(Hm, sure. Honestly, that seems like a logical responce to losing the Mojave, as suddenly westward expansion was destroyed, but the NCR is far too overstretched to carry on the attack, giving the Legion time to at least solidify its territory, which Caesar had planned to do after taking the Mojave and NCR. So sure ^^ would you like to start? (And lets have this be after the time of Allen and Rhys)
(Oki, I'll start, I'll be a Legion centarian) Centurion Remus Julius Vidar sat in a war council of the 3rd Legio, right on the border of the Republic of Texas, situated in the frontier where they wouldn't be detected. They were just one of several other legios situated along the border. Caesar Augustus saw the Republic of Texas as the new NCR to the Legion, one that wouldn't need to secure a river crossing as with the NCR. Guns and other heavy weaponry had become widespread since the defeat as the Legion learned the lessons of the loss of the Mojave. Here, the Legion wanted to attack quickly and use its overwhelming force to take take the Republic before they could get into proper defensives. "You have your orders, we attack "Loredo" in the night. We set up positions, leave a garrison force, then move quickly down the highway. Got it?" The Legate Ganis asked his centurions. "No sir!" They all replied in unison. "Good, you are dismissed, gather your troops."
(I'm going to be a Veteran Decanus) Decanus Marius Nerva Seneca, an extremely talented individual in the Legion, sat around the campfire as he collected the warmth of the flames. Marius proved himself during Hoover Dam until the remainder of the Legion were forced to retreat, which left him devastated weeks after the loss. Dressed in full uniform, he carried a machete and an extremely powerful but rare 12.7 pistol, but what made him stand out was the black semi-auto sniper rifle on his back that acted more than an overpowered lever action rifle rather than a normal rifle. Proving himself time and time again against the NCR, sometimes even taking on entire squads by himself, he quickly rose up the ranks of the Legion. He was a heartbeat away from being promoted to Centurion. During his time in the Mojave, some NCR officials even went as far to say that he was the 'Legion's Blackbird. Marius had black hair and, like many Legionaries, was physically well built. Excelling in training since a young age and surviving, he was a very lethal individual. Eventually, he got up from his campfire and walked off to his quarters.
That night Under the new moon, with darkness concealing their movements, the 3rd Legio surrounded Laredo. Centurion Vidar began the attack by leading a squad up to the gate of the inner settlement itself where they ambushed the guards, quietly taking them out and opening the gates, opening the way for the Legio to flood into the frontier town of 3,000.
Marius walked through the town while Legionaries had gathered in the town center, holding almost the entire population ransom, placing slave collars around the necks of future slaves and executing anyone who dared to fight back. Marius walked through a line of twenty captured civilians, who was guarded by ten legionaries. Not long after, an old man suddenly jolted to life and knocked his two guards unconscious, running towards Marius to the shock to the captured civilians. Just before he could land a blow, Marius stopped the fist in action and punched the old man in his temples before taking his hair and forcing him downward and kneeing him in the face in one fluid and powerful movement, breaking some of his skull as the old man fell to the ground lifelessly. Marius grunted before heading towards his acting commander, Centurion Vidar. Upon arriving in his tent, he saluted before taking his helmet and mouth wrap off.
"Decantus. I was wanting to speak to you." Vidar curtly greeted Marius, "Please tell me the troops didn't go overboard with ensalving. Remember, we have orders from Augustus himself to keep enslavement to a 1 slave to 3 left alone citizens for towns that don't have organized resistance." He said simply, "If so, free the women first, men of recruiting age last until we have the proper ratio." Looking up at Marius, "You know Decantus Marius...A little bird has told me that if this campaign goes well, there might be some new Centurion vacancies from promotions. If that's true, I think I'll likely put you as my suggested canidate for a new Centurion at long last." But he raised up a finger, "On one condition, uphold the standards that Augustus has placed upon us and forget the standards of Caesar. Remember the Points, Decantus. 1: To protect and expand the interests of the Empire, 2: to minimize civilian casualties and reduce civilian enslavement, 3: to destroy any who dare stand up to the Empire, but show kindness and fairness to those who peacefully submit, 4: to uphold a standard of morality, fitness, and virtue in myself and thus around me, and finally 5: to never forget the lessons of the Mojave and all hail Augustus." Vidar cleared his throat, "That's all I wanted to tell you. So what is it?"
