WARNING:
Moderate language
Realistic description of violence
NOT FOR CHILDREN
They were catapulting geodudes.
Most of them fell short and would not get past the ditches. Some landed in the shallow cesspool at the back of their trench, and Eldron watched leisurely as his Lotad covered one with mold. It worked just like in the vids. The mold appeared in patches, covering the joints first so that the rock pokemon was immobilized then slowly dissolving the body into soil. It was long, but very clean. The mold was up to its eyeballs when a bloodcurdling scream ripped Eldron from his reverie.
"Piiiikaaaa!"
A geodude had landed on a pikachu's head. Tearing it, crushing it. Electricity did nothing, the cute stubby yellow arms flailing wildly did nothing. An ear skipped and turned over, a bloody bit of flesh at Eldron's feet. "Lotad," he whispered, and pointed at the geodude. The lotad continued to patiently dissolve the first geodude. Dumb beast. "Lotad!"
Now it heard him, and turned slowly to begin on the new target. Even as mold enveloped it, the geodude pounded further on the helpless pikachu. Finally the rock pokemon, thoroughly immobilized, fell off. Pikachu sparked by reflex. Eldron could tell just by looking that there was nothing conscious going on in that newly misshapen head. There was a hole in it where fluids kept on rising and spilling, and another hole in the face--this one had been there a while, but it was disfigured so he didn't recognize it at first--where small cries of "pika pik pik pik pik pi..." were, then were not.
"What in god's name..."
Suddenly he felt detached from his body, and he realized that he knew this scene. He would berate Dan, the new recruit, for bringing a pikachu to fight rock pokemon. Then he would find out that the pikachu was Dan's personal pet, and Dan would spend the rest of his life (fifteen minutes) crying. Eldron would be stuck commanding fifteen pokemon, seven of which would die. Then he would wake up to find his pikachu, the one he bought out of guilt, staring at him like he was death itself. His children would comfort the pikachu and wonder what was happening. "It's nothing, nothing to worry about," his wife would say, but she too would wonder. He never told her what happened during the war.
Never again, they all said. They had shouted it in unison after the war, in all countries, and they meant it too. We will work through our conflicts peacefully, and our pokemon and our sons and daughters will be safe at home. And that was what Eldron did every day after tepidly kissing his wife goodbye and dropping the children off at the academy. He worked for peace. He worked so he could pretend that "never again" was more than just a slogan. So that it just might never happen again.
But sometimes, he doubted.