Chapter One- Kanto's Camp

Andrew

Wesley had a girl back home to go back to, he said. He wrote her letters everyday. I frankly found myself jealous. He had something worth fighting for. He showed me a picture of her. She was a gem. In the picture she was next to him, his poliwag was sitting comfortably next to her eevee, and his arm was draped over her shoulder. He held out the camera and took a picture of the four of them, looking completely happy and carefree. Wesley told me he took this picture of the four of them on her twentieth birthday. He said her name was Ava.

I had a girl like that, once. She was strong, though she said few words. She was a foreign girl, a journalist, and just happened to be in the wrong place when the war broke out. The locals would not stand the enemy, a girl from Unova, being anywhere near them, so she was sent away. "What'cha thinkin' about, Andrew?"

Wesley looked up from his paper and saw me looking absently at my growlithe's pokeball. According to Wesley, I have a thinking face.

I shake my head, embarrassed to tell him I was jealous of his relationship with Ava and how much I miss my relationship with... "It's nothing, Wes. I'm just tired."

Wes nodded. "I understand. Training was brutal today."

"At least you can shoot a gun correctly." Wesley seemed like the perfect solider compared to myself. He could run, fight, control the his pokemon, shoot a gun...

Wesley rolled his eyes. "Hey, Andrew, it's just a gun. I doubt the war will be going on long enough for us to even use one. I give it to the end of the week, end of the month if you want to stretch it."

I shrug. "I don't know... A war this bad hasn't broken out since AZ was king of Kalos, or Sir Aaron was alive..."

"Call out your growlithe." I was taken aback by Wesley's sudden demand to call out my pokemon, but I did as he said. As I called out my growlithe, he called out his poliwhirl. His poliwag had recently evolved. No longer did it look like an awkward, clumsy, tadpole, but a pokemon that could actually cause real damage in a fight. Beside it, my growlithe that I received the day I enlisted looked inadequate for battle. Still, the striped fire dog accepted me as its trainer and proved to be a formidable battler when it tried.

"Alright, what do you want me to do?"

Wesley got a smug smile on his face. "Why don't we battle?"

I looked at him horrified. Wasn't there enough fighting? Why would he want us and our pokemon to suffer more? The combined forces of the Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos regions made this war so terrible. Wesley must have seen the shocked look on my face. He gave me a grin. "We are not going to fight, Andrew. It's a battle, like the ones we would hear on the radio as kids. We wouldn't try to hurt or scar one another; we would just try to raise their level and our experience."

I shook my head once more. "Isn't that breaking the rules of the camp?"

"The commander said no fighting. This isn't a fight. This is a battle. We would raise our morale, our experience and our pokemon's levels."

I sighed and took a look at my growlithe. The fire in the pokemon's eyes burned bright. 'I want to battle,' it seemed to say. 'I want to get stronger and help you win the war.' I nodded back to the pokemon and looked at Wesley.

"Fine then," I said, "let's battle."

He wasted no time in starting the battle. "Poliwhirl, use water gun!"

Knowing from common sense that fire was weak to water, I willed my growlithe to dodge the attack, but it hit him directly in the face. Growlithe seemed to have taken damage, but was still standing on his feet. "Use bite, growlithe!" I called. He wasted no time in running to his opponent and clamping his sharp teeth into the water pokemon.

"Use water gun, again!"

I was more ready this time and I felt confident with my orders. "Dodge it with a tackle!"

He moved out of the line of fire for the water attack and hit poliwhirl head on. Both pokemon looked tired, and it was apparent that whoever landed the next attack would be the winner. We called out our moves simultaneously.

"Use water gun!"

"Use tackle!"

"Stop!" We both looked up and our pokemon stopped in their tracks, poliwhirl letting a small stream of water go and growlithe skidding to a stop. There stood the commander of our troop in the Kanto army. By his side, a mighty charizard stood. Rumor had it that the charizard had won a battle without the assistance of anyone but his trainer. The commander was similar to charizard; he was intimidating and struck fear into the hearts of those who dared get in his way. I could tell Wesley and I were in trouble by the way the commander looked at us through his impossibly amber eyes. "Is this some kind of joke to you? Do you think pitting your pokemon against one another, forcing them to fight, will help anyone?"

I looked down at my shoes and said nothing. Growlithe walked over to me and rubbed his head on my leg as to comfort me. Wesley, on the other hand, did no such thing. It was as if my fellow solider could not be intimidated. "We were not fighting, Commander. We were battling. We were trying to raise our pokemon's level."

The commander narrowed his eyes at Wesley. "What's your name, solider?"

Wesley didn't blink as the larger man stared him down. "Wesley Weber, sir."

"You and your poliwhirl, drop and give me fifty." Wesley and his water type did as they were told, doing fifty pushups like it was nothing to them, not breaking a sweat. When they were finished the commander looked at me. "Son, battling is no way to train a pokemon. It's brutal business. You look like a good kid. I don't want to see you get into any more trouble -you or your growlithe. Understand?"

I have a hard time looking up from my shoes. "Y-yes s-sir."

The commander was satisfied with my answer and looked at both me and Wesley again. "The both of you go to bed. It's late."

"Yes sir," we both said, and we went to bed in our tent.

We reluctantly headed to our cots and I attempted to return growlithe to his pokeball. He moved to the side, not letting the red light engulf him. "What is it, growlithe?" The fire type never refused to be called back into his ball. Without making a noise, he leapt up onto the cot with me and huddled beside me, acting as a protector. We went off to battle in a few days. I was nervous. Every time I got into my cot I would remember I was one sleep closer to being in the front lines of war. The soft fur of growlithe comforted me. "Thank you," I whispered to him. He gave a low, kind growl in response. Perhaps it was possible growlithe was scared too.

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With Love,

Juliet