This is a bit of a passion project for me, which might seem kind of silly since I know it's never going to be "big" or have a very large audience (certainly not relative to my anime stories). But I wanted to write it, and sometimes that's all Fan-fiction needs to be; a story you wanted to tell. All the same it's not the first Fenix Fusiliers story, or even the first story starring Lindsay (her fight on Arboris may appear in a flashback though). There are other short stories which are almost just bat-reps usually involving just a slight lead up and a single engagement since I used to rather enjoy writing fluff for my games. I wouldn't consider them worthy of posting on their own but if by some chance this story does develop a following and there's an interest I might see what I can do to rework them into a proper narrative. So please leave feedback if you enjoy this and want more from earlier eras.
I chose to start here instead of going all the way back to the unit's founding (in 3061) because where the setting is now is more interesting to me than going back to where things were more than a decade ago, I'm more eager to write about how/if the Fusiliers survive in this new more turbulent post-Republic era . But that doesn't mean I won't post that story later.

—==Prologue==—

Fenix Estate

Merlon, Caselton

Draconis March, Federated Suns

June 1st, 3145

The sound of rain usually brought a sense of calm over Lindsay. She could remember being very small and loving the sound of rain on the rooftop, or drifting off to sleep to the patter of raindrops on the hover-car during long drives with her family back when it was still intact.

Before the Blackout. Before John ran off to join the Republic's defense forces . . . and she'd run off to join the Swordsworn.

She tried not to be lulled off by the comforting noise and instead ground herself in reality. She understood as she examined herself in the mirror that nothing could be out of place. Not tonight.

Her shoulder-length strawberry blond hair was longer on the left than the right, coming down past her cheek nearly obscuring her eye to hide the burn scars on that side of her face. It looked like a stylistic choice, albeit not one in keeping with the latest high society fashion.

She told herself that she didn't hide the scars out of vanity, at least not entirely. She was simply tired of hearing the same thing every time someone new spotted them. "Oh, did you get that serving with the Duke? You must have been very brave!"

Bravery had had little to do with it.

Perhaps it had been bravery that drove her to join the Swordsworn in the first place, but now over a decade later Lindsay could look back on the idealistic youth who had so defiantly run away from home and see not the brave Davion loyalist, which was the image her family worked to carefully cultivate now, but instead a half-mad fool fresh from Sakhara Academy barely embracing her twentieth year and already thinking she knew more than all of Caselton put together.

A stupid woman who had tried to be a hero like the Mechwarriors from the old stories, like her grandfathers who had fought in the Clan Wars, who had followed Prince Victor in the Civil War, and who had helped lead their family's mercenary regiment through the Word of Blake Jihad emerging intact only to be disbanded by Devlin Stone.

The older woman looking back at her in the mirror now didn't see it that way though. She wasn't brave, she'd just wanted to be someone.

Her dress was hunter green with blue trim, the colors of the Swordsworn, a reminder to everyone at the party tonight whose side she'd been on when the blackout struck, a reminder that while Caselton had maintained its relative neutrality Lindsay had been among the first of its daughters and sons to rise up and stand alongside Duke Aaron Sandoval and his noble Swordsworn.

She shook her head slowly, raising her left hand and looking at the ultramarine blue shoulder-length glove and wondered if she should go down stairs without it. Let them see the cold lifeless metal, the real reward of an idealistic young fool.

Though as cold lifeless metal limbs went it was a nice arm at least. Duke Aaron had seen to it that she had the finest prosthetic available, and though her own family could have afforded it he'd insisted on paying for it himself. A gesture of appreciation for one of Caselton's bravest, he'd said at the time.

He'd been a smooth one, she'd never deny that. Inspiring as well, it would have been enough to the young Mechwarrior just to know that he had visited her in the dropship's sickbay but having him speak to her personally, tell her he intended to handle her medical expenses himself . . . it'd made her feel eager, if not desperate to get back into a BattleMech and keep serving the Swordsworn.

Duke Aaron Sandoval's Swordsworn. Not Erik Sandoval-Groell's Swordsworn.

It'd been quite the trick too because before he'd spoken to her all she could think of was what a fool she'd been to leave home only to end up, two years later with burns on a third of what remained of her body and missing a part of her that would never come back.

Not to mention the arm.

The truth now was the green and blue didn't fill her with the sense of pride it was meant to. She wasn't Swordsworn anymore, in truth there were no Swordsworn now. No Ghost Legion, no Prince's Men and the only Davion Guards were the official ones.

The Republic's Fortress Wall had come up, shielding it from the rest of the Inner Sphere, stranding her brother—and a number of her family's trade Jumpships—behind it and leaving the rest of the Inner Sphere to its own devices, its own fate.

Caselton had made the obvious choice, the right choice, the only choice and rejoined the Federated Suns. The old world once again part of the Draconis March and those who had been Davion loyalists like her went overnight from radical rebels or relics clinging to a storied past to patriots who had never given up the dream of returning to the sword and sunburst banner of the Federated Suns.

