As soon as the Mienshao and Mienfoo surrendered, Bisharp and the Pawniard were left unable to hold on alone.
After the Bisharp was defeated by General Leo and General Toyama working together, the rest of the Bisharp and Pawniard were also gradually captured.
As soon as the battle ended, the soldiers began cleaning up the battlefield, and the captured Pokémon were one by one placed into Poké Balls.
At the same time, on the other side, the lord of the grassland, Arcanine, finally fell under Absol's sharp claws. This Arcanine was indeed extraordinarily tenacious — it was impressive how long it had managed to hold out under Absol's attacks.
When it fell, Arcanine was truly in a pitiful and miserable state, its body covered in wounds — all the result of repeatedly using self-damaging moves.
It was also because Absol held back out of mercy and didn't strike too harshly; otherwise, at the very least, Arcanine would have ended up on the verge of death.
Unknowingly, dawn had already broken. The sun rose from the horizon, bringing a sliver of light to the land. But after a night of battle, both the soldiers and the generals were utterly exhausted.
The soldiers had to clean up the battlefield, and the generals had to maintain morale — no one could afford to rest. Only Yuga had returned to his temporary lodging and was sound asleep. After all, those matters had nothing to do with him.
Eventually, Yuga was awakened by the rumbling of his own stomach. The night's battle had drained a lot of energy, and after it ended, he had collapsed into sleep. Naturally, his empty stomach was extremely dissatisfied.
Yuga had originally planned to go to the base cafeteria to see if there was anything to eat, but when he checked the time, it was already mid-afternoon. He figured he might as well forget it. Instead, he directly bought two sweet and juicy Berries from the system shop and began munching away.
Filling and thirst-quenching — very nice!
After satisfying his hunger, Yuga suddenly heard someone calling him from outside the door.
"Mr. Shimizu, are you awake?"
Yuga opened the door to find that it was General Toyama.
"Oh, General Toyama, what's the matter?"
General Toyama said, "Do you still want to pick out some of the Pokémon we captured last night? If not, we'll go ahead and register them with the Alliance."
Yuga thought for a moment: Oh right, he had forgotten about that.
"Pick, of course I'll pick. Come on, take me to have a look."
On the way, General Toyama suddenly seemed to recall something and said to Yuga, "Oh, right — that Mienshao leader seems to want to see you."
They couldn't understand Pokémon language, but that Medicham leader had been making quite a fuss. After some time and effort, they had only vaguely guessed the reason for all the noise.
"Wants to see me?"
Yuga was full of question marks. He didn't even know the Medicham leader — why would it want to see him?
"I think so," General Toyama said with a bit of hesitation. "It was really making a fuss!"
"Then let's go have a look," Yuga said.
Under General Toyama's guidance, Yuga arrived at the warehouse where the Pokémon were being held. The shelves inside were lined with Poké Balls. General Toyama picked one up and opened it, and the Mienshao leader appeared in front of Yuga.
As soon as it saw Yuga, the Mienshao leader happily began waving its arms and legs in excitement.
"You wanted to see me?" Yuga asked.
The Medicham leader nodded enthusiastically: This was the person who had subdued Emboar — a big shot! Now that it saw him up close, he was indeed overwhelmingly handsome.
Yuga asked curiously, "Tell me, why did you want to see me?"
The Mienshao immediately started chattering away.
After listening, Yuga said in surprise, "You're saying you want to bring your entire group to join me?"
Mienshao immediately squinted its eyes and nodded frantically: Only by following a big shot like this would there be a future. Otherwise, if it stayed here, who knows what kind of fate awaited it?
It had overheard two soldiers talking and accidentally found out that Yuga had picked quite a few Pokémon earlier — that was when the idea sprouted in its mind.
If a big shot like him would take other Pokémon, there was no reason he wouldn't want someone as outstanding as itself! Not only was it excellent, but its fellow clansmen were excellent too…
The Mienshao leader was mysteriously confident.
After hearing this, Yuga looked at General Toyama beside him. General Toyama understood Yuga's words perfectly. Without much hesitation, he gave Yuga a nod.
The Pokémon captured by their pioneer army were naturally under their control. Moreover, the generals had already agreed that Yuga could take any of the captured Pokémon he wanted.
This victory was largely thanks to Mr. Shimizu — he was the greatest contributor.
The only exception was the lord of the grassland, the root of chaos in the pioneering army. That one needed to be kept to report back to the League.