"Yes, Centurion" Marius spoke, his baritone voice showing a surprising amount of age, leading people to believe that he was older than he truly was. He was in his late 20's, but the voice of the young mad made him sound as if he was in his fifty's, something that added to his charisma. "I came to see you about our campaign. As of now, we have roughly 400 slaves while the remainder are captured. However, twenty have fought back and have been rendered incapable of harm or were ordered to be killed by other Decanus. I had to personally deal with one of them just before, but I've left him alive. I'm willing to serve Augustus with all my heart and mind, and if necessary, I'll die for the Legion."
"Ok." Vidar simply replied, "You are dismissed. Luckily we were not the centarii selected to guard this place, we will be heading out in the morning." ***deeper in the Republic*** Private First Class Adam Jones sat smoking a cigarette as he played blackjack with his bunkmate, Private Victor Ryan. They were members of the Elite Guard, assigned to guard duty of New Houston. They wished that they were out on frontier, advancing the Republic of Texas to the rest of the former state, but that had slowly become a job for mainly the regulars serving their year or two for citizenship. They had actually never been in combat, not unusual as the Republic has not had a major war since it started 40 years back, and most of the veterans of that were either dead, retired, or in politics. Most of its operations since have been clearing out small bands of raiders or moving into some small town in West Texas. Checking his cards, Jones pushed forward his stack of caps and the newly printed currency for the Republic, nicknamed "redbacks", whose value was no only tied to precious metals like gold, but also a backup value in water, which meant it was slowly replacing the good ol' cap. "Oh really Adam?" Ryan said coyly at the all-in before flipping over his cards to reveal a ten and a King before sitting back confidentially. "Oh yes really, Vic!" Jones flipped over his cards to show show a jack and an ace, "Blackjack! I win!" He exclaimed before taking all the money on the table, about 50 caps and 30 redbacks. "Dammit! How come you're so damn lucky?!" "Dunno, just am." Adam stuffed the money in his pocket as Victor gathered up his cards. "Maybe I should just get a new deck, this one seems to favor you way too much." Vic said grumpily. "I dunno how much good that'll do ya, Vic, you've always been unlucky with the cards." - - Auto Merge - - (oh, by the way, I mistook Laredo for Lubbock, Laredo is a little too far south and west to be under Republic control as its on the border with Mexico) - - Auto Merge - - (Oh, and here's a couple maps of this; Pre-installed Republic of Texas; http://imgur.com/KwVEslj Initial, prior to being able to respond invasion (orange lines marking the advance lines and the white dotted line representing the farthest, unopposed advance; http://imgur.com/SZskfkB )
(Welp, it's been my birthday. Been out all day doing stuff, and I finally got the hoodie from America that I've wanted for at least 3 years ) Marius went outside of the tent as two Legionaries instantly surrounded him and walked alongside him. Marius knew that within the next couple of weeks, the Legion would have been kicked into overdrive when the Republic decides to wage war. A legionary alongside him gave the Decanus a map of the area, where all he responded with was a grin amongst his face. ""Parati estote, fratres mei." (Be ready, my brothers) Marius spoke as him and his bodyguards went across the camp, into the sunset that turned the sky orange. ----------------------------------- Rhys, serving his forth term in office as Mayor of Dallas, happily closed his terminal to signal the end of another day. At this point of time, Dallas was on the brink of not only being habitable, but was 75% rebuilt. Some areas were still being worked upon, and would still take a couple more years, but Dallas was now a crown jewel in the Republic. At least 60,000 lived in Dallas alone. Since his time in office, Rhys had been busy raising a family, married to a wife and having a daughter named Sarah. He was now starting to show signs of age, but was not letting it get to him. Turning off the lights, he closed the door and went home.
