Tensions in Lyceni

[Alexiandra]

'The Situation Room'
Central Intelligence Directorate Headquarters
Lockbourne, Alexiandra

Peter Black, the Foreign Minister of the Alexiandran Republic, was on the verge of a meltdown. It seemed like the entire world was losing its mind. First the Vichnayans had sparked an international incident by menacing Harrisopian territorial waters. Then the Traldonians had started burning and looting their own cities. And now, just when it seemed like some semblance of order had been restored, two crises had erupted in the space of a few hours. Some sort of attack was underway in Tritous, with Harrisopian police engaged in a gun battle perilously close to the Alexiandran embassy. Perhaps even more pressingly, less than five years after Riomler's nuclear self-immolation, its homegrown ethno-nationalist movement had declared its independence, founding a virulently racist - and extremely destabilising - nation-state known only as 'Buhers'. The President, sequestered in a Tritous safe room, had already been informed - but he had bigger things on his plate. For now, Alexiandra's response was up to Black, who was presently receiving a briefing from General Vier, head of the Central Intelligence Directorate. Black took a deep breath, and tried to refocus on what the General was saying.

'We're not sure how powerful this new pseudo-state is,' Vier continued. 'It's unclear at this time exactly how much weaponry the rebels have managed to capture, or whether the significant stockpile of Magican equipment nearby has been saved. In the worst-case scenario, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of fighters armed with modern small arms and vehicles.' He paused, seemingly realising that Black needed to digest the information. After some time, the Foreign Minister collected his thoughts just enough to venture a question.

'How is Riomler responding?'

The General frowned. 'As you'd expect, sir. They've issued a statement essentially declaring war on the breakaways. Given the ideological commitment and organisation the rebels have demonstrated, things could get very messy.'

Black sighed heavily. No doubt the Vichnayans would be drooling at the prospect of exploiting this schism in a key Allied nation. Even the Traldonians would have something to celebrate here - Buhers' rebellion would provide a model for the ultranationalist, anti-Allied elements currently stirring within the Empire.

The Foreign Minister was aware that he was, in many ways, a weak man. But Alexiandra was a strong nation - and a strong response was clearly needed now. Returning to his office in a hurry, he began dictating a communiqué to his aides.

Official Communiqué

To: The International Community
From: The Republic of Alexiandra

It has come to the attention of the Republic's security and diplomatic authorities that a violent, ultranationalist group has declared its secession from the Empire of Riomler. Claiming to have established a state called 'Buhers', this band of criminals is hellbent upon destabilising the Lycene community and demolishing the peaceful order that has prevailed since the catastrophic Second Magican War. Alexiandra will not allow this to happen. There is no place in a modern, tolerant, cosmopolitan region such as Lyceni for ethnic extremists like those of 'Buhers' - nor for the criminal practice of taking up arms against a legitimate, democratically elected government. The Republic intends to work closely with its allies, including the Empire of Riomler, to assess this developing situation and devise a solution that brings this irresponsible rebellion to an end.

Signed,

Peter Black,
Minister for the Foreign Affairs of the Alexiandran Republic


Mere minutes later, a second message was dispatched to Riomlerian authorities via secure diplomatic channels:

Official Communiqué

To: The State of Riomler
From: The Republic of Alexiandra
Classification: TOP SECRET

Dear Friends,

I have been instructed to assure you that, in line with its longstanding commitment to the security and territorial integrity of Riomler, Alexiandra stands full square against the rebellion in 'Buhers'. The Department of Defence has already begun preparations to supply Riomler's armed forces with rifles, ammunition and perishables, as well as aerial and satellite reconnaissance support. We recommend that you act swiftly to crush this uprising before nefarious actors - chiefly Vichnaya - contrive to exploit it for their own ends.

Signed,

Peter Black,
Minister for the Foreign Affairs of the Alexiandran Republic

[Upper Magica]

---

Act Two: This is Our Triumph

---

"Our words, our lives, our pains, they mean nothing! The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler - means everything! That last moment belongs to us; that agony is our triumph."

---

The Great Southern Hotel
Tritous, Kingdom of Harrisopia

---

Marco had finished making his preparations; it was well past time if his ears heard him right. Sirens blared across the city block - that was undoubtedly the Distraction Team doing its righteous work. In fact, a few police cars, lightbars glittering atop them, zoomed past him and his rental without the slightest hint of concern.

When he saw the vans creep through - it was time to play his part. He started up the car, pulling it gently forwards out of the alleyway, stopping for a bit to make sure the vans saw him. As soon as he was reasonably sure the team saw his bright-pink Fuzion hatchback, he pulled the car up to the gate of the wall of the Great Southern, two Harrisopian policemen - armed with MP5s displayed prominently, slung around their shoulders, standing watch. He was taken notice of immediately; one of them strolled up, tapping the driver's side window.

"Oy; you can't be here," he said to Marco as soon as he rolled down the window.

"Oh, sorry - I've a Doober Eatz order for a, uh..." he grumbled in faux-confusion, looking towards his bag. "Do you mind if I get the ticket really quick?"

The police officer, annoyed enough due to other events currently ongoing in the City of Tritous at the moment, looked towards his compatriot.

That was all the opportunity Marco needed; with haste, he withdrew a silenced .45 pistol and slammed the car door into the police officer, also fluidly letting loose a few bullets at the idle officer in the background. With one stone downed were two birds: stepping out, he dispatched the other policeman, snatching up what he believed to be a keycard to the gate.

Stepping to the gatehouse, he slid the card - his guess proved correct, as the gate latched its way open. He brought up a shitty little flip-phone, raising it to his ear after dialing in a number.

Ring ring. Ring ring.

A click. "Is it done?"

"Yep. Come on in." he replied most laconically, tossing the phone into the street; there was no further use for it.

Marco stepped lackadaisically to the front desk, whose attendant seemed to be too busy jabbering on the phone to notice him raise his pistol upward, aimed squarely at her frontal lobe.

The rest, as they say, is history.

... later ...

A furious firefight was currently ongoing in the storied halls of the Great Southern Hotel. Once the most opulent of hotels in the region, a legacy that continued until this red letter day, it was today a bathhouse running red with blood. Harrisopian police and Magican Imperial Guards both were resisting - stiffly - these intruders which had so smartly gotten so far into the building's security without detection had proved a surprising guest - and lethal to boot.

Undoubtedly, there were reinforcements inbound. These attackers, whether they knew it or not, were dead men walking. But, for the Special Protection Service of the Imperial Guard and those officers of the Tritous Met that had avoided - so far - termination, who were outfitted with pistols, shotguns, and submachineguns, they were, albeit not hopelessly, outgunned: these attackers were wielding military rifles and wore military-grade body armor. The question was not whether they would survive, but would their charge?

..elsewhere..

de Limonet-Estienne brandished a .45 - he hadn't held onto one since the Adaki black-op of '92, his last field mission. It brought up memories, as fuzzy as his mind was from being stirred up in the middle of the night by gunfire - that brought up less pleasant memories, too: not worth revisiting.

The Minister-Paramount and his small protective party crept down the hallway; one of his aides - God knows what happened to the others - was chattering furiously, though quietly on the phone with what he presumed was help.

"God... damnit, we need something, anything, goddamnit, anything you can send us. We're heading up top." she said to the muffled voice on the other end of the line. "No, we can't go through the ground level; it's not safe. The fuck? Look, if we stay here -" de Limonet-Estienne grabbed the phone out of her hand with his right, .45 still in his left.

"....well, I don't know what to tell yo-" the voice said on the other end. de Limonet-Estienne, in his characteristic vulgar fashion, interrupted - rudely. "Listen to me, you bureaucratic fuck. I don't know who you are or who you work for, and I don't very well goddamn care; I want a fucking bird on top of this..." he began, proceeding into a full-blown profanity-laden rant perhaps too vulgar for the medium.

He took a breath. "Now - are we getting evac out of here? I want to make sure you understand the gravity of the situation here," holding out the phone, letting the receiver take in the sounds of furious gunfighting.

"....I'll see what can be done, sir." the voice replied. de Limonet-Estienne retorted heatedly, handing back the phone to his aide.

"You fuckin' better."

---

Act Two Point Five: A Strange Cult of Heroism and Death?

---

"We see long-term planning as necessary and deliberation as a virtue, but when we decide that action is urgently needed, our tolerance for delay disappears.

In those moments, many of us no longer want to be asked, “What do you think?” We want to be told where to march. That is when Fascism gets its start: other options don’t seem enough."

---

The Imperial Palace - The Emperor's Study
Aquis, Empire of Magica

---

The Emperor was on the phone, chattering away in the Magican evening. Diplomacy was hard, especially without the counsel of his chief advisor.

"...right. We'll see you then. Aye; things are well enough. It turns out being an absolute monarch for the time being is a mentally and, frankly, given how little sleep I get a night, taxing affair." He chuckled to whomever he was talking to on the phone, interrupted by the sudden appearance of a group of both military officers and civilian ministers.

He knew what this was instinctively, anxiety kicking its way through the door; just when he'd gotten time to wind down from the day, as funny as it was, given the work he was continuing to do but yet found oddly relaxing. "Merde-- err, ah, sorry. I've got to go. Ta."

He swiped on the rectangular device, laying it downward on the nearby table.

"Your Majesty," the lead military officer announced, "we have a situation."

...

"All of it? You're telling me that every single one of our Operation ReforRio supply depots - guarded and manned in the first place by Riomlerian troops, second-line at best to our own Territorial Army and perhaps even compromised themselves by Buherin nationalist sentiment, for God's sake - they're all under threat?"

The unlucky messenger for the Magican Imperial Army nodded. "Yes, it appears that way, Your Majesty."

"What do we have to counter this threat in the crib? We cannot simply let an Army Group's worth of--"

"Three brigades of Territorial Army conscripts, sir. And they're all on the Vichnayan border; we'll have to pull a fighting retreat to more defensible positions, essentially ceding the Vichnayan border region. It's simply tactically inadvisable." the General replied.

The Emperor, in a rare display of anger, groaned audibly. "Why the hell do we have-"

One of the civilians - the Minister of Finance, specifically - cut in. "Budget overruns, sir. You specifically authorized a drawdown of troop deployment in Riomler, given the improved security clime, what with Riomler remilitarizing.."

The Minister of Interior was next. "To be honest, public opinion toward intervention abroad... risky prospect, that, if I may cut in for a second. We're still stuck with the economic black hole that is the North, although we've made headway reintegrating, as you know. To be honest, the Riomlerians have been more trouble than they've been worth - perhaps this might be the time to-"

"Shut up," the Emperor interrupted. "We will not abandon our ally to genocide and slavery at the hands of these ethnic-nationalists."

He drummed his fingertips on the table. "Let justice be done, damn the world and damn public opinion." he said, paraphrasing his family's motto. He looked squarely at the staff officers of this impromptu cabinet meeting. "Operation ReForRio: how plausible is it now that our prepositioned stocks are gone?"

"Uh," the staff officer representing the Magican Imperial Army dawdled, "frankly, Your Majesty, not very. There is one bit of good news: those stocks were meant for Territorial Army conscripts - M60-2000s, Agitator III-155 tank destroyers, M2F light tanks, so forth. Small arms, AR-10A2s... a theoretical force equipped with these things would still be a formidable force indeed, however. At any rate, we would have to physically ship over the Regular Army, the Imperial Air Force and their respective logistical components.."

"Do so," Arthur said. "Now is not the time for half-measures. I want a plan drafted by tomorrow on my desk, full briefing, all branches of service."

Another advisor soon came into the room. "Your Majesty, there's an unfolding situation in Tritous," they announced as they entered.

What in the hell was going on now? - Arthur wondered. He would soon get his answer, jaw agape.

[Harrisopia]

The Great Southern Hotel
Tritous, Harrisopia
HRR

The greatest peace in life was the satisfaction of complete and utter silence.
For most it was rarely experienced, no matter where you where.
For Harrisopian Special Forces it was a mindset.

Sirens screeched, gunshots growled, cries croaked.
Tritous MET and Magican Imperial Guards were panicking amidst the chaos.

A HRR unit was situated only a street away from the hotel, habitually readjusting their weapons, tapping their feet like they had something better to do.

"Priority is Minister-Paramount." The leading officer said simply
"Hostiles are only a small number as far as intelligence claims. Their termination has been ordered but only as a secondary task. The main job is getting the Minister-Paramount and his team out of there as fast and safely as possible."

Each of the unit gave a slow nod as confirmation, eager to get the show on the road.

"There are three entrances into the hotel. Main entrance is out of the question. All eyes are on that and we don't wanna spook the hostiles. Delta, Eagle, Cobra and Shark to go through the east entrance. Probe the area, find the Minister-Paramount and get him out of there. Send word if you do.
Everyone else is with me through the south entrance."

Without another word the troops began to move.

Harrisopian Royal Palace
Safety Room
King Theon Jadeous

King Theon whistled with impatience as he watched his Royal Guards wander around the room as though looking for threats in each crack and corner.

"Is retreating to the safety room really all that necessary?" The King grunted

The Royal Guards quickly turned to the King
"Your Highness please, any time there is a threat in the capital you must trust us to do what is necessary for your's and your wife's safety."

King Theon sighed but nodded in agreement.
He turned to his wife who was almost napping in her seat.

"I think threat is a bit of an exaggeration." The Queen said softly

King Theon smiled
"I suppose they are just doing their duty. I can only hope our special forces resolve the situation at the hotel quickly and then we can stop hiding in this place."

As if on cue one of the guards approached the Royal couple
"Your Highness, we have word that HRR has successfully infiltrated the hotel. With the number of hostiles noted, we would expect the mission to be completed before the day's end."

"God willing" the Queen added.

The Great Southern Hotel
Tritous MET
Officer Jennifer Bailey

Late shifts and skull splitting headaches. Those were some of the perks of being a police officer.

