"So, any of you have any problem with my decision?"
Nobody raised their hands. All of them were permanent soldiers of the city and they were fiercely loyal to the city and Axel.
"Ok, then. The responder will be here tomorrow and I will have to fire those 50k soldiers from the league."
"Sir, can I ask the reason for it?", asked Liam.
"Well, I don't trust the league, so I don't trust them. Letting them operate Pokemon center, marts, and other places for 3 months is okay. There is not a huge risk on it. But keeping the soldiers to fight in the tide when I have already fired league will not be a good decision."
"Hello sir, my name is Oliver. What you have said is true. But we will be lacking 50k soldiers. Sir, we don't have that many soldiers to begin with. How are we going to deal with it?", asked Oliver.
"Well, I have a mercenary team. They will be arriving in 3 days. They have 50k members. So, we will be able to fill the gap.", said Axel.
"Sir, that is great. But what is the strength of this mercenary?", asked Axel.
"All of them have at least 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemons."
"That is great sir. That would reduce the pressure by a whole lot level.", said Liam clearly happy with the aid.
Having a pseudo-king rank Pokemon was a big deal. Before Axel had around 6k members and they had at least 1 elemental rank Pokemons. Then, he increased the number to 50k after the battle of Kanto League City. All the additional members had at least 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemons.
Axel had not registered his mercenary till now. It was due to a harsh condition. Every member should have at least 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemons. Now, the new members had 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemons but the old one didn't. It took a lot of time for a normal trainer to have 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemon.
That was why, Axel had bought a forest in the Kanto region and told his members to train here. Axel also made a deal with the league association of the nearby cities where they would take missions for them. By doing this, the members were training in the wild and they were also making money by doing quests.
The money earned from the quest was now currently being used for the members themselves. There were a lot of expenses. Like potions, food, shelter, medicines. Axel had also told them to save some money for themselves.
However, till now, Axel didn't have to use the money that they had saved. Axel had directly injected 1 trillion Poke dollars for the mercenary and the team had collected around 500 billion Poke dollars. Out of it, 100 billion Poke dollars was used to buy the forest that they were training and also camping equipment, and initial potions and antidotes. So, the mercenary team had around 1.4 trillion Poke dollars with them. That was a huge sum of money had Axel wanted to maintain at least 1 trillion Poke dollars as savings at all times.
After training for many months, more than half of the initial 6k members had 1 pseudo-king rank Pokemons. Not all of them were talented like Axel. Some of them took time and Axel was okay with that. What he needed from them was just hard work and loyalty.
"Yes, my friends from Venu family will also send us a device called tracker that would ….."
Axel then went on to explain the function of the tracker which surprised the group. He also said that if they really needed help, then they could ask for help from the Venu family but there were very less members in the Venu family, so the help might not be so huge.
"Sir, what do you think that we should do about the mayor and what to do about the city savings?", asked Oliver.
Oliver also knew that 400 billion Poke dollars was not a big sum of money and most of them might be used during the tide. The expenses of repairs after the tide will be very high. The city would also have to award and pay the mercenaries and the price would be high. Mercenaries would not charge a yearly fee but only when they take part in the tide. So, the charge would be high.
The team was headed by Axel but that didn't mean that he would do it free of charge.
"We will interrogate the mayor. As of right now, suspend all the league officials and those who are running the governmental positions and replace them with new people.
A strict interview would be conducted and then we will start to interrogate all the government officials. And also, tell the airports to close right now. No flights would be taking off till the tide has been dealt.
If there are tourists and people from different cities, they can go there own place but they will be heavily charged for it. This offer can only be on for 3 days."
He was not letting the people fly out. What if those who had stolen money also took off? Axel believed that the mayor was not the only one that was stealing money. There must be other people too.
Charging the tourist higher fees was also to earn more money for the city cause the airport was the property of the city.
"Sir, governmental employees are not easy to deal with.", said Oliver.
"I know but I will take care of it if something bad happens.", said Axel with confidence.
League and the government were different things. Kanto region had a separate government and also politicians. However, since the league had a very high impact on all the regions, the government had very little power. The city would also have to pay a certain amount of tax to the government and just like the league, it would be difficult for Axel to get freedom from the government.
However, the government didn't interfere too much which was a good thing. They asked for the annual tax which was not too high every year and then let the league and the city run itself.
