Defenders of Evodusai Part 10
Going through the lobby of Intelligence Central again, I saw a couple of pokemon who were whispering to one another and pointing at us. It reminded me of our first day here which irritated me for a moment. "Is it always like this around here?" I whispered to Truce. He just gave a shrug and a nod before leading us up a couple of stairs. When we climbed up to the fifth and final floor, he turned and whispered back to me. "This place basically runs on intel. Once word got out that the captain actually wanted to see you, the pokemon around here start to theorize and rumors begin to circulate around. So to answer your question: yes, it's always like that around here." We soon reached a very large door made of what appeared to be stone. "Hey Liru, I don't think you'll be able to bust on through this door," I joked. She made a face and stuck out her tongue before preparing to give the door a kick. Seeing this, Truce quickly grabbed at the totodile to stop her and after getting munched on succeeded in preventing the destruction of the property. "It's not real stone," he said rubbing his bitten arm. Giving a couple knocks with his uninjured paw, the sound that the door made was actually quite hollow. The clicking of locks from the other side of the door was heard and to my surprise, I found myself looking at a familiar face. "Plena?" I wondered aloud. Truce also looked at him confused, but the alakazam just smiled and waved us in. Following Truce and Liru inside, we found ourselves surrounded by a couple of pokemon scattered around the room. Looking around, I noticed someone who I haven't seen in a while. Waving to him, the litleo that we saved smiled and ran over. "Hiya char girl!" he beamed adorably. "I just wanted to thank you for fighting that tauros with me." I gave him a playful pat on his head. "Yea, it's no problem. Say, what are you doing here?" He jumped around to face the direction of an even larger fire cat and a slaking talking to one another. "My dad came over here to talk with the leader of this place. Since he's the king, I guess he wanted to thank your organization personally for finding and sending me home." Before I could voice my surprise at finding out the leader was that slaking, the feeling of someone tapping my shoulder caused me to turn around. My eyes bulged out in shock from seeing someone so huge up close to me. I clamped my muzzle together to avoid screaming out. "Oh, I apologize for frightening you," the enormous dragonite said sincerely. He then tried to hide a mischievous grin from me. "Not the expected outcome that I had hoped for, but regardless I still enjoyed your reaction. Anyways, I've heard many a great things about you little one and wanted meet you for myself." Calming down but now a bit peeved off, I realized that this must have been the captain. "Where are my manners?" he gasped. "Lets redo this meeting, alright?" He then preceded to turn around in circles a couple of times before extending his right paw forward. "Hello Winta! My name's Haless and it's so good to finally meet you. From what I heard, there are many things about you that makes you such an interesting pokemon." The entire situation was just weirding me out and I the only thing I could do was accept his paw (well, one of his fingers because he was so huge) and shake. "Quite a grip you got there missy. Let's just go over there to make this conversation a tad more private, hmm?" Going along with him, I told Liru where I was headed and asked her to say here and keep watch. Nearing the corner of the room, the dragonite sat down and rested his back on the two walls. "I just knew something was special about you when I first saw you in the lobby," he began. "Being an 'inexperienced newbie', you've already beaten an outlaw who almost reached the C-rank, gave amazing orders to your teammate to overcome an uneven battle, and even defeated someone in your division who specializes in taking down foes. What's more is that both Souna and Plena confirmed that some kind of battle between two personae had occurred inside you and that they may have merged together. That's so freaking cool!" I stood in silence while thinking back to those moments. We're they really that great? "Hey Haless!" somebody shouted in a feminine voice. "The meeting is about to start so get off your bum and come here." Groaning, the dragonite struggled to stand. After rolling off his back and onto his knees, he got on his feet and pouted. "I'm afraid that you'll have to give me all the details later. When duty calls, I have to go and answer it." His face suddenly brightened up as an idea rose up from the top of his head. "Say, why don't you and your friend stay and watch? Recruits rarely get the chance to see how these meeting go, but I'll make an exception for you two. I'm sure Truce would agree with me since he has to attend the meeting too." We went over to Liru and together as a group walked towards the crowd of pokemon that had gathered around a large circular table. Other than Truce, I recognized Olein and Plena, who both gave me a nod of acknowledgment. Upon seeing us, many of the other pokemon were not amused. "Haless," a salamance angrily grunted, "What are those two doing here? Don't you know that we're going to have an important discussion?" Laughing sheepishly, he waved off her intimidation like it was nothing. "Come on, Landus. Every month we come together like this to give out a status report and voice our concerns. It really isn't that important and our friends here can learn a bit more about the way we run things around here. You wouldn't want to deny our youth the chance to become more educated about our organization, do you?" Some of the pokemon snickered while others took his words seriously. Looking around the table, the salamance gave in to the pressure. "Alright fine," she grumbled. "I hate it when you guilt trip me like that. You two go sit over there by the wall and listen. Now let's hurry up and get on with this meeting." Waving her paws in the air, Olein took the floor. "I guess I'll start. Over the course of the month, my division has healed 109 members and 23 clients. I would have loved to yell at you all to tell your subordinates to stop being so reckless in the field, but I'll hold my tongue since the numbers had actually decreased from the previous mouth. The only concern that I have is in regards to what had happened this morning involving the chief of recon." Truce stepped up and looked at her apologetically. "She didn't mean to hurt that patient. She was just very worried about her friend's health." Liru got up and bowed her head in respect. "I'm so sorry for my actions this morning. Please don't blame Truce for what I did." Olein pondered for a moment and finally came up with a decision. "I'll forgive you this time, but do anything else in my area and you'll regret it." The rest of the meeting followed the same pattern of giving a report before bringing up a concern. When it was Plena's turn to say something, he just pointed to me. "Now many of you know that those two over there are our newest members. We have seen Liru around here many times, learning from the chief of recon in the hopes of following in his footsteps. Now that she actually made it in, I have high hopes for her success. As for Winta, well it would be shocking if you haven't heard of her. After witnessing firsthand the amount of potential within her, I would like to ask if she could somehow be transferred over to Intelligence Central." Stomping the floor, the salamance roared with rage. "Why would you even suggest such a thing? Someone like her is destined to become a savage fighter well respected in our ranks." Plena raised a palm. "Normally, I would have agreed with you captain. Watching her fight, it seems that she could have become a top tier fighter in our division. But when she suddenly stopped attacking, I sensed something wrong within her. In the blink of an eye, her lust for battle shifted and a flood of mental processes overwhelmed her. All the raw emotions and strings of information that raced through her was too much for me to bare so I forced her into a deep slumber to stop it. It is because of this that I have requested for her transfer." "I expected you to say that, but here's an even better idea," Haless smirked. "With the way things are now, I feel that we have all become divided. Each division does their own separate thing and it's getting in the way of our main objective: to forge a path towards a peaceful era. Competition is fine but when it gets destructive like the recent traditional fight that happened in the special attack division, then what's the point? Looking at the plaza's fountain for inspiration, what I propose are teams made up of pokemon from different groups. Imagine the unbreakable bonds that we can forge with one another. Think about how successful missions would become once we have teams with a variety of skills and abilities to utilize. Of course this is all just theory right now but with someone like Winta to test this out, I'm positive that this would work!" A loud clapping echoed throughout the room. "Wonderful as always Haless," rumbled the slaking who was casually laying on his side. "Once this meeting is over, I would like to have a word with you and Winta to plan out this new team system of yours. If it does work, then we would all be one step closer to the peace that we seek."
End of Act I