"Stay back please, keep behind the line." Officer Jennifer droned on for what felt like the thousandth time.

They had set up barriers in the entire area and the officers had been tasked with keeping the public away from what was considered a 'critical zone' while the Magican Imperial Guards stayed outside the hotel, waiting for anyone who may try to come out.

Jennifer turned to her partner Officer Bradley and spoke
"This is killing me. I feel like a robot. Why do we have to stay over here while the Magicans get in on the action?"

Officer Bradley snorted
"They're stood slightly closer to the hotel than we are. I wouldn't call that being in on the action."

"Still better than being glorified traffic wardens." Jennifer grumbled

Officer Bradley shook his head but said nothing.

A few minutes went before Captain Ainsworth could be heard addressing them all
"Our military's special forces have made their way into the hotel and are working on an extraction as we speak. Keep up what you're doing and we'll all be home in no time."

Jennifer groaned

"We might as well just go home now. This job doesn't pay enough."

Bradley laughed
"I can't wait till you become Captain Bailey. We'll all be on permanent paid leave. "

[Upper Magica]

The Great Southern Hotel
Tritous, Harrisopia

The lights in this old, dusty place had been unceremoniously shuttered from outside, standard practice for extended urban sieges such as this. Red emergency lights took the place of bright white neon, as de Limonet-Estienne sat in one of the reading rooms, miniature libraries, really, which had been hastily barricaded by the team of five lightly armed Imperial Guards, himself, and what few aides of his ministry that had been scooped up with them as they sought to make their exit out of this wretched place.

He checked his phone - a precious luxury, given limited battery power and the mere danger of illuminating the dark in a place that echoed - frequently - with gunshots. Dozens of missed calls so far; he recognized the listing of his liege-lord among them. He gave a call back - three rings sounded out before he got... a rapid busy signal in response.

Strange, he thought. It added to the uneasiness in his stomach. What was going on over there?

But, his attention would soon shift to the happenings very much here - one of the doors jolted, displacing books off a dimly-lit shelf, leading all - including de Limonet-Estienne - who were armed to shift their weapon sights toward the door.

"Whisper," one of the Imperial Guards challenged, albeit a futile endeavor as Magican challenge codes did not quite align with those of their allies, though he couldn't discount the possibility that by now that any intervention forces had been briefed on the correct reply.

"We're with the Recovery Regiment - we're here to save you." a voice replied from the other end. It was an odd accent. The reply also had avoided answering the challenge.

As two agents brought down the barricade, de Limonet-Estienne realized the placement of that accent - it was Northern Magican. As a deception unfolded in his mind, he - in typical manner - sounded out what he was thinking with both action and words.

"That's no Harrisopian! Get away from there!" he shouted - to no avail, as rifle rounds began tearing through the thin walls, dropping the body of one of his protective detail near the door outright, while the other barely escaped with his life. Within seconds, a full-blown firefight was taking place - he reckoned three of them were behind the wall.

"Come out and play, you capitalist pigs!" a deep Northern Magican voice rang out as the barricade itself began to come down as both rifle fire and blunt force from the other side toppled part of it over. "Fuck off," de Limonet-Estienne replied with the bold thump of .45 fire, though blind in its nature. He wasn't sure if he'd even hit anything, but if there were any advantage to this tete-a-tete - it was that both sides were mutually disadvantaged in the low-light conditions of the hotel.

In a blink, one of his security detail landed next to him behind the overturned bookcase he'd been taking cover behind. "Sir - there's an exit to our rear, and I recommend we take it before more of these bastards come down on us. If we get cut off..."

"We're screwed. Yes. I'd been thinking of that too." He reloaded his pistol as he strategized out loud. "We need to find a safe place to hunker down. It won't be good if we come in contact with the actual HRR if we're in a running gunfight; the risk of blue-on-blue will be too high."

Another furious exchange of fire followed his words - the last remnants of the makeshift barricade coming down. "On three," de Limonet-Estienne said. The Guards and himself took the opportunity to reload their weapons. "Three!" he shouted, and the group at once got up, laying down suppressive fire while creeping out of the other exit of the room.

Dashing out of the room and into the halls, it was difficult to imagine what would come next.

---

Outside of Aquis
Empire of Magica

The soldiers of the 96th Detachment of the Department of Social Order - officially disbanded by what many among their number called the 'raven-haired brat', and then promptly unofficially called back into the service of the Empire by its most steadfast defenders, were working hard at this early-morning hour in this backwater: a backhoe was pulling out strands of fiber wire, ripping what had once been one of the Empire's main fiber-relays to the wider world into shreds.

Anton puffed a cigarette in his old urban-camouflage uniform, weaved with grey and black ripples, rather than the newer pixelated patterns, adjusting his beret against the wind. His comrade sat on the hillside idly. Anton spoke, breaking the silence. "It begins today, no?"

"Aye, that it does. Surprised they're making the move this early, what with the Vichnayans visiting. Guess the good news out of all this is that the Fiddler on the Roof's gonna be playing all day and all night." the other man mused, lighting up his own cancer-stick.

"Hate that garbage," Anton spat. "Musicals and the boob-tube. If'n you ask me, State Broadcasting oughta stick to its bread and butter - lutte libre, racing and pretty maidens in undress."

"Uncultured swine - I suppose that's par for the course for you urban dregs." The nameless Decanus smiled wryly, mimicking the stereotype of what he perceived as a lesser city-dweller. "Hoo-hoo, strip club! Purdy lights, free buffet - after club, we go buy useless bullshit at mega-mart!" he said in a distinctly derogatory tone of voice.

"Fuck you," Anton spat. "You probably never heard of working sewerage 'till now, you inbred country-boy blue-blood sonofa.."

"Duuuuhhhh, what season do mah potaters grow for da' all-dressed frites?" the Decanus chuckled, letting loose another mockery.

From the distant periphery of their worksite, they heard the bellowing voice of the Centurion. "Shut the hell up over there, you lolly-gaggers! We're about to move out - start loading up!"

The two put out their cigarettes. "Well, at least we're not Northerners." the Decanus spoke in an attempt at reconciliation.

Anton glared, having been perhaps mocked a bit too much in the last minute for his urban upbringing - a rarity in the former Department of Social Order - and sighed. "Aye, but you've sure the work-ethic of one. Get to work, already." he said.

With their banter concluded, the two began hoisting equipment into trucks. Across the Empire, similar situations were taking place as a prelude for the main event - internet and long-distance telephone exchanges were being covertly ransacked and cables to the outside world cut with precision. To many, it was surely a rude awakening as regional websites and services were suddenly unavailable - and, suspiciously, vice versa as Magican services accessed from abroad suddenly went quiet on the global Internet, while callers found themselves confronted with rapid beeping typical of overloaded lines.

[Riomler]

Irvine military base,Riomler


"sergeant major howard,im going to need a estimate of rebel forces,Do you have them?" asked the major general,"yes sir,They have about 1.5 to 2.2 million men on the ground and their navy is mediocre and new,Although as you know,last month or so,they raided some relatively modern magican equipment which will probaly prove a nuisance,Sir"Sergeant howard read aloud."How long will this take?"Asked the major general,"From their numbers,at the least,4 months and thats if some major disaster doesnt happen.(hint hint)"Alright,I want 4,243,834 men to move into the south of buhers from all sides,encircle them,then push into the capital while the navy destroys buhers navy to have sea superiority.Also send 125 f-36's combined with 350 b-1 bombers to secure the air and help our ground forces,And send in a frigor unit of 15,We dont need much for this"

[Harrisopia]

The Great Southern Hotel
Tritous, Harrisopia
HRR

Barely a sound could be heard as the leading officer marched forward with his team.

They had encountered no one so far, not even hotel staff. He hoped they had made their way out safely instead of being used as insurance by the hostiles.

"It's unusually quiet sir. No activity for this long is strange." Said Bloodhound

As if on cue, voices were heard some way ahead of the unit.
Requiring no verbal orders, the team prepared for conflict, with their training kicking in.

Touching the air with their rifles the troops moved forward in unison.

"This hotel isn't that big. We cannot possibly have been outwitted by a fancy politician." Growled a Traldonian voice

Coming into sight was two bulky figures, armed with primitive looking pistols.

"Shut up and keep looking. He must be som-"
A loud bang and the man dropped before he could finish his sentence.

With a yelp his partner shakily pulled up his weapon before meeting the same fate without having a chance to retaliate.

The leading officer inspected the casualties
"A pair of rookies. Hopefully that's the standard that we're dealing with here."

Pushing forward the team continued their search.

[Upper Magica]

ACT 3.PROLOGUE - Final Preparations

---

"A bad plan executed haphazardly and violently will, contrary to expectation, have more of a chance of success than a good plan executed when it is, above all, too late."

-unnamed Magican revolutionaire, 1716 - 'Famous Last Words of a Jacobin'

---

24 Hours Ago - Outside of Aquis, Empire of Magica

A group of shadowy men, one by one, entered into this deserted highway pub. They were, of course, acting all in interest of their employers: they dare not show up to this meeting personally.

Many were military men, minus the spartan and gray-blue officers' uniforms of the Magican Imperial Army, instead dressed in slacks and a loose floral shirt. Others were Navy men, minus the pearl-white pressed jackets and gold epaulettes, instead dressed in jeans and a simple t-shirt. Others were of the Imperial Magican Air Force, minus the vaguely-futuristic gray jumpsuits and jet-black riding boots, instead wearing straw hats, overalls, and spurred leather shoes.

And others were of the defunct Department of Social Order, having been spirited out of prison, where able, by the loyal: trading in their prison orange for proper clothes of the business style.

And sunglasses.

One by one, they took their seat in a secluded alcove with a small meeting table: this was, despite the emptiness of the building, very much a public place. It was, of course, necessary to remain incognito.

The keynote speaker of this meeting was, of course, a Department of Social Order man, freshly replaced in his former home-that-would-have-been for 20 or so years by some lowlife. de la Rochefoucauld arose, clinking his glass of whisk with a stirring spoon.

"Gentlemen, welcome at last to this... pre-celebration of what it means to be Magican - god-fearing people of import. You all know why we are here. Let us begin," he motioned over to Blaise de Vithier-Lignillot, a DCI man formerly of the DSO - his speciality had been black-operations within the Empire, and he was particularly skillful in raising funds as well as hiding said black money in creative places; this had been a boon to the formative Committee in its early days, awash with cash. "Brother Blaise," Niall bellowed drunkenly. "What of our assets?"

Blaise, outwardly a mild-mannered paper-pusher, sat up, shuffling papers in his hands. "Everyone who's liable to turn a blind eye to the imminent Operation, or even run in lockstep with our cause with payment has been, of course, paid to do so. The prisons, simply put, will be empty by the dusk as has been instructed by Brother Castrie: our unjustly forsaken brothers will join with us and the greater cause in but a few hours. In all, preparations seem to be complete; or at least the ones which can be achieved realistically. Also, as everyone might know, our allocation of resources West has seemed to produce....results beyond belief. The termination of the Minister-Paramount is a real coup; we'll have to take a look at further collaborations with the Traldonians."

Niall nodded. "That it, Brother?" Blaise nodded. "That's all from me," he nodded toward another. "I do believe our other special guest, Mj. Gen. de Fay, representing the Imperial Army, had something to add in urgently."

de Fay arose, clicking nonexistent heels. "I report that the 32nd Brigade and 98th Armored up north are fully aligned behind the Operation. Further, units in the Central Military Region and Southern Military Region are ready to execute our part in this..." he spat. "Shadow play." Niall nodded. "That's good, real good." de Fay looked concerned before continuing. "In all, we hold but a minority of military forces. That's not good for what we've planned for - if you don't hold up your end of the deal, we'll all be on the gallows by week's end like that Red bastard Desmarais: the brat and his white-haired mistress whom poisons his mind with Vichnayo-Northern Communist filth--"

A haggard old woman, seated at the far end of the table, whom - until now - was content to observe, was now no longer.

"Brother de Fay, you will cease spouting to this Committee your... observations on the Monarch's hypothesized interpersonal relationships. Slander, really, if I'm being blunt." She said, a voice of ice, hidden threat nestled within the tone.


"Vichnayo-Communist filth? Simply marvelous, your capability to piss and whine - you disguise it beneath racism and contempt of the old style. Gentlemen, I am the Department of Social Order: let me assure you, if you were somehow jarred out of your unwavering support for this righteous cause - that the Empire should once again retake its position of supremacy it once held so long ago, squandered by incapable monarchs such as the one we have now..."

"Let me state that we will regain what has been lost. From Keltland to the fear and adoration of hundreds of millions. Our favor from God himself. No matter what happens, we shall prevail. We shall tell the world - and the public - lies that will secure the glory of this Empire for millennia."

"After all, the victors write history." She gazed at everyone in the room meaningfully.

Niall clapped, giving a solo standing ovation. "Mistress Durand," he bowed, "your capacity to-" She interrupted. "Shut up, kiss-ass. Get me a drink," she snapped figuratively, her fingers literally, as if he were but a dog. "Martini. Shaken, not stirred. Get me a cigar while you're at it.", specifying her drink of choice.

For Colonel Alexandre Fontaine, however, this display proved... more jarring than the doubts. He'd joined the Committee for - of course - the cause of saving the Empire from certain Communism and godlessness: the Emperor had been misguided by a liberal education, reinforced by a court of yes-men. This?

As he said to his wife over the phone, it was a return to darker times, roughly sketching out the details of what was coming - though not necessarily the mechanisms of action the Committee planned to employ tomorrow - to, by chance, listeners from the VPKO, as well as, to their abject horror, staffers of the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Alexiandrian Republic on a routine trawling expedition through various telecom satellites - one of which happened to be Magican.

There would be hell, expressed in the tonnes of paperwork they'd be filing - as well as in the greater geopolitical sense - to pay.

