Tarbes, 1136 hours

Henrietta glanced down at the large map laid out before her as she studied the disposition of her forces once more. The situation looked bleak for the Tristanian-Guldenhorf armies, as they had just received word from the Duke of Northumberland's intelligence network, stating that the Reconquista had received a further 5,000 men as reinforcements from Albion and increased their strength to nearly 65,000 men. The remains of the recently-formed Tristanian militia units were currently trying to outmarch the advancing Reconquista forces as they steadily fell back to the east towards Tarbes and attempted to link up with the main Tristanian forces, which had arrived at the town the day prior.

She shook her head as she stepped back and strode out of her tent in order to get some fresh air, squinting her eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness as she gazed down at the mass of men and equipment before her. A few meters off to her right, her commanders were barking out orders to their subordinates as they set up their artillery behind defensive earthworks. Movement to her left drew her attention, and she turned as she watched Agnès de Milan, her aide-de-camp and the overall commander of the Musketeer Knights, walk towards her.

"Agnès, I assume that the Musketeer Knights are ready for battle?" the princess inquired.

The musketeer bowed before Henrietta. "Yes, Your Highness. Just give us the order," she replied.

Henrietta was about to reply when one of the Tristanian nobles rushed towards the pair, a note in his hand.

"Your Highness, message from our Albionian allies. The Reconquista are within an hour's march away from our lines," he panted.

"And what of our militia units?" she asked.

The noble shook his head. "Our militia has been destroyed. They have been surrounded and forced to lay down their arms."

Henrietta ran her hands across her face as she heard the news. "I want all commanders here right now. That goes for the Guldenhorf as well," she ordered.

With a quick bow, the noble left and ran off to carry out her orders.

She turned to Agnès. "Assemble the Musketeer Knights, if you would."

The blonde musketeer nodded and walked quickly to her unit.

Ten minutes later, the senior commanders of the allied forces were clustered around Henrietta as she gave out their orders. Within forty-five minutes after issuing her orders, the Tristanian and Guldenhorf cavalry were positioned at the Tristanian flanks as allied artillery opened fire on the Reconquista leading elements. The Musketeer Knights and the entirety of the Guldenhorf infantry set up behind the Tristanian center as reserve forces. Manticore and griffin riders stood by their mounts, ready to take off at a moment's notice.

Soon enough, as Henrietta peered through her spyglass, she caught sight of the Reconquista columns as they halted a thousand meters away, before reforming into a line. Were the two nations not at war at that moment, it would have been quite the sight to behold.

As the Reconquista continued to form up, the defenders could only stand and watch as they steeled themselves against the oncoming foe.

Hill 385, 1223 hours

Marcus whistled as he gazed at the Reconquista force arrayed two thousand meters before them, his eyes quickly switching to a pair of riders as they ascended the hill, one of them holding a white flag. He lowered his binoculars and got out of his tank.

He descended down the hill, stopping two meters in front of the Lancastrians, some of whom were crouching, others flat on their stomachs as their trigger fingers itched.

The riders slowed to a trot before halting quickly, looking down at Marcus with contempt.

"Are you really so brazen as to think you could defeat us with nothing but an army consisting entirely of musketeers?" one of the riders, clearly a Reconquista noble, sneered down at Marcus.

The Hussar snorted. "I'd like to think that that's the case," he chuckled.

The Reconquista noble glared down at Marcus, clearly offended at the thought of being disrespected by a mere commoner.

"Take a look at the forces before you. I have 7,000 men just waiting for the order to take this hill. You and I both know that you are clearly outnumbered, you have no choice but to surrender and submit to our Lord Protector," the noble said.

Marcus held the noble's glare with one of his own, infuriated the thought of being reduced to nothing more than human chattel. "Britons never, never, NEVER will be slaves," he snarled.

"I have given you the opportunity to live, commoner, and you did not accept it. Are you really that determined to die?" the noble seethed.

"Are you?" Marcus shot back.

Without another word, the two riders rode back to their lines. Marcus watched them leave for a few seconds before turning and jogging back to his tank. He then strapped his tanker's helmet on and keyed his comms.

"Titan Actual to all units, prepare to fire," he glanced at his watch. One minute and ten seconds until 1230 hours.

The Reconquista force below them began marching towards their positions. One minute.

He took a deep breath. Fifty seconds.

