The True World War

The Fusion of the Worlds was now being called the True World War by most of the citizens of Europe, and the name had started to catch on outside of that area as well.  Unlike most other nations, the conflicts in Europe had been purely physical and the bloodshed that ensued was something that would have been previously unimaginable. 

The Haima-sa has lived up to their names, being every bit as ruthless as their reputations would dictate.  The High Paladin, Joseph Avier, a man who would later become one of the most cherished heroes of Britain, had managed to hold off the initial Haiman onslaughts, containing the threat and maintaining a perimeter which kept the Haiman forces inside of the expanding Gaia field and civilians on the outside.  Unfortunately, his efforts came with high casualties, and as things progressed and the pocket grew, the High Paladin found himself facing overwhelming Haiman numbers.

By the time Marshack and his Paladins arrived at the facility, the High Paladin’s forces had been reduced to a meagre handful, and were now being overwhelmed by the incoming Haima-sa forces.  Had it not been for Joseph Avier’s presence on the battle field, there was no doubt in the minds of his charges that the Xelot forces would have long since fallen, as the High Paladin’s ability to imbue his allies with fractions of his own power gave them that edge that was necessary to face the wrath of the Haiman.  As Marshack and his main force arrived however, the Haiman were then introduced to the offensive power of the Army of Knights.  Though High Paladin Avier was the second highest ranking member of the Xelot Army, his offensive capabilities were nowhere near the highest, as his form specialised in Defense and Support.  The title of most offensively adept Knight was held by the High Paladin Escresea Falken, the Commandant of the Xelot’s Korean facility while Marshack himself was simply the most well balanced warrior in their ranks.

The arrival of Escresea’s and Marshack’s forces shifted the tide of battle back towards the Xelots, dealing the strong initial blow against the entities that had grown overly accustomed to the low offense, high defense tactics of Joseph’s forces.  This initial blow did, by any means, put the Haiman forces out of the battle however, it simply forced them to regroup, re-coordinate their efforts and retaliate with new tactics. 

The arrival of the fully mobilised Royal Military would be the final line of defense against the Haima-sa waves.  The arrival of the Royal Military would provide enough technological super weapons to finally balance the offensive and defensive potentials of both sides.  It would have been impossible to ignore the glaring similarities between both sides, which seemed to embody the perfect sense of an organised military force.  Like their Terran offenders, the Haiman had distinct classes in their infantry, which were than complimented with a very adept magical armoury of super weapons to turn the tide of battle.  This fact left the two forces locked in battle well into the third and final day of the fusion. 

This prevented the Xelot forces from doing anything to defend their all but abandoned facilities in France and Korea from the threats that would oppose them, without abandoning the fight in England that was now using up just about all of their combat resources.  Marshack could do little but mobilise his transport class carriers to evacuate the occupants of both bases, transporting them and as many civilians as possible to England where they would make their only true stand.  Not all of these carriers would survive the Haima-sa volleys and make it safely to the fortified stronghold in England, but each carrier that did make the trip safely seemed to serve as justification for the next fleet that he would send off.  This would continue until the Haima-sa anti-air attacks made further trips impossible, forcing Marshack and his team to focus all of their energies on dealing with the war at hand.

On the otherside of Europe, Shin Itami and his very limited forces had successfully staged the initial repulsion of the Haiman waves that were spawning in that area.  As Naomi’s visions had predicted 3 decades ago, in the confusion that resulted from the fusion between Terra and Oya, the Haima-sa forces were able to spread their empire across the Russian land mass.  In this knowledge, Shin had placed his stronghold strategically at the location where he and his Oyan associates could best slow the Haiman advances.

During the years prior to the fusion of the worlds, it had always been an area of contention as to which refugees from Itam were never registered by Terran authorities.  As an exiled Prince and hence expert on Itam, Shin proposed a theory stating that the fact that wars seldom took place on the lands of Itam, and as such the energy concentration needed to shunt Itam residents into terror simply never occurred.  This explanation was one that was reluctantly accepted by the average person, though some still questioned the validity of this proposal.

In truth, Shin Itami had made it one of his prerogatives, an issue that he spent a great deal of his amassed wealth on, to intercept Itami and Malaikin refugees before they were discovered or picked up by the authorities.  In this task, he also employed the help of a number of other influential and affluent figures, those that he could either trust to keep the process under wraps or those that would benefit more from the secret nature of this project than its discovery.  Through his rescue project, he was then able to build alliances, housing those Oyans that opted to assist him and returning the others to their homes.