---

ACT 2 - Finale

---

“How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.”

-Minister-Paramount Léon Bertrand de Limonet-Estienne, walking triumphantly down the steps of the Great Southern Hotel

---

Great Southern Hotel, Tritous, Harrisopia

Gunfire. More gunfire.

It reminded de Limonet-Estienne of the night-time op in the last days of the Astovkan War: amid snow and darkness, flashes of light, smoke, and fire flickered.

Before he could slip into visions of a past better left behind, he was pulled back to reality by a staffer. "Sir, are we almost out the front door?" de Limonet-Estienne chuckled. "Boy, do you think it's a good idea to walk out the front door of the most armed building in Tritous - with hundreds of police surrounding us, to say nothing of snipers - with handguns in our right and rifles in the other?"

The staffer froze. "I...ah.. didn't think." Leon shook his head. "You sure didn't."

de Limonet-Estienne looked toward his security detail. "Where are we going, exactly?" One of them replied in a quiet tone. "We're heading upstairs. Roof's probably secured by these Red bastards. Fire escape might be a better bet."

He nodded. "I agree. Sounds like HRR's actually made entry. I've been hearing fewer spats of gunfire."

"Or we're but a few left alive in this slaughterhouse," an Imperial Guardsman said as an aside. "They've not been taking prisoners."

Limonet-Estienne tapped his ear. "It's more intense, the gunfire, though. It sounds like proper exchanges rather than gunfire followed by screams. Trust me on this - I've had a hell of a lot more years in this business than you've even been alive."

However, their conversation muted out the scuffles of footsteps from the other end of the hallway - and furthermore alerted the three soon-to-be pursuers to their ultimate quarry.

"That voice.. is Limonet-Estienne, yes?" Digger coughed out in the best Magican he could muster. They, too, were on the escape: coincidentally coming to this moment, leaving their remaining comrades to be martyrs.

Poor Vladislav, he thought. Who were the other three? Oh well. It didn't matter.

Marco coughed, shushing it with the palm of his hand. "Let's get this bastard. We have him."

Digger raised his left, hiding behind a luggage cart, AK-101 in his right. "Make et count, lad. On three," Marco and Jeanette nodded, the latter bumping her head against a food tray, sending it clattering to the floor - and loudly.

"What was that?" an Imperial Guard whispered, levelling his M500 shotgun down the hall. A Tritous Met officer that the group of four had ran into - literally - raised her sidearm, too.

They got their answer, as AK and AR fire spewed out from the source of the noise, sending the Guard with the shotgun - also the foremost element of the team - down, never letting so much as a shot out.

de Limonet-Estienne's staffer ran, to no avail - receiving a bullet to the back for his trouble. Really, it was multiple. The now-trio was left to fend for themselves: one Guard kicked in the door to a room, using the thin walls as cover. As for de Limonet-Estienne, he was behind another luggage cart, while the Met officer was visibly suppressed behind an overturned coffee table of solid oak, blind-firing into the hallway.

This was, admittedly, a bleak moment. "Move!" he heard in Magican - the Northern dialect, the gunfire stopping. He took the moment to bounce out of cover toward the Guardsman's own defensive position, firing his Mod. 1911 pistol down the hall as he did.

He received the satisfaction of watching the .45 bullets send a Red beret as well as no small amount of what must have been long hair flying to the ceiling, the sound of a body thumping to the floor hitting de Limonet-Estienne's ears; in the meantime, the fire started back up again.

"Jeanette! You imperialist bastard!" he heard down the hall. "Jeanette's burning in hell - where she belongs!" he replied, laughing.

A clink. A vaguely metallic clink, unmistakeable to his trained ears. Without hesitation, he leapt onto the floor, tackling the Imperial Guardsman to his left as well. "Grenade!", he bellowed: followed by a deafening explosion a couple of seconds later.

Smoke and fire and wood splinters, his eyes irritated by drywall powder.

No, this didn't remind him of the Adaki black-op anymore: this reminded him of the Mernean Gambit of 1982 - particularly after he pissed off one of the local syndicates with a counter-offer to an offer he supposedly couldn't refuse.

That was a story for another time.

He looked to the side: where the Met officer was... was no longer, shreds of Kevlar, cloth, and flesh remaining.

It was then de Limonet-Estienne took note of the blood on his hands.

"Oh, shit-" he exclaimed, under the impression the blood was his own. It, morbidly thankfully, was not: but that of the Imperial Guardsman underneath him, his eyes glazed over in an expression of terror, while his head oozed crimson-red from the side.

It could have been me, de Limonet-Estienne thought.

Grabbing the Guardsman's machine-pistol, he looked for a way out - or one that could be made quickly enough. There was none. This was the last stand, he thought.

"Come and get me, you bastards!" he bellowed, adrenaline pumping, gun trained on the doorway. He was answered, thankfully, by a lone figure in balaclava and old People's Army urban fatigues, wielding an AR-10: he wished he could have seen the full shock on his face when an old man covered in soot and blood pumped the bastard full of lead.

With the squeeze of a trigger emptying the magazine of the MP7, he was Riomlerian cheese.

Reaching for his M1911, however, greeted the entrance of a red-bearded giant of a man. "Playtime's over, ol' laddie." He discarded the AK he was wielding. "Ah'm gonnae enjoy this, methinks.", he said menacingly, cracking his knuckles dramatically. Before de Limonet-Estienne could get a shot off, he found himself disarmed, his weapon literally kicked out of his left hand.

Scrambling to escape, he crawled - easily overpowered by the much younger and stronger Traldonian before him, who soon cracked the back of his ribcage with a powerful knee. It was then he felt a powerful grasp around his neck, his arm wrenched into an unnatural position with a sickening crack.

This was the end, he thought.

Until he heard another deafening bang, light filling his vision.

One might have mistaken it for the 'light at the end of the tunnel': but he knew better. It was a concussion grenade, more popularly known as a flash-bang. The Traldonian arose, promptly sent backward - again onto de Limonet-Estienne - by the unmistakeable sound and light of M416 rifles.

The Harrisopians had arrived in the nick of time - just barely.

With the successful rescue of de Limonet-Estienne, as battered as he was, the hostage crisis, such as it was now that there were likely no more hostages of value to be found within the Great Southern... was over.

[Harrisopia]

Tritous
Special Forces HQ
Chief Richard Davies

"By law they are to be considered an extremist group and dealing with them after an attack on home territory is considered the top priority." Drawled out the Chief

This was the worst part of his job. Talking to the pencil pushers and office lackeys.
He knew the situation and would rather be briefing his men but unfortunately a meeting with government officials was always a requirement.
Keep the toffee nosed clowns in the loop.

"An Alexiandran-Magican air operation will commence in the next week. Currently we are on the scouting side of the mission which means I will be sending units from HRF out to do their jobs."

Chief Davies watched as the officials all scribbled down what he imagined was nonsense onto their clip boards.

"If you all feel up to date then I would like to conclude this meeting. I need to get to work on strategies."

Without another word the Chief walked out the room.

[Riomler]

Salina,Riomler/Wall of freedom,
13th Battalion,
Lance griffin,2nd liutenenet,Code name:Hawk
Also one of the only survivors of the incursion into vichnaya
Former policemen,Had the choice of going to the army or serve prison time for 8 beatings of criminals,with 1 death occuring



"(sigh),this job isnt worth shit,the folks here are lousy,you can see the vichnayan bastards from miles away and i cant get any sleep because some noisy magicans are flashing their lights,Guess i outta tell them to stop."as lance walked along the wall,he saw someone actually open a door on the oppisite side and actually walk towards the vichnayans nonchalantly,Knowing this was definitely wrong,He followed them secretly in the darkness of night for what seemed like hours till they stopped and waited with what looked like...a bunch of junk,what that was supposed to be,lance didnt know but he stopped wondering when he saw 2 vichnayans jump down a slope and walked towards the magicans,at first,lance thought the magicans would run away with their tails between their legs but when he shifted his gaze to them,they were Smiling,Then the two groups began talking in low voices,This enraged lance to the point he raised his Ar-15,And fired about 17 rounds into the clearing ,as he couldnt see them in the dark,he waited and he heard only two bodies thud on the floor,Next,he ran,ran as hard and fast as he could back to the wall,He had gotten close enough to see Mp's on the wall searching the walls the guards supposedly left behind but he knew the story,He screamed,"Over He-"he couldnt finish the sentence as a vichnayan squad knocked him out and dragged him to their side,he blacked out for who knows how long and As he was dragged,he thought"These damn vichnayans..."

[Upper Magica]

On the Vichnayo-Riomlerian Border

The groans of Andre turned into screaming within this field hospital as doctors hurriedly operated on the young Territorial Army conscript - it was audible even outside the modular trailer as his friends waited outside, awaiting good news, even with two MPs guarding the entrance and exit: it wasn't a stretch to imagine what was to follow after his recovery.

If he did.

"Fuck," one of the conscripts spat, crushing his cigarette beneath a boot. "One bad run of luck for Andre. What are the Riomlerians doing here anyway? This sector is our responsibility."

"It's called greed, dipshit." another answered. "Did you think his little side business wouldn't get noticed eventually? Command is about to start coming down hard on this place thanks to him: we're going to get PT'd until we fuckin' die in this pit."

"At any rate-" The screaming stopped, and everyone noticed. "Fuck. Did he..?"

"Aye," the last conscript said. "He bought it."

---

Rovoria, Headquarters of the Magican Imperial Expeditionary Force - Riomler

Emrys Leclerc adjusted his black kepi, typical wear of the Imperial Magican Air Force's officers: in particular those high up the food chain. He was a Commodore - and had kissed enough ass while doing a particularly successful job in his role to make it to the highest echelons of command.

Sitting down, he awaited a meeting with his brigadiers.

The two sat down, looking uneasy. With his riding boots kicked firmly onto the table, he began. "The incident this morning... very unfortunate."

The commander of the 87th Brigade nodded. "I've already begun the process of identifying those personnel responsible for the incident and of the corruption leading up to it -"

"No - I mean that our 'allies' so freely take our lives rather than follow the proper channels." Emrys interrupted. "Isn't it strange? Why wouldn't they cooperate with us - instead of taking a unilateral action that benefits nobody except the Vichnayans? They're keen to have another go: which is why we're here in the first place."

The commander of the 102nd Territorial Army Brigade nodded. "It is. If I'm being honest, it shows how much we're valued; and the soldiers.. well, they're all Northerners, ex-People's Army by and large. They feel as if they're on a--"

"Penal assignment. Yes, I know. My point is: doesn't it irk anyone that these Riomlerians don't show our Empire the proper respect? We benevolently let them get away scot-free after killing hundreds of our troops and sinking dozens of our ships at Sagittarius, helped rebuild their country..."

The two commanders glanced at each other briefly. The commander of the 87th piped up. "So, what is it you suggest?"

Emrys chuckled. "I plan to have the Expeditionary Force depart the line - for snap exercises near Rovoria, of course. This will be in conjunction with some planned exercises taking place, oh... tomorrow, I believe?"

The commander turned a shade of red. "You can't be serious. I've heard of these exercises too, Emrys, but I couldn't believe it with all the VPKO bullshit and psyops floating around until now. This is treasonous! Are you with-"

He nodded, confirming the fact. "The matter of the fact is: the way things are now, your soldiers will likely support the change... of administration coming. We have a part to play, too, as far away as we are."

Emrys glanced aside at his aide. "Bring in our other participant in this meeting: our old friend from times past. Oh, and a couple of MPs. I believe our dear commander here of the esteemed 87th is having a mental breakdown. Send word to the officers: the 102nd will amalgamate with the 87th for now."

"This is ridiculous!" He reached for his sidearm, glancing at the other commander in the room. "You can't seriously be on board with this Fascist nonsense, can you?" he almost screamed.

"God damn it - you're both under arrest for treason against his Majesty."

"Am I?" Emrys chuckled. "I'd be willing to bet that sidearm isn't loaded, Brigadier - and even if it were, do you think that you'd make it a minute out of this room alive?"

The two looked sternly at each other as two MPs arrived in the room, handcuffs glistening.

As one participant in this meeting was hauled away in resignation, another entered incognito as to not alarm the wider world - after all, he was still a wanted war criminal.

Emrys laughed internally - he would get paid twice over: he would be swimming in florin and be privy to all the jewels in Rovoria.

[Alexiandra]

Lockbourne, Alexiandra
6am

The sun was rising as President Montferrat, flanked by Secret Service guards, made the short walk across the elevated walkway to his office. The bulletproof screens on both sides were dappled with hues of red and orange, contrasting sharply with the drab, professional tones of his suit. The day would be humid - the kind of day that would make Alexiandrans, used to their temperate climate, long for a sea breeze. For now, however, with the sun still low in the sky, it was perfectly pleasant. Nevertheless, the President barely noticed. He had much bigger things on his mind.

The attack on the Magican Minister-Paramount in Tritous had sent shockwaves around Lyceni. Gun battles were not a regular occurrence in the Kingdom of Harrisopia - indeed, the exchange between the would-be assassins and their pursuers was the most dramatic event to have occurred on Harrisopian soil since the Civil War. By dawn the next day, the media had been abuzz with speculation and fearmongering, with some of the less reputable Tritous dailies even suggesting that a coordinated terror campaign could be underway. Repeated statements from the King and his cabinet had failed to reassure a public used to watching combat on television rather than in the streets.

With a predictability worthy of Newton's Third Law, every event in Harrisopia causes an equal and corresponding event in Alexiandra, and vice versa. News of the attack produced a veritable sensation in the Alexiandran press - a sensation that was only augmented when, hours after the Minister-Paramount was rescued, President Montferrat's office ordered an escalation in the national terror threat level. The pressure was on now. If he wanted to stand any chance in next year's general election, Montferrat would need to take swift and decisive action. The media needed something to chew on, and he would provide it.