Magazines were loaded into rifles. Forty seconds.

Mortar crews adjusted the range and elevation of their L16A2 mortars. Thirty seconds.

Final prayers were said. Twenty seconds.

Marcus ran a hand across his face. Ten seconds.

He glanced at his watch again. 3, 2, 1.

"Begin bombardment!" he barked into his comms.

Hill 385 erupted into a cacophony of gunfire as twelve tanks unleashed their ordnance upon the enemy, which was well within their range. Mortar crews dropped shell after shell into their tubes, a sharp bang resounding each time a high-explosive round was hurled into the air. Snipers waited until the Reconquista were within range, sending one noble after another to the afterlife.

The results were devastating. As the Reconquista marched uphill, the ground shook around them as ten, dozens, hundreds of men instantly met their ends, while even more men cried out in pain, horror, and agony as they were left maimed and injured, cut down by an unimaginable force they had never witnessed before. Yet they pressed on, charging up the hill as pikemen were slaughtered by the hundreds. A massed cavalry charge was similarly stopped cold as the Reconquista cavalrymen had their horses shot from under them. Earth mages summoned large golems, only to crumble apart as 120mm HESH rounds shattered them to oblivion.

"All infantry units, set your fire to semi-automatic. Just because our equipment had been enchanted with a replenishing spell doesn't mean that we can go full auto on these wankers. Remember your training," Marcus reminded the Lancastrians as the Reconquista got to within 550 meters of the British positions – a distance considered danger close by the infantrymen positioned on the slopes as 81mm mortar rounds landed on the advancing swarm. This finally broke the Reconquista assault after a mere twenty minutes.

Of the 7,000 men that advanced upon the hill, nearly 4,200 lay dead or wounded before the Reconquista were forced to fall back.

Tristanian Lines, 1230 hours

As the Reconquista soldiers rushed to form a battle line, the men of the Tristanian 13th Infantry Regiment, subordinate to the Tristanian Fifth Army, heard distant explosions to their south, as did everyone else. For a moment, the battlefield was covered in confusion as both sides struggled to understand what had just occurred.

They would soon get their answer thirty minutes later as one of the Tristanian nobles, acting as an observer to the British battlegroup, rode up to Henrietta and dismounted his horse, bowing before the princess.

"What did you find?" Henrietta asked.

The Tristanian noble took a deep breath. "The Reconquista forces advancing upon the hill have been beaten back. I've never seen such power, Your Highness. Their iron carriages are unlike any other weapon we know. And the range! They must have more than twice the range of our best artillery pieces!"

The officers around them could only stand as they looked at the noble with disbelief written on their faces.

"So their claims are true," one officer murmured.

"Thank Brimir that these British soldiers are on our side," another one added.

"And you said that they were outnumbered by ten to one?" Henrietta confirmed.

The noble nodded. "Such were the claims of the Reconquista commander that had attempted to parlay with the British."

The princess took a deep breath. "Hold the line at all costs. Do not let them get through."

The noble and the officers bowed before rushing off to relay her orders. A moment later, Guldenhorf's Luftpanzer Ritter and the Tristanian 3rd, 4th, and 6th Life Guards were airborne, flying as fast as their griffins and dragons could go towards their Reconquista opponents. Spells were immediately casted, and a furious furball soon ensued as the Tristanians and their allies struggled to gain the upper hand over the more superior Reconquista dragon knights.

As the air battle ensued, the ships of the Tristanian 1st Fleet swung northwest, while the 2nd Fleet moved southwest in an attempt to catch the Reconquista 7th Fleet in a pincer movement. The Reconquista mirrored their movements, moving on a southeasterly course, but the more maneuverable Tristanian ships were able to catch their opponents out of position, and within minutes the Tristanians had unleashed a thundering salvo as they crossed the enemy's T. One Reconquista first-rate, Londinium, was destroyed (190 hands lost) by the combined fire from the Tristanian ships after a forty-minute engagement, while another first-rate, Liverpool, and three third-rates, Absolution, Penance, and Sacrament, were moderately damaged before they were boarded and captured by Tristanian marines from the 2nd Fleet. This forced the remainder of the 7th Fleet to disengage and turn southwest, with the 1st Fleet in pursuit.

