This is my second take on the RTW fanfics. Hope

Disclaimer: I do not own the Total War series or Creative Assembly and what ever other games they have created.

Author's Note: These events are based on the Rome: Total War game, not the real Roman Empire of the histories, but there will be some historic references.

Greek Campaign: War's Return

With the nations of the Greek city-states now united under one thunderous banner after Alexander's Empire shattered and and the fall of Macedonian nation, the Greeks seek to live and flourish in prosperity. However, rumors of war from Thrace, Dacia, and Pontus have forced the leaders of Greece to put a system of fortifications on the border regions of Macedonia, Paionia, and Lydia. Fort Charon and Carcinoa in the Paionian north, Fort Palinae in the Macedonian east, and finally the The Arrow's Tip in Ionia named after Artemis, the godess of the hunt. With tensions rising between Greece and the barbarians, will peace last, or will war threaten Greece once again?

"I am Doros of Athens. As my name implies, I was born and raised in that city where I did one thing that everyone was able to do, flourish. My father and grandfather were a part of the army of Alexander the Great that went into the far Indus . From them, I heard tales of their battles against the wretched Persian despots. It was a scary thought to think that if the , and this land would fall, the world we see right now would never be the same. That was why I chose to follow in my forefather's footsteps and join the the army. The life may be hard and I may lose hope at some point, but I always think that it will all be worth it for my people."

Region of Macedonia, border fort of Palinae, 290 B.C. Summer

I am now 30, and the life is boring with no one to fight, but at least the pay was good. Me and my soldier friend, Phylon, whom I met at the barracks training ground in Larissa, were stationed here in fort called Palinae. I've trained as a hoplite since I always get scared of riding a horse, and my archery is so bad a monkey could do better, it could hit the bullseye.

The green landscape and the mountains north of it was the land I'm supposed to be scanning. If there were signs of any movement, I have to keep an eye on it while my compatriot warns the captain of the fort about the activity. The tower watch is interesting in time's of war, but that was 40 years ago, and now, it is a boring life which now sums up the situation on our shift. I had my equipment that signified me as a hoplite: a helmet, metal grieves for the legs, a white leather cuirass breastplate armor, the hoplon, our signature shield that gives us our name and a thrusting spear. At least I wasn't alone. I had Phylon by my side, but you could tell he was bored as well by just seeing him sit there relaxing his head on the wall and twitching his fingers anxiously.

"Hey Phylon, is this god forsaken shift at an end yet, I want to take break already," I said to my friend who was also a hoplite while looking through the opening of the tower for the past 3 hours.

"Not yet, Doros," Phylon replied then with a chuckle said," but if you can't wait, try praying to Kronos to speed up time."

"Not funny Phylon," I said facing him now.

"Ok, ok, fine, but I've been here the same amount of time you've been here, and I'm not complaining," he said. I shrugged at that remark, seeing as he has a point.

Then I went back to facing the the open field and saw a couple of dots on the sunny horizon, which turned into many dots. Usually, the most exciting sighting to see was a scout yelling "OPEN, THE GATE!", but this was strange. Then a few monents later, I heard faint noises of footstpes of many men, and when I grew suspicious of the footsteps I saw many flailing objects that looked like flags over the ever growing dots. This was way too strange to be ignored, and by the looks of it, there are many of them, maybe an army.

I turned to Phylon who finally got up from his "position of boredom" and said, " Go warn the captain, I'll sound the alarm."

"Alright," replied Phylon who was now energetic as ever.

So as Phylon made his way to the captain's quarter's, I grabbed the horn on the wall and blew it, making a very loud high pitched noise that everyone in a 2 mile radius could hear. Seeing as how the fort was only a square-shaped fort 1/4 a mile long, it's no wonder that chaos ensued after the horn blast, with everyone making indistinctive shouting

As everyone was trying to line up in ranks, shoulder to shoulder, I also had to line up with my unit. 80 men usually made up a unit of whatever class of soldiers they were, from the regular hoplites to archers. Phylon was in a different unit than I was, so we didn't meet then. Whenever a unit was ready and lined up, they were to march right away to the front. In our instance, the front of the entrace to the fort facing the ever growing size of the dots on the horizon.

When all was present in our unit, our company commander gave us the order to march to the front. It was a quite cramped situation trying to get through that wooden gate, but it could've been worse with the cavalry going the same gate. With little breathing room I struggled to actually move out of there, and judging by how many people are saying "I can't breathe" or "move!" or the simpler cry for gasps of air, I'd say everyone was exhausted already just like me. The front line was now in position, with hoplites in the front, archers either behind them or on the towers, and the captain's guard on the third line. As I was in the very front of my unit, trying to catch up on my breath from the almost no air march, I noticed a couple of horse riders galloping beyind our front.

Pretty soon everyone noticed the riders and whispered amongst each other trying to figure what is going on with that, and I went along with that.

"Is that a scouting force?" I asked the guy next to me, who was a bit taller, but gave no reply even though he looked just as puzzled as I was.

It took about a good 2 minutes before the riders returned yelling, "The Thracians are coming!" Now it was clear that they were scouts sent by our captain.

When that sentenced was yelled, everyone was again whispering amongst themselves, clearly the summary of it all being " great gods, what is happening!" I looked at the horizon and saw what was before black dots in the distance now is an army of weapon-carrying men coming towards us. You could even see their flag by now. A winding black colored snake with a teal colored background. It was the Thracians alright, and it looks like they have brought trouble with them.