West Havien, Alexiandra
1am

The street was completely deserted, and silent as the grave. The only sounds audible were the dull buzz of streetlights, whose pale LEDs shone down on the pavement like some cheap ersatz moon, and the distant thump of electronic dance music emanating from the clubs downtown. The sky was cloudy, without so much as a star in sight. In a word, conditions were perfect.

Without warning, every single light within a one-mile radius was extinguished. The buzz of the LEDs ceased, as did the faint whisperings of music; brakes screeched somewhere as an unfortunate driver skidded to an alarmed halt. And then they came - twelve figures, dressed like grim reapers in black tactical gear and masks. Their night-vision goggles guided them from the alley where they had emerged down the street and into the back garden of a completely unremarkable, semi-detached house. They congregated in an unholy mass beside the back door, and stood with a menacing confidence as one of their number fitted something to the handle. For a second, everything was still again, like the split second before the start of a torrential downpour. Then an explosion rent the night air asunder, and the back door fell smoking into the dim recesses of a grimy kitchen. The figures waited a second for the dust to clear and then followed it, rifles aloft, barrel-mounted flashlights sweeping the interior of the building. There was a shout from upstairs, and a bed creaked noisily overhead. Within a minute the twelve raiders had cleared the ground floor and reached the bottom of the stairs. They presaged their ascent with a stun grenade, which elicited panicked screams from the occupants, then bounded up the stairs one after another, their purposeful movements made all the more terrifying by their composed silence.

Shots rang out in the rear bedroom; someone slumped to the floor, still clutching their half-loaded shotgun. A single shot to the head of the downed foe ended whatever pain they were still capable of feeling. For a moment it looked like the place was secure, the figures' mission accomplished - and then they noticed a muted thermal signature coming from underneath one of the beds. Their black-gloved hands fastened on an ankle, and they dragged a man out, stunning him with a blow from a rifle-butt. Then they dragged him down the stairs, a bag over his head, and out of the front door. At that precise moment, the streetlights came back on - right as news vans came squealing round the corner, snapping photos. What they captured was television gold: a heroic member of the armed forces, wreathed in smoke, dragging one of the nation's enemies out into the public eye, exposed for all the world to see. The whole operation had taken just under two minutes.

Montferrat received the call shortly afterwards: everything had gone according to plan. The press, eager as ever to cooperate with authority, had rushed to the scene as soon as they were tipped off, and their timing couldn't have been better. By morning, the news would be all over Lyceni: Alexiandra was cracking down on the bastards who had attacked the Minister-Paramount of one of her most significant allies. Perhaps the Central Intelligence Directorate deserved a boost in the next budget, he mused. They had done a good job identifying this cretin. The fact that they had not acted sooner, preferring to wait until more members of the network revealed themselves, was an inconvenient truth which - if Montferrat had his way - would never see the light of day. Besides, the intelligence they coughed up under 'enhanced interrogation' would be worth the delay.

Montferrat hung up the phone and went back to bed. He slept deeply, without a care in the world.

[Hundermenschen]

Zolana, Hundermenschen
7 am

The day in Hundermenschen had started long ago and a lot of citizens had already started their daily routines hours ago. The same was no different for Atlas Koch who had been awake a few hours before as part of his usual schedule. In his office he decided to take a small break from the several national issues which he was welcomed with to take a look outside the window which was behind his desk which was also bulletproof to prevent an assassination attempt. The streets below were a buzz with activity ranging from cars, people walking on the sidewalks, and a few planes and helicopters flying over from time to time, It was good that things weren't like they were before he took office. After the countries unification, the economy started to grow again to a comfortable state and the armed forces were brought back to their former glory again. With Hundermenschen back on the rise other nations around had ceased while they remained and so did others which weren't a problem for them in the coming years.

It didn't take long for Hundermenschens intelligence to figure out that tensions was brewing on the horizon with the other nations that neighbored Hundermenschen. The information that the intelligence agency had gathered was forwarded over to Atlas Koch himself which he would have reviewed in the short time that he had when he took his seat back at his desk. His eyes scanned over the encrypted message that had some small details on the small conflicts happening in the nearby region. It was no threat to them but it was nothing to just ignore since other continents nearby were also involved with what little they knew about. No military action was needed yet but further information gathering would be a plus in case they had to intervene later on. Atlas Koch would give an order to send a few drones to observe and see what kind of action was taking place in lands abroad.

Unnamed military installation outside of Zolana
8 am

It didn't take long for the chancellor to send orders to deploy 2 of their surveillance drones for flight, this would be their first flight in an actual mission instead of just testing phases. The drones themselves were unmanned and could fly a good distance away from their home pad without any intervention from an operator when given specific coordinates to range. The drones would be prepared and ready to take off not long after the personnel there were given the order to deploy them abroad, this specific mission was not only to gather information but to also see how this drone would perform which was exciting for the crew there. Soon after the two crafts would take off from their strips and would begin to make their way to a high altitude to avoid enemy detection and would begin their course to survey the recent movements in ships and what else they could find.

(Hope that's a decent enough starter, wasn't sure how else to get involved.)

[Upper Magica]

IMV Megalodon, Predator I-class Arsenal Ship
Docked in harbor, Tritous, Harrisopia

The Minister-Paramount sat, his arm visibly in a sling, his face contorted in disgust.

"Bomb the shit out of the Traldonians," he said, approving of the plan before him: the DCI had tracked active cells of underground Communist cells operating with and by the side of Traldonian revanchists to a variety of locations - most of which were in or around Onasa and the demilitarized zone, warranting their extermination.

A variety of fighter groups had been formed, indeed, for this purpose as the meeting was progressing here: one of which were composed of the prototype and highly experimental X-44 MANTA(Magican-Alexiandran New Tailless Aircraft) air dominance fighter, a direct answer to emerging Vichnayan aggressors, and, as the name implied, meant to be a unified Allied aircraft for usage by the Alexiandran, Harrisopian and Magican air forces: the requisite scale of production for normally-expensive components could very well mean that the three countries could have their cake and eat it too: fielding an advanced fighter force that would be relatively cheap to raise.

Indeed, it was a marvel of engineering: it was as stealthy as night, as maneuverable as a falcon on the hunt, lethal as a drop without a parachute. It would be a true sixth-generation fighter once full production started in 2026-2027 - it would build up on what could be considered 'fifth-generation': the aircraft would feature full data-to-decision capability, high-capacity networking, an electronics suite including a cutting-edge miniaturized quantum-entangled RADAR capable of filtering out the most deliberate of background noise, while also equipped with the same conventional AESA of the new F-32, capable conducting full-spectrum electronic warfare missions - all of which were facilitated by an integrated AI based heavily off of the Magican AI model - a militarized 'AI Assistant' neural net.

And, most impressive of all, no rudders, flaps, or ailerons were included in the design - pitch, roll, and yaw were provided by the supercruise-capable thrust-vectoring engine, offering supermaneuverable capability whilst cutting down on the MANTA's radar cross-signature and simplifying, somewhat, the maintenance of the airframe, freeing up precious room in the interior of the craft for more weaponry in its two internal weapons bays, capable of fielding a variety of air-to-surface and air-to-air weaponry.

And, most terrifyingly of all, though, the airframe, avionics, and engine in the production model would be capable of suborbital supersonic flight, possessing a maximum safe altitude of 120,000 feet, featuring a variable-pressure cockpit and pilot-centric life support system for such a purpose, meaning the MANTA would be, in a sense, the world's first sub-orbital superiority fighter - beyond the range of most conventional surface-to-air batteries.

However, this design had its drawbacks: already, MagIC skunkworks teams were prototyping out the XP.11 engine, based upon Substance #787-J, an artificial hydrocarbon based off of traditional liquid-hydrogen fuel possessing the same energy efficiency and good high-altitude performance of the unattenuated product while being significantly safer and less volatile. The drawback, however, was the fact that a new infrastructure for its manufacture and distribution would need to be created from whole cloth existing parallel to traditional jet-fuels - for now at least - from the refinery to the pump: while the aircraft, as a whole, would need to be larger than most of its peers and competitors due to the decreased energy density per unit of volume of 787-J fuel - it would be over 19.6% larger than the F-22 Raptor in terms of wing area. This was counterbalanced by the MANTA's sleek radar profile, being - even after design modification - no larger than a cockroach.

For now, though, the prototypes bore a set of Atelier Iris P.9101 LH2-fueled turbofans, greatly reducing pilot and aircraft survivability while being impressively expensive to maintain - also restricting the amount of places the MANTA prototype could be based, as very few air bases across the world held stores of LH2; these bases were invariably either 'black sites' for direct-ground-surveillance operations, sites connected to national space programs and commercial space infrastructure, or military airbases outfitted with LH2 fueling capability. Almost certainly, de Limonet-Estienne reckoned, there would have to be a conventional model of the MANTA without the sub-orbital flight capability: future Magican governments nor those of its allies might face budgetary concerns.

But, alas, now was not the future: and the present and future both beggared a pressing need for an overwhelming technological advantage somewhere with respect to The Great Enemy - whoever that particular label might be applied to. And the Magican military-industrial complex was nothing if not adaptive to its consumers' changing and expanding needs - but that might be a thought worth exploring at a later date.

The pertinent topic of this meeting now was the curious communications blackout that had emerged - conspicuously so - from the homeland.

"What is going on?" he spoke, breaking the monotony of likely-artificially-generated reports. "I hear a lot of 'what', but no 'why' or 'how'.", he said further, giving a gentle admonishment to his staff.

One of his staffers spoke up nervously, his eyes glued to a screen. "Uh.. sir. Flip on the news. I think we might have our answer."

Leon frazzled his brow, clicking a remote. What he saw was unthinkable, and it confirmed his deeper suspicions - of plans within plans.

---

ROVORIA, Imperial State of Riomler

Without warning, a series of 'friendly' exercises taking place alongside Riomlerians - ostensibly a 'peace-building' measure in the wake of a border shooting that killed one Magican trooper turned into what could only be described as a 'hostile takeover' - at midnight, Magican Territorial Army troopers made their move, surrounding Riomlerian military units, offering them a choice: surrender or die.

At the same time, another force moved in earnest into the Imperial capital of Rovoria, moving to secure government offices and police stations - the thud of UH-1s drummed throughout the city, while even Imperial F-15s and F-4 Phantom IIIs made low flights - particularly over the Harrisopian and Alexiandran legations there.

Across Riomler itself, a fracturing took hold over the Magican Imperial Army - for no apparent reason save the obvious: discipline among the troops had degraded to such a point where the 'bad apples', seeing the imminent crackdown on their illicit activities in the not-so-distant future jolt towards the present... had resorted to their only recourse: a revolt.

Indeed, in some areas, Magican troopers, acting alongside the Riomlerians, had overcome these would-be mutineers. But, it seemed, a tenuous majority of the Expeditionary Command had risen in arms against the Monarch and Homeland, adding onto the civil strife in the North in the province of Buhers. Unlike this case, there were no legitimate grievances tendered, no apparent ideology or cause save for the age-old struggle: between wrong-doers and the law. It could've been, owing much to the disproportionate presence of former citizens of the People's Government of Magica, a Communist revolt. At any rate, the motivations were speculative.

Until, of course, as Magican troopers secured enough of the Riomlerian capitol for the leaders of this uprising to reveal themselves, they did, telling all, declaring victory well before it was achieved... much to the consternation of others, who found themselves at a loss now: forced to act before the momentum of events turned on them.

---

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM IMPERIAL FORCES COMMAND RIOMLER



POR DEO ET PATRIAE - FOR GOD AND COUNTRY

---

The illegitimate government of Riomler has been overthrown.

Civil rights propagated by the Instrument of Surrender, 2022 - are hereby abolished pending an Act of the Riomlerian Emperor. Martial law is hereby declared until further notice. Acts against the State are punishable by death by firing squad.

The Constitution promulgated by the Instrument of Surrender, 2022 - is hereby abolished, to be replaced with a new document by the hand of the Imperial office of Riomler, in close coordination with their Magican friends and partners of this brave new era.

The illegal installation of a puppet Emperor on the Riomlerian throne is counter to the Divine Right of Kings and Emperors: thus it shall be reversed. The true Emperor of Riomler is, and forevermore will be through his legal heirs, [PLACEHOLDER UNTIL I GET A PROPER NAME FROM RIOMLER].

The so-called nation-state of 'Buhers' is an abomination against God: its citizens and leadership all have played a part in activities against the State and against public morality. We pledge furthermore to destroy this black hole in the heart of the Lycene family of nations and judge appropriately the inhumans behind it.

The Magican government is not representative of the sincere beliefs of its component peoples, and we pray to Providence that its behaviors of allowing mob rule and the general furtherance of degeneracy are soon reversed. To this end, we pledge our full support and resources towards righting the misguided views of our divine Emperor, lured into the temptation of 'civil rights' for all by foreign interests and shadowy government men.

It is surely a path that will lead to devilry, buggery, and matriarchy: one that will lead to our permanent damnation.

Written this day of May,

Cmd. Emrys Leclerc
Commander, Imperial Magican Armed Forces, Riomlerian Theater

[Alexiandra]

Epirus Island
Harrisopia

Everything was, once again, going to shit. Despite the propaganda coup the Alexiandrans had achieved a few days earlier, it still seemed as if fate itself were conniving against them. First some Riomlerian bumpkin had mowed down two Magican soldiers in the most egregiously brutal friendly fire incident General Waters had ever seen. Then, apparently in response, a lunatic Magican commander had led his troops in a poor impersonation of the Praetorian Guard, revolting against the Emperor and paralysing allied operations in Riomler. As if that weren't bad enough, the Alexiandran and Harrisopian embassies in Rovoria were under siege, and their situation was becoming increasingly desperate as rampaging Magican infantrymen spilled into the streets outside.

