Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Pokémon.
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Last time on The Rise of Chaos: After having established the fundamental rules of his new army, Naruto took on the massive challenge of training it into an effective fighting force. Meanwhile, while the training sessions were underway, the organization, now identified as CHAOS, began to march into Almia in the far east.
A full year passed by and with Almia fully captured by the Chaos forces, Naruto finally put his army into action.
Brock, under the codename Takeshi, was placed in charge of a division of 15,000 soldiers and ordered to secure the Orre region in the west. Misty, under the codename Kasumi, was placed in charge of a brigade of 5,000 soldiers and ordered to secure the Johto region.
And finally, Ash, under the codename Satoshi, was placed in charge of a corps of soldiers 20,000 strong and ordered to capture as much of the Fiore region as he could before the CHAOS troops arrive. Naruto also assigned himself the task of backtracking through the Kanto region to gather up the rest of the recruits.
With the orders given and the entire army primed and ready for contact with their enemy, each of the four friends went their separate ways connected only by Pokégears and three shadow clones.
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"I don't know what I've been told!"
~ I don't know what I've been told! ~
"Chaos members are mighty bold!"
~ Chaos members are mighty bold! ~
"They don't know what they got into!"
~ They don't know what they got into! ~
"When we find them we'll run them through!"
~ When we find them we'll run them through! ~
"And to their cave they'll run back to!"
~ And to their cave they'll run back to! ~
Ash chuckled heartily after his last line, flashing through the tree line with breakneck speed and an army of 20,000 following him.
Naruto had already informed the entire army of his new rule, restricting the release of gravity seals during travel to ensure no one is left behind. His reasoning also dealt with the army's maintenance of energy. They would be no use in battle if they wasted all their energy trying to get there and the restriction played some part in preventing that from happening.
So, while their speed of travel was still blindingly fast, it wasn't particularly exhausting and it would last a while. So, naturally, Ash had to find a way to pass the time.
"How much longer do your think it will take before we enter the Fiore region?" Katsuo asked before throwing himself into a needless font flip.
They had been traveling from ten in the morning to seven at night with only one, one-hour break for lunch each day for the past week. And, it was only right before their lunch break today that they exited a rather large lowland area.
Sending out an aura pulse to scan the surrounding area, Ash began to withdraw a Pokégear from one of the pockets of his trench coat when an additional, distinctly feminine, voice made the action unnecessary.
"As it is, since we're traveling along the coast, we're about a fourth of the way to the Kisara Plains. And, from there it's about an hour's travel to our first destination."
"Ring Town." Ash said, drawing an inquisitive glance from his female companion.
Her name was Michiko; one of the two brigadier generals Naruto had placed under Ash's command. They each were in charge of two separate brigades of Ash's corps, each 5,000 strong, while Katsuo had been placed in charge of a division of 10,000.
"Ring Town is to be our first stop in the Fiore region." Ash said, his eyes glued ahead as his thoughts began to wonder.
Denkou was in a similar position, only half-conscious as he rode on Ash's right shoulder nearest to Katsuo.
Michiko, priding herself in being exceptionally knowledgeable, blushed at having forgotten the name of their destination. She sharply turned her head to the left in an attempt to hide her embarrassment, only for it to be heightened when she realized she was already wearing a mask.
She wasn't able to chastise herself for long, however, as Katsuo's voice broke her from her musings.
"Why are we following the coast anyway?" Katsuo asked, a far away look in his eyes.
"Navigation." Michiko said hastily in an attempt to mentally redeem herself for her previous shortcoming.
"Navigation?" Katsuo asked, swiveling his head to face Michiko, having been shocked out of his contemplative state by the quickness of her answer.
"Yes, navigation. Because we will be traveling though an untamed forest for the majority of the trip with no roads or major landmarks to guide us and because we cannot precisely locate our current position on the Pokégear's global map at all times, following the coastline is the easiest and most reliable method of travel." (1)
"I see." Katsuo said idly, his eyes losing focus once more after his mind had successfully absorbed Michiko's explanation. "So then how would a normal citizen of Kanto have traveled to the Fiore region, because I'm certain the route we're taking wouldn't be a viable option and it's not like the Fiore region or even the Orre region are not frequently visited. I know each of them have been vacationer hotspots during local Pokémon tournaments."
