Chapter 32 – Realisation

If you thought that having over a hundred trainers inadvertently causing the anti-teleportation fields to collapse was bad, try imagining the mountain of paperwork that they created. We had insurance claims for injuries suffered by the trainers as they collided with the fields, collateral damage due to the resonating shockwaves as the energy dissipated, and even overtime claims from the programmers at port control thanks to the crashed satellites which were supposed to track the trainers and their pokemon.

And of course, there were the life insurance claims to be settled. Of the five thousand trainers we registered, seventy eight had died on day one of their training journeys. As much as wild pokemon colonies were severely diminished compared to their pre-Revolution sizes, the surviving wild pokemon out there were twice as brutal as their ancestors had been.

Those that survived wild pokemon attacks with non-fatal injuries may have been lucky souls, but that didn't make our lives any easier. The streets surrounding port control were cordoned off and covered up with tarpaulin sheets, so that we could lay out the wounded trainers for the doctors to deal with them.

"Bring those files up from the archives, faster! God damn it!"

"Claimants sign here, please... Next!"

"I told you already, I'm not giving you any more painkillers. Now, be quiet!"

"Someone answer that motherfucking phone!"

"Archives are swamped – Persiamon's got an hour-long backlog."

"The programmers sent this up – where's the department head?"

"Paging Doctor Esther, Doctor Esther to the second street."

"Son of a bitch!"

Seriously, things were in a royal mess down at port control. None of us had slept much the night before, and naturally, all of us were roped-in to deal with the aftermath of the trainers' disastrous blunder.

But then again, was it their blunder, or ours? At the moment, though, most of us were too overworked and tired to give a shit.

Silas and I – complete with our hard hat – were responsible for recording statements from the trainers who were still conscious and not drugged up. We were making slow progress, since most of them were somewhat confused by the whole series of events. It seemed that crashing into an energy barrier tended to unsettle one's thoughts a good deal.

"So you were just heading back at around a quarter to one?" I asked the trainer, as I scribbled down notes on my clipboard. "Any injuries right then?"

"None, except for that crash," she replied, wincing as one of the medics prodded at her wounded arm. "Felt like I was getting zapped all over."

"Alright, thank you," I nodded, signing off on the report and heading for the next trainer. At least that girl had been lucid enough to answer my questions audibly and coherently.

"How many more to go, Trainer?" Silas asked, sounding exhausted. "I need sleep."

"Don't we all?" I yawned. "And to answer your earlier question... fifty five more."

"Fuck."

"My sentiments exactly."

We were just about to begin questioning the next trainer when there was a flash of light, and a bronzor appeared alongside a tall, squid-like creature. The mirror-like pokemon vanished again within a second, but its companion remained with us, taking in its surroundings with a pair of swollen, bloodshot eyes. Its body was slender, and seemed to be made of a mass of tentacles that had been braided together like rope. Two thin arms hung limply by its sides, and a nasty-looking gun was strapped to what passed for a waist on its stringy body. To top it all off, its head was huge – the thing looked ready to burst, and I swear I could see the grooves of its brain through the creature's pastel-coloured skin.

"You are the officer in charge of statements?" the digimon asked me, as it shuffled over on its tentacle legs.

"Currently, yes," I replied, as I tried to recall its name – fatigue was interfering with my memory. "What can I do for you?"

"The name's Vademon," it said, as it plucked my clipboard out of my hands and began reading the topmost report sheet. "Given your slow progress, I shall be taking over the statements for today."

I frowned. "I was not notified of any such orders."

"Be gone, feeble-minded boy!" Vademon snapped, even as its eyes began rolling about jerkily in their sockets. "Go find your commanding officer and get yourself something to occupy that pathetic mind of yours with."

As if on cue the wounded trainers all went silent, causing several of the personnel from port control to hesitate in whatever it was that they had been doing. Vademon's head began pulsing like a grotesquely oversized heart, and all of the trainers started mumbling gibberish.

"Hey, kid!"

I turned around, feeling a wave of relief washing over me as General Harding walked up to me, looking just as tired as everyone else. "Sir, any updates?"

"Vademon got sent over to speed up the statement taking," he said, cocking his head towards the soft-bodied digimon. "Apparently he's their best telepath, and got the job done at eight other cities already."

"Bully for him," I said, trying my best to hold in a yawn. "So, where have I been reassigned?"

"Security," he said simply. "Kylie's rotom swarms have picked up some unusual signals in the networks, so we'll be watching the communications station down at the docks."

"This day just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"You're telling me, rookie."

Silas chose that moment to start snoring, causing us to get blasted with a jet of bubbles.

xxx

Just when we'd thought that our day couldn't possibly get worse, the terrorists decided to start acting up again. No, I wasn't talking out of my ass there; they really did start their usual shenanigans again later in the evening. While their actions that evening didn't have repercussions even remotely comparable to those from the fires they'd started before, they still made us all stop in our tracks, nonetheless.