Now, seated on the bridge of the RSS Jupiter - at anchor off the coast of Epirus Island, Harrisopia's easternmost possession - General Waters had to concoct as sound a retaliatory strategy as possible with the scarce resources available to him. There were five battalions of Alexiandran troops in the vicinity of Rovoria, and a few platoons of Marines in the embassy. Bearing down upon them was most of what had once been the Magican Expeditionary Command, fuelled by the desperation that comes of rebellion. The plan taking shape in Waters' mind was relatively simple: the five Alexiandran battalions would take advantage of the relative indiscipline prevailing amongst the disaffected mutineers to launch a quick and decisive strike into Rovaria, instead of simply retreating towards the western coastline. This would be the last thing the mutineers would expect. Once the embassies had been successfully evacuated, the Alexiandrans would conduct a fighting retreat westwards, attempting to link up with any Riomlerian, Harrisopian or loyalist Magican forces in the region. Their objective would be to buy time - at least until the newly formed Alexiandran Northern Fleet could cross the straits into Riomlerian waters. Then, digging in around beachheads, the Alexiandran battalions could receive reinforcement, air support and resupply from the sea. For the initial stages of the operation, they would have to rely for air support on whatever the Riomlerians could muster, as well as long-haul flights from the Alexiandran mainland. The Republic's satellite network might be able to deliver a few disruptive blows - but only in a few hours, once the various platforms had had chance to adjust their orbits.

The key, as so often in warfare, would be speed and decisiveness. As such, the two armoured battalions would take the lead, supported by the three mechanised infantry battalions; whoever couldn't get their hands on a set of wheels would have to move as fast as their legs could carry them. It was a daring plan, and not exactly textbook - but if successful, it would deliver a sound enough riposte to delay the 'Imperial' advance and free the poor souls trapped in the embassies.

After sending off a quick cable to inform Harrisopia and whatever remained of the Magican and Riomlerian strategic commands, Waters gave the order. This would either be a modern-day Thermopylae or a new Charge of the Light Brigade. The future trajectory of his career would testify to which. Both of those battles were losses, of course - but one of them won a war.

General Staff Headquarters
Lockbourne, Alexiandra

Meanwhile, the generals and aides-de-camp of the Republic's military creme-de-la-creme were running around like headless chickens, devising a communication to the Allies. The end-result could have been worse: it was terse but functional, with no frills and only an undertone of panic. Not for the first time, they were glad of the encrypted satellite communications network linking them, by invisible threads, to their counterparts across the region.

Code: Select all

TO: HIGH COMMANDS MAGICA, HARRISOPIA, RIOMLER
FROM: HIGH COMMAND ALEXIANDRA

SITUATION IN ROVORIA CRITICAL. ALEXIANDRAN AND HARRISOPIAN EMBASSIES UNDER ATTACK FROM MAGICAN MUTINEERS. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE SUPPORT FROM ALL AVAILABLE FORCES. ALEXIANDRAN TROOPS BEGINNING COUNTERATTACK TO SECURE ALEXIANDRAN AND HARRISOPIAN EMBASSIES. WILL THEN CONDUCT FIGHTING RETREAT WESTWARDS. AIR SUPPORT REQUIRED. GODSPEED.

[Upper Magica]

ROVORIA, Imperial State of Riomler

Rovoria, once devastated but three years ago, was now being subject to the whims of the conquerors: Magican Territorials, their discipline having left them, ran amok through department stores, banks, and the like, stealing and plundering with glee. Riomlerian police were nowhere to be found, realizing perhaps that confronting a military force with service pistols and shotguns likely didn't amount to a good idea: especially when considering that these troops cared nothing - ipso facto - of collateral damage.

Even without Alexiandran intervention, the 'noble goals' of the orchestrators of this half-baked coup amounted for little to most of the mutineers: who had turned from a somewhat organized shambling of the disaffected, melting away into disorder upon the realization that there were no longer any rules. Magican pilots siding initially with the uprising, for example, were the first to turn tail against the tide of a presumably sure government response: Rovoria International was littered with abandoned F-15s, UH-1s, and F-4s: conveniently left unguarded for looters to pillage or even steal outright. Those that remained in the sky would soon find themselves unwittingly thrown into the role of 'test subject'.

News cameras - much to Leon Bertrand de Limonet-Estienne's disappointment, who found himself for the second time this week reacting to, rather than orchestrating events - captured Magican troops hauling off TVs and game consoles, openly taking drugs and drinking on city streets: the least of a wide spectrum of shameful activities captured on camera.

As the Alexiandrans had achieved a propaganda coup earlier, the Magicans had been dealt the public-relations equivalent of the battle of Carrhae, validating Traldonian arguments of Allied barbarism made online and to the media, whilst playing into VPKO psy-ops, while, finally, a cherry on top of a shit-sundae, harming the Magican diplomatic position with its allies for years to come, particularly with respect to Riomler.

But enough about that: this passage is in Riomler, after all.

In this dark city street of Rovoria, Magican troops - with LCD televisions and other articles of plunder proudly displayed out of the back of their HMMWV, patrol their station. Unlike most troops on patrol, these men don't have to worry about boredom.

"Hey. Dante.", the driver says, sipping on a bottle of a familiar amber-colored liquid derived from distilled grain mash. "What?" Dante replies, eying a group of homeless congregated around a barrel-fire in some dumpy alleyway.

"I bet if I act like I drive towards those people, they'll get all scared and run off."

"There's a brick wall right behind them, you fuckin' idiot."

"Makes it more fun, dontcha think? The brakes on this thing are tight, Dante, and -" he took another eager sip, "I'm a hella good driver. First person to scream buys drinks tomorrow."

"We don't need to buy a damn thing anymore, you idiot. We own this town. We can take whatever we like." Dante replied arrogantly. "Look, I'm-" The driver kicked the truck into gear, interrupting Dante's presumably reasonable reply. Aghast, Dante shook his head. "No! Don't you do it, motherfucker!" he screamed as the driver turned toward said alleyway, gunning it at the congregation of the tired and miserable.

Laughing, the driver bellowed out between psychotic chuckles, his foot firmly pressing down the gas pedal: "It's not like I'm going to get us killed!"

Seconds later, two forest-green camouflage uniforms and a few tons of metal would be plastered along with years of dirt upon that selfsame wall - a permanent reminder of the cost of arrogance, while providing merely a few hours later a source of merriment for both loyalist Magicans and Alexiandran troops driving past.

---

DINKLEBERG, Imperial State of Riomler
Southern Province

Mj. General de Pierre crumpled up the paper - an official demand from the Commander insisting his unit join the chaos ongoing to the north. The 1010th Sustainment Brigade, as far as he was concerned, was the sole major loyalist unit in what was becoming a countrywide mutiny.

Truck drivers, porters, warehouse workers - with a scant four weeks in boot camp, having used none of their martial skill taught to them in the intervening months of their deployment sans drills. Many were weekend warriors of the Territorial Army, as well: conscripts.

And, of course... a plurality were women - commonplace, almost, for second-line units such as this. Ill-suited to combat, he thought.

As reports trickled in from the front line - insofar as much as that term had meaning in a chaotic situation such as this - he sighed. Many were not good - the Alexiandrans were begging for assistance in Rovoria, a scant 25 kilometers away from their position. At the same time, roving platoons of mutineers, having picked their fill in Rovoria, were now cleaving through Riomlerian villages and farms - a more pressing and local concern.

Setting out to the assembled women - and some men - he adjusted his officer's cap.

"Ladies - gentlemen -" he started. "I never thought I'd have to address this, but as many of you know, our force commander's gone insane."

Almost immediately, whispering started up; he raised his hand. "That's not all. They have Rovoria by the nuts." He looked down, almost ashamed of what he'd have to say. "I've elected to tell our commander to go fuck himself. As of right now, the 1010th is a front-line combat unit. Any of you all - and I mean anybody - who doesn't want to kill a man, you're free to restrict yourself to barracks seperate from the louses and wait for evacuation to the rear line."

"We want to kick their asses!", yelled a particularly enthusiastic member of the audience, her service cap flicked off into the air by her own hand. "Yeah!" yelled another.

What started as a trickle of support became, funnily enough to de Pierre's ears, a roaring of high-pitched voices yelling "Kill!".

Perhaps these women had the warrior spirit after all, he mused.

---

It wouldn't be long until the 1010th reorganized into a full-scale light motor rifle brigade: thanks to its generous supply of rifles, anti-tank rockets, mortars, ammunition, grenades, and a heavily-loaded motor pool of surplus HMMWVs and Growler utility vehicles by the nature of its very mission as a supply unit, it wasn't difficult at all. Drunk and outright rioting bands of Magican troops from the neighboring 1101th Rifle Brigade - which had gone mutineer initially, dissolving outright as its hardline loyalist commander's attempts to enforce discipline by decimation ended with him being chucked off a waterfall - were being dispatched in the countryside of Rovoria rather quickly all things considered.

As Logistics Sgt. Agathys de Leon nestled a rifle out of the passenger side of the HMMWV, she sighted a truck painted with vulgarities outside of a country villa. "Mutineers, four o'clock."

The driver radioed it in, her nervousness betrayed by a horrified look and shaky voice. Agathys sighed. "Marie. Listen to me. We went through Basic just the same as the boys, learned to shoot the same as the boys. We can do this."

Corporal Marie Droit - the driver and RTO - sighed. "I- I know. Just never thought we'd be chucked into, well..." She hemmed. "This.", pointing her free hand at various effects of the rampaging ongoing as they spoke. Finally, the HMMWV and the three following vehicles came to a stop outside the familiar scene of a home invasion in progress.

The two women racked their rifles, clambering out of the vehicle.

Ten minutes later, a Riomlerian family was freed, their lives saved, their possessions mostly intact: men were being led out of the house in zip-ties and hoods, kicked to the ground by women half their size and bulk. Some were slumped over furniture: they had chosen unwisely.

Agathys stepped on the back of one such soldier, taking charge of the situation. "Get these bloody traitors and looters out of here and back to home base. Radio Actual of the situation, Marie." Marie nodded, moving to the Humvee.

As the boring procedure of criminal detainment unfolded, the women and what few men in the platoon bustled, following her orders, she couldn't help but wonder, fueled by a certain sense of empowerment: was this the life of a front-line soldier?

She would soon find out as Marie yelled out. "Sergeant! HQ's on the horn - the battalion's moving outside of Rovoria! They want us to screen some Alexiandran operation or something!"

There went due process, she thought.

"Line everyone up, then - guess we're not taking these scumbags to base."

---

Code: Select all

FROM: MAGICAN COMMAND WEST
TO: HIGH COMMANDS ALEXIANDRA, HARRISOPIA, RIOMLER

FLASH FLASH // AA SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS KK

MESSAGE AS FOLLOWS:

ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF MESSAGE. MULTIPLE COMMANDS REPORT THREE BRIGADE-SIZE UNITS ARE CURRENTLY UNDERGOING MUTINY. NO REPLY FROM HOMELAND OR GENERAL STAFF - COMMUNICATIONS BLACKOUT? NO INFORMATION AT THIS TIME. NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT CINC WEST IS FEELING RIGHT NOW.

ONLY HAVE REAR-LINE SUSTAINMENT UNITS TO RESPOND TO OUTBREAK IN RIOMLER UNTIL COMMUNICATIONS CAN BE RESTORED WITH GENERAL STAFF IN METROPOLE. M-P DE LIMONET-ESTIENNE HAS INSTRUCTED FOR HARRISOPIAN-BASED ASSETS TO BE DIVERTED FROM IMMINENT TRALDONIAN CAMPAIGN TO ASSIST ALEXIANDRAN ADVANCE - HAVE AUTHORIZED RELEASE OF 1010TH TEMPORARY RIFLE BRIGADE TO PUT DOWN ROVORIAN INSURRECTION AND SUPPORT ALEXIANDRAN OPERATION.

END OF MESSAGE // ZZ TURKEY TROTS TO WATER QQ

---

STRAITS OF SAGITTARIUS, 90,000 AGL
1st Aggressor Squadron of the Imperial Guard: 'Tarantula' Squadron

It had been some time, Tarantula One - formerly Three - thought.

Since, of course, the Squadron had been elevated to a Guard squadron - the first of its kind, in fact. The Tarantulas had performed so well in the Second Magican War that the Emperor himself bestowed a Guards designation on the group of twelve, all aces. It alone was responsible for 101 confirmed kills - 102 if one counts the Vichnayan aircraft unfortunate enough to enter the fray in a certain naval-attack mission - the highest performance of any Magican fighter wing in those dark times, to say nothing of two Arsenal ships and a cascade of different boats.

And, he thought, it'd been a solid year since the Air Force gave Tarantula Squadron twelve of the newest airframes in the arsenal: the 'Killer Manta' - its shape was entirely out of science fiction. Learning to fly it was as if they'd all been propelled into the past when everyone was a green little birdie learning to fly: first the simulators, then careful test-drives.

And now, he thought, looking down below, the sky was still blue. Above, on the other hand: the black of space. The curvature of the Earth itself was apparent, and the shores of Lyceni below as well, hardly visible underneath clouds, condensation, and the reflection of fading sunlight just ahead of the quite visible terminator to his front.

It was magical, simply put - and quite literally breathtaking if one didn't have the proper equipment.

His radio crackled. "Tarantula Squadron, this is Home. Confirm 90-kay AGL."

"One here, Home. Reading 90-kay AGL." One after the other, the other pilots of Tarantula followed, ending with a certain female voice that One'd come to despise over the months. "Twelve, reading 91-kay AGL."

Damn Pinko bitch, he mumbled to himself. Something about diversity quotas, One reckoned. But - a part of him had to acknowledge she had the skill to be in Tarantula: she'd passed the flight quals and had the record of service - even if it were on the wrong side.