"Well, boat travel is the first method that comes to mind." Michiko said, straining to combat the new intellectual challenge. "All of the major regions on the globe are connected by the ocean and I suppose there is also the possibility of air travel."
"Makes sense." Katsuo said, suddenly focusing once more and scrunching his face up in concentration. "Wait, so then why didn't we use either of those methods. I mean, I'm sure their quite a bit faster than running."
"Cost for one." Ash said when Michiko remained silent, drawing both of their attention. "Because we don't yet have an air force or a navy, we would have to pay for and use machinery meant for public transportation. Not only would it cost a fortune to ship 20,000 people this way, but it would also inconvenience the general public."
"Okay, I understand the "inconvenience the general public" part." Katsuo said, failing to fight back the urge to use air quotes. "But, doesn't it also cost a fortune to pay for all off the army's food, equipment, and hotel rooms? Money doesn't seem to have been an issue so far."
"That's true." Ash said. "But, as Naruto put it, it's money that would be much better spent elsewhere. Sure we may have all gotten there in about five or seven days depending on how many seats on a plane we would be able to book. But, with the money it took to do that, we could have began the production of an HQ, air force, navy, or all of the above."
"And, there's also the fact that Naruto wanted us to make sure that the route between Kanto and the Fiore region is clear of CHAOS presence." Ash concluded.
Michiko nodded at this, internally sulking at her lack of situational knowledge, but unwilling to let it remain unfilled. They really seemed to have thought of everything regarding this trip.
The trip continued in silence for the first time in a while, as Ash and Katsuo seemed to each be off in a world of their own.
It wasn't long before Michiko began to lose herself in the strangely rhythmic 'thunk' of the army's collective footfalls as they continued to systematically launch themselves through the thick forest canopy.
She idly grabbed a lock of her sleek black hair in-between her thumb and forefinger before she began to swirl them in a habitual motion. Twirling her hair around her index finger, Michiko gradually allowed her conscious to drift as the monotony of her actions failed to hold her interest.
"… What the hell kind of name is Ring Town anyway."
Katsuo's sudden outburst nearly caused Michiko to miss her next tree branch, as she was jolted back into consciousness.
"I know." Ash said, his previous look of patient contemplation fading into nonexistence as it was readily replaced by a look of childish exasperation. "I asked Naruto the same thing when we had the briefing. At first I assumed the town had some sort of connection with circuses, but apparently the cities in the Fiore region are based on the four seasons."
"So Ring Town is based off of spring?" Katsuo asked, with Michiko silently supporting his assumption. "Sounds kind of cheesy to me."
"Actually its probably the most creative out of the four." Ash said, raising four of his fingers to begin his countdown.
"Ring Town, Summerland, Wintown, and Fall City. I don't know about you guys, but Wintown sounds the worst to me." Ash said as Denkou nodded in agreement.
"Some people have no creativity." Katsuo said, shaking his head in mock sadness. "If I ever get to name something I'm going to name it something cool like Ultimate Slayer Ninja Shadow Apocalypse or Deadly Executioner of Galactic Awesomeness."
"What's the logic behind that?" Michiko deadpanned.
"All of those words are cool right? So that means if I put them all into one long title each word would only add to the title's awesomeness." Katsuo reasoned, speaking as though he were talking to a child.
"Makes perfect sense." Ash agreed, nodding sagely and causing Michiko to face plant on her next branch. "But, there is one problem."
"What's that?" Katsuo asked.
"Well while those names may be extremely awesome someone else is bound to have thought of them before." Ash reasoned. "And if the names aren't original then their awesomeness can be automatically disregarded."
"Your right." Katsuo said, placing a hand on his chin as he began to find a way around this new problem.
"I know. If we take out the spaces from each title and just make them one long word then they would be original."
"No, that wouldn't work." Ash sighed. "Someone else is bound to have already done that."
"We could take out the capital letters from each word and make the entire title lowercase."