Yuga hadn't expected that he had such charisma — to be able to attract a Pokémon to bring its entire group to surrender. He nodded in delight.
"All right then. Since you're so sincere, I'll graciously agree."
Mienshao was overjoyed upon hearing this and immediately clasped its hands together in a human-like salute to Yuga.
Then it looked shyly and awkwardly at Yuga, as if it wanted to say something but didn't dare. Yuga frowned and said, "If you've got something to say, just say it."
So Mienshao asked Yuga if he could also take the Bisharp and Pawniard group along.
After saying all this, even Mienshao felt embarrassed. Taking in so many Pokémon at once — would the big shot go bankrupt feeding them all?
Yuga was taken aback by this: "Bisharp asked you to speak on their behalf?" Could he really be that charming?
The Mienshao leader shook its head. Someone as thick-skulled as Bisharp wouldn't do that. It was just that after spending a long time together, Mienshao thought Bisharp wasn't a bad guy and wanted to lend him a hand.
Yuga usually wasn't willing to take in high-level Pokémon (except those who proactively surrendered), and the way Bisharp's group had fought to the death and refused to surrender last night made him think they might be troublesome to deal with.
Seeing Yuga's troubled expression, Mienshao quickly said, "I'll persuade him properly. I guarantee he won't cause you any trouble."
Yuga looked at it and asked, "Really?"
"Really, really, I promise!" the Mienshao leader swore solemnly.
"All right then," Yuga said.
Mienshao and Bisharp were both quite rare Pokémon. In other regions, their value would be even higher. If they were truly willing to join voluntarily, then that was naturally a good thing.
Seeing that Yuga agreed, the Mienshao leader was overjoyed.
And just like that, Yuga took away all the Mienfoo, Mienshao, Bisharp, and Pawniard from the base.
Compared to the other groups, the Mienshao and Bisharp groups had far fewer members, but their quality was much higher. Otherwise, last night's chaos wouldn't have been so intense.
After finishing the selection of Pokémon, Yuga and General Toyama stood at the warehouse entrance chatting for a bit. Just then, a soldier came running over and shouted at General Toyama: "General! General Damov has woken up!"
General Toyama immediately took off toward the medical station. Yuga thought for a moment and followed him.
By the time the two of them arrived at General Damov's hospital room, General Leo, General Yukishiro, and General Chiba were already there. There was also a woman Yuga didn't recognize, who was helping wash General Damov's face.
After being introduced by General Toyama, Yuga learned that this woman was General Damov's wife. She also served in the pioneering army, though in a clerical role.
Although she worked in administration, General Damov's wife was also a trainer and had even seen battle before. It was just that her strength wasn't as great as her husband's.
General Chiba was chattering away to General Damov, just like a noisy bird, but General Damov didn't show any impatience — instead, he listened with a smile on his face.
When Yuga arrived, both General Damov and his wife expressed their heartfelt gratitude to him in a very solemn and respectful manner.
However, the group had only chatted with General Damov for a short while before being chased out of the hospital room by the doctor.
General Damov had just regained consciousness and had suffered psychological trauma, so he was prone to mental exhaustion.
General Damov's attending physician was an old man with messy hair named Nanping. He wasn't tall, had a fiery temper, but was an exceptionally skilled doctor. If it weren't for him, General Damov wouldn't have woken up so quickly.
After leaving General Damov's room, Yuga went to see Doctor Nanping alone, wanting to ask him about the glowing stones and glowing plants.
When Doctor Nanping learned that Yuga was the one who had found those glowing stones and glowing plants, he was overjoyed and eagerly pulled Yuga into a discussion.
The medicine used to treat General Damov and the soldiers had been extracted from the glowing stones by Doctor Nanping.
Through Doctor Nanping's explanation, Yuga learned that the glowing plant was a special type of plant that could release psychic toxins. These toxins were not lethal, but they would cause intense hallucinations and trap people in illusions that were extremely difficult to escape from.
For example, General Damov and the others had fallen into a hallucination where they thought they were still battling the lord of the grassland, so they had mistaken Yuga and the others as the enemy and launched attacks against them without hesitation.
Once trapped in such a hallucination, it was impossible for people outside to wake them up, because the illusion that imprisoned their consciousness was one they had created themselves.
This psychic toxin could even suppress and block the psychic powers of Pokémon, which was why Yuga's Chimecho and the others had failed to collect the glowing plants.