Home cut in, interrupting his personal train of thought. "Right. Tarantula, your mission's just been declassified for your clearance levels: you're to fly and hold at point Boomer now showing on your tac-nav - you'll be uplinked to Alexiandran and Riomlerian datalinks." He looked at the waypoint: it was right off Rovoria.

"Home, are we-" Home cut in. "Don't ask questions, One. I promise you, we won't have you boys - and girl - be shooting down anything doesn't need to be shot down. All will be revealed, I promise: but right now isn't the time for questions. Just do what we say and shoot at anything the Alexiandrans green-light from their comfy AWACS, and everything'll be alright."

He hated when Home used 'that tone' - it reminded him of the hour before the shitshow across the Inner Border way back when. Home cut in again. "Anyway, once you're at point Boomer, start descending to 70-kay AGL for quick ingress into the AO. Good luck, gents - and lady."

One flipped on his comm. "Everyone hear that?" He was met by a tide of affirmatives. "You heard the man. Let's do it."

He sighed, hot air reflecting back into his face courtesy of the spaceman helmet he was wearing. Fucking mutineers.

[Alexiandra]

Rovoria
Imperial State of Riomler

The Alexiandrans crouched warily behind their transports, peering out every now and again at the highway stretching out before them. The tarmac was bone-dry - it had been a blisteringly hot day yesterday, and already the sun was redolent with the promise of another. This road would take them six miles north-east, into the very heart of Rovoria, which had, for the second time in recent memory, devolved into complete anarchy. Over the four hours they'd been here, they'd listened as the distant sounds of looting and mayhem had died down almost completely. The wind now bore only a faint trace of gunsmoke, and the horizon was dotted with fewer plumes than it had been at dawn. With any luck, the mutineers were finally asleep, drunk on booze, drugs or sheer fatigue. Overhead, the faint drone of a jet engine was audible - Magican MANTAs, probably, operating at absurd speeds. Already the vast majority of the mutineers' airframes had been shot clean out of the sky, or else abandoned. If there were any Magican accountants still at their posts, they might soon desert at the sight of so much ruined equipment.

At 8am, the codeword came across the radio: iris, iris. Immediately the infantry fighting vehicles of the 107th Rifle Brigade rumbled into life, wheels screeching on the asphalt; the troops scrambled aboard, and the remote-controlled turrets mounted atop each hull stirred ominously. A minute later fully one quarter of the brigade was speeding down the highway, eyes peeled for any sign of the enemy. The rest followed behind, generally on foot, but sometimes in armoured cars replete with rooftop machine-guns. This would be a one-two punch: the armour would blow a hole in whatever defences lay between the Alexiandrans and the Embassy Quarter. Then the unarmoured infantry would bring up the rear, mopping up survivors and preventing a pursuit.

At first, everything went smoothly. Two miles in, the Alexiandrans were yet to fire a shot in anger. At around the three-mile mark, rifle reports rang out from a motel complex; the IFVs returned fire with extreme prejudice, drilling into doors and windows with .50 calibre machine guns. Explosive cannon shot would have been much simpler, but the risk of civilian casualties was simply too high. The Alexiandrans would save the heavy artillery for when they really needed it. And, judging by how resistance seemed to be intensifying four miles in, that might be sooner than they hoped. Scattered bands of mutineers were now stumbling onto the streets, still drunk from last night's revelry, firing sporadically into the armoured noses of the advancing vehicles. Bullets whizzed past the bulletproof windscreens, causing the less experienced troops to duck involuntarily. The veterans, well-accustomed to relying on their steeds for protection, could only laugh.

By the five-mile mark, the machine guns were firing almost non-stop. Smoke streamed upwards from their barrels as they rotated this way and that, blowing chunks out of high-rise apartment blocks and sending mutineers tumbling from their hiding-places. The return fire was of little consequence - until one of the mutineers got their hands on an RPG. It connected squarely with the side of the leading IFV, deafening the men inside; the armour survived the impact, but the vehicle would have to be abandoned. The infantry piled out, scrambling for cover wherever they could find it; the other IFVs maneouvred around their stricken counterpart, laying down a withering suppressive fire on the enemy's firing position. Under no circumstances could they allow themselves to be bogged down - they had to press on to the Embassy Quarter. It would be up to the rearguard, coming up behind on foot and in the armoured cars, to rescue the infantry squad.

Their objective, once they reached it, was scarcely recognisable. Looting had ravaged the ornate grounds of both the Alexiandran and Harrisopian embassies, riddling statues with bullets, shattering windows and burning great swathes out of the decorative gardens. The IFVs got as close to the doors of the respective embassies as they could, and then disembarked their cargo; the Alexiandrans spilled inside, calling out to the diplomatic staff huddled in closets and stairwells. The Marines garrisoning the embassies were grim-faced and tired - but they would have to wait. The diplomats were the priority; it would be up to the cars to evacuate the Marines. Meanwhile the IFVs were obliterating every window and door that even threatened to hold an enemy. Much of downtown Rovoria had already been badly damaged, but now the explosive shells of the Alexiandran brigades blasted new voids in its great office blocks and boulevards.

At long last, the troops succeeded in rounding up the diplomats and bundling them into the back of the IFVs, which wheeled around and headed back up the highway under a hail of sporadic gunfire. They soon passed the leading elements of the rearguard, their Humvees stained with ash and blood, engines roaring as they hastened towards the Marines. The unmounted infantry had set up a defensive perimeter three miles down the highway - the IFVs soon passed it, and it closed behind them, exchanging occasional shots with half-drunk Magican snipers. The easy part was done. Now it was time for the real challenge: a fighting retreat that would span over a hundred miles, all the way out to the ocean. As for the evacuees, they would be carried firmly out of gun-range, and then rushed onto waiting long-haul transport planes, which would convey them - under the watchful eyes of the MANTAs - back over the sea to their homelands.

[Hundermenschen]

(Since I'm not allowed to delete my previous post I'll just make another)

Zolana, Hundermenschen
8am

The day in Hundermenschen had started long ago and a lot of citizens had already started their daily routines hours ago. The same was no different for Atlas Koch who had been awake a few hours before as part of his usual schedule. In his office he decided to take a small break from the several national issues which he was welcomed with to take a look outside the window which was behind his desk which was also bulletproof to prevent an assassination attempt. The streets below were a buzz with activity ranging from cars, people walking on the sidewalks, and a few planes and helicopters flying over from time to time, It was good that things weren't like they were before he took office. After the countries unification, the economy started to grow again to a comfortable state and the armed forces were brought back to their former glory again. With Hundermenschen back on the rise other nations around had ceased while they remained and so did others which weren't a problem for them in the coming years. It was unfortunate that those nations that Hundermenschen knew for so long had fizzled out, but the Hundermenschen government had decided to annex those said nations into their own as their governments collapsed. The citizens from the previous nations were able to keep their previous way of life since the nations Hundermenschen were allied with all had similar governments and ways of life. Once the annexation was complete, military bases were set up closer to the borders and with that a stronger presence of recruiters for the Hundermenschenian armed forces. With new borders set, The territorial forces would be busy keeping their watchful eyes on their new borders which were against Traldon. While they didn't have any issues with the neighboring nation, They were still untrustworthy which was enough for Hundermenschen to pursue military action on making sure that there were no issues with the two nations. If violence did come, they would be met with fire and fury.

[Riomler]

Rovaria Armed forces Hq-

“What in the devil is going on!”screamed the Lieutenant Colonel,”it seems sir,many magicans are actually attacking us and seem to have killed the governme-“his sentence was cut short by a chair flying out of a window,”they did what!,how many soldiers are still alive?”,about 2.7 million soldiers have been activated and on route here,however,most of our already active soldiers are still in unknown conditions” “alright tell 1st Wolf brigade to cut off enemy supply by attacking the coast,Then encircle this whole city but don’t attack,remember,there are civilians there,anyways Make a call to wolf group,looks like they’re going to be active sooner then we thought.






Rovaria city,emperor’s palace

“Good to be back in my old seat..,now,send our forces to take the armies headquarters,if who I think is there,we’re going to have trouble..those magicans better come when they’re needed..”





Emperors forces:

1.7 million men
133 tanks

57 f-35’s
(They have no equipment that is like recent recent

[Harrisopia]

Rovoria, Imperial State of Riomler
Harrisopian Embassy
Ambassador Robert Grodin

Emergency shut down had commenced as soon as word had reached the embassy about the attack.

Unfortunately emergency shut down in the embassy mainly consisted of locking the doors, setting out the small number of armed guards they had and hoping the worst didn't happen.

Ambassador Robert Grodin was locked in the main office with his own personal guard and a few of his assistants.

"What's taking so long? I thought Alexiandran forces were coming in and that our home forces had been notified?" Screeched Grodin

It didn't take super sonic hearing to detect the sigh from head of security Max Collins
"They have sir but in situations like this it can't exactly be resolved in five minutes. All we have to do is try to remain calm and stay where we are until allied forces make contact."

Grodin mumbled complaints under his breath but said nothing.

He certainly hadn't expected to be in this situation when he woke up this morning but life was full of surprises. Particularly ones of a terrifying nature.

[Upper Magica]

ROVORIA, Empire of Riomler

---

Franz shook his foot, smothering a cigarette.

The bastards were at play - meanwhile his rifle section was, and had been, one of the few doing work around here in this despicable foreign land. Behind them burned the Riomlerian government building - along with, conveniently, the entire Riomlerian government - from their highest office in the land to the representatives of various electoral districts.

Meanwhile, net chatter had been ridiculous: the bastards had decided to pick a fight with the Alexiandrans moving to get their boys and girls out of the clusterfuck Rovoria had become. Women, of all things, were giving those undisciplined louts a run for their money south of Rovoria.

No TVs, no drugs, no drink - such was the life of a Department of Social Order operator. Many thought them defunct and disbanded, their former status as the brutal killers of a formerly all-knowing Magican security apparatus quietly revoked, their years of service to Empire rewarded with outright prosecution at worst, while many were relegated to car-washing and burger-flipping in the civilian sector, unable to get any more meaningful work thanks to background checks, their previous service within the Department a red flag for respectable employers.

Some, however - like Franz - managed to get positions within the Army, but were often given the shaft, their deployments and the very nature of their service being undesirable: In his own case, he'd been deployed to the cold Vichnayan-Riomlerian frontier, where he lived a life of mopping latrines and other meaningless duties.

But when Commander Leclerc came to him - and others like Franz - offering them new jobs within a renewed Department, they almost leaped for joy. Of course, they were keenly aware this was illegal, treasonous maybe: but a higher purpose is hardly worth passing up on account of such scruples.

Plan COBRA, such was the play called: to create a simple distraction for a greater work to complete.

It had succeeded beyond all wildest expectations: reports were coming in that the Riomlerian army had split entirely, with entire divisions and brigades declaring allegiance to the reinstalled Emperor: supposedly a force numbering some 1.7 million men.

Franz lit up another cigarette, waiting for the next orders: it was a happy day indeed, his mission no longer almost-certainly guaranteed to be suicide.

---

OUTSKIRTS OF ROVORIA, Imperial State of Riomler
Objective Tart - Lycene Express Auxiliary Logistics Center

As the 1011th cut through mutineers and bandits both, Agathys mused, this venture was proving perhaps too easy. The Alexiandrans had managed to secure - for a time - Downtown Rovoria, the black heart of all this nonsense before leaving with their diplomats and citizenry: a wise move, given now that Riomlerians themselves were joining the numbers of mutineers - even she thought holding the city at this point was a futile endeavor, given the growing number of 'red' markers on the force-tracker mounted on the dash of the Humvee.

And amidst that ocean, here they were: the Alexiandrans, moving away, and the 1011th, also soon to be moving away with them: as soon as their task here in this normally-busy airstrip was done. Beyond the fencing, the tarmac of an airstrip with Alexiandran airliners lined up neatly atop it to receive precious cargo.

Of course, they were not alone here in this regard: Alexiandran troops were here too, obviously eying the women with some level of suspicion. Agathys couldn't help but be resentful - but it was only natural, she supposed.

Levelling her gun from side to side, scoping out the perimeter, she saw an outline of a human head, helmeted. When he brandished a firearm, she knew: it was one of them.

"Hostile sniper. Ring it in, Marie."

Marie got on the horn with HQ, relaying their response. "Approved to engage."

Agathys squeezed the trigger of her AR-10, sending a singular shot through the upper chest of the mutineer, who collapsed shortly.

What would have been his last cries were drowned out by the sudden firing-up of large engines: the planes began to take off, one by one.

The drive back was an affair all of itself. Riomlerian troops were now hoisting up old banners she'd only seen on the news a few years prior. Others seemed to flee with the Magicans and Alexiandrans, while others seemed to charge in. More than once, the 1011th's convoy ran into the business-end of Alexiandran barricades, regarding them initially as hostiles before things were cleared up - thankfully without violence, as news began to surface of a brigade of mostly-women loyal to the Empire, a very distinctive trademark considering the rather patriarchal nature of the Magican military: only a year prior, women had been given the dispensation by Imperial hand to enlist in non-combat roles.

"Non-combat role, my ass." Agathys mused out loud. Marie chortled. "Ain't that right." she replied in jest.

---

ABOVE ROVORIA, Imperial State of Riomler

"Notch one, Twelve. Shit, we're gonna end up buying you beer this time." Seven chortled after Twelve managed to down a Riomlerian F-35 making aggressive maneuvers toward the Alexiandran air convoy departing from this cursed land.

Twelve, also known as Hortense Vidal of the former People's Air Defense Force, chortled psychotically. "Better than last month's wargame, right?" She shuffled in her seat, recalling the early hours of the operation.

She imagined what it must've been like for the Air Force traitors: diving down from 90,000 feet above ground level, they'd been entirely undetected on the way. Not a hard feat considering the chaos: but impressive to her. Entire patrols had been deleted from standoff distance - neither common sense or official guidelines suggested engaging in the typical Magican dogfighting tactics with the MANTA prototype: the liquid-hydrogen fuel currently being used was a volatile substance. One stray bullet in the wrong place, and there would be no time to eject before one would be flash-fried.