Axel could not tell why this was happening. On Earth, the government was a very powerful entity and they basically controlled everything but here due to the presence of the league, it had minimal power and influence.
###
Axel then started to say his plans to the team. They subconsciously thought of Axel as their leader. Axel proceeded to say that he had a friendly relationship with the east and the west side. All of them knew about it as Axel buying both sides of the forest was huge news a few years back.
He also told them that they should look out for the wild Pokemon in the east and the west side as the south side may come from there too.
"Sir, the problem with the wild Pokemons are humans. So, I think that there is a very low probability that they would attack the north and the east sides."
"Yes, you are right. But we have to be armed."
The meeting went on for quite some time and then finally it was over.
###
News of Hakone City facing the tide went viral among its citizens. The news also told that the mayor had been stealing money and he had been jailed. All of them were terrified.
The only thing that assured them was that Axel was still in the city and he would leading the tide. Axel had become a hero of the city now.
Kate and the group that were going to go out of here had to pay extra. They didn't have any problems with it but they were not feeling good about leaving Axel during the time of need. Specially Kate.
However, they knew that the city would be very dangerous from now on and they had to save themselves.
###
3 days went on and the mercenaries were about to arrive. Axel had given the choice to the temporary soldiers of the city to either pledge loyalty to the city and become a permanent member or to get the hell out of the city. He also told them that if they became permanent member, Axel would provide them discount on housing and they could call their family members to the city too.
Surprisingly, out of 50k soldiers, 30k of them agreed to become permanent soldiers and pledge loyalty to the city. They were now not part of the league but the party of the city.
Axel was surprised by the number but Liam gave him a reasonable answer.
"Sir, you have heavily invested in the soldiers of the city including temporary soldiers from the league. Most of them know that they would not get the same treatment from the league so they switched to our side. I am surprised that the numbers are too low. I expected almost all of them to become the part of the city."
The reason why 20k soldiers left the city was cause they were afraid of the tide. Most of them had trained themselves but had never taken an active part in the tide and they didn't want to die so fast.
Axel was happy that they left. At least he would not have to babysit such weak minds.
The responder had come 2 days before and now it had completely scanned the area of the south forest. Axel was going to tell them all the details in today's meeting.
###
The mercenary team had finally arrived. All of them were happy to see their leader after a long time. Axel greeted them and now it was time for the meeting.
Axel directly called Hector, Sam, Mary, Kane, Alon, Dorton, and Troy in the meeting. These were the 7 lieutenants of his mercenary team and all of them needed to be here.
The room was fully packed with 6 soldiers of the city, Lance, Axel, K, Cody, and 7 members of the mercenary team. In total, there were 17 people in the meeting hall.
The mercenary team introduced themselves to others and the meeting began.
Axel first went on to tell all the things that they had previously discussed to the mercenary team. Then he went on to tell the latest update.
"We will be facing Grade B high-level tide in about 3 weeks.", said Axel.
"General, how many of them are we dealing with?", asked Liam.
"There are 2 tier 3 king rank Pokemons, 10 tier 2 king rank Pokemons, 30 tier 1 king rank Pokemons, 5k pseudo-king rank Pokemons, 15k elemental rank Pokemons and the rest are rare ranks, uncommon ranks, and common rank Pokemons.
A total of 3 million Pokemons."
The city soldiers gasped but the mercenaries were quite comfortable with that number. Last time, they had faced a Grade A mid-level tide. The level of tide was mainly dependent on the most powerful Pokemon. It was also partly dependent on the amount of wild Pokemons that they would be facing.
When the group heard that it was a Grade B high-level tide, they were serious but when they heard the numbers, they cooled down.
During the tide of the Kanto League city, they had to face 25 million wild Pokemons. They also had 3 million soldiers but 25 million wild Pokemons was a huge amount. Compared to it, 3 million wild Pokemons were just a piece of cake.
"Due to our location, we only need to defend 4 sides. East, west, south and center. Mary, Kane and Sam. You will be the zone commander of East, west and center region. Hector, you will be the zone commander of the south region."
Axel then looked at the soldiers of the city.
"I will now assign positions for you too.
1. Liam- Lieutenant of south forest.
2. James- Lieutenant of south forest.
3. Clara- Lieutenant of east forest.
4. Kyla- Lieutenant of south forest.
5. Oliver- Lieutenant of west forest
6. Henry- Lieutenant of center."