But everything has its counter. The glowing stones found right next to the glowing plants were the natural nemesis of that psychic toxin.
In addition, Doctor Nanping discovered that the glowing stones could almost completely dispel most hallucinations created by psychic power.
It was just that due to the short time available for study, Doctor Nanping hadn't been able to fully analyze the two substances. He asked Yuga in detail about the environmental features surrounding the glowing plants and glowing stones, and Yuga told him everything he knew.
"If only we could get more of them," Doctor Nanping sighed after the conversation.
Yuga actually had quite a few of them in his possession, but he didn't intend to hand them over — he planned to take them back for Mewtwo to study. So he pretended not to hear what Doctor Nanping said.
If they really wanted to research them, they could organize their own team to go back into the maze cave and collect them. They had already been there once, so they should have some experience by now.
Now that the lord of the grassland had been dealt with and General Damov and the others had regained consciousness, Yuga didn't stay long at the pioneer army's base. The next day, he returned to the mission outpost in the rear.
When Yoshino and the others saw that Yuga had finally returned, they were all overjoyed.
"Mr. Shimizu, is everything okay over there?" Raizo asked with genuine concern.
Yuga replied, "There was a little unexpected incident, but it's all been resolved."
The three of them visibly relaxed at his words, and Allard even said, "With Mr. Shimizu around, there's no problem that can't be solved!"
Yuga shook his head with a helpless smile, then asked, "There haven't been any problems here, right?"
"No, everything has been going smoothly," Yoshino replied.
High-level Pokémon had gradually been cleared out, so the danger level of the missions naturally decreased as well. Although people were still getting injured every day, none of the injuries were serious, and the Pokémon doctors at the base were fully capable of handling them.
It's just that, because of the issues on the front line, the atmosphere here had also been affected over the past couple of days, becoming somewhat oppressive.
But precisely because of that, the trainers didn't dare to stir up any trouble. Each of them was extremely well-behaved, and the discipline at the base was even better than it had been when Yuga was around.
Now that all the problems had been resolved, everyone would probably return to normal very soon.
Yoshino and the others took turns filling Yuga in on everything that had happened at the base over the past few days.
In the blink of an eye, more than a week had passed. This mission gradually drew to a close, and because everyone was quite capable, the mission was basically completed ahead of schedule.
General Toyama returned two days after Yuga came back, continuing his role in providing logistics support for Yuga's team. With the pressure from the front line gone, General Toyama now had the energy to pay attention to things on this side.
From General Toyama, Yuga learned the reason why the lord of the grassland had always been opposing the pioneer army, and he couldn't help but feel a bit emotional about it.
The lord of the grassland was a victim too. But the perpetrator had long been dealt with by the lord of the grassland itself, so it seemed unreasonable for it to vent its anger on the entire pioneer army.
Still, everyone knew that Pokémon were very easily affected by emotions, so it wasn't really surprising why the lord of the grassland acted the way it did.
Usually, for criminal Pokémon like the lord of the grassland, the League would designate them as breeding Pokémon. But due to special considerations this time, the lord of the grassland would only be kept under surveillance and would not be made into a breeding Pokémon.
As for whether it could ever regain its freedom in the future, that would depend on its own behavior.
Of course, given the severity of the lord of the grassland's crimes, complete freedom was definitely out of the question.
A few more days passed, and General Toyama officially announced that this mission had been successfully completed. Everyone was overjoyed, because the rewards from this mission were generous. For a long while, they wouldn't have to worry about resources again.
The day after the mission ended, Yuga and the others boarded a flying vehicle and left the grassland. Not long after, they arrived once again at their original gathering place — Floccesy Town.
On the day they arrived in Floccesy Town, many trainers began to leave one after another. Quite a few of them even came specifically to bid farewell to Yuga before departing.
During the course of this mission, many trainers had received help from Yuga — some had even had their lives saved by him. None of them were ungrateful people, and they silently remembered Yuga's kindness in their hearts.
Yuga left on the second day. Before parting, Yoshino, Allard, and Raizo were all very reluctant to say goodbye. Each of them expressed that if they ever visited the Hoenn Region in the future, they would definitely go to Verdanturf City to see Yuga.
Yuga was also quite reluctant to leave. After spending a whole month together day and night, it was impossible to have no feelings at all — besides, the three of them were really decent people.
After a series of reluctant farewells, Yuga boarded the flying vehicle bound for Verdanturf City. As for when they might see each other again, or whether they even would — that was impossible to say.