But, on the other hand, the MANTA was built for an era of beyond-visual-range missiles, high-powered radars and drones, not the old way of things.

The contrast between the old way and the future - exemplified by MANTA - was starkly different. No longer were dogfights even viable, truth be told: Magican air experience in large-scale warfare as of late had proven wrong the Air General Staff's ancient preoccupation with close encounters. In truth, analysts had picked apart hundreds of after-action reports behind the scenes post-scriptum: 60% or so of aircraft losses were attributable to '...the archaic principles espoused by the training program of Imperial air forces...'.

Now, Magican pilots were being trained on the proper way of things: long-range fighting, as other modern nations.

But, at any rate - Hortense looked around keenly, the heads-up display aiding her in bringing to her attention a set of fighter signatures and a large craft - presumably a bomber or a tanker - approximately 80 miles away heading into an intercept course that'd been picked up by the MANTA's AESA. "Anyone else read fighters on scope?" she said inquisitively. "Aye," said Three. "Yours if you want - we're all aces here, best you get a couple under the belt."

"Snake Three, lock on target." she said, the MANTA's AI picking up on the term: within seconds, her augmented-reality helmet display rang with a lock tone. "Away," she said with finality.

Within a few seconds, three Mark 200 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles dropped from the internal weapons bay of the MANTA then darted to their targets - the RADAR indicators told a tale of two hostiles scrambling frantically to avoid their imminent doom in the missiles' terminal stage a few minutes later, while the large aircraft was ipso facto helpless before a well-placed missile shot.

And, then - nothing. Another notification from the computer: all three targets had been analyzed as terminated.

"Good shots," One announced. "It isn't over yet. Twelve, Ten, Six - go up to 75-kay AGL; rest of us will maintain altitude with the airliners. Three of you'll run rear guard recon fifty or so mikes from the main escort. Watch your scopes for pursuit."

She grumbled. Rear guard duty? What a disgrace, she thought. And if there were, indeed, pursuers: she'd be, as mighty the MANTA was, mincemeat, isolated in the sky.

But on the other hand, if all the potential prey were so easy as the two hapless mutineers - she reckoned that she'd come out an ace.

"I guess there's always a silver lining to everything," she sighed.

[Great Keltland]

NORTHERN DMZ, Northern Keltland

The endless steppe, Mikael thought. Like a sea, dry grass illuminated by white-blue light waved all around, the cool breeze shifting it like a circle.

It was, of course, the dead of night - it would be an insufferable act to follow through with his mission otherwise, the light of the Sun illuminating the true beauty of this rural land.

He smoked a cigar, admiring the bright glare of the Moon above, a bottle of whisk in his left hand. It was so unnatural, he thought, that he ought to be admiring this land's beauty: for he would be one among many sent to these regions to ravage it.

All for the Dominion, he thought - it was not his place to question. He remembered little of his childhood: his biological parents were deemed non-persons, having been replaced early in his life by the all-encompassing glory and power of the Administrator, which took the young and malleable mind into state care, having scarcely been infected by their socio-malicious tendencies.

He'd been through the system of military schools set aside for wards of the state - earning immense prestige and the highest accolades in the State Youth in the meantime - and eventually, the time came a day after his 16th birthday to register with Labor Allocation.

It was not surprising: his ticket and career for the rest of his life would be.... State Service. This is, literally, his entire raison d'etre: serving the power of the Administrator and the glory of State.

In the Keltish Dominion, people are cogs of a well-tuned machine. No dissension is tolerated: you must do your job and well, lest you end up in Rehabilitation. When the machine's cogs start declaring for themselves what they need - this is where the problem begins with most so-called 'free' societies. Ought we to let the clowns run the circus?

The answer, of course, is no. It would be lunacy.

Hah. 'It would be lunacy', thinks the man who's finished his cigar, flicking it into a puddle of gelatinized diesel. It doesn't cross his mind that, perhaps, the entities that be - the ones ordering the drylands of the North scorched - aren't the sanest people either. If it did, he would have done well to hide it: else he might perish in the flames too, like a dissenter ought to.

---

CENTRAL DISTRICT, Glyndwr, Greater Keltland

Sterile. Clean. His city was beautiful.

The Administrator looked over the reports of the day. All was well. Minor discrepancies here and there - but that was all.

Some supervisors in Production and Logistics would have to be Rehabilitated for their failure to maintain the machina and the very lifeblood-pathways of state society, but does one fret when a car's tire has to be changed? Or a part replaced?

No.

All was well. All is replaceable.

Overseas, though, all was not well. The Administrator concerned himself not with foreign affairs - usually - but this time period was an unfainting example of why Futurist Socialism, and by extension, the Greater Keltish National Futurist Phalanx Party, had been good for the Dominion.

Magica, Keltland's former colonial overlord, sometimes benefactor, and permanent geopolitical shadow - flailing and failing. Its liberal feminist Emperor was on the verge of being overthrown - god bless The Ear for that choice piece of information - and its troops in faraway Riomler were rioting and plundering.

Riomler, in civil war. The pesky little bastards, nuclear-armed as they were, would destroy themselves, hopefully.

The Vichnayans? Silent, as always. Were they in a power struggle, or were they plotting and waiting? Both paths, the Administrator saw and wagered, would lead to inevitable failure - and a power vacuum in the East.

And the Westerners, they were too busy dealing with all of these whirlwinds battering their fragile walled gardens all at once, threatening the very peace that had dominated the Lycene waters since the end of the Second Magican War.

One slip-up: this is all it would take for the revitalized Landeforsa to pour across the Caeruun border and re-enact the glorious annihilation battles of the 1940s. Either way this went, the Vichnayan teat was soon to be removed: their attention would be distracted. The Administrator sat down, admiring a thick stack of papers bound together.

It was a book - a book of hundreds of thousands of names as well as their approximate geographical location.

The only thing they shared in common - they were teachers. Policemen. Firefighters. Professors.

All had chosen to, in one way or another, become an integral part of the Caeruunese ethno-political organism - it is this organism, specifically, that had been deemed an intolerable threat to Greater Keltland's existence.

One such threat that would be slated for cauterization.

But such endeavor demanded caution - the Keltish organism was fragile - even the Administrator recognized it. Which is why, a week prior, he had given his assent to an elaborate humanitarian operation involving all branches of the Landeforsa in the case of an entirely unforeseeable humanitarian disaster on the Caeruunese-Keltlandish border.

Such as a wildfire, the Administrator thought.

[Upper Magica]

ACT 3.0 - The Last Squeaking of the Wheel

---

“I came, I saw, I conquered, said the Uniter. A few generations later, his empire of dirt polished to gold and silver broke under the contradictions that overwhelmingly dominated Medieval succession laws in the Lycene region: it was perhaps realized that might makes right simply does not make for good - let alone stable - governance.

Thankfully, future Magican rulers avoided making this ages-old mistake after the Empire's first fall during the War of the Seven Successors: from thence on, Emperors ruled by the maxim - kill your enemies, that is to say any rising stars, brilliant noble scions or magnetic personalities before they kill you.

To date, though, we haven't found a way to kill noble ideas; it'd be a shame if we did.”

-Musings on the Crisis of the 11th Century, written anon by Arthur II, Emperor of Magica, 2022

---

The dawn, give or take a couple of days after the events in Rovoria, was cold.

Many Magicans did not realize what was coming - especially with the country's communications lines torn up. No communication was coming in, nor was it flowing outward except through satellite internet: an unreliable, often spotty method, especially when storm season hit its peak - or most pertinent to the topic, hit with electromagnetic interference.

The Vichnayans had recently arrived at Aquis International - their delegation was interrupted by the revving of LAV-6 engines in multitude, blocking their way no more than 120 feet from the main entrance.

The driver of the limousine got out in frustration as every maneuver was blocked by the armored personnel carrier, throwing his cap fruitlessly at the ground. "What is the meaning of this?!" he yelled. "We're under orders from the Emperor to escort these honorable diplomats to the Imperial Palace! Stand aside, brute!"

Captain Armand unbuttoned the hatch, arising out from it with a submachine gun pointed at the driver. "There is a civil emergency taking place! Return to the airport immediately, damnit!" Almost countermanding his statement, a police box behind the LAV was stormed by a group of four Magican Territorials, dragging out an obstinate policewoman with the thud of a rifle-butt.

The meaning of this nonsense, truly, was not explained. Across the Empire, a variety of conflicting statements had come out, a deliberate strategy of misinformation perpetrated by those behind events.

The Emperor was dead, said one news network, having been assassinated by Vichnayan agents of the VPKO. Another that the People's Government of Magica had re-emerged, with active fighting ongoing in Quai d'Argent as partisans arose, urged onward by a Communist 'deep state' or some such drivel. Others that a nuclear exchange might be imminent as tensions skyrocketed through Lyceni, necessitating the deployment of troops and the enactment of martial law within the cities.

One such news network, however, hit the nail on the head: a coup was underway.

---

Across the Empire, military units moved into position, encircling units led by known loyalists and those wagered to be known loyalists firstly: with tear gas and rubber bullets, these groups would be detained with unparalleled effectiveness.

Ironically enough, the Northern Army Command would be the most resistant to Putschist 'persuasion', with military uprisings in Quai d'Argent stymied by none other than Territorial and Regular army units composed of formerly Lower Magican men and women who'd been taught for a generation previous that the system they were now fighting to the utmost to defend had been a 'capitalist abomination' worthy of destruction by any means, while in the more traditionalist Far South, the coup would have the most success, as putschist officers' associations - ironically enough, even whole political parties, recently legalized by the constitutional reforms of the Emperor - openly decried the constitutional reforms of the Empire.

On the other token of the hand, the loyalist remnant of the Imperial General Staff had been struggling to say the least with the wave of revolts, its communications officers begging units to remain steadfast - before, that is, a brigade-sized unit stormed the Deep Citadel of Aquis and the wider area of the Central District, home to the very infrastructure that made the running of the Magican government-military apparatus possible.

And, leaning heavily in favor of whatever - whoever - ordered this operation, help for the ailing 'legitimate' government of Magica would not, in any sense of the word, arrive shortly enough to matter. Plan COBRA, the putschists' preliminary operational plan for the misinformation and distraction campaign preceding the actual coup, had succeeded beyond the wildest of dreams: Riomler was now in a state of full-blown civil war, all eyes focused deeply upon it. In fact, both sides of the conflict had apparently already raised millions of troops, with Riomler's military apparently dividing wholesale along ideological lines. Tangible, 'hard' communications links to the outside world were severed, while a massive cyberattack had devastated intangible ones such as satellite and wireless frequencies, thoroughly befuddling any potential response to the coup.

All told, the incoming 'Government of National Renewal' was well-positioned for a successful regime change; were it not for a sudden strike by the Northern Army Group's available military assets. After one afternoon of surely-total authority, having put the Emperor into 'protective custody', the Government of National Renewal had been quite literally blasted apart by a well-placed cruise missile into the Executive Ministry building.

Unfortunately, so present in the building too was the captive Emperor, forced at gunpoint - and the promise of renewed atrocities committed against the people should he not comply with their demands - to sign a new Constitution on the day of the seizure of Aquis: one that overrode many of the civil liberties offered by the document, while placing political power supreme into the hands of the military.

A horrifying prospect was now seared into reality, to the shock of many:

The Second Magican Interregnum had begun in the worst possible way.

While the ashes and viscera of the various individuals behind the putsch were still warm, it didn't take long for the Government of National Renewal to utterly split apart; in its stead were the various regional and local organs of the putsch, which soon styled themselves as Governments of National Renewal unto themselves, accusing one another of perfidy and/or ideological impurity.

At the same time, the suppressed nobility, still awash with cash and more wealth than common sense, soon undertook to re-establish their own temporal power, hiring mercenaries as 'security' in the stead of - though often cooperating with - local police.

And, unfortunately for the Restorationist and Loyalist forces, the sole large-scale Army unit capable of mounting a countercoup, the Northern Command, soon fell into disarray as against all efforts at censorship, knowledge of the Command's involvement in the murder of the Sovereign became public. Infighting began briefly - only to end with common soldiers overthrowing their officers, electing new ones in what was becoming recognized as a Northern Magican tradition: the forcible overthrow of authority.

With the Empire shattered in disorder like Riomler, it came as no surprise when a singular gunshot erupted from the state cabin of the arsenal ship Megalodon, still docked in Tritous - shocked crew members and orderlies barged into the room, finding the Minister-Paramount slumped over behind his working desk, dead by his own hand.

All hope was lost, truly, especially when cameras captured soldiers of the Northern Command in the city of Quai d'Argent - home of the First and Second Magican Revolutions - hastily erecting the time-honored symbol of political chaos within the Archipelago: the guillotine, ushering relieved officers as well as Putschist leaders, officials, and sympathizers to their final destination, the great equalizer of Magican legend.

The situation was no better in Aquis, either: mobs of the angered variety spewed forth into the streets, agitated by the death of their beloved monarch, pelting soldiers attempting to enforce martial law with another time-honored symbol of Revolution: the 'waters of life', an idiomatic term within the Archipelago for the juices of rotten mouldy vegetables and fruits as well as the excreta from various living things up to and including human beings. Of course, Molotov cocktails and stones were among the most popular projectiles used by protestors, escalating further into the realm of grenades and firearms when an Imperial Army depot had been overrun by angry mobs.

Meanwhile, on the outside, yet another nuclear-armed state had descended into utter chaos: it was the most unlikely of places, too. News outlets proclaimed it was 'the three days that shook the world', while Magican troops serving overseas and expatriates both looked on the series of events - or rather what little they could discern of them - in the Homeland with shock and terror. But one question pervaded them, sadly it was one that could not be answered - at least for now.