Down below, the Reconquista forces had finally managed to form a battle line, all the while being pounded by Tristanian and Guldenhorf artillery for an hour and a half, and were now advancing towards the Tristanian center. Reconquista counterbattery fire managed to silence a third of the allied artillery as Reconquista infantry marched in huge blocks, while the Reconquista 2nd, 5th, and 10th Horse Guards inflicted heavy casualties as they smashed through the Tristanian left, forcing the 6th, 7th, 12th, and 15th Infantry Regiments to fall back and rendering them combat ineffective. Seeing this, Bülow shifted all of his infantry regiments to the left and barely managed to halt the advancing Reconquista cavalry before the Tristanian 9th and 11th Cuirassier Regiments arrived to assist in pushing back the Horse Guards.

The Reconquista cavalry charge on the allied right did not fare as well as the assault on the left, as the Reconquista 4th, 9th, and 12th Horse Guards were ground to a halt by the Tristanian 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Lancers and the Guldenhorf 5th, 7th, and 11th Guards Cavalry Regiments, sustaining heavy casualties in the process. In less than half an hour, the Reconquista Horse Guards were routed, harried by the Guldenhorf cuirassiers as they fell back in disorder.

The center of the Tristanian-Guldenhorf line was where the fighting was fiercest. The Tristanian Third Army fought off one savage attack after another from a combined infantry and cavalry assault by the Reconquista First Army, and at times it seemed as though the Tristanians would break under the weight of the near-fanatical assault by the Reconquista, but a combination of superior Tristanian spellcasting and timely maneuvers enabled the defenders to barely hold the line as regiment after regiment, battalion after battalion was destroyed.

As all of these events unfolded, a total solar eclipse started to take place, and with it came a low, barely audible buzzing sound. Both sides' combatants paid no heed to the sound at first, until it gradually grew louder and louder, until all Halkeginians caught sight of an object they had never seen before.

"What in Brimir's name is that thing?" one Tristanian general asked.

"Is that some sort of dragon?" another general inquired.

"What unbelievable speed!" a third one added.

Louise, who had ridden alongside Henrietta all the way to Tarbes, gasped as she recognized the sight, her eyes widening in shock.

"T-that's sir Julius!" she stammered.

For a few moments, all parties were mesmerized at the sight of something flying high in the skies with such grace and elegance.

Their reverie was shattered when it dove down – straight towards the Reconquista positions.

Tristanian Airspace, altitude 3,500 meters, 1343 hours

"Dagger Actual to all call signs, what's the situation down there?" Julius keyed his comms after switching to his unit's frequency.

The reply was almost instantaneous. "Titan Actual to Dagger Actual, please tell me that you're the one who's flying that Thunderbolt," Marcus responded.

Julius chuckled before he spoke again. "That's right, Maj. Hudson. Who knew that being a Gandálfr could come in handy?"

"I'll be damned, sir. Anyways, we managed to beat back a Reconquista force ten times our numbers, although they came pretty close. Heh, some bastard told us to surrender before I told him to fuck off," Marcus snickered.

Julius let out another chuckle. "Right, just sit tight down there for now, I'll be groundside when this whole thing is over."

"Understood, Major. Titan Actual out."

As he flicked off the comms, an evil grin sprouted on Julius's mouth. "Alright, Derf, let's see if this thing is indeed still fully functional," he addressed the sword strapped to the pilot's seat.

"Now this I've got to see," Derfflinger responded.

He raised his altitude until he was 4,000 meters up before he began his attack run.

As the P-47 descended, he quickly scanned the battlefield, immediately recognizing which side was the Tristanians, and which one was the Reconquista. He selected his first target, which turned out to be the Reconquista's artillery. He kept on descending until he was low enough, the roar of the Pratt and Whitney R2800-59 radial engine filling his ears, at which point he unloaded all ten 5-inch High-Velocity Aircraft Rockets, quickly spreading panic among the Reconquista forces, before he pulled up for altitude.

He surveyed the damage and saw masses of men and horses running for their lives in all directions before he turned to his next target: the Reconquista troops on the center placed in reserve as they witnessed the raw, unadulterated carnage before them.

He swooped in low until he was only two hundred meters above the battlefield before he fired the eight wing-mounted .50 Browning AN/M2 machine guns, sowing chaos and destruction among Reconquista soldiers and causing even more casualties as he pulled up once more.

The battle, which had initially been a stalemate, was now in the Anglo-Tristanian-Guldenhorf force's favor.