Chapter I — The Warning

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New Lancaster

A Roar of Winchester Story

The Day That Winchester Roared

A Heroic Tale

by Nicholas Dowbiggin

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Chapter I

The Warning

Panel 01 · The Message He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Again and again he asked the man to repeat himself, and again and again, the same message kept coming back.

Panel 02 · Winchester Awaits Winchester Headquarters. The Grounds were slowly undergoing preparation for the grand celebration. Five generations of Elites would be present, with numbers well over ten thousand. It was the type of gathering Winchester would see once in a century.

Panel 03 · Panic Spreads Before the news had even spread, advance forces from the enemy had struck, causing concern to spread through the citizens of Eloria and panic to take to the streets.

Panel 04 · Word Arrives Word finally came to Winchester. A massive invasion from Roti, a larger force then had ever attempted to cross the ocean and attack Eloria on its own shores. Hundreds of thousands, every soldier and armored vehicle that Roti had been able to muster in secret.

Panel 05 · No Hesitation The Elites did not panic. They did not miss a single step. The celebration preparations were swept aside as Winchester went from fairgrounds to a war stance.

Panel 06 · The Old Guard Even the oldest Elites knew what they needed to do. No Elite would watch his country invaded without the invading force having to pass through them first, and not until they had drawn their last breath.

Panel 07 · What They Fight For As the troops assembled, they were reminded of what they would fight for in the days ahead. It was their husbands, their wives, their children and their neighbors who would be at risk. Not a single Elite did not understand the stakes.

Panel 08 · Two Days to Prepare All across New Lancaster they deployed. With only two days to prepare, not a single detail was overlooked. When the enemy descended upon New Lancaster, it would not find them sleeping.

Chapter II

The Crossing

Panel 09 · Roti Sails by Night The forces from Roti wasted no time, sailing through the dead of night to ensure that Eloria would be unable to marshal any additional forces from its other cities and would be defenseless against them.

Panel 10 · Command Bridge The time had come. New Lancaster was visible in the distance, its towers and shore seeming almost tranquil, the moment before the storm descended.

Panel 11 · The Lookout The Elites knew what would come next. What they had planned left no room for error. They were outnumbered nearly ten to one. Even a perfectly executed plan could only hope to overcome the odds.

Panel 12 · First Shells As soon as they were in range, the Roti forces opened fire. This was not an invasion to capture the city, it was one to raze it to its very foundation, to crush the Capitol of Eloria in one fell swoop.

Panel 13 · The Lighthouse Falls As the initial shots landed, the harbors of New Lancaster suffered their first damage from an enemy force in their history.

Panel 14 · Coastal Guns Reply All along the coast, batteries returned fire.

Panel 15 · The Armada The Roti forces, led by its heavy battleships and cruisers, reached the shore with few casualties.

Panel 16 · Steel and Scale The Roti transports were unleashed and it would only be moments before New Lancaster’s shores felt the footsteps of an invading force.

Chapter III

The Landing

Panel 17 · Beached As the first heavy transport crashed against the shoreline, it opened its heavy steel doors.

Panel 18 · First Wave Out rushed the Roti forces, row upon row of soldiers with only one goal. To burn New Lancaster to ashes.

Panel 19 · Hold the Line Superior Vance signalled for the Elites frontal assault to intercept. Everything that happened next depended on them putting up the strongest assault they could. The enemy could suspect nothing.

Panel 20 · Open Fire The Elites struck. Their years of training was evident. The enemy forces fell in great numbers. For every Elite that fell, three Roti soldiers fell with them.

Panel 21 · Forward Through Smoke Unfortunately for the Elites, they were outnumbered by ten to one and the enemy was not fazed. The numbers grew and grew as more ships landed.

Panel 22 · Flame on the Bunker Shocktroopers hit the fortifications and the Elites defenses soon became their downfall.

Panel 23 · The Sappers The men inside could only watch as they were burned alive.

Panel 24 · Breach the Gate Again and again the Roti forces would breach walls, iron clad doors and whatever other barriers the Elites had managed to erect.

Chapter IV

First Blood

Panel 25 · Marching Inland Despite the efforts of the Elites Frontal forces, the Roti numbers proved to be too much.

Panel 26 · Rescue Under Fire Not everyone had evacuated and as the harbor was taken, the Elites did what they could to save those who had not yet escaped. Anyone left to the Roti forces would not survive the night.

Panel 27 · Roti Armor The Frontal assault team rallied to protect the city’s inner core, taking up defensive positions that they knew would never stand to what marched towards them.

Panel 28 · Hold the Gate As the enemy forces approached, they opened fire with all that they had. They would fall nearly to a man.

Panel 29 · The Sniper As the fight descended into the city itself, Elite snipers fired from every vantage point they could. Every foot of city street the enemy would take would cost them dearly.

Panel 30 · Eli's Diner As the enemy armored vehicles rolled through, even the urban defenders fell.

Panel 31 · Occupation Column The Roti forces were relentless. On and on they marched, pushing their advantage.

Panel 32 · Alone in the Ruins The Roti were known for their warrior culture. Still, to see them walk calmly through the destruction they had wrought was unnerving even for the Elites.

