Eli found himself quite perturbed. Ole Murphy was at it again. That being in fact Murphy’s Law. You see, Murphy danced to his own tune, and the tune he was currently playing was not the one Eli wanted to hear. That was the other thing about Ole Murphy, he didn’t give a fuck what you wanted, planned, or otherwised imagined as being the way that things should be.

For example, people shouldn’t be strapping bombs to themselves, either willingly or not. The last time he’d seen that move was when he’d been assigned to a certain task force in Mogadishu. He had no qualms with ending those assholes with extreme prejudice, and he was looking forward to doing the same to whomever decided it was a good idea to commit that atrocity here today.

When the first series of explosions erupted down on Lord Shubin’s end of the Line, he just figured the Daemon’s were cutting loose and had created the earth quaking event themselves. As reports of troops massing across the Line behind the varying storefronts and warehouses began pouring in from his Legates, he started to frown in concern.

After the enemy slaves swarmed over the highway in a manic, suicidal push, Eli was beyond concerned and outright pissed in much the way the jihadists had enraged him so many years ago in the jungles of Africa. His grandfather had once called how he was feeling now as being “spitting mad”. He felt this was an accurate assessment of his mood as he charged forward with his own command team, directing his troops and hunting for potential enemies. A hole had opened up in his defensive lines where the first action on contact had been reported. His troops there were taking heavy casualties from the suicide bombers, their unit commander having been removed from the fight, either dead or severely wounded.

His current focus was to secure his line, then rally his troops to push across the highway and start claiming enemy territory. Karl’s report of mechs supported by regular infantry was concerning, of course, as was the territory they would be fighting in. Urban environments were not particularly conducive for cavalry charges, the initial battle a week ago was only so overwhelmingly successful due to the fact the Litchfield slavers had positioned themselves on such a wide avenue and were caught completely with their pants down. For the next fight, they would have to divide into squads and likely dismount.

Freya’s people were already picking landing zones to avoid being targeted by the AA missiles that had already essentially swatted all of Phoenix's Blackhawks from the sky. Additionally, those mechs Karl described seemed to be capable of putting a lot of lead into the air. Which, unfortunately, is not conducive to aerial operations.

“Lion Actual to all Warlord units, enemy contact across the entirety of the Line. FRAGO follows! All unit commanders secure your positions then assault to within five miles of designated targets and dig in. All units copy, over!”Eli barked into the command net, calling all of his forces to action while allowing his VPA to send the individually assigned orders to each of his unit commanders. A chorus of “affirmatives” responded over the net and his people began to move with the tasks given to them.

Eli’s team slowed as they approached a position on the Line that had been completely overrun. Men and women, eyes glowing red with magically driven rage were, at best, ambling around aimlessly with no further orders being given to them through the disgusting collars around their necks, or at worst, were continuing to hack into the bodies of his long dead troopers.

“Fuck me!” One of his troopers muttered to his left.

An ear-splitting scream echoing down the road indicated one of the slaves turned living weapons had spotted his group, that lone cry quickly picked up by the dozens of others who were previously occupied with other things. All at once they looked up, as if in some scene from any number of zombie movies, and began charging towards them, murder in their eyes.

“ENGAGE! ENGAGE NOW!” Eli ordered as he slid off Felix who had already swiped down an attacker that had gotten too close.

Eli drew his family sabre and commenced following his own order, leading by bloody example as he ended the innocent lives that rushed him. He knew that this action would never allow his conscience to rest easy, even if there was no other choice in the moment. The slaves he killed, while brutal, seemed to have no access to their skills or abilities, making them pathetically easy to kill. He realized the only reason his people had fallen to this pitiable maneuver was due to the suicide bombers that had been mixed in with the the swarm. Eyeing the trio of craters that still smoked behind the charging swarm.

“Keep an eye out for those suicide bombers!” Eli yelled to his troop as they finished clearing out the slave fighters.

“We’re clear!” A Sergeant called out from his right, a Centurion on his left echoed the call a moment later

“Alright, Legates, move your units up to the edge of the highway. We’ll push over in 2 mikes! Medics, recover anyone that’s still breathing, please!”

His people moved into position, smartly executing their orders organizing their troops for the next phase of their battle. Now that he had some breathing room, he decided it was to take a look at the larger picture. His VPA displayed a 3D map of the area in his mind that he could manipulate with a thought. He zoomed out noting the positions of the blue dots being his own forces, as well as red dots indicating projected enemy positions. Karl’s position, a quarter mile over the line, was marked in yellow with Shubin’s marker right next to his. The big demon’s people were already pressing the I-10/I-17 intersection.

His focus then moved to the 303, the business loop that was being held by Captain Devers, along with Irene’s people. The mermen were plying the Agua Fria River, launching raids on enemy positions on both sides of the loop. “John, this is Eli. If you haven’t heard, it’s time. I’m sending you the updated frago with preferred targets.”

“Copy that, we heard the explosions, we’ll start distracting them while the mermen advance under the river and give them hell. They’re going to try to time their raid with the Dwarves' attack on the forts.”

“Sounds good, Karl gave word of regular infantry moving up with mech support, be prepared.”

“Eh, ok. I’ll get Portnoy’s guns firing on the forts, maybe I can bait some of those mechs into an ambush, good luck, Commander.”

“You as well, Captain”

A younger looking native man ran up with a coyote following closely behind him, “Commander, we’re in position, we were only able to recover a dozen of our people, everyone else was…”

Eli grimaced with the man, “Understood. Let’s go make these bastards pay.”

