Gestone

Before Jakob's even got back to his flight, the mountains of Kevoria echoed with the sound of engines and war chanties. The 8th Air Armor, 5th and famed 13th Air Infantry, and 1st Aerial Engineers Support regiments took flight from the various airfield dug in and around the mountains, converging in air to form a massive fleet. Their target would be the war zone Oslon and Tyranius border. In only a few hours they were over their target, dropping reinforcements and supplies across the northern border to the battered Oslan troops.

 

After a pair of hours that each leader had left, Seliph left to his country. He ordered the movement of troops and soon, the warzone was reinforced with several mechs and battle drones that started helping in both the frontlines and defending positions. There were not that much of them, but there were powerful by their own.
Seliph also ordered the shipment of units to the Glorian frontlines, but that would take more time since it was a slower transport and a more dangerous rout.

 

Cobiah had just deployed a large portion of the Oceanian Navy and Marines to Blockade Tyranius and assist Glory. The fleet would arrive in three days time, and the addition of Oceanian Marines would surely boost morale in Glory. A few regiments were also deployed to Caudel to help with the invasion of Maltarus and it's allies

"Gunwale. Ring up King Seliph for me while manage the war room. Tell him I have a business proposition for him."

"Aye, Cap'n. Give me a minute."

 

In the Mercenian "capital" (Mercenian cities were more large encampments rather than permanent structures), there was great joy in the air as the military aged males marched out and south towards the Gloriian border, part of the "ten million man offensive", a feeling of absolute confidence that the "traitors" would simply crumble and fall easily to be massacred. All that changed on the second day. The Grand Chief of Mercenia was giving a speech to the newest group to be sent south (conveniently leaving out the part of that the first day offensive had totally failed with massive casualties in the tens of thousands) when suddenly blasts were heard in the distance. All grew quiet for a moment until suddenly a Rose cruise missile struck the dead center of the mass of five thousand soldiers, leaving all within a 300 meter range dead or severely injured. Suddenly there was massive panic as the missiles began slamming into the capital of a rate of one a second, striking all over the tent city and sending the Mercenian residents fleeing. Then, just as quickly as it started, the bombardment seemingly ended after several minutes and so the Mercenians went back into their city they had just fled to pick over the damage and try and tend to the injured.
But it only got worse. Soon, from seemingly no where, incendiary bombs fell from the sky, spreading a fiery, sticky liquid across the tent city, easily setting it ablaze, causing a massive firestorm to erupt throughout the city. All those who weren't in the immediate vicinity of the fire soon found themselves sucked into the fire by high winds flowing in to replace the rising hot air from the fire. The horrendous blaze for several hours, killing all those who had gone back into the city.
And this was only one of many targets that day. The Gloriians held nothing but contempt for the Mercenians, and slaughtered them all just the same with these air strikes, with hundreds of thousands of Mercenians dead or dying on that intense day of bombardment, with tolls often times greater than what would have been had a nuclear weapon been used.

And the front lines weren't much better. The lack of air cover and equipment for the Mercenians with their rushed offensive proved disastrous as they lacked even artillery support while the Gloriian ground forces had air, close air, artillery, and in some cases naval support. Wave after wave was repulsed by Gloriian machine gun fire and better equipment. There were also the first time certain weapons Glory had developed several years before saw true combat, the Chemical Pulse Energy Weapons, or C. PEW. The lightning quick blue bolts of pulse energy struck fear in the Mercenians as they could paralyze a limb or down a man with little to no evidence of an injury.
Attacking or retreating, the Gloriians gave hell to the underequipped Mercenians, but only time would tell if they could hold back the full onslaught of the Ten Million Man Offensive long enough for the rest of the army to mobilize.

Meanwhile, whenever the unknown reinforcements arrived, they were not received with great fanfare, they were merely turned around as they were never asked for nor wanted.

 

The Unions forces were sent to help , but when news arrived that the glorians were winning the battles, he decided to withdraw them and they were soon sent back to their lands.

"My king... there is someone that wishes to speak with you." A man said as he walked into Seliph's chambers.

He looked at him, then closed a book he was reading and went to the conference room to answer the call from whoever was calling him

 

"Hail, King Seliph." Gunwale's voice was hospitable, yet rough at the same time. "Commodore Seatone wishes to speak to you. He has a business proposition."

 

Throughout the northern Tyranius-Olson border, the Tyraniusians forces were unable to advance. Every advance was met with with an ambush by Kevorian airborne. Any push through the plains was meet hit with artillery before rushed with armor, any advance through the hills and forest was met with ambushes, any bltiz of a suspected Kevorian position found a healthy load of C4 ready for the them. The airborne were everywhere yet nowhere to be found. Whilst the the Tyraniusians were being stalled, the Kevorian engineers focused on repairing the collateral damage caused by the initial invasion. It would take several months but plans were to have the Oslanians already making their counter attack and the airborne home sooner.

Meanwhile, Ahvalahrd turned its attention to the distracted Kevorian nation. A score to be settled while the mountain boys were busy. Battalions began rolling across the border, meeting heavy resistance from the defending Kevorians, but the their positions slowly began to weaken..

