Boys of Summer
By Alex Hamilton
Chapter 2
“Goodbye, Damien. I love you.”
It had been three months since he left home, and those were the last words he heard before he left for the recruitment station. He had already said his farewells to his family, but just before they had gotten outside of the castle walls, his mother had stopped him to make say one final goodbye.
They were on the road with hundreds of boys from all over Tortoise Port. Boys from all backgrounds had come to enlist, the cook’s boy, the gardener’s son, the pidgey messenger, and so many others. They had brought what little they had in a knapsack. Most had just packed a lunch, a small stash of what little money their parents had, and a little piece of paper stating that Lord Lyshell had allowed them to leave so they could enlist. Those who were literate brought stationery to write back to their families. Oliver was given a ring with the Lyshell emblem on it to show that he was the son of nobility. Salm already wore a necklace with the Fisher family dragonite wherever he went.
Some had not been allowed to leave. Though he had even bothered to wake up so he could plead to Lord Lyshell, Basil had not been allowed to enlist. He said that Basil would be too important in keeping records for the entire castle, and that the loss of him would make it impossible for the castle to function properly when his father died.
“Alright men, lets get a move on! Line up in a single file line and we will then sort you into one of three groups.”
It took nearly an hour to get to the registration desk. Salm was the first up.
“Papers?” Salm handed the rattata the slip Lord Lyshell had given him as well as the one that his father sent him.
“Alright, Lordling Fisher, go to Command Group to you’re left. Next!”
Shane stepped up.
“Papers?"
Shane and Damien took a seat on the floor with the rest of Infantry Group which seemed to comprise of all of the regular soldiers. Oliver had been sent to Command Group with Salm and the other group, to the right was the Specialist group, tunnelers, medics, and psychic pokemon for inter-army communication. Lord Lyshell had already explained the purpose of every pokemon in war.
“Nice to meet ‘cha,” said a young meowth. “Peter of Trent.”
Damien smiled politely and extended his arm. “Damien of Tortoise Port.”
They had assembled in ranks near the registration office. Before them, a haughty rattata paced. He was truly ragged; part of one ear was bitten off and his whiskers were all different lengths. His eyes were red; a sign of a horrible fever sometime in his past. One of his fangs was chipped; the missing part of the tooth had been replaced by what looked like bone.
“Alright boys! Today you are all going to grow up! My name is Imperial Major Ingram Stacey, but all of you will address me as sir! Is this understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“We will spend the next 6 weeks training you to become soldiers. It will be more difficult than anything any of you have ever done. Some of you hold the false belief that it will get easier. That’s wrong! As you can do more, I’ll push you harder! Do not be discouraged. When it is all over, you will all be soldiers of the finest army in the civilized world, Imperial legionnaires!”
The ranks roared in approval.
“To begin we will all run around the perimeter of the barracks! Follow me!”
They all started in a sprint. The ranks melted away into a disorganized mob.
Stacey turned around. “What the hell are you doing?! Freeze!”
They all screeched to a halt. Stacey paced about, inspecting them. He started towards a pikachu at the front.
“Name!”
“Richard of Stiles, sir!”
“Okay, Richard of Stiles. Hit the dirt! You’ve just been picked off by their air force!”
Richard lowered himself to the ground, but before he could finish he was seized by Stacey. “I didn’t tell you to sit down! I told you to hit the dirt! Throw yourself!”
Stiles threw himself onto the ground, face first.
Stacey walked around the perimeter and picked off several more. None of them hesitated to collapse.
He stopped at a geodude who had been straggling.
“Name?”
“Martin of Tortoise Port, sir!”
“Martin, you have just fallen behind the ranks. Without the protection of your fellow soldiers, you have left yourself exposed and weakened the entire regiment by your absence! Around the barracks three times! Go, go, go!”
Luckily, Shane, Damien, and Peter were all running in the middle of the pack and were not singled out. It took Stacey ten minutes of yelling at individuals before he was ready to work with the rest again.
“Alright, everyone up! We’re moving! Stay in your damn formation this time!”
Stacey had lied. They hadn’t run around the barracks. Instead, they ran around it ten times. Several collapsed from exhaustion. Stacey proceeded to prod them with a stick he found along the way until they got up.
The three of them, Damien, Shane, and Peter sat at a table in the mess hall with the ‘dead’ pikachu, Richard.
“I’ve never been so tired,” Shane said.
“Me neither, and I’m one of the fastest ones in the group,” Richard said.