(Sounds cool ^^, what was the hoodie?) Allen, now in his sixties, sat at a terminal. He had recently stood down from his 4th term as President of the Republic. The stress of overseeing the country for 40 years showed itself, looking at least ten years older than he actually was, and he was utterly exhausted. Expansion, even as easy as it was compared to the early stages, was hard on a leader, especially when it came to integrating the locals and making sure there wasn't a chance of uprising. He found himself falling asleep at the terminal, completely unaware that to the west, his expansion was being quickly destroyed by the 8 legios (~40,000 men) the Legion had initially sent at the Republic, and he wouldn't know for a few more days... (Oh, found out something interesting lore wise when it comes to Legate Lanius; that the game actually suggests "Legate Lanius" is actually a title and a myth created to embody the Legion's ruthlessness, as at one point Ulysses says that there "may have been many men behind Lanius' mask" or something to that effect, and Lanius himself says that he "earned the title from battle", imagine if that was true, and the Legion quickly replaced the Lanius killed by Damien, which would allow them to say "Look, the Monster of the West couldnt kill the Monster of the East!" Imagine the moral boost for a laid low Legion)
Long before any of the recruits had awoken, Marius stood alone in the middle of the camp underneath the moonlight practicing with his blade. He only had two hours of sleep during the night, strangely enough for the Legionary to allow his body to rest but short enough for him to savor the time honing his skills. Cutting the air with his blade, a lifetime of service in the Legion was paying off. Just before sunrise, he sat nearby the fireplace. Dressed in almost full uniform, he sharpened his blade and made sure that his guns were working and that they both had enough ammo. He was ready. (It would have been an enormous morale boost, enough to keep the legionaries fighting or even start another conquest elsewhere prehaps. I just returned, celebrated my birthday with friends, went to the arcade and watched a movie. Anyway, I got a N7 hoodie (Mass Effect) that was a size to big, but still fit me nonetheless.) (I've also had an amazing idea of an OC. I would have had incorporated him somehow but he died in battle during 2276, and that he was also terminally ill. However, he was Damien's mentor during his days as a Ranger and a ghoul, but was essentially a badass. Think of a Ghoulified Revolver Ocelot )
(Sounds cool ^^) As the sun began rising on the new day, the Third Legio set out from Lubbock, leaving behind a small garrison to keep the citizens under control. Soon, they met up with the Fifth Legio which came in from the north and headed on to their next target, Wichita Falls, all at the same time as the other 3 Legio pairs advanced on to their day two objectives, knowing they had to move fast, as word would get out by the next day and by day 4, the Republic's military would have set up defensive positions. So they had to move quick and grab as much land as they can.
Lubbock fell within minutes, the Legion quickly overwhelming the town at ridiculous ferocity and sheer power that many of the civilians did not even have a chance to fight back. Marius headed towards Wichita Falls for the next takeover, all the while the other Legio's advanced through San Antonio, abilene and the most southern territories of the Republic.
(Gonna skip ahead) By the end of the three day grace period, the Legion had pushed deep inside the Republic, taking a line from Wichita Falls to West Fort Worth, to Austin to Victoria to the Gulf of Mexico, capturing or killing more than a third of the Republic's forces(mainly the regulars), but the remaining forces, which had finally managed to regroup enough to form defenses that lead to the Legion pausing in its advance, but it didn't attack, yet. Little did the Republic know, the Legion was sending in more reinforcements, locking in their positions, and preparing for an attack. 10 legios were now in Texas, facing against the remainder of the Republic's forces.
The sudden war with the Legion had already devastated the Republic, losing enormous amounts of territory within mere days in what had taken years of expansion. The military, aside from losing large amounts of soldiers, was going insane from the conquest. However, the Republic was fighting back and to some extent, managing to push back the Legion. However, all that did was delay the inevitable as the Legion came back stronger and came down upon the Republic like a hammer. (You're nearly at 10,000 posts ) With the Legion coming down rapidly, already taking some areas of Fort Worth, Rhys felt extremely uncomfortable that the Legion was right around the corner. Now that a line had been drawn, Rhys now knew that the Republic was ready to fight to the death, himself included. Marius, on the other hand, led a successful raiding attack onto an important Republic water supply company, taking the area quickly and stripping the Republic away from a large amount of drinkable water. Killing thirty and capturing twice as many workers, this act would have given the Legion a small amount of leverage over a devastated Republic.