Chapter V

Street by Street

Panel 33 · Cover the Street On and on Roti pushed, with the Elites meeting them each step of they way, the streets of New Lancaster running red with the blood of both forces.

Panel 34 · Grenade Every advantage the Elites seemed to briefly gain was quickly lost again, as Roti’s forces seemed endless.

Panel 35 · Hand to Hand Still, not a single street was given freely, not a single step walked without a price.

Panel 36 · Last Archway Roti was relentless and one by one the buildings fell, the streets overwhelmed.

Panel 37 · The Globe After nearly two days of fighting, the enemy had made it all the way to the Capitol building, its walls breached.

Panel 38 · Rally to Me Superior Vance prepared the Elites for what came next. Their final stand. The sacrifice that was required. Not a single one had not known when they volunteered for the Frontal assault.

Panel 39 · Super-Tank The armored tanks of Roti rolled in, their massive steel frames leaving no doubt as to what would happen next.

Panel 40 · Aftermath The Roti forces began a furious assault on the sole remaining Elites, sensing their total victory.

Chapter VI

The Mask

Panel 41 · The Globe Falls The Elite’s final defenses were outmatched. The Capitol building had fallen.

Panel 42 · The Half-Track The armored vehicle that arrived was unlike any other, a massive spectacle of opulence, reflecting its occupant.

Panel 43 · Among the Dead General Malakar, the commander of the Roti forces. He would not let the chance to personally oversee the capture of the Capitol pass him by.

Panel 44 · The Mask As he looked over the ruins of New Lancaster, he smiled behind his mask, his victory complete.

Panel 45 · Last Defiance Superior Vance was the last man left and he kept firing, dropping his rifle for a handgun as he ran out of ammo. Again and again and again, downing nearly three dozen of Roti’s forces himself.

Panel 46 · Execution As the bullets ripped through his body and he saw the General’s telltale armored mask, he felt at peace. Their plan had succeeded.

Panel 47 · Cracked Open The Roti forces ripped down the Globe in the Capitol’s courtyard, leaving no vestige of its former glory.

Panel 48 · Banners of Roti As they captured the building itself, they raised their flags along every surface, their domination evident, their victory complete.

Chapter VII

Winchester Roars

Panel 49 · Sally Port The time had finally come. The Elite’s massive reserve force, having waited until the Roti forces were completely committed, unable to defend their ships, prepared for the counter assault.

Panel 50 · Cliffside Volley As the Roti Fleet lay undefended in the harbor, the Elites previously hidden batteries now roared to life, raining death on the ships with all their fury.

Panel 51 · The Fleet Burns Of the hundreds of thousands of men and armor that had crossed the ocean to Eloria, only the smallest fraction would make the trip back, the rest would lie forever on the ocean’s floor.

Panel 52 · Winchester Roared When the reserves erupted from hiding, the Roti forces finally felt fear. The majority of Roti’s forces would fall to the ambush, pincered by forces who knew the city’s secrets far better than its would be captors and with no ships to flee to. And no mercy was shown. For Winchester had roared.

Panel 53 · Take the Beach What few soldiers made it back to the water’s edge were followed by the constant barrage from artillery. Whether any escaped at all was uncertain.

Panel 54 · Banner Down One by one the Elite’s swept through the streets to remove any remaining vestiges of the Roti invasion.

Panel 55 · Victory Armor Winchester armor roamed the streets, ensuring that not a single Roti soldier remained.

Panel 56 · Homecoming When the efforts to rebuild New Lancaster had been started, the Elites returned to a city they had saved, a city that would forever remember their sacrifice, for without the Elites, the city would surely have fallen.

Chapter VIII

The Dawn

Panel 57 · The Last Cannon The final piece of Roti armament was set for destruction, the final reminder of the horror they had wrought.

Panel 58 · Five-Year Flag The Elite’s flag would fly at the Capitol for five full years after that day.

Panel 59 · Calm Seas The Roti navy would never recover, a fraction of what it had once been.

Panel 60 · Harbor Restored Whatever ships had not sunk in the harbor were seized and scuttled, or repurposed, to defend the very shores they had been meant to seize.

Panel 61 · New Dawn A new dawn had begun in Eloria. A dawn gained by the sacrifice of Superior Vance and the Frontal forces. Their names would live on in legend.

Panel 62 · Reunion Life would return to normal, one family at a time.

Panel 63 · Winchester Stands Winchester had reminded the world once again that the Elites would fight until the last man, until their ammo ran out and their breathe left their body.

Panel 64 · Winchester's Wrath And the mighty nation of Roti would whisper when they thought they could not be heard, that Eloria was never to be challenged again. For they had felt Winchester’s Wrath, on the day that Winchester Roared.

“Victory always comes with a cost”

Where it all began

An Enduring Spark

Hope you found this little novelette fun. For those of you who have read past Chapter 6, this will offer you some resolution to a story that I left unresolved in the novel itself. Come meet Arthur and Dariah (and all the others) in their full glory. Book One of The Roar of Winchester series, An Enduring Spark, available soon.

Read Book One Explore the World