Tactical Integration

In the larger cities, the fusion was somewhat more organised.  In nations like Crystales, Malaikin and Itam, the inevitability of the fusion of the worlds was something that was widely studies, and though the rulers of these clans accepted that there would undoubtedly be high casualties during the fusion period, they had put a number of steps in place to accelerate the inevitability of a dynamic stability between their clan and their Terran counterparts.

In Crystales, the Falco Royal family took a more militaristic approach, deploying their most powerful warriors to areas where their spies and information gathers determined to be the most strategically sound places to launch a military crippling initial assault.  This greatly skewed the battle between the Unified Empire of Crystales and a number of the nations of the Americas.  In fact, with the United States in particular being the most substancial threat, and occupying the corresponding area to the Crystales main city, it was no surprise that this nation was hit the hardest by the Crystales main army.  Luckily, civilian casualties, though high, were far reduced from what the Falco tacticians had predicted, allowing the forces of Crystales to wage a very clean and precise war against its target.  Unfortunately, what these Oyans did not calculate for was the additional help that these nations would have received in the forms of the U.N. peace keepers and the strength of the Mercenary Army.

Reinforcements arrived just hours before the initial strike was fully successful, and as such, before the diplomats of Crystales could be deployed to diffuse the situation.  This left Crystales to deploy the rest of its military in order to not only protect its citizens from the incoming Terran assault but to protect its border from potential Terran invaders.  This development would causing their war to become very bloody, very quickly.

Initially, due to the limited knowledge of the U.S. Government, military forces and Enforcer Exo-suits had been deployed all over the nation, to neutralised the confused Oyan civilians that would have claimed the lives of many terran non-channelers in the initial confusion, a constant that seemed to happen in everywhere that endured the fusion.  This tactic was duly noted by the Crystales Military, who simply sought to neutralise, as quickly as possible, the Exo-frames once they had successfully stabilised the situation to a manageable point, but while they were still distracted.

Despite their miscalculations with the peacekeepers, the battle in the United States still went rather smoothly, simply claiming more civilian lives than the Falco Royal family had preferred.  It would not be long before the entire remaining forces would turn their attention of Fort David in Washington, where the Mercenary Army was defending since the beginning of the fusion.  Amusingly enough, it would not be the Crystales Military or any other Oyan Organisation that would deal the finishing blow for the Army, but instead the environment itself.  It Fate would have it, the Mercenary Fortress resided in the counterpart to an area known as the Fire Plains.  This area, which was known for its regular spontaneous magical fires, was one that was generally uninhabited by citizens of Crystales.  This allowed the Mercenaries present to properly plan and execute an organised strike on the primary and secondary advancing Oyan waves, with Maika Smerkyov and his Agents leading the charge against the incoming Oyan hordes.  As would be expected, Maika’s combat ability was simply the pinnacle of his faction, with his form being able to simply ignore ethereal code, this allowed him to deal with each incoming Oyan at face value, ignoring the complexities of their techniques, allowing him to disable them as he would any other fighter.  This ability made him very difficult to dispatch, especially with his ability to Perfect and Dynamic Guard as well as his ability to destroy guards with his Overwhelming force.  He was the main reason why the Oyan forces had such a difficult time taking the base, giving his Agents just enough leeway to coordinate tactically and support their frontline leader.

This battle would favour the Mercenaries for some time, until the temperature in the area began to rise.  Maika found it rather odd that the Crystales waves would get progressively weaker as time went on, eventually ceasing only seconds before his fate would be sealed.  As the area erupted into flames and the battlefield became engulfed in fire, the final Crystales wave swept across the battlefield.  Confused and taking heavy damage, it would not be long before the Flame Acolytes of Crystales, the offensive unit which guarded that area, would disable the Mercenary Army, apprehending the survivors of the battle and transporting them to the main city.

In the South of Crystales, the entity known as the Wild Vine, would easily dispatch her Terran assailants, demonstrating why she still held the Diety status amoung the inhabitants of her city.  The being, whose body stretched across three geographic squares would systematically reduce all who opposed her to rubble, taking in the civilians from the battles and making them citizens of her city, marking the end between the wars in Crystales and the Americas.

In Malaikin and Itam, the military was out in full force.  As Shin had not doubt gathered by now, his efforts to rescue and return Malaikins and Itamis from Terra had not gone unnoticed by his Oyan counterparts, and for this reason, they had seen fit to send him military assistance in his battle to defend the anti-Haiman lines.  Though this had left them with reduced military might, the Malaikins and Itamis who had visited Terra knew for a fact that the military might of the Caribbean nations were laughable.  For this reason, the Malaikins concentrated the brunt of the military attacks on Cuba, the most powerful military nation in the Caribbean and Barbados, the home of the Rogue Special Forces.  With these two areas fortified, the scattered another portion of their Armies across their lands to deal with the underequipped militaries of the other islands.  The remaining forces were sent to Itam, where they would assist in dealing with the Japanese military, whose might far exceeded that of the Caribbean nations.  Much like Crystales, Itam had a very well planned strategy for neutralising it Terran counterpart, one however that did not include an initial strike, in hopes that they would be able to avoid the excessive loss of lives, an occurrence that would be more damaging for a small Clan like the Itami when compared to the abundant Cyrstales empire.

