Mikita knows from those in Delta he carried out into becoming a civilian. Often times those troopers had their youth, but not their health (physical or otherwise), pleading with Mikita to fix them as the medic, however the wounds they had were deeper than bullets and bones.

The silence dragged on, a comfortable, if not tense one, their progress down river efficient enough for Mikita to close his eyes and rest his weary head, an arm around a gun.

Apollo missed the point probably because as Mikita thought he was born insane, so when he was picked up as an orphan he was prepared for all the fighting against the Godfathers.

"You wanna keep learning?" Mikita said quietly.

"Da." Apollo responded. At least he had gotten yes and no right. Next was to see if he could get his rights and wrongs.


The new Sergeant Trainer was one of the first on site when the Major General returned, his arm almost torn form its socket from holding onto his steel bird for hours on end as they flew back to Wellington. He wasn't the only one of course, Cortex, the Valks on station, and quite a few Godfathers coming out to the tarmac, wondering why the Major General look burnt; wondering why he came back alone.

"Major General!" One of the men from the air control tower had yelled out from the balcony, both in surprise and to start a question. He was another one of the radio men, off the field, but on tabs with everyman who was. Perhaps more importantly, they were their links with the rest of the UNG and the UNGA.

So it was important when he stated something other than the fact the platoon Karabin followed out in the hunt was KIA according to their transponders.

"UNGA High Command has declared a full disavow protocol for us. We never existed and we will not exist for the next few months." It wasn't the first time that happened, but it couldn't have happened at the worst time.

They never existed like Area 51 did for the Americans; never existed like political opponents to Stalin to the Russians; never existed like the camps from a Germany long ago to Karabin and his followers.

Karabin wasn't in any mood to listen however, the message being yelled out to him as his Skamory just began to settle down on the ground.

The beaten Aryan collapsed on one arm, the other now almost useless due to the strain sustained. The Valks had acted as they were taught, locking back their weapons and forming a protective barrier around their General.

The Godfathers acted likewise with their new weapons.

The partnership was barely considered one. The enemy of my enemy was your friend, as the saying goes. Perhaps it played in Mikita's favor that this holy trinity was anything but holy.

Despite the ramifications of what the radio operator just shouted out, Karabin didn't hear it, still gasping for air as his steel bird also collapsed beside him.

The Sergeant had gone for the bird first.

"What the hell are you doing Sergeant?!" Karabin yelled at him, his arm being grasped by Karabin's well hardened palms in anger. "Don't worry about the bird."

The Skarmory had been used to the treatment supposedly, it not even looking at the Sergeant despite his urgency to help her. The Sergeant hesitated at first, this instinct to not help a hurt Pokémon eating away at him as timed slowed, however orders were orders.

"What happened sir?" The Sergeant hopped over his Major General, picking him up on his good side, some of the metal on his combat uniform charred, some of his ribbons gone and torched.

"Put out a god damn fucking APB in all of the UNG!" Karabin yelled out as he was hoisted up by his new sergeant, another Valk picking him up on the other side.

"I know who the soldier is! That damned unknown soldier!" The Major General was hysterical, screaming to God and the Godfathers around him. "That Slavic piece of shit! That god damn subhuman rat!"

The Sergeant's heart sunk into his stomach. There was only one subhuman Slav he ever knew; one that had once again stood up against Karabin despite death staring him in the face. He threw away that thought though, the implausibility of the person who had killed Karabin and Cortex's men also being the same as the Sergeant's old XO too high to assume.

"Sir!" The radioman on the tower yelled out, above the crowd. "You don't understand! The UNGA has disavowed our existence again! We can't! We're cut off!"

"Who?!" Another Valk yelled out, more interested in knowing who had done this to their commander, everyone lowering their weapons, even Cortex listening in with a smug look on his eyeless face as if he was right. Karabin yelled to the heavens though, as if it was an answer, blacking out in his fit of frustration.