(I see that. Oh! And here's a map of how D/FW is currently divided; http://i.imgur.com/CpQFKYG.jpg (sorry about it being flipped...just mirror it or something), the river making up the north border is the Trinity River, a river about 30-50 yards across on average, up to 10 or more feet deep, and is dug down into essentially a trench with 45 degree angle sides; a formidable river to cross for this period I would say, especially under fire. Also, as you can see, Lake Arlington is firmly under Republic control, and if the Republic could get the purification systems running, they could have some of the best water in the world. (As the radiation would have already passed and Arlington as it is IRL has some of the best tap water in the entire United States.) That would definitely be a major objective to take.) Vidar looked across the no-man's land of the Trinity River to the other side. There was no bridge in this area, but it was the closest point between the forces in the north of D/FW with forces in the south, which were too weak, a mere half legio, to launch any major offensive. But, if they could cross the river and link up with the others, then downtown Fort Worth, where much of the forces of Fort Worth were focused, would be cut off and rendered useless. However, they needed to take downtown fully as it held the only intact bridges for miles and the rest were too heavily defended to cross, here, there was a chance of hitting them from behind as well. Returning to his camp, he went into his tent and began drawing up plans... ******* Ryan and Jones found themselves building up sandbag fortifications around strategic points around Houston, all focused around maintaining a retreat route to Galveston Island, where, once the bridge was blown, would be virtually impossible for the Legion to take by force, or at least so they thought. It would leave them useless in further fights, yes, but it would save lives, especially civilians, whom where already being sent onto the island. Both of them knew, however, it would be likely that the island would run out of room and they would have to stay on land to fight and be overrun if it came down to it. The higher-ups of the area had already decided they would not face the Legion on the open ground of the highway leading to the city, but instead make the Legion fight for the city itself. They hoped that being on the defense in urban combat would help make up for the smaller numbers and fewer supplies they had. Now...They just had to wait for the enemy and prepare as much as they could...
Marius arrived in Legion occupied Houston on Tuesday after successful campaigns against supply caravans. From what he had learn't, many strategic bridges had been blown by the Republic in order to not only slow them down and force them to fight for the city, but also to make a retreat for the civilians to shelter them Galveston Island. He knew that it was going to be bloody, but the Legion would have persisted and get the job done sooner or later. All other strategic points were already reinforced, and Marius sensed a trap being set upon by the Republic. The Decanus, sensing that the bridge was rigged to blow, informed all Centurions in the area about the idea. Now with this new knowledge, they began to make plans on how to take Houston. --------------------------------------------------------- Rhys was in his office, the only light in the room being from a dim lamp. Rhys was now in his 60's, his once ginger hair being replaced by short grey hair upon a rough beard. Dressed in a suit, he looked at an old rifle that acted as a center piece on an otherwise empty wall, an old Australian flag wrapped around to serve as it's cheek rest. His time to fight on the front lines was long gone, but he sighed as he looked at the rifle. If he did nothing, the Legion was sure to take Arlington and the rest of Dallas, and eventually the remainder of the Republic. He promised himself to never to it again, not since what happened last time. But he was now out of options... Taking the rifle from the wall, he stood there with the Hunting Rifle in his hands before turning off the lamp and closing the door behind him.
(Poor Rhys, sounds like he's about to go down in a hail of gunfire as its been so long since he's last seen combat) Vidar with his century lead the Fifth cohort of the third Legion under the cover of night to the banks of the Trinity River, on the other side could potentially be a whole army against them. They wouldn't know until they got across. Picking up the boats they carried, they slowly made their way down The steep banks to the water's edge. Making their way across, knowing they had to secure a foothold before the reinforcing cohort could cross and reinforce them. The group made their way up the banks and instantly reached a line of sandbags, Vidar even found himself face to face with a...sleeping soldier. Apparently, the commanders of Fort Worth had thought there would be an all out attack on the bridge, so this area was minimally guarded with only militia. Grinning at the revolation, Vidar took out his Gladius and plunged it into the militia man's heart, he then lead his men up and over and they began securing the area...
Before he had left, Rhys had left behind a letter in his home for his daughter. It was the middle of the night as he wrote the letter on the kitchen counter. His wife had unfortunately passed away after a fight with cancer, leaving only him and his daughter, who had turned 19 several months prior to the Legion invasion. The letter said... “Dear Charlotte. If you’re reading this, then you know what I’ve done. I’m Sorry. I’ve done many stupid things in my life, but this might be the stupidest out of all of them. I’m just writing this letter to tell you how much I loved you, how much me and your mother cared for you since the day you were born. In a time such as this, we can only do so much. The Legion is at our doorstep, and I promise you that I would rather die than watch my little girl become a slave to those monsters. The Republic and the Legion have currently made the line, but I believe that one of these areas were overlooked, and that the Legion is going to make its move soon. If the purifier falls, we lose everything. I’m going alongside several Republic soldiers to prevent this from happening, and I’m likely to never see you again. I need you to leave the city, you will find MP’s at the door in the morning to take you away somewhere safe. I’m sorry that I need to do this. Me and your mother are proud of what you have become. I love you. - Dad” Rhys went inside of Charlotte's room once the letter was written, with his daughter still asleep. Kissing her in the forehead and trying to hold back the tears, he got back up and closed the door behind him slowly. By the time his daughter would have woken up, he was long gone.
