Great Leaps Westward Case Study

I
n late February, it was then decided by the RGA leadership that the formation of a Helen and Stanley Keller type Foreign Volunteer Legion is deemed feasible, having now received more Helen and Stanley Keller recruits. This was good news to Lucas Fields, the leader of this FVL, as he, Connelly and Hurley were finally hard pressed into getting their FVLs ready for its maiden Sunday Morning Special outside of the Children’s Paradise. As the RGA’s FVLs and Adelburgers are aware, the RGA has plans to expand its reach to as far as the West Coast United States. The Great Leaps Westward was just enough to facilitate such plans.
Nebraska, out of all of the states that are considered the area of operation for the Great Leaps Westward, posed the highest strategic value for the RGA, especially in the case of cities like Lincoln or Omaha. Building a foothold there will yield a viable area for the RGA to begin transporting vast amounts of Matériel and personnel for the long trip west. The

same also holds true in states like Kansas and Oklahoma. But in the case of Kansas, stranger things are happening. From various reconnaissance reports received by friendly RGA crews in the states, in addition to volunteer sources of Kansan Ryanite and Volksryanischen sympathizers, that various hostile Brotzmanskrieg factions from the West Coast are making East, with some of them linking up with forward elements who happen to be operating in the state. One of these factions included the fledging faction of young Gnostic Christians known as the “Ostracized,” and the Occult followers of the “Union.”
At 4AM on the 28th of February, at a large empty space inside the recently discovered Dweller city in Omaha, Connelly, Fields and Hurley were briefing twenty four other Foreign Volunteer Legionnaires about the details of the maiden Sunday Morning Special – designated “Unbesiegt” (“Undefeated”). Organized into small units of eight (and led by their FVL leader), all three units were drawn from each of the three FVLs that were operational at the time. Standing in neatly organized columns, they listened as they being briefed. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Lucas gratefully greeted to them, “I hope everyone had a good night’s rest and grabbed a bite on the way here, because now that we’re here, we got some work to do.”
Fields continued, “Believe it or not, there have been reports of various factions who seek to take advantage of the RGA’s attempts at helping the Ryanites and Volksryanischen liberate themselves from the reign of the FYC and YCHS alliance. Some of them are Occultists and Gnostics – others, heretics and apostates with former ties to the Brotherhood of the Untainted Garden (BUG). We cannot allow them to impede the progress of what is already underway. For this reason, each of us will partake in three separate tasks; when we reach our intended destination, all of you will be given your orders by us. Let everything go like clockwork, and we will all be home before the weekend is out the door. Do I myself clear?”
“Yes sir,” the FVL Legionnaires all replied back to Fields in unison, eagerly and enthusiastically.
“Good,” Fields said back to them, “Then let’s get to work, people!”
Using a Teleport Anomaly, the three units of FVLs and their leaders all arrived at their respective insertion points. For the sake of this case, every of the three units were given separate tools and items that were best suited for their role in the case. Once they returned back to Earth, after crossing over from the foggy world which users of the Teleport Anomaly are always taken to, their first priority was to make sure that no one or anything was lost on the way. The cold weather that greeted the FVL legionnaires was the least of their worries; proving their worth in the face of the RGA high command was not.
On Lucas Fields’ end, as soon as he had made sure that no materials or personnel was lost while in transit, one of his fellow legionnaires walked up to him and spoke with him. Fields could see his breath as he was speaking to him, the tone of his voice showed signs of shivering. “Chef (Boss), now that we’re here, what are our orders?”
“The orders that we have is to look into reports of the Ostracized making moves into Wichita,” replied Fields. “We need to know what we’re dealing with before we start calling in some RGA crews to take of the problem on a later date. This shouldn’t take us a while…”
“Alright,” said the legionnaire, “Then let’s move out…I’ll take point and lead the way.” The legionnaire turned his whole body around in a direction facing away from Fields. Immediately, he felt pat on his right shoulder. He then looked to his right, and saw Field’s right hand on his right shoulder.
“Just remember: we’re right behind you, and we got you covered,” Fields reminded him before they started making their way toward their set of objectives.
“Thanks for the reminder,” the legionnaire thanked his superior, before he started to lead him and the others to where they were needed.
The homeschool kids of Lucas Fields’ Foreign Volunteer Legion, in a similar manner to that of the girl scout Foreign Volunteer Legion of Gudruna Hurley, were forced to brave freezing temperatures as low as 15 degrees Fahrenheit, march through two or three feet of snow, and even navigate through low visibility. While others would find such a Sunday Morning Special as being a miserable assignment to do, the fact that these FVLs were highly motivated in contributing to the interests of the Children’s Paradise by keeping it safe from those who seek to stifle the light that emanates from it, kept them going.
***
(One hour later)
Roughly around 5AM on the 28th of February, Gudruna Hurley and her female FVL legionnaires were given the task of recovering a crashed Jericho Series miniature plane near an ACP site, as well as providing assistance to a mobile RGA crew on their way to Salina, Kansas to deliver supplies to other crews operating in the area.