General Harding and I were at the communications station with two other guards, enjoying a box of jellybeans that he had procured from unknown sources – we could only hope that he hadn't stolen them from the doctors - when the television set starting broadcasting white noise. The news, which had been on at the time, became obscured by static, and changing the channels did nothing to improve the situation.

"The fuck's going on here?" grumbled one of the guards, as he drew his pistol and checked the safety. "More shit?"

"You bet your ass it is," drawled his partner, as he stood up and began watching the live feeds from the dock's security cameras. "Anything you see, guys?"

Silas was still snoozing on top of my head, and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary on the security footage. My commanding officer shook his head, and fished a jellybean out of the box.

"Must have been another programming crash," he said, just as the static started to clear on the television. When he – and the three of us – saw the image on the screen, he let out a groan. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."

The television set was showing the image of everyone's favourite terrorist agent, Slenderman. We immediately got our weapons ready, and armed the dock's security systems. Half of our troops were already occupied with the last of the wounded trainers, and if the terrorists were to act up right then...

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Slenderman said, his words reaching us even as we frantically ran a futile status check on the communications arrays. "I am sure that you are aware of the massive cock-up which occurred yesterday when training was re-launched, so I'll get right to my point for tonight.

"We are not going to make any more demands, since it is clear that the government has finally decided to see reason and legalise pokemon training. They even let thousands of trainers out into the world just a day ago! But of course, we won't be turning ourselves in any day soon, if you know what I mean."

By then, none of us were watching the security footage or doing anything else – our eyes were glued to the television set, and our ears heard only his words.

He continued speaking, bobbing his head about as if he were listening to some music that we couldn't hear. "Tonight, we would just like to wish all the injured trainers a speedy recovery, along with any pokemon who might have been injured also. As for those who perished on their very first day of training... do allow me to pass our condolences to the families out there who lost someone.

"With that, I bid you adieu, and goodnight."

His image blurred, and within seconds, the television screen was filled with static once again. Soon enough, the static dissipated, revealing a flustered-looking news anchor whose notes seemed to have been rather vigorously rewritten.

One of the two guards in the station spoke up, "What the fuck was that all about?"

That was probably the most apt sentence to describe our thoughts at the moment. Silas somehow chose to wake up right then, and blew a raspberry at General Harding. All of us – with the exception of me, since he was strapped to my head – stared at him, even while he let out a few sleepy-sounding whistling noises.

"Hey, folks," he said, as he blew a few bubbles. "What did I miss?"

xxx

"Trainer, tell me more! Slenderman appears on national television and you won't tell me anything?!"

"Tomorrow, Silas..."

"Come on! Just tell me what he said, would you? I'm dying of suspense here!"

He didn't get an answer beyond any grunts or snores I might have let out.

xxx

Thankfully, things soon got sorted out with regards to training. General Reardon and her team of programmers managed to synchronise our tracking programme with the satellites within a couple of days of the great training cock-up – as people had started referring to it after Slenderman's last appearance on national television - and so the trainers were free to go about on their journeys again. Most of the injured trainers were happily off on the training routes again, and many seemed to be travelling in groups this time.

All teleport-capable pokemon were registered, and a file created in the tracking programme to monitor their locations. The extra programming in itself nearly caused the system to crash again, but luckily enough, things went considerably smoothly for the integration of the new coding.

The trainers were also briefed thoroughly on the curfew, and whether they could teleport into cities for their nightly check-ins. We definitely didn't want the energy fields going down again, that much was for certain.

For our part, General Harding and I were just relieved that all the drama was over. To celebrate, we went out and got plastered, leading to a rather embarrassing situation involving General Fen waking us up in his apartment, and finding over a dozen freshly-used condoms of questionable origin.

I seriously hoped that I hadn't slept with my boss, and Silas was so busy laughing over at the whole incident that he accidentally clamped down on his own tongue. That certainly shut him up for a while.

Yup, life settled down quickly after Slenderman's appearance. Hell, the government seemed content to let it slide, despite the fact that the terrorists had effectively gotten past our cyber security yet again.

Some of us felt a little apprehensive about the apparent lack of action against the terrorists' latest activities, and the digimons' silence on the matter only served to give the whole affair a rather discomforting feel to it. After a few days, though, things returned to their usual pace, and everyone seemed to forget about the last terrorist broadcast.

It was que sera sera for the moment, apparently.

xxx

Friday night dinner at my folks' place continued the week after the training cock-up as though nothing had happened at all. Jubilife had only a few scattered trainers attempting to get in after curfew, and so my parents had been spared from the major dramatics. Allan was furious about missing the suffering that had been going on at Canalave, and Bruiser was perplexed as to how so many things could go wrong in such a short space of time.