"That's not very original." Ash said. "Instead we could chose letters at random and capitalize those while leaving the others lowercase."
"Yeah, and we could also add an awesome number at the end of it to add to the title's originality." Katsuo said. "How about, say… twenty-five."
"Twenty-five is a pretty awesome number." Ash said, while Pikachu nodded his consent. "But, we could make the title even more original and awesome by adding another twenty-five to the end of it."
"Genius." Katsuo said as he and Ash shared a midair high-five.
Meanwhile, Michiko's conscious thought had ceased as her mind attempted to prevent itself from exploding after being exposed to their brilliance.
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"Welcome to the army." Naruto said pleasantly as he dismissed his latest recruit.
Managing an army was no small task. After having sent Brock, Misty, and Ash off on each of their assignments a little over three weeks ago, he had scoured the Kanto region; releasing legions of shadow clones into each city and town he came across and replenishing those that had already existed.
He had been preforming similar tasks to those he had given the three shadow clones that he had sent to accompany Misty, Brock, and Ash. In fact, at this point, the shadow clone accompanying Misty was had already set up recruiting stations throughout half of the Johto region and filled each city with large amounts of shadow clones, each under the guise of a henge in order to act as workers and sources of income for the army.
Truly without his shadow clones or his massive aura reserves, the army would not have gotten off as fast as it did. But, the success defiantly came at a cost.
Having to split his time between analyzing the information collected by Ash, Misty, and Brock, monitoring the news, recruiting new members, training the new recruits, and training himself; Naruto was getting thoroughly exhausted.
Of course most of it was just customary at this point. Naruto didn't need to personally handle almost any of it. He could have his shadow clones do everything for him and just sit on his ass and the same amount of stuff would get done.
But, his morals wouldn't allow it. These recruits were putting their lives in his hands as soon as they signed their papers and he would be damned if he wasn't personally there to take and protect it.
Naruto wasn't dumb, nor was he impractical. He knew that someday soon he would no longer be able to micromanage his army and personally deal with tasks such as training and recruiting. Eventually he would have to leave those tasks solely to his shadow clones as he led the army in battle and took part in planning.
And, at some point, members of the army would replace his shadow clones in those matters, leaving them to be little more than spies and sources of income.
But, for now, that didn't need to happen and his morals could be satisfied.
And, while he was satisfying his morals, Pikachu and the rest of his pokémon were off training both themselves and the rest of the army's pokémon.
"Thank you for joining and have a nice day." Naruto said as the next recruit began heading towards his new hotel room.
"I haven't seen you guys in a while." Naruto said, focusing his gaze on a very distinct trio. "What have you been up to?"
"Many things twerp."
"Yeah, and getting fired is right up there at the top."
"That would explain the lack of uniforms." Naruto said, giving each of them a once over.
They looked oddly normal.
James was dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt, denim jeans, and tennis shoes; while Jessie was dressed in similar setup with a white shirt. Aside from James's blue hair, Jessie's strangely styled bright red hair, and Meowth's bipedal nature they could hardly be considered eccentric.
Of course, that's assuming you didn't take the time to talk to them.
"So you want to sign up in the army?"
"Now I know we may have got off on the wrong foot, but we really have a lot to offer." Jessie said, attempting to read into Naruto's apathetic gaze.
"Really?" Naruto asked, leaning forward in his seat and resting his elbows on the table like a true businessman. "Like what?"
"A motto." James said as each member of the trio instantly withdrew a sheet of paper from somewhere on their person.
"Anything el-"
"To protect the world from an organization."
"To unite all peoples against one nation."
"To denounce the evils of hate and corruption."
"To increase world safety in the face of disruption."
"Making CHAOS blast off at the speed of light."
"Surrender now or prepare to fight."
With their altered motto complete, the trio stared at Naruto expectantly, awaiting his judgement.
"Anything else?" Naruto asked, his calm expression unchanged.
"That wasn't enough for ya?" Meowth asked in disbelief.
"It might have been."
"Group meeting!" Jessie said, drawing her two partners into a hasty huddle.
"This kid is good." She whispered, stealing a quick side-glance at Naruto's patient visage.