How could it have come to this in so little time?

[Riomler]

Trieste district of rovaria,34km northwest of the capital
Battle of triest
Retreat phase
127 imperials/4 tanks/20 bombers,45 fighters/34 imperials /1 tank,7 bombers,13 fighters
322 monarchist/3 tanks/0 bombers/60 fighters acquired through raids
273 monarchists,2 tanks,47 fighters

“Fuck,grenade!”yelled a soldeir as the enemy clearly had the numbers,”call in a bombing run”said a soldeir,”a bombing run?a bombing run?With all those fighters around?yea,the top isn’t approving that,”well what are we going to do”,as the commanding officer considered this,the soldeir who had asked the question quickly got a 2 bullets to the skull,a clear sign that they were sitting ducks,the soldeir prayed to allah and screamed at the top of his lungs,”retreat!,fall back,they have too much!”then he dashed for the hills as one of the tanks that survived the carnage gave retreating fire,then sped with the little of a platoon they had been brought to.




Arvon,riomler
The brass had heard of battles raging every where,but the enemy wouldn’t budge…nor push?this confused the brass as there have been many examples of clear opportunities,but they didn’t push,they did to now if it was poor leadership or some sort of strategy,they were having trouble figuring it out.





Royal palace,rovaria,riomler

“Are plans going as they should?”said the decrypt but late 50’s once emperor
“Yes sire,the enemy attack us unfruitfuly”,”have we captured any new weapons?”,the attendant hesitated before saying,”no..sire,the traitors seem to have hid them well”,”I want them found within the month or you will be executed,do you understand me?”said the former emperor with a dark look,”y-yes sire”said the attendant before walking out the doors,The emperor then sent a telegram to the righteous magican government,


Top secret
Class Red or above

Hello my friends,I would like to discuss the deployment of troops to secure rovaria-ends
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Then the emperor sent a message to his once enemies,the Alexandrians,


Top secret
Class ORANGE

I have watched both Alexandria’s and riomler s development and I see a opportunity for a guarantee for riomler not to attack your,the main reason this telagram is being sent is a peace treaty between our two governments,if you don’t aid the traitors to riomler and keep your soldiers out of our waters or land,riomler will not attack you for any reason except self defense,if a bullet or even a rock is fired at riomler,or thrown,we will retaliate,are these terms acceptable?

[Upper Magica]

ACT 4.0 - The Fire Rises

---

"A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past."

-unknown, 1900s

---

Quai d'Argent - The People's House

Anton stepped through the halls of the old People's House, its walls struck with the vandalized facades of old Communist glories written over with crude profanity in both the Riom and Magican scripts and, funny enough, vulgar pictures drawn in permanent marker - sometimes even a page from the odd hot-mag glued to the wall.

Truly, this was a decrepit ruin if there ever was one. The powers that be had, in no uncertain terms, wanted this place forgotten, left to rot - whilst still existing as a reminder of what it meant to be truly defeated.

Unfortunately, these plans had failed, for this place was now a proper meeting ground of the people - once again, if it ever had been. The entire island of Anchorhead was now - tenuously - under the control of the battered and disorganized remnants of the Northern Army Group.

And now, many wondered, 'what next?'. As the elected - not appointed, which gave Anton, a military man at heart, some sense of discomfort - representative of the 227th Armored Brigade, it was his duty to turn up here: some of the other brigadiers had proposed a meeting. To better make sense of the situation, plan out the next move, they said.

As he sat, a debate had already started.

"The Empire is dead!" yelled a furious Brigadier-elect. "Our Emperor has passed into Heaven, and with him, the entire dynastic line! Do you, ser, honestly think that there are any righteous nobles left who might match even an eighth of Lord Arthur's generosity and humanity? Take a look at the news - they're all eager to get their slice of the pie, like damn vultures upon a fresh corpse!"

His opposite in this heated debate nodded, regarding his words with care. "We are soldiers of the Empire, comrade - there may not be an Emperor left to serve, but the Empire - and the law - still exists through us who still believe in the cause. True, we have transgressed military discipline, but we need not sully our hands any further. At any rate, we are oathbound in the eyes of the Lord and the law - you would have us all commit treason by embracing, what - republicanism? It is too early to decide the Empire's ultimate fate - there may yet still be hope. I might also add that our Emperor's status is inconclusive-"

"The Emperor is dead! Nobody's found so much as a scrap of the Crown, but our telemetry was dead-on those putschist bastards! He was in that same room, I'm telling you! For Catha's sake, embrace reality - it is better for us to get ahead of this dread fact before some arsehole declares himself the new Emperor, supreme warlord, or some such!"

A civilian - red armband, of course - interrupted. "As representative of the Commune of the Quay, I am inclined to accept Comrade Brigadier Blaise's argument. Obvious ideological bias lain aside for a pragmatic perspective, we need a unifying force if we are to prosper. That unifying force - the Imperial office - is now at an end beyond the shadow of a doubt."

"Until I see His Majesty's shredded remains or, indeed, any evidence-" the other Brigadier began to start, the Communal representative interrupting him in quick order.

"No. Don't even justify your delusion. We must act on the assumptions we can realistically make now, and quickly - as we speak, the great enemies of anachronism and reaction are organizing against each other and us. We must act before it is too late."

"As much as I detest that bloody red banner, the bloke wearing it's making a lot of sense," Blaise nodded, agreeing. "Won't be long until someone wins out down South - better for us to join the fray and quick, but this meetin' isn't about that, is it?"

The chair of the meeting nodded. "Try and keep things on topic."

Anton raised his hand like a schoolboy. "The Chair recognizes Brigadier d'Castlemere," pointing the gavel at Anton.

"The topic at hand is whether or not we can forge this ragtag collection of pie-in-the-sky college students who think themselves revolutionaries, liberal pansie republicans, drunk sods who've barely earned the distinction of a set of bars on their collar, and Communard bastards waiting for this very moment to pass... into a unified movement."

He coughed. "That correct?" The chamber broke out into odd spats of laughter interspersed with applause, interrupted by the banging of the Chair's gavel. "Yes, I suppose that's an accurate interpretation." he replied.

Anton looked around at the few dozen or so here - military officers, revolutionaries, urban guerrillas, bankers, city councilmen, village vicars, and even the odd provincial governor, a diverse and rather unlikely lot. "Well, do we think we can make it work? Because I'll tell you one thing - we can't afford internal schism before so many threats. We need a unified system to rally behind, and we can't rally behind a dead man."

"But we can rally behind his ideas." he finished, to uproarious applause.

---

As various military districts of the South and North fragmented into martially-governed statelets scrambling to elect their own Emperor - there were more Emperors by this point than the old ducal conflict of the 14th century, for comparison - a unifying force emerged from the isle of Anchorhead, the historical cradle of the People's Government of Magica, and the First Magican Republic in the mid-19th century.

Claiming to uphold the ideals of liberalization, the Anchorhead Republic proposed a step further in pursuit of this goal of a generation: a Magica without monarchy. Headquartered - where else? - in Quai d'Argent, formerly the Metropole de Marx, the Republic had been formed in the wake of the collapse of command immediately following the implosion of the Northern Army Group and its inadvertent murder of the sovereign.

Despite the terror and heavyhanded tactics utilized by the Republican forces, like a lamp to fireflies, old Northern Magican revolutionaries, Middle Magican technocratic liberals, and Southern Magican countercultural icons drifted to the cause, furnishing these former soldiers-turned-republicans with something resembling a concrete ideology, expertise, and influence.

These qualities of a movement were, to put it generously, lacking among the now-dozens of statelets that blossomed like so many mushrooms after a spring rain in the wake of the Government of National Salvation's - and now, the Empire's - total collapse. Its nature and ideological platform resembled the 'Jacobins' of old, the vanguards of the ill-fated First Magican Revolution three-hundred years ago: these diverse groups that made up this big-tent bloc, indeed, had united for one purpose - destroy the old order at any cost, and in doing so, defending Magican democracy.

Successive 'Governments of National Renewal', the key word in that sentence being 'governments', were in effect local juntas based around the principle of totalitarian martial law - it did little to endear these committees to the population they supposedly ruled, nor to the soldiers under their command. Universally regarded as power-crazed tyrants, these petty warlords had no future - even if the petit-generals and reactionaries running these clown shows didn't quite know it yet.

The second class of statelets were formed by the nobility, recently-dispossessed, whom still held significant economic power: with their wealth, they too began to re-exert their ancient rights, buying for themselves private armies in the wake of governmental collapse.

Counties, duchies, and even the odd arch-duchy began to reform themselves as the nobility began to re-exert authority in this civil chaos. Most of their power, as before, was concentrated in the rural outlands of the Magican countryside, and the nobility's power and authority, as before, was held as loosely as a fool's purse-strings - and indeed, waxed and waned with their material fortunes. Luckily for Magica, the nobles' fortunes only waned, their finances ill-suited to the running of civil affairs in their local zones of control.

Thirdly - and the last major category of these groupings - were the simple town and city councils stuck between rocks and hard places. Oftentimes, these leftovers of the 'old normal' were forced to submit to a sort of vassalage, as they possessed hardly any military force of their own, whilst remaining largely autonomous, as no particular party in this blooming civil conflict could divert resources towards missions of subjugation and conquest: their rivals would - and often did - pounce upon them in moments of relative military weakness.

In other cases - extremist statelets emerged, few and far between. Some of these groupings outright proclaimed a Magican ethno-state, while some indigenous communities proclaimed the end of 'White Devilry'. Some - particularly in the North - proclaimed orthodox-Marxist communes, with a few successors to the People's Government of Magica thrown into the mix. Some particularly well-off entrepreneurs introduced the long-theorized 'corporate territory', a nightmare in of itself, the capitalist analogue to the 'degenerated worker's state' theorized by leftist ideologues.

The most curious of these statelets - the majority of which were so singleminded and irrelevant they need no description - was the port of L'Anse a la Medee, which became, suddenly, host to most of the Imperial Navy as the institution at-large isolated itself from the conflict under Grand Admiral Cesare Contarini. At the same time, the Strategic Forces, the branch of the Imperial Armed Forces tasked with the custody of certain 'strategic weapons' had also well coordinated their response to the chaos, sabotaging the stockpiles of weaponry under their writ with nigh-100% effectiveness, rendering them little more than balls of inert plutonium and uranium until such a time they could be restored, while stockpiles of nerve gas held safely in blast-resistant bunkers were sealed shut, the entrances to these generally-subterranean storage areas disappearing in smoke, dust, and fire at the hands of combat engineers.

Soon, the battle lines had been drawn all. With scarce time to prepare for the storm incoming, it had arrived. Unlike the Second Magican War, this conflict would not be a battle of tanks, jets, and ships, but rather it would be a war of shadows - one of assassinations, suicide-bombings, and rapid military movements decided in hours, not days.

The goal of most combatants was the destruction of their enemies - whether by the bullet, bomb, or the cheque and odd briefcase filled with florin. Underhanded tactics such as assassination, sabotage, and car-bombings became commonplace, while agents of the various players in this conflict sought to influence the pieces on the board to their side through vicious dealmaking and politicking in shady backrooms; the focus of warfare, if the battles of the Interregnum could be called that, was aimed at destroying the brains, charisma, and financial assets of 'the other' in this struggle for ultimate power, starkly opposed to the traditional focus of warfare: the destruction of their weapons, their means of production, and supply lines - a prospect unacceptable to the various groups seeking to reunify Magica under their control.

Returning to the quite relevant topic of the Anchorhead Republic, it soon grew into the largest of these dozens of warlord states: indeed, in a few short days, the infant Republic had seized control of the eponymous island it called its namesake: the second largest landmass in the reunified Empire was solely under its umbrella, a semblance of order returning to the land by way of the guillotine, as well as the presence of coherent state institutions appropriated by these unlikely revolutionaries.

Despite the excesses of these idealists, these revolutionaries, the Republic would win the public-relations front of this short civil war quite early, winning out key victories against the darkness of Magican reactionism and rooting their fifth-columns out with effectiveness. Captured putschists were paraded before the camera, forced to tell all about their plans for the Magican Empire before its unlikely collapse - the reversion of civil rights, political freedom, and so forth, and the planned institution of permanent martial law soon became public knowledge, crippling the reactionary cause further.

Soon, the dominant question among the persons composing the newly-proclaimed Provisional Directory, the Republic's formative executive branch, was no longer 'how far will we get?', but rather 'how far should we go?'

On the other side of the lines, a Riomlerian call for aid was answered by many: statements lauding the bravery of the Riomlerian Imperialist government were common themes of the various pieces of the 'Government of National Renewal', outright dismissal by hardline isolationist juntas, or even condemnation by radical-imperialists of the old style, the responses poured in contrary to any notion of unity among the remains of the Putschist element. One such telegram, purported to carry the full weight of the legitimate Magican government, went so far as to offer the Imperial Crown to the Riomlerian 'emperor' should he win out in Riomler, inviting the war criminal to 'solve the Archipelago's problems after his glorious victory foreseen by God'.

But, ultimately - if these different approaches to what made for foreign policy had anything in common, it would be that there would be no action taken, no aid sent, no threats followed through on.

Truly, there was nobody running the circus in Magica.

[Riomler]

Rnn
Ardon,riomler


Early this morning, a peace deal was signed with the rebels who according to several sources reported that they have gained their freedom though small,everyone is glad the war is over however in a poll conducted today,71% of the people expected the military to crush the rebellion,which heavy casualties were taken so the military released a statement shortly after securing the peace deal,”yes,they have secured rovaria,however,they control no other territory and they have agreed to pay 5.6 million dollars in compensation for the destruction and loss conducted in the war,regarding a leader,he will be elected at a unknown time,that is all”


This statement seems to be trying to calm the people down and let things boil,what will happen now?come back to find out in rovaria nightly news,and no ,we won’t change our names