Cortex had pushed forward in that moment, face to face with the unconscious General, his hand engulfed with what looked like a blue flame that the Sergeant immediately recognized.

The Valk who had helped hoist the Major General up on his bad side had gone for his pistol, however the Sergeant yelled out before it was drawn.

The aura which Cortex relied for with sight had been wielded all the same by him easily, the blue life force in his hand spreading out to the Major General's head as the man gripped his neck.

"He'll live." The aura was short out as he turned away, the Godfathers and their sons and daughters who had accumulated standing at attention, the Angels recognizing this enough to carry Karabin away for medical treatment. The Sergeant had called out his Espeon, it knowing to naturally tend to the Skarmory, it using its telekinesis to cradle the bird to a medic.

Dreamstone had still been hanging around in the metal box around Cortex's wrist. In a way however, Dreamstone wasn't the priority for them at the moment.

The urge to kill a man, all for revenge, can sometimes supersede death and all other sensible goals. In this case these goals were racial domination, the execution of all Pokémon from the Earth via research gained from Dreamstone, and the conquest of Guyana for all that it was worth.

Proton and Petrel had danced their dance and bought Mikita more time, even if it was up in the air to Rocket if he was alive or not. All they had was that one beep from the PokéNav sending out one SOS.

Archer meant to follow that echo with Arcane Team.

The Angels and the Godfathers intended to follow the trail of bodies, left behind by an ex-lieutenant that Karabin had now regretted not shooting in his jail cell on the spot when he declined his offer to become an angel of war for the new age. They intended to rectify Karabin's mistake; underestimating a Slavic piece of shit of his pedigree.

The Godfathers had their brothers and children to avenge as well.

"We will run these rivers red with the blood of this bastard when our blood is renewed from your First Brother!" Cortex shouted, Dreamstone in the air. It was their main advantage over this one soldier, as a hostage, and as weapon. The children of the Godfathers knew what it was after seeing one of their Blaziken kin transform into a form they wanted to immediately advantage of. They would all be reborn from the First Child again.

Their Angels of War had failed, and now it was time to go all in.

"We will finally kill this Devil!"

Five hundred to one were odds that seemed to disproportionate in any context. However that was assuming it was a one man war.

It was always more than that however, more at stake than the lives of a man looking to die and the ascension of a race and species.

This was a war that didn't just include man anymore. Not ever since 1962 had there ever been a war of man and man alone.

The Godfathers and their children roared up in thunderous chanting, in beat with Cortex and his yell. The Valks had their own form of controlled chaos going, but they all watched as they dragged their Fuehrer away, getting ready for combat operations, officially cut loose by the UNGA and ready to do things they would never be held accounted for.

Their only way out of Guyana was via a UNGA ship inbound to Guyana for further 'investigation' efforts toward the Rocket camp, but that would never transpire with the Valks being written off as non-existent.

They were stuck in the region unless another tragedy worthy of public note happened.

Upwards of twenty Valks had now been dead in the region, almost triple that amount in Godfathers and Pokémon because of this unknown soldier, this Devil as the Godfathers had propagated in their late night stories to their children, having spread across the forest promptly.

Blood spilled, and as Cortex had put it, could be repaid only by blood given in that perpetual spiral of conflict that was a part of human nature.

Mikita had a lot of blood to give, but not his own. He had always killed in the name of the UNG and the UNGA. Now however, a trend started barely a month ago, he would kill in his name and the blood of Angels would be at his feet.

If gods and angels would not save him, he would not return the favor.

The Valkyries would tend to their Major General first, eager to learn the name of their new found enemy. Deep down in his gut however, the recently transferred Sergeant Trainer had an idea of who that soldier was.

The Sergeant wanted to whisper it into the ear of his new CO as if to validate his request, however he'd been wise to not speak unless asked or requested recently.

He, and especially his Espeon, would be looking forward to that hunt if he was correct in his assumption.


A/N: Flashback next. Last part of this chapter felt funky. Oh well. Also, stay safe Landwalker, I still got worldbuilding to do for you.