Amy said nothing, as did Dad. Both of them continued eating dinner like they usually did.

Mom, however, decided to divert our attention towards another, less-gloomy topic. And by that, I of course am referring to my nonexistent love life. Quite obviously, my folks were blissfully unaware that I was happily and cheerfully screwing about with people who had certain hanging bits down south, and so the conversation at the dinner table certainly took a turn for the awkward.

"You know what you need?" she said, as she stirred her soup. "You need an older girlfriend."

I choked on my soup, and Allan accidentally materialised in the fridge, causing the door to pop open. Bruiser started thumping me on the back, and Silas let out a squeak that sounded halfway between mirth and horror.

"Wha-"

Mom got up and nonchalantly got herself some more soup. "Well, it's true! You're working yourself to death out there, and an older girlfriend who could take care of you would be perfect!"

"Mom, could we not talk about this right now?" I gasped, reeling a little as Bruiser gave me one last whack for good measure. "... And thanks, Bruiser. Can I have a lung transplant now?"

"What are you, twelve?" Mom snorted, as she sat down with her bowl of soup. "You're a young man of eighteen, soon to be nineteen! Don't tell me you don't have a girlfriend by now."

My brain flipped her off just about then. "I don't."

"Nonsense!" she scoffed, turning to me father. "Dear, what do you think? Does he have a girlfriend?"

Dad continued cleaning his teeth with a toothpick, and didn't so much as bat an eyelid at her question. "Nope."

"But he's getting drunk almost every weekend, according to Silas! And also being quite the man-whore, apparently. I just hope that you practice safe sex."

"Mom!" I squeaked, sounding almost identical to my starter, even as Bruiser let out an indignant, "Trainer!"

"What?" she asked haughtily, as though she hadn't just accused her own son of being some sort of male harlot – it may have been true, but still! – as well as advising him to be safe in the bedroom. "I want to be a grandmother someday, you know? But not for some bastard kid, in the literal sense of the word."

All I could do was to stare at her, open-mouthed, while Silas laughed his shells apart. Really, that woman was horrible when it came to appropriate dinner table discussion topics.

"So, what's her name?"

I raised an eyebrow at that. "... It'll be a long time before you'll be a grandmother; that I can guarantee you."

"Eh, you're no fun," she sniffed, adjusting her glasses on her nose.

"Dear, can we not do this?" Dad finally decided to say something, it seemed.

"We are not having this discussion!" I threw my hands in the air, nearly upsetting my soup bowl in the process. "Sweet gods above..."

For a while, the kitchen was silent, save for the humming of the refrigerator.

"Make sure that she's older than you by at least a couple of years, sweetie."

"MOM!"

xxx

Later, when we were on the train and heading back to Canalave, Silas asked me a question. And yes, it was related to what my mother had been nagging me about at the dinner table. In hindsight, was probably the most important question he had ever asked me since that night when he questioned my ability to take on my superior officer through a conspiracy.

"Trainer, will you ever settle down?" he had asked, as we watched the night lights go by outside the windows.

"First Mom, now you?" I sighed. "Since you know about my sex life, though... the answer's no."

Silas chirped at that. "Why not? Don't you want to find your perfect other half, have your happy ending, and all that?"

"As if that would work out!" I scoffed. "Once my parents find out, we'll have a fun time getting disowned, and all that good shit. How's that for a happy ending?"

"Firstly, you ran away from home, so I don't think getting disowned would be that bad on you," Silas deadpanned. "There's also the fact that you could, you know, elope?"

"What is this, a movie?" I leaned back against the window, and closed my eyes. "You make me sound so desperate, really."

"Well, you did screw your boss, and his best friend too by the sounds of it. Overkill, much?"

"We were drunk!"

He squeaked, and narrowed his eyes at me. "Given that you're an experienced queer, I'm wondering just why you were limping a little the morning after. They must have pulled a doduo on you."

It took me a moment to recall what that phrase could have meant, as far as my extracurricular activities were concerned. When I finally understood what he meant, I couldn't help but feel a little sick, resulting in him getting smacked upside the shell. "That is plain disgusting, Silas. Besides, you have no way of proving that I slept with either of them, anyway."

"Just you wait and see, bitch," he said, sounding supremely pleased with himself.

I couldn't help but smile as that particular train of thought ran through my mind. "We'll see, indeed."

The rest of the train ride passed in silence, and we found ourselves admiring Mount Coronet's mist-shrouded foothills as we went around them. Lighted buoys bobbed about in the sea below the tracks, and safety lights flashed periodically along the tracks themselves, reflecting prettily off the sea's choppy surface.

xxx

I guess it was somewhere around three in the morning when I woke up and realised what I needed to do next. Granted, my grand scheme for getting General Harding booted out of office was long gone, and my current position at work was quite obviously a dead end job barring the commencement of a full-scale war, but part of me still wanted to make something out of my military career. Sometime in the night after my mother and Silas had tried to browbeat me about settling down, the knowledge of how I could still do something with my career.