The man whispered something to the coyote that had been following him. It looked at him the way intelligent animals look at their masters, then turned its head up to let out a yipping bark that was echoed from all the other coyotes in the area. It padded away, skulking off to begin its own hunt. It had already been decided that the coyotes were too bulky to participate as mounts in the dense urban environment, so they would be unleashed to hunt on their own. The mountain lions, like all cats, were far more nimble, while they wouldn’t be mounted cavalry in this battle, they would fight alongside their riders.

“Alright, spread out and advance, keep an eye out for any straggling slave bombers, take them down with extreme prejudice. No more of our friends are dying to our enemies' cowardice.”

His men advanced at a quick trot, moving from cover to cover. He observed the locations Karl had marked and maneuvered his people into ambush positions covering a pair of roads it seemed the enemy troops and mechs nearest him would have to advance down. His army commanders picked up the coverage all up and down the line as the last moment of tense quiet dragged on before the first reported direct enemy contact was followed by the sounds of distant battle.

From his position atop a two story stripmall that stretched between the two avenues of approach the Litchfield raiders had in his sector of control, he watched as two groups of men and women, wearing gang colors and carrying various implements of death walked down the streets, leading a trio of squat mechs on each side. He smiled as his unit signalled they were in position and ready to attack when directed.

“These bastards are so arrogant they aren’t even bothering to take cover. They truly think they own the place. Let’s disabuse them of that notion, shall we, gents?” Eli muttered into the unit comm channel, “Start by testing the durability of those mechs.”

He watched as a pair of mages crept over the edge of a house and began channelling a massive fireball spell together. He thought they would surely be seen, but the arrogant bastards approaching were too busy boasting about how many of his people they were going to kill to even notice the paint peeling ball of fire that was about to flung in their direction. They only noticed the ball of fire as it sailed so close over their heads that a few of the group that didn’t duck fast enough lost their greasy dreadlocks in a burst of heat and flame.

Then the fiery projectile connected with the upper shoulder of the targeted mech. A white hot explosion briefly occluded the sight of the enemy squad. When the smoke cleared, all around the targeted mech was chaos. If the supporting infantry hadn’t taken cover, they were vaporized, or at least were now moving to cover as quickly as they could. The mech in question was missing it’s upper right shoulder and the weapon that was attached to it. The real damage was to the pilot that found himself cooked in the open air cockpit, slumped over the controls like a burnt, charred slab of beef.

Without focusing too much on one battle, he watched as a rifle team took aim on the left group of mechs. Most riflemen had the [Selective Ammo] ability, so it was no surprise to Eli when a dozen rounds struck the mechs creating tiny explosions. One round caught a mech pilot square in his chest causing what remained of his head to roll out of the cockpit, spraying blood and brain matter across the back of an unsuspecting infantryman. The other mechs found themselves with exposed internals, or missing bits of armor, though still deadly functional.

This group of infantry had the foresight to duck into the buildings or alleys that lined the main street they marched down, then began to return fire where they thought their ambushers were. Unfortunately for Eli’s ambush, they had guessed right, managing to prevent any followup shots from his troops.

“Alright men, they know we’re here, let’s give them the business! All units engage!”

His attention was jerked back to the right where one of the two remaining mechs had opened up on the house his mages had used to set their ambush. He grimaced as he saw one of the men explode in a spray of pink mist when one of the mechs' heavy rounds punched right through him. The faint line of a tracer skipping off the cement meters behind where the man just stood plucked a stray thought in Eli’s mind.

“Watch for ricochet’s from those cannons, spread out your positioning!” He voiced the thought to his commanders. They acknowledged as they directed their troops to join the fight. Soon the familiar din of battle permeated Eli’s senses as he watched dispassionately from his perch atop the strip mall.

The group of infantry on the left was becoming a problem, having reacted quicker than their compatriots on the other side of his sector. They had dug themselves in and seemed to have adequate leadership keeping them from running out into the street with pistols held sideways like the gangsters they believed themselves to be.The solution to this came in the form of the roaming packs of hunting coyotes.

All of a sudden his people were taking concentrated fire from the remaining mechs and infantry, then the mechs were swiveling their guns about as their infantry support stumbled out into the street shooting wildly behind them. Eli’s troops couldn’t see what had caused such a tactical blunder on their part, but they didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it. A hail of lead and magic cut down any infantry that dared run into the street, as well as allowing concentrated fire to bring down the remaining 2 mechs. When that battle had wrapped up, a trio of coyotes stepped out of the alleyway, licking blood from their chops before running off to continue the hunt.

The other fight went better from the start as many of the gang members had caught at least a bit of the mages fireball explosion. They started that battle singed and bewildered. The few who had the prescience to realize what was happening foolishly stalked forward through the streets firing random inaccurate rounds into the buildings where they thought his troops were. These men and women were quickly cut down while the rest of his troopers tackled the mech problem in much the same way his other troopers had, only with copious amounts of exploding magics. Seems area of effect munitions were best suited for dealing with the open cockpit mechs.

When Eli considered the mechs more thoughtfully, he decided they were dreadfully inadequate for the task they’d been designed for, which meant they were probably cheap. They would make good ambush weapons, but once your enemy had line of sight, you were done. As he considered the death traps the enemy was employing, his troops reported that all the enemy had been eliminated and were awaiting orders.

He quickly typed up an abbreviated action report for Karl, noting the enemy tactics as well as what worked against the mechs, then ordered his troops forward, “Alright, lads, let’s take the next block. Let’s get this done, and quickly, it’s almost time for tea.”