It was only through these actions that he was able to amass a force in Terra large enough stop the initial wave, while those that had returned organised Oyan parties to assist him in this endeavour.  What Shin Itami did find peculiar was the level of Oyan support that his repulsion attempt had received, finding even military class Itami and Malaikin warriors joining the fight with him against the now expanding Haiman forces.  This left him to wonder about the state of the armies that were left to defend their homelands, but he would unfortunately be unable to entertain such curiosity.   Shin Itami and his forces would hold the line just long enough for the Terran and Oyan inhabitants of what could now only be called Jin to recognise the true level of the Haiman threat.  With the assistance of Russia, China and Jaegard, these forces would then fortify the anti-Haiman line, to stop the resulting advance, forcing the Haiman retract their most wayward forces to focus their efforts now on purging their lands of their Terran offender rather than expanding their territory.

Whereas this left the areas on the outskirts of the Haiman borders relatively safe, it only served to increase the Haiman threat that plagued western Europe.  With Haima-sa forces returning from the eastern borders to fortify their more central forces, the European nations that did manage to hold their own against the Haiman waves found themselves being overwhelmed by the additional Haima-sa resources.  More weapons, more soldiers and a renewed vigour for their extermination seemed to be the final signature necessary for the Terran death warrants as the Haiman forces destroyed countries like Spain, Romania and the Netherlands.  In fact, there were very few countries that seemed to be able to repel the Haiman forces even with the extensive use of -002 and -003 Exo-suits piloted by the most skilled pilots in their militaries.  France was one of these few however, with their anti-Haiman Enforcers seeming to even the playing field against the Magic Wraiths, corrupting their core coding with modified ZPDs to cause an infectious wave that crippled infantry squadrons.  Italy was also one of the few countries that had managed to resist the Haima-sa waves, though they did not do it with half the finesse of France.  Their resistance of the Haima-sa waves was in part due to the presence of Alexander Drago in the country went the nation first came under siege.  The technological giant had no doubt seen fit equip the Italian military with a number of his prototype projects, including the recent Power User symbionts that he had been developing.  This decision gave the military just enough power to resist the Haima-sa waves, while Alexander Drago, his wife and his personal security team fled to country, via their teleportation satellites to a safer area, one of the outskirts of Novosibirsk, and area that had no long been secured.

Little would he know, but it was this decision that would save the businessman’s life.   Little would be known about the decision that would doom Italy and many of its neighbours to destruction.  Whether it was a deliberate Terran decision or whether or not the Haiman somehow gained control of the weapon which they could not understand would be a mystery, but the effects would be visible for years to come.  An expanding wave of destruction would doom both the Terran inhabitants of Italy and the Haima-sa forces that sought their destruction as the Drago Enterprises: (Z-1 Prototype) Strange-Type Zeta Data Pulse Bomb was detonated at their main facility.

The blast destroyed Italy, and the fallout would spread out the decimate many of its neighbours.  The Strange Type Zeta, which acted as a halfway state between Ki and Magic, would create a progressively corrosive fallout that would infect and destroy the magic based Haima-sa entities, while the ethereal radiation quickly dealt with many of the Terran non channelers.  With France still maintaining a great deal of its ethereal shielding in its city class areas and the Magical shielding around the main Haiman cities to the West being too strong for the fallout to corrupt them, this left the radiated winds to spread eastwards, until the barriers of the established cities of Jin such as Russia, China and Jaegard could neutralise their corruptive coding.  This left much of eastern Haiman now irradiated and uninhabitable by either Terrans or Oyans.

The surviving Haima-sa entities, now concentrated their forces in the west, while France served as a place of refuge for channelers with the defensive capabilities to survive the fallout and who made it into the city class area.

Due to the importance of Russia and China to maintaining the defensive line against the Haiman, and for their assistance in repelling the Haiman forces, the Shadesmith clan of Jaegard, ruler of Jin sent out a message to cease all attacks on their borders.  Once this was done, the Royal family now attempted to look into the other conflicts that plagued its lands, in an attempt to quell the wars between its people, the inhabitants of Jin and the bothers of their Terran allies, China and Russia.

It would take some time, but Jin would be the first land mass in New Gaia, to finally settle into a tense, but stable state of peace.