 

The Mercenians declined to attack the Gloriians on the third, fourth, or even fifth days of the war. Tyranius covertly had sent in commanders to assist the Mercenians after seeing the absolute disaster of the first two days, and they directly the Mercenians to redeploy to launch two narrow attacks of four million each along each flank, while the remaining million was to attempt to punch through the middle. However, the Gloriians quickly realized what was going on as reconnaissance planes and recently inserted Magniitium Legotiium special forces also tracked the massive troop movements across the border, harassing the armies from long range at virtual will with FRLR gunpowder snipers and the occasional DERA which utilized the new PEW technology. When the attack came a week after the start of hostilities, Glory was expecting it. Rather than attempt to fight to the last man, the entire 600 mile+ front was strategically bent by the Gloriian Priimaperator Flanii Javariius. This "encouraged" the attacking flanks to essentially slide down the paths of least resistance and into massive salients. Then, he ordered his Elatiians, the feared power armored soldiers of Glory who had trained since birth, to "snip" the salients off from the rest of Mercenia, trapping two and a half million Mercenian troops in three pockets between two Gloriian lines of defense. The Elatiians were ordered in one more time.
On the ground, the Mercenian troops had decided to try to stick together as to wait for reinforcements, thinking the Elatiians were trapping them from Mercenia for only the time being. The groups dug in hastily done trenches that, due to Tyranius leadership, were actually formidable...To a Riigula attack that involved mixing armor with regular troops that had to push through nearly 500 yards of sparse barbed wire and plenty of anti-tank and anti-personnel trench all while under fire from the front line, which was nearly entirely made up of the Mercenians who were actually armed, even if they were typically low end rifles from Tyranius.
The attack started without even an artillery bombardment of the Mercenian position, simply of the "killing field" that cleared several paths out. Then, smoke shells were fired at the lines, obscuring much of the "killing field" from view of the Mercenians. Then...All hell broke loose. The slowly marching Elatiians approached on several front of each trapped group. In total, it was an Army Group (43,200 soldiers) of Elatiians versus 2.5 million, with the only reinforcements being the Riigula troops keeping the areas surrounding and contained. It proved to make little difference. The Elatiians opened fire upon the trenches with carried gatling guns and grenade machine guns as they marched unbroken on the trenches. The small arms fire of the Mercenians harmlessly pinged off the Gloriian steel (which is actually 3 times stronger than steel, and a third lighter due to it actually having titanium in it) armor, with the extraordinarily highly trained Elatiians not even flinching in recoil. As had happened in the "snip" operation, the Mercenians fled deeper into their pocket, with the few foolish enough to remain found themselves fighting in hand to hand combat with arguably the single deadliest men on the planet. These man-machines made quick work of their opposition before marching endlessly on. It took two whole days of wholesale slaughter, but not a single Mercenian remained alive, for the Elatiians are trained to not show mercy. Those who surrendered where killed just as swiftly as those who fought, it made no difference for these "men".

The "Ten Million Man Offensive" had in less than two weeks lost 3.5 million troops to superior tactics, equipment, and the steadfast determination of the Gloriian defenders. But would it last? After all, the Gloriians were still outnumbered nearly 7 to 1, and no doubt Tyranius would start sending more and more equipment to try to bolster the flagging offensive.

 

(sorry if it took a while)

Seliph raised an eyebrow. "A businesses proposition? Well that will be interesting." he calmly said. "Tell him I accept speaking with him about that. " He then turned to his friend. "Send a message to the glorians that if they need help, we will send forces as soon as they tell us." he calmly said before he turned his attention back to Gunwale.

 

Tyranius, frustrated with Mercenia's constant failures and taking advantage of political instability in Mercenia as they still had yet to elect a new leader following Great Chief Direk Sosen's death in the fire raid on the capital encampment, sent a division of troops to "ensure" stability in leadership, installing a puppet ruler for themselves in Mercenia, as well as sending large amounts of equipment and "trainers" into the nation to "modernize the Mercenian military". As a result, the front line became a dug in trench fight between the two sides as Glory waited for full mobilization and the Mercenians waited for reinforcements and equipment. However, Gloriian Magniitium Legotium were making it tough as they targeted all convoys they could far behind the front line, ensuring not quite enough ever made it, but being too much of a problem to warrant a massive search and destroy mission against them.
In the grand Gloriian capital of Gloriia Renovatus, Tiberiionus directed the defensive fight, maintaining the strict holding pattern, but with each new legion he got, he shored up the defenses both on the line and behind. He also released a message stating "Glory would not accept any reinforcements unless Renovatus itself was threatened and Glory was uncertain it could hold it alone, as this was a fight for Glory and Glory alone to deal with their barbaric ancestors."

 

Gunwale nodded. "Aye-aye. He'll be with you in a moment."

Commodore Seatone stepped into the projection room. "Good day, King Seliph. I trust you remember those surveillance balloons I brought up during the meeting?"

 

Seliph looked at Seatone. "I do indeed remember them. Why do you ask?" He said calmly as he crossed his arms and waited for an explanation, though it was a bit obvious what this was going to be about.

 

"Well, some of your sailors carrying walkers to Glory passed through Albatross' Landing today. The quickest sea route, as you know, is very dangerous. If we can, 'borrow' some of your factories for the production of these balloons, we'll transport and materials you need to Glory, so you can focus on the more immediate threats. We'll cover the charges of using the factories from our own pocket."