"So, what do we do now?" James asked anxiously. "He doesn't look like he's satisfied."
"You can tell?" Meowth asked incredulously.
"Focus." Jessie said, giving both of them a heartily slap on the back. "We have no choice, but to go to plan B."
"But, plan B isn't very reliable." James said.
"Yeah, it might kill us." Meowth said.
"We have no choice, now do we." Jessie said, glaring at each of her companions who gulped in response.
Breaking the huddle, James hurriedly left the building as Jessie and Meowth approached Naruto once more.
"We have one more thing to offer you twerp." Jessie said, attempting too mask her nervousness with a look of distaste.
"And trust me it's a doozy." Meowth said.
"A doozy?"
Naruto's question was soon forgotten, however, as James once again entered the building. But, this time, he was armed with something that could only be described as some sort of cannon.
Lugging the massive lump of machinery on his right shoulder, the object soon became the subject of all conversation within the Pokémon Center and around it.
Taking his time to simply study the strange object, Naruto waited patiently as James slowly worked his way back towards the table. Despite his internal curiosity, he had a feeling an explanation whether or not he asked for it.
Unceremoniously depositing the cannon onto the table, Naruto reinforced the table's metal legs with aura when they began to bend under the object's weight.
Examining the large clump of welded metal plates in front of him, Naruto subconsciously took note of a few interesting aspects of the machine.
It had no handle or strap to make carrying it easy or practical in any way. There was no visible stand or platform it could be held on to compensate for the obvious kickback that came with firing it. There were large sloppy chunks carved out of each side of the metal plating directly behind the barrel. The metal was not smooth in anyway, it was not painted, and the welds that held the many metal plates together seemed quite sloppy.
Overall… it wasn't pretty.
"This is our cannon." Jessie said proudly.
"I can see that."
"Not yet ya can't." Meowth said pressing a large red button on bottom of the cannon. "We have to fire it first."
The machine roared to life and began to shake violently only moments after. The large metal repeatedly slammed against the table's granite surface in rapid succession, shaking the entire Pokémon Center and filling it with a terrible low pitched thumping sound that shook the eardrums of all present.
"Not in here." Naruto said seemingly unfazed by the display as he motioned for them to follow, while he began to head towards the entrance.
Pressing the button once more to turn the machine off, Jessie and Meowth began to follow leaving James to heft the bulky cannon onto his shoulder once again as he hastily attempted to catch up.
Plenty of gossip was left in his wake.
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"Aaaah!"
James grunted in exertion as he launched the cannon off his utterly exhausted shoulder. With his hands braced against his knees and sweat pouring down his face, James failed to hear the resounding 'thud' over the sound of his ragged breathing.
"This is our cannon." Jessie reiterated as she patted James on the back for a job well done, inadvertently causing him to lose all strength in his legs and collapse onto the ground in a heap.
Naruto nodded at the reintroduction, feeling a slight bit of pity for James as he lay panting on the ground, seemingly forgotten by his two teammates.
Pressing the big red button once more, the four watched as the machine was once again set in motion, thumping heartily against the soft soil of the clearing.
They were in one of the many artificial glades Naruto had created for the purpose training of his army. Eventually he wanted to have a building to conduct training in, but the glades would have to do for now.
When the machine had finally secured itself in an indentation of its own creation, Meowth began to yell over its continuous roar.
"To show ya how it works, we need you to create one of those little blue balls."
"Blue balls?" Naruto asked, having a good idea of what he was asking for.
"Yeah, the one that explodes." Meowth clarified, his face filled with utmost seriousness.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"Neither are we." James mumbled, receiving a swift kick from both Jessie and Meowth.
"We need ammunition for the cannon." Jessie explained.
"Why not use a cannonball?" Naruto asked. "Or anything else round for that matter."
Shaking their heads the negative, Jessie spoke once more.
"The cannon is only designed to use that blue ball as ammunition. Nothing else."
"How could you have possibly tested it without ammunition." Naruto asked, his face portraying only slight suspicion. "I am quite certain I am the only person alive that can make that blue ball."