With the psychic might of the Malaikin, and their family energy type which allowed them to cause Cognitive Dissonance, the Terrans actually found themselves very disadvantaged.  As a precaution, most Exo-suits and Zeta frames provided some shielding against Psychic assaults by channelers, but the makers of these weapons could never have expected them to face entire psychic armies.  For this reason, the psychic shielding of the frames were quickly overwhelmed, and as a result, the armies of Cuba would fall quickly.  The situation in Barbados would go similarly, with the Barbadian Defense Force quickly being dominated by the Malaikin forces.  This left only the Rogue Special Forces to be dealt with if Malaikin was going to difuse this situation.  Unfortunately, just like the other Oyan clans, the Malaikin soon realised that faction members were a cut above the standard military when it came to combat.  Though they did not possess the direct might of the militaries, these factions were first and foremost, trained to deal with channeler threats. 

Having abandoned their bases in Europe and Australia, the Rogue Special Forces made its final stand in Barbados, with K-Four leading the charge, while Kyasho hung back and attempted to counter the entire backline of psychic support that the Malaikin forces seemed to deploy with each battle.  Kyasho’s ethereal and zeta manipulation was one of the most terrifying things for the Malaikin armies, forcing the soldiers to witness a single man negating the support of dozens of channelers which were trained to do just that.  With the Malaikin Royal family now realising just how powerful Kyasho was, it would not be long before their efforts to take control of the other Caribbean “islands”, now provinces on the single mass of land that was Malaikin.  This allowed them to dispatch more of their forces to combat Kyasho and his men, who for a moment had actually begun to repell the Malaikin forces, driving them back from the Fortress, The Garrison.

The additional forces would stop the advance of the Rogues, but still cease to push them back, forcing the Malaikins to send their main force from what was once Cuba, now Amridad, to deal the finishing blow to the Rogue Special Forces.  Unfortunately for the Rogues, this would be rather unnecessary.  Much like the being in Desolate, one coined Suzaku, the Caribbean area also possessed a diety class organism, the White Tiger of the West, Byakko.  This usually benign creature, which had previously resided in a shrine in central Malaikin, seemed to be changed by the fusion somehow.  The creature, now imbued with the elemental essence of Zeta erupted from its shrine, engulfing the lands which separated Amridad and Barbados/Merrient in an expanding Zeta Storm.  As the weather system now expanded from the creature, Kyasho would be forced to order his men to stand down, an order that did not sit well with his men.  Despite this, the order was obeyed, allowing Kyasho to relinquish his grasp on the battle field and vanish, reappearing with the eye of the Zeta storm.

The winds and the zeta component of the system only served to unravel Kyasho’s form, quite a task for any being.  As Kyasho focussed his energies how, he attempting to quell the rage of what he sensed to be a very confused, artificial ethereal construct.  As Kyasho focussed his full Zeta powered on the creature, he attempted to reverse the corruption caused by the introduction of Zeta into, what could be likened to an ethereal machine’s, delicate systems.  Unfortunately, despite his nigh unlimited control over Zeta, after the battle and with the creature’s massive output, fixing the creature while shielding himself from the glitching effects of the storm proved to be too much for Kyasho’s dwindling stamina.

Doing what he could, he would vanish from the area, reappearing with his army just as the Malaikins were taking them into custody.  Kyasho would simply cap his form and go quietly, accepting that continuing the struggle would only be detrimental for his men and for himself.

In Itam, military might seemed to be the answer to all of the problems of the Itami Royal Family, leaving them with the upper hand in this cold war that locked them and Japan.  It was obvious that the Japanese Government was simply not willing to turn over control of their country to the Itami Royal family, and it citizens were simply not ready to accept a new Emperor, when they already had one, albeit a superficial one. Unfortunately, with the overwhelming force and the superior strategic positioning of the joint Itami and Malaikin forces, there was not a very credible way for Japan to win this war.

Like Suzaku and Byakko however, Seiryu, the Great Dragon of the East would prove to be a pivotal point in the cold war.  Much like with Byakko, the fusion seemed to have very negative effects on this ethereal construct, sending it into a similar madness.  This forced the militaries to either accelerate the war so that they could deal with the threat of Seiryu or for one of them to simply stand down.  For both however the latter was simply not an option, leaving them to come to an agreement of sorts.  Each party would dispatch a team to investigate the incident, while their remaining forces guarded their civilians and leaders.

This stalemate would continue until the Rogues were subdued and imprisoned in Malaikin, allowing Malaikin to send additional forces via translocation.  Unfortunately, not even this show of force would be enough to causing the Japanese Government to fold.  Growing tired of their stubbornness, The Emperor Kai would give the order to attack, concentrating their forces on the military installations and government buildings.  The battle, though drawn out, would be one-sided throughout its entirety with the Itamis wiping out any forces that provided too much resistance and simply subduing and imprisoning any forces that surrendered.  Once Japan was aptly subdued, Itam took the reins of the country, allowing the Malaikin soldiers to return to their homeland and deal with their own captives.

It would take some time, but the Mercenaries and the Rogues would eventually be freed, privy to the same fate as the other Terran inhabitants of Oyan claimed territories.  They would be integrated into the land as citizens, with the stronger channelers and superior pilots being integrated into their military.  The Mercenaries and Rogues would also be allowed to carry out their previous functions, autonomous of their new Clan leaders, but would be required to report to the clan in their dealings. For now, that would be the fate that they accepted, exploring their new relationships with the clans of Oyan to form the now integrated nations of New Gaia.