For most of the Fenix clan it was a welcome return. Many of them had never forgiven Devlin Stone for putting an end to the Fenix Fusiliers or for demanding they hand over their BattleMechs. True as far as the public knew there hadn't been much left of them by the end of the Jihad, really only a lance of Mechs were in any shape to be properly handed over to the militia and Stone's people didn't dig too deep to see if there were more hidden away. But all the same it was an act that earned Stone no loyalty from her family.

John being the exception of course. John believed in every word Devlin Stone had ever spoken.

Lindsay thought about her older brother and wondered what life was like for him now. Did he remain loyal to his wife still on Caselton or had he remarried? What had become of him, had he become one of the Knights of the Sphere? Or had he died on some unknown battlefield?

Would he be proud to know that his daughter was about to follow in her aunt's footsteps instead of his and travel to Sakhara V to attend the prestigious Sakhara military academy?

You probably wouldn't approve, Lindsay thought, but I'd like to think you'd be proud of her anyway. And who knows, if the Republic hadn't backed down maybe she'd be going to some Republic academy and maybe you'd be the one our family parades around as the loyalist hero.

She hated being paraded around by her family as 'the Davion loyalist' now more than ten years after she'd come home. It wasn't that she felt like the title was dishonest, it was true enough: she'd been a Davion loyalist and she still was. But so was everyone else. It wasn't treason anymore, it was just the way of things. There was no risk or shame to it, there was nothing special about it, nothing that needed to be hidden or so advertised.

But she had her part to play just like they all did, and tonight that part was about to become far larger.

The Fenix Fusiliers had been a Combined Arms regiment since its restoration with each battalion fielding a Company of Mechs—whatever they could get at first, though they fielded fewer Industrials now—then another of Armor and another of infantry—battle armor for the first battalion but typical foot soldiers for the second and third.

However as more and more worlds fell to the Draconis Combine stragglers and survivors managed to trickle their way in, many brought by Fenix Jumpships. Lindsay and her father had been working hard to convince stray mercenaries and even displaced militiamen to sign on with the regiment and though these Mechs and vehicles often required extensive repair they had been successful.

Tonight they would be announcing to the family and the local investors that with the new addition of the full mercenary company Reynholm's Razors the first battalion would instead be arranged into a fully BattleMech Battalion.

Of less important news to those investors was the fact that the second battalion would take the form of an Industrial MOD Mech Company with two companies of armor for support while the third battalion would be a gathering place for the regiment's infantry. It was the First Battalion that they'd truly care about, the Fenix Fusiliers BattleMech Battalion. It was marketable and it would make the people of Caselton and no doubt the investors themselves feel just a little bit safer.

In some ways it was just a publicity stunt, and really it wouldn't be the game changer that her father would be selling it as. As BattleMechs slowly ceased to be a rarity on the fields of the Inner Sphere foot soldiers and tanks were bound to be pushed back in battlefield relevance again. Of course armor and infantry were still vital to any war effort but the day would come when they were no longer the deciding factor on the fields of this Dark Age.

But the First Battalion wasn't the only announcement her father Jhonen 'Old Phoenix' had for the people tonight. As he'd aged he desired less and less to take on the role of the Regiment's Leftenant General. Though his performance against Capellan raiders over the past decade showed everyone that his time as a Mechwarrior hadn't passed yet he insisted that the responsibility of regimental command would soon be beyond him and it was time for the Fusiliers to have a new leader.

Her.

He'd be making both announcements tonight at the celebration their family would hold to both welcome the Razors into the fold and to say goodbye to two of their own as her niece Alayne prepared to leave for Sakhara, and while Lindsay knew it was pure vanity she felt as if she'd be overshadowing the whole evening just by being there.

The favored daughter of the Fenix family, the brave Swordsworn Mechwarrior injured saving Duke Aaron's very life on Arboris, now she was going to be given command of a whole regiment at a party meant to celebrate others? She thought to herself, I can't believe you're doing this to me, father. I know I can lead a Battalion, and part of me knows I can lead the Regiment but . . .

She thought back again to those long drives in the family car and how safe and secure she'd felt with her father at the wheal. The Fusiliers had felt the same way, after the Swordsworn it had felt reassuring even comforting to be with her family's unit and to know that her father could and would handle everything from Capellan raiders to angry financial backers.

And of course he'd had her help and she recognized he'd been preparing her to take control of things but now the one making everyone feel safe and reassured was going to have to be her and as she looked in the mirror she could see the proud Davion loyalist dressed in the green and blue of the Swordsworn ready to take command of a reborn mercenary regiment and save the Draconis March and Caselton single-handedly . . . and she also saw the woman who had lost an arm, nearly lost an eye, been nearly cooked alive in the cockpit of her Wolfhound.

Well, she thought to herself, I did want to be a somebody.