When the army facing us finally stopped a tad 200 yards away from us, they were taunting, rather than sending an emissary to discuss the reason why they were here. Whatever the reason was, the taunting were death threats to us, bashing their swords with their shields all the while yelling trash at us. A battle was inevitable now.

"Alright men, we have a battle in our hands," shouted the captain behind us, which is the direction everyone looked at when he spoke,"fight hard, die with honor, and know that the Gods are with you! Now send them all to rot in the realm of Hades!"

The inspiring speech made the men cheer, raising their hands in glee, and showed readiness for death to take them. When the cheering was finished, so was the taunting of the Thracians, who are now charging with the signal of the sound their leader's blowhorn. While the enemy came in running towards us battle ready, they shouted a death defying warcry.

"Units, phalanx formation!" the captain said. "AYE!" was the response. I responded to the order and lowered my spear to point at the enemy, put my shield in front of me and stood my ground. The soldiers next to me and behind me also did the same thing to support the first row, but behind him the soldiers had to lower their spears at a higher angle, with their spears pointing at the afternoon sky. Then the first front of the enemy soldiers crashed into our spears killing everyone who was unlucky enough to charge the wall of spears.

As a soldier, who was carrying a sickle-shaped sword, came at me, I thrusted my spear into his unarmored chest letting out a scream of pain as I removed the spear. Just then another soldier tried to attack me, but the guy behind saved me by thrusting his own spear unto him like I did with the last one. I turned toward him and gave him a gesture of thanks . As we continued the fight, 2 men tried to swing there sickle-shaped swords onto me. So I raised my shield to block the first one, but the impact was hard, forcing my shield to the ground. Then the second attacker swung his weapon overhand. As I was preparing to get cut in the face, I felt an impact of a blunt weapon instead, knocking me down to the floor, losing grasp of my spear. The guy who knocked down my shield tried to finish me off, but was skewered by the second row. Then the second attacker tried to do same thing, except the second row was way too busy trying to keep other enemies at bay. So I was on my own with this one.

Fortunately, I was only dizzy enough to dodge their finishing kill. I pulled out my secondary weapon, a sword, and raised it to block the weapon again and again. I didn't know if I could keep this up, but then I heard a shouting voice that sounded like the captain.

"OPEN FIRE!" I heard from the captain barely. Suddenly, I heard a whooshing sound.

Just then the soldier trying to kill me was knocked down by an arrow struck to his eye. Others around him also had the same fate, with arrows all over their bodies, from head to toe.

"AAHHH. My eye!" he screamed in pain.

I got back up, and eased his pain by thrusting my sword into his helmet, puncturing through his skull. After realizing I killed the soldier, another was going at me. I saw a dead, hacked up Greek behind him. It was the tall silent soldier that was next to me a while ago. Out of anger, I charged at him and thrusted my sword into his stomach that he couldn't block because he had his weapon over his head.

"May the ferryman guide you through peace," was when I thought when I avenged his death.

The second row did a good job at keeping them at bay long enough for me to pick up my shield. I then charged with some others that were running into the enemy with their shields in the front. The shields they positioned made it like a wall blocking the bodies of enemy troops struggling to get out of their "tight" situation. What followed after that was a frenzy of thrusting and slashing over our shields with swords and spears. Lots of the enemy were killed in that frenzy, and they were still coming, meeting death either by arrow or by our swords and spears.

However, we were suffering casualties as well. Many Greeks were had their heads gashed and cut, while the rest had their head completely cut off by those sickle swords.

Nonetheless, we pushed on screaming a loud yet brave cry, and before we knew it, there were bodies of Thracians and Greeks below us and we are passing them. It was clear now that we put there charge to a halt, maybe even pushing them back.

Noticing this, I pushed even harder screaming, hiding behind my shield while thrusting my sword over the shield without ever looking over my shield, going on ahead of my fellow soldiers. I could feel through whether I was killing air or actually hitting something through the handle of my sword. It seemed like forever since I was doing the whole stabbing frenzy, and I could feel my arm getting tired.

Suddenly, I felt no resistance, and when I had the nerve to look over my shield I saw the people I was fighting running from us.

"Run.. run for it! Run for your lives!" was what I heard from them. Arrows were fired onto their bare backs, killing dozens of desperate men.

"VICTORY!" yelled the battle damaged captain, raising his sword. The men, hoplite to archer, raised their weapons, cheering, and repeated after the captain the triumphant word. I caught my breath while looking around the battlefield full of bodies, barbarian and Greek alike, weapons from both cultures, the wounded calling for aid and the men lucky enough to not board a ship to Erebus, and I was one of them.

It now sundown and I was reunited with Phylon outside, but when I looked at his arm he was covering, it was limp and bloody.

" How are you feeling Phylon?" I asked in worry.

" I'm fine Doros, though my arm hurts," he answered with pain in his voice.

" We got to get yourself some help. You can't fight again with just one arm, and we're going to need every bit of strentgh of it now," I laughed a weak laugh knowing that now that a nation has attacked Greece, war has now returned to his people, and he must be ready for more battles to test him again.

Well there's the first chapter. I need reviews so I'll have the inspiration of updating.

I don't think I'll be able to update my other fic "Spartans of Rome" because well, I thought it was done too quickly, but I'm thinking of featuring my V Laconia into the story.