Chapter 32: A Cool Desperation

Racing to the scene, the gang finds Squirtles attacking en masse! The beach is swarming with blue turtles, green turtles, there's even a turtle with really tiny eyes just going around biting people! And every one of the (literal) bastards is firing off various elemental attacks at the poor residents and the newly constructed buildings.

"Hey, assholes! A bunch of criminals worked really hard to make those!"

-"Pidgeotto!"

"Yes, yes I'm back. I got held up at the-"

-"Pid-"

"NO! WE ARE NO DOING THAT AGAIN!"

*silent bird shock*

"Good, now help me contain this rowdy bunch of children!"

'Thankfully they weren't here for long and I now had the full cooperation of our local ranger to help calm down the situation. A handful of children, no matter how violent, are still just children in the end of the day and most of these ones were low leveled with basically zero training. Once the element of surprise wore off, containing them and putting a firm halt to their antics was pretty easy.'

'We put them all in with the Rocket grunts and "pretended" they were extra guards... not that we told either group which ones were watching who. The dangerous criminals watch the scared pokemon and the dangerous pokemon watch the scared criminals. It's the perfect system! For now. I don't wanna leave the opportunistic group of thugs with a bunch of starter pokemon.'

'No, the real problem came a few hours later.'

"Emperor? What's going on, why are you here? Weren't you and the others going to hold back the front line?"

-"King... Seaking, sea. Seaking king."

"Oh man, that sounds bad."

-"Jessie, what's going on? I see your friends all coming back, lots of them have wounds."

"Oh yeah, good news and bad news. The good news is they manged just fine against the first wave, same as us. With our mobile supply base they were all able to take down ten enemies each without so much as a scratch!"

"But the first wave was just a diversion meant to wear them down and let the more experienced fighters come in close. They unloaded powerful attacks against our base and pushed it off course, totally ripped up the tow ropes, damaged the ballast, and even drenched a load of our food supplies! Our guys were forced to retreat before the thing got completely busted."

-"And then they attacked while your people were retreating... how brutal."

"No kidding... Hey, I have to go welcome these guys back and get someone working on that supply base. And figure out what happened to Dexter to, while I'm at it. Mind helping out the injured?"

-"Sure. That much I can do. I have a little medical training, so I can help take the stress off of Chansey."

"Thanks."

"Alright, Emperor, what are we up against?"

'Night came and went. By morning, all the Squirtle had tuckered themselves out and the Rocket grunts were sleeping off an extended babysitting shift. No clue if they realized what was going on, but as long as they were too tired to do crime about it, who cares?'

'All our pokemon from the front came back alive, but with various degrees of injury. Loafy looks like they took the most damage covering everyone's retreat, but thanks to him the rest of them were able to come home safe. We're letting him take a much needed breather while the rest of us who can still battle are gearing up for the final fight.'

'According to those who came in late last night, we managed to thin their numbers by taking all the children away... damn that sounds worse than it is. Need to figure something out with them soon... But! This means they will not be participating in any more wars! More immediately important, it's forced The Warband to come at us with their main members.'

'Pidgeotto and his crew say they're coming from the west, around thirty in total compared to our ten or so. Not terrible odds, but far from great. The land forces are going to guard our injured and noncombatants while me and my crew swim out to meet them head on.'

"Alright! It's the final fight, let's get to it. Use the rising sun to cover your movement and head to where Pidgeotto pointed them out. Any questions?"

-"Lapras?"

"Oh uh, yeah. You can play with your new friend, just don't go too far from Uncle Spring, okay sweetie?"

-"Lap lap!"

"...Anyone else?"

-"Oct-"

"Yes you can have extra rations! Are there any questions about THE MISSION?"

-"Karp?"

"Yeah. You may need to make use of that once things get heated. Just stay loose and be prepared for anything."

*determined nod*

"Alright then... Cooler Crew! Move out!"

-"Wait!"

"Cooler Crew, stop. No yeah, come on back."

"What is it, man? I got the troops all fired up for nothing!"

-"Sorry, it's just that, I'm still not entirely sure I'm okay with you fighting these guys personally. I mean, rounding up a few misbehaving child pokemon is one thing, but leading a literal poke-army into war?"

"Seriously? After all I've-"

-"Hold on! I'm not finished!"

-"I wanted to say that I'm not sure how I feel about you going and fighting a war, so don't."

"What?"

-"At the end of the day, you're a human. Pokemon body or no, you need to act like one. Which is why, I want you to have this."

"Y-you're kidding me! This is- I- I can't! It's not right! This goes way farther than whatever environmental bullshit you were talking about! I can't-"

-"You might not have a choice coming up... Take it, just in case."

"I'm crossing a line here. A pokemon, even if it's a human-pokemon, shouldn't have this." Jessie's tentacle wavers as they reach out, every pokemon around looking at their leader with awe... and fear.

Jessie obtained Pokeballs!