[b][i]Foreshadowing Post (Relevant for the Next Mission)[/i][/b]

[b]Mischief Reef, Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone, South China Sea[/b]

To some, the morning of the Lingayen invasion was little different from any other. The Chinese garrison stationed on the artificial atoll of Mischief Reef was on guard, as it had been for months. Important officers and Arms Masters had come and gone over time, and now, they were all gone. It was as good a reason as any to stay on alert.

What eventually disturbed the garrison was not a discovery made by their air patrol or guard towers. A patrol boat picked up an abnormality on sonar. The radio communications were quiet and confused at first: this wasn’t a submarine and wasn’t a person. It was like - a huge bubble of some kind?

Then the boat stopped responding to questions. As if to fill the silence, Command started shouting. Arms Master - there’s an Arms Master approaching. It was foolish to assume anything less than the worst when faced with this kind of anomaly. Naval vessels were ordered to stay clear, and instructed that they would be attacked if they approached without immediate ID. Men were ordered to watch the direction of the vanished vessel, eyes were strained to the waves, and the onsite sonar system was studied with utmost care.

[i]There it is. That bubble - it’s getting closer.[/i]
And then it was gone. Everything was gone. The sonar went blind.

The officers raced in circles, communicating in hurried Mandarin with mainland command. The patrol boats held their position in frightened silence. The soldiers of Mischief Reef checked their weapons and held their breath. Minutes passed.

A space began to open between the ocean and the shore. Emerging from the space - a chariot cavalry charge.

“Terracotta!” screamed a sergeant. “Xian Zhou!”

“QRS!” translated the commanding officers on their mainland line. “Xian Zhou is attacking!”

Horses wrought from clay crested the shore, some pulling clay chariots loaded with clay soldiers, their very real rifles barking and blazing at the Chinese forces. The battle was harried, disorganized, breathless, and embarrassingly quick - nothing so much like the reckless and bloody cavalry charges of movies, rather than the distant and careful engagements of modern conventional warfare. The army of terracotta swarmed over the beach ignorant of their own casualties, seeking only the blood of their enemies until the gunshots slowed to a stop.

Three humans, flanked and followed by hundreds of clay men on foot, emerged from the waves and looked over a scene of carnage. A whispered conversation passed among them, then, at a word from a young white-haired boy, the soldiers fanned out and began picking through the bodies. Wherever they found a man still living, they stopped and stood over them, rifles raised and aimed.

The last word the mainland received from Mischief Reef was that it was lost. Then there was shouting, directed elsewhere - two final, ominously close shots came through - and silence.

[hr]

A younger boy, whose black hair almost looked blue thanks to the light reflected from the silks he was wearing, then stepped forward, accompanied by a larger, more muscled figure who had already unfurled a golden spiked banner.

“We’ve seized the reef while the communists are busy with their invasion,” the smaller figure said. “Have our prisoners interrogated as to the location of the [i]usurpers’[/i] navies in the region; to prove our usefulness to our allies, we’re hitting them with tsunamis over the next seven hours while Ren Zhao protects us from their ballistic missiles. But first...”

Another banner was raised over the base, the banner of the House of Aisin Goro, better known as the Qing Dynasty of China. In this one small corner of the territory, the Chinese Monarchy had been restored.

[@SkyHresvelg][@The World][@Chiro][@Aisede][@MagusDream][@Lewascan2][@Sniblet][@Conscripts][@Gerlando][@Creative Chaos][@Nimbus][@The Man Emperor][@KaiserElectric] [@Landaus Five-One]