"Silas, wake up!" I said, not sounding groggy in the least – that was a first, given the time of the night. "Silas!"

"What the hell?" he grumbled, as he opened one eye and stuck his tongue out at me. "Are you drunk? I could've sworn we weren't drinking just now..."

I beamed at him. "I'm going to file for a transfer."

That woke him up, alright. "What?!"

"I need to get out of this place," I told him, feeling my excitement mounting. "Get out and see the world, something like that! And I'd be able to get away from those asshole digimon, which is a plus in all ways."

"Ha, ha, and ha," Silas muttered. "Couldn't you have waited for working hours to be delusional? No one does those tourist gigs anymore, in case you've forgotten."

"I could file for a transfer to the groups that monitor the trainers! You know how to teleport, so we could run surveillance on the trainers," I grinned at him. "This is incredibly awesome – I can't believe neither of us thought of it earlier."

He blew a raspberry at me. "You do realise that your commanding officer, also known as the very lovely General Zachary Harding, will have to approve such a transfer, right?"

Hmm, that certainly was something I'd managed to overlook. Luckily for me, he'd reminded me of it. "We'll see about that, in the morning, then. Goodnight, Silas!"

"Crazy bastard."

As he went back to sleep, I cast a glance out of our room's newly-repaired window, and saw that it was a cloudless night. The moon shone brightly in the sky, along with a few stars, just as it had on that night when Silas had asked me why I had been doing what I did back then.

That night, I dreamed in colour. And for once, the colours felt welcoming instead of overwhelming.

xxx

Morning seemed to come in the blink of an eye, and I was practically bouncing on my heels all the way to port control. It didn't take long for me to get up to General Harding's office with the day's paperwork, and sure enough, there he was sleeping in Linda the deckchair.

"Good morning, sir!" I happily greeted him as I placed the files on his desk. "Here's today's torture, and I'm requesting your clearance for a transfer."

"Ah, thanks," he murmured, right before sitting bolt upright on Linda as his brain caught up with my words. "Say what say when say where?"

"I'm going to apply for a transfer!" I said, a little slower this time. "If I get it, that'd mean seeing the world beyond this place, getting to know more people, living life a little. I'm sure you'd understand."

He just gave me a slack-jawed stare for a few moments, before breaking out into a massive laughing fit.

"Umm, sir?" I recoiled slightly at the sight of him laughing so hard that tears seemed to be forming in his eyes. "Are you alright?"

It took him a while to get himself calm enough to answer my question, and even then, he was clearly still amused. "Oh, I'm fine! And that's a really good one, kid!"

Oh, great – he thought I was joking. "It's not a joke, sir."

He smirked at me and opened his mouth to speak, but his expression turned thoughtful as he finally realised that I wasn't pulling his leg. "You really mean it, then."

"Yes, sir."

With a sigh, he hopped off Linda, and picked up the transfer form that I had brought in along with the paperwork, which was currently resting on top of the pile. He looked as if he was mulling over some heavy thoughts, and so I waited with baited breath for him to say something. Some wingull sounded off on the docks, and the waves continued lapping against the support beams as they always did. General Harding's office windows were open for once, and a pleasantly cool breeze blew in as I stood at his desk.

"You do understand that you were assigned to me since water affinities are rare, and since my last assistant was unfortunately killed by her tentacool, right?" he asked me, as he sat down behind his desk and held up the transfer form. "And honestly, you've been a good assistant so far."

"Thanks, sir, but I'm still hoping that you'll at least consider my request," I said, feeling some semblances of doubt. He was making sense, and that didn't bode well for my transfer application. "Frankly speaking, any competent soldier could probably do well as your assistant."

General Harding just sat behind his desk, looking me in the eyes while saying nothing. As I met his gaze, I got the distinct impression that he didn't want me to transfer out of Canalave.

For some reason or another, I just felt that his eyes looked so much older as we locked gazes right then.

After what felt like a long time, he shook his head, and picked up the transfer form. "Very well, then. I'll approve the request for a transfer, but you are aware that the final call isn't mine to make right?"

"Sir?" I asked, feeling a mixture of disbelief and euphoria.

Offering me a smile, he signed the form with a flourish, and handed it to me. "Fill it in, think it over carefully, and send it upstairs if you're sure. Now, I think we've got some work to do?"

"Thank you, sir," I said, unable to stop the smile that formed on my face as I stuck the form to his whiteboard with a magnet.

It was probably one of the most genuine smiles that I had had in recent times.