In the case of the latter, once successful in recovering the crashed Jericho Series model, they will be able to hitch a ride to nearby Salina, where they will be needed to help distribute the supplies in the back.
While on the way to reach their objectives, they uncovered a cache that was the property of the Union. Amidst the freezing cold and the weather, a female legionnaire’s leathers winter boots happened to be stepping on it, her boot prints revealing what appears to be a steel handle. The girl behind her, the last one who followed in the formation, was the one who took note of it. “Stop,” the girl told the others, “I think I found

something.”
Hurley, who was the only one in the FVL unit taking point, stopped moving and gestured to the other girls behind her to hold their positions. Turning her whole body around toward the girl who remained to stay by the discovered Union cache, buried within about three or four feet of snow and dirt, Gudruna saw the girl on her knees and trying to remove the excess snow before removing the excess with her hands. Walking toward her, she noticed that the girl decided to remove her gloves, as it constricted her hands from removing the dirt that was used to bury the cache.
“Did you find anything?” Gudruna asked her in a curious tone.
The girl nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I did,” she told Gudruna. “It appears to be something, but I don’t what it is, since I’ve yet to remove all of this dirt.” She temporarily quitted in her attempts to remove the dirt and looked up at Gudruna, who was standing tall in front of her. She said to her, “You think you could lend another girl scout a hand?”
“You got it,” Gudruna took the gloves from her hands, and proceeded to help her fellow girl scout at digging the dirt and snow. When it seemed that enough of the soil and snow was removed, Gudruna and the girl started to pick up the wooden cache with both hands, showing disregard over the fact they could barely fell their hands anymore. After pulling the cache off from the ground, the girls then set it down on the snowy ground that they had just treaded on. It was by this point that Gudruna gestured to the other girls to regroup and form up around the discovered cache.
With everyone now converging on what was discovered, Gudruna was the one who opened the cache, revealing the contents to her fellow girl scouts. All who were with Hurley at the time were Roman Catholics of the Roman Rite, and falling under the status of Volksryanischen. So when the cache was opened, the contents shocked them. Inside were several spell books allegedly used to summon ‘familiars’ and other spirits, various ingredients used for alchemy–in addition to a batch of recently completely ‘potions’ (that appeared to be warm despite the weather), a couple stacks of tarot cards, and a bunch of other items.
But the most sickening part was the fact that a ceramic statue of the Blessed Virgin was found among the Union paraphernalia. It has been a rumor among Ryanites that several of the Union crews, as part of their worship of some ‘divine mother goddess’, would sometimes utilize statues of the Virgin Mary to represent such Deity at their secret, but decorative altars. The result of this is that a portion of these statues end up being ‘redesigned’ to suit their masters, while others become subjected to neglect and the elements, after it becomes apparent that the statues outlive their use.
Since the RGA is in the business of recollecting relics which come from various points within American Catholic Education’s history, just as they are interested in collecting Anomalies, they are also interested in the retaking of Catholic items and objects from non-Catholic hands. In regards to something that was under the possession of the Union for some time, however, extreme caution is to be taken when retaking them from the Union. Various RGA reports allege that some sort of dark power now exists within saint and Blessed Virgin statues recovered from the Union, their positive benefits stripped, twisting into something sinister. Insofar as anything could be done, the only thing the RGA can do is call on an exorcist to purge whatever exists within it, before making any repairs or repainting.
Knowing this, Gudruna was the one who revealed such information to her fellow girl scouts. “Seal this thing up,” she commanded the others, “Make sure no one sees or touches what’s inside this cache.”
“Then what are going to do with it, J.G.?” one of the girl asked her. Incidentally, ‘J.G.’ was the real first and middle names of Gudruna Hurley, which literally stands for ‘Juliette Gordon.’
“Leave it; Connelly’s boys will take care of it,” she answered, “We need to get back on track in finding the crashed Jericho. I’ll send him a message through the long distance telegram feature on my ACP detector, informing him the coordinates of this cache.” She pulled out her ACP detector, and uploaded the location’s coordinates of the Union cache onto a server that the FVLs ACP detectors are all linked up to. Once she was finished, she puts it back in a satchel slung around her shoulders, before gesturing to the other girls. “Anyway, let’s get a move on and hope that no one got to the site first.”