It so happened that Major Stacey was walking past their table at that exact moment.
“What won’t cripple you will make you a better soldier! Come on, Stiles! In you I see the makings of a good soldier. I see intelligence, I see quickness. Now someday you’re going to be out on the field and the lives of these men will be in your hands. Are you saying that you’ll let them down because you were too tired to get fit enough? No, because I won’t let you. You have it in you to command some of these men, are you going to make a fool of me for believing in you?”
“No, sir! I won’t let you down sir!”
“Good.” With that, he walked away, eager to inspect the next table.
“Alright! I’ve seen what you got, now its time to organize this regiment! All of you present here are members of the 82nd Volunteer Infantry Battalion!”
“121st Regiment, Arcanine Company, 1st Platoon: Command goes to Richard Stiles! Members: Shane of Tortoise Port, Hank of Trent, Eustace of Yew Woods, George of Yew Woods, Wesley of Tortoise Port… Damien of Tortoise Port…”
He continued on for a long time. Eventually, Peter was given command of 2nd Platoon. The whole event lasted nearly two hours.
After Arcanine Company had been called out, the rest were organized by hometown. That meant that Arcanine Company was some kind of elite group; the command host. He smiled in pride.
He had skipped common organization for Arcanine Company. Lord Lyshell had told him it was customary to group Companies by hometowns. Damien saw that all of the quickest, strongest, and smartest soldiers in Arcanine Company. His tail’s flame started to truly blaze. All of the others were oblivious to it.
The training didn’t grow harder. For once, Ingram Stacey had told the truth. One grueling task followed another until well after the sun had set. They woke up before dawn; ready for more exercises. It seemed like the six weeks would never end. Then, somehow, they did. Stacey hadn’t allowed any of them to keep a calendar, so nobody knew when the exact day was. One morning, he assembled them like any other day and told them that their basic training was over. They cheered and cheered louder when he told them they would have a week of rest with only a couple drills each day.
“Alright, Damien, I’ll raise you,” a confident young nidoran said.
“Fine then Wesley, I’ll call and push you all in.”
Shane, Peter, and Stiles were all flat broke. It was just him and Wesley now; they seemed to be the two best. This was the final round now. Damien and Wesley were about even in the amount of tokens they had left. Tokens weren’t good for real money, nobody had the money to gamble it away, but they were good for favors. Lying about a buddy’s whereabouts, doing someone else’s chore, things that they could afford to do, but weren’t fun anyways.
“Okay Damien. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Damien flipped over his pocket aces.
Wesley revealed a jack and a king; both of hearts.
There was an ace of hearts, ten of hearts, and nine of hearts on the table with two cards to go.
Shane flipped the next card over. It was the last ace.
“Don’t be so sure yet, Damien.”
Shane flipped over the last card: queen of hearts.
Wesley happily took all of the tokens; Damien’s jaw dropped in disbelief. He’d never seen anybody pull that off before, but he congratulated Wesley on his win. They were friends anyways; he wouldn’t make him do anything too bad.
After the basic training the weeks melted away. Daily drills only lasted half the day and quickly the 82nd was joined by both regulars and volunteers. They were folded into the 1st Division of the 3rd Corps. As more and more came, there were eventually 6 corps, 24 divisions, 240 battalions, and 820 regiments. This entire newly formed 4th Army comprise of 65,600 pokemon. They were soon joined by the 2nd and 6th Armies to comprise an army group of nearly a quarter million pokemon. This new army group was named the “Imperial Expeditionary Legion.”
The whole formation of the legion had taken almost 3 months. Everyone in the 82nd was eager to move by the time the legion was ready.
In the meantime, Slowking’s juggernaut had expanded farther into Startony. His original victim, the Karp Principality, had already been crushed. He then took on three more. Two fell easily to his massively superior armies, but the other, Elysia led by the excessively brilliant King Franz, not only stonewalled the attack but lashed back. He took the largest of all of the Slowkingdom cities bordering his kingdom as well as the Karp Principality.
At home, little happened. Rick Stiles was promoted to Lieutenant, Peter Trenton to Sergeant. Stacey was given command of the 82nd Battalion and named colonel. Even thought the whole world seemed to be turning upside down, the people Damien knew remained the same. He and Shane still visited Oliver and Salm regularly. Oliver had been given command of the 121st Regiment with a healthy promotion to major; Salm had been given command of Blastoise Company in the 122nd Regiment. Everyone Damien knew seemed to be rising to the top in the military; save him and Shane. The summer was turning to fall.