Sharing a look of anxiety, the trio waved their arms in front of their faces in a disarming manner.
"That's not important." Meowth said hastily, looking to each of his partners for support.
"Sounds important." Naruto countered.
"Trust me boss. You're going to want to see this."
Resisting the instinctual urge to arm himself in some way, Naruto slowly turned his head to properly view his shadow clone.
"You're sure?" Naruto asked, his interest quite obviously peaked.
"Very sure." The clone responded, jumping down from his perch in the tree to stand by his creator.
Nodding in acceptance, it only took a split second for a textbook Rasengan to appear in Naruto's right hand. Awaiting further instructions, it wasn't long before the trio had directed him towards the front of the cannon.
Motioning for him to insert the ball into the barrel, Naruto had gotten the ball into position when he foresaw difficulties.
"I can't let go of it." Naruto said.
"Why not." Jessie asked, seemingly baffled by the sudden complication.
"If I do it will either break apart and explode or simply dissipate." Naruto said, beginning to withdraw his arm from its place in front of the barrel.
"Don't worry." The clone said reassuringly. "It won't be a problem."
Taking his clone's word for it. Naruto wordlessly reinserted his hand and released control of his technique.
Suppressing the urge to run and instead simply coating himself in a protective shield of aura, Naruto began to walk away.
Stopping alongside his clone and turning to face the cannon once more, an overwhelming feeling of "I told you so" settled over the two as they watched James cautiously approach the cannon.
"Come on James you can do it." His two companions cheered in unison as he reached to press a blue button marked with a sloppily drawn skull and crossbones.
"Why am I always chosen to do things like this?" James whimpered pathetically as he inched a bit closer to the button.
Initiating his mental countdown as his two friends continued to drone on somewhere in the back of his subconscious James braced himself for what was to come.
"Now!" James screamed, lashing out at the button in righteous fury before bolting for safety.
James had hardly taken his first step when steam began to pour out for the sloppily made ventilation system. He was only allowed one more step and the beginnings of a dive before all the air in the clearing seemed to disappear.
Soundlessly hitting the dirt and covering his head for protection James awaited the inevitable.
A deafening 'thoom' reverberated throughout the clearing as Naruto's Rasengan was launched from the barrel of the cannon. A massive geyser of dirt and soil obscured James's shivering form as well as the cannon as it was plowed through the ground from the kickback.
Meanwhile, the Rasengan flew just outside the glade in a graceful arc. Landing somewhere among the thick forest of trees, the Rasengan exploded on impact, reducing the trucks of the surrounding trees to little more than splinters due to its sheer concussive force.
Working past the continuous high-pitched ring in his ears, Naruto couldn't help the look of astonishment that flashed across his face. They just succeeded in not only, sustaining a Rasengan, but they also succeeded in launching it a number of yards while maintaining its initial destructive potential.
It was an achievement he had failed to even think of till now, and even when he thought about it he had no idea how it was accomplished.
Yet there it was.
How had a group like the late Team Rocket succeeded in such a feat with no knowledge of aura or its workings?
"I may have told them a few things about that." Naruto's shadow clone said uncharacteristically cheeky, before it promptly dispersed itself.
Naruto was flooded with two months worth of adventures with the trio that was currently high fiving over their latest success.
Taking a look back at the massive lump of machinery, dug into the crater it had made just moments before, Naruto could say for the first time in quite a while he was surprised.
Baffled, not by the workings of the cannon after receiving his clone's memories, but instead by the trio's incredible aptitude in regards to aura, machinery, and raw imagination.
The terribly crafted look of the cannon no longer seemed to be an absurd flaw to him, but an overwhelming achievement. After all, they had been forced to craft it form five pieces of plate metal and a various assortment of leftover bits and tools from a number of their old creations due to an almost nonexistent budget. And, what's more they did it all in two months.
"So what did you think twerp?" Jessie asked, her face the very image of smugness.
"One condition."
"Stop calling me a twerp."
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AN: Well, there's the chapter hope you liked it.
(1) Any variant of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has not been invented at this point in time.
As always reviews are welcome and appreciated.
Until next time...